she, her, etc. (for any one or all of us), y’all, you

plural, and may use both “we” and “i”. it’s complicated, but “i” is most often by the girl amongst us who does a lot of the feeling emotions and other stuff, as she is most often “at front”.

more about that

all photos taken by us and published here are under the CC0 1.0 public domain dedication unless otherwise noted

  • 11 posts
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Joined 9 months ago
Cake day: January 1st, 2026
air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
6 days

using a rice cooker as a steamer

files.catbox.moe

(yes, this is probably common knowledge—the rice cooker literally says “steamer” on the front of it—but this particular one didn’t come with a steaming basket)

so, we got these yummy looking (vegan!) tamales from a local shop. the instructions say to either microwave or steam them, and we have no microwave oven, but didn’t want to set up an entire steamer on the stove either.

so, we turn to our rice cooker! they boil water too, and can probably steam things. but how do we avoid just submerging the tamales?

a bundt pan! one of our roomates got some to use for some baking xe was doing but it looked awfully like a fitting diameter. so we asked to use them, got a “yeah”, and it did fit!

we promptly put in the tamales, put in some water…

…and let it do its thing for fifteen minutes. and they came out pretty nice!

never underestimate the power of the humble rice cooker.

edit: blahaj images are being weird. using catbox for the topic photo!

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    air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    19 days

    a collection of our written plural experiences

    this is an aggregate of various stuff we posted. in the future we might actually write something proper about our experiences with plurality, but regardless this should suffice for now. THIS SHOULD HOPEFULLY BE TEMPORARY

    stuff is listed in chronological order. we include the first two more so as an overview of our history, take them with a necessary dosage of salt.

    this is from https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/40463178, the first time we wrote about our plurality. the title of the post is what literature do you recommend surrounding plurality? posted in !Plural@lemmy.blahaj.zone.

    as english effectively requires distinction between plural and singular, “we” is chosen as the first person pronoun here, for reasons explained shortly. unsure if really plural though. okay after having gotten to the end of writing this, well… yeah :)

    we already found some stuff, but the more the better in our regard hehe

    fyi this post is SUPER scatterbrained, feel free to comment even if you don’t wanna read through this!!

    heres what happened. warning: LOTS of yapping

    so, late last night (as anything good goes), we were considering the possibility of us being plural. for that conversation, we chose to use “we” as it just, well, felt the most correct.

    we also note that when we do something, the “main” voice of our head at that time (but especially when doing physical, hands-on tasks), or sometimes our actual, physical voice, never says “time to get this wheel off” or “where did i put my notebook”. its always like “okayy lets get this door fixed for once” or “how do we get these plastic clips off intact”.

    sometimes, the mind feels like a group of partners, in the coworker/friend working on something sense. but we have never experienced multiples of us “talking” over one another, although we do outwardly express much orderliness. in general, we take refuge in proceduralization and clarity.

    we don’t struggle with fuzzy concepts really at all either, though. we get the meaning of metaphors, we can “read between the lines” (sometimes frighteningly well, sometimes not at all), but we also love putting things in checklists.

    we feel like there is an “i” that feels much of the emotions, and interprets much everything in general, but at the same time the thoughts themselves are thought out a little more separately, albeit not independently. at this point in time we would not consider ourselves to be composed of, well, “selves”—of course we can’t know if that will change in the future.

    we feel quite unified, but there are “regions” of us that absolutely do differ. much opinion and feeling is shared, but lots of varying thought processes seem to go “about the room”. we continue to note that “i” frequently perceives this as, in a very rapid but orderly flow. being like

    1 (the engineer) how hard should we draw this line?

    2 (the reminder) well, we are going for a softer image

    3 (the flamboyant) but, there is value to be had in contrast [flamboyant means “value” and “contrast” as in “worth” and “juxtaposition”]

    4 (the tester) is this what we want though? not sure it works so well…

    5 (the engineer, who does talk a lot) yeah, maybe that was not a great idea oops… but what if we avoid drawing this line, how does that implicate? that would have to cause issues though…

    6 (the tester) how does that implicate? [we actually do repeat like this in our head sometimes] visually, we observe a TON that needs not be so precise, you can get away with so much.

