The patrons are fine. They're having a great time with TTOU it's not emotionally wrenching at all.

One more week before patrons get the finale btw. One fortnight until the patron debut of Child of a Wandering Star.

I just read this. Now. I’m sad.

See they're having a great time

I have to DO THINGS today. Important time sensitive things. I will not read the story. The story is the time eater. I will read the story LATER

It's fine you're strong enough not to get sucked in.

Anyway it's 8h later and I have caught up and derin

Derin what the fuck

It’s all fine

Ok, @derinthescarletpescatarian was right, the SciFi crew really came to rescue. I'm currently on chapter 28 and I love them.

Now a little more personal because rarely I get the chance to tell authors this, but stories are the most fucking important thing to me, like REALLY.

It is what got me through very dark places, a good story and it characters make everything look better and more worth it for me. And sometimes I just wait until it feels like the right time to read or watch a given story.

So yeah, thanks, I really needed that right now, and I'm very thankful you got to write it.

I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

Lines that are way less funny after completing the game

LINES THAT HIT DIFFERENT AFTER COMPLETING THE GAME

“X bodily fluid is just filtered blood!” buddy I hate to break it to you but ALL of the fluids in your body are filtered blood. Your circulatory system is how water gets around your body. It all comes out of the blood (or lymph, which is just filtered blood).

“Okay but why is it always so chemically roundabout and unnecessarily complicated” well buddy, that’s because your blood is imitation seawater. See? It’s very simple.

Blood is what now?

It’s imitation seawater what part is confusing

#are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums? 

Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital.

Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces.

Thank you that’s…very disturbing

It’s not my fault you’re human.

Ok but “It’s not my fault you’re human.” Is the best comeback ever.

You can use it against anyone except children that you biologically helped to create.

#/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing 

Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow,” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs I can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that’s the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so I don’t explode or shrivel up) so I can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.”

“Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about I put it in tubes? I can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything I want to keep goes in my water! Anything I don’t, I dump back into the outside water! I’m a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that’s a GENIUS!”

“Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is so great. Look how big I’m getting. I even have a special pump to move my seawater around, and these cool filter systems to keep the chemicals in it right, and that control and chemical concentration has let me grow so many energy-intensive, highly specialised organs! Being big is so hard. I need special cells just to carry my oxygen around now, to make sure my enormous, constantly-operating body has enough of it.”

At this point you are embodying a fish, and eventually, fish start straying into water with different pressures and salinity levels. (I mean, they do that since befor ehty’er fish, but… look, I’m trying to keep things simple here.) “What the FUCK,” you think. “My inside water is at a different salinity and pressure to the outside water?? How am I supposed to deal with that? I can’t have freshwater inside my seawater tubes! My cells have a set salinity and they would explode! I need to start beefing up my regulatory and filter systems so that my inside seawater STAYS SEAWATER OF THE CORRECT SALINITY even if the outside water is different! Fortunately, adding salt to my seawater is a lot easier than removing it, and I want to be saltier than this weird outside water.” At this point you beef up your liver and urinary systems to compensate for different salinities. (Note: the majority of fish, freshwater and saltwater, have a fairly narrow band of salinities they can live in. Every fish doesn’t get to deal with every level of salinity; they are evolved to regulate within specific bands.)

You also, at some point, go out on land. This is new and weird because you have to carry all of your water inside. “It’s a good thing I turned myself into a giant bag of seawater,” you think. “If I wasn’t carrying my seawater inside, how would I transport all these important chemicals between my organs and the environment?” As you specialise to live entirely outside of the water, you realise (once again) that it’s a lot easier to add salt to water than to remove it in great quantities. Drinking seawater in large amounts becomes toxic; your body isn’t specialised for removing that amount of salt. Instead, you drink freshwater, and add salts to that. The majority of your organs are, at this point, specialised for moving your seawater around, protecting it, adding stuff to it, or taking stuff out. You have turned yourself into an intelligent bag for carrying and regulating a small amount of imitation seawater, and its salinity (and your commitment to maintaining that salinity) is based entirely on the seawater that some early animals started to build tubes around a long time ago.

And that’s what a human is!

Well, there’s another few steps, of course.

Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal.

A mammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is a tremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals slosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system,

and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good-“

“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha)

“My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS,” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, I shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. I shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life - using some of my own material, of course-”

“Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!!”

And you’re like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically I’m going to take some cells and brew them up-“

“Like an egg.”

“Like an egg. An egg but internally.”

“Yeah,” said the viviparous reptile, “yeah, like, that can work really well. I’ve always said it’s the highest test of one’s chemical know-how. It’s a lot of work. And forget about support from your family - forget about support from your PHYLUM - all you get is criticism.”

