#but afaik sometimes in post IDs are useful as well

[petite-elf]

[ID: A tweet by @ SuperDuperRiot that reads "shut your neurodivergent ass up before i turn on the ceiling light. End ID]

[mako-neexu]

ughhh sitting here thinking. that it took dantes, both his chaldea version and inside guda version (both different but they are essentially the same) to combine for him to be able to carry out the Avenger Ordeal Call. in which would make guda understand what Avengers are, as a whole and why they exist in the first place.

because all this time, its that they have constantly called them over, understood their feelings as their own person when its been reiterated time and time again that a lot of them are simply made up of rumors, made up of what-ifs, they are victims in which they carry flames that would demand of retribution even at the cost of pan human history. but guda didnt focus on things like that. their nature is that of someone who understands and empathizes. to them, they are people just like anyone else. they are not tools, they are much more than what fate and the world dictates them to be. they are more than flames that would just burn and simply be Servants who would follow what they're born for.

so in order for an understanding to be reached, (because Chaldean said that "that" point of view of guda's is a distortion and is not "correct" to the human order thus barring them from approaching phh) the meaning of "Avenger" - of why it exists in the first place as Extra Class - must be achieved by becoming an Avenger, or simply tasting the path towards one.

so dantes became one: Chaldea Count + Prison Tower Count and in the pseudo-tokyo, they "split" and gain new titles.

"Black Shadow" / Count of Regret [or of Worry/Lingering Affection]

"Count of Monte Cristo" / Count of Determination

side note too that Chaldea Dantes is not necessarily "Black Shadow" and same goes for the other. its more like... both the Pseudo-Tokyo Danteses are both Chaldea Count and Prison Tower Count but it doesn't matter really because they are "both and neither" at the same time.

this here is also used as discrepancy between them and pronouns are really helpful at that. (the way im realizing just now that this applies as far back as ogawa heim/knk event....and we see in nerofes event in 2017 since that was his first appearance post-prison tower the very apparent difference between them in the pronoun usage...)

in Id chapter, Count of Determination also used "watashi" (with sometimes a furigana of 'ore' if it was mostly him) when referring to "both" of them. but he still uses his regular オレ though depending on what he says. afaik Black Shadow didnt use his "own" pronoun which i admit was really thought of when they made Id chapter www

anyways im digressing... what i want to focus on is that they became one, and split again and became "Determination" and "Worry" for guda which just makes my heart ache...it took changing himself from the inside, cutting off pieces of himself just to create pseudo-tokyo, the ten million inhabitants, as well as summoning and empowering other Avengers to both help guda and challenge them as Trials...

because in hurting someone you care about, it has to have that steel of determination and resolve. you have to be strong in the face of hurting someone you love and care so deeply because this is for their sake. even if it should cause them so much pain in their heart--which would naturally affect your own-- you have to have that determination to make sure they go through all of these trials even if they break, have that determination to which they care about will be able to achieve the end of their journey.

and in worry, that worry remained from the beginning. the black shadow that resides under the Master's feet, watching with bated breath as "both" of them put guda through these trials in which they have faith that they would overcome. there definitely is faith... but still that shadow is the 'worry' that represents "both" of them. which is why 'Worry' summoned Salieri and Jalter as starting Servants without the requirement of a command spell. Said to be "sweeter" to guda because of the leniency.

still, they're the "same" in the end. and therefore they care about their star a lot.....

[turnstechgodhead]

ok to the anon thats talkin w me about mental eelness and bro and the "knight of time" line:

id post your entire ask but its Very Long and im struggling to answer all of it in a way that isnt fucking with my head and anxiety so im going to answer with only the character analysis stuff HERE on this post my apologies

for the record i dont even remotely know how to begin tagging this mess down here and i really think itd be better suited for my nsfw blog but yall aint asking about this on that blog which is fair take care of yourselves

JSYK it's stuff about brocal/intrusive thoughts about inc st and c s a SO kids please avert your eyes for my comfort thank YOU

i dont personally have ocd afaik but as someone who Has intrusive thoughts (actual horrifying ones that dirk, gabe and i have to beat back with a stick, not the ones kids think are intrusive thoughts today)

i definitely think that's how bro approaches raising dave; overcompensating for the accusations from his mind and cal[iborn] leading to total icing him out

okay same anon who was asking abt the “i was raising the knight of time” line. you saying “caliborn made [bro] believe that platonic affection is in fact not platonic at all and is instead sexual[the implications when bro is constantly carrying around cal with his arms around his neck btw. insane.]” is fascinating. is this based off the fact that caliborn thinks even hugging or a kiss on the cheek is “filthy?” it makes me think about ocd/bipolar disorder/misc mental illnesses and intrusive thoughts. i have bipolar and im a huge softie for kids but my intrusive thoughts sometimes try to convince me that my affection is somehow sinister.

YES very much

i need to describe to you my thoughts on brocal really quick bc i think that'll help put it in perspective and idk how else to talk about it;

heres the thing

cal is both bro's boyfriend and his fucking family okay

imagine you're a kid and you have this puppet friend that speaks to you using silly words and tells you that you should eat glass maybe :) or cut your fingers off or tear off your own head and hes the only thing thats taking care of you as a person even if hes mean

he tells you that people touching is inappropriate and vulgar and he cant believe theyre doing that in public (but its okay if we hug and cuddle you know?)

but also as you grow up this puppet starts calling you weird shit like stud or hunky or what the hell ever and maybe. youre going to kiss him

this puppet is the only thing you care about because hes the only thing that cares about you youve been with him for years and years and he talks to you and hes all that matters and now youre obsessed with him and you dont know when that happened but you have an obsessive personality anyway

youll do anything for him. (let me kill for you)

hes the only person you love because you dont love roxy this way (consuming, overwhelming, obligating to do what he wants, because he's all you have)

and well shit

if cals telling you that youre a freak for wanting to cuddle on the baby like you did that once (call it the knight it helps keep your distance) then i guess you're a fucking freak because its not even your right to treat it as family anyway; it's bigger than you. it's more than you will ever be and you need to make sure it doesn't fucking die and apparently that involves at least a little bit of affection cal please understand(what a disgusting species)

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi uh i could use some advice :<

im a host of a recent system of 20-ish and guh i am t i r e d

im mainly looking for advice on how to switch or just retreat into the headspace/leave front or even just kinda stop being fully aware while still being in front for awhile bc id rlly like to take a break and the realization that im most likely front attracted/frontstuck is kinda making me more tired of being in front

also if it helps at all my(&) system is parogenic + traumagenic in origin (specifically parotraumagenic) and theres kinda iffy communication between members (some of them i have clear communication with and they randomly pop up to say stuff, some i have no idea where they are and some of them i can usually only hear when im directly interacting with them).

afaik (as far as i know) only three?? ppl have rlly "fronted" per se, and the rest have been co-con

i apologize for the long and mildly depressing ask but any help is appreciated also dont forget to hydrate

Hello! We have some posts that might help you that we’d like to share if that’s okay. The first is a post we wrote a while back with some tips on switching from our own experience:

We’d also like to share this post by @rin-and-jade on being frontstuck or frontlocked, and how to go about unsticking yourself!

Our own system host (Parker) is almost always fronting to some extent. It can certainly be exhausting and disheartening fronting nonstop, especially when other members of your system can seemingly come and go as they please. He’s going to put some info under a cut for how he copes with fronting constantly, in case you want some advice on coping with being genuinely unable to switch out!

We hope something here will be helpful for you! We’re wishing you the best of luck with switching out or at least learning how best to cope with fronting in your future!

(Host here - I’ll just write this bit if thats okay. Anyway here’s some stuff I do to deal with The Horrors of perpetual existence)

Meditation

Taking a few moments to sit in comfortable silence can be useful for me when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed or straight up exhausted. Here’s how I meditate (I’m no expert and I’m sure there’s better ways to do this… this is just what I do)

- get in a comfortable position in a quiet place where I’m not likely to be disturbed

- set a timer on my phone for 5 minutes

- close my eyes, focus on my breathing

- don���t dwell on any thoughts but also don’t push them away; acknowledge them and let them go

- try to stay still and calm until my timer goes off

And that’s it. Sometimes I get interrupted by an alter or something outside, but for the most part, this is how I’ve been able to meditate effectively.

Rest

I take naps whenever I can. I sit down whenever I can. I’ll literally just close my eyes for a few minutes whenever I can. Our body has issues with chronic fatigue, and fronting constantly can sometimes exacerbate our exhaustion. So yeah I am a huge fan of naps and will often set a timer for like 15-20 minutes and snooze whenever the opportunity arises. Even just lying down with closed eyes can help replenish some energy.

Distractions

Reading, watching something on TV, or playing video games can help give me somewhat of a break even if I’m still fronting. I do tend to try and keep us distracted as much as possible… sometimes to our own detriment. But if you find that you really aren’t ever able to switch out, or if your system is specutien and that’s just the way your system functions, finding things you enjoy that can serve as distractions may help you as well.

Saying No

This one’s tough, but I’m trying to learn to say no when I’m overwhelmed or have too much on my plate. This means sometimes I’ll cancel plans, hand off a responsibility, make a compromise, or turn down an opportunity if I don’t have the energy for it.

