#none the worse for wear

[sohannabarberaesque]

During a short-notice surprise appearance at the Mall of America's Huntington Bank Rotunda with the Hair Bear Bunch

HAIR BEAR, somewhat excitedly: Thank you very much for managing to make it! As a matter of fact, we just came back from some rather interesting adventures among the bears of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin! BUBI BEAR, trying not to get too ahead of himself: Such an escapade as we were experiencing, ladies and gentlemen, relating to the-- [Whereupon Square Bear puts his forepaw over Bubi's mouth, sensing that Bubi may be crossing the line when it comes to good taste and decency] SQUARE BEAR, rather sheepishly: What exactly was Bubi about to say? [Laughs from the audience] HAIR BEAR: It turns out that we were having a road trip coinciding with the bear mating season ... and if you ask us, ursine love can be really passionate as well as fascinating! [The crowd swoons at the very mention of mating] Admittedly, Nature called for us to release of ourselves for the sake of the ursine race, and I can assure you that between us, we must have mated with quite a few bears up in the lake country ... some of our finest love-moments perhaps being in the shallows of some lake just before sunset, that "golden hour," if you will! SQUARE BEAR: You can say that again, Hair! HAIR BEAR: At any rate, thanks to all of you for your love and support of us all this time ... and let's just hope we don't get reduced to the same horror-film treatment such as The Banana Splits were reduced to! [Cheering from the audience, followed by some fan delivering to the madcap ursines some iced sweet milky coffee and a dozen of donuts for refreshment] SQUARE BEAR: And for such of you interested, we'll be going about the audience in a bit for selfies and autographs--not to mention some conversation!

[convoloutedinjoke]

thinking about Jean having clinical depression and jean being a speed addict and jean being weirdly ripped and jean being openly disgusted with Harry's decline into uselessness and making silly little connections in my mind

[homosubtext]

men in my office look at me like i shouldnt be there meanwhile they’re sitting there saying dry ice is more dangerous than liquid nitrogen. they’re saying -78C is more dangerous than -196C. without even considering the temperature itself, liquid nitrogen has a greater capacity to displace oxygen and cause asphyxiation. if liquid nitrogen spills on the ground u could literally die. if u drop a chunk of dry ice on the ground you’ll literally be fine. or even if you accidentally touch dry ice for a second, yes it’s cold but it likely won’t cause permanent damage. liquid nitrogen? you get some of that on your bare skin and it is so over.

[justgleekout]

.

[softichill]

"Gee I wonder what made this bug start going around" says the teacher who just coughed all over the white board without even bothering to shield it. "Yeah it's weird" says the student that sneezed into their hand and wiped it off on the chair

[confinesofmy]

i've been thinking about it and i'm not cursed at all i'm just living in struggle county and poor. no one here is doing their job correctly. nothing ever works out. groceries are through the roof because of the monopolies the local stores have and when there are sales they don't update their system so you don't even pay the sale prices. i tried to get a dent in my car fixed through insurance and had difficulty reaching the insurance office, then difficulty reaching the body work places, then never got a callback after my appointment so i stopped pursuing it. i had weird lights on my dash a different time, took it in. they wiped the warning readouts and told me to take it somewhere else and when i did the readouts were no longer present so they couldn't do anything. that all took 3 hours out of my day for nothing. i bought new tires but they weren't a certified dealer so i don't get the brand warranty in its entirety, which i hope never becomes relevant. when i went to the doctor they gave me the wrong dosage on my script then wouldn't fix it without another appointment that i couldn't afford so i just quit taking it. the local pharmacy will run low on a med and edit your script to accomodate their shortage but then you run out early and don't have a script anymore and the pharmacy says it's your problem not theirs. mail often runs late so you'll miss important appointments and deadlines because if the office itself is 4 business days late sending out their mail and then the postal service is 3 business days late bam. that's you getting your mail a week and a half late. it's unlivable. you're not meant to live here.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

hngnwntnentnrneenfnenfengndngrnengnf

[dsgustng]

Thinking about how transphobes are always like "debate with me! Justify your existence to me! Explain why you're mad! Make this make sense to me!" But you can be as levelheaded and straightforward as possible, you can beat yourself down and make yourself small and nonthreatening or you can be stern and hold your ground. You can post countless sources and news articles. You can give them statistics. Undeniable proof. But they just don't fuckin care. And the second we become mad and aggressive they use it against us. They say they don't take us seriously because we're too sensitive and irrational. But that's a lie. They won't listen to us or take us seriously no matter how we act because they just fucking hate us! There is nothing we can possibly do to be better to these people.

[because-its-eurovision]

Hey! I read your tags about your smile on that tooth gap post and I just wanna say: Don't ever stop smiling again! 😁 Our smiles are the most adorable thing we have to show the world ✨✨ so don't hide yours whatever people say. I'm glad you started smiling in pics :D

thank you so much for reaching out, this was a lovely message 🥺💖

[sysig]

It clearly wasn’t important to you (Patreon)

[gideonisms]

I can't read the aj book reviews on goodreads though because I feel like people collectively did not get that the gender thing was A) in service to her other themes not the entire point of the book B) not a girlboss everyone's a woman now thing either

[camgoloud]

that section of the secret history where richard tries out a vermont winter in unsafe housing and turns into a heat scavenger while gradually descending on-page into a hypothermic fugue state except it’s literally just me trying to survive in my office now that they’ve turned the air conditioning on

[robinsnest2111]

mentally mapping out the potential sequins and sew-on gems pattern/placement for my kiss concert outfit while trying to schlepp myself through my stretches and muscle strengthening workout

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[lesbianlenas]

i’m actually insane tonight i wish the gunshot (alleged) hit me

[luckyladylily]

So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.

I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.

People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.

I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.

I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.

I want you to keep all that in mind.

So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"

My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.

Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.

When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.

"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"

I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.

Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.

When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.

It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.