the correct number of eyes

answers to many names, including Kas, Moth, and Square. she/her. alive,alive, alive! Icon by AngelHunnyBunn.

[b33tlejules]

Good news. we can finally Be Bees. this isn't your world, but we can Be Bees. this is Good news. you can Be a Bee. you'll live like a Bee. A Pet. A pet? A Pet. Mark, this is Good news. You'll live. for 30 years. THIS IS INSANE

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i started watching invincible

[strictlyquadrilateral]

the more i talk to extended family the more i learn that it was EXTREMELY obvious to all the adults around me as a child that something had gone horribly wrong and i needed professional help, but i guess there's some sort of prime directive thing where you can suggest to the kid's parents that the kid might need help but you can never ever ever let on to the kid that you can tell something is wrong. you just have to hold on to that until the kid becomes an adult who's able to say "so i think i experienced a lot of trauma when i was very little" and then you can say "yes, i know. i didn't know what happened but it was completely unmissable that something had." okay. thank you. that's very validating. but why did you leave me to suffer and keep feeling like there was no other explanation than that i was broken and going insane. would it really have been so bad to sit me down and go "i see you. i can't help much, but i can tell something happened and you're in a lot of pain. you deserve help and support. you're not going insane." or something. i don't know. my internal experience was mostly that i had suddenly become a bad child who couldn't seem to get anything right and was always being yelled at. maybe it would have helped if someone had said something.

[totallybemused]

Same. I always think about Nick Hornby’s _About a Boy_ where this adult (but vapid) man has accidentally befriended a kinda sad kid and his depressed mother, and he accidentally asks the kid whether he still thinks about the day his mom attempted suicide. The kid goes, ‘of course, all the time,’ and he responds without thinking, “Fucking hell.’

the rest of the chapter he’s freaking out about how inappropriate that was, but the kid is pondering why it was so comforting to know a grownup also thought his bullshit trauma was very upsetting and worth swearing about.

I could have used a ‘fucking hell,’ or two when I was where you were. Just acknowledge me, dammit. Just don’t pretend I’m a perfectly normal four year old who no-one feels comfortable around, who’s unhappy all the time and who it isn’t possible to love or comfort.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

anyway. once more. if you are hungry all the time no matter how much you eat, that is indicative of a medical problem and you need to tell a doctor and do whatever you need to get tested for celiac. probably also other things, there are other possible causes, celiac is just the one i'm intimately familiar with. but it's not a personal failing. you deserve to know what's happening in your body. you deserve to feel full.

[narcicious]

There is a clinical term for this as well: hyperphagia (also called polyphagia) is the condition of "extreme, insatiable hunger" and is most commonly associated with undiagnosed or untreated diabetes. It is also sometimes associated with hyperthyroidism and other hormonal conditions like premenstrual syndrome (PMS), some mental health conditions (including stress and "atypical depression"), and several others rare conditions like Kleine-Levin syndrome.[1][2][3]

So yeah, if you are experiencing something like this, is is a common symptom of a fair number of serious conditions, many of which are treatable and more easily treatable the sooner they're detected.

There are also plenty of other conditions, medications, and environmental factors that can affect your appetite (stimulating or suppressing), even if it doesn't feel "extreme or insatiable". I have a condition exacerbated by some of my medications that means I'm nauseous fairly often, and while addressing/alleviating the root problem is ongoing, I have a prescribed medication that helps relieve nausea that is relatively safe for routine use (with some side effects).[4]

All of which is to say, in OP's words "It's not a personal failing. You deserve to know what's happening in your body. You deserve to feel full."

[1] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/24637-polyphagia-hyperphagia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphagia

[3] https://hpo.jax.org/browse/term/HP:0002591

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondansetron

[strictlyquadrilateral]

fibro sucks when you're clumsy because sometimes i walk into a door or something and it hurts so bad i have to sit down

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i saw a post the other day that said something like "if you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth, you are cis and shouldn't be allowed to call yourself trans" which i'm sure sounds reasonable if you don't know any, say, bigender people

[ashmacg]

The fact of the matter is—

Iff (if and only if) you identify *only and normatively* as the gender you were assigned at birth, you are cis

and you are always allowed to call yourself trans if this ever changes in any way, and know that there are people who are ready to listen and affirm you when you want to talk about it.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

and how do intersex people fit into this schema?

