Shadow-dracat - Shadow - Tumblr Blog

hey if u can’t drive/are a slow learner due to a disability or mental illness, just picture historical figures like pirates or the founding fathers trying to operate a car.

it’s only “easy” bc we’ve normalized it.

compromise

[ID: Four panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A person wearing an indigo hat and a person with a green body, pink jacket and half red, half blue pointy anime glasses are talking.

Anime Glasses: "See, what you have to learn eventually, which I'm teaching you now, is you can't rely on external validation.

People are going to ask you to compromise your existence with their worldviews, and you're going to tell them no.

That'll be coming both from grayscales and other chromatics, by the way.

Indigo: Huh.

Panel 2: A violet person with a rectangular build enters from the side.

Violet: "Hang on, weren't you pink before?"

Anime Glasses: "Visually, sure."

Violet: "And now you're green?"

Anime Glasses: "Yeah. Got bored. Changed it up."

Violet: "You can't just do that."

Anime Glasses: "Nah. You can't. Skill issue."

Panel 3: A grayscale person enters to back up Violet.

Grayscale: "See, this is what we've been saying all along. Where is the limit? When will the madness end??"

Violet: "Wait don't back me up on this-"

Grayscale, interupting: "You'll be pressuring them into turning themselves blue! You're making this serious decision seem trivial, but it's not! Who's going to tell them to wait and think things through?"

Anime glasses, quietly towards indigo: "Here's your chance. Tell them."

Panel 4: Zoom in on Indigo, with anime glasses in the background tilting their glasses up so the light glares off them.

Indigo: "Indigo. Not fucking blue.

Everyone's been telling me to wait with this shit for twenty fucking years.

How about mind your own business and don't interrupt the first person who's actually fucking helping me."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

outreach

[ID: Five-panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A moss green person and an orange dog person are working a stand at some sort of event. They have brightly colored flags, hats and pins.

Moss: "...Why are we here?"

Orange: "Activism is important!"

Moss: "Yeah, sure, but why are we here doing it? I mean, look at the neighbor tent!"

Panel 2: Zoom out. On the left is a nondescript tent with a non-chromoforming grayscale person in a purple hat, with a lime green pin. There is also a visually pink individual wearing orange anime glasses and a blue jacket. On the right is a tent labelled "Lockheed-Nestlé", staffed by a wide purple person, two grayscale people, and a sort of pinkish-red person. A turquoise person is listening intently.

Purple (Not that purple. The cool purple is not this person): "We of course have many career opportunities for chromatic-variant individuals with a passion for assisting the migration of hopeful water molecules seeking to escape from war-torn, impoverished nations."

Turquoise: "Wow!"

Grayscale person from the same tent: "Our diversity initiative seeks to employ at least three hue-diverse drone pilots with in this fiscal year."

Panel 3:

Moss: "It sort of makes me hate this!"

Orange: "But we're doing good by handing out stuff to people"

Moss: "That doesn't cancel out the fascist tent!"

From offscreen: "Hey, Moss!"

Panel 4: The person with the anime glasses gives Moss a high-five. It is the coolest thing that has happened in this particular comic.

Anime Glasses: "Firebombs later, monarch?" (They inexplicably punctuate this spoken sentence with an emoji of a pair of anime glasses.)

Moss: "Absolutely!"

Anime glasses: "Rad. Also a blue hat for my friend."

Moss: "Sure."

Anime glasses: "Hell yeah. They'd ask themselves, but they're scared to."

Panel 5: Closeup on Moss and Orange.

Orange: "See, we're helping people!"

Moss: "Next to the fascist corporation. Do you not see the problem with the fascist corporation?"

Orange: "I decided to be a dog because engaging with politics was too stressful"

Moss: "Right."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

care

[ID: Four panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A lime green person and a moss green person are sitting on a couch while a leaf green person stands across from them.

Lime: "Hey... We need to talk."

Leaf: "Sure, what's up?"

Moss: "We had to put a stop to the whole... dog situation."

Lime: "We just aren't at a spot in life where we can be responsible for a dog who's also a person with a past history of reactionary politics that they're working through."

Leaf: "Huh"

Panel 2: Zoom in on Lime and Moss.

Lime: "We agreed that they would be your responsibility first, and then you went off doing some trivial nonsense instead?"

