Transition Metals

and then..it's just us.

and she's laying there with her head in my lap, finally letting herself be heavy..letting herself rest. and i'm carding my fingers through her hair, slow and careful, feeling her melt a bit more every time i do.

watching the way she takes my wrist, turning it over just to look at it. my eyes following as she traces the lines of my tattoos with her fingertips like she's reading something deeper. not rushed. just curious, soft.

i want every version of her, but especially the one no one else gets. sleepy, and needy. the one that closes her eyes while i trace mindless patterns on her arms. the version that reaches for my hand quietly, without asking.

who feels like she can slow down for once. there's never a rush with me, i'd happily wait forever for her to collect the thoughts that usually end up unspoken. i want to hear every word, it's important. she's important..even when she's not in control.

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH EVERYBODY*

here's the lgbtq tag trending as it does regularly due to pornbots catfishing using the same stolen photos from the same trans woman on the same trending tags page

remember the year in review? this was one of the featured tags

here's tumblr staff stating that making death threats towards trans women isn't a violation of the ToS or user guidelines

type of shit you can just say to trans women on this website. same person btw

here's tumblr staff terminating me for appealing the explicit flag on a post immediately before accepting said appeal and then terminating my already terminated blog to change the termination reason to something i can't appeal when I appealed the termination for explicit content

here's tumblr staff doing the exact same thing a second time

here's tumblr staff flagging SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY MY REBLOGS of a year old post with 15,000 notes as sexually explicit despite it not actually showing anything

here's SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY MY REBLOG of a post with gifs of two fully nude people fucking center frame being flagged as sexually explicit and the same gifs in the trending tags thumbnails

here's tumblr letting people blaze sissy hypno captions even though anything actually mentioning trans women gets denied

here's tumblr giving my original blog of 13 years a special kind of mature flag that automatically marked every single post i made as mature content separate from the actual content label

here's one of the pictures of the PMMM gachapon toys from the photoset of them that someone reported as CSAM that tumblr terminated me for - one of the two surviving images from it, from back when they actually bothered to moderate posts instead of just hitting the nuke button without looking

here's tumblr instantly denying my appeal for these terminations before I even get the email where they assure me they will carefully review it

here's tumblr terminating me 5 times in the weeks it took them to remove a burner blog and a single post encouraging people to mass report me and harass me forever over completely fabricated claims

here's tumblr flagging my already mature-flagged blog as mature out of the blue 15 minutes before dropping the age verification shit

and here's the episode of the anime that I posted a screencap from that they flagged as sexually explicit, denied my appeal on twice, and then marked my blog mature the first time for posting - available for viewing on youtube with a TV-14 age rating

People just kind of. Not bothering to think about what material japanese armour was made of (iron, it was colourful because they laquered it for decoration and moisture resistance/rust protection)

Full plate + shields (plate broadly obselesces shields, hence why by the ~15th century forwards a knight or man at arms would more likely be with a staff weapon than a sword and shield. Though small guige-mounted shields still existed at this time. This harness is a good example of that.)

Kind of just. Forgetting that history is really long and things evolved or changed over time. (People are often not satisfied when the answer to "How did x period deal with y threat?" being "by becoming z period" more often than not)

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

Civics class wouldn't help most people in this case because the AG will not take on all these cases and most people cannot afford an attorney in this instance or more importantly, the hit to their credit.

Were they going to get into a lawsuit over my $400 bill? No obviously not. But they printed up a letter on fancy letterhead to say to stop and it worked. They followed up with me the next day to be sure, and so ask how much money they had saved me.

They use dinky cases like mine to track habitual misbehavior of large scale companies to build cases they could actually go to court over.

And because people are shocked- I never spoke to the AG of my state directly. He operates mainly by overseeing a whole crew of people. And this is what those people do.

This didn’t happen because I’m special because of my tiny therapy practice.

This happened because this is what the AG office is for.

“The problem is systemic” doesn’t mean “and there’s nothing you can do”.

Then you've been trained well by "The System".

Yes, that System you say can't be fought? Where did you get that idea, huh? Who taught you that "small" acts of illegality don't matter? Who made you think that there's no point in fighting back because it will all come to nothing?

Might it be the same entities that benefit if you believe all that?

Gonna pause and let you ponder.

Never. Ever. EVER.

EVER.

Let companies or corporations or hospitals or organizations or any business big or small get away with screwing you over without a fight. Maybe you personally don't win every fight, but you lose 100% of the time you don't try. You'll win more often than you think you will. I know cuz I've done it.

So have others. Attorneys General offices bring lawsuits against businesses all the time. They do so because citizens contacted them to say "someone is doing a crime" and the crime doers did not stop when told and got into way more trouble than if they'd just stopped. FAFO. The Find Out can't happen if you don't even bother to report the Fucking Around.

On that note, as OP said, please know your rights! And, in a situation where you don't but suspect something is hinky, ask! The people of the internet can help! So can librarians! So can many others. Find out what is and is not okay for them to do. If it's not okay, report them! See something, say something.

Don't let the System win by default.

If you believe The System™️ is only for Them™️ and not you, it will only ever be so.