My hill to die on

 GENDER: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex. - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

..."typically associated"...

If I could have 5 bucks for any time in my life I heard someone saying to me, "you xxx [insert here a verb] like a man," or "you are such a man in this," I would be rich.

It always pissed me off because I wanted to have the right to be a "woman" and do and be those things.

I never believed that being one prevented me from liking gas turbines or not wanting to have children.

I fought for years for the right to claim that.

I always found fundamentally irrelevant the social "male" and "female" labels attached to clothes, attitudes, expectations, relationships, or physical attraction.

I see these cultural constructs as I see astrology.

Isn't it weird to think that all the Pisces are "typically associated" with intuition and emotion?

Or all the Gemini are "typically" attracted by Aquarius?

Like, really?

I know you are giggling.

So why should this be any different from expecting that ALL men shouldn't like nail polish?

Or *ALL* women shouldn't love engineering?

And if you are *very righteously* arguing that "identifying as a woman" goes waaaay deeper than preferring pink to light blue, I am there with you.

But, to be honest, after *I* stripped away all the "typically associated" societal tags, besides the strictly biological aspects of my persona, I am not sure (and I am speaking very personally here) what "being a woman" actually means.

I am *me*.

So, sometimes, I just really wish that it would be possible to be free from having boxes constructed around me in one way or another.

It kind of upsets me that instead of simply burning this "typically associated" shit on the pyre of nonsense, we are here arguing about who is *entitled* to be this or that.

But after a very heated discussion, I must admit that Laz is right.

[Yes, you can screencap this]

I will not live to see that day.

And people are hurt, and they are hurt now.

So, if my refusal to conform to the male and female stereotypes cannot be destroyed in any other way than one "they" pronoun at a time, I will be glad to die on this hill.

And they *will* see that day.

What is the answer?

“Car’das? Your opinion?”

[Car’das] might not have had a lot of schooling before running off to space, but he’d had enough to know when a teacher was still looking for an answer he hadn’t yet gotten from anyone else.

But what was the answer? []

And then, suddenly, it struck him. [] “These aren’t the ones who did the repairs, are they?”

“Very good,” Thrawn said, smiling faintly. “No, they aren’t.”

~

“Very good,” Thrawn said approvingly. []

“Thank you,” Thalias said, feeling her cheeks warm with the compliment. “Though if it has, it’s due to your skill as a teacher.”

“I disagree,” Thrawn said. “I don’t teach, but merely guide. Each person approaches problems differently. All I do is ask the questions that set that person on their best path to the solution.”

“I see,” Thalias murmured. But only if that person was willing to put forth the effort to learn that path to logic and reason, she suspected. Too many people, possibly even the majority of them, were all too content to let others do that thinking and analysis for them.

~

Everyone from Faro on down seemed intent on working together to do their jobs and complete their assigned tasks to the best of their ability.

The reason, of course, was obvious: Thrawn.

The grand admiral was smart and subtle, but never used his brilliance to show up or humiliate anyone.

He demanded results, but never perfection, and had amazing stores of patience for those who were truly working to their fullest ability.

He cared about his people, to the point of standing up for them even against the disapproval of powerful men like Lord Vader. []

It was a pity Thrawn's style of leadership hadn't spread through the rest of the navy. Still, he was certainly having an influence on the younger officers.

~

Closely related to his polite but firm "perhaps," "opinion?" is one of the trademarks of Thrawn's mentoring style.

His goal is never showing off, belittling the opponent, "à la Sherlock," but instead using his everlasting patience to wait for the student to devise his own solution.

Sure, as Thalias points out, at least for those willing to learn.

After all, “curiosity is a choice. Some wish to have it. Others don’t.”

[SC Thrawn Funko by @cardinal.creates]

Tags

Loudly and boldly

From the moment Eli and Thrawn set foot off the shuttle from the Palace, he could feel everyone’s eyes fixed firmly on the newcomers.

And he had no doubt that most of those eyes were hostile.

The alien, and the backwater yokel. This, Eli thought glumly, was a classic joke in the making.

Commandant Deenlark clearly thought likewise.

“So,” he ground out, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them as they stood at attention in front of his desk. “Is this Admiral Foss’s idea of a joke?”

Thrawn didn’t answer, apparently leaving this one to Eli. Great.

“The Emperor himself sent us here, sir,” Eli said, not knowing what else to say.

“That was a rhetorical question, Cadet,” Deenlark growled, glaring at him from under bushy eyebrows. “You do have complicated words like rhetorical in Wild Space, don’t you? [] What’s your excuse, alien?”

“My excuse for what, sir?” Thrawn asked calmly.

