#I refuse to get in online arguments over fictional men

[sixpennydame]

"so if eruri is triggering for you, I’d suggest you start filtering certain tags so you can curate the kind of experience you want here."

I guess you think I don't really filter them out, but you're wrong. Believe me, no matter how much I ban everything related to this ship, it comes up in every way. For example eruri shipper Levixreader writers. Even in the Hcs/fanfic's they write, they are in every way squeezing their own ship under the guise of "this is not ship discourse" and they write the dynamics of that ship under the name of 'levixreader' in order to show that their ship is canon. And you naively Rb'd them and think that Levi's character is really like that. He's a perpetually angry man, he's a cruel selfish man who hates the weak and who hates the weak and who immediately abandons you because he's weak, who puts his feelings for erbin ahead of his duties 🥺 who puts humanity through hell for erbin. but someone who is a dog and a softy for him and someone who threw S/o out of the window for him. Yes he loves S/o but he would even sacrifice S/o for the landlord whose dog he is 😔 But again keep saying "great Levi fic post 😭".

And that's what I'm talking about when I say don't let them manipulate you, because even one of your recent articles is similar to their writing style. I wouldn't be surprised if you soon write Levi as an ass upturned, bed whining, super fanon twink whiny lowlife sub. One of your Rb's in particular is a super delulu shipper levixreader writer, and they so much portray Levi as Erwin's lapdog, order dog, loyal dog, someone who never questions whatever action he takes, never wavers in his loyalty, that Cosmic finally had to write them a misleading reply that Levi is not like that Lmaoo. And they are egotistical and self-righteous enough to say "I know better than you" when they see criticism that contradicts their fanon thinking. Man its 2024 and fucking ackerbond has been debunked years ago and even Isayama's dusty old interviews deny it. Yeah, no matter how much I filter eruri, I see exactly that in both Levi tags and Levixreader tags 🙃 and now whenever I want to read fic or browse Levi posts, I have to look at them with hesitation and fear. I don't understand if I should filter Levi directly?

I'm so tired that I would love for Isayama to drop a bombshell that will disprove both the selfshippers and shippers and all their rhetoric, all their Hc's, and leave us all in a big disappointment. For example to give him a really random female partner. Or I would like him to write a characterization where he really doesn't care about everyone and throws them into the fire, where he thinks about himself and his life instead of thinking about them, where he focuses on himself, where he is truly selfish. Then we wouldn't have to see discourses, dramas and fights like "Levi cared about X the most" "He did this and that for X" "Levi doesn't have a canon ship, but if he did it would be X"

*sighs heavily*

I don’t know what to tell you, Anon. If my reblogging and my moots bring you so much distress, you are free to block me.

I refuse to get involved with ship discourse - that’s not what I’m here for.

But I will say this: the writing I do is xreader, but I love to read and view Levi in many forms - canon and AU, eruri, LeviHan, and everything in between. I’ll be sure to make that clear on my ‘About Me’ page.

I love my moots’ writing and art, and will continue to reblog anything that I find beautiful or pleasing to me. Because that, dear Anon, is why I am here.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So, the final results are in. And I did promise that I was going to reshare this whenever it finally did hit the end of the poll timer.

The initial reason that I shared this was because of a discourse directly related to perception of some individuals in a different post. Which was that women do not get shamed because large breasted women exist in fictional media. Except the fact is they do. And I'm actually glad that this poll finished when it did, because I now have a video that I can attach that backs up my point. So for clarity let me break this down before I share the video.

I don't believe necessarily that depictions of women have effect on real life women. Having said that however I do need to point out that interpretations of fictional women do have an effect on real women. Concept that is actually covered in the video I'm about to share. But a point that I was attempting to make in my original arguments before I got dog piled by what I assumed to be radfems. Though, maybe I was wrong. The argument being specifically that when a perception exists of a body type regardless of whether that body type is exaggerated in fictional media people have an opinion about it. That perception and or opinion has a direct translation to how women see their own bodies. Now mind you, this is not a 1:1 phenomenon. But I know a person who has a very similar body type to Matsumoto from Bleach the woman has a relatively slender waste decent-sized hips and has a huge rack. So for her it was not an exaggerated body type it was very much her body type. And she used that to her advantage to actually cosplay the character.

Problems however actually started to arise a bit when I started seeing online discourse about over exaggerated body types in anime and general fiction/video games. Which is to say radical feminist and anti's screaming stuff like "where are her organs", or "oh my God her poor back" about fictional characters. Meanwhile we as humans have varying body types. Now the reason that I made the poll, was because people were not listening to me whenever I was trying to make my point. And because I wanted to make sure that my poll was not hijacked I actually excluded sex from the poll options. Which is to say originally I was going to ask if people had been bullied by men for their bust or women for their bust or both. However I refused to let radical feminist hijacked my questionnaire and decided that it would be better if I combine it just into one singular option. Now, before I post the link to the video for y'all's amusement let me explain something very clearly so you understand.

What happened to my friend is that she felt ostracized and alienated by people saying that her body type was unrealistic. Because in retrospect she did have a very similar body type to that of the character I had mentioned previously. Moreover I have seen a similar/same things with petite friends of mine who are under 5 foot 1 who are being accused of being pedophile bait because they weren't born bustier. More or less I didn't think that anybody would have an issue with the initial argument that I made. Unfortunately however people on the internet can't just sit back for a minute and think about something before they reply to it. So they decided to say no fictional characters existing does not in any way affect the mentality of women. To which I responded that wasn't my argument. Perception of those characters however does affect women. Because it affected my friend and other people that I personally know. Yes, this poll was about being bullied for having a large bust size but my point was that it is the case that perception and opinion about a character's design will affect some women out there because they will share a body type with that character or have a very similar body type to that character, and be called pedobait or unrealistic. So effectively yes it is the case that these characters existing does not affect people mentally or emotionally. However, opinions of some people about the characters designs that do in fact have a negative impact on some women. Notice how I haven't said all women once in this post. So my ranting aside, here is the video.

I need to make a point so please share this.

Ladies, have you ever been bullied by men OR women for having large breasts or been called unrealistic looking (or some version of this)

[michael-drummey]

Achilles x Patroclus: Part 2, Harmful Stereotypes in Modern Media

**Since my last post on this blew up! Here is just a little more on the subject & some of the nonsense I have seen & experienced on said topic online & in other forms of media**

For anyone who needs proof that Achilles & Patroclus were always and originally presented as a gay couple in a committed relationship mapped out in The Iliad (see my original post here) SOME in our society (not those who are properly educated) like to project harmful & stereotypical LGBTQ+ tropes on Homer’s material & their representation in other forms of media that are still prevalent today such as:

 “Gay as not the Main Character” - The Iliad starts with the lines “RAGE: Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage,” so right at the start this Story we meet Achilles; obviously he is crucial in the story’s plot, yet even for his importance in this story it is not named for him, the focus is on Troy. Achilles is “Greatest of all the Greeks” but is remembered for all his bad qualities, while others like Agamemnon who is also deeply flawed or Odysseus, get the recognition of trying to reason with Achilles, and are seen as the more reasonable leaders set on winning the war. Achilles and Patroclus get reduced to just once aspect of the story, then once they are dead, we get The Odyssey and our new main boy Odysseus. The wily & super straight war hero trying to get home to his darling wife and son, which leads us to our next trope...

“Bury your Gays” - Achilles and Patroclus are obviously coded as homosexual even though the Ancient Greeks did not have a word to use for gay, but it is none the less glaringly obvious. Patroclus is killed by Hector when he rides into battle to help his fellow Greeks and retain Achilles’ Honor, thus setting in motion the events that will unleash Achilles’ Rage upon Hector and the Trojans. We also find out later in The Odyssey Achilles died when Odysseus meets him in The Underworld where he stands off with Patroclus so check check for both stories. This is a huge piece of Homer’s story, but so many times Patroclus is forsaken and treated as a plot point not as a character who’s fate changes the course of the story, they view him as a “gotta go” kind of sidekick to Achilles.

“Depraved Homosexual & Loose Bisexual” - Either perverse and/or murderous the “depraved homosexual” trope portrays the gay character as possessing all quirks and qualities one/society considers undesirable. Achilles is vengeful and refuses to fight when Agamemnon tarnishes his honor, then when Patroclus is killed Achilles is completely inconsolable, wishing to end his life, he weeps for days on end in bed with the body of Patroclus. When he unleashes that grief (The Rage of Achilles) he is reduced to a killing machine hellbent on nothing but avenging his beloved’s death, which eventually will lead to his own demise. He is rarely referred to as a 3-dimensional character with complex emotions from this point on. As one who has suffered in this war, lost his honor & lost the love of his life, which has caused all that is human in him to die as well; he succumbs to his pain. His wrath is what so many know him for even if they haven’t read the story, They just see him as a ferocious warrior, but so few know the full context behind his actions, or love to claim he did what he did because his “best friend” was killed. Some forms of media love to also portray them as bisexual, where we are given over the top sex scenes, and shown two men who are meant to be “less than” for their sexual freedom/lack of sexual morals. While it really has nothing to do with that and just creates more biphobia and erasure. We are never are shown them happily and honestly committed to each other, which leads us to our next stereotype.