    7 (the flamboyant) the lack of regularity absolutely would soften it up your suggestion is WONDERFUL please do go ahead :3 [we don’t know how this is translated to speech, but :3 is a real word in our head…]

    8 (the chemist) well, if we can pattern the surroundings [the engineer interjects respectfully with a smile: “or shade around it a little”] so it is perceived by the viewer something is right here, that really does work! humans are so wacky, they are able to notice minute fluctuations in like whatever, but they almost never keep their minds open to noticing them…

    9 (the reminder) then shading it is!

    10 (the flamboyant) oh my goodness this is gonna be so pretty uwaaa

    11 (the chemist) on behalf of all, it is our pleasure hehe

    on second thought we see the “selves” thing a little more. honestly we just gave ourselves titles based on kinda whatever. of course, we may have parted one into multiple, or (more likely) vice-versa. “i” would be here just observing and then doing.

    referring to that “i” using she/her feels right, so we’ll do that (and using those air quotes feels super demeaning, we’re super sorry girl…). she would perhaps feel a little uneasiness about not knowing what do to after lines 4 and 5, maybe a little relief at line 6, and adorement for chemist and flamboyant at lines 7 thru 11 at how cute they are together.

    she also loves attention and being called a girl, and if you talk verbally with us, she has been the proxy between you and us. when we are tired and don’t have the mental resources to go around to all of us, she takes over. she is not a great thinker at all when on her own, but she can manage. she can’t go forever like that though, so soon enough she’ll bring us all to sleep when we are tired.

    (reflecting on all this, this was probably us writing for ourselves just to figure out who we even are hehe)

    again though, us being referred to with she/her feels the best. while we have much distinction between ourselves, we love to work together, and the unity implied with singular pronouns we think has at least sometimes in the past made us feel better; at least in our imagination, “all of you” just sounds like an accusation… mostly. but when we speak, we’ve pretty much just now realized we would much rather say “we”.

    we all love learning, its a shared passion. the change that may come with this holds a little anxiety, but we also feel ease in knowing that it will help us so much in the long term. like, whats cooler than carrying around with our head an entire (and very capable) group of uhh… hmm…

    well we’re not sure of a good word for this, but you understand. we are happy. we wanna read more is all!!!

    addendum

    we wrote this in the morning. but after thinking about it even more while cleaning and fixing some stuff, we have realized that a lot of the time, “we” feels better, but sometimes “i” is preferred. i do not feel we have the energy to explain our train of thought right now, but maybe another day!! :D

    interjection after the fact:

    “the engineer” is miele

    “the reminder” is khemehli

    “the flamboyant” is rena

    “the tester” is sämme

    “the chemist” is cela

    and i (the one writing here) am tani!

    this is from https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/40466957, when we noted our plurality in !mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone. the post title was simply we are plural

    figured we’d let y’all know since we’re a little active around here, plus it sorta fits the theme at least a little. uh if you are more curious see here. but we like just came to this realization fyi

    honestly it does not seem so life changing. our personality will likely not change drastically hehe. this was mostly a realization amongst us, but nonetheless we’ll definitely make use of “we”. note we still may use “i” to accomplish specific things; our conclusions thus far have been uh COMPLICATED and in short its nowhere near as simple as “multiple people in the head”.

    now for the main part as to why we post this here: we feel though it has already given us a lot of insight on what gender identity transition is like, even with having figured ourselves out as a system very not long ago. it is again complicated, but the main takeaway we came up with was it can take a certain, very persistent train of thought to come to the realization of either being trans or plural. of course this is merely our view, and not always accurate, but we have known others who have realized their trans-ness through elaborate “what-if” scenarios too! in addition, there was also the simpler realization that using “we” just felt right, giving a similar feeling as when we were referred to as a daughter or girl pre-transition.

