pure chaos ngl

~ Ghost ~ 22 ~ queer transmasc ~ they/it most famous for being a disaster

[alltheghostssayno]

Hello everyone!

Ghost here! I'm sure you missed me!

I had issues getting into my account and tumblr made me make a new account @someghostssayyes but now I'm back here, i missed this account so much and I'm very happy to be back.

I have new pronouns (they/it) and a new gender (puppy) since we last talked.

All the best, Ghost :)

[mythalism]

i actually need to know people's thoughts on this because at least in my experience the answer to this has drastically changed since i was on tumblr in the 2010s and its driving me fucking insane

what's the appropriate way to engage with a fandom take you disagree with on tumblr?

voice your disagreement in the replies

voice your disagreement in a reblog addition

shrug and move on

vaguepost and complain about it on your own blog but dont engage directly

send it to a trusted moot and vent about your frustrations about it in private

bald / nuance / see results

Voting ended onMay 29, 2025

*im talking about fandom takes specifically. not someone being horribly evil about a real-life issue or or blatantly factually incorrect. literally just harmless fandom disagreements or differing interpretations of a text/character/etc.

[mythalism]

i need you dorks to REBLOG this if you voted.... i already know my circle of moots and i have the same opinion i need this to spread across fandoms to get a real accurate sample of sufficient size COME ON!!!!!! and love and kisses to everyone reblogging and leaving their thoughts in the tags <3 muah muah xoxo

[apolladay]

Do you have any allergies?

Yes, a food allergy

Yes, a pollen allergy

Yes, another allergy

Yes, all of the above

Yes, 1 and 2

Yes, 1 and 3

Yes, 2 and 3

No

Voting ended onJun 1, 2025

[kirianthedivorce]

Film producers shouldn’t cut corners and use AI to create films cheaply because the lead actress might get trapped in a computer simulation with the ghost of a closeted actress from the 1940s and end up having a tragic lesbian romance and then where would you be

[venusmage]

Guys i might've just gotten that "oh fuck I have to get my masters' degree" moment

[venusmage]

My spouse is taking an art class for school. They made a collage tonight and had to post it on a discussion board, so they were showing me what their classmates made. Now, this is an elective class. It’s not an art school, just a regular college. For most people this course will be a one and done, unless they’re part of the arts major specifically. And guys.

One of those collages was SO. GOOD.

The composition was flawless. It had so much texture and character. SO much personality. Genuinely a capital p Piece that I’d want a print of or something, made out of a single magazine page. The way he put it together was so clever I was jealous I’d have never thought of something like it.

and the comment he posted was “Yeah I’ve never done this before, haha. I hope I did it right, it was fun.”

DID IT RIGHT? BUDDY YOU EXCELLED. And the worst part is after hearing about the professor of this class he does not seem to really interact with his students or encourage them at all. I have no way of knowing who this collage savant is. If he’s an art major or is studying something completely different. I don’t know if he’ll ever try anything like this again and I don’t know if anyone will convey to him just how exceptional his attempt was! And it’s driving me crazy! I’d at least have hope if the freaking teacher CARED AT ALL!!!

T (student’s initial). If you’re out there I’m psychically beaming you with the confidence to keep being creative. Also I’m going to get my MFA because the fact I can’t reach you in an academic setting, and knowing there are so many more people like you out there, is going to make me lose sleep.

[were--ralph]

not allowed to say Harry Potter, but what was your book series obsession as a teen

mine was definitely Eragon

[lixiebuilds]

His Dark Materials

[auxphono]

>.>;; The Vampire Chronicles

[alltheghostssayno]

Red Queen

[imeverywoman420]

Having an abusive parent is kinda funny in retrospect like mommy why do you have beef with me im 4 i love you

[teaboot]

Haters (my dad) can't stand to see a bad bitch (me, nine years old) winning ("drawing too loud")

[gildedproblems]

How do you draw too loud?

[teaboot]

Well you see the thing is that child abuse is inherently irrational

[segamascott]

[freiherr-von-naarenburg]

[flannelunderpants]

[dongtopus]

every fucking single one of those cunts deserves to be kicked from their courses. Fail the course like an adult and fuck off to retail to grow up like everyone else.

[hypexion]

The Story & the Engine is one of those stories about stories being important. Writers can keep getting away with it!

Let's go to Lagos

The Doctor has buddies now

Hair-growing effect is kind of goofy

However there is definitely a sinister bend to the Barber. Especially given the whole "harvesting stories from hostages" thing.

