#ALSO. it feels like such a historical disability. i feel like i should be sent to the seaside in the 1800s to deal with it

[openphrase123]

queuing this up like WEEKS after i had the thought because i don't want anyone to think i'm subtweeting them but whenever i see art that's like. REALLY good but it's on the line of triggering my epilepsy (for whatever reason) and i have to scroll past. i'm like. a wet cat scratching at the door. let me innnnnnn

[b-blushes]

feeling so balloon going to burst atm (hospital/medical/chronic illness/disability stuff. not good vibes (i'm fine though! except for in my feelings! :P))

next week i'm meeting a new specialist who is 'far away' and we are leaving 2.5 hours early to get to the appointment and i'm so scared style. it's so exhausting and i'm so frustrated with myself! i'm really glad that i get to go, and i want to go, i found the dr researched the hospital sent the emails booked the appointment all the stuff but i don't want to need to go u know. i don't like it. i'm so grateful to be going and i also just don't want this to be my life at all. both my parents are taking me, i appreciate this so much. i'm so stressed about being 'high risk' (amongst other things, i have a heart condition) and going so far from home and spending so much time in the car and we'll have to eat lunch and this will have to happen in the carpark of the hospital because i am not going to eat anywhere indoors with anyone and it's annoying to wear a mask for hours in the car and it's all FINE, i can do it and nothing bad will probably happen but i'm so sick of being so scared about it and also of being the cautious sensible one who is imposing precautions on everyone else. i hate it, and i hate hating it.

it's hard not to get hung up on the negative side of it all. this is why i'm frustrated about it! i feel like i should be better about it, don't need to be already getting wound up about it 2 weeks before any appointment and even worse the week before. don't need to be drifting out of touch with friends or just checking in rather than being able to properly be myself and talk because i'm so out of my self about it but also at the same time not even feeling like i am, just that the dots are not connecting in my brain. i don't feel like i should be so scared about waking up 2 hours before normal to leave on time because the appointment is so 'early', and that waking up so 'early' shouldn't make me as ill as it historically has. i just don't want to be so scared about it all, but i truly don't see how i can not be. and also there is the blinkers mode of being Like This (I don't even know what the feeling or words for it are) of knowing that i'm not being able to see the whole breadth of the (or any similar) situation when i'm in this headspace, but also not being able to force myself to see outside it because i'm In Here. I don't want to take medication about it because i've already got a lot going on with my body and historically nothing i've tried in this vein has worked for me, I don't see how therapy would stop it, because i can get through it and feel like i am already using all the techniques i can to make sure that i'm not acting in ways that are harmful to myself and actively am trying to soothe myself as much as i can - i don't feel that i need any aids to get through it, the only thing i can imagine truly wanting is a way to feel fine about it and i don't know how that can happen because the root of it is triggering symptoms and bad medical experiences and i don't think that i as a chronically ill disabled person continuing to engage with healthcare can guarantee either of those things.

I might be so so wrong but that feels like the best thing I can do is continue to try through all the parts that i can influence to bank as many positive experiences as i can, and hopefully at some point they will tip the balance and then it won't be a whole thing. I guess ultimately it's like that saying of 'someone who is anxious doesn't need to feel calm, they need to feel safe', and while i am doing everything i can currently think of to give this to myself, i do not control all the variables. Part of my worry and frustration about it all too is that my conception about the whole topic is also wrong, and that i'm standing in the way of improving things for myself and thus everyone who i am interacting with especially in the focussed time period where i'm preparing for another appointment. I guess the crux of it is that i wish i was doing a better job of dealing with the uncertainty and the response that past bad experiences have resulted in, and that i don't know how or if i can do better, that it feels like the difficulties that i am having are my own fault, and that having doubts about whether i could do better means i could and i'm choosing not to. and no-one else can absolve me of this WHICH SUCKS!!!! :P

good grief. anyway. i'm just trying to do my best while this is all constantly running background in my head, and feeling like my best kind of sucks at best but also that it is my best. which also sucks because it should be better. guy who is tormenting themself voice. IT PROBABLY WON'T EVEN BE ANYTHING TO BE SCARED OF!!!!! and that pisses me off too tbh because then it's like congrats you did a whole stupid thing about NOTHING. AGAIN. Trying to find the balance between being nice to yourself and being lenient with negative effects. i am challenged by this.

TLDR scared of da hospital. hate to be scared of it.

have not even touched on in this post the implications of the actual appointment. also having a lot of fears that how i am currently trying to live is not sustainable and reckoning with being told flatout that i am not managing a chronic pain condition that i have been seeking care for for years yet somehow had not conceptualised myself as having said chronic pain condition, thus consequently failing to manage it, and dealing with the 'shame' of that. not my sole failure but a big chunk of it is on me. And not sure what to change to do a better job of managing my conditions. just really feels like i'm fumbling it atm and 'it' is my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway. Ideally, new specialist will be able to give another assessment from a new perspective of the gravity of my fumbling or lack thereof. And give me some guidance from their experience of diagnosing and treating people with one of the conditions that i have that they are an expert in. It would be really neat to discuss with him how abnormal or completely predictable my uhh level of disability is given his expertise, and also what, if anything, i can do about it. Whilst also keeping in mind that he is just one guy. good grief. Double anyway. I'll be up so early that i might be able to see the sunrise, so that'll be neat! and i don't really get to leave the house much so it's always really nice to see so much SCENERY from the car window when i get to go somewhere :3 And maybe i won't feel so sick and i will get to enjoy nice car ride and have a delicious sandwich in the carpark and it will be peace and love on planet me.

[bildad-the-shuhite-official]

Good Omens fic recommendations

I decided to share a few fics I enjoyed recently.

that same sweet shock by mercuryhatter: G, 2k, Eden, kissing, fluff, wing grooming, mentions of the fall, falling in love Following their conversation on the wall of Eden, Aziraphale and Crawly retire elsewhere to wait out the rainstorm, enjoy the world's first fermented grapes, and discuss philosophy, Names, and the ideal composition of balloon-based flying machines. And also possibly invent kissing.

A Higher Power by agnesnutter: M, 2.9k, recreational drug use, weed, first kiss “So,” Aziraphale asks, “What are you in the mood for now?” “Cannabis,” Crowley says. “Quite extraordinary amounts of cannabis.”

Crossfire by NuriaSchnee: M, 4.7k, locked, post Armageddon’t, love confessions, hurt/comfort, showering together, non-sexual intimacy, first kiss. In which a shower can solve 6000 years of secrets and misunderstandings. Or: Aziraphale finally breaks down at Crowley's flat and Crowley takes care of him.

Unaching Scars (Which I Should Hide) by Pearl09 G, 7.8k, soulmate AU, soulmate marks, angst with happy ending Soulmates seemed like a good idea at first, to the angels. If people share the same scars as their soulmate, there's no mistaking they are supposed to be with each other. But when one of their own suddenly has the same scars that mark a demon, it's like their greatest fears have been realized. Aziraphale is sent to Earth as an outcast, hoping one day he'll meet his soulmate, even if Heaven wouldn't like it. But when the same being keeps rescuing him and hanging out for 6000 years… it's hard not to fall in love.

Fighting Dirty by curtaincall: M, 9k, historical, Garden of Eden, 1950s, renaissance era, misunderstandings, poor communication, humour, implied sexual content, mutual pining Aziraphale and Crowley are both convinced that the other was sent to seduce them.

How My Light is Spent by Azira_Amane E, 19k, blind!crowley, disability, coffee shop au, happy ending, hook ups, fluff, body worship, chubby aziraphale Navigating the dating world when you can't see it can be tricky. For Crowley, that was never a problem; he's usually too busy to contemplate a relationship. The same goes for Aziraphale, though he doesn't have Crowley's excuse - he just isn't really all that much into people as a whole. One chance meeting on Crowley's usual route home changes all that.

I consider posting themed red lists. This is just my first attempt at a post like that. If you want specific tropes, feel free to ask.

[lemonhemlock]

Hi hope you're having a good day / night from where you are 💛

I'm curious what do you think Daeron and Alicent’s relationship was like because I see some say that Alicent probably didn't care much about her youngest son, and that's why She sent him to Oldtown personally I feel like that's not completely true because in westeros it was common to send your son's to be a Lord's ward and Daeron was 12 i think when he's sent away so he's not a baby by westeros standards lol

Also what do you think would have happened if either Daeron or Aemond lived ?

hi & thanks! hope you are doing well, too🍒 honestly, this "alicent doesn't like daeron / is ashamed of him" narrative is pure fanon, thought up by people who maybe don't really understand the medieval ward system. fans are free to imagine what scenarios they want but there's no support for that in the text. as i've said before, sending daeron to oldtown is not a punishment.

if either daeron or aemond survived, then it complicates the succession after the dance bc it would go jaehaera -> daeron/aemond -> aegon, son of daemyra. i've argued before that it makes no sense for the greens to disregard jaehaera. she's their elizabeth of york and also has a dragon, which is not a given for targaryen princesses (check out how many of jaehaerys' daughters did not have dragons). she's important. there's more in my jaehaera tag, as well as my thoughts on giving her a mental disability as a narrative get-out-of-jail-free card.

anyway, with a surviving green targaryen male, there's no way aegon the younger gets to ascend, save for the complete military obliteration of the targtowers. but now you have conflicting claims between the greens. jaehaera becoming queen is in accordance with andal law (a daughter comes before an uncle) but she's also a child and vulnerable. she's the only remaining targaryen girl and has also lost both of her brothers who could have served as her future husband. so imo it would make sense to marry her off to her surviving uncle.

now, this gets further complicated by aemond's relationship with alys and his betrothal to the unnamed baratheon girl. whether he married alys or fathered a child with her is not presented as historical fact by westerosi historians. the show will obviously have to choose one option because aemond can't exist on screen in a state of quantum uncertainty. but that doesn't change the FACT that it's left ambiguous in the books. anyway. if he got married, it's a marriage without documents and witnesses, so the legality of it is up in the air. how a fic writer exploring this scenario chooses to resolve this is up to them, but they should bear in mind that the nobles / allies of the greens would not easily accept a bastard nurse as their queen / the prince regent's wife. again, ship what you want, but romance =/= political wisdom & stability. imo the politically savvy choice in accordance with targaryen customs in the asoiaf universe would be to just marry jaehaera and compensate the baratheons in some other way for breaking the betrothal.

ofc with daeron it's all easier bc he's unmarried

in addition, if we're already altering the ending so much, it's important to note that there is no reason for alicent to die here. GRRM nerfs her via westerosi covid only bc he wants a clean slate moving forward for aegon iii's rule. but it's a deus-ex-machina ending for her arc. she's nowhere near death age and is not sickly.

[cartograffiti]

May '24 reading diary

This month, I finished 16 books, mostly quick cookbooks and graphic novels!

I started May by listening to a very unseasonal full-cast audiobook of E.T.A. Hoffmann's original The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. When I was a child, I read a lot of different text adaptations of the Tchaikovsky ballet adapted from this story, but only realized I'd never read the original when a friend got me to read Hoffmann's squarely horror story "The Sandman" a few years ago. This was creepier than the ballet story, though clearly written for children, and I'm very glad to have gotten around to it.

K.J. Charles, author of a large number of romances I'm a fan of, put out her first mystery A-plot novel, Death in the Spires. I think it's a good introduction to her style if you're not a big romance person, and I think it was the right call for this plot to prioritize the genre elements in this way, but I also have found her B-plot mysteries more exciting. No problem, I liked it a lot, and it has a lot of juicy thoughts about justice as distinct from the law and how trust is earned or lost. Gay disabled detective.

Two sports romances: You Should Be So Lucky, a sensational 1960s baseball player/magazine journalist relationship, meditating beautifully on the fear of failure and on grief. One of the mains was in a long-term relationship with someone who has died, and I think this is the best widowed romance character I've ever read. Sebastian is also just fabulous at taking a tour of a made-up person, full of small details and slice-of-life stakes. I've read all her books and will continue to; I like her particular approach to historicals and her ability to make queer happy endings distinct and individual. M/M.

The other sports romance I read this month is The Boxing Baroness by Minerva Spencer, which I only mildly enjoyed. Unfortunately I don't even have any real criticisms, I just very simply didn't click with Spencer's style on a sentences level, particularly in sex scenes. Your mileage will vary! There is a lot of really enjoyable bits about the hot honorable love interest thirsting over how strong and cool he thinks the heroine is, and he's right. This is definitely worth trying if the basic premise of woman boxer Regency is your thing. Wait, I do have one plot criticism--this would have been stronger without the epilogue. We didn't actually need to meet [historical figure redacted]. M/F.

Graphic novels--I used to read Chelsey Furedi's Rock and Riot when it was coming out as a webcomic, and I was excited when her follow-up, Project Nought, was suspended soon after launch because of a book deal. Unfortunately I somehow missed it when the book actually came out in 2017, and only when Heartstopper sent me on a nostalgia trip last month did I realize I could read it. I wish I had read Project Nought when it was new! A lot of the sci-fi plot no longer feels futuristic even 7 years on, although the core twist is just fabulous. There isn't enough of the interpersonal depth that shines in Rock and Riot, the villain plot resolution is a bit too easy for the YA market, and overall I just wouldn't pitch this as more than pleasant.

