#why do i always end up talking about penises on my blog

[ingravinoveritas]

Captain Jack Harkness voice: I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now...

(GO 2 BTS pic here.)

[mithliya]

idk which ex ur talking about in that "insane things my ex has done" but i relate bcuz i am currently in a relationship with a gendie who has started saying recently that my aversion to male genitalia is incredibly transphobic even though she knows i have been sexually assaulted many times by men (and am and always have been a lesbian lol) (also sorry if this is inappropriate but i feel like i have no one else to confide in.)

im not sure where i talked about her but i can tell from what u said which ex i was talking about lool its my 1st gf and i never rly talked fully about this bc my ex has since transitioned (only socially tho afaik) & continued to be questionable as fuck in various ways and went from friendly w me to shit talking me bc how dare i share my opinions on my blog which she decided to keep regularly checking for years after our break up despite her having a gf and us hardly ever talking (partially bc of me bc frankly in hindsight i was far too forgiving n despite that she demonised me at the end of our relationship n was weird in various moments after we remained friends)

but she was (& is) also a gendie, which is fine bc when we were together she wasnt like irrational about it. she was the one who told me that SRS doesnt work the way i thought it did, like the genitals didnt magically change and there arent like no differences like i thought, instead she said the differences were obvious. but near the end of our relationship she insisted to me that the way to fix her issues was to make our relationship an open relationship, said that my body made her insecure about her own body n she should sleep w people with a similar body to gain confidence in it. prior to that i was not for an open relationship at all but those comments made me feel like saying no would make me selfish and that if thats what she needs to accept herself then fine yanno. then ofc not soon after she starts e-dating this trans woman who is an abusive creep & rapist (like not even exaggerating here. but ofc those accusations were dismissed for a while bc the trans woman called the woman who came out about the abuse a terf n ppl believed that until trans women also began to call this out). i was like um hows dating someone with a diff body than u and even a diff sex going to make u feel better about ur body when thats the entire reason for the open relationship? never rly got a proper answer but whatever i let it be. then that trans woman wanted to be in a throuple with us basically like wanted to get with me and my ex and would openly fantasise about me to my ex. my ex said "oh she wouldnt be into that, shes not into penises" and the trans woman was like omg why.. :( and my ex was like oh shes penis-repulsed etc and the trans woman was like aw how sad i hope she gets help for that!! n my ex agreed. then my ex told me about this n i was like... what the fuck? it took me a bit but after a few days i was like hey this comment really pissed me off wtf do u mean gets help for that.. and my ex was saying that i should seek therapy to stop being penis-repulsed and should see trans women as women and be open to trans women in a romantic & sexual way basically and i was clearly upset by that n i was like. ur telling me to seek conversion therapy. n she was like nooo and i was like what so u mean some kind of exposure therapy against the "phobia" of penises? and she was like yeah just like that! n i said... thats literally a form of conversion therapy that was done in the past to other gay ppl.. exposing gay ppl to the opposite sex's genitals to try to change their feelings towards it is literally a conversion therapy tactic.

anyways my ex n i ultimately broke up bc it turned out the open relationship was meant to be one-sided somehow and her doing things was ok but if i did things it made me a cheater somehow and my comfort was repeatedly disregarded, i didnt like that trans woman at all at that point n my ex would still keep dating them n it was just all too many bad things at once so i was like fuck it im done w this. ultimately my ex realised that this trans woman is indeed an abuser and i also realised the my 2nd gf who i got with soon after i broke up w my ex is also an abuser. but then when my ex began to transition she started to show more of that homophobia she showed during our relationship like saying the f-slur (calling ppl that) and saying its ok bc "im a bisexual man" which was just.........erm... anyways in the end our last form of communication was her getting her friends to gang up on me for ~ruining the fun~ of a game of among us and then she talked shit about me to one of my close friends (been friends for 14 years) who she never even met and was like ~omg shes so problematic im sorry i just cant handle it anymore~ ......

anyways i feel u lmao. its not inappropriate dont worry and im sorry u went thru that too bc its painful to love someone as they are and yet they basically tell u that ur lesbianism means something is wrong w u bc ur truly not into males at all. honestly i think its best for u to end it asap instead of making the mistake i did, nothing good came out of it for me and i shouldve left for good at the first red flag which was my ex's compulsive lying about serious issues like rape & fgm, or immediately ended it when she was saying that i should go thru conversion therapy otherwise im transphobic

[ingravinoveritas]

I just love that this show gave us Gandalf!Michael with a staff that looks like a penis, and David as slutty!Hagrid. Bless...

Spoiler images for there’s something about movies starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant which airs in the uk tonight sky one at 9pm and can also be found already on sky catch up:

A link for non uk people which hopefully works!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZTS9eT5LI-e-dOQMEvAxbxRNAMGnClPQ/view

Can the show just be them from now on? There’s no need for anyone else AT ALL

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[rivetgoth]

I had this friend I met in the Hetalia fandom in like 8th-9th grade who was like, a lot older than me (I was like 12-13 when we met and she was like 17 or so), and we were REALLY close for a really long time, we'd talk and call every day and it got to a point where she was really dependent on me in this awful way where she would like constantly threaten suicide if I didn't answer her texts fast enough and shit like that. She was really rich cuz her dad was a doctor and one time she bought me an entire fucking Xbox One (I did not ask for it like... I'd always been a PlayStation gamer LOL) because she didn't have anyone to play Halo with her. My family still has it and uses it as a DVD player/Netflix machine.

Anyway the really batshit thing about this person (BESIDES the fact that she was like, definitely a pedophile who loved shota and frequently sexted me after she'd turned 18+ and I was like 14 and she also had both a bestiality and incest fetish that she'd talk to me about constantly — I was a kid I had no moral concept of anything and just liked being edgy and feeling mature) was that she was like. A chronic liar who constantly faked identities. And for years after cutting off contact with her I would look back and realize that she had faked even more than I had noticed at the time. The thing is, I knew for sure she wasn't lying about her home life -- Her address, what she looked like, her dad's profession, her age, her house, her pets, etc, were all things I had proof of. But when I knew her she was constantly remaking her Tumblr to escape drama she'd start, and she would constantly make side blogs under pseudonyms and pretend it wasn't her (sometimes it would be random shit like aesthetic blogs under different names or ask blogs for characters or smthn, other times it was like, callout blogs for people she had gotten into drama with where she would pretend to be someone else defending her). I assumed back then that I was always going to be in on it, because she would always tell me whenever she made one of these fake accounts, and sometimes she would encourage me to make a new account too as a sort of roleplay thing where we both pretended to be people we weren't... Until I learned that she wasn't always telling me. Every so often, I would become mutuals with a new account who would start messaging me about my interests and strike a conversation with me. Then something would slip and my "new mutual" would admit that they had actually been my friend all along... Which should have made me immediately cut contact because that's weird as shit, but I was young and she was a close friend, so I would just sorta accept it.

She ended up being like, horrifically transphobic. She got run off her blog twice for being specifically transmisogynistic, first insisting that she was allowed to headcanon canon trans women as feminine men and then on her next blog insisting that lesbians couldn't be attracted to trans women. I was still young and closeted and she was one of my closest friends and was constantly messaging me that the situation was making her suicidal and she was just wording things wrong and totally supported trans people and people just weren’t giving her the benefit of the doubt and she was still learning so I tried to just stay out of it without losing her. Then... I came out as trans lol. She stopped replying to me when I first came out and then made a bunch of vents on her tumblr about how much it upset her and about how “using he/him pronouns for AFAB people is triggering” for whatever fucking reason. She told me her “best IRL friend” who she had introduced me to once on Skype but who never logged in again after and who refused to ever do a group call or anything (definitely another fake account) said that it was irrational for me to expect my friends to respect my pronouns so soon after coming out and that I shouldn’t be upset if I get misgendered. Then she apologized but told me my name and pronouns would never fit me. As you can imagine, as a little baby trans kid who was closeted from my family and terrified of even having come to terms with being trans, I didn’t really have a great defense.

Soon she started being really woke like 2014 style Tumblr SJW to save face, she came out as nonbinary and told me in private it was because she felt bad when people called her cis during discourse (she absolutely wasn't nonbinary) and she coined a "new sexuality" that was "attraction only to people you perceive as feminine, regardless of how they identify" -- what this actually meant was "attraction to cis women and not trans women." She ran an aroace help blog despite not being aroace? And made a bunch of pride flags that I still see around sometimes to this day. She would start fights a lot and try to out-woke people and got into a bunch of drama with other SJW types of the day, got into a bunch of drama with TumblrInAction and Mogai-Watch and shit like that, and she claimed for a short while that she had a headmate (FWIW I totally believe DID is a legitimate thing but like. Trust me on this one.) who was transphobic and that it made her so sad, she told me that it was actually that headmate that had been transphobic before, and every so often her headmate would front out of nowhere and misgender me and use really abusive language like calling me a cunt or a bitch or whatever. She started making these "intersex nonbinary" OCs who she would constantly make porn of under the guise that they were representation for LGBT people who were just like, extremely fetishistic cuntboys and dickgirls (they were “intersex” to explain why they could be “girls with natal penises” or “boys with natal vaginas”).

