He Found Out The Truth And Couldn't Live With The Guilt

PSA for Switch owners

The latest 11.0 update means that Google Analytics is a thing on the switch and turned on. What that means is that Nintendo has a deal with Google to share with them your data for advertisement purposes.

To turn it off

go to the eShop

go to your profile where your funds and account info is

go down to the bottom of the page

there you will see “Google Analytics Preferences”

select the Change

select “Don’t Share”

Please spread the word. Really shitty of Nintendo to just quietly start allowing Google to spy on users for advertising.

The Anatomy of a Trans Man

i know the nyt regularly edits and rewrites headlines post-publication but it's kind of wild that the basically one (1) good op-ed i've seen them publish in ages that was getting really widely shared was renamed from "Why Must Palestinians Audition For Your Empathy?" to much more vague and defanged "The Palestine Double Standard." like. come on.

anyways.

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Palestine Double Standard

The task of the Palestinian is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it.

(link to the archived page with the original headline)

The task of the Palestinian is to be palatable or to be condemned. The task of the Palestinian, we’ve seen in the past two weeks, is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it. To earn it.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched Palestinian activists, lawyers, professors get baited and interrupted on air, if not silenced altogether. They are being made to sing for the supper of airtime and fair coverage. They are begging reporters to do the most basic tasks of their job. At the same time, Palestinians fleeing from bombs have been misidentified. Even when under attack, they must be costumed as another people to elicit humanity. Even in death, they cannot rest — Palestinians are being buried in mass graves or in old graves dug up to make room, and still there is not enough space.

If that weren’t enough, Palestinian slaughter is too often presented ahistorically, untethered to reality: It is not attributed to real steel and missiles, to occupation, to policy. To earn compassion for their dead, Palestinians must first prove their innocence. The real problem with condemnation is the quiet, sly tenor of the questions that accompany it: Palestinians are presumed violent — and deserving of violence — until proved otherwise. Their deaths are presumed defensible until proved otherwise. What is the word of a Palestinian against a machinery that investigates itself, that absolves itself of accused crimes? What is it against a government whose representatives have referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and “wild beasts”? When a well-suited man can say brazenly and unflinchingly that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?

It is, of course, a remarkably effective strategy. A slaughter isn’t a slaughter if those being slaughtered are at fault, if they’ve been quietly and effectively dehumanized — in the media, through policy — for years. If nobody is a civilian, nobody can be a victim.

…

Take it from a writer: There is nothing like the tedium of trying to come up with analogies. There is something humiliating in trying to earn solidarity. I keep seeing infographics desperately trying to appeal to American audiences. Imagine most of the population of Manhattan being told to evacuate in 24 hours. Imagine the president of [ ] going on NBC and saying all [ ] people are [ ].Look! Here’s a strip on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Gaza. It is about the same size as Philadelphia. Or multiply the entire population of Las Vegas by three.

This is demoralizing work, to have to speak constantly in the vernacular of tragedies and atrocities, to say: Look, look. Remember?That other suffering that was eventually deemed unacceptable? Let me hold it up to this one. Let me show you proportion. Let me earn your outrage. Absent that, let me earn your memory. Please.

…

Here’s another thing I know as a writer and psychologist: It matters where you start a narrative. In addiction work, you call this playing the tape. Diasporically or not, being Palestinian is the quintessential disrupter: It messes with a curated, modified tape. We exist, and our existence presents an existential affront. As long as we exist, we challenge several falsehoods, not the least of which is that, for some, we never existed at all. That decades ago, a country was born in the delicious, glittering expanse of nothingness — a birthright, something due. Our very existence challenges a formidable, militarized narrative.

But the days of the Palestine exception are numbered. Palestine is increasingly becoming the litmus test for true liberatory practice.

In the meantime, Palestinians continue to be cast paradoxically — both terror and invisible, both people who never existed and people who cannot return.

Imagine being such a pest, such an obstacle. Or: Imagine being so powerful.

Vash and Femininity: Trigun Stampede and its Themes of Bodily Autonomy, Exploitation, and Vague Gender Fuckery

alright sit the fuck down. we're gonna talk about THEMES

I was on Twitter- terrible idea usually, but a couple people I follow made some tweets that got me thinking about Trigun's overall themes, and here we are. So let's talk about some themes in Tristamp! And I'll take a couple looks at Trimax as well, just for fun :3

Let's look at how the showrunners utilize gender roles and exploitation of feminine characters to show how unhealthy Knives' obsession with his ideal of Vash is, and how horrific his exploitation of Vash and the Plants is.

Vash, from the beginning of Tristamp, is someone who cares about people's choices. When people kill others in front of him, he reiterates that whether someone lives or dies is not another person's choice to make. This is something he learned from Rem (a prominent female figure in his life). He refuses to kill people because that is not his choice to make. To kill someone is the ultimate removal of their bodily autonomy. They can no longer make any choices at all; they're dead.

Vash is also someone who has almost no choice in what path his life takes. He's constantly dragged around by outside forces, namely situations that are caused by Knives (which we'll get into later). Vash doesn't make things happen, things happen to Vash. The majority of events that occur are not his fault. He's pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions. His entire life is completely out of his control.

This can be seen as early on in his life as the Fall, something he had no control over and had no idea he even had a part in. Even later, in the ship with Luida and Brad, after he's been rescued from the desert, he's kept in handcuffs right up until he's shown to be of use to them and the Plant on their ship. After that, he could theoretically say "no, I don't want to go to other ships and heal their plants," but he doesn't. He's Vash. He's helpful and nurturing at his core, and these people have done so much for him just by letting him stay, so he'll do whatever they ask, no question.

