(Trigger Warning For The Above And Also CSA And Homophobia)

As someone who was there back when this happened, no, the chat type post came after the shoelaces / stole them from the president. Tumblr chose that flavor text because of the meme.

there is something so darkly comical about tumblr potentially outliving twitter

tumblr, which is held together with duct tape and madness, run by three raccoons in blood stained Yahoo! hats and a handful of crabs, its only discernible source of income the sale of shoelaces from an inside joke so inside no one knows the original source anymore and fake blue checkmarks... that website still lives on

truly the cockroach of social media and I love it for that

And also since things are so unstable, no one wants to invest in manufacturing here because the Terrifies could be struck out practically over night (or in four years) and then they'd be SOL competing with over seas again.

here's the thing about the fucking tariffs. besides Unfairly Punishing Our FUCKING ALLIES YOU MORON- okay okay. anyway. the other thing

the other thing is that we have no manufacturing here

most of the fabric I buy to make my clothes is made overseas. I would actually love to buy wool from a local, unionized woolen mill! I'd be pleased as punch to do that! it's better for the environment and creates good local jobs that don't have a barrier of entry re: college degrees, which we need more of!

except we don't have any more fucking woolen mills because your billionaire ilk outsourced all of them to avoid union rules, OSHA, and paying minimum wage, when those things became commonplace and/or law. you orange fuckface

"buy American instead!!!" okay FROM FUCKING WHERE. we don't MAKE shit here anymore. and the few remaining local producers have been forced to charge exorbitant prices because they're competing with cheap unethical labor practices from big companies, so most people can't afford to buy local

god it's all so fucking stupid and I have to suffer for other people's idiocy that I actively tried to prevent

Hey!

I have some flavor of dysautonomia and had psychogenic non epileptic seizures related to the fear and adrenaline rush caused by fainting.

Focusing on my breathing, mostly in the sense of following guided meditation was a really good way to immediately make me feel floaty, distant, unfocused and then to faint.

When I'm out of breath from exercise (like walking the dog, carrying laundry) I don't notice I'm panting at all. I do have to fight that floating away feeling but it's not my biggest complaint about my body during such activity.

Very interesting?

Every time a medical professional tells me to do breathing exercises and then measures my blood pressure they freak out because I'll go from like 110/60 to 170/110 in five minutes and I keep telling them that the slow-count breathing just makes me feel dizzy and like I have to pant to make up for it after the fact.

Writing this post has been miserable because even looking at the word "breathing" this many times has made me feel like I can't catch my breath but when I walk away for a couple minutes and stop thinking about inhaling and exhaling I know I'm going to feel fine again.

I fucking hate it when that four square breathing gif circulates or when I get an ad for a relaxation game on Duolingo, that shit breaks my lungs/brain for minimum twenty minutes every time.

Patch note: references to "falling" and "falls" have been perceived as frightening. To better enable casual references and conversation these episodes have been renamed "unexpectedly sitting" and "unplanned lying down".

Ooohhhh this explains why I can cook when I have a caregiver with me but wont when I'm alone.

I'm showing thee caregiver how to prepare the things I like to eat for the days when I can't get out of bed

1. a couple months ago a publicist invited me to a concert and i accepted her invite and she said she’d add my name to the guest list. the night of the concert i was feeling a little tired and not entirely up for walking all the way to the venue and standing around listening to a band i’d never heard of. but then, as i was making dinner, i thought, “why don’t you pretend this is a date night with bill hader?” i realize this is an insane person thing to think. i do often go to concerts with friends; i am not in the habit of pretending bill hader is accompanying me to concerts. but that night i did put on the band’s album and pretend that bill hader was dancing around the kitchen with me while i cooked. and then i pretended that bill hader threw his arm around me on the walk to the venue and walked slower than usual because he’s taller and his paces are longer than mine. then i got to the venue. and i told the lady in the ticket booth that i was on the guest list. and i gave her my name. and she handed me two tickets, and she said, “here, for you and your plus one.” i was all alone in front of the box office. there was no one else around. at no point leading up to this had the publicist mentioned giving me a plus one. i laughed a little to myself at the idea of Imaginary Bill Hader being given his own ticket and then i went inside.

