Notes to self 📝

My unambiguous features are beautiful despite media telling me differently. ♥

The block button is a tool to preserve my peace. ♥

I love myself through different phases of life. ♥

I’m not missing out on opportunities, they’re missing out on me. ♥

See, this is the trick conservatives are trying to pull.

They'll justify banning gender affirming care for minors by saying there just isn't enough data on the safety and efficacy of things like puberty blockers and hormones (despite these treatments existing since at least the early-1980's).

Then they'll turn around and ban any studies into the effects of gender affirming care for minors.

So "we don't have enough information" becomes a perpetual excuse because we can never seek the information. It's absurd!

We live in a dystopia....

If the background actors don't come in for work because they exist virtually then the background costume and background hair and make up and their catering and transport and all the other departments that look after them get cut too. These things have knock on effects...

this is simultaneously the most boring and most sinister way AI could take over the world and destroy us all

"but if you're pro-union, why are you anti-cop-union?" because cops are not laborers. what cops do is not labor. they are enforcers of the laws that oppress laborers and exist solely to protect capital. don't bother me with stupid questions.

I remember during the Occupy protests I was watching a livestream where NYPD had kettled marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the protesters started chanting "You belong with us! We're fighting for your pensions!" Didn't stop the cops from brutalizing and arresting the protesters, then and there and for the rest of the movement. Fuck the police and fuck the police unions

Cops aren’t workers. They’re managers.

In the wake of tumblr marking every trans woman's selfie as "mature," I'd like to remind people, or inform people who are newer, that this isnt a new thing. In the early and mid-2010s, tumblr wiped all lgbt related tags deeming them "pornographic" and deleted or shadowbanned blogs for saying they're trans in their bios. You can not find any post i make in the public search, hell you can't even search my personal blog specifically, cuz staff decided that me being an out trans woman was "pornographic." I am still shadowbanned cuz I am a trans woman.

And im sure people are gonna say "it was a different company," yet their transphobia has remained the same. Tumblr is a transphobic site.

calling every gnc cis person you see an "egg waiting to crack" even as a joke is not cool or funny at all actually it is extremely invasive and weird and you are just reinventing gender roles but making it "progressive"

is it just me or is this is an extremely weird thing to say about a random stranger based on nothing but a snippet of an eavesdropped conversation

I've seen so many counter posts about this post by people claiming it's like calling trans women groomers for "recognizing their people" this really is the reading comprehension website huh...

just in case anyone missed this in the news or maybe not in the loop, Disney is currently refusing to meet with or acknowledge the newly formed animation production workers union that just voted to join IASTE and become an official part of TAG, the animators and animation artists guild

production workers across all studios are currently voting to be recognized for their hard work and invaluable skill at keeping these productions running, but studios are refusing to meet with them to let them negotiate deals or even exist

as someone who works in animation as a designer i know i wouldn't be able to do my job at all without any of my production workers. they are the incredibly hard working people who oversee pretty much everything in animation. they make sure everything is running on time, that schedules are being followed, they have to know pretty much every single word of the scripts and beats from the storyboards to make sure nothing is missed, and most importantly, they make sure artists are being taken care of and not overworked. they really are the unsung heroes of the animation world

production workers are also by far the most exploited workers in animation currently. they make about a fraction of what artists make for just as much work put in, and currently have no agreement for health coverage or other benefits that artists protected by the union are guaranteed

BUT! there is some good news. right now there's a petition on IATSE's website that has over 80,000 signatures currently addressed to disney leadership to do the right thing and meet with this new union and recognized their vote to form. it still needs roughly 21,000 signatures and only takes a minute to sign! anyone with a zip or postal code can sign, meaning both US and Canadian residents can sign and help this union get the deal it deserves!!

i was able to sign from Germany so international zip codes also seem to work!

right now it’s almost halfway through 2023, and 2024 is an election year in the US. I have started to see a growing proliferation of posts suggesting that there is no difference between the republican and democratic parties–the exact same kind of posts I saw an awful lot of before the last major election here. I am unfollowing folks who post or reblog these sort of posts, as I consider these posts to be fascist propaganda framed as leftist discourse, designed to suppress anti-fascist votes and voters. 

Prepare yourself to vote for Biden now, because the only other option is someone who will make 2016-2020 look like a picnic.

You work with what you’ve got, not what you wish you had.

I detest Biden more with every passing day (and he was not in my top 10 candidates in 2020). 2024 will be an election between:

No Labels is an op. It’s being funded by unknown parties to defeat Biden and the Democrats. Their election scenarios are fantasy football for political junkies.

No Third Party has a road anywhere outside statewide offices (Bernie is the exception that proves the rule, and he’s a Democrat for all intents and purposes).

