yesterday I went to a little meeting at my local queer community center and I was admiring their bookshelves and mentioned that I work at the public library and someone said "well I bet they don't have any [LGBTQ+ books] at our library" and I was like um. yes we do. we have tons of them. half of our employees are queer leftists so they said "oh well I bet they don't in [nearby rural county]" and I was like uh once again yes they absolutely do. gay people live and work there as well

so here's a quick reminder that if you don't think your local library has enough queer centered materials you should actually check before assuming, and if you're not satisfied with their collection you should submit a request for more such books. I don't know what the political landscape of libraries looks like outside the us rn, but within the us no matter where you are, I promise you there are employees at your library fighting for inclusion and intellectual freedom and they can't win without vocal public support

I was hanging out at the karaoke bar, chatting with a beautiful woman, and we were really hitting it off. I threw a couple of flirtatious comments her way. She giggled nervously, but abruptly stopped and looked at the floor.

She told me that she was too nervous to hit on people because she's trans and worries that people will view her as a predator and that she might get hurt.

My heart sank. I let her know that she could hit on me in whatever way she wanted and I would LOVE it. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and flirting. We ended up making out. It was great.

But I can't stop thinking about how that wasn't the first time a trans woman has said that to me. About how unsafe it is for some women that they feel the need to give out fucking disclaimers to have normal interactions with people.

We have GOT to make the world a safer place for trans women. It pisses me off that there are men at the bar who are openly predatory towards me without fear of consequence, yet a trans woman is too scared to even fucking call me pretty. And that's because she IS more likely to face worse consequences for lesser things! Like what the fuck!

You need to always check on your internalized biases. Being queer yourself doesn't absolve you of transmisogynistic thoughts and behaviors. Being bi/pansexual doesn't mean you don't hold those biases either! If you feel differently about a trans woman hitting on you than you feel about a cis woman or a man hitting on you, you need to evaluate that.

Trans women, I love you so fucking much. You should be able to express attraction and love as freely as everyone else. I hope you can always feel safe around me. And I'll never stop fighting until you can feel safe period.

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

I wish my cat had a phone so I could text him while I’m at work and tell him I love him and I miss him and he could send back blurry pictures of random things, incomprehensible gibber texts, and audio recordings of his crinkle ball

nothing makes me more insane than the phrase "selling your body" btw. like was i not also selling my body at every other job i've had where i had to be on my feet all day, lifting boxes, working in a warehouse, etc. why is it that sex work is uniquely labeled as "selling your body" while every other job is sorted into another category, no matter how much that job might have a physical impact on your body. lmao.

blah blah blah aging tumblr population etc etc if you are ever visiting a family that just had a baby, and you know that they have other small children, bring a little something for each of the other kids. it doesn’t have to be anything fancy but, even the most charitable, well-behaved child starts feeling left out and lonely after the nth visitor brings gifts and attention for their parents and new sibling and, either isn’t there for them at all or the only engage with them about their baby sibling, especially since their parents have probably been completely consumed with the new baby. make their day and they will remember that bit of kindness and attention from you forever.

he gets it he really does

UPS WORKERS HAVE REACHED A DEAL THAT MEETS THEIR DEMANDS AND AVERTED A STRIKE!!!

EDIT 7/27/23: please reblog this version of the post instead! it provides a fuller picture of what’s going on and explains why this isn’t over yet.

catherine tates lack of doctor who knowledge to this day is my absolute favorite thing

Wolfie and Four friendship appreciation doodles! They're shared secrets besties! I hope Four's distrust of the shadow crystal doesn't drive anything between them. Wild found his way into this compilation with a force. It seems I can't draw Wolfie and not include him too!

we jujutsued. we kaisened. [chuckles] and by god we gojoed

girls will literally turn their parents’ corpses into meat puppets to prevent the House of their birthright from being annexed by other powers 

The defintion of hell is knowing a show is incredibly well-received in its first season, but if people don’t become machines churning out tweets, content, and rewatching 24/7, there’s no likelihood it’ll get a chance to tell its whole story. This shit is madness. Shows in different genres shouldn’t have to pit-battle for dominance. First seasons are MEANT to be baselines establishing worlds and characters, not complete storylines. The idea that this golden age of television has turned into “get it done in one or get out” is revolting.

Huskerdust fans when their delulu became trululu

Happy tdov to fat trans people. 🏳️‍⚧️ Biggest thing that helped me as a trans kid was seeing older fat trans people. There were a lot of really irritating "advice" posts going around early in my time on the internet with a lot of misinformation in them, but one that I constantly saw (in addition to people claiming you should wear your pants rediculously low or only wear button ups) were posts saying you had to lose weight to transition. Can confidently confirm that is completely untrue. 👍