#we made ourselves over...

[ang-li]

does anyone ever think about how rachels post gm lifestyle is basically as taylor described to her when they met up in new delhi and taylor never got to fulfill her side of it.. but a part of her will always be in rachels life because it was taylors care and companionship that helped rachel forge this life for herself and build a community that supports her.....

[uncanny-tranny]

r u chill w non transitioning ppl?

Why wouldn't I be? At one point, every trans person who is transitioning was once someone who wasn't (whether or not that was a choice or their need is a separate discussion).

Hatred of any kind of trans person is not a Righteous or Good Thing - every single trans person has their place, their entitlement to safety, community, and respect of who they are

[tracklessreason]

People aren't mad about Astrid being a POC because they don't like POC.

We're mad because we are POC who never get stories for us or about us, but if we're "lucky" a colored person will randomly be dropped into Middle Age Europe with no other colored people in sight.

Or maybe we'll get a movie vouching for us to abandon our families and leave our homes so tourists can have them!

"Oooh its a movie about fire-breathing dragons and your suspension of disbelief ends at the colored girl?"

Yes, actually. Why is she there? What's with this erasure of our culture? Why aren't we allowed to be depicted as happy in our homelands, in our culture, with our people?

It's almost like you don't actually give a shit about that and just think that making a blonde blue-eyed side character black whenever you get the chance will get you brownie points.

[zachdanielswhisky]

blargh

[solidaritygaming-fanblog]

holy shit guys

I might be a Philmont girlie

anyways hi what did I miss lmao-

[halimaidmf]

Like I dunno I just think it's a pretty good rule of thumb that if you're crying multiple times a week over your partner that maybe it's not a good relationship for you

[lannisterdaddyissues]

god why am i so fucking stupid. having adhd is truly a curse and i hate bearing it

[nonstandardrepertoire]

as a Jewish transsexual, the Jewish ethno-nationalist¹ sales pitch has always left me cold.² over and over again, i've heard people plugging the State of Israel offer some form of the following: "history teaches that we can never fully trust non-Jews with political power to protect Jews; the only way to make sure Jewish people are always safe is to create and maintain a state where Jewish people have the political power, so we can look out for ourselves"

but the thing is, the worst transphobic harassment i've experienced in my life has come from Jews. i don't think this says anything about the relative transphobia of Jews vs non-Jews, anymore than the fact that most of my birthday presents come from New Yorkers says anything about the relative generosity of Californians, but still. the people who followed me out of the subway filming me while yelling transphobic abuse were Jewish. two of the most relentless boosters of the current wave of transphobia in the US — Ben Shapiro and Chaya Raichik — are Jewish. i should be safe in a state run by such people?

and the obvious response is to say that, well, this is about keeping me safe as a Jew, not necessarily as an anything else. it's a bulwark against anti-Jewish violence, not every other -ism under the sun.³ but the thing is, i'm not a potato-head person. you can't just snap off the trans part of me and the Jewish part of me and say the latter part is safe even when the first isn't. i'm 100% Jewish and 100% trans; if i'm not safe as a transsexual, i'm not safe as a Jew. and if i'm going to be having to fight transphobia anyway, what difference does it make if the people passing bills stripping my rights are Jews or not?⁴

if you really lean into the logic at play here — "no one outside a vulnerable demographic can be trusted to care about people in that demographic" — it's easy to wind up in absurdity. because if i can't trust goyim to have my back as a Jew and also can't trust cis people to have my back as a transsexual, perhaps i need a state run by and for Jewish transsexuals. but wait! white Jewish transsexuals are certainly regularly horrible to, eg, Black Jewish transsexuals, so we probably shouldn't be in the same state together, to say nothing of separating out the poor, the disabled, those without college degrees . . . and before you know it, you're committed to the idea that the only just world is one where we're each a state unto ourselves, perfectly safe in absolute isolation from one another — no society, no coming together across difference to lighten the burden of living, just infinite atomization, the perfect unending unwinnable war of all against all

and this, i think, reveals the fundamental futility of the project. as a transsexual, i don't think my safety will ultimately come from removing myself from people not like me. safety, i think, comes not from cutting ties, but from building them. i will only really be safe in a society that accepts difference, multiplicity, strangeness, variety. i will only be truly safe in a society where we come together — across the gulfs that separate us — to take care of one another

i think there are illuminating parallels with feminist/lesbian separatism here. in its most extreme versions, such separatism abandons the demand that women be safe around men and instead attempts the task of building a space without men for women to inhabit. similarly, it seems to me that Jewish ethno-nationalism abandons the demand that Jewish people be safe around goyim and instead attempts to build a space without goyim for Jewish people to inhabit.⁵ i think Jews can and must be safe among goyim. i think women can and must be safe among men. i think trans people can and must be safe among cis people. that is the kind of world i am committed to fighting for, not one where we give in to fear and retreat into gardens walled by suspicion and hostility⁶

