#i am aware there are some newer translations out there that i have not read. yet. so do not take this as a be all end all recommendation!!!

[mariana-oconnor]

The Three Students pt 1

Three of them? Are they medical students, because we've already discussed how disturbing that gets.

It was in the year '95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns...

Is he withholding the name of the town for its protection?

It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive.

Oh, he is.

Honestly Oxford and Cambridge, and probably most of the other universities, had the resources to sue him to hell and back for libel, so that might be a wise course of action. Other universities were available, but there were only about 12 universities in Britain at that time, and he specifies they were spending weeks in the town, so it won't be the University of London. That leaves (in age order): Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Durham, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Manchester, or Cardiff. The University of Wales would only have been 2 years old in 1895, so Cardiff probably wouldn't count as a 'great' university town. Honestly, I don't know if anything from Durham onwards would have been regarded as 'great' because they were all founded in the 1800s. Durham would have been over 60 years old, does that count as a 'great university town' to Watson? I don't know.

Honestly, he's probably leaving it vague so people can project their own biases onto it. The rivalries between universities are longstanding.

He's never specified leaving anything out to prevent offence before, though. Like, maybe he changes the names, but he's never specified anything, and has a few times referred to people being aware of things from the papers. I think it really shows Watson's priorities here that he's obscuring the information in this one especially when he's published other people's dirty laundry for all the world to see.

“I trust, Mr. Holmes, that you can spare me a few hours of your valuable time. We have had a very painful incident at St. Luke's, and really, but for the happy chance of your being in the town, I should have been at a loss what to do.”

The more they talk about how painful and scandalous the incident is, the more convinced I am that I will not find it particularly painful or scandalous. But I may be wrong.

Also, the fact that we're referring to colleges does narrow it down a bit. As far as I know, most universities in the UK don't have a collegiate system. Oxford and Cambridge do, St Andrews does (on a smaller scale, I believe), Aberdeen does (similarly to St Andrews, only 3, I think), and Durham does. I don't think Edinburgh and Glasgow have colleges in the same way, and I can't find any evidence that they used to in a quick bit of internet searching.

The fact that Holmes was looking into English Charters makes me think that this is probably in England, though, not Scotland, so I'm still thinking Oxford or Cambridge, or possibly Durham, but less likely as it's a newer university.

"...this is just one of those cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most essential to avoid scandal."

Oh boy, I already don't like these people. I smell cover-up all over this. I can feel the outrage already starting to brew inside me and we don't even know what's happened yet.

"My subject is Greek, and the first of the papers consists of a large passage of Greek translation which the candidate has not seen. This passage is printed on the examination paper, and it would naturally be an immense advantage if the candidate could prepare it in advance."

Is this a cheating scandal? Seriously?

Also, I assume it's taken from an extant Greek text, so surely there's always a chance that that student will have studied that text in their own time as part of their reading? They presumably have access to the university library, which presumably contains texts in Ancient Greek?

"The only duplicate which existed, so far as I knew, was that which belonged to my servant, Bannister, a man who has looked after my room for ten years, and whose honesty is absolutely above suspicion."

Nobody is above suspicion.

"I found that the key was indeed his, that he had entered my room to know if I wanted tea, and that he had very carelessly left the key in the door when he came out."

A likely story.

"The proof was in three long slips. I had left them all together. Now, I found that one of them was lying on the floor, one was on the side table near the window, and the third was where I had left it.”

That's just incompetence. You didn't even try to leave them close to where you found them, unknown interloper? Come on. You're better than this. You must have some brains.

"A large sum of money is at stake, for the scholarship is a very valuable one, and an unscrupulous man might very well run a risk in order to gain an advantage over his fellows."

So this is for a scholarship? So probably not a spoilt little rich kid. Unless it is a spoilt little rich kid who can't be bothered to do the work.

“Bannister was very much upset by the incident. He had nearly fainted when we found that the papers had undoubtedly been tampered with."

Bannister knows who did it. He's probably related to them. He let them in.

“This was not all. I have a new writing-table with a fine surface of red leather. I am prepared to swear, and so is Bannister, that it was smooth and unstained. Now I found a clean cut in it about three inches long—not a mere scratch, but a positive cut. Not only this, but on the table I found a small ball of black dough, or clay, with specks of something which looks like sawdust in it."

...This I do not understand. The cheater stopped to do some arts and crafts? They clearly were cutting something, but what's the clay for? Putty eraser? Some weird way of making a copy?

"Either I must find the man or else the examination must be postponed until fresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without explanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a cloud not only on the college, but on the University."

Yeah, I was right. I don't consider this particularly scandalous. You could totally make up an excuse why the exam needs to be changed at the last minute, and even if you didn't I still don't think 'someone peeked at the answers' is the kind of scandal that could bring an entire university into disrepute. But what do I know? I'm sitting here in the future where there's an entire industry of students paying other people to write essays for them and if they don't want to pay they can just get an AI to write it instead.

"Had anyone visited you in your room after the papers came to you?” “Yes; young Daulat Ras, an Indian student who lives on the same stair, came in to ask me some particulars about the examination.”

Fingers crossed - please don't be racist. please don't be racist. please don't be racist.

Of course, that's only one student, according to the title there are three.

“Where is Bannister now?” “He was very ill, poor fellow. I left him collapsed in the chair."

Yeah, he knows something. He's got to.

“Well,” said he, “let us go round. Not one of your cases, Watson—mental, not physical. All right; come if you want to."

This bit made me laugh. Has Watson just been sitting there watching you pore over obscure English charters for hours, Holmes? And how many times has he come with you when nothing physical needed doing? But no, this isn't one of his cases.

“Dear me!” said Holmes, and he smiled in a singular way as he glanced at our companion. “Well, if there is nothing to be learned here we had best go inside.”

Clearly there was something to be learned there and Holmes is being smug about finding it when no one else has realised.

It was a small pyramid of black, putty-like stuff, exactly like the one upon the table of the study. Holmes held it out on his open palm in the glare of the electric light. “Your visitor seems to have left traces in your bedroom as well as in your sitting-room, Mr. Soames.”

OK, now it's a scandal. You really shouldn't be having students in your bedroom, Mr Soames. Especially right before exam time, and with allegations of cheating hovering in the air. What will the ethics committee say? Now, obviously, two consenting adults, but there are some distinct questions that need to be asked about these things in the circumstances.

Not that I expect there was an ethics committee in 1895.

“What could he have wanted there?”

Mr Soames, blissfully unaware of the world.

“I will tell you, then, in a few words the character of the three men who inhabit these rooms. The lower of the three is Gilchrist, a fine scholar and athlete; plays in the Rugby team and the cricket team for the college, and got his Blue for the hurdles and the long jump. He is a fine, manly fellow. His father was the notorious Sir Jabez Gilchrist, who ruined himself on the turf. My scholar has been left very poor, but he is hard-working and industrious. He will do well."

So he really needs the scholarship then, is what I'm hearing here. Also 'fine, manly fellow'. People really did just say things like that back then, huh?

“The second floor is inhabited by Daulat Ras, the Indian. He is a quiet, inscrutable fellow, as most of those Indians are. He is well up in his work, though his Greek is his weak subject. He is steady and methodical."

Ah, yes, racism. Could be worse racism, but still. And this guy probably isn't going to do well in the exam, so wants to up his grade.

“The top floor belongs to Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow when he chooses to work—one of the brightest intellects of the University, but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. He has been idling all this term, and he must look forward with dread to the examination.”

And the spoilt little rich kid, previously hypothesised, seemingly lazy and didn't bother with his lessons so now he needs to catch up. Seems to obvious from the description, though. My money is on the Fine, manly fellow at the moment, because clearly he's the one Soames doesn't suspect at all. OR all three of them are working together. I assume there are other people also taking the exam.

“That is singular, because you sat down in that chair over yonder near the corner. Why did you pass these other chairs?”

So he could be closer to the bedroom door? Though I don't know how that would help him? To see out the window?

“Oh, I would not venture to say, sir. I don't believe there is any gentleman in this University who is capable of profiting by such an action. No, sir, I'll not believe it.”

These guys really don't like cynicism, huh? Couldn't possibly be anyone who did this. It all must have just happened on its own.

Bannister might have let one or more of them in under false pretences and then realised what was going on after the fact. That would explain his excessive reaction (although, it occurs to me that since they're taking this so seriously, he might lose his job over it, which would explain a large reaction, but then sitting in the furthest seat possible is odd).

[titheinironside]

Twenty Questions

Thank you @cupofteaandstars for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 10

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 32,467

What fandoms do you write for? I used to write for Twilight, now it's OC content.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

So In Love

Devil's Heart

Darling, What Am I To Do? (NSFW)

I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

Shared Sentiment

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Not often, no. I love reading them, but I'm also aware the comment count on AO3 includes my replies, so it's a bit demoralizing knowing I make up half that number.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The Lonely Moments Just Get Lonelier (And Lonelier, That Doesn't Change). I view hopeful endings like that as somewhat angsty, and none of my other angst fics are finished.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Shared Sentiment, though They're Disgustingly Domestic is a close second.

Do you get hate on fics?

Nope.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, but it's under my second AO3, it doesn't go on my main. I play hard and explicit with less ethical themes - mind control, non-con, dub-con, emotional manipulation, psychological horror. Mind the tags, as the saying goes.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I wrote one for GISH 2022 - it was a Buffy, Criminal Minds, and Gravity Falls crossover. Probably the most out of pocket one I've ever written.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No? If I have I don't know about it. Don't steal my writing though.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I'd love to get some of my newer works translated by anyone willing!

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I probably can't say my OC's queerplatonic marriage, that's cheating.

So Aro/Caius/Carlisle (though it's already rare enough to get Aro/Caius or Aro/Carlisle, or, gods help me, Caius/Carlisle).

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Published, unfinished: Asylum. I'm so fond of psychological horror and unethical scientific practices, but I wrote myself into a corner and can't get out of it.

Non-published, unfinished: Slip Sideways Into Reality. It's an OC work featuring liminal spaces, the Backrooms, Eldritch Gods That Don't Know Who They Are, and psychological horror.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, using action to keep conversation moving, the sense of worldbuilding without lore dumping.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue Tags. I hate hate hate writing "he said" "they whispered" blah blah blah. Let me write my physical movements to express emotions in peace!

Also character description, it's so awkward to make work.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have in the past, actually. That fic may never get published, but at the time it was my favorite was of showing intimacy and vulnerability. Would I do it nowadays? Only if I spoke the language well enough not to rely on Google translate.

First fandom you wrote for?

Twilight, technically my first and only. I have drafts for the Dream SMP though.

Favorite fic you've written?

Don't You Know No One Gets What They Came Here For? My favorite of my NSFW babies, I've become very fond of the world it's set in. It's also one of the easiest I've ever written.

SFW, definitely The Lonely Moments Just Get Lonelier (And Lonelier, That Doesn't Change) Featuring late nights, dissociation, loneliness, the inevitable ache of missing someone who’s right there, and the soothing bitterness of chocolate and quiet self-destruction. What more could a person want?

[butraura]

20 questions for fic writers!

tagged by @watchyourbuck <3

How many works do you have on AO3? > 17 (and a ton on fanfiction.net)

What's your total AO3 word count? > 158,720 words

What fandoms do you write for? > If we're just talking AO3, I've written for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The 100, Girl Meets World, Teen Wolf, Shadowhunters, and 9-1-1. Right now, I am only writing for 9-1-1 and I have a WIP I SWEAR I will get back to eventually. On FanFiction.net, I've written for Austin & Ally, Sailor Moon, and possibly some I've forgotten.

What are you top 5 fics by kudos? a. anchored (30,000 words) (9-1-1) (527 kudos) b. for your life, for your love (7,410 words) (9-1-1) (320 kudos) c. electrify me (8,625 words) (9-1-1) (168 kudos) d. the silent treatment (2,493 words) (9-1-1) (156 kudos) e. cracked ribs (9,99 words) (9-1-1) (148 kudos)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? > Sometimes. I don't ignore people on purpose, I just often get overwhelmed and/or forget. I do ignore hate comments because they're not worth my time.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? > I think all of the stories (that I've actually finished) (on AO3) have had good endings to counteract the angst in them.

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? > Maybe "for your life, for your love".

Do you get hate on fics? > I never used to lol. But that's changed in the last two weeks. It's pretty rampant now and it's trickled over to Tumblr. My philosophy is: if you don't like the plot, don't read the story.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? > I have... it's not a thing I do often lol. I give myself the ick when I do it lol. It's pretty vanilla though.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? > I don't think I ever have actually

Have you ever had a fic stolen? > Not as far as I'm aware

Have you ever had a fic translated? > I don't think it's ever happened, but someone did reach out to me once to ask if they could translate and post one of my fics in Russian. Unfortunately, I didn't see the message until literally over a year later. I would have said yes but I don't know if it was ever done.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? > Never

What's your all-time favourite ship? > It's extremely difficult to answer that because I am well-rounded girlie that grew up on TV. But; I'd say probably Buck and Eddie (Buddie) and Bellamy and Clarke (Bellarke).

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? > The only WIP I can think of that I care about this much is a Shadowhunters fic called Empires. I will do it but I just honestly don't know when.

What are your writing strengths? > Dialogue. I try really hard to make the words my characters say sound exactly like the way they'd speak in their original media.

What are you writing weaknesses? > I put such a heavy hand into dialogue that I feel like I forget to build the rest of the story. Also, finishing something. The amount of WIPs I have is atrocious.

Thought on writing dialogue in another language? > If you want to, go for it, but don't rely on Google Translate to do it for you. I typically only put Spanish or Latin in my fics and I have the help of fluent people so that the languages correctly translate. Use the tools at your disposal.

First fandom you ever wrote for? > In general, it was Austin & Ally when I was newly 14 years old lol. On AO3, it was Teen Wolf (Why Are You Half Naked?)

Favorite fic you've ever written? It was definitely anchored. It's a newer one but I am so proud of the work I put into it.

tags! (I'm sorry, I had a list of people that specifically asked to be tagged and I fricken lost it... please let me know again if you'd like to be tagged in my random fic-related posts).

