#women who still mean the world to them
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a-froger-epic · 2 years ago
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I hadn't seen the quote posted anywhere, and I thought it was quite a lovely one actually, so...
“For many years now, I have had the joy and privilege of living surrounded by all the wonderful things that Freddie sought out and so loved. But the years have passed, and the time has come for me to take the difficult decision to close this very special chapter in my life. It was important to me to do this in a way that I felt Freddie would have loved, and there was nothing he loved more than an auction. Freddie was an incredible and intelligent collector who showed us that there is beauty and fun and conversation to be found in everything; I hope this will be an opportunity to share all the many facets of Freddie, both public and private, and for the world to understand more about, and celebrate, his unique and beautiful spirit.
You see the spectrum of his taste. It's a very intelligent, sophisticated collection…I miss the fun, the humour, his warmth, his energy.”
Mary Austin
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Honestly? It's true that Mary can't win no matter what she does.
Had she kept it all forever, she would have continued to be accused of being obsessed with Freddie and living in a shrine to him.
Had she given it all away to museums, she would have faced criticism along the lines of: Is that what Freddie would have wanted? He never wanted Garden Lodge to be a museum, would he have wanted all his things in a museum?
Had she just got rid of it, she would have been accused of absolute sacrilege.
She made a decision, and she chose a way to do this that she claims Freddie would have approved of. And you know what? I've thought about it, and I must admit I do think Freddie would have been very amused by the idea of some rich fans bidding on his mustache comb. I genuinely think he would have laughed himself silly.
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rockethorse · 2 months ago
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The basegame wedding dress has a pregnancy morph??
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#I can never be positive if something in my game is like. a third-party launcher addition#but this is so funny and I had such a strong hunch#because rushing to have your Sim get married before they give birth is such a thing so many players would do!!#and it would be so funny to pay attention to that detail by having the wedding dress show the bump!!!!#all your sim's wedding photos very obviously giving away the reason for the rushed date HAHA#the dress with the pendant at the back that everyone default replaces off (the one with the knife texture) also has a preg morph#which I know because it's the one your Sims get forced into if they attend a wedding#but it's kind of unusual because pregnant Sims don't have the opportunity to change into formal wear?#like pregnant Sims get new undies pyjamas and swimwear in addition to their maternity outfit#and if you direct a pregnant Sim to change into one of them then it changes them into the appropriate maternity fit instead of their usual#but you can't direct them to change into formal and if you use a hacked option like the shop any-wear rack it uses their usual non morph fi#so it has to be something external like a wedding that triggers them to change into formal. and I have no idea why#does this mean there's a BG suit with a preg morph for men??#or did maxis not think that pregnant male Sims would be quite so desperate to get married#anyway I'm probably the last person to know about this LMAO and I'm sure no one cares bc everyone uses wear-anything mods#but I'm a scrub who still prefers to use the default maternity meshes so this is yuge to me#also if you've never seen this dress b4: in the early game all Sims getting married under an arch used to be forced into the same outfits#actually I can't remember if the men got forced into the same suit or if they just used their regular formal#because most BG formal outfits for men were mostly wedding-appropriate#but at any rate. all women wore the same wedding dress. and it was this .... beauty#and I don't remember with which EP it changed but probably pretty early on they just let Sims use their regular formal wear for weddings#so you could pick their wedding dress yourself#but this dress remained hidden by default (I think?) so ironically it meant you COULDN'T use the wedding dress even if you wanted to#also this is completely off topic but you would also go away for your honeymoon#which meant the Sims getting married would literally get driven away in a limousine and stay off-world for a while#it was kind of cute because it really was like they took a vacation from the player too. got up to their own mischief away from your contro#then with bon voyage they introduced ACTUAL vacations and they turned honeymoons into an actual game mechanic#but again these offworld honeymoons are no longer a possibility#kind of like teens 'going out' with permission got replaced by going out on actual outings/dates even though it was a cute event#wow this note section is long and irrelevant. anyway enjoy picking up your wedding dress from a store called 'It's Not Too Late'
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akkivee · 7 months ago
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the mood is still like this pic of reol, femme fatale’s writer, in between the chuuoku seiyuu btw lmao
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wraith-caller · 6 months ago
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Never been a fan of people trying to shape the Golden Order into conservative Christianity. Reading fics where they talk about women needing to be "traditional" or seen but not heard, when the figurehead of the Order is a woman who has waged loads of wars, had two husbands, makes a point of examining her faith rather than submissively accepting it. Seeing posts that seem to say the GO is villainizing the use of sorcery, a way of deriding the carians, when one of the greatest champions of the Order himself studied sorcery of his own volition, and married perhaps the greatest sorceress ever known. There's nothing to indicate the GO ever had a beef with the practice of sorcery, and it's not like they shuttered Raya Lucaria after the union of the Moon and Erdtree. Cringing every time someone describes Fundamentalism as the "thoughtless extremist" wing of the Order when it's supposed to be about taking a scholarly approach to the examination of the laws of causality and regression.