Honestly idk how much my addition can help you, but if you find that you’re not ever able to switch out at all please know there’s other folks out there in similar positions. Hoping you can make the most of your situation, anon /genuine

[druid-for-hire]

Hi. I'm so sorry for bothering you:c but I really need all the help I can get. I have a chronic heart condition that doesn't allow me to work my regular hours. Things got serious pretty fast and suddenly, I wasn't able to pay rent. I got evicted 10 days ago, and I'm trying to raise funds to pay off what I owe to my landlord and avoid getting sued, and hopefully find a little place while I get back on my feet.

You think you could help me reblogging my pinned post to spread the word a bit? Thank you so much in advance. And I'm truly, very sorry for having to recur to this.

For other people's sakes, this is their pinned post. I took a scroll through their blog and they don't appear to be a bot; the blog goes a decent way back and posts semi-regularly.

My kind friend, Tumblr is not a good place to crowdfund. It works sometimes, but not reliably. (EDIT: Redacted a bit about reddit boards. They exist, but they need a lot of prerequisites.) In the event that you haven't been able to go looking yet, there are likely also real life, more local, more direct resources out there to help you hidden out of sight. There's a post on this topic, but I'll cut for you the relevant parts (paging through the notes will also probably be useful):

From @/euphoniousracouter:

GO TO, MESSAGE, OR CALL YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY. Libraries are focusing more and more on community resources, support, and outreach. If you genuinely don’t know something or feel uncertain or are in a new situation, a reference librarian will not only help you sort your thoughts through their reference interview but then help you arm yourself with knowledge from reliable and often local sources. It doesn’t even have to be a question to Ask A Librarian. You can simply say “I’m in this situation now. I don’t know what to do next./I’m not confident I know everything I should or want to know.”

From @/dancinbutterfly:

If you're in America, 211 is your friend. It’s the United Way’s database of social assistance resources. When I was doing resource development for my masters in social work 211 was my holy grail. And there’s things that only workers know about that just calling and asking can reach cuz it sets off the social service phone tree. I will say YOU have to be persistent of you want to access these resources. Most of the ngo agencies are most interested in helping the pro-active clients in my experience. But do use the resources. They’re golden.

From @/macaronsandfries:

Also, if you’re in the US: call your State Rep. Part of their job is to help constituents access and navigate state run programs, such as EBT/SNAP, unemployment, housing assistance, and medicaid.

Not all offices are equally responsive (some try really hard to stay on top of incoming calls but are overwhelmed, and some…are not great at checking messages, tbh). But if you can get through to a person (almost always an aide/staffer), they will talk through the issue with you and do what they can to help.

You don’t need to know what programs are applicable to you, they’ll help connect you with appropriate people (including Federal programs if necessary – those offices are hard to get through to, but if you need something like Federal ID docs changed, see if going through your State Rep helps move things along)

afaik some of these are sadly not as immediate as these emergencies tend to be, but they're out there, and hopefully these help. Crowdfunding is still an answer that you have a right to take. Good luck and be well.

[iatrophilosophos]

There r also options other than going to the dr FWIW. like do that if you can & wanna and it's almost definitely a good idea to get checked up if people will actually listen, but like, if you read this and think "well I can't do that so I'm just gonna be miserable forever", you still have options! The following is p US-based in the details, fwiw. (Also, depending on where you live, there may be a harm reduction or "womens" health clinic catering to low income people-- oftentimes at these places you can say you're homeless and don't have ID and get free care! Sometimes you don't even have to be sneaky about it)

NONE OF THIS IS MEDICAL ADVICE! I AM LISTING THINGS FOR YOU TO LOOK UP AND FORM YOUR OWN OPINION ON!

One rlly easy otc thing for PMDD symptoms is up to 20mg famotidine (OTC name Pepsid). Many people in online support spaces swear by it and a few of my doctor friends prescribe it. Look for yourself on reddit or Facebook groups and thoroughly evaluate information before deciding to use it every month: pepsid isn't great for your kidneys. Why this works is kinda weird and AFAIK not well understood; immune shit and hormone shit are very closely connected tho

DIY HRT can expand to birth control (as-menstrual-treatment in this instance): many birth control drugs are available through the same routes people buy hrt raws. Again, seek information you trust. Find online communities and discussion groups (though you may have to think slightly outside the box, since it isn't common, but there are people out there who have the info you want). Consider finding the name and publisher of a reputable prescribing guide and downloading a pdf off libgen or Anna's archive. Look up scientific articles for toxicity and warnings-- but, most of these medications are estrogens or progestins, which typically do not have an overdose threshhold but may increase clot risk if used incorrectly over a long period of time. It's possible if you do go to a doc and get a script, you can co-op buy with friends or save up and save a lot of $$ on script fees (most things will be <$5/gram, good fucking deal for shit dosed in milligrams!)

People have been using herbs for shitty menstrual symptoms for thousands of years. Some herbs that come up often are: motherwort, red clover, raspberry leaf, black cohosh. Check contraindications (reasons a medicine might be harmful) from a western medical source like drugs.com, but look up actual usage in a BOOK (i like Matthew wood's Earthwise Herbal set, body into balance by Maria Noel Groves also covers these things in a way that's a bit more accessible but I hate some of her takes. Both available on libgen/Anna's archive) or a VERY REPUTABLE online source (like rjwhelan.co.nz or Henriettes herbs) instead of like, healthline articles, because those suck.

Ultimately like. This is not my favorite post because while it has a grain of truth, sometimes even what a really good doc is gonna say is "this just sucks for you", which you don't neccesarily need a doctor to know how to handle, and good doctors tend to be really inaccessible. it IS TRUE that if your periods are super miserable you should probably do some investigating; and like i said, getting checked out however you can manage is a GOOD IDEA because sometimes stuff IS kinda bad. You're just also not totally fucked if you don't have a doctor; and if your experience is relatively stable (i.e. not rapidly getting worse especially if ur well post-puberty and don't have an extenuating life or medical condition, e.g. being ultrastressed and/or food insecure and/or having an ED will very predictably give you fewer, much worse periods) then even trying some DIY shit for a while and seeing if it helps might be helpful in deciding if it feels important to push harder on finding an OK doc.

Finally: some herbalists and some doulas are quite knowledgeable about these things and usually have super reasonable/sliding scale rates; and they SHOULD want a brief low-down on ur issues to see if they think it's in their scope before a paid consultation (if they don't they're probably shitty anyway); so that can be a good resource in decision making.

So many people who get periods are like “Ugh it sucks that having a menstrual cycle makes you almost die every month” like no that’s not normal you need to go to the doctor

[romanpanic]

favorite piece of lost media?

to start off thank you for asking this i love you. secondly i apologize for the amount of exploding im about to do.

!LONG POST AHEAD!

my Favorite piece of lost media is the series Maple Town!!

consisting of the original Maple Town Stories anime, two 30 minute films, and its sequel New Maple Town Stories: Palm Town Chapter.

while not entirely lost, the full original series is not very easily obtainable if youre an English speaker. ive yet to find a (working) torrent but i know there have been some out there in both Japanese and French. (JP rip of original 52 MTS episodes HERE! no subs) an English dub was originally planned to broadcast in the US for 65 episodes, only 39 of which aired, and from there only about 28 episodes ended up available thanks to a fan made DVD compilation. very few of the Saban dub were actually officially released on VHS.

personally i have yet to buy the DVD but i would really like to considering i still cant find rips of more than a few episodes. most fan projects ive seen involving dubbing/subbing the series have unfortunately fallen through afaik :( though there is a subbed version of the 30 minute Palm Town film available on youtube!

you may actually recognize this series from THIS video that went a little viral in 2018!! the clip originates from the Palm Town Chapter!

or perhaps their Maple Friends figures Tonka released to its US audience! (not to be confused with Sylvanian Families!!!)

it had its fair share of figurines & playsets made and sold from the late 80s to the early 90s. of course there was Japanese merch as well! i havent come across much but it ranges from cameras, to play sets, to this cute bag!! vvv

im actually a VERY proud owner of two pieces of Maple Town memorabilia which i hold very near and dear to my heart <333

this thermos (that i have since cleaned) produced by Tonka in 1988

and THIS animation cel of Miss Deer which i keep framed and ready to hang! :]

the reason i even initially discovered this series was because of the roller skating clip from Palm Town- which i sometimes still see reposted on twitter. i think the reason i fell so in love with it aside from the art was just the fact that it found me at a really dark time. it was something i could dedicate my time to, searching for episodes and browsing forums, and something that brought me so much joy that i almost started feeling nostalgic for it despite not even being born when it aired. the familiarity of it all made me feel a sense of comfort, and the thrill of unearthing content id never seen would reel me in time and time again. thankfully after all this time i still feel that way even if i find im not as invested in my searches as i was before.

to put it simply, for me Maple Town Stories is the warm hug of a fireplace after a very, very long walk home in the rain.

[cripdeaf]

Why do you feel the need to exaggerate and lie about your illnesses? I don't doubt you're ill, but you just pick up every single disability going around. You're not blind or deaf, and certainly not paralysed. What's the point in lying?

Hi, are you my doctors? No? Then why do you feel the need to come here and do this every couple of months? I’m assuming you’re same person who’s been stalking me on here for the last year; if you are, I’m sorry for being an abusive shit to you, but I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve by constantly sending me anon asks yelling at me for being a fake.I’m so fucking tired of this; why do you think this is okay? What the hell do you want from me? I don’t know what to tell you, anon; either you’re doing this just to be an asshole, or you won’t fuck off until I hand you a diagnosis letter on a silver fucking platter.

