kate

18 wandering through life

[existennialmemes]

The crux of the anti trans movement is a war on bodily autonomy. They don't want you to have any agency over what you look like, how you dress, who you date, whether to have kids, etc.

They want total control over you. Not just trans people. Not just queer people. You. Everyone.

Trans people are just a scapegoat. They want total control over everyone's self expression. They want the right to mold you into their perfect little cog in their dehumanizing machine.

Happy Trans Day of Visibility. Our rights are your rights. Our destruction is your destruction.

[our-trans-punk-experience]

10/10 post bringing it back for 2026

[lostinwanderingthoughts]

Item: A Well-Trodden Step Rarity: ✦ Uncommon

What video game has the best replay value?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

i mean it’s gotta be Minecraft. Infinite things to do

[lostinwanderingthoughts]

Item: The Screen Rarity: ⏶ Common

Console or PC?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

I have neither for I am broke

[satanfemme]

you've gotta be kind to yourself no matter what

[satanfemme]

this is twice as true in the winter

[satanfemme]

the world isn't ending and you don't need to kill yourself it's literally december. it's december. and you need to be nice to yourself.

[lizardho]

I remember one time I was doing an ADHD evaluation with a kid who had asked to go to the bathroom like 3 times during the 30-ish minute part of the interview where we asked his mom questions, so I knew that was his go-to excuse when bored. We get started on the WISC-V after the interview and within 30 seconds of vocab starting he asks if he can go to the bathroom, and I say:

“No.”

And this kid rolls his eyes because DUH and he says “Why not?” all cranky-styles, so I said

“Because you don’t need to go to the bathroom, you’re bored and you need to move. If you need to move, tell me and I’ll let you know if we’re at a part of the test where we can pause. Like, for example, we can pause right now if you wanna race me around the building.”

And this kids face fucken LIT up. We did three laps around the outside of the building and came back in and he finished like 3 subtests and asked if he could move so we got up and tried to see how high we could jump for 3 minutes and the finished the rest of the assessment with one bathroom break. And that was all it took tbh, this kid was SO capable he just needed to move and hadn’t been allowed to do so before. I also like making people mad by pointing out that I know what they’re up to, then just giving them permission to do the thing they were sneakily trying to do in the first place. It’s like being affectionately annoying and it’s part of how I connect to others.

[markovchaingang]

men and women are not opposites. men and women are not enemies. men and women are two parts of a broad coalition which fights against a mutual enemy: inkjet printers

[dykepuffs]

There is a really frustrating thing where some kinds of speculative story are hard to write because they will be assumed to be bad (clumsy, harmful, regressive) metaphors for real-world events or people, rather than exploring completely speculative ideas. Like:

"What if a small group of religious extremists, persecuted in their own country, moved to an inhospitable uninhabited island and had to rebuild society there?" - But the Americas and Australia weren't inhospitable and were full of Native nations, why are you perpetuating the idea of Terra Nullius and manifest destiny? - Yes, that's because this isn't a metaphor for the British invading other countries, it's a metaphor for finding out how much of a person's religious practise is rooted in worldly concerns, vs how much they will really stymie themselves for the sake of God.

"What if 1/100 children born was a werewolf?" - But queer people are no danger to straight people, and disabled people don't have predictable patterns to their illnesses, and most people who have uncontrollable rages really CAN control them and are just lying, and no minority group has superpowers... - Yes, but that's all immaterial, because I wanted to talk about a load of other metaphors about the passage of time and responsibility and the relationship between humans and wildlife.

It almost feels like death of the author, like "Death of the most obvious metaphor" - If you couldn't reach for the (tormented) parallel between being an alien species and being stateless, what stories could someone tell? If your changeling-baby was neither disabled nor adopted, what would the story be about? Etc.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I was literally just thinking about this yesterday! It's a trend I've seen a LOT in recent years in lit crit, particularly when discussing fantasy.

I think it particularly comes up the moment an author includes any sort of marginalisation/oppression for their fictional/fantasy world. I've lost count of the times now where I've seen people read a book on, say, the terrible oppression of the Gwyllion, and immediately gone "Oh, so the Gwyllion are a metaphor for the real world X people, either deliberately or accidentally through the author's inherent racism. This is therefore super problematic because the Gwyllion are also described as Y, which means the author is also saying that about X people."

There will always be real world parallels when discussing oppression. Always. But that's because oppression is oppression - precise details may vary, but it follows the same pathways the world over, and that will naturally be copied into fiction as well. This does not mean the author is intentionally telling the exact allegory that you've projected onto it. If that's how you read everything, then yeah, everything becomes super problematic, but also, why are you reading any fiction that isn't solely about real world historical events? It's clearly not for you

And, you know, obviously there are works that are racist/misogynistic/etc, including deliberately so. But I really don't like the way people have started going "I have spotted a PROBLEMATIC ALLEGORY here, I'm ever so smart" and acting like they're the cleverest little critic that ever lived. You have to meet a work on its own terms. Lovecraft was a big ole racist, sure. Someone who has written a book about the oppression of magic users in their fantasy world, however, is rarely writing a story about how queerness lurks in family lines and must be controlled; they are way more commonly writing a story about a world with magic that they then wanted to take seriously, and while there might well be elements of queerness there, those magic users are not a 1:1 replacement.

