It was flagged as "Eksplicit", shadowbanned, and every reblog turned invisible. The flagging is also unappealable (unless that is an error, thanks tumblr)
Happy Trans Day of Invisibility from your tumblr mods!
Only found out because I tried to reblog with an update from your local trans unicorn siblings!
I cannot even LINK to my old comic without every new post getting deleted.
And yet, we will CONTINUE to exist, and grow, and find each other. We will be visible up to and beyond our own deaths. Because we stand for love. We love ourselves and each other and that just makes us stronger.
The original post was pardoned, but the shadowban still persisted and every reblog was hidden from the dash and flagged explicit. I'm not sure if it recovered by now, or if it's always going to be at risk of banning.
So whatever staff reviewed my complaint agreed that it wasn't explicit. So thank you for that, moderator. This highlights that the problem starts with bad actors reporting anything they don't like, and that it's a tossup if your appeal is seen by a bot, a normal human, or a bigot.
I'm grateful I can still touch people and spread positivity. Many of my queer siblings, brothers, and sisters - especially trans sisters - can't say the same.
But no matter what happens, we will always have each other. Every letter in our alphabet is a pillar holding up a beautiful world that only stands if we're all in it together. The world may call you a monster, but it calls me one too. Maybe you won't hear it from the rest of them, but listen and you will hear it from me.
I took this post and then. I got silly with it. Please be nice about the legal stuff; I tried.
___
“Ms. Woods? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Elle spins around fast, the door of her favourite coffee shop within walking distance of the courthouse jangling closed behind her, her caramel mocha frappuccino sloshing dangerously against the domed plastic lid that’s supposed to contain it. She double- and then triple-checks its spatter pattern, making sure there’s none on her crisp white cotton blouse or magenta pencil skirt. Getting coffee stains out of rayon is beyond annoying.
Under her arm, Bruiser leans forward out of her seashell-pink quilted leather Kate Spade bag, a growl rising behind his teeth. Elle strokes his head with the hand that’s not wrangling her frapp, cooing a reassurance before she looks up to see who’d startled them both.
Her first thought is that the guy is cute. Her second thought is that he’s gigantic. Her third thought is that she knows his face from somewhere. Not the coffeeshop, though. Elle can name all the regulars and staff here on sight, and he’s definitely not one of them.
“I’m sorry, I think your name’s slipped my mind?” Elle says, beaming up at the guy. Her sentence is punctuated by Bruiser’s growl breaking into a sharp flurry of barks, and Elle looks down in surprise. “Bruiser! I’m sorry, he usually has much better manners than this. Don’t you, boy?”
“He probably recognises me from court,” the tall cute guy says, holding out a hand for Elle to shake. “Sam Winchester. I’m with the prosecution.”
Elle puts her head to one side and gives his hand her frostiest look, and he slowly withdraws it, hopeful smile fading.
“My client’s already entered her plea,” Elle says, through the teeth of her brightest smile. “Not guilty. And we’re going to prove it in court.”
She punctuates that sentence by flipping her oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses down off the top of her head onto her face, and moving to walk around the guy.
The guy steps into Elle’s path. This time, when Bruiser snaps at him, she doesn’t scold her dog.
The guy gives Bruiser only the briefest glance. “Unless you have some explosive evidence that wasn’t included in discovery, I think we both know that’s going to be difficult. The prosecution has your client on video committing the murder.”
“That was so not Sophie. She got her nails done just that morning. Mediterranean Blue, to match her bridesmaid dress. We included the receipts in discovery.” Elle scootches her sunglasses back up onto her head just so she can bat her eyelashes innocently up at the prosecution guy. Guys hate it when she does that. “Tell me, did you see Mediterranean Blue anywhere in that footage?”
She pushes her way around the prosecution guy, hip-checking him as she passes when he moves like he’s going to get in her way again.
Elle hasn’t gotten more than about four or five steps before she hears dress shoes hurrying against the pavement behind her. She rolls her eyes at the perfect blue sky overhead. Not quite Mediterranean Blue. Maybe L. A. Lapis?