[thatguywhoplaysmusicloud]

Blog Post 1: Reflection on social media

Prompt: What does the research from Common Sense Media and the Pew Research Center reveal about teens' and adults' experiences and their relationship with social media?

There are some significant differences in platform use among those measure by the Pew Research Center. Specifically, in platforms accessed by older adults. Considering that technology adoption by older adults is usually considerably lower than youth I am impressed when I see high statistics (60% - 80%) of adoption of larger platforms (Facebook, YouTube, etc.). The 18-29 year-old population represented in the PEW research uses social media site overall more than older adults and they especially utilize newer trending platforms (WhatsApp, SnapChat, and TikTok). Of the platforms mentioned in the research Facebook is the only platform utilized more by the 30-64 year-old population than 18-29 year-olds.

Prompt: What are some positive effects that were shared by teens or adults? Explain.

Among the positive effects of social media were that 25% of teens feel that using social media makes them feel less lonely, 18% said it makes them feel better about themselves, and 16% say it makes them feel less depressed. Social media plays a significant roll in the lives of teenagers. While results very across social emotional well-being spectrum many teens report that social media is “extremely” or “very” important to their lives.

Prompt: What are some negative effects that were shared? Explain.

The statistic that I was most interested in (as I find it a challenge in my own life) is the amount of distraction that comes from constant platform interruption or engagement. Most of these platforms are designed to interrupt a user with constant notifications or prompts to reengage or interact multiple times a day (if not an hour). The Common Sense Research shows that 57% of teens agree that using social media often distracts them from homework and an even more alarming statistic is that 42% of teens agree that social media take away from time they could spend in person with friends. When we look at teens who already are suffering with low social-emotional well-being they tend to experience more negative effects than the reverse. 70% of these teens feel left out or excluded when using social media and 35% have reported being cyber-bullied. What is true is that there are a myriad of negative effects of engagement on social media especially for those who have lower social-emotional well-being.

Prompt: What is one other key finding from either of the research sources that you found to be important, notable, interesting, or surprising? Explain.

The study states that 72% of teens think they are being manipulated by tech companies to spend more time on their devices. I find this statistic refreshing in that teens seem to be aware of the underlying benefit for companies to perform such Manipulation could be periodic notifications urging teens to reengage with their platforms of choice or constant notifications pandering to teens needs for social connection with their peers. Despite the fact that 72% of teens think they are being manipulated by social media I am not sure that this awareness translates to any conscious choice to disengage from social media.

Prompt: Please share any additional thoughts you have about the articles you read this week about research on how social media is impacting our experiences.

I am pleasantly surprised at the positive effects reported by teens in the study, but somewhat skeptical that we have been able to observe the results of such a large cultural shift in such a short period of time. This study also states that despite the increased use of social media between the study periods there has been no increase in the proportion of more vulnerable teens who say the feel negative effects, but there has been an increase in those who see a positive effect. This is surprising to me in that I thought the negative effects would have increased significantly.

[catilinas]

Hi!! Just read The Venus throw and now I really want to read Catullus but I have no idea where to start. Do you have any recs or editions/translations you particularly like? Thanks in advance and I hope you have a great day!

hi! the translations of catullus i Like the most are slightly different from the ones i would recommend anyone Start with but i can tell you about both!

guy lee (oxford world’s classics edition) is probably the best Starting place for catullus in english bcs. i know i am always going on about it but those editions have such good introductions for when you know literally nothing!!! also iirc it’s a parallel translation so you can look at the latin too if you want. it’s also. ok no transmission neutral but he doesn’t lean towards No Obscenity OR exaggerate the obscenity. it’s just kind of There.

my personal favourite translations (although really. i think it depends on the individual poem.) are frank copley’s (kinda e.e. cummings vibes. except then for the long poems and the elegiacs he switches to the most flawless iambic pentameter! he has the range!) and roz kaveney’s (although i don’t think she’s translated the long poems? other than 63 which is online. somewhere) which do Cool Things w anachronism and also gender and also i met her at a book fair once and she wrote me a sonnet about sappho so. i would die for her. i anti-recommend daisy dunn’s translation bcs i could not get through her ‘biography’ of catullus (fluffy prose and speculation) and she has this line in her translation of cat5 that’s like ‘once we’ve passed beneath life’s yardarm’ like daisy what the Fuck are you talking about.

[ga-yuu]

I see you are worried for ikegen future after the news about Ikerev. I mean, I was devastated. We haven't event gotten Blanc route yet. But... Maybe it's a sign that they will release ikegen in English? Or am I just crazy?

This is just my theory. Maybe they decided to shut down Ikemen revolution because they're planning on releasing a new game. Because like I said, Cybird must know when to stop. I know many fans still like the older games, but if they want to release new games in the future and if you want to play newer games, at some point both have to stop and move on, right? It's sad, but we can't do anything about it. At least we could say Ikerev survived more than 4 years I guess...it's copium...which is way better than what happened to Ikelive. No one even talked about that game when it was released and that survived for only 6 months or so. If you go to the Ikelive official website, you can read the interviews of the voice actors and it is so heartbreaking to see that they had so much planned for the game and its upcoming events but due to not gaining enough popularity it had to be shut down.

This comes to my second question, why Ikerev instead of Ikegen? Between the two, Ikerev is more popular than Ikegen. It even got an English release and has a larger fanbase than Ikegen. But I was confused as to what is the actual popularity benchmark. Some JP players (who, like me, were paranoid if ikegen would be next!) said that the popularity of their games is not only determined by the votes that are gained from the general election, but also from the merchandise purchased for each game and their revenue, as well. Because Cybird like any other company is greedy. Now I'm not saying that you should go spend your life savings on Ikemen genjiden to make it popular...No! The reason why I started this blog was to make people aware that this game exists. Because when I found out about this game, I saw no one on Tumblr posting about anything related to it. No fanarts, no fanfictions, heck! not even a rant post saying that 'Hey! Ikemen genjiden is shit. Don't play it'... So I tried the game myself to check if it was even worth my time and since then I've never uninstalled it. I started to write as many translations as I could because I know English players won't play the game until it has a global release and it's a painful process to sit down and translate each line. That's why I did the painful work so that you can guys somehow enjoy this game. I felt like if more people started playing the JP app, voting for the general election on their anniversary, answering their survey, etc will let them know that even English players are interested in their game. You don't have to buy their merchandise if you don't want to, but at least show some support by downloading the JP app and playing. Again! I'm not saying that waste all your time, 24 hours a day, playing this game. I'm just saying, if you want to support the game and enjoy more contents, play the Japanese app. Even if you don't understand what's going on, you can at least enjoy the spine-chilling soundtracks!

I already translated 3 main stories in my blog, @sakura-samsara is translating SHigehira and Yoichi's route, @yoshitsune1411 is doing the Kagetoki route. So check their blogs as well. If none of these are your favorite characters? No problem! I have a solution for that too. You can ask summary for each route from world-famous Ikemen writer @dear-mrs-otome herself. I'm sure she won't mind. (Please don't curse me @dear-mrs-otome for using your name...). If you're still complaining, use a translator! You guys didn't seem to mind playing the JP app of ikemen prince when it was released then why are you not doing the same thing for ikemen genjiden.

See, if you want Ikemen genjiden it has to be very popular and just because they shut down Ikerev doesn't mean that Ikegen's English release is possible. Because if they wanted it, they would have already done it.

Also, the other two people who send me some other questions relating to Ikemen genjiden...don't worry! I've already seen it, I'll answer it soon because I need some time to gather some facts about each character to give somewhat of an accurate answer. I'm also a little busy, right now. I'll upload it soon. So please bear with me.

[nysus-temple]

Hi everyone, i'm back with my bullshit. Thanks specially to @margaretartstuff for giving me this idea.

Time to disappoint you all with my 7 ( 6 actually- ) different editions ( or versions- ) of the Odyssey, each one worse than the last because i got most of them when i was like 10 years old ! The good old days were i didn't have to worry about being a functional adult. Anyways.

1. ) This one for some reason includes the Homeric Hymns as well:

i remember buying it ONLY because in the one i already owned had Odysseus named "Ulysses" and i was going through a phase in which i was picky about it. Well i don't think i ever left that phase, let's be real 🥲

it's a good one, i like this one a lot, since as i said it includes other things as well.

The translation is good in general as well ( i mean they wrote "Helio(s)" instead of Sun, but that's up to the translator after all ), the verses have numbers as well and they didn't erase any part from it.

2. ) Oh this one, i have mixed feelings about this one:

The book is SO PRETTY and the translation is pretty nice as well, but uh, it includes that one "Penelope's Version" that Margaret Atwood wrote that is a big nono for me, it's one of those "feminist" retellings that WHAT A SURPRISE keep calling Helen a w/hore, but oh well.

It has some pretty drawings, they're funny more than anything else, but it calls Odysseus "Ulysses" so yeh, haven't read this version on a long time.

3. ) THIS IS— A MANGA—:

I've seen some people around here talking about it before sksnsk it's pretty, it's fun, but it's VERY short and i hate it.

It also, for example, include stuff that wasn't in the Iliad and lacks stuff that was in the Odyssey, like the Circe and the Sirens episode. I mean it is supposed to be summarized, but i wished it was longer, i'll find a newer comic someday...

Sooomedaay...

LOOK AT THESE ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE !!

My main complain is the lack of, well, you know the drill, Minoan fashion, but wellp.

4. ) This is the one i use when i read the Odyssey out loud to little kids, literally:

It's very, VERY goofy. The drawings are just very cute to me and i can't help but laugh whenever i take a loot at it.

It's not perfect, i mainly use it as i said when i'm reciting the poem outloud, but look at that Helios

Look at that yellow dude with the rays of the sun as his moustache

i mean it does some stuff that did make me go "ehh" like saying "Helios, the god of the Sun" when Helios literally means sun, but not everyone knows that ( i think? ) so maybe that's the reason behind it.

And yes i'm aware that Odysseus is called Ulysses, welcome to Spain, most of the translations have that name and, well, you know, Hispania roots and all that.

5. ) MY FAVOURITE !!!

This. This thing right here. I love it with all my heart. It has illustrations that are either vase paintings, or mosaics, or more later-on paintings. The only complain i have is that the painting used for the sirens depicts them as mermaids- but oh well, they're called the same in Spanish so what am i gonna do about it 🥲

My personal favourites are these !! A couple of them sre actually very well-known:

Had to put them together due to Tumblr's limit of pictures. Sorry that they're kind of blurry, the pages are made of *that* paper.

I've read this edition multiple times and i still don't get tired of it, it's probably not the best one since i'm looking at it with the lens of a ξένο κορίτσι, not a Greek, so maybe if one had a look at it, it isn't that good, who knows.

6. ) Now, uh, yeh— a thing—:

Sometimes i forget the fact that the author is Italian.

This is a version for children aaaaandddd...

I mean- what else am i supposed to say about this version, i got it when i was 8, thanks to it Odysseus became the first and favourite Greek hero for me.

Is this cringy? Sorry about it 🥲

7. ) The seventh one is an old PDF document that i had to read when i first started learning Greek. It still has my notes and people don't like my handwriting much, so i'm leaving this here.

Hope you had fun ! And hope that you laughed at me, that one girl that knows the whole Odyssey by heart.

No i'm not ok.

[spectralarchers]

I wanna know about the rant now 😅

Okay, so, since both you and @ohmystarsy​ messaged me about it, I’m gonna try and type it out again. It’s based on this post by @engulfes:

[Picture ID: A tumblr post by user @engulfes, quote: i’ve just been thinking about how english and americans online expect everyone to know their literature and poetry, their ~classics~ when literally every other country in the world also has an incredible and interesting literary history that is probably more relevant to it’s own citizens, like i’m not saying you shouldn’t branch out to intl lit because i think everyone should but that includes english first language speakers who have never picked up a translated book in their lives, unquote. The post has, at time of writing this, 13,669 notes. End Picture ID].

The rant I started writing was about how this is also about Modern Pop Culture and general American and/or English popular culture, and the sort of expectation that English-speaking online communities have that everyone will share their specific set of cultural standards.

I only saw The Princess Bride like... three years ago? When I was 25 years old? Mean Girls was a movie someone force fed me in 2017 because I told them I hadn’t seen it before. I still, to this day, being aged 27 years old, have not seen Home Alone, Die Hard, any of the Back to the Future movies, the old Ghostbusters movies (or I may have when I was a child, but I don’t remember ANYTHING about them), I haven’t seen Grease, I haven’t seen Saturday Night Fever, I haven’t even seen Top Gun or Dirty Dancing. I haven’t seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show nor The Labyrinth.

The whole sort of expectation that every single person online ever has seen these is very American (and to a certain extent, British)-centric, because it assumes that everyone, everywhere, had the same childhood and/or education growing up.

I was disappointed when I watched the Princess Bride because the memes and the general American-centric pop culture had made it out to be extremely quotable (and I mean, it is...) but... having grown up in a country that wasn’t English speaking just meant that all the quotables things I say in my day to day life aren’t from those movies specifically (and expecting everyone on the internet to understand the reference from Mean Girls and/or any of the aforementioned movies is English speaking-centric).

I grew up in France, which means that the movies I grew up with and revisit again, and again, and again are things like Rrrrrrr!, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopatre, Brice de Nice, La Tour Montparnasse Infernale - and those are just the “newer” ones! Then there’s Le Dîner de Con, L’Aile ou la Cuisse, Les Bronzés, Les Bronzés Font du Ski, La Carioca, Les Visiteurs, etc. etc. AND THOSE ARE JUST THE COMEDIES! I feel utterly desperate when I’m in a movie theater in Denmark, filled with the urge to yell “Ca va être tout noir!” because I KNOW that if I do that in France, at least one person will respond with “Ta gueule!”. Same goes when someone happens to say “Bonne situation” because it triggers my will to quote the “Je ne pense pas qu’il y ait de bonne ou de mauvaise situation...”-monologue from Mission Cléopatre. 

