#and she chooses jane. multiple times. explicitly.

[lisbonsteresa]

YEAH

[ziracona]

The tendency in fandom to take every white girl with short hair, regardless of the status of their canonical interest or lack of interest in women and explicit interest and/or sexual history with everything but, proclaim them a lesbian queen, and then ignore or absolve them of every single horrific act they take in fiction because of this. Is not doing feminism. Women. Lesbians. Or anyone. Any favors. It’s just bad.

Somehow. Some people really do apparently need to hear that...being any specific sexuality...is not a personality trait.

And also. Women aren’t inherantly less vile than men (or anyone non-binary, agender, fluid, etc, else), and whatever bad deeds they do should be judged based on just that—on the deeds, and their context. Not their sexuality, imagined sexuality, or their gender. Becuase none of those things effect whether committing murder is bad. At all. Not even a little. And none of them. Is even a personality trait. Affecting the character’s value as a person.

It’s cool, and good, to see characters with minority identities. And it’s real nice. When it’s whatever you are. But them being whatever. Is not a personality trait. Just a fact. And sometimes. People of any type. Are not good. Pretending any minority status—gender, sexuality, race, disability, neurotype, etc—is a get out of jail free card? Is not. Doing them. Or anyone. Any favors. Personality disorder. Doesn’t make you bad. Also doesn’t make you good. Your actions do. Acting like Amy from Gone Girl did nothing wrong when she date rapes her boyfriend & then frames him for doing that to her & ruins his life, then blackmails her husband who is terrified of being murdered by her into staying with her for the sake of the child she made at a fertility clinic with his sperm without his consent, bc she’s a woman. Isn’t good. Men aren’t more deserving of violence than women. Neither is anyone else. Jane. Left an infant child in an unheated car in subzero weather in a snow storm with zombies around that easily would hear it cry and go eat it. So she could lie and say she already let zombies eat it to bait a man with easily triggerable PTSD who had just lost his family to zombies for the second time into starting a fight. Because he was injured, unarmed, weak, down an eye, and 50, while she was fit, mid 20s, healthy, and armed with a hunting knife. Because she wanted an excuse to kill him without looking bad, because she wanted the 11 year old girl she was co-parenting with him, all to herself. And her immediately responding to the dude throwing a punch by stabbing him in the stomach to escalate the fight from brawl to life or death, then losing her knife, and instead of telling him the baby was alive & she’d made it up to start a fight which could have at any point ended the fight, begging the 11 year old child to gun down her oldest surviving friend with her own hands in cold blood so that she’d get what she wanted? Is evil. As is crying on the 11 year old and using pity as a weapon to get her to stay with her if she gets mad and wants to leave when she realizes Jane staged the whole thing for an excuse to murder, and so is after realizing like a month later that she is pregnant, committing suicide, and leaving the 11 year old that she just manipulated into killing her oldest surviving friend/completely isolated on purpose so she could have her to herself, totally alone in the apocalypse to care for an infant. Jennifer’s Body? Is a fantastic film. And Jennifer didn’t deserve any of what happened to her. But not one single boy she kills during the course of that film deserved it—and explicitly so. Even the guy who could easily have been a meathead jock bully is outside alone crying becuase his best friend just died and he loved him before she decides to lure him off and eat him alive. And acting like it’s totally fine & Needy should have just let her keep eating boys instead of killing her? Is fucked up. None of them deserved to die. And no one deserves death innately more because they are or are not something that is just a factual designator of their makeup as a human. The exchange student was scared and alone and nice, the catholic kid was sweet and Needy’s friend, Chip is a bad boyfriend but he meant well and being stupid doesn’t mean you deserve to die. And this girl ate them alive. That’s not funny. Or cool. Or fine becuase they were dudes. Gertrude Robinson? Chose again and again to betray people who loved her, or trusted her—sold out victims of awful trauma to their worst nightmares. Killed friends in the worst possible ways, like it was nothing. Michael loved her, and trusted her, and tried to care for her, and she without faltering fed him to his worst nightmare and forced him to become it. There is nothing excusable about that action.

Jude Perry? Has 0 redeeming features. Didn’t even stay faithful to her poor gf & was creepy obsessed w Agnes. Literally murdered her co-worker friend just because he was happy, and she wanted to destroy things: that��s it. She didn’t even dislike him. Murdered him because he had a wife and kid and house and it seemed fun, then burned down his house, took his wife’s money, and now checks in on his kid every so often in case he ever recovers from the trauma she inflicted enough to be fun to kill. There is literally nothing good about this woman. Yes. I mean that. Because being a lesbian? Is just a thing. There is no g/b tag, there is no tag at all. Amanda Young? Got kidnapped and tortured and forced to choose between killing a man who couldn’t resist but was conscious to watch her, and letting herself die, and she killed him. Then, instead of responding to that trauma with guilt or responsibility or anger at her captor, joined up with him and started helping him kidnap people just like her. She was not forced, she was not lied to. It does not matter if John was manipulative; she is a grown ass woman and like all grown ass adults, responsible for her own actions and choices. She did not get manipulated pitifully into this—she did not go unwillingly. She volunteered, with a happy vengeance, became obsessed with John and in love with him, despite his complete lack of interest. And she did not even just do what he did. She decided on her own that no one deserved redemption, & she killed them for fun in traps that wouldn’t let them go even if they did whatever awful thing the trap demanded as a price for life, just for the fun and power trip of watching them die helpless & in agony. That was all her, & her alone. She sat in a house full of people slowly dying from organ decomposition over the course of a few hours, for no crime worse than drug addiction—the thing she of all people should have been most sympathetic to—knowing full well at any time she could have saved them and stopped the game, and did nothing. She held a woman in her arms and stroked her head lovingly while she let her die in one of the most inhumane ways possible for the crime of having not been able to break an addition. She got saved by a 16 year old child multiple times, who had done nothing more than shoplift, and stood by while he had to watch a man get his brains blown out, another burn to death in an oven. As his organs slowly dissolved too. Watched the kid kill another human being & massively traumatize himself to save her life. And responded to that by attacking & knocking him out, tying him up, locking him up for days in a tiny safe bound and gagged with an oxygen supply to keep him alive, to be a piece in another game. Left his father, who had shown up to try & save him, to starve to death in chains in a horrible abandoned rotting room, & never even told him his son was alive. Let every other addict die horribly, let that kid sustain permanent damage to his organs that will kill him young, antidote taken or not, took his dad from him, & went back to torturing without a second thought. Kidnapped a woman whose worst crime was being a doctor & dating someone while maybe separated instead of divorced from her husband, put her in a trap that would take her head off with shotgun blasts, threatened her for fun, & then killed her even after she did everything she was asked, because it was more important to her that the old man she was obsessed with think she was special and great, than for the other woman to get to stay alive another day & go home to her daughter. There is nothing sympathetic about Amanda. She’s just not only evil, but too spineless to take responsibility for her own choices & actions, & tries to hide behind a “UwU I am sad & lonely & damaged & having trauma means I can literally torture people to death to feel special & it’s really tragic and sympathetic about me, not evil. Uhm. Some people??? Commit torture-murders?? To cope??” And acting like she’s somehow a victim in this becuase she is a pretty white girl with short hair? Is fucked. Up.

But every. God damn. Time. I see this. Please. It needs. To stop. People go: “UwU pretty girl short hair want” & I go “Ok. I see where u. Come from. Indeed.” But then. They go. “Girl pretty I like. So she was blameless. For this atrocity.” Those words...

Every day. I wake up. Thinking of Janic saying. Iconically. “At least me and Regina George know we’re mean,” and I weep inside. Because I cannot fathom. Or stomach. The lack of responsibility. I will kill. Characters who cannot admit they are bad. Myself. But somehow. They become. Flames. To moths. Of the “UwU pretty white girl short hair. We stan. Victim. Queen. Love her. Never done wrong.” Boy. We all done wrong. Even all my faves. At least once. I think. ...not if we count dogs probably, but people, yes. Ok. Anyway. All this is to say. Characters. Should be judged. Based on what they did. And why. And the aftermath. Not a grouping tag. I don’t mean any of these. Make bad characters. At all. Amy is a great character. So is Jennifer. So are most of them. I have quite affection even. For Jeneffer specifically. But you can like. Character. Without proclaiming. Them perfect humans. Who never did a thing wrong. Or their acts somehow. Justifiable. And ok. And you better stop saying. Ok. Because done. To men. Men do not. Deserve violence. Any more. Than anyone else. No one deserves violence defacto for factors. Outside their control. Wtf. Really people. It’s ok too. For character. To do much bad stuff. And still like character. Villains. And often just complex characters. Sometimes just characters. Do stuff. That is bad. It’s not supposed to be not their fault. Or ok. Also. Women are not a sisterhood. Of flawless beings. Who never hurt anyone or do any bad stuff. They can. And are. Often purpotrators. Of awful acts. And when they are. It is still. Very bad. Still. An awful act. Same level. Even. Of awful. Wild.

In conclusion.

Having short hair. While a girl. Doesn’t make her a butch queen. Who is absolved of all responsibility for that murder she committed. It just makes her a girl with short hair. That did a murder. I’m gonna. Kill someone. Too. And if I chop my hair off. I guess I can get away with it.

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 5 - Meat Page 7

==>

Okay, time for Rose and Dirk to talk delicious politics or something.

Heh, customary show-end riots.

Rose, stop causing all of us undue alarm.

Ascending? Is she going to fade out into a concept or something???

Oh shit, Dirk’s doing something similar.  Some sort of inevitability once God-Tier is reached or some such.

