Njkhis - Untitled

“Don’t call Trump supporters nazis, it hurts their feelings.”

and that’s a wrap.

thank you so much to everyone who has submitted, supported, reblogged, etc our posts over the 3? years of this blog’s existence lol. we appreciate it so much! but both of us felt like it was a good time to retire bpi. we’ll leave the blog up and maybe periodically post on it but since its been pretty inactive anyways this was the next logical step. 

thank you for the laughter and joy!

love from @makoshark & @transannabeth,

badpjoideas (jan 13 2017-aug 30 2020)

A lot of people are genuinely terrified about what will happen if Donald Trump wins reelection and it's really weird how some of y'all are acting like everyone begging you to vote for Biden is some privileged, rich, out of touch, neo-liberal when a lot of them are just vulnerable people who don't want to like...die in a brutal civil war or watch all their remaining rights get stripped away by an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party.

I do not know how to express to you how much worse it can get.

"who radicalized you" ever since i was a child i wanted other people to be treated nicely and fairly because i didnt understand why theyd deserve otherwise and it fills me with disgust seeing how people treat their fellow human beings sometimes

ronda slater, what I need is: a contemplation of bisexuality, from bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, edited by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu, 1991

Riptide Chapter 3

The street outside the bookstore is quieter than usual. It’s just about closing time and Percy is shelving all the books who were moved from their nooks through the course of the day. Sally is cleaning the coffee counter, snacking on the last cookie in the display case and humming a song that Percy can’t quite place.

“Where have I heard that before?” he asks, rounding the corner of the nearest bookcase.

Sally smiles without looking up from what she’s doing. “It was one of your dad’s favorites. Every time it was on the radio, he’d turn it all the way up and sing along. Badly.”  

Percy laughs. “So I got my singing voice from him?”  

Sally looks up then. “Of course. I mean, I sing like an angel so it couldn’t be me.”  

They continue their customary movements around the store, making sure all the tables are clean, the books are put away, and the oven is off, before heading to the back office.

It’s a small, unimpressive space with just enough room for two people, three if necessary. There is a small wooden desk that Percy remembers helping his dad build, still being able to note the by P+P carved into one of its legs. He runs his hand over it as he sits down, feeling comforted by its graininess against his skin.  

Sally puts on her reading glasses and opens up her ledger, making notes of the days profits. “How we lookin?” Percy asks.

Sally sighs contentedly and leans back in her chair. “To be honest, we’re killing it.”  

Percy smiles and lifts his hand for a high-five which Sally returns gleefully. “I knew it. Big book chains eat your heart out.”

As she sits back, she begins to simply watch Percy, who squirms under her gaze.

“Don’t do that thing,” he says.

“What thing?” she asks, playing dumb.

“That thing where you watch me and use your mom witchcraft to just like, get everything out of me.”

She smiles and shrugs. “Can’t help it, just comes naturally.”

keep reading on ao3

hey if you're trans in the us i love you. hey if you're queer in the us i love you. hey if you're a person of color in the us i love you. hey if you're a woman in the us i love you. hey if you're disabled in the us i love you. i love you i love you i love you

5/31/20

I couldn’t sleep last night. It has been very difficult to be present lately. Every time I have thought about this situation in the past few days my heart begins to race and my hands begin to shake.

Being Black means a constant struggle between being informed and constantly enraged, or mentally shutting down in an attempt to maintain your peace and avoid mental exhaustion. For the past few days I’ve teetered between the two, having to choose between being involved and being calm. Now I feel numbness. From the day we are born, day in and day out we are being watched, surveilled, insulted, degraded, criticized, beaten down, and brutalized mentally and physically. Every move you worry about, worrying how it will be perceived by others. Am I walking too close to this person? Am I speaking too loud? Should I share that experience with that friend? What will they say, or what will they not say? We are taught by society to shrink ourselves and hate ourselves. We are taught what we say and believe does not matter. We are taught that we should stay down for fear of being taken out if we get up. We are taught we are not allowed to have and express feelings the way other people are allowed to. We have a knee on our neck at all times, choking us slowly. And when we muster the strength and the power to stand up and say something about the constant discrimination, mistreatment, brutality, and psychological torture that white supremacy imposes on our lives, people seem to always find a way to justify the injustices done to us.

