Notices by ⚡🔌ℂlaire 𝔻anielle ℂassidy☀️ (lasermistress@mstdn.social)

Don't have big articulation at the moment

But the number of folks around me who have declared vocally, randomly, and with an energy I had never previously seen

that "I know I need to do community now"

In the past three weeks

When what they did is show up to one thing and paid attention to other people a bit and are clearly pushing themselves to open up just a bit

when it's so shockingly little compared to what many women/organizers I know are doing

Is feeling weird man

Like cool, but 😅

I'm not an expert for what you and the people around you need but I've been dedicated to this for quite a while and I write about it sometimes.

"A small Guide to starting Community (and Mutual Aid.)"

Sorry for the link display if it shows up. I can't do anything about it. Everything I put in Patreon is open, free, always, and a stable link to share.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/small-guide-to-115737575

That write up includes:

Non-intuitive suggestions for gathering people for resilience:

- Learn to be selfish. People who give so much that they gather people to foster togetherness tend to have strong fawning and pleasing characteristics. This is a super-duper power, but you must learn to take as much, more than you give. This may take time. Keep going.

- You can start now, extremely imperfectly, extremely small.

- You've probably already started. Don't discount the boring existing things.

- For people who lead more or who follow more, it's probably going to feel unsexy to everyone when it's working. Stability often feels calm and boring. This can clash with many attachment desires, sensory needs, especially for neurospicy or struggling folks. KEEP GOING ANYWAY. Stay the course.

- CONSISTENCY is more important than fun ideas or expecting happiness or fun or any big fun plans. And, likely, NO ONE will help you with that consistency, at first, for a while. Be so patient. Be your own best company. Trying to be in a community can often feel extra lonely. Keep going 💖

If I hear one more person argue that there are diverse voices in sci-fi/cyberpunk, then cite Ursula K Le Guin and Octavia Butler with a smug little "See? Bet you didn't know that" tone, I will fucking lose my mind.

Me: So I had a few things flare up this winter in terms of what I recognize as crush feelings

My Therapist: Possibly the most autistically phrased expression of this ever I love it

😂 (save me)

#ActuallyAutistic #audhd #Adhd

Got some soldering done today 🦋

Once a year I manage a women & queer run electronics camp called There U Glow, centered around teaching femmes & queers about addressable LEDs and making space to feel less misogyny for a moment as skilled technicians.

This is a badge we teach people to solder with ⚡🦋.

There is more info and context at https://thereuglow.club/ if that is fun for you 💖 I'll also be posting about this this spring as we gear up to happen again.

Badge designed by @drc3p0 🔥

"‘Not Everyone Can Leave’: Survival Advice from Trans Teens in Texas

Media attention often focuses on trans teens fleeing the anti-trans states they’re living in. But what about those who can’t leave?"

https://www.texasobserver.org/survival-advice-trans-teens-texas/

"Even as we wake up this November to the heavy reality of what a second Trump presidency and both chambers of Congress red means for LGBTQ+ communities—along with refugees, Palestinians, and the Earth itself—we cannot forget that for the past three years, even under a Biden/Harris administration, Christofascist and white nationalist movements in Texas and other red states have already been inflicting state terror on trans and nonbinary youth."

"As such, these unheard stories from young trans people unable to flee Texas now hold urgent lessons for all of us about how to resist by existing, in the face of fascistic movements seeking to deny so many communities the right just to be alive."

Taking a moment to bask in how far I've come. How life has actually gotten appreciably better.

(even if it was so agonizingly incremental that I didn't feel dopamine from any noticed change and that's probably why I don't remark on it more 🤣😅)

This is noticeable in how I peacefully navigated a genocidal holiday in my groove, with antifa friends who make me laugh, buying myself ultra-comfortable bralettes, woman-owned boutique makeup and other beautiful things on sale.

I choose this life 💖.

If you are hearing the message to build and foster community right now, and you feel a bit lost, may I suggest centering women and queer folk?

This is not a monolith (women, particularly white, are often awful), and zero bioessentialism here.

But women and queer folk are deeply socialized to keep social fabric together. We have lifetimes of experience, skill. We've held community, nations, the whole of humanity together for ages.

Just..pay the fuck attention. Learn. Be amazed. Help. For once.

Oh holy shit. In 2016 on election night I posted, jokingly, that I was duel American/Canadian and available for marriage. That thread became a flashpoint overnight and was one of my most commented on posts ever. In there, someone mentioned Maple Match, the Canadian dating site. On a whim, I looked it up today.

It still exists.

And here is where it's at now 🥺😂🥰

https://www.maplematch.com/

Had an hour before going to a show last night so I slapped some electronics on a hat. I'm heckin stoked on the effect.

Interestingly, I have to place my 18650 battery at the front inside of the hat because the halo tilt doesn't allow for it at the back. *Gestures at physics*

I'm using a Pixelblaze LED controller from @wizard (wirelessly controlled on my iPad), and micro COB LEDs that are in my LED guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/180WD4LogMjx8FmKcFc0dmlTEKJ1Xa7dIHlEhSLMOAxA/edit

#LEDs #WearableTech #ActuallyAutistic

This account is where I vent a lot of rage about systemic oppression and the insanity of the tech industry.

But I want to be clear:

Trans folks have saved my life and my career over and over. I love every one.

Queer and neurospicy cultures have saved me and given me a hopeful path forward.

Men, even "bad" men (false concept) are people, and deserve humanity like anyone else.

I rage loudly because I'm in a safer place than I once was.

I am grateful and possess deep love.

Thank you.

You know those super hardshell extra sharp crunchy fruity candies with the ooey-gooey sweet liquid filling?

That's my whole personality.

#tech

So, when I talk to men I tend to gently introduce concepts around how I fight oppression in technical space, particularly patriarchy.

And they tend to, inevitably, unconsciously? center their pain around how classism oppresses them.

Because class is the vector of oppression that cis white men understand.

What really gets me though is how BLIND they are to other vectors.

I get that, I'm slower at pointing out racism.

But I SEE it. It is MADDENING how BLIND most men choose to be.

#patriarchy

Every time I sit down to solder I hear a chorus of voices from every guy who has ever seen or heard me mention soldering and *immediately* given me unsolicited advice, suggestions how I could do better, immediate critique or (truly) offered to do it *for me*.

Which has been 90% of my interactions with men about soldering. Which is OFTEN.

I IGNORE this, in my my OWN HEAD, EVERY time I sit down to do my JOB.

It's not imposter syndrome. It's systemic oppression. It's insane.

#patriarchy #tech