#the fact that there are several dudes in her women category

[queenlucythevaliant]

So um. During our weekly phone call my sister and I did tier lists and I had her sort Tolkien characters based solely on vibes (she's never read or watched anything Tolkien) and

You guys

[therenlover]

Would The Danny Bunch Survive A Holiday With My Family?

A/n: In the wake of recent life garbage, I have neglected to write a whole fic, and I’m sorry. In the interim, please enjoy this writing exercise I have put together in the hopes of nailing some characters I haven’t written for in the past in time for a larger project I’m working on! Cheers!

Characters: Laszlo Kreizler, Alex Kerner, Niki Lauda, Andrea Marowski, Ernst Schmidt, and Helmut Zemo

Rating: T

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Mild Misogyny, Mentions of Alcohol/Alcoholism, Mentions of Mental Illness, Non-Graphic Mentions of Death, Minor Spoilers for The Alienist Season One, Minor Spoilers for Goodbye, Lenin!, Spoilers for Rush (2013), Minor Spoilers for The Cloverfield Paradox maybe??? I haven’t actually seen the whole movie, blame Wikipedia if things are wrong. 

Laszlo Kreizler

NO

As the first of all of the Dannys to be put through the ringer, Laszlo Kreizler unfortunately would not survive a holiday with my family.

First of all, this man does not like massive huggy kissy crowds, so he’d already be off his game the second he walked into the packed house. That’s not why he’d die though, surprisingly.  

His downfall would be his status as an Alienist. 

There is simply so much mental illness and childhood trauma present at my family holidays that he would combust within 15 minutes of sitting in a room with all of my relatives.

Even if he were to somehow make it past the introductory phase, my family is nosey as hell, so they’d be grilling him about his arm and his own childhood trauma within the first hour. 

Laszlo, for all of his strength, simply wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

His death wouldn’t come from the initial combustion though. No, it’s not that simple. 

Knowing Laszlo, once he had combusted and entirely lost his composure the first time, he would become extremely intrigued about the interconnected nature of everyones issues with each other and he would start asking questions. 

That’s where the problems would begin. 

Because it’s one thing if my drunk great aunt starts badmouthing her sister at the table for abandoning her 90 year old mother for a lake house with her new boyfriend. That’s fine. 

But when Laszlo hops in and starts picking apart the mommy issues and underlying reasons for their decades long sibling rivalry? 

Oh it would be over for him. 

The yelling would never end. 

And, I have no doubt that Laszlo would start to psychoanalyze whoever started to yell at him, which would only lead to more yelling. 

In the end, someone would throw a probably full and probably fresh out of the oven casserole dish at his head and he’d be unable to defend himself because of his weak arm. 

We’d have to cart him out in a wheelchair and even if he were to technically survive, he’d never come back. 

Therefor, Laszlo Kreizler would fall victim to my family and die before we even got to dessert. 

Alex Kerner

YES

Ah, little baby Alex! A great contender here for holiday survival.

He seems relatively young in comparison to most of the Dannys on this list, though I don’t actually know how old he’s supposed to be. 

Based on his relative youth, he would automatically get points with the fam for not seeming like a creep or sugar daddy. Instead, he could be just about any dude I brought home from college. 

His skillset as a semi-skilled laborer would also earn him some points, seeing as several members of the family are in similar professions.

Alex might get lost in some of the more complex conversations about the local organic scene or the fine details of running a fine art gallery, but he would fit right in with the majority of the younger members of the family, smiling and nodding his way through the conversation. 

His enthusiasm and optimism would brighten the room and leave everyone excited to see him around again. 

There’s also the semi-small detail of him caring for his mother, which would earn sympathy from the older members of the family as they are in charge of caring for my deaf, blind great grandmother. 

Now, all of these aspects have already set Alex up for a successful survival of a holiday dinner with my family, but the real secret weapon he has up his sleeve is what really cements him in place as a survivor. 

What is his secret weapon, you may ask?

Lies.

Alex Kerner is really, really good at lying, and is even better at figuring out increasingly convoluted ways to keep his lies straight. 

If he managed to hide to fuckin’ Berlin Wall coming down from his mother for as long as he did, he could keep a couple of white lies up for appearances if he was asked any potentially embarrassing or weird questions that would make him look bad. 

He could also lie about enjoying my great aunt’s cooking, which is a vital skill for holiday survival in my family. 

Therefor, at the end of the day, Alex Kerner would not only survive a holiday with my family, but he’d probably enjoy it and get invited back for every subsequent holiday he could possibly attend. 

Niki Lauda

NO

Niki is another Danny that falls very firmly into the category of characters that would absolutely not survive a holiday with my family, for many, many reasons. 

First of all, just like Laszlo, Niki is not huge on going to big huggy kissy parties. 

Both adults and children would be all over him the second he walked in the door, which would probably make Niki get very uncomfortable and cagey. 

Little does he know at that point that people aren’t just all over you when you get in the door. 

No, no, no; from the moment you show up to the moment you leave, if you’re at a holiday with my family you are being basically accosted with questions and hugs and conversations that get weirdly personal. 

It doesn’t help that the whole entire house is packed and there are eyes on you at every moment, so he wouldn’t even be able to sneak in a break for air or a cigarette. 

If my own mother can’t sneak out for a smoke when she’s been going to these events her whole life, the new guy who’s still being vetted by the family sure as hell won’t be able to either.

Needless to say, Niki would start to get really, really tired of it all in an hour tops. I’ll give him until dinner at most. 

That’s where things would start getting really sticky.

See, a lovely little fact about the Niki Lauda that lives in my brain, as portrayed by Daniel Bruhl in Rush (2013), is that he’s just a little bit misogynistic. No more than would be period typical, but a little misogynistic.

Another fun little important thing to note is that my family is entirely matriarchal in nature. 

There are only 4 reoccurring male guests at family holidays out of about 20 to 25 guests at each event; My great aunt’s husband of many, many years, the two male siblings my mother has that live in the area, and the young son of one of those siblings. 

Men, specifically boyfriends, simply do not last in my family. They are considered pretty disposable and easily banned from family events after breakups or small mishaps. 

So, not only would Niki not have any other manly men there to chat about sports with over a scotch and a cigarette, he would be surrounded by so much estrogen that he would definitely struggle with his inner asshole even more than usual. 

In fact, we never have sports on, even on Thanksgiving. Poor Niki would be stuck hearing conversations about artisanal candlemakers and how to hand felt a woodland elf puppet.

Back to his downfall, the second he made a slightly sketchy joke about women in the kitchen at the dinner table to my great uncle, his fate would be sealed.

If you thought the yelling at Laszlo would have been bad, this yelling would be ten times worse, because he would be surrounded by like 20 very angry, very defensive, and very strong women waiting to beat the shit out of him and I would not be any help. 

He dug the hole, so he can climb out of it. 

In the end, his death would come when he tried to light a cigarette and calm himself down at the dinner table while trying to rescind his earlier statement, because smoking inside around all the precious textile art? Thats a big no no. 

My great aunt would grab the lighter right out of his hand, light up whatever cocktail she had at the moment, and throw it all directly into Niki’s face.

It would be like crashing his car all over again, only this time he would be surrounded by people who would rather he burn than try to get him out of the situation. 

Moral of the story, Niki would die within the first few hours of a holiday with my family because he made an asshole comment to a room full of women who don’t put up with that shit. Don’t be like Niki, even if you think you won’t get killed for it. 

Andrea Marowski

YES

Andrea is pretty much the polar opposite of Niki here, and I love him for it. 

He is very soft, very kind, very pure, and would never dare to say something rude at the dinner table like a certain racer we all know.

He couldn’t even say something rude if he tried to, because he probably wouldn’t have the English in his vocabulary to say the things he wanted to say even if he intended to say them out loud. 

But let’s be honest here, Andrea would never. 

Even with his limited English, Andrea would appreciate being surrounded by a whole bunch of people who think he’s the sweetest little thing since the invention of cake. 

My great grandmother, despite being almost entirely blind and deaf, would say he looked darling and he would immediately be a member of the family from the moment he stuttered out his thanks. 

Andrea, like Alex, is also relatively young, so he would get points for not being old enough to be my father. 

I feel like, because Andrea was shown living happily in a tiny village by the ocean with two old ladies, he would have an appreciation for craft, so he wouldn’t mind sitting quietly as my great aunt pawns off a handmade blanket from my great grandmother to him. 

He would also happily sit with the younger children and do whatever craft or simple game one of my aunts brought for them that time. 

The cherry on top with Andrea is his skill with the violin. 

My family is one that appreciates fine art a lot, but more than anything we appreciate music. 

I wouldn’t say that any of us are anywhere close to Andrea’s proficiency, but we definitely aren’t terrible, and we all can appreciate the effort, practice, and talent that goes into getting truly good on an instrument like Andrea is on his violin. 

He would be encouraged to play, of course, and he would happily oblige. 

If he felt comfortable enough, I could even see my great uncle grabbing his guitar, my cousin sitting at the piano, and my sister bringing out her own violin to do a little quartet with some simple song they knew as everybody else sang along. 

By the end of the holiday evening, once dinner was served and people were heading to the cars, Andrea would definitely be considered a member of the family. 

Needless to say, he’d survive and pass their tests with better than flying colors, even despite the language barrier. 

Ernst Schmidt

NO

Now, Ernst was probably the most difficult one on this entire list to put into the living or dying category. In the end, though, there were a few things that couldn’t be overlooked that send him into bad territory. 

To be fair, though, he would last the longest out of everyone who would die tragically at one of my family’s holiday gatherings. 

He, like the past two victims, would not be exactly suited for the mushy crowding that’s inevitable when it comes to my family. 

That being said, I think he would deal with it a little bit better than the other two did and would make polite conversation with the family when he could. 

The fact that he was trapped in a packed house filled with drunk people who have several generations worth of beef with each other, though, would start to get him eventually. 

If we consider all of the shit that happened while he was in space to be canonical minus, you know, the earth getting really fucked up, he would probably start to go a little bit nuts while packed together with that many passive aggressive people.

The second someone burst into tears on the way to the bathroom he would start to lose his shit. 

Still, I think Schmidt would probably be fine-ish until dessert was served, because that’s about the time where all the adults are absurdly drunk, so insanity ensues. 

They would start poking at him about his credentials and experiences as a physicist. 

He would answer their questions at first, but, unfortunately for him, the questions would turn more and more personal and uncomfortable as time went on. 

Did he ever still think about what happened up in space? Did he blame himself for not getting things to work correctly? How much did he miss his old world and old life? Did he ever have nightmares about what he saw? How much did it hurt to get shot?

They’d poke and poke and poke in their drunken state until poor Schmidt would snap at them, flying into a slight rage at their insistent probing. 

From there, he would be swiftly asked to leave and then “accidentally” run over while calling an Uber to take him to wherever he’s staying as my drunk great aunt tries to back out of the driveway to drive down the block to her house. 

In the end, Schmidt and his wit would be really close to surviving a holiday with my family , but he would, unfortunately, let his anger get the best of him, and it would be the last thing he ever did. Literally. 

Helmut Zemo

YES, BUT ONLY BARELY

Okay, so my earlier comment about Ernst being the most difficult out of everyone was incorrect. Zemo was, by far, the hardest to put into one category or the other. 

His wit and charm won out in the end, though, and I determined that he would survive one single holiday with my family. 

If he ever came back for a second he definitely wouldn’t make it, but he would succeed in living past the first one. 

Helmut’s problems start, surprisingly, not with the fact that he is a criminal. In fact that doesn’t even cause any problems for him. 

No, instead they start with the fact that he is 43.

I am 99% sure that my mother is 43, and I know for a definite fact that he’s older than one of my uncles who would be present. I, at the time of writing this, am 18. 

