Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.
Yes!
Deep Space Nine 2x5, “Cardassians”
Keiko does not have time for your space-racism, Miles.
Why is she with him
The cynical side of me would say that the answer is “because the show writers said so”
But I think another answer is, Because Miles proves himself open to being corrected. He isn’t too proud or defensive (or bogged down by toxic masculinity) to listen when people call him out on bigoted bullshit: he listens. Keiko is with him not because he messes up so bad sometimes, but because when he does mess up, he stops, and thinks, and behaves better in the future.
I also appreciate the comments from @firespirited and @onsomekindofstartrek on how the ethnicities of the actors of Keiko and Miles influence this scene, so be sure to check those out in the notes y’all!
Someone had to be the “bad guy” exhibiting the bigoted view for this important scene to take place, and I appreciate that Miles’ actor was willing to play that role. Together, these two skilled actors create a compelling scene that demonstrates to viewers 1) that alluding to the “bad breeding” of any group is very wrong indeed in any context, and 2) that one effective method for calling out bigotry in loved ones is simply to express disgust and disappointment in them, because if they truly respect you they’ll get the message and fix their attitude.
There’s also 1) the fact that O’Brien is saying this because his role on DS9, narratively speaking, is to be the everyman, the representative of the ‘guy on the ground,’ the average person. The average person has these kinds of bigoted views that they don’t recognize until it is pointed out to them, and NEED to be called out.
And 2) O’Brien saying this is also a bit of character continuity - when the Cardassians were introduced in TNG’s “The Wounded,” it also introduced that the Federation and the Cardassians had been involved in a war against one another, O’Brien being on the ground during what is commonly referred to as “the Setlik III massacre,” where Cardassians, believing the Federation colony to be a military outpost, wound up slaughtering a population of civilians. Brutally. O’Brien’s captain at the time lost his entire family in it. O’Brien later admits to a Cardassian officer “I hate what I became because of you” in response to what he went through that day - when he had to kill a Cardassian soldier, the first time he’d ever killed.
And, particularly at this point, several years after marrying him, after living on a Cardassian-designed station for over a year, Keiko surely knows this. So she understands why he said what he said. But she is not going to condone it. She’s not going to let that he said it get a pass. She will call him out for his words, even knowing where they come from.
And on top of that, he’s saying this in front of, or near a child who was abandoned by his people on a world full of people who hate him for his species. He’s heard this, and worse, about himself all his life.
It’s one thing for Miles to let stray comments like this slip in privet conversation lightyears away from the nearest person effected by it. As has been pointed out, Keiko would understand this comes from a place of pain and trauma.
But it’s another to say this about an innocent child in his presence. Or the presence of their daughter where she could learn this ugliness.
This is an excellent piece of exposition on a very important scene between these two characters. Not only does it set up the dynamic of their relationship for the rest of the show, but it also gives O'Brien’s character room to question his assumptions about all Cardassians, and to realize that the average Cardassian citizen is not the evil incarnate he had made them out to be.
O'Brien does and should still hate the Cardassian military, and the Obsidian Order, but he realizes the average Cardassian citizen is not at fault for Setlik III, is not at fault for the occupation of Bajor, is not to blame for the war between Cardassia and the Federation which took place, I believe, around the beginning of TNG. Cardassia is a fascist militaristic dictatorship, and the citizens suffer just as much, though in different ways, as those Cardassia has oppressed and waged war with.
O'Brien’s newfound understanding can be seen in his interactions with Gilora Rejal; he’s not openly hostile, as he is whenever faced with Dukat or even Garak, because she’s a civilian scientist, and engineer like he is, just trying to get the bits and bobs of the station to function in order to achieve a goal. Hes willing to listen to her suggestions, and work alongside her (when she lets him). Even the awkward scene where it’s revealed he’s been flirting unknowingly with her is a huge step for him, because he’s not outright disgusted like he might have been in TNG.
O'Brien’s not perfect, not even as the ‘every man’; but the character growth we see from him is refreshing for a straight(?) white male character from the 90s. His willingness to look past his pride and change for the better is testament to that in and of itself.
Allow for regular people to not be perfect and to grow from it, like he does. That’s good writing.
Miles has PTSD-type issues related to Cardassians. He was in the Federation-Cardassian War. That captain he served under then had his family killed by them. He’s going to have some realistic bigoted generalizations. But Keiko calls him out on it, and she does so in a way that’s not calling him a bad person, because he’s not. She knows about his issues.
And he paid attention. That’s what’s important.