⁃ “Maybe you shouldn’t wear dark colors next time you go out...”

⁃ “You know you shouldn’t drive such a nice car in that neighborhood...”

⁃ “Maybe you shouldn’t go to that school or major in that field, you know how it is...”

⁃ “If you would have just cooperated, things would not have escalated...”

⁃ “Well they must have done something to be treated that way...”

⁃ “Are you sure it was racism? How do you know? It could have been something else...”

⁃ “Maybe you should try not being so angry...”

I am thinking about my grandparents who are not even 90 yet and have had this happen, names known and unknown to them, thousands of times in their lifetime. I can not begin to understand the immense pain they must feel reliving the many traumatic experiences of their childhoods growing up in the 30, 40s, and 50s in the Jim Crow South. I am thinking about my parents seeing this for the umpteenth time, who were born in the late 60s, a time when some thought the country was beginning to progress. I am thinking about Black family members and relatives and friends who are as enraged, hurt, exhausted, and numb as I am. I am thinking about how we will likely have to live these things again and again in our lifetimes. And I am thinking about the people that exist alongside us on this Earth that see but do not protest or oppose our constant dehumanization and extermination.

For you Black people, I am wishing you love and care and light and safety as we all are battling this situation, both mentally and physically. I know all of us are inexplicably tired. You are not a soapbox or a political robot. If what is healthier for you is not to speak right now, do that. If what is healthier for you is to be out right now protesting or having difficult conversations with people, do that. I see and understand both of you.

For you non-Black people who are speaking up, sharing information, donating, and protesting with pure and genuine intentions. Thank you. Please continue standing in solidarity and challenging the anti-Blackness in your own communities. Continue to amplify Black voices and stand with us.

For those posting one quick reposted photo displaying opposition or engaging in “don’t break the chain” Instagram trends because everyone’s doing it or so they don’t look bad, and then logging off to go back to using or letting their friends and family use the N-Word, profiting off of and appropriating Black culture, speaking over or attempting to invalidate Black people and their experiences, supporting cops and other racist institutions, and/or refusing to challenge your racist and anti-Black friends and family members (and this list is by no means exhaustive): what good does this do? Your words and posts without change and action mean nothing. Appearing to be anti-racist is not for clout or for safety from persecution. Lives are at stake.

For those who are displaying opposition with the ridiculous expectation to get praise or points from people for doing so: being anti-racist is your only option in this day and age. It is basic human decency.

For those who don’t really understand what’s going on or why, I encourage you to seek out the many resources that are available online that can explain more in depth the immoral country we live in so that you can be more educated on the reality of the situation. Do your best not to reach out to Black people to do the emotional labor and exhausting work of trying to defend our humanity to you. Many of us are extremely overwhelmed at this time between the racism we experience daily and what we see playing out in the country, and it is not our job to do the work of educating people about this system of white supremacy that we did not create.

For those that are saying nothing at all, why? Aoki Lee Simmons said “My non-Black friends, I cannot begin to unpack your silence. I am scared of what it will tell me. The things you are here for and the things you are not, what do they say about you? About me for choosing you?” What do you want with me? Am I just another stamp on your diversity punch card? Do I exist to make you feel less guilty? How can you look me in the eye or call me friend knowing you do not actively challenge the systems and prejudices that kill people like me? It is shameful and disgraceful not to speak up and use your privilege when people need you the most. And I understand you do not have to post things on social media to care about things. But honestly, what the hell are you waiting for? If now is not the time to align yourself for the right cause, what is? Especially for those who know they have engaged in anti-Black prejudices, practices, and language. Isn’t now as good a time as any to prove yourself?

To all whom this applies: your lack of support, attempted justification for injustice, and chosen ignorance is a threat to my, my family’s, and my community’s lives and wellbeing.

We need to stop framing racism as something of the past. It is here, has always been here, and it has never left. White supremacy is the foundation of this country and all of its institutions. When the problem runs that deep, things have to be shaken up, flipped over, and burned down in order to change. If you’re putting more energy into calling protesters “rioters” or “thugs,” defending racist killer cops, justifying state-sanctioned murder, saying that “all lives/blue lives matter,” and demonizing Black people for reacting to the violently dehumanizing and fatal racism and anti-Blackness we face in this country... just admit that Black people demanding equal rights and equal treatment is disturbing to you. Just admit you are uncomfortable with disrupting your social position and the systems that keep you up there, and us down here. We have been peaceful, by the book, and complied with the law. We have taken a knee in peaceful silence. We have tried to have dialogue with you. We have resorted to violence. No matter which route we take, there always seems to be an issue. To racists and white supremacists, there is no “right way” for Black people to fight for their rights. Your respectability politics exists to control and surveil us. Stop telling Black people how to react to the systems that have created our pain, our anguish, and our trauma for hundreds of years.

