xyrdragons

[xyrdragons]

People still tend to lump JK Rowling in with the category of ~problematic artists~ and I need everyone to understand that is not the problem with her. She is not comparable to anyone who wrote a piece of fiction you hate, or someone who made rude comments in 2015 and has since learned better.

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Critiquing her work is fine, of course (I personally was never a fan so I really don’t care) but you NEED to understand that fiction is not the main issue here. And I truly think acting like she’s the same as the rest of any giant list of ~problematic creators of the week~ waters down how dangerous she is.

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[xyrdragons]

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

Posts were made on July 1, 2024.

[xyrdragons]

Has this been done yet

[xyrdragons]

be in a qpr with someone who pets you like a cat

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*cackling*

If OTW weren’t around, this wouldn’t be “scaremongering”: It would be the inescapable status quo.

[xyrdragons]

Happy Transgender day of visibility! To celebrate, here are some Trans media recommendations (some of which are available on this very website)

The Deep & Dark Blue

The Deep & Dark Blue is a graphic novel that has achieved some notoriety for being banned in certain countries for the simple act of Transness. It stories the tale of a pair of twins, Hawke and (Grayce), heirs to a noble house who were forced by an inheritance scheme to hide in an all female order of weavers, who, with their blue thread, weave the very future itself. Because of this, they must act as girls. Except, Grayce is a girl. Transness. Also there’s a gender-affirming magical tapestry. I read this while egg, and related to it on a level I couldn’t quite describe yet. It’s really good.

Sleepless Domain

More gender affirming magic! In the world of this webcomic, girls and only girls are gifted mystical powers to fight monsters. So it was pretty neat for Zoe Blecher to gain these gender-affirming superpowers. I’d probably call Zoe a deuteragonist. She’s not one of the main characters, but she is a fairly major one. The story does not make much of a big deal of Zoe’s Transness, and we only really find out when one of her cousins over shared and explains Transness in general in that cute simplified way that children understand things.

https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-19-page-29

Transcendent

More trans, more magic, although none of it has anything to do with gender. Despite being a magic user, the main character Olive still needs HRT. From aliens. Yeah there are aliens, but I only remember them coming up once. Nbd. It has a great balance of wonderful stories about gender stuff and wonderful stories having nothing to do with gender. Every single one of the stories is wonderful. It’s one of my favorite comics, and can be found right here on tumblr

https://allthingstranscendent.tumblr.com/post/617598276930289664/introductions

El Goonish Shive

This webcomic is not technically on tumblr but it can be viewed through tumblr. It does… not to great with gender stuff at first, but as the author improves so does the representation, in terms of both gender and orientation. It currently has the second most Gender cast of any media I consume (for the life of me I can’t figure out the first)

https://egscomics.tumblr.com/post/680206699132534784/sandwich

The Owl House

Great show, has an older Enby character, screwed over by Disney (also please more spoilers I’m not caught up with season 2B)

She-Ra and the princesses of power

Available on Netflix, this wondrous show has one (1) cool non-binary shapeshifter person, and one (1) major Trans female character who was confirmed outside of the show itself (for safety purposes)

Steven Universe Future

Shep. There probably would’ve been more explicit Trans rep if the higher-ups had allowed, but oh well, still an amazing franchise (this installment in particular handles trauma really well)

Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard

Alex Fierro is a genderfluid icon. So is xer mom Loki, but he’s especially evil in this so… also great pan realization from Magnus himself later in the books.

Shameful self promotion

I feel kinda bad about this, but this is supposed to be a full list of trans media, and I happen to specialize in trans media. I’ve got Infinity Squared, a pixel art comedy comic made up of 1. Wordplay 2. Geek culture references 3. Queer jokes and most often 4. Two or more of the above. I’ve also got spectrum force, a pretty cool hand-drawn comic in which a bunch of color-coded trans youths battle physical manifestations of the fear that comes from hope, and then shoot them with arrows. It’s fun, we have fun.

So… yeah.

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The Symbol

The plans for the rebellion were made. The right not to remain Same was worth protecting; who cared if someone temporarily wanted to turn themself into a goose or a flamingo? Sure, it could facilitate espionage, but it could also serve the very important use of sparking joy.

However, as meticulously as the alchemists had scheduled every last detail, and as dangerous as it had been to pass the schedule on to everyone involved, something had been missing. Something extremely valuable, and yet it had taken a long time to figure out what it was.

Now, on the very last evening, the alchemists had gathered in a circle, each in front of a tea candle and with their own marshmallow on a stick, intent on transmuting the white void to gold and willing to avoid tar. Once the golden glow had sparked all around the circle, the connection with the spirits was open.

“Please,” the alchemists muttered in perfect unison, “please send us a symbol of Endless Possibilities, of Hope for the Future, to emblazon on our shields and cloaks.”

For a long moment, nothing happened, but then there was a dull thud. When they went to look near the front door, a pair of cute, red children’s shoes stood waiting for them.

—

[Image description: A pair of red shoes for a small child, with red laces, is standing on a brown doormat with a pattern of red-and-black flowers. In the background is a white wall and a black plinth.]

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The funniest part of the "your teacher dies in every possible ending" copypasta btw is that it doesn't really sell how generic the fucking Wizard game is plot wise on that front.

