#Rated PG

[frameacloud]

Patrick Kelleher (February 19, 2024). "Yes, trans women can breastfeed too. Here’s why it’s safe, healthy and good for both mum and baby." PinkNews. https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/02/19/trans-women-breastfeeding-explainer-research/

tl;dr One study was about how transgender women can produce milk. Another study found that the nutritional value of their milk is the same. This news article also tells the stories of some families who do this for their babies. It quotes one of these mothers, Twitch streamer and PhD student Nominal Naomi, who said,

"If you’re trans, you can be a mother. You can be a father. You can be a parent. You can actually have a family and this life – this dream is possible for you, and you can even breastfeed your kids [...] The only thing that’s stopping you is other people’s hate and vitriol, and I don’t want to let that get in the way of me loving my family as best I can."

[moviehealthcommunity]

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

This is a Movie Health Community evaluation. It is intended to inform people of potential health hazards in movies and does not reflect the quality of the film itself. The information presented here has not been reviewed by any medical professionals.

Kung Fu Panda 4 has one scene with strong strobes of lightning. This begins immediately after a scene where the main villain opens a portal, and the lightning lasts about two minutes.

There is action at high speeds, including flying and spinning, and a few scenes take place at extreme heights.

Flashing Lights: 5/10. Motion Sickness: 4/10.

Video ID: Admin Brandon's review and evaluation of Kung Fu Panda 4

[reflectivefilms]

3 Idiots (2009) - Rajkumar Hirani

“Even a circus lion learns to sit in fear of the whip, but you call such lion well trained, not well educated.”

3 Idiots is an ironic title because it’s a film full of wisdom. But where there is wisdom, there is controversies. This was especially true to the Asian community on family expectations with career. To have an education is not the same as being well educated.

Rancho is the symbolic character of genuine learning. But more interestingly, we see his two relatable friends. One needs to graduate for his family. One wishes not to graduate at all. Their story is a tug-and-pull of being practical and being free.

One thing is for sure. We need to do better for our students. 3 Idiots is not just a fairytale of rags to riches, but a reality that poverty can reduce education to an escape. A love of learning flourishes from an environment that it is safe to learn.

[the-coda-project]

The Coda Project | 1.04 Fighting the Fear of Fear

Dean’s been anticipating his own death since he was four years old. He's been training himself to be ready for it since he was seven. More or less resigned to its inevitability since some unknown point in between. He's learned to live with it.

When Dean was four years old, a cardinal collided with his bedroom window.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the place it struck, and his mom, who'd been sitting in her rocking chair reading The Together Book aloud, had jumped so hard at the sound that she'd torn a page.

The bird had been singing until it hit the glass. Had been swooping back and forth in the afternoon sun and letting out the high, musical trills that Dean liked to imitate whenever he was playing in the garden. But Dean couldn't hear the song anymore. Just the sound of the breeze in the trees and the excited barking of the dog next door.

Within seconds, he'd been on his feet and running downstairs to see if the bird was okay, ignoring his mom calling out to him. By the time she'd caught up--moving in a slow shuffle thanks to the added weight of Dean's baby brother who was due any day now--it was too late. Dean was already in the living room, ducking under the gauzy curtains to press his face to the glass.

"Don't look," Mary called out, but he'd already seen.

Even from inside the house he could tell that the cardinal wasn’t moving.

It’s brilliant red wing was bent sideways beneath its tiny body. Black eyes glassy and unblinking.

"I think he needs a helper," Dean told his mom, and she had pulled him away from the window.

"My sweet Dean," she'd said through a watery smile, cupping his face in her palm. "You are such a good helper, but sometimes there isn't anything we can do except say goodbye."

He'd learned, then, what it was to die.

A few months later, with the heat of fire on the back of his neck, and baby Sam clutched tightly to his chest, and his heart racing at the sight of his dad looking scared for the first time in Dean's short memory, he’d learned that death wasn’t just something that came for wayward birds.

That's when it started. The anticipation. Knowing that someday, it would be him that death would come for. Or Dad. Or Sam.

He'd carried the fear quietly at first, knowing that if he seemed scared, Sammy would get scared. Dad didn't know how to make him stop crying the way Mom did, so it was up to Dean to be the strong one. The brave one.

