Some good news among all the bullshit

Hell yeah kings

I cannot express enough that if your reaction, as a hobby artist, to not getting that many notes on your art is to say "maybe I should just stop doing art altogether" you need to stop posting art to tumblr

not necessarily forever, not even for long, but just stop putting your art on here and start doing it for you again, remember why you enjoyed doing art in the first place and stop relying on the attention of faceless people on the internet for your enjoyment of your hard work

believe me, I get it, nothing crushes the artistic soul quite like labouring for hours on a piece only for it to get like 10 notes, so you need to find your own source of joy in the act of creation and a lot of the time that means making art and not showing it to anybody

the thing about working in childcare these days is that I'm blown away by how open minded and genuinely curious these kids are. there are multiple openly queer kids, who are aware of the intricacy of the queer community and the multi-faceted nature of queer identity.

none of that was around 10 or 20 years ago. queerness wasn't even necessarily taboo during my childhood experiences, it just,,, wasn't taught or talked about, even from one child to another. I just didn't know it was a thing. but these little kids know about intersectionality!!!

and then when I was in high school, kids used 'gay' as an insult, but these kids at my job don't even blink differently when I told them the little queer flag pin on my messenger bag was the aroace flag. some of them ask what it means, because perhaps they've only heard of gay lesbian and trans. (and they've heard of gay lesbian and trans!!!!) I explain my flag and what it means, and it makes sense to them. that would have been alien for me as a ten year old.

some of these little lesbian girls and aroace and bisexual boys, the pan, poly, demigirl and nonbinary little ten year olds are the best friends that little me needed.

it's refreshing and heartwarming to see that the young ones of today are the kind of people this world needs.

PROTECT QUEER KIDS!!!! EMPOWER QUEER KIDS!!!!

I agree with everything except that children can't be aroace because it's normal for children to not experience attraction (even though some do!) and many people who grow up to be allosexual, start out as children without a sexuality. Calling children aroace implies that they are different from the norm, which implies that the norm is for children to have attraction? Which is just kinda weird imo. But yeah go off with the rest of the post ❤️

There are so many things wrong with this, so let’s unpack it a bit!

1. Children do experience attraction. Romantic and sexual attraction can happen in children as early as nine years old. It isn’t super common, but it does indeed happen. Plus, many teens feel sexual and romantic attraction, but alas, most teenagers are still minors. Are you denying that teens feel attraction? Because that’s very ignorant.

Source!

Another source!

Yet another source!

2. Calling yourself aroace is not permanent. You can grow out of the label, just like you can grow out of labelling yourself as gay or bi, heck, you can even grow out of calling yourself straight! Labels don’t stick like superglue, it’s stupid to say that they do.

3. “Calling children aroace implies that they are different from the norm” what’s wrong with that? I don’t see a problem here.

4. “Which is kinda weird imo” key word IMO. IN MY OPINION. Why does your opinion matter more than anyone else’s? Why should we listen to you?

5. What if I switched aroace to gay in this situation? “I agree with everything except that children can't be gay because it's normal for children to not experience same-sex attraction (even though some do!) and many people who grow up to be straight, start out as children without a sexuality. Calling children gay implies that they are different from the norm, which implies that the norm is for children to have same-sex attraction? Which is just kinda weird imo. But yeah go off with the rest of the post ❤️”

Sounds a bit homophobic, doesn’t it.

So begone, dastardly aphobe, go back to the wretched cave of Reddit from whence you came and go be ignorant and bitchy about children somewhere else. Might I suggest r/antinatalism?

I was picking up on myself being Different from my peers in my lack of attraction in 6th grade, I PROMISE kids can be aroace, can we not go back to 2017 on g-d

Whe I was in elementary school a boy wanted me to be his girlfriend. I had never been asked before, I knew this to be a moment that was supposed to be important and special. At least according to all the other girls I knew, and on TV, movies, storybooks.

I liked him as a friend, so I thought I was just supposed to say yes. Then he began wanting physical affections. Holding hands, long embraces, and kissing. I was immediately uncomfortable. The change was instant. I broke things off after just a few days to his dismay. Even then it was hard to explain, it wasn't that I didn't like him, I just ended up settling for the explanation that I wasn't "ready" to date yet.

