#how to conquer ourselves

[the-lady-writes-what]

I hate gays who are transphobic. I hate gays who say 'LGB without the T.' I hate gays who call transpeople fetishists and groomers. I hate gays who misgender and deadname trans and non-binary folk. I hate gays who perpetuate lies like how trans people are "forcing" gay and straight people to date them. I hate gays who perpetuate transphobia in the vague hope that transphobic conservatives will stop being anti-gay and spare them from violence. I hate gays who feed the face-eating leopards (i.e conservatives). I hate gays working with bigots who're trying to force transpeople back into the closet.

#i will never understand how you can call yourself gay/lesbian/bisexual and end up being transphobic #there really are gay and bi people who HATE trans folk with a passion #they sound like conservatives when they post things like transwomen are “male fetishists” pretending to women #like. barf #we're either together as a community or we set ourselves up to be divided and conquered #anti gender critical #anti TERF #anti transphobia #there is no LGB without the T

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

Why Writers Don't Finish Writing Their Stories, and How to Fix It

Hello fellow writers and storytellers,

The journey of writing a story is an exhilarating adventure, but it's not without its share of obstacles. Many of us have embarked on a creative endeavor, only to find ourselves mired in the struggle to finish what we started. In this blog post, I'll unravel the common reasons why writers don't finish their stories and explore practical strategies to overcome these hurdles and reignite the flame of creativity.

The Perils of Unfinished Stories

As writers, we often find ourselves in the throes of unfinished tales, grappling with the intricate web of characters, plots, and themes. There are several reasons why the ink dries up and the story remains untold. Let's shine a light on the familiar adversaries that stand between us and the triumphant completion of our narratives:

1. Lack of Planning:

Some of us brazenly dive into our stories without a clear roadmap, resulting in uncertainty about the direction of the plot and the fate of our characters. The lack of a solid plan can lead us astray, leaving our stories wandering in the wilderness of aimlessness.

2. Self-Doubt and Perfectionism:

Ah, the relentless whispers of self-doubt and the siren call of perfectionism! These twin adversaries can cast a shadow over our creative vision, compelling us to endlessly revise and perfect the early chapters, trapping us in a whirlpool of perpetual edits.

3. Time Management:

Balancing the demands of daily life with the ardor of writing can be akin to walking a tightrope. The struggle to find consistent time for our craft often leaves our stories languishing in prolonged periods of inactivity, longing for the touch of our pen.

4. Writer's Block:

The mighty barrier that even the most intrepid writers encounter. Writer's block can be an insurmountable mountain, leaving us stranded in the valleys of creative drought, unable to breathe life into new ideas and narratives.

5. Lack of Motivation:

The flame that once burned brightly can flicker and wane over time, leaving us adrift in the murky waters of disillusionment. The initial excitement for our stories diminishes, making it arduous to stay committed to the crafting process.

6. Fear of Failure or Success:

The twin specters that haunt many writers' dreams. The apprehension of rejection and the unsettling prospect of life-altering success can tether us to the shores of hesitation, preventing us from reaching the shores of completion.

7. Criticism and Feedback Anxiety:

The looming dread of judgment casts a long shadow over our creative endeavors. The mere thought of receiving criticism or feedback, whether from peers or potential readers, can cast a cloud over our storytelling pursuits.

8. Plotting Challenges:

Crafting a cohesive and engaging plot is akin to navigating a labyrinth without a map. Faced with hurdles in connecting story elements, we may find ourselves lost in a maze of plot holes and unresolved threads.

9. Character Development Struggles:

Breathing life into multi-dimensional, relatable characters is a complex art. The intricate process of character development can become a quagmire, ensnaring us in the challenge of creating personas that drive the story forward. (Part one of Character Development Series)

10. Life Events and Distractions:

Unexpected events in our personal lives can cast ripples on our writing routines, interrupting the flow of our creativity and causing a loss of momentum.

Rallying Against the Odds: Strategies for Success

Now that we've confronted the adversaries that threaten to stall our storytelling odysseys, let's arm ourselves with strategies to conquer these barriers and reignite the flames of our creativity.

Embrace the Power of Planning:

A clear roadmap illuminates the path ahead. Arm yourself with outlines, character sketches, and plot maps to pave the way for your story's journey.

Vanquish Self-Doubt with Action:

Silence the voices of doubt with the power of progress. Embrace the imperfect beauty of your early drafts, knowing that every word brings you closer to the finish line.

Mastering the Art of Time:

Carve out sacred writing time in your schedule. Whether it’s ten minutes or two hours, every moment dedicated to your craft is a step forward.

Conquering Writer's Block:

Embrace the freedom of imperfection. Write, even if the words feel like scattered puzzle pieces. The act of writing can unravel the most stubborn knots of writer's block.

Reigniting the Flame of Motivation:

Seek inspiration in the wonders of the world. Reconnect with the heart of your story, rediscovering the passion that set your creative spirit ablaze.

Reshaping Fear into Fuel:

Embrace the uncertainty as an integral part of the creative journey. Embrace the lessons within rejection and prepare for the winds of change that success may bring.

Navigating the Realm of Criticism:

Embrace feedback as a catalyst for growth. Constructive criticism is a powerful ally, shaping your story into a work of art that resonates with readers.

Weaving the Threads of Plot:

Connect the dots with fresh eyes. Step back and survey the tapestry of your plot, seeking innovative solutions to bridge the gaps and untangle the knots.

Breathing Life into Characters:

Engage with your characters as if they were old friends. Dive into their depths, unraveling their quirks, fears, and dreams, and watch as they breathe life into your story.

Navigating Life's Tempests:

Embrace the ebb and flow of life. Every pause in your writing journey is a chance to gather new experiences and perspectives, enriching your storytelling tapestry.

The Ever-Resting Pen: Harnessing the Power Within

Fellow writers, the journey of completing a story is filled with peaks and valleys, each offering us the opportunity to sharpen our resolve and unleash our creative potential. As we stand at the crossroads, staring at the canvas of unfinished tales, let's rally against the odds, armed with the power of purpose, passion, and perseverance.

Let the ink flow once more, breathing life into tales left untold, and watch as your stories triumphantly reach their long-awaited conclusion. You possess the power to conquer the adversaries that stand in your way, and within you lies the essence of untold narratives waiting to unfurl onto the page.

Here's to the journey that lies ahead, the stories waiting to be written, and the unyielding spirit of creativity that thrives within each of us.

Warm regards and unwavering encouragement, Ren T.

#creative writing #thewriteadviceforwriters #writing #writeblr #on writing #writing tips #writers block #how to write #writers and poets #novelist #novel writing #november #novel

[inkskinned]

we heard that you were very disappointed in us both as a generation and specifically as a generation of women (emphasis yours), how we had let ourselves go and now we were slutty and ill-tempered and holding onto notions of feminism like "having a savings account" and "equality."

we were very sorry about it, we didn't realize. it is very hard for you, in your life, because your entire definition was centered around the word providing, and that's a really vague and undulating word. it is hard to be a provider. for your purposes, the word provider here can be defined as "having a job", although it sometimes also extends to "doing yard work", "grilling on occasion," and "knowing basic car anatomy."

we had to do some reading but we divided it out. do not worry. high-value women will fill in the rest of the gaps of your life - all those silly feminine things like doing the dishes. we didn't realize we had asked too much when we asked you to pick up after yourself. we did not realize you were rendered small and scared and crying about the possibility of doing the laundry. here is a joke to lighten the sentiment: a man that listens when you talk to him.

we heard about how we had fallen from glory and it sickened us and made us very, very sad. lindsey had to cut all her hair off and tara threw up. we lit one million candles and we are going to have a vigil about it tonight. all of the people in this world that you do not approve of are going to be there and we will all be in mourning colors because we have lost your respect which is of course the only thing that any of us were looking for.

we searched around our bedrooms and our closets and for some of us it took a while but we all found the pricetag that we were originally born with, the one that gave our listing offer, the one that smells like rot and pine needles. we were horrified because many of us had taken deductions and hadn't realized it. i had scraped my knees and decided to be a lesbian so they had to take my voicebox out so i could never call home again. janice had been with too many people overall so we had to put her into the big squisher that will hopefully collapse her walls so that when you're with her, you'll feel so big and powerful. it will be like you're conquering something instead of being close with someone.

we are all going to the funeral of feminism and we will tear at our bodies and fall over ourselves. we will invite you onstage for a live recording of your podcast about the occasional minor inconvenience of self-reflection. you will talk about how we have targeted you and made you feel the sweat slick down your back, and we will teach you basic self-defense out of solidarity.

do not worry, we are seeing to all the outliers. taylor asked to be taken seriously so we have shipped her off to prison. laura asked you to accept her femininity regardless of her presentation. you will be happy to hear all women are now and forever going to have to be small and thin and pretty and white and ablebodied and quiet and unassuming and ladylike, which is different than how society has previously told us to act.

i am going to have to shave off my jawline, which is a little masculine, and they are going to have to reshape my hands, which are very square and thick - all the work i've done with them has made their veins stand out, so we're just going to have to exsanguinate me. i am horrified to have been out in public like this.

we are going to sit around the campfire and we will talk about being weird little girls that made potions in pink teacups. we will talk about the first time we made a difference. we will talk about the private lives of crickets, and then, at the stroke of three in the morning (the witching hour, obviously) - we will all promptly shut up.

and this will be your beautiful world. this silence that spans every corner of every street and every zoom meeting and every alley. i do not think you'll notice at first - it will be the same as every television show and movie and book. we will all just simply sit there in our doll dresses and smile blithely at your advances and none of us will do you the dishonor of answering and none of us will appear to be in distress and none of us will nag you or make a fuss or get hysterical about it. it will just be quiet, and you will say finally, some peace for once! and we will smell of smoke and our teeth will be white and the next day will come.

tonight we are going to bury the last little bits of our humanity. you are not invited. it is going to be ugly.

#spilled ink #warm up #sorry for going missing lol #my week in review: #got in trouble at work #for not being at work during non-working hours #then crashed my car within 2 hours of this #and then less than 24 hours after that #in the hospital with the flu #im okay now but ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm #who put a fuckken curse on me #btw this rant is trans inclusive love u

[togglesbloggle]

Voltaire's Prayer

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it." -Volaire’s letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, 16 May 1767

I’m inordinately fond of sex, in the political sense.  It’s saved us so often from the worst parts of ourselves.

As far as anti-authoritarian elements of the human experience go, sex is right up there with curiosity and the search for truth- maybe even more so.  When a new tyrant comes to town, shutting down the universities and the libraries is only the second thing they try.  The first thing is to regulate human sexuality to within an inch of its life.  Rules for marriage, rules for courtship, rules for which genitals may touch and where they may touch and when they may touch.  Rules for who and rules for whom.  Rules for which kinds of sex must doom characters in literature, rules for which things may be described as sexy, rules for which things may be described in a sexy way.

Of course they do!  If you’re trying to bind a large polity together under a common ideological narrative, to render people predictable enough to quash dissent and legible enough to exert power through them, the last thing you need is a bunch of folks running around being horny about stuff without permission.  Nature gifted us with a great capacity for reason and community; we have the innate opportunity to learn about ourselves and our neighbors, and to form complex societies based on that understanding.  It was Aristotle who first called us the political animal, and the fruits of that extraordinary capacity will always be within our reach, if only we can come together within a shared understanding.  The invention of the city is the great triumph of our species, and with it we conquer the universe.

But also this extraordinary, reasoning mind has been sculpted from the raw clay of a biology that’s anchored in sexual reproduction, and this ends up being very, very funny.

The problem isn’t so much that the sex instinct exists, per se.  It’s how it’s implemented.  Like most biological forms, the full complement of 86 billion(!) neurons in your brain aren’t encoded in a particular configuration; the brain is much too complex to be described so precisely in the only ~725 megabytes or so of human DNA.  The particular shape of your brain is in there somewhere- the lobes and subregions responsible for vision, memory, cognition, all that- but only up to a point.  The genius and fundamental limitation of genetics is that, below a certain level, the genes instead describe a process for the production and reproduction of specialized cells, and simply constructs them in such a way that they can be relied upon to order themselves as they go.

