#I’m going to be try to be more active in my community socially not in a I make gay fanart way but actively participating in protests and

[weltraumii]

Happy pride to everyone I wish everyone in lgbtq+ a safe and prosperous life of being who you are!

Anyways byyyeeeee enjoy and spread your pride!

[covid-safer-hotties]

To My Unmasked Friend in the Fifth Year of COVID - By: Anna Holmes - Published Aug 17, 2024

I’m going to be honest with you, because I love you, and you deserve nothing but honesty. I’m going to try really hard not to be angry while I do it, but it’s probably going to slip out every now and again. But I need you to hear me out, all right?

By now, we’ve talked about my reality. My personal struggle with long COVID, the isolation I live in, why I am so angry all the time.

But let’s talk about you. You just went to a big convention overseas. You got on a plane, got a little gussied up, talked shop with some insiders, geeked out over awards and merch, ate, drank, were merry, left with your social cup and your heart full.

You’re a good person. We wouldn’t be friends otherwise! You’d never dream of tripping a person with a red and white cane, using the r-word, excluding a disabled person from an event because of something they can’t help.

You might even acknowledge that the COVID response from governments and organizations has been ableist and inadequate.

But you didn’t wear a mask.

For whatever reason — you wanted to show off your makeup, it makes you itchy, you believed the messaging that COVID is endemic (what does that actually mean?), you just don’t think about it anymore — you made a choice that actively excludes people like me from participating not only in an event like a convention, but society at large. And yes, it is a choice. Every time you step out into the world without a mask on your face, you have made a decision that your very good reason, whatever it is, supersedes the right of disabled and at-risk people to exist safely in your orbit.

Well, hold on, you say. It’s not any one individual’s fault, it’s the inadequate public health messaging. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

And I have. In the past, I have talked about how it is unconscionable that health authorities have thrown their hands up and rescinded guidance that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prolonged a pandemic that, to hear them tell it, has been bested. It hasn’t. Worst of all, the financial motivation that we all know is driving this premature victory lap isn’t even being fulfilled. Long COVID and other post-COVID complications are costing the global economy one trillion a year. Meanwhile, article after article handwrings about nobody wanting to work anymore, about the sagging college application scene, about declines in military enlistment, and the strain on our healthcare systems.

All of this is very much the fault of our leaders, who have decided the political ramifications of “normalcy” are more important than the health and lives of the 400 million people living with long COVID across the globe, the immunocompromised folks who are increasingly being shut out of every conceivable public space, and the disabled community which has been screaming into the wind about our marginalization since before the virus even hit US soil.

But I want to be very clear. You are helping them do this.

The reality is that we have been living in this deeply flawed landscape of “personal choice”, and you’ve made yours. You’ve opted not to look into how densely clustered cases are. You’ve stopped listening to your friends who have informed themselves. You’ve given yourself permission to put COVID on the back burner. You’ve earned it, right? Four and a half years of trauma?

COVID doesn’t care if you’re tired of being scared or careful or considerate. COVID is not something you can personally overcome by being smart or virtuous or brave. It is a virus which only seeks to infect and replicate, and it is getting very good at those things. While you’ve looked away, my community has been scrambling to avoid variants that skirt immunity and don’t show up on rapid tests until day five-seven. The constant battle has changed since you were last in it. It’s not sufficient anymore to get your shots and test before a big event. You could well be asymptomatic and infectious, or have symptoms and convinced yourself it can’t be COVID because that second line hasn’t popped up.

You have come to the conclusion sometime between 2022 and now that you just have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with and live with it. The problem with that is scale. It’s you and everybody else doing that, and a lot of people have decided they are comfortable with a high level of risk. Despite what you’ve been told, you’re not just making that decision for yourself. You are making it for every person you come in contact with.

Think back to the early tense days of 2020. We were told to select a “bubble.” Those people would be our social lifelines, and through those, we could control our exposure.

My bubble is quite small. It includes my husband, my sister, and two friends I see relatively frequently.

My husband goes to work via the bus, and to the grocery store. Every person he comes in contact with there has the potential to infect him, and then he has the potential to pass it along to me. He mitigates this by wearing a well-fitted respirator at all times.

My sister goes to work at a busy public place. She masks when public facing and takes it off in the back office. She goes to restaurants, bars, concerts, hangs out with friends and her own partner unmasked. About 75% of her interactions have the heightened potential to infect her, which she might then bring into my house when she visits me.

My friends do not mask anywhere except my house when asked. They attend concerts, shows, cons, bars.

Obviously, I am in control of whether I wear a mask around these people. And as we approach one million new cases a day, I will be around everyone but my husband. But science is clear: reciprocal masking is more effective at infection control than a single person masking — especially when that single person is trying to protect themselves, not others.

This is settled science. We’ve known this since 2020. It says clearly that the choice you make is not personal- it has implications for everyone you come in contact with.

And being clear — if I could, I’d make everyone wear a mask for their own health. I don’t want people suffering with what I have. But you’ve been told this lie that you can take your risks for yourself, so you feel comfortable going out without a mask. You’ve been told this lie that it’s possible to completely recover from a COVID infection, so you assume that even if you do catch it, that’s what’ll happen to you, despite evidence showing that every body is indelibly changed by an infection, and that risk only grows with each subsequent infection.

And the greatest lie of all — that only the sick or elderly have anything to fear from COVID — has given you unfounded confidence in your own “good” genes or immune system or fitness. You can get long COVID even if you’re in peak form — in fact, may even be more likely to be hit hard.

So you have decided, individually and collectively, that only the sick or elderly should have to take precautions, and you freewheel through life, only to get surprised and dismayed when you bump into COVID in the wild. It’s back, people declare every summer or winter, as though it ever left.

But I want you to really think about the implications of your choice. Besides yourself. Because let’s be honest here, that’s who you’ve been thinking about, right? Your risk. Your comfort. Never mind your bubble, never mind the bubble of everyone you come into contact with, never mind the people like me who are literally hiding from people like you.

You’re not masking at the doctor’s office. You’re not masking at the airport. You’re not masking at the giant superspreader you just attended, and you’re not masking in the bars and restaurants where we know the virus flourishes. And then you’re bringing that exposure back to your family and friends. Back to the grocery store, where you run across people like my husband, shopping for someone who is unsafe to leave the house, or your elderly neighbors, or an immunocompromised employee.

You’re a good person, or you like to think of yourself that way. That’s why when you’re asked to mask, you dismiss it out of hand — because that changed behavior implies that you’ve been doing something wrong.

And my friend, I’m telling this because I love you: you have been. You might have been doing that on faulty information, but be honest with yourself and with me — you’ve heard me begging people to take this seriously. You’ve seen the information I’ve been sharing. You have had the opportunity to seek out the correct information all along, and you have chosen not to.

It isn’t too late to change your view of the risk you’re imposing on the people around you. It’s not too late to push public health to become more effective. It’s not too late to act in solidarity and be the inclusive person you think you are. It’s not too late to take care of yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what I have been screaming myself hoarse about. I don’t want you to end up with what I have. I don’t want you to inadvertently impose that on someone else. And yes, I’ve been angry, because you’ve been advertising your absolute lack of concern with group shots of your naked faces on social media. It doesn’t seem to bother you that I am stuck at home like it’s 2020, except for doctors’ appointments that I literally have to risk my life to go to. You’ve told yourself that it’s not your problem, because only the sick and elderly have to take precautions.

You know better. You can do better. For your community, yourself, and me, do better.

Please. I love you.

Anna

PS. If you’re feeling upset and embarrassed right now, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself good masks (the surgicals and cloth ones don’t cut it anymore), donate to mask blocs so others can access good masks, write to your representatives and the President, comment on upcoming CDC guidance, schedule yourself a booster, and talk to your loved ones about doing better, too. The only way we get out of this is with community care. So care.

[charredpages]

[Alt text] ten screenshots of text posts by the user themme_fatale on Instagram. The text reads:

(1/10)

Do you remember the exact moment that anti-masking stopped being a far-right talking point

And became advice you were willing to follow?

(2/10)

I try to make the ways I communicate about COVID as compassionate and non-judgemental as possible because I understand that we have all been failed in this and my primary anger is always upwards.

BUT

I also need you to understand - if you are not taking precautions, you are aligning yourself with eugenicists.

The person who actively says “fuck disabled people they deserve to 💀” and never masks, and the person who never masks because “It’s annoying and besides-no one else is” are BOTH devaluing people’s lives.

(3/10)

And that might feel confronting for some of you, and I know the knee-jerk reaction is probably going to be to deflect by accusing me of “shaming people” or whatever.

I’m not shaming anyone though - it’s just uncomfortable to sit with because if you’re the kind of person who follows me chances are you don’t actually want to be engaging in eugenics.

And re-engaging with the idea that COVID is not only still around, but still actively dangerous is asking a lot of you when the alternative is the comfort of denial.

Especially when so many of the tools to keep ourselves and each other safe have been taken away from us. But the thing is none of that is actually a reason not to act.

(4/10)

There are people IN YOUR COMMUNITY relying on you to take precautions so that they don’t d1e.

(5/10)

With love, and compassion for the fact that this shit is hard - ignorance is running out as an excuse. It’s time to do better, and help your mates do better too.

People in your community shouldn’t have to constantly remind you not to put their lives in danger. Surely you can see that’s a pretty fucked up dynamic, right?

(6/10)

We shouldn’t have to push so hard on “it’s good for you to protect yourself too!” Like it still absolutely is, but saving the lives of people in your community should actually be enough to motivate you to act.

It’s genuinely fucked up to be ok with a whole proportion of the population being either being locked in their homes indefinitely or at risk of 💀 on the daily.

(7/10)

It should be considered more socially awkward to engage in eugenics by k1lling and isolating disabled people in your own community than it is to put on a mask

The fact that it’s not should embarrass all of us until we change it.

(8/10)

It should be considered more selfish to put people’s lives at risk than to ask to be kept safe

Your choices can change or reinforce that culture.

(9/10)

Government inaction puts a weapon in your hand

Pretending it’s not there puts us all in danger

(10/10)

Why do you require a mandate to care about other people?

[cherrysdeck]

Pick a card: Prelude to love.

First meeting your future spouse. When, where, and how.

Remember: Take only what resonates, this is a general reading. Tarot readings are done with entertainment purposes only. Hope you like it!

Pile 1 -> 3

Pile 1

When: 3 of cups, 3 of swords, 8 of wands, 2 of pentacles

3, 3 months?, 3 years?, March? August, Winter, winter blues. Early morning, after lunch. 