Dirk has a solution to the problem in the works.  That’s... well, Rose already cautioned that that could be ominous.  I hope it doesn’t involve decapitation.  Or robot bodies, or turning her into an omniscient cueball or something.

==>

Okay, stage play time.  I can see a weird-seeming text color choice for Caliborn down below, hm.  Time to read down to there...

Ah, the classic finale-callback thumbs down.  Nice.

...yeah, reinforcing the point he was trying to make a little less explicitly with his earlier finale of Homestuck that Lord English had really just, sort of, trapped them in this narrative that their ultimate reward would be to escape, realizing it never really mattered too much compared to their own long lives and happiness or something.

==>

Epilogue TWO??????  D:

Okay now it’s, like, Andrew commenting isn’t it.

Oh shit, it DOES suck them up and trap them? Huh. That explains how Jade was dealt with, I’d forgotten. Also because it was one of the huge goddamn unanswered fucking hugepoints that made it seem like a slap in the face when we were told it didn’t matter and-- yeah okay let me just keep reading.

Huh, broken glasses.

And, phew; the ages it takes is from an OUTSIDE perspective.  Let’s see what it is from an inside perspective...

==>

Jaaaane!!! :D

Okay let’s read about Janey.

Mhmm, that’s not that surprising... Dirk knew that Karkat was going to run against Jane, but Jane didn’t, even though Dirk was ostensibly “working” for her.  There’s definitely a plan here.  Maybe it involves Jane and Karkat smooching publicly at the end.  ...No, that’s just my wishful imagination talking, isn’t it.

Oh my god she’s screaming into a pillow at hearing she has competition.  That’s adorable.

YES, JANE.  UNDERESTIMATE KARKAT.  YOU WILL FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM LIKE EVERYONE ELSE (though probably platonically).  It does upset me that they’ve taken this long to really get acquainted, though; I’ve argued for years that their personalities are naturally compatible as the straight men for all their friends’ bullshit.

In fact, Jane is pretty sure that Karkat Vantas would probably literally burst into flame if too many people happened to look at him at the same time, like a vampire walking out into the sun.

Yes, but he’d get over it.  And be a flaming president or something.

In fact, Jane cannot remember a single conversation she’s ever had with him that wasn’t about the economy. She thinks back to one time at John’s eighteenth birthday when Dave engaged her in a rigorous and rather one-sided debate about deregulation and the failure of “neoliberal austerity measures” until Karkat had to come over and put his hands over his roommate’s mouth to make him stop talking.

Oh my FUCKING god, it’s true.  Dave’s appropriately liberal in the modern, Krugman-esque, statistically grounded way.  Karkat has my vote already.

She’d be happy to accept a graceful, temporary defeat and let Karkat play president for a couple of years. After all, unlike her, he was not immortal.

Hey fuck you.  Also, why the FUCK haven’t they used one of the myriad likely ways to extend Karkat’s lifespan basically indefinitely yet???  Heck, JANE could probably do it with Life powers if she crawled back out of her own butt!  We already know the Condesce could extend other trolls’ lifespans with weird troll powers so Life powers are almost certainly enough to suffice.  >:(

Ohhh, so maybe Jane is just, like... slightly traumatized by trolls? And thus a little tiny bit predisposed against trusting them cause of the Condesce? :(

Interesting how she views her past reliance on / pursuance of Jake as something that made her “weak” specifically.

Okay, I’m getting a slightly uncomfortable vibe that Jane is willing to almost play at seduction with Jake falsely to get his endorsement on--

And she’s willing to do more than that, too.

Okay FUCK, JANE.  GET YOURSELF UNDER CONTROL.  I’m starting to believe the shittalking the others have given about you!  You’d better shape up by the end of this epilogue or what have you.

==>

Okay, trapped John can hear the other three through the walls of their prison or something.

Conversation and musings, conversation and musings.....

Wait, Jade LIVES with Dave and Karkat in that SAME HOUSE and they didn’t even mention it??!??  What is even up with their thing.

Heh, John’s thinking he really could have used a nice kismesis riling him up to better himself.  That’s what they’re for, really.

There there, John.

==>

Oh my fucking GOD, Jane rolls with supply side economics???  TAKE.  HER.  DOWN.

And Jade is just... here?  Huh.

Yeah they DEFS weren’t listening.

JADE: especially when JADE: there are much better things we could all be doing with our mouths.....

HOLY SHIT.  HOLY SHIT.  JADE IS SO INTO EITHER OF THEM THAT THEY CAN’T TAKE IT, CAN THEY.  THAT’S FUCKING AMAZING OH MY GOD

Her tail swishes from side to side

SINCE WHEN DOES SHE HAVE A FUCKING TAIL HOW IS THAT SUDDENLY CANON

I’M NOT MAD IM JUST SURPRISED

Wasn’t that something that the ask-responses from Andrew said she canonically DIDN’T have or what the fuck

Since I guess it wasn’t confirmed IN CANON he just decided he liked it enough to offer it here or???? I DON’T KNOW????

Wow why am I all worked up by this all of a sudden.  It’s just transferring from her earlier line isn’t it.

three of her bras

Okay no nevermind Andrew’s just fucking with us.

...Even though this can probably still be considered canon.  Which only makes how he’s fucking with us work even better, really.  I mean, why WOULDN’T he lob this at us on the ten year anniversary and watch us squirm, really.  There’s no incentive not to.

--oh wait wait never mind reading further these are just bras from different days she threw over the couch.  PHEW.  I thought for a second that we were dealing with dog anatomy stuff that would REQUIRE multiple bras on her.  Jesus.  I wonder if Andrew intentionally phrased things so some people would think that for a minute.

JADE: also you know trolls dont actually have two dicks dave thats an offensive stereotype

Pffffff

Wait, is it that Dave and Karkat’s relationship isn’t quite full-hearts sexual and Jade is incessantly shipping them?? :O

because that’d be hilarious too??  --*reads*

YESSSS JADE BEING SUPER STAT WHIZ WITH HER SUPER PARTOMNIDOG SPACE BRAIN YES

The thing about Jade Harley is that she’s not as good at personal things as she is at other things. Like science, or mastering fraymotifs, or kissing, the last of which she has definitely put a lot of levels into over the past few years because, well, what else are you supposed to do with immortal godhood once you hit the age where the dog hormones start kicking into overdrive? 

f uck

dog hormones

i’m wheezing

Alright, Jade’s springing a thorough relationship talk on them.  That’s cool.  Also she’s throwing statistics in there and I LOVE that now that Jade is older we’re reinforcing just how scary science smart she is, I can’t wait to see other people roleplaying her properly because of it too.

...Yeah Jade would definitely date a chess couple

Jade sighs and crawls closer. She takes one of Karkat’s hands in hers.

JADE: i think wed all work good together

AAAAAAAA :D :D :D

JADE: and i think weve been dancing around that for years now JADE: i wanna try dating for real KARKAT: HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED KARKAT: SORRY IF WHAT I’M ABOUT TO SAY TOTALLY BLOWS YOUR MIND KARKAT: DATING A SINGLE PERSON, FOR MORE THAN HALF A SWEEP, FOR REASONS OTHER THAN INITIATING THE CONCUPISCENT EXCHANGE OF FLUIDS?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFF OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS PERFECT

Jade being

literally the thirstiest person in this ENTIRE CAST OF CHARACTERS

to the point that everyone’s calling her out on it

in something that’s virtually goddamn canon

holy fucking shit I love everything.  I love life.  Living in a universe where this hilarious shit happens is fun.

....pFFFF JADE DIDN’T KNOW OBAMA WAS REAL THIS IS AMAZING

Ooh, dueling god-tier powers for petty reasons.

OH NO DICK DRAWINGS ARE LIKELY IMMINENT

THAT OR A CHART

OR BOTH

...yeah her hair would get everywhere, wouldn’t it.

yes make fun of ship names some more

What Jade leaves in her wake is not quite the emotional scorched-earth situation that she was going for, but a few of her needles have definitely gotten under some skin. Dave and Karkat both stare after her, silently caught in their own private rationalization spirals.

So this whole time Jade’s been all “JUST KISS ALREADY” and they’ve been all “what no” and now she’s just laid it all out in the open and left them to it.  Yeah that sounds about like what would’ve happened.

Aaaand of course, since this is Dave and Karkat, they just choose to stall some more and play video games.  Jade really DOES complete this relationship with her pushing them to accept reality and stop downplaying their own feelings and self-esteem and all.  But that’s what I thought would happen BEFORE I even read any epilogue stuff so I’m biased.

==>

Pff, Vriska time.

You’ve now got two bitches of either gender at your side

Vriska, shame!  Don’t use that kind of language!!

Yep, this version of her didn’t learn her lesson and is still pretty much completely delusional.

Alright, Real Terezi™ is still flying out in the abyss trying to scoop Vriska out of this jam, cool, cool.

Flailing and spinning, screaming, not being able to see the final event or whatever-- someone save her already we know it’s gonna happen!

JOHN: Emerge from the juju.

Oh.  Well, that’s uncomfortably in line with earlier presumably-discredited theories.  About John saving Vriska from the black hole the Green Sun left in its wake and all.  :|

Yawns too wide and snaps in half?  The moment he was dreaming about?

==>

Oh hai Jake.  This really IS the perfect time to get to see some attempted-exploitative discomfort between Jane and you.  I mean that!  The narrative timing is pretty hilarious.

The sunset has turned the head offices of Crockercorp into a shimmering glass monolith—a beacon, if you will, of the future, visible for miles in every direction.

