#how many days does the trans cult have now?

[mossymandibles]

What's gender affirming care like on hallowed carrion?

Good question, it can be a little wild west out there, even just with regular hospice/holistic care, depending on where you’re at and which species or community you belong to. I’d say on Mors Astra (name of the planet), sexuality and gender expression can be as eclectic and varied as most animals/humans irl….Um, I guess I’m going to info dump about my individual trans characters and their experiences as well as how some of the main species would view it over all and hope that it answers your question. I’ll also be creating other sophont species that could have different views on things so there’s that too.

Also content warning ahead for forms of transphobia and gender dysmorphia topics.

For the Myce I’d say for the most part getting something like a cosmetic change is no biggie to them, as they don’t tend to have strict guidelines for gender expression. It probably wouldn’t go as in depth as it does with mammalians, surgically and medication wise. Their nerves and vessels grow back easier and such. Even their genitalia is strictly geared towards pleasure, like a miniature sexual mycorrhizal network of nerve endings. There’s no sperm or eggs involved. Their genitals may go by human guild lines in terms of appearance, but they can get pretty wild looking. I haven’t quite thought it through entirely just yet but I guess they might have their own form of T and E, if they cosmetically wanted breasts or a more phallic attachment, etc. I feel like they’d go more along the route of genetic expression rather than hormones though. There isn’t really a huge societal rift between who expresses themselves as feminine, masculine, etc. (although there could always be some strange cults and eccentrics out there!) I’d say to them it’s more important that you look conventionally humanoid. If you’re a bloom face (like Heidi), or have a tail/ horns or look more ‘animalistic’ and ‘othered’ for that matter, you’re more likely to face some stigma in certain regions populated by Myce. This derives from early on when the Myce were first coming into being. They were called changelings, ‘faefolk’, fairies, etc, and caused a lot of widespread fear and misconceptions. They associate such terms with being considered monstrous, diseased, etc.

They don’t reproduce like mammals, as they technically aren’t mammals, so luckily for them natal affairs and giving birth aren’t tied to any specific gender and are entirely up to the individuals who want to go that route.

*takes another deep breath*

In the case of Vveashuls, I think they’re a little more ‘traditional’ so to speak. (Tbh I think I’ve ended up expressing some deep seated frustrations with what I’m surrounded by everyday in them, oops! No fault of the Vveashuls ofc.)

With Vveashuls, many pockets of them tend to put a lot of value in procreation, having several kids, being able to breastfeed them on your own, etc. One should always put the family first.

In the past, while they lived on Zenith as one species, having litters and as many healthy kits as possible meant their survival. Often times their young would be culled by the Furies in order to keep their numbers down and keep them under control. Mind, not ALL Furies kept Vveashuls in servitude, just certain rooks.

Where they’re out from under the Furies control now, they hold pride in keeping big families, staying together, the next generation raised by the previous, etc.. A lone Vveashul is seen as strange, or that something is wrong with them. In the modern day, this creates a lot of pressures.

In Jago’s case, he grew up in a town of very traditional views; the idea of a Vveashul that can get pregnant getting rid of their breasts or their ability to give birth/ taking hormones was unheard of or seen as a selfish act of self mutilation. Males transitioning to females were seen as ‘useless’ or strange pretenders. Even just starting out, his family was very small, just him and his father.

Jago didn’t even really know what felt ‘off’ about himself until he met Kraw, Titus, Mayv and her crew. Puberty only made it more painfully obvious. Once he was old enough and sure of himself (this was after he and Kraw had parted ways the first time) It was very difficult for him to get any kind of treatment for such things geared towards his kind, even in Ladder occupied cities. He had to go under the table for most of his surgeries and medications, which put him in many dangerous situations. With his primary breasts still intact, he still feels like he’s not where he wants to be. The fact that the last surgeon to remove his secondary ones left him with obvious scars is frustrating as well. The whole process had just exhausted him overall. So he focused more on work.

On top of taking hormones, he would often have to take suppressors (yeah, those.) otherwise he’d go into heat and get all swollen and sensitive (it’s also fairly normal for female Vveashuls to take suppressors lest they deal with going into heat in day to day life, which can be very inconvenient in the modern day.)

He absolutely hates how he gets without the suppressors, as it only adds to his dysmorphia.

He’d occasionally have to deal with his old work mates making fun of him about it. They referred to him as a male, sure, but he still felt like they saw him as playing pretend. They would make comments like “oohh you’re grumpy today, are you off your meds?” Where they were mostly Myce, they didn’t deal with the average hang ups of mammalian sophonts and usually found it strange or funny.

Jago wants to be completely severed from the idea of having and mothering kids, the expectations of female Vveashuls, etc. I’d go as far as to say he’s had legitimate tokophobia his entire life. But he’s feels somewhat apprehensive of further surgeries for the time being, at least until he finds someone trustworthy and experienced. Who knows! He might find one in Marrowtide.

*deep breath*

THANKFULLY, where he lives now with Kraw and the others in Marrowtide, he’s in a MUCH more accepting/progressive environment, so I’d say that definitely helps him with the dysmorphia and anxieties of how his body looks. Despite being intimidated by Sylvaine, he gladly take his hormones and suppressors from her, where she also supplies them for Kraw in order to temporarily stave off his occasional ‘rut’ aggression (they’re almost like a birth control). Even other Vveashuls in Marrowtide wouldn’t care that Jago’s gotten surgery. Most of them probably escaped to Marrowtide in order to get away from stifling environments as well.

Disclaimer ofc: I don’t see having kids/ a big family etc as inherently stifling or negative by any means, I’m only referring to harmful beliefs and pressures that may come from growing up in a family with very controlling traditional viewpoints.

In Durja’s case, pockets of Fury cultures vary from rook to rook (‘rook’ being similar to a clan). Most are matriarchal. Durja herself was a sentry and the occasional personal concubine for the ‘Crowned Matron’ at the time (matriarchal leader of the rook). They don’t really perceive being trans, only caring that you are strong and tactical. Though, I’d say if you were looking to transition to female it would be very dangerous, as most of the females would take that as a challenge. In that same way a female transitioning to a male might be seen as weak. Within the Furies species, most of the time the females are bigger, stronger and tend to be more aggressive, even possessing pseudo-penises. They’re also polygamous.

I’d say she’s gotten most of her ideas of what she wants for herself by having watched Sylvaine in relationships for a while, thus deciding she wanted to be loved romantically in such a manner rather than the usual domineering way she had been used to. Taking in the strengths she’d see among the female Furies and she’s got her own image she’s made for how she presents herself.

She hasn’t personally dealt with any type of body dysmorphia and wasn’t interested in taking hormones from Sylvaine despite her offering, deciding she was fine with herself. (In fact, having a noticeable bulge as a female would be seen as desirable among Furies and Sylvaine definitely doesn’t complain).

Anyway, I hope that gives some insight for how it may be in some regions of Mors Astra. I think I just like to imagine animal hierarchies applied to creatures with human intelligence is all idk lol.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So I didn't want to involve the people on this post in my shenanigans. Mostly because I don't want to see a dogpile, or because I don't want to deal with the ignorance that will come from the responses.

So this showed up on my dash

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And honestly I don't think they understand what's really going on. There are a lot of people living in a bubble and it kind of annoys me a bit.

People are not pissed that LGBT people exist. Contrary to popular belief. Nor are they mad that LGBT products exist. What they are mad about is that June has become, "Worship the LGBT or else" month. And while many don't think that's true, it very much is.

I've seen pride parade over the last 6+ years with HEAVY kink involvement IN PUBLIC in full view of kids. Also in full view of people who really don't want to see it. People who can't close their businesses. People who have appointments to keep at offices. Dick shaped lollipops. Near full nudity. What used to be SUPPOSEDLY a celebration of love is now a degenerate (and that's coming from me) fetish fest. More over, if you don't brandish your cult symbol, people get mad at you. And now a days threaten to destroy your livelihood.

(And before you continue reading. THIS MAY well ruffle some feathers. And while you may not agree with my sentiment, this post is not hateful. It's observations and ideas based on people I've talked to both in and out of the LGBT, things I've experienced in my own life, and stuff I've read up on over the years. And while I'm not as articulate as a used to be, it's written not in anger, but with the intention of explaining all of my thoughts. And while they may not get across the way I want, I mean no hate by them.)

Pride hasn't been about love in years. It's been about how degenerate and fetishy can we get in public until they start putting us in jail. Except we can't even do that anymore because protected classes get an absolute pass to break the laws now. And you might not see that but everyone else does.

What's more, what LGBT means now isn't what it used to mean. It's some weird amalgamation taking every sex based thing and non sex based thing and shoving it all under the same umbrella. Hell, most modern trans activists want to get rid of gay people. And no that's not some joke or conspiracy.

Consider this. A lot of modern "LGBT" people claim that gender is a social construct right? Ok and now they are trying to say there is no difference between men and women. In the biological sense. Now you have, "Lady dicks and man pussys" and what not. Except it's not a joke. And I'm not joking. I've been seeing a hard push from trans activists in the modern day, to claim that biological sex does not matter (to the point they want to be able to change their birth certificates), and that if you are a Female dating a male, so long as they SAY they are a woman you are still somehow a lesbian.

THEN you have the now famous Tim Pool clip where the guy from The Serfs claims that if a woman sleeps with an effeminate man, she's actually a lesbian. Or vice versa, if a man dates a non feminine woman, he's actually gay. I don't think most of you realize right now but modern activists are hell bent on erasing gay people. Gay in it's ACTUAL meaning. Which is sexual attraction to the same SEX. Not the same gender. Which both were interchangeable for years. Now it's a clusterfuck of what ever either side wants it to mean. And that's devastating for society. It's devastating for communication between people. And it's devastating for relationships.

Things are breaking down at the seams. People who have been gay their entire lives now have to contend with being called bigots by self righteous, narcissistic, young, dumb people trying to tell them THEY are the bigots. When arguably they had it much harder in society. Hell the middle east STILL gives you 2 options if you are gay. Transition so you are not a monster, or die. Because at least if you appear like the opposite sex you can't participate in your debauchery. That's how they view it. And activists in the west are doing the exact same in their own way. It's pretty fucking scary.

But to the original point. It's not just about Trans this, Gay that, Lesbian this, or anything. People are just tired of the celebrations. Because it's moved way past that into glorification. To a point that among the people that support it, they are deifying it. That's not exaggeration. You are now considered boring if you are straight. You are considered an evil racist monster if you are "cis". And don't get me started on the rant that is talking about that term. Kids are now being indoctrinated into being something other than straight and their own sex/gender. Because according to this hell site and others like it, "Straight people are so boring and stupid and violent and and and and and~" Fuck you.

You don't get to shit on straight people with impunity and then get upset when they say enough. You don't get to tell people that "every day is straight pride day" meanwhile smearing your privates in their faces for a full month. No criticism. No conversation. Just mindless worship. And don't tell me that's not what it is. That is fully what it is.

