#this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever written I am LAUGHING

[talisidekick]

My life is on Tumblr. Not all of it, but enough. Why? Because I finally broke out of the illusion I made for myself growing up. I felt like a monster because thats how I was told to feel for feeling what I felt, and so I lied to myself until I believed I didn't feel the things I did. It was a self-made, bunker thick, mysoginistic and misandristic shell of toxicity that made me miserable for the purposes of others convenience in upholding a fantasy world of simplicity. Upon rediscovering truth and having to face all I'd lost in making unappreciated sacrifices, I started to learn how to reclaim and rebuild myself. I want to show people it's okay to be yourself. That being transgender doesn't make you inherently evil. That I, at the end of today, am human, a person, like any of you.

I've shared my thoughts, my frustrations, some of my joys, my hardships. I've made statement pieces, analysis, and even science posts. I've, on occasion, written papers on here with citations/links to my sources. I've put a sizeable amount of time and energy into letting everyone on this site into my life in some small way to combat the idolization and demonization political actors on the local, provinicial/state/territorial, national, and global stage are doing to transgender people. Because the term "transgender" is not synonymous, a thesaurical equivalent, or a replacement for the words "predator", "pedophile", "rapist", "adulterer", "monster", "assaulter", "victim", or "survivor" to name a few. It means "to identify as any gender other than the one assigned at birth". Thats it. Someone could literally decide "I'm just not the gender the doctor said I was" or "I'm not just what the doctor said I was" or " I'm just me" and that's enough. Those are people you know, love, talked to, interact with, laughed with, but maybe also argued with, had a heated discussion with, fought with, or got mad at in traffic for not using a turn signal to change lanes (we've all done it by mistake). Transgender people are just people. Capable of making mistakes, helping others, needing help, and fucking up like everyone else. We all make bad calls, and stupid decisions. We learn, we correct, we hold eachother accountable.

Logging in today to see a long-standing transgender persons blog getting nuked for the either the stupidest idle threat ever made (or so thats the official reason by the Tumblr CEO) or for simply being transgender (as other and numerous members of the public claim) has made me personally a bit wary. The way I see it, it's both. An idle threat was made to a Tumblr executive and because of the prejudice thats become common place world wide, Tumblrs CEO felt vindicated in going to the excessive lengths of full account deactivation on a transgender persons blog. It's absolutely expected to have a zero-tolerance policy on issuing threats, especially to staff. It's not okay in an online forum of supposed neutrality to utterly silence a person completely without fair warning of a Terms of Service failure and a chance to remove, redact, or re-edit a response. We ALL get heated, even myself, and do stupid things in a reactionary moment of passion. What the issue here is, is the disproportionate response. Given I and numerous other transgender people have recieved threats, those on our very lives in fact, which have gone completely ignored, why is there suddenly a zero-tolerance immediate ban policy on a threat that was, in comparison, the kind of insult you'd expect from a grumpy five-year-old?

I see why this is blowing up, because it's a clear display of power privilege. And rather than going through the established review path, as far as anyone can tell, this was a direct response. This sends, whether intentional or not, a clear message: if you're transgender, you're on thin ice here. And it's not just transgender people and queer and cisgender allies who are getting the message. The transphobes, the so called 'gender critical' crowd, the terfs, are seeing it too. That is why I'm calling for Predesterone's account, all associate blogs, be reinstantiated.

The constant misgendering, libel, misinformation, verbal violence, abuse, and conjecture transgender people of all identities face on this site without any reprocussion to those responsible has, for a long while, helped set a clear standard that users of this platform are afforded the privilege of a degree of disrespect towards marginalized groups and minorities. Ableists attack the disabled and neurodivergent, Nazi's attack Jews, Transphobes attack Transgender people, homophobes attack the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and racists attack people of colour with -very- little the victims of such hate can do to make it stop. The bigots know this. And this ... this is going to make it worse. Bigots are going to try and instigate harsh responses from minority groups with the intent of forcing queer people and other minority groups off Tumblr. It has already begun in the reblogs of several posts like this one directed at transgender people. Predestrogen is already getting misgendered and disrespected outside the scope of the issue. Conjecture is already being made enmasse.

