If you look closely at the comics, you'll notice that Lex Luthor has a pencil in every panel.
https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts
Would you be interested in a website that had articles comparing books to their movies and movies to their remakes? This would include a breakdown of plot differences, tonal changes, character/plotline additions and subtractions (and combinations) as well as an analysis of what works and what doesn't, and why it might have been done that way.
I would appreciate boosts.
actual current state of modern gaming:
You've always been a woman (long)
This one goes out to all the trans women who are feeling weird today. It's International Women's Day and I've seen multiple posts from other trans girls about how they don't feel like they can claim the day. That they're not real women or not been a woman long enough.
If you're a trans woman, you're a woman. You always have been. 💜
This is something I've had to process over the course of the last couple of years as I've gotten used to my identity. When you're AMAB, you're bombarded with messages your entire life trying to shove you into that male role. Sure, you can be an engineer or an astronaut or a surgeon but the one thing you'll never be allowed to be is a woman. No matter how much you want it, society won't allow it.
When you actually work up the courage to transition, the messages don't suddenly stop. The TERFs are constantly working to try and prove that we will never be women. That we're somehow appropriating their gender. That's bullshit, of course. Most trans women I know deeply revere and cherish femininity, often more so than the TERFs who claim to be defending it. It runs through our very souls.
Unfortunately, we have a nasty way of internalizing the transphobia. But that's what it is. Internalized transphobia.
"Oh, but I've not been a woman for very long!"
Girl! You've always been one. 💜
I talk a lot on here about the mental and emotional journey of my transition and this is no different. At the outset, I thought that way, too. But part of my emotional processing, my therapy work, has been digging through my past and trying to figure out what the hell happened to me. It encompasses everything from work relationships to friendships as a kid to how I related to my mom. You know what has made the single biggest difference in understanding those things? Accepting my femininity.
When my wife and I started dating in college, our relationship was very different from most of the romantic relationships of our peers. We were really awkward at the start but within a few months we had people telling us we acted like a married couple. Our relationship was also... different. It was more balanced in a way. We often acted more like good friends than lovers. There wasn't that awkward imbalance that so many relationships we saw around us had. We were... We were lesbians. Useless? U-Haul? Pick a meme. We were lesbians.
When I started working my previous job about 10 years ago, I got along alright with my coworkers. There were a couple that rubbed me wrong but they were mostly okay. There were two that I really latched on to, though. One of those became one of my closest friends and even today we hang out as much as we can when we see each other at conferences. There's a total honesty in our relationship in a way that I haven't had with many other people. We came out to each other in 24 hours.
With my other coworkers, we got on okay but there was always this invisible barrier. I just fundamentally never got them. They'd tell stories times out drinking and I'd just kinda roll my eyes. Cool story, bro. Their wives were rolling their eyes, too. 🤔 I've also experienced a similar discomfort at conferences where I'm around a bunch of tech bros. Those experiences all make way more sense in the light of me being a woman.
When I was in college, I hung out roughly the same group of friends for all 8 years. (I spent way too much time in school.) It was a co-ed group and by the time I was in graduate school, pretty much everyone was paired off and married. As with most friend groups like that, we would regularly pair off and do things "just us guys" while the girls went and did something else. The thing is... I actually got on better with the girls. When we were all together, I'd often find myself chatting with the girls while the guys always made me a little uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, I had enough internalized heteronormativity that I couldn't really see it. Yes, I enjoyed chatting with the girls but there was a different awkwardness there. Not the awkwardness because I didn't belong but awkwardness because I didn't think I could belong, even if I wanted to. But when that awkwardness was able to lift, like it somehow did in graduate school, friendships with other women were entirely natural, often easier than friendships with guys.
But the one that's nearest to my heart is something that I've only fully understood through wonder of transition. One of my favorite changes that's come from a combination of HRT and therapy has been regaining my gentleness and sensitivity. I've finally re-connected with my emotions. But more than that, I've changed. I've become softer, gentler, kinder. I've become who I was always meant to be.
There was a time in my past when I was like that. As a kid, I was always pretty sensitive. In middle and high school, my mom leaned on me for emotional support for a reason. My memory of those years is still spotty but I do remember caring for my mom in a special way. But it was also during that time that I started to build a thick shell to protect myself. Instead of learning how to be sensitive, I learned to be hard, impenetrable.
Through transition, I've regained that sensitivity. It's one of the most important parts of my transition to me. It's something I've always felt was missing over the years but could never quite label until I started to get it back. Regaining that sensitivity, that softness, that kindness... Recovering myself has been one of the most affirming parts of my transition. More so even than most of the physical changes. I finally feel like I can be who I was always meant to be.
Notice those words "always meant to be"? I was always a woman. I was always that kind and gentle soul. It was just hidden by a combination of testosterone and emotional repression. Once those things were removed, it returned. It returned. I was always a woman.
And you are, too. If you're reading this and you're a trans woman, you're a woman. You didn't become a woman. You're not pretending to be a woman. You are a woman.
You may not be able to see it today. You may not be able to see it in 6 months. But you are. I can see it. Even in my most scared and nervous and unsure trans femme friends, I can see it. You're a beautiful woman. Even if it takes you years to see it yourself. Even if you never see it. You are and I can see it. 💜
Artist for Closetspace and A Wish for Wings
Creative Text Writer for MTG: Universes Beyond
Writer for Sea of Legends
One enchilada short of a Mexican Platter