And before anyone decides to come at me telling me I'm transphobic or homophobic, Plenty of LGBT people agree with me. Some even have more extreme views on all of this than I do. Mine seems to be the very mild view on all of this considering.

But we don't need a pride month anymore in the US. The initial movement was about not just getting the right to marry, but being able to be seen as human just like everyone else.

Well guess what? It has not been like that since 2012. Now it's about, "Call me my pronouns or I'll cut your head off" and "If you don't celebrate pride then your a bigot, a monster, and a nazi", or, "I can't believe this old woman called me young lady, WTF, I'm clearly a man" or my personal favorite, "Kink needs to be in front of kids so they can grow up and understand good sex". Yeah. I've actually heard every one of these IN PERSON and wanted to call the cops on the last one. And fringe or not, these ARE the views being pushed to the forefront.

And more than that even. A school quite literally said, "Memorial day weekend? What's that? Pride month though. Let's dress all these kids in pride stuff and parade them around to prove how virtuous we are."

Yes this DID actually happen. A school opted to not recognize or celebrate our fallen, and instead opted into worship. Modern pride is a cult. I'm not sorry for saying it. Most of you pushed to see how far until it was too far. And now you WILL see people walk back acceptance of the LGBT as a whole. You waved your crotches in their faces for long enough and they've had it.

And that makes me pretty upset honestly. Because my LGBT friends may likely have to suffer through widespread discrimination again because you didn't understand how far is too far. And then when you were told how far too far was, you opted to take it further than that.

Now let me cool the pot as it were. I'm not putting this on the LGBT people who've been nothing but good people, who just have been trying to live and enjoy their lives. And I don't want to see an overreaction to all of this. But the issue is not enough people smacked these activist types down. Their fringe views were allowed to flourish and be the dominate idea. And now we have people boycotting LGBT stuff aimed at kids, and parents are pissed. Kids are already confused enough growing up. Hormones, School, Friends, Parents, figuring out life, etc. It's a confusing time in their lives and they frankly don't need more stuff to be confused about. More over, they don't need to be focused on sexuality (which again is a concept based on SEX based attraction) at 10 y/o. Will they figure that stuff out? Yes. Do they need a LGBT teacher teaching them how to be gay? No.

Do they need books teaching them how to get on gay dating apps at 14 for anonymous hookups with gay men? ALSO no. Do they need to learn how to use butt-plugs at 13-14? FUCK no. Do they need to be taught in gay books how to give head to other boys? NO! THEY DON'T! Do they need drag queens, wearing thongs and a miniskirt twerking in their faces at 6? *cocks shotty*. And before I get the onslaught of, "That's not happening", yes it is. There's proof of it all over the US. Happening in more and more frequency. Including librarians suggesting books featuring explicit content to very young teens.

The final straw was kids. And when you told parents they were not allowed to defend their kids, parents said, "Excuse the fuck out of me". And now here we are. In a country were if you are LGBT and you rape someone, it's perfectly fine. And calling it out is actually bad. If you call out biological men, claiming to be trans so they they can rape women in prison an issue, THAT'S somehow calling all trans people rapist? If you point out that a gay man or a trans woman is grooming kids and or has sexually assaulted them, that SOMEHOW all gay men and trans women are predators?

No one said that. YOU said that. And your fighting tooth and nail to defend people who do those things, is a problem. And it's why people are fed up.

This is not and has never been about anti-LGBT sentiment. But it will become that if people who've done this stuff continue to be shielded. It will become that if normies get even more fed up with the cult like worship once a year of Pride. I don't want to see it become that. It will however, if things don't come down from a boil. Leave kids alone, call out groomers and predators, and stop featuring kink and fetish at pride parades. Put on a rainbow shirt hold hands with your S/O Hold up a sign saying "Love" and that's it. It's super simple. And for the love of all that is holy, stop shaming straight people. Because if you don't they WILL come to resent you. More than some already do.

And just to wrap things up. I don't want to see things get worse for LGBT people. What I do want to see is certain LGBT people stop acting like being LGBT is their entire personality. Because it's not just grating to me. It's grating to other LGBT people. And worst of all it's grating to normies. And they are the people you need to be worried about.

[butch-reidentified]

I notice a lot of radfems claiming that trans community is a cult now that I'm in gender critical spaces and I guess I can see why because they silence dissenting opinions and keep engaging in their homophobia, ignorance of sex based oppressions, supporting problematic people and etc. When I was in the trans community, they say that radfems are a cult. I don't know why that is though. Do you know why they say that radfems are a cult? I just think radfems don't want trans people to promote misogyny, homophobia and whatever bigotries they keep spouting

I've seen that once or twice when I was in trans spaces too. It doesn't make sense to me either, but I can't say I'm surprised since every single other thing they believe about radical feminism is also laughably inaccurate.

Looking at these images, and going through each point in context of radical feminism vs transactivism, there's a lot that's interesting. Where we encourage critical thinking, doubt, questioning, and dissent, TRAs actively discourage and punish it. They no longer even tolerate trans people who disagree on very minor matters - I remember when it was generally agreed upon in trans spaces that dysphoria was a defining aspect of being trans & everyone made fun of "tumblr genders." Now, the "truscum," "transmed," and old-school transsexual types are also called transphobic bigots and told they aren't welcome.

We have no involvement or desire to interfere in other radfems' family or personal lives; transactivism often encourages people to cut off family members for minor infractions like questioning anything about the person's transition or identity, not adjusting quickly enough to new pronouns/name, and the like. TRAs have often claimed parents who do any of those things are transphobic and abusive. TRA culture also frequently encourages trans people to socially engage primarily with other trans people (but only the ones who share their views!), date other trans people, live with like 7 other trans roommates, etc. Most trans people I knew who subscribed to the full gender ideology package rented a place with 2 or 3 other genderist roommates. They also discourage relationships of any kind, including friendship, with anyone who doesn't fully share the genderist perspective.

TRAs certainly view "any outside criticism as proof of persecution." I don't know any radfems who have an issue with criticism of radical feminism (that isn't straight up misogyny ofc). "Outsiders who question the group are hostile enemies or inherently evil" is transactivism to a fucking T. Radfems don't claim anyone is inherently evil, and idk any radfem who thinks that outsiders who question or disagree with radical feminism are hostile enemies. I doubt many even feel that way about TRAs; we just don't tolerate misogyny. I don't think they're inherently evil or anything lmao. In fact, most radfems I've known actually have a lot of empathy for people who struggle with dysphoria, gender nonconformity, mental health issues, etc.

"The leader's transgressions are explained away or ignored." In many of these quotes, if you swap "the leader" for "trans women" or male nonbinaries, you'll notice it's pretty dead on. Eli Erlick for example, or Sophie Labelle, and so many more. They will defend a serial rapist transwoman over a gender critical MTF transsexual any day, and that's pretty culty behavior to me - not to mention it proves that this isn't about literally being trans, but about the ideology. Though they will usually take a trans woman's side in any situation, if the trans woman does not subscribe to gender ideology, they'll demonize and attack instead. In rad spaces on the other hand, I see women consistently held accountable when they do something wrong, and if it's a serious moral transgression, they'll be kicked out of the space no matter how popular or influential they were.

"Unquestioning commitment" to the ideology and "practices are the binding truth and law" (insert binding joke here). Extreme "polarized us vs them mentality" and "black-and-white views and right-or-wrong thinking with no gray areas." All of this is accurate of transactivism. I have not experienced or witnessed this type of thinking in rad spaces.

"Leaders use deception both to the public and to its own members." I mean the entire ideology is based on deception and denial of reality. Gaslighting is fundamental to convincing people that sex isn't real/can be changed, that sexual orientation is based on attraction to people's invisible internal identities and is inherently fluid and has nothing at all to do with sex or really any physical traits, that women/girls are oppressed because they identify as female or because patriarchy hates femininity (I've seen them claim "masc privilege" is a thing and butch lesbians benefit from it wayyy too many times) - or that women & girls are not oppressed at all. Flaunting that you've had sex with someone without disclosing that you're trans (aka deception) is fairly common in some of the more extreme genderist spaces as well. I'm not sure how this could possibly apply to radical feminism. We are generally pretty committed to accuracy and reality, and deception is not in line with those values at all.

"Members are discouraged from getting information from non-group sources." This one actually lowkey gave me chills bc it's really true. We all know they don't understand what radfems actually believe, they have block lists and block radfems/gender critical people on sight, even in the absence of any negative interaction. A whole lot, if not most, of the statistics and data they like to cite are from their own organizations, or even from information someone spread on social media years and years ago and everyone just doesn't question its authenticity or origins. "Non-group sources are held to be liars with sinister motives." That's practically word for word how they react to statistics, info, etc., from non-trans organizations. And gender critical people certainly know how often they call us liars and insist we want trans people dead. These especially don't apply to radical feminism. We encourage engaging with all kinds of people and content, and we don't rely on or use data/information from other radfems or radfem organizations much at all.

Now, regarding the point about special vocabulary/shorthand/buzzwords. Both TRAs and radfems use such things. However, radfems do not use them to "substitute for rational analysis." But a mantra like TWAW is exactly that. Even "TERF" and "transphobic" are thrown around extremely quickly and easily, in situations where they often don't really apply, and the intention underlying that is putting an end to any doubt/questioning going on, shutting it down by claiming bigotry.

Using "shame, guilt, and/or fear to influence and control members" absolutely doesn't happen in radfem spaces. Not that I've ever seen or heard about. It was definitely something I experienced a lot of in trans spaces, though.

I don't have the energy to do any more of these breakdowns of the points, sorry. But you get the idea. Additionally, TRAs tend to make it their entire identity and lifestyle. It's all-consuming. Not to mention there's no such thing as wrongthink in radical feminism like there is with genderism. I don't constantly monitor and police my own thoughts and feelings for "problematic" ones like I did when I was involved in all that gender stuff. Plus, they actively seek to recruit people, especially young, mentally ill, traumatized, and/or otherwise vulnerable people. Radical feminism doesn't really recruit at all; women and girls tend to find it themselves most times.

I hope this more or less answers your question

[effervescentdragon]

buckle up, because I’m about to go off. So i posted this take this morning, because I was thinking about F1 fandom’s habit and hipocrisy of criticising “third-world” or “middle-eastern” countries about their breach of human rights (no matter how much i personally think most of it is performative, pat-myself-on-the-back-for-being-a-good-human kinda “activism”), while nobody is saying anything about F1 racing in Miami, Florida, which is currently literally one of the worst places to live. to which, as is usual on good ol’ tumblr, i got this ask

i blocked the anon, obviously, but to borrow dear friends’ words “this ask is so american, all it needs is an eagle, a gun, unaffordable healthcare and perhaps a burger”. HOWEVER. i can’t stay silent. i choose violence (metaphorical) these days. my first thought was to reply with “i’d check my privilege but im too busy being able to check my bloodwork with my free healthcare”, which may be a bit tone-deaf and mean. so i outsorced this ask to certain friends (including a full-blooded american and a person from the middle east), and here is a series of screenshots of their responses, because they are wonderful and smart and more verbose than i was this morning, with only one coffee in my blood and irritation level of +billion. their opinions also kind of matter more than my own, because these are their lived experiences. 

now. as i said, and as you can see, these are the lived experiences of my friends, and are therefore also subjective at their core. so lets look at some facts. 