Moss: "You prioritized arguing with some rando with a weird opinion on conformity instead of taking care of the dog.

Look. My anarcho-caninist friends up south said they'll take them.

It's a big farm. Lots of grass to touch."

Panel 3: Zoom in on Leaf as Moss continues talking.

Moss: "They're going to have a much better time there, they understand the dogperson stuff and-"

Leaf: "Did you euthanize Orange?

You can't just do that, they're like a person and stuff"

Moss: "What? No, the anarchist dogpeople far is real, you know they're just secretive about where it is and-"

Leaf: "This sounds like you killed them. Like a lot."

Panel 4: Meanwhile, at a farm rendered in a crude MS Paint crayon style in full color, an orange person with dog ears is laying on the grass with a blue person with dog ears, while a green person with dog ears and a tail looks at them.

Orange: "This is amazing!"

Blue: "Indeed, my citrusian friend. Here there are no vacuum cleaners, no strangers walking past outside the window. Here, we are truly unleashed."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

exposition

[ID: Four panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A blue person with sunglasses and dog ears is talking to an orange person with dog ears.

Blue: "Ah, young Orange."

Orange: "I, uh, aren't you younger than-"

Blue: "I understand that you have approached me to discuss an issue. As is the doctrine of our anarcho-caninist commune, we shall conduct this meeting in expository form, speaking as if intent on being observed by an unknown third party in need of being spoonfed everything we, as individuals, are already aware of."

Orange: "Wait-"

Blue: "Let us begin by stating our medical histories: I am on gel that makes you blue and have had dog ear implants."

Orange: "I uh. I know. You told me yesterday."

Blue: "It is your turn. State it!"

Orange: "…You can look at me and tell that I'm-"

Blue: "You cannot rely on the third party knowing how you became orange!"

Orange: "…Gel. It's gel."

Panel 2: An extremely tall, hot pink person with fluffy bits around their chest and extremities, as well as floppy dog ears and a bandana worn as a mask, interjects into the conversation between the two.

Hot Pink: "I sense that this discussion is at risk of becoming an argument. Let us recite the Acknowledgment of Legitimacy, as per the doctrine."

Blue and Hot Pink: "We recognise that opinions are held by individuals and do not represent everyone of their chromatic alignment. We understand that if any individual is found to be in the wrong, it does not delegitimize their identity, only their viewpoint."

Orange: "I uh. Does anyone not believe this? Who are we disagreeing with here?"

Hot Pink: "I am on injections that make you hot pink and have taken topical fluffy fur gel. Now we may proceed."

Panel 3: Zoom in on Hot Pink and Blue as they continue spoonfeeding unnecessary exposition to you, the reader.

Blue: "Before proceeding we must also clarify that the doctrine is an idiosyncracy of our commune, and not reflective of wider anarchist nor caninist movements."

Hot Pink: "Indeed. Furthermore, I would like to establish that we exist in the context of the past affecting the present, as individuals with personal histories that affect our present state, and have established this doctrine in response to said history."

Orange: "I- how- what history- are you explaining that the past exists??

Who is this for?

How did you decide to talk like this?"

Panel 4: A green person with a tail and long, pointy dog ears appears opposite of Orange to make it all make sense.

Green: "You bring up an excellent question. I am on a combination of pills that make you green and pills that block my naturally occurring red, which I do not personally consider a medical condition but which is often pathologized as such. Before proceeding and getting to the point we must go over the historical context in which this conversation is taking place."

Orange: "Wait, no, I know history, please-"

Green: "Caninism, as formulated by Barx in the 1800s…"

End ID.]

Bonus panel:

[ID 2: Presumably sometime later, the green dogperson is still talking.

Green: "You see, the Expository Doctrine is primarily a performance art critique of the tendency to demand that media explains everything to the viewer, and how pandering to this demand causes dialogue to be unnatural, stilted and unnecessarily verbose."

Orange: "I know. You say this every day."

Green: "Indeed, part of the performance serves to emphasize how in a serial but episodic medium, such mandatory exposition quickly becomes frustrating and repetitive!"

End ID 2.]

Start - Previous - Next

effort

[ID: A three panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A leaf green person is talking to a bright green person.

Leaf: "I mean, I guess the farm is a better place for them, but I'm still a bit sad that my friend just-"

Bright: "Of course you're sad, you have much to be sad about with your #22B14C autoverdophile spectrograph!"

