#Transit Method

[doomedandstoned]

The Doomed & Stoned Show

~Season 10, Episode 5~

In this episode, Billy Goate (Editor, Doomed & Stoned) links up with Steve Howe (Editor, Outlaws of the Sun) to discuss some of their recent finds from the doom-stoner scene.

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PLAYLIST:

INTRO (00:00) 1. HIGH ON FIRE - "Burning Down" (00:31)

HOST SEGMENT I (06:44) 2. TRANSIT METHOD - "Frostbite" (20:13) 3. GOAT MAJOR - "Evil Eye" (29:06) 4. ANCIENT VVISOM - "Ashes from on High" (35:47) 5. WITCHORIOUS - "Monster" (39:00)

HOST SEGMENT II (43:46) 6. CASTLE RAT - "Dagger Dragger" (54:35) 7. GREENGOAT - "Human" (58:37) 8. ESBEN WILLEMS - "Cabaret Street" (1:03:42) 9. LUNGBURNER - "Embers" (1:08:44)

HOST SEGMENT III (1:18:12) 10. MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS - "Other Desert Cities" (1:28:00) 11. THE PALADIN - "Bog God" (1:33:37) 12. CANCERVO - "Sacrilegious Mass" (1:42:59) 13. HAUNTED - "Catamorph" (1:48:49)

HOST SEGMENT IV (1:54:24) 14. ALTAR OF BETELGEUZE - "Conclusion" (2:07:49) 15. KULT IKON - "Lost Sea" (2:13:27) 16. HASHTRONAUT - "Rip Wizard" (2:25:14) 17. O ZORN! - "Slow Mood" (2:29:56)

OUTRO (2:35:04)

CREDITS:

Theme Song: Dylan Tucker

Thumbnail Art: High on Fire

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

the boy in the spotlight versus the girl in the mirror

edit: made a part 2

unshaded version

[juniperpyre]

What are your thoughts on gender in the wizarding world? Do you think there’s a strong patriarchy, and if so how do you think it formed?

I feel wobbly about how powerful patriarchy would be in the wizarding world before answering this question. let's see what conclusion i come to lol

table of contents—you could skip to gender in the text if you don't want the connections to the real world and don't need the foundational ideology of my argument

1: where did patriarchy originate in the real western world? & what assumptions am I working off of?

2: gender in late medieval and early modern england & western europe

3: gender in the text 3.1: younger women 3.2: older women

4. conclusions

1. where did patriarchy originate in the real western world? & what assumptions am I working off of?

mona eltahawy called patriarchy "the oldest form of occupation", speaking to the way women & people classed as women (or gender deviant or ungendered) are treated as commodities to own. this BBC article argues that patriarchy was created as a way for the proto-state to leverage control over the population. the enforced social roles of males soldiers & female reproducers made groups bigger & more powerful.

I will take the article's assertion (it's very well sourced) that one of the first instances of patriarchy developing starts about 5,000 ago in Mesopotamia, when records show women disappearing from public life, at face value. then, ofc, in the mediterranean world we "soon" after see the Mycenaeans & Greeks & Romans, in that order, develop, all of which had patriarchal societies—tho to different extents.

as I have stated previously, the wizarding world loves Greek & Roman shit, as does the real western world (and we have! for centuries!). I like to consider their cultural norms, especially as they were interpreted during the Renaissance, when thinking about wizarding culture.

so, yes, the WW is patriarchal, since for at least 1,500 years, but probably more like 4,800 years. and for most of that time there was no wizarding world, just the World, and the WW had the same histories as the muggle world.

2. gender in late medieval and early modern england & western europe

so sorry, you've unlocked an info dump cutscene. it can be skipped.

I want you to imagine the traditional gender roles for men and women in western society. write them down, even. what should women be like? what is the inherent nature of women, if one exists, according to traditionalists? according to society at large? according to you?

in early modern england there was a HUGE shift in the perception of women and gender roles.

in "'The Good and Bad of that Sexe': Monstrosity and Womanhood in Early Modern England," by Alletta Brenner, the epistemological history of womanhood in the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the 17th centuries, is analyzed.

epistemology is about the study of knowledge, so think intellectual history, a history of what ideas and thoughts people are sharing and the patterns of those ideas and thoughts.

long story short: for about 1500 years, western culture regarded women as lesser versions of men, who are the perfect form of humans. male and female were not regarded as opposite, but two versions of the same thing. eve was made from adam’s rib, she’s a knockoff.

