Writing, So As Not To Be Dead

Elliot | he/him I’m not a real doctor, but I am a real worm This is a writeblr, but only nominally. Header by @catboyzaid on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Not a minor, not telling you my age.

[magiccarpetman]

Summer Reading List

It’s been a while since I’ve had the energy for one of these, but nature is HEALING. Finished books under the cut as per usual.

…

May

Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris: finished May 17, 2026. This one is a nostalgia reread, because I was thinking about interesting takes on parental estrangement I read around the time my mother’s mental health began its tailspin. This would have been a 2010-2012 read for me, roughly. I love how people refusing to touch Marigold so she can’t sense how they feel works as a genre-ized metaphor for isolation and emotional neglect. And I always appreciate stories where older siblings who’ve escaped a toxic environment come back for the little ones they couldn’t save when they were children themselves. That being said, the last chapter reveal about their true parentage feels like a cop out. Just let bio parents be shitty! Sometimes they are!

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell: finished May 27, 2026. I reread this alongside a dear friend who also loved it as a kid. The strange lonely darkness of it holds up in delightful ways.

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher: finished May 27, 2026. This is a good month for nostalgia rereads, because I got a big batch of old favorites for free from a local elementary school’s library weeds. Understood Betsy is 110 years old and definitely preachy in aspects of its narrative, but I remember being ten years old and reading it for the first time and loving it just as much as I did today. One of those absolutely heart-healing books.

“B” is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood: finished May 27, 2026. Pure coincidence that I read two old children’s chapter books starring a Betsy in one day. We went to my fiancé’s mother’s house for dinner and she showed us the first chapter book she ever read by herself. Published 1939 and pretty entertaining. Sort of a Golden Book kind of feel.

The Princess Curse by Merrie Haskell: finished May 28, 2026. Another library weed added to my collection. I love the weird darkness of this one, and the ending! It’s a shame there are only two fics on AO3. Maybe one day I’ll add to their number.

No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko: finished May 29, 2026. Another library weed I recognized from childhood. The ending always makes me cry. When an author gets siblings right, oof.

Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan: finished May 30, 2026. The last of my rescues from the library weed pile. It was good to revisit Rachel, and rereading made me remember how much I loved mistaken identity dramas when I was in the book’s target age bracket.

[fealty-to-thee]

More characters ending disabled and happy NOW

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

knife to your throat you have to name a newborn human baby after a pokemon, which pokemon are you picking

I'm going with Dratini idc I think it has a cute flow

[bigscaryd]

Fun fact: I still get static because I pushed back on a VG-derived name for the ORC.

But anyway, Mawile.

[havinganormalone]

Fanfiction is insane. You can write porn so good you make friends.

[aromanticofficial]

it's pride month!! you know what that means

everyone get more aromantic NOW

[transxfiles]

this pride month i want everyone to consider the benefits of abolishing the sex binary

[transxfiles]

furthermore, abolish the government systems that require people to categorize themselves into gendered categories. why do y'all need to know that.

[transxfiles]

no more assigning babies a legal sex at birth. i feel like this should go without saying, but no more surgeries on intersex infants. no more surgeries on intersex children. embrace intersex traits as natural. because they are.

no more gendered dress codes. no more gender markers on passports, driver's licenses, ids. i'm not talking about "adding x" or "adding a third category" i'm talking about no more categories, period. why does the government need to know what my genital situation is? why does the government feel the need to assign me a sex on the basis of genitals? why does the cop who pulled me over need to see an m, or an f, or an x?

no more "gender is a social construct, sex is the thing that's binary." sex is not binary. abolish the idea that it is. normalize conversations about intersex traits. being intersex is natural. the sex binary is a thing imposed by the state.

no more gendered sports. if you really care about equity, sort people into categories based on skill level and athleticism, not gender or sex. the concept that there are only two sexes and that one is inherently weaker than the other is pseudoscience. the male/female hunter/gatherer dichotomy is not based in fact, and is a product of modern sexist cultural biases. one gender is not inherently subservient to the other. people are not inherently different on the basis of sex or gender. it is just more complicated than that.

the concept of multiple genders and sexes beyond the man/woman male/female dichotomy has existed as long as humans have existed. the sex binary only serves to benefit the patriarchy. the gender binary only serves to benefit the patriarchy. continuing to impose it just controls (and harms) the people it forcibly categorizes.

i'm not asking for the end of gender, i'm calling for an acknowledgement of gender and sex that understands the infinite diversity of the human species. i'm suggesting an end to binary systems that only benefit the ruling class. just think about it. okay?

