trans people will literally go “i have a complicated relationship with my history with gender and sometimes see it as a gender i ‘used to be’ and i don’t really look like a cis person of either gender and i don’t think i can fit it into simple categories” and everyone will spontaneously combust

i remember being at some lgbtqia+ group when i was at an all girl’s school and i was one of two trans people, i was the only butch or even vaguely masculine person in the room, and i said something along the lines of “i consider myself a guy who used to be a girl” and five minutes later one of my friends(if you would say that ig) went “yeah so he was always a boy, he just didn’t know it yet” about me. and i had to stand there like What Did I Just Say. Can Anyone Hear Me

now i make posts like “sometimes trans men used to be girls and sometimes trans women used to be boys and it’s ok if we think about it like that” and everyone immediately acts like they want me dead

If trans people don't get a choice about how we refer to our past and current selves, what's the fucking point? You don't cure the problem of people saying wrong and hurtful shit about us and who we used to be by policing us into saying different wrong and hurtful shit that's just wrong and hurtful from another direction.

Transness is different for everyone, and some of our lives aren't going to fit neatly into the stereotypical trans narrative that you've heard elsewhere or line up with your own lived experiences as another trans person, and you're just going to have to suck it up. v( ._.)v

The thing I always think when I look back on my childhood is, maybe I wasn't really a girl, but I had a girlhood. I understood myself through lightweight feminist frameworks about gender nonconformity that I absorbed from organizations like the Girl Scouts. I had an articulate and deeply held activist commitment to my girlhood. That my body and my life and my sexuality were frustrating to me were women's issues, and I saw this reflected in the girls and women around me.

Even now, having lived as a gay trans man for several years, I have a hard time articulating what made me Different from the girls and women I knew, even though it should be obvious. My closest friends growing up were boys. I hated "girly" clothes and the "womanly" parts of my body. I fought my mother for almost a decade to cut my hair short-short. I insisted on joining the boys' team in gym class. I got constantly teased about wanting to be boy. I had so many opportunities to think, "Huh, maybe these shitty children are on to something," and I refused them all. I didn't want to be a boy. What I wanted was to befriend who I wanted to befriend and look how I wanted to look; to protest the class arbitrarily dividing itself by gender when the teachers hadn't required it; to stop having people tell me, wrongly, who I had to be. I wanted autonomy. I wanted respect. These are very queer and trans things to want, but I could not - cannot - imagine anything more girl to want, either.

Would I have felt differently then, if I had known becoming a boy was something I could do? Maybe. But that's how I think about it now, and how I would have thought about it then: Becoming. Manhood is a thing I am slowly acquiring, and I am acquiring it badly, the way a person who moves to a foreign country acquires the local language badly. It does not come to me any more naturally than girlhood did. But I like it better, so I keep doing it badly anyway.

...I guess that's thing, isn't it. In so many ways I am even more aggressively who I have always been, and at the same time she feels like someone I knew a lifetime ago - like maybe she's out there somewhere still, girling badly in a country I no longer call home.

Something critical that a lot of modern tabletop RPGs that are shooting for the "shitty late 1980s/early 1990s indie RPG" vibe usually miss is laser animals. If you really want to capture the spirit of the era, your setting absolutely must have a "monster" that's just a regular animal that can shoot lasers. Doesn't matter what kind.

And I feel like whether or not it just inexplicably can do so (eyes, mouth, etc) or if it's bc a gun that fires lasers has been strapped to it that somehow the animal can control does not matter, both are equally appropriate to the era.

Absolutely – both the rabbit with a cybernetic smartgun sticking out of its back and the grizzly bear that can blast you with eye beams just because are keystones of the shitty early 1990s indie RPG ecosystem.

There is one particular scene in Monstrous Regiment that I love that isn't being talked about enough so I figured...maybe I should talk about it.

'Then go!', shouted Polly. 'Desert! We won't stop you, because I'm sick of your...your bullshit! But you make up your mind, right now, understand? Because when we meet the enemy I don't want to think you're there to stab me in the back!'

The words flew out before she could stop them, and there was no power in the world that could snatch them back.

Tonker went pale, and a certain life drained out of her face like water from a funnel. 'What was that you said?'

The words 'You heard me!' lined up to spring from Polly's tongue, but she hesitated. She told herself: it doesn't have to go this way. You don't have to let a pair of socks do the talking.

'Words that were stupid', she said. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.'

It is such an incredibly powerful scene. I've read the book dozens of times and every time I low-key expect there to be a fight even though I know there won't be because that's how it goes, right? But Pterry is showing us, it doesn't have to. Right here, right now it's in your hands. You can choose not to. You can back down when you are wrong or even when you're right. Polly has good reason to be mad at Tonker but so does Tonker for her actions and Polly chooses not to escalate. They're in this together. Fighting amongst themselves accomplishes nothing and backing down doesn't make her weak. On the contrary, it's a strength because anger is easy. Polly isn't wrong to be angry, but there is a time and a place and she has the wisdom to recognise that this isn't it.

You're allowed to be angry! But you don't have to get swept up by it, you can choose a different path. And hell, that just goes right to the most important thing Discworld taught me. Through Vimes and Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany and occasionally even Rincewind.

