USAmericans: This pride month, talk to the queer people who actually live in all those bad evil icky red states and find out what it's actually like, how we actually feel about it, and who here is actively fighting against it. No more telling us to "just leave" or reducing us to innocent victims who are "trapped" here. There are so many of us and we live here for so many reasons, none of which should be justified. We are resilient, we are powerful, and we are fighting against the fascist laws working to eradicate us or scare us away. Being trans in a red state right now is in and of itself an act of resistance. That being said, pay attention to the brave souls on the front lines, pushing against the laws, making good trouble, and refusing to be silenced.

I won't let myself be talked about like I'm stupid to live here.

I won't let myself be talked about like I'm a helpless victim who's trapped here.

If you can't join the fight by standing beside us, then the least you can do is empower us, amplify our voices, and pay more attention to the ones who are FIGHTING AGAINST THESE LAWS than you are to the chucklefucks trying to pass them.

fellow appalachian, I am holding your hand

1. give money to lgbt organizations in the south

2. come visit your friends here if you have them and specifically check out queer orgs and bookstores if there are any, pride events, protests, that kind of thing. A lot of southern states have pride in october to throw homophobes off their rhythm and to beat the heat. come see what it's like! if you are picturing mordor you are gonna have a hard time humanizing us and helping us tbh

3. if you can't do 1 or 2, follow the activists and minority politicians here who are actively fighting against the legislation. I'm talking like the tennessee three, zooey zephyr, those folks. aka, give more of your attention to the people in our state who are fighting against the fascists, not the fascists. Why? Because it's not hopeless here. Empower us. Who is fighting?

4. Scream every victory from the rooftops. trans healthcare ban recently took a huge blow in florida!!! drag ban recently overturned in tennessee!!!!!!! Pay attention!!! Why? If you are going to talk about what's going wrong, you best give that same attention to what's going right!

5. If someone near you makes a snide, dismissive comment about red states, please shut them down? I'm talking "well that's what they voted for," "why don't they leave?" "wow I would never visit ___!" "let them secede" "I guess the best way for me to help is canceling my disney trip" that kind of shit. Knock it the fuck off. No one here deserves this, it's not about you, and ignoring/abandoning us is literally the least helpful shit in the world?

6. Spread the voices of queer people in red states, especially the positivity, which usually gets ignored. A lot of us love our homes and our communities, and that's why we're staying and fighting for them! Don't tell us that they're garbage or that they don't exist!

Now that Pat Robertson's dead do you think his company will finally accept a buyout of their contractually obligated timeslot on Freeform (née ABC Family) or are they still absolutely committed to it

For anyone who doesn't know the history (or isn't American and doesn't know what this means)

In the 70s Christian Broadcasting Network founded a family TV channel they later sold. When they sold it they included a clause saying the new owners have to give them a timeslot for The 700 Club, and let them take over the network a couple times a year for a full day of fundraising.

During this time their family channel passed through the ownership of Fox and ABC, and during its time as ABC Family it gravitated towards teen dramas. Its brand now is actually not just teen dramas, but often queer, diverse teen dramas. Meanwhile they've been forced to platform a show where the host calls 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina God's punishment for homosexuality (there's also rumors that they forced the network to keep "Family" in the name long after it became a teen network)

By all accounts they've been offered copious amounts of Disney Money and have turned it down every time. The contract is so ironclad Disney lawyers can't find a way to get out of it. Their contract also mandates they can't bury it late at night either, so The 700 Club airs at 10/9 in the morning and 11/10 at night (the latter prevents Freeform from launching any kind of late night block), with disclaimers in front of it. Incredibly snarky disclaimers

Meanwhile their post-700 Club disclaimer looks like this

Pat Robertson's show is holding a network hostage due to a contract from three decades and two owners ago, and the network openly despises them. Literally nothing else like it

Like as an example of the type of Extremely Un-700 Clubian programming Freeform put on around it, at one point Pat Robertson's lead-in was The Fosters, a show about a interracial lesbian couple raising five children, with trans and gay recurring characters, and yes, apparently they did do it deliberately so anyone tuning in early to watch The 700 Club would catch a few minutes of the inclusive lesbian mom show

alex newell and j. harrison ghee make history as first nonbinary acting winners at the tony awards

...Just read this thread. JUST READ IT.

I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.

My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813

And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like

Some people have been wondering about the raccoon. Listen. Listennn. Don't ask about the raccoon.

But does the racoon survive the Uruk-Hai? Does he curl up on Aragorn's head, or does he go straight to Faramir? Does he bite Denethor?

My friend. My colleague. My brother my captain my king. I too have been pondering this question, and in my mind there can be only one ultimate outcome.