Where: ace of pentacles, 6 of pentacles, 5 of wands, 2 of swords

Sports game, job interview? (That feels like a really weird setting), Boxing game, sports, yoga class, painting class. Decided to try a new hobby so you signed up for an activity or class. Garden. Betting (more like betting on a sport, than in a casino)

How is it going to be?: 2 of cups, ace of pentacles, king of wands, king of swords in rev, 8 of swords, the hierophant, 5 of wands rev, the fool, knight of swords

What a tension. I feel like people will look at you two thinking oh they will end up together, and you honestly would rather anything else, literally. Somewhat enemies to lovers, or more like I found them really annoying the first time we met. Makes you roll your eyes. Kind of rude to be honest. I feel like you’re both very competitive and stubborn people, we’re from different teams. It will take more for you two to actually click. It feels like being in the same group not by choice, but slowly you get used to each other, and you start to get feelings. Your fs might be to careless when they speak, and you might just end up looking at them unimpressed, like please shut up. They might like bragging off, or be a know it all, correcting others. And that gets on your nerves. Your communication styles are clearly so different and that might lead to somewhat of an argument, ends up being more like banter. This will grow into teasing with time. They don’t leave a good first impression on you, but you’ll end up meeting again and again, running in the same circles. Your fs will definitely be the topic of bathroom gossip, like can you believe them? It’s all good pile 1, they’ll redeem themselves. It what happens when you’re complete opposites, clashes might occur at the beginning, but then you realise you balance each other really well.  

Pile 2

When: death, the star, 8 of wands

During a period of transformation, unexpected moment. You will be very busy and focused on something else. It might be after a breakup too. August, February, March. 2025. Late at night. Friday. 22.

Where: 4 of swords, the devil, ace of swords, 8 of swords, 8 of cups

Graduation, work dinner, a party, a retreat, networking event. I get a very busy place full of people, but you might feel isolated here. You might have just moved to a different city, still not used to it or not knowing many people there. There’s a certain level of insecurity, like what am I doing here? I want to go home. 

How is it going to be?: Oh my god, I forgot to write the cards and I started doing another pile, I’m so sorry. Those that I can remember are: 8 of cups, 2 of cups, temperance in rev, 4 of pentacles, 9 of cups, the fool.. again I’m sorry

I just felt such great relieve. I think it’s related with the feeling isolated in the middle of a crowd. And suddenly someone appears who eases up your tension. Your fs makes you relax immediately. There’s a big feeling of familiarity with this person. Either one of those I think I know you from another life or you might know them, but so far you’ve just seen them around or on social media, and this is the first time actually talking. They might help socialise in this setting, introducing you to others. Instead of talking just the two of you, there will be someone else in the conversation all the time. One of you just wants to have alone time for 5 minutes, but someone is always interrupting. I feel like your fs knows how to navigate these social situations very easily, and you’ll look at them like wow, they are a social butterfly. They also know how to include everyone in the conversation, the kind of person that always makes you feel included. I feel like there will be some tension and chemistry right off the bat, but because you’re barely spending any time alone, you both start to get a little impatient and frustrated that you can’t actually explore it. It’s leaving you two wanting more. You two will be paying so much attention to each other, but others are completely oblivious and will not leave you alone. One of you might ask if you want to go eat something and get out of there, and it’s like yes, finally. Exchanging phone numbers by the end of the night, kind of meeting that leaves you giddy, with butterflies. Might think about each other once you’re already in bed, start texting soon too. You just want to know more about each other. Another alternative is staying up all night in a party or bar afterwards, getting McDonalds or some fast food in the early morning. SO much laughter. You just get a feeling afterwards that this is going to be a long term thing. 

Pile 3

When: the empress, 6 of wands, 4 of sword rev

Summer nights from Grease. Was it love at first sight? Summer, May too, September, the first, You really wanted to work on yourself and not look for romance, but they just showed up, what can you do? 

Where: the hermit, king of wands, 6 of sword, 9 of pentacles, knight of cups

The beach, a beach club, festival, cherry blossom festival?, Self-care activity. Lantern festival. River, during hiking. Outdoors. Swimming. Cruise ship. 

How is it going to be?: the hermit, the magician, strength, the chariot, death. The emperor, high priestess rev, 9 of wands

You know when you spend a long time manifesting something, and it’s been a long long time, and you’re just so tired you give up, and suddenly it’s knocking on your door. That’s how this meeting feels like. I keep thinking of this manifestation technique of making a list of how your ideal partner is. You were just so tired, and decided that it was time to move on and forget about it. Started focusing on yourself, doing more self-care, trying new activities, meeting new friends. You really were over it. And then boom, perfect, ideal, fs is just there. This wasn’t in your plans right now. I feel like laughing, but the kind of laughing when something doesn’t make sense or it’s just absurd. A by chance meeting, might result from something embarrassing, like spilling a drink or like in books when the mc crashes into the love interest. They’re well dressed. I think you might feel a little be contradicted, like finally I was doing so well single, and now you show up? But how can you ignore them now? Your fs is just exactly what you had wished for. There will be a lot of talking and lots of laughs, it feels like a first date already. Suddenly you get like tunnel vision and all you can see is them. I feel like you won’t want to say goodbye at the end. Let’s have lunch, and dinner, and breakfast together. 

Xo, Xo, Cherry 💋

[maplebellsmods]

Join a Country Club Mod

Hello! Unfortunately, Rock Ridge Country Club has closed down due to financial mismanagement and embezzlement. However, your sims now can join an even better club: Cedar Creek Country Club!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve completely reworked the Country Club mod from scratch. This mod holds a special place in my heart as it was the first one I ever made, and I’m thrilled to present it with improved quality and new features.

If you’ve used my previous Country Club mod, you’ll notice both differences and similarities. So, how does the new mod work? Your sim can apply to become a member of Cedar Creek Country Club. This time, the process is more challenging, with the possibility of rejection, requiring more effort both financially and mentally.

However, the application process is streamlined for a smoother experience. Steps to become a member:

Pay Application Fee: This is a 5000 simoleon nonrefundable fee.

Fill out Application Form

Schedule Interview: Choose between two time slots and attend within 24 hours.

Write Letter of Interest

Submit Reference Letters: Cedar Creek requires two reference letters from current members. Your sim can ask a member directly or post on the Cedar Creek community forums. If a member is interested, they may call and offer to write a reference letter. This method is more challenging.

Attend Information Session (Optional): If you have questions about the club or application process, attend an information session available on weekdays.

• Household Funds

• Fame Level

• Reputation

• Job Type and Level

• Charisma

• Interview Outcome

These elements can greatly increase your chances of getting accepted into the country club.​

Once they become a member and pay the $10,000 initiation fee, your entire household will also gain Cedar Creek membership.

As a Cedar Creek member, there are ongoing fees to pay. You can choose to pay annually (over four weeks) or quarterly (over one week). It’s important to stay on top of these payments to maintain your membership. There are many activities your sim can partake in with family and friends. You can find these options on the computer in the Country Club pie menu.​

Your sim can try to appeal to the country club if they have been rejected, kicked out, or blacklisted. The chances of getting another shot are very low, but high charisma can significantly help.

If they get lucky and are invited to meet with the admissions committee, they have a few hours to attend the meeting and must commit immediately. If they were previously kicked out, they will still need to pay the initiation fee again.

Lot Trait

I have also added a Country Club lot trait with the mod. So as a Cedar Creek member if you don't feel like going to rabbit hole activities you use the country club lot trait and use it on any lot.

I wanted the Country Club lot trait to be customizable, so random members won’t show up automatically; you need to assign members to make it exclusive.

You can assign members by left-shift clicking on the computer and finding the option under the country club pie menu. There are a few social interactions available for different sims at the country club, depending on their roles.

The lot trait is straightforward, but the key is to assign members. You can also remove members using the same method.

Does this mod require any DLC?

No, it does not.

What else do I need for the mod?

Lumpinou's Mood Pack Mod, so it is required for the mod to work properly.

You can get the mod here.

If you already have it great! But make sure it's up to date. Otherwise, it will break the UI

XML injector

I'm experiencing some weird bugs!

Let me know, please.

Report it here: Mod Bug Report

How to install the mod?

Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods <--- Unzip the file and make sure it's placed in this path.

Public Jun 23

Download Here

[fumifooms]

Wait one darn diggity second what’s this about unmarried half-foot women being embarrassing for the family, what’s this about being unmarried as a half-foot being "different [worse than] for other races". Maybe Flertom and Puckpatti’s intensity about finding a husband is the norm, maybe Meijack, despite Chilchuck approving of her disinterest in romance, is the one who’s considered weird by social standards.

Maybe they’re less well-adjusted than I thought. Don’t misunderstand me I’m aroace, but if there’s a lot of societal pressure and it’s considered a failure if you’re not married, it is notable when all 3 of your kids haven’t married past the time that’s expected. For reference adulthood for a half-foot is reached at 14, Chil got married at 13, Puckpatti is 14 while Flertom and Meijack are 16. The other half-foot character we have is Mickbell who is also unmarried, unsurprising considering his situation. I don’t think them not having married is about their family being poorer, if anything I’d think Chil’s family is on the comfier end of half-foot families with the high wages he gets paid with and the nice living conditions we’ve seen (although we don’t know when he started being paid well). We know about Flertom having high standards, but she and Puckpatti are actively looking to date, so there’s something going on here whatever it is.

It is nice that it doesn’t seem like Chilchuck cares at all, he even seems to generally dislike the idea of his daughters dating. I imagine that their mother must have also not pressured them into marrying at all, maybe even encouraged them not to marry if they didn’t have someone, which is sweet. And understandable, considering she might not want her daughters to rush into it and live with…….. Being stuck in an unhappy marriage. And here comes in what I meant when I said well-adjusted, daddy issues. We aren’t shown a lot of Chil’s married life, but I would bet my life on there having been tensions and warning signs. Especially since, since the daughters and Chil hadn’t seen each other since the separation before post-canon, there’s an air of not having been very surprised or panicked about the whole thing: the separation wasn’t unexpected. Having to watch your parents fall out of love and growing up seeing them in a taxing marriage can be hard, and not exactly put you in the mood to try and find romance and marry. Fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, stunted emotional intelligence, fear of commitment… Oh girlies I am about to extrapolate so much from this

Half-foot society has a lot of coding I don’t have enough specialized knowledge to pin down, but they’re a poor working class people, anglo peasant vibes. They have tightly knit communities, but then the double edge is that if your community has expectations and rules to belong, the pressure will be harsh and it can end up being more isolating if you deviate from it. Marriage historically and in Dunmeshi has a lot of economical aspects, in Laios’ Adventurer’s Bible profile for example dowries are hinted at.

So the pressure to marry might very well originate from the need to bring money in to your family, and to unite families as allies. And from there it grows into an expectation, and thus if they aren’t married it’s "an unmarried woman was deemed unfit by suitors, something with her must be off"/"This woman was unable to provide for her family, she must be a burden on them" which results into the family having a bad reputation. If Flertom says it’s worse for half-foots than other races, the reasons must be either social or economical or both. There’s of course their lifespan being shorter too, so that might play into it, expectations to go about things quickly and to have a fast life cycle and making sure to have kids. As we see with Laios, having kids is a pressure that does exist globally as well. Elves are another interesting example of how familial expectations are like in Dunmeshi with heirdom and whatnot, but free me I just wanted to bring up the possibility of Childaughters being societal misfits and having relational issues.

