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I don’t think I’m ever going to be over a woman hitting on me at a club whilst I was dressed as Legolas.

LEGOLAS.

Anyways here’s me as Legolas on Halloween 2023:

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Hawks Sonic pose

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okay so I finished Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs, and here are my takeaways, because it was AMAZING and I can't believe all US students aren't required to read it in school:

shows how slavery actually worked in nuanced ways i'd never thought much about

example: Jacobs's grandmother would work making goods like crackers and preserves after she was done with her work day (so imagine boiling jars at like 3 a.m.) so that she could sell them in the local market

through this her grandmother actually earned enough money, over many years, to buy herself and earn her freedom

BUT her "mistress" needed to borrow money from her. :)))) Yeah. Seriously. And never paid her back, and there was obviously no legal recourse for your "owner" stealing your life's savings, so all those years of laboring to buy her freedom were just ****ing wasted. like.

But also! Her grandmother met a lot of white women by selling them her homemade goods, and she cultivated so much good will in the community that she was able to essentially peer pressure the family that "owned" her into freeing her when she was elderly (because otherwise her so-called owners' white neighbors would have judged them for being total assholes, which they were)

She was free and lived in her own home, but she had to watch her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all continue to be enslaved. She tried to buy her family but their "owners" wouldn't allow it.

Enslaved people celebrated Christmas. they feasted, and men went around caroling as a way to ask white people in the community for money.

But Christmas made enslaved people incredibly anxious because New Years was a common time for them to be sold, so mothers giving their children homemade dolls on Christmas might, in just a few days' time, be separated from their children forever

over and over again, families were deliberately ripped apart in just the one community that Harriet Jacobs lived in. so many parents kept from their children. just insane to think of that happening everywhere across the slave states for almost 200 years

Harriet Jacobs was kept from marrying a free Black man she loved because her "owner" wouldn't let her

Jacobs also shows numerous ways slavery made white people powerless

for example: a white politician had some kind of relationship with her outside of marriage, obviously very questionably consensual (she didn't hate him but couldn't have safely said no), and she had 2 children by him--but he wasn't her "master," so her "master" was allowed to legally "own" his children, even though he was an influential and wealthy man and tried for years to buy his children's freedom

she also gives examples of white men raping Black women and, when the Black women gave birth to children who resembled their "masters," the wives of those "masters" would be devastated--like, their husbands were (from their POV) cheating on them, committing violent sexual acts in their own house, and the wives couldn't do anything about it (except take out their anger on the enslaved women who were already rape victims)

just to emphasize: rape was LEGALLY INCENTIVIZED BY US LAW LESS THAN 200 YEARS AGO. It was a legal decision that made children slaves like their mothers were, meaning that a slaveowner who was a serial rapist would "own" more "property" and be better off financially than a man who would not commit rape.

also so many examples of white people promising to free the enslaved but then dying too soon, or marrying a spouse who wouldn't allow it, or going bankrupt and deciding to sell the enslaved person as a last resort instead

A lot of white people who seemed to feel that they would make morally better decisions if not for the fact that they were suffering financially and needed the enslaved to give them some kind of net worth; reminds me of people who buy Shein and other slave-made products because they just "can"t" afford fairly traded stuff

but also there were white people who helped Harriet Jacobs, including a ship captain whose brother was a slavetrader, but he himself felt slavery was wrong, so he agreed to sail Harriet to a free state; later, her white employer did everything she could to help Harriet when Harriet was being hunted by her "owner"

^so clearly the excuse that "people were just racist back then" doesn't hold any water; there were plenty of folks who found it just as insane and wrongminded as we do now

Harriet Jacobs making it to the "free" north and being surprised that she wasn't legally entitled to sit first-class on the train. Again: segregation wasn't this natural thing that seemed normal to people in the 1800s. it was weird and fucked up and it felt weird and fucked up!

Also how valued literacy skills were for the enslaved! Just one example: Harriet Jacobs at one point needed to trick the "slaveowner" who was hunting her into thinking she was in New York, and she used an NYC newspaper to research the names of streets and avenues so that she could send him a letter from a fake New York address

I don't wanna give away the book, because even though it's an autobiography, it has a strangely thrilling plot. But these were some of the points that made a big impression on me.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl also inspired the first novel written by a Black American woman, Frances Harper, who penned Iola Leroy. And Iola Leroy, in turn, helped inspire books by writers like Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston. Harriet Jacob is also credited in Colson Whitehead's acknowledgments page for informing the plot of The Underground Railroad. so this book is a pivotal work in the US literary canon and, again, it's weird that we don't all read it as a matter of course.

