#my name in all of their systems is my deadname still though and I've been going back and forth with their IT department

[spice-ghouls]

Almost a full 2 weeks now at the New Job and it's very stressful but I like my coworkers so I'm having an ok time :)

[winteriron-trash]

pinned faq

hi, my name is roman. i used to be a semi-popular winteriron blog, but now this blog is mostly dead. so. rip, gone but not forgotten. but i still get some pretty common questions so here's a one-stop shop for most of them as well as links to the important things.

My Tumblr Fic Masterlist

My Ao3

My (dead) WinterIron Discord Server

Did you write the Tony Stark wifi tower fic?

yes, i wrote that fic! it is by far the most popular thing i've ever written and it will probably outlive me.

I found that fic on [insert site here], do they have your permission?

probably not, no. i have found that fic everywhere. and i mean everywhere. pinterest, wattpad, facebook, instagram, tiktok, mediachomp, and so on. honestly, it's been years and i can't control or chase down every single copy and i have no interest in doing so. i don't love that it was stolen from me (especially on for-profit sites) but it just is what it is. it's a fanfic rite of passage to have your stuff stolen, honestly.

can i do a translation/podfic/write something inspired by one of your fics/posts?

yes! there is always a blanket permission to do any sort of transformative work with my work, especially my older stuff. if it sparks joy and creativity in you, run wild with it. i prefer to be credited, but honestly, i'm just happy to see my stuff still inspiring people.

will you ever write winteriron/mcu fanfic again?

well, you should never say never. but in this case, you might want to say never. i have very little interest in winteriron or the mcu in general outside of nostalgia, and i likely will never write anything substantial for them again. it's sad, i miss it too, but i just don't have that spark for marvel these days. mostly i write dc comics fanfiction.

did you write [insert winteriron fic/post here]?

idk. maybe. probably. i wrote and posted a lot of things. you can scroll the tag on this blog to find all my old posts, some more popular than others. if you think it was me, chances are, it probably was. i got around a lot from like 2018 to 2020.

do you have a tagging system?

i used to but lord if i'm going to use it now. i don't even remember it, so your guess is as good as mine. tbh i just use tags as a place to ramble these days so navigating my blog is about as easy for you as it is for me. which is to say, it's not easy at all. because tumblr's search function is ass. i do know one of my old tags has my deadname in it. you'll probably find it if you look hard enough, but that is what it is.

are you going to revive this blog?

probably not consistently, no. if i have something i really want to say here, i'll say it, but i don't have much interest in maintaining this like i used to. i want to be able to, i miss posting here a lot, i just don't think it'll spark joy for me the way it used to, which sucks but that's just the way things go.

why did you leave this blog?

idk. life happened. i was an 18-year-old fighting chronic health conditions and mental health issues that led to me dropping out of high school so, tumblr sort of fell to the back burner, then got forgotten about entirely. eventually, i lost interest in the mcu as i felt the quality of it took a turn for the worst and i went back to dc, which i'm still into. i read some marvel comics, enjoy an occasional mcu project, but largely i just don't have the interest i used to. it sucks and i miss it, this blog probably kept me alive as a teenager. but now it's mostly just an archive of my past, and i'm okay with that.

can i talk to you/send you an ask/befriend you anyway?

sure, if you want, don't know if i'm good company though. but i'm always open to making friends and reminiscing about winteriron, marvel, and all that good stuff. i've gotta warn you though, tumblr fucking eats my DMs on this blog like no fucking business. i'm regularly fighting it. my discord is devilbonesofmetal if you wanna yell at me there, just say you're from tumblr.

[void-botanist]

15 Questions: Isabel

Thank you @duckingwriting for the tag! I haven't talked about Isabel too much so far so here we go.

I'll tag @vacantgodling, @outpost51, @sam-glade, and @writinglittlebeasts plus an open tag.

Nicea taglist: @kahvilahuhut

1 - Are you named after anyone? Sort of. My deadname was my great-grandfather's name, but we don't talk about that. I first noticed the name Isabel when I was watching figure skating, but I didn't intentionally name myself after a figure skater, so I don't know if that counts.

2 - When was the last time you cried? A couple weeks ago Spinder invited us all to see this romance movie that was cheesy as hell but the climax got to me anyway.

3 - Do you have any kids? I'm decent with kids, but I can't seriously imagine having my own.

4 - Do you use sarcasm? If you don't use enough sarcasm, they revoke your bitch card, and I'm depending on that gender euphoria.

5 - What's the first thing you notice about people? Their hair. I've been shopping around for a new weird hairstyle, because it's been too long since I did anything really interesting with my hair. So far, no dice.

6 - What is your eye color? Brown.