Window stories are cool

Return of the mysterious person who the Doctor knows but not us with Abena

Remember: it's never Susan

The chance of the Rth Doctor appearing are small but never zero

Sometimes you do have to laugh at the guy pretending to be The Legendary Guy. Much better than doing The Legendary Guy how it is normally done.

Gods are real now though, in a "made from human stories" way

Cool folklore usage in this one

We also get Belinda information although not from Belinda. How long has the Doctor been following her?

The Doctor can blow up a story-ship in six words. Impressive!

The ultimate metaphor of the Barber is clearly how the creations of labouring artists are controlled by corportations, who can then continue to use and benefit from the product of said labour without the original creators

The bit where the Doctor gets mad at Omo feels a little out of place. "Man I hope the Doctor will show up and help" is a sentiment share by many people the Doctor has helped

Has Belinda really known the Doctor long enough for hugs? Problems of eight-episode series strike again.

Honestly overall I think having an episode that's more of a stage production is fine. Embrace the range of the medium.

[alltheghostssayno]

I don't think the Doctor was mad at Omo for hoping he showed up, Omo was waiting on the Doctor because he knew how much power his stories held and he promised the others that if the Doctor came to the shop, him and the rest of the trapped men would be able to leave leaving the Doctor trapped.

Omo was planning on betraying the Doctor in the first place that the Doctor had felt safe and welcome and at home on Earth as a Black man, which is why he was upset.

[zeezeepearl]

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

[the-barefoot-hatter]

#copied from prev:#harry potter was not a covert attempt to brainwash children into fascism#they're very milquetoast 1990s british liberal#she used to fucking hate the tories#and yes there WERE some tells in her books that she had ye olde unexamined biases

#but in the wake of her going off the deep end people have twisted that into#''she was always a hateful bigot and hp was actually a nefarious attempt to corrupt children into sharing her bigotry''

#and like#no#she was once a well-meaning fairly progressive normie who just didn't think too hard about her own background assumptions about the world#and then she got famous and then she got older and she got radicalized by people who targeted her on purpose because she had#enough money and cultural caché to turn into real influence

#and she was completely unprepared to defend her worldview from people who were telling her that her knee-jerk reaction was always right#and anyone who said otherwise was not only a jerk but also a dangerous villain who wanted to hurt her and other innocent women and girls

#and y'all are not nearly as immune to those tactics as a lot of you think you are

#fuck the ghoul that jkr has become but the story of how she got here is not the story of a crypto-fascist who made it into mainstream#it is the cautionary tale of a normal decent person who fell down a bad rabbithole and got swallowed up by a hate movement

#re-writing history so you can pretend she was always evil won't protect you from sharing her fate

#you have to put in the effort to interrogate your own biases and your own knee-jerk disgust reactions#you have to take a minute every so often to step back and CHECK if you have ended up in an echo chamber bubble and touch grass a little

#because radicalization doesn't happen overnight and it can happen to any of us#it's very easy to let yourself believe that you're Correct and anyone who disagrees with you is Obviously Evil

#you have to force yourself to double-check that notion from time to time and to hang onto EXACTLY what it is that makes the other side wron#you can't just say ''well they're conservatives so obviously they're evil'' because that is how you wind up at ''these men are hurting youn#''girls by PRETENDING to be women in order to take advantage of the protections feminists have spent decades fighting for! and we shouldn't#''even be surprised really - men are awful after all. all they do is TAKE from women and PREY ON young girls. we all know this from our own#''bad experiences with men. and we were right to hate them for it! you see!!'' and whoops now you're a fucking terf

#it's easy it's so easy it's so fucking easy and i promise you i PROMISE you there is a hate group out there who has your fucking number#no matter how good and progressive and leftist you think you are there is SOMETHING that could radicalize you into hate if you let it#there is an argument about how certain people are Just Fundamentally Evil that would appeal to you and make sense to you

[khashanakalashtar]

the woman once said, on twitter, something to the effect of "I would march with trans people if your rights were threatened."

this was the precursor to something like "so why can't you just ----" but like. she didn't always hate us. she was milquetoast white liberal about us once.

[othersystems]

[urbanpineapplefarmer]

It is really important to me that all of you learn about Al Bean, astronaut on Apollo 12 and the fourth man to walk on the moon, who after 20 years in the US Navy and 18 years with NASA during which he spent 69 days in space and more than 10 hours doing EVAs on the moon , retired to become a painter.

He is my favorite astronaut for any number of reasons, but he’s also one of my favorite visual artists.

Like, look at this stuff????