I will also mention that in a similar way, Chilchuck’s wife leaving him may have damaged the daughters’ chances, in a "what if they’re like their mother, the type of woman to abandon her husband!" way. Chilchuck also has a reputation especially as an union leader, which can paint him as dependable as much as it can paint him as someone harsh and stingy, which would be an intimidating. It’s possible they’re a bit more well-off from the rest of the half-foot community as mentioned, which could add to the intimidating factor or a bad reputation as an overall uptight family or one that has drama. Again, double edge of community being very tightly knit and important, with family as one of its highest values.

[bob-artist]

Just found you via your funny dream comic. Good stuff 😆. Definitely gonna read the rest, and I was surprised you had your own website. Looks good on mobile too. I’ve got a comic that some friends keep trying to build me a site for but I’ve been telling them no because it seems like between webtoon and social media nobody is interested in personal sites anymore.

Have you noticed an uptick in engagement from your site? Would you recommend going that route? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m also interested in how you decided to build/host it, if that question isn’t too lame.

Anyway, glad I found your comics!

Ah thank you for checking out Into the Smoke's website!!

Oh, I have SO many thoughts about independent webcomic sites and why people should have them. I have so many thoughts, and I'm so so sorry.

Why did I decide to have my own webcomic site?

First of all, this is not a lame question and I wish we could all have this conversation more often, so I could maybe write just a paragraph instead of this whole dissertation!

1. Because I lived through webcomics history.

I launched my first webcomic in 2011. I watched the webcomics scene shift over the years from self-hosted sites to third party sites, and I saw what it meant for independent creators. We lost vital infrastructure, relationships, habits, and control over our own work. I think self-hosted sites are an important backbone for creators, even if/when their largest *numbers* come from a third party site.

We’re all supposed to be helping each other, not fighting each other to satisfy the algorithm. Our early tools (webrings, link trades, comic databases, sharing each other’s posts) were small but meaningful, and they also helped us maintain a community mindset in a long and sometimes lonely line of work. When we started leaning on hosting sites, we let a lot of those tools and relationships decay. And now a lot of people are locked into imbalanced relationships with hosting sites that leave them with very little agency and control over their work and how it’s shared (or isn’t shared).

Hosting sites are great for removing barriers to entry (cost/time to build a site). And a lot of them have large built-in audiences. But the big ones aren’t run by people who care about creators. They’re designed to extract the maximum value from your work while giving you the least they can get away with. Use them if you want (I do), but don't be dependent on them.

2. Comics are the main thing I do for a living, and a website gives me the tools to promote my work and build relationships with my readers.

Most apps and third party sites actively prevent or suppress these things. On your own site, you can share all the info you want about your upcoming Kickstarter, your tradpub book release, your merch, etc. You can collect email addresses for your newsletter. You can literally just talk about your weekend, and you’re not gonna have a 150-character limit.

Yeah, not everyone wants to read a wall of text (ha ha...), but acting like a person reminds readers to treat you like a person. This is one of my main gripes with the apps and social media - they suppress human connection and present you like a cog in their machine that only exists to churn out free content.

3. I have a consistent home base and full control over how my work is displayed.

I don’t have to fight against an app that’s trying to direct my readers toward whichever content is most profitable for them. On an app, the readers “belong” to them, not you. (Who has their email addresses?) So if I'm putting effort into promoting my comic, I'm promoting my own site. (oh look, I just did it.)

Hosting sites/apps aren't designed to showcase your work. They showcase the app’s collection, and they're designed to keep readers on the app, jumping from creator to creator. This can help readers find you, but it also devalues your work and dilutes its impact.

And the app might not show your work to anyone anyway. Tapas is a great example; they recently redesigned their site to prioritize their Originals, and independent creators are hidden away in a “community” tab with barely any discoverability anymore. This is always the struggle on a third party site.

4. I hate censorship.

Into the Smoke is Teen 16/17+ and Demon of the Underground is R/18+. My comics aren’t even explicit, but I still can’t post my true, uncensored vision for either story on third party apps governed by Apple’s App Store and Visa/Mastercard’s tight content restrictions.

If webcomics exist exclusively on apps with heavy censorship, we’ll never have the diversity of storytelling and freedom of expression that’s necessary for groundbreaking or subversive art to happen. And that’s bad for everyone.

Adult brains need to engage with adult concepts. Difficult and triggering topics need to be explored in creative spaces. Artists need freedom to stretch their creative muscles without falling into the damaging patterns of self-censorship that come from having to tiptoe around arbitrary platform rules.

We can’t let the rules of like 3 American companies dictate what every webcomic reader around the world is allowed to read.

5. An independent website can’t easily be taken away from you.

Just make regular backups! You can always move to a new web host and redirect URLs if needed, and you won't lose your readers. On the other hand, you can easily lose the bulk of your audience on a third party site based on circumstances outside your control.

Let’s talk about Smack Jeeves, a formerly popular webcomic hosting site that was bought out and then shut down, leaving lots of cartoonists homeless. Or we can talk about the Tumblr NSFW purge of 2018, where I lost a huge chunk of my first webcomic’s following and most of my webcomic mutuals, even though my own account stayed within the rules. Or Musk buying Twitter, the platform where I once found my literary agent through a publishing event but now get no traction at all.

Have I noticed an uptick in engagement from my site?

I don’t have analytics on my site yet. But, up until a few days ago, that's where people were reading, thanks to my own efforts and the support of my comics friends and all of y’all who shared my ITS posts. (THANK YOU ALL!) I didn't have any discoverability on Webtoon or Tapas yet.

I got 10-15 new patrons between May 25 and June 5. Up until a few days ago, I even had more ITS newsletter subscribers than Webtoon subscribers.

What happened a few days ago is my Webtoon mirror suddenly blew up with 100+ new subs a day. I don’t know where I’m being featured, but I know I’m only getting those readers because Webtoon suddenly chose to grant me visibility. That can end just as instantly with an algorithm tweak or them deciding not to show my comic anymore. (When my first webcomic was in one of their pay programs in 2018, I went from $300 or $400/month to $0 overnight due to a policy change.) So I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but I won't de-prioritize my website.

The new Webtoon readers are awesome and supportive, and I’m 100% thrilled to have them. But the Webtoon influx isn't resulting in a Patreon influx like my website launch did. I wouldn't expect it to, this early in the story. But it's consistent with my past experience polling my patrons: even when 50% of my readers came from the apps, 90% of patrons read on my website. (Your audience may vary.) And since I depend on crowdfunding for my comic, that's important to me.

Would I recommend going the route of having your own site?

For anyone who’s just testing the waters with webcomics, it might be overkill.

But for anyone who’s committed to their webcomic, I recommend having your own site AND mirroring on every third party site you can, provided you’re cool with their terms of service. It's important to meet readers where they are. Let those hosting sites lend you their readers. Some readers will even want to visit your home site where they can read ahead, read the uncensored version of your comic, get more info, or sign up for your newsletter.

Just remember, no one will discover your independent website all on their own. They’ll only find it through the work you put into promotion. But the reader that cares enough to come to your home site is a special type of reader.

So how do you get readers to visit an independent webcomic site?

Find your allies

These are people who work in similar areas as you who want to help you succeed, and whom you want to help succeed. Chat with each other, help each other, promote each other, boost each other, link to each other (psst, my links page just went live!), be there for each other - behind the scenes and in public.

God, I am SO bad at approaching people, but this is important, and not just for comics.

Be part of a community

Really, this is an extension of the above point. It's easier to find your allies if you're part of a community.

I’m a member of the Cartoonist Cooperative, and they’re a GREAT group of talented people all across the comics industry. The mission of @cartoonistcoop is to help create better conditions for comic workers through cooperation and collective action, and I’ve found so much help from them with Into the Smoke and comics as a whole. (JOIN! They're great!!)

The goal of the co-op isn't to drive traffic to your website. But being part of it has helped me at every level of crafting my comic, including promoting it and making it good enough that I can take pride in promoting it. And it's helped me ground myself as part of a community after I lost so much of mine in past years of burnout and platform enshittification.

Another option: @spiderforestcomics is a great webcomic collective full of supportive creators, and I believe they’re open to submissions till the end of June! They also have an awesome collaborative community mindset, and I've known some of their members for years.

Direct readers to your RSS feed and newsletter

Getting readers to your website is great, but they need to keep coming back for future updates, and it’s hard to remind them without an app notification. You may need to teach younger readers what RSS feeds are. Inoreader is a great RSS reader for the 2024 era.

The dreaded SEO

That’s Search Engine Optimization - optimizing your website so that people can easily find your comic via search engines. That’s a topic for another day, but feel free to research it!

Paid promo

This can be tricky, and I really only recommend spending promo money if you’re making a comic on a professional basis, because then it’s an investment you'll make back.

That said, Comicad.net is a great independent site where you can buy banner slots on other creators’ sites. I just ran small campaign myself. (And no, I won’t ever be offended if you outbid me!)

I haven’t bought any Tumblr Blaze slots, but I got BOPPed (blaze other people’s posts; apparently that’s what it’s called, lol) once on this account and once on a side blog, and both were highly impactful. (Thanks, friend!!) So I consider it a solid option, and it looks really cheap compared to other social media sites. (Never trust Meta.)

And where can you learn more about building a webcomic site?

I know you didn't ask, but if I'm gonna share all this, I might as well give folks a starting place to actually do the thing.

Now, I’m *bad* at offering cheap and easy web solutions. My specialty is hard and expensive. But my one piece of advice: PLEASE make your webcomic site mobile friendly for the current generation of readers! When we talk about barriers to entry, remember that more people have phones than computers, and many can't afford computers.

Anyway, here's some webcomic website resources from OTHER people!

The Cartoonist Co-op has LOTS of great resources on building webcomic sites! Several of them! Check them all out!

@screentonescast has a podcast episode on webcomic web design and one on RSS feeds!

@jeypawlik also has a great comic about how RSS feeds work.

So, congrats if you made it this far. Go make a website, y'all! And if you read any indie comics, go visit the creator's website!

