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twig-tea · 7 months

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Canadian LGBTQ+ rights; a whirlwind summary

Back in August of 2023 @wen-kexing-apologist wrote an absolutely stellar piece here, and I didn't want to co-opt it (especially because it was already written with an American gaze and I don't want to pile on/distract from the fact that we're talking about Thai BL) so I decided to make this a separate post. And then it lingered in the sad pile of my drafts. But, I'm gonna post it anyway, and take this as an excuse to talk about Canadian history of LGBTQ+ rights apropos of absolutely nothing except the most recent move of the provinces (specifically Saskatchewan) to use the notwithstanding clause to force through legislation that the courts have said goes against our charter of rights and freedoms--specifically legislation that says a teacher cannot respect a child's pronouns without permission of the parent. This is being taken to court (latest as of this writing is that in Feb 2024 the group fighting the law was granted the right to be heard by the court in spite of the notwithstanding clause being invoked, so there is still a chance of it getting revoked via the courts).

WKA talks about what the conversation was like in the US around queer rights in the 20th century; highly recommend reading the linked post first. In Canada the conversation was a little different though with very similar themes; we had the shift to a focus on "privacy" as the driver of our rights long before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in the 1960s. So much of the push and pull of our laws around homosexuality and gender identity and expression have had to do with the public vs private.

Sodomy has been illegal in Canada since colonization (earliest known conviction: 1648) but laws against gross indecency, which included dancing, kissing, or touching between two men, didn't get codified in Canada until 1892 (and not extended to apply to women until 1953 (thanks)). While these laws essentially outlawed any physical public affection between men from the turn of the century, the fervor to root out and eliminate gayness from society didn't really reach its pitch until mid-century.

I need you all to know about the Fruit Machine, which was an ostensibly "scientific" detection device to identify and purge gay and lesbian civil servants from the military and public service in Canada. While the machine was built in the 1950s and used through the 1950s and 1960s, the practice of using psychology, polygraphs, and interrogation to force military and public servants to come out and take a voluntary discharge existed through to the 1990s.

Our former Prime Minister PE Trudeau made famous the line "there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" as part of his so-called decriminalization of homosexuality 1967; this is of course a joke because "buggery" and "gross indecency" stayed on the books for another 20 years, the only difference being they were only punishable if the people involved were under 21, there were 3 or more people present, or the participants were performing these acts outside of their home. You may notice that this meant the policing of public space was where and how homophobia continued to be perpetuated by the state via police.

Highlighting the importance of privacy as a framework for gay rights at this time, The Right to Privacy movement was the name for one of the forerunners of modern Canadian LGBTQ+ rights groups through the 1970s--though worth noting that this group in particular was criticized for its exclusion of WLW and our trans siblings (some of whom of course overlap). The infamous bathhouse raids of 1981 ("Operation Soap"), leading to at the time the largest arrest in Toronto's history, were one of the precipitating factors in the recognizable start of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 1986, five years after the raids and thanks to massive effort by LGBTQ+ organizing, sexual orientation was added to the protected list of attributes that it is illegal to discriminate against under the Canadian Human Rights Act (gender identity and expression was added in 2012), and in 1987 "anal intercourse" was made legal for those over 18 (the legal age of consent was made the same for everyone--16--in 2019), and "gross indecency" as a law was finally repealed. The fight for marriage equality was the next step after achieving real decriminalization, and was strongly based on the right to freedom from discrimination as protected by the Human Rights Act.

[Just going to take this moment to note that for some reason they never struck off the law criminalizing sodomy when more than two people are present; this is still an inequality on the books now and people do (rarely) still get charged with it.]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the censorship fight was most famously held in the written sphere--if you've seen the movie Better than Chocolate, you might already be familiar what I'm talking about. From approximately 1986 through to 2000, Canada Border Services targeted shipments to queer bookstores, holding them up, sometimes destroying the content, putting those businesses at risk, and preventing queer content that passed through border control to be stocked in physical stores. It took the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2000 to shut down that practice as an illegal suppression of a bookstore (Little Sisters in Vancouver, BC, shout-out!)'s right to freedom of expression.

Raids on safe spaces for sexual activity continued to be a driver for action through to the 21st century. The WLW bathhouse the Pleasure Palace (changed from "Pussy Palace" in the late 90s to be more inclusive of our sisters without that particular body part) was raided in the year 2000; 19 years after Operation Soap, and notably the first and last raid on a queer woman's bathhouse in Canadian history. What followed was a massive public coal-raking of police, including the very telling call to action: "out of the bars! Into the streets!" I don't think this was necessarily the intended implication at the time, but looking back the threat was that if we were not given our rights, we would be in everyone's faces (and conversely if we were given our rights, we'd be quiet). The legalization of marriage between any two consenting persons of legal age came five years later in 2005 (I don't mean to imply this effort was the only reason--the fight for marriage equality was active all the way through the 90s and early 2000s; it's just an interesting parallel that two of the biggest wins for equality for queer people in Canada came 5 years after a historic police raid).

One of the factors in gaining acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Canada was the fight for marriage equality; as it focused the conversation on sameness rather than difference. The queer activism movement here pivoting from messaging around bathhouses and being left alone to marriage equality was an intentional, strategic attempt to be accepted as the same rather than being honoured for our differences. And that fight coming after the HIV/AIDS epidemic and bathhouse raids is no accident as it framed queer people directly in opposition to the stigma of promiscuity that surrounded assumptions about gay people which fed into the lack of support for medical intervention, research, and treatment for HIV/AIDS (here in Canada too, our history is just as gross on that front, people just don't talk about it as much. But Canada followed the US government's example, and so people were left without medical resources for at least eight years in Canada (since the first cases were identified here in 1982) and THREE YEARS after they had been approved by the US--AZT wasn't available in Canada until 1990. Three years in which people died unnecessarily. We similarly approved PrEP four years after the FDA, in 2016. Today, despite "universal health care", if you want access to PrEP, it will depend on the province you're in as to whether you can get it at all for free or whether you need to pay--in my province, it takes 2 months to get free PrEP).

Today, just over 50% of the people with HIV/AIDS in Canada are men who have sex with men; it's estimated 80% of people infected with HIV know their status, of those 75% are being treated, and of those 89% are effectively unable to transmit the virus. In that context, the ongoing fight re: HIV/AIDS in Canada today is around decriminalization, specifically decriminalization of drugs (since ~20% of HIV infections are from IV drug use--one of the many reasons I support harm reduction strategies), and the decriminalization of non-disclosure (since Canada is one of the few places where you can be charged for not sharing your HIV status with a sexual partner). Until very recently, we were also fighting to be able to give blood--it was only in 2022 that men who have sex with men were allowed to donate blood in Canada, which meant every visit to a blood donation clinic involved questions about the gender of your sexual partner(s). And, as mentioned at the top, one of the rights we are fighting to retain right now, is the right to have our gender expression respected without forced outing to a parent or guardian; Once again, the fight in Canada has become centered around the right to privacy.

Slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but I would be remiss in talking about moments in recent history when the law did not prosecute us, but it failed to protect us. In the 2010s, a serial killer was targeting men who he thought he could get away with making disappear; and he was right. The police ignored calls from the community to treat the case as a serial killer for years. Bruce McArthur killed 8 men who had gone missing from Toronto's Gay Village between 2010 and 2017, several who were vulnerable because they were distant from their families (because they were gay and closeted), homeless, and/or in immigration limbo (waiting for status), so it took longer for them to be reported missing. During this time, through to just weeks before the arrest, the Toronto Police insisted in public statements that there was no serial killer.

Black and Indigenous queer people have regularly died as a result of the police being called while they were in crisis. An unnamed trans woman (who was midgendered by the SIU after her death); Regis Korchinksy-Paquet, both in 2020. In 2022, Dani Cooper, queer activist who advocated against police-run wellness checks, was shot and killed by police during a wellness check called for them.

As a positive step, in 2016, Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a protest as part of the annual Pride Parade, making a list of demands, but the one that got the most coverage was the demand to ban police at Pride. This was taken up by the Pride Toronto committee, and since 2017 police have been banned from having an official float or presence at the parade. This has been taken up by several Canadian cities including Vancouver and Hamilton and inspired action in other cities globally.

With that context, in which queer people are rightfully distrustful of police, it is alarming that police-reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people (one of the only ways we have of tracking hate crime consistently) had a record-breaking increase in 2023.

In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (the son of PM Trudeau quoted above) gave a public apology to LGBTQ+ Canadians. Here's just a brief excerpt:

"To the kids who are listening at home and who fear rejection because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression; And to those who are nervous and scared, but also excited at what their future might hold; We are all worthy of love, and deserving of respect. And whether you discover your truth at 6 or 16 or 60, who you are is valid. To members of the LGBTQ2 communities, young and old, here in Canada and around the world: You are loved. And we support you."

The important part about this apology was twofold; one, it explicitly named many of the specific instances of oppression I mentioned above, and two, it listed the things the government was doing to make reparations. This included the repeal of the law that equalized the age of consent (which went through two years later, as mentioned above), the pardoning of people who had a criminal record due to unjust laws based on LGBTQ+ discrimination, settlement of a class action lawsuit for victims of The Purge, and a commitment to work towards better resources for mental health and housing for LGBTQ+ people, as well as a committment to continue working to remove the barriers for gay men to donate blood (which went through in 2022). One of the other important achievements was the change to allow an "X" option under gender on Canadian Passports (so the three available options are M/F/X) in 2019 [some provincial gender opt-out options have existed since 2017].

The current government is by no stretch perfect, but it has been good to see some of these moments of our history acknowledged and corrected for. As the global pressure towards fascism continues, it's critical that we remember these changes are the result of hard work, not inevitable "progress", that these fights are ongoing and require our energy, and that change, using a variety of tactics, is possible.

Quick hit facts if you prefer a list to a narrative:

In Canada, it was illegal for men to hold hands with men or women to hold hands with women in public until the 1960s;

The government tried to expunge us from public service in the 60s and 70s;

it was illegal for men to have threesomes until the 1990s;

bathhouse raids were made possible due to legislative inequalities through the 2000s;

Canada took three years longer than the US to approve treatments for HIV/AIDS, four years longer to approve PrEP, and still today access can be complicated/expensive;

it was possible to be of legal age to have sex but not anal sex until 2019;

Gay men were barred from donating blood until 2022;

Canada remains one of the few countries in the world where you can be prosecuted for not disclosing your HIV status (though does not apply if you retain a minimal viral load);

In 2023 some provincial governments tried to make kids choose between gender expression and their privacy (and potentially safety) from their parents; as of March 2024 that fight is still actively being fought.

The take-aways I hope people get from this post:

This history is more recent than we pretend, and is ongoing

Framing gay rights as right to privacy vs right to being not prosecuted for being in public is nuanced and intertwined

Transphobes need to fuck off

Some references/further reading/watching:

Brief history of LGBTQ+ laws in Canada at the Canadian Encyclopedia

The Fruit Machine documentary made by TVO

Article on HIV/AIDS in Canada policy written by one of the policymakers

Timeline of HIV/AIDS Developments (only goes to 2010 so does not include PreP, which was approved in Canada in 2016, four years after its availability in the US)

Article on The Pleasure Palace raid by one of the organizers

Article on the Bathhouse Raids 40 years after Operation Soap

Article on Bruce McArthur's crimes and the review of how police handled the case by former judge Gloria Epstein

Regis Korchinksy-Paquet and the unnamed trans woman dead after interactions with police

Dani Cooper's death

Article about the Supreme Court case brought by Little Sisters bookshop

HIV Non-Disclosure Law Fact Sheet

Article about the end of the blood ban for men who have sex with men

Black Lives Matter Toronto on their 2016 action at Toronto Pride

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's apology

Gender "X" Options on Passports

Stream Better Than Chocolate (you may need to look up where it's available in your region)

Little Sisters Book & Art Emporium

Glad Day Bookshop (Makes a claim for being the oldest queer bookshop in the world; one of the few queer public spaces being maintained/actively protected as more and more of our spaces are eroded, and also just a personal fave so I'm taking the excuse to shout it out too)

#canadian history #lgbtq history #typed so that i can stop thinking it #for reference #long post

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queering-ecology · 6 months

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Chap 12. Melancholy Natures, Queer Ecologies by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands [part 1]

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”—Aldo Leopold

“At the heart of the modern age is a core of grief. At some level, we’re aware that something terrible is happening, that we humans are laying waste to our natural inheritance. A great sorrow arises as we witness the changes in our atmosphere, the waste of resources and the consequent pollution, the ongoing deforestation and destruction of fisheries, the rapidly spreading deserts, and the mass extinction of species.”(331)

The author believes that this ‘core of grief’ is melancholia, a state of suspended mourning in which the object of loss if very real but psychically ‘ungrievable’ within the confines of a society that cannot acknowledge unhuman beings, natural environments, and ecological processes as appropriate objects for genuine grief (333)

“It is necessary to face our fear and our pain, and to go through the process of grieving, because the alternative is a sorrow deeper still: the loss of meaning. To live authentically in this time, we must allow ourselves to feel the magnitude of our human predicament” (332) (Anderson 2001, “The World is Dying—and So Are You”)

“Ecological grieving” vs “nature-nostalgia”

“was this [place] just the same sad story, the one about human violence, the endless damage we do, may always have done, to ourselves, everything around us? Yes, I thought, but that didn’t make it simple. I couldn’t even tell myself that if humans are violent and destructive, the natural world, at least, is peaceful and enduring, not while I lay with my back pressed tightly against the remnants of enormous volcanic explosions and the cold winter earth stole my own body’s warmth.” (Campbell 2003, 5)

“in late capitalism, nature-nostalgia—ecotourist pilgrimages to endangered wildernesses, documentaries of dying peoples and places, even environmentalist campaigns to ‘save’ particular habitats or species against the onslaught of development—are exactly a form of melancholy nature, in that they incorporate environmental destruction into the ongoing workings of commodity capitalism (333)

Grieving the ungrievable: how does one mourn in the midst of a culture that finds it almost impossible to recognize the value of what has been lost? (333)

Melancholia here is not a failed or inadequate mourning. Melancholia is a form of preservation of life—a life, unlike the one offered for sale in ecotourist spectacle, is already gone, but whose ghost propels a changed understanding of the present. (333)

[coming to love and understand devastated landscapes] transform […] melancholic attachments into a principles and public recognition of the ongoing loss of nature, and also of the ways in which that loss is constitutive of their environmental relationships on a daily basis… (334) and thus point us towards a queer ecology that both emerges from and politicizes melancholy natures, incorporating the experiences of a “world of wounds” into an ethical stance that resists, rather than fostering, fetish (334)

#queer ecology #melancholia #critical ecology #environmental politics #queer ecologies: sex nature politics desire #nature nostalgia #capitalism #ecotourism #ecogrief #queer theory #ecofeminism #mourning for nature #mourning #ecology #queer history

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nekropsii · 2 years

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not the biggest fan honestly :T

I feel like the biggest issue with modern homestuck fanon is that whether people liked it or not, and how if its concidered dubiously canon or not, hs^2 and epiloge characterization has bled into fanon. the majory of hs fans hate hs^2 (and for good reason), yet Jane hate has gone up, people are being sooo unnecessarily weird about davejadekat (/all of its pairings) and bi characters in general, rosemary is deemed boring (killkillkillkill-), people don't see jake as a person will feelings, karkat?? kanaya?? trolls?? never heard of them, unless you mean those.. things we keep around to fuel the humans plots sometimes and act as the occasional therapist. Also... Dirk...

THESE ARE ALL THINGS FROM HS^2, THE COMIC YOU HATE!!! WHY ARE YOU LETTING IT LIVE RENT FREE IN YOUR BRAIN??

karkat is probably one of if the my most favorite character, I think hes interesting as hell!!! but alot of what makes him intersting comes from how he fits against troll society/against other trolls imo??? his mutation, his dancestory/him being the litteral second coming of christ, the significance of his secretly caring personality in a violent child soldier evil murder military state and what it says about it as a whole with his role as the alternian equivalent of the 'everyman', his familial relationship with kanayah, his unique relationship with romance, etc, these things all mean jack shit to humans, and shine best around other trolls, yet all he is now is daves side bitch, i feel fanon has sorta moved away from hs and into earthC, noone really cares about alternia anymore as trolls are just seen as humans but grey. even comander!karkat focuses more on dave angst than karkat, a minority amongst his people, leading a revolution a'la signless style??

idk i just feel like hes just been watered down into the easily digestible 'angry character' who is sad sometimes for,,, resons. i feel like this disconnect from alternia in general just sort takes away depth from beta troll characters in general?? even metorstuck content now feels shallow and disconnected??

And what sucks is that i like davekat, and people are right about them being a great pairing for working out their issues together , but at the same time i miss litteraly ever other karkat ship, i miss the days of the karkat x beta trolls harem and being able to use quadrants for him without being deemed problematic for not adheering to queer identity of a race that dosent exist and dosent effect anyone because real life has no oppressive poly romance system, and im just sick if this ship reducing the characters down to a pinterest black and red asthetic moodboard when they are so much more than that.

oh wow sorry this is too long, i dont think i did the best job at following a single line of though and went on a bit of an unnecessary tangent abt fanon and hs^2 so srry about that, I hope my general thoughts were still decipherable??

Id have to say mituna is my second favorite but i dont need to tell you whats wrong with his fanon character lol. I really appreciate all of your alpha troll analysis and you art is cool as hell!! srry that this fell into more venty teritory and for any spelling mistakes, i hope you have a good rest of your day/night!!