The rest of the graphic novels, far more than pleasant, I read volumes 8, 9, 10, and 11 of Witch Hat Atelier by Shirahama Kamome. This was a good batch to read close together, as they all deal with the events of the same festival. Unfortunately I have to wait for my library to buy the next to see the resolution, but that's how manga goes! I loved a lot of what's happening at this point, with some fabulous milestones in the Coco-Agott friendship, lots of good moments from my favorite of the adults (Olruggio), and continuing to push down on the question of forbidden magic. Shirahama brings in both strong cases of things that deserve to be banned (glasses that let you see through people's clothes, not treated as remotely funny) and things that...maybe don't. I really cannot tell what ethics resolution might be end-game, which is very exciting.

Cookbooks! My lovely mother surprised me with a copy of an 80s book I'd been looking for, Vineyard Seasons by Susan Branch. I wouldn't exactly call her style pastoral, but I've seen her rediscovered a bit by cottagecore, Ghibli-esque, and related aesthetic bloggers. If that kind of romantic daily life artwork appeals to you, you might like her books as much as I do; every page is full of Branch's watercolor paintings, sometimes ornamental borders and sometimes illustrations of the sights of her home in Martha's Vineyard. I read and re-read her books just to linger over the pictures, but almost every recipe I've tried has been a winner.

I also borrowed a whole bunch of cookbooks of literary-inspired recipes. I went through two by Alison Walsh (A Literary Tea Party and A Literary Holiday Cookbook), which were disappointing; they draw from a pretty small range of books, and rely a lot on food coloring to fit the themes. Meanwhile, The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook (ed. Kate White) has a really wide range of difficulty level and approach, only some of them inspired by fiction. Each recipe was contributed by a different author, making it fun in the same way that church and community cookbooks can be, but I don't have any wish to own this, either. I have two others still to look at. (And I already own some I do recommend, Kate Young's Little Library cookbooks and Tim Federle's literary cocktail books.)

More nonfiction: DK Publishing's really insubstantial small coffee table book Banned Books, which didn't have quite enough text (I shouldn't have finished any entries unsure on what grounds they were banned/challenged, and did), but some pretty vintage covers (and not enough of those either).

Really great, with loads of pictures and thorough text: The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag by Sasha Velour. I was first aware of gender-fluid queen Sasha Velour as an illustrator and zinester, and in many ways they're the reason I was first interested in drag performers. This book doubles as a history of drag and a personal memoir of Velour's experience with it, and I enjoyed both equally. The history is well-researched and thoughtful, and the memoir is generous and self-aware. And it has some of their comics!

And I'm still reading Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles at about one per month. I finished Pawn in Frankincense in May--lush and devastating and funny and infuriating and completely absorbing. Still not a series I would recommend to everyone, and still one I'm so glad I'm reading at this exact moment, when my emotions can go through the juicer and not feel scarred afterwards.

[writingwithcolor]

Space based story with prison camps: problematic parallels?

Trigger warnings:

Holocaust

Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post and resources)

ivypool2005 asked:

I'm writing a sci-fi novel set on Mars in the 25th century. There are two countries on Mars: Country A, a hereditary dictatorship, and Country B, a democracy occupied by Country A after losing a war. Country A's government is secretly being puppeted by a company that is illegally testing experimental technology on children. On orders from the company, Country A is putting civilian children from Country B in prison camps, where the company can fake their deaths and experiment on them. (1/2)

My novel takes place in one of the prison camps. I am aware that this setting carries associations with various concentration camps in history. Specifically, I'm worried about the experimentation aspect, as I know traumatic medical experimentation occurred during the Holocaust. Is there anything I should avoid? How can I acknowledge the history while still keeping some fantasy/sci-fi distance from real experiences -- or is it a bad idea to try to straddle that fence at all? Thank you! (2/2)

We are far from being the only people to have suffered traumatic medical experiments.. 

--Shira

TW: Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post, and all of the links)

Medical experimentation in history

Perhaps without intending to, you have posed an enormous question. 

I will start by saying that we, the Jewish people, are not the only group to have unethical, immoral, vicious experiments performed on our bodies.  Horrific experimentation has been conducted on Black people, on Indigenous people, on disabled people, on poor people of various backgrounds, on women, on queer people... the legacy of human cruelty is long. Here are some very surface-level sources for you, and anyone else interested to go through. Many, many more can be found.

General Wiki Article on Unethical Human Experimentation

US Specific Article  on Unethical Human Experimentation 

The early history of modern American Gynecology is largely comprised of absolutely inhumane experimentation, mostly on enslaved women (with some notable exceptions among Irish immigrant women)

An Article on Gynecological Experimentation on Enslaved Women

I  also recommend reading Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens

The Tuskegee Experiment 

First Nations Children Denied Nutrition

Guatemala Syphilis Experiment

Unit 731

AZT Testing on Zimbabwean Women

Project MKUltra

Conversion Therapy

Medical Experiments on Prison Inmates 

Medical Interventions on Intersex Infants and Children

Again, these are only a few, of a tragic multitude of examples. 

While I don't feel comfortable saying, as a blanket statement, that stories like this should never be fictionalized, it feels important to emphasize the historicity of medical experimentation, and indeed, medical horrors. These things happened, in the real world, throughout history, and across the globe. 

The story of this kind of human experimentation is one of immense cruelty, and the complete denial of the humanity of others. Experimentation was done on unwilling subjects, with no real regard for their wellbeing, their physical pain, the trauma they would incur, the effect it would have on families, or on communities. These are stories, not of random, mythical "subjects," but of human beings. These were Black women, already suffering enslavement, who were medically tortured. These were Indigenous children, who were utterly powerless, denied nutrition, just to see what would happen. These were Black men, lied to about their own health, and sent home to infect their spouses, and denied treatment once it was available. These were Aboriginal Australians, forced to have unnecessary medical procedures, children given brutal gynecological exams, and medications that were untested.. These were inmates in US prisons, under the complete control of the state. These were prisoners of war. These were pregnant people, desperate to save their fetuses, lied to by doctors. These were also Jewish people, imprisoned, and brutalized as part of a systematic attempt to destroy us. 

The story of medical torture, of experimentation without any meaningful consent, of the removal of human dignity, and human rights, is so vast, and so long, there is no way to do it justice. It is a story about human beings, without agency, without rights, it's the story of doctors, scientists, and the inquisitive, looking right through a person, and seeing nothing but parts. This is not some vague plot point, or a curiosity to note in passing, it is a real, terrible thing that happened, and is still happening to actual human beings. I understand the draw, to want to write about the Worst of the Worst, the things that happen when people set aside kindness, and pick up cruelty, but this is not simply a device. This kind of torture cannot be used as authorial shorthand, to show who the real bad guys are. 

On writing this subject - research

If you want to write a fictional story that includes this kind of deep, abiding horror, you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to read about it, not only in secondhand accounts, and not only from people stating facts dispassionately. You need to seek out firsthand accounts, read whatever you can find, watch whatever videos you can find. You need to find works recounting these atrocities by the descendants, and community members of people who suffered. 

Then, when you have done that, you need to spend time reflecting, and actively working to recognize the humanity of the people this happened to, and continues to happen to. 

You have to recognize that getting a stamp of approval from three Jewish people on a single website would never be enough, and seek out multiple sensitivity readers who have personal, familial, or cultural experience with forced experimentation.

If that seems like a lot of work, or overkill, I beg you not to write this story. It's simply too important. 

-- Dierdra

If you study public health and sociology, it is often a given that the intersection of institutional power and marginalized populations produces extreme human rights abuses. This is not to say that such abuse should be treated as an inevitability, but rather to help us understand, as Dierdra says, how often we need to be aware of the risk of treating our fellow humans poorly. Much of modern medical history is the story of the unwilling sacrifices made by people unable to defend themselves from the powers that be. Whether we are talking about the poor residents of public hospitals in France during the 18th century whose bodies were used to advance anatomy and pathology, to vaccine testing in the 19th century, to mental asylum patients in the 20th century who endured isolation, lobotomies, colectomies and thorazine, one can easily see this pattern beyond the Holocaust. 

Even when we shift our focus away from abuse justified by “experimentation”, we have many such incidents of institutionalized state collusion in abuse that have made the news within the last 20 years with depressing regularity. Beyond the examples mentioned above, I offer border migrant detention centers and black sites for America, Xinjiang re-education sites and prisoner organ donation in China, Soviet gulags still in use in Russia, and North Korean forced labor camps (FLCs) for political prisoners as more current examples. I agree with Dierdra that these themes affect many people still alive today who have endured such abuses, and are enduring such abuses. 

More on proper research and resources

Given that you are going to be exploring a topic when the pain is still so fresh, so raw, I think you had better have something meaningful to say. Dierdra’s recommendation to immerse yourself in nonfiction primary sources is essential, but I think you will also want to brush up on many established works of dystopian fiction featuring themes relating to state institutions and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. While doing so, read about the authors and how the circumstances of their environments and time periods influenced their stories’ messages and themes. I further recommend that you do so both slowly and deliberately so you can both properly take in the information while also checking in with your own comfort. 

- Marika

[hahahax30]

Ik you already know most of this but I still found it pretty interesting so-

Wagner you don't understand the hell you've unleashed. Scroll past if you don't want to know my very Objective™ opinion of the Spanish Habsburgs.

First off: Juana. Wagner there are no words to express to how sorry I feel for this woman. She most likely had schizophrenia btw. Ik monarchs shouldn't be worshipped because there's a 99% chance that they were severely morally-challenged people, but Juana has been done dirty. Her mother was a piece of shit (though a very interesting person in her own way), her father was a piece of shit, her husband was a piece of shit (he cheated on her multiple times and basically facilitated the ideal scenarios for the worsening of her already-frail mental state), everyone was a piece of shit to her.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HER SON. Ngl one of my biggest pet peeves is people calling him Charles V when they're talking about him in the context of Spain: he's not Charles V, that's his German title, his Spanish title is Carlos I. But anyways. I hate him just as much as I pity his mother. Wagner he (1) didn't know Spanish (2) didn't spend time in Spain (3) never focused on Spain. Might be controversial, but I think a King should focus on his kingdom.

Now, ✨Felipe II✨

(ik this called him Philip but Wagner he'd hate this anglosification-whatever-you-call-anglowashing of his name)

Felipe was Español™ which was a genuine upgrade from his father. I love him. Unashamedly, and not because he was Español™. This video just leaves out the best thing, hyperfixating on the Armada Invencible like my uncle. Felipe as a person was way more interesting. He's *funny*. He overworked himself because he insisted on knowing everything, and then complained that he had too much work to do! He was such a grammar nerd that he corrected spelling mistakes on the documents he was sent and then insisted they be rewritten! He didn't care about the economy (but still had to be informed of it so that he could say he'd 'read this document twice and how can I tell you I don't understand it') and busied himself deciding where to put the toilets in the palace! His annotations are the funniest thing ever!!!!!

We actually don't learn much about Felipe III. He's there ig. The only thing he did was delegate his role to his right-hand men because he did *not* want to overwork himself like his father lol.

Felipe IV is the Whore™ (I hope you remember him) and I can't believe this video didn't say that he was a sex addict with around 40 illegitimate children. And 'competent king' mis huevos. He was an Austria menor, which meant he didn't do anything. He was the king only in name since a guy called Gaspar de Guzmán Conde-Duque de Olivares (he was in the selectividad exam I think) was the actual ruler. Felipe was only whoring all around Spain. For all I know *I* and half of Spain could descend from him (the Carranzas certainly do lol).

Also I am at awe at this woman. I didn't know someone could pronounce Spanish this badly. No hate but 'hechizado' isn't a difficult word and she made it sound straight-up wrong.

Anyways, about Charles II (yk, second because Charles V was actually Charles I). His disabilities historically have been blown out of proportion to fit the French’s agenda (their king back then hated us). He had Klinefelter syndrome and many other stuff and was infertile, but he was far from the caricature this woman buys into, and Spain somewhat prospered under his reign. Honestly, this woman has made a few mistakes, particularly: Charles II didn’t make another Habsburg his successor, but Felipe/Philip of Anjou (French guy —I have mixed feelings about him because he was a dick but also very severely mentally ill and somewhat abused by his wife), who’d go on to become Felipe V after the War Of Succession, which started because the Habsburg guy felt like he had ownership over the Spanish throne even though Charles II never said that. My best bet is that the English have altered history lol, because they supported the Habsburg guy.

