#i've been having some gender issues and i thought about what might help and it's probably dressing more masculine

[lyxchen]

I hate the issue of "i want to dress more masculine so my conclusion is i'll buy clothes from the men's section but oh shocker i'm only 5 feet tall so literally nothing fits me" :(((

#like this is pissing me off #i've been having some gender issues and i thought about what might help and it's probably dressing more masculine #but for real #i wear xs in almost everything and a lot of the time men's clothes don't even Have xs #and if they do it's still too big for me #i feel very sorry for all the small men out there cause this sucks #same with socks #it's not that important but men's socks always have such cool patterns but they start at like shoesize 40 #at least in the stores where i'm looking #and i have shoesize 36... #i just want to wear those cool socks please #anyways i'll just have to find a place that sells smaller men's clothes or look in the childern's section or whatever but hnnng #lea's random thoughts

[atanx]

James Somerton's "A Measured Response": A Measured Response

so I watched a reupload of the video because idk i like to torture myself. and i took a bunch of notes:

“I tried to be a voice for every member of the queer community, but that was a failed endeavour before it even started.”

what a strange way to say ‘I tried making it seem like I’m the only queer creator and stole from and actively harmed people in the queer community. knowingly. purposefully. and when I was called out in the past I tried to hide it.'

“I'm a cis, white, gay man. No matter how much I try to be a good spokesperson, I can never really, truly, understand the life experiences of other, far more put upon,  members of the queer community.”

so of course I stole and hid work from the people I can't understand, gutting it of their personal experiences and refused to redirect my audience to those people so that they can enrich themselves and hear about issues pertaining them from someone who actually does understand.

“...one of the reasons I used their own words. But I should have made it clear that that was what I was doing.”

BITCH YOU STOLE. YOU GUTTED THEIR STORIES OF MEANINGFUL PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. YOU WEREN'T USING THEIR WORDS TO BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THINGS YOU CAN'T ENTIRELY UNDERSTAND YOU WERE MILKING THEM FOR CONTENT AND DEPRIVING PEOPLE OF ACTUAL, SOULFUL, MEANINGFUL ARTICLES AND BOOKS AND DOCUMENTARIES AND VIDEOS THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING INSTEAD.

“Being a cis white man I thought I might win over some people who otherwise wouldn't listen.”

Yeah sure. Because racist transphobes are going to be watching your badly plagiarised gay film analysis.

“I would also like to apologise to Jessie Gender, who is one of the kindest people I ever met. Through my hot-headedness, I drew her into this anger spiral.”

‘through my hotheadedness.’. shirking responsibility onto an ‘ingrained personality trait of yours’ I see.

if you are so honestly sorry for being an asshole to Jessie why don't you fucking apologise to her directly? privately? not as a way to boost your own fucking image??

he's trying to earn good will by complimenting Jessie Gender “oh he knows to compliment an awesome person we have that in common I guess he can't be so bad after all” fuck you I recognise your strategies and it's gross to drag Jessie into this like that, she spoke out against you and you are trying to imply some sort of friendship or something between you. okay I cannot UNDERSTATE the way he tries to make it seem like they are close in some way and sort of drag her onto his side that's so fucking despicable. as far as I know Jessie Gender does not have a relationship with him of any kind?

once again bringing up death threats I see. obviously death threats are shite and anyone who threatens the dude in seriousness or harasses him will not see the light of heaven as Hbomberguy said but IN AN APOLOGY YOU DO NOT MAKE IT ABOUT YOU THAT'S MANIPULATION

also blaming the police for not clarifying a situation in a timely manner - the police are a flaming pile of garbage and I hope the institution explodes but NOT SAYING ANYTHING WAS YOUR CHOICE. THE POLICE DIDN'T MAKE YOU DO SHIT THERE

the problem isn't that you tried to “create a channel where all queer people could be safe”, the problem is that 1) you are a misogynist 2) you yourself engaged in transphobic behaviour and 3) you also actively supressed queer people's voices. The problem isn't that you supposedly wanted a space for all queer people, the problem is that you tried to MONOPOLISE queer literature analysis. fuck, queer doesn't look like a word anymore I've written it too many times now

(paraphrased) “I should have been helping with making queer people's voices discoverable” this makes it seem like he just didn't do anything and not like the reality that he was actively trying to rewrite history and bury LQBTQIA+ voices under his steaming pile of garbage

also BLAMING YOUTUBE AND THE ALGORITHM FOR ‘PUSHING HIM’ because he's cis and white, like maybe they did, I certainly wouldn't be surprised, but that is not why other creators suffered, a large part of that can be attributed to James Somerton stealing their work without any acknowledgement whatsoever apart maybe if they are lucky, a “based on” in the credits or their name flashing on screen for half a second.

“I should have done more to share the voices of other queer people” THAT IMPLIES YOU DID SOMETHING. YOU WERE ACTIVELY WORKING AGAINST THAT YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT-

“it was just my dweam to be a youtubew and when my videos gained twaction i felt pwessuwed to make mowe vewy quickly and that's why they wewe so shit uwu” fuck off you weren't pressured into shit you just wanted to make money and that's why you were a content mill

“early on I thought that crediting authors in the opening credits alone was enough” what about the times YOU DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT??? YOU'RE MAKING THIS SEEM LIKE THE DRAMA IS ABOUT YOU CREDITING PEOPLE WRONG WHEN ITS ABOUT YOUR SYSTEMATIC THEFT AND OPPRESSION OF THOSE YOU CLAIM TO MAKE VIDEOS FOR AND ABOUT AND THOSE YOU CLAIM TO MAKE A SAFE SPACE FOR. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WATCHES YOUR VIDEOS?? WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID YOU CAN'T JUST PLAY IT DOWN

not him using Hbomberguy's example of the DEEP CUTS: SOCIETY AND QUEER HORROR video and claiming he credited all people in the opening scene when Hbomberguy highlighted he DIDNT EVEN CREDIT MOST OF THEM FUCK OFF ARE YOU DELUSIONAL HOW DO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS

I think I'm going insane this all seems so blatantly fake. he brings up the evil queens video and how he asked Sean Griffin, retroactively, permission to include his work in the video. and he shows a ‘screenshot’ of an email Griffin allegedly wrote to thank him for putting him in the title-card and that he thinks it is ‘a very thoughtful video’. only the text of the email header, such as Griffin's name, the RE:, and the To: is a lot smaller than the ‘text’ in the email, which leads me to believe that the below text is edited in some way. And with how hard James is trying to rewrite history, it wouldn't surprise me if he literally rewrote the email or cut things out to present himself in a more positive light. obviously I can't prove that the email is fake but I'll just say that I think the likelihood is very high that it is.

the way he says this also implies that he asked for permission after he made the video but hadn't published it yet. which is also blatantly false.

again trying to waltz off responsibility on nick, saying he was much more interested in production and implying that nick did all the writing .

“nick and I had both grown up poor so when I lost my job in 2021 (approx.) we of course were desperate and turned to producing videos even quicker and plagiarising the fuck out of all of them! but we can't help it we were both poor as kids!” fuck off, you weren't poor when plagiarising every-fucking-thing, this was in “the second year of COVID”. obviously if they really did grow up poor that sucks, and that's why we should eat the rich and redistribute their money. not plagiarise people who partly are poor or not financially cushy and manipulate thousands of people into believing you are the only queer creator.

also milking his mom's cancer. if you were really that worried about your financial situation, one would think that you would get an actual job for security and not put everything into your youtube career that is unstable, especially considering you've already done a lot of plagiarism and have no intention of stopping. “oh I plagiarised because my mom had cancer QAQ” that is so digusting to use a person's medical condition like that.

“i have memory issues because of a head injury i suffered as a child and that's why I plagiarise badly. see, I copy pasted the text with the intention to rephrase it later but forgot.” that would still be fucking plagiarism if he'd done that, also, if he's so aware of his memory issues and how they lead to him plagiarising, why didn't he try to work around that? leave himself notes? or tell nick to remind him to integrate actual proper credit and citations before uploading a video? mark the plagiarised stuff in the document with like highlighter or so when you're pasting it in?? oh but he didn't do all of that because he has ADHD. now, ADHD can be debilitating, but he says it's recently diagnosed so it must not have caused a lot of problems for him so far, so it's probably not severe and even if it is, it doesn't excuse him not crediting people properly. stop fucking hiding behind things ‘you can’t change' because if you truly can't you probably shouldn't be doing this in the first place.

“my mom really wanted me to make a movie with her life insurance but that wasn't paid out so I decided to crowdfund it. i planned to underpay the actors so hard it was under union wages. we got more money than we were expecting and upgraded to wanting to film a feature (final girl) but i didn't want to start working on it until the campaign was over for some reason that totally isn't me just wanting to exploit people for money!”

I'm not gonna go into the Telos stuff but he tries to explain it by claiming it was very unorganised and that's why they constantly ran into issues and that's why nothing ever got done and they were JUST about to start doing stuff when the Hbomberguy video released. You know what, I can believe it, although I am very doubtful considering all James ever does is lie. Idk. 

once again trying to excuse his plagiarism with needing to pay two rents and thus needing to make more videos for more sponsors and not having the time to not plagiarise like please. i don't believe that they were in that dire need of money and if they were - just get a fucking stable job and put youtube on the backburner. 

also once again trying to make it all about him by once again talking about his suicide attempt and death threats. like. no one should suffer through that kind of mental anguish but honestly I cannot bring myself to feel sympathy for this man. and i see this as an attempt to gather pity points.

