the amount of background brain processing power dedicated to The Plague at all times is just. appalling. am i a little warm or do i have a fever? do i just need to drink some water or is my throat getting dry? was that just bland or is my taste a little off? how many people are wearing masks in here? his is under his nose. hers under her chin. how many will be wearing masks at that place i’d like to go to next week? should i even go? this mask needs washed. my glasses are fogging up. did they just cough? don’t stand so close. are there too many people in here? someone i know is waiting on results. i want to see my friend but is it a good idea? someone else is isolating. i forgot to sanitise my hands on the way in. how many people will be there? i can’t be off work. how many people died today anyway? i’m outside but it’s crowded. they’re standing real close to me. it’s kind of hot in here. or am i getting a fever?
I wear clothing from the men’s section of the clothing store. My leg hairs are longer than most of the hair in my head. I never wear any makeup, no matter if I’m going out to buy bread in the morning or if I’m going to a party. People often call me “sir”. Others hurl slurs at me, sometimes calling me a “dyke”, sometimes calling me a “faggot”, both showing their disapproval of my physical presentation. I see little kids asking their mothers, in whispers, if I am a boy or a girl. And people ask me all the time, why do I want to look like a man?
The answer is simple. I don’t.
And I do not look like a man.
I look like a woman who refuses to perform femininity.
My unshaven legs do not make me like a man, they’re MY legs, and MY hair, and I am a woman. My “boy’s” clothes are worn on my body, the body of a woman. My naked, unpainted face is the face of a woman. I am a woman, and this is not defined by a haircut or a choice of attire, or by lipstick or high heels, or boxer briefs and men’s deodorant worn over fuzzy unshaven armpits. There’s nothing manly about me.
I am a woman, not by choice, but by fact. Because “woman” is a reality imposed to me, from the day I was born and given a woman’s name, to the day I was six and I was told I couldn’t take off my shirt in a blazing hot summer day because one day I would have breasts, to last night when I walked home in a state of hyper-awareness, my house keys tightly clutched between my fingers, tracking the movements of every man in the dark streets.
I am a woman because, since before my own birth, when an ultrasonography picture informed my parents that I would be born with a vulva, I have been groomed to be a member of the woman class, the breeding stock class, the sex class, the lower class. I was taught to be accomodating and speak softly, to not bring attention to myself and to spare men’s feelings. I was taught that the boy who pulled my hair and threw his toy train at me, aiming for my head, probably did it because he liked me, and boys will be boys anyway. I learned that, if I did the same to him, I was a troublemaker. That my assertiveness is unladylike. That one day I would bear some man’s children, and this was pretty much destiny. That my worth was in my looks, more than in my brain. I am a woman because I was taught all these things, and I am a woman because people expect me to know these lessons by heart, and follow every one of them.
When people ask me why do I want to look like a man, what they’re actually asking is why am I not marking myself as a woman. They’re asking why do I fail to perform the role of femininity, to make myself pleasing and unthreatening to the eyes of the upper class, the man class. My mother once voiced her concerns to me, that my looks would make me a target for male violence, and she is right to be concerned. I am perceived as a member of the lower class who refuses to bear the marks and play the role imposed to me. I refuse to shave my legs to look like a pre-pubescent girl, innocent and vulnerable, or to wear shoes that force me to walk on the tips of my toes, slow and precariously balanced, and this makes men angry, because this is a counscious act of rebellion. This is me saying I am not theirs. I will not please them. I do not desire their approval or their attention. And men often get violent when we refuse to cater to them.
My choices of visual presentation make me a cautionary tale. I am the hairy, ugly, lesbian feminist, the one they warn other women about. “Don’t be like her”, they say, “or no man will ever want you”. But I don’t want them either, and I do not want to look like them, or be like them, or have anything to do with them. I want to be free from men and their bullshit standards. I want to strut around proudly, shamelessly unladylike, looking like a woman looks when she’s not covered in face paint and restrictive clothing, when she doesn’t care about pleasing men.
