#I'm so annoyed and upset lol

[oculusxcaro]

If you send me an ask, it might take a while to see it because my inbox has fucking vanished.

[solradguy]

transphobes suddenly think they become loremastersTM when they have opinions on bridget because they parrot some misconstrued lore but when you ask them how do you block an overhead they’re like i don’t really interact with the community so i don’t know the language :/

No way are people STILL arguing that Bridget isn't trans MONTHS after Daisuke Ishiwatari himself wrote bilingual (trilingual..? do they post the devlogs in Korean..?) statements in clear as hell writing about how she's a trans woman??? Seriously???????

I remember when she was first released and suddenly everyone was N1 turbo master level at Japanese language and culture too lol

"Well Ackshually the 9th reading on this kanji that I looked up just now on Jisho that only shows up in Arcade Ending B in one line invalidates ur point" <- only knows the の hiragana because of memes

[a-commas-a-pause]

Was doing some cursory research about low concentration salicylic as an over-the-counter acne treatment (been having a flare-up, likely due to a combo of stress and shifting environmental factors, and since I'm a terrible skin picker I'm trying to find ways to avoid giving myself scarring without needing to visit a doctor) and as I was scrolling through the Wikipedia page I learned from the epidemiology section that acne apparently affects women slightly more than men:

...and I don't know why, but this really struck me.

I guess I grew up with the belief, picked up from the culture and media around me, that acne was this "greasy teenage boy" problem, in some way inherently unfeminine. I didn't really think boys got it more than girls, I figured that was a stereotype, but I kind of assumed the stats were pretty much equal. And back when I still thought I was a girl, I felt worse about my own acne, since it felt like yet another way I was performing girl/womanhood incorrectly.

Finding out it's actually slightly more common in (cis) women is throwing me for a loop, even though it rightly shouldn't be - that's a very neutral and harmless fact! But you never see acne treated as just a feature of a teenage girl's face, it's always something awful that needs to be fixed (never mind that in real life, you often can't "fix" acne completely, can only manage it). That's not to say it's treated as something positive in boys either - usually boys with acne are also treated as undesirable, be that a loveable nerd or just a creepy loser - but I'm not sure I've ever even seen a girl character with even moderate acne (like I had at that age, though it certainly felt severe at the time) on screen.

I took isotretinoin for my acne in school, which is a pretty powerful medication that is highly effective at stopping acne but also comes with some serious risks - I had to take regular blood tests when I was on it to make sure it wasn't killing my liver. Due to my (mentioned before on this blog, lol) massive phobia of all things medical and spiky, I fainted for every single one of these. On top of that, it increased my already very high (I'm about as white as you can get) sensitivity to sun, so I couldn't go out even on cloudy days without suncream. And it causes birth defects, so they kept making me take supervised pregnancy tests "just in case" for months, until I changed dermatologists and the new one was like "what? why? no, you don't have to do those, just sign a thing saying you're not sexually active and it's not our fault if you're lying about that and you're chill".

It was a Lot, is what I'm saying.

Isotretinoin isn't the first port of call for treating acne - my GP tried several topical solutions and two different kinds of antibiotics (one of which I was allergic to, which naturally, me being me, I discovered by fainting about it. Again. in music class, this time) before finally referring me to the dermatologist who was allowed to prescribe me The Serious Drugs. Moreover, I stand by my decision! I wasn't pressured into taking it by family or friends, I was allowed to make my own choices, and going through all that rigmarole was absolutely my choice.

...I might even have taken the same choice if I'd lived in a society without all this weird stuff around acne, to be honest. As mentioned at the top of the post, I have a skin picking problem and acne not only doesn't help with that, it was causing me actual pain.

But also. I don't know. The societal stuff didn't help at all. My dermatologist suggested at the time that insecurity about my acne might be contributing to my chronic neck and upper back pain, of all things (much like the acne, something that started in my teens but hasn't stopped since I left them), since it might be making it harder for me to stand up straight with confidence. I laughed the idea off at the time, but now... I don't know. It could certainly have been a contributing factor.