“nick worked very hard on these videos other three years and it's unfair to [them] (james says that they're non-binary but doesn't indicate their pronouns anywhere? and in the beginning he uses they/them but later only he/him so idk what their pronouns are but it seems like they/them is at least part of their pronouns so i'm just going to use that) that they all got taken down” well y'all shouldn't have fucking plagiarised then. let this be a lesson maybe and don't fucking show your face on youtube again!

he is fucking relaunching his channel. like james. this isn't something you come back from. no one will ever be able to trust you ever again and you don't deserve an audience. he claims all the revenue will go to Hbomberguy's fund but we have no way to verify this. we have no way to know just how much he makes and how much of that is actually going to the fund. i don't trust him with any money. which is why i watched a reupload rather than the original. he's also releasing a new video he claims is entirely by him. like?????? don't???????

he also might not relaunch his existing patreon but he's still making a new one.

he claims he will “work his ass off” to make non-plagiarised videos. like that isn't “working your ass off” that's the bare fucking minimum. I really want to trust him. and I want to believe he'll actually try to do better. and maybe he will. and i believe in second chances, even for someone as despicable as him. but throughout this video he has continuously tried to play down what he did. tried to make excuses for everything. and that's why i am not going to give him a second chance. if he can't even admit what he did i don't trust him to not do it again. and i also just plainly don't want to endorse a person making such arguments.

also, he plugs his fucking new patreon right after this.

“this video is not about me promoting myself. it's about me apologising.” the only fucking person you actually ‘apologised’ to is Jessie Gender. 

James Somerton: makes a billion fucking excuses. Also James Somerton: “These are not excuses. There is no excuse for what I did.”

this entire video was just a publicity stunt. he tries to humanise himself and repair his image. this is just a tool to be able to continue on and continue making money.

he also still claims the disney video was based on the Celluloid Closet and he credited the author and ignores that this wasn't the only author he fucking plagiarised in that video. he is trying to reduce his plagiarsm to incorrect crediting and mistakes and that is disgusting.

the least he could have done was mention by name out loud every author he plagiarised and what work he plagiarised. not just say “uuuh i'm sorry to everyone I plagiarised QAQ”

#james somerton #hbomberguy #james somerton a measured response #atanx.txt

[overandundertarot]

How can you release this anger?

Recently, I've come to the realisation that I hold quite a lot of pent up anger without even knowing how to release it. I think this reading could be helpful to people who may be in a similar position, or just experiencing pent up emotions and are unsure how they could release this or start that process of transforming those emotions, if they want to.

Piles 1-4(left to right)

Pile 1

Cards; 6 of wands, Knight of swords.

Believe in yourself pile one! There is self doubt here, and pride brought about by trying to conceal insecurity. Act on your thoughts. A lot of this anger is towards yourself. I feel like you are perfectionists, and you dont like when you are not perfect according to your standards. Well, there's nothing you can do about that. You either have to develop yourself till you feel you're perfect enough( which will take quite a while and you may never reach your lofty aspirations for yourself) or take action now on whatever it is you want to do. I'm getting that it's not even related to the material world, but your personality or creative interests. You may feel like you are not the person that you should be, but instead of practicing any self development activities, you just spend alot of time having self deprecating thoughts. You may not be where you want to be, but that does not mean that you can never get there. Appreciate yourself for what you have and what you can do and allow yourself to indulge in your hobbies/ interests with less judgement.

Pile 2

Cards; The Sun, 2 of Swords, Page of Pentacles.

In any case pile 2, youre not supposed to be making a decison right now. Good things and opportunities are coming to you now but its overwhelming. I think that is where this anger is coming from, because you can't allow yourself to fully enjoy the present moment and be connected to your spirituality. So you are angered because you have a lot but it is still not enough. You have to force yourself to enjoy what you have right now pile 2, because all of the planning and deciding and moving forward is being used as a distraction. Of course, take this with a grain of salt and don't put your life on hold to try and attempt this. Start small, think about things in your daily life and what use they provide for you, do you appreciate them enough? Be in the present moment and appreciate what you have worked for. Some of you are also angered by the fact that you might not be able to find a direction in life. It will come in time; try to be connected with your desires and intentions so when the opportunity arises, you can make a decision that will trully make you happy.

Pile 3

Cards; The Emperor reversed, King of cups.

Your anger may stem from the fact that you may have never fit into society, particularly that you may have been too sensitive for other peoples tastes. Some of you may be a part of the lgbtq community as well. The way you express yourself garnered much criticism and you may care about issues that society doesn't like to face such as animal rights, environmentalism and child abuse. Emotional issues, childhood trauma. A lot of the people in this pile have heavily feminine energy, regardless of their gender. The way for pile 3 to release their anger would be to develop ways of managing their emotions. Unfortunately, the world is unlikely to change but we can find ways to regulate our emotions and work through our traumas so that we can be less affected by the harshness of society. Also, try to channel your anger and pain into creative pursuits such as writing, and even consuming more media concerning these issues that affect you. It may help you feel seen and understood.

Pile 4

Cards; The Tower reversed, Justice.

Pile 4 you have been resisting change for a while. By not allowing it to crumble, you have become a prisoner of the tower. Your anger is brought about by you not allowing yourself to feel your emotions fully. You're not letting go of something that happened in the past, or you're trying to keep a steady hold on your life right now, but it's failing. You can't control everything. To release this anger, accept what happened and move on. Take responsibility for your actions, what happened was a result of past actions and you can't change those. You either accept what happened, move on and try to create a better future for yourself, or stay in that tower and torment yourself forever. That sounded a bit dramatic but the messages coming through are quite firm, whatever happened you have to accept it and move on.

***

Thank you for participating in this Pick a Card reading!

I hope it gave you some insight for your situation. Please dont hesistate to give any feedback you may have regarding this reading!

#tarot pick a card #tarot reading #tarotblr #tarot #pick a card reading #pick a picture #pick a card #pac #divination #intuitive reading #free readings #free tarot reading #pick a pile #tarot pick a pile

[barkhoffman]

rest in peace tumblr user barkhoffman 🕊🕊

I'm gonna use this ask I got to springboard an explanation as to why I've gone silent and stopped updating, so! here it is! the Discourse no one asked for!

it was brought to my attention recently that some people on twitter (a site which I no longer use and have not used for years because it is a cesspool) have been vaguing/insulting SLAP, which! sure! fine, that's your right! not everyone has to like what I create, I don't mind that at all! that's not why I vanished, though.

my issue with these "criticisms" is that they ended up insulting who I am as a person. accusations of fatphobia, transphobia, and ableism (among other things) have been leveled at me, and that's where I personally draw the line.

you don't have to like me. you don't have to like what I write. but when you call my moral character into question, I get a little bothered.

an example: some of the accusations include calling me transphobic for using the word "vagina" to refer to a transmasc character's genitals. for those of you who don't know (not that I should have to disclose this information), I am not cis. trans people are not, in fact, a hivemind, and the idea that we should all be ashamed or uncomfortable or whatever the fuck with our anatomy unless we couch it in different terms is actually rather more transphobic than using a medically accurate term to refer to a person's genitals during a smut scene -- a scene which is written from the third-person limited perspective of a 48-year-old cis man who is unfamiliar with transgender issues, so even if it WAS universally offensive to call a vagina a vagina, it would still be in-character.

the thing is, in-character observations, speech, and thoughts are not actually a universal indicator of the author's identity or beliefs. things that you dislike or that make you feel uncomfortable are not automatically morally impure, and you don't have to reach for reasons to say the creator is a bigot because you don't agree with how they portrayed things.

(there's also something to be said about the inherent colonialist racism in the transmed viewpoints that lend to "transmascs shouldn't ever have vagina used to refer to their genitals," dismissing nonwhite cultures with a rich history of third/other genders and gender euphoria. DYSphoria is not the only trans experience. furthermore, calling the word vagina "female-gendered" is a slap in the face to all of us who are NOT female who have no problem referring to our genitals in that way. idk man, are the arguably more gendered terms "pussy" and "cunt" REALLY more appropriate here? should I have used "bonus hole" instead? not sure what the solution is supposed to be.

anyway.)

I could go on and on and get into every little accusation thrown at me and how insulting and ridiculous they are, but I don't want to invite that level of discourse. this is bad enough. it is absolutely batshit bonkers that I, as a nearly 30 year old person, am sitting here typing this right now. it is even more wild to me that at least some of the people involved in this drama are apparently in their 30s as well.

listen to me. look me in the eyes. if those of you who have a problem with my fics expended even half that energy into helping actual real life people instead of defending the nonexistent honor of fictional ones, the world might actually get better.

I know, I know. it feels good to vague on twitter and pretend you're doing activism when you're trashing a small creator's work in a way that's very likely to get back to them. it feels nice to know you've "saved the world from some evil" when you discourage people like me from continuing their projects. it feels like you're making a difference, right?

unfortunately, you are not. I would advise those of you involved in all this to get well soon and mature a little bit past wrongly deducing someone's viewpoints via the fictional works that they create. there are happier and more productive ways to spend your time, I swear.

I'm not mad, honestly. I'm just sort of tired. tired of getting messages asking where I am and what happened. tired of feeling like I have all this bottled up inside. tired of fandoms that would rather stoke fake moral outrage like Republicans than, idk, go to a protest or give a homeless person a dollar or defend POC from your racist uncle at the neighborhood barbecue.

I don't think we as an internet "society" really understand the mental toll it can take on someone to be called things like fatphobic, ableist, and transphobic -- particularly when, in my case, I am fat, disabled, and trans. of course, being a member of a group doesn't absolve you from bigotry against that group. however, when these accusations are leveled based entirely on someone's body of work and not on their actual character, it makes us far less likely to create works, what with the likelihood that they'll continue to be looked at in bad faith by those who have some sort of weird moral high ground point to prove.

