Leiracal

6 July

I made her five years ago and slowly turned into her. Icon vs. user:

Kealanah | Elven Necromancer VTuber@elegantnecromancer.bsky.social

So the picture is a little old, sue me >.< icon vs user:

Leiracal reposted

Bits

@bitshammer.bsky.social

17h

20h

The drive-thru has my order swapped with the car behind me, but it's the same meal except for Dr Pepper, not Sprite... But honestly, I probably would have ordered Dr Pepper if the app hadn't become enshittified to upsell refreshers, so apologies to the woman behind me getting the Sprite I ordered.

20h

They were clearly training new staff, and the manager told the gal at the window "you may have these two swapped, you should probably double-check," and the woman ignored her, turned to me, frowned, and bitterly said "what's missing?!" "My desire to point out your mistake" I thought, and drove off.

The people slightly to the right of me on the political spectrum don't fundamentally differ from me on any given policy position. They are to the right of me for the same reason they are punching left: they fundamentally agree with MAGA that "the purpose of power is to hurt people I don't like."

Bill Jensen@billjensen.bsky.social

And if they win without you, you get nothing ever. Better to be in the tent to effectuate change.

I genuinely thought this was going in a different wholesome direction. Because in real life, I'm entirely capable of making you a potion that, if you drink it, you'll be someone worthy of being loved. ...It also hydrates, because let's be real, you probably need to do that.

Bits@bitshammer.bsky.social

The single greatest thing that has me planning a path for the next five years predicated around the collapse of AI is that the drive towards enshittification, massive Dunning-Krueger effects, rampant blatant unethical behavior, and collosal coverups, are qualities its founders are *best* known for.

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Professor Lynx@professorlynx.bsky.social

Oh Tim, you don’t have the stones lol

I only made male PCs because there were so few gay romances before ME1 came along. The desire to love and be loved by a woman has always been a priority over my personal discomfort at presenting male. I survived 30 years by telling myself "I hate everything about this, but at least women like it."

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To be clear, that was a *trauma* response. I healed this year, and have focused on learning how to love and live this life I chose. I'll add someone right to it eventually. But it was important to me that they aren't *fixing* anything about my life that I should fix for myself first.

I just want to call out another reason for the anti-trans candidate rhetoric that isn't "they're actually transphobic" or "their donors told them to be." Let's call it the "She Laughs Weird" Mirage. ...some of you know where I'm going with this, and I love that for us.

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

If you want to play "political calculus" then show your work. Here's mine. You can try in vain to persuade or intimidate thousands of lost voters. Or you can convince a single person that they're losing support. Convince that *one* person and the thousands implicitly get on board. Seems easier.

They know that, if they tell pollsters that an issue is deeply important to them, more candidates will adopt their position, including candidates they will never, ever vote for. That means they win that culture war almost by default. Their opposition rolls over.

So right-leaning voters effectively never convert. They're a bloc that says "If you throw scissors I'll throw paper" but then throws rock ninety-nine times in a row. You're watching from the sidelines. Do you scream "they're lying"? Tell the other side "throw paper FFS"? Or cheer for scissors?

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

Engage with the data on the right level - historically looking at the number of right-leaning moderates who say a candidate's capitulation to a right-wing position made them vote for that candidate - and the image sharpens. It's Lucy with the football. And the Dems keep kicking at it.

There's a contingent of right-leaning moderates who tell pollsters that they'd consider voting for a candidate that takes their preferred position, who are giving pollsters this information not because it's accurate - they will never vote Democrat - but because THEY'RE METAGAMING THE POLLS.

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

There is a statistically relevant number of right-leaning people who continuously tell pollsters that they are *considering* voting Dem, but their actual conversion rate when it comes down to an actual election hovers around 1-4%. Which makes their actual voting behavior almost identical to MAGA.

If you ever sit down and talk with these people individually, a pattern forms. There is always one more reason why they won't do it *this* time, in *this* election. Disprove them, capitulate to them, make them admit they're wrong, and like a hydra, three more excuses emerge into the conversation.

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

Ask anyone who isn't diehard MAGA and voted for Trump in 2016 or 2024 why they didn't pick Clinton or Harris, and you often get the response "she laughs funny." If you tear apart that argument, you'll get a different, equally bizarre one. And another. And another.

You're not being engaged with on an honest level. The real reason could be deeply suppressed. It could be internally recognized as socially unacceptable to state. It could be perceived as a value that isn't communicated to those who don't clearly share that value. The reason doesn't matter.

This is a notice to useful idiots to stop being useful idiots. You can't convince someone who has already decided not to support a candidate due to an immoral position. You're pushing a limp rope of political calculus that they already factored into their choice. The candidate is the one to push.