It was difficult even for me to understand at the time. I thought these things were meant to make a person happy. I was utterly confused when all I felt was discomfort. Middle School came, I did not change. Junior year of High school I had another boyfriend, the difference was he claimed he understood I wasn't comfortable with physical affection right away. It took time. Too much time, he broke up with me after 6 months.

As an adult I have a better and more thorough grasp of my sexuality only because I had the words and concepts shared by a community of people like me. What made me feel "different from the norm" was everyone around me telling me "you'll feel love 【attraction 】 someday, you just have to find the right guy!"

distressing things to say to your friends

one time in my last job a woman came up to the register explaining that when she bought stuff a day prior the clerk forgot to scan a pair of socks worth less than €2 and it was only right for her to bring it back to the store and pay for it proper. unfortunately my manager was directly next to me at the time and took over the register to handle this serious issue. the receipt she had brought with her said which register performed the previous transaction that forgot the socks and the manager could find out who was running that till on that day. poor dude had a manager yell at him for a half hour about how much of an incompetent fuck up he was, he left the job immediately after but i couldnt tell you if he quit or was fired

i think about this moment a lot. the customer seemed like a sweet woman with only good intentions and when she paid for the socks she had a look on her face that said "i feel good because i did the right thing". and a guy lost his job because of a pair of socks. if shit like this ever happens to you and a clerk forgets to scan an item just think of it as a small blessing or that you had good luck or something. keep it.

For anyone in this scenario dealing with anxiety, if you get an item without being charged like this, you're okay. You did not steal anything, errors happen. It will hurt no one to simply keep what you gained. You are the only person who would ever notice that you brought home an item you weren't charged for. You can return to that store to shop again later. You don't need to be ashamed or punished.

Nappy.co

You know how long I've been looking for something like this!?

To any sketch artist out there too.

[Image ID: a black woman wearing a plaid shirt and red bandana around her head. Her braided hair is coming out of the top od her head and falling in front of her. Text says "Did you know there's a black-owned stock photo company nappy.co that provides stereotype-free images of black people" /end]

the other day i was trying to find reference images of black people for art things but all i was finding were black-and-white images of white people! love this!!

Also! They accept submissions. If you’re a photographer and want to contribute, the button is on the bottom left of the webpage. 

this is not a tutorial this is just me rambling

Without hyperbole government offices that take half an hour of waiting to get anywhere and close at 4pm are are a form of oppression against the working class

“If you do not schedule system maintenance, your system will schedule it for you.”

one of my "special interests" in the past couple of years has been exploring fast fashion vs. slow fashion. it has been a long journey trying to find clothes that actually 1) fit me 2) look good 3) are made from material that is not actively shoving plastic in the ecosystem 4) involve ethical labor, fair trade, fairly compensated, etc

before i did this research, i really had no clue about fabrics or fashion brands. i used to think i had zero interest in fashion, in fact.

i grew up wearing walmart and thrift store clothes, and when i went to college i bought clothes from target and asos. something started to shift a little bit when i found vintage resellers on etsy and ebay... those clothes were so unique. but a lot of the vintage clothes were polyester blends, stiff, and would fall apart as easily as my asos clothes. i would leave them hanging in my closet and never wear them. i would wear the same old t shirts and jeggings every day. i felt like it was impossible to ever wear comfortable clothes, or ever feel good in clothes, so why bother?

it started with linen. linen is very comfortable and pretty sustainable. i was amazed that i didn't feel the urge to rip my clothes off when i wore linen. lightbulb number one.

a friend let me borrow a nooworks dress, and i went to the store and got some overalls. wow. overalls. lightbulb number two. holy shit, you can wear overalls. you know how people say "not binary or non-binary but a secret third thing." that's overalls.

i realized i loved the bonkers prints that nooworks had, and all of it was soft, and made ethically. it was a higher price point than i was used to, which gave me pause. but then you realize: we're not supposed to be buying dumb clothes every other weekend. and isn't a slightly higher price point for soft clothes that you won't want to tear off your body worth it?

so i started my research. i made a spreadsheet. the prices can be all over the place across brands, so i made a column for prices. sizes can be all over the place too -- people always ask me "where is the plus size slow fashion?" it's there. just look at the size column. people say "isn't it better to buy secondhand?" yeah, it is. i have many links to secondhand sources.

if you have any suggestions or additions please let me know, it is a living document.