I really didn't want to have to post about this and bring the people who like my work down, but I think you guys are owed an explanation rather than silence. not sure if I'll post anything after this, because I'm really too old to be engaging in internet slapfights over torture porn movie fanfics, of all things (I guess I really spoke too soon when I called this fandom nice, drama-free, and welcoming). if my ask box gets too messy, I'll turn it off. idk. just wanted you guys to know where I've gone.

now stop telling everyone I'm dead

#I don't think I'll tag this as anything much bc I'm not that bad of an attention ho #but #for my ocd's sake #ask tag #anonymous

[michu-writes]

Heya!! :3 I heard that you have requests open for the mandela catalogue. I wanna make a request, it's a bit angsty lol. (You may ignore this if you're not comfortable to write themes such as these)

How about a Gabriel x reader comfort scenario in which reader has a fight with their father due to their family issues, so they go in their room, not being able to hold it anymore they just start sobbing without realising Gabriel was there. (gender neutral pronouns are just fine!! <3 I hope you'll have a nice day/night!)

CW // TW: Verbal abuse, yelling/shouting, family issues, depressing themes, slight religion mention(?), kinda cheesy, hurt/comfort

Shouts and yelling could be heard from the kitchen room downstairs from your room.

"STOP BEING SO DAMN SELFISH! THINK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY FOR ONCE!"

"YOU THINK I DONT THINK ABOUT THE FAMILY? THE ONLY THING I COULD THINK ABOUT LATELY IS THE FAMILY AND I'VE BEEN TRYING SO HARD TO HELP! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S BEING SELFISH!"

The "archangel" was patiently waiting in your room, absolutely not knowing any sense of boundaries at all. Hearing screams and yells was something he hears everyday, so he thought it was normal. But those screams are usually from people getting slaughtered by his alternates. He didn't think much of it though. The "archangel" is not gonna lie, he still has a lot to learn about humans. That's why he came to you. Mostly because he needs a break from his "work", but he thought he had the opportunity to learn about humanity as well.

You and Gabriel has been hanging out together for a while now, you were quite scared of him at first. It's not like you see a false archangel everyday. Gabriel just happened to take an interest of you, and decided to spare you for now. You were happy, but confused. There weren't really anything special about you. But Gabriel was gonna be the judge of that.

Finally hearing the yelling stop with a final "GO TO YOUR DAMN ROOM!", he could hear your footsteps stomping up the stairs, on the way to your room. The archangel just silently stood by the wall in the dark, not bothering on turning on the lights.

You finally opened your door and slammed it as hard as you could, before collapsing onto your bed, not even worrying about your surroundings. Gabriel still stood there in silence, not making a sound. Only watching your figure curl up to a ball and punch your mattress in anger and distress as you muttered not so sweet nothings under your sobs and cries.

"God, why do you have to make everything so difficult?" You weren't that religious, but you just had the habit of questioning "god", even though there might not be one.

Feeling your sheets getting wet by your tears, you raised your head to lay down on the other side. But as you were turning around, you saw the presence of a tall man on a robe with beautiful, long, blond, curly hair, a long with two pair of wings to top it off. Being taken a back, you quickly wiped your tears away and took a deep breath.

"Gabriel..?"

"Hello, my dear."

Hearing the soft voice of the so called "angel" made you instantly calm, wanting to just fall down straight to bed again.

"What are you… huh?"

Gabriel walked towards you, placing his hand on your cheek and brushing the remaining tears away with his thumb.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm just… you know. I'm just not in the mood."

"Clearly. Tell me what really happened, dear."

You sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed as the angel removed his hand from your cheek. Gabriel followed you down, sitting next to you with both his hands holding each other and placed on his thigh.

"It's just me and my dad. We've had some trouble with the relationship of our family, saying I'm the cause of it. I've been trying hard to make everything better. But it seems like it just backfired." You looked down, refusing to hold eye contact in shame. You tried to fight your tears back, you didn't expect your friend to just show up so suddenly.

"I don't think it's you. I think it's the pressure of your parents. I don't know much about human feelings, but I can guarantee you that it's not entirely your fault."

"Entirely you say?" You chuckled sarcastically before getting pulled into his chest by his warm wings of soft feathers. Feeling your face heat up, and a few tears escape.

Gabriel wasn't warm. He was actually cold. But his wings helped with warming you up. He knew that humans need warmth to keep them alive and comfortable.

"Let it out, my sweet lamb. No one can hurt you, as long as I'm here."

"Thank you, Gabriel."

You sobbed into his robe, feeling it soaking up by your hot streams of tears, but Gabriel didn't care. He just wanted you to somehow feel better. What he said was all honesty. Was honesty just everything humans need to feel happier? Or comforted? He didn't know, but all he knew is that he made you feel better, and maybe next time you wont have to experience your fathers harsh words ever again.

Gabriels questions about humans can wait, he already learned something new. Comfort and honesty.

#Archangel gabriel #angel gabriel #sus gabriel #alt gabriel #mandela catalogue #the Mandela catalogue #tmc #mc #Mandela catalogue x reader #x reader #x y/n #y/n #reader insert #alt gabriel x reader #fanfiction #headcanon

[anghraine]

On a less cheerful note, I was thinking with some frustration that I've reached 2024 and somehow I'm still not okay, even though there are so many good things about my life and so many people in it to help me, why am I like this-

And then I was remembering a conversation I had earlier with another early modernist about how her conservative Southern Baptist upbringing led her to feminism and academia, and how I didn't say "I get it" because I didn't want to make it about my Mormon-raised-with-some-Catholic-influence personal issues when I've had basically nothing to do with Southern Baptist anything.

And then I was thinking about discovering lesbians were a real thing via visiting a church bookstore at around... age 12 and seeing pamphlets for conversion therapy. I don't remember clearly what they said, just that they were from Evergreen whatsit and I was scared for years after.

And gradually, I figured out the weird way that people talked about my bio dad's sister was because she's also a lesbian, but her conservative Catholic family found it easier to pretend not to know. This led to a weird conversation a few years ago with my grandmother (bio dad's mother) where she was asking why I never have any men in my life. I mumbled something about just not really being interested, and she was like ... oh, you're like your aunt :)

me: Um—well—yes.

my grandmother: Just so devoted to your career :) There was this wonderful man I thought she really loved, but she just didn't have space in her life for marriage.

me: *blink*

And I was also thinking about, basically, a million other things from growing up in rural US towns when I did. At the time, much of it felt too individually small to justifiably get worked up about, but much of it still rattles around my mind. Some things were bigger than I even realized, in fairness—say, the Evergreen pamphlets represented something much bigger and worse than I really comprehended at that age. I was pretty much on my way out by the time I fully got it (and Evergreen is more or less gone now, I think—while I'm still here and still queer, hah). Some of the gender shit + homophobia of that time seems almost comically trivial in this era of senators ranting about the corrupting filth of LGBT+ people, or alternately it's so dated that even said senators wouldn't bother.

Anyway, it's kind of wild how I just ... don't think about a lot of this a lot of the time, and actively wonder how certain things got so fucked up in my head even though my life has been easy in many ways. And then I'll have this early modern British lit/feminism conversation and not think about it much at the time (we ended up having a perfectly nice conversation about the Pacific Northwest and the deficiencies of Shakespeare scholarship) and have a mostly good day and then somehow end up staring blankly at the wall at quarter to midnight thinking about how scared I was as a teenager.

I do not like being angry tbh. I'm irritable, sure, but rarely actually angry because I find it so unpleasant, even in the fairly slow and cold way that I generally get angry.

But I've been trying to organize my thoughts and I think I might be angry about this. I was more familiar with "gay" as a slur than as a descriptor into my 20s because, see, the church preferred to talk about people struggling with same-sex or same-gender attraction as part of these earthly trials, not gay people. Describing people as gay might be too validating or something, at least then.

And part of the reason this stuff can be so difficult to navigate in the present is that very "at least then." Because things could get far better than has ever actually happened, and it wouldn't make anything better for who I was at 15. I'm the one carrying that around. Not uniquely, since tons of us came out of that environment and others of similar kinds, but—

Okay, ethically, I believe that people always have the choice to simply do better than they did in the past and this should be encouraged. But that doesn't un-do anything for me.

It's fine and good to say, look, certain things are much better than they were in 2000 (or whenever). And that's true, some things are, and I'm not at all sorry about that. But sometimes it seems like those of us who are still around are supposed to just forget the things that shaped us when we were reaching adulthood, like it doesn't matter any more because that was another time and we're in our 30s or older. Like we shouldn't still be affected by our own pasts, even when the main actors are still around and completely unrepentant, or were hateful until the day they died.

I am angry about it, in my way, I suppose.

#me: i really shouldn't be this screwed up. nothing that bad has ever happened to me #[five hours later] #me: why am i thinking about conversion therapy pamphlets c. 2000 again #anghraine babbles #cw religion #cw homophobia #rare breed of attack unicorn #anghraine rants #long post

[ember1205]

Donnie x Reader Oneshot

Warnings: vague mental health issues if you squint hard enough, I've kept reader gender neutral, fluff, ooc Donnie ig.

Summary: You can't seem to shake the bad feelings that have been going through your head one night and just need to be with someone.

A/N: This isn't proofread and probably never will be. I mostly wrote this for myself because I've been going through some bad feels. I still wanted to make something for other people to read and maybe feel better as well.

To the story!

——————————————————————

It was one of those nights. The feeling of dread and fear crawling through your chest like some slimey snake. It brought a chill to your bones.

Maybe forgoing your pants when you got into bed earlier wasn't the best decision. You clutch your pillow even closer to your front.

No matter what you did or whichever way you turned, you couldn't get comfortable enough. Couldn't shake the feelings from your brain. Couldn't sleep.

You reach for your phone for what feels like the hundreth time only to be disappointed with the screen shining 1:14am into your eyes.

The feelings in your chest only seem to be getting worse as the seconds go by. Memories you'd rather forget seem to all want to resurface to make the worse.

You could handle it anymore. You just needed someone, as much as you hated to admit it, even to yourself.

Gravity was fighting against you as you went to push yourself up from the too stiff mattress. Swinging your bare legs over the side of the bed, you sit there willing yourself to stand, the pillow still tight in your hold.