I still don’t get the whole Bob Ross thing, but that’s probably because I had Art Attack on screen instead. Television show wise, I didn’t watch Sesame Street and it took me a long time to figure out who the different characters were, but I did grow up with the Minikeums, and being a Danish citizen as well, with Kaj & Andrea, Anna & Lotte and a whole bunch of other puppets (Vip & Viktor still give me nightmares to this day).

Culturally, the things that make me who I am - and I am a third culture kid, so that makes it even more difficult - is all of the above mentioned things but also the Guignols, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde, NRJ Music Awards, Johnny Hallyday (yes, him), and more still that I’m forgetting right now, that American and British people have absolutely zero idea about. This isn’t a critic or to point fingers, but assuming that all non-English speaking people need to know the exact same cultural references as you is harmful to you and to others, because it diminishes the culture of other countries and assumes that yours is better. (It probably isn’t). 

I still feel behind on my own Danish culture because I didn’t grow up in Denmark (I still have issues differentiating the Skagen-painters, I still haven’t seen Matador, I still don’t think that Anders Mattesen is funny, I don’t get the Cirkus Revy culture, I still haven’t seen any Olsen Banden movies that I remember of, etc.), and it’s a full time job of having to learn the entire culture of a country you’re living in WHILE still entertaining and keeping up to date with the French culture (I read the French television program magazine Télé 7 Jours every single week so that I don’t get completely lost, and I try to watch Secrets d’Histoire when I can, and...), WHILE ALSO having to keep up with the whole English speaking craziness of the whole world and feeling like being one or two steps behind with getting up to date on everything because HOLY SHIT.

Assuming that everyone knows the US classics (I still haven’t read The Great Gatsby, and I have no intention of doing so) or the UK classics (Pride & Prejudice? Emma? Wuthering Heights?) means that you assume there are no other classics that have to be read. Same goes with some poetry - I’ll take Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry over Tennyson any day, but it doesn’t mean that Tennyson’s poetry was bad (it just isn’t “my” poetry, if that makes sense). 

I adore Candide by Voltaire, and I had to analyze more Apollinaire poems that I liked in high school, and reading Germinal by Victor Hugo was a pain, but somehow, those are still things I consider “my” classics. My “French classes” in French school, which are the equivalent to English in English schools, offered analysis of the French cultural landscape reaching back centuries and going forward too. 

Like I said, I’m a third culture kid and the only one person who will ever understand the potential myriad references I make across several languages is my sister, who grew up in the same environment as me (we often joke that if we were ever in a TV show to analyze our cultural language, they’d need at French, a Danish and an English-speaking analyst to understand what we’re referencing half of the time).

But, again, assuming or even more, EXPECTING that the US and UK English speaking cultural things that make up your culture are what should or can make up other people’s cultures is harmful and it erases the culture of the world, but also of minorities in your own countries (thinking specifically of Native American cultures, as well as more specific Irish and Scottish cultures for the British Isles), etc. 

And yet, I’m still privileged myself because I *have* a shitton of culture to look into, that has been preserved and is available to me to look at, and a lot of French classics have been translated (The Phantom of the Opera AND Les Misérables are the first things that pop into my mind because holy shit) into English and are readily available, the same goes to poetry, etc. Same goes for a lot of Danish stuff as well. A lot of culture around the world and throughout history was actively killed and erased specifically as part of genocidal colonialism (and I am acutely aware that both France and Denmark are former colonialist empires and still bear that mark on their own cultures).

I think I’ve lost the point of the rant, but I just wanted to specific that the “classics” aspect of culture isn’t the only aspect that falls under the above text post. It’s all of the cultural landscape that does so.

PS: I have seen quite a lot of movies like Life of Brian and The Holy Grail by the Monty Pythons though, and I have seen Strange Brew with Bob & Doug McKenzie because *something something Canadian friends* but I doubt that those qualify for the specific line of thought presented above, lol. 

[chilling-seavey]

OH MY GOSH OKAY SINCE WE'RE DOING THE CHRISTMAS WRITING PARTY CAN U WRITE ONE FOR PASSCHENDAELE WHERE IT'S THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AFTER THE WAR OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? OR OR OR THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE

Love the idea of the Christmas Truce and I forgot I actually had this one planned since the beginning! For those of you who don’t know, The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a true event that happened, where British and German soldiers left their trenches on Christmas Day and celebrated together in peace. 

Get your tissues ready.

Also thank you to @janav21 for helping me with some German translations xx

T/W Mentions of war violence, death, the honest truth the deep down all humans are good, and the first seeds of what would later stem into PTSD

December 24, 1914

“Post for you, Lance Corporal Seavey.”

Through the darkness of the night, Christian raised his head from the side of the trench to look up at the man standing in front of him and holding out a brown paper wrapped package. With shivering hands in gloves that didn’t do much to keep in the heat, Christian reached up to take it from him, the men sharing stiff nods as thanks and acknowledgment before the man continued down the lines.

It was a particularly cold night and the ground was frozen with fresh fallen snow, stained red in places from battles and brown in places from upturned soil made from shells but the light flurries that fell through the silent night made it feel somewhat peaceful. Christian pulled at the string and opened his package, the first thing on the top being an old family photograph of his parents and his younger brother and younger sister and him from years earlier when they were small. He smiled warmly at the memory, missing them more than ever on Christmas Eve. Normally they would be sitting by their Christmas tree and singing carols and drinking warm mugs of tea around the fire but instead, he was sat all alone in frozen stiff soil trenches in the middle of Belgium. The next item was a letter tucked on top of a small bar of chocolate. Christian smiled at the gift and unwrapped the corner of it to take a bite.

The crack of the cold coca from his teeth seemed to nearly echo through the barren wasteland the British army found themselves in, but Christian smiled bashfully to himself as he let the sweet flavour melt in his mouth. As he ate his treat, he unfolded his letter from his mother to read her near weekly correspondence.

My Darling Christian,

Christmas is not the same without you. Anna and Daniel and I decorated the tree together last week and there was no one to put the star on top. Daniel took your job instead but he had to stand on a chair and nearly toppled right off! You would have had such a laugh with us. I couldn’t resist a year without at least giving you something small so I hope this chocolate bar suffices – we are not allowed to send anything larger. I hope next Christmas I will see you home again as I miss you terribly. The world over here seems so much darker without you around, my sunshine, but I am sure you are bringing your bright spirits wherever you go. Please write me and let me know how Christmas is celebrated in Belgium (although I know you are most likely already writing an essay for me!). Your weekly letters make me miss you more but they let me know that you are well and safe.

I love you, my sweet angel. Happy Christmas.

Mum xx

Christian sniffled and folded the letter to tuck it back into his inside breast pocket along with the photograph of his family. With one more bite of chocolate, he folded it back up and tucked it in his pack before letting his eyes close and his head rest back against the wall of the trench, light snowflakes falling against his face that took a while to melt with the chill that coated his pale skin. He would reply to his mother later as it was getting late, and the usual waiting game was sending Christian into a restful state.

It wasn’t long before a noise could be heard in the distance and a few of the British men quickly snapped to attention to see what was happening out in the darkness of No Mans Land. Christian sat up too, locking in on the soft tune that was drifting through the nighttime air. The words were incomprehensible but the tune was more than familiar.

“What the bloody hell is that?” one of the men whispered.

“It…It’s Silent Night, sir.” Christian answered quietly.

The higher ups turned to the Lance Corporal as if forgetting the young man could even speak. A small group had gathered in their section of the trenches, all the men bundled up in their jackets and gloves as they listened to the German soldiers singing Christmas carols from a few many yards away.

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!

Alles schläft, einsam wacht

Nur das traute, hochheilige Paar.

Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,

Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,

Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh.

The British soldiers stood in silence as they listened, a few humming quietly to themselves as if afraid to make their presence aware to the enemy. Finally, one of the newer men sang first, his curly hair falling from under his cap and his glasses slightly fogged up from his warm breath through the cold night, joining right in along side the Germans,

Silent night, holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight!

A few more men joined in, Christian included,

Glories stream from heaven afar;

Heavenly hosts sing Al-le-lu-ia!

And soon everyone was singing together in harmony,

Christ the Savior is born! / Christ, der Retter ist da!

Christ the Savior is born! / Christ, der Retter ist da!

By the final verse, both sides of the front lines were singing loudly together, their voices carrying across the vast expanse of fields and raising high into the night sky. Half in English and half in German, they sang in one choir,

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht! / Silent night, holy night

Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht / Son of God, oh, love's pure light

Lieb aus deinem göttlichen Mund, / Radiant beams from Thy holy face

Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund, / With the dawn of redeeming grace

Christ, in deiner Geburt, / Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

Christ, in deiner Geburt. / Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

When the song concluded, silence fell once again over the battlefields, the snow falling steadily around them. Christian smiled a little to himself at the momentary peace and tucked in for the night with his family photograph held right against his heart.

December 25, 1914

As the sun rose on Christmas morning, the British soldiers wished each other ‘Happy Christmas’ as they started their usual breakfasts or morning duties. It wasn’t long before one of the higher ups was ordering a rise to arms and Christian snatched up his rifle with the rest of the men to get into position.

“There’s a man over there.” the soldier said, peering through the viewfinder out across No Mans Land. “He’s holding his hands up in their trenches.”

The British cocked their rifles.

“Don’t fire!”

“He’s unarmed.”

Christian peeked up over the edge of the parapet and someone grabbed his shoulder to pull him back down to safety. He shrugged him off and leaned back up again, watching the German man walk shakily and slowly out of his trench and onto the fresh fallen snow of the battlefield, hands raised and any weaponry missing.

Christian was a man who had too much trust in people – at least up to the end of 1914 – and he didn’t think twice before dropping his rifle to the floor of the trench as well as his pack of grenades and bullets and stood up on the fire step with his own hands raised.

“Lace Corporal Seavey, what the hell are you doing?” his Lieutenant snapped.

��Must be a trap! You’re gonna get bloody well blown up!” another added from farther down.

But Christian climbed carefully out of the safety of the trench, his heart hammering in his chest as he touched the crisp white snow of the Belgian field and shakily got to his feet to face the enemy. A few more German men climbed out of their trenches followed by a few British and soon the two sides were meeting in the middle. It was silent except for the chilly winter wind that whistled across the land and the crunching of snow under military boots. Christian fell to a stop in front of the young man opposite him, the German’s face looking just as hesitant as Christian’s himself. He had the nicest grey eyes Christian had ever seen and he offered out his hand with a nervous smile tugging at his lips. Christian looked down at his outstretched hand before taking his handshake.

“My name is Christian.” he spoke slowly.

“My…name…is Heinrich.” the man replied.

“Pleased to meet you, Heinrich.” Christian said.

“Freut mich, dich kennenzulernen.”

The enemies seemed to group up and well wishes of Merry Christmas is English and German moulded as one and chatter rose across the Belgian fields. Handshakes were shared and photographs were taken and tensions felt like they had vanished. Christian pulled out his unfinished chocolate bar and offered a piece to his new friend.

Heinrich grinned and nodded, taking a small square with icy hands and a warm, “Danke.”

They ate together for a moment in calm silence, both a little shy but their bashful smiles were mirrored with near relief.

“Wie alt bist du??”

“Sorry?” Christian looked over at him.

“Uhm…” Heinrich thought for a moment before pointing to his watch and then gesturing up. “Years? You?”

“Oh. I am twenty-four.” Christian answered, showing the numbers with his fingers. “You?”

“Dreiundzwanzig.” Heinrich did the same, showing a two and then a three with his hand.

They shared smiles, cheeks a rosy red in the winter air and the tip of Christian’s nose was turning pink too. He offered Heinrich another piece of chocolate before taking out his photograph from his pocket and stepping closer to show him.

“This is my family.” Christian told him with pride and he pointed to each of his family members, “Father-”

“Vater.”

Christian glanced up at his new friend and nodded in agreement, “Yes. My Vater.” He continued on, “My Mother-”

“Mutter.”

“Sister and brother.”

“Schwester und bruder.”

“Yes. Anna and Daniel.”

“Anna?” Heinrich questioned, looking at Christian with wide shining eyes.

“Yes. My sister.”

Heinrich reached into his own jacket pocket and rummaged around a moment before pulling out his own photograph and held it out to show Christian, the blonde woman sitting graciously in the frame.

“Anneliese. Meine frau.”

“Frau? Wife.” Christian said. “Anna.”

“Yes, my…Anna.”

The young men shared excited grins and another piece of chocolate as a few men around them started singing more carols. Food rations were shared and a few drinks were poured and German and British men were arm in arm and singing loudly together. Heinrich and Christian stuck together, joining in for a few photographs taken by their officers and the group shared a good laugh when one of the German generals slipped on a path of ice and fell on his behind.

Soon, with the heat of the excitement and festivities, jackets were being tossed back into designated trenches and someone brought out a soccer ball, earning cheers from both sides. Small teams were divided up – British against Germans of course – and they played together most of the day, using jackets and canteens as makeshift goal posts as the watching soldiers stood in lines around their little made field. Christian pulled an impressive dive to catch the ball before he was scored on and loud excited cheers erupted from both sides at the move. Heinrich pulled him up from the snowy ground with an offered hand and Christian thanked him with a smile as he brushed himself off.

By the time the sun was starting to set, everyone was taken by surprise; the day had gone by so fast. Newly formed friendship groups said their goodbyes and Christian and Heinrich shared a friendly embrace as well.

“Happy Christmas.”

“Fröhe Weihnachten.” Heinrich held out a ration of cigarettes towards him with a friendly smile. “For…the schokolade.”

Christian didn’t smoke but the gesture was beautiful and he took the small pack within their final handshake, “Thank you.”

“Hope…you see…your Anna soon.” Heinrich spoke slowly through his broken English.

“You too.” Christian said as they dropped hands.

They shared one final nod, as if trying to piece together the incredible goings on of that day and the fact that they had just wholeheartedly trusted the enemy. Both sides were bordering on treason after spending such a day together but they returned to their trenches without another word or a single shot fired. Christian got himself settled with the sun setting and leaving the trenches in darkness, feeling more at peace than he had in a while. He was too tired to write to his mother that night, fading into a sleep stemmed from exhaustion from the day’s unique festivities. Even still, everyone was wondering what the next day would hold and if the truce was a turning point for the beginning of the end of the war.