“Monstrosity and Womanhood” discusses two cultural differences between then & now that are significant to my argument. 1: people of the middle ages & early modern europe regarded the monstrous as a part of God’s creation, possibly frightening, but not unnatural. 2: women were regarded as too sexually driven, lustful temptresses. this is a stark contrast to the Cult of True Womanhood that we see in the 19th c, submissive, gentle, spiritually included, a soft place for her husband to find comfort in after being in the chaos of the outside world.*

(lily kind of embodies the late middles ages dangers of womanhood & it’s monstrosities in earth after rain.)

so, the answer to “what is a woman?” is changing rapidly right before the WW cuts itself off from the MW. I expect that, since the bio-essentialism of today started in the 19th century, post SoS, there is a significant difference in what the WW settles on.

the changing views on women in the MW are also influenced by and/or create the atmosphere wherein the witch trials are born. midwives and other women who transgressed their gender roles were targeted in the witch trials. the WW reacts to the witch trials by going into hiding (I don't believe this, I think it's part of the WW historical mythos used to uphold their society & it's fucking issues)

*this ideal of womanhood is only accessible by white middle and upper class women. other women are in many ways, monstrous, but they are also degendered.

3. gender in the text

in the books we see multiple examples of sexism, and a large chunk of these examples involve over-sexualization or sexual policing. our entry into WW culture, ron weasley, displays these views multiple times. he does not seem to believe that women are less intellectually or even less physically capable. he also doesn’t have a problem being defended by harry potter or hermione granger, or defending harry or hermione.

3.1 younger women

the threat of love potions is also brought up a few times throughout the books, and they are solely seen as a woman's weapon.

in Goblet of Fire, once skeeter turns on hermione, she asserts in a PUBLIC NEWSPAPER that hermione is possibly using love potions to seduce powerful men (pg 357). this is after harry's friendship with hermione is portrayed, again, in a public paper, as a romance (pg 225). hermione is pretty and smart when she's "with" harry, but when she is associated with a second man, thereby betraying the englishman who must be the hero of skeeter’s stories, she's ugly and smart enough to drug him. mrs. weasley, an adult woman and frequent caretaker of hermione, believes this and is cruel to her, a child.

over sexualization is used as a highly effective weapon against hermione. the WW easily accepts a young woman's sexuality as a threat to the men around her; she is voracious. i'm sure hermione being muggle born does not help.

merope gaunt is also accused, by dumbledore, of drugging tom riddle sr. with a love potion (pg 154 HBP). no evidence is given. we, the reader, are meant to assume the accuracy since dumbledore is making the claim. once again the sexual appetite of a young woman is dangerous. her misdeeds, brought about by choices made clouded with lust, only the short term considered, end up creating a fucking super villain. what's interesting is that this isn't only a belief of the characters in-text, it's the perspective of the author. nonetheless, dumbledore's quickness to blame a young woman's desire for driving her to violence and bringing misfortune, indicates that the sexuality of women in the WW is easily seen as dangerous.

i think this well establishes women's sexuality as a dangerous, insatiable threat in the WW culture. this is clearly a patriarchal ideology. the systematic reinforcement at the nuclear family level becomes clearer when we look at how the weasley brothers treat ginny's sexuality. they, just as men in the MW do, see their sister's sexuality as their business. however, this is not because men are a threat, but because ginny is unrestrained in her expression and exploration of her sexuality. I do not recall anyone ever worrying for ginny’s safety—women are competent and intelligent enough to defend themselves. 

here are two instances from HBP where we see the brothers judging their sister and trying to control her sexuality:

fred and george are selling love potions, but not to ginny, because she's used her wiles to collect enough men. ron is also reporting on ginny’s romantic endeavors to their older, of age, brothers (pg 91 HBP). Is this to leverage additional power and to control her? Later in the book ron doesn't want people to see ginny engaging in sexual behavior because of what they might think of his sister (pg 204). being a slut is bad in the WW too. :/

So, the two young women we focus on the most have their sexuality picked apart and policed.