“Your excuse for living,” Deenlark bit out. “Well?”

Thrawn remained silent, and for a few seconds the two of them locked gazes. Then Deenlark’s lip twitched. “Yeah, like I thought,” the commandant said sourly. “You’re damn lucky the Emperor’s taken a fancy to you. Though why, I can’t guess.”

He paused, as if expecting Thrawn to explain it to him. Again, the Chiss didn’t respond. []

There were times, Eli had learned, when it didn’t pay to say anything.

This was one of them. He kept his head up, his eyes focused straight ahead, and his mouth closed.

~

Surely, a bitter excerpt for this beautiful original watercolor art, a gift of the immensely talented @psiibee.

But it is a hard time for everyone who is blue.

Or comes from the Wild Space.

Too black, too feminine, too foreigner, too masculine, too outspoken, too poor, too gay.

Differences make some people feel uncomfortable and afraid.

They want to erase that nonconformity, put humanity into boxes.

Limit and hurt.

"Can you be, I do not know, a little less... *blue*?"

"Ultimately, being *blue* is a choice, isn't it?"

"This is probably not something for *blue* people, right?"

"Do you really want to be *blue* all your life? How can you be sure?"

Hard times.

But Eli was wrong.

And we must speak.

Loudly and boldly.

Total Organ Failure

"The most important part of any fandom experience is scrolling through AO3 at 4 am during the honeymoon period of the hyperfixation and reading a fic that is so beautifully written that it permanently alters your brain chemistry and haunts you for years to come"

[Tucker on Twitter]

~

Since his first breath of sentience, there has been an amorphous truth shadowing his existence which only really solidified into something nameable when he was ten and everyone thought there were only three states of matter in his class despite his impassioned attempts to convince them otherwise: that no one would ever understand him. Either because they weren’t trying to or because they really, genuinely couldn’t. The latter possibility terrified him and made him feel an acute sense of aloneness for about a second before he realized that he didn’t give a shit.

So Jayce carries the freedom of this certainty with him to university, where it is promptly shattered with quiet dignity by a dark-haired boy whose sincerity is stranger than his accent. He moves his hands while speaking as though moving his words into meaning; it’s impossible not to watch. Nineteen years old and he still believes in everything. Life must be unbearable. []

Maybe in another universe he never meets Viktor. Maybe in another universe humanity never bothers to look up at the stars. For the first time in his life Jayce meets someone who doesn’t sound like white noise and it is a relief he hadn’t known possible. Like the first crackling of another voice through the radio years after capitalism has wasted the world into nothing. Like a knife through his stomach, finding itself a home among the other sharp things under his skin. Viktor burns with the obvious conviction of a higher purpose too violently honest to miss. Jayce asks him one night while they’re both misusing library property if he’s going to save the world and Viktor says yes.

Somehow, despite every truth he's learned and held close for nineteen years, Jayce believes him.

[From "total organ failure" by ptimusprime33 (engineering)]

~

[Photo: Hexcore necklace by @rocklovejewelry]

Long, long night

“Do you have someone you’d recommend to take your place?”

Thalias hesitated. []

“Yes,” she said over her shoulder. “But I’m not sure the admiral will approve.”

The admiral, Ar’alani thought sourly, very much didn’t approve. []

Che’ri was curled up in one of the oversized chairs, right where Ar’alani had left her. []

“I’m back,” she announced cheerfully as she crossed the suite toward the girl. “Did you get some sleep? Are you hungry?”

“I’m okay,” Che’ri said, her voice soft and weary.

Ar’alani frowned, studying the girl’s face. When she was Che’ri’s age, she remembered a tendency to go all dramatic when she wanted something, or felt she was being treated unfairly, or just felt like getting some attention. But there was something in Che’ri’s expression that told her none of those were the case here. “Are you upset that Thalias left you?”

Che’ri’s lip twitched, enough to show that Ar’alani had hit the mark. “She said she had to go,” she muttered. “She wouldn’t tell me why.”

Ar’alani nodded. “Yes, that always drove me crazy, too.”

Che’ri looked up, frowning. “You were a sky-walker?”

“No, but I was once ten,” Ar’alani said. “Grown-ups were always whispering and keeping secrets. I hated that. []”

Che’ri lowered her gaze. “She’s going into danger, isn’t she? Captain Thrawn’s taking her, and they’re going into danger.”

“Oh, there’s danger everywhere,” Ar’alani said, trying to sound casual. “It’s not a big deal.”

It was, she realized too late, the exact wrong thing to say. []

“She’s going to die,” she gasped between sobs that shook her whole body. “She’s going to die.”