Also, you do realise to get hearing aids (especially fully government subsidised ones), you don’t just get tested once, right? You do realise that getting an ophthalmology referral isn’t all sunshine and daisies, right? You do realise that spine issues are often degenerative, and also accompany EDS a lot, right?I have spent years trying to be as abled as I possibly can, and I am sick of it. It is exhausting. It is painful. I am done.

Or do you think I’m saying I’m profoundly deaf and totally blind? Because that’s not what I’m saying at all; deafness is a wide range of things, as is blindness.If it’ll sate your shitty attitude, I’ll explain my experiences medically with deafness and blindness, and you can ask another Australian d/Deaf / HoH and / or blind / VI person if I’m bullshitting or not.

It’s also helpful info for other d/Deaf / HoH and / or blind / VI and / or paralysed folx to have this information, so I’ll probably copy-paste it into its own post at some point.

Here’s how getting hearing aids under the Hearing Services Program, specifically the Community Service Obligation part of it (for folx under 26); you get your hearing tested, either through Australian Hearing or another audiologist (I went to the audiology clinic run by Melb Uni on Swanston St, on recommendation of my doctor after knowing I’m deaf for my whole life but just not having a diagnosis because “my child cannot be disabled in any way”, which is something a lot of d/Deaf / HoH and disabled folx experience). They a bunch of different tests; almost all of them are relating to pure tone (beeping noise), where you press a button when you hear the sound, often with various levels of static masking in your other(?) ear. Pretty sure it’s masking in the opposite ear; never figured that part out, even after four different tests in the last year. It sounds like it’s coming from all over.Some of the tests are about word recognition; I, personally, have about 70% in my left ear (with sound magnification), I think? It’s been a while since I got the number. I do pretty well, but they’re also single-syllable words that’re really clearly enunciated, so that definitely helps.Some of them are automatic, and you cannot fake these. These are mostly used for hearing aid tuning, in my experiences; example is when I went in a couple of weeks ago to get my new earmoulds and have them turned up, they did an automatic test to check exactly what needed to be turned up (my high ranges).So, after your initial test, if you’re not with Australian Hearing, they’ll transfer you to them; if you are, they’ll chat to you about what you want out of HAs, what kind of colours you’re after, etc.; I wanted Bluetooth, telecoil (for hearing loops), and nice colours. Sadly, I only got one of those things, and my audiologist is chasing down someone to ask if we can apply for new HAs already because we’re not meeting my goals for them—unfortunately, the colour thing isn’t gonna change though. I got white to make sure they’d be visible regardless of my hair colour, though I wanted this really nice light blue.Anyways, so they order the hearing aids, you come back a few weeks later, have another hearing test; this test determines the initial programming for your HAs, though they’ll be tuned here and there over the next few weeks depending on how well they’re working (or not) for you. This stage is the worst part of it, honestly.For me, I also had to go back and get my earpieces changed a few times because I don’t have the right kind of canals for soft tips, but I also don’t have the right kinds of canals for discrete moulds (plus, they’re uncomfy, imo), but it’ll heavily depend on your needs, the shape of your ears, etc.

I have visual acuity of 6/60 (20/200) + 1 I think; I can see, I just struggle to determine what the fuck I’m looking at unless it’s A) big, or B) I’m straining my eyes (bad for you!! don’t do this!!!). This is pretty common in blind / VI folx, as not every one of us can’t see anything; legal blindness and total blindness are different. I am legally blind (in Australia and the US, at least; not sure about other countries) and also have a near-vision classification of N18, which is moderate near vision impairment. I sometimes wear glasses to read, and it makes things a little clearer, but ultimately, it’s just more hassle than it’s worth to me, so I mostly just struggle and go without.With my distance vision, glasses stopped helping me a few years ago (I’ve been wearing them since I was ten), and I’ve been seeing optometrists a lot lately to keep an eye (ha) on it because it’s been getting worse, especially with floaters and little grey dots that occasionally pop into view; I’ve seen three in the last five or six months because of it. What optometrists can do is pretty limited overall, so at the most recent visit the optometrist just went “we can’t do anything, there’s no signs of retinal detachment or anything, you need someone with better tools”, so now I’ve been referred to the Royal Eye & Ear Hospital and am waiting to hear back from them.

Deafblindness also doesn’t follow the rules of legally blind.For someone to be Deafblind, it just means they’re VI and also Deaf; it’s dual sensory impairment, and how being deaf and VI intersect when it comes to interacting with the world around us. Not every Deafblind person is profoundly deaf and totally blind; it’s a huge misconception!So, no, needing glasses and being d/Deaf doesn’t make you Deafblind, but being visually impaired (”having decreased ability to see to a degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means, such as glasses”) and also d/Deaf does. It’s more of a cultural group than anything.Most commonly (afaik), Deafblind folx have Usher’s Syndrome, but not everyone does, and deafblindness can come from various things, both genetic and acquired; genetic stuff, of course, is luck of the draw. Having a connective tissue disorder did me no favours in keeping my sight—which was better than 20/20 when I was really little, by the way, so it’s interesting now thinking back about it. I’ve been losing my vision in “chunks” since I was about ten; not great, but it is what it is. I’m okay with it; I’m not afraid of it anymore, and that’s why I’m open about it now.

Now onto paralysis:Paralysis is a pretty broad term, and it doesn’t just mean “can’t move at all”, it can mean “can’t move well”, or “struggles with fine motor movement”, or plenty of other stuff; I have paralysis caused by spinal cord damage over the course of my life, as well as repeated herniated discs and spinal cysts, which has landed me in and out of hospital a lot in the last couple of years.For me, paralysis is I have hypertonia and struggle to move my legs, especially lifting them when I’m sitting or laying down; I had to talk to a neurosurgeon about this back in February and was told “if this gets worse you’re going to need spinal surgery” and proceeded to sweep that under the rug because let’s not deal with major surgery right now, thanks. I’m also now taking Lyrica to help manage the neuropathic pain I get from this; takes the edge off a little, so that’s nice.wrt my upper body, I have a lot of issues with trunk control and getting myself back up from leaning, especially to the back, as well as II also sometimes piss and shit myself because I often have moments of “wait, is this spine pain, or do I need to shit?” and just general struggles with holding it until I get to a bathroom (especially when I’m having to chase down security guards to get them to unlock the bathroom). Thankfully, it’s not an overly common occurrence, but it still sometimes is one.A lot of this is suspected to be caused by two bike accidents and someone (a kid) falling on me from two storeys up when I was nine, because I wasn’t the most self-aware child, but the rest is just chronic illness being a chronic illness and going “hey, remember me? I brought you more stuff!” (like the cyst).

Also, in case you want proof of anything:[ID: a pair of white hearing aids with red dragon stickers on them, connected to clear skeleton moulds, and sitting on a yellow cloth, inside a grey, vaguely egg-shaped box. Sitting on the bottom half of the box are two blue Post-It tabs reading “Go Fuck Yourself,” and “Anon”, respectively, in green marker.]

idk how you’d have me prove anything else, but this is a good starting point.

If you’d like to actually talk to me about this, I’m more than happy to, even if it’s from a throwaway blog, go ahead, I don’t mind, just please stop spreading harmful “gotcha” rhetoric; even if I was faking it, who’s the next “actually disabled” person whose disability supports get cut because of false accusations? Because it happens. People die from this sort of thing.

[neonstatic]

(transcripted convo)

i’m reposting a discussion i had w a terf. i previously posted screenshots but she messaged me and said she didn’t want her url or avatar displayed. editing the pics to post them again was hell so i’m posting a script instead (i learned my lesson tumblr: you suck). if anyone ends up finding the convo and thus the redacted speaker... idc. this is a public website and we technically had this convo in public - the notes of a post aren’t private spaces afaik. i’m posting this as proof that sometimes calmly reasoning with ppl lead to nothing. (i know anyone could say the same but lmao leave me alone.)

tw for transphobia/transmisogyny 

[redacted] (speaking to a transmasc discourser about the "woman path"): Ok let me explain what I mean :) if your experience was totally different then thats fine :) im 24 and when I was little i was encouraged to play with dolls and learn 'motherly things' like playing with baby dolls while my brother played with toy trucks. There was a lot of pressure at school to wear dresses, and be sweet and polite. @[transmasc discourser] then of course, learning to deal with periods and the shame and taboo around them. Removing body hair because its considered unladylike. Etc

@[transmasc discourser] have you had none of those experiences?

neonbaebae: these are all common experiences for women bc of gender roles/stereotypes but none of that defines womanhood as an identity.

[redacted]: completely agree they are gender roles. But menstruation isnt a gender role. Its a frustrating part of being female. But that said, what IS womanhood then?

