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I Dont Know Anymore.

@hopekitten19

Pretty damn queer. That’s it. I sew. College student? I guess.
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Which of these would you rather see on your dash?

Hey @staff. This is a perfect example of why collapsed reblogs is such a bad idea. Seeing the full thread, you go like this: 😮 ooh, that's cool 😀 "they're free," hehe! 🤣 "16 cents," perfection!!

I have achieved joy, I feel positive feelings toward Tumblr, I want to engage, I want to stay, my eyeballs land on more ads, you make more money, everyone wins! 🎉

Seeing the collapsed thread, you go like this:

😮 ooh, that's cool 😐 "16 cents"? yes, that's literally what the pic shows, not sure why you felt the need to say that

There is no motivation for me to uncollapse the reblog chain—it looks like a boring conversation about the denominations of coins. And even if I do uncollapse it, you've ruined the joke by showing me the punchline before the setup. I am sad, Tumblr is boring, I go elsewhere to entertain myself, I see less ads, you make less money, everyone loses. 😥

Reblog chains are the best thing about Tumblr. They are your unique super power. They are the thing that makes people screenshot Tumblr and share it around. Why on earth would you kneecap them??

I don't know exactly how you plan to implement this. Give people the option to keep them collapsed if there truly are people who are annoyed by how long they can get (you already have a version of this feature), but don't collapse them for everyone or new users by default. Please. It will make Tumblr so much more boring.

You Are Mine part 3

Second day is an early call too. They are going to shoot a bunch of scenes of them hanging out between shows, loitering on the bus, playing d&d, and going to weird little dinners, all things they actually do when on tour.

It’s even better than the day before, Robin and Steve get along so well with the band it feels like they’ve been friends for years.

Since their conversation won’t be distinguishable in the video, Argyle tells them they can talk about whatever and just be a little more emphatic when talking so it reads better on camera.

A direction that apparently they don’t need at all because they are both so expressive. And so, they actually get to chat and get to know each other better, laughing and joking all through the day.

Robin, who is a ‘raging lesbian’ (her words) is fucking adorable and bizarre, her energy is contagious and nerve-racking. She’s finishing a career in linguistics, can speak fluently in like six languages, and is apparently a certified genius.

She’s also head over heels obsessed with her girlfriend, and won’t stop talking about her. Vicky is a nurse student, one of Steve’s classmates actually.

‘Steve is a fucking nurse student, why is that hot? Why does he find that so hot? Jesus’.

Steve is much quieter than Robin, especially in comparison. But he’s just, or even funnier. Eddie can see how observant he is, listening attentively and waiting for his moment, because he’s mostly quiet but when he speaks he always says the perfect thing.

It’s like every time he talks Eddie can see him dropping an imaginary mike on the floor. It’s fascinating honestly.

He is incredibly sweet too. Eddie can tell, by how his eyes light up when they are placed in a scene meant to look like they are playing Dungeons and Dragons and he goes on a tangent about the kids he used to babysit when he was younger, that they like to play too, how they drove him insane and how he never lost touch with them after they grew up, how they are all seniors in high school now, how proud he is of them. It’s so fucking cute.

They get a good laugh imagining the kids’ reactions to seeing them in the video, Steve laughing so hard he cries when Robin starts imitating the expression of one of them finding out Steve made out with his favorite singer.

And they haven’t even talked about or planned that scene yet, it’s meant to be shot tomorrow, but when he hears them talking about it, it fills Eddie up with antici…pation. He’s dying to kiss Steve and he can’t stop thinking about it.

After the lunch break, they shoot a bunch of scenarios of Eddie sneaking into various places, the bus, a bathroom, a changing room, and so on. Since Robin and Steve are practically the same height is easy to cheat the camera into only showing the back of the shirt that says ‘crew’ making it impossible to know which one of them he’s hooking up with until the end of the video.

He has a lot of fun pushing Steve into different corners of the set, and Steve does too judging from all his cute little laughs between scenes. 

Argyle calls it a day late afternoon, he’s happy and excited, says he has a really good feeling about this,

“Not many scenes left to shoot, mostly you two,” he said pointing at Steve and him, “So we can start mid-morning tomorrow. Get some rest my dudes, love you” and dismisses them.

Eddie gets distracted talking with Argyle so when he gets back to the changing room there’s no one there, except… Steve.