Arguably the rosiest scenario is that TFG breaks with the Republicans to form his own party and tanks any chance the Republicans have, but that’s not looking as likely as it did two years ago.

If you’re pissed, get involved in your local elections. Ensure that no position is running unopposed (and that includes if you’ve got a conserva-Dem somewhere now–primary them).

Get the House back in the Democratic hands (unless you’re up for two more years of this only with MTG as Speaker this time). Increase the margin in the Senate (and send Selema to her post-senate career). Make sure your school board isn’t full of flat-earthers. Wake sure your county counsel isn’t going to shut down your libraries if they have a book someone doesn’t like.

As Stonekettle says, if you want a better country, but a better citizen.

There’s a reason we call it a civic DUTY, not a civic privilege.

Starting mid-April I’ll be posting to-do lists and action items for people who’ve never gotten involved before. One party wants you dead. FIGHT.

Speaking as a Michigan resident:  Look at the laws being passed in Michigan.  Now look at the laws being passed in Florida.  Spot the difference?  That’s because Michigan is being governed by the Democratic Party, and Florida is being governed by the Republican Party.  That’s the difference.  They’re different parties.  It is not the same.

You want what we’ve got?  Vote for it.

(And you want Michigan to stay the way it is and not slide backwards into the shit we had to deal with with Rick Snyder, or even just the way it was when the House and Senate were Republican-controlled?  Keep fucking voting.)

D are not our friends or even allies but R is a staunch enemy

look the main thing is that our first-past-the-poll voting style automatically and always devolves into a two party system where the majority of people dislike both parties. This is now a known phenomenon, a feature of our voting method as inevitable as water running downhill. 

But that isn’t going to change until we get some sweeping voting reform that revises our voting system into some kind of ranked or run-off voting

Meanwhile one of our destined-to-be-disliked parties is actually trying to do things we want (health care, living wages, social services, public transportation, civil rights, education, support for gay and trans people, religious tolerance, etc) and one of our parties is banning books and undoing women’s rights and supporting corrupt racist police and endangering gay and trans lives while paying people to make posts about how both parties are equally bad so that people don’t vote democrat.

Like, we are going to not like a lot of how the Democrats operate, that is a feature of the current design, but they are trying to protect women’s rights, they are trying to help the homeless, they are trying to raise minimum wage they have agendas that include important things. And republicans? are at this point a literal cult that want to create a religious fascist state.

Even my father, now 80 years old, a man whose politics i have often despised, a man who voted for Reagan for fucks sake! even he (unhappily) votes Democrat now, because he’s not an insane person, and the republican party has become SO BLATANTLY EVIL AND STUPID that he can’t ignore it.

Democrats pass legislation we want that republicans then find ways to block. Democrats have passed bills that:

close gender pay gaps raise federal minimum wage make becoming a US citizen easier for immigrants protect civil/public water sources from pollution cut greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change increase gun regulation lower and control prescription drug prices improve healthcare access for those with pre-existing conditions protect net neutrality protect gay marriage rights

these are all the subjects of specific real bills that democrats have either passed into law or tried hard to pass in the last few years. Meanwhile republicans act to block these bills while championing book bans and attacking trans folk and giving more power to corporations to ruin our planet and taking away women’s rights. 

when you see posts attacking Democrats from the left or whatever, the talking points and quotes can often be traced back to right wing sources

So all posts trying to keep non-republicans arguing amongst ourselves and calling for us to not vote democrat (or not vote at all) ? I will be assuming they are bad-faith posts and i won’t be spreading them or engaging with them or anything.

Honest critique of the party is necessary, but like it or not our system currently is a two party system, and i’ll be voting for the better of the two until we can change our voting style to make additional political parties viable.

I live in Pennsylvania.

Neither of my children is cisgender.

The last gubernatorial election was, literally, do we elect this guy who is overly fond of cops but is generally a normal human being, or do we elect this other guy who believes frightening conspiracy theories and wants my children removed from my care and forcibly detransitioned and honestly would prefer them to be dead?

That’s it. That’s the kind of choice we get in first-past-the-post voting. If that second guy won, we needed to move. There was no safe way to stay here. The votes of my fellow citizens were all that was standing between my kids and serious fucking danger.

And my fellow citizens DID turn out. Lots of them came out and voted to reject the scary death cultist. I am grateful to all those who went, ugh, I don’t really like this guy, but the other guy is worse, and hauled themselves down to the polling place to get it done.

You, too, can vote to reject scary death cultists, in your hometown and your home state and in the country as a whole.

Getting rid of the scary death cultists is a prequisite for getting political representation you actually want.