“Everyone is Straight” - SOME Historians, Scholars, Writers, Movies love to predominately present characters as “all straight or only straight”. Since The Iliad was recorded people have been debating if Achilles & Patroclus were an item or not. Personally I think the evidence is overwhelming and plain as day, (you do not share a tent & bed with just your homie, Rage as Achilles did at Patroclus’ death, then keep his body in your bed yearning for his “μένος” (menos) aka manly vigor and semen, then get your ashes buried together in the same urn, just for someone to say “They were Best Friends Forever!” There is more than enough evidence to say Homer wrote them as gay, but some love to throw the “Briseis Argument” out there saying he intended to marry her, and she was his girl, ie. lots of gratuitous sex scenes to follow. If that were so, why does he only take her into his bed once at the end of Book 24? He had 10 years what was stopping him? And why did he wish her dead when he receives the body of Patroclus? Truthfully you would be sad your friend died, but at least its not your lover, right? Unless, wait what happened to Achilles when Patroclus died?... oh right, that’s the reaction of a man who has lost his best friend, lover, basically entire world, so “Bye Briseis!” you were a broken man’s booty call, time to move along. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a booty call, but in The Iliad that’s what Homer gave us to work with and this ones more directed at Hollywood and Straights™ who like to ignore all historical context.)

Now we know that these tropes did not exist when The Iliad was recorded, and Homer did not set out with the mind set “gotta kill these gays!” the word homosexual did not exist until 1869, it is not like being LGBTQ+ people just popped up then too. But viewing the story with some of these lens we can more clearly see these modern tropes and stereotypes 1. Can exist in pieces of art and literature despite the time the story was told. 2. Hurtful stereotypes affect the way people translate & view stories, peoples, cultures, etc. A prime example I still find it shocking when people say “weren’t they just cousins!?” (NO) 3. Not thinking critically and thoughtfully about such a piece, prevents others from truthful experiences, and devalues the meaning and emotion one gets from reading or telling such a story. 4. It is modern weaponizing & blatant erasure of those LGBTQ+ (fictional and non-fictional characters) that came before us to present a false narrative of heteronormativity. 

In the end, as I stated, Homer did not use these stereotypes, these stories would have been sung and told in a way that captivated its audience, which they obviously are still doing today. Homer is a phenomenal storyteller, truly a classic and one of the best, but some still feel the need to straightwash these characters. So next time someone tries to say Homer never wrote Achilles and Patroclus as gay lovers, there is no evidence in The Iliad to support it, and that we cannot look at them through a modern lens. Or call out others who choose to ignore history, facts, and context, you can say “You Can! and Yes, Achilles x Patroclus are 100% in a committed gay relationship!” 

[mostweakhamlets]

top-Crowley-central is such a creep why won’t she leaveeeeeee 🤮

I don't want to contribute to a lot of this "drama" bc I'm an adult and I've already blocked her

But she and her friends are blatantly homophobic and transphobic, and they keep using excuses like "well, they're just fictional characters so get over it" as if irl gay men have not spoken up about how women who ship gay men like that make them uncomfortable. And it's at a point where it's not even cutesy headcanons anymore. I never want her and her mutuals to ever speak to a trans man or gay man ever lmao bc you know they'd be like "uwu are you a top or a bottom."

But beyond that, the minor stuff that was going around Really made me uncomfortable. You only have to be 13 to be on this website (or any social media) as 13 is kinda like a magic age for laws regarding internet stuff. And yeah people who are 13 and their parents do need to assume some level of responsibility when they're online. You will come across dirty things. But it's also on adults to make sure we're containing our adult content.

I've seen people say in multiple arguments "the app is rated 17+ so obviously it's not for kids" but app ratings I'm pretty sure aren't set by the websites. The TOS of Tumblr still says you have to be at least 13. And knowing that there are literal children on this website, it's kinda not okay to me that an adult had been openly speaking to minors about NSFW content that heavily fetishizes gay men

Idk I feel lowkey bad that everyone's picked on her in the past month or so but she also is everything that's wrong with fan bases: minors and adults interacting over explicit content, fetishizing gay men, refusing to accept responsibility for making people uncomfortable, and having the 2014 attitude of "uwu I'm not homophobic I have a gay ship"

[murderwasthecase]

Showcasing Marvel’s Daredevil - The Crown Jewel of MCU

Quick rant about the situation

So this shit just happened and of course I wanted to say something. Daredevil has been CANCELLED by Netflix. Honestly, if you follow this kinda stuff, I think you all saw it coming after they did the same thing to Iron Fist and Luke Cage, but this shit hurts because the show’s third season which was, in my opinion, maybe the best one yet still hasn’t cooled off, people are still talking about it, it received many praise from critics and audiences alike, and it just came off as a really cold thing to cancel the show now especially if you’re a fan of the series.

There are already millions of videos and essays on what this kind of Thanos-snapping his fingers action that Netflix just did with Marvel’s heroes could mean and I will not talk about them in this particular piece. Instead, I’m gonna pay a tribute to the show by going through some of my favorite moments of the three seasons that we got. We definitely deserved a few more and as of now it could theoretically happen on some other network, but the Netflix era of Daredevil is over and during that time, it made it the best superhero tv show that was ever created and probably the best thing to ever come out of MCU alongside Infinity War. And now you’ll see why. By the way, the idea is to showcase the genius of the series through some of its best scenes so if you haven’t seen it, you are warned.

Writer’s room of Daredevil has blessed the MCU with some of its richest characters. Their actions are well-thought, striking and every one of them has some kind of dilemma going on in their heads which makes them more human and more interesting for the viewer. They have personal demons and individual values which are fleshed out to the maximum. That characteristic just brings those fictional people closer to the audience, resonating with their own lives. While MCU’s movie characters are more concerned with battling aliens and saving the planet, ones in Daredevil fight the battles of the ordinary people. 

The drama in Daredevil is mainly based around the clashes of polar opposites in the lives of its main characters. The best example of this is, of course, Matthew (brilliant Charlie Cox), whose ever-lasting moral fight with his Catholic faith and God is one of the running themes of the show. The crescendo of it comes in the series’ third season when Matt, much more pessimistic than before, considers taking another man’s life which he earlier swore never to do, running away from the fundamental principles of his religion which earlier guided him through his vigilante mission.

While the aforementioned third season takes that battle inside the mind of Matt Murdock, in the previous one, we can see that fight literally taking place with another person. Enter Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, played by the amazing badass that is Jon Bernthal, who does the same thing as Daredevil, except he TAKES lives because of his beliefs. Psychological clash between these two broken men takes it’s heights in the third episode of the show’s second season, where Daredevil confronts Frank Castle and tries to reason with him, eventually planting the seeds for clash in his own head a season after that.

That is exceptional writing and phenomenal acting right there. Even though I think the second season of Daredevil is the least good one from all of them because of the tiring ninja subplot, the Punisher arc is one of the strongest things that happened in these series. That’s another polar opposite for you.

Dialogues like that are one fantastic way to flesh out characters and their essence, to show us who they are and what goes on in their heads. Daredevil isn’t overcrowded with quips and sarcastic insults like the movies are, the time it’s not wasted on melodramatic, soap-opera style love triangles which occur in the CW shows. Compared to them and even to other Netflix superhero TV series, Daredevil brings a deeper meaning to its characters by including philosophical arguments that connect us to their dilemmas, layering the story in the process. For instance, take a look at this scene (can’t embed it because of Tumblr) from season 1, when father Lantom tries to answer Matthew’s question about the existence of Devil.

Have you heard the last question in that clip? This scene not only brings a thought-provoking anecdote to the table - it’s much more than that. It serves as a great MOTIVATION for the main character to link the speech to his real-life situation, to try and stop the evil, even if its power seems impossible. This is superhero mythology at its finest.

And it works for antiheroes as well. Like the situation from season two, where Punisher refuses to deny his radical beliefs, taking a piss on the whole judicial system in the process, packed with another great Jon Bernthal performance.

Talking about great acting, it would be a sin not to showcase the ability of Vincent D’Onofrio who gives a role of his career as the main villain Wilson Fisk, the pinnacle of excellent writing on this show.

His portrayal of this crime lord is so menacing. D’Onofrio plays Fisk who with his posture and gestures reminds you more of a shy child than a criminal mastermind, but he’s at the same time almost harrowingly dominant and explosive.  This makes for an extremely unpredictable villian who is layered, complex and whose character development is, as a result, ever-lasting. Just watch as he transforms the scene by delivering this great analogy about the good samaritan.

To all you aspiring writers, actors and directors who want to work in the superhero medium - take notes.

When talking about Daredevil I obviously have to talk about action scenes. I would argue that Marvel’s Daredevil is probably the best action series of all time considering how it balances good writing and exhilarating fighting sequences, but I’ll let someone more experienced to prove that hypothesis.

The action in Daredevil has reached almost a mythical point by now, with fans making memes about their duration and ridiculously coordinated and well-executed stuntwork and camera work. Hallway fights have become a norm on the show and there are lots of good YouTube videos that analyse them so I won’t get in detail here and dissect them even though that would be fun - I will rather point out the one geeky detail about them which is key to why the most talked about action scenes in Daredevil are so good.

You know what was my all-time favorite action scene on tv for a long time? Let’s take you back to the first season of True Detective, precisely, to the end of fourth episode, when Rust Cohle infiltrates this biker gang and goes on a mission to the hood with them - just to blow his cover and capture their leader. This is one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen in tv series, ever. Director Cary Fukunaga decided to film this as a TRACKING SHOT.

By placing the camera directly behind Matthew McConaughey’s back he placed US in the perspective, almost creating a 3D, video-game like environment in which we get close to the situation as much as possible. Doing this, he creates tension, the feel of urgency and danger which resonates with audience and makes everything more interesting. That raid scene was six minutes long without visible cuts or edits. Fukunaga used a long take which made episode end on the high note. In my opinion, this is how grounded action should be made. It has to communicate with viewer, it enhances the atmosphere.

When I saw something similar in the hallway fight in Daredevil’s first season, I was hyped. It wasn’t exactly that as we watched everything from the hall, not from “behind Matt’s back” perspective, but it reminded me vividly of Fukunaga’s take. And in the second season, when they filmed the Staircase scene, they used that exact method which they pushed it to the limits in the prison sequence in the third season which is as of right now definitely my favorite action scene in any tv series, of all time, period. And another thing which is mind-boggling is how they make it longer every season. Hallway fight from the first season was three minutes long, Staircase was five minutes, while Prison was around eight. All in single take. By that, you can see how the cast and crew tried harder and harder every season, pushing the boundaries of not only superhero genre, but the tv series making in general. Do you know how hard it is to film something like those scenes? You can look it up online, it’s an extremely difficult work.

DAREDEVIL has created a perfect mixture of drama and superhero crime story, presenting us a gritty world of crime-ridden New York. Of course, as everything, it has a few problems here and there, but it’s by far the most mature thing to come out of MCU. I don’t know who’s really responsible for the cancellation, is it Disney or Netflix or both of them, but I hope they’ll realize what stupid move they’ve made and let the cast and crew continue their magic. Because if not, our dear MCU has just lost one of its crown jewels.

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

If A Disease Is Untreatable, Incurable and Progressive, Is It A "Medical" Condition at All?

December 2, 2018

I have seen it pointed out elsewhere that some “conditions” for which the medical establishment offers consumerist goods and services are not actually bona fide medical conditions at all and are in fact money-making schemes advanced by wealthy investors and others who stand to make a fortune off of anyone stupid, naive or deranged enough to accept them.  The conversation I am most familiar with pertains to the medicalized transgender movement where people are persuaded that they can achieve the impossible through medicalized interventions, in that case, that “transgender” individuals can change their biological sex through consuming expensive and dangerous cross-sex hormones, puberty blocking drugs, and surgeries including castration, so-called “facial feminization” surgeries and others.

Whether anyone accepts the psychological or physical transgenderism of individuals or not, the issue remains that there are billions of dollars to be made globally on this phenomenon and thinking people are prone to thinking about such things.  “Follow the money” is a familiar admonition and politically-minded people understand what that means.   They generally accept the reality that where there is money to be made, there will be corruption and wealthy people and entities working in the shadows to further their own interests.  In the above-linked article by Jennifer Bilek entitled “Who Are the Rich, White Men Institutionalizing Transgender Ideology?” she asks and answers that question and names names.  She concludes that it is “Exceedingly rich, white men (and women) who invest in biomedical companies [who] are funding myriad transgender organizations whose agenda will make them gobs of money” including billionaire businessmen George Soros, “Jennifer” Pritzker and others. And it’s difficult to argue with that conclusion which is demonstrably true.  But let’s go further.

Whether the potential or actual opportunity to make “gobs” of money under a capitalist patriarchy renders a potentially legitimate project illegitimate on its face is a discussion for another day.  However, in the case of the legitimacy of medicalizing transgenderism Bilek identifies a specific social discourse that “institutionalizes and normalizes” transgenderism in a way that convinces people that consuming medicalized goods and services literally for life — the entire life of the patient throughout and following medicalized transition — is in the interests of both the patient and society at large.  According to her, it does this by manufacturing a medical condition which arguably does not even exist, and then by encasing the created medical and consumerist issue within a civil rights framework. In the case of transgender, the intended and actual result is to socialize all people (aka “consumers” whether they themselves are transgender or not) to believe both that there is something physically wrong with so-called transgender people which medical goods and services can fix, and that it is those people’s unalienable human right to have the condition corrected no matter the cost to themselves or to society. She concludes that:

It behooves us all to look at what the real investment is in prioritizing a lifetime of anti-body medical treatments for a miniscule part of the population, building an infrastructure for them, and institutionalizing the way we perceive ourselves as human beings, before being human becomes a quaint concept of the past.

As her argument is narrow and addresses only the issue of transgenderism, I cannot fault her for coming up with such a narrow conclusion.  She does not broadly criticize Big Medicine in general, favoring specificity to make her point which appears to be that medicine does not behave this way in any other area besides transgenderism and that the (alleged) difference should be parsed.  In making that point, she necessarily implies that medical overreach is a small-scale problem affecting only a miniscule part of the population (and that medical consumerism is not inherently problematic and that we needn’t follow they money except in the case of transgender); that “building” social and medical infrastructure to accommodate these new patients is worse than absorbing new patients into the existing infrastructure, or expanding the existing infrastructure to include people it shouldn’t; and that Big Medicine is not fundamentally about “institutionalizing the way we perceive ourselves as human beings” already, and is not generally intended and used as a tool of social control.

And although she rightly characterizes transgender as a problematic “lifestyle” issue, she misses the opportunity to discuss the apparent fact that medicalized goods and services are not effective in treating the (alleged, self-reported) mental and physical pain and symptoms of transgenderism, which analysis would only support her skepticism that transgender is a legitimate diagnosis of a medical disease/illness at all.*

But what if the problems she identifies with the medicalization and normalization of transgenderism are actually a feature and not a bug of Big Medicine and Big Pharma when it comes to defining — if not outright inventing — what constitutes both illness and treatment and engaging consumers long-term or for life?  Feminists have long known and noted that patriarchal medicine “invents” both illnesses and treatment for women as a part of our oppression — hysteria and its dubious treatments being perhaps the most obvious example but there are others. But the evidence suggests that invented treatments aren’t “just” for invented illnesses: Big Pharma and Big Medicine actually invent “treatments” for untreatable (yet objectively verifiable) disease, for example, in the case of Crohn’s disease which notoriously does not respond to conventional care.

And this has everything to do, in fact, with “institutionalizing the way we perceive ourselves as human beings.”  Doesn’t it?  We have to engage with Big Medicine because that’s what human beings do, it’s one thing that separates us from animals, it separates the sick from the well, even when the medicine itself does nothing but make us worse it is the willingness to engage that’s important.  In cultures that extoll Big Pharma and Big Medicine we seem not to include untreatable disease as part of the human condition and “the way we perceive ourselves” despite all evidence that it is and has always been part of the human experience (and untreatable illness such as autoimmune disease has only become more prevalent over time).  Think about that for a minute.  It is striking.

And if transgender patients can rightly be seen as “lifestylists” making medicalized consumer choices in the absence of therapeutic benefits, and I think they can, what could be said about chronically ill people whose lives revolve around medical interventions which are not therapeutic and which therefore must be something else?  This is a serious question that, I think, deserves serious “treatment” but is a sticky wicket; as far as I can tell it is rarely if ever discussed.  Our alleged “civil right” to medical treatment seals the deal where perhaps Americans in particular will die a million billion deaths before they will fail to exercise a perceived or actual “right,” even if the alleged right has no basis in natural law, and even where the fight and even the prize will likely kill us, and that includes women and feminist women.

They will die on the hill of “rights” again and again and again and again and again, but in the case of the alleged right to medical treatment of chronic illness no one will ever question why and how a condition for which Big Medicine offers no effective treatment and no cure has been “medicalized” in the first place and what that actually means, for one, that a health condition equals a medical condition (meaning that health and medicine are the same thing).  That our alleged “right” to medical care is not a right at all, but an obligation and that we are therefore coerced into engaging with Big Medicine and Big Pharma.  That “the way we perceive ourselves as human beings” in a medical/medicalized context has been institutionalized (meaning, dictated and normalized) by lying, scheming and powerful men. That untreatable illness has been written out of the human experience, and that “human history” is therefore fiction.  It’s fiction, as is our human present and our future.  It probably means other things too, but it definitely means that.

And don’t even get me started on the goddamned “disability advocates” who aim to protect sick (and transgender) people’s “civil rights” to a lifetime of painful, dangerous and ineffective medical treatments, but notably do not advocate for anyone’s right to refuse unwanted medical care, even in the United States where that right of refusal is protected by the Constitution, and where so-called disability advocates would universally remove euthanasia from the table for mentally competent yet seriously, incurably and even terminally ill patients because the disability advocates say so. And thus spake capitalism and patriarchy: (alleged) positive rights yay!  Negative rights, meaning, the right to do nothing, the right to abstain, the right to be left the hell alone, the right to cease to exist at all, especially when it comes to women (and where women are particularly vulnerable to developing untreatable chronic disease) (crickets).

*Note: until very recently there was an excellent online resource providing citations from the medical literature indicating that medical transition is not a reliable treatment or cure for the (alleged, self-reported) distressing symptoms of transgenderism but that site no longer exists, having been deleted by WordPress for speaking ugly truths about the transgender movement that Bilek does not address and which are beyond the scope of this post.

[funkymbtifiction]

In your own point of view and experience, what is the most interesting characteristic about each type?

(I am not sorry for the Star Wars gifs. Everything is SW, and nothing hurts.)

I may go with the unexpected. Things the online profiles don’t prepare you for.

ESTJ: their perverse sense of humor. You expect an ESTJ to be some hard-assed fascist dictator and instead they crack you up with a story about their first day on cop duty how they accidentally tasered someone in their privates. It’s that low-order Ne, man. It’s hilarious but not in a mixed company sort of way.

ISTJ: how much they actually can admire rule-breakers and how considerate they can be. I have sat through movies with ESTP protagonists who you’d just expect the stoic, sensible ISTJ to look at them and go, “Geez, what a loser, he takes too many risks,” and instead… they walk out with the ESTP being their favorite character. Shadow function envy? Also, they tend to be really hard on anyone who tries to shame other people and/or refuses to allow the other person to be their true self.

ESFJ: the stereotype is the class cheerleader, but a lot of the ESFJs I know are more serious (and often successful) business owners who build up a trust system with their clients which makes everyone feel warm and invited. I’ve met a few ‘intellectual’ ESFJs who are free spirited, who have globe-trotted (without a plan, I might add), who got married on impulse (and made it last), who have a ton of different interests (and a huge amount of knowledge about all of them), and are fine with ‘any lifestyle’ provided it is not cruel toward others.

ISFJ: tend to be much more strongly opinionated than you might expect, and a lot of them want to foster a sense of independence and respect. They tend to hunger for ‘more’ and to push away from tradition as they get older. And, contrary to stereotypes, I have actually seen many of them change their minds over a relatively short period of time given time to orient themselves in an idea. If you can prove to them how it works better, they are happy to use it.

ESTP: how totally chill a lot of them are and how, contrary to profiles might suggest, many of them are not thrill-seeking psychopaths, but instead good-natured neighborhood dudes who sometimes enjoy popping a beer in the backyard with some friends and just having a good time. Unfortunately, a few bad ESTPs (fictional and real) have given them a bad reputation for being hotheaded jackasses, but a lot of them are just… chill. And not inclined to speak with their fists first.

ISTP: how low-key mild mannered and considerate they can be. They are not the gushy, affirming types, and they are not Sherlock Holmes; a lot of them do seem to work in computer programming jobs, but none of the healthy ones I know go out of their way to earn praise or attention, and many of them actually make friendship decisions to protect their friends’ feelings and not overwhelm them with needs. Yet, they need encouragement much of the time.

ESFP: you would expect them to be the party hard type, and instead what I often find is witty, funny and intense people who care about their job performance and in making good impressions,and who have razor sharp insights into people that are not often delusional; they take people at face value, they make judgment calls on their behavior, and a lot of them are not into those notorious tert-Te smack-downs you hear about; most of the ones I know would rather let you keep their borrowed pants forever than charge into your closet and take them back.

ISFP: some of the purest, most sincere people I have ever met, but also those who show the most frankness in expressing their views. They tend to be thoughtful but also have a sharp sense of right and wrong, and are not going to back down on it, but a lot of them hate confrontation so will not ‘provoke’ anything. They tend to be very hands on people, and I’ve seen them know the people they care about most better than their loved one does themselves.

ENTJ: I never expected the ENTJ to be the most emotionally mellow, and considerate, person in his work office, but… he neither takes anything personally nor especially judges the people he works with, for their emotional outbursts; he simply sits and listens to them, a bit puzzled perhaps that this incident caused this torrent of emotion, but he is generous almost to a fault, and if he’s going to blow his money on something, it’s usually on his friends.

INTJ: online profiles would have you think INTJs are egocentric robots, who have almost uncanny insights and never change their minds… so imagine my surprise to run in their circles and find intense, thoughtful, dry-humored people who take a long, long time to make up their mind and form careful arguments (which, yeah, can be unshakable unless you bring solid evidence). Some of them (weirdly enough, often the men I’ve met) tend to have an emotional storm inside, and no way to get it out.

ENFJ: I’m not sure where the idea of ultra-extroverts came from, if it’s a hold-over from their friends the ESFJs, but ENFJs seem to need less socialization and constant stimulus due to their aux Ni function. Many of them will step back and allow the sensors to dominate the floor, because they simply do not need that kind of external sensory fulfillment. Many of them tend to be far more spontaneous than you might expect from an NJ, and a lot of them just trust that they can seize the right moment when it comes and do not waste a lot of time worrying about it. Things will just… work out. They know it. And, most of the ones I’ve met think they’re introverts half the time.

INFJ: you expect Ghandi and find someone who is genuinely weird (I mean that in a nice way) and eclectic and occasionally says peculiar, abstract things right before they go back to psycho-analyzing Hannibal Lecter for 6 hours while they plan the Star Trek story you’re co-authoring with them in their heads. True story. I was blessed. And also slightly terrified.

ENTP: you go looking for Benjamin Franklin, and instead you find a brilliantly moronic maniac who puts just as much thought into figuring out what drives the villains in Star Wars as they do abstract systems and proving people wrong. Far from the stereotype of an absent minded professor, these ultra-thinkers will actually engage you in the most loony nonsensical conversations you have ever had in your life and either leave you thoroughly entertained or very confused right before they turn around and suggest they’re an ENTJ instead.

INTP: you expect a college professor, and instead you wind up with Terry Pratchett, someone who quite enjoys poking holes in every theory, mocking all that is sacred (for his amusement and yours) and is often… surprisingly, not that offensive while doing it. You expect a certain level of jackass from inferior Fe but I’ve seen INTPs go out of their way to avoid offending people!

ENFP: have a reputation for being inconsiderate, self-centered flirts, and instead can run themselves into exhaustion trying to help you out of every mess you find yourself in, because their Ne cannot bear to leave you as you are, in a hole, when there are so many ways to fix this!! A lot of them tend to forgive easily. Maybe because within 10 minutes, they forgot your name. ;)

INFP: have reputations as being the most easily hurt of all the types, but considering I’ve seen INFPs walking around giving no damns what anyone thinks of their appearance, their interest, or the BB8 following behind them, I think that’s a myth. I’ve also known a fair few to be quite fussy and even to undertake the “mothering” role toward those they love in ways that put ISFJ stereotypes to shame.

- ENFP Mod

[rowanwhittington]

The Handmaids Tale and the Importance of Fashion in Cults

To get an external interpretation of cults in which women are sexually abused, I watched Bruce Miller’s 2017 TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's book series ‘The Handmaids Tale’. 

Despite not being explicitly about a cult, the show explores a Christian based governments rule over a heavily class divided society, in which many women have become infertile due to STDs and environmental factors. Those who are fertile are enslaved as Handmaids to bare children for higher ranking members of society, raped in a ritual known as ‘the ceremony’. Despite being a fictional story, this has many similarities to actual sex based cults, particularly those with strong religious beliefs. It is thought that the woman must give herself up for the Lord, and to do that she must be impregnated to grow the cult and their message. 

A poignant quote the I wrote down from episode one was “ordinary is just what you’re used to [...] after a time this will become ordinary.” This sounded extremely familiar to the situation many people find themselves in when in a cult group. Although it may seem preposterous to an outsider, through slow indoctrination the strange behaviours start just being normal, which allows leaders to perform violent and depraved acts with less retaliation. 

Another similar situation happens when it's alluded that a woman has been raped by multiple men. She is shamed and blamed by the other handmaids despite them all being systematically raped. This could be an interesting perspective to look at my project from, as in many cases the assaulted woman is ignored by the community around her or even blamed for actions that were out of her control. 

Later on in the episode a man is brought out in front of the Handmaids to be executed in a ‘particicution’ after being found guilty of raping a pregnant Handmaid, resulting in her miscarrying. The Handmaids gather in a circle around him and beat him, most likely to death. I find it incredibly interesting and impactful that even though the handmaids are raped continuously by higher ups without argument, they act out in violence when allowed to punish a man for it. This perhaps reflects their anger towards their own treatment, or more likely shows how deeply the cult like rules have influenced them; that rape is only punishable in this world when it impacts on the life of a commander’s baby.

Fashion is used to show a woman's place in the world of Gilead (formerly the USA), in which they are divided by social classes shown by the colour of their dresses. The Handmaids wear long red dresses with white ‘wings’ on their head to conceal them from public eye and also restrict their vision. Marthas, the housekeepers, wear loose green dresses styled like overalls or aprons, with their hair covered by a headscarf. The Wives of Commanders, one of the higher positions for women in society, wear deep blue dresses similar to those of the 1950s, a nod to the discipline wives were expected to show their husbands during this era. Econowives are of the lower class and wear varying shades of grey. Unwomen, the female prisoners, wear rags and are expected to clean up toxic waste until they die from the radiation. Aunts wear brown and guide the Handmaids through their new role. They are the only women allowed to read, although this is only because it is required for their position in society. The only women to wear clothes from before this new regime are Jezebels, who refuse to the part in any new career and are forced into prostitution out of secret brothels. They wear costumes and lingerie, which are otherwise forbidden, suggesting that their reclaimed sexuality has given them some freedom despite them still being victims. 

The context behind the book:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/margaret-atwood-expands-the-world-of-the-handmaids-tale

https://lithub.com/margaret-atwood-on-how-she-came-to-write-the-handmaids-tale/

“I made a rule for myself: I would not include anything that human beings had not already done in some other place or time, or for which the technology did not already exist. I did not wish to be accused of dark, twisted inventions, or of misrepresenting the human potential for deplorable behavior. The group-activated hangings, the tearing apart of human beings, the clothing specific to castes and classes, the forced childbearing and the appropriation of the results, the children stolen by regimes and placed for upbringing with high-ranking officials, the forbidding of literacy, the denial of property rights—all had precedents, and many of these were to be found, not in other cultures and religions, but within Western society, and within the “Christian” tradition itself. (I enclose “Christian” in quotation marks, since I believe that much of the Church’s behavior and doctrine during its two-millennia-long existence as a social and political organization would have been abhorrent to the person after whom it is named.)”

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/sep/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-testaments-real-life-inspiration.html

“These are the early epigraphs which I didn’t use, but they’re pretty interesting. I found better ones in the end. These ones were a bit too obvious. The first is from Dora Forster, who in 1905 wrote a book called Sex Radicalism: As Seen by an Emancipated Woman of the New Time: ‘I hope the scarcity of children will go on until motherhood is honoured at least as much as the trials and hardships of soldiers campaigning in wartime. It will then be worthwhile to supply the nation with a sufficiency of children.’ And this one is from the 1980s, by Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, who wrote about the relationship between biology and culture: ‘The great majority of economically more primitive societies are polygamous, and the number of wives is generally regarded as a measure of masculine success.’  And then there’s the one I did use, from the Rachel and Leah story: ‘Give me children, or else I die.’”

“‘Women forced to have babies.’ This is an article about Ceaușescu and Romania. He passed laws that said women had to have four babies. They had to have pregnancy tests every month and if they weren’t pregnant they had to explain why. ‘The latest sicko Red ruling was announced by cold-blooded Romanian president Nicolas [sic] Ceaușescu, who wants women to have more babies so the country will get richer.’ It was this policy that filled up the Romanian orphanages, which then became a scandal around the world for their inhumane conditions.”

“‘Conservatives are out to get the women’s movement. They wish to attack birth control and voluntary sterilization. Their eventual target is to wipe out the women’s movement.’ And this is a good headline that highlights religious tensions: ‘Catholics say cult taking over.’ It’s about a cult called the People of Hope that ‘subordinates its women, discourages social contact with non-members, arranges marriages, moves teenage disciples to households for indoctrination . . . their treatment of women is very Islamic. It’s a form of brainwashing.’”

“I didn’t even research it. There was no Internet then, you couldn’t just go online and put in a topic, so this is just stuff I came across when reading newspapers and magazines. I cut things out and put them in a box. I already knew what I was writing about and this was backup. In case someone said, ‘How did you make this up?’ As I’ve said about a million times, I didn’t make it up. This is the proof – everything in these boxes.”

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-29/inspiration-behind-handmaid-s-tale

https://www.insider.com/handmaids-tale-based-on-real-world-origins-history-events-2019-8#the-concept-of-using-handmaids-to-battle-infertility-is-inspired-by-a-biblical-story-1

[wtfallonauthor-blog]

Obviously, this is satire. I am not using the White House microwave to eavesdrop on the president scrawling his speech in crayon.

Congratulations to all of you who get to hear the best State of the Union address ever…since last year. I know those of you at home are enjoying it too, because your TV is spying on you. And if not your TV, then your microwave.

First, I want to tell you the state of the Union is great, because I am making America great again! BUT, we still have much to fear, because there are caravans of people from all over the world and maybe even Mars… and a couple parallel universes, see why we need Space Force…  everywhere coming to take what’s ours!

There are so many people to fear, I don’t know where to start—oh wait, yes, I do, yes I do. The gravest threat facing our country today is poor people! You know they’re all out to take your hard-earned money. Not mine, because I store mine offshore, but definitely all of yours. Do you know most poor people work multiple jobs? Where do you think those jobs come from? They come from you, and then you don’t have any money!

State of the Union Leaked Draft

And then those nasty poor people want welfare, folks, they want welfare, even though they’ve taken jobs from the good, hardworking people like you, they still want welfare. Can you believe that? They want free healthcare, free college, a free place to live—who do they think they are, my family?

Then, once they’ve taken all your money, they want to raise the minimum wage. Don’t they know how hard life is for CEOs and shareholders these days? Don’t they know raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour will force big companies to blame their regular price increases on a higher minimum wage? Don’t they know the damage to our economy when a CEO is forced to limit himself to only five summer homes in the Hamptons? It’s an absolute disaster!

And you know what’s an even bigger disaster than our own citizens robbing the rich? Foreigners. Foreigners who are out to take those high-paying jobs available to everyone with a first grade education in this great country! Foreigners who want to take welfare from the poor mooches who were lucky enough to be born in this great country. Let me tell you, those illegals will rob our poor of every dime they just fleeced from the rich, before they can even spend it on beer and cigarettes. Then they’ll start committing serious crimes—coming after the rich!

There’s another big threat facing this country too: Women. It’s a scary time to be a man, guys, because these days you can’t harass women anymore without them getting all sensitive and snowflakey about it. Can you believe it, now women you don’t even know want you to ask permission before you grab ’em by the pussy? Why do they hate men?

Getting back to pussies, have I mentioned I’m taller than Obama? And I had a bigger crowd at my inauguration? You wouldn’t believe the crowd size! Everyone wanted to see me make America great again.

And I have, but we can’t forget all the threats facing us. We can’t forget the threat of the well-educated. The well-educated are scary because they’re always trying to confuse good, honest, Americans with annoying things like “facts”‘, and I don’t mean the good, safe, alternative kind. The scientists are especially dangerous. Do you know they’ve formed a cabal and created the hoax of global warming? Well, the Chinese helped, but mostly, it was the scientists, folks. It was the scientists. If those people have their way, they’re going to put solar panels on everything, and then how will I get a tan after we use up all the sun running our electricity? Fortunately, my Secretary of Donation Education, Betsy DeVos, is working tirelessly to ensure American students are educated properly on the scourge of environmental hoaxes like climate change. She’s asked me to remind our young viewers to think logically: How can the globe be warming up when the Earth is flat?

As if the scientists aren’t bad enough, then we have LGBT people. Make no mistake, they have an agenda to convert everyone to their sexual preferences. Remember back when America was great, you could turn on the TV and see only straight people kissing each other. Back then, we didn’t have gay people or transgender people or arguments about who used what bathroom. There were no gay people until the gays invaded the media!

It gets worse, it gets worse. Then there are the foreign threats. Mexico is sending rapists and murderers, and Canada is trying to steal our citizens by dangling the carrot of free healthcare. And Norway refuses to send us any more limmigrants because they claim most of their citizens don’t want to move here—even though I’m making America great again! And don’t even get me started on all the people from shithole countries who want to come here and get on welfare, shaking our poor billionaires down worse than our own poor, lazy citizens already have. It’s a disgrace, an absolute disgrace.

And don’t forget, there are the young liberals, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who want to turn America into a shithole country like Venezuela. First of all, our oil reserve is bigger than Venezuela’s, much bigger. Second…has anybody seen her birth certificate? Where was she born? How about that Robert Mueller guy, anyone seen his birth certificate? Just curious…and fourth, liberals are all communists, and they want us all standing in line for toilet paper and vodka, and don’t you forget it!

You know why the liberals are doing this? Because they want to give everyone free stuff. It’s like on Oprah. You know I have better ratings than Oprah? I have better ratings. And I never gave away free stuff on my TV show. Better ratings than Swarzennager too. Anyway, free stuff. You get a car, and you get healthcare, and what do the rich get? They get all their tax breaks mercilessly ripped away, and that’s just not right. It’s not right, folks, it’s not right. Billionaires should not have to pay taxes, because they earned their money. Me, for example. I earned my money the day I was born into it, and I’ve been earning it ever since. And I’ve never stopped working for other billionaires like myself, good, hardworking people who only want to preserve the fortunes they earned by being born into the right family, growing up, going bankrupt going to bed with hot supermodels to Wharton, and hosting the most popular TV show that even got better ratings than Oprah, Swarzennager, and Hillary Clinton!

But don’t worry folks, there is a solution here. There’s a way I can protect you from all this pain and misery. Simply donate to my reelection campaign! You can pay online by credit card, or mail a check directly to the Kremlin. Thank you for hearing the greatest speech in history, until next year.

***********************************************************************

V. R. Craft is the author of Stupid Humans, a science fiction book series that asks the question, “What if all the intelligent humans abandoned Earth—and we’re what’s left? She is also the author of the political satire, Fail to the Chief, in which she envisioned the presidential election as a reality show. More of a reality show….

  State of the Union Leaked Draft Obviously, this is satire. I am not using the White House microwave to eavesdrop on the president scrawling his speech in crayon.

[thesassybooskter]

THE WEDDING FROM HELL PART 1: THE REHEARSAL DINNER by J. R. Ward: Spotlight & Excerpt

NOW AVAILABLE / GALLERY BOOKS

Don’t miss #1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward’s three-part ebook serialization: The Wedding From Hell. This exclusive prequel to her upcoming standalone suspense Consumed (available in Fall 2018) takes us back to where it all started between arson investigator Anne Ashburn and ‘bad boy’ firefighter Danny Maguire. The Wedding From Hell is a sexy standalone novella that sets up Consumed’s storyline, leaving fans hungry for more and dying to snatch it up.

It’s a classic recipe for disaster: Take one bridesmaid who thinks pink is the root of all evil, mix with a best man who’s hotter than a four-alarm fire, add in their explosive sexual attraction, a nightmare bridezilla, two cat fights, and an emergency call, and you have the wedding from hell.              

Experience the sizzling start of Anne and Danny’s intense relationship. Is this the start of something good…or just an erotic one-night stand that rocks their world, but must never be repeated?

  Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks

Add to Goodreads

  Excerpt

  Thursday, October 29

T minus 48 hours ’til blastoff

College Row, New Brunswick, Massachusetts

  Because women are not frickin’ groomsmen! That’s why she can’t be in the goddamn wedding!”

As Anne Ashburn walked in the back door of the shotgun apartment, that happy little explosion was not only what she’d expected all along, it also offered her the out she’d been praying for. And it was probably the one and only time she was ever going to agree with the bride.

Not about the role of females in bridal parties, but that Anne wasn’t going to be in the “goddamn wedding.”

Everyone standing in the kitchen turned and looked at her: Deandra Cox, the impending wearer of the white dress; Robert “Moose” Miller, her exhausted fiancé and Anne’s fellow crew member down at the 499 fi rehouse; and . . . Dannyboy Maguire.

Who was the only one she really noticed and, for that reason, the person she refused to look at.

Too bad Danny always made an impression. Like most firefighters, he was in great physical shape, his big body thickly muscled and ready to snap into motion in an instant. With his heavy arms linked over that chest and his long legs crossed at the boots, he was leaning back against the chipped countertop, his too-blue stare missing nothing. He was fresh from a shower, his glossy black hair wet, and Anne tried not to picture him naked under the spray, his tattooed torso arching as he rinsed the shampoo out of his—

She put her hands up to stop herself as much as the argument. “Look, I don’t want to cause any problems. I’m happy to step aside—”

               “And now I have one too many bridesmaids.” The bride-to-be refocused on her intended. “My count is wrong. You wait until two days before the wedding to tell me this when you know I’m not going to like it, and now my count is off!”

               As the groom focused on the linoleum floor, it was impossible not to picture a wax version of the couple on a multi-tiered cake: Deandra in skinny jeans and that tight cashmere sweater, her dark hair streaked blond, her body cocked forward like she was going to throat-punch the man she was going to marry; Moose in his New Brunswick Fire Department T-shirt, all broad-shouldered and bearded around the face, easing back like someone with the flu was about to sneeze in his face.

               Ah, true love.

               “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Moose muttered. “Anne’s a member of the four-nine-nine crew, and everyone else is with me.”

               “She’s a girl.” Deandra pointed at Anne. “It throws off everything.”

               “I really don’t want to cause any problems.” Anne put her hands up again. “So I’ll just be in the congregation. It’s perfectly fine—”

               Deandra’s glare swung Anne’s way. “The count is still wrong. And my friends have already paid for their dresses. They were a hundred and twenty dollars apiece.”

               And that’s my cue to go, Anne thought. Moose may have volunteered for this, but no one else had or needed to—

               “I think women can be whatever they want.”

               As Danny spoke up, everyone looked at him—including Anne, who suddenly felt shades of what Deandra was throwing out.

               Don’t you dare, she mouthed at him behind the bride’s back.

               Danny just shrugged like he’d thrown on a pantsuit and was channeling Oprah, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton all at once. “I mean, Deandra, you’re above all that sexism, aren’t you? No one’s going to tell you what’s right and wrong for your own wedding. You’re more secure than that.”

               I am going to kill you, Anne vowed. “I think Deandra wants things done properly for her only wedding.”

               Danny frowned in pseudo-confusion. “So you’re saying it’s okay to have a double standard for men and women? That’s a shocker given how you are at the station. I thought you believed in equality.”

               “I do,” Anne snapped. “But this isn’t about equality.”

               “You sure? I don’t know how you can support traditional gender roles when it comes to a wedding ceremony at the same time you defend the right for women to be firefighters, cops, and on the front lines in the military.”

               “Spare me someone who’s never been in a dress having an opinion about women’s issues, okay?”

               “I’m just pointing out that you don’t want women out of dresses.”

               “It’s her wedding.” Anne jabbed a finger at Deandra. “She’s the bride. She gets to say what’s right and wrong for her, and she does not need some man telling her what to do.”

               “Even if I’m defending the rights of women?”

“Until you grow a set of ovaries, you can shut the hell up about our rights!”

As Anne’s voice ricocheted around the kitchen, she realized that she’d marched right up to Danny—and that Deandra and Moose were watching the two of them in total stillness.

               She cleared her throat and took a step back. “Anyway, Deandra’s made up her mind. And I support her decision.”

Deandra’s eyes narrowed on Danny, and something about the way the woman looked at him didn’t seem right.

“Actually,” the bride said, “maybe she should be in the wedding party.”

Anne prayed her expression stayed neutral. “Don’t compromise your vision on my account.”

“I won’t.” The woman stared at Danny. “Fine. Let’s put her in a tuxedo like the rest of the men. She can walk my sister down the aisle, just like a man should. Her shoulders are too big for a gown, anyway, and that way my count stays the way it should.”

Anne rolled her eyes. Let’s hear it for girl power.

“So it’s settled,” Deandra said with a tight smile. “You need a tux. Unless you already own one.”

For a moment, Anne waited for somebody to argue with the woman. Like Moose. But he was clearly done falling on swords over the wedding details, and Danny had just gotten what he wanted so he wasn’t going to say a damn thing.

And the truth was, after how many years of fighting fires with these men, they were her brothers in all but blood. Even though she thought Moose had lost his ever-loving mind marrying this beautiful but sour woman after knowing her for a matter of months, Anne was still going to stand up for the guy if he wanted her to—and he did. He’d asked her down at the stationhouse specifically.

“Where did you guys rent your suits?” Anne said to him.

“Tuxedoes,” Deandra corrected.

The groom blinked like he’d forgotten how to speak English. Then again, he’d been doing that a lot at the firehouse lately. “You’re actually going to wear one?”

“What the hell do I care?”

“Yes, she is wearing one,” Deandra cut in.

Danny spoke up. “I’ll go with you. I know where the place is.”

  About J.R. Ward

J.R. Ward is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with more than 15 million novels in print published in 25 different countries around the world. The books in her popular Black Dagger Brotherhood series have held the #1 spot on the New York Times hardcover, mass market, eBook, and combined print/eBook fiction bestseller lists and have debuted in the top 5 on the USA Today bestseller list.

Prior to her writing career, Ward worked as a lawyer in Boston and spent many years as the Chief of Staff of one of Harvard’s world-renowned academic medical centers. Ward currently lives with her family in Kentucky where she has learned to enjoy and appreciate all things Southern. Connect with her online at her website, Facebook and Twitter.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

THE WEDDING FROM HELL PART 1: THE REHEARSAL DINNER by J. R. Ward: Spotlight & Excerpt was originally published on The Sassy Bookster

[telltalemag-blog]

A Nasty Woman’s Survival Guide

"I can either keep getting drunk and telling my friends about these awful things that happened to me, or I can talk to a professional person about this. That’s why I went to Rape Crisis. And from there, maybe six months into that, that’s when I started thinking about writing it. I thought:

“Okay. I know what happened, I know how I feel about it, I’m angry about it, and I want to talk about it.”

Mel Reeve is a writer and archivist living in Glasgow. In addition to self-publishing her writing in zines, she has been published on multiple websites and online publications, as well as in the hit book of essays, Nasty Women by 404Ink. She is also part of The Respite Room, an online collective dedicated to addressing mental health issues in a safe space. When Mel submitted three poems for our third issue, we knew we had to hear more.

Nasty Women: A commercially and critically important independent project collating voices from women all over the world. Together, they sum up what it means to be a woman in 2017. To say the book has been a success would be an understatement. I mean, Margaret Atwood read it. And loved it. And tweeted about it. Could you imagine? Margaret knew and we knew that this needed to be talked about; these experiences that seep into Mel’s poems like coffee spilling over a page, that have given her a voice on a worldwide level. An experience which impacts so many people in different ways around the world. It’s fucking important. Many of us are angry, we all should be. So let’s talk about it.

“I am a survivor of rape and emotional abuse, I do not fit into the ‘right’ definition of someone who has been raped. I was drunk, I told him I loved him, I hid my tears, I told him it was okay afterwards, I didn’t call the police...Now that I am free from him and starting to understand my pain, I refuse to be hurt in a way that is easy to look at for the convenience of others.”

The opening sentences of Mel’s essay, “The Nastiness of Survival,” instantly sets her tone. She is a nasty woman, speaking out when we are told it is polite to shut up, using her voice to fight the normalization of sexual abuse as well as question how we as a society expect a survivor to be.

With abuse, for these purposes employed as an umbrella term to include everything from rape to emotional abuse, our society has created a well-structured narrative arc, in which we place our victims.

The victim is hurt, experiences a period of grieving and struggle, and emerges on the other side stronger for it. Some may even call it a ‘learning experience.’ One particular narrative is that of revenge. The victim is able to get pay back and right the wrongs of their past. This is something Mel discusses in her essay. When we ask if these revenge fantasies have disappeared, she laughs.

Mel: Not at all. It gets easier, but that can be quite a consuming thing because it feels like that should happen, that’s what the narrative is supposed to be in a lot of these stories – mostly fiction – where someone goes through something really hard and then by the end of it she gets her revenge, and it’s hard to accept that that might never happen.

Emma: Then I feel like the narrative can also be that she’s stronger and better than that and doesn’t care anymore, when really you’re allowed to be angry.

Niamh: There shouldn’t be a narrative at all, it should just be that everyone has had a different experience. You mentioned this in your essay and I think it’s important to bring up, that a lot of people have had these experiences but didn’t at first realise that what has happened to them was actually abuse.

Mel: Yeah, there was a time that I didn’t know and people find that really hard because it makes them question the legitimacy of what you’re saying. “I’d know if that happened to me, how could you not know?” But if you haven’t been in that situation, you don’t know.

That’s where the lasting trope of the “strong woman” makes its sweeping return, an idea which over time has crafted an uneasy and unwelcome bond with feminism. “A strong feminist stands up for yourself. A strong feminist knows how to say no.”

Mel: The “just say no” education isn’t necessarily helpful, nor is having polite conversation about it. Consent education is good and useful, but I also think it suggests that it is an accident, just a misunderstanding. It’s not. It’s a malicious, conscious decision that people make and they do it because they want to do it, and it is a result of culture and society and that makes it easier, but it’s not an accident.

I saw some graffiti in a toilet yesterday and it said “Consent is sexy!” “Sex without consent sucks!” and I was like, has anyone got a pen? I need to make an amendment here. Sex without consent is rape!

Rape Culture comes to mind, a term internet anti-feminists love to mock. In making light of a serious issue, what nay-sayers are doing is minimizing a survivor’s experience. How ironic, then, that the same people to claim a rape culture doesn’t exist, or that saying no is easy, or that rapists don’t look like the people they know, are often quick to apologize after being called out and having their views questioned. One of our editors was once part of a large group chat where three men were complaining about a woman suggesting that the university's union impose a compulsory consent class during freshers week. They claimed it was insulting to assume that men didn’t understand consent. When she questioned their beliefs, however, they instantly changed their tune, backtracking and minimizing what they had said. Deep down inside, they know that their behaviour is wrong. It’s frighteningly easy for them to hide this truth from themselves.

Mel: I think a way to improve this sort of consent education is to make people aware, make them [rapists, abusers] aware that we know what you’re doing and this is what’s going to happen to you. There’s a quote saying it has to be as abhorrent to people as cannibalism. It has to be that deeply ingrained that this is wrong. I actually had a fight, a verbal fight, with someone who is friends with my abusive ex. He was saying, “Oh, you guys had kind of a rough breakup” and I said “No, that’s not what this is about. This is about someone who did something illegal.” As soon as I said that he was like “oh, shit.” Because they just don’t think about it like that.

Which leads us to how the Nasty Women essay began in the first place.

Mel: I think the essay came from the anger of when I told people in Glasgow and they were just like, "no, he didn’t do this," and when I moved here I lost quite a lot of friends, actually.

It felt a bit like I was telling people off in the essay. I guess those conversations are difficult to have directly because people don’t want to hear about it, don’t want to know about it. That was the nice thing about the format, that I was able to yell above everyone else.

The commitment to silence and denial seen by both the greater public and those close to us is shocking. Scrolling through Twitter recently, you will have seen memes about R. Kelly’s sexual abuse scandal, read jokes directed towards the young female victims, and we’re sure you wouldn’t have to listen too closely to catch snippets of “Ignition” remixed in some club this weekend. In a recent Fader article, Aimee Cliff wrote something that struck us as very true:

“Watching these stories drift away over and over again sends out a message to women everywhere: our suffering is less important than the reputations and profit of powerful men. That’s the message sent by Sony’s complicit support of R. Kelly, and by Casey Affleck winning his Oscar, and by Johnny Depp being given a platform at Glastonbury festival this year. That’s what I feel when I read that Kesha is still fighting to be released from contractual obligations to her alleged rapist.”

And it doesn’t start and stop with powerful men only; time and time again we find victims are forced to explain themselves to the people meant to be their close friends, those you trust to stand by your side.

Mel: I think people immediately start rationalising it. “Oh, it was your boyfriend, that’s different,” or “I’ve met him! He’s fine.” That’s going back to what we can do, we need to instill this culture where if someone tells you what someone has done to them and you become aware of that, you listen and believe them and take action.

It’s difficult because there are some arguments for not just cutting these people out, but I really believe that what happened to me would not have happened to me or would have ended sooner if the people around that person had behaved differently, because I would have noticed that something was wrong. Afterwards they were all like “Aw yeah he’s rubbish, god his poor ex-girlfriends” and I just thought, nobody else is holding him to account except the people they aren’t listening to.

And when you do hold him to account, you become a crazy lying bitch. There’s this really powerful image of the crazy ex-girlfriend who’s just trying to screw you over. The person who is saying what happened gets forgotten, and I guess that’s part of what the issue was for me. I said these things and they’ve all gone “you’re a crazy bitch” and I’m still here and I’m still saying it, and my experiences carry on. I’m still dealing with this and will be forever, because that’s how bad it is. 

The trope of the psycho ex-girlfriend is dangerously prevalent within our society, where women are often portrayed as mystifying creatures, prone to possessing a whole spectrum of emotions (who knew?). Not forgetting the psychotic outbursts and (prepare yourself for this one, guys, because it’s a real shocker) - periods!! It is of course just one large conspiracy agreed upon by women to emotionally confuse men. This notion is only perpetuated by the media. A quick google search reveals “27 Guys Share The Most Insane ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Stories You’ve Ever Heard.” which yes, of course includes the story of an ex-girlfriend who lied about being raped. Now, we aren’t saying that in this case that wasn’t true - no evidence is given either way. However, pages such as these only place the idea into people’s minds - if one “psycho ex-girlfriend” lies about sexual abuse, it must be a common occurrence.

Mel: I think to know that you can have someone that’s not going to question anything is really important.

Whenever someone reaches out to Mel on Twitter, asking for help from a similar abusive situation, the first place she’ll point them to is such a place: Rape Crisis.

It’s an amazing supportive place to be, they have candles and tea and give you tissues when you cry and laugh when you make jokes about your horrible experiences. You can talk about all this very complicated stuff that comes out of trauma and you might be afraid to say to just a normal therapist or psychiatrist, because here’s someone who understands the very specific kind of trauma. I’m so grateful for that. I hope I win the lottery so I can give them a lot of money.

There isn’t a resolute end to trauma; it lives with you and manifests itself in different ways throughout different points of your life. Often it manifests through mental health struggles, another topic Mel is vocal about. Having a place where you can speak out and take in the experiences of others – learn, find solace or common ground – is important. That’s where The Respite Room comes in, a project Mel is part of with several other women, created by Halina Rifai with the aim to create a healthy and informative online space, something more relevant than ever with the internet and social media sometimes being triggers for mental health struggles, or at the least liable for providing faulty information.

Mel: I remember when I was younger reading things on Tumblr telling me “if you don’t like something, you don’t have to do it.” But I do actually have to pay my rent! I don’t like it, but I do have to pay it.

Anyone with teen years spent on Tumblr will remember questionable posts like this, or even outright vicious blogs such as ones promoting anorexia or glorifying self harm. An online resource with an empathetic, useful and positive angle on mental health rather than one that romanticizes it or gives problematic “advice” is a commodity the internet needs more of.

Mel: The first podcast [for The Respite Room] has been recorded. We spoke about and shared our experiences, and hopefully it will be a regular thing. At the moment we’re doing blog posts and inviting people to write about stuff, with lots of exciting stuff coming up. I think it’s important when writing about mental health not to just to talk about depression and anxiety, I think there’s still a lot to be said about those things, but I think there are also mental illnesses that are still more stigmatized than others, for example BPD. I think it’s important to talk about that as well.

We’re not professionals, but we have our experiences we want to share, and I think the ultimate goal is to have physical meetings with people. I’m really keen at some point to hopefully do art classes which will be a nice space that’s very aware of things that are helpful if you have anxiety, making it clear that if you want to come by yourself people will talk to you, but not if you don’t want us to (laughs), making it a very comfortable and enjoyable space. And if you want to talk about your mental health out of that, then that’s a good thing as well.

If there is one idea that pushes its way to the forefront of our discussion with Mel it is this - that if and when a person is ready to talk, it is our responsibility to hear them. Our attitudes towards mental health, trauma, and abuse can help to educate and to promote understanding of ourselves and others. To feel understood during mentally difficult and often confusing times can make everything feel just that little more manageable. Our attitudes towards sexual abuse victims can change the way in which society as a whole treats the abuser. Knowing that there are serious consequences for rape and abuse, both legally and socially, may deter people from choosing to commit this crime in future, while also paving the way for better victim support. Whether it be through an online platform, a counselor’s office, or an after party at 4 am, the way in which we choose to respond makes all the difference.

