A Polite Melody

Hi there, I'm Enviri | early 30s | they/them | queer | disabled | freak | My blog name is in reference to my late dog Melody, who will always be part of me.

[a-polite-melody]

It’s legitimately triggering to me, getting people begging for money in my inbox. Especially the ways which some of them do it.

“$20-30 may not seem like much to you”

Oh??? You know my financial situation???

Fuck off.

If anyone’s curious why I basically never answer asks, it’s because my inbox is full of landmines for triggering stuff surrounding financial insecurity and I cannot handle it, and it only gets added to day by day with what are almost certainly 99% scams which are hoping to prey upon my empathy.

[from-the-pinnacle]

Remember, kids, overstimulating someone can absolutely be sadistic

[stitchposts]

Hey if you're coming to Washington DC for the Fourth of July: don't

We're having our turn in the heat wave and reports from the National Mall are brutal already this week. That screenshot is today's forecast (courtesy of the Capital Weather Gang) and tomorrow and Saturday are confidently going to be worse than this is.

The national Mall has no shade on the grass and you will be exposed to the sun constantly while also experiencing extremely high humidity. You will not be allowed a bag over a certain size to enter the mall and it has to be clear. You cannot have an insulated water bottle, it has to be clear. Reports are that there are two entrances to the area so you'll have to wait in line to even get in. I cannot find a number on how many cooling stations there are, except that it's "few" to "none" depending on what accounts I read online. Vendors are allegedly charging more than the posted prices and seem to be unprepared for actual crowds - these are the official vendors not the scam food trucks that park all around the edges of the mall. And that's the extent of the planning done because it was not a priority to make sure attendees don't pass out.

My local friends and I have reached a consensus that tourists are going to get extremely sick and none of us know what the EMT response or planning is on the mall this year. People are going to die.

Please stay out of this. It's not worth your health. Get your relatives and family to stop. I can give you recs for so many DC museums and things to do if you want to make the most of your trip. Any other local can too.

[bimmyjimmy]

all seeing bimmy

[orangejuice-god]

wish people who doxx others and start hate campaigns over twitter drama would put that energy towards things that actually matter like calling government officials over bans. if you have time to harass someone's landlord or place of work because you dont like them then you have time to harass people in power

[a-polite-melody]

I hate that people keep pretending that trans men’s being men isn’t related at all to their oppression.

If a trans man weren’t a man, he wouldn’t be trans.

His claiming of man as his gender is the exact thing he is being oppressed for.

This is how intersectionality as a framework is supposed to be used to look at this, not, “man doesn’t add another oppressive force.”

And before I get, “but if man doesn’t add an oppressive force, how can the oppression be intersectional. Isn’t that just transphobia now?”

That’s still a huge misunderstanding of intersectionality, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to be the one to help here.

But simply, the best try I have, is that the patriarchy and sexism still create something else which oppresses trans men that isn’t “just transphobia”. It targets them specifically for claiming manhood, as well as for anatomy they may have been born with as trans men which society uses to see them as being not men, and social knowledge of them “having been a woman”…

Manhood doesn’t add protection for trans men except in the extreme circumstance of being absolutely stealth (as in you’ve managed to have a life where no one you have to interact with for the rest of your life will ever be able to figure out that you’re trans, and you’ve cut off anyone who knew you pre-transition).

And it fascinates me that people like to claim that non-passingness means that trans men will be seen as precious little girl flowers who are cherished. Because often we have mixed sex characteristics. And intersex people and trans women talk extensively about how having mixed sex characteristics is dangerous. But we’re never thought of as having mixed sex characteristics, only as perfectly stealth or pre-everything. And why is it that stealthing privilege is considered for trans men, but not trans women?

Oh, because women are oppressed anyway so they can’t be safe really? Okay then why are pre-everything trans men so safe? If a person who is assumed a woman is actually a trans man, that’s someone who will be treated as harmless and beautiful, and if that person assumed to be a woman is actually a trans woman, that someone will still be at the mercy of misogynists? How does that work? Are we really doing a fucking “they can always tell”?

Or maybe it’s that a trans man can state that he’s a man and the oppression would stop? I can tell you that the opposite is true; that asserting you’re a man when someone has assumed you’re a woman and is mistreating you for that, only gets you treated worse. And again, why is this something only available to trans men? Can people not lie to try to be safer? Is that not what stealthing and closeting are to a degree?