I'm on Tumblr because Reddit and Twitter were too unsafe. I'm not on any other blogging sites because Tumblr has, for the moment, a supportive queer community. That can change, given this whole situation has been done in such a way that it's being interpreted on all sides as an attack on transgender people.

Tumblr has no obligation to listen to me or others, but Tumblr has always struggled to get by, and I have to ask: is one persons dumb 'threat' really the spark you want to make to get people to leave. Is becoming a truly unprofitable cesspit and hate-haven like Twitter what's desired? Because this is the exact kind of rallying cry to make if you do.

I'm adding my voice to this. Bring back predesterone, this response is out of proportion. No, the CEO does not deserve to be threatened to have hammers thrown at his car until it explodes, or whatever. The point has been made: DO NOT THREATEN TUMBLR STAFF. But neither does a long-standing account deserve to be wiped off the face of Tumblr permanently for a blog post that is so benign compared to what the average transgender site user has to deal with on a regular basis with no recourse. Someone threatened to actually shoot me, kill me, if I was walking down the sidewalk and they saw me, and that post is still up and so is the account despite being reported. It's been 2-3 months or more. If I'm expected to stomach that, you can stomach someone saying they'll throw hammers at your car from a person who in all likelyhood is paying so much into transition she can't afford to buy one tiny kids-sized hammer. The person who threatened me actually openly admits to already owning guns.

[anamericangirl]

Holy shit dude. While I'm glad this post bothered you so much that you couldn't let it go for over three months and came right for it when you remade, you're not doing yourself any favors by showing up to prove yet again that you're just an anti-semitic asshole that simps for terrorists because you have such a hate boner for Israel.

I'm literally laughing at you right now for thinking what you've done is compile "evidence" and are now "dropping it" on us because this is the sorriest attempt at a save face I've ever seen. One of the most pathetic Tumblr essays ever written.

"I said when this all started that “when the war crimes really get going, people like this will do actual backbends and somersaults to justify it”, something to that tune."

To quote you here: Irony you can taste, and it only gets worse! You have no self awareness dude. Hamas commits war crimes on the daily and has been for years and you're such a pathetic little kiss ass for them. You fucking did backbends and somersaults to justify them in the post I shared from you above. Hamas is lucky to have an idiot like you to depend on to make pathetic attempts to justify their unjustifiable violence and countless war crimes. You didn't condemn them at all and still haven't. And no, mentioning in passing that "rape and murder is bad" as you go off on Israel and how much you hate them and how much they deserved what happened doesn't count. That's just another pathetic little save face from you that anyone with a brain can see through.

No fucking way am I reading your entire shitload of nonsense, especially since right away you are just blatantly wrong and trying to make people think you didn't say something we can all very clearly see that you said.

"but nothing I said is untrue and it certainly doesn’t constitute as supporting or justifying rape and murder to say “Action A produced result B, which produced consequence C”. Nothing I said supports rape and murder at all - it’s actually my main point, that these things are bad regardless of who does them;"

Everything you said in untrue and unfortunately for you I'm not dumb enough to believe you when you say "all I said was A produced B and that led to consequences! My whole point was rape and murder and bad" because I can actually read and that's not even close to what you said.

Your whole idiotic rant in the first place was how Israel is bad because Palestinians civilians are being killed in this war. Your whole rant was Israel is bad for killing Palestinians. Your only mention of what Hamas did to the Israelis civilians was "but God forbid some Israelites find out the hard way they're not god's chosen people, god forbid there's consequences to the actions of the Israeli state and our funding of them."

And you said that shit right after you condemned the ideas that civilians deaths of Palestinians are collateral damage and casualties of war. So yeah can't say that about Palestinians but when Israeli citizens are targeted and raped and murdered that's just them "finding out the hard way they aren't god chosen people."

And you are also one of the stupidest people I've ever had the misfortune of interacting with. Anyone who actually thinks Israel is committing genocide is an idiot. If Israel wanted to commit genocide Palestine would have been gone on October 8th.