I say this with no disrespect at all, in fact I am enthralled: I didn’t even know asks could be this long!! Thank you for your input, I agree with you! And don’t worry- you were quite clearly comprehendible! You covered a lot of ground already, but allow me just a moment to commentate on specific points…

The bleeding of HS^2/Epilogues content/reinterpretations into the larger sphere of full-fandom fanon has been a slow, insidious process. I think the fact that most people have not taken the time to reread Homestuck proper, be it due to lack of time/energy or fear of its length, has really added to this- because a gradually slipping grip on what is and is not canon simply doesn’t pair well with rather disagreeable dubiously canon sequel content having come out fairly recently. The thing about DubCanon is that, whether you or I like it or not, people are going to apply those particular reinterpretations of the characters to what their idea of canon is, and- typically- they will fail to remember that the changes made to the characters were changes in the first place. Rather large ones, at that. This is not only how and why people are out here thinking that Jane was not only legitimate Troll-Racist in Homestuck, but also how and why they get the idea that she’s always been that way.

I’m not sure if my memory is failing me or not, but as far as I remember, while biphobia has always been a problem in the fandom- baffling, considering most characters are textually bi- it really does seem like it’s at an all-time high right now. People are adamantly refusing the idea that some characters are bisexual. Dave and Karkat are the ones I see the most regularly erased, but Jake is also pretty high up there.

The current drought of Alternia content is so sad. Earth C is great, don’t get me wrong- it’s the planet I most regularly work with/develop because of Sovereignstuck- but people oft throw out the concept of conflict when using it. Especially, like, social/political conflict. Earth C is basically synonymous with Flawless Utopia, at this point. It’s a petty complaint, sure, but I don’t like it. :(

I absolutely despise how trolls have been turned into gray humans with horns! They’re bug aliens!! Bug aliens!!! That’s so much cooler than gray humans with horns!! Fuck!!

I kinda disagree that a change of setting takes away from the Beta Trolls as characters- I think the issue isn’t the fact that there’s a setting change, it’s that the writers aren’t really willing to work with the fact that, uh… You know… The Beta Trolls have vastly different socializations and come from a vastly different cultural background than the Beta/Alpha Kids? You could very easily find conflict and development with the setting change. You’d just have to keep in mind the way that their upbringing would affect them and how they’d respond to their new environment. Old habits die hard, you know? It’s a whole new planet, a whole new myriad of cultures, and whole new societies with whole new rules and whole new customs. There’s so much intrigue you could get with that fact alone!!

I like DaveKat, too. It’s fall from grace is astounding, and it’s honestly made me like them less, which is a shame because it was pretty important to me when I was younger, and Dave and Karkat used to be top favorite characters of mine. They’re basically just… Blank slate characters now, made to slap whichever miscellaneous scenario or random romance trope onto, without any regard to what their characters are or what made their dynamic good in the first place.

It’s funny- I don’t think the Quadrant Queerness was made into a huge deal in canon or anything? At least, I don’t quite remember it being a federal fucking issue. Yeah, Karkat’s Quadrant struggles were there, but I don’t think it was really… Associated with being “Troll Gay” or anything. I’m at least 80% sure that was just something the fandom latched onto and blew out of proportion- I see more talk about Karkat being “Pan-Quadrant,” I believe the term was, than I see content of any other part of his character arc? Crying shame, too- considering, again, as you said, he’s the fucking Second Coming of Jegus.

#homestuck #homestuck meta #homestuck analysis #homestuck fandom #the homestuck epilogues #homestuck^2 #alpha kids #beta trolls #jane crocker #karkat vantas #dave strider #karkat.pdf #nekro.pdf #nekro.sms

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tipsycad147 · 3 years

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Why do people become Pagan? The top ten reasons

by Michelle Gruben

“Why are you Pagan?” If you were to ask this question of a dozen people, you would probably get a dozen different answers. For Christians (and others who believe in one true God) the revival of polytheism may be confounding. For others, it is hard to understand why a sensible modern person would seem to turn their back on science to worship the gods of old.

Before we get too far along, let's cover some background info. Paganism is defined broadly as non-Abrahamic religion that is Nature-based, polytheistic, or both. Wiccans, for instance, generally worship a creator Goddess and a God who is Her consort. The Wiccan cosmology does not acknowledge the existence of the Christian God (or the concepts of Satan and Hell).

Wicca is the best-known of modern Pagan religions, but there are many sub-groups and branches of Pagan belief and practice. Druidism, neo-Shamanism, Greek/Roman reconstructionism, and Norse Heathenry are just a few. There are also eclectic Pagans who combine elements from various traditions to make their own “flavor” of Paganism. While occult practices (e.g., divination and spellcasting) are common in Paganism, not all Pagans participate in these practices. Conversely, not everyone who is involved in the occult is a Pagan.

Most Pagans are polytheist, meaning they recognize the existence of more than one God. But there is more to Paganism than “the more, the merrier!” Here are some general traits of Pagan religions (keep in mind that not every religion will have them all): Rejection of Judeo-Christian cosmology, observance of seasonal rites, reverence toward Nature, rejection of religious authority and focus on individual experiences, paranormal/psychic beliefs and practices, emphasis on personal responsibility over sin or evil.

Not surprisingly, a preference for one or more of these traits is what attracts many people to Pagan religions—but we’ll get to that in a moment.

At the risk of stating the obvious, religion is a choice. If a person follows a Pagan religion, they are expressing a preference for Paganism over another religion, or no religion. Thinking about the reasons why people choose to become Pagan can lead to better understanding of Pagan friends and family. If you are Pagan, you may even learn something about yourself!

For the record, I’m Pagan in a mixed-religion household. This (totally unscientific) list is based on my own observations within the Pagan community. I’ve tried to present them in a way that’s inclusive and fair. Without further ado, here are some of the most common reasons why people choose to follow a Pagan religion:

1. They were raised Pagan.

Contemporary Pagan groups began forming in the 1930s, and achieved breakthrough status with the emergence of Wicca in the 1950s. Before that time, very few people in the West were raised Pagan. If you wanted to be initiated in a Pagan tradition, you had to seek one out—often at great expense to your personal or professional reputation.

Nowadays, that’s not the case. Neo-Paganism as a social/demographic phenomenon is in its third generation. It’s fairly common to find adults who were raised Pagan, or even whose parents were raised Pagan! It’s also possible to find those who were raised Pagan, but left Paganism. “Mom used to go out in the woods with her friends and do weird stuff—I never really got into it.”)

Some Pagan clergy will participate in the general blessing of infants and children, such as the ritual of “Wiccaning.” However, most Pagan paths do not have formal initiation for children. Pagans also overwhelmingly value religious choice. If someone continues their Pagan practice into adulthood, it is likely because they found something meaningful in it.

2. They want sexual acceptance and/or sexual freedom.

Of all the world religions, Paganism is arguably the most tolerant of the varied expression of human sexuality. Sex is considered a divine gift and a sacred rite. Lusty Gods and fertile Goddesses appear in all the major pantheons. (Along with gender-bending, raunchy stories, and other sexy fun.) For most Pagans, sex is just no big deal as long as it’s between consenting adults (or deities).

Pagan groups almost universally accept gay members, and some traditions even have queer or queer-leaning branches (Radical Faeries, Dianic Wicca). Pagan activists have been on the forefront of the struggle for equal rights. Compare that to the sluggish response of churches—even liberal churches—to embrace LGBTQ members and clergy, and you’ll understand why sexual minorities have been so attracted to Paganism. For people who are used to hearing their sexual desires called dirty, sinful, or shameful, the difference can be life-changing.

It’s not just queer folks who embrace Paganism as a safe haven. Horny folks do, too. In most Pagan belief systems, sex is not considered a sin but a morally neutral act. Sex for fun is fun, sex for magick is magick. It’s not how much sex you’re having, but your intention that characterizes the act. The only moral imperative is in how you’re treating yourself and your partners.

Partners? Oh, yes! Polyamory, group sex, and (legal) exhibitionism are accepted within some Pagan communities. That’s an undeniable treat for people who want to enjoy these activities without religious shame.

3. They don’t care for dogma and/or authority.

There is no holy book, no central governing body, and no real priestly authority within the mass of related beliefs filed under Paganism. This is great news for people of a certain temperament—religious rebels and militant agnostics. (“I don’t know, and you don’t either!”)

As a social movement, neo-Paganism is deeply indebted to the Transcendentalist writers of the 19th century. Their poems and essays held the germ of the idea that fuels Pagan practice: That God speaks directly to everyone—often through Nature—and not only to a specially qualified few, inside special buildings.

Some Pagan groups do have ordained clergy. But there are still significant differences between Pagan clergy and those of more established organized religions:

First, Pagan titles like “High Priestess” are usually self-conferred or passed along from student to teacher. This does not mean that they’re not “real” clergy, but it does mean that their power is limited outside their own group or coven. (A Pagan leader may also be ordained as a minister by another organization, such as the Church of All Worlds or the Unitarian Universalist church. This allows them to receive certain legal privileges that independent Pagan clergy usually do not enjoy.)

Secondly, Pagan clergy tend to function more as community leaders than authority figures. Pagan priesthood does not confer any real power over others, either temporal or spiritual. Most Pagan leaders encourage discussion and self-study by their students and congregants. Certainly a dedicated Priest or Priestess will have more experience working with their deities than a beginner. They may have the skills to do rituals or advanced deity work that a novice does not. In a sense, though, every Pagan is their own Priest or Priestess—and the best Pagan clergy respect that. This makes Paganism very attractive to those who don’t want to experience God(s) secondhand.

4. They long for a connection to Nature.

The earth, the trees, the sky, the sea—most world religions recognize these wonders as the work of a mighty creator God. And yet, most leave it at that.

Not so with Paganism. Pagan religions are sometimes described as “Earth-based”—meaning the Earth and its cycles are central to what Pagans hold sacred. Most Pagans profess a deep reverence for natural places, the seasons, the web of plants and animals, and the processes of birth, aging, and dying. While it’s not technically required, many Pagan services are held outdoors. “Skyclad” (nude) rites are another way that Pagans shed the trappings of modern society and get back to the core of being.

Some people come to Paganism as an extension of their environmentalist or eco-feminist views. Others simply want to reconnect with Nature as an antidote to the alienation that comes with busy, digitized lives.

5. They’ve had negative experiences with other religions.

It’s a sad but undeniable fact. People who turn toward one religion are often, with the same movement, turning away from a religion that has hurt them. If you spend enough time in Pagan communities, you will certainly meet some of these displaced folks.

Perhaps a certain religious doctrine—such as the prohibition against homosexuality—is causing the person emotional pain. Maybe they’re frustrated with persecution, corruption, or hypocrisy within the religious group they came from. Or maybe they’re rebelling against the religious beliefs of a parent or spouse. Whatever the case, Paganism appears to offer a chance for a fresh start, one with less restriction and oversight than they may be used to. Pagans don’t evangelize—which may make them seem more trustworthy to folks who have been burned.

As with all life choices, there are right and wrong reasons to become a Pagan. And you can’t ever really know someone else’s motives. The best thing that Pagans can do is treat religious refugees kindly, answer their questions honestly, and wait for them to figure out if Paganism is right for them.

6. They have trouble with the concepts of sin and evil.

Of all the barriers between Pagan beliefs and Abrahamic religion, the idea of sin is the thorniest. Original sin is a tough doctrine to swallow, even for many Christians. Who wants to suffer for something that happened before they were born? That Paganism has no equivalent concept to sin and sinfulness is one of its biggest selling points, so to speak. (Pagan beliefs about the origin/existence of evil are so diverse I won’t even try to tackle the topic here.)

As mentioned earlier, there’s no single Pagan concept of God. Still, one idea you see over and over in Paganism is the doctrine of non-dual immanence. God/Goddess existing here and now, and not in some distant place or kingdom to come. Lack of meditation or participation or acceptance can distance us from the sacred, but God/Goddess is always there. Furthermore, divinity is present within the material world, and the world is inseparable from its creator.

All of this is pretty difficult to reconcile with Judeo-Christian ideas about original sin and the fall of man. (Some Hermetic Pagans do accept them as metaphorical/alchemical truths—but that’s a whole other beaker of worms.) In Biblical cosmology, the world is created by God, but separate from God. The world we know is basically fallen and can only be redeemed through God’s intervention. In Paganism, the world we know is basically holy and does not require redemption. (Only observation and celebration, if we want to be happy and—perhaps—please the Gods.) The other worlds are holy, too—not more, nor less.

As for behavior? Paganism emphasizes individual freedom and responsibility over moral absolutism. Most Pagans live by an individual moral/ethical code, but shun universal behavioral codes. Pagan ethics have been heavily influenced by the Wiccan Rede: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” This in turn derives from Aleister Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”—possibly the most mis-interpreted eleven words of all time.

It’s not that Pagans believe that you can or should do whatever you want. On the contrary, Paganism teaches that actions (and even thoughts) reverberate through the universe to affect oneself and others. There’s no real concept of sin, but Paganism is not amoral. In encouraging moral behavior, Paganism substitutes concepts like karma, duty, interconnectedness, for a paternal god figure keeping score.

7. They yearn for representations of the Divine Feminine.

Dion Fortune wrote “A religion without a Goddess is halfway to atheism.” Women’s bodies are the carriers of life. And yet, many world religions downplay or denigrate the contribution of women. In Abrahamic religions, women can be vessels and saints, but are rarely prophets and never God. Many people yearn for distant time—real or imagined—when women’s bodies could also be a representation of deity.

As a social phenomenon, the rise of Wicca and Goddess spirituality has coincided pretty neatly with the expansion of women’s rights. As long as women are to be regarded as equal to men in society, there are those who feel that patriarchal religions can never be wholly legitimate.

Everyone has an earthly mother and a father. If you believe in God, it makes a kind of intuitive sense that everyone has a divine Mother and Father, too. Yet religions that include a Goddess are usually labeled polytheist and Pagan automatically.

8. They want explanations for psychic and paranormal events.

Out-of-body experiences, premonitions, telepathy, ghost encounters—weird stuff sometimes happens. If you haven’t had an inexplicable experience, then you likely know someone who has. Pagans aren’t alone in experiencing the paranormal, of course. But they tend to be better equipped to talk about it than the average person.

Imagine a person who has recurring paranormal experiences, or experiences they believe to be paranormal. Mainstream science tells them that these experiences are illusory. Mainstream religion—when it’s not condemning them as evil—seems mostly too embarrassed to talk about occult happenings. It’s no surprise that the person would be drawn to a Pagan community where psychic stuff is openly discussed, accepted, and even encouraged.

Don’t get me wrong—mental illness and paranormal delusions do occur, and can cause great harm. But the not-crazy among us still yearn for a safe haven to discuss our psychic lives without condemnation. I believe—though I can’t prove—that so-called paranormal experiences are actually quite common among the general population. I’ve also observed that persistent psychic curiosity is one of the major reasons that people turn to Paganism.

9. They’re attracted to the power and control offered by magick.

I once read an academic paper that was trying to explain the rise of Wicca and witchcraft among teenage girls. The conclusion was that when a young women lacks a sense of control in her life—i.e., economic, sexual, or social autonomy—a religion that offers a secret source of power is immensely attractive. (Who wouldn’t want to be able to cast a love spell on a crush, or curse a bully?) The author observed that many teen girls become practicing Pagans in junior high and high school. They tend to lose interest after finding another source of personal power (a job, a relationship, a better group of friends).

As a young Pagan woman, I found the tone of this particular paper to be condescending, bordering on insulting. But one thing is obviously true: Occultism purports to offer power to the powerless, esoteric means to an end when exoteric means have come up short. Why else would there be so many people interested in fast answers—love spells, get-rich-quick spells, and the like?

Lots of people approach witchcraft and/or Paganism because they want to learn to use magick. They see it as a way to fix their lives in a hurry or achieve undeserved success. Many of them move along when they realize that real magick is real work.

10. They’ve been called by a God or Goddess.

A burning bush, a deathbed vision of Christ, a miracle from the Virgin Mary—these are the types of religious experiences that are familiar to most people. But Pagans have religious epiphanies, too. Although most of us don’t talk about it outside of trusted circles, our Gods and Goddesses call to us in dramatic and in subtle ways.

Like any other type of religious conversion, some people drift gradually toward an acceptance of Paganism, while others are thrust toward it by a single epiphany. Some people may scoff at the idea of elder Gods asserting their presence in the 21st century. But it's certainly no wackier than what other religious people believe. (And it's hard to be so cavalier when Odin’s keeping you awake at night with a to-do list.)

