It’s Absolutely Valid To Spend Time Questioning Your Identity And Decide That You Aren’t LQTBQ.

Periodic reminder that you are not immune to reactionary radicalization through fandom.

We all know the “jokes” about how old bronies either came out as queer or became fascists - except they’re not really jokes, and a lot of the queer ones admit to having been in the pipeline before they came out (some in a way that implies they never totally got out of said pipeline and don’t understand the gravity of it),

GamerGate was an entire right-wing reactionary movement that was - and this is not hyperbole - partially responsible for turning fascism into a “legitimate” position by the American Overton window, composed entirely of people who feared losing their fan spaces,

We’ve had terfs right here on tumblr dot com BRAGGING about how useful fandom is as a recruiting space,

TJLC was a big pipeline for acephobia on this hellsite in particular, when people argued that headcanoning Sherlock as ace was inherently homophobic because it was denying a TOTALLY GONNA BE CANON (while the creators were promising that it wasn’t going to be canon) gay pairing, and puritanical, and just HAVING that headcanon was saying that people COULDN’T ship Johnlock, all in the interest of a “fake” sexuality and “pretending to be oppressed” and oh whoops there you went,

We see people who all but center their fandom activity and identities around figuring out which people in predominantly queer fandom spaces are SECRETLY PEDOPHILES AND GROOMERS, acting consciously or otherwise under the assumption that predominantly queer fandom spaces are just massively infested with them in a way that other spaces are not for SOME reason, who twist the definition of “pedophilia” in these spaces until it covers shipping a 17-year old fictional character with an 18-year old fictional character, or a 30-year old with a 45-year old, or including an autistic character in a ship, and drawing two 17-year old characters kissing constitutes “child porn”, and who unironically say we should bring back the Hays Code and Censorship Is Good Actually And Our Problem Is We Don’t Do It Enough and this often becomes a pipeline to “sex ed is child abuse; people shouldn’t even know what sex is until they turn 18; you need my consent to wear certain outfits in public if I see them as sexually charged, and Pride SHOULD be an assimilationist sideshow for our corporate overlords family-friendly party with no sadness or anger or ESPECIALLY acknowledgement of sex allowed”,

We’ve seen otherwise progressive people defend literal hate symbols in fanart when pushback against the above brand of reactionaries gets corrupted into zero-nuance “it’s us vs. them so anything they don’t like is Good”,

Even outside of those examples some of the most vicious, unapologetic, blatant queerphobic abuse I’ve seen in recent years hasn’t come from right-wingers but from LGBT+ people, dressing their deep, violent, seething hatred for queer people who aren’t exactly like them in a thin veneer of progressive language, who have become so convinced that they’re the main character of the fucking universe that they think writing or enjoying a queer story that doesn’t resonate with them is more queerphobic than sending a queer person who writes or enjoys such a story countless rape and death threats and denying their identity,

We’ve seen these examples again and again and again, and we keep seeing it again and again and again, so I am once again on my knees BEGGING people to recognize that this is not Something That Happens To Other, BAD People, or Something That Happens To People In BAD Fandoms, or Something That Happens To People On The OTHER Side Of Perennial Drama; this is something that CAN happen to you.

These things are the result of the fact that fandom is, by nature, a place of heightened emotion and if you don’t know what to look out for that is very exploitable; you need to know the methods people use to do this, simply Being In The Right Fandoms or Liking The Right Ships is not enough.

So, if you see someone trying to convince you that you have the ONLY valid approach to any specific character, or ship, or show, or whatever, that your ship is activism and your fanfics are praxis, and liking something else or liking the same thing differently is Only For Bad People, that is the single biggest red flag that YOU NEED TO RUN, THEY’RE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT

So apparently it should only take you 30 minutes to fall asleep not 1-2 hours

Do something nice for yourself, you deserve it

When you lose someone,

Sometimes you’ll cry

Sometimes you just sit there devestated

Sometimes you are so far detached you can’t think

Sometimes your numb

And never for one second think that your response isn’t enough, because pop culture doesn’t get to tell you how you should respond to grief. You loved them and they are gone. No matter how you respond, it is enough.

