While attending church with @nerdygaymormon recently, we sang the sacrament hymn: While of These Emblems We Partake.
The first stanza says: "While of these emblems we partake, In Jesus' name and for his sake, Let us remember and be sure, Our hearts and hands are clean and pure."
The sacrament is often a place and time for me to reflect, a time to let the Spirit work within me to inspire change, to remember where I have fallen short of who I want to be and to ponder how I can improve.
During the hymn, I thought of a number of things I needed to improve and change in my life to have a more 'pure heart and cleaner hands'.
And then it occurred to me that sitting in sacrament meeting in a dress hadn't been on the list of things I needed to change.
I continue to find no condemnation from God when it comes to being transgender or presenting as my authentic self.
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The interesting thing about medically transitioning is how you might just be treated with the wrong framework.
When I get my hormone levels checked, for instance, they check it against the wrong type of person, so everything is flagged. Did you know that testosterone encourages hemoglobin production? Well, my hemoglobin is perfectly in line with male levels, but my levels are checked for the wrong endocrine system. Before I realized this, I was really confused as to why my hemoglobin was two grams over the range given, and was confused as to why that happened, and worried about if I should be worried about that. But it was a normal consequence of my testosterone levels, which are also flagged though they are well-within the range that is typical for my age and health categories.
The way we treat and measure for trans people and trans patients will affect the treatment and education they receive. There are ways in which hormones especially can influence how one's body operates, and with that in mind, you also have to change the way you interact with a trans person. With my testosterone levels, if you were to measure them against the incorrect endocrine system, you would fail to treat me in reality - that being the way my body has changed and maintained homeostasis since being on T.
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Solaris and Songbird
A snippet of a full version of this earlier post I made
(450 words)
Fae King and (GN) Child Reader
The Summer King was not always the most kind Fae, he could scarcely afford it. In his world kindness was weakness waiting to be paid back in kind. So when he heard a young voice pierce his quiet peace, he decided to use the as a lesson about his forest. It would an easy task, appear and play with them a bit, maybe turn them to a songbird since they seemed to love their voice. A punishment to neglectful parents about teaching your child to walk around the forest alone as if they owned it.
He had admit that the child did have a rather sweet voice for a human, and he thought of doing something more than just a simple songbird, maybe one that could also speak and mimic sounds. It would be amusing if nothing else.
The child was bent over in the dirt, singing some old folk song, hair loosely pulled back dirty and sweaty. Who knows when they last had a bath, the King scoffed internally. It only strengthened his resolve to turn them to a songbird. At least he knew how to care for his things.
He stepped into the forest clearing, the air around them both growing thick and wild, a smell of hot summer grass hung like a cloud. The King watched with a smile as the figure froze in place, smart child, to know when they were outmatched, no grand heroics or disrespect would save them now. The child lifted their face, and the King was oddly pleased, it was cleaner than their hair and he could that the child had spent most of their life facing towards the sun. Their eyes looked the same as a fawn caught in the sight line of a wolf, but their mouth was turned into a hesitant smile.
The smile caught him off guard, and before he could think too much on it, the child open their mouth and spoke
“Hello,” they said, their voice soft with a slight tremor but a distinct note of hope, “what’s your name?”
With those simple four words, the King knew that this was to be his third child. A neglected songbird, but with a quick wit and curiosity that spoke of greater things than their tiny village. He wanted to scoop them up, and tell of all the great things they would see and do. But this was not his first time bringing a child of his own. So he smiled as he knelt to be closer to the eye level with the child.
“You, songbird, may call me, Solaris, may I know what you to call you songbird?”
When the child’s face brightened, any hesitation or second doubts were gone, this child was his and he couldn’t wait to bring them home.
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I'm gonna say it; Hiccup did nothing wrong. We're treating him as the biggest problem of THW when literally his worst crime in is somehow losing his freckles and that's not even something he has control over. Oh and that kind of incredibly stupid plan of literally moving an entire people by going "let's just fly straight until we hit something :) even though I, Hiccup Haddock, somehow don't believe the world is round."
The entire rest of the movie is everyone else around him being horrible and out of character.
