Then I will run and run and run, until the dawn

I have a Gideon Nav problem

[id: Locked Tomb fanart of Gideon Nav in a dark t-shirt and slicked back hair, posing with one hand crossed and the other brushing her mouth. She’s got geometric tattoo sleeves down both arms, ending in a skull tattoo on one hand and a circle with two swords crossed with the words ‘one flesh one end’ on the other hand. Smaller tattoos dot her knuckles, and a small roman numeral 9 is tattooed next to one eye. She’s got several rope bracelets and bulkier metal bracelets on both wrists, and big rings on several fingers. A large pair of sunglasses reflect the light and hide her eyes. end id]

Setting the new stable foundations for the next phase of my life🏡

🏳️‍🌈 Ruth Ellis (1899 - 2000) was the daughter of former slaves. She came out as a lesbian when she was 16-years-old to the complete acceptance of her family. In 1937, Ruth and her longtime partner moved to Detroit from their hometown of Springfield, Illinois for the promise of higher wages. There, she became the first woman in Michigan to run her own printing business. She printed fliers, posters, and stationary in the front room of her home, which also quickly became a hotspot for Black LGBTQ social life. Before long, Ruth was helping those who came around in any way she could, including by paying for college tuitions. After the Stonewall uprising, 70-year-old Ruth began giving speeches in support of gay and lesbian rights all across the country. She remained an activist for the rest of her long life and even spent her 100th birthday leading the San Francisco Dyke March. At the time of her death at 101, she was recognized as the oldest out lesbian in the US. She is the subject of the documentary "Living With Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100" and is the namesake of the Ruth Ellis Center, a shelter for homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth in Detroit.

Celebrate Ruth Ellis.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Ellis_(activist)

#Pride #BlackLivesMatter

🚦stop for a second and answer, also for an extra 5 seconds of green light at the next crossroad, share what you chose & where you are from in the tags!

I feel like I’m exposing myself a little bit with this bc my introduction to fic is soo random I think, but whatever your answer please tell me the story! I wanna know haha

The Mold-A-Rama is pretty specific to the midwest – it’s not something I ever encountered until I moved to Chicago. The machines, which date from the 1960s, really look it. When you put $5 in (or swipe your credit card), it starts to rumble, and two huge metal plates slide together under the dome. For about thirty seconds, plastic is injected into the mold, the surface is cooled, and then compressed air blows the excess out, leaving a plastic shell in the shape of whatever the mold was, all of it hidden within the mold’s depths. 

Then the mold separates, revealing your toy, and a scraper shoves it into a receptacle where you can pick it up, still hot from the mold, and hold it up to your nose to inhale the particular nostalgic smell of molten plastic. (There’s a great article about the history of the machines here.)

There aren’t many left, but the cool thing about the Mold-a-Rama is that you can pop the mold plates out and replace them. There’s a store on the north side that owns one and has modern independent artists create sculptures for the molds every so often. You can get ones from the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit that are shaped like the Wienermobile or the car JFK was assassinated in.  

The MSI has nine machines, and they used to be scattered around the museum, but they’ve moved four of them into one of the exhibit spaces along with various Mold-a-Rama related displays displays. It’s not as in-depth as I would like; it’s in the “let the younger kids run around and wear themselves out” section of the museum, so it’s designed for littler kids who can sweet-talk their parents into dropping $5 on a plastic toy. Still, it was cool to see the machines I hadn’t seen, and the displays were very neat. Not worth making a trek to Chicago for, but if you’re already going to the MSI, it’s definitely not something to skip. 

[ID: Four images; top, a Mold-A-Rama machine, which looks like a computer from an old scifi film. It has a sixties-style sign reading Mold-A-Rama, a large glass dome covering most of the machinery parts, and a squat, square body hiding the interior machinery. Below that, three photos of exhibit cases; one shows a sculpture of a carousel horse and two examples of the plastic figurine that is eventually produced from it, sandwiched between the open plates of the horse’s mold. The other shows a square plastic building mimicking the appearance of a large dollhouse, the Fairy Castle stashed elsewhere in the MSI. The last image shows a large glass display case full of dozens of plastic figurines, including animals, fantastical creatures, historical figures, various vehicles, and landmarks, among other things.]

They’re $5 now?

Now I feel old

Based on some convos I’m learning this might not have been a normal thing that happened to me

my favorite cow fact is that cows exhibit mourning behavior.

personally im partial to the fact that they watch sunsets

did you know that cows have best friends?

Mine is that cows make delicious milk.

Mine is that we've been basically lied to about the energy/climate costs of animal husbandry. Yes, meat production was is inefficient, yes, intensive battery egg/milk production is a problem, but using grazing animals for milk and scrounging chickens for eggs in appropriate landscapes is vastly less damaging to those landscapes and the environment at large, on a human-nutrition basis, than industrialized vegetable production (corn, etc.)

