cerehling

Latvian, queer, 20s [they/them] (tme)

[random-brushstrokes]

Nikolay Iosifovich Viting - Tea with bagels (1956)

[audarcy]

Running system diagnostics… Downloading SYSTEMDATA_PACKET_CELERITY355… Installing SoulSync v. 18.09.19998… Launching program

MIRROR_NEURON

Hey guys! For the 2026 Toxic Yuri Visual Novel Jam, I had the absolute pleasure of writing and producing MIRROR_NEURON, an 18+ visual novel about care, endurance, humanity, inhumanity, and the fraught relationship between a mech and her Pilot. Written entirely by me and directed by my lovely wife @saoirsedotpdf, MIRROR_NEURON has a total of about 16k words, 4 standard endings, and 1 secret ending.

Sprite art by @bardsonly Coding / UI / wizardry by @dirkradia Music, mech design by @summonfish CG art by me, @bardsonly, @summonfish, @ryelane2023, tori, and Carter Beta Omega testing and pervert consultation from @lesbiangiratina

> You are the Principality-class model Celerity mk. 3, number 55. You are a Morningstar, an advanced mobile weapon employed by the Orionid Empire for deep space warfare. > Your duty is to shepherd your Pilot to victory, and to keep her alive long enough to do so--by whatever means necessary. > Every Morningstar needs its Pilot, after all.

Available to play in-browser or download for free on itch.io!

MIRROR_NEURON is an 18+ game. Please play at your own discretion, and if needed, consult the content warnings on the game's itch.io page.

[daciancatamite]

a misogynistic society is so threatened by the concept of trans women - women that "had the opportunity" to be privileged men and chose not to - that they start making up privileges women have in order to explain why trans women exist. going into womens restrooms isnt a privilege, playing womens sports isnt a privilege, lesbianism isnt a privilege, yet they present them as such to try and explain why trans women are women for nefarious reasons. a misogynistic society will never understand that trans women have no ulterior motive for being women

[autogynophelia]

There's so much asymmetry between transmasc and transfem experiences, but one that always stands out to me is how common it is for early-transition trans men to appear to be reluctant to be considered fully men by wider society. I've recently had a trans man friend (a really great guy usually) complain that he is unfairly considered "not fully a man" by the cis men at our climbing gym, then a few minutes later declare that trans men are not a threat to women because they're "not men in the way that cis men are". Is he really expecting the cis guys to be less transphobic towards him than he is himself?

The most absurd example I've seen of this is in the coining of the term "malgendering", where the example is used of the Ukrainian military insisting that both trans women and trans men count as "men" for the purposes of the draft. I find the idea that this gender validation constitutes a kind of specific oppression of trans men hard to understand: I can only speak for myself, but if the women in my country were all expected to undergo some horrible experience I would not want to be exempted from it on the grounds of my birth sex, I would expect to suffer alongside them, it's called solidarity! Also how is your first instinct on seeing that that it is trans men rather than trans women who are the victims of the greater injustice?

There is a meme about certain trans men that they don't believe transition does anything, that they regard themselves as a type of woman who is called a "man", rather than actually a man. This is has a kind-of parallel in transfemininity in the internally-transphobic trans girls that are quite common on places like 4tran, who hyperbolically regard any transition that starts after the age of 16 as doomed. But I don't think these are fully mirrors of each other, because the hypothetical internally-transphobic trans girl regards a "passing" transition as something desirable but available only to the young or rich, the trans men I'm talking about seem to regard a "passing" transition as a genuine impossibility for everyone ever (even while so many of their trans male peers are living happy, often stealth, lives as men). It's less doomerism and more unfounded bioessentialism.

I think this comes back to the issue of asymmetry. A lot of trans men initially come out as men only to find that society merely shifts from viewing them as "weird girl" to "deluded girl", the misogyny doesn't stop, it just gets combined with an increase in transphobia. Meanwhile, for a lot of trans women, their coming out experience is the sudden transition from "weird boy" to "T-slur", there's a massive and immediate change in life experience that comes after asserting "I am a woman" that doesn't really have a transmasculine parallel. The joke slogan "trans 👏 people 👏 are 👏 women" has a grain of truth in the sense of how wider society views early-transition trans people, irrespective of transition direction. For transfems, the mere act of coming out (even if you don't transition medically) massively changes your social positioning in a way that doesn't really happen in reverse.

I think a lot of the reluctance of early-transition trans men to consider themselves fully men is simply down to a material assessment of how wider society views and treats them. It's no surprise that trans men who are far into medical transition tend to be much more willing to regard themselves as fully men, since at this point many others are treating them that way too. The difference with transfems is that we are treated as particularly marginalised women immediately on coming out, and (depending on how the closet went for us) often even well before that, maybe for our entire lives.

There's a similarity to the "double-empathy problem" in which autistic and allistic people struggle to understand whichever experience they haven't had themselves. Growing up as a closeted trans girl, the way I interacted with the closet was to ignore the heavy social pressure to perform "manhood" and just be myself, resulting in me facing a whole lot of misogyny from basically the moment I could talk. I used to think the closeted trans boy equivalent of me was undergoing an opposite experience at the same time, one of actually being treated like a boy to some extent, but in fact he was just also facing a whole lot of misogyny too. We were both treated like girls, although the only one of us allowed to name ourselves as "girl" was the one who didn't want that in the first place. That's not to say our experiences were the same: the transmisogynised occupy a much lower social position. Only that the attachment a lot of early-transition trans men seem to feel towards womanhood is understandable given that they still occupy a misogynised social position.

I think understanding this asymmetry is key to understanding trans experiences generally. I only wish that the sizeable chunk of early-transition trans men and other transmascs who recognise their misogynised social role were more aware that their transfem equivalents do not have the inverse experience. We are not treated like men in the same way that they are often treated like women. The totally reasonable transfem resentment at being excluded from support for the misogynised is not based on some putative wish-fulfillment desire to be misogynised rather than seen as men, but merely a reflection of the reality that we are actually heavily misogynised from (at the very latest) the moment we come out. That experience doesn't have an equivalent for you, but that's the reality of living in a patriarchal system.

[angeluary]

🎀🩰🪽🪷 - linlinradio's album cover for "disco inferno", fangs created by erjjek on ig

[kirikomamura]

its funny to take a step back and realize you are a tgirl communist who uses desktop linux exclusively

[kirikomamura]

make enough correct choices in life and you too can become some annoying guys strawman

[houndmother]

deriding things as performative is anti third space

[houndmother]

im sitting on a patio at my favorite cafe rn and im hand stitching them hem of a dress im working on. and i can see why someone would say im being performative by working on something like this in a public space. but frankly theres no element of that. i just want to work somewhere that isnt my apartment. i want to be in public, i wanna chat with strangers, i wanna see the world. it’s nice to hang out somewhere that isnt my home!

[houndmother]

what i mean is when you say people are being performative you discourage them from doing shit they love in public. and thats no way to foster the world we want to see.

[hellofursuits]

Source

[hyzenthrae]

i was talking to my gf last night abt how sometimes Black womanhood is just feeling like Truth Coming Out Of Her Well To Shame Mankind which is a really evocative and gutting piece of art that people boil down to a meme of a girlboss badass with a broom. No. You should be uncomfortable with the intense and loud things I have to say. But not uncomfortable AT Black women. We're just saying and doing and experiencing stuff that is true. It's everyone else's job to clean up. Take the broom and fix your shit

[lesbian-moon-gf]

Shout out to @coralei and @donkeykingfattiddy who both thought i was so cute we should do a photoshoot during brunch 💕

[lesbian-moon-gf]

Thank you to my friends who showed me through love of each other and love of me that I deserve better!

[thediscossessed]

hi! i can't message you since we're not mutuals so im just gonna drop the chapter you requested here. all the pages are in order unless tumblr fucks something up. ("Profoundly Together" by The Redwoods, a chapter in Disability Intimacy on plurality)

Tysm!!!

[kitkenk]

hey i felt you right click me just now. are you seriously viewing my properties? pervert

[decompose1]

girls i know accusations of racism can occasionally be falsely leveraged against trans women in order to discredit them and this Is Bad but this does notttt actually mean that you can just ignore the racism in the community like it doesn't exist. because racism exists in all communities and lately it is Nightmarish to be a nonwhite doll. i have experienced really glaring racism in several transfem spaces and there's been this really kind of awful attitude or like idea enforced that i shouldn't talk about it because speaking up could socially murder another tgirl. and that's really bad. that's really really bad. like it's really bad that i'm hesitant to even post this because of the scrutiny we're under. and yes the fact that it is so dangerous to speak up is because of the massive amounts of surveillance & transmisogyny we're facing but that just CAN'T mean racism gets a pass, okay? BIPOC girls are not expendable and you can't keep throwing us under the bus.

but i know calls to action without any kind of instruction aren't very helpful so here are some tips that i think you can easily do yourself with your own circles:

1) Staring off simple: Look around. Are there any BIPOC girls in your friend group, or are all of you white? Why? Do you often joke about everyone in your friend group being white? Why is that funny?

What to do: Examine why there are no people of color in your group. Examine why people of color may not be comfortable enough to hang out with you & your friends. Correct these, where possible. Do some reading on anti-racism. Talk to more people.

2) Examine how you talk about people of color & racism. Are you downplaying racism in your community? Are you treating women of color as dramatic or unreasonable for bringing it up? Do you find yourself only defending white dolls, always defending them from claims of racism, but never defending BIPOC dolls? Why?

What to do: Think about why you care more about accusations of racism than protecting the women of color in your community. Make sure you're making your space safe for BIPOC girls. Speak openly and loudly about anti-racism. Hold your sisters accountable- they should be apologizing when they say or do something wrong.

3) This one might sound silly, but as we often meet each other over fandom and roleplay- how are nonwhite characters treated in your circle? Are they always aggressive, angry, or antagonistic? Do you find yourself putting nonwhite characters in more roles like cops, dictators, sex pests, etc?

Additionally: If your circle shares sexual content, is there a lot of art where there's a pale/blonde character on the bottom, and a darker character on top? Are you and your friends always drawing darker characters as more dominant, more sexually aggressive, or promiscuous, while the white/pale characters are more innocent, submissive, modest, or clueless?

What to do: Examine how the way your group approaches fandom & art with nonwhite characters in it may make people of color uncomfortable. Examine why your art may make people of color feel unsafe or awkward hanging out with you. It's not wrong to have the occasional character of color be more antagonistic or dominant, but it's a problem when this is a pattern. If it's happening All The Time, question why!

4) Be honest with yourself: Did this post make you feel defensive? Does it make you feel defensive when people say something you did was racist? Why?

If a person of color tells you your actions were racist, they trust you to improve. I don't tell people they're being racist if i think they're going to hurt me for bringing it up. I know many like me. Don't prove us wrong- take these criticisms into account and work on it. You aren't cursed to be some kind of terrible bigot forever because you messed up- panicking without action is useless. Just be sure you examine the behavior in question and work to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Okay?

I believe all these things are easy enough to check with yourself & your friends. Please work on making yourself & your group safe for girls who aren't white.

[circadianrhythmofthekiller]

day 258 - sink

[fluoresensitives]

If a fandom is split by non-Black people going "well, I still think it's a good story" and Black people being horrified and disgusted. Well.

[blkdyke-deactivated20230921]

A good video that accurately explains why stud is a term used for black lesbians only, not white, not poc, BLACK

I’m not even going to say please. Respect black identities and labels, they are ours for a reason.

[daddyisatitlenotagender]

Imma need this reblogged by white queer tumblr users since it’s mostly yall who wanna use it or want to know why you or other white people shouldn’t/can’t use the term “stud”

[sanguinewolves]

[video description: a tiktok made by @/callmekellin, responding to a comment that reads “what does being black have to do with being a stud …….”

the person in the video is a fem presenting black person in their car. they say “i love that you asked, lemme give you a little history lesson. full disclaimer, no hate to the commenter, i’m just giving everybody a bit of a debrief! now firstly, let’s talk about where the term stud actually comes from.

back in the days of slavery, when people still used to refer to us as animals, black people that were taller were known to be stronger because they could do more work. so down in the south, they started comparing us to horses. that then coined the term[s] studs for men, and stallions for females. like megan thee stallion. it was really big in the south. to compare us to animals.

but enough about the bleach brigade, let’s actually get back into the history. as you know, or if you don’t know, black women were not able to enter the working class until well into the 1960s. before then, there was a small populous of women that were still working, even though they technically were not supposed to.

‘how was it possible?’ these women would be dressing more masculine—using binders in order to help put down their chests, dressing more in a male form—and because of the fact that most bleach bandits believed that we, as black women, were already masculine, they got away with it. thus coining the term, in the black community, “stud.” because all the dudes knew, but she was one of the guys. so what did it matter?

any time the chlorine community would come up to black people and be like “hey! is that a female working!?” the guys would just save her and be like ‘nah, that’s a stud right there.” it was joke to them because they all knew. but as times changed and slang did too, the black community still keeps it close at heart. and yes, it was rooted in racism, but we’re taking it back for ourselves.

so once again, if you’re not a black, masculine lesbian that wants to be called a stud, you’re not a stud. you’re a masculine lesbian. even a butch if you want to. i hope that explained it!” end video description.]

[creatingblackcharacters]

@kneadbees you asked me about what "stud" meant!

[cognitohazardous]

no more maid kink under communism. get your jumpsuit and PPE on comrade youre a janitor under the ministry of public sanitation now