#letting someone else dictate those boundaries for you is only going to make you miserable

[bobbystompy]

64 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2017

Below are my favorite quotes from 2017. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

(Allison Greene)

The irony and thematic implication of this first quote -- transcribed in January -- is not lost on me.

1) “I wish you all a Happy New Year. Meaning that I wish for your New Years Eve to be happy. It’s hard to wish hundreds of thousands of people to have an entire happy year. That’s a lot. That feels greedy and hopeless and also some of you might not deserve a happy year. Everyone deserves a happy moment or day now and again but a whole happy year I would wish on maybe eight people and four of them are terminally ill children.

Also please remember that the turning over of one year to another is a mental construct that bears no more weight than the things that keep us apart and in competitive categories as human beings. Time is not moving. You’re not losing or gaining ground. You’re not separate from ‘them’ anymore than you’re separate from your own umbrella. It’s now, we’re us and this is here. If you’re in pain, this too shall pass. If you’re in luxury, this too shall pass. Ask an old lady how she’s doing. The internet is not real. Draw a picture on a napkin.” - Louis C.K.

2) “Flowers cost money you could spend on alcohol.” - Tracy Cunningham

3) "Never make fun of people for mispronouncing a word. It means they learned it by reading."

[that one felt profound when I first read it, but there are probably holes you can poke]

4) “Middle America does not have a monopoly on tough times.” - Drew Magary

5) “The whole point of going to a wedding is to complain about it.” - Drew Magary

6) “The world is too noisy and distracted to probably ultimately survive. Everyone needs to shut the fuck up. The answers are in the silence. Monks set themselves on fire to protest and make this point.

Just consider it.” - Garry Shandling

7) “The fact that Chargers fans get to live in San Diego isn’t as much of a solace as you think, either. When you’re unhappy, Southern California can be the loneliest fucking place in the world. Everywhere you look, you are surrounded by people whose lives are seemingly more perfect than your own. And the fantastic weather acts a kind of lingering nag... an irritating reminder that you SHOULD be happy even if you’re not. When you live somewhere miserable, at least you have an excuse for it. People leave you alone, or they help you drink the pain away indoors. You’re not surrounded by a bunch of fucking Jack LaLannes and Navy steakheads making it worse.

[...]

This is how the San Diego Chargers ended, and their fans deserved better. There won’t even be rain to help water the team’s grave.” - Drew Magary

8) There is no meeting without a Gentry story. He tells the story of Doug Collins’s college coach at Illinois State, Will Robinson, putting Collins in front of a mirror and saying, “Now, that’s an ugly motherfucker.” Then Robinson gets a basketball, hands it to Collins, and says, “Now you’re a handsome motherfucker.”

-- “Seven Seconds or Less” by Jack McCallum

9) "This is gonna be bad. So be good." - Patton Oswalt, on the next four years

10) REPORTER: You always hear about guys in the zone. What’s it like to be in that zone and have that moment two games in a row?

DION WAITERS: Oh man, I love that moment. I mean, you can never shy away from that. I just feel—one of my favorite quotes is, uh ... I forgot it already. One of my favorite quotes. But yeah, can’t be afraid of taking them shots.

11) "No person can be explained in one trait." - Jason Benetti

12) That Federer could dig so deep without losing the spirit of grace and generosity he has carried for much of his career--amazingly, it didn't sound insincere when he told the crowd in Melbourne that he would've been happy if Nadal had won--was enough to make Agassi introspective. He fired off a text to a friend, fellow American ex-pro James Blake. Watching Federer, Agassi wrote, "makes me feel like I was much more of a broken person than I even realized."

-- the 2017 Australian Open

13) “Do you, because everyone else is taken.” - Uber driver

14) Federer's physical skills have tended to obscure just how he resilient he has been throughout his career--a point not lost on him. "My mental toughness has always been overshadowed by my virtuosity, my shotmaking, my technique, my grace," says Federer. "That's why when I lose, it seems like, 'Oh, he didn't play so well.' And when I win, it looks so easy." He says it has been that way since he was young. "Just because I don't sweat like crazy and I don't grunt, I don't have this face on when I hit the shot like I'm in pain, doesn't mean I'm not trying hard," he says. "It's just how I play. Sorry."

15) "I’ve always said the only way to change anyone’s opinion is to make him laugh first. It still is." - John Waters

16) “Women like babies. Men like their sons and daughters.” - Kevin Haack

17) “At once, Federer would triumph over his two greatest rivals: Nadal and Hawk-Eye.” - Chris Almeida, on Roger Federer’s 2017 Aussie Open win

18) “Brady did everything in Super Bowl 51 short of fertilizing crops with his own feces to feed his teammates.” - Bill Simmons

19) “It's still hard to believe the Falcons actually lost this game. They're the first team in Super Bowl history to lose with a pick-six in its pocket, one that felt like an unlikely gift given that it came from Brady. Some will throw around the "choker" label, which is inelegant at best and condescendingly incurious at worst. If choking means running after a quarterback on 68 dropbacks until there's hardly any air left in your lungs, the Falcons choked.” - Bill Barnwell

20) “Keep in mind: Plenty of people already think Chance The Rapper is corny. Plenty of people have been thinking it for years. Plenty of people who now love Chance The Rapper had to get over the corniness threshold, to train themselves to love the yawpy ad-libs an the voice-cracks and the general hyperactive teenage energy. When Chance won Best New Artist and howled the word 'God' in his acceptance speech about 32 times, I saw plenty of grumbling — We get it, dude, you believe in God — in my Twitter timeline. Someone even said that the music industry had figured out how to manufacture a marketable version of Christian-rap figurehead Lecrae. And that gets at another common complaint about Chance: that he’s an 'industry plant,' a creature created by the music business, one who uses 'independent' as a buzzword rather than as any kind of unifying philosophy. Those of us who love Chance, that line of thinking goes, have been somehow hoodwinked or manipulated into it. And there have been plenty of other perceived sins over the years: the overalls, the KitKat commercial, the constant references to Nickelodeon cartoons, the persistent smiling. Whether or not you love Chance, there is a strong possibility that he’s annoyed you once or twice.” - Tom Breihan

21) “Traveling is the antidote to ignorance.” - Trevor Noah

22) "But mostly, it's in how Celebration Rock treats every day like the last day of school, raising a glass to the past, living in the moment and going into the future feeling fucking invincible." - Ian Cohen