3.2: older women

What of the older women? 

There are women in positions of authority in the WW, but most of the women who work and have positions of authority are not mothers in canon. The women with the most authority, mcgonagall, umbridge, arguably amelia bones though she is tertiary, are not mothers and remain, in canon, romantically unattached. pre-fudge there is a woman minister, who i imagine was put into power as a part of the glass cliff phenomenon, when shit hits the fan, women are more likely to be hired to oversee the shit hit everyone, and then be blamed. 

Marriage & motherhood remove agency. The important mothers of the series, lily, petunia, narcissa, molly, to a lesser degree alice and tonks, do not have children until they are married. Half of them definitely do not work. two have jobs, tonks and alice, and they + lily are in the order, activities unspecified. 

The lack of women occupying both domestic and public spaces indicates patriarchal control. There are two options. The married mothers we see occupying both spheres are all taking part in the public sphere with their husbands. Even tonks, who works were remus does not, is in the order with him. Mothers & wives are not unchaperoned.

It is also notable how young people are when they get married and have children. This is explained by war in the text. I posit that it’s actually another element of the patriarchal control of women’s sexuality. Since women are insatiable, those that are linked to a man must be kept under a higher level of control to ensure she stays loyal to her husband. Marriage in the teen years is younger than the average in MW in the 1970s (22.8 for women, 25.1 for men). the average age of women entering into their first marriage has consistently been 24 or older in england and wales since the 1550s—it dropped in the 1950s and 60s. 

Sidenote—during WW2 the age of marriage in the UK seemed to stagnate, and then it dropped at the conclusion of the war. 

We don’t have the stats for the WW, but we know james and lily married and had harry before 21, we know from the black family tree that narcissa had draco at the average age of marriage in 1970s MW UK, which indicates a younger marriage. We do not know alice and frank’s ages. tonks actually meets the average age for women in the UK in the mid 90s, but her husband and she are half bloods. it is possible that the average age of marriage in the WW is younger than the MW, especially among the upper classes. 

4. conclusion

The main element of patriarchy in the WW is control of women’s sexuality, because women are too promiscuous to control themselves, and this poses multiple dangers. Love potions, pursuing a man to near death, tarnishing the family name, etc. This has created cultural norms of younger marriage and women, especially upper class women, not working outside of the home once they are married. Women who choose not to tie themselves to a man through marriage may be seen as inherently less sexual, as adult women who do not marry are not put through the same scrutiny as women who express sexual inclinations. 

It is possible that we don’t see the scrutiny adult, unmarried women endure because harry is a child the whole time and does not think about his professors getting their backs blown out on the weekends. It is also possible that the women we see, namely umbridge and mcgonagall, put up a non-sexual persona to avoid this scrutiny, a childish feminine and de-sexed school marm respectively. I’d edge my bets towards the latter. 

Magic allows a significant portion of reproductive labor to be automated, and in the MW reproductive labor is designated to women and made invisible as an element of maintaining the nuclear family to uphold capitalism. Therefore women in the WW are partially freed from this element of capitalist patriarchy. 

Women are not seen as less capable with magic, intellect, or physically, so their voracious sexuality creates a greater threat. The patriarchy in the WW seeks to control their sexualities, but not much else. The desire to keep pure blood families “pure” likely increases the drive to control women’s sexuality in the upper classes. I’m not seeking to make this argument here, but I believe this element of policing would have evolved in the 19th century, parallel to the evolution of the bio-essentialist ideal women of the MW. the reason I am not making this argument here is that this post is long as shit, and making the point requires a lot of details about fascism and the history of the WW and MW.  

