#and i discussed this

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

#also has made it increasingly difficult to relate to those early into their transition honestly #like not in a bitter way it’s just like hard to express how diff the experience is #of being like a year on T vs 5 😭 #ETA I muted this post ages ago now but fwiw seeing transphobes pop up in the notes on occasion just to say cruel reactionary shit #you are clowns I cannot imagine seeing a post that is ONLY about discussing with folks about the reality of a medication #and choosing to make that your moment to get a schoolyard bully jab in about how you find it gross or something. #you are less well adjusted than must children. may the universe be kinder to you than you are to others.

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

[quillyfied]

One thing that Firefox can’t do is allow me to access my telehealth therapy appointments. Three different platforms now have rejected my use of Firefox. I use Safari instead bc that’s what works and at least it isn’t chrome, but for folks who rightfully use Firefox, be aware that many, if not all, telehealth platforms will not work on Firefox (something about the encryption/security not being up to their standard, I believe; if there are hacks that Firefox gurus know to bypass this, please share with the class?).

#Firefox #Mozilla Firefox #love Firefox. hate that I can’t do my therapy appointments on it #and don’t see that brought up very much in the switch to Firefox discussion

[samble-moved]

post itself

false flags

trans/adjacent tags

accessibility features

tumblr live post (thanks for the link, @problemnyatic)

flashing / strobing / lights

unblockable flashing ad

buying ad free

staff @/macmanx guilt trip

list of staff + more issues

#post nuked bc proshippers started insulting people who rbed this and implied partyjockers attempted to Kill staff? it was getting old so #archive links still under the cut if you want and you can rb this from others if you want the og #hint: if you dislike this post or want to debunk parts of it the way to go about it isn't to call people who've rbed it 'disgusting little #fuck ups' that are 'spreading anti shipper lies' #note: this post is and was Not about ship discourse jesus fucking christ proshippers get a grip #also ace discoursers are here too? this isn't about you either? #edit 2: if you send me an anon regarding this post about how im policing discussion or 'don't really want it' #but then stop replying when i answer your ask #maybe that's. not helping discussion? #i nuked this post as people started making up false accusations to smear people staff sniped. aka accusing someone of IRL ATTEMPTED MURDERS.

[thottybrucewayne]

I don't think people realize that critiquing the media you enjoy is fun too.

#thotty speaks #I don't wanna turn my brain off I wanna do close readings and analysis and see the seams of this piece and discuss it at length

[crimeronan]

bonus. tell me why

#you may have noticed ive posted a million polls in tbe past twelve hours #it's because The Reckoning (autoimmune flare) is upon me and i desperately need distractions. #let's discuss. i like quotation marks and ampersands. #polls

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

#analysis #meta #miscellaneous #fandom #shipping #media discussion #amatonormativity #lgbtq #I feel like tagging any of the fandoms I was thinking of when writing this would be a little mean-spirited potentially #Disclaimer: no one has actually been telling me personally that I don't understand any story in particular #It's just that the way people tend to phrase their analyses feels unnecessarily targeted at the reader and that's just. not great #even if I agree with every other point they make

[seventeendeer]

when you’re pet pet petting your sweet little baby cat on her sweet little pumpkin head but then she starts to get overstimulated and her little tail is swooshing back and forth and you can Tell all her ancient beast instincts are kicking in telling her to maul the shit out of your hand, and she looks SO forlorn because she actually wanted more cuddles but also there’s only so much a little animal can do to contain her impulses and she looks at you w the biggest wettest saddest eyes like

#deerchatter #I'M SORRY BABY I CAN'T UN-ZAP YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM .. WE HAVE TO STOP BEFORE U REMOVE MY FINGERS ....... #mine always just sits next to me afterwards like I May Not Be Able To Handle More Cuddles But We WILL Hang Out. End Of Discussion.

[ddddd-pixels]

For International Asexuality Day, I'm hitting you all with the Ace Beam. ☺️

(This took a lot more effort than I thought it would, lol...)

Edit: 800 notes?! In less than five hours?! Thank you all so much!!

Edit 2: 2000... The most I got on any post before was just over a hundred, lol. You are all so nice!