(rest under cut)

neonbaebae: menstruation is a biological function that is in no way exclusive to female bodies. remember intersex ppl, who come in all forms and shapes. women aren't all the same and it's likewise for men. there are intersex women who don't fit all the criteria for being "female" yet still identify as women. there is a distinction to make between womanhood as an experience and womanhood as an identity.

the woman experience is what you've described. the woman identity is feeling like one, e.g.: liking female-coded clothes, makeup, hairstyles, feeling comfortable in the societal role of being a woman. identity is essentially abt self perception most of the time

[redacted]: intersex is unique and I respect that not all womens bodies are the same. Intersexuality is complex but it doesnt represent the majority of biological women. I dont have a strong baclground in intersex knowledge so I'm certainly not gonna speak on behalf of intersex women. so if identity is self perception (which I completely agree with) how can a biological man self perceive his femaleness.if he's never experienced it?

neonbaebae: trans women never identify with being male and all in entails. and they can see, thru watching women counterparts and how they interact with the world around them, that they id more w the idea of womanhood and much less w the idea of manhood. it's esp why dysphoria often settles around puberty bc the dissonance manifests physically and that's harder to handle

[redacted]: but what youre talking about is what trans women see women do.  If thats what someone aspires to, its a very basic and narrow understanding of  what womanhood is. Its only what they see. And people are far more complex than this. Does a biological male aspire to periods stigma, beauty conformity and lesser social stance in the world? Or do they aspire to femininity? Something many biological women dont feel comfortable with

neonbaebae: womanhood as an identity is a feeling that is strengthened by a disconnection to manhood, its polar opposite. someone who completely rejects the idea of being man is likely to prefer being a woman (not always but likely!). many trans women do aspire to femininity and it has nothing to do with the cis women who are uncomfortable w it, just like there are many cis women who embrace it too.

many trans women cannot quite explain their transition in another way than "being a man felt wrong but being a woman feels right and authentic to my true self". i'd suggest to ask an actual trans woman for her pov tho since i'm not one, i'm just basing myself on what i've heard them say

[redacted]: but feeling disconnected with manhood (which is understandable and gender roles are frustrating) doesnt make someone the opposite of a man. As society we need to open our understanding of gender expression. But this isnt the same as thinking 'if I dont feel like a conventional man or connect with male social expectations, then I must be the opposite'. Theres no logic in that

we live in a world where gender stereotype binaries are considered natural, and people who dont fit this understandably feel marginalised. In fact Id argue to a greater or lesser degree, none of us truly fit the prescribed gender binary.

but i find it problematic when a man thinks they're a woman based on what they think 'woman' is.

neonbaebae: you're right in saying that a disconnection from manhood doesn't make someone a woman - a connection to womanhood does. it has v little to do with the upbringing of women which you seem to define thru misogyny and menstruation alone which is frankly a pessimistic view of womanhood. it's less not feeling like a conventional man and more not feeling like a man At All. tru it doesn't sound logical but gender is not logical it's abstract and complex

it seems problematic bc one might think men would gain smth from iding as women but stats show that trans women are at higher risk of assault for being out and open, both of bc of misogyny (not directly related to having a vagina or menstruating after all) & transphobia. it's esp telling that trans men aren't targeted as much. do you disagree w trans men as well?

[redacted]: but as a women i dont connect with womanhood. Lol i am a women. It would be nice to think we live in a world where women are equal, but that's not the world we live in. Womanhood is hard. And we do live under a patriarchal society that's cultivated female inferiority over many centuries. We're still negotiating freedoms today.

Its not about gaining or loss. Its about the male right to self define womanhood on their terms, without the biological or social conditioning. In fact, many have recieved MALE conditioning as children. This comes with its own privileges.

I think transmale is a very different experience so no I categorise them very differently to transwomen

neonbaebae: "as a woman" you say. even if the experiences and stereotypes don't fit you perfectly, even if you reject it, you still id as a woman. you feel like one and you suffer the consequences of being one. believe it or not trans women suffer from iding as a woman as well and thrice as harshly. i can provide sources if you want.

trans women don't think like men bc they feel like women. the thought patterns are different. they don't digest the social messages abt men bc their mind doesn't relate to it. male entitlement and all doesn't apply to them. and in sociology alone womanhood is often defined as more than a biological or upbringing thing. it's a social identity and trans women have a right to it if they don't id and reject manhood altogether

my question tho was do you think trans men aren't men either cus otherwise that'd be hypocritical

[redacted]: my point is its not an identity. Its a reality. Im a woman. I have xx chromosomes and the world treats me as such. Similar to my race. I dont identify as my race, i am treated as the world sees me.

male entitlement does apply. Statistically baby boys are fed for longer than baby girls. And little girls are left to cry for longer than baby boys. Little girls learn many motherly caretaker roles while many of their male counterparts are encouraged to conquer the world. Children are raised by gender. Even subconsciously. I can also provide sources :)

there are many more male leaders and men in authoritive positions in the world. Women fight very hard for the same respect, but womens voices are less valued. It takes no genius to see men have greater standing in the world

about transmen. No I dont consider them men but I'll respectfully use the pronouns anyone prefers, male or female. Its common decency.

I think society needs to get more comfortable with non confirmative gender expression

neonboobear: but it is an identity. that's why there's a distinction between sex (bio) and gender (identity & expression). if it would feel wrong for you to be called a man or nonbinary then that'd be bc you don't id as such. (also there are women with chromosomes other than xx maybe you should avoid phrasing it that way.) i id as my race but race has v different roots & impact than gender historically and it cannot be compared. let's stick with gender.

and i'm not denying gendered socialization but it doesn't shape a child more than their personal feelings on their identity, which can differ v early in life bc (some) would rather engage in activities associated with the opposite gender for example. if it were that simple trans ppl wouldn't go at lengths to "play the part"

you're right society does need to accept gender non conformance but that's v different from the trans experience. i rly think you should have a deep conversation with a trans person to try and see their pov

[redacted]: if womanhood is an identity, it totally invalidates what it means to be female. And yes its arguable that there're are women who arent xx but how about the majority of the population that are. Must we pander to the few at the expense of the majority? also what makes you assume I dont talk to trans people? Critique doesnt mean lack of empathy.

Children and gendered socialization is complex. Maybe if 'feminine' activities werent coded as female and just 'childhood play' we wouldnt have the same degree of dysphoria. It goes back to the irrational logic, 'if I like the pink toy section then I must be a girl.'

neonboobear: i'm afraid that is your pov for the ideology that womanhood is an experience but also an identity is considered a v valid theory in the science field. the fact that there are women with chromosomes other than xx is proof alone that xx chromosomes aren't what makes a woman. and i've suggested a deep conversation and an intention to Understand the Other. not just a talk. i said nothing abt empathy.

there would be less dysphoria but i'm sure it's still be there. many think the abolition of gender would solve everything but i doubt so

[redacted]: i have a close mtf friend and we have the debate constantly. We don't always agree with her but there's a lot more common ground then you might expect :) Gender roles damn us all. Hmmmm... abolition of gender is impossible but theres is a lot that can be done to challenge gender expectations. But not an easy battle! neonbaebae: i mean this with the least offense okay but i sincerely think neither of you should be friends. i’m black and i’d never befriend a racist. that’s a lack of self respect on her part and a plain lack of respect on yours. 

i’d like to end this conversation here. i’ve said my point and i’d only repeat myself by continuing. and since i’m not a trans woman i don’t want to misinterpret them (so sorry if i’ve already did. trans girls feel free to bring up clarifications). might sound tedious but i strongly suggest you watch this 50-min long video essay by youtuber contrapoints. her vids are informative and entertaining and so v easy to digest despite the length. i’ve heard she’s not v liked in terf circles but it’s worth it to listen to what she has to say as a trans women.

[retellingthehobbit]

@pelahnar ahhh thank you!!

I think one of my biggest problems is that, especially early on, I’ve been poorly organized and failed to do the “boring” website organization/maintenance that makes a webcomic actually retain any readers. While some of my chapters get some attention in isolation, people often trouble have finding the rest of them, learning there are others, or following along. Which is my fault really XD.

I once had this mentality that I could just draw the pages, not worry about anything else, and people would figure out how to follow the comic on their own— but that’s not really how things work 😂. Even in my own experience, there are plenty of webcomics I’ve been unable to get into because it was too hard to figure out where they were being posted or how to follow along.

It took me a while to start crossposting to Webtoon and Ao3, and even years after starting to crosspost people still are surprised to learn the comic is on those sites. And I think it’s because I haven’t made that clear enough to people. It also took me far too long to put together a separate Tumblr sideblog distinct from my main blog, and then to have that blog contain a master list of links to the chapters in the pinned post. : P

I definitely need to make a website as a central hub for the comic, the way other artists do with their own comics, but. AHH. 😭. Designing a website is a lot of work. I would either need to spend weeks learning how to do that and putting it together, or Id need to spend at least a few hundred dollars hiring someone to build a website for this personal project that Im not making any money off. I’ve noticed that lots of webcomics I love partner with Hiveworks, which has an internal team that helps build well-formatted websites for artists so they don’t have to do it, but those kinds of partnerships aren’t reallly an option for a copyright-violating fancomic. (And technically, Webtoon can take down my comic for that reason at any time 😂.)

My other option is to use a site like comicfury, which has prebuilt webcomic websites— but comicfury could easily go under, the way similar websites have, and it would kind of defeat the point. The whole purpose of having a website is to have something you “own” that can’t be taken down on a whim; I’d hate to put in all this effort into a Comicfury site and then have it shut down.

(And i’ve tried Wordpress, but afaik their ‘webcomic’ themes are either all extremely outdated or don’t work anymore.)

It’s just so many things to manage? Posting on Webtoon, posting to the image hosting site I use for Ao3 embeds, Ao3 itself, and Tumblr; I have four Tumblr sideblogs; then then also other social media sites like Instagram and Tiktok 😆. Just the process of *uploading* a chapter of this comic takes hours! I’m aware that other people find ways to Automate posting but I haven’t.