“No, no,” Ar’alani protested, hurrying forward and dropping to one knee beside the frightened girl. “No, she’s going to be fine. Thrawn’s there, too, and he won’t let anything bad happen to her.” []

Ar’alani patted her shoulder gently, feeling like a fresh recruit on her first training mission. She would take a battle against multiple enemies any day over trying to soothe a terrified child. []

Ar’alani closed her eyes and let out a silent sigh.

This was going to be a long, long night.

~

Total Queen.

[Pin art by @maryallen138, pin by @ritarussiandoll_pins]

Sunshine

Creepy and cute

Surrounded by love and art

Sometimes I really hate Instagram.

It started as a "retro" photo gallery with filters and squared frames.

I always disliked that Polaroid-inspired proportion, but I told myself it was "an Instagram thing," like the 140 characters for Twitter or the creative tagging on Tumblr.

I did not fight it.

Then, fortunately, they extended to rectangular shapes, but never exceeding 5:4, because, surely, you do not want your posts to take more space than that, would you?

But now, with reels that appear in my feed like they are the only things to see (aren't we TikTok already?), all inexorably in their 16:9 glory, I genuinely do not understand why my photos cannon be posted in the same size, maybe even with the outrageous ability to choose my squared preview as reels have, which would have saved me roughly 200 gazillion hours of editing and more than a few tears during these years.

The pompous preamble (I cannot avoid being disgustingly verbose), just to tell that it has been four months since I desired to share this stupid, random, very spontaneous photo of one of my shelves, but I was blocked by my stubborn refusal to being forced in cropping the painting in the background for the nonsensical pleasure of that app.

But today is snowing (because this is Iowa anyway), I have 15 hours of grading in front of me, and I truly like the light of this photo.

[You have no idea how often I tried to take another one: I never managed to have the same light on the bear. Never.]

So I bow to IG supremacy, and I post there a photo like it is a reel, hoping that my followers will concede me the transgression and read my caption anyway.

~

Even stronger than my obsession for Thrawn, his boyfriends, love, life, and all that jazz, there is a recurring theme in my posts.

And it is my complete awe for all the kindness and, honestly, *friendship*, that this community gave me.

So, in this simple shot.

The little woody guy that @amandaanime99_cosplay got me at Disney.

The precious Celebration Thrushie from @lindahansenraj.

The huggable @scifigirlnextdoor bear.

The stunning @ezra_or_whatever art.

The chubby and adorable @penguinfairycrafts Thranto plushes.

I am surrounded by love and art.

Cherish me, surprise me, cuddle me

Thrass set the groundlion where Thrawn had suggested. []

“I know the theory,” Thrass said ruefully. “I just usually don’t have it in my head where I can get at it.” He cocked an eyebrow at Thrawn. “By the way, joking aside, I really do enjoy the game, and I appreciate you teaching it to me.”

“Oh, I know,” Thrawn assured him.

“Good,” Thrass said. “I’m never quite sure if you’re picking up the subtexts and nuances beneath what I’m actually saying.”

“Sadly, I do sometimes have problems in that area,” Thrawn admitted. He picked up a cheese triangle from their snack platter and popped it into his mouth, then moved his nightdragon to an attack position against Thrass’s remaining whisperbird. “I suppose that’s why you’re in the Syndicure and I’m in the Expansionary Defense Fleet. We don’t have much need of subtext and theatrics in my profession.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Thrass said, pondering how he could get his whisperbird out of harm’s way. [] “Theatrics have their uses in any profession. In moderation, of course.” []

“So where were we really?”

“I believe my nightdragon was threatening your whisperbird.” []

“Right,” Thrass said, studying the board. “I think letting you take the whisperbird puts me in a better strategic position.”

“It does indeed,” Thrawn said approvingly. “Excellent. At this rate, I’ll soon have to rescind the spotting advantage I’ve been giving you.”

Thrass frowned at him. “What spotting advantage?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” Thrawn said innocently. “I’ve been playing you left-handed.”

“Ah,” Thrass said drily. Right. Playing a board game left-handed. Huge tactical sacrifice. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”

“Not at all,” Thrawn said. “Merely employing controlled confusion as a diversion.”

“I knew that,” Thrass assured him. “Okay, let’s give it a shot. Will you help walk me through this?”

“Certainly.”

~

My favorite memory of all.

Dedicated to the wonderful humans that never fail to cherish me, surprise me, cuddle me.

Here in the photo, a tangible representation of this kindness: some beautiful coasters by @outer.rim.life, a precious tumbler by @ghazar_glass, and a cup holder by @geekablycute.

I truly do not deserve you.