I Would Probably Give A Book With An Ace Main Character A Try, Just Because It’s Hard To Find Books

Every time I see news about a new piece of hate legislation, I want to curl up and cry.  I don’t know if my life-entwined partner will ever be able to visit my family in Kansas again, especially since we have to go through Missouri and/or Iowa to get there.

It’s scary how many states went from “moderate risk in 2 years” to “worst active anti-trans laws” between December 2022 and May 2023.  Most of these laws will be challenged, and many may be overturned.  How many people are going to die in the meantime though?  Even when laws are struck down by the courts, will people ever feel safe there again?  How long until those laws are replaced by new ones that are just as bad but more subtle, or until people don’t have the energy and money to keep fighting against them?

open.substack.com

May Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Map

The map of anti-trans risk has polarized into two Americas - one where trans people have full legal protections, and one where they are pers

When we moved to Oregon in 2019, we always planned eventually to move back "home" to Pennsylvania, the state where, before that, I'd spent all but a year of my life since we moved there in '88.

Today, I'm going to have a conversation with my partners. I think we just have to assume I -- we -- can't go home.

Maybe ever.

Pennsylvania itself is in a low-risk category within two years, but it could easily -- well I know it -- swing into red if the next election cycle breaks another way.

That's not the kind of place where you buy the house that you intend them to "take you out of toes first," as I joked with my wives when we last talked about our plans.

That's what these laws mean to people like me. They mean "the state you consider home might become actively hostile to you within the next 5 years, so you can't plan to buy a home there." They mean "you shouldn't even board a plane that has a likelihood of having a layover in Florida, and you're definitely not going to repeat your 2019 drive across the country, one of the best and worst experiences of your life and the most time you've gotten to spend with your brother in one week since you graduated from high school." They mean half the states in this country are actively hostile to you, legally speaking, in a way you thought was finally behind you.

Sometime soon, I'm going to call my mother and tell her that we're not planning on moving back.

I don't have a clever closing line for this. I'm just sad.

Is anyone else on PillowFort?  I know I heard about it from someone on Tumblr, but now that I’m able to create an account, I can’t remember whom.  Let me know if you want to connect up there.  My username is the same, and I’ll probably post about as often there as here.

I kindof want to see all of these.  I’ve seen enough Shakespeare and adaptations of Shakespeare that they sound ridiculous but also like they could be really good if handled well.

Six Shakespeare adaptations

1. Titus and Ronicus. Somewhat like Titus Andronicus, but with the addition of Titus’s wisecracking brother, Ronicus Andronicus. Known for that one wild slapstick scene with the pie at the end.

2. The Complete The’s of Shakespeare. Consists of every ‘the’ that Shakespeare wrote, delivered in an appropriate manner for each instance. Has the advantage of being much easier for a million monkeys to type. Is therefore much kinder to monkeys than the alternative. Please consider the monkeys. 

3. Henry V in space. We begin the play awaiting the arrival of the French Ambassadors. They are coming from France, which is seven light-years away and several hundred metres under the newly-risen Atlantic. It may be a long wait.

4. A Twelfth Night’s Hamlet. In which Hamlet is shipwrecked on the way to England and has to dress up as a woman dressing up as a man to in order to evade detection whilst avenging his father’s murder, but comedy strikes when he vacillates a little too long in an oddly-mislocated enchanted forest. Everyone ends up both completely heterosexually married and also dead.

5. The Scottish Play, a theatre-safe version of Macbeth which avoids bad luck by never mentioning the title character’s name or indeed anyone else’s name either. Explores issues of identity and confusion. Usually there is at least one murder, but nobody is quite sure of who by who. In fact, because nobody is sure who is king, or indeed what the succession actually is, it naturally follows that the only way to ensure kingship is to kill everyone.

6. Juliet and Cressida. It may have been that Cressida found some way to take advantage of Shakespeare’s not-always-consistent time periods to perform an audacious act of time travel. We are still not entirely sure. In any case we tracked down Juliet and Cressida to ask them what the plot had been, since they were both notably still alive in the present day. But Juliet made a rude gesture at us and slammed the door. It may be that only the protagonists know the plot.