Needless to say, literally everyone would be massively suspicious of him and his intentions the second he walked through the door. The amount of money in his bank account definitely wouldn’t help in this situation either. 

The family would warm up to him eventually, though, because if there’s one thing Helmut is good at besides killing people, it’s making people like him even if they absolutely shouldn’t. 

With his expansive knowledge of what feels like literally everything rich and niche, he would slowly win over the older members of the family. Who knew the strange old man Jac brought home was so well versed in the American pottery scene, or that he could name specific jewelry artists from across the world that my family had done business with for years?

My family definitely wouldn’t. At least, not at first. 

Oh how they’d learn, though. 

Another nice thing about Zemo that would allow him to survive is his aggressive politeness.

No matter how many weird glances or dirty looks he got over the course of dinner, he would simply continue to be the best version of himself in the hopes of impressing everyone. 

He would even pretend to enjoy my great aunt’s cooking and get himself seconds, because I’m sure it would be easier to scarf down than whatever he and his EKO Scorpion squad had to eat while serving in the Sokovian special forces. 

On the tail end of reasons he would be accepted, Helmut Zemo drinks alcohol like it’s water, so he would fit right in drinking white wine and cocktails through the night with the rest of the adults. 

((I think he’d totally tease me about not being able to drink with him, but that’s a story for another time. Anyways...))

His slight downfall would come from something entirely uncontrollable by him or anybody else. 

And that something would be my flirty aunt. 

I love my aunt. She’s wonderful in her own special way. 

That being said, I know if a hot Sokovian baron with a nice smile and a fat pocketbook showed up to one of out holidays, even if he was introduced as my partner, she would be going for the kill all night long. 

This would make Helmut more and more uncomfortable as she got more and more drunk, because lets face it, he’s probably not very comfortable with being touched by near-strangers anyways, and being touched by a drunk member of his partners family who is very obviously coming on to him? 

That’s even more difficult to deal with. 

That being said, Helmut is a man who has been shown to be extremely in control of his emotions. 

He would swallow down whatever awkwardness he felt, make it to the end of the night, and, once he had escaped her clutches, he would politely say that he was never going back to another holiday function with my family again, though he would be happy to facilitate me still attending them. 

So, in the end, Helmut Zemo would survive one holiday with his sheer stubborn politeness alone. 

I will say that his patience would absolutely wear thin if he attended a couple more holidays and he would eventually die of a stress induced heart attack after being unable to politely decline my aunt’s advances. 

For now, though, he’s safe.

[realife-mermaid]

Reading Log for May/June

We are GETTING INTO THIS SHIT lmao I was behind in my goodreads goal and slacking on some of my reading goals so I tried to read more for May and June. Here is that effort, I think I did a fantastic job, and also I read a lot of books that I fOcking LOVED which was a nice change from the “mostly eh” pattern I’ve been stuck in.

I also bought a bunch of books (mostly starring queer and/or characters of color bc I realized my books feature way too many cishets) then inventoried all my books and redid my counts. And in June I ONLY read queer books as a “this is a gays only event go home!” power move on all the heterosexuals currently on my bookshelves. Can’t let those dudes get too cocky, they gotta know they’re on a Bisexual Bookshelf and they can’t be embarrassing me. So books 7 on are all queer in some way, and most of them were written by queer authors as well.

New Total Books Count: 184

New Unread Books Count: 94

Goodreads Goal: 49

This Place: 150 Years Retold Anthology - 3.5 stars. Eh. To be honest the summary was really misleading. I thought it would be more post apocalyptic takes on colonialism but instead it was mostly just straight history. Some of them did not have enough story for the pages they got and some of them had far too much story for the pages they got, or told them in a really awkward way. Still, seeing history centered from an Indigenous perspective was interesting and there’s some beautiful art here. Standouts include Red Clouds (read that one during daylight hours for my peace of mind if no one else’s lol), Rosie (BEST art by far), and Migwite’tmeg: We Remember It.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie - 5 stars. I know he’s a grade A creep but I bought this several years ago before I knew that and I wanted to at least read it once. I both understand why it’s considered a classic (the stories about Norma, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, and James Many Horses really stuck me with specifically) but I can also Really pick up on Alexie’s opinions of women lol.

Clockwork Prince by Cassie Clare - 4.5 Stars. So much better than the first one. Felt like there was more going on, the romantic scenes are SO beautifully romantic, the character arcs more well defined, and the writing really improved. Still too long, and idc what she says, Jem should have gotten a POV chapter and the fact that he didn’t bc ~plot reasons~ is just laziness, so I knocked half a star off. Also, the audiobook I listened to was AWESOME, the male voice did such a good job, and the female voice improved as well.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones - 5 stars. This was a solid, 4 star horror urban fantasy/coming of age story and then the last two chapters just punched me in the chest and took it into “absolute favorites” category. Told from the point of view of the nameless nephew who may or may not be a werewolf, raised by his werewolf aunt and uncle, who have been on the move since his grandfather died, it’s a fantastic horror book and a fresh take on werewolves and also just a great book.

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee - 5 stars. Historical fiction about a Chinese aspiring acrobat who boards the titanic in the hopes of reconnecting with her twin brother. It’s SO GOOD, so engaging, with characters that feel so alive and painfully real. Loved it and loved being emotionally destroyed by the ending. The injustice of what happened to the lower class passengers really STUCK with me, I had to sit with my feelings after.

Among Others by Jo Walton - 5 stars. I don’t even know how to describe how much I loved it. I think The Book Thief might have a rival for my affections. It’s magic realism about a girl named Mor in, as she puts it, the Scouring of the Shire section of the story. Evil has been defeated, so what do you do next? It’s about grief, disability, abuse, and the power of connection and love and LIFE and I cried reading it. Everyone should read it.

Nature Poem by Tommy Pico - 4 stars. This was an audiobook listen and I loved hearing his narration. Very animated and fun. The poem itself is very interesting and there’s quite a few bits that really stuck with me about like Indigenous Experience and also about being gay and Indigenous. Excited to read more of his work.

Space Opera by Catherynne Valente - 5 stars. I would like to formally apologize to my friend Addi @monstersandheartache who recommended this to me like a year ago and I dragged my feet on reading it because I’m a dumbass holy shit. So funny, so witty, so zany, and yet so ripe with emotion. It’s Eurovision in Space and pays homage to sci-fi and glam rock, and the general overreaching theme reminds me a lot, of all things, Pacific Rim - it’s a humanist ballad of queer rockstars singing to (and often fucking and flirting with) aliens and it’s so damn good.

Beast by Brie Spangler - 3 stars. The writing was solid, I liked how Jamie as a trans girl was written to be very Aware of how others perceive her but just ignoring it bc she’s here to Have Fun, and the beginning was very good but the characters went from lovably dumb to plain annoying around the 70% mark. There comes a point when there has to be more to the plot than “I say something dumb, we argue, don’t talk, and then make up” ya know. Disappointing bc I was looking forward to this one.

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsburg - 3 stars. I think every teenager should read howl because that’s when it’s most gonna resonate, when it’s the first time you’ve read something like this, because the Beat Generation WAS the first time they were doing this. Now though, there’s so many poems that say similar things that the moment of “I didn’t know other people felt like this” won’t ring as true. I did really like A Supermarket in California.

Fortitude Smashed by Taylor Brooke - 3 stars. This is one of those “clock runs out when you meet your soulmate” stories and it was really boring. There were also a lot of PoV switches, like multiple in one chapter and I found it distracting and annoying.

No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll - 5 stars. It’s a short story compilation about trans characters subverting gendered prophecies. Really smart, interesting world building and it also juggled giving characters personalities with very little time to do it incredibly well. I liked the third story about Nociem (awesome world building) and the sweet wish dragon story at the ending.

Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde - 4 stars. I wasn’t like, exactly sure how to rate this because the prose is beautiful, Ballad of Reading Gaol is just amazing, and several other poems really spoke to me and then BAM anti-semitic reference to the merchant of Venice. It was a lot, but also, I liked it enough I might finally read his other stuff.

Cinnamon Blade by Shira Glassman - 3 stars. It’s sort of urban fantasy esque erotic short and tbh, I think if it had been a full length novel I might have liked it more. Just too much going on in the background, and Soledad didn’t really have a personality beyond “quirky.”

Girls Made of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan - 5 stars. This is a heavy book. It’s centered around a girl named Lei from the paper caste, the lowest caste, who is forced to be a concubine for the demon king. While there, she comes to grips with the oppression her people face and falls in love with another concubine, Wren. The love story is sweet and well developed but this is a difficult book. I was unsettled and panicked the whole time I read, just like Lei is forced to be. The rough, vivid, and fascinating world building makes this an awesome, but disturbing read. I’m so excited to be deeply unsettled when I read the sequel.

Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea M. Cameron - 3.5 stars. Sweet, cute, and funny but it reads more like fanfic than a novel in a bad way. Like, it really needed a round of edits and also the backgrounds characters change personalities a few times. But still a fun and cute story about a lesbian who marries her best friend for the money, only for the two women to fall in love.

Our Bloody Pearl by DN Bryn - 3 stars. The concept is great but the dialogue was weird and preachy and the narrative voice was sooooo boring. It’s cute but forgettable and a lot to get through.

The Cursebreaker Countess by Sasha L. Miller - 4 stars. Kas breaks a curse on a sleeping woman named Anika mostly because the curse freaks her out, only to get dragged into a political feud involving magic that she barely understands. This was slow moving, more adventure fantasy than high fantasy, but I liked the slow pace. It was like unraveling a knot. Also Kas and Anika are awesome characters separately and as a couple they’re adorable.

Heart and Hand by Rebel Carter - 4.5 stars. Julie answers an ad for a mail order bride, packing up from her high society life to move to the Montana terrifies - except she will be marrying not one man, but a pair of best friends. I thought this was MMF bc it was on a bunch of “Bi love interests” and MMF lists but it is in fact MFM, which was slightly annoying bc the relationship between Will and Forest was incredibly romantic and it felt like a waste of a great dynamic. So I knocked off half a star. Otherwise this was a really solid read. Incredibly well written with a town that is well developed as it’s own entity, and three characters that all have lovely arcs. It’s steamy, romantic, and sugar sweet and I loved it (also WoC in a historical AND a triad romance? Bro sign me UP).

Peter Darling by Austin Chant - 5 stars. Once again I should never doubt Addi ever because holy crap this was so good. Peter Pan goes back to Neverland only to find that since he’s grown up, Neverland doesn’t appeal like it used to, but neither can he go home, to where he would never be accepted as Peter, but forced to live as his assigned gender at birth. This is like. Immaculate. Beautifully written, fast paced, romantic, heartbreaking, but with an ending that feels so full of hope. Not wrapped up with a neat bow, but instead looking to the future.

New Books Read: 19

Rereads: 1

Total of Books Read: 14/94; 19/184

Goodreads Goal: 30/49

[femboty2k]

Long post about something I think about a lot and that doesn’t matter to anyone else but me probably

I’m sure there’s a million posts out there on why good representation is important and good but I just wanted to talk shortly about something that happened to me in a recent span of a few months involving a character in a dumb game about collecting jpegs of anime women and hunky dudes with giant swords.

There’s a game called Granblue Fantasy, its an extremely popular gacha game/JRPG with a very large roster of characters and a lot of stuff to do as far as reading through character lore, fighting JRPG battles, raids, and basically playing VNs for character dialogue. It’s a pretty good game, and one of the coolest things about it, is it has (to my knowledge, I dont play/keep up with it very often) 2 canon trans characters. One is named Cagliostro, an alchemist who was born as a man but through extensive experimentation and some self discovery has since transitioned into a woman, hell bent on making herself as cute as possible. Fun right? She’s presented extremely well and is one of the game’s more fun characters. The second character is one that has become a personal favourite for me for many reasons, her name is Ladiva.