[sexuallyactivepopes]

hrhdjdh so i just found a youtuber whose content seemed pretty good but then they have the worst kind of historically reductionist take on asperger’s as a label and basically accuse anyone and everyone who expresses how genuinely harmful the term is of being tumblrites… so disappointing

believe it or not, shedding light on what hans asperger did is NOT memorializing him. if anything, it’s part of an effort to memorialize the children he sent off to be abused and exterminated purely and solely for their social class, disability, and “deficiency of gemüt”. there is nothing “beneficial” about his research because it is inexorably linked with nazi race science and eugenics, AND was scientifically flawed even by the standards that existed at the time. you can actually see his “research” dissolve further and further into hateful, ideological nazi bullshit over a period of about four years. and this research would have stayed dead and buried if it weren’t revived in the 80’s/90’s by someone who herself came to later regret having effectively brought the diagnostic criteria into existence (because asperger himself didn’t diagnose children with “asperger’s” — the term he utilized specifically was autistic psychopathology/psychopathy)

imo, and i really do not care if i hurt anyone’s feelings here, but if you cling to the asperger’s/aspie labels with this kind of ferocity, all it says to me (and this is coming from someone who most likely would have been diagnosed w/ asperger’s had i been diagnosed prior to like 2013) is that you want to separate yourself from the label “autistic” because you see something wrong with it. you want to be better than and be perceived as better than autistics with higher support needs, who are nonspeaking, who stim loudly and noticeably, who can’t mask, who ultimately didn’t have the privilege to be labeled as having asperger’s rather than autism prior to the introduction of the DSM-V/ICD-11 (because, again, the diagnosis of asperger’s is inextricably linked with white supremacy, and autistic children of color (especially black children) are far more likely to be misdiagnosed with a conduct disorder), or whatever. because that is ultimately the core of asperger’s work. there’s positive and negative eugenics — positive referring to initiatives meant to encourage the proliferation of “good” genes and negative referring to initiatives meant to weed out the “bad”. asperger would make efforts to enrich and educate children (all boys — and this is important) he found as being intelligent, personable, empathetic, “full of gemüt” and ultimately capable of being assimilated into and useful toward the third reich. children of lower social class, “without gemüt,” with cognitive and more “obvious” developmental disabilities, children with epilepsy, children with disabilities stemming from illnesses like measles and rubella, and rebellious girls exhibiting symptoms of trauma and “menstrual hysteria,” who were not only useless to the third reich but were also scapegoated as leeches on the system in popular social/political rhetoric pretty much immediately after WWI (sound familiar??) were systematically and horrifically abused. asperger interacted with these children directly, and then shepherded them himself to what was effectively a death camp. when he recommended these children for “jekelius action” (referring to erwin jekelius, who was the director of the spiegelgrund child “euthanasia” clinic and the coordinator of the T4 killing program), he KNEW that meant they would be murdered. why else do you think the world more broadly associates the label “asperger’s” with giftedness, intelligence, and success than it does with the label “autism”?

that dichotomy of “good enough” vs “not good enough” is implicit when you assert that no, you’re not autistic, you have asperger’s. and im sorry, but that’s not something anyone should be proud of.

i strongly recommend that anyone who is interested in the subject pick up the book “asperger’s children: the origins of autism in nazi vienna” by edith sheffer.

[futuristicsaladparadise]

How do you typically pick names and face molds for your dolls?

A couple of different ways. For faces, I generally go with my gut. I'll see a listing and feel like I need to get that doll. Other times I'll look at which molds and/or skin tones I don't have yet.

I've always got ideas rattling around in my brain for ideas AG hasn't already covered, like a 1920s girl during the Harlem Renaissance, an immigrant girl sent west on an orphan train in the 1890s, or a modern-day disabled chess champion. Then I try to match the face to the character. Since I nearly always buy fixer-upper dolls, occasionally I will get a doll and then devise a story around what I think they look like once I've cleaned them up. Irie (a medium-skinned Addy mold), for example, looked mixed to me, and I wanted her to have a unique background. I knew someone from Jamaica, and it just clicked that she should be from there. I'm still working on her time period though, probably either the 1980s, when there was a large influx of Jamaican immigrants to the continental US, or post WWII, although their migration was typically to the UK.

Once I have a background, I'll look for names. I keep a list of modern names I like. Annika, Zoe and Maeve were on that list. Others I look at names for where the character comes from. Irie is Jamaican, it means calm, and is also a response to the patois greeting "Wha' gwaan?" - "Me irie." (What's going on?, I'm alright.) I try to keep my historical name choices close to the time period the character was born. Flora and Frances were both in the top 100 names given to girls in 1900 according to the SSA. A girl named Carson would not fit well in the 1790s, and you wouldn't name a kid Dorcas today unless you wanted to invite brutal teasing. I try to keep in mind what life would be like if they were real people rather than just dolls. For me, my dolls are the embodiment of specific characters, which I think was the original spirit of American Girl.

[darkhorse-javert]

Happy Birthday Pauline

Happy Birthday, many happy returns and mazel tov @paulinedorchester​

I made you a thing... Meta-fictiony based on your Andrew and Sam Headcanons. But it was your actual letters in your fic that gave it a physical form too. I hope you like it

Wierdly you have to right click and ‘View image’ for it to come up properly

Transcript:

“The Foyles of Hastings: An Appreciation

By Hannah James

 To most passers-by the whitewashed bungalow with honeysuckle climbing the walls and a driftwood boarded front door is a pretty but unassuming, though it carries some of the charm of the nearby Old Town. Yet it is here, that I find one of Hastings’ most famous living sons and adopted daughter, for whom 2008 is a Red-Letter Year.

The warmth and sparkle in Mr Andrew Foyle’s eyes belie his recent 90 birthday as he and his wife Samantha ‘Call me Sam, I was only ever Samantha to my family or when I was in trouble’ (89) welcome me into their comfortable sitting room.

Hastings born, bred and raised Andrew Foyle is best known for his screenwriting, and  novels. Sam, under her maiden name of Stewart, has been a regular contributor for this paper, the author of various historical biographical pieces, and screenwriter with her husband. However she is most commonly known for her memoir One Woman’s War, which itself celebrates its 10th Anniversary this year.

When I compliment them on the house they share a wry look and regale me with the story between them. “We moved somewhat under duress, the children pointed out that it was highly likely one of us would go topsy-turvey on some of those stairs one of those days.” Sam has an expression on her face which suggests she was not particularly willing to concede to this point. “Stewart stubbornness and Foyle tenacity, we’d have much better hope telling the sea to stop moving.”

“We knew they were right,... but it was a wrench to give the old place up.” The old place, as Andrew Foyle affectionately calls it, is 31 Steep Lane, in the Old Town, where he was raised and where the couple have spent much of their married life over the years. It was also on the very solid front steps than this enigmatic couple first met, in September 1940. Sam, then a driver in the MTC “Motorised Transport Corps”, arrived to collect DCS Christopher Foyle and Andrew answered the door.

Was it love at first sight? “Yes.” Andrew gives his wife a look of such fondness we should all be so lucky to receive. “I just took two years to actually realise what I was feeling.”

Sam meanwhile bursts out laughing at the question “Hardly!” She glances at Andrew “Oh you started out alright with ‘Hello’”

“Then I proceeded to open my mouth again, put both feet firmly in it and sink right up to my middle ala Doctor Gloucester…”

“Saying you didn’t expect a girl to be driving your father, especially ’such a pretty one.”

“You were - and are...Anyway you put me sharply back in my place I wished the floor would swallow me, especially when Dad appeared.”

Listening and watching them, it’s clear how these two have lasted so long together, mutual affection, respect and occasional teasing rolled together.

Discussing their meeting easily brings us onto the subject of the War itself, and in particular One Woman’s War, a title its author is mollified to now after ten years. Sam admits she is gratified by the reception it received, already becoming a key text in schools studying the War, noted for both its straightforwardness and it’s occasional humour.

“It’s good for the MTC to have recognition, even during the War we were seen as rather a poor cousin, they  kept trying to disband us or move us to the A.T.S.” [The better known  Auxiliary Territorial Service]

I ask her about the controversies over the books’ title and dedication, as well as her use of ‘girls’ in the text, which some have called biased

Her head comes up in spirited rejoinder “We were just girls, most of us. When I joined up I was 20 and still needed my father’s permission to do so, full majority was 21 in those days. Why they must make such a fuss over it?” She gets up and goes to one of the tables by the fireplace, bringing back a smartly framed photograph.  A young woman in khaki uniform, recognisable as Sam, stands with two men, one short, one tall, both in long coats and Trilby hats of the 1940s “That’s us:” she points to each one “Me, Mr Foyle and Paul Milner, Sargent Milner as he was then, he became an Inspector after the war. They were the ones I worked with day in day out, through those years. The war changed me ...they changed me, taught me such a lot, especially Christopher.” There’s a soft moment of silence fondness and reflection as she looks at the photo. “That’s why they get the dedication, and Andrew because he kept nudging until I started writing.” Then she smiles, “Goodness Paul looks young, this can’t have been taken very long after I was assigned to Hastings.”

Her own favourite of her biographical pieces? “Amelia Earhart, because that was the first I did, when I found I had the knack, and because of her pluck. Or maybe Andrée de Jongh [leader of the Comet escape line during the War]… she saved so many. She was brave and bold right in the Nazi’s faces, at the risk of her own life. And I’m not just saying that because I married an RAF officer.”

Where to start with Andrew Foyle’s wide ranging, nearly seventy year long, library of work?

He laughs when I mention this predicament “Well, what’s your favourite? We’ll start there and work around to the others.” I confess, shyly, that it is the 1958 film Twilight of Blue. The film is set post-war, a ‘character study’ of a RAF officer coming to retirement. Andrew nods slowly, his eyes soft with thought and memory. “That’s one that I most wanted to be excellent… to capture the ends, not just the rigmarole of ‘well done old chap, good job,  wonderful having you, excellent service, have a badge, enjoy your medals and your life’… but the thought pattern, the feelings there, loss, relief, confusion even. You have given most of your life to the service, your family has too, and now it is going to be your past. And where do you stand without it? How do you stand without it? Where do you go?...” The depth of feeling is clear in his voice “And I had to be good with it too, because there were a lot of chaps in that situation. I owed it to them to get it right. Especially to WingCo, Wing Commander Turner, it was for him, really. A tiny insignificant thank you for everything he did… If I’d got it wrong…” he shakes his head, “But I don’t think I did…”

He certainly didn’t if the reception of the film over the years is anything to go by. Twilight of Blue was a roaring success when it first came out, and while it isn’t one of the ‘Classic War Films’ of battles and victory, the very human story means it has aged well across the years.

Now noted  for the depth of its characters,  a fully remastered anniversary DVD came out on 15th September. Wryly Andrew informs me that it includes a commentary by himself “very strange to be watching it over again, recalling the writing of it, but also trying not to talk over my favourite bits.”  

We shift somewhat from anniversaries and retrospective to something more present. Aged 90 he might be, Andrew has still been busy, writing scripts and consulting on the BBC adaptation of The Replacements, his first published novel, back in 1946. Unusually, it focused on the RAF at the tail of the Battle of Britain, and the years after,. The focus, Andrew admits was based on his own experience, “I joined the fighting squadron in Hastings in late September 1940, just after the big turning point against the Luftwaffe, then I got sent off to Malta long after the great battle for survival the history books know. I was a right Tail-end Charlie.”

Technically this is the second adaptation of the book, the first was a 1948 BBC film. When I mention this, some of the good cheer disappears from Andrew’s face, replaced by a stony expression and narrowed eyes. “I had no hand in that debacle, and I utterly disown it. I only thank goodness it wasn’t taped, or if it was that the tape was lost. It wasn’t an adaptation, it was a travesty, practically an insult.” He simmers, but I note that Sam has a wry smile on her face and she interjects, “We didn’t have a television in those days, few people did. So we went two doors up to watch it.” She glances at Andrew with a fond smile ,“I remember that as it played your smile dropped and your eyes got narrower and narrower, you were practically spitting rivets for the twenty yards home.”

“I very nearly wrote a scathing letter to the BBC refusing them anymore adaptation rights ever again. But someone disabled the typewriter, jammed the keys, and overnight I just decided that I’d have to have a hand in the next one.” He shrugs easily “Didn’t have a clue how it was done mind you… “ The rest, reader, is screenwriting history.

“There were two tiny good points.” The anger is all gone as Andrew looks at his wife “You got to be a W.A.A.F at last.  And there were RAF crew as extras who could just do, they still had the knowledge, and a profusion of Spitfires.”  There’s a rueful look on his face, “We’ve been having some trouble with that now.” He straightens in the chair, and there is a flash of an officer there still, “Not that I forgive it the heinous transgressions. This one will stick to the book, and to everything that the book was drawn from.” •

The Replacements will begin  tomorrow on BBC1 at 9pm. Twilight of Blue: 50th Anniversary Edition is out now on DVD.

Pictures Credits:

Previous Page: MTC driver Sam Stewart DCS Christopher Foyle and Sargent Paul Milner of Hastings Constabulary 1940. © M.O.I. Above: Sam Stewart and Sqn Ldr Andrew Foyle together circa VE day 1945 © Anne Woods.”

[thurisazsalail]

I’m tired of ‘leftist’ anti-intellectualism and America-centric xenophobia posing as liberalism.

Protip: If you are anti-academia on subjects of culture not being taught by someone genetically from that culture, even if they know nothing about the culture they are talking about and have never participated in it and were never raised with it... over someone who actually does have a background in knowledge from people of that culture who lived in it and were raised in it... you might actually be the imperialist you are talking about fighting against. You might actually be silencing the people you think you are elevating through deplatforming actual sources from the cultural background talked about, artificially holding up someone with the right genes but no heritage or ties. You might want appearance over substance to be a “good person.” Rethink your views on academia. Think critically. What sources is a person using? Does a person talk about Africa like it's a country and not a continent (ew), or does the person have a list of resources about specific cultures as spoken about by the people from those cultures? Do they make effort in finding anyone from that culture to present or speak in class, if possible? Do they show videos of those people, which are not denigrating to them? Did the person work hard to find resources for you in a language you understand, or did they work to translate for you? Or are their resources some old white dude from 200 years ago, like using the Budge translations for (ancient) Egyptian? Did they quote Fiona Graham or Liza Dalby on geisha? Because of those people is a damn liar who took a fucktonne of money and prestige from an ailing geisha house and ran, and one actually trained as an anthropologist who spent time in Pontocho, where they knew exactly what she was there for and they suggested she debuted as a geisha to better understand them. Does the person gloss over issues like war or genocide? Or do they say, "Yeah, we should probably talk about that. In fact, you can use some example from recent history to understand the attitudes a bit better. Here they are, and here are some differences. Here are some further reading (and if available, video) sources, including from the groups that got really fucked over." If you SAY you are into historybounding (taking historical elements in your wardrobe and making it ‘new’ fashion) and you want to make the frilly French dresses and the London fog coats, but don't ever want to talk about how people eventually used the Versailles floors as a latrine because of the decadence and wanton wealth they collapsed into... and how the common people suffered because of it... Or how England discriminated against it's own people heavily, relegating Jewish English people to certain neighbourhoods or refused jobs to them, or treated the Moorish-descent like shit, or actively would beat the Irish in public and stole their land... you might not be into history or culture. You might just like looking at the pretty things and copying them. You know. Probably culturally appropriating (if not borderline doing so). Not just "history bounding." People in a marginalised group often have to learn things about our own groups’ history, or else we might see "Stonewall" and believe that a white guy threw the first brick, or that "queer" is a slur. Our own people, gasp, might have to learn from... academia. And strangely, I know, it's so weird, but some of the people who teach... use primary sources (that’s sources from the time/place/people the source talks about, like Gay Manifesto written by gay man Carl Wittman)... or are closeted about being experts on the subjects... because they are talking about their own groups and STILL face discrimination and might lose those precious jobs if they are out... and they're just not identifiable by your *outsider* standards. And sorry, but if you don't know your own history, yes, you are an outsider in that sense. Yeah, I can trace some of my family lineage to Turtle Tribe Seneca. But I am an outsider because the only reservation I've ever been on is the one to Olive Garden. I might have to *gasp* turn to actual knowledgeable people to learn something about that. I can't just dress up in whatever or do whatever and say, "No, it's okay! My great-grandmother is Seneca!" and then claim not knowing better because my heritage was stolen by federal American laws. That's not how that works. There is some tentative evidence that some of my family was Jewish before hiding it and coming to America in the late 1930s. But I still have to go through an official conversion process. I still have to learn Jewish history and Jewish culture, and about Jewish diaspora issues. That’s how it works. If you are Japanese in Japan, same thing applies to certain things. Like if you are performing tea ceremony with your school, you can’t just wander in to most of them with whatever pretty kimono you want. There are rules for that. It is a language, not just a dress. You will be sent home. If you don’t want to adhere to those rules, you will not be accepted. That’s how it works. It sucks, totally. But welcome to real life. You might have to actually work at things... Including managing your feelings and not making other people responsible for them. You might have to take responsibility AND bury your ego long enough to learn from educated people. One tip is... Question sources! That was my biggest gripe ten years ago! Plenty of books about Japanese culture, and all of them with lots of white people (white according to American-centric ideas about whiteness) writing the narrative! I had to work to find books about Japanese social ideas written by Japanese authors. You might have to work, too, and not blame other people for not just *handing you shit.* But in the end, accept that other people might know more than you and that is isn't about being Uppity by nature. It's also about "I have all this, you want some?"

If you don't want to learn, then you have to leave the classroom. You can't be a child, throwing a temper tantrum. You're a grown-up. But don't just assume by someone's face that you magically already know how things will be. Ask for a list, a syllabus, a source, a curriculum vitae. That should give you some insight on what to expect. Ask for clarification. Oh, this class is teaching Arthur Conan Doyle? WHAT are they teaching about him, specifically? Erasure isn’t the answer, here. That legacy still exists.

Stick to a scope: you can't fit six books of info in one hour. You need to stay focused. That's part of learning. No "whaddabouts?" Yes, write them down and message them in! But they might not be for this specific post, lecture, or class. The class might need a thing right then, like when my Humanities prof decided that Britain just "had a skirmish" with Benin. No, they committed genocide because Benin refused to become a colony of England, and you need to know that RIGHT NOW while the class is happening, before the moment is gone or internalized. But if you have a side comment about what happened to diaspora in WW2 once they moved to Hawaii and Brazil, the focus of the class might be on experiences *in Japan* and not on diaspora. Email it. It might become another class. There isn't time for that right now. That doesn't mean the prof hates diaspora Japanese. It doesn't mean diaspora don't matter. It just means that the class is limited in focus and time, and right now, the focus isn't on diaspora. Don't make a big dramatic deal about it. Instead, idk, maybe write a well-sourced paper on diaspora experiences while fleeing hostile Showa-era takeover and release it publicly. You can just... do that. I've done that with transcripts for movies that don't have them, for essays on various topics. You can even get paid for that content! No one had to "approve" me. I put it on fucking Tumblr so everyone could have it. Open-source means something. jfc people. Stop whining. Start having open conversations instead of shutting anything new or different down. Stop the anti-intellectualism disguised as liberalism. Stop the xenophobia and nativism disguised as cultural protection. It's great when a culture decides for itself that most people (from that culture) don't want foreign interaction or interference! Leave them the fuck alone! It isn’t hard! Some cultures are closed. Some are semi-closed, like there’s certain things you can learn about or participate in but others are only for people from that background. But don't get mad when a totally different culture doesn't care or uses it for leverage. You don’t get to dismiss a different culture or denigrate them under the guise of “protecting” other POC by erasing them. And if your excuse is (Culture/group) is imperialistic/all people of ____ descent/race are _____ DUDE FIRST OF ALL WTF and second of all, let me tell you something about American history. French history. English history. There are some nuanced conversations we COULD have here, like adults. Or you could just be honest and say, “This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have right now.” That’s totally fine. Sometimes you just don’t have the spoons or time. I often don’t, being disabled. Or you could shut down like a child and say that this is fine but then mute all posts until you get your way, and anyone who posts an actual source is wrong or bad because intellectuals and experts are suspicious. Your choice. Real life is complicated. Figure it out instead of trying to reduce hard things to a box to fit in easily. Expand your world past your little tiny experiences in your own country and background. Stop assuming every fucking thing in the world works like it does in America. Stop approving/disapproving of any information that doesn’t match up with your American morality or experiences- there are *other people* that deal with things other ways than we do. Stop wholesale condemning anyone better informed than you just because of your ego. Start using some of those critical thinking skills you are supposed to have. If you don’t know how, type “critical thinking development” into youtube for tutorials. -------- Edit: hahaha I KNEW that Tumblr deleted something when it highlighted it. I just couldn’t figure out what at the time. The difference between Graham and Dalby: one worked in Pontocho as a geisha for research, and they knew that ahead of time; Graham lied her ass off to geisha and then tried to open her own house after taking only a few lessons to get famous and make a lot of money. She’s a fucking embarrassment and worse. --------------- Update 11/3 Turns out that dig I made about French costuming (a perennial fave in historybounding and historical sewing groups) and imperialism wasn’t all that far off... here’s a whole ass thread about how many fucking African presidents and leaders France has specifically killed, and how much France has done to just Africa relatively recently. That’s JUST to Africa. I bet some of my Mi’kMaq and Algonquin-descent friends would have some things to say about heritage erasure regarding the French.  https://thurisazsalail.tumblr.com/post/633807847387512832

[childofsolace-write-ups]

[ARC ONE: REUNION]

INTRODUCTION

In the first year, thinking about it now, it was probably already starting then. There was no disaster, but I think it had been hinting on something, about an end that was to come. It was completely dark that night, we thought it was just some kind of an eclipse. But this one was a little strange. It was eerily quiet. I was scared. My baby sister was scared. Hell, my parents were scared. But then, they said it would be okay.

Like always, for every single day of our life, the sun would come up again, shine upon Gaea, and things will go back to normal.

Was I ever wrong.

You know what they say, right? Don't look at an eclipse straight in the eye. It could ruin your eyes? Well, when the sun came, it was so much worse. Anyone who walked out was burned... No, incinerated. Just like that, stepping outside and they spontaneously combust on the spot. The world thought it was just some new phenomenon. Scientists were trying to figure out why it happened. It took a whole year, but nothing came up for their trouble.

Then six more years followed, each one bringing forth a different kind of terror. The weather was unpredictable; countries that never experienced snow suddenly started experiencing hailstorms, leading up to terrible geo-storms. Insects invaded farms and destroyed their produce. Wildlife got infected with some unknown substance until them finally became creatures that look more like monsters we read only ever read about in stories, or watch about it movies.

And that was just the beginning of where everything went completely wrong...

/Trent Everhart/.Transmission over.//Year 70/

Once, people flourished and made a living above land. The resources were abundant. But then again, so were the humans who needed them.

Soon, 'Natural' lost its meaning, 'Artificial' replaced it. Machinery operations ran the daily lives of people, flowers and plants were faked serving as decorations, tall buildings took the place of tall trees in rain forests. Most factors considered natural can only be seen through microscopes.

But nature took its own course and returned with vengeance. Cosmic debris crash landed from above, causing an explosion that plagued the entire planet. It polluted the atmosphere and strange side effects started revealing themselves. Animals and vegetations alike were most susceptible to these changes. They attacked humans, nearly wiping out the entire species. Unable to thoroughly explain how this happened, scientists, without sufficient evidence, wrote it off as radioactive particles causing severe chemical changes to earth's living inhabitants.

But humans were smart, they were animals in their own way. They strive for survival.

Using the historical underground city of Derinkuyu as a reference they created a modernized type and with their latest state of the art technology they expanded it even further from two hundred feet to one thousand feet. For this purpose, unbeknown to the public, a life under the surface of the Earth was being prepared for them. Unlike the Derinkuyu however, they had the materials and technology to have metallic interiors and bunker units for dwelling. A large, nine hundred meter metallic ventilation shaft was constructed, filtering the carbon from above to be breathable oxygen air. The shaft also provided water to both the villagers above and, if the outside world was not accessible, to those in hiding.

Eventually, anyone not affected by the atmosphere were evacuated to underground cities right before the atmosphere could become too unpredictable and prove hazardous to their lives. A new system of governance was created. Since the underground cities in all part of the world were interconnected one way or another, they all decided to use a unified language starting then. 'Councillors' is the term referred to leaders chosen in each division, the word country becoming obsolete.

Guards who were obligated to inspect the surface level regularly were given Hi-tech contamination suits with advanced, state-of-the-art filters as to not be be affected by the atmosphere since anyone exposed to the atmosphere is banned from re-entering the cities. Some people died due to open wounds exposed to the atmosphere's strange particles.

Soon, humans engaged in a new form of living, but not without encountering troubles along the way.

The fear of being unable to distribute provisions without having shortages became prominent. This led the Councilors to convene altogether and come up with a radical solution. They decided to send back to the surface anyone they classify as worthless or a liability. More than a thousand orphaned, disabled, and jobless individuals were sent back up on the first release. It did not really matter to them if they survived or not, it was inconsequential as long as their survival was assured. In the years that followed, this became a normal routine. With the initial liabilities released, all the present releases were orphaned children. Then again, as one hero once stated in the History of the Surface, "The Youth is the hope of the nation", there came a generation of hope.

It was not planned, it wasn't an intention. It just happened.

Of the first batch of releases that only involved orphans, only eight had survived the harsh environment of the regressed and primitive state that the surface had been reduced to. Together, they survived and now thrive to make a living once more above ground, as humans were really meant to be.

Still, the Underground city was not to be ignored. And perhaps, it is to be reminded, who the true enemy really is.

::TREY::

The forest is quiet.

That's your first clue. Even on the surface, even given that most of the Earth's living creatures got wiped out within weeks of it happening, things should never be This quiet.

You'll never know; something dangerous could be trying to hide itself.

"I think this is where I found it."

I give a jolt when Lexie spoke behind me. I completely forgot she was there. With the silence, it was easy to think I was alone. "Keep your voice down," I whisper. "we don't know what might be out there."