At that same time, she somehow always managed to have these random, very sporadically active trans women mutuals who were apparently amazing friends of hers, who shared some interests with her but also would defend her when people brought up her past, with these long-winded “Well, I’m a trans woman and I think what she said is perfectly justified and everyone makes mistakes and she’s always been a good ally!!” Then one day some trans woman received an ask from her account where she claimed to be a “black trans woman” (she was, of course, a white cis woman) and she freaked out and claimed she had “been hacked by TiA or 4Chan to make her look bad” — I realize now she had just been sending anon messages pretending to be things she wasn’t and forgot to hit anon LOL. Late in all of this she also got into a bunch of hot water for being really antisemitic and saying she didn’t trust Jewish people because they were just like Christians and like, 5 seconds later she came out as Jewish and wrote this whole long sad vent about how she had had internalized antisemitism and then started going by a random Hebrew name LMAO.

In the end the final breaking point was when I found her secret TERF blog, where she had been making posts for months about how trans men are just insecure women who are trying to escape misogyny by stepping on the backs of “fellow women” and using me as a fucking example, and also saying that me not coming out as a trans man had been “basically rape” since she had been SEXTING me when she was 18+ and I was 13-14+ and that it was traumatic to know someone she had trusted was secretly identifying as a man LMAO. She was also obviously saying all sorts of transmisogynistic things, but also had these really bizarre fetish posts about wanting trans women to fuck her...? I confronted her about it and she literally fucking out of nowhere told me that she was in the emergency room with a mysterious illness that might kill her and she was allowed to have her phone but due to privacy laws couldn’t send a picture as proof. While “in the hospital” she deleted the TERF blog and her personal blog. I had known her for literal YEARS at this point (we had met when I was 12-13 or so and by the time we no longer spoke I was a few months from 17), and I was completely stunned to fucking hear this person trying to pull “I’m in the hospital with a deadly disease” at being confronted for some shit like that LMAO. I made a post about it on my public and another “trans woman friend” of hers logged in to vehemently defend her by saying that there’s nothing wrong with AFAB women being untrusting of trans people because female oppression is uniquely traumatic and that there’s nothing wrong with women expressing their sexuality by sexting minors as long as the minor consents and that I was the real predator for “hiding that I was a man” (remember, I’d been a 13 year old closeted trans boy), before never logging in again... 😭 One of the last times we ever talked was when she demanded I refund her for the fucking Xbox and I refused.

Anyway, the long-term aftermath of that is that a few people online (in some random cringe areas of the internet) who archived some of her antics still think that I also wasn’t a real person, since they caught onto how much she lied about too, so they think I was also a sock puppet and I have no interest in clarifying and making myself known to those people LOL. I have no fucking idea where she is now, she deactivated everything after her being a TERF came out. There’s like, so much more to that I could say because I knew her for YEARS and, like I said, she was one of my “closest friends.” Her parents had wildly expensive pure bred designer dogs that she would make Vines of. She wrote Beatles real person fan fiction. For her birthday one year I made her a shirt on Zazzle with an inside joke about one of her OCs... does she still have that? Either way, she was easily the most batshit person I’ve ever known closely online and I will forever associate the Hetalia fandom with people like that.

[discyours]

This is extremely personal but between it being this time of year and the cotton ceiling-esque discourse that’s been going on *once again* lately, it’s been on my mind a lot and I think it’s important to share. Trigger warning for rape. 

When I was 13, I was raped. That’s something I’ve shared before on this blog, not because it’s something I’m all that fond of talking about but because sometimes the arguments just go too far, they start to hurt, and I feel the need to let people know just how worryingly close they’re getting to this trauma. With the admittedly impulsive nature behind the reasons I usually share this, something I haven’t done is talk about it with clarity, or any real intention to make a point beyond “fuck you for being so insensitive”. That’s something I want to change with this post. 

Before my rapist was my rapist (and after, still) he was my boyfriend. The thing is, when he started to express interest in having sex with me, I was always allowed to say no. But I needed a reason, and “I don’t want to” didn’t count. I’ve talked about how I had a panic attack the first time I saw him naked, and how he forced me to watch porn with him to “get over” my aversion to penises. I didn’t have a reason to feel that way. I still don’t. 

When he started pushing it more and more, I was desperately trying to come up with any reason that would be good enough for him. Not wanting to get pregnant was valid for maybe a day, I don’t remember what actually happened to that one but it wasn’t good enough anymore. Then it was that I didn’t want the kids at my school to think I was a slut, but they wouldn’t know anyway, and all the girls in his class had done it. I ended up at how our parents would be mad at us. That wasn’t why and I honestly didn’t think they would be, but I had run out of “reasons”. He texted his mother to ask her, and then that one was gone too.

I came back to that I just. didn’t. want to. That it was gross. But that wasn’t a reason either, I had to have a reason for not wanting to, for thinking it was gross. I remembered a comedy sketch I had seen about why sex was actually disgusting and tried to use it as a source. He laughed, said it was a joke. I still didn’t have a reason.

The last thing I said before he physically forced me to have sex with him was that I really don’t want to do this. I still remember those words, the way I said them, the way he responded, and the agonising pain that followed. Vividly.

A lot of the debate around “cotton ceiling” is not that you have to date a trans person. You’re allowed to say no, you just need a good reason for it. A reason that isn’t transphobic. A reason you’ve analysed and reconsidered, because “I just don’t want to” doesn’t make any sense, isn’t of any reassurance in this transphobic society. And that’s how it starts, politely intrusive yet uncomfortably homophobic. It starts with “genital preference” and then “genital repulsion”. I’ve seen posts saying that it’s okay to be repulsed by certain genitalia, but only if you have a reason to be. Otherwise it’s unnatural, transphobic, perhaps a disorder in itself. And that escalates still, to calling people genital fetishists and rapists, to “TERFs” who aren’t even feminists, to trans-exclusionary-homosexuals, to shallow bigots who never learned that genitals aren’t all that matters.

It escalates until I’m angry enough to share this and I’ve realised that every time I do, I get the same response: Okay, you have a reason. I don’t know if telling people about the time that I didn’t is ever going to make them understand what they’re doing wrong, but this past week I’ve been reading too many posts that made my blood boil, so this is me trying one more time. 

[itsdaggerandsheath]