2. on the way home from acting class tonight, a long walk in the cold, i came upon a diner lit in warm golden hues, and i hadn’t eaten all day, and it looked irresistible, so i went inside. “for one,” i said, and the hostess said, “do you want to eat at the bar?” and i said, “no thanks, could i sit at a table?” and i was ushered to a table for two. it was a pretty busy night and i was kind of self-conscious about being the only person eating alone so i was like, “well okay i’ll just imagine i’m on a date with bill hader again haha.” and so i sat there and enjoyed some very good sweet potato ravioli with chestnut-cream sauce, and what was perhaps the best cheesecake i’d ever eaten in my life, all the while imagining bill hader seated in the empty chair across from me. and then at the end of the meal, my waitress came and cleared away my dessert plate, and she looked at me, and then she looked at the empty chair, and then she looked back at me, and then she said, “are you paying separate or together?” again, the other seat was empty. i had been sitting at this table fully by myself for the entire duration of the meal. the waitress had come by the table perhaps five or six times over the course of the hour, seeing me completely alone. and i said, “sorry?” and she said, “separate or together?” and i said, “…together?” and she said, “cool, do you need the machine?” and i said, “yes” and she brought the machine over and i paid, because my dinner companion, despite apparently being visible to my waitress, was imaginary bill hader. 

As a disabled person who uses a screen reader

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

There are a million accessibility tools already out there which do the same thing this app claims it would. And these tools do so without AI and without scrapping the works of non consenting creators.

This person is just using disabled people as an excuse to be an asshole.

Fandom friends, we have won the battle (although we definitely did not win the war).

Yesterday, I wrote this post about lore.fm, an AI scraping app that was being marketed as an accessibility tool. Now, the person that has been promoting this app decided, in the light of plenty of backlash, to backtrack and pull it down, as they "feel uncomfortable" with how authors reacted to it.

Of this video, it's very important to highlight a couple of things:

the video is 3 long minutes of guilt-tripping: she keeps repeating that her (and her team, whose existence wasn't disclosed until yesterday: this app was marketed as being a sole woman's pet project) wanted to do good and create an accessibility tool. This comes with the underlying layer that all the authors who rightfully decided to defend their creations are ableist and in the wrong. It's a manipulation tactic;

there is no acknowledgement of the fact that the app was created by a team that specifically works to create apps that generate AI stories;

there is no explanation as to where the money to fund this app is coming from, and we all know that, when you're not paying for the product, you are the product;

this is backtracking, not genuine conversation: since the other day, the videos promoting this app went viral on r/Ao3, and plenty of people began contacting team@lore.fm to ask for their works to not be included. Then, the news spread on Tumblr too. They originally thought they could get away with "legally" stealing as much material as possible, and had to cut the project short because authors were doing everything in their power to stop them. The decision to take the app off for "reassessment" doesn't come from the goodness of their hearts.

At this point of the conversation, I think it's clear that the entirety of the project was relying on the perceived naïveté of fanfic readers and writers, who are oftentimes seen and stereotyped as being silly teens and not adults with real jobs and real knowledge of the law. When they saw dozens, if not hundreds, of authors contacting them to ask their works to not be featured, some of them threatening legal consequences, they had no other choice but to backtrack.

For now, the issue is closed, but don't think it'll be forever. Know your rights, even if you're "just" a fic author, and defend yourself and your works too from these scummy companies that see us as nothing but machines that churn out material for them to steal and profit off of with no consequences.

This is so amazing!!! The calligraphy is so beautiful and I really wasn’t expecting to feel so moved seeing my pronouns written out by someone else. The declension is perfect and it just so happens blue is (one of) my favorite color(s). :)

It’s so perfect, and thank you so much for making this for me.

Calligraphy practice requested by @hopeandhandler. I added a little bit, I hope that’s ok? And I hope I got faer pronoun declension right.

Here is the avatar I designed and illustrated for @theblindadventures

I am disabled and use much of the same accessibility technology as blind people, including, most prominently, text to speech. (Due to dyslexia.) I also use a service dog. (Due to seizures and extremely poor mental health.)

When Pete first started blogging I thought they were so cool and I was eager to support them however I could. I’m so excited to welcome another disabled blogger on to tumblr (and hopefully make another friend).

Thank you so much for giving me the chance to show off my art and replace your default avatar. 

As I’ve come to see more of your blog and who you are I do think this avatar represents those things well.

Best,

Soul

Also, for those interested, I do this sort of work on commission. I have prices for traditional work here but am still working on pricing for digital works like the one seen here.

Please note that this image is the version with the transparency replaced with tumblr’s background color.

[Image description: a black Labrador guide dog with a white harness leading a person. The dog is shaded with a moderate amount of fur texture and detail. The person being guided is visible as only a hand gripping the harness and a set of legs. The dog looks at the viewer. The dog and figure are surrounded by a white circle. Outside of that circle reads “The Blind Adventures” in a hand writing font in an arch around the drawing. At the bottom, in a straight line, is a brail font reading the same.]

Trans women who have had surgery still need to visit the urologist, not the gynecologist, because the former is familiar with our surgeries and the latter is not. You need to stop lying and spreading misinformation which could get someone killed.

