“Girls Gays And Theys”

I've said this before but like. As a young butch who had the good fortune of being raised around older butch lesbians I will forever be dumbfounded that the popular perception most people have of butches is apparently "skinny 20-something with short hair and biceps." I mean don't get me wrong, I partially fit that stereotype myself. But I have never considered that to be the norm. All of the butch lesbians I grew up around were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and built like a fucking freight train. And I don't just mean they had aesthetically sculpted muscles. True muscle strength requires body fat to support it (think bodybuilder vs strongman) and the lesbian community has historically celebrated the things that straight society finds "unattractive" about women's bodies anyways. The pinnacle of butchness has always specifically included fat mascs in my opinion, and it boggles my mind that when a lot of people think of the word "butch" they're thinking of like, Ruby Rose in OITNB and not a 40 year old lesbian with a dad bod who could carry all three of her kids at once if she felt like it

Made a new friend at the dog park today.

instagram.com/mightypaintbrush Get it on Society6! society6.com/mightypaintbrush

MOVIE RANT BELOW YOU CAN IGNORE ME LOL JUST IN MY FEELS OK

I just watched Encanto yesterday by the way and as a Colombian I love what they did with this movie. There are small details that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t familiar with the culture but I just had to make this appreciation post:

The clothing they wear is very typical of the clothing worn in the villages of the mountains down to the stitching! It was all so vibrant and beautiful! And the fact that they stitched the main characters name onto her skirt was such a great detail! Even the little bag that she was carrying is exactly like the bags that are crafted there - my grandpa would buy them as gifts for me and my sister and they are always so beautiful - bright colors and covered in flowers!

Also the architecture of the houses is JUST LIKE my great grandparents village!! My mom and grandma watched the movie with me also and were telling me about how they identified with this story so well. Personal note but my great grandparents actually had to flee their village on horseback with their two babies just like in the movie because they were threatened by assassins (wild I know). So my mom was like “bruh that abuela is MY ABUELA”

When it comes to the appearances, I’m so glad that they made the cast a mix of skin tones, hair types, overall a mix of appearances - because that is totally what we are like! The abuela looks just like my grandma - fairer skin, relatively straightish hair. Meanwhile I’d say I look a lot more like the main character - medium tone skin with curly hair but the curls aren’t tight. And my sister turned out like the MC’s cousin Camilo, similar skin color but MUCH tighter curls. I saw so many of my family and friends in those characters I could go on about this all day!

Also, THE FOOD! Don’t get me started on the food! There are certain foods that are ‘typically’ served in colombian restaurants here in America that are not actually what we eat back in Colombia. I appreciate that they actually used OUR food in this movie. Like the arepas for example. Here in america usually the restaurants serve the corn arepas with cheese on top. I’ve never been to a restaurant that serves arepas the way we actually make them - with the cheese already in the corn mixture. But in the movie they were EXACTLY how we make them I wanted to cry ok. And the buñelos looked so good ffs the breakfast they had together after the engagement party was literally the breakfast my grandma would make for me as a kid like 😭

And the music was so very obviously inspired by not just salsa (aka generic carribean Spanish music) but vallenato (a genre of music that is almost exclusively Colombian) and other genres of music, it was overall very inspired by everything we listen to not just the generic salsa you hear at parties

PLUS the casual use of Spanish pet names like “mija” and “abuela” had me cheesing okay

ALSO WHEN MIRABELS FATHER SAID MIERCOLES I WAS DYING AKDHSKDJSKD (it’s a PG way to say shit in Spanish jajaja)

Actually everything about her dad was precious also when he played the intro chords to La Rebelíon I was ACTUALLY CRYING OF LAUGHTER like whoever chose the music for this KNOWS COLOMBIANS SO WELL LIKE????? If you aren’t familiar with Joe Arroyo you wouldn’t have understood why her dad was playing those chords but like - that is literally the one song that will make ANYONE stand up and dance so when Abuela was like “let’s get back to dancing” and Mirabels dad started playing the intro chords to that song on the piano it was so funny ok