It’s all so expressive and textured and colorful! He literally painted his own experience on the moon! And that's just really fucking cool to me!

Just look at this! This is one of my absolute favorite emotions of all time. Is Anyone Out There? is like the ultimate reaction image. Any time I have an existential crisis, this is how I picture myself.

And then there's this one:

The Fantasy

For all of the six Apollo missions to land on the moon, there was no spare time. Every second of their time on the surface was budgeted to perfection: sleeping, eating, putting on the suits, entering and exiting the LEM, rock collection, setting up longterm experiments to transmit data back to Earth, everything. These timetables usually got screwed over by something, but for the most part the astronauts stuck to them.

The crew of Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Al Bean, and Dick Gordon) had other plans. Conrad and Bean had snuck a small camera with a timer into the LEM to take a couple pictures together on the moon throughout the mission. They had hidden the key for the timer in one of the rock collection bags, with the idea being to grab the key soon after landing, take some fun photos here and there, and then sneak the camera back to Earth to develop them. They had practiced where they would hide the key and how to get it out from under the collected rocks back on Earth dozens of times.

But when they got to the moon, the key was nowhere to be found. Al Bean spent precious time digging through the collection bags before he called it off. The camera had been pushing their luck anyways, he couldn't afford to spend anymore time not on the mission objectives. Conrad and Bean continued the mission as per the NASA plan while Dick Gordon orbited overhead.

Fast forward to the very end of the mission. Bean and Conrad are doing last checks of the LEM before they enter for the last time and depart from the moon. As Bean is stowing one of the collection bags, the camera key falls out. The unofficially planned photo time has come and gone, and he tosses the key over his shoulder to rest forever on the surface of the moon.

This painting, The Fantasy, is that moment. There have never been three people on the moon at the same time, there was never an unofficial photo shoot on the moon, this picture could never have happened.

"The most experienced astronaut was designated commander, in charge of all aspects of the mission, including flying the lunar module. Prudent thinking suggested that the next-most-experienced crew member be assigned to take care of the command module, since it was our only way back home. Pete had flown two Gemini flights, the second with Dick as his crewmate. This left the least experienced - me - to accompany the commander on the lunar surface.

"I was the rookie. I had not flown at all; yet I got the prize assignment. But not once during the three years of training which preceded our mission did Dick say that it wasn't fair and that he wished he could walk on the moon, too. I do not have his unwavering discipline or strength of character.

"We often fantasized about Dick's joining us on the moon but we never found a way. In my paintings, though, I can have it my way. Now, at last, our best friend has come the last sixty miles." - Al Bean, about The Fantasy.

[quicksilvermad]

The Alan Bean Gallery

[tokupidgeon]

To be honest, this one

Almost made me cry right now.

I love it. Something about it feels so incredibly human. The emotion on display, even without a face to show it. This is magnificent. Truly magnificent. I feel it in my soul.

[myspace]

Anti-piracy ad from 2004

[timeagainreviews]

Spinning Yarns at Omo's Palace

It’s rare to finish a Doctor Who story and you think, “That felt personal.” Not in that it was aimed at you, but rather that the story meant something to its writer. This isn’t to say that Doctor Who doesn’t utilise morals or messaging. Russell T Davies has given us a healthy dose of messaging in both of his eras. What’s less common, however, is when the story feels like a personal expression from an individual’s lived experience. It’s rare to find such individualistic stories which also work. Robert Holmes delivered a muddled take on paying taxes with “The Sunmakers.” Chris Chibnall explored his own experience with adoption with the self-insert Timeless Child storyline. But here, with “The Story and the Engine,” writer Inua Ellams satisfies both the desire to tell a personal story and the need to deliver some solid Doctor Who. And deliver he did.

The story of Inua Ellams’ hiring as a writer is like one of those old Hollywood stories. He contacted Davies only to discover that both Davies and Gatwa had previously expressed an interest in working with the poet and playwright. It was as if he were fated to write for Doctor Who. Perhaps it felt too good to be true, because Ellams wrote this story like it was his one chance to leave his mark. Because of this, we see a lot of elements from Ellams’ work within the episode. His play “Barber Shop Chronicles” explores the home-away-from-home aspect of barber shops in African cities. He even uses the same anecdote about Yo-Yo Ma’s trip through Botswana. Because of this, Ellams’ DNA is woven throughout the story, and yet it never loses its identity as a Doctor Who story.