Uploading to yet another website would be even more work, and I would only do it if it were my own website; but I can’t make my own website until I learn how or am willing/able to throw lots of money at someone; and anyway, alas that these evil days should be mine. So many things to organize, so many blogs to run!

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. I need a hiatus, a very long hiatus….

….And when you combine the organizational problems with the fact that my update schedule is very inconsistent, it’s a wonder anyone has figured out how to follow this comic at all 🤣😂🤣🤣 I’m very thankful people are so determined.

One day I will bite the bullet and figure out how to make a website, but until then! My comic will just be around. I doubt it will ever be like a Real Webcomic until I get the organization down and make a Real website, but that’s just life sometimes

….I think some people might believe this fancomic is more popular than it is XD. One or two people have talked to me like this comic is very popular or something but it’s usually more like

Its more popular than a lot of webcomics but I want to stress that (from my side) this feels like a very small operation 😂, especially given the level of time I put into it. I’m not unhappy about that, because I don’t draw this to get popular! I draw it because I want to! I would draw it in a void! And I enjoy having a small enough reader group that I recognize familiar usernames who comment often, can reply to all comments, and can have conversations with individual people and stuff. but it is just a thing.

My point is that I’m not Sansukh or any other (deservedly) Uber-popular hobbit fanfic with thousands of subscribers, I’m still just a little guy, so I do appreciate every comment/share a lot! 😂

[datamattsson]

Mirroring your OpenZFS pools of Ubuntu 20.04 onto a set of new drives

I've blogged about my HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10+ in the past. As boot drive, I put in a SK Hynix Gold S31 SSD in one of the 3.5" slots using an adapter. The remaining three disk slots are used for my spinning media OpenZFS pool. Two problems presented themselves, one I could predict, the other a bit unexpectedly. The former problem is that I have my home directory on the spinning media OpenZFS pool, this, by today's standards, is quite dreadfully slow, given I serve my home directory over NFS in certain situation. It's like being back at the late nineties. I'm not a huge fan of keeping this data on a single drive either, as I had planned to move my home directory over to the SSD and just keep copies of the home directory on the spinning media pool. Unless, the unexpected problem, the SSD comes to a screeching halt at times, for no apparent reason. Sometimes it performs well and sometimes it's single digit throughput (MB/s). Unusable. I opened a support case with SK Hynix who got back to me with the very unexpected response that I should install Windows. Bye-bye, SK Hynix, you are the absolute worst.

So, here I am.

Problem solving mode

Since I don't have two 2.5" slots to spare for mirrored boot and home directory, I needed to get creative. External drives? USB? eSATA? SAS? Thanks to the extremely well done research by Serve The Home, I did not have to look far. Since the Gen10+ has a spare PCIe slog, it's possible to put two NVMe drives using a PCIe to M.2 adapter card. Said and done, I picked up the StarTech PEX8M2E2 adapter along with two 1TB WD Blue SN550 M.2 2280 NVMe drives.

Presto!

Edit: As snarled at on reddit, bifurcation is not needed with the StarTech card.

Surgery options

The next decision I had to make was if I had to reinstall the system on these drives. If so, would I install on a RAID1 or try cobble the disks together with OpenZFS pre- or post-install? (Ubuntu installer does not yet support any advanced OpenZFS pool schemes, AFAIK). Friends don't let friends to OpenZFS on RAID, so I would end up doing post-install surgery and I simply took the challenge of doing in-place replacement of the SSD onto a NVMe drive and make the OpenZFS pools mirrored (there's one boot pool and one system pool with the default Ubuntu install). My Google Fu completely failed me and I could only find obscenely written guides or vague evidence on how to do this and I decided to DIY since my situation was fairly unique. Going from single SSD to two NVMe drives in one swift stroke.

I hereby present the 100% unofficial guide on how to transfer a Ubuntu 20.04 installation from a single device to two devices, mirrored.

A few pointers.

Keep backups of your data

What works on my computer might not work on yours

What will happen in subsequent updates of Ubuntu if packages touches /boot/efi is unknown at this time

The copy & paste verbiage below is from a VM I practiced on

The practice VM could successfully boot from a single drive if there was a failure

Let's get to it.

Device and partition duplication

As mentioned above, these steps were performed on a VM, not an actual Gen10+. Device names, partition schemes, size and who knows what, WILL differ on your system. Use these steps as guidance, not a copy & and paste template.

Note: All commands below are executed as root.

First, get an idea of what your partition layout looks like on your system with lsblk.

lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT loop0 7:0 0 255.6M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/36 loop1 7:1 0 55.3M 1 loop /snap/core18/1885 loop2 7:2 0 49.8M 1 loop /snap/snap-store/467 loop3 7:3 0 62.1M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506 loop4 7:4 0 29.9M 1 loop /snap/snapd/8790 sda 8:0 0 20G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi ├─sda2 8:2 0 923M 0 part [SWAP] ├─sda3 8:3 0 998M 0 part └─sda4 8:4 0 17.6G 0 part sdb 8:16 0 20G 0 disk sdc 8:32 0 20G 0 disk sr0 11:0 1 2.6G 0 rom /media/mmattsson/Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64

The drive of interest here is sda. Dump the partition table to a file.

sfdisk -d /dev/sda > layout-sdb

Your layout-sdb file will initially look something like this.

label: gpt label-id: 0A00C51C-DF26-4237-90F2-28D80EB7542F device: /dev/sda unit: sectors first-lba: 34 last-lba: 41943006 /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 1048576, type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, uuid=427FBDD1-8CEF-4E2B-9BE1-837BBB3CC087, name="EFI System Partition" /dev/sda2 : start= 1050624, size= 1890304, type=0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F, uuid=165B2B55-3BC1-B345-B3EC-5285EBF368BA /dev/sda3 : start= 2940928, size= 2043904, type=6A82CB45-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631, uuid=E43AE096-6764-1245-A9A7-FA091DE6FAEE /dev/sda4 : start= 4984832, size= 36958175, type=6A85CF4D-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631, uuid=8850142A-8094-9B47-88EA-F1ECDB45C4AE

Edit the layout and have these steps in mind: - Change the label-id, I simply decreased the last hex value by one for each disk - Change the source device name to the destination device name - Remove the UUIDs (new ones will be generated)

The results should look like this:

label: gpt label-id: 0A00C51C-DF26-4237-90F2-28D80EB7542E device: /dev/sdb unit: sectors first-lba: 34 last-lba: 41943006 /dev/sdb1 : start= 2048, size= 1048576, type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, name="EFI System Partition" /dev/sdb2 : start= 1050624, size= 1890304, type=0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F /dev/sdb3 : start= 2940928, size= 2043904, type=6A82CB45-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631 /dev/sdb4 : start= 4984832, size= 36958175, type=6A85CF4D-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631

Next, copy the edited layout to your next "disk".

cp layout-sdb layout-sdc

Change the values you just changed (decrease the label-id) to the new disk name. The result should look like this.

label: gpt label-id: 0A00C51C-DF26-4237-90F2-28D80EB7542D device: /dev/sdc unit: sectors first-lba: 34 last-lba: 41943006 /dev/sdc1 : start= 2048, size= 1048576, type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, name="EFI System Partition" /dev/sdc2 : start= 1050624, size= 1890304, type=0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F /dev/sdc3 : start= 2940928, size= 2043904, type=6A82CB45-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631 /dev/sdc4 : start= 4984832, size= 36958175, type=6A85CF4D-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631

Next, "apply" the new partition tables onto your new disks.

sfdisk /dev/sdb ../../sda3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:36 8850142a-8094-9b47-88ea-f1ecdb45c4ae -> ../../sda4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:36 165b2b55-3bc1-b345-b3ec-5285ebf368ba -> ../../sda2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:36 427fbdd1-8cef-4e2b-9be1-837bbb3cc087 -> ../../sda1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:44 e3115c86-4bc9-b14a-ab62-90efdb67a5af -> ../../sdb3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:44 edde5235-ceac-f54b-b9cd-279b46c0a996 -> ../../sdb4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:45 a749fd64-615e-da4b-9ba4-86023a5d7542 -> ../../sdc3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:45 581ed7e7-1d93-0c4b-b9ce-b690763b0b38 -> ../../sdc4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:56 183e59f6-84af-124a-9904-07a824ece292 -> ../../sdb1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:56 f8c90bc4-0a48-094b-8967-46f8e65fde03 -> ../../sdc1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:56 693f6ba7-499f-d841-9631-2a3d089e602f -> ../../sdb2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 16 12:56 3ab0018f-ba13-6f40-905a-af49456f6788 -> ../../sdc2

In the output above we can see that the UUID maps to sda3. The next set of UUIDs that matter is the ones that use sdb3 and sdc3, as these correspond to the partition UUIDs on our new drives.