Anyway, that got a little off the rails from my original point. But it does show the absolute absurdity that you have to accept to disbelieve a marginalized community trying to speak on the oppression they face.

[tboy-cock]

“As a biological female your role in society is to birth children and be obedient to men. You HAVE to have kids and you HAVE to turn your brain off and let your father or husband control you— oh you don’t want to? We will violently FORCE you— oh you identify as a man? Ok!!!! Live your life kinggg!!! Ignore everything I just said!!”

^^how some people think it works?????

if trans male privilege existed:

-all reproductive services (abortion, hysterectomy, gynecology, ect) would be more easily accessible to trans men than cis women, instead of the opposite being true

-testosterone would be easier to access for trans men. we would not need letters of support every time we get a new doctor no matter how long we've fucking been on t

-gender affirming surgeries for masculinzation (top surgery, bottom surgery, body sculpting/fms, ect) would be more accessible to trans men, would all be covered by insurance, and wouldnt need several letters of support

-waitlists for gender affirming procedures wouldnt be nearly as long for trans men as it is now

-name and gender changes for trans men would be universally available and accessible

-trans men would not be at higher risk of medical discrimination than cis women

-trans men wouldnt have sexual assault rates of almost/over 50%

-missing/murdered trans men wouldnt be misgendered/deadnamed and filed under femicide

-historical trans men wouldnt be considered gnc women, and more gnc women would be considered trans men than the inverse

-trans men wouldnt have their specific statistics under blanketly "transgender people" and would have more individual statistics talking about their struggles

-trans men wouldnt be isolated from the lgbtq communities that they were in previously after they come out as trans, especially if theyre also straight

-trans men wouldnt be violently threatened with sexual assault (despite being one of the most at-risk groups for sexual violence) and other forms of abuse for talking about being abused by other trans people

-trans men wouldnt be expected/coerced/forced into deferring to every other gender group when it comes to our own oppression/struggles/material needs

-transphobia against trans men specifically (both people who are "exclusively" transphobic/misogynistic/transandrophobic to trans men or equal opportunity transphobes) wouldnt be as normalized as it is

itd be fucking nice wouldnt it

[ftmtftm]

also like how much of it was "patriarchy willing to let women masculinize themselves" and how much of it was "patriarchy conceding that like, sure, pants are more practical in some professions and situations and therefore we won't laugh at you too much"? because *that* one would require actual intersectional analysis of which women (eg some blue collar workers who might get fucked up if their skirt gets tangled in machinery) are "allowed" to wear pants, vs which women (eg anyone classed as a woman at your [ftmtftm's] school who goes to an event considered official) aren't. and then we get into talking about which women were historically working class, and surely you [the reblogger of that one post] don't mean to tell me that working class women - and blue collar women in particular - are specifically well accepted under the patriarchy?

You genuinely bring up an excellent point anon and it allows us to remember the fact that the movement of working class blue collar laborer women* wearing pants in order to work manufacturing jobs that happened during WWII were quite immediately shunned and kicked out of their jobs the moment the war ended. They were expected to go back home and become good wives and mothers now that the men were back from war and forget those silly fantasies of working for their wages.

The extremely regressive hyper feminine standards and expectations for women in the 50's was born out of the idea that the blue collar women of the 40's who worked the "men's jobs" while they were in the war needed to "relearn" their places in society as women*.

*particularly and especially white women in this case, because femininity and white womanhood are a match made in Christian nationalist heaven.

[saszor]

"Tutorial" on how to "draw" a blind OC.

My kofi

Boring tired disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is an introductory "drawing" "tutorial" and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. Which happens to be true for everything in general. Links below so that you can research and do a nuance. Ones that were directly mentioned are bolded.

Writing a blind character 101 What to avoid etc Video on types of white canes Video on types of cane tips Some more explanation on white canes + tips + other stuff Guide animals Video on working with a guide dog ↑ if you're doing a non-dog non-horse animal please still perceive those two links. A guide animal is not a GPS that tells you "left" or "right" (in fact, you're the one telling it which direction you want to go). So before giving them something weird check if it actually makes sense. You can make a fantasy animal that still makes sense I promise 🦮👍 But why are Magical White Eyes a problem Same as above Going blind from an accident Video on conformers World's most basic "what do you call someone with albinism" The blindfold thing. No people don't wear these. This mostly stupid trope of covering a blind character's eyes because lord forbid someone sees a disabled body part This just stupid trope of giving a blind character some bs superpower to "see" The echolocation thing that every other blind oc does for some reason Just give them a cane good lord if you want a character that can see perfectly then maybe don't make them blind Bonus: if your character has a bunch of scars or whatever else then congrats! You made a character with a facial difference. Which is also something you should research.