23) “In fact, it turned out that there was nothing ‘dangerous’ at all in picking on women and refugees. People will pay you good money for that. The dangerous ideas are the ones they don’t pay you for, the ones that don’t get you on HBO. You’re actually dangerous when you do what Yiannopoulos did in the ‘pedophile’ tapes: defend society’s most hated outcasts, and tell the truth about the complexities of gay men’s sexuality. You’re dangerous when you stick up for those on the fringes rather than kicking them. There’s nothing courageous or edgy in bullying the despised and excluded. But it might be dangerous if you dared to empathize with them.” - Nathan J. Robinson

24) [Taj] Gibson was asked if his dunk over Dwyane Wade was his favorite moment as a Bull. "It really wasn't. That was just a dunk. It really wasn't one of my favorite moments of my career, to be honest with you. I had a lot of shining moments in my career. Just being around Thibs, he taught me that people don't look at, some of the games, most of the games, they look at the bright spots. I have a lot of different bright spots in my career. The biggest one in my career would have to be just being on the team when guys were down and having a coach look at me and know that he can count on me. No matter what position, no matter what time in the game. And he would trust some of the most important plays for me to do. Those were the most important moments of my life, just having a guy between Fred and coach Thibs, knowing guys that are ahead of me, making twice as much money as me, and he's still calling my name through crunch time. Those were the best moments of my life."

[have some, Carlos Boozer]

25) “You can't let politics dictate what you read or who you fuck.” - Chuck, “Girls”

26) “Watching Kawhi Leonard play basketball is like when you get the email you’ve been waiting for and it says all of the things you were hoping it was going to say.” - Shea Serrano

27) “This isn't a choice, like my diet. This is a necessity, like my drinking.” - Ben, “Veep”

28) “It's like how love songs never go out of style because no one's ever written one that's closed the book on the subject.” - Brian King, Japandroids

29) Pitchfork: A lot of the lyrics on the album take advantage of this universal, mythic rock'n'roll language, like on "Fire's Highway": "Hearts from hell collide/ On fire's highway tonight/ We dreamed it, now we know."

Brian King (Japandroids): Personally, I really like the concepts of good and evil, heaven and hell-- the extreme boundaries of how people can feel and how fast things can change. I like that that language. I'm not talking about just some night you felt a certain way, I'm talking about the night you felt that way-- that one time. People have always alluded to those extremes as a way of characterizing the most intense feelings since blues and the early days of rock. A blues singer won't be like, "We broke up." He'll say, "Satan stole my baby from me." You just pick it up.

30) “Friends of mine, hitting partners, are Federer fans for real. They own his racket, his sneakers, the hat with his RF logo. When he loses, they're wrecked; when he wins, it's only slightly less painful, because it's one fewer win they get to witness.” - Rosecrans Baldwin

31) “Bad ideas rarely spread when the population is educated about better alternatives.” - Greg Graffin

32) This entire story (9:47 to 10:15)

RIP, Don Rickles (1926-2017)

33) “Being pregnant is cool and weird: Your bones ache, your gums bleed, your ligaments basically just start giving up. (A hormone called ‘relaxin’ is involved.) You plan decades ahead, then worry you’re jinxing it all. You’ve got a decreasingly nebulous imaginary friend there to listen to your hopes and fears at all hours and you occasionally get the hiccups. But the strangest thing about being with child is the way your body becomes not yours, and not even the baby’s, but the world’s. Complete strangers reach out and touch. Internet commenters opine. Photos of yourself splayed postpartum on a gurney, hair matted to the side of your face, one boob swung free, are triumphantly text-messaged to fathers-in-law without your express written consent.

It’s not fair, it’s never fair, but it’s nevertheless the shared experience of so many women during a powerful, vulnerable time.” - Katie Baker

34) "I just watched Deadheads spin around for three hours looking for miracles." - Brad Back

35) “Comparison is the thief of joy.” - Theodore Roosevelt

36) "The Spurs’ run of NBA success is now old enough to vote, and in a couple of years it will be legally old enough to share finely aged red wines with Popovich, although I suspect he’s been slipping it glasses at home for a few years now. One of the cornerstones of that success has been an ability to find talent where nobody else looked." - Rodger Sherman

37) "Cutting at the right time is more important than being fast." - Bill Belichick

38) “You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” - “Justified”

39) “An asshole is not a brilliant visionary just because a toilet has a bottomless appetite for what comes out of it.” - Albert Burneko, on the passing of Roger Ailes

40) "He would’ve been a rock star no matter where he’d been born, or when." - Rob Harvilla on Chris Cornell

41) "Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house." - Rod Stewart

42) “I have never regretted taking a walk. Every time you walk, a bunch of cool shit happens. You burn calories, for one thing. You think of cool ideas. You also get an immediate sense of the layout and vibe of wherever you happen to be. It’s a cheap shortcut to feeling like a local. I walked around downtown Atlanta for two hours once, which was long enough for me to realize, ‘Oh hey, this is the part of town that sucks!’ Then I went and walked around a cooler part.

Also, walking forces me to pocket my phone and actually look around for a bit (in theory…sometimes I check the phone while walking, which is galactically fucking stupid and could get you killed). I can actually feel GOOD about the world when I walk around, because I’m seeing it as it stands now, instead through the horrifying prism of online news and discourse. The sun still shines out there. People are smiling. It’s not bad. You wouldn’t even know we’re all gonna die soon. Not everything has rotted away just yet. You can leave the shifting sand dunes of the day far behind, to borrow a phrase from Professor Fartsniffer up there.

Also, you don’t have to look for a parking spot.

I walked today. I walked past a school and saw a bunch of kids playing touch football and they accidentally launched the ball over the fence and into the road, where they couldn’t get it. So they asked me to grab it for them. I hucked it back over and one kid shouted ‘YOU DA REAL MVP!’ And you know what? For that one little moment, I was, indeed, da real MVP. Step aside, Kevin Durant’s mom. I saved touch football. What did you ever do?

That kind of experience isn’t really possible when you’re sitting in a car. When you drive, you’re basically in a kind of self-imposed purgatory. The goal is to get wherever you’re headed so that you can resume your life again. I have tried to slow down and savor my surroundings while driving but it rarely works out because A) It’s not safe and B) I want to make good time. I have my eyes on the road and my ears on my SWEET TUNEZ, and I’m only slowing down to gawk at an overturned milk truck. ‘Wow, that looks BAD.’

The most important moments in life usually happen when you’re walking. Ever ask someone you’re dying to go out with if they wanna go for a walk, and they say yes? It feels fucking GREAT. That’s gonna be a good walk. Then maybe you two walk down the aisle after you get married, and then walk through the hospital to see your new baby in the nursery, and then walk with that child as takes its first steps. And then maybe someone close to you dies, and you have to walk with their casket to their gravesite. I’ve made some of these walks. I haven’t forgotten any of them.” - Drew Magary

43) "‘A great nation does not hide its history, it faces its flaws and corrects them.’ - George W. Bush

Let us again state clearly for all to hear. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is a history we should never forget and one that we should never ever again put on a pedestal to be revered." - Mitch Landrieu

44) "Just found out Joyce Manor is playing in Bristol on 7/13. When god closes a door, he opens a moshpit." - Chris Trott, after missing the Captain, We're Sinking Show in Chicago on 7/12 due his England trip

45) “The most prestigious honor in music isn't a Grammy. It's ‘I like this band enough to see them at 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.’” - Steven Hyden

46) “I think of you every time I speed up my podcasts.” - Christine Jastrow’s 31st birthday tribute to yours truly

47) "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce

48) “Personally speaking, a millennial is anyone younger than me who gets on my fucking nerves. I don’t think of like, Dak Prescott as a millennial, because he seems cool. But Chris Brown? Fuck him sideways.” - Drew Magary

49) "It's a scientific fact that a beer tastes better when it travels more than 5 feet in the air" - @PFTCommenter

50) Dustin Brown perfectly summed up what it's like to play on Centre Court. "It would be nice if we're playing every match out there. It's very comfortable. Even when things aren't going your way, it relaxed me a bit to say 'this is where you always wanted to be,'" he said after his Wimbledon second round loss to defending champ Andy Murray.

51) "One thing I’ve always found fascinating about Federer (or, rather, the way we talk about Federer) is that there’s never been any backlash. Normally, when an athlete has been around as long as Federer has, and has been as great as Federer has, and is on the receiving end of so much adulation, some sort of noticeable backlash occurs. Never with Fed.

Relatedly, people root for Federer unabashedly, and did so even during that stretch in the 00's when he was as dominant a force as any sport has seen. Casual fans tend to root for the underdog, but Federer was so sublime that he made people root for Goliath." - Andrew, Deadspin reader

52) “‘Federer manages to scamper across himself’ is one of the more Federer tennis calls I've ever heard.” - Brian Phillips

53) “Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit.” - Jon Snow

54) “Be present.” - Megan Filip

55) "The successful person is one who finds an opportunity in every problem. Unsuccessful people find a problem in every opportunity." - Lou Holtz

56) “It ain’t a hit till Nate Dogg spit.” - Mack 10

57) "Nobody goes to work tomorrow. General strike, fuck this country." - some of Blake Schwarzenbach first words at the Jawbreaker reunion

58) “It’s hard getting good news -- you don’t know what to do with it.” - Blake Schwarzenbach, at the first Jawbreaker show in forever

59) “When I was a child, I spoke like a child.” - Davis,“Treme”

60) “In one sense, the story of human history is just people inventing progressively more advanced ways in which to be awful idiots, in groups.” - David Roth

61) "Reality gives nothing back and nor should you." - Kobe Bryant

62) “Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

63) "Brevity is the soul of wit" - William Shakespeare

64) "If I shoot an airball, call the foul." - Dirk Nowitzki

[allonsysilvertongue]

Silver Pen

During a particularly long stretch of writer’s block, Haymitch Abernathy discovered a world of his own making. (AU)

Chapter 9: The Novel

Time slowed and in that moment, there was only them in that room, blindly exploring each other; eager to touch and eager to please.

The passion was exhilarating. Haymitch had never felt so alive as he was in this moment with her. When she dug her nails into the flesh of his shoulder, he hissed in pleasure, thrusting deeper into her as he drew satisfaction from her soft moans and burying his fact into the crook of her neck.

The instance his skin touched hers, he had felt such raw intensity and it showed in every kiss, every caress and every move. Even in bed, Effie was just like herself. She was loud and did not hold back. From the moment the first moan had escaped her lips when he let his tongue have a taste of her, she had been vocal; sighing in delight, whimpering with need, breathing his name into his ear.

It drove him mad.

So he made sure she was mad with need just as well. He fucked her only to stop and watched her body writhe and he would start again, this time harder, until at one point, she was begging for him to finish.

That was his undoing, to have her completely at his mercy so when she rocked her hips against his, clutching on to him dearly, he came apart.

He rolled off her and lay on his back, his breathing coming out in ragged puffs. Haymitch licked his lips, the taste of her still lingered and he thought to himself that he would never get bored of this.

Her fingers crept across the small space on the bed between them to hold his hand only to have him retract his hand back. Effie pulled back, a little uncertain that she had crossed some unspeakable boundaries but when he drew her into his arms to let her snuggled into him, she tossed him a soft smile.

There something about their sweaty skin pressing against each other as they held on close to one another that made him drift off to sleep.

Morning came and brought with it a sudden maddening rush once Effie realised that she had a mere half an hour before the time for the viewing. Haymitch said nothing even when she ushered him out of the house.

The short walk from there to his house was filled with a rising panic that he had just slept with Effie Trinket, a character he wrote.

A walk of shame, he thought bemused as he glanced behind his shoulder to see Effie by the bay window making last minute preparations.

Settling down in his kitchen, he made himself coffee which was laced generously with liquor. He tried to push down the recurrent memories of the night before – the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips and the sound of her voice when she came apart under his touch – only to fail miserably. She was all he could think about and he sat there trying to convince himself that there was nothing wrong with the situation.

It was a losing battle so in a bid to distract himself, he trudged to his study. Sitting down on the worn out chair, his fingers hovered over the keyboard and then he started typing.

The words flowed like it had not done for months. It came easily to him and he started building Panem up from the Dark Days. He had always been interested in the politics around the world so he weaved that into the story and created a dictator by the name of Coriolanus Snow and an empire which he ruled with fear and an iron fist. Drawing inspirations from Effie’s advice, he began to picture what would happen if his world was ruled by this man and he wrote that in, too.

This was a far cry from the modern Hollywood romance Effie and him had plotted about the night before except for the star-crossed lovers’ portion which would have to do, but it was still something. It was definitely a sequel to The Plague and by the time he realised it, Effie was standing at the doorway to his study. He glanced up to see her watching him with a fond smile.

“You’re writing again,” she observed. “Did you find your inspiration?”

Standing up, he came around to where Effie was and locked the door to the study behind him.

“Don’t want to jinx it but guess I did,” he said and gingerly rested a hand on her waist.

She took that as an invitation. Locking her arms around his neck, she kissed him deeply and whatever shame he felt earlier vanished. He pinned her against the wall.

“Dare I say it… I gave you the inspiration you needed,” she grinned, slipping her hand passed the waistband of his trousers.

He let his head fall against her shoulder as she worked him into a state and hours later, they were both in his bed, the sheets tangled around their naked body and their muscles aching in a good way.