This is all well and good when we’re talking about kidneys and livers, but the fact that you can encode any kind of specific behavioral instinct in a brain this way is nothing short of a minor miracle.  Think about it!  Spiders don’t have a ‘spider web’ gene, the gene is for ‘proteins that come together in self-assembling electrochemically sensitive gelatin tissue which, when complete, encodes patterns that operate organ systems such as legs and spinnerets in such a way as to reliably create silk webs.’  This is absurdly impressive, and also completely insane.

What I’m getting at is, powerful behavioral instincts in a complex animal aren’t precise instruction manuals by which we pursue evolutionarily advantageous behaviors.  Sex and eros are prior to logic or language, let alone strategy.  Sex is a double-thick electrical wire discharging lightning bolts right through the middle of our cognitive centers, installed in the brain by a surgeon wearing mittens.  It’s an untethered firehose whipping chaotically through the cathedral, unpredictably spraying golden reliquaries with substances unmentionable.  It’s the first and greatest anarchist.

I really can’t overstate my gratitude for this.

Obviously this results in any number of deeply goofy outcomes by way of kinks and odd sexual practices- it gets tangled with pain centers, with random bits of anatomy and proprioception, with our taboos and aversions, with our greatest terrors or our greatest yearnings or just arbitrary stimuli from adolescence, and of course it gets enmeshed so often with our notions of power and submission.  It imbues these things with a fascination and potency out of all proportion with their mundane meanings.  And ultimately, you end up with human pleasures and human values that diverge so far from banal evolutionary imperatives as to be all but unrecognizable.

Even when this process somehow manages to propagate through the brain in such a way as to drive behaviors that are legibly aligned towards some adaptive constraint- e.g. heterosexual mating practices resulting in biological reproduction and careful childrearing- it’s still madness.  Love and sex penetrate deeply across tribal and national and racial boundaries, across economic interests, across battle-lines and enmities.  We become traitors, apostates, emigrants, and artists.  Declare a law, and in short order some hot-headed young people come along to break it in the name of sexual passions you could not possibly have seen coming.  Divide your neighborhood into us and them, and by the time the ink is dry on your proclamation there will be a forbidden relationship across the fence.  There is no social order, no ethical system, no theory of human nature that can entirely withstand contact with the full spectrum of human sexuality, because sex and eros are always going to be exactly as bonkers as the complexity of the human mind and culture will allow, plus a little extra just to be sure.

This isn’t always a delight, of course.  Many prohibitions exist for a very good reason, and the chaos of human sexuality makes no exemptions for true evil.  Some of us end up really, truly victims of this process.  But for all the dangers, the chaos at the root of all this isn’t oriented towards evil.  Chaos just means chaos, essentially arbitrary and hence absurd in character.

And in the grand analysis, we are so lucky to have this thing moving through our communities, this ridiculous madness that guarantees that there will be cracks in every wall and slips exploding cigars in the pockets of the powerful few.  Not in everybody as individuals, of course, and not everybody the same amount; asexuality is certainly one of the outcomes that all this mad gallivanting through our brains can produce.  Sexuality would never be so predictable as to guarantee its own existence, after all.  That’s part of what makes the joke so funny.

But all of us, regardless of sexuality, get to live in a world where the grand anarchy of sex is constantly driving home this lesson that no category is inviolate and no law is perfect.  That we should not and cannot take ourselves too seriously, or forget that we’re animals.  That we don’t exist only for the sake of others, or within their understanding.  That cities are made of cooperation, grace, and forbearance- not conformity or mere compliance.

People sometimes worry about immortality.  In the political sense, I mean.  They worry about eternal dictatorships and unconquerable gerontocracies.  This fear isn’t entirely unjustified; death has often played a role in progress and liberation.  But as long as enough of us are still getting horny without permission, still falling in love in stupid ways, I think we’ll be okay.  Romeo and Juliet don’t have to die at the end to make a difference in the world, as long as they’re brave enough to get weird with it.

[motherofdogs1010]

Of Messiahs and Seeds II (Dark!Paul Atreides x Reader)

Summary: Emperor Paul of House Atreides has set forth with expansion of his empire on the planets that have resisted and has now come across the last stronghold that resists him: Terra Millennium...

Warnings: 18+ only, NSFW dark!fic, obsessed Paul, yandere! Paul, eventual forced marriage, eventual pregnancy, talks of war, eventual NONCON/DUB CON

A/N: I'm basing Paul and Reader off of Usagi and Prince Demond's relationship of how obsessed he was with her just from her expression and power

Dividers by @firefly-graphics Banner by @vase-of-lilies

Picking up from Last Time

"You will relinquish your place as Queen", Paul said, walking up towards the women. "I will make sure you are well-cared for or you will become the beggar Queen you are."

Y/N raised a brow as she walked towards the Emperor, anger flowing through her but Lord York had always said to remain a neutral stance as possible to not let the enemy know your next move.

"We are not here to discuss terms of surrender", Lord York said, "we are here to discuss terms of peace."

"And those terms are to relinquish your right to Terra Millennium", Paul said before motioning to a Reverend Mother holding a newborn behind him. "And allow the Beneit Gesserit to spread truth and the Fremen people, my people find their Paradise."

"Obviously, we didn't communicate well", she said, looking at the dark-haired Emperor. "When we said war would happen, we met war will come to the Empire, not Terra Millennium."

She saw the man chuckle, actually the entire Atreides fleet chuckled and Y/N felt more anger, but she knew she would be the one chuckling in just a few moments.

"I imagine that you are finding this difficult", Paul said, leaning down in her face. "Your reign as Queen is over."

She heard the roar of Draco coming closer and she let a little smirk out.

"My reign has just begun, Emperor Paul."

Just then Draco swooped in, letting out a mighty roar as he landed on the ground behind her, roaring another roar as he spotted Paul...

The mighty beast was unlike anything Paul had seen as it landed next to the Queen, it leaned it's scaly head next to her affectionately before she turned as it lowered a large wing, allowing her to climb onto its back as he stumbled back as it roared at him, he could see the impossibly sharp teeth.

He could hear Stilgar let out a prayer as the beast began to flap its wings and run on its legs before taking off into the sky.

He watched in slight horror as he heard the sound of more beasts and saw two more in the air, flying behind its sibling in the air as it looked like it was circling one of his ships.

What was she making it do? Could she command them?

His answer soon came as the three mighty beast found one of his ships and breathed down a holy fire, he watched in anger and a little horror as his ship began to literally melt, the spice stored in the ship destroyed.

"I believe we have made ourselves clear", the shorter man said, "Terra Millennium will remain ours. It is in your best interest to take the mercy our Queen has shown, and let the Houses know of the mercy and kindness our Queen has shown you."

🌎

"Muad'Dib", Stilgar said once they had retreated back into the remaining ships. "We must formulate a new plan of attack."

Paul rubbed his chin as he sat in a chair, a hologram image of Terra Millennium was pulled up as he began to hear everyone discuss their next move as the ships hovered in orbit over the planet, but Paul could not think at the moment.

Such raw power at the hands of just one woman, Paul could not fathom that. It was like she was made to be the equal of a great ruler, an equal crafted just for him. Irulan was too mouthy and if he was honest, too submissive at times thanks to the Beneit Gesserit and Chani had given in too easily to his love.

But Amaris, oh... she posed a challenge for Paul, a challenge he wanted to conquer, to fuck until she understood her place underneath him, to breed heirs into her. She looked like she could carry children well from the wide hips she had as Paul allowed for these thoughts to course through his mind.

He needed to see those cold eyes again, he needed to watch as they melted into fear, into desire, into submission. She would understand soon enough, the Fremen would soon find their Paradise here in this planet and that only left the one problem: Irulan.

"I believe we need to find a way outside of their reach", Paul finally said, "look towards their colonies and start at the weakest one."

And Paul had the perfect way to get rid of her and that elderly father of hers...

She heard the sound of the ocean crashing against the sandy beaches of her world, the smell of the salt in her nose as she heard a palm tree rustle in her ears. She felt the water licking at her feet, the wet sand in her toes.

"Together, we could rule all this", a familiar voice breathed into her. "Together, this universe would bow at our feet."

A pair of hands wandered, grasping at her soft flesh as a pair of lips kissed at her neck, a nose nuzzling at her.

"All you have to do is say yes..."

Y/N felt hazy like her mind was underwater as the voice continued assaulting her with sweet words, their hands massaging and rubbing at her body.

"Just say yes to me..."

She turned her head and her eyes widened as she saw Paul, a dark look of desire and power in his eyes.

"Either way, you belong to me. It's up to you how many die along the way."

With a shaky breath, Y/N snapped her eyes open as she quickly sat up and looked around, seeing that she was in her room as her heart was beating in her chest.

She could still feel his lips against her body, his breath... still hear his voice in her mind.

Outside, she could hear the rumble of Draco, Aria and Perseus sleeping near her window; those three dragons probably curled up in a little scaly pile of cuddles that always made her laugh and right now brought her comfort.

Getting out of her bed, her nightgown fell around her as she walked towards her balcony, feeling the autumn breeze brush against her as she hugged her body.

The last Emperor had stood no chance against Terra M last night, but Y/N knew it was different this time. Paul had gained all the Great Houses and the Fremen, she had her army and the colonies, but would it be enough?

The colonies... she would check on them in the morning. She just hoped all would still be well in the morning...

TAGLIST

@ninastyless @james-bucky-barnackle @astarborntowrite @maggiecc @radiantdanvers @croatianprincess

#reader insert #x reader #chubby reader #dune part ii #dune part 2 #dune movie #dune 2 #paul atreides #paul atredies x reader #paul atreides x you #timothee chalamet #timothee x reader #fem!reader

[starsworldd]

🩷 𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓯𝓾𝓵 𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓰𝔂 𝓸𝓫𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 🩷

long post and giant paragraphs!

readings are open! ‼️‼️

BIG credits to 0degreestaurus and ellie witchy astrologer both on tiktok for the information on this post. PLEASE go check out their info if you have enjoyed today's post.

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mars in 11th - you don’t fit in anywhere because you are born to lead

5th house - this house is more than just fun and one-night stands…sure it can represent simple pleasures and such but we forget that venus rejoices here which is the planet of love. therefore, this is a house of love and how we want to love, how we want to express our lust for life … it’s more of a passionate/meaningful house than people think. how do we become the best version of ourselves? the 5th house can address this too since venus also represents potential! (venus exalts in pisces, a zodiac that deals a lot with potential/possibility)

✤ i think that there’s often a very one dimensional look when it comes to placements in their exaltation/fall/detriment/domicile… let’s take taurus mars as an example. although taurus mars may fail to do what mars wants to do naturally—conquer, speed, efficient, etc..— this placement is known for their laid back and sensual/indulgent nature which is something that maybe aries mars—a domicile zodiac for mars—may lack. taurus mars CAN be active like aries mars. but taurus being ruled by venus wants/needs to feel pleasured and creative in the process. activities such as dance or even house-cleaning are things that could be in a taurus mars' wheelhouse. the only part where taurus fails to execute mars' true qualities is that taurus does not deal with challenge, pain, upheaval, etc... as well as aries/scorpio/capricorn does because venus is about enjoying life and gratitude and mars represents rebellion and change. but taurus mars' still have the same ambition as say a cap mars does. taurus mars is in a sign of its triplicity after all. which transitions to our next topic pretty nicely...

✤ TRIPLICITY IS IMPORTANT YALL!! for those of you who don’t know, triplicity is when a planet isn’t in their sign of exaltation/domicile (including a sign of its detriment/fall) but in the same element as their exalted/domicile ruler is in. triplicity especially helps out lessen the effects of detriment/fallen planets. lets take a look at a few examples:

- moon in scorpio: the moon is in domicile in cancer. the reason why the moon doesn't like scorpio is because scorpio is ruled by mars and mars wants to fight, conquer, and break cycles. it seeks to go down below and bring our issues into the light. scorpio wants to end darkness. but the moon does not function in this manner. the moon represents manifestation and fulfillment through the journeys we have been through in life (jupiter exalted in cancer) and connecting it back to our own soul, memories, and life mindset. the moon, just like how it passes through new and full moons (light and dark) phases in real life, always circles back to previous phases, it doesn't mind fluctuating between light and dark unlike scorpio. another way to think about this is that cancer/moon goes out into the world to gather its info/experiences (positive or negative) and then processes it internally. scorpio works in the exact opposite. scorpio gathers its info/experiences in an internal manner, and processes these things externally (bringing problems into the light and therefore ending the darkness that came with burying these qualities/problems). BUT scorpio and cancer, are both protective and healers. we can think about this is in their symbolism and element. scorpio and cancer are both represented by animals who have exoskeletons (cancer - crab, scorpio - scorpion) which demonstrates their instinct to protect. the astrology community has long knew cancer's ability to protect, but scorpio? scorpio being protective? scorpio is protective in the sense that it breaks cycles and protects justice (mars is all about finding justice). it's also important to note that scorpio also protects through its fixed quality. fixed signs maintain things and keep it consistent hence why they're fixed signs, they bring things back to tradition and order. though it may hurt and scorpio's protective qualities may manifest in an unusual manner to others (think about the scorpion's stinger), scorpio's motto would be that "the best defense is a good offense". the moon can still heal, process, in scorpio which is why it has tripilicity. BUT scorpio makes the moon do this function in a reversal order. placements that have tripilicity often represent much creative and reflective power—hence why so many artists have scorpio moons (lady gaga, miley cyrus, ice spice, etc…).

