S t e p h a n i e ✨V i o l e t

Writer, Artist, Witch. Autistic, dopamine chasing ADHDer in her late 30's. Supporter of: LGBTQ+, BLM, ILM, ALM.

[stephanieviolet]

Nonbinary Terms of Endearment

I have 3 kids, and my eldest has expressed a need to be gender fluid - some days he’s a boy, and other days she’s a girl. Here are some terms I’ve started to use that are genderless. (Add more if you think of them!)

- Chick/ie(s) - Chicklet(s) - Child(ren) - Honeybun(s) - Honeybee(s) - Duckie(s) - Duckling(s) - Sugarplum(s) - Sweetie(s) - Sweetheart(s) - Sweetpea(s) - Peach/ie(s) - Starlet(s) - Munchkin(s)* - Kitten(s) - Kid/let(s) - Owlet(s) - Little (Fruit of some kind) - Small Human(s) - Butternut(s or Squashes) - Coconut(s) - Pumpkin(s) - Ghost(ies) - Melon(balls) - Buttercup(s) - Zombie(s) - Darling(s) - Dove/let(s) - Little Fern(s) - Sprout(s) - Sproutling(s) - Little Blossom(s)

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.

[lightandfireandsunhavegone]

Peer Reviewed your tags, OP.

[allisondraste]

Acknowledging that “critical thinking” means “thinking about things in a thorough way from different perspectives” and not “finding every flaw in a thing and fixating on it until all the joy is gone” is so liberating.

It’s supposed to be about intellectual curiosity, not about finding ways to devalue things that aren’t perfect or that we personally dislike.

[autisticcodex]

We need to do what we can to protect the Internet Archive. Here is a petition that you can sign.

Sign the Petition

Defend the Internet Archive

This petition alone might not be enough, but everything we can throw at this counts.

[goatexx]

This is current- it was posted on 8/25/2025

[vintagewildlife]

My blog wouldn't exist without the internet archive.

[tarotbylibby]

Carl Jung described the Shadow Self as “the thing a person has no wish to be.” Like a photo negative of the conscious self, the shadow represents realities we wish to suppress. All that we reject about ourselves and our stories resides in the shadow; our weaknesses and traumas, yes, but also our intuition, creativity, and authenticity. To heal the self, confront our flaws, free our intuition, and reach true self acceptance, one must face the Shadow Self.

Shadow work is the psychological, spiritual, and physical process of uncovering, exploring, and integrating the Shadow Self. It is a lifelong journey towards full self acceptance and awareness. Shadow work is essential for spiritual development.

[stephanieviolet]

I got a new oracle deck:

And I've decided to work on my shadow self, to gain some much needed self-esteem, and better awareness of my values so I can live authentically.

1. What must be Illuminated?

The past will return to haunt us, but it can only hold power over us if we let it. Hekate helps process your unresolved issues, some can be ignored, others need to be processed and integrated. Cast off what doesn't serve you, focus on the lessons that are part of your growth cycle.

2. What Must be Overcome?

The infinite serpent of the empyrean realm, comes only in times of great need. They work most effectively through your 3rd eye, whispering inspirational & divine truths. Look for signs and omens, and above all else, listen.

3. How can I Intigrate this Aspect of my Shadow?

We may struggle to accept the inevitable changes life throws at us, but like Kore becoming Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, we must sprout and bloom, wither and descend, to rise again. No longer by meek and innocent, but capable of mature diplomacy & facing harsh realities.

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[stephanieviolet]

You ask "how do I go on after reading this," and I say: You rest. You rest and you contemplate, and you rest and recover.

As a neurodivergent AuDHDer with high anxiety, 3 kids (16,13,10), realising I'm a lesbian, deciding I will have to go back to work so I can afford a mortgage and pay my own bills and move out to my own house in the next 3-5 years, it's imperative that I also rest.

There will be days of work, weeks of work, but if I don't rest whenever I can, those days and weeks and months of work will burn me out. I won't be available emotionally to support 2 teens and one pre-teen and myself. I won't have the capacity for compassion to help myself, my family, my friends, my community.

I think you go on and you carve out rest in the small spaces available to you.

Many people have read the books and never picked up on the message that it's okay to be broken and it's okay to not be okay and it's imperative that you rest.