“florida is in the usa, a free, democratic, modern, developed country where protection of human rights is enforced”, i believe you said? ALLRIGHT:

- a bill that passed in florida 10 days ago that allows judges to alter custody agreements if they think one parent might allow gender affirming care

- florida abortion ban after 6 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest after 15 weeks 

- a transgender sports ban in florida that allows genital inspection of minors, aka children (thank you @lauda4theback​ for finding these links for me)

- USA’s position in the Democratic Index;

- tumblr post with sources made around four days ago with details about just some of the gun violence happening in the US currently;

- BBC article about 160 mass shootings that had happened in 2023 up until April 16th and data from gun-violence archive (which, correct me if im wrong, is singularily an american thing);

- Anti-Trans Bill tracker no 1 and no 2 in the US, which, you know, implies violation of basic human rights;

- banning of books in the us to cripple education and avoid taking responsibility and acknowledging already existing and rampantly rising levels of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and generally what you all like to call “traditional (christian) values” and the rest of the world likes to call “blatant right-wing fascism” - here’s florida specifically (god i hate nyt); 

these are just some of the FACTS about the united states, and they very much speak for themselves. i couldve found a million more sources, but, honestly, i dont feel like waddling through more of the mud that is this country’s awful politics and policies. 

now its time for my opinion. im assuming youre american, because if youre not, thats just... i have no words, then. you can come in here spouting absolute fucking brainwashing propaganda your country does to you on a regular basis, but dont expect me to have to listen to it, and do anything other than laugh derisively. your-us centrism is tiring, scary, and insane, because your country, to me, is little more than a glorified cult. it’s dangerous to the rest of the world for many reasons, not the least the way it permeates every sphere of our public life and pushes american fucking propaganda upon all of us, whether we want it or not, and its absurd and awful fucking military, which i would like to see razed to the ground immediately, but i pity you, anon, for being so absolutely lacking in critical thinking that you actually believe this bullshit that you are spewing. i was trying to criticise our fandom’s way of expressing outrage when it comes to non-western, whatever the fuck that means, countries while simultanously not speaking about or even acknoledging the fact that rapid erosion of democracy in the us has all the markings of the same “dictatorial” regimes we like to be enraged over when it comes to racing in bahrain or jeddah or abu dhabi, except the usa is not being held hostage by a single autocratic dictator but with the republican party which controls the government institutions. that is sometimes the only difference i can see.

i wont speak about human rights in the middle east, because i am not middle-eastern. there’s people who can add their opinions here, and i invite them to do so. i also invite anyone to tell me if i got something wrong, used a wrong source, or said anything that i need to re-check or do more research on. but the bottom line is: for you to take my LEGIT criticism and get offended on behalf of the fucking US instead, well. that says a lot about you and your priorities, doesn’t it?

[polyphonetic]

An interesting property of cults is that whenever there's some new obvious evidence disproving it, often the cult seems to become more zealous. It makes sense when you think about how if a cult has both extremists and moderates, that moderate people when they see "oh, there's solid evidence disproving this" are going to leave (which thus drives the median cultishness upwards). This can make taking cults down feel discouraging, because they appear to become more and more radical as they are combated.

Fortunately, though, the more radical a cult becomes, the more willing it is to distance from even the pretense of truth, which leads to its downfall. It valorizes incompetence to the point of total breakdown of efficacy. "Truth" or reality does include figuring out how to make the cult last, how to expand and appeal again to moderates to indoctrinate them, and just overall organization and competence.

Recently, Fox has been under a lawsuit, revealing that Tucker Carlson actually hates Trump. The thing is, Fox (and republicans) have had to continually escalate their rhetoric as more and more people reject the political right (especially the youth). The people who are competent enough to bring further fascism into the world are realizing that they've tied themselves to a runaway trolley, where they are on the trolley pulling the lever to run over themselves (just pretend the metaphor works).

The gist of it is, the rhetoric is getting worse because the capitalist establishment is soo, so scaredgirl. They've run out of ways to perpetually expand capitalism, and culture is beginning to outgrow it.

They're throwing everything against the wall right now, attempting to disrupt industries to combat unionization (shifting to AI; remember how everything switched to CGI in movies after 2D animators and practical effects got more unionized?), using trans people as a scapegoat to push more fascist dividing laws, pushing for more control over the internet (the TikTok ban is about control, not really TikTok).

But despite fucking *everything*, they're losing. When none of the roads work, when no jobs are paying or hiring, when work and school are too dangerous, when all of the libraries are closed, when all the food and rent are too expensive, there are just far too many people every day going... "none of this is working." Hatred is tiring, and isn't paying the bills.

[bigjimbopickens]

For me personally, I won't be watching Kevin's stuff for a while to come. It is less about him though and more about the community he's brought to him, a community that now thinks he is one of them. A community that will likely stick around now as well. I don't remember reading anything in his apology regarding the vitriol he allowed to spread (though turning the comments off was the right thing to do), and I'm still soured by the lack of response to you regarding the p*** claims.

In any case I'm heavily disappointed. I love Kevin. He's the only YouTuber I have any merch from. And while I saw this coming I'm anguished. It sucks.

- also an autistic trans man

When I said I wouldn’t talk about this anymore I lied I wanna respond to this. I am contributing more to the convo with this though.

I feel the same way as I’m sure many others do too. And I’m glad you brought up the previous bs that happened just 2 or so months prior to all this because I was going to but felt like it wasn’t necessary as the post was already long enough.

For those unaware, in November 2022 Kevin posted a sims 4 video where he recreated the original sims 4 cult, which the fandom mimicked in a way. He changed the rules in that one to ban werewolves, which was interpreted as “ban furries.”

I made a joke response to it using the fursuit I made of werewolf Jim Pickens and people took it wayyyy too seriously. I was harassed quite a bit for that because people take what Kevin says too seriously. And of course I was called a p*do over it too. That situation scared off a-lot of people from the community but my naive self thought that was as bad as it gets and wanted to fix it. I believed it was my fault. So I organized a raid to bring the positivity back and it worked. Until Kevin fucked it up again 2 months later. I’m not organizing another. I’m not fixing his community again, he broke it and I had no involvement this time.

I sorta let that one slide when really I shouldn’t have because it was just one user who was really causing an issue for me. And it also wasn’t Kevin’s fault that guy had issues. I heard that Kevin did vaguely mention it on stream but I didn’t catch it because I was flying that day. Coincidentally he did post his “I almost quit in 2022” video on the day of the raid, which I came across again and said half-jokingly “You should’ve.”

There is another situation similar that happened to me back in April 2021 that is somewhat related as well. It was during the first NoPixel stream when I did fanart of Grognak and people started getting mad over their pronouns in my replies. So out of spite me and another artist drew them with the non binary pride flag and people became horribly transphobic towards us. Other artists joined us and the mods banned whoever was being transphobic in the replies. So transphobia has always been an issue in the community unfortunately, I just didn’t realize it was that fucking bad.

I joined the community shortly after the pandemic started when the Tomodachi Life series had started and I wish we could go back to those days. It was so much fun. Kevin never does videos anymore about his characters and when he does they’re more challenge-based rather than lore/character focused. That’s a big reason why his sims series fell off so hard. Jim went from being this evil idiot yet genius cult leader to asexually reproducing 100 babies. With the last sims 4 video being one that started a fight in his community I have no idea how he’s going to continue it. I don’t even know if he’s aware of what happened to me. I know he saw the fursuit, he liked the tweet I made about it.

Oh man another long post. Damn I ramble a lot. But I think it needs to be said regardless. I have got to be the user of the community who got fucked over the most amount of times simply for existing haha. I am the embodiment of what the community seems to hate. Thankfully two other communities have already welcomed me so I don’t have to rely on this one as much anymore. I’m still thankful for all the good it’s done for me but I’ve never been in a fandom more toxic than the Call Me Kevin community.

I hope you’re also doing well, anonymous stranger.

[cherribloods]

"Radical feminism is a fascist movement!"

Fascism, while hard to define, boils down to a far-right ideology with an extra emphasis on nationalism. It espouses dictatorships and an autocracy, the eradication of individual goals, needs, and interests for the nation/state, a belief in an inherent social hierarchy (e.g. anti-Semitism, patriarchy, racism), and a dirigiste economy.

As neither radical feminists nor TRAs are particularly able to establish this kind of government nor are they inclined to, this is not a reasonable comparison to make. However, TRAs are particularly fond of calling women on the Internet fascists - so I am more than willing to humor them.

Let's compare the TRA movement to fascism as per these common features identified and defined by Umberto Eco, taken from his essay Ur-Fascism.

1. The cult of tradition

Gender roles are established fiercely: that men are masculine and women are feminine. A woman, defined by TRAs, is a person with a womanly essence within them, who performs femininity and enjoys makeup, dresses, as well as heels.

Women who do not conform are often treated as trans - they have their pronouns questioned even though they are blatantly female, because a woman not appearing as feminine surely must mean that she is not a woman - which is not a polite thing to do as many TRAs think it to be. It is an insult. It is as if saying that a woman is not a woman because she does not look like what a woman is supposed to look like. It is classic misogyny.

A woman is a woman because she is an adult human female, that is, she is of the sex that produces or has the potential to produce ova. There is no list of requirements that a woman has to fulfill, in order to be a woman, other than being an adult human female.

Trans identified males, so-called trans "women", only enforce gender roles with their talk of artificial/supplemental estrogen making them "dumber", how wearing skirts and lingerie is the epitome of womanhood, and that a vaginal canal is simply a wound carved in the male body.

Calling the results of a penile inversion a "neo-vagina" is an insult to the female organ. The vaginal canal is not a rotting mess that accumulates feces, mucus, bacteria, and hair. It is self-cleaning and acidic enough to bleach fabric, and certainly enough to rid itself of harmful bacteria. It does not need to be dilated every day in order to prevent the body from healing the damage. The two are not comparable.

By perpetuating the myth that women are simply modified men, TRAs are also perpetuating the myth of gender - and subsequently gender roles - the very thing they claim to destroy with their ideology. It is a dissonance for them to hear that their ideology is an ideology, because many of them are brainwashed or simply delusional, and so they are especially susceptible to broadcasting their belief without critical thinking or, really, thinking at all. As gender roles and the patriarchy has been around for as long as males have been around, this fits the criterion of "cult of tradition" very well.

2. The rejection of modernism

The abolition of gender roles has been staunchly opposed for as long as it has been worked on. Referring back to the first point, equality between the sexes is modern compared to the millennia that men have spent oppressing, disenfranchising, hegemonising, and persecuting women for the crime of being women.

This is seen as immoral and - simply - bad, as all feminist movements have been perceived and treated as. TRAs have now stepped up to the mantle of opposing women the way plain old men, without the autogynephilia, had, against the suffragettes.