Idk. It's just, there's so many reasons to be skeeved out by the GO, and it exists within a fantasy with a totally distinct history from our own world. While there are obviously influences from a wide variety of real-world sources on the mythology and world of the game, it's not a direct copy of reality. It's lame to see sth so full of opportunity for interesting world building from fans just turned into a watered down copy of what they despise in reality.
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wonder-worker · 8 months ago
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"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."
-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty
#historicwomendaily#elizabeth woodville#my post#friendly reminder that there's nothing indicating that Elizabeth was exceptionally pious or that her piety was 'beyond purely conventional'#(something first claimed by Anne Crawford who simultaneously claimed that Elizabeth was 'grasping and totally lacking in scruple' so...)#EW's piety as queen may have stood out compared to former 15th century predecessors and definitely stood out compared to her husband#but her actions in themselves were not especially novel or 'beyond normal' and by themselves don't indicate unusual piety on her part#As Laynesmith's more recent research observes they seem to have been 'broadly conventional'#A conclusion arrived at Derek Neal as well who also points out that in general queens and elite noblewomen simply had wider means#of 'visible material expression of [their] personal devotion' - and also emphasizes how we should look at their wider circumstances#to understand their actions (eg: the death of Elizabeth's son George in 1479 as a motivating factor)#It's nice that we know a bit about Elizabeth's more personal piety - for eg she seems to have developed an attachment to Westminster Abbey#It's possible her (outward) piety increased across her queenship - she undertook most of her religious projects in later years#But again - none of them indicate the *level* of her piety (ie: they don't indicate that she was beyond conventionally pious)#By 1475 it seems that contemporaries identified Cecily Neville as the most personally devout from the Yorkist family#(though Elizabeth and even Cecily's sons were far greater patrons)#I think people also assume this because of her retirement to Westminster post 1485#which doesn't work because 1) we don't actually know when she retired? as Laynesmith says there is no actual evidence for the traditional#date of 12 February 1487#2) she had very secular reasons for retiring (grief over the death of her children? her lack of dower lands or estates which most other#widows had? her options were very limited; choosing to reside in the abbey is not particularly surprising. it's a massive and unneeded jump#to claim that it was motivated solely by piety (especially because it wasn't a complete 'retirement' in the way people assume it was)#I think historians have a habit of using her piety as a GOTCHA!' point against her vilification - which is a flawed and stupid argument#Elizabeth could be the most pious individual in the world and still be the pantomime villain Ricardians/Yorkists claim she was#They're not mutually exclusive; this line of thinking is useless#I think this also stems from the fact that we simply know very little about Elizabeth as an individual (ie: her hobbies/interests)#certainly far less than we do for other prominent women Margaret of Anjou; Elizabeth of York;; Cecily Neville or Margaret Beaufort#and I think rather than emphasizing that gap of knowledge her historians merely try to fill it up with 'she was pious!'#which is ... an incredibly lackluster take. I think it's better to just acknowledge that we don't know much about this historical figure#ie: I do wish that her piety and patronage was emphasized more yes. but it shouldn't flip too far to the other side either.
