Man This Year Is Gonna Be The Year I Either Die Or Become Someone Else I Dont Know Which One Maybe Both

i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament

Petition: Do not stop transgender people from receiving care in mainstream hospital wards

The previous government proposed changes to the NHS constitution which would mean transgender hospital patients in England may not be treate

Well fucks? Get to it!

I’m not trying to be inflammatory, I’m just curious. How do het ace/aro people face SYSTEMATIC oppression? Gay/bi/trans people face oppression like difficultly adopting children, finding housing, they may be fired from employment because of their gender or orientation. So they are bared from normal parts of live because of their gender/sexuality. Gay ace/aro people face this too, but what do het ace/aro people experience on a societal level?

If you’d been following my blog at all or even bothered to peruse it a little before dropping this message in my inbox, you’d probably already know the answer to your question. 

You’d ALSO probably know that there are bi and pan aspecs too (e.g., I’m panromantic demisexual) which isn’t “gay” (does this term also include lesbians?) so I feel like your ask erases part of my own identity and that of others in the community.

For these reasons and more, I’d bet money that you’re not here because you’re “curious”. You’re probably here because you figure this is how you’re gonna stop a “self-imposing” aspec from speaking up for herself. 

Well guess what: That’s just hateful & sad.

Regardless though of your intentions, I’m here to say that there is in fact SYSTEMATIC oppression against aspecs. For example, Dr Gordon Hodson wrote this about his 2012 study: 

In a recent investigation (MacInnis & Hodson, in press) we uncovered strikingly strong bias against asexuals in both university and community samples. Relative to heterosexuals, and even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, heterosexuals: (a) expressed more negative attitudes toward asexuals (i.e., prejudice); (b) desired less contact with asexuals; and © were less willing to rent an apartment to (or hire) an asexual applicant (i.e., discrimination). Moreover, of all the sexual minority groups studied, asexuals were the most dehumanized (i.e., represented as “less human”). Intriguingly, heterosexuals dehumanized asexuals in two ways. Given their lack of sexual interest, widely considered a universal interest, it might not surprise you to learn that asexuals were characterized as “machine-like” (i.e., mechanistically dehumanized). But, oddly enough, asexuals were also seen as “animal-like” (i.e., animalistically dehumanized). Yes, asexuals were seen as relatively cold and emotionless and unrestrained, impulsive, and less sophisticated.

When you repeatedly observe such findings it grabs your attention as a prejudice researcher. But let’s go back a minute and consider those discrimination effects. Really? You’d not rent an apartment to an asexual man, or hire an asexual woman? Even if you relied on stereotypes alone, presumably such people would make ideal tenants and employees. We pondered whether this bias actually represents bias against single people, a recently uncovered and very real bias in its own right (see Psychology Today column by Bella DePaulo). But our statistical analyses ruled out this this possibility. So what’s going on here?

If you’ve been following my column, you’ll recall that I wrote a recent article on what I called the “Bigotry Bigot-Tree” – what psychologists refer to as generalized prejudice. Specifically, those disliking one social group (e.g., women) also tend to dislike other social groups (e.g., homosexuals; Asians). In our recent paper (MacInnis & Hodson, in press), we found that those who disliked homosexuals also disliked bisexuals and asexuals. In other words, these prejudices are correlated. Heterosexuals who dislike one sexual minority, therefore, also dislike other sexual minorities, even though some of these groups are characterized by their sexual interest and activity and others by their lack of sexual interest and activity.

This anti-asexual bias, at its core, seems to boil down to what Herek (2010) refers to as the “differences as deficit” model of sexual orientation. By deviating from the typical, average, or normal sexual interests, sexual minorities are considered substandard and thus easy targets for disdain and prejudice. Contrary to conventional folk wisdom, prejudice against sexual minorities may not therefore have much to do with sexual activity at all. There is even evidence, for instance, that religious fundamentalists are prejudiced against homosexuals even when they are celibate (Fulton et al., 1999). Together, such findings point to a bias against “others”, especially different others, who are seen as substandard and deficient (and literally “less human”). “Group X” is targeted for its lack of sexual interest even more than homosexuals and bisexuals are targeted for their same-sex interests.