#pixel art #sprite art #fighting games #neo geo pocket #street fighter #ryu street fighter #hadouken #asexual #asexuality #international asexuality day #i dub this move: museiai hadouken #i know i've not discussed myself on this blog much #but i am asexual! #i'm not really “out” but more in the sense that i don't really need to be #my family's pretty cool about all that stuff lol #and yes i personally headcanon ryu as ace #just hits the vibes ig

[patrickztump]

please pass this around to all of your classmates, i don’t want anyone saying they didn’t get to vote

#scienceblr #historyblr #artblr #spaceblr #polls #my polls #this is certainly not going to do like my other poll that's running rn (it left containment) #but my brother and i were Discussing field trips and decided we needed input via The Nerds (affectionate)

[metanarrates]

I genuinely feel like an alien compared to my coworkers when they try to chat with me about things like dating and weight loss. like what are you SAYING about "oh you know it's just so hard to make your man understand the instructions you give him?" why are you trying to connect with me by complaining that you gained 15 pounds? is this how most people form connections in the workplace? i for real do not get it

#narrates #i never notice how COMMON it is to talk about your partner like they're a burden or a fool #or about how common it is to discuss weight and weight loss #until im around people who AREN'T my family or friends #like shit you guys live like this????

[theworldisaplace]

with apologies to lewis carroll

The Walrus and her Fairy friend Were strolling down the block; They paused and then debated on Which one of them should knock: ‘You know, this might be easier If we just pick the lock!'

‘If I’m the one to do it And they find me standing here, Do you suppose,' the Walrus asked, That they would shriek in fear?' The Fairy said ‘I bet they would,’ And shed a bitter tear.

The Walrus and the Fairy then Walked on a little more, And came upon the house That they’d identified before. They flipped a coin to see which one Would now approach the door.

‘O Tumblrina, let me in!' The Walrus did beseech. ‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, For I have much to teach.’ (The sounds of this discussion Were within the Fairy’s reach.)

The Tumblr user looked at him, But never a word they said: Too wowed by this new circumstance To even shake their head. ‘Would you prefer,’ the Walrus sighed, A Fairy’s knock instead?’

‘The time has come,' the Fairy said, Accepting his new role, ‘We must admit this visit Is in service of a goal.’ And then the two together cried, ‘We’re here to take a poll!’

#has anyone done this yet? #surely yes #it was getting stuck in my head every time i saw the poll discussed #so i couldn't resist #walrus vs fairy #fairy vs walrus #my posts

[ramshackledtrickster]

Finding something cool and thematically rich and wanting to see what other people think abt it and all I find is shipping

#I probably should check other places before tumblr then if I want a more productive discussion abt the piece of media I guess #the movie is about war and fascism and indoctrination… can we talk abt this film thru a lens other than shippability please #cw flashing

[hartro-owns-my-heart-ro]

”getting thicker skin” is great in theory but I think for some people “get better at handling your thin skin” is gonna be way more helpful advice. I have strong emotional reactions to criticism and they might never go away, but i can continue to try and handle each situation maturely and that’s the important part. Sometimes irrational feelings are chronic and living with them is better than trying to beat yourself up into not having them.

#ive cried over completely minor critical discussions so many times this year that im starting to think it’ll just always be a thing #so now i wanna work on living with it #mental health #ok to reblog

[radlymona]

GREECE LEGALISED SAME SEX MARRIAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

#I genuinely didn’t believe it would happen so soon after the gov started discussing it #I’m - #🥹🥹🥹 #this is such a good shock I’m soooo happy #Greece

[just-your-average-tangerine]

The line between binary and nonbinary trans people is nowhere near as clean as some of yall think it is

#transgender #trans #nonbinary #like i guess i would be considered a 'binary' trans man #i wouldnt consider myself that for two reasons #first because the idea that gender is binary is bullshit to begin with so why would i identify within it #and second because i am a man only in that i am a gay man #i dont identify outside of manhood im terms of gender #but my gender is so linked to my sexuality that it cant be neatly tracked onto a binary view of 'man' #but because i am a man other consider me 'binary' regardless of how i feel about it #and yet will still refuse to use he/him pronouns in favor of exclusively using they/them #but thats a different discussion #op