#pls. let the women coexist

[kurixta]

what if. trans fem volo.

[mistypluie]

blue and pink and i mean that in the most platonic way possible asjdkhfjdhf

awwww <3 we shall have a summer friend wedding :) <3

[aeide-thea]

very much the quick and shoddy version of this post bc i can't actually think or articulate anything today lmao (unfortunate since i'm meant to be ““writing”” an ““essay””)—

there's this analysis of the netflix witcher show going around that's like, ‘actually geraskier (or even any genuine positive feeling between the two characters) isn't supported by the text,’ which i should really reblog at some point so it's on my blog; and largely i agree with that analysis, probably, although there are a couple of moments (geralt's fond smile at the banquet, jaskier's explicit attempt to offer sympathy on the mountain) that i think are worth mentioning; but like, (a) isn't the entire fannish project one of reading affection into the interstices of often-mediocre, often-homophobic writing?

and (b) honestly what i actually think about the netflix relationship is that it's, uh, sibling-coded [can't believe i actually typed those words, also pls hold for my upcoming disquisition on how a sibling-esque dynamic between unrelated adults does not in fact render the notion of sexual contact between them inc*stuous, to be written when i can brain better], based on how geralt vocally puts jaskier down all the time but also repeatedly drops everything to help him?

really i feel like, fundamentally what's happening here (which i think the post in question pointed out) is that the show made jaskier pretty flamboyantly effeminate, because that's Fun, but then realized, wait, if we have our Straight Hero care too visibly about a sidekick this ~queer-coded~, he won't fit the gruff masc bill anymore, guess we gotta cut out anything too demonstrative! so instead we get this stripped-down version of the relationship where yeah, textually what's there isn't particularly affectionate, but also i do think we're meant to understand that this is a Sidekick Situation and read a certain degree of affection into it on that basis, because we know how tropes work. and it's fair not to be satisfied with that! but i think reading it straightforwardly as ‘they don't like or value each other’ is a failure to bring even the expected, mainstream understanding of subtext to the table, let alone a queer fannish one.

[in general i think there's a conversation to be had where like, l*uren h*ssrich is pretty solely interested in (a pretty simplistic kind of) feminism, and then knows she's meant to be interested in diversity, and so we get a real focus on the women in the show, and a bit of racebending, but those things seem to come at the cost of remembering that the men are also people, really—that speech where yennefer's all, ‘womanhood means you're just a vessel for people to take and take and take from, until finally you're empty and alone’ is absolutely wild to me given that it's also exactly geralt's story, like, @ ms. hissrich i promise you this is not an exclusively female experience! and honestly that could be a really interesting conversation, because i do think the way witchers are positioned outside society also effectively separates them from the societal gender binary—they aren't men as humans understand it, they're halfway to monsters, and better thinkers than i have produced a lot of theory on women-as-monsters, so. a pretty rich vein of complicated commonality we could be mining there! but god forbid we understand power dynamics as anything but a straightforward binary, lauren.]

anyway this ended up being not that short while still not actually presenting a coherent argument, sorry! i guess i just feel like, yeah, geraskier isn't in the text, but honestly, (a) in what world is ‘not in the text’ anything but an invitation to slash, and (b) what compelling interpersonal relationships are in the text? they didn't actually do a better job of setting up geralt/yennefer, which presumably they did actually want to establish—that relationship is like, (1) awkward meeting in which the eventual sex is framed as a quid pro quo, after which yennefer literally uses geralt to do her dirty work in honestly a more exploitative, less consensual way than anything people are contending jaskier's done; then (2) some intimate but kind of impersonal tenderness in their tent, like, they gaze at each other very sweetly but it feels a little unearned to me; and then finally (3) angry breakup. and it's just like, really, you want us to get invested in these two based on that cursory triptych?

but my point here isn't really to set this up as a competition between ships, which can perfectly well coexist; my point is that this text is asking us to read into most of the relationships it sketches out, and to ignore pedestalization and pressuring in most of them, such that saying ‘geralt and jaskier are (or could be) in love’ isn't much more baseless than saying geralt and yennefer are or could be. so ultimately, if we're demanding better from the text (where ‘better’ is defined as ‘more explicit relationship-building,’ which i think can be better but isn't always), i think we have to demand that across the board.

[siren-theories]

The Pownall Massacre

TL, DR: Too complext to summarise. Sorry, you have to read through this. If you want to, you can skip to Part IV to read what I think really happened.

There is but one certainty with historical events - that they can and most likely will be interpreted differently depending on the eye of the beholder. Our own upbringing, socialization, education, sexuality, gender etc. can all cause us to be biased when interpreting historical events.  There are always different "truths" depending on who you ask.

As a simple example most readers would be familiar with lets take a look at a "great" US President, George Washington. If you would have asked a Native American of the time about George Washington he would have called him a destroyer of native villages who led massacres. If you would have asked a loyalist, he would have considered Washington a traitor to the crown. If you would have asked a member of Washington’s army in the Revolutionary War, he would have hailed Washington as a great hero. And if you would have asked his slaves....

This is no less true for the period of "Manifest Destiny" and westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century. What looks like massive land robbery, ethnic cleansing and even genocide to the outside (modern) observer might also be romanticized as the era of brave settlers and brave cowboys, the era of daring people prevailing against adversity to secure a better life for themselves. Modern Media has (regrettably) largely chosen the later path.

Please keep the above in mind when considering everything that follows in this posts. Also, please note that this is a theory built on evidence from the show - but this theory has not been  explicitly confirmed by any of the show writers.

Part I: The historical context of the Pownall Massacre.

Understanding the historical context is the most important thing when it comes to interpreting past events. 

All sources agree that the massacre happened 150 years before the time the show starts, so somewhere in the vicinity of 1868. By this time Washington State had already been settled by native Americans for close to 14.000 years (thus giving us the earliest possible form of divergence between humans and sirens).

Native Americans hunting ducks, taken from Wikimedia Commons

Native American villages of the time seem to have been mostly concentrated on the coasts and near rivers, being focused on salmon fishing, hunting and gathering berries/roots etc. You can see how Washington is a perfect setting for the Siren story - even before the arrival of the white settlers. The most prominent of those tribes seemed to have formed what is called the Salish language community.

The salish language family (from here). 

The earliest contact between the natives and Europeans happened during the spanish mapping expeditions of the Northern American coast. One such ship, the Santiago, was captained by Bruno de Hecata. You can read a bit about his expedition here.  

Unfortunately this ship also carried a deadly cargo - smallpox. This disease resulted in a harrowing smallpox epidemic which killed at least 30%, if not 50% of the native population (approximately 11.000 - 20.000 people). Even though the introduction of the disease was unintentional (indeed a third of the Europeans themselves died from it) these events proved fatal to the strength of the local populations. This blow allowed northern tribes like the Haida to muscle in on the territory of the local tribes. .