For most Pagans, one or more of the above reasons has contributed to their finding their religious path. There are certainly other reasons that aren’t on this list. Of course, the best way to find out why a particular person is Pagan is to (respectfully) ask!

https://www.groveandgrotto.com/blogs/articles/why-do-people-become-pagan-top-ten-reasons

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toindeedbe-agod · 4 years

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random hcs for the deeply complex modern au i still thinj abt sometimes

neil:

hes in keatings class n hes a peer tutor for one of his lower grade classes AND in mr keatings secret club (dead poets society)

dads still forcing him into a career path n he gets so stressed trying to stay on top of all of his classes n he started emailing mr keating late at night, first it was like Teacher Approved venting but now he sends him memes at 3 am. mr keating always responds.

he n charlie got "married" in kindergarten

endlessly watches howls moving castle. he pretends that he only watches broadway bootlegs or artsy gay films but he literally watches howls moving castle in class all the time

hes on good terms with all his teachers so sometimes hes allowed to just... leave and take a nap in keatings class. keating repurposed the classroom closet to be full of soft things n a quiet space for kids because hes a good goddamn teacher

unironically still listens to be more chill

has a secret tumblr account bc his dad only lets him have a heavily monitored instagram

adores rent but pitts is rhe only one who will watch it Willingly with him anymore bc when he made them all watch it they were all so devastated. charlie didnt talk to him for 3 days

todd:

just moved here, hes neil's neighbor. charlie also lives in the neighbohood, and knox spends more time around there than his own home

his brothers the all star american boy meanwhile todd won the spelling bee in 3rd grade and gets star stickers on his creative writing assignments

has had like 3 interventions from teachers and he has to be like im really not super depressed i promise im just quiet

draws on himself a lot. hes not a spectacular artist but like... neil loves it

unfairly good at soccer but was too anxious to try out for the high school team

rlly rlly likes samurai jack. he keeps it a secret but hes absolutely obsessed

has a tik tok n most of his videos are of the dead poets its very sweet. he manages to get on the weirdest sides of tik tok tho, involving prison tik tok, serial killer tik tok, cartel tik tok, glitchcore tik tok, and one memorable time, bdsm tik tok

half his playlists r full of hozier.

shares his spotify premium with neil

that cool guy at school whos parents dont care about him so he can do whatever but unfortunate hes lame so he does nothing about it

charlie:

tik tok famous

keating lets him grade papers, and doesnt say anything when charlie fixes his friends mistakes, and once let him get away with erasing cameron's name from his paper so he had to redo the assignment

adopts freshmen

advertises parties on his snapchat

throws parties but not at his own house

horror movie fanatic.

obsessed with the sonic movie

his phone is full of selfies and really cursed memes

all his contacts have emojis

calls mr keating mom with confidence

has a massive crush on jim carrey meeks thinks its the funniest shit in the world

on a first name basis with the principals

meeks:

ppl paypal him to do their work for them

goes randonauting with pitts n sometimes charlie

little witch boy, but on the downlow

rlly into bugs

has every single streaming service but also watches more stuff online than charlie does

teaches all the boys abt queer media and teaches underclassmen or anyone who needs to know abt actual sex education despite being ace

office aide so hes rlly tight with the principals

watches a lot of bad tv from the 80s

has a terrible taste in music

eats sticks and rocks and mud

has 2 pet rats. secret rats. their names are rice and piss

says he shoplifts to look cool but has never stolen anything more than 2 dollars

has a rlly overbearing mom like he loves her but jesus christ please get a life other than watching over ur child all the time hes trying to be cool

hosts all the dead poets on holidays when he can. halloween is a blast

cant drive. none of them are very good at it but he doesnt even have a license

pitts:

so mad that thats his name

owns 4 different radios

actually in robotics. all the poets try to come to his matches, despite meeks being the only one who even vaguely understands it

2nd best driver. picks up neil if he ever gets stranded somewhere by his parents. it happens a lot.

owns a car

has been hunting a lot?? he doesnt even like it

bakes for the poets

takes cooking lessons sometimes, he likes to be self sufficient

likes to get into what all his friends r into so he can talk about it with them :) pitts is such a good guy id die for him

always packs snacks n stuff to feed to the boys throughout the day bc neil is physically incapable of eating at lunch time and the rest of them forget a lot

has a respectable amount of twitter and tik tok followers. is unaware of the significance of this. he just likes giving ppl helpful advice

gives good life tips and has high grades but hes stupid. set his hair on fire on a dare but it was mostly an accident. crashed a car into a brick wall. consistently has a burn on his hand

knox:

twitter bio definitely has "sad boy" in it

no thoughts, head empty

disaster in heelys and a cute top

LOVES tik tok

hydroflask full of pepsi

wears skirts bc fuck toxic masculinity

either shows up to school in a fit meant for the met gala or a hoodie and pants that are half on. there is no inbetween.

has tutoring after school like hes not behind in class or struggle too badly but he doesnt grasp what teachers fucking say half the time so they cover what he may have missed. good teachers. ideal world with teachers who care. jk only keating and his math teacher do it meeks helps with science

watched a livestream of a tv screen with the little blue ray video thing bouncing around for 6 hours and missed it when it hit the corner and cried about it for a day and a half

broke his wrist sophmore year in a heely related incident

has a snap score of like 30,000 idk i dont use snapchat i just know ppl who dont shut the fuck abt their snap score being like 30,000

goes thrifting a lot! barely owns fitting clothes

he n chris are bffs she taught him how to skateboard. is skateboard a verb? taught him how to skate using a skateboard

oh yeah. skater girl chris.

has a lot of anxiety about the state of the world anyways hes a vegetarian and tries to be zero waste to manage it. like he knows its corporations but it makes him feel good

plays lacrosse!

#n tjats all i got #long post #post: headcanons #c: neil perry #c: charlie dalton #c: knox overstreet #c: todd anderson #c: stephen meeks #c: mr keating #c: gerard pitts #vin.txt #no im not putting this in any main tags theres so much #post: deeply complex modern au

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suspiriu-m · 4 years

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Examining Youth Culture

Youth Culture in television in cinema is a theme we’ve all seen before. In some way or another, we’ve all probably related or even seen ourselves in something we’ve watched. A lot of experiences we see in these coming of age style pieces most of the time have something to do with at least one of three recurring themes. Sex, drugs and alcohol. Character archetypes are also an important part of these stories too. To sum it up, we’re generally confronted with Jocks, Nerds, Goths, Popular Kids, Pot Heads etc.

A major point to take into account when looking at this type of media is the perspective the story is told from, and where it’s taking place. For example, Barry Jenkins’ 2016 film Moonlight, is completely different from 2018’s Love Simon, directed by Greg Berlanti. Moonlight tells the story of a young Black man named Chiron. Through three different time periods in his life, we see him come to terms with his identity and sexuality, all while living with his drug addicted mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Miami. Throughout the film Chiron not only faces the struggles of his sexuality within himself, but how his unaccepting peers react, his mess of a mother, and maneuvering masculinity without the guidance of his missing father. In a review written for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw says that Moonlight

“is a film about masculinity, the wounds and crises of which are the same for all sexualities, but conditioned by the background weather of race and class” ((Bradshaw Moonlight review – a visually ravishing portrait of masculinity).

Love Simon however, is a completely different ballgame. The juxtaposition between the two films is extremely noticeable, even from just from looking at their promotional images. While Moonlight is more of a serious, realistic and emotionally charged movie, Love Simon has more of a young adult, coming of age, happily ever after tone to it. In the film, the main character has to find his way through growing up, high school, coming out to his friends and family, but most importantly figuring out how Blue is. Blue is the person that Simon has formed a connection with through emailing each other. The only problem? He has absolutely no idea who Blue even is. One of the more important aspects of this film when looking to compare it to others is the fact that the main character and most of the cast are all white. Not only that, but it takes place in a much more suburban setting compared to that of Moonlight. Simon’s relationship with his parents is very strong, his friends are all super close to him and the impression is given that they would obviously support him once he comes out. Surprise, they do.

In terms of which character I related to from the selection of films and shows assigned, I don’t really feel like I can truthfully say that I felt some sort of connection with them. Being gay myself, there wasn’t a crazy amount of representation in terms of queer youth in the films. Yes in Mean Girls you had Damian but he was kind of underutilized and exaggerated. In Euphoria you have Jules who is a trans woman but that also isn’t something that I’ve experienced and won’t pretend to. Could I relate to a few aspects of her character? Of course, i’m sure anybody can. But am I able to say I identify with her? Definitely not. That’s not a bad thing though, trans stories need to be represented in the media. More importantly they don’t always have to be represented in some tragic story or situation. Even though we’ve seen more queer representation today than ever before. We still have a long way to go. Rachel Bays wrote an article for The Advance-Titan stating

“Out of 109 major studio releases in 2017 researched by GLAAD, roughly 13% had LGBTQ characters. Of these films, about 64% featured gay men, 36% featured lesbians, 14% featured bisexuals and 0% featured trans-inclusive content”(Bays The complicated history of queer representation in film: The Advance).

It’s imperative that we see more queer representation mashed with Youth Culture in our media because not every single person experiences the same thing, especially queer kids. In terms of Kids, Saved By The Bell and Mid 90’s, I don’t specifically remember any particular moments in which I personally felt any sort of strong connection.

Now, if we’re gonna speak about common themes in a lot of these stories, then here is where I can say I definitely connected with some situations more than specific characters. Sex, drugs and alcohol are topics we see come up in a lot of coming of age or youth centered stories. In Kids, the main cast is basically parading around the city smoking, drinking and fornicating multiple times throughout the entire day. In Euphoria, one of the main characters Rue suffers from drug addiction. Kat comes to terms with her sexual awakening and a lot of her storyline is focused on her coming in touch with that side of her, whether or not it was the best way to portray it. And most of the other characters are all seen smoking, drinking out having sex at some point in the series.

Growing up, especially in our teen years, we’ve all had the opportunity to partake in at least one of those activities previously mentioned. I know for a fact that I have definitely been to parties, drank alcohol, smoked weed. I’ve encountered hookups and the whole nine yards. Something that really stood out to me in Euphoria was the episode in which Jules ends up meeting with an older man in a hotel room late at night. We shall not name the character for sake of spoilers but those of you who watched know exactly who i’m talking about. That entire scene was just gut wrenching for me to watch and I know it was for many other young queer people as well. Everything about that scene was purposefully uncomfortable to watch from the cinematography, music, acting and the location.

Speaking of music, the soundtrack to a film or TV show is super important and a lot of the time helps the creators in getting their point across. Euphoria specifically used a lot of modern music but also threw in some classics as well. The singer-songwriter Labrinth played a big role in adding music to the show’s soundtrack. He even collaborated with Zendaya in making All For Us, the show’s theme and closing track. It was premiered in the last episode of the series and incorporated into the storyline with a performance by Zendaya herself. This song specifically is so important aside from the rest of the show’s music because it aids in showing Rue’s downfall at the end of the season. She goes through so much in her recovery and relapsing and her relationship with Jules that when Jules finally decides to hop on that train and leave even though Rue tells her it’s not the best idea, it absolutely crushed her. In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Labrinth stated “When you look back to your teenage days... it feels semi-magical but semi-crazy and semi-psychotic. I wanted to make sure the music felt like those things”(Marks How Labrinth Created the Perfect Soundtrack for HBO's 'Euphoria').

To help convey how certain songs can help in telling a story, I created a short playlist with songs that I felt matched certain plot points in the show. Without going into too much detail in an attempt to avoid spoilers, I want to give you guys a short explanation of each song about how I feel it can fit into the show. In no exact order, the first song I chose was Regulars by Allie X. The song is about trying to fit in with society and the people around you when you feel out of place all the time. Personally, I feel like this is a good representation of Rue when she comes home from rehab and has to try and blend back into society knowing that everybody knows where she was. Halsey’s Beautiful Stranger is about meeting somebody after being hurt so many times, or just being in a bad headspace and finally feeling like this person could be the one. This is a good explanation for how Rue feels about Jules when she first meets her. She’s hesitant but slowly starts to fall in love with her before Jules starts acting out. Contaminated by Banks is a piece about loving somebody but having their history or the other person's actions make you feel not so good about the relationship you have with them. This is how Rue feels after her first little fallout with Jules. They kind of have an on and off relationship throughout the season and Rue subconsciously has doubts. Simmer by Hayley Williams is a song about suppression. Suppressing your emotions, especially the bad ones like anger, fear, sadness, rage. Nate in the series suffers with a lot of mental suppression. He suppresses his feelings about his relationship with his father, his questioning sexuality, his feelings for a specific character. Although he does lose his cool multiple times throughout the show, it’s not until the end of the season that he really bursts and lets everything out. Another song from Hayley Williams with her band Paramore called Fake Happy is also on the playlist. Fake Happy, to put it simply, is exactly what the title suggests. Pretending to be okay when you’re really not. In the show Rue relapses a few times whether that be big or small, and she has to hide it from her friends and family.

Maddy and Cassie are both the pretty popular girls of this show, leading me to choose Rina Sawayama’s XS as a representation of them. The title XS, otherwise interpreted as “excess” is literally about money, appearance and materialistic items. All of which Cassie and Maddy display throughout the show. The popular cheerleaders with the nice clothes and toned bodies, the pretty makeup and done up hair. It’s a perfect representation of their characters in my opinion. Even though they do have storylines going deeper into their minds, this is what they portray on the surface level.

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Hallucinogenics by Matt Masson is a song about going somewhere else most likely due to drugs, and feeling like a different person. Although the song is a bit lighthearted in terms of sound, I think it fits with the scene with Jules and Rue taking drugs together and tripping in her room together. Rue was wary about doing it especially after the fact that she just got clean, and she already has this war in her mind going on but she does it anyways because she likes Jules. Attack of Panic by Aly & Aj heavily focuses on anxiety, which is something Rue deals with multiple times throughout the show. Especially the episode when she’s in school and pretty much has a mental breakdown and runs to the bathroom and hides. Even though the character Kat isn’t the primary focus of the show, her storyline has a bit of line shined upon it multiple times. For her storyline i chose Doja Cat’s Cyber Sex. Kat becomes a cam girl at one point in her sexual awakening and kind of goes full throttle into it. The song talks about having sexual relations with somebody over the internet and that’s exactly what Kat does, except she sees it more as a way to make an income.

Last but not least, I of course had to choose Labrinth and Zendaya’s song made for the show All for Us. The song represents Rue’s feelings of not wanting to let her family down, knowing the struggles and pain they have gone through and not wanting to upset or disappoint them again. Everything she’s done to get clean and sober up has been because of them. She loves her family so dearly but in the end she just broke down again, all because of Jules and the mess that she got herself involved with pertaining to many of the other characters she meets throughout the show. I hope you guys enjoy the playlist and take a good listen to the lyrics and themes in each song! They might not be perfect, but to me they have a lot of commonalities with themes and specific moments and themes from the show!

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/playlist-for-euphoria/pl.u-AGAaiylr2l

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#Youtube

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siriusist · 5 years

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Recommendations for Social Sciences Literature:

So as a recently graduated law student and lawyer (as well as being affected by many areas of intersectionality related below), I’ve been really into studying the social sciences and how society reflects how it treats the least of its citizens. My friend suggested that I draw up a list of recommendations for her, and share it with others as well.

While my interest in these books might begin in how to consider the perspectives of others and consolidate my own point of view when representing a client, I can safely reassure you all that these are (for the most part) layperson books that I read in my spare time; not ridiculous legal dirges that will put you to sleep. All these books were spectacularly engaging for me, and I’d recommend them highly.

I’d also like to preface this list with the fact that I educate myself on books that consider intersectionality and how the experiences of individual subsections of society affect society as a whole and an individual’s position in them. While as a result of the topics themselves these books often consider bigotry and sensitive issues/topics, they are academic considerations of societal constructs and demographics (as well as the history that grows from oppression of certain subsections of society), and attempt to be balanced academic/philosophical narratives. Therefore, while difficult topics might be broached (such as, for example, the discrimination transexual women face in being considered ‘women’), none that I have read would ever be intentionally insulting/ extremist in their views, and many are written by scholars and academics directly affected by these issues. Just research these books before purchasing them, is all I ask; for your own self-care. ♥

That being said, I have divided these recommendations into several areas of study. I will also mark when there is a decided crossover of intersectionality, for your benefit:

Feminist Theory: Mostly concerned with the limitation of womens emotions, the experience of women within Trump’s America, and the idealised liberation of women in 1960s, with a particular focus on the UK and ‘swinging’ London.

Disability Theory: Academic Ableism in post-educational facilities and within the immigration process.

Black Theory: This includes the relations between colonialism and the oppressed individual’s underneath its weight, the struggle through American’s history through ‘white rage’ towards the success of African-American success, and a sad history of racial ‘passing’ in America.

Immigration Theory: This mostly focuses on the experience of the disabled and Southern/Eastern Europeans/ Jewish people entering both Canada and the United States. It also provides this background to the immigration policies against a backdrop of social eugenics. I also included a book on the UK history of the workhouse in this category, as immigrants were often disproportionately affected by poverty once arriving in the UK/England, and often had to seek shelter in such ‘establishments.’

LGBT+ Social Theory/History: The history of transsexualism and the development of transexual rights throughout history.

Canadian Indigenous Theory/History: A history of the movements between the Indigenous peoples of North America and colonialists, as well as a two-part series on Canada’s Indian Act and Reconciliation (’Legalise’ aside in its consideration of the Indian Act, these are fantastic for the layperson to understand the effect such a document has had on the modern day issues and abuse of Indigenous people in Canada in particular, as well as how non-Indigenous people may work actively towards reconciliation in the future).

Toxic Masculinity: Angry White Men essentially tries to explain the unexplainable; namely, why there has been such a rise of the racist and sexist white American male, that eventually culminated in the election of Donald Trump (However, this really rings true for any ‘angry white men’ resulting from the rise of the far right across Europe and beyond). It is based on the idea of "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them by THE REST OF US~~~. While good, also just really expect to be mad (not in particular at the poor sociologist studying this and analysing this phenomenon, as he tries to be even-handed, but that such a thing exists at all).

1. Feminist Theory:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger:

As women, we’ve been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet there are so, so many legitimate reasons for us to feel angry, ranging from blatant, horrifying acts of misogyny to the subtle drip, drip drip of daily sexism that reinforces the absurdly damaging gender norms of our society. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution. We are so often encouraged to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Approached with conscious intention, anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power—one we can no longer abide.

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America:

Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.Featuring essays by REBECCA SOLNIT on Trump and his “misogyny army,” CHERYL STRAYED on grappling with the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s loss, SARAH HEPOLA on resisting the urge to drink after the election, NICOLE CHUNG on family and friends who support Trump, KATHA POLLITT on the state of reproductive rights and what we do next, JILL FILIPOVIC on Trump’s policies and the life of a young woman in West Africa, SAMANTHA IRBY on racism and living as a queer black woman in rural America, RANDA JARRAR on traveling across the country as a queer Muslim American, SARAH HOLLENBECK on Trump’s cruelty toward the disabled, MEREDITH TALUSAN on feminism and the transgender community, and SARAH JAFFE on the labor movement and active and effective resistance, among others.

