one day i'll wake up as the big Kafka bug

they. illustrator and tattooer. please throw treats into my enclosure https://linktr.ee/blue.jpeg

[bluedotjpeg]

new resumé for going into the dark times

[birchbeer]

npr ran a story this morning on air about the recent supreme court ruling in favor of trans youth sports bans, a ruling that specifies trans girls in particular and allows even public schools in red states to do whatever kind of exclusionary policy they want. and for this story they interviewed two people: a teenage trans boy in massachusetts who participates in tons of school sports, and an activist trans man in nyc who runs a nonprofit for trans youth. I'm not saying that either of these people have absolutely nothing pertinent to say about trans youth issues, but the teenager from MA mostly spoke about how lucky *he* is to participate in sports and the activist from NYC spent the entire interview plugging the book he wrote while barely answering a single question. The activist guy mentioned that he actually has spoken to the west virginian trans girl who was part of the case, but only to say how proud/sad he is to watch her become an activist "just like him".

not to be a critic, but its crazy to me that they could not speak either TO or ABOUT the people affected by this ruling (trans girls in conservative areas) at all. a combination of transmisogyny and shitty reporting means that the takeaway from that segment seemed to be "well, it sucks, but at least blue states are still allowed to be accepting of trans youth" rather than the very real attempts to eradicate trans people from public life or the very real possibility of violent retaliation against trans girls in these states.

during the activist's interview, the radio host asked him if he could quickly dispel some of the myths around trans youth in sports somehow being unfair to cis youth, and his response was to awkwardly shrug off the question and say that the answer is simply too "complicated and nuanced" to give a short soundbite on air about. are you fucking kidding me? live on WNYC with about 1 million weekly listeners, and you can't just say with your whole chest that trans girls belong in girls sports because they are girls too? come on

[winningmachine]

Being small Nobody quite recovers from being a child: the asymmetry of power between parents and children always leaves a trace

[bluedotjpeg]

subway rat made eye contact with me...

never thought i'd get to illustrate this absolute banger of a post, and i'm SO thrilled my lovely client was down to go big and weird! they actually had a tattoo of this concept that we covered with this piece, which is another fun first for me! i love that they loved the idea so much they wanted it again, better and bigger. these shots are after a touchup, the tattoo is about 90% healed at this point.

[hussyknee]

The most basic, intractable fact about mental illnesses is that you simply cannot willpower your way out of them. The only exceptions to this rule are the ones I have, which continue to disable me due to lack of determination and other grave personal flaws

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I think those fancomics where Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is transgender are cute and fun but I also think it's a deep misunderstanding of Calvin's character to think he would transition into a heterosexual normie who goes to her high school reunion. That girl would have neopronouns and fang implants

[butch-king-frankenstein]

Adult Calvin is a tattoo artist named Panthera who is the bassist in a terrible metal band called Captain Napalm and Hobbes helps do faer E injections

[butch-king-frankenstein]

I know it's like 2 weeks too late to change it but I'm so mad I didn't realize that the band would obviously be called "Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS". I walk the road of shame

[parawyrm]

[bluedotjpeg]

happy terrible comic day, i am feeling maternal towards the boiled one

[captainjonnitkessler]

So many political posts I hate boil down to "I don't want to organize and work with people I hate and fight for small, incremental victories, I just want to start a revolution where everyone magically becomes an automaton who acts exactly the way I think they should act"

Like damn man, I want that too. Unfortunately I live in reality though so we're stuck with the first thing.

[captainjonnitkessler]

"Modern movements are too fractured, too aimless, with too much infighting and corruption among the leadership. What we need is a revolution, which famously never have any issues with those things" okay then. Good luck I guess

This whole line of thinking comes down to "the current systems and leadership are bad. What we need is a fresh start with only people who are good, and then all the systems will be good". Which is simply not how anything has ever worked!

[traycakes]

"We don't have enough people, funding, and power to bring about changes through elections! We have to do an armed revolution instead which thankfully doesn't require people, funding, or power to pull off."

[cryptotheism]

If staff reformed the ban system to stop banning trans women and used the resulting good will to re-introduce pornography, this site would become a juggernaut. It would swallow Twitter whole.

[glazeliights]

[shoeboxgoblin]

The Brian David Gilbert episode of Very Important People is funny front to back but the best part is right after the reveal when Brian is clearly experiencing some kind of mad scientist gender euphoria. Me too.

[markovchaingang]

my lord. the two statues you commissioned are finally complete. yeah, the double-order with the vast and trunkless legs of stone and the shattered visage. i like to think we captured the sneer of cold command pretty well. it's a really thought-provoking piece my lord. very deconstructionist. i'm sure that even a traveller a thousand years from now could take one look at it and instantly recognise it must have come from an artistically enlightened culture

[probuccalfat]

people act like 20-22 year olds are adults who should be fully responsible and knowledgeable and with it and it’s like have you ever been 20, 21, 22? i knew nothing, i woke up every day dumb as rocks and made every bad choice possible until i went to bed

[eagleinasunbeam]

A big piece of why people feel this way is because they weren't treated like teenagers when they were teenagers. They were treated like young children, so when the switch flips on suddenly there are adult responsibilities and bills to pay, it feels overwhelming as young adults because there weren't stair step, age appropriate responsibilities and markers of development. There's culturally a line of 18 being the age of majority in the US, which is good for making laws to combat child labor and sexual exploitation but bad for things like on an individual level recognizing teenagers can indeed be responsible for major household chores and problem solving and repairs, and as they approach 18 can even start a job and learn what being an adult is like.

A 20 year old is an adult, even if they don't feel like it. And when we talk about feeling overwhelmed as young adults or how we did feel overwhelmed when we came of age, let's not cede linguistic ground to the conservatives who want to make doing literally anything besides signing up for the military before the age of 25 illegal.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I know I keep saying this, but if you're 20-22 years old and actually "know nothing" and are "dumb as rocks" -- if this is a relatively accurate self-assessment and you're not being hyperbolic or insecure -- that's the result of very intentional, willful decisions by people who had power over you growing up (parents, teachers) to actively keep you ignorant.

That goes beyond neglect. Neglected kids at least have some ability to take care of themselves and make decisions, out of pure necessity. If you made it to 18 or 20 or 22 without basic daily decision-making skills, someone (likely multiple someones) put a whole lot of active effort into keeping those skills from you. You deserve to be furiously angry about that, not just passively accept it as a normal stage of human development.

[organicmatter]

guys i just found out about this site that does a daily guessing game, it’s phylogenetic wordle- so fun!!!

[bugthingsdaily]

today's bug thing is this worm plush!

[irish-american-chan]

I Want To Establish Myself As An Autonomous Subject With Rights And Protections But Im Five

[sm64mario]

I met every single creepy pasta and they wre all nice to me

[bluedotjpeg]

advertising tattoo services on Facebook Marketplace will introduce you to the most obnoxiously illiterate people you have ever encountered. every single one is a bad comedy sketch unto themselves.