Short version Recent changes to UK immigration will take effect the same month that I would have qualified for indefinite leave to remain. T
My wife's 5 year spousal visa is due to expire, but recent changes to UK immigration law mean that she won't meet the criteria to qualify for indefinite leave to remain. Since it's not safe or possible for us to stay in the UK or the US, we're looking to move to Germany.
Ria will need to leave at the beginning of January. She is close to having enough saved to get a freelancer visa, but we have costs like moving, flights, language proficiency tests and other travel expenses to cover as well. If you donate, you can download ebook copies of my wife's books as a thank you.
Any amount, no matter how small, is a big help and greatly appreciated, as are reblogs to boost the signal.
legend tells of a mysterious being called ānuanceā that allows multiple things to be true at the same time. some say you can still hear its voice whispering in the trees
Unironically I think the early to mid 20s age group in America has unbelievably bad consent boundaries on all levels and so much language to defend it but this makes me sound like elon musk if I say it however the commonality of someone who will be like āI had 47 panic attacks and itās your faultā if you tell them no is insane
I rejected someone and got called āthe scariest person Iāve ever metā with so much therapy speak interspersed like alright okay alright okay alright okay
āYou just say whatever youāre thinking and I donāt know how to handle itā was verbatim part of this conversation. Also everyone hates to see an autistic bitch
When I was in this age bracket, there was a huge emphasis on improving consent culture via graceful rejection, and it's gone by the wayside. Which sucks.
Twice in my youth (once in high school and once in college) I was in situations where I was asking someone out and I could tell they were calculating in their heads the risks of rejecting me, and both times I said, out loud, "you can say no, I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared for either answer." And then they said no. This wasn't some spark of special wisdom I had - I knew to do it because feminist conversations among my age group brought it up regularly. This isn't happening nearly enough anymore.
More recently, I was really glad when we got to "rejection sensitive dysphoria" in my IOP program and it was one of those symptoms where the therapists really emphasized how it affects others. Because it does.
Being someone who cannot handle rejection makes you much more likely to violate boundaries, and yes, that includes sexual ones. Yes, you, reader who has never hurt a fly. If you don't want to stumble backwards into sexually assaulting someone, fix your RSD meltdowns. If you keep them up it's only a matter of time. Because if you're nice enough to interact with, but are known to have RSD meltdowns, guess what happens when your friends and acquaintances need to reject you?
something something "the average country has 10000 prime ministers per election cycle" is a misconception. united kingdoms georg, which has had 10000 prime ministers since 2019, is an outlier and should have never been counted
since there is such an "english speakers who don't even try to pronounce a foreign mame correctly" epidemic, native english speakers often try to overcorrect and end up thinking they have a moral imperative to pronounce every foreign name correctly at all times. so i'm gonna hold your hand and look into your eyss as i say this: you can't. you can't pronounce every sound in a language you don't speak. and that's fine. it happens to the rest of us too. we won't be mad so long as you try your best.
āI did some research to pronounce this name correctlyā = š great! even if the pronunciation was still off (and learning to pronounce a foreign language correctly takes a lot of practice) people generally appreciate it when someone goes the extra mile for accuracy, and honestly, languages are cool
āIām probably not saying that correctlyā/āsorry for my pronunciationā = š understandable! foreign languages often have sounds that arenāt used in English and learning to correctly pronounce unfamiliar phonemes is genuinely difficult even with help
ālol Iām not even gonna TRY to pronounce that šā = š THIS is the problem, if treats languages other than English like they are inherently āweirdā or āoverly complicatedā just because you arenāt familiar with them
āOne thousand apologies for my butchering of this beautiful effervescent tongue, I will now flagellate myself as punishment for my crimesā = š chill
as someone with a rare Czech surname I can confirm that I am not upset if someone says my name wrong when I can tell they've given it their best guess (and yeah, things like "am I saying it right?" is nice too, and not being weird when I correct you)
I can tell when someone doesn't give a shit and looks at my name and goes "I'm not even gonna try lol" (I've had people literally say a random Eastern European surname and expect me to just know they meant me, like ???). And I (and many of my family members) have many many stories of the things people have said to us about our name (most recently, when I corrected a nurse, "it sounds better than it looks" um, thanks?)
auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"
In 2026, the chicest thing a gay actor can do is never explicitly come out as gay but also make it abundantly clear that he is. Coming out is too modern. Staying closeted is too old fashioned. But this method merges contemporary freedom with Old Hollywood glamour and allure, and it weeds out the dumbest people who truly donāt get it. I call it the Pascal Method.
You clearly don't go here or to queer history and signaling, or both, enough to have this conversation and I'm not going to explain it to you. You could have asked questions, you could have done even a modicum of research. You didn't and you made yourself look ignorant. Goodbye.