(A heavy focus on intersectionality ♥)

The Feminine Revolution: 21 Ways to Ignite the Power of Your Femininity for a Brighter Life and a Better World:

Challenging old and outdated perceptions that feminine traits are weaknesses, The Feminine Revolution revisits those characteristics to show how they are powerful assets that should be embraced rather than maligned. It argues that feminine traits have been mischaracterized as weak, fragile, diminutive, and embittered for too long, and offers a call to arms to redeem them as the superpowers and gifts that they are.The authors, Amy Stanton and Catherine Connors, begin with a brief history of when-and-why these traits were defined as weaknesses, sharing opinions from iconic females including Marianne Williamson and Cindy Crawford. Then they offer a set of feminine principles that challenge current perceptions of feminine traits, while providing women new mindsets to reclaim those traits with confidence.

How Was It For You?: Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s:

The sexual revolution liberated a generation. But men most of all.

We tend to think of the 60s as a decade sprinkled with stardust: a time of space travel and utopian dreams, but above all of sexual abandonment. When the pill was introduced on the NHS in 1961 it seemed, for the first time, that women - like men - could try without buying.

But this book - by 'one of the great social historians of our time' - describes a turbulent power struggle.

Here are the voices from the battleground. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, Beryl who sang with the Beatles, bunny girl Patsy, Christian student Anthea, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, from mods to rockers, from white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories throw an unsparing spotlight on morals, four-letter words, faith, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex.

This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love, psychedelia and strange pleasures, but it is also about misogyny, violation and discrimination - half a century before feminism rebranded. For out of the swamp of gropers and groupies, a movement was emerging, and discovering a new cause: equality.

The 1960s: this was where it all began. Women would never be the same again.

2. Disability Theory:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education:

Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.

(See immigration below for another book by this author on the intersection between immigration policy and disability).

3. Black Theory:

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon:

A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism:

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, the author examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide:

From the Civil War to our combustible present, and now with a new epilogue about the 2016 presidential election, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race. White Rage chronicles the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as “black rage,” historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,” she writes, “everyone had ignored the kindling.”Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House.Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life:

Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss.As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one’s birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one’s own.Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied―and often outweighed―these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to “pass out” and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions.

4. Immigration Theory:

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America:

A forgotten, dark chapter of American history with implications for the current day, The Guarded Gate tells the story of the scientists who argued that certain nationalities were inherently inferior, providing the intellectual justification for the harshest immigration law in American history. Brandished by the upper class Bostonians and New Yorkers—many of them progressives—who led the anti-immigration movement, the eugenic arguments helped keep hundreds of thousands of Jews, Italians, and other unwanted groups out of the US for more than 40 years.Over five years in the writing, The Guarded Gate tells the complete story from its beginning in 1895, when Henry Cabot Lodge and other Boston Brahmins launched their anti-immigrant campaign. In 1921, Vice President Calvin Coolidge declared that “biological laws” had proven the inferiority of southern and eastern Europeans; the restrictive law was enacted three years later.

Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability:

In North America, immigration has never been about immigration. That was true in the early twentieth century when anti-immigrant rhetoric led to draconian crackdowns on the movement of bodies, and it is true today as new measures seek to construct migrants as dangerous and undesirable. This premise forms the crux of Jay Timothy Dolmage’s new book Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability, a compelling examination of the spaces, technologies, and discourses of immigration restriction during the peak period of North American immigration in the early twentieth century.Through careful archival research and consideration of the larger ideologies of racialization and xenophobia, Disabled Upon Arrival links anti-immigration rhetoric to eugenics—the flawed “science” of controlling human population based on racist and ableist ideas about bodily values. Dolmage casts an enlightening perspective on immigration restriction, showing how eugenic ideas about the value of bodies have never really gone away and revealing how such ideas and attitudes continue to cast groups and individuals as disabled upon arrival.

The Workhouse: The People, The Places, The Life Behind Doors:

In this fully updated and revised edition of his best-selling book, Simon Fowler takes a fresh look at the workhouse and the people who sought help from it. He looks at how the system of the Poor Law - of which the workhouse was a key part - was organized and the men and women who ran the workhouses or were employed to care for the inmates. But above all this is the moving story of the tens of thousands of children, men, women and the elderly who were forced to endure grim conditions to survive in an unfeeling world.

5. LGBT+ Social Theory/History:

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution:

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s.

Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

6. Canadian Indigenous Theory/History:

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America:

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King's critical and personal meditation on what it means to be "Indian" in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality:

Since its creation in 1876, the Indian Act has shaped, controlled, and constrained the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many enduring stereotypes. Bob Joseph's book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance - and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act's cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality:

A timely sequel to the bestselling 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act - and an invaluable guide for anyone seeking to work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples.

We are all treaty people. But what are the everyday impacts of treaties, and how can we effectively work toward reconciliation if we're worried our words and actions will unintentionally cause harm?

Practical and inclusive, Indigenous Relations interprets the difference between hereditary and elected leadership, and why it matters; explains the intricacies of Aboriginal Rights and Title, and the treaty process; and demonstrates the lasting impact of the Indian Act, including the barriers that Indigenous communities face and the truth behind common myths and stereotypes perpetuated since Confederation.

Indigenous Relations equips you with the necessary knowledge to respectfully avoid missteps in your work and daily life, and offers an eight-part process to help business and government work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples - benefitting workplace culture as well as the bottom line. Indigenous Relations is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to improve their cultural competency and undo the legacy of the Indian Act.

7. Toxic Masculinity:

Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era:

One of the headlines of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night four years later, when Donald Trump was announced the winner, it became clear that the white American male voter is alive and well and angry as hell. Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men – from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students. In Angry White Men, he presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them.

Happy reading, everyone. ♥

#ugh this took forever but you're welcome #it's actually good stuff take a look :3 #social sciences #sociology #history #literature #recommendations #feminism #disability studies #black studies #immigration theory #toxic masculinity #indigenous theory #lgbt theory #future reference #my recommendations #intersectionality

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aili · 6 years

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Valentine’s Day Music Newlsetter 2019!

Welcome to the 13th Music Newsletter! Short intro for the newbies - I love music. I love sharing music with other people. In college I started a "music newsletter" email with some playlists (aka mixtapes) I've made and some song/band recommendations. Why Valentine's Day? Because I think this day should be about love in many ways - including love for music!

That brings us to today. The first Valentine's Day mixtape I put together was actually a physical mix CD that I mailed to my home friends while I was away at college. That was in 2008 (11 years ago!). A lot has changed since then, but my love of music has not. While I feel sometimes too busy or too old or too out of touch to know what I'm even talking about, I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of this - as much as I've been enjoying listening to these songs and picking them for you!

*Click here to download Valentine's Day 2019 mixtape!

Click here to play Valentine's Day 2019 on Spotify!

*Note that the file downloads as a zip file, double clicking on it to open it up should give you the individual songs. Then move the songs to iTunes into a playlist!

1.) "Happy Unhappy" - The Beths New Zealand indie rockers The Beths debut album, Future Me Hates Me, is full of catchy, energetic sad-twinged songs. This song feels like it could have come out back in the 00s when we had to find new music by reading blogs and actually downloading MP3s - it feels closer to the Garden State soundtrack era of indie than the recent moody electronic vibe. It's a lot of fun! Sounds like Courtney Barnett by way of The Wombats, with a splash of Los Campesinos.

2.) “City Looks Pretty” - Courtney Barnett Courtney’s 2018 album “Tell Me How You Really Feel” is only her second studio album, but somehow it feels like she’s been around forever. The album features a “fuller” sound and more production, which may appear dulled next to 2015’s “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.” However, I feel excited by Courtney exploring a more mature sound and think it accurately reflects the albums depressive theme. “Sometimes I get mad / it’s not all that bad” is sung with a definite apathy compared to her shout-singing past record. As the bridge settles in, Courtney captures the depression symptom of lack of interest in things you used to enjoy. The city looks pretty when you’ve been stuck inside isolated for two weeks. 3.) “Screwed” - Janelle Monáe feat. Zoë Kravitz Janelle’s 2018 album “Dirty Computer” is an anthology of songs (and truly, poetry) that tell of reckoning with being a queer woman of color in an oppressive, violent society. It’s an incredibly personal album with her fans in mind - “I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you. This album is for you. Be proud.” (Rolling Stone, 2018). My favorite part of this song is “See, everything is sex / except sex / which is power / you know power is just sex / now ask yourself who’s screwing you.”

4.) "BAGDAD - Cap.7: Liturgia" - Rosalía 25-year-old Rosalía Vila Tobella from Catalonia has an excellent 2018 album El Mal Querer. The album combines traditional flamenco with modern R&B. The album is a story of love and heartbreak over the course of 11 chapters/songs. This particular one might sound familiar due to the sampling of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River."

5.) "Gun" - St. Lucia St. Lucia's first release off of their 2018 album Hyperion caught my attention with its connection to a more traditional rock sound and the heavy-hitting, one-word title. The production and sound almost reminds me of Oasis or U2. Turns out that the album is indeed produced by someone who worked on records with PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode, and U2. In interviews, Jean-Philip Grobler talks about how this song is generally about both gun control and power. "You said you wanted to feel a gun in your hands" in Verse 1 transforms to "You said you wanted to feel the blood in your hands" in Verse 2, highlighting the fact that guns are designed to kill.

6.) “Apathy” - Frankie Cosmos With a catchy bass line, gorgeous lyrics, and endearing vocals, this song and entire album are not to be missed. As you may notice on this year’s playlist, this year I was super into what I would describe as punk-influenced, low-fi indie female vocalists. Pretentious enough for you? Haha. I just mean that there are a ton of young women blowing up in the indie music scene with a huge crossover in sound. As demonstrated in “Apathy,” many of these songs are short, lack a traditional pop music format, use low-fi production, and have a storytelling aspect of almost speak-singing. These elements are all found in traditional punk music, so it’s interesting and exciting to see these artists shaking things up and challenging the punk genre. Frankie Cosmos has a long history of creating music, under various projects using Bandcamp as a teenager. Her 2018 album “Vessel” is nothing short of delightful and another one of my favorites of the year. 7.) “Your Dog” - Soccer Mommy Soccer Mommy is Sophie Allison, singer-songwriter based out of Nashville. She opened for Paramore on their recent tour and she has launched into the indie music scene with a lot of attention in the past couple years. I love how her voice clearly carries so much anger as she sings about an emotionally abusive relationship. Her lyrics describe the agony of small, sweet gestures pushing her back to her ex, despite her wanting desperately to end it. Using the metaphor of being a loyal, sub-servient dog, she describes the way her SO treats her like she’s his property. Because the song lacks a traditional “pop” format (verse 1 / chorus / verse 2 / chorus / bridge / chorus), there is a sense of the story ending unresolved. Fortunately, she has an excellent album (one of my favorites) from 2018 called “Clean” where you can learn more of her story. 8.) “Pristine” by Snail Mail A stunning debut from 19-year-old Lindsey Jordan, “Lush” is a 2018 release not to miss. “Pristine” perfectly encapsulates teenage life and love - “it just feels like the same party every weekend. Doesn’t it?” There is such a sense of genuine hormonal angst that she is almost joyfully celebrating. Her album reads more like a diary - and how lucky she is to have these future memories and be able to approach them with such wisdom.

9.) "Uncomfortably Numb" - American Football feat. Hayley Williams Paying homage to Pink Floyd, legendary emo band American Football joins with Paramore's lead singer Hayley Williams for a devastating track about losing emotional sensation. "I blame my father in my youth / Now as a father, I blame the booze." I couldn't find too much information on the exact inspiration behind the track, but it's the second track released off their upcoming album out March 22nd. Hayley is usually front and center as a singer, and it's interested to hear her take more of a backing role, as well as explore a bit of a lower vocal range than she usually does.

10.) “Geyser” - Mitski Mitski absolutely killed it last year with “Be The Cowboy,” which was consistently rated not only in the top 5 best albums, not only top 3, but making MULTIPLE end of year lists as the number one album of 2018. It’s easy to see why, given the incredible breadth of music she wrote for her album. I see Mitski's influence reflected in the rise of fame in other punk-inspired female vocalists in the indie scene, building off her ability to capture the attention of a wide audience. Which is also very interesting because she incorporated elements of many other genres on this album (spot any disco on “Nobody”?) While it was difficult to pick one song for my playlist, “Geyser” stands out to me as not only an excellent album opener, but a fascinating look into Mitski’s own relationship with the art she creates. In an interview, she explains that this song is about her feeling like she has to create music because she would never be satisfied in life without it, but feeling sometimes stifled, stuck, and resentful when she puts music above basic needs such as her health and self-care. She needs her art to survive but it simultaneously kills her.

11.) “Me & My Dog” - boygenius It’s impossible to pick just one song of this album. Boygenius is the supergroup of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker - who each could also have one of their incredible solo songs on my playlist. Partially because they enjoyed each other’s creative energies and partially as a response to constantly being compared to each other as “women in indie,” the trio came together to create an EP of emo-influenced, folk-inspired gorgeous tracks about grief, loneliness, identity, and heartbreak. This particular song features Phoebe Bridgers in the verses and is a beautiful representation of the embarrassing and frustrating feeling of being in love with an ex. Please check out the individual work of these artists too!

12.) "bless ur heart" - serpentwithfeet Serpentwithfeet, aka Josiah Wise, has a gorgeous, intimate voice throughout his 2018 debut album, soil. This song starts off with a question of how his art will be received by the world. The rest of the song is a tender message of gratitude to his first love. It seems like Josiah questioned the choice to speak about his experiences with his ex in such a public fashion - with complexities of privacy, being open about sexuality, and possible painful memories on the table. Josiah's writing is very much like poetry, and his raw, unfiltered, un-autotuned vocals match the beauty of his words.

13.) "Bury A Friend" - Billie Eilish 17-year-old Billie Eilish is set to release her debut album, When We Sleep, Where Do We Go? next month. This song matches her goth aesthetic with a creepy story from the perspective of the monster under the bed. We learn that the monster is part of Billie herself, who is struggling with her own demons. 14.) "Loading Zones" - Kurt Vile A gorgeous guitar track, Kurt Vile paints a picture of his hometown Philadelphia and feeling on top of the world exploring his city's streets. He included a hilarious marketing strategy of sending fake parking tickets to fans in the mail to promote the song. Kurt Vile talks about the metaphor of "I park for free," which is how he sometimes lives his life - breaking the dumb rules because it's his life, his streets, his town. 15.) "Dylan Thomas" - Better Oblivion Community Center Is it possible to already be nostalgic for the late 2000's? Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers released this surprise collaboration last month and this is the standout track for me. Conor Oberst's incredibly recognizable voice is hard to match in terms of strength, timbre, and uniqueness. While Bridgers is young enough to be from a different generation than him (she also grew up listening to Oberst's music), he saw something in her that resonated with him. I love how they sing in unison on this track (and much of the album) and think their voices sound really good together.

16.) "Butterflies" - Kacey Musgraves Kacey Musgraves is bringing a breath of fresh air to country. After self-releasing three albums, she tried her hand at reality TV through Nashville Star over a decade ago. Golden Hour is her fourth album using a record label, and she just won Album of the Year at the Grammys! Her voice is beautiful and has an earnest, authentic approach in joining elements of country pop.

17.) “Prior Things” - Hop Along “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” is Hop Along’s third album, released in 2018. Singer/songwriter Frances Quinlan has the ability to transform the themes of her songs. Layered with a multitude of different sounds and instruments, it could easily sound scattered and busy, but instead feels like we are huddled around a campfire with an enthusiastic, stream-of-consciousnesses storyteller. “Prior Thing” is the last song on the album and crosses time, space, and memories with the start of a hallucinogenic drug trip. She has the ability to take a phrase and transform the expected - pausing or elongating notes at unexpected places. This method keeps you invested in figuring out what the song is really about or what the conclusion is. 18.) "Kids" - Pup Emo/pop punkers Pup have a new album Morbid Stuff coming out on April 5th. Their songs are made for live shows - shouting/singing alternates, sing-a-long catchy lyrics reminiscent of the Hold Steady, and unison whole-band lines. Pup frontman Stefan Babcock said this song is about finding someone who agrees with your view of the world being a fucked up place, and enjoying small moments of solace in spending time with them.

SPOTIFY

Don't forget to subscribe to my playlists on Spotify! Here is the link to listen to this year's mixtape on Spotify.

