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do you think it'll all be okay?

yeah. even if it won’t i’ve got people to love in the meantime

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its crazy when i like a female character and i think well she’s clearly flawed but at least she’s interesting :) and then i make the fatal mistake of witnessing other people’s opinions on the subject and find out that the consensus amongst fans is that she’s an irredeemable demon bitch from hell

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.......I fucked up so bad.

I've been teaching Belphie not to jump on Pangur, cause she's old and arthritic and doesn't like it. and as part of my "training", I've been giving him a treat every times he stops his evil actions and trots over to me.

I thought I was training him to come when called. in actuality, I've been training him to bite Pangur. so now he'll jump on her, chew her ear, and then make bird-of-prey eye contact with me from across the room. and the worst thing is I'VE ALSO BEEN GIVING PANGUR A TREAT EACH TIME (so she doesn't feel left out). which means that she'll whimper pathetically from Belphie biting her, and then also make intense eye contact with me, because she's been conditioned to expect treats afterward.

I have accidentally made the most fucked up dynamic possible with both of these cats.

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your life is not an optimization problem

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I love you being trans I love you trans women i love you gender exploration I love you self discovery

[link to the Reddit post]

[ID: two screenshots of a reddit post on r/offmychest by user awaythrowjessie, titled "My girlfriend made me realize I'd be happier as a woman". it reads as follows:

I am 33, born male, and have had major self image issues my entire life. I hated seeing myself in mirrors, pictures, you name it. I honestly thought it was kinda normal so I just accepted it.

Now about 3 weeks ago I was at my girlfriends house, we have been dating a little over a year now, and have plans to move in together soon. Now recently she has shaved her head to support of her friends with cancer (side note thenl treatments for that friend are going very well). She had since bought some wigs to wear while her hair grows back out. We were joking around as I have male pattern baldness, and when she went to the bathroom I jokingly threw a wig on and waited. She came our, saw me we laughed for a bit and she said "you know I think you'd make a pretty girl" we laughed some more but those words triggered something in me.

Cut to a few night's ago she asked why I've been acting weird lately and I just told her how i was feeling. She said "alright let's do this " and when I asked what she told me she was going to give me a bit of a makeover and put me in one of her dresses and if i liked it then good. I was nervous and asked what if I did like it would she still be attracted to me. She just responded with "Baby you know I'm bi, guy or girl you're still mine." Her words reassured me honestly i love her so much.

Anyways she finished the make up, fitted a wig on me perfectly and got me in a dress and even helped me put a bra on and stuff in a little so i could see what breasts would kinda look like on me. Now I expected to see myself in the mirror, laugh this off and move on right, but I didn't. She did an unbelievable job, like I looked like I had been born a woman, and when I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in my entire life, I liked what I saw. I probably stared at myself for a good 10 minutes before she finally asked me something. She asked what I wanted to be called. After a few seconds I said Jessie, I always like the name Jessie. She whispered in my ear "well Jessie, you look beautiful." And that was it, I knew this was who i wanted to be.

I'm nervous now though, my friends will accept it but my family are, well let's just say not very progressive. But this is what I want.

end ID]

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iof shut down the gaza border again, cutting it off from aid, again. the cost of daily living will likely rise again. please donate to the people working to make things a little more equitable in the face of death:

the sameer project

workshops4gaza (workshops/bookstore, proceeds go to the sameer project)

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One of the most important things to unpack and unlearn when you’re part of a white supremacy saturated society (i.e. the global north) and especially if you were raised in an intensified form of it (evangelicism, right wing politics, explicit racism) is the urge to punish and take revenge.

It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.

Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”

Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”

How much would that change you? How much would that have changed for you?

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1980s eupha

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premarital divorce

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Put the light out. | Turn the light on.

I started this painting about this time last year, finished it a couple months ago, and then promptly forgot to post it. WHOOPS.

Anyway. Awhile ago I was hit by the similar but opposing natures of fire towers and lighthouses, and I wanted to explore that more. Both lonely, out of the way stations worked in isolation in sometimes extreme conditions, both tasked with protecting large swathes of people they will never meet or probably even see. Yet one is about spotting light in the distance and putting it out, while the other is about turning on the light within and shining it out.

I'm doing a special run of prints of this illustration on high quality poster canvas paper, at multiple sizes and starting at just $10usd, to help with the fact that I've been caught in the government hiring freeze, so I'm not sure when I'll be back to work at my day job at this point.

You can pre-order a print here.

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Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

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I despise CNN reporters they're all arms of the Israeli government doing the same propaganda as always i hate them I hate them I hate them

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people have got to learn the difference between I didnt like it and It was bad

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society and makeup companies to women at all times: you have to wear makeup, like you literally have to or else you look like a corpse, so wear it you fucking corpse. aren't you terrified of getting old? aren't you insecure about your little blemishes? we have the $80 solution.

someone online: you don't have to wear makeup

someone else in response, without fail, every single time: yeah but it's okay if you want to wear makeup :). I mean, it's a personal choice, which involves no coercion from the constant social pressures that dictate how women should present themselves, so go ahead! Don't let mean people bully you into thinking it's okay to have flaws in your skin.