#I have gender crisis since 2019 so the last year I talk it with a friend about it bc he also used to have it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alexiablackbriar13 · 5 years ago

Text

A Collection of Season 7 Oliver/Felicity Pregnancy Fics

Hey guys! So many of you enjoyed the S1-S6 canon-divergent pregnancy fic list that I decided to make a S7 pregnancy fics list as well - this time, the list contains canon missing/alternate scene fics, post-7x22 fics (pre-Crisis or completely canon divergent) and canon divergent fics.

Also... Yeah, I put it into alphabetical order (well... tried). It was a pain. I hate singing the alphabet song in my head because I’m an idiot who can’t remember the alphabet. ENJOY! If you have any other recs to add to the list, please let me know xx

A Moment of Grace - 4.2k - by juliesioux // Very short one shot of the hours that I think followed Felicity telling Oliver that she is pregnant. It is tender, sweet, sexy and told exclusively from Felicity's POV.I wonder just how nervous she must have been telling Oliver about it but this is all about how they communicate when words aren't necessary and when they are, how they are shared. [Post-7x15]

a once-in-a-lifetime love - 1.8k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Felicity squeals a little as he lifts her into his lap with the utmost care, nuzzling her neck before planting a few kisses there. “Oliver?” “I ordered you fries and a chocolate shake.” He tells her and Felicity grins, pulling back to grasp his face in her hands. [Extended 7x18 scene]

< read more recs down below the cut! >

a time of wonder - 4.1k - by ivorykeys09 // Their schedules unfortunately don’t allow for a long trip, and bad weather and doctor’s orders keep them closer than tropical beaches, but they still make it to a city they haven’t been to together before. (Or, one last trip before their daughter arrives.) [Late S7]

an evening walk - 1.3k - by CheerUpLovely // On a peaceful, summer evening walk, Felicity and Oliver take stock on the most important thing to consider when living with ex-agents and soldiers. Have our neighbors tried to kill us? [Post-7x22]

Caffeine Chronicles (Or Lack Thereof) - 8k WIP - by drmrs // No one loves coffee quite like Felicity but with a baby on the way, she's had to make some changes. (or the one where Felicity struggles to consume less coffee throughout her pregnancy) [Late S7]

Chain Reaction - 1.5k - by Bri206 // Oliver gets out of prison and Felicity is 6 months pregnant. Oliver wants to help and make up for lost time, but things don't go to plan and they both question if time really had changed them. [S7 AU]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Come Morning Light - 3k - by andachippedcup // After getting acclimated to the cabin, Oliver surprises Felicity with a visit from Donna, who has yet to be informed about Felicity's pregnancy. [Post-7x22]

Dear Mia (Love Mom) - 1.4k WIP - by AustenJane // When Felicity finds herself pregnant, it drudges up a lot of memories about her not-so-functional relationship with her own mother (and absentee father) growing up. And it gets her thinking about the future. She decides to write her unborn baby letters for her to read when she gets older, as a way to clear up any misunderstandings she may have about her relationship with her and Oliver. [S7]

Emerald Archer Martial Arts - 32.4k - by @alexiablackbriar13 // In May 2019, a tired Oliver Queen and four months pregnant Felicity Smoak retire from their vigilante duties and move to the redwood forest town of Bloomfield with their son William, to raise their family in peace. Along the journey, they build their own successful companies, increase the size of the Smoak-Queen clan by a couple more, train their kids in self-defense, and live out a blissful existence. This is the story of 7 years of their happiness and family antics, after 7 years of crime-fighting and hardship to save their city. [Post-7x22 AU]

For Heirs to Come, Be Brave - 2.5k - by andachippedcup // Before the events leading to their interrogation by the SCPD, Felicity and Oliver get some news about the baby. [Pre-7x20]

give all my secrets away - 1.5k - by LiteraLi // Before returning to the Waverider, Sara shares a drink with Oliver and Felicity as they reminisce about old times and some secrets are revealed, old and new... [7x18 spec]

Happiest man alive - 0.7k - by HopeShannon3000 // A short story that takes place after Felicity tells Oliver shes pregnant. [Post-7x14]

here, is home - 3.6k - by ivorykeys09 // In another life, they take baby classes and register for cribs and the Diggles throw them a shower.In this life, it's different. [7x22 AU]

Hope Is Something You Give Yourself - 1.6k - by Juvinadelgreko // Felicity tells Oliver who was on the phone, and they discuss what it means for their future. [Post-7x13]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED how the light gets in - COLLECTION - 28.2k - by @dust2dust34 // "There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." Bre’s ficlet collection for Season Seven. Includes speculation fics, wish fics, canon fics, elaboration fics, pretty-much-everything-related-to-Season-Seven fics. Including fics such as:

Afterglow - 2.5k - "Good morning to orgasms and buffalo wings only." [Post-7x18]

forever i’m yours (forever i do) - 6.1k - Oliver hid Felicity’s chocolates and she is not happy about it. [Late S7]

The Right Tools - 1.7k Set during the Happy Months. Oliver and Felicity move her desk into her new office at the cabin. [Post-7x22]

We Can Do This - 0.9k - Felicity tells Oliver she's pregnant. [Post-7x13]

i’ll take care of you - 2.8k - by undercoversmoak // Oliver finds out his pregnant wife braved not one, but two death-defying explosions while working with the canaries. He doesn’t handle it super well. [Post-7x18]

it’s only a matter of time - 2.5k - by inlovewithimpossibility // The mornings of Felicity's thirtieth and thirty-fifth birthdays are vastly different. The former is spent with her husband, anticipating the arrival of their baby girl and the latter is a far more lonely affair but a certain blonde-haired little girl seeks to change that for her mama. [Post-7x22]

late talks - 2.5k - by drmrs // Oliver speaking to fetus Mia and spending some alone time with Felicity for the first time since finding out they're having a girl. [Late S7]

Learning How To Win - 4.3k WIP - by Juvinadelgreko // Oliver and Felicity retire from the vigilante life only to be interrupted by the Monitor and Crisis on Infinite Earths.They deserved better. Here’s my take on what better looks like. Begins shortly after Oliver and Felicity moved into their new home. [Post-7x22 AU]

Little Star... Wonder What You Are - 2.5k - by OhhMyyDarla // Did someone say Gender reveal party? Yes the Queen's are having one!

Love Your Curves (And All Your Edges) - 3k - by andachippedcup // While pregnant with Mia, Felicity is having back pain and Oliver tries to help her with it. But his prenatal yoga suggestion backfires when he realizes this means he must look but not touch as his very beautiful, very pregnant wife strikes a number of very tempting poses. [Post-7x22]

Mint Chip Queen - 2.4k - by andachippedcup // Oliver is obsessively worrying over details of Felicity giving birth to Mia. But Felicity's only concern seems to be in determining what their code word should be to indicate that it's 'go time'. [Post-7x22]

Missing Pieces - 3k WIP - by aStormyHaze // After setting down in their new cabin in Bloomfield, Oliver realises Felicity woke up different that morning. Will she let him in? [Post-7x22]

No Regrets - 2.3k - by ghostfox11 // An episode insert for the end of 7x18, Lost Canary. Oliver finds a bruise on Felicity's hip forcing her to tell him that she went into the field.

One Final Goodbye - 1k - by Bri206 // How I imagine the ending to season 7 will play out. [7x22 spec]

Our Legacy - 4.6k - by @dmichellewrites // Oliver and Felicity focus on building their future starting with Smoak Tech and baby Mia. New beginnings help Oliver let go of his past. [S7]

Peppermint Lies - 0.5k - by @felicityollies // Felicity seeks revenge on Oliver for buying the wrong ice cream. [Post-7x22]

Precious Cargo - 2.8k - by OliversMuse // Felicity is pregnant and Oliver is a sappy, loving husband. [Late S7]

Pregnancy - 3.3k - by hope-for-olicity (Jacq) // Post 7x13 story dealing with Felicity’s thoughts about the unplanned pregnancy.

Reboot and Rebuild - 1.6k - by griever11 // Another way Diggle could have found out about baby Queen. Felicity has a request that might have long-lasting effect on the Diggle - Queen families. [Post-7x14 AU]

Run Away With Me - 131.8k - by @dmichellewrites // Join Oliver, Felicity, their friends, and family as they navigate their lives together post-Slabside. They really can have it all. Watch them balance being heroes, parents, and still manage to hold down day to day jobs. Enjoy their slice of maximum domesticity, and take a peek into their home life together with their four children. [Post-7x07 AU]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED runaway mother-to-be - 2.6k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Star Labs gets a visit from their favourite computer genius/hacker but she's not there simply to say hello. The main issue however is that she may have hidden the news that she was leaving Star City from her husband who has gotten a little overbearing ever since he found out their good news. (A small crossover set in the very near future where Felicity runs off to CC to get away from Oliver's overprotectiveness and Iris and Barry get caught up in their friends' small disagreement) [Late S7 AU]

safe in my arms - 1.4k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Oliver loses track of time working late in the bunker and it seems his wife has to. Worried about her, he heads over to her new office space to find that, tired from work and their small little miracle growing inside her, she's fallen asleep at her desk. [Set around 7x17]

season 7 pregnant felicity fics - SERIES - 12 fics, in total 39.9k - by @alexiablackbriar13 // Contains various fics set between 7x13 to after 7x22. Includes fics such as:

as darkness falls (a spark resides) - 3.5k - It's been two weeks since Felicity found out she's pregnant, and she hasn't told Oliver yet. Plagued by nightmares about being attacked and the baby being hurt, Felicity struggles to sleep. After Oliver witnesses one of her post-nightmare panic attacks, she finally tells him about the baby. [Post-7x13 AU]

hungry like a (pregnant woman) wolf - 3.1k - 7 cravings felicity has during her pregnancy and the 7 people who help her with them (even though most of them don't know she's pregnant in the first place) [Late S7]

strange behaviours - 3.3k - the 5 times john diggle noticed oliver queen and felicity smoak's latest weird behaviors and the 1 time he figured out what was causing it (spoiler alert: it's fetus mia smoak-queen) [Late S7, Post-7x14 AU]

whenever you’re ready - 7.5k - Mia and William from 2040 travel back in time to 2019 to access an uncorrupted version of Archer. Oliver and Felicity investigate a break-in at the bunker only to find their children from the future bickering. Emotional confrontations and conversations ensue. [Late S7]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED The Microchip Chronicles - 46.8k - by CSM // Post 7x13. Follows the next nine months of Felicity’s pregnancy. [S7 AU]

The Path You Choose - 2.9k - by @dmichellewrites // A retelling of Arrow season 7, episode 21 "Living Proof" This is everything I hoped to see on screen, but did not. Felicity feels their baby kick for the first time after Emiko attacks. Oliver has a not so surprising visit from his dead best friend, who helps him confession a very important piece of information to his family. [7x21 AU]

Tummy Troubles - 2.8k - by Mellowyellowdiamonds // Oliver feeds his infamous spicy chili to Felicity which leads to a surprise discovery about their already fraught relationship. [Post-7x08 AU]

Unsure of what the balance held (I touched my belly overwhelmed) - 3.7k - by nyclove3 // Her hand flies to her stomach again, the same way it has every time she’s caught herself replaying the moment Dr Schwartz told her the news and changed her life forever. [Post-7x13]

We’re Pregnant - 1.4k - by originalhybridlover // Oliver reacts to Felicity telling him she's pregnant. [Expanded 7x14 scene]

you can ebb and i can flow - 3.4k - by inlovewithimpossibility // “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you.” She says softly, reaching for his free hand which she grasps with her own and laces their fingers together. Oliver smiles at her, shaking his head. There are few times he’s ever been able to hold anything against his wife, especially when she employs as adorable of a pout as the one she’s wearing right now. [Pre-7x20]

you collect me with your steady hand - 2.2k - by inlovewithimpossibility // "Baby is starting to make their presence known. How long until she makes the connection? Or worse, someone we really can’t trust makes it?” Felicity pretty much collapses as she speaks. Her shoulders slump, her face falls and it’s all Oliver can do not to break at the expression on her face. [Post-7x19]

#arrow fic #olicity fic #arrow fic rec list #olicity fic rec list #arrow #olicity

161 notes · View notes

olicitytropes · 5 years ago

Text

Olicity Tropetastic Awards: Season Seven

The time has come to talk of many scenes.

Of bows and arrows and superheroes.

Olicity’s reunion and the baby we knew was a Queen.

But wait just one minute,

Before we go and do all of that...

We thank you all for the time you have shared.

The elevators you have climbed,

The episodes you have faced and scared.

We will keep your stories in our hearts for always,

And we hope that you can too.

Because they would not be bigger than the friggin’ universe

If not for all of you.

-xoxo Ellie, Caitlin, Sascha, Mary, Beccie, Meegan, and Alli (and of course Emily Bett Rickards since she wrote this poem first;) )

@memcjo’s recs:

as darkness falls (a spark resides) - @alexiablackbriar13

It's been two weeks since Felicity found out she's pregnant, and she hasn't told Oliver yet.

Plagued by nightmares about being attacked and the baby being hurt, Felicity struggles to sleep.

After Oliver witnesses one of her post-nightmare panic attacks, she finally tells him about the baby.

**Award: Best Use of Angsty Angst Followed by Sweet, Sweet Olicity Moments**

two pints of mint chip it’s a girl - @alexiablackbriar13

missing scene in 7x22, before olicity move to the cabin. dr schwartz gives felicity an ultrasound, and our bigger than the freaking universe couple discover their baby's gender

**Award: Best Use of Touching, Loving, Sweet Olicity**

Run Away With Me - @dmichellewrites

This is basically everything I hoped season 7 would be after the prison arc, but unfortunately we didn't get to see it.

Join Oliver, Felicity, their friends, and family as they navigate their lives together post-Slabside. They really can have it all. Watch them balance being heroes, parents, and still manage to hold down day to day jobs. Enjoy their slice of maximum domesticity, and take a peek into their home life together with their four children.

**Award: Most Kickass, Joyous, Amazing Olicity Finding a New Life!**

We Don’t Have To Talk About It (We’ll Find Another Way) - @smoaking-greenarrow

Felicity is at Slabside to pick up Oliver, to finally take him home...when all hell breaks loose

**Award: Most Awesome, Badass Oliver and Felicity Going Through Hell and Back to Find Each Other!**

Come & Talk To Me - @hope-for-olicity

I wrote this story as a fix it for the things I felt the writers forgot or screwed up since Oliver got out of prison. It mainly focuses on Olicity but it also deals with their relationship with Diggle.

**Award: Best Use of Oliver and Felicity Facing Their Fears and Finding Each Other All Over again~ SWOON!**

Dear Felicity - @smoakmonster

A series of letters Oliver journals to Felicity from prison.

**Award: Best Use of Oliver Finding His Voice (and making me cry)**

Nothing Breaks Like a Heart - @by-mintsea

A mid season 7 and Elseworlds Crossover fix it fic. Silences, missing scenes and rewrites from 7x07 through end of crossover.

**Award: Best Us of Oliver and Felicity Fighting for Each Other and Their Family**

@blondeeoneexox’s recs:

The Other Side (of a world without you) - fanfics4you

She stares at the sky, the moon staring back at her. She holds her daughter in her arms as she starts to talk about him. She hopes wherever he is, he is safe. She hopes that he knows. That she still loves him, that he has a daughter who loves him so much, a son who lives far away from this world, leading the normal life he always wanted. She hopes that he knows he isn't alone.

He stares at the sky, his fingers caressing his wedding ring gently. The night is full of darkness and he feels so lonely. He has everything here, yet he has nothing. He sees a shooting star fall from the sky, and he finally smiles. His hold on his wedding ring tightens as he reminds himself why is he doing this again. He knows.

In which Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak spend twenty years apart and then a lifetime together.

**Award: Best Cry Your Eyes Out Til They Hurt Fic**

The Microchip Chronicles - CSM

Post 713. Follows the next nine months of Felicity’s pregnancy.

**Award: Most Domesticated, Blissfully Happy Pregnant Olicity That Definitely Should Have Actually Happened**

The Other Side of a World Without You - MachaSWicket

SUMMARY: Arrow S7 finale SPOILERS ahead. Beware!

**Award: Best 20 Year Reunion I Could Ever Ask For**

The Legacy of a Queen - inlovewithimpossibility

Series of one-shots from a future AU where Oliver and Felicity are able to raise their children after they defeat the Ninth Circle and Oliver hangs up the hood

**Award: Best ‘What Could (SHOULD) Have Been Fic**

The Hardest Part - @smoaking-greenarrow

Prompt: What if Felicity found out she was pregnant with Lucas after Oliver left and she'd have to raise both of their kids without him. Then Oliver would come back five years later to check on his girls only to find Mia playing with a slightly younger boy who looks exactly like him.

**Award: Most Heartbreakingly Beautiful, Sob-Worthy, Amazing Post-S7 (That Was Absolutely My Fault) Fic**

strange behaviors - @alexiablackbriar13

the 5 times john diggle noticed oliver queen and felicity smoak's latest weird behaviors and the 1 time he figured out what was causing it (spoiler alert: it's fetus mia smoak-queen)

**Award: Cutest Uncle Diggle Reaction to FINALLY Figuring Out Olicity’s Weird Behaviors**

@it-was-a-red-heeler’s recs:

bliss within madness - @alexiablackbriar13

“Hey, Mia. It’s your dad,” he whispered. Pausing, he added, “Mia or Lucas. We don’t know exactly who you are yet. But I promise you, your mom and I are gonna love you to the stars and back no matter who you turn out to be. I’m gonna call you Mia for now, though.” He kissed Felicity’s stomach softly, humming under his breath at the heat coming from her skin.

**Award: Best Beautiful, Blissful Domestic Olicity Moments**

Clean Slate - @smoakmonster

What happens when Oliver loses his memories of Felicity and William? How will this hurting family heal when he finally returns home from prison and doesn't know who his wife and son are?

This series is based on speculation from the Arrow 7x05 trailer that was released on Nov 5. As such, this short series will start in speculation and will likely shift to canon divergence or even au depending on what happens in the next few episodes. Future tags will be added accordingly.

**Award: Oliver Fighting His Way Back to His Family (Amnesia Tropes Are My Jam!) Award**

@msbeccieboo’s recs:

no heart for me like yours - inlovewithimpossibility

After weeks of chaos following Oliver's release from Slabside, Oliver and Felicity finally have a moment to sit down and discuss how they move forward from here

**Award: Best Gorgeous, Sleepy and Oh-So-Wise Oliver Moment**

Deep Water - @it-was-a-red-heeler

A Season 7 Speculation fic.

**Award: THE BEST S7a Do-Over (also the Delicity We All Deserved)**

At Last - @jesileighs

He hadn’t really even noticed there was a change in Felicity until the chaos died down, and even then it took him a couple of weeks to look past the excuses and the way she brushed off his attempts to talk. When he kissed her she pulled away almost immediately. When he reached for her hands she found a way to keep them busy. When he’d make his way to their bed at night, she would make an excuse to stay up and every morning when he woke up she was already gone from beside him. He told himself they were both readjusting. Things needed time to settle. They’d both been through so much.

**Award: Most Beautiful Reunion That We All Wanted But Never Really Got In Canon**

@smoaking-greenarrow’s recs:

Two - @nodecaff4me

Post Episode 7x07 ficlet about the first hours after Oliver stepped out of the gates of Slabside.

**Award: The Focus on Felicity’s Emotions That Should Have Been in Season Seven**

Renewal - @juliesioux

This first bit leads into the story we might never get and I wanted to explore the loneliness Felicity must have felt and the urgency she would feel to go and find him once she could.

**Award: Epitome of ‘Bigger than the friggin’ universe’**

Learning How to Win - @juvinadelgreko

At the end of Arrow S7, Oliver and Felicity retire from the vigilante life only to be interrupted by the Monitor and Crisis on Infinite Earths.

They deserved better. Here’s my take on what better looks like. Begins shortly after Oliver and Felicity moved into their new home.

**Award: Sweetest Life Win That Olicity Deserves**

No Sex Until There Is Hair - @hope-for-olicity

Oliver shaves his head again and Felicity is NOT a fan.

**Award: Best Felicity Completely Understanding Oliver Moment**

@tangled23works’ recs:

Holding On and Letting Go - @smoaking-greenarrow

Oliver is finally home. But he’s not as close to his wife as he’d like to be. To move past the choices he made, both of them need to get a few things off their chests.

This fic can be enjoyed on its own, but if you’ve read The Longbow Hunters, it can also be read as an epilogue for that story.

**Award: Best And Most Sincere Apology By Oliver Queen**

The Longbow Hunters - @smoaking-greenarrow

Based on the set photos from 7x02 and my imagination :)

**Award: Most Badass Felicity With A Plan**

whenever you’re ready - @alexiablackbriar13

Mia and William from 2040 travel back in time to 2019 to access an uncorrupted version of Archer. Oliver and Felicity investigate a break-in at the bunker only to find their children from the future bickering. Emotional confrontations and conversations ensue.

**Award: Most Heartbreaking, Angsty and Beautiful Family Reunion**

#Arrow #Olicity #olicity tropetastic awards #season 7 trope #season 7 rec list #olicity fanfiction #olicity fic #Oliver Queen #Felicity Smoak

148 notes · View notes

thenightling · 5 years ago

Text

Films and shows to get you ready for Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is getting adapted into a series by Netflix. Though this is a DC comics property, The Sandman is NOT like Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. The Sandman is a gorgeous and surreal fantasy that only partially takes place in the human world. A big part of it takes place in the fantasy realm known as The Dreaming.

There is very little combat action though there is horror. To give you an idea of what you are in for (Or if you are a Sandman fan already and want something to hold you off) here are twenty-five films and shows that share some of the traits (or atmosphere) you might find in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

25. The Raven (1963 film). This might seem like an oddball one to list since it’s a Gothic Horror fantasy comedy from the 1960s but it gets referenced in The Sandman by Matthew imitating Peter Lorre and later Matthew compared Cain to Vincent Price. I think it’s safe to say Matthew was a Price (or Roger Coman) fan.

24. Death. Death is a short animated film from DC and was featured as bonus content for the Blu Ray of the animated movie Wonder Woman: Bloodlines.

Though she looks younger (appearing about nineteen-years-old) Death is the older sister of Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless, the main protagonist of The Sandman. She was first introduced in The Sandman issue 8, The Sound of Her Wings.

23. Stardust.

Stardust is a fantasy film based on the novel (and graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman. Though there are liberties taken, this should give you some idea of what his fantasy writing is like.

22. Beetlejuice the animated series.

If you want an idea of what The Dreaming (realm of Dreams) is like then I urge you to check out the surreal Neither (that’s not a typo) World from the Beetlejuice animated series. The monsters that inhabit this realm are the stuff of fantasy and nightmares. Some are living puns. And they are ruled over by a broody Goth who makes it rain when he’s depressed and feeling melodramatic, much like a certain Dream Lord from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman...

21. Bonus listing: The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

One major antagonist of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is a nightmare entity known as The Corinthian who escapes into the waking world and becomes a serial killer. Had Sandman been adapted in the mid-90s I think many would have loved a crossover with Freddy Krueger.

20. Return to Oz.

If by some weird chance you have never seen The Wizard of Oz or any faithful (read: Not 2010) version of Alice in Wonderland I would recommend those first. But under the assumption you may have already seen those I would suggest watching Return to Oz. Return to Oz features an adorable Jack-o-lantern headed character called Jack Pumpkinhead. Jack Pumpkinhead was the loose inspiration for the grounds keeper dream entity character of Mervyn Pumpkinhead in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

19. Tales from the Crypt (TV series).

Issue 2 of The Sandman is called Imperfect Hosts because all of the characters introduced in that issue are former horror host characters from horror anthology comics. Cain and Abel were DC’s answer to The Crypt keeper and The Vault Keeper. For a good idea of who Cain actually is (assuming he’s in the show along with his House of Mystery) I strongly recommend checking out the TV show Tales from the Crypt.

18. Tales from the Cryptkeeper (animated series)

In the mid-1990s there was an animated series adaptation of Tales from the Crypt called Tales from the Cryptkeeper. Season 2 featured the three original EC comics horror hosts of the Cryptkeeper, Vault Keeper, and the Old Witch. These storytellers might give you an idea of who (or what) some of Morpheus’ Nightmare minion are in The Sandman.

17. Hocus Pcous.

I chose to put this one here because the three witches of Hocus Pocus very much remind me of the Hecatae version of The Three-in-one from The Sandman Issue 2. There’s also a powerful Grimoire that is a plot catalyst.

16. The 10th Kingdom.

The 10th Kingdom was a fantasy mini-series that aired on NBC in 2000. It dealt with a twenty-seven-year-old young woman who discovers that her estranged mother is the evil queen in a faery tale world. It is very much a story about stories (much like parts of The Sandman) and shows you the original dark and unvarnished versions of some classic faery tales as well as how those characters (and their descendants) carry on centuries later.

15. Once Upon a Time (TV series. Particularly seasons 1 through 3.)

Much like with 10th Kingdom we have here a story about stories and those characters from classic stories trying to live in the human world with varying degrees of success. You see how important their stories are and how carefully and intricately each tale was interwoven with each other. (...Until around season 4 that is...)

Also it begins with a very powerful creature imprisoned and later undergoing an extremely long redemption arc and a sense of guilt tied to the death of his own son.

14. Constantine: City of Demons.

John Constantine appears in one issue of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Issue 3. Constantine: City of Demons gives a good crash course on who Constantine is and where he comes from. John Constantine’s ancestor, Johanna Constantine is a recurring character in The Sandman.

13. Justice League: Dark animated movie.

Justice League: Dark is the first animated movie to feature The House of Mystery. The House of Mystery is a building whose roots are in The Dreaming in The Sandman.

12. Constantine (2014 series).

In 2014 Constantine got his own live action series but it only lasted for one season.

11. Locke and Key.

Only recently did I learn Locke and Key will be doing an official crossover with The Sandman Universe.

10. Lucifer TV series.

The TV show Lucifer is an oddball thing since it was based on a comic that is actually a spin-off of The Sandman. The storyline that introduces us to Mazikeen, where Lucifer quits ruling Hell, opens Lux, and takes up playing Piano all come from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

When Fox got the rights to Lucifer no one thought The Sandman was going to be getting an adaptation, at least not in the near future. As a result several conversations and key pieces of dialogue that originally passed between Morpheus and Lucifer in The Sandman comics now went to Lucifer and his therapist, Linda, and his angel-brother, Amenadiel.

Bonus: If at all possible check out the Crisis on infinite Earths event from the CW as the real Crisis on Infinite Earths (original comic event) eventually gave way to things like The Sandman.

9. The Witches (1990) and Coraline (2009) I couldn’t decide which one to put here so I put them both.

The Witches is a children’s horror film based on the book by Roald Dahl. I suggest this here for its darker themes and you get a group of dangerous, child-killing witches attending a meeting at a hotel, much like The Corinthian’s Serial Killer convention in The Sandman.

Coraline is a stop motion fantasy / horror story for children and can give you some idea of what certain aspects of The Sandman are like, as it is by the same author.

8. Pan’s Labyrinth.

The Sandman is very much part fantasy and part Gothic horror and no director alive quite fits that criteria now better than Guillermo del Toro and possibly Tim Burton. Pan’s Labyrinth has the surreal beauty and darkness you are likely to see in The Sandman.

7. Doom Patrol.

Doom Patrol was the first DC show that made me have faith that yes, they CAN adapt Sandman respectfully and unafraid of the strangeness it might entail. Doom Patrol seemed unafraid to tackle the strange, quirkiness of it’s own content. From a talking roach, to gender-queer sentient street named Danny, Doom Patrol was not afraid to be strange.

6. Swam Thing (2019 TV series from DC Universe Streaming Service).

I mostly suggest this for one character in particular. Matthew Cable. After Matthew died in The Sandman comics he chose to spend his afterlife as Morpheus’ raven.

Besides featuring a character from The Sandman Swamp Thing gives a very good Gothic atmosphere and supernatural content, giving you an idea of the sort of horror DC can do.

6. Justice League Action: Trick or Threat. And Justice League action: Supernatural adventures in Babysitting.

The episode of Justice League Action called Trick or Threat features Cain, a nightmare character from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, as well as The House of Mystery. This was Cain’s first appearance in media. The version of Cain in the TV show Lucifer is nothing like his comic book counterpart. This cartoon is the first and only faithful adaptation of the character from the comics.

The episode of Justice League Action called Supernatural Adventures in Babysitting features the Magdalene Grimoire. This is the grimoire used to summon Morpheus in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. It also features John Constantine.

5. She-Creature: The Mermaid Chronicles (2001 film)

This is an odd from about some humans have a captured mermaid. The majority of the film is about her escape and revenge on her captors. You will see something similar to that with Morpheus in the very first episode of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

4. The Company of Wolves.

The Company of Wolves is a story about stories. In the ontemporary world a pubescent girl sleeps during her first period. She dreams that she is Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother tells her horrific stories about werewolves. The wolves become metaphors For puberty, masculinity, and waking sexuality. Toward the end Rosealeen (the protagonist) becomes one of the wolves. You get random stark reminders that this entire film is set in a dream world, and yet it’s still strangely easy to forget.

3. The Nightmare before Christmas.

The Nightmare before Christmas is a fantasy musical about the king of Halloween. Though he’s adored by his subjects he longs for more. The surreal landscape and strange creatures can be reminiscent of The Sandman.

2. Labyrinth.

One of the earliest efforts to talk me into reading The Sandman entailed someone telling me that Morpheus was “Like a Goth Jareth.” This effort (at the time) failed to entice me though I do love Labyrinth.

1. Over The Garden Wall.

I only saw Over the Garden Wall for the first time about a year and a half ago and loved it very much. This is a strange animated mini-series about two brothers lost in a forest called “The Unknown.” The setting has been debated among fans as to if it’s purgatory (a place between life and death), a dream realm, or something else entirely. I choose to believe that though it may be a place between life and Death that it’s also a part of The Dreaming, especially with so many surreal and Gothic visuals, and characters and creatures directly out of vintage seasonal cards.

#The Sandman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman

14 notes · View notes

itcameuponamidnightqueer · 5 years ago

Text

2019 is over and i have feelings

it’s the end of the year and this is mostly filled with rambling half-thoughts, but that’s what you do at the end of the year—you reflect and ramble until it almost turns into something. this is under a read more only because i don’t like clogging up people’s dashes with really long posts, so you know, skip or read at your own leisure.

i don’t really ever do any kind of reflecting that doesn’t come out in the form of fanfiction. i have some feelings, i write a few thousand words about them, i throw them out into the world, and that’s it. i’ll reread my own stuff but i never really think again about what prompted me to write them because it’s over. the feelings are done but the words are memories and that’s all i need, usually.

but 2019 was a tough year in ways that i can’t express in fic, so i’ll just throw out a few thousand personal words and be done with it.

in september of 2018, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and i don’t think i’ve really been happy since. most of it isn’t being sad about the diagnosis—maybe a lot of it is and i just need a whole heap of therapy to unpack that—but rather how much the cancer changed. it was very advanced when they caught it and she’s made almost a complete recovery in just over a year, and given how shitty everything was to start, this is the best way a bad situation could have ended. not that it’s over, but you know.

it shifted our family completely. i don’t think it brought us closer, maybe my sister or my parents feel differently, but i don’t. morgie turned inward for maybe the first time in her life and kept us at arm’s length in the beginning. she told us very clearly that she didn’t want the cancer to take over her whole life—she wanted us to act normal and talk about normal things as if this was just a temporary snag.

i’ve had epilepsy since i was fifteen months old. i know what it feels like to do that same thing, to minimize and downplay the experience of a chronic condition. because my epilepsy has, gratefully, been very manageable. i can count on one hand the number of seizures i remember having. i have an annual checkup with a neurologist, she confirms the dosage of my meds, and i say goodbye. that’s it, no problem, see you next year.

(it could be so much worse, they say. you’re very lucky, you hear for twenty nine years.

i am not lucky.)

morgan’s cancer kind of opened the flood gates, i think, and a whole heap of shit came spilling out. you know how you see those posts on here about ADHD or autism and a few captions down the line someone is always like, “wait, you mean not everyone [is like this] or [does that]?” i feel like i’m just coming to realize that about my childhood.

not everyone takes days off of school to go to the children’s hospital—for an EEG, or an MRI, or to get blood drawn, etc. “normal” seven-year-olds probably aren’t managing their own prescriptions. my condition is less severe than many others’ but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. it’s certainly not. i’ve always understood “it’s manageable” to mean “it’s not traumatic”, and only now am i realizing that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

and all of a sudden, this thing that i’ve been living with for so long, that i thought i had under control, is rearing back with a vengeance. and because i have been taught to be grateful for the “best” of a bad situation, because its mildness has turned it into something we don’t talk about, i draw inward and it festers and rots into shame. i’ve been operating like this since i was a kid and i think maybe i’ve finally hit capacity.

on top of that, i’ve been going through a bit of an identity crisis. i seem to do that every few years—five years ago as ace, four years ago as nonbinary—and i guess it’s time for another one. tbh it’s kind of been scraping at the back of my brain ever since i realized i was nonbinary, because even that didn’t feel like enough, but i didn’t know what would.

i’ve said it in a few posts over the years (probably somewhere in both of the linked ones), but i personally really like labels. i spend so much of my time with myself (physically, sure, but i mean emotionally) and very rarely ever share things out loud, so how can i know who i am if i don’t find the right words? gay was good to start. ace fit in later, and then eventually it was just queer. and it will probably stay queer, but there are different parts of my queerness that i haven’t named yet, and the ambiguity is making me itch.

i’ve had this post sitting in my likes for about a week now—i identify with it too much to ignore, but it scares me too much to reblog it, and also i don’t want to until i can explain my feelings and fears. transness feels like something i’ve been hiding from for a while—not in a repulsive way. more like that “i’m in this photo and i don’t like it” meme. that thread encapsulates a lot of what i’ve been thinking about and struggling with for a few months: that i don’t feel trans ~enough, but i also don’t feel not-trans.

everything i’ve been thinking about feels like i’m quibbling with myself over something really small, like how much of a difference would it really make to think of myself as trans...instead of? along with? being nonbinary; why is this a detail i’ve been obsessing over. everything i said in the nb post is still true, except my concept of gender has changed a little since i wrote it. i don’t feel like a woman and i don’t feel like a man, except i also don’t think gender means anything, even when presented as two binary options, so what do i really know? how do i know i’m not a man if i think “man” means nothing?

and i really am thinking about it in the smallest of terms—headcanon-ing characters as trans, feeling drawn to the trans flag over any others. it’s really dumb, that this is what’s triggering a bit of gay panic. what does it matter, i keep asking myself. i’ve seen posts over the years breaking down the stripes of each flag, pointing out that nb/genderqueer identities are already represented, and i wish that were enough but it’s not. it’s so dumb, i keep thinking, to see myself in the whole of the trans flag when i don’t think i belong to the whole transgender experience. and even that sounds dumb, when i hear it—of course there isn’t one whole transgender experience. i hear it, but i haven’t yet listened.

anyway. all of this and a lot of other things have been broiling and rotting inside of me for my whole life probably. i’ve literally never said any of this out loud, to friends or family or strangers. i’ve worn that like a badge since high school—isn’t it admirable, how i can talk and laugh and live without dumping my problems on anyone else. isn’t it better to be accommodating, to keep your burdens from weighing other people down? only you don’t realize until later how tiresome it is to be heavy.

now that i have all of my fics moved over to AO3, i’ve been thinking about all that i’ve written over the years. it’s just shy of 730k. that’s more than the first five harry potter novels combined, and i’ve never told anyone in my life about it. that’s twelve years and so much of me to keep to myself. but i’ve done it because that’s kind of what i learned to do—my epilepsy was my first and most guarded secret and along the way i guess i learned to do that with everything. it doesn’t help that so many of my interests have been things that are either solitary or a source of “shame”. most of my friends i know through various social media sites. i’ve had this tumblr for nine years and the only people who know about it are other tumblr users. there is so much more of me than a few hundred thousand words hanging around this garbage dump.

i don’t know if there are any conclusions here. 2019 was rough, for even more reasons than i’ve barfed into this post. i’m not sure if i’ve learned anything from it; i don’t feel wiser or anything. i feel tired and mostly sad. i wish i could snap my fingers and resolve everything, but if i could do that, i’d already have done it. on top of everything, these are probably my last few months in chicago for a while, but that’s a whole other mountain of feelings to unpack.

anyway, i’m going into 2020 determined to get over myself, maybe find a therapist and a good masseuse.

happy new year.

#me #my back and my brain: the two things i take the least care of #where's that kristen wiig 'and i'm a huge fucking mess' gif when you need it #this came out more maudlin than i intended but #there you go

11 notes · View notes

judedeluca · 5 years ago

Text

Last Friday I Tried To Kill Myself: My Rant On Why Heroes In Crisis Is Destructive Garbage And Why Stories Like This Need To Stop Being Made

TW: Suicide, rape, abuse

I’ve made it no secret I’ve been in therapy since 2012, and I’ve especially been vocal about my dislike for DC Comics’ latest event book, “Heroes in Crisis,” which just released its last issue on May 29th 2019.

I tried to write something the other night but I didn’t like how it sounded so I deleted it. After my session with my therapist earlier in the day, she convinced me to simply write down what I feel regardless. And so I did. I typed and typed. This is pretty long under the cut. I don’t know if I got carried away. I think I did.

I need to be clear I did NOT just try to commit suicide because of how much I hated a comic book. I’d like to believe even I’m not that pathetic. I tried to kill myself because of a number of reasons which sort of snowballed together this previous Friday.

Look this is angry and long and it sounds ridiculous but I just wanted to write and get my feelings out and I’m sorry okay? I’m, just, I’m sorry. For being pathetic and a disappointment to my friends and letting this bother me so much.

But I’m talking about “Heroes in Crisis” because this book has been negatively affecting me since it began publication, and the state that it left me in this past week only served to exacerbate the negative thoughts I had to endure, and I briefly reached a point where I had a knife to my wrist.

I’ve been attending therapy for the past seven years in order to address trauma and abuse I suffered through in my adolescence. In grade school I was bullied, and from 6th to 12th grade I was sexually abused on two separate occasions in two separate schools from four different people. In middle school I was assaulted by three boys who weren’t much older than me on the bus ride home, where they grabbed my head and shoved my face into their crotches as all the other kids laughed. In high school a classmate molested me twice during art class, and spent the rest of that time trying to make me apologize after I smacked him in self defense.

In 2009 my family dissolved when my parents unhappily split apart, which placed me as the unwilling recipient of my father’s, mother’s, and sibling’s emotional baggage while my own problems were ignored. During the loss of my support system I juggled two jobs along with graduating from college, I came out of the closet and have been struggling to figure out both my sexual and gender identities, I made my first suicide attempt in 2013, and my best friend died in 2016 along with four other people I cared about or who saw me as a friend.

Seeking therapy was something I had to do on my own. I tried counseling sessions with the people at my college but despite their best efforts it didn’t do much to help. I never received counseling in middle school for my sexual assault and my parents weren’t of much help either despite it was clear I developed some significant behavior problems. In 10th Grade I did spend some time with a guidance counselor because they feared I was suicidal due to my depression around my bad grades in Chemistry, but again this didn’t really help.

God I realize how analytical and detached this is sounding and I don’t know why. I feel like I’m just listing everything. Ugh.

Aside from my suicidal thoughts I suffer from depression and PTSD. I think I’m a genuinely bad person and I’ve often thought I brought the abuse I suffered as a kid onto myself because I was a weird boy. I’ve wondered if I have a right to feel ashamed of what happened to me because it wasn’t as bad as what other people have gone through. I frequently think of myself as a shameless, greedy, manipulative person who doesn’t deserve to be happy because I use people. I’ve truly said some awful things to people and I know I’ve been blocked by a couple of people online and not without good cause. You need to understand that. My own sibling once said I was a wicked, blackhearted person.

I have trouble not assuming the worst of my parents and sibling because of how often I would find myself stuck in the middle of their arguing, which got me labeled a martyr whenever I tried to play peacemaker which I only wanted because I hate seeing them unhappy. I assume the worst about situations and I’ve spent countless nights lying awake thinking over and over again about past mistakes and how much I wish I was dead, or that I had died instead of one of my friends because they made the world a better place and I don’t. It’s easy for me to believe the world would be a better place if I died.

Often my problems had been ignored by the people I turned to for help. Ignored, looked down upon, or just belittled. It became hard for me to talk to people because it felt like no one really cared about what I was going through or that I wanted help. Or they misunderstood and their attempts to help failed because they didn’t really know what was wrong.

Despite all this I want to believe therapy has helped me deal with problems better than I had before, and helped me to take pride in what I have accomplished. I graduated cum laude with no student debt, I’ve held onto at least one job for over a decade, and I’m currently writing for three websites that have let me change my perspective on things and given me space to grow as a writer. I believe I’m better able to recognize boundaries and to let my feelings be known, and to know when not to engage in stressful situations. I’ve been trying, TRYING, not to let me depression and negative thoughts affect me too badly.

It’s not easy, but it’s better than not doing anything at all.

So, where does “Heroes in Crisis” fit into this.

Well.

Through middle and high school, comics were pretty much the only thing that managed to keep me going without having a complete breakdown. Well I did have other interests and I still do. I could never survive on comic books alone.

I didn’t really have any friends I could rely on or talk to about my problems, not in real life or online. I got lucky in high school since there was a comic store one block away, which meant I was now able to regularly buy comics instead of the odd issue here or there. It was after I graduated high school I finally began to make some friends through online message boards and by meeting people at comic conventions. So comics didn’t just keep me going, they helped me find the people who HAVE been able to help me and see me as an individual worth knowing. My very first best friend in the whole world (NOT the one who died) is a professional comic artist I met through DeviantArt. “Stuck Rubber Baby” helped me realize and be honest about the fact I’m queer, and it was through commissioning comic artists I’ve felt more comfortable about exploring my sexuality.

As cheesy as it sounds the presence of comics in my life has indeed helped me a great deal, and I want to professionally write comics someday as a way to repay some of that back and try to make the world a better place.

I’ve always bought a little bit of everything but I’m mainly focused on DC Comics. My favorite teams are the Titans, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Doom Patrol, and the Justice Society. Ask me my favorite Flash, I’ll pick Jay Garrick or Wally West. My favorite Green Lantern, I’d pick Alan Scott and Kyle Rayner.

Suffice it to say I really haven’t been happy with most of what DC’s published in the past ten years. I’ve been especially vocal about my dislike for books such as “Rise of Arsenal,” “Titans” by Eric Wallace, and pretty much everything Scott Lobdell’s worked on. Like a lot of people, I thought “DC Rebirth” back in 2016 was a step in the right direction, that they were finally cleaning the mess they made with the New 52 initiative.

“Heroes in Crisis” proved me and a lot of other people wrong.

But as a person struggling with depression and PTSD, this book offended me on a whole different level compared to anything those other books have done.

So you’ve got a place, Sanctuary, where heroes and villains can receive counseling for their respective problems and possibly get help. That sounds like a great idea. And then the first issue opens with the reveal every patient has been gruesomely murdered save for two who believe the other is guilty. And it gets worse from there.

FIRST: It turns out Sanctuary has no actual doctors or therapists. It relies instead on a computer programmed with the supposed best traits of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

SECOND: The patients are put in virtual reality chambers where they relive their respective traumas over and over again as a way to confront them.

THIRD: There doesn’t seem to be any real security except for a couple of robots, and anyone can just walk in. Which means Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman haven’t been monitoring the place until AFTER the massacre.

What followed was than eight issues of a supposed mystery that wasn’t a mystery at all. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman do almost nothing to figure who was responsible for this, while Lois Lane is given files of all the Sanctuary interviews which she PUBLISHES, leaking hundreds of secrets that were meant to be private even if she obscures the real names. The investigation falls to Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, who both believe the other is the killer.

It eventually turns out the killer was Wally West, who accidentally unleashed a burst of energy that killed those around him and in a fit of extreme suicidal despair violated the corpses to look like a mystery so he would have enough time to release the Sanctuary files and then kill himself believing it was the only way to make things right. He doesn’t die but turns himself in at the end.

I-I don’t have the energy to give a complete rundown, I really don’t. Suffice to say the book has problems. Racist problems, homophobic problems, and ableist problems. The series IS a problem.

Since the first issue was released I hated, I HATED, this comic with every fiber of my being. I hated the stilted writing and I hated the gross, overly sexualized artwork. I hated it was another event series built around cheap shock value deaths meant to drive up sales and garner controversy to make more sales. And I especially hated the premise, that this Sanctuary was supposed to be a place of healing but was anything BUT. The DC Trinity make no attempt to get real doctors to help them provide help for their comrades and friends, delegating everything to a computer that’s supposed to have their best qualities and assuming THAT is a decent substitute for qualified psychiatrists and therapists.

The very IDEA that Superman and Wonder Woman could be so arrogant and conceited to believe they could substitute for licensed medical professionals is appaling. Even Batman on his worst days would never be so inconsiderate.

And then there are the VR chambers, where the heroes relive their traumas over and over and over again until they can get over them. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY. To experience such pain over and over again. The comic even demonstrated through characters Lagoon Boy and Wally West that going through their trauma again and again clearly wasn’t helping. Lagoon Boy relieved the Titans East massacre HUNDREDS of times. And this seems to be the only real option Sanctuary allows besides the confessionals.

This, this NEGLECT. Sanctuary isn’t a place for healing, it’s a dumping ground! These people are secluded and essentially kept in solitary confinement where they have almost no one but a computer to talk to. A computer that does absolutely nothing to help them.

I spoke to my own doctor about this and she agreed with me none of this was healthy and that the book itself was extremely damaging and poorly thought out.

And I have spoken to her about this a LOT over the last nine months, because with each issue that came out I felt myself getting more and more worn down. I would dread the last Wednesday of the month knowing the next issue would arrive. And let me tell you this wasn’t the only thing I was talking about in my sessions, but it figured a lot into my past discussions and my therapist respected that. I’m glad I have her in my life, she’s a consummate professional.

I’m not talking about simple fan boy hate. This comic DRAINED me and struck more than a number of nerves. The apathy and insensitivity that went into crafting this book reminded me far too much of what I’ve gone through in life and not for the better.

For starters, the way Tom King portrays the problems the characters go through is nothing but a joke. We’re treated to multiple confessional sequences where different characters talk about their issues in a nine-panel grid layout featuring some of the most stilted dialog I’ve ever read. King shows absolutely no research or care in the characters he talks about, ignoring their backstories to make up nonsense and present it as deep when in reality he’s gutted them from the inside out.

The one that bothered me most was Roy Harper from the first issue, in a confessional sequence one page AFTER his corpse is found.

Tom King took nine issues to completely destroy and misunderstand Wally West’s character, even though he only needed one page for Roy Harper.

Of course Scott Lobdell spent eight years destroying the character, so King didn’t need to do much.

Roy and his daughter Lian have been two of my favorite DC characters for years. I’ve been able to relate to Roy’s issues a lot over the years. Not his past drug addiction, but his struggles with depression and abandonment issues and his fight to try and be a better person despite everything he’s gone through. He was raised in a Native American community and probably has a better understand of racism than most white people could dream of. He’s a devoted father who tries to be the best dad he can be for his daughter. But most importantly, he knows he can screw up and he knows he’s not perfect. He just wants to be good. He’s a complex and multifaceted person who is more than his trauma, and I’ve long admired that. I’ve wished I could stop beating myself up over my past mistakes and just focus on doing good instead of hating myself for not being perfect. As someone who never really had much support from my parents growing up and that feeling of being totally alone despite being surrounded by people, I empathized with the neglect he suffered form Green Arrow and the way he was essentially abandoned in “Rise of Arsenal” when he needed help the most.

But is any of that discussed in “Heroes in Crisis?”

No.

Roy’s abandonment and depression are ignored so Tom King can churn out some nonsense about abusing prescription meds given to him by doctors for his superhero injuries before he switched to heroin because it was cheaper and safer. Not because of his depression. He only started taking the meds because of his injuries and he got addicted, which I’ve seen a number of fans who suffer from chronic pain complain that this is ableist for presenting them as drug addicts.

God I hope I’m remembering that right, I’m sorry guys.

“So you go to a needle. To save your kidneys. And some money. But really, isn’t that what superheroes do? Save things?”

Objectively one of the worst things I have ever read in ANYTHING.

But it doesn’t stop there. Pretty much every character given a confessional more or less has the problems they truly did survive ignored for nonsense that never occurred or is completely out of character to the point it feels like these are SUPPOSED to be jokes. Firestorm talks about his head being on fire. Green Lantern Hal Jordan doesn’t know what “Will” is. Raven says her father, an inter dimensional monster who has tried to turn her evil over and over again and whom she hates, loves her. Minor character the Protector is revealed to be addicted to multiple drugs and was only an anti-drug crusader because he thought it was funny. That was just CRUEL.

I... I have spent so long being ashamed of a lot of the abuse I went through and it is still hard for me to talk about. Do you have any idea how disgusted I am with myself whenever I try to tell someone about what happened to me in high school? When I have to figure out a way to say that “He tried to stick his finger in my ass” and not think about how the people reading or hearing this must be laughing at me it’s so pathetic? Or when I think about the crying fit after my first day of high school begging my mom to take me out of this school and she tells me to suck it up?

And so this bothers me, because I frequently fear that my problems are just a joke. And I see the characters whom I resonate with have their problems degraded and treated as poorly thought out jokes.

Why were some of these characters even here in the first place? To deal with their problems? Even though some of them WERE ALREADY TRYING TO GET HELP. Roy in particular had his Titans teammate Lilith Clay as his substance abuse counselor, but none of that is mentioned in the lead-up to “Heroes in Crisis.” The help that Roy was already getting was ignored. His efforts at self improvement were ignored by those around him.

But it’s not as bad as the reason Wally West was in Sanctuary. In “Flash War” Wally regains memories of his twin children Jai and Iris and is told they’re not in the Speed Force but SOMEWHERE. And Wally tries to find them and can’t. So instead of Barry Allen getting the Justice League to help with the search, knowing the disappearance of these children are one example of how the universe has been damaged, Barry and Iris West allow Wally to be taken to Sanctuary to essentially get him to shut up about his missing kids. He is abandoned by the people he viewed as parents. And this is what leads to Wally’s breakdown. Despite knowing his children are out there somewhere, “Heroes in Crisis” tries to demonize Wally for wanting his family back and it’s used to make him into a suicidal mass murderer. Wally’s problems make him into a villain. He’s driven mad with grief when he hacks the Sanctuary computer thinking no one has gone through what he has, and is broken when he experiences all that trauma at once. All this because he wanted something that was perfectly rational for him to want.

Wally’s trauma is used to dehumanize him.

The dehumanization doesn’t stop there, especially in the case of Poison Ivy who is turned into a plot device for Harley Quinn’s sake.

Never forget this was a thing that Clay Mann drew and DC would’ve used before it got leaked.

This was supposed to be the cover for the seventh issue, Ivy’s bloody corpse done like a pin-up.

After being treated as Harley’s motivation for most of the series, Ivy’s revived but in such a way she’s lost most of her humanity. She gets turned into a rip off of Swamp Thing and her body is more plant than human, no longer having nipples or a vagina. She’s been murdered and brought back in a way that will let DC sexualize her as much as they want now that she’s not human anymore. But this is supposed to be treated as GOOD because she’s supposedly more powerful now and she’s alive. Like that doesn’t change the shameful way she was killed, and how she came to Sanctuary hoping to get help for the awful things that haunt her and it got her killed.

Ivy’s long been a very complex character herself and many people have looked at her as a strong, interesting, intelligent queer woman who ultimately only wants to save the Earth and be with the woman she loves. But she’s frequently the villain in her stories and often told she doesn’t understand what real love is. Instead of being recognized for the complex character and inspiration she is, Ivy also has her trauma used against her as an excuse for to be sent to die and LITERALLY be dehumanized. So what does that say to the women who resonate with her? The queer readers? What does that say?

The leaking of the Sanctuary files is also supposed to be seen as good. Wally claims he did it because he thought if people saw someone like him could make a mistake, they’d get help before he did something bad like him. That if they saw their heroes had problems, they’d get help too.

IT’S TRYING TO VALIDATE THIS VIOLATION OF PRIVACY AND HOW ALL THESE PROBLEMS ARE TURNED INTO A MEDIA SIDESHOW THANKS TO LOIS LANE AND SUPERMAN.

And Wally turns himself in he’s left to rot in jail, more alone than ever. Where’s the supposed help now?

But Booster Gold gets to hang with Blue Beetle and Harley’s with Ivy and it’s supposed to be about hope by showing no matter what mistakes you make it’s not too late and blah blah whatever that last issue was. It tries to pretend all this suffering and misery was worth it because now Wally really can represent hope by being an example!

Bros before heroes!

These people went to get help or were sent to get help, and instead they were ignored. They were killed. Their problems turned into jokes. They had their problems used against them after they died when all they wanted was to be better.

WANTING TO GET BETTER IS NOT A REASON WHY ANYONE SHOULD HAVE TO DIE. NO ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED LIKE AN AFTERTHOUGHT LIKE THIS.

One of the worst thing out of all this is knowing NONE OF THE CHARACTERS USUALLY ACT LIKE THIS. The reason why Wally accidentally killed everyone is because King makes up a retcon involving the Speed Force that was never, EVER mentioned in any Flash comic before. He makes up things on the fly to justify why any of the characters are there at all. Someone once said how, and I’m paraphrasing, “A story should be made to fit the characters, the characters shouldn’t be made to fit the story.” It’s been clear to a lot of people this book was blatant character assassination and Dan Didio’s latest attempt to finally get rid of Wally West because he hates him and all the other legacy characters so much. A story about PTSD that could’ve been meaningful and helped people got hijacked to destroy a character. To use their trauma as a tool to make them do something horrible. To exploit trauma for shock value and dehumanize not just the characters but the people who read these books and identified with the struggles and I

HATE IT!!!!!!!

It hurts because so many people care about these characters, and Didio would use a story that could’ve been uplifting to carry out his petty hatred.

This has been it, month after month for me. I’d get mad, and I would try to take my mind off it. I’d write fan fiction and commission artwork making fun of “Heroes in Crisis,” I’d try to vent on the internet and explain why I hate this comic. I’d connect with friends and other fans who’re equally unhappy, and I’d just feel myself getting worse and worse. I’ve had trouble sleeping thinking about this comic, stress dreams and laying awake at night before I’d start to think about how I’m a bad person too and wishing over and over again to die and end everything. To stop being a blight on the world and give it to someone who deserves to live. More importantly, that crushing sense of not being able to do anything to make this better. This powerlessness to try and change things for the better. Wishing I could do something to make it better and thinking about all the other ways I’ve failed in life. The loved ones and friends who died and I couldn’t help them. The unhappiness in my family. The state of the world. And then I’d think about how much I hate myself even more because there are more important things to worry about in the world, like what that rapist monster in the White House is doing to this country and to anyone who’s not a straight white man.

The week the final issue came out I knew right off it was going to be a train wreck and I was right. A disappointing ending to a disappointing story. More feelings of anxiety and self loathing and a feeling that my problems are nothing but a joke to mocked and exploited.

While all this was going on I had other things to worry about. In March my grandfather was hospitalized with a number of health problems due to a urinary tract infection. He spent a week gradually becoming confused and losing energy before he was taken to the emergency room when he said he was having trouble breathing. It turned out he also had a cyst, a clot, and bleeding in his brain. As me, my mom and sibling worried about his health we also had to worry about our house because my grandfather pays most of the rent and if his pension had to go towards a nursing home, we would have to move. So while worrying about my 92 year old grandfather’s health I also had to worry about possibly losing my house. And while he was recovering at the rehab hospital he had to go back to the ER again on Easter when we were told he fell during the night. He’s in another nursing home and he’s doing better thankfully, but he’s also the last grandparent I have and I’m not ready to lose him when he’s held onto his mind for so long.

So what exactly happened when the ninth issue came out that pushed me?

This past Thursday while I was at work, I get a call from my mother saying she thinks someone might be in our house because she went downstairs into my grandpa’s apartment and all the doors were open. I don’t know why she didn’t call the police or what she thought I could do since I wasn’t even in the Bronx. *Sigh* I tried to get my dad to come pick me up sooner so I could check out what was wrong and I was trying not to panic even when my mom texts me saying she’s okay but she locked her bedroom door and she’s got a blunt object. Then she says maybe it was nothing after all...

And then I get home and I see the garage door is wide open and it’s a disaster, as if someone trashed the place. I can’t get my dad out of the car and he just says “Call the police” as if he doesn’t care. I run into the house and begin checking the rooms in my grandpa’s apartment before grabbing a kitchen knife and going back to the garage. I then tell my mom what’s happened to the garage and it’s like I’m invisible. I can’t even get her outside to look and she’s more concerned about getting her dinner from around the corner. She tells me “It’s not like no one’s gotten in the garage before.”

AFTER SHE GETS ME WORKED UP THINKING SOMEONE WAS IN OUR HOUSE. AND I COME HOME AND THEY MIGHT’VE TRASHED THE GARAGE.

I literally can’t understand what was going through her head when she gave me this runaround. And I call her on it the next day, telling her how scared she got me and how it felt when she acted like I was making a big deal of nothing. I was frightened she could’ve been alone in the house with an intruder, because obviously she felt the same way if she wanted to lock herself in her bedroom. She STILL acted like it was no big deal and it’s like 2010 all over again and I’m being expected to drop everything to help her and she won’t give me any courtesy or empathy.

And then not even an hour later that Friday I get an email from my boss about a secret shopper thing and I rush to get my phone seeing he’s tried to call me. And he’s saying he’s mad at me because of something I did on Tuesday that might get our distribution license suspended or taken away completely. I’m thinking this is because of me. Because I screwed up. And I’ve had this job since I graduated high school and I might’ve ruined it completely.

And that mixed with how it’s like my mother has played fucking mindgames with me and all the other feelings and the general anger and hopelessness and thinking over and over it’s not going to get better I picked up that knife again and held it to my wrist while my boss was still on the phone.

I had it pressed against my skin and wanted to dig it in deeper.

I kept thinking “I CAN’T DO THIS I CAN’T DO THIS” seeing everything all at once, over and over again and...

I-I don’t know. Maybe just a part of me that said not to do it or something. Maybe because despite all my talk of wanted to die I don’t.

I don’t want to die.

So I put the knife down before I cut myself.

I went to work at my second job and I scheduled an emergency session with my therapist, and I tried to write.

So it’s Monday morning and I’m typing this and wondering now, if anyone actually reads this what kind of shit will I expect if people actually bother to read it.

I’m a loser who needs to get a life

I read the story wrong

I didn’t understand the story

I need to get laid

I’m just mad my favorite character died

I hate it because Tom King’s a good writer

I’m a contrarian who hates it because it’s popular

I don’t know what I’m talking about

I’m a whiny f****t

I’m conceited enough to think Tom King may ever actually read this and have him say “I’m sorry you reacted this way”

This isn’t the story King wanted to tell and he had good intentions

OH SCREW YOUR FUCKING “GOOD INTENTIONS”

My teachers had “Good intentions”

My parents had “Good intentions”

AND I AM STILL FUCKING PAYING FOR IT

I am so sick of hearing about “Good intentions.” Just because a person had good intentions doesn’t absolve them of messing up! King apparently handed in a basic outline and let editorial pick the characters. If King had good intentions, he would’ve bothered to do research on the characters instead of turning them into jokes. If he had good intentions he would’ve done a better job of showing how therapy actually CAN help people. He wouldn’t have given us a story all about death and suffering and say it’s about hope. If he had good intentions he wouldn’t have let Didio use this to get rid of Wally West.

You want to talk about people with ACTUAL good intentions? How about we talk about the people out there who’ve written about abuse and trauma and suicidal thoughts and how to address those things in ways that MATTER. In ways that don’t alienate people and can grant a better understanding of ways to act.

In ways that say “I see you. I understand you and know what you’ve gone through. You’re stronger than you think.”

Let’s talk about Jeremy Whitley writing “The Unstoppable Wasp” where Nadia Pym has a manic episode and attacks her friends, and has to be talked down from killing herself by her friend Priya because her own brother committed suicide.

Let’s talk about how Priya describes the world Nadia would create if she killed herself and convinces her she deserves to live because she makes everyone happy and she is a good person no matter what she is thinking right now.

Let’s talk about Magdalene Visaggio’s “Eternity Girl” where Caroline Sharp is a suicidal immortal superhero who wants to destroy reality because she thinks it’s the only way she can die, and her girlfriend Dani convinces her that she can build a new world for herself instead of destroying this one because Caroline’s stronger than her misery and has the power to choose what she wants.

Let’s talk about Chris Claremont’s disgust at how Carol Danvers had been brainwashed and raped and sent off to live with her rapist while her friends did nothing to help her and thought this was a HAPPY ENDING

Let’s talk about how he had Carol dress down the Avengers for the shameless way they treated her and abandoned her when she needed them

Let’s talk about Jim Salicrup and Louise Simonson working on the “Spider-Man and Power Pack” special which showed the right ways to address child abuse.

How Salicrup was able to make Spider-Man into a sexual abuse survivor without it being a joke and how his story helped a little boy tell his parents what happened to him. And how this helped Spider-Man accept what happened to him was not his fault.

How Simonson wrote about the Power Pack supporting a friend being sexually abused by her father and how they convince her she did nothing to deserve this.

Let’s talk about Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol run which showed that trauma is not the end of someone’s existence and that people can be happy despite what’s happened to them

Let’s talk about George and Marion who despite the trauma of having lost their bodies and being used as slaves they still choose to smile and enjoy life and love each other

Let’s talk about Kate Godwin, a transgender woman who changed her body to match the person she was inside despite what people said about her and treated her, and found a community that supported her and loved her and is a strong, good woman with the power and the empathy to help others

A woman who was outraged when a person tried to make her believe she’d been gang raped and needed trauma to make her life more meaningful.

SO TALK ABOUT ALL OF THEM AND TELL ME ABOUT KING’S “GOOD INTENTIONS”

NO ONE NEEDS TRAUMA IN THEIR LIFE TO MAKE IT MEANINGFUL. FINDING HAPPINESS AFTER YOU’VE SURVIVED SOMETHING HORRIBLE DOESN’T MAKE THAT SOMETHING HORRIBLE JUSTIFIED.

You can’t look at stories like “Heroes in Crisis” and say “Oh it’s okay because in the end it was worth it because it taught us something” and NO. IT IS NOT OKAY. HAVING YOUR PROBLEMS LAUGHED AT AND MOCKED AND DEGRADED AND TRIVIALIZED IS NEVER OKAY. NOT FROM THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT. NOT TOTAL STRANGERS. NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO THAT.

So yeah, maybe I am fucking pathetic for ranting about this and I should get a life and talk about more important things but I don’t fucking care! I’m angry about this and I’m gonna be angry for a long time! I’m angry about this story and I’m angry about how it affected me and the people I care about and people I don’t know and I will always be angry with myself that I tried to kill myself because of how this book made me feel and affected what I was going through.

Because stories are important to our lives. They can help us get through every day and they can make our problems not seem so bad. They can give us the strength to look at the bad parts of our life and think maybe they can change. That WE can change. We read about these people and we connect with them. We see things in them we wish to be like or things that are already in us and it can make us feel like we aren’t alone.

And even when stories aren’t enough they can help us find the people who can tell us these things. To help us find people who would care about us, and to care about them so maybe WE can help them. They’re a gateway.

So no, it’s not just a fucking comic book. And no, I don’t care what the intentions were. And I don’t care how pathetic this all sounds.

This, this was a bad story. This was a harmful story. And people deserve better. We don’t deserve to keep living in an age where stories like this, that can make us feel like we’re nothing, keep happening. We deserve stories that show us our lives are not defined by our trauma, we are NOT jokes, we are strong, and we deserve to live. That is not what “Heroes in Crisis” was and you will never convince me otherwise.

I had problems long before this story came out. I do not blame it for things that happened to me before. I do not blame it for my assault and abuse. I blame it for making me feel more like I don’t deserve to live and that what I’ve gone through doesn’t matter. I blame it for making me feel like my hard work and attempts to make my life better are meaningless.

This is not okay.

You wanna fucking blast me for this, go right ahead.

128 notes · View notes

cctinsleybaxter · 5 years ago

Text

2019 in books

The year’s contenders for the good, the bad, and the rest. I used to make a list of the ten best books I read all year, a tradition encouraged by my mom as far back as high school, but out 2019′s twenty-six mediocre offerings it didn’t really come together. Instead I’ve decided to break my ‘honorable mentions’ category into three subsections that I hope you’ll enjoy. In order of when read, not in order of affection:

Honorable mentions [books I liked; 3+ star material]

The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin was given to me as a Christmas present last year, and I wasn’t sure how much I would like it since I don’t really do high fantasy. Rules need not apply; I loved the world building and narrative structure, and the characters were so much better than I’m used to even when their arcs seemed familiar at first glance. I guessed what was going on with the formatting maybe a little too quickly, but even then it was emotionally engaging and I was eager to keep reading and see what happened next. Haven’t devoured a book that way in years.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi has been on my list for a while; as a memoir told through short stories it’s hit-or-miss, but so worth it. I especially loved getting to read his early attempts at fiction, and the chapter Phosphorus regarding his first real job as a chemist in 1942 (his description of his absolute disgust at having to work with rabbits, the feel of their fur and the “natural handle” of the ears is a personal favorite.) This excerpt is one I just think about a lot because it’s full of small sweet details and so kindly written:

“[my father] known to all the pork butchers because he checked with his logarithmic ruler the multiplication for the prosciutto purchase. Not that he purchased this last item with a carefree heart; superstitious rather than religious, he felt ill at ease breaking the kasherut rules, but he liked prosciutto so much that, faced by the temptation of a shop window, he yielded every time, sighing, cursing under his breath, and watching me out of the corner of his eye, as if he feared my judgement or hoped for my complicity.”

Slowing Down from Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin is a one-page short story, but I’m including it because it’s the best in the book and one of the better stories I’ve read in general. I won’t spoil it for you since it’s more poem than anything else (and you can read the whole thing here.)

A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson deserves to be lower in the order because it’s like. Bad. But I couldn’t help but have a self-indulgent kind of love for it, since it’s a book about white boy ennui told through movie reviews. It definitely gets old by the end (one of those things where you can tell the author lost steam just as much as his leading man), but parts of it are so well-written and the concept clever. 80+ imaginary movie reviews and psychosomatic possession by your traitorous best friend.

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway has one of the greatest twists I’ve ever read in a novel, and no that’s not a spoiler, and yes I will recommend it entirely on that basis. It does its job as a multi-year sci-fi epic; reminds me a lot of Walter Moer’s early stuff in that it’s a bit Much(tm) but still a good mixture of politics and absurdity and absolute characters. Tobemory Trent was my favorite of the ensemble cast (but also boy do I wish men would learn how to write women.)

My Only Wife by Jac Jemk is a novella with only two characters, both unnamed, a man describing fragmented memories of his wife. It has me interested in Jemck’s other writing because even though I didn’t love it she writes beautifully; reading her work is like watching someone paint. The whole thing has a very indie movie feel to it (no scene of someone peeing but there SHOULD be), which I don’t think I’ve experienced in a story like this before and would like to try again.

Mentions [books I really wanted to like but my GOD did something go wrong]

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou is the most comprehensive history we have of Elizabeth Holmes and her con-company Theranos. It’s incredibly well-researched and absolutely fascinating, but veers into unnecessary pro-military stuff in one chapter (’can you believe she tricked the government?’ yes i can, good for her, leave me alone) and carries an air of racism directed at Holmes’ partner and the Pakistani people he brings onto the company. Carreyrou works for WSJ so I don’t know what I expected.

Circe by Madeline Miller was fun to read and goes down like a glass of iced tea on a hot day, but leaves a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. It says a lot of things that seem very resonant and beautiful but ultimately ring hollow, and the ending is too safe. Predictable and inevitable.

I was also bothered about Circe’s relationships with Odysseus and Telemachus as a focal point, not because they’re father and son (Greek mythology ethics : non-committal hand gesture) but because it’s the traditional “I used to like bold men but now I like... sensitive men.” Which as a character arc feels not unrealistic but very boring. You close the book and realize you’re not nine and reading your beat-up copy of Greek Myths, you’re an adult reading a New York Times Bestseller by a middle aged straight white woman.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor could have been the best thing I read all year and I’m miserable at how bad it ended up being. The concept is excellent; a thirteen-year-old girl goes missing in a rural English village, and every chapter chronicles a passing year. I knew it would be slow, I like slow, but nothing happens in this book and it ends up it feeling like Broadchurch without the detectives. Plus, McGregor, you know sometimes you can take a moral stance in your story and not just make everything a grey area? Especially with subplots that deal with things like pedophilia and institutional racism?

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor is about a twenty-something who moves from Iowa to San Francisco in the 90s and explores gender and sexuality through shapeshifting. It was something I really thought I would like and maybe even find helpful in my own life, but I couldn’t stand a single one of the characters or the narration so that’s on me! It does contain one of my favorite lines I’ve read in a long time though:

“And anyway, weren’t French boys supposed to be like Giovanni, waiting gaily for you in their rented room and actually Italian?”

Dishonorable mentions [there’s no saving these fellows]

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson was supposed to be a fun easy-to-read thriller and what can I say except what the jklfkhlkj;fkfuck. It very quickly goes from ‘oh hey I read books like this when I was 15’ to ‘oh the girl who intentionally gets kidnapped by a wealthy serial killer is accidentally falling in love with his son and can’t stop talking about his eye color now huh.’ I felt like I was losing my mind; why did grown adults give this 5 stars on Goodreads.

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips is supposedly surrealist horror fiction about working an office job in a new town, and reminded me of that rocky third or fourth year when I really started hating Welcome to Night Vale. All spark no substance, and even less fun because you know it’s going nowhere. I’ve also realized this past year that I cannot stand stories about women where their only personality trait is the desire to have children. People will throw the word ‘Kafkaesque’ at anything but here it was just insulting.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai alternates point of view between Yale, a gay man living in Chicago in the late 80s and watching his friends die, and Fiona, the straight younger sister of one of those friends now looking for her erstwhile daughter in 2018. It was nominated for the 2018 Pulitzer, and part of my interest was in wondering how we were going to connect the plot lines of ‘the personal cost of the AIDS crisis’ with ‘daughter lost to a cult.’

The answer is that we don’t. The book is well-researched and acclaimed beyond belief, but it is SUCH a straight story. Yale’s arc is fueled by the drama of his boyfriend cheating on him and infecting them both, Fiona is painted as a witness to tragedy and encouraged to share their stories with her own daughter. “You’re like the Mother Theresa of Boys Town” one of the men complains bitterly of her, and the claim goes undisputed. It’s a story that makes a lot of statements about love and families and art that I feel we’ve all heard before to much greater effect.

#long post #stardate 2k19 #apologies for any typoes or bad wording i've been trying to write and edit this for like the past week and a half

7 notes · View notes

rjzimmerman · 6 years ago

Link

Excerpt from this New York Times book review:

Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has collectively faced. That challenge is, to put it mildly, practical; but it also poses a problem to the imagination. Our politics, our societies, are arranged around individual and group interests. These interests have to do with class, or ethnicity, or gender, or economics — make your own list. By asserting these interests, we call out to each other so that as a collective we see and hear one another. From that beginning, we construct the three overlapping, interacting R’s of recognition, representation and rights.

The problem with climate change, as an existential challenge to humanity, is that the interest-based model of society and politics doesn’t work. Most of the people in whose interest we are demanding action aren’t here. They haven’t been born yet. And because the areas first and most affected by climate change are the poorest regions of earth, we are talking about the least seen, least represented group on our planet. We have to imagine these people into being, and then grant them rights, and then take unprecedented, society-wide action on that basis.

The demand climate change makes on us is to feel empathy for the unborn poor of the global south, and change our economies to act on the basis of their needs. That’s something humanity has never done before.

“The Uninhabitable Earth” gives readers’ emotions a thorough workout along that pessimism-to-despair spectrum, before we are brought round to the writer’s “acceptance of responsibility.” I stress the emotional aspect because it is crucial: We are facing a call to action that we are, on the evidence of our behavior so far, likely to ignore, unless we directly feel its urgency. We know this, because that’s what we have been doing. The science of global warming has been settled for 40 years, but we have not just continued to pollute, we have accelerated the rate at which we’ve been doing so. Most of the carbon humans have put into the atmosphere has been emitted in the last three decades. As Wallace-Wells tartly puts it, “We have done as much damage to the fate of the planet and its ability to sustain human life and civilization since Al Gore published his first book on the climate than in all the centuries — all the millenniums — that came before.”

This is part of the tragedy. It’s not just that we know what’s happening, it’s that we’ve known for years and done nothing. Nathaniel Rich observes in “Losing Earth: A Recent History” that “nearly every conversation we have in 2019 about climate change was being held in 1979.” His gripping, depressing, revelatory book is an expanded version of a whole-issue article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine last year. It is an account of what went wrong — of how it was that a moment of growing awareness of climate change, and an apparent willingness to act on the knowledge, was allowed to dissipate into stasis and inaction.

#The Uninhabitable Earth #David Wallace-Wells #Losing Earth #Nathaniel Rich #climate change

35 notes · View notes

phroyd · 6 years ago

Link

THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH Life After Warming By David Wallace-Wells

LOSING EARTH A Climate History By Nathaniel Rich

Pessimism would be an ethical catastrophe. It leads only to despair, despair to inaction, and inaction to a future world David Attenborough has described as “the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world.” To avoid the most terrible possible versions of our future, we have to stay positive; it’s the only moral response to this crisis. And there are grounds to do so, as David Wallace-Wells argues in his brilliant new book, “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming”: “We have all the tools we need, today, to stop it all: a carbon tax and the political apparatus to aggressively phase out dirty energy, a new approach to agricultural practices and a shift away from beef and dairy in the global diet; and public investment in green energy and carbon capture.”

Global emissions could be cut by a third if the richest 10 percent of humanity cut their use of energy to the same level as affluent, comfortable Europe. One prospective technique to scrub carbon from the atmosphere would cost $3 trillion a year, a colossal amount — but significantly less than the current level of subsidies paid out globally for fossil fuel, estimated at $5 trillion. Taken all in all, solutions are “obvious” and “available.” The only obstacle to implementing them is political will.

This litany of ideas might make “The Uninhabitable Earth” sound upbeat. That would be misleading. At the heart of Wallace-Wells’s book is a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet. Climate change is “not just the biggest threat human life on the planet has ever faced but a threat of an entirely different category and scale,” he writes. Even if collective action manages to keep us to 2 degrees Celsius of warming — a target it looks like we are currently on course to miss — we would be facing a world in which “the ice sheets will begin their collapse, global G.D.P. per capita will be cut by 13 percent, 400 million more people will suffer from water scarcity, major cities in the equatorial band of the planet will become unlivable, and even in the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands each summer.”

But remember, he writes, “this is our best case scenario.” Wallace-Wells takes us through a compendium of the ways in which things could get so much worse, from simple “heat death” through catastrophic storms, droughts, flooding, wildfires, pollution, plague, economic collapse and war. We will see migration on a scale the world has never experienced: United Nations and World Bank estimates of how many people will be forcibly displaced by the middle of this century range from the tens to the hundreds of millions. All of this will affect the world’s poor far more than the world’s rich. The innocent, who have done the least to damage the environment through the consumption of fossil fuels, will suffer more than the guilty.

The story runs from 1979 to 1989. Rich frames his narrative through a central character, Rafe Pomerance, a Friends of the Earth lobbyist who first came across the issue of global warming in a 1979 E.P.A. report. In the ’80s, Congress had several hearings into climate change, which was accepted as an urgent priority even by a figure as conservative and anti-intellectual as Dan Quayle: “The greenhouse effect is an important environmental issue. We need to get on with it.”

So why didn’t they?

Rich offers a number of reasons. Scientists struggled to put across a clear message with sufficient force, for one. Pomerance looked with envy at the clarity with which the “hole in the ozone layer” was targeted for action by concerned scientists, notwithstanding the fact that, as Rich writes, “there was no hole, and there was no layer.” The climate scientists’ honorable struggles with complexity, probability models and time-lags between cause and effect helped dilute the impact of their message. A 1983 report by the Academy of Sciences, “Changing Climate,” was interpreted as calling for “caution not panic.” Roger Revelle, one of America’s leading scientists and author of a 1957 paper that was one of the first to describe the greenhouse effect, said that “we’re flashing a yellow light but not a red light. It’s not an unmitigated disaster by any means. It’s just a change.” The effect of all this was that the fight against climate change lost momentum at a critical point.

The greater part of responsibility for the failure, however, lies with politicians and energy companies. The big fossil fuel firms knew the realities of human-caused climate change but chose to ignore them and to lobby for the right to damage the environment; the Republican Party had factions that were in league with Big Energy, overlapping with other factions in denial about the scientific realities. The Reagan administration fought hard against environmental protections of any kind; the Bush administration made rhetorical gestures but John Sununu, George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, did not believe in anthropogenic climate change and fought the scientists hard, and ultimately successfully.

The first meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1989 ended without the thing it was convened to achieve, binding targets on global emissions. With American leadership, Rich writes, “warming could have been held to less than 1.5 degrees.” The United States chose to shoot down the agreement. “And with that a decade of excruciating, painful, exhilarating progress turned to air.” More carbon has been emitted into the atmosphere since that 1989 conference than in the preceding history of civilization.

Climate change is a tragedy, but Rich makes clear that it is also a crime — a thing that bad people knowingly made worse, for their personal gain. That, I suspect, is one of the many aspects to the climate change battle that posterity will find it hard to believe, and impossible to forgive.

John Lanchester is the author, most recently, of “The Wall.”

THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH Life After Warming By David Wallace-Wells 310 pp. Tim Duggan Books. $27. LOSING EARTH A Climate History By Nathaniel Rich 204 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $25.

Phroyd

#the uninhabitable earth: life after warming (book)

24 notes · View notes

ellieaelious · 5 years ago

Text

Ellie Aelious }{Multiverse OC}{Post Fire Crisis

A/N: Finally complete!!! It was a long road, and took way too long, but it is finally finished! I ended up cutting a lot of things from it that did not have to do with her character, which helped a lot. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to DM me. I’ve been working on her for about fifteen years, and I still don’t have all the kinks worked out, but it’s been a fun road to get here!

This is Ellie after she gains control over the fire realm and the element of fire, all the way through her worlds Armageddon. Ten years pass in the human realm, while over 5,000 pass in the elemental realms. You have the option of choosing what stage of her life you interact with her, or I can toss her at you during a time I believe will best suit our roleplay.

So when you see an x-z that means that depending on the time frame, is dependent on when she looks or acts like X or Z. She will also change and grow in the threads we have.

Credit: Big-Ass Character Sheet by Character-Resources This is going to be what I use from now on for all of my muses, regardless if they are OC or canon. Everyone can get a good idea of them, and it will also help me when it comes to writing, since I won’t have to explain every single thing over and over again.

Verse: Realms series (book series I’m writing) Date: 7/18/2019 Full Name: Ellen Sebastiana O’Donnelly Pronunciation: El-en Sea-bass-tea-ah-na Oh-Don-el-ee Nickname/Alias: Ellie Aelious Meaning: Ellie-Pet form of Ellen or more commonly Eleanor, which itself is of Hebrew origin and comes from the Hebrew element 'el' meaning 'god' and 'or' meaning light, so the name means 'God is my light' or 'God is my candle'. Aelious-The Realmain form of “Aelius” which is a Roman family name which was possibly derived from the Greek word 'ηλιος (helios) meaning "sun". Origin: Not going to lie. I thought of the name and then the meaning just worked. That’s usually how I pick common names. For other languages, I research them. I seriously thought I made up Aelious, until Google said “Did you mean Aelius. Title: Ruler/Commander, Healer, Priest Pet Name: Aelious is actually a surname and nickname given to her by Cynbel (jfc I gotta do him too). ID Number: AR-24601 Signature: She’s ambidextrous, and before the loss of her left arm was left dominant. She still wrote with her right hand, but her handwriting is very elementary school level. Her robotic prosthetic could write perfectly, however after her arm regrows she is left with a limb that trembles and twitches when she goes to write. It makes her signature almost illegible, and she prefers to initial with her right hand. Gender: Female Gender Role: Very femme and lady like. Orientation: Pansexual/Polyamorous Real Age: Although she was born in 1983, because of the time differences between the human and element realms she is between 137-268 post arm loss, and can be anywhere up to five thousand after her arm regrows. Age Appearance: 21 Birthday: March 10th, 1983 Deathday: Armagaddon, exact date unknown. Birthplace: New York, New York, USA Astrological Sign: Pisces Zodiac Sign: Water Pig Immediate Family: Legal Guardian: Earnest O’Donnelly (deceased) Mother: Tonalnan (deceased) Father figure: Cynbel Uncle: Dante (DMCverse) Half-Brother: Nero (DMCverse) Adoptive Brother: Peter Jason Quill (GotG) Mother figure: Marina Udonta Distant Family: Father: Aluk Mal Tuk Grandfather: Shin Kage Grandmother: Eveelyn Ardelian Species: Realmain (I will be posting separately about this race.) Ethnicity: Celtic and Hispanic Blood Type: Formerly O+. She no longer has blood, and instead bleeds a silver liquid. Preferred Hand: Left Facial Type: Diamond Eye Color: Dark brown. White or red when using air and fire abilities respectively. Hair Color: Black Hairstyle:

Skin Tone: Pale White when using air powers. Dark tan when using fire. Complexion: Clear Makeup: Very light make-up during special occasions. Has started wearing winged eyeliner. Build: Body claim is Samantha Wright

Height: 5′3-5′8 Weight: 538lbs - 598lbs Cup Size: A-C cup Facial Hair: none Shoe Size: US 7 - US 9.5 Birthmarks/scars: A large scar going from her left shoulder, across her chest, and stopping half way to her right. It goes from the base of her neck to the beginning of her cleavage, around to her back. It stops at the nape of her neck and right before her shoulder blades on the left. It’s from when she had her left arm ripped off, along with a good portion of her skin.

After her arm regrows, the scar mostly heals, only leaving a faint outline around her left shoulder.

She has a mole/beauty mark on her left side, right under her bottom lip.

Many faint and small scars pepper her body, visible under a blacklight or bioluminescence given off by plants and insects.

In an alternate timeline, (DmCverse), she has half of her face scarred by an angel’s attack. Her eye is red, and it goes into her hairline, all the way to the back of her head. Distinguishing Features: Her eyes are her most distinguishing feature, able to convey a thousand emotions at once. Because of her empathic ability, if she looks someone else in the eyes, she is not only able to read their emotions, but also alter how they see her.

As she grows older, her eyes convey less innocence, and more of someone who is weary. Although the light has not gone out behind her eyes, it has dimmed significantly from when she first became a ruler.

She always has an innocent appearance about her features, usually appearing dumbfounded by the world around her. It’s not a true reflection of herself, but something that most people see at first glance. Health: She’s very healthy and her diet consists of mostly meat. She works out daily and although she loves sweets, limits them to once a week. Energy: She generates, at the minimum, enough energy to keep two realms and their inhabitants alive. That is around 6-9 billion per realm. This energy is all in reserve, and not accessible for fighting.

Aside from that, in her home dimension she generates enough excess energy to command both air and fire. She is one of the eight strongest beings, aside from angels or demons, and ranks somewhere in the third or forth strongest. Her max power level sees her generating enough energy to destroy a planet the size of her largest realm, twice.

Outside of her dimension, her excess power is diminished by half, and she can only regenerate after sleeping twelve or more hours. Because of this, she uses physical attacks when outside of her own dimension. Memory: Her memories are tied to emotions. The stronger the emotion at the time, the more likely she is to remember the event in detail. She also remembers odd events, like someone mentioning rubberbands. Senses: Her eyesight is well enough she doesn’t need to use a mounted sight on a firearm. She can see for several miles, but cannot see in dim or low lighting.

She can feel vibrations and use them to navigate in the dark as well. This has helped since she began losing her hearing a century ago.

Her sense of smell and taste are better, able to recognize someone’s scent, and develop a taste signature for them as well. This also has the negative affect of smelling something horrible, and also developing a taste signature for it. Fortunately, her nose is not what she breaths out of, so she can avoid this most times.

Her sixth sense, if you will, is extremely high. She can read a persons emotions from the next room, feel the presence of demonic entities, and can hide her own presence from them.

Allergies: Strawberries, birch water, cut grass. Handicaps:

With her hearing failing, it has been difficult for her to adjust to using vibrations to get around. While she can feel the vibrations of someone talking, she is still not fully able to differentiate between words.

After the loss of her left arm, she suffers from muscle spasms in her left shoulder. Even after her arm regrows, she has painful and powerful muscle spasms. They will often require her to take a moment to collect herself, as she’s almost blacked out from the pain.

Although she’s not mentally slow, because of her time being raised among humans, her actual brain deteriorates whenever she goes back to the human realm. This includes other dimensions that are heavily populated by humans. She will sometimes stare off into the distance or quit speaking, only to act like nothing happened. This is her healing factor attempting to repair the damage.

Highly prone to panic attacks. When she has one, she will find it difficult to breath and begin to disrobe so her lungs can have better access to air. These have lasted up to three days, and she becomes violent when people approach her during them.

She has grotesque visions of hell, and often hears demons whispering in her ear. This can cause her panic attacks, as well as send her into a temporary delirious state. Dante and Cynbel are the only ones that can calm her down when she gets like this.

Medication: She usually chews on herbs and roots from the nature realm for ailments. She also eats ‘edibles’, a relaxant from the nature realm that has similar properties to marijuana. She eats them in marshmallow form, usually to get high. Phobias: Spiders, water, being alone, the dark, and whispering. Addictions: Salted marshmallows. She will do almost anything for them. Mental Disorders:

Humans call is schizophrenia, while Realmains call it ‘Heaven Sight’. This causes her demonic visions, auditory hallucinations, as well as her anxiety. These have been constant since birth.

She is severally depressed, often on the verge of crying. This is considered a serious mental disorder caused by her high empathy. There is no way to treat it, other than developing apathy.

Style: Ellie’s style is very modest. While nudity is common in the realms, and she is comfortable with it, she covers up completely when outside of her realm. Her military uniform changes, but usually consists of vests, cargo pants, and military boots.

Her formal attire as a ruler ranges from ancient Grecian/Roman robes, to something akin to Elvish dress. It’s the few times she wears dresses anymore.

When she is having a casual day, it’s leggings/jeans and a loose fitting shirt. She does enjoy dressing in flowing garments, and does have a personal tailor that designs her clothing to wear outside of the nine realms. In her later years, she wears more fun things, and sometimes will be seen in her brother’s hoodie and booty shorts if she’s woken up suddenly.

All of her military clothes are white, while her casual clothing changes in color. She does not wear black, as it’s against her vows as a sacred virgin. Grooming: Her hair is always well maintained and braided, only becoming messy in battle. Even then, she is quick to fix it.

After an encounter with a demonic entity later in life, she has kept her hair cut very short, only a few inches long. When questioned about it, she will change the subject immediately.

As far as other hair goes, because she does not produce pheromones the same way as other mammals, she has little to no body hair to worry about. Posture: Her posture if usually back straight, chest out, chin up, and hands on her hips or crossed. If she is in a more relaxed setting, or not trying to be intimidating, she will let her hip cock to the side and slouch just a bit.

When frightened, she will hunker down and cower, making herself as small as possible.

Gait: She can’t help but have a very bouncy way of walking. Because she is usually just barely levitating off the ground, her motion is very fluid and swaying.

When approaching an enemy or upset, she will have a stalking manner of movement. Her shoulders will be forward, her steps heavy and deliberate, and fists clenched. Coordination: When in a fighting mindset, her reflexes and coordination are topnotch. Very little will get by her, and she is able to dodge bullets, as well as deflect them back to her opponent. It’s taken her almost two hundred years to perfect.

Outside of battle, she has tripped over her own feet. While levitating. She’s merely easily distracted, and doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings unless she has to. Habits and Mannerisms:

Left over from when her time without her arm, she will often let her left arm fall slack, forgetting it’s her own. This will cause her to bump into things with it.

She wrings her fingers a lot when she is nervous, and bites her bottom lip.

When she is focused on a task, or trying to decipher something, she will whisper to herself, along with moving her fingers like she is slowly typing in the air.

When frightened, she will immediately bite her lips and make her eyes wider. It’s instinctive to attempt to bring out the nurturing side of whoever is frightening her.

She has a habit of lightly touching people without realizing it. It’s often confused for flirting, but it’s only because she is touch starved.

She will pull out a book and read when she feels she is being ignored, purposely ignoring the other when they try to get her attention.

Scent: Spring Jasmine by Wild Spirit Mood: Contemplative is her usual mood when you catch her off guard. She has a lot on her mind, and not a lot of time to herself. She acts happy around others, smiling and laughing, but it’s only because she is replaying old emotions to make other feels better. She is no longer ignorant to the world, and has seen and experienced the darkness it holds. It weighs on her heavily and makes her very tired.

Being an empath, her mood is also determined by those around her. If you’re mad, she’ll be mad. If you’re being rude, she will reflect it back on you. Although she is kind at the core, she will stand up for herself and give you a taste of your own personality. Attitude: She has a very positive and upbeat attitude, despite her circumstances. She always tries to get people to be happy and rally the troops.

She can and does do a 180, and will become angry, and ho boy, whoever is on the receiving end is in for it. She has been called merciless and monstrous in her rage. Stability: Her emotional spectrum is all over the place. As the strongest empath of her world, she is able to feel the emotions of every living thing all at once. As a child, it caused her attempted suicide. And while she has learned to cope, it does become overwhelming.

Her personal emotions can also be affected by someone else. This means, feelings of love may not always be hers. Expressiveness: She is always very open with how she feels. If she is choosing to be distant with someone, it’s a bad sign. When Happy: She will often hum a tune, usually a soft cover of a metal band. She may even do Tai Chi moves or spin if she’s really happy. When Depressed: She’s always in some form of depression, but at it’s worst she will hide herself away to cry in peace. If she does manage to break down in front of someone, it can make her feel worse. Although she no longer cuts herself, she is not above ramming her head into the ground in an attempt to knock herself out. When Angry: When she becomes angry, she will become quiet and stiff. Her movements are quick and deliberate. She is at her most dangerous when angry or upset. Current Residence: She resides in the air realm, but does spend time in the fire realm as she is now the ruler of it as well. Community: The air realms community is very calm and peaceful. Even the soldiers are seen smiling as they go about their day.As their main duty is to pray and rally the troops, it is a very calming place to be.

The fire realm is friendly, but they value feats of strength and often friends will spar in the streets. It’s all in good fun, but takes some getting used to. Family: Ellie’s only living family is adoptive or half related to her. She spends most of her time with either Cynbel or Marina, and then Dante and Nero. Friends: Beau is her best friend, and it’s rare to not see them running around together.

After going through training with Ansinna, she has become best friends with her, and appointed her as a personal guard. Enemies: Her father, demonic creatures, and those who would hurt the innocent. Bosses: She is her own boss, answering to no one but a higher ranking angel or the Lord. Followers: All inhabitants of her realms and army answer to her. Heroes: Marina, being a strong woman is one of her idols. Most of the women in her life she aspires to be like. Aside from that, mentors from other dimensions. Rivals: Her Dark Saer alternate, as well as the demon Heretic. Pets/Familiars: The last chimera of her dimension, and she managed to tame it with a stick of beef jerky. It’s a shape shifter, and is usually in the form of a snake with rabbit ears. It wraps loosely around her neck, or takes residence in her cleavage. Equipment:

Weapons-Air

Ellie’s main weapon is a grey staffed naginata. It has a wider blade on one end, and her dagger bladed fan on the other. She is able to separate it at the middle for two weapons. It is an extension of her soul, and so long as she has the will to live and fight, it is unbreakable and unable to be wielded by any other. When another does decide to wield it, they will begin to gasp for breath before the oxygen is pulled from their body.

For a time she used one of her mother’s desert eagles. After an understanding came about between Nero and herself, she let it fall into the lake of fire. After this, Dante had her customized guns like his made. She calls them Alpha and Omega. Over time, Dante has taught her trick shots, and her and Nero perform a similar move to ‘Jackpot’ called ‘Fragmented Reality’.

Her custom lever action rifle has a white body with silver, Celtic knot accents. The bullets fired are made by gathering matter, which means the farther the bullet travels, the bigger is becomes. It’s her preferred form of firearm, however she is only accurate within her line of sight. If an enemy is behind her, she is unable to accurately fire at them. Because she shoots from the left, the recoil to her shoulder makes her have to take frequent breaks.

She is trained in a wide variety of weapons, but refuses to use swords. She is also trained to use unconventional weapons, such as household items and the environment.

Weapons-Fire

When she’s finally able to control her fire abilities, her naginata reverts back to her bladed fan. She uses it for defense mostly, relying on her other fire based weapon for offense.

The chain whip allows her to keep enemies at a distance, and control their movement. Should one get too close, she will wrap her whip around them, activating the blades and using it as a medieval styled chainsaw.

Her guns are named vitam et mortem (life and death in Latin) while in her fire form. Vitam has the ability to raise an ally back from near death, while mortem can kill with a single shot.

Her rifle turns into a Day of the Dead themed lever action shotgun called Vespillo (Latin for Undertaker).

Technology-

The nine realms are far more technologically advanced than most other worlds. As such, she has some very useful equipment. One of which is her visor (I will provide references later). It’s a thin piece of crystal that forms across her eyes that acts to protect them, as well as provide an HUD with her stats, as well as information about the area around her. It’s linked to three micro bots that float around the area, allowing her to enter into a third person mode.

Later in life, the visor is replaced by contact lenses that connect through micro wires into the user’s nervous system. This allows the user to non-verbally control what they are seeing, and switch between 1st person, 3rd person, night vision, and HUD.

Before her arm grew back, she had a robotic prosthetic. While it mimicked the look and feel of her original arm, it was still traumatic to use. It was able to detach and move independently to scout an area, attack, and shock an enemy.

If she’s not using her visor or contacts, she does use her IDA. Inter-Dimensional Assistant. It’s a small piece of crystal that holds a super computer, and is wired to her home dimensions mainframe. She’s able to make phonecalls, hack into systems, give someone a physical, X-Ray, produce holograms, and all kinds of neat Sci-Fi stuff.