i'm not going to pretend that that's an easy world to build.⁷ i'm not going to pretend i can point to a bunch of stable, just, pluralistic societies and go "eh, just do what they did!" (altho there's no shortage of societies i can point to that went the "this place is for us and only us" route and wound up producing dystopian nightmares⁸). i'm not even going to pretend that i think building a just world from where we are now is inevitable, or even that i always think it is possible. there are days it is very hard to believe. but i always think it's worth striving for. if a just world that guarantees a good life to all isn't worth striving for, what is? if we are to suffer defeat, let it be a slow defeat, a long defeat, a fighting defeat. i am not willing to give up on my neighbors. i am not willing to abandon the charge of seeking the good for those not like me. i am not willing to abandon the hope that will seek the good for me despite my strangeness to them. and i reject any philosophy or politics that asks me to do so

_________________________________________________

¹i'm using "Jewish ethno-nationalist" here because i think it's been subject to less semantic dilution than "Zionist", and i want to avoid semantic arguments here as much as possible. whatever prescriptivist arguments you want to marshal that this or that term should mean X, i think it's clear that the descriptivist ship has long since set sail when it comes to "Zionism". (when pushed for specifics, i've seen self-professed Zionists and anti-Zionists outline essentially identical political programs, which certainly makes it seem to me that these terms are of minimal utility at best)

²obviously, what's happening on the ground is very bad. but critiquing what's happening on the ground often runs into severe questions of evidential reliability and can also leave the impression that Jewish ethno-nationalism is a good idea implemented badly, which is why i want to take aim at this level here

³given the European origins of this movement in its modern incarnation, i think it's unsurprising who gets imagined as "just a Jew" and not any other marked category. and from there, i think it's also unsurprising (if depressing) how various Jews who do exist in other marked categories have been and are treated by the "Jewish State" — the promised safety turns out to be predicated on all the usual axes of whiteness, wealth, ability, and so on

⁴indeed, i have often found that groups predicated on the idea that "we're all in alignment here" are often much more resistant to acknowledging members' various bigotries than groups not predicated on that assumption

⁵and, similarly, this attempt to cleave the world along one axis of hierarchy invariably reveals the inadequacy of one-identity-only frameworks for tackling the full complexity of the world. among other things, feminist/lesbian separatism has come under sustained critique from Black feminists like Barbara Smith for sundering ties of solidarity that are critical for fighting racism. victimhood and oppression are not fixed, ontological states, but fluid, shifting, contextual relationships. we cannot undo the snarlingly intertwined systems of oppression by replicating them in miniature

⁶the fear is certainly a real emotion; it is one i have felt at times myself. sometimes it is even based on an accurate perception of the world! but also: sometimes not. my fear of kitchen knives spontaneously levitating and flying around the room certainly feels real to me, but it's not a thing that can actually happen. one of the really hard things to do in the world, i've found, is parsing out the fears that are just feelings i'm having from the fears that tell me actual actionable information about the world and then striking a livable balance between reasonable precaution and paranoia. precautions against danger often come with their own set of risks: locking a door to keep out potential thieves ups the odds of being trapped in a building fire; using a different complex password for every site raises the risk of forgetting one and having a critical account shut down; the medications that drastically cut the frequency of debilitating migraines can raise the likelihood of other adverse health effects. more broadly, viewing neighbors with suspicion, fear, and distrust has a corrosive effect on the social fabric, and makes it harder to structure society to make sure everyone has food, clothes, housing, healthcare — all the things a society is supposed to do. (it's hard to convince people to take care of people they're afraid of, especially if they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they will have to give up something they care about (usually money, but also convenience, prestige, power) for that to happen.) and that corrosive effect can get very extreme — when fascism wants to recruit you to its cause, the sales pitch is usually less "hey, do you want to unleash horrific violence against those folks over there?" and more "hey, aren't you tired of being ~afraid~? don't you want to feel ~safe~? isn't it about time you had all the wealth, respect, and power that's rightfully yours and that's been kept from you for so long?". fear isn't the only way that horrors get unleashed, but it's a very potent one. (i don't think there's a formula for striking the right balance here. as with so many balancing acts, too much comes down to context and the specifics of all those involved, not least because the scale and nature of threats can vary so wildly. i believe that everyone deserves to be safe (insofar as any of us mostly hairless apes clinging to a thin crust of dirt on an iron ball whirling thru the cosmic void around a sphere of nuclear fire can be safe from loss, grief, accident, disaster, or misfortune...), but being and feeling are different matters, and pursuing the feeling of safety without limit can easily lead to logics of annihilation.) (and indeed, i am not the first to be struck by the fact that in many ways it is in the interests of the State of Israel, as a state, if Jews feel unsafe in the rest of the world, because that feeling of unsafety is so easily leveraged to both increase political support for the State of Israel and encourage Jewish people to leave the Diaspora and move to the State of Israel. which, unnervingly, is where you sometimes find the State of Israel and its agents taking the position that Jews don't belong anywhere that isn't the immediate environs of Jerusalem, a position that is ultimately indistinguishable from any number of dime-store Judeophobias)