Wow, everything you said is completely wrong. So it's very funny that you think my 'misinformation' is going to 'get someone killed'. That hyperbole is fear mongering and also that's just a really aggressive way to speak to a complete stranger. Especially to accuse me of 'lying'.

So let me clear up your misunderstandings.

Firstly, urologist specialize in the urinary system, which include the bladder and kidneys and also the uterus. They aren't like the male version of gynecologists. For example, urologist treat organ prolapse, where the bladder, uterus, or colon "fall" into the vagina, or will treat fistulas, especially bladder fistulas. (Which is a hole connecting the bladder and vagina.)

Secondly, Vaginoplasties are preformed by reconstructive surgeons not urologist or gynecologist in the vast, vast majority of cases. Also, vaginoplasties are not a trans specific surgery. Severe vaginal injuries, such as those caused by childbirth or disease, are also treated with a vaginoplasty.

It's laughable any ol' off the shelf urologist is "familiar" with the surgery. Plenty of doctors still refuse to preform even the simplest trans-specific healthcare 'because it's not a usual part of their practice they are comfortable preforming' let alone complex reconstructive surgery.

But my original comment wasn't about vaginoplasties, it was about checking the cervix for cancer.

So, thirdly, trans women aren't the only women with neo-cervixies. In addition to the above, people who have undergone hysterectomies of one kind or another often have a neo-cervix as well. Or, for example, if someone has cervical cancer, and needs their cervix removed, they give that person another cervix.

Because the cervix is a very important part of that set of anatomy. It keeps the uterus and other organs from prolapsing (just falling out) and is also something of a barrier that keeps junk out of the uterus. And if you don't have a uterus, it keeps junk out of the abdominal cavity.

The procedure to check a cervix for cancer is the same regardless of if its a neo-cervix or a cervix-cervix.

Meaning, gynecologist are also familiar with the cervix aspect of a vaginoplasty. As well as the rest of the vaginoplasty. Because they treat people who've had vaginoplasties. So, you know, it's perfectly normal to go see a gynecologist to have your vagina looked at.

A basic pap smear is actually simple enough it can be done with an at home kit (though if anything needs to be biopsied they'll need you in the stirrups for that).

So uh, recommending you see a gynecologist for a vaginal specific issue isn't horribly dangerous misinformation, it isn't even misinformation. It's a perfectly normal thing to do.

If a surgeon made you a vagina, that surgeon should tell you what vagina problems to look out for, what health screening you need, and what specialists you should have preform those tests for you. They'll also likely be able to refer you to someone trans friendly if needed.

Getting an at home pap smear test from a general practitioner is not a big deal. There's no need to see a urologist for that. If you need your neo-cervix biopsied there's no reason not to go see a gynocologist since trans women aren't the only ones with neo cervix.

And also most urologist offices aren't going to have speculums and stirrups.

Trans health care is not some big secret only select medical disciplines are let in on.

A general practitioner can prescribe hormones and keep you up to date on the tests you need for that. A plastic surgeon with experience is going to preform the surgeries, MtF or FtM. A general practitioner can send you home with a pap smear kit, or preform one in the office, even. A gynecologist can look at your vagina, because it's not a special or trans exclusive vagina. A urologist can look at a urinary tract or bladder infection or what have you.

Acting like trans health care is some super secret complicated thing is transphobic. That's something transphobic doctors say as an excuse not to treat trans people.

A friend of mine had a complication develop after surgery and needed a local urologist to fix it. The long term fix was surgical, but the urologist could have drained the painful mass that developed while she traveled to see her surgeon. But he refused. So did the doctors at the Emergency Room.

So she got to enjoy a very painful very long very bumpy bus ride from her rural college to the city where her surgeon was so he could take care of it for her.

YOU'RE the one who needs to 'stop lying and spreading misinformation' because your misinformation perpetuates the excuse transphobic doctors use to avoid treating trans people at all.

It is not a trans need to have a painful surgical complication corrected and it is not complicated to drain an abscess. But that doctor refused her, not because the abscess was caused by an unfamiliar surgery, but because she required that surgery because she was trans.

You are telling trans people that our medical needs are complex and overwhelming and scary. That's discouraging. And it's just not true.

Urologist don't have exclusive rights to vaginoplasties. Urologist aren't extra familiar with trans women's health needs. The cervix isn't part of the Urologist's specialty.

Calm down. Going to see a gynecologist for a pap smear isn’t going to kill anyone. And the gynecology field as a whole is making an effort to be more welcoming to trans women because it’s perfectly normal for trans women to see a gynecologist.

you have to stay alive. you're going to be such a beautiful middle aged freak. young freaks will see you in the street and know that things can be okay.