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queenboudicaa · 3 years

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From Graham Linehan from The Glinner Update [email protected]

Played The Fool

Sue Donym

Sep 16

I remember my college days studying journalism, which don't seem so long ago, but actually are now, and as a young eighteen year old, a friend gives me something she says explains gender. It is Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. I have heard of this book. People treat it like The Bible. I eagerly open the book and attempt to read it.

I cannot make heads or tails of it. I conclude I simply am not smart enough or well-read enough to understand the religious revelation. I make it to page sixty before giving up, the constant mentions of ‘Althusserian’ and ‘structuralist’ and ‘reifying’ finally defeating me. I don’t feel like any of the book has actually managed to lodge itself in my head.

I give the book back to my friend, and then I pretend to everyone around me that I have read the book. No one figures me out.

When I get older, I realize they all did the same thing.

In my senior year, I win election to student government. I am to represent ‘LGBT’ people. I am proud. I am unaware I am now standing on a cliff, the ground beneath me slowly breaking. I bury my head in the sand as my position becomes increasingly precarious.

I meet with faculty during the first semester. I read through a policy. Suddenly ‘LGBT’ has morphed. It’s ‘LGBTQI+’. I don’t know what the Q and I stand for, let alone that seemingly erroneous plus sign. I am supposed to be the expert, and all these middle-aged people are looking at me to explain the youth speak which is even bedeviling I, the putative youth. I muddle through, using this surprise new acronym, and then I Google it surreptitiously in the meeting. It means ‘Queer’ and ‘Intersex’, and the plus sign appears to be decorative in nature. I wonder what the Q covers that ‘LGBT’ doesn’t, let alone the God-damned plus sign, and I wonder why ‘intersex’ needs to be included at all.

They talk enthusiastically about how everyone has a gender. There are women with penises, men with vaginas. Gender is understood to be how you feel inside. I contort my mind around this way of thinking as best I can. A man is someone who behaves like a man, and a woman is someone who behaves like a woman. That is the working definition you have, even though you paper over it with phrases like ‘identifies as.’

I don’t think about. You can’t. You are told this is how it is, how it has always been, to think otherwise is actually you replicating the kyriarchy, over and over and over again, and you nod and accept it, because you are given this set of facts and told to nod. Pseudoscience justifies it. People talk about ‘brain scans’ and ‘the wrong bodymap’, and ‘indigenous genders’. It’s all conjectural bullshit, but everyone goes along with it.

When I can’t perform the cognitive contortions, I simply don’t acknowledge contradicting evidence. To do so would be to jump off a cliff into an abyss. It is a reflexive thing, unconscious, and its origins lie in the instinct for self-preservation.

Everyone goes along with it. I am a coward, so I accept it and move on. I am twenty two years old, and I don’t know any better, and I want to trust the organizations that say they hold my best interests at heart.

Part of my role on student government was providing student-based pastoral care in my college’s LGBT center. By the time I get there, it’s morphed into the LGBTQI+ Center. I consider myself even-keeled and well-adjusted, perfect to help ‘my people’.

Many of the people that come see me have fairly normal problems. I speak to lecturers about not being homophobic, meet with faculty about LGBTQI issues, and sit through interminably boring student government meetings full of bloviating Young Democrats self-assured about their future self-importance. Increasingly, more people come to speak to me about trans issues. Walking through the center one day, someone assumes I am a ‘pre-hormones trans man’. When I correct them, and say I am a butch lesbian, they suddenly become hostile. I don’t know why, but I feel offended to my very bones about being assumed to be a man.

More and more of my fellow butches suddenly start declaring themselves to ‘truly be men.’ I don’t think about this. You’re not supposed to think about it, or question them, just accept and affirm and acknowledge and adulate their new found authenticity. I get a new package of fliers from an LGBT charity, open them up, and suddenly find that I, simply defined as ‘butch’ (forget the lesbian!) am now supposedly ‘trans’ and under the ‘trans umbrella.’ I call this ridiculous, and loudly.

Someone pulls me aside to ask why I’m being so transphobic.

I meet with a charity group. They have this young woman on staff who declares herself ‘non-binary’ and uses ‘they/them’ pronouns. She does not strike me as gay, and her entire purview of ‘LGBT’ seems to forget the first three letters. She assumes that I am a trans man. When I tell her I am a lesbian, she asks ‘are you sure? Maybe you’ll change your mind’. She then starts talking to me about her boyfriend.

I wonder why this straight girl with dyed hair is telling me what to do on gay issues. What gives her the right?

At the end of the meeting, someone I know from the charity group tells me that ‘Aiden’ is upset I forgot her pronouns. I hadn’t realized. I tell him that this dyed hair fag hag told me I’ll change my mind about being a lesbian. He says that doesn’t excuse messing up Aiden’s pronouns.

The next time I meet Aiden, she keeps calling me ‘he’. She gets upset when I get angry with her.

My student body president sends me a please explain email the next day about upsetting Aiden.

One day in the center, in walks a man in a dress. That’s what I thought in my unfiltered thoughts, before the cognitive dissonance kicks in. But the Aiden experience has taught me a lesson to not speak up. The man uses ~the magical pronouns~, ‘she/her’ and this means he is a woman. He dresses like a prostitute downtown and declares he’s a lesbian.

He says he is a trans woman. But Chloe is different from all the trans women I had met before. They would call themselves ‘gay men gone too far’, tell you hilarious stories, wingman for me at the bar, argue about ‘when Madonna went bad’, arguments that turned into handbag duels at dawn. Many of them were older, and many of them had stories about surviving in a homophobic world, surviving AIDS, dangerous johns, and the joy they felt now, that gay rights had gone somewhere. This man was very different to them.

My hair stands up on the back of my neck every time I deal with ‘Chloe’. It requires conscious effort to make sure I don’t mess up his pronouns, because my brain says that’s ‘a fucking man’, but my cognitive dissonance around the situation and my sense of self-preservation knows that if I don’t call this man a woman I will be in for it. I have seen the results - ‘Chloe’, all six feet of ‘Chloe’, screaming at a fellow trans woman, Clara, half his size, for saying ‘you’re a man honey’. Chloe himself came to me demanding I ban her from the space. I refused.

Clara stops coming into the center. I ask her why, and she says ‘those flipping transvestites, they’re not us.’ Clara never comes back to the center.

None of this thinking about Chloe’s pronouns is conscious. I feel guilty every time my thoughts use the ‘wrong pronouns’. My head is tied up in knots - not something freshman me would have considered, turning up to the center with the goal of getting laid, now trying to smile and put up with this man.

He makes every conversation in there uncomfortable. We relax when he is gone and only homosexuals are in the room.

Suddenly, my straight friends start asking if I’d ‘sleep with a trans woman’. I try laughing this off. One friend gets very insistent, and when I tell him that I wouldn’t consider someone with a dick, he starts wondering if my preferences are ‘rooted in bigotry’. I ask him if he’d sleep with a trans woman. He tells me that no, he’d prefer a woman who can have his children.

I smile and nod, and when the conversation ends, walk out of the room as fast as I can.

Chloe tells us at length about their sexual proclivities. Bondage and leather and ‘being a dom’. Chloe tells us about his lack of luck on lesbian dating apps. I keep to myself that I had ended up setting a height filter to filter out ‘the trannies.’ Nor do I tell him that me and a group of women had made fun of men like him on lesbian dating apps, swapping screenshots and Silence Of The Lambs jokes.

Soon there are more Chloes and fewer women. They all start talking about radical communism, about ‘sex work is work’, ‘cultural appropriation’, and about ‘TERFs’ and how hideous they are. One of them expounds to me at length why I shouldn’t read any feminist works from the seventies, because they hated trans women, and I wouldn’t want to hate trans women, wouldn’t I?

They all behave the same way. I keep getting reports about the Chloes harassing people in the center, particularly young lesbian women. Then there is an influx of ‘Aidens’, straight women declaring themselves to really be gay men. One of them tells me I am ‘appropriating the culture of trans men.’

One day I am in the center, and I look out the glass window of my office. There are a dozen people sitting in the common room of the center, talking animatedly. I realize none of them are lesbian or gay in the actual sense of the word. I feel uncomfortable, but I cannot articulate why I feel such discomfort.

One of the Chloes knocks on my door. This one wears a pink tube top and a pencil skirt. I am strongly reminded of Buffalo Bill. He asks me out for coffee. I decline. He asks why, as I am single. I say that I am busy that day. He tries asking for another day. I say I am playing club football that day. He keeps trying to cajole me. Eventually I dispense with the politeness and tell him I am not interested in him. He shouts at me that I am transphobic and leaves.

A few hours later, my phone blows up. His friends are calling me transphobic for not being interested in him. It’s just one date, they say. One little coffee. You might like it. You don’t know. Your last girlfriend dressed the same. You need to unlearn your genital preferences.

I think to myself my last girlfriend was a foot shorter and had a vagina, but I don’t say anything. I ignore the messages. He is allowed boundaries. I am not.

I am sitting in a class. It’s on sexual histories, a class I took to broaden my horizons from my journalism degree. I try not to think of the student loan I’ll be incurring from taking it.

Strangely enough, it is perhaps the first blow to the self-imposed contortions of my thoughts. The professor starts his lecture by pronouncing that sexual orientation is, in fact, a social construct. He explains that the word ‘homosexuality’ did not exist until the 19th century, and thus, homosexuals are a creation of repressive Victorian sexuality. I find this theory strange. I had grown up in the ‘born this way’ era, to be sure, but my homosexuality seemed biological, instinctual, basal to my very way of being. A powerful attraction to women came to me as naturally as breathing, or seeing, or farting inappropriately on the second date. Yet here was this man telling me, that in fact, my perceptions were merely constructs based on my surroundings.

It seemed strange to me. Someone from the class, notorious for asking questions, puts his hands up and asks about the Romans - you see, he is a student of the classics, and he remarks that the Romans knew of homosexuals. The professor gravely informs in that in fact the Romans were aware of a ‘behavior’, and that as ‘homosexual’ as a word did not exist at the time, there were no homosexuals. Only behaviors, that we codify and understand on a cultural basis.

This made less sense to me than before. It made even less sense to me when someone else asks about trans people. The professor remarks that ‘trans people have always existed’.

Yet homosexuals were invented by the first sexologists, rather than through self-definition? We had to have heterosexuals invent us, as other, first?

I am sitting with some gay friends, and one of them complains about the focus on trans issues when we still don’t have same-sex marriage federally yet. We talk about our disappearing spaces, and I voice that sometimes I am the only lesbian out of thirty people sitting in the LGBTQI+ student center (it had been renamed). I think of it in terms of getting laid - because suddenly all the ‘lesbians’ in the center had penises. It happened so quickly that it was easy to notice. I went to a lesbian group, and it was a sausage fest I made up an excuse to leave. The Chloes moved in, and the lesbians instantly left. I feel constantly uncomfortable, watched, stared at, envied. The Chloes all talk about their genitalia and violent pornography at length, in public, and it makes me feel gross and dirty, and I start to dislike most of them.

