I Am The Somebody Wrong On The Internet

Suns and moons pass. Streak in the ring finger. Smudge on the pinky. A full-handed block at the cost of three nails of paint. A hit on his master, and he hoots in delight until the master points out the unguarded toe whose polish is now streaked across the master's robe.

Days pass in frustration and exhaustion. By day 40, he has every digit of his acutely in his mind's eye. He senses the master's attack, ducks, dodges, all fingers all toes all himself, aware, and he strikes with his wooden sword.

It connects with the master. The master pauses. The trainee raises his left hand into view--5 digits of flawless sunflower yellow. His left foot. His right foot. And finally his right hand, raised in triumph.

The master smiles. "You have passed. I have just one more technique to teach you."

🍎 @phantomrose96

A master to his action-hero trainee says, "Your movements are sloppy. You lack awareness of your body when you fight. Your hands move and yet you do not hold them in your mind's eye. Come. We will remedy this."

And then the master paints his trainee's fingernails and orders the trainee to complete a series of complicated tasks without smudging the nail polish.

🍎 @phantomrose96

Trainee grumbles that this is stupid when the first set of tasks is just cleaning the dojo. Within two minutes he reaches for the dustpan and knocks the edge of his pinky nail against it in a way he's never noticed before. He's staring at the baby blue smudge and suddenly he understands things differently.

🍎 @phantomrose96

There's a montage of days passing as he fetches water, chops wood, hoes crops, washes clothes. His nails are a different color during each cut. He's sprinting up the mountain with a fresh wet pedicure and the master is nodding in approval. The master's nails are flawless tech art.

🍎 @phantomrose96

He's reached his final assessment and it's a sparing match against his master. The air smells of acetone. His and the master's nails are all freshly painted. He must land a blow on the master with his mani and pedi fully intact.

Suns and moons pass. Streak in the ring finger. Smudge on the pinky. A full-handed block at the cost of three nails of paint. A hit on his master, and he hoots in delight until the master points out the unguarded toe whose polish is now streaked across the master's robe.

Days pass in frustration and exhaustion. By day 40, he has every digit of his acutely in his mind's eye. He senses the master's attack, ducks, dodges, all fingers all toes all himself, aware, and he strikes with his wooden sword.

It connects with the master. The master pauses. The trainee raises his left hand into view--5 digits of flawless sunflower yellow. His left foot. His right foot. And finally his right hand, raised in triumph.

The master smiles. "You have passed. I have just one more technique to teach you."

The technique is how to draw little flowers into the nail art. So really this one is optional.

The FBI cut the phone lines during the 1977 disability rights sit-in. Then they turned off the hot water.

They locked the doors from the outside. One hundred and fifty people were trapped on the fourth floor. Half of them used wheelchairs. The government assumed they would leave.

Kitty Cone was thirty-three. She had muscular dystrophy. Her muscles were failing, but her logistics were flawless. She knew how to organize people.

The federal government had promised to sign regulations protecting disabled Americans from discrimination. The policy was known as Section 504. They printed the promise on paper. Then they stalled. Without a signature, it was just typography.

The protesters entered the regional Health, Education, and Welfare building in San Francisco on a Tuesday morning. They took the elevators to the director's office. They brought sleeping bags and catheters. They informed the staff they were not leaving until the law was signed.

By sunset, the police surrounded the exits. Kitty sat near the windows. She organized the floor plan. She assigned committees for security and sanitation. She kept her medication in a small cooler.

According to federal memorandums released decades later, the strategy to end the occupation relied on medical attrition. The building was not equipped for long-term habitation. The FBI calculated that a population requiring ventilators, specialized diets, and daily medical aides would voluntarily evacuate if the environment became sufficiently hostile. They instituted a blockade.

The blockade went into effect immediately. No food deliveries allowed. No medical supplies permitted through the lobby. Guards stood at the main doors checking identification.

Kitty's muscles deteriorated faster under the physical strain. She couldn't walk. When the phone lines went dead, the fourth floor lost contact with the press. The government waited for the quiet.

Kitty dropped to the floor. She realized the barricades were designed for standing adults. The police had blocked the hallways at waist height. They hadn't blocked the linoleum.

The floors were covered in cigarette ash and spilled coffee. She dragged her body through it. She crawled under the barricades to reach the restricted elevator shafts and unguarded offices.