[Sidenote: For those of you who would want to read more about this I suggest Robert Boyd: The coming of the spirit of pestilence. Introduced infectious diseases and population decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774–1874 (Seattle 1999). Be warned, it makes for grim reading.]

Eventually, British fur traders and settlers arrived on the scene. In 1790 Spain and Britain reached an agreement that gave the British free reign over the Northwest coast. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition reached Washington and the USA entered the struggle for dominance over the region. Britain however gained dominance due to the war of 1812 and the Hudson Bay Company eventually became the most important fur trader of the region. These early years were characterized by a high rate of intermarriage between fur traders and local women, as well as the introduction of European technology and European goods, most importantly firearms.

However, in the 1840s large numbers of American settlers trekked westwards and started settling Washington State. Soon outnumbering the British fur traders and local natives (who seemed to have fallen into some form of uneasy coexistence), this formed the basis for what was later called the Oregon dispute between Britain and the United States. 

In 1846 the Oregon Treaty ceded Washington State to the USA and settlement began, with all the negative effects this had on the local population - disease, land robbery, ethnic cleansing and genocide. In 1862 another devastating smallpox epidemic broke out, again killing roughly one-third to half of the remaining indigenous population.

If the massacre happened in 1868 then it would have happened during a time which was filled with strife. The boundary dispute between England and the USA had not been fully resolved yet (it would only be resolved through the mediation of the German Empire in 1872). The community of Bristol Cove would have been at best a few decades old (and probably was significantly younger, maybe only having been formed in the 1850s). There might have been bad blood between ex-British and American members of the community.  The native population would have suffered from the devastating smallpox epidemic only a few years earlier and I highly doubt the natives had surrendered the prime fishing grounds willingly. 

The settlers and fishers of Bristol Cove themselves would have been hard men who had suffered through the deprivations of the long trek westwards. The fact that most of them would have been adventurous young white men without many suitable marriage prospects is also problematic as historically a surplus of young males has nearly always led to conflict. Judging from the town's football team being called the whalers and the harpoons being found in Helen's shop it seems that Bristol Cove primarily was a fishing and whaling town - two profession that require men that are comfortable with killing what they perceive as animals.

In short it does not require much imagination to view the Bristol Cove of 1862-1870 as a powder keg waiting to explode. All it needed was the right man to lit the fuze.

(Enter Charles H. Pownall, aka literally Hitler)

Part II: The sources covering the massacre

Let's look at the sources covering the massacre and try to decipher what they are telling us about the massacre and the reasons for it.

a) The official human version

The official version of what happened during the massacre is that essentially no massacre happened at all and the entire story is presented as a fairytale for small children. It is used as the centerpiece of the annual mermaid festival, being used to draw in tourists and bored college students looking for an adventure.

(Tfw your family history gets appropriated by college girls looking for an excuse to paaartaaaay.)

The Timestamp for the official human version is 4:35 - 5:10 of Episode 101 "The mermaid discovery".

(how lovely, a play about genocide. With Children in it. What could go wrong?) 

NARRATOR: "It was more than a 150 years ago when a local fishing captain, Charles H. Pownall, fell in love with a mermaid in these very waters, enchanted by her beautiful siren song." POWNALL: "I love you fishermen" SIREN: "I love you mermaid" NARRATOR: "But one day, he went to the bay, and his mermaid was gone, back to her home in the sea, never to return." NARRATOR: "And that is how thanks to Charles H. Pownall, Bristol Cove became the Mermaid Capital of the World"

(Is it my mermaid that I see there on the horizon? No, just a giant whitewash,)

The depiction of an episode of violence against other populations as a fairytale is not a new idea. For example, take the story of Pocahontas. Popular knowledge focuses on the fairytale aspect of this historical story (native Powhatan "princess" Pocahontas rescues brave white explorer John Smith) but nearly all popular retellings omit the continuation of that story - how the brave explorer John Smith continued to raid the food stores of the Powhatans, how the white colonists massacred the Powhatans, took their lands, assassinated their leaders and drove them into pitiful reservations. (Put THAT in a movie, Disney).

As such, this story fits the archetype to a T. And yet there are a few facts in the official version that merit a mention:

The official human version claims that Pownall was enchanted by the beautiful siren song (which would mean that the siren would have taken the initiative to make contact with Pownall)  

The mermaid in question disappeared without a trace, leaving Charles to look for her with no success

b) Helen's books

Another take is being presented in one of Helen's books aptly titled "An Illustrated History of the Mermaid", which features the mermaids of Bristol Cove in a chapter. Sadly the chapter is truncated and we only see the first page of it in detail - while other pages also show text, freeze-framing and enlarging them sadly showed them to be taken from a book on schooners and a book about the Napoleonic wars - a common trick by TV shows to save valuable time writing those props.

The page dealing with the massacre is shown in Episode 102: “The Lure” as follows:

(Pls Maddie move your hand a bit lower? Pretty pls?)

I have transcribed the visible text:

The Mermaids of Bristol Cove Being a true account of the bitter and broken heart of a Fisherman and the retribution that was exacted by Men of the Land upon the Maidens of the Sea

The proud men of Bristol Cove were renowned up and down the western coastline of the Americas for their craft and Bravery upon the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The men abord Captain Pownall's ship were especially known for their prowess upon the waves and their seemingly supernatural ability to find and capture more fish than any other craft. This ability was attributed to more than mere craft. It was whispered, in certain coastal taverns, that Captain Pownall himself was responsible for his own share of the bountiful harvest. It was rumored that the captain was [illegible text] a mermaid and that it was [illegible]and the deep that had resulted [illegible] his curious [illegible] five years[illegible]

This text is really short on details for its length. What we get out of it is a timeframe (five years) and a lot of fluff about the skilled and brave men of Bristol Cove - and that the relationship was also based on mutual fishing cooperation. However, the headline already tells us what interpretation the story will use here - that Pownall and the mermaid fell in love, she then broke his heart and the "brave and skilled" fishermen exacted retribution by massacring them. I was expecting some brazen apologia but not one this brazen. Yeah, some eeeevil woman(tm)  hurt you by leaving you, go murder her relatives in revenge. That makes you "brave and skilled".

Excuse me for a second while I find the nearest container to throw up in.

[Sidenote: Painting genocide as a tragedy while also arguing the victims deserved getting massacred is par the course for colonial apologia of the 19th century. Even in the 20th century Turkey for example justified its genocide of the Armenians by arguing that it was "just" a relocation that got out of hand due to Armenian banditry. This text fits well into all the other 19th century texts that allegedly deplored violence against indigenous people while similarly arguing that this could all have been avoided if the darn natives had not been so unaccommodating. Feel free to imagine a lot of fake pearl clutching as a side dish to all that juicy victim blaming.