Leaf: "...what?"

Bright: "'Chromatic' greentrenders like you will never be anything like a true transhexual such as myself. You are NGMI and should simply give up!"

Leaf: "What do these words even mean-"

Bright: "Chrompe and satureethe you desaturatoid greentrender greencel!"

Panel 2: Zoom in on leaf. Their internal thought process is presented as a series of dialogue boxes, reading:

"Can I fix them?

-No -Yes -I mean, it worked for orange, so maybe? (selected)"

"Is it worth the effort? -It's always worth the effort -They will be an emotional black hole insulting me throughout the entire process -I can simply choose to not make them my problem (selected)"

"Will I mention this incident to my therapist? -This person didn't get to me so it's irrelevant -They got to me a little so it's relevant -Bring it up as an example of getting better about not picking draining and useless fights."

Panel 3: The leaf green person simply starts walking away while the bright green person complains.

Leaf: "Ok, sorry that happened, or good for you, I dunno, whatever, bye."

Bright: "You didn't refute my argument!"

Leaf: "Wasn't trying to, bye now."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

that moment when you read your old pinned and cringe a little

but maybe that's just an issue with self-acceptance [shrug]

circle

[ID: Four-panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: Several people are sitting in a chair circle. One of them is visibly green, another is visibly pink with a bright blue jacket and orange pointy anime glasses. A third one is wearing a blue cap. The person in the middle, who is none of these things, leads the conversation.

Middle person: "All right everyone, time to do a hexcode circle! My hexcode is #000000, what are yours?"

Several people respond "#000000".

Panel 2: Zoom in on the green person and the middle person, with a third in between them.

Green: "Mine's #00FF00."

Middle: "Oh, but we're very inclusive here! You don't have to fit into primary hexcodes!"

Green: "...I prefer #00FF00."

Middle: "I'm just saying, if you want to go with something like #33BB33 that's fine! It would suit you!"

Panel 3: Zoom on the one with the blue cap.

Closeted Blue: "I'm uh... Well, um, uh, you see-"

Middle: "Oh, looks like we have exciting news!2

Closeted Blue: "...#000000. Sorry. I'm not uh. I'm grayscale. Can we move on?"

Panel 4: Zoom in on anime glasses.

Anime Glasses: "#LEG3ND."

Middle: "That's not a real hexcode!"

Anime Glasses: "I don't give a shit."

Middle: "I'm sure you can find a valid hexcode that suits you!"

Anime glasses: "You dipshits can't handle a visually green person using #00FF00, I'm not playing this game."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

how do you choose who to donate to? it always feels like such an awful choice, everyone needs it so badly but i can only give to a few people at a time with what i have. how does anyone choose who to help, or how much to give each person?

gazafunds.com loads a randomized fundraiser for people with this anxiety

you could also buy esims for Gazans or donate to Gaza Municipality Project

A good video that accurately explains why stud is a term used for black lesbians only, not white, not poc, BLACK

I’m not even going to say please. Respect black identities and labels, they are ours for a reason.

allegations

[ID: Three panel comic with crudely drawn stick figures for people.

Panel 1: A grayscale person holding some paper is talking to a dark red person.

Grayscale: "You should know, your green friend is actually a really terrible person."

Dark Red: "...I assume you've got proof of this assertion?"

Grayscale: "Oh I do, have a look at this"

Panel 2: Dark Red is holding the paper and looking at it.

Dark Red: "Is this... fandom drama?"

Grayscale: "Read on, it gets so much worse"

Dark Red: "It gets worse but you started with their opinions on a cartoon?"

Grayscale: "Keep going! The really bad stuff starts at page 127!"

Dark Red: "Why the fuck would you put it after the cartoon opinions"

Panel 3: Dark Red rips apart the paper as the grayscale person complains

Dark Red: "Right. Your source on the bad stuff is a cyberstalking group. What a waste of time."

Grayscale: "But if the accusations are true they're really bad!"

Dark Red: "If."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

confusion

[ID: Two-panel "Pills that make you green" comic.

Panel 1: A grayscale stick figure is pointing at the green stick figure

Grayscale: "How can you claim that you pass as fully green when we're not even allowed to define what green actually is?"

