"no faith in community"

cate | 25 | she/her 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 icon by @monstermonger quote by tara knight

[talestobetold]

pinned post:-)

identity overview

cate (she/her)

misc identify stuff

trans lesbian

🐱 (literally me)

mid 20s

white USAmerican

Euro-American and Vietnamese

pretty damn disabled

disability

full-time wheelchair user ♿️

autistic with medium support needs 🎧

episodic cognitive impairment 😖

schizophrenic, ocd, severe depression/anxiety/etc ☹️

blog tagging notes

general

#cats: 🐈

#cat hall of fame: 🐈 !!!

#laugh tag: anything that audibly made me laugh

#ranting into the void: complainin

#my_post: my original posts

sagas

#the nightmare of may 2026: the period of time i became homeless (but sheltered) and very disabled

#adventures in leaving your polycule: the period of time i left a living/social situation that did not serve me

#adventures in bottom surgery: 🍆✂️

i try to tag major triggers but lmk if you would like me to tag anything specific or yo use any specific tag format

interests past and present

special interests

magic the gathering 🧙‍♀️

lotr/hobbit/silmarillion 📚

the mechanisms (band) 🍺🚀🏴‍☠️

college football 🏈

competitive youth robotics 🤖

cars 🚗 🏎️

resumes 📄 (not joking. also unemployed. go figure.)

major media interests

folk-inspired music (the mechanisms, charming disaster, the longest johns)

other musical artists: bright eyes, orange culture, car seat headrest

movies: lotr, the empty man, baby driver, mean girls (2024)

frankenstein by mary shelley

poetry and music of leonard cohen

academic/professional interests

electronics engineering (hardware and software, especially embedded)

high-quality wiring jobs

automotive (booo auto industry)

laser and plasma physics (booo idealistic tech that's truly absurdly expensive and probably won't pay off this century)

english literature and poetry

k12 education

cats past and present

the cats

august 🐱 🍁

smaug 🐈‍⬛ 🐉

nami 🐈 🏴‍☠️

i am not taking up space to post pictures but that is an incredible loss. you should get to see them. you should get to know them. these are some incredible cats and your life is less rich for not knowing them. they're also very small

politics

irl theory/etc

aspires to militantly oppose capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy

materialist transfeminist

antipsychiatry. the mental health field was not built to help us, and is often incapable of doing so, or really doing anything but coercing and abusing us

it is all our responsibility to learn about the disabilities of others and how we can be better to each other. listen to people with mobility disabilities, sensory loss disabilities, cognitive disabilities, incontinence disabilities, chronic pain, etc, etc

youth liberation. children are people and largely have few rights. support their autonomy and ability to leave abusive situations

politics apply at home too. treat your housemates well, divide domestic labor fairly, pursue legal protections against forcible removal for all housemates

action items, irl, regular basis

support the most vulnerable people in your community through aid and activism (especially the unsheltered, undocumented, dispossessed of land, and/or experiencing severe racial injustice)

support the most vulnerable people globally through aid and activism (especially in Gaza and in the Global South broadly)

build movement capacity

tumblr

tumblr is fundamentally anti-Black and transmisogynist. both userbase and staff. both. we need a workable alternative. i'm not aware of one that meets my needs yet. yes i've probably considered that one

censorship is bad, but shipping discourse is largely unimportant

transmisogyny is a real social force and understanding how it affects people and who it targets is often relevant to being able to do feminism at all

stop dogpiling the Black trans women in your online spaces as soon as you get the feeling they view the world differently than you. also listen to them. but certainly stop dogpiling them.

no faith in community. our community is who is good to each other and stops when we are not good to each other. our community is who we help and who helps. if you want queer community, spend time at the homeless shelter before you spend time at the dyke bar

[cheshireinthemiddle]

Oh, this definitely belongs on Tumblr.

[thesplendidsnout]

From the Nib, by Mattie Lubchansky

[sanitymakesposts]

Mods? Take him to the stump of his favorite childhood tree.

[sanitymakesposts]

Mods, make him busy during a friends planned trip so he misses out on the new inside joke.

[sanitymakesposts]

Mods… change the smell of his parents house.

[evilscientist3]

look boss, our quarterly "subjection to the brutalities of the Absurd" budget is almost blown already. can we not just shoot this one twice in the back of the head and call it a day?

