Additional history note, for people who aren’t aware of it: In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) as a mental illness. Before that time, it was officially listed as, and treated as, a psychiatric disorder, like schizophrenia: a condition that requires treatment, with the goal of removing it, or minimizing its effects if that wasn’t possible.

How happy someone was with it wasn’t important - it was considered a disease. Anyone who was happy being gay was considered to ill to realize how damaged they were.

Claiming that Kirk and Spock might have those feelings for each other was a hard clash against mainstream psychology. It was a very controversial opinion, because it meant not only looking at the series and saying, “I’m seeing a relationship that I’m pretty sure the writers didn’t consciously intend,” but also, “oh, and the entire AMA and the combined wisdom of its doctors are clueless about how human relationships work.”

Believing that two people of the same sex could have a healthy, loving relationship was an act of defiance all on its own.

I see that this post is trending today, so I’m going to take this moment to reblog it myself with the important addition of the comments from @elfwreck (Thank you for these, @elfwreck !)

I’d like to add a bit more historical context myself. Until the 1970s, years after TOS had finished its run, sodomy was a felony in 49 out of 50 states of the US – a felony which was punishable by prison or death. Throughout the 60s and into the 70s, I can remember reading carefully-worded news stories about gay men being arrested and given decades-long prison sentences.

For being gay.

Think about this for a moment. When TOS was on the air, not only was a white man kissing a Black woman a crime in a third of the country – but one man in a consensual, loving sexual relationship with other was committing a crime so serious he could be imprisoned or killed in every state but one.

I’ve seen tags from people and received questions about why Spock and Kirk were not allowed to be out on TV, since they were so clearly in love.  This was not remotely possible at that time. The average American understood a man who loved another man to be mentally ill and his behavior to be criminal.

@elfwreck put it beautifully above: “Believing that two people of the same sex could have a healthy, loving relationship was an act of defiance all on its own.”

In the early years of writing slash, one had to be very, very careful about who knew you read or wrote such material. Women and men both went to jail for violating obscenity laws. Just letting people know you entertained the idea of “The Premise” of K/S love could (and did) have people openly questioning your mental health, your morality, your character, your ability to do your job, and the safety of children in your presence. I know a woman who lost all rights to visit her own children in a divorce, when the court found out she had K/S slash material in her home.

#fandom history #tos #k/s

miles “who’s morales” morales’s biggest weakness is the cover story

peter, lying out of his ass: i was, uh, married to his uncle aaron. he just never let you know

Jefferson, later: Do you think Aaron never told us because Peter’s…

Rio: …Tall

Jefferson: I didn’t think Aaron liked … Tall people.

Jefferson: “But listen: Aaron might have married a white boy just to annoy me, specifically. It’s a thing he would do!”

Rio: “I can’t hear you. I’m asleep.  I have a shift in four hours.”

I really wish there was a way Uncle Aaron lived and came back to meet his “husband” at some point now.

Aaron: …Miles…I love you, and I am proud of you…but you are somehow the smartest and dumbest boy I have ever known.

Miles: Says the man who used his big brain to become a criminal when he could’ve been a black Tony Stark with that gear he made. And thought working for the Kingpin, who everyone knows will throw his minions away like tissues, was a good idea!

Peter: He makes a good point, babe, you did kind of mess up first–

Aaron: Call me babe again and see what happens. I’ll whoop you with a collapsed lung.

All I see is “fake marriage au, but it’s also enemies to lovers”

If I ever stop reblogging this post, assume that I have yeeted myself off this mortal coil

People in the comments: “Amazing! Where’s the fic, though?”

Also people in the comments:

Boys Problems, 519 words

How to Marry Your Fake Husband from Another Dimension (speedrun), 5008 words

I like high chances that I might lose, 8373 words

You’re a Sunflower (I Think Your Love Would Be Too Much), 14 827 words

Scared of the Unknown, 15 217 words

How Did We Get Here? 46 926 words

And one post-coital-covered-by-a-blanket fanart 😉

Bookmarking the fics

people talk about how we need to bring back "don't feed the trolls" rhetoric for modern internet ragebait and I agree but also I think the most useful thing from the Old Internet that I miss is LURKING

be a lurker. just read things and think about them without feeling the need to weigh in or call out or disseminate everything you encounter. it's so nice and so freeing and it's a good way to learn things.

I have frequently regretted getting involved in shit that didn't involve me online but you know what I've never regretted doing? Lurking. literally lurk moar

#Lurking

Booksmith sells online! They even have book mystery boxes based on other books you love. Let's show them (and others) that they made a good business AND moral choice.

Unpopular opinion: Being intelligent isn’t an excuse for being unkind.

Pretentious asshole is OUT! Pretentious Sweetheart is IN! Wearing dapper clothes and holding the door open for others makes you feel COOL AS H*CK! Glance up from your hefty books to give a stranger a smile!! Quote literature to inspire others! Be presumptuous in the way that you presume that everyone needs their day to be a little brighter!!!