A few months later

All hail the High Warden of Gondor.

Epilogue: It ADORES Faramir.

I’m going to wear this on my head like a raccoon and show everyone

PAT ROBERTSON IS DEAD

HAPPY PRIDE!

idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol

One time when I was younger I was refusing to take headache medicine and my mom said “the person who invented that medicine is probably so sad you won’t let them help you” and now every time I find myself denying medicine I just imagine the saddest scientist making those big wet eyes like “why won’t you let me help” and whoop then I take the medicine

A majestic view of a rain-laden cloud blasting hard.  When many clouds gather in the sky in this way and their waters fall like this in the same place, here a phenomenon we call the Flood is formed.-

This would make a midieval peasant believe in Cthulhu.

Fam, this makes me believe in Cthulhu, and I have a goddamn engineering degree

i was thinking about the weirdest phone calls i got when i still worked at the public library and i remembered this one phone call. it was probably less than 20 seconds long, but it still makes me laugh.

anyways, this woman called and without even saying hello after i said the usual “public library, how can i help you?” spiel, she said, “i have a very important question: when you shelve books, do you push them all to the front of the shelf or all the way back?”

it took me a second to process the question and then i answered that, at the library, we always shelve them so that they are even with the front edge so they’re easier to grab and see. she was obviously delighted by this answer and then, as if an afterthought, she asked, “okay, what about you? what do you do at home with your books?” i said i did the same thing. she hummed in obvious agreement and then just like that she said “thank you!” and hung up.

i never heard from her again. i hope she won whatever argument she was having.

for about a year, i worked at a call center for sprint. i have a similar kind of story. a woman called, and said she had a question about the call history on her bill. “sure, let me just pull up your account-” and she cut me off going, “no, no, it’s not anything specific, it’s just. so, if you change the time on your phone, does that change the time on the bill?” “uh… no? the time on the phone doesn’t matter, the call history is recorded by the towers.” “ohhhh” she said in the saltiest voice i have ever heard “so even if you changed the timezone it wouldn’t change the time on the bill? to, say, the middle of the night?” i stg yall i looked into the camera like i was on the office. “um… no? it would still be the local time of the tower. is there anything else i can help you with?” to me, overly chipper: “nope! thank you! have a great day!” turning on someone as she hung up: “she says yoU’RE A LYING SACK OF-” i still mean-snicker every time i think about it.

i used to work in a call center for a roadside assistance company, from late 2015 to early 2016. it was easily the most miserable job i’ve ever had, and the turnover rate was very high. people stuck on the side of the road tend to be quick to anger - understandably so - and it wears on you after awhile.

so i had been having a string of very time-consuming, draining calls. my line rings again, i steel myself for another angry caller, and i pick up. “[redacted] roadside assistance, how can i help you?” i chirp, in my Customer Service Voice.

“yeah, hi,” a gentleman with a thick southern accent responds. “my motorcycle won’t start.”

i brace immediately for another long call. motorcycles were notoriously difficult to work with - a lot of insurance companies wouldn’t insure them, and a lot of tow companies refused to pick them up because they require a specific sort of trailer.

“i’m sorry to hear that, sir. what’s your current location?”

“oh, i’m just at my house. i was wondering if it would be okay for me to just load it into my trailer and take it to my buddy’s shop. would that interfere with my insurance?”

i click through his account and am Relieved to discover he’s in the clear. “No sir, it looks like you’re good to go. Can I help you with anything else?”

A pause. “Have you heard the good news?”

My Anxiety, which had been receding, suddenly spikes into the fucking stratosphere. I live in the rural south. The “good news” usually means “Jesus” and i was in no mood to be proselytized to for god knows how long.

i steel myself for the Religious Talk. “What news, sir?”

“McDonald’s is now serving breakfast all day!”

I laughed so hard I almost cried. I hope that guy ate as many hashbrowns as he could.

other peoples laughter is sweet as nectar and ambrosia... call that acceptance sensitive euphoria

wait a minute.

Cant invent shit w ADHD 😔

bitches be sucking farts there

Found the source of the infographic that explains how the results were obtained!

there’s sixteen Colorado counties that their most searched was “wolf furry”, plus thirty-odd counties (not counting either Arapahoe or any of the ones marked here as “Insufficient Data”) which may well have had plenty of searches for “wolf furry”, just fewer than for whatever they’re labeled here

and “skunk furry” searches in Arapahoe County outnumbered “wolf furry” searches in the entire state of Colorado

something tells me Skunks Georg

@memeuplift

Let's talk about Language

Jonathan Harker is an Englishman from Exeter. As such he speaks (Devon-accented) English.