⁷indeed, i think this is one of many places where it's easier to identify the problem than it is to solve it. many middle schoolers can explain the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem; barely a handful of professional mathematicians in the world could explain the proof. my cat can figure out how to break a vase even tho he can't reliably find a toy he's just been playing with when he's sitting directly on top of it (it's fine, he doesn't follow me on here, i can say that about him); in some cases, a skilled artisan can repair the vase so it functions again; no one in the world can turn back time so that the vase was never broken to begin with. it's easy to invent chessboard solutions to entrenched societal conflicts — move this border here, enact this constitution there, change this societal attitude for all involved, and hey presto!, utopia. but the world is not a game of chess. education, advocacy, activism, political organization, even wildcat direct action — these are all slow, effortful, uncertain processes, and everyone with a different vision of the future is also exercising their agency to change the course of events. i think societies are easy to break and hard to repair. in many cases, i don't really know how we go from here, the real world as it actually is with all its shattered bones and aching wounds and long-festering resentments, to there, a world of true justice. but i think it's worth trying. i think it's worth imagining. i hope you do too

⁸like, idk what even to say if "Germany for the Germans" doesn't set off alarm bells. even if they raised up a brand new continent from the ocean floor, i still think i'd be wary of the political project of building a ~Jewish state for the Jews~. i don't trust nationalism of any flavor. i think the Diasporic notion of feeling kinship with and responsibility for people all around the world regardless of borders, flags, kings, bureaucracies is beautiful and worth cherishing and protecting. i don't dream of finally being on top of the hierarchy; i dream of there not being a hierarchy to begin with

[barebevil]

Rly brave to take a game as fun and technically well crafted as dragon age the veilguard and ruin it with dogshit writing. Not a lot of franchises are willing to do that. That’s why we love dragon age. They made a game that could have been really good be kind of shit because the writing sucks ass and nuts and piss

[daemon-in-my-head]

Based on my latest post I'm overjoyed that my moots (whether or not tumblr officially recognises them thx sideblog doing sideblog sht) and those who randonly stumble upon my shit are objectively some of the greatest people.

I love this weird corner I found myself in and the general mindset and views on things.

And I may be too scared nd socially awkward to approach anyone directly but be assured I'm on the sidelines rooting for folks in a very cutesy, very demure manner and y'all should feel loved.

[butchyena]

this weekend will be the 20th anniversary of my mom passing and recently a friend of mine (who obvs never met her) told me she thinks about her all the time. mostly because the way she died was theoretically preventable via following food safety guidelines (domino 1 in a set of like 5) so she thinks about her every time she remembers something i taught her about food safety. which makes ME feel better because i always try and impart some knowledge about food-borne illness mitigation to people i befriend like nice to know she actually remembered some of what i told her. she might also have been the first person to ever point out to me MAYBE the reason i care so much about food safety is related to my mom’s passing. and my mom gets to live on in that way i guess.

[skyeateyourdonuts]

im. filled w rage

[andiinaraethtash]

*slides into your mailbox with lightsabers and blue cookies* I have this idea of Paul getting Percy a lightsaber as a wedding present because not only is he marrying Sally, he’s also stepping up as a father and for the family moon, they go to Montauk and have a lightsaber duel while Sally roasts marshmallows watching her two boys get along and is happy because Percy gets to be a kid

I love the idea of Paul stepping up, he is the best, I love him so much.

Also I'm taking this as permission to rant about @itsybitsybatsyspider and my au, which just. Buckle in, it's a long one.

So it's very much a "Percy Jackson in the star wars universe," type thing, but like. Non-specific in terms of when in the timeline it takes place? I've kinda got it in my head that it's after KOTOR/SWTOR, but before the high republic.

So the idea is that the twelve Olympian gods are the twelve Counselors, with Zeus being the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. All the rest of the gods have their different rolls related to their areas of power. Eg, Demeter is the Gardenmaster, Hestia is like. Jocasta Nu in terms of her role? She maintains things, though she's not on the Counsel. Similarly, Hades is the Head of the Jedi Shadows, and he sat in on a lot of the meetings when he was on planet.

Percy is a young (ie, like. 14) Force-sensitive who gets brought to the temple. He eventually gets apprenticed to the Nautoluan Jedi Master Po'Seiden (I should mention that in this au, Percy is half-Nautolaun. For absolutely no reason. Totally has nothing to do with the fact that Master Po'Seiden visited his home planet 15 years ago AND met Sally, no sir, not at all).