An Introduction to Sex

               Everyone has an “introduction to sex”. The most of us are not born and raised in households where sex is openly talked or taught about, therefore we must be introduced to it in some way. Usually first by word of mouth from parents, friends on the playground, or maybe a school health class. Typically when it comes to parents and health classes though, you only learn about sex in terms of reproduction and looking at scary pictures of genitalia with STI’s meant to scare you into abstaining. Then, as you get a bit older, you may be introduced to sex as an “activity” through your friends, the Internet, porn, etc. And then, of course, you’re introduced to sex when you start having it, should you choose to. Everyone has different introductions to sex, but I feel the need to document mine because 1.) I feel that it will help explain why I’m so passionate about sex education if I document my experiences with sex from the very beginning and 2.) my “introductions” were hilarious, and since we’re in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to write something with a bit of humor to hopefully make you laugh and provide you with a bit of a distraction from the end of the world.                So. Let’s start from when I was about four years old, when I began to learn about sex for the sake of reproduction. I’m not a parent, but I imagine there are times when parents say something horrible to their young children thinking “they won’t remember this when they’re older,” which is what I’m sure my mother was thinking when she was teaching me about sex when I was little. Unfortunately (for me) she was wrong, and I remember every…weird little detail.              I was a very curious child. I don’t remember why I was so curious with the idea of where babies came from; maybe I saw it as a joke on a TV show or movie or something. But for some reason, I was infatuated with the idea for as long as I can remember (perhaps this was an early sign that I was meant to pursue sex education all along). I was constantly asking my poor mother, “Mommy, where do babies come from?” And by constantly, I mean, probably every day. Even after she explained it to me, I would continue to ask for more details; I continued to ask her as the years went by because her explanation just didn’t make sense to me. Basically, what she told me (and remember, I was four) was that when a mommy and a daddy get married (marriage was always emphasized) and they want to have a baby, the daddy will give the mommy his “daddy juice” (yes, that is actually what she called it) and this “daddy juice” turns into a baby in the mommy’s belly.              It’s going to be very hard to type this all out without cringing.              Since I was four at the time, this answer made sense the first time I heard it. As time went on though, I found myself asking more questions. One time, I saw my cat outside “wrestling” with another cat, and a few weeks later, we had kittens; how had that happened? Why did the boys and men in my life face the toilet when they peed? Where did “daddy juice” come from and how did it get into a mommy’s belly to make a baby?! I demanded answers. (Now my only question is why the hell did my mom refer to semen as “daddy juice”?!)              I can’t remember where my mom got “The Miracle of Life” videotape from. Did we just so happen to have it? Did she rent it from the library or Blockbuster because I’d just kept asking? I’m not sure. All I remember is her handing me a video tape (I’m not that old, I promise) and telling me that if I watched and paid attention, it would give me some answers. By the time she let me watch the tape, I was seven years old and had some mild knowledge on reproductive anatomy; that females had vaginas and periods, and that males had penises and did not have periods, though this was the extent of my knowledge (granted, that’s more than most seven year olds know). However, this was enough for me to understand most of what was going on as I watched the tape.                Most.                Now, there’s pros and cons to me having seen this video tape. A pro is that my mom didn’t try to spin some story about how the stork delivers babies; she allowed me to know the truth. A con though is that my mother wasn’t the one who told me the truth: a video tape was. I can’t remember if I asked my mom any more questions after watching the tape or if any sort of conversation was had with me, but I do remember that she told me not to tell any of my friends about what I’d learned - presumably because she didn’t want me to be “that kid” who goes around and tells all the other kids about sex before their parents told them.                So, of course, I totally was that kid.                I remember being in my back yard playing on the swing set a few days later with a friend of mine at the time, and when I told her that I knew the secret to where babies came from, her eyes widened through her purple glasses and her mouth with several missing teeth fell wide open.               “You do?” She asked, lowering her voice, knowing that what we were discussing was top secret material.                In my second grade vernacular, I explained to her that babies came from “a boy putting his private part in the girl’s private part.”                “Which one?” My friend asked, referring to the fact that, from what we knew at the time, “girls have two holes” (we now know that females have three, but remember, we were seven at the time).                “I think the first one,” I’d said, referring to the vagina, as I didn’t know what a urethra was at the time.                This friend and I then made it our life’s mission to spread this new information to every one of our friends. Partly because it was rebellious and mischievous and fun, but also because I personally felt like it was something that my friends needed to know, because their parents were lying to them about where babies came from. I really was meant to go into sex education from the very beginning.               My mom never found out I’d told all my friends about sex, which was a sweet victory to me at the time. (She also doesn’t know that I have a sex education blog that I share with all of you, which is also quite the victory).                Then we get to how I learned about sex as an “activity” or something that people do “for fun”, which I’ll mostly discuss in Part 2, but I’ll give you a little taste of it here too. I’m gonna circle back to the idea of my mom saying things to me that she figured I probably wouldn’t remember as I got older that sure as shit, I did, and shutter at to this day. One such conversation went a little something like this when I was about eight:              “But how does the penis get into the vagina? Do you have to lay down or sit up, or…?”              My mom shrugged, “You can do it standing up…” She trailed before taking a sip of her coffee.              That’s an image I’ll never get out of my head.              My mom and dad got divorced when I was very young, to the point where I don’t even remember most of it. My mom didn’t date very much before she got married again to my stepdad over a decade after her first marriage had ended, but at the time of the conversation I’m about to document, she’d been in a relationship with a guy who for the sake of privacy, we’ll call Tod. To provide some context, my mom and Tod were pretty serious at the time, to the point where there was talk of moving in together and marriage. I was about nine at the time and suffered from really awful nightmares, so I was sleeping in my mom’s bed with her a lot and Tod never stayed the night (because my mom didn’t want her kids to see a man she wasn’t married to spending the night with her after she’d told us time and time again that married people don’t stay the night together, even though my dad and his girlfriend weren’t married at the time and they lived together, so I don’t understand why she shoved that down our throats so much when we already knew it wasn’t true). However, with the idea of my mom and Tod potentially getting married, my mom was trying to talk to me about sleeping in my own room again.                “You’re not gonna be able to fit into the bed with me if Tod and I get married and he’s sleeping with me,” She’d explained.             ��  I’d shrugged, “I’ll just sleep on the floor.”               “What if we wanna have sex and we can’t because you’re in the room?”               “I thought you said Tod’s sperm didn’t work anymore.”               By this time, I’d learned the word “sperm” and as my mom and Tod had gotten more serious, there came the question of whether or not they’d have any more kids – my mom had me and my sister, and Tod had two children of his own, but would they want any together? My mom explained to me that Tod’s “sperm didn’t work anymore”, which I now assume means he got a vasectomy, and my mom was adamant about not having any more children anyway (this was a couple years before my brother came along; his dad was not Tod, so that’s a story for another time).                “Not sex to have a baby; sex for fun.”                Confused, I asked, “People have sex for fun?”                “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”                I was nine.                I realize I’m portraying my mother like she’s a horrible person, which she isn’t; I love my mother very much, these were just not some of her best moments…               So then, of course, I told all of my friends that grownups sometimes have sex just for fun. I had no idea how it worked, just that it was a thing that happened.               Then, I entered fifth grade, which was the grade that my school began giving us the talk in our health classes about sex. What this entailed was separating the boys and girls, the girls being taught this information by a female teacher and the boys being taught by a male teacher. Some of this information was actually quite useful; we learned about puberty, developing breasts, periods and period products (and how to use them), as well as what little anatomy we needed to know about when it came to sex for the purpose of reproduction. However, there was one fatal flaw.               I was sitting next to a friend of mine – the same friend with the purple glasses who I’d first told about sex when we were seven. Now, we were ten, and learning about a lot of things that we already knew about, which gave us a bit of an advantage, as I’d caught the flaw in the school nurse’s explanation of where babies came from. She did tell us that sperm goes into the vagina, finds an egg in the ovaries, and that the sperm and ovary will eventually form into a baby. However, she didn’t explain where the sperm came from! The fact that sperm comes from a penis and that, in most instances, pregnancy occurs from a penis going into a vagina, was never mentioned.              It was clear that she was intentionally not telling us this, which I immediately knew was wrong.              I was a little asshole at the time, and was this close to raising my hand and asking the school nurse “How does sperm get into the vagina?” even though I already knew the answer, when another girl raised her hand and asked the question instead, and it was obvious that she really didn’t know. My school nurse, her face turning as red as her bright red hair, then very quickly and hurriedly explained to us that sperm comes from a penis and (since we were too young to understand IVF) that pregnancy occurs when a penis goes into a vagina, and sperm leaves the penis and goes into the uterus through the vagina.             I was still an asshole though and dared to raise my hand and ask, “Is it true that people have sex for fun too?” I knew the answer to this question as well, and so did my friend sitting next to me; we just wanted to know what she’d say.            “Uh…y-yes, s-some people do it for fun, yes. There’s even a little piece of plastic you can put on the penis to prevent sperm from getting into the vagina, so you won’t get pregnant.”            This was news to me. That was all my school nurse said about condoms; she never even said the word “condom”. However, this didn’t faze me at the time. Instead, I simply looked at my friend next to me and we snickered together, like the little assholes we were.          As puberty came along, my curiosity about sex only grew. And do you think I got a good education about it in school? Nope. Not a bit. So where did I get my information from? Friends? No, I was the friend that was relaying the information. Porn? Not necessarily…         Fanfiction.         Yes, as much as it pains me to say it, I got a good chunk of my sex education from Fanfiction. And a bit of Tumblr and YouTube as well, but we’ll discuss that a bit more in Part 2…         In the meantime though, what was your introduction to sex like? Was it as ridiculous and cringey as mine? Did your parents tell you the truth about sex, or did they make up some absurd story? Please feel free to tell me your stories in the comments here or on my Instagram page @daggerandsheath                                                         I love you all and stay safe during this difficult time!

-          Dagger and Sheath                

[ingravinoveritas]

Why is Anna suddenly coming out with new headshot photos on the day of the good omens trailer release? Girl your desperation for attention is showing immensely if you think choosing to post on today of all days will make anyone forget about the husbands and focus on you instead. Also, wtf re: Georgias insta stories? One question; WHY? Another question; Why are you always talking about and thinking about vaginas and penis’s?? Why do these two always have to be competing for attention whenever the boys have anything? Why can’t they just be normal partners and be supportive without trying to undercut them?

Holy wow, okay...my inbox blew up. Yes indeed, lots of goings on today, most notably the amazing GO 2 trailer, which I've watched several times and has filled my heart with unbridled homosexual glee.

As for the rest of today's happenings, well...oof. First off, for those who haven't seen, let's get the visuals up, starting with AL's new headshots that she posted and Georgia calling her Barbie:

And here is the video/screenshots from Georgia's Insta stories:

...Quite a bit to unpack here, it seems. In terms of AL's headshots, some of you mentioned this (as have other folks who DMed me privately about them), and I agree that they were purposely posted on the same day as the GO 2 trailer release. It's just flagrantly transparent at this point, given the number of times this has happened with previous GO 2 news, and so yes, I do think Anna was trying to capitalize on the news stories and social media chatter around GO 2 to bring attention to herself.

That being said...I'm really not sure who told her that these were good head shots, but they were not at all being honest. The lighting is terrible, her hair looks dull, and the pictures for whatever reason seem...flat, to me. There's no life in them, no spark, which is not helped by her seemingly vacant expression. (Why is her mouth hanging open in disgust in the first picture? Why is she staring into the abyss in the second? I'm so confused...) The pictures are reminiscent of a photo shoot she did last year that inexplicably involved sitting on a radiator while she was pregnant, and the common thread between the two seems to be that either the photographers did not give her good directions, or she just doesn't know how to "relate" to the camera, which...is probably not a good thing, given her chosen profession of acting.

But what really was striking to me was the caption on this new post. The disingenuous tone of "I will admit, not the biggest fan of having pictures taken" coupled with the fact that these pictures were deliberately posted on the day of the GO 2 trailer release makes it seem like she is fishing for compliments/praise. Add to that Georgia sharing the post and referring to AL as "my very own Barbie" (which comes across as incredibly fake) and it becomes clear that this was again coordinated, this time not only to gain attention via the GO 2 trailer, but also Staged 3's impending release on the BBC.

Which then brings us to Georgia's Insta stories. Lord help me, I don't even know where to start. Well, it's been brought to my attention that "Would you rather" is a game, one that is often played on long car rides/road trips and used by parents to entertain restless children. I don't think I ever played it myself as a kid, but the basic gist seems easy enough to understand. What's less easy for me to understand, however, is (as several of you pointed out) Georgia using said game to talk about penises and vaginas.

