For Those We Have Lost. For Those We Can Yet Save.

Cloud | adult | they/he | aspiring femboy | queer as in fuck you | eorzea’s okayest healer

[nights-at-crystarium]

good morning to the gay people only

[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

[mrsmummifikation]

This time of year can be frustrating for people in the aro/ace community.

I will be here, whenever you need to talk. 

transcription under the cut:

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[bunnycuriosity]

[jesncin]

my high school english teacher would often critique our literature analysis work by pointing out: "you're treating these characters like they're real people. They're not. They're characters". And it took me a long time to understand what he meant by that. Because I always thought "isn't that the point? That writers want to write characters to be so three dimensional that they act and feel like real people?" but that's not it.

Characters are tools a writer uses in service of a story. Of course characters can be written with depth to the point they feel real to us, but they exist in service of their narrative. Something real people aren't beholden to at all. When discussing characters, I think it's easy to accidentally see these characters as "real people" and not extensions of the author's beliefs. Tools for a narrative. Means of storytelling.

[nat-20s]

Favorite thing about renaissance faires is that they have fuck all to to with the renaissance. This thang is not about historical anything this is about dressing up like a fairy and watching a joust

[bettalbimarginata]

#a samurai with a flintlock pistol sitting next to a guy dressed as a caveman drinking a styrofoam cup of dr pepper#and it fucks severely

[headspace-hotel]

It's not THE renaissance, it's A renaissance. Of what? Up to you

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[witchinatower]

More ADHD Mabels! 🩷 The executives are dysfunctioning...

[crabussy]

people who express seething, violent hatred towards cyclists: you make people feel unsafe as fuck! you're allowed to be annoyed with cyclists. some of us are dicks who need to learn the road rules. but anytime I see someone "joke" about hitting cyclists with their car I feel a little bit sick to my stomach.

[crabussy]

feels like as soon as my feet are on the pedals of my only reliable mode of transport, I become a target for people driving a terrifyingly fast and heavy car. when I was barely a toddler, my dad had to go on rallies to raise awareness about the fact that people on bikes are PEOPLE who do not deserve to be KILLED BY DRIVERS.

[crabussy]

he had slogans trying to remind people that he was a dad with a 2 year old son at home, because both him and his friends have had drivers swerve at them any time they got on their bicycles. I just find how "normal" it is to want to kill cyclists pretty fucking scary.

[crabussy]

"it's just a joke" yep! but jokes are rooted in ideas that you are reinforcing. you can laugh about how annoying cyclists are without sounding like you want us to get life ending injuries for inconveniencing you.

[vaspider]

So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

[vaspider]

So... I heard from a friend of 20+ years who works for the State Department who confirmed to me in so many words that they can assure me, without specifics, that "all of the suppositions you have made here are true."

So... yep. Passport folx at the State Department really did work incredibly long hours this week just... shoveling every passport out the door (and prioritizing the ones that might be A Problem come Monday) and yes, they did On Purpose make sure that all of them weren't just DONE but MAILED and out the door and in the hands of the USPS so that they can't be told to pull those passports back and deny/destroy them.

This also means they got the OK for the mountains of overtime from the Biden administration to get that done.

This is what I mean when I say that the Good Work is often not glamorous and that we have to prioritize things which actively and immediately better the lives of our siblings. The State Department worker who was still in the office last night at midnight Pacific time stuffing my passport into an Express Mail envelope and making sure that it was in the hands of USPS has done more liberatory work for the trans movement than 100 people endlessly auditing the language others use to describe their lives ever will.

These next years are gonna be real hard. Find something tangible to do for yourself and others, however small, and do it as hard as you can.

[polytropic-liar]

I got my passport in the mail on Tuesday morning. I hope that passport office employee knows: I'll never forget what they did for me.

[vaspider]

These next years are gonna be real hard. Find something tangible to do for yourself and others, however small, and do it as hard as you can.

I said what I said.

[romanceyourdemons]

next time you’re at the thrift store and find a nice solid thick pile area rug for a shockingly good price and you’ve been looking for an area rug for the office forever and the color goes really nicely with the office color scheme and you think this is it, this is what i’ve been waiting for, stop, and ask yourself: did i take the bus here?

[romanceyourdemons]

next time you’re on the bus and see someone with an area rug and a look of deep disappointment in themself mind your own business

[tanadrin]

the problem with learning shorthand is that it basically makes any set of long squiggles look like words so you will be trying to read the floaters in your eyes while you’re in the shower. on the bright side i may have invented a new form of divination.

