#but there totally is indigenous history here and a lot of it is like so unremarked on unless you look

[bsaka7]

i am mellowing my anti-english major opinion (some of my beloved friends were English majors ok) bc i just learned about the literary usage of the term "magical realism" and how it's related to post-colonial latin america and latin american indigenous knowledge and practice... something i vaguely was aware of as a connection bc like... Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but really didn't know at all about its categorical use and IMPORTANCE and had no idea how "watered down" the term is popular culture. anyway ppl who know about english and witness my constant book talk/hating/grumping... feel free to weigh in/correct me etc on things like this now and in the future....

[chaotic-archaeologist]

hi internet bro, You posted Duolingo Yiddish the other day. Are you taking it as a heritage language ? Did you hear it growing up? How do you feel about studying it (in the Duo version of study)

I ask because I am curious about learning the language of my ancestors, but don't have a clear place to use it- whereas my workplace is multilingual and it would be more practical to learn the trade languages I hear every day.

but I still want to help revitalize indigenous languages and culture.

Hey there, thanks for asking!

I'm learning Yiddish because it's the language of my ancestors who fled Russian and Lithuania in the wake of pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century. When they reached American there was a great deal of pressure to assimilate.

One of my great great grandfathers was very proud of his ability to speak English without an accent, something that he associated with his success in starting a business which would later give him the ability to send my grandfather to college, making him the first person to do so. On the 1920 census, that great great grandfather's native language is listed as Jewish, which was sometimes how Yiddish was referred to.

My grandmother grew up in a house with Yiddish speaking parents. They were orthodox, but her father didn't wear a kippah outside of the house because of the pressure to assimilate. Her parents only spoke Yiddish when they didn't want their children to understand what they were saying. As a result, my grandmother never learned.

So I'm learning Yiddish for the same reason I wear a kippah, because my not-so-distant ancestors didn't feel like they could. Because it makes me feel connected to them, who and what they left behind, and the generations of Jews who have kept Yiddish alive both in Europe and diaspora communities. Certainly, it's less "practical" than learning Spanish or Chinese or Arabic or any number of other languages that are more commonly spoken.

But if we only learned languages because they're practical, what happens to the languages that don't make the cut? What happens to the languages that have been deliberately suppressed by colonialism and genocide and assimilation? There are many different reasons to learn a language; practicality is only one of them.

I'll be honest: I'm conflicted about the Duo version of Yiddish. Here's a really good article that explains the debate over the dialect of Yiddish that Duolingo chose to use for their course. The TL;DR is that Duolingo teaches Hasidic Yiddish, a popular dialect but not a universal one. Different dialects result from different communities, and there are political implications for choosing one over the others.

But Duolingo is free, and it's easy for me to spend ten minutes in the evening practicing a few words. It's not the best language learning platform by any means, but it has the language I wanted to learn and it meets my (admittedly simple) needs. After a year or so (and I'm maybe 50% of the way through the course) I find myself able to read simple texts and understand snatches of spoken Yiddish.

I'm also a member of the Yiddish Book Center, which I would totally recommend. They have lots of great resources for learning Yiddish and for interacting with Yiddish culture via literature, oral history, music, art, etc. Most of their programming is in English, and is easily accessible. There are other organizations out there doing great work to support and revitalize Yiddish, this is just the one I'm most familiar with.

(mazel) מאַזל

-Reid

[hero-israel]

Re: the idea that Palestinian Liberation is important to environmentalism

Generally speaking, settler colonizers kick out natives, who tend to have various rules about treating the environment healthily, and then exploit the land for all its worth and more. Anti-Zionists’ proverbial money is riding on the narrative that Israel is a settler colonial state and Palestinians are its dispossessed natives, so they just have to insist there’s an environmentalist angle on these grounds. It’s also ofc apart of the Anti-Zionist tendency to hijack every other cause under the sun.

I’ll admit I know next to nothing about the environmental policies and actions of Israel/Zionists and Palestinian Arabs in any part of history or the present. I’ll admit industrialization is a more Western trend and it is brought by those who spent time in the West, like Ashkenazi Jews. And maybe pre-Israel Palestine was less industrious/polluting. And I’m not a fan of how capitalist Israel has gotten, and there’s probably some level of pollution coming from that. But again, I’m ignorant to the details. I have heard Israel has made a lot of environmentalist progress with reforestation and such (tho I swear I heard something from anti-Zionists about Israel planting non-indigenous trees like colonizers have historically done but this could be BS) and I’ve heard of organizations that focus on environmentalism and diplomacy together (Avodah I think it’s called).

But here’s a point I really want to make: The idea that Palestine taking all of Israel’s land is all about framing the Palestinian as the Noble Savage. It’s another fantasy made by activists with white guilt and without an understanding of Palestinians as a people who may or may not do good things for the environment in likely equal measure. They’re not nature shamans.

Good timing - I just got another ask also requesting "that post myth busting the idea that Israelis grew a pine tree or something that caused forest fires and desertification." So read this and this and this. Might as well read this and this too.

The entire Middle East has been heavily deforested by various colonial empires as well as being hard-hit by war. Israel has restored itself much better than its neighbors but it certainly doesn't have a perfect record; draining the malarial swamps in the 1940s devastated the indigenous painted frog so badly it was thought extinct for over 50 years. They are certainly industrialized / capitalist, but no worse than anybody else.

When "critics" try to call reforestation bad, they have totally lost the plot; just another example of what it means to be "Progressive Except Palestine."

See the tags for more on Israeli ecosystems :)

[la7ma-mafrooma]

I feel like in educational facilities, history tends to be taught as something that is purely past-related. There's no emphasis on the aftermath that liberated countries go through, let it be economic, political, cultural,..etc. There's no emphasis on currently-colonized countries. There's no emphasis on the need to learn the past in order to understand the present and shape the future. We're taught history as past. Period.

The reason I'm saying this is because of the way I keep seeing colonialism -such as what we're seeing in Palestine- being labelled as "conflict" by a lot of people. History is viewed as something that already happened, so there's no way it's repeating, right? It's a naive thought but it's what I keep seeing over and over again. The way people assume that colonial world leaders have "learnt from the past" and allegedly became truly civilized this time, is truly frustrating. They said "oh we're totally civilized" and then proceeded with the slave trade. They said "we're civilized" and proceeded to ethnically cleanse various indigenous groups around the world. They're currently saying "oh I assure you this time we're really civilized" but here we are seeing the various atrocities taking place in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen,...etc. because of these "civilized" people.

Everyone needs to understand that colonialism is not purely a thing of the past. It is our present and it is our reality and we're seeing it happen. I'm not gonna say we're seeing it happen "again" because it never stopped to begin with. The past has never been isolated or separate from our present.

[keshetchai]

Thank you for your deconstruction of that post about Jewish ethnicity and your detailed explanation of why it was a terrible take! I saw that post earlier and it got my hackles up but I didn't even know where to start when they're starting from such a flawed understanding of Jewish identity and ethnicity in general.