Ladiva is a part of a race of people called the Draph. The Draph are a humanoid, and pretty much human looking, race of people with their defining features being their large stature and bovine like horns and ears. This is important because male draph are usually much larger and more muscular than female draph (but its a horny anime game so who can say they’re surprised lol). Ladiva, as my discussion here makes obvious, is a trans woman belonging to these folk. Because of this, she’s both quite large, muscular(and more masculine presenting on the surface), and has rugged looking facial hair. The surprising thing about her presentation in comparison to how she looks, is that she’s presented incredibly well. despite her appearance being not as feminine as it could be (with Cagliostro even offering to make her a new totally feminine body only to have Ladiva refuse, stating that she should love her own body along with the rest of herself) she’s treated as what she is, a woman.

So why am I talking about this? Why am I putting my poorly put together thoughts on this tumblr post no one will read? Well, I am trans. I have felt a certain way about myself all my life that I’m sure most trans people can echoe so I won’t wast time waxing poetic about how I’ve always felt more feminine than I was “supposed” to be. My core purpose of this post comes from the fact that I am 6′2, nearly 300lbs of muscle/fat/body hair, and have had a full beard since I was 14. I am EXCEEDINGLY masculine, which has made my own internal struggle with my transness sort of difficult to accept. A sort of constant push and pull of wanting to just repress it all because I already pass as a man and wanting to work towards being who I know I actually am. Another factor is that I never felt truly comfortable with purely feminine pronouns. In highschool I went by a different name, and I used she/her pronouns and for a while it felt okay. But it was always just, okay. It never felt right on top of several people giving me some rather hurtful backlash for it and how it contrasted so much with my physical appearance. So I stowed it all away until about a year ago. I now have something that I didn’t have before, a truly wonderful and supportive group of adult friends who treat me like an adult as well and take me seriously. So through careful examination of how I felt i began trying new things to explore my identity. It began with me deciding I wanted to use they/them pronouns, this stuck and still feels like its the right thing for me along with the label of Nonbinary. However, slotting myself into this new label and finally feeling comfortable in an identity brought about new thoughts as well as new things to mull over in my head. Things like the fact that most nonbinary representation in media falls under the same category of a waifish AFAB person who presemts femininely if not androgynous, and how people like me are a vocal minority within the community itself even being excluded by a small portion of it. It was a new set of things to tackle and think about. But that aside, with them came the most important thing I asked myself, “am I comfortable with how I am now? Or do those thoughts I had all those years ago mean something?”

This question isnt easy. Gender is a strange subject and is different to everyone who experiences something with their identity, so I wont pretend like I have any definitive answers for anything because, there arent really any of those. The question for myself, boiled down to “Am I more comfortable identifying as transfeminine, or am I comfortable with just being nonbinary.” This question vexed me for a little while. It hurt to think about. A lifetime of bullying and being made to be ashamed of my body type and stature had made my confidence in myself rather lackluster. This made the decision more difficult. It would be easy to try and own a sense of pride in being a masculine presenting nonbinary person. There aren’t many of those in representation as I mentioned before, and at the time it made me feel nice to think that it was what I wanted. But those thoughts I had all those years ago did mean something, and thats not who I am. The answer I ultimately came to, was that I am trans, and want to present more feminine than masculine, because that’s who I know I am, and not just what I think would be easiest. So, to bring it all together, how the everloving fuck does this relate to a character from a gacha game? Well, when i first saw Ladiva I nearly wrote her off as a character that probably was used as a disrespectful  joke on trans women and how they’re viewed. She’s not though. She has an entire montra of loving herself and others for who they are and owning every aspect of herself, including her body. She’s not a small lady, she’s a large/muscular wrestler who, in no mistake of words, still looks very masculine, right down to her facial hair. But none of that matters, not her appearance, not her beard, not her height, she’s still a woman and she’s seen as one by the others around her because, well, that’s what she is. She makes it known and others accept, or at the very least, respect it. It was something entirely new to see something like this in a form of popular media, and in turn it gave me an odd sense of self confidence in my own current appearance, even though I do intend on changing it through HRT and other means (exercise and other health related means). It meant a lot to me to see someone who was, in at least some way, like me who was loved by the community of the game she was in. And it still does. In conclusion, Ladiva is a very cool character, and her existing gave me a boost of confidence that helped lead me towards accepting things about myself that I had found it hard to previously. Go look into Granblue if you like games like that, there’s even a fighting game that came out not too long ago. Thanks for reading, if you did, this whole post is long and kind of dumb because I’m kind of dumb. But I wanted to put it somewhere. Have a nice day <3

[cindersandroses]

Digital Get Down, Chapter 1

AUTHORS: cindersandroses ( losille2000 and cinderella1181)

CHAPTERS: 1/?

PAIRING: Actor!Henry Cavill/ Plus-Sized OFC

GENRE: Romance/Fluff/HUMOR

FIC SUMMARY: When SuperHank met OrcPrincessPeach on the World of Warcraft message boards, it was love at first raid. Now, almost a year later, they’re ready to take the next step and meet in person. Half a world away from each other, both decide to meet in Atlanta for DragonCon, since she was already going to be there for her work as a game designer at Blizzard... never mind that she is a devout nerd. They both have to face the fact that reality is very different from a digital world.

RATING: Mature

AUTHORS NOTES: This idea happened while we were floating around our pool a few days ago. I don’t foresee this being very long, but as always, if you want more, we will write more.

Also on AO3!

Chapter 1

SuperHank: Hey girlie girl, I did it! I got the pass for DragonCon. After almost 10 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days, I’m officially coming to meet you!

OrcPrincessPeach: Yay! Are you sure you can afford it... and the airfare?

SuperHank: Dollface, for you, I would move the oceans and walk to you. I can’t wait. August seems so far away.

OrcPrincessPeach: Be still my beating heart, you sappy romantic. I can’t wait to see you.

SuperHank: Same here. I gotta go raid. I will talk to you later. I’ll text you before I go to sleep. Have a good day at work.

OrcPrincessPeach: I will see you later tonight!

Opal closed the laptop and smiled to herself, trying desperately to keep a squeal of delight from escaping her lips. Nothing ever made her feel as amazing as talking to Hank did, even when it meant little sleep and getting up well before the sun to do it. But Amber, her roommate, would be the first person to yell at her for making too much noise in the morning… especially since it involved Hank, whom Amber did not particularly like for some reason.

Nevermind that he and Amber had never actually talked to each other. And, in fact, Opal had only ever talked to the man herself, too. Well, “talking,” in so much that they called each other, texted each other, and chatted on the World of Warcraft message boards about everything and nothing at all. There was the one time, though, when she had been “talking” with Hank, that she may have gotten too loud during a little early morning (for her, anyway) phone sex.

So maybe Amber did have a point.

Opal’s cheeks heated at the thought, replaying the memory in her head as she pulled on her most adorable red peep-toe pumps. All the boys in her programming pod at Blizzard loved it when she wore them; they always made her feel like she could take on the world. Because, seriously, who was going to mess with a woman wearing sky-high red heels during the day? It was amazing what she could convince her fellow game designer nerds to do when she wore these heels with this outfit.

She smoothed her otherwise fairly normal navy blue sheath dress over her slightly rounded belly and wide hips. These clothes were her armor against the world, much like how her orc character dressed in the game. Opal and her orc both needed the image that they could take on the male-dominated World of game design, when in reality, she could very much be a shrinking violet. Especially when it came to her body.

Hence why she had only shared very, erm, specific photos of her body with Hank, and him with her… in the best light, angle and pose. He had an amazing body, and she, well, she didn’t have an amazing body. It wasn’t terrible, per se. It did the things she needed it to do, but she certainly could have spent more time at the office standing desks or in the employee gym. But her red pumps wouldn’t allow her to do either.

So she just had to hope--and pray--that when he saw her in the harsh light of day that he didn’t run away screaming. Because there certainly had been a few online boyfriends before this who had done just that.

Opal left her room and carefully made her way downstairs to get her bag together for work. Tycho, her rather large ragdoll cat, was laying on the back of the couch, half on the black bag and rubbing his chin on the rigid canvas handle. Clearly, the bag was his now, just like everything else in the house.

“Hey, you better move it, buddy. I gotta get to work so you get good gushy food.” She pointed at him.  “Be gone when I get back in here.”

Tycho rumbled a low meow in response and didn’t move.

“Freeloader,” she mused.

She headed into the kitchen with a huge smile returning to her face and butterflies making her slightly queasy. After almost a year, she was finally… finally… going to meet the boy she’d been dating online. Most people would take that as a sign that this was all it would ever be--online and still fairly impersonal.  To be fair, though, Hank had planned to come and see her once before, but work had not let him.  And it wasn’t like they were on the same continent, normally. They were halfway around the world from each other. But this time, he swore up and down that this was going to be it. They were going to cohabitate in the same hotel suite for a long weekend, and make good on all the very dirty promises they had made each other in the ten months they’d been “together.” Of course, she was well aware that he still may cancel, but for now, she was going to live in her dreamworld.

Amber was already in the kitchen as Opal made it into the room. Her roommate sat bleary-eyed at the kitchen table and stared at her cell phone screen.

“You already made coffee?” Opal asked.

The brunette nodded and motioned her head towards the almost full pot.  “Yeah, cause I didn’t have to get up at a stupid time in the morning to talk to my internet boyfriend.”

Opal rolled her eyes. “Amber, it’s not that bad.”

“Really, Opie? What time did you get out of bed this morning?” she asked, her eyebrow peaked.

Opal sighed. “Six.” Amber shook her head.  “It’s not normal. How long have you been ‘dating’ this dude?” she asked, emphasizing her point with air quotes and all.

“Almost a year, but he and I are finally meeting. We’re going to meet in Atlanta for DragonCon. It’s a halfway point between us, we figured it would be neutral territory,” Opal explained.

“Is Con really ‘neutral’? You’d live at a con if you could.”

Opal ignored her comment. As far as she was concerned, it was neutral… and certainly big enough to get lost in the crowd if things didn’t go well. She certainly didn’t want to bring him around her house if Amber planned to be there to scare him away.

Opal continued with a light, dreamy sigh. “It’s going to be super exciting. I’m ready to meet Hank. He is a fantastic guy; he is kind, funny, loves his family.”

“Sounds like you’re describing a labrador. Next thing, you’re going to tell me he is loyal and in love with you,” Amber replied, shaking her head. “You can’t be in love with someone you have never met in person.”

Maybe Amber was right, after all. How much could someone truly know a person from what they say alone? It’s merely a facet of who they are. Actions were also huge, and he had not yet proven anything to Opal in that category.

But still, Opal was sure Hank was different. She’d had a lot of online boyfriends throughout her life--her life revolved around the computer, so it was only natural. And comparing all the other examples with her current love interest, this just felt different. Like… it might actually be real.

“You can love their heart, and I adore him. He is pretty great. I’m just hoping he’s the one.” Opal grinned.  “We would have an amazing story to tell our kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.”

Amber pressed her lips together into a terse line and returned to whatever was on her phone. “Well, when this all bursts in your face, Opie, you just come home to me and remember that I love you no matter what.”

Opal smiled. “I know, Amber. You’ll pick up all the pieces. But I don’t think that’s going to happen with him. I don’t know. He’s different.”

“Does he know?” Amber asked, the cup of coffee close to her mouth.

“Um... know what?” Opal asked.

“That you’re not some skinny bimbo?” Amber asked, motioning in her direction. Amber’s eyes scanned her body slowly, critically. “All the people on the internet have this idealized image in their head that the person they’re talking to is Giselle Bundchen, not Ashely Graham or Tess Holliday.”

“They are both gorgeous and many men are in love with them,” Opal defended. “And they’re both married.”