Sometimes these lines are blurry! But we're going way too far to one end of that spectrum

The post that got me thinking about this yesterday was someone talking about how they'd love to write a vampire story exploring vampirism as a disability (dependence on a substance to manage the condition, blindness/weakness in daytime, can't enter buildings without accommodation, etc). But, they said, they can't, because they don't want to be making the point that disabled people are parasites, and vampires are generally considered parasitic.

And like. What an incredible shame. That we'll lose that, because they're already afraid of the "I have spotted a PROBLEMATIC ALLEGORY" crowd. That would be a great story for exploring disability themes, OR just a great new take on vampires, and either of those things would be so good to read. But there would be so many people who would jump in with "So you think disabled people are draining the life force of the ableds around them?", never stopping to actually think "Vampires are not a 1:1 stand in for real world disability because they are fictional and do not exist."

Anyway sorry I've rambled here, not sure how coherent I'm being. But yes, I was thinking about this just yesterday! Wild.

[leastniceperson]

as soon as the internet decided depression and anxiety were the everyman mental illnesses and therefore not to be taken seriously we were all fucked tbh bc the fact that i have to feel embarrassed to admit i have debilitating anxiety because people will think im just an uwu dont call me out coward is ridiculous. its insane that i have to clarify that my depressive episodes are like life threatening and not whatever dipshit dumbed down idea of depression people seem to have like oh yeah i just wanna watch netflix and eat ice cream and not text people back. like bro i think im the devil

[leastniceperson]

like maybe depression and anxiety are household names now but they do still kill people. like. theres a reason they fucking kill people.

[iamthemaestro]

people have said it before but if you read a lot of historical literature you do begin to just sort of think in that style of language. I’ll put down the 18th century journal I’m reading and have to resist the urge to send academic emails with every Noun capitalized and punctuated only by the profuse Usage of the Em-Dash — it is a deceptively challenging Instinct to resist, & worse is that Instinct when spelling certain Words to utilize what would, some Centuries prior, be an appropriate Spelling, excepting that my Correspondence occurs in the Twenty-First Century, where Men are inflexible and uncreative in their Methods, & this Propensity of mine would appear only foolish & incorrect, instead of suggesting what it in actuality reflects, which is that I am simply an Incorrigible Nerd — O! the Woes of modern Sociability! Why should I be compelled to conform to these d——d modern Conventions! Is it not enough to be unabashedly and impudently Autistic?

[the-last-punbender]

As I, when reading Shakespeare's plays, will see

My thoughts, in meter, try themselves to find,

Until derail'd, by stray and wanton drift,

They crash upon th'unruly banks and turns

That rule the mapping of my restless mind:

The stream of consciousness, against whose path

No edit holds, nor structured form withstands.

[carys-the-ninth]

"Was this book good or was I deeply 19 when I read it:" an investigative journalism series

[not-your-lawyer]

“Was this book bad or was I simply lacking enough life experience to appreciate the narrative when I read it” : an award-winning followup

[lostinwanderingthoughts]

I genuinely don’t think I can survive this

[lostinwanderingthoughts]

The current political climate has me contemplating whether I really want to live in this world anymore and I think that says something about how bad it is.

[animentality]

[bloody-foundations-deactivated2]

imagine how much of a fucking horrible person you have to be that on the first day your elected into office the crisis calls of a Suicide Prevention Project Go Up 33%. The Trevor Project Received over 1,400 Call By Early Monday Afternoon. Most of those calls, if not all, are coming from children. Children scared of you and what you will do. Imagine how much power and how horrible you have to be to do that.

[davidpincher]

but sir that’s my emotional support mutual who’s way cooler than me that i can’t believe actually follows me 

[mi1kw33d-2-deactivated20250505]

ao3 is crazy because you'll read the most gut-wrenching 200k word slowburn that leaves you sobbing into your sweater at four in the morning and the author will be applejacksmonstercock

[roach-works]

later you find out that applecock is like a) the nicest lady in the world, b) in her late fifties and c) is a well respected senior member of a career you didn't know existed like head mop taxonomist or chief piano refurbishment factor or secretary of racehorses and suddenly a few of the comments in the longest orgy scene are even funnier.

[alexmey-does-an-arts]

glimpse into my beautiful imaginary world where arthropods are really big and we domesticated them

edit: people are starting to say some "my worst nightmare" or "eeeww no that one is yucky and scary" comments on this like they do on any bug post and id like to say. it's fine if you don't like bugs it's fine if you're scared of bugs but don't put that on MY post clearly talking about how much i like them and how cute i think they are. you can make your own damn post about how much you hate wasps or spiders or whatever. i'm blocking people who make these kinds of comments.

[weevilsdaily]

i love this i want to live in this world x

[lostinwanderingthoughts]

This is adorable I want a cat sized jumping spider