Yeah idk the most generous conclusions I have were those last two points — the argument either starts from assuming ethnonationalists have always been the ones defining ethnicity/they are the main arbiters of defining it (which I just reject categorically), or they have misunderstood or don't actually know what ethnicity means (outside of understanding ethnonationalism is bad).

And I never want to come out the gate with like "I think you just don't know what that word means," because that feels extremely condescending and combative. At the same time we're clearly facing some kind of vast language gap if the concept of "Jews are an ethnic group" is considered absurd or laughable. So working backwards those are my guesses for how someone got themselves to that conclusion which bizarrely had a lot of reblogs and i didn't look at the notes but like.

Please tell me I wasn't the only one baffled by this?? Anti-/non-zionist Jewish movements have typically still explicitly emphasized ethnicity, like...sometimes even moreso because "shared cultural identity here-ness" HAS to care more about group belonging in culture rather than in place or nation.

Either way: We can just reject ethnonationalism without erasing the concept of people having ethnicities! That's totally an option. Israel and Palestine both have histories of nationalist movements AND both can and should reject ethnonationalism because the levant itself is a place full of a variety of ethnicities. No matter what the future of the levant and any states within it look, ethnonationalism should be rejected.

Like yeah I can fully climb on board the whole "the modern nation state itself is bad, borders are violence enacted upon people, nation-states foment nationalism, colonialism, and so on, let's move forwards towards stateless society." Ethnonationalism is bad.

But simultaneously I live in like...a reality where something has to float us all until we can get there and I don't believe in a leftist rapture of "bloody revolution will overthrow all of current society."

spoilers: ethnic self-determination and governance doesn't mean you can avoid ethnonationalism strains cropping up!

Also just because this has been getting to me recently, here's a big tangent not part of the OP but something else I've been seeing: Indigeneity to a place doesn't actually elevate you to this morally pure and uncorrupt self, and it doesn't mean you're going to be a better society than anyone else trying to govern there or avoid ethnonationalism or nationalism.

That's...I mean that's not how it fucking works. I keep seeing like "these Israelis are destroying olive trees, an indigenous people wouldn't do that!" And it's like...such a kindergarten way of treating the status of being "native" as morally and ethically untainted by bad ideologies. To me it absolutely reeks of "noble savage" fantasies wherein like: nobleness of character, innocent benevolence to foreigners, and perfect stewardship of land is somehow the hallmarks of "true" Indigeneity.

I regret to inform everyone but if you only ever get the highlights reel history of Spanish colonialism in Mexico: the Spaniards were able to conquer Mexico the way they did for a variety of reasons (smallpox devastating the native populace is one of them), but one of those big key ways is the fact that various native groups hated the aztec triumvirate (the Mexica) so much that they actively helped the Spanish overthrow them.

The Spanish didn't conquer the Aztecs by themselves. The Spanish had maybe an army of 3,100 or so. The Aztecs had a fighting force of 200,000+, not including other allied forces. The spanish were able to conquer the Aztec empire because a whole lot of other indigenous forces were assisting them.

Being indigenous to somewhere absolutely doesn't mean you won't burn or destroy farms, or murder your also indigenous neighbors, or commit terrible atrocities, or even become an imperial force who enslaves people or enforces a caste system or anything else. It's not a guarantee that your society won't be shitty somehow. The Aztecs were comprised of native people, and they still cracked open rib cages of other human beings to extract their hearts in ritual sacrifice so like. It's not a strong argument to say "they definitely aren't from here because they destroy tree groves or murder Innocents."

If you wanna talk about settlers being settlers there's other ways to do it.

[mamaangiwine]

Hey about your post on the Barbie movie. Totally open to you still disagreeing and hearing why but as someone who saw the movie I just wanted to give perspective.

Obviously the consequences in Barbieland are just cute and funny but ultimately bad but I'm having a hard time seeing how comparing smallpox blankets (a tool of imperialism used to kill people) to infecting a place with patriarchy (another system of oppression that also kills people in real life) is a harmful metaphor.

I agree in a lot of ways the movie completely fails to actually address things like race and class to solely focus on sexism and it has been heavily criticized for being libfem. However, is it not analogous to compare two systems of oppression that obviously work differently but are both very bad?

I appreciate you reading my ask and hearing me out. I look forward to understanding your perspective better.

Thank you for being respectful.

So firstly, as you said the movie has been widely criticized for not touching on racism or classism- which is honestly something I expected. It's The Barbie Movie, after all. I wasn't expecting a particularly in depth exploration of that kind of intersectional feminism. No... Barbie's "intersectionality" lies in its optics. There is a trans Barbie, disabled Barbie, and various woc Barbies. Which begs the question- in a movie that wishes to show case its inclusivity and celebrate that inclusivity via the diversity of it's Barbies...in a movie that wishes to suggest "intersectionality" through the diversity of its Barbies...who then is missing in this film?

There were no Native Barbies.

Honestly, that's not unusual for me as a Native. I didn't expect to see Native Barbie. I don't expect to see Natives in much of anything that doesn't take place in "the old west" or some kind of historical drama (that is, if it isn't being written and/or made by Ndns). Up until recently, people didn't even question why we hardly got to play indigenous roles in films (Johnny Depp as Tonto comes to mind).

Which is why it's so sad that the only representation we get in a film that is trying to tout its "inclusivity" is a throw-away line that references our suffering and the genocide we endured...and are still feeling the effects of to this day.

Tragedy is not one for one. Oppression is not one for one either. I don't agree that small pox was a "tool" of imperialism. Small pox, once colonizers realized they could weaponize it, was a failed "means to an end". It was just genocide. Plain and simple. Also, "patriarchy" is a broad concept that affects multiple people differently (going back to intersectionality) whereas Native genocide only affects Natives. Including the imposition of western, white patriarchy on both Native women and men. If one is going to make comparisons, they need to be prepared to take responsibility for ALL of what that comparison implies.

Let's not forget though, this wasn't just a "comparison". This was a part of a joke. Granted the joke didn't center around smallpox, but it was still placed within an exchange of dialog in which, yes, they are discussing patriarchy, but still funny-silly-goofy things are happening. For one thing, even if you could make the argument that there is an analogy to be made, there is a time and place for things- and it certainly isn't in a comedy centering around two white actors.

There isnt an analogy to be made though. The truth is, this "joke" is apart of a long problematic history of white women (like Greta Gerwig) using the history of minorities as a means to compare their own oppression to atrocities that they were also historically complicit in. White men were not the only one who stood to gain from Native Genocide. It's also a way for white feminists to wiggle their way out of discussions of their own privelege and take accountability for a system that they benefit from.

I would like to posit a question here, if I may... Would you have felt comfortable with a reference about the Holocaust in the Barbie movie? Would you have felt comfortable with a reference about Jim Crow in the Barbie movie? Particularly refenced via a line that had no bearing to the plot or any real attatchment to a character's world view or identity? That could have gone unmissed from the final product as a whole? If the thought made you pause or cringe, that's understandable. That's how it should be.

Personally, I feel Greta Gerwig felt she could make this comparison because Natives are not always treated as a living group of people suffering under colonialism, racism, and patriarchy- it's for the same reasons we are only seen in movies set in the "old west"- we are often thought of as something from the past. As though we are already gone. This makes it so Ndns have to work especially hard for our voices to be heard sometimes, because the genocide we experienced wasn't just about exterminating us but convincing people we had already been exterminated.

For all these reasons, Native voices should be elevated, Native actors should be hired, and Native History should be respected.

[myemuisemo]

Parts 6-8 of Letters from Watson's handling of The Sign of the Four hit at a time when I was swamped with work, so circumstances have made a fool of my assumption about that tiny footprint before I had a chance to thoroughly embarrass myself in public.

My first thought for the footprint was "monkey" -- I apparently really, really want a monkey, and there are certain macaques whose faces would be absolutely terrifying if seen pressed against a dark window. The problem is, the footprints of monkeys, apes, gorillas, and other such don't look like human footprints. They're all much more like hands. Gorillas come closest to having a human-like foot, but there's still a big thumb-like finger. And, of course, gorillas are too big anyway.

My venture into simian podiatry at least explains why Dr. Watson doesn't think "monkey." Victorians would have been better informed on this topic than I am, as monkeys were a common household pet in England. Little Jacko was, unsurprisingly, usually clever but mischievous. The blog from which I got monkey-lore also gets into monkey-fighting, which is even more appalling than how monkeys were treated as pets.

In part 8, we discover that the footprint does not, after all, belong to a monkey, ape, or other animal. Oh no, Doyle has in mind a situation much worse, and he's even foreshadowed it with two Indian servants. The colonial occupiers of India absolutely brought home people for their convenience.

The mysterious Jonathan Small brought home an indigenous Andaman Islander, who would be totally justified in wanting to kill anyone associated with the British Army. About 30-40 years before the time of the story, British settlement on the island had brought diseases that nearly wiped out the indigenous peoples. Efforts to help them existed -- one such would have been in the news in 1888 -- but it's still entirely a shameful episode.

(If you recall the 2018 story of the missionary who was determined to land on an island of indigenous peoples who were known for not allowing visitors... these were Andamanese, specifically Sentinelese. He was killed by the locals.)

Now, then, listen to this. ‘They are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes, and distorted features. Their feet and hands, however, are remarkably small. So intractable and fierce are they that all the efforts of the British official have failed to win them over in any degree. They have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by a cannibal feast.’

There's still a lot of "exotification of the savage" here -- the images of today's Andaman Islanders just look like people, very dark-skinned, with textured hair. Cannibalism felt like one of those charges levied against any group one doesn't like, and sure enough! Every source I can find today says the people of the Andaman Islands never practiced cannibalism. History Today also says "no poisoned darts," but the article's partly paywalled.

The Andaman Islander has kind of harshed my buzz vis-a-vis fun elements like the many ways Holmes demonstrates he's a man of class flexibility, the "never tired when working" line (he has got to be neurospicy), the omnipresence of creosote (used as a wood preservative, toxic af to the workers and anyone who recklessly burned all creosote-treated wood), and the humor of the newspaper report fronting for more localized police stations, along with the running joke of Athelney Jones arresting everyone indiscriminately.

At least there was a badger (at the house where Toby was obtained).

[alexissara]

Polyamory Is Queer

So a post on twitter happened where a pansexual person was saying Polyamory was queer and that he wanted people to include Polyamory in their pride merch was getting massively dunked on on twitter. nearly 1000 people at the time of me starting to write this had decided they should tell this person to die, to say he was a fed, that polyamarous people weren't oppressed in any way, that the oppression they have is deserved, etc. That alone to me would speak to the queerness here of polyamory, getting mass harassment for dating to suggest that even against our own, a pansexual guy.

Like the post is cringe in that asking for merch is cringe, like who cares, it's capitalism, I don't care about polyam flag merch, in fact, I probably wouldn't buy it if it existed in general. I would rather get merch of three girls holding hands being polyamarous and really that mostly doesn't exist and, a little sad sure, but it doesn't matter. It's not really an access of oppression.

However, I want to talk about why polyamory is queer and to knock down all the common talking points that are levied against queer people. I am not using any strawmen here I promise you I only need to look at these quote retweets to see SOOO MANY people saying the same shit I see right here.

Polyamarous People Are Not Oppressed

Polyamorous people face many different forms of oppression. There is the obviously and previously stated mass dunking on a person for daring to say they want more polyam merch and that polyam people are part of the wider queer community. This isn't a lone incident but instead I see all the time monogamous people feeling it is totally fine to dunk on polyamarous people because they met one that annoyed them or because it makes them uncomfortable or we are sluts or something. The mass harassment and open hatred are in fact a form of oppression.

However, it doesn't just result in the public opinion but the legal reality. You can be legally fired for being polyamarous basically everywhere. If you have a divorce and you are polyamarous your child will be taken away, it doesn't matter if you have proof if it being consensual it is a mark against you. If someone is sick in the polycule only one person can claim themselves as a partner to go to a hospital and see them. Polyamarous people do not have a right to be married. Polyamarous people are subjected to increased criticism about their relationships. Polyamarous people face a hyper comparison when one person lies about being polyam to abuse their girlfriend or a polyam person ends up being a bad partner it is cast on all polyamarous people.

Cis/Het Men Can't Be Queer

When people make this argument their projecting the bad boyfriend of a friend of theirs onto all polyamorous people, it's a straw man. We've decided some time ago that cis/het men can in fact be queer, I don't even like that. If I was big goddess of queerness I would vanish cis/het men from being queer but we already decided that they were. I frankly just do not care for cis/het dudes generally, some of my favorite siblings are cis/het dudes.

The A in LGBTQIA includes Asexuals and Aromantics both of whom can be Cis/Het men. The I can in fact also include cis/het men people who are intersex and assigned male at birth and id as men do exist and those people can in fact be cis/het.

Polyamarous People Aren't Historically Oppressed

The reality is if you look at the history of the world, you'll find that most cultures were not monogamous. A lot practiced Social Monogamy aka a woman was owned by a man but the man fucked around and that was normal. However, many cultures simply had no concept of monogamy, in fact there are some cultures to this day that are non monogamous without men having ownership of women. The reality is much how history is much gayer then we know and a lot more trans then we know history is also a lot more non-monogamous. Many indigenous cultures and pre Christian cultures practiced various forms of non-monogamy. These cultures were wiped out slowly with the Christian take over of the majority of the world. Ethical or not we know many powerful people took multiple wives in countries like China where the empires had ranks for their consorts as a standard practice. These are not vastly different then the kind of monogamous marriages that were common place by kings only they didn't need to kill their wives to be with other women.

The reality is that something that came natural to many be it bad or good instincts was suppressed and removed. Polyamory was wiped out from most the world because it deviated the mind set of the colonizers. Of course any place queerness has been suppressed queer non-monogamy was suppressed as well. We know that polyamarous people have had to hide their relationships especially if they deviated from the heteronormative model like like in the case of  William Moulton Marston, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and Olive Byrne whom had to cloak their relationship be that sexual or not.