I commend the writers of Siren for actually writing such a text for it shows their attention to detail but this was infuriating to read.]

c) The Pownall family history

Lets hear it from the direct descendants of Charles "stil literally Hitler" Pownall. Ben confronts his father after meeting a mermaid himself and nearly becoming the evening snack of said mermaid (no, snack is not used euphemistically here.) The conversation takes place in Episode 102: "The Lure" from 19:00 - 20:40.

(...So...uh...about great-great-great-great-grandpa...)

I have transcribed the relevant parts:

BEN: "I wanted to ask you something. I remembered that you and Grandpa used to talk about Charles Pownall, about what really happened back then." TED: "You really came here to ask me that?" BEN: "Yeah.” TED: "Why the sudden interest in the family history?" BEN: "I ran into Helen Hawkins.” TED: "Oh, c'mon." BEN: "Dad? Maybe I'd show up to more family events like the statue unveiling if you told me the real story about our family." TED: "All right. Look, Charles might not have been exactly who we make him out to be. I can't say for sure, but there might have been some mental illness, maybe even schizophrenia. Long months at sea, a constant stream of booze and, uh, well, he was seeing things. [chuckles] Mermaids? You know this. You did the play in school. That's how the town got its folklore. Now, as for Helen and her stories, well, we all know she's got a vivid imagination." BEN: "That's it?" TED: That's it."

Additional info about the Pownall Mermaid is delivered to us in the form of a conversation between Ben and his father in Episode 110: “Aftermath”. It starts from 21:30 and ends at 23:00.

(Don't mind me getting defensive here about not giving you all the information you asked for earlier)

TED: "Look, Charles had an affair with a woman in town, okay - she worked at a local bar...a brothel." BEN: "Wait, so she was a prostitute?" TED: "You can imagine...an extramarital affair, a child born out of wedlock with a woman in that profession - these aren't things people talked about back then. Every family has its secrets, Ben." BEN: "This isn't some kind of ancient history, dad. I have a relative living in town that I've known my whole life." TED: "You know our family Ben. This kind of history, nothing they'd want out there. Why dwell on the ugliness? Okay, Charles was a troubled guy. We talked about that. From what I understand, he had a lot of demons."

From these two conversations we get not only a lasting impression that Ted is knowing more than he lets on but also a lot of relevant information:

Charles Pownall suffered from alleged mental illness, maybe even schizophrenia - or something that made it appear as if he did.

Charles liked his booze, maybe too much

The mermaid was according to Charles family a woman of ill repute

Charles was already married when he met the mermaid and when the baby was born

The Pownall family has been paying Helen's family off to keep quiet.

d) The Siren sources

In Episode 209 “Street fight”, Ryn tells Ben the Siren side of the story.

(”Story? No, not story. Real”)

The conversation starts at 11:50 and ends at about 13 minutes.

RYN: "There was one of us who spent time with a human long time ago. She lived with him on land. Together they had little one." Ben: "A child?" RYN: "Yes. But the child was not normal, not look normal. He took it away from her into the woods. He killed their child. So she went back home in the water. But this made him angry. His head-bad. He brought many men, and they killed us. So many of us that...the water was red with our blood. Ben: "Helen told me that story. Not about a child though." RYN: "Story? No, not story. Real." 

It is interesting that as much as the human sources place the blame on the Sirens, the Siren side of the story places the blame just as squarely on the humans. What we can take away from this version is:

The mermaid lived with Charles on land and they had a child together.

The baby was deformed and thus Charles took it into the woods and killed it.

The mermaid left Charles whose head then went “bad”.

Charles took his men and slaughtered them in the water.

e) The Hybrid sources

Perhaps the most important tidbits of information come from Bristol Cove's resident mermaid expert, Helen Hawkins, in Episode 110 "Aftermath". The conversation starts at 16:12 and ends at around 18:50.

(Lemme just drop some knowledge on you children...)

HELEN: "She was the first. She was the daughter of Charles Pownall and his mermaid." BEN: "The baby is buried here? Ryn told me that Charles killed his child."  HELEN: "Oh no. [to Ryn] That may be what your colony believes, but that's not what happened. The baby was born in transition and appeared deformed, a soul caught between two worlds. Charles knew that the doctors of Bristol Cove would see her as an abomination and refuse to treat her. The Baby was gonna suffer and die. So he took her into the woods." MADDIE: "To put her out of her misery?" HELEN: "No. He brought her to bigger minds than the doctors of Bristol Cove. To people who weren't afraid of shape-shifters." MADDIE: "The Haida" HELEN: "Yes. BEN: "She lived?" HELEN: "The Haida helped her to complete her transition and she lived for a very long time. I am her last living descendant." BEN: "You*re one of them?" HELEN: "That's right. One-eigth to be exact." MADDIE: "Ryn, did you know this?" RYN: "Yes. I sense she is one of us. But I did not know the child lived."

Helen claims that:

Charles took his daughter to the Haida to find help for her

The Haida were able to help the hybrid daughter

The daughter lived for a long time in Bristol Cove among humans, eventually dieing there

Part III: Literally Hitler? The trouble with Charles H. Pownall

(Look at him. He is just standing there. Menacingly.) 

Much of how we view the massacre is dependant upon how we assess the character of Charles H. Pownall himself. It is easy to think of him as a typical machismo of his day, a ruthless conqueror who was blinded by his own sense of superiority, who could not handle rejection and committed genocide in revenge. There might be some truth to that interpretation - after all, the people who settled Washington were not exactly enlightened liberals.

And yet we know some facts which are unquestionably true (because otherwise Helen would not exist) that paint a different picture of Charles H. Pownall. When faced with the problem of his daughter's life being in danger, Charles acts rationally and decisively. He seeks out help from the only people who know how to deal with hybrids, the Haida. Doing so was not a small task considering the troubled times the Haida were facing due to the arrival of the white men and such an endeauvor might have easily ended with Charles being killed. But he persevered, the Haida managed to save his daughter's life and when returning to Bristol Cove Charles he took great care to safeguard his daughter's future. 

He organized regular funds to be paid to her and her eventual descendants and concocts a story to tell his family as to where this mysterious daughter suddenly appeared from and why they needed to pay her to keep her quiet (her being the alleged daughter of a prositute he had relations with). Admitting to a child born out of wedlock in those days had the potential to ruin a man's career and honour and thus his place in society so this was not a trivial thing to do.

Those two brave actions mentioned above are hardly those we would expect from a bloodthirsty genocider only concerned with himself.

Yet how do we reconcile this image of a at least somewhat caring father with the image of a madman slaughtering Sirens on the water? There might have been a logical reson for Charles turning into a monster. 

