We tape our flamethrowers to our pulse rifles

While it’s true they can’t take Descovy because it’s not approved for people who were AFAB so doctors can’t prescribe it, but they can take Truvada.

It's back when Peridot has newly joined the Crystal Gems. She's open to learning, but - and this is important - was literally programmed to think and behave the way she does during her creation process, and everything she's seen and done until very recently has only reinforced this information for her.

So basically, at this point, she knows almost none of the correct terminology or etiquette, but she's trying. She's 'got spirit.' However, at one point, while working with Garnet, she requests that she defuse back into Sapphire and Ruby, because Garnet's presence is making her uncomfortable.

Now, we the audience are aware that this is a very rude, inappropriate request, and that it was wrong of Peridot to make it. Peridot, however, has spent all her life being indoctrinated with the concept that fusions between gems of different types is perverse, improper, probably even illegal. We eventually learn that it's something that can get a Gem shattered. She has been taught her whole life that everything that Garnet is is wrong.

Of course she's uncomfortable.

Unlearning deeply-ingrained beliefs, ideals, and values is an extremely uncomfortable process. Necessary and important, yes, but uncomfortable. It's also a procedure where the person doing this is going to make a lot of mistakes, because they have a lot of learning and unlearning to do.

And, to her credit, while the request is rude, the way Peridot makes it is very polite. Her tone of voice is level, not quite neutral but obviously working for it, and fairly calm. She directly says what she would like Garnet to do and also clearly explains why she is making her request without being incendiary about it.

It was, quite frankly, the perfect set-up for Garnet to tell her no, and then either explain herself why that was an inappropriate request or have one of the other members of the group explain. Especially since, from everything we the audience knew at the time, the Crystal Gems are literally the only ones in the entire universe who hold these beliefs and values. Meaning that they're literally the only people who Peridot could learn any of this from.

Instead, the episode smash-cuts to Garnet having put Peridot in a child leash and tied her to a fence post while Peridot yells, "What, what did I say?!?" in clear and open confusion over her mistake. It's made very obvious that she knows she's done something wrong, but also doesn't know how she's messed up. Heck, she's even clearly demonstrating that she wants to know, to learn what she did, presumably so she can avoid doing so in the future. But, when Steven asks Garnet why she did that, Garnet just says, "She was making me uncomfortable."

And then that's it! It's never brought up again, Garnet's actions are treated as correct by the narrative, and, not only is nothing learned by the characters, younger viewers have potentially learned a very toxic lesson on how to respond to people who are still in the unlearning process but have spirit.

It's not about 'getting it right' all the time.

He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"

"What?"

He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"

"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."

Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.

Behold, Dorothea

He turned to me, sighed, and said in a very deadpan tone-- "Plants don't have covenants, Joy,"

And so did @randommemorylog and @givemesherbet-blog-blog! 536 words written, so here's a snippet for you all:

In contrast, when faced with the criticism that their work did not sufficiently account for race, Butler spent several years working on a book very explicitly accounts for not only race in a broader sense, but also global politics and the ways both impact gender marginalized people - from cis women to all trans people - to differing severities.

The entire situation is being framed around her identity when it instead should be discussed as 1. cops do not actually deescalate anything and often show up TO antagonize 2. this is how virtually every police interaction with people in mental health crisis goes and was lucky to not lead in death 3. the fact that it is often extremely difficult to get body-cam or police-taken footage of incidents but this went viral is even more a demonstration of "the point"--the cop did not have to worry about use of force being considered, because a woman having a meltdown where she wasn't hurting anyone would be seen--as it was by many--as a sufficient response.

So many police shootings, so many vigils I've attended, are from cops killing people in crisis that the cops escalated. Often purposefully.

I think so often about Charles Kinsey. A Black autistic patient of his was having a crisis and was sitting in the street holding a toy car, and the cops were either chickenshit certain it was a gun--or lying. Kinsey (also Black) went out to bring his patient out of the street and ultimately laid down with his hands in the air because the cops were trying to shoot the patient. Who was calmly sitting in the road. The cops shot anyway, but missed and hit Kinsey, the therapist. Kinsey fortunately was not killed, but was handcuffed and left bleeding in the road. The patient didn't pose any threat, and neither did Kinsey, and the cops' disdain for Kinsey following the incident makes me less sure his shooting was an accident, and not instead punishment for daring to deescalate a situation the cops were bent on escalating.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Xavier Hernandez. Last year, he was suicidal and was going to jump off a bridge. 911 was called by his loved ones to try to save him, and when police arrived, body cam footage showed the cops order him to the ground. He complied. On his knees with his hands up, he was tased multiple times, beaten, strangled, and ultimately smothered to death. The news parroted reports that he was "combative". Footage proves he wasn't. And was still killed. You would not believe how difficult it was to find articles about this because every search result, including explicitly quoting the victim's family, were buried under "hero cop" stories and articles about how suicidal people are evil for "forcing suicide by cop". I had to go to Mapping Police Violence to find his records.

Over a decade ago when I still thought police brutality was an issue to be solved from inside, I got to go on police ride-alongs. I had seen unwarranted police violence before then, and certainly much of it myself or with clients after, but I had never seen intimidation being performed for my benefit. One cop I rode with would slow his squad car behind people, then briefly turn on his sirens to scare them and see "who would start running." Another cop rolled down his window to catcall a woman holding her (presumably) boyfriend's hand. The cop bragged about how the boyfriend "couldn't do anything about it." Those kinds of stories aren't unique. Cops on riot lines will try to bait people into fighting. I've seen cops brutalize people for stealing things, not even end up arresting the person, and actually stealing the things themselves. Cops will lie about weapons and plant them. They will wait for people to run to shoot them in the back. They will wait for someone to be pinned on the ground to execute them. This is not a fluke, the point of police is intimidation, not safety.

The poor woman went viral to "show" both how "delusional" trans people are and how violence against us is the rational conclusion. How she "deserved" it. How raising your voice and being erratic makes brutality against you "justified."

She is going viral at the same time as AI footage of Black women having meltdowns over foodstamps and "blue haired liberals" are "assaulting" republicans are making the rounds. It is the normalization of "This person is a threat who deserves violence."

It's very much about her, but not only about her. It's about what is acceptable. Nothing about how she was treated is acceptable, but she was baited into distress to "prove" she's dangerous. And then even at her most volatile she was not ever a physical threat. Just loud. And yet the violence done to her is being excused or even championed.

It's "cringe" to defend her. She "embarrasses" trans people by "proving conservatives right." Of course she proves their point. The entire scenario was forced to become that. If she was treated with respect, if she was deescalated, there would be no viral video. She was pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and laughed at, because the cops knew exactly what they were doing. It's literal rage-bait and the only "newspapers" touching this story with a ten foot pole are tabloids--because it's bait!

@trans-masked thanks for the insight, I honestly dont know that much about this subject.

Many news sources comment on Nolan's alterations to the role, because he removes many of those underhanded traits and makes him a figure of honor and bravery. imho these changes are still transphobic and misogynistic, because he instead makes Page's Sinoh a naive young solider eager to please and who doesnt know anything about any strategy or deceit. In that way, he's just stripped of agency and his entire role in the story, which makes it strange to choose this character for Page to play except through the lens of transphobia.

Its not that nolan cant import crossover characters, but people's claims that Elliot Page's role in the odyssey is "the first good role nolans given him" when its a cameo of a character from a different story that a casual viewer isnt familiar with and that is clearly not a role he would have given to any cis man is just stupid to me. Elliot Page is 37 and he is cast as a young, naive recruit and described as "terrified" to play the role.

This is just not how you report on a cis man over 30 playing a role or the role a cis man over 30 typically plays.

Also when people thought the role was actually going to be Achilles, who is also not in the Odyssey and is a well-known queer figure but in popular culture still associated with masculinity (and is at least a character people KNEW), he got enough online backlash it was commented on by news sources. Elon Musk was a huge part of the hate campaign against him and Lupita Nyong'o, singling them both out specifically.

my kid: *nods*

my kid: