#don't worry they ranted back at me

[singsofecho-misc]

Me, an hour into explaining the plot of the first third of CoH: and then he goes with this elf guy to this other elf guy, his name is Thingol-

My sibling, only paying a little attention: wait isn't that the guy who banned quinoa

[omensofatimelord]

The thing about testosterone being a controlled substance means that acess to it for hrt is restricted. While it makes access a significant issue for many people and an easy and effective way to prevent trans men and mascs from transitioning (as we've seen terfs campaign for and succeed at doing in Britain) it also means that is very easy for health care professionals to be able to take it away from trans men/mascs arbitrarily. This is most aborant in cases where trans men/mascs are forced to detransition to gain access to abortions after being raped. However, the first sign of an issues tangentially related to hormones a gp, without any training in trans people or hormones, can and will stop a person's testosterone. Apart from how stressful it is to know that for the rest of your life you'll be dependent on the goodwill of a random person, this has measurable negative consequences for a trans person subjected too it.

Going off t fucking sucks at the best of time, but being forced off t will most likely result in depression and worsening mental health for a trans man/masc, who are already one of the most likely groups to attempt suicide. It can also put a trans person at risk if they suddenly start being visibly trans again, especially if they're closeted in, say, a work place environment. Trans people, including trans men, are already one of the most targeted groups of harassment and violence and sexual assalt and forcibly reducing or stopping t can out people and risk their safety. And a gp won't see this or care about this, or attempt to treat a trans man/masc first or ask for their opinion or situation.

Ultimately, testosterone is seen as entirely optional and so the first resort when something goes wrong it to take it away, when it should be considered the last resort, and is considered the last resort for cis men. And as long as testosterone continues to be a controlled substance it will remain like this.

(edit for clarification: I am a kiwi, this post was intended as a general critique of accessing t through health care systems - based in my lived experience in NZ and what ive heard from international trans ppl; including but not limited to the USA)

[nectardaddy]

a small psa:

sorry if I haven't answered you in awhile or not at all. even though I know I don't owe a response, it still feels shitty of me not to especially if we're friends. I have a hard time talking to people, surprisingly, and I just struggle with the aspect of being social (online or not).

I adore you all and I promise I'm not ignoring you, it's not my intention <3 words are hard a lot of the times for me (says the gd writer make that make sense)

[schmweed]

[call-me-copycat]

I just need to be told "You Can Do It" right now.

[wanderingmind867]

Trying to think of a plus side to going back to school, considering my stress over not really having a notes app, having stomach issues and being stuck going for full days from 7/8 am to 2 pm. So that's all stressful. But i think i found one slight positive: if i can get past my stomach pain and tough it out for a full day, mahbe i'll actually manage to have a lot of time for reading. That'd be nice. That might mean I get more time to read stuff. So maybe it'd reinvigorate my hyperfixation in Percy Jackson and stuff. That might be considered a loose plus. But i have to hope i can still manage to make notes about the book as I read at school.

[meownotgood]

i have so many thoughts about arcane but I'm so tired because it's 5 in the morning and I'm starving because i didn't eat and my brain is functioning at about 2% and all of my insides feel like mush.

[laugtherhyena]

Continuing the rant-iness of last post's notes onto this one i think (I appreciate if they're read, i think I'm too self-conscious to have them in the post itself)

[doux-amer]

One thing that has deeply annoyed me about the response from Americans/Westerners about this week's events in Korea is that a lot of them, including people I like and respect, are like, "The protesting civilians and lawmakers who barged into the National Assembly would've been shot if this were the U.S./this would've never happened in the U.S. because people are too afraid of being shot." There's some truth to that, at least with regard to state violence, but I'm fed up because it doesn't account for how frightening this could have turned out to be had it not been for how much of an inept flop dunce Yoon Sukyeol is. It minimizes the courage of those who showed up.

