There are now more than 90 people dead. You can bitch and whine that’s it’s hotter where you are, but you have to understand that it’s the elderly, homeless and small children who don’t have air conditioning and are susceptible to health problems. How fucking despicable can you be to just laugh at people dying because temperatures are hotter where you are. Our infrastructure was built to withstand -30 C°, not the heat. It’s not about how Canadians are “weak”, it’s literally just shitty circumstances.
Not to mention that people who are accustomed to cold climates have a physically more difficult time coping with temperatures that their bodies aren’t used to. Also a lot of people who have never had to cope with hotter temperatures aren’t as familiar with heat exhaustion or heat stroke, don’t know how to manage the heat safely , etc!
That last point.
Denmark is currently in its hottest summer ever recorded, and the number of people I’ve talked to who have only now discovered what a heat stroke is amazes me, because I grew up in the South of France where summers are hot as fuck every year – my brother-in-law went out for a bike ride without a hat and with a half a liter of water for three hours and came back and was sick because of it.
The idea that he’d get sick because of the sun didn’t even OCCUR to him, because in his 30+ years on this green ball swirling through space, it’s never been an issue for him.
In the South of France, most cafés have mist sprayers and all shops / malls are air-conditioned. In Denmark, most cafés do NOT have mist sprayers (but heat lights!) and the shops are not always air-conditioned.
Most of the warehouses have been out of portable air-conditioners and fans on an off since May because people are hot and have no air-condition installed. The buildings are built to keep heat IN. Not out.
No air con, buildings designed to keep heat in, not even ceiling fans, no drinking fountains, windows that don’t open in buildings, and we expect people to work in those buildings, in their full uniform which has no ‘hot weather’ option – I mean what employer is going to provide short sleeves and shorts for that one week every three years where it gets above 25/80 degrees? – windows that don’t open on public transport, and often no shade while waiting for said public transport, we have heaters and insulation and draft excluders, we buy black cars and dark clothes, we buy sunscreen for our holidays in Spain, then forget where we put it, when we find it and apply it we sweat it off again because we’re not used to the heat, we walk places rather than drive and even if we drove, our cars don’t have proper air con and we don’t have covered parking, school playgrounds and public parks have no shade, people don’t have pools so kids play out all summer in the heat. We don’t have ‘American style’ large fridges or freezers with ice makers and they break down when competing with hotter than usual ambient temperature, most of us don’t even own cool boxes – or if we do it’s at the back of the shed full of spiders.
So yes, we have to be told it’s going to be hot. And we have to be warned to check our elderly neighbours and to help them take the blankets off their bed or to swap to a summer duvet, to suggest they have a cold drink instead of a pot of tea and take off their cardigan.
Because we only know people who got sunstroke on their holidays abroad.
And we have never in our lives known anyone who died from the heat.
To anybody who thinks it’s funny when people die, you can go fuck off a tall bridge.
I live in Phoenix. It’s going to be 115F/46C degrees today. This is nothing unusual for this time of year. And yet every year we lose people to the heat. I can’t imagine what super temps must be like when you are not used to it. England, Quebec, and most of Europe’s home were designed to keep heat in. Not let it out. So instead of giggling like evil children over someone else’s horror, try being a little more understanding at the very least of what they are going through.
Standard Finnish summer is usually around 20Celsius. 25C is considered hot weather! This summer has been over 30Celsius.
We’ve had rain maybe three times in two months where I’m at and I’ve had my first sunstroke, the whole country is under forest fire warnings, fish are dying in the lakes and many lakes grow poisonous algae that makes it dangerous to swim in. Oh and pretty much every store has far long ago ran out of fans so we’re stuck in boiling apartments that’re built to keep heat in. (If the immediate effects aren’t bad enough, as a gardner I’m super worried for long term. The wells are drying, water table is being drained faster than it can recover, and if the winters don’t match up, we’re going to see pests we’ve never dealt with before. A good portion of agriculture relies on cold winters to kill most pests, but now they’ve been creeping north fast. If things aren’t dealt with in time we’ll be facing a pretty steep drop in food by next year when we get shitty crop and south is burning so bad we can’t even import food.)
This is a global problem that needs to be addressed fast, not giggled and sneered at.