Following the theme of season two, much of “The Story and the Engine,” is dedicated to exploring the nature of storytelling. In this case it explores the communal and cultural significance of having a place where one feels safe to share. When we join the Doctor and Belinda, they’re in the middle of a well-trodden topic- the Doctor needs to get Belinda home. This is when the Doctor gets the bright idea to take the vindicator to Lagos, Nigeria. The Doctor doesn’t use this as an opportunity to go ghost hunting, instead, he’s respecting Belinda’s boundaries by calibrating the vindicator only. It’s Belinda who pushes the narrative further when she asks the Doctor about Lagos. This is when the Doctor confides in Belinda that its a place where he feels safe to be himself. Belinda understands this from her own perspective and encourages the Doctor to go see his friends at his favourite barbershop, Omo’s Palace.

Before we continue, I would just like to cheekily celebrate the fact that I called it about the TARDIS doing the Doctor’s hair. I’m not saying I’m a genius, but it is kinda wild that just two weeks ago, I mentioned it, and now here it is in an episode. Should I play the lottery this week? I kid, but what this speaks to is that there is a clarity this season between the show and the audience. Clearly the crew want us to think about Doctor Who in creative ways. The show gets that the hair and costumes mean something to a wide portion of the fandom. There are whole theories about how the longer Capaldi or Pertwee are in the TARDIS, the crazier their hair gets. So believe me when I say, it’s not far off for the show to do an episode about the importance of hair.

The Doctor beams as he greets the people selling their wares in the Lagos open-air market. He calls people “Auntie” and “Uncle.” They have special handshakes and inside jokes. I understand the people at Bad Wolf Studios looked into actually filming in Africa, but it wasn’t feasible for the budget. Instead, they brought in consultants to bring authenticity to their fake Lagos set. It’s a really lovely attention to detail. When the set is full of extras, it really works. It feels like a set, but in that classic Doctor Who way. Though when the set is deserted, it does look a bit like the marbles room from Squid Game. Having just sold us on the idea that space is a premium in the marketplace, it’s automatically suspicious just how empty the street is outside Omo’s Palace. Combine that with missing persons posters and a keep out sign, and you’re going to need twelve deadlocks and a panther to keep the Doctor out.

The Doctor enters Omo’s and immediately the vibes are off. For starters, all of the shop’s clients are the men from the missing posters- Omo, Rashid, Tunde, and Obioma. And strangely, while the sign outside says Omo’s Palace, a stranger stands ready to cut people’s hair. Omo has been telling the men about the Doctor, the greatest story he has to tell. When Omo was a boy, the Doctor stopped his village from burning to the ground. Since then, Omo’s shop has become a safe place for the Doctor to come and relax. He trusts Omo, so when Omo encourages the Doctor to sit in the Barber’s chair and share a story, the Doctor trusts that it would be safe to do so. Instead, the Doctor can feel the wrongness of the ritual as the Barber’s cape holds him down as if extracting the story.

The Doctor tells a simple story about Belinda to such a vivid degree that the paintings that manifest on the wall from people’s stories look photo-realistic. The story goes that Belinda was finishing a long shift and was headed home to celebrate her nan’s birthday. However, she catches something in a patient’s symptoms that saves the patient’s life and also costs her her evening with her gran. It’s a very modern Doctor Who story for the Doctor to tell. The Doctor is always going on about the nobility of living a normal life. It’s also a cheeky way for them to throw a brief little Mrs Flood cameo in there. It is a little interesting that the Doctor’s story contained Mrs Flood. It’s almost as if Mrs Flood orchestrated her involvement. What does it mean for her to appear in his story in that moment? And why hasn’t the Doctor recognised her yet? You would think he would notice after Susan Twist. Maybe that’s part of Mrs Flood’s plan. An old lady hiding in plain sight? They’d never do it twice! That’s like robbing the same bank! 

One downside about having ADHD is that our minds wander even when we’re engaged. I’ve had conversations with people where I stop listening to them because they were so interesting that my mind wandered. I kept thinking about their point and they kept talking. I do this with books as well. And I did it with this episode. There were so many profound and interesting moments that I had to rewatch this episode because I kept getting caught up in its concepts. And I do mean caught up and not lost. Never once does the episode lose its central thread, though it does keep some aspects a bit vague. I mean all of this as a compliment. I like that it’s an episode that’s actually about something. And I like that it leaves an air of mystery. I’ve said it often in the past that I love it when stories maintain a bit of mystery at the end. I’m reminded of “The Magnus Archives” or the first season of “American Horror Story.” Two different stories, which I enjoyed thoroughly until they gave away too much information. Sometimes an enduring mystery allows us to keep thinking. Solving a mystery can put too fine a point on things. The imagination has nowhere to go.