- venus in virgo: venus in virgo has tripilicity because venus is in domicile in taurus, which is another earth sign like virgo. but venus is in fall in virgo. why? and why does it have triplicity beyond just being in an earth sign like its taurus counterpart? lets start off by defining venus' qualities. venus is about pleasure, enjoyment, and ease. arguably, without venus there really is no purpose to live. why do we work? because we want money. why do we want money? because money gives us nice things. why do we want nice things? because through having nice things, we can discover our identity, our likes and dislikes, and experience all that life has to offer us. and this is really our end goal is it not? to express and do what we love so that we can enjoy life and bring VALUE and MEANINGFULNESS into our life. value + meaningfulness is a very venusian quality. venus goes beyond money, marriage, or sex at its most basic forms. venus wants the ultimate satisfaction and meaning that can be possible in our lives (even more evidence as to why venus likes pisces, venus is the POTENTIAL of our what lives could be). but virgo is ruled by mercury. where mercury is about chaos and the processing mind, venus works in the realm of feeling and pleasure. mercury is planet that helps us process the world around us, to categorize, and to put things in their place. mercury is able to tell the difference between what is real and what is illusion (which is why mercury is often noted for being the comic trickster, especially if you connect to roman/greek mythology where mercury/hermes was the messenger of the gods and notoriously known for tricking other gods too). but venus doesn’t care what is real or what is fake because either way, venus considers both the non-physical aspects and the physical aspects of life to be valid (think about how libra, ruled by venus, is symbolized by the scales in this manner). but mercury/virgo wants to change and transform the impossible into something possible. in this manner, virgo disrupts venus' peace and ability to ground us to our lives, and it may be that people with this placement often find themselves getting stuck in an everlasting cycle for having to adopt/adjust and having to separate their non-physical and physical worlds (even though venus wants them to be together). HOWEVER. we still have to talk about how, regardless of virgo's pitfalls in virgo, it does have some dignity here. but how? as previously mentioned, virgo is an earth sign just like taurus, a sign ruled by venus. i like to correlate the earth signs to the energy of the pentacles suit in tarot (not to be confused, pentacles and earth signs both have their differences still!). a lot of the cards in the pentacles suit deal with being comfortable in one's own energy, resources, sense of satisfaction/achievement, and rhythm of life. doesn't this sound very similar to the venusian energy described above? and because virgo is also an earth sign it does share some of this same energy. it shares similar energy by wanting to establish new patterns, rhythms, systems, etc… virgo has a better idea of how life could look like. (venus is about potential! venus is also about improvement, ease, efficiency...all things that virgo works towards) it just gets stuck in the chaos that comes with making new systems...after all it is much harder to make magic happen on the physical plane! (virgo is an earth sign, earth signs work in the physical plan). because it's harder to make magic happen on the physical plane this is why venus has an easier time in pisces because pisces works in the mind/feelings/imagination.

✤ speaking about water signs, i would argue that pisces is also just as transformational as scorpio but isn’t denoted for its transformational qualities because it isn’t considered to be as intense as scorpio (even though it is intense, just in a different way). pisces is a sign of redemeption, it’s where we tie loose ends and where we want to forgive others and ourselves for the wrong doings we have done. it’s about potential within ourselves, potential to be something amazing (hence why the two most benefic planets in astrology, jupiter and venus, LOVE pisces). once we have set ourselves free and found our potential we can achieve great things (which makes sense because what comes after pisces? ARIES. aries is ruled by mars and he’s going to achieve EVERYTHING).

✤ but i want to make this distinction between pisces -> aries vs. scorpio -> sagittarius. both of these water signs lead to jupiter ruled signs so it often implicates some sort of healing is done once we have transitioned from one sign to the next. pisces to aries speaks of redemption as we talked about previously. but transitioning from scorpio to sagittarius represents freedom. although this may seem like a similar concept to redemption we need to clarify that pisces and aries are much more internal and self-related signs than scorpio and sagittarius. pisces deals with our own sources of creativity, inspiration, and how we find healing within ourselves (jupiter represents healing). everyone finds redemption in their own unique way right? and although pisces is a personal sign it is also the sign that teaches us how to open our hearts to the world again. through opening our hearts, we offer our own wisdom/ideals to others through the JOURNEYS (jupiter = journeys) we have been through in our PERSONAL way because think about it, pisces is the last zodiac right? each zodiac represents a story or facet of life. it is unrealistic that we as a society have experienced the exact same facets of aries-aquarius. it is in pisces where we sum up all of the previous energies/facets of the previous zodiacs (both positive and negative energies) and through experiencing different facets of each zodiac, it is in pisces where we find a different life/way/mindset from having experienced these facets in order to create a new start for ourselves (and for the rest of society too, jupiter likes to collectivize). pisces makes us reflect (water sign y'all) where we need to begin anew again. then aries is where we actually plant this seed and begin to grow into these new ideals, traits, mindsets, etc... going from scorpio to sagittarius represents freedom because scorpio unburies what was "dead" then sagittarius explores this new "world" that scorpio has opened up and begins to gain more knowledge, experience, and greater connection to other places beyond the home.

✤ venus in the 7th house, no matter what sign it's in, i think is a karmic placement. @hot-astrology made a post about how venus represents mirrors (go check out the post very insightful) and i couldn’t agree more. the 7th house represents ALL encounters + relationships (positive or negative) in our lives. when venus is in this house as previously mentioned, it can act like a mirror in our relationships. the relationships we have (or don't have) with others can guide the native into the best version of themselves by noticing and observing what qualities are mirrored back to the native, making the native think "do i want to maintain these qualities? do i want to change or stay the same?". because of this, i've noticed people with this placement are also very reflective and observant of their surroundings. people always mention how charming or persuasive these natives can be but sometimes they fail to mention how certain natives with this placement (very dependent on house, sign, aspects, ruler of venus/7th house, etc...) are acting in this manner because they seek to find different facets of themselves through their encounters with others. this can lean into poor self-esteem, lack of boundaries, or an extreme need for external validation if not monitored carefully, but if these negatives are kept in place, this can be quite an adventurous and even fairytale-like placement.

hope you enjoyed!

#astro community #astrology observations #venus in virgo #moon in scorpio #pisces placements #pisces #aries #taurus mars #capricorn mars #astro notes #astrology love #taurus placements #gemini placements #mercury astrology #cancer placements #leo placements #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #neptune #taurus #cancer #astro posts #astrology tumblr #astrology opinions #astro placements #moon in astrology

[impunkster-syndrome]

Imagine hating transmascs so much you make it our own fault bigots target us.

I do want to talk about this idea of "If nazis target you, you should reflect and see why" that they literally used in their own shit. That is literal fascism apologism.

If you applied this logic to any other group, you'll see how bullshit of an argument it is. "Maybe the jewish people killed by nazis deserved it for their communities being easy to speak over and abuse" type of rhetoric. It sees the fact that fascists want to divide and conquer us as the fault of ourselves and not a tactic of bigotry.

Do you want to know what can actually be done when a group is being exploited to support them?

Solidarity from other groups. Listening to each other about the individual struggles we face. Warning people about dogwhistles, rhetoric, and the tactics of bigotry. Providing support to each other across identity lines with the understanding that our experiences are not the same but do not invalidate each other.

Not blaming us for it happening to us or making it out that transandrophobia is a special target of bigots and therefore their "In" to our spaces as if people are at fault for their own oppression. If bigots are targeting specific groups, they see them as a weak link because of the lack of support from peer groups, not because of anything wrong with the group. That's a sign those groups need more support and to be listened to and taken seriously.

OP of that blocked me, and the fake concern for my "headspace" because I called them out is also ableist as shit. Bigotry never comes alone and always comes in at least a pair.

Edit: Adding this because OP will probably try to delete and hide it all.

Going to add that I've blocked them so they can't just keep pussyfooting around with unblocking me to bitch that I'm a transmasc who won't take "Maybe your community is a problem with why bigots target you" type of rhetoric and then immediately block me again so they can't actually listen to any transmasc that doesn't lick the boots of oppression that has curb stomped them into the ground before.

TERFs want us dead. They don't want us to be recruited. We are only useful to them as long as we die.

#transandrophobia #transmisandry #transandromisia #undescribed

[makenoplans]

all gale banter! (that i am currently aware of)

hiii gale enthusiasts, i just spent the past few hours picking through videos trying to find all of gales party banter and transcribing it! check under the cut for verbose details

copied directly from the doc i transcribed this into so youll have to bear with the initials to denote who is speaking when! generally speaking, initials are a=astarion, g=gale, h=halsin, j=jaheira, k=karlach, l=lae'zel, m=minthara, s=shadowheart, and w=wyll

(except for two minsc quotes that are also m, both where he mentions his name so like... it's obvious)

transcribed with attention paid to particular noises characters make that aren't quite whole words and also words that are emphasized!

please let me know if youre aware of any banter ive missed!

warning: long

G: Karlach! A hypothetical question for you. If someone - not me, of course - detected a hint of romantic interest in them from another… unnamed individual, erm, what might that someone… do about it?

K: Whoever it is, just talk to them, Gale! And leave out the hypotheticals.

G: Talking. Right! I'm good at that!

A: So, Gale, how is your sad, hopeless pining going?

G: [Ach!] I'm hardly pining! Been a year or more since Mystra cast me aside!

A: Oh, my dear wizard, I wasn't talking about Mystra.

W: I used to believe the beauty of first love was unable to be surpassed, but Gale, you are so much more tolerable now that you've found your second.

G: I'll take that comment with the sincerity and good will I assume it was intended.

G: Have you noticed any attachments of the more, er, romantic variety flourishing in our camp, Wyll?

W: I think I'm not the right person to be asking. I can recognize a troll silhouette on a far horizon, but I wouldn't know a flirtation if you whacked me alongside the head with it.

G: I see you waste no time pursuing your quarry, Astarion.

A: Hmph! I rather thought I was a little slow this time. Usually they're begging me to dream them on the first night.

G: Tell me - you always woo your lovers with such patient attention?

A: As the vampire ascendant I can grant my lover immortality and bind them to me forever.

G: Hmm. I trust you speak of the bonds of love, not the shackles of servitude.

G: Am I to understand that you are in love now, Karlach?

K: I sure am. [heh] If there's hope for me, there's hope for anyone.

G: I'm surprised you're permitted to choose a partner outside of your own people.

L: We had to use and misuse each civilization in the stars in every way we know. I do not conquer by blade alone, Gale.

G: I can't imagine Mother Gith would approve. Doesn't she prefer us lesser species enslaved? Or eviscerated?

M: You've been smiling like a fool of late, wizard. Explain yourself.

G: I found love. Surely even you wouldn't begrudge me some happiness?

M: All I can say on the matter is that you were wise to lower your standards from the godly to the ghastly.

G: Tell me, Lae'zel: is it common for githyanki to fall in love?

L: Love? Is that this feeling in me, then? This passion to peel every layer of one's heart to see what light and shadows lurk there? I doubt I am the first githyanki to… to feel this way, but few would ever declare it. Githyanki have playmates, thrill partners but I've never heard anyone profess love, nor read of it in our slates.

L: Gale, I've heard you talking in your sleep. Your mate needs better rest for our journey.

G: And deprive them of the pleasure of hearing my nocturnal postulations? I'd never be so cruel. The mind absorbs much while we believe ourselves dormant. To lie beside Gale of Waterdeep is positively educational.

G: If you're feeling faint after your bout with Cazador, Astarion, I don't mind donating some blood.