Also worth noting that in many areas, it isn’t JUST hot, but it’s also EXTREMELY humid. Where I live in Southern Ontario, we’ve had a number of days where it’s been over 40C with the humidity factored in. People who experience this will tell you – it isn’t the HEAT that gets you so much as the HUMIDITY (like heat is bad but the humidity makes it so much worse). If you live in a desert sort of climate, you might be used to high temps, but it’s a dry heat. Bodies deal with that better. But when it’s humid, the body’s natural cooling mechanisms DON’T WORK. If it’s humid, your sweat will not evaporate to cool you, you just sweat and sweat and it goes nowhere and doesn’t cool you off particularly effectively.
And this works in the reverse too – all you people scoffing at how you can deal with high temperatures? Come here in winter, I’m sure you’ll be literally out of your element. I had a roommate this past year who was on exchange from Hong Kong where it can get extremely hot, and she couldn’t tolerate the cold at all. By early October she’d already pulled out her warmest clothes. The coldest weather she was used to experiencing was around 5-10C, she couldn’t even fathom anything below zero. We adapt to what we’re accustomed to. Heat disproportionately affects the elderly, ill/disabled, and small children. Our infrastructure is not designed for heat and a good chunk of housing has no AC – we have minimum temperatures that housing can be in the winter but no maximum temperatures for housing in the summer, AC is seen as a luxury in many cases if you’re renting. Humidity can also make the heat far worse, since the body can’t effectively cool itself in high heat high humidity climates. This is serious. This is killing people.
Trans-inclusive language in religious texts is SO IMPORTANT. There is nothing in some young people’s lives that can either validate or dehumanize them so quickly as how they see themselves represented in the words of their religion.
I had a server tell me about how he was harassed into going to a church baptism ceremony by a not so close friend and to get them off his back he agreed
He decided some time before that of he was going to be forced to do this her might as well have fun with it right? So he goes to lush and buys one of the black bath bombs, and cuts it in half.
Now fast forward to the day of and he is wearing a small harness under his shirt that is keeping both haves of the bath bomb one either shoulder blade.
He volunteers to get baptised
They take him up put him in the white robe and then he waits for his turn. Now the friend who invited him had no clue what he is doing. They are pleasantly surprised to see him participating.
Honestly. A mistake on their part.
I only knew this guy for a max of 45 minutes and I could already tell this dude was a chaos entity.
So his turn comes up and they go to dunk him and the water immediately starts to foam and turn black and he starts screaming like a banchee jumps out the water and hisses at the priest
Everyone fucking lost it and her was banned from ever attending that church again.
So yeah all in all seems like a great thing to do for a hilarious story
One of the details that gets lost in the transition of manga-to-anime for Fullmetal Alchemist, is the overt presence of foreign language. For example, the Xingese characters actually regularly speak Xingese amongst each other. While they aren’t the only example of foreign language being spoken, they are the most prominent.
In the anime, every character no matter what race or what country they are from, speaks the same language as a translation convention. The only real hints that there are other languages present are very minor, like the fact that Ling wrote his message to Lan Fan completely in Kanji and that no one outside of them could read it.
However, the manga has an interesting convention to denote that foreign language is being spoken, by giving every foreign language speech bubbles that are horizontal instead of vertical. This is lost slightly even when the manga gets translated because in Japanese, the vertical speech bubbles also have vertically typeset dialogue which help better distinguish the languages. Nonetheless, the speech bubble shapes are very distinct.
When Ling talks to Ed, his speech bubbles are all vertical
As are Lan Fan’s
But look at Fu’s thought bubbles here and compare them to Paninya and Al’s vertical bubbles. They’re horizontal! Fu is shown to be thinking in his native tongue!
Conversations that we heard all in one language in the anime, were supposed to be in Xingese.
Like Ling, Lan Fan, and Fu on the roof.
And Ling speaking with Mei at the end of the final battle.
Its just one of those really neat details Arakawa uses that makes FMA’s world just a bit richer in the manga than what we see in the anime version of the series.
A lot of women behave like this and think this ain’t abuse
But let a nigga slap them, damage their clothes and pour a drink on them, all hell will break loose.
EVERYONE CAN BE A VICTIM OF DOMESTIC ABUSE!