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dreamyintersexouppy · 2 months ago
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transmascs stop pretending that transfems are untrustworthy sources for transfeminism challenge impos- fuck i didn't even finish and you already complained about our terminology
#i really hate the expectation to know theory in these shit communities#they're barely communities it feels like on here trans people are unified by strict categorization#constantly infinitely expanding definitions but treating them as immutable and emergent from the core of reality#rather that words used to describe things we experience or the positions we are placed in my transphobic society#we're unified by who is mean to us more than wether or not we actually like each other#and so we must always be ready to litigate our position in these spaces#because they must be Definitionally justified rather than just having a real community where we're treated like human beings#i wish we still had our elders... i wish we weren't so adverse to learning humanly#i wish i could escape the weird black and white fandom thinking but it worms it's way into every community here now#this is why i keep lamenting old t4t spaces#we weren't there to argue theory#we weren't opposed to learning it in fact it was useful and joyful to share with each other#to help describe our experiences and understand where we've been placed in the world#but that's not why we were there#we were there for community to be kind to each other#now it's nothing but a bunch of teenage fandom tme people arguing with fake versions of trans women they invented in their heads#while we just hide in the background wondering if the word community means something different now#or if we're really just so evil to our very cores that we were foolish to think we could have community in the first place#sorry just#needed to vent this shit has been in my head for a while#i wasn't in a place to go to gay bars or trans events when i was first here#i couldn't have local community so finding one here with transfems who loved each other#it was so important to me#and learning that i could cater to that small but kind audience in my sex work is what made me finally love doing it#before then i'd been doing it purely cuz i couldn't get any other job#and before that because i was forced to#there's a lot of trauma wrapped up in my work for me but i healed from it largely because of my sisters i found on here#but i don't know when it went away but it did#and now it feels like we're left in a massive crowd of screaming voices#and i don't recognize any of them anymore
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themyscirah · 4 months ago
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Okay so basically the United States MINT of all people is going to be working with DC to make a line of coins! These coins sadly won't be in circulation (the things I would do to live in a world where I could get Batman coins from the supermarket) as they're collectors coins, but will be releasing over the course of the next 3 years, 2025-2027.
Designs haven't been released yet (the same is true for all 2025 designs) but we know there will be 9 coins in total (3 each year) with the first year featuring (of course!!!) Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
Although we know the first three heroes to be featured, the remaining six have yet to be decided, and it turns out the Mint is putting out a survey on their site to gauge which of a group of culturally significant heroes people want to see most! (link to the form is mentioned in the article above)
The considered group includes: Supergirl, the Flash, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, John Stewart GL, Aquaman, Hawkman, Jamie Reyes BB, Robin (Damian?), Cyborg, and Batgirl, of which 6 will be selected.
As someone who does a bit of coin collecting myself (mainly circulation coins like the quarters sets, but I also have a couple proof and collectors coins) I think this is a really cool and interesting idea that showcases the history of the comics medium and these characters and their influence on American culture. Really excited to wait and see what the designs look like for the coins already announced!