Green: "What-"

Grayscale: "You must be so confused when you're not even allowed to say that grass is green to avoid offending "green" people!"

Panel 2: Zoom in on green's face

Green: "I think you're starting to confuse yourself with all this stuff you're making up."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

Obligatory disclaimer! The mention of passing here is irrelevant to the point the comic is making, this comic is not a commentary on passing as a concept in any way! The inclusion of a line about passing is purely related to the conversation that inspired it!

“we need to stop the stigma towards drug users and addicts” and “we need to challenge the idea that being sober makes you boring” and “we need to stop acting like binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage is fun and normal for young people” are all ideas that can and should coexist.

round

[ID: Three-panel "pills that make you green" comic. People are shown as crudely drawn stick figures.

Panel 1: A green stick figure with a round head and a plain stick figure with a square head are talking.

Round green: "Hey I think that thing you said was kind of greenphobic."

Square plain: "I actually can't be greenphobic, because I have a square head. Only round-head people care about green issues."

Round green: "Pretty sure it doesn't work like that."

Panel 2: A green stick figure with a square head and a plain stick figure with a round head enter from the sides, the round plain one notably pushing aside the square plain one.

Square green: "Hey. I have some thoughts on this subject."

Round green: "Yes please, thank you."

Round plain: "Um, your head is also round?"

Panel 3: Zoom in on the very much square head of the square head green stick figure

"All right then."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

Poll idea since I'm curious: Why don't you reblog the art that you like?

-I don't like the art that much

-I don't want to

-I forget

-I don't reblog anything

-I always reblog art I like

-I don't like or reblog art

-Nuanced answer (tags)

Thanks~!

'Trans' Before 'Girl': The Third-Gendering of Trans Women

I have found myself considering often recently the stark difference in comfort I feel when hanging out with a group of trans women as opposed to any other mix of people.  The way I unfold and stretch into a warm familiarity in the presence of my sisters in ways I didn’t even know were possible; the years I spent hunched in on myself, slouched and cramped into something smaller than I am. I’ve wondered about why this is, why I feel this pressure even amongst lifelong friends who have never once been anything but supportive of me and my identity. Friends who stand up for me to others and go out of their way to be affirming. Even in a room full of gender-freaks and capital-Q Queers, I am still shrink-wrapped in tight discomfort, like fitting into clothes that aren’t too big or too small, but cut in just the right way that you know they look wrong on you. I have realized it is because in all of these spaces, the queerness of my identity is more important than my identity itself. I am never just a woman, I am always a transgender woman. I am always ‘trans’ before I am ‘girl’. 

I think this phenomenon is clearly related to the fetishization of trans women, but not because it is fetishizing in itself. I don’t hang out with the kind of people who would read the Trans Girl Pick-Up Guide, and yet I still encounter this feeling of separation, of reduction and simplification and otherness, on a near-daily basis. I think this and the fetishization of trans women have the same root cause, which is the third-gendering of trans identities. The reduction of trans women to genitalia is certainly one part of this, but there are non-sexual aspects as well that are based in the way we define transgenderism itself. As long as transgenderism is marked as the switch from one gender to another, often but not always from the “assigned” gender to the “chosen” gender, it implicitly distances those people from the very gender identities they are trying to claim. My womanhood is always predicated on the context of my previous “manhood”. My transition, be it social or physical, is always the foundation upon which my womanhood is built; I am always ‘trans’ before I am ‘girl’. In this why I am consistently third-gendered by those around me, made to exist outside of the binary (this is not to say that I believe or support the gender binary; I think we should do away with it entirely. The problem lies from the binary being enforced and stapled over, of creating categories that are made other because of their movement). 

There are, of course, spaces and times where I do claim and celebrate this foundation, this otherness. I am proud of my journey into self-realization, and my queerness is an important aspect of my personality that I don’t try to play down or hide. My experiences, my beliefs, my actions and my desires, all are influenced by this part of my identity in ways I may not even fully realize. I am trans, and I am proud of that. But when I claim myself as a trans woman, those two words are given equal weight; they share the podium. I am trans. I am woman. I am me. In the presence of others, though, I can feel the latter being pushed to the back, like a celebrity being pushed behind their representative. A child being pushed behind their parent. My womanhood is to be seen, but my transness is to be heard. I think that the emphasis on queer identity can sometimes be a tool of ostracization from the self, rather than simply ostracization from others. Especially in the current social climate of precise identification and ‘queer solidarity’, people become focused on the queer identity, and not enough on the identity itself. It is only when I am surrounded by other trans women that I feel like I exist without caveat or precursor; when I am truly, uncompromisingly ‘girl’. I know more trans women than I can count, and yet I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard any of them refer to themselves simply as ‘a woman’ around others. Only when we are alone can it become implicit, an understanding rather than a explanation, and we can simply exist in our womanhood together. When we can just be a couple of girls, hanging out. 