Amber shrugged. “I’m just preparing you for it, if it happens. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

This conversation, though, was hurting her. Hank wasn’t the direct cause of it, just a reason for Amber to start this. She knew Amber had her best interests at heart--no friend wants their friend to get hurt--but the way she achieved her goals, and the words she used, were not nice.

Opal sighed. “Look, he knows I’m fat. He knows I have curves and I’m not a size two. He and I have had several conversations about the fact I’m not some little skinny thing. He said he adores my heart, and he doesn’t care what kind of body it comes in.”

He also said he preferred thick women because he didn’t feel like he was going to break them when things got… athletic. But Amber didn’t need to hear that, either.

“My god, if that isn’t a line,” Amber scoffed.

Opal shrugged. “Amber, stop! Your thinly veiled attempt to fat shame me isn’t going to work. I’m going to go to Atlanta, I’m going to meet him, and I may even sleep with him.”

Amber rolled her eyes. “You won’t have sex with him. You’re a 32-year-old virgin.”

Opal shrugged. “You know, stranger things have happened.” She twisted the top on her thermos. “I’m going to be late for work, I’ll see you later.”

She walked back into the living room, removed the cat from his perch, picked up her bag and headed out the door to work. As she walked the block to the bus stop, she pulled her phone out and put on the playlist Hank had built her. She smiled as the songs began to play, each one having a special meaning to both of them. He was always adding new songs with little notes about why he added them.

These little love notes never failed to make her happy again. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if they ever stopped.

She knew what Amber said shouldn’t bother her as much as it did, but she was self-conscious. Her body had always been something that set her apart and had made her shy when it came to men. Of all the potential dates she’d had with online boyfriends, she had only been on three real dates in her adult life. All of them turned tail and ran once she said she was a virgin. So for those very few that were able to get past the body issue, those three considered her lack of experience to be insurmountable.

Hank didn’t make her feel like that. He didn’t seem to care, or if he did, it wasn’t a deal-breaker. If her lack of experience didn’t do it, there was a very real possibility that her other image issues would be the end of it.

When she arrived at the bus stop and sat down, Opal made the decision to push Amber’s nagging voice out of her head. She wasn’t going to let Amber break her confidence. Hank adored her, for who she was, and that was all that mattered.

She turned her music all the way up to block out the self-doubt and scrolled through her playlist, looking for her favorites. At the bottom of the list, added only a few minutes before, was a new song. Opal giggled and clicked on the song, closing her eyes to listen to the electronic 80s synth and Richard Marx croon, “Right Here Waiting.”

[meta-shadowsong]

Quick response to Mandalorian season finale

Behind a cut because, well.

Okay, yes, I am in this show for Dadalorian and Found Family etc. But I am at least as invested in the plotline this season about various factions of Mandalorians and their, for lack of a better word, sectarian disputes. Which frequently result in barfights. Because Mandalorians.

(AKA that scene where they picked up Bo and her minion was. A Delight.)

(Also, I love my girl Bo-Katan. Even if she’s very much a blunt instrument/not a politician going at this in all the wrong ways and was Very Rude to Boba but tbh I wasn’t 100% sure she was going to show up in this episode and I would’ve been Sad if we hadn’t gotten to see them meet. Either here or next season.)

(Still Sad at the lack of Sabine, though :( )

Leaving aside anything re: Gina Caranno (because that has been discussed by people much smarter and better-informed than myself), I’m kind of thrilled that the strike team was Almost Entirely Ladies.

(On that note. Uh. Does anyone else kinda. That little “Anyone else, we can take” smirk. And I just. Uh. Bo/Fennec, anyone??????)

(I kind of already ship Bo with Ventress tbh but a) multishipping ftw and b) threesome??????)

(Hi I’m shallow sometimes lol)

Anyway moving on.

Also the sound/almost-music when the Cylons Dark Troopers were activating was Excellent I approve.

And that Visual of the one trooper Din set on fire. ...honestly that whole hallway fight sequence was pretty Brilliant.

And the sort of...almost casual layer of the scene in the elevator. Even if these women haven’t worked together before, just that, “sure you don’t need any help with that?” “I got it. Excuse me.”

And that whole thing where Gideon was trying to Manipulate Din and he was like “...dude, I legit just care about the kid. I’ll fight for/with Bo-Katan because she’s pretty badass and I Might As Well plus she gets me what I want but I don’t...actually...Care about her Greater Cause?”

(Side note, I’ve spent a lot of time writing Bo-Katan/figuring out how her head works and literally all she cares about is Mandalore and its survival. It’s why she broke away from her sister in the first place, and has informed every single thing she’s done since. A lot of why she makes the specific choices she does goes back to the Mandalorian Civil War and her experiences there--especially since all the evidence indicates she was not with Satine and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. The way that separation and their different experiences of that conflict probably contributed to the eventual destruction of what seems likely to have been a Very Close Relationship before that is fascinating to me. And the subject of a fic I’ve been working on off and on for a couple years now, lol.)

(...anyway, where I was going with this was--I mean, yes, Gideon knows everything in terms of facts, but he doesn’t always interpret them correctly. IMO, Bo-Katan’s desire to rule Mandalore is less about power (for herself) than it is about Mandalore. Especially given some of what she says to Sabine in Rebels--if there was someone else she genuinely trusted to take the throne and rule her world, she’d be willing to cede her claim and be one of their generals. Especially since she’s very much not a political animal. She’s an excellent war leader, but not so much in terms of actual Governance.)

(insert long ramble about the Parallels between her and Anakin, which I touched on in one of my fanfics, lol; and will probably do more with in my BB project which involves the two of them and Padme as the main characters)

(And, yeah, she does want to fight Din for the right, but if she thought Din would be a good Duke/King of Mandalore, I think she would seriously considering swearing allegiance to him? Again, witness how she handled things with Sabine. Also she would probs prefer to avoid a third (fourth?) civil war in her lifetime. But, I mean. I love Din but he is. He is not a Leader. Not like her people need.)

(And I think the way things played out with Sabine affects her decisions here, too--she did accept the Darksaber as a gift/tribute then, but proceeded to lose it. Maybe she does need to fight for it the way Maul and Viszla did (presumably; we don’t know how he got the Darksaber; it may be something he inherited/have been held by House Viszla for a while, even if they never used it to dethrone the Kryzes until now).)

(But, then again, I mean, this has been her life for at least a decade, so...well, maybe she wouldn’t quite step aside. Even if an Absolutely Perfect candidate came along. But WRT Din specifically--given who he is and what he’s capable of, while she absolutely wants him in her camp (and on a personal level isn’t super thrilled about having to fight him like this; she seems to genuinely like this kid), my guess is she doesn’t want him ruling. Not without some more actual leadership training/experience. Because, well, he’s been either a follower or a loner in everything we’ve seen him in, and given Bo’s opinion of (possibly experience with?) the Watch/the group who raised him, and the fact that he’s consistently shown himself to have super-narrow priorities and not really caring about much outside of them...yeah, she probs has some Concerns.)

(Plus, he clearly doesn’t want it. And you have to Want It on some level in order to be an effective ruler--that Wanting can be from genuine altruism/wanting to make the world better, like we see with Bail and Padme; it can be from single-minded determination to Make Things Right, like Satine and I would argue Bo-Katan (Leia falls into either the first or second category, depending on the point in her storyline); and it can come from a desire for personal power and advancement (as we see with Pre Viszla and, of course, Skeev Palpatine himself; to be fair, rulers in this third category tend to be bad in other ways lol). But someone who genuinely doesn’t want power generally kind of Sucks when they’re unexpectedly handed it. Which I could cite several IRL historical examples of. And, I mean, obviously, this isn’t the only factor in play for what makes a good ruler/leader (see above re: Palps and Pre Viszla), but it is a factor.)

(Also, to clarify: none of these are bad qualities/traits, necessarily? Like, traits are good or bad depending on whatever context a person/character finds themself in. And in Din’s current context, with his current life and mission--even in situations where he has to coordinate with other groups in the service of a larger goal--these are excellent traits to have. But for someone who’s responsible for an entire nation? Not so much.)

(One could argue that Bo has some Issues there, too, albeit different ones, which is why I think she might be willing to step aside and cede her claim to a Genuinely Good/Better Alternative, if she found one. She’s a war-leader, not a ruler, and the two jobs require overlapping but different skillsets.)

(..........honestly? I don’t think the show would go there, but I think the two of them as a team/partnership ruling Mandalore would actually be really effective? Either on an equal footing or with one as the Official Ruler and the other as a second-in-command/right-hand. She has the leadership expertise and the actual will and drive to pull this off, and he has the diplomatic skill, as we see with the Tusken Raiders, among others.)

(Not a romantic partnership, lol, that would be Weird, but a political and probably eventually platonically affectionate one. Especially with how Mandalore feels about family of choice/adoption, and the fact that they’re both kind of alone now (whatever happened to Korkie, anyway??) even if no formal adoption is likely in their case...)

(Anyway. Uh. Long tangent aside...)

(also if there’s anyone who didn’t see Gideon trying to decapitate Din when his back was turned...IDEK what you were expecting. Like. I am All About guys like Pellaeon in the Imperial ranks, and the fact that there might be a few people who would make that offer/deal and be on the level. To say nothing of my best beloved Alexsandr Kallus. But. Uh. Gideon is. Not one of them.)

(Also, I thought it was a Nice Touch when the spear started turning red--because, no, the Darksaber can’t cut pure beskar. But it does generate heat, as we’ve seen in, say, TPM. And beskar does melt.)

Also, called it on tossing the Cylons Dark Troopers out the airlock Not Working in the long term.

While it’s not Cool or Flashy like a bomb or slicing, the Cylons Dark Troopers pounding the doors down with their goddamn fists was Cool and Terrifying in all the best ways.

Side note--I think even if I hadn’t been spoiled (forgot to mute the spoiler channels on the SW Discords I’m on before going to bed, and checked on autopilot), X-wing + Grogu perking up would’ve probably clued me in and I would’ve been SHRIEKING. I was still vibrating super hard even though I knew who was coming, but it probably would’ve been slightly more XD

(and then a moment of HAHA GIDEON KNOWS WHAT���S COMING)

(and so does my girl Bo)

(and then the green ‘saber and the glove and other costume details and IF YA DIDN’T SCREAM BEFORE YOU SURE ARE NOW!!!!)

(Kind of cool that they waited until the last minute before showing his actual face though)

NO MY GIRL BO-KATAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(IF YOU DIE WHO WILL GET DRUNK AND SWAP WAR STORIES AND MAYBE HAVE VICTORY SEX WITH FENNEC)

(shut up i’m shallow)

(also I love her she’s legit one of my favorite characters in this series I don’t want her to die DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD:)

OH GOOD SHE GOT UP

(yeah that was my actual real-time reaction to her getting shot lol)

“Talent without training is nothing.” ::insert Obvious/Tired joke about Luke having all of three months’ training At Best::

(also, I mentioned this in my last quick reaction, as well as elsewhere, but I’m...still kind of uncomfortable with the continuing implication that the Jedi path is the only option other than Darkness. Not because it’s a bad one, either in the PT-era or with Luke’s reconstruction. But the idea that the only way to achieve the mindset/emotional stability/whatever needed to wield the Force without Falling is through adapting the Jedi philosophy sits wrong with me. especially the implication that you can only do so from an early age/in isolation from other influences or bonds; which is a word I’m using very specifically because there’s a difference between Attachment as defined by the Jedi and interpersonal bonds which they clearly have and I don’t want this to get derailed by that particular Discourse(tm) That doesn’t even super hold up on Earth, with a single species, let alone in a galaxy with trillions of beings of multiple different species. Basically, people and the galaxy--and by extension the Force, which is in part created/influenced by living beings--are way too complicated for there to be only one right answer.)

(Also, it...doesn’t really hold up with the core message of Star Wars, which is about Choice? If the only way you can be a Good Force Adept is by meeting this extremely narrow set of criteria, most of which are outside your possible control......but I should probably save this for a separate post, lol.)

(The point is, I mentioned earlier in the post how much I’m LOVING the throughline in this season about different factions/sects among Mandalorians, and I think it would be Great if we got more of that with Jedi/Light adepts.)

(Anyway. Uh. Back to the episode...)

That FACE MOMENT had me legit crying omg

ARTOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!@@21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omg had they MET

I...don’t know what I was expecting from the credits but Welp. I wonder who the body double was...

(And before you ask, I didn’t really get the Uncanny Valley effect from Rogue One, not even Tarkin, so.....yeah, I guess I don’t always pick up on that, or it hits me from weird directions, lol. Because I sometimes get that from the Rebels animation, especially in stills/gifsets, because everyone’s faces are all so Smooth...)

.........Jabba’s palace, okay.

.......Bib Fortuna, Okay.

(those fingernails, however, are Not Okay)

YAY RESCUE THE GIRL.

Good on you, Boba, just shooting him in the face instead of letting him posture!

although why you want to rule Tatooine is...okay then.

LOL at Fennec perching on the arm of the chair, sipping her booze all casual-like.

Right! So that was an Experience! Overall, I liked it. Looking forward to how Din and Bo handle things moving forward, in particular! Because, like I said, I’m in this series for Dadalorian (so IDK how I’ll feel with it no longer being the Core Story since Grogu left with Luke) and in this season for the Mandalorian factions/sects and how they interact.

I’m also not sure how I feel about three interconnected series leading up to a Major Finale Event? Disney’s Star Wars has not had a super great track record with giving all the information needed to follow things in the core product (see: the ST worldbuilding lol, and also some of the cameos/appearances in this season, even), so I’m Skeptical of how well they’ll do explaining what is Necessary in each of the three series, in case someone only watches one or two.

What were your thoughts?

[therealwokemama]

God this world is so fucked. I'm getting sick and tired of trans people. I've been so accepting and like yeah you do you whatever makes you feel good.

But now these fucking lunatics want to take away everything that gives a natural born women any value in society. (Child birth and breastfeeding) like holy fuck. Your not a natural born woman. THATS OK.

Stop trying to take away shit from the most oppressed group of people since the dawn of time.

Legit only until RECENTLY our only value seen by anyone is that we give birth. Your diminishing the most beautiful thing about a natural born woman. I get it you fucking upset you born in wrong body... but you can't change biology, and how fucking rude of you to demand we support you and then try and take away every little thing that makes a natural woman a woman...

Like holy fuck this world is ass backwards!! They cancelled fucking JK Rowling for SPITTING FACTS.

She's transphobic because what? She made comments about BIOLOGY?

Y'all so pressed about science when it comes to vaccines. But then deny science when it comes to BIOLOGY. Yes gender is a social construct, some people are more fem or masculine, but like Jesus Christ stop fucking bitching about SCIENCE.

Oh and then hardcore LEFT is so pro choice about abortion and other medical procedures... UNTIL it's about vaccines?!?

No hunny you can't have one or the other. You want medical freedom to do whatever you want, fine cool me too. But that DOES NOT EXCLUDE the freedom to choose if you want to be injected with straight up CHEMICALS and foreign DNA from animals and aborted fetuses. Same reason I distanced myself from anti/ex vaccine people.. They are against abortion, but wanted medical freedom. You can't have one or the other they fall into same category. It’s all medical freedom you cannot pick and choose. Oh and incase someone does come across my journal. I am against mandatory vaccines... what you choose to do for you and your family is 100% your CHOICE. I am pro choice. I vaccinated my son and he had reactions so we stopped. Therefore I’m an ex vaxxer... I believe vaccines have a role to play in medical industry, but I also know that current vaccine schedule has never been tested for safety and they’ve gone from 3-10 in childhood to 50+ I advocate for safer vaccines and freedom to choose. Vaccines are no different than your prescription. If your perscription gives you negative side affects your doctor will take you off it and try a different one. Everyone has different reactions and everyone is different. Therefore no medical procedure should ever be mandatory. One size does not fit all. And also before someone says I believe vaccines cause autism. No I do not. I believe vaccines can and are known to cause brain damage in some people. I myself fall into neurological diverse category. I also think it’s extremely cruel to diminish any mothers negative experience with vaccines. SIDS is linked to vaccines. You think a mother who wakes up and looses her child 24 hours after vaccination is following whats her face? McCarthy? Whatever her name is. No that mother woke up to tragedy and logical connecting of the dots and intuition told her that’s what happened. Maybe she’s wrong.. but what if she’s right? It’s wrong to be so cruel to someone who is grieving the loss of her child and doesn’t want anyone else to go through that pain. What about the mother that one day her child is happy healthy, then goes for her child’s shots and within days the child has severe reaction, having epileptic episodes, brain damage... or the mother that was more fortunate and her child only has mild reactions but still has to be on medication for rest of their life? Most of these people if you just speak to them about their grief you would have more compassion. But instead you run at them with pitch forks because something tragic that happened and they are just trying to share their story. ALSO in what world do we give a medical product full IMUNITY from any LIABILITY??? Every medication in the market can face lawsuit in the event of a severe reaction. But vaccines are exempt?

World is stop fucking stupid.

These idiots keep giving into the division... it's illegal to be straight, illegal to be white, like holy fuck.

Legit the word slaves came from SLAVIC because Ottoman Empire enslaved Ukrainian, Polish, and other Slavic people... but oh that's not talked about because that doesn't help their current narrative.

We fucking get it. Black people are heavily oppressed in USA, and systematic racism exists.

Canada it's the natives. Yes we need to fight those atrocities. We need to fix these issues. But your NEVER going to get respect and fix these issues if your goal is revenge?

Jewish people were heavily persecuted against, they could argue that oh all Germans and polish people are bad. But they don't why? Because so many fucking Germans/polish people risked their lives to rescue them and get them safely out of the countries. SAME FUCKING THING WITH BLACK FOLK. Some really good white people were like NOPE this isn't ok, and found ways to sneak slaves up North and into Canada.

Just because someone is fucking white doesn't mean they are racist, have ill Will against you. Yes bad white people exist. But that goes for your race too. No one is exempt from shitty fucking people. Every time news reports they caught sex traffickers 9/10 it's fucking black/brown dudes. So what should I now go around saying all POC are sex traffickers beware? Or by your logic, if all white people are racist, then all Muslim people are terrorists right? Fucking stupid. You can't believe one way but exclude other shit and facts.

I'm so sick of the LEFT VS RIGHT SHIT. Your both fucking imbeciles and the world will never ever get better if the divide continues. At this point history will continue to repeat itself

[louisishj334]

How to lose $1 million and risk it all again

When Abbas Dayekh was 18 several years aged, he walked confidently to the reception of Sussex Location, London Enterprise University’s primary campus, and asked: “Where can I enrol?” Safety advised him he would have to wait a several years. Dayekh was in the wrong spot. He was in search of Regent’s University London, exactly where his parents experienced sent him to check a BA (Hons) in Worldwide Enterprise with French. Dayekh, ethnically Lebanese, is from Nigeria, the grandson of the textiles’ industrialist. He was sent to the united kingdom to achieve knowledge, then return and insert benefit inside the loved ones business.

Dayekh, CEO and founder of OyaNow, an application-primarily based shipping and delivery service in Nigeria, chuckles within the memory. It’s not the first time he has taken a detour in his life, and it possibly was one of many additional pleasant – and less expensive - events. With no doubt, one of the most tricky was having to notify his mom he experienced shed all her price savings – about $600,000 – that she invested in him to put in place a Beirut branch of distinctive Parisian couture model CLVII in 2012. “It absolutely was a buddy’s store. The purchasers are certainly top quality; elite footballers and these kinds of. It’s obtained a particular image.

“I ran CLVII notion capital for about a year, and afterwards the Syrian civil war escalated. Bombs started heading off in Beirut. The Saudis and Emirati holidaymakers – my buyers – they went household and didn’t return. I used to be trapped with a great deal of expensive couture and no funds”

I ran CLVII for around a year, and afterwards the Syrian civil war escalated. Bombs started off going off in Beirut. The Saudis and Emirati travellers – my prospects – they went residence and didn’t come back. I was stuck which has a large amount of pricey couture and no dollars. Involving my mom’s price savings, a buddy’s financial commitment of about $two hundred,000 and the money I’d expended in that two-year period, I’d managed to lose $one million.

‘Not a tech dude’

While Dayekh, from Kano in Nigeria’s northern province, felt upset that he’d Enable down his mom, his initial – and biggest – entrepreneurial flop did nothing at all to dampen his enthusiasm for the entrepreneurial route and his zeal to triumph. In actual fact, he reflects that it spurred him on to at some point found OyaNow, an application-primarily based logistics enterprise aiding enterprises to achieve Nigeria’s progressively related populace of just about 200 million by trustworthy and rapidly previous-mile shipping and delivery.

This Regardless of the simple fact Dayekh promises to generally be “by no means a tech man”. He laughs: “I'm able to’t code.” Dayekh has gained the Persons’s Decision Award while in the George Bernard Shaw Unreasonable Individual category at this calendar year’s Serious Innovation Awards (RIA) in recognition of his dogged perseverance to succeed Even with there becoming no fantastic rationale that he should really.

When he had The theory for OyaNow, he was pretty much broke, acquiring returned from Shanghai the place for 9 months he had been performing being an outsourcing broker for just a number of Nigerian clientele he’d managed to secure. “They had been tiny contracts and Therefore the Fee was little,” he claims. “I had return to Abuja for being with my mom and determine what I had been gonna do with my life. I barely experienced any revenue, but I nonetheless realized I used to be about to do my own factor.”

It transpired to him that buyer self esteem in Nigeria was zero. “There was no rely on in the market in Nigeria and not Considerably purchaser treatment possibly. I thought of the accomplishment of foods shipping expert services in Europe and The us like Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Nigeria is probably one of many final nations around the world on this planet with such a big inhabitants that remains so underdeveloped. I observed that hole as a huge possibility.”

But who was about to buy the coders? And to the bikes? In fact – this was Africa, not Europe. Banks don’t give financial loans to people with no property. Dayekh was fortuitous to have a network of Intercontinental experts and traders he cultivated from having long gone to one of the better boarding schools in the world in Switzerland. A friend came by with a few seed income Which paid out for creating the app and the main motorbikes.

Ideal time, right solution, proper place

“I realized This may be a really diverse proposition from Deliveroo and Uber Eats. For 1, we would want to supply total pastoral care to our riders – whom we contact Entrepreneurs – mainly because they could be coming from all around the country. We would have to give them a destination to Are living. They would be the brand. I needed to be sure that I did all the things I could to empower them for being entirely engaged in OyaNow and assist the manufacturer to accomplish its key performance indicators of reliability, usefulness and high quality of assistance usually.

“My uncles felt I were born which has a silver spoon in my mouth Which I'd volume to nothing exterior the relatives small business. I'd a burning desire to establish them Improper and clearly show the entire world I could allow it to be by myself”

OyaNow is definitely an abbreviation of the phrase indicating “we've been coming” in Nigerian slang English. It really is widely recognized throughout ethnic teams and tribes and was a great match with the operating product and to the cultural context. It soft released in Abuja, in advance of launching in Kano after which Lagos.

Starting up off to be a foods shipping service about 3 many years ago, OyaNow obtained an sudden fillip within the Covid-19 pandemic which noticed desire for its very last-mile supply provider go with the roof. Now, it delivers Pretty much anything at all that may be shipped and OyaNow has business associations with lots of factories across the country.

