Eldritch Mlems

6 Years ago! Still the Chef!

NHRC approves Byun Hee-su foundation to support transgender rights in Korea

The survey itself: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/giwl/assets/iwd-2025-survey.pdf

My home cockpit seat features a pressure activated heating mat. Guess what the cat|s found out quickly in the wintertime 🤓

boop!

In a new opinion released Friday, Texas AG Ken Paxton has effectively prohibited therapists from treating trans kids—unless they try to convert them.

Hi,

I don't know if I actually "qualify" to post here, but since I have some levels of transfem or feminine self-identity, I think it might be worth asking. I'm technically in the phase where I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I identify myself as, despite my age, so like... there's that.

I went to see a therapist who specializes in gender identity. It was pretty nice to be able to "come clean" about myself in a way that was non-judgemental and I was perhaps so gung-ho to talk about it that they were pretty amazed with how comfortable I was talking about it. What they didn't know is that I was really thinking about it every day for a week before my appointment, even grappling how honest I would be.

Anyway, long story short, there's a mutual understanding from both me and my therapist that I have to at least talk to my current long term girlfriend about my gender questioning and get some kind of thumbs up or down on whether she's comfortable with me talking to someone or at least reflecting on myself. I felt bad enough going to the first appointment "secretly", despite my body being my own choice but as life partners it feels wrong. Since I might be more gender fluid or non-binary, technically, I'd personally be fine "coping" with myself as I am if that was her preference (I mean this sincerely) if otherwise our relationship would end -- I value her more than I value my "identity", if that makes sense.

There's certain aspects to this relationship that are going to be very different from most: The US policy of the last 6 to 8 years has put us in stasis a bit where we're stuck long distance, so realistically speaking the next time I can see her in person is probably later this year in the fall. This is probably too long for me to wait before mentioning it, so I'm going to have to try to find some way to make this work in a phone call (or video call).

Anyway, I'm curious to know if anyone else here who came out with partners have any stories about how this went. I've heard it usually goes kind of tits-up, so I'm a bit anxious to bring it up especially over the phone. Part of me thinks that my girlfriend basically already knows because the hints can get pretty extreme, but you never know what people will actually think once it's "confirmed" or not hahaha.

So this story takes place in 2004.

I'm 21, living in my first apartment. I have two cats. Speed, and Karmalee.

Speed is the dominant cat, and Karmalee was like her backseat driver wife.

When it came to feeding time, I had to put Speed in the bathroom every morning. I would give each cat half a can of wet cat food. Then there was a dry cat food feeder to munch on all day.

Well, the way Karmalee wanted to eat, was she'd eat half her half a can of cat food, and wanted to come back and eat the other half later in the day.

Speed on the other hand wanted to eat all her half of cat food, and then would bully Karmalee to start eating her half too. Then she'd beg me for more cans.

So when I saw this, I started putting Speed in the bathroom. I'd let Karmalee eat first until she was done. I'd put both plates down.

Karmalee would eat half her plate. Not touch Speeds plate, and walked away. I said to her "Are you sure you wanna walk away? I'm going to let Speed out. You KNOW she's going to eat your food. You wanna eat some more? No? Ok. I'm giving you fair chance here....."

And then I would let Speed out. Who raced down the hallway at lightning speed. One time she ran so fast that when she tried stopping, she realized claws don't grip tile, and she slammed herself pretty hard into the cabinets. From then on, she still ran, but she slowed down a bit when she got to the kitchen.

Well one day, I give Karmalee her food. We do our little "you done?" routine. I go to let Speed out of the bathroom. She runs down the hall as usual. And when I get into the living room I hear Speed howling in the kitchen. I walk in confused, and see a mouse is standing on top of Speeds wet food, eating it. Speed is crying at me like "DAAAAAAD!!!! HE'S EATING MY FOOOOOOD!!!!!". So I say "What are you looking at me for? You always want extra food! That's protein right there! Get that mouse!"

Mouse hasn't budged. Chowing down. Speed looking at me to save the day.

So I put on 2 oven mitts on each hand, and pick the whole dish up. Mouse still doesn't budge. I tell my girlfriend "open the front door, and hold it open, I'm coming in hott!!!"

She has no idea what I'm yelling about when I quickly storm into the room and say "GET THE DOOR! LETS GO!" She looks over and sees the mouse and screams. I say "Less screaming, more door holding". She races over and opens the door. I walk outside and throw the whole dish in the street. Mouse never budged, and even in the road she just ate food while I picked up the plastic dish and went back inside.

I went back over to Speed and had a talk with her. I said "So you're supposed to be the big cat of the house? Where's your hunting skills? You know back in the 90s, we had a cat named Sunny. Outdoor cat. Real tough cat. That cat could hunt a gazelle I'm sure. You cried over a mouse! That's free bonus food! Where's your hunger?"

Of coarse none of my words landed since cats don't speak English. Had to open half a can of food, since I just threw Speeds food into the street.

Then I came back into the living room, Karmalee is sitting on my girlfriends lap, on the couch. She just heard what I said to Speed. So she just asks "Did you really just lecture the cat?"

And I said "Her name is Speed, and yes I did. How else is she supposed to learn?"

Then I turn my head to Karmalee and say "And just where were you during all this? Speed always bullies you for food. You could have taken dominant cat spot if you just hunted the mouse. Then Speed would be scared of you.

But Karmalee was never going to hunt anything. She's spoiled and dainty.

This was all over 20 years ago. Both cats have since passed, and I haven't lived there since 2006. Haven't spoken to that girlfriend since 2006.

I just remembered the time I literally threw a mouse out of my apartment.

Ive been in the TTRPG Discord since the beginning, and was also an early backer for the Neopets TTRPG Kickstarter. I have also read the playtest in its entirety.

It's... not good. I don't just mean the playtest, either, I mean the entire situation around the Kickstarter is really bad. PUBLICLY-DISPLAYED internal fighting among the developers at Geekify, and also the people developing the game have no RPG designers -- or at the very least none who have come out publicly as being an actual RPG designer in the 2 years this has been developed.

It's a very messy debacle and the project manager seems to have no idea what to do about it.

Also, I give my opinions on the actual playtest itself, which is indeed mostly just the D&D open-source rules slightly reworded.

I've never made a video where I'm upset before, and I'm always extremely supportive of indie or more-obscure projects like this, but having backed with over $100 and waiting 2 years just to find out the mess this situation is has really gotten to me.

What do you guys think of the situation in general? Do you still feel hopeful for the project? Have you read the playtest and if so what do YOU think?

I was walking the dog in the back yard and saw a face I didn't expect.

He or she must have gotten trapped in there a few days ago, maybe even a week or two. Poor thing!

I've put out some of our cat's food and some water. And a litter box. (This explains the poop I found in there a few days ago. And it explains how the moving blanket I had over a pinball machine in restoring was on the floor the other day.)

We think it's a neighborhood cat named Tubby. Her brother lives at another house, but she's more feral.

She definitely took off and hid in the back corner when I tried to get close. Unfortunately there's a bunch of stuff back there, and I don't see any reason to spook her further. I don't want to force her out into the rain. Now that I think about it, our dog was very interested in that corner a few days ago.

I'll open the door a bit so she can get out, but with the rain, she might not be interested in leaving. And how will I know if she's gone?

The garage is heated but I have the thermostat set to just keep it from freezing in there. Still warmer than outside though. I told my wife we may have just adopted a garage cat.

A trans Kansas resident recently changed her name but not her gender marker on her license, fearing what Kansas may do if she did. The Kansas DMV still flagged her ID.