Perhaps one of the more enduring mysteries at the end of the episode is why the missing men’s hair grows back after telling a story. I’m in two minds about this. I can imagine a few reasons why their hair grows back, but it’s never fully explained. But part of me wonders if this wasn’t either a muddled explanation or perhaps a missed opportunity. We know from reading the missing posters that the men have been gone for about five years. The youngest of the men, Tunde, was only 19 years old when he was taken by the Barber. Tunde is also a footballer, which puts a bit of a ticking clock on his absence. Every day he’s stuck in the barbershop is a day further from his prime. If the growing of the hair was because sharing their stories aged the men, then it would add to that tension. Perhaps the others take his place to keep him from ageing out of his future as an athlete. It would add an even greater sense of urgency and an element of self-sacrifice. That being said, we understand enough about the hair growth to follow the story. People tell stories, the stories power the big spider vehicle, which causes their hair to grow.

Meanwhile, every time someone enters the shop or powers the spider, the TARDIS lights up all red and klaxxony. I found myself laughing at the way Belinda speaks to the TARDIS. She has no sense of wonder for any of it, and I find that hilarious. I half expected this to be a “The Lodger” situation, where the episode is a companion-lite story by having the companion get tossed about on the very cheap to film on TARDIS set. And if it was one of those episodes, they did a great job utilising Varada Sethu’s screentime because it hardly feels like it. Belinda’s method of tapping the TARDIS console and speaking directly to it surprisingly yields results. I like that the TARDIS listens to Belinda and shows her Omo’s Palace on the viewer. I like those times when the TARDIS relents to the companion’s pathetic attempt at interfacing. She may not talk, but she listens.

Belinda struggles her way through the marketplace. It's a sharp contrast to the way the Doctor weaves through the crowd. In a brief cameo, Inua Ellams plays a stallholder who gets into a brief altercation with Belinda over what appears to be spilled yams. Speaking of cameos in this scene, was that a Space Baby standing outside the babershop? Initially I took her to be a young Abby. I expected it to be a glimpse into how she knows the Doctor. Then I get online and everyone is like "ThAt WaS pOpPy FrOm SpAcE bAbIeS!" Does it mean anything more? The Doctor seemed to shrug it off as his story leaking out of the Nexus. But considering the emphasis on storytelling at the moment, that could still have deeper implications. Kinda cool.

The introduction of Abby with her abundance of food is your classic save the cat moment. She feeds the lads so we know she’s got some good in her. However, Abby kisses her teeth at the Doctor as if unimpressed, but it’s not until later that the Doctor learns Abby and he have a history, though maybe not so much with this incarnation of the Doctor. After learning that Abby is short for Abena, the daughter of the spider god Anansi, the Doctor remembers how they met each other. In classic Fugitive Doctor style, Jo Martin makes a brief cameo where she stands in place of the current Doctor and delivers a single line of dialogue. It’s sort of her main thing. Standing and talking. One day, we might even get to see her do something. This isn’t to say I wasn’t wildly excited to see her. Honestly, the further we get from Chibnall, the happier I am to see her. I was excited by the prospect of seeing what a writer of Ellams’ calibre could do with her. I get why it was just a cameo, but damn, let a girl run down a corridor or something.

Long ago, the Doctor left Abena with her father, where he was free to continue using her as a betting chip against strange men and women. Abena learned to distrust her father and the Doctor, leaving her vulnerable to the Barber’s controlling nature. Having spent the majority of his long life feeling unappreciated as the keeper of the Gods’ stories, the Barber plans to pilot the spider to the centre of the story Nexus, where he will unravel the stories of the Gods, thus negating their existence. If you’ve read Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods,” then you’ll have a good understanding of the way the Barber operates. The Gods grow strong through our stories about them. People’s faith in the Gods feeds them. Cut that off, and you cut off the life force of the Gods. Cut off the Gods and you cut off people’s capacity to think, to imagine, and to hope. Though considering the Gods we’ve met in the last two seasons of Doctor Who, I’m yet to see evidence of a benevolent God, until Abena.

The Doctor’s honesty toward Abena and the men’s prostrations bring out the true Goddess within Abena. Now it is her time to tell a story. She sets the Doctor in front of her while she weaves cornrows into his hair. She tells a story about how enslaved people once fooled their enslavers by mapping the road to freedom within their hair. They would pass these maps on to others through their hair, and nobody was ever the wiser. Neither my boyfriend nor I knew this, and we both sat there, mouths agape at the brilliance of such a concept. When Doctor Who was initially developed, there was always a plan to use the time-travel aspect of the story to give history lessons. This might be one of the finest examples Doctor Who teaching history. Not only was it fascinating to learn, but it also plays into the story. I can’t stress how much I loved this. Incredible.

