i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal
‘It was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school - a
glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the
valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had
poured them in for the sun to drain - amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and
smoke blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth
of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows
of many stemmed woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a
canopy of yellow and the ferns were sear and brown all along it.’
Chapter XXIV.{Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert} Anne of Green Gables
that flashback where flint is realising he doesn’t know anything about silver and who he is genuinely made me feel sick. the rising tension and then john gets up and walks away, it feels like he reached into the narrative, took control, and cut the scene. i feel insane.
it’s like tragic that the overwhelming response to some guy(?)’s bad, shitty video is for all the hot trans posters and their cis friends to laugh and AGREE with the person’s claims. “yes lol you are ugly and you must’ve been doing this whole thing wrong or you’d look like ME 😌” we keep reinventing the idea– the bullying tactic– that appearance equals morals and vice versa no matter how wickedly and, truly, in the correct usage of the word, harmful it is.
there are worse things about the claims in that video and communication with other reactionaries which reveal not only a type of radicalisation, but (if we’re to take them at their word, idk) a seeming lack of access to proper information or proper outlet for regret– “any trans person would know this”– so with that, there’s even worse things here about the implications of social isolation and the sort of people whose entire brand is about targeting, further sequestering, and indoctrinating isolated persons. i mean sure, this person could be lying, which seems likely since TERFs are ultimately grifters (and, i’m not exactly following this closely.) but regardless of whether or not they believe what they say, we do know this doesn’t happen on its own. transphobia/transandrophobia/transmisogyny are not innate, inborn qualities. and it doesn’t reflect in a person’s appearance! transitioning– maleness, masculinity, whatever– doesn’t create it! despite what some may say, you CAN transition without community and not wind up a little asshole! and you can transition among fellow trans people and the security this affords can encourage vicious behaviour as much as it can encourage compassion! there’s no monolithic “community,” at all. there’s only the ones we nurture. not everyone has the wherewithal/spoons to be community leaders, either, and people with different needs/abilities deserve security as well.
i’ve been trans for about 100 years now and i “don’t” “look like” “other” trans guys; i also have 100 medical conditions that started either at birth or puberty and were neglected by doctors until very recently. conditions that modify the physical “results” of testosterone, conditions that impact my physical comfort (so i don’t bind anymore,) and conditions that just… enhance my proclivities and i can’t or don’t really want change them. but doctors didn’t know about a lot of this so being without information and experiencing unbalanced or inconsistent results of HRT was really upsetting, and i have a different trajectory than other trans people, and who knows if i’d be the same or very different. as far as balding, yeah there’s a protocol for that but i can’t do it because it brings back my awful period. but i wasn’t told that, either. however, i did find other trans men talking about it, only when i learned which words to search for!
paraphrasing one twitter user’s reaction, “i dont think he’d’ve been a cute girl either. some people are just homely.” yeah, i don’t really expect acceptance or celebration of my life or what i look like in it.
people are Doing Transness in different ways all the time, so saying this is what always happens when you try to transition alone just isn’t true. not everyone is enmeshed in helpful communities. i’ve been asked for help and advice on transitioning only to be dropped when i no longer served that purpose or when my path or description deviated from what someone wanted to hear. this, also, happens.
to be extremely clear: transness is good. non-linear, interrupted, resumed, disabled and mad transness, transness in sources or mediums unrelated to HRT, hairy, hairless, fat transness, non-white and non-“western” transness… there’s room. it’s good. it can be hard, sure, but wasn’t it hard “before” too? or was it instead just passively, mysteriously shitty?
it’s much more difficult to find disgruntled, regretful trans people (especially where there’s increased and less policed access to affirming care) unless you have a certain particular cause to seek out and weaponise those complaints against now and future trans people. this doesn’t (or shouldn’t) mean contemplating regret is forbidden– the opposite actually; there should be as much room for productive, understanding conversations and resources for any fear, confusion, or shame as there is for positivity. medically, trans people are over-analysed and pressured to toe the perfect line of Not Wanting It Too Much and playing the role per medical expectation. so of course as much as we do want it and might even be very happy with ourselves, unrelenting attacks on transness means combating that with inflated positivity. that’s not bad, because ultimately it’s all true even if we’re not fucking… ON!!!!! all the time. who can be?! the only thing these hyper-positive declarations obscure are the quieter, conflicted feelings that are genuinely difficult to untangle, especially publicly– because the alternative to excitement and gratitude is weaponisation by transphobes and TERFs. it’s very fucked up that dangerous people ingratiate themselves and their brand to isolated and invisibled persons.
but just… feeling sad or conflicted about interruptions in your sense of physical continuity? Um, Yeah. trans people understand this, babes.
it’s really embarrassing seeing thin/fit, white, able, “properly” hairy or hairless trans people comment on how this is ALWAYS attainable. it isn’t! it literally isn’t! allowing yourself to be the spokesperson of concerns and groups you don’t have and aren’t part of is embarrassing! it’s dehumanising to expect some kind of profound, objective, universally-recognisable “glow-up” from trans people no matter who that expectation is coming from. and the response to someone saying “i’m ugly, i can’t believe this happened, my body’s ruined, no one told me about these effects” really shouldn’t be “yeah, you really are and you always would/will be!”
i have 0 affinity for the person in that video. faggy bald transsexuals do deserve to hear they’re hot because they are. no, it’s not part of the Trans Agenda when this doesn’t magically materialise. maybe you’re just kind of mean, and/or there are conditions outside of your control that keeps you from community. but also, we do know that in all of society– including trans society, as subject to cishet society– that certain features and bodies ARE prioritised. infinitely more bodies ARE shamed and marginalised in almost every sector with devastating consequences. it IS harder to find people who aren’t just attracted to non-conventionally beautiful people, but even people who just like… tolerate them (their experiences, their concerns) in their friendgroups. and, of course, much of this outrage and disgust, from all sides, is around what’s seen as proper or improper “masculine/masculinised” traits in ALL genders– ESPECIALLY outside the bounds of social acceptance.
i just finished s4 and i love that in the end gus’s demise was not walter but his shakespearean feud with the salamancas; his own bottomless desire to make the man who killed his lover years ago suffer over and over and over again, that his achilles heel was not pride like walter’s but rage and revenge born out of grief; grief, which is simply love that doesn’t have anywhere to go. it was a monstrous love and it made a monster out of him but it was love, while walters love for his family is a veneer. what finally did gus in was not walt being any kind of formidable, equal adversary but simply an opportunistic parasite travelling on the back of a story that was so much bigger than walt could ever imagine; it was a death that didn’t involve him at all beyond orchestrating a tripping wire. he doesn’t get to see gus’s death, doesn’t get to let gus know it was him. gus dies in the story where it is hector salamanca who gets to pull the trigger on the murder-suicide that finally dries out the oceans of bad blood. just gus and an old friend and their history and shared, bloody absolution. walt tells skyler he won but it rings hollow. he is alone in a one man play
He probably could have done without ordering his grunts to shoot a kid / act really dodgy on the issue of who shot the kid.