Jane probably likes to think about it that way at least.

Wow, Jane REALLY sounds like she needs to be knocked down a peg or seven.

The whole place is candlelit, and Jane is reclining on her desk, sprawled out like a lounge singer on a grand piano.

OH MY FUCKING GOD JANE STOP BEING A SLIMEBAG!!!! D: D: D:

Thank you, Jake, for coming through and tanking this.

This is not really the kind of conversation you initiate if you’re looking to extract a sexual deal out of someone. It is, however, the kind of conversation that you might have with a childhood friend who has become somewhat emotionally estranged from you.

THANK FUCKING GOD.  Jane has been saved from herself for the moment.

Okay I see a whole bunch of paragraphs of black text down below just as these two are likely coming together for a kiss.  Uh oh.

...Yep, kiss there.  And, uh...

Okay whew, most of it is Jake privately soliloquy-ing to the narrative about the circumstances leading up to this. I can deal with that.

...Oh my god he keeps thinking of Dirk while getting in close to Jane.  This is gonna blow up in his face isn’t it.

Reading on....

--Ah, yeah, he just realizes he’s more into Dirk I guess.  Ouch.  Ouch, Jane.

DIRK: Were you nice to him? JANE: Well, I... DIRK: I told you, you can’t be nice to Jake. JANE: ...

PPFffffffffff

DIRK: Why don’t you leave Jake to me?

Now ain’t that telling?

Ooh, getting down to plot business with Rose.

==>

Back to John.  I see a bit that says “Listen” there, is he going to hear Vriska screaming? Or is Terezi going to pick her up? Since, like, I mean she has the jetpack and has been searching for her longer and stuff.

Yep, big ol’ LE tantrum.  Though alt!Calliope seems at least as much at fault for the end of the universe as him, if not moreso.

Ah, right, Andrew wanted us to THINK he’d hear Vriska screaming just so he could troll us like that.  Makes more sense, anyway.

Huh, the Juju just pops away.

OW.  Down a spare Rose, just like that, huh?  Probably part of why main Rose knew what the plan was supposed to be for all this.

Ah right, can’t use your Green Sun powers here, Jade.

OW.  Another quasi-doomed side-character death.

Yep, you have to make a tough, leaderly decision and let go.  :C  --Oh crap, you saved her body.  Are you gonna put the ring there or what, I’m not sure where that’s going plotways.

Pff, the whole fight going south just due to John losing his glasses... that’s pretty funny from a perspective.

Oh huh, real ghost Tavros gets nuked.

Oh shit, Meenah’s going in!  Don’t die, I actually care about this version of you!!

--Ah, thrown out and fate unclear, that’s a bit better than clear death.

Hm, Davepeta vs English round two?  I wonder what the purpose of all of this really is, anyway, beyond just a sense that some only implied-wrapped-up things are being actually wrapped up?  This whole Meat arc?  Is Candy going to be ultimately more important to everyone, as was part of the point, or?  Huhhm.

Final Round!!

Hammer buffet!

Slight obligatory feelings allusion via hammer!

Oh no! VORE!!! D:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < wrow you almost got vored to death

Phew, avoided

Ow, another decapitation.  There’s a killing blow and being trapped forever in a black hole for LE to look forward to, though.  Weren’t there theories about him being trapped forever at the center of that black hole or whatever?  Huh.  I mean there WAS the garbage disposal that his metaphorical Jigsaw-head gets stuck in early in the comic after all.

Alright, Davepeta sticks him in there?  Cool.

Yeah, you just had to remind us that he’s going to be plunging into his dead sister’s gaping hole, didn’t you? >:|

Davepeta. How they were so unfettered and brave. How they sacrificed themselves by flying right into the black hole like...

Like a fucking piece of garbage, you can almost hear Dave saying. May God rest his soul.

Yup.  Closing another callback.  Why is it silent, though?  Did the black hole stop sucking now that it’s gotten almost everything but John, or is it just his blackout?  I mean, is the end of everything just a thing that “happens” (which is still pretty fine, Paradox Space had a pretty good run), or did it just stop, or is it yet to be resolved or re-John-creates-Paradox-Space’s-beginning-because-hes-the-only-thing-left-constituted if he inexplicably doesn’t die from his heroic wounds or?  And Terezi definitely didn’t go flying around Paradox Space’s dying remains just to get sucked in too, right?  I definitely haven’t seen the whole picture yet I guess.

==>

Alright, back to Rose... actually this post’s getting long so I’ll cut here and keep going in another post.

[kelvintimeline]

STEPHANIE’S POST ACTUALLY SEEING ENDGAME REVIEW--SPOILER FILLED LIST OF EVERYTHING WRONG WITH TIHS MOVIE I COULD NOTICE IN BETWEEN MENTAL RANTS

 okay, so, during the movie, i spent hafl the time compiling rants in my brain about eveyrthing wrong with it and then emailed myself every point so i would not forget what made me mad

this is one of the most passively racist and sexist movies i have seen in a while it was just... completely devoid of any meaningful women or people of color (or... women of color) for so much of the film? and those who were present got shafted a lot. like... literally all of the women except for nebula existed to tell a man’s story.

which brings me to the point that we NEED to talk about the theme of family in this movie--it’s constantly brought up. clint misses his family, tony now has a family (because just dating someone isnt’ a family? this is a very nuclear famiyl oriented understanding of family), gamora and nebula are family, natasha never knew her family but the avengers are her family

and tha’s the crux of it--natasha calls the avengers her family, steve calls avengers family, but that’s not good enough to save her

when natasha and clint are on the cliff, clint makes a great point about why he should die--he’s become a terrible person (he spends half the movie just killing “evil people” who are all people of color, see: talking about how racist this movie is--literally “ronin” clint is better at a samurai sword than a japanese man and now speaks japanese?? why?? it felt like a bad martial arts parody movie--like those racist movies ppl would make about white men slaughtering samurais just not GOOD) and natasha has finally erased the red in her ledger by doing good. natasha dies anyways (literally forces him to kill her) because she’s stopped being useful to her “family” and his family is an actual family.

which brings me to--steve and natasha explicitly talk about two things--how they are family and how it is important to move on.

moving on is a CENTRAL part of this movie--the time travel works in large part so everyone can move on from their losses. thor moves on from his mother’s death, tony gets closure with his father, clint gets what should have been a last moment seeing his happy family, etc. steve gets to see peggy.

steve does not move on. steve LITERALLY HAS MULTIPLE LINES ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO MOVE ON AND STEVE DOES NOT MOVE ON. steve tells a gay man mourning his dead husband while trying to date someone new that moving on is important and steve still goes back in time to stay with peggy.

what’s worse, steve goes back in time and tells bucky to wait for hima nd not do anything stupd KNOWING HE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT BACK BECAUSE HES CHOOSING TO LIVE OUT HIS ENTIRE LIFE IN TEH PAST.

what’s EVEN WORSE THAN THAT--literally right the fuck after bucky and sam gets dusted he’s alreayd thinking about peggy? he never once mentions sam/bucky besides a quick mention of bucky being alive to trick past steve.

more fucked up shit around sam/bucky/steve--sam offers to go back with him but bucky doesn’t?? when old man steve returns, bucky doens’t even try to talk to him? despite being the one to notice him? steve doesn’t stand with bucky and sam at tony’s funeral why?

steve and bucky and sam and so many otehres are FAMILY but not enough family to make steve stay

steve aint worthy

steve apparently DID STAY IN THIS FUCKING TIMELINE? since he didn’t return via the pym particles or wahtever he literally aged into the present AND LET EVERY BAD THING HAPPEN YOu DON’T DO THAT TO PEOPLE YOU LOVE HE LET HYDRA AND TEH WINTER SOLDIER PROGRAM HAPPEN??

unless i don’t udnerstand the time travel--> separate unierse thing which is possible BECAUSE ITS’ FUCKING STUPID

if the universe splits into a different universe when the stones are removed--this would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TIMELINE WHEN THANOS DESTROYED THE STONES which means when tehy returned hte stones, they actually would’ve reverted back to the timeline before he destroyed the stones-an infinite loop

why couldn’t they snap tehir dead back to life?

where did thanos’ army come from?

when his army disappeared why didn’t gamora disappear too?

did they think i would forget that they could de-age people? scott was turned young again--why can’t they make steve young agian, lmao

why didn’t steve take every single vial of particles he could get? like he only took a couple ie as many as were necessary for the plot

how did thanos/gamora/nebula travel on only one vial? why werne’t other ppl sharing vials then??

why was okoye gone all film? like the answer is misogynoir but like... seriosuly why?

WHY DID TONY BLAME STEVE FOR THE SNAP HAPPENING?