Consider the Universe, or God or Goddess, telling you how important it is, now and forever, to rest.

Rest is resistance.

[roalddahlia]

some keys to happiness:

having (and making / planning) things to look forward to

altruism / generosity / purpose (I lump these together into / working and spending effort on helping whoever/whatever you WANT to help)

recognizing that you will sometimes suffer and sometimes things are unfair

realizing how much luck and history control things

internalizing just how MUCH agency you have to control your present actions and your future circumstances

making things

looking for the good in others and working hard to understand your own flaws / harm you've caused

recognizing the bad things others have done, telling them that, and enforcing your own boundaries YOURSELF

having self compassion and seeing how you are kind, generous, resilient, smart, creative, etc

practicing - and I do mean practicing - gratitude

exercise that you like and a little exercise you don't like

socializing

not expecting perfection

rest - and knowing the difference between resting vs. rotting

going outside

understanding yourself about 85%

accepting that the last 15% is probably not worth the time and self obsession

as a neurodivergent person - understand your limitations and respect them. AND push them a little; we deserve full, rich lives, and we don't have that much time to experience the earth.

[animentality]

[postilionstruckbylightning]

People really need to take a wider view of this paranoia about age gaps and realise this is how we lose the ability to build communities. You need to be able to realise that people can have things in common with you even if they grew up in a different time/place/culture. You also need to realise you can build communities with people who don’t have obvious things in common with you, that people can have the same goals and needs as you even if in most ways they’re very unlike you. Now, more than ever, we need to be able to work together to have any chance to stand ip against the few who have so, so much more power, money and influence than any of us do individually. We need to form communities that reach across age (and class and race and sexuality and so on…).

[stephanieviolet]

At my previous job I spoke a lot with kids, ages ranged 5 to 13. Some of them I spoke more to that. Others, because we shared hobbies (bracelet making, knitting, crochet, drawing, etc) or interests (free Palestine, anime, movies, etc) we spoke a lot and they called me their friend and told me about their life and I helped them process, like an older adult should. I was a listening, willing ear to the problems of children, and I don't regret it a moment. Some of those kids now have a better understanding of the world, their own emotions and how to be a better friend and to set boundaries without betraying their own values.

And never would I take advantage of them or that situation, because I want to be the safe adult for them.

[gvtbvsterisback]

It's all fictional until it's not. A ton of these freaks will go on to actually harm people inspired by this fiction of yours. I don't know about you but I'm not in favor of kids being assaulted because people want to read creepy shit.

Same argument people used about violent video games and the satanic panic with dungeons and dragons before that. History really does repeat itself.

If someone reads an obviously fake story and goes out to enact that, that person was already willing to.

With all the worry people had over violent video games, studies were done that show no real evidence video games cause violence so why would any other fiction cause a person to commit real offenses

[aromanticduck]

Just realised I follow three different nonbinary people named Maia. The nickels keep rolling in.

[aromanticduck]

I need to collect one who uses he/him pronouns, one I don't know very well, one who's slutty, and one who's really funny.

The I can have a Maia (he), Maia (who), Maia (hoe) and Maia (haha).

[nube-1-deactivated20210117]

[northofcorpis]

That fuckin smile at the end

[bettsplendens]

To the worried person in the comments: 

No, a hummingbird’s heart will not stop if it stops moving. You’re possibly thinking of Spoink, which is a Pokemon that supposedly powers its heart by bouncing, and as such can’t stop moving. Hummingbirds don’t sit often because they’re busy looking for food, but they can and do sit. The females sit on eggs in nests, after all, and they do have to sleep. 

[sindri42]

Fun fact: the leg muscles of a hummingbird are so stripped down to save on weight that they cannot walk. They can step sideways along a branch or other perch, but they cannot go forward without taking flight.

However they absolutely do stop moving. In fact, hummingbirds hibernate! Overnight. Instead of sleeping. Because if they tried to sleep like a normal animal their hyperactive metabolism would mean that they starve to death before breakfast.

Unrelated fun fact: the primary Aztec god of war would take on the form of a hummingbird, and the souls of the bravest warriors were said to turn into hummingbirds in order to join him after death, presumably because every hummingbird is approximately four grams of pure concentrated asskicking which fears no man nor beast and will gladly throw down with somebody seventeen thousand times their size if offended.

