this is what radical political comedic satire looks like
im Here for publicly funded jokes at his expense
Anyway, here’s how to donate to Sesame Street and support PBS with donations. Talking about how awesome a thing is can be great if you also take action to support it.
“The pervasive reluctance to concede even latent desire between two men sets up serious obstacles to our understanding of the place of sexuality in American history. Until recently historians have been hampered by three intellectual barriers: a misconception about the prevalence of same-sex eroticism, a reluctance to abaondon restrictive labels such as ‘homosexuality’ and ‘heterosexuality’, and an inability to move beyond negative preconceptions about ‘the gay lifestyle’ toward a more nuanced understanding of human sexual behavior. Much of the current discussion of nineteenth-century ‘romantic friendships’ therefore has been based on circular logic. Historians begin with the assumption that homosexual activity is rare, aberrant behavior. They then demonstrate that passionate attachments between American male friends were extremely common–so common that they label them ‘normal’. But these normal, common attachments cannot be assumed to include at times actual homosexual activity. Why? because homosexual activity is rare, aberrant behavior.”
—
Male-Male Intimacy in Early America, William Benemann
In which, William Benemann breaks down the logic of historians who claim homosexuality was rare or not there and then turns it all on it’s head.
actually writing! 2142 words into my fandom trumps hate fic. Yay!
just a quick note- no trans person has ever said “did you just assume my gender.” trans people are very aware of how their gender and physical appearance differ and that visually one might assume that they are a man/woman when they are actually not. that’s kind of the whole idea of gender dysphoria.
and also you’ve beaten your “attack helicopter” joke into the fucking ground. cut that shit out.
i wanted to add one more thing to this post that other people have pointed out: i know its an awkward question, but a lot of trans people are going to be 100% fine with you asking what their gender is, or with calmly correcting you if you get it wrong. and if they’re not, then they’re way more likely to keep it to themselves than get visibly angry with someone. this idea that trans people just go apeshit when people misgender them accidentally/when first meeting them is a complete fabrication for a stupid joke and that’s why i despise it so much.
I can’t afford to get visibly angry about people misgendering me because that puts me in danger of getting harmed. once a cis person finds out my gender, one of two things will happen: they either accept me to various degrees, or they reject me and potentially escalate the situation. politeness is the only way I can decrease the risk of the latter.
the “DID YOU ASSUME MY GENDER?!” trope only serves to make trans people look ridiculous/unreasonable in the eyes of cis people, and places in their minds preconceptions about us that makes it harder, ultimately, for us to come out safely. if all they know about trans people are shitty jokes, then we as a people become those jokes to them.
yeah cis people, seeing as you’re literally the only people that make these jokes I’m gonna need you to reblog this
HEY remember in WWII when Jewish people were fleeing Germany and the USA put a quota on how many Jewish immigrants they would accept because they were worried there were too many Jewish people coming over to the USA???
Reminder that the USA has always been fucking garbage to immigrants and basic humanity
Please spread I haven’t seen this in the news still! I’ve literally had to tell people about it and they didn’t believe me!
and it’s… fine. The prince is great! They’re in love, he’s very sweet and passionate, writing her poems and songs, giving her anything she wants. The time she spends with her husband is great.
but cinderella is not royalty, her family was noble but she never spent time in those circles. She’s used to being busy, she’s used to cooking and cleaning and mending. There are hours, days, where she has nothing to do.
time passes. cinderella learns the fancy lady type of needlework. Learns to ride horses. Reads a lot.
as is normal for royalty at the time, they travel and are hosted by nobles or stay at castles owned by the king. But even that variety begins to become routine. The prince is distracted, there’s a lot of young women living and working on their route. Daughters of nobles. Younger and prettier with soft hands that have never done a day’s work.
cinderella needs something to spend her time on, and there’s a part of her thinking a couple-only trip might get her husband’s attention again, so she suggests making an old castle that’s fallen into disrepair their “project.” It was built in the time when castles were made to be defensible, so it’s quite sturdy, but it’s overgrown and secluded. The prince doesn’t know why his family stopped living there either. A hundred years ago it was their summer home.
so they go. And they work. And for a while it’s great! But when they leave for winter cinderella’s husband forgets her once again. cinderella resolves to make the best of her life and stop worrying about a man who has gotten what he wanted from her.
summer comes again and this time cinderella goes alone to the old castle (minus staff, of course, but cinderella manages to narrow it down to only repair workers and one maid). She can cook and clean and mend again, but this time it’s her own choice. She is happy.
this summer they make more progress on repairs. The workers say that most of it can be salvaged, except one tower that’s been completely overgrown with vines and briars. It will have to come down, eventually, but for now it can be safely ignored.
cinderella has more free time now. The old castle has a surprisingly untouched library, though time and moisture have damaged many of the books. Behind a collection of greek poetry cinderella finds an old diary. Very old, in fact, at least a hundred years. It’s rude to read a diary, of course, but whoever wrote this is long dead, and cinderella is bored, so…
from the description of activities the author looks to have been nobility. Maybe even a princess. She’s sensitive and sweet and smarter than she seems to realize. If circumstances had been different cinderella wishes they could have been friends…
after the summer ends cinderella returns to her husband. He’s spending a lot of time with a young musician and cinderella can’t even work up the energy to care. She does some research about the castle and the family she’s married into, finds out the name of the princess who wrote the diary.
aurora. Cursed and forgotten. She died young, they say, in a plague that also took out the castle staff and her own parents. Luckily they avoided a succession crisis, but not so lucky for the dead.
time passes. cinderella goes to the old castle again and again, even out of season. Soon enough all that remains to be done is the old tower, and the builders say they should tear it down and fill the gaps before it gets cold.
one night cinderella is restless. The princess from the diary had been fond of that tower, and cinderella is far more attached to a dead woman than she ought to be. She gets out of bed, reads by candlelight, and finally goes to walk the empty halls.
she finds herself going to the tower. Pushing past the vines that don’t seem so troublesome really. They almost part before her. The stairs are perfectly intact, the door at the top is already cracked open. As if she should have done this years ago, cinderella steps into aurora’s bedroom.
she’s as beautiful as the stories say. And sitting under her hands, crossed across her stomach as it rises and falls, is a book of greek poetry.
years later, people will tell the story of cinderella as a cautionary one. Don’t seek above your station. Don’t marry for prestige. After all, a girl who grew up as a servant once married the crown prince, and disappeared after only three years. She ran away, they say, she couldn’t handle the lifestyle.
two old women who run a bookshop together agree with the lesson. Marrying for the wrong reasons never ends well. It’s best to wait for someone you have things in common with, shared interests.
or, failing that, the more linguistic of the two says, wait a decade or ten for someone to fall in love with you from your diary.
her partner laughs and hits her with the socks she is mending.
as much as i love the trope of a character falling fast and hard for someone, i also love the subtle decent where they don’t really think about it; where that person is just kind of there until one day they realize that person is so ingrained in their lives and they cannot do without them. where there is no conscious effort on either ends to become romantically involved but somehow the thought of them being with someone else is disconcerting. where “i enjoy being with you” unwittingly turns into “i want to be with you”
ITS 2018 AND I STILL FOR THE LIFE OF ME CANT BE HONEST WITH SOME PEOPLE BECAUSE THE SOCIAL BACKLASH COULD BE CATASTROPHIC EVEN THOUGH IM A BLOODY RAY OF SUNSHINE.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 