Buddy has the soul of an angel and composure out of this world
Just in case anyone wants the context: He has been making music in Chicago, he recently performed to a large audience and met London on da track, who offered him an opportunity in LA. She didn’t want to leave Chicago because of her business there. He told her that she doesn’t have to go, he just needs to do this for his music. She got upset because he straight up told her that he valued his career over their relationship and she did this.
Now I’m not a relationship expert, but I will never understand how some of y’all expect people to put you above the shit they have to do. Always put your career, your job, your livelihood first. This was all kinds of fucked up, really fucking abusive and manipulative, he should definitely go to LA with or without her.
Many women *WILL* reblog this, because part of feminism is acknowledging that women are just as capable of being abusive as men. Acting as though women cannot be abusive is misogyny, and relies on the misogynist tropes that women are frail, and innocent in comparison to men. Any true feminist must acknowledge that neither of these things are necessarily true and that a woman is in fact capable of being abusive whether it’s to another woman, a man, or a nonbinary person.
The reason we focus on abuse from men towards women is that it is more prevalent, and institutionally encouraged, justified, and allowed without consequence, while a woman even “talking back” to a man is to be “put in her place.”
Don’t bring your weak, fragile “Few women will reblog this” shit up in here. We know what abuse looks like when we see it.
THANK YOU ^^^^
@deliamelodyofficial GOD BLESS YOU!!👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾.
I see dumb comments like that everytime someone makes a post about abusive women but if you actually check the notes, 9/10 majority of the people reblogging are women🙄.
sorry if i’m being a party pooper but because rabies is apparently the new joke on here ??? please remember that rabies has an almost 100% fatality rate after symptoms develop so if you’re bitten or scratched by an animal that you aren’t 100% sure is vaccinated then GO TO A DOCTOR. it’s not a joke. really.
One of the most mesmerizing things about online communities, is when spending enough time with like-minded people, the facts and consequences of reality begin to melt away.
Suddenly, rabies isn’t as dangerous as everyone says, the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, and Steven Universe kin drama is a legitimate threat.
that’s a good way of putting it. while thinking abt making this post i kept thinking “i’m afraid this is gonna end up like the tide pod thing” but didn’t know how to articulate it so thank you for that
I mean usually I’d say people need to go outside, but I fear if they’re rabies fetishists that’s the exactly what they want
I need to emphasize: Rabies does not have an “almost” 100% fatality rate. Rabies has a 100% fatality rate, period. Ebola has a fatality rate of about 50%. There are six people in recorded history who have ever contracted rabies and survived. Six. Six human beings. Ever.
The fatality rate of attempted suicide with a firearm is 82.5%.
All six of those people were complete flukes. They’re outliers. We haven’t been able to figure out how to recreate whatever the hell it was that saved them and not anyone else. If you are exposed to rabies, and don’t immediately receive intensive post-exposure treatment, you die. Not “probably” die, not “it’s as good as a death sentence”. You are dead. There is no remote fractional percentage of a chance that you will not die. It’s terrifying and painful and ugly. It’s not a way anyone in this world deserves to die.
If you’re not sure whether something was rabies exposure, go to the fucking hospital to be sure, because by the time rabies symptoms begin to manifest, treatment is no longer an option. By the time you suspect you have rabies, it is far, far too late. By the time you start showing symptoms, there’s…nothing that anyone can do anymore.
At that point, the only option is called the Milwaukee Protocol, which, again….we’ve NEVER created an effective, reliable way of treating rabies once it manifests. In practice, it mostly consists of putting you in a medically induced coma–not in any real hope of saving your life, but to spare you the pain of feeling what happens to youwhile you die of rabies.
I genuinely have no idea to what extent rabies has become an actual joke on the internet or if it’s just that one guy who so help me god had better be some kind of satire, but…rabies is fucking terrifying. “Possible rabies exposure” is one of the scariest phrases I can think of.
None of this is fearmongering. Don’t fuck around with rabies.
I made a GoFundMe for me for my cat. He started hissing and growling at me Friday after trying to use the litter box which he has NEVER done before and I knew something was very wrong so I took him to an emergency vet. He ended having a urinary block and spent a few days there and is now back home. He was recovering decently but today has refused to eat and has blood in his urine today, and has had trouble taking back control of his bladder so he’s just constantly leaking. I’m keeping an eye on him 24/7 basically and even hardly sleeping.
Literally ANYTHING helps me, and I’m still unemployed so having to drop so much on him has really left me at a disadvantage.