“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said. “The highest chemical, thermoregulatory, immunological, everything-logical challenge. It’s gonna be my thing.”

“I’m with you,” said a viviparous fish, stoutly. “Representation.”

You kindly don’t point out, once again, that you’re planning to do this outside the ocean, in a range of temperatures; carrying the dividing cells in a perfect 37.5• solution of saline broth in all terrains, breathing oxygen in a complicated matter, you know, bit more difficult; but you need your allies.

“It’s solid,” says the coelacanth.

“But is it metal?” says the deep-vent organism.

“Oh, it’s metal. I will feed the young,” you say, magnificently, “on an echo of the mother ocean. The first rich feast of cellular matter, the first hunt for sustenance, the first bite they sip of our liquid planet-”

Everyone waits.

“Will be a blood byproduct. My own blood byproduct.”

Everyone looks uncomfortable.

“But,” a hagfish says carefully, “don’t you outdoorsy guys still need your blood?”

You cough and explain that if you stay wet enough internally and hydrate frequently, you should be able to produce enough blood byproduct to sustain your hellish new invention until they can eat your peers.

The outrage that follows includes questions like “is this some furry shit?” And: “milk has WATER in it?”

And you won the bet. “My inner ocean is such a perfect homage to the primordial soup that I can personally cook up an entire live hairy mammal in it. And then generate excess blood byproduct from my body and give it to the small mammal until it gets big.”

That is an absolutely bonkers pitch, by the way, and everyone thought you were a showoff, even before the opposable thumbs. When the winter came, and the winter of winters, and the rain was acid and the air was poison on the tender shells of their eggs and choked the children in the shells; when the plants turned to poison, and the ocean turned against you all; when the climate changed, and the world’s children fell to shadow; your internal ocean was it that held true. A bet laid against the changing fates, a bet laid by a small beast against climate and geography and the forces of outer space, that you won. The dinosaurs fell and the pterosaurs fell and the marine reptiles dwindled, and you, furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship, held hope internally at 37.5 degrees. Which is another thing that humans do, sometimes.

It has been MONTHS, @elodieunderglass, and I am still mumbling “furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship” under my breath as a comfort phrase, and the FUCKING INDIGNITY that it came from this godforsaken post about THE HORRIBLE WETNESS OF MAMMALS!

“The horrible wetness of mammals” would make a great band name.

“hold hope, internally, at 37.5 degrees” and “Mammals internalize everything (eggs, grudges)” Now live permanently in my vocabulary

I think @elodieunderglass got possessed by the ghost of Terry Pratchett

No she’s always like that

"men don't need to be afraid walking around at night"

Unless they're black

"men make more than women in jobs"

Black men make less than white women on average

"men don't get followed around by people who mean them harm"

Black men are heavily policed and regularly jumped and killed for just walking down the street

"no one tells a man what he can and cannot do with his own body"

Black men are repeatedly assaulted and have their hair forcibly shaved or cut for wearing their hair natural and in culturally important styles. Black men who choose body modifications like tattoos or piercings are branded as thugs. Black men who have children and black men who don't have children are both regarded as players, hounddogs, absent fathers, and baby daddies, as if the logical answer is that no one's first choice of partner and father of their children would ever be a black man.

"no one judges a man's worth based on his clothes"/"a man isn't ever in danger no matter what he wears"

Black men are required to look presentable and professional according to eurocentric standards, push themselves into clothes not made for their bodies, and be highly uncomfortable in their daily lives or else risk 'fitting the profile' or 'matching the description' and getting detained by police AT BEST for the crime of existing in public. Black men wearing comfortable clothes are seen as sloppy, thugs, gangsters, street rats, hood and ghetto.

"no man fears rape"

The rape and sexual assault of black men ties directly to black buck stereotypes and black fetishization to the point where liking a black person or having your dating pool be open to black people is treated like a sexuality much like being gay. People are both threatened by and aroused by our bodies and that leads them to perform extreme acts of violence on us, including rape, SA, coercion, trafficking, and more. Much like how "tranny" and "lesbian" is a porn category, so is Big Black Cock. Sometimes with us featured as the rapist. Sometimes with us featured as the victim. Almost never with us featured as intimate, passionate, loving, tender. Black men are either to be feared and reviled, or to be broken and forced to submit. Direct ties to slavery with white people still getting off to our suffering.

Just say you don't care as much about black people's suffering and go, jesus.

I have privilege because I sometimes pass as a man? Try walking in my shoes for a while. Turns out being a black man vs being a black woman isn't always so different.