WHY DID STEVE SPEND LTIERALLY THE ENTIRE FILMT ELLING TONY HE TRUSTS HIM, THAT TONY IS RIGHT (EVEN WHEN HE WAS EXPLICITLY WRONG AND WAS PROVEN TO BE WRONG), AND THEN CRYING OVE RHIM?

also they still fucked up the timelines?? the timelines are changed AFTER they removed the stones nad yet they did shit to fuck up the timelines trying to get the stones--which means every dumb ass thing they did to get eth stones remains in the timeline. unless steve returns the stones to BEFORE they actually took the stones, in whcih? that makes no sense?

nebula’s “network” connection between her prsent and past self made no sense either

thor literally made valkyrie (who hadn’t been with the asgardians from many years) queen so that they could write her out of his movies as he’s not a member of GOTG

ltos of girl power moments actually worked like that--every time a woman did something cool, it was to harm her in some way. valkyrie is “queen” so she’s no longer relevant to thor’s plot

the moment where all of the girls (besides the dead ones :) ) teamed up just had them get beaten down in teh end? like it was for nothing? that’s not... girl power. also, they wouldn’t even be able to fit all of the important men into one screen so it’s just embarrassing

talking about weird shit about women--EVEYR woman EVER in the series comes back but they don’t even mention sharon, the girl steve was dating, at all, like even confirm if she was dusted or not, beacuse they know that makes steggy look bad

literally even JANE got new moments but sharon couldn’t come up

talking about jane--making thor hung up on her is fucking weird he has a girlfriend? who he treats like shit, tbf. thor’s character was an extended fat joke. he liteally says he isn’t fit to be king and that he was just pretending aftter getting a speech from his mother saying that isn’t true. ragnarok thor was killed off in the worst way. also his mother literally existing just to be like... an emotional spport woman was misgoynistic as fuck lmao

like thor’s cahracter WHOMST?

also, like, the hail hdyra moment was the nastiness shit i’ve seen in a long fucking time?? including antisemitism in your movie just ot reference a comic book run that was panned by both people who hate antisemitism and also antisemitic fanboys who like good writing (like it just wasn’t written well) is just... antisemitic. it was a reference for anti semitism’s sake

the moments they choose to get this shit was also so fuckign arbitrary? you couldn’t retrieve half these stones at like... normal times? also how did they know where to find them in the shield vaults or like where to find the pym particles

the writing in this movie was just ‘what is most convenient for moving the plot along/fanservice/humanizing tony’

talking about humanizing tony did pepper give birth like the sceond after the snap? their child is so old for a five year time skip like... i guess since tony didn’t lose anyone in the snap besides peter it didn’t affect how horny he was

also the peter/tony stuff was so oevrblown???????? THEY WEREN’T CLOSE?? TONY TREATED HIM LIKE SHIT FOR 80% OF HOMECOMING??

its so nice and convenient that ned got snapped too--all of peter’s friends get snapped so no one is 22 and out of high school (also i refuse to watch far from home because i feel like old man steve dying is just gonna be a fly by comment)

talking about the snap--the list of names in the graveyard made sense but it felt like a war/actual genocide memorial and it felt... cheap and gross and also why teh fuck was it placed in that random part of town?

ALSO LIKE?? wanda and clint talk and they make it seem like vision and natasha’s death are equally bad the mcu rly does just ahte women

also the women all get make overs?? why is natasha dying her hair in the middle of the end of the world

why did tony get a funeral but natasha doesn’t?

the guardians having a funny moment with thor instead of discussing gamora felt........ bad

there were two steves in the main universe how the fuck does that make sense?????? how does that not affect the timeline also what happened to peggy’s husbAND?

there are other things wrong with it but this is all i wrote down in my emails to myself. there were a lot of individual moemnts that pissed me off but then something else would happen to piss me off and i would forget what i was mad about before that

[carriecourogen]

In Times of Chaos, Maggie Rogers Serves a Much-Needed Catharsis

Three-quarters of the way through Heard It In A Past Life, Maggie Rogers recalls words of wisdom implored decades before her: Standing, staring straight ahead, listening when Stevie says: Come out of the darkness.

Rogers isn’t the first millennial to look to the past — or Stevie Nicks, in particular — for inspiration. But on her full-length major label debut, she voyages to the lighthouse and returns to report on the revelations made in ways that feel not derivative or contrived, but fresh, invigorating, and necessary for our times.

We are living in an increasingly unstable world, and those of 24-year-old Rogers’ generation are bearing the brunt of it. We’re the first generation all but guaranteed not to be more financially successful than our parents, the ones navigating an imploding and underpaying job market, the ones facing the downright terrifying possibility that the world will encounter apocalyptic climate crisis before we’ve even reached retirement age. Can you really blame us for being the most anxious generation yet? After all, on top of trying to clean up the world’s messy shit, we’re still 20-somethings with personal crises of our own.

It makes sense, then, that the current musical landscape seems a little bleak — and not just in the resurgence of intimately emotional indie singer-songwriters. Pop music, once considered to be joyous, saccharine stuff, is getting sadder. A recent study found that pop songs’ mood has been trending downward considerably in the past few decades, with fewer songs conveying “happiness” or “brightness” and more ticking off the “sadness” box. In 2014, the Billboard Hot 100 chart was topped by Pharrell Williams’ infectious, sunshine-kissed bop “Happy” (I swear, you can’t make this stuff up). Five years later, the number one song is Halsey’s “Without Me,” a brooding breakup track released via a tweet that said “Here are my insides. Handle them with care.”

Maybe this is why Maggie Rogers feels like such a breath of fresh air. Rejoice, our times are terrible, indeed, but her music is a spot of brightness in a world that seems to be growing more grim every day. Her music is the stuff of joy, hard-won optimism in the face of challenge. It’s the kind of cathartic dance party you throw in spite of — and sometimes because of — darkness, not in ignorance of it.

Rogers’ story goes a little like this: The rural Maryland native enrolled at NYU to study at the esteemed Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Nicknamed “Banjo Girl,” she played the requisite Brooklyn and East Village venues with her folk band, but living in the city, as well as a semester in Paris, exposed Rogers to hip-hop, dance, and electronic music. Though revelatory, it led to confusion about what kind of artist she wanted to be. Rogers put music on hold for a few years and instead pursued a journalism career, interning for Elle and helping Lizzy Goodman with her oral history of New York’s music scene in the early-aughts, Meet Met In The Bathroom.

All that changed in 2016, when Pharrell appeared as a surprise guest at the then-senior’s masterclass to critique students’ work. Rogers played a demo she wrote in 15 minutes and finished just moments before the class started. A video of that exchange, in which the veteran producer’s reactions flash across his face in real time as he listens to “Alaska” — surprise, awe, amusement, moved — was uploaded to Reddit. “I’ve never heard anything that sounds like that,” he concludes, telling her he has absolutely no notes for her. Days after she graduated and moved home, the video went viral and, suddenly, Rogers was the subject of a major label bidding war.

The catapult to fame and a career — a rushed EP, a year-long world tour, and multiple TV appearances — left Rogers panicked and overwhelmed, feeling like her life was happening to her, completely out of control. Heard It In A Past Life is loosely a concept album that reckons with the aftermath of virality, one that declares agency in the face of such radical upheaval. Musical reflections on the trials and tribulations of fame can be hit or miss, more often ringing “woe is me” than not. But Rogers’ youth is her benefit; at the end of the day, it’s an album not so much about fame as it is about change.

A track like “Overnight” may explicitly be about the bizarre ways Rogers’ life, and the people in it, changed abruptly with fame. But it also shares a feeling of camaraderie for anyone in this quarter life stage beginning to grasp the breakneck pace of life when pausing briefly to look back, realizing that the people we were or the people we loved just a short time ago feel like strangers.

On “Fallingwater” Rogers speaks to the imposter syndrome that can cripple us in the face of success, the way we can feel confused or ungrateful for allowing terror to dominate our emotions even when things are objectively good. Go on and tell me just how I could allow, she sings, all this light to end up somehow where it’s getting darker.

She works through the complicated emotions more explicitly on “Light On,” sharing glimpses of scared tears shed in bathrooms, the strangers telling her she must be so happy with her newfound success. Rogers recognizes the give and take of the universe, that neither light nor dark can exist without the other. There’s a gratitude that her love of music — which radiates throughout the album — has gotten her this far. But she acknowledges that there may be more moments of uncertainty or doubt, hoping that she — and listeners — will remember to keep a light on to safely guide herself back home.

These contrasting shades of light and dark weave their way thematically through the album. They take up residence within her lyrics: the warmth of a sunlit lake after dark days, the slinky confidence that comes out in us when the sun goes down, the shadows of our minds, and the burning flames of happiness and love. But they also exist in the contradictory nature of her music itself. To define it strictly “pop” is a disservice to Rogers’ artistry and her knack for twisting a listener’s expectations, be it reaching back into her folk roots with deeply confessional, Laurel Canyon-reminiscent lyrics and soulful vocals that get paired up with pulsating synths and electronic beats, dipping into R&B slow jam territory, or combining organic, world music rhythms like spoons, jars, and hand claps with more traditional, infectious pop melodies. Because in the end, it’s not genre (nor even the at times imperfect production) that matters, but what each song evokes: an urgent, immediate need to move your body, a freedom that comes only with feeling lost enough within the music to shake off whatever it is that haunts you — even if just for a few minutes — and dance.

There’s a metaphor Jane Fonda uses when speaking about personal growth that I’ve been thinking about a lot when listening to Rogers’ album. You can, as Fonda recalls doing for many years, drift through the current of life like a leaf. Or, you can choose to put your oars in the water and try to “determine what direction you want to go in” and move with intention, refusing to settle “for what people tell you you’re supposed to be.”

On the album’s clincher, the standout anthemic battle cry that is “Back In My Body,” Rogers offers a powerful reclamation of her voice, her story, her life. Over thumping, militaristic drum beats that gradually build, she recounts a series of panic attacks experienced while on tour before determining that she won’t allow fear to coax her into easily giving up on what she loves and holds so dearly. This time, I know I’m fighting, she sings. The past is out of her hands now, but this time, she can control her present and her future. 

With Past Life, the 24-year-old Rogers has her oars firmly placed in the water. She is the captain of her career from here on out. The water might be choppy and uneven, the ride never perfect, but it will be exciting to see where she steers to next.