A: Aha! Well, you're still full of that Netherese bile, I'll pass, thank you! Besides, I have someone else to nibble on, and they are delicious.

G: I'm glad to know you have a softer side, Minthara. I was beginning to think you rather… heartless.

M: Loving another is not soft, wizard. It is one of the hardest things a person can do.

G: So you admit you found love! Aww. How delightful. I'm happy for you both.

A: So, how was your night with Gale? Did you have a long, hard debate?

G: Ugh. Ignore him. Astarion envies the depth of a bond because he's of a shallower inclination.

G: So Astarion, I hear your relationship has taken on a new aspect recently.

A: My life has taken on "a new aspect." It's only natural that my relationships change as well.

G: Halsin! You must have accumulated considerable wisdom on matters of the heart in your long life. Anything you'd like to pass on to a… strapping, lovestruck wizard such as myself?

H: [hehehe] Dispensing advice on matters of the heart would be like swapping boots. What suits me may be a… poor fit for you.

G: Ah. Well. There's no faulting that logic. At least you didn't tell me to "be myself."

H: Oh no, perish the thought. That can be outright cruel advice to offer in certain cases.

G: Indulge me, Lae'zel, as someone unfettered by Faerunian beauty standards: how would you appraise my appearance?

L: Your beard looks like the hairy tufts upon the [surlon], the largest of wyrmkind that sliver our skies.

G: Hm. I suppose that's… a bad thing? No. Don't answer that.

G: Wild-shaping must sprinkle some spice on your love life, Halsin.

H: Heh. Indeed it does. Did you… never experience such delights with Mystra? I, uh, hear the gods enjoy taking on the forms of swans, horses, eagles and the like when… visiting with mortals?

G: Oh no, quite the opposite, actually! She mostly preferred our interactions to be abstract, and incorporeal. Most invigorating.

G: So, Lae'zel, have you ever been tempted to use psionics in your, uh, romantic endeavors?

L: Only once. Did you know, in low-gravity settings, githyanki can maintain aerial suspension for hours at a time?

G: Fascinating! I think the arch-mage Tasha described a spell with similar affect! I really must look that up.

G: I've always felt flames to be a rather perfect expression of love, Karlach. Passionate! Primal! Capable of bestowing the most life-affirming comfort - or - inflicting the profoundest damage.

L: That's… pretty nice. Never thought about it like that. But… now I will.

G: I've been pondering something, Lae'zel. Why is it that githyanki have bellybuttons, hm? When they hatch from eggs?

L: I did not grant you permission to gaze upon my midriff.

G: I- I wasn't gazing! Merely observing! Though that can hardly be said for a certain someone else.

G: Y'know, Karlach, there are other ways to express love beyond run-of-the-mill physicality.

K: Ugh! Are you going to try and teach me about exceptional uses for a mage hand or what?

G: W-well actually, I was thinking of poetry!

K: Oops. Sorry. But, uh, now that I think of it… is mage hand especially hard to learn?

G: Even shaped by shadow as it is, Sharran architecture has a kind of beauty to it.

K: Beautifully intimidating. This place was meant to scare people into submission.

G: There you go. Cutting right through the ephemera to the heart of the matter. Hm! Your finest quality, I think.

K: Uh. Here I thought I rubbed you the wrong way.

G: Nothing wrong with a bit of friction now and then. You help me keep my mind sharp.

K: Aw, thanks, pal! I think.

G: When we met, Shadowheart, your gaze seemed to linger in the distance on some unseen goal, some insubstantial purpose. But I notice now your gaze settles on something or someone much closer.

S: Is it that obvious?

G: Of course! There's nothing escapes a wizard's powers of observation.

A: I gave my return to Baldur's Gate a lot of thought. I never pictured this, though.

G: Ah, what did you have in mind? A quiet party? Toasting your own return with a few good friends?

A: Less "quiet party with friends", more "days of hedonistic debauchery", but otherwise… yes!

G: Hmm. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But you know what? I'm learning to enjoy the taste of chaos. Count me in.

G: I've heard that in Baldur's Gate, "wizard" is also a term used for one who eschews their more, [hr-hrm] carnal desires. Is that true, Wyll?

W: Where are we going with this, Gale?

G: Oh, nowhere. Just think it's a rather cruel misnomer, not at all reflective of the glamor wizarding life affords.

A: So Gale, you laid with a goddess? You must have some sordid tales to tell.

G: Sordid? I lay with the Mother of Magic herself! What we had was… transcendent. Euphoric. Incandescent. Not sordid!

A: You actually made sleeping with a goddess sound boring. Hm. Incredible.

A: I am enjoying our walks together, aren't you, Gale?

G: Uhh… sure! In silence.

G: When you've loved a goddess as I have, people often think you less experienced in the way of romance.

S: She just lives on another plane! [heh] Only jesting. I'm in no position to judge, especially after what happened with Shar.

G: It's true for a time, I neglected the physical in favor of celestial euphoria. But our relationship was no less real for it.

G: I feel I've been rather hasty to judge you, Astarion. One heartbreak was quite enough for me, but to experience it as many times as you have… must change a person.

A: Thank you, Gale, but let us both hope that broken hearts are a thing of the past.

A: So, do you have loves waiting for you once this is all over?

G: You know what, that is not the easiest of questions for me to answer.

S: You mean just… waiting? Like a lovesick puppy?

M: Do you have elder siblings, wizard?

G: You're about to say something awful, aren't you?

M: In Menzoberranzan, after a house has two sons, every subsequent male-born child is slaughtered at birth, as it is useless, even for breeding. You have the aura of a third child about you.

G: The architect who built this must have been remarkable. Pity their vision didn't stand the test of time.

K: All's not lost. I mean, just look at this place!

G: You've quite the knack for finding the bright side of things, haven't you?

K: Hope keeps you going.

K: So Gale, got any book recommendations for me?

G: You can read?

K: Hmph. Yes, very funny. I can read. School put me off big, boring tomes. Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing.

G: Ah! Say no more. I'll find the perfect book for you. I might even lend it to you from my library in Waterdeep, ooh.

K: Ooh, something with magic please! And no devils!

G: Do you feel that? The darkness, pulling at the strands of the Weave?

K: Er, you'll still be able to do your wizard thing though, right?

G: Of course. Doesn't make the shadows less dangerous.

K: Joy.

M: Gale. Minsc worries you might send a fireball up his butt with all of this… stringy hair in your face.

G: Is that why you keep your head shaved? I assumed it was a custom of some sort.

M: Oh, no. Most warriors of [Rashinan] wear long battle braids weighed down with stone. Minsc can show you, when next we camp.

G: Thank you, but I'm more wizard than warrior. Not sure my scalp would stand up to such a plaiting.

A: Gods! We're not back, are we?

G: On the Nautiloid, no. This is a different nursery. Similar, but not identical. There's likely one in every colony.

A: I don't care what's in every mind flayer colony, Gale. Nobody does. Except you.

A: Ugh, another ruined temple full of foul-smelling beasts spoiling for a fight.

G: No mere temple. This was a monastery, devoted as much to study as to worship.

A: Oh, how ignorant of me. So it'll be free of foul-smelling beasts then?

G: Quite the opposite. Some monastic orders celebrated their pungency as proof of their devotion. "To think is to stink" was the motto of one ill-fated brotherhood near Arm. Oh! Huh, but you meant beasts of the life-threatening variety. Yes I'm sure it's teeming with those.

A: Moonlanterns to keep the curse back? Burly guards to fight off any monsters? I could get used to this place.

G: Don't get too comfortable. We shouldn't overstay our welcome in such a place.

A: No, of course! Why stay somewhere safe and comfortable when we could be in mortal peril?

H: Ah, Last Light Inn. Half aglow and lanterns lit. Just like a hundred years ago.

G: I imagine the vista was more idyllic back then. As were its patrons' chances of surviving the walk home.

H: [Grunt.] Still though, when you are expecting nothing but desolation, even a small glimmer of hope fills the heart. To think long ago, the druids feared this market down would grow into a city and threaten nature's realm… little did we realize what the true threat was.

G: Divination is a skill few can master. The rest of us must simply muddle along, content to view the past with a clarity the future rarely offers.

H: Perhaps I can yet turn hindsight into foresight, provided the curse is lifted. The better way for all. Whole generations were denied their chance to flourish… I must put this right, for them.

A: That orb seems powerful. What could it do once it's extracted?

G: Nothing good can come of it unless it is contained. Why.

A: It might be useful. Who knows?

G: I must tell you, Shadowheart, the bathing waters here leave much to be desired. The ablutions offered at the Temple of Beauty in Waterdeep were far superior - and, they have the most excellent soaps.

S: Hmm. I was wondering why you always smelled like a wealthy dowager.

A: From sweet woodland to stinking swamp. Can you do tricks like that, Gale?

G: Easiest thing in the world. Though I'd do it the other way around.

H: Brickwork and stonework. This place is far out of balance with nature, but the Oak Father will reclaim this all eventually.

G: Not too soon, I hope! I've a craving for a soft bed, a hot bath, and a large glass of Arabellan Dry. None of which I've ever found hidden under a log.

H: Hah, you may thrive, but what of other life? A city is no place for wild creatures.

G: Cities teem with life! Rats, pigeons, flies… they count no less, for all their more pestilent qualities.

G: The Society of brilliance has quite the reputation. Even Waterdhavian academics refer to their works from time to time.

S: They talk a great deal but do very little. Which may be for the best.

G: I take it you're not inclined to study the wonders of the Underdark?

S: Its inhabitants and cultures, maybe. Its fungi and cave slime, no thank you.

W: Ethel mentioned Netherese magic. What in blazes does that mean?

G: Magic from the fallen empire of Netheril. Ancient. Exceedingly dangerous. And quite unrivalled.

A: Wonderful. I'd hate to be destroyed by any common old magic.

G: Home and hearth, reduced to ruins. The shadow curse stole more than the light from this place.

H: That is why it must be stopped. Imagine a whole century of life and love denied the chance to ever take place.

G: A hidden shrine dedicated to the Moonmaiden herself. Even amidst this darkness, Selunites are stubborn enough to cling on.

K: Pretty beautiful, isn't it?

G: Look around you! Indulge your curiosity! Sorcerous Sundries is the finest purveyor of magical miscellany for miles around.

K: Where's the axes?

G: What they sell is far more precious than mere sword or shield! They sell knowledge! Ingenuity! The wisdom of mages past.

K: [yawns] Ugh, sounds like more your thing than mine.

K: Doing alright, Gale?

G: Oh, you know. Still alive and kicking despite being surrounded on all sides by an endless manifestation of… darkness and decay.

K: I feel it too. Here if you need a pick-me-up.

G: It strikes me that, for a mind flayer colony, there are remarkably few mind flayers about the place.

K: Squiddies have gone to war, is my guess.

G: On the Absolute's behalf? Now there's an alliance I'd've been quite happy without.

K: Aw, man, adventuring is thirsty work.

G: There used to be a monastery in this region known for producing a wonderful ale.

K: Ah, that sounds like heaven. Wait. Used to?

G: Oh yes, long ruined, I'm afraid. No chance of a frothing pitcher awaiting us there, but still. At least your thirst for knowledge is quenced!

K: Ugh!

W: It might seem a bit ramshackle, but this place is a boastworthy bar.

G: A bar is only as good as its cellars. Which vintages can we expect on its racks?

W: Here, a bottle is judged more by its ability to crack heads than the quality of its contents.

G: Ah. If that's the main criteria then I shall reset my expectations accordingly. Water it is!

K: We're not taking a boat to Baldur's Gate, right?

G: And give the Absolute free reign to use us as target practice from the banks? I think not!

K: Ugh. My mum always said the Chionthat was unlucky.

G: I don't suppose you've any clue where we are in relation to Waterdeep?

K: From this distance between Elturel and Baldur's Gate, I'd say… a long way away.

G: Ah. That will make getting word to my mother rather tricky. No matter. What she doesn't know can't hurt her. Not at this distance, anyway.

G: Nothing like a brisk stroll through the forest to invigorate the spirit.

K: I was just thinking the same thing! But… poetically.

G: And without so much as a stirring from our tadpoles.

K: A girl could get used to this.

L: These children and their pets lack discipline. Were they githyanki, I'd recommend further training.

G: Not everyone approaches the raising of their young with such militaristic vigor.