“What’re you going to try to argue?” prosecution guy says, falling into step beside Elle. “That the murderer was actually someone who looked identical to Sophie, but had different nail polish?”
“It introduces a reasonable doubt,” Elle snips back, without looking over. She’s not going to sink to this guy’s level. And she is not going to consider a plea deal. Especially not now.
Not after Emmett had specifically asked Elle, personally, to take his high school best friend’s fiancée’s maid of honour’s case. Not after the way Sophie had broken down during her first meeting with Elle and begged Elle to believe she hadn’t done it, even though no one else did. Even though every other lawyer Sophie’d spoken to had said she should plead out.
Not after Elle had overheard a couple of people talking in the bathroom during a recess yesterday about how an airhead like Elle Woods couldn’t possibly get so lucky twice.
“And who gets her nails done at ten, gruesomely murders a random stranger at eleven, and then meets the rest of the wedding party for dress fittings and sushi at eleven forty-five?” Elle tosses her hair over her shoulder. “You couldn’t get all the blood off in that time. At least, not to be sure you didn’t have any splashed somewhere you couldn’t see. And then it might rub off on the bridesmaid dress. It’s pure silk! You’d never get the blood out. And do you have any idea how hard it would be to get that gown replaced on such short notice?”
“So you’ve come to the conclusion that, since Sophie’s too fashion-conscious to commit this murder, she must have an evil twin?”
“Reasonable doubt,” Elle reminds the prosecution guy, sweetly. Bruiser’s growling again. Elle kind of feels like growling, too.
“You’re going to have a hard time convincing the jury of a theory that comes straight out of daytime TV.” Elle opens her mouth to offer a witty verbal rejoinder, but the prosecution guy cuts her off. “Which is why you should give this number a call.”
Elle’s aware that her mouth is flapping like an unfortunate fish. Luckily, the prosecution guy isn’t looking at her. He’s scanning the street all around them, frowning suspiciously at every passing face.
He passes over the folded piece of yellow notepaper deliberately nonchalantly, without looking at Elle. She takes it without thinking.
“Tell him Sam Winchester gave you that number,” the prosecution guy says, glaring after a passing dude in a shearling-lined denim jacket. Elle glares a little too, just on principle. So out of season, and in this weather? Well, she’s not the one sweating her brains out.
“I told you already. We’re not interested in pleading out. If you have something new and exonerating, introduce it into evidence. Like you’re supposed to.” Elle stops in her high-heeled tracks and plants a hand on her hip as she stares up at the prosecution guy. She’s tempted to rip his dumb phone number up right in front of him, but Bruiser beats her to it, snatching the little yellow paper from her hand with his tiny sharp teeth. “And I don’t appreciate being propositioned by people who just spent ten minutes telling me why my defense strategy is stupid.”
She has to give the prosecution guy this, he does look like he hadn’t even considered that Elle would assume he’d given her his number. “What? Wait, that’s not -”
Elle cocks an eyebrow. The prosecution guy huffs out an exasperated breath, running a hand through his floppy bangs before he meets her eyes. Bruiser gives Elle eyes like that sometimes when he wants a little of whatever she’s eating. Or belly rubs. Or a pedicure.
“You have a reputation for being brilliant, innovative, and unorthodox,” the prosecution guy says, his puppy-dog eyes all sincerity. Elle bites down on the urge to tell him that she knows when she’s being made fun of. “I’m hoping all of that’s true. For your client’s sake. And who knows how many others like her.”
Elle doesn’t really want to admit that she’s not sure what he’s talking about. If law school taught her anything, it was to never show weakness. Of course, life’s taught her a little differently. But there’s a time and a place, and in front of somebody she’s up against in court tomorrow – and whose taste in ties is so deeply questionable – is neither of those.
Still. If Elle didn’t know better –
“Do you think Sophie’s innocent?” she asks the prosecution guy.
The prosecution guy – Sam – makes a face, a kind of smile without any happiness in it, and looks away.
“Call that number,” he says, instead of answering Elle’s question. “From somewhere private. And – don’t tell anybody that we talked about anything other than your client’s possible openness to a plea deal? I just got this job. I’d like to keep it.”