I'm the first one to acknowledge that I talk about sex a lot. It's part of the work that I do as an autism sexuality advocate, and I'm all in favor of using correct anatomical terms and teaching people about human sexuality/development, and therefore not at all one to begrudge someone talking about genitalia. But with Georgia's stories, I get the sense that she is doing it for shock value more than anything else...and when you talk about penises/vaginas as much as she does, after a while it starts to come across as crass instead of shocking.

By her own admission, Georgia has said she needs content, and so logically, talking about something spicy would be a good way to drum up engagement/generate content. Yet I couldn't help thinking of the fact that Georgia has numerous trans and/or gender non-conforming followers, and given the current climate around transgender issues in the UK (and US)--especially things like "bathroom checks" and the despicable obsession GCs have with trans people's genitals--her stories just edge too close to something unsettling for me. I'm not saying this was necessarily intentional on Georgia's part, but the fact that she then shared people's responses without knowing (or caring) whether people were okay with it made it even weirder and more disquieting.

Both Georgia and AL posted the trailer to their Insta stories after posting the things above, and again this seems calculated because then you have to view the stories about them before getting to the GO 2 trailer. But as @phantomstars24 said, the focus was swiftly pulled off of them (rightfully so) once that trailer was out. They absolutely could have chosen to depict themselves as supportive partners, but chose to come across as opportunistic and self-serving instead. I can't begin to fathom why, but...there it is.

So yes, there was quite a bizarre incongruity between what was happening on Instagram vs. Twitter/Tumblr today, and the fact that it came from Michael and David's own partners makes it even stranger. I'm sure Georgia and AL have been tapped to help with the promotion for GO 2 (and Staged 3), but it really does seem like they missed the mark here. Cringe for days...

[aftertheworldends-blog1]

How To Write Men In Romance Fiction

I have recently come across one of the most fascinating articles published in the recent 2015, written by a man who doesn’t read romance novels, about – you guessed it – Romance Literature! There’s a saying in Bulgarian, which we started using about 15 years ago (I believe it was used in a sketch by a comedian), and it goes like this: “I laugh in the face of tragedy because what else could I do – cry?”

I believe this article gives meaning to that expression in ways I did not think possible.

Now, gender is a stupid thing to begin with, let’s base our conversation on that. Creating a general picture of manhood or womanhood is ridiculously impossible affair, because not only does it vary by culture, it varies by person, and we end up with the bottom line that we all experience gender in unique unquantifiable ways.

Plus, gender itself is a social construct which isn’t even perceived universally as a binary and often is either viewed on a spectrum or a combination of identities which depend on the circumstances. It is Western-centric to perceive it as the dualistic man-woman, and it is blatantly wrong, considering the idea of man versus woman is a religious indoctrination spread by Christianity. If you don’t believe me, please check with the numerous African, and South and East Asian communities who struggle to retain or fight to remember the identities typical of their culture while they’re being bombarded by Western propaganda in the media and religious indoctrination by supposedly well-wishing ministers.

So, this blog author begins by telling us not only that he does not read romance, but that a genre written for women is making a mistake assuming men can be more than sex-crazed, muscle-pumping, emotionally immature, fragile creatures with a drive for overachievement and allergy to housework and childcare. We have of course done a tremendous mistake surrendering to that fantasy, especially since apparently, men don’t portray women in idealistic ways (e.g. promiscuous, beautiful and available, strong on paper but dependant on the protagonist in practice).

You can feel the irony in the last sentence, right? I don’t need to spell it?

Now, this was all clear by the end of the first paragraph, and I was already laughing. By the time I was done reading, I was breathless and wiping tears of hysterical, unseemly, unladylike (lol) cackles. It was great. I have never been so amused especially considering the biggest crime seems to be that fact that romance authors dare say men notice things like the colour of their love interest’s eyes.

See, I always thought Americans were supposed to lead the way in social change. I never quite believed the notion that there were people who thought so extremely like this: that men and women belong in boxes. (You, my folks, have sold the idea of your own superior greatness well, bravo!) I recall reading an article about Russian scientists, who admit to facing sexism at the workplace, but as girls at school or University, it never even occurred to them or their peers, parents, or teachers, that girls cannot and will not excel in any field they would like. I always assumed sexism was subtle and unspoken, especially after we passed 2010, and the conversation about gender seemed to tackle ongoing issues like the Gender Pay Gap and Parental Leave. We talked and are still talking about gender violence, rape culture, and unfair housework distribution.

I never thought we’d still have to come back and talk about the fact that men and women can be whoever the fuck they want.

First and foremost, men have internal monologue. They have emotions. They have thoughts. Aspirations. Beliefs. Passions. Goals. Dreams. Saying men should be written as creatures of single-minded, sex related focus is outrageous and offensive. To men.

Let me say that again: it is offensive to men.

Men are complex. They have internal monologue and they do not think with their penises. This is not a dream and it is not a women’s fantasy. It’s a fact. Men are permitted to have emotions and they are permitted to notice more than the love interest’s boobs when they meet her. (Talking about m/f couple here, specifically.)  

I was laughing so hysterically at this article, because this is the topic we must discuss in this day and age: that men can feel, and that their retinas do not become glued to secondary sexual characteristics when they find a woman attractive.

To the author of that article, I would like to explain to you why are women not only allowed, but should write men in the ways they have so far. You must know this, and so must your like-minded fellow humans.

The Romance Genre has managed to successfully include men who are not committed to macho culture and toxic masculinity. There is a long way to go in literature when it comes to healthy relationships and free gender expression, not to mention intersexionality on religious, ethnic, racial, and sexual orientation aspects, but it has done one thing right at least.

It has told men they are not obligated to be predatory and emotionally constipated, and it has given women hope such men exist. It has given women standards.

Maybe that is what scares you, and the like-minded folk who still roam the shady corners of the 21st century. Maybe it was easier when women were supposed to look for the lad who can protect them and be “the man of the house”. But as times change and gender roles change with them; as gender evolves to be something beautiful and complex and personal, so rises the demand for characters who can do more than throw a punch, tell the woman what to do, silence her with kisses, and occasionally toss her to the wall in wild expression of his animalistic lust.

Men are more. And we demand they are allowed to show it.

Lastly, I would like to leave you with this important note. We do not need advice from men on how to write men. We really don’t – especially unsolicited one from somebody who does not understand the genre and has no idea why it’s popular amongst women.

Women are surrounded by masculinity and patriarchal views. We must by necessity take our examples from men, learn from men's experience, and must relate to men characters or public figures. We know men.

When we write them in ways which is unfamiliar to you it is not because we do not know men, it is simply because we wish to give men freedom to be everything they want.

We’ve got the Romance Genre covered, thanks! ;) 

  Stay readin,

Ro-ri

[tessatechaitea]

Dark Nights: Metal #1

I thought this series was going to be about how the meta gene is tied into Nth metal and not some fifteen year old metal head's idea of a cool black light poster.

Apparently time travel makes you vomit blood.

I thought the page after that scanned page was going to declare the new age was the Age of the Bat. But it didn't. It declared it was the Age of Metal! After reading that, you're supposed to make guitar noises with your mouth and bang your head and throw up some devil horns. You might even fuck a goat, if you're super cool. I'm not sure when the Age of Metal began. There was the Golden Age and the Silver Age and the Modern Age (and maybe some other metallic ages I don't remember). Perhaps the Age of Metal just means the time when superhero comics began? Or did the Age of Metal start when Peter David gave Aquaman long hair and a hook for a hand? Mongul currently has the Justice League battling for their life on his new Warworld. This takes place almost immediately after Mongul was punched into orbit by General Zod, so editorial demanded that Batman mention something about how this makes no sense, continuity-wise. He doesn't say it to help explain it! He just says it because editorial was all, "You know we're going to get buttfucked hard on this by the Fangenders¹, right? You need to get out in front of this shit." And Snyder was all, "Okay, okay. Batman will be all, 'This doesn't make sense!' But then Superman will be all, 'Stop over thinking things, you stupid fucking hypocritical moron living in your parents' basement and not adding any value to anything because all you do is destroy things with your Internet criticisms!'" And the editor was all, "Yeah, maybe that. But tone it the fuck down. You're sounding like Cullen Bunn anonymously defending his shitty Twat Lobo comics on harsh but hilarious blogs offering valid critical reviews." The Justice League's powers have been rendered inert by...well, it doesn't really matter what by. It's the same old shit as usual. The heroes are too powerful so to create dramatic tension, you remove their powers. Snyder does offer a few ways that their powers can be dampened by invoking red sons and vibration domination technology and Gorgon pasties just so the Fangenders can nod enthusiastically and think, "Yep! Yep! They should have seen this coming! This is just like Justice League #45²! Idiots." Of course, those are the powers with fairly easy explanations for how to suppress them. He doesn't explain how he's keeping Cyborg from utilizing his Mother Box technology. Or how Green Lantern's ring isn't working (although, I mean, really? It's probably just out of charge like in 95% of Green Lantern comic books). And how did he stop Aquaman from talking to fish? Oh, you know what. Mongul probably decided Aquaman could keep his stupid power. Oh, just so Scott Snyder doesn't feel like he was being too subtle, I got it. It's the Metal Age and the entire Justice League is being forced to wear armor by Mongul!