I try to add new songs at least once a week to this playlist: What I'm currently lovin' (updated freq)

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I hope you guys enjoy the new music and feel free to send me recommendations of anything you like!<3 aili

Previous Mixtapes:

Autumn Love mix | Autumn Love Spotify

Copenhagen mix | Copenhagen Spotify

Valentine's Day downbeat 2010

Valentine's Day upbeat 2010

Valentine's Day 2011

Philadelphia mix | Philadephia Spotify

New Crime mix | New Crime Spotify

The City mix | The City Spotify

Drive mix | Drive Spotify

Valentine's Day 2012 | VDay 2012 Spotify

King's Myth mix | King's Myth Spotify

Hold On mix | Hold On Spotify

Valentine's Day 2013 | Vday 2013 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2014 | Vday 2014 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2015 | Vday 2015 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2016 | Vday 2016 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2017| Vday 2017 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2018 | Vday 2018 Spotify

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theharellan · 6 years

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RP POSITIVITY MEME

DAY 14: FREE DAY!

so this whole week i’ve kept myself from mentioning joly when possible. i promo joly on my dash every day. my very existence is a joly promo. it was mostly a way to make sure that i gave other people attention, and also b/c i saw the last day was a free day and wanted to use it to write about how much i love joly’s characters.

if it weren’t for joly i doubt i’d still be here. that’s not to say that i didn’t love rping solas beyond what i have with joly, but after my hiatus it was the desire to rp with joly again that really brought me back. and i’m so thankful for that b/c it’s allowed me to meet ppl like merc and lisa and kae, ppl who either weren’t around or i didn’t know before. also just when i was having a rough time last year and whenever i’ve had a rough time since then joly’s been there for me. they’re a really special person, who deserves even more kind words written about them than their characters do. but if i keep going i’ll probably make myself cry.

suffice to say if you like my blog, then you have joly to thank. not just for me being here, but how their ocs have shaped my solas. i cannot recommend joly’s blogs enough. they don’t have as much time as they did to write, but it doesn’t make them any less dedicated to their characters as someone who posts a dozen things a day.

before i get to their actual blogs, i want to talk about the npcs or characters that no longer have rp blogs.

first, deshanna. i’ve loved how they made a mother who is flawed and sympathetic, and who i don’t feel 100% good about solas disliking her in modern. it’s my secret desire to be able to rp in a thread where she’s npc’d one day, either in modern or batb. next, layne. what a piece of shit. i don’t know TOO much about layne, and i’m in this position where i want to know more but also i dread it. hoping one day solas and mio can shank him. and then, june. june had a blog (and may again one day??) and he was a fuckin hermit mamma’s boy that was too boring for fen to want to have anything to do with. joly’s recently been toying with some ideas for his character that i think only strengthen what they have, and i’m excited.

@ancientimpudence -

mio is petty. mio is mean. mio is stand-offish. mio is loyal. mio is driven. mio is honest. i love mio.

if you want a character who is flawed and not always nice, you’ll love mio. they’re a really good example of how you can make a character not always be a very pleasant person, but still get plenty of rp mileage off of them and develop meaningful relationships. how two characters’ relationship can somehow be incredibly deep and yet broken. i love what joly and i have built for mio and solas, two ancient friends who aren’t always the best friends.

i could really talk about about their relationship. solas goes through a period where he becomes very empathetic and in-tune with the problems of everyone around him, but mio’s somehow always escape him. i love the gap, and i love how it’s both not his fault b/c mio hides how they feel, but also he needs to do better by them. i love how mio wants what’s best for solas and their cause, while simultaneously suggesting things that actually wouldn’t be best for solas, because mio isn’t omnipotent and is also, to an extent, still trying to keep solas as he was.

i love how mio doesn’t like ian but is still there to help him. i love how mio expresses themself in ways not everyone understands. i love how modern mio has purse dogs and brings vher food b/c they spent all weekend playing the sims.

and vher / mio?? one of those ships that just kinda happened. one of the best things about talking to joly about characters is how often two just kinda cling to one another. vher is aro and can’t return the romantic feelings mio feels for them (and open enough to be accepting when mio finds romantic love elsewhere) but they still care for mio so much. everything about mio that i listed above, even the petty and vain stuff, vher loves. also sometims vher decides they wanna kiss mio and i can only imagine what it does to the poor child.

basically, what i’m getting at here is, joly lets mio be flawed but also shows how those flaws can still lead to positive interactions. joly lets mio be unadmirable at times, but still likeable and lovable. joly introduced some extra diversity in background to the rebellion and i’m eternally thankful tbh.

@betterthanmaps -

harding is one of those characters everyone adores, and so it makes sense that joly, one of the most adorable ppl on the planet, chose to write her. i love seeing characters with stable and normal backstories. harding is just such a steady influence, and i’ve loved seeing her contrasted with the sad backstories most canons and ocs possess. which i wanna be clear isn’t a criticism of sad backstories! i merely mean that it’s also nice seeing variety. not everyone has had a past that has made them cruel or kind, some people were raised by caring parents and lived simple lives until they heard the call to adventure. those people are just as interesting and worthy of telling stories about.

joly’s harding reminds me somewhat of tolkien’s hobbits, i suppose, now that i’m writing this out. and they’re some of my fave characters in literature. only w/ harding we also get fun dragon age dwarfy lore-- someone who is as un-dwarfy as varric but not quite so loud about it and we get actual queer representation.

@spiritualjourneys -

i adore spirits? i do not adore how the fandom treats spirits. things like treating human cole as superior to spirit cole, rather than a person making different choices, both paths making them happy, even if one is for reasons we can’t all understand. pinning everything wrong with anders in da2 on justice. assuming lord woolsey, an innocent spirit-ram who has done nothing but help, has always been a rage demon (even tho the ways in which he has been shown to help the family that adopted him aren’t typical rage-related qualities) but ANYWAY.

the point is, spirits are given something of a raw deal by the fandom and are almost always judged by their ability to conform to human standards. joly’s spirit multi is fuckin fantastic and making spirits different and complex and alien, while also familiar and very much people rather than set pieces in the stories of others. though all of them started out as npcs created by either joly (love, sincerity), myself (joy), or bioware (wisdom) it took joly no time at all to establish their stories. love and joy especially...

what i appreciate about love is the path they took to get where they are. how they weren’t always love, how they focus upon a specific kind of love, how they can’t always see when love is best working past. though i’ve only just started rping peace, i’m in love (get it) with the dynamic the two of them have formed. how they balance one another out and keep one another from straying too far into their own interests, and thereby corrupting themselves. it’s a dynamic that i wasn’t expecting at all when i made peace as an au to my zenyatta blog, but i think that’s the amazing thing about writing with joly. something falls into place and then it grabs you and the idea just won’t let go.

and as for joy, it’s probably the least developed of the spirits, having no form that’s recognisably alive nevermind a person. but it demonstrates well, i think, how “humanity” in elvhenan wasn’t defined by shape. when solas says he dislikes when people see him as just a pair of pointed ears, and that he doesn’t necessarily identify much with modern elves, the idea is expressing multiple things. one of them, i think, is that being an elf sometimes meant being a physical body with pointed ears, but sometimes you could just be bubbles and you’d still be considered a valid member of elvhen society. joy doesn’t exist as we do. joy forgets, joy prefers to never touch the earth, and it exists in a state of cycles to keep itself from becoming something like despair. joly depicts the beauty and the drawbacks of existing in this state and i’m just??? so glad they decided to write joy. b/c they do it more justice than i ever could.

@paragoninexile -

tam’s new blog isn’t fully set up but i wanna talk about her anyway. tam is a good hero and a good person, and in many ways sort of made to be a hero. when i found out about tam i was rly excited simply b/c she was very much like my warden, only with so much more care and thought put into her that now she’s basically replaced my canon warden in my heart.

i think my favourite thing about tam is how much of a front she puts up for everyone. crowning bhelen, even if it meant the death of another father figure. recruiting loghain, even if it meant losing her friend or possibly lover. it shows that even neutral good heroes still have to make decisions that could be considered ruthlessly practical. bhelen is not necessarily the better choice morally, especially not as an aeducan (especially especially not as an aeducan who doesn’t kill trian). i imagine tam knows that crowning him will have dire consequences not just for harrowmont, but the entire harrowmont line. she does it anyway, not because she wants to, but because for orzammar it’s the best choice.

i’ve loved finally having a chance to write one of my fave dragon age ships: gorim/aeducan. i have a weakness for ships who have been together since they were only young, and the progression they take in the au is so good?? being able to find freedom for their love in a life that is literally killing tamar, and the reason they only get 12 or so happy years together rather than 50. but tam is so good that i’m honestly proud to be able to give her those twelve years with gorim. one day i’m gonna make joly hurt w/ thoughts about the kid gorim adopts after tam dies and who he tells them all about. 8)

@cadashsmash -

cadri i think was the first joly character i interacted with, though i believe i remember ian from way way back when i tried rping merrill and couldn’t quite get a foothold like i did with solas and thora.

i’m in love with dwarves u all should know this, so ofc i’m in love with cadri. i love how rough around the edges she is, how she tries to do the right thing, and how doing so can lead to some messed up shit like killing abelas. the work joly’s done with reaver lore is perfect, working with how dirty and raw the specialisation is without making it too hardcore for an inquisitor to ever hope to specialise in it (stop assuming all reavers are cannibals fandom smh). one of my fave threads on thora continues to be the post-battle thread where both are recovering from the drawbacks of their own specialisations and clash because of them. it’s just a really unique idea that is what makes writing with joly so... rounded? like i’m never just writing one thing with joly. they push me as a writer in the best possible way.

overall cadri is just a rly excellent character who, like tam and harding, do credit to dwarves that the series doesn’t always. i’ve loved exploring how differently her and thora react to their position in life, i’ve loved seeing cadri’s anger or indifference towards dwarven society. it’s so valid and realistic and good. i’ve loved exploring the specific ways in which she bucks the presumptions solas has about dwarves, how even in universes where she’s not inquisitor her individuality is still nothing he expects from her kind and how she changes him anyway. i also will always be fond of this being their friendship song.

cadri: hey solas, what d’you call a flower before it opens? solas: a bud. cadri: I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CALL ME BUD. solas: UGHH.

@dalishfreckles -

it’s really hard to not write a post just about ian, honestly. all of joly’s characters are special to me, but i won’t deny ian is my favourite and has a very important place in my heart. if i were to truthfully answer those top 5 fave characters questions, ian would be on there no question.

as someone who goes through some of the same struggles as ian, he’s inspirational. seeing him struggle to keep surviving, to keep loving, to keep helping even when everything inside him is screaming to stop. i love seeing him make mistakes, honest ones or ones born of anxiety. b/c anxiety is more than just hating yourself or having trouble talking to people, although that is very real. sometimes anxiety can cause you to project some really terrible things onto people, things that aren’t really fair to them.

when i see ian doing things like... projecting his own feelings of worthlessness onto solas, assuming he must think the same rather than giving solas a chance to explain? it’s realistic, and it’s not good. it’s trying to pull people into the same destructive game you do to yourself. it’s also realistic, esp since in the thread i’m referring to solas fucked up and has shit to apologise for. idk, it’s just really comforting to see ian pull the same shit that i do, but knowing he’s still a good person and that i love him is an act of self love.

ian’s an important character for so many reasons, that i could probably write a 20 page thesis on him and his development / how much he means to me. i’m proud of him so much. i’m proud when he finds the strength to tease solas, i’m proud when he stands up for himself, even when he’s standing up against the people he loves. especially when, tbh. how as he grows he can see inara’s faults but doesn’t hate her for them, and tries to help her, when he’s under no obligation to. how he still tries to connect with solas after solas coldly brushes him off the first time ian admonishes him. and i love how joly shows it’s not easy. none of it is. and that ian has to keep choosing to be good, it makes everything he does that much more meaningful.

finally, ian isn’t a hero, necessarily. he’s not the sort of person people tell stories about, which is one reason i love the solas/ian pairing so much. it’s really all about the person for solas, and ian is just so much about what solas loves about people. it’s not always about battles and heroes, sometimes it’s just about a person who has the patience and love in them to make a tree grow in the middle of a desert alienage. sometimes the most wonderful things about people are the little, radical things they do for themselves and those they love rather than how they change the world.

this has gotten to be very long, and probably rambling, but to be fair to me this is like two weeks of joly-positivity i’ve been holding in.

i’ll probably be doing one more free day tomorrow, even if today is the last day, just to do a v general positive post for those i follow. but i wanted to take at least one day to credit the person who has inspired me with their words and characters. like. this was just their characters? i didn’t even get a chance to go into the ways joly’s prose shines, how it’s descriptive and yet never difficult to comprehend. how many different types of plots they’re here for.

but to make a long story short, joly is an incredibly talented writer. i’ve said this before, but i can look back on things i’ve written years ago with joly and still like what i wrote (as well as what they wrote but that should go w/o saying), which is a rare feeling, simply b/c joly lets me access the best writer in me. we often here in the rpc use “muse” as a shorthand for “character we write that inspires us” and i’ve found it a difficult word to rly use-- simply b/c joly and their characters are as much my muses as my own characters. at least in the sense that thinking about them inspires me to write.

tl;dr- pls follow and write with joly. b/c the only thing i love as much as writing with joly is reading what they write with other people.

#[ sure do hate this tumblr glitch ]#( positivity )#dalishfreckles #( ooc )#rpc positivity week

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falsemerits · 4 years

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“I kept track of the violence done to Black people in my city, Toronto, and my country, Canada, as if it was being done to me, because it was, because it is, because that’s what Black people are facing in Canada and around the world, and I’d never been more aware of it.”

When Desmond tells of the violence that is happening to him metaphorically, through others who are experiencing it physically- All across Canada, I recognize this as truth. He is not being selfish in feeling that this violence is also done unto him, as it is for the person physically involved. It would be selfish to think that he could not relate, because that is not his problem in the moment. It would be selfish if because he lives in Toronto, and violence in British Columbia against Black people happens, that it has nothing to do with him. I will liken this to an experience of my own, and challenge others to think abstractly and connect the dots. September 11, 2001- A day of destruction, alleged terrorism, and global fear. I remember being in class when this happened, and my sixth grade teacher asked us to take a moment of silence for it and to discuss the event. This had nothing to do with Canada. I was not involved with these families that suffered, or the government that protected them. I was a little 10 year old girl, who only knew that if my dad, mom, uncle, aunt, or whoever I loved was in that tower that I would feel tragedy. To me, that is why I sympathized with this event. Because if something similar happened in my country, I would hope that others would share my same feelings.

Being metis, I share the same feelings that Desmond does for the violence Black people experience daily. Indigenous people are being profiled, and abused every day as well. Our causes are similar. I cannot attest that our origin stories are the exact same. I cannot say that one is more pressing than the other. All I know is that, if I can feel suffering for my ancestors, then I can share the same feelings with immigrants who were taken from their countries, forced into slavery, made to start their lives in North America, and to continue to be robbed of honour and respect every single day.

“A CBC News investigation that analyzed 461 fatal civilian encounters with police between 2000 - 2017 found that “70 percent of people who died struggled with mental health issues or substance abuse or both.” The combination of this violence with the police targeting of Black people makes Black people with mental health issues more likely to experience police violence. The CBC also found that, of the 461 deaths, “criminal charges were laid against 18 officers… With only two ending in convictions.”

To me, this is proof that our system of police and authority is grossly under trained and ill-prepared. Police are able to perform “wellness checks,” on civilians, but only when prompted by a person who has called and claimed that said person’s wellness is in question. Police feel that they do not have to assess, de-escalate, or consider external factors in an investigation, false or with merit. These are horrifyingly sad statistics, that I believe many people would just glaze over. The typical citizen doesn’t understand enough about mental health, to care about mental health. There is a culture of common socially acceptable misunderstanding, when mental health is in question. It is okay to not know. There are cues that one can detect about mental health, if given the chance. Crying, hyperventilating, excessive language, obvious frustration, resistance to identify, these are actually all signs that someone might be experiencing mental distress, or exacerbation of their pre-existing mental health condition. Police are here to enforce the protection of personal property and assets. Opting for violence against someone who is mentally unstable, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, White, Asian any race is not the answer. Protect and serve. Protect lives of police, against usually unarmed unsuspecting vulnerable people, and serve to uphold the laws that help protect officers of wrongdoing. That is what that statement means nowadays. When officers use violence against people who have mental health problems, and do not question this as a possibility first, we see why this system fails 100 percent of the time.

“In my experience, the average white Canadian doesn’t know that British and French settlers enslaved Black and Indigenous people on these lands for two centuries, and simply shifted legislative tactics once they had abolished “legal” slavery. Those who do acknowledge slavery in Canada often add that it was “not as bad as in the States,” a nod to the white Canadian proverb used as a checkmate end to a conversation. No need to consider anti-blackness here. This idea that Canada’s racial injustices are not as bad as they could be- This notion of slavery lite, of racism lite, of what my friends calls “toy version of racism”- Is a very Canadian way of saying “remember what we could do to you if we wanted to.” Passive- aggressive racism is central to Canada’s national mythology and identity. White supremacy warns Black people against setting our own standards and pursuing dreams that stray too far from the global atmosphere of anti-blackness.”

My parents were never taught this, so they never had the opportunity to educate me. Years of public school didn’t ever teach me about slavery in Canada. Not even of slavery of Indigenous people. I remember being taught about the “trading,” and “successful negotiations” that would happen among settlers and my ancestors, sometimes after battles. Settlers considered themselves to be a type of saviour, to this land. Not once, were slaves given a voice in the education system that was taught when I was growing up. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that knowingly, this information directly contradicts the “hard work,” that British and French settlers did for Canada today. These settlers are the reason we even have an education system, the same system that blindfolds it’s students. That information would be detrimental to the foundation of Canada. This misleading information, this terrible kind of education is the reason why we have violence and racism in this country. This is why racialized groups are marginalized and oppressed. White Canadian citizens feel that they are the ones that are owed thank yous, and apologies. They are owed sympathy and rewards for “letting” immigrants take shelter in this great country.

“BLM-TO co-founders and their supporters marched into the 2017 parade close to the intersection of Yonge and College street where, a year earlier, they’d interrupted the festivities to call out Pride Toronto, the not-for-profit organization that runs the annual celebrations. This time the group’s signs read, “May we never again need to remind you that we, too, are queer,” and “May we never again need to remind you that WE built this” and that “we shut it down for ALL OF US.” I remember this as righteous, bold, inspirational and powerful- But not surprising.”

I wish I could have been there to agree with them. To rally beside them, and take honour in their pride. To me, this is a reminder that the society we live in today, no longer cares about history or where we came from. It no longer cares about the pain and suffering that was experienced, to get us to where we are today. When the executive of Pride misleading signed their list of demands when BLM-TO interrupted the parade and said the next day “What I did was move the parade forward,” I get that, however I felt distrust. I felt that having pride in your own dignity meant nothing, and that people are constantly misconstruing what this means. People mistake integrity, with entitlement. They confuse honour, with gratification. This was a great reminder that, where we come from, in all walks of life, our paths should never be forgotten. It should never be disrespected or looked down on. Everything that we go through, unjust or just, shapes, molds, and builds who we are today as a civilization and individuals.

