i wonder if there's a Discworld fic somewhere on ao3 with the tag "Major Character: DEATH" because i think that would be hilarious

because i'm curious about the current state of privacy norms on tumblr (clarifications below)

yes this is inspired by age/sex/location

Clarifications:

by share i mean: you've written it in tags (e.g. on posts that say "let me know where you're from in the tags!"), you would provide that information if asked, it's in your bio, you don't actively hide it, etc.

if you lie about one of them, i consider that to be not sharing.

for location, if you share your country (or state/region, if in the US, considering the sheer number of USAmericans on here) then i'd consider that sharing.

for age, if you share a rough age range (like 'early 20s'), I would consider that sharing.

yes i know that gender does not necessarily equal pronouns, but it's similar enough for this silly little poll.

for example: my pronouns are in my bio. i would be open about being an adult, if asked, but don't specify my age any further. i am not from the US but don't share anything more about my location. therefore, i would pick 'gender/pronouns only'.

The other day I reblogged a post about waitstaff not respecting dietary requirements, and I didn't want to add to it because it's long enough already, but it got me thinking about disability and how it changes how you relate to the world.

I have a few health conditions. One of them is a potentially life-threatening food allergy (I carry an epipen and keep a spare one at home). This allergen is in a lot of foods, but it's thankfully relatively easy to avoid, particularly because I know the kinds of foods it's in, and also because it's an allergy that people generally respect.

This allergy has a minimal effect on my day-to-day life. My other health conditions have a much larger impact on my lifestyle. But my allergy has nonetheless shaped the way that I relate to food and my body. I always think about it when people suggest places to eat. I avoid foods that I've had close calls with in the past, or foods that sometimes contain the allergen. I'm wary of homemade food at potlucks and as gifts. I read the ingredients on everything, not only food but also things like toothpaste and soap, even when I know that there's basically no chance of my allergen being present. If I eat something risky then for the next twenty minutes I'm constantly checking my arms for hives and my lips for swelling.

There's something very strange about the idea that my body considers this food to be such a threat that it enacts a policy of mutually assured destruction. An assassin could kill me with something that is harmless to most other people. Every time I eat something new I'm scared that my body will decide it's a threat too.

Not everyone is as cautious as I am. But this sort of experience, and constant fear of your body turning on itself, applies to so many people. I have a friend who's severely allergic to nuts, dairy, legumes, and eggs. She rarely eats at restaurants and could never go vegetarian because she would struggle to get enough protein. Coeliacs and diabetics have to be constantly careful of what they're eating or risk permanent damage to their bodies. People with severe intolerances, or food-triggered migraines, or heart conditions impacted by caffeine, or any of the other food-related health conditions have similar experiences.

So much of life is centred around food (for good reason - I love food!), and yet so many people who don't have food-related health conditions just don't understand it, and sometimes even those who do their best don't always get it right. I check the ingredients on everything, even if a friend tells me that it's safe, because sometimes they're wrong. An honest mistake, but one that I can't afford.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I just wanted to say that, if I discover that someone I know is blasé about food allergies, I don't bother talking with them about my other health conditions. If they can't even respect life-threatening food allergies then how could I possibly trust them with anything else? They haven't made the effort to understand how disabilities can completely shape the way that you experience the world. They wouldn't understand the concept of having limited spoons or executive dysfunction. They probably don't respect religious dietary requirements either, or sensory issues with food. I wouldn't trust them to understand microaggressions, or structural racism, or the complexities of gender, unless they happen to experience those themselves.

It's like the 'I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people' meme, but instead, it's 'I don't know how to tell you that you should put yourself in someone else's shoes every once in a while'. Maybe that would make the world a better place.

if tea is leaf juice then uh

is this anything

[All photos taken from Wikipedia/Wikimedia commons. Image description under the cut.]

Image description begins. Image is a Dungeons and Dragons-style alignment chart meme, where the columns are lawful, neutral, and chaotic respectively, and the rows are good, neutral, and evil respectively. Lawful good has the text “Black tea, oolong, green tea, white tea” and an image of those four types of tea. Neutral good has the text “Rooibos, chamomile, and other herbal teas” and an image of mint tea. Chaotic good has the text “Fruit tisanes” and an image of a fruit and nut tisane, unbrewed. Lawful neutral has the text “Matcha latte” and an image of a matcha latte. True neutral has the text “Spinach smoothie” and an image of a green juice or smoothie. Chaotic neutral has the text “Beer” and an image of beer. Lawful evil has the text “Chewing raw tea leaves” and an image of a hand holding several fresh, undried tea leaves. Neutral evil has the text “Kimchi” and an image of six versions of kimchi. Chaotic evil has the text “Fruit salad” and an image of a fruit salad. End image description.

I think, for me, being genderqueer is like realising that i want to change careers. Not because the job has a toxic work environment - although, maybe, later on, i'll look back and realise that it did - but because it just doesn't suit me.

It's like i grew up with parents who ran a bakery, and i was helping out in the bakery since i was young, and i left school at sixteen to work full-time. And maybe i tell people that I'm unhappy with my work, and they tell me that i should open my own bakery, or try pastry instead of bread, and i can't work out how to tell them that i'm not a baker. That i don't see myself as a baker, that i'm happy to dabble in it, but the idea of a future where i'm still baking bread every day when i'm sixty fills me with despair. That i respect the fact that many people who used to bake bread are happier now that they're baking cupcakes, and i'm happy for them, but that wouldn't work for me.

It would take time and effort and money to change careers. I would always be explaining to family friends that yes, i used to work in the bakery, but i switched to a different profession, and i'm much happier now. And it would be worth it.

Maybe i could live as my AGAB. I don't know. Maybe i would settle into it again as i grow older, or find a way to make it work for me. But i can't see a future where i only ever live as my AGAB and am happy with it. And isn't that enough?

this morning i saw the city.

i was walking to the bus stop, eyes half-closed against the driving rain and endless too-bright headlights, when i accidentally looked sideways through a crack in the pavement.

for a moment i could see it all.

the city's skin was made of asphalt, with folds where it went over hills, dry and cracking in some places, newly healed in others. the roadworkers up ahead were part of the immune system, putting stitches in the city's skin, leaving pebbled scabs and painted line scars behind.

the houses and shops, rising tall or short and squat, were tiny hairs, sensitive to the slightest movement. the larger structures, the bridges and arenas and skyscrapers, were moles and callouses. the fences and streetlamps formed the little textured dots and pores that i could feel when i ran the pad of my index finger down the inside of my arm.

and the humans, well — the humans and other animals were the lifeblood of the city, moving water and oxygen and hemoglobin from place to place in each day-long heartbeat, releasing waste products into the air and waters and streets to be carried away by the cleaners and garbage collectors of the city's gastrointestinal system.

i stood there, staring, until my eyes began to hurt with the effort of seeing, and i blinked, and the vision disappeared.

i could still see it, though, behind my eyes, as i walked along the footpath stretch mark, and past the textured pores of street signs, and waited under the shelter of the hair follicle of a bus stop. beside the bus stop, I saw a little patch of yellow dandelions, barely staying alive despite the rain.

they were just plants, rooted in a dirty smudge upon the city's skin. nothing more.

i felt immensely sad all of a sudden, and i tried to look sideways at the dirt, too, from a different angle. i couldn't work it out, and then my bus arrived, and i lost the vision entirely. perhaps, though, that was for the best.

The bots are back again - I've been getting a few each day for the past week or so.

Interestingly, I'm seeing a new pattern. The last three or four have followed me and then immediately liked my most popular post (but no other posts). This post hasn't been reblogged recently, if I remember correctly, and it was originally posted about six months ago, so they might be finding it by searching for popular original posts. I assume it's a tactic to attempt to appear more genuine.

I know this has been said before, but for anyone who's forgotten (like I had): gender and sexuality labels are useful, but in the end they're just tools.

For example, when I realised that other people actually experienced sexual attraction and it wasn't just made up for dramatic effect, I found the ace community and the asexual label really comforting. And I am so grateful for that, and for all the advice and the cake/garlic bread memes; and for the way that that label let me find other people with similar experiences to mine, and helped me understand that I wasn't broken.

But these days, when people ask me to label my sexuality, I sometimes find the choice of labels restrictive. If a non-queer ally asks, I'll call myself bi or just queer; if a queer person asks, I'll call myself biromantic asexual, or grey-aro ace, or aroace with a desire for queerplatonic relationships, or something like that. The labels help find community and give others a general idea of who you are. But when I think about looking for a life partner, what actually matters to me is what I want in a relationship, and that's not always well-captured by the labels.