I do think it's really interesting that I have a lot of black butches and trans mascs on this post verifying in their tags that yes they've lived both as 'black woman' and as 'black man' and 'black man' is really not the improvement it's advertised to be and in the mean time I have also a bunch of nonblack people and especially white europeans saying this post is stupid and no one who agrees knows anything about what it's like to be a black woman and I'm just wondering out of the two options who do you think is more knowledgeable about what black people go through? 🤔

My nephew was 6 years old when his mother sat him down and explained to him very plainly what happens to black boys and black men who are out at night.

Both of my parents worked in education. My white (passing) mother was a special ed teacher in a middle school. My father was her district's administrator. She was paid more than him. Significantly. They both have Master's Degrees.

My nephew was 13 when Trayvon Martin was killed. His mother asked him to please make sure he came home before the streetlights came on, and if he couldn't make it to not wear a hoodie and certainly don't wear it up. No matter how cold.

My nephew and my father were both pinned down and had their afros shaved/ruined by teachers, people they should have been able to trust. My nephew, my cousins, and more than one of my uncles have had the same happen to their locs. When my mother became pregnant very early in my parents' marriage, no one believed that she actually *wanted* to marry my dad but that she'd accidentally become pregnant and married him to not be ashamed. When my parents adopted my sister who is much darker skinned than my other sister or myself, the assumption was that she was a child from one of dad's previous marriages (he's only ever been married to one woman: my mom) and that my sister was only there because of a custody battle. The first time my dad came to pick me up from school, the office refused to let him in the building and called the police on him for trying to abduct me, because everyone knew my mom was white and the logical conclusion of a black man picking up his black/mixed kid from school was that he was a kidnapper and not that he was my fucking father.

My father arrived home late one night after flying in from Japan and was understandably in comfortable clothes after being exclusively in suits in Japan in the middle of summer for 6 months. Our neighbor saw him pull into the driveway, let himself in the back door... and called the police saying a black man in a hoodie was breaking into our house. We'd lived there at that point for more than a decade. My nephew and I have been followed around in stores for wearing beaters and basketball shorts in the middle of summer. My cousin was harassed by cops while sitting at the bus stop because he had his hood up and was listening to music on his ipod. My uncle was cornered by airport security and ended up missing his flight because someone gave a 'tip' that he 'looked suspicious' in his jeans and a t-shirt.

Every single one of my older black relatives, male and female, have been raped. Every single one. Some of the younger ones too.

This is not a 'what if' post. This is not a 'higher discussion of systemic violence' post. This is a 'stop erasing the experiences of black men because you think there is no way on earth a black man can suffer outside of [just racism]' post.

two years ago I posted this and two years later this still rings true, but I want to draw attention to something:

This is the post that netted me my "reputation" for saying that black women have it better than black men or that black women caused these problems.

This post was made in specifically because of radfem talking points, in direct response to a radfem post I saw and was mad about. Two years later I am seeing white radfems say the same about F1nn5ter. My response is still the same. A: trans women aren't men, B: that's not even true of cis men because marginalized cis men experience all of these things on a regular basis.

No where in this post does this blame black women for anything or say that black women don't experience this- in fact I specifically mention black butches in multiple reblogs and in other posts discussing this exact topic. Black women are frequently forcibly degendered and masculinized, and God forbid a black woman actually be GNC and masculine or transgender because then her risk of violence to be enacted upon her is at an absurd height.

This is a critique of white, radical feminism and how it actively perpetuates racism. Don't get it twisted.

Anyway when I bring up these points with this post, this is the sort of attitude I'm talking about. ALL of these are from a recent post where I am talking about my specific experience as a black trans man and ALL of these are nonblack people taking it upon themselves to give lip service to acknowledging black people are oppressed and then IMMEDIATELY following up with not including black men in their idea of what counts as oppressed.

When I say white radical feminism leaves racially marginalized men out of discussions of their own oppression, this is what I'm talking about.

This was from a post where I said people talk over me frequently and tell me my voice as a black person doesn't matter and I was taught not to tolerate it as a girl and I'm certainly not going to start tolerating it as a man. That people have regarded my presence as a black person as a threat just existing in an area my entire life and I didn't think it was a good thing when I was a black girl and I still don't think it's a good thing as a black man. This was a post about antiblack racism and how it affects me, an entire ass black trans man.

And nonblack people STILL sought to completely erase my perspective off my own post.

Does it hurt, when I point out your racism? Is it uncomfortable to realize that you're not innocent in spreading and perpetuating the same racism that's caused black people to die to violence at astronomical rates? Is it a hard pill to swallow?

Good. Choke.

littleboy

Walmart rooster