[ashmacg]

If they identify only and normatively as their AGAB, they are cis. They self-ID as such therefore they are such.

It may be difficult for that person, however, to square a cis identity with a non-perisex identity. I.e. their self-ID situation changes.

Hell, cis perisex people can self-ID (assuming good-faith) as trans. I don't and can't know their experience of life as they do, so I cannot judge their witnessing of self to be untrue. Such a person may change their self-ID at some point, who knows.

I view labels as only ever being descriptions of self-concept of a person, not that the person ontologically is what the label is commonly understood to mean. Hence my general disinterest in declaring concepts like "male lesbian" to be bad faith by definition. I'm not with the wOrDs MeAn tHiNgS purist crowd.

So I view people who "are intersex" as people who typically experience an intersex condition. "Intersex" describes them. What they actually are, well...at this point of semantics I typically invoke the Heart Sutra: the Self is illusory, nothing exists in and of itself—every discrete "thing" comprises other "things". People aren't concrete things, they are matter-energy systems containing exchanges of information that include the perception of their own existence...et cetera, et cetera.

At no point do I place any different value on the idea of being {label} vs the idea of being described by {label}. I assume validity.

So to answer your question most directly (and as it happens, least effectively),

"Not at all. Intersex people don't fit into this schema."

The wording makes the wrong assumptions. The schema is an imprecise but conceptually compact thought object that can only attempt to fit around them. I don't expect intersex people to fit into anything, and I wouldn't want them to. I've tried that fitting stuff and it's crap.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

you know what, if i'm understanding your response right i think i can get behind that. i'm just not sure you should be throwing around schemas as though they're universal if that's not what you actually believe

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i saw a post the other day that said something like "if you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth, you are cis and shouldn't be allowed to call yourself trans" which i'm sure sounds reasonable if you don't know any, say, bigender people

[ashmacg]

The fact of the matter is—

Iff (if and only if) you identify *only and normatively* as the gender you were assigned at birth, you are cis

and you are always allowed to call yourself trans if this ever changes in any way, and know that there are people who are ready to listen and affirm you when you want to talk about it.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

and how do intersex people fit into this schema?

[strictlyquadrilateral]

the problem with warframe is that once you've gotten the hang of it you will never stop trying to bullet jump in other games

[the-real-seebs]

the problem with warframe is that i hurt my pinky holding control because once i have gotten the hang of bullet jump, i will never stop trying to bullet jump ABSOLUTELY ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE. i bullet-jump between the crafting stations on my little ship.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

that's only a problem if you're using a keyboard. i use a controller because it's easier on my wrists and also because i'm better than you

[strictlyquadrilateral]

the problem with warframe is that once you've gotten the hang of it you will never stop trying to bullet jump in other games

[strictlyquadrilateral]

okay, like, listen. imagine if animals formed a support group for people who aren't human. and all the resources were like "for creatures with four legs" and the birds went "hey, we don't have four legs? can we be included please?" and the other animals went "oh my GOD stop making things about you. humans have two legs so you can't possibly be oppressed for having two legs." and also no one is even talking about insects or arachnids.

[fastestanhinga]

Instead of leeching off all the hard work of the four legged animals, why don't the birds make their own support group? Especially since animals like the mice really don't want to be in the same group as the hawks and eagles and owls.

And if the raptors insist on invading the space that was previously the mice's safe space, it endangers the mice and makes them not come at all to what was their support group.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

hi! i have a couple quick questions. what do you think the birds represent in my post? and which group of creatures do you think i intended to be the central focus of the post?

[cymae-mesa]

A fascinating thing about this response (which is just as absurd in the metaphor as it is in reality) is the idea that a support group for people with a demographic feature in common would automatically be a safe space free of predators.

