Product Placement
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KIROKAZE
Kaledo Art
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wallacepolsom
trying on a metaphor
occasionally subtle
pixel skylines
styofa doing anything
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shark vs the universe
blake kathryn
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Janaina Medeiros
almost home
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seen from Türkiye
seen from France
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Taiwan
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from India
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@radula-dreaming
studying history is like. here's to another beautiful day of not being pregnant and of having no obligation to ever be. thank you women who fight for abortion and contraception and independance from men for another beautiful day of not being pregnant and of having no obligation to ever be
Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.
if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:
When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.
This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.
and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.
In addition: looking for indie publishers and queer bookshops is a great way to find and support queer authors and stories of so many infinite varieties! (The following suggestions are based on my UK-centric knowledge)
(Some) Queer Presses:
Lurid Editions are "a publishing project committed to intentional and conscientious acts of archival repair". They are "attentive to how marginalised histories are forgotten and remembered, [and] hungry to rediscover overlooked queer books". They've just received funding from Arts Council England to engage queer readers in a project to contribute to the archive!
Cipher Press "We’re really keen on the idea that queer and minority stories are for everybody, and we want to make our books – and the stories they tell - accessible to all" (what an amazing mission statement!)
Anamot Press "Anamot [Անամոթ] means shameless in Armenian. Anamot Press publishes poetry and prose on intersecting experiences of gender, sexuality, race, migration, class, belonging and loss - with no shame."
(Some) Queer Bookshops
Queer Lit Oh man, I remember when this was just a tiny little shop, and now they're the biggest LGBT+ bookshop in Europe! They do amazing work in donating books about being trans to schools and parliament! They have a pay-it-forward board that will make you sob with its notes of love and support. (You can tell I wish I still lived nearby)
Lighthouse For Scottish friends - "a queer-owned and woman led independent community bookshop. We are an unapologetically activist, intersectional, feminist, antiracist, lgbtq+ community space"
Gay's The Word The OG Queer bookshop in the UK. One day I will make my pilgrimage!!
This really is just a tiny snapshot of all the amazing work of celebration and resistance that's being done for Queer literature at the moment. We live in frightening times, but I promise there is still lots of love and joy and hope out there in spaces like these. Support them in whatever way you can!!
Thinking about how when the Oceangate sub imploded, the coastguard picked it up on their radar and knew from the moment it happened that everyone on board was already gone, and yet there was still a five day manhunt.
And how like a week before that, a refugee ship sank off the coast of Greece, whose officials knew this was happening and had ships within reach, but intentionally did nothing.
And how there was like the most expansive manhunt in recent history to find a suspect in the UHC shooting. In a city known for its unsolved crimes. How Briana Boston was arrested for a vaguely perceived threat to a CEO she wasn't even speaking to nor mentioned, while internet stalkers are never addressed unless they hurt someone, and then it's a maybe
And just how there is always money to perform for the rich, even when they can't actually be helped. And there is never money to help the poor, no matter how easy they would be to save.
And for some reason it's considered "dangerous and extreme" to want a world where our lives aren't just fodder at the whims of the rich.
Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.
if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:
When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.
This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.
and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.
In addition: looking for indie publishers and queer bookshops is a great way to find and support queer authors and stories of so many infinite varieties! (The following suggestions are based on my UK-centric knowledge)
(Some) Queer Presses:
Lurid Editions are "a publishing project committed to intentional and conscientious acts of archival repair". They are "attentive to how marginalised histories are forgotten and remembered, [and] hungry to rediscover overlooked queer books". They've just received funding from Arts Council England to engage queer readers in a project to contribute to the archive!
Cipher Press "We’re really keen on the idea that queer and minority stories are for everybody, and we want to make our books – and the stories they tell - accessible to all" (what an amazing mission statement!)
Anamot Press "Anamot [Անամոթ] means shameless in Armenian. Anamot Press publishes poetry and prose on intersecting experiences of gender, sexuality, race, migration, class, belonging and loss - with no shame."
(Some) Queer Bookshops
Queer Lit Oh man, I remember when this was just a tiny little shop, and now they're the biggest LGBT+ bookshop in Europe! They do amazing work in donating books about being trans to schools and parliament! They have a pay-it-forward board that will make you sob with its notes of love and support. (You can tell I wish I still lived nearby)
Lighthouse For Scottish friends - "a queer-owned and woman led independent community bookshop. We are an unapologetically activist, intersectional, feminist, antiracist, lgbtq+ community space"
Gay's The Word The OG Queer bookshop in the UK. One day I will make my pilgrimage!!
