My aroace sticker fell off my laptop and I was able to replace it immediately because a friend sent me a full pack of the suckers when she got me for secret santa a year ago.

I've been thinking about it because once upon a time, I had a friend I explained my orientation to... and they said they got, apparently very much did not get it, and proceeded to assume they were the exception to the rule. I apologized for the misunderstanding but it never stopped, until the relationship disintegrated.

It was a terrible time. I kind of thought if only I could. But y'know... you can't. That's kind of the point :/

And yet... I got a friend who I came out to, and totally unprompted... (in that it wasn't on my secret santa list) she sent me stickers.

I have other friends who get excited when they hear about anything aromantic. They reach out to me about books they think I'd like, and if there's a pride collection they're always looking for my flags, now that I'm off tiktok, they'll send videos to me via discord. When suggesting anything, they reflexively explain the amount of romance I should expect and let me decide if I'm willing.

It makes me feel loved.

Part one of our season finale is here!

In autumn

Trees dye themselves

The colors of flame

And I wonder

If it's in reverence

To the fires that might

Destroy them

Since it’s Ace Week, and since it will finally come up in season five, however briefly, I think it’s time to say for sure and real that Tessa is aroace forever and ever amen.

Whenever something like what's happening in Palestine happens on the grand world wide web, there's a sudden influx in posts telling you not to look away. To keep watching. To keep forcing yourself to acknowledge the horrors that happen. Watch videos of people dying of children who just lost their parents, of cities blown to smithereens.

And like, I understand. Truly I do. But, also, that is a lovely way to accidentally traumatize yourself.

I learned that the hard way in 2020 and accidentally fried my short term memory for two weeks. So like...pay attention to your body. Interact with what you can interact with. Talk about Palestine, share threads that help you do something. But you can't help the people in those videos, watching hours of that can hurt you. What you can do is write to local government, share donation links, protest, talk to your family etc. You can help without hurting yourself.

Once upon a time, a friend of mine told me that her friends said she gave off top energy. I had to inform her that...she did not, she gave off dad energy and her friends were conflating the two (See Gomez Addams).

I had receipts too.

How many times and ways can someone say "I want a partner who can dominate me"? We found out that day.

She couldn't be nonbinary. She couldn't be nonbinary, she just thought that it seemed like such a lovely way to live. She'd watch people wear the label and wondered what it must be like to have freedom choose you.

To see two options delineated in every toy store, clothing store, and government office and choose (but here was the issue, it was not a choice was it?) to be bound by neither. To be gifted with the opportunity to define what it meant to be from scratch.

People who used the label surely didn't grow older and hear girl go to woman and wonder when they'd begun to fall and fall and fall behind, insisting on the diminutive because somehow they knew they did not fulfill the expectations of womanhood. Girlhood had been less demanding.

Everything that went against femininity was simply a childhood quirk, a surely she will grow out of it why not indulge, indulge, indulge?

Now a woman, she missed the indulgences.

Perhaps she'd simply reveled too much in a childish fantasy, perhaps, one day, once she stopped being so afraid, "woman" would fit.

She couldn't be nonbinary.

It's just that sometimes imagining it, imagining taking up new pronouns ((fae/faer) she'd decided a long time ago, if that is, she'd consider such a thing at all) and stopped folding herself down and down and down to squeeze into the parameters of a box she'd never truly fit...it made faer breath come easier. Like a weight that'd been pushing down on faer chest had been suddenly lifted and for the first time in a long time there was enough air.

It felt like breathing.

But of course those were just fanciful things. She couldn't be nonbinary. That was for different people, people who didn't choose. It was not a choice, she'd heard over and over and over again, so much so that she knew it was not for her.

But if it had been...fae would have picked it. Fae'd have picked it a thousand times over.

Because when presented with the option, who wouldn't choose to breathe?

I read a lot of isekai. Like a lot of isekai, and born again villain stories and it will never cease to amuse me that when it's a male MC (or writer) it's often: I want to be hot, and loved, and powerful, and I want a bunch of women to fall in love with me without even having to try.

And then the girl MCs are usually: Yes there's a hot guy and we will fall in love but more importantly...I (or my blorbo has) have been wronged. I will destroy everyone and everything that traitor held dear. In this life, I'll have you kneel before me before cutting your head off myself.

roller-nya!!🛼✨✨

bonus: her first lesson

The rare but important fundraiser!

This month we are raising money for Kentucky Health Justice Network! They provide gender affirming care, abortion access, birth control, childcare, and so much more. They are fighting the good fight against the wave of anti-trans legislation in a state that desperately needs the help. We're part of team Beet Poot's Angels arranged by our wonderful Discord mod Halerpal!