#ABSOLUTELY INSANE TO ME#sorry just. only thing that could make this crazier is if these were circulating. i would fucking die actually lmao#i mean you could buy something with one of these legally but like youre an idiot if you do that so likeeee#someone showing up with the solid gold superman collector coin and its only legally worth a dollar lmao#not that someone would do this but future generations/archeologists finding a coin in some ruins and it just has like. batman on it#amazing to me#also just the transition from us currency having all fake people (lady liberty some random native american guy etc.) and then going to real#people and presidents then expanding that to honor people that they believe should be honored (think the harriet tubman coin set right now)#and representing beauty and innovation and culture through representation of the states#only through that lens to swing back around and have fake people on the coins again in the form of the freaking dc trinity. insane to me#no one ever gets me when im nerding out over coins its okay. at least its not postage stamps (i actually do have some special postage stamps#its like 1 sheet though it was for the 2017 eclipse and the image changes from totality to the moon with the heat of your finger theyre so#cool okay) anyways i like dont really know that much abt coins lol i originally saw a post abt this on reddit 💀 lol and had to check this#was real which is insane. anyways my dad got my all my coin stuff ive got a proof set from the year i was born albums to hold the 50 states#and national parks (america the beautiful but its 90% natl park designs lets be honest here) quarter collections as i find them irl#(dont have an album for us women yet sadly but do have some of the coins) as well as a few dimes and other circulation albums i havent used#much. and then i have a few collectibles like the hubble telescope $1 coin the 50th anniversary apollo 11 one and the 2021 anniversary peace#dollar. though like not the gold ones or anything like that lol but yeah. i talk abt coins every once and a while with friends and i know#things but then my dad is in the car and its like nevermind lol.#also put a ? after damian's name bc theres a chance it could be dick and they just used the wrong picture. because some of the character#bios had names but his didnt and seemed very dick grayson (acrobatics mention “batman's partner” etc) but not so specfic exclude either one#and the pick was damian. but then the ollie pick was goateeless for some reason so who knows#culturally dick is more important but dami is current so idk#dc comics#blah#ive really been learning so much today. first all in announcement and subsequent leaks and now this. what a ride#also love how im anticipating and know future comics things lol. when did that happen haha. ive really transitioned from only reading back#issues and never knowing current events to following a lot of releases lol and somehow finding out about the freaking coin collection...#crazy how that happens#cant scroll up at that first image without losing it a bit still actually. what a world we live in. anyways take your bets who is gonna be
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aroaessidhe · 1 year ago
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2023 reads
The Last
slow building apocalyptic thriller
an american academic is at a conference in a remote Swiss hotel when a nuclear apocalypse strands him with just 20 others
50 days in, a body is found in a watertank and he becomes obsessed with investigating to find out who did it
even though the remaining people are just trying to quietly survive as supplies slowly dwindle and the winter approaches
#the last#hanna jameson#aroaessidhe 2023 reads#so I read this because there’s an aromantic side character!#she’s an interesting/complex character who has a friends w benefits thing with the MC#a few stereotypes but like she actively counters them#the only weird thing about it is that it’s implied she’s a republican who voted for the ppl who started the nuclear war…..#like. would a right wing person identify as aro lmao#but also like i’m okay with not all ‘representation’ being good people.#as for the rest of the actual book i found it quite interesting overall!#i enjoyed that it wasn’t just 'fighting dangerous people to survive' immediately like a lot of the postapoc genre#(though i wonder how much food they had to be fine for 2 months??)#though there is a bit of that in places when they leave the hotel#a lot of interesting characters and like.....discussion on what different kinds of people would do in that situation#the australian accent (audiobook) of the australian character…..not sure about that LMAO#also I don’t believe the internet would still function after half the world has blown up? like this thing needs upkeep right#there’s a bit where the MC is talking to two dudes who start talking like: so are we gonna repopulate society?#and being creepy about the women. and the MC is obviously like: yikes!#but also nobody even suggests like……we could just die? without repopulating humanity whatever the fuck that means?#why is that concept not even brought up?????? i am horrified that anyone would consider having children in that scenario. christ.#anyway i guess yeah overall a few things im like hm about but it's a pretty good book#aromantic books#(also the MC has a wife on the other side of the world but like. there's not any actual romance. his thing with the aro woman is offpage)
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feral-radfem · 2 years ago
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Hey if you're a non-radfem and you want to make a complaint that radical feminist critique keeps getting applied to you because you hang around radical feminist spaces here is my advice: leave.
Honestly, I'm so tired of seeing this shit. Go find some other places to hang out. I don't care that you came here because everyone else kicked you out for being a "transphobe". That does not make it our responsibility to soften our movement and our criticisms so that you feel comfortable in a movement you have no intention of of committing to. You are welcome here on the basis of being a woman, however, if you can't handle the feminist action that goes on in these spaces, then you need to leave. That is a you problem, not ours. I'm tired of hearing y'all whine that we don't coddle you enough and then adding anecdotal evidence of feminist harm or strawmen arguments for why you're justified in doing patriarchal actions were other women are not. There is not a single identifier or life experience you can tell me that is going to make me think that you deserve to be exempt from the same criticisms I would level at any other woman. If you're an adult, you should be mature enough to hear them. If you are not mature enough to hear feminist critique, you need to leave feminist spaces.
if you want to be self-serving, it is completely your right to do so. I've heard a number of you in passing claim that you "don't want to be feminist, you want to be people". Which, while that's an insulting sentiment as a feminist, just demonstrates that the only person y'all care about is yourself. You see being a person as inherently being self-serving and self-centered. First and foremost, it's all about you. That level of selfishness is pathetic and frowned upon in collective spaces. Feminism being one of them.