Polyamarous Are Just Sleeping Around

I don't have to go in depth here, asexual polyamarous people like me exist. I am dating many a hot lady and person and I haven't had sex in years. I don't have sex. You don't need to have sex to be polyamarous.

However, what's wrong with wanting to have sex? Why is that a grounds for oppression? Having lots of sex or no sex, it doesn't make you more or less valid. I saw someone say that polyamarous people deserve to have their kids taken away because their sleeping around.

Does a single monogamous mom deserve to have her kids taken away if she sleeps around when her kids are with their dad? What about a dad? Like sleeping around is something most monogamous allosexuals do. Be that cheating or being chronically single and going on hook up apps for sex. The second you start dating your supposed to swear away your libido towards others forever until you break up.

If that's your form of chastity play with your partner, I am not here to stop you. However, consenting partners deciding they are good with each other fucking other people isn't wrong.

Polyamory is Oppressing Women

Where in the terfy world have I heard people claiming someone else's private lives are actually just oppressing cis women. Can cis/het dudes say "Hey girl, I'm polyamarous so it wasn't cheating when I fucked your best friend" sure they can but that was still cheating. People don't even time to understand Non-monogamy to know that the vast majority of polyam people would say that it is cheating to have sex with another person without informing your partner or agreeing in advance you both can sleep with anyone you want.

Again, I don't give a shit about cis/het dudes, send them to the sun, I don't care but here they are used as a hypnotical device to attack other queer people. The OP who was getting harassed on mass was Pansexual and most everyone I have seen say Polyamory is queer has been some form of queer person. I don't know if you know this but cis/het dudes do not want to be queer, they don't want to be counted among the homosexuals on account that many of them are homophobic and transphobic.

This simply willingly ignores that many women are polyamarous. If you look at many poly groups you'll see lots of women there looking to date men and women. If you go on dating apps like her you'll see lots of polyamarous women. If you go to one trans women's discord server you'll see lots of polyamarous women there. You can see polyamarous lesbians

Polyamory Is Oppressive

Typically they form at some form of Polygamy and go like, see, polyamory is oppressive and you all act like your better then us! This utterly ignores that to this day monogamy has not unpacked it's roots as a system of ownership. The history of dating for love is actually ridiculously small in the white world. Monogamy was just one of several systems of women being sold to men by the men in their lives. One that took root and was forced on many many many people's who did not practice this form of oppression or oppressing women at all until Christians came to their land.

Polyamory can be unethical as can many other forms of non-monogamy and some are rooted in systems of ownership just like monogamy is rooted in that. The reality is our hearts are not ethical anyway, we can't expect love to be perfect and utterly unproblematic but also there are forms of polyamory that are ethical.

Polyamory Is Just A Choice

I saved this one for last because this one is feelings based where the others have provable facts this one people can simply chose to believe me or not. However, I want to talk about wider queer theory for a second to really practically engage this idea. While the popular narrative is that being queer is not a choice some queer theorists have pushed back on this idea. The main queer counter arguments are We Chose Our Own Actions and If It Was A Choice I'd Chose It.

We Chose Own Actions poses us with the idea that while our internal feelings might not be a choice we chose how we act on our choices and queerness is choosing to express and live outside of what we are told. That queerness itself is the choice of acting against the cishetero systems of control. So it doesn't matter if a Republican law maker is secretly gay, he wouldn't be queer because queerness in this model is a choice, it's an identity we chose.

Then the If It Was A Choice It Chose It model says, so what if it was a choice. It choses to simply ignore internal feelings and say it doesn't matter why I want to kiss other women, the fact I chose to do it is consensually with other women who chose to kiss women in itself is valid and worthy of respect. That there is nothing shameful about being queer and therefore if they could chose to be queer that is enough to be respected. This simply says being gay is great, I like being gay, I'd pick it every time and you can't stop me and I will be respected.

We went over these models to say that even if you end up disagreeing with me, that being non-mongamous is in fact not a choice to you that that doesn't necessarily excluded it from being queer and that doesn't mean that Polyamarous people don't deserve respect or rights.

However, to me being polyamarous is core to who I am. It is not a choice for me but I would chose it every time. I would never want to get rid of my 15 year relationship with my Fiancé or my 8 year relationship with my girlfriends in Scotland or any other relationship I'm a part of. To me it's natural to want to be with other people, to feel romantic feelings and it feels gross to me to suggest that I should suppress those feelings or if I did that it would be morally better.

I was in high school when I started dating my Fiancé, even then Freshmen year of high school I told them, "Hey if you wanna date other people, that's okay". At the time, It was mostly because we lived an "unbareable" thirty minutes away from one another, sometimes an hour in traffic. "Worlds away" and unable to drive I really wanted them to be able to be loved and have everything they wanted in a relationship. They did not act on that for years and years. Many years later we talk about polyamory more seriously, I had feelings for my now 8 year long distance relationship GFs. We had all been friends, they helped me come out as trans, we got on so perfectly, and there was a guy friend of ours that they had been kinda attracted to and wanted to try to feel things out with. We agreed that we would explore our feelings and stuff.

From there we've been actively identifying as polyamorous, there was bumps in the road, I was not a perfect girlfriend and I misunderstood how Polyamory worked like thinking we all had to want to date each other and realizing that was not the case. It felt right to be polyam and it kept feeling right as we met people, had feelings and let our relationships evolve to wherever they went naturally, disclosing with each other obviously but we love talking about crushes and dates and stuff together. We've never dated the same person and we probably never will but we love each other and love seeing each other be loved. This is core to who I am, my Fiancé is my soul mate, but my soul isn't small, it's big and it has other soul mates and sweet loves.

It what comes natural to me and it would feel as bad to me to stop being polyamorous as to go back into the closet about being asexual, trans or being a lesbian. To me it's the part of my identity that is probably most in practice in that I talk to my GFs every single day, I live with my Fiancé, their actively part of my life every single day and I am open to new feelings every single day. Even with a recent break up with one of my Girlfriend's of nearly two years I not once wished I was monogamous, my heart was in pain but I still loved being polyam.

I don't have anything else to say on this topic really, I don't care if I get dunked on, to me, this is who I am. I don't particularly love "the polyam community" as a wider hole, I am in my own lesbian niche. Still, I think even the unfortunately straight among us deserve to have the right to love who they love. Nothing anyone stays is gonna get me to suddenly see my love as selfish or something.

[If you want more polyamorous sapphic art to exist in the world maybe consider throwing me a few bucks on Patreon or Ko-fi so I can afford to make more.]

[ninja-muse]

February was a pretty good month! I read some books I really loved (and a couple that were simply meh), I got in a father-daughter visit and had really good luck at Scrabble, the weather was mostly not awful, and even if inventory at work took longer than expected, I survived it without brain mush, which has happened before. I am still the fastest scanner! My title holds.

Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn that Eve by Cat Bohannon and Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse were my top reads of the month, or that What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher ranks third. My T. Kingfisher problem is at least a year old, after all. (Also I read a couple delightful picture books, so be sure to click through to find them!)

