#not the DOG! THE DOG IS THE ULTIMATE LITMUS TEST NOT THE DOG!!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

p-and-p-admin · 4 years ago

Photo

Interview given to The Severus Snape and Hermione Granger Shipping Fan Group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/199718373383293/

Hello CorvusDraconis and welcome to Behind the Quill, thank-you so much for sitting down with us to chat.

You’re a well known and beloved figure in the SS/HG community for your many stories - including a personal favourite of mine, A chance for happiness.

Okay, let’s jump right in. What's the story behind your pen name?

I have always had a fascination for the shiny things and the Northwest Coast depictions of Raven the Trickster/Creator, and, I tend to hoard (and get super protective) of my art supplies. Corvids have always been a positive sign in my life. They tend to show up when I’m feeling down and engage in funny antics in the yard. As for dragons, I’ve always had a love for them and think the Western depiction of them as dangerous beasts with no mind but for hoarding treasure and killing people only to be slain by a knight quite despicable.

Which Harry Potter character do you identify with the most?

Severus, actually. I see a lot of my life in his. Hardships, challenges, bullying— trying to be something better and later wondering about unwise decisions. I have a very similar dislike for dunderheads, but I do not share his inclination to denude rosebushes of their petals. Do you have a favourite genre to read? (not in fic, just in general) I have always preferred fantasy and sci-fi.

Do you have a favourite "classic" novel?

I am not sure if you would call it a classic novel, but grew up on all things Tolkien (and even puzzled through the Silmarillion at the grand age of seven), and have a special place in my heart for Watership Down. While I’ve read pieces like War and Peace, Iliad, Ulysses, Pride and Prejudice, Grapes of Wrath, Moby Dick, Great Gatsby, Little Women, Catcher in the Rye, Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn, Scarlet Letter, Don Quixote, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Jane Eyre, Lord of the Flies, Tale of Two Cities, Heart of Darkness, Robinson Crusoe, Alice in Wonderland, Great Expectations, Odyssey, Frankenstein, Dracula, Crime and Punishment, Heart of Darkness, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Secret Garden, Treasure Island, Anne of Green Gables, Les Misérables, Peter Pan, Gulliver’s Travels, all things Jack London, 20000 Leagues, etc.— they never captured me as aptly as Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern or Mercedes Lackley’s the Last Herald Mage. Though, if I were to pick classic stories I read more than once (litmus test for things I like) it would be things such as The Secret Garden, Call of the Wild, Wild Fang, The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Last Unicorn. At what age did you start writing? The moment I could pick up pencil and paper, I was writing. I had notepads full of stories I wrote as a kid. Alas, my dad found them one day when I was off to college, made fun of them, and I came home and burned every single one in mortification.

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

The moment TV shows did “stupid things” to their characters. I used to write things about Beauty and the Beast (the old CBS show) when they killed off the main character, Knight Rider, Robocop, Transformers— there are probably far more that I just don’t remember now. I was writing it long before there was a fanfiction dot net or a term to even call it. What's the best theme you've ever come across in a fic? Is it a theme represented in your own works? I am a shameless romantic for the beauty within and sometimes the quite literal love for a monster (not just some person who acts like a monster and changes into a better person.) The misunderstood monster is perhaps my most favourite theme, and it shows up in my stories often if not always. What fandoms are you involved in other than Harry Potter? I ship SessKag from Inuyasha, Lucard/Sophie from Dracula: The Series, and Loki/Hermione when I’m feeling crossover-y. If you could make one change to canon, what would it be? Do you have a favourite piece of fanon? Other than my favourite fanon that Severus lives/survives/finds a better life free of two masters and his guilt, I would say I would want Harry to wise the heck up and realise his father was a swine, his godfather was an almost successful murderer that used his own best mate to try and kill off another student, and his mother wasn’t all that hot either. I would want him to find value in himself without having to make stuff up about his “perfect” parents. Then again, I would want Vernon/Petunia to be arrested for child abuse and put in gaol, but— then the story would have been very different XD Do you listen to music when you write or do you prefer quiet? Sometimes quiet, sometimes music. But usually, I am best mates with Spotify.

What are your favourite fanfictions of all time?

In the HP universe: I honestly don’t read many of them because I’m always writing my own stuff XD, but when I really feel like I need a good Ron bashing SSHG HEA, I read just about anything by IShouldBeWritingSomethingElse. However, that being said, I often return to “The Sun is Often Out” by Hannah-1888 for just the right amount of angst and HEA to make me happy.

In the Inuyasha universe: A Trick of Fate by PristinelyUngifted

In the Marvel universe: Mutual Respect Sends His Regrets by moor

In the Star Trek universe: Gratified By Your Company by starfleetdream

Are you a plotter or a pantser? How does that affect your writing process?

I go by the seat of my feathered rump, to be honest. Inspiration is a fickle, unpredictable beast, and I usually don’t know what is going to happen until it does.

What is your writing genre of choice?

Fantasy

Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why?

Chance of Happiness because it was my very first publication. It may not have been my best, but it was my first, and it very well could have been my last yet somehow wasn’t.

Looks Can Be Deceiving and One Step Forward, Two Decades Back are two epic tales that seemed to demand being written. The fact I finished them was something I think deserves a little pride.

Did it unfold as you imagined it or did you find the unexpected cropped up as you wrote? What did you learn from writing it?

Looks started off with me attempted to write Dramione just once. It failed. Draco demanded to be her brother of the heart, Viktor came in and said “nope she’s mine,” and no one was more surprised at the outcome of that story than me. The characters did what THEY wanted.

I learned that trying to plan a story from start to finish is useless when the characters decide what they want. The story demanded more, and I was just a conduit that typed it down. For me, at least, attempting to outline and plan is utterly useless

How personal is the story to you, and do you think that made it harder or easier to write?

I think every story I write is personal in some way. The inspiration comes from somewhere inside, and I often have no idea what it is until I go back and read it later. I think the story wrote itself in a lot of ways, which made it easier in a way, but there are a lot of things I can’t say were from personal experience because as a high fantasy of talking gryphons and such I can only imagine it. There is no basis in real life on how any of that would go down. There is a freedom in that but also many challenges in making it real enough to identify with despite how alien and fantastic the idea is.

What books or authors have influenced you? How do you think that shows in your writing?

Dragonriders of Pern introduced sentient dragons and the idea that despite a vast difference in species there could be teamwork and love between the two as they teamed up against a greater threat.

The herald-mage books by Mercedes Lackley were also important staples in my childhood because it impressed the values of responsibility despite having powers others did not, and that people were fallible despite greatness and potential.

Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron: I cannot tell you how often I read this story. I had dog ears on these novels because there was so much I loved about them. It was a search for humanity when displaced in a seemingly alien world, societal clashes, and the great sha’um (the giant rideable cats) that were the main characters’ partners for life.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede: A princess rebels against her arranged marriage by running away to be a dragon princess.

All of these books had creatures in it that chose to partner with a human and be with them for life, not as lovers that you find in the more modern supernatural romance blender out there, but the ultimate friend for life— the family you choose.

Do people in your everyday life know you write fanfiction?

Oh heck no. Hah. They have their secrets, and I have mine. Personally, I think mine are more healthy than theirs.

How true for you is the notion of "writing for yourself"?

Very.

I write for myself. Sometimes I’ll write a story for one of my betas or a sshg friend, but for the most part, I write for my own entertainment because nothing like what I write is out there. There is a lot of SSHG out there, but mine is almost always a creature feature story. I blame X-Files growing up. It tickles me that others enjoy my stories, but in the end I write to get things down and out of my head. They just so happen to entertain others as they do me.

How important is it for you to interact with your audience? How do you engage with them? Just at the point of publishing? Through social media?

I will often engage in A/N talk at the end of chapters, but I really don’t engage in the fandom. I loathe social media. That being said, I read every review, and while I don’t reply to everything because FF dot net is a horrible platform for messaging anymore (or ever was really)-- I appreciate every single one. Sometimes it helps to know people are enjoying the story for the story’s sake.

What is the best advice you've received about writing?

Get a beta, even if you are pretty good at writing. Get one because a second pair of eyes will catch things you don’t. Read your own stuff out loud. If you trip over it, your audience will too. If you stumble, so will they.

Get a beta who isn’t afraid to tell you that your shite stinks in places and you make no sense. You may want a cheerleader, but what you need is a beta. If you are super lucky, you can have both at once.

What do you do when you hit writer's block?

I play computer games and sew things. I’ve sewn a lot of things lately. Scrub caps and masks for work—

There has been a lot of writer’s block lately due to the times, and I will not write when I’m uninspired. I will not force inspiration. That’s not fair to me or those unfortunate enough to share in the reading. I want to be able to go back on a story I wrote and enjoy it and not curse at myself. XD

Has anything in real life trickled down into your writing?

Sometimes certain catch phrases and things from real life friends have trickled in as a sort of Easter egg (unbeknownst to them since I don’t tell them I write fanfic). Sometimes random news stories or whatnot find their way in. Lessons of the day. Random events. Things that are too odd not to stick in my brain somehow. I can’t say I always do it on purpose, though.

Do you have any stories in the works? Can you give us a teaser?

No, I have a goal this year to finish off the unfinished stories. This is made harder because Dragon and the Rose keeps adding more and more bunnies into the idea bin, and my brain wants to run with them, but I’m like NO DANGIT, I HAVE STUFF TO FINISH STILL! It’s a hard thing trying to finish what you start when so much interesting stuff pops up and waves at you like “heeeeeyyyyy I’m cool too!”

Any words of encouragement to other writers?

Keep writing but remember you can always be better. You can always improve. Writing isn’t a popularity contest. It isn’t about how many reviews you get or how many fans you may or may not have. Write because you want to write. Write what you like not what other people like. Write for you because in the end, you are the one who goes back to read it and say “I wrote this story, and I still love it” instead of forcing yourself to write something just because the topic is “popular” and gets a lot of visitors. Write something you’ll be proud to go back and read and enjoy. You’ll find when you write something genuinely, readers will come. And if only one person leaves you a paragraph review on how much your story meant to them out of someone else’s hundreds of “great!” (with nothing else)-- think of what you value more.

If my story helped someone through a dark time.

Just one person—

Then it was a good effort.

Maybe that person didn’t have the bravery to leave a message. Maybe they are ashamed. Maybe they send you a PM instead of a review.

That is, to me, the ultimate reason why I realised that despite writing stories for myself that there are people out there that needed to hear my story at just the right time in their life. If my story can bring a little joy to someone else, then it doesn’t matter how many reviews I have. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have thousands of reviews like “that other author.” What matters is that I told my story; someone out there read it and it spoke to them.