If you have a few dollars to spare, please donate here! Email your donation receipt to submissions at shiftythrifting dot com and Admin Didi will mail you a sticker pack as a thank you for your contribution.

Now, I'm not claiming to know what's happening in the writing room in the Lilo and Stitch live-action remake. And while I'm sure colorism is a factor, there's at least native Hawaiian representation (idk about the ethics of saying if someone is visibly "Hawaiian enough" to play a role...)

That being said, watching the casting decisions does have me feeling that Disney is going to remove the fangs from Lilo and Stitch, particularly with the removal of Bubbles.

See, Lilo and Stitch was (for it's time) a rather scathing commentary on the commodification of Hawaiian culture and the issues of tourism and the profitability of exotica. I think Bubbles being a social worker who came from America was part of this. See, America has a tiny (really big) tradition of taking indigenous children from their homes, whether in an attempt at genocide by erasing their culture and breaking up the community or because having an exotic/indigenous baby has always been a lovely way to gain social clout is up in the air (honestly, it's probably both). Bubbles raised the stakes of the series because instead of following ICWA guidelines (or attempting to...where there'd be a high chance of Lilo staying on the island or within visiting distance from Nani) Nani thinks that she's never going to see her sister again.

Bubbles choosing to sponsor the family at the end and leaving them their house and in their neighborhood is kind of a guide. A "if you want to help families with financial problems, don't separate them, sponsor them" sort of message. Help them stay together not by taking money the government would've given you for taking this child but by giving the struggling family financial stability and a support network.

By making Bubbles Native Hawaiian it's more likely that ICWA protocol will be followed (even if Native Hawaiians don't receive protection I still think she'd try in a story sense of "having power in the community" just reads more disney than "being threatened by this outside and distinctly American force" at best it might mean the "evil force taking Lilo away" might be faceless and nameless and distinctly off screen and "definitely not America (tm)" ) and sort of runs the risk of obscuring or even removing the message that tourism and America is destroying the community.

Now, I'm not saying the script doesn't have a work around but with Disney's live action history I am concerned.

This came on my page and I'm gonna talk about it because some people don't have kids.

Kids need attention, yes...but we are in a period of inflation, and financial instability, of not being able to afford a house on minimum wage, of not being able to afford daycare and if you want a better life for your child, IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR CHILD (and not have the state take them away and pay someone else to care for your baby) you need to work.

Basically at a certain income bracket this becomes untenable. There's no place for kids to go anymore. There are fewer playgrounds, the cost of after school programs have increased exponentially and most of the free ones in my area have been cut and we're in a caretaker shortage and even if there is a program can you afford to get there? To pick them up and drop them off? How long does the bus route take? Can you work your job and still pick up your kid?

And you have a kid, assuming there are two parents working, you can split tasks but after a 8 - 12 hour workday (if you're lucky) you come home to a child who needs caring and love, or you have to pick up the child (get out of work on time, drive to the daycare or whoever is taking care of your child because remember if you're late it's a dollar a minute! (Yup, this is standard around me) Or wait, gas is $4 a gallon maybe a bus is better, but then you have to leave a little early...they won't dock your pay right? Maybe you can get Linda to cover for you. Ah, but then you have to get home so maybe the car is better but then if you pay for gas, will you have enough to go grocery shopping this week? And remember nothing is near you because cities here aren't accessible!!), you have to make dinner, you have to clean, you have to prep for the next day, you have to take care of yourself, you have to take care of them and SOMETIMES YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A MENTAL BREAKDOWN BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A CAPITALIST HELLSCAPE AND YOU CAN'T AFFORD A GODDAMN NANNY!

And you're gonna need time. Maybe cooking is difficult. Maybe the child needs attention because they're bored, or tired, or cranky and the stuffed animal isn't working and you just can't.

Give the kid the fucking the tablet.

Give the kid the goddamn tablet and have no guilt because our society wasn't fucking designed to help you and you didn't know that prices were going to do this, that roe v wade was going to be over turned, that you were going to be a single parent, that you were going to be trapped right above a poverty line that seeks to sink you, or maybe you did but you never for a second imagined it would be THIS BAD.

And you love that kid of yours, they are your sun and sky. And the foster system is shit, you know that even with all your failings, that child is safer with you.

Y''all need to mind your own business on this one.

staunchly against toddlers being given phones. stop that. give them little stuffed animals to play pretend with. fucking talk to them for a second even. stop giving them your phone. stop giving kids phones and ipads. stop it.

Happiness Will Come To You.

“But if you forget to reblog Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.”

Lotta y'all watched Star Versus the Forces of Evil and saw Star's arc with this woman

AND LEARNED NOTHING

EVEN THE END WHERE SHE TRIES TO DESTROY ALL THE "MONSTERS" ON MEWNI

THIS IS JKR

GUYS!!!