#and they were very ...

[andisupreme]

At the company retreat, one extremely drunk girl asked what my pronouns were. (Eventually, it took her a while to word the question.) After the whole conversation was done, she goes- "YEAHHH GURL, Get on with--with THY bad self! See what I did?? They/them/thy."

I was almost holding back tears from trying not to laugh as I told her yes that's great you nailed it honey. Thank you very much I am feeling the love.

Anyway I've been assigned Thee/Thine at Supportive Drunk Girl

[elliejaybird]

my drive home from work yesterday

[great-and-small]

Apparently the local university’s undergraduate entomology course sends students to catch insect specimens at the same place I like to go birdwatching, which explains why I saw three enormous frat looking dudes with tiny bug nets and overheard one emphatically say “bro BRO I told you we already have enough lepidopterans”

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[apollos-boyfriend]

little kids are so fucking funny man. had a kid that couldn’t be any older than like 8 or so come up to me today asking where our dinosaur books where, and when i tried to gently redirect them downstairs (where our kids section is) they very matter-of-fairly informed me that they’d already read every book down there and are ready to learn about the “secret, grown-up only dinosaurs” now

[blahlahblash]

Happy Holidays people, or day. Happy day :)

As a gift, have subtle December sonadow because this is what I decided to like

[batfam-stuff-posts-0]

Tim: Want to play a game?

Jason: *war flashbacks to knife monopoly* ...okay...?

Tim: It's called 'Jon or katana'. I give you actual quotes from Damian, and you guess if he was talking to his sword or his boyfriend.

Jason:

Jason: Awesome.

[eonars]

Last summer I was on a very expedited acid come up at a music festival and my entirely unaware mother thousands of miles away was at costco and texted me incredulous at how they already had halloween stuff out for sale in the summer but all I saw was a message preview of a giant 10 foot tall skeleton with glowing eyes and "can u believe it??"

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

My favourite underrated thing about Louis de Point du Lac is that he truly is the least curious vampire to ever be made and he does not give fuck about vampires despite being one.

Its Claudia who goes to libraries, reads the folklore, tries to learn as much as she can and pushes Lestat for answers about who made him and where the others are. Claudia says Vampire Pride and Louis says hmmm Vampire Tolerance.

And Louis...truly does not care about vampire history,law, culture. He's never even thought to ask. There are vampire laws?...ok...Lestat never cared about them and he's not going to either, lol. He's broken a few and he will continue to do so. Oh you have a coven? he's not gonna join it, he's gonna do his own thing. but good for you good for you.

the 500+ year old Coven Leader, he's gonna call Louis, Maitre, actually.

He has fire powers? thats kinda cool. he'll learn that but only cause it lets him vent his feelings about Lestat.

Lestat and Armand say the name of the vampire queen in front of him and Lestat straight up says, "Louis has no idea who that is" and do you think Louis cares, outside of the fact that for some reason it means he can't kill Lestat? No! Do you think in the 77 years he's been with Armand he ever took 5 minutes to ask a follow up question? No!

Do you think he will care about Akasha in season 3? Doubt it! Outside of her obsession with Lestat, who is the only person left on the planet he seems to be able to filter Caring About This Shit through

He blatantly breaks the 3rd law and publishes a book about being a vampire and when the other vampires get pissed not only does he not apologise he literally sends them his location and says 'you wanna fight? lmao don't miss'

I love him. Daniel Molloy is gonna need to bring his A game because Louis will not be solving a single mystery next season, nor would it even occur to him to try.

[eydilily]

gem n joel the strongest duo (family) that you are

and of course. her

[redpapercraness]

all four of my sonic 3 movie trailer redraws in one spot 🫡

[bonefarm]

Deer season is upon us.

1.) Wear your seatbelt.

2.) If your choice is swerve at high speed or hit the deer you plow Bambis mom like you’re an IT specialist with a secret Twitter account and it’s anthrocon weekend.

Deer are softer than trees. Deer are softer than rolling your car 8 times.

[ink-the-artist]

Love the contrast between the Americans’ “Apollo” and the Soviets’ “Sputnik.” You got the Americans naming their rocket after a Greek god trying to communicate the grandness and importance of this rocket. And you got the Soviets naming their rocket “fellow traveler.” Like a friend you go on an  adventure with together. This rocket is our little friend lol 

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[kedreeva]

There's some dude (derogatory) on FB who is PISSED people are pricing their farm fresh eggs at $2 and $3 a dozen instead of $4+, saying it's "disrespectful" and "undignified" and "I'm trying to feed my kids" like Sir, you are on a Facebook group page bitching about your neighbors egg prices because your pet chickens aren't earning you a living wage and you think it's your neighbors' fault, you do not have a leg to stand on here wrt dignity.

Also half the answers are like "I give them to friends and family free" or "I donate them to food banks" or "I'm making them affordable to folks who might not otherwise be able to get them now that they're so expensive in the store" and "if you think you're going to turn a profit keeping backyard chickens you have been wildly misled" and so on, and so forth, and I'm so living for it.

and I can tell you right now, he did NOT like my answer of "if you're trying to feed your kids, I hear eggs are edible."