[seven-winged-liar]

hearing a beloved friend say the words 'can i be mean for a sec' is like watching an angel descend from the heavens and kiss you on the forehead

[lestatfag]

STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]

[litterofbiscuit]

its interesting being a weird autistic tranny as a kid and letting yourself get accustomed to the idea that youre just some magically antisocial loser who is "introverted" and is happy being alone and then you grow up and realize that actually you love being social you love hugs you love going out and hate being alone you just hated all of the social opportunities available to you growing up so much you let yourself romanticize solitude as a slightly less miserable state than interacting with people

[parakeet]

just saw a 'comments' tab on someones blog you know where the following and likes tabs would be if enabled and it was just showing all the replies theyve made on peoples posts. this is fascinating when did this feature come out

[parakeet]

EMERGENCY - ITS AUTO ENABLED!

if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.

if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to

PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply

figured i'd get the word out bc i have not seen a single mention of this and i'm sure there are plenty of people who maybe comment on things they don't want on display for everyone to see on their blog lol. you can still look at your replies with it toggled off just no one else can, like locking the following and likes list

[parakeet]

so for some reason this feature was actually announced on the tumblr engineering blog. interesting choice not to reblog it to the staff or tumblr blog, esp considering they asked for user input on how to implement it, but i suppose considering the response to the last update maybe the replies would be too overwhelming...

so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts

posts you comment on may show on your followers 'for you' page if you leave your replies publically available. they may, in the future, show in on your followers dashboard if your follower goes to their dash settings and enables this. apparently, if your likes are enabled, your followers can already see those on the dash if they've gone into preferences and selected to do so, which I was unaware of, and that seems to be disabled at default, but it's possible i disabled it previously and forgot about it ig

[spaceboytoy]

Hello bisexual community

[spaceboytoy]

Begin killing

[tartrazeen]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Watching the latest Game Changer and laughing so much that Diesel (who was trying to sleep on me) got mad at the shaking and left

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Oh god they're doing Australian accents. Why. Sam this is actual violence. Don't make me listen to Americans failing to do Australian accents for ten minutes please, PLEASE, I am fucking BEGGING you.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Americans should have to get an accent license before they're allowed to do Australian accents. Like little kids getting a pen license in school.

[despazito]

petition to relabel "strong sense of justice" in autism and adhd to "strong personal convictions"

[radiqueer]

Human relationships are not transactional but they are reciprocal, which I think many of you with your ‘i don’t owe anyone anything’ shtick are too happy to forget

[myfootyrthroat]

It is wild talking to people online where you'll be like "Hey, you're kind of being an ass," and they'll rant about how as a member of a marginalized community... oppression and violence... societal forces... lack of opportunity... and it's like "Ok, people who share some demographic with you are pushed into homelessness and sex work but they are not being assholes online. You are a grad student at Reed who works part-time as a paralegal and you are a real dick."

[dragon-in-a-fez]

the important thing to remember about corporations is that they are so so stupid

[dragon-in-a-fez]

this post brought to you by my ex employer claiming that they can't have done disability discrimination against me because there's no proof I had PTSD in January 2025, although they do admit I had it both four months before and six months after that

[dragon-in-a-fez]

asked my lawyer if this was the dumbest thing she'd ever seen and she gave me the ol' dead eyed stare that has watched a thousand civilisations fall

[re-dracula]

Happy Pride! In the closet or out, know that you are valued and loved!