Just save us all the headache and go away. Y'all are one of the only groups of people on the internet who are able to piss me off in seconds, istg.
#lily responds#literally any of you who do not have a vested interest in the liberation of women refuse to do feminist action and#then still feel entitled to control how these space is function#f*** off. we have enough trouble holding spaces where we can have these discussions because we are feminist in the first place#we don't need a bunch of non-feminist women coming in and telling us that we are hurting their feelings and they#want us to do something about it. we're not doing s*** about it.#if you can't handle the fact that the things you're doing harm other women then stop f****** doing them#don't get mad at us because we're pointing out the damage you're doing and the damage in the messages you're helping perpetuate#you can log off and go experience all the spaces in the world that aren't made specifically for radical feminism#y'all hear that we're here to serve women in the effort to liberate all women and think that means we're here to serve you personally#I may be responding directly to a person regarding this soon but I'm so irritated I can't edit my post at the moment#I will make it clear here that I don't think every woman of the groups I just listed is doing this at all#I think it's a minority however I'm tired of these minority group of women using these identifiers to justify being a shit feminist#or justify why they don't have to be a feminist but should still have all the entitlement to the feminist spaces we create to talk about#our movement. these are feminist spaces first women's spaces secondary#I don't even know how to tag this because the specific people I want to reach is you fucking entitled ass orbiters#you who take advantage of the fact that we are welcoming to any woman to be divisive in our movement when you don't wish to be an activist#in the first place. or you want to claim the title alone and do good action but get us to stop criticizing ur anti-feminist actions#there's clearly enough of you that y'all can create your own gender critical non-feminist spaces. just leave us the f***#alone.#also when you use being gay as a justification for why you shouldn't have to be a feminist you make all us lesbian feminist look bad#there are plenty of feminists who recognized that we are women and therefore benefit from women's liberation#y'all are so f****** annoying#some of my tags may not make sense because I just listed just about every group of women there is realized I listed every group of women#and then erased it because I realized that was a lot of words for no reason so those are the identifiers I'm talking about in my tags
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ladynoirist · 1 year ago
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"FAMILY STRUCTURES WHERE EVERYONE TOOK CARE OF EACH OTHER" tell me you've never met an asian woman without telling me you've never met an asian woman
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musical-chick-13 · 2 years ago
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My God, I’m so tired of the pervasive idea that “Female characters overall just aReN’T aS weLL wRiTTeN” because there are a TON of properties that have EXCELLENTLY-complex, multidimensional female characters; people either just refuse to engage with them when people tell them those properties exist or they instantly write off all the women as “bitchy” and “annoying” without giving a single second of deeper thought.
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gender-euphowrya · 2 years ago
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i know our fatphobic cultures have deepfried and glassblown people's brains but it always boggles my mind when a fat person is fatphobic ??? what are you doing
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freebooter4ever · 2 years ago
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This is 1000% random but came to mind regarding the duck movie. I sometimies watch movies without sound if I think they might ~suck~ like that... so just a tip if you want to see it but not sort of experience it :D hahahha
heh, well. ive already seen it fully so the damage has been done. i bought it even, thinking i would want to rewatch it, but i really REALLY dont think i will. ever. i have watched a LOT of bad movies for my stupid infatuations over the years so honestly im used to it.
