literally just some guy

One would think that hearing a very distinct, clearly audible, reasonably loud and rapidly approaching sound of any kind would make any reasonable mammal turn to look at the direction of the sound, just purely by instinct?? If a deer heard something nearby go DING DING DING DING DING DING at its general direction, it would at least look up to see whether the source of the sound is a threat or not? Just a quick "is that something I need to be concerned about?" type of glance.

People are misunderstanding OP in the notes, but I have experienced exactly this. This is what the bike lanes near my house look like every day around the time the schools let out. Featuring:

Teenagers walking in a row

Parent with buggy blocking the bike lane (often on phone)

Out of control toddler doing unpredictable zigzags

Person walking their dog on the opposite side so that the leash blocks both paths

If you’ll all pardon my Americentrism for a moment, the amount, visibility, and flamboyance of Pride merch available in clothing, home goods, and comestibles stores is a DIRECT reflection of how safe it is to be queer in public in the United States.

How? Simple. Out groups aren’t profitable. If you’re not “acceptable” in the current social climate, big franchise businesses will not market to you. (Prime example - Look how quickly Target dropped all their Pride merch after having been wall-to-wall rainbows every June for almost a decade prior.)

Sure, capitalism sucks and being viewed as an exploitable marketing demographic isn’t a fun concept.

HOWEVER.

The grim truth is that being normalized enough to be considered profitable by corporations IS A GOOD THING in terms of the barometer of social acceptance.

Same thing goes for smaller businesses that throw kitschy Pride events or even just put a token rainbow flag in the window or somewhere inside the shop. That’s a level of acceptance that DID NOT EXIST thirty years ago, and I can tell you because I was there.

The fact that we can scoff and bitch about being an exploitable marketing demographic nowadays means we have made GIGANTIC strides since the 1990s. It also speaks to the fact that the drive and the conversation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance are continuing. And getting louder.

You can be cynical about it if you want. But I will take a store that puts out lip-service rainbow merch over a world that pretends we don’t exist any day of the week. Because that will always mean something.

if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.

if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to

PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply

so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts