sometimes-gawain

[sometimes-gawain]

✨ Bitch I am a black renaissance painting ✨

[sometimes-gawain]

Giving them the funny accents Audio source: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

8-8-2021

[sometimes-gawain]

You don’t hear it a lot: but England is a terrifying place to live. And I know reading that single line will have some people snickering as if what I said isn’t true. Maybe we aren’t as bad as some places: that much is true. We don’t have gun crime, racism isn’t as much as heard of (though it definitely exists in a stupid amount). But that’s also because you lot don’t hear about it: you don’t hear it unless you’re in the country or from the country and keeping up with everything.

As a non-binary trans masc person, it’s terrifying to even step out of the house and I’m not even publicly out yet. The amount of trans and homophobia around England is insane and terrifying: it’s to the point where everyday I’m reading the news and another LGBTQ-related attack is somewhere on the front page. Another transgender person has been murdered in cold blood or another lesbian couple has been beaten up on the tube in London. As someone who has been constantly penalised and put down for trying to be who I am, as well as outted against my will, it’s scary to read these things everyday. It was heart breaking to watch GMB every morning and see Piers Morgan invalidating my gender through an argument with someone who was trying his best to defend me. It was cringe-worthy hearing the comments coming from my own “friend”‘s mouth when I tried to come out.

JKR was a perfect example of just the power of the hate in this country: her voice - and her supporters voices - were so loud that they got the government to backtrack on their plans to allow me to change my legal gender easier. Because it invalidated sexual assault survivors and their hardships. I was sexually assaulted when I was 8: and again when I was 11. Believe me when I tell you, letting a transgender woman use the fucking woman’s bathroom is NOT invalidating your assault. That sounds like a you problem, not theirs.

The government is actively enabling the persistent LGBTQ hate in this country. In the last four months there have been several online petitions which they have HAD to look at due to 100k+ signatures. Each time their only was response was “No, we support you, but no. Too much work.” If you refuse to recognise me as existing- to recognise that I am a law abiding person who deserves to be able to legally be me- then you are not supporting me.

The NHS has a wait time of anywhere from two years to ten years for gender clinic appointments: just to get put on hormone medication, you could be waiting up to 7 years for one appointment. Unless you go private that is. Not only is private extremely expensive, but the NHS practitioners have every right to DENY your referral / diagnosis because it wasn’t done by an NHS professional. So even if you do go private, there’s no guarantee. A lot of transgender people are resorting to illegally obtaining hormone drugs from dealers. We’re that desperate.

It’s gotten so bad that OTHER COUNTRIES are acknowledging that it’s unsafe to live here. Two years ago a British transgender women sook asylum in New Zealand based purely off of her gender identity and WAS SUCCESSFUL. Portugal also accepts asylum seekers based off of gender identity. That is how bad it is here. Transgender people are dying everyday. This is how bad it is.

There’s so much more I can rant about but it’s 7am and I haven’t slept. I’m tired. But I just spent three hours crying over this shirt and how not only me but hundreds of thousands of other Transgender people in England have it bad; and there’s no one here to help us.

[sometimes-gawain]

I’m just super fucking bitter that once the flint water crisis got it’s 15 minutes of fame people stopped giving a shit. The water is still poisoned, people! Donations have plummeted and people have been forced back into drinking and bathing with the water! The medical effects of this are astounding, cases of legionnaires disease have skyrocketed, people are having seizures, people are having weird rashes break out over their body, people (including me!) are having their blood poisoned, and it’s not just lead! it’s coliform bacteria! it’s THMs! it’s all in the water and it gets into the bloodstream and breaks down blood vessels, causing bruising and petechiae and internal bleeding and no one gives a shit anymore and it’s only gotten worse like how many people are going to have to die until people realize this is still a problem

[sometimes-gawain]

So, this hasn't crossed my dash yet. (Not blaming anyone, there is soooo much going on in the world and I'd also missed it in the noise).

There is currently a strike at Frito-Lay. in Topeka. These workers are striking because:

They were being forced to work 84 hour weeks. The company's best offer so far is a 60 hour cap. This is shit we fought for a century ago, people.

Their generous offer also includes a whole 4 percent wage increase...over the next 2 years. I'm not sure what COL is in Topeka, but... Well, it's better than the entire 77 cents they've apparently gotten in the last decade.

There's also a report that a worker literally collapsed and dropped dead on the line and the foreman's response was to make them move the body out of the way and put in a replacement. (However, this is unconfirmed and, of course, the company denies it).

There have been multiple OSHA violations at this plant over the last few years, including a forklift accident that's under investigation.

They've now been striking since July 5 but, of course, it only hit the national media yesterday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/14/frito-lay-strike-forced-overtime/

So, why am I signal boosting this?

Because Frito-Lay is refusing to budge. They are attempting to make the excuse that union leadership agreed to the 60 hour work week and crappy pay cut...when union leadership only agreed to put it to a vote.

And this means that we need to put the thumbscrews on them. Remember, this is about 19th century style working conditions.

So, I'm calling on my followers to boycott Frito Lay's until the strike is involved.

Frito-Lay owns:

Lay's

Doritos (Sorry. I really am. I KNOW there's no good alternative to Doritos, although Zapp's are good if you can find them).