I post on my Tinder that I’m not into penis. I log in the next day to find out my account has been banned. Tinder never gives me a straight answer as to why I was banned.

I finish out my term on student government. I don’t run again. I’m a senior. I finish my degree and hurry off to the real world. One of the Chloes takes my place as ‘LGBTQI+ students representative’.

It is the one who tried getting me to go out on a date with him. He makes me feel uncomfortable throughout the whole handover.

I am upset, because he will destroy everything I worked for.

I go to the gay bar with some friends. But when we go, we feel like the only homosexuals in the whole god-damn bar. It’s full of people with dyed hair. A man in a dress tries grinding on me, and when I turn around and tell him no, he calls me ‘transphobic towards trans femmes’. When I declare I am a butch lesbian, people ask if I am a ‘TERF’. I don’t know what a ‘TERF’ is, other than ‘terfs’ are bad. I have been told terfs are bad, so it has to be true right? I don’t want to be a bad person.

I try going to other gay events, and suddenly I am outnumbered. Me, a few older lesbians, and some gay men huddle in a corner of spaces we once proudly called our own, as the Chloes and the Aidens declare it their own - and even worse, that they are just the same as us. It is unnerving, and they no longer feel like safe spaces for me. Gradually, we all stop going. There were no more gay people in the gay space.

I have a lesbian friend. She tells me excitedly about a first date. She meets them in a quirky coffee shop. It is a trans woman twice her size. When she tells the trans woman that she’s not interested, they lose it at her in the coffee shop, calling her a transphobic bigot and screaming and shouting and threatening to hit her.

She tells me, because she knows I don’t tell people things. But she cannot say anything in public. She’ll be transphobic. So she keeps it to herself, and this man gets to continue preying on women who think they’re safe, catfishing, coercing and abusing them.

To say otherwise gets you labelled a terf. And terfs are bad. Why are terfs bad? Don’t ask. Just accept that terfs are bad. Terfs hurt trans women, and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?

Eventually, my friend hears of her date doing it to someone else. She writes a call out post, saying that you shouldn’t hide important facts about yourself on dating sites. She gets called a terf for saying that ‘lesbians don’t have dicks’, and being verbally abused in public was the rational response of an oppressed person to oppression. It’s a scarlet letter, and she is branded with it. I am a coward and I do not speak up in public. I hate myself. I am thinking of my personal prospects, and not my friend, and not my people. Because if I speak up, I can kiss the career I dream about goodbye. I fear that scarlet letter being branded on my forehead.

I tell my friend in private that I support her. But I daren’t say that in public.

I daren’t ask questions.

One day, I am aimlessly browsing the internet at work. I have written enough copy to cover my ass for the next few weeks. I wait until my boss leaves for the afternoon, and wait out the rest of the day mindlessly scrolling. I see a post in an LGBTQI+ students group on Facebook I’ve forgotten to leave. It’s a troll post, which is apparently ‘terf rhetoric’. The link is still there, and the comments are blowing up, united in performative outrage.

I click the link . I find myself laughing at the description of ‘men in dresses’. To these ‘terfs’, a man has a penis, and a woman has a vagina. Anyone saying otherwise is a damned fool. It seems such an easy way to think about it. I mean, what is a woman, anyway? It doesn’t seem evil, wicked or bad. It seems… sensible.

Finding out more about this new way of thinking becomes addicting. I keep my scrolling through it on my phone. I have always had a fondness for reading people being harshly critical about anything, and now I have an endless source of it, articulating things I knew instinctually but could never find the words to verbalize, could never find the courage to verbalize. I wonder if I am being radicalized - images of ISIS radicalizing fighters over the internet run through my head. But everything seems to make so much sense. I am no longer contorting my thoughts around the desires of others, but thinking freely, observationally, openly, fearlessly.

It felt like my mind had freed itself from chains, chains placed upon it all those years ago, when that naïve eighteen year old who wanted to get laid tried reading Gender Trouble.

The gunk on my mind slowly unclogged. My way of thinking suddenly changed. I was no longer denying what my eyes saw in front of me. No, now I saw things as they were. There was no more contorting my way of thought. For the first time in a long time, I felt clear-headed.

One of the links I clicked in my flurry was a link to Dr. Ray Blanchard’s paper on ‘autogynephilia’. I read it, and finally, I had an explanation. Homosexual transsexuals. And ‘autogynephiles.’ The two types of his famous and controversial typology.

‘Autogynephiles’ - men who had a sexual fetish for ‘being a woman’, a fetish for an alter-ego female self, a fetish for our bodies, our minds, our souls, our experiences. All reduced to jerk-off fodder for some blockhead man.

It explained why they were so desperate for lesbians to date them. They needed us for validating their sexual fetish. Our lives and experiences, our spaces, our dating apps, our culture, our media, our websites, every breath we took, as far as they were concerned, needed to be focused on validating them. Because otherwise, the fantasy was ruined! This straight man would not be able to jerk off over ‘being a lesbian!’. We were not people, we were non-player-characters in their video game. Actresses in pornography, extras in a film where they were the protagonist, and we were off script. We weren’t fully-formed people, with our own desires, we were things, objects, film props.

The entire gay movement, from the lesbians to the gays, to the homosexual transsexuals, reduced to nothing props in some straight man’s sexual fantasy. That’s all we were to them, ultimately.

And I was expected to go along with it?! We were all expected to go along with it?

Not only that, I had gone along with it. I had advocated for this.

What had I done?

Every moment you come close, every moment you start thinking something isn’t right, you start feeling a little foolish.

Of course this is fine. Everyone is telling me so. The media, the public, the people around you. No one voices concerns. When you have them, you don’t say anything, because no one else is, and because you are a coward.

You feel a little foolish because this is foolish. Saying some women have penises is foolish. You know it is foolish, from the minute that idiot phrase leaves your mouth, to the minute it dances across your tongue, to the minute your nerves send the signal to your larynx to make the required movements to produce the very sounds. But, you think, you are no fool.

You are no fool, you think, when someone says ‘biological women have XY chromosomes’, or that it’s okay for a man on the college track team to identify as a woman and take a place on the woman’s track team. You know that’s not right. But everyone else is going along with it, and you are no fool, and you shouldn’t feel foolish, because everyone says this is the right thing to do, the right side of history, doing right by an oppressed minority, so you go along with it.

You are frightened of realizing you are a fool. So too, is everyone around you. No one likes being played the fool, no one likes realizing they were sold a pack of lives as a naïve eighteen year old looking for other gay people. And no one plays you for a fool. And thus the dance continues, everyone one too frightened to admit that, perhaps, we are all fools, believing in something physically impossible, no different to the bible-banging megachurch attendee, with our owns chants, our own magic words, ritual knowledge, and ability to be born again. We are smart. We liberal. We are on the right side of history. We couldn’t be believing in something that isn’t scientifically backed. We’re smarter than that. We’re not fools.

And when it finally gets too much, and you drift over to the cliff’s edge, the cliff that you can see the bottom of, the cliff you know you can’t come back from, you pull away. Because to go over it would to be to admit that you’ve been played the fool. No one likes that feeling, the shame, the embarrassment, the horror, the fear. What lies over that cliff is exile, a scarlet letter, fear and hatred and nasty women who just want trans women dead.

What lies beyond that cliff is a realization that you have been used. You have been used by something greater than yourself, to push medication on children. You have been used by straight men to participate in their sexual fetish without your consent. Your entire community, rendered a jerk-off prop for some straight man over night, and you were told that objecting was ‘transphobic’. You have been used to spread homophobia beyond your comprehension, to take part in the destruction of your own community, and you were told this was right and good.

To realize this, to acknowledge it, to move on and try and forge something better, that takes true strength of character. To realize this, to deny it, and obfuscate what you are doing, that I can understand. I too, was once a coward. I too, did not want to believe what my eyes told me was sitting in front of me. That cliff is scary, and to jump off it seemingly lies nothing but social death.

But eventually something pushes you over, without your consent. You realize you have been played the fool, because finally, something so gratuitous occurs that you must. Even the greatest cowards will eventually be blown off the cliff. The music will stop, and the dance will end, and you will finally feel the shame, the embarrassment, the horror, the fear, the guilt.

Because no one likes being played for a fool.

Perhaps, then, it is best to get this over and done with now, while you still have dignity to defend.

Some details have been changed to protect the identities of those concerned.

#radical feminism #radical feminists #transwomen #transwomens bodies look awfully similar to mens bodies #radfem #radfem community #graham glinner #butch #lesbian #lgbt #lgb

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onelastbreath-writes · 3 years

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On Bruce And Texting:

Author’s Note: Hello and welcome, this is my first properly written fic, originally posted to my AO3, and now that I have finally created a writing blog, it’s here as well. Please enjoy!! AO3. Masterlist

Warnings: Hopefully none, its all cute and fluff <3

Summary: Bruce Wayne texts like he's sending correspondences to the Queen, so of course the little monsters he calls children just have to make fun of him! Brats, the lot of them, but he wouldn't have them any other way.

Features: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, all the bats and birds, mentions JL, no crime fighting, only family fluff, jokes and nods to Millennial and GenZ shenanigans.

Word Count: 2.7k

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Billionaire, genius, tech expert, father of many children, and all around up-to-date-with-just-about-everything type of person he may be, it is also a well-known Fact that Bruce Wayne, the Batman(TM) himself, can’t text to save his life.

Whether it’s due to his Very Proper English Upbringing, his inability to be informal via written correspondences of any type, his indifference, or the fact that it bothers his children so much, Bruce Wayne has not and never will text with anything less than perfect grammar, spelling, and formality. If he has not sent you a proper letter (featuring a dedication, indentation for every paragraph, signature, and post-script when applicable), he did, in fact, not send you that text. Informality is not his Batman Way(TM) according to his children... he’s not too sure what that even means, but it makes his young ones laugh so it’s probably fine?

His oldest children (Richard and Jason) were raised in the time of Change, where computers, internet access, social media, and all things similar were only just being introduced into households en-masse. They were young enough to remember a time without such devices and connectivity (both for very different reasons, of course, but they grew up without the newest technology none-the-less). They could understand his relationship to the digital environment more so than his younger children, but they still tended to poke fun at his ‘texting blunders’ regularly. All his kids somehow ended up as brats. He doesn’t know how this happened. It’s certainly not his fault. He blames the League members, and especially Clark Kent, for their defiant personalities.