[lauracadmanart-blog]

Abortion

History:

The practice of abortion - the termination of a pregnancy - has been known since ancient times. Various methods have been used to perform or attempt an abortion, including the administration of abortifacient herbs, the use of sharpened implements, the application of abdominal pressure, and other techniques. Abortions laws and their enforcement have fluctuated through various era. In many western countries during the 20th century various pro-abortion groups were successful in having abortion bans repealed. While abortion remain legal in most of the West, this legality is regularly challenged by anti-abortion groups.

Many methods employed in early and primitive cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities like strenuous labour, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving were common techniques. Physical means of inducing abortion, including battery, exercise, and tightening the girdle were often used as late as the Early Modern Period among English Women. Archaeological discoveries indicate early surgical attempts at the extraction of a fetus; however, such methods are not believed to have been common, given the infrequency with which they are mentioned in ancient medical texts. An 8th century Sanskrit text instructs women wishing to induce an abortion to sit over a pot of steam or stewed onions. The technique of massage abortion, involving pressure to the pregnant abdomen, has been practiced in Southeast Asia for centuries. Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century. It became much more prevalent during the Edo period, especially among the peasant class, who were hit the hardest by the recurrent famines and high taxation of the age. Hippocrates would advise prostitutes to jump up and down, touching her buttocks with her heels at each leap, so as to induce miscarriage.

A list of plants which cause abortion was provided in De viribus herbarum, an 11th century herbal written in the form of a poem. Among them were rue, italian catnip, savory, sage, soapwort, cyperus, white and black hellebore, and pennyroyal.

Attitudes: The Stoics believed the fetus to be plantlike in nature, and not an animal until the moment of birth, when it finally breathed air. They therefore found abortion morally acceptable. Aristotle wrote that, “[T]he line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive.” Before that point was reached, Aristotle did not regard abortion as the killing of a human. Aristotle considered the embryo to gain a human soul at 40 days if male and 90 days if female; before that, it had vegetable and animal souls.

Although abortion was permitted in Rome, attitudes changed with the spread of Christianity and around 211 AD emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla banned abortion as infringing on parental rights; temporary exile was the punishment. 19th century medicine saw tremendous advances in the fields of surgery, anaesthesia, and sanitation. Social attitudes towards abortion shifted during this period under the influence of Victorian morality, and abortion was made illegal. There were a number of factors that contributed to this shift in opinion. In the United States, where physicians were the leading advocates of abortion criminalization laws, advances in medical knowledge played a significant role in influencing anti-abortion opinion. Science had discovered that conception inaugurated a more or less continuous process of development, which would produce a new human being if uninterrupted.

The English law on abortion was first codified in legislation under sections 1 and 2 of Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803. The bill was proposed to clarify the law relating to abortion and was the first law to explicitly outlaw it. The Act provided that it was an offence for any person to perform or cause an abortion. The punishment for performing or attempting to perform a post quickening abortion was the death penalty. The Offences against the Person Act 1861 created a new preparatory offence of procuring poison or instruments with intent to procure abortion. Anti-abortion laws began to appear in the United States from the 1820s, although abortion services were available in New York, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cleveland, Chicago and Indianapolis; with estimates of one abortion for every 4 live births. Criminalization accelerated from the late 1860s and by 1910 nearly every state had anti-abortion laws.

Farrer’s Catholic Pills

Hardy’s Woman’s Friend

Dr. Peter’s French Renovating Pills

Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound

Abortifacient products were sold under the promise of restoring female regularity and removing the system from every impurity. Many feminists of the era were opposed to abortion, some argued that instead of merely attempting to pass a law against abortion, the root cause must also be addressed. Even the ‘free love’ wing of the feminist movement refused to advocate abortion and treated the practice as an example of the hideous extremes to which modern marriage was driving women. Marital rape and the seduction of unmarried women were societal ills which feminists believed caused the need to abort, as men did not respect women’s right to abstinence.

Stella Browne: birth control campaigner, strongly believed that working women should have the choice to become pregnant and terminate their pregnancy while they worked in the horrible circumstances surrounding a pregnant woman who was still required to do hard labour during her pregnancy. She began touring, giving lectures on abortion and the negative consequences that followed if women were unable to terminate pregnancies of their own choosing such as: suicide, injury, permanent invalidism, madness and blood-poisoning. Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA). The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the first government to legalise abortion and make it available on request, often for no cost. In Chicago, a group known as ‘Jane’ operated a floating abortion clinic throughout much of the 1960s. Women seeking the procedure would call a designated number and be given instructions on how to find ‘Jane’.

Abortion has been banned or restricted throughout history in countries around the world. Multiple scholars have noticed that in many cases, this has caused women to seek dangerous, illegal abortions underground or inspired trips abroad for “reproductive tourism”.

Further readings:

De viribus herbarum

Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West

[amusewithaview]

like a lazy ocean hugs the shore (darcy x namor)

A/N: this is a remix/redux of far beyond a star/near beyond the moon.  This is for (and because of) @phoenix-173.

Darcy wasn’t really sure how she felt about moving to New York, specifically to Stark Tower.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like cities, she loved them.  It wasn’t even the proximity to Avengers and their related mayhem.  She’d long since grown used to dealing with super-powered beings and their equally super-powered egos.  No, the issue was the proximity to the ocean.

It didn’t make the dreams worse, but it did make them more frequent.

London was bad enough, but she had known London would be nothing more than a pit stop, a temporary stay.  Darcy had hoped thought that Jane’s next posting would be somewhere more like New Mexico.  Landlocked.  She needed the break from the dreams and the never-ending call that echoed through them.  The call that was made of ocean waves and a man’s voice, inextricably linked.

He’d spoken to her in dreams since her sixteenth birthday.  Some kids got cars, Darcy got Namor, the King of Atlantis.

Her mother had sat her down three days prior, all fluttering hands and shifting eyes, unable to even look at her child when she laid out the bad news.  Great-grandma Dorma had been Atlantean royalty, betrothed to marry the prince of the waters.  There had been a civil war, years of fighting, during which she had explored further and further afield until she came upon humans and, like in all the best fairytales, Dorma fell in love.

“I’ve seen this movie,” teenage Darcy had snarked.  “I liked it better with the singing crab.”

Delilah rolled her eyes extravagantly and huffed.  “Honestly, Darcy, life isn’t all about men.  Dorma fell in love with human culture.  She loved our music and our dances, our food and our cities.  She didn’t want to be a queen, she wanted to live.  So she went to a sea witch.”

Darcy mimed a yawn.

Delilah’s eyes flashed.  “Fine,” she said, “be a pest.  The worse you are the easier it’ll be for you to convinced Him to give up on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The betrothal contract was signed in blood and magic, because of that Dorma couldn’t entirely get rid of it, it had to be fulfilled somehow.  The King of Atlantis is owed a wife.  She took the parts of her that were most strongly tied to that debt and left them in the magic’s keeping.  They can only be claimed by one of her daughters, of daughters’ daughters - and so on.  Your grandmother was already seeing your grandfather when she turned sixteen, she only had the dreams for a few days.  I had them for two years.”

“Dreams?”

Her mother sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking up to stare at the ceiling.  Her fingers set up a restless tapping, accompanied by the tinkle of her bangles shifting on her wrist.  “His name is Namor,” she said after a moment.  “He will tell you... all sorts of things.”  She looked down again at Darcy, lips pursed.  “I don’t know whether it’s better to warn you more or let it ride.  Don’t agree to anything he offers.  He’s tricky.”

“Mom, you can’t be serious,” she said.

“You’ll see,” Delilah said grimly.  She shook her head, looking frustrated with herself, “Grandma explained it better.  I tried.”

You didn’t try very hard, Darcy thought.

That night, she dreamt of drifting, a fathomless amount of time spent hanging in a formless space.  It wasn’t pitch-black, but an ever-shifting cloud of darkness with just enough variation that she could track motion.  Time passed, and eventually she felt something push up against her, closer than whatever force kept her afloat in this void.  It wrapped around her like a blanket and then it made a sound sort of like a contented sigh.

Daughter of Dorma, a voice sighed.  I have been waiting.

It was strange, as the voice spoke it went from a sense to actual words, from meaning she felt to sounds she heard.  The man, the voice sounded male, had a warm tenor, the kind that resonated a little.  It was a smooth, controlled voice, and the way he spoke was very deliberate, as if his words were chosen carefully and for maximum impact.

“My mother’s name is Delilah,” she said after a moment.

“Darcy, daughter of Delilah, daughter of Diana, daughter of Dorma.  You are part of an unbroken chain, a lineage of women who forsook their duty.”

It was just insulting enough to make her grit her teeth.  She bit back her first (colorful) response and instead remained silent, waiting.

He made a a soft sound of interest.  “You are not what I expected from a daughter of Delilah,” he said after a moment.

Darcy smirked at the darkness around her because subverting expectations was her raison d’etre and that little trait had been inherited on both sides.  “So, is this the part where you ask me to marry you and pull a reverse Little Mermaid?” she asked, her tone making it explicitly clear what she thought of that.

“No, this is the part where you wake up.”

He had woken her forty minutes before her alarm was due to go off.  She wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or not, but - “He seems like an asshole,” was the first thing she said to her mother that morning.

Delilah looked relieved.  “Well, if we’re lucky, you’ll only have to deal with him for a few years.  Just... be careful.”

“King, huh?  We elect our officials.”

“And how does that work out for you?”

“You know I’m not legally an adult, right?”

“If you were representative of the adults of humankind, I would consider waging war on the surface for their own good.”