Sexuality is a social construct. Humans created labels that usefully picked out groups of people and types of experiences, and called them sexuality. These people and experiences are real, as seen by the fact that they crop up again and again, across time and cultures. The fight for equality is equally real - the increasing awareness and acceptance of asexuality has directly benefited my life, although there is still a long way to go, particularly in the medical field. But these labels are also a construct, and so they don't necessarily correspond to some perfect natural division in the world. If your experiences don't perfectly fit under some existing label - that's normal!

There are as many sexualities as there are people in the world, and at least as many genders. Many many people have complicated relationships with them, and with other complex categories and labels like race, religion, and so on. So if you hesitate every time you're asked to tick the right box on a form, remember that labels are useful - but they don't define you.

Tag game! Thanks @jytan2018 for tagging me :) (and for telling me it's meant to be a new post rather than a reblog haha)

🎉 Have any New Year's Resolutions?

I've restarted physiotherapy with the goal of fixing or greatly improving one of my chronic health issues, so my main resolution for this year is to actually do my physio exercises.

I want to try to post more original creative writing on tumblr.

I started learning a third language in 2023 and I hope to be able to hold simple conversations by the end of 2024.

🎉 What are you looking forward to next this year?

I should have more time this year for writing, both original writing and fanfic, so I'm looking forward to that!

🎉 One wish you'll have for the stroke of midnight

That we don't get so much global bad news this year?

🎉 New Year's Traditions

I don't really celebrate it, but I enjoyed a quiet morning on Jan 1st while everyone else was still asleep!

🎉 One thing/memory you'll miss from this year

A lot of my irl friends now live in different cities and countries, and I'll miss being able to all get together at once.

🎉 One reason you're glad the year is over

I had a few really stressful months last year while I went through some big life changes, so I'm glad that's over.

🎉 Mutuals that made your year

No pressure to do the tag game if you don't want to! Tagging a few mutuals who I think enjoy these things: @noworneverphantom @allegory-buried @salamencerobot and anyone else who wants to join in :)

hang on. are they called the beatles because beat. like music. drum beat.

truly a life-changing revelation.

Arada rubbed her eyes and her mouth pulled in at one side. "Are you trying to make me feel better?"

"No." I actually wasn't. I lie to humans a lot, but not to Arada, not about this. "I wouldn't try to make you feel better. You know what I'm like."

She made a snorting noise, an involuntary expression of amusement. "I do know what you're like."

Her expression had turned all melty and sentimental. "No hugging," I warned her. It was in our contract. "Do you need emotional support? Do you want me to call someone?"

"I'm fine." She smiled.

(Chapter 2, Network Effect, book 5 of The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells).

One of the things I really love about the Murderbot Diaries is that Murderbot isn't actually that unique. At the start, Murderbot is kind of portrayed as a loner, an outlier due to its ability to hack its governor module, something which it has only heard of happening in media. But then we meet the ComfortUnit on RaviHyral, Miki who was loved by Don Abene, and ART, whose crew treats it as a person and protects it - and probably others I'm forgetting too.

I haven't caught up with the series yet (recently finished Fugitive Telemetry, waiting on the last one through my library) but I love how humans everywhere are individually choosing to go against what they've been taught, forming relationships with bots and constructs, understanding and respecting them as people. There's also something about the autistic/neurodivergent subtext, and how Murderbot pretends to be like any other SecUnit at the start because it doesn't know what else to do, but then it meets others like it and humans that accept it, and it gets to slowly work out who it wants to be. I just want to reread this series over and over again.

'How does that sound, for starters?'

Sidra processed that. In some ways, it wasn't so different from her intended purpose. She'd be monitoring the safety of the shop and responding to requests. She'd perform tasks as directed. She'd be Pepper's eyes where she couldn't see. 'I can do that.'

Pepper studied her. 'I'm sure you can. But do you want to do that?'

Sidra processed that, too, and came up empty. 'I can't answer that, because I don't know.' When she was given a task, she performed the task. When a request was made, she filled the request as best she could. That ... that was her job. That was her point.

a closed and common orbit, Becky Chambers, 2016, p50

Reading a book where the perspective character is an AI really reminds me how much I felt like an alien as a kid huh

excellent

[ID: screenshot of tumblr notification for user socraticcryptid (OP) showing that they have booped themselves sixteen times. notification includes the text 'boops for your boop laundering scheme'. End ID]