When we got the UUIDs, attach the new devices to the current device (this will effectively mirror them).

zpool attach bpool e43ae096-6764-1245-a9a7-fa091de6faee e3115c86-4bc9-b14a-ab62-90efdb67a5af zpool attach bpool e43ae096-6764-1245-a9a7-fa091de6faee a749fd64-615e-da4b-9ba4-86023a5d7542

Checking the status of the pool, we should observe a three=way mirror.

zpool status bpool pool: bpool state: ONLINE scan: resilvered 92.3M in 0 days 00:00:01 with 0 errors on Sun Aug 16 13:05:13 2020 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM bpool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 e43ae096-6764-1245-a9a7-fa091de6faee ONLINE 0 0 0 e3115c86-4bc9-b14a-ab62-90efdb67a5af ONLINE 0 0 0 a749fd64-615e-da4b-9ba4-86023a5d7542 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors

It's now safe to remove the old device from the pool.

zpool detach bpool e43ae096-6764-1245-a9a7-fa091de6faee

Now bpool is done. Repeat the exact same procedure for rpool. Once that is done, power off the system, remove the old disk, make sure the boot order is correct in the BIOS and boot into the new system. Grub will throw an exclamation upon boot saying that it's falling back to defaults, this seems to be what should be happening as the system will come up and behave just fine on subsequent boots.

Summary

Do not try this without understanding how to help yourself to back out of the situation and do not perform any of these procedures on devices where you care about the data (have backups if you do).

My Gen10+ ended up with bpool and rpool looking like this after first boot.

zpool status pool: bpool state: ONLINE scan: resilvered 937M in 0 days 00:00:01 with 0 errors on Sun Aug 16 13:39:05 2020 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM bpool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 nvme0n1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 nvme1n1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors pool: rpool state: ONLINE scan: resilvered 24.3G in 0 days 00:00:41 with 0 errors on Sun Aug 16 13:41:43 2020 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM rpool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 nvme0n1p4 ONLINE 0 0 0 nvme1n1p4 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors

I also snapped a picture of the snug fit with the StarTech NVMe card in the Gen10+

Until next time, happy tinkering!

[cavesalamander]

Do you have any queer book recs? Preferably not the kind where it's like a coming out book or a Queer Struggle™?

Thanks for the ask!

Honestly I don’t go seeking out a lot of queer books for just that reason - also because being ace and mostly aro, I tend to go for heavy world building and action/adventure, with romance being mostly incidental, if there at all. Also series that last a while and let me know the characters really well.

I also don’t tend to read books that aren’t already at least somewhat popular, so if you want more indie queer book recs, please go check out https://twitter.com/tatehallaway this badass lady on the twitters. I haven’t read any of her books (yet, entirely because I haven’t read anything longer than a couple thousand words in way too long) but I met her at World Con where she hosted a panel on diversity in fiction. She’s a queer writer and is super approachable and friendly. I’m sure she’d be able to point you in the right direction, if not rec some of her own books!

I also would totally recommend checking out Mark Oshiro who recently wrote and got his own book published!! I’m super excited for him, and I’m gonna buy it at some point. His reviews of books are really entertaining too, and he gets pretty autobiographical during them. His fans often recommend queer books and TV shows to him too - so then you get to watch him cry when he realizes that this character that he fell in love with is SURPRISE GAY and he’s so happy he can’t with the emotions. (He’s also a total sweetheart in person holy crap. I got to talk to him at World Con too.)

There’s also TritonYA, which is a publishing house that is working on publishing queer YA genre fiction. I haven’t read any of the 3 books they posted so far because I don’t have the f o c u s these days, and none of them really caught my interest from the summary.

As for books I’VE read... (Apologies that these are like all from cis straight authors afaik, they’re just the ones who I read/ started reading 10+ years ago when I used to read all the time... and back then there just wasn’t the visibility of queer authors, and I didn’t go searching for particular books. I just don’t read very much anymore aaahhh!)

The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce is FANTASTIC. It’s very much romance light - very heavy on the friendship and bonds between the four main characters. But one of the four MCs is lesbian, and there are other queer secondary characters. One of the other girls reads to me as ace/aro too, but that hasn’t been confirmed. (And like 99% of the time my hopes are dashed, but I can see Pierce actually writing an ace character who stays ace.)

Keep in mind that when the series starts they’re like 10, so romance doesn’t come into play until the later books when they’re 16, which is when one of the characters realizes she’s into girls and not boys.

The series is so good too. Pierce’s world building is so good always. She’s like my fuckin idol when it comes to how she does it. The lesbian chara’s character arc about realizing she’s into girls is handled pretty well IMO - the world as a whole isn’t homophobic, so the struggle is mild and mostly self discovery. And the romance is centered around the political struggles happening at the time - is the girl she likes flirting back bc REAL FEELINGS or bc SNEAKY POLITICS!? And SHOULD SHE STAY OR SHOULD SHE GO. Which, given the story as a whole, (and her other writings) this is pretty much in line with how a het romance would be treated.

Trials of Apollo and the Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan are pretty good too. I don’t like Riordan’s worldbuilding like I love Pierce’s, and he’s writing as a cis straight man but his books are still a lot of fun. There’s a gay kid who gets a couple of POV chapters in an earlier series, (Percy Jackson) but he’s got a lot more of The Struggle going on in his story. (Kinda understandable considering he was born in the 30s, but still.)

Trials follows, well, Apollo who is unapollogetically bi because that’s canon greek myth. (Incidentally, one of his kids is dating the Struggle boy from before and they are very cute together, if a fairly background relationship). Apollo is also totally full of himself and hilarious, and his trials are of course gonna be about how he has to eat a big fuckin slice of humble pie because that’s how grecian trials work. Only like one or two books are out so far, but it looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun!

Magnus Chase is about a guy who dies and gets sent to Valhalla and becomes a demigod basically. In the second book, a third MC is introduced who is genderfluid/bigender, and by the end of it, Magnus is kinda crushing on her so, that’s cool! I’m not sure yet how it’s gonna be played, since Magnus so far seems to be striaght, and sometimes his love interest is a boy... but I have a pretty good feeling it’s going to be addressed.

Riordan’s a cis straight white dude but he’s definitely done his research. Some of the bits come off kinda “here’s my research laid out” but he started his first series with the goal of, “I want my son to see heroes who are like him. Heroes with ADHD and dyslexia.” And now he’s like “I have fans who are poc, and fans who are queer, and I want them to see themselves too.” And his stories are fun. Which is the important part, in my opinion!

Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell is actually a webcomic, not a novel, but the MC is most likely aro/ace, and her best friend is bi, who currently is in a relationship with another girl - and there’s at least two other queer couples in the story... and strong hints that one of the characters is a trans girl, and another that used to be a female rabbit but is now a male human, gender unknown as of yet. They didn’t seem particularly bothered by the change though.

It’s also a book about robots and magic and birds and ROBOTS and family legacy and friendship and love and R O B O T S!!! Listen it’s just REALLY GOOD OKAY? Please read it. Please please please!!

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud is one of my all time favorite book series, though it’s the least explicitly queer. There’s no romance in it whatsoever, and the human MC reads to me as aro/ace. (The one time he feels something resembling sexual attraction, he realizes almost instantly that something is Wrong and that he was put under a spell. Lmao...) Human MC is also a ginormous fucking shitlord but I love him a lot, and compared to all the other shitlords in the series, he’s actually pretty moral.

Demon MC is also a shitlord, and somehow works as human MC’s moral compass. Also he’s hilarious. And okay, so... when I was younger, I never really read into anything. But demon MC has this boy from his past who he absolutely loves a lot. You can choose to read it whichever way you want, but it’s a very deep and strong love. QP is likely though unintentional hahaa! Very important... I really need to read the prequel book to see more into how the relationship developed...

A girl is introduced as an MC in the second? and third book. She’s Very Good and also not a love interest. Like it’s way easier to read into a romance between the demon and the boy from his past than it is to read into girl MC and boy MC.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner This one I actually got on rec from the librarian I asked for queer books. It’s an older book, like from the 80s and this one I’m pretty sure the author IDs as bi, so hey that’s at least one rec from a queer author. The book is just set in a fantasy world where sexuality is like WHATEVER! and everyone fights with swords and honor and the MC and everyone else are all total fucking pricks but also bisexual.

It’s the most adult and romancy book out of all of them, but the love scenes aren’t explicit or anything. Definitely a recommended read if you wanna see some earlier rep. The copy of the book I got from the library had a recommendation by GRRM on the cover - one that I think predated his rise to fame. You can definitely see why he’d like it. There’s lots of political drama, affairs, murder, swords, etc.

People die, and I don’t necessarily want to spoil you on if the MC or the MC’s love interest dies unless you want me to (You’re welcome to ask!), but it IS a romance, and it’s not centered around The Struggle at all, and I don’t think it counts as Bury Your Gays if EVERYONE is queer!

So that’s what I have off the top of my head. I only counted MAIN characters in this, none of that “someone was gay once in the background see? representation!!!” crap. And like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve really sat down and read anything in earnest. The Swordspoint book was the only one I found while I was actively looking for queer books, the rest is just happy happenstance!

Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to reblog!