"Trey," Kytes whispers back. "wouldn't it be better to just use telepathy? We wouldn't be making any sound."

I sigh, "Kyi that would be using our signature and if there is any bad Mana around here, that would set things off, like an open flame to gas leaks." I rub my forehead. "C'mon, we've been over this a thousand times. You're lucky it's not Rhys reminding you."

Kytes scratches his head. "Oh, yeah..."

"Been here for eight years, you would think you'd have that memorized by now." Lexie teases playfully. "It's survival 101."

Oh really? I think sarcastically. Like she's one to talk about survival 101. Half the time, Corrin's the ones reminding her of our protocols...

Kytes looks a little sheepish. "People can be forgetful, it happens..."

"Okay, shut it already you two." They weren't really making any real noise, but I knew Lexie's tendencies and once you got her talking, it might be harder to get her to stop. "Kytes's idea was good just too bad for that small detail. Now we should keep quiet." Like I was making any noise, though. "Let's get a move on, keep alert for anything that doesn't feel right."

"Heh, I forgot how uptight Trey can be..."

I huff in irritation but chose not to respond. She calls it being uptight, I call it instinct. It was very important after all, especially in terms of surviving the surface's unpredictability. We, the ones left, have gotten pretty good in relying on instincts. It's about the only warning you get up here.

The forest is very unusual even if it looks like any other forest. For one thing, I'm not even sure it can be called a forest, at least not a natural one, given that it's growing in the middle of what used to be a town. The road is cracked by numerous roots, and most of the buildings have trees growing out of them. Their walls could be hiding any number of things. The forest itself is the oddest thing. Many years ago, this was a thriving metropolis, full of people, tourists, machines—now it's home to trees that look like they've been there a good fifty years at least. This is one of the most immediate changes caused by the strange atmosphere when the phenomenon had first spread out through the entire globe. The landscape got warped beyond all recognition in the early days. That's why so many people died...

Like mom and dad.

"Oh!" Lexie cries and stops in her tracks.

I turn towards her. "Shh!" I snap. "Alexis, jeez."

"But Trey, this is where I found it. Only..."

Kytes scans the area. "Well, it's not here now."

"Quiet, the creature that pissed might still be around." I face Lexie. "And you're sure the piss was the non-absorbent type?"

We have to watch where or what we step into. Because if, for instance, you got an open wound and you stepped into a puddle with urine in it and that wound happens to get infected as well then it could mean something really bad. The Rabid animals up here are so messed up that even a slight contact with their shit may turn fatal for us. Luckily, only the Rabid Animals have urinal waste that have a touch of color so it's easy to figure which ones are the non-absorbent type. We try to get rid of those because prevention was better than cure.

"Well, it was a pool on the ground, all purpley and molted. I watched it for a while, it didn't seem like it was going away." Lexie combs strands of black hair away from her face. "So I thought..."

Kytes shrugs. "It's either something else absorbed it, or it really was absorbent after all and just needed more time to soak in."

"Maybe. So then, should we just—EWW, GROSS!"

"What is it—OH YUCK!"

I swat them both to remind them to be quiet and made a mental note to give them extra kitchen clean up duty. Really, do they want a death wish?

"It's just a skeleton—" an animal's. We don't see human skeletons since the earlier days, when we made it a point to try and bury the ones we still could out of respect. "you've seen them before."

"I know—but they're usually not THAT fresh." Lexie frowns.

I have to agree, it's isn't the prettiest thing I've seen. Even the other skeletons weren't as bad. It looked like someone's halfway eaten meal...

Wait.

"Quiet. See if you can hear anything."

Lexie leans back against a tree, Kytes crouches by a bush with me, and we stay still as possible listening out for anything unusual. I know there's something not right here. No animal noises, no birds. Then there's that heavy oppressive silence as though we're being watched very closely. A light breeze blows my fringe into my eyes and I bat it out of the way, frowning. The feeling something being wrong is stronger than ever.

Wait.

The breeze.

It should have rustled the leaves on the trees too. Yet there was no noise. I look up at the tree tops. They're perfectly still. Even as another breeze stirs the forest. Why would that be? Unless the trees are watching us?

I look around the Clearing.

Now that I think about it, the trees do seem slightly closed together than they were. As I watch, an oak sends a root trailing over! What could they be doing?

Unless... The Skeleton.

"RUN!" I grab Kytes and haul him after me, jumping over the oak root and out of the circle of trees.

"Woah now! Trey—what?"

Kytes doesn't have to finish his sentence. A large branch is suddenly in front of us and I'm unable to stop from tripping over it. A root winds itself around my ankle. Kytes is now full aware of the attack as more follow, breaking the surface of the ground to wrap themselves around us.

"I thought they only moved that fast with time lapse photography!"

Kytes takes his survival knife out. "I think this is a bit more serious than time lapse photography!"

Before I could bring out my own Cutlass, some vines grab hold of my forearm. The blond slashes off with precision he mastered, perfectly avoiding cutting my flesh. Lexie wields her double-edged Naginata to cut off vines stretching down from above. I'm still amazed how a girl like her who used to whine about missing cosmetics and other pointless stuff is now so skilled in combat. I think Lexie's weapon type came from some Asian country. I forgot which one. Actually, I even forgot what our own country was called. It seemed like such a long time ago that we used the term country.

I am once again forever grateful of Rhys's brilliant mind. Back then, we could count the weapons we had available to us with two hands. But once we got older, or more to the point, when Rhys got older and smarter, he made used of some books he found to create bladed weapons once we found a steel forging factory. And he had enough books to show him how to forge weapons of different origins. He taught us how to make our own, but most of the time they were poor attempts compared to what Rhys can craft. Now any weapons we need for ourselves and those who keeps coming can be easily accessed and made... Well, maybe not easily made since they still required a lot of effort, but at least we don't have to keep scavenging for usable weapons now. Sure, we could use all those guns and ammunition we got in storage, but we all agreed to save those for a time we might really need to them. Besides, at least with bladed weapons, there's no worries for a shortage of ammunition.

"Kytes, Trey! Do something, they keep coming!"

Kytes slashes his knife to an incoming vine before jumping back. "Uh, and you don't call what we're doing something?" He jumps over a root.

"Less talking, more attacking!" I snap, finishing off the hostile roots at my side and rush to aid Lexie. I make it in time to keep a giant flower bud from chomping her head clean off, barely missing the launch of purple goo it spat out. "Wah?!" I yelp, twirling my head around for a double take, seeing the goo boil through a bush as if it were acid or something, which explained the skeleton. "Okay. Rabid Vegetation's Gastric acid. Just as bad as a Rabid Animal's piss."

Lexie grunts, using her weapon as leverage to get up. "Noted. Next time, try saving my skin without pushing me. I twisted my ankle."

Okay, that was my bad. But it was that or being plant feed. At least she didn't break skin and bleed. Although uncertain, Corrin says fatality is possible if open wounds were exposed to loose Mana energy for more than ten minutes, and I forgot to make sure that we brought bandages with us. That's one strike of careless act for the day. I try to keep that to a minimum, the maximum being three. As the Leader, being extra cautious is an expectation.

"Trey! Help me out here!"

I spin around and saw vines lifting Kytes up, his knife lay useless on the ground. I rush towards him.

By duty, I was responsible for everyone up here as their leader.

As a friend, I was responsible for the blond, I was indebted to him.

When my sister was sick on the day we were going to be released to the surface, he took her place. I also owe it to his older brother, my best friend, who was now taking care of her back in the Underground city.

The vines were so thick that I couldn't slice through it with my Cutlass. I had to use the other way, but how can I with Kytes still in its clutches? A vine grips around my arm and I wince in pain as it tightens on my radius.

"TREY!"

Before I was fully aware of it there was fire flooding all my senses. I lashed out in rage, only vaguely aware of the beeping on my wrist that reminds me to take it easy. The vines holding up Kytes fall away in front of me. Luckily, the blond looked unharmed.

"Get out of the way!"

Thankfully, Kytes seemed to get what was about to happen. He grabs his knife and rolls out of the way. Good, I did not want to be misunderstood now. The two did not take their eyes off me as they back away. I concentrate where I want to have the flames to burst out and the results were no less effective. The Vegetable mutations draws back, leaving us unscathed except for Lexie's twisted ankle, which Corrin can heal no problem. I concentrate on pulling my power back. I look at the device fashioned like a watch that was strapped on my wrist, indicating my energy's exertion level. I see that it's stable and I join the two out of the clearing. Kytes helps her up and supports her weight.

"Code Red?"

I sigh, nodding. "Yes. We had far too many incidents this week alone, this being the twelfth. It's about that time again," It was a little frustrating. Rhys just got a filter working so we could fill a pool with clean water. I guess we have to make the most of it while we're still here. "I don't want anyone hunting till we move. We still have meat stocked so it's not like we have to settle for the vegetables and fruits in Kytes's gardens."

"Hey," The blond scowls. "My produce aren't that bad... are they?"

I smirk. "No Kytes, but if there's a chance to have meat, we want to have some too." I pat his back. "Let's head back."

"Oh, but Trey—" Lexie's eyes rolls up a bit. It signals her using her tracking ability. She's like a built-in GPS system with that. I don't really get it, but she can sense another person's or thing's Mana and Rhys has a theory that the ones who use Mana in their own way also has a unique trademark, like a fingerprint, so to speak. It was a bit unnerving the first time she used it since all you see were her cornea, but if you knew her as long as we have, you get used to it. "—yeah, I sense three guys out hunting nearby already."

I roll my eyes, "Three," I mutter knowingly, and the two share similar looks. "the only one who can get away with not following the group count rule is Meeko, and only if he has Lori and one other person watching his back."

Back then, with the whole idea of 'The rule of three' and it being an optimal number, maybe it would've made sense. But when playing video games and I would choose Party members, to challenge myself, I would pick three only; the MC would still get enough experience points and two characters would be enough to support him in battle. But this isn't a video game with a restart button. Normally when we send out groups for hunts, Five was the permitted number. It's too dangerous any less. Meeko can get away with it since his ability was multiplying himself. Usually, Meeko did most of the work to get it out of his system, being one of those always hyped-up types. Granted, he is one of our best hunters which we would all acknowledge often if he wasn't so rash and impulsive at times. This brings me to his better half, or more reasonable twin brother, Lori who normally didn't like fighting. Unless something or someone he cares for is in danger, he can be provoked to act though.

In our case, well, I thought the three of us would be enough for the Urinal extraction since we weren't really expecting a fight since this wasn't a hunt for food and we are still pretty much near the base, but I guess I didn't account for the fact that trouble would be the one hunting us. Even two persons used to be enough for extractions, but perhaps I neglected to take into consideration the level of experience. Previously, those two persons doing extractions had been either Rhys and myself or Leon and Jonah, the latter pair being eldest of our entire group. I only grabbed Kytes and Lexie this time because they were immediately available, and while I did not question their experience, Kytes was more adept to scouting, and that entailed evasive action, staying in a place only long enough to check its safety and avoiding combat as much as possible. Lexie was used to scavenging, which was gathering any useful items or materials after scouts deemed an area clear for occupying or searching. These two haven't seen combat as often as I have.

Damn, that's a second strike for me. "Where are they exactly?"

"A bit Northeast you'd get to that river, follow it downstream you'll make it to a clearing passed some thicket of bushes. Berry bushes, to be exact, not the good kind. They're at a glade of sorts..." Lexie smirks. "Well, at least the two not going crazy are. But I sense the third more crazier one of them is nearby."

Kytes laughs. "Just make it easier and call him who it most probably is. Even I can figure it's Meeko." he says.

"Okay, you two head back. I'll go fetch them. Kyi, after you take Lexie to the infirmary, go tell Rhys to prepare putting up some warning signs." I instruct. "Suggest Code 3." Carnivorous vegetation.

The blond nods. "Code 3, got it." He lifts Lexie, positioning her on his back in a way that can make him run faster. He takes off and I'm fairly impressed. He's fourteen carrying a sixteen year old while managing a running pace. I guess years of training does that.

I sheath my Cutlass and took off myself.

[pynkhues]

You (and others) analyze this show to death. I’ve never seen it for a show before & I’ve been a part of a few fandoms. I read all of this analysis & I can’t help but wonder if a) sometimes it’s overkill & there isn’t ALWAYS a deeper meaning to everything & b) should a show constantly be open to such interpretation & analysis? It’s enjoyable to some extent but when you’re having to so deeply analyze everything that happens bc it’s so ambiguous some of the joy of watching is lost (at least for me)

I‘m the anon that just sent an ask about analyzing the show. I ran out of room but want to say it was not meant to offend or belittle everything you do in the fandom! You give some great insight and food for thought but sometimes I’d just like the show to be DIRECT so we aren’t always left wondering and having to ask people for clarification. It’s probably my own issue and maybe I should reconsider watching but (so far) I’m still trucking along!

Ah, haha, that’s okay, anon! I didn’t think you were offending or belittling at all. :-)

I totally get that it’s not for everyone. 