3. The cult of action for action's sake

When the TRA movement is observed, a lack of thinking can be spotted quite easily - especially by a keen eye. This is caused both by the fact that a large amount of this movement consists of children and naïve young adults, and also by the fact that men largely do not engage in rational thought.

Protests are thoughtless and often aimless, such as leaving urine in bottles and urinating everywhere in one particular incident. They also prefer to fight for non-existent problems and erode other people's rights in the process, such as female bathrooms being replaced with "gender-neutral" bathrooms and the men's bathrooms being untouched.

There is a history to the sex segregation of public bathrooms, and that is because women's needs were not considered in public places, and bathrooms used to be single sex: for males. They could not use these facilities because they would get assaulted or worse, and women frequently suffered from UTIs or incontinence due to this inhumane treatment. Removing female bathrooms is the start of reviving this tradition of blatant misogyny, and undoing the fight our foremothers fought and won - along with the rampant denial of reality.

Misogyny is well and alive because our culture has not dismantled the patriarchy yet, and so every impulsive or idiotic TRA act is shaped by, driven by, encouraged by, and benefits men, without the majority of the TRA movement even noticing.

4. Disagreement is treason

The most blatant example. In the heydays of dyscourse (dysphoria discourse, where the terms "tucute" and "transmed" were widely used), discussion was at least still somewhat encouraged, though radical feminists have always been demonized and silenced throughout history. Civil discussions of the TRA movement were not an immediate ticket to being branded a bigot, and while it was not particularly productive, differences in opinion was not as widely persecuted as it is now.

Questioning something about the TRA movement these days gets a person harassed and insulted, even in good faith. The entitlement of TRAs lead them to act in uncouth ways towards well-meaning people, and still they demand subservience, because an unfounded accusation of "transphobia" can ruin a life nowadays - and that accusation can stem from anywhere between refusing to use neopronouns or outright violence, usually not even transphobic violence. It is too wide a term to have such weight.

You are expected to blindly follow and have faith in the TRA movement without question - lest your life is ruined and you are yelled at for daring to think - even ridiculous parts must be regarded as acceptable. You must follow their worldview, faith, and religion, and alter your own worldview and map of reality to be in accordance with the one deemed acceptable by the TRA movement.

Reprogramming your pattern recognition to ignore secondary sex characteristics, and to feed into the delusions of TRAs better, is not only a prerequisite of the foundations - only foundations, beginnings - of being a "good ally", it is also a prerequisite of what makes you a "good person". Morality is now defined by whether or not you submit to the whims and constantly-moving goalposts of the TRA movement, and agree with them.

5. Fear of difference

Similar to the previous feature, anyone who disagrees or does not hold the beliefs deemed acceptable by the TRA movement is shunned and feared. For example: Buck Angel and Blaire White, two very prominent trans people, are often demonized and called bigoted, despite being extremely pro-trans.

There is also the slightly amusing trend of the extreme lengths that the younger, female crowd of the TRA movement goes to in order to be unique (e.g. adopting strange names, microlabels, neopronouns, and even psychiatric disorders), and ending up a monolith of appropriation and crude opinions combined with the most embarrassing time of one's youth. They fear being different the same way they crave it. It is a rather strange contradiction, but those are common in TRA circles.

6. Appeal to social frustration

One of the things that the TRA movement has done successfully is indoctrinating young women and girls into their ideology in the guise of feminism and social justice.

True feminism - i.e. radical feminism - is frowned upon and seen as too, well, radical, and TRA-brand activism is just socially acceptable enough that the cage of the patriarchy looks gilded and shiny. Women and girls experience our oppression, and recognize it as oppression; and when given the chance to do something about it in a safe manner, even without actually making any progress, most would likely accept.

It is not cowardice that I am describing necessarily, but fear. I do not blame women and girls for not wanting to partake in socially unacceptable behaviors and campaigning for their rights, when women's rights are seen as socially unacceptable, because conformity is safe, and in some ways, more comfortable, in the same way a jail cell is comfortable because it is familiar. It is not true comfort. Being chained to a wall and allowed to wander for as far as the chain will allow is not freedom, either - and this kind of faux-freedom is what the TRA movement is offering to people.

7. The obsession with a plot

TRAs always feel under attack, and they say as such. There are always people who are "transphobic" when they state realities - such as J.K. Rowling's initial statement, which was that she acknowledged biological sex whilst still supporting trans people.

Even acknowledging a simple reality is offensive. There is always a nefarious reason behind every single statement that goes against their beliefs, and there is always a nefarious group of the "other" that are covertly taking away rights or killing people.

Trans people are often murdered or assaulted due to homophobia or misogyny. There is no "transphobic violence", because TIMs are identified as homosexual males and TIFs are identified as homosexual females by anyone assaulting them. This risk is increased if they are prostituted. As an addendum, men are in the overwhelming majority of people that assault trans people.

8. The enemy is both weak and strong

Radical feminists are literally killing trans people, but radical feminists are also NEETs on the Internet who don't participate in real life activism scenes at all, and J.K. Rowling is only running her mouth on Twitter, but J.K. Rowling is also single-handedly removing trans people's rights, and the US Govt. is putting laws in place that are bad for trans people, but they're also ineffective... et cetera.

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy

TRAs condemn holding a neutral stance towards radical feminists. It is always black or white, bad or good, and even agreeing with one post by someone branded a radical feminist on Tumblr is enough to send a barrage of anonymous messages towards someone - for the crime of agreeing with someone who is the enemy, even unknowingly. There is no middle ground. It is disallowed.

The Shinigami Eyes extension (made by an alleged rapist, by the way) is a particularly blatant example of this kind of extremism. All posts by potential radical feminists and "transphobes" must be avoided at all costs - or else, you are also "transphobic" by association.

10. Contempt for the weak

Again, TRAs are expected to always have reactionary and violent responses at the ready to be aimed at any radical feminist or "transphobe". Rape and death threats are amongst the most common, as are threats of assault, bodily harm, and doxxing. TRAs who do not act like this or have a moral aversion to these behaviors are often accused as sympathizers or encouraged to betray their morals, and to view radical feminists as subhuman.

Dehumanizing the enemy is an effective way to enact cruelty against them without feeling remorse.

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero

Any TRA can become a figurehead. This position falls mostly to males - although some women come close to it - spokespersons and advocates, Internet personalities, and such, are all considered "heroes". And there are many of them.

Dylan Mulvaney is a good example of this phenomenon. He went to the White House to speak for all trans people, TRAs, and especially TIMs; encouraging transition for children and representing the entire TRA movement to the president of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Regardless of your opinions on the USA - mine are absolutely negative - this is an irrefutable truth, and a truth I wish was not true.

The fact that a man pretending to be a woman for a few months is enough to buy him a ticket to the White House is utterly ridiculous, and it shows that anyone can potentially become him, and the males do, at the expense of themselves and others. The women? Well, they sacrifice themselves for the movement for a fraction of the glory the men get.

12. Machismo and weaponry

TIMs and AGPs are often middle-aged white males with children, a wife, a house in the suburbs, and guns. Feel free to scroll through every Reddit MtF selfie thread for five minutes to prove my point. They also commit a lot of violent crime such as rape, assault, and murder. I must admit, I have seen a post by a TRA comparing radical feminism to this very same list - and they omitted this point, conceding that nothing that radical feminists do can be twisted to fit. And yet this is, by far, the easiest point on this entire list for myself to talk about.

Men are - which is what TIMs are - prone to violence that is sexual and dominating in nature, because of the very nature of the patriarchy and the way it oppresses women.

When they started castrating themselves via synthetic estrogen and can no longer get an erection, the threats and violence both discussed and enacted freely against women (on the Internet, usually against the group of women for whom violence is encouraged; radical feminists) fit perfectly into the "ersatz phallic exercise" mentioned in the original Ur-Fascism essay.

We are also witnessing a new kind of machismo, the kind that still forces the penis onto every woman; genital "preference" discourse. Not desiring male genitalia is "transphobic" and TRAs have gone on witch hunts to harass, condemn, and threaten any woman who expresses such non-desire, let alone active repulsion.

It is a moral failing to not be attracted to the male body - or the mutilated male body, even - in a way that uses morality and guilt-tripping techniques alongside the threat of social ostracism.

13. Selective populism

Men want this to happen. Men have had this happen in their favor for the majority of human civilization. By association, TRAs also want this to happen, and so they push for it, such as with the aforementioned Mulvaney example. Women's voices are being drowned out by men skinwalking as women, and the TRA movement is encouraging this, as this is exactly what the patriarchy wants.

14. Newspeak

Catchy TikTok slang. Easily memorized mantras, such as "trans women are women." It is easy to spot if one knows what one is looking for, because it is so repetitive and brainless that it rings completely hollow - "punch a TERF" is also included in here, along with the word "TERF" itself. Terms like "TMA" and "TME" also count. Even Twitter's limited word count forces TRAs to crunch their thoughts and eliminate all nuance from their ideology in order to be able to fit it into one, snappy, viral Tweet.

As I have established, critical thinking is completely discouraged and regarded as a "transphobic" behavior - even if indirectly - and this then encourages the younger side of the TRA movement to abandon it entirely. This is an effective way to "limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning", such as mentioned in the Ur-Fascism essay itself.

There is a commentary to be made about the new generation of Internet slang in general, but that deserves its own post - a post I cannot be bothered to make at the moment. Its problems are the most prominent with the TRA movement and its blatant disdain for any kind of freedom regarding freedom of speech and opinion; radical feminism is not hate speech, and painting it as bigotry with quick, short slogans akin to advertisements, is the reason why people are so opposed to radical feminism without even knowing what radical feminists stand for.

Which is our problem, and has always been our problem. TRAs refuse to understand radical feminism, its core tenets, the way radical feminists are very well acquainted with TRA talking points. They will not have people supporting the movement otherwise. The trans rights activist movement is simply illogical and oppressive.

TL;DR

Don't be fucking lazy, read the entire thing. Theory should be read and engaged with and not "consumed" only via snippets and short quotes.

[seeminglyseph]

I am full listening to an Animorphs reading podcast and it does make me desperately long to do an Animorphs Book Club podcast with the perspective of me as ‘I read this series obsessively as a small child, did a partial reread at 18 and would love nothing more than to do an Animorphs Book Club Discussion now as an adult of the themes and what the books make us think of now in the modern day’

genuine question would anyone who knows me like to do that and have any knowledge of how a podcast works lmao

must be willing to put up with ‘motormouth of literary analysis bullshit’ because I love. being too invested in tropes and themes. I am extremely autistic about this shit, you gotta be ready for some fucking “I feel like it was an exploration of the way cults in the 90′s could target youths by having this clean living sort of appearance. it was so, so common and was this major shift we’re still seeing today with modern cult tactics. The Sharing has serious ‘unplug your kids’ energy.” I wanna talk about Tobias’ family situation and how many AFAB people I know who changed their name to Toby-based things. you know?how many other people experienced this thing? Tobias is a trans icon in some way that I don’t fully understand but still feel in my bones because I definitely also own a Tobias action figure and he was my favourite character. someone explain that to me. Help me figure that out. There’s something there for us outsiders and Tobias. Us weirdos, freaks and loners who don’t fit in our own skin. I wanna talk about it.

