Ramblings

Decidedly 18+. Xe/xer or ze/zir, white middle-class demi/grey romantic biromantic lesbian aegosexual non-binary queer bitch

[biromanatees-like-cats]

Trying to avoid the truscum vibes of a lot of trans tumblr atm lol, as someone who ticks all their wrong boxes.

But like... Just because I don't have dysphoria doesn't mean that I wouldn't transition if it was an option to me. I'd quite like bottom surgery, but in the UK I might as well want wings. The NHS is shite at non-binary treatments, and if I tried to go that route anyway I'd have to wait for multiple years to get my first appointment, when I would probably immediately be kicked out for not wanting to take hormones. And even if I wasn't, FTM bottom surgeries are dicey as fuck rn because there are only about 2/3 hospitals providing it, and the contracts have been running out and all sorts of fuckery.

Which leads me to the next point: there is as far as I can find absolutely no route to private bottom surgery within the UK. Private hormones yes, private top surgery yes. Bottom surgery, no. There's just no one doing it.

So, yeah. Ugh.

[girlballs]

god it would be awesome if the human brain could just ignore an upsetting thing instead of constantly wandering back to it for no fucking reason

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

I don't think people who come from wattpad after the purge and now want ao3 to have its own official app understand that one of the main reasons behind the recent wattpad purge that drove them to ao3 was due to pressure from appstore demanding wattpad to be more strict and follow appstore's policy. wattpad complied in order for its app to be able to remain on appstore. thus the wattpad purge.

ao3 doesn't have an app because for it to have an app, appstore will have to approve it first. and if, hypothetically, ao3 needs appstore to approve it, it will also have to abide by appstore's pro-censorship stance and start banning dark and taboo fics, which is against its own core principle of being completely against censorship.

ao3 doesn't need an app. it works more than fine without an app. the reason ao3 can allow dark and taboo fics, the reason it can allow the most disgusting and shockingly vile fics, and be completely against censorship is because it doesn't need appstore's approval. it stands on its own as a non-profit organization with functioning site and a team of lawyers protecting its platform, its users, and every single fanwork on its platform.

everybody say thank you ao3

here's the list of things you need to know about ao3 if you're new to the platform

[serial-unaliver-deactivated2024]

every r/relationship_advice post: first of all I want to clarify I could not ask for a more perfect and loving husband. anyway every day he tries to kill me,

[smol-blue-bird]

I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating

[smol-blue-bird]

There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”

[smol-blue-bird]

Thought this section was particularly interesting:

Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.”

But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth.

You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.

[theriu]

Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.

[solarprominence]

I maintain that the best summation of my feminist beliefs are that men and women are not fundamentally different. There are a few quantifiable differences if you average out every woman and every man, but they are not qualitative. And most of them are socially constructed, and would be fixed if we started treating men and women the same. Neither is inherently smarter, neither is inherently kinder, neither is inherently more stoic or stronger or angrier or softer. Everyone is obsessed with the differences between women and men, with finding them and creating them and distancing themselves from the "other half". It's fucked up

[storyweavingspider]

This was the mainstream feminist belief like. A decade ago. Thats how hard we’ve regressed within mainstream feminism and it’s mainly because of right wingers/radfems/TERFs deciding trans women need to die.

[ambertea]

I did that job once.

[pepsimayo]

What are your pronouns and would you like to join my union

[lactose-intolerant-nihilism]

i love how this is always showing up on my dash entirely free of the context that the ood’s response to this question is ‘the beast shall rise from the pit and make war against god’

[moonlitlillypop]

Oh that’s just how it is in retail

[driftwoodsix]

still living with my parents as an adult is just like. i'm grateful to not have to pay for groceries. i have to get out of here. i'm grateful to have a roof over my head and not have to pay rent. i have to get out of here. i'm grateful to not have to worry about sending out endless job applications that all lead to nowhere. i have to get out of here. i'm grateful i'm grateful i'm so fucking grateful. i have to get out of here

[pokemonpostsonly]

[64mpg]

u can just do whatever at any age all of the time nobody cares except teenagers

[64mpg]

teenager will be like ur 40 with a hobby ? 💀 that’s sad <- nobody else thinks this way though they are just going through some stuff

[hollowboobtheory]

one thing you need to know about 2014. is that what does the fox say was playing pretty much everywhere you went. and everybody was just relieved it wasn't blurred lines

[hollowboobtheory]

I canot stress enough that those were the only 2 songs in 2014

[oak23]

One of my marie kondo tidbits is that one time she really did throw out everything that didnt spark joy including her screwdrivers and thought she could get away with tightening a screw with one of her favourite rulers but instead ended up snapping it in half

So when she tells people to consider how an item helps you not fuck up your shit and thats how you find joy, just know its from experience

[myriapoda-1306]

I just misspelled the word "qualified" and said "I'm not quailfied enough to do this"

A quailfied person:

[lovphobia]

can y'all send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

[battlevilla]

[kvothes]

a good thread

[elumish]

I agree with all of this. But! I think it is also important to recognize that there are subgenres where it is significantly harder to find certain things, and it's actively unhelpful to readers to pretend that you can just find whatever type of book you want to read if you just know how to look for it, especially if you are sticking to trad publishing.

It is possible to find both sapphic SFF and M/M fantasy. It is significantly harder to find, say, aro urban fantasy. Or trans romantic suspense. Or intersex mystery.

A lot of the advice above only really works for trad published or popular books and for identities/subgenres/content that aren't too niche.

So here's some advice if the advice above isn't working for you (either because you can't find books with what you want or because the books you are finding don't end up being the vibe you want), from someone who reads a few hundred books a year:

Find websites or lists dedicated to the specific thing you are looking for. They will generally have more variety and will post you to examples that don't show up in regular rec lists. (ex: aro book recs, ace book recs, intersex #ownvoices database, sapphic books). Goodreads lists can (sometimes) also be your friend.

Get comfortable reading self-published and small press books. Trad publishing has its blind spots.

Check Reddit for recommendations

Start figuring out what it is specifically that you like and then start making your searches more specific. This can be subgenre (if you want urban fantasy, you're rarely going to find it just searching "fantasy"), tropes, plot devices, vibes, etc.

Look at the "readers also bought" on Goodreads/Amazon, similar books on Storygraph, etc. if you read a book you like. Even if you don't end up reading the one you click on, it can show you similar authors (similar to looking at the blurb on a cover), especially because far fewer books have blurbs now.

Check out the Literature Map for similar authors.

[key-pair]

in case folk outside the UK aren't abreast of our news, the British press just hounded a black academic to death

[key-pair]

a rough timeline of events (from memory, there may be inaccuracies, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

Cambridge professor of sociology Jason Arday is accused of plagiarism by another academic

the accuser is a "race realist" who believes that in a true meritocracy all university professors would be white. this is somehow not acknowledged much during the entire ordeal

this leads to several days of media coverage demanding an investigation, or that Arday is expelled from his post immediately

somehow this accusation that has no effect on the lives of 99.99% of the population becomes FRONT PAGE NEWS in all the newspapers for multiple days, above anything else happening in the UK or the world at large

following intense media scrutiny, Arday resigns his post as a Cambridge professor

today, august 14th, days after resigning, Arday is found dead at his home in Battersea

the British tabloid press remains, and will always be, fucking evil