This really is just a tiny snapshot of all the amazing work of celebration and resistance that's being done for Queer literature at the moment. We live in frightening times, but I promise there is still lots of love and joy and hope out there in spaces like these. Support them in whatever way you can!!
we have to thank our brave soldiers in fandom who write gen fics. we have to thank our brave soldiers in fandom who write character studies and stories with no focus on romance or sex. we have to get on our knees and thank the brave soldiers in fandom who write about minor characters and friendship and family with no focus on romance or sex. i know it’s hard to care about characters in a world that seems to only revolve around ships but i see you. and i love you
only 62 more frogs until we hit 8,000 species described. the moment we've all been waiting for
there are an average of about 150 new amphibian species described per year so I remain hopeful that 2026 will be the year of 8,000 frogs
I do love that somebody tagged tumblr's own frog scientist on this post. chop chop dr scherz, we've got 62 more frogs to discover and you're the only frog scientist any of us knows
GUYS amphibian species of the world is still at 7,994 species of frog BUT amphibiaweb is at 8,008 species of frog, and do you know who is a co-author on the 8,000th species of frog there???? TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR SCHERZ
idk why people are still trying to do "hear me out"s on tumblr
you could talk about wanting to fuck the space needle on here and people would still call you a poser for insisting on fucking "conventionally attractive architecture" as if that's a coherent, easily-recognizable category
I want to fuck Antoni Gaudi's unbuilt Hotel Attraction skyscraper design
"hear me out" and it's a picture of the most fuckable building you've ever seen. c'mon now.
I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.
I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.
Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.
I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.
I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.
Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.
I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.
My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.
I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?
No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!
glad this post is resonating with the local populace fr
Why do you stay?
love prometheus and how his attack names are always increasingly multisyllabic synonyms for fire. burn. combust. inferno. incinerate. conflagration. we get it man you own the fattest thesaurus in all the cosmos
“Where are the trans men in history?” See. When you're born a gender that was forcefully married off, who had to live most of their life indoors, when you had to raise children, and had a lobotomy if your family thought you were a tad too odd, it's kinda hard to come out as a trans man now ain't it.
forever my lineage would use his wrong pronouns but not me
[Image ID: Tumblr tags reading: I have an ancestor who 'pretended to be a man' for years, according to my relatives he did so in order to go to school to become a doctor, and he was eventually found out and wed off to a man and had a family, and forever would be revered for being able to get a degree 'posing as a man', but apparently even after marriage he still dressed in men's clothes and preferred to be seen as a man, forever my lineage would use his wrong pronouns but not me, I see him and I hope he smiles upon me knowing I am living a life he would have dreamed just getting to be a trans man, without being forcefully wed off and forced to have children for the sin of being born with a vagina, such is history with trans mascs, I once saw someone online say:, 'if history has a gaping hole where a minority should be, it's not because they did not exist/did not contribute, it's because they were erased', and I think about that a lot when I see stories like my ancestors knowing that our history has constantly been defiled, just like this /End ID]
legal procedural about a sleazebag lesbian lawyer cruising divorce court to pick up emotionally vulnerable women by helping turn up dirt on their husbands
"I was taught two things growing up before mama went to Vegas and never came back..." camera flashes to winning the slots and then an outstretched bloody hand and then a grave "that the only rewards we keep in this life are ones we work for" cut to MC stepping out of a nice car in front of a courthouse "and that everyone has a secret sickness inside of them"
"I took those lessons to heart. Two jobs in high school, doing other kids' homework, no prom...full ride for college. They didn't hand that to me either. I had to work for that too." (Montage of her laughing with admission clerk and then breaking into a computer to delete competitors) "law school was harder. No scholarships, no breaks. It got harder when the sickness set in." MC at a pool party with a ton of beautiful women hand feeding her grapes. The camera flashes on one woman in the corner who's sobbing into her hands and then back to the MC whose eyes narrow
"You never forget the first time you give in to the sickness" MC approaches the woman, sits down and whispers in her ear. The woman's eyes widen. "But once you give in..." MC walks away from sobbing woman, snagging a drink off of someone's poolside table as she goes "well, I guess my mama taught me one more thing."
Behind her, the woman is no longer sobbing. Shes staring straight ahead. Slowly, she picks up her phone. Types out one message. Sends it. The pool party erupts in message alerts. Shouts begin. People start accusing each other. MC takes her drink out to the parking lot, smiling. The camera goes back to the unnamed woman who is now Donny darko smiling at the chaos.
"Go big or go home."
Police cars show up as MC drives away.
The scene transitions back to modern day, courthouse. Another car pulls up and a woman dressed in rumpled business wear gets out. Our MC locks in.
"Smudged mascara...Manila folder clutched tk her chest. No lawyer then, representing herself...the sort of flush that only comes to a woman's face when she's caught somewhere between betrayal and despair..."
MC follows the woman to the courthouse. Right before going in, she turns to look at the camera. Smiles.
"That's what I'm addicted to. the moment she decides to fight. To defend herself. Burn the world, you know?"
(Montage of MC sitting beside evilly smiling clients as the judge bangs the gavel, men in opposing counsel yelling, red-faced screaming as MC walks her clients out of the courthouse)
"Yeah, that's the good stuff."