Just as surprisingly as it began, he found himself slightly unsettled by the fact that somewhere along the way, Effie had moved in. She was spending her days in his house when she was not out at Peeta’s bakery and the night in his bed. During the morning when she was not around, he locked himself in his study, writing away. In a way, it was almost domestic and he found himself not minding it as much as he thought it would.

The second novel was beginning to take shape. The characters he created including those that came alive were slowly being written into his story as he had intended them to be. He couldn’t be more satisfied than he was right then.

He was in a good place and this was not something he would carelessly admit but he felt that way.

He was surrounded with people he came to love. They were real to him – the things they did and the path they paved for themselves here was all real – and he began to flip the entire scenario in his head. In his mind, he was borrowing them as characters for his book. It was no different than JK Rowling loosely using her teacher as Severus Snape, he rationalised.

Wasn’t that what Effie had wanted in the first place - for him to draw inspiration from the people around him to write his book?

He was wary at first that he might be rewriting their lives but even as Katniss volunteered in place for her sister in his book, the Katniss who lived next door to him seemed to remain the same.

Yes, he thought as he turned off the light in the study to joined Effie in bed that night, he was in a good place.

When the morning light spilled into the room, Haymitch stretched his hand to the side of the bed he had begun to think as belonging to Effie only to find it empty which in itself wasn’t unusual.

He trudged down the stairs into the kitchen dressed in nothing but his sweatpants but when he saw Effie pacing the room looking mildly distressed, the sleepiness disappeared and he became alert in a second.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his gaze darting this way and that trying to locate the source of her anxiety.

At the sound of his voice, she raised her head.

“I can’t leave,” she moaned, sounding a little hysterical. “I tried to leave this town but I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Haymitch frowned. “What do you – hold on – why are you going to leave?”

An unsettling feeling washed over him. He knew the past weeks with her were too good to be true. He never could have a moment of peace and this was it – the other shoe was dropping. His stomach coiled as he braced himself for the worst.

“You’re leaving me?” he narrowed his eyes. “You seeing someone else?”

“Haymitch,” she ran a hand over her long locks, “I cannot for the life of me remember my life in the city. Is something wrong with me? How long have I been here?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Effs.”

“Are you not listening to me?” she snapped. “What is my life like in the city?”

“I – “

He faltered. They had never talked about it. He had never asked because everything he needed to know about her he already did but even so, the fact that she might have had a life in a different place before coming here had not even crossed his mind. His head was beginning to spin with questions. Could she even have a life in the city since when he wrote her into existence, she had immediately come to exist here in this town?

“Exactly,” she pursed her lips. “I remember nothing much. It is as if that period of my life did not exist.”

Haymitch would have waved off this absurdity except it really wasn’t. It was a possibility that her life there never did exist.

"I woke up this morning and I thought about my cat,” she started. “I left my cat in my apartment. So naturally, I tried to picture my apartment but nothing comes to mind. I have a cat,” she repeated. “She must be all alone. I saw a cat wandered into your backyard looking at your geese and… I have a cat.”

"Effie…”

“Where do I stay before… before this? What is my address?”

“You don’t have a cat,” he insisted. “You never had a cat.”

"How would you know that?"

"Because I – What do you mean you can’t leave?”

“I got in the car,” she explained. “I wanted to make the drive to the city for my cat. I wanted to bring her here so I drove out. I reached the square only to realise that I cannot remember where I stay or how to get there, and – Haymitch,” she looked up at him with bright pleading blue eyes, “I realised I do not remember much else. What is wrong with me? I need the doctor. I need a brain scan – I could have a tumour. I need to know.”

Stepping forward, he grabbed both her arms. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

"No,” she denied. “We cannot be sure until I have a doctor look me over. You need to take this seriously, Haymitch.”

“I am,” he assured her.

Somehow, he was beginning to think that this fracture in her mind was because of him. After all, she was in his second novel together with Katniss, Peeta, Finnick and Annie. He never knew how he even brought them to life and who could really say what would happen now that he was using their characters to write them back?

Haymitch made a mental note to really talk to Peeta or Finnick just to see if they were showing any disparities as Effie.

“Do you remember when you asked me about alternate universes?”

His heart stopped at this sudden, unexpected question.

"Yeah,” he answered cautiously.

“I have been having dreams lately… nightmares. I dreamt of prisons and….” She shuddered. “It was horrible.”

A terrible feeling pierced through his heart.

“That never happened,” he told her and he vowed to keep any pain from her character on the pages. “It’s not going to happen.”

Effie shot him an odd look.

“Why do you talk as if you know all there is to know about me?”

Haymitch stared hard at her and took a few steps back. He pinched the bridge of his nose, let his hand fall in dismay at his side as he breathed out. Effie did not belong in this world. Neither did the others and this domesticity he was fooling himself into was never meant for him or them.

“I don't remember how I met Katniss and Peeta," she informed him when he was quiet for too long.

When he answered, his voice was flat. "You were their agent."

"Yes, but I do not remember them walking into my office or meeting them for the first time. I asked Peeta and he couldn't remember it too."

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed out.

It was happening to Peeta.

The discrepancies were starting to show. The plot holes were becoming glaring.

"You're not real," he admitted with his back turned to her. He couldn’t look at her. It hurt too much. He wanted her to be real. He wanted them to be real. They were his. "You're not real, sweetheart."

I know some of you are saying that you don't know where i'm going with this but bear with me. We're nearly there.

Leave me a review. What do you think of how they fell into a domestic routine or how Effie will take this news?

[ganymedesclock]

Celestial Beings/Guardians AU?

This is an. interesting prompt, so I guess it made me think of the paladins as kind of… protective spirits and what kind they would be. Got away from me so I’m also putting it in the fic tag

Shiro is a church grim. He wasn’t the first buried in the graveyard, as tradition dictates- but somewhere within time, he took the position, he chose not to pass on. The prior grim was old, and tired, and hadn’t asked for that burden, so Shiro took it from them.

It’s not all bad. Because of the way he came to his position, he realized eventually that he’s not actually bound to the land, and once they stopped burying people in that graveyard- no new occupants, no new people who needed a guide to see them through- he started wandering, looking for those who were given less worthy plots.

He’s accompanied by big black dogs. They’re good company, and loyal friends. Wherever he goes, the local ravens and crows come to talk to him, tell him about what happened- old regrets, old griefs that claim new people.

Lance is a household god. A very small one, not mighty and omnipotent; his shrine is a little hand-carved piece of wood on a mantelpiece, chipped at a corner because the latest generation of children are wide-eyed and curious and stumble around, and they have no respect for divinity.