And this is another reason you're full of shit. You're all mad because you bought into propaganda that Israel is genociding Palestinians but you're too stupid to understand that the entire goal of Hamas and Palestine is wipe Israel off the face of the planet. It's not a secret. They've been trying to commit a genocide of the Israelis for years but you don't care about that because you're a disgusting anti-semite and those Jews deserve it, right? If genocide is what it takes for them to "find out the hard way they are god's chosen people" then so be it? They deserve whatever Hamas does. But don't they dare try to defend themselves and if any Palestinians die in this war that's just blood on Israel's hands and evidence of genocide. Who cares if they get raped and murdered? Defending themselves or doing anything in retaliation isn't acceptable.

But just so everyone knows you think rape and murder is bad regardless of who does it!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that doesn't cancel out your bullshit. It's still really obvious what you really think.

If you actually cared about the death of Palestinians you'd be mad at Hamas for using them as human shields, which they admit to doing. Hamas is directly responsible for most of the Palestinian deaths but you're too far up their ass to care.

As for your little claim that Israel "knew" about the attack, I'm so glad you have an article from the New York Times to back that up. You a simp for the mainstream media too?

By the way, is this you?

I guess the MSM is only credible when they feed your anti-semitic hate boner.

But also even if they knew something was going to happen that doesn't mean they could stop it you dumbass.

As I said earlier I'm not reading the rest of your drivel because I don't give a fuck what you think about Israel. Hate them for all I care. The problem is for some reason you can't actually condemn Hamas for their actions that you claim you think are bad.

You can't condemn them for their rape and murder of innocent Israelis civilians in the largest mass killing of Jews since the holocaust.

You condemn Israel for what you're stupid enough to think is a genocide but you can't condemn Palestine for their desire and attempt to commit a Jewish genocide.

You pretend you care about alleged Israeli war crimes but you can't condemn the endless war crimes committed by Hamas.

Saying "I don't like Hamas and rape and murder is bad" is not a condemnation when you spew so much hate at Israel for doing things not even half as bad as what Hamas has done and say shit like "god forbid some Israelis find out the hard way they're not god's chosen people." If Palestinians die that's genocide but if Israeli's get raped and murdered that's just the consequences of their own actions.

You are a disgusting person. Like most Hamas simps. But you're worse than most because you actually think you're morally superior for falling for propaganda and hating Jews to the point where you foam at the mouth at the thought of them daring to defend themselves and not getting wiped off the face of the earth. Hamas is lucky to have an idiot like you to spread their lies and justify their war crimes and terrorists attacks that you *totally* don't support.

I will be blocking you again (even if you cry about it like you did last time as if you hadn't blocked me first) and I sincerely hope you lose another three months of sleep over it.

Anarchists got their panties in a twist the other day, including this dude, because I said they were justifying Hamas in their treatment of Israeli civilians because “government bad” and then they go and unironically say shit like this. And all the same anarchists who cried “we’re not saying that! 😭😭” are supporting this dumbass take.

Oh the Israel government is so bad for “attacking” Palestine so they deserve to be attacked by Hamas. Israel is trying to take out Palestine but Palestine is apparently not trying to do anything to big bad Israel.

“The Palestinians are facing extermination!!! But not Israel!! Palestine is innocent!! God forbid some Israelites find out the hard way they’re not God’s chosen people”

This degenerate is practically supporting the rape and murder of innocent people. That’s how “some Israelites” are “finding out the hard way.”

And he has the audacity to call conservatives morally bankrupt when he’s literally here justifying a terrorist attack.

I think if anarchy makes you support terrorist organizations in their endeavors you’re objectively the morally bankrupt one here.

[fallen-gravity]

If I Were the Ocean

AO3

Fandom: Moana

Category: Gen

Word Count: 2,352

Summary: In Moana, he sees another young girl. From a thousand years ago. He remebers nothing about her, not even her name, but the last time Maui remembers seeing that girl, the one Moana is a clear descendent of, was out in the water among a fleet of canoes. He only sees that girl in Moana for a brief few seconds, but these few seconds are enough to further confirm Maui's suspicions

Out on the ocean, sailing the open seas, that’s where Moana’s meant to be. If anyone were to be credited as the one to start the tradition of wayfinding again, he wouldn’t want it to be anybody else but her.

