Winslow

So let’s talk about it. Ten years ago I was on the frontlines with many other queers watching in utter horror as our favorite new icon was murdered. Lexa was a fictional character, but she symbolized so much more. There wasn’t nearly as much sapphic representation on tv, let alone on such a widely accessible channel, ten years ago as there is now. We were already starved for it. We’d been gifted an amazing character. A badass, young, female warrior who grown ass men respected and followed without question, who lead her people with sensibility and compassion. And then we were given enemies to lovers. The conflicted, complex, emotional roller coaster that was Clarke and Lexa. Two powerhouses who didn’t fall in love easily, they had to fight for it. No wonder Clexa was so iconic.

But we were also skeptical. We shouted loudly “We’ve seen this before!” “We’re afraid she’s going to be killed!” “We don’t want another victim of ‘bury your gays!’”

And we were promised Lexa would live.

We were lied to.

The network showed clips of the season finale with Lexa in it, to lure us into a false sense of security. Then that night, March 3, 2016, they gave us the Clexa sex scene, they gave us happy Clexa, they told us she would be fine, then they shot her on screen and we all watched our icon die.

I was 24 years old, a lesbian yearning for any on screen representation, and finally finding an incredible source. I cried for weeks. It hurt for years. I genuinely grieve this fictional character. I’m still not over the injustice, I just live with it deep in my heart. Lexa is part of me now. I haven’t had interest in any sapphic shows since. I’d been raised on Tara Maclay, and witness to Lexa. I’ve mistrusted tv writers ever since because I don’t want to get my heart broken again.

I never watched a single episode of The 100 after 3x07. I’ve seen clips of Lexa’s appearances and mentions. I know the significance of the series finale. The only thing I can say is Thank You to Alycia who chose her finale appearance with grace and understanding of the impact Lexa had. She was not going to let them use Lexa to hurt us again.

This is why Lexa is so deeply important to me. She is my icon. She is a symbol of the pain and injustice we suffer in the LGBT community. She is a warrior and a leader. She is my Heda.

Reshop, Heda

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Trump’s budget bill has many, many things in it, but buried amongst it is the MILLIONS OF ACRES OF PUBLIC LAND FOR SALE.

This is the entirety of the Arizona state forests, the entire Cascades mountain range. Swathes of pristine desert around the national parks in Utah. On the doorstep of Jackson Hole.

THIS BILL IS BIG, BUT IT CAN BE AMENDED AND ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT PASS AS IS please.

If you have ever enjoyed the wilderness, we stand to lose it all forever.

CALLING your senators - NOT JUST IN THE WEST. ALL SENATORS, is CRUCIAL.

Outdoor alliance has a great resource for reaching out.

In light of some of the many things happening across the world this year, I thought this Pride Month needed a special illustration.

so here’s the floor planers. they’re workmen. they’re workmen. they’re not some rent boy you dolled up with a helmet to be achilles or adonis. artists have been hornily painting working-class models (and sex-worker boyfriends) into their portraits forever, but you’re supposed to frame your appreciation for the male form as an intellectually irreproachable appreciation for the heroic body from literature, or, conversely you could depict the humble beauty of peasants, if you must, but it had to be a sort of ode to nature and the simple life. peasants could be art, as long as they were… out there, you know. in a field. being a metaphor. so there’s your options for looking at a shirtless guy: he’s got to be mythic.

but no. look, here, at the workmen. the floor planers. the workmen’s bodies not dressed up in sandals and helmet, in flowers, on a pedestal. the workmen not employed as some distant paean to an arcadian countryside, not stacking sheaves or holding a lamb or elevating the beauty of nature. they’re here, they’re urban, they’re in a room just like you might have. the workers of your world, in your home, in this reality. the male body as a very real, very nonfigurative tool, humble and employed, but still gorgeous. the beauty of the men that the patrician class pays not to see. the men who come into your mansion through the back door and work unseen and leave unseen. those men. there, right there, this painting, glowing and beautiful.

not adonis. but beautiful.

anyway at the time everyone fucking hated this picture because it’s a direct slap across the classist chops. they were BIG MAD, this was filthy, it was an affront. they hated it. the paris salon rejected it. established intellectuals didn’t want anything to do with this kind of confrontation. it wasn’t art.

i just love that.

like, look at those hot guys go. look at the shine on the floor and the way their arms are. no virtuous framing, no classic allusions. just some regular guys making the floors nice for a rich fucker who never laid eyes on them at all. but here they are: look at them.