[ewzzy]

I haven't made a real list, but since I spend all my time reading comics here's a top ten for 2022. (no particular order) First up is Kyle Starks' I Hate This Place. Kyle is always the best and a couple inheriting a farm only to find out it's haunted by ghosts/aliens/demons/cyptids/everything is a great hook.

Next up is the new Amazing Spider-Man series that brings back writer Zeb Wells and artist John Romita Jr. They're two of the best to ever do Spider-Man and as they tend to do they drag him through the mud along the way.

Adjacent to Spider-Man is Jed Mackay doing more Black Cat stories. He's writing the Moon Knight, Black Cat, and Dr Strange series and has proven to be one of the best and most prolific writers in the Marvel bullpen. Here's a bit from Mary Jane & Black Cat: Beyond.

Too bad for Jed but this was the year Chip Zdarsky hit homer after home with so many great series. Daredevil, Stillwater, Public Domain, and two Batman series that are all comic of the year level. It's been crazy watching the comedy guy known for Sex Criminals become the most prized writer at the big two. Nobody but Chip gets to write Batman and work for Marvel at the same time.

I've been going on and on about writers but the recent Poison Ivy series is all about artist Marcio Takara. I normally wouldn't give a series like this a chance but it's a beautiful horror comic where a lot of folks get torn apart by fungal spores.

I also wouldn't have touched a Harley Quinn series but Riley Rossmo's art will get me to read anything. He just started a new Robin series where Tim Drake is living in a boat house and working as a private eye. So far so good!

I don't care about the Eternals or Avengers and keeping up with the X-Men is exhausting but the A.X.E. Judgement Day event was great. Basically the superheroes create a new god and it decides to judge everyone on earth individually. If it does the math and we're mostly bad the earth goes bye bye. Captain America is the first to get a thumbs down and everyone collectively goes "oh so we're fucked right?" Then when the Eternals wake up some old war machines one reads the whole internet and becomes the secret admirer of a single human writer.

As I said X-Men is exhausting, but it was worth it to get all the jokes in X-Men '92 House of XCII which retells the last few years of X-Men comics as if they were adapted to the 90s cartoon.

A much clearer X-Men comic was Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird. He was the first X-Man to die for the cause and now that mutants can be resurrected he's back and not sure he wants to be a part of it anymore. It's co-written by trans native-american pro wrestler Nyla Rose and I was expecting very little but it's great.

Guess this is my last one. I have been shocked by how good the Punisher: King of Killers series is. Writer Jason Aaron and artists Jeus Saiz & Paul Azaceta bounce between two art styles & times. The present where Frank Castle is worshipped as history's greatest killer by ninja assassin cult, The Hand, and the past where we discover he first killed at age 10 and how his family dying was never what made him the Punisher. It's also an allegory about how The Punisher isn't cool and you shouldn't like him and anyone who would use his skull logo unironically is dumb.

Sorry TMNT Armageddon Game, One-Star Squadron, Superman The Warworld Saga, X-Terminators, My Bad, Billionaire Island: Cult of Dogs, World's Finest, and everyone else from this year but I've run out of time and space. Look forward to Spider-Man/X-Men Dark Web on next year's list alongside both of Ryan North's new comics Secret Invasion and Fantastic Four.

[dxwnfxll]

Finally finished the 05 council in my au

+ Administrator

05-1 Anna

One of the longest living 05 members, she gained immortality from unknown circumstances.

She and Admin were once married with two lovely children, until tragedy struck. Their son was manipulated and killed by 035, and later on their daughter would vanish to an unknown dimensional plane of existence.

05-1 currently is remarked as 'Pure beauty and pure evil' as she usually manipulates people to do her bidding, and doesn't really care much for human life or morals. She and Admin are technically still married but the two have not shared a bed in centuries.

She and admin are the founders of the Foundation.

05-2 Charles

05-2 is a title given to anyone that has the blood of 05-1, anyone related to the 05 has an opportunity to sit on this chair. Though that maybe the worst mistake you can make, it seems all 05-2s are forever cursed with 'bad luck'.

No 05-2 has simply died from old age, usually they've been assassinated, murdered, 'gone missing' and simply disappeared. All 05-2s also usually suffer from mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and psychosis.

They are also usually the most manipulated by 05-1, and are required to have a minimum of 3 children so that one may become the 05-2 'heir' and the rest as 'replacements'

05-3 Red

05-3 is the great great grandfather of Jolene Kelly, a chaos insurgency member who later on marries Julian Bright (the son of Jack Bright and Jezebel Lavender)

05-3 posseses the ability to see into multiple other timelines and anyone who glances into their eyes will see a glimpse into their future. 05-3 was raised as a foundling and served as a 'hand sinister' for a short time. Eventually 05-1 offered them a place as 05-3 and they have remained their ever since.

05-3 is immortal.

05-4 Marcy

05-4 was the daughter of the original 05-4, an accident happened in their childhood leaving them permanently within the body of a child. 05-4 is the main leader of the 'hand sinisters' and usually works as a spy for the 05.

05-4 also has a good relationship with 05-6(Mikell), and the two are often seen chatting with each other and working on projects together. This maybe due to the two being close friends in their childhood

05-4 is immortal due to her current circumstances, but if her body had aged correctly she would be 43 by now.

05-5 Millie

05-5 is a trans (MTF) member of the 05 council, they once worked as a researcher in their younger days. Work for a woman named 'Dr. Leslie', Dr. Leslie was an unethical researcher that was eventually terminated. During their time working for Dr. Leslie 05-5 had been one of their unethical experiments, the mask on their face being surgically put on by Dr. Leslie.

05-5 cannot have the mask removed or they will effectively die, the liquid inside the mask replenishes on its own and keeps her body in a forever regenerative state.

05-6 Mikell

05-6 also known as Mikell Shaw was once a hand sinister for the 05 (during this time his father had been 05-6) Mikell had raised his siblings from a young age but does not have a good relationship with any of them. Mikell was also previously married in his youth but divorced only a couple years later due to his cheating ways, after he became an 05 he married a researcher at site-17 named 'Dr. Vanessa'

He eventually had two children named David and Serena, him and David have a very distant relationship while Serena is still a child living with him and Vanessa. (But in the future Serena becomes erased from the universe due to Dr. Prometheus)

Mikell has many illegitimate children that make up the vast majority of the infamous 'Shaw cult' run by David Blindman

05-7 (Mother)

05-7 also nicknamed 'Mother' is the most generous and kind of the 05 members, usually they're spotted around site-17 undercover and being the 'parent' the children SCPs need.

05-7s past is unknown, nor is how they came to be an 05 member. Many claim she just 'showed up' one day and never left

05-8 Maurie

05-8 is one of the more 'interesting' 05 members as they aren't human. They are indeed an alien and was brought in as a 'deal' according to 05-1. The 05 member speaks telepathically to other members or will usually write what they wish to say.

05-9 Zena (zee-na)

05-9 was once a 'creation' of the Wondertainment industry, her role there is unknown as she claims to have been a 'malfunction' when SCP 7829 (the doll sisters) were brought in many 05 suspected her of being a failed doll sister due to her eyes and looks.

She currently works with teams trying to 'knock Wondertainment down a peg or two' and hates the corporation and anyone who sides with them

(The rest of these are gonna have to be photoless, but they're all in order at the top)

05-10 Ben

05-10 is..unknown, the person exists but they do not seem to act human or retain any human emotion. 05-4 even claims to hear weird 'clicking' noises from them when she stands to close to the 05.

The 05 also seems to get replaced with someone else without anyones knowledge, even 05-1 doesn't know where they came from and many claim the 05 is a robot sent by some 'enemy'

05-11

05-11 is not something you'd expect on the 05 council (especially since a whole war had been started with the species) 05-11 is remarked as the 'last living fae' and had been kept alive due to her being half human.

She was supposedly born in the middle of the war and had been 'found' by the original 05-11, 05-1 had decided it best to keep the child and raise her as a foundling. Her parents are unknown and she posseses no powers like the fae, she only seems to have their looks.

05-12 Allison

05-12 is an 05 member who holds no last name, the 05 member had been found a couple days at a spot SCP 5002 had been located and retrieved at (possibly meaning the two are connected)

05-1 had decided to speak with Allison and the result being Allison becoming 05-12. The circumstances as to 'why' are unknown, but some suspect they are kept within the 05 council due to their possible connections to SCP 5002 and the Scarlet king.

05-13 Tamlin

05-13 is the most mysterious member of the 05, as the rest of the 05 at least know each others face. 05-13 keeps their identity a secret and will only appear on a monitor during a meeting with a '?' As their logo.

They also seem to use a voice changer which will never be the same. Their is one key clue as to who they are, as they will usually sign off with 'Tamlin' with emails and letters.

Admin Lorenzo

The administrator is similar to 05-1, both were married became the founders of the SCP Foundation and had two kids. Once tragedy had struck twice Admin ended up leaving the Foundation to 'find a cure' for his and 05-1s immortality.

Admin is known as a 'flirtatious' man who hops from bed to bed during his travels, it is rumored 05-11 is his child due to their similar looks.

In a sad story Admin had actually decided to move on from 05-1 and tried to have a family, when his son (which he named Benjamin) had been born him and his partner had vanished. When he confronted 05-1 she denied everything but gave a clue that she had been the one to make the two vanish.

05-12, SCP 5002 and Dr. Vanessa belong to @thesimpgod13

[talkingpointsusa]

Ben Shapiro is really freaked out by the possibility of seeing an LGBTQ person on TV

Well, the Daily Wire's been in full tantrum mode since Pride Month started. While LGBTQ people seem to live rent free in Ben's head every day of the year, he's still using pride month as an opportunity to express how horrified he is at the idea of seeing an LGBTQ person on the TV. Lets get into it.

Children's Television Hypocrisy:

46:55, Ben Shapiro: "The good news is that Pride Month has now infused all of our major institutions, remember it's Republicans who are threats to the institutions. You know, like children's TV where it is imperative -- it is imperative that our children's television promote homosexual activities, lifestyles, transgenderism, and gender fluidity. It is very important."

I love how guys like Ben see children's TV shows that have a message that basically boils down to "be nice to LGBTQ people and if you're LGBTQ yourself that's ok too" and their immediate reaction is "NO!!! WE WANNA BE ASSHOLES TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM US!!!".