[clementine-kesh]

like literally if i didn’t want to see some weird nonsense i wouldn’t be consuming scifi

[clementine-kesh]

“ohh this episode is about meeting a bunch of dinosaurs who developed space travel and left earth to go live on the other side of the galaxy isn’t that crazy?! isn’t that silly?!” sure yeah maybe a little but by focusing on that but you’re missing the narrative reason for it which is to provide a starting point to explore religious authoritarianism and the production of scientific knowledge

[mylittleredgirl]

just a spoonful of [nonsense] helps the [critical thinking about uncomfortable social and structural problems that are such a fundamental part of the background radiation of our lives that we can't see them] go down

[clementine-kesh]

this is the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me. apologize to star trek: voyager season 3 episode 23 distant origin right now

[writeouswriter]

Controversial, but I think it's harmful to tell people you're never going to write something good on the first try or it's always going to be pure garbage, like that may be helpful for some on some level, but I personally don't think it's a healthy way of thinking, and it causes others to second guess work that is good. Is editing often helpful? Yes. But you're not going to have to Ship of Theseus everything you ever make. Anyway, the phrase "idk, man, it depends" strikes again.

[mysterycat-official]

I lowkey hate when programs talk to me in a friendly way. "don't worry, nearly there!" Shut up. It should say "loading 64.3% completed. Do not turn off device" and absolutely nothing else. You arent my friend you are computer. Act like it

[vaspider]

This post is Murderbot approved.

[thisrobothasnosoul]

"har har har look at how confused TERFs will be when they hear about intersex people"

Stop using us as a rhetorical bludgeon I BEG

TERFs know intersex people exist. We don't fit into their worldview. They think cis women with CAIS or PAIS or Swyer Syndrome or 5-ARD are "men with DSDs".

They think cis men with de la chappelle syndrome or EIS are "women with DSDs".

Look at how they treat Caster Semenya and Imane Khelif

[drill-teeth-art]

Wow! Here’s something incredibly personal.

This is Good Bi Gender. A comic I made to express some feelings I have about my gender. I don’t really have that much else to say about it. Here it is.

[Image Description: A digital comic made with sharp, angular abstract lines and only the colors white, blue, pink, and black. The featured character is all white, except for facial features and hair colors, which changes from panel to panel. The comic reads: Cover Panel: The text “Good Bi Gender”, the words colored with the trans flag. It shows a glitchy person’s face, half pink and half blue. Panel 1: White text reads: “Hello. My name is apparently irrelevant. And my pronouns are he/him and she/her. But you can’t call me she/her. And here’s why.” Someone with a half-pink and half-blue shirt looks to the side. One eye is covered with hair, and the other eye is pink while the iris is blue.

Panel 2: The character sits happily, imagining facial hair and a masculine voice. “I don’t want top surgery. I love my chest. And I dream about being on testosterone someday soon.” The character looks at a phone, frowning. The phone shows the male symbol with an “X” through it. Text next to it reads: “People don’t seem to think that the features I dream of are very pretty though… Or they think even worse of them than that…”

Panel 3: The character’s features are all pink, and sits in a blank frame. The character reaches over to a blue frame, frowning. “I don’t like the animosity. I really despise it.” A photo of the character shows an all-blue frame and blue hair, with pink outlines and facial features. “To be a boy… I aspire to be one. I aspire to be masculine in all its handsomeness. All its prettiness.” Panel 4: The character sits in an all blue panel, but reaches back out to the pink panel. “And I’m still a girl too. I was so excited to have both. To love both. To have handsome femininity. Beautiful masculinity.” The frames break and connect, and pink and blue swirl together. The character smiles in between the frames, with one pink eye and one blue eye. “So excited. And yet I get asked…”

Panel 5: Two hands hold out two different pills to the character, one blue and one pink. They ask “Male? or Female?” using the male and female symbols.The character, facial features an array of pink and blue, looks between the two hands, distressed. “It’s both! I’m both! They’re not opposites. Not narrow boxes. I say I’m both despite the insistence that I can’t be. And I know what I look like. I know I look like a girl to most. I know that if I say people can call me she, that’s all I will get from most. Because it’s “easier”. It “makes more sense”. To have my masculinity, I am often forced to be unflinching in it and it alone. To never use she. Because if I don’t, I will never get to have he.” [The words “she” and “he” are italicized.] Panel 6: Text reads: “I’m still very happy to be so comfortable in my identity. To know, despite all that, that I am indeed a boy and a girl and both. But you know. Telling people to only use he/him for me. Guarding my masculinity all just to have it. All at the expense of the part of me who is happily and unashamedly a girl.” The character cries from one pink eye, the other hidden. The character holds a pink girl in a sea of blue, the girl crying out. In the midst of the blue, text reads: “Well, it fucking breaks her heart.” End ID]

Edit: @starberry-skies wrote an ID for the comic, so I added it to the og post with its permission!