Because sure mice wouldn't feel safe around owls, but why on earth would they feel safe around stoats and foxes?

This idea that danger always comes from outside your demographic group and never from inside it is bonkers. Even if your demographic group is defined by being oppressed.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

large sinks where the faucet is scrunched over in one corner such that it's difficult-to-impossible to wash your hands without getting water all over the counter. there's so much sink and yet the faucet is almost not over the sink. why. who do you think you are.

[the-real-seebs]

i once sold rights to use this picture to someone for a dollar

[strictlyquadrilateral]

large sinks where the faucet is scrunched over in one corner such that it's difficult-to-impossible to wash your hands without getting water all over the counter. there's so much sink and yet the faucet is almost not over the sink. why. who do you think you are.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

it's kind of funny how many people have responded to my "just because someone identified as their nominal agab doesn't mean they're not trans" post with "don't forget intersex people!" i appreciate the enthusiasm but i promise it's okay. i promise you i am not forgetting about intersex people. i am intersex people.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

okay, like, listen. imagine if animals formed a support group for people who aren't human. and all the resources were like "for creatures with four legs" and the birds went "hey, we don't have four legs? can we be included please?" and the other animals went "oh my GOD stop making things about you. humans have two legs so you can't possibly be oppressed for having two legs." and also no one is even talking about insects or arachnids.

[fastestanhinga]

Instead of leeching off all the hard work of the four legged animals, why don't the birds make their own support group? Especially since animals like the mice really don't want to be in the same group as the hawks and eagles and owls.

And if the raptors insist on invading the space that was previously the mice's safe space, it endangers the mice and makes them not come at all to what was their support group.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

hi! i have a couple quick questions. what do you think the birds represent in my post? and which group of creatures do you think i intended to be the central focus of the post?

[the-real-seebs]

i sort of want to know what group they're thinking about, and what they mean by "leeching off all the hard work", and so on. because like. my experience of these things, and activism, has generally been that anyone who talks about people "leeching" in activism spaces is actually just very bad at activism.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i assume they thought i was going to bat for whichever queer subgroup they think is preying on The Real Queers TM and doesn't really belong, which to be fair i probably was! i think everyone who feels like they belong under the queer umbrella belongs under the queer umbrella. but it's also telling that they ignored the insects and arachnids, on my post about ignoring insects and arachnids.

#did this person forget about like. ducks and robins and wrens etc#also foxes and cats etc#op said this post is about being intersex and also i fuck w it heavily as an aroace person#who's been on this site over ten years 🙃#handshake about the horrors my friend. handshake.#oh yeah another about this reply. it'd be one thing if the support group said it was specifically for four-legged animals#but if it's not then you can't cry about non-four-legged critters wanting to join#that's not them leeching off four-legged spaces that's then being excluded from a place ostensibly FOR them (via @redwing-blackbird-official)

astute readers will notice that, yes, in the post, i said it was a non-human support group and not a quadruped support group. like i said in another reply, i was drafting a response about predator quadruped species and prey bird species before going with what i actually said. it's really something that they went immediately for a predator/victim dichotomy in response to my post where i didn't clarify in the body of the text what it was about, and clarified in a response only that i wrote the post from the perspective of being an intersex person. i never said what specifically the birds represent in the first place! and i never will, because i wasn't thinking of any one specific group. i was thinking about broad, repeated dynamics i've been seeing between many groups of queer people in many directions.

#idek what to tag this exorsexism?#Kas how do you find these people#that post about strawmen being real on Tumblr I swear (via @ericvilas)

they find me!

[the-real-seebs]

ugh, i really hate all the "preying on the real queers" type discourse.

fwiw, as a person whose position in the umbrella has shifted quite a few times over the last forty years: i actually really just do not fucking care, i want everyone to feel welcome all the time, because the thing i have been trying to get away from longer than most of you have been alive is the idea that it is anyone else's business what "gender" i am or who i might or might not want to fuck.

that's it. if i get that, if i am free from people telling me i'm the wrong sex or the wrong gender or fucking the wrong person, i'm pretty much happy and getting what i want in life. and the thing is, for me to have that, i also have to be free from people telling me i'm the right sex or the right gender or fucking the right person, because that still means they think they have a fucking vote, which they actually do not.

fwiw i have a guess about which specific groups they were thinking about, because they're following a particular structure that i've seen before, but i'm not saying it because i want to see what if anything they say.