I guess for me personally, it’s the way that I grew up? I’ve talked about it on here before, but my sister’s a costume designer, so I’ve constantly got her voice in my head whenever I talk about that side of the show, haha. What I haven’t talked about before is that I grew up on game show sets across Europe because my dad created a (very) modestly successful one that sold there in the 90s, and my mum is a (highly underpaid, haha) nature documentary filmmaker, so stories have been a huge part of my life from the time I was very, very young. 

I have a creative practice myself too in writing everything from short fiction, to screenplays to books, but I’ve also worked as a researcher for TV shows before, teach creative writing, have a film criticism podcast with a friend, and freelance to be able to pay my rent as what is (very unglamorously, haha) called a ‘document writer’, where I interview SME’s (or subject matter experts) who might be scientists, tradesmen, LGBTQI or disability advocates, lawyers, etc. and basically write things on their behalf that can be made accessible for varying degrees of education levels, including often in pictorial form. 

In other words, breaking down stories is what I do for a living - in many shapes and sizes, and it’s something I love doing very deeply. I love to untangle a story to find cause and character and intent - because it’s always there in some shape or form - no matter the story, and I love to have other people help me to untangle it, and hopefully sometimes help other people in that same way. 

And I love that because I really strongly believe that stories aren’t a passive stream of entertainment. They’re not presented to be uniformly enjoyed, nor are they just told to us. Stories are a conversation. They’re offered in a way that can be experienced on their own, but leave room for interpretation, and are also enriched by context - both the context of those creating it, and the context those consuming the story bring, by social conventions and historic trappings, and personal histories too. 

What makes film and TV so unique, is that there are a lot of people contributing to those stories. 

There are in other mediums too, of course, but film and TV in particular have so many different voices that are in conversation with one another - from the different writers and directors to the costuming team, art department and set dressers, lighting team, and editors and composers. Across a season, each episode at least will have regular HOD meetings (or heads of department - at least that’s what they’re called in Australia, haha) who come together to talk about the intent of each and every scene, if not moment, what they’re saying about characters, what the role of each department is doing, to say nothing of course of the actors. 

One of my favourite film theory books says it plain and simple: 

“Everything you see on screen, someone has put there deliberately.” 

Nothing is magicked up, and if everything is there for a reason, then that thing is ripe to be plucked for analysis. 

But to answer your questions, haha

a) is it overkill sometimes? 

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of the discussion around trying to identify a plausible timeline around this show proved that, haha. This show’s always been one that’s sacrificed that sort of narrative logic for a different purpose - namely a certain pace and tone that feels right for the sort of show that it is, and that’s okay, but it certainly meant that a lot of our trying to make sense of it became a little redundant. 

With visual interpretation - again, yeah, I think so. There was so much conversation for instance about Beth’s sudden necklace change from the gold bar to the shell during s2 before someone more in the know than me, haha, said that Christina / one of the costume team members had broken it, and they’d had to replace it quickly.

So yeah, sometimes it’s too much, but also - - 

I don’t know.

I think a lot of it’s deliberate too, and I know I enjoy exploring it :-)

b) should a show constantly be open to such interpretation & analysis? 

That’s a really interesting quetsion, anon, and to be perfectly honest, I think the answer to that will be subjective, and depend entirely on how you like to consume TV and, more specifically, how you like to consume this particular TV show.

While I do think Good Girls is a show that deliberately leaves itself open to interpretation and offers a lot in implicit visual storytelling that makes it a rich show to mine, I also do think it's one that has unneccesary narrative gaps sometimes and, to use an exceptionally dated expression, haha - it can sometimes throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s eternally fascinating to me, because it’s a show that is so detailed and so careful in some respects, and yeah - I mean - - hmm. I wouldn’t say careless in others, because I don’t think it is, but I do think it makes narrative sacrifices to serve the pacing and overall narrative thrust in a way that doesn’t pay off for audiences, and fails to serve the wonderful, compelling characters it’s created in the way those characters deserve. 

I also though do think though that it’s a show that can be entirely enjoyed on a surface level.

My best friend is a NICU nurse, and has very limited time for TV and doesn’t do this sort of analysis at all, haha, and she’s watched the show twice through with me - the first time I made her watch it, and the second time, she made me! - and she just enjoys it a lot as it’s offered without any sort of interpretation and analysis (she does always offer a chorus of ‘fuck Dean’ though, of course, haha). She takes it for what it is, and just enjoys the ride, and based on a lot of the show’s social media following, I think a lot of people do. 

I guess what I’m saying is you’re not wrong at all! And also, you choose how much you engage and how you consume a story. The analysis and interpretation will always be here, hopefully to enrich your viewing experience, not subtract anything from it, and you can do whatever you want with that. And that should be true of any story you consume! 

I mean - - take Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night for example – an excellent comedic play about a pair of twins where the boy is lost at sea, and the girl washes up on the shore and poses as her brother to save herself, before her brother shows up alive at the end. (Yes, it is what the Amanda Bynes’ She’s the Man movie is based off of, haha).

You can just enjoy the fun, funny, compelling play as it’s offered, or you can watch it knowing that Shakespeare had twins of his own - Judith and Hamnet, and he wrote it just after Hamnet died at just 11 years old of the plague, and see it instead as Shakespeare writing himself out of a personal tragedy, imagining his son taken from him, and then breathed back to life in a way he never would be in reality.

Stories aren’t created in vacuums.

In a lot of ways, they’re living, breathing things, and I think that’s what makes them interesting and important and a vehicle for compassion and escapism and fun, and I don’t know. 

I love analysing them, and exploring them, but it’s more than okay if you don’t, or if you do, or if you do in small doses. We create our own experiences of stories.

Like I said above - it’s a conversation. :-)

[chucklestheechidona]

Doctor Who: The Jodie Review

(Long post)

(Sorry)

Introduction

I decided, still being locked down, to watch some Doctor Who.

Hadn’t watched it in a while, told myself I’d always catch up when I had the time, and the universe decided to give me a lot of it.

I had stopped watching Matt quite some time ago, but caught up about 4 years ago to Capaldi’s first season. I had meant to carry on with it but slow-going times and I forgot and all the other jazz that fills in the space between not doing things.

But I thought I’d storm through them and get them over with. I had heard bad things going onwards, but hey, I’m one of those sad losers that LIKE Love and Monsters. It’s not great but I thought what it did well, it did great.

So, off I went to finally catch up on a show that formulated so much of my younger self, my love for time-travel, interesting sci-fi that ended up getting me into the genre, and a love for character interactions and lore.

I went through Capaldi, and his last two seasons, yeah, they had an odd episode here and there, Sleep No More is a disaster, but I carried on through. I’m a trooper, I got through Fear Her after all.

But I fell in love with the Doctor again. Heaven Sent is easily the best DW has offered so far, the character building with him and Clara and Bill and hell, Nardole, are superb. The stories were interesting, the Doctor was great and evolved, and the companions were the perfect fit for Capaldi.

And then, after a brilliant goodbye, he was gone.

“Be kind.“

And here we go, we’re with Jodie, she’s northern, she’s confused, and she’s in need of some pockets, falling through the sky, yeah, 200 degrees that’s why they call her missus fahrenheit-

Not Jodie, but Chibnall

I’m not going to drag this out too far, I ain’t gonna make you read this for ages just to see if I like it. If you don’t want to see me complain about two seasons, this is your point to head out.

I think these are the lowest series of Modern Doctor Who.

But like the title says, it’s not Jodie’s fault. She’s an amazing actress, and she plays the part well. Hell, so does Bradley, Tosin and Mandip. Each one of them is a good actor and when the scene calls for them, they pull it off well.

The issue here is the writing.

And I feel I should go through why I think that.

But first, I think I should point out the good.

The Good: On historical topics and representation

This is the most diverse Doctor Who has been in a while. It was pretty diverse before mind you, let’s not forget the Doctor seems a bit flexible, the companions have been a mix of sexualities, gender, age and race, and each one of them is loved by many. Hell, Jack Harkness was so popular he got his own tv show.

But Thirteenth has gone and made sure that there was more.

Characters just pointing out they’re gay and it’s just a matter of fact. It’s a statement, not an argument, not being out there or subvertive, it just is. People are more than fine with this. 

I’m surprised Graham the bus driver is so accepting of everyone at the start, but it speaks testament to his character. He fell in love with Grace, he raised a son with a disability, he stands up for those that dare have a go at any of that. Graham didn’t have to grow to learn this in the Tardis, he was accepting from the get-go. 

Well, there’s some conflict about Ryan blaming things on Dyspraxia in the first episode but it comes out of a place of fear of their lives. But any tensions between them are resolved quite well, to the point they can count on each other.

Either way, representation is important and Jodie’s season has it in spades.

As for historical topics, the Doctor tackles them quite well. Honestly, the episodes in the past are her strong suit. And as she’s a woman now, she has a new battle against her. History wasn’t always kind, and the gag of them addressing Graham each time is a genuinely good idea.

Also, Rosa had the opportunity to be butchered. It could have been written badly, it could have been handled with hardly any care, but it was the standout episode of the season. Each character gets some good lines, the gang has to face moral decisions and it’s a genuinely good look into a past that America would sometimes like to forget.

As an aside, I think Bill, even as one character, explored the sexuality thing more and the diversity she faced from it, I think thirteenth doesn’t do a bad job. I liked the astronauts as shown above quite a bit to be fair.

Graham

The standout star of the show.

This will be unfortunately brought up in my negatives for the show too, but this is the good side.

Graham’s lost his wife, he has to connect to her grandson, his cancer is a constant worry in his head and he comes with the Doctor in an attempt to escape/confront all three.

He is the one who evolves the most as a character in the first season, coming to terms with the death of Grace is something he battles with throughout, he still blames himself. For whatever reason, even in the Rosa Parks episode, he gets the most emotional writing. Ryan and Yaz do get good writing in the same episode mind you, (which is unfortunately one of the few times Yaz does) but it’s heartbreaking to see Graham realise what he has to do.

The Acting

I unfortunately have to put Ryan, Yaz and the Doctor here in one group category. and I hate to do that, but I feel it’d be a disservice not to mention them.

Their actors can act well. When the script calls for it, they do amazing work.

The scene where Jodie is angry and confused at the other Doctor, where Ryan is actually there to support his friend, when Yaz is comforting Ryan about America, where Jodie is fucking pissed at the Master, all good scenes.

But this is a perfect segway into -

The Bad: Asides the retcon

Holy shit where do I start.

I mean, we’ve got the good out of the way, so you know where I stand on the issues a bunch of people wrong accused the show of being. A female doctor is more than fine, the diverse cast is great, the topics of exploring the past is done good.

And I’m not going into the retcon just yet, I feel like going ITS BAD BECAUSE OF THIS ignores so much of the problems to be had

But let’s start with

The Doctor

This should have been her outfit just saying

I find the best way of describing most of this doctors run so far is...

Imagine, if you will, that you need to write a Doctor Who book. They’ve given you a plot to go with, but they haven’t told you which Doctor it’s for. But tight schedules and they still haven’t told you, so you write up a draft. A template. But you leave the Doctor’s text ambiguous. A template for a Doctor. With some work, you could make it the 12th, the 5th, the 1st, once you add mannerisms and how the doctor would react personally in a situation. So you write in this template Doctor and go to sleep. But you wake up and your assistant has only gone and submitted it.

The Doctor is kinder than any other iteration of her Doctor, but that’s it. I get why the natural progression from Capaldi, and Jodie sells a nice Doctor superbly, but ... 

There’s nothing really there to distinguish her as her own Doctor. She’s nice, a bit confused, LOVES things and calls people fam.

But like, that’s it. Where the 9th had coldness, 10 had eccentric, 11 had old man and 12 was furious, Jodie has... nice. But a Doctor needs an edge. 

She’s quiet about her home life and she doesn’t really talk much to her companions about it, but like, that’s understandable, she doesn’t really talk one on one to them or even much about their home lives.

She doesn’t get an arc until Spyfall, and even then it’s largely just turned into “She’s well moody”, and apparently well moody is just being kinda quiet. Jodie says it right when she shouts at them in one scene “You don’t know me!”

And she’s right, but then the companions trust her with everything and they’re part of a FAM and super close but they don’t really talk with each other. Jodie doesn’t have these quiet talks like the other Doctors would have with the companions, it’s just... not there.

And because it’s not there we’re supposed to believe they think of themselves as a tightly knit group but also very apart as characters. And the companions, to their credit, try and confront her on it, but the conflict is over so quick as to not be there at all.

Yaz and Ryan

This is the best scene of them in, and one of the rare times Yaz makes an impact on a story which isn’t just supporting the Doctor

What they did to these two actors is cruel.

Ryan at least gets to join in on Grahams arc, because it is Grahams arc, not Ryans, really. There’s a plot about his Dad that’s done quite well, so that’s why Ryan doesn’t suffer the same poor fate as Yaz does.

Yaz has absolutely no agency. She wants to be a successful Policewoman but it’s not really much addressed outside of the first episode and the dream episode (which admittedly, is a good episode and explores each character). She gets told by everyone she’s the heart of the team and super brave and like, she hasn’t got an arc, she pretty much blindly follows the Doctor, she has no reason to be there much other than her family’s a bit annoying.