The organization now has about eighty five bikes and vans as well as other vehicles, microinvestors which is eyeing the subsequent stage of enlargement in other nations in Africa, but Dayekh can’t say too a great deal more at this time. The serial innovator also has enterprise passions in medical marijuana and hemp in Malawi by way of a Swiss-based startup called House Africa. Previously this yr, Malawi legalised the expanding, promoting and exporting of cannabis for professional medical use.

“Winning this award – the George Bernard Shaw Unreasonable Individual Award – I love it! It pleases me in excess of if I had been to generally be manufactured President of America! It appears that evidently I do new points on a regular basis. But, the truth is, there is a pattern. Africa is often a tough area to know if You aren't from listed here. Western organizations see likely during the economies here but are nervous to generate a transfer due to perception of danger and a lack of certainty.

I've realised that I may be that bridge that inbound links Africa With all the West. It is a fairly distinctive situation to be in and I am just getting started.”

six tips about entrepreneurship from OyaNow founder Abbas Dayekh

Being an entrepreneur seriously isn’t straightforward. You require conviction and dedication. It’s probably a cliche but You can not succeed devoid of it. It’s a lonely highway. You may get dangers. You will upset the established order, and people don’t like that. Men and women like it any time you fall short. Personally, when I turn into devoted to a thing, no one can cease me.

The most important enterprise lesson I've discovered was the four Ps: value, products, promotion and spot. They're the key elements for achievement. OyaNow delivers all 4 together beautifully.

Failure is Studying and almost nothing to become ashamed of. Be honest with your self about what went Mistaken and go forward, striving not to generate precisely the same mistakes once more.

Entrepreneurship can be difficult on your own mental health and fitness. You can find every day considerations about cashflow, and regardless of whether you'll have enough funds to pay your charges; to pay your employees. Even now, I put up with panic assaults. It might be very difficult to repeatedly need to project a façade of strength for your personnel, buyers and the market when deep down you don’t know wherever your following tranche of cash will originate from to maintain heading. Be sincere with oneself about whether or not you can handle this strain.

Any time you expand, empower your personnel. They can be your small business. They will be the distinction between accomplishment and failure ultimately. Be humble as a pacesetter and hear your staff. Apologise for the mistakes. They must invest in into your eyesight. Empower them to co-create that eyesight mainly because it evolves.

Use a disproportionate number of Gals in the management staff. Females tend to be a lot less self-centred and aggressive. Coming from the patriarchal household business enterprise dominated by warring factions, I wish to be surrounded by Girls, who often carry balance and direct for your greater great rather then individual acquire.

The Real Innovation Awards is undoubtedly an once-a-year ceremony celebrating business innovation all over the world, hosted via the London Business Faculty’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE). To determine this year’s celebration occurring on ten December 2020 and hear insights on ‘Innovating in Adversity’ sign up below.

[eurosong]

Good morning, folks, and welcome to my Lyrical Map of ESC 2019 - something I’ve traditionally shared on final day for the past several years. It’s where I dive into the year’s lyrics and try to categorise them into general themes. Some songs can fit more than one category, and there’s a certain amount of subjectivity involved, but I - usually ;) - try to take into insights on the songs shared by their performers and writers.

Last year, I referred to Lisbon’s cohort of songs as the least “loved-up” we’d had in some time, despite the contest having been brought to Portugal, finally, by a song that wore its heart on its sleeve. This year, we’ve seen a modest increase in songs I’d classify as being positive interpersonal relations songs: amongst them, Greece’s Katerine strives for a better love, Serbia’s Nevena wants the world to witness her unending love, and Michael Rice’s love is bigguh. This category doesn’t just include romantic love, though - Denmark’s Love is forever has Leonora talk about platonic love’s power too, whilst Hungary’s Joci sings about the love he feels for his father.

On the opposite side of the coin, every year has its fair share of songs about negative connections between people. This year, a number of those are amongst the most talked about songs of the year - like the Netherlands’ tale of lost love, Azerbaijan’s dissection of a toxic relationship and Italy’s tale of families falling apart.

It was a difficult call on where to place Romania and Latvia - two songs with a very different energy, but a similar lyrical focus on lost love. They could also have ended up in the category of loss and saudade, in which I placed three other nations - Portugal with their reflective look at mortality and loss; Ireland with a sweet but melancholic song about holding onto a love that drifted away, and Belgium, because it was the overall impression its bizarrely cryptic lyrics gave me.

Given that we were brought to Tel Aviv by a song with a message, in Toy’s case about #metoo, it’s no surprise that we have our fair share of songs with a political, philosophical or other existential message. Croatia’s Roko sings about love being the basis of improving the world; Georgia’s Oto writes a song clearly inspired by the Abkhazian conflict; Finland’s Darude and Sebastian sing about the privilege of turning a blind eye on society’s biggest problems; Germany’s S!sters raise a call for sorority and building other women up instead of tearing them down; Norway’s Keiino present a song heavily influenced by Sami traditional beliefs (and could also be classified as a motivational song); Albania’s Jonida sings a song about immigration and divided families and calls to return to the land; and most notoriously, Iceland’s Hatari sing about how extremism and hatred can prevail if we don’t stick up to it.

No Eurovision is complete without a cohort of motivational songs, and this year is no different: amongst others, San Marino’s Serhat tries to make his friend overcome heartache and see the beauty in life; Macedonia’s Tamara tries to encourage her daughter to be proudly herself and Spain’s Miki wants his interlocutor to pursue their dreams and become what they want to be. This category is partially coterminous with the “overcoming bad stuff” category - Estonia could have gone in either - in which I place songs like Austria’s Pænda and her song about self-care, knowing one’s limits and recovering after exceeding them, Armenia’s Srbuk and her song about leaving a bad relationship behind, or Belarus’ Zena overcoming insecurities to pursue a love interest.

These few categories cover almost all the songs, but there are always a few odds and ends. I include Poland and Switzerland in a category of passion because in the former’s case, I can’t classify the relation as positive or negative - they’re singing about the force of love, but also refer to themselves as abandoned - and in the latter’s case, it’s unclear whether there’s any real relation other than Luca getting lusty over some lady in a bar. The passion category could also have included Cyprus, but the fact that the song almost entirely consists of talking about why she’s sent a dude crazy for her, it spills into the ever-present self-aggrandisement category. With it is France’s Roi - a song that lyrically consists solely of bigging himself up

Those are just my takes on the songs of course - good luck to all the contestants and hope you enjoy the show, see ye on the other side!

[testedtransgressor]

Rebellious Stirrings

Category: Fanfiction - Homestuck Characters: Alpha Bro Strider (Alpha Dave); Alpha Mom Lalonde (Alpha Rose); Grandma English (Alpha Jade) Rating: T Warnings: N/A Originally written: 26 January 2018

Notes: Set in the early 2000s, probably. Rose and Dave are in their 20s. Rose is a single lady who likes to pursue guys who have zero romantic interest in her, apparently...

Another event. Another chaotic mass of swirling ballgowns and overdressed women fussing over their hair and make up, with men strutting about like peacocks with their tails fanned.

Rose Lalonde stood amongst it all, smiling thinly as a courtesy as she sipped a vodka martini, barely listening to the screenwriter who had sought her out of the crowd for what was apparently going to be a one-sided conversation about how the feminist movement was putting perfectly capable screenwriters like himself out of work in favour of some half-polished, female-focused plotline developed by one of the "insane" feminists that were apparently flooding the scene.

"I tell ya, Rose, women should stick to writing books. It's what y'all best at - leave the screen to the guys."

Rose continued to smile thinly at the man, though her gaze had turned deadly cold. Anyone who knew her well knew not to start complaining about feminism around her, but clearly this buffoon missed the memo on that topic.

She had already opened her mouth to respond when a much older woman suddenly seemed to appear from nowhere. Large round glasses reflected the light cast by chandelier yet still not enough to hide her unnaturally vibrant green eyes. She grinned toothily, throwing her arms around Rose's shoulders.

"Rose! I'm so glad to see you, dear! How have you been? Is the new novel coming along well? Oh, you absolutely MUST come and meet my friend, he'll be so delighted you're here! Excuse us,"

Quickly linking her arm in Rose's, and almost spilling some of her drink in the process, Jade English offered a brusque apology to the screenwriter before pulling Rose away, a pathway seeming to open through the crowd for the pair. Rose, cursing at missing such a golden opportunity to put a repeat offender in his place, allowed herself to be dragged along.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, Ms English, but your timing is impeccable as ever. That one in particular is constantly complaining about the rise of women in media, and I don't know how many more of these oh-so-illustrious social events I can continue attending without expressing my true feelings."

"Never mind about that," English waved a hand flippantly, "He won't be attending any more of these; you're not the first person to raise a complaint. Besides, causing a scene with him will have caused irreparable damage to an alliance that needs to be damage-free. Rose, this is Dave Strider,"

English had dragged her to stand before a male in a plain black suit, with blonde hair styled neatly. As he turned to them, she realised he was wearing a pair of aviator shades, and almost snorted to herself. What was up with this guy? Did he really think so highly of himself that he would seriously wear shades not only indoors, but also at night?

That stoic expression. That relaxed stance. He was, in fact, more underdressed for this event than herself - she in a short-sleeved blouse and skirt, he in a simple three-piece one might wear to work for a business meeting, and the pair of them surrounded by ballgowns and tuxedos. It was only as she processed this thought that Rose realised he wasn't trying to be fashionable or pretentious - he was comfortable with being himself, didn't buy into all of the consumerism and arrogance of the social elite.

"Miss Lalonde," he remarked, smiling ever so slightly as he caught her hand and briefly pressed his lips to the back of it in a gesture that may as well have been forgotten in the modern age. Rose wasn't entirely swept off her feet, but she was impressed with the man's apparent chivalry, turning his back on the conversation with some other male to devote his full attention to the two women before him.

"Jade has told me enough about you that I don't even need to read your biography," he remarked, giving a small smirk to English before turning his attention back to Rose. "She's also told me that you don't like certain baked goods."

Ah. So this was how they knew each other. Briefly, Rose wondered if this was Jade's attempt at matchmaking - after all, they appeared to be the only two people in the room who didn't care about the illustrious event they were attending. And, she couldn't deny, he was strikingly handsome with a figure that appeared to boast some years of hard physical effort hidden beneath that suit (the part of her mind already feeling the effects of the alcohol wondered if he truly was as sculpted as she perceived), and his neatly-styled hair and tailored suit indicated he was aware of fashion trends enough to know what was always stylish.

They spoke for a while, first about her books - she hadn't anticipated anyone at a film festival gala to be so interested in the written arts beyond screenplay, but he had persisted with questions. Then they had discussed his interest in filmmaking; he had begun as a camera operator, worked his way into the production team for a few relatively major films - she noticed that he couldn't resist name-dropping the leading ladies he had worked with, but it seemed to be an unconscious habit more than an attempt to cause her jealousy. Now, he was working relentlessly to develop the comics he had drawn as a teenager into a film or two.

It was somewhere around Rose's fifth (or was it sixth?) vodka martini that they tentatively approached the topic of the Batterwitch. Rose was more than happy, given her state, to describe the various jabs at CrockerCorp's Empress, and Dave quickly explained several of the references he intended to leave within his film. Maybe the people would wake up, though given how eager they were to conform, it was doubtful.

Somewhere around Rose's tenth or twelfth drink was when her motor skills became so impaired that Dave insisted on driving her back to her hotel - not only providing her a safe escape from total social humiliation, but also providing himself with an excuse to leave the event. He didn't drink, and had driven himself there, so it was a simple case of the valet bringing the car around and Dave trying to quiz the name of her hotel from her.

Of course, Rose was having none of that. Mainly because she was on the verge of passing out into an alcohol-fuelled coma and the idea of waking up curled next to a toilet bowl once more was not appealing to her in the slightest.

