unorthodoxica

[unorthodoxica]

Every time we vend at Pride, there are times when I have to fight breaking down.

It's probably not when you'd expect. Yes, I get misty at the Big Moments and the Conversations, and we have those every time. I love seeing the parents who are buying their kid's first Pride item, the trans girls spinning in skirts they just bought, the curve of fresh scars across a chest that's clearly seeing sunlight for the first time this summer. I love it all. I devour every minute of it.

But it's the parents who hand their kid a $20 or tap their Apple watch on our card reader and look slightly bored that get me, sometimes.

My G-d. It's not scary, it's not overwhelming, it's not tense and nervewacking. It's boring to them.

2 weeks ago, my brother tells me, my parents used the right name and pronouns for me through an entire dinner with Jake and his partner.

I turned 47 three days ago.

Today, a parent looked bored escorting their teenager around at Pride.

My G-d.

[unorthodoxica]

so ur at the party right and there’s this girl in the corner with another girl on a leash with the puppy ears on standard stuff and u start talking to her and she introduces the girl on the leash and says “this is my little puppy, Emily. say hi Emily” and the leash girl does a little bark at u and u say “oh that’s nice” and ur looking for a way to avoid the awkward silence during a 4 second period that feels like a half hour so u ask “does she know any tricks?” so the girl says “come on girl, show ‘em” and the puppy girl gets up pulls out a skateboard and starts doing the sickest kick flips u ever saw

[unorthodoxica]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[unorthodoxica]

Subtle insults:

I feel like you are very involved in your local HOA

You seem like the type to really care about their property values

I fucking hate you and want your car to get hit by a very fast train

I can see you have no need for the bus

Wow, I can see the historic 1950s feel of your neighborhood

[unorthodoxica]

Have you ever sold something you made?

[unorthodoxica]

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[unorthodoxica]

if somebody you knew for a year said "listen. im just gonna be honest here. i know ive known you too long to not know your name. but i simply do not. i dont know how this happened. im reasonably confident you told me your name at some point. could you remind me please" how would you react

[unorthodoxica]

from one chronically anxious person to another: the world is not going to go up in flames. What happens will be more slow, more bureaucratic, more boring. There is no catastrophe to end all catastrophes, no rapture, no sudden end. You can't give into the call of the void, because there is no void. So you just have to do the work to make tomorrow a better place, anyway. Because that's how it gets better.

[unorthodoxica]

remember when millennials said we weren't going to be as weird and stupid about gen z as boomers were about us? lol that didn't last long huh

[unorthodoxica]

So on my posts about racism or transmisogyny, I often see tags that basically say “I don’t understand this but I’m going to reblog it anyway.” If you see a “social justice” type post that you want to reblog but don’t understand?

Don’t.

I know this goes against everything you’re used to hearing on this website, but listen. Reblogging posts you don’t understand is basically the equivalent of blindly repeating whatever you’re told. Even if you’re right, if you don’t understand why you’re right, you could be spouting utter bullshit and you wouldn’t even know it.

When I see “I don’t know what this means but I’m gonna reblog it anyway” it sends a lot of messages. It says that you care more about seeming right than being right. It says that you want good ally credit without any of the work of being a good ally. It says you’re on my side because I can make a post sound good, not because you actually agree with me on anything beyond the surface level.

So instead of just reblogging that post, save it for later. Like it, draft it, bookmark it, whatever. Go to the op’s blog and skim through a couple of pages, see if you can find some context. If the post is old, you could try asking for context in a non-condescending way. “Is this post referring to something specific?” is a lot better than, say, “Does this even happen? I’ve never heard of this.”

If that doesn’t help, do some more research. Google, search tumblr tags for recent posts on a subject, ask people who have EXPLICITLY stated they are willing to educate. Maybe in the process you’ll find more posts with a similar message to the original, but in easier to understand language. Maybe someone else already added a reply that adds useful information onto the op.

And maybe all of that takes a long time. Maybe, by the time you finally understand what the post was talking about, it’s months old and no longer relevant. Maybe you don’t even want to reblog it anymore. Who cares, fuck that post. You learned and grew as a person. That’s more important than looking good on a blog.

[unorthodoxica]

i remember now why i do not watch the news

[unorthodoxica]

Reblog to hug prev poster (they need a hug)

[unorthodoxica]

I woke up and checked things and started to spiral.

And then I took a deep breath.

Okay kids. It's time to listen to your organizer elders.

I don't care if every call is reversed and she wins by 30 electoral points.

Get involved. Do one thing to make the world better: mutual aid, volunteer, join your local political groups, read to kids, go to community groups.

Survival on this blue spinning ball means coalition building. It means accepting you save the world by doing what you are good at and sharing it with others.

It means to stop looking for saviors in your political choices, and also not crucifying them. It means getting away from political purity and ideology and fucking working toward the next one and the next one.

Political change is different than political theater. It takes work. So much work. And if you are tired, tap out, but don't leave the game.

Guess what happened tonight?

The first openly Trans woman was elected to congress.

2 black women are serving together in the senate.

It is ugly and it sucks and we need to take a breath, take a nap, and then get up off the mat.

We can do better.

But we gotta do it together.

[unorthodoxica]

trans women can be butch without it invalidating their womanhood. trans men can be femme without it invalidating their manhood. if masculine cis women and feminine cis men exist, there will always be masculine trans women and feminine trans men. if being a butch woman doesn't invalidate cis womanhood, it doesn't invalidate trans womanhood. is being a femme man doesn't invalidate cis manhood, it doesn't invalidate trans manhood. trans people are allowed to be gender non conforming, too- this delight isn't reserved just for the cisgendered.

[unorthodoxica]

if you talk about youth autonomy and you're a minor you're just an immature child who will grow out of it and realise minors should continue to be property of their parents. if you talk about youth autonomy and you're an adult you're a paedophile