Notes: and of course, only I would write an entire fanfiction based on my OWN tumblr post. The other day, when I was shamelessly watching through the Logo Te Pate sequence, the entire time, part of me was going "hey. guess what. Maui probably started planning his 'if I were the ocean' speech for her while they were doing this." and then, of course, it spiraled out of control from there. "How is she going to react?" "How am I ACTUALLY going to say this to her?" "WHAT am I going to say to her?".

and don't even get me STARTED on how much further I was dragged down when I started considering him arguing with Mini Maui about showing her something with the island tattoo. Or the fact that I had a LEGITAMATE conversation with someone yesterday about how this stupid argument would go down.

(See end of work for more quick notes)

For the first time since they set out, all is calm. The sun is just beginning to peak over the horizon, and all is quiet. Even the ocean itself seems to be producing fewer waves like it doesn’t want to ruin the calm atmosphere.

For the first time since they set out, maybe even for the first time in a thousand years, Maui is content.

He sits against the mast with his hook resting in his lap. The entire day yesterday, Moana took the time to help him become used to it again. Pulled the boat aside, assured him they wouldn’t start back out until he was ready, Te Fiti could wait, that it was fine, some things were more important if he really felt like he couldn’t face Te Kā yet. She took her precious time, time she doesn’t have a lot of, and put it aside for him. Te Fiti could wait. Some things are more important. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that before, and it was her encouragement that pushed his training to get used to his hook again, and it was her encouragement that finally had him feeling like his old self again. Like his true self again. Something he honestly can’t say he’s felt in over a thousand years.

And he is so, so thankful for that.

It’s not that he didn’t let her know this. He returned her favor by teaching her to sail. Really, truly teaching her to sail, and with enthusiasm, too. Enthusiasm he truly feels for this mortal girl who returned his awful behavior towards her with nothing but kindness. Soft, gentle kindness.

But there’s so much more he could say. So much more he could do to express how truly grateful he is of what she’s done for him. Briefly, Maui takes a look at his surroundings and how smoothly and steadily their canoe is pushing towards Te Fiti. Maui shakes his head in amusement. So much more he could do to express how proud he is of her.

Almost as if Moana’s reading his thoughts and wants to get a kick out of proving him wrong, the sail suddenly whips violently to the other direction, nearly hitting Maui in the back of the head. He turns to her, and opens his mouth to comment, but closes it back up when he sees her fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Sorry!” she mumbles when she catches him watching her. “Didn’t mean to-” She starts, and gets cut off by a massive yawn. “Didn’t mean to push it so hard. I’m...sleep” she mumbles, and slowly closes her eyes again before jolting herself awake a few seconds later.

“Alright, Chosen One” Maui says, amused. “I think maybe it’s time you took a nap. You’ve done more than enough wayfinding for the night”

Moana says nothing for a moment, but then she reaches her arms up in the air in a grabby motion. Rolling his eyes, he walks to her and picks her up before placing her gently down where he had been sitting before. Immediately, she lies herself down on the deck, curls up, and falls asleep.

Just as Maui sits down at the controls and prepares to fix the sail, a tiny flash of motion catches his attention, and he looks down at his chest to see Mini Maui smirking at him with his arms crossed.

“What?” He asks, and Mini Maui jumps to his shoulder and points at Moana.

“Yeah, well, of course I’m proud of her” He shrugs, accidentally flinging Mini Maui to his back, and Mini Maui scrambles back onto his shoulder and gestures to her again.

Show her?” Maui asks, tilting his head to one side in confusion. “What more could I do to show her that? I’m sure she must already know somehow” He says, and in response Mini Maui pulls out a little sheet of paper and pretends to read off of it.

“A speech. Like the one she gave me” Maui says, bringing a hand to his neck, and Mini Maui nods enthusiastically. That’s- That’s actually not a terrible idea. Probably the best one his tattoo self’s come up with in a long time. As for what the speech should be about, he’s not entirely sure.

And then it hits him.