But that’s fine. Today the house is warm and full of laughter. Years ago, when the old one burnt down, full of ashes and smoke, when the daughter that’s now a mother clutched his idol with shaking fingers, he was there for her then- anonymous hands to drape a blanket over her shoulders, one extra member of the fire crew to look her in the eyes, ask her if she was okay, a shoulder to cry on.

He remembers the generations as they pass, infant sons that see him and reach to grasp his fingers growing to become grandfathers that hand down the little piece of wood, one generation to the other, most of its blue paint chipped and fading. It’s tough work, being a god, hard to be so small, to curl around them when the tornado was outside and knowing he wasn’t strong enough to hold the roof up, but maybe he could shift it, half a foot, just far enough that it doesn’t fall on the baby, doesn’t fall on grandma who’s very small and very old and shaking from the brittleness as much as fear.

He doesn’t think of it as a duty, not really of a favor. They’re his family, all of his relatives- that was the promise he made to them decades, centuries ago. And he takes care of family. It’s what he is.

Pidge is a green spirit. Others of her kind tell her that this park framed in by concrete and metal, cars and skyscrapers once stretched horizon to horizon, and once the world was full with the pulsing of life. They hang their heads, heavy with the boughs of ancient trees; such a shame. Such a shame the world is so dead now.

She ventures out onto the sidewalks, trailing moss and creepers through the cracks, peeks over the shoulders of passerby at their computers and technologies, and doesn’t see the old spirits’ point. The world isn’t dead. Yes, there aren’t trees, but there’s new things, people and places, and weeds are unconquerable. She doesn’t respect the park’s boundaries, the chemicals and trimming blades meant to make it behave- dandelions fill her hair, creeping charlie twines in heavy bangles around her wrists. She brings her bare, earthy feet onto asphalt that burns, cool pavement that soothes them, welcome mats and the insides of stores. It is a costly adventure- she pays for it with blisters and cuts. You see, the old spirits say- it is not safe. It is a blighted land.

Easier to follow them when they walk through the park, but not as interesting. The pulse of life is out there, and she has to find it. She digs through the things people lose, leave behind in the park, pilfers like a magpie, studies, learns.

They start to see her, not all of them, but the ones that really pay attention. Two young parents, with a child who’s already bigger than her. The old spirits tell her that it will take her centuries to grow, that she must grow like a tree, sequoia, redwood- become slow and grand and large as they are, but she has already made up her mind about being a weed. Weeds grow quickly, and so do humans.

The young couple comes often. They talk to her, and show her things, in gentle voices, and here she finds the inspiration, the curiosity.

The man, Sam, brings her shoes one day, comfy things that fit her feet. They walk on the burning asphalt, over the rocks and glass just fine.

She goes home with her father that day.

Hunk is a temple keeper and that’s important. It’s important because temples are important and he really shouldn’t leave, because any minute now someone’s going to remember the temple’s here and he’s kept it safe, sat right outside, done the intimidating stare, been a good statue that didn’t lose any bits even that one time half the cliff fell down and took a whole wing off the temple, he has his spear and his vestments and his job.

And someone’s really going to be mad the roof is falling in. Not very peaceful, bad place of worship and all, and it’s snowing, not that he minds, cold doesn’t bother him, but mortal creatures are soft and warm and they don’t like the cold.

He entertains, for a moment, a thought that maybe he’s the only one who cares any more- great job, guys, this is why you don’t have any worshipers. Even the gods aren’t here any more, the idols carried away to somewhere else who knows how long ago. It’s a short thought- he doesn’t really like the feeling of being the only one who cares. He’s a temple keeper. It’s what he is. It’s not important if he keeps a temple no one cares about any more.

It has to be important, someone has to remember.

The person who stumbles up the steps, despite his initial suspicion, is not a pilgrim, but he can’t make himself glare at them quite as hard as he should, not when they lean against his base shaking from the cold, wrapped in a threadbare jacket around too-bony shoulders.

They are not, technically, praying. Too resigned, too cold, too miserable, to think they can ask someone for help and expect a timely reply, much less from gods that were taken a long time ago, that don’t live here any more, in this thing that you can’t even call a building, that can’t even be a shelter from the wind.

But they’re going to die.

They’re not going to die, because he’s a protector.

It’s easy to carry them down the mountain, easier than it is to hear the last of the temple crumble and settle behind him, to know what will become of it, but the shaking person is just warm enough to remind him they still have a chance, and the building didn’t, and the spear and the vestments and the pedestal to stand on weren’t as important as the job, as the point of it.

They’ll make it, the person at the hospital says, but they have no idea how he didn’t get frostbite, in this weather, dressed like that. And… what is he, exactly? (a stone heart skips a beat) One of those historical reenactors? 

Keith is a hearth spirit.

He didn’t know, for a long time. He lived in volcanoes, forest fires, ran with them and ran wild and yet there was something unsatisfying about it all, something that didn’t feel quite right.

In the end, he left them all behind, wrapped ashes and the flames that flickered inside them under cloth, and layers, shirts and jackets, rode buses at night with the other people who didn’t know where to be. Followed them out into parks and then to wilderness, up mountains that almost guttered his flames.

In a snowy meadow, watching the numb fingers of an ill-prepared hiker strike and strike again dry-start matches that are soaked through, he takes them from her, mumbles a halfhearted excuse, buries his hands in the wood and feels deep for remembered sunlight. Warmth, strength, and-

The campfire surges to life, and the hiker lets out a contented sigh, holds her fingers over it, scoops snow into a pot and sets it to melt- and Keith is unprepared for how right it all feels. How this tiny little fire, set in a circle of stones that will die tomorrow feels more like a home than flames that burned when the world was young.

He finds it again, in other places- the little blue tongues under a pot on the stove, a fat brick fireplace casting warmth over a family piled together on the couch watching TV. Weak fires, compared to a volcano; and yet, when could a volcano bring solace to someone?

He isn’t meant for beacons in the darkness.

At the end of the day, it’s people he belongs with.

He falls asleep, content, in the ashes at the bottom of the fireplace.

[corneliussteinbeck]

GGS Spotlight: Janae Marie Kroc

Name:   Janae Marie Kroc (Kroczaleski) Age: 44 Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

What does being a Girl Gone Strong mean to you? It’s about empowering women to pursue their passions (even if goes against what society may deem appropriate for women) and deconstructing the absurd ideas that somehow strength (both physically and psychologically) and muscle are things that are contradictory to femininity and should be reserved for only men.