Anyway, Ben would know a lot about children's TV with political messaging in it. Keep in mind that the Daily Wire owns PragerU which has an entire children's entertainment division that pushes wholesome messages like "you know, slavery really wasn't thaaattttt bad" . The Daily Wire has also created it's own children's TV streaming service called BentKey which Ben routinely promotes on his show during the ad breaks. Basically, in one corner we have some kids TV shows that are essentially just teaching kids to be more accepting of themselves and others and in the other corner we have the Daily Wire which has basically became a right-wing child indoctrination machine. I have absolutely no idea how Ben can push the idea that the left is "indoctrinating the kids" with a straight face given the things that his company is doing.

47:17, Ben Shapiro: "Which is what Sesame Street did over the weekend. Sesame Street tweeted out the rainbow flag but using like, the furry tails of it's various Sesame Street characters."

Well, Ben's convinced me! The left really is a threat to our societal institutions. I heard that Sesame Street also tweeted out the pride flag before the fall of Rome.

Ben's mad at the single least offensive tweet on the planet by the way. Here it is.

Again, Ben sees a tweet that's message is basically "Hey, be nice to LGBTQ people" and his kneejerk reaction is "NO!!! I just wanna be a dick to others!!!!".

47:42, Ben Shapiro: "Worth noting here that Sesame Street is a television show directed at two year olds. Don't worry folks, they're not coming for your kids they're just totally coming for your kids on the radical left."

I'm sure that the four children that use Twitter are fully indoctrinated and are now gay. The most hilarious thing about these "LGBTQ child indoctrination" conspiracy theories is the fact that they fly completely in the face of how children's brains work. When a two year old child sees a pride flag they don't think "woah, I'm suddenly trans now", they think "oooh, pretty colors".

Ben calling Sesame Street "radical left" is also one of the dumbest things I've ever heard him say. Does he think that Big Bird is reading kids the Communist Manifesto?

Gay Star Wars:

Here's another one of these videos depicting Ben slowly losing his sanity over the idea of seeing gay people on TV. This time he's revealing that he might be the most literal minded person on Earth.

00:00, Ben Shapiro: "Disney Plus, they have a new Star Wars series. Now of course, many of us grew up on Star Wars. You know, classic battles of good versus evil in which honestly most of the battles are modeled on World War 2 era battles in which the empire is clearly a stand-in for the Nazi's. Well now, Disney Plus has decided it's time to shift the narrative a little bit, it's time for something different. It's time to indoctrinate small children in the cult of pride month, this is how we must raise our children."

So, Ben still hasn't let go of his desire to remove LGBTQ people from the media. Again, the rhetorical peal clutching about child indoctrination falls flat if you think about it for more than two seconds and even flatter if you think about the actions of the company pushing it for more than three seconds.

So, the thing that Ben's mad about this time is an interview that the cast of the new Star Wars show The Acolyte did where the creators joked about it being "the gayest Star Wars show ever". First of all, many of the cast members are queer themselves which is probably what they're talking about here and second of all they were obviously joking around. If you watch the clip the fact that everyone was laughing when they said it is a little hint that they weren't exactly being serious. Ben on the other hand is treating this like a 100% serious pronouncement which makes him look like an absolute goon. If this is how Ben is in real life, I don't see how he could function in society.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" "WELL ACTUALLY, YOU BIOLOGICALLY COULDN'T EAT A HORSE AND BY THE WAY YOU HATE WHITE PEOPLE!"

Ben plays the clip of Amandla Stenberg and starts complaining about it.

03:13, Ben Shapiro: "Amandla Stenberg went even further of course, she says that the goal of The Acolyte is to make white people cry. Is this the kind of American unity that leads to American sacrifice?"

Given the fact that this is how Ben's reacting to a joke I'd say that the mission to make white people cry has been accomplished. I can only imagine his reaction to the actual show which by all accounts and reviews is just a regular Star Wars show.

03:44, Ben Shapiro: "This shows gonna bomb and it will be a giant dud and no one will allow their kids to watch it."

I love how absolutely lazy these Ben Shapiro videos are because one Google search will tell you that The Acolyte reached 4.8 million viewers in one day and was Disney Pluses biggest launch of 2024. This Ben video was produced on the same day as said article too so there's really no excuse here.

Conclusion:

So, that was a grown man getting angry at the Sesame Street Twitter account and Star Wars. This is what Pride Month is like in right-wing media every year by the way. Happy Pride Month and to all my LGBTQ+ readers, keep making Ben Shapiro cry.

Cheers and I'll see you in the next one

Original Videos:

Ben Shapiro. “From the Greatest Generation to the Most Obnoxious Generation.” YouTube, 6 June 2024.

Ben Shapiro. “R2D2 Is GAY?!” YouTube, 6 June 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcYDA_BKhqQ&t=332s

Sources Cited:

“Animated Frederick Douglass Calls Slavery a “Compromise” in PragerU Video.” NBC News, 11 Aug. 2023.

Hailu, Selome. ““The Acolyte” Reaches 4.8 Million Views in One Day, Biggest Disney+ Launch of 2024.” Variety, 6 June 2024.

Murray, Conor. ““The Acolyte” Creators Joke about Making “Gayest” “Star Wars” Series and Lesbian R2-D2—Angering Right-Wing Critics.” Forbes.

[qnewsau]

We're trying so hard to feel sorry for martyrs to Easter Sunday

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/were-trying-so-hard-to-feel-sorry-for-martyrs-to-easter-sunday/

We're trying so hard to feel sorry for martyrs to Easter Sunday

Is it April Fools Day? Surely that’s tomorrow. Yet bible-bashing fools of the trumpian persuasion are whinging about Transgender Day of Visibility impinging on their Easter Sunday.

Climb down off your fcking cross (Don’t forget you can have your own Donald Trump branded cross for just $99.99 plus p&h. Buy two, and we’ll throw in a copy of Junior’s latest book, Faking Christianity for Profit and Easy Sex with Nativity Donkeys.)

Oh, we try so hard to feel sorry for you people. But let’s face it: You break a nail, squeal that the Rainbow Cult did it, and carry on like you’ve been thrown to the lions. (As in ferocious African animals, not the hapless scandal-plagued AFL team.)

What happened?

Easter Sunday

Well, this year, for the first time in yonks, the Christian celebration of Easter Sunday (the Resurrection) falls on March 31. The religious celebration does not have a fixed date. In Western Christianity, it can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25.

But March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility and has been since 2009.

And oh how that makes, if not the Baby Jesus, little sooky baby right-wingers cry.

It being Easter, even Judas jumped in. Well – not the Judas. Just Trans Judas.

Caitlyn Jenner sobbed about Joe Biden initiating the day – which he did not. Methuselah did however issue a proclamation in support of the day, and of trans people.

“I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.”

April Fools Day

So, did we mention April Fools Day?

Because that’s going to give them something to rend their garments over in 2029. Yep! In 2029, April Fools Day falls on March 31.

Cry you fools, cry. We couldn’t GAF.

You’ve rained on our parade too many times before.

Not today, Satan.

Happy Transgender Day of Visibilty.

We shouldn’t laugh at Caitlyn – but she makes it so easy…

Happy Easter… well… to everyone except Trans Judas.

Trans Judas claims to be the ‘adult in the room’.

Remember when Trans Judas ran for Governor of California… and lost.

Everything old is new again: Jenner liked Trump, then disowned him, then joined FOX News and now she likes him again.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[theflintwarlock]

I love the study of religion and I found this post and now I have to answer it but also I want to see the results because its fascinating to me

1. I identify as a Celtic pagan/reconstructionist, though technically I am more polytheist as I have worked with heathen gods in the past

2. The core belief as I see it is community. A connection to the land and to the people around you is an important part of especially Irish paganism back in the day and that's something I endeavour to bring forward.

3. The main way I worship with others is through my partner and through research into pagan practices and beliefs. There is no set place of worship, but there are certainly sacred artefacts and areas. Certain mountains in ulster I would consider sacred, even thing like oak trees link back to the past.

4. The process of becoming a celtic pagan is as simple as researching and deciding to. It was the practice I felt most drawn to within theistic Witchcraft.

5. I felt that it was right for me. Its hard to explain simply, in some ways I suppose it was simply faith.

6. I'm more of a sole practitioner, but in the rituals I have done its a very personal and moving experience.

7. It definitely does. Besides the obvious need for religious freedoms and equality for everyone, irish republicanism is something that is to a certain extent spiritual for me. The fight to free the homeland, as it were, from an oppressive influence. I often incorporate republican imagery into my spiritual practice.

8. I can't speak for others but i am aware of certain celtic pagans who seek to keep this religious practice to themselves, to so-called "true" irish, Welsh, Manx and Scottish people. As someone who is only half Manx myself I feel passionately that it should be open to all ethnicities

9. I could write a whole essay on gender roles in celtic paganism. But I will keep it breif: there is definitely an undertone of gender roles, but over all all genders are seen fairly equally. Sex was seen as the only aspect of gender in ancient celtic times, but today we look more to how an individual identifies. I myself am a trans man while still worshipping feminine and masculine deities, primarily feminine.

10. Media most often misrepresents what celtic paganism is, when it is mentioned at all. The morrígan, an Irish goddess, is often mischaracterised as simply the goddess of death and war, lumped into many other similar 'dark mother' archetypes. This is far from the case in my experience. But mostly celtic paganism is only seen when it comes to historical media, even then it is rarely mentioned.

11. Definitely. The Irish diaspora in America are often the most fervent celtic pagans, though sometimes they misunderstand what the practice entails. Social media has allowed for dead religions to rise again through reconstructionism, and for people in some cases far removed from the celtic Isles themselves to participate and even move here.

13. A new religious movement tends to be more structured than paganism is. It is so splintered and down entirely to individual practices that it is impossible to call it a movement. It certainly doesn't have a leader. Generally we are critical of NRMs or cults as they're more commonly referred to outside of the study of religion.

14. In favour of marriage and family, as most religions are, but I doubt we would shun any who don't really fancy either. I'm also gay and would love to have a gay celtic marriage lol.

15. I myself have never experienced anything outwardly paranormal. The closest thing was when I was a child- I was digging a hole in the sand and water began to fill it as it tends to on a beach. I remember a tail, like a mermaid tail, flicking out of it and then dissapearing. But it's worth noting that my shovel was a similar colour, it could have been a trick of the light. But for a long time after that I was convinced mermaids were real. In terms of more recently, I have made contact with a few entities- namely my late grandmother, and my slightly disturbing time worshipping the demon asmodeus. When I have connected with spirits it is most commonly a distinct feeling, that someone is in the room with you communicating with you. I never heard their voices, but sort of an inner voice. It might sound like nonsense to a non-believer, but I do believe it was them speaking to me.

16. Pretty neutral. We don't have a problem with science. I like science personally. It doesn't interfere with our beliefs in the slightest.

17. I'm not American so I can't speak to that (im british). But I see it growing slightly, but mostly continuing on as it is. A constant, some people tapping into it. But as nature is destroyed slowly but surely the reverence we hold to nature will be difficult to keep. Wild fires, floods and climate change generally have changed the way we see the world and nature.

Attention anyone who identifies as pagan or a New Age belief system!