Being afraid meant failing Sam, so he hid his fear away. Held it the way his mom had held the cardinal; its limp body cradled in a hand towel as she'd carried it down to the corner of the garden to bury among the yellow columbines. He held it gently. Held it as though one wrong move might somehow make it worse.

When he was seven years old, Dean held his first gun the same way.

It was late spring, hotter than it should've been, and Dad had left Sam with Pastor Jim to bring Dean out to an abandoned farm on the outskirts of Blue Earth, Minnesota. They'd parked outside a rusted gate near the mouth of the driveway, and Dean scraped his palms on the rough metal as he climbed over it. Twisted his ankle when he dropped down onto the hard-packed earth on the other side. It hurt, but he didn't cry. He knew not to.

In his hand, he carried a plastic grocery bag that reeked of stale beer, and the empty bottles inside clinked together with each step he took. He'd been careful not to swing it too much as they'd made their way across the overgrown front yard, through tall, scratchy grass. Through patches of dandelions that he wasn't supposed to pick, no matter how much he wanted to.

When they finally reached the house and barn, John had directed him around the back and past a sagging wooden fence that separated the small backyard from the fields beyond. He'd lined up the bottles along the middle rung of the fence to put them within Dean's eyeline, and facing the barn, he'd pushed the rifle into Dean's hands.

The Ruger was heavier than it looked. Long and cold and difficult for Dean to balance until John had directed him on how to center its weight. He'd been scared, holding it. Scared that if he tried to do as Dad told him and missed the bottles, the bullet could hit one of the birds he could see nesting in the eaves of the empty barn. That if he did as he was told, he could end up being the thing that brought death to something else. Someone else.

But Dad had given him an order. Had told him that this was how he'd be able to protect his brother. So he'd swallowed his fear, and lifted the gun until he could line up the sight. Pushed his fear down and told himself that he had to get it right. Did as he was told. Slowly exhaled as he squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Five times.

He hit every bottle, each one exploding outward in a burst of brown glass, and when he looked up at his dad it was the first time Dean had ever seen him proud.

"That's my man," he'd said, and clapped Dean firmly on the back as he took the gun and slung it over his own shoulder. "Now you can keep your brother safe when I'm not around to help you."

It had been equal parts gratifying and awful to hear. Knowing that Dad thought he was grown up enough to be trusted felt good. Knowing that sometime soon, he might be the one thing between Sam and the looming threat of death felt like having the floor pulled out from under him.

When he was sixteen, a few months before he gave up on high school for good, Dean had an English teacher who made the class discuss their hopes for the future.

They'd gone around the room one by one, each student listing out their plans and dreams and lofty goals, and when it had come to Dean he'd been honest. He'd said that he didn't think about it. That as far as he saw it, he could die any day. Any minute. Any second, his time could come, and he'd be done, and he didn't want to waste even a moment of what little time he might have with something as pointless as planning.

He didn't mention that he used to have plans. Dreams. Lofty goals.

Didn't mention that when he was just a little bit younger, he'd wanted to be a mechanic, maybe. A firefighter. A rockstar. Someone who fixes things or creates things that make people happy; someone who helps. Talking about it, the few times he had, made him feel like he was being a bad son. A bad brother. Like wanting something for himself was the same as neglecting his responsibilities.

So he'd learned to push all of that down, too. Compressed it into a tight ball in his chest until it collapsed in on itself like a black hole; something that he couldn't really look inside, but could always feed into.

The teacher had pulled him aside after class to discuss his nihilistic attitude, but even then, Dean had thought there was a pretty big difference between being aware of the futility of planning for a future he wouldn't have, and being defeated by it, but he hadn't bothered to argue. He hadn't seen the point.

(He had seen the irony in that, though--and fuck anyone who thought he didn't.)

Now, twenty-six years old and in his prime, he still feels it.

The fear is like a chronic condition his body has acclimated to. He's readjusted his baseline tolerance, so that despite the fact that it's always there under his skin, hovering at the back of his neck like a phantom hand waiting to catch hold of him at any moment, he's able to mentally separate himself from it enough to get by.

When it's a good day, he can ignore it. When it's a bad day, when the threat of death is tangible and immediate--a werewolf slashing at his chest with jagged claws, a ghost pressing icy fingers beyond the surface of his skin to crush his windpipe--the fear becomes fuel. Oxygen to feed the fire in his belly. It sharpens his focus. Gives him the edge he needs to wrestle some kind of control back from the void that's trying to claim him. And so long as he can fight it, tooth and nail, it's okay. Even if he fails. Even if he dies.