Both the Siren version of events and the Pownall family history mention that Charles suffered from mental problems which Ted characterizes as schizophrenic behaviour, seeing things and acting besides himself. What do we know of in the show that causes visions and causes people to act as if they are suffering from mental illnesses? In fact these are the exact symptoms people suffering from the Siren Song (Ben) or people suffering from withdrawal symptons (Chris) exhibit. Without having access to the song anymore and the only recourse being self-medication with alcohol (psychology was not exactly a practiced medicine back then, nor did MRIs exist), is it any wonder that his mental state deteriorated? It might be that the Charles H. Pownall that perpetrated the massacre bore little resemblence to the Charles H. Pownall that his mermaid fell in love with.

This might be a way too charitable interpretation of events. After all, not everybody suffering from an addiction and brain damage starts to commit genocide. However, at the very least Charles should be considered more than the black hat as which he appears in the Siren version of events (the sirens perception of him is also colored by him allegedly murdering his daughter which which never happened). Him being more of a grey character would also be in line with all the antagonists we see depicted in the show so far. Take for example Nicole, the main antagonist of Season 2 - while she lies and manipulates everything around her in order to get Ryn to cooperate with the military she is not entirely devoid of compassion. I think that therefore the interpretation of Charles H. Pownall as a more grey character fits better with this show.

This of course does not excuse his genocidal actions in any way. But it might serve as an explanation for them.

(Maybe not quite Hitler after all)

[Sidenote: I still hate the submissive pose the Pownall family chose for the statue of the mermaid, even if it fits the story the humans are trying to tell.]

Part IV: An attempt at reconstructing the events leading up to and including the massacre

As mentioned in the intro to this post, every group involved in an important and traumatic event has their own versions of the truth. This does not mean that each group necessarily lied or had a hidden agenda/hidden truth. Each version of the story (except for the two human apologia pieces already mentioned) might have been honest conclusions based on incomplete information.

So what are the facts of the story which we can reconstruct while trying to reconcile all the different pieces of information and using all information that we know not to be demonstrably false?

In the years between 1863 to 1868 Charles H. Pownall met a Siren. It might be that this Siren was actively looking for somebody to live with or to cooperate on fishing with (possibly due to the indigenous populations she used to fish with being decimated by the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1862).This cooperation led to Charles H. Pownall becoming the most renowned and wealthiest fishermen of Bristol Cove and might have continued for five years in total.

[Sidenote: The reasons for those cooperation might have been similar to those that causes other ocean predators to cooperate with humans in reality. See for example the Australian “Law of the tongue” or the Brazilian dolphin-human cooperation.]

Some time during this cooperation the mermaid and Pownall fell in love. Maybe she sang to him from the start, maybe she only sang to him after she realised she loved him. (Note that no version at all mentions that Pownall caught her so the approach was most likely consensual. Especially considering how forward Sirens can be I find the idea of the Siren initiating contact - and maybe even intiating the sexual part of the relationship - believable).

[Sidenote: In previous human-siren interactions - as the ones I postulated for the Haida in my earlier piece - this relationship would not have been a problem. The Haida and Sirens knew how to interact with each other as well as the dangers that could happen from exposure to the Song - as did the Sirens. The mermaid most likely thought the settlers would have knowledge of the problems as well. It might have been an innocent mistake to assume that. But the culture of the settlers would have been anathema to such a relationship. Having a female co-captaining a ship in the 19th century would have caused great offence, especially if she was sleeping with the married(!) captain to boot. As such, society would have almost certainly put trememndous pressure on the relationship even if the wider settler population might not have known that she was a mermaid.]

The Siren and Charles conceived a child together. The pregnancy resulted in a difficult birth with the baby caught halfway in transition. To the settlers the "deformed" baby was considered an abomination, maybe even a punishment from god for breaking the vows of marriage.

In desperation, Charles takes the baby to the Haida. He successfully pleads for their help only to discover his mermaid missing when he returns.

[Sidenote: Had the Haida been the dominant population at Bristol Cove at that time the birth of a hybrid would not have been a problem. Guess ethnic cleansing does come back to bite you in the behind after all.]

The Siren, assuming that Charles went into the woods and killed their child, had left for the water during his abscence, never to return. 

[Sidenote: This part is the one which I find hard to reconcile. I find it hard to believe that Charles would have known to take the baby to the Haida without his Siren telling him. In any case, I find it hard to believe that he just left Bristol Cove with the Baby without telling her what he was intending to do.

Or maybe there is another explanation. Maybe she assumed that the baby was dead because people told her so? There were certainly plenty of people with motivation to get rid of her. Charles' human family, moralists opposed to children born out of wedlock, competing fishermen trying to rid Charles of his competitive advantage, religious zealots or plan old racists and bigots - and those are just the human factions. There might also have been Siren factions opposed to mingling with humans - imagine a 19th century version of Katrina - do you think sirens like that would have shied away from sabotaging such a relationship or even shied away from making one of their own disappear?]

Alone and with no access to the song - nor to any cure - Charles’ mental state deteriorated to the point of no return, his condition worsening due to self-medication with alcohol. It is quite likely that he did not understand what was happening to him. 

[Speculation: Eventually - maybe with some "assistance" from some of the anti-Siren factions mentioned in the previous sidenote - he started blaming the Sirens for his mental problems, maybe even for taking away the siren he had fallen in love with.]

In 1868, after an unknown period of suffering excarbated by alcohol abuse, Charles H. Pownall, with the help of his shipmates surprised the sirens near the surface and massacred them.

The Sirens subsequently severed all human contact and went into hiding, forbidding any Siren to go on land and teaching their children to avoid the land.

(”Land bad. I learn this.)

The Hybrid daughter of Charles and his mermaid lived and prospered, despite being shunned by the rest of the Pownall family for allegedly being the daughter of a local prostitiute.

(”She was the first....”)

Acta est fabula. Clamate.

Addendum: The observations about the parallels between Ben and Charles and Ryn and Charle’s mermaid can be found here. 

[seraphimluxe]

Saved by the Bell Part 1

Bucky x Reader

Warnings: gore, mentions of anxiety, evil zombie spirits, swearing, apocalypse, yeah the usual

A/N: I wrote this about a month ago and it was so bad i never planned to post, but I edited it today and don't think it's terrible? I've proofread this so many times I could probably recite it from memory 😅 this was also the first fic I'd EVER written so cut me some slack pls pls

Feedback is more than welcomed ❤️

°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°

She should have seen it coming.

Part of her knew something was wrong.

Her world was in a limbo and everyone could feel it. Whispers and murmurs were the only verbal acknowledgement that anything was out of the ordinary. The sky was a murky wash of dirty paint colors, birds were silent and animals were solemn.

It was as if all matter was resting for a great awakening. The opening act.

Or rather the reopening act.

As superstition tells it, hundreds of years ago the rusted bell in the center of town, once un-ringable, clanged her glorious song, and thus the heavens opened. Hell was released. Dark, zombie-like spirits clambered for their flesh and souls.

