Rants without Pants

Does that make sense? One’s saying “yes” to something every day, the other’s saying “yes, every day” to something.

Making it hard to leave takes away a lot of uncertainty. But what if making it hard to leave devalues the staying?

I want anyone I date to know with total certainty that if they wanted to leave tomorrow, they could do it and it wouldn’t be the end of the world, it wouldn’t unleash demons. I don’t want anyone to feel chained to me.

It’s being not-chained that makes staying mean something. I want to make it easy to leave so I know we’re in this because we’re choosing to be, actively. And more than an eternal relationship? I want one where we’re in it 100%.

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

So it’s 3AM and It’s just occurred to me that the most telling scene in the entire Harry Potter franchise is the scene following the announcement of the participants of the Triwizard tournament.

When Harry’s name is pulled out of the cup, literally one of the first things he is asked is “did you ask an older boy to put your name in the cup for you?“ or something to that effect, insinuating that, that was something nobody prepared for and that it was something that totally would have worked if anyone had been smart enough to figure it out.

However, in an earlier scene a student is turned into a hundred year old man when they try to artificially age themselves with a potion and put their name into the cup. Meaning someone trying to dangerously age themselves with potion they aren’t familiar with was something the teachers genuinely considered to be more likely than someone asking for fucking help from another student.

In other words, the wizards in Harry Potter’s world are so reliant on magic that it doesn’t occur to anyone save for people like Harry that asking for help is even an option in a given situation. This explains why wizards are so fucking ass-backwards at everything, they’re so confident that their magic is capable of doing everything for them that it has never occurred to fucking anyone that perhaps asking for help from the muggle world might be of some use.

Think about it, the wizarding world hasn’t changed in hundreds of years while in that same space of time the muggle world has figured out fucking space travel. I know it’s a cliché to say to say someone could have fucking shot Voldemort, but seriously, somebody totally fucking could have, he killed like 50 people, he was effectively a terrorist, if anyone in the wizarding world bothered to ask for help from the muggles instead of just telling them there was an invisible asshole flying around shooting death curses at everyone, they may have been able to help. 

Pretty much the only reason Voldermort thinks he’s better than muggles is because he’s able to kill them with impunity using magic, something he’s only able to do so easily because muggles don’t understand what magic is. Voldemort is basically like a fucking disease, he’s an invisible, lurking entity preying on mankind from the shadows like a cowardly piece of shit. You know what else did that? Smallpox and we stomped that to death the second we understood it. That’s the difference between muggles and wizards, when muggles don’t understand something, they figure it out.

And here’s the kicker, the only reason muggles don’t understand magic at all is because the wizarding world deliberately withholds information about it. However, even if the wizarding world kept doing that, it’d only be a matter of time until a muggle figured out what magic was and how to stop or harness it because that’s what humanity does, it pushes past what we think is impossible to see what’s on the other side. We didn’t understand the sun as a species originally and now we use it to power satellites and smartphones.

The wizarding world isn’t a realm of infinite possibilities, it’s a universe of strict limitations where boundaries are never questioned. The muggle world is where the real magic happens. That’s why during the course of the Harry Potter books, which are set between 1991 and 1998, the muggle world (our world) discovered dark matter, cloned a sheep and invented fucking MP3s while the wizarding world were literally paying some dipshit to figure out what the purpose of a rubber duck was.

clock: 9:00

me:

I grew up in an entirely different Canada than you did. 

I grew up in a Canada where being a rez child was an embarrassing thing because I’m not allowed to act or speak like other native kids and still be liked by my mostly white school.

I grew up in a Canada where if my school did have a large native population we fought until we were crying to learn and get good grades for our work, but never received them because we’re too stupid to learn, too stupid to deserve books on the same level as the white students, too stupid to ever be anything but the charity case in the class. 

I grew up in a Canada where my accent was made fun of so drastically that I no longer have it. 

I grew up in a Canada where I have to marry a nice white boy because I’ll never be recognized or amount to anything if I don’t.

I grew up in a Canada where my mother and I had to share a bed while my father slept in the living room because my Native parents couldn’t secure large responsibility houses unless they paid up front because Native people don’t pay for things. (I got my own room when my mother moved us to the Rez).

I grew up in a Canada where a man tried to massacre my entire family on my sixth birthday party via rifle and there wasn’t any news coverage because we weren’t worth it. (We survived even though all police aid was 6 hours away from our tiny reserve).

I grew up in a Canada where I couldn’t be native because I didn’t have a native nose according to my white friends *Squishes nose flat onto face*

I grew up in a Canada where I hated my parents for not being white, because it meant I wasn’t white. 

I grew up in a Canada where I get stopped by police who suspect I’m drunk for no other reason than the fact that I’m Native (6 times total, once when I was 9 or 10). 

I grew up in a Canada where my mom continuously tells me I’m lucky I’m not as dark as her because her teachers used to make her wash her hands until they were bloody for being *dirty* and not pale enough.

I grew up in a Canada where my parents were taken away from their families and put into institutions designed to educate, beat, and breed the Native out of the children.

I grew up in a Canada where I get followed around grocery stores on a regular basis no matter how nicely I dress. 

I grew up in a Canada where even in University people are hoping I won’t show up to Aboriginal Awareness classes so they can speak their racist minds. 

I grew up in a Canada where the FN/Inuit suicide rate is 2-11 times higher than the national average. (Greater for Inuit populations).

I grew up in a Canada where Native women go missing at an alarming rate and the Conservative Government did nothing to help us. 

I grew up in a Canada where I’m agnostic, brought up atheist because my father refused to succumb to the religious assimilation, but we’re totally fucking weird because of it. 

I grew up in a Canada where Native parents had zero hope of saving up for post education, but we’re on easy street even though there would probably be next to no Native students in school if we weren’t granted that opportunity.

I grew up in a Canada where I totally don’t have to pay taxes and I wish someone had told me. Do you think the government will give me back all the taxes I’ve paid since I turned 18? *sarcasm* (May be substituted in for fishing/hunting without a license).

I grew up in a Canada where I’m responsible for white guilt. 

I grew up in a Canada where our students don’t know that the Canadian Government committed cultural genocide against my people.

I grew up in a Canada where my mother lost two siblings because the hospital wouldn’t admit Native people, and they died as a result of it. 

I grew up in a Canada where a white man I went to school with attacked my very dark skinned brother outside of a bar with a 2x4 that had a nail hammered into it. (He admitted it was a hate crime).

I grew up in a Canada where the cultures of hundreds of First Nations bands lost almost all of their culture and are fighting to keep it alive. 

I grew up in a Canada where I personally saw multiple angry white people attempt to run over peaceful Native protesters for our right for clean drinking water.

I grew up in a Canada where the Settlers named some of our mountains after Native stories because they thought the words sounded cool when those stories were about rapists or men who murdered women. 

I grew up in a Canada where Welfare/Social Assistance is referred to as “Indian payday” when we aren’t Indian, when Indian should never be a derogatory term, and where the less fortunate should be ashamed of themselves for being less fortunate. 

I grew up in a Canada where I’m supposed to get over it.

I live in a Canada where companies are built over Native burial grounds and their workers take the skulls of my ancestors as fancy ash trays

I grew up in a Canada where our regalia are still considered fit for costuming. 

I’m living in a Canada that’s trying to make things right on some levels, but I’m not going to just get over it because you can’t buy back all the hurt I’ve experienced.