A Genuine IRL Refrigerator

roy: so if I'm the one who actually conspires to take down the main villain and successfully coups the government and who is in charge of the country afterwards

scar: and if i'm the one trying to avenge my people and who pieces together my brother's plans and gets revenge

al: and if I'm the one who actually lost the most from human transformation with a likable personality and a unique design

all of them: why are YOU the protagonist

And the phrase, "If these women have ever cried while eating ice cream in a bathtub, the story and their best friend don't seem to care," popped into my head at one point. (Note: No, I don't personally know anyone who has ever done this. I'm using it as the classic stand-in for messy emotional distress here.)

And my point now is that this phrase made me think to myself... Do I believe that Natasha Romanoff has ever sincerely cried in the bathtub while eating ice cream?

Honestly, not really. Seems OOC.

However, I do FULLY believe that Natasha Romanoff at one point sat in the bathtub eating a carton of ice cream, or some equivalent activity, just to try and experience a "Normal Girl Life Thing." And maybe she even tried to cry / cried on command! But she was also fully aware the whole time that this whole activity was, essentially, a conscious performance of a "Normal Girl Life Thing."

I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.

The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.

Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.

A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:

Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.

Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.

Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns

Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.

I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.

It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:

This podcast demonstrates that ability really well because sex scandals tend to be used as propaganda, so it's difficult to tell if they are true or not. The host will ask the historian guest, "Did he have sex with men?" and the guest will say something like, "Well four sources say so, but three were written after his death and the one from his lifetime was from a dude who REALLY hated him, so I'm going to conclude no."

That is what an expert can do, that we've perhaps forgotten about because we have so much information at our fingertips, an expert can tell which information is good & valid vs. bad & unreliable. An expert can sort much faster than a layman because they've been doing it for years.

It's the same for my field. Some things I am absolutely sure are wrong, like if someone says "We only use 10% of our brains." No, we use all of it and I can even tell you what every part does. But other claims, if I see a news article claiming something that sounds fishy, I can read the research article behind it and judge the validity of the source. I can sort. I know which parameters to sort on. That was the entire point of my education and it was pounded into my head.