Berk is a mess in the beginning of the movie, yes. But it was also just a year ago that his father was horribly murdered in front of him because Draco Bloodyfist-Or-Whatever decided to sent his mind controled best friend after him. Everybody expects Hiccup to be put together and solve all problems immediately and remain a Dragon Rider when he should be buying a therapist a mansion and a yacht with all those billed sessions.
Then there is being told more than once that he's putting Astrid second when he literally isn't. And told he should meet her standard.s
There is all that stuff about how he's been a horrible pet owner to Toothless when he had legitimate and real fears about Toothless not making it out in wild and about the Light Fury turning on him and about him not coming back. (Like... he's a disabled dragon, for Gods' sake??? Toothless will literally NOT make it without human intervention)
He's called out for not embracing change when his name was literally synonymous with change before THW and every bit of change he proposes in the movie is met with backlash unless Astrid, their not-chief, says it's okay.
His mother, who abandoned him for 20 and came home with him after the traumatic loss of his father spends most of the movie not being the mother she promised him to be in the second movie and even advocated for the Riders to be less dependent on dragons when she was with dragons for the entirety of those 20 years.
And then there is all the bullying. Making fun of his voice, telling him- a disabled person- to LOSE THE LIMP, telling him he's not worthy of Astrid the warrior goddess (completely forgetting how Hiccup is both parts warrior and diplomat in at least the previous two movies, let alone the movies and the shows) and these three things are all said by Tuffnut! "Forgets he has a sister in THW" Tuffnut!
And let's not forget Snotlout's "who died and made you chief?!" when Snotlout was literally crying at Stoick's funeral. And then proceeds to hit on the dead man's wife and his best friend's mother while also putting said best friend down!
Like... none of the things said to him in the first movie were as bad as some of the things said in THW.
The entire movie is also basically Hiccup being pulled from one direction to the other.
It's "You're a bad chief because you're not changing anything" yet it's also "how dare you make this change!"
It's "you should step up as chief" yet it's also "we will only listen if Astrid says it's good."
It's "you were literally keeping Toothless captive for 6 years :/" yet it's also "Uuuhhh, time to cut the umbilical cord, don't you think? 🙄"
It's "you let Toothless go free, what did you expect?" yet also "uh, you let him go???"
It's "you are literally nothing without Toothless, sorry :/" yet it's also "Toothless only showed you what was already inside."
It's "you should put Astrid first for once" yet it's also "I, Hiccup, will literally listen to every single word you, Astrid, says even if it's hurtful."
It's "I, Astrid, will suggest to you, Hiccup, that we go find Toothless in the hidden world" yet it's also "I, Astrid, will blame you, Hiccup, for deciding to go to the Hidden World, making the Light Fury, who you have no control over, to follow us back home"
It's "hey man, can you help me with this dragon tail? :(" yet it's also "I will literally not listen to you when I'm about to break this branch that I and the dragon tail are on."
I mean, my God! I'd sent the dragons away if I had to listen to that for the past year after I watched my father die a gruesome death.
And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is Toothless abandoning Hiccup for the most shallow reason there is; chasing dragon tail that doesn't even want anything to do with him unless he does something that impresses her when he's the king of the dragons.
So yeah, probably an unpopular opinion, but besides one bad plan, Hiccup did nothing wrong besides listen to what all the people around him were saying, no matter how much they contradict themselves.
Really, what he needs is a hug. A Real one. :(
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a bystander: both of you are focusing on the wrong thing
anyway! this is a comic from the vault™! it was originally something goofy I drew for myself after I read a couple of different takes on this whole event (Crassus leaving Rome in 63 BCE, see Plutarch Pompey 43). like.
the phrasing is giving late night teleserye plot drama.
and this literally sounds like something a friend has told me about someone else's relationship drama with their sometimes ex. but like. on a less high stakes stage.
ALRIGHT, moving on. some stuff that was Fun To Read, To Me
Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J Parrish
Crassus: a Political Biography, B.A. Marshall
speaking of titles, fascinated by how this part of crassus' life gets defined by pompey's absence/return. hello fellas!
AND FINALLY inspiration for Pompey's comment about perpetuating cycles of violence comes from this delightfully dramatic bit of writing
Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic, Allen Mason Ward
bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost
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