Recently, after discovering their enemy has been using habitable planets to farm humans, space ships have become a thing. She’s still hesitant about using them, but her current vehicle is able to use collapsible technology to change into a fighter jet, or a short flight space ship.

Accessories:

Tattoos-

On her left arm, after it grows back, is a faint purple outline of her veins.

On her right arm, after retrieving the crown of thorns, it wrapped around her right forearm and embedded into her skin as a tattoo.

Her legs are tattooed with a black background encasing Celtic knots on her left, and Mayan ruins on her right.

Her back has a cross burned into it, going from the base of her neck to her tailbone.

Lastly, on her chest is a black hand print from her mother marking her, over her heart.

Piercings- Only one in each ear.

Trinkets: Star of David necklace and cross earrings. Will occasionally wear bracelets during formal events. Funds: Money has no value in the nine realms. However, the fire realm has diamond rain whenever a volcano erupts, and any gold farmed is used for trade with humans. Her actual wealth, like all other rulers, is immeasurable. She enjoys giving it away, as she does not like the idea of money. Lovers:

The former ruler of water, Mick, was her first crush. She loved him deeply, and had to hold him in her arms as he died. This pretty much scarred her from developing feelings for men.

Right before the death of her first love, she agreed to marry someone for a peace treaty. After the wedding, she locked herself away and protected herself with a powerful storm. A clone of her was used to kill Mick, and afterwards a very bloody and very quick war broke out, involving the death of her husband.

Cetrion is a former lover. Because of their virtuous nature they both found comfort in each other. It was broken off by Cetrion at the behest of Kronika. It still hurts Ellie deeply.

She has a crush on Leon S. Kennedy, and chooses to stay away from him because of it.

Erron Black gives her confusing feelings. She isn’t sure if she likes him, or wants to shoot him.

Enchantress/June Moone. A former girlfriend while Ellie was coming into power. Although she loved her, the relationship was not good mentally for Ellie and she broke it off.

Jason Todd was a mentor turned boyfriend for a few weeks, before they both realized it wouldn’t work. They are still friends.

Marital Status: Multiship Sex Life: SACRED.VIRGIN. (But I mean...boop her) Type: She is accepting of many types, so long as you are not a bad person. Even then, if you redeem yourself, she can find you suitable. This is not to say she will only date a hero type. She wants someone that is true to themselves, whatever that truth may be.

She is very busy, and will not have time for you 24/7. If she is called off on a mission, it doesn’t matter if you’re cuddling on the couch, on a date, or anything else. Her duty comes first. She won’t want to leave, but she will and apologize later. Her lover needs to be understanding of this.

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, but this is her lifes work. This is what she was created and chosen for. And when the final battle comes, you won’t see her for a long time, if ever again. Turn-Ons: She wants someone that she won’t have to worry about as much. It’s hard to love mortals, so someone that could live as long as her would be preferred. She doesn’t want someone that will worship her, as that can be seen as breaking the commandments of the nine realms, but will appreciate her. They need to be understanding that she is a broken person and not all of her pieces are there, and they’re not coming back.

If she can lay with you while you play with her hair, rub her back, and just be physically there to tether her to the world, it will mean everything to her.

Lastly, someone that will just be kind to her. That she can come home to after a long week, month or some extended period of time and be close to. She doesn’t need anyone that will get tired of waiting for her and leave, as her duties will always come first. Turn Offs: Someone that is cruel to her or others. Disrespectful, tries to change who or what she is. Just don’t be a moist bint. Position: Switch. Sub in her human form, dom in her true form Sub position: The Seashell. She loves to be on her back with her lover’s hands wrapped around her ankles, pushing them back behind her head and into the mattress. Dom position: The Amazon. With a set of hands holding her lover’s knees or ankles, another hand hold their wrists together above their head, and her free hand to explore or choke them. Fetishes: Human Form-

Reassurance/Praising. Either her reassuring her partner or vice versa. Punishment/Desecration. She has a deep seeded desire to be punished, and a dark part of her wants to be desecrated (i.e. her willingly breaking her vow). Biting/Clawing/Marking. Choking. Since she doesn’t have an air passage in her throat, it’s more or less the idea of it. Blood flow can still be cut off to her brain, giving the desired light headed effect. Submissive positions. She enjoys being put into submissive potions over ones where she is the dominate party. Voyeurism. She can turn and her partner invisible, allowing for public places to be a go. She also likes to be watched, and wouldn’t mind if her lover caught her playing with herself.

True form- Breeding. Her main motive is to become impregnated. She’ll want you to finish inside of her. Restrains. Having four arms now, she will want to pin and restrain her partner. Marking. She will bite, claw, suck, anything she can to prove that you are her’s alone. Dominated. Despite being the dominate one, if she is dominated in battle, she will present herself on her knees with her hands held above her head, butt raised to show she submits. Virginity: She still is one.

Element: Air and Fire. Religion: Realmain, a mix of Christianity and Judaism. Morals: Ellie is a morally upstanding citizen, for her dimension. While her duty is to protect the sanctity of human life, she will kill those that seem innocent if she is ordered to. One of the messier jobs to perform is killing children that are blacklit for death. Because this is seen as holy work, she feels no guilt for it.

She is unable to willfully lie, but whatever someone tells her, unless she knows better, will be her truth. This causes her to be easily manipulated.

While stealing is a huge no, reclaiming lost or stolen goods is acceptable. By any means.

Outside of her dimension, humans are not protected. If it means obtaining her goal or completing her mission, she can and will kill an innocent person. This is only done as a last resort, and she does her best to avoid it. Motivation: From the time she learned of the prophecy, her goal in life has been to lead the virtuous life that would allow her to pass into the dark halls unseen by evil. She knows that she will go through horrible things (such as being raped, crucified, tortured and killed, only to be brought back) but in the end it is worth it. This will allow her to let the angels into the dark halls, and kill Aluk Mal Tuk, the half demon half Realmain that raped her mother. Priorities: The code of the realms is “For Realm, For Ruler, For God” and she lives by this code. She serves her God first, and the duties bestowed upon her by Him, and then her Realm. Relationships, friendships, and anything else are the last thought on her mind. Philosophy: Ellie sees and feels the absolute worst that humanity has to offer. She feels the suffering of the universe, and takes pity on it. She believes that everything has a reason, even the worst things. In the end, it will all be worth it. Because it has to be, or what was all this suffering for. Etiquette: Ellie has very good etiquette. She was trained by Cynbel in the ways of royalty, and displays respect to almost all races. The more evil races, she will act more animalistic around, since they look down on kindness. Culture: Being from a Hispanic and Celtic background, Ellie enjoys celebrating the holidays and festivals of both. Within reason. She does not practice anything that would be considered idol worship. She practices mostly Jewish and Realmain customs as well.

Main Goal: Keep the world turning until Armageddon is upon her dimension. Even if it kills her. Minor Goals/Ambitions: Protect as many lives, human or otherwise, as she can. Desires: Ellie desires rest. She does not enjoy doing what she does by any means. It causes her great mental anguish to keep pushing herself, but she has to. For her reward, she only wishes to rest. Accomplishments: Freeing herself from her inner darkness, and having her left arm regrow as a reward. Greatest Achievement: Commanding both the fire and air realms. Biggest Failure: Her mother and first love had to die in order for her to begin to fight and defend others. Secrets: She is aware that Cynbel is her father. And while she was upset that he hides this from her, she doesn’t mention it. Regrets: Her suicide attempts. Worries: Failing everyone around her. Best Dream: Being rewarded not just with rest, but someone that could make her happy. Worst Nightmare: Falling into temptations and being pulled into hell. Or living with her mother. Best Memories: The times she spent with Mick and her friends. Worst Memories: Having her arm ripped off during the battle for Hong Kong. Later in life, when the demon Heretic reveals they molested her, and the memories of the events come flooding back to her. Powers/Abilities: ~Generic/No category~ -Immortality. She can only be killed by a demi god, angel, or another ruler’s weapon. If she dies by other means, she will be reformed in the lake of life. -Super strength. She is able to lift up to ten tons with ease. Anything more and her muscles begin to break down. -Speed. Although not the fastest, she is able to move fast enough to dodge bullets. -Super reflexes. She can block most blows and react quickly to most attacks. -Stamina. Her body does not produce lactic acid, meaning she does not show signs of fatigue and has stamina for weeks. -Her senses are heightened to super human levels, allowing her to perform at her highest levels. -Empathy. She is the strongest empath of her world, emotionally connected to all living beings. She is able to take the emotions away from a being and put them in another, or store them for future use. She can easily read a room and someone’s intent before officially meeting them. She can also distribute and terrifying presence to stun and scare opponents, or produce a calming affect. -A healer by nature, she is a skilled surgeon with years of practice. With her speed, she is able to perform complex operations in little to no time. -She has a vast knowledge of herbal remedies, as well as traditional medicines. -She is immune to all forms of magic, but she herself cannot affect magic things in return. ~Air~ -Ability to completely control and manipulate the air. From creating tornado, to pulling the air out of the cells of a person. She is the embodiment of air, and it bends to her will. -Turn invisible at will. -Teleport by creating a small gust of wind. -Pull oxygen out of a specified area. -Flight and levitation. -Control other air based beings -Place her hand over someone’s mouth to administer CPR. ~Fire~ -Ability to control and manipulate fire and fire based things. Such as lava. -Encase her body is magma rock. -Breath fire. -Engulf her body in fire to protect her. -Command other fire based beings. -Generate enough heat to perform a super nova. Although not as hot, she will explode with enough intensity to destroy a decently sized planet. This causes her to black out for several weeks. -Heal those that have been injured by fire. She can take the wounds upon herself, allowing the person to be completely healed of fire based wounds. ~Holy~ -On touch, she can burn anything of demonic origin. This includes her brother and uncle, who are both part demon. -Using her right hand to calm the person, she can then use her left to reach into someone and pull a demon out by force. -Ability to see a demonic presence, no matter how it hides. She can also see angelic writing, directing her to hide or run. -Enter Limbo and Hell unseen. -Open portals to send demons back to hell. -While imbued with the power of the Lord, no one may sin against her flesh. This means that as long as she has her powers, she is unable to be raped or molested. -Light does not bother her. In fact, she can see perfectly fine in it. If a flash bang were to go off, other than the noise distortion, she would be fine. Origin: Bestowed upon her by the will of the Lord. Her dimension is Christianity based. Source: The source of her powers vary. While she can use hand movements, she mostly stands still and wills her abilities into use. Although some still require a source, i.e. breathing fire. Ability: While her abilities to control air is natural, it took centuries of training to finally accept and control her fire abilities. Later in life, she is adept in all of her powers. Weaknesses:

She is unable to survive in water. If it goes above her hips, she will begin to drown. Her powers do not work while she is wet, in the rain, or humid environments.

Her empath abilities become overwhelming, and it makes it hard for her to function in large groups. The more evil a person is, the harder it is for her to function around them.

While in other dimensions, she is able to die, since she is cut off from her main power source.

If someone drop kicks her in the gut, it will stun her for an extended period of time.

Demi god weapons, angelic weapons, fallen angel weapons, and another ruler are able to permanently kill her.

She cannot see in dim light to darkness. She will be completely blind, and greatly weakened.

Her hellish visions weaken her over time.

Despite feeling someone’s ill intent, she is usually willing to give them a chance.

Immunities: Fire and air based attacks have no affect on her.

Alternate Forms: ~Air Form~ Natural Ellie. This is the form she is always in, also referred to as her human form. She has a more Celtic appearance, pale skin, red lips, dark hair and eyes.

~Fire Form~ Taking on a more Hispanic appearance, her eyes are red, skin a deep tan from being burnt from within, and her hair sprouts red roses. Her attire changes as well, wearing a red cloth corset, dark red jeans and boots, and usually Dia de la muerto make-up. The more she uses her powers, her skin will burn to a crisp, cracking open and revealing the fire burning at her core. She will often have smoke coming from her pores, and cough up lava.

~True Form~ After entering her final life cycle, she gains her true form ability to mate/reproduce. Her skin becomes a light grey, her veins visible and a dark silver underneath. She grows another five inches, and her arms become longer. Her nails are black and pointed, coated in a paralyzing poison.

Her face is more pointed, teeth now sharp and look like they’re made of a silver metal. Her eyes are a swirling mix of greys and white, hair slicked back and bristly. Black and fluffy antenna come from her forehead, like a moth. Black stripes are along her sides and neck, opening up to reveal pheromone producers.

She grows another set of arms under her original, usually holding her staff weapon.

Extra Anatomy: Her lungs are actually pockets attached to the underside of the skin of her torso and back. This means that she breaths through the pores of her skin.

Favorite Colors: Greys, whites, and pastel shades of blue and pink Favorite Animals: Dogs and large wild cats Favorite Mythological Creatures: Chimeras Favorite Places: She has a pocket dimension that is a library, filled with endless books. Other than that, Greece and quiet beaches. Favorite Landmarks: Acropolis Favorite Flavors: Leather, sea salt, and cotton candy Favorite Foods: Shrimp mee hoon and salted marshmellows Favorite Drinks: Blackberry wine, coke, and sarsaparilla. Favorite Characters: Mal and Zoe from Firefly Favorite Genre: Romantic horror Favorite Books: Where the red fern grows Favorite Movies: Westerns Favorite Games: Chess, even though she’s not that great at it. Dodge ball. Favorite Shows: Firefly, Star Trek, Telanovellas. Favorite Music: Heavy metal, hard rock, classical. Favorite Bands: Asking Alexandria, All That Remains, In this Moment, Flyleaf, and Les Fiction. Favorite Songs: This probably won’t end well by All That Remains, Hopelessly Hopeful by Asking Alexandria, ME!ME!ME! by Teddyloid Favorite Sports: Soccer and the Realmain gauntlet. Favorite Stores: Realmain market places Favorite Subjects: Math and art Favorite Numbers: 100, 34, and 7 Favorite Websites: Doesn’t have any Favorite Words: Bueller, bumble bee, amor Favorite Quotations: "Lastly, waging war against good people is bad for the soul. This may not seem important to you now, but it's the most important thing I've said."— Joshua Graham Least Favorite Colors: Oranges and yellows. Least Favorite Animals: Domestic cats Least Favorite Mythological Creatures: Nagas, gorgons, Minotaurs, and Pans. Least Favorite Places: Anyplace with a dark history. Least Favorite Landmarks: Eiffel tower Least Favorite Flavors: Fermented tastes, rotten, too sweet. Least Favorite Foods: Eggs, liver, and hot dogs. Least Favorite Drinks: Beer, whiskey, lemon lime soda. Least Favorite Characters: Aeris from FFVII. Any character, male or female, that is overbearing about relationships and tries to force themselves on someone. Least Favorite Genre: Reality Least Favorite Books: Self help books Least Favorite Movies: Ninja Mime 4 Least Favorite Games: Puzzle games, because she’s not confident in her abilities. Least Favorite Shows: Reality shows Least Favorite Music: Rap/Hip Hop, R&B Least Favorite Bands: Modern hip hop and rap bands. Least Favorite Songs: Dance (A$$) because it’s always playing at strip clubs Least Favorite Sports: Cricket and blood sports. Least Favorite Stores: Outlet malls Least Favorite Subjects: Wood shop, economics. Least Favorite Numbers: 6 Least Favorite Websites: Doesn’t have one. Least Favorite Words: Curse words Least Favorite Quotations: “I’ll rid the world of each one of you,” he whispered. “Every single one…” ― Zoe Cruz, Beastia Languages: English, fairly good with Mandarin, Greek, Enochian/Realmain, learning Japanese, Yiddish. Accent: She has a heavy Southern accent when she speaks quickly, which is why she’s trained herself to speak slowly and hide her accent. Voice: Low and quiet Speech Impediments: Forgets words easily and will use gibberish as a replacement. Greetings and Farewells: “Give me you.” -When it’s a close friend she hasn’t seen for a while. “Ellie Aelious, rank ruler, part time healer.” -Military greeting “May your path be illuminated and never darken.” -Formal farewell “I really hope this isn’t a real goodbye, ya know?” -leaving a dimension, possibly for good. State of Mind: “I’m just really tired right now. I can’t really rest, but it’d be really nice if I could.” Compliment: “Wow, you’re really pretty/beautiful!” “You look like you could take me in a fight, to be honest.” “You’re tall. I like that.” Insult: “I hope you have the life you deserve.” “God loves you, even though you make it a might difficult.” “You’re an X.” (often randomly insults people with a noun they’ve just used.) Expletive: “Oh fiddle sticks.” “Gumdrops and holograms!” “God bless America...” “What in the nine realms!” “I’m sure -person- is off somewhere, disappointing the Lord with their actions.” Laughter: She will start with a sputter, and then go into a deep laugh, sometimes even snorting, which makes her laugh even harder. Tag Line: “This is fine. I accept this.” Signature Quote: “I have to do this. I need to do this. I can’t worry about either of our wants, desires, because this is so important. My entire life is leading up to that moment, and I’m not throwing it away because we love each other. If I do, then what was all this suffering for?”

Role: Her role as a ruler means that she is responsible for tens of billions of lives, as well as protecting humans from the evils of the realm of darkness. It is a heavy burden, but if one is to suffer it, why not it be her? Fulfillment: She devotes everything to her position, and has found favor in the eyes of the Lord. She has been blessed that no creature may sin against her flesh, so long as she is imbued with His power. Significance: Because she practices self sacrifice, in her words Armageddon, she will play a crucial role that will determine the outcome of the battle. Aside from that, she has inspired many of her counterparts to go on. Her determination to live and overcome has proved invaluable. Alignment: Lawful Good “The needs of my Lord, outweigh the desires of myself.” -Ellie Comparison: The wind. Ever changing, gentle, but destructive. Symbol: Handprint Song: Under Denver by Asking Alexandria Vice: Carnal desires and blood lust. Virtue: Ellie has taken the vow of Sacred Virgin. This means she will forgo her sexual desires, romances, and pleasure so she may enter into the dark kingdom unseen

Humility and compassion are often associated with her as well. She doesn’t feel she has a very important role, and takes pity on the suffering. Defining Moment: When she crawled her way out of hell, just to bring her mother’s dead body back for burial.

#Ellie aelious character profile #finally finished #about ellie #praise the lord this is done #Woooot!!

6 notes · View notes

theliberaltony · 5 years ago

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): A powerful moment on the second night of the Democratic debates came when Sen. Kamala Harris confronted former Vice President Joe Biden for his remarks about working with segregationist senators, as well as his opposition to school integration via busing in the 1970s. Biden has stood by his original comments, arguing that he meant them as an example of his ability to work across the aisle, and in the debate he invoked his record of supporting civil rights.

Other candidates, notably Sen. Cory Booker, have also criticized Biden on issues of race. Nevertheless, at least going into last week’s debates, Biden was the most popular Democratic candidate among Democratic voters. But did Thursday night’s exchange show that Biden is out of touch with the modern Democratic Party? Is there a generational divide at play here? And how are the other candidates positioned—or not positioned—to talk about issues of race?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I think there are actually two things at stake here. First, there is the question of whether there is a divide. I don’t think the Democratic Party has a racially conservative wing anymore, but I do think there’s a split over how so-called identity issues are approached by the party.