His younger children, whom he loves dearly, like to confuse him as much as they possibly can with their slang, egregious spelling errors, and all-around ‘internet humour’. He doesn’t know what ‘wig’ or ‘worm’ or ‘oof’ or anything means. He has no idea what those dances are, or how they relate to the music that seems to always accompany them, and for the love of all that is good, don’t ask him what he thinks of this or that ‘meme’. What even is a ‘meme’, and should he be more concerned about his kids being obsessed with them? He tries, oh my god, does he try to follow the children’s conversations, but they somehow all learned a language he has no idea how to decrypt. His best response to them once they start speaking in tongues is as follows: smile but not too much, listen to child even though he is deeply confused, and pat child on head or shoulder when they are finished and are looking for assurance.

He refuses to be a parent who ignores or tunes out his children, so he always makes sure to put down his work, his crossword, his tools, or whatever else is in his hands when a child searches him out for a conversation. But somehow, despite all the time he spends around them and their strange words, when he gets text from them comprised of abbreviations, acronyms, and completely random words, he goes a little cross eyed. He would never tell anyone, but he keeps a running list on his phone about the things they say that he has had to translate in the past. Spilling tea? Speaking the truth, usually to do with gossip. Wow? Multiple possible meanings: either a video game, or someone saying it (different pronunciation depending on context and who sent the text). Stickbug? A nice little prank with no ulterior motives, just for fun. Something along the lines of “this basic bitch Karen at the grocery store who is a dirty rat-licker and is def an anti-vaxxer just took 45 (forty-five) minutes to decide she didn’t actually want that almond milk. I Stan the cashier who had to put up with her. Rad af dude.” roughly translates to “A rude, middle-aged white woman who wasn’t wearing a mask and doesn’t believe in disease control or vaccinating her children wasted a great deal of an essential worker’s time in the checkout line. The cashier was very professional in their dealings with said customer and should be commended on their actions.”

Given enough time, the internet for searching up new slang words, and occasionally some help from a friend (Alfred, Selina, Lucius, another of his children, etc), Bruce could decode and respond appropriately to most texts. He was quite proud of these achievements, and although he didn’t always like how often his children were on their phones or computers or gaming systems, he was quite proud of how integrated and easily they adapted to the ever-evolving world of electronics. All his kids were gifted in many ways, but their ability to learn, their hunger for knowledge, and their perseverance when exploring new and challenging ideas were always the things that he was most impressed by.

He could do without their comments though. Yes, surprisingly, he did manage to get girlfriends with his type of texting. No, he doesn’t miss the ‘good old days’ when telegraphs were the main form of long-distance correspondence (how old do these brats think he is?!). And yes, he does know what a “tweet” is, and how to “post” on his social media accounts, and what “sliding into your DMs” is (thanks to a frantic search after a WE employee mentioned it near him). The Wayne children, truly whom and what Bruce considers his pride and joy, are cruel little jerks to him sometimes. His hoard of parenting books fails to mention what one should do when their children gang up on them. Bullying is covered of course, but he can’t really talk to a teacher or his guardian about how his second son calls him an idiot sandwich, or that his third son regularly tries to get him to do something “For The Vine”. His oldest and youngest boys are only slightly better in the bullying him department; Richard and his puppy dog eyes when he wants to do something dangerous or not-Alfred-approved, and Damian and his growing collection of pets because “Mother never let me have them, and I am deprived, and don’t you love me Father?”.

His only good child is his beautiful daughter Cassandra, the flower of the Wayne clan. She gives him hugs, and pats his hands, and can sit with him and just enjoy the quiet and stillness when his other children are not around. Her language skills are improving by leaps and bounds every day, and her heart and spirit are unparalleled, but her main method of communication is in her movements. Her hands, her posture, her dancing; Bruce couldn’t think of a more graceful, fluid, powerful person if the world depended on it. His amazing little girl doesn't bully him (and if she ever does, he probably deserves it, he trusts her), so he turns to her most of all when it comes to communicating with someone else. She doesn’t let him send anything that is “sketchy” or “wrong words, bad meaning, Dad”. He would give the world to his children, but for Cassandra, he would destroy it and build her an entirely new one.

Social media, especially with his terrible children all having accounts dedicated to making him look like a simpleton, was another rocky terrain he had to navigate on the regular. He had professionals in place at WE to run the company’s many accounts, paid top dollar to help appeal and relate to the masses, but he mostly had to manage his personal accounts himself. And so, @TheRealBruceWayne was one of the greatest struggles in his adult life. Why can’t he just retweet every post from @WE_Offical and leave it at that? People should only want to know about what’s new with the company. What do you mean they want to know more about our family and private lives? That’s unnecessary, and not important to the running of the company, right? Right? Why are you laughing?!

Luckily, most people in his life aren’t so intimately aware of his struggles. He can act and lie all he wants about being “hip” and “woke” and whatever else the kids are saying these days when he’s with the JL or in board meeting intermissions, networking with his associates. The Batman knows all and sees all, Green Lantern, of course he understands how “Tiktok” works. The Batman is a robot without a funny bone in his body, Green Arrow, but I did witness him sigh and say “same” when he knocked his cup of coffee over while on monitor duty once. No matter how badly his darling children call him out, the Justice League would be so much worse. So, it’s one of his most importantly guarded secrets... even more so than his secret identity at this point. Being unmasked in front of every Gotham rogue would be less detrimental to him than his “friends” learning of his utter ineptitude in staying on top of the younger generations’ lingo.

When questioned why the League doesn’t have a group chat or a forum or anything that they can use to contact each other outside of world ending matters and communicator (”because we’re friends, Batman! Ma and Pa Kent would love to have everyone over for a barbecue!”), the person who dared even mention texting isn’t even given a verbal response. They are just glared at, silently, often for several uninterrupted minutes, frozen in place only able to breathe shallowly in fear of setting off the Bat. “You know why” his glare says, “I’ll eat you, your family, and everything you have ever held dear” the younger members hear. No one makes the mistake of asking about it twice.

Outside of his children and Alfred, and his small circle of true friends involved in all aspects of his life, there is only one more person Bruce allows to know of his Darkest Secret. Selina. Someone most people would recommend he not be involved with. Catwoman: accomplished thief, distraction, chaos-incarnate most nights, and his significant other. Sharp as a whip (ha) and crafty like no one’s business; he is head-over-heels. On again/Off again and all over the place their long romance has been, but no one has ever challenged him, intrigued him, like this clever, beautiful, amazing woman has. He’s brought his partners around his children before, both for their judgement, and for their worst behaviours to vet out any “unworthy” suitors. He trusts them explicitly to tell him the truth about those he allows into the manor; were they rude about Bruce wanting to have group outings, did they say something about Bruce’s money, did they get angry or shout or make anyone uncomfortable while they were here? If his children even looked slightly unhappy with someone he brought them to meet, that person would not be invited back. Children, he finds, have the best sight when meeting people; no motives other than finding safety and love, no fear of consequences from speaking honestly...

Selina, or Catwoman, as they had known her first, was someone all of his kids liked without issue right off the bat. She would make puns and play word games with Richard, his first Robin, tiny, still working on his English, able to connect with him over their acrobatic abilities. His second Robin, Jason, skittish and feisty as an alley cat, knew of Catwoman and her daring escapades long before Bruce found him. The young boy had a few heroes, and no one (not even Wonder Woman) could compare to the incredible burglar who bought food and jackets and medicine for the street kids in Crime Alley. She was saintly in his eyes, and to this day, Bruce was still working on convincing Jason he was good enough for Selina. Tim and Cass and Stephanie (basically another daughter to Bruce, she spends so much time with the family) all joined the Wayne clan around the same time and officially met Selina as a friend and partner of his, and in the good graces of his first two sons. Selina, in all her nightly business, and many travels and acquaintances, had met the three independently, helping Tim get home safely back to Drake Manor when he escaped to photograph Batman and Robin in the dank darkness of Gotham when he was just a young boy, spending some time with Cassandra when her despicable father left her alone long enough to recover from his rough treatment, showing her the first scraps of kindness in her short life, and watching over and protecting Stephanie as she followed and sabotaged her father Cluemaster and his criminal activities. There was no need to win them over once they met her civilian identity, she had already gained their favour and acceptance, and they were happy to have her near their new family. Damian, his youngest, his biological son, took the longest to warm up to Selina. He would never fault his little boy for fighting so hard against a woman that was not his birth mother, especially after all the manipulation and cruelty dealt to him by Talia for the first decade of his life. But as he began to learn about his father, these people in his father’s life, and this woman that was Not His Mother but “still okay, I guess”, he grew to see her as acceptable. Her cats definitely helped, he’d say, no one with cats that loyal and happy can be a bad person.

Selina, the love of his life, he’d admit quietly to himself, was also a dirty traitor and in cahoots with his terrible children. She would say his texting skills were “sweet” and “very gentlemanly” when she was asked by anyone outside the family, and privately to him she would say she thought they were “adorable” and “please don’t ever change, Bruce, I like it.” However, nothing seemed to bring her more joy than his children sending her texts and “Snaps” and “memes” about him to her. Sometimes it was screenshots of the family group chat that they forced him to join, where he would post “To whom it may concern...” and “In regards to...” when he needed to reach all his delinquents in a timely manner. Sometimes it was video clips of him staring at his phone intently, then typing something on his laptop, then him reading and nodding along, and then finally going back and responding to the text he received with a small, pleased smile. And sometimes, when he got too injured or was too incapacitated to text coherently, he’d have his nearest able child transcribe his text to her. Depending on who was texting her for Bruce, she could expect many different things. From Dick, she’d get lots of shorthand and silly emojis, and many, many, winky and crying/laughing faces in brackets depending on what Bruce had made him type. Jason, bless him, used proper English most of the time, but would never write a single word of Bruce’s soliloquy to her, instead she enjoyed the TL;DR version: “hurt again, missing you, come home soon, blah blah blah, sappy gross words here, love you”. Tim would allow speech recognition to run on Bruce’s phone, and just let it go until the man passed out. Stephanie, the little chaos child, would film it and send it to her, including all her muffled laughter and shaky camera shots of Bruce emoting with his available undamaged limbs. Cass, still more versed in physicality and emotive movement, would interpret Bruce’s text into mostly emojis, hearts and happy faces and animals, but would include photos, and phrases that she found important enough to type out for Selina. Damian, forever his Father’s son in any way possible, texts very formally, referring to her or his siblings Bruce mentions by last name only, and lots of “Father requests me to tell you...” and “Kyle, know that Father...”. She adores these kids, and once Bruce recovers enough to text her himself, or she gets back to the Manor, they get to laugh about whatever she was sent this time.

So, while it’s true that Bruce couldn’t text his way out of a wet paper bag, and his kids are sometimes brats about it, there’s probably a lot of different reasons he doesn’t spend too much time trying to improve his skills. Whether it’s the smiles of his children, the giggles of his significant other, or the warm feeling in his chest when he sees all his important people bonding over him, well, in the end, who’s to say?