Anyway, he meets and immediately irritates young initiate Annabeth Chase, who's been trying to get Master Athena's attention so she'll be her Master. Percy's impertinence is getting in her way of being chosen as Master Athena's Padawan.

So naturally they get pulled into an adventure, and end up becoming fast friends, and share a friend in the (possibly part-Deveronian? Tdb) Grover Underwood, who's Master is a Seeker, finding young Force-sensitives and bringing them to the Temple.

I'm not sure how the Lightning Theif works exactly? But the basics stay the same: Zeus's weapon--a beautiful golden-white duel-bladed lightsaber--has been stolen, Zeus suspects Percy (reasons unknown) who then has to try to track down Jedi Master Hades, who's suspected to have had a hand in it. Only they find out that HIS weapon has been stolen as well, and both end up in the hands of Master Ares, a Zabrak who held the dubious honor of being the most aggressive practitioner of Djem So in the Order. He gets put on probation, especially once it's learned that he has been influenced through his dreams by the long-thought-dead Sith Lord Kronos.

As has the recently-knighted Luke Castellan, though by the time they realize that, it's too late. He's completely Fallen. It had been a long time coming; one of his crechemates and longest-time friends had been critically injured during a mission, and had been left behind on Zeus's (her own Master!) orders. Thalia had been rescued by Grover and his Master, but it was too little, too late. Thalia was so close to dead no one really had any hope.

We haven't quite decided whether Annabeth does get apprenticed to Athena, or to Chiron (who might be a Wookie, might be one of Yoda's species. Again, tbd). But she does get a Master by the end of it!

So Percy is half-Nautolan, and has a sea-green lightsaber. Itsy has art of him, but I don't wanna share it without their consent. (Also i want to let them share their thoughts.) But like. He has gills, which aren't readily visible, so Annabeth freaks out the first time she sees them in action, because they look like his throat has been slit in multiple places. Percy mostly uses the Force to manipulate his environment, eventually learning to make earthquakes.

Annabeth, meanwhile, is at least mostly human, who uses a shorter, bronze lightsaber, made mostly from components Luke had gifted her. The crystal, I think, is hers, just by nature of how kyber crystals work. She's very agile, using the Force to leap around and move quickly enough to get close enough to end her enemies before they can react.

We have a whole thing planned for SoM, sorta a plan for BotL, and some idea of how TTC would go. But if I keep going I'm gonna make myself so worked up I'm gonna be awake all night. Lemme know if you have questions! Also bug Itsy if you wanna.

[ltstrikesback]

Last night before going to bed I had three important thoughts that made me think I should jot them down. But then I thought no, how could I forget these. I won’t.

Picture me, the next day, unable to remember the even the general topic of the thoughts.

[crescentfool]

with the year coming to a close, i hope that anyone who's reflecting about how the year went remembers to be kind and fair to themselves with how you evaluate the year as a whole.

i think there are definitely times when life throws things that are... Not So Great at you. whether if it's some external circumstance that surprised you, or maybe your mentality wasn't at it's best. i wish for anyone who's encountered those kinds of challenges to be able to triumph over them and be able to say that they got through it.

heck, it might still be a work in progress even though you've kept chipping away at it, and that's ok! the results will show themselves eventually as you work through it! and i hope that we can all remember to be patient with ourselves as we go through these processes (learning, healing, etc.), because damn, it can be frustrating when you feel like you're "not there yet."

knowing that life can be rough at times, i think it's unfair to yourself (and others) to discount and downplay any progress you've made this year- whether if it's something that you did for the first time, or maybe you came to a new understanding and insight that you didn't have in the previous year.

it's not to say that you should undermine the validity of your experience with hardship, but to take the time to remind yourself what makes life worth living. to recall what moments were the most satisfying to you- and use it to strengthen your resolve for the next year and beyond. no amount of hardship will ever take away from the fact that you deserve to have hope that things will get better.

i hope that looking back on the year, you don't leave out the things you cherish. that you can remember the good that came this year. whether if the small victories are things like meeting someone new, trying something out for the first time, or making some strides in a long-term project/obligation...!

i wish everyone a happy new year! may it be prosperous, and that your life can move in a direction that's close to what you want out of life. you're all going to do great! remember to congratulate yourself for what you did well! despite everything, you're still here, and that's wonderful. never forget that!

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

ae feel like everyone ae know, whether a little or a lot, is getting sick or injured lately. like some sort of curse

excuse us, great gods of the universe, can you lay back on that shit? ae’m kinda trying to heal and regenerate the numb voids left behind by trauma with the power of friendship and love and the idea that one is cared for thank you very much