And the second issue is about the candidates themselves, particularly how this impacts Biden’s core arguments for why he should be the nominee.

julian.wamble: (Julian Wamble, a political science professor at Stony Brook University): The Democratic Party has certainly changed on how it discusses race, and I think this is particularly true among white Democrats. But I think what we’re seeing here is both a generational divide and a change in the racial landscape of American politics.

Biden is from a generation where his past choices concerning race are coming back to haunt him in ways that he may not have expected, and that’s because issues surrounding race are at the forefront of the political conversation.

And generally speaking, white candidates have only had to contend with not being overtly racist, but now the Harris-Biden moment shows how that may have changed.

meredithconroy: (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I agree that the Democratic Party doesn’t have a racially conservative wing anymore. That could be because these voters have left the party. However, a recent study after the 2016 election found that white Democrats are changing their views about race to align with their partisanship.

Now whether that means someone like Biden is disqualified for previous positions like opposing school integration via busing in the 1970s isn’t clear.

julia_azari: Why, in 2019, anything can still surprise me is an open question for perhaps another chat, but I was legitimately surprised to see people relitigating the busing debate of the 1970s on Twitter on Saturday.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): Do we all agree this was bad for Biden?

On net, I think this was a bad week for Biden, but at the same time, I think there is a group of Democrats who aren’t that liberal on racial issues and basically agree with him.

A study from the Pew Research Center found, for example, that about 22 percent of Democrats thought people were “seeing discrimation where it does not exist.”

meredithconroy: It was bad for Biden because he looked ill-prepared. His record is long — and to be clear, all the candidates have a past they’ll have to defend at some point — but his defense was particularly weak.

perry: We should note that Morning Consult found that he lost 5 points since the debate (nearly 8 points among voters in our Morning Consult survey), with Harris going up by six. A CNN poll found that Biden’s support had fallen to 22 percent, down from 32 percent this time last month. Harris was in second at 17 percent, compared to 8 percent a month ago. So it seems clear this debate and the fallout from it hurt Biden and helped Harris. That said, I think Biden is still the frontrunner.

julian.wamble: I actually don’t think black voters are going to be so quick to withdraw their support from Biden given the perception that he is best situated to beat Trump. However, it is possible that discussions of his past missteps regarding race and racial policies could hurt her with black voters in the future, especially if another candidate seems poised to be able to defeat Trump.

perry: I agree. I also think that these racial controversies are as much of a problem for Biden (and Pete Buttigieg) with white liberal voters, who care a lot about racial issues, as with black people.

sarahf: So in that chart Perry shared, a majority of Democrats (78 percent) were likely to say that it’s a big problem that Americans don’t see discrimination where it exists.

This means that for these Democrats, Harris’s exchange with Biden should have been a powerful moment, right?

perry: The overwhelming majority of Democrats are liberal on racial issues. But Biden has proof that he is, too. He loves to mention that he was Barack Obama’s vice president, but more than that, I think Biden is actually in the mainstream of the Democratic Party on many racial issues.

sarahf: Do others agree? What is the evidence we have for Biden being in the mainstream on racial issues vs. Biden being out of touch?

julia_azari: As a parties scholar, I think what’s meant by “the mainstream” is malleable. That is, people are going to be responsive to elite cues about how race fits into other issues, or what kinds of problems should be prioritized (race vs. class), and how to frame both the causes of racial injustice and the solutions to it.

perry: And the elite cues are confusing right now. The post-debate media coverage for Biden has been largely negative. But influential black Democrats like Jim Clyburn and John Lewis generally defended him on comments he made before the debate. So I don’t think the message that “Biden is bad on racial issues” or “black people don’t like Biden” is clear to voters. I also think that will be a hard message to have resonate — Biden spent eight years defending Barack Obama.

julian.wamble: I think what we’re seeing is a crisis of what it means to be white in America, and white liberals are bearing the brunt of it. This means the need to create distance from the “bad moments” is heightened which I think the response to Biden is a manifestation of, and could foster the belief that Biden is out of touch with the Democratic Party.

sarahf: Is it fair to say that this is the next fracture point in terms of cultural issues in the primary? Or where do you see the next divide? It does seem to be an area where Biden is particularly vulnerable.

perry: I tend to think that Biden supporters are older, more moderate and generally not going to break with him en-masse over these kinds of issues on race or gender. (The CNN poll showed Biden with a 12-point advantage over the next-closest Democrat (Harris) among Democrats over 45, but trailing Harris, Sanders and Warren among Democrats over 45.)

Which means that the better case for Harris and others to make is not that Biden has bad racial views, but that his debate performance suggests Biden is a weak candidate and can’t beat Trump, which cuts against what I think is one of his biggest strengths — Democratic voters care a lot about electablity and generally see Biden as the most electable candidate.

julian.wamble: Yes, what Biden has going for him is the perception that he can beat Trump and that some of his “authenticity” will make him appealing to certain voters.

meredithconroy: But on the electability question, at least one poll after the debates found that voters thought Elizabeth Warren and Harris were more electable than before (although Biden was still said to be the most electable).

julia_azari: So the Democratic Party has traditionally been divided on race — the last 40 years are a break away from that. But if issues like reparations or other race-conscious policy initiatives become part of the national agenda, we might see more of a split in the party.

You can already see this happening on the question of criminal justice.

perry: Right. If reparations or really aggressive school integration programs become big issues, I think we might see that even some white liberals aren’t totally on board, because these policies will be perceived as giving black people things at the expense of non-black people. And if there is a racial divide on those issues, I think more moderate whites will be more drawn to candidates like Biden.

meredithconroy: Well, the elevation of those issues don’t benefit Biden or Harris, right?

perry: No, but they might help Warren.

julia_azari: But as Meredith pointed out, this is an area of vulnerability for Harris too.

At this stage, there really isn’t a candidate who is an obvious pick for serious racial justice activists. Nearly all the major candidates have liabilities — even Julian Castro, given his background as the Housing and Urban Development secretary). But Biden, Harris, and Buttigieg in particular have serious liabilities.

So it’s really unclear which candidate (if any) this would benefit.

meredithconroy: Very unclear!!!

perry: Sanders came out in support of allowing people currently incarcerated to vote, while most Democratic candidates favor voting rights only for people after they have left prison. Warren was one of the first to embrace a study on whether there should be reparations for black Americans, and Castro has called to change the law to make illegally entering the country a civil offense, instead of a criminal one.

So I think some candidates will push forward fairly strong stances on racial issues in a way I’m not sure Biden, Harris or say Cory Booker, do.

The question I’m most curious about is whether this was good for Harris or not.

I tend to think it was mostly good for Harris. (And the polls suggest it was.) She got more media attention and I think it’s fair to say she appealed to white liberals, who say they are progressive on racial issues. But this doesn’t mean she necessarily cut into Biden’s advantage with black voters.

julian.wamble: I’m not sure it was as good for her as some think it was. I think it was effective to show that Biden has some problems when it comes to race, but not that she is a better choice to represent voters with those interests.

meredithconroy: Right. I think in terms of positioning her as a strong candidate, who can confront opponents, it helps her. But it also opens up her Attorney General record and her time spent as a prosecutor in California to greater scrutiny.

sarahf: Biden seemed to try to push on that in the debates by pointing out his background as a public defender, but that didn’t really seem to go anywhere.

Do we think that it will come up in other debates?

julian.wamble: Harris’s prosecutorial background, particularly the truancy laws, which have been shown to disproportionately affect communities of color, will definitely come up in future debates. I think especially now, given this new CNN poll which shows she is making strong gains among Democratic voters. If she is viewed as the candidate to beat, then I think her time as prosecutor will definitely gain higher levels of scrutiny.

meredithconroy: Yeah, strategically speaking, Biden probably should have leaned into that attack more. But I’ve also been critical of those questioning Harris’s record as Attorney General, given that women often have to have more experience than their male counterparts in order to gain political influence and power.

perry: I tend to think the backlash to Harris’s background asg a prosecutor is largely contained to a small number of very progressive voters, and is not a real barrier among the vast majority of Democratic primary voters.

When I ask voters about Harris, I hear way more often their concern that she is not electable than anything about her criminal justice record. (I also think it will be hard for Biden to campaign on the idea that a black female candidate wants to send lots of black people to jail in the same way that it will be it will be hard for Harris to prove Obama’s VP doesn’t support allowing black kids to attend integrated schools.)

julia_azari: I sort of disagree, Perry. If say, the Bernie left came out against Harris that could get ugly fast.

perry: But she was never going to win those people.

She is a fairly establishment-friendly candidate.

julia_azari: You’re right that she was never going to win those voters. But the question is whether their messaging does other damage. I’m not sure I would have previously considered this a possibility, but after 2016 I do.

perry: When I watched that moment, what I thought was it was bad for Harris because it could become framed by her critics as an electability issue. I think Obama did well in 2008 and 2012 because he rarely spoke about race in a way that might alienate white moderate general-election voters. But Harris went over that line.

And now New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has blasted Harris for “making white Americans feel racially on trial.” Granted, Stephens is an anti-Trump conservative, so not exactly representative of the Democratic primary electorate, but I still think of it as evidence that Harris may have provoked white people who don’t want to be criticized on racial issues unless they do something over-the-top like Trump.

And I think it has the potential for a lot of backlash.

julian.wamble: Obama definitely had his own challenges with electability, particularly in 2008, but that was a question of whether the United States was ready for a black president. The 2020 election is different insofar that Democrats are looking for a candidate who can beat Trump. And the notion of ‘electability’ is different this time around, especially for the female candidates who are seen, by some, as not being ‘strong’ or ‘tough’ enough to take on Trump. So I saw Harris calling out Biden as a signal that she wasn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with a man.

julia_azari: Also, I think that Harris’s approach spoke to white Democrats who want to congratulate themselves for supporting her, which I saw as part of Obama’s calculus, as well. I know it sounds reductive, but I think voters feeling good about themselves often drives political decisions. (See Lilliana Mason’s work on identity politics.)

meredithconroy: Yeah, especially among Democrats who are concerned that electability arguments exclude women and people of color.

sarahf: Were there other candidates who were hurt or helped by this exchange? Or phrased another way, is a stronger Harris bad for Booker?

meredithconroy: I thought Booker opened the door for Harris’s attacks, after he went after Biden for his segregationist comments. And it seemed to elevate his candidacy (at least in terms of media coverage), so I’m not sure its bad for Booker, necessarily.

perry: A stronger Harris is probably bad for Booker. A Harris who disqualifies Biden (by showing him as an inept) but also raises questions about herself (can she be cast as too left and unelectable in the general) is good for Booker.

A weaker Biden is good for everyone.

meredithconroy: Yeah, I think Perry is right.

julian.wamble: A strong Harris isn’t great for Booker in the long run, but considering he’s also getting media attention and talking about race as a result, it’s not bad for him yet.

Which I think is to Perry’s point — a weaker Biden is good for everyone else.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

1 note · View note

pope-francis-quotes · 6 years ago

Text

23rd February >> (@ZenitEnglish) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis Sr. Veronica Openibo, SHCJ: Focus on Mission, not Fear: ‘The church must do everything possible to protect its young and vulnerable members.’

Sr. Veronica Openibo, SHCJ, Elected Leader of The Society of the Holy Child Jesus, spoke to the Summit on “The Protection of Minors in the Church” on February 23, 2019. Her topic: Openness to the World as a Consequence of the Ecclesial Mission. Following is the working translation of her talk provided by the Vatican.

******

Papa Francesco,

My brothers and sisters, good morning.

I begin this talk with a quotation from Luke Chapter 4. For me “Openness to the world as a Consequence of the Ecclesial Mission” is the mission statement of Jesus, that we also follow.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and anointed me to preach good news to the poor. The Spirit has sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor. Luke 4:18-19

Abstract

For me, as a result of the self-understanding of her mission in the world today, the church needs to update and create new systems and practices that will promote action without fear of making mistakes. Clerical sex abuse is a crisis that has reduced the credibility of the church when transparency should be the hallmark of mission as followers of Jesus Christ. The fact that many accuse the Catholic Church today of negligence is disturbing. The church must do everything possible to protect its young and vulnerable members. The focus should not to be on fear or disgrace but rather on the church’s mission to serve with integrity and justice.

Introduction

The mission of the church flows directly from our deepest understanding of the Incarnation. Catholic Christianity is grounded in the belief in a God who chose to be one with the human world.

The self-understanding of the mission of the church must be a manifestation of the Christ we know as both human and divine. The whole of Christ’s mission was to reveal who God is and who we can become. This implies a total acceptance of all that is human andall that the power of God’s grace does to transform us into being witnesses of the divine. Our world-view, if Christian, must be based on respect and dignity for each human being.

At the present time, we are in a state of crisis and shame. We have seriously clouded the grace of the Christ-mission. Is it possible for us to move from fear of scandal to truth? How do we remove the masks that hide our sinful neglect? What policies, programs and procedures will bring us to a new, revitalized starting point characterized by a transparency that lights up the world with God’s hope for us in building the Reign of God?

Throughout the time of writing this presentation, my eyes were cloudy and I wondered what this could mean. Then I remembered the first time I watched the movie Spotlight – you all…some of you know it – the 2016 American biographical drama about the investigation by the Boston Globe in the America’s Boston, the cover-up by ecclesial authorities.

At the end of the film was a long list of cases and the dioceses where they occurred and reading about the number of children affected (and also later seeing the vast amount of money spent on settlements), tears of sorrow flowed. How could the clerical church have kept silent, covering these atrocities? The silence, the carrying of the secrets in the hearts of the perpetrators, the length of the abuses – we had one last night – and the constant transfers of perpetrators are all unimaginable. Presumably, there were significant signs in the confessional and in spiritual direction: I want to believe that. With a heavy and sad heart, I think of all the atrocities we have committed as members of the church: I am saying “we”, not “they”: “we”. The Constitutions of my own congregation reminds me: In Christ, we unite ourselves to the whole of humanity, especially to the poor and suffering. We accept our share of responsibility for the sin of the world and so live that his love may prevail. (SHCJ Constitutions #6). I think all of us must acknowledge that our mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency have brought us to this disgraceful and scandalous place that we find ourselves as a church. We pause to pray Lord have mercy on us!

In Gaudete et Exsultate (164) we read that Those who think they commit no grievous sins against God’s law can fall into a state of dull lethargy. Since they see nothing serious to reproach themselves with, they fail to realize that their spiritual life has gradually turned lukewarm. They end up weakened and corrupted. Let us no say “they”: it is all of us. So many aspects of this statement from Pope Francis stand out for me on the issue of child abuse, as also these sentences from the PCB Preparation Document: A church that is closed/shut off is no longer church. Her mission would be thwarted. It’s not about giving up principles and secularizing the church, it’s about living visibly and perceptibly what we claim to be, or what and how we really are.

Yes, we proclaim the Ten Commandments and ‘parade ourselves’ as being the custodians of moral standards/values and good behaviour in society. Hypocrites at times? Yes! Why did we keep silent for so long? How can we turn this around for a time to evangelise, catechise and educate all the members of the church, including the clergy and religious? I often ask myself: Is it true that most bishops did nothing about the sexual abuse of children? I want to believe, and from that, I have read, some did act and some did not out of fear or cover-up.

We might say the church is now taking steps to arrest the situation but also to be more transparent about all the steps it had been taking privately over two decades, such as meeting with victims of sexual abuse, reporting cases to the appropriate civil authorities and setting up commissions, and many other things. The question today is more about how to address the issue of the sexual abuse of minors more directly, transparently and courageously as a church. The hierarchical structure and systems in the church – I believe– should be a blessing for us to reach the whole world with very clear mechanisms to address this and many other issues. Why has this not happened enough? Why have other issues around sexuality not been addressed sufficiently, e.g. misuse of power, misuse of money, clericalism – we felt that many times –, gender discrimination, the role of women and the laity in general? Is it that the clerical structures and long protocols that negatively affected swift actions focused more on media reactions?

Reflection

I would like to offer some reflections based on my experience as an African woman religious. I have lived in Rome for fifteen years – as a nun – and studied in America for three. So, I am familiar with these issues in the Global North. Probably like many of you, I have heard some Africans and Asians say, many Africans and Asians say that ‘this is not our issue in countries in Africa and Asia, it is the problem in Europe, the Americas, Canada and Australia.’ However, I worked throughout Nigeria in the area of sexuality education for nine years and heard the stories and counselled many people. In fact, one of the bishops, the first to invite me to his diocese, to speak with him, have a workshop with him, and he is a priest, he is present here: our bishop Akubeze. So, he saw the need and invited me. I realized how serious the issues were and still are and sharing a few of my personal experiences emphasise this fact. In the early 90s a priest told me there were sexual abuses in the convents and formation houses and that, as president of the Nigeria Conference of Women Religious, I should, please, do something to address the issue. A second priest in the early 2000s said that a particular ethnic group practiced a lot of incest , what I added to him: that from my personal experience incest is a world issue. A dying old man revealed to me he was acting strangely because of the sexual abuse he experienced as a teenager from the priests in his school. And recently I have heard from somebody, “I know that person, I have the same experience”. So, it must have been something that was going on in this school for years: the same school. A thirteen-year-old girl met her priest attacker 25 years later and he did not recognize her…

These are just short stories.

Transparency

– So, let us not hide such events anymore because of the fear of making mistakes. Too often we want to keep silent until the storm has passed! This storm will not pass. Our credibility as a Church is at stake. I think Jesus told us, gives us a very strong statement: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Mark 9:42. So, my dear brothers and sisters, we must face this issue and seek healing for the victims of abuse. The normal process for clergy – in the past and still in the present in some areas – was and is to give support to ‘one of us’, to avoid exposing a scandal and bringing discredit to the church. I told my group yesterday. I used to use three “s”: “secrecy”; “silence”; and the last one is “solidarity” for men, and support for one of us. Women is the same, but the third one is different, you can ask me later… We must face this issue and seek healing for the victims of abuse. The normal process, as I said, is the support for men, but we find a way together. All offenders, I want to say, regardless of their clerical status, found guilty should be given the same penalty for the abuse of minors.

– Let us have courageous conversations rather than saying nothing to avoid making a mistake. I like this statement: We can make a mistake but we are not created to be a mistake and posterity will judge us for not taking action. The first step towards true transparency is to admit wrongdoing and then to publish what has been done – I repeat: we publish what has been done, and I think some of it has been published already. But we have to make it public – what has been done since the time of Pope John Paul II to heal the situation. It may not be enough or sufficient in the eyes of many but it will show that the church had not been totally silent.

