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The Road goes ever on and on...

@fireflysummers / fireflysummers.tumblr.com

Just a strange little bug that sometimes draws stuff.

FireflySummers Commissions 2023

Hey all! Itโ€™s almost summer, which means that Iโ€™ve got the time (and need) for commission work! Iโ€™ve got two different character art styles, chibis, illustrations, and YCH (Your Character Here)!

If youโ€™re interested in a commission please fill out this form, shoot me a DM, or send a message my way at commissions.fireflysummers@gmail.com.

We could be leading meaningful lives, in a safe world, supported by active communities and equitable exchange of resources.

But a handful of pathologically rich people would rather cram us into factories and pollute our air and water so that they get to play Godking.

And yet, I'm the "extremist" for suggesting that they shouldn't be to allowed to do that.

They tell me expecting a humanitarian world is "unreasonable" but expecting the entire world to sacrifice its potential just to cater the whims of a handful of rich people seems many magnitudes more unreasonable to me.

We could be leading meaningful lives, in a safe world, supported by active communities and equitable exchange of resources.

But a handful of pathologically rich people would rather cram us into factories and pollute our air and water so that they get to play Godking.

And yet, I'm the "extremist" for suggesting that they shouldn't be to allowed to do that.

They tell me expecting a humanitarian world is "unreasonable" but expecting the entire world to sacrifice its potential just to cater the whims of a handful of rich people seems many magnitudes more unreasonable to me.

just remembered the other day a teen approached me holding a rapidly melting chunk of ice in his hand and asked if i wanted to buy a "limited edition pet rock"

Look, I know Tumblr is the website of chronically online introverts, but this is also the only website where I have any reach. And I live in America so this is relevant to me. So I'll go ahead and put this here.

Every year there's hundreds of positions that go completely unchallenged. Some of them for areas that you, the general American Tumblrite, probably care about.

I'm being so, so, so completely serious right now.

Run for something, and if you promise to never ban a book, the linked website and @fated-mates can get you in touch with volunteers for phone banking (aka letting voters know you exist, what you stand for, and convincing people to vote for you). Depending on your situation, they'll fund you, too.

(fated mates was more specific about helping Leftist candidates get $1000, but I'll let you listen to them on this episode and decide for yourself. I'm not affiliated with them.)

Women especially need to hear the message 7 times, according to some studies, to be convinced that yes, this is something they can do.

You can run for something! Run for something small. School boards. Municipal government. Run for something as a side hustle. Run for something because you're an empty nester and your book club stinks. Run for something so you can personally push things leftward, even if it's just one foot, that's one foot further towards your leftist goals no matter what they might be.

Run for school board because look at the fucking idiots currently running it. You know you're smarter than them. Fucking, if you've ever completed a school project you're probably smarter than them.

Run for something because Elon Musk is pissing you off. Run for something because you're trying to fight off despair. Run for something because you hate the idea that you can't do anything. You can do something! You can run for something.

But where to even start?

Don't worry, they got you.

Filling out this form will show you a list of state legislative and local offices where you can run based on your current address.

No matter the results, you will also be added automatically to the Run for Something candidate pipeline โ€” check your inbox in the next few days for next steps.

Note: Data includes offices on the ballot in 2025 and 2026. Updates will be made throughout the year as additional information is available.

Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Two neighborhood people who were involved in being community support for my union decided to run for library board and not only did they both win, they beat out my least favorite board member who is now no longer my problem. These two new pro-union board members will now be on the board the next time we have to negotiate a contract. This makes my life, personally, demonstrably better and easier. Just because two people decided library board was something they cared about.

Also, if you don't want to run for office, you can always work for a local candidate! You can volunteer or even get paid for things like canvassing, phone banking or even managing data entry.

The animation industry is in shamblesโ€ฆ but there's still hope! We can keep animation alive by supporting indie productions! Help the cause by joining the Far-Fetched animated pilot PRE-LAUNCH today. The power is in your hands, freaks! ๐Ÿ’œ

Since my first post about Charmion only scratched the surface, I thought I'd give some more info about a few different aspects of her story here. I hope everyone finds it worth reading.

First, Charmion was a marketing genius. She was one of the most photographed people in show business, her flexed arms ubiquitous in the newspapers of the era, and she gave out free pinback buttons with her image on them at each show. Charmion herself reported in 1905 that sheโ€™d given out a quarter of a million buttons over the previous year. I don't know how accurate that number is, but there was definitely a huge number produced and you can often find them for pretty affordable prices on eBay to this day. Charmion would also sometimes give away chocolates, clothes, and other souvenirs to the women in the audience.