After a few minutes, you're able to slip off your bed, putting your weight on your feet to stand. Bare feet on the cold floor made a shiver go through you. That wasn't the last, though, as the shivers continued to shake your shoulders.

Finding your way through the lair was like second nature to you at this point, even if it is the dead of night. So you took to time at all to make it to Donnie's room.

You lightly knock out of habit before almost silently opening the door when you heard the stirring of a softshell on the other side.

A light glow of neon purple helping you to see your surroundings, you close the door shutting out the outside light.

Bringing your gaze up from the floor, you meet tired turtles sleepy gaze. Donnie had himself propped up with his hands behind him. The blanket seemed to have slipped down him when he sat up as some of it pooled around his waist and only covered one of his legs that were sprawled out in front of him. The other was hanging off the edge of the bed completely bare since he chose to only sleep in his usual black shorts.

"You need something?"

Donnie asked in a soft voice to coax you to speak.

You didn't realize how long you were standing there thinking of what to say until Donnie broke the silence.

"Need you." You spoke quietly. So quietly that he might not have heard you if it wasn't dead silent.

You realized how you might have looked. Like a child going to their parents' room saying they had a nightmare. The pillow clutched in your arms seemed to push that thought even more.

The sound of your voice must have told Donnie something because he was now fully awake and alert to whatever was happening.

"Okay, do you want to talk about it?"

You shook your head.

"Wanna lay with me?"

A pause before you give a short nod.

No more words were exchanged as Donnie scooted over to give you room to climb in which you gladly did.

Your pillow was still to your chest as you layed pressed to his. He didn't seem to mind as he laced the blanket over you both and wrapped his arms around you, one arm behind your shoulders and the other draped over your side. He placed his chin on your head and released a sigh that moved your hair slightly.

You're not sure what it was, whether it be the warmth of the blanket, the tightness of Donnie's hold on you, or just being with him, but everything seemed to spill out.

Your body tensed more, if that were even possible, and you pushed your face deeper into Donnie's colarbone. Your teeth clenched, and lips pulled together tight. Tears quickly started to gather in your eyes before falling down your face onto Donnie's skin.

You pressed into him more and he began rubbing his hand up and down your back and nuzzled into the top of your head. Your breathing became uneven and your shoulders continued to shake, bit it wasn't from the cold anymore.

No words were exchanged and you went on like this for some time before everything that you held in your chest was let out. You followed Donnie's breathing to help calm yourself down (something Mikey had taught you) and soon all your anxieties and cold feelings melted away leaving your body limp against Donnie's hold.

Feeling you had calmed down, Donnie places a soft kiss on your head. After a second, he pulls away just enough to free your face from his neck. This gave him enough space to continue his kisses on your face.

One to your forehead.

Then to the corners of your eyes. Ridding them of any stray tears.

One to the bridge of your nose.

One to your cheek.

And lastly, he ghosts one onto your lips before pulling away and placing his forehead against yours.

"I'm here with you."

It's whispered, and your nearly numb mind doesn't catch it, but it registers after another minute of silence.

Slowly, you move your hand from its spot on your pillow to lightly touch whatever part of Donnie you could reach first. To let him know that you're also there. No longer lost inside yourself, but laying with him in the moment.

He gently moves his head away to place it back atop yours and moves the hand around your shoulders to the base of your head to pull you closer to him.

He gives you one last squeeze, and let's out another sigh. You both relax into one another, sinking into the mattress.

With your mind and heart cleared and the comfort of the softshell around you, sleep begins to take hold, and your consciousness begins to fade, and eventually, you fall into a peaceful sleep.

#rise donnie #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise donatello #donatello hamato #teenage mutant ninja turtles donnie #donnie tmnt #donnie x you #donnie x reader #donnie x y/n #tmnt 2018 #save rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #comfort #light angst #fiction #cute and cuddly #cuddles #save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles

[a-teacup-of-golden-cracks]

tw this is a trauma post but it's also a narrative I'm proud of. Suicide and self harm (mental and physical) will be mentioned.

To help those who aren't me understand, I think in part in references since it is both easier and more fun than creating original thoughts.

(1): reference to the videogame Omori

(2): reference to the movie The Dark Knight (take a guess as to why I like and relate to the joker)

(3): reference to a song I like (in order, HOPE by NF, Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park, Love the Subhuman Self by AISHA, Arc System Works, and Jamison Boaz)

(4): a random saying I heard and enjoyed

“No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind blue eyes. No one knows what it's like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies”

“Behind blue eyes” by The Who

Welcome to the nonsensical abyss of my mind, you've been here as long as you can remember (1). By reading this you're getting to see my thoughts without translation. Nothing here makes sense to anyone except me, I make references others rarely understand. But allow me to tell the story of how what you see now came to be. You wanna know how I got these scars (2)? “I spent years of my life holdin’ on to things I never should've kept, full of hatred, years of my life wishin I was someone different looking for some validation.” (3)

Middle school was a special sort of subtle hell for me, it stole things without me noticing. First it was my feeling of impervious safety when a kid laughed at a genuine heartfelt remark I made. Then it was my trust that friends would never betray me and always respect me when they wouldn't stop making jokes at my expense. Slowly, steadily I descended into paranoia and loneliness, and thus my contentedness with life was stolen. The ax forgets yet the tree never does(4).

A secret hidden issue that I only found out this year was that the ADHD meds I needed to take to function may have been causing the paranoia to start with. I still don't know how to feel about that, that all my issues and trauma might stem from something that's not even real.

Once I started high school it became more and more apparent that nobody liked me. At least not for very long. I never learned to function in middle school so I was still struggling with what everyone else already knew and mastered. Giving a compliment and sexual harassment, would you like to know the difference? I would've but nobody told me until after I'd been punished.

Intent vs impact, I never intended to hurt anyone yet my impact was that I did more often than not. So I cut off the things that hurt people, removed them from my mind. Who needs humor? Not me if I can't use it right. Who needs to give compliments? Not me if I can't say it right. Who needs to hug people to show affection because it's your primary love language and you want to show everyone how much you like and appreciate them? …… not me…. if I must…. to not hurt them…

You see where my inner pain starts now? Where the scars in my mind begin? There were two things I could never bear to cut and slice away, my name and my kindness. Most trans people change their names to align more with their gender but I decided no. I am done changing things for other people to accept me more, they never do. My name is Daniel and it's the sum of my entire being. If I am non-binary, or a woman, or some eldritch horror that everyone fears and that has lost every shred of humanity because of the things I've endured, then my name represents all of that. It's not my issue if people make a poor assumption about my name because of what they think it should be.

Maybe I don't even want to be human anymore if all that humans have shown me is hate. All throughout high school it was nothing but hate or dislike shown to me, barely any kindness outside of my family. So I isolated myself from everyone, to avoid those who hated and to not burden my family with my issues. I'd handle it by myself like I always had in the past and I'd be ok.

I was not ok.

I was rageful. I was tearing myself apart more and more and more internally, only my desire to never hurt anyone kept me from tearing the school down brick by brick with all the students inside it. But maybe… could it be I was the exception and the problem? Could it be I'm the one who deserves to hurt for the pain I've caused? Should I hurt myself? And so I tried once, a good solid punch to the forehead that didn't make me feel any better and never tried again.

The pain I deserved wasn't physical, it was mental and so I gave myself infinite mental pain. What an idiot I was for giving that compliment when clearly in retrospect it was sexual harassment, what a dumbass I was for saying that joke, looking back I deserve to lose my entire friend group over it. Maybe I'd be better off if I didn't exist anymore if I caused more harm than good and could never seem to learn or improve. The thoughts I had then… and sometimes still now… it's so hard to remember that looking into the past makes everything obvious in the worst ways possible…

But there was a light eventually, someone who told me all that was wrong. Someone I met online and will never see in person, someone I messed up horribly with and yet she still forgave me. Thank you infinitely June. You showed me that monsters can be good.

So I steeled my resolve and used my rage at myself to look inward and outward and found that I was being mistreated and misunderstood. I shouldn't kill myself to not exist or hurt people because I would improve and I could make others improve. So I stood at the very last meeting in front of the whole school and spoke the truth of my mind with as much respect and rage as I could muster. So much pain and anger and hate and sadness I'd endured and I showed all of it to the entire high school of 300 people.

I've never felt more satisfied in my life than when the headmaster of the school himself asked if there was anything he could do for me and I said no. I've never felt more proud when I met with him two days later and asked for a neurodivergent support group to be created for the middle and high school, and he said yes. Half a year later my brother told me that the headmaster stuck to his word and did more than I asked. I never felt more vindicated than when I was told by my only friend that he'd heard people making school shooter jokes after I stood up and told my story.

And so I started to heal. My humor, I did need that. How could I be happy if I could never make myself laugh? My desire to give joy and be kind, I needed that. How could I not fulfill the purpose in life I'd made for myself? My ability to hug and love and be happy with others, I needed that. Desperately. “I want to heal, I want to feel what I thought was never real, like there was somewhere I belong.”(3) I just needed to find better people who understood. I reconnected with my family and told my pain and tried in every possible way to show how sorry and sad I was for cutting them off. I couldn't stitch the old bits back onto me but maybe I could grow something new. Something I wanted and I loved, for me.

I can never fully heal, that's why you see the holes in my form, but I've incorporated them now, so that they help me as much as they hurt. I carry on and love my subhuman self, accept me for me and go back to being with humans (3). I give them the kindnesses I can but only after I do that for myself. This is the kindness and respect I give to me, the biggest change I made, because I deserve it as much as everyone else. Now close your eyes and you'll leave this dream (1).

“But my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be.”

Behind Blue Eyes by the Who

[pancake-breakfast]

I always forget to do stuff for ace awareness days, but I've remembered today, so I'm gonna take a second to talk about some of the struggles I've had being ace, and heteromantic grey-ace in particular.