Those who weren’t consumed and torn apart, were transformed into mutants, with a mindset akin to their own, creating a being more powerful than humans and themselves. The process was time-consuming and agonizing for both parties, therefore only a few dozen were recruited. The few humans left over gathered with the town mage, closing the portal and casting the spirits back to their dimension. Little is known about the mutants. Some say without a leader, they fled the town, although where they went is unknown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It woke you. It woke the whole town. The deep, sharp bellowing sent chills down your spine and adrenaline coursing through your veins. Everyone who heard understood it’s implications and purpose. Some were at work already, some preparing their meals, saying goodbyes before school, but within a few short seconds chaos erupted.

Clambering out of bed and through the front door, you braced yourself for the blinding sunlight, only to discover a dusky blight had fallen upon the world. Your eyes scanned the streets, men and women, a mass of panic and disarray. Instantly you recognized a familiar face, your almost-next-door-neighbor.

“Sam!” You caught his attention for a second before he shook his head and turned to the sky, fear laced in his eyes. You were afraid to look, almost knowing what you were going to find. Curiosity took its hold on, your eyes slowly trailing up to the apparent spectacle above you.

The sight was one you’ll never get out of your head, the sky opening up, letting darkness and ghost-like wispy creatures flood the earth like ants at a picnic. Any initial terror was magnified tenfold when a scream pierced through the air. Simultaneously snapping everyone to their senses, the crowd began stirring, shoving to get in any direction away from that.

“C'mon we gotta get out of here” Sam’s hand tugging on your arm, pulling you downtown with the crowd. There was shoving, another scream, followed by another, and another. Sam pulls you into a tight dimly-lit alley between two houses, both of your breathing heavy, and eyes frantic.

“Steve!” Sam called to the figure walking past the alley, and suddenly there were three figures in the alley- oh he’s got a plus one. A very large plus one.

Three men heavily breathing on you while the world erupted into chaos? Not exactly what you had planned this morning.

“Who’s she?” The plus one rasped, his voice dry from running, you assume. His eyes are piercing blue, even in the shade of the alley.

“A neighbor.”

“I’m Steve.” Followed by, what was supposed to be an outstretched hand, but in the tight conditions, just an awkward arm spasm, almost hitting your hip.

“Yeah, I gathered that much,” You joked, out of breath “I’m Y/N.”

“Cool. We don’t really have time for this shit.” Oooooh nameless plus one has a bit of an attitude. Duly noted. “We need to get away from the crowd if we want any chance at survival. They’re herding us like bison right now.” Pissy Pants has made a solid point.

“We could go to Natalia’s house?” Steve proposed optimistically,

“Mmm She’s-” An unnervingly close scream cut him off, he quirked a dark eyebrow underneath a long mess of hair. “She’s close to the docks.” he finished, “Let’s go, on three”

“Wait, wait, waaaait. Slow down, Tin Man”

Another quirked eyebrow, but this time it’s directed at Sam. It was a good look on him.

“We’re leaving. If you want to come, then come. Otherwise, just stay here and wait to die.”

“Bucky!” A whisper-yelled scolding from Steve. Wait, is his name Bucky? His mom must’ve been hitting the good stuff when she picked that.

Sam rolled his eyes and looked to you, awaiting your response.

“He’s probably right”

“That’s a big ‘probably’, Y/N.”

“Well there only one way to find out,” something between a scoff and a laugh escaped “Bucky’s” lips, and it would have surprised you, had it not been for his sudden countdown.

And as planned, you all bolted on “three”. Steve and his buddy leading the way through some kind of sick obstacle course. A second wave of adrenaline pulsed through your veins and sends your heart crashing against your chest. The pounding in your ribcage and ears is not unlike the sudden and loud noise behind you.

This had to be a dream.

There’s no other reasonable explanation, right?

A million various anxiety-provoking thoughts streamed through your head on a conveyer belt. Everything, and potentially everyone you know is being destroyed.

That’s lovely.

Upon arrival at Natalia’s house, the brilliant young men discovered that it was locked… And now you’re in the shed. Another dark, enclosed space with the three boys, but fortunately, this one farther from the screams.

“We need to devise a more long term plan.” Shorty with the hair has apparently mistaken this for a boy scouts training mission, and elected himself “troop guide”. He’s right, nevertheless.

“What do you have in mind?”

A glint of metal shifts across from you. A shovel maybe?

“They probably won’t be operating it, but taking the boat would be a good choice.”

“This is Bucky, by the way,” Steve whispers and gestures to him. You nod, Yup, gathered that much.

Bucky’s really got a vendetta against that shovel next to him.

“If we took a boat, we’d either be super screwed or super safe.” Sam offered,

“Okay, but what about our families? We’re just gonna leave them?”

Between Bucky sighing, and Steve grimacing, the answer doesn’t look good.

“Doll, this is survival of the fittest at this point. There’s no telling if they’re alive, and if we go out searching for them, we won’t last. We’re responsible for ourselves right now.” Bucky’s voice was softer than you were accustomed to, but still firm.

He was right. Now wasn’t the time to do something stupid and self-sacrificial-

“We could try-”

“Steve, he’s right. We could be looking for, God forbid, dead people. Or they could be safe and we’d get ourselves killed searching for them.” You hated what you were saying. You hated that the situation has come to this point. It’s been an hour and you’ve already resorted to abandoning your family. What’s next? Eating each other?

You shudder at the thought.

“Should we send someone to scope the docks, or should we all just go on three?” Sam, out here asking the real questions.

“Sendin’ someone to scope would kinda be a terrible idea, but I’ll volunteer if we’re gonna do it.”

“I say we die together.” 6 horrified eyes stare back at you. You clap your hands “Alright! let’s do it!”

“I’m down,” Sam shrugs

Everyone unceremoniously rising at once, serving as a reminder that this was, yet another, very tight space for 4 people to coexist in.

Upon standing, Bucky shifted into a stream of light coming from on of the cracks in between the wall panels. The once presumed shovel, is now very clearly not a shovel

“Oh fuck,” You whisper.

That’s his arm.

This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, mechanical and prosthetic limbs weren’t entirely uncommon in Aeston. You just somehow missed that small detail in the panic and chaos.

Wait, he was running in front of you the whole time, were you really THAT oblivious?

It was only when he let out a small chuckle, did you realize that you were staring, eliciting another mumbled “Oh fuck”

Thankfully, he changed the topic to a countdown. Everyone began preparing for a potential death, and on his cue, they silently fled. Steve and Bucky naturally taking the lead as you began to wonder where is this boat anyway?

That was your largest concern, until you rounded a corner and were met with Steve’s eerily large back. When you saw what stopped him, you wished you’d never left the shed.

A woman in her mid-fifties, half of her body was carnage, clearly having been dragged through the street. She had been consumed from the waist down, allowed her insides to spill onto the cobbled road. Worse yet, she was still being eaten.

Sam was equally as distraught as you, his eyes wet with fear and his hand trembling near his parted lips. The creature snapped it’s head up from her carcass, the gray skin of it’s face coated in blood. Up close you could see that it didn’t have a body, the flesh of the face faded into smokey darkness.

