happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

I think I hate tumblr.

The idea that "having fragile masculinity" is inherently a personality defect or moral failing is patriarchal. So much of this kind of bullshit is people taking fundamentally patriarchal ideas of manhood (for example, that men being vulnerable is a defect or moral failing) and defining it around slightly more feminist values.

Like, the only thing that is different from bog standard patriarchy here is the inclusion of "macho." But like, the idea that there are "fragile" men who fail to be "real men" with unshakeable firm masculinity, and they also secretly have small penises and are biologically less manly compared to "real men" whose real manhood can be located in their large penises... babe that's just toxic masculinity. The same "macho" shit you hate those men for, you yourself engage in, just a little to the left.

A baby is never doing something to upset you. They don't act up to piss you off. They act in the only way they know how, and yes, sometimes the behaviour they're drawn to isn't great! That's why you guide them and comfort.

Now mind you, the two other adults we were with were straight. Very supportive straights, but straight. And their kids I babysit for are like...8 and 5 (the 5 year old is figuring out gender expression, which we love). All that to say that after less than an hour of knowing me, the cousin was drifting to my side and hanging out with me more so than their own aunt and uncle. Queer finds queer lol

It was kind of crowded after the parade so we all went for lunch, and afterwards they were like "hey before we leave I really want to try and buy a rainbow flag" and we were all like "yeah ofc" and set out to find a booth that wasn't crammed with everyone in the city.

Nothing in the world more satisfying y'all than watching this kid eye all the rainbow flags, hesitate, look back at me, and then very slowly turn to point to the trans flag and ask for that one instead. Because it's the one they REALLY wanted, but I think if they had gone up to the vendor with a bunch of straight ppl in tow they might not have picked it. One (1) visibly queer person hanging out with them for a few hours was all it took for them to feel more comfortable in their own skin. And I'm not even trans myself.

"Sick of it all"