As an autistic guy I appreciate Jammer (and by extension all of Evan's friends). I appreciate that he can look at the weirdest guy he's ever met who's never had a friend in his life and be like "Don't even worry about it, that's my guy Evan. He's just chilling" while Evan is staring unblinking at a wall. I love to imagine a world where even the Dark Lord can have people who are like "That's my Bro. He gets possessed by demons sometimes and accidentally summons blood and/or shadow monsters. But it's chill, we fight 'em and then they go away *shrugs*."

Something I want you all to know about me, is that I was an antizionist.

I once vehemently hated Israel and demonized its very existence. I am intimately aware of how those who feel this way think, why they believe what they do.

Here is what scares me.

There is an absolute certainty and self-righteousness, a confidence in so many who hold these beliefs. I have felt it. I know beyond a doubt I would still be steadfast in my hatred if not for one thing.

I lived in an ideological bubble with primarily non-Jewish radicalized self-identified activists with far-left political beliefs. I had always recognized many self-contradictory and authoritarian sentiments among my peers, but being a survivor of psychological abuse conditioned me to be vulnerable to taking on the beliefs of others as a tactic of survival, even when something feels wrong inside. However, I felt so deeply certain and right about my hatred of Israel in the name of support for Palestinians.

What made me reconsider my beliefs was a close and safe relationship with another Jewish person who disagreed with me. I was rightfully questioned for having biased and unreliable sources of information that did not provide appropriate references or historical context and used antisemitic tropes in how they framed the conflict. I was challenged on the antisemitic beliefs I had internalized and my universalization of our peoples’ specific traumas an pain, my unwillingness to humanize us and examine how incompatible my beliefs were particularly with my beliefs in the area of Indigenous issues.

Many, if not most, antizionists will never do this. They have dehumanized any Jew who does not agree with them so thoroughly that their words, their pain, their knowledge, is completely null and void.

That’s not me.

I hurt the person who changed me. It hurt me to hurt him. It changed me to realize I could believe something so wholeheartedly, and not only be wrong but be so hurtful. And the more I learned, researched, and connected and spoke with people who have lived experience, the more I realized that for having such strong and incorrect opinions… I knew so little.

I would say that now, I know more on the history of Israel and more broadly the Middle East than a lot of other Jewish people I know. I am more deeply connected with Jewish history and culture, and with myself as a Jewish person because of it. I am not Jewish as a performance of morality, I am Jewish as a continuity of thousands of years of history that my ancestors fought to preserve.

When someone accuses me of having been brainwashed by some zionist industrial complex, I just laugh. I had no Jewish education growing up. I had no connection to my Jewishness at all. Jewishness was a family story and a menorah put out in December. A longing for something lost, that I fought to get back. No. I was brainwashed by people who I trusted, who I risked my life for, who I spent countless hours talking about life with and who knew me better than my own family. And once I became proud and secure in my Jewish identity, unwilling to compromise on it, they all left. Every single one. Some hurt me badly on the way out.

Sometimes I feel afraid or embarrassed to share that this was my past, but it was. Sometimes I feel crazy. But I know in my heart I am not.

I think it's cute how so many art movements are simply called "new art" to differentiate "not like the old stuff". Contemporary dance. New wave fashion. Pop (literally popular) music. Art Nouveau. Modernism. Postmodernism. Even terms starting with neo- (neo-classicism, neo-expressionism) all are just saying NEW ART. And yet all of these things are now distinctive styles of the past. It's kind of beautiful how humanity never stops outgrowing itself. Art is a state of matter that refuses to sit still, old as soon as it is new, original upon its thousandth performance, new forever so long as there is someone who has not yet seen it, and old the second the artist picks up their instrument again.

New new NEW art (14)(THIS ONE!).docx

I just think that 'animals are living intelligent creatures that have feelings and deserve to be respected' and 'when done properly farming is beneficial to both people and animals and there's nothing wrong with raising and killing animals for food, clothing, and other products' are concepts that very much can and should coexist

Important addition considering the number of “but animals are only happy in the wild and we shouldn’t sequester them for killing them egoistically” in the notes

“You know that’s medical malpractice right, no doctor is actually doing that.”