Some of it is super sexy titty fucking armor!

Toyman has also been captured by Mongul, probably because Scott Snyder needed enemies that the Justice League could kill without Batman getting on everybody's dick about murder. Toyman tells Mongul the name of the toys that will kill the Justice League is Fulcum Abominus. Mongul pulls out his dick and begins sucking it because he's smarter than me and that apparently means something to him. I shouldn't feel too stupid though because why should I have known what a fulcum is? I've never owned a Warworld and seemed to have missed the adolescent phase where Roman soldiers intrigued me as much as women's nipples. I suppose the name means the Justice League will be battling an abominable shield wall? A close formation made up of Yetis? Or maybe just a few transforming robots.

Judging by Mongul and the crowd's reaction, the Aegea Formation must be where the Justice League creates an illusion that they're running away. Either that or this is Greg Capullo's way of telling Snyder to fuck off because he's going to draw whatever the fuck he wants.

I'm not four years old so the crowd chanting "Do not run! Pain is fun!" doesn't amuse me. It does make me question why I've spent so much of my life reading comic books though. It's at this point during the battle that I need to apologize to Scott Snyder. It's my first apology of the new season but it won't be my last. The problem with writing the critique as I'm experiencing the "art" is that I tend to point out flaws before the artist has a chance to finish. It's like when I'm in the middle of cleaning a floor and somebody thinks they're the next George Burns and says, "You missed a spot!"³ So, um, my apology is that I assumed Snyder couldn't think of ways to dampen the powers of the other Justice League. But he continues explaining how they've all been shut down. Green Lantern's gauntlet has a mini-black hole. And you know what they say about black holes when they're not making anus jokes, right?! Not even Green Lantern light can escape! Plus it's a mini-black hole so don't worry about how heavy and dense it is. Even though it must be even denser than a non-mini black hole if it can still capture light in its gravitational pull. And Aquaman has lost half of his strength to the vambraces made from glass forged in the heat of Apokolips! Each creature in the Fulcum Abominus has been designed to counter one of the Justice League members. So not only do they not have their usual powers, they have to battle creatures that wouldn't care if they had those powers anyway! Wonder Woman can't even outsmart hers because it has a Cassandra Engine! And we all know what that means! Well, most of us do. Those who don't can always watch old reruns of Red Dwarf. I hope the solution to defeating the Fulcum Abominus isn't to switch opponents because that's been done fifteen thousand times. Although it would be more original than just having Batman defeat them all after the rest of the Justice League are incapacitated. That's been done about sixteen thousand times. I can't think of any other way this conflict might end. Maybe it'll have something to do with the metal! Or maybe Toyman will have programmed the Fulcum Abominus to turn on Mongul once he's done sucking his dick. He'll be drained and distracted at that point! Batman comes up with a plan to be eaten by Toyman's machines. He comes up with it the way Dr. House came up with solutions to his medical mysteries. You know how somebody would say just the right word and he'd sort of glaze over into a fugue state for a few seconds before snapping back and yelling, "I am a genius! You people are all idiots! And this show shits on the scientific process to pander to people who believe intuition is some magic panacea that comes out of the ether!" Anyway, Wonder Woman says "Formation" and Batman is all, "That's it! Formation! These machines were formated by Toymanster! If I reach into the gaping maw of this one, I'm sure to find a WayneTech Emergency Shutdown Switch!" Or something. I mean, there is a button in the creature's throat and it does have a bat on it and Batman does push it. But it doesn't shut the thing off at all. It just makes it eat Batman. By pushing the buttons in the throat of the creature (which Batman realized by knowing that the command to form the fulcum formation was done by a cry from the back of the throat (because Batman knows everything (which means Toyman must know everything because you can't give subtle clues to people who know everything if you're a dumbshit like me...I mean Mongul))), the Justice League turn the machines into Voltron armor. This allows them to "form up" like the Roman formation and turn into a giant robot. Batman is the head, of course. Aquaman is the balls.

Is that why Snyder introduced the stupid rhyming chant earlier when it made no sense because the Justice League wasn't running? Just so Batman can act childish now? Eh, works for me! I mean, I'm the guy who chose to write that Aquaman was the giant robot's balls.

Instead of saying "ass" on the next page, Snyder inserts the title page and credits. Apparently the logo for Metal is a Satanic Hexagram. Can hexagrams be Satanic? They made it into a six pointed star but not so that it looks like the Star of David. It's got some bend to it. But the star is enclosed in a circle with symbols at each point. Those symbols are combinations of Justice League symbols and the bat symbol. So Wonder Wobatman and Superbatman and Aquabatman and Black Computer Batman and Green Lanterbatman and the other one. It's totally metal. Also the word metal is textured like the bumper on a pickup truck. Is that metal? I mean, it's metal, literally. But is it metal, 80's figuratively? When the Justice League return to Earth, they find a mountain has appeared in the middle of Gotham. Apparently it didn't kill too many people because the city somehow made room for it. But Batman is still upset by it for some reason. Probably because he's thinking about how he vowed to never let anybody else be crushed by a mountain after his parents were crushed by that mountain in that alley. The Flash finds a door inside the mountain with a pseudo-Challengers of the Unknown symbol on it. It's an hour glass with most of the sand in the bottom half. That's probably not a good sign, right? Inside the door, they find a cryogenic pod with five people inside. I bet one is a white woman, one is a white man with blond hair, one is a white man with brown hair, one is a black man, and one is white man with red hair! Nearby the pod is Red Tornado. They don't seem to recognize him even though earlier somebody mentioned Aquaman's hook hand. If they remember that, they should surely remember Red Tornado! The Blackhawks appear, led by Lady Blackhawk, Kendra Saunders. Get it?! She's still a hawk! Oh, Scott Snyder! You're so fucking clever! I bet Geoff Johns hates the fuck out of you. It always hurts to be usurped. I imagine. Nobody has ever been able to usurp me. Or wanted to? Lady Blackhawk tells everybody that this is the start of an invasion but she can't tell them who is doing the invading. That's called dramatic tension! It's also called bullshit writing. Just fucking say it, you resurrected nutcase! Instead of revealing cool shit, she spends a few pages taking everybody to Blackhawk Island where she has a map of Grant Morrison's Multiversity. She's all, "Nth metal is this thing that's behind all these things. It's such a crazy thing! Hawkman, the most boring hero in the Multiverse after Aquaman, has been studying it his entire lives! Yeah, you heard me right! I said lives! He decided it didn't come from anywhere in the known Multiverse through assumptions and poor science. Unless over the course of all his lives, he had time to use good science? You know what? Who cares? Just believe me when I say it must have come from somewhere else. He didn't know where until he binged Stranger Things last year and Eleven turned over the Dungeons and Dragons map. That's when he was all, 'A-ha! That's the one place on the map I didn't search! The other side of it! The dark side of it! The Dark Multiverse! And now that I've decided that the known Multiverse is much like a two dimensional representation of it, the other side of the map must exist in reality! A Dark Multiverse!'" "I'm not the worst," mumbled Aquaman.

Ha ha! Wanting proof! How silly!

I like how Kendra wanted proof of Carter's theory which caused Carter to want to prove her wrong. What the fuck does that mean?! You don't prove somebody wrong who just wants some evidence that your theory is reality! You just prove your stupid theory. I already hate this new version of Hawkman. Yes, I'm biased because I've hated every version of Hawkman so I didn't have far to go to hate this one. But I hate him more passionately than I ever hated the other ones and I haven't even met this one yet! The other ones I just sort of hated for no real reason. This one is a scientific idiot. Kendra isn't much for science either. She just found the word wagon over and over again because a wagon would carry a dark beast named Barbatos from the Dark Multiverse into the Non-Dark Multiverse. And then she decided that Wagon was the root of the name Wayne (you know, wainwright? Wains! Wagons!) which must mean that the Wagon was Batman and he was the bad guy. That's when the Blackhawks pull their guns on Batman. But they don't shoot him in the face for some reason. Some heroes they are! Red Tornado begins screaming about the door being left open which probably saves Batman's life. He then flips the fuck out which means he'll be dismembered in a few pages. His stories always end in dismemberment. Batman steals Kendra's Nth Metal and races back to the Batcave to destroy the Multiverse in the pursuit of knowledge. The Nth Metal reveals Carter Hall's diary hidden in Wayne Manor. It's there to tell Batman he was right to pursue whatever he's been pursuing. The mysteries of the Nth Metal, I guess. And once he's been proving right, he's visited by Dream of The Endless. Well. I guess Snyder can still surprise me without me needing to make a snarky comment about how dumb his twist is. I don't know why Dream has appeared but it's pretty cool that he's been allowed back into the regular DC Universe. I'll say this about Metal: it's entertaining and interesting. But it's also built upon the dumb shit that Scott Snyder likes to build his retcons. So far we've learned that the Meta-gene is actually the Metal Gene because Nth Metal is behind all superpowers. We also learned that Nth Metal couldn't have come from anywhere in the DC Multiverse so it must have come from the other side of a two-dimensional representation of the Multiverse. I know that's just a metaphor but I bring it up because it's a metaphor from Stranger Things. The other big twist is that Wayne means wagon. In both the meta/metal and wagon/Wayne plot elements, we see the thing Scott Snyder bases almost all of his stories on. He starts small by looking at words and their meanings to expand those observations into a bigger story. Usually I'm just annoyed by them. But this time, he gets to really fuck around with the DC Universe by making this Nth metal/meta-gene connection and I'm always up for a good buttfucking of the DC Universe. Oh yeah! How can I mention all the word play without mentioning the Dark Nights title of the series? Oh, probably because it's been used before. But this time it's the Dark Nights bring the Dark Knights of the Dark Multiverse! It's boner and/or lubrication inducing! _________________________________________________________ ¹"Fangenders" is my inclusive term for what was once thought of as Fanboys. Being an obnoxious comic book know-it-all knows no gender boundary. ²I don't actually know what happens in Justice League #45. But if you were instantly angry at my lack of knowledge, you're a Fangender. That was the whole point, dum-dum! ³I have a floor cleaning business. This isn't just an analogy of a thing I rarely do. It happens all the time. I'm getting angry just thinking about it! I should probably footnote George Burns as well but what's the point? You have access to the fucking Internet, lazy!