7 - Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings, but only if they make sense.

8 - Any special talents? I think being good at packing cargo counts. I'm out of practice now, but I used to be decent at trick skating. And I guess playing music and singing at the same time is a skill. My other talents are, hm…age restricted.

9 - Where were you born? Gevorad system. I could be more specific but that's all most people want to know.

10 - What are your hobbies? Music has always been the biggest one. I've been playing piano since I was seven, and I got into guitar later—not to impress boys per se but hey, it worked, so I'm not complaining. Theater also used to be a big one, but not so much now. I still read comics a lot though. Anywhere with good food and live music I will make my hobby. And when I'm planetside I like taking weird routes to stuff to see what I see, if that counts as a hobby.

11 - Do you have any pets? Nah, but my mom has a dog I visit sometimes.

12 - What sports do you or have you played? I've played plenty of sports, but the best is inline hockey. Roller derby's a close second, though. I play with one of the Potswick hockey teams when I'm planetside.

13 - How tall are you? 5' 9". I used to be kind of down about it until I realized I look devastating in heels and honestly that's what I really want.

14 - Favorite subject in school? Hm. [gets a faraway look for a long moment] History. Though it was kind of a wild experience moving from Gevorad to Antarac in high school because I knew the locality history but all the stuff the Ailna kids thought was obvious, I was like, they did what? who? And some of the stuff they "knew" was just groundgrazer bullshit. But at least most of it was funny and didn't escalate into fistfighting.

15 - Dream job? You'd laugh at me if I told you how badly I wanted to be a starlet. I did some theatrical acting, I did some movie auditions, but it really wasn't as glamorous as I thought it would be. And I had a hard time with directors not sharing my vision. Not even because I wanted to be the center of attention. I just didn't want the person whose job it was to tell me what to do to actually tell me what to do. In the end music captured me more anyway, and I think with more realistic expectations that'll be glamorous enough. So, I don't know, local music celebrity?

[plaguechicken]

Transgender students face a lot of challenges due to things beyond their control, and I want to talk about some of my own experiences. I've identified as transgender since around 2018, with me being out around late 2019, and it has impacted my ability to afford and access college. Bathrooms have been one of the difficult things for me since I feel most comfortable in gender neutral bathrooms even though I'm a transmasc, however, on one of my school's campus there wasn't many that I could use and sometimes I had people upset surrounding me going to the men's bathrooms. Affording college is also hard since before I started passing more, I was unable to save as much as I'd like due to burnout surrounding retail work and being misgendered by customers and not being taken seriously. Some people have even gone as far as complaining to my managers about be just existing as myself, and that had worn me down. Luckily my manager were supportive towards me, but it still was difficult to deal with when I was just trying to do my best. While I was in my first year of college, I was doing my name change process, and that also took a big chunk of money that I was going to use towards tuition, as well as some places costing money for me to change my name on a lesser scale. I'm thankful that at least insurance has been mostly covering my medical stuff, but the legal stuff is so taxing. My school’s filing system for how they put in names is also flawed, so even when you do the process, there’s still a chance that you will still get deadnamed which can be a very embarrassing and draining start to the semester. I am writing all this because I hope to get the #TransgenderFirst scholarship so that I can continue and fund my education to keep doing what I love. https://www.onlinedegree.com/transgender-first-scholarship/

[agirldying]

Day 9: Do you feel that experiencing trauma has changed you?

I actually already touched on this in Day 1's response:

"identity disturbance" - not really sure how else to label it but my trauma has forced me to change in a lot of ways, and there were also some changes that I voluntarily made to feel more comfortable in my own skin after what happened. I feel like one of the main involuntary changes is a loss of innocence. I was happy and naïve and had no concept of mental health or boundaries, and now every single one of those things have changed. I feel I have changed too much to even be considered the same person anymore, so I changed my name, pronouns, clothes, music,, hairstyle, hair color, etc. I realize now that this was all in an attempt to escape my body and the memories that I cannot shake. I thought that if I be someone else, maybe I can no longer be the person whom this happened to. But at the same time, it's not doing me harm, in fact it's bringing me comfort, so I continue to go by the new name and pronouns. I think it helps me feel acknowledged in that I am no longer the same person.

