#lee’s twaddles

[libraford]

Sometimes I think I dont really fit in at a lot of the alternative spaces I hang out at because they are very much prone to navel gazing about things and I'm a very practical person... for a witch, I mean.

So I have been to a lot of drum circles and most of them are very organic. Someone lays down a beat. Someone follows. It turns into a thing, it evolves, someone usually gets up and dances.

This was the first time I've been to one where there was an hour of like... explanation about the healing powers of the drums and blah blah community blah blah. Like... I get it. People like to have reasons to do things. My reason for going to these is because I want to practice playing bodhran without the dogs barking at the sound.

I want play the very big bodhran that is there, which he calls a 'native American medicine drum' and I understand that they are similar, but it's made by the same people who make mine so I think maybe 'frame drum' is more accurate here.

We go around the room and say names, pronouns, why we're here, and how we're feeling.

Native american rituals blah blah, I'm feeling grateful blah blah, community something.

They get to me:

"My name is Lee, he/she/they. I'm here because sometimes I wanna hit stuff and i understand that's how drums are played. And im... uh... cold?"

I mean after we started jamming I was fine but sometimes I just wanna twaddle. (But I did get to play the very big frame drum with my twaddle and am very pleased with the sound it makes)

[psalm22-6]

Source: the Desert Sun, 8 January 1987

WASHINGTON  — The red flag of revolution flies defiantly atop a barricade that bristles with revolutionaries' muskets, not far from the White House. The masses have risen against Reaganomics? No, Reaganites and others are cheering the red flag and shedding scalding tears when the flag falls to the forces of law and order. The world is turned upside down. ‘‘Les Miserables” has come to town. This stunning 3-hr. 20-minute production, distilled from a 1,200-page novel, is bound for Broadway and beyond At age 21, Victor Hugo called for a new sort of fiction, on an epic scale to encompass the moral and social tumults of the 19th century, an era of urbanization industrialization and revolution. He produced such fiction in “Les Miserables” and now, 125 years after its publication, the novel has nurtured a new sort of theater. “Les Miz” is not a mere “musical.” All dialogue is sung, although scenes are carefully choreographed, there are none of the usual sort of musical “dance numbers." It represents a genre between theater and opera. 

It is the story of Jean Valjean. Compared to his experiences, those of Job were a week at the beach. Having served 19 years at hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child, Valjean is released into a world of travail. He is pursued through the decades, and through stagecraft as ingenious as that of “Cats,’' by police inspector Javert, the representative of the regime’s oppression that produces les miserables. The computerized sets and lights make the stage become a living canvas, now by Hogarth, next by Goya. The production has all the elements of melodrama  — a fallen woman whose winsome daughter becomes an exploited orphan, an adorable revolutionary boy who is shot at the barricades. No heart string goes untugged.

The production is a political Rorschach test, and only the stoutest conservatives see any reason for sympathizing with Javert, a defender of order and poverty and hence of trickle-down to the impatient ingrates at the barricades. 

One half of your brain — the sober, rational, conservative half — says of the production: This is mawkish, sub-Dickensian sentimentality and pernicious political twaddle, and we are being shamelessly manipulated. The squishy liberal side of your brain says: Yea, and isn’t it fun! 

The music is almost maddeningly hummable, and be warned: As was the case with the main theme from “Jesus Christ Superstar," themes from “Les Miz" will be brayed by marching bands in the purgatory of pageantry known as football halftime shows. Still, there is useful synergism in popular culture. In 1983, the eight-hour production of "Nicholas Nickleby” (directed by one of the co-directors of “Les Miserables") created readers for one of Dickens' less known novels. The movie “Out of Africa” brought back into popularity writings of Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Today, Washington bookstores are doing a brisk business with “Les Miserables.” 

When the first volume was published, Hugo sent his publisher the tersest of telegrams: “?”. The reply was: “!” It sold out in 24 hours. [No.]

The novel is proportional to its themes, which no stage version could cope with as well as print can. The themes include the transforming power of revolutions, the tension between the individual and society, the injustice of the criminal justice’s system of punishments, the regeneration of persons debased by circumstances, the nobility of suffering, the impact of saintliness. It is good reading for a city of government

Dostoevsky considered “Les Miserables” superior to “Crime and Punishment.” Soldiers in the American Civil War carried copies of it; some Confederates called themselves “Lee’s Miserables." In the 19th century, when electricity knew its place (lightning, the telegraph, a bit of lighting), there was, mercifully, no broadcasting. Books were popular entertainment, in part because the masses were learning to read, a dangerous development that fostered the spread of journalism and other problems. 