L: That is the very purpose of training. To determine which children shall be warriors, and which are suited to other roles. As for the unruly animals, they would make for nutritious marching rations.

G: Mm, that's certainly one way to make them behave.

L: These flowers are quite vivid, not to mention pungent. Not to my liking.

G: Are there no flowers in [tunirath]?

L: In the city of death, the m'lar cultivate the fruiting bodies that sprout from the corpses of the slain.

G: Huh. I'd rather get them from my florist in Waterdeep, if it's all the same to you.

G: That zaith'isk you mentioned intrigues me. Care to tell me a bit more?

L: An intricate device crafted by m'lar, our most gifted artisans. I am sworn to say no more.

S: Why must the Dead Three be so obvious and ugly with their decor? Blood and bones, bones and blood… Pointy nonsense. At least Shar had some panache.

G: As did Mystra's home on Elysium. Her ribbed vaults and buttresses created a magic entirely of their own… not to mention their pleasure domes.

S: Hah! Pleasure dome.

G: It's a perfectly legitimate architectural feature!

G: The road to Baldur's Gate is a long one. Who knows how long it'll take these folks to get there on foot.

S: If they make it. They're slow, vulnerable. Half or more will die long before Basilisk Gate.

G: Doesn't seem to trouble you a jot.

S: What good would it do for me to be troubled? We can't save them all.

S: You seem to know a good deal about our condition, Gale.

G: Everything, really. Not to put too fine a point on it.

S: A humble specimen, aren't you?

G: On occasion.

G: They're not mutually exclusive! The weave is served best with a dash of eloquence.

G: There's magic here, but it's of a rancid, impure form. Nothing like the true Weave at all.

L: This is why I appreciate a sharp blade to a ball of fire or a bolt of lightning. The Weave is inconsistent, unruly.

G: The Weave is constant, but its users - anything but. We must be on our guard.

L: A githyanki warrior hardly needs to be told that.

L: What is this? This place makes me feel sad, melancholy.

G: Ah, so you're susceptible to the tragedy of a broken home. Maybe you've more in common with us weaker beings than you thought.

L: There's no call to be insulting.

G: Not to diminish our efforts, but. Was rather simple getting here in the end, wasn't it?

L: The obstacles ahead prove to be higher still, which will make the pleasure of overcoming them all the more potent. Imagine the glorious din of it all, the streaming banners, the charging knights. The piles of severed limbs and heads.

G: Mm, I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you.

G: Whatever I expected to find lurking in this cursed gloom, it certainly wasn't this. A glimmer of hope amidst the darkness.

S: That's one way of looking at it. You could also say it's a prime target, the one pocket of light in the gloom.

G: Oh pragmatism, thy name is Shadowheart. You're not wrong, though. Best we keep our sojourn here to a minimum.

G: So! Shadowheart. Such a name implies yours is a difficult heart to find.

S: It's not that hard to find. Perhaps any difficulty is more telling of you, Gale.

G: I always wondered what a vampire's lair would look like. Can't say I pictured it being quite this… theatrical.

L: I find it surprisingly similar to Queen Vlaakith's aesthetic.

G: That makes sense. She does have a flair for the dramatic.

G: No day, no night. It's as though time itself has abandoned this place. Similar to the Astral Plane in some ways, wouldn't you say, Lae'zel?

L: Mm, hardly. It is said that the Astral Plane is threaded with light and silver, life-giving and wondrous in all directions. Nothing like this dismal abyss.

G: Tell me, Lae'zel, what is it like on the Astral Plane? Your home realm intrigues me.

L: Githyanki lay their eggs on other planes. They cannot mature in the Astral.

L: A tadpole nursery, as on the Nautiloid.

G: Quite right, so long as the attempt won't leave us similarly dismantled.

L: Caution is commendable. Boldness is extraordinary. In this case, I recommend the latter.

W: You're an impressive fighter, Gale. You should consider a new name.

G: I take it you have some suggestions?

W: The Wizard Wonder. Or, how about… the Master of the Weave?

G: Tempting, but I think we already have the maximum number of theatrical titles.

G: Pigeons, gulls, sparrows. These streets would make a fine hunting ground for a tressym like Tara.

M: In the Underdark, we have packs of winged hounds to deal with vermin like your precious Tara.

G: Flying hounds? Come now, you're pulling my leg. Aren't you?

M: Yes, I am. It is the bats that would make a meal of her.

M: Umberlee. Her clerics possess a nasty streak as wide as her oceans.

G: So their reputation suggests, especially among the good folk of Waterdeep. I'm curious to learn how you fell foul of them.

M: Blasphemy, said the temple priestess, but Minsc says do not give horns to your statues if you do not wish the visitors to try and make them toot.

G: Yes. That would probably do it.

W: I admire your courage, Gale.

G: Thank you! Any particular reason?

W: Between the orb and the bug, you've got more than your fair share of unwelcome passengers.

G: What can I say? Mother always told me to be a gracious host.

G: My, my. Well I'll say this for the bonecloaks: they know their mushrooms.

S: Perhaps they should expand their horizons. Too much time spent obsessing over fungi seems to leave them a bit, well… like them.

G: Oh, a byproduct of their profession. Few can spend a lifetime inhaling fungal spores without turning out a bit… muddled between the years.

W: This is it, Gale. Today, we annihilate the heart of the Absolute's power.

G: Entirely unnecessary. Though, if they are so inclined, I might be convinced to share a stanza or two of my own for inspiration! Whatever outcome of what's just ahead… it will be the stuff of legends.

G: I knew you were a graceful man, Wyll, but I hear you're quite the dancer, too! I've been known to trip the light fantastic myself. Mine was a popular hand at the annual Blackstaff's Ball.

W: I'd have loved to have witnessed it, Gale. I wager you are as elegant on the dance floor as you are on the battlefield.

S: What did you mean before, Gale? "A woman with shadows for eyes", you said.

G: Merely that if the eyes are the mirror to the soul, yours have dark curtains across the mirror. No offense taken, I hope.

S: Not necessarily. I haven't made up my mind about you yet.

A: Ever heard of a vampire called Cazador, Wyll?

W: I don't think so, no. Why? Friend of yours?

G: He's patriarch of the Szarr family. Nasty fellow, if the histories are accurate.

A: I imagine they are.

L: The right of these prisoners to die in mortal combat was stolen from them.

G: Hardly the worst atrocity the Absolute's committed.

L: One of many, but by no means the least. To die properly is a matter of honor.

W: This is no aimless horde. The Absolute's forces are organized. What do you make of it, Gale?

G: All enemies have some chink in their armor, no matter how much they like to believe themselves invulnerable.

W: And if we don't find any clear weakness?

G: Then we hope our mutual strengths are enough to dominate them. Or! We die nobly in the attempt.

G: I was wondering about your queen, Vlaakith. What tales of her reach us are terrifying. I suppose that's not how you would describe her.

L: Vlaakith is unity. Fear and beauty, life and unlife… eyes like onyx, teeth like daggers. There is none more perfect.

S: Sounds vile. I assume the meaning of perfect was lost in translation.

G: Moonrise Towers lies ahead. We're nearing the heart of the Absolute, I'm certain of it.

W: Then let us push forward, head high, weapons in hand, and turn this tower to rubble.

G: Your confidence is encouraging, but a little premature. Let's keep our eyes on the task ahead- or eye, as the case may be.

W: Who's in charge of the mind flayers, Lae'zel? Is there a squid king or something?

L: No. Each ghaik is servant to an elder brain. No king unites elders, only their collective tyranny.

G: A mind flayer monarch! Imagine that. Such a thing could shatter worlds!

K: Ready to enter the belly of the beast?

G: Ugh. It's the stairs I'm dreading.

G: No sign of tentacles so far.

S: The same. Except for a knot of worry in my stomach that's in no rush to go away.

G: That I can relate to.

G: The masons here thought they were building something to last. How wrong they were.

W: Perhaps it's a blessing that none of them survived to see it fall to the shadows.

G: No need for such a grim assumption. Halsin helped many to escape these shadows before the town was consumed.

W: Then some masons were more blessed still, if they could put their talent to use elsewhere. Perhaps some of their work even graces Baldur's Gate.

S: You seemed quite forward with your compliments earlier. We'd only just met.

G: Seize the day, I say. More now than ever.

S: Careful you don't pull a muscle in this place.

S: Isn't it so that every time you speak as you cast a spell, you're endeavoring to call upon Mystra? I'm surprised she still listens to you.

G: She has no choice. She's sworn to hear all magic users. Even me. I'm sure she at least stuffs her fingers in her ears to muffle my invocations.

G: The history of the city itself is captured in the archives here. A fascinating resource.

W: I wonder what those archives will reveal about us a hundred years hence.

G: Only the most excellent and complimentary things. With some encouragement from us, of course.

G: Look at this place. Such horrors defy description.

S: Silence can be best. Give it a try sometime.

S: What if this creche doesn't work out, Lae'zel? What if your kin fail you?

L: If I can reach the creche, my kin will provide. Any failure will be mine alone.

S: If you say so. Just don't expect me to put all my eggs in the same basket.

G: That expression must sound curious to a githyanki ear, given the way they're birthed.

G: Gods. Who knew such a vile abscess lurked in the bedrock of this city? The very stone reeks of misery and despair.

J: Mm. A sad shrine kept by the lunatic and the lost. The last time I was here, I promised myself I would die beneath open sky. I have not changed my mind.

G: Nor should you. Far better to feel a cool breeze on your skin than whatever foul expirations blow through these halls.

A: Eh, can't say I love what they've done with the place.

G: Unsurprising, really. Fanatical cultists tend to care more for ambience then aesthetics.

A: Hrm. Reason enough to put them all to the sword, I say.

A: Heh, what's this? A clever little hideaway. A little too clever, if you ask me. Watch out for traps.

G: Not just clever. Rather ingenious! Somehow its construction keeps the shadow curse away.

S: The end must be near. No regrets, Gale? You may have been better off staying inside this boulder.

G: Unlikely. Had I stayed there much longer, the orb would have reduced it to rubble. Besides, think of all the fun I'd've missed out on.

S: Fun? Well, yes… I suppose we did manage to make the best of things.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #gale bg3 #bg3 party banter #party banter

[ceramicteapot]

Somedays, it’s easy to be full of energy. It’s easy to leave your sheets, brush your teeth, pick out an outfit, call your mother. You’d switch your laptop on, open a document for school or work, and boom, time dilutes and dissolves. Hours go by and even if you did not get too much done, you know you tried. 

But what about the days when it doesn’t happen? What about when you cancel plans with a friend to check out that cafe they were interested in just because you’re bone tired? You didn’t do much physically, you just are. 

And how do you explain that to your friend? 

What about the days you mindlessly scroll down your social media even when the lines on your forehead spell out deadlines? How do you feel? 

Personally, I am consumed by guilt on such days. Feelings of being insufficient, of “wasting away” my days settle in my gut and refuse to leave. I’d like to know if you feel that way too. 

If you do, you’re not alone. We always talk about our accolades, the merit we made for ourselves, the hilltop we conquered, the fort we acquired. Let’s talk a bit about the steps we missed, the peaks we couldn’t see, the time we let slip from in between our fingers, just because it could slip. Just because we wouldn’t stop it. Just because it wouldn’t stop for us either. 

Pause with me for a bit. Fill up your lungs with a long breath that I know you haven’t taken in a while. Listen to me. 

You are worthy, even if all you did today was get out of bed. 

#mental health #writing #writers #writers block #mental health awareness #self worth #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #poetry #prose #writer #my writing #writeblr #writerblr #writing community #write ups #creative writing #writerslife #writerscommunity #writer academia #book writing #writers of tumblr #writblr #writerscorner

[thedearidiot]

Cannibalism stories ask us to wrestle with thorny questions about what it means to eat the things we eat, or what it means to unmake something just like us in service of ourselves. It is a subject impossible to untangle from our human desire to consume, or the vulnerabilities that make us easy to be consumed. In her essay on cannibalism as metaphor for capitalism and feminism, Chelsea G. Summers—author of her own brilliant cannibal novel, A Certain Hunger—writes on the way the idea has infected our very language: “We don’t just win; we devour. We don’t just vanquish; we roast our rivals, and we eat them for breakfast. We go to bars described as meat markets in search of a piece of ass, and if we find a lover, we nibble, we ravish, we swallow them whole.” Cannibalism is a way of framing the capitalistic impulse to conquer; how the upper hand, so to speak, always goes straight to the mouth.

