#see it instead

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Must be a Sugondese joke.

[mono-red-menace]

"love every trans woman you meet before it's too late" is a tumblr post that is very close to my heart because it was inspired by a friend of mine attempting suicide.

like a lot of people seem to assume it's about the banning and stuff and i mean like it can be. love the trans women in your life before the structures around them isolate them. love them before they feel like they're unloved. yk.

but like.

love every trans woman you meet before it's too late is particularly strong to me because it's literally about a friend of mine i thought it was too late for.

i was too scared of making her uncomfortable to let her know how much i love her and how wonderful it is to know her and how happy i am to have met her. and i thought she was gone.

love every trans woman you meet before it's too late is a reminder to me to always push past that discomfort. to always try to make the trans women in your life feel loved. because we so often feel unlovable.

even if you think your actions speak for themselves, push beyond your fears. tell them directly.

"i love you."

"you're a wonderful force in my life, you make me happy."

"i would miss you when you're gone."

"please come to me with your problems."

"i love you."

let the trans women in your life know exactly how much you care about them. let them know you love them. let them know they're your best friend. let them know you'll always be there for them.

they will doubt they're good enough they'll doubt they're loved they'll doubt everything that gives them value. but take them into your heart and make them feel it.

be their shoulder to cry on.

please don't ever let it be too late.

[shinybulbasaur]

[quibbs]

just had SO much fun with the fallout tv show... i love you missus okey dokey

[thekidsfromyestergay]

Just saw a video like "um actually rocky horror isn't good queer representation because frank sexually assaults janet" girl he kills and eats people. It's called the rocky HORROR picture show not the rocky cute gay rep tw t-slur picture show

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[fantastic-nonsense]

"Damian should be a veterinarian when he grows up" this and "Damian should be a doctor" that….I think he should take advantage of his wealth and be an art major

[butchmartyr]

a lot of older norms for internet and site etiquette are shit but you know what was good that we need to bring back? lurking. you need to lurk moar

[sabertoothwalrus]

it's rare I get a character with a similar hair type to me that isn't one of my ocs. so here's some kabru's in some hairstyles, half of which are haircuts I've had before

[saradiation]

Hey it's that time of the year again :D

HAPPY 413! 🎂

[pangur-and-grim]

Grim doesn’t want to play these games. the kitten will learn the power of her stern gaze

[egophiliac]

tsum events really are just the best, huh

[clown-owo]

Happy deletion day

[nerdpoe]

Danny is about to be kidnapped in Gotham This is not a good time.

He's studying for the SAT, he's already been kidnapped by Vlad like, four times that week and it was a fucking Tuesday, he forgot his wallet at his new apartment, locked himself out of said new apartment (he could phase through the door but that wasn't the point), he's just been informed that the grant he applied for was denied so he needs to ask his mom and dad for college funds when he'd already told them he had it covered, and just...it was shit.

It had been shit. The entire week had been awful and annoying and he was ready to either murder everyone on the planet or go find a corner to cry in for the next three days.

So when the band of wild goons working for whatever villain of the week pulled up and tried to kidnap him, he snapped.

He used them to vent.

Shouted about how terrible his day had been, how terrible his week had been, how he'd already been kidnapped by his creepy godfather who was way too into him, how college funding was shit and the grant system was rigged, and how he'd have to call a locksmith or break down the door to his own apartment if he wanted to go to bed-all of it. He unloaded all of his frustration.

The goons actually backed off.

One of them gave him an awkward side hug and told him it'd get better.

Danny wasn't paying attention to his surrounding. He doesn't realize that the whole thing was livestreamed.

So when he gets home to his apartment later that day, his door is opened for him by the vigilante Spoiler before he can even turn intangible.

She brought over BatBurger and kidnapped Bruce Wayne, Gotham's bumbling Prince, to talk about college grants.

[luxlightly]

It always upsets me so much when I see interpretations/illustrations of the two headed calf poem that show a living calf being torn away from its mother and killed to sell to a museum and framing the poem as being "humanity kills beautiful things for being different".

Two headed cows almost never survive more than a few hours after their birth. The farmer finds the *body* the next day. The calf was destined to die, and that's a tragedy, but for the time it was alive, it had a beautiful and unique experience.

It's not a poem about the cruelty of man. It's a poem about the beauty of life in an indifferent universe. It's about purpose and beauty being able to exist even in an existence doomed to come to an end, as all our lives are. It's not a poem about how a calf dies, but how, even for only a brief moment, it was alive.

And, for that moment, because of that life, however fleeting, the sky had twice as many stars.

[giantkillerjack]

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!

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.