– We must build more effective and efficient processes, based on research in human development – we use here human for mission –as well as civil and canon law, for the Safeguarding of Minors. Then give clear and comprehensive safeguarding policies and guidelines in every diocese that should be placed visibly in various parish offices and published on the internet. There must be better handling of the cases through face-to-face, transparent and courageous conversations with victims and offenders, where possible, as well as investigating groups. In many parts of the world, including countries in Africa and Asia, not saying anything is a terrible mistake as we have seen in many countries. The fact that there are huge issues of poverty, illness, war and violence in some countries in the Global South does not mean that the area of sexual abuse should be downplayed or ignored. The church has to be pro-active in facing it. I have read through some of the papers that were given out to us, in various parts of the world, many dioceses and conferences have written books. I didn’t see Nigeria in it. What I know, I worked with some of the booklets that the bishops produce in Nigeria: “call to love”, “I chose you”, “Guidelines for processing abuse of minors and vulnerable adults”. We need more of such in many parts of the world.

– The excuse that respect be given to some priests by virtue of their advanced years and hierarchical position is unacceptable. This argument states that many of the criminal offenders are old, some no longer alive, and that we should not hurt them or their reputations by taking away their priesthood in old age. We can feel sad for those who, when they were younger committed offences that are now being brought out to the open. But my heart bleeds for many of the victims who have lived with the misplaced shame – we had that yesterday – misplaced shame and guilt of repeated violations for years. In some of these areas the offenders did not even see these victims as persons but as objects.

– It is true, as a church, that we believe in repentance of the sinner, in conversion of hearts and the grace of transformation, as Jesus said to the woman caught in the very act of adultery: “Go and from now on do not sin any more.” says Jesus (John 8:1-11). This can create a strong dilemma for some, especially when we know that abusers have often been victims themselves. Do we need to probe deeply what we mean by justice with compassion? How can we help create the environment for prayer and discernment for the grace of God to enlighten us in the way of justice so that transformation and healing may take place for both victims and, I want to say, offenders? We would need to find out where throughout the world (not only in wealthier countries), are the best practices for doing this being developed and can we implement them? Many of these are to be found within the church. I think we have heard that in many of our small groups.

– In publishing the names of offenders, can we publish a complete set of information regarding these situations?

I want to suggest some strategic way forward

Strategic Way Forward

– It is becoming evident that victims that were listened to and helped psychologically and spiritually were healed. Can we train enough sensitive and compassionate people to offer this service in all countries including those places struggling to put food on the table? Are there ways of helping parishes heal victims using their traditional wisdom? Do we make use of preaching and other means to address sexual issues in society? How might dioceses share in a strategic way in providing culturally-sensitive education programs and training kits? Such materials, respecting the dignity of the human persons and emphasizing all unacceptable behaviours, could be used in parishes and schools, hospitals and other places of pastoral ministry. The UISG has promised that in the statement they made.

– How can we continue to address in very concrete ways the issues of prostitution and trafficking on an immense scale as well as personal infidelity and promiscuity around the world? There must be Catholics, alongside others with similar principles, in positions of influence in, for example, the film industry, TV and advertising. They could be encouraged to come together and reflect on their role in promoting a better view of the human person. Let there be a focus on society’s disservice to men in every patriarchal culture in the area of sexuality. From studies, I have discovered, and many have discovered, that for a long time society has accepted promiscuity, infidelity, especially in marriage for men, what is changing… thanks God! Let us investigate how better to use social media to educate people on the whole area of sexuality and human relationships.

– I want to say here: essential, surely, is a clear and balanced education and training about sexuality and boundaries in the seminaries and formation houses; in the ongoing formation of priests, religious men, and women and bishops. It worries me when I see in Rome, and elsewhere, our country included, the youngest seminarians being treated as though they are more special than everyone else, thus ideas about the status, exalted ideas about their status. This is encouraged because they assume they have already high status. The study of human development, human for mission, must give rise to a serious question about the existence of minor seminaries. I want to repeat that: the study of human development, human for mission, must give rise to a serious question about the existence of minor seminaries. The formation of young women religious, too, can often lead to a false sense of superiority over their lay sisters and brothers, that their calling is a ‘higher’ one. What damage has that thinking done to the mission of the church? Have we forgotten the reminder by Vatican II in Gaudium et Spes of the universal call to holiness? In addition, we need to ask responsible and sensitive lay people and women religious to give true and honest evaluation of candidates for episcopal appointments.

– Could each diocese be challenged to gather men and women of integrity: laity, including religious, and clergy, to form a joint commission sharing expertise about the documentary procedures and protocols, the legal and financial implications of allegations and the necessary channels of responsibility and accountability? A well-qualified person – lay, religious or priests is likely to be the best chairperson of such a group. In addition, they need to work out how best to face the serious issues of sexual abuse already exploding in some Asian and African countries in the same way that it has already elsewhere. Many people who were sexually abused by priests or others in pastoral positions will suffer as traumatic memories are evoked. Some people will be reminded that they could well be revealed as former or current abusers or accused of covering up such facts. Many in various forms of ministry will come across people, family members, adults and/or children, who have been or are being abused and need to know how to respond appropriately. Some allegations will be false which causes suffering of another kind. The impact of damaged faith in the church cannot be under-emphasized as a large number of Catholics are and will be angry and confused. We have seen that in some part of the world. People in positions of some authority also need to know what to say or do in terms of response when issues get to the media or to the press.

Conclusion

We know that the greatest issue is the proclamation of the gospel in a way that will touch the hearts of the young and old. We are called to proclaim the good news but we must BE good news to the people we serve today. No wonder Pope Francis has declared the month of October 2019 The Extra Ordinary Missionary Month. I come back to my opening passage: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and anointed me”.

As an indicator or postscript, I emphasise the following:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon each one of us, and especially those present here.

has anointed all of us. We have heard that during the reports from groups that yes, we are here for serious business and issues have been taken care of.

to preach good news to the poor, the poor beingthe vulnerable, protecting especially defenceless children, seeking justice for the victims of abuse and taking steps to prevent this abuse from recurring.

to proclaim deliverance to the captives, for me the perpetrators are in need of deliverance, conversion and transformation, and we should not forget that.

and recovery of sight to the blind those who are not seeing the issues, even some of uspresent here, or focusing on protecting ‘our own’, or keeping silent or covering up need recovery of sight

to release the oppressed and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour by taking the necessary steps and maintaining zero tolerance with regard to sexual abuse we will release the oppressed. This is our year of favour let us courageously take up the responsibility to be truly transparent and accountable.

Returning to the title of this conference, I just want to say one passage that has inspired me is:

You are the light of the world – I think we are the light like that this morning in the prayer – A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

I read with great interest many articles about the Pope’s reactions in the case of the Chilean bishops – I think you remember the story – from a denial of accusations, to anger because of deception, the Pope felt, and the cover up, to the acceptance of resignations of – I thought three, but I red again two of the bishops. I admire you, Brother Francis, for taking time as a true Jesuit, to discern and be humble enough to change your mind, to apologize and take action – this is an example for all of us.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for providing this opportunity for us to check and see where we have acted strangely, ignorantly, secretly and complacently. I believe we will change, with great determination, our total approach to reporting abuse, to supporting the victims, to getting the right people to mentor and give support to victims and, above all, to doing what we can to protect minors and vulnerable adults from any form of abuse. Thank you, too, for providing women religious, through the executive of the Union of Superiors General (UISG), an opportunity to participate in this conference. This is the first time ever that we have had all the members of the executing of the women come to a meeting like this. Usually, the men come, but the women we were “pick three people and it must be this, this, this…”. Women have acquired a lot of useful experience to offer in this field and have already done much to support victims – there are women who are also offenders – and also to work creatively on their own use of power and authority.

I hope and pray that at the end of this conference we will choose deliberately to break any culture of silence and secrecy among us, to allow more light into our church, as a model Church. A model takes care of the children and continues to be a model to take care of the children. Let us acknowledge our vulnerability; be pro-active, not reactive in combating the challenges facing the world of the young and the vulnerable, and look fearlessly into other issues of abuse in the church and society.

I want to end with this, by reminding ourselves of Pope Francis’ own words: A Christian who does not move forward has an identity that is ‘not well… The Gospel is clear: the Lord sent them out saying: ‘go, go forward’! The Christian walks, moves past difficulties and announces that the Kingdom of God is near.

I pray: we will move forward, pass these difficulties. Surely.

Thank you.

23rd FEBRUARY 2019 16:50SEXUAL ABUSE AND PROTECTION OF MINORS

2 notes · View notes

girlqueens · 2 years ago

Text

Week 7

Assignment #1

Watch the Van Gogh Soup incident videos and respond to the question posed on TikTok: Is She Right? What is your impression of this form of activism? is it effective? Did the action have the intended impact? (one sentence for each)

I have mixed feelings regarding this incident. While I understand the point they were trying to make and they stated they did it knowing the painting wouldn't be harmed I still wonder what would have happened if there may have been a crack in the class and part of the painting accidentally did get ruined in the process, you really can never be too sure of what may happen. And in the TikTok she mentioned how this is not the first time they have done this and they have even went as far to glue themselves to paintings before. While I think this form of activism grabs attention, I think it causes people to become more angry than anything else. Art is a major piece of history that is important that we preserve so risking ruining it is alarming but then again their point is without a planet there will be no art, let alone people.

Assignment #2 Required reading: A Bigger Picture by Vanessa Nakate and No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

"A Bigger Picture" chronicles Nakate's journey as a black climate activist in Uganda. The book begins by telling the story of Nakate being cropped out of a photograph that featured her and 4 white women activists from Europe while attending the 2019 World Economic Forum. She went into detail about how this was a defining moment for her in realizing the inequality and lack of representation that is engrained within the global climate movement. In the book, she discusses how the Global South is currently effected the most by the climate crisis yet those who live in those regions voices are constantly silenced and not heard. She emphasizes how Western/American culture constantly labels climate change as a thing of the future but doesn't recognize that it is happening NOW because many voices are being silenced.

Nakate also goes into detail about her personal experience growing up in Uganda and recounts the struggle to gather basic essentials for human life such as water and being able to breathe clean air. She also discusses gender roles in her country and how not only did they limit her and other girls from being able to partake in movements and protests but they also were caused by climate change itself. The precarious conditions financially caused by climate change created a need for more gendered roles specifically since money was tight. Climate change hinders an area's economics substantially there for also creating less access/funding for education in some regions.

"No One is Too Small to Make a Difference" is compilation of 19 year old Greta Thunberg's most notable speeches she has made at different climate rallies within the last 4 years in the climate activist spotlight. In many of her speeches throughout the book, such as Almost Everything is Black and White and Im Too Young to Do This she brings attention to the fact that the Climate Crisis is not being spoken or taught about enough. That is needs to be broadcasted on TV constantly and in all the newspaper headlines so people know that it is real and it is happening. She talks about how the solutions to the problems are already worked out by many scientific leaders, but these solutions are not being implemented. Instead, people are silenced and no one talks about it.

Thunberg states "To me that is black or white. There are not grey areas when it comes to survival. We either go one as a civilization or we don't." This is one of the most bone-chilling statements in the book, simply because of it's raw truth. She discusses how everything is cause and effect, and one of the most important themes she discusses is equity. She simply states that if the countries that have everything don't care about the climate crisis, then how can we expect that countries who have nothing and are effected the most to care. This question brings up a good point about the morals we have of a society and how we can overlook the suffering currently being experienced by our fellow brothers and sisters in other countries already experiencing drastic effects of climate change.

Assignment #3

What challenges did they overcome to become leaders? What is unique about their career paths and offerings? What solutions and innovations do they offer? Why do you think they are among so many women leading the charge on climate?

Leah Penniman is the owner of Soul Fire Farm and author of the book Farming While Black. Penniman spent most of her adult life living in a food desert, a region where access to nutricious and healthy foods that are affordable are limited, these areas also don't have food markets nearby making grocery shopping difficult at times. Tired of seeing her community struggle she bought her own farm outside of the city where she started focusing on regenerative farming. In her journey, she focused heavily on healing the soil. Utilizing different methods of composting and increasing the biodiversity in the landscape she was able to produce soil rich in nutrients that also did its part in housing proper amounts of CO2 reducing GHG emissions. She also focused on teaching the youth POC in her community by creating a program that allowed them to learn how to work on the farm and emphasized the importance of connecting with the soil and following ancestral methods of farming. Food produced on the farm would be portioned and given to members of the community, helping to fight against the problem of food deserts. Regenerative farming helps to fight against greenhouse gas emissions that the traditional agricultural farming methods are responsible for. It eliminates the toxic fertilizers and chemicals these farming methods use and utilizes natural methods instead. Penniman has spearheaded a movement that is educating the youth and communities in so many different important areas. She has experienced the effects of the climate crisis first hand which qualifies her to take charge and teach from her experience.

0 notes

jorjathomas · 4 years ago

Text

What is Feminism? (understanding my content)

I'm now beginning to finalise the specific content that I’d like to add into the final outcome but prior to this, I thought it would be informative to research some generic feminism alongside my own knowledge. This is so I can make the most use for a learning platform from the book. As I was looking through trends on LSN, I found a article regarding what feminism would look like in the future so it would be helpful to understand what I could add for the zine to fit this prediction. This article was posted in 2018 so it was intriguing to see if there has been any changes in society since this was written.

This article was very beneficial in the way I would like to portray the feminist environment. This topic is very well known but from my survey results, not many people can grasp the true meaning behind it. To me, it seems rather hard to understand based off its perceptions. People assume its about being confident, powerful, growing out all body hair, wearing whatever you want and although this is true, all women are trying to project is the injustice against women and gender inequality within life. I want to describe this in the zine and describe some internalized misogyny that we may pick up on in life. Starting small and easing into the topic is the best way for the readers to feel comfortable and less pressured as this subject leads to activism often. The article states that: ‘According to Mintel, just 29% of UK women describe themselves as feminists. Almost half of all women agree that it’s too difficult to understand what being a feminist means.’ This is similar to my survey results as over 59% said they don't know enough information. I want to inform the reader that there isn't any specific term for the subject its more personal development and identify in the world. Do you want to be treated the same as men? Have you found certain situations more frequent with females then males? I believe the true identification if finding these engrossed events that have been normalised within your life and finding your own self through these injustices. Some people are more vocal about it than others however, I aim to lift peoples awareness and boost their feminist views. Since this article, there is a new platform surrounding the female society and I believe it is growing for the better. White feminists have pathed the way for years and have created a good platform however, as racial inequality is more common to talk about nowadays, its time to prioritize the feminists of colour just as much. I'm trying to find research and influencers who aren't predominantly white so I am able to widen my research and the understand gender and social inequality from a different angle. In my zine I will include current feminists I have found and will produce a ‘feminist of of the month’ which highlights this particular persons achievements and social platform so the readers are able to look up people who I think needs recgonition.

Current feminist influencers I am interesting in including in my zine:

Nimco Ali

Nimco Ali (OBE) is a British social activist who main goal is to end female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2030. She is the co-founder of a non-profitable organisation, ‘Daughters of Eve’ that helps pursue this goal. Despite being a FGM survivor, in her Gentle women interview, (2019) she says ’My editor wanted a book about FGM, but that was just something that happened to me – it doesn’t define me as a woman. I wanted to write about the things that connect women.’ when asked about her book, ‘What were told not to talk about’. She is also looking at creating a book for schools to implement onto children. This would be pivotal moment in activism as I believe the school system in the UK isn't projective the right messages into children and how to behave in society.

Adwoa Aboah

Adwoa is a British fashion model and mental-health activist. She is most common known for many Vogue interviews all around the world. To me, she differs from the standard perceptions of modelling. She uses her platform within fashion brands to speak her views and challenge the modelling industry. Her Instagram his heavy with activist articles and events instead of idealistic standards of looking like most models portray onto teens. She recently did a interview with Vogue where she discussed her new self-reflection journal, ‘Reflections (feelings is what makes life so beautiful)’ She mentioned that ‘For one month, 100 per cent of the profits will be donated to Gurls Talk, a community-led non-profit organisation established by Aboah in 2016 to support and promote the mental health and well-being of gxrls, young womxn and non-binary people, and those exploring their gender.’ Her book is made in three colours which hold content like’ quotes from Serena Williams, Sinéad Burke, Dr. Ciara Dockery, Jorja Smith and Janaya Future Khan, along with prompts that stimulate self-care and checking in on others including: “What’s the one song that always lights up you?” and “Write a letter to your younger self. What did you need to hear then?” Adwoa is really inspiring to me and I am definitely looking to create my book in a similar way.

Amika George

Amika is the youngest feminist I've looked at so far. She is a another British activist whos common goal is to end period poverty in the UK. When she was 17, whilst still in secondary school, she started a petition regarding the poverty around females menstrual time at school. The petition got over 200′000 signatures which sparked protests over the UK for the government in Westminster to provide free sanitary products for school children. She called this the #Free period campaign (2017). In her Vogue interview she states ‘To think that we bleed because of a bodily function we have no control over and have that as an additional obstacle is so unfair! No girl should be missing school because she can’t afford to have a period. No girl should be faced the indignity and constant stress of knowing she’s bled over her uniform in front of her class because she can only afford one tampon or pad, or worse still, no tampon or pad.‘ I love the fact that she did all this while still being in school, it helps girls relate to her on a personal level.

Florence Given

Florence is a illustrator artist and a social activist influencer. Her main achievement would be her book ‘Women don't owe you pretty’ which talks ‘about challenging the out-dated narratives supplied to us by the patriarchy.’ Just in six months of releasing, she received over 100′000 copies bought by the public. She states that “We’re told that if we shave our legs, put on more make-up, curl our hair and do all this stuff, we’ll receive the illusion of basic human respect. But the respect we’re met with as women when we perform these standards is usually objectification, and that also increases our chances of sexual assault and sexual harassment on the street. It’s a double-edged sword.” Her overall message is to educate women on the patriarchy and allow themselves to discover themselves stripped away from the social standards of a female with the help of reding her book.

Natalie Lee

Natalie is a British blog, fashion writer and activist. She is well known for her website ‘Style me Sunday’ which involves her personal journal and advice for women as well as fashion styling advice. Her message is ‘to inspire mums to celebrate their uniqueness, share their struggles and experiences, and to show that there’s no such thing as perfect and anyway perfect is boring. We love curves, wrinkles, realness, anything that doesn’t pretend to fit into a cookie cutter mould. You’ll never see any photoshopping here.’ I found her Instagram very inspiring as she highlights areas which aren't seen as ‘pretty’ breaking the norms of social media and the addition of having to look perfect online.

Angel Arutura

Angel Arutura is a social activist, anti-racist educator and environmentalist from Belfast, Ireland. She uses her blog and social media platform to allow people to relearn certain situations which may not be in the main stream media. Her platform is full of tips and events that have shifted the world. She says in her Irish times interview that ‘Black Lives Matter and environmentalism are “incredibly interlinked,” she says, “because people that are least contributing to the climate crisis are suffering most from it.”

To conclude this research has helped me define what sort of information I’d like to include regarding feminism in society. The last three influencers I chose in this post are similar to my intentions when making the zine as they all seem to write around personal event that could help others relate. The first three females are very powerful to me equally as the last three and I am interested in including them in my zine regarding this subject of empowering young women. Looking for the positivity in the media like these women has uplifted me and encouraged me to believe in this zine and feminism as a whole.

0 notes