This carries over into his adulthood. At Jeneora Rock, he goes to look at their Plant at one simple request, doesn't protest when he's dragged into a duel-- he doesn't take initiative unless someone's life is immediately at stake. He lets people tell him what to do and lets himself get dragged around by the wrist. He doesn't even pretend to have control over his life like Trimax Vash does, which I mean. Fair. Why pretend to have a grip on your existence when it's impossible to do anything without a gun pointed at your head?

Vash is a very passive character. He's nurturing, kind, gentle- he's a guy that fits a lot of very typical feminine character stereotypes. If you wrote this same story but made him a woman, I wouldn't bat an eye (but I would definitely be looking at it a lot more critically, what with the amount of stereotypically nurturing/motherly female characters in media already.)

This contrasts directly with Knives. He makes a decision and carries through no matter what stands in his way. He takes initiative. If Vash is a passive character, Knives is an active character. Wherever he goes, he leaves a lasting imprint. He makes shit happen! If outside forces make things happen to him, he'll go out of his way to make sure that particular force doesn't affect him again.

These two tweets I saw are what got me thinking about this originally. I just feel like here's a good place to put them as a segue into talking about episode 11.

Episode 11 is where a lot of this feminine imagery really just. Explodes in your face. IT'S RIGHT THERE. You can't dance around it if you try. And it kind of reaches a peak when the connection reaches 100%, the gate opens, and. well. THIS happens to the Plants.

Plants, in both Trimax and Tristamp, are almost always typically feminine-looking. Knives and Vash are the only two who are male or even masculine at all. Knives, as the most masculine out of all of them, is the one trying to take charge, and mould the world as he sees fit, to a degree that is detrimental to both him and everyone else. And Vash-- passive, feminine, kind and nurturing, whose Angel Arm in the manga always sprouts decidedly feminine-looking Plant parts-- is the one being exploited for Knives' plans. It's no mistake that they made the giant plant formation at the end of ep 11 look like a giant woman that almost resembles Rem.

Vash wants people to make their own choices and keep their autonomy when it comes to their bodies and lives. Knives is the exact opposite. He wants all Plants to become independent and he uses Vash to achieve that goal, without asking what Vash wants or even knowing what the Plants themselves would prefer. He exploits Vash for the soul purpose of trying to make these Plants have Independent Plant babies. He's completely incapable of seeing that his choices are not for the greater good! He thinks he's saving them, but none of his actions are for the good of anyone but himself. He’s just violating them for his own gain.

They're really leaning into gender roles for these guys, but in a way that screams "HEY, LOOK AT THIS! ISN'T IT FUCKED UP? LOOK AT HOW FUCKED UP THAT IS. LOOK AT THIS, AND BE UNCOMFORTABLE, AND KNOW THAT IT IS FUCKED UP."

Because it is! It's so extremely fucked up. They're using this imagery and these roles, something that makes most of us intrinsically uncomfortable, to drive home how unhealthy Knives relationship with his ideal of Vash is. That's the point. We're supposed to be uncomfortable with this.

Now of course there's some nuance to it. Like, you could see Knives as somewhat of a feminine and/or queer-coded figure as well, ESPECIALLY if you look at some of his panels in the manga, which could in turn lead to themes about infighting and control within marginalized communities, but that might be something for another post. :3

And there's definitely different ways you could take this! Vash, with all this feminine imagery, could be either transfem or transmasc coded, depending on what way you'd rather see it, which could lead into themes of how people outside the norm constantly face a lack of bodily autonomy and are exploited for purposes outside their boundaries. We could also look at Wolfwood and his lack of choice over joining the Eye of Michael and becoming the Punisher, and how masculine men (particularly men of colour) are often forced into violent roles against their will. If we look at Trimax, the exact same could be said for Livio/Razlo and people with disorders such as DID/OSDD.

There are many different ways you could spin these themes, some of which I don't feel personally qualified to discuss. If anyone who is qualified to talk about Wolfwood or Livio/Razlo or even other characters related to these themes, then god PLEASE add onto this post or make a post and tag me or something. I would love to read it!

Anyway, in conclusion: Vash is a feminine figure constantly taken advantage of and exploited and and he's so incredibly trans/nonbinary-coded that it drives me insane. Thank you

Laptops are always so much more Fucked than phones in my experience. A laptop is like a beautiful horse that wants nothing more than to break all of its legs. A decently solid android phone will act normal

The Sea Organ is an experimental musical instrument that is located in Zadar, Croatia. Beneath the white marble steps, a series of tubes create a system that could be described as a large piano. When the waves or the wind flow through the holes, they interact with the organ to create random harmonic sounds. (Source)

You can listen to the sounds that the Sea Organ produces here.

on my worst mental health days, when I need to keep up but can’t stand the dread of scrolling, I look to Let’sTalkPalestine’s Instagram channel for news updates. Today I read something that really fucked with me. It said that even if there was a ceasefire called tomorrow, and aid allowed in and etc. that it would take Gaza until 2092 for its economy to return to 2022 levels. 70 years of potential progress, stolen from them in 4 months. And you just know that even when that happens (because Palestine WILL recover and WILL be rebuilt after Israel’s settler colony fails) the world will see that they’re still years behind the West for reasons completely out of their control and power and use it as justification to be even more racist and demeaning. And y’know how I know that? Because they already do it to the rest of the Middle East.

Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!