I'm personally more surprised by my lowest picks, because they both sounded so up my alley but fell flat for nearly completely different reasons. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store ended up feeling disjointed and like it was trying for a theme it couldn't quite grasp, and A Market of Dreams and Desires hit all kinds of tropes I love, right down to random Dickens references and weird steampunk machines, but tied everything together a little too neatly for me. Ah well.

And right in the middle of my list is my sole physical TBR read of the month: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. This managed to tick off "Canadian author" and "classic" at the same time, so I get triple points. (This might have had a hand in me picking it.) Duddy has aged surprisingly well, in that it's still pretty fast-paced and amusing and also in that Richler wrote it with the understanding that scam artistry, hypermaterialism, and misogyny were bad and y'know what? They still are. I would recommend if you're looking for a Canadian teen anti-hero, more than anything. Duddy is a trainwreck and you can't look away.

I managed to get through the month with only three books hauled. (We won't talk about ARCs but the book fairies were kind.) The Unfortunate Traveller and Under a Pendulum Sun were bought during the habitual father-daughter bookstore date, and both because I never thought I'd see them and figured I might never see them again. The Unfortunate Traveller is essays and travel writing by a guy who co-wrote with Shakespeare and I didn't know it even existed. Under the Pendulum Sun was recced to me somewhere (here? bookish website algorithms?) and since it's essentially a gothic novel with properly weird fairies, it's been on my list.

The third book was a total surprise. Apparently I helped crowdfund it in 2019 and they've only just managed to get it printed and also I said I wanted a physical copy? The things we learn. Anyway, it's essays on aromanticism, agender identity, and asexuality so that tracks.

And I know I said I wasn't going to talk about ARCs but I got some good ones this last month and also in January, and there's a lot of them that are out or soon to be out and I'm having that problem where I want to be reading all of them at once. March is going to be interesting and probably a little panic-inducing.

Click through to see everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Eve - Cat Bohannon

A history of human evolution, through the lens of the female body.

8.5/10

warning: touches on sexism, mental illness, suicide, miscarriage, and rape

reading copy

Mirrored Heavens - Rebecca Roanhorse

The fractures following the eclipse have deepened and no one can see a way back to peace that doesn’t involve bloodshed. Out in June

8/10

Indigenous cast, 🏳️‍🌈 POV characters (bisexual, third gender), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (third gender, sapphic), Black-Pueblo author

warning: war, torture, mentions of child abuse

reading copy

What Feasts At Night - T. Kingfisher

Alex Easton has returned to kar hunting lodge to relax. Unfortunately, the locals claim there's a monster on a property.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (third gender), protagonist with PTSD

Library ebook

The Twilight Queen - Jeri Westerson

Will Somers, jester to Henry VIII, is caught up in another mystery, this time of a corpse in Queen Anne’s bedchamber.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (bi), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (gay)

digital reading copy

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordechai Richler

A delinquent teen grows into a hustler, against the backdrop of mid-century Jewish Montreal.

7/10

largely Jewish cast, Jewish author, 🇨🇦

warning: racial slurs, misogyny

Off my TBR shelves

The Woman With No Name - Audrey Blake

Lonely and craving war work, Yvonne signs up to be the first female spy for the Allies in occupied France. Out in March

7/10

half a 🇨🇦 author

reading copy

The Frame-Up - Gwenda Bond

Ten years ago, Dani turned her art thief mom in to the Feds. Now her mom’s mentor has given Dani an offer she can’t refuse: use her magic to pull an impossible heist, get her life back.

6.5/10

Black secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic)

reading copy

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - James McBride

The Black and Jewish residents of a Pennsylvania neighbourhood are (mostly) in it together, not least of when the government decides to take a local Deaf kid to an asylum.

7/10

Jewish and Black cast, major character with chronic illness and a limp, secondary Deaf character, Black author

warning: ableist characters and institutions, racist and anti-Semitic characters, sexual assault and molestation, (largely) reclaimed slurs

library book

The Market of Dreams and Destiny - Trip Galey

Deri may have a chance to buy out his indenture early when he meets a princess looking to sell her destiny. But in the goblin’s Untermarkt, nothing’s ever easy.

6.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (mlm), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (mlm, genderfluid), British Indian secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: child abuse, enslavement

borrowed from work

Picture Books

No Cats in the Library - Lauren Emmons

Cats aren’t allowed in the library but that’s where all the books are!

🏳️‍🌈 author

Read at work

Family is Family - Melissa Marr

Chick gets a note before kindergarten, telling him to have his mom or dad walk him to school. Except that Chick has two moms.

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters and themes

Read at work

Currently reading

Knife Skills for Beginners - Orlando Murrin

Paul Delamare is filling in at a cooking school when the resident celebrity chef has a, erm, "accident."

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), Black British secondary character

Reading copy

True North - Andrew J. Graff

The Brechts move to Wisconsin to restart a rafting business. They hope it’ll save their young family, but it might do the opposite.

library book

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin

A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character, occasional secondary Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 9 +2 Yearly total: 20 Queer books: 4 + 2 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1.5 Classics: 1 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 3 ARCs acquired: 6 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 0

January

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 16 of Nona the Ninth

So I'm realizing now that these John chapters are occurring during times when Nona falls asleep in the story, so they may be Nona's dreams. But Nona has to describe her dreams to Camilla every morning, and so far she's only talked about dreaming about the pool scene, she doesn't talk about having these dreams about John, so I'm not sure they're actually her dreams, or if there's something going on here where Harrow and Nona are both in the same body and are having different dreams, like what happened in the last book, but I don't know

I wonder if she had some telepathic sense of Honesty getting all upset on the other side of the door

Well, I don't think that would really have inconvenienced Ianthe that much, but it would have been inconvenient to actually be down with the crowd during that, so

So they do think that necromancers are the same walking dead bodies, or that the register the same way to those kinds of tests?

I was going to wonder why someone would specifically breed a dog to have six legs, but honestly, people specifically breed dogs to have a lot of random features purely to match someone's aesthetic idea of the The Ideal Dog, so sure, I can believe there's a breed of dog in this universe that was bred specifically to have six legs

It's interesting, because Hot Sauce could totally have let Honesty come with them and also go see the broadcast, but she didn't. I wonder if she sees the other kids as too young, but doesn't see Nona that way even though Nona is a lot more innocent than Honesty and Hot Sauce even specifically told her not to go to the park earlier, when she brought everyone else there except Kevin. Or maybe she just thought she had a better chance of coercing Nona into letting her go or coming with her if Honesty wasn't there?

