Samantha Rose 🌹

This remains one of my favorite parts of Discworld, possibly of fiction in general:

Excerpt From Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett where ~~ is used used to denote crossed out text, and ** is my added empathise:

Angua read it. It was a list of names, although most of them were crossed out:

~~Cheery Littlebottom~~ ~~Cherry~~ ~~Sherry~~ ~~Sherri~~ Lucinda Littlebottom ~~Sharry~~ ~~Sharri~~ Cheri

‘Er … what do you think?’ said Cheery nervously. ‘“Lucinda”?’ said Angua, raising her eyebrows. ‘I’ve always liked the sound of the name.’ ‘“Cheri” is nice,’ said Angua. ‘And it is rather like the one you’ve got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.’ Cheery’s shoulders sagged with released tension. When you’ve made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it’s a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper. ‘Cheri’, thought Angua. Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard? Well, it does now.

#FeetOfClay #TerryPratchett #trans #transition

Since the topic of autistic burnout came up again recently I republished my Autistic Burnout Mitigation post in case it's useful to people.

I wrote this post more than a year ago ago on another blog. I’m reposting mostly unchanged it now since I still think it’s relevant, and other than my current status that I don’t consider myself to be in burnout anymore, the mitigation list is the things I keep doing to varying degrees to avoid going back into burnout.

https://hiiamsamantha.xyz/posts/2025/11/autistic-burnout-mitigation/

#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticBurnout #Burnout @autistics@fedigroups.social

One nice part of going to the Zoo is the walk through part of Phoenix Park where there almost always are nice flowers.

This is just one of the many nice flower beds.

#dublin #PhoenixPark

The current book series I’m listening to had a trans character come in for a short scene and I had to take a break to prepare myself before listening to it.

I suspected the author wasn’t about to go down a route that meant I couldn’t continue to listen, but you never really know.

Luckily the author handled it very well and I’m happy she (probably she, as author is using pseudonym) included the scene, which made a lot of sense in the context, and had clearly done research to understand enough to write well about it.

I am very happy I can continue, especially as I’m in book 8 and like the series, Beneath the Dragoneye Moons by Selkie Myth, so far - with many more books to go in the series :-)

#HiIAmSamantha

@grim_elsewhere

How does one build friendships and trust with people they've never met?

For me it's largely the same online or in person: Talking/communicating with the person over an extended period of time. Over time, assuming it's not somebody who are actively trying to deceive, you will probably see if you share values and like communicating with them. Eventually you will learn about them, and they will learn about you.

I'm not saying this is easy, automatic and can never fail - but I have a good number of people on here I'm happy to chat to regularly.

Of course for that to work, it needs to be with people who do share about their life etc. but I have found a good number of people on here who do that.

For vibe-check to me that's pretty automatic - see how they react to things like basic human rights... of course for me being trans, that's pretty much an easy first step to see how people treat me and other trans people in my circle.

PS. There is the whole related question of how do you define "friend" (how close do you need to be etc.) but I don't think that's too important for the key question.

I hope this was at least a bit useful 💜.

#ActuallyAutistic

For #MusicWomenWednesday Sylvia Daley - Noise Cancelling Headphones.

Sylvia Daley is making music about her experiences being autistic.

"This train's overwhelming
That car's too loud
Don't hear what you're saying
But saw you move your mouth
...
Forget how to function
The way you do
I practice and practice
But still don't know how to
"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilUT0hPX84Y
https://song.link/i/1867774505
https://www.songlyrics.com/sylvia-daley/noise-cancelling-headphones-lyrics/

#ActuallyAutistic

Since I mostly wear pink on days ending with a y, I found it a bit annoying and wasteful that most hair scrunchies come in multi colour packs, and frequently with boring colours included with the nice ones (bright pink and red) so I was very happy when I recently found these pink packs!

I did constrain myself and only bought 3 packs but now I should be covered for a while :-)

#HiIAmSamantha