Death comes for everyone sometime, and if he's gotta go down, he's gonna be damn sure he goes down swinging.

This…

This is not that.

Right now, the threat of death is tangible and immediate, but it's not something he can control in the slightest. There's nowhere for him to channel his fear. Nothing to fight against but the threat of gravity and forty-thousand feet of open air.

The plane banks hard to the right, forcing his side against the arm rest as the engines roar, and Dean falters in his quiet repetition of Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster for just long enough that his brain supplies him with a torrent of horrific scenarios he has absolutely no hope of preventing.

A flock of birds sucked into the engine. A freak storm. A crack in the fuselage that none of the safety technicians caught during their inspection, catching the wind and peeling the plane like an orange.

Another plane on a collision path, with the air traffic controller succumbing to the relentless stress of their job and breaking down for just long enough that the pilots have no chance at correcting course.

Outside, the clouds are thick and dark, whipping past the window at a pace, and Dean can't help but think of restless spirits. Fuck, who knows what is out there. They deal with so much shit on the surface of the Earth--where they're supposed to be--that he figures there are probably hundreds of things up here that nobody's even begun to figure out how to fight.

Not to mention the demon he knows is somewhere on board.

Because it's not enough to be trapped in a flying metal death tube--the universe might as well throw in something several notches above his pay grade as well. Just for the hell of it.

If Sam tells him to breathe one more time, Dean’s going to kill him before this plane can.

"Breathe," Sam tells him.

"Choke," Dean replies.

Sam has the audacity to look affronted.

Several hours later, after the demon has been exorcized and the plane is back on solid ground, Dean feels a little like he might pass out. His limbs are loose and tingly. His chest is tight. His stomach churning. His fear has shifted back into its usual holding pattern, but he can still feel sharp edges where it's usually dulled.

He needs to do something. Needs to wrestle back some scrap of control to feel like he's in charge of his own body again.

Suddenly, the fact that they're a sixteen hour drive away from the Impala is all he can think about.

"I'm guessing you don't wanna fly back to Indianapolis?" Sam asks as they make their way through the throngs of travelers at Denver airport, and Dean just levels him with an exhausted stare. "Yeah, stupid question. I'll get us a car."

Dean lets him go, wandering over to the nearest wall and sinking down onto his haunches to sit against it. To breathe. While he waits, he finds himself staring at a sparrow flitting around near the ceiling. Watching the way it swoops and dives over the bustling crowd, searching for a way out. It's probably safer where it is, trapped in the terminal and away from the elements. Free from the threat of predators and planes.

Dean watches it and wonders what it must be like, to be so unaware. To live without fear. He doesn't know if it's better or worse than knowing; if a lack of control is easier to bear if you don't understand the consequences.

As soon as Sam returns with a set of keys, Dean stands and makes a grab for them. Sam yanks them out of reach before he can make contact.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"C'mon, hand 'em over."

"You still kinda look like you're gonna puke."

"Already did in the plane bathroom," Dean tells him, ignoring the wrinkled nose he gets in response. "And driving calms me down."

"It's a long ass drive."

"No shit. I'm not planning on pulling the whole sixteen hours in one go. C'mon, just let me take the first leg."

Sam squints, lips pursed tight, then relents with a sigh.

"Fine." He hands Dean the keys. Even just having them in his hand is grounding.

"What'd you get us, anyway?"

"A car," Sam answers, and heads off toward the door without another word.

"A car," Dean mocks, and follows.

Together, they pick their way through rows of sedans until Sam finally announces that they've reached their rental, and Dean blinks a few times as he looks at the thing Sam is pointing him toward. A bland white paint job. A generic round bumper. An utter lack of soul. He stares at it in disgust.

"What the fuck is this?"

"It's an Impala," Sam says.

"It's a crime."

"It's the 2001 model," Sam adds, and Dean doesn't have to look at him to know he's biting back a smirk. "Apparently it has cup holders."

Despite the car being one of the most offensive things he's ever seen, sinking behind the wheel makes the last of Dean's frayed nerves settle. His chest loosens. His hands feel like his own. With a slow exhale, he turns the ignition and gets them on the road. The drive back to Indianapolis stretches out ahead of him, a long, familiar stretch of blacktop and open plains, and while he can't anticipate every part of the journey, he's prepared for it.