[holytheoristtastemaker]

A (mild) defense of Zoom Inc.'s troubles Let me start by quoting Citizenlab's report: For those using Zoom to keep in touch with friends, hold social events, or organize courses or lectures that they might otherwise hold in a public or semi-public venue, our findings should not necessarily be concerning. For those who have no choice but to use Zoom, including in contexts where secrets may be shared, we speculate that the browser plugin may have some marginally better security properties, as data transmission occurs over TLS. Unfortunately a few hours later, on the same day, the web client was put under maintenance and thus disabled for the time being, hopefully not for long. update: the web client has been restored, multiple sources confirmed. Please enable join from your browser as a default setting. Zoom probably didn't anticipate going from 0 to 100 (actually + 1126% of increased usage according to some estimates) in the span of a few weeks and the fact that their network hasn't melted down and rendered all calls impossible to make is a testament to the quality of the underlying technology. As we all can imagine there are challenges in scaling that big that fast, but most of the problems that have been identified up until now don't really have much to do with scalability or reliability per se, but with questionable software design choices and bad privacy or marketing decisions made by the company. To be fair, sometimes shortcuts seem a great idea when you're in the heat of the moment and have a booming product, but the more people use it, the higher the likelihood that these shortcuts will come back to haunt it. Also, Zoom devs are humans and like all humans, sometimes they just make bad decisions without malice. What worries me is how the company management, also entirely human AFAIK 😃, decided to handle the response, more on that later. Last but not least: the media piled up on them quite extensively and some security flaws (except maybe "zoombombing") aren't an inherent problem for those meetings that would otherwise be held in public if we weren't quarantined even though the extent of the problem with user generated content is that its severity differs case by case and here there would be millions of cases (each Zoom call) to analyze. Zoom is used by everyone: individuals, institutions, therapists, teachers, doctors, religious and secular organizations, goverment officials and even heads of state. Zoom, as of April 1st 2020, halted all feature development and vowed to fix privacy and security issues over the following 90 days. What went wrong is also a cautionary tale about the importance of implementing secure practices and caring about users privacy from day one because at the scale they are now it's quite understandable they are trying to put out fires left and right. What is or was wrong it with TLDR; Zoom has numerous known security holes. Some of those have since been fixed, some haven't. The company also made (and in some cases, still makes) questionable decisions related to privacy. (I'm going to use the past tense where I reasonably verified the issue has been fixed) Zoom has a security issue in its "waiting room" feature. The issue is currently unknown as the security researchers correctly disclosed it only to Zoom Inc. granting them time to get it fixed lest it gets in the hands of malicious actors. Security researchers are advising people to use passwords and not the waiting room feature. Recordings are easily findable on the web: Zoom saves recordings with a guessable name pattern, thus it's quite trivial to find them if they are uploaded to the open web. Search engines are literally built to find public data on the web. Again, "security through obscurity" is not a good practice if the content is sensible, and it was: the Washington Post was able to watch other people's therapy sessions and elementary school online classes by scanning the web (!!!!!). The ID of a meeting room is numeric, which means that people can guess it (manually or with scripts) and thus, being openness the default, people can hijack meetings, thus "zoombombing". The meeting ID has 9 to 11 digits, not even "obscured". Security researchers did actually find meetings and with scripts had up to 14% of a success rate guessing correct meetings URLs. Recurring Zoom meetings links can be found: they also contain info of the meeting organizer and whatever info the organizers disclosed as topic or description. Security researchers found meetings of large banks, government contractors and other companies. Screensharing by any participant is on by default, which means that people can stream whatever they want without oversight. Very handy for private and regulated meetings, not great if meetings rooms are open by default. File transfer is on by default: don't think this needs explaining in an app where a meeting is public. You can literally send to dozens or hundreds of people malware hoping at least one of them will click on it. The app has too many settings: I went through the configuration panel on both the app and the web version (before it was disabled) and I didn't understand half of the options and got bored after a few minutes (minutes!!!). As we all know as creators of sofware the default matters (most users don't even look at apps settings), and by default you should respect the user's privacy and be secure, otherwise hell can break loose when enough people come knocking with the receipts. The company lied about being end to end encrypted, that's it. They said they use end to end encryption (e2e) but they don't. They also own decryption keys for what is encrypted on the wire, which is definitely not *end to end encryption. *FYI: true end to end encryption means that only the participants in a communication exchange can actually see the data in the clear. Not the company providing the service, not any goverment, not anyone except who's invited. Zoom uses weakish encryption: even though the service is not e2e encrypted, calls don't travel in the clear on the transport network. They are encrypted using a central encrypting server which holds the keys. The issue is that they use a single AES 128 bit key in ECB mode which is definitely deprecated and has security holes. Security researchers were able to decrypt video and audio frames from "encrypted" calls. Zoom encryption and security protocols are not independently audited, which means that they most certainly contain flaws. We all know how hard is to pull off encryption done correctly, I can't imagine how hard it is to do it with video, audio, text and generic media. "Roll your own encryption" is 99.99% of the time a bad idea, it's monumentally bad in this instance. As Bruce Scheiner wrote: I'm okay with AES-128, but using ECB (electronic codebook) mode indicates that there is no one at the company who knows anything about cryptography. Zoom encryption keys are occasionally on servers under the jurisdiction of the Chinese goverment: under Chinese law the goverment of China can require companies to disclose their encryption keys and tools for oversight. This has happened also if all participants were outside the country. Likely a data routing problem (Zoom tries to keep calls local to the participants) but not reassuring nonetheless. Also makes me thing of sci fi scenario in which governments or attackers decrypt all of these calls and use facial recognition to create mass surveillance tools. 👀 The company sent data to Facebook unbeknownst to users: this is probably quite common in apps that embed the Facebook SDK without tweaking it (and it only applied to the iOS app which might mean it was truly unintentional), but it's not great anyway. Facebook already knows a lot about users (both those using it and those who don't). It has been fixed since discovery. Zoom's privacy policy was all encompassing. Basically it stated that all personal data (including recordings, chats and uploaded files) could be shared with third parties. It has been since amended. Zoom allowed hosts to monitor participant's attention. This is 1984-the-book kind of stuff 😱. It was removed since discovery, on April 1st. The app bypassed the usual installation process. This was probably done to be friendler to the user in the very common scenario in which a user gets a link, doesn't have the app on their computer and wants to be in the videocall as fast as possible. It's exactly what malware does. It has been fixed since the discovery. Zoom shares your contact info to everyone within certain email domains. What happened was that thousands of users whose emails belonged to a Dutch email provider where pooled together and their personal info shared with each other. The app let Windows users click on anything resembling a link. Basically you could automatically open a file on a shared drive sending your network credentials to an attacker. It has been fixed. Zoom sent your contact data to Linkedin. In some situations, if they could match you to a Linkedin Profile somehow, they did, without telling you and sharing your Linkedin data to other people. This feature has since been removed on April 1st. 0 day vulnerabilities leading to hardware take over were discovered. The likelihood of those happening was very low (the vulnerability window span the length of the installation process and just that). Fixed as well on April 1st. Records of private messages with the host are available in the export. This is not a huge problem in theory as the export doesn't contain private messages between other participants than those with the host. Zoom tracks lots of data about its users and has many third party trackers on its website. This to me feels like a very intentional choice. Part of those were amended when the new privacy policy was published the other day. What has happened in the "aftermath" So far: Privacy and advocacy groups started to notice Class actions are starting to mount The US government and the FBI have started to notice 👀 NASA, SpaceX and other companies moved away from Zoom New York City has banned Zoom from its schools Conclusions I'm sure you've noticed how this article doesn't talk at all about alternatives. The question of alternatives really depends on what the users requirements are and if the entire globe is your users, then it's hard to evaluate on the spot. It also takes a lot of time to evaluate all options and I think it'll take a few days before deeply researched articles about pros and cons of the alternatives start to appear. You also need a group of people distributed all over the world for thorough testing of each app. Let's also not forget that we mostly felt okay with Zoom until tens of millions of people started using it overnight and it got on experts's radars. Alternatives might be just as flawed, simply less popular right now. Trust in the company is important so I do understand why regular people are rushing to find alternatives. I'm also not a tech columnist nor a security expert, so I can't claim "X is better than Zoom for everything and for everyone". I'll see if I can find a reasonably well done comparison of alternatives in the next few days with what I think should be generic requirements: great video and audio call performance, secure by default with indipendently reviewed encryption and protocols, and absolutely no adtech on all of this sensible data (which wouldn't be possible anyway if they had e2e, though technically you can still sell metadata about users...). Echoing other people's sentiments I read online: Apple is sitting on a gold mine if they open Facetime, get it audited and make sure their e2e encryption has no "backdoors". I'm leaving last a long list of links, with some excerpts, which is what I've read to write this summary. Media (and other sources) coverage (in chronological order) Although there are past issues (like the "open web server" debacle from 2019), I've focused only on recent media coverage from March-April 2020. 20200317 - (Techcrunch) - Beware of ‘ZoomBombing’: screensharing filth to video calls 20200326 - (Motherboard, Vice) - Zoom iOS App Sends Data to Facebook Even if You Don’t Have a Facebook Account 20200330 - (Doc Searls, digital privacy expert) - Zoom’s new privacy policy: There will be no need for Zoom to disambiguate services and websites if neither is involved with adtech at all. And Zoom will be in a much better position to trumpet their commitment to privacy. That said, this privacy policy rewrite is a big help. So thank you, Zoom, for listening. 20200331 - (Motherboard, Vice) - Zoom Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Sharing Data with Facebook 20200401 - (Motherboard, Vice) - Zoom is Leaking Peoples' Email Addresses and Photos to Strangers: "I was shocked by this! I subscribed (with an alias, fortunately) and I saw 995 people unknown to me with their names, images and mail addresses." "I just had a look at the free for private use version of Zoom and registered with my private email. I now got 1000 names, email addresses and even pictures of people in the company Directory. Is this intentional?" 20200401 - (webrtcH4cKS, WebRTC technologists) - Does your video call have End-to-End Encryption? Probably not...: So yes, Zoom does not have end-to-end encryption. Quite often, WebRTC doesn’t either – not yet at least. If you are using a WebRTC service check their terms of service and privacy policy and make sure that you understand what they are saying about this. Hopefully we will see this change soon as WebRTC Insertable Streams matures. 20200402 - (Fight for the future, digital rights group) - New campaign calls for Zoom to (actually) implement end to end encryption to keep people safe: Digital rights group Fight for the Future, known for organizing massive online protests for net neutrality and Internet privacy, has launched a new campaign calling for video conferencing service Zoom to implement default end-to-end encryption on all video, audio, and chat content. 20200402 - (Steven Bellovin, security researcher and professor) - Zoom Security: The Good, the Bad, and the Business Model: There is, though, a class of problems that worries me: security shortcuts in the name of convenience or usability. Consider the first widely known flaw in Zoom: a design decision that allowed “any website to forcibly join a user to a Zoom call, with their video camera activated, without the user's permission.” Why did it work that way? It was intended as a feature I'm optimistic that things are heading in the right direction. Still, it's the shortcuts that worry me the most. Those aren't just problems that they can fix, they make me fear for the attitudes of the development team towards security. I'm not convinced that they get it—and that's bad. Fixing that is going to require a CISO office with real power, as well as enough education to make sure that the CISO doesn't have to exercise that power very often. They also need a privacy officer, again with real power; many of their older design decisions seriously impact privacy. 20200402 - (Krebs on Security, security expert) - ‘War Dialing’ Tool Exposes Zoom’s Password Problems: according to data gathered by a new automated Zoom meeting discovery tool dubbed “zWarDial,” a crazy number of meetings at major corporations are not being protected by a password. Lo said zWarDial evades Zoom’s attempts to block automated meeting scans by routing the searches through multiple proxies in Tor, a free and open-source software that lets users browse the Web anonymously. “Having a password enabled on the meeting is the only thing that defeats it,” he said. Lo shared the output of one day’s worth of zWarDial scanning, which revealed information about nearly 2,400 upcoming or recurring Zoom meetings. That information included the link needed to join each meeting; the date and time of the meeting; the name of the meeting organizer; and any information supplied by the meeting organizer about the topic of the meeting. 20200402 - (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns -memo: In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect. 20200403 - (NYTimes) - ‘Zoombombing’ Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort: Zoom raiders often employ shocking imagery, racial epithets and profanity to derail video conferences. Harassers have begun to leverage every feature of Zoom’s platform for abuse. They have used the app’s custom background feature to project a GIF of a person drinking to participants in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and its annotation feature to write racist messages in a meeting of the American Jewish Committee in Paris. The frequency and reach of the incidents on Zoom prompted the F.B.I. to issue a warning on Tuesday, singling out the app 20200403 - (TidBITS) - Every Zoom Security and Privacy Flaw So Far, and What You Can Do to Protect Yourself: As detailed as this article is, I fear that this list of problems and choices will be far from the last we hear about Zoom’s security and privacy troubles. In fact, while writing and editing this article over the last 48 hours, we had to add six additional exploits, design-choice errors, and privacy concerns. Zoom has gone into what’s known as “technical debt.” The company’s developers made a lot of poor decisions in the past, which are likely difficult and costly to fix. The longer it takes Zoom to address the core problems, the harder and more costly future fixes will be, as additional code is built upon that weak foundation. 20200403 - (Washington Post) - Thousands of Zoom video calls left exposed on open Web: Videos viewed by The Washington Post included one-on-one therapy sessions; a training orientation for workers doing telehealth calls that included people’s names and phone numbers; small-business meetings that included private company financial statements; and elementary school classes, in which children’s faces, voices and personal details were exposed. 20200403 - (Citizenlab) - Move Fast & Roll Your Own Crypto: A Quick Look at the Confidentiality of Zoom Meetings: Until a few weeks ago, it would have been uncommon for high stakes business negotiations, high level diplomacy, political strategy conferences, and cabinet meetings to be conducted over platforms whose security properties are unknown. Zoom has not publicly disclosed information such as statistics of requests for data by governments, and what Zoom has done in response to these requests. Zoom’s policies concerning notifications to users over breaches or the handing-over of data to governments are also unknown During our analysis, we also identified a security issue with Zoom’s Waiting Room feature. Assessing that the issue presented a risk to users, we have initiated a responsible vulnerability disclosure process with Zoom. We are not currently providing public information about the issue to prevent it from being abused. As a result of these troubling security issues, we discourage the use of Zoom at this time for use cases that require strong privacy and confidentiality For those who have no choice but to use Zoom, including in contexts where secrets may be shared, we speculate that the browser plugin may have some marginally better security properties, as data transmission occurs over TLS. In the meantime, we advise Zoom users who desire confidentiality to not use Zoom Waiting Rooms. Instead, we encourage users to use Zoom’s password feature, which appears to offer a higher level of confidentiality than waiting rooms 20200403 - (Politico) - Multiple state AGs looking into Zoom’s privacy practices 20200403 - (Bruce Scheiner, legendary security researcher) - Security and Privacy Implications of Zoom: Privacy first: Zoom spies on its users for personal profit. It seems to have cleaned this up somewhat since everyone started paying attention, but it still does it. I'm sure lots more of these bad security decisions, sloppy coding mistakes, and random software vulnerabilities are coming. But it gets worse. Zoom's encryption is awful. First, the company claims that it offers end-to-end encryption, but it doesn't. It only provides link encryption, which means everything is unencrypted on the company's servers. 20200404 - (Steven Bellovin, security researcher and professor) - Zoom Cryptography and Authentication Problems: When companies roll their own crypto, I expect it to have flaws. I don't expect those flaws to be errors I'd find unacceptable in an introductory undergraduate class, but that's what happened here. 20200404 - (Chalkbeat, organization related to American schools) - NYC forbids schools from using Zoom for remote learning due to privacy and security concerns: Instead, the guidance says, schools should switch to Microsoft Teams “as soon as possible,” which the education department suggests has similar functionality and is more secure. 20200404 - (Techcrunch) - Zoom admits some calls were routed through China by mistake: Zoom said in February that “rapidly added capacity” to its Chinese regions to handle demand was also put on an international whitelist of backup data centers, which meant non-Chinese users were in some cases connected to Chinese servers when data centers in other regions were unavailable