Administration showed us this tweet on day one of grad school and boy did it hit home

“distinguished yourself by being kind” is my literal life motto at work, holy shit

escaped medical leech

There are medical leeches!?

Yes! They work very hard to get their medical degrees. 

not this one, though. this one’s trying to ditch class. 

what was the class, color theory?

WHY THE HIFL WOULD YOU HIDE THIS IN THE TAGS!?

Also important to note they’re not random leaches found outside obviously. They’re “sterile” or as sterile as an animal can be, bred in specific environments and kept clean in the lab.

except this one, which is escaping

So I follow N. D. Stevenson (comics writer and animator, most famous for Nimona and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) and his husband Lee Ostertag (also a comics writer and animator) on Instagram. When I started following them, they were both publicly presenting as women, and then a few years ago N. D. came out as transmasc nonbinary, and then earlier this year Lee also came out as transmasc. Anyway this is all setup to say that Lee had the chance to make the funniest post of all time and he took it:

Absolutely iconic.

I just wrote 8 pages when I haven't written in months and was beginning to think I'd never be able to again. Idk what it is, but I am sharing and manifesting this energy for every writer who sees this. May you write 8 quality pages effortlessly and find joy writing once more

stoccafisso_design@Amedeo Capelli

society if people discoursed abt characters being evil not because theyre obsessed with holding fictional people to arbitrary moral standards but because characters being evil is cool and interesting and sexy and tragic and thematically complex

I’m doing my part 💪

The whole "merry christmas vs happy holidays" discourse feels so weird to me because it frames all mid-winter holidays as the same. Not in a "christian holidays are supposed to be superior" kind of way, but in implying that whatever other religious or cultural holidays happen at the same time are, or should be, as big of a deal to those who celebrate them as christmas is to christians.

Having never lived in a country that wasn't christian majority, I can't say I have any idea how it actually feels to live in a place where your cultural religious background is a fraction minority, but I assume it'd somewhat feel the same like living somewhere where everyone celebrates Diwali and it's A Big Fucking Deal, and them feeling like you're not being included when you mention that you don't really do anything for the major holiday, and quickly googling what christians are up to for the same time, and going "oh and also happy dead saints day for the christians" as a trying-to-be-considerate afterthought.

And it would feel far too petty and ungrateful to mention that I was raised protestant and we don't really do saints, so this has never been a major holiday to me ever, but it would feel kind of patronising despite of that. But the fuck do I know, as I said I've never been there.

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

It seems my lighting advice has given people a mistaken impression...

These outtakes where the flash didn't go off are also AI generated.

I like this spooky dutch angle one.

I was just starting to learn flash and I didn't have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.

But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.

But I had two issues.

First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.

Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.

SO... I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.

I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis's attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn't get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.

Here is an overhead view that might help explain.

I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.

Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn't even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I've ever taken.

It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.

Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about it—other than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.

My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.

But it's just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.

So, no need to be suspicious.

@ironic-dysgraphia

Most of my photos with artificial light added would be considered "unmotivated lighting." I think that is the term you were looking for.

The short explanation is that motivated lighting always has a logical source. Like the sun or a window or a lamp off to the side.

That doesn't mean there are no lighting shenanigans used.

The overhead office-style fluorescent lights depicted in this scene were actually powerful diffused light bars that were much closer to the actors. They replaced the ceiling in post with more traiditioinal looking lights. So the lighting was still very crafted—but it has a logic and realism that doesn't set off alarm bells in your brain saying, "Where is the light coming from?"

Unmotivated lighting is the opposite. It's crafted, artificial light that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to achieve the aesthetic goal of the artist.

All studio lighting is unmotivated. I just re-edited this old photo of my dad.

There is no room in the world where he could have sat down and had perfectly sculpted light hitting his face. I intentionally directed the light to accentuate his features and capture the best, most idealized version of what he looked like.

Coincidentally I just wrote a post about motivated lighting in films.

Weirdly, I expressed a preference for motivated lighting in movies with a realism-based aesthetic and a lot of people disagreed. They said that the lighting comes from the same place as the music and that you just have to suspend your disbelief.

(Personally I think that is a bad analogy because music is *very* motivated by the emotional vibe. I would say unmotivated lighting in movies comes from the same place as women's apocalypse makeup.)

But I *love* unmotivated lighting in still photography. I love crafting an image and creating it in a fantasy realm where perfect, beautiful, sculpting light can come from anywhere. I want the most idyllic lighting possible.

It's the only way I could make fingernail clippers look beautiful.

And now people are saying unmotivated lighting looks like AI or CGI and isn't authentic. Even though this aesthetic was created before computers were invented and the tools of post-capture manipulation were done in a darkroom.