Hopefully you’ve noticed that throughout this I have separated the word trans from the word woman. This is on purpose: I think that the increasing commonality of “transwoman” or “transfem” as a single word is a large part of this issue, because it intrinsically links our identity to a modified womanhood, a modified femininity. We can never take off the context of our separation; of our previous identity. And of course there are trans women who do identify with that label, who want to claim that context and wear it proud, always. I fully support any transfem who does so, as her self-realization is the most important thing. This, just like everything else, is just my observations from the lens of my own experience.

I don’t know that I have a call to action here besides asking people to be cognizant of what they prioritize when talking with trans women. Separate the words. Remember that her identity is not just her transition. Remember that she is a girl, too.

Day 2 in the Middle School Time Loop: you remember that last time, everyone ignored you at recess because they were talking about a TV show that you hadn’t watched. This time, you lie and say you’ve seen it. They ask you who your favorite character is, and you don’t know any of the characters, and so you’re tongue-tied. They think you’re weirder than ever, or maybe a liar, which is worse (and true).

Day 3 in the Middle School Time Loop: you tell your parents that you feel ill. They let you stay home while they’re at work. You spend the whole day watching past episodes of the TV Show.

Day 4 in the Middle School Time Loop: Recess again. The same person asks you who your favorite character is. This time, you're ready. You eagerly tell them, and supplement your reasons for liking them with solid evidence from all 4 seasons of the show. But! Tough luck: you’re now too invested. The atmosphere turns uncomfortable. They go back to ignoring you like they did on the Day 1 that you didn’t know was Day 1.

Day 5 in the Middle School Time Loop:

You decide to try a different approach and update your style. You've noticed that Ashleigh, who’s blonde and constantly surrounded by friends, always wears pink stripey sneakers. You try wearing a pink dress. Someone says it’s cute, but you know from how they say it that it isn’t the good cute.

“I thought that pink was cool,” you protest, more to the uncaring universe than to anyone in particular.

Your interlocutor shrugs. “Maybe on someone else.”

Day 6 in the Middle School Time Loop: You keep your head down, but still surprise the teachers by somehow knowing the correct answers to every spontaneous question they throw out to the class. You study the outfits of your classmates more closely. You realize that it wasn’t the color, so much as the brand that made the difference. It proves the shoes were expensive. You note down Ashleigh's sneaker brand in smudgy ink on the back of your hand, and then after school you take half a year's saved-up allowance and buy a matching pair at the mall. Your mom raises her eyebrows but doesn’t stop you.

Day 7 in the Middle School Time Loop: Today you make it to lunch before anything major goes wrong. You think that the sneakers have protected you, and stare down at them lovingly, watching the Barbie-pink plastic stripes reflect the tube lights on the ceiling as you turn your feet this way and that. But then at lunch, Ashleigh comes up, arm and arm with a friend. Her eyes are a little pink, but only a little.

“Ashleigh wanted me to tell you that she’s really hurt that you copied her sneakers,” the friend informs you, nobly, as if it would be too unpleasant for Ashleigh to have to say this herself. Her mouth is solemn but her eyes are gleeful.

“I didn’t…” You start to deny it automatically, even though it’s true. And yet, something won’t let you apologize. Doesn’t she see your imitation for what it is: the most sincere compliment you know how to bestow? This is your Hail Mary.

As you meet her eyes, you realize she does know, but this only makes her despise you more.

“I think a lot of people have these sneakers,” you stammer, in the end, and they just sniff and turn away. You go back to eating your lunch alone.

Day 8 of the Middle School Time Loop: even though you do well in every class, you must be so much more stupid than your classmates, to be missing whatever detail it is that they seem to have caught. How do they do it so quickly? Before recess, before the end of homeroom, even, they all just know. You’ve had endless chances to do this day over and yet you never seem to be able to catch up with them. Running to stand still, you’ve heard your mother say, when she’s busy at work. That’s you. Running to stand still.