“Canadians who do recognize historical injustice seem to understand it in this way:

Bad things happened.

Bad things stopped happening and equality was achieved.

The low social and political status held by Indigenous peoples is now wholly based on the choice to be corrupt, lazy, inefficient and unsuited to the modern world.”

Desmond quotes this excerpt from Chelsea Vowel’s novel “Indigenous Writes.” This three point bulletin explains exactly how most Canadians understand their country now. It highlights that things happened, and now there is a notion that those same things no longer happen. These days when government officials in Ottawa hold press conferences, or public meetings, they say “ We [I] would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People.” I am not disagreeing that they should not acknowledge it. However, I acknowledge that it is not enough, and never will be enough. Bad things happened to these people, and they get less than 2% of Canadian soil for reserves. Acknowledging that these lands once belonged, and still rightfully belong to these nations and tribes, only serves to coddle Canadians, and dismisses the conversations that many people are still fighting to have.

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windowwinnipeg · 4 years

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WINDOW 49: JOY IS MORE THAN JUST A FEELING (JULY 16 - SEPTEMBER 18, 2020)

WINNIPEG’S ONLY 24 HOUR ARTIST-RUN CENTRE PRESENTS JOY IS MORE THAN JUST A FEELING

Location: Artspace Building, corner of Bannatyne @ Arthur [sidewalk level]

window is pleased to present our forty-ninth installation:

Joy is more than just a feeling

Featuring work by Iyunade Judah, Glodi Bahati, RYAN AD, Opal Rose White, Akum Maduka, and pluetoe. Curated by Mahlet Cuff and Ekene Maduka.

Works on view July 16 - 27, 2020, L-R: Iyunade Judah, Sequel to bond, 2019. Glodi Bahati, When she asked me why I left, 2020.

Work on view July 31 - August 11, 2020: RYAN AD, PHANTASY no.3, 2019.

Work on view August 18 - September 4, 2020: Opal Rose White, This Joy Is / Joy After Storm, 2020, poetry. Akum Maduka, Group Photograph, 2020, graphite, ink, and charcoal on paper; and Today, I bought a flower, 2018, graphite, ink, and charcoal on paper.

Work on view September 14 - 18, 2020, in partnership with Wall-to-Wall Mural and Culture Festival, at Synonym Gallery: pluetoe, juno, 25:00 min.

Curatorial statements:

To understand trauma as a Black person and see the pain that not only you yourself go through but the suffering of others in your community–it leaves you and stays with you always. The events of racism, anti Blackness, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and ableism being heightened and used against Black people in the recent months is not new. It is not new to see violence, discrimination and ongoing trauma being displayed for everyone to see and witness at the same time. I know for myself and the ways I have been able to digest everything that has happened, it is important to take time to process, think and rest. To take care of myself when I see Black people being murdered and accountability is not even a part of the equation.

To be angry, sad and be okay with that. To know that through all this grief, there is happiness within it. To connect with my community, to be surrounded by Black people however that looks like in the age of social distancing. These pieces by these three emerging artists showcase the feeling of pleasure as a Black person and to understand the humanization of the Black experience.

-Mahlet Cuff

I often think about little knee-jerk reactions that I impulsively make. Undoubtedly, waking up and jumping straight on my phone is one of those many actions that have become reflexive. The past few months have felt like a lot of things and nothing all at once–from an overwhelming consumption of violence against black bodies on multiple media outlets, to everything else in-between that has made the majority describe this time as “strange.” Not one work email coming into my inbox has missed out the words “I hope you are well in these trying times” and to some degree, these words have become redundant and lacking in comfort. A paradox really. Despite the strain, despite not being able to fully digest my anger and mixed emotions, one thing is constant; I’ve somehow found ways to genuinely laugh, to smile, to feel stronger in vulnerability. Words are interesting and so is semiotics. The word ‘joy’ with its commonplace nature is as mundane as the act of casual laughter at a table with friends and loved ones. These moments are unaccounted for and are painted as “small” and quotidian. Reduced to just a symbol but robust in feeling. Reduced to the flatness of 2 dimensional prints by virtue of July’s artists Judah, Glodi and Ryan we see these moments frozen and highlighted as being important. I smile with Ryan’s subject with teeth and skin a deep cobalt blue from concert lights in the background. I am warm, I am lifted by the women embracing each other in Judah’s work and feel safe in the vulnerability and intimacy of Glodi’s women in white. From me and Mahlet Cuff and by window winnipeg, we write to you this love letter, a reminder really, that in the midst of our consumption of violence there exists many other sides to the narrative of “the black community”.

-Ekene Maduka

About the artists:

Glodi Bahati is a 20-year-old black woman photographer, based in Winnipeg. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and raised in Uganda as a refugee fleeing the civil war in her home country, art was a comfort in her life. Glodi has been captivated by photography from a young age, living in Canada, she started her unique journey by taking photos in her last year of high school. Glodi took part in an intensive program for her final year of study, where she was able to focus entirely on photography, within this program she was able to publish her first photography book “The Following.” Glodi currently showcases her work through Instagram but is working on a second book and future showcases. She is inspired by the women in her life and the world around her. Glodi’s work draws inspiration from street, conceptual and fashion photography. Artists like Vivian Maier, Petra Collins, Micaiah Carter and Carrie Mae Weems are a consistent inspiration.

Iyunade Judah is an artist-photographer based in Winnipeg Canada, originally from Ogun, Nigeria. His work focuses on the black experience from an African’s point of view in the diaspora. He has worked on a number of photo projects and short films on black masculinity, gender and afrocentrism. Judah's work primarily focuses on identity and a need for consciousness in African art. Iyunade says that "My work is inspired by my curiosity to discover African history and art. I found out that there’s almost no identity for me and a lot of people like me. I make use of imaginary narratives such as reincarnation in my practice to convey a message which might be on sexuality, history, identity or love. I infuse fabric as a backdrop to appreciate African prints and patterns which has become a personal style."

RYAN AD is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural worker, and curator. i create multimedia experiences.

Opal Rose White (aka Sappfyre Mcleod) is a first generation Canadian of Jamaican descent. Her works create space for introspection with imagery that lingers, and pacing that captivates an audience. Themes in her works center around heritage, diaspora, and making moments of the mundane. Opal Rose White uses her poetry as a means of exploring: Identity, and blackness. Finding elements to celebrate and ponder in her writings.

Opal R. W. is a pen name dedicated to honouring the author’s Mother and Grandmother. Holding space for the names of her foremothers whose genealogy is erased in patriarchal systems. The name itself places honor, reverence and legacy for the three generations of women.)

Akum Maduka is a Winnipeg based emerging artist with Nigerian roots. Originally from an architectural background, her work investigates the role of societal constructs and their influence on human performance within space and how such notions have created skewed ideals of what a normative life should be. Her intimate drawings entwine these narratives with ongoing lived experiences, as she examines the pliancy and complexity of gender roles, sexuality, desire, and ethnicity in modern society.

pluetoe, also known as Victor Ilunga, is a video and performance artist who has been honing his craft since 2013 and recently graduated from the Vancouver Film School where he studied game and app development.

Despite being a different domain he states he loves activating his creative side and is unafraid of the unknown. Often dabbling between videography, game programming & photography, pluetoe is constantly learning new ways to express his ideas using different mediums and artistry.

A Winnipeg-based video & performance artist, pluetoe has gradually submerged himself in to the Winnipeg art scene. pluetoe’s evolution into videography allowed him to introduce another element to his style, often stating that his influence comes from the music he listens to and not so much the films he watches.

Raised in South Africa, moving to Turtle Island (“Canada”) had an impact on his approach to how he creates his art, as well as his presentation.

About the curators:

Mahlet Cuff is an interdisciplinary artist from Treaty One territory, so-called Winnipeg, Manitoba, who uses mediums such as photography, collaging and poetry. Through their work she hopes to create more awareness about the lack of representation of women of colour and queer people of colour in media. Their work has been shown at local galleries and events such as aceartinc and Black Space’s Nuit Noire at Nuit Blanche. Their work has been shown at window winnipeg, Flip Fest, and in the artist-run center Tea Base in Toronto, Ontario. She explores topics of feminism, Blackness and gender through her artistic and activist practice.

Ekene Maduka is an emerging artist making work that combines lived and formulated events relating to notions of displacement, self representation and reconstructing identity. Her work often investigates the effects of cultural, social and political exposure on developing individual identity and its relationship to communal experience. More of her work can be found via her Instagram: @ekenemaduka

window is located on Treaty 1 Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Metis Nation. Window is co-curated by Noor Bhangu, Mariana Muñoz Gomez, and Sarah Nesbitt.

This installation was made possible with the generous support from the Winnipeg Arts Council and the Manitoba Arts Council.

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walktalkstalkmoviess-blog · 7 years

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First Draft of Moonlight

Moonlight follows the life of a young african american boy growing up in the projects of 1980’s Miami. While Chiron deals with common themes of inner city minority struggle throughout the film, including his mother’s drug addiction, his father’s absence, bullying, poverty, and the hardship of growing into his masculinity, Chiron’s story is also unique within his relationship with his own sexuality as well. Through his three stages of live, starting at elementary school age, climaxing in his teenage years, and later followed by a glimpse into his late 20s adult life, Chiron is haunted by the fact that he is ‘different’ than the other boys in his community. Whether it is his unwillingness to fight, the tightness of his jeans, or the way he walks, he is constantly picked on by fellow young men, as well as his mother, for not embodying classic masculinity typically associated withe black men in his community. Eventually, Chiron moves to Atlanta and molds himself into drug dealing, grill wearing, incredibly fit, adult man in order to escape the mystery that his sexuality caused him for years growing up in Florida. While Moonlight is not a happy story, it is an important one. The film speaks of real life themes that are often silenced within the film industry and goes about revealing struggles and truths within a specific community in a way that is abstractly educational, while remaining artistic, simplistic, and easily identifiable and recognizable. However, much of Moonlight’s power as a film comes from its ability to speak about one’s reality in such a raw, realistic, and understandable manner. It is not a story about a gay man’s struggles, it is a story about all around life and the realistic aspects of growing up in a situation that many men deal withe everyday. Joey Neri writes on the uniqueness of Moonlight, “The film does not treat Chiron’s identity as an issue needing to be solved, but that it is humanity being humanity.” This story’s use of realism within the plot serves as a key factor in why I personally do not identify this film as being a typical ‘queer film’ in Hollywood, but rather a film about manhood in modern day American society. Through history, there have been a number of excellent films that focus in on the subject of homosexuality at its core. While many of these films are created wonderfully, they are rather one dementional and paint an irrealistic portrait of what every day life truly consists of, for not only a gay person, but a person in general. The power of moonlight is that it speaks on the subject of being gay, while also speaking on so much more in between it all. Moonlight is not a film about homosexuality, but rather, a film about being human, with no struggles, details, or chaos left out. As Joey Neri wrote, “Moonlight is not about a black gay man coping with his self-representation in a white heterosexual society. It is a coming-of-age film grounded in which its main character struggles with issues that are grounded in reality.” (Neri, 2017) This is an important observation of the film because it highlights the fact that Moonlight is not a film centered around the struggle of surviving as a gay man, but rather, a representation of the struggle of a black impoverished young man, who happens to also be gay on top of it all. While Chiron’s homosexual reality is, of course, a large factor in the film, it is his other struggles, as well, that cause him to transform himself into his third identity, ‘Black’. The lack of a father figure, poverty, his mother’s drug addiction, and his small physique all play a significant role in piling on pain and stress on top of his, already hard to freely embody, sexual orientation. Moonlight holds much of its power as a film in its understanding of reality as a whole for a black lower class male while focusing on each of these struggles in a realistic and balanced manner, rather than drawing an unrealistic amount of attention to a single struggle at a time. Chiron’s character is a beautifully developed representation of the fact that daily struggles do not take turns, and more often than not, it is more than one negative aspect of life that forms one to mold themselves to adapt to the world around them. Gay or not, Chiron is a lower class black young man with an absent father and a mother who values her relationship with drugs over her relationships with her son. His sexuality is only part of his struggle, and while it is the aspect of the film most frequently discussed, it is no way his story in total. Neri adds while discussing Moonlight’s relevance to reality, “ It is emotionally honest and delivers a story of a normal human being growing up in America, with that, we should all be able to identity with people, regardless of sexual orientation.” While Moonlight is diverse in its nature of covering the many realistic everyday elements of growing up in modern day america, there was one topic that I believed outshone the rest in its impact on me as the viewer. The topic of Masculinity within our society is one that is often times silenced, skipped over, and discredited within not only the film industry, but modern American culture as a whole. Moonlight, however, was a film that was not afraid to boldly speak out on the ways in which masculinity effects members of our society in a variety of harsh and emotionally crippling ways. “Moonlight is not just a film dedicated to highlighting the minority identities featured in the story, but also an experience never shared on the big screen before. It is a story about a man growing up in a culture divided by difference that do not mimic the culturally expected masculinity,” states Neri. Specifically speaking, Moonlight’s portrayal of masculinity in relation to black culture is something that is remarkable, commendable, and boldly honest in its approach. The importance of noting the difference between speaking of masculinity within specifically black culture, rather than widely speaking of masculinity within the overall male population of today’s world is due to its situational reality. The concept of masculinity is not one that is defined in the same way by every man on earth, but rather a part of an individual’s life that is entirely impacted by the immediate world around them, varying greatly amongst different spaces, races, economic backgrounds, family dynamics, and overall life in general. In Masculinities and Culture, author John Beynon writes, “Men are not born with masculinity as part of their genetic make-up; rather it is something into which they are acculturated and which is composed of social codes of behavior which they learn to reproduce in culturally appropriate ways. It is indexical of class, subculture, age and ethnicity, among other factors,” (Maghfiroh, 23). Because of this fact, it is important to recognize the masculinity within Moonlight as a representation of not masculinity in its overall construction within all races, but specifically black masculinity, due to its differences in overall nature, beliefs, and customs. While there are many areas of masculinity that can be discussed and dissected within modern day society, three specific problems are most notable with the them of toxic masculinity within Moonlight: homophobia, the suppression of emotions, and violence. One specific difference in nature within black masculinity is its relationship with gayness and homophobia. In relation to Chiron’s experiences growing up as a non heterosexual young man within his minority neighborhood, Gibley writes, “Growing up black, you’re told you have to be the guy who’s smarter, faster, bigger, stronger and more imposing in order to be equal to your white counterpart… Being gay is priced as being weaker. A setback. To be both black and gay be thought of as an oxymoron.” This strong relationship between black masculinity homophobia stems from the importance of hyper masculinity that we often associate with the stereotype of the ‘black male.’ Within the media and popular culture, it is easily identifiable that, when compared to any other race, blackness amongst males is associated with themes of violence and aggression. Because of these heavily believed and performed stereotypes, it is clear to see that the stereotypes of gay men are almost polar opposite of those that “make a black male.” Because of this reality, Moonlight’s main character, Chiron, deals with an array of struggles through out the film within his personal experience growing up in his specific neighborhood compared to the other young men his age due to personal factors that make him ‘different’ than his peers. At Chiron’s youngest stage of life featured in the film, around eight years old, these struggles start to become extremely apparent within his relationships with his classmates. For one, his given nickname amongst the other children is ‘Little,’ due to his small frame, and shy or ‘weak’ personality. From the very beginning of the film, it is noticeable that Chiron is bullied due to these features as he is chased down by a group of boys his age on his way home from school. However, it is not related to his possible gayness until Chiron asks, Juan, his male role model within the film, “Whats a faggot?” at the dinner table. The sadness and uncomfortable nature of this scene hints at the viewer that Chiron’s sexuality is, in fact, something that will be inevitably dealt with later in the film. Shocked, and worried to say the wrong thing, Juan answers, “A faggot is…a word used to make gay people feel bad,” quietly, Chiron responds, “am I a faggot?”, Juan answers, “No. No. You can be gay, you gotta let nobody call you a faggot.” This scene is incredibly important because it highlights the fact that from an incredibly young age, Chiron experienced hate and belittling due to a characteristic that he was not even entirely sure he embodied himself yet. The use of the word “faggot” in this context is not even entirely related to sexuality, but rather, relates to effeminate characteristics of weakness, uncoolness, and shyness, which were easily identifiable within Chiron at a young age (26). From this scene forward, Chiron’s gayness becomes a struggle that made growing up in his immediate neighborhood an extremely crippling, saddening, and destructive experience for his mental health. The second most identifiable characteristic of masculinity’s toxic influence on Chiron’s character is within the many circumstances of violence throughout the film. Violence, while such a base and primal act, is seen as a important embodiment of what it means to perform masculinity. Because of this, the willingness to partake in such acts is still seen, today, as an evident marker of whether someone is truly a “man” or not. While referencing Orlando Patterson’s personal comments on the specific correlation between the black male and violence, Noviani Maghfiroh states, “Before young African man enacts violence, he is already raised in the culture that approves violence as a tool of social control that identifies patriarchal masculinity by the will to do violence. The simple way to assert patriarchal manhood is by expressing aggressions and every man knows this. As a result, men who live in culture of violence are demanded to perform that they have the capabilities to become violent.” (Maghfiroh, 24). For Chiron’s character, the importance of being a violent, aggressive, and strong young man is evident even in his stage as “Little” in the beginning of the film. Chiron’s inability and displeasure in fighting the other boys his age adds an element of distress to his life because it causes his peers to find him weak, feminine, and in their own words, a ‘faggot’. While walking with his childhood friend, Kevin, Chiron is asked why he allows the other boys to pick on him. After Chiron replies by stating that he isn't ‘soft’, Kevin replies, “I know. I know. But it do not mean nothing if they do not know it. Come on. You want these fools to pick on you everyday?” This specific scene sets up the understanding for the viewer that, within Chiron’s community, the art of fighting is a natural and encouraged social art form to these young men, and performing said art is a key identifier of whether or not you ‘belong.’ From this point on, violent behavior is mostly seen within Chiron’s experiences as a high school student. However, perhaps the most important character within the observation of violence and aggression within Moonlight is Terrell. Terrell is a boy at Chiron’s school who is seen bullying him profusely from his stage as “Little” into his high school age. Terrell uses the instigation of violence to belittle Chiron throughout their years together in school. Terrell’s constant bullying of Chiron climaxes, however, when he pressures Kevin, Chiron’s secret and first gay lover, to beat him up in order to prove his masculinity to Terrell and hide his true identify. After Kevin assaults Chiron to the point in which his entire face is disorientated, bruises, and bloody, Chiron’s true manhood is put to test as he sits in front of his principle. After Principle Williams attempts to pressure Chiron into telling his on Kevin and the other teenagers involved in his beating, she refers to him as a ‘boy.’ Aggressive, frustrated, and prideful, Chiron responds, “I aint no boy.”, in which Williams replies, “the hell you aint. If you were a men, there’d be four other Knuckleheads sittin’ right next to you.” This comment might possibly be the most straight forward, bleak, and saddening line in all of Moonlight, because it tells Chiron that if he was, in fact, performing his gender properly, he would have the power within him to change himself, fight back, and claim his power amongst his peers through physical force. This is the line in the film that finally switches Chiron’s mentality, which can be clearly seen after he leaves her office, walks to Terrell’s classroom, picks up a chair, and slams it on top of his peer’s head as a demonstration of revenge, anger, and ‘manhood.’ It is no coincidence that after this scene, the movie skips to his third stage in life, in which he is given the nickname ‘Black,’ due to the fact that he has conformed to the world around him, molding himself into what a ‘black’ man should be in his community. Chiron’s late 20s persona as ‘Black’ is one who is an incredibly strong, grill wearing, drug dealing, dominant male in Atlanta, whose fellow males respect, admire, look up to, and certainly do not attempt to mess with. Lastly, and in my own opinion, the most most important theme of the film in which toxic masculinity is demonstrated is the suppression of ones emotions. The act of suppressing one’s emotions to remain in control, power, and maintain respect from ones peers has become a commonality amongst boys and men of western society. Whether one is sad, frustrated, angry, or overall emotionally falling apart, it is seen as weak and feminine to display and show these emotions to the world around you. Because of this reality in our world, many men adapt to these cultural norms by creating their own strategies of suppression in order to save themselves from losing the respect of their fellow men within their communities. The act of emotional suppression can be seen being preformed throughout the entire Moonlight film by Chiron’s character at all his stages of life. Whether it is his inability to have eye contact with Teresa and Juan while discussing his feelings, his patience with his mother’s drug habits, or his unwillingness to tell his bullies how he feels, Chiron is an emotional victim to the construction of the world around him. With everything that Chiron endures within the plot of Moonlight, there is only one true scene in which he admits his sadness to another person. In the high school stage of Chiron’s life, he runs into Kevin on the beach after running away from home due to his mother’s drug addition and abusive behavior. After Kevin sits on the sand with him and watches the ways before them, the boys begin to pass a blunt between the two of them and discuss their lives in a very unique and raw manner for two young men their age. While discussing the ocean breeze, Kevin exclaims, “Hell, Shit makes you wanna cry, feels so good.” Surprised by his peer’s statement, Chiron responds, “You cry?” Kevin pridefully replies, “Na. Makes me want to. What you cry about?” Finally allowing himself to vulnerable for the first ever time in the film, Chiron answers, “Shit, I cry so much sometimes I feel like I’m gon’ just turn into drops.” Kevin, now worried for his friend’s wellbeing, asks Chiron if he is suicidal, in which Chiron brushes off and explains that “I wanna do a lot of things that don't make sense.” This incredibly vulnerable scene in Moonlight is what inevitably sets up the romantic and sexual scene amongst the boys as they lay on the sand following their personal discussion. For the first time, Chiron is seen allowing himself to be vulnerable and open about his identity as a gay man. However, Chiron quickly diverts back to his old ways of emotional suppression for the remainder on the film until he goes to visit Kevin in Florida years later in his “Black” Stage of life.