[anxious-and-in-pain]

i’m fucking terrified for so many people right now, both USAmerican and not. for my LGBTQ+ (especially trans, intersex, and two spirit) communities. for my disability community. for the vulnerable people who will take the brunt of the repercussions of military activity, environmental destruction, demonization of refugees and asylum-seekers, reduced emergency protections, and retraction of resources for the poor. for people who will suffer hate crimes. for people who will die from lack of access to legal abortion. for people i don’t yet know to be worried about

our anger and our fear will be felt together. we will keep the connection and care for each other, or so fucking help me. these social supports are something i will hold on to with all i have

i don’t know what this means for me and my loved ones yet. it’s likely i will lose people. i will try to process and fight things as they come. because me getting overwhelmed to the point of shut-down will help no one

looking more personally, my health insurance, future government disability, trans healthcare, standard medications and doctors’ visits, and future ability to marry may all be taken away. that fact might take a while to sink in. Fuck

it feels wrong to let my queue run right now. i’ll still have it going but slower than normal. i’ll reblog any extra kindness posts i stumble upon. we all need it. feel free to reblog this or add to it as you’d like. bigots will be blocked

please be gentle with yourself. gift yourself space for your emotions, self soothing, or distraction if you need to process things more slowly. reach out to people you care about 💜

[commanderyes]

The Commander Says Goodbye

I’m not going to lie, I’m extremely anxious as i’m writing this, out of what these news could mean to a lot of people, and my heart feels heavy enough it could drop down my ribcage any minute from now and squish all my other organs. But I’ve been dancing around this topic for a long time now, and I think i’ve finally reached a point where i can’t ignore it anymore, for my own sake.

I hereby announce Commander Yes has come to an end.

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, here and to many other people, when I began this comic all the way back in 2018 I was in a really bad, really low place in my life in every sense of the word, and it was a spur-of-the moment decision to cheer myself up, because Path of Fire had just released and my enjoyment of the game had reached fever pitch and I had been playing Guild Wars 2 alone since as far as launch, and none of my other friends had ever really gotten into it. I guess I just, dunno, cried out into the big maelstrom of the community, one voice amidst millions, because i wanted SOMEBODY to look at what i did and revel in the nerdery with me.

And somehow the snowball began to roll and people wanted more and more of what I could do, and I was being actively reached out to, and, well, some time after that I landed my first ever job, I discovered a lot of things about myself, and I found myself in communities that welcomed me with open arms, and many of the people in there have since become among the best friends I could’ve possibly encountered, kindred souls who i’ve shared joys and sorrows for many years and who I can’t imagine living without anymore.

And all the while I kept making the comics, and with every entry posted every week I’d keep having people stopping to comment on them, and whether they were dumb jokes or personal takes on the story, they’d all share how much what I do kept hitting them in the kokoro, and to this day whenever I play anywhere in the game I still get people who recognize me and thank me for doing what I do. It was wonderful, it IS wonderful, and seeing that response motivated me to keep going, because what did still mattered to people, out there.

But I did always say I planned to keep doing these comics until I ran out of energy for them, and I think i’ve finally reached that point.

Because ever since I actually landed that job I’m exhausted and sleep-deprived every other day, so much so that I only have time to work on the comic on saturdays and sundays, and it gets harder and harder to just sit and draw, and at that point it was just more work, and while I still enjoy and play Guild Wars 2 a lot, it no longer consumes my time and attention like I’ve used to and i’ve been having fun with more personal projects, and honestly the direction the story is taking these days does not sit right with me and it’s hard to find inspiration in that, and this might be borderline selfish but every year I find people care less and less about the comics and it really takes a hit to you motivation when hardly anybody responds after you’ve spent a whole weekend trying to squeeze a five-page comic out.

And, well, I have been doing these for six years straight, and I think that’s a good run. I’m tired, and ready to move on, at long last. Let it be someone else’s turn.

But that’s the beautiful thing about this community, isn’t it? Even if I’m hanging up the hat, there are a whole lot of fantastic artists out there, as we speak, still cranking out works of art, deserving of all the attention they can get. And think of all the artists yet to come! For every story that ends, another story is just about to begin!

The world keeps on spinning, one way or another.

I’ll be closing my patreon shortly after this, but the reddit archives and tumblr blog shall remain for people to browse whenever they feel like (or until they both go in flames, i guess, what social media isn’t about to these days)

I still don’t think I ever was that much of a big deal, but all the same, to everyone who’s ever supported me and helped me be the person I am right now, to everyone who’s been there from the beginning, to all the devs of this game that has captured us for nearly a decade now, to all my fellow players and artists out there

Thank you.

See you out there, fellow commanders. Still the stars find their way.

[delululand]

txt ideal type (and what are they like in a relationship?)

don't take it too seriously, these are just my observations based on analysis of their words, interviews and behavior in general

p.s. i lived in Korea for a few months and it gave me some impressions too

soobin

he often said that he like cute type of beauty and he don’t like too sexy type like yeonjun hahaha

and even if it’s not 100% true, i think he really prefer more cute than sexy girl kind of innocent vibe, aegyo and all like that, but more sociable than he

he natural shy, introvert and doesn't look like someone who would be active in relationships? he himself said that he doesn’t like it when he has to choose or decide something, so I think he would like a sweet, but despite this, a girl who can be active and take initiative? oh guys i’m sorry I just immediately imagine that type of girls in Korea, they look veeery very cute, but they rule their boyfriends with an iron hand hahaha not like a bad way but their boys listen to them well

overall he seems like someone who is easy to get along with but not so easy to get close to? like yeah, he'll be nice, but you won't be best friends right away. so I really see him in the friends-lovers trope, maybe even after a few years

yeonjun

oh that guy it’s opposite

I think he would, on the contrary, like a very bright, noticeable, socially active girl with sexy vibe

he’s himself very sociable and sometimes he can be a natural flirt? like he doesn't do it intentionally, but he literally communicates this way so I think he would like a girl who could accept it? I was in such a relationship and I really see him in something similar, like he doesn’t have the goal of offending or hurting his girlfriend with his behavior, but this happens every time and there are only two options, he’ll date a girl who will don't be jealous or it will hurt them both

however, he is very gentle in relationships, very caring and I think he would really do a lot for his partner

I would say he is one of the most caring members, he is always worried about their health, even that situation in one of the to do episodes when Kai fell from laughing from his chair and while everyone was laughing, yeonjun was the only one who stood up and holding kay’s head helping him rise up from the floor with the words “hey your head, head, be careful. everything is fine?"

beomgyu

ohhh guys i know he often has a reputation as a clown, but behind this he actually hides a lot

firstly we know that he is an introvert and all the members said that he usually sits at home alone and is not very active outside of filming and even in last live he said how much he likes be home and hate go outside

secondly, if you pay attention to how he seriously talks about relationships, about love, about partnership it’s always 🥺😭 boy is sooo soft and gentle plus how he treats taehyung…

this may sound obvious, but I think he would like a gentle, caring girl who would not let him doubt himself and their relationship

for him, it’s quite difficult for me to single out a specific type of girl or something like that, he would like a fairly ordinary (???) girl like not too sexy, not too cute, just someone with whom he had a real understanding, whom he could trust and confide

I thought for a long time whether have i including nsfw things and how you can see it’s not there, but I CAN’T be silent how much he has dirty mind pervert gamer boyfriend vibe (and THAT photo with anitta….)

so I think one of the important things in a relationship for him would be sex and matching with his partner in this question? because I'm sure he would like to try a lot...

taehyun

this guy has two distinct sides

sometimes he is super sweet, cute, he lets beomgyu do literally everything to him and can show affection himself

and sometimes he's very serious and collected, like he keeps everything under control and all that. he has a very manly vibe at this moment like with what voice and face he usually says 아빠 왔다 (daddy came) and even this phrase itself…. (I also study psychology and we could go over mean this phrase, but today we won’t)

I think in real life the second side is more inherent to him, but with close people, including in relationships, he is more open, so the first side appears more often

he didn't talk much about his preferences in girls, but he talks pretty serious about relationships in general so I think he’s not type to like one-night stands. I think he's a very reliable guy in a relationship, he's responsible I think he's the kind of guy who seems pretty cold and reserved in public but super cute when you're only together

in one of the old videos, all the guys except him answered that they would ask to go out their crash, can showing affection and say "i love you”, but he said “i’m just a coward, not a loser” and yes, it’s all what you have to know hahaha

idk is this still relevant for him, but it may well be, so I think that he would also be comfortable with a relationship that would grow from friendship so that he doesn’t have to confess first and everything happens naturally

huening kai

i don’t know he’s just so cute, romantic and gentle

he has mentioned more than once that he likes girls with short hair and because of this I’m a little vague about the image of a girl he would like i don’t know why, for me his ideal type is pretty obvious in character, but not in appearance

he is literally the king of untouchable among all the group members, even soobin said that it was very difficult to make friends with him and he literally overpowered him for several months until kai let him closer to him

soobin also mentioned that from time to time he tried to introduce him to his friends and other people, but Kai did not make friends with any of them. we can’t know why exactly this is happening, perhaps they were not interesting to him, perhaps he is embarrassed to communicate with strangers, perhaps he has high standards for friendship and many other reasons, but we can draw one conclusion, it is really difficult to get close to him

I think he would have liked a girl who was a little more persistent? not intrusive, but one that can be okay with the fact that he won’t open quickly

It's also known that he has some issues with accepting his appearance and would benefit from someone who knows how to support, praise at the right time and generally be gentle with him, this guy is literally the softest marshmallow pls love him😭

p.s. I would also be very interested to hear your opinion on this matter, maybe you have something to add?

[olderthannetfic]

As one of your younger followers I’m surprised that blogs are. . . New? Newer than I thought at least. I guess I always misunderstood what Web 1.0 really was (I grew up web Web 2.0) and I always thought that, outside of informational topics, a big feature of Web 1.0 would be people talking about their lives and interests — tho granted with little to no communication/replies from others. Huh, TIL.

--

Yeah, things really changed a lot and perhaps even more quickly than now at some points in the internet's development.

At the start of the 90s, it was all Usenet groups and service providers with their own forums you could only see if you had that service.

Free e-mail addresses became a thing in the mid 90s. Prior to that, it was all paid stuff like AOL, and prior to that, it was your university or IT job e-mail with your actual name in it. There were very few services, paid or otherwise, that provided you with an e-mail and access to the internet generally: it was all about selling access to a given company's proprietary hangout. There were some. My e-mail is from one. But that wasn't the norm.

(And, of course, prior to like 1995, "the internet" did not by default mean the web. Now, everything is the web or a web interface for your e-mail or something.)

When eGroups and Onelist and then Yahoo Groups arrived, it really changed things for fandom because you could run your own mailing list without knowing technical things. Some of the action drained away from Usenet to mailing lists.

Fandom dipped its toes into blogging sites immediately, but the giant wave of people getting Livejournals wasn't until 2003. I had one in 2002 through a friend, and it really wasn't this big fandom thing at the time. Some time around 2002/early '03, fans started trying to round up invite codes and get their favorite writers on there, and then LJ dropped the need to pay or have a code, and the flood away from mailing lists began.

(I guess web-based forums go in here somewhere, but I wasn't as active on them.)

In some ways, Discord is more like fandom on the early internet than either the LJ era or Tumblr eras were/are.

Most of the 90s stuff was more topic-specific. People socialized because people are people and frequently off-topic, but you were hanging out in The Place For Anime Fanfic or something, not so-and-so's personal diary with a comments section.

