#and we can fucking do it!!!!

[artificial-horizon]

TIL about Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman, a badass aviation pioneer who was the first Black and Native American woman to obtain a pilot's licence. Not sure if the Americans of Tumblr already know about her, but as a Brit I unfortunately did not until now, so I wanted to share her story here! (Image IDs in alt text.)

Born in Texas on January 26, 1892, Bessie was the tenth of thirteen children in a family of sharecroppers. From the age of six, she attended a small, segregated school, where she excelled as a student and eventually won a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School aged 12. When she turned 18, she moved to Langston, Oklahoma to study at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University, but had to drop out after one semester due to financial difficulties and returned to work at the acorn fields back home.

When she was 24, Bessie moved to Chicago, Illinois and worked as a manicurist in a barber shop, where she discovered her passion for aviation after hearing the stories of some of the clients, who had been pilots during World War One. She then decided to become a pilot herself, taking on a second job to save up for flight school. However, no flight schools in the US would admit Black or women students, so another of the barber shop's clients, Robert Abbott - a Black philanthropist and publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper - suggested that she move to France and learn to fly there. He and Jesse Binga, another Black philanthropist and banker, gave her the financial support to do this, so in November 1920, Bessie set off for France to begin her training.

On June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman was awarded an international pilot's licence by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, becoming both the first Black woman and the first American to do so. Following this, she returned to the US, but found it difficult to make a living as a pilot, as commercial flight did not yet exist - her only option was to become a stunt (aerobatic) pilot. Once again, the US's racism and misogyny prevented her from receiving stunt training there, so in 1922 she went back to France, and by September that year was back home again for her first stunt flight. On September 3, Labor Day, she became the first Black woman to stage a public flight in the US, flying at a show sponsored by the Chicago Defender and held in honour of the veterans of the all-Black 369th Infantry Regiment of WWI.

Bessie soon became a media sensation, earning herself the nickname "Queen Bess" and performing at air shows across the US and Europe in a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane (example pictured above). She refused to fly at any shows that did not permit Black people to attend, and went on speaking tours at schools and churches to encourage fellow Black aspiring aviators to take to the skies. Her dream was to open a flight school to train Black pilots, and she tirelessly raised money for this with her shows.

Sadly, on April 30, 1926, while flying with her mechanic William D. Wills, Bessie's plane unexpectedly went out of control and dove into the ground, killing both of them. An investigation revealed that this had been caused by a wrench that had been accidentally left in the plane and had jammed its controls. It was a devastating loss, and her funeral, which was held in Chicago and led by Ida B. Wells, was attended by around 10,000 people. In 1929, the Bessie Coleman Aero Club was founded to continue her work promoting Black participation in aviation, and to this day there are several scholarships in her name aimed at high school students interested in careers in aviation.

"I knew we had no aviators, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn." - Bessie Coleman

Fly high, Queen Bess, blue skies forever! 🛩💙

[word-count-bullet-count]

I've been seeing a lot of knight posts recently. pretty great

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[normal-thoughts-official]

donated 50 reais to a palestinian GFM today

it amounted to 8 dollars

several days' worth of expenses for me became a single digit donation for them. barely enough for a blanket. just like that

it really sucks to know that my money is inherently less helpful no matter how much it'd pay for me, and there's nothing i can do

[pigswithwings]

above all else a trans woman is a person. above all else a trans women is a woman who goes to the same grocery store as you and buys fruits in the same grocery cart as you and goes home and eats her dinner the same as you. above all else a trans woman is a woman who dresses like you do and talks the same way you do. above all else a trans woman is a woman who wants to be cared about the same way you want to be cared about and a trans woman is a woman who makes friends the same way you make friends. above all else you should care about trans women because they are people. treat her as such.

[buttercuparry]

Tumblr is steadily deactivating or shadowbanning Palestinians. Just now I realized @mohammedkhaledalkhaliku has gotten shadowbanned or something similar because I see them on my dash reblogging from me but I do not see them in my notes.