Elle squints at him. It doesn’t really help her make up her mind.
He doesn’t give her a chance to. “I’ll look forward to seeing you and, uh -”
“Bruiser,” Elle says. Bruiser barks.
“You and Bruiser tomorrow in court, Ms. Woods.”
“Mr. Winchester,” Elle answers, automatically.
The prosecution guy – Sam – nods at her a little awkwardly, and then turns and starts walking back in the direction of the courthouse. Elle watches him go, and considers.
That basic-black suit fits him pretty well, but it’s also obviously not custom. And obviously not new. The carefully brushed and pressed wool gabardine is shiny at the elbows and worn at the slightly-too-short cuffs and slightly-too-tight collar. Same with those nice black leather dress shoes – polished to a high shine, but worn down at the heel. Elle hadn’t noticed a fancy Rolex or Bvlgari when he’d offered to shake her hand or passed her the phone number, either, just a cheap digital Timex. His hair’s obviously cut that way on purpose, but by the way he’d kept shaking it out of his eyes, he’s overdue for a trim. And then there’s that tie.
It all paints a picture of a careful, thoughtful man, conscious of the impression he makes on others, doing everything he can with what he’s got. Maybe with…questionable taste, in patterns especially. But what he said rings true. He probably needs the job. So for him to offer to stick his neck out to help the defense, in what Elle’s suspecting more and more is a not-entirely-aboveboard sort of way…
Either he really does believe in Sophie’s innocence, and he’s got something that proves it that he can’t enter into evidence for some reason, client confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement or who knows, as well as principles of steel. Or…
Or this is a trap.
Well, at least Elle knows one thing for sure. Sam’s definitely not one of Warner’s crowd. They’d rather be caught naked in public than looking so dangerously close to shabby.
“Hm,” Elle says, and takes a long drag of slightly-melted caramel mocha goodness. “What do you think, Bruiser?”
Bruiser yips, once.
Elle nods, and absentmindedly scratches behind his ears. “You know? I think so too.”
…
It’s past nine by the time Elle finally makes it home. She kicks off her seashell-pink kitten heels and peels off her pantyhose with a bone-deep sigh of relief. She’s given Bruiser his dinner, wrapped herself up in her marabou-trimmed blush satin robe, and is just pouring herself a glass of rosé when Bruiser pads into the kitchen with something yellow in his mouth.
“Are you sure?” Elle asks, and Bruiser barks, spitting the folded piece of notepaper to the tile. It flutters over to rest on the little pink nose of one of Elle’s baby-pink bunny slippers.
Elle bends (and snaps, a girl’s got to stay in practice even when there’s no audience around) to pick it up.
Ordinarily, she’d think twice about calling anyone after nine PM. But ordinarily, the prosecution wouldn’t be furtively handing her shady leads outside her favourite coffee shop, either. It occurs to Elle to wonder, as the phone rings in her ear, just how Sam had known to look for her there. Not that it’s exactly a secret, but – something about the thought of him observing her, asking around about her, learning her habits without her even noticing, sends a little chill shivering under her skin.
Before she can think too hard about that, though, there’s a click from the phone and then a gruff, Midwestern accent is saying, “Federal Bureau of Investigation. Supervisory Special Agent Clayton. Who are you and whaddaya want.”
“Um,” Elle says. Of course, a murder case could easily bump into the FBI’s jurisdiction, but. This is starting to scream ‘trap’.
Still, there’s one last card left up her marabou-trimmed bell sleeve, and she plays it. “This is Elle Woods. Sam Winchester gave me this number?”
The silence on the other end of the line is briefly broken by a distant, muffled burst of swearing. Elle waits patiently, gnawing a little at her bottom lip, as the swearing gives way to a heavy thumping sound and then silence again.
A moment later, the Midwestern-accented voice is back, sounding slightly less hostile and slightly more out of breath. “He did, did he. And just who the hell is Elle Woods?”