[winadatewithtadhamilton]

ok so warning this is probably going to be a long post. (edit: it IS a long post and i’m super late so unedited) so today is the last episode of tvd and i’m feeling a little emotional about it so i wanna talk about how much it once meant to me and why i’m thankful it exists even tho it’s completely unrecognisable in its current form.

it was during the s2 hiatus i started watching tvd. i was six months out of school and had just finished a tafe course, had no job and probably in terms of mental health in the darkest, lowest point in my life. I stopped going out and talking to my friends. i had no motivation or goals and i was contemplating suicide almost on a daily basis. i spent my days doing the chores my mum would leave me and watching tv and during one of these days i noticed the vampire diaries i obviously knew of it it was that embarrassing vampire show on par with twilight but i also had nothing better to watch. i remember being completely shocked that i actually enjoyed it.

i had ridiculed a friend of mine when she told me she had caught an episode the year before so i texted her and apologised and she just laughed and told me she had only watched the one episode and i was like well let’s forget this conversation happened. anyway they were marathoning it two episodes a day until the australian premiere of s3 and tbh seeing the next episode became a reason on a very short list of reasons of why i shouldn’t kill myself.

s3 came and with it klaroline and my curiosity ran towards fandom. i had like ten klaroline blogs bookmarked in my phone that i’d scroll through and eventually shagklaus was created. iphi was the first friend i made in this fandom and kay the second. but it was caryn who invited me into a klaroline skype chat where i met people like brynne, christina, tanya (who was one of the people whose blog i had bookmarked and we both thought the other hated them for months), monika, brittany, jess, dani, alex and so many more that i really don’t have the time to list because i’m so late for work. and eventually i delved deeper in fandom and i got happier. happier when i got a job and started talking to my friends again. happier where i didn’t think the chances of me seeing out a new year were slim to none. much of this i credit to the people i’ve met through klaroline and tvd. by s6 ish tvd stopped being a happy experience and turned into the cause of some unwanted feelings so i had to stop watching but i’ll never forget what it did for me as an 18 year old who didn’t want to live.

so thank you melissa who can always put a positive spin on any trolling i attempt and dj who fucking climbs mountains literally. thank you jenn you fucking klaroline jinx i know i’m gonna get receipted later but 40 isn’t that old i guess and you probably one of the coolest people i know idk why you put up with half the shit i pull on u. hannah of whose hate club i am proudly president of, who will never finish Hoppípolla because she hates me, who i guess i love. thank you hillary for being scarily witty and filling my dash with thousands of asks a day and who still replies to me even after that conversation about the length of her father’s and grandfather’s penises. thank you to miranda and alex and the rest of the old lady crew who we can thank for some of the greatest klaroline fics. thank you to gail and lia the terrible twosome who will always be 12 to me even tho they’re now in college. thank you to jackie who seems to know every language in existence and always has those good opinions™️️. thank you to evie for a the pics of her dog she’s sent me.

thank you to caryn, brynne, christina, monika, iphi who have become some of my closest friends on and off ‘the-line’ and one day when we win the lottery and get our shit together we will actually met each other face to face.

thank you to everyone i’ve ever spoken to on this website tvd related or not because you’ve all attributed to my health and wellbeing. even the antis (you’ve given me some good laughs). i’m so grateful to you guys in ways you’ll never know.

in summary as much as i joke that tvd is awful (bc it has been awful for years) i owe it and the klaroline fandom for a lot of the friends i’ve made on this website and probably my life so i’m a little sad it’s (finally!!) ending. i hope the originals fandom is ready for that klaroline onslaught they’ve been promised for years.

[chuckdraug]

“Don’t complain, it’s just a game”

This is a translation - and at some extent rewording - of a post on my Spanish blog that I finally decided to post here as well.

WARNING: Before you start reading the actual post, please follow the links down here since these posts where the ones that made me write mine, and because context is important:

«What We Talk About, When We Don't Talk About Natives», by Dia Lacina (English)

«Resulta que Horizon Zero Dawn también es ofensivo», by Juan Tejerina (Spanish), though Google-translated here

Hope you are ready now.

--- 

Yes, this very post here comes from an opinion article published on the Games Tribune Magazine web (I'll just name GTM as the platform where it was posted in due respect to their ethical code, despite this being their vicedirector's opinion) as a reply to an article regarding cultural appropriation and native Americans on fiction due to the PS4's latest hit, "Horizon Zero Dawn".

I didn't want to talk about this. In fact, for some days... well, no, hours I didn't say a thing on Twitter aside from replying to some people. But everyone has a limit to their patience, and so I hit mines and wanted to come to my egocentric Internet corner and say what I want to say.

I'm not going to talk about cultural appropriation nor about colonialism nor about how "HZD" borrows from native Amercians, celtics, vikings, ainus or whatever. I haven't played the game and I'm an ignorant on those topics, so I better not say a thing about it. I want to talk of what I know, of something I could be blamed for in the past - and maybe at times in the present day -, and that is clear on the GTM post: whenever someone complains, critics or just expresses themselves regarding a social topic on fiction and/or real life we just say they overreact.

There's one big trouble when we just tell people they overreact whenever they have something to say in those matters, or if their opinion just differs from ours. We say they get offended so easily.

So in this particular case, Dia Lacina points out her problems about topics she knows about on a game that's actually getting a pretty good reception and its protagonist, Aloy, is seen as a good example of female protagonist. A huge step, specially when you see a lot of women talking about their experience with Aloy, what they feel with her. Representation matters, as they always say.

But... No work is perfect, and the fact we advance in some social topics doesn't mean everything is done, as there's a lot to do yet. Lacina's post not only talks about the problems she sees on "HZD" when it comes to racial and cultural matters, but on how native Americans are often portrayed on fictional works. This doesn't mean Aloy being an empowered female protagonist is of no avail, it only points out that even if we get things right in some parts, others still need more work, there's a big picture and we have only retouched a speck on it.

What happens then? Tejerina's reply is nothing but a new evidence of what we usually do: we label these critics, complains and even just opinions and points of view as suspicious, as exaggerated, as weird and out of place. The general feeling I get from his words is the classic white cishet male speech of everyone else is overreacting, that they whine with no reason and are complaining and taking the fun away. You know, their usual speech of deeming others as haters, as Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) or as supporters of a politically correct dictatorship.

But am I going to sum his text up as just "you complain about everything"? Sure not, but that point is still there and I'm not going to ignore it. Though truly, it goes beyond that.

It goes beyond when he compares Lacina's post with the reaction of the Spanish media with the "katana murderer" case many years ago, and how they related the murderer to "Final Fantasy VIII" and its main character, Squall Lionheart, to the point of claiming that such murderer got his looks from Squall - he was just a regular Spanish guy, not some Squall impersonator.

To make it clear, Tejerina is comparing Lacina's point of view to that of media wanting first pages and their minutes of fame around a murder. Yes, he's doing that: he's comparing the vultures of the Spanish media to a native American's point of view regarding a videogame.

Yes, we can go this low.

So Lacina posted her criticism on the Internet. She made it public, she wanted to show it. Oh geez! She's expressing herself and you come here and accuse her of looking for her five minutes of fame.

Oh, but it doesn't end here. But first, some context.

Recently in Spain, the Catholic organization "Hazte Oír" sponsored a bus where you could clearly read "Boys have penises, girls have vulvas" in a "deal with it" tone, claiming it was biological evidence even though biologists everywhere called that bullshit. "Hazte Oír" is a bunch of people who repeatedly show how sexist, homophobic, transphobic and many-other-things they are.

Well, what does it have to with these posts? At the end of his, Tejerina pointed out that what Lacina wrote isn't important, and so isn't any social opinion on matters like sexism or transphobia.

He considers this kind of opinions responsible for dividing the gaming community to the point we look at each other as enemies - say what?! really?! That and the fact those opinions don’t focus on “the real enemy” he points out: the right-wing bastards who are ruining our lives, and the religious indoctrination many of us have gone through since we were toddlers.

So in Tejerina's opinion, you talking about sexism or cultural appropriation isn't that important compared to ditching Trump, Rajoy and the Catholic Church. Because you can't talk about both things, you either complain on one or another. So yes, the feeling you get with the final paragraphs of his text is that you wanting to be treated as the human being you are isn’t as valuable as talking about other problems.

It's clear, right? We, the white cishet males - though some would argue about me being white because I'm a Spaniard - have no problems at all, and every time a woman, a PoC or LGBT person gives their point of view, we feel uneasy, to say the least. We, the privileged ones, look down at them and ditch them for making us feel uncomfortable, how dare they do that?!