Sure, it was likely that the military and riot police wouldn't have done much (again, YSY's self-coup wasn't thought out well, and there's more evidence of that as military officials and soldiers are speaking up about the lack of information they received, but I'll refrain from talking about that to avoid making this even longer than it inevitably will be, knowing myself), but let's not pretend there haven't been issues with them in recent years. They pepper sprayed and used water cannons during an anniversary rally for the Sewol ferry victims (x) (x) (if you don't understand how unbelievably cruel that is, look into the horrific Sewol ferry sinking). They tear gassed crowds (Korea has a gruesome history of this) and sprayed water cannons, and citizens have been injured and killed during the 2015 protests and 2016-17 Park Geunhye impeachment protests, notably Baek Namgi, an elderly activist whose death caused global outrage (x) (x). Park Geunhye was going to enforce martial law during those protests according to a leaked document, with hundreds of tanks, thousands of soldiers and special force troops! (x)

Not to mention, there are decades of extreme state violence that have scarred an entire country and are still super fresh for a huge percentage of the population. Again, check out that tear gas history piece. Look up the April Revolution, Gwangju massacre, and June uprising and see just how bloody they were. Thousands of civilians were tortured and killed. Look at how many protests were going on year after year during the 1980s. That isn't that long ago! All those older people who ran to the National Assembly to stop the coup? You bet a lot of them were college students who protested during that time or knew people who did. All the younger people? They may not have experienced what it was like living under martial law, but as I said, state violence still occurs, however much it's dwindled over the years, and you have to account for generational trauma. I don't think I'll ever forget the way I felt when I saw the breaking news alert about the martial law declaration on December 3. I've never experienced that, at least to that degree.

Instead of viewing the response from civilians and elected officials through the framework of police brutality in the U.S., it should be contextualized using Korea's own history. Thankfully most of the serious discussions are doing this, but like I said, even people who are smart about reading up on things have reflected on how this wouldn't fly in the U.S., not because of the difference in protest history, civil movements, and public engagement with both in the two countries but because of the military/police response. There's an insinuation there that Koreans would be more reluctant to do what they did if they knew what it's like to live in fear of violence instead of living in such a safe country like Korea...and I want to yell.

It was monumentally brave of everyone to do what they did to stop the coup. We're all laughing at how stupid the coup was and there's a reason why people were more furious than scared because of the political history of Korea and the laws set in place to protect the democracy and neutralize coup attempts, but this could have easily become a disaster. It's not alarmist of me to say so because there was no way for anyone to be 100% sure of how the military would react—especially when no one knew what the hell was going on.

[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[deerest-deer]

thinking really hard about logging into my old tumblr acc after being gone for like a year and a half cause i stumbled upon a post that led me to my old mutuals and i teared up a lil </3 but also i feel so ashamed i left without saying a word to anyone aaaa

[yolowritter]

Can I give you my rant about the absolute MESS Astruc and the rest of the staff did with the background of ML? Because it's infuriating to a history buff and cultural appreciator like me. Especially after the episode Darkblade shows they CAN do a good job (the story of the ancestor Darkblade is the last years of Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac and Conestable of France, just with names filed off), they just choose to be lazy. And infuriating.

Side material references the Fox, Bee, Turtle, Peacock, and Butterfly Miraculous as the Elemental Miraculous, drawing in the Wuxing... And they never explored that.

The Miraculous Order was based in Tibet... Except the Wuxing link above and everything else we see of the Order say they're Daoist-adiacent, and the Tibetan monasteries are Buddhist. And let's not go on the fact Tibet was a different and often rival civilization to China (even the CCP admits that, and bases their control on how China had CONQUERED Tibet before the British got involved) yet the Order is quite obviously Chinese...

Gabi Gassette changed name in Gabriel Agreste... Except this is impossible under French law. Changing one's personal name is already hard enough, and changing the family name requires a petition to the PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC proving you have a good reason under French law (and by what is shown, he didn't have one).

Joan of Arc never user her sword in combat, and in fact created her famous banner to have an excuse to not fight. So the scene of her getting time displaced and drawing a sword to fight is utterly ahistorical.