You describe yourself as “nonbinary” and “genderfluid.” Can you explain what this means to you, for folks who may be new to those terms? Non-binary means that I exist outside the rigid binary boundaries of the male and female genders. While I do identify as a woman and exist legally as one, my gender identity just isn’t that simple. Figuring this out was extremely frustrating and took many years in large part because I never assumed there were any other options, and I had to pick either male or female and be defined by society’s definitions of those labels.

Genderfluid means there is a degree of fluidity to my gender and that it changes. For me my gender presentation and expression may change based just on how I feel that day or by whom I interact with and the situation. This was also something that took me a long time to understand. It was very frustrating for me, and I couldn’t figure out why I just couldn’t feel comfortable all the time by picking a single gender and adhering to society’s idea of how that gender should act to be accepted by others.

How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? Strength training was just something I was immediately drawn to as a young child. I remember seeing someone big and strong when I was very young and just being blown away. I immediately thought “Wow, that’s how I want to be!”

At nine years old I made my first set of homemade weights out of milk jugs filled with sand loaded onto a bent bar I found in the woods and constructed my first bench by laying a long 2”x12” board over two cinder blocks. Every year for Christmas I would beg my parents for a weight set. In fourth grade I received dumbbells and trained religiously with them for a year. The following Christmas I received my first real bench, with barbells and dumbbells. I have been training consistently ever since.

You intentionally lost a lot of muscle after you came out as trans, and then just as intentionally put some back on. Can you tell us about your thought process as you experienced this, as it relates to our expectations of femininity and muscles on women? Initially, I fell prey to the same societal pressures that many women do concerning body image and what is socially acceptable. I just assumed that if I was going to be a woman I had to live up to this unrealistic ideal of what media and society says a woman should be. I initially planned to lose more than half my bodyweight and had planned to go from 272 pounds of muscle at 5’9” all the way down to 135 pounds.

Initially I dropped weight like crazy, losing 40 pounds in the first month and 72 pounds in the first several months getting all the way down to 200 pounds, a weight I had not seen in almost 20 years. At this point I found myself getting very frustrated and confused. On one hand, I liked that I was blending in much easier in public and being able to wear new outfits that I felt I never could have pulled off before felt amazing, but at the same time I was really missing the heavy training. I hated losing so much strength, and the prolonged dieting was making me miserable. I was obsessing over food more than I ever had, even when I was competing in bodybuilding. The entire situation was making me very unhappy.

I put the weight loss on hold for about the next six months and then after much soul searching just decided to do whatever made me happy without worrying about what anyone else might think about it or what it meant concerning my gender identity. One thing that helped me tremendously was getting to know many of the women in the strength training world much better. As I became closer with them, I realized so many of them struggled with the same issues I did, namely wanting to get bigger and stronger but feeling pressured that this somehow was contradictory to our femininity. Realizing I wasn’t alone in this struggle was huge for me and helped validate my feelings.

I resumed training hard and heavy, increased my calories and just focused on what felt right to me. Over a period of six months my weight climbed all the way back up to 254 pounds, and I was beginning to get a bit “fluffy.” I switched gears and focused on leaning up without losing muscle mass. I brought my weight back down to around 230 pounds, and I feel pretty good there. It fluctuates some, and I’ve been as light as 217 and as heavy as 237, but in that general neighborhood is where I seem to feel best.

I try to let how I feel and can perform in the gym or on my mountain bike dictate my weight more so than how my body looks.

I find that if I make how my body looks my top priority I will always find some way I could look better and this results in excessive dieting and unhappiness.

What does your typical workout look like? In the gym I still follow a program that is centered around the three basic powerlifting movements, but with additional days for the remainder of my body and increased overall training volume. A typical chest day for me would start with bench pressing, often for something likes five sets of five reps, followed by inclines for sets of ten, maybe a little dumbbell work, and then often pushups or dips with body weight until failure. Leg day would start with heavy squats, followed by Bulgarian split squats or lunges, sometimes front squats, with a couple hamstring movements and calves.

I mostly stick to basic compound movements with lower rep ranges (1-5) and then higher (10-20 reps) for my assistance movements. I program my training in cyclic four-week waves with increasing intensity for three weeks followed by a fourth week with increased rep ranges and volume but decreased load intensity. Each successive monthly wave is heavier than the preceding month for a 16-week period. After I complete those 16 weeks, I will reassess and start a new training cycle. This keeps me both growing and getting stronger while preventing overtraining and psychological burnout.

Favorite Lift: Depends on the day but squats, bench presses, and deadlifts are still hard to beat — especially when you’re making progress. Few things feel better than hitting a PR in any of those.

Most memorable PR: Pulling a 40-pound deadlift PR to move from fourth to first at the WPO Arnold Classic qualifier in 2005. The lift was the single hardest deadlift I have ever pulled and likely took a full ten seconds for me to grind to completion. I actually felt my right acromioclavicular joint separate half way through the lift but kept pulling for all I was worth.

My PR going into the meet was 716 pounds, and after my second attempt I told my handler I was good for 733 maybe 738, if I absolutely needed it. My training partners did the math and came back and told me that I needed 755 for the win. I told them to put it on the bar and I would make it happen. I knew my lockout was strong and that if I could just get the bar to my knees I could complete it, and that was all I focused on as I tried to rip the bar from the floor.

When I locked the bar out the place went nuts! My training partner ran out on stage and lifted me in the air. It was a surreal moment like something out of a movie exactly how you always dream about winning a big meet, but what really makes this something I will never forget is that my handlers actually miscalculated how much weight I needed to win, and I still ended up getting second. Everyone was afraid to tell me at first, but when I found out I wasn’t mad at all. I knew I never would have pulled that weight if I hadn’t believed it was for the win, and we all had a good laugh about it.

How has estrogen therapy affected your lifting? The difference estrogen makes in regard to gaining muscle and losing body fat is undeniably huge. It was almost two years ago when I stopped testosterone and started estrogen and my strength immediately plummeted. Every week I was losing ridiculous amounts of strength, sometimes 20 to 40 pounds in a single week. I would load the bar with the same weight I had used the week before only to find out there was no way I was going to be able to complete the desired number of reps, it was crazy. Fortunately after a couple of months the strength loss leveled off, but the effect was dramatic.

Estrogen therapy also had the same type of effect in regard to gaining body fat. I was eating like I was prepping for a bodybuilding show and still having an incredibly difficult time staying lean. We had titrated my estrogen dose up quite high (8mg per day) to hopefully achieve more breast growth but at that level the increased body fat was too much for me so we backed it down to 4mg per day, which still puts my blood levels in a normal female range and allows me maintain a reasonable level of body fat without feeling like I am starving every day.