Being good isn't something you are, it's something you do. It's something you have to choose to be, over and over again, every single day, every single decision. And it's hard. It's not some nebulous quality you either possess or you don't it's something you have to decide to be and work at hard at all your life but it's up to you. You can always choose to do better, to be kinder, to apologise, to say something, to not say anything, to do the right thing even when it's hard or unpleasant or inconvenient for you. Your anger isn't wrong or misplaced and sometimes being angry is the only right reaction to have, but it's a weapon too and you decide where you aim it.

You don't have to let a pair of socks do the talking.

black with low white spotting (this cat has vitiligo)

This cat looks like the starry night sky and none of us had big enough brains to foretell her coming. I am lost in wonder. Great cat.

@elodieunderglass is this in your realm?

What a great pattern!

Obsessed with characters who portray themselves as worse than they are. Who are lying to everyone including themselves about it. People generally assume if someone's lying about themselves they're trying to look better but sometimes they're trying to look worse. They attribute agency to where they had none, add intend to accidents, try to convince everyone that this is something they did instead of something that happened to them.

picking up litter is worth it!!

individual environmentalism gets a lot of flak in the face of corporate pollution but picking up litter makes a significant, noticeable impact. I spend about an hour a week picking up litter from around my dorm complex and I'm literally outpacing my community's litter production. Just an hour a week from one person is enough to offset nearly 200 people's worth of littering.

it would take less than 100 man-hours of labor per week to keep my whole college campus entirely litter-free. If you got two classrooms' worth of people to spend two hours per week each picking up litter, the whole campus would end up spotless and they'd straight up fucking run out of things to pick up.

If you're looking for some way to make a noticeable and positive impact on the world around you, go pick up some litter.

Here's a good video on getting started and what to do. Yes, it's fully legal, just don't trespass on private property. All you need are gloves and a bag.

I've been litter picking in the background of my walks and I've removed several bags of trash from the area. The other day, children were playing in the creek that I litter pick at a lot. They were jumping into the water and swimming, right in the spot where I pulled torn up cans out of the riverbed and where I removed nearly-buried fishing wire that still had hooks on the ends. Just one person with a sharps container made it safer for those kids to go out and have fun.

That was the most direct cause and effect thing I've had with litter picking after just a little while of doing it, but even aside from that it's just. Good to do. It makes your area cleaner and safer and removes plastic from the environment. Plus, people are less likely to litter in clean areas, and litter can not be subconsciously normalized in people's minds in a litter-free area.

It's also fulfilling instant gratification. You get to go out and do something with your hands and then look and see for yourself that an hour or two of picking shit up has made an instant tangible difference in the world.

First of all hard agree on all of this. Every time I go out and pick up litter my mood noticeably skyrockets. The opportunities one encounters in their daily life to make an immediate positive material impact on a social/political issue that concerns them do not come up very often.

But what this post doesn't even mention is the community aspect. Which is possibly my favorite part.

Every single time I go to pick up garbage without fail I have at least one positive interaction with a stranger in my neighborhood. Sometimes small like someone walking past and saying thank you for doing it. But also people sometimes offering to help or even offering a bottle of water. And since I've started doing it I've seen more people in my neighborhood going out with gloves and a bag on a warm evening after school or work. In which case when I see them on my walks I become the kind stranger they meet that day.

So argue all you want about whether picking up litter is actually good for the planet (it is) but there is no question. It is good for your community and it is good for you.

northern usa comes with a secret fifth season, between winter and spring. it’s called “Gross”. everything is muddy and dead. allergies are flaring up but there’s not a green leaf in sight. the landscape is littered with piles of dirty ice. snow rain mix is probably falling. gross.

This is an actual ecological season called prevernal spring, or false spring, when the plants start waking from dormancy, the snow and ice melts into mud to water the waking plants, and insect larva start growing so they can fly by the time flowers are ready to get pollinated, and the warm(er) days and icy nights help stress-proof the plants for the coming hot seasons. It is anticipatory, preparatory, and magical. And gross.

South of Midnight by João Bragato #1

fat character who becomes a vampire and loses a ton of weight and blood can not sate their hunger but they can't eat anything they used to like anymore. everyone views it as a positive healthy positive development but they're starving and dying slowly but never truly dying, a living corpse. this is a metaphor for something

People finally think they’re attractive and cool and funny but they’re dead. People finally treat them well but they’re dead. Do you see the vision

Transforms into a shell of my former self and finally gains the respectability society never bestowed upon me before

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

the most annoying people are people who don't understand storytelling. they be like "oooo how convenient that this thing happened to the main character in the very beginning". yeah no shit. that's why the story begins here

the number of swords with incredibly hyperspecific powers in Arthuriana really delights me:

— First Percival Continuation, Nigel Bryant translation

this is just a sword that Gawain is using for normal quest stuff btw

"I would never-"

You would if you were tired enough. You would if you were hungry enough. You would if your mind and body had been worn down enough, through pain or disease or toil or violent struggle. You might if you were put on the wrong medicine, or you got the wrong kind of head injury, or you were forced to choose between someone else and yourself. You might if your livelihood was staked on it, or all your hopes and dreams. You might if you didn't know what else to do, if it's what you were taught or if nobody taught you anything else.

I have not been worn down in most of these ways. I have lived a remarkably privileged life. But I have been worn down in some ways. And they were enough to teach me that in the wrong circumstances, any of us can become someone we don't want to be. It's worth keeping that in mind.

Imperial collapse speed run