zooeyamelia

[zooeyamelia]

Hannibal was a weak b*tch for succumbing to nominative determinism. Oh you eat people cause your name rhymes with cannibal? Boo, foh with that shit what kind of spineless puppet are you. I'm going to name my son Brenocide and raise him to be a Zen gardening consultant to flex on the Fates.

How does it feel to be the funniest motherfucker to ever grace my inbox

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Hahahahaha hahahahaha AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

my marriage is a fucking joke

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Barclay and Agent Stern are so cute

From Bay Area Reporter, 1983.

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Studio Ghibli series by Matt Rockefeller

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I’m so gay

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My girlfriend and I talk a lot about our different generations of queerness, because she was doing queer activism in the 1990s and I wasn’t.

And she’s supportive of my writing about queerness but also kind of bitter about how quickly her entire generation’s history has disappeared into a bland “AIDS was bad, gay marriage solved homophobia” narrative, and now we’re having to play catch-up to educate young LGBTQ+ people about queer history and queer theory. It gets pretty raw sometimes.

I mean, a large part of the reason TERFs have been good at educating the young and queer people haven’t is, in the 80s and 90s the leading lights of TERFdom got tenured university positions, and the leading lights of queerdom died of AIDS.

“Excuse us,” she said bitterly the other day, not at me but to me, “for not laying the groundwork for children we never thought we’d have in a future none of us thought we’d be alive for.”

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There is no moral justification for a single person/family to be hoarding billions of dollars while there are millions of starving people

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people are now criticizing the ‘feral, goblincore, rabid’ trends and that’s valid if people are using this language to knock themselves down and your own personal feelings on it belong to you

but honestly? like, for real? this is like, a lot about gender

there is an insistent and deep rooted (western) historical belief that women are inherently a ‘civilizing force,’ they tame the barbaric men and bring society to the unkempt masses, the ‘fairer sex’

young girls are expected to mature faster and restrain themselves more, be the ‘voices of reason,’ the tempering wife, the nurturer

and like, fine, okay, but maybe we’re sick of that? maybe we deserve to be silly and dirty and exist for ourselves? calling myself a ‘feral bog witch’ doesn’t make me feel bad

it frees me from the pressure of having to micromanage myself at all times, much less others

[zooeyamelia]

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

[zooeyamelia]

Brits And Americans Can’t Communicate?

…if they’re deaf. British Sign Language and American Sign Language are different languages, and are not mutually intelligible.

American Sign Language is distantly related to French Sign Language, as an American pastor and major contributor to American Sign Language got training from the National French Institute for the Deaf after the British deaf schools refused to share their teaching methods.

British Sign Language evolved independently from deaf communicators. Evidence of sign language in England dates back to 1576 when the Marriage Register of St Martin’s, Leicester described the vows signed by Thomas Tillsye.

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Art by Jake Morrison

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Art by Wenjun Lin

[zooeyamelia]

do you all know why I'm such a hooligan for practical organizing and a huge opponent of academic leftism?

because - guess what - it's the only reason I can live a good life despite capitalism trying to fuck me over and over.

when I had to leave my mom's place, I found both a place to live and a job without references in a socialist neighborhood center. They paid my full insurance. I paid no rent. They helped me when the Jobcenter tried to come after me for welfare fraud.

when my boss didn't pay me for three months, my friends insisted on me coming along for social events, paid for my food and shushed me aggressively when I said I felt bad and they should stop. Even though I'm broke any other week or two, I don't have to isolate myself.

my union got me the money back and helped me with the cut in hours.

when I was heavily charged for being involved in a protest that went south, I didn't have to pay for a lawyer. People I barely knew volunteered as witnesses or observers.

And why? Because they all know that I would do the same if circumstances were switched.

Solidarity isn't a concept. It's an Act.

all power to the grassroots, babey.

[zooeyamelia]

Imbolg

[zooeyamelia]

I feel like I have grown so much as an artist this past year and I can only attribute that to finally finding a medium that works for me. Digital art has reminded me how precious art is to me and I’m eternally grateful to those who have encouraged me to get back on the horse. A huge shoutout to @bardotbrush for her people skills series. I feel like I have improved leaps and bounds and her course played a big part in that! Thanks Lisa! I can’t wait to see what else is yet to come! Excited to take part in Huevember this year! And of course the biggest of big shoutouts to my little brother @perpleon on Twitter for all his help and critique. You make me a better artist lil bro and I love you for it. <3 -Zooey #artvsartist #digitalart #girlslikeus #girlswhodraw #zooeyamelia #digitalpainting #huevember #bardotbrush #pastels #lisabardot #artvsartist2019 https://www.instagram.com/p/B3kmleZgIOW/?igshid=flx1si2ks7qf