#batman #batfam #bruce/selina #batcat #bruce wayne #selina kyle #bruce x selina

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rakuyokoyo · 3 years

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APWTCB: I hope BNHA goes to America!

Hello! Quick updates, some Koyo Predicts with some APWTCB notes, and RD chapter 14 snippets!

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Romance Dawn (a One Piece Story) chapter 14 is finally in the editing phase. It’s the last chapter of the arc and the future of RD seems very unclear, hence the long writing time. I plotted 130 chapters back in 2016, but now it looks like there needs to be another revamp as my standards have changed. Sigh.

I’m not rewriting anything, but I think some of the story for future arcs post-Amare needs serious attention. What I decide to do next will change the ending of chapter 14, so I’m sorry for the long wait!

APWTCB (a BNHA story) are the acronyms for TBE’s new title! There were three major reasons as to why I never published APWTCB: (1), there are twelve OC families, but I wasn’t sure how to write eleven of them (lol), (2) I’ve become increasingly anal about chapter titles, and of course, chapter 1′s title was the hardest to choose, and (3), I wasn’t happy with the original name for this story because it didn’t hit hard enough for all the love and labour I’d put in.

Surprisingly, I was able to solve these issues last week! I still don’t think chapter 1 will be out anytime soon, but the chapter title has changed from TBE to APWTCB. Yes it’s long, yes it’s ugly, but I think it suits the story much better. TBE Notes and #tbenotes will both be altered to APWTCB Notes/#APWTCBnotes from now on.

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Koyo Predicts/APWTCB Notes:

So, the end of an arc. Chapter 253 and the start of the Paranormal Liberation War Arc began on December 9th, 2019, and is (likely) on its last legs, over a year later.

I wrote a few predictions (here) last year and they went pretty well, with the big wringer being able to guess Bakugo’s hero name. I don’t make predictions to gloat or even start a conversation, but fanfiction writing requires you to assume certain things will happen, especially if you’re writing an OC.

I’d call these less predictions, and more of ‘this is what I’m assuming is going to happen, so I’ll write accordingly’.

The way that this arc ends doesn’t exactly matter—Twitter seems to think Deku will have his own mini-arc with the vestiges. Sure.

There may be a 1-A or 1-B student who dies or leaves (after being revealed to be the traitor), and Shinso Hitoshi will fill the seat.

I also think BNHA might end—at least the Hero Academia side of it. They might focus more on pt. 2 with Movie 3 and the ‘WHA’ badges the Origin Trio had on their arms and go global. (World Hero Association?) Maybe a timeskip as well.

I’d personally love it if the cast goes abroad. This is a bit of spoilers, but Kana was raised in France/United States (California), so it’d be nice to not have to bring everyone to Japan. From the twelve families that I mentioned earlier, many of them still live in L.A and have hero names that are created from compounded words: Warmachine, Foxnine, Stormchaser, Braveheart, Heartmender, Oathkeeper, Lovelace, and Overdrive are the major ones for now.

The direction of BNHA has been... odd with the start of Season 4/Shie Hassaikai arc, and APWTCB has been especially hard to write because I’m never sure how dark BNHA will turn, or what Horikoshi’s end goal is. Regardless, Kana’s story continues to be written and Scrivener tells me I’ve hit 200k words yesterday! It’s looking to be extremely dark which was the opposite of what I wanted, but it’s also a story about hope, and I want to do it justice.

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Romance Dawn chapter 14 snippet: sorry for the wait!

She tried over and over again.

Most of her nights on Root Island had been dreamless and uneventful—no memories of the past and certainly no predictions of the future. Always dark, dark, and alone, helping her rest well for the next uneventful day.

But now there was someone she specifically wanted to meet, and yet she was never there.

What do I have to do? She found herself asking daily. How can I see you again, Amare?

The answers were disappointing.

One thing that’d changed from her time on Root Island, however, was that she did dream—quite frequently, in fact. Instead of the vast expanse of familiar darkness, she found herself time to time on a cliffside that poked out from a seemingly infinite forest. Next to her was a massive waterfall, the waves crashing down onto a pretty pond below her. Connecting the cliff to the other side, however, was a red, arched bridge with a pale, wooden flooring. The other side didn’t look too interesting—just another forest—but something inside of her always hesitated when she thought about crossing. The shide streamers tied onto the side of the traditional bridge swayed gently with the soft tickle of wind, tugging on her hazel hair.

Something about the scenery made her heart hurt. A weight that made her uncomfortable, but not painful enough to cry out. On some of the rougher nights she felt that the weight was replaced with a hole—as if someone had carved out a part of her heart and was forcing her to live like a fish on dry land.

She also knew that the days on the Moby Dick had gone by disturbingly fast, to the point where everything became blurry and melded into a giant mush of colours. The funeral proceedings for Carlos’ platoon and Amare had gone by without a hitch but she could barely recall any of the details. There were no more tears left to cry. No more strength left to fight.

“What’s the point of a funeral with an empty casket?” She’d asked her captain when they stopped by a nearby island. “That little girl is out there somewhere, so far away from home. Can’t you at least bring her body back with your influence?”

The captain gave her a careful glance. “I’ve contacted Sengoku, but…”

“But what?”

Falco shook her head quickly. Many of her crewmates had come to her, offering condolences and words of hope and strength in an attempt to lessen her grief, and Falco realized for the first time how many people truly seemed to care for her. Florence always made sure to pop between her rounds, checking up on her before scurrying away to tend to another injury. Thatch and Marco treated her like nothing happened, trying to lift her spirits with their usual jokes and antics. People she’d never even talked to asked if she was all right, if she needed anything or if there was anything they could to ease the burden a bit. She appreciated the help, honestly, but there actually wasn’t much in her head. There’d been no tears after they’d returned. No pain.

Nothing.

One thing she had noticed though was the dormant memory problem—like her brain was lacking storage and the only thing that it could do was to either throw out the oldest memories or the most painful ones. Root Island was all but a distant past now, and the only thing she could remember was the very first time she’d met her two best friends—a man brighter than the sun and a little girl who always seemed to know her better than she did herself.

Although Falco knew she couldn’t exactly control who she wanted to remember and what she wanted to let go, the possibility that she could forget everything that hurt her one day felt comforting, in a way.

Amare.

Fingers curled up to a tight fist as her heart felt the resolve that she so desperately needed.

I have to leave, she told herself, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks. Leave, and never look back. Think of this as a happy dream with a tragic ending.

But to forget hurt would mean forgetting Love. And yet, remembering Amare would mean reliving that nightmare over and over again. The sound of Ace’s heart shattering into a million pieces. Her screams and cries that refused to bring a little girl back to life. The desperate shouting of everyone around her, trying to get her to wake up. A flatline.

The rose pendant felt heavy around her neck.

#RDnotes #APWTCBnotes #KoyoPredicts #one piece #bnha #mha #deku #bakugo #bakugou #boku no hero academia #my hero academia

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docmurph12 · 4 years

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Ok review time. And remember, there is no war in Ba Sing Se.

My next request comes from my very good friend. The last time he and I sat down and tried to watch this was after we cleared through every episode of the animated series this movie was based on. We didnt get through ten minutes. So this was a fun, frustrating challenge. For those noticing, yes this is a retroactive review, instead of a "live" one. Reason for this is that as a fan it would be really difficult to be as objective as possible (given I already know this thing to be really bad) if I was distracted.

So what I know going in is that Shyamalan had a couple big flops and that he picked out this series to be his resurrection, thinking going the large scale epic route would be beneficial to his career. What happened was a ruthlessly infamous flop that resulted in nearly 6 years of silence, jokes, and memes prior to "Split" bringing Shyamalan back to relevance again.

First of all, this film could literally have been directed by anyone. Looking back at my review for Aladdin, I recall saying that I was shocked to find out it was directed by Guy Richey, because all of his hallmark signatures were missing. Same story here; The Last Airbender feels like a basic level cookie cutter epic filmmaking school project. Everything that makes a Shyamalan film is gone, which is crazy because the levity that makes ATLA (the acronym I'll use for the show going forward) is gone too. I have always said that as a director your job is to take what is written (which in this case was written by Shyamalan as well) and use your style to create a visual aspect that compliments the story told by the dialogue and events. Think of this writer/director relationship like one in comics between the writer and the artist. The artist is selected because stylistically he matches what is needed for the story. Great example of a good match is Sin City (picked because of loudness of its specific style). That story doesnt get told the same way or with the same impact with different color palettes, camera work, or actor direction. The Last Airbender is missing everything that gives a person a reason to select a specific director, especially one known for work in small scale supernatural thrillers.

The writing is.....super bad. There are a couple simple tools I like to use to identify if a film has scripting issues as opposed to anything else. First, is the dialogue done in a way that feels contextually natural? Do real people talk this way or is it written like shlockey, overly dramatic stage dialogue (think the Star Wars prequel trilogy)? Second, how easy is the story to follow? Are there gaping plot holes? Is it subtle with a good surprise? Does it hit you in the face with a story shovel with a handle made of heavy handed expositional dialogue?

Lastly, how hard are the actors trying to act around your script? Is it a good film where great performances outweigh poor to middling dialogue (Batman V Superman), or is it Bloodrayne? I've said enough on that, you get the point. That said, I am not sure the actors could have been saved by a better script. The cast was very poorly selected. Insensitive at worst (though I genuinely think the brown dude that insisted on the specific and coincidentally white folk he picked probably DIDN'T have a whitewashing agenda given what he said prior to release), out of touch with the source material at best, picking the virtual unknowns that he did really didnt pan out for him. The kid cast as Aang (pronounced AAng, goddamnit, not ONG, more on that later) got the role because he looks like the character, kind of, and only had a week of acting school worth of experience prior to filming the movie. Let's just say it definitely showed.

I am not sure TOTALLY crucifying the cast is entirely fair, so let's move the witch hunt to almost everything else. There is some good though, I promise so hang in there.

I really hope the editor got sent back to school. The purpose of editing is to make a cut that not only maintains but heightens interest in what you are watching. Cutting the fat in order to get to the point while not giving the movie away. Sometimes that means giving more than a 90 minute cut (which Shyamalan has taken at least partial responsibility for in this case) in order to preserve the story. There are scenes where the continuity from one cut to the next doesnt match up. Like consecutive cuts in one scene with massive distances traveled between cuts and even in at least one case a partial or complete costume change. It's extremely jarring. Something else about cuts--generally you cut to another angle or scene because the film requires you to in order to display more information that you wouldn't get in one single long cut. Usually a film has choppy cuts in it because the scene requires an character to do something the actor can't, or because the director or editor are bad at their job. The story, or sometimes in lucky cases just one scene, suffers as a result of bad or needless cuts. This is the case here. The strange thing is there are truly WONDERFUL long cuts of fight scenes that really suck you in, but the wierd juxtaposition between great non-editing and strange and bad editing really kicks you in the head. Enough on that. On to the next.