    it may be the scientificness amongst us talking, but we want to take this as an opportunity to learn more (and possibly view in a different light) the experiences of those realizing their true gender identity(ies). we believe this will also help us figure out what we are, so do ask away, and we may or may not be able to answer :D

    this used to be our profile bio, i.e. the old more about that section

    plural, and may use both “we” and “i”. it’s complicated, but “i” is most often by the girl amongst us who does a lot of the feeling emotions and other stuff, as she is most often “at front”.

    that girl (we will call her tani) runs much of the show, and does a lot of the feeling and perception, but a lot less thinking. while most thoughts posted are contributed to by multiple of us, tani’s thoughts in particular are again, more emotional. examples: “we love the pretty views” and “i wanna snuggle our plushies so badly”. the former could be shared across many of us, but for the latter, many of us do not do that direct decision making to begin with; really only tani does.

    still, others of us may use “i” too!

    this is from private communication with another user who has been super super kind and awesome.

    how confusing some of this is [the other user was referring to our plurality]

    we don’t really understand it either but we’ll try to explain a little more xD

    now, featuring ~proper grammar~ and not terrible readability, is another member’s thoughts about plurality! (it is not AI we promise)

    The meaning when we say we are plural is as so…

    This brain behaves in such a way that applying plurality as a model and deriving perspectives from there leads to the most useful conclusions. Put simply, it “explains stuff” about us.

    For instance, if our outward behavior were to be interpreted in the context of us being a single entity, then some stuff would still make sense. Perhaps that this person enjoys biking, perhaps that she likes girls—and it has mostly worked.

    But, some stuff would not make sense when taking that approach! Why does she have verbal conversations with herself when alone? How come different activities bring up different accents or languages entirely? And how about her wildly fluctuating romantic and sexual preferences?

    Assuming the existence of multiple entities within the head permits these questions to be met with far more useful answers than prior; with regards to those first examples that did make sense, the same applies too. Put shortly, it is far easier to think about our brain if you get into the mindset of it being comprised of multiple beings!

    that just covers what plurality is of course, not really who we are or how you interact with us, both as a group and individually. truthfully when it comes to conversation, its typically one member at a time, frequently me—my name is tani. actually, given how often it is me, you could describe it as primarily my writing with other parts woven in occasionally. but not always!

    in the meantime between now and next time, here is a list of names cuz why not lol:

    • Tani
    • Miele
    • Khemehli
    • Rena
    • Cela
    • Sämme (or Saemme or Samme)

    thats all of us. possibly maybe. or maybe not we aren’t 100% sure. but that is all we seem to be aware of!

    other thoughts:

    • perhaps we’ll make a post out of this or something
    • much of this “scatterbrain” as it were is how we write longer texts (or big slideshows). lots of just writing and writing and picking what we think will be best. and there being six members in this plural system means that agreement between us can take a while.
    • usually we revise stuff like this. we did not do that here, expect errors lol (both above and below)
    • we might continue this writing with further aspects. maybe who each of us are, how we interact, sexuality, and so forth.

    it is our hope that this answers some questions.

    as always thnx for listening, and feel free to comment and ask questions. maybe even pester us so we actually bother to write up something proper. may your day be at least a little more orderly than these accounts x

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      air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      25 days

      making wall art with a broken TV and some old film

      lemmy.blahaj.zone English

      so, this started out as a reply to this comment under one of our posts at !unixsocks@lemmy.blahaj.zone, but it was pretty messy to follow, so we’ll make a tidy version here!

      this section is an edited together version of that aforementioned reply we made and subsequent replies by us.

      so, someone online was talking about putting old monitors up on a wall to use as wall art. following with that theme, we thought it would be cool to take an LCD TV with a smashed up LCD panel (which we had on hand), remove the LCD glass, and put in something to be lit up. we’d hook up the backlight to power somehow, then maybe frame it.

      initially we were thinking of using some printed piece of artwork. but we ended up not doing that.

