Everybody needs to Love and Be Loved

he/they -- 20s -- aroace, transmasc, queer, multiply disabled proud lover of transmasculinity and hater of r@dfems (trans inclusive r@dfems too. if you hate men, fuck off) main (fandom stuff and memes) is @twosunson -- backup is @dissociative-antifa

[tiny-steps-forward]

also twosunson on artfight and pillowfort! mutuals can dm for discord

My Blogs

@twosunson this is my main, i follow from there. mainly fandom stuff

@tiny-steps-forward - oh look, youre already here. backup for this is @dissociative-antifa, which was an old blog that got deleted by autobanners and now exists again

here, I tend to post

leftist/ pro community shit (no doomerism here I promise) including resources and just, good takes i agree with

trans unity and pro transmasc stuff. I love all my trans siblings, but between the hate to transmascs and transmasc stuff being more relevant for me, thats gonna be most of my trans posting

general queer anarchy shit. my version of queerness is about letting people do whatever harmless shit they want with their own lives, even when i dont understand it

disability stuff, because we all need to be talking about disability more

things that make me feel better about humanity and the world, because anyone following a blog like this definitely needs some cute shit or cool art on their dash on occasion

all good faith questions are welcome, even if you don't think you have the right words for them. if youre worried about how a question might come off, just add a /gen and i promise ill answer assuming good faith.

this includes transmasculinity and transandrophobia theory, system stuff (im not endo but i will answer qs abt why i support endos/ basic endo info), disability theory, etc.

[lunah-goodbye]

I know the American healthcare system is already a joke but this is to funny

[chemegeek14]

My aunt-in-law does this. She asked for an itemized bill once and saw that they charged her $25 for a single bandaid for her son’s 3 stitches. So she marched over to RiteAid, bought a box of bandaids, marched into the billing office, slapped one band aid on their desk, and demanded they take the $25 off her bill since she reimbursed them one bandaid. Needless to say, the rest of the ridiculous charges were dealt with in a similar manner.....she’s scary.....

[crittizen]

Don’t be afraid to be a Karen about your healthcare

[snark-n-snack]

Health Karen

[cephalopodvictorious]

There is a world of difference between self advocacy and "being a Karen" Standing up for yourself against the healthcare system, seeking a second opinion from a doctor who isn't treating you when you have a problem, even sending back an order that's wrong at a restaurant ISN'T BEING A KAREN, it's just pointing out a legitimate problem. A Karen is loud because they feel entitled to something that they aren't entitled to and shouldn't be entitled to. You deserve adequate care, and it's not outrageous to say so.

[northstareclipse]

Actually, my first experiences with all this weren't even particularly online.

The very first was in my freshman year of high school. The guy I was dating at the time kept trying to convince me to drop out and move to this commune with him and I kept telling him I had serious doubts, that it sounded culty, that he was asking me to uproot myself and cancel all my life plans at an extremely young age, etc. and he just kept snapping at me, calling me melodramatic, saying that I was just too attached to video games and my dreams of participating in making them (scoring soundtracks, contributing to storywriting, designing characters) and that the commune's goals were more important than anything I wanted for myself and that if I couldn't understand that, I was just "clinging to childhood". We broke up over this because immediately after 9/11 happened, he became increasingly aggressive about it and I couldn't fucking deal anymore. Now, he never actually did move there (thankfully - from everything I've read, things did not end well for it). He also stopped being a massive douchebag and we eventually became friends again after high school. But the way he treated me over my reservations about it stuck with me. I still sometimes feel a pang of shame or ask myself if I'm being serious enough every time I engage in the aforementioned Things I Like. I would still love to participate in scoring a soundtrack or writing some dialogue for an indie game someday, but I never let myself pursue those goals with the same passion I felt in my teen years because, for one extremely formative year, all of that was treated as "a distraction."

My second experience with such things was the second apartment building I lived in during my college years. The man on the second floor had this network he called Zivilyn. This was not a fully fledged cult by any means. It was a house of cards. He would buy people websites and tell them he would help them monetize some talent or another of theirs and then not do anything of the sort. He claimed to be a businessman but he was actually living off inheritance money. He knew everyone in West Philadelphia. He would buttonhole people for hours and talk about both them and himself in these extremely romantic, spiritualized ways. He was funny and compelling and devastatingly attractive. He had no sense of boundaries and an uncanny ability to command a room. He once got one of my roommates a job by simply walking into a store and telling the manager to hire her. He made me feel like I was Part Of Something, introduced me to some of the sweetest people I've ever known, and then systematically harped on each and every one of us for not being as Spiritually Attuned as him until we either severed contact or broke down. He demanded constant social availability. Meals and social gatherings were on his terms despite him living in a different part of the building, and if anyone questioned this or stepped out of line, he would go on Facebook and "make an example" of us. He abused his girlfriends. He openly enabled my second abusive ex's behavior towards me. He called my roommate a slut and told her that her dancing hobby was a "distraction" and that she needed to stop. He said the same thing about my writing/blogging, which was hilarious because that was originally the thing he said he wanted to help me monetize. He positioned himself as a confidant and when I told him the situation with the man I was dating was toxic, he basically told me to "get comfortable with being uncomfortable." He eventually ran out of money and straight up disappeared off the face of the Earth.

