“So, imagine we’re all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there’s that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That’s the maximum depth of feeling you’ve ever experienced. And then, the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it’s all right because that thing will happen to me when I’m older and wiser, and I’ll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, this worst possible feeling, won’t seem so terrible.

“But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking — when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn’t just stop at the bottom — it goes all the way down.”

— casey mcquiston, red, white, & royal blue

————-

More dispatches from the front lines of the culture war aka Texas. The rage is never ending and exhausting

I'm not trying to be a shit about this but like we *need* solidarity over this because the alarm was being sounded almost 20 years ago when W let Texas (and other southwestern states) start cutting out Mexican and Chicano history.

As a reminder, Texas constitutes one of the largest textbook markets. Whatever they remove, smaller and/or poorer states will struggle to put back or compensate for when they make their textbook purchases.

That means how Texas goes a disproportionate amount of school resources go.

This is an extremely, extremely important addition ^ Texas has an enormous sway on textbooks everywhere. When it comes to almost any issue...Texas isn't "just Texas." The people in the notes that are like "Texas should just secede" or "can we just get rid of Texas already" are missing a critical point here. (And throwing the community activists who are trying to combat this stuff under the bus, but I digress.)

As I (and many others for longer and better than me) have tried to explain: Texas is a state of 29 million, and very powerful. The state government is NOT acting in the interests of the majority of the people, they are trying to maintain their decades long stranglehold on power, by doing everything they can, including miseducating youth with propaganda.

Even in the best of voter turnout years, only 52% of the eligible voting population casts a ballot in Texas. Communities of color, low income communities, disabled voters and all kinds of other marginalized folks have had their voting access nearly strangled to death. What happens in Texas is coming for everywhere. We should be talking about national policies to curb this shit.

I worked in textbook publishing for ten years, and I cannot overemphasize how important Texas is to the textbook market. What Texas decides should be taught affects what the rest of the US teaches.

In case you were wondering why American history is so heavily Confederatized...this is why.  Texas has been affecting the nation’s textbook market for decades.  And because publishers want to sell textbooks in Texas and the South, they adapt their textbooks to be supportive of historical myth (Columbus, the Pilgrims, the Alamo, the Confederacy) rather than unwelcome facts. Unions and civil rights are downplayed. Black, Mexican, Chicano, and Native American history gets minimized, twisted or erased. 

All this is pandering to a very specific audience, because if Texas doesn’t approve of a book--if Texas’s textbook review boards don’t feel that the book supports “American values” or if they see admission of racism as “inflammatory” and upsetting to (white) students and their families--that book will not, as a rule, be sold in Texas or the South. If it is, there will almost certainly be lawsuits over the “radical” nature of the book and how it could cause “unrest” in schools.

If I sound disgusted, it’s because I am.

I am relatively young but in final stage renal failure. I have a higher chance of survival IF I can recieve proper medical care AND LIVING ASSISTANCE in a different state. Get me OUT of Mississippi. 8/29/18

The long post w the good explanation is being shared but not inspiring much help. So, I simplified it.

My illness is straight up fatal. Not gonna beat around thatBush, anymore. I seem desperate for help because I AM desperate for help.

My nephrologist has seen enough improvement in my kidney function, lately, to believe someone my age (early 30s) might have a longer life WITH PROPER AND FREQUENT MEDICAL ATTENTION. Sadly, that just isn’t an option where I live.

Please, if you can help me with moving expenses (even just a couple of bucks) I would be grateful. I’m sinking fast in Mississippi and now my doctors are giving me too much hope to ignore. I wanna get out of this situation and I’m working my fatigued, brain-foggy ass off to make it out of here.

If I can undo the damage my heart failure caused to the rest of my body, I want to. I don’t want to spend another month KNOWING what I should be eating, what medicines I should be taking, what tests and treatments I should be getting… and receiving almost none of it because Mississippi lawmakers think people like me have somehow earned slow, painful deaths.

Oct 15 2020

Thanks for reblogging & donating to help keep me alive. This has easily been the most difficult two years of my life even without violence and plague in the world outside my breaking body.

Asking for help getting winter boots and tires. I’ve relocated to a place with snow since this first post and these are the things I can never afford to replace but always seem to wear down.

I mostly do delivery as work & community aid. I can’t do either without my car & boots.

I still am waiting on transplant.

Share if you can’t help, at the moment. I’ll be grateful to just replace two tires and wait to do the others.

huh

Let’s go over some things, shall we?

Don’t forget this scene: 

I’d suspected Jenny was trans coded for a long time, but this scene was what had me 100% convinced. 

Prior to this episode Jenny had always treated Ms. Wakeman as her mother, always referring to her as “mom/mother”; which caused Wakeman to be mocked by her peers. Ms. Wakeman was typically cold towards Jenny, always referring to her as XJ9 (essentially Jenny’s deadname) and usually treating her as nothing more than a defence droid. But in this scene Ms. Wakeman is actually seeing Jenny in danger and rushes to protect her, finally calling her “my daughter” for the first time. As soon as she does, the pure joy and amazement in Jenny’s voice just makes my heart swell. 

This show is so incredible and SO ahead of it’s time. 

Worth noting that the creator of the show acknowledged this, basically saying “We didn’t intend for Jenny to be trans coded, but we’re ecstatic that trans people are finding comfort in her. Just because we didn’t intend the subtext doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Very cool and way the hell better than Hartman handles shit like this.

Credit: @buddythefourth

Daang.

he wins best Spider-Man cosplay ever

I honestly thought they were both stills for a moment.

your weight doesn’t determine whether or not you’re beautiful. your family doesn’t determine whether or not you’re loved. your achievements don’t determine whether or not you’re deserving or intelligent.

stop loving yourself conditionally and letting these things tell you whether or not you’re good enough. you’ll always be good enough and you always have been.

She was on that episode and a very stupid opportunity presented itself

every time that garlic bread is on sale i am transported to a better life and this is to speak to the nature of love; we accept what we are when we are mirrored in nature. also i love garlicbread

No pictured: Off to the right Donald Trump is telling people not to let the trolley dominate them. 

Necessary addendum:

it took nine seconds for me to fully process what i was watching and then i started LAUHGHING

I would be dead

who wants to go to the aquarium with me i want to stand in cold rooms for two hours straight and look at jellyfish and maybe pet a small stingray

emotionally i am here

a woman’s face at the end of a horror/thriller movie? where she has that serene expression on her face - whether it shows peace, joy, a bone-deep exhaustion, satisfaction, or simply growing insanity? with her skin absolutely dripping with blood and grime, her clothes torn and ragged, and her being illuminated by police lights and/or a raging fire? that’s some fine-fucking-art

this is exactly what we need, news outlets lemony-snicketting trump

amazing

She thinks the shit is a Pokémon omg

white men will watch si fi and think “haha technology go brrr” when the characters are basically looking at the camera and saying “imperialism is bad. fascism is a disease. women should have rights and be able to get abortions” and then complain when newer si fi features a trans person

been thinking about appearances and stuff

so this totally blew up last night and i would just like to say to everyone in the comments and tags: you’re all doing great!! i’m so proud of everyone’s who’s found themselves and for everyone who hasn’t yet: you’ll get there!!! i believe in each and every one of you!

It’s far more patriotic to question and hold leadership accountable, than to blindly support them.

eating is a good thing. feeding yourself is a good thing.