Yesterday I came to know Haneen's blog got deactivated.

The more the days go by, the more I see post after post of Gazan blogs getting deactivated.

Tumblr is slowly but steadily nuking blogs or making it difficult for Palestinians to reach out to bloggers on this site. They are already communicating with us, using the limited data from the esims: so now to harass them in this way-forcing them to make new blogs,making them waste their data, when they are in constant danger of being bombed or of being shelled, when they are hungry and tired, when they have to live in tents under the summer sun...it is simply inhumane.

Please help Mohammed, Sahar and Tala to evacuate.

Please help Haneen Atya's family

EDIT:

Nesma's old blog got deactivated. She is back under @nesmamomen . Please please follow her. Keep your eyes on her campaign and if you are reblogging this post, reblog this new version of it. Link to Nesma's campaign:

[vmkhoneyy]

“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!

[brainrotcharacters]

TW: Wolverine Badonkas

I laughed rewatching because like

[lotus-pear]

charm stat at debonair ‼️‼️

[corkinavoid]

DDxDC The More The Merrier

Exactly a year after Talia brought Damian to Bruce, she shows up again. With another child. That looks like a carbon copy of Damian. She introduces him as Danyal, Damian's twin that was in an undercover mission for the last few years.

Bruce's eye twitches, but he deals with it. At least it's not a clone - Damian proved his mother's words to be true, Danyal really is his twin brother. So the Bats are just kind of forced to accept the fact. And the kid.

Danyal is a literal fucking menace. Contrary to Damian, he doesn't stab or bite, but he is absolutely chaotic. And, in addition to that, he has zero self-preservation instincts. None of it. The only two people in the family he has a truce with are Cass and Steph. Cass, because he has yet to take her by surprise, and Steph, because she is his partner in crime. Tim, though, Tim is on the verge of going insane with two little assassin bats running around the manor.

A year later, on the anniversary of Damian and Danyal's arrival, Talia shows up again. With, you guessed it, another kid. This one is a bit older - sixteen or so - and he has an angry glare that can be compared only to Jason's on a warpath. Dante, he calls himself, and the Demon Twins narrow their eyes on him. Bruce knows this look intimately. Sibling rivalry at its finest.

The next year is full of said sibling rivalry, performed by three highly skilled assassins. Dick is constantly worried one day one of them will die, and not because of a Rogue attack. The kids are fucking wild, acting like rabid dogs on steroids. They destroyed a wall once by throwing Dante through it. Alfred gave them a lecture. It didn't help.

The next year, Bruce opens the door to Talia even before she rings the doorbell. He looks at the four-year-old girl that looks like a mirror image of Damian, Danyal and Dante, and asks, tired and defeated:

"How many more?"

Talia only smiles. The girl looks at him with big, innocent puppy eyes that don't fool Bruce anymore.

Tim, who watches the scene through the surveillance cameras in the Batcave, pulls up a file and starts drafting his last will.

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[fashion-runways]

HANA YAGI 'Sanguine Bride' Collection 2024 if you want to support this blog consider donating to:ko-fi.com/fashionrunways This collection was created by reconstructing wedding dresses and white kimono that had been rented out at wedding halls and then discarded due to damage. In Japan, there is a story that one of the reasons why wedding dresses are white is to express a woman’s purity and innocence and her intention to be dyed by the family she marries into. The dresses were deconstructed, reconnected and dyed with the intention of challenging the patriarchal norms of the wedding ritual. Once dead, the wedding dresses are reincarnated, brought back to life by letting blood flow through them.

[puppyeared]

thanks @chipper-smol for getting me ISAT i will be so irresponsible with the looping

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

sorry we put your morally complex black female character in a fandom. yeah they're vilifying her for making difficult decisions under severe duress. yeah no it's too late, they're already writing porn about the random white guy with 30 seconds of screentime who did all the same bad stuff that she did but for worse reasons. yeah. yeah no. not really anything we can do at this point. sorry