Don’t Call Me Queer

Quinn | 22 | Lesbian | He/Him/His

[themonstrousfeminine]

what she says: I’m fine What she means: the haunted mask episode of goosebumps was about a girl who was sick of being victimized by boys so she rejects her entire identity both physically and personally to become monstrous, while carrying around an idol of her past self mounted on a stick. to get herself back she must fight off her demons by loving her true self, represented again by the head figure. self love could not be attained without first accessing monstrosity in self defense

[whitepeopletwitter]

How do you catch a hawk?!

[will-ferret]

[wombat-annihilator-deactivated2]

[casualhottubharmony]

I really hate doing this but im running out of options. It’s the 9th today and i still havent been able to pay rent for April because my welfare was put on hold until i can get a proof of employment letter from my last job. I’ve been waiting for it for two weeks now and at this point i have no idea how much longer it’ll take. I was able to take $500 out from my credit card but i’m still $200 short for rent. I still have enough groceries for the next few days but given how long it could take i could also use money for food. My paypal and etransfer address is [email protected], i really appreciate any help i can get.

[kropotkhristian-deactivated2019]

[sarahconnorjr]

All right, I can't bear this any longer: Could you PLEASE give us some context to those book covers you keep posting? Like what exactly are they, where do they come from, how did the author get those ideas, AND JUST HOW MANY OF THESE THINGS ARE THERE?! They are really weird and disturbing. I love them.

When I put them in the queue I thought everyone was going to get annoyed because they’ve seen them a million times, I feel terrible that so many of you guys haven’t!

There is this controversy in book industries about e-books; specifically Amazon who has made it easy for someone to self publish whereas before it would cost someone thousands of dollars and so if you did you were a loser because you obviously couldn’t get an agent or even get an indie publisher to back you. All of a sudden a million books are being self published by losers who are ruining literature because anyone can just print anything and nothing matters anymore. It’s the same thing they said when they invented the printing press and then again when trade paperbacks became a thing. 

A whole bunch of people, mostly fanfic writers just repurpose in their work, start publishing these short erotic novels that they haven’t even edited and it was all getting weirder and weirder. 

BDSM became mainstream because of EL James publishing her Twilight fanfiction ‘50 shades of gray’ and then suddenly there were a bunch of books that made people uncomfortable about time traveling to fuck dinosaurs. One erotic novel written by Christie Sims and Alara Branwen kind of became the poster child for the demise intellectualism.

A few years later someone calling themselves Chuck Tingle started to publish tiny erotica novels about people having sex with unicorns and Bigfoot that were intentionally weird with long and had highly specific titles. The covers went viral, most people thinking they were memes but then discovered they were real books that were actual short stories written by somebody who knew how to write and was obviously mocking the controversy.

Everyone was complaining and trying to find out who he was and journalists were trying to contact “him” but he refused to be interviewed. The popular rumor started going around that it was actually a father and son that wrote the books together and someone who everyone is probably sure was actually Chuck Tingle was anonymously interviewed and was like, “lol yeah and we usually write them start to finish in one night” which made people madder and was true because he really blew up when a meme about this dress went viral in a day and by the end of the day Chuck Tingle had a new erotic novel about fucking the dress.

Adding to the controversy is the fact that if you publish through Amazon people can read your books for free through their “digital library” but when people check out books it’s technically counted as a sale. Out of nowhere some dude named Chuck Tingle was at the top of the bestsellers list with these offensive books and sort of accidentally got nominated for a really prestigious award and everyone lost their shit.

The powers that be were changing the rules so he couldn’t win, which is what also happened to Neil Gaiman when his comic book Sandman got nominated and everyone was outraged that a comic book could be considered literature. Neil Gaiman actually won the award and then they put in a rule that no more comic books could be nominated, but they got lucky with Chuck Tingle and he didn’t win. Except then he was nominated for a second time.

Obviously Chuck Tingle didn’t win again, 

but then he kind of doubled down and published books about getting fucked by his nomination and then fucked by the concept of getting fucked over by the industry. Then his book started getting really mostly sociopolitical and shoved his award nomination down everyone’s throats..

They were still just short weird erotica, but instead of being tongue-in-cheek funny they became condescendingly critical.

He has a website with an about me page but he’s become a folklore hero and everyone is 99% sure it’s fake.

As he stands now, the industries are still really upset but the indie scenes are considering them high art.

I am among the latter.

[tinyhipsterboy]

Don’t forget, the whole reason people nominated Chuck Tingle for the Hugo awards in the first place is because a lot of white male authors were really mad that women and racial minorities were winning awards. They nominated him, but of course, he wasn’t going to ruin the mystery by revealing himself, so instead he had someone go to the Hugos in his place… Zoe Quinn, who Gamergate centered around, and who was therefore the poster child of everything this group *hated*.