And when we feel uncomfortable, uneasy, instead of listening to them, on analyzing ourselves and the world we live in, we say that they are whiners and haters complaining on everything. We call them SJWs, we call them feminazis, we call them lots of names. We say they only want some Internet fame. We tell them to shut up.

And if you had a bad experience with a feminist or PoC or whatever, you quickly label all of them as people you cannot reason with, but the very moment we are called for something due to the injustice in the current status quo, we are eager to yell NOT ALL MEN. 

Don't you see it? We say they whine, when we are the ones actually whining. And why? Because for us, it's easier and makes us comfortable.

It's easier if we claim we live in a politically correct dictatorship instead of looking at yourself and seeing what's wrong with you. Why? We are Always Right™, how can we be wrong?! 

 It's easier when you say "it's only a game" without thinking on why someone else feels uneasy. We can separate facts from fiction, but those works of fiction can be analyzed, specially when looking at real life. They have their context.

(I'd like to point out here that Tejerina himself told me that with that paragraph I was actually supporting his views because "if we kept thinking of what might upset someone, if we over-analyzed everything, we wouldn't create anything"... it's true that we won't please everyone, it's impossible, but it is his - and many others’ - way to get the focus on something else so he - and anyone else - won’t feel guilty. If we show our works, people can give their opinions on them, and that includes any social views. And that kind of feedback is actually important, not just for our works, but for us as social people.)

It's easier if we think that these people want to take the fun away from us, even though they claim that you can enjoy something despite its problems - it's OK while you acknowledge those problems. We say that they hate our hobbies instead of listening to them and looking at these problems and thinking why they are... well, problems.

It's easier if we say "I'm not like that, don't you dare blame me for that" because the fact that our society isn’t fair is proof enough of how right they are. We might think we are the "nice guys", but no one is a saint, you know the current situation benefits you and you only, and you don't want to share it. Also, these changes won't be immediate, they need a lot of time, yet we complain at the slightest evidence.

I'm sure you've heard and read this from people who are way smarter than I am. Still, I wanted to say it as well.

Because I'm tired of this shit.

Because minorities and the oppressed express themselves - freedom of speech, remember? -, yet instead of listening to them we try to shut them up, we want to turn their opinions and criticism into babycries. We tell them they criticize everything - "you see sexism everywhere!" is the first claim that comes to my mind.

We, the privileged, don't wanna accept their points of view, because by doing so we will see how wrong we are, how society made us this way, how it has spoiled us in believing we are special snowflakes that should step on those who are different from us, calling them weak and despicable and not fit to live like us.

This is hatred mixed with fear to them. We fear that we are wrong, that we aren't the kings of the hill anymore, that we aren't those nice guys and snowflakes society told us we were. There is no perfect being since we ALL are humans.

We are scared of reality and of being stupid, so instead of listening and reviewing our very acts and behavior... we protect our egos, our pride, and we ditch those who are different, we blame them for our insecurity, we hate them. And in the process, we demonstrate that we are stupid. And full of hate.

It's frightening. It's embarrassing. It's horrible.

It isn't just about fiction. It is about the reality we live in. It is about us hating on those who aren't like us, on stripping them of their humanity, because it is easier if you treat a woman/PoC/LGBT as less than human beings. Who cares how others feel if I can feel OK with myself? Who cares if the only way to be in harmony is by making other people feel miserable and inferior to me?

No one wants to be told that they're doing wrong. But surprise! We will fail a lot of times - and I'm pretty sure this post of mine is full of mistakes. Even if it upsets us, wake up and smell the ashes: perfection does not exist. No one says this is easy.

We, the privileged, instead of whining, should sit down, listen to other people and learn from them. And even shut up, because we think we are the protagonists, but no, at best we are support characters in this fight.

But what if you don't wanna do it? You're free to choose your destiny. Just deal with the consequences of your choice, no option is free of them. I can go and support these people and I know there will be other people out there saying that I've been brainwashed or that I'm a white knight or whatever. I know and I have to deal with that.

And I’m glad of my choice.

Truly, if it weren't for the whole Gamergate shitstorm, I'd be one of those people who would never, ever, get to think of what they are doing and how it affects others. I would be one of those saying that "it's just a game". I'm happy I'm not one of them. At least, most of the time.

[bayonologues]

26 was weird

01 November 2018

I'm a few days shy of turning 27 and I feel like I have to write something. I have this self-imposed expectation that I have processed the past 12 months of being 26, and now, I will have to arrange my takeaways into a tiny package with a red ribbon around it and present them to my public blog.

The truth is - it's been a weird, confusing year. But it's my favorite life year so far. This year dragged on a bit only because I actively participated in life. I have a tiny calendar on my office desk and I cross out the days that pass by. Not a single day came and went without etching its mark in the tiny corners of my consciousness. I felt every single day.

Maybe it's been a weird year because I'm finally owning up to becoming a fully-fledged adult. I know we're a generation that is hell-bent on staying young and nursing our Peter Pan syndrome for as long as we can. But there comes a point when the same old narrative you tell yourself since you were a fresh grad gets old - you know, that idealistic "the world is my oyster, you can't dull my sparkle" story the voices in your head tells you. But like I said, shit gets old. Some of things you hold on to so dearly won't quite hold much weight and bearing as you get older.

One day you think you’re going to be hotshot independent filmmaker, the next day, you’re faced with your average skills and limited resources. Over time, we come to terms with the reality of our lives and gradually let go of pipe dreams that don’t seem to be as pressing and as important as they seem. 

Once you reach a certain age, and watch enough Hallmarky films, you're going to realize it's time to start thinking about a life that doesn't only contain yourself. I've seen A LOT of Hallmarky films and engaged in A LOT of Hallmarky conversations this year and they all uncovered my secret desire to be *drum roll * a great mom. I can't be a great mom (by my standards, someone who has a good career, but is also emotionally available, domesticated and can exchange secrets with her kid like Lorelai and Rory) if I don't embrace adulthood with open arms. Great moms hold responsibilities with real life consequences. AND they process government paperwork without shrugging their shoulders the entire time.

So, that's one. I woke up my maternal instincts.

Another thing? I openly recognized my depressive and anxious personality type and I am actively doing something to keep it at bay. I am not clinically diagnosed, but certain episodes have sent me to a black hole around mid-year (when I thought I could be a lawyer and quit a creative career entirely HA-HA). Do you know what saved me? MEDITATION. That, and exploring other schools of thought, specifically Buddhism, Stoicism and countless Ted talks.

I have never really understood what "peace of mind" meant until I could hold myself down to do an unguided meditation session for 40 minutes straight, and actually love it. 

It's becoming apparent to me that Catholic teachings further fan the flames of my inner demons. Heck, maybe getting indoctrinated by them for 18 years of my life even helped form those demons. So that's also one thing I decided on this year - I'm not ascribing to any organized religions anymore. Of course, I believe in a Divine Being. I mean, there's got to be Someone running the show right? A sunrise just couldn’t exist without a Master of colorful hues, beauty and vitamin D creating it. But I'm not quite sure Who could He/She be. Plus, I agree with Ari. God could really be a woman (?!). 

You see, five years ago, I would never entertain this thought. I’d beat myself for even having doubts. But at 26, I explored the big, scary questions that I can never have answers to. Yep, the unexplored life isn’t worth living.

I guess... the existential crisis never goes away. It transforms into a different kind with each passing year. The same goes with loneliness. (Yep, that was my attempt at a smooth transition)

This year was the year I decided to actively put my heart on my sleeve. I made a few attempts, but like what most stupid boy penises can only bring, I cried myself to sleep listening to soft boi music (I'm looking at you Lauv and LANY). It was fun, and emotionally tormenting and it briefly ruined my life. But did I mention that it was fun? I want to repeat the process all over again - all the good, bad and ugly parts of it.

I'll never get used to loneliness. Love is all that it's hyped to be.

Last part of this rambling blog post goes out to my friends. I will always remember one particular Ted talk that taught me that the good life is built on good relationships. My best relationship are my friendships. Thanks for seeing things through with me even if I sounded like a pathetic loser wallowing on her own puddle of tears on several occasions. You were there at my most vulnerable, and you were there when I emerged as a stronger woman with her perfectly-threaded eyebrows in check. I can't remember how many times I tweeted - I love my friends - this year. 

So that's about it. That ends my 26th year on Earth.

I hope I make better choices (okay, a few stupid ones are still permissible), spend more time outdoors, learn a new language, read more books, and give a fuck to people who matter on my 27th year.

I love my life, to be completely honest. And that's a big declaration.

“I've been floating idly in the remaining days of my 25th year on earth. I can't tell the days of the week apart. They're all the same - spent lying on a nimbus cloud hovering over the gentle nudges of my childhood, the distant silhouette of an elusive future, and the heavy existence of now. 

I may have gotten a serious case of the birthday blues. 

It's been a month since I stopped writing. Work has been quiet, maybe a little too silent that it has rendered me deaf. The absence of noise has led me to wander in the black hole of my mind, and I'm falling - fallen - in the rut of the whys and hows of life once again. 

I crippled myself in the fall, and it is only I that can pull myself to stand up again.” (Written on 30 October 2017)

[davidsilvercloud]

Terry David “Butch/Butch Naked” Silvercloud

"Step aside!  I shall perform the necessary heroics"  Comic Book Guy/The Simpsons

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T. S. Eliot

....... The DAILY GRIND.....  what's up today.