Gets to be rather disconcerting to hear people discussing red flags, all the time. So, here are some green flags to consider.
underrated lotr moment is gandalf’s “let me risk a little more light” so the fellowship can see the ruins of dwarrowdelf.
idk what it is idk how to put it into words but like. such a quick and quiet little moment of, recognizing we’re all in constant mortal peril but while we’re here you should still witness the wonders of the world. while we are here, though it may be on a life-threatening quest, you deserve a little tourist moment. soak it in, the great city that remains long-abandoned and nearly forgotten, the grand pillars that outlived the memories of those who built them. so much of love and life is fleeting in this dark age. but the scraps of it can still be found. the remnants are still here, and even with significant risk they deseve to be beheld.
And Howard Shore went “Do it, Mithrandir, I’ve got your back.”
#and when you consider that this comes after gimli talked at length about the glory of khazad-dum and the place it holds in their history #and then got there to find it abandoned and shattered and filled with goblins and the bodies of his kin #it's this moment of almost like... affirmation? #no you were not wrong to speak of it this way; yes it is as glorious as you have heard and more #countless dwarves fought and died for this place; it is worth the risk to see what they died for; why they believed it *worth* dying for #gimli is the only dwarf on the quest and in that moment the rest of the fellowship get to see that the creations of his people #are EVERY BIT as spectacular and awe-inspiring as those of elves and men #the movies did gimli wrong in a lot of ways but they NAILED this bit @arafinwes
I’ve signed 600,000 tip-in sheets to be bound into first printings (150,000 for TFIOS, 200,000 for Turtles All the Way Down, and 250,000 for The Anthropocene Reviewed), and probably around another 200,000-250,000 books in total.
Neil might have me beat just because I suspect he has signed 1,000 books in at least 900 separate signings. Same may be true for writers who tour a lot like David Sedaris.
But of course I am not really interested in signing the most books. I am interested in making sure that everyone who would like a signed book can get one without paying a surcharge, and I am interested in finding some way to maintain some kind of personal connection to the reader in the sense that at least there is one page of the book that your real hand and my real hand have both touched.
And also I suppose I am interested in the sheer pleasure of being forced to abandon proper work in order to spend two months cocooned in a glorious flow state achieved via signing my name over and over again for ten hours a day every day.
so true babygirl
It's especially funny because Nick Cage is a stage name, one he picked after the Marvel superhero Luke Cage.
He literally named himself after a Marvel character and doesn't want to be in their movies! That is hilarious.
new magic item in my life: the celestarium shawl, which is an accurate star map of the northern sky. knitted by my mother as a birthday gift for me from merino wool & bohemian crystal beads * ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊
Listen, I know it's very much a thing that utopian leftists think that religions will simply stop existing once all of our material needs are met, but that is just not the case.
Human beings need ritual. If we are deprived of ritual, we make new ritual. It does not matter if you call it religion or state or whatever it is you call it, human beings will keep making up new rituals.
You cannot stop us, and saying 'this ritual which I like and doesn't hurt anyone else is fine, but that ritual which you like and doesn't hurt anyone else is bad' is just bigotry.
When I say 'you cannot stop us,' I literally mean you cannot stop human beings from making up rituals and religions. Leave a group of six year old girls alone near a mud pit for an hour and you will come back to a newly-minted faith. We make ritual. We make culture. That is what we do.
No, Judaism will not 'naturally cease to exist' when all of our material needs are met. What will happen then is that the Jews will get Jewier, because we will have all the time in the world to study Torah and write stories and make Jewish art. If you met all of my material needs tomorrow, two days from now there would be six more hamsas, a complete bound copy of all the volumes of the Talmud, and a shit-ton of giant Jewish art prints in my house.
You cannot stop people from making up culture and religion. It is, arguably, the thing which makes us human, one of the defining features of our collective humanity. We will always make up silly songs and new religions, and the idea that we'll just give all of that up for some vanilla yogurt and taupe jumpsuits utopian existence is absurd and beyond belief.
If you're trying to unpack and heal from Christian religious trauma, a thing you really need to understand (if you don't already) is that you were probably misled about Judaism a lot. Christianity generally tries to paint itself as the self-evident successor of Judaism, and one of the ways it does this is by painting Judaism as Christianity Without Jesus.
In reality, Judaism is practiced very differently from Christianity, and Jews have a very different relationship to their Bible than Christians have to theirs. Just about everything you'll hear about Judaism from Christians is total hogwash - literally, it's Christian propaganda. Christianity as most of us know it was shaped by the Roman Empire's political agendas, and that's a huge reason why it's the way it is.
🗣️This is important!
America’s puritanical, homophobic, anti-vaccination, anti-sex education, “morality” mentality is killing people.
This information could literally save someone’s life. Please share.
Links:
The Goku to Batman scale.
I'm adding this scale to my media analysis.
I've been thinking about how, when you're little, you're surrounded by adults who adore you, who you're never going to remember.