At the end of the day, trans people are being told to sit down, shut the hell up, and *CONFORM*, no matter how much it piles harm upon them, because the entire system only works if no one is strong enough to operate outside it. You're telling a flower that grew through the concrete to go back down.

This is the heart of it all. The rest is just flushing out the gaslighting. The goal of these arguments to "fall in line" is not to win, it's to demand conformity and punish those who refuse. If that worked on trans people, we wouldn't be trans. Go flip your bobblehead candidate instead. //

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

And it always, *always* ends up with them *gleefully* wishing harm and destruction upon us. They don't want to succeed with us. They want their ongoing electoral failures to be our fault. For the harm being inflicted upon us to be their fault. For the way they feel about us to be our fault.

I said it last time and I'll say it again. Bet. A government led by people who tell me "enjoy the camps," and one governed by people who want to send me to the camps themselves, require roughly the same level of strength and resolve on my part. I choose to resist the tide here and now.

Honestly, it's that last part combined with the "I'm just being pragmatic" gaslighting that irks me. You admit you need us? Slide up to the table. What are you offering for our support? Negotiation 101 is that you don't tell the other party what they should accept. Not if you want to succeed.

But ultimately, I suspect this isn't about being pragmatic, and it isn't about doing whatever it takes to win. It's about entitlement. It's always coming from people who always seem to think they deserve votes no matter how badly they treat us. Always under the threat of letting others do worse.

If a voter likes Republican rhetoric, they won't choose a democratic candidate with a single piece of Republican rhetoric over the Republican. Almost no one wants to choose Diet Coke over the real deal. This strategy is thoroughly, consistently debunked in election year, after year, after year.

The entrenched people correctly identified that you need them to win. YOU, in telling them a loss will be their fault, have agreed to the premise. You can't convince or berate enough voters. So head to the candidate's account and tell them to pull their head out of their ass before it's too late.

The candidate is responsible for pushing a losing strategy. The candidate is responsible for knowing trans rights are overwhelmingly not a strong concern for likely voters who learn the slightest bit to the left. The candidate is responsible for knowing right leaning voters don't flip over this.

At this point, pull the damn trigger. Let's get it over with. It's a practical inevitability now, and we *need* what we're going to build after this that stops this from happening again.

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Leiracal reposted

ADHD Memes

@adhdforreal.bsky.social

I *think* I'm learning the signals. Now the problem is that, due to trauma, I don't know how to respond to healthy affection without a base of trust - putting myself out there feels unsafe because that's the pattern - and that's being read, by people flirting with me, as me not liking it.

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Last year I had a wonderful woman literally squee at the thought of "dressing you up" while shopping. A minute later she apologized. I made it clear: my hesitation was just not being used to being doted on. I don't know what to do with positive attention that I didn't feel like I worked to earn.

I asked her out recently. Hoping to make it happen when housing is settled. I also got some great compliments about my transition last night and took it in stride so, you know, progress.

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Honestly, I'm just relearning socialization, period. I literally don't know how to act without a baseline assumption that I'm invalid and have to make myself acceptable by being smart or entertaining or useful enough to exist. I don't believe that anymore. The rest will all come with practice.

I see the "anything I don't like is political" mantra has extended into slopspace vis-a-vis antiAI protest. Also, as a producer, the thought of a dev hinging their project survival on *best case* indie sales projections is exactly the sort of reckless decision that makes me professionally nauseous.

Kim Hu@kim-hu.com

I can't believe he's still at it, it's been days

Timeline cleanse.

Bits@bitshammer.bsky.social

You know how conservatives are pissed about all the anti-trans ads because they're so saturated that their kids hear them and go learn what trans people are about? Anyhow, shout out to that asshole transphobic Southern man who accidentally created one more trans woman in the world six years ago.

Leiracal@leiracal.bsky.social

A month before my egg shattered, I had someone on an Unfortunate Spacemen server hunt me down and repeatedly TK me for an hour, screeching "you will never be a woman!" I took a laughing "u mad" stance the whole time. Then I left, sat down, and tried to process why that sentence still felt shitty.

If they make people contemplate their gender, some of those people are inevitably going to *unpack* their relationship with the bullshit in society specifically designed to force them to conform to the roles dictated to them. They accidentally make their own fake villains. Love that for them.

Bits@bitshammer.bsky.social

I spent a few months convincing myself that I just needed to roleplay as a femme online, just "get it out of my system" so to speak. It just eventually led to me deciding if I actually needed to *live life* like this. I shaved the denial beard, used a crappy video filter, and the rest is infamy.