Erasure: Oh, you want to be in a relationship? Surely you're not really ace, then. You're grey-ace? Sounds like you're just picky. You go for people of the opposite gender from the one you were assigned at birth? Not queer enough. I don't mean to say someone like myself doesn't face fewer problems with their queerness than others; there's no way in hell I deal with the level of shit some of y'all put up with. I "pass," especially when set in US purity culture. But this does not mean I experience sexuality the way most people do, and pretending I do causes all sorts of issues for both me and any partners I might pursue.

Realizing One's Ace-ness to Begin With: To the best of my understanding, this is incredibly common in the ace community. We're told we'll grow into it, that we're just late bloomers, that we haven't found the right person, and for AFAB people, that "women are just less into sex than men." All of this means it's not exactly uncommon for people not to realize they're ace until their mid-20's or later, often after they've been through a few relationships where they allowed things to go past their comfort levels because that's what's expected of someone in a relationship.

Loss of Meaningful "Friendships": I'm sure this happens to everyone to some degree, but it seems particularly cruel that a number of close friendships I've had pretty much evaporate overnight when it finally sinks in to the other person that I will not have sex with them. Usually, I'm completely unaware that all the time we've spent hanging out and chatting and bonding was them trying to build to a sexual relationship in the first place. I thought we were just really good friends and deeply valued what I thought was a platonic relationship only to have a rude awakening when all the times I said, "I'm ace," finally sink in. This is why I usually leave of the "grey" part when describing my asexuality. Anything else usually implies there's more hope to people than there generally is. Of all the "friendships" I've lost this way, the number that have gone on to become something healthy and platonic is... one.

Society isn't Built for Ace Folk: I'm a pretty strong introvert. I like my alone time. I like my space. But it's INCREDIBLY difficult to live on one's own, especially these days. It's not just the expectation that any household needs to pull two full-time incomes to stay afloat. It's the little things. If I'm sick, no one else is around to help keep the place clean or do the groceries or pick up medicine or drive me to the doctor's. A lack of platonic social spaces mean there's no one I can rant to in person about my patio birds or this Cool Thing I found while out and about. Who do I go to when I need a shoulder to cry on or a hug or just not to be alone with my anxiety for a bit? This is not to diminish my in-person friends, but they have their own lives and few of them live close by, so sometimes even when they want to be there, they can't. And if I do reach out to them too much, people are quick to question our relationship. That can interfere with any romantic relationships the friend has, or put either or both of us in an awkward situation. Sometimes, it leads to a closeness that the other person feels, but I don't reciprocate. It is hard to know that your life will always be more difficult because you refuse to take a sexual partner.

One of these days, perhaps I'll write something up about some of the nicer things about being ace, but today, this is what I want to share. May it help those of you who are on the ace spectrum feel a bit more seen and a bit less alone, and may it help those of you who have ace people you care for in your lives understand things a bit better.

#asexuality #international asexuality day #pancake thoughts #oversharing

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hello!!

How are you?

I’ve been feeling stressed out about a lot of things recently and everytime I’ve felt like this in the past it’s you who always helps me out! So I’m back… (not sure it’s a good thing)

Ok so firstly let’s discuss my sexuality. So for the past 3 years I’ve identified as bisexual. I basically like all genders but do have a preference. For example, I am more attracted to masc presenting people than fem presenting people, but I also prefer queer people more often than not. Does this make sense?

This makes me bi, right? Bc I have preference?, bc sometimes I wonder if I could be pan, but pansexual is with no preference (?)

Alrighty, second thing on my mind is the dreaded gender. I’ve been questioning for about 10 months now and I feel like I’ve made progress and I wanted to talk to you about it! So I was that anon and go was spamming your asks back in like December and January bc I was so confused about what gender identity I could be. I asked about almost all of them and you truely helped me so much!

I thought I was faking it as I’m like older than most people when working this stuff out (19), but you reassured me that I wouldn’t be faking it if it was keeping me up. You also said I could be genderfluid, like you. I remember you said you had similar experience to what I was describing: I did look into that and it’s still something I think about. I know I’m not cis. Sometimes I do relate to being a ‘girl’ (as uncomfortable as that makes me feel, it’s the truth). (I am afab). I know I’m definitely not a man. And I had thoughts that I could be agender.

I’ve come to conclusion that I am non-binary, possibly genderfluid, in which fluctuates from agender to demigirl to nonbinary. (Still discovering it all though). I just wanted to come on here and thank you so much for all the help and guidance that you provided! It really means a lot and you are the most amazing human in the world for that! 🫶🏼

Ok now lastly I am a uni student, and I have placement in 2 weeks. I’m going to a school to teach… yes I’m going to be a teacher (like you!) Clothes were the initial issue with placement as clothes always make me feel dysphoric, but you helped me with that as well! The thing that’s keeping me up lately is the title of what the students will call me. Most teachers go by Ms/Miss/Mrs/Mr and then their last names. I don’t want that. I know I’ll end up being called Ms ______, which makes me sad. What do students call you? Do you think it’s bad if I just tell them I want to be called by my first name or is that unprofessional? I know this is silly and I shouldn’t be overthinking it but it’s making me feel uncomfortable and sad so I thought I’d ask you for advice. (I also don’t know how I feel about Mx being used for me).

Again Cas, thank you for all the help you have provided me these last few months! I am so glad I found your blog when I did bc you have helped me in more ways than I ever could have imagined! I am so so grateful for you and I hope you have everything you want in life bc you deserve it!

Enjoy your day/night :)

Hi!!!

Yes, I remember you!

Okay so for sexuality...I think this is a matter of opinion, to be honest. Like, I've read completely different things and I am by NO means an expert. But in MY opinion? If you have the ability to be attracted to anyone, regardless of gender, that would be pan. Even if you have preferences. But if you're strictly only looking for certain genders, that would be bi. I hope that makes sense? Like there's a difference between having a preference and not being attracted at all.

I'm so glad I could help you with your gender! With teaching, have you ever considered just going by your last name? I think it might not be a good idea to go by first name, just because that brings you on a 'friend-level' and some kids will take advantage about it. But just your last name isn't gendered, and also give you some authority.

I'm so so glad I could help you, and please feel free to write again!

(Also I am naming all the anons who write to me in case they want to write in the future, and I am using a random positive affirmation generator to do so. So I dub thee: impressive anon. Enjoy your free tag!)

#ask #asks #ask cas #impressive anon

[bisexualpositivity]

I'm a teen, and I've only had crushes on guys before but recently I think I might have started crushing a little on my online friend, who is a trans girl. I'm sort of panicking about all this, the feelings as well as the real tangible possibility that I'm bi. I'm also worried I possibly, subconsciously see her as a guy, and that that's why I'm crushing on her. do online crushes even count? it's so confusing for me right now

Hey--I want to reassure you that you're not the only one wrestling with these thoughts, feelings and questions. One of the more wholesome stories on reddit tackles a similar issue, I'll link it here for you to read.

As someone who's genderqueer and on the aroace spectrum, I think I'm pretty qualified to say that attraction can be murky sometimes. I've met people who are initially attracted to a stranger, and then lose some or all of that attraction when they find out said stranger isn't one of the genders they'd be interested in dating. I've talked with people who thought they were 100% attracted to only one gender and then met someone of a different gender who completely changed the way they view their orientation. Hell, I know people whose preferences transcend labels entirely.

I also want to point out that there's a difference between finding traits we associate with masculinity (muscles, facial hair, lower pitched voices, etc.) or femininity (curves, long hair, higher pitched voices, etc.) attractive VS finding men or women attractive. A straight man might find himself admiring the elegance of the way a masculine-presenting individual walks, a straight woman might find a butch lesbian's biceps extremely attractive, vice versa for anyone of any sexuality that is more likely to exclude one or more genders. That doesn't invalidate the way they personally identify.

What I'm trying to say is, navigating the world of online crushes as a teen is difficult enough without the added pressure put on questioning people AND a young cis ally's concerns about navigating the transphobia and cissexism they've internalized.

While it's possible that some part of you does think of your friend as a guy, it's clear to me from your language that you're making a conscious effort to respect her identity and encourage others to do the same, and honestly? That matters more than any subconscious biases you might have.

So let me give you a reminder to help stave off those mean little wormy thoughts: you're not hurting anyone by trying to untangle your own identity--and any stereotypes you've been taught about "what makes someone a man/woman"--up in your head, or by reaching out for help and advice.

(I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but I'm genuinely proud of you for putting yourself out there and actively doing the work to make sure you're being kind to others. Please feel free to drop an ask in our inbox anytime 💜)

#questioning advice #trans advice #bisexuality #queer advice #questioning bisexual #transgender advice #asks #anons #mod jinx 🔮

[willsimpforanyone]

Hi!!! If your requests are open (I thought it said it was but if not feel free to ignore <3) can I request a poly nico x will x reader? Something with a first time with them (like reader joined the relationship later?) but the reader is insecure about their body? Like reader is gender fluid but afab?

If not that’s fine!!! Have a nice day :)

omg a poly request i've never done this before i hope i do okay - if it's alright i'm not gonna do smut for this just yet as that needs some research i think but i can do the soft aftercare bit?

reader uses they/them pronouns but is genderfluid

just a warning, this does mention some dysphoria and insecurities about a body so proceed with caution

-------------------------------

My breathing was heavy and my heartbeat was pounding as I lay curled next to Will, hand in hand with Nico who lay on his other side. It was too warm for the sheets to be on me and I half-heartedly kicked them off, wriggling slightly pathetically as I tried to cool down.

Will made a small 'mmm?' noise next to me. "You okay, love?"

I made a vague 'yes' noise, too tired to form actual words just yet.

Nico huffed and dragged himself into a sitting position, giving a tiny smile at the half-formed protests from both me and Will. "Shut up, both of you, someone has to be responsible." He was right, but that didn't mean we had to like it.