I wonder what she means by that

If this is meant to be from one of the other books somewhere, I wasn't able to find it, and I don't remember it appearing, either. It also doesn't seem to be anywhere else in this book

So she does seem to know House genuinely, at least a little bit, and doesn't need whatever telepathy thing to understand it, but it's just a broadcast and Ianthe isn't actually there, and she doesn't mention having trouble again after this. Maybe there is something about seeing someone that ties into this power somehow? But the way Nona describes it doesn't really make sense without something supernatural happening

I wonder what kind of history New Rho has that there are 17 official languages. The only two real countries with more than 11 official languages are Bolivia and India, Bolivia having that number due to officially recognizing a large number of indigenous languages, and India having that many because there are like 700 different languages spoken in India, so only 22 of them being official is actually relatively conservative (and the country with 11 official languages is South Africa, which obviously also has colonial history). But I was under the impression here that most of the linguistic diversity of New Rho was due to people being temporarily resettled from other planets, there's basically no way that those languages would be official languages in this context. So is this then saying that there were 17 widely spoken local languages in New Rho before all the resettlement happened? Or does the fact that it's called New Rho mean that it has some colonial history (I mean, independently from whatever colonial history it has with the Nine Houses), and therefore was in the same situation as Bolivia and South Africa? If there are any indigenous people in this city, Nona hasn't made any comment about it

Earlier, it seemed like We Suffer thought that the negotiator was coming to negotiate with BOE specifically, Ianthe, or, I guess, John, seems willing to negotiate only with the local government, and even then, this agreement that she is suggesting seems to be designed to be broken instantly so that John can then do whatever he wants as punishment for that. Was there actually planned to be negotiation with BOE? Or does John not yet know what happened to the Sixth House and BOE are hoping they can force a negotiation with that info?

I also have to wonder how she's avoiding issues caused by the resurrection beast. I don't think it's someone pretending to be Ianthe, because she has the right eyes, and there isn't realistically anyone else who could have arrived in the shuttle

That's very much not a description of Ianthe's hair. Is she wearing a wig? Did she create different hair for herself with necromancy? The idea that Ianthe's natural hair was not aesthetically pleasing enough for this broadcast and had to be replaced is actually quite funny

I wonder if this is like, they know about the Sixth House and are hoping that they'll just be able to show up somehow, or if they know they left of their own volition and think they might be here for some reason but don't know that they're kind of being held hostage by BOE, or if this is just a general kind of thing they say when trying to reclaim old territory

So Ianthe has adopted Cytherea's name scheme, I guess

I still have no idea how they use European royal titles in the Nine Houses. Before becoming a Lyctor, Ianthe was a princess, now she is a prince. What is the difference between a prince and a princess in this context? Certainly not gender. Is prince a higher title than princess? It's not clear

Is... is she still dead? Did John not actually resurrect her? Are we doing more Weekend at Bernie's where he's just parading around her never-rotting corpse and being like, yo, what's up, this is my daughter?

Or maybe, if she's actually alive because it's not possible for her to die, but just still missing her soul, John can't actually do anything about that?

Anyway, I'm sure if Gideon were actually alive she would have things to say here, and those things would probably be "what the fuck Ianthe" and she therefore wouldn't be part of the broadcast

Anyway anyway, I guess that's what happened to Gideon's body. I imagine John probably sees other people having possession of it as a national security risk at the very least, since it can be used to undo his blood wards

Confirmed I guess that John just doesn't have any clue that Gaius and Gaia are not in fact related

Apparently Kiriona is actually just the Maori equivalent of "Gideon", I can see how that would work out if there's no /g d/ and r is a rolled r or a tap. But you'd think that if John wanted to preserve the Maori language in some way he would have actually done that 10,000 years ago instead of, I guess we're supposed to take away, having everyone speak NZ English?

Also, John seems to be labeling her his heir, which is odd even aside from the fact that she doesn't seem to be alive, since John hasn't had an heir for 10,000 years and probably doesn't expect to ever die. I guess maybe after two people tried to kill him and one almost succeeded in the last book he is starting to feel a little more mortal? Only, to actually be his heir, I think Gideon has to be alive first

So, as previously mentioned, there have so far been zero towers in this story, so I can't imagine what the significance of "Tower Prince" is

I do not know what the poison cats are a reference to

I mean, doesn't Hot Sauce have history fighting necromancers? Whatever else she thinks they are, she should definitely know they're real

I couldn't make much of the conversation with the Angel in the car, she seems probably involved in some stuff, but exactly what stuff, it's not clear. But then

So when she said she was "sort of" a doctor, did she mean she was a vet?

Honestly, at this point I think it's equally likely (maybe more likely!) that this was meant in "multiple people in the same body" sense rather than the "gender-neutral" sense. But it really should be "them" in this context, the way that "her" in the previous paragraph in the same context is also a object pronoun, and the way that we usually say "it is me" and not "it is I" like you're fucking Dracula or something

Wouldn't Camilla have gone out to pick up Nona and figure out what happened to Pyrrha before this? I can understand if she didn't want to go out when the broadcast was happening, but I don't get the impression that the Building is that far from the school - if Pyrrha left before noon to get Nona and then didn't come back for a couple hours, wouldn't Camilla go looking for her at that point?

But I wonder if she somehow wound up at the barracks and is now being asked to give the Emperor's Evidence, whatever that is

[prisonhannibal]

I kept thinking of what you mentioned about your grandmother, and I apologize if this is too personal, but do you ever feel like you aren't living up to her legacy so to speak? I'm a lesbian from Chile and during the dictatorship my parents did..... "stuff" (I can't say what) to oppose it and I feel like compared to them I've done a grand total of fuckall. I argue with people online, I barely even read and I have the feeling that I (supposedly) hold beliefs I don't ever employ irl. I carry this guilt everywhere with me and I know that doing at least something would ease it but I'm so afraid of everything, of even living my life as a lesbian or to do simple things as researching about my indigenous descent (from my dad's side)

No, I don't feel that way. I'm not my grandma, and I don't need to do the same things she did to live up to her. I've made her proud of me and that's what counts to me. I don't know a lot about Chilean history, so there's not much I can say about that. But I can say that you and I live in a different political climate and point in history than our parents and grandparents did, so our fight isn't the same, just a continuation of what they've done.

I think you're putting a lot of pressure and guilt on yourself that won't help you. You don't always have to be doing something, and it'll be even more difficult to do so if you tell yourself you're not doing it right or doing enough. No matter how much they do, in theory everyone could always be doing more, and I think a lot of people feel that way. Doing something small isn't pointless. And I feel that learning and taking care of yourself is doing something. I know that making my grandma proud isn't just about activism, it's also about just existing and being proud of my culture. One of the things she's proudest of is that I'm learning the language and that I make art and that I feel strongly for our culture.

It might be healthier for you to think of doing things to bring you healing and love, not to alleviate guilt. Like doing research about your culture because it'll give you something, not because you feel guilty for not doing it. For me, doing art and learning the language has given me a lot of healing. I don't know what it is for you, but I think you'll find it. Being afraid isn't something to feel guilty for and you dont owe anyone else your self acceptance, but you can give it to yourself.

