when i was 12 i babysat this girl for a few years and she would come to me and show me her art, drag me by my wrists and point at the pieces she’d made during the week. and she’d be like “do the voice” and i’d put on a sports-announcer olympics-style voice and be like “such form! this level of coloring! why i haven’t seen such perfection in crayola in a long time. and what is this? why jeff, now this is a true risk… it seems she’s made … a monochrome pink canvas…. i haven’t seen this attempted since winter 1932… and i gotta say, jeff, it’s absolutely splendid” and she’d fall back giggling. at the end of every night she’d check with me: “did you really like it?” and i’d say yes and talk about something i noticed and tucked her in.
she was just accepted into 3 major art schools. she wrote me a letter. inside was a picture from when she was younger. monochrome pink.
“thank you,” it said, “to somebody who saw the best in me.”
Holy crap “Lost Stars” just acknowledged the existence of transgender people in the Star Wars universe. And not only that, but that transition technology and procedures exist and are relatively common knowledge.
I know some people could interpret this as an anti-trans women joke, but it honestly doesn’t read that way to me. This author, Claudia Gray, could have had Dak say something very different, either overly derisive of trans people (we all know how those jokes tend to go) or responding with agreement about how cold it is and not mentioning transition at all. Instead Gray has Dak say “There are easier ways to switch genders you know.” Aka if for some reason Thane wasn’t talking about the cold, it opened up that line of conversation (Perhaps Dak’s reason for saying it within the diegesis of the story). Aka letting any trans readers know that people like them exist in the Star Wars universe in canon, even if no named trans characters have appeared yet (I don’t think they have?).
Idk, this line blew me away and made me really happy. Gray has made people like me a canon part of the Star Wars universe with this line, and not in a way that marginalizes us or treats us as freaks (at least the way I read this line) and that makes me ludicrously pleased.
Update! I saw Claudia Gray at C2E2. I pointed out the line to her and said “Thank you so much for making people like me a part of Star Wars.” And then basically gave her a short version of my post on the line.
She gave me a big hug and told me that she was so glad I caught the line and read it that way, because that’s exactly how she meant it, and of course trans people are a part of the Star Wars universe. And then she signed my book like this:
I’m so overwhelmingly happy you guys. You have no idea.
A few years ago, my aunt raised 4 baby squirrels whose mother died a few days after they were born. She had to syringe feed them every 3 hours for weeks. Once they were full grown, she slowly started to introduce them to the outside. But anytime she left a window open, they would come right back in. So she started leaving some food for them on the front porch and that seemed to appease them. Now a couple years later, all 4 of them have mates and several kids each, and their kids are starting to have babies. And all of them still come to her front porch. Even the “grandkids” will come to her and climb all over her and eat out of her hand. And a couple days ago she decided to make a table and some chairs for them just as a joke, but they actually love it!
Things That People Have Said To Me Since I Started Working In A Yarn Shop
“i need more of the rowan felted tweed, i’m making some first-world-war balaclavas and i’ve run out”
“i’m making my husband an x-files themed jumper for christmas and i can’t find a good colour for the spaceship”
“do you have any wool/acrylic blends on sale, i’m making hats for the seamen’s mission to give to sailors and i know they say to use acrylics because they’re cheap but it gets awfully cold at sea and i worry”
“i need some black wool for gloves, but it has to be flame-proof because i’m making them for the beltane fire-jugglers”
“could you see if you have another copy of this pattern for a baby shawl, i’ve knitted it in different colours for all of my six children and twelve grandchildren but it’s started to fall apart a bit"
[from a blond, six-foot surfer dude] “yeah, do you have any really light needles, i’m going backpacking around argentina and i want to do some socks while i’m on the coach but there isn’t much room in my rucksack”
“which of these colours do you think would be best for a knitted corgi”
“do you have any patterns for dog hats”
like honestly you don’t even understand how happy this makes me, like half the time these women are really self-deprecating about it – “oh this is probably a really silly question”, “you’re going to think this is really weird but -” – and i’m just like no!! this is amazing!!! yes, we do have patterns for dog hats!!! please tell me all about why you’re knitting a dog hat!!!!
and i mean, some of the stuff they make is unbelievable. there’s one lady who knits wedding-ring shawls, these enormous lace shawls they do on shetland that’re about six feet across and made out of yarn that’s basically thread, which you can pull through a wedding ring because they’re so fine. and there’s another lady who knits dolls about three inches tall and she’s like eighty and she’s done maybe two thousand of them and i found this out yesterday when she came in for a pattern for an entire knitted nativity scene, including the animals and the star. and there’s all the ladies who knit clothes to donate to the refugees and tiny, tiny clothes for premature or stillborn babies at the maternity unit and hats for the seamen’s mission and jumpers for the homeless, and all the ladies making this incredible stuff for their friends or their relatives or just because they feel like it, and it’s just, they’re my favourite, every single one of these people is my favourite
I was at Walgreens buying my brother a birthday card. An elderly woman was also in the aisle. She said “can you believe they have wedding cards for two men and look even two women!”
[screams internally]
But she then said “I’ve seen so many changes in my 80 years, it’s wonderful how things are moving forward.”
[internal tears of joy]
She then mentioned that she didn’t know any gay people but that everyone should be treated like they would want to be treated. I smiled and said “you know one now” and pointed at myself. She smiled, patted my shoulder and said “now I do”.
at first i was really worried about this post but then i sobbed happily
After years as a trucker on the open road, Arlyn Satanek has seen just about everything. However, it only took 15 minutes for him to see people come together like never before.
With a winter storm approaching and sunlight slowly moving out of Western Pennsylvania, Satanek, a driver for Pleasant Trucking, knew that it was time to scale back his traveling and exit the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
“The roads were beginning to get bad,” Satanek said. “I was thinking it was time to start backing it down a little bit.”
Shortly after, he received his confirmation when he heard a broadcast over his CB radio, warning him of imminent weather-related backups just outside of Bedford County.
Satanek immediately knew it was time to start slowing down in the snowy conditions.
“I’m on my brakes as hard as I could be,” Satanek said. “As soon as I hit my brakes, I saw a truck wiping out.”
Prior to that Friday night, Satanek had seen many near accidents, but nothing like what he was experiencing. The truck in front of him left a trail of debris, fuel and glass before nearly falling off the Turnpike.
For a brief moment, Satanek was stuck, trying to process what he had witnessed.
“I’m sitting there in a daze, and I realize people are running to the truck,” Satanek said.
Nearby drivers began getting out of their cars, rushing to help the driver of the truck, who was teetering off the freeway.
“There were just random people. They were stepping over debris and there was a good bit of us,” Satanek said.
With the possibility of a steep fall imminent, the would-be rescuers began forming a human chain to help pull the driver out of his cab, avoiding a very far drop.
“To me, it just looked like this spontaneous, instinctive thing, that everyone just started hooking their arms together,” Satanek said. “It was absolutely amazing.”
Fifteen minutes later, the driver was safely out of his truck and back on his feet.
“He was twisted in his cab pretty good,” Satanek said. “His saving grace was that there were a lot of trees on the hillside.”
Seeing complete strangers come together during the storm, if even for 15 minutes, was like nothing Satanek had ever seen before.
“It helped remind us that we are all people, and it is our responsibility to help other humans,” Satanek said.