I do not look like a man, and nothing will ever make me look like one. I am pure, unadulterated woman. I choose myself over them, I choose women over them. If that makes them hate me, so be it. Because I am a woman, they would hate me no matter what I did.
This is so purely golden and real scaldering hot tea
This is a port of the thread @brightmyth-fr posted earlier today in the FR discussion forums, which was then deleted a short while ago. I am reuploading it here to my blog on behalf of the AAA discord server for visibility; though I agree with the contents of this post, I did not write it. Please keep this in mind when commenting/sending messages.
Tl;DR:
- Several skin denials in the recent past seem to reflect unclear or unwritten rules for custom skins. The listedskin rules have also not been updated significantly in a number of years, despite significant changes being made to the appliedskin rules over time.
- We, as in a number of skin artists, are requesting that admins clarify the existing skin rules on site. We are not asking for them to be changed; we are asking for them to be reworded in such a way that reflects what skins are and aren’t denied according to sources like recent denial messages, the Skins & Accents problems thread, etc.
- This concerns the admins, not the skin moderators, who we recognize also struggle with the unclear rules and with keeping up with long skin review queues.
- If you are a skin maker, consider releasing the next set of skins you had planned and then avoiding releases for the rest of April to help bring awareness to this issue. A number of artists in the AAA discord server have agreed to do this. However, participation is entirely up to you - this is not a demand for all skin makers to stop submitting personal skins, public skins, festival entries, etc.
This is not a suggestion thread, hence why it’s not posted in suggestions. This is an information and awareness post.
Skin submission is a very lengthy process for a majority of skin artists. The biggest frustration we are dealing with currently is lack of clarification on rules. The current skin guide is nearly a decade out of date.
We do not ask for the rules to be changed. We would like staff to update the on-site skin guide. Rules have clearly changed since it was written and there are VERY minor things that will get a skin 100% denied.
Failing that, this can serve as a warning for aspiring skin artists to not fall into these common denial traps.
“I absolutely loved the movie ‘Brave’, but I was upset there was no prince in the end. I understand it was the fact she wanted to be her own person and select her own fate, but it felt like a stab to Walt to break tradition with the Princess stories. I just feel like every Princess needs a Prince in the end. Case closed”
You… You just missed the point… It flew over your head and it will never return.
The story of Brave is not a romance or about Merida’s independence: it’s a mother-daughter bonding story. The point of the film is to see the mending of Elinor and Merida’s relationship as they look for solutions to their problems. Each has to go out of their comfort zone in order to solve whatever particular problem is present; Merida using diplomacy and Elinor having to use force.
And Brave is not some stab at Walt. Brave is a piece that is precious to its creator, Brenda Chapman. She wanted to tell a story that reflected her feelings on motherhood and one that mirrored her relationship with her own daughter. No, the movie is not some arbitrary stab at Walt Disney (Shrek did that enough on its own), who by way, was a champion for story and character, not romance. Secondly, this is a Pixar production, not just a Disney one. Pixar’s story telling is way more progressive than Disney’s. They use different kinds of characters to tell stories that aren’t usually told, and only one, Wall-E, uses romance as one of the main plot points.
.And this last line?
I just feel like every Princess needs a Prince in the end. Case closed
There is so much wrong with this mentality. This displays an archaic, rigid view of gender roles as well as a disregard for the author’s intent. Saying that a princess needs a prince is extremely problematic: by saying that a princess needs a prince, you’re removing any desires or needs of the character and reducing her role to one of an object. By needing a prince, her only purpose is reduced to being his compliment rather than an individual moral agent. And theis statement harkens back to the days when princesses weren’t individuals; they were used as bargaining chips; given in marriage for political and financial advancement.
And the case is not closed OP: the case is that you missed the point of Brave and your viewpoint is sexist as well as outdated.
