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Guys, guys, let’s get back into Animorphs!!!

They are all free to read with Applegate’s permission on the animorphs website!

Oh yeah babey

She has also written some absolutely amazing books recently.

These are just a few of them. I read The One and Only Ivan to my students every year (and there’s a sequel coming out in May!).

Every one of her books I’ve read has been beautifully written. Yes, they’re written for children, but you won’t regret reading a single one of them. Applegate is hands-down my favorite middle grades author.

Read. Her. Books.

Also this

Animorphs says trans rights

wait, The One and Only Ivan is her too??

daaaaamn

I’ve interacted with Katherine Applegate and she’s an absolute delight.

I've noticed that some people making car content on the internet have stopped saying "tranny" as short for transmission, and using "trans" instead. Not sure if that's because of self-censorship to avoid demonetization on youtube, or if its because they actually don't want to say a slur anymore, but all I do know is it can end with some pretty funny results:

re prev tags

A loving, married couple wake up one day to find that they have returned to their high school days, when they were the most popular student and the class geek.

(CW: bullying, including homophobic and ableist language, mentioned drug use, gender dysphoria, depression)

When Angelique Lancaster dumped a backpack and a brown-bag lunch on their table before sitting down with a huff, all Erin could do was stare.

First off, she’d never seen Angelique wear a backpack before. Erin didn’t even know she owned one. It wasn’t like she needed one—there wasn’t a single freshman boy at Chapman High who wouldn’t have carried her textbooks for her, and paid for the privilege.

Second off, Angelique wasn’t wearing makeup, aside from eyeliner that looked at least two days old. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, for fuck’s sake—again, since when did Angelique Lancaster own T-shirts?

Since when did Angelique Lancaster even look at this table, much less schlep over and sit at it?

Maybe it wasn’t actually her. Maybe her less cool long-lost twin had just transferred. Just to check, Erin craned her neck to look over at the Shithead Patrol’s usual spot, clear on the other side of the cafeteria. Nope, no fashionable backpack-less doppelganger, just a table full of popular kids staring back with just as much fear and confusion as she felt.

Erin turned back and met Raph’s eyes on the other side of her own table, partly to communicate the sheer what-the-fuck of the situation, and partly to make sure her best friend was handling Angelique fucking Lancaster sitting next to him without panicking or shutting down. Raph’s appetite was always the first thing to go on a bad brain day, and he’d barely touched the soup in his thermos. The last thing he needed was whatever psychological warfare this was clearly supposed to be.

But instead of shrinking into his oversized hoodie like the world’s floppiest turtle, Raph took one look at Angelique and raised an eyebrow. “Well that didn’t take long.”

Erin watched, mouth agape, bracing herself for the queen of Chapman to rain venomous hell down on her best friend’s head for daring to speak to her.

Instead, she looked downright defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You do realize you tanked your rep just by sitting here, right?” Raph said. “You mean to tell me you couldn’t stick it out for one day?”

Happy May the Fourth! Have a dumb comic I drew during my lunch break

Having BIG™ feelings about how most of the Jedi that survived Order 66 were literal children.

Children whose brothers turned on them, and whose parental figures were ripped from them for reasons that they would never understand. Children who didn't know how to live in a galaxy who accepted them, much less one that didn't. Children who had to shed the identity they'd had longer than they could remember just to survive. Children who watched as their people were labeled terrorists and the things they held sacred were desecrated to the purpose of hurting the people they were made to protect.

Children who had to pick up the (often literal) sword of those who'd come before them to protect innocents and hold onto what scraps of their culture that were left. That, to their limited knowledge, believed themselves to be the very last of their kind. Children who bore the weight of bringing justice to the deaths of thousands of their kin, not through revenge, but through the restoration of peace. Who in the fight towards peace, had to once again become weapons instead of peacemakers.

Of them training padawans when they were technically still padawans themselves. Who had to teach what broken pieces of their culture that they could still remember, because they were still learners when they stopped learning. Who taught in the middle of surviving in a galaxy that was out to get them on all sides. Whose padawans never got the chance to go to Ilum, or see the Temple on Coruscant, or bond with other padawans, or any other experience that should've been theirs by birthright.

If I think about it for too long my brain stops working and I cry.

The 2024 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The 11th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th June 2024.

It’s short and easy, about 5 minutes probably.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 40,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

For the curious, you can also spy on some graphs and demographic data for the incoming responses here.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

Image credit: Malachite and rhodochrosite.

he sit

i dont have to wear a binder. i have a flat chest i can inhale as deeply as i want and i never look like i have breasts. im not aware of my chest when i go down steps, im not aware of my chest when i put in a seatbelt. when someone hugs me it's like a flat board for them. i can wear a towel around my waist around my house and go shirtless to the beach. i was subconsciously avoiding half of my closet for years until one day i realized; i DO love these shirts, and they look *so good* now that i dont have a chest. im not paranoid at my job that my coworkers will find out the truth if i reach too high or tuck in my shirt. i dont stare at my chest every time i put on an outfit any more. i dont catch myself in a mirror at a department store and hunch my back. i stand up tall. i lie shirtless in bed every night and nothing stares back at me.

these are my experiences with top surgery if anyone is debating whether or not they want it. for me, every day i lie shirtless in peace. greatest decision ive ever made

sorry if this is hijacking your post. I'm happy to delete if it is. I just want to say that as a transfem I feel the same about my top surgery (augmentation).