It opened its mouth and released a noise that sounded something in between a squeaky door, and a growl. Chills shot down your limbs, and you had to bite your lip to keep from crying. Your whole body was numb from fear, the blood draining out of your complexion.

Steve and Bucky began to slowly back up, one of their hands took residence on your arm and guided you behind them, and away. The very second they couldn’t see it anymore, Bucky whispered “Run.”

Fighting your shaking legs to function was a difficult task, focusing all your energy on not tripping. The pounding of your shoes on the road mimicking the one in your chest. Bucky’s back was your guiding light, and damn he was fast. Your lungs began to burn.

You were definitely not getting enough oxygen.

He hopped off a ledge and onto the sand a few feet below and ushered you down and under a pier. Grateful for a break, you scurried down and collapsed on the ground, panting. Your hands still shaking terribly, and you’re sure that even if you hadn’t just run 45mph, your heart would still be exploding against your chest. The image of the woman replaying in your head.

That could’ve been any one of you. That’s the reality you’re living in right now.

You don’t want this. This is bad. It’s childish of you to wish for a time machine, but you do. You’re desperate to feel safe for even a moment.

You also really don’t want to cry. Not here, not now, not in front of everyone. Crying isn’t practical and it’s not going to save you. Tough it out, you tell yourself.

Steeling yourself, you take a breath. Steve looks like he’s worse off than you. Though no one is shedding tears, the panic, horror and trauma is spelled out in their features and in their mannerisms. You wouldn’t have to be observant to note the almost tangible air of anxiety under the pier.

You and Bucky compose yourselves first, him being concerningly only half-affected. He opened his mouth to presumably say something comforting but was interrupted.

“Do you hear that?” Everyone held their breath for a moment, and all at once they noticed the whisper of hushed voices somewhere on the pier above. The soft knock of shoes against the wood. Sam and Steve still disoriented from the previous events, but the distraction wholly welcomed.

Bucky held up a finger and ducked out from under his cover, quickly pulling himself up onto the pier. You hear his heavy footsteps carry about twenty feet away, and then his low gravelly voice added to the rest. You’re unable to make out what he’s saying, but his serious tone quickly switched to a surprised and happy one.

Well that’s a good sign.

The engagement draws to an end, and the heavy clunk falls closer and closer to you, and then with a big thump he lands on the sand beside you.

“We’re good. Boat’s leaving in 10 minutes. They’re stocked with clothes and supplies and shit.” His voice was unnervingly chipper.

“And Steve, you’ll never believe who I found,” Another figure hopped in the sand next to him, a small girl who looked only a few years older than you.

The plus one has a plus one.

“Nat?” Steve asked, he still sounded weak, but carrying the same cheeriness as his colleague.

“Hey big guy,” Her voice was smouldering and husky, you’d be lying if you said it didn’t do things to you. It was the perfect contrast to her doll-like charm.

Wow, I can’t believe Bucky recruited an angel to save us.

“So these are the friends you were telling me about..” When she spoke those words, you realized you all probably looked bedraggled and forlorn, crouching under a rather short pier. Both Samuel and You were still in your pajamas. How embarrassing. “They’re cute,” Oh.

Wait, 'friends’?

“C'mon, we’ll get you sorted.” She glanced around her, scanning for any threats, before offering her hand to you. You accepted it and less than gracefully stumbled out into the open, finally taking note of your surroundings for the first.

It was the downtown pier, the one outletting to the Solair River, also known as “the river so huge it should probably be considered an ocean”.

Steve immediately assumed the role of Introducing everybody, awkward, but sweet. Apparently this was the “Nat” whose shed you inhabited. Cool.

Her constant glancing around and hurried steps almost made her seem paranoid, but her demeanor and casual conversation with Bucky told an entirely different story. Her hand on your lower back ushered you into silent line loading onto the ship.

You were boarding, leaving, escaping the life you knew with your neighbor and three people you’ve never met before. Putting your faith in them and trusting them in such a dangerous situation would either be your downfall or your saving grace.

Fear was silent and smelled like sand and cool, murky water.

[sam-blackbird]

Again, yes.

Listen, here in France it’s 2 in the morning, and I finished (more or less), do you mind giving me your opinion (before 8am pls I’ll have to give it to my teacher then)

Here’s my stuff (my first essay btw) :

.

An essay about transgender people

Gay. You may know how the human mind works: if something is forbidden, it is very tempting to do it anyway. This is why I said gay: in the USA, there is a bill, the “Don’t say gay” bill, which want to forbbid teachers to discuss with young people about sex orientation or gender identities. However, even if when the subject of the LGBTQ+ community come across people often think first to gay men, I’ll write about the T in the acronym, which refers to trans people, because they exist and I think 

First of all, I’ll explain what a trans person is and what they could feel, before making a short recap of trans history. Finally, I’ll finish with the problems trans people are facing nowadays, and especially transphobia and its consequences. 

So, let’s begin with the beginning. What does “trans” mean? Trans is the short for transgender, and not “transexual”, as some people said. The term “trasnexual” was used before, during the second half of the 20th century, when being trans was considered to be a mental illness. That’s why trans people don’t like and use it, as it's perceived as an insult. 

It’s also important to remind here that there isn’t one way to be trans, and not every trans person has the same experience, even if there are some common things. 

The term “trans” is an umbrella term which regroup under it a lot of thing, but mostly everyone who isn’t cisgender -who don’t cope with the gender their were assigned to at birth-. It could be trans men or trans women, but also some people under the non-binary umbrella, such as some agender ones or demi-gender ones or others. As a matter of fact, the thing someone had between their legs when they were born doesn’t define what they are.

Furthermore, trans people don’t owe others their identity or their way of dressing, nor did they have to do an operation to be considered valid, and it is not anyone else but them to assume what is their gender and pronouns based on their appearance. 

There is moreover a difference between the way someone present, the way they’re get dress, which is their appearance; the gender they identify to, which could be a lot of things, but the most commons ones are cisgender and all the trans identity, inside or outside the man-woman binary; and the people they’re attracted to, which could be someone from the same gender or not. 

Those three things coexist, even if society doesn't really agree on it. For example, drag queens and kings aren’t mandatory trans -nor gay-, they just playing with their appearance in a extravagent way.

Besides, as you might have noticed, I’m using trans as an adjective, because, as a matter of fact, trans men are men and trans women are women, as proven by studies and trans persons throughout history. 

When it comes with transgender people, some people tend to use overuse arguments like “it’s a very new thing” or “it’s all because of social networks”. First of all, that’s transphobic because it doesn’t respect trans people’s identity and it only shows that those individuals don't know anything about the trans identity. Then, the social network don’t “turn” someone trans -nor gay and so on-, but they could help making people realising they are, in fact, trans. 