- Carmen Maria Machado, Hollywood’s Gruesome, Lurid Obsession with People Eating People.

#carmen maria machado #prose #the hole in my belly has started growing #violence

[bitchy-craft]

Bibliomancy Messages For You | Pick A Pile

Hello and welcome to this Pick A Pile! In here you'll find a few bibliomancy messages for you! I hope you guys enjoy and find this useful. Do make sure to leave comments down below on your experience! I do want to remind you all that this is a General Pick A Pile which means this is for a lot of people: therefore keep what resonates and leave what doesn't.

Masterlist > Questions > Paid Readings

Pick A Pile!

Pile 1:

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Pile 2:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Pile 3:

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

#pap #pac #pick a card #pick a pile #pick a photo #pick a number #pick an image #pick a picture #spirituality #spiritual #divination #channeling #channeled message #channeled reading #channeled messages #tarot #tarot reading #tarot deck #tarot cards #tarotblr #tarotoftheday #dailytarot #daily tarot #tarot daily #tarot readings #bibliomancy #reading #free tarot #free tarot reading #witchcraft

[jewishvitya]

hei. i enjoy your blogs, i hope you could clear something up for me., i just saw someone claim to be "zionist as in i believe jewish people have the right to self determination in their indigenous homeland",, ive actually seen the claim that jewish ppl are indigenous to israel and are somehow denied that identity as a form of anti semitism and erasure of jewish experience multiple times.. and it always confused me so much cuz like israel was set up as this nationalist project in 1948, before the region was a mess mostly under the rule of the ottomans, but the palestinian culture and ppl were always there. how can someone be indigenous to a region if they werent there before? is there any truth to the claim or is it just co-opting leftist language again?

its so evil how the state of israel could jist completely legitimize itself by co-opting jewish culture and pretending like being in support of it is a fundamental part of jewishness :(

Thank you!! I'm glad you do.

I can try, but I'm not sure how good I'll be at explaining this. Maybe someone else can add to this. If I repeat things I said before, I apologize.

That is a definition of zionism used by many zionists who lean politically to the left. I don't subscribe to these softer definitions of zionism because saying it's just "the right to Jewish self determination in our ancestral homeland" ignores that in practice over the last century the next words are "to the exclusion of others." I define zionism through its practical outcome - which is what we did to Palestinians.

Jewish people originate here. Our religious laws and practices (many of which are regularly disregarded by Israel and by settlers when they do things like destroying olive trees and water sources) are tied to this specific land. There are holidays and religious rituals that are either fundamentally changed or can't be practiced at all if we're anywhere else in the world. Culturally most branches of Judaism maintained this connection throughout our history. And we didn't leave willingly. An empire expelled us from the place that was our land. When the point of indigeniety comes up, this is why. You'll see arguments like - when does indigeniety expire? How many generations until you no longer have a claim to the ancestral homeland you were driven away from?

So this is the cultural context for Judaism. This is something that I also can't really ignore. I can't pretend I don't care about this land and the connection we always had to it.

That said, I still see this as using leftist terminology inappropriately.

To talk about Israel, a lot of us talk about colonialism, and specifically settler colonialism. I lived in the West Bank settlements so to me this really resonates. The argument I get at that point is that an indigenous group can't colonize their own land.

And this is why I'm saying it's a misuse of terminology. We're using that label to absolve ourselves. As if the word "indigenous" is a stamp of approval we get to apply to our actions while we repeat the violence of colonizing forces in history.

Ethnic cleansing, occupation, building settlements - and now also genocide. The tools we use resonate with indigenous people all over the world, because they suffered through similar kinds of oppression. Always with differences and different contexts, these things are never 1:1, but there's a reason indigenous groups around the world are in solidarity with Palestinians. I shared about a video from a Korean person talking about how colonialism by Japan broke the thread of their history - old buildings that had to be rebuilt instead of being preserved, historical cultural practices and art forms being lost or changed due to the loss of artisans. These are things Israel is doing now.

So to me, this is using the word "landback" and "liberation" for a violent takeover of land from an indigenous group. You mentioned the Ottomans - Palestine has been conquered over and over throughout history. Those regimes, sure, fighting them off can be liberatory, if the intent isn't to become the conquerors in their place. But there's nothing to liberate from Palestinians, because they're not colonizing anything. They belong in this land.

I'm really angry that so many of us try to deny the Palestinians their own connection. They have roots here, a long and rich history shaped by life in the land. While we destroy so much and say our claim is so strong we get to kill or drive them away for it.

#riki babbles

[celestialtarot11]

Discussing the misconception of Pluto + more 🧘‍♀️🌟

Hi friends! A post I read talked about Pluto and its misconception in the western astrology community, and I will say I agree. I always thought of Pluto as subconsciously deep, primal, traumatic and the planet that takes away our power. The most vulnerable moments where we have just ourselves. There isn’t anything sexual about that process. There isn’t anything remotely sexual about going through circumstances that involve trauma releasing. And nothing sexy about recovery/healing from any kind of loss associated with Pluto.

It’s understandable individuals with Pluto aspects have an intensity to them, but to sexualize that and to not see beyond that intensity takes away from the true meaning of Pluto. Such individuals carry intense experiences and have roots that go deep.

Shedding light on these aspects:

Sun-Pluto individuals experience turbulence in the ego, personality, power and drive. Constantly these natives are tested, their strength and resilience especially. The native experiences situations which they feel powerless physically, mentally and emotionally.

Moon-Pluto aspects experience a loss of emotional bonding and comfort. The native struggles to connect with themselves carrying a pit of loneliness so deep, it feels like it’ll swallow them whole. Often associated with abandonment wounding, since the native feels little to no emotional permanence within themselves after a loss. Trauma taught them to disconnect from inner stability and safety.

Pluto-Venus experience power dynamic in their relationships. Protective mechanisms come up in the native to shield themselves, or they completely give themselves up to the people around them. Learned about extremes too young, and operate from one end or the other. All or nothing. Codependent as a way to keep the love in their life, even though the very same thing they love is destroying them. Chooses people who abandon them as a way to fulfill a self fulfilling prophecy, that they are not good enough and no one will love them.

Mars-Pluto has been through physical conflict of some kind. Health issues most likely. Some natives I knew encountered being in the hospital at some point. Their mind is at war and the native experienced aggression from others, and authorities failed to protect the native. Most of authority in their life wanted control over the native. The native experiences this in love as well, choosing people who are aggressive or extreme. Unless the native heals, it’s a cycle.

To know about someone sexually, their drive and behavior, look towards the Mars and Venus. Both discuss how the native experiences pleasure and loves to receive. Mars being the lust, animalistic, and primal side of the native, and Venus the sensual passionate, and compassionate side. Both planets arguably deal with our primal instincts, but Mars can be aggressive in its approach and strong, wanting to conquer, whilst Venus creates connection and is not necessarily about the self. Mars creates temptation, Venus soothes and nurtures.

Mars for men.

Venus for women.

You may wonder why then are Scorpios so sexual? It’s because they are ruled by Mars. You’re not wrong that Scorpios are sexual, but the way you look at the reason why is not inherently true. It isn’t because Pluto, the planet of subconscious trauma is making Scorpios sexual. It’s their Martian nature.

Something important to talk about is Gemini. Gemini Venus specifically, but this goes for all Gemini placements. Gemini placements are not superficial by nature, in fact seeing them only through one lenses is harmful. Gemini’s are incredibly smart, intelligent, and harbor knowledge. Ruled by Mercury, quite literally the planet of gaining knowledge efficiently, and communicating that, putting it out there. Gemini’s are observant. Knowledge is not free, you have to pay attention consistently and Gemini’s are aware of this in their true nature. Whilst Jupiter rules gaining knowledge and wisdom, Mercury denotes using it efficiently and effectively. Mercury is the way in which we teach others and we are taught to learn. Our learning style.

Gemini Venus & Gemini placements have the ability to see beyond their current circumstances, because they are agile thinkers. They know the next step intuitively, because their mind is adept to receiving and recognizing information. Gemini’s are painted as manipulative for seeing the truth and seeing beyond face value, when in reality Gemini’s understand the value of truth and perspective.

In esoteric astrology, Gemini is comfortable in Venus because Gemini knows the value of communication and the interchange of energy in love. With Gemini being ruled by Mercury, which is the way we expand our spiritual perception, it’s the beginning of exploring beyond our ego (the sun) Gemini is a process of spiritual connection, and through Gemini, we experience the soul and unconditional love. Without exploration, we’d never know what was there. So, Gemini is not a result, rather it’s the part and process to the gateway of our souls.

There is so much more to Gemini and every zodiac sign than ya’ll think! ✨🌟☀️

Moving on, associating the 8th house with sex. This house is associated with loss, grief, and trauma in traditional astrology and Vedic. It also indicates ones past life karma in Vedic astrology. It also deals with occult knowledge, spiritual insight and growth. Therefore it has no bearing sexually, as it does not relate to procreation of a child as traditional astrology intended. It’s the house of endings.

Many astrologers think the 8th house is associated with sex because they view it as a taboo act, or see it as something hidden and private.

Look to the 5th house to see sexual pleasures instead! Sex should be a reciprocal energy, not associated with loss of any kind (8h) to me, I don’t see how sex should be associated with the 8h of loss and grief.

I would love to continue this for the signs, but it would be too long to make in one post. For now, this is what I have! I appreciate any support given to this blog, and feel free to comment your feedback as it’s highly appreciated. Thank you for coming to my ted talk 🤝

#devi post #astrology community #astrology #tarotcommunity #divination #tarot deck #tarot #witchcraft #tarot reading #astrology observations #astro posts #astrology notes #astro notes

[mochinek0]

Daminette December 2023:9-Gremlin

"So there is a list for each of them." Marinette explained, "Allergy information, bedtime schedule, food they avoid, and emergency phone numbers."

"We are the emergency phone numbers." Jason interjected.

Marinette glared at him as Damian put down the duffel bag with the kids clothes and a diaper bag.

"Marinette, everything will be fine." Dick spoke calmly, "You both deserve a night out with out your kids."

"Yeah." Tim stated, "How long was your last date night that didn't involve a diaper change intermission or passing out on the couch?"

Marinette frowned, but Damian placed a kiss on top of her head.

"Angel, don't worry so much. Amaya, Jun, and Malik are in capable hands." Damian stated.

"Aw." Dick cooed.

"If anything happens to our children, I'll kill them in their sleep." Damian declared.

Jason sighed, "You both are making such a big deal about this! You are leaving them in Wayne Manor, one of the safest places in Gotham. We take care of a whole city; we can take care of our nieces and nephew. You're only going to be gone three hours max, depending on traffic and resturant service. You're not even leaving Gotham!"

"Jason's right." Tim explained, "Look, there's three of them and three of us. We can conquer and divide this. If you two can do it, us three can, too."

Marinette sighed, "Fine. Have fun."

Once they got into the car, Damian turned to her.

"You think they will call us?" He questioned.

Mari smiled, "No. They would have to put their pride aside for that. I'm sure they will do everything wrong."

Damian chuckled, "Well, Habibiti, let's go and enjoy our dinner."

"Man, it's like she doesn't trust us!" Jason complained.

"To be fair," Tim interjected, "we have never watched them by ourselves. Damian and Marinette are usually in the same room with us when we spend time with them."

Dick looked over Amaya, Jun, and Malik. They looked so different, but appeared so angelic. Suffice to say the Waynes freaked out when Amaya was born was an understatement. Amaya looked just like Talia, but Tom also had brown hair and green eyes, so he took the credit for his granddaughter having his appearance with Damian's skin tone. Jun looked just like Damian and Malik looked just like his mother. Dick's only worry was Malik. Malik was still only a years old. Amaya was six and was already in the first grade and Jun was in preschool, but he was sure that Amaya and Jun could help with tiny things.

"I'll take care of Malik." Dick offered, "Divide and conquer, just like you said."

"Have you read these lists?" Jason laughed, "Don't let Jun eat after 7PM and her bedtime is 7:30PM. Don't get Malik wet; not even a drop. Don't expect him to sleep when the others go to bed. Amaya's says to supervise when she color and her bed time is at 8PM."

"No water?" Dick questioned.

"Not to spill water on him." Tim sighed, "Just be careful when you bottle feed him. At least there's no bath time on there. I'll watch Jun and Jason can watch Amaya. He can read and she can color. Simple."