[solarpunksoup]

PART 2: THE STEW

(aka a resource masterlist/archive from an amateur librarian)

LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 11, 2024

PART 1: THE SOUP (disc. February 28, 2023)

disclaimer: most of these will pull up my reblog, not the original link. this is in no way me trying to take credit, but it was just easier and more efficient to get the links this way, and makes the resource still partially accessible if a blog is deactivated.

just like part one!: if you see your post on here and would like it removed or credited in a certain way, send me a message. i’m more than happy to do that!

this will be continuously updated. click the original post to check if the date has changed.

you can also search “updated version” in my blog to pull up the most recent edit

not all of these are direct guides! a lot of this is inspiration for your own personal praxis

The Featured

some things that are particularly relevant right now or what I find most interesting

Self Managed Abortion

Managing War Anxiety

Testosterone is for Girls, Too! (zine for purchase)

Solarpunk in Different Parts of the World

Gardening + Gardening DIYs

Sharing the Fruits of Your Labor

Healthy Soil

Ani's Tomato and Pepper Harvest

Moostie's Guide to Carrot Tops

DIY [Non-Fibre]

Filtering Rainwater

Tech

Pirating Resources

uBlock Origin's Official Guide to Bypassing Youtube Anti-AdBlock

[Google] Drives

Cooking/Foraging

Scrap Soup

Random Tips for an Amateur Cook

Mending + Fibre Arts

Solar Dyeing

Making Yarn from Scratch

Inspo for Mending a Belt

Inspo for Decorating a Jacket

On Acrylic Yarn

Thought, Theory + Idea Lists

Ways to Live in Direct Opposition to Capitalism

Rural Solarpunk

Activism in the Winter Months

Social Workers, Not Cops

Importance of Trades

Solarpunk in Different Parts of the World

Boomer Positivity

Stories of Transfem Acceptance

Staying Critical of "Self-Sufficiency"

Shopping

Native Seeds Search

Volunteerism, Protesting + Community Activism

Community Fridges/Freedges

Free Little Library for MOVIES!

Nzambi Matee Recycles Plastic to Make Bricks that are Stronger than Concrete

Workplace Advocacy

A Legit Way to Fight the Climate Crisis from Where You're Sitting Right Now

Village Tackles Speeding by Planting Thousands of Flowers Because Drivers Slow Down as They Pass By

Emotional + Physical Health

First Aid for Seizures

Masterlists, Compilations

History of Specific Depopulated Palestinian Areas

UK-Specific Solarpunk Resources

Zines

Testosterone is for Girls, Too!

T-Girl Self Defense

The Shirt, (or How to Explain Revolution to an 8-year old)

a word on the soup and the stew:

hello world!

if you've made it all the way down here, hello! hi:3

welcome to a project I've been working on for many years. 3, to be exact! which may not seem that long to you, but for me, the soup started as a way for me to collect resources as an isolated, abused teenager and give me a source of hope. I think it gave me something to hoard, to call my own, even though it never really was. it was and always has been just my organization of a community's brilliance. and along the way, people seemed to like it. with this outpouring love and a community I could finally call myself apart of, I learned to let go of false ownership and instead grow a true love for archiving, for sharing.

now, I am a free, happy adult, and that time seems like forever ago. yet I continue collecting these resources and sharing our community's brilliance as an ode to that younger self, and because I still believe in the solarpunk community and it's message:

hope! keep hoping! endure! keep enduring! above all else, we must survive, we must dream, and we must LOVE!

I hope you reflect upon these with the same gentle, hopeful heart I always have. Praise the authors, love them, love yourself, and let our hope inspire you to create and act and be.

All of my love!

The Keeper

[nezoriy]

Trans people in Ukraine: transition process, legislations, healthcare, and social attitudes 

Kyiv, 2024. A protest for adopting bill #5488 that defines hate crimes and introduces harsher punishments for them. The author stands second to the left. Photo source

Whether it’s Ukraine, Palestine, or other “third world” countries, the issue of queer rights is often used even by the relatively well-meaning liberals to claim: “We shouldn’t help them, look how badly they treat their queers!”

Of course, the ethical argument against it would be that no one deserves genocide and not that “the situation is not that bad.” But anyone who has argued online at least once knows that’s not how it works. So the argument I'm here to make is:

Trans rights and lives in Ukraine are not that bad.

I’m a trans man living in Kyiv. I’m currently medically and legally transitioning, I have a lot of trans/nb friends and try to involve myself in activism. So I have both first-hand experience and up-to-date info to talk about the issue.

Let me be very clear here: things are not perfect. 

We still don’t have a lot of legal protections we need. The human factor and community networks matter a lot. But it’s not the “leave the country if you’re trans” levels of bad, and haven’t been for a while. 

Compared to some Western European countries with rights for self-id and third gender markers, Ukraine is obviously not that progressive.

However, after learning more about the UK’s trans issues, as well as the various US states’ anti-trans legislations, I was compelled to write this text because I wanted to say from the bottom of my heart: “Shut the fuck up” to everyone who wants to say something about how backward Ukraine is. 

In Ukraine, trans and other queer people can live their lives relatively freely. And what’s even more important: in contrast to a lot of “developed” countries, the situation with trans rights and social acceptance is actually improving. 

(Am I afraid that our society and legislators will slide backward with the influence tr*mp will have over the whole world? Yes. But that’s another issue entirely. And historically, even during his first term, our laws actually improved.)

So, if you ever find yourself arguing about Ukraine, here is everything you need to know to also politely ask everyone bemoaning “poor” Ukrainian queers’ fates to shut up.

In the first part, I talk about general vibes, and in the second one, I go into the transition process in way more depth than was necessary. This monstrosity absolutely got out of hand, if I’m honest. Maybe I need to try to shoot a YouTube video so people can use it as background noise.

Read on Medium or keep reading here.

In any case, enjoy!

How do trans people in Ukraine live? Laws, attitudes, and vibes

Kyiv, 2024. A protest for adopting bill #5488. The author stands second to the right. The poster says “Stop violence against transgender people. Adopt 5488.” Photo source

So, you’re transitioning. What life in Ukraine has in store for you?

Ukrainian trans legislations

There’s a clear legal procedure that allows Ukrainian trans people to change their gender marker and all of their legal documents.

In Ukraine, there are some laws to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

There are also laws prohibiting hate speech/discrimination in the media. They don't protect from misgendering, insensitive jokes, and stereotyping. But show me a country where they do.

There are no laws prohibiting trans people from using the right bathrooms.

Unfortunately, you can only transition medically and legally once you turn 18. Minors can get a psychiatric diagnosis (but not F64.0) but they don't have access to puberty blockers. 

There are still quite a lot of hate crimes. Police are often not investigating them properly. They get classified as “hooliganism” instead of a hate crime. The good news: more people are reporting them, and NGOs are actively working on these cases. Bad news: the bill to define hate crimes specifically and introduce harsher repercussions for them has been lying in the parliament for more than 2 years. Activists are actively advocating for adopting this bill. In general, there’s an understanding that it might be done in the coming years.

Same-sex marriage is not legal. However, there's a bill to introduce civic partnerships. And there is an explicit understanding in society that queer people will benefit from it the most. Unfortunately, it's also been lying in the parliament for 2+ years. Activists work hard to change that. The main detractor is the council of the churches. 

There's some gray legal area around the issues but there's a common understanding that trans people are not allowed to adopt children. They also can't retain custody over their under-18 children if they change their documents.

Society at large

The author presents his painting “A time to plant and a time to uproot” about his experience of transitioning during the full-scale invasion during the Ljubljana Pride events in 2023.

According to recent polls, social attitudes toward LGBT+ people are improving by the year. In 2023 a poll showed that 64% (info in Ukrainian, use Google Translate) of people expressed neutral or positive attitudes towards queer people (compared to 54% in 2022). The number of people who have negative attitudes towards LGBT+ was 33,9%. Contrast this with 60,4% in 2016.

For some trans people, it's hard to find work if their documents do not match their looks. When it comes to hiring practices, the anti-discriminatory laws often don't work because obviously a business can refuse to employ you citing other reasons. However, all of this depends highly on the industry and specific employers. For example, most Ukrainian IT companies are okay with gender-nonconforming and trans people. They, along with NGOs, often have anti-discriminatory company policies. It’s harder to get employed when it comes to customer service jobs. However, I’ve heard positive personal anecdotes there as well. In general, the situation is improving compared to even 5-10 years ago, but there's still room for growth. 

The major public force that opposes queer rights, and one with the most influence, is the Council of churches (which includes most major denominations that exist in Ukraine.)

In general, in mainstream liberal circles, it's no longer acceptable to be openly transphobic or homophobic. For example, a lot of large bloggers, who consider themselves nationalists (which used to be synonymous with anti-queerness) are publicly supporting queer rights as a marker of a civilized society and progress regardless of their personal beliefs. 

Increasingly more mainstream liberal media is trying to give positive coverage to the queer community, from using the right lexicon to shooting special materials dedicated to queer and trans issues. Still, it’s also quite common even for some of the well-meaning media outlets, and especially bloggers to misgender trans people, use clickbait headings, and so on. The vast majority of media were incredibly confused regarding the right pronouns when covering Nemo’s Eurovision victory.

3rd Forum for Transgender and Nonbinary People, Kyiv, 2024. The slogan reads “TRANS*forming the reality.” The author stands to the right. 

Increasingly more queer books are getting published, including those by Ukrainian authors.

There are right-wing organizations that specifically target queer people, harass them online, even attack physically, and threaten queer events. Just yesterday (November 9th, 2024) a bookshop canceled a presentation of two Ukrainian LGBT+ books because they were threatened. However, by year right-wing organizations with explicitly queerphobic agenda are becoming more and more inconsequential in mainstream society. There's an understanding that most of these groups, although claiming to be ethno-nationalists, are actually funded by russians, and they look up to russian "traditional values" as opposed to the "decadent" West even to the detriment of our victory. 

TERFs are also not mainstream and don't have any actual political sway. They’re only loud on X and Facebook but they don't have their own organizations and most mainstream feminist NGOs are explicitly queer- and trans-friendly. 

Ukrainian queer community

There are a lot of LGBT+ and trans NGOs that promote queer rights, advocate for the community, collaborate with the legislators, and help out the community (including materially). 

There are a number of publicly open trans and nonbinary activists.

The hormones are quite costly and there's no way to get them free from the country. However, the NGOs are often offering hormones as humanitarian help for free. Most of the time, I myself get hormones this way.

All in all, since 2010 (and especially 2016) the number of trans organizations grew and their work has become more influential. 

Military

Ukrainian LGBT Military NGO. On their website, they state they have a separate online community for 15+ trans people who are currently serving in the military or are veterans. 

There are no legal protections or mechanisms to regulate the relationships of trans people with the military. That's also a huge zone for growth the activists are working on.

The state also doesn't provide people in the army with hormones. 

There's an NGO for the LGBT military. 