This couldn’t have been more perfectly worded honestly just
BOOM
I loved Brave because it did not focus on a love interest between princess and prince. It told a different, wonderful story that was equally (if not more) touching than the redundant princess in distress/male savior storyline. There is so much more you can tell in a story, and Brave is (one of the?) first Disney to actually prove it.
I don’t know about y’all but heteronormative movies featuring a prince and a princess getting together for happily ever after are just not ubiquitous enough in this world! You never, ever see it! Every movie out there is ALWAYS pushing for this weird agenda for people to stay single or have non-romantic relationships with each other! Marriage and guy/girl relationships never get a chance to be represented! NEVER!
[/sarcasm]
I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief every time I see someone say that one of the very few movies that DOESN’T focus on a guy getting a girl or a girl getting a guy really ought to have thought better of it. Do you REALLY think every story needs to reinforce this kind of relationship as normal, to the exclusion of all other important relationships? There are other stories out there y’all!
Because it’s the Glorious 25th, I am of course thinking of Sam Vimes today.
And the thing about Vimes as a hero is that he’s so extreme in personality, but also so deeply relatable.
Carrot, for example, (and of course it’s not an accident that Carrot is there as comparison) is your typical fantasy hero. And he’s not relatable at all. He’s Good in a way that most people will never be, can never be. There’s something God-touched about his goodness. And his goodness isn’t…super effective. I mean, it is a little. But no, who is it that really creates and continues the sweeping change of Discworld, over and over again? It’s Sam Vimes.
Sam Vimes, who spent most of his life drunk and in a gutter. Who burnt out from his unfair job, unjust world, and unappreciated caring and gave up. For YEARS AND YEARS he gave up.
Until he finally met a situation that was so intense it forced him to care again.
And lord, that is so COMFORTING. That you can fuck up your whole life for a couple decades and then still answer the call when it comes. Save the day and push for changes. Be the sand in the gears of industry, fight impossible odds and win over and over, while complaining about having to do it the whole time.
Vimes as we mostly know him is a character our world desperately needed. Someone who keeps pushing and pushing against overwhelming injustice, even when it seems like the powers that be are stacked so high against you.
But also how much more powerful to say “this character was once a total waste of space.” He was ground down by daily life and constant injustice. But he didn’t stay that way forever.
So are we not going to talk about the fact that Spock can telepathically hear Jim Kirk’s thoughts from Earth so loud that the Vulcan elders be picking him up on their frequency?
So Kirk and Spock have a mind bond in the canonical novel that Gene Roddenberry wrote. Just sayin’.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, after making peace with “whatever is out there that has driven you back to Vulcan”
(like I haven’t even got the faintest idea I mean we’ve gotten ZERO HINTS, absolutely NO HINTS from the creator of the characters COUGH)
later:
I’m gonna flip a table. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
—
Star Trek: The Motion Picture novel by Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount)
Star Trek Spock Reflections by Scott and David Tipton, art by Elena Casagrande, Federica Manfredi and Arianna Florean.
someone: luke skywalker beat darth vader and ended the empire
everyone else in the galaxy:
everyone on tatooine:
Imagine being the local jock from Toshe Station and turning on the news to learn that the guy you called “Wormie” in desert high school just killed the two most powerful people in the galaxy.
Tags via jaquez45:
#I think a lot about this #like the guy was a weird excitable nerd
#but you had to tolerate him because #INEXPLICABLY #he was STUPID good as a pilot #like the t-16 orbital drop whomp rat champion since he was 13 #so you couldn’t just IGNORE him and his fucking nerdery #and his being super awkward CONSTANTLY
#and one day his farm is burned and his family is dead #you assume he’s dead too and you feel kind of bad for mocking him now
#but then #space radio is like LUKE SKYWALKER BLEW UP A SPACE STATION #LUKE SKYWALKER KILLED THE EMPEROR
#and you just #kind hope he never decides to get revenge for the wormie thing
oh also turns out he came back to town and killed the mob boss who controlled everything and then left again without buzzing any of his former acquaintance so probably you’re Beneath his Notice; mixed feelings about that
yes, you’re correct, this takes place at tatooine high school
Weird to think both Greedo and Darth Vader went to Tatooine High School.