With daybreak came another attempt of peace, and Christian found himself beaming with excitement as Heinrich and a few German men were making their way over the battlefield again after breakfast. Christian was stood beside the British Lieutenant-Colonel as they had their rifles at the ready out of habit but Christian didn’t even have his finger on the trigger.

One of the German officers who was walking over spoke first from the halfway mark between their front lines, “You still got the armistice?”

Christian started to stand up to join them but the ringing of a single shot rang through the barren fields before he could move. He watched as Heinrich fell backwards, shot right through the head until his blood was staining the fresh white snow and his grey eyes staring lifeless into the sky. The cold face of the British Lieutenant-Colonel was unphased as they were propelled into another battle by that single shot.

Another battle where they were forced to kill those they just celebrated with a mere day before, with whom each side shared stories and photographs and treats. Now, both sides were forced back into the usual way of the war under orders of their stern officers who claimed the only way to win was to gain their ground. Christian sat alone that night, a blank parchment on one knee, the pack of German cigarettes on his other, and the vision of Heinrich’s lifeless eyes in his mind. He sat there for nearly an hour trying to figure out what to say to his mother, only getting as far as her name scribbled shakily in the top left corner.

Christian didn’t smoke but that night he pulled one of the cigarettes from the German ration and borrowed a light from another soldier and he let himself sit against the side of the trench and mourn the loss of a friend. He felt guilty and shameful and disgusted with himself and with the war and with the concept of even being there at all, how each time he pulled the trigger he was killing one of his momentary friends. Good men who were friends and brothers and sons and husbands.

Christian couldn’t get himself to return a letter to his mother. He no longer felt like his mother’s angel that she called him so often. And he never would be again.

[13eyond13]

what do you think of an OOC in a character? Have you ever read/write some kind of OOC about B, L or any other character? And how do we know when a character acts like ooc and they're not themselves?

Hi anon! I think the main thing I care about in fan works is the characters seeming in-character, and I would be open to almost anything as long as I felt the characterization was good. Meaning even ships I don't normally care about or haven't considered before, or a fic where characters I normally like together don't like each other but it's portrayed well, or just an interesting exploration of the world where everyone feels like themselves and nothing is bothering me or seeming really out of place. I think at times characters seeming OOC actually is necessary for the story too, such as in AUs where they live completely different lives or go on wildly diverging paths from the canon one. I think people/characters are always solid mixes of nature AND nurture. So it makes sense that significantly changing something about them in these categories would lead to them having somewhat different values or behaviours or habits or personalities, too. I'm at the point now where I'm pretty picky and have strong ideas of the characters and lose interest quickly in fan works that don't match my own ideas of them in certain ways. But when I am newer to a series I am much more open to tons of different interpretations because I am still trying to get a grasp on the characters myself, and it is really helpful for forming my own takes.

I think it takes quite a while to develop a strong sense of accurate characterization for any cast of complex characters, and lots of trial and error with attempting to depict them yourself, and that the taking in of other people's opinions and analyses (even if you initially disagree with them) is really helpful for forming your own as well. I think it's good to take notice of the things that make you go "ahh yes that's exactly right!" And the things that make you go "this is really bugging me somehow." Both reactions are very useful for helping you articulate what your own idea of the character is and why that aspect of them is important for you in how they are portrayed. I like to listen to other fans who are my faves' harshest critics, or who seem to understand certain characters more intuitively than me and who care about them more than I do, too. Ideally I would want to portray even my least favourite characters in ways that would seem accurate to their biggest stans, I think. Revisiting canon is also a good idea if you are uncertain about a particular aspect of a character, or in a disagreement about it with someone else. Oftentimes when I see fans get into big disagreements over an aspect of a character I find it's usually because the trait or character motivation they are attached to is one they found relatable and/or interesting and/or comforting in the character, so someone trying to remove it from the character feels threatening or personally insulting to them. I see this happen a lot with L for example; some people really like to see him as shy and polite and mostly well-meaning, and some people as bold and arrogant and shady. It can be just as insightful for yourself as a person as it can be for the characters to take in a lot of these discussions and to examine your own reactions to them, sometimes uncomfortably so! 😅

I think it's worth considering people aren't always coming from the same version of the story with their interpretations of a character, either. Writing L based on how he came off to you in the Japanese dub of the anime might be different than how he came off in the English dub, or in the manga, and the translation of the manga would probably make a difference to how you see him as well. I've been in the DN fandom so long now that I can usually guess pretty accurately which version of the story someone took in just by how they portray him in a fic. I think it's helpful to specify which version(s) you are drawing from and to know which version(s) the other person is drawing from when taking in their portrayal, as well as to take in multiple versions so you have a broader and better understanding of the different canon depictions of the same personality too. I see it as something you can pick and choose the aspects of you like best and that feel most interesting or true to you about the character. So if you prefer one version more than the other you don't have to just do away with your preferred idea of the character after taking in another one if you would rather not. In the end it's all just for fun! I think the best thing to do is to always keep in mind that other fans having diverging interpretations isn't necessarily wrong, especially given that you maybe took in different versions of the story when forming your opinions. It doesn't invalidate your own personal take just because someone has a different one. But that being said, I am not a huge fan of people just hollowing out a character entirely to insert themselves in it with no self-awareness about this, or characterizing them super lazily and then getting offended if other fans don't think it's accurate, which I have seen around sometimes. Lazy characterization in this fandom seems especially prevalent when it comes to characters people dislike/don't understand. And to B in general I think, as most people don't even bother to read the novel at all before trying to use him in a fan work. I also get that sometimes fans are newer to the series or just playing around with canon the way you might have played dolls as a kid or whatever, though. And even though I am picky about characterization it's really not that big a deal to me when people do this, as long as they aren't trying to dictate everyone else's interpretations or acting like more canon-compliant ones are automatically fussy or worse somehow, too.

[arrivalation]

2020: An Account

This year has been a nonstop, off-the-rails bullet train ride into what looked at first like chaos, but ultimately was a tearing down and reconstruction of my entire being. Because I know myself and I know I won’t remember much of this later, I’m recording it here. It’s hard to put some of this information out, but the universe regularly urges me to be more open. So here I go.

January

I got married.

It was, without contest, the absolute best day of my life. I’ve known since I was real little that I wanted to be married, that I wanted to be loved the way M loves me and to love someone just as much. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of having achieved that, and being able to share that with my entire circle. @abyssalsun​ made it down!! (my only regret is that @ladyoriza​ couldn’t make it, but I’m still so glad we got to make it to theirs). As often as I can, I revisit the memory of going to @chromecutie​’s house afterward, thinking it’d just be the four of us there, and opening the door to find a whole impromptu surprise party happening. Everyone cheered for us when we came in. I played CAH with Mordred, my brother and his wife, and several friends from out of town. By all accounts, these people would never have been in the same room together, but they were, and it was transcendent. It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t recovered from all the planning and stress; but now that I’m past it, I can say with relief that it was 100% worth it.

February

We bought a house.

Up until this point, I’d been planning a wedding, participating in house-buying stuff as best I could, interviewing for a job I ended up not taking, and dealing with life-long mental illness that was festering and reaching critical mass. But then stuff started wrapping up. The wedding happened. The house was ours. We moved in. I could finally fucking breathe. LMAO bitch you thought.

March

The pandemic reached us.

I guess by this point it had probably already been in the US for a couple months, idr. But it wasn’t until March that things really started happening. People started dying in droves. New cases spread like wildfire. I remember thinking that this would be the zombie apocalypse, because at this point, I don’t think the CDC knew much about the virus. In my anxious mind, that was a completely reasonable assumption. My boss had us all start working from home. We all thought it’d be just a couple weeks.

April

I settled into working from home.

It didn’t take me long to get used to it, maybe a week. I hadn’t yet gotten used to my new hour-long commute from the new house to work, and so working from home quickly became my new normal. But I didn’t know yet why working from home was so good for me. All I knew was that I now had the brain-space to process things. I had the energy to do yoga and cook and do hobbies, and the time to appreciate and care for the home I lived in. I could think more clearly because there was no one else around to distract me. There was sunlight I could bask in. I felt human for once, and that became vitally important and infinitely valuable to me. Despite that, I still struggled with extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and some of the worst depression I’ve suffered through since I was a teenager. Outside my house, everything was a fucking mess and no one had their shit together.

May

I went back to the office for a few weeks.

There was a lull in pandemic activity. My boss had us all start coming back to the office again. At this point, I couldn’t make heads or tails of reality anymore. Everything was changing, nothing was stable. I desperately needed to stay working from home, because that was the one thing that felt Good and Right, but I had no real argument other than, 'I just need to.' So imagine me, at this point a soggy, run-over sloppy joe, attempting to return to normal. As you might think, it was... bad. I cried and hurt all the time. I think I really freaked out my boss with the way I reacted to coming back to the office. But then the second wave hit, and we all went back to working from home again.

June

Uncle Mike died on the first day of the month.

My uncle had been sick for a while, but no one was expecting him to die so suddenly. None of us were ready for it.

I also died that day.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it quite literally and honestly. Over the years, I had gained suspicion that I was on the autism spectrum. M graciously found me a psychiatrist that took my insurance (and happened to be right next door). I wasn’t even going in for that - I was seeking treatment for my anxiety and depression. But I had amassed a (very long) list of my symptoms, and I brought it with me and read it to my doctor. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through the list when he stopped me. I’m paraphrasing here, but in effect, he said, “No, yeah, you’re definitely autistic.”

I remember the way my body felt. Like someone had detonated a bundle of TNT in my chest, and I was burning from the inside out. At the time, I didn’t realize this emotional immolation was purposeful and executed by the universe to get rid of this old structure and build a newer, better, stronger one. For about fifteen seconds after he said that, I was relieved that it had been that easy, that there was an explanation for everything that my ADHD didn’t explain. It made a ton of sense why my environment was so important to me. And then I felt something unnameable. It was obvious to my doctor that I was autistic. Had it been obvious to everyone else? Why hadn’t it been obvious to me? I read the rest of my symptoms to him in a daze. I don’t remember how the rest of the appointment went.

And then I burned quietly and ungracefully until I was a pile of ashes. I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently it’s common for newly-diagnosed autistic people to have such dramatic and painful reactions, especially if they weren’t well-informed on the condition. Which I wasn’t.

I started therapy.

I also started learning about my “flavor” of autism. It was arduous, embarrassing, isolating, and ugly. I became aware that I had been masking my whole life, and I was astounded by just how often I did so. What really crushed me was knowing that I’d always have to mask to protect myself. I also became hyper-aware of the things that made me Feel Bad. Inexplicably, I stopped being able to react to those things the way I used to. Previously, if something made a loud and unexpected sound, I would suppress my reaction, because it’s not cool to get mad about it. But I found I couldn’t do that anymore. I had no choice but to react the way I needed to react. I realize now that this was to make me aware of what things make me feel a certain way so I can either avoid them or learn better tools to deal with them.

The therapist I saw wasn’t specialized in autism, and she wasn’t any help in that area, but she did teach me some important things. Like, “Is it reasonable for me to feel ____?”

July

Black hole.

I don’t remember a whole lot from this month, except sifting my own ashes through my fingers and crying. Every day brought a new revelation, a new thing that clicked. All of it was helpful and very painful. My psychiatrist recommended medication, but I’d had a bad and long-lasting experience with medication as a teenager, so I suffered through the pain on my own.

I shouldn’t have. I got so low I didn’t want to be alive anymore. But I think it took reaching the bottom and feeling that much pain for me to get over my fear of pharmaceuticals. 

I got into astrology.

I had been interested in it for most of my life, but it wasn’t until this point that I started studying it in depth. I discovered it was a language that I could use to translate so many things about my own life that I didn’t understand. It was a rulebook in a time when I desperately needed rules - but one just flexible enough that it taught me how to stop thinking in binary.

August

I got medicated.

There was a big adjustment period, of course. It didn’t cure me. But it did start to make things easier. And it helped to know that, even if I didn’t believe it at the time, I deserved to rest. I deserved not to feel so much emotional pain all the time.

I turned 30.

It was easily the second best day of my life. I learned a lot of important things, like that it’s important to be present, that I’m seen and loved (just the way I am!!), and that I deserve good things. M planned a whole day of surprises:

I woke up at my leisure and we had coffee on the couch. He got me a cute card with one of our inside jokes inside - I still have it.

We went to our favorite combination lunch place and bakery, which I believe was our first real outing since the pandemic started.

We stopped by a tattoo place. I almost got a tattoo.

He set me loose in Texas Art Supply.

We got dim sum for dinner.

We had a lovely virtual cocktail hour with @chromecutie.

He bought me an ipad!!

I became Spiritual™.

I had been agnostic for the past decade or so, slowly and subtly slipping into nihilism, without realizing how detrimental those ideas were to me. I’m not sure what I thought spirituality was before, but I wasn’t into it. I had always rolled my eyes at people who talked about “a higher power”, auras, and spirit guides, until I became that person.

My psychiatrist introduced some powerful ideas to me, ones that meshed well with my previously-existing idea of how the universe worked. I won’t get into details here. That’s a whole other post. Ask me though - I’d love to talk about it.

Anyway, I started (intermittently) meditating. I learned some exceptionally powerful stuff. I felt my scaffolding being erected.

September

I started learning who I am and why I am this way.

I started seeing a new therapist. She thinks like me. She follows my erratic, forking trains of thought. She sees me and offers real, actionable feedback and solutions. Working with her, I’ve gained the ability to see my life from a 30,000-foot view. I can see now why I’ve felt so lonely my whole life. I understand how my family’s dysfunction has shaped me. I know now that I have the opposite of a victim complex - by default, I believe I am so awful that I feel sorry for everyone who has to deal with me. Because that’s what I was taught to believe. Learning that I deserve to take up space, set boundaries, say no, and be wrong sometimes is still a hard lesson for me. But most days, I believe it now. It takes other people believing it and convincing me. I still need that reassurance often.

My parents sold my childhood home.