[mousidy]

Sick of the TME view of gender as a radical performance of nonconformity rather than the existence of nonconformity and gender being radical through external force declaring it such. Wanting to be taboo vs the natural state of existence being seen as taboo.

yes!!!! too many of them act like it's this game of fucking with the status quo and playing with taboo that trans women have some kind of advantage in, because to be hated more is to Win, and they are Losing because their expressions of gender are seen as more acceptable

[mousidy]

if the thing you want out of gender is to be perceived as transgressive, then it's in your interests to continue to construct shock and awe around transgressive expressions of gender

rocky horror and much of mainstream drag serve this function. they cultivate and reproduce a sense of shock around gender nonconformity, gamifying the transgression of the boundaries of gender performance. but in order for that game to be played at all, those boundaries need to remain so they can be continually transgressed. trans women who are harmed by these boundaries and who want to truly do away with them, then, represent a threat to the game

[mousidy]

I don't want to revel in the perpetual Challenging of the boundaries of gender performance. when I challenge the boundaries it's because I want them to go away. if the boundaries are challenged enough that they go away, and no more games can be constructed around Challenging them, then... good!!!!!!!!

[transsexual-feminism]

This is transfeminism!

[sycamorality]

💯 but its 000 for when something's fuckall

[bruzum]

[lastvalyrian]

This is literally what people are talking about when they say AI will be used to mainstream widely held bigotry. LLMs are trained on frequency and probability -> straight relationships are more well represented in the dataset -> straight pronouns and terms become the "correct" normal.

This is a form of backdoor bigotry from both normative facts (there are more straight than gay relationships) and well represented bigoted beliefs (men are superior to women).

Combine this with the mass of people inclined to believe (and being encouraged to believe) that if AI says and does something it must be correct

[awfulpunk]

weird way to say "Hi I AM A Men's Rights Activist" but okay

[transsexual-feminism]

I saw that lmao, just a completely right wing worldview through and through tbh

[talestobetold]

another example to add to the pile that we never really addressed feminism vs egalitarianism, we just moved on to queer politics, and now that we're talking feminism again, we're back to talking egalitarianism

where's that 2012-era post that's like "egalitarianism strives to create equality by assuming it already exists." sometimes particular groups need particular attention. there's not really a way to be an egalitarian without also being a feminist (and an anti-racist for that matter), unless of course your definition of egalitarianism is someone who tells women to shut up about their problems

[liquidstar]

yknow its interesting how something can impact one demographic in a completely different way than everyone else. in the exorcist when the demon starts speaking in greek, to most people its creepy. but if youre greek and you suddenly start hearing the demon speak perfect fucking greek its genuinely the biggest scare of the movie. you just do not expect to ever hear your language in american movies so it catches you so badly off guard, it feels like the movie is talking directly to you

[liquidstar]

the first time my dad saw it, it was with his american friends. and when she started speaking greek he turned to one of them and was like "re malaka did you hear that in english?"

[spinchs-field]

accidentally wrote “never mill yourself” like yeah i don’t think anyone would do that unless they’re wheat or perhaps a rice

[spinchs-field]

what the fuck happens in Magic the Gathering dawg

[bedupolker]

incredibly minor but still dumb side effect of late stage capitalism: ever notice how so many concert venues and stadiums just have the lamest names imaginable. Like ooooh Lady Gaga is playing at the..... Mortgage Stadium? Oh boy the finals are at the.... Chase Bank arena. Can't wait to catch a game at the Garunteed Rate field.

[talestobetold]

SoFi Stadium is an incredible symbol of USAmerican society. A massive arena built on student loan debt, serving as a field for the masses to watch borderline bloodsport. A monument to the American Way.

[talestobetold]

On a different note, college bowl games fall into four categories:

Local Industry Bowl (Peach, Orange, Cotton, etc)

Company Bowl (ReliaQuest, Duke's Mayo, Pop-Tarts)

Worship America Bowl (Independence, Salute to Veterans, Armed Forces, Military, Liberty, First Responder)

Place Bowl (Las Vegas, New Orleans, Texas)

All of them suck. Some less than others. But all of them suck.

[bedupolker]

incredibly minor but still dumb side effect of late stage capitalism: ever notice how so many concert venues and stadiums just have the lamest names imaginable. Like ooooh Lady Gaga is playing at the..... Mortgage Stadium? Oh boy the finals are at the.... Chase Bank arena. Can't wait to catch a game at the Garunteed Rate field.

[talestobetold]

SoFi Stadium is an incredible symbol of USAmerican society. A massive arena built on student loan debt, serving as a field for the masses to watch borderline bloodsport. A monument to the American Way.

[janmusija]

I'm getting a lot of "people who only like the "americans explaining a concept to each other: ok so imagine a burger..." meme explaining the "guy who has only seen The Boss Baby before watching his second movie: I'm getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this one" meme to each other: okay so imagine the "americans explaining a concept to each other: okay so imagine a burger..." meme..." vibes from this one

[janmusija]

thank you dear mutual

[vacuously-true]

Corollary:

Tumblrina mathematicians upon seeing any sufficiently abstract poast: I'm getting a lot of category theory vibes from this

[analogue-dragon]

If a group "doesn't contribute anything to history/art/science/ect." Then that is an obvious sign that they are being erased, not that they're useles. A subsect of a larger oppressed group dealing with invisibility is not a good thing. Invisibility isn't helpful, it's erasure.