There are open trans people in the army. But most trans men I heard of are in stealth.

LGBT+ people, even the open ones, may face some discrimination in the army from their comrades and officers. However, the mainstream idea communicated by lots of military people is “I might not personally like queers but I don't care who you are as long as you're busting your ass for the victory.”

When going through the TCRSS (Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support, local military administration) evaluation, except for the good old regular transmisogyny, transfems may face additional scrutiny and negative attitudes from medical professionals and officials because they may be seen as “draft dodgers.”

A personal note: I'm in the process of changing the documents so I haven't communicated with TCRSS yet. I won't dwell upon it but I have to say for the record that I'm absolutely willing to accept not only rights but also responsibilities that come with an “M” gender marker in documents. So, if I'm considered to be fit for the military, I won't try to avoid it. Moreover, my consciousness dictates that I do have to serve. Still, the process of going through the military medical board scares me a lot – way more than the military service itself.

A bit of history: the transition until 2016

The author’s art.

Until 2016, the transition process was frankly all kinds of fucked-up. 

To get access to legal recognition and healthcare, a person had to go through a doctor's board evaluation. The doctors (including psychiatrists and sexologists) were predominantly educated in the Soviet Union where all kinds of queer people were considered deviants with psychiatric disorders (and often, in the case of gay men, criminalized.) So, the board was incredibly transphobic and homophobic. It used a questionnaire full of questions relying on the worst kinds of gender stereotypes: “Would you rather be a plumber or an artist? If you were a journalist would you write about sports or art?” 

If you didn't look like a very stereotypical version of the gender you're transitioning to, down to the underwear, you were fucked. 

If you let them know you're not straight, you were fucked. 

And there was only one board for the whole country, in Kyiv, so if you haven't "passed" the assessment the first time, it was way harder to get reevaluated. 

Even if you got the psychiatric diagnosis and got access to healthcare, to be able to change your gender marker and documents, you had to get sterilized.

I personally know some people who didn't want to go through this shit so they went on HRT and instead of changing the gender marker just changed their name and surname in their documents (we are allowed to do that for non-trans reasons without any issues.) This way, at least when they are signing documents and so on, they won't see their deadname constantly. They also kinda hoped that people checking their documents would just skip over the gender marker or think it's some kind of mistake. 

Side note: both a sad and funny aspect is that you can change your name and surname just because you want to, but you can't change your patronym or drop it altogether. And it's always, always gendered, so if you went this way, from Olexandra Olexandrivna Ivanova you'd become an Olexandr Olexandrivna Ivanov (-ivna being female suffix, the male version would be -ovich.

Thankfully, thanks to the efforts of activists, the legislation around the transition changed, becoming way, way more relaxed. It's been in place since.

Legal and medical transition in Ukraine

Kyiv, 2024. Author at a protest for adopting bill #5488. The hashtags read “human rights,” “inclusivity,” “equality,” “safety.” Photo source. 

After some confusion in 2016 around the procedures, they’ve become quite established. I started the medical transition in 2023 and legal – in August of 2024, so the info is as up-to-date as it can be.

#1. Getting a psychiatric diagnosis of “transsexualism”

If you go about your transition the proper way, the first thing you need to do is get a psychiatric diagnosis. Ukraine's healthcare system is still working with ICD-10. The country is committed formally to moving to ICD-11 but there’s a common understanding it’s really unlikely to happen until the war ends. 

Under ICD-10, the diagnosis you need to get is F64.0 “transsexualism”. Yeah, yikes. 

You need to go to a state psychiatrist, the diagnoses from the private ones are not valid. 

De jure, you should either keep in touch with a doctor to be observed for 2 years or spend 2 weeks in a hospital. Most of the time, it's understood to be a day hospital, so you visit every day but don't sleep there. But it’s up to the doctors, so there were cases when a person spent the whole time in a psychiatric hospital. Obviously, the person is kept in the ward of the gender they were assigned at birth. You can imagine that for a lot of peopl,e the experience is quite distressing, especially considering that Ukrainian state psychiatric clinics are really not fun places to be in.

Considering this, a lot of people look for workarounds – and find them.

In some hospitals, you can pay a "voluntary contribution" (a bribe basically). The price tag for this in Kyiv’s main psychiatric hospital is around UAH10.000 ($250). 

In some hospitals, fortunately, there are friendly doctors (and/or doctors who themselves belong to the queer community) who can help you out willingly. 

In any case, if you can get arrangements in place, you just visit a couple of times and the hospital puts the necessary dates on the documents without actually keeping you there.

How do you get evaluated for F64.0

In a psych hospital, you get the bloodwork and some other physical examinations done (for example, a cardiogram, a lung x-ray, nothing invasive.) 

You talk to a psychologist who assesses your general mental state. 

And you talk to a psychiatrist and write an auto-biography focusing on your transness specifically.

The evaluation is still often based on strict gender binary and gender stereotypes. It is implicitly understood within the trans community that for example as a trans man you have to present the narrative that you always played with cars and not dolls, preferred the color blue, befriended only the boys etc, etc. Friendly psychiatrists know that this is bullshit but often still ask to narrate your story like this in case some of the higher-ups have any questions. 

Correspondingly, even if psychiatrists are aware of the nonbinary spectrum, nonbinary people still have to present a very binary narrative to get the diagnosis.

Being non-straight does no longer automatically mean you don't get the right diagnosis. However, a lot of people still prefer to hide it if possible. I told my psychiatrist I'm bi with a preference for women (which is true) and had no problems because of that. 

It is implicitly understood that if you're already on HRT (DYI, found a very friendly private endocrinologist, etc), the whole process is likely to go easier for you. That was my experience: I just emphasized that I've already been on HRT for half a year and so much happier for it.

When getting a diagnosis gets more complicated

Because of the war transfem people now come under more scrutiny and the evaluation has become way more strict than before 2022. Some doctors plainly refuse to do it at all. The reason is that the doctors are afraid that people trying to go through an mtf transition just try to avoid the mobilization. 

There are cases, especially in the regions, of doctors refusing to deal with our trans shit. But legally doctors are not allowed to refuse to provide trans healthcare. So if you know your rights you can either press them or file a complaint. In any case, you can just go to the next state hospital and try your luck there.

A lot of psychiatrists refuse to give you F64.0 if you are currently depressed or especially have some more serious psychiatric diagnosis. A lot of them go like "well, go treat your depression and then come back." Obviously, it's absolutely bullshit because a lot of trans people are depressed because of gender dysphoria but it is what it is. Most trans people advise their peers not to disclose their other diagnosis when undergoing this evaluation. 

This part is often the most hard and stressful. If you have your diagnosis, the rest is usually easier. Well, mostly.

#2. Endocrinologist, HRT, and the certificate of transing your gender enough

The author after 2 years on HRT.

Once you have your F64.0, you go to an endocrinologist. For HRT, private ones are okay. They make you do a lot of bloodwork and then prescribe HRT. 

Most of the time, trans people go to the doctors that other trans people recommend. There's an understanding that there's a high chance a random state doctor won't be educated enough in trans healthcare. Because of this, I haven't heard of cases of mistreatment or refusal to work with a trans patient. 

When you're on HRT for some time, you get a medical document from your endo that you've been on hormones for long enough and your secondary sex characteristics are now aligned with your desired gender.

#3. “Sex correction” certificate from a family doctor

With the document from the endo, you go to your family doctor (a GP). They get you a medical document that states you have "corrected your sex". Except for the family doctor, it should have the signature of one other doctor and the head doctor of their hospital. 

Most of the time it's just a formality. Legally, family doctors can't not do it. So, if they are refusing to help you, you can file a complaint and pressure them legally.

In my case, I signed a contract with a family doctor who's explicitly queer-friendly and has already helped quite a lot of trans people. I needed to go to her hospital (in Lviv) to be physically present, but everything went quickly. There were no additional examinations or assessments, no questions asked, we just needed to sit in a queue for a bit and the head doctor signed my documents.

#4. Birth certificate change

To change your gender marker, you first go to a civil registration office, and with the documents from the psychiatrist and the family doctor, you file a request to make changes to your birth certificate. 

There are cases when the officials try to refuse to do so, quite often out of ignorance. The officials are not legally allowed to refuse to file a gender marker change request if your documents are in order. So, once again, you can file a complaint and pressure them into registering your request.

There are also cases, however, when the document from the family doctor is not done 100% right according to the regulations (most of the time because the doctor didn't know how to do it right, not out of maliciousness), and the officials refuse you because of it. In this case, they are legally right, so most of the time you have to ask the doctor to reissue the certificate.

Because of the war, you can go to any registration office in Ukraine, and they request the info from the registration office where your birth certificate was issued. The downside is, they legally have 3 months to do so.

Side note: I'm at this point now. The registration office made a request to the hospital that issued me the "sex correction" certificate to confirm it, and they haven't gotten a response yet although it's been more than 2 months. This request is not necessary but also not illegal. If my birth certificate is not ready in 3 weeks, I'm likely going to contact the paralegals from a queer NGO and file a complaint.

#5. Changing the national ID and other documents 

The sign reads “to the European country – progressive laws.” Photo source. 

With your new birth certificate, you go to a center for providing administrative services (just as well, during the war any is okay, not just in the neighborhood you're registered in) to change your national ID. I was shocked to learn that in some countries, including the UK, national IDs are not mandatory. In Ukraine, they are, and they are a primary document you use for identification. Basically, no one ever sees your birth certificate. It takes about 2 weeks. Then you can change the rest of the documents: passport, driver's license, tax documents, educational documents (if you want to), and so on. 

#6. Registering with the military office

Regardless of the "direction" of your transition, after changing your ID, you're supposed to go to the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCRSS) – the local military registration organ. That’s where things get tricky once again.

For context: all people with a “Male” gender marker are registered with a TCRSS when they are teenagers. People with “Female” markers are not. They are only registered if they become bound for military service for other reasons (for example, doctors.) 

Under the military time law, all people who have an "M" marker have to be assigned to a TCRSS, and have their personal information updated in person or in a special app ("Reserve+"), and go through a medical board’s assessment in a TCRSS. The whole process is quite complicated even for cis men as on the one hand it is highly bureaucratized. There are literally cases when a trans man who had his uterus removed had to go through and have the certificate to confirm it still has to go through an assessment by a state gynecologist to prove he hasn't somehow grown his uterus back in the meantime. And on the other hand, there’s a lot of gray legal areas where decisions depend on the individual official’s assessment. 

The main decision dependent on the human factor is: whether a person is considered fit for military service (then they get mobilized effectively immediately), "unfit for military service," or "fit in a limited capacity.” Before the full-scale invasion, “limitedly fit” was equal to "unfit." Now it usually means you either have a temporary delay of mobilization and you have to show up every 6 months to prolong it, or you're mobilized and get assigned to a second-line position pushing the documents instead of being on the front lines.