“I’m a defense attorney in the murder case he’s prosecuting?” Elle didn’t mean it to come out sounding like a question. She clears her throat, shakes her hair back, squares her shoulders, and summons her inner Vivian. “Mr. Winchester intimated that you might have access to vital evidence that could help decide the fate of my client.”
“He did, did he.” Elle thinks she catches a quiet, “Idjit,” muttered away from the phone’s handset. “And what kind of ‘vital evidence’ would that be?”
Elle turns in a slow circle on the kitchen floor, crumpling and uncrumpling the little yellow piece of paper in the hand that’s not pressing the cordless handset to her ear. She’s keenly aware that one wrong word here could easily cost her – and Sophie – the entire case. Fruit of the poisoned tree, and all that. But – if this could help Sophie, Elle has to know. “Are you aware that the murder trial of Sophie Dumont commenced this week?”
“Sophie Dumont?” the voice on the other end of the line says, and then there’s a creaking and a sound like paper flicking and then a knowing, “Oh, Sophie Dumont. Caught on camera skinning some poor bastard alive, wasn’t she?”
“Sophie has entered a plea of not guilty,” Elle says sharply.
“Yeah, I bet she has.” It strikes Elle as a strange thing to say, especially in that tone. She’d have expected sarcasm. But the man on the other end of the line sounds – resigned? Maybe? Definitely some flavour of totally bummed out. “Still. Not sure how I can help, Miss -”
“Ms. Ms. Elle Woods.” Elle takes a breath, and a chance. “We have evidence to support that the person captured in the camera footage is not, in fact, Sophie Dumont. Unfortunately, it’s…limited in scope. And Sophie was alone in her apartment during the hour in which the murder occurred. We’ve as yet been unable to locate anyone who can confirm her alibi, or an eyewitness to the murder who would be willing to come forward…”
She bounces up and down on her toes, crossing the fingers of her free hand hard and squinching her eyes shut as she holds her breath.
“Well, now,” the voice on the other end of the line says. “Let me see what I can dig up.”
Elle lets out her breath in one big gust. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I mean.” She clears her throat, puts on her best Vivian again. “Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.”
The chuckle that comes down the phone line reminds Elle, weirdly, of how her favourite uncle used to laugh when she showed off one of her tumbling tricks. “Don’t mention it. And I mean that – don’t you breathe a word to anyone that I was involved in this.”
Elle nods before remembering, right. Phone. “Of course, Mr. Clayton. Strict confidentiality is the name of the game.”
“Oh, and Ms. Woods?”
“Yes?”
“The next time you see Sam Winchester -” The voice breaks off, into a frustrated huff. “You tell that boy that next time, he can call me himself. And I ain’t the only one wouldn’t mind knowing he’s not dead every now and again.”
Not for the first time since the man calling himself Supervisory Special Agent Clayton picked up the phone, Elle wonders how he and Sam know each other. But that’s none of her business, of course. Just. Clayton sounds like he hasn’t heard from Sam in ages. Like he was really worried about Sam.
Elle might just have to see what she can find out about what happened there. Whether those are fences that could be mended. After all, one good turn deserves another, doesn’t it?
“I will certainly pass that along,” Elle promises into the phone. “Here, let me give you my cell number in case anything turns up.”
She waits for Clayton to be ready with a pen and paper, then rattles off her cell phone number twice. After she’s confirmed it’s correct, there’s a beat. A moment when Elle feels like there’s something she should be saying or asking, that she can’t quite seem to think of.
Before she can make her excuses and get off the line, though, Clayton clears his throat and asks, a little more gruff than he’d been so far, “Before you go. Who’d Sam tell you I was, when he gave you my number?”
“He…didn’t,” Elle admits. “Just said to call.”
“Oh.” There’s another awkward moment of silence. Elle’s just taking her breath to say her goodbyes when Clayton says, “You’ve seen the footage of the murder. Right?”
Unfortunately, Elle has. “It was included in discovery, yes.”
“And what do you think that is in the footage, if it’s not Sophie Dumont?”
Elle looks down at Bruiser, who’s lying beside her bunny slippers. Bruiser looks back up at her, no help at all.