So, yeah, I am not remotely sorry about being skeptical at best of any visions of community or the future that require submission to particular aesthetics or behaviors. People enjoying their lives does in fact matter. Actually wanting to live is not some childish "treat." I have had enough encounters with people who treat surrendering your actual life as proof of moral seriousness.

[sunny-sourzii]

I caved in. Eridian sona

[northstareclipse]

There's a recurring online tendency to aestheticize consensus itself. The imagined future village is full of emotionally compatible people who enjoy communal gardening, conflict resolution circles, acoustic folk music, mutual aid potlucks, and repairing bicycles together at sunset. Which is nice for the people who genuinely enjoy that lifestyle. But plenty of humans are solitary, prickly, obsessive, urban, nocturnal, sensory-seeking, technologically attached, contrarian, novelty-seeking, private, or just plain difficult. Those people do not evaporate after the revolution. They do not get Left Behind while you are Raptured into the Utopia. They become your neighbors.

[taigacryptid]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[epicallyepicnerdery]

[mtndewbajablast]

“i’m autistic” = 👍

“i’m a little autistic” = mark of the beast for annoying people

[mtndewbajablast]

“touch of the ‘tism” = punishable offense

[mtndewbajablast]

cartel style execution

[pangur-and-grim]

I felt bad accepting financial aid for my medication, but also, I DID NEED THE FINANCIAL AID. so maybe that’s alright.

and now I can finally get my immunosuppressants and pay zero dollars for them, so that’s good!

[pangur-and-grim]

this is very good advice, boosting this so more people can see

[pangur-and-grim]

I'm also mad at myself for not accepting assistance on another medication. to be fair, I was in a better financial spot when I started it, but also I think my too-literal brain interpreted the question as "would your card bounce if you tried to pay for this?" and not "would you benefit from aid?"

[cherryjams]

‘Hands weaving magnetic-core memory, IBM, Poughkeepsie, New York,’ 1956. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

[bladespark]

My mother used to make computer cores as a "work from home" side business. As a child I got spending money via un-winding the ones that failed testing so that the magnetic center could be re-used. I got between $0.05 and $0.25 per core depending. Mom got more for the finished ones, of course, though I don't know how much. Her sister was an expert, and did the more complicated kind, some of which ended up in satellites and/or were used by NASA!

They were all done by hand using a kind of treadle-operated frame with a little (crochet!) hook to pull the wires around the cores. The people making them were mostly housewives who did this as a side-job in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if it's still done that way anywhere in the USA today, but the history of computing and space exploration is littered with "women's work" like this.

[64mpg]

“my friend is ALWAYS sick and cancelling our plans” it sounds like your friends life suuucks and you should check on them

[trans-androphobe]

trans men are victims of misogyny. trans men are primary victims of misogyny. any analysis that ignores this is wilful misinterpretation of reality.

trans women are victims of misogyny. trans women are primary victims of misogyny. any analysis that ignores this is wilful misinterpretation of reality

[trans-androphobe]

[tiny-steps-forward]

image ID: tumblr tags reading #and: nonbinary people regardless of agab are victims of misogyny #intersex people regardless of gender are victims of misogyny also #no trans/intersex/GNC/etc person is inherently free from being subject to misogyny #the patriarchy hates anyone who doesn't fit into the narrow view of what the "Ideal Man" should be like #misogyny

end image ID

[thesituation]

my 100% failproof way to handle reactionaries asking why i don’t shave at all is going “because i don’t want to” it works because what they really want is an argument about the merits of feminism, and they’ll draw it out and try to convince you it’s a cult or whatever, but you can avoid it all by sticking to “i just don’t wanna. don’t feel like it” and if they argue with you about it you can use your ultimate ability, which is “i’m sorry i thought it was a free country?” which, believe me, they cannot come back from. they’ll either drop it or start harping on something you didn’t say, and it’s important you don’t take the bait at that point. when they can’t argue with what you say, they assume your beliefs and attack those. and you crucially must be visibly baffled at their change of direction because it will make them seem and possibly feel crazy (which they are). “i don’t want to shave” is a perfect response because truly it all comes down to autonomy and the ability to do what you want. they’ll try to say “feminism makes you think you have to do that” and it’s important to not take that bait. to reiterate that you don’t know what they mean and you just don’t like shaving and that it’s really weird to look into it that deep. this works i promise

[a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay]

would you still be alive without modern medicine? looking back at your life, would you survive without any to the moment where you are now?

yes

no

barely

yes but it would affect me for the rest of my life

results

Voting ended onJun 2

I'd have my knee fucked up forever 🫪 alive but yeahhhhh

[weepingpussywillowtree-deactiva]

sometimes I think about how far we still have to go with consent

my worst relatives try to sneak meat or meat products into my food despite the fact that I'm a vegetarian

my ex's brother gave his mother an edible without her knowledge and when she got freaked out and paranoid they laughed, and people I've told that go "yeah that's shitty but it's just weed"

when I go to the doctor and ask them to describe what they are going to do before touching me they get frustrated

when I ask a friends of a friend who is a small influencer to keep me out of frame in videos they film for social media in public they look at me like I've pissed in their cereal

idk man, we've got a long way to go.