(also P.S. it's free on project gutenberg and i personally read it [also free] on the app Serial Reader)

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(whispers) dwarves are lame pass it on

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good evening

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no. 2

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jokes to make after failure that aren’t self-deprecating:

I’m the best to ever do it

Nobody saw that (best if said loudly)

No one’s ever done it like me

I could be President/they should make me President

Behold, a mere fraction of my power!

The public wants to be me soooooo bad

I’m an expert in (thing you just failed at)

How could this have happened to god’s favorite princess?

Nothing ibuprofen and a glass of water cant fix

I’m being sabotaged

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Hi tumblr uh pride month! Bye

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One of my friends is in Japan rn and got me the Hawks figure I REALLY wanted that would cost me between £150-£200 for around £10 this is insanity

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I mention that Micky Dolenz of the Monkees liked and retweeted a portrait I did of him but never the fact that everytime I posted art of Michael Mell during my BMC phase I always had George Salazar liking it

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Feminist fantasy is funny sometimes in how much it wants to shit on femininity for no goddamned reason. Like the whole “skirts are tools of the patriarchy made to cripple women into immobility, breeches are much better” thing.

(Let’s get it straight: Most societies over history have defaulted to skirts for everyone because you don’t have to take anything off to relieve yourself, you just have to squat down or lift your skirts and go. The main advantage of bifurcated garments is they make it easier to ride horses. But Western men wear pants so women wearing pants has become ~the universal symbol of gender equality~)

The book I’m reading literally just had its medievalesque heroine declare that peasant women wear breeches to work in the field because “You can’t swing a scythe in a skirt!”

Hm yes story checks out

peasant women definitely never did farm labour in skirts

skirts definitely mean you’re weak and fragile and can’t accomplish anything

skirts are definitely bad and will keep you from truly living life

no skirts for anyone, that’s definitely the moral of the story here

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"WHAT PLATO SHOULD I READ!!!!!!" (A HANDY GUIDE) (not all are represented)

"I hate myself!" - The sophists

"I wish I had experienced sex at some point in my lifetime! Or perhaps recently!" - The Symposium

Alternatively: "I am experiencing a terrible insatiable pining and am on verge of tears!" - The Symposium

"I love it when someone's a slightly arrogant asshole!" - The Euthyphro

"It really bothers me when people ignore their friends!" - The Crito

"I've always thought about how nice soldiers look in their little outfits but I think they should train naked instead sometimes!" - The Laches

"I want to imagine a place that may or may not suck for everoyne involved!" - The Republic

"I imagine Socrates would have enjoyed oiling up young Athenian men with olive oil granted the chance!" - The Charmides

"I need to understand the concept of hotness so I can do it myself!" - The Phaedrus

"Does Socrates experience love, and if so, what does it look like?" - The Alcibiades I

"How do I know if I even have friends?" - The Lysis

"I'm not a Socrates fan :(" - The Phaedo

Alternatively: "I am a huge Socrates fan and would like to see him surrounded by friends, but I also take pleasure in crying!" - The Phaedo

"Socrates did nothing wrong!" - The Apology

"I love to know about murder mysteries!" - The Hipparchus

"I'm a math major!" - The Theatetus, The Timeus

"I understood AND enjoyed Hegel!" - The Parmenides

"I don't think it's possible for people to get better!" - The Protagoras

"I forget things often!" - The Meno

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do you think that a certain genre of queer person is so obsessively weird about pride flag discourse becuase their flags fill the gaping hole in their personality where a hogwarts house used to be

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daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

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Remember to make space for the heteros this month too - yes, really.

Lesbians who became straight men

Gay men who became straight women

All straight drag artists (note that not all of them are cis!)

People with complex identities who thusly encompass multiple orientations (like genderfluid and multigender people who, yes, are sometimes straight, or even simultaneously with other labels)

Hetero aro and ace people. Especially. Seriously.

People with fluid orientations

Gnc people who find joy in their straightness

Many queer people are also straight. Queerness is note solely reliant on gayness. These people too, are a part of pride. Remember that.

[All discourse attempts will be swiftly blocked. Exclusionists fuck off]

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One of my friends taught James Marriott how lino printing works this is so funny