If there was a way to run SUPER MEGA AD BLOCKER on this website I fucking would

“Please oh please open up your computer to a porn virus! If you don’t you’re evil!”

Freeloader Comin’ through!

We didn’t start this war internet users have with ads - We might have moaned about banner ads, but it was only when they started making noises when we might be listening to music or a podcast or whatever, causing two sound sorces at once, that we started trying to block ads universally rather than just a specific type of ad (pop ups).

And since then ads have gotten worse - Actual malware rather than merely breaking one of the fundamental sins of web design - though shalt not autoplay anything with sound. And the more aggressive a website is with ‘please turn off adblock’ the less I trust it to bother to vet ads and advertisers to make sure they’re not installing malware.

Not to mention that the idea that avoiding ads is “freeloading” is hilariously backward. Advertisement is a transaction between the platform and the advertiser, the user has no obligation to provide the views/clicks the platform has promised. Using an adblocker isn’t freeloading in the same way that leaving the room to get a snack during a commercial break isn’t cheating the tv network.

Ok y’all, I work as a web developer and I’m here to tell you that you are 100% right and that it’s shit. SO I’m going to tell you how to get around websites that block you from using their website if you’re using an adblocker. 

Every website uses a language called JavaScript; long story short it’s a website language that allows developers to do the crazy shit you see on websites. Now the easiest thing to do is to disable JavaScript to stop them from knowing you have an adblocker:

Oh no! I’m blocked from viewing the website. It would be a terrible shame if I were able to right click and select the “inspect” feature

Click the three dots in the top right and open the “Settings” Menu

And then scrolled down to “Debugger” and checked the “Disable Javascript Option”

And then just refreshed the page

Reblogging to save my life

saving a life

So I’m going to be bitter and old here for a minute.

The absolute refusal to allow anyone to use queer as an umbrella is both novel and regressive (I know, I know). For decades, queer was an accepted and neutral way to concisely refer to a coalition of loosely connected communities and identities. Queer theory, queer film, queer spaces, queer history.

This use came after another few decades of committed work in reclaiming the word from oppressors who flat out stole it from us.

It took a lot of effort to wrestle it back out of their hands, and now I’m expected to just give it over to them because decades of unity and collective action and shared experience don’t matter because a handful of (usually white, almost exclusively american) kids on this godawful website have deicded it’s illegal for me to “force it on others” and that I should instead just let them for LGBT or gay or whatever else on me.

Like, fuck off?

Fuck off.

I am going to refer to my community in the way that I have been doing for an entire lifetime. Not just my specific identity, which is queer as fuck, but the whole fucking shebang.

And I will not hand the word back over to straight people with a nice little ribbon and a coat of polish and say “here, some kids decided it was cool if I let you stab them with this word so here you go” like

Fucking, why would I ever.

Frankly, and I know how people are going to react to this but, frankly?

I damned well will use queer to refer to my community as well as myself, and anyone who wants to take it away from me can take it over my COLD DEAD QUEER LITTLE FINGERS.

I will not sit by and let antsy, nervous kids who don’t know a damn thing about our history talk down to me about how “well, actually” when they can’t even recognize the fact that trans people were still being policed out of here literally three fucking years ago.

The presumption and the ignorance are staggering.

So yeah.

Queer as in fuck you people in particular.

And, to my followers who are made uncomfortable by this, well. I will regret losing you on some level, but not enough to stop.

I fully intend to use queer as the umbrella term it has been for my entire life. LGBT never did my intersex, pansexual ass any favours anyway.

My point is, I’m not going to be referring to the “LGBT” community at all, anymore. It’s going to be 100% queer here, in a more conscious and consistent way than it has been before. Because, you see, even people who do use queer as an identity unashamedly have gotten into this pattern of being apologetic or conditional about it, with a constant, overbearing tone that even when we do use queer as a community term with have to hedge it and gentle it because it’s so dangerous.

but it’s fuckign not.

We spent decades pulling the danger out of it.

And ‘m not going to let it sneak back in.

Every time someone says “queer is a slur, you shouldn’t use it” I feel like they’re trying to fucking gaslight me. Like, I was there when it got reclaimed. I read “Queer Science”, I saw the “Queer Studies Departments” in college and the majors in Queer Theory. Kids do not get to invalidate my life out of ignorance. And I can’t help but think that someone who knows exactly what they are doing was behind it to begin with, because how would the kids who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about know to invalidate that word?

You go. Reclaim that reclamation. I’ll probably use LGBT+ and queer interchangeably, like I always have, and if some kid tries to lecture my 47-year-old ass on the matter I’m just going to have to look at them over my imaginary librarian glasses and tell them “no. you’re wrong. Go back to school, kid, you need to remember you’re sharing the world with adults and there is a consensual reality you have entered into. You don’t get to make it up from scratch any more than I did.”

@alarajrogers hit the nail on the head with this: 

Because it’s absolutely surreal to see someone who is fifteen years old speak as if queer’s been used to constantly attack and smear and belittle and insult them, when they’re about twenty years too late, at the very least, to have gone through that as a teenager. I’ve seen it happen so many times, with so many teenagers on here, that it reads honestly like a script – like a Discourse Point someone’s taught them that they need to trot out as an argument, always and forever, amen. I made this connection over a year ago, when the screaming against ‘queer’ started in earnest on here and thought about it more in-depth when a number of very young activists both here and on Twitter told me unironically and with a straight face that they took all of their discourse points from the likes of leftbians and other exclusionists, starting with your garden-variety aphobes and biphobes and ending with outright radfems / TWERFs / SWERFs. 