"identity disturbance" contd. - another thing about my sense of self is that, along with feeling like I am no longer the same person, I know I say things like "the girl I used to be" and while I know that this body of mine has pretty much always been the same, internally I genuinely feel like someone else assuming the identity of the person that was here before. I haven't been diagnosed with OSDD, though my therapist - who I've had for years - believes I have it. I actually have a system blog on here but I don't like plugging it due to stigma and fakeclaiming. For that reason I also don't really like publicly discussing what I understand to be my system. But that being said I am comfortable mentioning that, as someone who does not identify with the person who was inhabiting this body before me, I am still somehow able to access pretty much all the memories. System communication is virtually non-existent and extremely difficult for me to attempt, but there is occasionally passive influence, commentary, and once in a blue moon I am able to exchange brief conversation with them. Another odd thing which I don't myself understand but, not only does there not appear to be really any amnesia between us, but we're also very like, blurry, blendy, soupy in general (as opposed to completely differentiated). It's like a venn diagram where there's a lot of intersection, but it's always in motion and intersects with different circles at different times, if that makes sense.

From page 226-227 of my exposé:

I think that, especially due to all the dissociation surrounding the traumas, it’s very easy for me to make the distinction between the girl I was when Marcus dated me and the person I am today. [deadname] had brighter hopes and dreams, was too in love with reality to try drugs (a straight edge with all of the straight and none of the edge), laughed at bad jokes and trusted everyone in a heartbeat. I just feel like a ghost of myself now, hollow and emotionless, self-medicating to dissociate from the harshness of reality, but still restlessly haunting my own body with the trauma I need to put to rest. I want closure for her so I can put her in the ground and move on.

[bookwyrminspiration]

HI?? THE NEW CHAPTER??? HELLO????? AS SAID IN THE COMMENT BRAIN NOT WORKING AND STRESS VERY MUCH BUT ILL COME BACK TO THIS. HOLY SHIT.

- pyro

(almost signed with my deadname lol. honestly i think that just goes to show how tired i am. also did i actually read the chapter that fast or did it seem like it went fast bvkfjf)

hi! hello! pleasure to pontificate, pyro! (I like alliteration; please ignore me)

it's been a while since you sent this as I may or may not have written an entire essay (I did), but I hope your stress has gotten better! There's this weird thing with stress where I both hate it and hate when it leaves because then I'm like...well what else am I supposed to be if not stressed. it's familiar in a way, I guess? Like I want to be anxious because its normal for me but then it gets really bad and you're like oh no okay maybe I do want it to be gone (shout out to anyone else whose had to lay on the floor for an hour in physical pain because of anxiety!! not fun.)

but back to what you were saying! I don't know what counts as fast reading, but you reblogged the post at 11:46am and sent this ask at 12:11 pm (in my timezone), so less than 25 minutes to read almost 9,000 words, averaging to about 360 wpm. If I'm remembering right your reading speed is somewhere in the 200s? (I could be making that up though or confusing you with someone else. I get a lot of asks so that's very possible), And if that's the case than you did in fact read it very fast. Just now realizing you might not have actually wanted an answer but oh well--you're getting one!

also damn almost using your deadname...that's very tired. honestly I forget I have one most of the time as it's been legally changed and I've gone through nearly all of the paperwork. I've been Quil for like three years now!! (socially, that is. legally for only a few months). my college (for anyone newer to my blog who may be reading this: I'm not college age; I'm a dual credit student and still in high school) is the one place that it hasn't been changed that's inconvenient. which is weird because I submitted all the paperwork several months ago. should probably do a follow up to ask about that but haven't felt like it. also i forget because my name is changed in the system (like a nickname, but not officially) so I don't really remember. though sometimes I do get nostalgic for my dead name because like!! it has a cool meaning! and there's a book character from one of my dad's favorite series that shares the name! that's actually where he first saw the name--and it was an inhuman character too, which is even better!! I don't regret changing it, but it's bittersweet sometimes, if that makes sense. this is getting wildly off topic oh no

[fuck-customers]

Holy Shit Buckle Up Y'all

(TW: mentions of transphobia, racism, and self-harm)

A little backstory:

In November we hired three new people to help with our workload around the holidays, and we've kept them on. Two of them are very hard workers, have great personalities, and nice work ethics. The third, who I will be referring to as J.....does not.

She constantly asks to switch shifts instead of putting in for time off or changing her availability (said that its "inconvenient" for her to change it), if you're even a minute late to covering register for her when she's supposed to get off, she'll just abandon the register and clock out and then shop for thirty minutes, and she is constantly walking away from her post bc she's "bored" and "doesn't feel like working" when there are literally people in line.

So about two weeks ago, she scheduled for five days off. Sweet, shes learning. She then proceeds to call off the day before her five days and the day after. So now she has a week off. Dick move, but I can't say no one has done it before.

Her scheduled day back is a Wednesday. She texts one of my coworkers, P, and asks her to take her shifts for Wednesday AND Thursday. P agrees because she wants more hours, but all of us, including the managers, are irritated now. This is now nine days off she's gotten.

