me and the girlies watching rot and decay occur

me and the girlies watching you trying to spell mushroom

For trans activism to move forward you have GOT to learn to accept that not everybody who uses She/Her pronouns is going to be some short, white, skinny, passing person.

You’ve got to accept that there are tall, hairy, and fat trans women who “havent done anything” and still deserve to be fucking gendered correctly.

I’m sorry you had to hear this from me, but not everybody is going to appeal to your UwU soft trans catgirl sensibilities.

I see a morally ambiguous middle-aged woman who's a menace to society and suddenly my knees just give in

literally forgot to add a caption but sandrock doodle dump

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is a 1991 piece by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s a spilled pile of candy. 

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) represents a specific body, that of Ross Laycock, Gonzalez-Torres’ partner who died of AIDS in 1991. This piece of art serves as an “allegorical portrait,” of Laycock’s life. 

The pile of candy consists of commercially available, shiny wrapped confections. The physical form of the work changes depending on the way it is installed. The work ideally weighs 175 pounds (79 kg) at installation, which is the weight of Ross Laycock when healthy. 

Visitors are invited to take a piece of candy from the work. Gonzalez-Torres grew up Roman Catholic and taking a candy is a symbolic act of communion, but instead of taking a piece of Christ, the participant partakes of the “sweetness” of Ross. As the patrons take candy, they are participants in the art. Each piece of candy consumed is like the illness that ate away at Ross’s body.  

Multiple art museums around the world have installed this piece.

Per Gonzalez-Torres’ parameters, it is up to the museum how often the pile is restocked, or whether it is restocked at all. Whether, instead, it is permitted to deplete to nothing. If the pile is replenished, it is metaphorically granting perpetual life to Ross.

In 1991, public funding of the arts and public funding for AIDS research were both hot issues. HIV-positive male artists were being targeted for censorship. Part of the logic of “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is you can’t censor free candy without looking ridiculous, and the ease of replicability of the piece in other museums makes it virtually indestructible.

As of late September 2022, the Art Institute of Chicago has changed their exhibit label on this piece to remove any mention of AIDS, Ross Laycock, death, or his relationship with Gonzalez-Torres (via willscullin on Twitter).

Left: old wall text. Right: new wall text as of 9/28/22.

The language they’ve changed to use, talking about “the average body weight of an adult male” is the kind of careful language that art museums might use when we don’t know for sure what something is about – but in this case we do know exactly what the Gonzalez-Torres intended this to be about. (Take it from the Smithsonian if you don’t want it from me!) The museum hasn’t attempted to offer any explanation why, although I cannot think of any unless they wanted to give in object lesson that erasure doesn’t stop even in death.

As I mentioned in another thread, there is some indication that this may be at the behest of the Estate of the artist, who are, if I may be so succinct, fucking twerps if this is so.

Gonna put this over here too.

Sacheen Littlefeather has passed away on October 2nd 2022 . While people remember her for her acceptance speech on behalf of Marlon Brando, know that she also ended the media blackout of the Wounded Knee occupation, won an Emmy & co-founded the American Indian AIDS Institute of San Francisco.

Obviously there are many things to dislike about adulthood but as someone who grew up in an abusive household for whom adulthood offered the only chance at an escape, it's incredibly important to me that i romanticize adulthood whenever possible because i know there are kids and teenagers like me out there who are seeing nothing but complaints about rent and taxes and the loneliness of living on your own and i know they're going to internalize all of that and assume it means that adulthood won't offer them the freedom and safety they've been dreaming of. So while i never want to minimize the difficulties of being an adult, i also want to highlight how incredibly nice it can be to finally have ownership of your life and your body and your time and money and food and everything else in a way that you never had before. You can choose when you wake up! You can choose what you have for breakfast! You can choose when to go to sleep or if you want to (inadvisably) stay up all night watching tv in the living room! In the living room! You can choose what to watch! These are little things, but they are worth taking pleasure in, and they are worth looking forward to.

Oh. Man. I'm in my 40s now, but can STILL remember the first apartment I lived in alone. The first week, I had nothing. NOTHING. I slept on the floor wrapped up in curtains, until a friend came to visit and was like "welp. This ain't keepin' on" and gave me a folding bed and a couple of blankets. There were part of it that were just... not fun. You know what I did, though? I made cookies. Because I wanted them, and nobody could keep me from using the kitchen. I got a cat, because nobody could tell me "no". I took long, hot bubble baths because the bathroom - and the bathtub - were MINE and nobody else's. I turned MY music up and danced around MY living room all day (but was aware of the family with children downstairs, so shut down the one person party before it got too late). I bought a cast-off couch for cheap and had friends help me bring it in, and sat on MY couch and sewed. And crocheted. And started to teach myself to knit. The only one there to tell me "no" was the kitten, and she loved playing with the yarn. There were things about it that were exceptionally hard. I was a pregnant single waitress truly struggling to pay bills and put food on the table. But that's not what stuck. What stayed with me, and what was important, was those little things that made being an adult worthwhile.

You will get out and you will get free and it still rains, sometimes, but you get to decide whether to stay in or put up your umbrella or just let it pour down your face while you stomp puddles. You get to choose. It's not paradise, but it is, in the end, yours, which is such a relief. And all the things they say about the best of life being free - that's true. You will have happiness of your own making.