Mentally, emotionally, I still lived there. I was still the inverted victim, still beholden to my stepdad’s whims and my mom’s complete cognitive dissonance. This was a blinking neon sign from the universe that it was time to move out. My mom told me when the closing date was so I’d have time to drive down and look at the house one last time. I didn’t go, and I still don’t regret it.

I started learning my boundaries.

After my spiritual move-out, I learned I don’t have to jump when my stepdad holds out the little circus hoop. When he otherwise shows zero interest in my life but still baits me with passive-aggressive texts, I don’t have to answer!! What a concept! I don’t have to feel guilty for not talking to my mom more than I do. We have very little in common, and I still have a lot of things to work through regarding her.

I learned how not to be so reactive.

Or rather, I’m still learning. Something else I learned in therapy is that over the course of my life, I’ve developed a desperate need to defend myself and to justify every action or thought I have, even to myself. It’d been especially troubling at work. My RSD led me to felt stupid, incompetent, and unseen daily; if my boss complimented someone, I believed it also meant he thought I was stupid and bad and wrong, otherwise he would have complimented me too. If my boss said something that even remotely sounded like I’d done something wrong, I’d race to build an impenetrable defense: “This is the reason I did that. Here’s my line of thinking. Do you understand? Can you please understand?”

Now I know that so little of what everything everyone says or does at work is about me. I can appreciate a coworker’s accomplishment and also realize it doesn’t take away anything from me. I’m not stupid or incompetent, and I’m a valuable part of the team. A lot of times, my boss and I are on two different wavelengths - that’s because I think a lot faster, which can be frustrating for him sometimes. He doesn’t fully understand me, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.

October

I let go of an old friend.

This was especially hard, because I had known this person for years. We’d gone through a lot together, and we’d shared some really important and emotional story plots and characters. I had agonized over whether I was truly important to her or not. It didn’t matter how much I loved her as a friend, or how badly I wanted us to be close again and remain close. I had learned to read the universe’s signs, and it was clear it was time to move on.

November

The election happened.

I was expecting things to turn out badly, but I still hoped for something good. And then something good did happen. I cried watching Harris’ speech. I felt a tenuous hope that things might finally start looking up, societally. I still haven’t really let myself fully embrace that hope, but every time I see a court shoot down another lawsuit, or hear about trump’s own conservative republican supporters tell him, “Okay, buddy, it’s time to step down,” I feel a little better. 

M and I went non-monogamous.

There’s so much I want to say about this, but it’s for another post. Suffice it to say that like every other experience this year, it has been unexpectedly challenging and ultimately a catalyst for  priceless growth. I’m unfathomably grateful that we’re doing this together, for the things we’ve learned so far, and for how much closer this experience has made us, even when I didn’t think we could get any closer. 

Turns out I’m not gray-ace.

I had identified as such for a couple years, which was why we wanted to try non-monogamy in the first place. On the surface, it perfectly explained my sexual personality. But every time I told someone my identity, I felt inexplicably sad. When I read about others having “normal” sex drives and “normal” relations with their spouses, I felt jealous.

Turns out I’m just traumatized, lol. Walking along this non-mono path has unearthed a lot of things, including this gem.

December

This was our first married christmas in our new house.

One of the handful of good things the pandemic has done for me was allowing me to back up my boundaries with hard evidence. It’s been difficult dealing with my stepdad bullying me about not coming over for thanksgiving, and having my mom subtly guilt me into making plans for next year already. But what I needed this year was a quiet holiday, instead of the usual weeks-long chaos, and I got it. And it was fucking delightful. I’ve dreamed of days exactly like that one - spending a tranquil morning with my spouse, sipping coffee and listening to music and eating treats. Deciding exactly how we want our holidays to be, because we deserve to.

I’m scared of what’s to come in the new year. I’m still an anxious mess, and some days I’m not strong enough to pull myself out of the spirals I throw myself into. I’ve gotten used to the pandemic holding my hand, allowing me to shelter in my home, helping me enforce my boundaries, teaching me who I am. When it’s over, I don’t know what will happen or how I’ll react or what I’ll learn next. I’m not finished rebuilding, but I don’t think that’s the point. I’ll never be fully rebuilt. But at least I’m figuring out the new layout.

[silvergeek]

Debunking Misinformation About Kamala Harris

Most of the misinformation regarding Harris is valid information that leaves out the bigger picture, context, and details. They're snapshots rather than the full movie reel, if you catch my drift. I've read that she has been over-targeted because she is an easy target. People (all people - because racism is systemic and it embeds itself deep) have strong, implicit bias against Black people and against women ("misogynoir" they call this). Plus, many folks will *more willingly* eat up negative information without fact checking. The slew of widely believed misinformation about Kamala Harris - even from progressives all of diverse backgrounds - is due in part to strong, implicit racial and gender bias. In other words, it's real easy to get rumors going about women using fractions of truths. People will believe them. People are less likely to fact check them (especially as thoroughly as I just did). This is because of bias. Even PROGRESSIVE folks are guilty of this. 

Not long ago, I posted a meme defending Kamala Harris to racist and sexist bias. It was loved and hated - pretty divisive, which is unsurprising for something as simplistic as a meme. I apologize. For all of those tumblr accounts that reblogged the meme with flagrant misinformation about the VP elect... I am going to rectify what I did with thorough, sourced information. 

Also check out this twitter: https://twitter.com/blackwomenviews

Debunking Information: 

Claim: Kamala pushed a law that forces schools to turn undocumented students over to ICE 

 The Real: Kamala Harris has consistently been a supporter of sanctuary status and a champion for immigrant rights. The false claim arises from a change in how undocumented youth arrested for felonies were reported to ICE. Kamala Harris was not responsible for nor did she push for then Mayor Gavin Newsom’s 2008 unilateral decision to modify his policy to include reporting undocumented youth charged with felonies to ICE. Previously the policy only applied to undocumented adults. Newsom changed the policy in response to reporting that San Francisco had been footing the bill and illegally flying Honduran youth accused of dealing drugs back to their home country as well as sending them to other parts of the state. The statement that writers have taken out of context to inaccurately use as evidence Harris pushed for a change was a statement in response to the scandal over the illegal flights. Harris stated, “While detained juveniles are under the custody and control of the juvenile probation office and the court every city agency needs to work together to balance our obligations under federal law and the sanctuary ordinance to solve crimes and put the offenders behind bars.” The statement was made prior to Newsom’s policy change and from the contemporaneous reporting it is clear that the policy was not a collaborative change.

 (Ref: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/ILLEGALS-CALLED-COURT-S-PROBLEM-3206302.php)

A fact checker wrongly accused Kamala Harris of being untruthful when she said that the change by Newsom had unintended consequences, but in fact the elected Public Defender Jeff Adachi made a similarly statement that the policy resulted in unintended effects when discussing it a year after it was implemented. Adachi stated “When this policy was put into place, the intent was to deal with what was then identified as a specific problem with Honduran youth,” Adachi said. “But we’re seeing this policy affecting youth who have lived most of their lives in San Francisco, are in school and make a mistake.”

Claim: There are multiple variations of the false claims levied at Kamala Harris over the Kevin Cooper case such as: withheld DNA evidence to keep a man on death row; denied DNA testing to exonerate a man on death row; kept a man on death row despite DNA testing that exonerated him.

The Real: Kamala Harris played no role whatsoever in the Kevin Cooper case for several reasons: 1) Convicted of four murder counts in 1983, Cooper had exhausted all of his court appeals in November 2009 which was prior to Harris taking office as AG; 2) Cooper’s only recourse left was clemency which is solely within the Governor’s powers. (Ref: https://miro.medium.com/.../1*IWka2R0J2hUcUR70rh6iBw.jpeg)

Governor Schwarzenegger first denied Cooper clemency in 2004 then again in 2010. Cooper requested clemency from Governor Brown in 2016 which was not granted. Governor Brown issued an order for new DNA testing in December 2018 shortly before leaving office. Governor Newsom expanded the testing in February 2019. Testing is still ongoing so claims that Cooper has already been exonerated and was held in prison despite of it are false.

Claim: There are many smears and distortions about Kamala Harris’ anti-truancy record including: false claims about laughing about putting parents in jail if their kids missed school; locking up parents; targeting poor families and people of color.

The Real: Truancy has been a prosecutable offense in California since 1977. Kamala Harris made the decision to tackle the elementary school truancy crisis in San Francisco after discovering that 94% of homicide victims were high school drop outs. Tackling truancy was not about punishing or prosecuting parents (which was a rarely used last resort), it was about providing parents resources needed to get their children in school.Kamala Harris did not lock parents up. A widely circulated HuffPost Editorial painting Harris as a truancy zealot contains many distortions about her record on this issue. The most egregious distortion is using a woman by the name of Cheree Peoples as a horror story of Harris’ doing when her case was a result of a local Orange County program. More details debunking the article can be found here. Kamala Harris achieved success in lowering truancy in San Francisco by 20% during her tenure. As AG, Harris created the Bureau of Children’s Justice which formed private/public partnerships to increase resources available to educators and parents to reduce truancy. (Ref: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1181175579837632513.html)

Claim: There are various versions of the false claims that Kamala Harris: blocked the release of prisoners; kept prisoners locked up for cheap prison labor; kept prisoners locked up for slave labor; refused to address prison overcrowding; kept prisoners locked up to fight fires for cheap.

The Real: The false claim arises around one specific court filing by one of the 1,000 attorneys (Patrick McKinney) working for the CA DOJ . The role of the CA AG office is to represent various state agencies in litigation and in this case the state agency was the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The court rejected McKinney’s filing on behalf of the CDCR, therefore prisoners were not in fact kept locked up despite earning 2 for 1 good time credits. Kamala Harris was not involved in the court filing nor aware of the filing prior to a news report. With over 20,000 cases per year in the Civil Law division alone (resulting in exponentially more court filings) it would not have been customary for the Attorney General to be involved in a case that only required the expertise of a mid level Deputy AG III that was several levels of management below the Harris’ level. (Ref: https://www.calhr.ca.gov/state-hr.../pages/5730.aspx)

Claim: Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence.

The Real: This claim is in reference to wrongdoing by Deputy District Attorney Robert Murray of Kern County. The Attorney General oversees 4,500 employees including over 1,000 lawyers, but the AG does not supervise local District Attorneys and their deputies. In 2013, prior to trial during plea discussions, ADA Murray admitted to falsifying a translated transcript in the case of Efrain Velasco Palacios who faced 5 counts of lewd and lascivious acts against the 10 year old daughter of his live-in girlfriend. Palacios was facing 8 years for the 5 counts and was not charged with a crime that faced a life sentence. Superior Court Judge Staley threw the case out due to Murray’s misconduct and Palacios’ attorney being removed from the case for allegedly saying his client did not have a viable defense. The judge’s decision was appealed, arguing that Palacios could still get a fair trial with a new counsel. The judge’s decision was upheld on appeal. In 2015, Efrain Velasco Palacios plead no contest to lew or lascivious acts and unlawful intercourse with a 13 year old girl and was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

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A quote that is backed by sources above and further sources down below:

"On the DNA case. This wasn't a case of Kamala actively trying to suppress the evidence. I believe the defendant was asking for the DNA evidence to be reexamined years later using newer, more reliable, methods. Problem was there was some bureaucratic rule that wouldn't allow it in the DNA department or something like that. 

The jist of it as it applied to Kamala was there was a department within the CA DOJ that was denying the testing, and to my knowledge it was never directly raised with her till after she was out of office. She has since called for him to be given access to the testing, and I thiiink he got it. But like I said I'll try to get more detail tomorrow.On jailing black men disproportionately and coming down hard on cannabis, these are examples of folks taking statistics for the entire California criminal justice system and placing blame solely on Kamala. 

Yes, black men made up a disproportionate share of prisoners in California during Kamala's tenure as AG. That was the case before she was AG and that is still the case today. It's terrible, but it's not really fair to put the effects of the entire system on Kamala. AG's don't have sole authority when it comes to law enforcement. Kamala made efforts to curb this; through reentry programs, not enforcing the 3-strikes laws, being the first AG in the county to require her officers wear body cameras and take implicit bias trading, etc.

The problem is she only had authority over the California Department of Justice. The bulk of prosecutions and incarcerations happen at the local level, with city and county DA's and police. She could not direct them to take the same steps she was taking, all she could do was try to set an example. But the law being what it was, those DAs and police had the authority to be as stringent as the law allowed (which was very very stringent). But if you look at the statistics in the areas Kamala had authority over (and again I'll try to find citations tomorrow) you'll see that she actually reduced incarcerations.

The same goes for marijuana incarcerations. People point to the 19k marijuana convictions that occured while she was AG as evidence she was a avid warrior in the War on Drugs. But that is the statistic for the entire state, and the bulk of those convictions were at the local level. And even still, over all Marijuana convictions across the state fell every year she was in office to eventually there being only like 900ish across the entire state in her last year. She obviously doesn't get all the credit for that decline, but it's another example of people manipulating statistics to fit their narratives."

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Examples of things she did to improve the criminal justice system as DA & AG California: 

Kamala Harris announces police anti-bias training program

California’s attorney general announced a statewide training program aimed at getting police officers to avoid having built-in biases compromise their ability to enforce laws fairly and with appropriate force.

The announcement Friday came as Kamala Harris outlined the results of a 90-day review by her agency that sought to find ways to strengthen the trust between police and the public following recent slayings of unarmed civilians by officers in cities across the country.

Harris also said that under a pilot program, of Justice Department special agents would be outfitted with on-body cameras similar to those worn by officers of some local forces in.

Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/205/04/17/california-kamala-harris-announces-police-anti-bias-training-program/

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continued: SAN FRANCISCO / D.A. won't pursue death in cop slaying / Harris fulfills campaign pledge with decision.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday she will not seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing a San Francisco police officer over the weekend, a decision that legal experts say is rare if not unprecedented in California.

The death penalty was restored in California in 1978, but The Chronicle's review found only limited documentation about the outcome of cases before 1987.