Chuck Tingle is a goddamn master.

[fool-errant]

Thank you for addingthat. I was about to be “but it wasn’t an accident he was nominated for a Hugo” 

[kakaphoe]

Also Chuck Tingle is absolutely the pseudonym of another famous writer, we just don’t know which one.

[mckitterick]

I REALLY LOVE how this author has been baiting the MRAs and racists in the science fiction community!

Here’s a backgrounder I wrote on the results of the first Hugo Awards that the “Rabid Puppies” (as they’re known in the SF world) tried to ruin, and how it backfired: X

Here’s a collection of posts about Chuck Tingle Hugo Award controversy: X

Nice piece and interview with Lawrence author (and dear friend) @tessagratton about the controversy: X

Here’s a good Salon article on the topic: X

[katbelleinthedark]

No lie, the Chuck Tingle story is my favourite modern mystery.

[mikkeneko]

Also honestly if you talk to Chuck Tingle outside of his books he’s just… a really nice dude? Like the bit he does is very weird and wack, he frames everything in terms of stacked parallel realities and his vocab is… descriptivist, but within that framework he’s super gentle and respectful towards everybody and just wants the best for everyone.

Chuck Tingle is an angel, one of those really weird noneuclidean ones.

[naamahdarling]

What surprised me most about Uncle Chuck’s stories is how good they are. Like, ridiculously stupid and gonzo, but the writing itself, line by line, is astronomically above what I expected, or, indeed, than we deserve.

Chuck Tingle is a gift, and people who think he’s “stealing” anything or is getting attention at the expense of other artists’ recognition really need to chill out. He’s his own thing. Leave him alone.

[lynati]

And recently, we’ve been blessed with the following Tinglers:

“Not Pounded In The Butt By Anything And That’s Okay”

“Not Pounded At The Last Second Because Consent Can Be Given And Revoked At Any Moment And This Is A Wonderful Thing That’s Important To Understand”

“Dressed Up Handsome And NOT POUNDED Because Cosplay Is Not Consent”

[astrologyqueenn]

April Lessons

Aries: learn to embrace yourself and your accomplishments, be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come. don’t downplay what you accomplish this month.

Taurus: endure what you need to endure, and then figure out how to grow from it. always look for new ways to better yourself from hard circumstances.

Gemini: focus on what really matters to you, don’t get lost in the things that don’t make you happy.

Cancer: go out and be one with nature. you need a lot more peace in your life and things have been a little hectic, find time to just be with yourself.

Leo: big adventures are going to happen for you this month, and you have to embrace every single moment. you’re going to be a part of something extraordinary and you won’t want to forget it.

Virgo: when you start to feel stressed, notice it and confide in someone. so often you keep to yourself and let it consume you, you have to lean on other people sometimes.

Libra: take everything one day at a time, because soon you will realize that happiness came out of nowhere, and everything is different but it’s good.

Scorpio: be able to sit back and assess your emotions before you react to something. you need to think before you get yourself worked up.

Sagittarius: let yourself feel excitement and happiness and don’t feel bad about it! don’t feel bad for being happy or for the good things happening in your life.

Capricorn: be patient when things seem hard, because the world is making a way for you right now. it just might be hard to see it when it’s not right in front of you yet.

Aquarius: be open to love and open to being vulnerable. there are some people who are really going to need your guidance and openness to help this month.

Pisces: don’t trust too easily, people so often take advantage of your kindness. you need to only offer this to people who deserve it.

[cosmicvastness]

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. Supermassive black holes are relatively tiny astronomical objects — which has made them impossible to directly observe until now. As the size of a black hole’s event horizon is proportional to its mass, the more massive a black hole, the larger the shadow. Thanks to its enormous mass and relative proximity, M87’s black hole was predicted to be one of the largest viewable from Earth — making it a perfect target for the EHT.  The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.

Credit: ESO

[bob-belcher]

The Addams Family (2019) dir. Conrad Vernon & Greg Tiernan

[catazoid-deactivated20200420]

As promised, here are some pictures of Lyalya’s first walk outside! Look at the bushy little squirrel tail :D the sandpit was her favorite spot! She was extremely excited and threw sand all over the place

[x-file]

this is a fucking squirrel. this is a fucking squirrel with a cat’s head. who is responsible for this

[bonnaconblitz]

Has science gone too far

[c3po]

nearly the end of april.. you know what that means 

[m86-deactivated20171116]

this is an advanced joke

[thehighpriestofreverseracism]

fucks sake

[yiffscourse]

Lmao I only know 1 cishet ace irl and so far he’s 1) had sex with his gf and bragged about it and 2) tried to imply he was bi bc he saw a man and was like “I wish I had his nose” (that aesthetic attraction thing) like dude that isn’t sga

Found a pic of him

[kaijuno]