The Doctor and Belinda follow the Doctor’s hair through a labyrinth in the back of the shop to make their way to the engine of the spider vehicle. The engine looked like a cross between a baobab tree and something Delia Deetz would have sculpted. It also reminded me of the TARDIS’ architectural reconfiguration system from “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.” I find it interesting that there is so much machinery and tech surrounding the Gods in this episode. As Gods go, this use of technology evokes the Thor movies over fire and brimstone, and not just because the Doctor namedrops the Thor movies. It makes me wonder if perhaps none of these “Gods,” are as magical as “The Wild Blue Yonder” would imply. Instead, it feels more like Arthur C Clarke’s idea that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The engine sits surrounded by relics of every world religion. There are books and televisions feeding stories to the story engine. The Doctor lights up the machine with the six-word story of his life- “I live. I die. I live.” The life cycle of a Time Lord. It is now apparent why the Doctor told such a pedestrian story with Belinda’s life-saving moment at work. The totality of the Doctor’s lives flickers across the screens in the typical montage of past Doctors. The Barber is excited by this surge of power to his engine, but it’s too much power for the vehicle to withstand. Oddly, it was Belinda who delivered this information. I was left scratching my head as to how she would know the engine was about to blow. That felt like more of a line for the Doctor. I guess they realised Belinda hadn’t spoken in some time. With things about to blow, the Barber’s only option is to evacuate Ono’s Palace with haste. I found the destruction of the vehicle a bit strange. The spider never comes off as a menacing creature, but as it explodes and tries in vain to claw its way out of the shop, it feels like more of a villain than a vehicle. Appropriately, the clip the engine room played of the Ninth Doctor from “The Doctor Dances,” was precisely the one this final escape brought to mind. “Just this once, everybody lives.”

When I watched this episode with my sister, she expressed surprise at the mercy shown to the Barber. But when you think of it, the last time someone kidnapped a person for a five-year journey was “Gridlock,” and Milo and Cheen weren’t evil, just desperate. The Doctor forgives Ono, who also forgives the Barber. Ono even gifts him the barbershop and his father’s name, Adétòkunbo. Ono has more important things than cutting hair, like meeting up with the girl in the blue earrings from his photo. It’s an uplifting ending that I hadn’t expected. But it’s heartening to see that not only is Doctor Who becoming more of a space for diverse voices, but one that allows for those voices to express joy. I don’t want to watch trans stories where trans people overcome death and oppression. I can read the news for that. I want to see trans people befriend the Meep. Black fans deserve these moments in Doctor Who without also having to give a pound of flesh.

I spoke last week about the importance of Doctor Who as a bit of escapism. But where do we escape to if not our safe space? This episode feels huge in that respect. A black Doctor, hell, two black Doctors, a mostly black cast, and a black director have come together to bring us what is possibly one of the most heartfelt and joyous episodes in the show’s history. The show has a lot to atone for. It took the show 20 years to hire its first woman writer and 55 years to hire its first writers of colour. But this feels like a step toward making the fandom a safe space for people of colour. It feels monumental, no matter how long it took them to get to this point. This may end up being one of my favourite episodes of modern Doctor Who. The only people this stands to alienate are those who thought Doctor Who was a safe space to be a bigot. Because that was delightful.

[lizardho]

Before I knew I was bisexual I was just insanely dramatic and weird around guys I liked. I had a crush on this guy in my ward - he was older than me, he played bagpipes and had a cheerful dog and an old Volkswagen bus that he worked on all the time. He also had nice scruff and unnaturally attractive hands and a good sense of humor, so I was like FULLY smitten.

I talked about him a lot and about how he was just so dang COOL, dang it, because he was so frickin’ cool. And I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and interesting and cool and fascinating and a bunch of other weird feelings I barely had the attention span to think about (I think my ADHD may have prevented me from coming out for a while tbh).

One day, I’m like 14-15, his dad is called to be my Sunday School teacher. His dad is this ex-military hardass with a chip on his shoulder for absolutely no reason and unattainable standards for his children. He spent most of Sunday School talking shit about his eldest boy and how he was rebellious and didn’t listen to him and how that was going to make him a bad adult and a bad son forever. How his son was too lazy and unmotivated to be successful because he didn’t listen to his advice on how to read the scriptures. He complained about how our generation was too weak to do things right and that our generation would surely be the one that brought the world’s downfall because of our laziness and sin.