I wish I had a call to action here, but I don't really know what can be done about this, especially not at the individual level. This is a societal gender discrimination issue, and I guess an ableism issue as well? I wouldn't normally call my acne a disability, but it is certainly a medical condition, and it does affect my life (and acne can certainly be the basis of unconscious discrimination, though I'm very grateful that that hasn't been something I've faced personally). If anyone has any more productive suggestions, feel free to add them onto this post. And I guess, put characters with acne in your stories? Including women, and including adults! 5% is one in twenty. One in every twenty 40+ year old women (according to that cited study, anyway, which I can't currently verify because my institutional access is fucking broken again) still "have problems" with acne. That might be worth representing.

[icewindandboringhorror]

[multi-lefaiye]

sorryyyy gonna vent under the cut

torn between "this customer knows nothing about me and i know nothing about him and i'm not going to assume that there is malice in his actions because i have no reason to" and "i need to sit this man down and explain to him in detail the consequences his actions are having for me specifically and also i hate him"

(elaborating in tags)

[cryingat300kph]

F1blr I love you because some of the shit I've seen on Twitter and Instagram especially regarding Lando and Max has me..... Like some of the men accusing new female fans of just liking hot drivers may be right, cause idk if ya'll actually like this sport.

[tethrras]

how i feel knowing i've spent the last 6 months convincing myself that he likes me even though it could not be clearer to me now that he absolutely does not

[will80sbyers]

people are being excessively mean to others for clout on places like tiktok and twitter in instances where there is literally no reason to respond in a mean way and I don't think I will ever get it like is it that they need likes for validation because they feel extremely lonely in real life because real life connections with people are rare and the pandemic made things worse and so ganging up on people online with others makes them feel like they are part of something even if that something is negative and is possibly bringing another person to experience extremely negative feelings about themselves or are all these people just a bunch of coward assholes

[applebunch]

just played through our dirge (again) and i... didn't realise you could get other endings??? i went through the game again to see what other options where there to pick, but it changed the conversation at the end??? spoilers in tag and under read more

like, first time i was mostly nice to jack (agreed that coming to the school was neal's idea and complimented jack on the costume, but asked him to play something stupid and didn't accept his help with the switch)

the next time i was kinda mean (insisted that i did not suggest going to the school, and insulted jack's costume, but also asked to listen to one of jack's songs instead and this time i accepted his help.) i also ignored a few things while speeding through the dialogue this time

the first time, when jack talks about staying and waiting and neal starts leaving, jack just like, gently, smugly prods neal a LITTLE bit in order to get him to stay and neal gives in, but this time jacks like, almost pleading. apologizing and worrying and everything... what a shift!

[luvevee]

It's pretty annoying having to scan basically every artist for i/cest shit in any media that has siblings because most of them hide it on alt accounts/platforms/sly tags and that's a big reason why I'm too burnt out on reblogging art

[kuromi-hoemie]

i didn't immediately get a follow-up text saying someone i hung out with had a good time

[maybeinanotherworld]

the thing about listening to music i liked when i was younger is that i don't really remember much about my preteen/early teen years (mostly because i think i tried really hard not to)- but every now and then i'll listen to music that i liked back then and remember some really specific memories i used to associate with those songs and just. damn.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

truly fitting re: billions to have the lose-lose that if winston is written out i get to be disappointed for obvious reasons and if winston isn't written out i get to be disappointed for being denied ever knowing peace

[phagodyke]

why are glasses so expensiveeeee

[kitttwilight]

yes i know tumblr is insane and kinda toxic sometimes but these days it's nice . no scary things that stress me out on here. just funny posts and cool art and talking abt games and anime and etc. Man I hate twitter.

[no-one-hears-me]

boutta ask my bro if he has any hot friends to send my way as a distraction