[neurodivergentaf]

it's so wild when your parent changes when you become an adult. my dad is very cordial and non confrontational - he regularly helps me with adult stuff like changing the oil or providing insurance tips. he's always smiling when i call him on video and providing jokes when i complain about college

when i was a kid, i would have to tiptoe around his anger issues often, sometimes running quietly past his work table until he got his own place completely separate from our family, locked away for days. every so often he would start screaming in the car and trying to hit me or my brother for talking too loud while my mom attempted to calm him down as he swerved on the road. and now he, smiling, helps me with car insurance.

like oh, this is just who you are when you have power over someone, and this is who you are when you dont have power over someone. no wonder you can have a normal life, friends, work while scaring the shit out of your kids and wife. i see it now. i see why no one would have believed me. that, i think, is one of the core fears of trauma - seeing the outside of it from the perspective of other adults that brushed you aside, and understanding. of course, that understanding gives the opposite of solace; it just gives you more grief with nowhere for it to go

[balaclava-trismegistus]

Saw somebody I know share the mugshots of a woman who was purportedly arrested for beating her boyfriend with a belt for not wanting sex. She said "meee I'm not even joking lol." I think about how that's rape. How I've been subject to things like that. Been abused for not providing sex. This isn't the first time I've seen this treated as a joke. I see it a lot, actually. Joking about physically abusing men is an extremely common thing. You don't have to look very far to find it. Even here. There's a particularly high-profile poster that's gained a lot of traction over the past year or so. I followed her early, before I noticed other large and popular blogs cozying up to her. She would post about how she would hit her boyfriends, talking about it like it's just a quirk. She was being honest about it. Sometimes just posting things like "I beat my men." It wasn't super common, but common enough to notice. But she has that sort of chic mean-girl feminist thing going on, so everyone ignored what that really meant and just laughed along with it. I don't think it's productive to call her out. I don't think she's, like, necessarily a piece of shit for it, or deserves to be ejected from the space. By her admission, she has issues she's trying to work on. But it's there, and it's happened, and it's tolerated, even rewarded by the culture on here. And it's not uncommon. It's pretty easy to find a lot of places.

My friend is in a physically abusive marriage. Photos of red marks on their body are saved in my phone. I've thought they were going to be murdered before. The thought has crossed their mind. Their wife constantly accuses them of cheating, among other things, because that's her idea of what a man does. She has stabbed their mattress when she was angry to "see what it feels like." They showed me a tiktok she sent them. It's a woman out in the woods captioned something like "burying him here so nobody will ever find him ♥️♥️". This kind of memetic mean-girl feminist stuff has, as a part of the overall erosion of effective and principled feminist discourse, devolved into truly abusive personalities joking about harming men at its edges. This is rewarded and celebrated. My abusive ex did a lot of the same stuff. Would dig around these quasi-rad or outright radical feminist spaces to essentially find rhetorical ammunition to abuse me over. Then would fall back onto the plucky mean-girl feminist memes when I tried talking to her about the emotional and sexual abuse. I support mens rights to shut the fuck up. Same thing happens to my friend. Doesn't have anything to do with the actual person being hurt. It's just an expression of these gendered resentments. Spending time in communities literally listing off reasons for a woman to be angry at a man, and then taking that out on their partner. Happened to me. Happens to lots of people placed in the social role of "men." It makes a war-like philosophy out of gender. Turns it into an order of violence. Justifies violence.

I recently saw a post going around here about how men suffer abuse so rarely that there's no reason to adjust language about intimate partner abuse to include men. That the suggestion is simply men being big babies and trying to reframe every conversation to be about them. That my experience -- that my abuse on the basis of my perceived manhood, no less -- is literally a marginal experience, an outlier that shouldn't be incorporated in the conversation about other people going through the same things I did. That it just isn't deserving of discussion or concern. And it was being shared by mutuals, long time mutuals, people I respect and enjoy. People who are better than that. This isn't something that makes people irredeemable monsters. I don't want their heads on spikes. But this kind of cruelty is horrifyingly common.

In the end, this is the cost of harshly reifying gender. Resenting men as a class grows into a social infrastructure to justify and even gamify abuse. It becomes fun. It becomes jokes. It becomes blood for blood. There's a perceived justice to the suffering being doled out to the supposed abuser class. And, in doing so, patriarchal masculine standards are recreated and maintained. The abuse is perpetual. Men are belittled for having feelings about the way they're treated, for trying to talk about their emotions, and they are continually expected to simply bear the burden of abuse and not complain. The masculinized body and spirit is a vessel of abuse. This is its purpose.

I wish it could stop.