“...go bite a fish.”

“So this ‘prom’ is a celebratory ball?”

“Kind of but not really.”

“A rite of passage?”

“Kind of?”

“Does it involve a feat of bravery?  Test of skills?”

“...eh, close enough.”

“So you have visited the surface!”

“It has been decades, but yes.”

“Do anything interesting?  Meet anyone famous?”

“There was a man, he was called ‘Captain America.’  I believe he achieved some notoriety among your kind.  He was... a friend.”

“Shut up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shut up, you did not meet Captain America!”

“Met and fought with, on multiple occasions.”

“Wow.  Also, god, you’re old.”

“Who pissed in your Cheerios?”

“...you choose these idioms merely to vex me.”

“Yeah, and you’re dodging the question.”

“I have a counsellor who may be planning a coup.”

“Yikes, that sounds bad.”

“It will be.  For him.”

“He was not worthy of you.”

“Yeah.  I get that.  Still sucks.”

“...if he finds his way to the waters, it will not go well for him.”

“I appreciate the thought but please don’t drown my ex-boyfriend.”

“Hmph.”

“Namor.”

“As a favor to you, he may keep his wretched hide intact.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”  Darcy made a mental note to avoid complaining about any other romantic entanglements.  For their sake.

“So... I turn eighteen tomorrow.”

“As it is a birthday of some significance to your people, I wish you well.”

“Yeah, thanks.  I was wondering... are you going to go away?”

“Your pardon?”

“You stopped bugging my mom when she turned eighteen, isn’t that the cut-off?  The make-or-break day?”

“You thought-” soft laughter emanated from the darkness and Darcy got the vague sense of being hugged combined with gentle amusement.  “Your mother had proven she was ill-suited for rule within a few months of our introduction.  I continued to speak with her at the behest of my council.  We have been many years without an heir, and at that time we were experiencing a period of unrest.”

“In other words-”

“No, I do not intend to sever our connection."

Her mother relaxed after her birthday.  There was a weight that Darcy hadn’t noticed that seemed to disappear.  She didn’t have the heart to tell her mother that the dreams - that Namor - never went away.  The dreams remained as they always had: inconsistent, coming and going on a schedule she never fully understood.  They were, at the same time, one of the only constants in her life.

“My dad died a week ago.”  There was silence and a vague impression of waiting.  Darcy’s words stuttered as if her breathing was ragged, though she’d long since given up trying to understand how speech worked in this dream space: “I didn’t really know him that well, so it’s not that I’m sad about actually losing someone close to me.  I think - I think I’m sad about losing the idea of him.”

“A loss is a loss, whether you mourn the man or the father he might have been, you still mourn.”

“Yeah, I guess.  Have you...?  Sorry, stupid question, I know you’ve seen war.”

This time the pause was different, almost hesitant, though Darcy was reluctant to use that word to describe any aspect of Namor.  “Your foremother...,” he said after a moment, “when she left for the surface I was... angry.  I knew her as a friend and I...perhaps took her presence for granted.  Once I was over my anger I found I did not miss her, I missed the reassurance she brought.”

“You missed the future queen, not the woman who was supposed to be queen.”

“Yes.”

“Dude, you realize that’s probably part of the reason she left, right?”

“I had, yes.  Do not call me ‘dude.’”

“The salmon was... okay.”

“What else did you try?”

“Tuna and something called ‘white fish.’”

“Your thoughts?”

“It was good.  I’d eat it again.”  He didn’t say anything, but he emanated ‘I told you so’ so strongly that if she could have, she would have kicked him.  “Someday you have to try a burger, fair is fair.”

“We shall see.”

“I’m changing my major again.”  She got an impression of vague curiosity and interest.  “To political science.”  The interest sharpened.  “Don’t get all weird about it, there’re some really good professors here and I want to take advantage.  I’m going to keep the religious studies as a minor.”

“To go with your philosophy minor.”

“...and the culture studies minor.  The system maxes at three.”  There was a strong impression of satisfaction that made Darcy bristle.  “Stop that,” she said.  “I told you not to get all weird about it!  I’m just studying what interests me.”

“What interests you interests me,” he all but purred.  Then, before she could retort, “Will this extend the duration of your studies further?”

“Yeah, another year.  My dad left enough money that I can swing it, barely.”

“If that becomes an issue, know that what treasures I have are at your disposal.  Your education is important.”

“...thanks.  That offer sounds like a fish with a hook in it.”

“Another idiom?  How quaint.”

“You know, I realized, you’re probably my best friend.”

“Good.”

“Really?”

“Yes, this pleases me.”

“Am I your best friend?”

“You are my closest confidant.”

“You’re being cagey.”

“’Friend’ is, perhaps, not the word I would choose, no.”

“What would you-” she woke up scowling.  Cagey bastard.

“It just seems a little... extreme?”

“You would have me be lenient.”

“Well, yes.  It sounds like it was a first offense and the evidence you’ve described is mainly hearsay.  I mean, obviously I don’t know anywhere near as much as you do about the parties involved, but as an impartial-”

“You have made your point.”

“And the guard who oversaw the trade?  What’s going to happen to him?”

“I had not decided, you have thoughts?”

“Do I ever...  Um.  Is this helpful?  You were just venting, I didn’t mean to derail you, I just wanted to be a shoulder.”

“Idioms,” he sighed.  “You have a different perspective.  I may not always agree, but I benefit from your words, if only as another view of the problem.  You have, as you have said, no horse in the race.  It is...refreshing.”

“Aw, now who’s using idioms?”

“It’s been almost a month.”

“I know.”

“It’s - we’ve never gone that long without-”

“I know,” he said tersely.

“Did something... happen?”

“You are too far.”

“I didn’t know that was even possible.”

“Neither did I.”

“...I’ve missed you,” she admitted.

“And I, you,” he said, and she felt warmth blossom from without and within.

“Something has happened.”

“Understatement.”

“What happened, Darcy?”

She gathered herself, anticipating his reaction.  “So,” she started cheerfully, “you remember that internship?”

“Yes.  You are still in the desert,” he said, words clipped.

“I... yeah.  You can tell?”

“Yes.”

“Anyways... I met a god?  His name was Thor.  He fell from the sky and the whole town nearly got destroyed and my boss’s work was stolen and there were government agents everywhere - it was nuts!”

“You were in danger, why?”

“Well, I mean, everyone was in danger, not just me specifically.”

“You did not go on the battlefield?”

“...Technically-”

“How much longer?”

“What?”

“Your internship, its duration and the fulfillment of your degree requirements.  How much longer?”

“The internship runs through the end of May, then I’m all done.”

“And what do you intend to do at that time?”

“I’m not... I might stay on with Jane,” she said in a rush.

“Why?”

“Well... her work is interesting.  I’m - I feel useful here.”  She snorted.  “Plus, it’s not like I’ve gotten any better offers, so-”  Her words cut off there as she felt something.  It was like pressure hitting peak and then suddenly she was being inundated with feelings.

“No better offers?” Namor inquired silkily, but behind his words was a wealth of incredulity and anger and regret and other feelings, less clear, muddied by the overwhelming frustration that was at the forefront.

Darcy was left reeling.  “I-”

“You would be queen,” he said softly but intensely.  The emotions she’d been sensing cut off with all of the suddenness of a switch being flipped.  It was a relief, his words alone were drenched in so much feeling she was dizzy with it.  “You could never be bored, not with all the oceans to explore, all the many peoples you would find, the new things to learn.  You would be eminently useful, as a council member, ruling at my side.  You are the partner I was promised.  This offer has been waiting for you for years, you have not been ready to take it.”

“But that’s - I’m not-”  She felt shaky, jittery, too much going through her mind but too little sticking around long enough to develop into coherent thought.  “Queen and wife,” she said at last, quietly.  “I don’t know - do you even care for me, I mean, in that way?”

There was a crystal clear moment of such perfect shock and disbelief that she started to try and wake herself up to avoid potential embarrassment.  She felt him reach out to her retreating consciousness and grab hold, keeping her cradled in the warm and dark of their private dream space.  Then he opened the floodgates and Darcy could feel every single thing he felt for her: pride so strong it made her blush, fondness saturating every action and word, a strain of tenderness kept well-hidden, though not so well as the desire and abject want that had her shivering in reaction.

“Such confessions as you ask of me are best delivered in person, where more than our minds can meet.  I would have you, as wife and queen, as the daughter of Dorma and a promise fulfilled, but more importantly as your self.  I cherish you, and my only regret in our interactions is that I have not made that more clear.”

He released his hold on her then and let her flee to wakefulness with his words resounding in her mind and heart like a bell struck.  From that moment, everything changed.  From that moment, it wasn’t a question of if, but when.

“Are you scared of the ocean?” Jane asked her once, just after the move to New York.  “You always stare at the water but you never go near it.”

“Not scared, exactly,” Darcy hedged.  “I just have a healthy respect for the water and all its creatures.  It’d be way too easy to get pulled under, and there are all sorts of currents we can’t see.  I’ll steer clear.

It was the middle of the day, but she could have sworn she heard the echo of masculine laughter.

“Remember that conversation, all those months ago, about the ocean and how I don’t mess with it?” Darcy asked, eyes shut as she tried to ignore the sway of the sinking boat beneath her feet.

“Uh-huh,” Jane said.  "I would like to take this moment to say that your concerns about currents was valid and I am now equally concerned.”

“Probably not equally,” she muttered.  “This is such bullshit, though.  I mean, what are the odds that the baddie of the week with a mad-on for Thor would live in a freaking houseboat?”