I love hearing from people and what they liked about my stories, but I also am glad that there are some people out there who secretly like my stories but do not feel safe enough to review.

So, I would say to the aspiring author: write for yourself but share it. You never know whose day you will make with your story. They may never tell you. They may tell you years later (happened to me!). There is a good chance that someone out there needs your story as much as you need to write it. That being said, find yourself a beta to share your journey with you. You may find a few friend in the process.

Thanks so much for giving us your time.

You are quite welcome.

#fanfiction #fanfic #ss/hg #snamione #writing

12 notes · View notes

beesmygod · 2 years ago

Note

i feel like people who have read left behind have the ULTIMATE litmus test for bad writing. those books suck so much dog ass

Getting halfway through that passage and realizing "oh this really is just a description of someone changing lanes responsibly on an empty highway" was truly harrowing. Is there also a chapter where someone balances their checkbook and discovers that their receipts exactly match their bank statement? I thought this was a post apocalyptic story?

it reminds me of how many really bad amateur movies have the opening credits play over footage thats just b roll of ppl driving

28 notes · View notes

chiseler · 5 years ago

Text

Wanted Man: On THE FUGITIVE

The road at night is home to one of America’s perennially romantic figures: the man who’s on the lam. The escaping slave wading in the water to throw off the dogs; the western outlaw with his face on a Wanted poster and a price on his head; the Depression-era bank robber gunning his stolen V-8 toward the state line. Guilt or innocence is almost incidental; it’s the race to stay free, and the need to keep on the move, that lend such dark luster to the fugitive. The double meaning of “wanted man” is inherent, never stated more succinctly than in Nightfall (1957), when just before they kiss Anne Bancroft tells Aldo Ray, who is pursued by both cops and criminals, “You’re the most wanted man I know.”

With all due respect to Aldo Ray, the most wanted man of all was surely David Janssen, who carried one hundred and twenty episodes of the television drama The Fugitive (1963-1967) with a charisma deeply rooted in the unease, alienation, and desperation of the man on the run. As Dr. Richard Kimble, who escapes en route to the death house after being falsely convicted of killing his wife, Janssen imbued the show with a hunted, haunted, hellhound-on-my-trail mystique. His might be called a one-note performance, but that note is a suppressed intensity that never slackens for an instant; he never forgets or lets us forget that he’s under sentence of death. The fear of being caught is in his husky, constrained voice; the nervous smile that twitches one side of his mouth; his darting, plaintive eyes; the way he stands with his shoulders slightly hunched, as if against a cold wind. Every woman wants to give him aid and comfort. Who could resist a strong, quiet, kind, yet just possibly dangerous man who is also as lost, alone, and in need of help as the bedraggled stray kitten he fleetingly bonds with at the end of the series debut? Because Kimble is a mensch, at times perilously close to a saint, it’s all the more important that Janssen has a dark, gritty edge to his presence. While the scripts place him again and again in the position of risking his safety to help someone in trouble, Janssen brings out Kimble’s exhaustion and bitterness, his reflexive distrust of authority, his lonely and self-punishing stubbornness.

Every episode of The Fugitive ends with Kimble alone, walking down the highway, thumbing a ride, huddling in the back of a truck, skulking through a railyard, or slumping in the gloom of a Greyhound bus—disappearing into the no-man’s-land of the American night. The look and mood of the series are relentlessly drab and melancholy. “Another shabby room, another lonely night,” the narrator intones; another dreary town that looks just like the last, another cheap hotel, another menial job where the stranger must put up with bullying bosses and needling co-workers, another toxic web of resentments and desires waiting to trap the newcomer. The Fugitive paints the life of a drifter as a dismal and repetitive slog. In this it forms a perfect counterpoint to Route 66, another popular television show with which it overlapped. (Route 66 ran from 1960 to 1964, and Janssen was a guest star on the show just before The Fugitive began its run.) Buz and Todd, footloose buddies zipping around the country in a Corvette, are troubadours for the philosophy of moving on; at each stop they help release people trapped in emotional ruts, then motor on, restless searchers for some ultimate true home.

These contrasting shows nicely illustrate the two kinds of travel that haunt the American imagination: exploration and flight, discovery and escape. To be on the road is to be free, unfettered by emotional bonds or confining routines, going to the next new place. To be on the lam is to have no safe haven, no-one to trust, just a desperate and dwindling hope of eluding capture. In The Fugitive, Richard Kimble wants nothing more than to settle down, to return to the stable and wholesome life he once had as a pediatrician in the fictional small town of Stafford, Indiana. He roams (rather than fleeing the country) in the far-fetched hope of tracking down the one-armed man he saw running from his home the night his wife was murdered. He stubbornly pursues the dream of clearing his name—a determination that is part of the machinery required to keep the series in its perpetual holding pattern of flight and pursuit. The paradox of the show is that it depicts all the horrors of being a fugitive—the constant fear of betrayal, the impossibility of forming ties, the need to remain in a sub-legal twilight—yet also creates an irresistible glamour around the figure of the fugitive, who is strangely purified by his shadowy existence outside society, and who unintentionally seduces or provokes the masses gnawing at their private traps.

The show’s machinery is also kept running by Kimble’s dedicated hellhound, Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse). Writer Stanford Whitmore confessed to deliberately giving the character a name similar to Javert, the monomaniacal policeman obsessed with capturing Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Gerard, who comes within a whisker of catching Kimble in roughly every third episode, is robotic in his idée-fixe; inhuman in his refusal to respond emotionally or change his mind. The keynote of his character is his peculiar refusal to state that he personally believes his quarry to be guilty. Every time the question comes up, Gerard smugly states that it doesn’t matter what he thinks. “The law pronounced him guilty. I enforce the law. Whether the law is right or wrong is not my concern. Let others debate and conclude. But when I begin to doubt, to question—I can’t permit it.” In a sense, Gerard is not a person at all, but a personification of authority at its most rigid and unimaginative. Often, people encountering Gerard remark that now that they have met him, they hope Kimble gets away. Even more often, the thwarted Gerard complains that he can’t understand why so many people, especially women, side with the fugitive and help him escape.

Kimble is a litmus test. Every plot turns on the way people react when they learn who he really is. Some help him because they believe he’s innocent; or because they’re grateful for something he’s done; or for some obscure personal reason, like a desire to get back at someone else who wants to turn him in. Some people betray him because they figure it’s their duty under the law, some for gain, some out of spite. Carrying his own story with him like a personal storm-cloud, Kimble continually stumbles into situations involving crime, injustice, mistaken identities, false accusations, and deceptive schemes. The whole country is filled with wrongly accused ie. nnocents and villains with law-abiding fronts. In “Come Watch Me Die,” Kimble helps a young man who is accused of murder but proclaims his innocence escape lynching, only to learn that he did commit the brutal killing and is a remorseless sociopath. Frequently Kimble is torn between his need to testify to things he’s witnessed, and his fear of coming forward and risking police attention. He’s a supremely ethical, conscientious man for whom the law and all its trappings is the enemy. “Come Watch Me Die” ends with a rare moment of humor, when a sheriff, favorably impressed by the way Kimble has captured the killer, asks if he has ever considered a career in law enforcement. The fugitive responds with a nervous, queasy smile.

Flung from one moral dilemma to the next, he is constantly caught between his societally-imposed guilt, which forces him to hide his identity, and his innate goodness. “Wings of an Angel” incisively illustrates the way he is caught between the forces of law and crime. Wounded when he (yet again) helps capture an escaping convict, he’s taken to the nearest place for treatment—which happens to be a prison hospital. He’s a hero to the guards whom he fears and a villain to the inmates, who sneeringly call him “cop-lover.” When some inmates recognize him, they blackmail him into stealing morphine for the prison’s junkies. Being a doctor adds to Kimble’s trials, as he often feels obligated to help the injured despite the risks of revealing his medical knowledge.

Though he always resists serious moral compromise, his life is constructed of lies and deceptions: in every town he assumes a new name, invents a back-story and a home town, fills job applications with phony references. He’s quite ready to knock people down to make an escape, steal a wallet when he needs identification, or fake his own death. His surprising competence at living outside the law is a large part of his attraction. In “See Hollywood and Die,” when he is held hostage by two young thugs along with a woman whose car they steal, Kimble convinces them that he’s a cool professional crook, and plays the part of a fast-working seducer to forge an alliance with his fellow hostage. The sense that this man could be dangerous, if he wanted to be, keeps him from seeming too idealized—or rather, it idealizes him in a different and more appealing way.

Much has been written about the transference of guilt in Hitchcock’s wrong-man stories. But being a fugitive, even with all the attendant ethical snares, does not tarnish Kimble’s conviction of his own innocence and his right to stay free and alive. (The one exception comes when, inevitably, he contracts amnesia, and on learning his identity, can’t be sure of his innocence.) The moral dilemmas so elaborately constructed in each episode can sometimes feel contrived or repetitive or strain credulity, but the show is driven by this basic, burning core of Kimble’s desperation, his raw fear and profound depression whenever he’s cornered or fingerprinted or locked in a cell. The suspense is superficial yet sure-fire: watching each episode, I know perfectly well that he’s not going to get caught, because if he did the show would be over, yet I respond with dutiful Pavlovian reflexes. Oh no! How’s he going to get out of it this time?

The Fugitive has the ritualistic, same-time-next-week quality of classic television, so different from today’s mandatory novelistic arcs. Each episode opens with a re-cap of the premise, which grows tiresome, though it comes in the deliciously portentous voice of William Conrad. (The credits were changed, very much for the worse, at the start of the second season; the season one credits include wonderful noirish footage of Kimble’s escape from a train wreck, and Conrad somberly intoning, “Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time, and sees only darkness. But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand…”) The Fugitive was the creation of Roy Huggins, the veteran writer and producer who was also behind Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Run for Your Life, and The Rockford Files. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Huggins taught himself to write by copying Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely in longhand, which is enough to put him in my good books. He got into movies when his novel Too Late for Tears was adapted into a taut and terrific 1947 film noir with Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. A member of the Communist Party until 1939, he was called before HUAC in 1952 and pragmatically named names—but only of those who had already been named. Presumably, he knew something about moral compromise.