Damian and Marinette entered Wayne Manor to find the living room in chaos. It was 10PM and all three of their kids were still awake.

"What is going on here?" Marinette shouted.

Everyone froze.

"Maman! Baba!" Amaya and Jun shouted, running up to their parents.

Damian glared at his older brothers, "Why aren't they asleep? Marinette gave you specific instructions."

"Why is Malik wearing different socks and different clothes?" Marinette questioned.

"He spilled a drop, a drop, of water on his sock!" Dick complained, "He freaked out and wouldn't stop crying until I changed him. By that point, he was thirsty and then he spilled on his shirt. I changed him immiediately after that."

"That's why I said not to get water on him." Marinette sighed.

"I can see Amaya wasn't supervised." Damian declared, "I wonder how Father will feel about his new colorful mural at hip height."

"Blame Jason!" Tim cried out, "He was suppose to watch her, but he got too wrapped up in his book."

"Why aren't you asleep, Amaya?" Marinette asked their eldest daughter.

"Not comfy." she pouted.

Jason sighed, "She kept saying how the couch wasn't as comfy as her bed."

"Why didn't you let her sleep in your bed?" Damian growled.

"You want me to leave my neice in my room?" Jason shouted, "You know what I keep in there!"

Damian rubbed his forehead in frustration. He spotted Jun running laps around the living room.

"And Jun?" he questioned.

"Tim helped me with Malik when he was flailing around and I was trying to change him." the eldest Wayne admitted.

"And?" Mari snarled.

"We thought it would be okay to leave them alone for a moment." Tim whispered, "Amaya and Jun were watching a movie."

"What happned?" Damian demanded.

"She snuck into the kitchen and ate four cookies." Tim answered, "She's been burning off the sugar ever since."

"Sorry." the Wayne boys declared.

"Amaya, Jun." Mari called out, "I want all of your things put away in the bag, "Damian make sure everything is in there. I'm going to get Malik in his car seat and meet you outside. Both of you are going to bed when we get home. Jun, no cookies for you for a week."

Jun stomped her foot and began to pick up her toys in a sour mood.

"A week?" Dick whined, "It was a mistake that we made."

"No, Richard." Mari declared, "Jun knew she wasn't suppose to have any cookies before we got here. I spoke to her about it before we left."

Mari walked out the front door with Malik in her arms. Amaya and Jun made quick work of their belongings. Amaya waved to her uncles as she yawned and walked out the door. Damian held his second daughter's hand and the duffel bag. Jun sadly waved and walked out the door, pouting.

"Those three are gremlins." Jason stated.

"Sweet like their mother and a Hellraiser like their father?" Tim answered.

"Nope." Jason replied, "Like actual Gremlins, like the movie. Don't get them wet. Don't feed them after dark."

"It was don't get them wet, avoid bright lights, and don't feed them after midnight." Dick rebutted, "Those three love the park. Damian and Marinette take them all the time with Titus."

"And the other two?" Tim questioned.

"We should have listened to Marinette rules." Dick answered.

The three sighed.

Damian and Marinette smiled as their kids slept in the back of their car.

"You were right, Habibiti." Damian spoke, "They are asleep and likely my brothers' will be trying to get back in our favor. How about we go out for dinner same time next month?"

Marinette giggled, "I'd love too."

TAGLIST: @maribat-calendar-events@animeweebgirl@a-star-with-a-human-name@meme991001@vixen-uchiha@abrx2002@alysrose-starchild@fandom-trapped-03@dood-space@moonlightstar64@saltymiraculer@marveldcedits20@09shell-sea09@icerosecrystal@animegirlweeb@insane-fangirl-of-everything@blueblossombliss@nickristus-dreamer@megawhitleycalderonpaganus@missmadwoman@meira-3919@princessdaisysolosyourfaves@blep-23@fangirlingfanatic@darkhinauniverse@ravenr22@im-a-satanic-ritual@ravennm84@bianca-hooks123@a-slytherinish-gryffindor@starling218

#daminette december 2023 #daminette #damian wayne #marinette dupain cheng #marinette wayne #married life #married with kids #marinette x damian #damian x marinette #mlb x dc #jason todd #dick grayson #tim drake #big brother tim #family time #date night #wayne brothers #amaya wayne #jun wayne #malik wayne #gremlins #mochinek0

[jokeroutsubs]

ENG translation: "We are advocates of the fact that it is possible to create in our language"

An interview with Bojan Cvjetićanin and Kris Guštin in Slovenian magazine Reporter Magazin, originally published December 2023

Original article written by Katarina Keček for Reporter Magazin; photos by Primož Lavre and Urša Premik; English translation by @kurooscoffee and another Joker Out Subs member, proofread by IG GBoleyn123.

Also available in audio version on Spotify, read by IG GBoleyn123:

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post!

After a fantastic recent concert season with the currently most popular Slovenian music group Joker Out, who have already broken all boundaries at home, the boys are now ready to conquer the world's music stages. European first, said the band's two members, guitarist Kris Guštin and singer Bojan Cvjetićanin, modestly, when we met in their rehearsal room, "Then we'll think ahead." A few days after our conversation, Joker Out embarked on a new tour, which will include 13 European countries, including France, Belgium and Italy. Among others, they will be playing at some of the world's most iconic venues, such as the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire in London and the Academy 2 in Manchester. A musical success that has no comparison here.

I'm sure you have given hundreds of interviews over the years? How do you cope with them?

Kris: If the questions are good, the interview is also good.

Bojan: During Eurovision we had about 40 interviews a day. Let's say two of them were a little different in terms of questions.

What kind of questions don't you like?

Both: Where did our name come from? When was the band formed? The kind of thing that everybody can find on Google.

Eurovision was a big breakthrough for you abroad, but you also said that you would not do a competition like that again.

Kris: We didn't say that.

Bojan: We have another one in January. We're playing at a festival in the Netherlands, it's a kind of show where you present yourself. It's a competition in a sense, but it's not very specific like Eurovision.

But these music competitions can't be real competitions. They are about the taste of the listener, just as art is about the taste of the observer. How are you going to evaluate a quality, a song?

Bojan: Eurovision is a really interesting experience and has a very specific concept. It's a three-minute spectacle contest, there are tangible standards, but on the other hand there are not. This spectacle may be different from what any of us would think of as "spectacle", let's say a lot of fire, explosions, and fireworks, but if the story is properly told in the flood of all these fires and explosions, just one deep silence can make the performance spectacular. For us, the competition was more about whether or not we would make that breakthrough. A contest against ourselves.

When you were at Eurovision, did you have in mind the country you were representing, or did you, first and foremost, see yourself in this contest? As an opportunity for the group to present itself?

Bojan: It was absolutely important for us to sing in Slovenian at this festival because we are advocates and representatives of the fact that it is possible to create in our language and that it is right to create in our language. It's right to speak it and it's right for the language to develop. The younger generations of Slovenians are also gaining an appreciation for the Slovenian language and an understanding of what it can be used for. The aim was to show ourselves. In the end, it is true that a country wins, let's say Sweden won, or Finland won, but the most important thing for us was that when someone says, "Do you remember Slovenia in 2023?" that it will be a positive image and a positive memory. We managed to do that, which is a big enough victory as far as we are concerned. At the same time, we did everything we could to represent ourselves and Slovenia in the best possible way.

Despite all this, we welcomed you home with great joy, we did not blame you for your result in the competition, because we saw that you gave your all.

Bojan: I was honestly happy to see the positive reaction, even though objectively speaking we had a pretty poor placement.

Kris: After a long time, us Eurovision performers also had the same kind of support of the nation at home that our athletes have.

It's interesting that you hold on to the Slovenian language so lovingly and don't give in to the prejudices that claim that Slovenian is not a poetic and melodic language. You write songs in various languages, but mostly in Slovenian.

Bojan: For me, it is most natural to write songs in Slovenian. My thought process, during my subconscious existence, is in the Slovenian language.

Your parents are not of Slovenian nationality, they both came from Bosnia during the war in 1991, with the last Unprofor convoy. Kris's mother is also Dutch, and you both love the Slovenian language.

Kris: My mother moved to Slovenia before Slovenia joined the EU and, as she explained to me, it was very difficult for her at that time too. All the bureaucratic stuff dragged on, just like it would for someone who came from Bosnia.

Bojan: I never had any problems with my parents being from Bosnia. I was at a school where there were quite a lot of children who had parents from the former Yugoslavia and we had no problems with that. I coped with the Slovenian language quite well from a very young age. However, this does not change the fact that the living conditions of many children at our school were of a lower standard. I don't know what was going on in their homes, because I know that for many it was not so rosy at home, but we children did not feel any revolt or hatred from our classmates at that time.

Your parents are both doctors, and they have made a new home in Slovenia. Do you still go to Bosnia?

Bojan: Yes, more and more often. I feel very Slovenian, I think and speak in this language, but on the other hand I am immensely proud of my roots and I also feel Bosnian, Serbian, at my core, and it seems to me that the fans from the former Yugoslav countries have now taken us very much as their own because of that.

You had very successful concerts in Zagreb and Belgrade. Interestingly, the visitors knew all your songs by heart, and what's more, they sang them with you in Slovenian. We haven't been used to that since the days of Lačni Franz* and Videoseks.*

*(The only two groups prior to Joker Out who succeeded in ex-Yugoslavia region enough to have the audience sing their songs in Slovenian)

Kris: Isn't it interesting that we find it bizarre that Serbs are singing in Slovenian, because before it was always the other way around?

Bojan: I also never understood before that Croatians or Serbs didn't understand us. As in, is the difference in languages really so big that you don't understand us? We can understand you. The fact is that Slovenians have been in contact with the Serbo-Croatian language in one way or another since we were very young, we all go to the seaside in Croatia, and we also listen to music from those parts en masse.

But the young people of your generation speak to the locals on the Croatian coast in English because they no longer understand their language.

Both: Yes, that's also true.

How come these Balkan languages don't cause you any problems?

Bojan: It's my mother tongue anyway, so I don't have any problems.

Kris: It seems very stupid to me that Slavs should communicate in Germanic languages. Even with the Czechs at Eurovision we communicated in both languages and it worked. It seems to me very inauthentic to speak English, but on the other hand I understand, because young people in Slovenia today are surrounded by English, maybe even more than Slovenian, and it is much more natural to them than to struggle in their own language or in a language that is supposed to be related to their own. It would be interesting if "interslavic" was introduced in all countries with Slavic languages as a second or third language. This is a mixture of all the Slavic languages, which is supposedly understood by all the members of the Slavic peoples. A language that is similar in its own way to all of us.

Esperanto, invented in the late 1980s as a counterbalance to the overuse of English, was a similar project. I do not know how many people still use it today.

Kris: Introducing a new language is not the easiest cultural process.

You have a big tour coming up, actually the first tour of European capitals.

Kris: Yes, first we're going to Skopje, then Munich, The Hague, Amsterdam, Madrid and Barcelona. On the 11th of December we're going back to Slovenia for a week, when we're planning to record some more in the studio, and then we're going to do concerts until the end of the year in Slovenia, in Celje, Maribor, Novo mesto and Ljubljana.

These tours must be exhausting. Every day travelling, buses, different cities, masses of people wanting something from you.

Kris: We have six concerts coming up now.

Bojan: We've just played nine concerts in fourteen days, we were in Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Croatia.

Do fans in other countries remember you only from Eurovision or do they know your other songs as well?

Bojan: The most fascinating thing is that they have learned all the songs from the past too. We actually managed to break that barrier with just one song, but people learned two hours of material in another language. I don't know how many hours they had to devote to it, but they did.

Are you surprised by such enthusiasm? None of you could have planned this.

Kris: We went to Eurovision with this intention, so we can't say that we were completely surprised by the success. The ultimate goal all along was to make a breakthrough abroad. But we were absolutely surprised by the scope of the response. It could have been that Carpe Diem would have been very successful abroad, but the other songs would not have caught on. But we get to the concert and there is no feeling of waiting for this greatest hit, from the first minute people are "in it" and singing.

Bojan: If we sometimes dropped a song from our repertoire that we didn't want to play in Slovenia anymore, one of them being "Proti toku" because it was totally getting on our nerves, there were revolts on the internet and people were carrying banners at concerts saying "Play Proti toku!"

Kris: When we released New Wave with Elvis Costello, we thought that foreigners would prefer to listen to the song in English, but somehow everyone demanded it in Slovenian.