I’m working through Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson and I am crying. The absolute injustice that has occurred in America in the last several decades. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize the cheating in government had been going on for as long as it has. The lack of fairness in government is alarming. I was definitely the kid who cried when things weren’t fair (I understand equity vs equality, and sorta did when I was a kid). I am appalled and angry that some politicians have spend years changing the rules on everyone and cheating.

But anyway, it’s such an amazing book and I wish it could be school curriculum but it won’t ever be until Republicans aren’t able to mess with school curriculum. It airs way too many of their dirty (not so) secrets.

⚠️ ROAD WORK AHEAD ⚠️

|           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           |

________________ SPEEDING FINES DOUBLED WHEN WORKERS PRESENT —————————

|           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           |

⚠️ ROAD WORK 500FT ⚠️

|           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           |

🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧

        🚚 🚚                  🔩             웃  🧰   🕳️   🪚웃       웃📋     웃    웃 🛠️       🔨웃               🏗️  🕳️                 웃   웃 🔧                                                     🚚 🔩      🔩                      🔩                             

🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧

|           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           |

|           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           | |           ||           |

⚠️ END ROAD WORK ⚠️

I’m not sure how you got that I don’t want people to vote from this. I want more people to vote and less people to jump to revolution as the first thought when something goes wrong. I know a lot of people who think a full on Civil War is coming. Do we believe that our system is so broken that it’s time to pick up arms? That’s a pretty extremist point of view from anyone.

Perhaps using revolution instead of revolt or war made it a bit less obvious I was talking about a form of violent uprising against the current government. But it’s cool to know that you think rioting is an appropriate response to any political discussion instead of voting, emailing your political officials, protesting, etc.

Vote please. Voting is one of the best things you can do. Revolutions historically don’t work and I understand there are situations where they are necessary, but I fully believe the USA isn’t at that point yet. Voting is still the answer.

I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?

Sorta close. That’s the Tenrou island arc, and you seem to be mixing up Gray’s and Natsu’s separate fights with the time mage. Natsu never beat Ultear though. (Ultear also wasn’t able to negate Natsu’s magic but she certainly kept him from being able to hit her). Gray is the one who beat her. Ultear was also initially able to negate Gray’s ice make magic by turning his ice into water. However Gray figured out Ultear couldn’t rewind or fast forward organic organisms so he used his blood to create bloody ice and was able to beat her.

There are several times in the series that Natsu does win by saying he’ll breath more fire. Most notably (in my opinion) when he uses dragon force for the first time. It’s fair to remember that Fairy Tail is 100% the power of friendship wins the day style story so some solutions don’t exactly make sense. I always found Gray vs. Ultear to be pretty neat and help explain magic better.

Guys I think I have a false memory and I need someone who's seen fairy tail to tell me if it's a hallucination or not.

I vaguely remember natsu had to fight some girl who had a magic ball that was constantly rewinding time or something and negating his fire breathing bullshit...

And I remember that the solution didn't make sense because it was basically just natsu saying I'll just breathe even more fire...or punch it even harder??????

And I remember at the time I thought it was really fucking stupid.

Because it was brute forcing a boring solution to an interesting battle dynamic, and a classic example of an author coming up with an idea so good that he wrote himself into a corner with it???

Did something like that happen in fairy tail or did I implant a false memory in my head???

Vulnerability isn’t the same for everyone

This is going to be an unpleasant post but I need to talk to y’all about heat stroke in dogs. I am an ER vet and I am seeing firsthand the death toll that this heat wave is taking on our pets. In the past two weeks, for every single weekend shift I have worked, we have had at least one DOA with a body temperature over 107 degrees. One of them had simply been on a 20 minute walk at 5pm. All of them were brachycephalic (short faced breeds like pugs and french bulldogs). Their owners were in shock that this could happen so quickly, and their grief lingers with me.

If you have a dog, and especially if you have a brachycephalic dog, you need to familiarize yourself with the signs of heat stroke. Do not take your dogs out in the heat of the day, be aware of the pavement temperature, and always have fresh water available for them. When I am outdoors with my dog I am checking on him constantly. This heat wave is extremely serious; I need you to keep yourself and your pets safe.