I did NOT see this movie in 3d. I understand that the conversion was really bad, but that said what I CAN speak to is the VFX. This film, with the exception of the lighting, was pretty well put together in terms of effects. There were really only a couple issues that were glaring in terms of VFX, but by and large it wasnt awful. There are definitely newer films that look worse. In standard. I dont know about 3d.

I think the thing that makes this film more frustrating than anything is that there are things about this movie I love. They are few and far between, but I really do love them. The intro was a really neat callback to the series intro to each episode. Then the movie happens. Then, the flying bison appears!! Then more movie. Then, a scene where Aang (not Awng) uses the glider in his staff. Then more movie. Then, all the practical martial arts, then, yet more movie. It's like this the entire way. Best comparison here? Green Lantern. It's like the Shyamalan said, "Hey, I like this and need a career boost.", then proceeded to cherry pick things from a beloved series and then ham and egged a movie with a confusing plot that absolutely requires you to be super familiar with the source material. There are a lot of assumptions made by characters in the movie that made sense given background provided by the show, but make absolutely none if you are going in blind. "Those are air bending tattoos, and I think he might be the avatar, despite he fact that I havent seen him bend anything and airbenders havent even been seen in over 100 years! Before my time!" Fucking come on. Throw the newcomers here a bone man.

The long story short here is I guess in spite of the casting decisions, editing, and direction, a good script could have made at least a fun movie. This movie should not have made it past script in the form we all saw it though, and it makes one wonder how much pressure was on everyone involved (almost all of it internally applied, Shyamalan did this project almost entirely on his own volition and cast a bunch of almost unknowns with the exception of maybe Cliff Curtis, so of course they said yes) to join in and take part in this without asking questions. Its upsetting to know the original showrunners were as ostracized as they were on this thing.

I dont see myself going back. Yes there were things that made me smile a little, but the film as a whole is so overwhelmingly bad in the face of those things it is just not worth it. I AM however going to go and rewatch the series with my wife and the kids for their first time, and maybe as a result of having to sit through this war crime of a film adaptation.

Final Verdict? I give it a D-. Purely out of respect for the very small handful of things I did appreciate. Next up?? The Lobster. Really looking forward to that one.

#the last airbender #atla #avatar the last airbender #movies #review #film #filmmaking

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unplacedpodcast · 6 years

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Chapter Five: Miscue (Script)

Script below! Spoilers, obvs.

Every time I think that this can’t get any weirder or more confusing, it does. It’s like puberty, except without having to figure out bras.

(sighs)

Okay, let’s recap:

A month or two ago, I woke up to find out that nobody can see, hear, or feel me. There’s some kind of distortion field that just completely masks me (and everything I do).

Wackiness ensues, including finding out I can’t reach out to anyone I know and everyone I know seems to have forgotten entirely about me. Including Facebook, somehow.

I’m living out of hotels while trying to figure out what’s going on. Free housecleaning is pretty much the biggest upside of this whole mess.

A few weeks ago, I saw a horrifying giant leech-thing…eating a guy’s brain? I’m not entirely sure what it was doing. But, with the great luck that I have, the giant leech can see me when my own damn mother can’t.

I tried to figure out more about what the hell that thing was. During my little mini-stakeout, I saw another one, followed the host lady into a psychic shop, where the seemingly-scammer psychic gave the lady with the freeloading brain-gobbler a necklace that hurt it somehow.

Turns out the scammer might not have been as full of it as I thought, because she could somehow sense me. She couldn’t see or hear me, but she still knew I was there, and proceeded to get real cranky about it. So I headed out to find her customer and learn more about why this necklace was hurting the leech.

But I couldn’t find the woman again, and when I went back to the shop, the psychic was gone, the shop was closed. And…here we are.

Anyways. I tried to find the psychic, and I can’t. She seems to be just - in the wind. I’ve been all over the city and I haven’t seen her. I even went to some other psychics to see if I could get a repeat experience, but no such luck. Nobody else can tell I’m there. I have seen more of the leeches, though.

I did notice something new while I was trying to find the psychic. You know those symbols you see painted on buildings and signs sometimes, or scratched into the paint on walls? The ones that supposedly mean “safe to sleep here,” or whatever. I’ve been seeing more of them, or something like them - they were everywhere when I went looking for the the mystery psychic.

It’s weird, actually, because they look really old, but they aren’t. There’s an alley between a convenience store and a nail salon that I walked down a few days ago, but when I went back yesterday, there were new marks. One of them was at least two feet by three feet - there was no way I could have missed it before. The problem is, this thing was aged - it had been painted on, but bits of brick were showing through the paint by now, and there was dirt and lichen over some of it.

I guess I can add that to the list of “Things I Have No Earthly Clue About,” which is several items long at this point. I’m not sure if it should also go in the evidence pile for “I’m hallucinating all of this.”

During all of this wandering around, I also hit up the library to see if I could learn more about hematite and why it affected the leech. There wasn’t a whole lot of useful information - hematite is iron ore, it leaves blood-red streaks when scratched on slate, it was used for pigment because of that, it’s magnetic.

But then I was like, wait a minute. I’m in the geology section, which makes sense for learning about stones, but I’m also dealing with some truly unexplainable phenomena here, and so far the only person who I’ve seen who can deal with these things in any way was a self-proclaimed psychic.

So I went over to the section of the library that deals with ESP and UFOs and other useless three-letter-acronyms. I spent the next hour learning everything there is to know about Russian experiments during the Cold War and indigo children, but fuck-all about why hematite would bother invisible brain leeches.

All in all, the library was kind of a bust. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but I definitely thought it’d be more useful than that.

The hematite did hurt the leech, though, even if it was only injured. And that was with a small necklace - I’m wondering what would happen if there was more of the hematite…

You know how you can cut butter with a thread, or with wire? Or cake - my grandma used to always do that to make sure the lines were straight…no imperfect pieces.

That’s kind of what it looked like when the woman put the necklace on. There was this thin little slice through the leech, and it recoiled. I don’t know if it was enough to cause permanent damage, since I lost her and couldn’t keep watching, but it definitely did some kind of damage. I bet if you had a lot more hematite it would do a lot more damage.

Given that semi-reasonable conclusion, after I left the library, I hit up one of those new-agey stone shops and grabbed a few strings of hematite. It took a little fiddling and some wires, but I now have…sort of a hematite half glove?

My hand is covered in strings of hematite beads, except for the fingers, and they’re all held in place with a few tiny wires tying them to hematite rings that I have on each finger. Basically, it’s like brass knuckles and a fingerless glove had a mutated magnetic baby. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but we’ll see if it gets the job done.

Which, of course, brings us to the fact that all of this storytelling is meant to help me get up the courage to test it. I guess now that you’re all up to speed, I can’t put it off any more. (sighs)

I’ll head out to my reliable ol’ hunting grounds (by which I mean, the most crowded sidewalk I can find) and I’ll let you know when I’m there.

(ding of audio recording stopping & then starting again, when it starts up again there’s background noise like a busy city sidewalk)

NARRATOR: Okay. Here we are. It’s really busy - I caught the lunch rush. I’m standing on some stairs to get a good view of all the people walking by. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I find someone - ahhh. Yep. I think this might actually be the guy I saw with that first leech encounter. James and the Giant Leech over here. I can’t believe it took me that long to make that joke…

Anyways, I’ve got some headphones in and I’m gonna stick you in a pocket but keep recording. Evidence for posterity and all that.

(muffled movement of phone being put in pocket and her running down some stairs)

I’m coming up behind him, do I…should I try to grab it or punch it first? Punch first, right? My whole goal is to do damage… (a few deep breaths) ahhhh!

(sound of running, sound of a wet “smack,” then the “AHHH” yell turns into a scream, there’s noise like the phone or mic has been dropped/she’s fallen onto the ground, we hear her breathing slowly/heavily and fade out on the sound of that mixing with the background noise of people on the street)

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zanderism · 7 years

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Usually I don’t post about my transition or anything unless it’s an important occasion, so here goes. Bear with me.

TL;DR– My gender therapist appointment is tomorrow. Yikes.

I’ve been out of the closet and I’ve been very active in the LGBT+ community since the seventh grade, but as a transgender man, I’ve only been out for two years (July 2015). This is such a nerve-wracking time in my life. I hope I can properly put it into words in a way that makes sense. I didn’t think I’d be here, in the early hours of the day, writing about just how gay I am. We all do things on a whim sometimes. That being said, here’s a huge, gay timeline of how I came out.

If you had asked me years ago if I could ever see myself in the position I’m in currently, I’d have told you no. Let me describe my life during my childhood, and the drastic change in morality, mentality, and maturity. Years before I began my transition to male, I had no idea what the term “transgender” was, or what it meant. This was around 6th grade, when a new chapter of my life had already began and I started making new friends (nearly all of which I still are very close to) and began learning things on my own.

Please note– when I entered middle school, I was very uneducated, and socially inept; I was an insensitive child to others who were not like me. I was a hard-headed Christian girl– I’d even go as far as to say the homophobic type. Needless to say, my mother was the same way. I learned directly and religiously from her, and if God didn’t approve, that’s how it had to be. I used to be a very, very shitty person. I threw around slurs that didn’t belong to me, and forced an ideology on other children and people who didn’t deserve it. I used to be on the same spectrum I despise today. While it is something I cannot take back, it is something I do think about a lot as a man who has faced persecution for things I cannot control, and has allowed me to see things from a perspective that showed me that what I did and how I acted was very, very wrong, and to put it bluntly, ignorant. I wish I could go back in time and apologize to those people I wronged, and show them I’ve educated myself since.

Around this time of being right with Jesus, even if I was doing it wrong, I met a girl– we’ll call her B, as to keep her involved but indirectly. She was Christian like me, and we found solace in our way of relating through worship. We’d spend the night at each other’s houses and relish in the company. Her father helped me learn to play drums; if it hadn’t been for him I would probably not have ever gotten started in music. Her brother and I often traded Pokemon cards, and played together. She and I were inseparable. At the same time, I met another girl– if you’re a long-time viewer of this half-dead blog, you can probably remember her (She’ll be C). She and I also became very close, and we still are to this day. She helped me view the world in a much different perspective, and helped me become a lot more open-minded, considerate, and mindful. She was probably one of the greatest people who could have ever came into my life at the time. From there I began learning things like what the LGBT+ acronym stood for, and what the letters meant, and what life was like for people in the community. It was a very interesting experience and a very eye-opening time of my life for me. Later on down the road, I began feeling very, very confused, and became very conflicted with the way I felt about her. I caught feelings for her, and that statement itself took eons for me to accept about myself. It kept me up at night, and it made me question if this was okay or not– in my home life, in my religion, and in my head.

I finally took the courage to tell my friend(s) the truth in hopes of finding reassurance and affirmation. I told C first; bluntly and openly. I remember the surroundings– It was in the office at our middle school during lunch time. “I think I’m bisexual.” She simply looked at me, smiled at me, and gave me a hug, and was on her merry way back to class. The first sign of acceptance from ANYONE close to me was from her, and I’ll never forget that moment of my life.

The next step was telling B– the truly scary part. I knew how she felt about gay people, let alone bisexual people. When I told her I was bisexual she was very confused. She didn’t think there were some “middle ground”, or that one could feel attraction to both men and women. Later on in our friendship she claimed I wasn’t really bisexual, and that I only did it for attention because “everyone else was doing it”. I was hurt by this, even more so because I knew what drove her to say that– her devotion to the scripture. I realize that the Bible says literally nothing about LGBT+ people in it now, but back then I was horrified. All the fellow Christian people I became close to felt the same way. It really made me think, “Wow. Do I really sound like this? Is this how I treat people?” I could only imagine how my mother and father would react when they found out I felt attraction to another girl, let alone my little sister. I had never felt so alone in my life.

I met other girls who were openly bisexual later on, many of which expressed their attraction to me. I remember being mid-conversation with B, and one of my older friends who felt comfortable being openly LGBT+ walked by me, said hello, and in front of God and everyone in that room with us, kissed me on the mouth. I didn’t express that I wanted her to, or ever show interest in her the way she showed interest in me; she simply just kissed me and walked away like it was nothing. I didn’t mind it, but I didn’t expect it.

B simply grimaced and walked away. Eventually, she stopped being my friend. I later found out it was because I was bi.

That was the line for me. That was the point in my life when I told myself, “Something has to give. Something has to change.” I had to do better, not just for myself, but for my friends and the people who loved me. I openly expressed my feelings for C often, humorously to no avail (which was definitely for the best. It would have been weird.). This “crush” ended after five years. I was okay with seeing other men, and being honest about what happened and being honest about my sexuality. After all the “that’s kinda hot” replies and “threesome?” jokes– and to my own amazement, actual offers– I eventually stopped feeling sorry about being myself. I was out to my friends, my boyfriends, and later on, girlfriends; I was content in myself enough to trust others with my sexuality.

My boyfriend at the time (who currently deeply resents me, one of the reasons being that I began my transition (I don’t feel any sympathy)) and I were talking about my identity and my (at the time) feelings for my friend. He felt like we were at a crossroads, and that it was one or the other. This wasn’t a face-to-face conversation, it was over Messenger. My entire family was home and in the room with me– which I didn’t mind, because they’re my family, and even if I was still closeted I wasn’t suspicious that they knew. My sister had her friend over as well; she was spending the night. Little did I know, my mother had peered over my shoulder, and was reading my messages. She walked in front of me to tell me goodnight, and she bent over and pretended to kiss me goodnight while looking at my screen. I jerked my iPad back, and she jerked it out of my hands. She then looked up at me with a disdain I’ve never seen in her before, and she questioned when I was going to tell her. I immediately broke down and told her the truth. “I’m tired of hiding who I am,” I cried. “I’m bisexual, Mom. I like girls and boys. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was scared.” I felt like a killer giving a testimony to a jury that had plenty of evidence to consider me a guilty man (girl?). My dad turned around in his computer chair and watched my mom’s reaction. He said, “I don’t think this is an appropriate time to talk about this.” She shook her head and said, “We will discuss this tomorrow.” With that, she gave me my iPad back, and went to bed. I cried in front of everyone in that room for God knows how long. My sister and her friend later on confided in me that they didn’t feel any different about me, and in fact had respect for me for having the courage to be myself. As reassuring as their message was, I couldn’t help but feel sick to my stomach—my mother forced me to come out in front of everybody in the house.

I dreaded going to sleep that night. I didn’t want to get up and face the next day. I was absolutely petrified of what my mom was going to say, or do.

She pulled me into her room. We sat down on her bed. She was so, so angry at me. She told me she didn’t understand it. She told me that Jesus didn’t permit this sort of “behavior”. She said she was disappointed in me, and she really was, for a really long time. She said she loved me, but couldn’t support my “decision”. In other words, “love the sinner, but hate the sin”. I wondered for a long time why that was, and I always figured it was because of religion. In truth, we have a lot of LGBT folks in our family, particularly women. Her sister was a lesbian, and I found out later on that my Nana (her mom; bless her soul) fell out with her over the same thing. I have several gay cousins, and my other cousin’s wife is bisexual. There were so many of us in her life already; it made me wonder how much prejudice could come from someone who had others like me in her life already. I thought about how she may have felt towards them, and how I would have been any different.

It was like this for years. This homophobia from my mom chased me from one house to the next. When my parents finally separated, my mom moved to her own house, and my dad eventually shared a trailer with a very charitable man (who, in turn, happened to be gay too. May irony never escape us.), and he did work for his trailer when he needed it in exchange for extra money. My mawmaw had to come live with us for a while as well, and she’s always accepted me since day one. My sister began to pick up on the things my mom would say and how she would treat me differently. My mother and I fought very, very often about the same exact things—me being bisexual, the differences between my sister and I, and religion. She would hardly ever let my girl friends (note: not significant others) come over to spend the night. She called me out whenever I called a girl attractive or expressed an attraction to another girl. I remember being so depressed over this I couldn’t get out of bed, and wouldn’t see my family and friends for days at a time unless it was my sister and my mom coming upstairs to prepare for bed. I remember telling my mom how I felt about the way she treated me, crying in bed with her sitting on the opposite side. Believe me, I’ve heard just about every trope in the world from not only her, but lots of other people, ranging from “You’re going to hell” to “You just haven’t found the right man yet”, but the worst possible one I ever heard came directly from my mother: “Maybe God will change you, in time.”

I wish I could properly detail my mother’s shitty tendencies during that time. It was an awful time for all of us. I was brainwashed into thinking I hated my father, when I had just been playing into what my mother would tell me. It was absolutely sickening. It took me literal months to realize that my dad had been supporting me all this time. He had never once shown any sort of prejudice against me for being who I am, and he held my hand whenever my mom berated me, even if I didn’t want him to. I told myself he wasn’t good, and that he was doing it to win me over, but his heart was genuine and I hate that it took me so long to welcome him back into my life. I found myself constantly coming to him about the things my mother would say, or act, or do; I began to trust him all over again. Through him I learned more about accepting myself, and taking care of myself, even when it was hard to tune out my mother.

My mental health was at its worst state it’s ever been in. I had no energy, I couldn’t sleep at night, my grades dropped, and I was constantly depressed and anxious. At the time, my mother’s homophobia was just the tip of the iceberg of what was happening in my life, so I don’t necessarily blame my mother’s ignorance solely for how I felt. It was just a role in how I felt; a factor in my life alongside the bigger picture of what was happening. Eventually, I moved out because I got sick of her attitude, and her abusive nature towards me just because I happened to be bisexual. I confessed to my mom and dad both that my mental health had been lacking and I felt miserable because of the situation at hand as well as my mom’s homophobia, and my dad helped me pack and move that night.

After I moved out, I started being more positive and feeling a lot better than I ever did before—I was sleeping and eating better, I didn’t stay in bed for days at a time, I felt much more confident than I did before, and I was free to express myself any way I wanted to without persecution on a day to day basis. My father allowed me to be my own person again. He was always there for me, and he still is today, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for him and his continuous love and support.

I never did have a girlfriend in middle school because I was way too scared to express that openly, but it wasn’t until high school that I began experimenting. My first girlfriend was quite the experience—she was much taller than me, much prettier than I was, and had long blonde hair. She had texted me out of the blue telling me how beautiful she thought I was, and she expressed her interest in me. We began flirting, and we eventually started dating. We were together for four months, and she eventually grew tired of me and left me for one of my friends. It hurt like crazy—I had never felt as strongly for any man as I did for her. I had never trusted a person the way I trusted her. I let her see the side of me I couldn’t show anybody else. I felt I could relate to her the most, as she came from a very religious family that condemned LGBT+ people, too. It got to the point where her mother actually hated me, but that’s beside the point.

It was after her that I began to really sit down and evaluate myself and how I could have done things differently—and what differentiated the way I felt for her and the way I felt for other men. I didn’t understand why I felt stronger for women than I did for men. Did I develop a preference? Maybe it was because I had JUST gotten out of a relationship with my first girlfriend that had me feeling the way I did, but from that point on I knew in my gut I was gay somehow. I had only dated men in the past, and I felt like it made my identity invalid because I had never experienced a relationship with a member of the same gender; I came to find out that wasn’t the truth at all, and that my experiences as a bi girl with more men than women in her past were just as valid as if it were the other way around. Eventually I would come out as a lesbian after being with other girls, and finding myself to be more comfortable around them than men, even if I found them attractive. I connected with other LGBT+ boys and girls in my school, and it became a very supportive and accepting environment aside from the occasional straight boy throwing slurs at me or harassing me—even then, I had an outpouring of support from my friends, the LGBT+ community in my school, and my family.

It was also after her that I began to reevaluate my relationship with Christianity. I didn’t feel comfortable labeling myself as a Christian after the whole she-bang with my homophobic mother who used our religion to bash me into hating myself. I stopped calling myself a Christian, and I had stopped praying long before this. On my own time I became an atheist, out of comfort for me. I don’t believe in God, but I’m not the one to bash people for being Christian, or shove that belief in anyone’s faces. I have in the past, and regret doing so; I was so resentful that my mother did this that I made no difference between her and every Christian person I met, and I hate that I was so confrontational and reactionary then. I have many regrets in this life, and this is probably one of the biggest ones.

Throughout school, I learned so much about how wondrous the LGBT+ community was for me, and how it treated me so kindly and warmly. It was very reaffirming and to a huge extent, welcoming. I learned about other identities like pansexuality, demisexuality, and asexuality, and so many more. During this time I joined an app called Vent and learned about nonbinary identities— gender identities that aren’t strictly male or female. Here is where I met and dated a nonbinary person despite identifying as a lesbian. This raised a huge red flag: lesbians dated women, and my partner did not identify as female, but presented female. What did this mean if I felt comfortable dating people outside the gender binary, AND women? I concluded I was pansexual at this point (if I had a dollar for every time I either debated changing my sexuality, or changed my sexuality as a whole throughout this timeline, I’d be a billionaire.) not only out of respect for my partner but as it was a more fitting label for me. I was hesitant on being with men, and I still am to this day if they aren’t like me, but was comfortable enough in my identity to know I still found men attractive.