I have an assignment for school where I need to interview someone about their religious beliefs. I wanted to get some information about different pagan or New Age beliefs, so feel free to reblog and give your answers! (Don't feel like you have to give an answer for every question!)

Disclaimer: no names or identifying information would be used in my assignment.

Can you tell me your specific religious identity? (I.e. religious organization, faith system, general religious orientation, etc.)

What are the core beliefs of your religious orientation?

Do you have a place of worship or some other way you create a sense of community within your religion? Can you describe what a meeting within your religion looks like?

How do you “become religious” or a part of your religion? Is there a specific process? How does one "fit in" when it comes to your religion?

How did you personally choose to join your religious group?

Can you describe what it is like to participate in your religion with others of the religion as a group. What kind of group behaviors do you notice?

How does your religious orientation influence your political views?

Do you think racial identity has a role in how your religious group functions?

What are gender roles like within your religion?

In what way does your religion approach media? What role does media play in your religion? When relevant does the media accurately portray your religion?

Do you think that globalization has had an impact on your religion? If yes, how so?

Would you describe your faith as a New Religious Movement? If it is not, how does your religion address NRMs? If it is, how are you and your religion treated as an NRM?

How does your religion feel about marriage and family?

Can you describe if you've had any religious or supernatural experiences? (I.e. sightings or supernatural beings like ghosts or angels, communication with the dead, miracles, spiritual healing, clairvoyance, premonition, etc.)

What is your religion's relationship with science like?

How do you see the future of your religion in America and the world?

[baeddel]

Please. Please can you tell me what a baeddel is and why people (terfs?) used it in a derogatory manner on this website for a hot minute but now no one ever uses it at all

you asked for it, fucker

[2k words; philology and drama]

baeddel is an Old English word. i have no idea where it actually occurs in the Old English written corpus, but it occurs in a few placenames. its diminuitive form, baedling, is much better documented. it appears in the (untranslated) Canons of Theodore, a penitential handbook, a sort of guidebook for priests offering advice on what penances should be recommended for which sins. in a passage devoted to sexual transgressions it gives the penances suggested for a man who sleeps with a woman, a man who sleeps with another man, and then a man who sleeps with a baedling. so you have this construction of a baedling as something other than a man or a woman. and then it gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling (a ludicrous one-year fast). then, by way of an explaination, Theodore delivers us one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Old English corpus: "for she is soft, like an adulturess."

the -ling suffix in baedling is masculine. but Theodore uses feminine pronouns and suffixes to describe baedlings. as we said, it's also used separately from male and female. but it's also used separately from their words for intersex and it never appears in this context. all of this means that you have this word that denotes a subject who is, as Christopher Monk put it, "of problematic gender." interested historians have typically interpreted it as referring to some category of homosexual male, such as Wayne R. Dines in his two-volume Encyclopedia of Homosexuality who discusses it in the context of an Old English glossary which works a bit like an Old English-Latin dictionary, giving Old English words and their Latin counterparts. the Latin words the Anglo-Saxon lexicographer chose to correspond with baedling were effeminatus and mollis, and Lang concludes that it refers to an "effeminate homosexual" (pg 60, Anglo Saxon). this same glossary gives as an Old English synonym the word waepenwifstere which literally means "woman with a penis," and which Dines gives the approximate translation (hold on tight) male wife.

R. D. Fulk, a philologist and medievalist, made a separate analysis of the term in his study on the Canons of Theodore 'Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore', collected in Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, 2004. he analysed it as a 'sexual category' (sexual as in sexuality), owing to the context of sexual transgressions in the Canons. he decides that it refers to a man who bottoms in sexual relationships with another man. i don't have the article on hand so i'm not sure what his reasoning was, but this seems obviously inadequate given what we know from the glossary described by Dines. Latin has a word for bottom, pathica, and the lexicographer did not use this in their translation, preferring words that emphasized the baedling's femininity like effeminatus, and doesn't address the sexual context at all. Dines, however, only reading this glossary, seems to decide that it refers to a type of male homosexual too hastily, considering the Canons explicitly treat them separately. both Dines and Fulk immediately reduce the baedling to a subcategory of homosexual when neither of the sources to hand actually do so themselves.

by now it should be obvious why, seven or so years ago, we interpreted it as an equivalent to trans woman. I mean come on - a woman with a penis! these days I tend to add a bit of a caution to this understanding, which is that trans woman is the translation of baedling which seems most adequate to us, just as baedling was the translation of effeminatus that seemed most adequate to our lexicographer. but the term cannot translate perfectly; its sense was derived from some minimal context; a legal context, a doctrinal context, and so forth... the way Anglo-Saxons understood sex/gender is complicated but it has been argued that they had a 'one sex model' and didn't regard men and women as biologically separate types, which is obviously quite different from the sexual model accepted today; in any case they didn't have access to the karyotype and so on. the basic categories they used to understand gender and sexuality were different from ours. in particular, Hirschfield et al. should be understood as a particularly revolutionary moment in the genealogy of transsexuality; the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft essentially invented the concept of the 'sex change', the 'transition', conceived as a biological passage from one sex to the other. even in other contexts where (forgive me) #girlslikeus changed their bodies in some way, like the castration of the priestesses of Cybele, or those belonging to the various historical societies which we believe used premarin for feminization [disputed; see this post], there is no record that they were ever considered men at any stage or had some kind of male biology that preceded their 'gender identity.' the concept of the trans woman requires the minimal context of the coercive assignment at birth and its subsequent (civil and bio-technological) rejection. i have never encountered evidence that this has ever been true in any previous society. nonetheless, these societies still had gendered relations, and essentially wherever we find these gendered relations we also find some subject which is omitted or for whom it has been necessary to note exceptions. what is of chief interest to us is not so much that there was such a subject here or there in history (and whatever propagandistic uses this fact might have), but understanding why these regularities exist.

a very parsimonious explanation is that gender is a biological reality, and there is some particular biological subject which a whole host of words have been conjured to denote. if this were the case then we would expect that, no matter what gender/sexual system we encounter in a given society, it will inevitably find some linguistic expression. if, like me, you find this idea revolting, then you should busy yourself trying to come up with an alternative explanation which is not just plausible, but more plausible. my best guesses are outside the scope of this answer...

anyway, all of this must be very interesting to the five or six people invested in the confluence of philology and gender studies. but why on earth did it become so widely used, in so many strange and unusual contexts, in the 2010s? we're very sorry, but yes, it's our fault. you see apart from all of this, there is also a little piece of information which goes along with the word baeddel, which is that it's the root of the Modern English word bad. by way of, no less, the word baedan, 'to defile'. how this defiled historical subject came to bear responsibility for everything bad to English-speakers doesn't seem to be known from linguistic evidence. however, it makes for a very pithy little remark on transmisogyny. my dear friend [REDACTED] made a playful little post making this point and, good Lord, had we only known...

it went like this. its such a funny little idea that we all start changing our urls to include the word baeddel. in those days it was common to make puns with your url (we always did halloween and christmas ones); i was baeddelaire, a play on the French poet Baudelaire. while we all still had these urls a series of events which everyone would like to forget happened, and we became Enemies of Everyone in the Whole World. because of the url thing people started to call us "the baeddels." then there was "a cult" called "the baeddels" and so forth. this cult had various infamies attatched to it and a constellation of indefensible political positions. ultimately we faced a metric fucking shit ton of harassment, including, for some of my friends, really serious and bad irl harassment that had long-term bad awful consequences relating to stable housing and physical safety and i basically never want to talk about that part of my life ever again. and i never have to, because i've come to realize that for most people, when they use the word baeddel, they don't know about that stuff. it doesn't mean that anymore.

so what does it mean? you'll see it in a few contexts. TERFs do use it, as you guessed. i am not quite sure what they really mean by it and how it differs from other TERF barbs. i think being a baeddel invovles being politically active or at least having a political consciousness, but in a way thats distinct from just any 'TRA' or trans activist. so perhaps 'militant' trans women, but perhaps also just any trans woman with any opinions at all. how this was transmitted from tumblr/west coast tranny drama to TERF vocabulary i have no idea. but you will also find - or, could have found a few years ago - i would say 'copycat' groups who didn't know us or what we believed but heard the rumours, and established their own (generously) organizations (usually facebook groups) dedicated to putting those principles into practice. they considered themselves trans lesbian separatists and did things like doxx and harass trans women who dated cafabs. if you don't know about this, yes, there really were such groups. they mostly collapsed and disappeared because they were evildoers who based their ideology on a caricature. i knew a black trans woman who was treated very badly by one of these groups, for predictable reasons. so long-time readers: if you see people talking about their bad experiences with 'baeddels', you can't necessarily relate it to the 2014 context and assume they're carrying around old baggage. there are other dreams in the nightmare.

the most common way you'll see it today, in my experience, is in this form: people will say that it was a "slur" for trans women. they might bring up that it's the root of the word bad, and they might even think that you shouldn't use the word bad because of it, or that you shouldn't use the word baeddel because it's a slur. all of this is a silly game of internet telephone and not worth addressing. except to say that it's by no means clear that baeddel, or baedling, were slurs, or even insulting at all. while Theodore doesn't provide us with a description of how we can have sex with a baedling without sinning, and it may be the case that any sexual relations with a baedling was considered sinful, sexuality-based transgressions were not taken all that seriously in those days. there was a period where homosexuality within the Church was almost sanctioned, and it wasn't until much later that homosexuality became so harshly proscribed, to the extent that it was thought to represent a threat to society, etc. and as i mentioned, there are places in England named after baedlings. there is a little parish near Kent which is called Badlesmere, Baeddel's Lake, which was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book (as having a lord, a handful of villagers and a few slaves; perhaps only one or two households). it's not unheard of, but i just don't know very many places called Faggot Town or some such. it's possible that baedlings had some role in Anglo-Saxon society which we are not aware of; it could even have been a prestigious one, as it was in other societies. there is just no evidence other than a couple of passing references in the literature and we'll probably never have a complete picture.

[d3nt4l-d4m4g3]

A few days ago, I emailed my former professor about a paper on women’s food practices in the middle ages. At least, that’s what I told him it was about, initially. 

But actually, I wanted to discuss heresy. This professor teaches a women’s rights course every year. Every year at the beginning of the class, he calls attention to why he, a man, is talking about women’s rights. He looks us in the eyes and says, no one else is doing it, and I’m sorry it’s me.

This man made us read the SCUM manifesto, Gerda Lerner, Maria Mies. He grazed the subject of the Lesbian Sex Wars, delicately, so gingerly, posing the question: “Can sex work ever be just work?”  And my  (all woman) classmates, generally mute—in a Women’s Rights class, they all seemed averse to saying the word “woman,” at all. Then one woman raised her hand. and she said, “Sex work is real work.”  A statement that, as I hope you know, is a deflection and a discussion killer.  