Focusing on 90 cases since 1987, the newspaper found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in nearly every case in which a suspect was arrested.

source: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-D-A-won-t-pursue-death-in-cop-2767716.php

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ALTERNATIVE SENTENCING GAINING ACCEPTANCE

Back on Track, a San Francisco program for first-time young adult drug offenders, involves job training, apprenticeships in the building trades, G.E.D. preparation, money-management skills, child care and other features. Because failure to complete the program means the defendant goes right to jail, the recidivism rate has been less than 10 percent. Back on Track costs $5,000 per year per participant, a significant reduction from the average cost to incarcerate someone, which can run anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 or more.

source: https://psmag.com/news/alternative-sentencing-gaining-acceptance-23551

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She also helped spread this program:

L.A. County Jail launches program to keep inmates from coming back.

source: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-antirecidivism-jail-20150311-story.html

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She was the only AG to investigate big banks for their role in the mortgage crisis.

Without her the national mortgage settlement would be watered down promises rather than the guarantee it was.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/business/how-kamala-harris-finessed-a-foreclosure-deal-for-california.html

In 2012, Harris helped win a massive, $25 billion settlement with Wells Fargo and other financial institutions for foreclosure abuses:

"As the fraud was being uncovered, many of the AGs were yelling 'Settle, settle, settle.' They just wanted to get their hands on the money," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who during the negotiations was setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the Obama administration. Warren has endorsed Harris for U.S. Senate and has appeared in one of the attorney general's campaign ads. "[Harris] was the one who said 'No, we have to do better, and we have to investigate more. Too many families have been destroyed by the crisis and the illegal activity of these banks.'"

In 2012, Harris also helped push through a bill in the California Legislature that offered homeowners some of the strongest protections in the nation against aggressive foreclosure tactics by banks, which was credited in part for a plunge in foreclosures in the state. The measure also gave private citizens the right to sue financial institutions if they violated the law.

Shortly after taking office, Harris created a mortgage fraud task force that not only assisted with the mortgage settlement, but also went after financial firms that targeted homeowners facing foreclosure. The task force also took legal action against the banks and financial ratings firms for the massive losses that California's two giant public pension systems, the California Public Employees' Retirement System and California State Teachers' Retirement System, sustained after unknowingly investing in securities that included risky subprime mortgages.

Harris' office collected $921 million in mortgage-backed securities settlements with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Inc., Bank of America Corp., Standard & Poor's and Goldman Sachs.

Troncoso, who led the mortgage fraud strike force, said building a criminal case against bankers involved in the foreclosures that led to the national mortgage settlement would have been "extremely difficult." Harris acknowledges as much.

"I too, like most Americans, am frustrated. Clearly crimes occurred and people should go to jail," Harris said. "But we went where the evidence took us."

source: https://outline.com/8cPJ2j

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As DA filed an amici curiae brief in support of DC's handgun ban in DC v Heller.

source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1713643.html

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As AG she made clerks begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples immediately after prop 8 was overturned.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J93691asilw

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Talked about defunding, i.e. shrinking budgets and reallocation of funds, the police all the way back in 2006.

source: https://mobile.twitter.com/adamjsmithga/status/1269761430322139136?s=21

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She has introduced bills to (1)provide a tax credit of up to $6,000 for lower and middle income individuals and families and (2)tax credits for renters. (3)Vox did an analysis of the candidates' anti-poverty bills and Kamala's LIFT Act and Rent relief act have the potential to lift the most people out of poverty, 9.6 million and 7.8 million respectively.

multiple sources:

(1)https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-the-lift-the-middle-class-act-kamala-harris-has-a-bold-tax-reform-proposal-12606048

(2)https://nlihc.org/resource/senator-harris-introduces-rent-relief-act

(3)https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/30/18183769/democrat-poverty-plans-2020-presidential-kamala-harris-booker-gillibrand

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She supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

source: https://www.harris.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-harris-joins-colleagues-in-support-of-15-minimum-wage-bill

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She has also introduced bills to address (1)bail reform and start (2)body camera programs at CBP and ICE.

Two sources:

(1)https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rand-paul-kamala-harris-team-reform-bail-practices-n794031

(2)https://www.thebeatdc.com/blog/2018/10/3/kamala-harris-wants-to-establish-body-worn-camera-programs-at-cbp-and-ice

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She supported the FIRST STEP Act, as a first step, but she said would like there to be more prohibitions on private prisons in the FIRST STEP ACT.

"All of the Act’s sentencing reforms should be applied retroactively, and the Act should further expand application of earned good time credits, place more prohibitions on private prisons which profit from the incarceration of individuals, and further limit the use of electronic monitoring," Harris added.

source: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/421719-harris-announces-support-for-white-house-backed-criminal-justice-bill

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She has also supported banning private prisons.

source: https://m.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/10154833054297923

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She co-sponsored Booker's bill legalize marijuana.

Here is an old summary of that "tooth and nail" quote:

So when the judge in question says the AG office "fought tooth and nail" to sustain the false testimony in question, he was referring to the actions of the office under the prior attorney general. Which the judge says in the immediately preceding the quote in the same sentence! "Your office, now under a prior Attorney General, but your office, fought tooth and nail to keep the 1998 sentencing transcript away from the Court of Appeal." Timestamp 32:01. So the quote specifically about Kamala's predecessor but has been used to smear her. 

source: https://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/387101-kamala-harris-backs-booker-bill-to-legalize-marijuana

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On the DNA case:

Kevin Cooper: I won't go deep into the facts on this one because they aren't really the point and because I did a terrible job at brevity with the last case. I'll just note that the origin of this case is 1983. Now, the person you're quoting here doesn't seem to have their facts straight. They don't even align with what is in the sources cited. The NYT article referenced (which isn't even the one cited, here - sourced below - is the actual one) does call her out but does not assert that she "refused" to grant DNA testing. Here's what the article actually says with regard to Kamala:

Kamala Harris, who was state attorney general and is now a U.S. senator, was unhelpful.

That attorney general's office was in possession of the evidence and could have conducted the test. It didn't. And in the NYT article cited in the quote Kamala said she regretted that it did not happen and that her office should have done it. You may not care what she has to say, but she owned up to it. And then she went a step further and she called on the governor to allow the testing to proceed. Not the other way around, as your quote states.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/17/opinion/sunday/kevin-cooper-death-row-innocent.html

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And here is an article debunking a meme about her disproportionately incarcerating black men for marijuana possession. It also debunks some particularly racist and sexist stuff that was out there, so if you don't want to have to wade through that bullshit here is the section on marijuana and convictions:

“IMPRISONED 2,000 BLACK PEOPLE WHILE CALIFORNIA AG” – NO EVIDENCE 

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) shared state level statistics of incarcerations by offense with Reuters via email (it is important to note their statistics are for state prisons and exclude data from county jails). The admissions for marijuana and hashish related offenses for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 was 581 (page 37 in report also visible here ). Their 2013 data is unavailable, while 2011-2012 data shared with Reuters indicated 921 offenders in 2011 and 505 for 2012 for these drug categories. This adds to a total of 2,007 offenses for the years 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016. This drug offender data was not, however, categorized by race. (Calculations by Politifact reached similar numbers in 2019, here ) 

Mercury News noted that most of the marijuana cases in the state were not prosecuted by the AG, but by county districts attorneys, so the total number for the state is likely a lot higher than the CDCR data. As San Francisco’s DA, the paper says, Harris oversaw “1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale”, some of which did not conclude in jail time (here). 

In California, the possession of over 28.5 grams of marijuana and possession with the intention of distributing the drug are considered misdemeanors (here). Kamala Harris is listed as AG in the California Department of Justice (DOJ) data reports from 2010 to 2015 (DOJ reports for 2016 data onward fall under Xavier Becerra, Harris’ successor as AG). California DOJ statistics for 2015 show the number of Black people arrested (not imprisoned) with misdemeanors relating to marijuana offenses was 656 (table 34, page 42 here ), in 2014 it was 717 (table 34, page 42 here ), in 2013 it was 768 (table 34, page 42 here ), for 2012 it was 1,069 (table 34, page 42 here ), for 2011 it was 981 (table 34, page 42 here ) and for 2010 it was 8,985 (table 34, page 42 here ). This totals to 24,211 arrests for marijuana related misdemeanors (the substantial drop from 2010 is likely a result of legislation changes.

see source https://www.cjcj.org/news/5542 

In short, both California DOJ and CDCR reports show that marijuana related arrests and state level incarcerations for Black people during Harris’s time as AG (the closest data to what Reuters assumed the claims are implying) were not reflective of the 2,000 figure stated in these claims.

source: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamalaharris-five-claims/fact-check-misleading-meme-featuring-five-claims-about-kamala-harris-idUSKBN25H2F2

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If you're interested in how she handled Marijuana convictions when she was DA and had a more direct role in those cases, and her record generally as DA, here is a piece by Niki Solis who was a public defender when Kamala was DA. (And if you know anything about local court politics, you know DA's and Public defenders often do not exactly see eye to eye).

source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/10/kamala-harris-progressive-pioneer-san-francisco-da-column/3334668001/

Marijuana sales cases were routinely reduced to misdemeanors. And marijuana possession cases were not even on the court’s docket. They were simply not charged. Unless there was a large grow case, or a unique circumstance, this was the reform-minded approach then-DA Harris’ office took. The accusations about marijuana prosecutions being harsh during her tenure are absurd. The reality was quite the opposite.

Other quotes from Solis:

“Sen. Harris’ progressive approach did not end with marijuana prosecutions or lack thereof. She co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids. She then spearheaded a task force combating the human trafficking of girls. Upon her invitation, I went to the task force meetings to speak on behalf of one of my juvenile clients. My client, a beautiful teenage girl, had aspirations of joining the military. She was selling her body to earn money when her life was cut short; she was found dead in a San Francisco dumpster. Harris and I talked about my client and the exploitation of young girls happening on a constant basis. Unlike her predecessors, she did something about it. She stopped prosecuting young girls for prostitution — acknowledging that they were victims who needed treatment for trauma and not criminals who needed to be incarcerated.

For those who have heard contrary arguments about Harris’ past work as a prosecutor, rest assured that you are hearing this from someone whose life’s work has been dedicated to the cause of equality and justice. I am the chair of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Racial Justice Committee and have scratched and clawed for some semblance of justice in our courts for well over two decades. I grappled with this idea of defending a former prosecutor for a long time, but Harris is more than that. I have to acknowledge the truth and say what I feel is right to set the record straight. Should Joe Biden decide not to select Kamala Harris as a running mate, her track record as San Francisco district attorney should certainly not be one of the reasons.”

[wildeoaths]

LGBTQ Book & Film Recommendations

Hello! As someone who tries to read widely, it can sometimes be frustrating to find good (well-written, well-made) LGBTQ+ works of literature and film, and mainstream recommendations only go so far. This is my shortlist. 

Some caveats: 1) I have only watched/seen some of these, though they have all been well-received.

2) The literature list is primarily focused on adult literary and genre fiction, since that is what I mostly read, and I feel like it’s easier to find queer YA fiction. Cece over at ProblemsOfABookNerd (YT) covers a lot of newer releases and has a YA focus, so you can check her out for more recommendations.

3) There are a ton of good films and good books that either reference or discuss queer theory, LGBTQ history and literary theory. These tend to be more esoteric and academic, and I’m not too familiar with queer theory, so they’ve largely been left off the list. I do agree that they’re important, and reading into LGBTQ-coding is a major practice, but they’re less accessible and I don’t want to make the list too intimidating.

4) I linked to Goodreads and Letterboxd because that’s what I use and I happen to really enjoy the reviews.

Any works that are bolded are popular, or they’re acclaimed and I think they deserve some attention. I’ve done my best to flag potential objections and triggers, but you should definitely do a search of the reviews. DoesTheDogDie is also a good resource. Not all of these will be suitable for younger teenagers; please use your common sense and judgement.

Please feel free to chime in in the replies (not the reblogs) with your recommendations, and I’ll eventually do a reblog with the additions!

BOOKS

> YOUNG ADULT

Don’t @ me asking why your favourite YA novel isn’t on this list. These just happen to be the picks I felt might also appeal to older teens/twentysomethings.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - poetry.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender - trans male teen protagonist. 

Red, White & Royal Blue

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue

The Raven Boys (and Raven Cycle)

> LITERATURE: GENERAL

This list does skew M/M; more NB, trans and WLW recommendations are welcomed!

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. One of the most acclaimed contemporary LGBTQ novels and you’ve probably heard of it. Will probably make you cry.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. Portrait of a middle-aged gay man.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. M/M affair, British student high society; definitely nostalgic for the aristocracy so be aware of the context.

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. It’s somewhat controversial, it’s gay, everyone knows the film at least.

Cronus’ Children / Le Jardin d'Acclimation by Yves Navarre. Winner of the Goncourt prize.

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran. A young man in the 1970s NYC gay scene. Warning for drugs and sexual references.

Dorian, An Imitation by Will Self. Adaptation of Orscar Wilde’s novel. Warning for sexual content.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Two wlw in the 1980s. Also made into a film; see below.

Gemini by Michel Tournier. The link will tell you more; seems like a very complex read. TW for troubling twin dynamics.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Another iconic M/M work.

Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey. A queer punk reimagining of Peter Pan. Probably one of the more accessible works on this list!

Lie With Me by Philippe Besson. Two teenage boys in 1980s France.

Maurice by E. M. Forster. Landmark work written in 1914. Also made into a film; see below.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. An expansive (and long) novel about the story of Cal, a hermaphrodite, by the author of The Virgin Suicides.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Plays with gender, time and space. Virginia Woolf’s ode to her lover Vita Sackville-West. What more do you want? (also a great film; see below).

Oscar Wilde’s works - The Picture of Dorian Gray would be the place to start. Another member of the classical literary canon.

Saga, vol.1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Graphic novel; warning for sexual content.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg. An acclaimed work looking at working-class lesbian life and gender identity in pre-Stonewall America.

The Holy Innocents by Gilbert Adair. The basis for Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003). I am hesitant to recommend this because I have not read this, though I have watched the film; the M/M dynamic and LGBTQ themes do not seem to be the primary focus. Warning for sexual content and incestuous dynamics between the twins.

