No government official should be your idol. You should not romanticize or idolize or love any government official. You should always hold government officials accountable, you should always view them with a lens of criticism.

hey dont cry Autism Creature speculative biology

a reminder that ursula le guin’s writing schedule was the best writing schedule.

Never thought I would consider the notion that Argentina is keeping Chile warm with its colossal ass.

"Your son will take your throne from you," they prophesized, spitting each word out of teeth clenched tight with hatred. Why they'd bother prophesizing such an event befuddles you; your son is literally your chosen heir, after all.

Years later, you realize what the prophets meant. For most of your life your son was your pride and joy; an academic, who would surely lead the kingdom into greater health and wellness. Until he committed the ultimate act of betrayal.

"You will not take my throne from me!" You cling to your grand chair so hard your knuckles turn white.

Your son sighs. "Dad. Dad it's lead-"

"Of course it's lead! It's a strong metal, signifying the strength of our country- this throne has been passed down the royal line for 300 years, 15 rulers before me-"

"That is not enough time for that many people!" Your son throws his hands up in the air. "Because it is lead! It is poisoning you! Didn't you wonder why grandpa died at 40?"

"Ah, pfoo! That's the ancestral curse."

"It's the throne! The throne is the ancestral curse!!!"

Venice, Italy. 🇮🇹

As the treasurer for the Jewish club on campus, I once accidentally put in a request for 10,000 dollars for our Hanukkah party.

What was even more insane about this is that said request was automatically approved through the school's system, hypothetically granting me the power to get a used car in the name of the Maccabees. So, for a good thirty minutes before my frantic email to every financial institution in my school was answered, I was plagued with two questions.

Before Carl from accounting kindly answered my email at 9 PM on a Wednesday , I'd been researching the going rates for rent-a-penguins. Surprisingly much more affordable than you'd think.

Move about the Hannukah Party of All Time

don't infantilise yourself. you are not a child who needs an adult to make your decisions for you. you are a splendid and magnificent autocrat and you are consulting your trusted advisors. you are exercising great wisdom by inviting an expert to give their opinion before making your ruling. often the path of wisdom is to say "good morning, I'm trying to [perform task] and I have a question about [aspect], can you tell me who I should speak to for advice?" before you do it. sometimes the path of wisdom is to hire a plumber. there are times when you cannot do things for yourself but that doesn't mean you are not an adult. you don't need a grown-up. you need a specialist.

this has come up a couple of times so let me be really really clear:

the path of wisdom is sometimes to hire a plumber.

the path of wisdom is always to hire an electrician.

My new favorite genre of picture is a very special thing that most animals (and humans!) do: face nuzzling as an act of greeting/comfort/intimacy. thank God that this is happening all over the world right now

Isn’t it wonderful?!

had to continue the compilation:

You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes

F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???

Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖

If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I'm glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don't ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don't ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you

Never stop learning+ Never stop sharing what you learned

Trans women getting arrested for petty crime.

On my mind while reading on Liddy Bacroff, who went through multiple Weimar/Third Reich prisons and passed at Mauthausen.

(From "Liddy Bacroff [...], 1908-1943," Room of Names, Deceased of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen Memorial.)

Man-Woman's theft, crossdressing, and forging of papers to avoid police surveillance (nice).

But what ultimately got her killed was that bar incident in March 1938. Some onlooker reported her for being "a man in women's clothing." For sitting at a fucking table.

And a diagnosis ("death sentence") from a doctor:

"Tranvestite to [her] core."

Thinking on dress/gender transgression from 1840s onward in US and Europe, often penalized and prosecuted via "anti-disguise" laws.

Explicit outlawing of crossdressing came with anti-crossdressing laws of St. Louis in 1843, Columbus 1848, and Nashville 1850.

What of the anti-disguise laws, though? Also referred to as "anti-mask" or "anti-masquerade" laws.

New York, in 1845, passed what would become the template for anti-disguise laws.

About the same time. Why? What else was happening?

Consider the spectacular anti-rent riots of 1839:

And then consider New York's anti-disguise laws:

And now we have stuff like this:

(From 2025.)