Also real talk I think I have a crush on Luisa

*CORRECTION the song was En Barranquilla Me Quedo and as someone who is FROM BARRANQUILLA I wanna formally say I’m going to crawl into a rock and die now for my mistakes*

The thing about Enid is, I went into this show expecting her to be on the level of obnoxiously cheery as the campers in Addams Family Values, and the same level of overbearing and bitchy. But in her very first scene, she proves to be more than just a comedic foil by backing off when she sees Wednesday recoiling from her offered hug. She recognizes that Wednesday isn’t comfortable with being hugged by her, and she immediately respects that.

Then she continues to be a likable contrast to Wednesday, making her disgust/disapproval for several of Wednesday’s antics known, but keeping the story about her pet scorpion in confidence, backing off again and again whenever Wednesday doesn’t want to hug her, and amending her statement about wanting Wednesday to cheer her team on by saying she can just glare from the shore instead. And she does tease Wednesday a little about being such a weirdo, but never with any malice.

Each little act of acceptance toward Wednesday’s oddities makes Enid a character that grows on you at the same time she’s growing on Wednesday. Because although she does get Wednesday out of her comfort zone, she also puts in effort to make Wednesday more comfortable in a new and strange setting.

The matching snoods is a really fun example of how she does both simultaneously, because it’s definitely NOT something Wednesday is into, but Enid had the consideration to make Wednesday’s black and not pink like hers. And as much as Wednesday finds the whole idea embarrassing, she can’t openly mock it to Enid’s face because she knows her heart’s in the right place, and she is genuinely a great friend whom she doesn’t want to hurt.

Wednesday is constantly pushed into doing things she doesn’t want to do, kept at a place where she doesn’t want to be, and bombarded with advances she doesn’t want to be bothered with, and Enid is the first person to let her choose what she wants to do. They’re like straight up the story of the girl who turns into a cat and runs away from all her potential suitors except for the one who never tries to catch her, and that’s a big part of what makes the scene where they finally do hug so great; because Enid has become someone who is so important to her that Wednesday hugs her because now she actually wants to.

@pizzaboat this made me smile. I love them. 🥹

Health and ability is mostly about luck. It's not a direct consequence of making either good or bad choices. You can't always avoid disability by making the right choices, and we need to kill the widespread assumption that you can. Because if you think health and ability is fully within people's control, then you will assume that disabled people MUST be doing something wrong and/or that they are failing to do enough. And that just isn't true. This world isn't fair like that. People who do everything right can be severely disabled for life, just like people who never cared for their health can be fully abled for 85 years. Of course habits and lifestyle can affect health in some capacity, but it's mostly a game of luck and chance

Story time:

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

So whenever I see crap like Elizabeth Holmes’s blood test scam or pharmaceutical trials which are unable to be replicated or industry-funded research that reaches wildly unscientific conclusions, I just remember those fucking sweet potatoes. I remember that curiosity dies when people are just trying to give their superiors the “right” answers, so they can get the grade, get the job, get the paycheck. It’s not about truth when it’s about paying rent. There’s no scientific integrity if you can’t control for human desperation.

*SIGHS*

Another AO3 app that's pretending to be official when it's not (or at least isn't making it clear its unofficial.) They're using AO3's name and logo, and embedding ads.

There is no official AO3 app

Someone else is gathering your data, potentially your log in information etc and making use of it how they please. (They say they're not but their privacy policy says otherwise)

They are making money from the ads without the fic writer's consent.

They've also rated it Pegi 3 (which is ludicrous)

Please, even if you care about nothing else, for the safety of your data, please don't use this app. Certainly don't give it your AO3 log in details.

I've told AO3 that it's infringing on its copyright. I will be requesting they remove access of my work as I do not consent to my creative content being used to generate ad revenue for them.

I will be reporting it as incorrectly rated.

The only email address I can find is Narusta@gmail.com which is included in their privacy policy, and boboxway13@gmail.com as their developer.