For me, it was important to keep going with the activism and the things my grandma fought for, but it's also important to just live, you know? I think being here and alive and participating in the culture and making art and loving ourselves is one of the most important things we could do after they tried to get rid of us. If the government doesn't care, we can care for ourselves and others. I think that's important

[apelcini]

when i say that i find the idea of bigfoot unlikely im talking about like, the idea that bigfoot is a man-like 8 foot tall ape similar to orangutans and gorillas and other large tropical apes and it’s just living in oregon, possibly with superhuman strength. gigantopithecus is a perfect example of what happens when a large ape is in a climate that’s not warm enough to support the amount of calories it needs to maintain its size- it goes extinct. but i would fucking love for the sasquatch to be real. that would be the coolest thing ever. i would love to eat my hat when it turns out to be a kraken-giant squid situation. i would love for the indigenous stories of the sasquatch to be vindicated, like the discovery of the white sands footprints blasting the idea of clovis first into the stratosphere and validating oral histories that date back further than 12,000 years ago. I’m fascinated by the cerutti mastodon site, and even though that site also contains no conclusive proof of early hominins in north america, i don’t find it implausible that another species of human migrated to north america at the interglacial period prior to the end of the last glacial maximum, found a niche in an ecosystem as humans do, and survived in isolation until homo sapiens crossed over ~20,000 years ago. unlike apes, humans like neanderthals and denisovans would have been able to survive the climate of north america and specifically the pacific northwest. the sasquatch could be one of them that kept their thick hair due to leaving africa before homo sapiens. we still have so little fossils of species like sahelanthropus tchadensis and orrorin tugenensis, and despite living alongside homo sapiens long enough to leave residual genetics in people alive today we still don’t even have enough evidence of denisovans to give them a scientific name, so it’s totally possible that we just haven’t found the necessary proof for the cerutti mastodon and even sasquatch. the only inconsistency here is that human species are highly social and will interact and even mate with other species of humans, so if there really is another human species here then why have they not only not made any contact since before european settlers took over the pnw, but also remained so elusive even in the modern era that there had to be intention behind staying that hidden? in my opinion, indigenous stories of actual interactions with sasquatches seem to make more sense as how it would go if two different species of humans interacted than most of the modern crazy bigfoot stories, and when you add the rapid urbanization of the pnw by colonizers i think the most plausible version of sasquatch existing is that they were driven to extinction by colonization within recorded history. the pnw is really big and there’s a lot of forest the answers could be in, a lot of gaps in our understandings of stuff. but also just because something is historically possible and there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know doesn’t always mean that it actually happened, most of the modern evidence for bigfoot has glaring problems, and as a scientist it’s a slippery slope to start lowering your standards of what’s conclusive proof. and as a scientist i have to say that the way that modern “bigfoot hunters” go about gathering their evidence is more resemblance to ghost hunting than actual archaeology and the whole practice as we know it is totally unreliable pseudoscience and i can’t endorse any of it. i’d love to be proven wrong but you gotta prove it first.

[floralflorence]

Hey! First, I want to say l lovvvved the new cubshots chapters! (I love the whole fic fr I reread it all the time

- apologies I probably majorly throw off your hits to kudos ratio lol, l'd leave more kudos if I could).

Literally never stop writing, you're a gem

I did want to mention though :( l've noticed you use

"Esk*mo" a few times in your writing, which is a very harmful slur against the Inuit. There's a lot of racist history around that word in Canada, especially French Canadian regions like where the boys are from, so lines like Finn's polar bear fighting one can be really offensive (to indigenous people it would be like a white person using the N-word to say they looked like they were going cotton picking or something...so. definitely not good) this -> article (https://www. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eskimo) gives a decent summary of the term, if you're curious

I'm assuming youre totally pure of heart and just might not know - understandably since you're

British (I think?) and I imagine it's not talked about a lot over there - so l wanted to give you a heads up

All love! Thanks xx

Hello my dear!!!

First just wanted to say thank you for your support and for all your love, honestly I appreciate it to no end!

An secondly, most importantly, I had absolutely no idea that it was in any way harmful to the Inuit community and want to thank you SO MUCH for letting me know! As always, the Internet is a learning experience. Yes, I'm British, and it's never been mentioned here so I was unaware.

It'll be changed within the next 5 minutes (feel free to time me) and will never be featured again.

I genuinely do apologise if it caused any offence, it absolutely was NOT meant to come across that way. I wish to give all my readers an enjoyable little escape from their lives and a good experience reading my content so please please please if any other issues like this happen let me know so I can keep it as a positive experience for everyone!

Once again, thank you both for your support and letting me know!!!

All my love - Flo xx

[rathockey]

Hi Atlas. I really like your blog, and was hoping to ask your perspective on the NHL situation around their pride ban.

It seems like you're a big hockey fan, and obviously you aren't responsible for their decisions, it's just been disheartening seeing the organization seem to be openly homophobic.

I'm not really into sports so I thought you may have a better idea what's going on and if the ban is representative of the culture of the league as a whole

hey! thanks for asking i'm happy to provide some more context for the situation. (this got long so i'm putting it under a read more - most of it is context as to what actually happened, but my personal thoughts on it and how it represents the culture of the league as a whole is at the bottom if that's what you're most interested in haha)

for a while, NHL teams have done "special initiatives" nights, things like "hockey fights cancer" night or "military appreciation" night, where they wear special warm up jerseys in line with the theme (among other things, but the jersey thing is the relevant thing here).

one of these special initiatives was "hockey is for everyone" night - a de facto "pride night", with a focus on broadening hockey and showing that all are welcome as fans and players of the sport. so for warm ups, players would wear cool pride themed jerseys and often tape their sticks with pride tape instead of the regular black or white tape.

have some examples of cool pride jerseys:

now. the jerseys (ALL jerseys, regular, hockey fights cancer, etc) were mandatory for pre-game on-ice warmups, since its a uniform! but pride tape was always 100% optional (this will be important later).

last year, some shitty asshole players refused to wear the warm-up jersey, and was therefore not on the ice during warm-ups - which is absolutely their right. they still got to play the game, they just couldn't be out on the ice for warm ups bc they were out of uniform.

but that wasn't enough. they made a BIG STINK about how TERRIBLE it was to be FORCED to wear a jersey with a rainbow on it. (keep in mind this is like. 7 total players in the whole NHL and it snowballed from like. one dude who sucks so hard)

so the NHL banned special initiative jerseys. ALL of them. this was quite an outrage among fans and players. big names like Connor McDavid (Oiler's golden boy and top scorer in the league) expressed disappointment (a lot of statements are kind of cookie cutter statements but thats kind of par for the course with athletes lol).

then things got worse. a memo was issued banning pride tape and included this statement:

“Players shall not be put in the position of having to demonstrate (or where they may be appearing to demonstrate) personal support for any Special Initiatives. A factor that may be considered in this regard includes, for example, whether a Player (or Players) is required to be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly or otherwise clearly associated with such Special Initiative(s).”

i've bolded the most concerning part - this basically says players can't be required to be NEAR people associated with special initiatives. now. other special initiative nights have included things like black history celebrations or indigenous nights. so you can see how this statement kind of makes it so you cant make players be near queer people, bipoc people, etc. obviously a problem for a LOT of reasons, but a big one was that there's a lot of like. queer and bipoc people working in hockey. the anaheim duck's organist is trans!