Lila Rossi is coded as an Italian, and I say that as an actual Italian. Her gestures, her expressivity, her hamminess, even her vindicativeness ("vendetta" is actually the generic Italian word for "revenge", but in English it became the word for "horrific revenge" because we're THAT vindicative), everything says she's an Italian teenaged girl. So all the "Cerise" nonsense is frankly ridiculous...

Now the really infuriating one, their take on Joan of Arc, of how she and the English bearer of the Black Cat were manipulated by the ambition of the Kings of France and England. Except Charles of France was the Dauphin, that is the heir to the throne, and grasping at straws to save France from the invasion when Joan showed up and requested he gave her an army to throw the English out of France and couldn't get crowned until Joan reconquered Reims, the city of the coronation. As for Henry VI of England, he was SIX (almost seven) when Joan entered the war (hence why Charles had a chance to reclaim the throne, to be crowned King of France one had to be a knight, and that meant one had to be an adult). These guys claimed Joan and Dark Grimalkin were manipulated by a desperate prince who was considering giving up and by a six years old child.

Sorry for the rant... But seriously, why did they do all of that?!

Because it's Thomas Astruc, and frankly I have no idea! Don't worry, rants are always welcome! By all means, I'm sure there's more stuff if we look for it! As a fellow history nerd, and also with Joan being my single favorite French historical figure ever, I have been seething ever since I saw their take on her. Henry the VI was literally just a child, and Charles was dependant on Joan because the English were demolishing France at the time! There is a perfectly good story in real history as to what could have happened to her and Dark Grimalkin! Just do an "partners on opposide sides of a war", slap in the iconic banner as her Miraculous weapon and call it a day! It would have been so much easier to follow real history! They didn't even need to do any work!

And as for the Cerise nonsense...that "explanation" better be really good. It better be Dark Souls-level deep lore with an interconnected backstory that ties up every single mystery in Lila's character better than Scooby Doo ever could, or I am going to lose my mind! I've already said this in my Lila post, but it's genuinely offensive that they had such a great idea for a character, and built her up so much...just to say "oh well actually she has three moms who don't even know eachother, and her name is Cerise, or Iris, or...something else". Lile c'mon! For Nooroo's sake here, it's a blatantly poor attempt to make her interesting again and it only worked because the fandom is grasping at straws for theory material because of the hiatus!

Any side material for the show just doesn't do a good enough job at actually giving us something new, or at the very least something interesting. The Miraculous and Kwami are constantly sidelined because why bother talking about this extremely high-potential universe you have in your show's Lore...if you didn't bother to fill in the blanks? Kwami are supposed to be Gods, Season 2 has references to Plagg blowing up Atlantis! Myths are apparently real in this universe! Please do something with that Thomas, it's free money! But nope, of course they ignore it.

The Guardian Order...well, I call them "The Jedi from Wish" for a reason. Like okay, religious order that has conservative thinking and backwards methods in a new world that is rapidly and constantly evolving. Cool concept! Unfortunately they don't even get their designs right, can't be consistent with which religion they're even based on, contradict themselves all the time, and make them utterly irrelevant after Su Han's first appearence. His only job in the story is to show up, yell at the protagonists, and then be proven wrong because "Ladybug is always right", only to apologize and then yeet himself to Brazil or something! I have an entire rant about this guy, but I'll refrain atm.

And lastly abt Gabriel's name change, I honestly didn't know that. Cool info, I'll add to my list of "times the writers didn't do their 5-minute google search". But like, c'mon. You're choosing to incorporate an important detail about your main villain into his backstory. Shouldn't you have somebody do the research to see if that's even possible? Even the intern is better than no one! I swear...and then us fanfic authors spend hours upon hours looking up obscure stuff just so one sentence/joke can be factually correct.

[natjennie]

someone get me out of hereeeee

[dariasonlinedairy]

I just drank my coffee (it is almost midnight) and it was so delicious i love life now again I'm not depressive anymore (at least not now) 🤍☕

[azuredrg]

if i think my arts regressing i just have to look at my foulqueses and im ok again

[cloudd-nyne]

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