Sometimes-overlooked Bit Of Queer History

Hot Relationship Tip: Be kind.

That's it. That's the post.

Kindness is seemingly such a simple concept, but I think it's underrated. In established relationships, it can be too easy to drown in layers of sarcasm, irony, and cynicism to the point where genuine affection isn't really expressed. Not good.

These days, when I want to explain my divorce without getting into too many details, I'll say that being in 2020 lockdown made me see just how mean he was treating me all the time. It's the truth, and it's interesting (and maybe sad) to see how many people genuinely nod and get it. Like yeah, who wants to be around someone who is just plain old mean to them all the time?

Praxis starts at home. Concepts like axes of oppression exist to describe social issues, not to justify interpersonal cruelty. Being awful to your partner isn't "punching up". Kindness isn't ever too big of a priority.

So much about The Hunchback of Notre Dame was lost on me as a sheltered child. My main memory from my first watch is thinking "I AM DISCOMFORT AND I DO NOT KNOW WHY. I NEED AN ADULT".

I think the most striking thing I noticed in this re-watch was the difference between Esmeralda's actual dancing and the way Frollo sees her in the flames. In her actual dance, there's sensuality and appeal, no doubt, but she's playful and mocking. She's messing with him and everyone else drooling over her. On the other hand, during his "Sorry 4 My Boner, Plz God Don't Send Me to Horny Hell Jail" song, Fake Flame Esmeralda is giggling and mincing in a way she never does in reality.

The modern versions of that most godly judge are dudes who think the stripper like totally wants him for real, trust me bro, she'd totally bone him if it weren't against the rules.

I've long owned a very old copy of The Age of Chivalry; Or, Legends of King Arthur by Thomas Bulfinch. It's got an 1898 copyright date, a preface dated as 1900, and a title page illustration marked 1908. Its cover is extremely worn, but the insides are intact and still pretty.

Today, I decided to look up the person whose name is on the bookplate. I found him in an ad in the San Bernardino Sun, Volume 62, Number 140, 18 July 1928.

He was a butt doctor.

Spoiler warning for relatively advanced level of plot in Hades 2. I've gotten pretty far in it.

I am beyond fucking heartbroken for Hades himself. I am devastated.

He fucked up raising Zagreus. Yes, he eventually reconciled, apologized, all that, but it took until Zag was well past childhood. Zag himself had to do the (flaming) leg(foot?)work to make it all happen, too.

By the true ending of Hades 1, you know that Hades knows that he fucked up with everyone, from his wife to his child to his Olympian relatives to his loyal Chthonic court members.

Melinoë is the child born of his rekindled relationship with Persephone. She is his chance to be a good father right from the get-go. He probably did whatever the Greek god equivalent of Lamaze classes and reading What to Expect When You're Expecting might be. I can imagine long and difficult yet loving conversations between Persephone, Hades, and Zagreus about how much they want the better version of their family to be the one that welcomes the new baby into the underworld.

And then, wham! Hades's own father shows up to be like "healing from ur toxic masculinity? learning that emotions are valid? caring about others? knowing better to do better? LOL BISH U THOUGHT" and takes it all away. Prior generations doing all they can to prevent cycle-breakers from healing. Too real.

I realized all this in the encounter where Hades tentatively and oh-so-tenderly asks after Mel's well-being and she responds with "LORD FATHER I AM AN INSTRUMENT OF VENGEANCE AND I HAVE NOT YET HAD IT SO HOW DO U THINK I AM DOING". Calling poor Hades "defeated" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Then, in the encounter right after that one, he expresses his regret that he, Persephone, and Zag weren't there to watch her grow up. And then HE ASKS HER WHAT HER HOBBIES ARE?!?! And seems saddened by the fact that her response is, yet again, "LORD FATHER I AM AN INSTRUMENT OF VENGEANCE AND I HAVE NOT YET HAD IT SO WHAT DO U THINK I DO WITH MY TIME". He is just so damn sad and full of regret.

He is the most dynamic character in the series, even without Hades 2 being unfinished. The series is named after him for a reason. Hades grows, changes, regrets, learns, all that.

My. Heart.

You know what I find personally annoying about AIs?

Not professionally as a kinda-techbro. Not morally as a human being. Not ethically as someone who trying to be a decent person. Not semantically as a philosophy major. Just personally?

The same behavior y'all hate in people like me, you adore in a chatbot.

I am currently reviewing and auditing digital records related to Internet governance. Many are legal documents that underwent endless cycles of revisions and approvals. The oldest among them are over 25 years old.

Much of what used to baffle me about Microsoft Word suddenly makes so. much. sense.

British Egyptologists were the original weebs.

You know what's more annoying than a preachy vegan?

Omnis who absolutely refuse to understand that a lot of things they eat that aren't straight-up meat/dairy/eggs often have animal products or by-products in them.

Plus, there are more of the latter than the former, so yeah, officially, the vegans are generating exponentially less as far as volume of annoying, by enormous orders of magnitude.

This post brought to you by a thread full of clueless omnis going on and on about plant-based chocolate, in ableist-as-fuck language to boot. Even when I pointed out that most chocolate products contain dairy, they kept on about it. Because of course.

Either read the fucking food labels (and maybe learn something for once in your smug life) or shut the fuck up. I hope none of them has anyone with allergies in their lives. They'd end up killing them in their insistence that, say, potato products couldn't possibly have gluten. Which, FYI, they can and do.

(ftr aside from a few infrequent but intense flirtations with vegetarian/vegan eating, I spent most of my life omnivorous. I've been loosely vegetarian for about, IDK, 5 years now? though I flex to pescatarian if the situation calls for it. I care enough about food and systemic issues related to it to render myself wholly uninterested in policing anyone's individual food choices)

I am not special. I deserve the same grace, rights, and consideration that everyone else does.

The two tupperware genders are spaghetti sauce/tamatar ki salan (reddish) and tumeric/haldi (yellowish).