I do think patriarchy is “weaker” in the wizarding world, but still exists. Due to the SoS and magic much of the modern elements of capitalist patriarchy did not develop in the WW, instead, elements of the early modern patriarchy were carried over and intensified. At the same time, women in the WW always had a level of agency and power unreachable to muggle women, which carried over to the SoS society. Perhaps magical men treated muggle women how we treat marginalized women in the real world, and continued to do so after the SoS ended. Perhaps the WW is a secret upper class that exploits the MW without muggle’s knowledge. Perhaps.   

I can’t believe I didn’t talk about the witch trials at all. I have thoughts on those! They are forthcoming when i finish the wizarding world & colonial era meta.

[serpentface]

Omg, is there any more about Odonii battlefield performance?

Faiza giving a full battlefield performance, which includes grimacing, sinister looks, letting out terrifying war cries, and banging on her shield with her dagger's pommel. She's wearing a full set of armor, which is functional but highly decorative. A squire will be present somewhere nearby to carry the rest of her weaponry.

As mentioned in the other post, Odonii generally do not actually Participate in fighting. Their perpetual armament and training to correctly Use this armament has predominantly symbolic functions, with their bodies as vessels for state and military empowerment and integrity.

Their normal role on the battlefield is:

a) Spiritual protection for their associated warriors and intimidation of enemies.

Their role is partially to be the ‘guardian lion’ figure in human form, their presence and performance in of itself is considered metaphysically protective. This guardian lion nature is played up and reinforced with their dress and behavior- they wear lion skins over their armor, paint their faces red to obscure human features, perform war cries tailored to sound inhuman (not like lions, just a very shrill and frightening sound). They perform ‘frenzied’ movements that intend to evoke an enraged animal- pacing, banging on their shields, biting their weapons/shields, baring teeth, exaggerated glances that emphasize the whites of their eyes, etc. This can be a disturbing sight- reassuring to their allies who know a frightening spiritual guardian figure is on their side, and demoralizing to an enemy (the latter especially in conjunction with common beliefs that Odonii are witches/shapeshifters)

b) A motivating factor to get the men to fight more bravely.

This is partly out of religious belief (you will probably be a little bolder if you feel reassurance that God is very much present and on your side, via Its priestesses), partly out of esteem for the order (you are highly motivated to perform for their recognition and protect them from harm). In a way, their role on the battlefield is the Least masculinized aspect of their performance- they are in part there to remind men of their mothers, wives, and daughters, who they are supposed to be the protectors of and whose benefit they are ultimately (at least deemed to be) fighting for.

In some cases, this is taken to a (cultural relative) extreme wherein they will expose their breasts towards their own men as a part of battlefield performance, in the form of a supplicatory gesture (bearing the breasts and thumping on the chest with a fist). (The Odomache’s nude body should never be publicly seen under any circumstances, limited and controlled exposure by Odonii Can be appropriate). Breasts are not sexualized in this cultural sphere, but are not treated as neutral body parts either, instead having values of motherly nurturing and feminine vulnerability projected onto them. Odonii showing tits will be a DISTINCT reminder of the ‘vulnerable female’ elements that the men should be protecting, and can be highly motivating (especially in the context of a figure who is otherwise behaviorally ‘masculinized’, it’s jarring and can have useful emotional impact).

c) General spiritual leadership (in connection to a & b).

Weapons dances are an aspect of military training and the kagnoma odo dance is always performed prior to conventional battles, Odonii lead these dances. This has multifacted functions- it is believed to spiritually bless the troops, it is a means of practicing with weaponry/limbering up, it is a psychological rallying point and good for morale, and it may intimidate your enemy who can see it happening from a distance (by displaying readiness/eagerness to battle, good discipline, unity, and physical might). Odonii also perform personalized blessings of soldiers, weapons, and armor.

c) Filling gaps in the command structure or acting as commanders

Odonii are involved in strategic meetings, and ones who receive battlefield roles are very well studied in military tactics. As a matter of technicality, their commands to the body of Imperial Wardi troops do not override those of generals or other ranking soldiers (though they will often be deferred to regardless), but they can fill in gaps in the command structure in case of death of high ranking soldiers or if lines become scattered and communication breaks down.