And like, first of all, that guy can already go fuck himself for that. To clarify, that’s already stupid. BUT. He was talking about the man I had uncomfortable dreams about at least once a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d get so mad I’d go home shaking sometimes because how fucking DARE he insult his hardworking stunning son by calling him lazy? For not reading the Bible the way his dad wants? When he’s already spending his time learning bagpipes? And fixing cars? And being cool? And cute? Who the fuck even cares if he uses the footnotes in the Book of Mormon? Who gives a rotten rat’s ass if he doesn’t use the scripture study manual his dad uses? He’s so cool he doesn’t even need it? So fuck off?

And eventually I got fucking Sick Of It and decided to mutiny. And by mutiny, I mean skip class. I’d just not go. And after a bit, adults started noticing and bugging me about it. At first, this was put off by small talk and excuses, but as my absence from Sunday School became more well-known, my excuses began to be rejected.

“Oh, Lizard, why aren’t you in class?” Uhm idk because my Sunday School teacher is mean to his kid and that makes me so mad wtf do you want from me? 🫠🤔

“Where’s your class, I’ll go with you!” Oh no ty I’d rather peel my own eyes than have my taste in men critiqued tyty 🩷

“Lizard, you should go to class, I’m sure they miss you!” And I miss the innocent days where my stomach didn’t hurt when a cool boy I knew was being belittled but unfortunately for us both those days are LONG gone and all that’s left is a budding psychosexual clusterfuck that will render me almost fully incapable of functioning for the better part of a decade so Bye Bye, sister Smith 🙂‍↕️

It had gotten to the point that ward leadership was involved. I was being approached by members of the Young Men’s presidency and the Bishopric to try and make me to back to class. They were telling me God had told them to find me and instruct me on my rebelliousness. This is where I implemented my secret weapon - women. Mormons are weird as hell about a lot of things, but especially about women. And I was GREAT with women. So to combat the leadership’s attention, I started helping women.

Our ward had a lot of new moms with babies who were, as babies tend to be, fussy. But for Mormon women the church is often their only social outlet, so they try to power through as long as they can even if it means enduring the exhausting ordeal of taking care of a fussy baby at church.

For what it’s worth, I have a lot of sway with babies. I got baby street cred. Me and babies have a rapport. I have always known this. I have always loved this. And in this crucial gay time in my faggot life my baby mind powers came in clutch - Every time I saw a member of the bishopric getting close, or a young men’s leader giving me side-eye, I’d start walking slowly towards class, passing by relief society. I’d wait until a mom’s baby had gotten too fussy and needed to leave the room, and I’d swoop in like a knight. “Oh, don’t you worry sister, I’ll bounce him a bit. You go back and hang out with your friends in class. You deserve a break.”

If it was a diaper change or something they’d tell me no. But if it was just some good old-fashioned baby fusses, I mean, they’d be moved almost to tears. They just got their social time back AND a free babysitter who is renowned as the Baby Whisperer. And because I was holding a baby as a favor for someone else, I of course could not reasonably be bothered to return to class.

So just like that, I was out of everyone’s sights. This went on for about a month before the straw that broke the camel’s back, which was that without my class participation the classes were quiet and awkward. I’d often take the brunt of Sunday school lectures by answering questions impulsively and over explaining myself enough that the clock could run out without anyone needing to do or say much. My absence meant everyone else was getting hit with the full unpleasantness of this guy’s bullshit. And so slowly, one-by-one, I had a group of about 8 kids on baby-holding duty. These new moms were so overjoyed, they and their husbands were both so actively in our corner that now chastising us was untenable. Now we had bargaining power. So the Bishopric approached us, confused beyond confused and uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable, and said,

“What’s it gonna take to get you back to class?”

The POWER I possessed in that moment was addictive. By being kind to the women of the ward and ignoring the Mormon de facto Rule of Law of following rules en-masse so the rule breakers feel left out, there were now so many people breaking ranks that we had effectively enacted a church boy labor strike. And they crumbled so fast it was almost like we had swayed God himself to our cause.

“I want brother assholedad gone. He sucks at teaching.”

I didn’t even have to say it. One of my rebels said it for me. I just nodded sagely and said “Yes, his class is not edifying. It’s better to not go and hold babies.”

