It is absolutely wild to me how Republican news outlets and politicians try to sensationalize things that don't even exist. Yet these fabricated issues are having serious disastrous effects on real-life people's health and safety. B was just talking to one of his old "friends" and he was trying to convince us to donate to the campaign of a governor whose platform rests primarily on anti-trans legislation. And B was like...no?? Are you aware of his platform? And this guy says, with absolute confidence, that this governor's platform is about protecting kids. Because it's ok if an adult wants to mutilate their body, but we shouldn't be allowing doctors to surgically change children's bodies. Which is why gender-affirming care should be illegal.

The mental gymnastics. Except he genuinely thought that "gender-affirming care" was synonymous with "surgical intervention." Gender-affirming care for a 10-year-old is therapy and support and letting them wear the clothes and use the pronouns/name they want. Gender-affirming care for a teenager might also include blockers and/or hormone therapy (or not! I've only known one person who started hormones before they turned 18, and I specifically worked with queer kids when I was a professor/teacher). For some people, gender-affirming care is solely external and doesn't involve physical intervention at all. And it is so, extremely, rare for someone to receive surgery as part of gender-affirming care when they are a minor. Yet this is what so many people seem to think gender-affirming care means. Surgery.

This is not an accident. This is targeted and malicious. This is misdirection by people who know better trying to sway the opinions of people who don't. Listen. I don't know what my point is, here. I just needed to vent. I guess it just goes to show that, now more than ever, if you're going to get into a debate with someone, make sure you understand what they mean when they use certain terminology or you're certain to get nowhere. Because this man was so confident he knew what he was talking about until we did a quick vocabulary backtrack. And when confronted with the fact that maybe he hadn't, actually, been fed the truth, he suddenly had a lot less to say. Ugh.

Laughing my ass off at these reactions to this poster, mostly because I feel the exact same way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

She’s never gonna fuck you, bro.

and the whole zoom meeting was silent.

Why is the “historical realism” thing always rape?

A couple weeks ago The Mary Sue announced they weren’t going to cover “Game of Thrones” any more after yet another female character being brutally raped. The thread is still being invaded by trolls periodically, and there are more than 12,000 comments on the article, which is a site record and probably an internet record. (12K comments because a single website said “We’re not going to recap or promote this show any more.” Baffling.)

Tons of trolls have thrown out the “but THINGS WERE JUST LIKE THAT BACK THEN!” argument ad nauseum. Which is total bullshit, of course. Now with the season finale of “Outlander” (which, spoiler, also included rape) the trolls are coming back.

I just want to ask, why is it whenever producers/directors/writers want to demonstrate “gritty historic realism” it’s ALWAYS RAPE? It’s always sexual violence toward women/girls.

You know what would be gritty historic realism? Dysentery. GoT has battles and armies marching all over the place. You want to show “what things were like back then”? Why aren’t we seeing 500 guys by the side of a road puking and shitting their guts out from drinking contaminated water while the rest of the army straggles along trying to keep going? Or a village getting wiped out by cholera? Or typhus, polio or plague epidemics? 

You want to show what it was like back then for women? Show a woman dying of sepsis from an infection she caught while giving birth. Show a woman coping with ruptured ovarian cysts with nobody know what it is. Breast cancer that the audience will recognize immediately but the characters think is some mark of the devil or some shit.

But no, it’s always rape. And we all know why that is. Because these douchecanoes that do this, though they’ll deny it, think rape is sexy. Because they can’t make a modern set story where women get raped in every god damned episode without being called monsters. So they use “but but historical realism!” to cover their sexism (see “Mad Men”) and misogyny. Then they tell us “That’s just how it was back then!” with the clear implication “Shut the fuck up bitch, because that could be you  and you should be thanking me that it’s not.”

Can we propose a rule for “realistic” historical fiction/fantasy? Twelve graphic cases of dysentery for every one graphic rape?

^^ I like this idea.

Maybe if high fantasy writers and creators weren’t all fucking hacks who’ve been riding JRRT’s dick for the last fifty years and insist on making every single god damn fantasy world they create a boring retread of Middle Earth based on the same three hundred year span of time in four countries of Western Europe they wouldn’t all have to rely on the same garbage logic to justify their garbage misogyny. 

You know, they could deny that they find rape sexy, and they might even believe their own denials.  But the point is that they clearly don’t think of rape as something distasteful enough and disgusting enough to omit.

And you know what, I’m not even gonna insist on the dysentery.  Just this: if you’re going to include rape on the basis of historical accuracy, none of your female characters are allowed to have shaved legs or armpits.  And all of your characters have to have terrible teeth – yellowed and worn and crooked, because nobody’s getting braces or regular visits to the dentist – with at least a few teeth blackened or missing for every character over the age of thirty.

Of course, if your reaction to blackened teeth and hairy armpits is “ugh, no, sure it might be historically accurate but it’s gross, nobody’s going to want to watch that" and you don’t have the exact same reaction to rape, you might want to think about why that is.

Not to mention that some of the societies portrayed, or inspiring similar fantasy settings, actually had STRONGER protections against and consequences for rape than the ones we live in today. 

Accounts from Vikings’ contemporaries recount a lot of raiding, but not a single case of rape. Viking law didn’t treat rape as a property crime, and the penalty for it was outlawry, which was essentially a death sentence. Medieval English law prescribed that rapists be castrated and blinded. And the sagas contain vanishingly few references to rape (and violence against women is usually followed with comeuppance–often death–for the perpetrator). 

TL;DR: History wasn’t one giant rape-fest, and in fact, members of the cultures high fantasy is usually based on may have actually been more disapproving of rape than we are today (imagine trying to pass a bill making rape a capital offense today!). 