She carried notes in her pockets. She found a single working payphone the FBI missed. She called the local news desks. She called the mayor's office.

She crawled back. When her arms failed, someone pulled her by her ankles. The Black Panthers heard the news reports. They crossed the police lines with hot meals. The FBI could not stop them without a riot.

They shut off the elevators, so she crawled.

The occupation lasted twenty-five days. It remains the longest non-violent occupation of a federal building in American history. On April 28, the Secretary of HEW signed the regulations without a single alteration.

The protesters left the building the next morning. They went back to their apartments. The Rehabilitation Act regulations laid the groundwork for every accessibility law that followed. The HEW building still stands on United Nations Plaza. The elevators run on a schedule. The doors are heavy glass.

Kitty Cone: the woman who crawled under the barricades.

Source: Kitty Cone's oral history, Bancroft Library.

Verified via: National Museum of American History.

At minimum about 4.5 thousand people liked this without reblogging it.

We're here, we're queer, we're really fucking tired so we're just gonna go straight to biting instead of feigning polite confusion if you're gonna be a bigot this time, just so you know.

Happy Pride!

don't present androgynously

use "binary" pronouns in any capacity

identify partially with a binary gender

have a "gendered" name

don't experience body dysmorphia

don't experience gender dysphoria

DO experience gender dysphoria/body dysmorphia but aren't sure what gender or body would suit them

just experience body/gender apathy instead

can't be open about their gender identity yet

you're all absolutely valid.

Rosamund hesitated. It was, she had to admit, the first time she had ever been given a wish, so she wasn't an expert with this sort of thing, but she felt that this was not part of the typical script. "Sorry," she said. "Is that not allowed?"

The fairy grimaced. When it spoke, its voice came out pained and stressed. "Y-y-y-e-e-e-no," it sighed at last, dragonfly wings sagging. "No, technically no, it's not not allowed, but-" It suddenly brightened. "How about gold? Can't go wrong with gold. Gold's a good wish."

Rosamund frowned. This was really not going the way she expected at all. "Excuse me-"

"Beauty, that's a good one too, beauty's always popular," it went on. "And if there's a ball nearby tonight I can probably-"

"Excuse me!"

The wand was twiddled in chitinous fingers. "Right," the fairy said, sounding scolded. "Sorry, it's just..." Its voice trailed off.

Her grandmother's clock chimed midnight from the mantelpiece.

Then - "I'm sorry," it said, not daring to look up, "I know it's not fair, but - you know what I am. You know what we do to wishes. If you wished for wealth I'd have to turn your hair into silver, so you’d have to tear every strand out of your head before you could spend it. We can't help it. It's what we do. The cost of a wish is that you get what you want, but you don't get it the easy way.

"So if you wish for a child, it'll be - strange. Twisted, somehow. Made of pine or marzipan or have the head of a hedgehog. That's the cost of a wish-child; you'll get the child you wished for, but it'll never be - right."

Rosamund waited to see if there was anything else. She felt a sting to her pride when she realized there wasn't. "Is that all?" she said. "I wouldn't care what I got-"

"You all say that," the fairy said. "You all say you wouldn't care what you got. You all say it, and you really believe it, until the neighbours sneer at you and your hedgehog child for too long, or your back aches because your thumb-high child can't help you in the fields, or your pine child kicks and bites and won't obey, and then you think, 'This isn't the way it was supposed to be,' and then..."

The fairy stopped and looked into Rosamund’s eyes. It was a beautiful thing, all glittering carapace and iridescent wings, but just for an instant it looked terribly, terribly old.

Of course now I want Rosamund, realizing that there are already children out in the world ready tk be loved, to go out on a quest to find them and makes the fairy come along with her as a guide by refusing to change her wish unless they help her find them all. And then at the end, after she has gathered all her wonderful and unique and, yes, strange children, she wishes for a big house they can all live in

Things are scary.

Maybe you need a soft and gently purring Fancy making big big mashy paws in the air to help you out!

Reagan and the GOP spent 50 years brainwashing Americans into thinking that the government is the enemy, and we will all be prosperous if we give the rich tax breaks and let the money "trickle down."

And so now we have Trump, who gave the rich huge tax breaks, which led to a spiraling deficit, and Trump cutting back on Medicaid, ACA support, SNAP, and other social benefits in order to have enough moneyto fund ICE, his war, his ballroom, etc.