On Wednesday, I got a text from her asking if I could take her shift Friday. Now as of this point, I've been sick all week - hacking my lungs out, not able to breathe, but working bc we're short staffed (bc of her) and bc I need the money. I had Friday and Saturday off for the first time in MONTHS so no way in hell was I gonna take it. I just said no, firmly.

She continues to pester me, asking why, since I don't work Friday I should be able to, etc, and I kind of snapped:

Which, okay, maybe I shouldn't have snapped like that. But I was exhausted and frustrated and so sick of her getting to do this that I just couldn't take it anymore. I expected her to call me a bitch and then ignore me but hoooooo boy nope. (Names are blacked out) (and if this many photos aren't allowed feel free to delete this submission)

First of all, the racism comment:

She was buying cigarettes and even though shes a coworker, I have to ID her bc she's 19 and I can get fired for that shit. She told me she had lost her ID and asked to just put her birthday in. My manager said it was fine, so I did, and I made the offhanded comment about how she should get a new one so she didn't get pulled over by a racist dick while driving. We live in an area where the cops just looovvve to profile people (if you know Ohio, you know where) and I'd had that conversation with so many of my friends that I didn't even think about it, I was just concerned about her getting home safely to her kid. She didn't react negatively at the time, just said "oh I didn't think about that, thanks" and we moved on. If she had really had an issue with it she would have spoken to our managers, so clearly she's only bringing it up now to scare me. I just.....I mean obviously if I am being racist I want someone to tell me so I can fix my actions, but I didn't even think that came off that way in the moment. Maybe I was out of line, but the same thing has happened recently to my 16 year old cousin (he's fine dw) and so its been on my mind.

Second, no, I am not a manager. But aside from four other employees, two of which only work part time, I am one of the oldest members of staff (time wise, not age wise, I'm 23). So the managers put me in charge of a lot of shit, which means that I end up being in charge of people. Which apparently she did not like.

And third no, I do not have a kid. I'm not married, I don't have a partner, and I barely have the income to make half of rent with my roommate sometimes. I would not bring a child into this world if I could help it, and it pissed me off that she would imply that if I had a child, I'd be more mature. I wanted to scream at her and tell her that if having a kid makes you more mature, it clearly didn't work for her. I feel so bad for her kid; he's like two, and she's already constantly using him as an excuse for not doing things and not going to work. She lives with her mom and her boyfriend, so she has a support system (her mom is retired, and a very sweet lady). Like again, I don't have a kid, but all my coworkers who do don't pull this shit ever.

Anyway

I was physically shaking by the end of these texts, crying, because I HATE when people yell at me, especially when they know me IRL. And especially cause she was accusing me of some nasty shit. I sent them all to my manager in the least professional set of texts I'd ever written and then two hours later had to go to work.

My depression was up, my anxiety was through the roof, and as soon as our floater manager asked me if I was okay I burst into tears again. I showed her and the closing manager the texts and they were both appalled but then

They fucking started trying to "comfort" me by making racist comments!!! "Oh, thats just what her people are like" "you know she grew up in the ghetto part of town" "that girl is straight up hood" like!!!!

I was furious. I was so mad it wasn't funny, but they're my MANAGERS and i need this job and they're both old, so they don't think what they're saying is wrong. I tried desperately to derail it by saying things like "where she grew up had nothing to do with it" but they just kept going and I just....that made it so much worse tbh I just walked out of the office to do my fucking job.

A couple hours later, right as I've started to calm down, one of my coworkers started making really transphobic comments about one of our old coworkers who I'm still friends with, deadnaming her, saying that she's allowed to deadname her bc its part of her religion, etc etc.

Y'all I just....walked behind the photo counter and had a fucking meltdown on the floor. I dragged myself to the pharmacy to get their trash so I had SOMETHING to focus on and as soon as I got there the tech took one look at me and held out her arms and I just lost it again.

I go to my manager and basically just ask to do trash and go home. I was supposed to close, and I have left early only once in my life, when we were too dead to need me, but I had just mentally had it. I knew that if I didn't leave in that moment I wasn't going to make it to the end of the night without hurting myself.

She agreed, I finished trash, and got one of my friends to come pick me up.

My GM texts me the next morning (Thursday) and says she's giving me PTO for the hours I didn't work Wednesday night and for my day off on Friday. I almost cried again bc I was so stressed about the money.

Fast forward to a week later, today, and J still has a job, but she has now also called off 16 days in a row. Claiming she's still stuck in Texas with her kid (which was why she was asking to trade shifts last week).

I don't know how much longer my GM can hold out before firing her. I really don't.

Tldr; coworker asks me to take a shift for the hundredth time after calling out for a week, I say no (albeit a bit rudely), they start screaming at me via text, and I have a mental breakdown.