TDOR 2020. Each candle represents one of the 350 transgender individuals killed this year globally. The United States, where I live, had 37 cases of fatal violence against trans people.
On this day, we remember those we have lost.
Statistics reported by Forbes and the Human Rights Campaign.
the donald trump animatronic at disneyland’s hall of presidents looks like they made an animatronic for hillary, went “oh fuck” and stretched a hastily-made donald trump skin over hillary’s facial structure
that is oddly specific and hauntingly what it really looks like
i [23m] gave my girlfriend [21f] my discord password and she used it to hack into my account to change my theme from dark theme to light theme the new age of cyber crimes is here
Someone: Star Trek is set in the future, why would disabilities exist? me, a disabled trekkie remembering that tng had a disabled character in the main cast, had an episode about a ‘genetic utopia’ in which that disabled character finds a solution to their problem BECAUSE he’s disabled, and that star trek has shown multiple people with some kind of disability: in the grand future, disabilities are ACCOMMODATED for, not erased.
some dumb bitch: in star trek all the disabilities would’ve either been cured at birth or wiped out long ago
me, thinking about geordi, julian, tilly, barclay, etc: oh, haven’t you heard?
Ableists: why wouldn’t they cure disabilities at birth?
Me, knows that eugenics is strictly against the code of the United Federation Of Planets: lol fake nerd boy
Can we talk yet about how endings are actually extremely important. About how sometimes “giving the fans what they want” is actually “resolving the story in a logical and plot relevant way”. That “subverting expectations” doesn’t always mean you did a good thing - sometimes it means you fucked it up, royally.
There are plenty of extremely good stories that don’t end happily, and yet remain retold and loved and cherished. There are plenty that have ambiguous endings or sudden turns - but manage to stick the landing through careful setup.
There is an odd tension between writers and fans that has become popular - that the writers somehow know something deeper or have a better sense of plot or are somehow more cunning. That fans are stupid and foolish and don’t matter. This dichotomy would be buckwild in any other field. There’s this sort of weird feeling that… The writing staff is allowed to hate and mock and deride people who have the nerve to… Like the product? Can you imagine any other brand that would survive off of “gotcha” marketing? Sure, it’s funny for them… And kinda only for them. I know all the ironic assholes in the world love this shit - “haha! You liked something honestly! I know better because I’m smart so I never like things!” - but the world is really fucking boring & annoying & unfun when it is run by people who think like that.
But even taking fans OUT of the equation, as a writer, it’s frustrating for me to watch other writers not value their OWN MATERIAL. Like, they don’t rely on the narrative as interesting enough, as challenging enough - they think they need to end it in a “surprising” or “sudden” way in order for it to be groundbreaking. They think they need to “push boundaries” without recognizing that they are fundamentally altering and destroying the map that they have spent all this time painting.
I’m not saying I have to LIKE how something ends, or that all of my favorite characters have to live or whatever. But I AM saying that an ending is drawing a thesis line through your entire work. And recently the thesis for many, many shows/movies/etc has been - “you were a fool for caring about these characters”.
Anyway art survives its creators when it tells a story that feels honest and human in the audience it is talking to - not when it is only a monument to the artist’s ego. And the ending tells us - how heavy is the story we are carrying? And how much was this story a farce? And where will we let go?
I keep hate-reading plague literature from the medieval era, but as depressed as it makes me there is always one historical tidbit that makes me feel a little bittersweet and I like to revisit it. That’s the story of the village of Eyam.
Eyam today is a teeny tiny town of less than a thousand people. It has barely grown since 1665 when its population was around 800.
Where the story starts with Eyam is that in August 1665 the village tailor and his assistant discovered that a bolt of cloth that they had bought from London was infested with rat fleas. A few days later on September 7th the tailor’s assistant
George Viccars
died from plague.
Back then people didn’t fully understand how disease spread, but they knew in a basic sense that it did spread and that the spread had something to do with the movement of people.
So two religios leaders in the town,
Thomas Stanley
and
William Mompesson,
got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.
They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.
Over the 14 months that Eyam was in quarantine 260 out of the 800 residents died of plague. The death toll was high, the cost was great.
However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.
So I really like this story, because it’s a sad story, because it’s also a beautiful story. Instead of fleeing everyone in this one place agreed that they would stay, and they saved thousands of people. They stayed just to save others and I guess it’s one of those good stories about how people have always been people, for better or worse.
It gets better.
Here’s the thing. One third of the residents of Eyam died during their quarantine, but the Black Plague was known to have a NINETY PERCENT death rate. As high as the toll was, it wasn’t as high as it should have been. And a few hundred years later, some historians and doctors got to wondering why.
Fortunately, Eyam is one of those wonderful places that really hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Researchers, going to visit, found that many of the current residents were direct descendants of the plague survivors from the 1600s. By doing genetic testing, they learned that a high number of Eyam residents carried a gene that made them immune to the plague. And still do.
And it gets even better than that, because the gene that blocks the Black Plague? Also turns out to block AIDS, and was instrumental in helping to find effective medication for people who have HIV and AIDS in the 21st century.