He has mentioned a couple of times now that he also speaks German, but not very well. He calls it a "smattering" but it's enough to get him through Hungary, which is famously diglossic. He does not speak Hungarian. When he gets into Romania the language barrier becomes more profound because not only does he not understand any Romanian, the locals don't have a whole lot of German either. When he talks to the innkeeper's wife they're both using a common language neither speaks well.

You've all heard me go on about this but I am going to say it again: I'm obsessed with the fact that in earlier drafts when the Count was located in Austria he specifically requested a solicitor who did not speak German. He's not supposed to be able to communicate with the locals. He's supposed to be wholly dependent on Dracula, who as we've seen in the finished version is arranging all his travel and writing him little letters and such to help him navigate his way there.

[Aside: is Dracula speaking German to the coachman? Because Jonathan is able to understand their conversation, which he wouldn't if it were in Romanian. It makes sense because the coachman refers to him as the English Herr. But if so Dracula must be doing so specifically for Jonathan's benefit - otherwise he would be using his own language.]

But! At some point Jonathan acquired a polyglot dictionary! This is another great character moment. Like his research at the British Museum, it means he is aware of his deficiencies (not speaking the local language) and taken steps to correct them. Dracula wants him isolated, but Jonathan wants to know things and talk to people. He asked questions of the waiters in Budapest. He asked questions of the innkepers in Bistritz (who suddenly forgot how to speak German). He can't ask questions of the townsfolk or other passengers on the coach because he doesn't speak their language, but he's trying to understand anyway by means of the resources he does have - the polyglot dictionary. Communication is key and he's trying to make it happen.

A second aside: people have pointed out that he misspells (and mistranslates) ördög. Other people have pointed out that he's remarkably good at looking up words in a language he doesn't speak just on sound. (To harken means to listen and pay attention - his name means Listener, so maybe he's just preternaturally good at that). But he's writing his diary in shorthand, which may not have an obvious way of rendering the diacritics (he leaves them off of mămăligă as well) so that's an extra layer of translation. And he's relying on his little dictionary, but that dictionary may not be reliable, in the same way that despite all his research he was not able to find Castle Dracula on any map. (Maybe it's like Rokovoko - too real for maps).

We laugh a lot at "I must ask the Count about these superstitions," but here's the thing: the Count speaks English. No one else on this trip is able to communicate with Jonathan in his own language (or in theirs!) even if they wanted to (which they often don't, since vampires are Scary). And this is by design!

And Dracula speaks excellent English. Better than Jonathan's German. And he wants to get better at it (which is totally reasonable). But there's this huge linguistic power imbalance here, in spite of which Jonathan still manages to arrive better prepared and better informed than he is supposed to.

By the time Dracula arrives in England, will he be speaking with a Devon accent?

this ask polly comment..

[ID:

screenshot of comment reading:

Oof. Never wanting to feel bad is like never wanting to feel hungry or anything other than the perfect temperature: your body will betray you every second of every day. There's no moral. Suffering is just information. You need a sandwich because you need a sandwich. You need love because you need love. When you trust yourself to eat gorgeously you can stand to be hungry for a few hours before dinner. When you trust yourself to love beautifully you can stand the ups and downs of intimacy.

/end ID]

Happy 10th anniversary to one of my favorite shows :')

We've been losing power due to winter storms lately so my partner 3D printed me a tealight "to fill in for tumblr when you're offline"

anyway this should be official merch imo

If you're wondering why I will not leave this site and why I love it so much: after this went around, I got a message from Tumblr asking if they could make it official merch and then they did. It went live yesterday I think, and it's even prettier and better than this original design (they definitely put work into it which was very exciting).

But I want to say something else. They asked for suggestions on where to get these made, and I gave them the names of a few mass production companies, but I also gave them the name of my small local guys. I didn't expect them to go there, it's probably more expensive to use a smaller local shop, but I know it would mean more to them. And I was immediately told they'd check in with them, and then that's just what happened.

They went with my little guys.

So if you're wondering about the price, it's because Tumblr staff just... Listened and cared. They listened to the people who said they wanted one of these, and then they not only asked me but listened to the answer when I suggested supporting a business local to me. That's invaluable to me.

#oh lmao get his ass #and jc would never hear a single one of these comments #would never show it but he still a tiny bit terrified of lqr #so every time lqr tries to make we-are-equals-i-approve small talk jc makes an excuse to get away within 5 minutes #leaving lqr to stare pensively after him and think about how dedicated jc is to his work... (via midomidomidoriya)

#pffft #oh poor lxc #meng yao help him!! #he doesn't understand excel!! (via ancientstone)

#Lqr has a crush on JC's spreadsheets #And finds his work ethic deeply attractive #LXC just wishes his uncle would stop (via thepurplewombat)