At the time I was non-binary. Hah. I submitted a comic at the end of the year of my final project. My thesis for that project was this: the very language female people have to use for themselves was constructed by the patriarchy. for example, the english word “vagina” comes from the latin word for “sheath”. so the vagina invokes the act of penetration upon its utterance. Whereas the word “penis” has no clear etymological root, implying that it is original while the vagina is constructed for him. Why should I carry the fact that I will always be a tool, the hole, of the human that is man? My solution, at the end of the comic, was to continue using they/them pronouns, to shield myself from the horror of being a wo-man, a s-he—an appendage of Him. 

I got a good grade. A stellar report. And it wasn’t a bad comic, for what I knew then. For my condition of blindness and deafness. I made a compelling argument, using sources from class.  But oh, how much older I feel now. I’ve always felt old but now I feel almost like I’m dying. Like I don’t have enough time to fix the world before I disappear. And women’s stories never survive. They are not surviving. networks spring up like mycelium and then every century at least they are burned. Witchcraft is in the air shared by women in a room of their own, and witchcraft is doused in gasoline.

I don’t have enough time to explain how the veil lifted for me. Maybe I forget the big moment. the days after were a blur of searching the no-no tags like radical feminist, GNC, gender critical. Amazed at the wealth of journals that these women linked to with real statistics showing that children are being sterilized for no reason. Mostly gay children. like me, a lesbian, who now lives in a house with three  “non-binary afabs”. This summer, one of these women, who I have known since freshman year, will start taking testosterone, a procedure I took up  for three turbulent months during my freshman year of college. I get to watch her become what I turned away from, knowing the experience fractured my sense of self to a point of  terror and estrangement. I get to watch her hide from her problems and cut herself off from womanhood the way I did for 3 years. I am not a woman, so do I not feel Woman’s pain, she is telling me, I told myself, when I was in a dream.  She has so many problems, she laughs. But trans is a separate problem that has nothing to do with those other problems. A coincidence.

 (For any trans people reading this, you may think: This transtrender fake-trans never-was-trans woman is treating these nonbinary people as if they were dead! as if they weren’t happy people finally living their truth! —well. I put my mom through the process of trying to convince her that I should have always been a man. and I did lose her, for months. For her it was the height of cognitive dissonance that I should want to go on a life-altering hormone to cure my lifelong social awkwardness and self-hatred and self-harm and depression. And I blamed her for not accepting my real self. I was basically made to shun her and my family because of transphobia.. It is disrespectful to anyone’s sanity and integrity for me to perpetuate that cognitive dissonance in this post.)

So I eventually got through to the professor. I knew because of the texts he had us to read for class. He is gay.  He has read all the theory, and lives by it.  And no (woman) student wants to speak to him. To bring the theory alive. They cannot breathe into it and it sits dead in his mouth.

Maybe it is because he is a man. because the presence of one man in a space of all women immediately sends up alerts.  lockdown. Certainly that is the case. Radical Feminists here: I know he’s a man. But I don’t have a woman. And I felt on the strength of the texts he’d given us that he would be my best bet. Maybe somewhere in the corrupted, rotting heart of my college there was a person who knew about thoughtcrimes and was thinking them anyway.

My professor starts with diversion. He starts by talking about my paper. I find it disconcerting that he starts that way. I worry that he won’t want to refer to my email. Where I say: I have woken up from a dream to the apocalypse—Does this man think I’m crazy? Chipper and kind of frantically, he lists off  primary sources of medieval nuns and women saints. for my paper.  Does this man think I’ve turned into a bigot?  Am I confessing lunacy, like a flat-earther?

But I steer the conversation to the meat at his first tentative encouragement. I tell him something like: “children, mostly gay children, a whole generation of gay children, are being sterilized. Porn is a symptom of late-stage capitalism—men’s ownership of women’s bodies. trans is an extension of this. I was part of this. I was in a cult.” I was shaking a bit. I don’t think I’d uttered those words out loud. They sound crazy. Some of the things I said did sound far-fetched. disorganized, remote. But I prayed that my professor would believe some of it, any of it. 

 What I will say is that he believes me.  Thank fuck, right?

He tells me something along the lines of this, vocalizing my fears: 

that all of academia is being scrubbed of anything that doesn’t support Trans.

And it is trans-identified female students and women who are reporting him to Title IX, who spend all their time in his classes fuming at the lack of validation for trans women in the  history of women. My sisters, footsoldiers for the cause. What cruel irony. This man is holding onto this class by his fingernails, speaking through his teeth, hoping any of the twenty young adult women staring blankly or angrily at him will hear him and listen.

 Looking back, the professor’s responses to my emails are vague, completely refusing to acknowledge a point of view other than “WOW. I look forward to discussing this.”  I think he thinks he could be blackmailed. Anything he says on gmail dot com can and would be used against him. It’s like, really, really, really that bad. 

No ideology should involve a cultural cleaning of women’s history feat. witch hunts. 

I will end here with an excerpt from my first email to this professor:

I'm sure you know what a total bummer it is to realize this. 

[slavghoul]

Hey! Do you have the metal hammer interview that contained the questions that the fans asked?

Sure

I got into horror movies because of Ghost. What are your favourite horror movies, and what horror movies would you recommend? @The_Moon_Thief, Twitter

“There’s two branches of horror movies for me. There’s old classic slasher films, as in Friday The 13th and stuff like that, but then you have the really good horror films, the ones made by really talented directors who primarily don’t do horror, and do other films as well. The best horror films ever made are The Shining by Stanley Kubrick, Jaws by Steven Spielberg, Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola, The Exorcist, The Omen. But then, you have classic cult directors. Lucio Fulci was an Italian director who made a lot of films that are entertaining. The House By The Cemetery is a classic one by him. The horror genre is hurt by the fact you have these really heavy-hitters who come in and do these fantastic films, and then unfortunately a lot of the genre is a swamp of really bad films.”

Would you ever play Glastonbury or other ‘mainstream’ festivals? Carly Daly, email

“We have played a lot of festivals like Pukkelpop, Rock En Seine, Roskilde - a lot of festivals where we are one of the few ‘metal bands’ but the headliner can be Bjork, Primal Scream and Drake. We played Coachella and Lollapalooza, lots of festivals like that… except for Glastonbury.”

Hammer: Is Glasto on your bucket list? “It would be cool of course, but it’s never really been one of my most important ones, so no. I don’t know if this is the same for Glastonbury, this is my interpretation, but at Coachella, if you’re on the bill, you don’t have to play because no one will watch you anyway. Everyone is there for the big hip hop headliner. When we played Coachella, we went to see Dead Can Dance there and it was a few people in a tent. For fucking Dead Can Dance. Are you kidding me?! That’s why I’m just not generally all for those big pop festivals. I would miss a lot of the camaraderie. If you go to Graspop or Download, you go in there you know everyone, so many people. Whereas if you go to a big pop festival or mixed festival, everyone is in their own little universe.”

Hammer: There are rumours you’re playing Glasto this year - is there anything in those rumours?

“No. Not now at least. That’s more than I know. I might live to regret what I just said!”

How much does writing new music go hand in hand with curating the new designs/'look’ for new eras? @haxbourne, Twitter “They go partly together. It’s always in the front of my head how a song will fit into the show or if there’s anything we can do to turn it into what we call a ‘gag’. Gag songs tend to work better in the sets, so I always have a monocle on for that. For some people who are wondering why we’re not doing songs off the new album already, it’s because there might be a planned gag for them that we haven’t been able to present yet.”

How do you feel knowing that many of your LGBT fans like to personally interpret/depict your characters as gay and/or trans? @sanguinevampyr, Twitter “Good. Great. If they find solace or inspiration in what we’re doing, I’m really happy about that."

Have you ever done a sick in one of your masks onstage, either from a hangover or the smell? Erin Smith, email “Once on a South American tour, we had a really bad flu going on with the band and crew. It was absolutely fucking horrible. Day after day, someone new fell apart and people were lying backstage in the foetal position with a cork in the front and a cork in the back, purging. That was not cool.”

What’s your favourite Abba song? @Dorkus666, Twitter “Right now, I Have A Dream. It involves three chords, and the third chord comes in at such a brilliant moment at the third section of the song. The first two sections are the same two chords, back and forth. Then all of a sudden, the third chord comes in and… they should be getting a Nobel Music prize for that one because it’s so fucking brilliant.”

Back when nobody knew who was behind the mask, what was your favourite rumour that you heard about yourself? Trent Carvalho, email “That I was tall! Especially in the Papa Emeritus attire. In the beginning in underground circles it was a fairly known fact that I was in the band, so I never felt 100% anonymous in the early days.”

Who is your favourite Ghost - fictional or otherwise? Bradley Stratton, Facebook “I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of ghosts in Star Wars. They appear as apparitions that can converse with you. If the Star Wars saga had been written a few hundred years ago, it would have been a religion, it has all the cornerstones of a religion and the idea of the elders and your teachers coming back to teach you from behind the grave is presented really well.”

If you had to wipe one of the following bands from history, which would it be: Iron Maiden, Kiss, Misfits? William Hawks, email “If I had to wipe them out? Oh, that’s a hard one. It’s an easy question, but the answer is hard; I have to be pragmatic. I’m a humongous fan of all three bands. The one band I’d choose to wipe out, and that’s not a diss, what they did was so great, is Misfits. My control freakishness and my managerial inclinations would love to go back in time and correct a few things they did wrong. Not aesthetically, but business-wise. I would have wished for them to have a better career. I’d love to go back and curate their career because the career of Misfits, Samhain and Danzig put together would have been marvellous.”

What is metal missing in 2022? Danielle Bull, email “It would be cool if there were newer, young bands regarded as more than a novelty, or an underground treasure. More organic rock bands of 20-year- olds recognised on a little bit more of a… I hate to say mainstream, but above the pub level. I’m all about underground, I come from the underground, and I worship the underground music, but for the resurgence of rock, we need that. I’d love if there were more bands that went through a similar recognition [channel] to Maneskin, actually. I think they’re really cool. They won Eurovision because they’re great, but they’re one of the few exceptions of it not being the end of their career. That’s usually what happens if you’re a band.”

Hammer: Have you ever considered Eurovision or been asked to do it? “No, not really, but I wouldn’t want to do it because as I said, it’s usually the end of your career. If you already have an established career, then don’t do it. Although Maneskin proved it could be done. I hope there’s a lot of 14-year-olds out there in Europe and the world who see that as an inspiration and start playing drums, bass and guitar.”

What weird shit do you collect? Robbie Gregg, email “I collect demo tapes. Old death metal demo tapes from the mid-8os to 1992. Black metal. Death metal. Thrash metal. Underground music. If anyone reading this who sits on shit like that… and if you are owners of original stuff that you got directly from the band… please call me!”

Would you ever have a female lead singer? @elyssami8, Twitter “Why not? That could happen. Sister Emeritus!”

If you could pick one metal song that changed your life, what would it be? James Persens, email “I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister. That is probably the earliest song that I remember being able to sing and rock out to. That came out in 1984 and I was three years old at the time. I was lucky enough to have an older brother and in 1984 he was 16. A lot of who I am, why I am who I am, and my interests, is because of him. That’s my first memory of me thinking, ‘This is who I am.’”