That was the lightbulb moment for me. Question: 

The answer to both is radfems. I was there ten years ago when they were absolutely driving themselves into a frothing lather over the fact that a very large number of LGBTQIAP+ youth were describing ourselves and our communities as queer uncontroversially – seriously, this was so common on the English-speaking queer youth forums I used to frequent back then that no one batted an eyelash, specifically because the work of reclamation had already been done for decades and if, asked, the vast majority of people answered that they preferred queer because it was INCLUSIVE (which is and has always been the kryptonite for groups of people whose ideas revolved around gatekeeping the community and their precious selves being the arbiters of who gets in and who stays out), Radfems quickly realized that they weren’t going to be able to demonize the word in the eyes of Gen Xers or people at the older end of the Gen Y generation in the community, because we’d either contributed to the work of reclamation or spent our whole fucking lives in communities where queer was a badge of pride. 

So, in what is honestly an absolutely brilliant move and which I’d be almost tempted to admire, if I didn’t want to spit everyone involved right between the eyes, radfems and other exclusionists targeted much younger LGBTQIAP+ people, leapfrogging a generation. Tumblr, in this sense, has been absolutely vital, both in giving them access to very young people who were just discovering themselves and whose knowledge of community history was nonexistent and in being built in such a way that radfems could make their posts go viral and attract tens of thousands of reblogs, if not more, if they knew to word them in just the right way (I’ve lost count of the number of what, at a shallow glance, seem like very decent PSAs on consent, but that at a closer reading were actually anti-BDSM screeds, easy to see for anyone who knows the dogwhistles). 

If radfems have managed to mire this place in their ideas intensely enough that they’ve turned their anti-kink crusade into an omnipresent thing in certain progressive communities on Tumblr, it’s not impossible to make the logical leap that they’ve managed to do so with their decades-long anti-queer crusade as well.   

I’d laugh and clap at the ingeniousness of it all, if it didn’t involve obliterating decades of community history, solidarity and reclamation efforts. 

#oh ABSOLUTELY#queer things#the SUDDEN BACKLASH against queer again is 100% from terfs#even back in like 2014 people were using queer on here without anybody batting an eyelash#and then one day all of a sudden in 2015 if you called yourself queer#suddenly you were getting a fucking 15 year old calling you ‘violently lgbtphobic’ like. lol what the fuck#(real thing that happened)#and yeah 100% on the ‘I feel like I’m being gaslit’#I TOOK QUEER THEORY COURSES IN COLLEGE#THEY DON’T FUCKING PUT SLURS IN THE NAMES OF COLLEGE COURSES#THEY PUT ACCEPTABLE COMMUNITY TERMS IN THE NAMES OF COLLEGE COURSES#like#oh my god#the rise of ‘q slur’ is honestly gaslighting that originated in the terf/radfem corners and spread until people thought it was the norm#it’s not 

Please note this. Regardless of how you personally feel about the word, this backlash against it happened much more recently than many people seem to think. And it’s worth pointing out who benefits from the backlash, and it sure as hell isn’t the people who gave decades of their lives to make the word a sign of inclusivity and acceptance.

We gotta put “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” back in our protest signs.

Media with LGBT Characters

I promised I’d put together a list of tv show and films based on everyone’s recs last night. This isn’t extensive, just what people said would be gay things to watch in the middle of this tough time. 

TV Shows

Films

I know not every single one is happy so please ask me and I can tell you about the ones I’ve seen. Feel free to add to this post or let me know if you have shows or films to rec! 

I wore fat positive tees for a week and wrote about people’s reactions for Bustle! 

AND all of the tees are made by indie brands! 

Fattitude V-Neck Tee,  redressnyc.com

I’m Morbidly Obsessed With Myself Tee, readytostare.com

I Love My Rolls V-Neck,  femininefunk.com

Thick Chick Crop Top,  etsy.com/shop/candystrike

Diet Industry Dropout Tee, chubbycartwheels.com

No, Honey. Tee,  focapparel.storenvy.com

Thick Thighs Save Lives, teesinthetrap.com

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

God bless this post

@ everyone

watch the new netflix original series The Get Down

its abt a bunch of young black poets in the 70’s and its really?? beautiful and funny and amazingly written

support black art. support black media. this show isnt getting half the ratings Stranger Things got. it deserves that and so much more

Tobi Hill-Meyer, “What Transmisogyny Looks Like”  (via fawnmother)

A massive PDF compilation of writings about black radical and revolutionary movements in the US in the 20th century.

Contents

Apartment hacks masterpost

Kitchen

Cleaning

Looking for a flat/moving

Organisation, storage

Decluttering

Decorating

Season-specific tips

Living alone / Sharing a flat

Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.

Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.

Isaac Asimov.

yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point

If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame

And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.

Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:

Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.

You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905. The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.

Got that?

Stick that in your international pipe and smoke it

I have literally been telling people this for over a year.

the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman

The first autobiography ever written in English is also attributed to a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s).

The day may come when I find this post and do not reblog it, but it is not this day.

If I don’t reblog this, assume I’ve died.

I love Tumblr.

Lora Mathis, interviewed by Hooligan Magazine (via synestheticwanderings)

Bill Nye the Science Guy and the Mythbusters

ICWUDT of the Day: Arena*

[reddit / thanks kbitanga!]

Lights Out: Free Electricity For The Rest Of Your Life: The video Big Energy doesn’t want you to see!!! 

[reddit.]