#Im not gonna pretend like it doesnt hurt a little seeing the kind of movie joe is ok with attaching his name to#I was vaguely aware he was conservative but i will admit i didnt really have it shoved in my face until this#It reminds me of one of my closest friends here who just...we meshed in a that natural immediate connection way#And one day we were sitting in the getty villa just chatting and i was talking about the amazing documentary the Janes on h * b *o#And he just casually threw out there that he was pro life and anti abortion and he kind of wished he could force a woman#To carry his child against her wishes#He insinuated that when he was younger he got someone pregnant on accident and she refused to have the baby and got an abortion#And he felt it was a violation of his rights not to be able to force her to have a baby#And let me tell you i was like a slap in the face#Like that is...it is so discounting a womans right to her own body#It was chilling to hear a guy who i vibed with so well talk about a woman as if she's just a body and nothing else#I personally have been lucky or ugly enough that its never been an issue i have no idea how i feel about it#I mean my grandma WAS catholic and that seeps down no matter how lapsed i am#So i dont think i would have an abortion? But like i said i really genuinely like kids and in an ideal world would want that#But god im in my thirties now and still not financially stable enough to support a child i have no idea what i would have done#Had i gotten pregnant on accident#I spent most of my twenties recovering from an abusive relationship and not letting men touch me so it was never a question#Im just saying its a womans body its her life pregnancy is simple for some but for others its a life altering experience#It should be her right to choose :( and i wish men respected women enough considered them human enough to recognize that#If the shoe were on the other foot what man would let a woman decide that he must be pregant for 9 months#ALSO for fucks sake women shouldnt have to be practically celibate like i was just to prevent any accident from happening#Also also it is so fucked up that the same people who are pro life are also the bob types - skeptical of adoption#Like this is how you get unwanted kids in the world and take it from me that kids childhood is really really weird#Like knowing from a young age that you are what ruined your mothers life????? Fucking weird man i dont think i will ever process it#Especially being a woman now and recognizing that yeah i kinda did ruin my mothers life but it was neither of our fault#It was the pressure of society and people Trying To Do What They Are Supposed To#Meanwhile my dad was the I Could Never Love Other Peoples Kids and I Hate All Children That Arent My Own type#So yeah i guess i have a lot of negative feelings about this movie after all#Anyway it might have completely killed the joe infatuation LOL probably for the best#Dont even get me started on the blink or you miss it homophobia with bonus weird almost racism in the therapy scenes
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fractalfablefrostfantasm · 1 year ago
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This but they are called to help do advertising for their job, and they see the corporate sponsored idol doing such a bad job that they are worried about the corpo idol losing their job so they sneak in to the training area to give them tips from their idol days, and absolutely can still rock their skills on set and on stage but just prefer the anonymity and peace of an office job they think does good work.
Idea: Idol girl disappears and transitions to become the most boring 40 year old man who works a 9-5 and people wonder why there's photos of that idol girl in his house and he's like "that's me when I was 19"
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scientia-rex · 8 months ago
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For the most part, my approach to prescribing hormones is “sure,” but I will note that the one thing I lean HARD on patients about is smoking. If you’re transgender, and you’re on hormones, the number one thing we want to protect is your cardiovascular health. That’s frankly the number one thing I want to protect in all my patients, but anyone taking exogenous hormones is at higher baseline risk. And the best thing you can do for your heart is DON’T SMOKE. It’s a bitch to quit, and I didn’t even smoke much or long before I quit in my late teens, and I STILL didn’t enjoy quitting and had smoking dreams for years. It’s harder to quit than just about anything else up to and including crack and heroin, and that’s coming from a patient of mine who recently passed in her early 60s who’d done all of those things—for years and years—but eventually was able to quit everything except smoking. And that killed her. She developed severe COPD and eventually called to say her blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the 70s, which is incompatible with life. She was lucid enough to decline medical care, including refusing to call 911 or go to the ER. A week later, after both I and one of our outreach nurses had contacted her to ask her to please go to the ER, I got a notification that she’d been found dead. She had been so frustrated that she wasn’t a candidate for a lung transplant.
One of my oldest trans patients is in her late 50s. She’s had blood clots that went to the lungs. Repeatedly. Smoking raises that risk. Estrogen raises that risk. She’s a veteran with PTSD; of course she smoked.