Vader did notgo to Tatooine High School he went to Magic Lasersword Catholic School when he was nine and then trashed the place
i’m sorry but tattoine high school is SUCH a phenomenally good idea for a star wars comedy. i’m not sure if it’s more saved by the bell, buffy the vampire slayer, friday night lights, or riverdale, but there is something here.
It’s taken me a few days but I’ve worked out why the situation surrounding Supernatural - a show/fandom I have had almost no involvement with up until now - and TPTB’s treatment towards Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins has got me as irked as it has.
It reminds me far too much of how TPTB on Stargate: Atlantis treated Joe Flanigan.
(If there are any gaps in information or any lapses in understanding on this, my Gater dudes, I am happy to be corrected, amended or added to.)
For the uninitiated, Stargate: Atlantis was a sister show to Stargate: SG-1 that ran on the Sci-Fi Channel from 2004 - 2009. Joe Flanigan was the lead male actor on the programme, playing Major/Lt. Col. John Sheppard for all 5 seasons.
The first few seasons of the show ran smoothly. Flanigan played his lead part as the highly skilled, if emotionally distant, Air Force pilot and soldier well and everyone was getting along nicely. However, when season 3 ended and season 4 began, friction began to arise with a choice TPTB had made with regards to the death of another of the popular leads on the show - killing off Doctor Elizabeth Weir played by Torri Higginson. From what I understand, Flanigan had fought for Weir/Higginson to stay on the show: he knew and understood that she was popular and by getting rid of her, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot. They ignored him and wrote her out, bringing her back for a couple of cameos as recompense, I suspect, for outraged fans who did not understand their decision to get rid of her in the first place.
From then on (from what I can gather from interviews I’ve seen) Flanigan became more aware of decisions being made with regard to plots and character development and more vocal when he felt like they were going the wrong way with it. As such, the writers and show-runners became less and less receptive to his feedback, apparently cutting him out of decisions and purposefully leaving him out of conversations about upcoming story arcs. As a response to this, in the 4th and 5th seasons of the show, Flanigan’s character appeared to be shunned to one side, almost in retribution for having an opinion that did not align with that of the show-runners.
The supposed lead of the whole programme seemed to be demoted to a secondary role. In fact, the only episodes where Flanigan/Sheppard got to be in the fore were episodes he had written.
This ongoing friction came to a head during season 5. During the filming of the episode Whispers - an episode featuring an all-female exploration team that come across alien hybrids that hunt people down by hearing alone- Flanigan came to TPTB, angry. As a character, Sheppard had always been portrayed as being incredibly supportive and loyal to his female co-workers and was savvy to what was going on under his command. Flanigan voiced concerns that the casual sexism and ignorance Sheppard was displaying in this episode was out of character and it didn’t sit well with him. He was effectively told to shut up and deal with it, it didn’t matter.
The show was over at the end of season 5. If I remember rightly, none of the actors knew this until they were about to head to a convention after the season had finished airing and were told that, for all the plans for a 6th season, it wasn’t going to happen.
Flanigan fought to buy the rights to the show. While the writers and runners had dropped Atlantis in favour of another spin off to the franchise (that ultimately ended up getting cancelled after 2.5 seasons anyway), Flanigan believed in it and wanted to save it. He was denied rights to it for no other discernable reason other than childish spite: he had disagreed with them and been vocal in his disapproval, so he didn’t get to have it.
This was back in 2009-2010. How is it that TEN YEARS LATER, studios and writers and show-runners are still acting as though the opinion of actors whose job is to inhabit the characters they play for years have no worth? That their thoughts and sense of the person they have been for 5, 10, 15 years has no weight? Why are they still being treated like absolute shit for speaking up and speaking out about a show and a character they love and cherish and cast aside for daring to do so? Why are they still being treated as disposable?