Bold of you to assume doctors actually care about what’s malpractice or not when it comes to treating disabled and intersex people

What happens to intersex people isn't medical malpractice because it is standard medical practice. Lawsuits have been lost or dropped by intersex victims of noncon surgeries. It's not malpractice to mutilate intersex people. It's standard. They will not lose their licenses or go to jail or lose their jobs. In the Every Body documentary, they had a march and protest in 2023 outside of a university hospital where a Dr. Poppas is known for clitoral reductions and removals on infants with my specific condition. He will never lose his job or his tenure for reducing clitoral size and function in infants because it's not malpractice. It's standard medical practice. I'm frankly tired of the "they can't do malpractice!!" Argument queer folks use against us bc doctors are abusive to perisex people every day, too! What the fuck planet are these people living on. Infants are losing their clitorises in 2024 as standard practice. Why don't people care?

why is it when you go to a hair salon as a transmasc/nb person and go “i want something very short and simple. masculine. here’s a photo of a man. that’s how i want my hair to look.” without fail your middle aged hairdresser is like “yes. right. i know exactly what you’re looking for. let me just ….. snip snip” and you come out of there like 2007 kate gosselin

Ok so: I’m cis female but had this problem, in that I could never get them to cut my hair short enough. I eventually found ways to get them to cooperate though - and this was with hair I was sporting from 15-23, so you can probably get them to take you seriously. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of these tips will involve recognizing that you’ve already been misgendered and voluntarily running with that.

Hope that helps!!

Don’t tell them it’s fine until it is

As a real life stylist I cannot stress this enough. This is the most important part of the cut because if you’re smiling in the chair and crying at home it means I’m not doing my job.

And I also second the barber shop for the first haircut because once you come in with short hair and tell a stylist you want it shaved back down the majority of them won’t hesitate.

Hope this helps anyone who needs it. :)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5.15 — "I Was Made to Love You"

They just had to sneak in one copagenda episode huh💀

hello I am the evil entomologist and I’m inventing a new type of parasitoid wasp that kills people

it's about goddamn time

not that transphobes are ever saying anything interesting or insightful but it makes me insane when they see a trans woman who wants a uterus and start frothing out the mouth about how the sinister trans cabal is going to start harvesting organs from the poor and vulnerable... worsties do you have any idea how many trans men and cis women would be THRILLED to rehome their uterus to someone who actually wants it? all I'm doing with mine is complaining about it for a few days every month, I'd happily pawn that shit off to someone who would be happy about it. yes I am on my period why do you ask.

"Rehome": as if it's a hyperactive puppy and not an irreplaceable part of your body. Friendly reminder that humans are not Mr. Potato Head dolls whose parts can be swapped and customized.

Without an inbuilt Community Notes feature, Tumblr users make their own.

i read the cutest reddit thread today where this 19 yo boy was “babysitting” his 15 yo little sister while his parents were away on vacation and she got this horrific period and needed to be taken to the ER.

and this sweet 19 yo boy was doing all he could to take care of her, giving her meds and water and then packing stuff up to go to the hospital once reddit was like “yeah if she’s soaking two tampons in an hour you should go” - but being only a little older than a child himself, he didn’t know what to pack, so he brought like three things, and one of them was SUNSCREEN.

lmao everyone on reddit was like “you’re a really good brother but sunscreen?? for the hospital??” lmao they are roasting him. also op’s sister changed his name in her phone to “spf” and their dad calls him “bananaboat” now. this guy is never living this down

(also his sister is ok and it turns out their family has some kind of genetic blood disorder)

link to the thread on r/BestofRedditorUpdates

the brother kind of reminds me of that post that’s been going around abt that abandoned five-week-old kitten that was taking care of a few two-week-old kittens that were somehow with him and he was just trying his best but he was so small

I dunno man. I found out today that a subway sandwich is $14 now. A shitty subway footlong sandwich that isn't actually 12 inches long and is occasionally made with expired ingredients and was never a great option to start with. I ate those in high school because I was broke and at the mall a lot.