And then take a look at how Clare Sears frames this development in the 1840s:

["Several states did, however, pass anti-disguise or masquerade laws that encompassed cross-dressing when enforced. In 1845, for example, New York’s state legislature passed an anti-disguise law that made it a crime to appear in public with a painted face or when wearing a disguise designed to prevent identification. Passed in response to rural workers who wore women’s dresses and masks while participating in anti-rent protests, the law was later used to criminalize a wide range of cross-dressing practices. Similarly, in 1874, California’s state legislature passed a masquerade law [...]. As with New York’s anti-disguise statute, local police repurposed California’s masquerade law to arrest multiple people for public cross-dressing over the next one hundred years." (Sears, from March 2023, in Jacobin)]

Sorry for (what is, coming from me, now becoming) the refrain, always pointing out the entanglement of medical pathologization, crushing labor dissent, vagrancy concept, and criminal-making legal devices.

Like, in just five years' time:

1834: Slavery Abolition Act comes into effect (but slaves required to continue laboring as "apprentices" for four years) as Workhouse Act/Poor Law Amendment Act requires "vagrants" and the poor to work minimum number of hours. 1835: Municipal Corporations Act requires nearly 200 English boroughs to establish police forces. 1836: Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Act in British India targets "any gang of Thugs" with life imprisonment. 1837: Establishment of Irish Constabulary, "Britain's first national police force". July 1838: Vagrancy Act makes "joblessness" a crime. five days later in 1838: technical legal emancipation of Black slaves under "apprenticeship" in British Caribbean. 1839: County Police Act and Rural Constabulary Act encourage judges to establish local/rural police forces.

Conflates a lot.

Of course, race. Peter Boag examines crossdressing law in the western US in the nineteenth century; see his chapter “”He Was a Mexican”: Race and the Marginalization of Male-to-Female Cross-Dressers in Western History."

Sears also authored Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. She describes a continuum of the policing of "public visbility of problem bodies."

Apt setting, since San Francisco passed the 1867 "Ugly Law:

“Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares or public places in the City of County of San Francisco, shall not therein or thereon expose himself or herself to public view.”

Pop media making a game out of deducing "the truth," inviting everyone else to play along. From San Francisco again:

"Can You Tell at a Glance Which Are Men and Which Are Women in These Pictures?" (The San Francisco Call, 21 May 1911)

Imperative: becoming co-conspirators.

Regarding the anti-"ugly" and anti-vagrant law templates from California, here's a headline:

("Strangest Union in the World Uncovered Here: League of Beggars, Crippled, Sightless, Epileptic and Deformed," Los Angeles Times, 1913.)

Today, we've got San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland--the whole US--crushing "vagrancy" and severely punishing the homeless. Outlawing of "disguises"/masking at public demonstrations. Sweeping "anti-drag laws" and "bathroom bills" reasserting crossdressing/predator-in-disguise stuff.

Disguise, duplicity, masquerading, eluding, evading, etc.

Maybe I, Transvestite-to-Her-Core, do support subterfuge broadly. (Subterfuge Broad, name for life-affirming persona?)

Thinking about whoever it was in the Hamburg tavern who reported Liddy for sitting at a table. Should've shut the fuck up.

Hey you wanna come over and dip bread into olive oil and balsamic vinegar and such?

Brotherhood of The Orb

Brotherhood of The Orb

tumblr theyre saying that youre dead, again

every day I learn bot comments on ao3 are stooping lower and lower

anyway if you get a comment like this, chances are that they are bot and their goal is to do whatever it takes to get you to delete your work, most certainly (from what I’ve heard) it’s because they want to “safely” steal your work, use it to train their ai without you being able to rightfully claim ownership of your work since “there’s no proof that the work was stolen/was posted elsewhere first by you” because the original source has already been deleted.

THEY ARE ALL BOTS. at first it was “ao3 is deleting fics and your entire account will be affected unless you delete the fics yourself” then it was “this work contains contents that are illegal and they have already reported you and your fic to the police” (yes, that’s how desperate these bots are), and now it’s this.

report their comments to ao3 for spam—in this case, specifically, I think you may be able to report them for harassment too—and don’t pay attention to them, most importantly don’t delete your works, don’t feel discouraged by their comments. remember that they are bots and they mass comment something like this on people’s works at random to get people to delete their works. (or even if they’re not bot, they are still pathetic bullies who don’t deserve your time or attention.)