Viridian-ghost - Theo/gavin

no such thing as wasting your 20s your 20s are for recovering from whatever the fuck happened to you as a kid so that youre ready to get weird with it in your 30s

the fact that we need 8 hours of sleep is ridiculous we should only need 4 and the other 4 should be used to be cozy in your bed and rub your legs together like a cricket and listen to music and think about your little scenarios

Might I give some advice:

Not everyone has (or needs to have) the energy to thoughtfully respond to republicans on the Internet. You do not have to do that.

But some people do, and can. And I think we gotta let them.

An example:

I have a former teacher, I'll call her Grace, who is an incredibly kind woman in her 70s. Devout catholic, had voted for various parties over the years, but has been pretty strictly democrat over the past 15-20 because that aligns with her values of kindness and service.

She shared a post about the pope's recent letter and expressed that she agreed with his concerns about how trump is treating immigrants. A friend of hers commented a long paragraph basically saying "dear Grace I care for you but I don't understand how you can be a Christian and a democrat. Blah blah abortion blah blah gender blah blah drugs."

Grace replied "I'm very busy right now but I am going to respond to you soon with my thoughts". When she did it was an incredibly generous, rational monologue that connected with this person's humanity, their shared religious values, and made a beautiful case for why she supports who she does. I didn't agree with a good half of what she said as I am not a Christian, but the result was an expression of values that I think put her on the side of justice and compassion.

The person replied and thanked her and said she had a lot to think about. It was probably the best case scenario for a Facebook politics conversation

You know what came very close to ruining it? A bunch of (mostly younger) people piling on with "fuck you you racist maga pos" and "no one has to explain anything to you, go to hell" etc etc. Even after Grace wrote that she intended to reply herself.

I watched this republican respond to all the easy, quick insults by saying "this is why I don't think any democrats can be Christian, this is how you all speak to me." If Grace hadn't put so much work into writing her response in a way that was tailored to fit this person, I would not be surprised if that person left Facebook doubly certain that Christian nationalism is the way to go.

I'm not saying we can't cuss out jackasses. I'm not saying everyone needs to respond to bad faith arguments like Grace did or use their time like she did.

But this was on Grace's Facebook page, and interrupted the work she already volunteered to do. Just so these individuals could feel like they "did something" and got a shot off at an enemy.

I think that's selfish and childish and unproductive. They could have said anything they wanted in their own space, but they made grace's job harder for no fuckin reason. And then "loved" her reply and said "that was beautiful Grace, thank you for sharing your thoughts"

Like... Buddies. Pals. If someone volunteers to scrub the toilet fucking let them.

Not sure if I've told this story here before, but once upon a time, I didn't really get the point of most protests happening my area because I viewed them as "preaching to your own echo chamber" in a lot of cases. Ex: I saw people do a climate march through a very liberal university campus within a very liberal city, and I was just like "Okay, everyone here agrees with you. This place has crazy aggressive sustainability goals. What is the point of this?"

Then when Roe fell, there were a lot of protests outside the courthouses in cities near me, and though those city courthouses do serve the surrounding rural areas as well, the cities themselves are all rather progressive and left-leaning, so once again I was like "Okay, what is the point of this?" but I went anyway just for the experience. We stood on a street corner with our signs. Most people driving by honked in agreement with us. A few people yelled "abortion is murder" at us out their car windows, and we yelled back "abortion is healthcare!" Cool, okay, still didn't get the point because it's not like we were changing any minds or there in large numbers (we were no threat to any power structures), and the city already largely agreed with us.

But then we got another SUV that pulled up and yelled "abortion is murder!" at us (both husband and wife this time). Looked in the back seat, and they were traveling with their daughter who was maybe 13ish. She locked eyes with me, gave me the most serious look I've ever received, and gave us a thumbs up just above the window ledge so that her family couldn't see.

And that's the day I learned that protests are not always about threatening entrenched power structures but letting people in isolated ideological bubbles know that there are other perspectives and that if they share them, they're not alone.

Don't open a PM with a stranger with "hello".

1. You sound like a bot

2. You don't give anything to respond to

Try to say something nice and ask questions that the other person can respond to.

I see a lot of ‘cis’ women say they wish they were androgynous in the way men were or they wish they were pretty in the way men were. This is your sign to go try to do that. You may find you enjoy being an androgynous woman. You may find you no longer identify as a woman. You may find you don’t like androgyny. You will not know until you try. Cut your hair if you’ve always wanted to but have been afraid to. Shop in the men’s section if you’ve been too nervous to. Wear clothing with an androgynous  silhouette. Experiment with binding, take baby steps with compression bras if you want. Wear unisex scents. Live life. Try things you want to try. A lot of cis women do not understand the joys of mens pants and mens deodorant. I think everyone should try both of those things.

The National Parks Service have purged trans people from the website on the Stonewall National Monument

“There’s nothing heroic about suffering” okay but what if I suffered and I was kinda sexy with it. Like my shorts were a little too short and you could see my ass when I bent over. What then.

baby cat wear pants

hey you reading this, you are gorgeous. I'm gonna need you to drink some water though. just because you're so gorgeous doesn't mean you can skip out on drinking water