The Fugitive was both a critical and popular success, though only for one season did its ratings break into the top five TV shows. Famously, the show’s finale (a two-parter called “The Judgment”) was watched by more people than any previous television program—72% of all households that owned TV’s tuned in. For the record, I have not yet seen the final episode, since I am still working my way through season three. I have an idea how it might go, though: I imagine Kimble will capture the one-armed man and be exonerated, at which point all of the scores of women who fell in love with him over the course of 120 episodes will appear, saying, “At last we can be together!” Then an enormous fight will break out, and he’ll be torn to pieces like Orpheus by the Maenads.

But seriously��

The enduring power of The Fugitive lies precisely in its unresolved tension, the way it portrays being a fugitive as a universal and eternal condition. Richard Kimble has nothing. He often carries a small suitcase, but since he’s regularly forced to flee with only the clothes on his back, the suitcases can’t hold anything that he’s attached to. He has no identification, just whatever petty cash he earned at his last job. He works as a mechanic, a farm laborer, a handyman, a lifeguard, a truck driver, a hospital orderly—always something faceless and expendable. He goes by whatever name he pulls off the top of his head. But his own identity clings to him as an inescapable threat: his fingerprints and his face inform against him, yet he never tries plastic surgery or burning his fingertips with acid. (He does dye his hair, but this fools no-one—though it vastly improves his appearance, and neatly distinguishes his fugitive identity from his previous square self.)

The scripts may insist that Dr. Kimble yearns to go back to being a solid citizen, with his medical degrees hanging proudly on the walls of his office, but those who love the show just want to see him in another shabby room, for another lonely night. He’s the eternal drifter; the hitch-hiker with the worried face; the guy keeping to himself in the corner of a boxcar; the stray that every woman wants to take in and console; the friendless stranger turning up his collar against the cold wind; the man who is from everywhere but here, and who’ll be from here soon.

by Imogen Sara Smith

5 notes · View notes

nevergonnawalkpastafez · 8 years ago

Text

I follow two simple rules of dating. 1) I don't date anyone my dog doesn't like, and 2) I definitely don't date anyone who doesn't love my dog as much as my dog loves them.

#it's the ultimate litmus test for the suitability of potential dates #about me #dating #dogs

2 notes · View notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

Trump, frustrated by unpopularity with Jews, thrusts Israel into his culture war

https://wapo.st/2zfPtcc

“In his typical buffoonish way, he thinks that by [pushing] out these instructions, essentially, to American Jews to get in line and become his supporters he’s going to be successful,” Shapiro said. “It’s all shaped by his narcissism. It’s all shaped by his transactional nature. It’s all shaped by his insatiable need for praise and confirmation of his greatness and appreciation for the gifts he’s bestowed on whoever it is he’s courting. And it’s not going to fly with this community.”

Trump has no concept of history or religion. His whole life he has done and said things to create conflict between groups of people and promoted or engaged in racism. He's has always believed in his own superiority over others, thinks he knows what's best for everyone and is unwilling to listen to other people's views. The danger in this current moment is the fact that he has surrounded himself with white nationalist sycophants who have their own agenda and no one who's willing to challenge his ideas or actions. My greatest fear is he will create a problem or situation, as he sees he losing the election, with the help of others to try to stay in office.

Trump, frustrated by unpopularity with Jews, thrusts Israel into his culture war

By Philip Rucker | Published August 22 at 6:00 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 22, 2019 3:49 PM ET |

President Trump decided long ago that it would be smart politics for him to yoke his administration to Israel and to try to brand the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic.

He set about executing a pro-Israel checklist: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel, and taking a hard line against Iran. And he promoted himself as the greatest president — a deity even — for Jewish people.

Yet Trump has become flummoxed that Jewish Americans are not in turn lining up to support his reelection, according to people familiar with his thinking, and he has lashed out in predictable fashion.

“If you vote for a Democrat, you’re very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people,” Trump said Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House. He was amplifying a statement he made in the Oval Office a day earlier: “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

Trump’s use of the word “disloyalty” drew immediate criticism from Jewish groups, whose leaders said it echoed anti-Semitic tropes about where American Jews’ loyalty lies. The president insisted his comments were not anti-Semitic.

Regardless, this turn in the president’s rhetoric about Jews magnifies his transactional approach to politics and his miscalculation that his hawkish interpretation of support for Israel should automatically translate into electoral support from Jewish Americans.

It also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations of many Jews, who are not a monolithic voting bloc but rather prioritize a wide range of issues — not only Israel, but also education, the economy and the environment, as well as civility and morality.

“He is reflecting a concept of Jewish Americans as single-issue voters around Israel, which we’re not; that we’re uniformly hawkish on these issues, which we’re not,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group. “In reality, what matters most to us are the exact values that the president is spending his term trashing. We care about equality and justice, and we embrace the notion that this is a nation of immigrants and opportunity for all.”

Looking to his 2020 reelection bid, Trump is thrusting Israel into the culture wars he has waged as president. He is trying to make support for Israel a litmus test — along with immigration and guns — and calling Democrats anti-Semitic to fire up his base.

Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, said Trump’s expectation that Jewish people vote for him because of his record on Israel is “breathtakingly cynical.”

Trump’s transactional expectations for Jewish voting patterns reflect how he views other voting blocs. He routinely defends himself against charges that he is racist by citing the relatively low unemployment rate for blacks on his watch, as well as the criminal justice legislation he signed last year, as if those are the only issues of concern to black voters.

Trump has claimed a “Jexodus” movement of Jews from historically backing Democrats to Republicans. But polling shows this may be more fantasy than reality.

In the 2016 election, 71 percent of Jewish voters cast ballots for Hillary Clinton and 23 percent for Trump, according to exit polling. Gallup tracking poll data in 2018 showed that just 26 percent of Jewish Americans approved of Trump’s performance as president while 71 percent disapproved, making Jews the least likely of any of the religious groups studied to support Trump.

Trump has been told over and over again that he is “the most pro-Israel president ever,” according to a former senior administration official, delivering on a wish list that includes recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — but the official said Trump is angry that he has not received more plaudits from Jewish Americans. Trump contrasts his unpopularity with Jews to the overwhelming support he enjoys from evangelical Christians.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the president’s mind-set, argued that Trump’s rhetoric of late is “a manifestation of frustration of not getting the recognition and the praise and the support that he feels like he deserves as a result of what he’s done.”

Trump placed an early bet on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they forged a close alliance, but Netanyahu faces a difficult reelection bid next month, and a loss would be devastating to Trump. Furthermore, Trump’s push for a Middle East peace deal has stalled, and the Palestinians have rejected the U.S. proposal.

Still, Trump tweeted a quote early Wednesday from Wayne Allyn Root, a noted conspiracy theorist and conservative radio host in Nevada, who praised Trump on Newsmax and lamented that a majority of Jews vote for Democrats.

“President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America … He’s like the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God,” Trump quoted Root as saying.

Jews do not believe in a second coming.

Trump has used statements from Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) criticizing Israel and its treatment of Palestinians to label them “anti-Semites.” And he has called them “the face of the Democratic Party.”

The Trump campaign’s chief operating officer, Michael Glassner, issued a strongly worded statement Wednesday accusing Democrats of supporting those who want “to wipe Israel from the map.”

“As a Jew myself, I strongly believe that President Trump is right to highlight that there is only one party — the Democrats — excusing and permitting such anti-Jewish venom to be spewed so freely,” Glassner said. “In stark contrast, there is no bigger ally to the Jewish community at home and around the world than President Trump.”

At Trump’s urging, the Israeli government last week blocked the two congresswomen from visiting the country, citing their support for a boycott movement against Israel. The Israelis then relented in response to a request from Tlaib to visit her grandmother, who lives in the occupied West Bank, but the congresswoman ultimately decided not to make the trip because she would have been required by Israel to pledge not to promote boycotts.

[Tlaib says she will not go to Israel after the country initially rejected her request for a visit, then reversed course]

Democratic leaders have publicly supported the congresswomen, even as they have sought to distance the party from some of their sentiments. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at this spring’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee that his party supported Israel and that it was “absolutely vital” to continue doing so.

“Those who seek to use Israel as a means of scoring political points do a disservice to both Israel and the United States,” Schumer said, in a veiled reference to Trump. “Our politics may be more polarized than ever, but it is incumbent upon all of us who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship to keep it bipartisan.”

After Trump’s “disloyalty” comments this week, Schumer said in a statement Wednesday: “When President Trump uses a trope that has been used against the Jewish people for centuries with dire consequences, he is encouraging — wittingly or unwittingly — anti-Semites throughout the country and the world.”

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates also denounced Trump’s comments.

“Come on, man. That’s like a dog whistle. ‘Loyalty.’ Come on,” former vice president Joe Biden told a crowd in Newton, Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey shared his understanding of Jewish values. “There’s an idea in Judaism about kindness and decency and mercy,” he told reporters in Altoona, Iowa. He added, “One of the greatest Jewish ideals is to welcome the stranger. One of the great Jewish writings comes from Micah. That is, you know, ‘Do justice. And love mercy.’ These ideals are not being evidenced by the president of the United States.”

Chelsea Janes and David Weigel in Iowa and Emily Guskin in Washington contributed to this report.

1 note · View note

moss-flowers-trees · 3 years ago

Photo

When I was little, I loved to watch episodes of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

One of them was about one of their dog friends named KC.

As a kid, what I remember from watching it was that I thought KC was the COOLEST. I ABSOLUTELY wanted to play with him.

Going back and watching that episode as an adult?

Yikes!

The other dogs are cruel and infantalizing to him. KC accepts a lot of behavior with good humor that no one should be put through. He doesn't really get to have a personality because he's too busy being a PSA, and he deserved better.

But when I was little, when I was the target audience, I didn't see any of that. All I saw was that this dog was super cool.

There is a place for conversations that critique representation. The whole point of pushing diversity in media is to include voices that have historically not been heard, and it's very important that the conversation remains open.

However, when it comes to judging, ultimately, the success of a character's implementation, it's important to look to the target audience.

In other words, no single representation is ever going to perfectly represent every single person who identifies with them to their satisfaction.

But we have to do it anyway.

KC and Julia are imperfect representations. But the litmus test is not how perfect they are, it's how kids are responding to and learning from them.

In that respect, they succeed.

So I want to see more. I want to see more and more diverse representation, so that people don't have to argue that their one character got them wrong, because they have so many to choose from.

I see a lot of people complaining about Sheldon.

I remember being a teenager, feeling isolated and rejected, and watching him. He had education, a job where he was well respected, his own place, a group of friends that accepted him, that he could say his own awkward things to, no matter how insulting they turned out to be, and still be friends after.

There are so many problems with Sheldon, that people have discussed at length!