These writers include rape because they like writing about rape, not because history dictates it. 

Real conversation I once had on an airplane:

Dude sitting beside me: Do you watch Game of Thrones?

Me: I did for a while, but I got tired of all the rape.

Dude: Oh, yeah. That’s true, I guess. But it is, like, historically accurate. Unfortunate as it may be.

Me: It’s not historical fiction. It’s a fantasy show.

Dude: …what?

Me: It doesn’t even take place on Earth. There are dragons and zombies and magic. It’s a completely made up fantasy universe. They could’ve done anything they wanted. And they chose to make it a brutal patriarchy with lots and lots of rape.

Dude: [long silence] I… uh… wow. That’s a really good point. I can’t believe I never realized that. [pause] I’m kind of embarrassed, actually.

Me: [glowing because I helped someone realize the rape scene justification they’d been parroting for years was absolute garbage]

I’d say I’m sorry…but I’m really not.

your bare minimum isn’t actually that bare or minimum. my dad once told me that there’s nothing in this world that’s easy and that’s true tbh. everything we do takes energy, time, and effort. even the little things. if you feel like you’re not doing enough please try to think about your circumstances and what’s currently available to you: chances are, there’s something that’s diverting or otherwise draining you. and to pull away from that and get something done regardless? well, i think that’s really admirable! please try to take pride in the things you do accomplish in a day, no matter how small or trifling you perceive them to be. you can’t be proud of your growth if you don’t notice where you already are!

no offense but this conversation was literally a major turning point in my life

Tfw when men do that thing where they pretend they have no control over their temper. LOL It’s so funny like am I supposed to pretend that I don’t know you’re completely self-aware and present during this rage performance. Or should I pretend you’re the tortured hero in a movie, possessed by a series of fabricated flashbacks of the war and your father

Now I be like “oh fuck i forgot my mask” like im spiderman or something

sir! magazine, may 1957

if anyone ever tries to tell you that the ancient greeks were more sophisticated than us, just remember that there was a ship war between plato and aeschylus over whether achilles or patroclus was the top in their relationship, while xenophon was off complaining that he didn’t ship that

Calfs jumping over a white line 

(via)

To any trans women and transfeminine followers of mine, did you know there’s a pretty huge Etsy store which does gaff underwear and swimsuits specifically designed for trans people amongst its products? They go in a pretty decent range of sizes, including sizes for young girls, and while I do not personally know anyone who has used them, there’s a fuckton of positive reviews on the Etsy store. They have a ton of colours to choose from, different fabric choices, the works.

And for once they’re not marked “for crossdressers” too, they actually under “transgender”, so that’s (depressingly) unusual.

I’m mostly posting this because I’ve seen a lot of younger people recently in particular saying they never knew what gaffs were… a lot of people find them WAY MORE comfortable and convenient than tucking, so I would recommend looking into them if you’ve never done so before!

And even if you yourself don’t use or need this stuff, do pass this kind of info on to any friends of yours that might, guys! There’s always like a million more PSAs about transmasc stuff as opposed to transfem stuf tbh…

Brie Larson as CAROL DANVERS © Art by Phil Noto

I’m over here dying to have a wife and straight men are still making “marriage ruined my life” jokes. Like? Buddy? First of all that’s never been funny. Second, if you don’t want your wife I’ll take her

The reason the water wasn’t coming out 

(via)

I was just about to spiral into a bad panic attack, and my boyfriend goes "Stick an ice cube in your mouth." I'm not really sure where he got the idea, and I kinda laughed at it because I didn't see how it would help, but he was insistent. So I did it.

And now I'm on my second cube, because it worked.

He explained his reasoning to me when he got home.

1. I would initially think "what the fuck" and be distracted from the anxiety. (Correct.)

2. The cold of the ice would shock my system, bringing me back to the physical world and reality, drawing my focus to the cold in my mouth, and keep my brain away from thinking "I'm panicking, I must be dying." (Correct.)

3. He assumed I hadn't drank much water today and wanted to keep me hydrated. (Triple correct.)

It also forced your mouth to make saliva!

When you go into fight or flight mode, non-crucial body functions stop working so you have more energy to do what you need to do to survive (oooor to spiral into a panic attack). By forcing yourself to make saliva it helps calm you down because since fight or flight is an all or nothing response, they can’t happen at the same time.

Learned that from my old therapist, who would use it with veterans with ptsd

I’m doing this right now and its working????

THIS! Do this!

Anxiety is an emotional thing BUT there are feedback systems in place in your body that pay attention to physical states as well, which is why you then experience raised heart rate and so on when anxious. Eliminate or confuse one feedback system? Reduce anxiety.

Go be free!

I’d really like a CBT or DBT guide with a title like Cheat Codes for the Terrible Software Irrevocably Installed in the Flesh Suit in Which You Are Trapped. 

On Finding the Freedom to Rage Against Our Fathers, Minda Honey

Quote from Labyrinth with barn owls for a geek craft swap. It’s in the mail now to the recipient, I hope she likes it. The little details on the owls for a fun challenge, as I prefer patterns without detailed color changes. 

Barn owl pattern came from LaSelvaDesign in Esty: https://www.etsy.com/listing/683345901/owls-cross-stitch-pattern-bundle-set-a/ 

a friendly reminder to never give up, not be afraid of starting afresh, find a new hobby and make it your passion for life ✊🏾 you’ll certainly figure everything out !!

I needed this

I’m 50. 51 in a couple weeks. I started my own business last year. I am fundamentally happy.

You always have time long as you’re still alive.

pride skies part 1

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