[ubercharge]

this is a really cool post and i love seeing such a small bird but reading “No, a hummingbird’s heart will not stop if it stops moving. You’re possibly thinking of Spoink” killed me 

[poison-doll]

what was the first console you played a video game on?

gen 1 or 2 ( pong, Atari 2600, no you didn't )

gen 3 ( 8-bit, nes, master system )

gen 4 ( 16-bit, SNES, genesis, turbo grafix )

gen 5 ( 32-bit, 3do, ps1, n64 )

gen 6 ( Dreamcast, GameCube, ps2 )

gen 7 ( 360, ps3, Wii )

gen 8/9 ( Wii u, switch, xbone, series x, ps4/5 )

early PC ( pcengine, Amiga, dos )

mid PC ( win 95/xp, mac <x )

contemporary PC ( win 10>, osx> )

other I missed??

bald, not a gamer, the wrong kind of dweeb

Voting ended onAug 13, 2025

also pls tag the first game you remember playing

[tricitymonsters]

Mastercard and visa have reported to a couple news outlets that they are currently being swamped with calls and complaints. Keep up the pressure and try to (politely) insist that you leave a complaint via phone instead of letting the rep direct you to emails. It's way easier to be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of calls so each one counts for a bit more!

[tricitymonsters]

This blsky thread has scripts and hotlines so if you wanna reblog this version instead that would be appreciated!!

[infectiouspiss]

kids deserve so much more respect and it turns out that saying that is a great way to locate the horrible people in any community <3

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say something as simple as "no child deserves to be hit" and people will crawl out of the woodwork to explain why they should be allowed to beat a 6 year old for spilling some water

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say "i think it's weird that adults literally have control over when children are allowed to use the bathroom" and up pops a teacher to say that when they're not shouting at the kids they teach, they're trying to stop them from hiding in the bathrooms

you'll say "i think children shouldn't be forced to eat food they hate" and here comes someone who feeds their kids plain rice and boiled chicken (while eating a nicely seasoned stirfry) claiming that it's okay actually and kids shouldn't be allowed to taste things

you'll say "i think kids should have bodily autonomy" and in comes someone who pierced their babies ears before it was even 24 hours old, frothing at the mouth because their kid wanted a haircut and thats somehow an insult

[infectiouspiss]

children are an oppressed class and everyone should be looking back at their own childhoods and making sure they don't ever make a child feel the same way they felt.

[stephanieviolet]

You'll say "kids deserve to have feelings, even in public," and in comes someone saying how it's inappropriate that children yell and scream and cry in public, meanwhile they've yelled and screamed at a cashier for a price they didn't want to pay.

You'll say "it's okay for kids to know who they are at a young age and it's okay for you, the parent to support them even if you don't understand," and in comes someone saying how a kid they don't have interaction with will harm them in some arbitrary way, and how they, a straight person who knew they were straight and identified as their born gender at birth is the only person correct on this and that you are forcing your child to be something "against nature."

You'll say "third spaces for teens are actually only catering to boys, and leaving girls out of these third spaces detrimentally hurts them socially" and in comes someone who has never been to a library or park in their life and tells you how much third spaces cost and how the city shouldn't have to pay for these and how their taxes should be lower yet complains there's no parks anymore or that the parks don't have nice enough walking paths and are full of teenage boys taking up a court to play basketball while simultaneously making fun of teen girls and what they are interested in and how they talk to each other.

[sm-cosplay]

⋆✩ TotoroPh ⋆✩

[poke-planet]

Headcanons for Pokemon cities

Fountains are made so Pokemon can drink out of them.

Urban wild Pokemon are encouraged to live in homes built into the sides of buildings, to prevent them from causing damage making their own.

Some large buildings are made to accommodate big Pokemon.

Cities often adopt mascots of their common visitors

You can often see Pokemon running errands for their trainers, especially if they’re elderly. Notifications and special backpacks are made so Pokemon can pick up grocery orders, mail letters and more. Sometimes they are given special hidden roads so they don’t get frightened/distracted/hurt by foot and car traffic.

[victusinveritas]

[liminalweirdo]

i'm not sure why this was posted without the link to the actual GFM but here it is