#changing your mind

[pratchettquotes]

Frantic signals from outlying portions of her mind began to break down her iron-hard conviction that bad things only happen to bad people.

Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

[unwelcome-ozian]

[protoslacker]

“If we were socially ambisexual, if men and women were completely and genuinely equal in their social roles, equal legally and economically, equal in freedom, in responsibility, and in self-esteem, then society would be a very different thing. What our problems might be, God knows; I only know we would have them. But it seems likely that our central problem would not be the one it is now: the problem of exploitation – exploitation of the woman, of the weak, of the earth.” 

Ursula Le Guin from a 1976 essay, "Is Gender Necessary" on a page at the very cool M HKA Ensembles a Website of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp.

M HKA links to the book, Aurora: Beyond Equality--Wikipedia-- where the essay was first published. ncing at the Edge of the World:

In 1989 Le Guin published the essay with the subtitle "Redux" in Thoughts on Words, Women, Places, and in a reissue of The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Here's a scholarly work on the topic, RASHLEY, L. H. (2007). REVISIONING GENDER: INVENTING WOMEN IN URSULA K. LE GUIN’S NONFICTION. Biography, 30(1), 22–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23540596. At least one PDF of the 1989 "Redux" is available online.

It's so interesting learning about how smart people learn.

[cynicalclassicist]

Keep your mind ready to change! I'm glad that I've changed my mind as I have found out more.

[hansoeii]

we go just right.

[2travelingdogs]

Changing Your Mind

This is Peanut Butter Brickle. I change my mind a lot. One minute I’ll want steak. The next minute, I’ll want peanut butter on my steak. Don’t knock it till you try it. But persons have a bit of a hard time changing their minds. They may have thought one way for quite a long time. Maybe since they were little persons. They’ve stood by those principles. If you’re a person, maybe you thought you…

[inkskinned]

she had taken all of the pronouns in my poems and turned them masculine. every she was he. every her was him. i wrote about women dipping their hands into the honey of my chest and she had changed it in this stark, violent way. men now, in my work. in my ribs, i guess. how odd, to stare at it.

i write a lot about worshipping at the knees of my girl. what sapphic can resist the allure of chapel-talk, the divine nature of what is ours and ours alone. her hair in your shower. her chapstick melting in your car. when we say holy here, it is a different meaning. it is the smithing of our own haloes from mix-tape cds. no hammer to the anvil - only our own palms, skin scorching. forging every astral ray with the prayer please don't leave. our bible a history that is never taught in high school. we shape a church from the tent of her arched back. what other word for hymn but her voice. her moaning.

a poem can be stripped of its component parts, maybe, but can it still breathe? is it still the same ship? the words this woman changed, biting and spiraling up at me: my man is holy. i worship at his feet. he is the divinity of saturdays and the wheat of my communion and he is the hushed summer's glorious release.

it's common knowledge that you can say a word too-many times, and then it loses meaning. but here was something new: it wasn't that the words had lost meaning, but rather that they had shifted in the air somehow and turned radioactive to me. all of my words were otherwise unchanged, except for the unkind and glowing eye of him.

ivory-tower glowing in my aorta, i thought about talking to her on the sanctimonious and erudite level. telling her: a poem can be changed, can be erased or added to or demolished or reconfigured; but we do try to respect the original author. i would tell her i would have preferred her not change only the pronouns; that her actions felt like censorship rather than collaboration.

in front of me: you cannot cut him out of me, i was made to love him. no scrubbing, no penance. i will always come back to this house, come back to loving men.

i thought about telling her why her actions were cannibalism, not care. i would tell her about being 18 and pressured by my catholic family to accept a man as a partner; how i'd dated him for 5 years before being able to escape. how abusive he had been. how he had made me kneel in front of him - that i wasn't using the word worship idly, but rather as a reclamation. how i had to be re-taught even the concept of faith. how when i learned peace again, it was by the hand of a woman.

i thought about telling her about the wound behind it, the unceasing loneliness. i thought about telling her shape of the small and quiet hours; the fear; the endless and unpretty nature of just being queer. i thought about saying: all of my work comes from a place of pain.

i thought about telling her everything. when i finally found the words, it was only one: why? in that was the summary of all i felt: why not write her own poem? why change it so violently? and why choose my work, if she disliked it so much? why me?

i imagine she shrugged when she responded. all i got was a single sentence: "i really like your work but i want to be able to enjoy it without being made uncomfortable."

on her insta, her pinned post is of her boyfriend - now husband - proposing. they were married in 2023. congratulations. i really do hope she's happy.

i hope one day it stops hurting.

[sketchydoof]

Astrid time

[dokirosi]

If you change your mind 💕

[spookeart]

James realising he might just see Regulus as something more than his best friend’s brother

[bellaciao-ciao-ciao]

[aulerean]

trying something new

[000marie198]

I don't care how excited it might make some people, I don't like this remake

[rocketbirdie]

i don't want to lose you. i don't want to lose this

[nikonuee]

Airplane and Cucumber should've made out at least ONCE

One sloppy, angry, half-drunk, make-out could fix them (make them so so much worse-)

One moment they're snarking at each other over plot points and "Well I don't see you writing anything, huh? I know how many of those shitty chapters you bought, you masochist!" Their wine is sloshing over the edges of their cups as they animatedly gesture to emphasise their point; The next, The two transmigration are pulling at the other's hair and exchanging wet, open-mouthed kisses. Complaining all through as they paw at the "Stupid Xianxia clothing" "You think it's cool-" and attempt to slip a hand beneath all the layers.

Cucumber ends up seated in Airplane's lap, head tilted back to allow more of that--surprisingly clever when it's not running off--mouth access to his collarbones, teeth running across the thin skin and sending shivers running down his back to pool at the base of his spine.

"I hate you so, so much"

"Yeah, yeah, can you hate me after you get your pants off?"

Cucumber's hissing insults between gasps as Airplane mouths his way up his thigh and Damn, 'Maybe those fingers aren't just for writing shitty porn after all? Oh, Oh-'

Cucumber absolutely doesn't have the face to see Airplane or God Forbid talk about it afterwards so he sneaks out of the Pleasure (heh) House in the early hours of the morning and takes the next available mission far far away from the sect.

He comes back to a smug Airplane who promptly gets his ass 'thwapped!' Because he couldn't resist the "Is it because we didn't say 'No Homo'?"

[wilsonmybeloved]

heard we were fiddlestanning

you know the drill..

(full image under cut)