I think the most interesting thing to note that is prior to stopping testosterone and starting estrogen I was among the strongest men in the world for my body weight. After almost two years on estrogen and without testosterone my strength levels now are very similar to the strongest women in the world at my body weight.

Top 5 songs on your training playlist: For training I still prefer the fast, heavy stuff that really gets me in the right place mentally especially when a big squat or dead is scheduled. Bands like Korn, Marilyn Manson, Ministry, Rammstein, old-school Metallica, and Disturbed often populate my training mixes, but I have a wide range in music taste including EDM, dubstep, alternative, classic rock, punk, and even the cheesy pop and hip hop stuff too. I also find songs with a theme about fighting against the established norm to be motivational.

Some of the stuff you’ll find on my current training play list includes:

Take Me Down by Genevieve

Bad Reputation by Joan Jett

Gucci Coochie by Die Antwoord

Fear by Disturbed (my favorite pre-deadlift psyche up song)

Clown by Korn

The Reflecting God by Marilyn Manson

Top 3 things you must have at the gym or in your gym bag: Powerlifting belt, knee wraps, chalk.

Do you prefer to train alone or with others? Why? All depends on the training day and what my goals are at the time. I have been fortunate to have a lot of amazing training partners over the years who are still some of my best friends to this day. The camaraderie that is built by sharing experiences under a heavily loaded bar lasts a lifetime and as a competitive powerlifter no one reaches the top alone. However, some of my most intense and focused training sessions occurred when I trained alone and would just go deep inside my own mind, facing and overcoming my own doubts and fears.

Most embarrassing gym moment: OMG, I can’t believe I’m going to share this in a public interview but I will, because I know I’m not alone. I had “an accident” as I strained with everything I had during my third attempt deadlift at a meet. I left the platform and headed straight to the restroom hoping no one else noticed! To be honest, over the years, that has happened numerous times in the gym under heavy squats and deadlifts and while embarrassing, that’s what can happen when you push your body to its limits.

Most memorable compliment you’ve received lately: Recently, it would be the numerous compliments I have received from other women about my body and how they admire what I’m doing. It feels really good to know that they support me, because my biggest fear when I came out was the ladies of the strength training world would feel I didn’t belong and would see me as an imposter. The reality has been that I have been welcomed with open arms, and the support I have received has been overwhelming. I have made so many new and amazing sisters in strength training that alone has been worth all of the sacrifices I have made.

Most recent compliment you gave someone else: I try to make it a point that whenever I think something positive about another woman I share it with her. Just yesterday I told a woman for whom I have a lot of respect in the strength training world how much she amazes me and how I admire her. She is a multi-sport athlete and her incredible strength, amazing physique, and especially her awesome attitude epitomizes what a Girl Gone Strong is.

Favorite meal: For an everyday normal meal, as boring as it sounds, I eat a lot of plain old chicken or steak and rice seasoned with garlic and various spices. My boys actually beg me to make this all the time. Cheat meal would have to be pizza and ice cream.

Favorite way to treat yourself: A relaxing but also adventure-filled vacation to somewhere tropical accompanied by a close friend or partner. I am way overdue for one of these.

Favorite quote: “In order to achieve what others cannot, I must be willing to sacrifice what they will not.”

Favorite book: He, She, and It by Marge Piercy. This is a great sci-fi novel that also examines gender roles and stereotypes.

What inspires and motivates you? To be better than I was yesterday, to help others who for one reason or another have always felt like they didn’t belong, and more than anything, to lead by example for my three amazing sons.

What do you do? I am licensed pharmacist by trade, but I am also involved in activism including writing and speaking about gender and sexuality. I am currently working on an autobiography and in the final stages of completing a documentary about my life, titled Transformer, which will air in the fall.

I definitely keep busy, but my hobbies include muscle cars (I own a ’67 Camaro that I have dubbed the “Krocmaro” that has its own Instagram page), mountain biking (planning a trip to Whistler in British Colombia this summer), and makeup (I love YouTube tutorials and the transformative power makeup can have).

I love hiking and biking with my three sons and this summer we are planning a trip to Yellowstone for the first time, which we are all very excited about! I love the outdoors and especially water. I have always felt drawn to water, and whether it’s a river, lake, or ocean it doesn’t matter to me. I am also an adrenaline junkie (hence my love for fast cars) and have been skydiving, rappelling, and plan to start racing two of my cars this year.

Describe a typical day in your life: Due to recent unexpected developments, I am currently attempting to leave the 9-to-5 world and pursue activism full time, so my days have changed a lot and also vary greatly from day to day depending on whether or not I’m traveling.

A typical day while at home usually looks something like this:

7 a.m. — Morning cardio. Typical activities include sprints at the track, running stairs, or biking.

8 a.m. — Breakfast, most often oatmeal with a piece of fruit, almond milk, and protein powder.

8:30–11:30 a.m. — Check and respond to important emails, work on articles, interviews, or other writing projects. I also still write training programs and diets for clients.

12 p.m. — Lunch. I typically have a shake around 10am or so and lunch around noon. Lunch most often consists of standard bodybuilder fare like chicken and rice, lean red meat and a salad, or sometimes fish for a different protein and sweet potatoes for a different carb source.

12:30–3:30 p.m. — If I don’t have a local speaking engagement or meeting to attend, then I am most often again working on some form of writing or work on my computer.

4 p.m. — Gym training session. Right now I train with weights in the gym five to six days per week, and I try to get in two to three rides on my mountain bike per week if both the weather and my travel schedule permit it. I am lucky enough to have a full training facility in my basement so I can train at any time day or night. Depending on the day’s schedule I sometimes train first thing in the morning or even late at night, but in the afternoon prior to dinner is more common during the week while in the morning prior to breakfast is more common on the weekends.

6 p.m. — Dinner. I always consume a large intra-training shake consisting of cyclic dextrin and hydrolyzed casein but still eat my largest meal immediately after training. This is most often lean red meat with a complex carb source like rice or potatoes.

7 p.m.-Midnight — I am a morning person and prefer to do my work early with the hope of relaxing a bit in the evening, but my evenings are still often filled with Skype conferences and working on projects I wasn’t able to complete during the day. Still, I try to finish every day by having a last meal usually watching Netflix while snuggling with my kitten, Dawkins, on the couch. It’s a perfect way to unwind before going to bed.

Your next training goal: Now I am just focused on being a better all-around athlete. I am in my mid-forties and I have begrudgingly accepted that my days of my absolute best athletic performance are behind me. This has not been easy to accept, and I will always be a competitor at heart but now I want to maintain as much strength as I can, be in good enough cardiovascular shape to do all of things I want to (hiking, mountain biking etc.), and maintain good overall health.