He’s meticulously fixing his hair in the mirror and he’s humming the video’s song. Of course he is, Eddie thinks amused, he’s heard it so many times by now. He leans on the doorway watching Steve’s reflection, waiting for him to notice Eddie, but Steve doesn’t see him right away, and thinking he’s alone, he starts singing.

I don’t want to hide anymore,

I want the whole world to know,

That you are mine,

Are you mine, please be mine, you are mine.

It’s his song, but it sounds nothing like it. The chorus of You Are Mine is loud, angry, desperate but what Steve is singing sounds so soft, so beautiful. It sounds like one of those slow acoustic covers that usually play in coffee stores and it’s funny, Eddie despises those kinds of covers, but Steve’s? 

Steve’s he could listen to all the goddam time.

He’s so lost in his thoughts he doesn’t notice when Steve finally sees him, he only looks up when the singing stops.

Steve is smiling at him bashfully through the reflection in the mirror, blushing prettily. 

Smiling back he tells Steve, “I’m surprised you are not sick of it yet,”

He pushes himself off the doorframe and walks inside, hovering over Steve since he’s sitting on the only makeup chair.

Steve shrugs as he stands up and leaves the chair to Eddie, going around the room to grab his things. Eddie can’t help but feel a little disappointed, he kind of wanted Steve to keep him company, but to his surprise, Steve doesn’t leave immediately, and it’s his turn to hover slightly close.

“It’s a really catchy song,” Steve says and Eddie snorts because, no, it’s not. But he just smiles again and says,

“Well, thank you.”

“You wrote it?” Steve asks tilting his head to the side and it’s fucking unfair how cute he looks when he does it.

Eddie just nods, because speaking hard when cute boy near. Man he usually has so much more game, what is it about Steve that just makes him feel so giddy?

“It must be about someone very special,” Steve says and there’s a question hidden somewhere in there.

And Eddie wants to tell him ‘I wrote it for you’ because it feels like he did. He wrote the song thinking about a concept, an ideal, someone he would truly want, and he genuinely feels he was conjuring up Steve in his mind. Even before he met him.

But instead, he shakes his head and says, “It’s hypothetical, there- there’s no one.”

And Steve smiles at him, his smile getting bigger slowly and his cheeks redder as he looks down for a second before staring at Eddie through his lashes, “Good” he says in an almost whisper and then leaves the room.

And Eddie thinks maybe all the songs in their next album will be about Steve.

to be continued

part 1: 

part 2: 

part 3: is this

part 4: soon

cafecito?

Stranger Things Fic Master List

Right, I blame @kedreeva for this entirely.

Here is a list of my Stranger Things fics I have come up with since the beginning of Dec 2022.

Completed: All those with a AO3 link have been beta’ed

(Posted to Tumblr, still waiting on beta)

Ao3 is down while I’m on a long bus ride,,, what do I do now?

read the physical books I packed for this exact purpose?

I think not funny computer man.

Is Tim Curry the Vincent Price of his generation? Discuss.

yes. nothing much to discuss. scenery chewing ham who loves being a scenery chewing ham, has been in everything, and brings a kinda queer vibe to everything he does. price was bisexual. curry has the confidence in his gender that only comes from interrogating it thoroughly and happily ditching any part of it that doesn't serve him.

okay i guess there was a little to discuss.

OKAY SO ZUKO’S MOTHER TOLD HIM IN THE FLASHBACK TO “NEVER FORGET WHO YOU ARE” AND THEN IN THE SAME EPISODE WE SEE ZUKO ANNOUNCING TO THE EARTH PEOPLE THAT HE IS THE SON OF THE FIRE LORD. SO DID ZUKO TAKE HIS MOTHER’S LAST WORDS IN THE LITERAL SENSE THAT HE MUST NEVER FORGET THAT HE’S THE PRINCE? AND IS THAT ANOTHER LAYER TO THE REASONING AS TO WHY HE’S SO INSANELY DEDICATED TO FINDING THE AVATAR TO RESTORE HIS HONOR TO REGAIN HIS HOME AND HIS THRONE?? IS THAT WHY HE’S SO FOCUSED ON HIS IDENTITY? BECAUSE HIS MOTHER TOLD HIM TO BE? BUT THEN HE REALIZES IT WASN’T HIS IDENTITY AS THE PRINCE SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT, IT WAS HIS REAL SELF APART FROM HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD. AND WHEN HE REALIZES THAT, WHEN HE REALIZES THAT HE ISN’T REALLY HIS TRUE SELF IN THE FIRE NATION, HE LEAVES.