The Animals At Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey. Plays with gothic elements, set during WW2, F/F elements.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. References Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Probably a good idea to read Virginia Woolf first.

The Immoralist by André Gide. Translated from French.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline MIller. Drawing from the Iliad, focusing on Achilles and Patroclus. Contemporary fantasy that would be a good pick for younger readers.

The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. Gay life pre-AIDS crisis. Apparently contains a fair amount of sexual content.

What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell. A gay man’s coming of age in the American South.

> LITERATURE: WORLD LITERATURE

American and Western experiences are more prominent in LGBTQ works, just due to the way history and the community have developed, and the difficulties of translation. These are English and translated works that specifically foreground the experiences of non-White people living in (often) non-Western societies. I’m not white or American myself and recommendations in this area are especially welcomed.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. The memoirs and essays of a queer black activist, exploring themes of black LGBTQ experiences and masculinity.

A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian. Female communities and queer female characters in a Bangalore slum. A very new release but already very well received.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. Coming-of-age in post-WW1 Japan. This one’s interesting, because it’s definitely at least somewhat autobiographical. Mishima can be a tough writer, and you should definitely look into his personality and his life when reading his work.

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi. A family saga told against the backdrop of Iranian history by a queer Iranian woman. Would recommend going into this knowing at least some of the political and historical context.

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones. A coming-of-age story and memoir from a gay, black man in the American South.

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Another acclaimed contemporary work about the dynamics of abuse in LGBTQ relationships. Memoir.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Contemporary black British experience, told from the perspectives of 12 diverse narrators.

> POETRY

Crush by Richard Siken. Tumblr loves Richard Siken, worth a read.

Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich.

He’s So Masc by Chris Tse.

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson. The best presentation of Sappho we’re likely to get.

Lord Byron’s works - Selected Poems may be a good starting point. One of the Romantics and part of the classical literary canon.

Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. The explicitly lesbian poems are apparently in the les fleurs du mal section.

> MEMOIR & NONFICTION

And The Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. An expansive, comprehensive history and exposure of the failures of media and the Reagan administration, written by an investigative journalist. Will probably make you rightfully angry.

How to Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France. A reminder of the power of community and everyday activism, written by a gay reporter living in NYC during the epidemic.

Indecent Advances: The Hidden History of Murder and Masculinity Before Stonewall by James Polchin. True crime fans, this one’s for you. Sociocultural history constructed from readings of the news and media.

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker. It’s illustrated, it’s written by an academic, it’s an easier introduction to queer theory. I still need to pick up a copy, but it seems like a great jumping-off point with an overview of the academic context.

Real Queer America by Samantha Allen. The stories of LGBTQ people and LGBTQ narratives in the conservative parts of America. A very well received contemporary read.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. Gender, pregnancy and queer partnership. I’m not familiar with this but it is quite popular.

When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan. LGBTQ history of Brooklyn from the nineteenth century to pre-Stonewall.

FILMS

With films it’s difficult because characters are often queercoded and we’re only now seeing films with better rep. This is a shortlist of better-rated films with fairly explicit LGBTQ coding, LGBTQ characters, or made by LGBTQ persons. Bolded films are ones that I think are likely to be more accessible or with wider appeal.

A Single Man (2009) - Colin Firth plays a middle-aged widower.

Blue Is The Warmest Colour (2013) - A controversial one. Sexual content.

Booksmart (2019) - A pretty well made film about female friendship and being an LGBTQ teen.

Boy Erased (2018) - Warning for conversion therapy.

BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017) - Young AIDS activists in France.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Cowboy gays. This film is pretty famous, do you need more summary? Might make a good triple bill with Idaho and God’s Own Country.

Cabaret (1972) - Liza Minelli. Obvious plug to also look into Vincent Minelli.

Calamity Jane (1953) - There’s a lot that could be said about queer coding in Hollywood golden era studio films, but this is apparently a fun wlw-cowboy westerns-vibes watch. Read the reviews on this one!

Call Me By Your Name (2017) - Please don't debate this film in the notes.

Caravaggio (1986) - Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton are in it. Rather explicit.

Carol (2015) - Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are lesbians in 1950s America.

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) - Hard to summarise, but one review calls it “lesbian birdman” and it has both Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in it, so consider watching it.

Colette (2018) - About the bi/queer female writer Colette during the belle epoque era. This had Keira Knightley so by all rights Tumblr should love it.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - Lesbian love in 1920s/80s? America.

God’s Own Country (2017) - Gay and British.

Happy Together (1997) - By Wong Kar Wai. No further explanation needed.

Heartbeats (2010) - Bi comedy.

Heartstone (2016) - It’s a story about rural Icelandic teenagers.

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015) -  Queer teens and religious themes.

Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974) - Early Chantal Akerman. Warning for sexual scenes.

Kill Your Darlings (2013) - Ginsberg, Kerouac and the Beat poets.

Love, Simon (2018)

Lovesong (2016) - Lesbian and very soft. Korean-American characters.

Love Songs (2007) - French trio relationship. Louis Garrel continues to give off non-straight vibes.

Mädchen In Uniform (1931) - One of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality. A piece of LGBTQ cinematic history.

Maurice (1987) - Adaptation of the novel.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) - Heavy gay coding.

Milk (2008) - Biopic of Harvey Milk, openly gay politician. By the same director who made My Own Private Idaho.

Moonlight (2016) - It won the awards for a reason.

My Own Private Idaho (1991) - Another iconic LGBTQ film. River Phoenix.

Mysterious Skin (2004) - Go into this film aware, please. Young actors, themes of prostitution, child ab*se, r***, and a lot of trauma.

Orlando (1992) - An excellent adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, and in my opinion far more accessible. Watch it for the queer sensibilities and fantastic period pieces.

Pariah (2011) - Excellent coming-of-age film about a black lesbian girl in Brooklyn.

Paris is Burning (1990) - LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY piece of LGBTQ history, documenting the African-American and Latine drag and ballroom roots of the NYC queer community.

Persona (1966) - It’s an Ingmar Bergman film so I would recommend knowing what you’re about to get into, but also I can’t describe it because it’s an Ingmar Bergman film.

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) - Cult classic queercoded boarding school girls.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) - By Celine Sciamma, who’s rapidly establishing herself in the mainstream as a LGBTQ film director. This is a wlw relationship and the queer themes are reflected in the cinematic techniques used. A crowd pleaser.

Pride (2014) - Pride parades with a British sensibility.

Rebel Without A Cause (1955) - Crowd-pleaser with bi coding and James Dean. The OG version of “you’re tearing me apart!”.

Rocketman (2019) - It’s Elton John.

Rent (2005) - Adaptation of the stage musical. Not the best film from a technical standpoint. I recommend the professionally recorded 2008 closing night performance instead.

Rope (1948) - Hitchcock film.

Sorry Angel (2018) - Loving portraits of gay French men.

Talk To Her (2002) - By Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar.

Tangerine (2015) - About trans sex workers. The actors apparently had a lot of input in the film, which was somehow shot on an iPhone by the same guy who went on to do The Florida Project. 

The Duke of Burgundy (2014) - Lesbians in an S&M relationship that’s going stale, sexual content obviously.

The Gay Deceivers (1969) - The reviews are better than me explaining.

The Handmaiden (2016) - Park Chan-wook makes a film about Korean lesbians and is criminally snubbed at the Oscars. Warning for sexual themes and kink.

The Favourite (2018) - Period movie, and lesbian.

Thelma And Louise (1991) - An iconic part of LGBTQ cinematic history. That is all.

The Celluloid Closet (1995) - A look into LGBTQ cinematic history, and the historical contexts we operated in when we’ve snuck our narratives into film.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) - Adaptation of the YA novel.

The Neon Demon (2016) - Apparently based on Elizabeth Bathory, the blood-drinking countess. Very polarising film and rated R.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012) - Book adaptation. It has Ezra Miller in it I guess.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - No explanation needed, queer and transgressive vibes all the way.

They (2017) - Gender identity, teenagers.

Those People (2015) - They’re gay and they’re artists in New York.

Tomboy (2011) - One of the few films I’ve seen dealing with gender identity in children (10 y/o). Celine Sciamma developing her directorial voice.

Tropical Malady (2004) - By Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His is a very particular style so don’t sweat it if you don’t enjoy it.

Vita and Virginia (2018) - Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West biopic

Water Lilies (2007) - Celine Sciamma again! Teenage lesbian coming-of-age. 

When Marnie Was There (2014) - A Studio Ghibli film exploring youth, gender and sexuality.

Weekend (2011) - An indie film about young gay love.

Wilde (1997) - It’s a film about Oscar Wilde.

XXY (2007) - About an intersex teenager. Reviews on this are mixed.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) - Wonder what Diego Luna was doing before Rogue One? This is one of the things. Warning for sexual content.

[funkymbtifiction]

You’ve mentioned taking this time away from blogging to understand MBTI and Enneagram better. Do you plan on doing some sort of “my updated views on type x” posts? I’m curious to know if there was any major change on how see and recognize each type.

Reading Lenore Thompson’s Personality Type book was a major breakthrough for me, in understanding the functions I don’t have – especially high Se, Si, and Ti. In the past, a lot of my understanding was gathered haphazardly from all over the place – from reading and trying to understand Jung (not easy) to reading other people’s stuff about it (some of it right, some of it wrong) – and the bad thing about online learning is that a lot of people who take an avid interest in personality typing are intuitives, which means they have zero understanding of what a sensing function looks like from the ‘inside.’ They will either attribute their own clumsy lower sensing function (which is often rigid, controlled, and weak) to a sensing type, which means their misunderstanding of it translates into traits and thinking processes that actual sensors cannot resonate with, because it is so NOT LIKE THEM (well, it wouldn’t be, coz an N wrote it!).

In that regard, it’s become much easier for me to identify Si-doms, due to their tendency to develop personalized expertise on something of avid interest to them – the ‘learner of all, master of none’ is a Ne trait, the ‘I happen to be the world’s leading expert on [insert thing here]’ is a Si trait. Jackie Robinson, being an expert on baseball, and that being something that absorbed his entire life, was decidedly a Si-dom trait; being an expert on ancient mythology and turning his own personal experiences into fantasy was Tolkien’s Si-dom fascination; etc. If you look around you, you’ll see this tendency a lot in Si-doms. Some particular thing strikes a chord with them, whether it is Disney or old movies or golf or stamp collecting or the Revolutionary War, and little by little they become an ‘expert’ simply because they have read more about it, and studied more about it, and thought more about it, and been absorbed for years by it, than anyone else.

Se-doms were always a mystery to me, and it did not help that I had been misinformed about Si vs Se methods of learning styles. I knew Se-doms were hands-on learners, but not how bodily they can adjust while doing something in order to gain a better result the next time – it’s instinctive for them. THEY are the people who actually respect the most an ‘expert’s’ HANDS ON knowledge. So if a Si type reads a book on scuba diving, they may feel equipped to scuba dive; a Se will want to talk to someone who has been scuba diving, and hear what it is like – the currents, the jolt of adrenaline, what they did in a crisis moment, and then they will want to do it, and learn AS they are adjusting to the environment. Viewing them as thrill-seeking hedonists does them a disservice, because their bodily awareness is absolutely jaw-dropping insanely incredible – they can just ‘lose themselves’ in things. For hours. Being TOTALLY in the present.

Ti is still so foreign to my own thinking I find it harder to grasp, but figuring out a Ti ‘figures out things while they are doing them’ did help me a bit – because I can look at the high Ti’s in my life and see that’s true. In fact, they will say they’ll ‘figure it out once they get there.’ I’ll have to read the Ti-dom chapter several more times to get the full grasp of it, because I can’t anchor it yet to any clear objective examples.

You’ve probably noticed some characters have changed type since I moved them over to the wordpress blog. That will probably continue to happen, as going through and saving old characters has forced me to evaluate whether this character actually fits the patterns established based on my new understanding. Some intuitives have become sensors, because I realized they were never Ne’s at all; some sensors have become intuitives, because there’s nothing hands-on-learning about their approach to life, it’s all whimsical Ne. Some characters, I’ve realized that I wasn’t sure about, are now SJs because of their Si tendencies. Etc. I didn’t get them all right, and I am still not getting them all right, but over time I hope to be more accurate and concise and not rush as much to reach a firm conclusion. It’s a fault of my own high Ne/low Te that I am not as meticulous as I should be in gathering and providing evidence.

Enneagram-wise, I’ll shoot straight with you. Probably because I am a 6, it is very hard to split my focus and analyze multiple things or characters at the same time. I want to focus on one person or task, since I am used to doing that. So trying to think about cognition and behaviors and separate that from their motives / what they want (Enneagram, and figure out “Okay… so the emphasis on ‘doing the right thing’ is actually because this person is a Fi-dom and NOT a 1…’ is… hard. Sometimes so hard that I will watch something once, to get their MBTI type down, and then watch it again thinking ONLY about the Ennagram. But of course, with long serials I don’t have that luxury. I don’t have another 10 hours to spend on this. Sometimes, a character’s Enneagram comes through loud and clear, and sometimes I don’t have a clue so I make my best guess. I am still reading and re-reading and studying the Enneagram and learning it as best I can, but since I am much newer at it than at MBTI, my conclusions are not always as firm on characters with dubious intentions / motives / sloppy writing.

When I type, I am sort of paying attention to everything all at once, and trying to keep track of all the characters (or just the leads, if I know no one cares about the side characters) and if I get stuck on the Enneagram, I yank out the cards I made with the basic traits / an image of a notable character of that type and play the comparison game. I keep a mental record of ‘things against this type’ – in short, I look for these things in characters:

1s: anal, responsible, duty-driven, can be harsh or refuse to make allowances

2s: warm, inviting, receptive, helpful, desperate for love, can be manipulative

3s: self-confident, ambitious, driven, out of touch with self, can be braggarts

4s: highly emotional (expressive or not relies on wing), deep, melancholic, focused on what they don’t have vs. what they do, can be self-absorbed / emo

5s: self-trusting in their own logic, ruthlessly logical, arrogant, lives minimally, can be misers and/or refuse to participate in society itself

6s: suspicious, distrustful, cautious, but also funny / eager for others to like them, suffers self-doubt and at times, paranoia or anxiety about significant other

7s: witty, full of banter, doesn’t like to be tied down, escape artists, distracts people off things they don’t like through humor, can be irresponsible

8s: strong will, unafraid of anyone else, domineering, can be argumentative or needlessly push others in the story to get what they want

9s: mild-mannered, receptive, sweet, hates conflict / lets others have their way, can be too passive and/or their plot line suffers from a lack of ‘agency’

If stuck, I compare as to who this character is more like, ‘in that way.’ It helps.