I don't mean like your parents and stuff, but like — I work in after school care, and I'm forever meeting five and six year olds who seem like the most incredible people on earth. Kids who painstakingly explain the rules of handball, kids who ask me to help them colour in, kids who feel really deeply wounded by a classmate's behaviour, just an endless stream of them.
Or like my friends' kids who I've babysat once or twice. A kid who played with me in a creek, a kid whose mannerisms are etched in my mind. Cousins' babies who I held for a while. Even just stranger's babies in shops who stare at me the way babies do.
One of my best friends has an online friend who's recently had a baby, and he tells me - someone who doesn't know the friend's name even - about that baby having their first bath. Because that's the kind of love and excitement that little children inspire.
None of these children will remember me.
I literally don't have a greater point here, it's just blowing my mind to think about how much love is directed towards people who can't remember any of us. They can maybe, I guess, if everything goes well, remember the feeling of safety that ought to go with that love.
My cousin had a baby a while back and I visited her, recently, and she had a nap while I ended up holding the baby. This like, two month old baby. She can't even smile yet. I do not have a lot of experience with infants - my mum had to show me how to hold the baby, and she cried a fair bit until we found a system that worked.
And then she slept in my arms, resting on my chest, for two or three hours.
It was at least an hour before I even thought about doing something else. Holding a sleeping baby, it turns out, can be a completely absorbing activity, even if you have ADHD. (Baby also enjoys the inherent leg-bouncing that comes with the ADHD.)
Now I can't stop thinking about how when that kid is five or six she's gonna run into me at Christmas lunch or some such event and - even if I see her on every holiday between now and then - I will basically be a stranger to her. But to me she will have the starring role in a memory I'm gonna treasure probably forever.
I can't stop thinking about all the aunts and uncles and family friends and second cousins once removed that I was routinely introduced to at Christmas lunches or weddings or funerals, who would say "You're so tall! Has it been that long? You probably don't remember me haha."
and how im gonna be saying the exact same thing very soon
They won't consciously remember you! But you will have had a massive effect on them. You may never know it. THEY may never know that YOU were the one who did.
But literally every positive, nurturing, loving, affectionate, happy interaction with a growing child you have is really important to how their brains literally grow. To making a better, safer, more resilient person.
The body keeps the score and we here on Trauma Gathering Central often hiss and snarl about that, but the body also keeps this score and sometimes it's invisible, because we don't get a little ding! telling us "ah yes your ability to subconsciously remember A Single Time you were calm and at peace bc of that one kindergarten teacher has just saved you from doing something stupid", but that literally happens.
So it's all important, too.
“Call Me Maybe” with every other beat removed
pedantricks
YOU’RE STUBBORN, JEANS STOLEN, NIGHT ROWING
THINK YOU’RE BABY?
spritefrosty
HEY AND YOU, AMAZING, BUT YOMBER, SO CLAYBE
moss-dragon
my gf crafted this with lots of care for yall. pls enjoy:
losing my mind over this
I’m going to upload this to youtube as an unlisted song and then add it to my dad’s playlist
@itsmaddienow I mean, it is very much already on youtube
5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SO CLAYBE LETS GO
"Your disability doesn't define you" Okay but what if it does? What if my disability is inherently entangled in who I am and how I experience my life? Would that dehumanize me in your eyes? Because then that's a you problem you shouldn't project onto me
For more information and to support the WGA please:
- Follow their official social media on all platforms and only trust statements from the union itself, and articles they promote (be wary of other articles).
- Read up on the issues being fought for (there are articles supported by the union in their linktree)
- Be vocal in your support and inform others in your communities.
- Stop using ChatGPT and other AI tools, even for fun.
people keep trying to make "ladies and gentlemen" more inclusive.
I think we should go the other way around.
make more and more weird false dichotomies in greetings. "gamers and pianists". "oil painters and swordsmen". "vexillologists and entomologists". "chess masters and diamond artificers". "accountants and gendered individuals".
we need to be dropping shit into formal meetings to make people say "wait what? which one am I?"
I have started referring to my students as “critters and creatures.” I then offer them the option to decide where on the critter–creature spectrum they think they belong. They enjoy this immensely. I teach some critters, some creatures, some 50/50s, some critters with creature tendencies, some creatures with critter inclinations.
all i have to say is 'hello cowards' and it shuts gendering up
“Listen up, fives, a ten is speaking,” has always been gender-inclusive.
Anonymous asked:
I saw a comment on your blog that says 'the way you eat does not cause diabetes'...are you able to expand on that or provide a source I could read? I've been told by doctors that my pre-diabetes was due to weight gain because I get more hungry on my anti psychotics and I'd like to fact check what they've told me! Thank you so much!
Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.
There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.
Check out these articles:
Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:
1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.
2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.
3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.
4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.
5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.
6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.
Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.