I am talking directly to white and non-Black people of color. It is not enough for you to be neutral or simply “not racist.” We all must have strong values at this time, or we have chosen the side of the oppressor. It is not enough for you to post on social media. These things are important and do bring awareness, but with the brutality we are facing we need your monetary and physical support. We need your lifestyle and mindsets to change. Reflect on the prejudices that you hold and the ways you perpetuate or are complicit in racism and anti-Blackness. Stop making excuses for friends and family who are complicit as well. Explore the ways that you can educate yourself, others, and help. We need the world to actively and loudly value Black lives, Black well-being, and Black futures as much as they value Black culture.

If you know of any protests nearby and are well enough to go, I encourage you to. Please sign petitions. I have also included a few links of where you can donate to help the cause. (Please comment below any other petitions, campaign, resources, etc. I can amplify at this time!)

SIGN THE PETITION:

Justice for George Floyd | https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/justiceforfloyd_george_floyd_minneapolis/?source=dm_sms_optin_5-26-20

Justice for Breonna Taylor | https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/justiceforbre-breonna-taylor-officers-fired/?source=dm_SMS_shortcode_optin

Justice for Ahmaud Arbery | https://www.runwithmaud.com/

DONATE:

Campaign Zero | https://www.joincampaignzero.org/

Reclaim the Block | https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/home

George Floyd Memorial Fund Fundraiser | https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Black Vision Collective | https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/

Minnesota Freedom Fund | https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate

stay down

An AU in which Grover is on the Argo II as protector instead of Hedge, because I say so. He and Percy get to have an actual conversation about the aftereffects of Tartarus + that godawful conversation with Jason.

Percy is tired. That’s what he tells Grover when he asks how he’s doing (and Grover asks often).

I’m just tired.

Saving the world for the fifth summer in a row gets tiring, you know? I’m gonna go nap. Wake me up when I’m on watch.

It’s nothing. Just haven’t been able to sleep. Since the world is ending again.

Everyone else has stopped asking.

It’s not for lack of caring. Percy’s loyalty outweighs his self-deprecation; he can’t think lowly enough of the people around him to claim they don’t care about him. He just makes it easier for them to forget. Indifference is more comfortable than concern. How can Percy explain himself to Jason, Piper, and Leo, who don’t know him; to Frank and Hazel, who admire him; or to Annabeth and Grover, who love him? He tried with Jason after the incident with the poison, and the guy gave him that hard-pressed grimace—lips pulled tight and to the side—before dismissing the topic entirely. Jason paused, perhaps to think, and Percy heard rejection in the silence. It was just like when he set fire to the band room at Goode: Percy was standing with his face sooty and his skin torn apart by debris, looking out at the horror and disbelief on the faces of his peers. So he did with Jason what he did then. He ran.

Maybe Jason truly thought nothing of it. The guy was raised by wolves, after all. He doesn’t seem like the type to sit in his emotions. Maybe the conversation took a turn down a road Jason can’t walk either; maybe he’s a runner, just like Percy.

Tired gets everyone else off his back. Annabeth narrows her eyes with that analytical stare that used to break Percy, but even she can be fooled. That stare worked when his problems were smaller—the weight of the world instead of the weight of himself. After a lifetime of shouldering impossible burdens, the thing that makes his legs shake is getting out of bed in the morning. Just the weight of sixteen years, of five straight summers being a hero. If he lives to see a time where the world doesn’t need a hero—when it doesn’t need Percy—who will he be? Childhood turned to dust alongside the first monster he plunged Riptide into. What story will he write when it comes time to put down the sword and pick up the pen?

PLEASE HEED THE TAGS BEFORE READING 

read on AO3

idk guys can we all report this etsy shop for like, actively trying to further covid during a global pandemic. can we please do that. is that allowed