All the feels

to wit:

bottom's the raw capture, middle's just flat curve correction to make the footage visible, top is the final coloring with /counts seven adjustment layers to add back in Literally Anything But Yellow

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

It's a d

“Cowbook! Like cowboy! No…Readcher? Like Rancher? No, fuck this is hard…”

I mean sometimes they do yeah. I know a white guy with monolid eyes and zero known Asian ancestors and he absolutely experiences anti-Asian racism on a fairly regular basis because people think he’s mixed Asian/white. I know a woman who was told throughout her life that she was Native as an adoptee with no known history or background who experienced incredibly violent amounts of anti-Native racism until she discovered as an adult through DNA test that she is 100% white. I know white people who tan incredibly dark in the summer comparatively that are constantly accused of being mixed race and experiencing racism due to that, usually anti-Mexican racism perpetrated against white people with Greek or Italian ancestors.

If you think cis butches don’t experience both transphobia and misogyny and homophobia for daring to be women who break gender roles while still holding onto their womanhood you’ve sorely misunderstood just how bad butches have it in this world sorry. If you don’t think cis queens experience transphobia and homophobia and misogyny for daring to be men who break gender roles while being loud and proud about it and still holding onto their manhood then you’ve sorely mistaken just how bad they have it in this world as well.

Not to mention all of the cis men who wear dresses and skirts and makeup and nail polish and heels simply because they like them who experience all of these things. All of the cis straight women who simply just exist but something about them doesn’t pass society’s “woman enough” test, leading to them being caught in bathroom bills and sporting rules and being attacked by people who mistake them for being transgender or gay.

Just like how straight people experience homophobia to such a degree that they literally beat their children out of any potential deviance from rigidly upheld gender roles and let politicians make jokes on national TV about how they’d drown their pre-teen kids if they came out as LGBT. Do you really think a straight kid still figuring themselves out hears that and doesn’t internalize that homophobia? Doesn’t rigidly hold themselves to some impossible standard so that no one could ever possibly think they’re gay? You don’t think straight teenage boys who maybe don’t pass some bully’s straightness test are getting the shit kicked out of them for “being gay” when, surprise, they aren’t? You don’t think all those kids being attacked by their priests and coaches and teachers are being told “this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gay” when they’re literally not gay? Do you know how many straight kids had close calls at my school that famously expels all gay kids, because someone made up a believable enough rumor? Do you know how many of them still got their shit kicked in even though administration ultimately decided to let them stay?

All bigotry is violent and all bigotry catches people it doesn’t “intend” to and hurts them as well. It doesn’t matter what someone’s label is, or if they even have one. It matters if the person enacting the violence is doing it because their victim didn’t pass whatever “acceptable enough” test they didn’t know they were being subjected to.

And so much love to that poster, because it stuck with me, and really made me think about why I find Kel so compelling. And, in thinking about it, I've come to understand that the truth is that Kel doesn't get chosen. She chooses herself.

When Kel touches the door at the beginning of Squire, Neal tells her never to do it again, because the Chamber might kill her. And Kel proceeds to touch that fucking door every fucking year, to the point that the Chamber knows her, and remembers her, and is like, "Girl, you again??" And she's like, "Yep, it's me! Please torture me some more." She keeps coming back because she is afraid that she won't pass the Ordeal, and she keeps touching the door because when Kel can't do something, she works at it until she can. And so, she builds a relationship with the Chamber the way she does with everyone else in her story: by showing up, by being reliable, by having integrity, and by being the best version of herself she can be, every day.

I tend to believe that the purpose of the Ordeal is that the Chamber forces you to change--to realize something about yourself that needs to be faced so that you can become a better person--and that the Ordeal only ends once you've internalized that change. (This is why Joren dies).

Kel's Ordeal ends when she changes the way she thinks about the Chamber: "I thought you would be grand and terrible" she says "I thought you would make us grow up... This is just mean." She had put her faith in the Chamber to show her that she was worthy, but she was worthy from the start. This is what changes about her: she no longer seeks external validation from the Chamber; she no longer has anything to prove. She realizes was always worthy.

And the Chamber doesn't go on and on about how she's special, or the chosen one, or whatever. It just says: "You'll do."

When Blayce starts defying the laws of life and death, there is only one class of knights that the Chamber has access to, and Kel is the last candidate to enter the Chamber that year. She is the Chamber's last chance to enact any sort of will on the world outside its little room. And Kel walks in, and it knows her. She is the one who has been testing herself against it for years, and she comes back and gives it the metaphorical finger and tells it to fuck off. The entity in the Chamber is already searching for someone to do this important thing, but Kel doesn't need some elemental demi-god who exists outside of time to approve of her. She does that for herself. She chooses herself.

The Chamber didn't pick her in advance; it wasn't some mystical prophecy. It was holding a job interview, and Kel showed up and said, "It's me. I'll do it. (Also, go fuck yourself.)"

And the Chamber says: "Yeah, all right. (Thank fuck you showed up)."

What I love about Kel is that she embodies the kind of heroism that is possible for all of us. She is dedicated. She is kind. She is hard-working. She commits herself to the service of others. None of those things are superhuman. They are possible for each of us to achieve.

At the end of the day, being a hero isn't about being blessed or prophesized or having super-powers. It's about showing up every day and saying:

monster that wants to drink your blood : Okay, that's what mosquitos do to me. Not scary.