Reblog if you’re polyamorous, support polyamorous people, or think polyamorous people and relationships are valid

ERASE the idea that America saved lives by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan from your minds. ERASE the idea that it was anything more than a political move to scare Russia and also to satiate US curiosity as to the true ability of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military bases. They were heavily populated civilian cities chosen precisely bc the U.S. wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go. Japan was on the verge of surrendering, the U.S. literally wanted to test out their nuclear weapons on people that they deemed disposable. That is it. If those bombs were dropped by any nation other than the US veryone involved would have been tried as war criminals.

Also erase the idea that America was the hero of WWII and got into the war because they wanted so save people. They couldn’t have cared less about the victims of the Holocaust, proven by the fact that they turned away so many shiploads of refugees that went on to die at the hands of Nazis.

“the us wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go” oh really? Source your bullshit, asshole

i left out sources bc i figured most tumblr users know how to use google but ok 

- Report produced by the U.S Strategic Bombing Group (employed by Truman) to survey the air attacks on Japan concluded that: 

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” - page 52-56 

- Dwight Eisenhower future president and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces also said:

“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [the then Secretary of War] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” - page 380

- Admiral William Leahy, one of the highest ranking officials in the US army during WW2 wrote of the usage of the bombs:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. […] My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” - page 441

- General Douglas McArthur, another high ranking US official in the war:

“[When asked about his opinion on bombing Japan] He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” - page 70-71

- On September 9, 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey commander of the Third Fleet publicly quoted as saying:

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… . It was a mistake to ever drop it… . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it… . It killed a lot of Japs.” - online source

- The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, speaking to President Truman:

“I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength.” - diary of Henry Stimson which can be found online here 

- Even those deploying the bombs questioned the decision to drop them on civilian cities:

“I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts–say in Tokyo Bay–so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.” - online source

- Lewis Strauss Assistant to the Navy Secretary James Forrestal on the locations of the bombings:

“I remember suggesting […] a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. […] Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation.” - page 145

So to recap: 

Draw your own conclusions. 

Gonna be reblogging these posts a lot now that Oppenheimer is out and racist Americans are on their bullshit

was thinking about infighting and like. they all see us the same. from the wildest queerest fagdyke to a cis gay guy. we are the same to them. the weird queers are not like. ruining your precious community. we're a part of it

@ exclusionists:

This Barbie is an ancient Slavic witch

Lmfao as a religious trauma survivor and a product of Christian fundie indoctrination myself I am in full support of calling fandom wank "purity culture" and the use of the word "puriteen" as well actually.

It perfectly encompasses what purity culture was. It wasn't just about "no sex before marriage"; it policed every fucking thing you did and forced you to walk on eggshells your entire life so your Magical Sky Daddy didn't clutch His heavenly pearls at your naughty behaviours.

Holding hands with someone you weren't married to? Gateway to sin. Making eyes at someone of the opposite sex? Gateway to sin. Thinking "impure" thoughts about someone else? Thoughtcrime Gateway to sin. Wearing the "wrong" type of clothes? Listening to the "wrong" kind of music? Having the "wrong" sort of values? Enjoying the "wrong" kind of media? All of it was seen as a stepping stone toward being a sinful godless heathen (and to some people it was essentially just as bad).

And it wasn't enough to just avoid BadWrong Behaviours, either. In my ex-community you were expected to express your disapproval of it and be well versed in the theological how's and whys. Does any of that sound familiar?

Purity culture at its core is so much more than "wear this purity ring and pinky promise to Jesus that you'll never have sex until you're married" and if you didn't realise that while you were there you weren't paying attention.

fresh, clean no-terf version for reblogs!