Additionally, there are two elite warrior orders presided over by the Odonii priesthood (the rest answer directly to the Usoma's court appointed general), with senior Odonii as their commanders and the Odomache as their general. (This is one of many political tension points between the priesthood and monarchy, given that the Odonii have managed to get themselves about 200 high skill, firearm'ed warriors that are separate from the normal military structure, only as loyal to the Usoma as their current general is, and Very beloved among the public so you can't just like, outright kill or disarm this very obvious threat.)

d) A strategic flexing of eastern seaway honorable combat norms

Conventions of honorable warfare have broad commonalities across the eastern seaway peoples, one of which is that noncombatants (by default- women, girls, prepubsecent boys, unarmed elderly men) are not legitimate targets in the normal process of open war (but are fair game in contexts like sieges when a foe has refused to surrender on behalf of their population). Odonii being armed throws a wrinkle into this - they are still effectively ‘noncombatants’ by virtue of being women, but if they actually Engage in fighting they do present a threat that could be justifiably neutralized.

If they do not actually Use their arms they are not legitimate targets, and an enemy concerned with honorable combat will have to work around their presence (or risk social/retaliatory consequences if he does not). They are thus effectively human shields- at the very least introducing an additional layer of difficulties for an opponent to navigate, and sometimes actively putting their bodies between their men and their opponents.

e) as a factor of D, potential mediator figures.

When in conventional battles, Odonii on losing sides are usually expected to allow themselves to be captured without resistance. They stand a very high chance of being taken alive and remaining unharmed due to a combination of factors- baseline honorable warfare practices (which are ABSOLUTELY not always followed, but at least Influence behavior), fears of material consequences in retribution for harming the priestess, fears of spiritual consequences for harming a potentially powerful witch, knowledge that releasing an Odonii unscathed may give the captors a better negotiating position down the line, or knowledge that an Odonii is a very valuable hostage and can make for a good bargaining chip.

Because of this element, captured Odonii are expected to perform mediation roles, negotiate the release of hostages, carry messages from their captors, or bravely tolerate hostage conditions (ideally while gaining intelligence on their captors)

---

Odonii very, very rarely actually participate in combat (and are in fact not Supposed To in the vast majority of circumstances).

They are, however, fairly well equipped for it. Their perpetual armament is symbolic in nature, but its intended function of empowering their bodies and the state by proxy additionally requires them to know how to Use It. They are trained and regularly drill and engage in mock battles in each of their key weapons/defensive combinations (sword, sword and shield, spear, spear and shield, longgun, handgun) and are expected to be adept at their use. Odonii who attend battlefields, while not being directly engaged, are still in very high-stress and dangerous environments and will have to learn to stay calm and collected under duress. All this doesn't mean every Odonii would be a skilled warrior in an actual combat situation (given that most will have no experience fighting someone who is actually trying to Kill Them), but it does mean they have enough technical skill and mental fortitude to stand a decent chance.

The only times where they are SUPPOSED to actively engage is when a battle is deemed as an existential struggle and is being lost (in practice, the main context for this is a siege), or losing against a foe deemed so thoroughly depraved that they won’t even slightly follow wartime conventions. The idea in these situations is that they are most likely already doomed, and that they should die protecting their people in battle.

Wardi history is filled with stories of Odonii fighting and dying in desperate conflicts (particularly against Imperial Bur), but this is at least Partly historical revisionism (there WERE some women in proto-Odonii roles involved in these conflicts, but these retellings project the modern Odonii order onto its multiple progenitor practices).

Odonii are frequently present on battlefields, but there are only two major instances of modern era Odonii participating in battle as full combatants, both involving conflict with Finnerich

---

The fully modern incarnation of the order can be defined as starting in the late period of Burri occupation, in which multiple Wardi city-states and kingdoms allied against a common foe, and the separate progenitors of the Odonii tradition began to coelesce into a single practice. These alliances were mostly dropped after Burri withdrawal, and the immediate post-withdrawal period was a chaotic scrambling to politically stabilize and assert old territorial claims- thus most Wardi states resumed hostile or indifferent relations with one another. (The one exception is that Wardin and Ephennos remained allied, which shortly would become a Big Deal). Forms of early Odonii now existed throughout most of these states, just not united under a single banner.

The city of Godsmouth was blockaded and besieged by Finnerich during this period (taking advantage of its historical rival’s weakness in the political chaos of de-occupation and hoping to capture or at least maim the city), and some of these early Odonii were involved in this conflict and are known to have engaged.

Godsmouth was a rival to its neighboring states more than anything else- there was little reason for others to send aid in the conflict, and it was left to fend for itself. It was and is a heavily fortified city, and thus the siege lasted for months, with the strategy turning to starving the population out rather than the risky maneuver of throwing troops at well-defended gates to force entry. The Finn forces never managed to breach the inner walls, but were very successful at starving the city's population, raiding its farmlands and villages, and destroying its ports and capturing or burning its ships, all with minimal casualties on their side.

The strategy of the siege finally turned to a risky push to breach and capture the city (due to Finnerich’s own dwindling resources and logistical difficulties in restocking due to storms at sea, and news that an allied Wardin and Ephennos had, in an unprecedented move, been persuaded to send reinforcements (in return for Godsmouth's sworn fealty and absorption into their alliance)), and Finn forces succeeded in breaking through the outer walls. This developed into a very dramatic standoff in which the remaining warriors and/or civilians of Godsmouth attempted to fend off the attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive (which would take days by sea).

Odonii are very famously known to have fully engaged in this stretch of the conflict on the front lines, as it represented an existential threat to the city-state (it’s a fortified settlement, if it was captured, reinforcements would not matter). Some of the recountings are distinctly fanciful (describing Odonii and noblemen leading Siege Of Helms Deep style khaitback charges into masses of enemies, or SWEARING that one of them actually did turn into a lion and ripped apart a hundred Finns before she succumbed to her wounds). An At Least Partially True Story With Exaggerated Elements of the final days of the siege describes the Odonii priestess Hibrides Odiboe rallying a group of elderly men into battle by baring her breasts and scratching deep, bleeding wounds into her chest, declaring herself as 'your mothers, your wives, your daughters, and look how I bleed while you hide behind your walls and wait to die.' While accounts have fantastical elements, it is factual that Odonii priestesses fought and died defending the city's inner walls, notably filling command positions left vacant by slain or starved leaders and rallying citizens to the front lines.

The end of the siege was ultimately a pyrrhic victory for Godsmouth- the city was never actually taken but its population was starved and riddled with disease, its farmlands were burned, and its ports were destroyed. Finnerich forces retreated before reinforcements arrived after failing to break through the inner walls in time, but had succeeded in most objectives of severely wounding their historical enemy. It has been a source of collective trauma in Godsmouth since that point (it is now out of living memory, but vivid stories remain of seeing the dead eaten by dogs and the starving eating the dogs that ate the dead, watching family members succumb to disease and starvation, all while hearing the sounds of fighting draw closer and closer with no reason to believe that any help would ever come), but ultimately recontextualized as a victory, a turning point in the arc of modern history. (The Wardin-Ephennos-Godsmouth alliance, which formed in full as a result of this conflict, would become the triple state that conquered the rest of the region and formed Imperial Wardin).

The direct participation of Odonii in this conflict is heavily played up in the narrative as the order in its purest form as sovereignty incarnate, the priestesses bravely fighting for (what would turn out to be) the beginnings of the Imperial Wardi state. The 11 Odonii who died fighting in the siege have been bestowed sainthood and are memorialized in a series of guardian lion statue-shrines overlooking Godsmouth’s ports (in which their ashes and bones are stored).

---

The other instance of modern era Odonii engaging in conflict is significantly less romantic, occurring in the context of the Extremely failed second invasion of Finnerich.

During and after the rout that resulted in the Odomache's capture and killing, it became exceptionally clear to the Imperial Wardi forces that They Were Fucked. The conflict veered with REMARKABLE speed from being an attempt end the state's civil war between the Imperial Wardi-loyalist provincial puppet government and its rebelling northwest population, to a desperate struggle for Wardi forces to get out of Finnerich Alive. At this point it was assumed (fairly accurately) that any defeated party would be summarily executed, so most Odonii present ended up directly engaging in battle. Two are known to have died leading soldiers in a bid to retrieve the Odomache's body, others fought and/or died while defending the retreat.