Warner would probably say something about how that’s not what he’s paid to know or care about. Vivian or Emmett would say it was immaterial, which sounds a lot nicer but means pretty much the same thing. But Elle finds herself unintentionally parroting what Sam had said, back at the coffeeshop. “Her evil twin?”
There’s a snort of hastily-stifled laughter from the other end of the phone line. Elle starts to say, “Well, thank you again,” and moves to end the call, but Clayton interrupts her.
“Tell me, Ms. Elle Woods, defense attorney. Are you currently accepting new clients?”
“Not currently,” Elle says, because a murder trial is a lot for anyone to manage. “Why, do you know someone who needs a good lawyer?”
Another of those uncle-ish chuckles. “Who do I know who couldn't use a good lawyer.” He sounds a lot more serious when he adds, “In this line of work, we run into Sophie Dumonts more often than we’d like. Mind if I pass your name along?”
“I would appreciate it,” Elle says, honestly. Even if this whole setup is…a little strange. Even if she really does think that one more big win will really get her name out there – if she can pull it off, of course. In the meantime, she and Bruiser still have to eat. And if the clients are too scary…well, nothing says she has to take on every case.
“I’ll let you know what I turn up,” Clayton says, and Elle thinks she can hear the faintest hint of a smile in his voice. “Nice doing business with you, Ms. Elle Woods. And tell that idjit to call his brother!”
The phone goes dead in Elle’s hand before she can ask any more questions.
She puts the handset back into its charging dock and takes a long sip from her rosé, thinking. There’s something about the conversation she just had that’s sitting uneasy with her, but she can’t quite put her finger on what. Other than the general sense that she’s stumbled into some kind of mafia, which…could end up being a problem.
Elle looks down at Bruiser, who cocks his head to one side and looks back at her with his huge, liquid puppy-dog eyes.
“Oh, all right,” Elle says, and pulls open the cabinet over the stove to get down Bruiser’s treats.
She’s crouched on the floor, feeding Bruiser salmon tidbits, when it hits her like a blinding flash of the obvious. What was sitting so wrong with her about that conversation.
It was something the man calling himself Supervisory Special Agent Clayton had said, when he’d been talking about the murder footage. Something strange. Something really strange.
He hadn’t asked Elle who she thought could have been in that footage, if it hadn’t been Sophie.
Recalling the first day of filming, Tierney says that after seeing the pair excel in the emotional wringer, his own “nerves were out the window, I knew I could throw anything at those guys.”
Recalling the first day of filming, Tierney says that after seeing the pair excel in the emotional wringer, his own “nerves were out the window, I knew I could throw anything at those guys.”
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 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.
Do not forget that discord is still planning on moving forward with age verification and has only "delayed it" until "the later half of 2026." They are hoping you will forget while they quietly roll it out when no one is looking. Continue to message them about it. Continue to talk about it. Make it clear this is unacceptable. Discord is one of the only places left you can even talk about or share adult content in private at scale anymore. They will tell you "its not that bad if you dont use it for nsfw" but fuck them and fuck people who say that shit.
I already hardly use it for anything but archiving ideas, so if I have to put my ID in to use it or deal with shit like this, all it's gonna do is make me gather my things faster and then leave. Lol. Lmao.
#google translate does not capture the tone switch so i have to say. first two sentences are like. normal maybe kind of feminine posting tone #& the last is like. shounen manga protagonist. action movie hero. jojo's bizarre adventure character. #the tone you would use if you were holding a gun with the safety off (– @chadlesbianjasontodd)
I just think it's so interesting that people end up falling in love with their friends' boyfriends! I absolutely despise every single one of them. give me my fucking homie back you goddamn bastard
How to survive the phase of shitty writting? I know i can't skip it in order to grow, but realistically, how to not give up? I already tried to quite completly, but i still feel that call,nbut when i try to write it feels so pointless. How to keep going knowing everything i create is worthless for now and i don't even feel i'll ever progress? I’m trying to come back after quite long time of not writing, i was writing for years before but never got any good, so obviosly i wont come back to write a masterpiece right away, i never aimed for a mastepiece in fact, i just want to make it any readable and i know i need to practice but i’m worried it can never get better.