Most psychiatric diagnosis, including F64.0, is a reason to consider a person either "unfit for military service" or "fit in a limited capacity." So, what does it mean for trans people?

Transfems who changed their gender marker to an "F" have to show up to a TCRSS and get themselves excluded from the military register because now they’re not bound for military service. 

Transmasc people with an “M” marker, as it follows logically, have to show up to get registered. They go through a military medical board like cis men. 

Most of the time, transmascs are considered permanently "unfit for military service." However, this decision is up to the TCRSS’s head officer.

Communication with the TCRSS is honestly a huge issue trans activists are working on. People transitioning in both directions often face a lot of misunderstanding and outright hostility from the military medical board and officers.

Most trans women want to get excluded from military service and face discriminatory attitudes basically because the state doesn't want to exclude them, and a lot of officials think they are just transitioning to avoid military service. So they can face a lot of hate and contempt. 

A lot of trans men on the other hand may be willing to serve in the military but can't do so because of the psychiatric diagnosis. There’s a conundrum because often trans men willing to serve don’t get to, and those unwilling to serve get told “well, you’re a man now so fuck off to the front lines because you’re disposable.”

As I’ve already mentioned, it all comes down to the human factor, and unfortunately in a lot of cases, people working in TCRSS are uneducated and bigoted. And because there are no specific legislations regulating the relationships between trans people and the military, the officials get to exercise their bigotry.

Crossing the border

Besides not getting mobilized while walking down the street, getting your documents right with the TCRSS is important because it defines whether or not you can leave the country.

Transfem people with an "F" gender marker who get the documents done and are excluded from military service can travel outside Ukraine. There are unfortunately quite a lot of cases of trans women having trouble crossing the border if their documents are not crystal right. Recently there was a case of a trans woman who wasn't allowed to cross the border: despite having an "F" in her passport, she skipped the TCRSS step, so officially she still was bound for military service. Unfortunately, the border guards were legally right. 

Quite often the border guards are putting under a lot of scrutiny even those trans people who are legally allowed to cross the border (transfems and transmasc with an “F” marker.) That's also an issue activists work hard on. 

#7. Gender-affirming surgeries in Ukraine

The author’s art. On Instagram 

People are allowed to get gender-affirming surgeries and are not required to get any to change their gender marker.

The context you need to have about Ukrainian medicine: we have free state medicine; insurances exist (but they are not really widespread. Some companies, especially in IT, pay for them, but according to 2019 data only about 9% of the people have them); and there are also lots and lots of private clinics. Those are often quite costly. But they are also well-staffed and well-equipped, and in most cases, you can get an appointment with a doctor for the next day or within a week.

So, gender-affirming surgeries are available, but almost exceptionally at private clinics. This means people have to save up quite a lot and often travel to Kyiv or other large cities to get them. But there are no waitlists and patients can get good healthcare without facing any discrimination.

There are however cases of trans people getting free healthcare at a state clinic. Mostly that happens when the doctors are willing to help them out. In the documentation, they state a diagnosis that qualifies for free healthcare (any trans-related diagnoses are not.) For example, one trans man I know got free top surgery at an institute for cancer research, presumably because in the documents the doctors claimed he was at a high risk of breast cancer. Another trans man got a free hysterectomy at a state hospital. Although he was put in a women's wing he claimed he got treated well.

I got a mastectomy at a private clinic just over a month ago. For that, I had to provide the F64.0 diagnosis and the "sex correction" certificate from my family doctor. Another doctor I consulted with only does the surgery if you've already changed your ID.

The price both doctors asked was UAH75.000 (about USD 1850). (For reference: the median salary in Kyiv is UAH 25.000 (USD625) a month.) My surgeon claimed that in part the price is so high because she has to rent a surgical room only in private hospitals as the state ones don't want to deal with this kind of surgery.

From the initial consultation till the surgery, it took about 2 months and it was mostly because I was gathering the funds.

At a recent trans event for activists, I got the information that there's a group of doctors in Kharkiv that do bottom surgeries for both trans men and women and they are quite good at it. I haven't looked into it more properly yet but still – good for us.

TL;DR

Trans people do face discrimination. There are no opportunities for legal and medical transition for minors. And there are some legal gray areas, especially concerning military service, when the lack of explicit anti-discriminatory laws and proper regulations leads to bigotry from officials.

But the legislation around trans rights is improving, not getting worse, and there are procedures for legal and medical transition. 

Social attitudes are also improving steadily – the acceptance of queer people in society grew almost twice since 2016, and more than half of Ukrainian society is neutral or positive towards the LGBT+ community.

[fanhackers]

Fandom/Activism

I interrupt my dive into Abigail DeKosnik’s work to note that as the United States moves deeper into its (apparently endless) election season, we’re seeing a lot of fandom-as-activism starting to emerge, as well as activism-as-fandom. De Kosnik herself was one of the early writers on fandom/activism, writing “Participatory democracy and Hillary Clinton's marginalized fandom” for the very first issue of Transformative Works and Cultures in 2008; more recently, Aja Romano wrote about how Donald Trump’s followers can be seen to be acting like a fandom for Vox: “If you want to understand modern politics, you have to understand modern fandom.” 

TWC hosted an entire guest issue on Transformative Works and Fan Activism, edited by Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova; Jenkins and Shresthova also collaborated on By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (NYU, 2016) which collects essays on fan activism. Other essays on fandom/activism have been published by TWC with Alex Xanthoudakis’s Mobilizing minions: Fan activism efficacy of Misha Collins fans in "Supernatural" fandom (2020) and  Hannah Carilyn Gunderman’s Fan geographies and engagement between geopolitics of Brexit, Donald Trump, and Doctor Who on social media (2020) being recent examples. Meanwhile, Tanya Cook and Kayle Joseph are the authors of Fandom Acts of Kindness: A Heroic Guide to Activism, Advocacy, and Doing Chaotic Good (Penguin Randomhouse 2023), a guide on how to use fandom and fannish strategies to make a difference. 

Some examples of fandom/activism emerging this U.S. election season include Heroes 4 Harris: Kamala-Con  which is scheduled to happen online today, Sunday September 8, 2024, 1pm PT / 4pm ET: this is billed as “a Comic-Con for Kamala” and “the largest fandom led gathering in support of a presidential candidate in American history.” It will feature: “actors, writers, directors, and super fans of Hollywood's most inspiring heroic fandoms” and promises not just inspiration from some of our favorite stars (Mark Ruffalo, Sean Astin, Rosario Dawson and others - not to mention Henry Jenkins himself) but also breakout groups and training in “fan mobilization.”  

Meanwhile, Lynda Carter (always a Wonder Woman!) is also trying to get out the fan vote for Harris with her group Geeks & Nerds for Harris Walz (@GeekOutTheVote); this is also billed as “a fan activist campaign” and they are planning special online events, the first of which will be an online call on September 24, 2024.  As they describe on their website: “Fandom has never just been about media consumption. Fans are artists, creators, and digital ambassadors. When we share what we love, it radiates around the world. And to paraphrase the Vice President, it’s how we show them who we are. By connecting battle-tested campaign canvassing strategies to the heritage and practices of fan communities, we can encourage fans to get out the vote in key battleground states.”

Donald Trump, aside from being his own fandom with himself as fan in chief, also seems to have had some self-identified fandoms collectively organizing for him over the years - these include Fans of Kanye West, Fans of Race Car Driving, and, strange but true, Fans of the 1980s, who apparently believe that Donald Trump would also be a fan of 80s horror movies, Scritti Politti, and  the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink. (I’m not making that up; it’s on their Twitter.) That said, Mel Stanfill’s newest book Fandom is Ugly (2024) argues that, despite its popular reputation, media fandom is not essentially progressive; that in fact, “reactionary politics and media fandoms go hand in hand.” Stanfill’s book looks at the ways in which fans have organized in conservative, reactionary, or even hateful ways, from Gamergate to the collective abuse and harassment of actors in the latest Star Wars franchise. 

The discipline of fandom studies is now being used to study all different kinds of affiliations and advocacy movements, not just those based around film, tv, sports, or music. Fan studies is now applied to political and social movements. Jenkins is still a powerful voice on the relationship between fan studies and participatory democracy (whether progressive or reactionary): read this 2024 interview with him published in Communication and the Public: “The path from participatory culture to participatory politics: A critical investigation—An interview with Henry Jenkins.”  As Jenkins notes:

Part of the ethos of fandom is to ask questions—from nitpicking to imagining other outcomes, different trajectories for character arcs, and other worlds where the story might occur, all of which is expressed through fan works. I would say that fans are often more critical than the general audience in asking these questions, which makes them somewhat different from many partisans and activists I might know who rarely question their beliefs and ideological commitments. And fans are more tolerant—as an aggregate—of different interpretations than partisans are of different ideological stances. So, you could do worse in grounding a democracy than engaging with fans.

[letz-smoke-zaza]

Read This

if you are looking for pro-eating disorders blogs or thinspo, you’re literally in the wrong place because I’m a food lover, and I will probably mention or talk about food once or twice on my blog.

It is more and less of a reminder that your health and self pleasure is more important than anything else. It’s ok not to be ok, it’s also ok to struggle in recovery. But if your only goal is to spread hatred to people who have - or try to have - an healthy relationship with food, if you fatshame people only because of your own insecurities, push younger and manipulable people into developing EDs, therefore becoming dangerous for themselves, then you are not welcome here and I’d recommend you taking a break from social medias for your own mental health.

Pro eating disorder spaces will bring you down with them and, on top of that, they will want you to bring other people down with you.

I won’t make any of these people change their minds because EDs are serious and the most complicated mental illnesses to treat. And because once, as a person, you get into pro 4n4 stuff, it’s hard to be self conscious about your own issues and your toxicity. I don’t want my words to seem harsh for the concerned people either because at the end of the day : you do you. However, I have serious issues with it when it´s about influencing other people, and I don’t want to have anything to do with this community, with you if you’re apart of it so block me already.

Again, I’m not advocating against people who suffer from EDs, or are currently in recovery, my problem is with people who actively participate in its romanticization and plan on interacting with me or my blog on top of that.

Now I’ll go back to my moodboards and lyrics’ blog, stay safe tho. 🧘🏽‍♀️

[kaelidascope]

Fandom and LGBTQ Hostility and My Experiences Trying to Exist in Both Spaces Online

I came into these spaces with a very strict rule that I would not react or do anything cancel-worthy out of an overabundance of caution. Digital footprints are dangerous. The things you say online will follow you around forever. I know that first hand. I’ve bottled up and stayed silent about a lot of things I’ve either witnessed first-hand or experienced because I was trying to maintain a clean online persona. I’m not an ‘airing out dirty laundry’ type person. 

In light of recent events however, it’s gotten so bad that I can no longer sit here and not say something about how I feel. I’m disappointed and frustrated with the experiences I’ve had both in fandom and LGBTQ+ spaces and I can’t be complacent. I’m tired of getting treated like this, I’m fed up and I’m not going to put up with it anymore. I feel it’s important I voice what I’ve been watching and what’s happened and how I’m not going to tolerate it anymore by calling it out first hand. 