11.4 Million photo views, to date at http://ButchNaked.com.  Thank you.

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Now keep reading.

Sunday, 26 November, 2017.  Cool and grey in Vancouver.  The day began with sun but the clouds moved in by 10am, raining by noon.

Sunday is my day of rest... a day I don't exercise on purpose.  Staying in shape requires work... watching your diet and regular exercise.  I do sit ups, toe touching, and light weights... 8lb dumb bells.  I'm 73 and it is work but, no pain no gain.

I'm still trying to do selfies each day to record my body and try to get a boner shot or two in the mix.  A guy's bone becomes less co-operative after about age 25 so it's easier at certain times of day than others.  I love sex and blowing my load and make no apologies for being sexual.  Humans are animal in nature and should learn to appreciate our animal instincts and feelings... including sex.  Masturbation is good for a boy's prostate so blow your load regularly... make room for fresh sperm.

Some guys are circumcised and some aren't... it's not usually the guy's decision about those things.  If you are Jewish or Muslim, you will be snipped when you are very young and won't remember the snipping.  Since about a third of the world's population is Jewish or Muslim we can assume about one in three guys are snipped and it's mostly Asians who are uncircumcised as well as Roman Catholics living in Africa or South America.

Most boys in America were snipped in the past century until lately.  Since the 1980's fewer western boys have their foreskins removed as a child and we now have large numbers of uncircumcised men in the Western World.  That is not really a problem except that almost none of the uncircumcised boys were ever taught how to care for their uncut dicks... there are some pretty dirty, smelly and ugly penises out there.

The object of circumcision was about health and identity... a sign of one's faith.  Women didn't count in those days... they were for childbearing purposes and looking after the home.  I mention this because you may be one of those uncut guys who was never taught to look after you weenie and keep it clean... also pull back the foreskin when young or you will have permanent problems with it... your foreskin must be able to be retracted.  If it doesn't you should have a chat with your doctor about that issue... it is an issue.

Today's lesson:  I hate religions... all of them.  Nothing is eviler than religion.  Today I want to mention Islam and Alexander the Great.  Alexander is called Dhul-Qarayn in the Qu'ran and he appears in book 18:84.  The problem is that Alexander is described as somebody who seems to have worshiped a single 'god' or was somehow blessed by "God".  Anyone who knows anything about the Ancient Greeks will know that they had multiple 'gods'.  Alexander was noted, however, for tolerance of other people's faiths and did support the Jews to the point he had Alexandria built as a refuge for them.  Why Alexander is mentioned, at all, in the Qu'ran is a kind of mystery and there is no evidence he ever supported one religion over another, nor that he worshipped any 'god' at all.

That Alexander is a bit hazy in the Qu'ran is no surprise... he lived one thousand years BEFORE the invention of Islam.  It is interesting that he is mentioned, at all.

There is no Hell in the Old or New Testaments except as mistranslations.  Jesus never tough punishment.  Jesus taught forgiveness.  Hell was a major feature of the Qu'ran... do what you're told or burn in Hell, forever.  The Christians were quick to adopt the idea after the 12th century when they discovered Islam.  In not time, at all, people were being burned alive by self-appointed representatives of 'god' who called themselves Christians... the Roman Catholic Church.  The Roman Catholic Church is among the evilest institutions on the planet.  I said it, I mean it.  The Bible predicted that nations and kings would be fooled for a thousand years... the time of the church is over.  They shall be held accountable, their properties seized, and the teaching of religion will become a crime in the future.

"Why does God always need money?"  Bart Simpson/The Simpsons

Your HISTORY FACTOID for today.  Magellan never did sail around the world.  He tried to convert some natives to Christianity, in the Philippines, and died with a spear in his gut.  The remaining crews wanted to go back home but were afraid of the headhunters to the West.  One crew took their chances with the Head Hunters, sailed west, and eventually made it back to Portugal.  The 'fraidy cats' took the back up ship and chose to sail East, the way they came from... most died of starvation, cannibalism, and scurvy.  Magellan never did make it around the world.  Yup.  

THIS IS THE END OF THE DAILY GRIND.

.............................

http://DavidSilvercloud.com (Blog)    (http://David_Silvercloud.Tumblr.com)

http://ButchNews.com (Video)     (http://YouTube.com/ButchNews)

http://ButchNaked.com (Photo Stream)    (http://Flickr.com/David_Silvercloud)

http://SeriousThunder.com (Art)

http://ElectronSpeed.Tumblr.com (Physics... The Speed of Light, Grand Unified Theory, Gravity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy... how the physical size of the Electron is the clock that sets the speed of light.  Gravity is motion and a product of the fact that nothing ever sits still, combined with the magnetic properties of Dark Matter/Energy.  Nothing can ever move in an absolute circle and rest is a relativity illusion.  Absolute rest is not possible... ever.  The universe can not end.  Time is change and is an illusion.  It is always now, everywhere, all at once, all of the time. Proof of that is that ANY object MUST be HERE and THERE at the SAME time, no matter how large... even a Galaxy.  It is always NOW on both sides... here and there, in space,  of the Galaxy... all galaxies, everywhere.  Waves can be either physical or electronic.  The duality of the universe keeps it ongoing.  DNA is the battery of life.  When the chains can no longer co-operate, life ceases in the body.  Life, itself, is a duality.  Time measurement is a relativity convenience.)

Earth travels through space like a long wave... it has NEVER, ever made an actual circle, nor ellipse, in space.  The circle/ellipse is an illusion of relativity.  Nothing can ever travel in an actual circle in space... NOTHING.  Nothing can ever go backward.  Backwards motion is an illusion of relativity.

WATCH VIDEO FOR EXPLANATION OF THE PATH OF EARTH THROUGH SPACE.  Earth moves about 7 billion kilometers through space, each year... in a long wave.  Earth NEVER returns to where it was before.  Earth is NOT an island in space... one of the reasons why time travel is impossible.  If you take a trip through space, outside the Solar System, Earth will NOT be there when you return... it will be far, far away.  You will have to return to where it will BE when you arrive... remember, it's moving very, very, very fast through space in a long wave... never a circle, or ellipse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjohZCMwmI

http://The-Shape-Of-God.Tumbler.com   Manuscript of my book... The Shape of God. Butch, himself.  Visual Artist, Photographer, Physicist (Particle, Sub/Atomic Physics/Relativity)

Inhibitions are just so inhibiting, I avoid them.

I'm a friendly, but pretty blunt, kind of guy.  No time for beating around the bush.  I like to say what I mean and mean what I say.  I'm 73 years old.  Time is not on my side.  You don't have to like me.  I'm a social recluse, anyway.  I share my life, in photos, video, and words, to let you into my life and hope to inspire you to be a productive and useful human.  I have old age issues but will continue to post, here, while I'm well and able.  I talk a lot... I'm told it's part of my OCD and ADHD.  Come direct at http://ButchNaked.com  Sign in if you wish to see me naked.

If you don't know me, the following might help you get to know what kind of person I am.  I don't expect you to understand me.  I can be a bit OCD and ADHD.

"They've already got more blowjobs than we'll ever get"  Steve Smith (American Dad), talking about college jocks.

"Now let us touch testicles and mate for life"  Alien on The Simpsons

"It never hurts to have a second set of prints on a gun"  Nelson Muntz, The Simpsons.

I'm here to teach you things.  While I appreciate other people's opinions, I really don't much give a crap what anyone thinks.  Until you prove your worth, I will be nice but you have to earn my respect. The moment you say a word, I'll be figuring you out really, really fast.  You should assume that I don't trust anyone.  I've not met a single trustworthy person in my entire life.  I've met lots of nice people who aren't too bright... well-intentioned folk who know little about anything, people who are nice, most of the time until you say something that offends them.  Honourable people agree to disagree.

Look up the phrase "CRITICAL THINKING" then learn to practice it.  Most people leap before they look and judge before they listen to the facts.  Most don't have enough knowledge, nor experience, to be experts in much of anything.  You don't know what you don't know.  I like to remind you of that, often.

The only other REALLY IMPORTANT thing to know about me is that I, totally, despise all religions, the teaching of religion, and religious institutions... I despise them as the evilest things on the planet.  If you follow a religion, you CAN NOT BE MY FRIEND.   THAT'S THAT.  You are an ignorant idiot who is an ever-present danger to yourself and everyone and everything around you.  Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, is eviler than religion.  I don't stand for, nor sing, our National Anthem because it praises a fictitious and superstitious being called 'God'.  Only a brain dead moron bonehead ignorant idiot would believe such a thing.

If you have a religion, I will not associate with you... period.  You are a danger to be around.  Yes, I insult religions... they are extraordinarily evil.  I said it, I mean it.  You have a right to be an idiot, but not around me.  I have a right to defend myself against the horrors of religion and I will.  Religion is evil.  I can't say it enough times.

http://The-Shape-Of-God.Tumblr.com

I keep a homepage at http://ButchBoard.com

You may come directly to my photostream at http://ButchNaked.com

You must sign in to see me naked.  You may download and share nude photos of me... go nuts. GOOGLE my name (Terry David Silvercloud or David Silvercloud) for more information.

[lind40lundqvist-blog]

What Are The Effects Caused By Hooking?

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