I'm fairly certain this is because AI does not have a great understanding of motivated lighting. It never thinks about where the light is coming from so it almost always creates images where the lighting comes from a fantasy realm. And now people are heavily associating unmotivated lighting with AI, even if it is a subconscious observation.

I think at this point in time, people are yearning for authenticity. We know so much of our imagery is heavily manipulated for nefarious purposes. Beauty advertising with retouched skin like porcelain dolls and liquified torsos that don't leave space for vital organs. Every fast food ad shows the perfect juicy hamburger because they paid a food stylist $500/hour to perfectly cook and arrange things.

But fast food workers are not food stylists and your burger isn't going to have perfect lettuce and a non-smooshed bun.

(Before you reply with urban legends about food styling, they don't use fake materials. They are required to use the actual ingredients. Those myths came from movie prop masters who needed to maintain the look of food during hours of shooting.)

I think AI just turned our uncomfortable relationship with unrealistic imagery up to 11.

It's a little depressing for me because I love to use light as my artistic medium. I say I am a photographer, but my passion is more focused on lighting.

And I often incorporate my other passion, which is image manipulation. I sometimes add another layer of unreality to my images by artistically editing them.

This is days of work.

I worked very hard for the in-camera image. Dragging a heavy chair and lighting equipment into a field on a hot summer day was not easy for me.

But I also worked very hard on the edit. The RAW file is overexposed, but once I corrected that, the lighting on him and the grass is actually what I captured. I hid a flash in the lampshade and lit him with my big 7 foot umbrella off to the right.

I could have shot this at night, but my area has so much light pollution, I would never have achieved the sky I wanted in my head. So I took the photo knowing I'd replace the sky later.

I like crafting images. I like picturing something in my head and then trying to manifest it in a photo.

I get why people are starting to prefer more natural looking images. I understand why they are currently preferring everything to be captured as it was in the moment. I know why they disparage the amazing work of CG artists and demand that every movie use only practical effects.

When everything is fake, a small dose of reality feels special.

But I see my photography more like a drawing or a painting. Light is my paintbrush and I am just trying to manifest my imagination into an image. I don't claim I don't use artificial light. I never say anything is "straight out of camera." I am very open about my use of Photoshop. If I were able to leave my house and go to more beautiful places, perhaps I would take a more motivated approach.

I mean, I love when the world is just beautiful all on its own and all I have to do is competently pick settings on my camera.

But I enjoy my artistic process and while some of my images may not be realistic, I think my artistry is always authentic.

I don't need every person to like every one of my photos. But when I work hard on a photo and there is clear talent and skill involved, I'm hoping people will still acknowledge that. I hope they will respect the effort and artistry involved.

I didn't enjoy the show Breaking Bad. I disliked all of the characters and the story just depressed me more and more as I watched it. But I still think it is an amazing show created by talented artists. I can acknowledge the monumental artistic achievement even if it wasn't my cup of tea.

That's all I'm asking.

That "the lightning comes from the same place as the music" idea started out as a frustration response to the recent trend in TV & movies to just... not have lights in night scenes, leading to the viewer not being able to tell wtf is even happening on screen (as opposed to older works which use blues, dark backgrounds, strategic shadows, etc to achieve the effect of 'nighttime' while still maintaining visual clarity on the important parts of a scene). Specifically, iirc, it was originally from a discussion of the Battle of Helm's Deep in the second Lord of the Rings movie - a night scene which is well lit (for both meanings of the term) from nondiagetic sources - directly visually contrasting it to the big night battle in the last season of Game of Thrones which was apparently lit "realistically" (ie only by real fires & torches in the scene) and which many, many people who watched it couldn't parse at all because it was so incomprehensibly dark.

Clearly, the idea has been taken from its original context & turned into a universal axiom, which is imo a mistake. I'm presuming a lot of people were equating motivated lighting with this style of "realistic" lighting that they find so (understandably) annoying, despite the two not being the same thing, & pulling out the stock phrase they've learned is the response to "realistic" lighting in movies.

Winter Shenanigans

I am no nutrition expert but I do have a pretty damn good track record of keeping myself alive, so I want to remind you all that "fed is best" also applies to adults. There's nothing you could eat (that has been deemed fit for human consumption, I don't mean asbestos you smartass) that would be worse for you than just straight-up not eating. No food is as bad as no food.

A protein bar isn't the best possible source of protein in your diet, but it's better than not getting that protein. Fresh fruits would be better than orange juice, but if your choices are between having the orange juice and not getting the vitamins at all, you drink the fucking orange juice.

If you were out at winter while barefoot, and your options were between wrapping random newspaper around your feet, or not having anything to protect your feet, you wouldn't think "newspapers are a worse option than proper shoes, therefore I shouldn't take this worse option" and go barefoot.

Cannibalism /j

Well, technically speaking the answer is still yes. People who resort to cannibalism and eat other people in famine will live longer than people who simply starve to death.