Also To Be Perfectly Clear, The Point Of Trans Women In Sports Debates Is Not Actually Whether Or Not

Growing up both neurodivergent, and a trans girl (though I didn't know that part at the time) while also being athletic was a very weird experience.

I could gain social capital through being good at sports. People would see this weirdo kid that they would otherwise call a freak, but I threw a ball really good. So they didn't.

The better my stats were, the more of myself I was allowed to be.

It's a weird experience having a quantifiable measure of your social capital.

It's even weirder when it's gone and you don't know where you stand anymore.

The thing that gets me about the "Dude" discourse is that it feels like a simple question of respect?

I don't like getting called dude or bro. Most transfems I know don't like getting called dude or bro.

It doesn't really matter if it's intended to be used in a gender neutral way, cause that's often not the effect that it is having.

And not calling someone dude or bro or anything like that is super easy.

And if you mess up, you can just say "my bad" and move on.

did you know you could stay up all night with your girlfriend cuddling naked and watching ManlyBadassHero letsplays did you know that did you did you

did you know lesbians are awesome and cuddly and love you and will hear you out on almost any stupid idea did you know that did you did you did you

did you know when you yawn and its late at night your girlfriend will say "awwh, well someone sounds tired" and you can go "nyouu im nyot tireeeedd :<" and then they'll pet you did you know that

did you know she'll stay up all night with you while you slowly drift asleep and take cute selfies of the two of you while you struggle to keep your little eyes open did you know that did you know??????

my friends jerk off to more avant-garde concepts than your friends do

You know, it's kinda funny how much of high fantasy centers around kings and nobility and courtly intrigue considering that the archetypal high fantasy, Lord of the Rings, had the rather explicit moral of "saving the world is up to this backwater hick and his gardener because no politician, least of all inherited nobility, would have the ability to see past their own ambition and throw away a weapon". Oh sure, Aragorn is a great king and all, but there's a reason he's over there running a distraction ring while the hobbits do the real work. Sauron loses because he gets distracted by kings and armies and great battles (i.e. typical high fantasy stuff) letting Frodo and Sam sneak through his back door and blow it all to hell.

Just saying, maybe old Jirt knew what he was saying when he said that the small folk doing their best and holding to each other was more powerful than a dozen alliances and superweapons and we should respect him for it.

Hey so uh these tumblr ads are getting bad what the FUCK

This isn’t a bit or photoshopped this came up on my dash a couple nights ago and I forgot until now.

ok well I finished I saw the tv glow … for me I think what this movie depicts so well is the deadness you feel before you realise you’re trans. like I kind of thought I was a sociopath before I realised I was transgender because I didn’t really feel like I loved my parents that much and I didn’t really feel joy or happiness. I remember someone asked me once what the best day of my life was and I was terrified because I didn’t have an answer, not because my life was miserable but because I could not think of any moment in my life where joy made any sort of lasting impression on me. I didn’t have many friends or cared that much about the ones I had, I forced myself to be in relationships with men I didn’t like, everything was just pure social obligation. there was this membrane between me and reality at all times and I just thought I was insane for most of my life. I keep thinking about Isabel saying, completely deadpan “I even got a family now. I love them more than anything” and you know how fraudulent and horrifying that statement is. and what threads that needle is her revisiting the old tapes and thinking it all just looked cheap and cheesy, she says “I just felt embarrassed” because she’s so thoroughly suppressed her dysphoria that even the thing that led her to recognising it had no colour or feeling in it anymore. the movie is horrifying and idk if I have anything like coherent to say about it but for me the thing that connected with me the most is how monotone so much of Isabel’s life is. Once Maddy/Tara leaves there’s no colour in it anymore

white t girl i love you. and also do not forget that you are not the modern martyr for the oppressed voice. that's still black girls. it's always been black girls. stories of black martyrdom simply don't make it into the news cycle until the unrest caused by its reporting can be packaged as a "riot" segment between traffic reports. i know you suffer, but whatever you're experiencing, i beg you, when interacting with your community and building nuanced understandings of each other and the system which binds us, to not forget that a black tgirl has felt it 100 times worse before positioning yourself as an authority on all systems of oppression for having suffered unjustly at all. because you have suffered unjustly, but suffering unjustly as a white person means something so much different.

some important calvin and hobbes facts in case you haven't read the original comic strip in a long time or only absorbed stuff on it from memes and out of context bits on here:

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

Hobbes became gradually less human-like in body language and more like an actual cat in both body language and behavior; this was due to Watterson drawing more inspiration from his cat, who also inspired a lot of Hobbes' running gags, such as pouncing on Calvin when he got home. Several years into the syndication of the strip, Watterson's cat passed away, and he did a tribute to her with a comic strip of the two of them agreeing to try to dream together so they can keep playing when they have to sleep; Watterson's commentary (if I recall right), remarks on his cat: "We can see each other again in dreams."