This cat means SO much to me and has been here for me for years. He always knows when I’m sad or sick and gives extra cuddles. I probably would not still be here if it wasn’t for him. Please help me/him out!
Here’s all the vet bills too. I have the GFM set a bit higher to account for their taking a percentage of the fees.
Hey friends. A sad update. My boy had to be rushed back to the vet this morning because he was getting worse. He’s undergoing another 24 hour stay to determine exactly what’s wrong but it’s not too positive.
The best case scenario currently is that he has a bladder infection that was resistant to his antibiotics with the worst scenario of that being it moved into his kidneys. The worst case scenario is he may actual have a tumor in his bladder causing blood clots.
My poor boy had lost over 3 pounds and was running a low temparature so he’s really getting very sick and it’s a good thing i took him in when I did.
His stay is going to cost about another $1,000 due to all of the tests they’re running and treatment (which will cost more) will be dependent upon what they discover. I’ll be amending the GoFundMe sometime in the near future to reflect the extra costs.
I’m completely devastated right now. I absolutely can’t lose him. I refuse to. He means too much to me and has always seemed to know something’s wrong with me and has done everything he can to make me feel better. It’s so cliche but I legitimately don’t think I’d be here still if it wasn’t for him being my constant companion and complete mama’s boy for the last 6 years of my life.
Stay strong baby boy. Your mama’s gonna repay the favor. You’re so loved.
I had to take him back a THIRD time
So the most recent update with the vet is basically that he needs immediate bladder surgery to clear it out and remove what looks like a massive blood clot as well as having his urethra widened. Without this he’s almost certainly going to reblock and because of this they’re saying the best option if I can’t do the surgery would honestly be to put him down.
The surgeries and post op care and everything (he’ll need a blood transfusion as well because he’s still very anemic) is going to cost an additional 4-5k placing total sum of all his care around 10k.
Please, PLEASE reblog this if you can’t donate. I’ve exhausted almost all financial options and I don’t want to lose him. I love him so much and he has so many more years left to live (he’s only 6). He means absolutely everything to me. I can’t see him go so soon. I can’t.
“We as a fandom have to talk about-” No. No we don’t. You can talk about it if you want to. That’s fine, if that’s how you fandom then go for it. I hope it works out for you because I want you to enjoy your fandom experience. But if I’m in fandom for reasons that’s counter to, then I have no obligation to talk about it. I don’t have to talk about anything except what I want to.
“Okay but you have to talk about your fave’s flaws-” No! No I don’t! I have to be able to acknowledge those flaws when they come up. I have to be able to admit that my character has flaws, and accept when others talk about those flaws. But I don’t have to talk about them if I don’t want to. If I want to only focus on the better aspects of my fave, even if that means just shallowly talking about how hot they are, I can. That’s my choice, that’s how I’ve decided to enjoy them.
Fandom is meant to be fun. Fandom is meant to be a hobby. I don’t have to talk about any aspect of my favorite story or ship or character or writer or anything if I don’t want to. You know what’s not fun? Having to talk about the ways my favorite thing is bad every time I want to talk about it. Having to point out my favorite thing’s flaws instead of the things that makes me enjoy it. Having to disclaim before I get to sing something’s praises because “yeah I know it’s shit BUT”. No. I can know something is bad without needing to talk about it.
Idk dude this sounds like a really great rationalization for wanting to ignore the parts of something that are problematic and not wanting to have to unpack that
Listen. If the way you fandom is to spend all of your time on critical analysis and unpack everything that makes the thing you like problematic, if that’s what you’re about, then go for it. I mean it. If that’s how you get on, then you do you, and I stand by what I said above, I hope it works out for you. I want everyone to be able to enjoy their fandom experience, even if I can’t wrap my head around why the way they fandom is enjoyable.
ButI don’t owe anyone anything. If I don’t want to have a big public discussion about how problematic my favorite thing is, then I don’t have to. That’s my choice. I don’t have to perform a requisite level of discourse to be able to enjoy something; I can just enjoy it, and no one else gets a say in that.
It’s not a rationalization, it’s reality. I can fandom sans discourse if that’s the way I choose to fandom. End of sentence.
I feel like I both agree and disagree at the same time. Because, you’re right. No one has to do or say anything. And if we’re talking fandom discourse in terms of having to always acknowledge any of your fave’s flaws before you get to have any fun is, well, silly. And exhausting.