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

Big fan of whatever this genre of conversation is

[wizardrights]

[shinelikethunder]

heatwave sufferers go plunge your feet in cold water you will feel SO much better i prommy. grab a bucket or a pot or a plastic container, fill it with a few inches from the cold tap, lay a towel down on the floor, and dunk your goddamn feet.

[damazcuz]

My new place doesnt have any overhead lighting outside of the kitchen and bathroom, so I'm going to have to get some more lamps when I move, and although I plan to hit up thrift stores for that I'm kind of idly browsing what's popular and available in stores these days. And I'm cataloging the really really silly ones.

Can you please get your immersion blender out of the living room.

This thing is so nosy. Hey everyone whats for dinner lol.

Toblerone.

And this one is my favorite bc its like a Project Hail Mary eridian fan character named Lamp.

[mbrainspaz]

fundamentally do not understand WHY people post ai slop. If it's not real, nobody made it up, and it communicates nothing, what's the point? If it blows up and gets millions of 'interactions' —that's the only angle that even remotely makes sense to me. It sucks ass, but I understand the profit motive. What gets me is the aunties and nobodies posting ai slop that will never go viral. What is the point?! It's like looking into a black hole. It's less than nothing, because nothing would be peaceful. It's noise that means absolutely nothing except 'look.' Look at what? Not at you. Not at anything real. So why?!

[goldcrescent]

I also think that the strength gap is at least partially manufactured women would in fact be stronger overall if little girls were encouraged to do physically taxing games and activities and eat their fill while they’re growing vs having to constantly diet and be sedentary indoors (or god forbid do intense cardio while under-eating). The amount of adult women honestly afraid to lift weights bc they think they’ll get bulky as though bulking isn’t a full time job that athletes have to spend all their time on and anyone on earth gets shredded from just using their adult muscles for their intended purpose, girl your bone density 🥀

[goldcrescent]

if you say women are intentionally nerfed from birth in 2026 people look at you like you’re insane and start condescendingly telling you about how women are just better at different things (but not during their periods haha) but this was a completely basic feminist talking point I grew up with like “girls can do it too! [shot of little girls climbing and running with boys]” nickelodeon commercial tier base level I hate it how is everyone suddenly dumber than the average 7 year old

[endercatvwoops]

we've fully reached "misgendering isn't real" btw. insane take

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Right that's why "You will never be a woman/man" is such a common phrase. Because transphobes don't see trans women as women and trans men as men.

And that's why they let trans women into women's sports and "women only" spaces while forcing trans men into women's spaces. Because they see trans men as men, right?

[transandrogyny--turtlebug]

"transphobes do see you as the gender you are" This is not only incorrect, but also exorsexist

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

sometimes I’m reminded that there are still people who don’t know ao3 was literally created by incest shippers — and the site’s sole purpose is to 1. be completely against censorship and 2. host all kinds of dark, taboo fics that are banned on other platforms — and the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

you are in the house that was created by freaks. for freaks (affectionate). every disgusting thing you can think of is rightfully allowed and welcomed on ao3, because they are exactly the reasons why ao3 was created in the first place.

ao3 was created because its creators got tired of censorship, they got tired of dark and taboo fics getting banned on pro-censorship platforms, and they wanted a place that was safe for ALL FICS THAT WERE DARK AND TABOO.

ao3’s main principle is being against censorship and being proship / profic.

there are some things in fiction that make me uncomfortable, but instead of shaming people who are just minding their own business and not harming anyone in real life, I choose to curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting what I don’t want to see. ao3 has excellent tagging system, so instead of being a bitch, use their tagging system properly and you won’t see the things you don’t want to see.

it’s your job to curate what you see. it’s not other people’s jobs or responsibilities to censor themselves for your personal comfort. the world does not revolve around you.

also you cannot censor “only the things you personally hate” without expecting everything else, that isn’t of conservative beliefs, to be censored too. because censorship is a slippery slope and a fascist tool. I promise you there are people who think “why do tags for queer love even exist on ao3? they’re grooming children”.

if you allow the things that you hate to be censored — because someone with enough power gets to control what other people can and cannot create/consume, it will not stop at the things that you hate.

*illustration by sillyalexnorris