Smooth Jazz Is Kinda Funny

donating my heavily annotated copy of house of leaves to the local library so that the person reading it gets a 5th layer of narrative to be confused by

baby cats very cute

So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.

this made me cry, so i have to share it. i can’t tell you how much of this feels like it was about my childhood.

“Some nights, always alone, I go out in stolen makeup and women’s clothes with an ID I found in a lost wallet. I never feel more male than on these nights”

Another highly requested one

queer is literally a slur. like you’ve never been called that in a derogatory context like most lgbt people? you think your experiences escaping homophobia make it okay to justify the use of a homophobic slur?

queer is an identity.

it has also been used as a slur. there is no denying that. but using a word as a slur does not make it a slur. because before queer is a slur it is an identity. before it is derogatory it is a label. the use of queer as an identity is infinitely more important than the use of queer as a slur because the people who identify as queer are infinitely more important than the people who use queer as a slur.

say a lot of people decided they hated me. despised me. were disgusted by me to the point where my own name became a slur. would you tell me not to say it? would you tell me i could no longer be helena, and instead must come up with a euphemism for the name that belonged to me decades before it belonged in the mouths of bigots?

because that would make you an enabler.

you would tell me i can’t say my name anymore because some lowlife decided he could use it to insult me?

you would tell a gay man that he can’t be gay anymore because some teens in the early 2000’s started calling everything they didn’t like “gay”, and now he has to say “same sex oriented male identifying individual”?

does that enrage you? because it should. that’s exactly how you sound.

you are telling me i cannot use my label. you are telling me that when my great-uncle shouted until his face was red and he spat tobacco and the word queer at my feet, he was right. he was right to insult me, and i was wrong to say my name.

you are shitting on every single one of our predecessors. you are slandering every person who fought for their rights to exist and and be tolerated and be celebrated in their countries, every person who was lost to the aids epidemic, every person whose country criminalizes love and gender expression, every child whose parents abandoned them for straying from the norm, every person who was born and will die in the closet longing to be themselves. the queer umbrella is a safety net, a security blanket, the comfort of being known without being pressured to tell. it is near and dear and important as fuck to every member of the lgbt+ community and you are a blight upon the earth you walk.

how dare you speak upon my experiences with homophobia. how dare you disguise your own homophobia as activism. and how fucking dare you have the audacity to come to my blog and hide behind an anonymous ask and preach to me about how i’m oppressing myself. go look at the fucking wikipedia page for queer and read about how 1980s lgbt+ activists, especially lgbt+ people of color, fought to call themselves queer in a world that still hates peculiar things. and here you are forty years later spitting queer back at their feet.

i don’t give a fuck if people start using my name as a slur. my name is still helena. i will not change it. i chose it, i like it, and it belongs to me. it does not belong to bigots no matter how badly they want it. your discomfort with my identity is not my fucking problem.

i am helena. i am queer. die mad & go fuck yourself

Books to get you out of a slump

Here are some books that:

Don’t have a daunting number of pages

You can breeze through and read super quickly

Have that page-turning quality you need in a book to get you out of a reading slump

Are immersive and the kind of books where you just feel “hooked”

Because we all know we fucks need some of this every now and then to keep reading

Here we go folks these are the books I would recommend to save you from a slump! Lots of these have a healthy dose of intrigue, mystery, romance, and a driving plot which I think is really the key.  Many are YA, and some are definitely lighter reads, but again this is all in favor of getting you driven to read

so uhhhh let’s just fucking get into them 

Saga: Graphic Novel Series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

For when you need: something so fast paced you’ll shit yourself.  This graphic novel series lacks NOthing in depth, but has everything in pace and immersion

I cannot recommend these enough they’re arguably some of my favorite books ever and Absolutely changed my life I read one of them a night so go read them ya fucks

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

For when you need: something whimsical and magical that will take you entirely out of yourself and make you fall in love with words, stories, and dreams

 I weep. 

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

For when you need: a bit of romance, a well-known classic retelling, sexual tension, and beautiful declarations of feeling

This is just some angsty shit and honestly eat it up and get reading my dudes 

A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

For when you need: a swashbuckling romp, romance, mystery, and adventure through the eyes of a flawed young hero

bonus bonus bonus LGBTQ+ and disability rep !!!! fucking get lit to it guys read it!!! 

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

For when you need: a magical heist novel ft. a thrilling cast of characters and some incredible banter

fuck me guys these books are good and who doesn’t want to read a heist novel because if you don’t you’re probably wrong 

Trick by Natalia Jaster

For when you need: more banter here ft. loads of sexual tension, a lovely romance arc (ft. jesters and princesses), and miles of depth in the topics discussed

it’s just some good hate to love with some sexy times on the surface and then you get into the content (I won’t spoil but you’ll cry okay it’s so beautiful and powerful) 

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

For when you need: a modern magical-realism psychic and prep school boys sort of adventure that will make you feel nostalgic as all hell for places you’ve never been ft. true love and death, fortunes, and ancient welsh kings

Get urself a raven boy and a sick car I guess 

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

For when you need: a mythical horse race ft. romance and atmosphere this book will make you fully leave your body and you will feel wind and cold cliffs and sea breeze

this one is so atmospheric I don’t know how you could tear yourself from it so cry about some mythical horses for a bit will you 

Fire by Kristen Cashore

For when you need: beautiful monsters, friends-to-lovers romance, court intrigue, and female friendships

This is just a solid ya it’s fast paced and whoLeSome

The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima

For when you need: balls, intrigue, romance, banter, magic???? a grand time

Just honestly a romp of a story there are balls and kisses and this just reads like a fuckign movie

The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

For when you need: assassins and pirates who set off to break a curse and cannot for the life of them stop bickering and possibly wanting to kiss

get fucking lit guys who doesn’t want a pirate book??? 

Hope this helps someone !! I recommend all of these and PLEASE leave any of your own recommendations for recovering from reading slumps !

thanks uh I’m out 

I made some ASMR ambient atmosphere mixes for your highly specific needs

1.) Haunted campout in a northern forest where strange beasts lurk in the distance and whispers of the unquiet dead keep you awake through the long dark night  2.) The Joker is probably getting ready to murder you horribly in an abandoned warehouse 3.) Killer Croc hunts you through the Gotham sewers, occasionally eating corpses  4.) Man has pleasant vanilla sex with a monster in cheap motel bed 5.) You’re the last gunslinger marching across a dreary wasteland after the world has moved on, pursuing the man in black across the desert while the machines of the old world still hum their death throes