Day 9 of the Middle School Time Loop: you pretend to be sick again, and you realize that if you want to, you can pretend to be sick every day. It's easy to convince your parents: you look tired and unhappy, your eyes small within their dark circles, like some underground creature. You stop watching that TV Show that you never really wanted to watch in the first place, and instead dream your way through all your favourite childhood movies. Disney, Pixar, Studio Ghibli. You retreat into jewel-colored landscapes, where everyone is magical or beautiful or at least funny, and the heroes always win in the end.

Day 10 of the Middle School Time Loop: You notice that most of the Pixar heroes, the Disney princesses look more like Ashleigh than you. Long hair. Pale eyes. Button noses. And all of them, so thin.

Day 11 of the Middle School Time Loop: you go to school, but you don’t talk to anyone. You don’t even answer your name at roll call. Your teacher asks you if anything is wrong at school, or at home perhaps. You shake your head, but that evening you hear your father taking a call. You shrug off his worry: it’ll be forgotten tomorrow anyway.

Day 12 of the Middle School Time Loop: an unexpected development: your apathy almost seems to make your classmates like you more. When you say, truthfully, that you don’t care much for the TV Show that eternally dominates the recess chatter, some people look impressed. They ask you what you think is better. But you’re wise and don’t admit to liking anything. "Mysterious," someone says appreciatively.

At the end of recess, the girl who told you off for copying Ashleigh nudges you. “Hey. Look, Robert has an Up shirt. Kind of cute, that he’s still into that stuff, right?”

You know that it’s not the good cute.

You stare at her coldly. “The shirt just has a dog on it. It doesn't say he's from Up. So you must have liked the movie enough to remember him.”

She flushes scarlet, and hurries to catch up with Ashleigh, throwing you a dirty look. Robert glances at you gratefully but you don’t return his smile. He won’t remember that you did this for him. Anyway, you didn't, really. Do it for him, that is.

Day 13 of the Middle School Time Loop: You tell your parents you’re sick again. Today, you watch the second tier of Studio Ghibli movies, the ones that your parents always say, self-consciously, that you’ll find dull. Only Yesterday, Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There. You’re only a few minutes into Marnie when there’s a line that pulls you up short:

“In this world, there’s an invisible magic circle. There’s inside and outside. These people are inside. And I’m outside.”

The relief that washes over you is so profound that you almost cry, and then, when the movie's over, you do cry. Ugly sobs that make you sound like a toddler throwing a tantrum at the mall, that make your head pound with a dehydration headache. But behind the tears, there's relief. There it is, the truth that you were searching for, through all these do-overs. There’s an invisible magic circle. Of course there is.

But here’s the thing about circles: the inside is small. The outside is scary, and lonely, but it’s huge: huger than you could ever have imagined before you turned around and looked.

When your dad gets home, he asks if you’re feeling better. “Much,” you say, and it’s true.

Day ?? of the Middle School Time Loop: Sometimes you go to school, but ditch class and go to the library or the playground and do your own thing even if teachers yell at you. Sometimes you wander around the neighborhood. Sometimes you ask your parents crazy things, like to take you to work with them, or to the beach, or to DisneyWorld. Sometimes they say no. A surprising amount of times, they say yes. You wonder if maybe they’re trapped in a time loop too.

Sometimes you sit quietly in other classrooms than the one you’re meant to be in, until they shoo you out or even send you to the principal. (He finds you baffling. You feel a deep, slightly mournful affection for him, like you would for an very old and tired dog). It’s surprising, the amount of different things that are getting taught in one school in one day. It takes you a long time to work your way through them all.

You watch a frog getting dissected a few times before you start to feel bad and don’t go back to that classroom again. Your favorite class to crash is art, because the teacher always clocks that you’re not meant to be there but smiles and lets you stay anyway. When you meet her eyes, it feels like you’re sharing a secret.

Day One-Hundred And Something of the Middle School ...Wait.

At some point, time started moving again, and you didn’t even realize it.

For so long, the reprimands you received about your future seemed so empty, so laughable. There was no future. Only a more- or less-bearable present. But now, your classmates remember the unhinged things that you do; now, your teachers’ and parents’ worries about the future have the full juggernaut weight of reality behind them.