Moana. Her name. The ocean. Her love of the ocean. They’ve gotta be connected somehow, right? Her love of the ocean, that’s what sparked her to come find him, right? That deep connection she felt to it was what pushed her to come find him despite her inability to sail, right?

Moana mumbles quietly in her sleep, interrupting his thoughts. He glances up at her and watches as her hair ungracefully fall over her face as she moves around in her sleep. He huffs out a soft laugh, and when he looks back down, his eyes once again lock on his fish hook.  Remembering what yesterday had been like, he smiles. Transforming into all of those animals, smashing those boulders in half- all of that-while she jumped around and cheered him on. His eyes then fall to the ocean, and his smile softens. If he were the ocean, he wouldn't've picked anyone different himself.

That’s it. The idea comes to him so quickly he nearly jumps to his feet. If I were the ocean.

He sends a small smile down in Mini Maui’s direction, and then goes back to working on adjusting the sail. As its bright red swirl becomes visible to him out of the corner of his eye as he’s fixing its direction, he pauses as he’s overcome with a sudden sense of déjà vu.  For the first time since he’s set out with Moana, he looks at it, really look at it, and that sense of déjà vu only seems to worsen.

He recognizes this sail. From thousands of years ago.

When he used to watch over a particular group of wayfinders, this canoe was always part of their fleet. When he pulled up islands for them, this canoe was always one of the first to find its shore. When he was carving some of his feats into the boulders on his island, he had carved this canoe to help him remember that group of wayfinders. Because this canoe always stood out among the rest in its fleet.

Figures they were Curly’s ancestors. He shakes his head, smiling. He knew she had it in her blood, the way she picked it up so easily, but he never would’ve guessed that her family tree was this deeply rooted in them.

Once again, Moana begins to stir in her sleep, and once again, it pulls Maui from his thoughts. He turns his attention away from the sail and looks at her just as she turns on her side towards him. And for a few moments, when she does, Maui sees someone else entirely.

In Moana, he sees another young girl. From a thousand years ago. He remembers nothing about her, not even her name, but Maui smiles. The last time he remembered seeing that girl, the girl Moana is a clear descendant of, was out on those boats in that fleet. He only sees that girl in Moana for a brief few seconds, but that girl and that red sail is enough to further confirm Maui’s suspicions.

Out on the ocean, sailing the open seas, that’s where Moana’s meant to be. If anyone were to be credited as the one to start the tradition of wayfinding again, he wouldn’t want it to be anybody else but her.

“Alright, buddy” Maui says, glancing down at Mini Maui on his chest. “How do you want to go about this?” He asks, and Mini Maui taps on his chin lightly like he’s trying to think of something. Then, when an idea seems to come to his little tattoo self, he perks up and somersaults himself onto Maui’s back. Even though he’s not able to look, Maui can tell by the way Mini Maui’s moving that he’s sitting down on that island tattoo.

Showing her his appreciation for her, his pride for her by literally showing it to her. Another great idea via the tattoo. Maui kind of wishes he could come up with these kinds of ideas as quickly as he could.

“Okay, yeah, that seems easy enough” Maui says, shrugging. “Do you think you could make a boat? I’ve got this whole bit about her ancestors and I think that’s the part I want to show her”

On his back, Mini Maui nods his head. He pushes the island back down into the water until just his little boat is resting on the surface on the water. He grins.

“Uh, not exactly, little buddy. I was thinking more like a canoe. Like this one” He says, and taps on the boat deck as lightly as he can to avoid waking Moana. Once again, he feels Mini Maui nod, and then he seems to pull a sail out of nowhere and stick it right into his boat.

Maui rolls his eyes. “Getting warmer, but I’m gonna need for there to be a fleet of them”

Like individual bits of hail hitting against his back, Maui feels about two or three more canoes pop up next to the one Mini Maui is sitting in.

“I said a fleet” Maui says, and rolls his eyes as more boats begin to pop up. But when they pop up, from what Maui can feel, they’re just sort of sitting still and bobbing up and down in the water.

“Do you need me to run through what I want you to do? Thought for sure you’d already know, seeing as I’m literally talking to myself here” He says, and Mini Maui impatiently taps his foot against the deck of his little boat.