In response, I curled around Will tighter and his arm that had been holding Nico came to rest on my back. "I can't believe you'd leave us like this." He whined into my hair, recieving a playful slap from Nico.

"Dramatic gays, both of you." He muttered as he wobbled to the bathroom.

For some reason, my heart dropped. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware that I lacked clothing and that I possessed a body with tits. The sheets were much more appealing now.

Clearly I'd stiffened up, as Will's hand began smoothing up and down my spine. "What just happened in that pretty little head of yours?"

I tried to hide the wince at 'pretty', but he caught it.

"Okay, let me try again. What's going on right now in your head, baby?"

Sighing, I resigned myself to my fate. With Nico, he tended to let me come to him with issues like this and didn't press. Will was very different, he wanted to know any issue so he could help- my emotional bandage, I called him sometimes- and he would bug me until I convinced him I was fine or I relented.

"...it's nothing, I mean, it should be nothing..." I cursed myself internally. I didn't need to downplay this, I trusted him, I loved him, I just needed to actually tell him.

To his credit, Will waited until I took a deep breath, in and out. "Okay, look, it's just- sometimes I forget what kind of body I have and it can just be a little thing that makes me think too much about it and I start to questions everything."

"What kind of questions?" Will poked me gently in the side. "And before you say 'it's nothing' or 'it's stupid', I'm gonna tell you that nothing is too small to tell me, I'm not going to laugh or judge you, alright?" He paused for a second. "Nico might judge you but that's only because that's how he shows his love."

That got a small laugh and Will grinned in triumph. I nodded slightly and sighed. "Fine, fine, it's just that... ugh, okay, because of my body sometimes I feel like I'm not gay enough? Or not... Like, you're bi, so you'd like me regardless of gender, right?" Will nodded. "Right, but Nico is gay, so sometimes I feel like maybe because I'm AFAB that I'm not... enough?"

Will looked serious. "Okay, well, I can't say either me or Nico have experienced this so I'm not sure how to help, but what I can tell you is that this line of thinking? It's kind of ridiculous."

I laughed and hit him gently. "It's not ridiculous! And you said you wouldn't judge!"

"Okay, I'm judging a little bit, but only because your head is telling you lies." He pressed a kiss to my forehead. "You really think Nico would be in a relationship he didn't want to be in? You're underestimating that man's ruthlessness, if he didn't like you or didn't think you were enough he simply wouldn't be with you. In fact-" Will leaned away, facing toward the bathroom. "Nico, come here for a sec!"

Obediently, Nico shuffled out the bathroom in his underwear and a towel. "Hm? What do you want?"

"Our partner is doubting themself, they think they're not gay enough for this relationship. Would you please prove them wrong?"

Nico rolled his eyes, but had a small, affectionate smile on his lips. "Alright, shift over, babe, I need to get to them."

Will gave me one last kiss and wriggled away. Nico clambered rather inelegantly over him and came to land on me, legs either side of my hips and hands planted firmly by my head.

"Pronouns?" He asked, eyes boring into mine.

"Uh, they/them, I think?" I whispered, pleasantly overwhelmed at my current situation.

Nico's face split into a smirk, black hair framing his face attractively. "Well hey there, lovely thing."

Before I could respond he swooped down, lips pressing firmly against mine. My eyelids snapped shut and for a moment my head went completely blank. The kiss was almost filthy, tongue against tongue and my hands squeezed at his thighs instinctively.

He pulled back, grinning as I made to follow him upwards before catching myself. We were panting slightly.

"That gay enough for you?"

I swallowed. "I don't know, we might need to try again."

-----------------------------------

i hope i did okay, thank you for requesting, love!

#nico di angelo #will solace #nico imagine #nico di angelo imagines #will solace imagine #will imagine #will x nico #will x reader #nico x reader #will x nico x reader #reader x will x nico #polyam fic #poly fic #polyamory fic

[ina-nis]

Things no one told me about building an actual self-esteem because they don't really believe you can truly grow a self-esteem from scratch (since you're supposed to "hate" yourself "forever")

It's a lot of work! We're talking years here

I had to go through a lot of treatments and do a lot of things to get even started on the journey to get me to like myself. In a way, maybe the fact that I've been always alone "helped" but I'm sure it can be a hindrance for others. It didn't happen overnight and it took me decades to actually be able to say that I have a good self-esteem and sense of self. It actually only started this year! So it's all pretty recent to me. I guess one of the most important things for me, was to look inside and ask myself: "what do you want?" and go from there. If I didn't know what I wanted, then I would try finding it. It was a hard blow to take when I realized just how much of my entire life revolved around people-pleasing and living for others, trying to meet others' expectations and doing what they wanted, how they wanted, because I thought I'd be met with acceptance and love. Of course that doesn't work. You have a lot to deconstruct, a lot to unlearn and a lot to work on. It's tough, really hard, but not impossible. It requires a lot of patience and time.

No, you're not going to hate yourself forever

No, you're not horrible, worthless or unlovable either: your brain is (conveniently) cherry-picking every single thing you do "wrong" or "bad" and making it 500x worse. That's not your fault! To me, a lot of the discomfort came from gender issues. Once you start sorting that out and taking steps to address them, it gets a lot better! It's different from each person but being immersed in different communities and being in contact with different people can help lots. The other piece was disentangling my self from others. I'm not sure how to word this but I'll try my best: basically, learning individuality. Aren't we often told, or maybe heard about how some people are so "selfish" and "self-centered" who "only think about themselves" because these people are not easily manipulated or swayed? Or how someone can be so "over-confident" and, in the eyes of other people, they're just flexing and bragging for attention? Or how you can have "high standards" for yourself but people will say you'll "die alone" because you're not making any effort to be easily digestible? Once you start living for yourself, for your own sake, that comes with isolation, too! But it's not your fault and doing that is not a bad thing at all, on the contrary: other people are not putting the effort, time and energy into changes too. Seeing someone like you might be a trigger because they're forced to face their own issues they're not addressing. You're just trying to exist. Existing as/for yourself and for your sake is the way to go, if others have an issue with that, it's their problem. If you don't know how to do that yet, a really good way to find out is your passions. They can tell you a lot about yourself. And if you don't have any, the process of looking for it can be really fun and rewarding on itself.

"Fake it until you make it" is, indeed, good advice but

There's much more to your life and issues than that: you need to go deep, you have to find the root causes, or get as close as possible, and you need to work on them. It's probably going to be really uncomfortable. I find the "fake it until you make it" approach really good for crisis, but it's different when you're dealing with something deep-rooted and old - low self-esteem always goes way back. At most, you'll keep on "smiling through the pain" and taking hits to your ego and self, and growing a "thicker skin" when what you actually need is softness. Also, invalidating the "bad" emotions will backfire eventually. Emotions are neutral and serve their own purpose, even if it's unpleasant and painful. For example: hating yourself, seeing yourself as inferior or inept, can have a lot to do with how you navigate the world around you. You see how people who are different are treated and you might retreat and want to change completely because you are one of them and you don't want to go through that or maybe you feel alienated because you are different than others even if no one treats you poorly. You can never really win at that game! Feel those emotions, cry, scream, get angry, you don't need to fake it, you just need to let yourself feel it. They will pass. They always do, because feelings are always changing. Besides if you keep on hiding behind a mask of "good vibes", "optimism" and "positive thinking", you might never be able to address your issues. If you can never see it, or feel these intense emotions, if you can never pinpoint where they come from or why, they will keep on happening forever.

Navigating relationships (of any kind) doesn't necessarily become easier as you become confident and secure

Actually, I don't feel like the painful feelings changed much in intensity, they just come from somewhere else now. Before, I suffered because I thought I was "not good enough" and had to make myself more friendly/palatable for other people's sake, to be accepted, to fit with them. Now that I know not only I don't have to do these things (I should not actually!), changing myself for the sake of others' acceptance means I lose very precious parts of myself. Yes, many will not like this "new" and confident you. Let them go. Don't hold onto people who will hold you back and hinder your progress. You don't need that, you don't need them. Yes, even if they're family; yes, even if you've been friends for years; yes, even your partner or your best friend. If people give you a hard time for finally having an self-esteem, let them go. You'll find new people who will love you as you are, who will grow with you, who will see you eye to eye and not as a threat to their own insecurities and lack of confidence. Of course, it's probably "easier" to me because I never really had safe attachments, so letting go or being left behind are very familiar concepts to me, and come naturally, too. Even if it's not ideal, that helped me with my self-esteem so it was not completely bad.

No, you're not too much, you're not asking too much, your standards are not too high and you're not being too strict

One of the most incredible things to experience when you have an actual self-esteem is realizing that a lot of the things you always thought were just "too much" become your bare minimum. Again, it just shows how much people do not work on themselves and how isolating this whole ordeal can be when you actually try to do something for your sake: people are stuck in absolutely horrifying circumstances all the time and many do feel powerless to change it. That's the system working as intended, as people who are desperate, who don't think deeply or don't question anything, will usually take a more "go with the flow" kind of approach and will not try to rock the boat. This is why people with good self-esteem can be seen as such egotistical jerks and worse! They are threatening by existing being confident in their selves and their beliefs. They will question things and they will not put up with bullshit. This is the next step for me. Having a self-esteem alienates me from others. Not more, not less, just alienates me in a different way than before. I think it's now a matter of finding like-minded people with who I can grow with and heal even more, and not settle for less than what I deserve. I've worked really hard to get here and to build this.