It's so funny how the same experiences can evoke such different responses in people. I used to be so ashamed of my flat chest, of the fact that nobody would be offended if I walked around topless. I hated hugging people. I knew they felt nothing but flatness and it killed me. Now I have curves, I can finally wear all the fem cut shirts I want. I feel lighter. I can breathe now. Top surgery was the best decision I've ever made. I can't even describe how much easier it is to do things. Such a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders the day I got my surgery.

Trans surgeries are the closest thing to magic that exists in this world.

Rhianna Pratchett confirming her father wouldn't be a """gender critical""" activist (whatever the hell those GCs stand for) if he were still alive

The GCs are Terfs. A specific type of transphobe. Quite a few British celebrity got recruited to their ranks and they have the money and clout to do a lot of damage unfortunately.

Terry passed away before Rowling started her downward spiral and played a significant role in creating the current toxic atmosphere around Trans rights in England . It is good to see that his daughter ,who is also a writer, stands up for human rights.

That’s despicable trying to “recruit” someone who’s DEAD. Not to mention there’s NOTHING in Pratchett’s books—including the ones of essays, articles, and speeches—to suggest he join in if he was alive.

And obviously his own kid would know his private opinions so hopefully the assholes will see her tweet and back the fuck off.

(GC stands for “gender critical”, when you see that it usually means that you’re talking to/about terfs who are trying to rebrand their image).

For those of you who are wondering who else the original tweet is referring to, they are talking about Margaret Atwood, a very prominent feminist author (probably best known for The Handmaid’s Tale). Because she is a feminist the terfs assumed that she’d naturally side with them, and it came as a massive shock (for some reason) when she very publicly opposed and humiliated all of  terfdom.

But yeah I don’t know how terfs can possibly get through Discworld books without any kind of self-awareness but apparently they do. I’ve also seen them talking about how the Wives in the Handmaid’s Tale are all trans women (solely based on the fact that they are infertile). If you know anything about the plot or even the basic premise you’ll know how ludicrous that suggestion is.

Terf rhetoric basically revolves around throwing shit at the wall and then crawling around in anything that sticks, but the underlying transphobia is always present.

Rhianna Pratchett is the best.

“Terry Pratchett” is now a trending topic on twitter and everyone is just slamming the people who claim he would be transphobic. It’s been really nice to see

Also there’s this

And this. Bless @neil-gaiman

I’d already seen most of this on Twitter, but the Tom Hatfield tweet was new to me and got some laughs.

Also, this is the one that made me get all teary:

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ABOUT BISEXUALITY

that purple in the middle is not the right saturation, it doesn't fit with the other two colors and it drives me crazy.

all right, I think I got this, I've got dual citizenship and I have another flag we can borrow from:

step 1

step 2

step 3

This is true bi/ace solidarity.

holy shit

This is the only correct way

[Patchnotes]

My #1 recurring thing as an editor is to guide people away from writing shyly and defensively. If you preempt aggression and try defuse it in your writing itself, you are showing your belly. The audience wants blood.

If you write with the expectation of being hated, you are writing for your haters. This is exactly what they want. So the more you do it, the more of your readers will be haters.

My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden

#all clothes provided through hand me downs and grandparents#we asked for non strongly gendered or branded things and that mostly worked for firstborn boy#but baby girl has gotten nothing but the cutest little dresses#that I am absolutely not going to stress if she destroys because it's not like they'll last until next summer anyway#at which point she'll be big enough for her brother's dirt-compatible pants#now if we can get her to stop EATING the dirt that would be GRAND#her pronouns are om/nom#literal definition of a baby

also uh. skirts and dresses are no more Inherently Gendered than pants, and can absolutely be adapted for playing in the dirt. just saying.

you also shouldn't force on your kids the idea that all skirts are Delicate Fancy Garments and all pants are Practical Functional Garments. because that's not universally true

Little boys in Europe (and America) wearing trousers or shorts instead of dresses is actually comparatively new! All genders used to run around in dresses getting them dirty when they were very small. Just a fun little history fact for you :)

Also if its that special save it for days they dont play outside. Also also i think its sometimes sad that little boys don't have clothing that is a little fancy and pretty

ive found that partially treated mental illness can sometimes look to uninvolved onlookers like faked mental illness.

"someone who really has pOCD would be disgusted and horrified at their intrusive thoughts" or maybe i'm in therapy & am going by the books, being radically ambivalent to my intrusive thoughts instead of wasting energy mentally washing my paws of sin. i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed.

also like... something something, being afraid of healing because you're afraid of letting go of the stability of misery, letting go of the narrative you made up to feel worthy of attention, letting go of your "sympathy cred," this narrative has probably killed a few ppl.

Generally if you find yourself demanding to know why strangers aren't living more miserable lives, you're probably in the wrong.

"I'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed."

Holy fuck. Tattoo that one on your bones.

That's good.

as a white person i can confirm that cheese is basically like god and life to me. i can be baited with cheese 100% of the time. i will tunnelvision a wedge of sharp cheddar from the other side of the room in any and every setting

Since D&D rules mention prone but not supine, rule that the physics of Faerun prevent anyone from lying on their back