So Supernatural fans, I empathise with you. I get it. I hear you and I see you. I understand your anger at the disrespect towards Misha and Jensen. Apparently, the arrogance of writers in the sci-fi/action/fantasy genre is still alive and well and it needs to stop.
Tomorrow is Nightmare Time day! I’m about to get negative but I’m gonna try to do it in a reasonable, genuine way, and then I’ll stop talking about it I promise!
If you follow me you know I don’t like Perky’s Buds very much. I think it’s the weakest Hatchetfield story overall. I don’t care who does like it, to each their own and good for you, enjoying things is great! There’s stuff in there I like, too. I’m not gonna say you’re wrong for liking it, not at all.
But seriously, once it goes live tomorrow, if I see more people making all critique of it out to be a feminist or shipping issue I will lose my fucking mind and that’s a promise. Thankfully this is a pretty small fanbase so I haven’t seen a ton of this, but I’ve seen enough to irritate me, and it’s enough to write this post to try and genuinely discuss it so. I hope y'all will hear me out.
The reflex to be defensive of a woman-led story that doesn’t feature her love interest is a fair one. It’s easy to see paulkins fans taking issue with Emma’s character in PB, or having been bummed that Paul didn’t make an appearance, and take it in bad faith. Baseline critiques don’t always expand on that kind of thing, it’s easy to see it as bitter shippers who wish Paul was around and don’t think Emma can hold her own in a story without him. I’m not gonna say there aren’t people like that, maybe there are. And yeah, that’s dumb. If your only problem with PB is that Paul wasn’t there, and thus there was no paulkins, that’s an issue. Think on that.
However, as someone interested in genuine analysis and critique, who took the time to think about why I didn’t enjoy Perky’s Buds and discuss it with multiple people, I want to make a genuine argument and explain what I and others really take issue with when it comes to Emma’s character in this story. It’s not about Paul. Emma is fully capable of carrying a story on her own, and Paul’s presence wouldn’t have made this story or Emma’s portrayal in it any better. I’ve talked to people who like Emma and don’t like paulkins who agree that PB is a bad story, and a bad Emma story particularly. It’s really not a shipping thing.
I’m not gonna talk much about the actual story writing here, because although I didn’t really like the story as a whole either, I find those things more preference based. I’m generally not a fan of The Animals Are Evil type stories, I wasn’t entertained by the nighthawks as villains, I would’ve preferred a story with the Metzgers as the central threat. A story just like this with a different lead probably wouldn’t appeal to me regardless. Those are all me things, and I don’t particularly care about any of that in comparison to what I’m actually going to discuss.
The story itself isn’t the real problem, the lore isn’t the problem, the other characters aren’t really the problem, and Paul being gone isn’t the problem.
HOW DOES A COUPLE THAT ONLY SPEAKS TO EACH OTHER FOR ONE CHAPTER HAVE GREAT DEVELOPMENT?:
I think one of the things that’s most frustrating when talking about ACOSF, is the argument that Elriel spent no time together and Azriel spent the majority of the book with Gwyn where they spent all this time together “building a friendship and connection”, and yada yada yada. But when you really break it down…that’s just not true.
He does not spend the majority of the book with Gwyn. Azriel and Gwyn aren’t even in the same vicinity as each other until chapter 39, at roughly 54% of the book. They don’t even speak to each other until chapter 60 which is about 82% into ACOSF, and their last scene together is in the same chapter at around the 84%mark. So basically they only “interact” (and I’m using this term loosely) for 30% of ACOSF. The only time they even speak to each other, it takes almost the entire book to get there, and then it’s only for a single chapter.