A few Finn Odonii (women appointed as a local sect of the priesthood after the initial takeover) remained in the capital after the Wardi forces fucked off overseas, and were executed along with the rest of the installed loyalist government and priests (though it's unlikely that they were involved in any fighting, as the provincial government surrendered after the withdrawal).

Odonii veterans of the invading force have not fared well in the aftermath. Most of those who survived the ambush in which the Odomache was captured have ended up committing honorable suicide due to breaking vows in abandoning their leader in retreat, failing to retrieve her body, and/or being assaulted in capture. More have committed (ostensibly ritual, probably emotionally driven) suicide in the years that followed, with the knowledge that their leader's death and defilement and this severing of God's spirit has brought doom upon their land in the form of an unbroken drought and famine, and that they failed to prevent this. The priestess who was captured alive to witness the Odomache's death and released unharmed to report it was the first.

All this has opened some vacancies in the order's leadership, and given things a very somber tone. It is currently in debate as to whether the ones who died on Finn soil (particularly those who died attempting to retrieve their leader's body) should be canonized as saints or if it's a little too soon for all that.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Sometimes I'll be having a perfectly normal day and then get blindsided out of nowhere by the "Louisa May Alcott was definitely 100% a binary trans man and if you call her a woman or use she/her pronouns for her, you're transphobic" Hot Take

why couldn't that asshole have just stuck to writing racist South Park (yes, really; this person even filed the serial numbers off one story and got it published) fanfiction and left queer/trans history to the people who have an ounce of nuanced thinking or interest in the broader context of what they read

[hey-heigo]

if byakuya transitioned before the killing game then junko would have had a way harder time making the killing game happen

[cupiidzbow]

also unrelated and no one asked I do think my fav gorillaz album might be self titled ….. genuinely love how heavily hiphop it was compared to the future stuff and I adored the era of hip hop it came out at too

[isdalinarhot]

Roshar had three Shards and so it’s crazy Invested and that’s literally the only reason Dalinar made it to 55 instead of getting cirrhosis of the liver and dying terribly like a year after Rathalas. Everyone say thank you Roshar’s Three Shards

[lucabyte]

transfem loop + siffrin... you agree

i does agree.... i does in fact ... write a 7k word essay on the subject..... if you would like to perhaps click that link and read it if you were not already aware...... kisses u on the forehead......... sorry its that long but i had to cover all of my bases you know how it is with textual analysis when you're trying to draw a distinction between "headcanon" and "reading of the text" because those are different things.... to meeeeeeee.......

[answersfromzestual]

Would a small article on transdermal testosterone (tgel) be interesting?

Maybe comparing the difference between the gels and the traditional way of intramuscular injection.

Also, just a side note about testosterone. It is important to have your hormone levels checked (blood work) in a periodic manner so you stay in the safe or your discussed levels. If you are still working on finding your correct dosing, please be sure to keep on top of your blood work. It is important for many reasons; blood pressure, blood thickness, too high levels can even increase your possibility of a stroke. Lower levels or fluctuations can cause mood swings, depression, irritability. So be sure to keep yourself safe and check your levels periodically, even if you have been on the same dose for years.

With love,

Zestual.

[softantlers]

maybe out of pocket but if you have any songs that make you think of roadkill... could you drop me a line?

i need the inspiration for tmasc lottienat

[coriander-candlesticks]

Me: I'm not sure if my health can withstand a commute. Should I try to go in tomorrow?

Apollo: no

Me: should I plan to work from home?

Apollo: no

Me: ...

Apollo:

Me: migraine?

Apollo: migraine.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

.

[swan2swan]

I'm sorry, the "Hmmm...let's try getting up there" transition was one of the best and most brilliant I've ever seen, it was so SIMPLE, but it worked!

The camera starts focused on them here, then pans over, then swings up...

...and they're up there!

They were down there!

And now, they're up here!

One camera shot! Essentially a pan across the same picture with them in two different places!