“Fine” Maui says, sighing exasperatedly. “All I want you to do is pull up the island and then have the fleet of boats sail to it. Sound easy enough?” He asks, and Mini Maui gives him a thumbs up. Taking his little hook, he pulls the island out of the water, and then jumps over to the canoe as it floats at a molasses speed towards the island.

“Gonna have to go a little faster than that, bud” Maui says, rolling his eyes. “And don’t jump onto any of the canoes, either. I told you those are supposed to be her ancestor’s boats”

Mini Maui just pauses. He must be giving him a funny look.

“Yes, her ancestors. Which means you can’t be there, because we certainly weren’t with them when they found our islands”

Flipping back over to his little boat, Mini Maui tries again. He pulls the island up, and stays where he is, but the fleet of boats speed to the island so fast it feels like they leave a scratch across Maui’s back.

“Woah, buddy, that’s too fast! Try for something in between the two. Gotta make this as accurate as possible” He says, and Mini Maui slumps his shoulders dramatically like he’s sighing. One last time, Mini Maui hops back over to his tiny boat, pulls the island up, and the canoes finally seem to sail towards the island at a speed he’s satisfied with. Then, they seem to come to a stop, and Maui realizes Mini Maui is probably waiting for him to say something.

“Yeah, that felt fine” Maui says, and he can practically hear Mini Maui smack himself in the forehead. Jumping back over to his chest, he points again to Moana, who by some miracle had managed to stay asleep through all of his yelling.

“I can’t show her now” He says, and Mini Maui raises an eyebrow at him.

“What? I can’t the timing’s not right. If I do it now, she’ll never let me hear the end of it until we get to Te Fiti” He says, and Mini Maui’s eyebrow stays raised for a moment before he begins to mockingly chew on his fingernails.

“Nervous? Me? That’s ridiculous” He says, and laughs awkwardly. Mini Maui rolls his eyes and gestures to her again.

“Well, yeah, course I care about her” He says, and Mini Maui raises an eyebrow and starts tapping his foot as he gestures towards her again. “But my ‘great speech’ is nothing more than a bunch of scattered ideas right now, and if I told her those, she’d just laugh at me” He says, and Mini Maui instantly stops tapping at that. Instead, he leans over and looks down at the hook sitting a few feet in front of him. He then raises the little hook of his own and flashes into a small beetle.

Practice.

Taking a deep, quiet breath, he realizes that Mini Maui is right. Practice, and lots of it, is what got him used to his hook again. And if practice could help him get used to his hook after a thousand years without using it, than practice certainly could help him express his gratitude and pride for Moana. Taking another deep breath, Maui allows his thoughts to collect themselves, and he sends a glance down at the water.

You know, the ocean used to love when I pulled up islands.

As if reading his thoughts, the ocean burbles and begins to splash against the side of the boat in an encouraging pattern. Maui smiles, and darts his attention back to the sail. The same red sail he’d seen in use thousands of years ago.

‘Cause your ancestors would sail her seas and find them.

As Moana turns in her sleep again, her necklace makes a soft clank sound as it hits against the deck. Her grandmother’s necklace. The only piece of home she truly brought with her from her island.  

All those new lands, new villages,

Moana. Her name. The ocean.

It was the water that connected them all.

And if I were the ocean,

Maui turns his full attention to Moana, smiling proudly.

I think I’d be looking for a curly haired, non-princess to start that again.

End Notes: Hey, guess what- that bit about Maui recognizing Moana's sail and carving it into one of the boulders on his island: I didn't make that up. If you go back and watch the "You're Welcome" sequence, and pause right as he's going "Well, come to think of it-" before he starts rapping, you can see in the corner on the boulder he's standing in front of that there's a little boat carved into it with a sail that has a swirl on it JUST LIKE Moana's canoe.

The girl he sees in Moana is a reference to one of the ancestors shown during "We Know the Way" that someone pointed out looking pretty similar to Moana. She wasn't riding Moana's canoe, obviously, but you tend to take what you can get as a fanfiction author.