this caused a HUGE outrage, even bigger than the jersey's (at least it seemed so to me). to ban the tape (which even goes against the NHL's own policy on tape - players can use any color tape) along with that statement was called the nhl's own "don't say gay policy"

TONS of people spoke out about this (and every big name in hockey was asked about it at the time) and hockey players across the league expressed some level of disappointment about it, from cookie cutter statements about how its disappointing to scott laughlin, jon merril, and travis dermott stating they would simply continue using it (they have all been long time staunch supporters and allies on and off the ice)

it all came to a head when travis dermott DID put pride tape on his stick (as he often does, this wasn't new or different for him) and used it during a game. everyone pointed it out and waited to see what the NHL would do. and well. they didn't do anything! in fact, they rescinded the ban. all bark and no bite (i am curious if anyone will challenge the special initiative jersey thing, though i highly doubt it)

MY THOUGHTS: I'm still relatively new to hockey, living in the south for so long i wasn't near a big hockey team so i fell off of it until recently. but i do NOT feel as though the NHL's actions are representative of the culture as a whole. i think these actions are several steps back for the league (which has plenty of issues already) because it did seem like there were some big steps being taken forward! and they basically walked them back and did a lot of damage while doing it (doing something positive and then taking it back feels kinda worse than them not doing anything in the first place). but the OUTRAGE among fans AND players speaks more to the culture of hockey than the NHL's actions. the NHL took action because of SEVEN players who refused to wear the jersey. there are so many good hockey players out there who do care and who speak up and not only talk the talk but walk the walk!

there's definitely a lot of shitty players and fans, and you can find a free block list under any hockey tweet thats positive towards queer people ("hockeys gone woke!" 🙄) but that's pretty common on twitter in general especially with the blue checks getting pushed to the top. in general i feel pretty positive about hockey culture - i've felt very welcomed into the sport by fans. i think theres still a lot of work to be done, across the entire sport (blackhawks are a terrible organization who've covered up nasty things, for example, or the team canada situation which i won't even get into here) and it can definitely feel like loving a sport that doesn't always love you back. but then there are days where it does! the travis dermotts and scott laughlins are out there! the bruins captain patrice bergeron (hes retired now but he'll always be captain in my heart) issued a statement back in 2016 supporting a transgender rights bill in massachusetts and when i found that after becoming a bruins fan i almost WEPT. and our current captain brad marchand has been our hockey is for everyone ambassador for years and always taped his stick for pride nights.

so i guess the tldr is. yeah. there's a homophobia problem at a management level in the nhl. gary bettman (commissioner of the nhl) can be blamed for a lot of that. but as a sport i think there's more love than hate.

[idkaguyorsomething]

Why you should read Cowboys and Indians

Despite what the title might indicate, this isn’t an AU or western. This is a story about identity, friendship, and one of the best reinterpretations of the Twilight Saga ever written.

Who It’s About: the story centers on, of all characters, Leah and Jasper. Seth and Edward play some minor roles, but most of the story is about the surprisingly heartwarming friendship between those two.

Why You Should Check It Out: this is one of the only Twilight fics I’ve read that actively confronts the shitty racial implications in its source material (Leah’s experiences as an indigenous woman and Jasper’s confederate background) and it makes a really compelling story out of it. Jasper in canon is probably one of my most hated characters because of how little development he gets and how his backstory of having fought for the confederates in the American Civil War is completely glossed over. Here, the author manages to make him into a likable, complicated man, one that you can look at and think “yeah, if vampirism enhances your human traits, he’d get emotion powers” and has him confront his past in a really interesting journey. And Leah gets her due!! If you, like me, hated how canon treated her, then it might be worth it just to check this out because watching her form bonds and open up feels truly cathartic. A lot of how growing up on the reservation shaped her is explored, and she gets some awesome moments. Even if you don’t like these characters or think that a friendship between them sounds unlikely, the writing is so good that by the end you’ll be totally invested in both of them and their friendship. There’s also a sequel oneshot, The Star Quilt, with Alice in a more prominent position where Leah gets a happily ever after.

Reasons You Might Want To Avoid: this fic heavily discusses racism and the history of the USA south, so if you’re not in the mood for either of those or are unfamiliar with the latter, this probably isn’t for you (though I’d heavily encourage you to engage with some form of discussion of the racial undertones of Twilight anyways, there is a lot to be said there). It’s also partially non-chronological, so if you hate that kind of storytelling then this might get under your skin. All-around, it’s really a great story, and the closest thing to any serious flaws this fic has is that it doesn’t have much in the way of a plot. The author goes into detail about why this is in their notes, and the story is more about the development between Leah and Jasper than defeating any kind of an antagonist or finding a Macguffin. Technically, the plot of Twilight is going on in the background the whole time, but it doesn’t really affect the story in any meaningful way, so that’s that.

TL;DR Cowboys and Indians is a fantastic exploration of a lot of the subject matter that Stephanie Meyer never did anything with, giving us a surprisingly powerful emotional bond between two unlikely characters in the process. Extra recommended for any fans of Leah Clearwater!!

[daywalkers-fic]

jay. 26. asian. they/them. pan-aroace.

hi! this is a space for me to nurture a personal project of mine: a fictional story set in a world inspired by the 1880s amerikan “west”.

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as I adore fantasy/outlaw adventures, and misfit friendship tropes, I’m interested in incorporating elements of low-fantasy + gothic fiction + real material drawn from this time period.

I’m a big nerd for research and write a lot of non-fiction stuff offline. I’ve never written anything creative for anyone before so this is me having a go because why not! my offline life works with histories of Other-ness and legacies of imperialism. with this lil’ project of mine, I’d like to challenge: 1) the domination of cis, white, heterosexual, machismo in the “western” genre; 2) the romanticization of the “cowboy era” that overlooks slavery, genocide, racism, dispossession. “Taming the wild frontiers” literally required the dehumanization and extermination of Indigenous peoples from those Lands; the oppression and exploitation of racialized labour to build towns, railways, businesses… etc. I am keen on working this reality into my fictional world—subtle dark humour as commentary? main plot points? idk yet we are workshopping

that said!! I indulge in writing random “cowboy”-themed writing/drawing prompts from time to time (see tags below) the fictional concept of a cowboy in the popular imagination is so camp lol like a pirate

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“cowboy” is a gender neutral on this blog

I am taking up this corner of the internet to build a safe and creative space for myself. in these parts: we are for the total liberation for palestine; we are anti-zionist, anti-racist; we support land defenders and indigenous struggle for sovereignty; we support armed resistance of all oppressed peoples. don’t agree? keep it moving. i’ve no tolerance for bigotry or hate. get off tumblr and read a book.

there is no nsfw content (i.e. explicit nudity, sex, violence, gore) here. I will not engage in conversation or posts with nsfw content. blog warning for guns, knives, animals (horses), and themes of death and religion. I have a potty mouth and use it frequently.

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characters, meet the cast

the story, shorts and other scribbles

updates, mapping my chaotic imagination

things to check out while you're here:

yeehaw prompts / cool cowboy stuff / gothic west / more stuffs