You thought that you’d be more terrified. For so long, you’ve dreaded this forward momentum. No loading screen, no mini-games, just one single, awful, pulsating life. But things are different now. Time’s moving again, and here you are, so far outside the invisible magic circle that you’re not even sure that you'd be able to see it any more. You can still feel its power, but faintly, like the pull between two magnets when they're an arm's length apart. Easy to ignore.

“Are you ready?” Robert says, catching your eye over the kitchen table. He comes here first thing so you can get the bus together. At some point, during the time loop, you started to seek him out. He was outside the circle, too, you realized. But even more importantly, not once, on any of those grimly looping days, did you see him try and push someone else out to make a space for himself. In this crab bucket, that’s something that counts for a lot.

“Our final day of middle school,” he sighs, half to himself. “Never thought I’d see it.”

"Me either," you reply, getting up to put on your talismanic pink sneakers. They’re scuffed and dirty after years of wear, and certainly Ashley would never be caught dead in them these days. Maybe that’s what you should have told her, all those loops ago: that no imitation, let alone one as unskilled as yours, can ever be perfect, and that indeed the very imperfection renders it an original work in its own right. Time and thought and human care transforms even the most diligent copy into something else entirely.

But you’ve been through enough time loops to know that that sort of explanation wouldn’t go over very well.

I don't think younger/newer users fully grasp the shit show that ace discourse was around 2014-17

It was so hostile that, to this day, discussions that begin to derail just enough can make me physically nauseous, some specific mockery trigger crying sessions years later. We lost most accounts with any sort of ace positivity. There was no information, no support, and all this damage was done predominantly by other queer people.

All this to say that you, however you identify yourself, should be engaging with aphobic comments the same way you do any hate. We don't sugarcoat or try to be comprehensive with people who are blatantly racist, homophobic or terfs, so why give it a pass just because it's coming from a queer person? I see how this tolerance goes and it's done enough damage as it is.

It sounds like the only ingredients caesar salad and your salad have in common are lettuce and garlic? Well i’m glad you enjoy it!

idk it drifted there eventually...

well, I'm not a fan of tomatoes, so I didn't add them a lot even before going vegan. And I did add croutons before too.

But yeah, guess it doesn't really fit, but whatever

right now it's a variation of Caesar salad I make!

well, it started more like a Caesar, but I've been too lazy to make croutons lately so I've not been adding them 😅 And I started putting more veggies in there instead.

What I do is I buy some tofu from the store, press it, cut it up and let the pieces soak in soy sauce for at least a day. Then I rinse some salad, cucumber and bell pepper, cut them up and add together with the tofu pieces. I add some mayo, finely chopped garlic, curry seasoning (idk it's just labeled that way), tumeric and nooch (nutritional yeast).

Before it was more like a Caesar with croutons instead of cucumber and bell pepper. Also one time I've added some macaroni as carbs.

I think the seasoning makes it very delicios, I love it 😋

Before I started making this my fav was probably lentil burgers, but I'm making them less frequently now.

Also I love peanut butter jelly sandwiches... They fulfill the role of a dessert very well, I don't even need much else (although I do love buying some glazed curds (a thing where I live) or vegan cakes sometimes as a treat)

Actually I really wanna know: vegans and vegetarians! What is your favorite meal? Can be as specific or nonspecific as you want <3

1) beekeeping is still exploitation of animals, and vegans are people against animal exploitation. It is humans taking what animals make and using that for our own consumption and to make a profit. It is people deciding that they are free to take what animals worked to make. Bees living under a beekeeper are still livestock, which leads to

2) Ok, the first point is more of a politics/morality high matter, so let's talk more welfarism-adjacent stuff

- if bees consent... why do you need a protective suit and a smoke machine. It seems that bees do, in fact, not like other creatures taking their honey. They even have a reputation for this. They have stingers and even die while using them... to sting whatever creatures are trying to mess with their hive;

- the fact that they stay does not mean that they understand that their honey will be taken. They are bees, they don't sign contracts and they cannot foresee that staying in this cosy place will lead to a human eventually taking their honey;

- also who says people don't take as much honey as they want... we live in a capitalist society with everything being pushed to make a profit;