“Slim to none.”

“But the whole water thing.  God, he’s never going to let me live this down,” Darcy said, now edging up onto a cot as best she could considering her arms were shackled to the wall.  “I’ve been bleeding into the water for at least a minute or two.  Since whenever the water reached us.  Not enough that I’m worried about sharks, but enough.”

“Enough for what?” Jane asked cautiously.

As if on queue, there was a loud crunching noise and then a man burst through one side of the room, bringing with him a deluge of water.

“Hi, honey,” Darcy called with a quavering sort of bravado.  He was here, in the waking world and not in her dream.  The reality of him, the intensity of his presence, the intelligence in his face, the physicality on display, was overwhelming.  “You miss me?”

“You are in danger, again,” he snarled, taking the room in at a glance before stalking over to Darcy and unceremoniously ripping her chains off the wall.  He reached out and gently ran his fingers over her skull, scowling when he reached the bleeding bump on her head, before cupping her cheek.

She shivered under his touch and was momentarily grateful that her pupils were already dilated from the dim interior.  The chill would camouflage any other obvious reactions to his presence.  He was both familiar and un, every part of his person matched up with the voice that had lived in her head for over a decade.  There were new things to catalogue, though: physical tells she hadn’t had access to in the dream space, reactions he could no longer hide.

“I would have waited for you to come to me,” he said.

“I know.”

“But now-”

“I know,” she said.  “And we can talk about it in a minute, but first can you get Janie and me out of here?”

Namor turned to Jane, eyes narrowed.  “This is the scientist.”

“Glare later, help now,” she said firmly, barely restraining the urge to lean against him and borrow some of his equilibrium.

He pursed his lips, frowning and gently guided Darcy along beside him until he reached Jane and could rip her chains off the wall as well.  He removed the manacles at her wrists, tearing the metal away as if it was tissue paper.  Once freed, he wrapped an arm around each woman, Darcy nearly plastered to his side while Jane was held much less close, and pulled them towards the hole he’d made in the hull.

“Deep breath, Janie!” Darcy shouted just before they hit the water.

They reached the beach in mere moments, nowhere near long enough for Darcy, who had never been in the ocean before.  Darcy, who had never even been swimming before.  Darcy, who had not realized that the peaceful drifting she had experienced in the dream space was the barest echo of the true wonder of being cradled and kept by the ocean.

Jane staggered onto the sand and flopped down, gasping for air, while Darcy stood knee-deep in the waves.  Part of her, a large part, wanted to dive back in head first.  The rest of her remembered things like friends, family, responsibilities, and not becoming a statistic.  It helped that Namor’s arm was still wrapped around her waist, supporting her and providing, ironically enough, a grounding presence.  Being in his arms now was strikingly similar to the feel of the dream space, but more immediate, their contact set off sparks enough that she wondered if her hair would stand on end if it was dry.

“So, about that confession-”

He tangled his fingers in her wet hair and tilted her face up to his own, pressing his lips to hers.  It was surprisingly gentle for the moment, sweet and soft and over far too quickly.  Her eyes fluttered open afterwards to find his face inches from hers.

“You are each of the things I wanted and everything I never thought to ask for,” he murmured into the space between them.  “If anything were to happen to you, I would take a consort out of necessity, but the throne I built for you would remain empty till the end of my reign.  I love you, Darcy.”

And everything inside of Darcy said yes.

A second after that, her skin started to glow.  It grew brighter and brighter until she shut her eyes and buried her face against Namor’s chest.  The light was accompanied by a tingling coolness that started at her extremities and coursed to her center before echoing back to the bounds of her skin.  This happened over and over till every part of her seemed to be ringing.  Then it cut off so suddenly and jarringly that she might have fallen without Namor to hold her up.

Darcy blinked, the world seemed slightly... different.  “What the fuck was that?”

“That was a promise fulfilled,” he said, half joyful and half triumphant.

[sophygurl]

WisCon 43 panel Polyamory And Alternative Relationships In Fiction And In Real Life 

Science fiction is rife with examples of how to love outside the box. From Le Guin to Jemisin to Steven Universe, speculative fiction allows us to create and experience relationships often shunned by mainstream society. What fiction do we resonate with, or wish was reality? What offers food for thought, or has helped us with our own complicated relationship styles? Who gets it "right"? This panel will explore titles showcasing polyamory, asexual relationships, relationship anarchy, & more.

Moderator: Rebecca Mongeon. Panelists: Emily Luebke aka Julian Greystoke, Rose Hill, Samantha Manaktola, Nisi Shawl

Disclaimers: These are only the notes I was personally able to jot down on paper during the panel. I absolutely did not get everything, and may even have some things wrong. Corrections by panelists or other audience members always welcome. I name the mod and panelists because they are publicly listed, but will remove/change names if asked. I do not name audience members unless specifically asked by them to be named. If I mix up a pronoun or name spelling or anything else, please tell me and I’ll fix it!

Notes:

Samantha introduced herself as queer and non-monoagmous with found family and networks of people in her life.

Emily introduced herself as an author, actor, and asexual married to a pansexual man. 

Rose introduced herself as demi-pan and married to a straight man and dating an ace bi woman [I think I got that right but have a “?” in my notes so maybe I mixed something up]. She said she writes poly in her fiction.

Nisi said she was exposed to poly since when she was a hippie and then she later read a comic about it where it was named and realized “oh, that’s what I’m doing!” It features in her fiction and she is interested in non-romantic/non-sexual relationships as being the core of a story.

Rebecca started the discussion about found family.

Rose talked about intentional family and cited the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce, which features a family of non-bio and non-romantic connections. They live together and begin to refer to one another as family over time. Those bonds last as they age. [I am currently reading this series and am enjoying this aspect of it.] Rose connects to created families.

Nisi said this is based on her lived experience in the black community. She views the entire black community as a found family and grew up calling neighbors aunts and uncles, etc. She talked about this being a silver lining of the results of the slave trade breaking families up. When people call one another brother and sister - it’s because they are. You don’t know if they are or aren’t, so you claim them. We decide that we are family. Nisi added that there is also the African idea of claiming your ancestors whether you know for sure if you’re related to them, for similar reasons.

Emily talked about being a theater kid and how the theater became her family.

Samantha talked about the shows Steven Universe and Leverage and how the message is that being the person you are makes the bonds with your people tighter, and the tighter those bonds are, the better you get at being yourself. 

An audience member brought up the issue of combined bio and found families. People tend to respect the closeness of non-romantic ties if you are siblings, but friends are “just friends.” 

Nisi told about how her mom adopted Eileen Gunn because she and Nisi became sisters, so her mom figured - that makes her my daughter, too.

Samantha talked about her mom and how she did not necessarily understand about ethical non-monogamy, but she tried. She tried to map it onto experiences of non-ethical non-monogamy, and ended up thinking she would still eventually choose one person. Her mom did understand the importance of her friendships, and said that her friends were therefore important to her, as well.

Emily talked about a friend that her dad decided was part of the family - whether her liked it or not.

An audience member asked the panelists to clarify their definitions of chosen vs. found family. 

Samantha said it’s mostly interchangeable but there is some nuance. Chosen can be intentional, found family maybe you just fell into. 

Rose agreed that it’s interchangeable. 

Rebecca brought up the issue of ace representation.

Nisi said she wants people to talk to her about this [I believe the context was for her to better understand for writing inclusion purposes?].

Samantha said the answer to this is not very satisfying. It’s a lot harder to find ace representation that any other kind of non-traditional relationship style. She mentioned that Seanan McGuire has done it, and that Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice has some in it but it’s questionable because it’s not a human character.

Emily said it’s mostly aliens and robots that she found, especially when younger. She includes at least one ace character in all of her works now. One example of rep is Let’s Talk About Love which is an ace love story. McGuire’s Wayward Children had rep but she didn’t love it. Radio Silence has a demi-sexual character.

Rose added that explicit ace rep is rare. Often it’s just not said and she’s left wondering if she is just headcanoning it. The Perfect Assassin has an ace romance sub-plot. She is wondering if there is any ace poly rep?

Nisi brought up The Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling - not really ace rep because the character removes all sexual feeling.

Rose said that her ace groups tend to talk about poly a lot as something that makes sense, but her poly groups don’t tend to do the same - and in some cases seem to think it is antithetical. 

An audience member asked how an author can explicitly show that a character is ace without it being about their asexuality.

Rose said that romantic subplots are super common, so you could have one character flirting with another and the other character just says “oh sorry I’m not attracted to people in that way” and there you go - explicit ace rep.

Emily added that if you’re writing from the pov of an ace character, it can be very obvious that they’re just not interested.

Nisi talked about a character in three of her short stories and a novel [I think it was Brit Williams?] who likes the idea of having kids but is grossed out by what you have to do to make one. Also mentioned how in historical fiction it might be hard to talk about explicitly because there wouldn’t have been language for it - but a character can still be shown to be ace even if they aren’t using those words.

Emily added that when you’re ace, you just don’t think about that stuff much. The character might be surprised to find out how much other people are thinking about sex, for example.

An audience member asked if poly was on the same axis as queerness as an identity.

Rebecca said she wasn’t sure this was the right place for that discussion. [Fair. It’s a complex issue and not necessarily the scope of this particular panel imo.]

Another audience member asked about world building when things are assumed that are different from our world - such as everyone in that world is poly. 

Samantha answered that there are different ways to do poly as a social construct. Anne Leckie, for example, built a world without gender norms and everyone was “she.” [Didn’t catch the title] Another piece I didn’t catch was referenced in which two societies are put into contrast with one another where one has poly as the assumed family structure and one doesn’t. Basically, there are a lot of different ways to build this into a world.