[basic-bamboo]

I don't know if this was intentional, but it reminds me of the book Animal Farm where the community rule after overthrowing the human ownership of the farm was "four legs good, two legs bad" and when the birds, who represented GTR communities, spoke up and said "hey we actually have two legs, not four legs like you do" they were given minor verbal concessions about how 'well you're animals like us so when we say two legs are bad we're not talking about you' but the anti-roma sentiment among the other animals still persisted because they were not actually considered when the community was planned which made it very unsafe for them and their persecution within the community continued the same as it had when the humans were still in control of the farm and they were considered anti-revolutionary because of their wariness to trust the four legged animals who clearly didn't care about or trust them and in the end they needed to flee the farm entirely for their own safety which was seen as a betrayal and that they were secretly bourgeois sympathizer the entire time.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

it's been truly a zillion years since i read animal farm so i wasn't thinking of any of this consciously but given that i made this post completely off the cuff without so much as proofreading it, i wouldn't be surprised if that was in the back of my head somewhere when i wrote it. i don't think they had insects or arachnids in animal farm though. due to them all being farm animals. but like i said it's been a long time so i may be wrong.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i hate when gluten free flours are shelved with wheat flour. i get nervous when i have to walk down a baking aisle. we need to start mandatory training about cross contamination for everyone who has any part in the food supply chain. frankly i think we should be treating gluten that could become airborne as a biohazard when it's in a shared space (such as a grocery store).

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i think gluten-containing flours should be quarantined from the rest of the store and in extremely sealed packages instead of barely sealed paper and i'm not kidding.

[msh2o2]

As someone who's worked in a grocery store, i genuinely don't think grocery stores are in any way safe if you have celiacs. Those bags are not even a little bit airtight. Just picking one up is enough to release a little puff of wheat flour into the air, and during stocking it fills the whole aisle with a haze of flour. I used to wear a mask just because it was hard to breathe.

[strictlyquadrilateral]

can flour manufacturers PLEASE use packaging that is not that. oh my god

[strictlyquadrilateral]

#yeah they arrive covered in flour because the mill is covered in flour#the pallets the forklifts the wrapping its all covered#the bags the flour is actually in are paper and not sealed entirely plus they rip and leak#moving 1 bag of flour once in a black shirt produces enough flour to see it on the shirt#shit is ancient technology#gluten-free should have its own entirely separate supply chain and grocery stores seriously (via @kaleidoscopicskunk)

i can't handle this. if we ever get food regulations as a category back i'm going to figure out how to make flour packaging regulation happen

[strictlyquadrilateral]

to whoever just sent an anon ask: i would like to answer it but i'm in the middle of a lot and don't know when i'm going to have the time to sit down and really write the response that ask deserves. i see it and i am committing to answering it. i just cannot answer it from my phone. you understand.

[cosmovain]

is it weird if i say i genuinely wish there was more positivity aimed at people w large chests

[cosmovain]

"having a large chest is the beauty standard" no having a large chest is the Sexual standard theres a difference. i can only even be Hot and everything i ever wear will be deemed too sexual for every single situation. tank top shows too much cleavege or side boob a button up is always too busty and a crop top will always show too much skin. having a large chest leads to so much back pain and sexualization and complaining about it makes people go "ahh grass is alwahs greener/you are the beauty standard, why complain?" like genuinely i urge yall to watch anything with a larger chested woman and notice, REALLY notice, that her chest is her entire personality. notice that people critiqing misogynist charavter designs alwayd tend to rally in the statement that large chest=misogny, casting aside the Many Many Many women and people who look like Me and just . have a large chest? and exist? and deserve respect and not to be seen as nothing more than a sex symbol by both sides? idk ikdayy