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

w-what if potato is actually lucky

I got great news already but let's see how good it gets :)

Don't forget us this disability awareness month!

for a while there i was sympathetic to tumblr because of how much they’re in debt; i was kind of like “well of course they’re absolutely desperate for new users, they literally need the money or else tumblr goes down forever”. and then suddenly today it hit me that there’s actually no fucking reason for that debt to be causing these ui changes? the userbase has been INCREDIBLY clear about what they want from tumblr over the years, not to mention clear about the fact that even twitter people don’t need this place to look like twitter. it actually would be very… EASY? for them to just make changes in a direction people would actually be HAPPY with?

for fuck’s sake there were people trying to organize a “crab day” for tumblr despite tumblr doing nothing but telling us to go fuck ourselves for months on end. there were people spending hundreds of dollars on check marks just for the glee of MAKING FUN of twitter. can you IMAGINE how much money this userbase would donate to tumblr if they actually made ui updates geared toward what people have been asking for?

if tumblr actually crowdsourced ideas or even just LISTENED to their userbase it may have been possible for them to make way more money than they’re begging for now, they just insist on trying to drive their actual demographic and loyal userbase out for literally no reason

They are doing surveys that are really hard to find because their survey blog has reblogs disabled for some reason.

Log survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2V3MQTP

Short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HS5LP3W

Blog: https://www.tumblr.com/benevolenthellsite

Sorry to everyone who’s enjoyed the last 130 years of science and culture journalism, but Disney needs the money to fund Toy Story 9

idk what traumatized or mentally ill person needs to hear this but dreams (especially the really disturbing ones you dont want to talk about to anybody) arent some deep peek into your psyche or a sign of your True Desires or whatever theyre quite literally your brain making fruit salad with whatever it can find on the shelf. just putting all that shit in a blender and hitting obliterate. its fine, youre fine, youre not a weirdo for it

Hey sorry for posting something like this but I'm really having quite a dire emergency. My partner and I are currently homeless and staying at a hotel. We're trying our best to get by but we have nothing in case one thing goes wrong. So far we have had daily panicking to get money to pay for each tomorrow and I'm hoping this will give us at least a little wiggle room.

We have applied for foodstamps and multiple jobs, waiting for literally anyone to get back to us but so far no such luck

Update: The plasma donation place is now refusing to accept the hotel as a valid address so we now have no way to pay for tomorrow night. Please boost as much as possible because we really need all the help we can get now.

Update: The hotel has kicked us out. We will have a roof over our heads for at least a week and the funds from this will go towards food and getting us a new place to stay.

We've found a good potential place that we'd have for 30 days if we can get it but it'll be $700. We're trying to get the money in other ways too but the donations will help a lot

Hey just a reminder that this is still an issue. We may currently have a place to stay but it's still temporary, the "potential place" is no longer an option and we are looking for other options but we have no funds for it. For the past two weeks we've been working on getting our healthcare needs taken care of and we are currently waiting to hear back from potential jobs within the next few days.

We have been trying to stay focused and keep our heads up but this is all very stressful and we really need and greatly appreciate all help we can get.

you want to help stop tumblr from murdering itself? here's how!

i encourage you to reblog this so we can get as many people leaving feedback as humanly possible. we need to let staff know this is an utterly terrible idea

by the way, tumblr has turned off asks on all of their staff blogs, so this is the only way to tell tumblr how you feel

here it is again because uh. seems relevant.

Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.

I know Ruby. She's a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don't they know how lovely she is?

Ruby was in Tucson, AZ last Thanksgiving. I wasn't able to attend due to illness, but I appreciated the opportunity.

Don't ever hesitate. Reblog this. TUMBLR RULE. When you see it, REBLOG IT.

Here’s some Canadian ones too!

Canada Suicide Prevention Service: Call: 1-833-456-4566 (24/7) or text: 45645 (4 pm to 12 am EST) 

Kids Help Phone: Call: 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868.

First Nations and Inuit Hope For Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310

Transgender Crisis Line: 1-877-330-6366

And then don’t forget about 911 as well! 

Please reblog. This is important!

Reblog this please, somebody might really need it!

I may not be able to spread the message much but still i will try. If you are in any trouble please get help you need. I care about you and love you.

National Suicide Hotline (English, Spanish): 800-273-8255

TherapyRoute (24 Hours, Philippines):

Tawau Paglaum—Centro Bisaya (Cebu):

The National Center for Mental Health Crisis Hotline (PH):

China:

Japan:

Malaysia:

Singapore:

Thailand:

India:

United Kingdom:

The National Suicide Helpline is (I believe) 988 now!

Also note: I’m not totally sure abt this, but 911 isn’t trained in mental health crisis-related de-escalation. I’m not sure what an alternative number tk call is, if anyone knows one (or if I’m wrong) please tell me!