But, are we talking only about that level of discussion or talking about broader trends of say, racism in fandom? Or do both fall under this heading? Because, lumping both together feels a bit dismissive of the much more serious issues that do plague fandom and make fandom spaces hostile to marginalized communities. And if you don’t want to deal with that, fine, I guess. But what happens when no one wants to deal with it? Are you okay with marginalized people being driven out of spaces that should be fun for them as well?
Because it feels like the better question is: am I responsible?
And, I’m just going to put it out there, but a lot of critical analysis isn’t fun for most people. A lot of discussions that are necessary actually suck. And you can say all you want that you don’t owe anyone anything (and that is true), but you should be taking a hard look at the communities that you’re building. What happens when everyone just wants to have fun and just sweeps the ugliness under the rug because you know, it’s not fun to deal with that and you’re just here to chill, right?
But that kind of privilege isn’t extended to everyone. And the thing is, if you never say anything, then people assume that you’re okay with it. That’s the whole “silence is complicity” thing. Refusing to say anything because you don’t owe it to anyone is eventually saying to the people who are driven out: my comfort is more important than you as a person. My comfort is the priority and fuck you for messing with it.
And, fine, you don’t owe anyone anything. That is a choice you can make. But to make that choice, to prioritize your own fun in fandom over anything or anyone else? That choice comes with consequences. And you might not ever feel those consequences. You might go on through your fandom experience without caring whether there are people out there who are just left out. But that is a reflection of you as a person.
You make some very fine points there, friend, and because you word your points so clearly and respectfully, I’m going to give you some backstory on this post, and why I made it, and why I feel so strongly that while these conversations are absolutely important, and should happen, choosing not to partake in them personally does not make you a bad, nor complicit, person, and why I will stand by this stance that I’ve made. Why the “I am not obligated to discourse if I don’t fucking want to” is the hill I will die on. Strap in, this is gonna get long.
Let’s rewind. It’s about a year and a half ago. I’m in a new fandom, a revival fandom, one that will have a lifespan of about six months of activity before it drifts back into obscurity. Literally everyone in the fandom is aware of this ticking clock. We’re here to have fun. Except there’s one person-
-this person is what I like to call the fandom hall monitor. They’re… angry. About a lot of things, I think, and one of those is that everyone else is not as angry as they are. They make a lot of headcanons and meta about a (in my opinion ooc) version of one of the characters, get mad that other people don’t enjoy their writing, which is nsfw, niche, and very clearly them unpacking some shit they’ve got going on, and then get even more mad when people have similar headcanons about a similar character that isn’t so niche and is more fun. And they say this a lot- “We as a fandom have to talk about-”
This person is the reason I chose the wording for my post. It was a phrase they liked to use a lot. “We as a fandom-” No, actually. We as a fandom didn’t have to do jack shit. Just because you’ve got some clear issues doesn’t mean the rest of us have to get involved with them.
Rewind a little farther, just a couple of weeks. I’ve just gotten into a very bad- I was gonna say fight, but no, that’s not the right word, it was more like… a betrayal, and we’ll give no more details. I’ve just been betrayed by someone I thought was my friend. They’ve done a far greater number on me emotionally than I’ll realize for awhile, and all I now is that I need to get away from everything I associate with them. I need a fandom that is not connected to them in any way- hey, here’s this new fandom, it’s fun, I’ll hang out here for awhile. I spend four months in this fandom, and in this four months, what I need more than anything is to be in an environment that asks nothing of me except that I treat other fandom members with respect. I need to be in a fandom where I can just have meaningless fun while I process the experience I’ve just had. I need a distraction. This fandom is a good distraction-
-except… this one person, who is very insistent that everyone in the fandom should have to engage in these discussions about why a show that’s been out of production for years is Bad and if you enjoy this, this, and this aspect of this content, then you are Bad, and you should feel Guilt and Shame, and if you are not self-flagellating yourself constantly over this, then you are the reason that people are being murdered for (insert marginalized identity here).
Here’s the thing: I was not the only person in this fandom who was there because I needed a break. I was not the only one there because I was emotionally drained and just needed something light, and the most angst I wanted was angst involving fictional people. A lot of us were, in fact I think the reason the fandom happened was because it came at a time when we needed it.