Her actress plays the scenes well, and there’s some touching moments with her in Rosa and the dream episode about how she is the way she is, why she does the things she does. But 2 episodes out of 20 isn’t enough.

Ryan gets a couple of good episodes, a touching one especially comes with horrors of the future and not being there for his friends plaguing his mind, and he manages to get help for his depressed friend, which is touching.

But the two episodes? That’s kind of it.

Ryan gets a nice Dalek episode though.

Orphan 55

The worst episode in Doctor Who. Took any good faith from Spyfall and plonked S12 in bottom tier before we even got to the retcon.

If I talked about everything it did wrong here this would go on too long.

It was just the worst 45 minutes of DW

At least Sleep No More was just boring.

Character Arcs, What Are They

Graham’s arms give out in season 1 for carrying the team.

The Doctor against Tim Shaw is laughable, there’s no conflict past killing a couple of people, so Graham has to have that moral dilemma instead, Ryan manages to respect him and call him gramps, but that’s more Grahams arc than Ryans. Yaz has nothing, the Doctor learns nothing.

But series 2, the Doctor’s given an arc, which is something, considering that before this it was a throwaway line about Timeless Child from a piece of cloth.

Gallifrey is gone again, the insurance rates at this point are through the roof on this planet, she’s been told the Master did it for learning a terrible truth. But she of course doesn’t explore the ruins until she has to, but ah well, we can live with that, that’s fine in Doctor Who. I’m not even being sarcastic, the Doctor through all iterations isn’t very clever.

It gives her a bit of a mood that’s not really explored too much past that, but then we’re given Jo Martin as The Other Doctor

My opinions on throwing in Doctors from the past aside, (I love you John Hurt but damnit), Jo plays a competent Doctor, and her attitude clashes so well with Jodie that both actresses get to act well in good written scenes.

But then she’s just very confused until Gallifrey rolls around again.

We’ll ignore the retcon, again, but once she learns she gets super fucking pissed. And for good reason. Against the Master, against the Time Lords, against everyone, she’s shouting at everything, lost in her life.

But it’s sorted out very quickly by Jo intervention and then she’s much the same as ever.

Well, I say that, what I mean is “Willing to burn and kill all life on Gallifrey” with a button press. Yeah I know that the Time Lords are dead and the Master is about to kill everyone but you wouldn’t let a Spider be shot through mercy killing and you expect me to jump to “Would absolutely murder the Master and desecrate the bodies of the Time Lords”

It doesn’t matter anyway, for she has not the will to do so.

But she lets someone else do it

For fucks sa-

And at the end, what has she learned? That the thing she only knew half an hour ago shouldn’t affect her, so back to status quo

Wasted potential - Monsters

Imagine a super cool idea for a monster? Cool, add it into an episode.

And now get rid of it super quickly or butcher the premise.

REGENERATING CYBERMEN? Let’s have one shoot the other to show how bad it would be and then kill them immediately.

The Pting, capabale of disrupting a ships infrastructure an- Nah, just dick around with the lights.

A TIME TRAVELLING RACIST WHO KNOWS HOW TO FUCK UP THE TIMELINE

Let’s not even reference him 15 episodes later

Cyberman hybrid? 

You get the idea.

The Master, or rather, the Missy Issue

The Master is putting on his best Simms Master homage, and like, I get it. It’s a good Master, and Sacha really puts his all into it.

I can only hope that this Master is before Yana. Missy’s exit was poetic, done well. Of course, just when she could feel ok joining the Doctor, the obstacle in her way was herself. 

It’s not even the fact she died and why is he back now, it’s ... this Master has almost no nuance to him. He wants the Doctor to know the truth, which is at least some Master motives, but then its just wanton destruction for the sake of it. Like Simms but “what if we made him more crazy” The Master is more than this, can be more than this. It was nice seeing Jodie try and relate to him but this Master has thrown out three years of compelling evolution of the character. To throw it all out seems ... odd.

I can’t fault his performance though, he can be real damn quiet and sinister and really out there when he’s screaming at things.

The episodes themselves

Good cast, good side characters, good ideas, butchered in execution by not exploring the main cast, falling flat on the ideas and by the second season, losing the fun side characters.

Episodes I liked

Woman Who Fell To Earth

Rosa

Demons of the Punjab

WitchFinders

Takes You Away

Fugitive of the Judoon

Can you Hear me

Episodes I hated

Orphan 55

Arachnids

The Timeless Children

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (for cutting everything short)

Everything else was mostly unmemorable I fell asleep on Ascension of the Cybermen, had to rewind it.

The Retcon

You knew this was coming.

I put it last for I feel there’s a hundred and one issues here and it’d be cruel to just go for the obvious first. Maybe people would think I’d be against this one thing and that’s why I hate the rest. God no, I was so annoyed going into this episode, let alone for what it was about to deliver.

I don’t outright hate past Doctors. Hell, shove the brains of Morbius in there. It shits a bit on Hartnell and established lore a bit, but still.

“But the Brains of Morbius said-“

The eighth doctor said he was half-human, there are some bits of this canon we ignore.

But oh well, it’s not the main crux of the issue.

The Doctor, before this, was a Time Lord. He wasn’t much of a good one, by Time Lord standards at least. Ran from the schism, wasn’t as good as the Master in school, didn’t like the stuffy nature of his race, or their non-intervention policy. Ran off in a stolen ship with a knackered console and wanted to see the universe.

He flouted the rules. He stood up for people where Time Lords wouldn’t. Observe, don’t intervene. But the Doctor couldn’t, too curious, too inquisitive. He got a fondness for humans, god knows why. 

But this Time Lord was against his own people, he was kinder than them, but alien to us. He wanted to learn, and left his planet to see if there was good in the universe. He was a rather shit Time Lord but helped where he could, making a difference in other people’s lives, trying to be the best he could be, learning.

This got him into trouble with the Time Lords of course, but, hey, it’s a funny old universe.

And we like that, as British folk. An underdog common person just trying to help out and be good.

What we’re not a fan of is saying the the Doctor isn’t just some Time Lord that likes helping out, but a chosen one who is the reason that Time Lords exist in the first place and is of another dimensional world and there were 50 of them and they knew kung fu in the super secret Time Lord service but they wiped her mind because it was super secret guys and she can live forever and is immortal and-

I was annoyed when the 50th made a slight mockery of the Time War. I get we don’t always have to stick so closely to canon, but holy shit the Timeless Child.

The fact it was exposition dumped on us and then wrapped up 10 minutes after with NEW ADVENTURES AT CHRISTMAS was just the icing on the cake.

If you wanted to pull this off, this should have been the Doctor’s struggle for the next season, coming to terms that her life is missing, that the Time Lords did this, that she didn’t even know what was right or not

But no, resolved. Felt not like adding to the lore but upending it on its head to say he could.

It’s why I don’t blame Jodie, who does an excellent job. Or the cast.

I blame Chibnall.

And it wouldn’t be as bad if the writing leading up to it helped serve the episode. But there was nothing there. 

Conclusion

The writing is trash, the Doctor is underdeveloped, the cast outside of Graham aren’t explored, the setup for the finales are weak and uninspired, the retcons are going to cause major issues down the line and you’ve changed the very nature of the Doctor’s character and didn’t even have good writing behind it nor did much to explore it.

And I’m sorry it had to happen to such a good casting decision.

Here’s hoping you sign on to Big Finish and they give you some good storylines Jodie, you deserve it.

[sullustangin]

A Code of Conduct for a Smuggler Ship

This is a world-building piece I'm using in my own fan fic.  Our smugglers, pirates, rogues, and other non-aligned/independent ships do have rules and codes of conduct.  They wouldn't live by Imperial/Republic/Federation/Klingon/Fleet rules.  Whether in space or on the sea, they still have to co-exist with their crewmates and captain.  This is mostly compiled from historical pirate codes, Gibbs from NCIS (it works), and other real-life incidents.

This is crossposted to AO3. 

Code of Conduct for Virtue’s Thief, under the command of

Captain Eva Corolastor

1.       The Captain’s responsibility is to the ship.  The ship is the crew, and the crew is the ship.  The Captain is to save the ship at any cost, including her own.

2.      The Captain is the first and final authority on Virtue’s Thief.

3.      Never screw over your Captain or your crewmates.

4.      All profit is disbursed evenly after the ship receives its share for maintenance. Private gambling, inheritance, and profits do not apply here.

5.      If someone is permanently injured, maimed or disabled in the service of Virtue’s Thief or her captain, they are to be pensioned off for the duration of their lives.

6.      The crew is entitled to a discount for services at the Captain’s discretion.

7.      Police your brass and cover your ass.  

8.      Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

9.      Always announce your entrance into the cockpit or the Captain’s quarters; she is armed.

10.  Always carry a knife.

11.  Never drink the last of anything.

12.  No pets.

13.  No children.

14.  Nobody talks about VATs [Very Awful Thing(s)].

15.  Blood stays in the cargo bay; do not track it around the ship.  Remove your boots as needed.

16.  No fighting on the ship; settle your differences planetside.

17.  No sleeping naked.

18.  No shagging in the ship (exceptions to be granted by the Captain).

19.  All crew members will carry spare clean underwear in a waterproof bag at all times.

20.  Birthdays are to be celebrated.  Get over it.

 1.  This rule is included since my captain is a Good Gal.  She's a Chaotic Neutral Leaning Good.  If your Captain is not so inclined, you may wish to alter this to better suit how your Captain sees his or her crew and ship:  are the crewmen and crew-women expendable?  Is the ship itself a tool to be used and broken, or is it the Captain's beloved home?

2.  Many pirate codes have votes and other democratic devices so each man had their say, especially if their Captain sees them as tools or as useful rather than friends and family.   Because my captain is GG in Rule #1, Rule #2 is not democratic, but rather, an assertion of authority because of GG status; your Captain has to be a leader, not a doormat.  If your Captain is more ruthless, then you may want to counter-balance with a rule that gives the crew some veto power.

 3.  This is self-explanatory.   Ships have limited quarters, and it's in everyone's best interest not to hate each other.  Gibbs' Rule.

 4.  This is a pragmatic rule, as the ship does have to be maintained as the home for everyone, even if she is own by the Captain.  This could also go toward the upkeep of ship's droids, if you're operating in the Star Wars universe.  This is based in actual rules from historical pirate codes.

 5.  Another historical pirate code rule.  This one is very generous (Good Gal Captain).  Often, there would be a limit set or a delineation of what body parts are worth how much -- arms, eyes, and legs all have different value, and how much of you lost also matters.  In the modern world, we have this when claiming disability benefits, particularly for veterans.  This is an opportunity for you to discuss how your characters are valued by the Captain/ship.

 6.  Depending on how you set up your ship and crew rules and who decides what jobs to take, this rule can be very relevant or not relevant.  I use it as an opportunity to prove Captain's benevolence, but this can be used to build tension -- is this job worth it?  Are you actually going to pay us for this gig?

 7.   Gibbs' Rule(s), but highly pertinent.  Most non-aligned ships are non-aligned for a reason -- shady activities? troubled past?  "Police your brass" is a term for cleaning up one's spent casings so that you don't leave a trace or evidence you were there.  Covering your ass is a catch-all for making sure there are no loose ends.  This is the "don't bring trouble home" rule -- don't bring unwanted attention to the ship. 

 8. Gibbs' Rule.  Even if you follow #7 to the hilt, this is still possible -- stay alert. 

 9.  The Captain often has the most to lose.  This is typically their ship, and all troubles land on their desk.  They're the ones trying to lead people of questionable character -- there's a reason they're out on their own.  Depending on what the job is, they may be carrying strangers on their ship or there may be concerns of a boarding party.  This can be used to depict Captain's trust, but also Captain competence -- do you want someone who trusts everyone responsible for your safety?

10.  Gibbs' Rule, but interesting to utilize in space settings.  In modern/historical settings and military settings, you always carry a personal sidearm or two as a hold-out; knife and a single-shot pistol (especially 3-D printed) are useful.  In space, there's all this fancy tech, like blasters, lasers, phasers, vibroknives, and so on. A knife can cut air supply hoses, slice electronics, puncture life support suits, and all sorts of chaotic things that a "highly evolved society" wouldn't think of.

11.  My own creation -- I have a hard-drinking crew, and if you want to break Rule #3 in the worst way possible, this is it.  One thing I have headcanonned is that there were originally just 10 rules on the Thief.  The second 10 come as a result of people breaking the first 10 -- more specific rules for more idiotic behavior that the writer didn't anticipate.  In the words of my captain, "Can I preface that by saying the rules exist for reasons?  As in, someone screwed up, and after we all didn’t die, I made the rule?”

12.  and 13.  These are flexible, but you have to consider what type of operation your ship is running.  Is it derring-do and swashbuckling and a business venture?  Or is something else more akin to a family group?  Within the SWTOR universe, I've seen people keep their ships very businesslike, but the same crews in another fan fic are raising kids and have pets.  Totally fine.