Your mom and aunts aren’t on tumblr.  Please warn them about this as well. 

[Image description: Two smartphone screenshots of a Facebook post by a person named Sheila Toll posted 2 Sep. It is black text on a white background and the post is public. The post reads:

I am a Family Doctor and I want to keep a promise made to a patient. 

Julie was a healthy, post-menopausal woman in my care who came in for a periodic health examination. One of my routine questions, in what is called the “Review of Systems”, was to ask if she had experienced any vaginal bleeding. 

She said “No” but then laughed and added, “Other than when my period came back for a few months last year”. 

All health care professional are taught early on that ‘vaginal bleeding in a post-menopausal woman is Cancer of the Uterus until proven otherwise’. This comment by Julie was, therefore, a red flag (no pun intended) prompting further questions, an examination and an ultrasound of her pelvis. 

Julie was surprised to see me so concerned, especially since the symptoms had not recurred over many months. 

Sure enough, a pelvic ultrasound and tissue sampling confirmed Cancer of the Uterus. 

Julie underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy. She is now healthy, cancer-free and is expected to stay that way. 

After all this was done, Julie sat ME down for a talk. She told me she’d had no idea a ‘short return’ of her period after menopause was a danger signal. Furthermore, she addressed the topic with friends over coffee and discovered that, out of 20 women, NONE of them knew this symptom was abnormal! She admonished me to “Tell women this! Don’t assume we know it!”

From that day on, I have kept Julie’s advice in mind when talking with post-menopausal patients. But recently my wife suggested that I should take this to a wider audience. 

So, Julie, this is for you: 

If you are a post-menopausal woman and your period ‘comes back’ or you have even one episode of vaginal bleeding, TELL A HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL and insist on having it investigated! 

Wishing you all good health and long lives. End image description.]

In case you're still reflexively on the fence when I proclaim that the conversation about AI has progressed to a truly batshit level of reactionary mythology, people on twitter are currently calling out the animators for Spiderverse for using a digital interpolator to assist with lining, because a documentary used the term "machine learning" to describe it.

Apparently using digital tools is taking work away from real artists. I am excited for 6 months time when the discourse has evolved into "all movies should be hand-inked on the inside of Palaeolithic caves to escape the corrupting labour-stealing influence of the pencil".

(Yes this is currently a minority opinion in this instance, largely because people just really like Spiderverse. But the fact that these arguments are being seriously made shows how far off the deep end this conversation has gone. These types of arguments for blanket technology bans already made little to no sense due to the double standard applied, and this demonstrates that by removing the double standard and taking them closer to their logical conclusion - all labour saving tools are bad, especially if they involve a spooky computer algorithm).

y'all ever think about how the paint bucket tool on MS paint is stealing jobs because someone could have been filling in those pixels by hand

what super expensive indulgence would u get for urself if u suddenly came into a bunch of money?? assume all bills/mortgages paid, all friends helped: what treat are u buying just for u?? for me it would be a quilted lambskin chanel bag in iridescent pink

hate when I finish a really brutal movie that shakes me to my core and then I can’t even recommend it to people. like it’s incredible and everyone should see it but also I have to slap 3,000 warnings on it and tell you you’re gonna feel like shit

maybe it’s an unpopular opinion and I’m not saying to watch media that will trigger you on purpose obviously but I think people need to be okay with movies that make them uncomfortable sometimes. it’s good to feel like shit now and then. the beauty and horror and poignancy of the human experience shouldn’t always be watered down and neatly tied up into a palatable package. something that disturbs you can also move you. it can change you. growth is often uncomfortable. there are so many masterpieces that might profoundly affect you that you’ll miss if you only look to movies for pure entertainment and nothing else

I think what people who rush to censorship of uncomfortable themes forget it that story-based media is a safe outlet to explore unsafe things. You can explore great loss without losing anything great, you can explore great pain without getting hurt, you can explore darkness in the comfortable light of your home. With the ability to disengage at any point and have the space and time to reflect on concepts outside of your experience.