I get asks like this every now and then, and they always contain the problem.
Your writing is not shitty. It is not worthless.
Bloggers using these terms to describe early writing are often being either glib or depressing. Ignore their advice if it is making you feel bad.
Do you write for pleasure or for praise/accomplishment? If the latter, then you are simply in the practice stage. Practice is inherently worthwhile and no effort in this regard is a waste.
If you write for pleasure, then everything you create fulfills its purpose by being entertaining to create. A small child does not drop the crayon when it realizes its drawing will never be in the MoMA, does it? No, they don't care they just like drawing stuff. Adopt that mindset. Just write to get words on the page and ideas developed because you want to.
My advice for the insecure writer:
Stop re-reading your own work; you're a very biased critic right now and that in itself is holding you back.
All improvements are for later drafts. Trust me, you'll have whole new ideas by draft three so put off the nitpicking and focus.
Avoid outside opinions, writing advice, and blogs like mine for a while; we tend to inadvertently make you feel like you've done everything wrong and need to start over.
Stop starting over. Stop deleting your early drafts. Save all of it (this was the best advice I ever received).
Read and watch books and movies for motivation, and to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.
Do. Not. Compare. Yourself. To Other. Writers—your art is about you and what concerns you, other creators have nothing to do with it.
Remind yourself dumber people are doing it wrong confidently. Copy their confidence.
When you feel self-doubt creeping in again, tell it to take a hike, you've got a story to write.
Whatever you write, no matter the quality, take pride in being a writer at all. Lazy suckers just use AI.
There's nothing wrong with making a mess. How are you supposed to learn from constant perfection? Scratch out dumb sentences, leave afterthoughts in the margins, and side tangents in brackets. If the writing isn't going well, write ROUGH DRAFT in big letters at the top to remind yourself it's just a sketch of what you had in mind, not the finished product.
"...i’m worried it can never get better" I have great news for you! This fear will only be realized if you quit. Since you feel the pull to write there's clearly no point in quitting, your brain already knows writing is the answer. Ideas don't like to wait, and life will keep trying to interrupt you with bigger things, so there's really no time like the present. Go write!
—
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There is a very specific kind of sadness in realizing your parents loved you, and still did not always know how to meet your emotional needs.
Because it is confusing. It would almost feel easier if there was no love there at all. But sometimes there was love. In the way they tried to protect you. In the sacrifices they made. In the ways they worried about you, cared for you, wanted a good life for you.
And at the same time, there were still things missing.
Maybe comfort did not come in the way you needed it to. Maybe your feelings were not always understood, or noticed, or handled gently. Maybe you learned to keep certain parts of yourself quiet because it felt easier than trying to explain them.
That kind of hurt is difficult because it does not always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from people who loved you deeply, but did not know how to emotionally connect in the ways you needed. People carrying their own wounds, limitations, fears, or ways of surviving.
And you are allowed to acknowledge both truths at once.
You are allowed to recognize their love and still grieve what you needed but did not receive. Those things do not cancel each other out.
Forgiveness, for a lot of people, is not pretending nothing hurt you. It is slowly accepting that someone can love you and still fall short of understanding you completely.
That does not make your pain dramatic. It does not make them monsters either. Sometimes it just means everyone was trying with the emotional tools they had, and some of those tools were not enough.
And I think many people quietly carry guilt for still feeling hurt by parents they know tried their best. But being loved imperfectly can still leave wounds. It makes sense that it affected you.
At the same time, you do not have to stay trapped only in anger forever either. Sometimes healing looks like understanding that your parents were human before they were parents. People shaped by their own experiences, their own upbringing, their own emotional gaps.
That understanding does not erase your feelings. It just softens the sharp edges around them a little.
You deserved emotional safety. You deserved gentleness. You deserved to feel understood, comforted, and emotionally close to the people raising you.
And if they could not fully give that to you, it is okay to mourn it.
But I hope you also know this: the love you needed is still something you can experience in your life. Through other people. Through chosen family. Through the way you learn to treat yourself now.
The story does not end at what you did or did not receive growing up.
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