Second, during her travels, Charmion made time to personally advise women who needed help with their fitness goals. During her time in New Orleans in 1902, for example, she let it be known that the hours of 5 to 7 would be set aside for any woman wanting a โ€œconferenceโ€ with her to discuss matters relating to โ€œphysical culture.โ€

Third, Charmion could be considered one of the first female bodybuilders. Through rigorous workouts (including curling fifty-to-seventy-pound dumbbells and one-hour bag-punching sessions), Charmion intentionally tried to build her muscles as large as possible, which was incredibly rare for a woman in that era. Even circus strongwomen, who showed off their strength publicly, often downplayed their muscularity, but Charmion was eager to show off her muscles and actively tried to grow them. Apparently, it worked. By her own account, when she began her career the (already very fit) Charmion weighed 98 pounds at a height of 5โ€™1โ€. She afterward gained enough muscle that by 1902, she was a solid 130 pounds. Charmion wouldโ€™ve also felt at home with modern bodybuilders in the sense that on-stage posing was a major part of her performances. After she had finished disrobing on the trapeze, she would conclude her show by standing onstage and flexing her biceps before turning around and displaying her back muscles. The audiences were as flabbergasted as youโ€™d expect. โ€œWhen she hunches her back,โ€ said one newspaper, โ€œit looks like a cage of boa-constrictors interlaced in a snake-fightโ€; โ€œher shoulders and arms appear a knotted mass of muscles,โ€ said another.

The less pleasant aspects of Charmion's story are the misogyny and prudishness that Charmion dealt with with throughout her career. There were attempts (some successful, some not) to ban her act in New York, New Orleans, London, and Berlin, and she had to contend with right-wing attacks throughout her career. Here are a few newspaper quotations to show the kind of opposition she encountered:

Times Herald (Washington, D. C.), May 10, 1898: โ€œHer performance is a simple attempt to provoke all the lower passions of which mankind is capable, without passing the limit the law has placed on such an exhibition. It is for this reason that Charmion is revoltingly disgusting, coarse and disagreeable. It is because of this that no man, who realizes what he is doing, or respects himself, will care to take his mother or sister to the National Theater this week.โ€

Sioux City Journal, May 15, 1898: โ€œCharmionโ€™s object in her trapeze act is indecency.โ€

The Times (Washington, D. C.), May 15, 1898: โ€œIt seems revolting to think that men would go to a place of amusement with the sole idea of witnessing such a performance, but that women should willingly accompany them is nothing less than disgusting.โ€

The Courier and Argus (Dundee, Scotland), Aug. 5, 1898: โ€œโ€ฆit is scarcely possible to conceal the fact that Charmionโ€™s performance takes us very much nearer to the frank indecencies of the Parisian variety theatres than we have hitherto strayed.โ€

Daily Gleaner (Fredericton, New Brunswick), Oct. 26, 1898: โ€œwe hail with gratification the drastic criticism by a section of the New York press of such debasing performances as those first given by a woman called Charmionโ€ฆCharmionโ€™s act had grace and beauty to recommend it, and except that it was performed by a woman it was no worse than the undressing act of the equestriam [sic] acrobat in the circus; but it was the natural forerunner of the others, and so should never have been permitted in a theatre making pretence to decency.โ€

The Times, January 1, 1899: โ€œCharmionโ€™s โ€˜turnโ€™ was revolting.โ€

Toronto Saturday Night, January 18, 1902 [speaking about Charmion disrobing on the trapeze] โ€œThere is an unpleasant suggestiveness inseparable from such an act.โ€

The Kansas City Star, September 19, 1904: โ€œHer turn is offensive to modesty.โ€

As infuriating as these comments are, the happy irony of the conservative attacks on Charmion is that they only made her more powerful. As even her critics sometimes admitted, the controversy stirred up by those critics served to make her act more intriguing and helped increase her popularity. For a woman devoted to liberating women from the constraints placed on them by the society, her message must have been even more meaningful because so many men tried to constrain her and she overcame that adversity. You can see how little success her critics had by the fact she was one of the most popular vaudeville stars in the world, sometimes earning the equivalent of almost $20,000 per week in todayโ€™s money.

Of course, not all men disapproved of Charmionโ€™s act, and she had her fair share of male fans. But almost all her critics were men. And though there must have been lesser-known female critics, thereโ€™s only one example I can find of a woman (at least initially) disapproving of her. That woman was Elizabeth Grannis, president of the Purity League, an organization that supported the kind of repression and prudishness that Charmion fought against her whole career. Grannis, with a committee of Purity League members, attended a performance one day in 1901 to โ€œjudge for themselvesโ€ whether the act was as โ€œimpure" as alleged. After the performance (during which Charmion daringly threw a garter into Grannisโ€™s box), a local newspaper said, surprisingly, that Grannis โ€œwas pleased by the things done and undone by the actressโ€ and โ€œwas delighted with the actressโ€™ control of her muscular system.โ€ Charmion, likely not a fan of the Purity League, was not mollified by the praise. Asked about Grannis later, she bluntly said, โ€œI scarcely approve of her.โ€

If you all are still interested, Iโ€™ll share more posts about Charmion. Iโ€™m mildly obsessed with her and thereโ€™s loads more fun facts and stories about her. Thanks for reading.

Finally finished this one!

Someone asked in a reblog comment if this was from a story, and yes, it is! These are the five main characters from a neurodiverse fantasy trilogy I'm (slowly) writing. Messy-haired girl in the center is the protagonist, the red-headed guy on the floor is her cousin, the two girls are her friends and the boy in the chair is the love interest.

Thanks for all the love you've given these kids today ๐Ÿ’›

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