There are poke bowls in my city from a local place for $16. Super fresh fish and veg, warm rice, more than I can eat in one sitting, for the price of a sandwich and a drink at america's most mid-tier sandwich shop.

Someone in another post said (paraphrased) you used to be able to get something mediocre for cheap, but now the mediocre things cost as much as the nice things so why would you?

This is me when I realized I could get a proper bowl of curry from the fancy indian food place for basically the same price as a fuckin McDonald's hamburger meal these days

I heard an ad the other day for a "fantastic deal! Four dollar four inch subway snack sandwich!" And like. I'm sure that would seem like a much better deal I'd I wasn't one of the ones who grew up with obnoxious "five dollar foot long subway sandwich" ads.

A dollar an inch of sandwich. When it used to be 2.4 inches. 240% markup is GOOD? Fucking bite me

Yeah with fast food having delusions of grandeur these days it's really made me appreciate the non-chain food places in my area. The other day I went to the local Hawaiian BBQ place and discovered that they have teriyaki chicken AND Beef BBQ musubi for 3.99. and they come in pairs. PAIRS.

I KNOW.

So I immediately bought an order of each and had 4 delicious musubi and a drink for less than a combo at Burger King.

So yeah, show em we don't need their shit sandwiches.

There's some hilarious irony in that by creating an ad campaign so incredibly catchy and memorable that it entered public consciousness (the dream of any marketing team), Subway ensured everyone of a certain age range would view them as the poster child of fast-food price gouging.

Doing charity auctions again. This time it's a run of bookmarks for a fundraiser for the Trans Lifeline, which has seen a 300% jump in calls this last week. Auction and Buy It Now goes live tomorrow, Nov 11, 2024.

Auction for Trans Lifeline

lindt is being sued in a class action in the united states because they are one of MANY brands of chocolate that tested high for heavy metals. and this is despite lindt claiming their chocolate is "expertly crafted with the finest ingredients". no recall was issued after the tests came out. lead and cadmium can fuck the body over BAD.

lindt's genius defense is that they are going to stop saying the whole thing about being expertly crafted with the finest ingredients, so nobody can complain about the heavy metals in their chocolate anymore! and that makes it okay. source: trust me bro

(now please drop the lawsuit thanks)

consumer reports test results of a bunch of different chocolate brands <- original report being referenced

even more chocolate brands that were tested for heavy metals

imagine this. you advertise yourself as "the coolest dude around". your whole persona is being "cool" and "chill". and then one day, you burn someone's house down on purpose. they inevitably sue the shit out of you. and your defense is that you will stop calling yourself "cool" or "chill" so nobody can reasonably expect that you will not set things on fire, because fire is hot, which is the opposite of cool and chill. and therefore everything is fine now and nobody can be mad at you anymore.

that is lindt's defense here.

I've started playing around with optical illusions lately. This is the first piece I've finished.

Pattern here (my site) or here (Etsy).

Also average tumblr user does not know what a chaser is (hint: it isn't when you are attracted to trans women)

Chasers are people who will actively go after vulnerable groups of people to sexually exploit.

In the case of chasers who go after transfems, they are looking for transfems who are emotionally vulnerable and crave validation so they can manipulate them. At best they will treat transfems in seemingly nice ways (to fuck us). At worst they will treat us like a disposable sex object who should shut the fuck up when not in use. They disregard boundaries, they project transmisogynistic tropes onto the transfems they prey on, they exoticise transfems and will generally treat us like shit with just enough validation to keep them in the relationship.

Ultimately, a chaser is never even someone who is genuinely just attracted to transfems. Chasers mainly just see trans women as easy prey or as whatever fantasy they have from shitty porn and not as people.

Chaser is not a "haha funny meme word". It's a term for a type of predators and bigots.