And every single one of their scenes revolves around training and is in the training ring. Azriel is in the same vicinity as her, but he’s not even the one training Gwyn. He’s training priestesses on the other side of the ring. For all the flack Elriels get for shipping a couple on nothing but “glances”. I can’t see what supposedly makes Gwynriel different. She looks at him warily the first day he shows up at training, which makes sense considering it’s the first time she’s seen him since her SA and she was probably uncomfortable. He looks at her with encouragement and admiration, which again makes sense since he was helping to train them at this point. So Gwyn was essentially his trainee, student, mentee, pupil. And any trainer, teacher, or mentor would look at their mentee with pride and encouragement when they try to accomplish something. He half turns when she squeals, which again, not that surprising.
And for all the criticism Elriel gets for being off page romance and development, what exactly did Gwynriel have on page? Their first meeting…off page. That all important dagger lesson…off page and never mentioned again. Azriel spent months after solstice training Gwyn, Nesta, Emerie…off page. That bonus every one loves to bring up…off page.
No, Elain and Azriel didn’t spend a huge amount of time together but when they did, it was apparent something was going on between them. When Azriel smiles at Elain and she looks away shyly, Azriel’s shadows gathering like snakes ready to strike when Elain is hurt, Azriel becoming upset when he finds out Elain was in a fight with Nesta, Azriel following the sound of Elain’s laugh and sharing a charged look, and then Azriel not being able to be in the same room with her and the mating bond. Azriel speaking with soft menace when he asserts he can protect her. Azriel stiffening when mentioning Lucien. The numerous times Elain’s kidnapping and rescue are mentioned. Azriel worried about her finding the DT.
When Sarah talked about Azriel’s story in ACOSF she mentioned several times that Azriel had a lot of shit going on, that he had a secret, and that Nesta figures out that secret. Throughout ACOSF it’s apparent something is going on with Azriel that Cassian is curious about and Nesta figures out. That something, that secret, is Elain. So while Azriel wasn’t in the same vicinity as Elain as much as he was Gwyn, those hints and that secret that Sarah alluded and were sprinkled throughout the majority of the book, all connect back to Elain…not Gwyn.
after replaying ilitw i am now 10x more upset that they decided to cancel their best series in favour of the trash they have out now like the it lives series is my Favourite and i hate horror thats how fucking good the writing is AND they had an actual diverse cast instead of letting you choose the races of the main characters which kills any potential of interesting storylines bc you cant take their race / background into consideration. when andy and tom were talking at bb practice and andy says “i dont care that youre asian either” THAT was comedy gold and could never happen in a story today bc all the characters are just empty shells with half-baked personalities like looking back on ilitw its obvious why we all thought choices was gonna be a good app with good stories and good representation bc ilitw is Exactly that! the story / gameplay mechanics / characters are all spectacular but its clear that was their golden age and its far gone now
Self-care is doing chores?? Yes, sometimes. Learning that lesson has been important for me!
You don’t have to do everything for yourself all the time (everyone needs help sometimes!), but when you can’t get out of it and have trouble mustering the energy, remember that you’re giving future you a gift. Maybe it will help. ❤️
I really wish allosexuals would understand that there ARE asexual stereotypes that revolve around the idea of us being sexual ‘degenerates.“
For one example, consider the image of the NEET/incel who is so addicted to hentai that he’s lost all interest in real women (a stereotype that, in many areas, also comes with feminisation fear; many of those hentai games are pretty darn girly).
Or, for another, that of the older man who lives alone - and since he has no interest in marrying, he obviously MUST have some kind of perveted violent interest in children or animals or the like.
Not to mention that in spaces that are aware BDSM doesn’t always involve sexual contact, there’s the fear around people (of all genders) being so perverted they only want to be humiliate or sexually degrade others, intead of making real intimate connections with ‘normal’ sex.
Asexuals are not in any way immune to sexual shame or being perceived as perverts. This is not a ‘privilege’ we hold over gay/bi people.
i have never considered this but you’re right! i once heard someone described as creepy because they watched porn without masturbating, just staring blankly, and i thought “wait, i do that… am i creepy?”