They ended up at the apartment Dave was renting, devouring pizza while (ironically, Dave insisted) watching some godawful romantic comedy featuring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, Rose curled up next to Dave on the couch with a bottle of water. She flirted at him tentatively, to test the waters during the breaks, or when they changed to another movie, but he didn't seem to even realise.

Maybe Jade had the right idea with this guy. He seemed like a gentleman, and absolutely disinterested in her romantically, as had all the other males she had ever pursued. Sometimes she wondered if her pursuit of difficult bachelors was indicative of some sort of disorder, but she was pulling blanks every time she tried to think of which mental disorder could manifest those types of symptoms.

To his credit, he barely even moved when she shifted closer, and she didn't even catch a hint of a blink when she lay her head on his shoulder, or when she shifted so that she was almost hugging him, putting his arm around her shoulders almost as if the action was subconscious. She wondered how many girls he had been with, less curiosity as the second wave of inebriation hit, and more out of concern for just how difficult it would be to impress him. Well, she was no movie starlet for sure, but she was comfortable enough in her own form to feel confident.

They were onto Cleopatra when she shifted, sitting up properly as the remnants of the alcohol took over her tired mind, playing on the hormones that she usually refused to acknowledge. The hand that had obediently remained in her lap now rose up, tracing a muscular abdomen shielded from her touch only by a thin layer of cotton, twisting his tie around her hand as she shifted to sit up, as he turned his shade-covered gaze on her.

"Rose, what are you doing?"

Still holding his tie, she reached up with her other hand, pulling his shades away. He half-heartedly tried to pull back, but it had no effect and she gently set the shades on the back of the couch, fingers returning to trace his jawline.

"Kiss me, Dave,"

"Wha--? NO!"

She tugged on his tie, pulling him closer, but he raised a hand just in time, covering her mouth before she forced them together. Startled by this, Rose let go of the tie and he reeled back, stumbling away from the couch as she fell back. At least she had broken that stiff, uncaring facade.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, taking another step back, "There were over a hundred other dudes at that gala and out of all of them, you tried-- ugh, I can't even put it into words!"

"Fine, I'm sorry for being attracted to you," Rose rolled her eyes, not bothering to sit up, "Next time, I'll do my best to control my raging feminine hormones. After all, a woman who goes for what she likes is not what we want in our perfect, patriarchal society, is it?"

Oh god, now the politics. Sober Rose had apparently been locked away for the night, and now she was at the mercy of her drunk self.

"What? No, that's not what this is!" Dave cried, "You can't be attracted to me, either. That's more messed up than the healthcare system. Jesus, Rose, get a hold of yourself!"

"What, it's messed up for a single woman to be attracted to an apparently single man? Do you know how--"

"You're my goddamned sister! That's why it's messed up!"

Rose stopped as his words hit her, sinking in so fast they flushed away whatever alcohol was left in her system and bringing her to a sobering reality. Slowly, she sat up on the couch and looked up at Dave, mouth hanging slightly open. The revelation was so shocking to her, yet made so much sense. Jade had never even remotely attempted to match Rose up with anyone, had only ever introduced her to other Batterwitch protestors so that they could further their rebellion. How could she have even thought, even for a second...

Something in her expression must have shown, because Dave visibly relaxed, exhaling as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Jade never told you, did she?"

Rose shook her head. She was his sister. They'd even discussed their rare genetic deformity, the eye colours. And she had been too wrapped up in hormones to realise what it all meant. She had mistaken his interest as attraction, his concern as indication of romantic feelings.

Dave sat on the couch beside her, looking like he had just been told off for some childish prank.

"How much do you know about a game called SBURB?" he asked. Rose sighed heavily.

"Not all that much. It invites the apocalypse to the homeworld of anyone who plays it, apparently."

"Not exactly," Dave replied, "The apocalypse will happen, sure. And the game directly links to that. But it doesn't cause the apocalypse itself - the apocalypse was already happening. The game gives a few people a chance of survival..."

[maggicktouched]

My thoughts on mad Targaryens several years too late. Tw for discussions of trauma, suicide, and assault. 

My relationship with ASoIaF and GoT in general has been... let’s just say tumultuous at the best of times. Right out of the gate it loses points because of the very simple fact that it’s just not a genre I enjoy. For the same reason I’ve never been able to sink my teeth into Priory of the Orange Tree. I don’t like political fantasy. I don’t mind some politics in fantasy, but I get bored of long discussions about court affairs and people playing “the game of thrones”. I also don’t like grim fantasies. Don’t get me wrong there is a LOT I enjoy about GRR Martin and his writing, but what I’ve always really hated about people who kind of hopped onto the fantasy train with his books is that they really fucking hate fantasy as a genre and love to jerk off George for “subverting tropes.” And half the shit they talk about isn’t even really where he subverts anything it’s just that like, the streets are covered in shit and there are boobies and most of your main characters are shitty people with the only exception to that rule only falling into the category because they aren’t responsible for some of their actions bc they’re literal children.

I digress. But Those kinds of people have kind of dominated the genre now and they take particular glee in pulling down their pants and taking a big dump on any fantasy that isn’t about greasy white dudes fucking each other over and brutalizing women and it really pisses me off.

I said all that to say: while I enjoy a lot of things about Game of Thrones and a lot of pieces of Game of Thrones (and the same is said for the books), as I whole I can’t call myself a fan. It’s complicated. Which means what I’m about to say is probably going to be rather biased. But it’s a personal opinion and you can all fuck off if you don’t like it.

I don’t think there is any way they could have turned Dany into a mad queen that wouldn’t have upset me. 

Let me tell you I have seen.... dozens and dozens of better executions and ideas for the plotline since the infamous episode emerged. Some of them are really good. Some of them if they had have happened I might have walked away from the show less angry with the shitty writing but honestly... probably a lot more angry about the implications. 

I’ll come right out and say it: I think the age of “mad” characters is dead. There is no way that you can have Dany succumb to “madness” that isn’t offensive and doesn’t feel---off for her character. And there is especially no way to put her down behind the woodshed like Ol Yeller that isn’t pretty disgusting.

(From here on out I’m going to be specifically referencing show Dany because we have seen her end)

First off, I just don’t know if I’d have ever bought it no matter what, given the context of the rest of the show. Game of Thrones went out of its way to make Daenerys uniquely impervious to trauma. I could not possibly list all the shit they have put Dany through in the show. Just some of the things she has WITNESSED would be shit we would spend years in therapy trying to undo, better yet the shit that has happened to her. And Dany is just... fine. No matter how many horrible things she sees or what vile acts are committed against her, Dany remains almost impossibly normal. She isn’t conniving or vindictive or cruel like people who have arguably been through half the shit that she’s been through. I don’t know if there is any series of events that could have plausibly led up to what happened because of this flaw in the show. She should have been allowed to show more of her pain, more fear and vulnerability, more lapses in emotion or memory, more insomnia, more issues with her own self image and worth from the very start if they were ever going to sell me on her snapping hard enough to burn down a city.

Second I just... think madness as a concept is dead. Not to be the fun police or anything but there is no way to portray anything as mad/crazy/etc without using real world behaviors to show that, and that portrayal stigmatizes those behaviors and can lead to people in crisis to being demonized.

People going through a mental health crisis are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. People will look at someone “acting strange” and either feel afraid and refuse to help, or contact the police, who often fail to help and far too frequently harm them.

Ultimately I think there could have been only two endings that I could have accepted for this character. 

The first is that Dany is just allowed to win and be happy and she’s genuinely good for the realm because not everything has to suck, it makes sense that she wins imo, and tbh the people of Westeros deserve at least a six week holiday from the political shit storm they live in. But Those People (and we know who they are now) would have all foamed at the mouth and soiled their diapers at just the very thought of an even partially happy ending. 

The only other ending that I think might have made sense is a tragic one. A “mad” queen that slowly unravels over time. Sitting on the throne of Westeros, soaking in all that she’s lost to get there, watching people at every turn froth like starving dogs at the chance to tear her down no matter how much good she does. Hearing that the cities in the east that she liberated fell back into slavery. And then ultimately ruminating on the legacy of her family. Of how they’re all strangers to her, and of the world they made and legacy they left. Watching as all the trauma she’s been forced to suppress over the years to survive leaks through the cracks in the quiet moments where she’s supposed to be happy. An ending where we see her unreasonably frightened, obsessive, withdrawn, angry, and at the end, seemingly happy before ultimately she either takes her own life or flees on Drogon (which would be a kind of symbolic death rather than a literal one). 

Is that a GOOD ending? No. Is it what I wanted? No. But it is an ending where no one would be making excuses to demonize her. Where this “madness” is seen for what it is: mental illness and the repercussions of the cycle of abuse. There is no way you can portray her snapping, committing genocide, and being put down like a dog “for the good of the realm” that doesn’t have absolutely horrendous and disgusting implications. Because trauma and the way it can absolutely destroy people can only ever be horrific and tragic, and the only thing we should have felt about Dany’s death was a profound sadness for a 16 year old girl set on a painful and impossible path.

Unfortunately I feel like HOTD is doomed to go in the same direction. The first episode already had some things that feel like red flags to me, and we all know where it ultimately ends. This is, in my opinion, Martin’s failing. Even if the execution is being done by others, he is the one that penned the ideas that inspire it. I feel like he’s too ok with this idea of madness. I sincerely hope he does a lot of thinking, reading, and reflecting before he writes Dany’s ultimate end in the books... but I don’t have a lot of faith for the outcome.

[ganzeer]

THIRD CINEMA, NINTH ART

She takes a seat at the bar and lets her eyes wander across the busy cafe, examining its patrons. The look in her eyes is not one of fear, guilt, or paranoia, no. She won’t be giving away her emotions that easy. Instead, you are placed in her shoes and are allowed to feel whatever you want to feel. You see a variety of men and women casually chatting away, friends gathered around a table, and a young boy licking at his ice cream cone, completely oblivious to the world around him. It is hard being in her shoes, but this changes nothing, for as soon as the woman finishes her drink –slowly... avoiding suspicion – she pays her bill and makes her way out. She leaves behind a bag slyly tucked away under the bar stool. Inside it, is a bomb. This takes place in THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, a 1966 film by Gillo Pontecorvo. So believable was that cafe’s explosion – and a great many other scenes in the film – that when the film was first screened, it came with a title card at the beginning that read “Notice: Not even one foot of newsreel or documentary film is included in this picture.” The subject matter of film was the Algerian struggle for independence from French occupation, which lasted well until 1962, not long after France itself had its own struggle with Nazi occupation. The irony completely lost on the French. There are some really morally agonizing scenes in the film that still have resonance to this very day, including a scene where two Algerian “freedom fighters” drive a van into a crowd of people! One comes out of the film with really conflicting feelings about a great many of the tactics used by Algerian revolutionaries, but you do not for a second question their cause, which is liberation from a discriminatory imperialist occupation. Italian director, Pontecorvo, while clearly biased in favor of the Algerians, brilliantly managed to bring out the tragedy of loss of life on either side of the conflict. By largely relying on non-actors, and shooting the entire picture on location around the boulevards of Algiers and the alleyways of the Casbah, Gillo Pontecorvo created a work of fiction that is as close to documentary/newsreel footage as a feature film could ever be. Yes, there is a main cast of characters that the film follows, and there is a particularly villainous French colonel, but ultimately, the film ends up becoming less about any of these characters and more about the greater cause all these people are in conflict about. This is Third Cinema, a movement that grew in opposition to the profit-centric movies of Hollywood, and the auteur-centric films of the French New Wave. Profit and the artist’s persona both take a back seat in favor of the subject matter. Four manifestos, all out of Latin America, are said to have contributed to the movement’s formation – back when manifesto’s mattered – but one particular manifesto by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino is said to really outline the genre. Published in 1969, three years after THE BATTLE OF ALGIER's release, the manifesto is called Toward a Third Cinema. It starts off strong and unflinching:

In an alienated world, culture - obviously - is a deformed and deforming product. To overcome this it is necessary to have a culture of and for the revolution, a subversive culture capable of contributing to the downfall of capitalist society. In the specific case of the cinema - art of the masses par excellence - its transformation from mere entertainment into an active means of de-alienation becomes imperative. Its role in the battle for the complete liberation of man is of primary importance. The camera then becomes a gun, and the cinema must be a guerrilla cinema.