This is a two-topic rant. They overlap in some instances, but it directly has to do with how fandoms behave in general towards each other on Twitter and Tumblr, and also how absolutely hostile LGBTQ+ individuals are nowadays to each other on the same platforms. 

I come from a different generation and a different social media platform. I wasn’t on Twitter and Tumblr until last year. I’m not dismissing the fact that I may have missed out on decades worth of culture and social expectation. The places where I come from aren’t exactly fantastic either, but at least here, more queer people are interacting with each other with shared interests much more widely than in places like DeviantArt. The amount of culture and information I’ve absorbed in one year is more than I ever had within the past twenty years. It should be a good thing, and I’m disappointed that it wasn’t. 

This is not the way I wanted to come out online to anyone. I’ve been figuring out where I sit on the gender and sexuality spectrum for a while now. I will not document a specific timeline for anyone because that’s nobody’s business but my own. Within the last year, I took a massive stride forward in exploring things I legally didn’t think I was allowed to. I expected backlash from cishets and the usual thing I see LGBTQ+ folks write essays over, about how the world hates us, but at least we have each other. Shockingly, the backlash didn’t come from straight people. It came from other queers. 

I am 27 years old and I am entirely self-sufficient. I’m mixed Puerto Rican living in a red state. English wasn’t even my first language. I don’t have a network, so I’m teaching myself these things. I'm asking questions. I'm reading materials and expressions of self-experience and self-identity through fanworks and other autobiographical content. I'm actively trying to seek community and support through transgender and non-binary individuals with shared interests and so far all I've been met with is hostility and assumptions. So much so that I've now been made to feel like I'm on a timeline to figure it out so I can have a well-practiced, short introduction to copy and paste to every person who comes across me. And the only reason I even need one is so that they can make the decision to pass judgement over whether or not I'm allowed to speak, write, draw, wear, act, breathe the things I do. I'm disappointed. I'm anxious. I honestly feel more shoved into the closet now than I ever did before and I shouldn't be. Nobody should be treated this way when trying to figure out who they are. I probably won't even get an apology for the things that were said to me, either. I pride myself on the extraordinary caution I take to be politically correct, vetted through reputable sources, and as close to authentic as possible. And yet somehow I’m still getting called things like terf, transmisogynistic, triggering, when I’m fucking trans myself and all of my content gets vetted/REQUESTED by trans individuals. I get promised up and down that people are kind and welcoming in these sorts of spaces and honey, they aren’t. The people you choose to be friends with aren't as inclusive and friendly as you think they are. You don’t even know me and what body parts I have. The fact that you need to know in order to decide whether or not to treat me with respect is telling of an internal issue that has nothing to do with me. 

I have no reference point. I live in a place where laws ban anything gender and trans. I have no local resources or community. I've barely met any LGBTQ people in person. If I have, they never came out publicly. Most of my queer exposure has been online, and the fact that I've seen nothing but angry, mean, exclusive and discriminating behavior without any sort of reasoning why other than selfish defensiveness, I don't know where else I'm supposed to go for support. Something a lot of you guys need to take into retrospect is anyone who identifies as LGBTQ gets shot where I live. We have sundown towns here. If you don’t even know what that is, good, but also that’s telling of your privilege that you need to consider when talking to others not from blue states. I didn’t grow up in an environment where we had these highly liberal culture points and the word ‘gay’ was never allowed to be said out loud. We did not have gay clubs in school. I'm about as fucking late to this as you possibly can get. The only reason I know anything about our history, representation, and barely anything about what's socially acceptable and what's not, is because of the internet. So many of you had the privilege of being exposed to this information as young as under the age of 10. I didn’t. Sue me for not immediately knowing what every gender label means right off the bat. Half that stuff isn’t even legal here. 

I can't believe it's boiled down to the fact that I have to somehow justify my existence on this Earth and give an explanation that fits into predetermined boxes just to do anything to engage with other people. I have no time or space to figure it out. I’m disorganized and overwhelmed because I can’t ask questions about ‘can butches do this?’ ‘How versatile is transmasc/transfem?’ ‘Am I more genderqueer or do I fit under the trans umbrella?’ Gender and identity is fluid and ever changing. I have actually seen people harp and attack individuals for "defaulting" or "detransitioning" when they change their mind after giving this big coming out speech. It’s like support on these platforms is entirely conditional and a one-time thing. Y'all really expect people to wear the first style of shirt they buy for the rest of their life? Are we not allowed to do anything unless we know for sure? How’s college working out for you, for those who believe this mindset?

The vocally aggressive ones who use big words that contradict their statements can do, say, and be whatever they want.  But people like me can't. The ones who have to straight pass in public to keep their jobs and maintain their life safely. Some of us have been on our own since 19 with no family support. Consider the environment someone lives in before assigning your harsh assumptions. I can’t just change myself on a whim without doing significant damage control. Half the jobs I work for don’t even allow unnatural hair colors. If we list our pronouns as anything other than our assigned sex at birth, it causes legality issues with taxes. The way I have to navigate how to explore my identity and also keep a roof over my head and my bills paid may seem highly conservative to most. It’s in no way shape or form meant to reflect disrespect on how others live and express themselves. I am doing the best with the environment I have. The way I do things is not meant to be read as a message of ‘you’re doing it wrong because you’re not doing it the way I do.’ None of us are wrong. That should not be the subliminal message here. 

You know someone actually challenged me on that? Saying I was being harmful for purposefully straight presenting in public? Please research your country and state specific laws before you say that to me. If I could afford to live somewhere safer and queer-friendly, this conversation would be different. I am working on getting the fuck out of this state. But I don’t have a partner or parents money to default on. I’m doing this by myself. It’s not impossible, just a slow process. 

I'm disappointed and fed up. I've reached my limit, and I don't really care anymore if someone uses this essay to try and cancel me 5 or 10 years from now when the world goes through another gender renaissance of terms and identities. I will not put up with being treated like this when you refuse to listen to anyone else other than the sound of your own voice. I’m trying my best to learn, adapt, and express myself. I do not need to be lectured or be called derogatory things just because you think I’m coming from a malicious place.  

It’s not just about the hostility and gate-keeping behavior exhibited in online queer spaces. The same exact thing happens in fandom spaces too. People get pissy about queer headcanons and presentations so much to the point of taking it upon themselves to police the fandom and scrub it clean of “impurities.” I’ve watched y’all go through people's social media pages for any type of ammunition for justification of a personal grievance. It shocks me how much hyperfixation gets put on specific and morally harmless things when there are people out there writing diabolical shit way worse than what I have to offer. And y’all happily support them too but bark at me about what I make cus that author fits your social criteria and you assumed I didn’t. Don't think I'm ignorant to every single scrap of hate mail and harassment I've gotten over the past year and a half in my inboxes. Including the passive aggressive posts about my work, vague tweets, and discussions about me in discord servers. Over what? Have you actually read my work? If it’s actually as problematic as you say it is, provide me with a modern and unbiased example why this particular scene and execution is harmful. And not because you got triggered or disliked the kink, or read the summary/tags and assumed it was something it’s not. I don’t know how much more caution tape, massive warnings, obvious clear-cut tags (that were provided to me by queer individuals to PUT on there in the first place) out of insane amounts of caution I can do. I have always been willing to provide spoilers and explicit details in case someone is unsure how they’ll be affected by something I make. If you already don’t like it based on my warnings, that’s always been more than okay! My work is not for everyone. I’m getting tired of politely and respectfully saying please move on, because the message seems to be getting lost in translation. So let me be clear; 

Get off my pages if you don’t like what I make. It’s not for you. It will never be for you. Dead dove. DO NOT EAT. PREFERRED DEMOGRAPHIC 25+ ADULT CONTENT RATED E FOR EXPLICIT. I can recommend so many other fantastic creators with better suited content for you! If I could hide my content behind a roped off section deliberately keeping you from seeing it, I would. BLOCK ME. 

If your response to this section is ‘well then just don’t write it’. Honey, there’s people out here in the RWBY fandom writing trans incest actively commenting on all your shit and you respond back. A magic grimm-goo strap and monster smut featuring a transfem character (again, requested by literally 3 trans people and WRITTEN by one) should be the least of your worries. 

I have actively chosen not to address the harassment and hate mail, because it's sad that half of you hate me so much you need to make a point of telling me so regularly. I sincerely hope moving on with your lives will grant you peace of mind. Truly.

This is why I barely interact with anyone. Nothing but hostility, harassment, and expectation to behave in ways I cannot emotionally commit to. I am exhausted, uninspired, and have such a bad taste in my mouth it's proving extremely difficult to want to do anything creative. It’s been worse with my recent exploration of my gender identity. Opening one door to write about certain things somehow, miraculously, closes ones I previously existed in. I’m practically getting kicked out if I’m not 100% one way or another. I don’t go out of my way to shove my content down your throats. Why you feel the need to come to me and tell me you dislike my existence because you read it, despite me stating this is not for everyone and probably not for you, doesn’t have anything to do with me. Idk what else I can do. Disappear off the face of the planet, I guess. That seems to be what the overall solution is when y’all find something you don’t like. I can't believe I witnessed grown adults in their mid twenties with self-proclaimed senses of rightness start a trend on Twitter to go through people's mutuals and their likes to see if they’re socially acceptable in Fandom spaces or not. That was fucking ridiculous. And especially not fair to those who had their private accounts leaked and put on blast when it was already behind an vetted follower wall. Believe it or not, people draw weird, lewd, diabolical shit. They’re actually being responsible by putting it behind a paywall, or some type of ‘proof of age before following’ requirement. It falls on the people who go on there, take screenshots, and post them publicly for minors and non-consenting individuals to see without filters what was previously hidden. It’s irresponsible and immature. 

For fear of getting canceled by the Fandom, I moved all 600+ accounts I was following onto a private alt. I don't interact with my main anymore. I went so far into hiding and didn’t dare share anything about liking content made by people I wasn’t allowed to like, because that’s how cruel it is out here. It's honestly stupid I even felt like I had to do that. For what? People glazed over the brief moment of drama within a few weeks and went right back to posting the same shit they always have. They find new things to gossip about on their privs. New enemies to cancel on Twitter. New things to deem problematic and attack. 

I will be heard with this letter. I don’t care to be associated with anyone who treats people like this. I don’t believe in it, I won’t support it, and I’d rather have a small circle of people who won’t be rude or attack other people for existing. I’m not going to sit here and take the abuse any longer. Leave me in peace. There is no reason any of this should be happening. 

This is not meant to undermine the support I have gotten from the few who know what I'm going through and have given me the space to figure it out. I appreciate every question answered and insight provided as much as your abilities allow. I'm so grateful for it. I just wish it wasn't 2 people while everyone else is an asshole.