And just like that, with a snap of my limp-wristed, Christ-wounding, bottom-brained fingers my faggot will was enacted. God’s revelation that brother shitdad was his chosen Sunday school teacher flipped on a dime. Suddenly brother shitdad was asked to be an usher and the fun dad of another one of my crushes was called in to teach us. I still stayed to hold babies a lot, but the rest of the class returned and all was well again.

Although I didn’t recognize it then, I think that was a formative moment for me in a lot of ways. I learned that being really persistently annoying will get me what I want from authority eventually. I learned that God’s will can be swayed by going in strike. I learned that ignoring men’s made up authority forces them to level with you as a person. I learned that caring for women, especially vulnerable women, can make a whole world happier. I learned that letting women rest can help them feel more love for the things that matter in their life. I learned that social bonds make everyone stronger and happier. And I learned that loving others in a gay way can change the world.

Be gayer. Read Terry Pratchett. I love y’all 💕

[only-tiktoks]

[podle5]

I love this for so many reasons!

[dunkthebiscuit]

I'm reminded of a lot of women I've known over the years. Big women who could pick up a table in the pub and hold it over their heads without spilling a drop, and often did for a bet.

I remember Big Audrey, who leaned into it, who took up rugby and wiped the floor with everyone, who had four children with a man half her size who adored her. Who drank beer by the pint and many of them. Who always had a laugh and almost always had a healing broken nose, who taught little five year old Dunk - who barely came up to her hip - how to waltz.

I often remember Big Audrey when I argue online with narrow-minded idiots who try to tell me that a skeleton never lies, that you can always tell a male from a female because of the massive bones, the muscle attachment points, the sheer strength displayed.

Then I remember you can't argue with ignorance.

There's no real point to this anecdote. I just felt that Big Audrey should be remembered today. Four and a half decades after she taught me how to waltz on the empty dance floor of the social club between sets of bingo, whilst my granddad and his mate played noodly jazz on the tiny stage.

[podle5]

Reblogging for the lovely commentary. Big Audrey sounds lovely.

[the-haiku-bot]

Reblogging for the

lovely commentary. Big

Audrey sounds lovely.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[just-on-a-whim]

it is so much easier to be a trans man than it is to be a trans woman. yes there is nuance, yes each individual experience is different, yes privilege and intersectionality come into play and yes those things directly affect the ease of someone's transition. but overall, the generalized experience of being a trans man is much easier than being a trans woman.

I know that a lot of trans men are scared of being hate crimed and beaten for being trans and while this is a valid fear and also an experience that many trans men have, it can also be a wildly disproportionate anxiety. a huge advantage to being a trans man is that when I go out in public, if I act apathetic and am vaguely confident in the space I take up, and my masculinity likely won't get questioned despite me having curves and tits and long hair. I can go swimming with a binder and a shirt and I might get some looks, but I'll mostly still be safe. it is reasonably easy for trans men to hide the parts of their body that don't fit the general public's idea of a male body.

trans women don't have it this easy. there is no equivalent to "just be emotionless and confident" for them, instead there are thousands upon thousands of idiosyncrasies that they have to conform to and most of those directly contradict one another. hate crimes against trans women, especially trans women of color, are exponentially higher than any other group. and without surgery there is no real way for a trans woman to hide the parts of herself that the general public deems masculine, and therefore (consciously or not), a threat.

the surgeries I want will cost me $10k-$20k out of pocket if I get lucky, and if I don't it might cost upwards of $30k-$50k for both top and bottom surgery. and by "getting lucky" I mean being able to pass off top surgery as a medical necessity to my insurance company. and even if that doesn't happen, the most expensive ftm top surgery I have heard of has been $20k.

the surgeries my girlfriend wants will cost her no less than $80k, and honestly it will likely be upwards of $100k. and there is an incredibly fucking slim chance that insurance will cover any of it, because feminization surgeries are all deemed cosmetic, and most insurances don't cover those. and there's so many surgeries, facial reconstruction on top of top surgery and bottom surgery.

so while I know there is room for nuance and every experience is different, it doesn't sit right with me for trans men to be complaining to trans women that we're just as oppressed as they are and we have it just as bad if not worse when that clearly isn't true. and it especially doesn't sit right to see so many trans men telling trans women to shut up about these issues or just brushing off trans women and painting them as being overly dramatic and complaining. and I've been seeing it so much more often lately, and maybe that's just because I've been posting like this recently, I don't know. but it seems like trans men have been getting really comfortable in misogyny lately, and it might be time to reassess your viewpoints if you feel offended by or get angry about this post.