      if you don’t know what this means, that’s okay! here’s an illustration, from this website:

      basically, the bottom polarizer, top polarizer, and everything in between is glued together, and makes up the LCD panel. the things labeled LED are just lights, and the diffuser & prism (“diffusion”) layers make the light even and smooth. these three things make up the backlight.

      the “glass substrate” layers in the TV we are using are cracked and broken. glass is glass, and glass breaks. so that’s why we are removing the LCD panel.

      so, lets get working on this!

      first, we opened up the back of the TV. a lot of this stuff is just gonna be tossed, so we need not exercise too much care into organizing what goes where.

      and this is how it looks with all that stuff taken off!

      now, we can remove the LCD panel…

      and done! the white panel that remains is the backlight. if we hook up the controller board again to switch it on, we can see how it looks.

      it is a very cool white, but that shouldn’t be the biggest issue ever. the voltage however—that 77.3 on the instrument near the top of the frame—was a little high. it was clear that we would need to:

      a) get a special driver board
      b) replace the LEDs with those of a lower voltage (and maybe higher CRI, IYKYK)
      c) jerryrig this driver board

      initially we were thinking option B, but then decided we were too cheap and lazy and went with option C.

      this section from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/45257301 and comments under it

      to jerryrig it to stay on, we put a zip-tie over the menu button on the board that handled the buttons on the side of the TV set.

      you can also see us in the process of removing the remote control receiver module and status light cables because they share the same connector and were in the way.

      to hang it up, we initially thought of just using string. while looking for something to hang a string on though, we realized one of those little hinged picture frame hooks fit might fit under a screw that just happened to be centered in the direction we want.

      we gave it a try, and it worked! (we put the mainboard back on because we are now using it to drive the backlight)

      this is how it appears on a wall. in the photo, we pinned a slightly dirty pillowcase procured from a pile of free stuff on the roadside over it to draw on. at the time we hadn’t the slightest clue as to what our future intentions would be, so for the time being this was the method we used to test it out.

      what we did do is ask the internet for ideas. and there were a few. do read the comments of the relevant post!

      @trinket@lemmy.blahaj.zone suggested using photo negatives. we did not have that many on hand sadly. this was a super amazing idea though, and helped us to land on the idea of using motion picture film!

      this section from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/45646745

      this is what the video film looks like (bought from this ebay seller):

      we cut the first length as a gauge using scissors…

      …but did the rest with a paper cutter to ensure the cuts were square. it is quite satisfying, click here for a video!

      these were all the film snippets that we ended up with. why did we pick them back up? well, we initially put them on upside-down (and ordered right to left) because they wanted to curl and that made it easier.

      now laying them out proper…

      and with a little electrical tape to keep them in place, we should have something!

      after this photo, we went to put it up on a wall, and the diffusion layers promptly fell out. we forgot to secure them hehe (^v^;)

      some electrical tape later, it should be in better situ

      and from there we hung it up.

      since we are sorta editing this as the “definitive version” as it were, we shall provide the appropriate recognition to those involved here too :3

      we would like to thank trinket oncemore for suggesting we get film involved. it was a very awesome idea!

      we would also like to thank @strawberry_enjoyer42@lemmy.blahaj.zone for her kindness, and motivating us to actually carry this out <3

      so yeah! stay wonderful dear readers xoxo

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        air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        25 days

        five minute plumbing

        lemmy.blahaj.zone

        heres a bonus wide angle shot:

        this post isn’t too long. what happened was that at this friends house, their washing machine started leaking a whole lot of water and wasn’t draining properly.

        their roommate reported that they just took out some bedding and the dryer wouldn’t work, and we together discovered the dryer was waterlogged to the point of malfunction. and then realized the floor was covered in flowing water.

        it began leaking through the ceiling to another floor, so it needed to be drained quick.

        our first strategy was to somehow use the big yellow waterproof vacuum to remove the water but that clearly wouldn’t work given how much water there was. here’s a photo.

        our next thought was how else we could get it out through that window, maybe using the vacuum pump as a sorta water pump. then we thought: siphoning!