For what are you most grateful?

Without a doubt I am most grateful for my three amazing sons. The bond of unconditional love that we share is something I never could have imagined, and their support throughout everything has been absolutely amazing.

Of what life accomplishment do you feel most proud? While setting the all-time world record in powerlifting was the number one goal of mine for many years, and hugely satisfying, I have to say I am much more proud of being open and honest about whom I am in the face of immense pressure to do the opposite. Every time I receive an email or message from someone stating that my being honest about who I am has helped them, I am reminded how important visibility is for the transgender/gender non-conforming communities (and anyone who feels different in their own way), and how you can save someone’s life without ever having met them. I have said since I first made the decision to be honest about everything, that if my being out can help prevent just one suicide or stop one parent from rejecting their child, then any sacrifice I have to make is more than worth it.

Which three words best describe you? Honest, complex, determined.

What’s a risk you’ve taken recently, and how did it turn out? The biggest risks I’ve taken recently have been undergoing both Voice Feminization Surgery and Facial Feminization Surgery. I have been researching both of these procedures for many, many years and greatly desiring the results. For me, it is just about taking steps to finally feel comfortable in my own skin. Every time I have heard my extremely deep voice or seen pics of my face, the masculine qualities of both have always made me cringe.

Even though there was no doubt I wanted to have these procedures performed and had done all of my homework ahead of time, there are still no guarantees that things will turn out like you hope. As with any surgery there is always a chance of complications, that the results will be less than desirable, or that you could be putting your own health in jeopardy. I was talking about my voice and face, two things that affect my life greatly on a daily basis, especially as I try to transition into a career of speaking and activism.

They are also extremely expensive and not covered by insurance at all. I had to spend tens of thousands of dollars, and I felt guilty doing so. I couldn’t help but think how that money could have been toward my son’s future college tuition or other seemingly more vital endeavors. The recovery process for both was daunting as well. I wasn’t able to speak for eight weeks after voice surgery, and anyone who knows me will tell you that was a fate almost worse than death for me!

For my facial feminization surgery, the bone in my forehead and jaw required extensive reconstruction and work was also required on my nose, cheeks and eyebrows. Recovery is very painful with significant swelling, bruising, and it will be weeks before I can eat a normal diet of solid foods. Still, I knew deep down there really wasn’t a choice, and these were things I absolutely needed to do to have any kind of peace internally.

I had the voice surgery performed in January in South Korea, and while it can take up to a year to experience the full increase in pitch the change already has been significant although I am still hoping for an additional increase. I just underwent my facial surgery in Los Angeles on April 25th, and I’m still extremely swollen and bruised. I lost twenty pounds due to the limited diet and difficulty while trying to eat. As the swelling is beginning to go down, I am starting to get an idea of how I am going to look and so far it appears to be very good. I honestly can’t wait to see exactly what I’m going to look like a couple months from now.

How has lifting weights changed your life? As an adolescent I was a good athlete and very confident, but when junior high hit, things took a huge downward spiral for me. I got shunned by the same group of friends I had grown up with, I was struggling in silence with the growing confusion surrounding my gender identity, and when everyone else had big growth spurts, I did not. All of these things combined to strip away my self-confidence. Because of my complex gender identity and not liking the face I saw in the mirror, I accepted the fact that I was ugly and that no one would ever be interested in dating me. I never had a serious relationship in high school or while in the Marines, and because I felt so uncomfortable trying to play the male role I never went to a prom, Christmas dance, or any social events like that.

Fortunately, through strength training and competitive powerlifting I slowly built my confidence back. First I learned to believe in my ability to achieve any goal I set on the platform, and then I learned how to apply that same confidence to the rest of my life. I often say with absolute sincerity that my success in powerlifting prepared me perfectly for coming out as transgender in the public eye. My belief in myself by that point was unshakeable, and I was already used to being scrutinized and degraded on Internet forums. I was well prepared for the backlash from the strength community that followed my coming out.

Without a doubt the confidence I gained from strength training that has impacted every area of my life in a positive manner.

There are quite a few resources and an active online presence for trans men and transmasculine folks who strength train. Have you found any such community for trans women? Unfortunately I have not, and I have been contacted by numerous trans women who strength train wanting to talk to someone who can relate. Just like we often see with women from other communities, many trans women attack other trans girls who weight train and question their femininity, it’s sad and unnecessary.

How would you address the concerns some women have about bulking up or appearing “unfeminine?” First of all, bulking up and adding significant muscle mass takes years and years of extreme dedication and hard work, especially for women. It doesn’t happen overnight, so that shouldn’t even be a concern for anyone who doesn’t have those goals. But more importantly, who has the right to say what is “unfeminine” and how do we even define what that means? The definition is completely arbitrary, changes over time, and varies greatly from one culture to another. For example what it means to be feminine and is acceptable for a woman in the United States is drastically different now than it was in the 1950s. Even today, in a progressive country like Iceland, what is considered feminine and acceptable is radically different than in a country like Saudi Arabia where women have very little rights relative to other cultures.

I am big believer in only the woman herself getting to define what femininity means to her. I have witnessed just as much strength, determination, and mental toughness in my female friends as in any of my male friends. The idea that all men should be strong and all women kept weak is harmful to everyone. Not every male is strong and women aren’t weak. No one should ever be pressured by society or anyone else to be anything other than what they are, and by trying to define and enforce rigid gender roles (especially outdated patriarchal based ones) anyone who doesn’t naturally fall within those definitions is harmed by being forced to live a life that is not entirely their own. So let each and every woman define her own femininity and may she be free to be all of whoever she feels herself to be.

What do you want to say to other women who might be nervous or hesitant about strength training? First of all I’d like to say that I am all for anyone pursuing anything that makes them happy as long as it doesn’t harm someone else. If weight training is something you think you might enjoy then absolutely, one hundred percent go for it! Many women find strength training empowering and love how it changes their body and their health.

Also, never let someone else discourage you from ever pursuing anything that makes you happy. I know there are still a lot of men and women out there who discourage women from lifting weights by pushing outdated ideas about how strength and muscularity are only for men. Sometimes men find strong women intimidating or threatening, and other women may not understand, but those are their problems, not yours. Strength training is not contradictory to femininity, and the strength training world is filled with amazing women of all shapes and sizes. If you’re a woman and you’re even the tiniest bit interested in giving strength training a try, by all means please do! You may find it to be a life-changing experience that impacts not just your body but your mind as well, and benefits you in all areas of your life. I know so many women who have had that experience, myself included.

If you’d like to connect with Janae online, you can find her on: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

The post GGS Spotlight: Janae Marie Kroc appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

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