Fritos

Tostitos

Cheetos

Ruffles

Sun Chips

Baken-ets

Chester's

Cracker Jack

Islen plantain chips

Funyuns

Grandma's (the cookies)

Matador Meat Snacks

Maui style potato chips

Miss Vickie's

Munchies

Munchos

Rolled Gold

Sabritones

Santitas

Simply

Smartfood

Stacys

The Walking Taco

NatuChips

PopCorners (this one wasn't on their website, but was bought by Pepsi's in 2019 with the intent of adding it. So best avoided just in case). Yes, this really is more than half of the snack aisle. Suggested alternatives:

Kettle Brand Chips

Zapp's (If you can find them. My supermarket had them once and not since, so I'm guessing the culinary cowards in this neighborhood were afraid of "Voodoo" flavored chips).

Pringles

On the Border for salsa.

Wise Cheez Doodles

Bugles

Utz

Store own brand alternatives, if your store has ones that are any good.

Cheez-its

Check before you buy and let's tell these people they don't get to treat workers like that.

[sometimes-gawain]

“Sir Gawain! Uhmph–! Hu-h! Astounding… this intense feeling just from striking our fists together. As expected from someone like you, Sir Gawain!”

[sometimes-gawain]

Gawain icons ♡

[sometimes-gawain]

Though the jokes that "since gay pride month is over, july is now gay wrath month" are funny and all, it's important to remember that July is ACTUALLY Disability Pride Month and ya'll should really be focused on boosting disabled voices and issues this month! For instance, the fact that marriage equality doesn't actually truly exist in the United States for disabled people, or the fact that disabled people are forced to live in poverty or lose their disability benefits, or the fact that 1 in 5 people with chronic pain end up sufferring from alcoholism or other addictions, or how accessibility is still a daily battle for all of us, or how there are active hate groups on places like reddit who try to "call out" those they see as "faking" their disabilities.

This July, boost disabled voices. Talk about the issues that our community faces. Call out ableism.

[sometimes-gawain]

“In March 2018, Peter-Lucas Jones and the ten other staff at Te Hiku Media, a small non-profit radio station nestled just below New Zealand’s most northern tip, were in disbelief. In ten days, thanks to a competition it had started, Māori speakers across New Zealand had recorded over 300 hours of annotated audio in their mother tongue. It was enough data to build language tech for te reo Māori, the Māori language – including automatic speech recognition and speech-to-text.

The small staff of Māori language broadcasters and one engineer were about to become pioneers in Indigenous speech recognition technology. But building the tools was only half the battle. Te Hiku soon found itself fending off corporate entities trying to develop their own indigenous data sets and resisting detrimental western approaches to data sharing. Guarding their data became the priority because the only people truly interested in revitalising the Māori language were the Māori people, themselves.”

[sometimes-gawain]

hello! just a lil smth, please don’t scroll!

tw // anti-asian violence

there’s been a fuck ton of aapi hate since the beginning of the pandemic and especially lately, with the georgia shootings today, and even the grammys last sunday

all this said i just wanted to share a few resources (none mine!):

- anti-asian violence resources (this resource is also linked in my pinned, it contains information, petitions, places to donate and a lot more)

- stop asian hate (contains petitions, places to donate, ways to spread the word and more)

- sites to donate to and share (if you have a twitter please consider retweeting)

- a cumulative twitter thread with a little bit of everything and more than i explained

+ stop asian hate gofundme

+ asian american resource center (an atlanta based foundation focused on housing and civil classes)

—

if you have any resources you wanna share reply and/or reblog and i’ll add it, and with that please share this with the same tags <3 sending love to my fellow aapi, please stay safe all of you and don’t be fucking racist :]

[sometimes-gawain]

hey apparently gawains birthday is also may 1st so on a scale from 1000 to infinity how mad do yall think mordred is that he has to share a birthday with his older brother

[sometimes-gawain]

New boyband KoTR fight for the top spot in this season’s Chaldea Idol! Will these heartthrobs make it to the next round or will they be the ones with broken hearts? Tune in tonight to find out!✨✨

(full ver of my piece for the fate/remix zine! had a ton of fun drawing these dudes rockin out hehe)

[sometimes-gawain]

HUGE list of free (!!) books by black authors and revolutionaries. includes writings by toni morrison, james baldwin, assata shakur, angela davis, malcolm x, audre lorde and frantz fanon. 

[sometimes-gawain]

happy juneteenth🤍!!! here's a list of black gfms that have yet to meet their goals! (black ppl feel free to link your or others donation posts in a reblog! reblogs from nonblack ppl appreciated!)

help teej's sister get a breast reduction.

help audi, a closeted black lesbian, move out of a toxic household.

help shay, a black nonbinary, with their moving expenses.

help gaia afford a house for her father suffering with homelessness and stage 3 colon cancer.

help a autistic transmasc lesbian move out of an ableist and abusive household.

help sapphire, a black transwoman, get out of an abusive household.

help sol, a black transwoman, with her transition and other necessities.

help melanie with her gender affirming surgery.

help a disabled incoming freshman pay for college.

help micah, a black queer transmasc person move.

help silver, a gnc black lesbian get a new camera and laptop.

help zora, a nonbinary transfem, move and transition.

help noelle, a black transwoman afford surgery and other basic necessities.

[sometimes-gawain]

This took a million years, but I finally finished this fire emblem gba style portrait for Gawain. The sprite sheet posted is insertable and free to use

[sometimes-gawain]

[sometimes-gawain]

this isnt a roast—i genuinely love Gawain with all my heart but he looks/reminds me of Fred from scooby doo!! LMAO maybe its just me? my friends and i have been saying the same thing and its killing me

Just change the hair and shirt color and you got him