But I remember looking at him as a teen and thinking 'its possible to have those things and still be who I am.'

And now I do.

His character is so popular he has his own spinoff show all about him. Maybe it's not the autistic representation you wanted, maybe you resent the way he's portrayed, maybe it's really hurtful. And your voice deserves to be heard! And you deserve to have a character that represents you better!

But when I was little my mom didn't think autistic people could live a real life. She thought that 'people with autism' would always end up in their parents homes, or in a mental facility, or in jail, and she suppressed every autistic tendency I had in secret because she wanted better for me.

And THAT was hell, and its own post.

But now, because of media representation, the general public sort of gets that at the very least, autistic people can lead normal lives in the outside world, and they do.

What we have now isn't perfect.

It's better than what we had before.

We can and should expect better for the future.

Please read this!

#wow i rambled a lot #ive been feeling really talkative lately

121K notes · View notes

salt-in-the-eyes · 6 years ago

Text

Why the Horror Film Genre is Dying, or How Hereditary’s Critics are the Worst Incarnation of Simple Idiots with Basic Writing Skills

When viewing a movie, most people tend to ask themselves: How will I be entertained by this film? Is this worth the valuable time and money I spend watching it? At least this was a question proposed by Roger Ebert whenever he reviewed a film. The same could be asked of today’s horror genre: Is this worth the scare? Well, horror is severely lacking in the “value” department since the hack-and-slash films of the late 1970s and 1980s. Most laypersons today are given the ultimate tool that expresses their deepest thoughts: the Internet. And most laypersons are cognitively-crippled, dilettantes that are using the internet to express their limited experiences with art and especially when reviewing decent cinema. This annoying characteristic turns a fantastic display of art, horror, and film into a heaping pile of dog shit for everyone to steer away from.

One example of this happening is the user reviews slamming Hereditary (2018) a horror film that, in my opinion, values the key aspects of the genre: a building dread, terror, and unflinching camerawork. Most of your major blockbuster horror films rely on strangling its audiences with shaky steady-cams, schlock jump-scares, and victim torture. While this is great for hack-and-slash b-movies a la Ed Wood, Roger Corman, or H. G. Lewis, it’s not the litmus test for all horror. Many memorable films labeled “horror”, after decades, still garner a sense of dread from their viewers: Psycho, The Shining, The Exorcist, Carrie, Poltergeist, Rosemary’s Baby, et al. And none of these tried to oversell what is now the typical troupes displayed in modern horror. But as is true with most movies given the moniker “horror”, studios don’t care about quality as long as people are paying to piss themselves after a jump scare. (Honestly, if you want that. Give me ten bucks and I’ll come to your house and scream in your ear every couple of minutes. Same effect.)

So what makes Hereditary stand out from the rest of the horror movie bullshit? It’s actually not trying to scare you. This is an art film that was marketed as horror. The art direction, set design, cinematography, lighting, locations, acting, makeup, editing exemplify the qualities of an art film. This is why most audiences threw a fit on Rotten Tomatoes after watching the flick. “It’s not scary,” “Boring,” “Waste of time,” are some of the common responses to Hereditary.

It's no surprise that modern horror enthusiasts get no kicks from the film, they've been conditioned by major studios to only enjoy a certain "quality" of film rather than exploring cinema. They've put themselves in a bland, matte prison with generic wall art being spoon fed the same thoughtless shit since birth and expecting all food to taste like a cheeseburger and all films to fit a formula so they can sheepishly grin and flatter themselves for watching a boring film that doesn't make them think too hard.

#film #horror #jump scares #hereditary #ari aster #criticism #film criticism

11 notes · View notes

thenightling · 6 years ago

Note

hey i just wanted to say i'm really enjoying your blog (started reading sandman because of you) and i just read that you like goethes faust - i'm german so i had to read it in school (and was one of the few who actually enjoyed it) and our teacher told us about a theater production by peter stein where they read every single line. i thought maybe you'd enjoy it. it's in german but the actors are pretty good and if you have the translated book you can read while watching and use it like subs.

Oh, thank you very much. I’m glad you like my little space of nonsensical rambling. Sometimes Neil Gaiman likes it too, other times I think I might succeed in pissing him off.

I hope you’re liking Sandman. I was very late in getting into Sandman but it’s been my primary obsession for over a year now.

Faust is not required reading here in America, in fact it’s sadly semi-obscure in America and those that think they know it only know part 1 or Marlowe’s version and don’t realize Goethe’s version has two parts and ultimately ends with Faust saved and reunited with Gretchen. (By coincidence my mother’s name had been Marguerite and her grandparents had been German immigrants).

My first introduction to Faust was when I was about thirteen. I saw an episode of Wishbone that covered the story and I liked it very much. Wishbone was a kid’s show where an adorable (I believe) Jack russell dog was used to reenact classic literature with the dog in the lead role so essentially it was puppy Faust and I liked it. The show was kind of a guilty pleasure for me as I love classic literature and there were few shows about literature on TV at the time, outside of Disney’s Gargoyles using Shakespeare and folklore. (I loved Disney’s Gargoyles). Rock star Alice Cooper seems to be a Faust fan, he references it in some music videos and his appearance on The Muppet Show. He also likes the Corinthian in Sandman.

After Wishbone I saw the references and allusions to Faust in Anne Rice’s Tale of the body thief when I was about fourteen but I didn’t finally read Faust until I was slightly over twenty-five-years-old (I’m thirty-six now).

I found a fairly good online translation that kept the rhymes in tact. There are some horrible, actually printed and published, translations out there by translators who don’t even realize The key of Solomon is an actual Grimoire and somehow think he was talking about a literal key or they describe the flight scene in a way that makes it sound like Faust wore an inflatable coat instead of a levitating cloak, or they don’t realize that the druidenfuss is a pentacle…

Some of the bad translations feel the need to change Heinrich Faust’s name to Harry or Henry or Henri. That’s become my litmus test for a good translation: “Do they have to change Heinrich to Harry? If so it’s probably crap.”

I also really like the Faust illustrations by Harry Clarke. They’re gorgeous if you have ever seen them.

My favorite adaptation of Faust is the silent film by F. W. Murnau. I know very little German but I doubt I could hold a real conversation in it. I think my vocabulary level is on par with a three-year-old.

I tried to teach myself German using Muzzy a few years ago because I really liked the German production of Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula das musical. The German version is so much more passionate and the songs sound better with electric guitars and I’m a lyrics lover. I have to know what the lyrics are saying and I know they were changed for the German. My favorite song in the German production is Zu Ende, which didn’t exist in the first English language run of the play. Now American productions have the song and call it “it’s Over.”

The power metal band Kamelot has a double set of albums called Epica and The Black Halo and if you play them together they tell Goethe’s Faust parts 1 and 2 as a rock opera. They just change Faust’s first name to Ariel and Gretchen’s name to Helena. Mephisto’s name is left alone. It’s actually really good. It’s tragic to me- how few Kamelot fans realize these albums tell a story and that the story is Goethe’s Faust Parts 1 and 2.

I do really like Faust but it has to be parts 1 and 2 together because I like when Faust is saved by learning to care about others, that the moment he wished for that would never end- the thing he bargained his soul for- the ultimate life experience turned out to be love, caring for others, and so the demon lost and his soul was saved.

Anyway, I’m rambling, sorry about that.

I’ll try to track down the Peter Stein adaptation of Faust. And I’m glad you like my blog and I hope you continue to enjoy it.

4 notes · View notes

betterinthedarkblog · 7 years ago

Text

Angels Abounding [-fall 2010]

I first found Angels in America at age twelve in a moment consumed by consumerism, a chance encounter in a now-closed bookstore that left my life forever changed. The play has mostly been a thing of paper-and-binding for those my age (22 years old, let’s say)—not unlike the circumstances that bring Tony Kushner’s “Homebody” in the first act of Homebody/Kabul, another of his masterpieces, to the hat shop on “—” Street in London {Kushner does not have her name the street; it’s an authorial elision to be enacted in performance with the gestural sweeping of a hand.}, where she discovers her destiny: a journey vis-à-vis which she is ultimately lost, though Kabul is, for better or for worse, found. Buying something like a book can do that. For all its theatricality, Angels (as we may abbreviate it from hereon out) is not oft-performed in America, except for piecemeal servings in collegiate “Introduction to Acting” courses, where freshmen imitate Mormons and pill-poppers, as they sit bedside—beside the threshold of revelation, the un-bedding of truth. For those of us who have read it in one of its many published incarnations—hardcover or paperback, poster art by Milton Glaser or by the public relations team at HBO—there are always Angels bedside or on our library shelves, waiting to land (à la Spielberg) before us, for us to wrestle to the ground.

I couldn’t even afford Angels when I first encountered it, at the age of twelve (or maybe it was thirteen) in my local Border’s Bookstore, with its metallic wings etched across the letter “A,” jutting out in bas-relief from a softer surface. “Angels in America,” the cover read, on the side, “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” A gay book, in hardcover? I’d seen gay books: soft-core, soft-cover word porn in the “Gay Lit” aisle that I used to allow my wandering, preteen eyes to haltingly rest upon, and then performatively, dramatically avert—but here, shrink-wrapped in a collector’s case upon a table labeled “Classics” just steps away from the Children’s Section sat a gay book about national themes? Implausible, thought I—when such a thing, as I saw it then, was marginal, concealed, bound in books in the restricted sections of libraries, glanced at with dirty eyes discreetly in dusty corners, and just as discreetly re-shelved? And now, here, it was glorified, canonized alongside books where there wasn’t—couldn’t be—anything by way of content that was remotely gay? (James Baldwin. Marcel Proust. Melville.)

I couldn’t afford such a spectacular edition then, thick-spined, beautifully-boxed, and premium-priced, without outing myself to my parents who would surely ask what the money would go to buy—and it being so divinely shrink-wrapped as it was, I couldn’t just open it up and read it, sitting between the shelves or in the corner of the coffee shop of this soon-to-close bookstore franchise. So I visited my Middle School Library, where I found Perestroika, (the second of two plays comprising Tony Kushner’s two-part epic), there, waiting for me, in accessible, uncensored, open air. (Only later would I score myself a copy of Millennium Approaches, the first of the two parts, at the central county library.)