I can’t deny that it could happen that people transition medically and regret it after, but statistically, trans people who medically transition, and remember that not all them do it, are more likely to be happier in their body after the operation than before. 

Trans isn’t the new trend. With some research, it’s possible to find trans beings all around the world and the times. Let’s not forget that trans people can be found in ancient times, as, for example, in Ancient Egypt, as depicted in the Tale of the Two Brothers which is 3200 years old! 

Some said the Christian religion wouldn’t let “trans people happen” -as if it was a choice- because it’s “not natural”, but surprisingly, in the Middle Ages, trans people were pretty good accepted, and some of them even became saints, like Saint Marius or Marinus depending on the translation. He was a monk and the fact that he was trans was only discovered after his death.

More close to the time we’re living in, the americans natives, with their third gender, that some tribes call “two-spirits”. Nevertheless did Europeans colonize outside Europe, America for instance, and convert everyone who thinks otherwise than them. 

The transgender people became more and more visible during the 20th century, and with that the medical transitioning develops. It consists basically of surgeries to help people feel better in their body. It cost a lot of money. However, if a trans folk wants to live better in their body and doesn't want or can’t afford to make a medical transition, they could still, if wanted, take hormones. 

In France, in order to obtain the right to have it, trans people have to see a psychiatrist who decides if they can have it or not. Conversely, if a cis woman (a woman who was born in a woman body) wants to have a bigger chest or if a cis man wants to take testosterone to feel more manly, they both can without doing all the procedures trans people need to going into.

There is also a day of trans visibility, March 31st, on which we celebrate the trans community and acknowledge what they’re facing all around the world. 

It’s not March 31st but let’s acknowledge what the trans community deals with. To came back with USA, it’s difficult to deny that Americans still try to “convert” everyone who think out their boxes, with differents practices, such as conversion of therapy -which basically consists on torturing and traumatising queer (the ones who are in the LGBT+ community) people to “fix” them- or the interdiction to educate young ones about sexual orientation and gender identities, which could not be so helpfull at it seems. 

In fact, teaching the young about it could help them to better understand the world. Children aren’t stupid nor hateful if not teach so, and the fact that it’s not teach means that the trans individuals will have to manage and discover by themselves what trans are, and this is why some trans discovert that they are late in their life, whether they are in their 40s or in their 70s. By the way, trans people aren’t only young people. This is why it is important to not let young or less young individuals in the shadows of incomprehension and to give them visibility and representation. 

Nowadays, there is more representation that is better portrayed than before, but there still isn’t that much for trans fictive characters to whom young people could identify. 

And now, a depressing fact: according to recent studies, young people would be twice more likely than other to commit a suicide. There is associations that work to prevent young queer’s suicide, and especially trans ones, like the Trevor Project in the USA, based in Holywood, Los Angeles. 

Besides, there is also a day, November 20th, which is the day of trans remembrance, in which we remember all the one who were killed, because trans death aren’t all due to suicide, sadfully. 

And if there are issues after the death of a trans person, such as putting their deadname -if they have one, not all trans people reject the name their parents gave them at birth- on their gravestone, there also are way too much while alive. Again, not all trans people are facing it or all of it. 

Trans people, and especially young ones are dealing with transphobia, which consists of not respecting or mocking a trans person -with them knowing it or not, it’s not the point-. The thing is, transphobia kills. Designing someone with the wrong pronouns and name while being aware of it is transphobia. 

Some trans folks don’t even come out because of the fear of being rejected or worse. In fact, some trans individuals have to cope with harassment -verbal and/or physical-, the non-mix bathrooms in which they’ll be yelled at if they don’t look like people expect them to look like, the insults and/or the non-acceptance of who they are, which is as painful as the rest, and more if it comes from the parents of the trans individual. 

And to not lighting the picture, a lot of trans people don’t like their body, because they feel like they were born in the wrong body. This is called “dysphoria”. It could be very painful, especially for teenagers who have to deal with their body changing without them wanting it. It could lead to a low self-confidence and also sometimes self-harm, and even suicide, as mentionned earlier. It also happens that trans people aren’t accepted just because they are trans, in a relationship for example. 

But sadly, a relationship isn’t the only place where trans folks could be put apart, sport also competing. Some folks argued that trans women competing in the woman categories was just “men” cheating. Firstly, it’s not right, trans women are women and studies debunks the myths, as explained for instance in an article on the ACLU, the American Civil Liberty Union, called “Four Myths About Trans Athletes, Debunked”. Basically, women aren’t weak and in need of protection, as seems to see the men who are against trans women in sport. Women can stand up for what they defend. Moreover, if men are only interested in women’s sport when it’s come across trans women participating in it, then one can ask: do men really care about the women in sport?

To conclude, trans rights are human rights, since trans people are human. They are facing a lot of things, and the one we heard the most about are bad things: the murders, the suicidals, and so on, but we doesn’t often about the trans solidarity. In fact, it happened some days that associations ask people, whatever gender they are, to wear a skirt, while it’s only a cloth and it shouldn’t be gendered as a girly thing. Dress and skirt were first men's things, and same with the makeup and the hells and now it’s only a girly thing in the mind of the majority. Anyway so those days when it’s asked to wear a skirt are to fight transphobia and are generally put after the death of a transgender person. 

By the way, you can wonder why I chose that subject among others. To specify, I am not trans, I am non-binary, and my pronouns are singular they/them. What are yours?

A.M.

An essay about transgender people

Gay. You may know how the human mind works: if something is forbidden, it is very tempting to do it anyway. This is why I said gay: in the USA, there is a bill, the “Don’t say gay” bill, which want to forbbid teachers to discuss with young people about sex orientation or gender identities. However, even if when the subject of the LGBTQ+ community come across people often think first to gay men, I’ll write about the T in the acronym, which refers to trans people, because they exist and I think 

First of all, I’ll explain what a trans person is and what they could feel, before making a short recap of trans history. Finally, I’ll finish with the problems trans people are facing nowadays, and especially transphobia and its consequences. 

So, let’s begin with the beginning. What does “trans” mean? Trans is the short for transgender, and not “transexual”, as some people said. The term “trasnexual” was used before, during the second half of the 20th century, when being trans was considered to be a mental illness. That’s why trans people don’t like and use it, as it's perceived as an insult. 

It’s also important to remind here that there isn’t one way to be trans, and not every trans person has the same experience, even if there are some common things. 

The term “trans” is an umbrella term which regroup under it a lot of thing, but mostly everyone who isn’t cisgender -who don’t cope with the gender their were assigned to at birth-. It could be trans men or trans women, but also some people under the non-binary umbrella, such as some agender ones or demi-gender ones or others. As a matter of fact, the thing someone had between their legs when they were born doesn’t define what they are.

Furthermore, trans people don’t owe others their identity or their way of dressing, nor did they have to do an operation to be considered valid, and it is not anyone else but them to assume what is their gender and pronouns based on their appearance. 

