where have all the social media gone

she/her trans girl, new to tumblr pls be nice

[catboybiologist]

I'm going to sprinkle in some rare positivity about my life, and about my transition.

One of my major barriers to transition was worrying about its difficulty. Terrified of medication, terrified of transphobia, terrified of legality, terrified of social repercussions.

I often heard a sentiment repeated: transition is the most difficult thing I've ever done. It's still worth it.

That's.... true, to some extent. But in a pretransition depressed haze, it didn't help. I couldn't imagine something that difficult ever being worth it. I couldn't imagine the peace and happiness it would bring me.

Now, looking back, I feel like I disagree in a lot of ways. Yeah, sure, on paper, a lot of things are more difficult. I have to deal with more paperwork, I have to make contigency plans on top of contingency plans for legal trouble, I've dealt with transphobia both behind my back and to my face. I've lost friends. I've had instances of harassment.

But in practice? My life overall is easier.

It's easier to get up in the morning.

It's easier to make new friends, and even moreso than that, deepen my relationship with old friends. My friendship with women in my life in particular has grown.

It's easy to be in a relationship, to feel romance, to court and be courted.

It's easier to set barriers and stand up for myself.

It's easier to dress and feel at home in my body.

It's easier to exercise, to maintain hygiene, to take pride in my appearance.

It's easier to do things I enjoy.

I'm no longer content to just roll though life barely existing. I want to live. And its so much easier to do that now. I was exerting so much effort every day just to pull myself together and become a shambling shell of a person. That's mostly gone now.

With the government being like it is, I'm worried about the closeted trans people who are now scared. It's okay to be. It's scary. And yeah, new things will be difficult that weren't before.

But my baseline existence is easier, and I'm more equipped to fight the things that difficult than I ever was before.

I know I haven't been the most optimistic, but remember to share your queer joy as well. It makes the world brighter for all of us.

I love you. I love everyone under the rainbow. Stay here and add your thread to the tapestry, I want to see its colors.

[chongoblog]

Sen and I finished Steel Ball Run a few days ago.

Yeah, it turns out everyone was right. It's peak.

[randomslasher]

No matter what a post on tumblr tries to tell you, your moral and ethical stances will never be determined by what you reblog and what you scroll past. Don’t let manipulation tactics force you into doing anything you don’t want to do.

[randomslasher]

I find it very interesting to note the times in which this post has a sudden resurgence. It often follows very stressful, upsetting events, where a lot of “REBLOG THIS OR YOU SUCK” posts start appearing on this site. 

So I’ll say it again: it is okay if you come to tumblr to escape upsetting news. It is okay if you’re just here for fun and fandom. It is okay if you do not want to use your tumblr as a place to read about or spread the current events that are circulating. It is okay if you need a place to decompress and just relax. There are other ways to be involved in/support causes and you are allowed to set boundaries on social media platforms without it being indicative of your belief systems. 

Your beliefs, values, ethics, and moral stances are not determined by whether or not you reblog something. 

[mangonetics]

Miku in Fortnite does nothing for me. I respect that she's a professional and needs to get that bag, but you can tell her heart's not in the performance. If you want to see Miku with a gun, her natural home is Garry's Mod, not Fortnite.

[lils-dumb-acc]

As a Chinese American, it's so jarring to see positive things said towards China/Chinese culture now that RedNote has become trending.

I see all the TikTok's about people moving to RedNote, all the nice things said about Chinese culture and people and I just feel conflicted. Like great, it's becoming less stigmatized for people to enjoy Chinese culture but I had to go through hell to get to see it.

From 2020-2022, I saw my culture being mocked, memed, and ridiculed. I was being called slurs in the lunch hall in high school. I was glared at in stores by middle aged men. MY OWN FRIENDS refused to stick up for me against blatant Sinophobia and even contributed to it.

I still constantly have to BEG some of my friends, some who I've known for OVER A DECADE, to at least acknowledge that things are different from me than they are for them.

I did an entire paper on Sinophobia for one of my classes. I used only academic journals and sources from accredited schools, I pulled from my own experiences, I put my blood, sweat and tears into that paper. It got me an A in that class too. And that still wasn't enough for some people to ACKNOWLEDGE we had a different experience.

And surprisingly, I never experienced any of the previously listed bullshit in my circle on tumblr so thank you.

[direhuman]

me explaining to the other trainers that apricorns are unknown outside of Johto because of deliberate suppression by the Silph and Devon corporations to present artificial pokeballs as the only means of capturing pokemon and establish regional monopolies after they eliminate renewable sources

[theinsidiousdice]

(via @itsbenedict)

[itsbenedict]

eternalfarnham replied to your post

you’re in the pocket of Big Ball, I see

there’s no pocket for me to BE in, there’s no LOBBYING involved, there’s no SUPPRESSION campaign because you don’t need one! traditional methods suppress themselves when you make modern pokéballs available. you might as well start accusing AT&T of deliberately suppressing the noble traditional art form of the goddamn semaphore.

not to mention OP demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the market realities of the pokéball industry- Silph and Devon are not monopolies, if they weren’t in constant competition their magic monster domination spheres wouldn’t cost two bucks a pop. the ball spec is a public standard, and Bill Masaki’s storage system based on that standard is an open-source project. they’re only the two largest players because they’re able to leverage economies of scale. you still get smaller operations like the Laverre City Poké Ball Factory, with better regional supply chains and local brand recognition, making room for themselves in the market. 

sm FUCKING h at y’all granola-crunching conspiracy theorists. you probably also believe Super Potions cause autism.