Why have I not seen that kind of transition in...everything????

[allastoredeer]

If it's not too much work, could you share what your outlining process is like? I always feel a little lost when I try outlining my fics and I know the process is different for everyone but I feel like it would help to know what others do. Every time I try to google help I get processes for original novel writing, and it doesn't feel as applicable to writing a short fanfic.

I would love to :3

There are actually a few different ways I outline, and sometimes it depends on the length of the fic and how complex the plot is.

I'll use one of my saved radiostatic prompts as an example (it also gives me an excuse to sit down and actually outline it hehe)

So, sometimes just the prompt itself is a good enough outline for me (this is dependent on how long I think the fic is going to be. If it's short, sometimes the prompt itself works and I don't need to go in-depth. I say "prompt" but that also can mean a specific scene in your head that you want to write, or a concept, or even a piece of fan-art that inspired you).

Here's the paragraph prompt I wrote for this radiostatic one-shot/short fic (spoilers, I guess):

So sometimes, just this is enough for me to start writing the fic (my prompts do tend to get a little big because I like to add a lot of detail - about the scene or concept that grabbed my attention - so that I capture all the vibes and emotions that I want to incorporate.

But sometimes, it helps to go more in-depth so I'm not overwhelmed trying to get to the part of the fic that I want to write (NOTE: It is totally fine if you write out the scene/parts that you want to write the most, even if it's in the middle or the end. You can always fill in the blanks after. Or you can just post the scene you wanted to write without adding more. It's up to you).

I like to figure out what scenes happen that lead up to the parts I want to write, so sometimes, I'll make a bullet-point list of chronological scenes, plot-points, and details. For example:

And etc... you continue on until you've hashed out the sequence of events that take place in the story. This doesn't have to be super detailed (it can be really brief and to the point) and doesn't it have to be super clinical either. Just have fun and write down whatever silly thoughts you have in your head.

You bullet-point list can be as simple as:

Alastor goes downstairs to do exercise.

Vox shows up to do the exercise as well (invited by Charlie)

They get into an argument about modern technology.

Vox leaves.

It's really just about putting down the sequence of events starting from the very beginning to the very end. You can keep it simple like the above example

OR

You can make it even more detailed by doing an in-depth summary of the fic, scene by scene, plot point by plot point, until you get to the end (this is what I usually do because it gets everything planned out and on the page, down to the smallest details). For example:

And then it goes on like this until I've outlined the entire fic. You can be silly with this. Just have fun. Let yourself ramble and get all you're ideas out. Don't try to stick to a rigid plan, let the story flow naturally.

Then, once I've finished my outline, I use it as a guide as I write the rough draft. The thing about outlines is that you don't have to follow exactly what you planned. It's okay to diverge or adds things or cut things out. It really is just a loose guide to help you through the events of the story and get your thoughts on paper.

Additionally: You don't even have to fully finish the outline if you don't want to. Sometimes you get half of it done before you want to start writing, and that's fine. The rest of the story will reveal itself as you go.

If I'm doing a multi-chaptered fic, sometimes I'll break the overall idea of the story into pre-determined chapters and summarize it section by section. Or, I'll just be a maniac and summarize the entire fic in one big, super long, super detailed block of text. Another staticradio fic I'm currently outlining is 16,152 words long and I'm not even close to being done. I expected this fic to get super long and complex, so writing it out in a very chronological and detailed manner helps it feel less daunting. AND now I have every plot point, twist, emotional scene, and bit foreshadowing planned out and already placed where I want it to show up in the fic. It's great. It makes me life easier when I actually buckle down and write the rough draft.

Just as a final note, I want to say that everyone's process is different. This is how I outline, but I know it won't work for everyone. It's all about finding what method works for you.

I'll say that one of the most important to do while outlining is simply having fun with it. Make it your hype list. Make every scene you jot down a scene you're excited to write. Make yourself want to write it so it doesn't feel like a chore to slog through.

Best advice I've ever recieved: If you're bored writing a scene, the audience will be bored reading it.

Have fun and write the story you wanna write 👉👉

Hope this helped!