will nature make a man of me yet?

Coffee is life.

[once-a-polecat]

About Me

I am over 40. This is not an admission of wrongdoing, it's a warning sign over the door. Please don't follow me if you're underaged.

I am genderfluid, bi and queer. I am a gymrat. I drink protein shakes and use "dude" as a gender neutral term of affection.

This blog is currently infected with Locked Tomb brainrot. If you don't want to see such content, please blacklist "The Locked Tomb," I do tag fairly rigorously.

Non-fandom things I love: Circus, fiber arts, native plants, cats, fragrance geekery. Probably some other things I'm forgetting about.

I write stuff sometimes. Maybe you'll see me link to my writing every now and then.

[probuccalfat]

i cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you should ideally give birth in a fully equipped and staffed medical facility or if you insist on giving birth through an alternative method you should be within minutes of a hospital and i mean under 5 minutes if you’d like me to be really fucking frank

[probuccalfat]

like i can get on board with so much feminist theory and stuff, truly, and i do acknowledge that obstetrics and gynaecology as a field holds blind spots that are egregious (e.g. infant and maternal mortality in the black community) but there is no empowerment in risky birthing practices that our foremothers, and i’m not mincing words, often suffered through. birthing is natural, but it is not “easy” or even “innate”, it is best practiced guided and witnessed by those that know what to do in an emergency. you are not reconnecting to any innate feminine nature by practicing dangerous birthing practices—you are recreating a time when the bodies and lives of women barely mattered and it was expected that death would/could occur at insane and tragic rates.

[probuccalfat]

this is a hill i will spend the rest of my days fighting on because while i am not interested in birthing children myself, i have an incredible passion and interest in the field of labour and delivery. it’s been one of my greatest joys to play even a small part in delivering neonates. i do not want anyone to risk their babies over a deeply, deeply misguided idea of free birth being “the natural way” when natural is not always synonymous with the safest way.

[anarchohellenism]

So many people think it's either midwife or doctor. It's not. Have your midwife or doula in the hospital room with you, I promise the doctors don't give a shit. Hell, you can have her do the delivery itself and just have the doctors there as emergency backup! But for the love of your baby, go to the fucking hospital.

[probuccalfat]

yup. a lot of hospitals are willing to work with you to realize your birthing plan as much as they can within safe limits and parameters. my hospital is closely and highly allied with midwives all up and down the coast, with the explicit instruction to call the midwife when we know a labouring patient is about to deliver so we can respect their plan. genuinely, you can have almost any kind of birth you want—just make sure that there are qualified professionals in attendance, and it’s not just midwives or OBGYNS you need. you have no idea when you’ll need a respiratory therapist on call, you have no idea when you will need a blood transfusion within minutes or risk certain death, L&D nurses do not have the same training as NICU nurses if a baby declines rapidly. it’s a literal thousand things that can go wrong and you should be in the best place for them to go wrong.

[once-a-polecat]

And please, please, please do not get pulled into the "free birth" propaganda. Babies have died (including the baby of a prominent "free birth" influencer) and women have suffered irreparable harm.

1. Start prenatal care as soon as you know you're pregnant.

2. Plan to give birth in a hospital.

2b. If you absolutely will not plan to give birth in a hospital, give birth with an experienced midwife in attendance who WILL transfer you to a hospital in an emergency. Emergencies do happen in childbirth and can be fatal.

2c. If you have a precipitous birth (happened to a friend of mine), please let a loved one or the nice paramedics take you and the baby to the hospital to get checked.

[bovid-beauty]

"Fascism"—New Federal Rule Would Require Federal Funding Recipients To Deny Trans People Exist

The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."

[junequeer]

THIS IS OPEN TO COMMENT UNTIL JULY 13, 2026

[featherandstorm]

This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.

[genderkoolaid]

Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.

[once-a-polecat]

My finished luggage straps! Everyone in my family has different brands of suitcases purchased at different times and I'm tired of arguing at the luggage carousel about which bags are ours.

