#life outside the internet

[bobcatmoran]

I just had a freaking pileated woodpeckervisit my suet feeder. If you've never seen one in real life, they're massive, about the size of a crow. In fact, she was so big that she seemed to have trouble figuring out how to get to the suet while still staying perched. Lots of confused head bobbing and tilting back and forth, and I don't think she was ever able to get a really good angle, because after a few awkward pecks, she flew off.

(a tiny downy woodpecker that had been waiting for her to clear off took over the feeder immediately afterwards, and the size difference was kind of hilarious)

[bobcatmoran]

I graduated high school in 2001. I met T my freshman year. Can't remember how, but they (you'll see why I'm using that pronoun in a moment) wound up joining our friend group at lunch.

T's gender was…ambiguous. They wore baggy clothes that were more in line with the style for guys at the time, but they also had a high-pitched voice. True, there were still some guys our age whose voices hadn't changed, but those were getting to be fewer and fewer as time passed. Plus, they were sitting at lunch with a bunch of girls, which no guy ever did unless they were A Boyfriend. Their haircut was short, but not so short that it couldn't be a girl's.

I didn't really care one way or the other — T was game for using the school's admin password ("nimda," or "admin" backwards) to put grainy cartoon jpegs on the desktops of the computers we were on in our horrendous "Computer Tech" glorified keyboarding class that we were both in because it was a prerequisite for all other technology classes. We were continuously doing things that drove the teacher crazy, mostly because she couldn't figure out how we were doing it (she said on the first day of class that she only knew how to use Windows/DOS and the class was taught on Macs). That, to me — a fellow in arms for antagonizing a horrible teacher — was way more important than whether they were a boy or a girl. T refused to confirm either way.

Some of my friends, however, decided that having someone of ambiguous gender was unacceptable — you had to be either a boy or a girl, you couldn't be both or neither. (I agreed that you had to be a boy or a girl because being non-binary wasn't a thing I'd learn about until years later, but I, again, didn't really think it was that important.) One of them, during sophomore year, somehow managed to get ahold of a childhood photo of T — in a dress. And during a field trip to a local water park, T showed up in the girl's locker room — in an orange, one-piece, women's bathing suit, and clearly very uncomfortable with the attention they were drawing.

So that was that. Except it wasn't.

T refused to be called a girl. They were clearly not ok with it, and when we learned about sex chromosomes in biology, they said that they had Klinefelter Syndrome, which we had all just learned about, and were trying to figure stuff out. That didn't seem to match a lot of what we knew (underneath the baggy clothes, T had a MUCH bigger cup size than expected, and they generally met zero of the syndrome's physical symptoms), but it shut up my friends about it, and we went back to doing the no-pronoun dance.

I still have zero idea exactly how T identified, or if they even quite knew themselves — this was the late '90s, after all, and the idea that there could be anything beyond the gender binary was not something that a bunch of 15 year olds in the suburban Midwest knew about. We didn't even have any out gay or lesbian students in our school of 3000 pupils.

I lost touch with T after sophomore year. Whether they dropped out, or their family moved, or they transferred schools I don't know, but they stopped going to my high school. I hope wherever they went that they did ok for themselves and that they found happiness.

I graduated high school in 99.

There was a student at our school named Wayne.

Wayne was gay. It was obvious. He was unable to stay in the closet even if he wanted to. To make matters worse, he was also Black. From a bullying standpoint, that was not a great combo. Both Black and white students made fun of him relentlessly. He was ostracized from the only community that may have given him protection. Only us theater kids stuck up for him, but not to significant effect.

Wayne was bullied so much that at one point he finally snapped and attacked his bullies with a lunch tray. I was actually seated in perfect line of sight and just sat there chewing my soggy fries in stunned silence. It didn't even seem real as I was witnessing it. The image of him wailing on his main bully as the food on his tray flew off is permanently logged into my long term memory.

The bully he attacked had blood all over his face and went straight to the nurse. Other than superficial cuts, he was not injured.

Before the attack, Wayne went to teachers for help. He went to guidance counselors for help. He went to the principals for help.

He did all of the things you were supposed to do. No one helped him. They wagged a finger at the bullies and warned them to stop.

Wayne's lunch tray melee was the only thing that worked. His bullies stayed far away from him. But a week later Wayne was expelled and the bullies were given no punishment.

So... no.

No one in my school talked about being trans.

Because the only way to survive being openly queer was to bash people with a lunch tray.

[glowsticcc]

chosen.

[sariphantom]

Risecember 2024 Day 1: Ice Sculpture

[qqquib]

this is a great time to remind everyone to go offline, to talk with your friends, to engage in content that's fulfilling, to go outside. to live a life that has meaning away from the internet.

