#and I have hope

[centaurianthropology]

Hello American followers!

I know you're all likely sexy and smart enough not to have fallen for bots and trolls and bad actors calling upon you not to vote. I know you're all likely the sort who already have weighed the many issues facing our country today, and have either voted accordingly or are in the process of doing so.

Because you are cool, and smart, and sexy. And because being an informed adult and caring about your neighbors, your community, and the marginalized folks of your country is also cool, and smart, and sexy.

But I feel like spreading the message anyway, because today is not the day to fuck around with being a responsible citizen. Today is the day for laying aside apathy, well-fed cynicism egged on by assholes who directly benefit from you giving up, and the sort of thinking that allows you to let perfection be the enemy of the good.

This is the day you can genuinely let your voice be heard. It's not the only day, but it could be. Depending on the way things go, protesting and pushing for change will either remain fairly straightforward or become a much more dangerous thing. The rights of the marginalized might continue to expand (perhaps slower than you want, but still expand), or they could be crushed and revoked. The courts could slowly turn back toward supporting the people of the nation, or we could face a supreme court eager to take away rights, enshrine cruelty, and walk back half a century of progress toward a better future.

This election matters. Your vote matters. If it didn't, bots and trolls and bad actors wouldn't work so hard to make you feel like it didn't. Today is the day to put on your adult pants and do the right thing, so pull them up and go vote.

[hug-your-face]

via @swatercolour here on Tumblr and also on [insta]

EDIT: I do not interpret "just managing" as "just suffering, just enduring, curling into a fetal position and waiting for it to be over." Managing is an active process.

So I'm using this post as a platform to make the reminder that "the power of the people is greater than the people in power," and we all are cordially invited to:

Take good care of ourselves. Mental, physical, emotional health. Hydrate. Move if we can, get outside if we can.

Keep up a routine. Remember quarantine and we all had to find a routine? This is the same.

Be intentional in our news consumption. Let's not stick our heads in the sand but let's not doomscroll either. Get an RSS aggregator. Subscribe to WTF Just Happened Today, Yoour Local Epidemiologist, Fix The News (for some inspiring hopeful news!). We'll check our feeds a few times a week, but no more than once a day.

Connect with friends and loved ones. Remind ourselves that while SOME people are horrible, for the most part people are awesome... if complicated. Share our fears but also our hopes. Eat together.

Now that we're keeping healthy, safe, sane, and hopeful... now we also fight. Quietly if we prefer, loudly if we prefer. But sustainably. I hate that I had to live through three rounds of this nonsense where a few people use half of us as tools to fuck over ALL of us, but here we are again. So let us take just one moment every week or so to...

Use 5calls to keep blowing up our reps phones. Tell them to either break ranks with the Orange Administration, or to stand up louder than just matching outfits and signs. Or to THANK them for standing up.

Use Vote411 to find elections before the midterms. A lot of villages, cities, townships etc have local elections that will affect where we live... and more importantly, the people in office there will affect things upwards too.

Use Ballotpedia to know exactly what's on our ballots ahead of time.

Protest, because it actually works.

Use Vote.org to make a plan to vote in the midterms. Make a plan that is immune to voter suppression tactics. Get our documents in order. Reach out to our friends to go to the polls as a group. Plan to livestream our visit, up until the point we have to turn our cameras off.

Make and share memes that promote hope, organizing, solidarity, and/or resistance.

Get involved with an action network like Indivisible, MoveOn, or Working Families Party.

Go to a local town hall meeting. Speak up.

Heck, start our own local activism networks, letter campaigns, call campaigns, or fundraisers with Action Network.

And we will remember our self-care. We will remind ourselves and each other that they want us scattered, focus is how we resist.

It IS coming back. Things ARE going to get worse. The world has become a place where a very few people are pulling levers and pushing buttons that are actively destroying much of what is good about living in a society where people care for each other.

Many others are in shock, sputtering "but can they do that?" MANY many others are waiting for someone to come save us.

But there are those who are actively, loudly, opposing.

And there are more people speaking up, acting up, every day. More people saying it's time to get scrappy. It's time to get into some good trouble. The shock is wearing off.

Yes, it's gonna get worse before it gets better (the long-term damage of the acts of the past momentum of all the damage that has been done will take that long to be felt -- but it WILL get better.

If WE will it.

[robyn-i-guess]

liking someone platonically is so embarrassing like. yeah i admire you. yeah i think about you all the time. yeah i look forward to every time i see you even if it's only for a minute. yeah it's all platonic and yeah i couldn't explain this because it'd sound romantic. fucking hell

[elbiotipo]

Also I've said this before but advertising is an industry that should be considered as pointless and harmful as fossil fuels.

[pallettown]

genuinely so scary that you can't access the page on the ssc website that guides you through changing your sex designation. so so fucking scary. they are already making our lives harder. they are already taking what little resources we have.

[satturn]

star by mitski 🌠

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love you Safety Wizard.

(Inspired by @keroascrazy)

[so-i-did-this-thing]

The evolution of (trans) man.

(Well, this one, anyway.)

Age 9: "Tomboy"

Age 15: Strictly enforced femininity

Age 30: Hitting the mental limits of being closeted all his life and about to crash HARD

Age 47: Fifteen years now since starting transition. Far more good days than bad, no regrets.

The world may be full of uncertainty and danger, but I resolve to continue to find joy in who I am. Be joyful to be kind to yourself and be joyful to spite the bastards who would tear us apart.

[whiteraven90]

Who would win? The thousand pound flying meathook t-rex, or… monkey with a stick?

[chongoblog]

So a lot of political scandals just dropped in the last 24 hours

-NC Governor Candidate Mark Robinson's online posts were found, including some VERY graphic descriptions (like seriously, do not read if you're not 18) of him cheating on his wife, calling himself a black Nazi, and expressing support for reinstituting slavery. His email address was also found on Ashley Madison

-Robert F Kennedy Jr was revealed to be cheating on his wife with a reporter (and that isn't even the weirdest thing since federal law enforcement opened an investigation into him allegedly cutting off the head of a whale and taking it home with him less than 24 hours ago)

-GOP Senate candidate who is the CEO of a bank has been found accepting millions of dollars from what seem to allegedly be Mexican drug cartels.

-Finally, probably the biggest bombshell, according to multiple eyewitness testimonies within sealed sworn affadavits, Congressman Matt Gaetz allegedly invited a 17-year-old girl to a drug-fueld sex party

And we haven't even hit October, folks. Again, these are all still breaking news stories, so things are subject to change, but oh man oh man.

[datcravat]

HATSUNE MIKU?! IS THAT YOU?

[teaboot]

The chick's bathroom at my location always has a bunch of fake flowers and seasonal soaps and posters n shit in it and I just asked the custodian kid if the men's did too and he said "Nah just the urinals, the women's room gets all the nice stuff" and he sounded so sincerely wistful so in conclusion I know what I'm gonna do this Christmas

[wishfulsketching]

I have finally finished season 2 of Arcane and can now enjoy your art without fear!!! They should be happy together 🥺

I take it "they" means zaundads because that is what I've been drawing the most BUT, lets be honest, applies to like 98% of the characters in the show.

They should've been a big happy familyyyy

[ghosted-jazz]

The protagonist of Legends ZA being Sycamore's kid is real TO ME

[starfalcon555]