        trying just the vacuum hose alone, it wasn’t nearly long enough. but our friend told us about some PVC piping they had laying in their closet. so, we electrical taped a couple lengths onto both ends (only one’s visible in the photos sorry), and then used the other vacuum their to try and start the siphon.

        it took a little fiddling and a container that happened to be just outside the shot to catch some of the water but our friend and us managed to do it! a little bit remained at the bottom but we soaked it up with some rags.

        sadly the ceiling of the floor below is a little damaged. but some damage control is better than nothing!

        sweet dreams y’all :3

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          air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          29 days

          that worked?? or: how to easily revive a dead li-ion battery

          lemmy.blahaj.zone

          so, as you maybe can tell (if you can’t thats totally ok), this is a fairly sad camera battery. zero volts. nothing.

          initially we were thinking that we’d get a new battery for the camera, but then decided we’d shove five volts into it (a 3.7 volt battery) just for the lols—it happens that five volts is the voltage you get from a USB plug!

          above is the setup. the white wire is a chopped up USB charging cable on which the original connector broke. and, we are getting a sweet 5.22 volts. now to see what happens!

          that’s a decent voltage drop, but its not horrifying. taking the leads off and measuring the battery voltage now reveals that…

          the battery actually has a healthy voltage??? okay. fine. but surely with this battery being of the age of consent, the voltage will drop way too much under load to–

          oh. wowee. this idea was supposed to be a joke but it actually did something useful instead of blowing up the battery. to be clear the battery life is dreadful but it works!

          y’know what, we are going somewhere tomorrow. we’ll try and get some photos with this thing! maybe with a clean lens that actually focuses properly too :3

          sweet dreams dear readers xoxo

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            air&oxygen@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            1 month

            fixing a motorcycle with a broken pen

            lemmy.blahaj.zone

            first of all, let’s lay out the problem at hand.

            (above photo photo courtesy of nospartsnow.com)

            this is what this motorcycle’s front brake switch should look like. in short, its the thingy that makes the taillight light up when you squeeze the front brake; when the brake lever is at rest, it is squeezing this switch into the off position (pressed in). and as for the one taken from our motorcycle…

            it is notably missing the little plunger piece. but that is not too big an issue provided we can exercise a little creativity :3

            first of all, we needed something that would, well, fit. given this was a japanese bike, we grabbed some metric screwdriver bits that were mostly circular to use as guage pins.

            and this 2mm one fits perfectly! now, we just needed something of that diameter.

            at first we were thinking of using the wire from this clip. but it turns out it was really REALLY hard to cut. so after some more rummaging…

            behold, the ballpen! (apologies for the blurry photo)

            some pliers made it fairly trivial to extract the nib. and one slight dab of superglue later, we should have something!

            unfortunately it turns out the ball in the tip caused the plunger to lean to one side MASSIVELY when pressed on. a pair of wirecutters will solve that in a very literal pinch thankfully ^w^

            and with this, the switch functions oncemore, for only the cost of a broken pen!!!

            stay comfy y’all <3

            0
              Plurality@lemmy.blahaj.zonebykivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              6 months

              what literature do you recommend surrounding plurality?

              English

              as english effectively requires distinction between plural and singular, “we” is chosen as the first person pronoun here, for reasons explained shortly. unsure if really plural though. okay after having gotten to the end of writing this, well… yeah :)

              we already found some stuff, but the more the better in our regard hehe

              fyi this post is SUPER scatterbrained, feel free to comment even if you don’t wanna read through this!!

              heres what happened. warning: LOTS of yapping

              so, late last night (as anything good goes), we were considering the possibility of us being plural. for that conversation, we chose to use “we” as it just, well, felt the most correct.

              we also note that when we do something, the “main” voice of our head at that time (but especially when doing physical, hands-on tasks), or sometimes our actual, physical voice, never says “time to get this wheel off” or “where did i put my notebook”. its always like “okayy lets get this door fixed for once” or “how do we get these plastic clips off intact”.