From news coverage of a recently published study (2016):

What should the average person take away from your study?

Since I first became interested in the issue, I have come to conclude that U.S. society is both “sex negative” and “sex positive.” In other words, there is stigma and marginalization that can come both from being “too sexual” and from being “not sexual enough.” In a theoretical paper, I argued that sexuality may be compulsory in contemporary U.S. society. In other words, our society assumes that (almost) everyone is, at their core, “sexual” and there exists a great deal of social pressure to experience sexual desire, engage in sexual activities, and adopt a sexual identity. At the same time, various types of “non-sexuality” (such as a lack of sexual desire or activity) are stigmatized.

For this particular study, I identified thirty individuals who identified as asexual and asked them first, if they had experienced stigma or marginalization as a result of their asexuality, and, second how they challenged this stigma or marginalization. I found that my interviewees had experienced the following forms of marginalization: pathologization (i.e. people calling them sick), social isolation, unwanted sex and relationship conflict, and the denial of epistemic authority (i.e. people not believing that they didn’t experience sexual attraction). I also found that my interviews resisted stigma and marginalization in five ways: describing asexuality as simply a different (but not inherently worse) form of sexuality; deemphasizing the importance of sexuality in human life; developing new types of nonsexual relationships; coming to see asexuality as a sexual orientation or identity; and engaging in community building and outreach.

I hope that average people would take away from this study the idea that some people can lead fulfilling lives without experiencing sexual attraction but can experience distress if others try to invalidate their identities.

Some of the social isolation we aspecs experience comes from religious communities. Indeed, the popular myth that religious people revere aspecs is very much NOT TRUE. For example, read “Myth 8″ from the VISION Catholic Religious Vocation Guide:

MYTH 8: Religious are asexual

Question: What do you call a person who is asexual? 

Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist. Sexuality is a gift from God and thus a fundamental part of our human identity. Those who repress their sexuality are not living as God created them to be: fully alive and well. As such, they’re most likely unhappy. All people are called by God to live chastely, meaning being respectful of the gift of their sexuality. Religious men and women vow celibate chastity, which means they live out their sexuality without engaging in sexual behavior. A vow of chastity does not mean one represses his manhood or her womanhood. Sexuality and the act of sex are two very different things. While people in religious life abstain from the act of sex, they do not become asexual beings, but rather need to be in touch with what it means to be a man or a woman. A vow of chastity also does not mean one will not have close, loving relationships with women and men. In fact, such relationships are a sign of living the vow in a healthy way. Living a religious vow of chastity is not always easy, but it can be a very beautiful expression of love for God and others. Religious women and men aren’t oddities; they mirror the rest of the church they serve: there are introverts and extroverts, tall and short, old and young, straight and gay, obese and skinny, crass and pious, humorous and serious, and everything in between. They attempt to live the same primary vocation as all other Christians do: proclaiming and living the gospel. However, religious do this as members of an order that serve the church and world in a particular way. Like marriage and the single life, religious life can be wonderful, fulfilling, exciting, and, yes, normal. Yet, it also can be countercultural and positively challenging. It’s that for us and many others. If you thought religious life was outdated, dysfunctional, or dead, we hope you can now look beyond the stereotypes and see the gift it is to the church and world.

NOTE: YOU CAN BE A GAY CATHOLIC PERSON BUT NOT ASEXUAL, BC ASEXUALITY DOESN’T EXIST (yet somehow we’re also “most likely unhappy” and “oddities”). I sincerely hope and believe that not all religions characterize us aspecs this way. But here are some personal accounts I found on a reddit site answering the question “Do any religions have a negative stance toward asexuals?”:

Please note that the Christian pastor in the last example was fearful (or something?) that an asexual was helping to lead a youth group and kicked them out of the church as a result.