But hey, by not partaking of a discussion of why transphobia is bad, I was complicit in why this person was dealing with transphobia, right?
Well, fast forward, then. And rewind. Honestly this next bit has happened a few times so I can’t actually put a timestamp on it. For context: I’m a trans man. And sometimes I talk about trans man stuff with other trans men. Stuff like certain headcanons, and how I feel about them based my experiences, and how other trans men I know feel the same or differently. These discussions have always been explicitly between trans men, and personal- not fandom wide discussions meant to condemn people’s headcanons or behaviors, just us, talking and venting about our experiences. Maybe someone will see these and reconsider how they approach trans man headcanons, maybe they won’t; it doesn’t really matter, because this is just… two (or more) trans men talking about something that we experience. Venting. Just, getting it out there with someone who feels the same way.
Try telling that to the cis women who decide to hijack our conversation. And frame their vagueposts in a way that makes it seem, to anyone who doesn’t follow us and hasn’t seen the context, like we’re condemning people for having the headcanons, instead of just talking and venting about our feelings and experiences. And these cis women- I tend to call them hall monitors, too. Because while I don’t think they’ve ever used the actual phrase, they sure do enjoy the spirit of it. They sure do like saying that this conversation, this exchange of personal feelings and experience between trans men about something specifically involving trans men, is a conversation that we as a fandom need to have.
Suddenly I’m not just having a venting conversation with another trans man about the way a popular trans man headcanon is treated by a lot of people in the fandom, many of them cis women. Suddenly I’m having to defend myself, and my right to be uncomfortable with this headcanon.
But hey- we as a fandom need to have these conversations, right?
Rewind again. A long way- eight years, maybe more. I’m… a very different person back then. I’ve come from a background I’m not proud of, I’m a person I’m not proud to admit I was. And the person I was- is just now learning that queerness outside of fanfiction is fine, and trans people are just crossdressers, and autism is that thing eight year old boys do and it’s so very sad, isn’t it?, and racism ended in the sixties and sexism is barely a thing anymore and, and, and…
…and a friend I’ve made is having a conversation about a homophobic experience in the comments of one of their posts. It’s not a conversation I’ve ever seen or heard before- two queer people, talking about their experiences of being hated over their queerness. The person I used to be, the person who was still realizing that queerness is fine, that person’s instinct was to butt in, and offer my opinion. To go “okay yes but” and put in my own two cents. But I’m new to this community and this fandom and this setting and I don’t want to alienate this friend and I now that if I say the things I want to say, if I put the words I’m thinking onto the screen, I know that’s going to happen. So I say nothing. I don’t belong in this conversation. I don’t have anything to add to it.
But I read it. And others like it- I’ve been active in online fandom for nearly a decade, and there’s very few subjects I haven’t found in some form, and read them quietly, and thought about the viewpoints I’ve seen, and set that point next to it, and considered the ways they line up and the ways they don’t and, where accordingly, I’ve changed my perspective. I’ve learned and I’ve grown and I’ve become a much better person than that person I was at that time.
(I maintain that the most important lesson I learned in fandom was the sit down and shut up and listen. I may have forgotten it at times, but it’s still the most important. I owe a lot to that single moment of insight.)
But- but we all have to partake in these conversations, right?
I’ve said in just about every addition I’ve made to this post in the past weeks that I am in no way saying we shouldn’t have these conversations. In fact, quite the contrary! These conversations are important. They really are- they give us an environment to discuss these things with the shared, common ground of that thing we enjoy. But no one person- no collective fandom- has an obligation to partake in these conversations.
Some people are not in a good place to have these kinds of conversations as a fandom– they could be processing an intense emotional event, or a tragedy or they could be dealing with those kinds of conversations already in their meatspace lives and just want to find a place where they can shut that part of their lives off. They deserve to have a place in fandom where they can go to find that space and do that, and if we as a fandom are having that conversation, then where are they going to go?
Some conversations are not conversations for the entire fandom. Sometimes they’re people discussing their experiences, and venting, and just being really frustrated that every time they try to have those conversations for themselves, the fandom takes over- and twists their words, because when you have a conversation as a fandom what you’re really doing is playing a game of phone tag where most of the fandom doesn’t know where the conversation began, or what the original context was, and suddenly the people who started the conversation are having hurt people saying they feel like they’re “not supposed to” enjoy a headcanon because they’re the same as those people, when the people who had the conversation just wanted to vent.