As aforementioned, I joined Vent as a way to express myself without anyone in my life finding out (update: they did anyway). I met lots of amazing people there and I still use the app on a semi-regular basis. I brought this back up to mention someone very important in my life—we’ll call her R. She’s genderfluid, and she doesn’t live in my state. She and I have known each other for two years, and she’s currently my closest friend. We dated for seven months and despite the distance we’ve still made time for each other; she helped me through some of the biggest moments in my life. Not all, but some of the biggest defining moments. She knew me before I began transitioning, and she helped me and supported me through and through (C did as well, and I’ve known C much longer, but despite us being as close as we are, we don’t talk or see each other as often as we used to. C and R are two of the best people I’ve ever met). She’s funny, and very cute, and super radical. She’s wonderful company and I brag about her to just about anybody I come across.

I remember going back to my mom’s after the horror show she put me through. I was borderline ready to disown her and keep her out of my life entirely. I was very, very avoidant and skittish; my mother made me extremely nervous. When I was finally comfortable around my mother again, I began making sense of what happened and why, and where it resonated from. What I didn’t expect was my mother pulling my sister and me into the kitchen, sitting us down, and giving us a thorough talk. I felt like I had been played, and I felt like she was mocking me. She admitted her attraction to another woman, and that was her way of apologizing to me for the way she treated me. I was flabbergasted, and not in a positive way. I was angry, and so, so confused (if I could choose a default feeling when describing how I felt about my mom it would be confused). I felt like she was downplaying the entire situation and belittling me. She HAD to have been joking; I was in denial for a very long time. Her and her girlfriend got engaged yesterday. I didn’t forgive her for what felt like eons. If I think about it hard enough, it was a half-assed apology, and I sometimes still get angry over it.

I was living with my dad at the time I began addressing my gender. I remember being on Facebook and watching this video of women becoming drag kings, and people expressing their pride in their own identities. I have this hat my cousin gave me, and I had it on my computer desk at the time. I remember slipping it on and folding my hair up into it, and taking my glasses off. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary; my long hair was already annoying as is, so it was nice to get it out of the way anyway. I looked much more masculine without my long hair, and I felt more comfortable looking masculine but didn’t think of it as anything more than a superstition. It wasn’t long till I decided to cut off all my hair, and I haven’t regretted it since. My dad cried when I cut my hair off; he couldn’t stand to watch it happen. It hurt me that I made him cry, but it was so liberating to literally have all that weight off my shoulders.

I identified as genderfluid for a short period of time, and preferred they/them pronouns primarily. I don’t exactly like to talk about this period of my life, particularly for me because it was the only time my father showed any sort of prejudice against my identity. It makes me uncomfortable to think about, and doesn’t really have any significance in who I am. It’s not that I find it’s an invalid identity, because of course it’s valid, and real. I support any and all people of any identity, be it genderfluid or cisgender. I just don’t consider it important in terms of my transition or the timeline of me coming out.

I came out as trans to my dad in one of the most generic ways possible. It was in the McDonald’s drive-thru picking up dinner. I was talking to him about how my mom was seeing a woman after being so abusive to me in the past about me being gay. I asked him, “Will you refer to me as your son?” He just looked at me through the rear-view mirror and nodded and asked me what I wanted to order. It was the easiest thing that I faced involving coming to terms with my identity. He respected me when I told him my name: Zander Tobias. He’s called me Z ever since. I came straight home and told my mom I was transgender and I was NOT about to take any shit from her about it. I didn’t expect her to be so open and accepting about it. I was under the impression that she learned her lesson about being intolerant. She’s supported me ever since, and has never once misgendered me or misnamed me. It took her little to no time at all to memorize my name and my pronouns. She’s been very good to me in terms of my gender identity, and has since changed her ways about my sexual orientation. She respects me 100%, even if it took her a long time to learn from her mistakes.

It’s now been two years since I came out as transgender. I truly never thought I’d be here making this. I’m glad I didn’t give up years ago, and I’m glad I’m here with all my wonderful friends and family. I have my brothers, my sisters, my mom and stepmom, and my dad and stepmom, as well as a whole bunch of step-grandparents and biological grandparents who love me, cherish me, and support me for who I am. I couldn’t be more proud and appreciative I am of my genuine, loving family.

What does this have to do with my gender therapy?? Good question, Z!

My family would never have permitted me to do this years ago. In fact, if it weren’t for my stepmom (on my Dad’s side), I never would have been able to have a gender therapist appointment in the first place. Hormones would have been out of the question had it been years ago and it came down to my mom. My transition is so, so, so important to me, and my family realizes this, and cherishes me throughout the process. I would have never made it this far. It goes to show how lucky a guy can be, and how fortunate someone like me is for having such a wonderful family like mine.

I wanted to do this to give thanks and show my importance to the people who make a difference in my life, and the people who have helped me in my transition, before and well after—even people like B.

To any friends who may read this one day, thank you for everything you have ever done for me. Whether you’ve supported me through my darkest times, called me out on my pretentious bullshit, or showed me that it does get better eventually, you have made such an incredible impact on my life. I couldn’t have done it without you. I love you so much.

To R and C, I cherish you completely. Thank you for picking me up when I was down and showing me that I’m valid, and loving me for who I am. You are incredible people, and I hope that you never forget just how much you mean to me. I love y’all endlessly, and I hope that we stay as close as we are in the future. My life would be so, so boring and incomplete without you. You guys mean the world to me.

To my family who may read this, thank you, too. Especially my mom. You’ve learned so, so much for me, and grown into such beautiful supportive people. You do everything you humanly can to make sure I feel safe, comfortable, and loved at home. I cannot possibly tell you how much I love you, appreciate you, and cherish you for doing the things you do for me. You help me feel better about myself each and every day. I could not ask for a better family. Thank you so much.

Finally, to B, and to people like her. I hope you find your peace, and I hope that one day you meet someone that changes your perspective entirely, so that you may embrace diversity regardless of religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Thanks for being a friend, even if it was for a short time. I’m okay, and I hope you are as well.

ANYWAY… if you read all the way to the bottom, you’re a champ! Congrats! This was a hell of a rollercoaster to type out let alone get off my chest. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you at least enjoyed it a little bit; and if not that’s okay too. (Feel free to ask me any questions if you feel like it, or if I need to clear anything up.)

I hope tomorrow goes smoothly. Wish me good luck!

#transition #transgender #trans man #personal #me #family #abuse #homophobia #shut up zander #long post #tldr

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mx-chievous · 7 years

Text

My Original Comedy

Jim: today’s the day, i finally get to generic blockbuster movie the sequel. I walked into the movie theater, and you know i played it cool, the cashier told me to enjoy the movie and i said “you too” wink. Then i walked past the concession stands and played it even cooler by buying a popcorn drink combo that only cost me $42.69. But what hey didn’t know was that I had a box of craisens hidden in my fanny pack. Joke’s on them. Oh looks the perfect spot to sit. Now that I’ve got this seat, my 3D glasses, my large popcorn, my large drink AND my box of craisens *wink* I’m finally ready to watch the movie. Oh wait the previews haven’t even started yet. This is probably going to take several agonizing minutes isn’t it!

Transition voice: several agonizing minutes later

Jim: *loudly has popcorn and drink* you know, now that I think about it I really hate the previews.

Preview guide person: Well Jim I think I can change that

Jim: Wow these 3d glasses sure are impressive. I could've sworn some guy just stepped out of the screen.

Guide person: Well sir you would be correct! Since you don’t seem to appreciate the previews I thought I would bring the previews to you to truly show you how great they are.

Jim: Well I mean I guess so. I’ve got nothing better to do right now.

Guide person: Great! Just grab my hand I’ll take you to the world of previews!

Jim: Ok. *is pulled into the previews* Ok so what is the first movie trailer you’ve got for me?

Guide person: Oh wait you wanted a movie trailer? You’ve got to be joking Jim, you got here way too early for that.

Jim: Ok so what are we in right now?

Guide: Well right now we’re in the pre-preview previews.

Jim: and what exactly are those?

Guide: Oh mostly just an odd mix of car commercials and celebrity trivia things

Jim: Well why would anyone want to see--

Trivia host: Hello there and welcome to the celebrity quiz game, where the questions are ones no one cares about and the answers are probably made up!

Jim: So what can I win on this show? Like a free drink refill or something like that?

Host: Why no my good sir what you win issss *somewhat unnecessarily long pause here maybe* absolutely nothing

Jim: so why would anyone want to play this?

Host: Ok first question: What did actor Kevin Bacon have a fear of as a child? A. clowns. B. Spiders. C. george foreman grills. Or d. The dark?

Jim: well it’s obviously not A because I don’t see how clowns could ever be a problem and I don’t think it’s C or D soooo I am going with B. Spiders

Host: We’ll see about that! And the answer is... *buzzer noise* ...C George Foreman Grills. As a child Kevin Bacon burnt his foot and his breakfast in one when he tried to make breakfast in bed. And just as a bonus trivial piece, that is where he got the nickname of kevin BACON.

Jim: Wait Isn’t Bacon just his last name?

Host: next question! David Tennant played what role in a famous british sci-fi television series doctor who? A. a doctor. B. a british person. C. Barty Crouch Junior or D. a time traveling alien?

Jim: well the show is called doctor who so obviously he plays a doctor

Host: Incorrect! Technically he isn’t a doctor, that’s just his name. The answer is B a british person. David Tennant is actually scottish but did a british accent for the role. And that about wraps up todays show! But now a short word from our sponsors

Commercial Man: Fast, sleek, modern, and convenient. These are all words people use when describing our competitors’ cars. What about us you ask?

Jim: I didn’t ask anything

Com. Man: Well here at Kiaha we care about one thing and one thing only. Cupholders. We at Kiaha want you to go home thinking man that sure was an efficient cup holder. We envision a world where people can safely store their drinks when not in use. A perfect world. Kiaha: we put your priorities first

Guide: Well that was the end of the pre-preview previews. Now on to real previews! Showing you all the upcoming movies you want to see. BUT FIRST! A commercial from Coca-Cola because we want you to waste your money at the concessions stand.

Jim: but I just wanna see the movie!

Coca-Cola man: yes but what movie is complete without a nice refreshing coca-cola from the concession stands?

Jim: Literally any of them

Coke Man: But according to all our commercials Coke can bring people together and always cheer people up. We’re even sponsored by leading car manufacturer Kiaha.

Jim: That really isn’t helping your case. Besides I’m really more of a pepsi guy myself

Coke Man: Listen man if i’m not able to sell people this product I don’t know I’ll be able to support my family. Please all i need you to do is take a sip, and then sing “it’s the real thing”

Jim: Ok jeez I’ll have one *slurps Coke* It’s the real thing (sung very badly)

Coke man: you have to be more convincing than that. I have kids to feed

Jim: It’s the real thing (somewhat better but still not that good)

Coke man: Good enough I guess. thanks for helping me make that money, chump

Jim: Wait but what about the kids to feed

Coke man: oh I lied about that. The only thing this money is feeding is my gambling addiction. Enjoy the movie trailers!