And his name was doctor Alan Hart.

[fallenfromthedeadstars]

[straightotlc]

it really drives me up the wall how people want to view male privilege as a binary yes/no question for trans men. there are options beyond "every single trans man has inherent male privilege from the moment he realizes he's trans, or even from the moment he's born, and therefore never experiences misogyny" and "trans men never ever access male privilege because of their poor victim afab status." and it's actually different for every single trans man because guess what! shit's complicated!

[straightotlc]

like. all of the following trans men are going to have a different relationship to male privilege:

kai, who is 15 and just bought a binder and his parents think it's a silly phase and he's in a red state where politicians writing laws about whether he can chop off his beautiful womanly breasts

joe, who is in his 40s and entirely stealth and has a wife and two daughters

oliver, who is 22 and on hrt and passes pretty well, but is still legally female and is read as female in some contexts

sarah, who is 30 and in a conservative environment where he's forced to be a housewife and mother and doesn't exactly know he's trans, just that he wishes he was born a man

and so many other trans men because every single one of us is a unique individual with a unique relationship to male privilege

and it's not that trans men can't have male privilege. joe certainly does, though he would likely lose some of that privilege if he were outed. oliver is probably privileged in a lot of everyday ways, like not being catcalled or getting taken more seriously at work, but is still very much subject to more structural forms of misogyny. and there are ways in which trans men are privileged over our trans sisters. our capacity for privilege is something to be aware of, not something to instinctively deny.

but also, for non trans men, listen to us when we talk about our experiences not being treated like men and not having male privilege. listen to us when we talk about our experiences with misogyny (crucially, without treating us like being subject to misogyny makes us Honorary Women)

there's balance! there's nuance! shit's complicated!

[spaghettioverdose-deactivated20]

It's really funny that redditors convinced themselves that the stupid Tiananmen Square copypasta is going to get chinese people forcefully disconnected from their internet service or something while the UK government will get your ass if you complete the sentence "Soldier F is ___" and has actively worked with google and with social media websites to censor posts or search results about Soldier F

[spaghettioverdose-deactivated20]

Like 90% of the shit people make up about China is actually true for the UK

[crionic-dubs]

Explainer: Why can 'Soldier F' not be named?

A man charged with the murders of two men and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday in 1973 will not stand trial. Who is 'Soldier F' and w

David Cleary, mass murderer, aka Soldier F, named in Ireland's parliament. - Village Magazine

Deputy Peadar Tóibín, leader of Aontú, referred to Soldier F by his real name, David James Cleary, in  Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, y

[kropotkindersurprise]

In case the links ever go down, Soldier F is David Cleary, a British paratrooper.

He murdered two Irish people in Derry, occupied Northern Ireland, who were demanding their civil rights on what was later called Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972. He wounded four more. In total 13 irish demonstrators demanding equal rights were murdered by British paratroopers that day.

[nonlynear]

the losing dogs and i are engaging in insider trading

[pangur-and-grim]

I'm so close to having a coherent thought about this, but I find it very interesting how violent behaviour is viewed in characters, versus other sorts of antisocial behaviour (-phobias, -isms, etc). maybe it's the perceived separation from reality? because if you're lucky, nobody in your life will ever slit anyone's throat, so you get to view it as an abstract and fantastical action. it's pure play! whereas if a character says something like "you look fat in those jeans", BAM! instant hatred, because now you can link it to painful moments in your own life. even though the people you've heard those words from (moms, aunties, grandmas) are probably people that you still love.

which is why you get all these books that embrace hyper violence but flinch away from any -phobias and -isms, because that would be uncomfortable.

what makes the dissonance especially jarring is that viewing violence as abstract is a privilege. in Canada and the States, we get to sit comfortably in our homes while our governments fund weapons and send troops to inflict violence overseas. and sure, we can watch a genocide live-streamed on social media, but it still feels distant.

don't confuse this as me saying violence shouldn't be written about! everything should be written about! it's more me wondering why violence feels comfortable to write about, when arguably milder social offences do not.

[pangur-and-grim]

[talestobetold]

spoilers for the Frankenstein play by National Theatre Live

cw sexual assault

-

in my mind this is why they used the visual language of sexual assault when the Creature kills Elizabeth. we are pretty desensitized to murder in fiction. murdering Elizabeth was meant to be an unforgivable act. by making it a sexual assault, it makes the Creature unforgivable again.

you can look at a murderous monster with a heart as someone deserving of pity and redemption. can you do the same for a rapist? does the Creature still deserve your pity and forgiveness?

it really brings the story back to what i believe was the original intention, only because we view "normal" violence differently now