Like, we have two major spoilers, Rockwood curses Anne and blamed the Goblins for it, and Professor Fig dies regardless of ending. You'd expect therefore two very simple things from this reveals:

1) That this would lead to the classic mid story twist that the "oppressed minority doing terrorism was actually being manipulated the whole time and you the white saviour help them after realising they aren't so bad."

And 2) That the game has multiple endings that are shaped by your actions in the story, despite how in all of them your mentor dies (probably for different reasons each time).

This is however not fucking the case lol.

Because guess what.

Hogwarts Legacy has only two endings.

There is the "Good" ending, where you decide to keep the status quo as is and prevent systematic change, and a "Bad" ending where you "free the ancient magic" and change the status quo, but then promise to work to set ip up back as it was before.

NOTHING you do in the game changes this. Every decision, spell choice, side quest, NOTHING influences these endings. There is no Karma Meter, or checklist of decisions to have to pick the best possible ending ala Witcher, nothing, you are given ONE decision right at the end of the game, between breaking the status quo (bad) or keeping it as is (good) and that's the extent of player choice on what ending you get.

TWO ENDINGS.

ALL BASED ON YOUR FINAL CHOICE.

MASS EFFECT 3, INFAMOUS FOR DOING THIS VERY SAME SHIT, HAD THREE.

And after you have this choice, your mentor dies, and you fight the evil goblin leader who is evil because he was once the victim of a violent hate crime so now he sides with Wizard N*zis and wants to genocide all wizards, and who is, yes, the main villain of the game, not the guy who cursed the girl, nope, we're still murdering an evil minority rebellion leader with a large hooked nose as he's being powered by the status quo breaking "Ancient Magic" the hero is treated like a villain for if he decides to "share with the world."

And then there's a generic eulogy for mentor followed by the house cup being won by your fucking house as a "true" ending, which happens regardless of what choice you pick, and that is a "post credit scene" ending after finishing all collectibles and side quests, just to give the illusion of having 3 endings.

This game is shallow and mediocre beyond belief yet we have people fucking frothing at the mouth for being told they shouldn't fucking play the mid wizard game. You have streamers crying at the gentlest fucking pushback, people going "I can excuse transphobia and anti semitism but I draw the line at spoilers," for one of the most soulless, generic pieces of videogame media of this year.

"Boycotts don't work if the product is good just look at chick fill a" the product isn't fucking good the product is mid the product has an extremely shit plot baked in anti semitism and with boring "twists" and even if it was the fucking masterpiece some of those people claim it is have a minimum of moral fucking backbone and if you can't help yourself PLAY OR EAT SOMETHING ELSE.

IT'S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD.

[xyrdragons]

fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry

[xyrdragons]

I still can’t believe he kept doing this for her over and over😭

[xyrdragons]

The worst thing you can do, as someone who has recently realised they are transfem, is to let terves and transphobes convince you cis women will never accept you.

I was told that when I came out everyone would reject me. That I would find myself isolated from the world, and from other women especially, who would react to me with horror and revulsion.

In reality, within the first months of coming out, in no particular order:

My sister's reaction on my coming out was, "Right, so I have a sister instead of a brother. Cool. I'm taking you clothes shopping tomorrow."

A friend, when she learned I am a woman, immediately invited me to her women-only, girls-night-out birthday party the following week.

Another friend, when a friend of hers expressed doubts about my gender, immediately shut them down and reaffirmed I am a woman.

I went camping with a group of friends, and we had two tents, one for the boys and one for the girls; I was unsure as to which I should enter, to which a girl friend responded by grabbing me and physically dragging me inside the women's tent.

In the women's bathroom at a movie theatre a random woman, whom I'd never seen before and haven't seen since, stopped me as I was going into a stall, to warn me there was no toilet paper in there, because she'd just used the last of it.

All of these, and more, some from friends, some from complete strangers. All within a few months, as a trans woman who hadn't started medical transition yet, and was very visible as being a trans woman.

I've had some people reject me, true, but the vast majority, including almost all cis women, accepted me as a sister with open arms.

Cis women are cool. It's terves who are bigots.

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Normal phone backgrounds.

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it’s so intense reading all these rules people have for giving kudos like, “I never leave kudos on the first chapter”/”the story really has to stand out for me to give kudos”/”I only give kudos to stories that are incredible”

meanwhile I’m over here like “yeah, this is kind of a neat idea” KUDOS “I really liked that one joke in the middle” KUDOS “idk it was pretty good I guess” KUDOS like

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“To live is to betray your God. Every act in life, every act that affirms us as living beings, requires that the commandments of your God be broken.”

— Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz, 116

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I made a commonplace book containing my favorite quotes discovered in 2022, using the inkvent inks. The only thing to be done is to finish looking up all the attributions and calligraph them, then I can start binding it!

[xyrdragons]

You are all of the things you love. You are the cluttered bookshelf that is piled high with worn, tired books. You are that delicate tea-cup that you have to clean by hand when everything else goes in the dishwasher. You are the moon and the sun. You are the flowers speckled with rain. You are the Earth and the people that live on it, with hearts of gold and diamonds in their eyes. You are the things that make you happy, that make you smile, those moments where time stops and you are left alone in space. You are all of the things you love, and if that's so, it means you love yourself, because you are yourself.