Large piles of coal await shipment on Kooragang Island, part of the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. The island is one of the world's largest coal export facilities, with a capacity of at least 120 million tonnes per annum. In 2022, coal trading comprised more than 97% of revenue at the Port of Newcastle; however, the port plans to reduce this figure to 50% by 2030 and fully decarbonize by 2040.

-32.875306°, 151.767778°

Source imagery: Nearmap

Greeting card that you can't buy at Target anymore because someone made credible threats to the safety of employees over the sale of this artist's designs. Cardstock, ink, flocking, cellophane wrapper, receipt. 2023.

Here's the thing though, this really sucks but you can still support the designers of this card who just had all their stuff pulled from Target, Ash + Chess, they have their own site AshAndChess dot com where you can purchase not this card but other cool cards and tshirts and many other things. If I make it a link this won't show up in the reblogs but y'all can type it in.

Y'know, finding out Target was carrying trans friendly swimwear with their Pride lineup last night, getting excited and making mental notes and budgeting to go hit there later this week, and then finding out this morning that they're already pulling it from shelves because of fucking bigots is a fuck of a way to start my day out.

And seriously, how rabidly fucking frightened do you have to be to threaten to murder a bunch of bystander employees, over fucking swimwear for adults.

(Yes. Just adults. I read up on the brand.)

I blame target a little, because it's the nature of rainbow capitalism to evaporate the moment they actually have to support the cause they're marketing to. I don't blame their staff for the decision.

But jesus fucking christ. How shallow and pathetic does your existence have to be for you to be threated by a swimsuit?

Ok, so, let's update on a few fronts.

For one, after tips from a few folks, I decided to say fuck it and go check out the local Target anyways. Lynnwood isn't the deep south, even if I do still see far more Trump flags flying than I'd like, and has some downright rabid conservative reactionaries. I also swear I'm the only trans woman out and over the age of twenty in the area most of the time, when it comes to visibility. If anywhere in the left coast is going to pull it, it'd be a prime pick to take them off the shelves here.

Inside the store, the Pride section's still front and center on display just inside the main entrance, still fully stocked, and yes, the contentious tucking swimwear that made rightwingers shit their collective pants was still very much available right there on the hook. See?

[Image ID: a colorful one-piece women's cut swimsuit, with prominent tag featuring the information that this design's built with an extra-wide gusset to make tucking easier]

And yes, they only run in adult sizes. Hells, the only issue was finding one my size to try on. (If you're in Lynnwood, sorry/notsorry, I grabbed the last 2x pair of bottoms from the 2-piece set)

[Image ID: A middle-aged trans woman standing in front of a fitting room mirror, wearing a pair of swim bottoms, a tank top, and a rather satisfied smile at potentially not having to be stuck in men's swim shorts any longer]

Now, that said. I didn't expect my feed to explode yesterday with my own and a few other folks's posts on this whole subject. Hence why I'm back updating this. If you're in a blue state or city, your odds are probably good that you'll still be able to get your hands on a suit if you (like me) desperately need one. Though again, if you've got the funds and time, support queer/trans owned swimwear businesses like Origami or others.

I live in Oregon and they’re definitely on the shelves here. Also available through Target’s online store.

I also wanna give a plug for Humankind swimwear. My partner and I bought our most recent swimsuits through them. I tend to have dysphoria about swimsuits but they’ve got nice swimtrunks and sportsbra-like tops that are neutral enough not to set off my issues.

https://www.humankindclothing.com/

(if you switch between multiples of these, just vote on your most-used one)

my favorite cow fact is that cows exhibit mourning behavior.

I heard somewhere that apparently cows look at sunsets

roommate is watching a gardening hacks video. i missed one she thought was cool and she started to rewind it and i was like “it’s okay i probably won’t get it anyway” and she said “no you’ll get it” and then i didn’t

@buttons-beads-lace

Okay so why does that work but when I divide up the pot provided by the Chia Herb Garden and use the seeds they all died, quickly?

Also isn’t planting depth a thing that matters? Maybe it isn’t. Bc some in the video were super deep and some near the surface

Some plants are more fussy about planting depth than others, but like, when seeds are out in nature getting randomly dropped by birds or blown by the wind, they can't exactly pick how deep they want to be planted. So there's usually some flexibility.

Just how quickly did they die? If they were still at the "tiny sprout with its first two leaves" stage and they all died at once, I would say it's more likely to have been a water or sunlight / temperature issue than overcrowding. What I've seen when I've had too many plants in one pot is that growth plateaus before they get to what should be their full size, they just stay small and don't flower, not sudden death.

i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing

sometimes someone is acting selfish because they just didnt think you had any interest in what theyre hogging. sometimes you dont get invited to the movies because your friend could have sworn that you said no. sometimes you think someone is mad at you because theyre bad at hiding how little sleep they got. we are all like little worlds that briefly crash into one another from time to time and we just arent physically capable of seeing the whole picture at once in those moments. and learning that really changed everything!

why is he literally the funniest man alive

no wait but he actually was