The best part is no one from your family can get you there. You have a key that locks/unlocks a place you cultivate. And if you visit and your mom etc starts her bullshit, you can just go. Like you can leave and not come back for as long as you want.

There's so much peace and joy and safety in just that alone.

this is especially sad while the only pro-democracy newspaper (print media) in the city is forced to shut down this week…

[text ID: a comment pinned by “thelastpeanut”, reading:

“I’m genuinely touched by the sudden influx of attention, but I want to humbly remind everyone that each protester you see in this video is now either in jail, in exile or in some form of hiding. Most can’t escape, and now that the decades-old Hong Kong democracy movement has been completely crushed, they’ll likely live the rest of their lives under Beijing’s authoritarian rule. The protesters knew it would probably end like this, but they did it anyways, hence the rallying cry of “攬炒”… “if we burn, you burn with us”.

Most of my friends now suffer from PTSD, depression or perpetual anxiety. Words and ideas that were once debated in public are now whispered in private - or not at all - out of fear that a neighbour or co-worker or family member overhears and decides to report you. I don’t think calling Hong Kong a police state is an exaggeration anymore, and it’s only the beginning.

Maybe it’s too late for Hong Kong, but you can still learn from what happened here. I hope you realise that you’re not alone, that your pain and yearning is shared by countless silent strangers, and that when enough people speak as one, you can move the needle of history. I’ve seen it happen.

Most of all, I hope you remember us.”

162K upvotes, no downvotes, 500 replies /end ID]

Hongkonger here.

I cannot begin to describe the feelings I have seeing this post here. Grateful, but sadden.

The information here is correct, though the shut down of the Apple Daily, the pro-democary paper was already months ago.

One of our biggest concerns now is the National Security Law, which allows the government to basically arrest anyone and ban anything that speaks against them. Movies and documentaries about the protests have been banned in Hong Kong. (e.g. 少年'May You Stay Forever Young’ and 時代革命 ‘Revolution of our times’, which got the Best Documentary award in Taiwan’s 58th Golden Horse Awards. )

A lot of our protestors are jailed. Our pro-democratic socities have disassembled. Our democratic politicians are facing charges or have been jailed. Candidates for our upcoming election for the legislation council are all more or less pro-beijing, and even publishing a poll that shows people are choosing not to vote for anyone this year risks breaking the law.

The situation is pretty bleak, and a lot of us have plans to leave Hong Kong because of it. Especially teachers, who are either unwilling to teach students propaganda and only information about how great China is, or fear that they will say something anti-China and will be reported and have to go to jail.

People mostly avoid talking about politics now. Whereas once we all talked about it openly, you can feel that we are all censoring ourselves now. And even if they do, it is mostly behind closed doors or whispered between friends or using really watered down facing.

(and whereas once I would talk and post about all this in IG, which is popular among HKers, I do not dare to now. Tumblr still seems safe. Hardly anyone know about Tumblr in HK)

Anyway, thanks for remembering us and reblogging this.

reminder. if you ship incest or support people who ship incest or dont care that people ship incest i am not your friend. that shit is harmful, nasty, and fetishizes normal family relationships. do not interact with me and do not expect respect if you do because you will not get it

and YES this includes people who were adopted! saying “oh but theyre not actually related so its not incest” invalidates adoptive families and still fetishizes normal healthy family relationships

Also it’s extremely insulting to Victims who sadly were molested/raped by family members that you are jacking off to their trauma

Like you’re a low life if you like incest

meirl

are the pokemon designers like… okay?

They’re all obviously high

me at age 18: i can’t wait to start college!

my undiagnosed chronic illness:

Turn the sound on, the only thing better than this dog’s joy is that people stopped what they were doing to share his joy, and you can hear them all groan when the water dies down….

❄ZoNami Holiday 2019❄

Every year, we celebrate ZoNa all throughout December with an event that ends up being the biggest one yet. This year, we’re going to do something a little more traditional that you all may recognize…

🎁IT’S GOING TO BE A ZONA SECRET SANTA 2019!🎁

If you’re looking to participate, here are some handy dates for you:

- October 21st: Click on this link –> ZoNa Secret Santa Sign Up <– to fill out the form to agree to be someone’s Secret Santa this holiday season! I’ll collect the answers up until November 8th!

- November 11th: You’ll receive the request information of the person you’ll be making a gift for. You’ll be another ZoNa fan’s Secret Santa, and I’ll give you the information of the gift they requested when filling out the form in the link above!

- December 21st to December 25th: Post the gift you made, Secret Santa! I’ll make sure everyone is tagged and all gifts reach their recipiants in time for the Christmas!

No matter which platform you use, please remember to use the event hashtag #ZoNamiHoliday2019 OR #ZoNamiSecretSanta so we can all see each other’s work!

And please tag me as well so I get double the notifcations of your post: @zonamievents or @maidenoftheworld [Tumblr] or @/LadyLiteration [Twitter]!

If you have any questions at all, send in as many Asks as you need to! Let’s all join in and make this the biggest, bestest event yet! ~ Maiden

not to get too deep on main but did anyone else have such deeply rooted issues with their self worth for so long that they thought as a kid/teen that their only redeeming feature was being “low maintenance” and now as an adult you give yourself guilt pangs asking for any more than the barest minimum in virtually any relationship because asking for things might negate your only good quality which is just “doesn’t ask for things”