The Computer Room is such a weird concept nowadays but growing up in the 90s/00s we really had a whole ass room dedicated to our computer. Anthropologists 1000 years from now are gonna think we worshiped computers so much we had shrine rooms for them

[acariciarla]

‘asexuality’ as a personal descriptor for how you experience sex and attraction is completely fine, for adults.

but it doesn’t hold up as a social identity and that becomes extremely obvious whenever you hold it up to literally any other social identity. race, gender, class, ability, religion, sexuality, all of these are coherent identities that come with shared social, cultural, and political experiences. all of these are also things that children can be. all of them (except for race) can change over time of course, but children are still these things.

children can’t be asexual. point blank. to say there are asexual children is to say there are non-asexual children which is by definition sexualizing children, and extremely vile. this is also why ace =/= lgbt, bc children can be lgbt but they can’t be asexual.

im not even gonna get into all the ways the “asexual community” is non-cohesive bc it would take too long, but more importantly, the asexual/non-asexual dichotomy is false. made up. a lie. not grounded in any sort of reality.

i think conceptualizing “asexuality” as a social identity and presenting it as a go-to option if you’re even remotely uncomfortable or uninterested with sex is…. bad. it’s just bad! sex is COMPLICATED and personal and everything from your upbringing to religion to sexuality to race to gender to dysphoria to mental health etc is going to factor into your relationship to sex. minors are developing their sexualities. young adults are figuring out their rltshp to sex. grown ass adults are also still figuring it out! 

if you have spent time with yourself reflecting on your rltshp to sex and figuring out with makes you happy and healthy, and the conclusion you came to is asexuality, that’s COMPLETELY fine. good for you!

but that’s not an identity the same way that someone coming to the conclusion that they love sex and having sex all the time, is also not an identity. and it’s also a conclusion that only adults can come to. to send any other message just makes it harder for minors to safely figure out their own rltshps to sex and attraction.

you literally have people suggesting to 15 year olds that they might be ace bc they’re “not interested in sex like all their friends are.” that’s bananas. completely ridiculous at best, actively damaging at worst. like that’s a literal child, and it’s completely normal for 15 year olds to not be interested in sex. again, if you believe a 15 year old can be asexual, what does that say about how you think of teenagers in general?

i think we’re too far gone in this current cultural moment to like, recalibrate people’s understanding of asexuality. and it’s worrisome. all i hope for is that minors aren’t harmed / repressing their sexuality even further / getting into situations that are unhealthy for them / etc as a result of this cultural moment.

[ryanhatesthis]

[basedheisenberg]

Real recognizes real.

[ghostlysea]

I finally got curious and decided to google this story, and the headline is just the tip of the iceberg. 

Let it never be said again that journalism is a humorless business.

Covering an odd tale about a 14-year-old autistic boy who was handcuffed by police and suspended for running down the sidelines of a high school football game at halftime wearing a banana costume, Washington, D.C. reporter Pat Collins donned a grape suit and went out to get his story.

Speaking to Bryan Thompson, who pulled the prank on Sept. 14 and found himself at the center of a controversy over the school’s response, Collins’ sarcastic outrage seemed palpable.

“School officials accused him of being disruptive and disrespectful,” Collins said. “Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

He asked the student: “Why a banana? Why not a … grape?”

“I don’t know,” Thompson replied. “Potassium is great.”

Following the prank, Colonial Forge High School Principal Karen Spillman suspended Thompson for 10 days, and even recommended that he be kicked out of school for the entire year.

Shortly thereafter, Thompson had composed his own rap song about the incident (called “Free Banana Man!”), set up a Facebook page dedicated to “Banana Man,” and someone even launched a petition calling for his suspension to be lifted.

Thompson’s outrage at the punishment was shared by his fellow students, who began creating yellow t-shirts that read, “Free Banana Man!”

So the school did what schools so often do when their authority is challenged: they banned the shirts, began confiscating them, and sent students to detention for supporting their classmate.

That’s when the American Civil Liberties Union got involved, telling the principal that her actions were unconstitutional.

“But when you think about it, you might see [the school’s] point,” Collins jokingly concluded. “It starts with a banana. Then, all of the sudden, you have an apple, and an orange, and maybe a grape! And before you know it, you have fruit salad in the schools! We can’t have that.”

The school’s principal was ultimately forced to resign, and Thompson has since returned to his studies. [x]

[shatterstag]

NICE

[captain-price-official]

“I don’t know,” Thompson replied. “Potassium is great.”

[memesandlaughs]

[pussysoupforthesoul-deactivated]

queer cafe barista after someone asks them if they have anything besides cake and ace-character-of-the-day word puzzles and to possibly take down the “lesbians not welcome” sign

[swampghouls]

me, pressing the side of my head into my cat’s side: you sound like a car… i love you, motor boy