Yes, I read Angels in America backwards; so it was all grounded angels and dying men and great work and falling apart—and none of the hurtling lovesick, forward at first for me. I had to read the speech given by the “Oldest Living Soviet” before I could scan the sermon of the all-too-familiar Rabbi; and I had to end the great journey, before it had even begun. Characters found hope before they were hurt (or hurt), and healing before they harmed (or were harmed)—in diastole a beat before systole, already progressing long before those same hearts had ever been first broken. It was difficult, then, at the end of the end, to begin again, at Kushner’s actual beginning, where he first introduced the argument he only reveals and concludes in the final, last line of Perestroika—when he returns to the pain that must empower progress. The poverty of the chronology of my reading was an inherent setback, forcing me to return in Millennium Approaches to the illness that Perestroika had salvaged into health, and the pain that, in the latter-half of the play, becomes latter-day progress—working backwards against Kushner’s robust argument, directly challenging the dialectic Kushner romanticizes, poeticizes into a matter of hearts, the heart; a play that ends with life begins with death, and it is too, too hard (both to follow the line of argument and to go on the characters' narrative journey) to experience the plays in reverse. I do not recommend it.

I will finally see a performance of Angels in America this fall on the day of Yom Kippur, which commemorates Jewish mourning, sins, guilt, all such fallen things. Fitting, perhaps, for a play which seeks to prove the pertinence of history’s fallen—of pain, to progress, (in a way no other play seems to have made so strongly since Antigone made her claim or the maidens first became suppliant,). I will see the play instead of attending afternoon Yizkor services, when I am meant to light a candle in remembrance of and mourning for my late father.

Why is there still no play to me but Angels, (though Brecht is loved, Miller is worshipped, Shakespeare is memorized, and Euripides is lionized)? Why is it this play’s dramaturgy of heartbreak that renders me breathless, and its playwright the one whose epigraphs I follow to their sources, near-blindly? If a book is, (but for the HBO adaptation which premiered in our later years), the only form Angels has taken for the relatively young—and if a book is a key to unlock a door to a secret passageway from the As-Is World toward Wonderland—why did we (do we) choose this Wonderland (passageway, door, lock, book, etc.)—a derelict hospital wing of forgotten, fractured, and fallen angels—ailing angels who never had wings, and black nurses born quite problematically into a world awash in whiteness? Why do we wish ourselves (through the act of reading and re-reading) into a world of corrupted bureaucrat-angel courts and heavens that can’t even hear our prayers over the static from their broken radios—rather than, say, to Hogwarts? Why do we children born the morning after “morning in America” re-read ourselves into the mise-en-scène of Angels: a Republican regime redolent of plague in all spheres, when our queer sisters, brothers, and not-cis-ters lived and died under the crosshairs of an Axis of Fear? Why do we—why did I—allow this play to so transform our vision and perception to the extent that it has, so that when reading Aristotle, Tolstoy, Foucault, Arendt, Hegel, Althusser, Molière, or even Shakespeare, we find ourselves cross-referencing their words with those of Mr. Kushner—our grandest litmus test?

Perhaps it is just the high-falutin’ aesthetics which Kushner so grounds to reality with alienating, vaudeville-theatrics. Perhaps it’s the hot, illicit, sometimes sadomasochistic sex in the dark shadows between men (and, yes, at one point, thank goodness, women) who would not ever, perhaps ought not to ever have met. Perhaps it’s the comedy and the camp, or perhaps it’s the drama done in drag. Perhaps it is the feeling of all the aforementioned dramatists—alongside Williams and von Horváth and Goethe and Kleist (and Baldwin and Melville) and all the rest, making theatre and love (perhaps en ensemble) in a rusty, definitely New York autumn. Perhaps it’s because of the script maintaining ubiquity without fail at any local franchise of a sole, remaining major bookstore chain. Or, perhaps, it’s the most recent “great play” written; and therefore is the one we who write plays must write against, test our theories to, and hypothesize about, in readings close and wide. It certainly taught me the powers of theatre: the revival of history; the realization of the imaginary; and the familiarization of the strange®.

We return to the text, bound by the bound book, when trying to write, hoping to smell the fog (or is that smoke?) of Kushner’s San Franciscan post-catastrophic heaven. We start again (in the right order, this time) and pray that the Angel, unlike in Kushner’s text, brings not her unwieldy barricade, but an honest-to-Goddess cure. We hope to finally find a definition of that term “Great Work,” (why has there been no complementary lecture, such as the ones Gertrude Stein delivered on the little dog which knew her?)—that revolutionary, flirtatious, and millennial phrase that ends these two Kushner companion-plays, but for which he problematically, Platonically, and pointedly provides us no positive account. We re-read to read the American Angel utter the word “moonlorn” in her climactic epistle in heaven addressed to Prior Walter, right before he descends back to Earth—and awful, wonderful, contradictory life. “Moonlorn” is a word I haven’t been able to find anywhere else, (and I’ve looked—hard,); so I am left assuming (until I’m told otherwise) that it is a neologism of Mr. Kushner’s glittering invention.

The production approaches; so will the book matter less, or will it be as it always was—not when printed and displayed upon shelf as a great work unto itself, but as a hyper-textual, meta-textual, most-dramatic text: today’s greatest work for great-work-beginning? It is a healing thing, to paraphrase Kushner’s forward to a recent translation of Sholem Aleichem’s Wandering Stars, to find oneself in the margins of a masterpiece.

I still can’t afford a copy of Angels in America—not in hardcover, at least… but copies, I have a few, from friends and lovers and stoop sales and classes; and the shelf is looking quite full of them: angels abounding.

26 notes · View notes

rametarin · 5 years ago

Text

You don’t have to say anything. You just have to smile and laugh.

TIRFS are the offspring of the TERF movement, ideologically, and unlike TERFs, they don’t only go a convenient amount into social constructionism theory. The theory that states women are inherently oppressed “by society,” and men. Not for any cultural or traditional or civil reason, simply the phenomenon of things like women being shorter, or the sex burdened with pregnancy by default. Hence, they reason, that’s oppression and men their oppressor. It’s nonsense, but that’s how it do.

According to their litmus test for oppression, cis women oppress trans women, trans men. They’d PREFER women to be the ultimate inheritors of Most Oppressed status, as according to the rules of their ideology, the most oppressed require JUSTICE in the form of a bigger slice of the pie than their oppressors, for both current and histical oppressions, and unless and until we lose sex as a differentiation or the sun explodes, that share is how they’ll define equality. As any human woman can be oppressed, hence the most oppressed human being must be female. However, transwomen exist, and according to their criteria, cis women oppress them.

TIRFs are social constructionist class struggle theory taken to its natural absurd conclusion, and it has kicked TERFs out of their own stronghold by being bigger, more oppressed minorities. By putting them at odds with the motivations and goals, TERFs have effectively been shut out of their own stupid radical movement and had the end game objectives changed.

The advantage they had hiding in feminism is compromised and destroyed. They can’t twist policy to benefit RadFems under the happy shiny guise of just “female equality” anymore. Everything they touch that serves their agenda, not LGBT, is considered tainted among the most progressive circles.

And then Intersectional Feminism decided the appropriate place for white women in that movement is the back of the bus, by stating minority women sit at the front. Gone, the days of the histrionic crying parties and weird pseudo-spiritual poetry fests of emotional white girls sharing ‘sisterhood’ moments about how they were ohhh soooo magical and wonderful and heading the charge of equality, for “all the minorities” and women. All the satisfaction and munchausen by proxy gratification has just been sucked out. The demographic that was the heart and soul of the whole shebang has been demoted to the importance of Male Feminist Ally. A sad kicked dog that tries so hard to convince the master they aren’t like those other mad dogs, they’re civil and even tempered and know better.

And then LGBT being normalized and institutionalized disproved and sucked out the underground/rebel romancticism of being a lesbian OR political lesbian. So there’s not even THAT nugget of taboo or forbiddenness to draw one towards Radical Feminism.

There’s literally no draw for Radical Feminism anymore. And they know it.

youtube

TERFs: gay males are just as evil as all other males.

TERFs: except for when we need to win arguments with trans men, then they're oppressed vulnerable babies ready to be raped by evil females.

735 notes · View notes

amorremanet · 8 years ago

Note

if you're still doing that ten facts thing, Stephen

“ten facts about my characters” meme // previously on…

1. His full given name is Stephen Federico Alamilla Gardener — like Seb, Pete, and their respective siblings, the second middle name is actually his mother’s maiden name, which Stephen’s parents did as their way of striking a balance between honoring his mother’s Puerto Rican heritage and naming customs, and trying not to end up in any situation where filling out various government forms got confusing, or someone tried to question whether or not their father is actually their father just because he’s black and they don’t have his surname.

The one name thing that Stephen is really glad his Mama pulled the plug on is that Marlin wanted Stephen’s first middle name to be, “Federico García” as a double-name, since he was being named in honor of García Lorca, but felt like “Federico” could have come from anywhere. But at least Rosalin went, “No, we are not going to do that to our son. It would be confusing, and a mouthful, and it is a terrible idea.”

So, instead, they just gave Stephen, “Federico” as a middle name and gave their next child (one of Stephen’s sisters) the first name, “Lorca.”

That said, Stephen’s first name is the one that he has the oddest relationship with. For starters, he knows that he was named after one of his Dad’s late uncles, but he has, at various times, claimed to have been named after:

Saint Stephen, the Protomartyr (regarded as the first Christian martyr, as detailed in the Biblical Acts of the Apostles. In fairness to Stephen, he didn’t actually come up with this idea; a Sunday school teacher he had in first grade did, and Stephen just didn’t bother to correct her because she was kind of young and trying her best, and his best friend Yago [Santiago] was being a little pain in the ass, and Stephen was just like, “Okay, sure, I can be named after St. Stephen, if it makes my poor teacher’s life easier, that’s not a big deal.” But he has since made the claim of his own volition, so there’s that.)

Stephen Gordon (heroine of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Stephen made this claim in college, because he’d read the book and liked it, and didn’t really care that Stephen Gordon was a lesbian which would’ve made it weird for him to be named after her, because he’d liked her. And he was 19 and trying to make his parents sound ~cooler~ to his friends, like somehow, giving him a literary name was ~cooler~ than naming him after his late great-uncle.)

This notion of his kind of got foiled by his friend [who hadn’t read the book, but had been assigned it in a different class] went, “…But isn’t she a lesbian?” and the only thing Stephen could think of at the time was, “Yeah, but my parents hadn’t actually read it, and it was my Aunt Joanna’s idea.”