And, quite often, a lot of the people getting involved in the conversation shouldn’t be. They should be sitting down and shutting up and listening, because their place in the conversation is someone who does not have an experience with the thing in question, and their place in the conversation is to learn, and maybe grow from it. We as a fandom don’t belong in the conversation.
Conversations about bigotry, about racism, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, religious oppression, all of it, all of these conversations should happen. They should happen. They’re good things. They’re important. But the people who participate in these important conversations should be allowed to do so on their own terms, and they should be allowed to choose when they want to or should step in, and when they would be better off sitting out, or even turning away from the conversation entirely.
Because we as a fandom is everyone in the fandom, and no one in the fandom is obligated to participate.
“I never learned my Navajo language and I was never inspired to learn it. As I got older, I realized how valuable our language is to the livelihood of our Navajo Nation. ” -Dr. Shawna L. Begay
Our Navajo or Diné language is in danger of becoming extinct. Help us create and develop the first Navajo-English educational media TV puppet show, “Diné Bí Ná’álkid Time” which means ‘The Navajo Movie Time.’ It will inspire and teach our youth basic language skills using media as a technology tool. Parents, grandparents, children and grandkids can learn to speak Navajo fluently together within their own homes.
Long-time friends and educators, Dr. Shawna L. Begay and Charmaine Jackson have teamed up to create this new TV pilot for an all-ages audience or for anyone who wants to learn the Navajo language.
With your support, it’ll be the first educational Navajo and English puppet show that will teach and preserve the Navajo language and culture through digital media.
After several years of extensive research on the Navajo Nation, Dr. Begay recently completed her PhD from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with her doctorate thesis, ‘Developing A Navajo Media Guide: A Community Perspective.’ As project director, she quickly realized she was a pioneer on the topic.
“When I decided what topic to study I realized there existed very little research in Indigenous educational media, especially with our Navajo people,” stated Dr. Begay. “As Navajo people, we have our own learning objectives and Navajo way of knowing is completely different for Euro-Western schooling. I decided that I had to research and develop our own curriculum guide that is meant to teach Navajo through media.”
Dr. Begay and Jackson, co-writers of the show, developed the first 3-puppet characters and plan for many more. The pilot features Nanabah-a young Navajo girl, Gáh (Rabbit) and Dlǫ̀ǫ̀ (Prairie Dog) who will go on endless adventures learning about language, gardening, the environment and the importance of family values. Nanabah is fluent in Navajo and likes to teach children about life on the reservation with her animal friends and special guests. Children who want to learn Navajo will also be an important part of the show by interacting with Nanabah, her friends and storyline.
Dr. Begay’s research concluded there exists very little research in the area of Indigenous educational media. Currently media is a very powerful tool that can be used to teach. She is cognizant of the digital age we live in and the opportunities to utilize media to revitalize the Navajo language.
“Star Wars and Finding Nemo,” dubbed in Navajo, was a great place to start and it has garnered national exposure of our language. However, we need a show based on our own Navajo learning principals our ancestors set out for us to learn and live by. I don’t think a non-Navajo, non-Native or non-Indigenous person can do that for us, nor should they. We, as Navajo, need to produce this show ourselves, if we are to be truly sovereign,” added Dr. Begay.
Both educators, Dr. Begay and Jackson, of Naalkid Productions have been talking about this educational language project for about the past four years and still have a long way to go to finance their dream.
“With the support of Navajo TV Anchor Colton Shone, our team of Navajo artists, filmmakers, family and friends, this video pilot is a huge step forward,” said Jackson. “Our journey has just begun and the big next step is finding financial support to create a whole new puppet TV series.”
We aim to raise $50,000 with this project which will allow us to continue with pre-production and production aspects of making this digital media project become a reality. We need your help to save our language by teaching Navajo to our future generations.
Pre-Production: -Script writing for the pilot show -Puppet Development/Creation -Casting for puppeteers and other talent that will be on screen -Hiring of all key cast and crew
Production: -Locations and permits -Rental of Studio space -Equipment: cameras, sound, lights, etc. -Cast and Crew budget
Despite all the notes on this post, they’re still at $13,155 of their $50,000 goal.
Stressed, Depressed, and Story Obsessed 