#No one is any of those things

[reorientingtothexdaylight]

Being cisgender is as fake as heterosexuality is

We needed a word to use instead of "normal".

Cisgender is not an identity. It's a norm. A lot of people don't fit that norm and in so many different ways. It goes from not even thinking about it and doing your thing (surgery for example) to thinking so much about it and doing your own thing (surgery for example). In both cases, it could be trans people or cis people. You'd know nothing about their identity. It could be adhering to the norm without thinking much of it and adhering to it because you know nothing else and not adhering it to because you hate it and not adhering to it because you don't get it. Again could describe trans and cis alike.

Cisgender and transgender shouldn't be identities. Or at least, not only identities.

Transgender can be understood to be about the individual : not identifying with the assigned gender.

Or it could be, in a more political way, about destroying the norm. No matter how you deviate from it. You can be a cis woman on paper and still get transphobic hate. Because she's a butch, a dyke. And you can be a cis man (on paper again) and get transphobia as well. Because he's a fag, a fairy as they used to be called.

So don't worry about identifying with a gender. That shit needs to be blown wide open. Care about what makes you feel most at home in your body. If it's a different name, pronoun, length of hair, wardrobe, etc. Try it out, have fun, don't care about words unless you absolutely want to be understood by people (but I'll let you in on a secret : you don't need to understand someone to love them so if it was for that reason, you can be reassured) and even then, take care not to exhaust yourself. 'cause that shit is tiring. Been there, done that, don't recommend.

(or well, I do, I'm a better person for it, but that's not all there is to life)

contrary to popular belief not everyone has an innate sense of internal gender or care to have one or seek a name for it, some people go their whole lives without questioning their occupation in one of two gender roles, but for some people, if pressed, they don’t feel that internal sense of ‘i am a woman’ or ‘i am a man’, and in that case i feel the switch over to transgender vs cisgender relies on active identification of a gender other than the one they were assigned. if someone’s like ‘idk dude I just work here’ then that’s valid

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[starcurtain]

Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[magentasnail]

spoon theory

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[meamiki]

silly comic based on a time i struggled to read live on stream :thumbsup:

context clip compilation below ASDASDFASA

(cw for brief mention of hospitals/strokes)

[jonnywaistcoat]

When writing, did you ever suffer from a fear or underdelivering or misrepresenting a topic? If you did, how did you overcome it? I enjoy writing but rarely bring it to the public out of fear that I am either not doing good enough or badly portraying the themes or aspects of what I write.

Absolutely, and on the one hand it's a very healthy fear - it prompts you to do your research and be thoughtful in how you write. On the other hand you've just got to accept that occasionally it will happen. Inculturation is a hell of a thing, and leaves us all with a thousand kneejerk preconceptions and perceptions of the world, some benign and some downright awful. And sometimes they crop up no matter how thoughtful you try to be. And you gotta understand that when it happens and people call you on it, you just have to take your lumps and learn what you can from it.

It doesn't help, of course, that the words you write are only ever half of what your audience reads: five people reading the same book are reading five different books, each filtering the text through a lifetime of psychology and experience. And they will find themes and problems in there you never even considered, and they will also find resonances and beauty in your work that you could never have foreseen.

At the end of the day, writing stuff thats meaningful to you (hell, writing anything at all) is a messy, bruising business, and anybody who tells you there are simple solutions or clear rules to follow is either lying to you or to themselves.

But you can't let it paralyse you. Its like if you're playing football and you're worried about falling over. It's a reasonable fear and you should do your best to avoid it, but occasionally it's gonna happen, and unless you want to spend the whole game just standing still in a field, you've kinda just got to get on with it. Just try not to be one of those writers who's always taking dives and... screaming for the ref to get a free kick? Hm. That analogy may have gotten away from me. I don't actually know much about football.

Point is, I'm aware that this isn't the most reassuring writing advice I've ever given, but yeah, its a messy, scary business. Just do your best. Be thoughtful. Be kind. And always do your research.

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[claraoswalds]

This is a brand new science for me, and I love it. The language of luck. 'Cause what is a coincidence but a form of accident? Two things bumping together unexpectedly. Like you and me.

[lesbianralzarek]

wyll's #1 sexual fantasy: being loved for who he is and assured that hes enough, even without his blade of frontiers persona

wyll's #2 sexual fantasy: being choked out by a minotaur

[katabay]

WOW this has been ROUGH in the Life Events category of things, but. slowly crawling out of that. hopefully

this was the opening scene for a something I started writing after watching the Manben inverview with Nishi Keiko and thinking back to all the classic shoujo manga I stayed up reading back in the day, like damn that's so true Urasawa Naoki

it's partially a love letter to all the greats of the genre that I read, and also to the late night teleseryses that captivated me over the years lmao. it'd be nice to find the time to tackle it properly as a comic, but I'm having fun working on it recreationally :)

✨but since it's recreational, some character info✨

the first character seen is lawrence 'law' valenciano (late 30s), the one with the glasses is cris volante (mid-later 20s). law works at a karinderya, cris is an extremely broke university student.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta / tip jar!

[reunitedinterlude]

dnp's best friends club

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"