Third Cinema, although nowhere nearly as known today or discussed as the French New Wave, was hugely influential. In the late 60’s, THE BATTLE OF ALGEIRS was pretty much required viewing for any young American opposing the Vietnam war. Its fingerprints are all over the rogue cultural output of 1970’s America, even that output which falls into the category of the escapist-entertainment-that-ushered-in-the-death-of-serious-filmmaking. Case in point: Star Wars. Squint your eyes during the BATTLE OF ALGIERS and you’re basically watching Jedi rebels fighting to bring down the Empire. As a matter of fact, the Jedi robe is a replica of traditional Algerian clothing worn by men in the Casbah. The set for Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine was built right next door in Tunisia.

Sure, Lucas drew much inspiration from America’s early pulps, French bande dessinées, and Moebius’ storyboards for Jodorowsky’s unproduced DUNE, but without pitting a bunch of ragged rebels against a relentless empire, none of that would’ve mattered.

One of the primary goals of the movement was to create films that the: 

System cannot assimilate and which are foreign to its needs. 

As such, one might consider THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS an extraordinary piece of Third Cinema given that it was banned from French television til as recent as 1999. On the other hand, the movie seems to have been appropriated for use contrary to its purpose. In particular, by the Pentagon, which regularly screens the film for officersas a study in “terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare”, particularly in Mid-East countries occupied by the US. Gillo Pontecorvo could not have imagined that his film would be reverse-engineered by the imperialists of the future. Third Cinema’s manifesto contains much that is still relevant today, to a great many people everywhere, not just the "Third World."

The anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the Third World and of their equivalents inside the imperialist countries constitutes today the axis of the world revolution.

Contrary to common belief, Third Cinema was not a movement deemed exclusive to the Third World, but was also made to include "their equivalents inside the imperialist countries". Where the manifesto's worldview may be limited is in seeing the struggle as predominantly a class struggle between the Capitalists and the masses. Perhaps not limited, but maybe slightly outdated.

Yes, the impoverished suffer the most, and they do constitute the vast majority of people living on the planet, and yes, still to this day they are mostly in countries of the Third World. But recent events around the world have been making it evermore clear that the need for liberation is not exclusive to people living under foreign occupation, or people living in poverty, but is shared by a vast mixed class of people living under the tyranny of their very own fucktards. Who themselves are an odd mix of wealthy capitalists, impoverished conservatives, and perpetrators of war. The need for something other than a Third Cinema –or Third Culture for that matter– is becoming evident. Our understanding of cultural colonization now reveals something far more complex than that of 1966. A third, fourth, or fifth cultural practice just won’t cut it. What we’re looking at is Third Squared. Culture #9 essentially. Still, Towards a Third Cinema contains much that will resonate with cultural practitioners today.

How could the problem of turning out liberation films be approached when costs came to several thousand dollars and the distribution and exhibition channels were in the hands of the enemy?

The duo make glorious arguments. Such that any “revolutionary cinema” produced within the established systems can only ever be the “progressive wing of Establishment cinema.” It is for similar reasons that I’ve been serializing my graphic novel, THE SOLAR GRID, the way I have. I don’t need some dude with a desk job to tell me my protagonist’s conflict ought to be obvious on the very first page, or that I can’t be depicting blowjobs in a comic whose protagonist is a pre-teen girl, or that I can’t be having her say "the N word". Even those working in the more literary vicinity of publishing seem to be constrained by some rather conservative compartmentalization of fiction. Exempli gratia: a child protagonist means it should be a YA book, visual depiction of sex is for porn, or… YOU MUST HAVE A MAIN VILLAIN! This is a problem, not only because it is severely limiting to the possibilities of artistic expression, but because it views people at large as consumers of ideology rather than creators of ideology. There is plenty of space for artists to suggest previously non-existent ideological landscapes within their work, allowing for the “consumers” to create their own ideologies from there. The gatekeepers of cultural production are failing to see the writing on the wall, which couldn’t have been made more clear than with MOONLIGHT winning Best Picture at the Oscar’s, and LOGAN’s trailer being set to a Johnny Cash song. Big changes are coming. They’re coming to art, to culture, and even to “entertainment.” Buckle up and get ready, because the next decade will be one helluva ride. Culturally, it’ll be the best we’ve seen since, possibly, the 60’s.

Ganzeer Los Angeles, CA March 11, 2017

[tcsparky-blog]

The transgender athlete debate

It is a fact that there are a few individuals in our society who are confused about their sexual identity. Some people who are born as males cannot come to grips with being a dude and want to become a female. And vice versa. Some girls want to become boys. I will and never understand people who think that way and quite frankly, do not want to. However what concerns me is how this type of thinking impacts others especially in the world of sports. Out of nowhere, the issue on whether transsexuals should be allowed to compete in women's sports has suddenly become a  hot and divisive topic.

Suppose some guy has been an average performer in sports like track and field during his youth. He is good enough to earn on a spot on his college track team. During his junior year of college, this guy decides that he wants to become a female and has a sex change operation. Instead of running track for the men's team, this individual, who is now a female, suddenly starts breaking all sorts of records. The new female is invited to try out for the Olympics and earns a spot on the women's team.  

Now take a woman who has trained for years to earn a spot on the Olympic team. She has set all sorts of records in college and is almost a shoe-in to earn a spot on the team. Her dreams are dashed when this transgender athlete beats here out for a spot. Is it fair to deny a promising female an opportunity of a lifetime by someone who is pretty much still a male?

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that a transgender athlete should NOT be allowed to compete. They have every right to participate in any sport they love. But they must participate in the birth gender category of their sport. A person who was once a male should not be allowed to participate as a female, period! In fact, I would support a law that enforces this.

Unfortunately this type of reasoning is deemed awful by many folks. You are thought of as being transphobic. "How are you deny transgender people their rights to compete" is what I often hear as being the rationale for allowing transgender people to compete in women's sports. To me that rationale is a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. A transgender person who was once a male has a huge advantage in switching over and competing against females. Whether you want to admit it or not, males just are built to perform better in most sports. It is just the way science is. That is not a knock on females in any way. Having males compete in female sports creates a huge disadvantage to many females. It is just not right.

Some have suggested that there should be separate category for transgender athletes. Perhaps that is a reasonable solution but I still feel that a person born with male hormones should have to compete in a male sport. I hope this mess gets fixed before women's sports gets severely impacted. Those who like to parade for transgender rights forget that women athletes have rights to. It is simply not fair for a former male to compete in a woman's sports competition. There should be no question about that.

[qqueenofhades]

Today is the 100th anniversary of the death of Dr Elsie Inglis.

Elsie Inglis (1864-1917): Doctor, Suffragette, Feminist, and All Around Badass, died today 100 years ago. She was one of the first female students at the University of Edinburgh medical school, and gained a reputation for working with mothers and children in the poorest parts of the city. When she approached the British government as to how she could help after the outbreak of World War I, she was told, “my good lady, go home and sit still.”

Rebuffed by the British, Elsie went straightaway to offer her services to the Allies, especially France, Belgium, and Serbia. Her hospital on the front lines saw some of the most intense action of WWI, and she helped organize thousands of women to help serve in the Scottish Women’s Hospital units, funded through her suffragette and political activity (she raised the equivalent of £53 million today). She worked especially hard in Serbia, which was gripped by a typhus epidemic, to the point that “in Scotland she became a doctor, in Serbia she became a saint”. (Among other honors, the British ambassador’s residence in Belgrade is now named for her, and she was featured on a Scottish £50 note in 2009). Nonetheless, she was of course largely overlooked, and even in 2013, her grave in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery was in serious disrepair. She is finally receiving some celebrations and commemorations in various events today.

Moreoever, Elsie Inglis was part of a brilliant circle of women physicians in Edinburgh. The “Edinburgh Seven” were female medical students who fought in 1870 to be the first women, ever, to study in a British university. Their leader was Sophia Jex-Blake, founder of the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women (where Dr Inglis studied) and the London School of Medicine for Women. Dr. Jex-Blake was also in a long-term romantic relationship with Dr. Margaret Todd, better known as the novelist “Graham Travers,” who first published “Mona Maclean, Medical Student” in 1894. After Sophia’s death, Margaret wrote a massive, 500-page biography of her, which refers carefully to “[Sophia] and the intimate friend of those days [meaning Margaret herself].” Margaret died three months after the book was published, possibly of suicide/a broken heart; her will left £3,000 apiece to two colleagues to further medical education for women, and two portraits of Dr. Jex-Blake, one to the Royal Society of Medicine, and one to the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children. (Dr. Todd is also known for coining the scientific term “isotope,” in regard to the study of radioactivity.)

Given as there is presently a big kerfuffle around identifying historical LGBT figures as such, ostensibly out of a concern for not imposing modern labels on historical figures, I would like to stick two middle fingers up at that nonsense and declare my love for Dr. Jex-Blake and Dr. Todd, Badass Lesbian Doctors, Feminists, Novelists, Etc. When you get quotes like this drivel (from the article above), and this guy is a professor of LGBT history, I mean:

“In the era before there was any notion of same-sex sexual identity, it does a disservice to the specificity of historical periods to project or impose current terms,” Stein said. “On some level, many of us would argue that there were no gay people or lesbians before the terms existed.”

First of all, as a fellow historian, I’d like this dude to explain to me what the fuck “the specificity of historical periods” even means, because that is a sentence I would flag in red if one of my undergraduates used it in an essay. (Historical periods are a construct of historiography and are always artificial, etc etc this is a very long rant don’t get me started). Also, the erasure of historical queer people is bad enough when the straights do it; for a professor of LGBT history to be arguing that they essentially did not exist before the modern terminology evolved to describe them is even worse. (We’ve already noted that “lesbian” goes back as far as ancient Greece to describe female same-sex desire, and the fuck does this dude think “sodomy” referred to? We’ve literally always had (usually pejorative) terms to refer to same-sex behavior (honestly, on the subject of ancient Greece, does our friend Marc Stein up there even... know they existed or what?) Since the standard of “proof” for queerness is set as historical figures using terminology that was not yet invented to describe themselves, clearly they can’t do it, therefore they cannot have been what we would recognize as queer. It’s an impossible logical loop. And of course, these fine concerned textbook editors can’t include it or mention it if’s not Evidential and Supported, or even refer to the fact that these people would probably have identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender if those categories had existed in their day. In the name of historical accuracy, of course.

(Anyway. This got away from me.)

Among the other doctors in Edinburgh at the time, and a close colleague of Elsie Inglis’, was Dr. Jessie MacLaren MacGregor, whose obituary makes note of her dazzling intellectual skills; she earned first-class honors in everything, won major scholarships and a gold medal for her thesis, and served as a Fellow of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, giving several notable papers. She emigrated to Denver, Colorado in 1906 and died there a few months later; she is buried in Fairmount Cemetery. Dr. Mona Chalmers Watson was the first women to receive the MD from the University of Edinburgh, had a laundry list of professional accomplishments, and later founded the Elsie Inglis Memorial Hospital in her colleague’s name (the hospital closed in 1988). Another alumna of the school was Dr. Margaret Ida Balfour, a prominent campaigner for women’s health in India and Africa. And there are many more.

So yes. Let us take a moment to honor Elsie Inglis and her colleagues, not erase their accomplishments or their orientation from history, and celebrate badass historical women, and LGBT women, in STEM. Sláinte.