#I'm fucking crying#this is an instant classic#this is the next meme#i can't believe I'm here to see a baby copypasta nary two hours old#I can't#lol#i laughed way too hard#iconic
Transphobia is about to be signed into law in the UK. We can fight this.
I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.
Last year we broke the record for an LGBT+ mass lobby of Parliament. Will you help us break it again? Join us on 25th June 2026 to demand be
The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.
Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or donāt pass too well.
A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:
Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.
Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.
Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns
Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.
I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.
It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:
Worried about what to say?
Bring your personal worries about transphobia being signed into law, and trans friends being excluded from public spaces. You are a living person who deserves dignity. Remind your MP of that. You will also get guidance and brochures from Trans Solidarity Alliance that outlines our demands. This is mine from last year.
Money issues?
Trans Solidarity Alliance provides a travel bursary that you can sign up for via the link.
Got a refusal or no response from your MP?Ā
Come anyway! You can request a same-day appointment with your MP through a process called greencarding. They will come and see you if theyāre already in Parliament. Even if they donāt, theyāre made acutely aware of your cause because you showed up in person. This is my greencard from last year.
Here is the EHRC Code of Practice in full. It's a tough read, but some highlights are:
Organisations canāt provide trans-inclusive, single-sex services, or they risk being sued for discrimination.
e.g. domestic violence support for women including trans women, menās rugby group including trans men (12.68).
Trans people will have nowhere safe to pee.
If youāre a trans man, businesses can't allow you to pee in the men's, and you can also be ejected from womenās bathrooms if youāre perceived as a man. Vice versa for trans women. EHRC suggests a āthird spaceā bathroom, which is discriminatory and unworkable for most businesses. (13.130-133)
Sports organisations must exclude trans people from single-sex competitions (13.73).Ā
A womenās only sports competition must exclude trans women because of their biological advantage or face potential lawsuits (13.74), but a trans man who has undergone testosterone treatment can also be excluded based on fairness rules (13.81).
Trans women are stripped of the legal definition of ālesbianā, and therefore no longer have legal protections if theyāre discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. (2.50, 2.92).
Here is the Good Law Project's better explanation of the EHRC Code.
I have also made a PDF printout of QR codes for the government petition, email your MP tool, and mass lobby link to pass around your communities. DM me and I'll send it to you.
Iām blindsided by authors using ai in their works. how can readers and writers tell if the writing is ai generated?
Iām gonna assume writers know whether or not their own works are ai because they either write them themselves or have ai write for them.
but as for readers (or writers who read other writersā works), no, you canāt tell unless the writer themself says their works are ai generated. anything else is witch hunt, speculations and possibly wrongful accusations ā all of which harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more.
so if at any point you think an untagged work is ai and if that bothers you, quietly click away. but you can never know for sure based on vibes. because everything ai writes, a human writer does. thatās what ai was trained on and what it was trained to mimic.
Iāve already talked more about this here, here, here. and more on my other blog @writingdose here and here.
You can notice certain telltale signs in some of the writing, such as short sentence stacking and usage of "not x not y but z" structures. But you have to be familiar with AI writing styles to be able to notice that.
Iāve been writing ānot x, not y, but zā way before gen ai became a thing. Iāve read works that have ānot x, not y, but zā in them, and Iāve read those works way before gen ai became a thing. Iāve also been using em dash way before gen ai became a thing, and Iāve seen em dash used in so many written works way before gen ai became a thing. I know for a fact some human writers actually prefer short sentence stacking too.
every āai telltaleā is something humans write before, otherwise ai wouldnāt have been able to mimic it in the first place. because it needs human-made works to mimic on.
when I say ai witch hunt, speculations and accusations harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more, ānot x, not y, but zā and em dash are one of the main things Iām talking about.
also for some of us, the way we naturally talk as autistic people often makes people assume we are AI/using AI. Before that I used to just get "you talk like a robot" or just "weird". And keep in mind that all of those websites and programs that claim to be able to 'detect' AI use are shite.
The Beast - Patrick Wolf
Your boots Iām no longer licking
Tonight I reclaim my tongue
I am not your weapon
Iāve been so long worrying
What I was doing wrong
I forgot my rights
You banished me
To the border
Then you hate
What I became to survive
No table at the feast
But my place is certain
You can not spare me the peace
So I become the beast
The Good Place really went off when they had Eleanor talk about her mother changing. Like, they really hit the nail on the head.
like THIS??
This is EXACTLY how it feels to see someone you love, someone who should've treated you so much better than they did, grow and change for the better. Like, part of you knows that they're better now and you shouldn't be mad, but part of you is like, "Then why didn't they do this before? Where was this change when I needed it? Was the reason why they were so awful...me?".