Stephen Hawking (which he also first claimed in college, when he was still on the pre-med track and trying to make his parents sound more ~impressive~ to his very white, STEM-y classmates)

Stephen King (though, like Stephen the Protomartyr, this claim was not Stephen’s idea, at first. He first made it to a guy he was seeing in college, after switching off the pre-med track and going into art history instead, and he was actually going to just say that his parents had named him after his Dad’s uncle. But Austen wanted to make a game out of guessing, and he was kind of drunk, so his guesses were getting increasingly ridiculous and it was taking a painfully long time……

So, when Austen finally got to, “Oh, wait, who was that Steve guy who wrote Carrie and Cujo and The Shining? His name was Steve, right? Is he still alive [in 2006]? I heard he was really coked up and got hit by a car,” Stephen really just wanted the game to be over so he went, “Yep, you got it. My parents totally named me after Stephen King. Now, let’s get you home and get you some water, okay?”)

and Stephen Sondheim (which he first claimed in grad school, and he 500% claimed it to impress the guy he was currently crushing on and get the guy interested in him — and he didn’t regret it at first, but would later come to wish that he hadn’t, because Keith wound up being a cheating douchebag, so Stephen regretted pretty much everything that he’d ever done to impress the bastard, and about the only reason why he didn’t let Yago slash Keith’s tires was that Yago has really bad luck a lot of the time and Stephen was pretty sure that he’d get caught)

On another hand, Stephen can sometimes feel weird about his name. This is an underlying part of why he made all those weird claims about where his name had come from (i.e., one that exists in addition to all of the other, more immediate reasons why he’s ever done this), if one that he tries not to think about too often, because there isn’t really anything he can do about it.

Worse, he feels like there isn’t actually a reason for him to feel this way, because in theory, it kind of goes back to feeling out of place because of his name…… but Stephen also doesn’t think this is reflected in the reality of what things were like, during the periods where he feels, in retrospect, like he felt most out of place because of it.

Like, for example, Stephen kind of feels like maybe he feels weird about his name (in a way where he identifies with it and it’s comfortable so he doesn’t want a different one, but he sometimes feels like maybe he should have a different name for reasons he can’t quite articulate), because of some lingering issues he might have with feeling out of place at school… but he grew up in a fairly mixed neighborhood in Boston and went to school with students of many different races and backgrounds, so while it’s true that his two best friends were Yago and Diego, Stephen could also go look at their yearbook and see a bunch of names that were more like his, and a bunch of names that weren’t like his but also weren’t like Yago and Diego.

Or for another example, he sometimes feels like maybe it has something to do with college — but then, he knows that most of the people he knew in college had names that were very much like his, and the ones who didn’t were largely the upper-middle class white kids whose parents gave them names like Ashlynne, Ryvvar, Xavyen, Mikkaylah, and so on (give or take a few [upper-]middle class white kids who had hippie parents, who named them shit like Starr or Sunshine).

Ultimately, what’s going on here is more a general feeling of “out of place”-ness that Stephen doesn’t entirely understand himself, and he kind of fixates on his name because of how he has legitimately felt a little like an odd name out before (like when his fab four in high school was Yago, Diego, Diego’s sister Marimar…… and Stephen), and it’s easier for him to just go, “That’s the ticket, it’s all a name thing,” even when he knows that it’s not really that simple, than it is to deal with the fact that he doesn’t know where this “out of place” feeling comes from or why it exists or what the Hell it thinks it’s doing.

Stephen feels like this is easier, even with all of the mental rabbit holes he’s gone down about how his own personal explanation isn’t really accurate to what’s going on with his feelings, because he really, really doesn’t like admitting that he has this feeling of being out of place and kind of at odds with his surroundings, and he doesn’t know where it comes from or why it’s happening or what it’s doing here. He feels like, if he knew what’s up with it, he could then take care of it and take control of it back from some very ill-defined Something that has apparently taken said sense of control away from him

—but because he doesn’t know what’s going on, he can’t do that, which makes it really difficult for him to feel like he has any of his shit together (when, by most people’s standards, he’s doing amazing at having his shit together, and about the only things that indicate that he might not have his shit together are:

1. his current lack of boyfriend, because having some kind of monogamous romantic relationship is consistently used as a litmus test for how together someone’s shit is, even though that’s not fair and in Stephen’s case, the only things you could really say about his love life, at the moment, are that:

A. he has spent the past ten months dancing around Seb in mutual attraction, mutual interest, and mutual, “oh, no, he’s probably not actually reciprocating anything, he’s just being nice” or some other similar way of, and neither of them is actually going to do anything proactive about it until Seb seriously misinterprets a suggestion from Pete and takes it as, “You should stop being silly and ask Stephen out”

instead of what Pete actually meant, which was more like, “Your love life is kind of a mess right now because you’ve done approximately fuck all to actually keep your ducks in a row with that, and I love you, but for the love of God, sort your shit out and P.S., talk to Todd about your feelings like adults, because you two say that it’s complicated but it’s really not, you’re just MAKING it complicated because you won’t put on your big kid pants and talk to each other about more than immediate issues of consent vs. ‘not tonight, Todd, I have a headache’”;

and B. the guy who Stephen has been doing said dance around with for the past ten months is a recovering addict who has a history of only remembering why he might want to live while he’s in the middle of his latest brush with death, and who objectively does not have pretty much any of his shit together, does a better job of taking care of other people and his dogs than he does of taking care of himself and has to be reminded semi-regularly that this is a problem, is arguably only still alive because he’s a mutant and is definitely only not as bad off as he could be because he’s white and his parents are “old as BALLS”-money rich, with his Dad’s family straight-up coming from legitimate noble stock and everything

—and, like. I say this with all the love in my heart for Sebastian, without whom this entire project would not exist because he was here first and if I hadn’t written an absolutely obscene amount of shit that I intended to just be backstory for an RP character, we wouldn’t be here now…… but he’s a Mess. He is a human disaster, and yes, he’s trying his best and working on it, but it’s completely fair for someone to take a look at him and either question Stephen’s taste level, or conclude that Stephen is probably just interested in a quick fling because Sebastian is pretty

(Which Yago has actually asked Stephen about before, because he was understandably kind of concerned when his bestie and roommate finally decided to spill it about the guy he’s into right now, and Stephen’s description was like, “Well, he’s tall and he’s white, but like pretty, and he has a tattoo of a pansy on his shoulder, he knows Nick, but I’m not supposed to say how they know each other, which I know that you know means they know each other through AA or something but just please keep that to yourself, okay — anyway, Nick is his sponsor, and he was off the wagon a couple weeks ago but he’s back on now. Anyway, I think he must have had a goth phase or something, because he has these Hot Topic arm warmers, I’ve never actually seen his bare forearms and he’s been around the gallery often enough that I feel like I should have? But he’s kind of sensitive about it and gets a little jumpy, so it’s probably best not to push it, right? *shrugs*

“And today, we had a really good talk about Proust — his family is, like, really proud of their French heritage, I guess, so he’s fluent enough to, like, read Proust in the original French? — and then it kind of turned into sharing stories of weird youthful misadventures, and I talked about the time Marimar and I were each other’s dates to homecoming so she could get into the dance and make out with Isabela, while I totally wanted to make out with you but then so did Camilla, and it almost turned into a fight and you were feeling totally stoked on yourself, and he talked about how instead of going to his senior prom, he and his best friend — who is Nick’s other sponsee, and his name’s Pete, you’d totally like him — went into the City with fake ID’s and went to a drag show, and then had to run from some older guy because his boyfriend kissed Seb, and the older guy was a possessive dick who didn’t get that maybe, the seventeen-year-old who’d just been kissed out of nowhere wasn’t the one to be angry with in this situation?

“And, uh, what else can I tell you, uh…… He looks like a sad puppy a lot of the time. He has six dogs, but doesn’t have an Instagram, which seems really silly to me because all he’d have to do is post pictures of his dogs all the time and people would love it, right? I guess at least Pete and Nick would like it if he didn’t try to be funny in ways that actually kind of rest on him putting himself down or making implications that are, like, pretty troubling? But he seems to think they’re funny? He’s apparently passed a field sobriety test while shitfaced at least once, and apparently, there’s some weekend he had in Europe once that started with chatting up a Euro-Disney actor in a bar in Paris on Friday night, and then he exactly doesn’t know what happened, but he wound up in Bruges on Sunday morning?

“And he’s really cute and he has a motorcycle, but I guess he hasn’t ridden it much since he went to rehab last year, and his blush is super-adorable which is great because he blushes a lot, and he’s smart and he doesn’t think he is but he pulled some cool Latin shit out of nowhere last week at the gallery, and I guess he can cook, too, and oh! Right! Did I mention that he thinks my jokes and my puns are clever and funny? Because he totally does, so there and I win, ha ha ha. :D”

……to which Yago’s response was a moment or five of stunned, processing silence, followed by, “Uh. Tebi, I love you, but that is an awful lot of detail for someone you only want to fuck a few times and then be friends with and maybe hook up with, no strings attached, if you both happen to be single.”

and cue Stephen, “………Did I say that? Oh, no, I want to, like, ask him out. If he’s, y’know, interested. And I hope he is? But maybe he’s not? I don’t know, but…… this isn’t like some kind of wham bam thank you ma’am super-weekend shit, I actually really like him?”

—and that conversation was interesting, to say the least, and it involved a brief detour in which Stephen mentioned Seb’s last name and Yago went, “Wait, are they the ones with the liquor company?” and thought that maybe Stephen was talking about trying get Seb to be his sugar daddy [which Yago was kinda opposed to less because Seb sounded like a mess and more because he thought it was like, “Stephen is giving up on love and wants a sugar daddy, he thinks it’s the only thing he can get, what the fuck, HELP THE BEST FRIEND, TO THE YAGO MOBILE”], but it’s also sort of getting way, way, way off the point.)

(Also, the Yago Mobile is a moped. But calling it, “the Yago Mobile” makes him feel cool, just let him have this)

and 2. Stephen is fat. Which doesn’t actually indicate shit anything about whether or not Stephen has any of his shit together, but unfortunately, a lot of people are fatphobic jagweeds and think that him being 6’2” and ~325 pounds means that something in his life is clearly going terribly wrong, even though he’s pretty fit and healthy, he just happens to be fat.

2. His birthday is February 7th, 1984 — he’s an Aquarius, and in The Secret Language of Birthdays (Goldschneider & Elffers) his particular birthday is called, “the Day of Utopia.” Which would probably make him get temporarily kind of interested in astrology for more reasons than, “being nice to Sara Grace and listening to her talk about it even though Stephen doesn’t really find it that interesting, himself,” but the interest would peter out pretty quickly. He’d just think that it’s pretty neat that his birthday is called, “the Day of Utopia.”

