[leaf-fanatic]

Hello and welcome, I am leaf-fanatic.

I post about current events, disability rights, and other similar topics. As a heads-up, I do not tag anything, and some posts may be about stressful or triggering topics. Blog runs on a queue (for the most part).

Sideblog: @forgottenshelter (Project Hail Mary // multifandom)

[cruel-hiraeth]

if you build “community” around hating other people, just know that the second you step out of line—regardless of your moral uprightness or the hypocrisy on their part—you’re the next person they’re going to tear to pieces.

[petewentz-]

It's fun being queer and weird and unconventional until you remember you live in a society

[lighthouseweeper]

Some people love to give themselves a coronary over a total stranger’s outfit on public transport. It’s a beautiful day, look out the window

[transmasc-theory]

There are few things more beautiful than seeing the joy of a transmasculine or nonbinary person wearing a binder for the first time. You can just watch their faces glow in a way that says without words that this is the happiest they have ever been in their body. It's like watching someone on the brink of starvation finally get a meal. It's beautiful, and our world deserves more moments like it.

[fictionalgod]

[anistarrose]

if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"

[brainrockets]

Do not let your child suffer from spicy bananas!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Ignoring ongoing covid paved the way for this change and put millions more in worse danger because of it. Mask up. Keep people developing debilitating long-term illness the government wants you to die from.

[busket]

saw a post like "tmras will insist joan of arc was a transmasc but not even realize that is proof that masculinity is rewarded because joan of arc is celebrated and ascended to sainthood"

and i just googled real quick,

what good is becoming a saint and being celebrated for your GIRL POWER hundreds of years posthumously if during your life you are abused and murdered by the state in one of the most gruesome and painful ways imaginable because you dressed as a man? I wouldnt call that society "rewarding masculinity" in people who are afab.

[auxphono]

Needed a clean graphic for a project, and figured while I was vectoring I would put sex and magic back in.

Happy Pride Month

[auxphono]

Reblogging this yearly for anyone who needs a very clean version <3 Happy Pride.

[drosophilamania]

Reblog to put the sex and magic back into pride

[genderkoolaid]

men who have a vagina and/or uterus do not systemically benefit from male privilege. its that simple

[genderkoolaid]

this isn't a statement that should need qualifiers to clarify intent because its true. yeah someone could use this true thing to be a dick, to bend it to mean a certain thing, especially when the person hasn't unlearned any of the oppositional sexism or transphobia theyve been taught.

but it doesn't inherently imply any of that. and it is a pretty basic feminist observation. this should be transfeminism 101. its insane that this is as controversial as it is. the fact that it isnt transfeminism 101 should tell you something about how much feminism has been held back by its own transphobia & anti-transmasculinity.

[genderkoolaid]

if you disagree with this statement i better not ever hear you talking about medical misogyny & the lack of research on "female bodies" or ESPECIALLY reproductive autonomy, abortion, forced pregnancy, etc. etc. because there is NO WAY! to discuss misogyny that targets the body without talking about trans men and nonbinary people and intersex people and, yes trans women, who can also overlap with all of the previous groups!

either you are a transphobe and don't care if we live or we die or you do and you should be making an effort to include us. and that means getting more comfortable with ambiguity and nuance around trans people and their relationships to patriarchy and gender oppression. and that includes trans men and masculinity/manhood in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there is no way around this

transfeminism should be about complicating the feminist framework that was built by & for cis perisex women. it shouldn't be about flattening trans and intersex experiences to fit into that framework. like what are we doing here can we be so for real.

[thelawfulchaotic]

Gemini had the fucking GALL to get in my email and summarize a 3-line email, taking up more space than the email did visually.

Hit the “thumbs down.” It’s like, what’s wrong??? Was our summary wrong? Were there offensive words? Thank you for helping us improve our AI tools :)

I selected “other.”

Text box popped up. Please elaborate!

Wrote in “I can fucking read” submit comment

Then had to spend several minutes torching all my settings with a flamethrower. Let me be clear: I’m (a lawyer) notoriously picky with my words FOR GOOD REASON (lawyering) so I overwhelmingly reject Gmail’s “helpful” little assistance. My privacy settings were set to “full paranoia” a little less than a year ago when I saw the writing on the wall and knew public defenders could become a target in the future. Better to lock it all down now.

Gemini had crept in there and turned ALL that shit back on. And showed itself by saying “Jane Doe says she’s so sorry for your loss and offers to reschedule for Thursday at 3” over an email from Jane Doe saying “I’m so sorry for your loss. We could reschedule for Thursday at 3?”