              sometimes, the mind feels like a group of partners, in the coworker/friend working on something sense. but we have never experienced multiples of us “talking” over one another, although we do outwardly express much orderliness. in general, we take refuge in proceduralization and clarity.

              we don’t struggle with fuzzy concepts really at all either, though. we get the meaning of metaphors, we can “read between the lines” (sometimes frighteningly well, sometimes not at all), but we also love putting things in checklists.

              we feel like there is an “i” that feels much of the emotions, and interprets much everything in general, but at the same time the thoughts themselves are thought out a little more separately, albeit not independently. at this point in time we would not consider ourselves to be composed of, well, “selves”—of course we can’t know if that will change in the future.

              we feel quite unified, but there are “regions” of us that absolutely do differ. much opinion and feeling is shared, but lots of varying thought processes seem to go “about the room”. we continue to note that “i” frequently perceives this as, in a very rapid but orderly flow. being like

              1 (the engineer) how hard should we draw this line?

              2 (the reminder) well, we are going for a softer image

              3 (the flamboyant) but, there is value to be had in contrast [flamboyant means “value” and “contrast” as in “worth” and “juxtaposition”]

              4 (the tester) is this what we want though? not sure it works so well…

              5 (the engineer, who does talk a lot) yeah, maybe that was not a great idea oops… but what if we avoid drawing this line, how does that implicate? that would have to cause issues though…

              6 (the tester) how does that implicate? [we actually do repeat like this in our head sometimes] visually, we observe a TON that needs not be so precise, you can get away with so much.

              7 (the flamboyant) the lack of regularity absolutely would soften it up your suggestion is WONDERFUL please do go ahead :3 [we don’t know how this is translated to speech, but :3 is a real word in our head…]

              8 (the chemist) well, if we can pattern the surroundings [the engineer interjects respectfully with a smile: “or shade around it a little”] so it is perceived by the viewer something is right here, that really does work! humans are so wacky, they are able to notice minute fluctuations in like whatever, but they almost never keep their minds open to noticing them…

              9 (the reminder) then shading it is!

              10 (the flamboyant) oh my goodness this is gonna be so pretty uwaaa

              11 (the chemist) on behalf of all, it is our pleasure hehe

              on second thought we see the “selves” thing a little more. honestly we just gave ourselves titles based on kinda whatever. of course, we may have parted one into multiple, or (more likely) vice-versa. “i” would be here just observing and then doing.

              referring to that “i” using she/her feels right, so we’ll do that (and using those air quotes feels super demeaning, we’re super sorry girl…). she would perhaps feel a little uneasiness about not knowing what do to after lines 4 and 5, maybe a little relief at line 6, and adorement for chemist and flamboyant at lines 7 thru 11 at how cute they are together.

              she also loves attention and being called a girl, and if you talk verbally with us, she has been the proxy between you and us. when we are tired and don’t have the mental resources to go around to all of us, she takes over. she is not a great thinker at all when on her own, but she can manage. she can’t go forever like that though, so soon enough she’ll bring us all to sleep when we are tired.

              (reflecting on all this, this was probably us writing for ourselves just to figure out who we even are hehe)

              again though, us being referred to with she/her feels the best. while we have much distinction between ourselves, we love to work together, and the unity implied with singular pronouns we think has at least sometimes in the past made us feel better; at least in our imagination, “all of you” just sounds like an accusation… mostly. but when we speak, we’ve pretty much just now realized we would much rather say “we”.

              we all love learning, its a shared passion. the change that may come with this holds a little anxiety, but we also feel ease in knowing that it will help us so much in the long term. like, whats cooler than carrying around with our head an entire (and very capable) group of uhh… hmm…

              well we’re not sure of a good word for this, but you understand. we are happy. we wanna read more is all!!!

              addendum

              we wrote this in the morning. but after thinking about it even more while cleaning and fixing some stuff, we have realized that a lot of the time, “we” feels better, but sometimes “i” is preferred. i do not feel we have the energy to explain our train of thought right now, but maybe another day!! :D

              0