Bojan: They learned the Slovenian version and that's what they want.

I could say that you are kind of the pioneers of a new wave of Slovenian music, one for which Slovenia is obviously too small. None of the previous Slovenian Eurovision representatives have impressed Europe so much.

Bojan: I really don't remember us having any artist like that before. When Sestre went to Eurovision, they rode the wave at the time too, they were doing a lot of international shows too. I mean, it was a different concept, it was a project, but it still worked. Mostly because they actually had a vision, a plan and also a background behind them, there has to be some kind of support mechanism in the process. We didn't have performers in the sense of, okay, you showed up at Eurovision, now do a one-hour concert for me. Most of the performers couldn't do that because they didn't even have enough songs.

Kris: It's not only a problem in Slovenia, you find it everywhere, even among foreign artists. The Norwegian representative was fifth in Eurovision this year, she's very popular, but she only had one song on the market after the contest was over. Now she is going to release an album, but she hasn't had enough material so far.

Have you been preparing on your own to go abroad or do you maybe have some very professional agencies behind you to promote you and push you forward?

Bojan: With the people who are with us, we are our own management. We've never had someone above us who was our boss. We have always been our own bosses. We have our own people around us, but we have reached a level of performing in Slovenia that requires you to have a big team around you. We have about 30 people accompanying us on a regular basis, including the driver. When this success story happened, this breakthrough abroad, we were able to channel our system in a new direction, to at least somehow "patch up" the line up abroad for this year.

Do you cultivate a system of democracy in the band? How do you agree on certain things? By raising your hands?

Bojan: There hasn't been a need for that so far.

Kris: Usually the majority wins, within reasonable limits, of course.

Where do you find yourself more, live performances, making music, travelling, mingling with fans?

Kris: It really depends on the time period. It has to alternate. Solely playing infinite concerts is really fun for a while, but then it becomes tiring. The number of concerts we have played now is just about on the borderline for us to go back to the studio again for some time. On the other hand, spending infinite time in the studio isn't good either. During Covid, we were locked in for two years and we were just making music the entire time, and somewhere in there we kind of lost motivation. In the studio you also realise why you love the stage.

Are you tired after concerts, after a few hours of jumping around the stage?

Kris: The concert itself tires you out much less than the travelling. If you're lucky enough to be able to afford a private bus that takes you from concert to concert, then it's a lot easier. You get into it after the concert, fall asleep, and wake up in another city. The tour that is ahead of us, however, is made up entirely of flying, and that is the worst. Hotels, rushing, packing, taxis, airports, the atmosphere in airports is really unpleasant, no one is happy there, the hours drag on... that is the harder part. The concert itself doesn't tire me out that much. Most of all, we could play two concerts in a row if the atmosphere is right.

All that requires psychological and physical fitness as well. Do you practice any sports?

Kris: I used to be a more sporty person, I regularly played tennis, but ever since Eurovision, I can't find the right time to go back to something regular. I also used to play football recreationally every week, that's gone too. When on tour, I can only afford to run or to go to the hotel gym. But I haven't gotten to the point where I could make peace with that yet.

Bojan: I currently don't exercise at all. I used to train judo for a long time, but now, unfortunately, I haven't yet forced myself to go to the gym or go running when I have a free day. I'd like to start doing that, but I'm the type of person who needs a companion to pull me along and motivate me every day. I'm most drawn to football, martial arts, or extreme sports, but now I don't dare to do anything anymore because of injuries. Lately I've been going horse riding when I'm home. I find that horses calm me down.

Do you follow politics, are you interested in what's going on in Slovenian society?

Kris: Even a year ago, I was a lot more interested than I am now. Not just because we had a different government, but because I had time to think about it. I studied international relations for a while, I'm currently doing my master's. Otherwise I'm a chemical engineering graduate who switched to another university. I used to follow Slovenian politics a lot, but now I don't know if I feel like a fully qualified citizen of Slovenia anymore, since we've spent more than half a year outside of it. When I walk through our city now, I see it with different eyes. I see it almost as if it was any other city in the world, I pay attention to things like architecture or the atmosphere people create. Before, I used to walk through Ljubljana, it was my city, but I didn't pay attention to what was around me. Now I feel like half a stranger, which is weird in a way.

Bojan: For me, Ljubljana has now become a kind of base, a safe haven. I also see it differently than before. I agree with Kris that there are plenty of things that I didn't notice at all and I only see them now. I always perceived Ljubljana in a kind of romantic way, pretty much only the centre, even though I didn't live there from a young age. Only now that we've travelled around countries like Poland, Lithuania, or Finland, I see a lot of architectural similarities, but it has started to bother me that Ljubljana is so diverse in this aspect.

Is this diversity not a good thing?

Bojan: I don't know. Ljubljana smells nice to me, when I was walking around yesterday, I felt like Ljubljana was the last stage of a place. It's hard to say that this is a city, let alone a capital city of a country. Last night I was walking around the capital city of Slovenia at half past nine, and it was literally like I was in a "zombie land". There was no one anywhere. Incredibly weird, but on the other hand, nice.

Kris: That's pretty weird.

Bojan: Everything is getting more rigid, people are locking themselves up in their homes more and more.

Where can young people of your age go out in Ljubljana?

Kris: I'm facing this problem too.

Bojan: I think that in Ljubljana, we have quite a lot of choice when it comes to the number of places meant for parties. When they are open is another problem. We have a number of high quality clubs: K4, Cirkus, Orto, Shooter... for such a small place, we have a lot of clubs. The problem for me is that Ljubljana is a completely dead city in the summer. You can't go anywhere in the summer because everything closes down except Metelkova. For a tourist who's 20 or 25 years old and comes to Ljubljana in the summer, when it's wonderful, it's the most beautiful in the summer, it's a city where they have nothing to do.

Kris: There are plenty of places to hang out, but none of them appeal to me. I used to like going to K4, not anymore now, the last club I visited was Gala hala. It was awesome there.

When you come home nowadays, do you want to go to parties, go around the town?

Bojan: No, not at all. We're not really enthused about going out. When we come back home, we find other ways to relax. When I'm home, it suits me to be able to rest. Otherwise, what I like best is going to a concert.

Kris: That's what I like best too.

The band members constantly stick together, you even go on holidays together?

Kris: We already went together, it was awesome, we function great. The only concern is that we're constantly together. It's not good to be together all the time, each of us has his own life and things to do.

But, Bojan, you even went on holiday with your parents this year? How come?

Bojan: Yes, after eight years, we went on holiday together again. I was supposed to go to Thailand with the band, after the concert in Stožice. I got tonsillitis on the day of departure, so I avoided the long journey. When I felt a little better, I went to my grandma in Banja Luka, and after that, I went on holiday with my parents for five days.

Do they look at you differently in Banja Luka than in Slovenia?

Bojan: They don't recognise me on the street there nearly as much as it happens in Slovenia, it has only happened to me a few times.

Kris: The level at which I get recognised on the street is still okay for me. Bojan is more exposed and definitely has a different perspective. Maybe the most annoying thing is that you are expected to constantly be smiling and ready to take photos. We really are like that most of the time, but there are days when you're not in the mood to socialise, but you still have a concert. Afterwards, a lot of listeners are waiting and would like to hang out with you. I'd like to tell them that I am very grateful that they're there, but that I really don't have a never-ending social battery to be able to talk to all of them.

Bojan: It is ungrateful to talk about recognisability as something negative, because it's simply a consequence of everything we have and it's an expected side product. If I'm in a public place, I know that everyone around me is listening to what I'm talking to someone about. It has become uncomfortable to talk about anything personal with anyone, because you always feel like someone is eavesdropping.

What's your favourite thing to do when you finish a gig?

Kris: The first thing I do is to take a shower. I hang out a little with the team, with the band members, sometimes we go out to take photos, but otherwise, as soon as possible I drink a glass of water and go directly to bed.

Bojan: I'm such a good boy. I always take at least one hour for taking photos with fans.

I haven't yet come across you getting caught drunk or high on various substances, which isn't rare in the music world, it's more like a rule.

Bojan: I view all these extreme excesses as filling a void. For 99 percent of these performers who are said to do this, the roots of those voids are very clear. They come from personal trauma, mostly from childhood. Thankfully all five of us in the band come from very stable and happy families, none of us lacked for anything, quite the opposite, we all had everything endlessly. We have maximum support from all the people around us. We don't feel the need to rebel against anything, because we actually have nothing to rebel against. All these bands that did a lot of drugs and alcohol actually mostly broke up very quickly.

Bojan, you appear to be very energetic on stage, you're spontaneous and charismatic, you have the public eating our of your hand. Do you unleash your alter ego on the stage? Is that a different Bojan?

Bojan: You'd have to ask the guys from the band who spend the most time with me. As far as I know from the stories from people who have known me since I was little, I have always been loud and very talkative. I always liked performing and I wouldn't say that I put on an act on stage. On stage, I let myself go to the max, I think that I really mould myself into what I think belongs on stage. It's not a different Bojan on the stage, he just does some things that belong on stage.

Kris: Bojan on stage is in a higher gear. It's the same for the whole band.

Bojan: People can feel other people. Everything that happened to us is also in large part a consequence of people actually feeling that we are the same people on stage as we are when we come off the stage. We're real here, there's no acting, we also don't think that we're any better than them. We're all friends, they're below the stage, we're on the stage, and we have fun together.

Kris: It's also true that I feel more free on stage. We're allowed more. I enjoy the fact that our concert is a sort of a valve, even though I hate that word.

Like every ordinary woman, I can't skip past your fantastic stage clothes. All my female friends want to wear them.

Bojan: I would also like to wear them in my private life, but I already have a closet full of clothes that have piled up throughout my life, and they aren't like the ones we wear at gigs. But I would like to walk out of my room every day dressed in a way that made me look like I'm in Miami in the 80s, or like a mix between a "drug dealer" and a "drug cop".

Kris: My sister has already looted my closet. I looted my dad's.

Bojan: I have looted the closets of my parents and my sister.

Kris, your dad is a famous musician. Did he help you at the start, what kind of advice does he give you?

Kris: My dad only helped me in the sense that I sometimes showed him what I had written or what we had recorded in the studio, and he gave his opinion. But that hasn't happened in a year now, ever since I moved out. Before that, he could hear me through the walls when I was playing.

Bojan: I've also become independent. Although now when we come back from a tour, I still like going back home the best.

What does independence look like?

Kris: I like it. I can't imagine going back home anymore, even though I love my family immensely. But us not living together anymore has only made our relationships better. I like having my own peace, but I also like coming back home for lunch.

BIOGRAPHY In 2017, five friends started a band called Joker Out. They had all been musically active before, but they achieved the first big success as a band as the winning group of Špil liga in Kino Šiška in Ljubljana. After this victory, the boys became sought-after on all Slovenian musical stages. They released two albums, Umazane misli in 2021 and Demoni a year later. In those two years, they also received two 'Zlata piščal' ('Golden Flute') awards, in 2020 for newcomers of the year, and again next year for artists of the year. This spring, RTV Slovenia sent Joker Out and their song Carpe Diem to Eurovision where, despite a lot of attention from fans, they ended in a modest 21st place. Despite that, European music enthusiasts have welcomed them as their own, their popularity is growing quickly. Joker Out are currently filling the biggest European concert stages, which no Slovenian musician has managed before.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post!

#joker out #bojan cvjeticanin #bojan cvjetićanin #kris gustin #kris guštin #Spotify

[dunmertitty]

lou sullivan dying because he was not given aids healthcare from transphobic gay organizations and saying “you wouldn’t allow me to live as a gay man but i’m dying as one”

robert eads saying smthn like “it’s ironic that the only part of my body that’s still female is killing me” and then died because doctors refused him healthcare because he wasn’t a woman but was not recognized as a man either

we’re fighting the same fight we’ve always fought. why are you excluding trans men and nonbinary ppl who can get pregnant from your reproductive healthcare activism unless you want us dead too.

the government wants gays dead. the government wants women dead. and the government wants trans people dead. if you’re excluding trans people from your activism you’re hurting your own fight. dividing and conquering is always how people in power stay in power. you’re so busy fighting us and telling us that we don’t deserve to be included and we should shut up and let ourselves be misgendered and excluded while the government is rubbing it’s hands together and laughing because that’s exactly what they want. less work for them. excluding us because you want to further your goal hurts yourself as well