Woven with aurora earth 8/2 cotton on my inkle loom. It's kind of an annoying yarn for inkle weaving because it's very grabby which makes it hard to open up the shed. But that also gives them a little more grip on the luggage than if I'd used pearle cotton. Also, I already had the yarn in an assortment of colors for making towels. Love to use the yarn I have rather than go buy some. Hardware from a dog leash company on Etsy.

If you see these in the wild: no you didn't. Also don't steal my family's luggage.

[slothful-rabbit]

I laughed so fucking hard at this

[paint-lady]

[once-a-polecat]

Me to CVS: All I want is to be able to reach a pharmacist via phone without having to wait for a callback. I don't mind being on hold, I just want to be able to talk to one of the people at my pharmacy who have handled my meds forever and done my vaccinations etc... they're nice people and they have the information I need. Just hire more humans so someone can answer the phone!!!!

CVS to me: Here's a new self-service RX kiosk that exposes elements of your private health information to anyone who's standing too close behind you. The staff behind the desk are instructed to make you use it before helping you personally.

Me to CVS: [PRIMAL FUCKING SCREAM]

[once-a-polecat]

I think my response next time is just going to be "if you make me use the machine, I'm gonna vandalize it."

[once-a-polecat]

Props to Kayla who was firmly directing everyone else in line to use the touchscreen. She remembered me from last time, looked me dead in the eye and said, very pleasantly "if you'd like you can use the screen".

To quote Bartleby the.Scrivener "I would prefer not to."

[helicalsymmetry]

stop reblogging sleep makes you an ungulate and start reblogging my

5k+ word hagfish sex post.

[once-a-polecat]

More than you ever wanted to know about hagfish sex.

Containing the immortal line: "There are many barriers to studying the sex lives of deep sea animals."

[sadclowncentral]

my friends held an intervention for me to "stop asking intimidately specific questions". i tried to explain that i am just a good listener but there is apparently "a line between follow-up questions during small talk and interrogation tactics that gets crossed sometimes". turns out my curious nature is "scaring the hoes"

[sadclowncentral]

when i asked for examples i was told that "do you think your tendency to show appreciation through restoration is part of a greater life philosophy or is that coincidental?" and "is your communication with allied forces satellite or radar based and is it vurnerable to cyber attacks?" are apparently "inappropriate questions to ask someone you just met at a club". but i disagree. as if you wouldn't be a little bit curious about the answer? yeah that's what i thought

[sadclowncentral]

[ID: question by anonymous: did they answer the question though ///end ID]

the navy officer i asked about cyber attacks did answer my question very thoroughly. he also answered other questions such as "when refueling on sea, which boat is the primary course holder?" and "would switching to another government branch affect your retirement benefits?" and generally provided a lot of information over the course of a fascinating hour that as a former government employee myself i am pretty sure he should not have told me. but i also think he would have told me his social security number if i asked nicely (i didn't, I was busy learning about the tactical advantages of speedboats).

the guy obsessed with boat refurbishment that i asked about his tendency towards preservation gave me a really haunted look, said "holy fuck" and then after a moment of consideration "i think i am too drunk. i'm going home" and proceeded to leave. in my defense, it was well and truly meant as genuine curiosity and not as the attempt at psychological warfare it turned out to be. he unfortunately did not answer my question.

...he was also the catalyst for the intervention i received.

[once-a-polecat]

Fascinated by the fact that "guy obsessed with boat refurbishment" is considered one of "the hoes."

[thoughtfulfangirling]

If you got to choose to have their powers, whose would you choose?

