KIRK IS HOLDING A ZINNIA. THE SAME FUCKING FLOWER.
FUCKING NASA MAN
No. Nononono. You don’t understand.
I am so mad about this. Like, not like I wanna kill someone, but mad, as in, hysterical?
They wanted to answer questions about plants in space, right? How biology and botany would work in space. Because then who knows? We could grow crops in space, or fix the atmosphere. Or create the perfect biome for plants that are now extinct. Who fucking knows, right?
They could have taken a food crop. Wheat, maybe. Or rice. Something they could observe to see if it would be possible to solve a food shortage or whatever. Maybe a small apple tree to see if it would bloom, and then see if there could be a way to make it fruit.
Or, you know, go the genetics route and take a sweet pea. See if zero gravity does anything to how genes are passed on. Mendel did it in a shed, why not a tin shed in outer space, right? Oh the possibilities.
Was it so wrong to take the zinnia? No, of course not. In my little horticultural brain, I thought, oh how lovely! A splash of colour in the emptiness of space. Something bright and cheerful, something that gives hope. That must have been it, right?
But no.
SOMEONE went, “Nah, mate, here’s an episode of Star Trek where Kirk is holding a ZINNIA in a SPACE DESERT.”
I could scream. I don’t know if I love or hate these fucking nerds. Oh my gods.
so we have a conversational safeword in my group of friends and it’s great, idk why more people don’t do this. whenever someone wants a subject to be dropped immediately no questions asked we just say “spleen” and we stop immediately and it’s a really good way to avoid crossing the line between teasing friends and genuinely upsetting them by accident, or stopping debates from turning into actual arguments
Wait but no this is actually a brilliant idea.
When I was a little baby high school student, I used to do the Living Chessboard at our local Renaissance Faire. We always used “forsooth” to indicate if someone was actually injured and needed to quickly end a choreographed fight. It was also very useful when doing little street improvisations because if someone tried to stop you, you could say “forsooth good sir, I must leave.” and they knew you couldn’t do a scene right then. We all used it in real life too, to say “no really” and it was amazing because there was a word used in a casual setting that meant “I’m not playing, I need you do listen to me.” So if someone tried to pick me up or tickle me, I could say “forsooth stop.” And I was instantly obeyed. I had “forsooth” long before I learned what a safeword was, and having a non-sexual safeword for everyday use amongst a circle of friends was the best thing ever. It made me feel very safe and listened to, even as a tiny 14 year old. Because let’s be honest, 14 year old me was teeny tiny and adorable and it’s easy to coo at kids when they say “no don’t pick me up!” but to have a word that every single person respected to mean “whatever I say after this MUST be listened to” was amazing. It gave me a definitive voice when it would have been easy to dismiss me.
So basically having platonic safewords is awesome and I’m all for it.
the found family trope in fiction is an inherently queer trope because it directly involves deconstructing the heteronormative notions of what family is and involves defining what family is for oneself rather than assuming that the people you are biologically related to are always going to support and care for you. Furthermore it inherently deconstructs and challenges amatonormativity because rather than focusing on a central romantic relationship as the genesis for a family and on forming a romantic partnership as what constitutes making a family, it is focused on close non-romantic bonds. In this essay I will
