Zirconium Ribbons

The only things that work without rest are machines; literally everything that lives requires rest.

LESBIANS WE UPPPPP

by Greta Jia-Kang Cabrel

Dee had not expected a good time at the gala, and he was glad it was almost over. It was an annual white-tie to-do in his hometown, and the crowd included former classmates who had mocked him viciously for years for crying during fourth period screenings of The Glass Menagerie and Look Homeward, Angel. But his old friend Neysa was co-chairing this year’s edition, and he was now an Oscar winner whose presence would help smash the fundraising record held by the meanest, snobbiest girl who had graduated with them, so here he was, being professionally cordial to everyone and acting like there was nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.

It did feel good, helping Neysa raise hundreds of thousands for the arboretum, even though he wasn’t himself into trees or gardens—or, indeed, anything nature-centric. It was a failing that Neysa and his other besties ribbed him for—and he was fine with that kind of teasing, because it was stupid funny, how his brain refused to retain anything about flora or fauna outside of scripts. It was particularly weird given his legendary ear for human voices and accents—he was every casting director’s first choice for Southern men over 50, with his ability to nail any drawl between Baltimore and Waco with vowel-perfect precision—and his notoriously discerning tongue, which had not only gotten him blacklisted from celebrity wine and whiskey challenges, for being so much better than the rest of the field, but also cemented his reputation as a manwhore, thanks to an infamous blind tasting on Fire Island where, after five guys had jerked off into Dixie cups, he’d correctly matched each sample to the fellow it had come from.

At any rate, he just wasn’t wired to find landscapes or critters interesting, and that made him a sociopath in many people’s eyes. Fortunately, Neysa was accustomed to artistic tunnel vision—and, the gala’s official jeweler seemed keen to match the freak4freak energy humming behind their social façades. Having formed his initial impression of Jie Alfred Peacock’s style from advertorials, which had naturally favored aesthetically unadventurous selections in the name of social acceptability, Dee had not been prepared for the extraordinary set of accessories Neysa had presented to him on Mr. Peacock’s behalf, after escorting him to his guest room in her mansion: the shirt studs were conventional enough, being pearls encased within platinum prongs, but the double-sided cufflinks featured pearls that, instead of being round, had been cultivated to resemble comedy and tragedy masks, and so were the pendants now dangling from the barbells in his nipples.

-

The pride in Paris have been cancelled this weekend (third year in a row thar they were trying to do so, first year that they manage to do it) and people that dared to march have been repressed by policemen and threaten if they didn't hide their flags. A policeman told them "the repression time has come". In the US, trans people suicidal rate have gone up of 74% the past year. In oh so many countries, queer rights are disapearing.

A lot of people are scared in the world. A lot of queer people. Of POC people. Of disabled people. And so on.

But hope is a powerful thing. It makes joy possible. And it makes everything worth fighting for.

We need more HR. More hope. More joy. More pride.

And we need it now more than ever.

We shouldn't have to feel fear over being ourselves.

Don't forget that the closet kills too. It does so in silence. But it does.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 121: The Great Outdoors

cover by melanofly

~*~

Fine Wine, by spicy-wrenegade *

There Stands The Grass, by Togi Kayako (土宜草子)

Kindling, by Iron Eater *

Casting Pearls, by Greta Jia-Kang Cabrel

Landscape with Oak and Irritated Traveler, by shukyou *

Lakeshore Delights, by Rey Rider *

Big Girl Words, by Etienne Telling

I shelter you with my branches. I taste my fruit on your tongue., by Devin Ambrosia *

Summer Skin, by ChibiSaboten

This New Season, by Rowan York

On the Wall, by Shirozubon Saruko

*illustrated

—

The Fisherwoman’s Prize, by serenity_winner

~*~

Welcome to Shousetsu Bang*Bang International Park! Shousetsu Bang*Bang, better known by the acronym “SSBB”, is the world’s oldest (that we know of) international park dedicated entirely to the cultivation and preservation of original queer smut.

Since 2005, SSBB has gathered over 12 million words of endangered and threatened erotica, protecting them and making them accessible so that visitors from around the globe can continue to enjoy them for internet generations to come. We believe that a diverse ecosystem is a healthy ecosystem, and that a healthy ecosystem is one allowed to flourish wherever it feels most comfortable, which means you won’t find artificial divisions between biomes or rigid gatekeeping of ecotones here.

Instead, here in our pages, you’ll encounter majestic work-unsafe sights featuring a vibrant array of genders, bodies, identities, relationships, genitals, and kinks, all in their natural habitats. We encourage you to start at the beginning of the issue and follow the path as you venture through its contents, taking things as they come and letting yourself be surprised by what you might encounter. Of course, some guests may choose to curate their own experiences, and that’s fine too! What matters is the relationship you cultivate with what you find here.

Supported by an army of volunteers, SSBB has managed to keep its doors open and admission completely free for over two decades now. If you’d like to know what it takes to be an SSBB Rainbow Ranger, check out our upcoming themes and dates or visit our Discord to chat with other volunteers! We’re always looking for new recruits as we continue our living out our mission by giving writers and artists a space to share original works featuring queer love stories and happy endings!

And as you visit these beautiful lands, remember the SSBB hiker’s creed:

Take nothing but inspiration

Leave nothing but comments

Tell all your friends

—

And per my creator note:

The seed of this story (so to speak) was a crack 5+1 RPF on Discord that between Thing 2 and Thing 3 insisted on yeeting the R entirely. Junjie's given name corresponds to 俊 杰 , which per Namepedia can be translated as "outstanding hero.

Resurrecting my tumblr because PWHL Reddit said PWHLblr was the place to be.

Happy Make A Terrible Comic Day 2024!!! I hope you enjoy participating in this annual tradition which we’ve all done for ages!!! You must participate so you might as well enjoy it!!!

If you make a comic (again, it’s mandatory) and you want to share it, post it on the tag #makeaterriblecomicday2024! Or don’t, I’m not a fucking cop.

Remember, the goal is to make something terrible! So if you can’t draw or have never made a comic, or if it’s just been ages since you made something just for fun — that’s perfect! You’re all set! If you fuck up and make something that’s NOT terrible… well, some might say there’s a joy to that too.

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.

This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.

Don't threaten to do it, go research it, and actually give it a go!!! Most of the books for old crafts are out of copyright. Even if you don't get a job at whatever you try, or hell, even of you don't become in any way good at it, just learning and trying something new is good for you, and it gives you a greater understanding and appreciation for things.

As a teenager, life gave me lemons.

I ate the lemons—skins, seeds, and stickers.

Many years later, I wrote a guide to help others eat lemons.

This is a guide to leaving home before 18. It ranks among the most important and most personal things I've ever written. It's also one of our most popular guides of all time. So I updated and expanded it. To make it as accessible as possible, we recorded audio and video versions too. My lemon-flavored heart would swell with joy and citric acid to know it reached people who need it.

But it's a fight share it. Heavy topics like this get muted and buried on most social platforms. Even worse, this administration is deleting surveys and data about it; my .gov sources transmogrified into 404s before my very eyes. Gonna post this, and pray that Tumblr does what Tumblr does best.

How To Leave Home Before 18