Thank you, Mel, for being part of our voice.

[msdoctorwho]

Fire Meet Gasoline, Ch. 4

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13461255/chapters/32828067

The new normal was...nice. There was a new mutual understanding, a gap bridged between them. A slight benefit of the doubt where before misunderstanding would have sparked a raging argument. Even Bulma’s mother commented that they were “getting along so much better these days!”

At first Bulma only spoke in Saiyan after he did, wary of being too familiar with what was clearly still precious to him. Gradually Vegeta sought her out to talk more and more, unable to resist the draw of his own language, until they conversed in it as easily as her own. Moreso, even, as in some darker moods he would respond to Saiyan when she was certain he’d have ignored her, before.

He rarely allowed himself downtime, but she found him reading once or twice, lost in one of the books for a short midday break under a tree, or while he ate alone at night before bed. He even messaged her once, from the tablet, with improved Saiyan translations for a few passages.

He wasn’t as reluctant to be around her as before, but he still held her at arms’ length, refusing to talk about his planet or people beyond answering simple questions for the research she was still pursuing, with his unspoken permission.

He wasn’t her adversary, but he wasn’t her friend yet, either. Bulma was at a loss as to why he resisted her attempts so much, and why she wanted so badly to make it happen. It wasn’t for knowledge, anymore; she’d learned more than she’d dreamed possible, and was still moving forward, though she'd had to split time with her other work obligations.

It was him . He was fascinating, this destroyer of worlds who lived in her home and occasionally asked her to pass the salt. She knew she should fear him. Instead, she wanted to climb inside him, to know every aspect of him and make him hers.

She supposed her attraction wasn’t all that surprising given she’d made no attempt at dating since Yamcha. It wasn’t because of the breakup; she just couldn’t be bothered with trivial men when the end of the world was coming. That was why she’d ended the relationship in the first place -- she’d realized if there might only be a few years left of her life, she didn’t want to spend them with Yamcha . There was nothing wrong with him. He just wasn’t who she wanted at her side to face the end of all things. And he deserved to maybe find that with someone else.

Given that it had been a while , it was not that surprising she’d started thinking about Vegeta that way. Whatever else he might be, he was far from trivial.

She knew he wasn’t un -interested in her. He had eyes, and she occasionally caught them on her with an intensity made all the more obvious by how quickly he looked away. But he was driven, he had plans, and there was no room in his schedule for anything that didn’t get him closer to ascending.

Bulma wasn’t a genius for nothing. The way to his... heart... was going to be through his goals. She’d already built him a facility, she already supplied him with bots. It was time to attack with data .

It’s not like he’d never read before -- one didn’t rise in the military without reading manuals, briefings, training texts, technical specs. He even vaguely remembered reading Saiyan fables and histories as a child. But it was entirely foreign to find himself reading of his own volition, for no reason other than diversion.

Contrary to what Bulma would have guessed, he’d begun with the fiction. It was an unexpected escape, a rare experience for him. It was even pleasant, until he had the unwelcome realization that he identified more with the orcs and Nazgûl than the group of heroes.

A subjugated army forced into war and conquest? Sounded a lot more like him than oblivious immortal elves living in treehouses or hairy little creatures digging houses into hillsides and eating all day. Did the fiction even explain why the orcs fought for this conqueror, or was it just assumed that they loved war? How could that have been enough? Even for a warlike people, what glory is there in service to a tyrant? What glory can be found without freedom?

The inside of his head had never been a pleasant place, not since the day his father bargained him away, but for the first time he began to grasp the the outside edges of the enormity of his sins. He’d done what he’d done to survive, all of it, but that didn’t make his hands any less bloody.

Combat, violence, and the pursuit of victory were in his bones, in whatever was left of his soul. It was how the world made sense. But so much of what they’d done under Frieza’s orders had been outright slaughter. There was no honor in obliterating the weak. How low had he fallen, that he’d allowed himself to enjoy it?

It was either that, or die, he supposed, under the weight of an otherwise joyless existence. The more time he spent away from that life, on this space-ignorant rock with its weak little inhabitants and one exasperating scientist, he wondered how he could ever have thought those years under Frieza held any joy at all.

Bulma lay in wait for him in the kitchen one evening, having already warmed up his dinner, knowing he would be more receptive after finishing his training for the day. In the mornings he had too much pent-up energy and no patience for conversation or anything that delayed him longer than necessary.

He eyed her with suspicion but no animosity as she served them both dinner and sat, saying nothing. She sipped her wine and waited, the imprint of her lips left behind on the glass, a half-moon of color that kept stealing his gaze.

“Out with it, woman.”

She smiled, and he felt as though he’d lost a point in a contest he was unaware of entering. “Well, Vegeta, I’ve been doing some research.”

“That’s a surprise.”

Was that sarcasm? She was delighted.

“You’ve trained every day since the chamber went online, and when it’s down for repairs you go off and blast shit elsewhere. You haven’t taken a single day off, have you?”

He shrugged. “Why would I waste time I could be training?”

She spoke casually, too casually. “That’s the thing -- I don’t think it would be a waste of time.”

“What the fuck do you know about it? You avoid physical activity like it might kill you.”

She huffed, sitting up straight, eyes flashing. “I’ll have you know I do plenty of-- you know what, never mind, this isn’t about me. I’m trying to help you, you ungrateful prick.”

The insult lacked venom so he ignored it. But still, “I’m not in need of your help.”

She switched tactics. Data, Bulma. “I’ve been studying peak human performers, professional athletes in various sports. How they train, what they eat.”

His grunt of irritation dismissed that as irrelevant. “I care about that, why?”

She waved a hand, “Yeah, I know humans and Saiyans are so different, Saiyans get stronger every time they’re beaten near to death, et cetera, et cetera.”

She leaned forward, uncrossing her legs. “But the mere existence of Gohan proves we’re way more similar than different, so you can’t throw out all of my data that easily.” Her lab coat parted with her movement, revealing the low neckline of the blouse underneath. Entirely unwillingly he was forced to contemplate exactly how compatible their races were whether he wanted to or not.

Seemingly oblivious, she carried on, “Human physiology benefits from a period of rest after a period of strenuous activity, giving the body time to repair and strengthen.” Eyes like a bird of prey watched him from behind her wineglass as she drank.

“Bah.” He began to rise, and she pulled an entire pie out of the fridge, putting it in front of him. He frowned at it but sat back down. It was pie, after all.

She drug a knife through it slowly, insolently, putting a slice on a plate he ignored by sticking his fork in the middle of the rest. “Have you ever wondered if one of the differences between you and Goku might be how you approach your training?”

He growled around a giant mouthful of pie, latent childhood manners still too regal to say what he really thought of her bringing up Kakarot with his mouth full.

She licked the edge of the knife, a quick flash of tongue like a wink. “Goku has always taken time off, now and then. He goes fishing with Gohan, takes Chichi to the city.”

He finished chewing. “Like I care what that third-class--”

“My point is,” she interrupted, daring to swipe a bite of his pie, “You can’t argue that it hasn’t been working for him.”

He looked furious. Bulma was going to lose him if she didn't act fast.

Vegeta felt a stab of betrayal at the implied comparison, and then surprise at the betrayal. When had he started thinking of her as anything other than his adversary's ally?

She broke into his thoughts with a hand on his arm, freezing him with a touch while fire ran over his skin.

Her voice was low, almost primal, challenging. “I’ll make a bet with you. It’s one day -- what do you have to lose?”

In Saiyan the literal phrase was more like “Do you have balls, or not?”  And his were tightening, at the challenge, at the touch. His blood sang under her fingers, as though sparked by her ki, which was impossible, as she had basically none.

He swallowed, jerking his arm away. “What are your terms?”

Her smile had too many teeth, like a well-fed predator. “You take one rest day, following the itinerary I plan, exactly. No training. We track your peak and average power levels the week before the rest day, and then the week after.”

She dug out her mobile to show him a graph, all business again. “Your progress so far has been fairly linear. I bet that during the first 48 hours after a rest day you’ll see a bigger jump than would be projected by the previous week’s data with no rest.”

She looked him dead in the eye, and he'd be damned if he looked away first. “If I’m wrong, I’ll make you a new set of training bots with enhanced AI.”

Neither of them blinked. She went on, “If I’m right, you take one day off at least every 10 days. Or work with me to find the ideal ratio of rest to work days.” Another sip of wine, still locking eyes. "Up to you."

She dropped her gaze, and he exhaled. “What does this rest day entail?”

She brushed invisible crumbs off of her garment with a lazy, ineffective gesture. “Sleeping. Eating. Massage. Maybe some active recovery, like walking or stretching. Diverting yourself mentally with something completely unrelated to training.”

He sighed. The part of him that had kept him alive for so long insisted it was a waste of time he couldn’t afford, but he was beginning to trust in her and her logic , and honestly it sounded rather...pleasant.

“I’ll do it, but you’re going to make me the new bots either way.” He felt smug about that stipulation, somehow coming out ahead after this shipwreck of a conversation.

“Done,” she said with a smooth, tiny smile, and he had the sudden feeling that a squad of new bots already awaited him somewhere, and he hadn’t won anything at all.