[steviewashere]

cw: food and fatphobia

Just saw the words: "am I promoting a big-back lifestyle?" in a fucking recipe video.

BIG BACK?! JUST SAY FAT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! AND....WHAT?!!! PROMOTING A "BIG-BACK" LIFESTYLE???? YOU MEAN PROMOTING A LIFESTYLE WHERE PEOPLE ENJOY LITTLE TREATS EVERY NOW AND THEN????

YOU'RE MAKING BROWNIES! YOUR STUPID INFLUENCER CAREER IS BASED AROUND MAKING FOOD AND SHARING RECIPES! SO SHUT UP!!!

IT'S NOT A BAD THING TO BE FAT! OR TO HAVE A BROWNIE EVERY NOW AND THEN! OH MY GOD! IF YOU DON'T INDULGE, THEN WHAT ARE YOU LIVING FOR?! IF YOU DON'T ALLOW YOURSELF SOME MINOR SIMPLE PLEASURES, ARE YOU EVEN ENJOYING YOURSELF?!

JUST MAKE A DAMN BROWNIE, ENJOY THE BITES YOU TAKE OF IT, AND MOVE ON WITH YOUR DAY!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO FAT SHAME PEOPLE FOR WANTING TO EAT A BROWNIE! AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO REFER TO FAT PEOPLE AS BIG-BACKED.

I'M SO FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF FAT SHAMING COMING BACK AS THIS COMMON THING. FAT PEOPLE WERE ALLOWED TO BE ONLINE FOR LIKE TWO YEARS AND THEN EVERYBODY GOT TIRED OF IT. I'M SO SICK OF IT.

CHRIST.

[elisadoreyou]

defending brody and jason from weirdos on the internet isn’t enough i need to buy a gun

[bobcatmoran]

Despite the *gestures vaguely in the direction of the US presidential election* there is at least one good bit of news on my personal front. The results of my annual mammogram, which I started relatively early and do religiously because of family history, came up as, "We want to do a secondary mammogram and also an ultrasound, because we saw something suspicious."

Insta panic on my part. But! I went in for the second mammogram and also the ultrasound (and lemme tell ya, getting your breast lubed up and having a thing rubbing all around it, especially near your nipple is hella awkward), and thankfully, the result was non-cancerous cysts and also I just have dense breast tissue that mammograms aren't great at scanning.

Like, ideally I wouldn't have had to get my breasts squashed twice in the space of a few weeks, but it's a lot better than having undetected cancer.

All y'all fellow breast havers, please make sure to have your annual mammograms starting at age 40 and earlier if you have a family history of breast cancer. Do a self-exam monthly — it's how my mom found her cancer. Trans men, even those who've had top surgery, you're not exempt, and even cis men can get breast cancer.

[alaskan-wallflower]

hot take but maybe people should stop harassing/stalking the outsiders cast.

[wis-art]

Women, so pretty, so shaped, i am so lesbian,,,

[jinstronaut]

some 5am thoughts bc my cat woke me up:

solo stan’s and solo behavior can kick rocks

there is no right or wrong way to use a tracked tag — ppl have lives and ppl are busy, don’t get mad bc someone isn’t reblogging something within 2 hrs of it being posted. some of us use a tag to catch up since we’re too busy to be here 24/7, that’s not a bad thing.

if you’ve never ever ever spoken to someone personally you don’t get to speak on who they are as a human being. if you’ve never actually reached out and had a convo with someone abt who they are you’re doing a disservice to them and yourself when you just assume things abt them based on perception instead of fact

most importantly HOBI IS HOME so let us celebrate 😌🎉✨💖

[arakiincel]

oh my god get a life

[steevejr]

trans women are really not allowed to have anything on here. as soon as a trans woman says anything suddenly it’s ‘not an oppression competition’ and ‘we are ALL one gender; the LGBTQIA gender’. but god forbid someone says anything minimizing about trans men and suddenly AFABS are the most oppressed gender 😔

[quins-makeshift-menagerie]

You know. I’ve been debating this for weeks now but I’m kind of upset with your decision to have a baby. You were one of my favorite Mewtwo artist but now it feels like you’re just throwing your fans to the side like we’re trash. Don’t we matter to you at all? We’re the reason you can even make anything on Patreon but now you’re going to leave us with an unfinished story? Way to make us fee appreciated and loved…

Anon do you like

Need a hug??? /gen

[minorlyatfault]

how tf do ppl even make friends here like,,, dms, yappies & stuff

[catboymoments]

tip: I am so fucking mad