See you on Sanghelios

For the Melshi we first see in Narkina, a big part of staying free happens in the mind - in learning and communicating the truth, in refusing to take comfort in illusions and instead naming the dehumanizing operations of the system. By offering to Keef/Cassian the narrative of power he's developed ("never look at the numbers"), he's trying to give Cassian a way to hold onto the relative autonomy of clear, uncompromising thinking: they can keep us here as long as they want, but we don't have to believe their lies. By the time we meet him, Melshi already seems very familiar with Kino's reaction to his brand of shop talk (so familiar that I suspect Kino is not the first authority figure who's found Melshi profoundly irritating), and when Kino throws him against the wall, Melshi doesn't resist or fight back, but he does look Kino in the eye. He knows why Kino needs to do this, and as his little rueful shrug to Cassian suggests later, he's easier on Kino's need for self-delusion and displaced frustration than he is on the guards' willful misrepresentations and casual cruelty.

For Kino, moving people toward freedom is a question of organization, discipline, and management. He runs a tight ship because he's trying to get his guys the best deal he can, and he encourages them all to throw their weight into the work they're assigned because he thinks that's the best chance to get his floor through their sentences as efficiently as possible. That goal makes Melshi into a troublemaker (as his remarks threaten to undercut people's faith that good behavior matters), and Kino seems to be in the habit of throwing Melshi around to manage the expression of discontent and muttering on the floor. But of course the bigger threat Melshi poses is to Kino's faith in the system itself, and thus his belief that by maintaining order he's protecting his men - from more frying or from railing it in despair (thus his much more out-of-control response to Melshi's "they set them all free" after a whole floor's been killed for no discernible reason). Kino wants to get out himself, yes, but he also wants to get his guys out, and that's why it's Ulaf's death and the doctor's confession that provides the final push in his radicalization: he has to admit that he's been enforcing the rules of a bad-faith system, and the way he's been trying to get his men home was never going to work.

This is very compelling to me because the progression of the Narkina arc reveals that the structure of antagonism in which we first find Melshi and Kino (with Melshi needing to speak out to feel internally free and Kino needing to keep his men aligned around a shared purpose to feel that he's fulfilling his external responsibilities) is in crucial ways environmental: it's a manifestation of the forced competition and hierarchy imposed by the distribution of power in the prison. Once Kino accepts that he needs a new set of tactics to liberate the floor, and once Melshi steps up to fight for what he likely on some level still thinks is a dream, any lingering animus is quickly set aside for cooperation. Melshi is the one to throw Kino a wrench, and Kino is the one to hand Melshi a blaster. Their different methods and theories of power put them in conflict while they were still operating within a system that tried to foreclose any development of solidarity; but they share an impulse toward freedom and care for others, and Andor suggests that's finally stronger than their personal differences.

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

I'd image having an alien who relies so heavily on cycles and repeated patterns in order to function normally would be mind-boggling to the Eridians. What do you mean it celebrates the exact day of its birth every so often, just because? Wait we need to program a reliable change in light levels to simulate its planet, which has almost no atmosphere? And we have to schedule any interactions we have with it around this cycle? Wait it tracks its age by the scientific year, not by life experience and physical aging?

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”