Rose added that world building with poly and queerness tends to be static whereas in real life it can be very fluid or change over time. Societies built as commentary tend to be fixed systems.

Nisi had some recs along those lines - a short story, Otherwise; Candace Jane Dorsey’s Black Wine; The Devil in America. 

An audience member rec’d Shadows of Aggar by Chris Anne Wolfe, which has poly world building.

Another audience member suggests Nalo Hopkin’s work, which is often about liberating sex, love, and desire, especially from perspectives of people with disabilities and from marginalized races.

Samantha spoke about living with chronic pain and how it helps to have a strong network of people to help care for her. Additionally, overcoming trauma around sex has been helped by polyamorous relationships. It’s been empowering and healing. 

Samantha rec’d Ruthanna Emrys’ work - Winter Tide, Deep Roots, etc. about a group of researchers. One of them is Deaf and they all communicate in sign language. When they might have to disband, it’s difficult because they have become family but also they’re losing this capability of communication with one another and source of strength they’ve found with each other. 

Nisi mentioned Five Books About Loving Everybody, I believe this post she wrote about books with poly: on tor.com - out of those, the only one she thought was liberating was N. K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate. But Octavia Butler’s Fledgling was about nurturing. 

An audience member suggested The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Nisi commented “I keep naming all of these black authors... hmmm.... I wonder why.”

Rebecca asked the panelists about poly utopias.

Nisi said Samuel Delany’s Tales of Neveryon is a reverse anthropology - not utopian, but it seemed as if the society was polygamous with one male and multiple females who were closely bonded. It might have been a man owning several women, but it ended up being a bunch of strong women who bring in one man.

Samantha said the most true-to-life stories are not utopias. There are less stories about opening up a relationship that’s already there than stories about people finding one another in the third act.

An audience member suggested Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold - it resonated with them, but they know others who react to it very differently.

Another audience member talked about what makes the characters feel more real to them, what draws them in more is not the world building but the character building.

Last audience rec that I got down was Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time. 

[This was a fascinating panel with moments that meant a lot to me emotionally and cool stuff I learned more about and lots of recs to check out - thanks panelists!]

[technotestechnotes]

What can I do today to create a more inclusive community in CS? Start of Term: At the beginning of the term, ask each student to email you to introduce themselves by naming one of their core values, and one way that CS relates to or could be used in service of that core value (or write it down in class, and/or share with a neighbor in class). Mid-Term: Email top performers on a recent homework or exam to congratulate them; be sure to include a diverse group. Provide students with clear and timely feedback, including class-wide distribution data. Women and minority students often fear the worst about their position relative to the class and can be reassured by data. After a midterm exam, step through the math showing the class that students can still pass the course even if they did poorly. It’s just some multiplication, but take the time to talk about it. Be factual—no need to “sugar coat”—but provide facts that will help reassure students who think things are worse than they really are. Reach out to students who have filed a disability accommodation form with you and ask them if their needs are being met in your class. Reaffirm your commitment to complying with their approved accommodations and your willingness to receive complaints if there is a problem. End of Term: Personally invite a woman or a minority student who did  well in your class to major in CS, apply to an internship, or go to grad school. If your TAs work with small groups of students in a discussion section, have them do this as well. Any Lecture Day: Review today’s lecture slides to make sure that stock photos and illustrations with people in them include diverse races and genders in non-stereotyped roles. Review today’s lecture slides for the use of arbitrary names in examples. Choose a broader selection (Juan, Neha, Maria, Minseo, Mohammed, instead of just Jane Doe and John Smith). Review today’s lecture slides to make sure that your slides are free from gendered pronouns, especially those used in ways that conform to stereotype (e.g., “A programmer should always write comments in his code, so he can remember how it works”). Use of “they” (and their/them) as a singular pronoun is now widely accepted as a neutral alternative, and better than the awkward “he or she” construction because it also includes genderqueer and non-binary. Take a moment in class today to encourage students to focus on their “slope,” not their “y-intercept.” That is, in the long run, it matters how fast you’re growing and learning, not advantages or deficiencies in where you started. Start class today by telling the students you’re proud of them and how hard they are working. Tell them you are enjoying working with them this term. Start class today by renewing your invitation to students to come to office hours. Understand that not all students have had the mentoring necessary to know how you expect them to interact with you, so explicitly instruct your class in how to do it. For example: “You don’t need to have a particular question—you’re welcome to just stop by for 5 minutes to introduce yourself,” or “I’m not just here for homework questions—if you are considering changing your major to CS and want to talk about it, if you want to know what it’s like to work as a software engineer, if you are thinking about applying to grad school but don’t know where to begin, I’m happy to discuss that kind of thing as well.” Look around your office and/or lab space. Consider if there are things you could add or remove that would make the space more welcoming generally, and also signal welcome to a diverse student body (e.g., remove very masculine or heavily CS-stereotyped movie posters). Actually write a tally of how many times you call on students of different genders in class today. People of all genders are prone to calling on men more often. You may do this unconsciously unless you consciously do otherwise. Go through today’s lecture slides, and add “alt text” written descriptions of all images and diagrams. If you’ll use a video clip today, transcribe it. You will need to do this for all your class materials when you have a student who requires these accommodations, so even if that doesn’t apply this term, doing it now is a good head start. And if your materials are publicly available, you are also helping other faculty and students in your broader audience. Thinking about today’s lecture, do you plan on using any examples or anecdotes about your childhood or daily life that may cause students to feel excluded for economic reasons? (e.g., talking about pricey gadgets or vacation travel as normal) Even if you know that you did not experience these things and are simply using them as an example, students don’t know that and can assume you are referring to them in a normative way. General Do and Don’t Advice: Never say, “This UI is so easy your mom could use it” or “How would you explain this to your mom?” or other phrases that equate women with lack of tech savvy. Avoid heteronormative examples (e.g., bijective function between sets “boys” and “girls”). Believe that hard work and effective practice matters more than DNA. Your beliefs influence students’ beliefs and impact their performance. Have very clear written expectations for student work (coding style, project components, etc.). Where possible, show sample solutions exactly as you would want a student to write them (don’t just give a “sketch” of the solution). Allow and encourage pair programming on assignments. If your class includes a significant group project, instruct students about your expectation that each member of the team contribute in both technical and non-technical components. Research has shown that in group projects in engineering classes, female students often find themselves pushed into stereotyped roles by their peers in the group. When a student is speaking, wait for the student to finish then count “one one-thousand, two one-thousand” in your mind before responding. People of all genders are prone to prematurely cutting off women when they speak. You may do this unconsciously unless you consciously add that pause. Actively mitigate when students may be intimidating each other. When a student uses jargon in a question (often one of those questions that is more of a boast than a real question), explicitly identify when you expect that most students will not be familiar with that jargon, and/or it is not something other students are expected to know for the class, e.g., “Thanks for your comment. For the rest of the class, I’m sure most of you aren’t familiar with some of those terms. Don’t worry, those terms are outside the scope of this class and not necessary to know.” Ensure that you and your TAs call each student by their preferred name and their correct gender pronoun—including allowing students to write their preferred name on homework and exams—even if these do not match their current legal or registrar records of name and sex. Don’t single out students to inquire about correct pronoun; instead ask the whole class to specify, and be aware that the responses may include she, he, they, zie, xe, and others, as singular subjects (with accompanying object, possessive, and reflexive forms). This issue deeply affects transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary students, and also many students who prefer to have an alternate anglicized name. You could also put a statement in your syllabus that you are committed to honoring students’ preferred name and their correct gender pronoun. 1 in 5 women (but by no means only women) will be sexually assaulted in college. If a student requests course accommodation (in the US, this may be done through the Title IX office), do everything necessary to accommodate that student. If you are wondering what is appropriate to say in response to a student, simply “I believe you” and “I know you know this, but I want to tell you that it wasn’t your fault,” are the two things most assault survivors most need to hear.   Using This List: This list is designed so you can put it on the wall where you can glance at it from time to time and see one thing you could work on. You don’t need to do everything at once. Nobody is perfect. We have all seen news stories and opinion pieces about Millennials and campus climates where allegations of bad faculty behavior flare up. As a faculty member, perhaps you’ve feared that something like that could happen to you, or maybe it already has. If someone, especially a student, brings to your attention a misstep such as an inappropriate comment, oversight, or microaggression, Step 1 is to listen (attentively, and for the entire duration, without interrupting to explain or question). Do not deny, minimize, or otherwise respond defensively, even if you think that the person is misinterpreting or overreacting. Acknowledge to a student that it took courage for them to approach you, and you appreciate feedback (even when it is hard to hear) because that is what will help you improve. More effective than saying, “I am not [racist/sexist/etc] and didn’t mean it that way and would never want to hurt anyone,” is showing that by saying, “I am so sorry that my actions caused pain to anyone, especially to a group that already deals with more than their share, and I’m going to do everything I can to do better.” If appropriate (e.g., you made an insensitively worded comment in lecture), publicly acknowledge it to the class, framed as a learning opportunity for students to see healthy humility and lifelong learning modeled for them. Encourage your colleagues to do the items on this list. Advertise your good example by bringing up your performance of these items in conversations with other faculty.

What can I do today to create a more inclusive community in CS?

Compiled by Cynthia Lee cbl@stanford.edu for the annual New CS Faculty Teaching Workshop, July 2015. Dr. Lee is a Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. (Version 9/8/2016)