Character examples for comparison: 1 Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird), 2 Mike Wheeler (Stranger Things), 3 P.T. Barnum (The Greatest Showman), 4 Rose de Witt Bukater (TITANIC), 5 Sherlock Holmes (the books), 6 Brett Maverick (from the Mel Gibson movie; the original James Garner Maverick is a healthy social 8w9), 7 Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls), 8 Princess Leia (Star Wars), 9 Beth March (Little Women).

- ENFP Mod

[fenweak]

Top 10 1988 fics?

Ok first of all, i’ve been sitting on this ask, but thank you for this! But buckle up for a lengthy prologue to the answer lmao 

It’s just so weird to be asked to choose which, because at some point, I have loved all of the fics, each for their own merit, you get me? I fell in love with the fandom mostly because the fics here are lovely, and every time a new fic explored another facet of Jonny and Patrick’s relationship getting, it gave me another reason to stay. I read, and reread. I reread enough times that I made a 1988 fic search blog  (Boom, shameless sideblog plug). 

I have also been reading since 2016. That is to say, over time, I have changed, and along with that, my preferences have evolved, my opinions more resolved about a thing or two about the fandom and things tangential to it. I’m rambling, but I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have read fics in this pairing that have become a part of me, and I may not get to mention all of them but I have cherish all of them, truly. LET’S GET ON WITH THE LIST

LAST SEGUE: I have a more extensive fic rec here, which also is in no way exhaustive. It gotta be like that sometimes.

1. Literally everything by jezziejay. No, there isn’t a fic titled literally everything, i’m just a cheater because she’s that awesome. I peer in my bookmarks on ao3, and I have written under Somewhere Only We Know the ff: “NOTE TO FUTURE ME: DO YOURSELF A FAVKR AND READ EVERYTHING THIS LADY WROTE AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR.” And I do, reader. I have an annual jezziejay retrospective. I can probably quote to you entire paragraphs of Strung Out on Heaven’s High (hitting an all-time low). I am forever amazed at how well-crafted the twist was in Make His Brown Eyes Blue.  I just reread Dynamical Systems + its lovely minisequel today. I still dream of future sequels for The Reeducation of Misters Kane and Toews. Since then, jezziejay has published newer fics and we are so so blessed to have them:  the faeries and elves AU, the Love Actually lost in translation AU, her Mr. Wonderful AU, her freaking Murder in the Nile AU which actually convinced me to read more Poirot lol. She balances humor and drama very well and she writes subtly and with deliberateness, that her fics are always perfectly paced for me. If there’s a fic of hers that’s criminally underrated, though, and which you should read right now if you haven’t already, it’s A Better Man, which is one of the best use of OCs I have ever read in fandom ever. Go (re)read it now! Anyway, I can make a top ten fic rec that can be all jezziejay, and it’ll be believable, so let’s just make item one, count for, like, 5 items.

2. a light-handed approach to regulation by hazel. The thing about this fic is, its full appreciation lies in knowing what the popular fandom dynamic is in 1988, and then reading this afterwards. It subverts the trope and the popular pairing dynamic in multiple ways: an omega Captain, the omega being Jonny, having these characters be self-aware of their dynamic and adhere to that dynamic and caring shit all about the conventions attached to it. At the heart of it is still Jonny and Patrick and their love for hockey and I LOVE THAT. I also have gotten into *coughs* friendly discussions whether or not i’m overthinking how brilliant the summary and the title is. Friends, you know who you are haha but I abide by my decision to interpret “a light-handed approach” and its summary “Patrick Kane has soft hands” as somehow referring not only to Patrick Kane’s soft mitts on the ice, but his mindset, his general philosophy into the entire alpha/omega matter and as to him being an alpha to Jonny. WHich IS BRILLIANT because I’m a fan of double entendres and I’m easy to please like that. Also probably read all of hazel’s fics, which are all wonderful and happy reads.

3. Call Me Royal Blue by cupstealer. I was mindblown when this came out, like how dare someone write so cleverly and funny and viscerally and 50k long???  Amazing characterization too! This fic will hold you down and make you feel feelings. 1988 has an abundance of good friends-to-lovers slow burn, so shoutout to my other faves: Orbital Resonance by fourfreedoms and joyfulseeker, The Importance of Swimming in Clear Water by turningterrific, Eyes on the Horizon by heartstrings, Just Maybe by altri_uccelli, Just to Break My Own Fall by Linsky’s, and lean a little to the left by demotu.

4.  In the category of beautifully written and personally relatable: love songs for love songs by boodreau, You and Me of the 10,000 Wars by sahiya, safe to shore  and Chelsea, Chelsea I Believe by empathapathique,  I’m a sucker for fics where the characters, much like in real life, are A Mess, where their emotions or actions go against structured story beats and are pretty much organic. I like stories where the protagonists self-sabotage. I like it when they’re emotionally constipated, or when they hide inside themselves. I like stories where they strive and try to get better because there’s someone getting better for, because that’s the dream, right? Yes I am a drama queen at heart. Special mention to this deleted fic called we were in flames where Patrick and Jonny are long-time friends and lovers since college though Patrick can’t admit it--that story really stuck with me.

5. Here are fics with a touch of supernatural and which I completely adore: A Certainty I Envy by hatrickane, We’ve Waited For the Calling by allthebros, So Lift Those Heavy Eyelids by SimoneCloseau, these are the fables on my street by fahye, and a dainty dish set before the king by mockturtletale. There seriously needs to be more fantasy and supernatural fics in this fandom, because these are amazing and heart-wrenching and the idea of Jonny and Patrick braving and transcending the elements against them? A+

Special mention to my perennial rereads: You Make It Look Good, All Along the Undertow, Same Time, Same Place, love is a contact sport, 22. I may have forgotten many, but these are the fics that came to mind!

[technoskittles]

“Adora is one of the First Ones” Theory

Okay this is a tad later than I meant to make this post but I got busy (finals week is upon us and I am....dying).

But here it is: my “Adora is one of the First Ones” theory

There’s been a lot of speculation on what exactly Adora is (including one really interesting theory that she’s not even human) and personally, I think she’s one of the First Ones.

Disclaimer: I don’t think she’s over 1000 years old. That’d be kind of cool, but would involve a lot of time travel nonsense that I doubt Noelle and the rest of the She-Ra crew want to make that convoluted 

(I’m looking at you Fairy Tail)

But I do have reasons that I believe she is a descendant/part of the group of people that the rest of Etheria calls the “First Ones”.

We’ll start off with something simple. During Adora’s interactions with Razz, one thing in particular stood out to me: their conversation about the stars.

Notice here how Adora is the first one to point out and name the stars. Quickly following, Razz mentions how her and Mara (the previous She-Ra from 1000 years ago) used to look at the stars together, but that they’ve disappeared. 

I’ll go ahead and add a disclaimer that this one is based on a lot of loose theorizing and assumptions because we’re not actually sure how long the stars have been missing or whether or not the rest of the Etherians are even familiar with stars. For this theory, I’m going to go ahead and assume that the stars have been gone quite awhile - for a thousand years in fact. The rest of the Etherians likely don’t even know what stars are, hence Adora’s slight confusion upon being able to recognize them at all.

Clearly, Razz is able to identify them because she’s clearly over a thousand years old (as evidenced by the fact that she was alive during Mara’s time and was familiar with her enough that they would often hang out it seems). Razz is this sort of connection between the mysterious past and present-time. However, Adora, not only someone who is young and been sheltered by the Horde all of her life, knows about stars.

Granted, this one has some leeway in the sense that you can argue that maybe Etherians, even if they don’t have stars in their sky currently, may have some sort of written history or text on stars somewhere. A completely plausible argument, except that this comes next:

Adora’s seen the stars. She remembers them. She just can’t place how or where. Probably because she was too young to remember them. We’ll get back to this just a little more later, but first, a bit more on a possible theory of when and how the stars disappeared.

So as we all know, Mara, in a brash decision, stranded Etheria in the closed-off dimension of Despandos about a thousand years ago (as told by Light Hope).

Notice how all the stars disappeared around Etheria? (Please ignore the single star in the third screenshot I did my best to capture this screenshots as fast as possible lol.) A direct result of Mara stranding them in Despandos. This is also what resulted in her breaking the She-Ra line (as you can see from the screenshot above). It’s also safe to assume that large planet is Etheria (which will come up in just a minute).

But first, let’s move on to something else real quick: Adora can read the First Ones’ writing. As far as we’re aware, no one else can. Because, as Glimmer states:

No one has spoken that language in a thousand years (approx. the time that the First Ones supposedly “vanished” and also around the time Mara stranded Etheria in Despandos). There might have been some people who’ve attempted to translate the language surely, but it’s not a language that is commonly used or known. Certainly no random person can read this dead language.

Now, one of the arguments that could easily be made is that Adora magically learned how to read the language once she made her connection with the Sword of Protection, which would just be the easy way out (and not applicable at all to this theory). 

But where else would Adora have learned a language that’s been dead for over a thousand years?

Maybe in a place where it’s still commonly used.

Which....we’ll get to in a minute (gotta keep that suspenseful build-up haha).

For now, let’s move on to another point. 

This one has to deal with the planet itself. Glimmer and Bow mention at the beginning that Etheria was settled by a civilization that they call the “First Ones” over a thousand years ago before the “suddenly vanished”. Supposedly without a trace. The only thing left behind were the ruins filled with what they call “First Ones’ tech”. 

Entrapta even theorizes (correctly) that the entire planet is made up of First Ones’ tech. However, during Adora’s conversation with Light Hope, it’s revealed that it’s not quite “tech” but more of a “life force”. (Not in exact words but that’s kind of the gist that I was getting.)

The princesses are connected to their runestones which stabilizes the planet so-to-speak. Disrupting the runestones throws the planet into chaos and as we saw in Glimmer’s case, if a princess’s connection to their runestones is disrupted, it affects them personally as well.

But Glimmer isn’t the only one we’ve seen whose connection to her runestone become disrupted.

It’s important to note here that while Glimmer’s disruption was caused by power from another runestone (Shadow Weaver and the Black Garnet), She-Ra’s was caused directly by First Ones’ tech. 

Another important thing to note is that when the robot was screaming or, as Entrapta endearly put it “trying to talk”, She-Ra was the only one noticeably affected by this.

This leads me to believe that Adora has some sort of special connection with First Ones’ tech that the other princesses (or anyone for that matter) do not. What exactly that connection is is a little harder to pin down and I admittedly don’t have a solid answer to it, but I think it’s an interesting thing to consider regardless.

For my last point, we’re going to also briefly consider the original 80s cartoon in relation to the Netflix reboot. 

Both iterations of this universe start with Adora being taken in by the Horde when she was very young. In the original, she was specifically kidnapped by Hordak from her original dimension to be raised into a Horde soldier.

However, in the reboot, Shadow Weaver states that she found Adora as an orphan and took her in.

What isn’t mentioned is how or where Shadow Weaver came across Adora. That part of her history is still a mystery - both to us and Adora herself. Given what we know of the Horde and Shadow Weaver however, it’s a safe assumption that Shadow Weaver didn’t just “find” Adora. 

Now, this might be me getting nitpicky, but also notice how Shadow Weaver says she found Adora as a child, not a baby like she was in the original. This could mean that Adora was young enough to not remember much of her actual past, but still older than an infant (and even if she did remember where she was from, we’re all now well aware that SW has the capability to erase memories).

So what does this mean?

Glad ya asked because the moment is finally here:

Adora is from another dimension where the “First Ones” still exist. In fact, she’s part of the group of settlers who travels the universe settling on uninhabited planets.

As Light Hope mentions, the First Ones are a group of settlers who journeyed to Etheria to settle there.

Explorers. 

Translation: They traveled from place-to-place. From the wording here, they were probably nomadic. Of course, there are groups who completely stay together and explore different uninhabited places to settle, using up the resources before moving on (like the Native Americans). 

However, some nomadic peoples would settle in an area before a newer generation would set off to settle another place, leaving behind the people who’d originally settled that location (think Moana...except I don’t have screencaps for that).

The First Ones probably settled a bunch of different planets, Etheria included, leaving behind a group of people in one settlement to go and explore more places to start up a settlement there.

So....what does that have to do with Adora?

Adora was a part of one of the settlements on a different planet. Let’s list how and why:

-She remembers the stars. Personally. But where would she have seen stars when she currently lives in a dimension where they don’t exist?

Perhaps when she was younger. 

Shortly after her conversation with Mara, Adora seems to have a series of flashbacks of a world with different scenery, including something that should seem familiar.

The Crystal Castle, before it became a ruin, complete with a sky full of stars

The stranding of Etheria

A portal that’s in a very...familiar field

And it all ends with what looks like a window looking out onto a landscape, the planet of Etheria in sight and a baby giggling.

Baby Adora giggling.

-Adora can read First Ones’ writing when no one else can.

This could probably be because, once again, she grew up in a place and a society where it’s still commonly known and used. As a child, it’s something she would’ve grown up learning to read. And after being transported to a dimension where it’s been out of use for a thousand years, it’s odd that she somehow knows a dead language....unless it’s something she’s encountered before.

So, tl;dr Adora is a part of one of what might be many colonies of First Ones settlers and is from another planet in another dimension where she was born and raised, learned the language, was able to see stars, and has a special connection to the technology from being around it firsthand (rather than being an indirect descendant over the period of a thousand years) but was somehow taken by the Horde to Etheria that’s stranded in the empty dimension of Despandos.