14.   VATs are a sideline business that my Captain operates alongside her two female crewmates; the boys find what they do so distasteful, they try to ignore it as best they can.  In my universe, VATs are wetwork, assassinations, torture, extortion, espionage, information-brokering, and other morally questionable items that don't fall under the main purview of business on the ship.  Does your ship have anyone with a sideline?  It doesn't have to be as violent or dark as this.  Is it officially recognized?  To what extent?  Is it a secret?  Is there a rule against doing this sort of thing? 

15.  Generally cleanliness reminder, but if you have this sort of a rule, you better show off why it's necessary.

16.  Historical pirate rule -- if you have beef, go settle on the shore.  Some codes get the quartermaster directly involved in fairly outfitting both parties and determining whether the matter is settled or if someone should get left behind at port for the good of the ship.

17.  This is for red alerts and making sure nobody wastes too much time trying to throw clothes on while trying to deal with a disaster.  It also ties into #18.

18.  Historically, pirates were not supposed to bring wenches on the ship.  First, there was a risk of someone being accidentally kidnapped if the ship left before critical personnel woke up after a night on the tiles.  Secondly, rape was a serious crime to pirates; the penalty was death.  I've seen in multiple pirate codes that boys and ladies were not to be brought aboard.  Some do allow for a guardian for these people so that they can remain on board until the next port, but those were special conditions in special circumstances.  Since I have a smuggler ship, it's egalitarian -- no sexy times for anyone onboard the ship.  Also, if you're busy getting busy, if there's an attack, well, it takes more time to untangle yourself than if you're by yourself. 

19a.   This is a personal rule (IRL and in fan fic).  As I've been writing, I find that people's clothes getting trashed or messed up is a pretty regular thing.  However, it's made exponentially more tolerable by having a spare set of something dry.  If you plan on having characters get messy and want to move the plot along without dealing with the "uh oh, naked" thing (especially if there's a romantic/sexual tension), this isn't a bad rule to have around.  Granted, if you're writing PWP, make sure nobody has any spare anything.  Also, spare clean undies aren't just useful for the obvious; think of bandages, messages that could be sent while everyone else is "hurr durr"ing over panties, underwires that can be used for other purposes.  Basically, this is where you can put in your MacGuyver plot device -- make people carry some seemingly useless item around and then it's the Most Critical Thing to making some ad hoc plan work.  

b.  Caveat:  Chekhov's Gun.  This the literary principle that you shouldn't put anything into your story unless it adds to the bigger plot: don't put a gun on stage unless it's going to fire.  So you can have a lot of funny business with your #19 (or any of these rules) but don't spend too much time on them.  Some of it might remain headcanon forever, which is fine. Remember that codes/rules are meant to help your ship function, not to bog it down unnecessarily. 

20.  Personal rule. See 19b. Feel free to use these rules or variants thereof; just give me a mention @sullustangin or via AO3 (top of the page).

[latter-day-saint-nick]

Here‘s a list of all the books with queer protagonists I’ve read this year. While I do actively seek those out, there are several books on here that I didn’t know had queer themes when I picked them up from the library and then I was pleasantly surprised by lesbians. I‘ll avoid spoilers except when discussing trigger warnings.

 Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Neo, a South African teenager, is obsessed with music of any kind. Her love of music brings her together with the singer of a local band and they have a passionate relationship that they must keep secret. The descriptions of Neo‘s life and her tendency to hear music in everything are beautiful and dynamic. The author included a list of the songs Neo is listening to throughout the book, so I was introduced to a lot of cool music from South Africa and other places. TW: Corrective rape and Bury Your Gays. This is a book by a queer (albeit white British, rather than black South African) author writing about a very real problem that exists within our communities, so it feels different to when a cishet author kills off a queer character just for shock value. I still can‘t help feeling that he could have made the same point without having the character die – just have her be injured. Still, I loved pretty much everything else about the book, so it gets a tentative recommendation from me.

The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb

25-year-old opera student Kathleen tries to cope with the constant pain in her feet, nightmares about having her tongue cut out, and desperate yearning for the sea. With the help of her girlfriend Harry she delves into her family history to uncover the secret of a curse spanning generations of women. What’s nice about this book is that Kathleen and Harry’s relationship is accepted by all their family and friends without question, so if you want to read a nice wlw fantasy story with no homophobia, this one’s for you. TW: Some discussion of suicide, but nothing too graphic.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

A teenage lesbian is sent to conversion therapy by her religious aunt. This is basically a coming-of-age story as the title character comes to terms with her identity and the death of her parents. It’s considered an important work of LGBT YA literature, so I really wanted to like it more than I did. Most of the first half of the novel deals with Cameron’s everyday life in her small town in Montana, which was, to be honest, rather boring to me. The pace of the story picks up a bit once she gets sent to conversion therapy, but even then it’s slower and less eventful than I would have liked. But since it is a popular book, that’s probably just me. I did like that the two best friends she makes at the therapy camp are a disabled girl and an indigenous boy, two types of people that are not often represented in queer fiction, so that’s something. TW: Conversion therapy and self-harm.

Proud by Juno Dawson

This is a collection of poems and stories about queerness aimed at a YA audience, and each one is a pure delight! These stories detail moments of joy and pride that make you feel happy and hopeful about being queer. They include a high school retelling of Pride and Prejudice with lesbians, a nonbinary kid and his D&D group on a quest to disrupt the gender binary at their school, a magical phoenix leading a Chinese girl to find love, and gay penguins. All stories, poems and illustrations are by queer writers and artists. Seriously, I cannot recommend this collection enough!

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

An Irish magical realist story about three girls who perform a spell to find things that they have lost. The spell appears to have wider consequences than they expected, bringing to light things that should have stayed lost. This book has three narrators, two of whom are wlw. It treads a nice line between fantasy and reality, and has some pretty good plot twists. Also, there’s a crossword at the end, which is awesome. More books should come with crosswords.

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

A space opera trilogy set in the distant future about the embodiment of a ship’s AI who seeks revenge against the ruler of a colonialist empire who destroyed her ship and killed her beloved captain. This is not beginner’s sci-fi, as it is very complex and intricate, but if you’re fine with a bit of a heavier read, you’ll be rewarded with some very interesting concepts. What makes this series queer is that the Raadch empire has no concept of gender and uses female pronouns for everyone. This makes every romantic relationship queer by default, whether we are aware of the characters’ sexes or not. I found it particularly enjoyable when Breq, the protagonist, tried to communicate in different languages that have gendered pronouns, which she had to navigate carefully in order not to offend people. She tries to look for outward clues of gender, such as hairstyles, chest size, facial hair or Adam’s apples, but even then often gets it wrong, because these things are not always consistent. That is just a great depiction of how arbitrary ideas of binary sexual characteristics tend to be. Also, I guess technically Breq is aroace, but since she’s not human, I’m not sure if she can be considered the best representation, though she is a very likeable character that I enjoyed following.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

These books are a lot of fun! They’re historical adventure stories with a bit of fantasy thrown in, featuring disaster bisexual Henry Montague, his snarky aroace sister Felicity and his best friend Percy whom he is secretly in love with. In the first book, the three teenagers are sent on a tour of Europe for various reasons, but they quickly abandon the planned route when they get embroiled in a plot involving theft and alchemy. The second book details Felicity’s further attempts to become a doctor, which leads her to reunite with an old friend and chase a tale of fantastical creatures.

The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Technically I read this one late last year, but whatever. I just wanted to put it on the list to have an excuse to talk about it. It’s about two Jewish siblings with magic powers who are recruited during World War II to take part in a secret project to fight the Nazis. Both siblings turn out to be queer: the brother is gay and demisexual, while the sister is bisexual, and they each have a love interest. This book is an independent prequel to The Girl with the Red Balloon, which takes place in East Berlin during the time of the Wall, and is just as good, albeit not as gay.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

This book tends to be classified as fantasy, because it takes place in an alternate, Latin-American-inspired world, with a distinct history, culture and religion, but there’s no magic at all, so I’m not sure it counts. But I digress. The country of Medio is built on classism and acute xenophobia. But by hiding her status as an illegal immigrant, Daniela, a girl from a poor background, manages to rise to the top of her class at her elite finishing school and become the first wife of one of the most powerful young men in the country. But her new comfortable status is threatened when she is pressured to join a group of rebels who fight for equality. At the same time, she also finds herself falling for her husband’s second wife. Obviously, this book’s political message is very topical, but beyond that, it’s just a very good story, with a well fleshed-out fictional world and great characters. This is the first in a series, with the sequel, We Unleash the Merciless Storm, coming out in February.

All Out: The No Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell

A very nice collection of short stories about various queer teenagers in different historical settings, from a medieval monastery to an American suburb on New Year’s Eve in 1999. Most of the stories are realist, but there are a few ghosts and witches to be found in-between. What I found particularly notable about this book is that it featured several asexual characters, which you don’t often see in collections like this. I definitely recommend it.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

This is a thoughtful, heart-warming life story about a woman growing up during the civil war in Nigeria. After Ijeoma, a Christian Igbo girl, is sent away from home, she finds her first love in Amina, a Muslim Hausa. Even after they are found out and separated, Ijeoma doesn’t quite understand what’s so shameful about their love. Still, as she grows older, she attempts to fit into a heteronormative society while also connecting with the things and people that make her happy. TW: Homophobic violence, including an attack on a gay nightclub. The novel makes up for this by having a remarkably happy ending.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

A young man in Victorian London finds a mysterious watch on his pillow, with no idea how it got there. This sets into motion a strange series of events, which leads him to a lonely Japanese watchmaker, to whom he finds himself increasingly drawn. This is an unusual novel that treads the line between historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi. Most of the characters are morally grey and have complex motivations, but are still likable. I just really enjoy stories that take place in this time period, particularly when they are this thoughtfully written and don’t just take the prejudices of the past for granted.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

A YA book about a transgender teenager, written by a transgender author. After her mother decides that she is not safe in her hometown anymore, high school senior Amanda moves in with her dad in a town where nobody knows her and she can try to go stealth. But even as she is making friends and experiencing romance for the first time, she constantly worries about what will happen if her secret comes out. It’s a fairly standard story about being transgender, really, but as it comes from a trans author, it feels a lot more personal and less voyeuristic than these stories tend to be when coming from a cisgender perspective. Amanda is a sympathetic and compelling character. TW: This book deals with a number of upsetting themes, including transphobic violence, being forcibly outed and suicide. There is a flashback to Amanda’s pre-transition suicide attempt, which I found particularly triggering. I also wish she could have come out on her own terms, instead of being outed in front of the whole school by someone she thought she could trust. It is still a pretty good book, but it can be very upsetting at times.

As I Descended by Robin Talley

A loose retelling of Macbeth that takes place in a boarding school in Virginia and involves two queer couples. The supernatural elements of the play are amplified in a wonderfully creepy way, and the characters are complex and realistic, so you understand their motivations, even when they do bad things. TW: Out of the five queer characters in the novel, three die, two of them by suicide.

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss and EG Keller

A charming picture book about the Vice President’s pet bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny and wants to hop around at his side for the rest of his life. This book was written as a screw you to Mike Pence, but even so it is a genuinely nice kid’s book that deals with homosexuality and marriage equality in a way that is appropriate for young children. The illustrations are incredibly cute as well.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

A very strange, surreal tale about four people (most of whom are queer in some way) exploring a magical city that you can enter in your dreams by sleeping with someone who has been there before. I wanted to like this one more than I did, because I really love Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books for children. But while some of the dreamlike imagery is cool and pretty, I found a lot of it weirdly uncomfortable, along with the frequent sex scenes.

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

15-year-old Julia is home for the summer at her parents’ ancestral mansion in Scotland and gets involved with a plot about theft, disappearance and possibly murder. She also has her first crushes – on a man working at her parents’ estate and a young Traveller girl, respectively. This is a prequel to Code Name Verity, which has the same protagonist, though her bisexuality isn’t really alluded to in that, which is why I’ve kept it off the list, even though it is an excellent book. The Pearl Thief is pretty good as well, though it is a bit strange to read after you’ve already read Verity and know that this carefree teenage character is going to grow up to be a spy in World War II and be tortured in a Nazi prison. Do read both books, though. They are great.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

A young scientist falls in love with the wife of the man she’s having an affair with. There’s speculation about quantum mechanics and interconnectedness, all wrapped in very poetic language. To be perfectly honest, I really didn’t get it, so I have no idea what any of it means. But at least the main character is bisexual and polyamorous (and possibly genderfluid – I’m not sure).

Queer Africa by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin

A collection of short stories by queer African writers, discussing themes like love, sex, marriage, family and homophobia. The attitudes towards queerness in these different countries varies. In many of them, homosexuality is illegal, even though same-sex relationships used to be respected before the interference of Western colonialism. In any case, these stories are an interesting and oftentimes beautiful examination of queerness from a non-Western point of view, some joyous and some tragic. TW: The second to last story is about incest.