#resources #inanis post

[zinniajones]

SEGM advisor Michael Biggs admitting under oath that some people are just trans because we're trans and because it helps to make sense of our lives and he doesn't have any idea whether that's the wrong answer for any one of us: https://transgender.agency/files/dekker-v-weida/130-2.pdf

Q. Well, no, I read to you the statement that's in your report, that there is -- apparently, there is -- people are promoting transgenderism in health care, schools, and on social media. And I asked you for the evidence that you have to support that statement? A. Yes, I've said that I think -- believe there is abundant evidence in -- for example, if you look at searches on Google trans. If you look at the -- Q. What specific searches -- sir, what specific searches, what specific evidence did you rely upon when you made that statement in your report. I'm asking you the specific evidence that you relied upon? A. If you search for various combinations and permutations of the word "transsexual child," "transgender child," "trans child," "trans kid," "trans children" and so on, you can see a massive peak in that, particularly after 2005 but more particularly after 2010. Q. Okay. So, sir, it is not my responsibility to conduct these searches. I'm asking you what specific scientific basis do you have before you made that statement in this report, what -- did you do those searches, if so, are they -- are the results listed in your bibliography? MR. BEATO: Object to form. Dr. Biggs, you can answer those questions. THE WITNESS: I did do those searches. The results are not listed in my -- in the bibliography because I thought it was -- BY MS. ALTMAN: Q. Why not? A. It was so obvious that the increase in the prominence of transgenderism in health care and schools and social media would be obvious. Q. Sir, did you look at all of the possible reasons why being transgender is more at the forefront today, like perhaps US states that are banning transgender health care -- just as an example, throwing it out there -- and then putting that in the media. Did you look at that, maybe that's the reason why people are more frequent to be discussing the issue? A. Well, bans on health care have only been around for a couple of years. I'm talking about a long -- long-term trend from -- I think I did 1990 to 2020. So it's -- yeah, that's the basis of it. Q. So other than your Google searches, is there anything else that you relied upon in making that statement in your report? A. Just to clarify, it wasn't a Google search. It was a search of Google's corpus and the entire body of printed material in -- in the English language. Q. Right. The one -- the things that you did not list in your report as resources, correct? A. Yes. Q. Sir, do you believe it's -- that it is easy to be transgender, it is appealing to be transgender? A. I believe in some cases it can be appealing, yes. Q. What about in others? A. In other cases, it is not. Q. You are not making a -- you are not providing a general opinion that people are jumping on the transgender bandwagon because it is so easy and it is being promoted, are you? A. No. I believe that sometimes it makes sense of an individual's predicament of suffering or distress about their body, about their gender roles. Q. And it might make sense just because they are transgender, right? A. Yes, it might. Q. Right. And you don't know in any particular case whether that's true, right? A. Not in any individual case, no.

The judgment snake is RAVENOUS

#transphobia #Michael Biggs #SEGM #Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine #deposition #Dekker v. Weida #Florida Medicaid #expert witness

[nimue-hidden-lake]

Welcome To My Lake!

Redone intro

This is a side blog! Due to circumstances I cannot properly interact from my main (@thelakeofnimue). Until the issue is resolved (however long that might be) I would like for you to interact here (asks, dms, pings, reblogs)! Also if I follow you it might not show up properly. Just a heads up!

Hello there! Please, call me Nimue. I’m 22 years old and German (English is my second anguage). I am on the aromantic spectrum. I am genderfluid and thus what I identify as will shift on a whim. Please ask me for pronouns and what gendered terms I'm fine with at the moment! Or use They/Them and do not gender if you want to play it safe all the time. Due to this I also prefer to not label my sexuality (not like I know what to call it anyways).

I write a lot and sometimes draw. I will also make random posts though. I also write f/o imagines for everyone to enjoy! Let your mind go wild!

I will talk about whatever I am interested in so this is a mish–mash of posts and reblogs. I might take my time to warm up but I love meeting new people and interacting with others! Hit me, ask or reblogs whenever you want (even if it's just for f/o gushing, I love hearing it)! You can also DM me if you want to talk more!

Nice to meet you! I hope I am able to get to know you better in the near future!

For more info, read below the cut!

BYF

I am a selfshipper / yumejoshi and I am very open about this! I do not mind interacting with people who are not so feel free to interact with me either way (may it be posts, tags, dms or the askbox)! But if you do not feel comfortable with this fact, I suggest that you avoid this blog altogether since I share and post about this stuff a lot!

I love to write and talk about writing! Writing is my passion! I've been doing it for over a decade now! If you need advice, I'm ready to help! Also feel free to tag me in any of your writing! I'd love to read it! I'm still not sure to reblog some stuff or not. Give me a head's up if it's ok to reblog your stuff!

I experiment with my writing. While most of it is sfw and rather light hearted, I can and will write about darker themes sometimes! These posts receive a content warning however and I have a tag available in my tag list so you can filter that stuff. 

I am primarily an OC/Canon shipper and I will gush and write about these ships a lot! I also multiship in that regard!

I am not a single fandom blog! Though I have a primary interest which can change. My current primary interest right now is Hypnosis Mic.

General Tag List

#Nimue’s Whispers – Personal thoughts or headcanons

#Nimue's Lake – My written works

#Deep Waters – Written works dealing with heavier topics. I recommend blocking this tag if you wish to not see any of it!

#Waves – Answered Asks

My creative works

Nimue's Library (#Nimue's Lake)

Nimue's Dark Corner (#Deep Waters)

Nimue's Sketchbook (#Nimue's Sketchbook)

Fandom List

These are only a select few of many which mean a lot to me. Those marked bold are my current fixations.

Ensemble Stars

Hypnosis Mic

Bungo Stray Dogs

The World Ends With You

Fire Emblem

Obey Me!

Arknights

Project Sekai: Colorful Stage 

Touken Ranbu

Honkai Star Rail

Fate/Grand Order

Kid Icarus

Osomatsu series (Kun & San)

Genshin Impact

These are just some of my interests! I am enjoying many more fandoms! If you want to know if I am part of a specific one, ask!

Selfship Stuff

Overhaul? Yes. But I try to be a bit more careful with f/os nowadays so a lot are pending. I mainly focus on Ensemble Stars and Hypnosis Mic tho, so expect me to gush about them the most. I mostly post about Fling Posse at the moment. I love all of my f/os though!

"Shipped with s/i" means that I ship them with my s/i but I do not consider them f/os! I just enjoy the ship dynamics. Thus these ships are not personal to me by any means and I would not rank them as my partners due to a lack of feelings for them.

There are also a few f/os who are a bit complicated due to past circumstances (I rather not talk about it). Once I recovered and sorted my feelings I add them to the other rows especially Romani Archaman, I love him so much and want to decleare him my boyfriend again you have no idea... However long that will be. I love them though and plan to add and gush about them eventually once I moved on from the situation! I just don't know when that will be...

Iffy sharing Fling Posse (Ramuda, Gentaro, Dice), Henry (FE) and Blaze romantically (except with my friends). I will not block you but I might block your tag (if possible) or not follow back and/or interact with your posts (related to that f/o) if possible. I will also do it if we share f/os you feel uncomfortable sharing with. If I miss it though, I apologize. Just notify me if I do! If I follow you first (or reblogged something from you before) or if we already know each other from another platform, we are good though. I'm fine sharing everyone else though!

My top secret f/os are f/os I keep a secret for own reasons and at most I will vague post about them in public (if ever). I talk about them in private though and publish fanfics about them elsewhere. There is a chance I open up about them one day but no gurantee (I doubt it matters since none of them are f/os I often write about as of now). I am fine sharing them though!

Anniversaries

Ramuda Amemura - 15th November

Gentaro Yumeno - 22nd November

Dice Arisugawa - 23rd November

Ritsu Sakuma – 27th June

Rinne Amagi - 11th August

Izumi Sena - 24th September

Hokuto Hidaka – TBD (confession to be written)

Leo Tsukinaga - TBD (confession to be written)

Blaze - TBD (confession to be written) (sharing with a friend)

Henry - 25th May

Arataki Itto - TBD (confession to be written)

A list for my platonic f/os can be found here! Sharing is aok!

My main OC (S/I) for Ensemble Stars

Hypnosis Mic S/I

Bungou Stray Dogs S/I

S/I in Arknights (coming soon)

S/I in Fire Emblem Awakening

Etsuko Amata (Genshin Impact Version) (coming soon) (shipped with Itto)

Fling Posse Selfship / Yumeship Masterlist

Selfship Tags

#Nimue's Beloved – Romantic F/O Stuff

#Nimue's Family – Familial F/O Stuff

#Nimue's Besties – Other Platonic F/O Stuff

#Ritsann – Ship collection for Ritsu/Ann

#Ramuann - Ship collection for Ramuda/Ann

#Gennann - Ship collection for Gentaro/Ann

#Diceann - Ship collection for Dice/Ann

#Hokkann – Ship collection for Hokuto/Ann

#Rinnann - Ship collection for Rinne/Ann

#Izuann - Ship collection for Izumi/Ann

#Leoann - Ship collection for Leo/Ann

#Ittsuko - Ship collection for Itto/Etsuko

More coming soon

Other OCs & Ships

That won't mean that I do not ship any other OC/Canon stuff. I do actually and am still doing so. I also just love writing and creating characters as a whole.

Etsuko Koge (Enstars Version)

Karl Wolff (Ensemble Stars)

Oriko Himejima (Ensemble Stars)

Anneth (Kid Icarus Uprising)

Iris (Kid Icarus Uprising) (coming soon)

Nikke (Kid Icarus Uprising) (coming soon)

#Madoriko – Ship collection for Madara/Oriko

#Natsann - Ship collection for Natsume/Ann

#Juann - Ship collection for Jun/Ann

more to be added… 

Discord Stuff

Another way to reach me is Discord (it is usually easier tbh, I will check DMs there more often and am often online). The name is e_v_e_ (Eve)

Discord Profile at the moment (that is me)

Also running a (somewhat active) selfship server! Feel free to join us! Invite here!