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you just turn 18. you've been in a discord server for a while. you're finally allowed to join the NSFW channel. you open the channel. it's only them posting about OSHA violations at their workplaces and how they're going to unionise.

I couldn't be prouder

rocky horror picture show asks what would happen if frankenstein’s creature knew it’s purpose from birth. it also asks “what if victor frankenstein did drag and a lot of cocaine” which is a frankly more important question

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Oh god oh fuck oh no

[image description: a screenshot of an article from the Financial Times where the headline reads ‘Tumblr picks itself up again after years of struggle’ and the excerpt underneath reads ‘Creative, chaotic and anonymous, the blogging platform has lots of appeal for Gen Z.’ End ID.]

I’ve figured out that one way to stump older people that complain about the current generation is to have an inflation calculator app on your phone.

Aunt: When we got our first apartment it was 300 bucks a month why can’t you-
Me: In what year?
Aunt: What?
Me: What year did you get your first apartment?
Aunt: 1973?
Me: Hmmm. Looks like that would be $1755 in 2021 money.
Aunt: *seems to go through seven emotions at once*
Aunt: Oh.
Uncle: Why should minimum wage-
Me: What year did you start college?
Uncle: 1968?
Me: So if you scale up $1.60 to 2021 dollars that would be $11.94 and the current federal minimum wage is $7.25
Uncle: Bu-
Me: And it seems like from a quick google search the median rent in 1970 was $108 and today that would be $722 but this same chart tells me that the actual median rent in 2020 was $1,100.
Uncle: *confused silence*

On the issue of the ‘q slur’...

So, yesterday, I got into a rather stupid internet argument with someone who was peddling what seemed to me to be a rather insidious narrative about slur-reclamation. Someone in the ensuing notes raised a point which I thought was interesting, and worrying, and probably needed to be addressed in it’s own post. So here we go:

The word ‘queer’ itself seems to be especially touchy for many, so let me begin to address this by way of analogy.

Instead of talking about “queer”, let’s start by talking about “Jew” - a word which I believe is very similar in its usage in some significant ways.

Now, the word “Jew” has been used as a derogatory term for literally hundreds of years. It is used both as a noun (eg. “That guy ripped me off - what a dirty Jew”) and as a verb (eg. “That guy really Jew-ed me”). These usages are deeply, fundamentally, horrifically offensive, and should be used under no circumstances, ever. And yet, I myself have heard both, even as recently as this past year, even in an urban location with plenty of Jews, in a social situation where people should have known better. In short – the word “Jew”, as it is used by certain antisemites, is – quite unambiguously – a slur. Not a dead slur, not a former slur – and active, living slur that most Jews will at some point in their life encounter in a context where the term is being used to denigrate them and their religion. 

Now here’s the thing, though: I’m a Jew. I call myself a Jew. I prefer that all non-Jews call me a Jew – so do most Jews I know. “Jew” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Judaism, the same way that “Muslim” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Islam, and “Christian” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Christianity. 

In fact, almost all of the terms that non-Jews use to avoid saying “Jew” (eg. “a member of the Jewish persuasion”, “a follower of the Jewish faith”, “coming from a Jewish family”, “identifying as part of the Jewish religion”, etc) are deeply offensive, because these terms imply to us that the speaker sees the term “Jew” (and by extension, what that term stands for) as a dirty word.

“BUT WAIT” – I hear you say – “didn’t you just say that Jew is used as a slur?!?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And also, it is fundamentally offensive not to call us that, because it is our name and our identity.

Let me back up a little bit, and bring you into the world of one of those 2000s PSAs about not using “that’s so gay”. Think of some word that is your identity – something which you consider to be a fundamental and intrinsic part of yourself. It could be “female” or “male”, or “Black” or “white”, “tall” or “short”, “Atheist” or “Mormon” or “Evangelical” – you name it.

Now imagine that people started using that term as a slur.

“What a female thing to do!” they might say. “That teacher doesn’t know anything, he’s so female!”

Or maybe, “Yikes, look at that idiot who’s driving like an atheist. It’s so embarrassing!”

Or perhaps, “Oh gross, that music is so Black, turn it off!”

Now, what would you say if the same groups of people who had been saying those things for years turned around and avoided using those words to describe anything other than an insult?

“Oh, so I see you’re a member of the female persuasion!”

“Is he… a follower of the atheist beliefs? Like does he identify as part of the community of atheist-aligned individuals?”