Why would I possibly need this. In what universe would I need this. I have eyes and a brain and a reading speed that twenty years ago was measured at 1500 wpm with full comprehension on dense scientific text. Furthermore! If I read a summary, I’m not reading what they actually wrote. If I’m not reading what they actually wrote, I’m not using my own judgment on the words and phrases that they used.

I literally don’t understand why this is helpful at all. This is just avoidance. Using LLMs to write is specifically Not Writing. Using LLMs to summarize is Not Reading. Using them to make art is Avoiding Making Art. Just READ! Just WRITE! I was not put on this fucking planet to not read and not write and not make art! Avoidance is an anxiety symptom and indulging it gives it more power.

If I had an AI to do my most dreaded task, answer the phone for clients, I wouldn’t use it. Because an AI cannot help them. An AI cannot hear the facts of their case, make appropriate noises, be thoughtful and insightful, and then give them a realistic estimate of what could happen in court. I am unique. I cannot be replaced by machine learning. I have style. I have expertise. I don’t hallucinate unless I’m having a really great Friday night and I’m off the clock.

When I need to outsource tasks from my own brain, I give them to people I know can do them and that I trust to do them right.

Fuck, it just sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?? Goddamn Gemini jumpscare right in my own fucking email

[sawyerpinklatte]

Its not even an anti AI post. Its just a rant so they can brag about themself

[thelawfulchaotic]

No it’s a rant post, I would be less subtle if I was just blowing up my own ego. The post would be titled “cool facts about me” and I would have gotten the wpm figure right.

Just want to note, though, that humans should brag about what makes them better than gen AI. I love the responses to this post that are just bragging.

[sawyerpinklatte]

You weren't subtle regardless.

[thelawfulchaotic]

Cool facts about me:

I have a great job

I can do a great New Zealand accent and a decent Aussie

I live my life embodying the energy of James Holden from the Expanse

Once an octopus fell in love with me

I worked for a celebrity notorious for a sex abuse related scandal and it was the most boring zero-event job of my life (before the scandal broke)

Once got a fanfic of mine mentioned on official Wired magazine content

You should brag about yourself too

I’m also not in this world to bring other people down

[xshiromorix]

"I am a human with skills that cannot be replaced by a machine" is not bragging, by the way. This is literally the point the Luddites were making back in the 1800s (no, they weren't just anti-tech reactionaries). Whether it's AI or mass production, automation without skilled human oversight always results in worse quality goods and services and worse conditions for workers.

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[petulantpony]

i’ve said it before but i wish vaginas didn’t cost money

[petulantpony]

you literally can not have a vagina without paying for it. vaginoplasty for some, period products for others, if you want to stop buying period products that’s gonna be expensive medicine or an expensive procedure, recovery from surgery requires time off work and vaginoplasty specifically requires money spent on dilators. our bodies shouldnt cost us this much on baseline. having a vagina shouldnt have such a hefty tax on it. it makes me feel like i’m in a fictional dystopia written for middle school classrooms when i think about it.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The pandemic isn’t over—and queer people shouldn’t be acting like it is | Xtra Magazine

ANALYSIS: As a community, we talk a good talk about keeping each other safe, so why aren’t we doing it now? 

[zmpl]

even if bioessentialism was real and all trans women had some inherent advantage over cis women in sports you could not pay me to give a fuck because sports are made up. they are games people play for fun. even though we as a society invented careers around sport it is still boiled down to the fun made up game where you kick a ball. or dribble a ball. or swim in a pool. or show people how fast you can run. it’s for leisure. fun. not serious. who gives a fuck. fun. #mygame⚽️🏀🏈⚾️

[intersexcat-tboy]

I feel like sports are also a mix of inherent bodily advantages and practice/work. Some people are physically going to be better at certain sports no matter what, some people are going to be better because they've put a lot of work into it. It's like banning tall people from basketball bc it's where they thrive

[a-book-dragon]

You don't have a male or female brain – the more brains scientists study, the weaker the evidence for sex differences

Rather than distinctly male or female, the human brain is much more like the heart, kidneys and lungs – basically the same no matter the sex of the body it's in.

rb to make a biological essentialist mad <3

[liminalweirdo]

“This collapse is a telltale sign of a problem known as publication bias. Small, early studies which found a significant sex difference were likelier to get published than research finding no male-female brain difference.”

[mckitterick]

the notes on this are toxic - to help clear up any misunderstanding, here’s the actual science paper:

Dump the “dimorphism”: Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size

With the explosion of neuroimaging, differences between male and female brains have been exhaustively analyzed. Here we synthesize three dec

in short: brains are brains

[mtfoss]

Sure everything is twice as expensive as 3 years ago but at least we also didn't beat covid