Strictly speaking, he knows that his birthday isn’t a holiday, but he’s still the sort of nerd who will tell you that his birthday is his favorite holiday.

If he’s not allowed to pick his birthday, then he will probably say Valentine’s Day, because even if he’s not dating someone at the moment, Stephen loves the shit out of love, and he gets why a lot of people are disillusioned with romance and with how ridiculously prescriptive the world can be about romantic love, and he gets why that (among other things) makes people feel disillusioned with Valentine’s Day…… but at the same time, screw you because he loves love, and he loves celebrating love in all forms, and if that’s wrong, he doesn’t want to be right.

He’s going to have a boyfriend for his next Valentine’s Day, and they’re going to make plans…… only to spend the actual day itself filling out copious amounts of paperwork about foiling a supervillain plot.

Which kinda sucks, sure, but Stephen has to say: stopping fascist supervillains together is probably the most unique date he’s ever been on. Even if it wasn’t actually a date, and they were accompanied by eight other people, and they weren’t on the same team once they split up inside the building, and they had to go to a Republican debate to stop said supervillains from doing their thing and that was massively uncomfortable for all involved because none of them is straight and half of the people they went in with are POC and none of them is even vaguely a Republican, and……

Okay, there were a lot of reasons why that evening wasn’t quite ideal, on paper, but in practice, it was actually pretty cool, and Stephen could totally get into this superhero thing, whether he has mutant abilities or not (which he doesn’t, but he’s okay with that).

And at least he can play footsie and sneaky-flirt with Seb over the paperwork when Holmes isn’t looking — and hey, if they go out like they’d planned but do it on Tuesday (Monday’s out because Seb, Pete, and Nick all have AA), then it’ll be less crowded because people won’t be out for Valentine’s Day if it’s the 16th instead of the 14th

3. Stephen wouldn’t have switched from pre-med to art history if not for needing to get certain gen ed credits, and deciding that he felt like taking an art history class for one of them, which led to a whole semester of letting his actual degree-track classes suffer because he just wasn’t as interested in doing the work for them as he was in his art history coursework.

This really wasn’t a fun realization for him, at first, because he’d hung a lot of his hopes and his plans for what his future would look like (vague though they were) on going pre-med, and then going to medical school and becoming a doctor, but suddenly, he was being confronted with this interest of his that he’d tried so hard to bury because he felt like being a doctor would be the best idea

But between a bit of soul-searching, and doing some more thorough research into some of the actual facts horror stories from people who went to med school, Stephen realized that it really wasn’t what he wanted to do. He’s much happier this way, overall, but there’s still a bit of an issue for him because he feels like he somehow failed a bit by not going pre-med, after working so hard to get there

(—which is actually even more complicated than that, but bless his heart, the most that Stephen’s really dealt with this is with getting it clearly established that his parents don’t think that he failed, aren’t disappointed in him, and support him whether he’s a doctor or a curatorial assistant-slash-drag queen or whatever, as long as he’s happy and healthy)

4. Stephen isn’t completely hopeless in a kitchen or anything, but his repertoire is secretly way more limited than he would like it to be. He has a list of things that he makes pretty well, some that he can make decently, and a very long list of things that he can make well enough to eat but they’re nothing special. The biggest problems for him come when he tries to improvise (because unfortunately for him, he doesn’t really have good instincts about improvising), or when he tries to copy something that he saw on Youtube or Food Network, which almost always ends badly, but at least he tried.

He’s probably best at making cupcakes, but he also doesn’t do it very often because Stephen is a perfectionist about making his cupcakes, and it takes him forever, and they’re cute and delicious and everything, but seriously, it takes him forever and it’s hardcore exhausting

5. Stephen’s favorite song to perform in any context, and easily his favorite song overall, is Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me,” but there are very few things that he won’t try to put a drag performance together for, and he has a huge list of songs that he would call, “go to songs” for karaoke night

He has said for years that Ten Things I Hate About You was such a formative influence, and that Heath Ledger’s Patrick Verona was such a Big Deal teenage celebrity crush for him, that there is basically no way he could successfully resist if a guy asked him out by publicly serenading him with, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” and that if a guy even proposed to him like that, he would just about die happy and probably need to be magically revived in order to make it to the wedding (since he takes it for granted that people know he’d totally accept if a guy proposed to him like this).

So far, neither of these things has happened for him, but don’t take away Stephen’s dreams, okay. Please don’t take them away, he’s very attached to his daydreams about a boyfriend who is so in love with him, so Extra™, or some combination of the two, that he will actually ask Stephen out and/or eventually propose to him by singing, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” at him in public like Patrick Verona.

6. There is a matter of some debate about Stephen’s drag (mainly by Stephen, with himself and occasionally either Yago, or some of his friends down at Comet Club, his home bar). Said debate is about exactly how many characters or personas he has, and whether or not all of his different aliases are all separate characters or not.

No one really has a concrete answer, not even Stephen, and most of the people who’ve ever taken part in this debate don’t even have a solid opinion from one discussion to the other.

The thing is, Stephen came up with all his aliases at different times and for different reasons, but any differences in how he performs while using these aliases that could be read as him somehow differentiating between the characters…… largely happened kinda by accident, accumulating through different heat of the moment changes?

But now, they kind of are their own characters, and he taps into different parts of himself while bringing his performances to life with the different aliases, but they all also feel like parts of him so maybe they’re really not separate individual characters, and so, Stephen’s feelings go back and forth and every which way, and he doesn’t really know if there’s a right answer here

Either way, said aliases are: Sister Anarky Skynwanker, initiate of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (D.C. Metro chapter);

Anita Gaymarket (mostly retired, but this was his first drag name, which he started using in undergrad);

Gaiety Dawson Hayworth (used much less frequently, but he used it for a while, and you can still find some old vids of him performing with that name on youtube; he used it toward the end of undergrad and for a little bit afterward);

and Carmen Sodomigo (his most frequently used drag name, since it’s what he uses when he performs rather than out with the Sisters, and it’s about tied with Sister Anarky for his favorite name — and oh boy howdy, does Stephen think that his play on “Carmen Sandiego” + “sodomy” is fucking hilarious)

7. Stephen may not be the worst cat dad in the world (overall, he’s actually a very good cat dad), but oh man, does he ever spoil his and Yago’s cat, Duchess, something awful. She might not be quite as spoiled as she could be, and she’s kinda the kitty version of the Spoiled Sweet trope, but oh man, Stephen spoils her. About the only habit of his that she doesn’t like is when he gets bored and decides to make her a new cute outfit, then put it on her, and get himself dressed up, and take pictures to put up on his Instagram.

Not that Duchess actually understands the Instagram part all that well, but she understands that her Person is putting her in a new outfit for no reason that makes itself apparent to her.

By the time she meets Sebastian, his animal affinity mutation (which isn’t exactly, “can talk to animals,” but approximates it pretty closely, with elements of, “drawing animals to him like a freaking Disney princess”) will be developed enough that he’ll be able to say, with some accuracy, that she doesn’t mind that Stephen is lavishing her with affection but she really doesn’t like that pretty kitty princess dress, it doesn’t fit in a way that’s comfortable for her and she’d probably be happier if he took it off. But she does love him and love getting his attention and affection.

Duchess is also going to be confused about meeting her Person’s new pet stray (…because, bless her feline heart, she is going to think of Sebastian not as Stephen’s boyfriend, but as some stray who followed him home), because she’ll feel kind of torn between: wanting to dislike him for stealing any of her Person’s attentions; feeling drawn to him and compelled to trust him anyway for reasons that she doesn’t quite understand (especially not in light of how, in her mind, he smells like Dog); and really liking the way he scratches her tummy but still not wanting to trust him or like him because how dare you steal her Person’s affections

She’ll get over it eventually. Somewhat. As long as she feels like Seb understands that she was here first.

8. Stephen and Yago dated for a while, a little bit after finishing up in undergrad. It was kind of fun, and the culmination of some on-off mutual pining (and some confusion on Yago’s part, because he’s struggled with trying too hard to be what he thinks people want him to be, and this made him take the long way around figuring out that he’s bi), but ultimately, although they love each other, trying to force it to be romantic didn’t work out for them.

9. While Stephen has never dealt with an eating disorder exactly, he has dealt with disordered eating (as in, “he has dealt with some unhealthy patterns here, though they were not quite consistent enough for Stephen to personally consider them, in his words, ‘a fully-fledged eating disorder’”) — which I really wanted to go into more, but it’s almost 2 AM and I’ve been writing this all night, through rounds of being dragged into irl drama that I wanted no part of, so it’s getting skimmed over a lot because if I try to talk about it too much right now, I’ll screw up everything

But one of the biggest points for Stephen was that he spent years abusing his own body and feeling like shit in his own skin to try and stay as slim as possible, because he’d been led to believe that there was no room in the LGBTQ community for fat gay men unless they were older and basically married already, and for all he’s more at peace with his body now and so much happier now that he’s not beating himself up like that, Stephen still has some serious lingering issues about that period of his life

Like, it’s a big deal for him when, on their first date, he and Seb get showing off old pictures of themselves that they have on their phones and/or social media accounts, and Seb’s reaction to one old photo of Stephen, Yago, and some of Stephen’s friends from undergrad is not just accurately picking Stephen out (as opposed to asking which one is him), but then also going, “Oh my god, you look miserable. Yeah, you’re smiling, and it’s a good fake smile, but you look so tired and stressed out and sad — I mean, you look nice still, I didn’t mean to say it like you don’t look nice or like insulting you? But you still look so sad”

It’s a big deal to Stephen because most people who’ve seen that photo in the past few years, whether they were dating him or not, have instead said something like, “Oh my god, you were so thin, what happened” or, “You looked so hot, then. I mean, you could go back to that, right?” — and he’s not even thinking about that, at first, when he pulls the photo up to show it to Seb. He’s just thinking that it’s one of his favorite old photos, because it’s from a spring break trip that he, Yago, and their old friends took to Seattle, and it was a really great trip, and the photo is cute

—but then he pulls it up and he’s expecting something like, “So, which one is you?” followed by the, “Oh my god, what the Hell happened, you were so thin” thing, and then that doesn’t happen, and then he’s caught off-guard by that and opens up a bit (at least enough to explain some of what happened and why he’s so caught off-guard), and then he hears, “Yeah, you were cute and all, but? I think you’re beautiful now,” and then it ends up not being an attempt to get Stephen into bed immediately

—and this isn’t quite what Stephen expected, but it means so much to him that it only ends up being ever-so-slightly eclipsed by the, “oh my god, he actually is interested in me after all and I haven’t just been making it up, YAGO I KISSED A GUY AND THE WORLD GOT ALL PINK AND HAPPY AND *has to swan around their apartment with Duchess, singing ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story and dragging Yago into participating, and can’t explain himself until after he’s gotten this out of his system*”

—yeah, as I was saying.