hi! I’m so sorry if this is a bother, but i thought you might be a good person to ask. i recently rewatched danny phantom as an adult - i loved it as a kid and wanted a good dose of nostalgia. after typing in the tag it was wild to find the phandom still up and kicking (honestly with more passion than i’ve seen from any fandom in my 8 years of tumblr). i immediately came across fanart for phantom of truth which i devoured along with its sequel in just a few days. i also read pits by cordria and loved it, but in the last week i’ve hit a bit of a research lull. i was wondering if you could fill me in on some details - maybe point me in the direction of popular fics or material? also, could you please explain wes weston to me - is there a particular fic he was born from or did he just sort of appear in fan lore? if not no worries, but i’d appreciate anything you had to offer!! thanks :)

Welcome to the phandom!

So the phandom in general is SUPER big on events. We have a year round event's calendar of which we're currently celebrating Ectober Month! You can find the details to that in the calendar along with other upcoming events!

In general, you'll find a LOT of incoming dp fan media through events and their tags, and that's where I tend to find new writers/artists to follow each year.

I've made two in depth posts on Wes Weston, so I'll just link them here [1: the older detailed wes] [2: a more updated wes]. The basic intel though is that yes he's entirely a phandom made OC that we've just adopted to fill a social hole in the dp universe.

There are tons of amazing DP writers and fics. I'll link you a few of my faves! In no particular order,

1. @imekitty (her ffn) is an older phandom writer who is kinda my personal gold standard for angst. She's also done some awesome slash fics though! Her current most popular series is the Disparaged/Dissembled series and fair warning, it's pretty dark!

2. @ecto-american (ghostanimal on ao3) is another older phandom writer who's still super active! He's currently most known for his fic Broken Ectoplasm, which is a bit darker than his usual pieces. Regardless, he has a pretty good range!

3. @five-rivers (marsalias on ao3) is an absolute writing fiend. I literally can't think of a genre of fic that they haven't written. They're currently best known for their monster of a longfic Mortified, which is ongoing and currently sits at a 258 chapters, or a little over a half million words. I personally am a big fan of their Exhumed series.

4. @wastefulreverie (her ao3) doesn't write a ton for dp anymore, but her archive of fics is AMAZING. Every so often I'll just go binge her writing, it's seriously fantastic. I think she has written some of my favorite angst fics that I've found so far.

5. @ladylynse (lynse on ao3) is another really big writer who also does a fair amount of crossovers if you're into that. Currently, her biggest fic is The Trouble With Ghosts which is an extremely popular fic currently. Good stuff!

6. @things-i-cannot-do-in-amitypark (their ao3) has several extremely popular fics on ao3 and ffn. I definitely recommend checking out their stuff. They've been writing DP for years and really have a great grasp on narration and building an exciting story.

7. @kinglazrus (UnluckyAlis on ao3) is actually one of the fastest writers I've ever freaking met. They're most known for their fic The Survivalists which is about Danny's class disappearing only to be found stranded on an island. Overall, really fun writer and also a cool person as well.

8. I know you said you read Pits, but @cordria has a TON of oneshots on her Tumblr as well as her ffn and ao3. I've been following her works for years and she really is an absolute S tier writer.

9. Shift by CaptainOzone is literally my favorite dp fic ever written. The basic premise is that Danny didn't grow up in Amity, and is revealed as Phantom right before he moves there. Oz is an outstanding writer and I'm super pumped they dipped their toes into DP for this fic.

10. when im dead, my dearest by redrobin1989 is only three chapters long, but i think honestly it really exemplifies an incredibly well written Valerie-centered fic. I go back and reread it every so often because wowowow.

11. Roughing It by Haiju is a big phandom favorite. You already read PoT/SOAD, so I know you'll like this one hahaha.

12. The Ghost Of Heroes by Enigmaris and ScarletNightFury is a really popular DP/MCU crossover starring an amazing bond between Danny and Spiderman. It's a pretty lighthearted fic, but it's super fun and the storylines are really engaging.

13. Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time by MissMegHolden is a DP/Young Justice fic that's very popular right now if you like that crossover. It's ongoing and updates semi-regularly. I've been following it for a while and I love it, though this is one of my fave crossover types (and I'm a big fan of DP crossovers lmao).

14. In The Eye of a Needle by mystyrust is an extremely popular DP/BNHA crossover fic that is completed. This is another one of those fics I go back and reread a lot.

Okay I could keep going but I'm going to stop here for now. All in all, I definitely recommend scouring event tags for new writers/artists. The phandom also has a discord that you can always DM me for an invite. The phandom in general is extremely chill. We're an older fandom so we really don't have drama or anything.

Once again, I welcome you and I hope you have fun!

(oh quick plug my own ao3 i write a lot of angst)

Phantom Comic

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Rec List for Fandom Newbies

One of my mutuals on my main asked me about DP and so I recced them some fics that I thought might help explain the main ideas of the fandom. SO here is that list (and also just some other fun fics I like because). 

Under the cut because this is kinda long!

Keep reading

Crossover Danuary Week 2022 Day 1- Sunday the 23rd

The Fandom is Avatar: the last airbender.

The optional prompt is Pardon

Make sure to tag your posts "#Crossover Danuary Week 2022" and "dp x atla"!

Want to see some dp x atla fic recs? Here's some good ones!

(Sorry they're all ffn)

Weapon from another world by RusEmp

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13045146/1/Weapon-from-another-world?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=mxtb7zWnZEBlLQ8rSSWx1EiGkWn_EiJzMzBPaQmh_fM-1642970013-0-gaNycGzNCaU

Spirit in Need by Turkeyhead987

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8261035/1/Spirit-in-Need

Wandering Spirits by playedcrowd5610

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13719508/1/Wandering-Spirits

The False Avatar by JBGilroy

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12637699/1/The-False-Avatar

Best language learning tips & masterlists from other bloggers I’ve come across

(these posts are not my own!)

THE HOLY GRAIL of language learning (-> seriously tho, this is the BEST thing I’ve ever come across)

Tips:

Some language learning exercises and tips

20 Favorite Language Learning Tips

what should you be reading to maximize your language learning?

tips for learning a language (things i wish i knew before i started)

language learning and langblr tips

Tips on how to read in your target language for longer periods of time

Tips and inspiration from Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis

Tips for learning a sign language

Tips for relearning your second first language

How to:

how to self teach a new language

learning a language: how to

learning languages and how to make it fun

how to study languages

how to practice speaking in a foreign language

how to learn a language when you don’t know where to start

how to make a schedule for language learning

How to keep track of learning more than one language at the same time

Masterposts:

Language Study Master Post

Swedish Resources Masterpost

French Resouces Masterpost

Italian Resources Masterpost

Resource List for Learning German

Challenges:

Language-Sanctuary Langblr Challenge

language learning checkerboard challenge

Word lists:

2+ months of language learning prompts

list of words you need to know in your target language, in 3 levels

Other stuff:

bullet journal dedicated to language learning

over 400 language related youtube channels in 50+ languages

TED talks about language (learning)

Learning the Alien Languages of Star Trek

.

Feel free to reblog and add your own lists / masterlists!

No One Knows AU Fic Rec

I made a fic rec of all the No One Knows AUs (that I know of),, so enjoy!!

a foreign sense of self preservation

Blue Interregnum

Counting Down

An Experiment in Absurdity

No One Knows AU (DarkNymfa)

it’s fine

Missing

Home is a Shelter from all sort of storms

The face I hide behind is my own

Intervention

Seasons

take the secrets to the grave

lie like a tombstone (yet secrets will bloom)

Family/Friends

the life cycle of a half ghost

Lapse

Creation

infinitesimal

Changed Hunt

Castle of Lies, Foundation of Fear

Almost Me

Something’s Wrong With Danny Fenton

Little Lion King

do not stand at my grave and cry (I was not there, I did not die)

Missing

Danien

at what age do you think you’re going to stop having interests or a personality, turn off your brain, and become an Income Generator Bot and/or Mombot with no internal life