- it will be replaced with a sugary syrup/substance... oh hey, if, apparently, honey can be replaced by that for bees, maybe we should replace honey with that for humans 😯 oh, is it not the same? why is it acceptable to give it to bees then;

- regarding bees being able to leave. Yeah, cutting the queen's wings so it can't lead the hive off is a practice. Also you'll find guides online telling you how to prevent swarming. You know, when a part of a hive wants to leave, it's the bees' way of reproduction. And guides on how to catch wild bees. People do, in fact, prevent them from leaving;

- bees make honey to survive the winter. Speaking of which, btw, discarding hives for winter and just buying new bees for the new season might be cheaper than sustaining the bees the whole time, so some people do that too.

Honestly... honey is one of the easiest things to abandon as a vegan. There are plenty of syrups you can use. You can even make your own stuff from sugar and dandelions! I should try making that in August when they bloom again

isn't honey always vegan? because bees basically consent to being beekept, make more honey than they need, and can leave if they want to? /gen

according to my little knowledge on bees, I do believe that bees are able to produce more honey than they need. however, bees are not always kept kindly. the conditions are often not in the best interest of the bees themselves. some vegans will eat honey from beekeepers that they know do their due diligence to protect bees, and aren't focused on extracting honey. but many vegans just wanna be distanced from consuming animals & their by-products, as much as they're practically able to, so that they can detach from engaging in exploitative dynamics between humans and other animals.

When the anti "LGBT propaganda" law passed in Russia, all of you were going insane and cared. Give Georgia the same energy. If you can have sympathy for our oppressors on the basis of them being queer, you should keep the same energy for us, if not more.

If this law passes, every Georgian queer person I know is so severely fucked, myself included. If you make jokes about "being illegal in several countries" you better fucking care about the countries you're apparently illegal in, or going to be illegal in.

Make sure to spread this around. This is important.

Accessibility takes too goddamn fucking long.

My brother was paralyzed in October 2023. We got him home from the hospital (in Texas, when we live in Iowa) in a clunky old hospital chair. He hated it. He was scared and angry and in pain and his life had just changed forever and he couldn’t do anything for himself in that wheelchair. His first goal (aside from learning how to transfer) was to get a wheelchair. My family was lucky enough to afford one so we thought it would be easy enough. Nope.

We couldn’t buy him a wheelchair. He needed a prescription. For a wheelchair. A doctor had to examine him and declare him in need of a wheelchair. It wasn’t good enough that he had scans and tests showing tumors cutting off his spinal cord. He needed his primary care doctor to examine him during a physical and write a prescription. He was making 2-4 transfers a day, tops. He had no energy to get to a doctor. Home health was in and out every day. He had no time to get to a doctor. He didn’t get a prescription for almost a month. Then it had to go through insurance.

We asked if we could skip insurance and just buy a wheelchair for him. Nope. They wouldn’t sell us one, not even at full sticker price. It needed to be approved by Medicare. We ordered a wheelchair, a nice one, a good shade of green, sporty, small. It would let him move around the house. He would be able to cook, to reach drawers and get stuff from the fridge and brush his teeth and put his contacts in at a sink. We were told it would take awhile, maybe two months. Silently we all hoped he would be around to see two more months.

He went on hospice care on a Saturday in March. On Monday, I was calling his friends to come see him before he died. I got a call on his phone. It was the wheelchair company. They were about to order his wheelchair, she said, but there was an issue with insurance— had he stopped being covered by Medicare? Well, yes. When he started hospice care, he got kicked off Medicare. The very nice woman I talked to told me to call her if he resumed Medicare coverage so she could order his wheelchair. He died less than 12 hours later.

We ordered that chair for him in early December. Medicare didn’t approve the order until March. He was dead before they got around to it. He wanted that fucking wheelchair so badly. The only reason he had any semblance of independence and any quality of life for the last five months of his life was because the wheelchair company lent him an old beater chair, a very used model of the chair he ordered. If I could go back and change one thing about his end-of-life, I would get him his dream wheelchair. He told me again and again he couldn’t wait to get it, so that he could feel like a person again. He made the best of what he had with that old beater chair, but it still makes me mad to this day. He was paralyzed. He needed a chair that afforded him dignity. We had the money for it. And yet, we were left waiting for five months, for a chair that wouldn’t even get ordered until the day he died.