That only ends up ever-so-slightly eclipsing the more long-term meaningful and more significant part of their first date because it capped off said date, it was a really nice kiss, “pink and happy” is approximately how both parties felt, and there was a huge sense of relief, because Stephen has twisted himself up into so many knots and fallen down so many rabbit holes over wondering whether his flirting was too subtle, or maybe Seb just didn’t like him, or maybe this wasn’t going to amount to anything, maybe he’s getting his hopes up for nothing, maybe they’ll go out and Seb will decide he’s not into Stephen at all, and so on

—so, being flat-out told that Seb is into him and getting a nice kiss to go with it? Yeah, that sort of briefly overshadows literally everything else (including hearing that Seb was nervous about all of the same, “what if he doesn’t really like me, what if he’s just being nice, what if he decides he doesn’t like me after this date” things as Stephen was)

Anyway, it’s now 2:15 AM and this was the last point I wrote out, and I’m tired, so I’m tagging this and going to bed

10. He loves sudoku puzzles, cuddling, kissing, soft pretzels, libraries and book stores, green tea (especially with different kinds of fruit infusions), questionable puns (which he’s only marginally better at delivering than he is at telling jokes, but that doesn’t mean a lot, because it’s not that hard to do better than laughing at his own joke before he even gets the punchline out), having his hair played with, mint chocolate, dancing, swimming, Cherry Coke, the aquarium, and the hands-on science museums that let you actually touch stuff and screw around with it.

#saralanceing #stephen gardener: precious disaster #ten facts meme #memes for ts #that story with the mutants that i should find a working title for fml #ocs tag #oc questions #mine: writing #seb x stephen #stephen x yago #ask box tag #longish post//#there's a bit of discussion of body image and mental health issues #but it's mostly inexplicit and limited to like 'this thing happened; it was a thing'

1 note · View note

holisticbuffalo-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Why would you ask me anything? Who am I?

Hey!

I am so excited to begin this blog with an introduction, it seems appropriate. On top of having a place to share my articles I will be asking you, the reader, to send me questions and ask for wild holistic fact based advice, you can also comment, like and a share. I respond really well. (in this blog I will respond to a question once a week)

So to get right to it, I am a mother of two. My daughter is 21 and my son is 17. I am 39 now and I have an empty nest already! What I know about myself is my need to care for others is obsessive, it’s my default. My go to role is helper and I can’t deny it, I have tried but frankly its just what I am good at. My boyfriend tells me I need a dog soon! I want a doodle, they are so beautiful! Another great self discovery is that helping translates well into a leadership role, I do well at creating a culture where everyone’s best interest is at heart. I just genuinely want to be helping where I can. Hence, this blog!

So a little more about me and who the hell I think I am. In my relationships I was given a wide range of emotional experience; I lost my baby daddy when my daughter was four months (we were engaged), my sons father and I split when he was just one, I have lived a common law life, a single mom life and now a life where interdependence is the goal. My grandmother once told me I have lived enough for three, that was when I was 27.

A little on my work history; I have been apprentice reporter at CBC radio, stay at home mom (year and a half with each child), customer care operator, cold call operator selling cell phones (I did well, I might add), hairdresser, esthetician, poet, writer, performer, coach, counselor, workshop facilitator, educator, just to name a few. I have studied beauty for over twenty years and the psychology of emotions for over ten of those. It all wraps up into this, I am person that is really passionately obsessed with what makes me tick and how I can be a better human being and more beautiful inside and outside; a better mom, a better employee, a better girlfriend/partner and more successful all around, now I want to know how to be an entrepreneur and try my hand at branding myself on line and pretty much anything else you can think of. I am currently beginning a start up to manufacture a luxury infused oil with hand picked wild flowers for face and hair, I just want to do well. Ahem, over achiever people pleaser in recovery! Maybe I should get a dog?

My big shift to inner space was after a car accident, I was forced to consider a career change, and I discovered I was more interested in what made people feel better, rather than look better. At the same time, my daughter was coming of age and as she started growing up fast. I realized I had very little to give her in terms of advice or guidance to lead her towards a happy life. Last but not least, my son was the first long term relationship I had with the opposite sex! I had to ask myself the hard question of “what kind of man will I raise?” It was a sobering moment. It was like symbols clashing over my head to wake up. So I began to study every thing about wellness; scientific, spiritual, psychological and relate these things to my life and my everyday interactions. I have discovered its not all that glamorous and takes a lot of courage to have honest moments with people that you care about and even more so with weeding out people, places or things you don’t care about!

So in conclusions to who I think am I, I will say conservatively I have over a dozen diplomas and certificates and over a thousand hours in training in each beauty and intuitive coaching that could amount to what we collectively define as “expertise” in a field of study. I have had many coaches and mentors and I believe I always will be learning. I listen to two to three pod cast a day that relate to the psychology of success whether it’s about food and the body, money and emotions or mindful mental clarity, I am averaging about three books a month, all subjects about personal success. It took me months of thinking to myself, “who the hell am I to have a blog?”. My litmus test is this; I have the courage to make this blog and follow through, I have healthy relationships with my children and I am currently dating a man that is my equal partner. The moment of clarity; all of this takes daily cultivation but then it takes action and my next step is to give, to pay it forward.

I believe I have something genuine to offer the world. These things ebb and flow, I am not always this confident and I use the term “healthy” loosely just like the word “normal” and maybe that is the point? I can say honestly the meaning of being healthy is not perfection and its not glamorous at all, we are all going to have knee jerk reactions in life.The catch is that relationships never go away and often we have to come back to conflict over and over again until we can simply say with certainty, “this is how I feel right now”, without a fear based reaction. Whether it was my inner turmoil or the past living in a current relationship, for me I needed clarity and often it required feedback. I was so blessed and very lucking to get honest and practical advice, feedback and training, so now I pay it forward. My mission in life, no matter how many attempts it takes, is to simply respond to my experience with as much interest and healing intention as possible. That is my passion now and in my opinion, it is also the ultimate challenge in life and I love it!

So, thank you for reading this full article and introduction! You can ask me for some holistic wild fact based advice, anonymously if you like but give me a nick name if you can. Also, stay tuned for more articles in my attempt to demystify all the glamour around being an emotionally intelligent human being and my story telling of a first nations single mom of adult children looking for a tribe lol. I hope it helps you on your way and puts a smile on your face!

#newblog #askholisticbuffalo #holisticbuffalo #irespondreallywell #emotionalintelligence #demystify

1 note · View note

democratsunited-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Cynthia Dill: Democrats best keep their eyes on the prize if they ever want to govern

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=5015

Cynthia Dill: Democrats best keep their eyes on the prize if they ever want to govern

America is reeling because an 81-year-old justice, Anthony Kennedy, is retiring after serving on the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years, and before we know who President Trump’s nominee is to replace him, Democratic presidential hopefuls and interest groups on the left are already expressing fierce opposition.

Anyone paying attention knows their disappointment in Trump’s pick is inevitable. But a partisan fight over a hypothetical permanent feature of jurisprudence for the next quarter-century will accomplish nothing. Children – Americans, Dreamers and migrants – will suffer as the social contract and safety net disintegrate. Amid the chaos that is the Trump administration, agents of change are challenged to keep their eye on the ball and stay focused on getting elected in November.

Republicans are in charge – they hold the White House, the U.S. Congress, 33 governor’s mansions and both chambers in 32 state legislative bodies. Mitch McConnell blew the filibuster rule out of the water in 2017, using the so-called “nuclear option” over the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, and he has vowed to confirm the next conservative justice before this fall’s midterm election. McConnell wants the confirmation completed for obvious reasons: to maximize leverage against Senate Democrats facing re-election in states where Trump won, like Indiana’s Joe Donnelly or North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, and to gin up conservative voters before they head to the polls in November. Plus there’s the lifetime appointment of the fifth conservative justice with ultimate power to decipher the Constitution for the next 25 to 30 years when “the middle” of the Supreme Court is occupied by Chief Justice John Roberts. How far to the right President Trump’s next appointment sits remains to be seen.

Why are Republicans in charge of the government, which they profess is our enemy? Because they win elections, issues be damned. Trump was pro-choice before he was against it. He couldn’t care less about abortion. His calculus is simple math. He needs the religious right to win elections, and his appointment of a “pro-life” judge enables evangelicals to forget the president’s numerous personal sins and, apparently, ignore the carnage and death caused by gun violence.

It would be a shame if Democrats get so busy working on fixes to government that they lose sight of winning elections and never get to govern. Enthusiasm for fairness and transparency should not distract thoughtful liberals and lull them into designing various constructs of what politics should look like to clean things up and make the world a better place while their ruthless Machiavellian opponents laugh and skip their way into the chamber. Concepts like term limits, publicly financed elections and ranked-choice voting are floating like pretty blue party balloons, but Democrats who grab at them, hoping to be lifted into office by popular issues and righteous causes that win referendums, are at risk of being deflated. The air is taken out of these referendum issues by the Republicans in charge, who love to wield the power of government to pop and smash things.

Politics in its simplest definition is who gets what, when and how. The purpose of political parties is to win elections so that power can be wielded to shape policy and the course of the future. The nomination and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is a calculated move specifically orchestrated to thrust the Republican Party over the high bar of the midterm elections. Trump and Republicans want nothing more than an overreaction by the left as a backdrop to the rising stock market. Attacking judicial nominees who have not yet had a public hearing and likely will sit on the United States Supreme Court might not be the best use of scarce resources.

It will be a bitter pill to swallow if independent Terry Hayes, a former Democrat and the only publicly financed candidate for governor of Maine, becomes the spoiler who puts Republican Shawn Moody in the Blaine House. It will sting if Democrat Chellie Pingree loses her congressional seat to another Democrat-turned-independent, Marty Grohman, because of ranked-choice voting. And Democrats should do no further damage to their odds of winning in November by crippling their candidates in moderate districts with hard-line ideological litmus tests on hot-button issues and shouting “no” to a judge before he or she has even been nominated. A jurist selected by the Federalist Society may be better than one selected personally by the president.

Cynthia Dill is a civil rights lawyer and former state senator. She may be contacted at her website:

dillesquire.com