Jim: Well at least I can see some trailers. I wonder what this could be about

Movie trailer voice: This Summer, see the action movie you’ve all been waiting for, as michael bay ruins yet another series from your childhood. Follow Dora the Explorer and her partner Boots as they are on the run from mob boss swiper the fox

Boots: Ok Dora there should be a safe house somewhere around here. Do you see it on your map?

Dora: well there are 3 paths on my map. Let’s see is this the path to the safehouse? No that's a shady alley

Boots: Dora we don’t have time for this! Swiper’s men are gonna kill us!

Trailer voice: See Dora overcome obstacles like sabotage

Boots: quick dora i need something to heal this bullet wound before i hemorrhage and die!

Dora: there should be a first aid kit in my backpack! Let's see is this the first aid kit? No that’s a still lit cigarette! Here boots hold this

Boots: Ah Dora that was my bullet wound!

Dora: Well this isn’t it, this is a bomb that’s about to explode

Boots: a bomb!

Trailer voice: and watch them be betrayed by their closest friend

Boots: Dora I found out who betrayed us! It was Diego

Dora: well if that doesn’t just break the pinatas back!

Trailer voice: see Dora like never before with dora played by scarlett johansson and boots played by the recently deceased harambe in, “Swiper no swiping”

Jim: Even the movie trailers are bad! Do the previews have any redeeming features?

Guide: It’s funny that you would ask that Jim because we are now at the last part of our tour, the PSAs

Jim: And that's better how???

Guide: It means the movie is gonna start soon.

Jim: I mean I guess that's good

Guide: Shhh listen these are important

PSA person: We would ask at this time that you please turn off your cellphones as they can be distracting to the people around you

Jim: Ok that seems reasonable.

PSA: Please locate the nearest emergency exits on your left and right in case of things like a fire, and earthquake causing the building to collapse, or a spooky yeti monster breaking in. Remember, Yetis’ one weakness is emergency exits

Jim: Well I guess part of that was good advice

PSA: please put on your 3D glasses at this time. But in case of a yeti outbreak take them off. Otherwise The yeti will see it as a challenge and your life will be at risk. Just remember the acronym G.A.Y.: G.lasses A.gitate Y.etis. Thank you for coming to AMC and we hope you enjoy your experience.

Guide: So Jim what did you think of that? Still hate Previews?

Jim: Yes! Nothing about that was appealing! The trivia was nonsensical, the commercials were annoying, the trailer for swiper no swiping looked nothing like the source material. And yetis? Really? I live in the midwest, they live WAY farther up north

Guide: Really? After all that I've shown you? Why can’t you just see it my way? Previews are amazing. Just open your eyes and see the truth Jim! Open your eyes! Open your eyes!

Usher: Open your eyes. Sir please we have to close soon.

Jim: Wait what?

Usher: well sir you've been sleeping here for like 2 hours. I had to clean up all your spilled popcorn.

Jim: Wait two hours? I was dreaming the whole time? Wait that means I missed the movie!

END

#speech team #let me know what you think of it i guess

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Fitness and Health Care reports

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Fitness and Health Care reports

Researchers said that despite the fact that the kidneys of the individuals within the 26.2-mile race fully recovered within two days, their findings raise questions regarding the capacity lengthy-Time period effect at a time while marathons are growing in recognition.

The results were posted using the Yankee Magazine of Kidney diseases, as hundreds of people put together for subsequent month’s London Marathon.

Previous Studies has shown that engaging in strangely active sports – consisting of army training – in heat, climates can damage the kidneys. However, little is understood about the effects of marathon going for walks.

A Group of researchers led by Professor Chirag Parikh, of Yale University within the US, studied a small group of contributors within the 2015 Hartford Marathon.

They amassed blood and urine samples earlier than and after the event. They analyzed a selection of markers of kidney injury, which includes serum creatinine stages, kidney cells on microscopy, and proteins in urine. The researchers observed that 82 percent of the runners that had been studied confirmed Stage 1 Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) quickly after the race. AKI is a circumstance in which the kidneys fail to filter waste from the blood.

Prof Parikh said: “The kidney responds to the bodily pressure of marathon strolling as if it is injured, in a way it is similar to what happens in hospitalized patients while scientific and surgical headaches strike the kidney.”

The researchers said that capacity reasons of the marathon-related kidney damage would be the continued upward push in core body temperature, dehydration, or decreased blood go with the flow to the kidneys that occur at some stage in a marathon.

While the measured kidney harm resolved within two days of running the marathon, the researchers stated the have a look at nevertheless raises questions about the effects of repeated active interest through the years, particularly in warm climates.

Prof Parikh introduced: “We want to analyze this also. “Research has proven there are also modifications in heart function related to marathon walking.

“We have a look at provides to the tale – even the kidney responds to marathon-related strain.”

Our acronym for the day is EHB, which stands for critical fitness blessings. These are matters which each fitness care plan is required to the cowl, and Obamacare spells out ten of them:

Fitness and Health Care

medical doctor visits Emergency room visits Health facility visits Prescription drugs Pediatric care Lab services Preventive care Maternity care intellectual health care Rehabilitation services The Republican health care bill is still having trouble getting sufficient votes to skip, so Paul Ryan is thinking about placating conservatives by repealing all of these EHBs. Because of this a health insurer could promote you a policy that did not cover medical doctor visits, Hospital visits, ER visits, your children’s health care, or Prescription drugs There’s an impressive risk that repealing the EHBs might not only produce crappier insurance regulations But would additionally value the Authorities extra money. Think about it. Each yr AHCA provides you a tax credit for medical health insurance. You may as properly use it, right? So insurers might all compete to provide policies that cowl nearly nothing However value precisely $2,000 or $three,000 or $four,000. Everybody might sign up for one because it’s unfastened so they could as properly. So in preference to, say, 10 million humans Using the tax credit, 30 million could. These rules would not do squat, But Uncle Sam has to pay for them anyway—and now he is were given to pay for three times as many of them.

Fitness and Health Care

This is all quite real stuff, and it’s difficult to trust that Ryan could move down this catastrophic avenue. Enough’s enough. If I had to bet—and we would well recognize the answer earlier than I wake up on Thursday—I’d say that Ryan tries to buy off the conservatives using taking maternity blessings off the EHB list and leaving everything else on my own. After all, it’s maternity care that without a doubt seems to be a burr within the ass of the Liberty Caucus parents.

Why? because they may be knuckle-draggers. It is hard to put it some other way. They parent that pregnancy is solely a female’s obligation and There may be no motive guys need to need to help pay for it. truly. I am not joking. What are you able to even say to people so terminally dimwitted?

The fitness ministry has requested the railways now not to permit classified ads of products awful for health like high-fat meals, aerated liquids or alcohol, and tobacco objects, in surrogate or oblique manner, on trains.

The circulate comes after the railways these days unveiled non-fare sales (NFR) coverage and ambitions to earn Rs 2,000 crore with the aid of allowing trains, degree-crossings and regions along the tracks to be used for advertising.

Are you feeling worn-out these days? A great deal of the United Kingdom got up an hour in advance than typical this morning, following the start of daylight hours financial savings. But there’s evidence that the clocks changing will have a whole lot greater extreme outcomes too, which include heart attacks and strokes.

There’s little doubt that British Summertime (BST) brings blessings, including reducing power usage National via permitting us to make higher use of daytime. This has led to repeated calls for BST to Last all 12 months spherical, to reduce carbon emissions and let us experience greater of the united states restrained cold weather afternoon sunshine.

The act of switching to sunlight hours savings each 12 months also seems to harm some humans’ fitness. Studies have discovered an annual spike in heart assaults in Michigan within the US and strokes in Finland the day after the clocks move forward in spring. Many of these deaths are likely to have been in sick, aged individuals who are at the mercy of care team of workers schedules. But some may be Due to lack of sleep: there’s evidence that coronary heart assaults are maximum not unusual on Mondays, likely Because of sleep lost even as readjusting to the timetable of the running week.

The United Kingdom has attempted year-spherical BST. The result turned into a massive reduction in road casualties among 1968 and 1971, way to the lighter evenings. However, the experiment was ended Due to complaints from northern components of the United Kingdom, where mornings had been darker as an result.

Even more daylight hours Many would love to look 12 months-round BST reinstated. Some would even like to see our clocks pushed a similar hour in advance within the summer, with the UK moving to the identical time region as Spain, which sits on the same line of longitude. In line with a 2010 analysis, the sort of pass might provide people in Birmingham an additional 301 hours of after-paintings sunlight every 12 months. Human beings around Glasgow and Edinburgh would get 175 extra hours, or even people as ways north as Aberdeen need to benefit 159 times. It is also probably to lessen the country’s carbon footprint by using approximately 2.2 in keeping with cent as humans could want to use much less power for lighting fixtures inside the evenings, once they tend to be more active than inside the early mornings.

Requires year-spherical BST is championed with the aid of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which says the flow will reduce avenue deaths presently due to darker evenings in autumn and iciness. However several petitions pushing for trade have failed, so the debate looks set to keep.

In the period in-between, be careful:

Fitness and Health Care

If you’re suffering from a lack of sleep, it may have an effect on your work. A recent study located that US federal judges mete out harsher sentences the day after the spring clock exchange, although we’ve formerly stated that such studies must be concerned about a pinch of salt.

Rest confident though that the physiological disruption from the clock change is short-lived. Our inner body clocks soon recalibrate, adjusting to our shifted sleeping and ingesting conduct. However, In case, you need to minimize the results of switching to daytime financial savings next year, attempt going to sleep a touch in advance every day in the run as much as the spring clock exchange.

In his fitness Plus article, a Mount Elizabeth heart specialist highlighted that research had shown personnel with little process autonomy experience higher strain ties at work. Allow’s say you’ve got an extraordinarily stressful process. When you have minimal power to make selections about your daily responsibilities, that makes it plenty more stressful than When you have a few manage. If you love your task and revel in what you’re doing, then putting in long hours isn’t going to have a great deal of an effect.

That being said, all of us face pressure at paintings, which can be in particular intense for entrepreneurs. In case you’re interested in lowering work strain, study directly to discover the five horrific behavior you ought to forestall as quickly as feasible.

You do! The human body was now not intended to maintain going for more than 24 hours directly. It wishes to prevent and loosen up for a great eight hours each night time. You’re now not Superman, no matter what your workforce says approximately you. The physical and psychological damage executed using the loss of adequate sleep is nicely documented. Loss of sleep also can result in decrease performance and subpar output. Sleep deprivation is an genuine risk to entrepreneurs who can’t Let pass long enough to attend to themselves. Worry and pressure are a part of the task description, Positive. However, they need to be in your control, not controlling you.

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