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dpsjourney · 5 years

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Studies of Devassos No Paraíso by João Silvério Trevisan - Part II

About the representation of queer people in the Brazilian modern mainstream media

I’m skipping a bit of the vast historic background in Devassos no Paraíso provides to focus on the chapters where Trevisan (2018) describes the appearance of queer personalities and other artists that broke with the heteronormativity from the 70s onwards. It is important to remember that during this period of time, Brazil was going through a military dictatorship that was going to last until 1985. In addition, in 1968 a series of laws named The Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5) was put into action. The AI-5 determined that the president (non-democratically elected) could, without any jurisdictional review, shut down the Congress, discharge congressman, suspend the rights of any citizen for 10 years, suspend habeas-corpus, amongst others. This led to high persecution of anyone or anything considered to be “subversive”: countless arrests of artists and activists - some even exiled, reports of torture from government agents, and heavy censorship on media and entrainment.

Having this said, the chapters start by commenting on the emergence of young liberation movements, not necessarily associated with any political side, but dedicated to a self immersion. The first icon of this movement was the singer and composer Caetano Veloso. He constantly broke with heteronormative expectations of the time, wearing bras and lipstick on stage, kissing his band members and stating a clear identification with a feminine side. Even though Veloso never stated he was gay or bi, there were comments of his admiration of the same sex in some of his lyrics.

Another important mention was the theater group Dzi Croquettes. They were the ones to introduce the gender fuck movement: originated in San Francisco, it consisted of gay men who liked to wear feminine symbols but mixed it with strong masculine traits like beards and hairy chests. The group performed dances and told provocative jokes on stage, they were a fundamental piece in breaking the heteronormativity in the LGBTQ+ community.

Above: (1) two members of Dzi Croquettes performing on stage

Following the tendency of playing with gender symbols was Ney Matogrosso. He had great success amongst different age and social groups, representing a figure of mystery. Contrasting glitter, makeup, skirts, feathers, and a hairy chest, Ney was a phenomenon as the lead singer of Secos & Molhados and, later on, in his solo career. He suffered plenty of verbal and nonverbal aggression, even being kicked out of the stage at one point (Pereira, 1982), but nevertheless always was a clearly stated homosexual. The singer said once in an interview (1978) that his mission was to “end the tale that [being] homosexual was something sad, suffered, that you need to hide”. Mostly, Ney Matogrosso represented artistic freedom to break with gender stereotypes and symbols; apart from his clothes, he constantly mocked masculinity in his lyrics and performance. To Brazilian society he posed as a mythical figure, provoking shock and curiosity in the audience, which always kept them interested.

Above: (2) Ney in his stage costume (Maia, circa 1970)

Moving over to television entertainment - another very important sector of Brazilian pop culture - it is also possible to start seeing representations of LGBTQ+ subjects, even though television channels also suffered heavily from censorship. One of the first personalities to do so was the Talent show host Chacrinha, who often dressed up as a woman and inserted sexual innuendos in every bit of the show during its exhibition in the 80s. From that onwards, there were more and more queer personalities in soap operas and TV shows. And the reason for that was simple: the polemic topic helped in the audience numbers - and therefore, profit. Actors that interpreted gay characters became nation-wide famous, all for performing very palatable version of real LGBTQ+ people, to please the public’s voyeuristic desires. The author suggests that this hygienization is mandatory for the continuous exotification of the public towards these ’strange loves’ that stayed in Brazilian’s imaginary.

Above: (3) The couple Niko (right, Thiago Fragoso) and Félix (left, Matheus Solano) in the prime time soap opera Amor À Vida.

In the same logic, LGBTQ+ characters also became the center of the joke. Many popular TV comedy shows had one or another sketch with their male actors cross-dressing or representing a very emasculated gay character. One persona in particular to highlight was Capitão Gay (Captain Gay), a Super-Man parody covered feathers who solved problems “no man or woman could solve” (Capitão Gay, 1981) with the help of a very dubious magic wand. The gay superhero was attacked both by the moralist, who thought this would promote homosexuality and by the LGBTQ+ community, which accused the character of perpetuating stereotypes. More recently, there was Ferdinando Show, an interview show featuring Ferdinando, a comic character who used the art of drag, musical performances and loads of gay slang in his talk show.

Above: (4) Capitão Gay (right) and his helper Carlos Suely (left) in their famous costumes. / Below: (5) Ferdinando, interpreted by actor Marcus Majella.

The trans community also had its representation on the TV screens. Rogéria was the first to appear, as a guest in Chacrinha’s Talent show. Her fame led her to receive the title of “the transvestite of the Brazilian family”. Nany People, another trans comedian, and actress followed the legacy of Rogéria and has been featured in plays and soap operas. Another celebrity to mention is Roberta Close. She started out as the ad girl for a closets campaign and later on she sold out 200k copies of a Playboy magazine (Kfouri, 1984). Close had the looks of the beauty standards for a woman at the time and, therefore, was an easy target for the objectification and projection of male desires. Nevertheless, Roberta got famous to the point of receiving backlash from both sides: the conservatives were outraged by the idea of having a trans woman as a national sex-symbol, while feminist groups saw on Close a clear representation of sexist male desire.

Above: (6) Roberta Close in the beginning of her career.

Back to the chronological order, in the 1990s the world suffered from the AIDs crisis and Brazil had its martyrs from popular music who carried out this cross. Cazuza and Renato Russo were famous names in the music industry, adored by the public (mainly the youth) as rock stars and came out as gay during the 80s. They were far from the stereotypical gay man propagated by the media, which allowed them to merge their romantic/sexual life as part of their regular public and creative career. Cazuza and Russo were HIV positive and made public through lyrics their experiences with the disease and sexuality, contrary to what older generations icons - such as Matogrosso (1992) and Veloso (Fraga, 1993) - did at the time, separating themselves to any comparison to the LGBTQ+ community.

Through this quick flashback, we can glance at the permissiveness of the queer representation in Brazilian mainstream culture. This phenomenon is dependent of a few factors: it is either a “polished” version that is in accordance with heteronormative standards, such as the looks of Roberta Close or the lack of similarities between Cazuza and the advertised gay man; or it represents something exaggerated and different enough to either spark exotification - like Ney Matogrosso’s performance - or to be the pun of the joke - as did Capitão Gay. This so-called ‘acceptance’ is according to the malleability of society to identify similarities that don’t offend the heteronormative system or differences so evident that make those individuals to be treated as something mysterious and possibly beyond-human. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the path that these personalities built to contribute to the integration of the LGBTQ+ community outside of the margins and into pop culture.

References

Capitão Gay (1981) Viva O Gordo. Rede Globo, 9 March.

D'Araujo, M.C. (Unknown) Fatos e Imagens: artigos ilustrados de fatos e conjunturas do Brasil. Available at: https://cpdoc.fgv.br/producao/dossies/FatosImagens/AI5 (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

Fraga, P. (1993) ‘Caetano ataca New York Times no programa do Jô’, Folha de S.Paulo, 30 September.

Kfouri, J. (ed.) (1984) ‘Lídia Bizzocchi (especial: Roberta Close)’, Playboy, March.

Matogrosso, N. (1978) ‘Ney Matogrosso fala sem make up’. Interview with Ney Matogrosso. Interviewed by Vânia Toledo and Nelson Motta for Interview (n.5), May, p. 4-7.

Pereira, E. (1982) ‘Ney, em liberdade moral’, Journal da Tarde, 13 November, p.7.

Vaz, D. P. (1992) Ney Matogrosso: Um cara meio estranho. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Fundo Editora.

Figures list

1 - Para a caracterização, o figurino trazia brilho, meia arrastão e maquiagem pesada (2012) Available at: http://redeglobo.globo.com/globoteatro/bis/noticia/2013/09/relembre-momentos-marcantes-da-carreira-do-grupo-dzi-croquettes.html (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

2 - Maia, J. ( circa 1970) Ney Matogrosso, o showman brasileiro. Available at: https://imagesvisions.blogspot.com/2013/11/ney-matogrosso-o-icone-camaleao-do.html (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

3- Amor À Vida (2013) Rede Globo, 13 January, 21:00.

4- Viva O Gordo (1981) Rede Globo, 9 march.

5- Fernando Show (2015) Multishow, 10 August.

6- Fala cinco idiomas: o inglês, o francês, o alemão, o português e o italiano (2015). Available at: https://entretenimento.r7.com/famosos-e-tv/fotos/musa-dos-anos-80-roberta-close-aparece-com-o-rosto-irreconhecivel-em-rede-social-compare-06102019#!/foto/8 (Accessed: 7 January 2020).

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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Why do people become Pagan? The top ten reasons

Posted by Michelle Gruben on Mar 02, 2017

Most Pagans are polytheist, meaning they recognise the existence of more than one God. But there is more to Paganism than “the more, the merrier!” Here are some general traits of Pagan religions (keep in mind that not every religion will have them all): Rejection of Judeo-Christian cosmology, observance of seasonal rites, reverence toward Nature, rejection of religious authority and focus on individual experiences, paranormal/psychic beliefs and practices, emphasis on personal responsibility over sin or evil.

Not surprisingly, a preference for one or more of these traits is what attracts many people to Pagan religions—but we’ll get to that in a moment.

1. They were raised Pagan.

2. They want sexual acceptance and/or sexual freedom.

It’s not just queer folks who embrace Paganism as a safe haven. Horny folks do, too. In most Pagan belief systems, sex is not considered a sin but a morally neutral act. Sex for fun is fun, sex for magick is magick. It’s not how much sex you’re having, but your intention that characterises the act. The only moral imperative is in how you’re treating yourself and your partners.

3. They don’t care for dogma and/or authority.

Some Pagan groups do have ordained clergy. But there are still significant differences between Pagan clergy and those of more established organised religions:

First, Pagan titles like “High Priestess” are usually self-conferred or passed along from student to teacher. This does not mean that they’re not “real” clergy, but it does mean that their power is limited outside their own group or coven. (A Pagan leader may also be ordained as a minister by another organisation, such as the Church of All Worlds or the Unitarian Universalist church. This allows them to receive certain legal privileges that independent Pagan clergy usually do not enjoy.)

4. They long for a connection to Nature.

The earth, the trees, the sky, the sea—most world religions recognise these wonders as the work of a mighty creator God. And yet, most leave it at that.

Not so with Paganism. Pagan religions are sometimes described as “Earth-based”—meaning the Earth and its cycles are central to what Pagans hold sacred. Most Pagans profess a deep reverence for natural places, the seasons, the web of plants and animals, and the processes of birth, ageing, and dying. While it’s not technically required, many Pagan services are held outdoors. “Skyclad” (nude) rites are another way that Pagans shed the trappings of modern society and get back to the core of being.

5. They’ve had negative experiences with other religions.

Perhaps a certain religious doctrine—such as the prohibition against homosexuality—is causing the person emotional pain. Maybe they’re frustrated with persecution, corruption, or hypocrisy within the religious group they came from. Or maybe they’re rebelling against the religious beliefs of a parent or spouse. Whatever the case, Paganism appears to offer a chance for a fresh start, one with less restriction and oversight than they may be used to. Pagans don’t evangelise—which may make them seem more trustworthy to folks who have been burned.

6. They have trouble with the concepts of sin and evil.

As for behaviour? Paganism emphasises individual freedom and responsibility over moral absolutism. Most Pagans live by an individual moral/ethical code, but shun universal behavioural codes. Pagan ethics have been heavily influenced by the Wiccan Rede: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” This in turn derives from Aleister Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”—possibly the most mis-interpreted eleven words of all time.

It’s not that Pagans believe that you can or should do whatever you want. On the contrary, Paganism teaches that actions (and even thoughts) reverberate through the universe to affect oneself and others. There’s no real concept of sin, but Paganism is not amoral. In encouraging moral behaviour, Paganism substitutes concepts like karma, duty, interconnectedness, for a paternal god figure keeping score.

7. They yearn for representations of the Divine Feminine.

8. They want explanations for psychic and paranormal events.

9. They’re attracted to the power and control offered by magick.

I once read an academic paper that was trying to explain the rise of Wicca and witchcraft among teenage girls. The conclusion was that when a young women lacks a sense of control in her life—i.e., economic, sexual, or social autonomy—a religion that offers a secret source of power is immensely attractive. (Who wouldn’t want to be able to cast a love spell on a crush, or curse a bully?) The author observed that many teen girls become practising Pagans in junior high and high school. They tend to lose interest after finding another source of personal power (a job, a relationship, a better group of friends).

As a young Pagan woman, I found the tone of this particular paper to be condescending, bordering on insulting. But one thing is obviously true: Occultism purports to offer power to the powerless, esoteric means to an end when esoteric means have come up short. Why else would there be so many people interested in fast answers—love spells, get-rich-quick spells, and the like?

10. They’ve been called by a God or Goddess.

https://www.groveandgrotto.com/blogs/articles/why-do-people-become-pagan-top-ten-reasons

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tumblunni · 7 years

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I had some sudden more ideas for npcs in the monster petshop game, and a bit of worldbuilding and stuff!