Homura Akemi (PMMM: Stop/rewind time)

Tenzin (LOK: Airbend)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus (TLT: Necromancer specialty skeletons/bones)

Ianthe Tridentarius (TLT: Necromancy with specialty in adipose)

Toph (ALTA: Earthbender/metalbender)

Sailor Mars (SM: Fire attacks and precognition)

Netossa (SPOP: Create impenetrable nets of any size)

Roy Mustang (FMA03: Alchemy-insane fire power)

Katara (ATLA: Waterbending and healing)

Frosta (SPOP: Ice generation/control)

Mystique (X-Men: Shapeshifting)

Violet Part (The Incredibles: Invisibility and force fields)

Voting ended onJun 11

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Lots of shapeshifters here! Such a valid choice. I can see why it'd win. I nearly picked it myself. Little surprised by how many have no votes but some of these are absolutely much more enticing than others. I think I'm most surprised by the lack of air bending as a choice followed by no choices for having a skeleton army lmao

[useless-catalanfacts]

Masculine cape made of green silk velvet with golden embroidery. Years 1651-1675.

Source: Museu Virtual de la Moda de Catalunya [Fashion Virtual Museum of Catalonia]. Kept in Museu del Disseny [Design Museum] in Barcelona, Catalonia.

[sapphireswimming]

it's so wild that someone could theoretically set up a queue to run nonstop for 4.5 years (minimum of 1 post per day at tumblr premium's doubled queue limit of 2000 posts) but because mine runs at the maximum of 50 posts per day I'm constantly refilling it so it doesn't run out after like. a month

[sapphireswimming]

actually, adding my own tags because I'm passionate about the tumblr queue (in case it wasn't obvious to anyone ahahaha):

#meanwhile! probably 80 percent of the posts that cross my dashboard#that even mention tumblr's queue feature at all#do so expressing surprise that it exists#or that anyone uses it regularly#or that they can't fathom why anyone would have more than like. twenty posts in it

#and like.#obviously everyone finds a way to use this platform in a way that works for them#and that's going to be wildly different for everyone#but at the same time like???????#y'all out here not using your queue at all??????

#you can spread out literally hundreds of posts from a single tag over the course of weeks#keep posts from smaller or slower or older fandoms circulating at a more regular pace#passing around all of the art from a new artist you've discovered#but spread out enough that people engage with all of it instead of their favorite of everything you reblog in one day#you can throw posts out into the distance so they are fun or groanworthy rediscoveries when they finally pop out#you can do your part to keep the dashboard active for followers in all timezones#it lets you bypass post limit even! if you want to binge blog yourself into oblivion!

#all this and even more for maybe one more click of a button than it takes to reblog something in the first place

#tumblr queuing: give it a heartfelt consideration today

[werewolf-transgenderism]

only 62 more frogs until we hit 8,000 species described. the moment we've all been waiting for

[werewolf-transgenderism]

there are an average of about 150 new amphibian species described per year so I remain hopeful that 2026 will be the year of 8,000 frogs

[werewolf-transgenderism]

I do love that somebody tagged tumblr's own frog scientist on this post. chop chop dr scherz, we've got 62 more frogs to discover and you're the only frog scientist any of us knows

[werewolf-transgenderism]

GUYS amphibian species of the world is still at 7,994 species of frog BUT amphibiaweb is at 8,008 species of frog, and do you know who is a co-author on the 8,000th species of frog there???? TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR SCHERZ

[markscherz]

[heartpeacenquiet]

[moth-amphetamine]

thought I was going to a concert to see the cure ? but it was actually placebo??? fml

[beardedmrbean]

[once-a-polecat]

I. Am. Not. Coping. Well.

I know the solution is to ramp down my anxiety. I know how to ramp down my anxiety. I know the anxiety is making things worse. But there are a couple of people I love dearly, who do not do shit unless my anxiety is driving me to push them to do some shit. And yes. I know this is toxic. They know this is toxic. It's happening anyway, and it's making me FUCKING CRAZY.

[once-a-polecat]

Will going to lunch and having a matcha tonic and a bagel save me? Probably not. I ate a proper breakfast and a snack so I'm not anxious because I forgot to eat. But I'm gonna try it anyway.