“So, as a Black-ish identified person yourself – excuse me, as a person who comes from a Black-ish family…”

Here’s the fundamental problem with treating all words that are used as slurs the same, without any regard for how they are used and how they developed – not all slurs are the same.

No one, and I mean no one (except maybe for a small handful of angsty teens who are deliberately making a point of being edgy) self-identifies as a kike. In contrast, essentially all Jews self-identify as Jews. And when non-Jews get weird about that identity on the grounds that “Jew is used as a slur”, despite the fact that it is the name that the Jewish community as a whole resoundingly identifies with, what they are basically saying is that they think that the slur usage is more important than the Jewish community self-identification usage. They are saying, in essence, “we think that your name should be a slur.” 

Now, at the top I said that the word “Jew” and the word “queer” had some significant similarities in terms of their usage, and I think that’s pretty apparent if you look at what people in those communities are saying about those terms. When American Jews were being actively threatened by neo-Nazis in the 70s, the slogan of choice was “For every Jew a .22!″. When the American Queer community was marching in the 90s in protest of systemic anti-queer violence, the slogan of choice was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Clearly, these are terms that are used by the communities themselves, in reference to themselves. Clearly, these terms are more than simply slurs.

But while there are useful similarities between how the terms “Jew” and “Queer” are used by bigots and by their own communities, I’d also like to point out that there is pretty substantial and important difference:

Unlike for “queer”, there is no organized group of Jewish antisemites who are using the catchphrase “Jew is a slur!” in order to selectively silence and disenfranchise Jews who are part of minority groups within Judaism. 

This is the real rub with the term queer – no one was campaigning about it being a slur until less than a decade ago. No one was saying that you needed to warn for the word queer when queer people were establishing the academic discipline of queer studies. No one was ‘think of the children”-ing the umbrella term when queer activists were literally marching for their lives. Go back to even 2010 and the term “q slur” would have been basically unparseable – if I saw someone tag something “q slur”, like most queer people I would have wracked my brains trying to figure out what slur even started with q, and if I learned that it was supposed to be “queer”, my default assumption would be that the post was made by a well-meaning but extremely clueless straight person.

I literally remember this shift – and I remember who started it. Exclusionists didn’t like the fact that queer was an umbrella term. Terfs (or radfems as they like to be called now) didn’t like that queer history included trans history; biphobes and aphobes didn’t like that the queer community was also a community to bisexuals and asexuals. And so what could they possibly say, to drive people away from the term that was protecting the sorts of queer people that they wanted to exclude?

Well, naturally, they turned to “queer is a slur.”

And here’s the thing – queer is a slur, just like Jew is a slur, and no one is denying that. And that fact makes “queer is a slur so don’t use it” a very convincing argument on the surface: 1) queer is still often used as a slur, and 2) you shouldn’t ever use slurs without carefully tagging and warning people about them (and better yet, you should never use them at all), and so therefore 3) you need to tag for “the q slur” and you need to warn people not to call the community “the queer community” or it’s members “queer people” or its study “queer studies” – because it’s a slur!

But the crucial step that’s missing here is exactly the same one above, for the word “Jew” – and that step is that not all slurs are the same. When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group! 

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity. Tagging for “queer” is one thing. People can filter for “queer” if it triggers them, just like people can filter for anything else. Not everyone has to personally use the term queer, or like the term queer. But there is no circumstance where the term “q slur” does not indicate that you think queer is more of a slur than of an accurate description of a community.

If I, as a Jew, ever came across a post where someone had warned for innocent, positive, non-antisemitic content relating to Judaism with the tag “J slur”, I would be incensed. So would any Jew. The act of tagging a post “J slur” is in and of itself antisemitic and offensive.

Queer people are allowed to feel the same about “q slur”. It is not a neutral warning term – it is an attack on our identity.

This entire post really resonated with me. Especially the part where you say:

“When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group!

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity.

We’ll never die

For future confused Tumblr cockroaches, this post is about Facebook and it’s affiliated sites, Instagram and WhatsApp, temporarily crashing on October 4th, 2021.

We all gathered together to celebrate our refusal to fucking die and put a collective middle finger up to Mark Zuckerberg.

Like or reblog to flip Mark Zuckerberg off and receive good vibes :)

JUST BECAUSE I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN 36 HOURS THAT DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE INSOMNIA I MIGHT BE AWAKE FOR COOL WIZARD REASONS. YOU DONT KNOW ME. IVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO READ.