DNI if…

you are here to start drama or talk about drama. I will be honest, hearing about any type of drama can stress me out and I prefer avoiding it here if possible. I myself will never talk about drama either, no matter what it is! Also, please do not involve me in any drama! 

you have a problem with content involving OCs and self inserts, leave! This includes OC x Canon + S/I x Canon content as well!

you are…

A racist

A bigot

A transphobe

Anti LGBTQIA+

A p*dophile / MAP

Proship

Comship

Other Blogs

@lake-archive - Overall writing

@astral-express-conductors - HSR Fanblog (18+)

@nimue-at-night - 18+ Blog

@crew-catz - Hypnosis Mic Fanblog (OC focus)

#blog intro #pinned intro #intro pin #introductory post #introduction #pinned info #pinned post #self ship intro #selfship intro #Ok I hope this is the last time I edit and revamp my intro! I apologize that you have to see this again! #selfship promo #self ship promo #self promo

[tips-from-a-tech-worker]

It's been some time, eh?

Howdy folks! It's been some time since I last properly posted on here, huh?

Just as a warning, I am going to be getting into some deeply personal stuff, as well as deeply distressing stuff relating to myself and wider society, so if you're not in the right place for that, I suggest you skip past this.

Firstly, I just want to say thanks so much for all of you still engaging with this rarely updated page. I post maybe once a year, and a lot of the time it isn't even anything to do with what I originally created this page for: to show off code that I thought was particularly pretty, or code that made something particularly pretty.

I still enjoy all that stuff, no doubt about it. But I've honestly found it quite tricky to be enthusiastic about writing code at the moment.

For context, I work at a university developing apps and websites for medical research. That sounds quite valuable and fulfilling right? I mean I thought so too for such a long time. But lately, I've been having my doubts.

A lot of what we do make creates so much added overhead for doctors, where they already barely have time to see patients as it is. It also adds so much overhead to the lives of patients who engage with these apps. Most of our apps are for mental health help, and our research studies show that participants always engage and love it.. But they're research participants.. They're already self-selecting to be engaged and interested. As it turns out, a lot of mentally unwell people do not have the capacity for any of the stuff we make - myself included!

On top of not feeling like my work is contributing - on the contrary, it feels like it is making things worse - universities here are, in practice, dictated by private interests and the "market", whatever the hell that is. It is nominally funded by the government, but they largely do not do that. Because of this, they run as businesses.

Oh, your department isn't profitable anymore despite doing incredibly important work? Well, the market says you gotta go. You and 10,000 people who work there.

Some academic staff have half an hour of free time in the middle of the day? Well, that obviously means that we can fire a tonne of admin and put all that labour onto the backs of the researchers.

Oh, we fired all the cleaners at the beginning of the pandemic, but now things have opened again we have no cleaners? Well the students can handle that one! That's free labour!

It's all a bit maddening.

On top of all that as well, our university has decided that rather than solve any of these issues, it's going to ignore them, on top of many other issues of racism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, you name it! All this, in the face of raking in millions in profits every year.

I know a lot of that is nothing to do with software development, but as software development is part of my job, and my job is within the university, you might imagine that this leaves a slightly awful taste in my mouth.

What stings even more is that I thought working in the university was the preferable choice. I worked in a couple of privately ran tech companies a while ago, and it was hell on earth. And now, finding out that the supposed "escape route" is also as bad.. Code is the last thing on my mind. It's the last thing I want on my mind.

Just a bit about me. I am a non-binary person. I've known this all my life, despite not really having the language to describe it. Since I was very young, every encounter I had with "gender" REALLY distressed me for some reason. I had put it down to patriarchy, sexism, all that horrible stuff, and for a large part that was true. Like all that stuff is SUPER distressing. But it didn't explain the whole picture.

Over the pandemic I had time to properly sit down and reflect on myself and my identity - and SO much more but I'm trying to keep things focussed here! I finally put a pin in it, and that helped so much. A lot of the gender distress, whilst still there as background noise, went away. Clouds were lifted. ...Until now clouds found their way in..

Not sure if anyone is aware, but the UK (yes sorry I'm British) is a deeply transphobic society - well, at least the parts of it you are allowed to see through the lens of the privately owned media. Discovering, or at least admitting to myself, that I was non-binary was a huge step forward into the gaze of this society. A society whose public conversation is largely captured by transphobic actors. Lord Alan Sugar - ruling class in every aspect, JK Rowling - a castle owning bigot who wrote a few books that people seem fixated on, almost the entirety of the Conservative and Labour party, just about every newspaper column that exists (including the supposedly progressive ones).

On top of that, none of these people who are in control of society, or at least have a lot of influence over it, seem to want to do anything about the existential problems we're facing. Climate change, multiple health crises, poverty, etc. You name it, god forbid they action anything to resolve this.

But what has this got to do with coding? Well not much honestly.. But whilst all this is rattling in my head, and I am trapped making code for people that do not care about me - or at worst, actively want to see me removed from society - and I'm making code that doesn't do anything useful, I know I'm not doing anything that could help all this. I'm too shattered after a day of doing a job I hate to do anything positive.

I've taken the last month or so off work on sick leave, and honestly I am tempted to take more off. The ONE good thing about working at the university is it's sick leave policy. As an employee of 3 or more years, I am entitled to 6 months sick leave at full pay. I feel like I should probably make use of that, eh?

But during my time off I have been focusing on myself. Playing video games, streaming a bit, and hey, even faffing around with bits of code! But also..

I don't know if it's obvious from my videos - I mean, you'll have probably figured this out from this very post - but I am very politically engaged to say the least. And over the years of seeing issue after issue not being addressed by people supposedly there to help us, I've come to the conclusion that we should probably start helping ourselves. We live in a society where everything is dictated by a few very rich individuals, and the majority of us have to just accept whatever decree is issued upon us. I don't particularly think that this is a fair, just, or even effective structure of society. And over the past few years I've come to the realisation that it doesn't have to be.

Society is built and maintained by people who do the work. Farmers, mechanics, shop assistants, doctors, firefighters, teachers, and yes even coders. We spend our lives answering to a series of bosses telling us what to do, how to do our jobs, when we should work, when we should go home, and things really do not have to be this way.

As a bare minimum, I have become quite the advocate of worker-cooperatives. That is, companies that are owned, managed, and ran entirely by the people who work at them. There are quite a few examples of this across the planet but the largest of which is Mondragon.

But I don't necessarily think that is enough to fix the issues in the world. Sure, they help in the immediate. Give workers a chance to be able to control their lives, make a decent living, etc. But workers-cooperatives still have to engage in "the market" - again, nobody has explicitly told me what this is yet. But because they do, then the threat of climate collapse is still there. Some of you might have clicked as to where I'm going with this.

To put it plainly, I am a communist. Now already that is conjuring some fantastical image in your minds of a glorious (or despotic) workers' republic, men with big beards, and big red stars (which personally I am at least a little sympathetic to but I get why people would be hesitant of this). I just wanted to dispel a few myths whilst I'm here.

I advocate and am actively trying to help build a society where everyone in a community - be that a workplace, where a group of people live, or where a group of people play - has an equal say in how that community is ran. History has thousands of examples of collectively ran communities from early civilization right up to the modern day. And whilst none of them were particularly perfect (nothing ever is), they put people in a position where if an issue came up, people could coordinate and try and resolve this issue.

To do this, I am actively involved in IWW union organising. I think the best way for workers to gain collective and equal control of society is by capturing it one workplace at a time so that each and every workplace is fair to the people who do the majority of the work.

But what does this have to do with climate change? With transphobia? Any of it? Well, as said before, a lot of our society is owned by some very rich individuals who will do anything they can to keep hold of what they got. These people aren't inherently "evil" or whatever. But the system of which we exist in encourages them to hold onto what they have by any means necessary. To do this, and they might not even realise they're doing it, they will try and make sure that everyone else is at each others throats by pushing transphobia, racism, all that horrible stuff.

As well as this, those individuals often have friends who own the coal industries, the oil industries, the gas industries, etc, etc. All of whom make their living off those pollutants. It is in their interest to make sure those industries make money. They're not going to change their minds because that is how they survive. But were society controlled by everyone, especially those who would be actively affected by climate change, then something could actually be done.

Okay. But what the HELL does this have to do with coding? Well.. It was a starting point for me. It led to all these thoughts. All these realisations. I started thinking about what I was doing, what I was making. Then I thought about why I was doing it, why my boss wanted me to do it. Then kept expanding from there. Eventually, it painted this whole picture.

I know by this point I will have lost a lot of you. Some people will have immediately seen the long post and gone "Nah, I ain't reading that" and honestly I don't blame you. Some people will have seen the word "communist" and flown off into a rage-induced coma. Again, I don't necessarily disparage people from reacting like that in the face of everything people are told about communists. But I felt that saying all this in the open was appropriate. Every year it feels like we're coming closer and closer to collapse. We can already see it around us. Wear and tear. Cracks slowly expanding. And nobody is doing much to stop it. People are barely pointing at the cracks. Some people are insisting they've always been there, or that they're not there at all. I NEED people to know, and to do something, and to want to do something.

Congrats for making this far. I know the tail end of this has gone into a bit of a poorly structured ramble (as if the rest wasn't..). All this to basically say, I don't think I want to use this page to show off code. I think it can be much more useful than that.

From here on, the posts you will see here will relate to community organising (mostly workplace union organising) and practical things people can do to try and gain some sort of control.

I understand that this will upset, confuse, and even anger some people. But I need to do this for myself. But not only that, I want to do this for everyone else.

Feel free to unfollow, ask questions, do whatever. But please understand that things are getting a bit desperate.

Once again, thank you all so much for all the support and interest over the years. I started this in 2014/15 when I was in a bit of a pit of dispair and wanted to show off something I was passionate about to keep the darkness at bay, and you all helped so much with that. I don't think I'll ever forget this community, but I must move on.

Stay safe, and solidarity. xox

P.S. Apologies for the typos. I was going to run through this a second time. But I REALLY just want it all off my chest now. We can work through it together if need be. <3

#code #software development #update #me #personal #ramble #tumblr #community organising #lgbt #nonbinary