There is moreover a difference between the way someone present, the way they’re get dress, which is their appearance; the gender they identify to, which could be a lot of things, but the most commons ones are cisgender and all the trans identity, inside or outside the man-woman binary; and the people they’re attracted to, which could be someone from the same gender or not. 

Those three things coexist, even if society doesn't really agree on it. For example, drag queens and kings aren’t mandatory trans -nor gay-, they just playing with their appearance in a extravagent way.

Besides, as you might have noticed, I’m using trans as an adjective, because, as a matter of fact, trans men are men and trans women are women, as proven by studies and trans persons throughout history. 

When it comes with transgender people, some people tend to use overuse arguments like “it’s a very new thing” or “it’s all because of social networks”. First of all, that’s transphobic because it doesn’t respect trans people’s identity and it only shows that those individuals don't know anything about the trans identity. Then, the social network don’t “turn” someone trans -nor gay and so on-, but they could help making people realising they are, in fact, trans. 

I can’t deny that it could happen that people transition medically and regret it after, but statistically, trans people who medically transition, and remember that not all them do it, are more likely to be happier in their body after the operation than before. 

Trans isn’t the new trend. With some research, it’s possible to find trans beings all around the world and the times. Let’s not forget that trans people can be found in ancient times, as, for example, in Ancient Egypt, as depicted in the Tale of the Two Brothers which is 3200 years old! 

Some said the Christian religion wouldn’t let “trans people happen” -as if it was a choice- because it’s “not natural”, but surprisingly, in the Middle Ages, trans people were pretty good accepted, and some of them even became saints, like Saint Marius or Marinus depending on the translation. He was a monk and the fact that he was trans was only discovered after his death.

More close to the time we’re living in, the americans natives, with their third gender, that some tribes call “two-spirits”. Nevertheless did Europeans colonize outside Europe, America for instance, and convert everyone who thinks otherwise than them. 

The transgender people became more and more visible during the 20th century, and with that the medical transitioning develops. It consists basically of surgeries to help people feel better in their body. It cost a lot of money. However, if a trans folk wants to live better in their body and doesn't want or can’t afford to make a medical transition, they could still, if wanted, take hormones. 

In France, in order to obtain the right to have it, trans people have to see a psychiatrist who decides if they can have it or not. Conversely, if a cis woman (a woman who was born in a woman body) wants to have a bigger chest or if a cis man wants to take testosterone to feel more manly, they both can without doing all the procedures trans people need to going into.

There is also a day of trans visibility, March 31st, on which we celebrate the trans community and acknowledge what they’re facing all around the world. 

It’s not March 31st but let’s acknowledge what the trans community deals with. To came back with USA, it’s difficult to deny that Americans still try to “convert” everyone who think out their boxes, with differents practices, such as conversion of therapy -which basically consists on torturing and traumatising queer (the ones who are in the LGBT+ community) people to “fix” them- or the interdiction to educate young ones about sexual orientation and gender identities, which could not be so helpfull at it seems. 

In fact, teaching the young about it could help them to better understand the world. Children aren’t stupid nor hateful if not teach so, and the fact that it’s not teach means that the trans individuals will have to manage and discover by themselves what trans are, and this is why some trans discovert that they are late in their life, whether they are in their 40s or in their 70s. By the way, trans people aren’t only young people. This is why it is important to not let young or less young individuals in the shadows of incomprehension and to give them visibility and representation. 

Nowadays, there is more representation that is better portrayed than before, but there still isn’t that much for trans fictive characters to whom young people could identify. 

And now, a depressing fact: according to recent studies, young people would be twice more likely than other to commit a suicide. There is associations that work to prevent young queer’s suicide, and especially trans ones, like the Trevor Project in the USA, based in Holywood, Los Angeles. 

Besides, there is also a day, November 20th, which is the day of trans remembrance, in which we remember all the one who were killed, because trans death aren’t all due to suicide, sadfully. 

And if there are issues after the death of a trans person, such as putting their deadname -if they have one, not all trans people reject the name their parents gave them at birth- on their gravestone, there also are way too much while alive. Again, not all trans people are facing it or all of it. 

Trans people, and especially young ones are dealing with transphobia, which consists of not respecting or mocking a trans person -with them knowing it or not, it’s not the point-. The thing is, transphobia kills. Designing someone with the wrong pronouns and name while being aware of it is transphobia. 

Some trans folks don’t even come out because of the fear of being rejected or worse. In fact, some trans individuals have to cope with harassment -verbal and/or physical-, the non-mix bathrooms in which they’ll be yelled at if they don’t look like people expect them to look like, the insults and/or the non-acceptance of who they are, which is as painful as the rest, and more if it comes from the parents of the trans individual. 

And to not lighting the picture, a lot of trans people don’t like their body, because they feel like they were born in the wrong body. This is called “dysphoria”. It could be very painful, especially for teenagers who have to deal with their body changing without them wanting it. It could lead to a low self-confidence and also sometimes self-harm, and even suicide, as mentionned earlier. It also happens that trans people aren’t accepted just because they are trans, in a relationship for example. 

But sadly, a relationship isn’t the only place where trans folks could be put apart, sport also competing. Some folks argued that trans women competing in the woman categories was just “men” cheating. Firstly, it’s not right, trans women are women and studies debunks the myths, as explained for instance in an article on the ACLU, the American Civil Liberty Union, called “Four Myths About Trans Athletes, Debunked”. Basically, women aren’t weak and in need of protection, as seems to see the men who are against trans women in sport. Women can stand up for what they defend. Moreover, if men are only interested in women’s sport when it’s come across trans women participating in it, then one can ask: do men really care about the women in sport?

To conclude, trans rights are human rights, since trans people are human. They are facing a lot of things, and the one we heard the most about are bad things: the murders, the suicidals, and so on, but we doesn’t often about the trans solidarity. In fact, it happened some days that associations ask people, whatever gender they are, to wear a skirt, while it’s only a cloth and it shouldn’t be gendered as a girly thing. Dress and skirt were first men's things, and same with the makeup and the hells and now it’s only a girly thing in the mind of the majority. Anyway so those days when it’s asked to wear a skirt are to fight transphobia and are generally put after the death of a transgender person. 

By the way, you can wonder why I chose that subject among others. To specify, I am not trans, I am non-binary, and my pronouns are singular they/them. What are yours?

Queers, I need your help.

I have to do an essai for next week in English, as my English teacher said this morning (it's actually noon). The thing is that the week after next week, I'll have exams, so it'll be rude, and that's why I need your help.

In this essai, I'll have to defend a minority, and as a proud queer, I'll chose the LGBTQ+ community. The problem is that I don't know very much about the community and its fight, so please, help me by teaching me stuff!

And if you can't/ don't want to, reblog so people can see it! Thank you in advance ! Btw, I think it could also profit others and that's why I ask help here and not only doing my research on my own.