http://damianfallon.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-semi-technical-explainer-of-all-known.html

[yesthatsatumbler]

I used to do it with listings written on A4 paper, but as my collection got larger, those rapidly became unsustainable! So I stopped doing that sometime around 2014.

Around the same time I discovered Numista, which was great but also very incomplete, especially for ancients, non-Western medievals, and (naturally) exonumia; the majority of my nonmodern coins were not listed (AFAIK many still aren't) and that made it hard to keep track of what I had other than by sheer mind power. (There was also no banknote section at the time, so I awkwardly had to enter all the notes I could find when that got started - and then a few months later I started buying dozens of cheap paper notgeld, and it turned out that Numista only had about half of my purchases listed).

...another common Numista problem I ended up with: sometimes I had a coin where I could identify the type but not the date, and until 2021ish (I forgot where exactly that feature was introduced) there was no option to enter a coin like that other than via the weird wastebasket "any coin you cannot exactly ID" entry where you were expected to put the partial ID in comments because there were like ten categories listed for the entirety of world coinage. (Every so often - I most commonly stumbled into this with 17th century Poland, but it was also common for some Roman periods and I forgot where else - the type (i.e. Numista page) division was so fine-grained that I couldn't even determine which "type" the coin was, and I had to either choose at random and hope I guessed correctly, or not enter the coin at all [or put it into the wastebasket page which was almost the same thing]. I usually preferred the former but sometimes I really wasn't sure and decided that I'm better off just not entering it at all.)

Somewhat in parallel, as I was bored at home in the Covid days of 2020, I started making photos of my coins... mostly ancient and medieval coins, at first, because I was hoping to post some of them for ID. (This mostly didn't happen.) This project continued at a slow pace into 2021 and 2022, before abruptly ending in September 2022 for move-related reasons; unfortunately it didn't really make it even through all of the ancients and medievals, never mind everything else. (Turned out I had a lot of unattributed old coins, left over from my many many visits to 100-ruble and 200-ruble bins. I miss Vasya's store at Hobby City; it was full of cool cheap stuff - and the occasional even cooler slightly less cheap stuff - but I hadn't managed to stumble on it being open since late 2021, and I wonder what happened to it.)

I suspect that if I got through the coin pics project I might well have started a spreadsheet or another notebook or something! But, well, 2022 happened and things got complicated and I basically had to abandon everything. (It's still there AFAIK and maybe I'll go there again.)

...and because it's neat, here's a pic of (part of) a paper listing of my collection from 2013.

It's cropped and there's a euro cent for scale so... just imagine this kind of font size all over the entire A4 sheet! You can see about 40 coin entries on this crop and the full sheet had over 300.

This photo is probably larger than life size on your screen (unless you're viewing from a phone... and maybe even then), but in the original, each of those lines only takes up only about 4 mm of height - including the gap in between.

Listing out my collection in 2022 would have required filling up something like a dozen such sheets. You can probably imagine why I said that it was becoming unsustainable.