His fear is a silent passenger in the back seat. He carries it carefully across state lines.

read again on ao3 | subscribe to series | about the series

[hey-michael-young-history]

Just a taste of something I’ve been writing for my boo McBethins. This is my favorite part because it’s cute.

Safe Word

“What is the meaning of ‘safe word’? Why do I need it?”

Johnny smiled and it was such a relief to not have to face Hanzo’s concerned and pitying expression simply for asking a question.

“You’re going to feel some intense pleasure but your body’s gonna fight it. You might tell me to stop but if you say ‘ninja’, I’ll know that you actually need me to stop. Make sense?”

“Yes.” Kuai Liang couldn’t imagine saying “stop” and not meaning it. He couldn’t imagine pleasure that was more intense than what he was already feeling. Johnny trusted him with this, while also providing a way to control it.

“Okay.” The actor’s loving gaze suddenly turned mischievous as he locked his arm around Kuai Liang’s legs and began tickling his feet.

He was confused by the feeling of his feet being scratched and began to ask why—

And then he felt it.

A strange numbness, then a nervous stimulation all through his body. It felt good, it felt painful and when Kuai Liang opened his mouth to protest it, he laughed.

Oh gods. It had to stop. But he couldn’t form a word through his bellowing laughter. He tried to kick away to escape but Johnny held firm, saying, “Oh no, you don’t!”

This was torture. Kuai Liang could feel every nerve in his feet and it felt like fire. He was laughing so hard that his face hurt and his thrashing was useless. His heart was pounding so hard that it, along with his spine, felt like it was going to eject from his body.

A flushed warmth spread over him. He could feel his body trying to lock up, desperately trying to create a protective layer of ice. It was concerning. He had worked so hard to keep his ice from threatening innocent people since the misfortune of the kamidogu incident. He wouldn’t let it harm Johnny.

Kuai Liang lurched forward and grabbed Johnny’s face. The actor turned and immediately abandoned his assault when their lips came together in a kiss. Kuai Liang was still smiling but he smiled harder when he felt Johnny’s lips turn up.

[frontalartupload]

Photo stills from 1922 mainstream media, somewhere between pop-culture and fine art.

Heavily censored for presentation in 2022, somewhere between art-history and social critique.

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

[brieffunsharksblog]

Hercules in New York

[frameacloud]

(The image description is in the alt text.)

This is a slide from a presentation that I did together with my partner @who-is-page: "You Are Not A Museum Piece: Putting Yourself Out There In The Alterhuman Community." You can watch the whole presentation on Youtube here.

[moviehealthcommunity]

Matilda the Musical (2022)

This is a Movie Health Community evaluation. It is intended to inform people of potential health hazards in movies and does not reflect the quality of the film itself. The information presented here has not been reviewed by any medical professionals.

Matilda the Musical has some bright lightning during the telling of a dramatic story, and again when this scene is flashed back to. There are mild patterned lights during a musical number involving a chocolate cake.

There is brief peril at extreme heights, and there are a few brief spinning and orbiting shots.

Flashing Lights: 6/10. Motion Sickness: 2/10.

TRIGGER WARNING: One character is physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive to children.

Image ID: A promotional poster for Matilda the Musical

[morgue-ratt]

I am watching wizards and I was not expecting actual live action footage of adolf hitler to show up in this animated children’s movie from the 70s.

[femalecharactersinmedia]

The Stepford Wives 1975

Based on the novel by Ira Levin, Joanna moves with her husband Walter and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, Connecticut. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with her new friend Bobby, she investigates this curious status quo.

Rated PG

Watch it with Tubi

[reflectivefilms]

Soul (2022) - Pete Docter

“Your spark isn’t your soul’s purpose.”

Is life really all about finding our purpose? When we’re kids, we’re taught to dream big, discover our passion and hence, ourselves. But when we don’t find that thing we want to do for the “rest of our lives”, we can feel like a failure.

Soul is a journey of this unborn soul called 22 who doesn’t want to live. But by chance, she’s able to travel to Earth and experience life. She wasn’t fascinated by the “purposes” we think like playing music, teaching or barbering. Instead, she enjoyed eating, walking and feeling a cool breeze.

A spark is not a life-defining purpose. It’s simply the little moments that make us happy we’re alive. 22 never needed to find her purpose to live because it’s living itself that is the purpose.

[male1971]