I love InspiroBot!

someone created a random generator that creates randomized inspirational quotes overlaid on random images in a soothing fashion and each and every image is comic gold

it’s pretty much the best thing ever and here are some of my favorites so far

so good

I’m getting this one made into a motivational poster for my home office

PLEASE GO MAKE SOME OF YOUR OWN RIGHT NOW

Eli Bosnick absolutely has the best response.  That image “says it all” only if you don’t think human lives are worth more than candy.

lmao😂/smh🙄

On Halloween, I’m happy to give candy to trick-or-treaters, regardless of their age, as long as they’re wearing costumes.  I don’t care if they’re little kids, teenagers, babies being carried by their parents, or the parents themselves.  If you come to my door on Halloween in costume, I’ll offer you whatever treats I have.

However, if you don’t have an obvious costume, be prepared to justify what you’re wearing.  This isn’t begging strangers for candy, it’s trick-or-treating -- some sort of costume is required at my house.  Now, if you can come up with a creative explanation of why your costume is a T-shirt and jeans, that’s great!  If your “costume” is “um, uh, I’m a high school student?” then you’re out of luck.  That’s not a costume; that’s your clothes.  I don’t care how old you are, either come up with something to wear or come up with a creative idea -- I’m good either way.

if a teenager is at your door and they are wearing a costume!! please give them candy!! they are still in it for the halloween spirit and it honestly no different from a little kid in a costume. they are just as excited and happy as all the other lil tykes and dont you dare tell them they are “too old for trick-or-treating” because that will literally break their hearts and that’s not cool.

Know your rights! Also, check your workplace's policy on sharing information about staff, customers, clients, etc.

ICE agents are complaining that the push to make sure people know their rights is making their jobs harder. Keep it up!

No, they broke the chalice from the palace.  Now the pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon.  The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

(I love this movie.  Danny Kaye does amazing slapstick, and some of the dialogue is just incredible!)

 - Very good. 

Kudos to the DM for playing along with this!

Our party—a bard, a fighter, and a ranger—were on a one-off side quest to deliver a letter to somebody. He wasn’t at his house (learned after breaking in, to the DM’s dismay), so we found out the general area he was in and went there, confusion in our wake and a spring in our steps. I, the bard, had decided that I would funnel every ounce of skill I possessed into charisma, and at level 5 had a +6 modifier. I had been using that power at every opportunity that arose. We wander through the foothills full of caves, looking for this guy, when our fighter rolls a nat 20 perception trying to look for any signs of life.

DM: You—okay, so. Yeah. With that, you actually notice about fifty feet away that a particular cluster of bushes is rustling just slightly, but not with the breeze.

Fighter: Oh. Cool. “Hey guys, I think there are some folks in those bushes over there.”

Me: “Cool beans! HELLOOOOOOO, MY DUDES!”

DM: There’s a few seconds of silence before four guys come slowly forward from the bushes. They look pretty rough and tough, and uh—

Ranger: Can I roll perception? Uh… that’s a 15.

DM: You deduce that they’re probably bandits or something. They’re walking forward and one of the guys says, “Who are you little pests, and what’re ya doing in these here foothills of ours?”

Me: “We’re just hanging out, traveling, and actually it seems like a good time to break for breakfast if you lovely gents would like to join us! I can brew us up some chamomile, I have like a thousand mushrooms I got earlier—”

Fighter: “I got that chicken, too, and jerky.”

Me: “Oh hell yeah, we’re gonna chow down if y'all want in on that action.”

DM: That’s, uh… that’s persuasion, advantage because you’re offering them food and seem too dumb to be dangerous.

Me: Thanks man. Uh… 14 total.

DM: *head in his hands* I just—okay, they join you for breakfast I guess. And yet again you avoid a fight I planned for you. One of the dudes breaks out some eggs from somewhere.

Ranger: What’re their names?

DM: Uh, uh, they—it’s got. There’s Bablo, Sanchez, Kent, and uh. Eskabar.

Me: Cool. I roll to flirt with them.

DM: ………<i>all of them???</i> I mean… sure?? I guess??

Me: Hells yeah. Rolling.

Proceeds to roll: 16, 19, and <i>two natural 20s</i>.

DM: *head on the table* Like. You—you make your fellow party members super uncomfortable. You are piled under boys, it’s kinda gross but super chill for you. Kent wasn’t super into the whole group thing before, but now he would straight up die for you. He’s learning a lot about himself today.

Me: I’m gonna write those names down for later. Can I put “a boys harem” in my items list?