I was just consideringwhether maybe this should be a fantasy setting with different non-human races, or one that’s just all humans. I dunno, games with catchable monsters seem to ALWAYS be just humans, that’s weird now I think about it! I guess its so the line between sentient magical beings and the pet ones isn’t blurred, but in my petshop idea the monster pets can all talk anyway so that’s not an issue. Tho I dunno if it’ll be to the same degree as in the Monster Rancher anime where monsters are all so similar to humans that they can live their own entirely separate lives without a human partner, and like.. start shops and hold property and stuff. Seriously that worldbuilding is so surreal and cool, you get to see stuff like a giant golem running a little metalwork jewelry store in the background of a crowd scene. I wanna see the story of that guy! Tho it gets a bit confusing cos some monsters can’t talk, and some monsters seem to have more petlike intelligence, and those two things don’t often coincide. I still cry forever about that episode with the guy who abused his giant worm monster, and how with its design and how it doesnt talk you’d probably assume its a mindless evil monster but its actually just a quiet sad good guy and like.. how its full sentience level is revealed by it choosing to refuse an offer from the bad guys to join them, and dying trying to save the life of its abusive trainer. And how it actually does succeed in making him realise how wrong he was to treat it like an animal, and to treat animals like mindless toys! And how he breaks down crying and then how he cradles the lil baby worm and promises to do better this time, and then how his original worm comes back to life way WAY at the end of the series and I CRY FOREVERRRR ... Anyway, sorry, where was I before I got distracted?

OH YEAH! Fantasy races! Which really should be called species, but I guess it stuck cos they’re often used as metaphors/replacements for actual racial diversity, especially in traditional fantasy. IM GETTING DISTRACTED AGAIN!!! So yeah that thought led me to an idea for a particular fantasy “race” I could add. But then it somehow developed into... I dislike designing overly humanlike fantasy races, like seriously what is the point of even bothering if they look identical to humans except short or with weird ears? So I thought.. what if this “race” is actually a disease instead?

MORE LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT!

So, I was thinking they could look like just normal humans but with a greyish skin colour, odd coloured eyes, and some sort of flower growing on their head. They’d be like ‘flower spirits’ but in kind of a negative way? They look like humans because this is a sort of magical genetic condition that turns humans into this. Though they still get predjudice because people are afraid of ‘catching’ a disease that isn’t actually contagious through touch or anything, but people are happy being ignorant fucks and excluding them from society ‘just in case’ their paranoia comes true.

But anyway! The details! At any moment an inherited carrier could manifest symptoms, and rather literally manifest a glowing flower from their forehead. It grants you enhanced magical powers, but at the cost of your life being tied to that magic. The flower is like if your soul has been forcibly pulled outside your body in a very fragile form! You have to tend to it like a normal flower, and you also have to sorta feed it by doing enough magic or absorbing the energy from magical objects. (So these guys’s magical power is to negate other magics.) If left untreated it will eventually be fatal, and if the flower wilts it’ll also kill you even faster. If you fail to take care of it, it drains energy from your soul instead, which leads to the grey skintone and general weak health. But even if you keep the flower alive it’ll eventually grow too big and you’ll be unable to drain enough magic to keep up with its energy consumption. By the time the story begins, medical technology has actually advanced enough to find life extending treatments for this, even if we don’t have a complete cure. You can’t get rid of the flower but you can take medicines to slow it’s growth. I mean, really the problem is just that this thing outpaces its host, its a really impractical parasite! It ends up killing itself by getting too greedy! (Which makes me think probably the predjudiced slurs around these people would be like... ‘you got that disease cos of your greed/sin/etc’. Even though its just genetic.) And then I think the final breakthrough to save people from this disease wouldnt really be a perfect cure, just to regress it to a budlike inactive state. You’ll always be physically marked as a victim of this disease, and you’ll always have the ‘demonic’ magic-draining powers. And it’ll probably be a long time before people stop treating the sufferers like shit, even after this...

So umm.. yeah. Its kinda gonna be like an analogy for the horrible HORRIBLE way the AIDS outbreak was handled by the government, and how it happened because the victims were ‘undesireables’. And how in this post-outbreak world the whole thing’s practically been covered up, lessened, forgotten. And people still deny it, and still treat gay people like shit, and its taken so damn long to make all this progress and just... gahhhh... How pretty much every LGBTQ person who’s that old lost a dozen friends, how people got so desperate they used to hold ‘die-ins’- protesting by literally saying ‘leave me here on the doorstep’ when they were about to die. Make the politicians see exactly what they’ve done! And similarly the massive MASSIVE quilt full of patches commemorating everyone who died. God... And seriously just HOW LITTLE EDUCATION there is on this subject! Even amoungst modern LGBTQ communities! How eager we are to sweep things under the rug, even if its LITERALLY a rug made of dead queer folk! *sigh* umm.. sorry for the heavy subject matter there.

So yeah, this would be a ‘race’ in this setting, or rather a minority group, but in fantasy terms its a ‘race’ but.. whatever. Dumb language rules! Very small community of flower disease folks, treated like demi-humans. And this leads to a bunch of new ideas for npcs that could deliver this plotline! Of course, the main one would be an actual member of the flower disease folks.

I’m imagining her as just an absolute sweetheart shy gentle giant sort of lady. She’s introduced being this terrifying presence walking into the town, your protagonist being the only one who doesnt understand why everyone else is being all hushed whispers and closing all their shops. Since you come from a sheltered rich kid background, you’re very out of touch with common issues and had no clue this disease even exists. (Even though rich folks are the ones who had the power to help them, are the ones who refused, are the ones who spread the propeganda and then tried to cover up all their own failures...) So you’re the only one who treats this seemingly terrifying vagrant as a normal person, even though it’s (initially) just because you didn’t know the situation. Because of this, she ends up seeing you as a friend and coming back again. And then its up to the player whether you fall for all the predjudice and decide to cut all ties with her from here on, or whether you continue to stand up for her rights and try and change the way society treats her.

ANYWAY, her personality once she opens up to you would be the total opposite of her imposing appearance. She’s a chronic sufferer of self-hate issues, who’s been living completely alone in the forest for a long time, after being kicked out by her family and having no-one to turn to. I’m thinking she constantly speaks like... shy equivelant of Fuujin from FF8? One word sentences, but whispered instead of yelled. And like.. “.......ah..............s-....sorry........?” *questioning inflection of silence* “......uhhm........?” *unfurls hand hesitantly from under cloak and points at loaf of bread* *counts out coins meticulously, making sure to spread her hands and show she’s wearing gloves, she’s keeping them in a pouch, she hasn’t touched them* *places them on the very edge of the counter and backs away slowly, assuming you’re thinking the worst of her* *won’t take the bread directly from your hands, just in case* *struggling to speak again* “... th-.... ah-...... t-thank....... you.....” *mumbles her way out of the store quickly and awkwardly* This is kinda how she’s had to deal with buying supplies from EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. This tends to happen with like the one store in town that’ll take pity and throw her some food, at a greatly inflated price. She’s just had to like.. keep trying. Wear them down. If she keeps coming to a town repeatedly they’ll eventually get frustrated enough to give her what she wants.... or they’ll call the sheriff to chase her off. Either way she finally gets a yes or no answer on that place, and can tick it off on her cross country map of spots to find actual supplies. So she like.. CAN NOT function in a regular shop environment anymore. Probably the first hint that she isn’t really scary is how she’d totally freak out at you treating her normally! She’d be TERRIFIED!! There’s no way she’d actually agree to talking normally, she’d adamantly refuse to taking anything for free, seriously WHAT IS YOUR DEAL, ARE YOU A DEMON??? *sobs into the complimentary bread* It’d be a few visits before she actually opens up to you, and even then she’s very monosyllabic. She literally hasnt talked to anyone for years, she’s become so hardened to loneliness and cruel treatment that she can’t remember how to react to kind people anymore. And her voice is so hoarse both from this and from.. well.. the disease. She hasn’t even had the minimal treatment that’s available nowadays... for the rich, at least. So along with her sidequest being to help everyone understand her, you’re also searching for a doctor who’d treat her, and trying to save up the ridiculous amounts of money it would take. Its far easier if you succeed at destroying enough of the town’s ignorance, and make at least a few friendship links between her and your other sidequest pals. You can start having a town-wide fundraiser to get her the lifesaving medicine! Tho probably that leads to its own sidequest of having to track her down after she runs away, worried that she doesn’t deserve it and she’s just gonna cause more problems for her new friends. NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyway, the general structure of her as a customer is that she kinda accepts ANYTHING, and doesn’t have much money to do it with. She’s very lonely, and only built up the courage to come to this town on that first day because she heard about your petshop that sells to lower class citizens, and the idea of getting her own monster friend was like a ray of hope in her life! If you decide not to chase her away from the town, she settles in the nearby forest where all the stray monsters live, and becomes like the scary local cryptid. “I totally saw an eight foot tall woman feeding the crows!!! What the fuck!!!” She has a problem with sacrificing herself to protect all these wild animals, they’re just SO BEAUTIFUL and MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING!! She’s always going hungry cos she gives all her food to them, and then they start to love her in return and she gets a veritable army of feral pals that’ll defend her from anyone who tries to burn her tent down again. So she starts off desperately trying to buy a monster from you, any monster, and then after she gets her first one she starts befriending the forest monsters with its help, and becomes your biggest customer of monster supplies instead. She wants to give all these wild babies the closest life to a normal pet as possible! But she also still will buy literally any monster from you, ever, anytime. Doesn’t matter that she already has fifty, she can always take care of more! Though you do get better results if you give her ones high in defense stats and etc, cos its tough to live out there in the forest, even if your trainer is going hungry to ensure you get the best snacks. Oh, and she’d probably be ABSOLUTELY OVER THE MOON if you could sell her a monster that also has flowers or flower patterns. (Tho i think protagonist would be worried it would be insensitive, but she actually does like them cos they make her feel less lonely) She’s also an incentive to help out with your cookery crafting skills! Cos initially she’s having trouble being able to access any of the other shops in the town, she’ll just buy whatever spare food you have lying around. Even your absolute worst failed dishes are like heaven to her! So you can get more exp from cooking and also make a profit from it, thus helping you get better at crafting fancy dishes for your sweet monster pals. (And your strange tall pal!) Oh, and it’d probably also be an element that people in the town try and ‘politely’ advise you that you shouldn’t sell to her ‘for your own safety’. Because of the flower people’s magic draining powers, there’s the very real worry that one of them could be buying monsters from your store just to drain them dry and slow down their own death. But it sucks to assume the worst of her before you even know her, and honestly even if someone was doing that it’s dishonest to frame them as evil and predatory when seriously they are only committing a crime TO SLOW DOWN THEIR OWN DEATH! I bet that would be the most terrifying depressing situation for them, having to kill a small animal cos you’re having an attack of your symptoms and you just desperately don’t want to die...

And now on to the other supporting npcs I thought could be useful to this plot!

I thought of maybe there being bakers cos... well, the first scene I thought of while planning her personality was her trying to buy a loaf of bread. SIMPLE BRAIN PATHS! WOO! But somehow these bakers ended up gaining a way bigger plot role than I intended O_O I’m imagining them as some sort of Super Duo, just cos this plot idea requires one who starts off sympathetic to flower lady and a boss that provides an obstacle in this. I’m thinking maybe the good guy baker sneaks bread out to flower lady, and their greedy boss is all like ‘no! There are laws in place! Food waste must be destroyed! No giving to the homeless!’ (THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS. Almost every major fast food company does it! You can get arrested for stealing food from the bins, or for being an employee who tries to give the food to someone, even if it’s excess food that would just be binned anyway.) But then I ended up humanizing the grumpy boss instead of having them JUST be an enemy. I started imagining this as a family business, and the grumpy boss is their grandma? And then i thought maybe that would be a good vehicle to deliver the backstory worldbuilding about this disease, and now I am REALLY SAD about this grumpy grandma! I was thinking maybe she’s actually someone who lost a lot of friends in the initial outbreak of flower syndrome, and used to protest against it, and became all bitter and depressed after what happened, which is why she’s such a cynical mess nowadays. I think maybe the plot would work better if its like.. the grandkid baker just THINKS that grandma would object to serving a flower disease customer, and then when grandma actually sees who’s been ‘stealing’ her profits, she breaks down crying. Nobody in her family even knew she was so close to the tragedy, she’s been keeping it secret cos even though she isn’t infected she could still be ostracized for being part of that community and all. I’m thinking its gonna just be a very direct analogue, I’m gonna say that LGBTQ people were demonized as the ‘cause’ of this disease back when it was poorly understood. ‘Its caused by greed and sin’ = people pick whichever subjective ‘sin’ they wanna blame... So grandma shows you all her quilt that she’s been keeping secret, full of patches commemorating everyone she knew who died, and tells you about how the tragedy went down and how she got her start as such a cold and untrusting person out of the fear of ever loving anyone again in case she lost them. And everyone gets to have ALL OF THE HUGS, even though hugs can’t erase what happened :( But finding a family that can support her can help flower lady right now, grandma is determined to find a way to save this one person and make up for everyone she couldn’t save! They help you on your quest to track down a doctor, and they give flower lady a place to stay as part of their family, no matter what anyone thinks! And then i think maybe after flower lady manages to get her medicine, grandma actually leaves on a journey with the doctor, to learn how to become a doctor too. She was in medical training when she was younger, before she had to drop out of education due to all that happened. And she just ended up inheriting the family bakery, even though she personally sucks at baking and hates it. (Which is why employee/grandson does all the work and stuff) So now she sees this as a chance to redeem herself, you help convince her that its not too late! She’s gonna use however many years she has left to help people! if she has to be cursed with outliving everyone, she’ll use this long life to make a difference! So its sad cos grandma has to leave on her journey, but grandson takes over the shop and flower lady is employed as an assistant. And they keep in touch with grandma in the mail. (You can sell them a good carrier pigeon monster to help!)

Another npc there could be is... another greedy guy!! I started thinking him up cos i was just wondering about who could be a friend to the grandma. I mean, the npcs have to have relationships and rivalries between each other, its not like the protagonist is the only one who matters, lol This idea i have is (for some reason) someone who looks like a younger AZ from pokemon, wearing a cowboy hat. Kinda? He’s a travelling merchant and ssssssort of the same greedy archetype as grumpy grandpa, but sort of not? He’s an even more huge penny pincher than her, but he doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. He’s constantly desperately wringing any potential money out of anything, overcharging as much as he possibly can, getting himself hurt doing silly get rich schemes. But then he’s not really a jerk about it. He’s very friendly and cares about his customers, unable to actually scam them even as he announces his intentions to do it. He’s constantly betrayed by his own kindness, and ends up giving away free stuff to anyone who has a sob story! He also never seems to actually really spend his money on himself, its not like he actually has any of the luxury he’s always rambling about. I mean, he does indeed seem to have a genuine greed and a few lofty dreams, but then he just puts all his profits in his savings no matter how much it hurts him to do it. *crying over a fancy hat as he dumps his purse in the Swear Jar*

So anyway, his connection to this plot about the flower disease is that his Secret Reason For The Greedy is only revealed if you befriend both him and the flower lady. After you progress the story enough to get her first Happy Ending of getting adopted by the baker family, her second Happy Ending of finally getting the medicine, and her third Happy Ending of becoming the new assistant baker after grandma moves away, the plot still stubbornly continues because really no ending is an ending, yknow? I’m thinking this sort of formula could work really well with a game that has no real overall plot, and is more of just a slice of life theoretically endless thing. When you’re playing Monster Rancher there’s never really any huge changes in the town you still always have the same shopkeepers and nobody even ages. And even though Animal Crossing has villagers moving in and out, its also kinda the same, there’s never any real character development or shifting of the status quo. So I’m thinking having changing generations of the town and continuity between them could be a good way to keep stuff engaging even as you keep playing the same sort of gameplay forever. Maybe some people move away, maybe some people move in, maybe some people get married or have kids, who knows!

So yeah, after the status quo change of the baker grandma moving away and flower lady leaving her homelessness tent to become a full time resident, thats’s when this new sidequest starts. Stuff still isnt instantly perfect for her, she’s still facing predjudice from some people, especially now she’s in a rather public position as an employee. All the controversy over having her work with food, even though SERIOUSLY, DUDE, you can’t catch it from just touching someone who has it! I think she’d feel absolutely terrible, she’d be worried that she’s causing her benefactors to lose business because she’s here. And she’d also have just normal social anxiety adjusting to doing her first job ever, and having to do so much talking. She was homeless since she was very young, she even has trouble with complex mathematics cos she never finished school. Another reason merchant guy could be a good friend of the family, he could help tutor her on this stuff! And general shopkeeping techniques, cos both her and grandson are both super good guy pushovers and all. (”Don’t worry, I’m a wimp too, and even I can manage to be greedy with these five simple steps! ....that’ll be 50 dollars.”) But the main plot for him and flower lady is how he finally reveals his secret reason for being so greedy. One day he just comes along leading a little girl by his hand, and lifts her up so she can see the lady at the bakery counter. “Daddy, she’s got flowers like me!!” He’s been sending all of his profits home to pay for his kid’s medical bills, and he finally decided to let you know once he met someone else with the same condition. He’s been keeping it a secret because people hate flower sufferers so much, and he desperately needs to keep up the trade route with this town otherwise he can’t afford to look after her. he’s so damn relieved to be able to stop lying to you, and to finally introduce his lil bundle of joy! And to let her see someone else with the same condition, for the first time in her life! And then the lil girl could become friends with tall flower lady, and be all like ‘you look so pretty!’ which is something nobody’s ever said to her since she got sick, and just... HEARTWARMING TIME And it could help flower lady keep hope even though predjudice hasnt completely stopped in the world. At least now she’s found some good people, and she can see that her bravery in working at this job is inspiring young sufferers to feel that their life isnt completely over. So they all send off another letter to grandma together, and have a nice family dinner with this other family, and with yours too. :3 (...also, merchant guy apologizes for lying to his close friend grandma for so long, and they laugh at how they both had so much in common and never found out until now! And she is HELLA EXCITED to meet his daughter when she comes back ^_^)

#monster shop game #thats gonna be the new tag #i need to go re-tag all of the earlier posts

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