If There's One Thing No Professional Interior Designer Can Ever Truly Emulate, It's Maximalism. Sure,

When I was a kid I was “darn I just love when female characters pretend to be dudes for whatever reason” and the reason will not shock you in the slightest

crinoids are so insane what's up with them

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??????? plant whos schmoovin

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

not to keep harping on this but if you HATE shaving your body or any other part of your "beauty routine": stop doing it. just stop doing it, at least for a little while (maybe when you don't have a lot going on if that helps) and HONESTLY gauge how it makes you feel. is this feeling better or worse than the amount of time, stress, and money the routine takes? do YOU actually prefer how you looked before, or are you only worried about what others think? if you stopped doing the routine forever, could you find other ways to feel better about yourself with that energy?

when I was like 19 and the idea of not shaving my legs anymore first occurred to me (bc I had a Cool Progressive Boyfriend that Didn't Care) i just stopped and it was immediately like... a quantifiably large chunk of unnecessary anxiety just sloughed off my life forever. instantaneously I got rid a bunch of effort and stress I had been accepting as normal, and replaced it with more time to do what actually made me feel 'ready' in the morning, like hygiene, coffee, preparing for my activities etc.

and i DONT feel self conscious about body hair personally but even if I did, no amount of shame over hair could outweigh how much easier my life is. not just bc 'shaving annoying' or 'long showers' or whatever, but like. yeah I don't waste as much time getting ready anymore, and I also don't have to realize last minute before some leg-showing event that im unfit for display and have a whole self-esteem plummeting anxiety attack about whether I should rush it unsafely and risk being late, cut up, and stressed out before the event, or go With Hair and feel judged the whole time. i don't have to go through any of those emotions and when anyone does comment on my hair rudely, im in a much healthier place to deal with it and tell them to fuck off rather than validate THEIR fucked up standards by feeling bad.

once I realized I didn't give a shit and neither did anyone I cared about, it also gave me the freedom to cut out a bunch of other shit I was only doing (or Thinking I Should) bc it was what girls Have To Do to be presentable. fuck shaving fuck waxing fuck eyebrow shaping fuck concealer fuck multi step skincare fuck shapewear fuck lip fillers fuck contouring fuck teeth whitening fuck all of it, you do not need to change ANYTHING about how you look Every Single Day.

for those of you about to say "but I like being shaven/wearing makeup/literally pulling hair out of my face painfully every day etc etc etc":

have fun and mod your avatar all you want but for gods sake if you hate it and complain about how long it takes and all the stuff you "have" to buy or do just to "get ready" - you do not have to. you're not just having fun. you are not getting Ready, you are making your mood and experience worse for yourself, which is going to make you feel unready and unprepared for actually being yourself comfortably.

thank fucking god for bi4bi m/f couples. someone has to show the hets how its done. your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make hets who are shitty partners feel insecure. godspeed.

we are in a media literacy crisis

Conservative politics are an incubator for the worst people to manipulate the dullest of minds.

Conspiracy theories give the D-student oxygen.

huge shoutout to boys who have been referred to with she/her for so long that it doesn’t bother them anymore

huge shoutout to boys who have fully embraced femininity for whatever reason, be it they have to in order to survive the misgendering or because they think masc presentation doesn’t look right on them

huge shoutout to boys who stop and stare and think for a moment when the document/application asks for their name and gender. huge shoutout to the ones who fill it out with their deadname and assigned gender.

huge shoutout to the boys who grow up to be men who die and are remembered as women.

huge shoutout to boys who never made it in life, who never had the friend group they wanted, the job they wanted, the wardrobe they wanted. who would have succeeded if they just had that injection sitting in a box under their bed.

huge shoutout to the boys who physically can’t transition, whose bodies can’t handle recovering from a surgery or who can’t wear regular clothes.

huge shoutout to boys who associate masculinity with abuse, hate, anger, who would rather die than be what that masculine figure was to them

huge shoutout to boys who don’t have the money to transition, who can’t afford a trip to a clinic or the shots that come afterward, who have to work every day for twelve hours at multiple gas stations to get by, with help.

huge shoutout to boys who don’t live in a safe place, who can’t afford to be known around town as Clarissa and morph into Henry. who had long hair all his life and then didn’t. who painted his nails until he didn’t. who wore lace and skinny jeans until he didn’t. who would be assaulted for it, and even be killed for it.

if youre any of these people it should be made clear that you are and always will be men. it doesn’t matter what your outside shows, or what youre told, or how youre forced to behave or look. your manhood is stored in the heart, it always has been, that’s how youre aware of it, and its always there, and it will always show, be it in the way you talk or the things you like or the job you have. and if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. your manhood is something you just are, and you always will be as much of a man that Max who started transitioning at 13 is. none of the rest matters. if you need a guy to spraypaint your name onto your gravestone, i have a guy. you will make it.