These aren’t theoretical. These are humans I’ve cared for over years of their lives. I have been rooting for them—my beloved former addict, who spoke without shame about her years of homelessness and drug use in the city; my queer elders, who are slowly trading in their motorcycles for power scooters. I want everyone to live their fullest, best life.
Smoking doesn’t fit into that. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die like that—not now and not later. I want you to have the future that you may not be able to see yet, but exists.
Since I moved home as an out queer, word got out, and there’s a whole apartment complex of lesbians in their 60s to their 80s who come see me—sitting next to their wives in the office, nagging about blood pressure meds, tattling about not having gotten the shingles shot they said they would. To be clear, when I was growing up in town, I knew no lesbians. Not one. I knew one gay kid in my class, which eventually turned into two. We were it. To see these women living decades with their wives and being able to squabble like any couple in my office over who was supposed to bring their home blood pressure cuff in for us to check it… it means the world to me.
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humanityinahandbag · 17 days ago
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I'd like to tell you all a story about my grandmother.
My grandparents raised their children, four girls (one of them my mother), to be fighters. My aunts marched in Washington for women's rights with babies strapped to their chests and like to joke that all of the grandchildren who came from that line (including myself) were born with picket signs in their hands.
But it started with my grandparents. They fought hard for what they believed in. They marched against Vietnam. They marched for Martin Luther King. They marched for women's rights. They marched for a better future.
But let's talk specifically about my grandmother for a moment.
My grandmother unfortunately passed away in 2016. She had to watch the first Trump election and did so knowing that it would probably be the last election she'd ever see. And there is some argument there that she could have given in to fear and defeatism. She could have decided none of it was worth it, and she could have decided that fascism had won and the world was over.
But she did something else instead.
To give some context, my grandparents had friends who were Republicans. I say were, because they shifted from the normal Republican towards the MAGA Republican we see today. And despite a very clear message from my family about how we felt, they were more than ready to still come to the funeral as if everything was normal. Like their beliefs were normal. Like they were welcome to celebrate someone who had fought so hard for the rights of other people.
These were people who would have absolutely used their rhetoric to scream and shout if they were left out or disinvited.
And so my grandmother, even past her final moments, pulled the most brilliant, petty move I've ever seen.
She'd decided ahead of time that everyone who had known her was more than welcome to attend but that she wanted everyone attending the funeral to donate money. That was the requirement to be invited. And so everyone did just that. There was no talk about what the donations were for, just that they were appreciated. I want to say that the assumption was the money would help pay for funeral expenses and give the family some support while we grieved.
Except that wasn't the case.
Because in those final moments of the funeral, the rabbi stepped forward to thank everyone, and then very cheerfully announced;
"Arlene was so happy to know just how many people were coming to join us here today. She couldn't have been more proud of her family. And I'm sure she would have been elated to see just how much money you all gave today to Planned Parenthood."
When I say that the faces of those people are enshrined in my memory, I mean it. The anger, the devastation, the rage, the betrayal. It was an absolutely gorgeous display of true defeat at the hands of a boss ass old lady who literally fought with her last breath and threw up both middle fingers all the way out the door.
What I'm saying is this.
It is very easy to feel defeated. It is very easy to think that everything is over, and there's nothing left for us to do. It's very easy to say that fascism won, that fear won, that hate won.
But that's only true if you let it be true.
There is always more that we can do. There is a future that is still worth fighting for. And it's more than possible, even when it doesn't seem like it.
And fighting is going to look different every time.
Some days it will look like picket signs in our hands.
Some days it will look like spending time with friends and family and people you love and knowing that you have a community that supports you and your vision of a brighter future.
And some days, it's pulling absolute natural level 20 petty trickster shit even after you've left the world.
Because you can always make an impact and you can always add a little brightness to life, and if that means tricking a group of MAGA idiots into throwing their money behind Planned Parenthood in the middle of your own goddamn funeral then that's what it means.
Keep fighting. People have done it before you. People will continue to do it after you.
And enjoy the little victories.
(Even the petty ones)
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