MC finds her target in the courthouse, flinching away from a man who must be her soon-to-be-ex and his suit-wearing lawyer. Without breaking stride, she goes up and puts an arm around the woman's shoulder. She sticks her other hand out to the two men, smiling.
She says, "Hi, I'm Cass Montenegro. Representation. So good to see you harassing my client already. Should make this easy."
Goes back to voice over as she stands there smiling, pulling her client into her side, and never taking her eyes off opposing counsel.
"There's still an awful lot of world left to burn."
Opening credits
From "Who's Who at the Zoo," written by George Mazzei and illustrated by Gerard Donelan for The Advocate in 1979. Possibly the first recorded usage of the term bear to refer to a gay subculture.
Can anyone help me find the rest of this? The only references to it I can find online are to this page.
I found the date: "Who's Who at the Zoo?" July 26, 1979, The Advocate. A large library, or library in a queer area, probably has the advocate in their periodical collection. Possibly not digitized though.
Wait @cbpolt posted it on Twitter but it's been made private. Maybe they'll share with you if you ask? https://mobile.twitter.com/CBPolt/status/1535327694614933504
Edit no no here it is! https://www.out.com/today-gay-history/2016/7/26/today-gay-history-when-advocate-invented-bears?pg=full
All Work And No Play
Who is the Monster? Who is the Man?
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Soulmate AU where the soulmate thing is in fact totally fake and a conspiracy.
Turns out that there's this ancient society of wizards who perfected the means of telepathically linking up two individuals. While early uses included stuff like espionage and such, early on there was an incident where a wizard accidentally synced the wrong targets up. It just so happened that instead of syncing the crown prince to the intended informant, the mistaken target was a young lady who was a shrewd political match, and both their parents had been looking to arrange the matter (but were struggling with the reluctance of the relevant parties).
With sudden telepathic bonding on the table, the couple took it as a sign from the gods that they were meant to be, and got together of their own accord.
The wizards realized the potential for matchmaking as a means of manipulating the political landscape, and abandoned their prior attempts at subterfuge (a limit of the telepathic bond is that it's two-way, so the target also gains your secrets, which meant a lot of them had to be assassinated after the fact.)
So the wizards converted their lair into an ostensible temple of the Goddess of Love, where people could come to pray to find their soulmates. Wizards were also sent out to arrange matches that would advance the interests of their cult, as well as some random ones just to help cover their tracks. As the influence of the Goddess of Love grew, new branches of the temples sprang up. The cultists were soon divided into two categories: wizards who still knew the truth and pretended to be priests, and actual priests who weren't in on it and genuinely believed they were helping soulmates find one another.
The culture around it goes something like this:
Not everyone has a soulmate, and not all soulmates are destined to be together in every lifetime. But if they are, the Goddess will bless you with the ability to hear one another's inner voice, if it is your fate and/or if you pray hard enough. Some soulmates know each other from their first meeting, but others take time to recognize the bond and open their hearts to the possibility of connection. If you're wondering why it took like eighteen separate meetings with someone before the bond manifested, do some introspection and consider why you might have closed your heart off or whatever. Like it's definitely a you problem, and it's rude to blame the Temple of Love, which is only trying to help people and has no other agendas whatsoever.
Also consider donating more money to the temple next time. Higher donations mean more priests can petition the Goddess on your behalf, and she's a busy lady, sometimes it takes a lot of petitions to get her attention. 👌
How would this factor into a plot?
My thinking is that a pair get setup as soulmates, and they are just absolutely both adamantly convinced that they are not. Like not in an enemies-to-lovers sense or anything, they just get the psychic bond thing and it's like, no. I don't know what's up but the Goddess of Love has definitely made a mistake. So they set out to gain an audience with her, but along the way they uncover the truth about the cult and its manipulation of generations of political marriages and business alliances.
It could be a metaphor for amatonormativity. Like some of the priests argue that even if it's a con, it's one that's been running for so long it's already steeped into the culture. How could the main characters bring themselves to expose it? To tell people who think they've found their soulmates that it's not really the case? Think of all those bonds they'd be threatening!
But then like, wait a minute. That's bullshit. This whole format for relationships has so many problems, and it's all working in service of manipulating and controlling people anyway! Why should they let the cult go on hooking up individuals that suit it? Shouldn't people know that it's possible to CHOOSE to make a telepathic bond with someone they actually want to? Shouldn't they be able to decide to manage their own relationships as they see fit, without some misleading pressure of fate or gods? And what about the ones left feeling excluded and unlovable because they don't "have" a soulmate? It's not like people are going to stop loving one another or finding themselves if they aren't being led around to do it this specific way!
So they upend the whole thing, and upset a lot of people, and then have to deal with the fact that they're still telepathically bonded until one of them dies.
Ugh.
Stupid cult.