But besides being mass entertainments, some novels were considered gigantic public acts. When the revolutionary Paris commune was declared in 1871, a mob of anti-revolutionary Belgians besieged Hugo in Brussels shouting “Down with Victor Hugo! Down with Jean Valjean!” 

As an intellectual in politics, Hugo exemplified the modern ideal of “engagement,” and the unity of theory and practice In 1885, his coffin lay under the Arc de Triomphe, which was draped in black crepe. Two million Parisians turned out for the movement of the coffin to the Pantheon. Never before or since has a nation given to a person of literature such honors normally accorded only to political or military leaders. It was a fitting tribute to a man who proved that the pen, as much as the sword, can be an instrument of epic action. 

George Will, The Washington Post

[fardf150]

To trans men: you are allowed to be feminine if you want to be. You won’t be any less of a man because you look a certain way.

To trans women: you are allowed to be masculine if you want to be. You won’t be any less of a woman because you look a certain way.

Your manhood and/or womanhood is what you make it. No one else gets to decide that for you.

You can be masculine, feminine, androgynous- whatever. What you want to be is what you can and should be. Your gender won’t change because you present in a certain way.

If anyone tells you otherwise I will kick them in the shins.

[fardf150]

Hey, jsyk, you don’t have to respect people just because they’re dead.

If he was a fucking dick while he was alive, he was still a fucking dick now that he’s dead.

Contrary to popular belief, people don’t automatically become saints when they die.

He fucking sucked. He’s dead? Well, he still fucking sucked. End of story <3

[fardf150]

:)

(Click for better quality)

[fardf150]

Okay but why aren’t more people talking about that fact that it’s literally so helpful to put together a playlist based on whatever you’re writing?

It can help for multiple reasons; ones for me would be:

It helps me outline where the story is going

It makes it feel a little more official; like I’ve got my head in the game and there’s no point in turning back now

It gives me a little sense of accomplishment

It gives me something to listen to while writing that’s less likely to distract me; and if it does, the lyrics will only help me imagine the story more

Like- 10000/10 so helpful 100% recommended this, especially if you have attention span issues or if you end up giving up on something if dopamine takes too long to come from it

[fardf150]

What’s your comfort song(s) that probably shouldn’t be comforting to you, either due to the themes/subject matter present or just general sound?

[fardf150]

Oh btw if someone tells you they want to be called by a different name saying it’s a nickname, call them by it.

You don’t know if it’s actually something more and they’re not ready to tell you or they don’t think they can, and even if it isn’t that’s not really your business or choice to make.

It’s really draining to be constantly called by a name you don’t connect with or like.

So don’t ask “well can I still call you [x]?”

Even if they say you can, they could just be saying that to appease you or to avoid further questions. Even if they really are okay with it, it’s better to just call them what they’d prefer to be called.

This goes for anyone, not just trans/nb people. Cis people change their names too and that’s perfectly fine. They don’t connect with their birth name, so they want to go by something else. It’s not that hard a concept to grasp, and it’s not difficult to just call them by their actual name.

Accidental slip ups are bound to happen and are okay, but just not trying at all completely dismisses what could be a very important thing to someone. Even if it’s not that’s not really your business.

This is especially important for parents to understand, I think.

[fardf150]

Concept: Platonic Dating Sim

[fardf150]

*gives you a soft kiss on the forehead* /p

I just want you to know:

I’m proud of you

You’re doing great

I’m glad you exist

You’re strong, even if you don’t feel like it

Everything will be okay <3

[fardf150]

If someone has hurt you:

You are not obligated to still care about them.

You are not obligated to still talk to them.

You are not obligated to keep them in your life.

You are not obligated to forgive them.

But:

It does not make you dumb if you still care about them.

It does not make you naive to forgive them.

If you are able to forgive them, as they have improved, then good on you.

But it doesn’t make you a bad person if you can’t.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation.

You are allowed to cut ties with toxic people.

You are allowed to be hurt.

[fardf150]

Here’s to the people who have just recently gotten back to keeping up healthy habits that seem normal.

Here’s to the people who just now took that shower for the first time in a week or more.

Here’s to the people still trying.

You’ve all come so far. I believe in you. You can do this.

Remember that progress is not linear. It’s okay if you forget again, or still don’t remember for a little while longer. You can still get back to it.

I’m proud of you all.

<3

[fardf150]

I have ‘how bad can I be’ stuck in my head oh heavens no

[fardf150]

New ask game: how do you think the fanbase would minimize my character if I were from a popular piece of media

[fardf150]

What’s a headcanon you have about a character’s physical appearance that directly contradicts canon?