[justisdevan]

Ok, but it is a shame that artisanal balls are basically off the market now. Like, you have to ride the monorail and hike through a half dozen routes just to find someone willing to sell you a Fast Ball. Believe me, when your boss at the power plant needs five Electrodes by Tuesday you are not going to want to make the trip to Alola; you’re going to head on down to the Mart and get some Ultra Balls, which will do the trick but aren’t well tailored to the job.

I’m with you that modern catching techniques are better, not to mention more humane, but there genuinely is a loss from more niche balls becoming harder to find. Maybe someday the long slowpoketail of consumer demand will be met, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that Shellder.

[cetaceanhandiwork]

look y’all are missing the point. mass production of silph balls crowding out traditional apricorn craftsmanship is, if anything, more a side effect of the real problem: that capture artifacts are too easy to get your hands on these days. $2 basic balls are a problem. before modern ball tech you had to go to an artisan, yes, but part of their job was to care about who had the power to recruit pokémon from the wild, as a backstop against another Knight of Veilstone coming along. there was a time when you’d never lay a hand on a ball yourself until it was clear you respected pokémon, whether tame or in the wild. but now, a “pokémon journey” is open to practically every teenager, even if they’ve got not interest in treating their team with trust and love.

the worldwide rise in the last century of organized crime and apocalyptic cults who use pokémon as their muscle is a direct result of capture artifacts becoming a mass produced market commodity rather than a mechanism for preserving the sacred trust between humans and the wilderness. it’s a miracle that the powder keg hasn’t already gone off by now.

[eternalfarnham]

Oh that is rank historical revisionism - what, do you think artisans’ definitions of “respect” were constructed in a vacuum? We already had rhetoric as far back as the warring states period in Ransei about how only the soldierly classes, overwhelmingly descendants of nobility and taught from birth, had the intangible qualities necessary to “bond” with Pokémon. And when we start seeing apricorn balls develop in Johto, which borders Kanto - Kanto, where we know there’s been extensive cultural cross-contamination with Auroran and Dragnoran expeditions - surprise, suddenly only a small population has the intangible qualities necessary to use them, too.

That notion was, and remains, a tool to limit general access to Pokémon in the interest of maintaining class disparities. I mean, have we already forgotten the Aether Foundation’s pseudo-conservationist nonsense? Their attempt to manipulate natural resources and establish a power base in Alola, while they were modernizing and taking their place on the world stage, was founded on this exact rhetoric of “rescuing” Pokémon from local disenfranchised populations, as if taking Pokémon away from places like Po Town would improve things instead of increasing competition between trainers and decreasing safety.

Do you want more disillusioned kids joining gangs? Because that’s how you get Teams!

[sindri42]

Artisanal balls and anyone who supports them are tools of the aristocracy to suppress the common folk. In the days when a ball could only be made by hand by an expert, only the wealthiest could afford pokemon, and as a result anyone not born into the “elites” was forced to be subservient to their “betters” for protection.

The release of the $2 pokeball meant that the balance of power shifted to the common citizens. If any child can wield the power of a god, the military and the government and the wealthiest businessmen have no power over them.

More than that, instead of power being determined by the wealth to acquire pokemon, power comes exclusively from the dedication, effort, and empathy required to train them to high levels and to maintain their loyalty. If a person simply buys their pokemon, then those pokemon will either stay at low levels forever, or refuse to obey the human because there is no respect between them; the most powerful people in the world are those who caught a critter at level 2-5 and then devoted their life to raising it into a world power.

And as a beautiful side benefit of this, standard of living has increased across the board. Since every household has at least one minor pokemon in the family and there are increasing numbers of professional, working pokemon joining cities and other civilized areas and working to improve them, every aspect of economy and industry has been enhanced by their supernatural capabilities. Electricity is generated cleanly and in abundance for everybody. Pollution is cleaned up almost completely and instantly. The production of farms, mines, and workshops is multiplied, even as safety standards improve. Yes, every few years another potential apocalypse comes about and needs to be prevented by a couple of brave teenagers, but outside of those incidents the world is damn close to utopia.

[6qubed]

…that was all fascinating to read and I would like to see more like it, please

for instance; what the hell is in lemonade that makes it a more powerful healing alternative to regular potions

[suinicide]

Opium

[lemondorp]

See, unlike in the real world, the Pokémon world has yet to ban cocaine in drinks.

[antique-scarecrow]

this website is INCREDIBLE

[yandere-angela]

anime girl who convinces you that she's your post transition self from the future even tho she's not. she's actually your ex from the future

[cagelabyrinth]

[does-it-like-women]

Bit niche, but Advance Wars franchise

Advance Wars (Video Game Franchise, 2001)

Does it like women?

Yes

No

See Results

Voting ended onJan 15, 2025

Explain your reasoning in the tags!

[boccher]

Is Turning gay a symptom of DID

[necromancelena]

i wish usb ports were several magnitudes larger and made a hefty "kerchunk" sound when you plugged stuff in

[unverified-mawa]

The year is 2094. The Council of Elder Queers is making their final decision on which video game character gets to represent each combination of race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, nationality, gender and ablebodied-ness. A hush falls over the crowd. Each combination can only have one representative, to ensure parity between demographics and equal representation. Today they find out who will represent all cis white vaguely het twenty-something american guys: the most overrepresented breed under consideration, shortlisted down to a single winner. I stand up and hold the mic, as all look to my wizened and frail form for my announcement:

"The Scout from Team Fortress 2"

Cheers and clapping erupt from the hall. The council nods.

[dailyhatsune]

stocking

[dailyhatsune]

i remember when issue 6 released like it was yesterday oh my god

[jibunbosh]

Raising a glass for all of the people who have been waiting since they first read tf2 comic #6 as young boys who can now enjoy the release of comic #7 as beautiful grown women

[innerchildabortionclinic]

rudolph the red nosed reindeer

[fuckyeahcomicsbaby]

Different Stories Resonate with Different People