#26 years of eva...that is such a long time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

duhragonball · 1 month

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Christ, I remember trying to watch NGE last year and falling off a few episodes in because nothing was happening and I found other stuff to binge that was more entertaining. I knew most of the infamous stuff happens in the latter half but how is this show 11 episodes in and still ass? At least now I know why Eva is mostly known for it's ending, there's virtually no beginning and thus far very little middle.

It's not a bad show, but yeah, it's kind of a letdown for me. I've been looking forward to this for a long time now, and it just doesn't seem to be measuring up. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic, but Evangelion always seemed to be this really cool, popular thing, and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

All that being said, let me dial back some of my negativity towards this show. It has its moments, often quiet, subtle touches that I can't really document with screenshots and a text synopsis. For example, when the kids are making their way through the base during the blackout, Asuka needles Shinji the whole time, then tries to do the same to Rei, and Rei completely no-sells it, just refuses to take the bait. She doesn't dispute Asuka's claims to leadership, but she doesn't recognize her authority either. And yet, when Asuka finally comes up with an actual plan to defeat their enemy, Rei agrees to follow her lead. It's not a question of respect or disrespect. She's just waiting for Asuka to cut out the bluster and be sensible.

This show reminds me of other anime TV series I've watched in the past. Noir. Excel Saga. Cowboy Bebop. Tenchi Universe. Tenchi in Tokyo. The Gonzo Hellsing series. Revolutionary Girl Utena. I feel like I'm forgetting something else, but the point is that they all sort of share a similar story structure, maybe because they're all TV series with similar lengths.

A few years back, I learned about cours, a term for a three month period in Japanese television. It's about thirteen weeks, which is why so many anime TV series are aired in multiples of 12 or 13 episodes. Jojo season 1 was 26 episodes, which was used to cover both Parts 1 and 2, which worked out, because Part 1 was a little too short for its own 3-month run, while Part 2 was a little too long. Part 3 was like forty-eight episodes, so that's four cours. Parts 4, 5, and maybe 6 were three cours apiece.

Of course, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is based on a serial manga, but I'm pretty sure shows like the ones I mentioned above were wholly original, or only loosely based on a manga or OAV. Those shows, including NGE are designed to be 13, 26, or 39 episodes long, and the story is plotted accordingly. And they kind of operate the same way, spending a certain number of episodes introducing the characters, then doing a bunch of routine adventures, and then towards the last seven or eight episodes things start to get serious and the really plot-driven stuff happens.

I wouldn't quite call it a formula, but it explains why I keep finding NGE's pacing so familiar, even though I really haven't seen another show like it. I think what everyone remembers so fondly is the heavy stuff, where a lot of the secrets and mysteries get revealed, and all of these characters and relationships that have built up over the series get pushed to their limits. But if I'm right, that probably won't get rolling until Episode 18 or 19.

And if it is a formula, then it clearly works, or they wouldn't keep doing it. I guess that's just the difference between Japanese TV and direct-to-video stuff. I've been spoiled by shows like Hellsing Ultimate, where the episodes were variable-length, and organized for maximum effect, because there were no broadcast schedules or logistical issues to get in the way. I suspect a lot of these shows have a few weak episodes where nothing happens just to fill out the cour. They wrote 18 epsiodes' worth of story, but it has to be padded out to 26.

How you experience a show like NGE probably matters too. If I had seen Evangelion back in 2000, on the Toonami lineup, I probably would have only caught bits and pieces of it, eventually getting curious enough to make a deliberate effort to watch it all the way through and figure out just what was going on. That's how I got into Tenchi. I can imagine some small group of anime nerds getting together to watch NGE three episodes at a time, and if they're still somewhat new to this genre, it would blow them away. Sentimental value counts for a lot, but it's not something I can recapture just by watching it myself. But it's the best I can manage, and whether the show is good or not, at least I'll have the satisfaction of finding out.

#neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #ask duhragonball

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adamworu · 3 months

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hii i just wanted to say thank you for the years uve been posting eva and hyper-analyzing the series and kaworu especially .. i found ur blog after watching the series back when the Kaworu Database consisted mostly of soundboards and shit like that and despite my waning interest in the series ive not had the impulse to unfollow u. which is weird for me, because at the ripe age of 26 there’s a lot about nge that doesnt sit right with me anymore.

i got my boyfriend to watch NGE and the rebuilds with me and found myself genuinely ashamed way more than i’d anticipated. the last movie was the nail in the coffin for me specifically because of, let’s face it, the surplus of self-aware asuka fanservice. i was repulsed and denounced my interest in the series entirely. it was difficult to make such a claim because of how important to me the series was (still is, if im being honest) and how pivotal it was to my growth at the time i first watched it.

saw one of your posts on my dash today and went to take a casual look at your blog cuz i was curious as to how you were faring in the sea of eva content after a solid 10 years. looked at one of your posts explaining what nge is at its core and the messages it means to send and How it sends them and found myself falling back into the mindset of “fuck, i missed this shit.”

i appreciate how many years you’ve spent looking at evangelion as a piece of psychological horror, how many years you’ve spent dissecting it under a microscope with 50000x magnification. you’ve been the Only thing that’s brought eva back to the front of my feeble little brain over the past, idk five years or so, and youve now been the reason why i can still appreciate the series despite its flaws. you don’t focus on those flaws and it reads that you do so not because you don’t care, but because they’re obvious and don’t need to be stated. im starting to ramble and im sorry that this ask was long but dming you felt too.. personal despite this message being exactly that.

TL;DR, thank you for analyzing evangelion and kaworu nagisa for many years and singlehandedly reminding me of all the reasons why i enjoyed the series as much as i did when i first watched it. i know your interest in eva is waning, so thank you for what youve given the world over the last 10 years <3

Thank you ever so much! This blog sort of started as a way for me to navigate Eva myself. It's been 10 years and though my passion has fizzled, I still get those visceral feelings of Eva no matter what. It always pulls me in. I still have some of that juice left in me, but mostly I found other source material at the moment I'm highkey obsessed over (I'll give you a hint: cult classic, starts with V, ends with D). It's not all bad. I hope you have a wonderful day :)

#ty for this!#starting to realize my superpower is intense fixation on things with little screentime #and writing dissertations on them lol #i sort of want to talk about that new material in question here - much like kaworu i am Very Normal about it #another hint: it's 'horror/dark fantasy'

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coochiequeens · 8 months

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But the system oppresses poor trans laydees.

By Eva Kurilova. September 26, 2023

Australia’s Human Rights Commission has released a preliminary decision prohibiting lesbians from holding events for females due to the exclusion of men who identify as “women.” The Commission’s decision comes after a lesbian rights group applied for an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

The application to the Commission was submitted by long-time Australian women’s rights activist Jean Taylor on behalf of herself and the members of the Lesbian Action Group, a collective established to address discrimination experienced by lesbians. The application provided an overview of lesbian organizing and gatherings in Victoria since the early 1970s, arguing that, “many thousands of lesbians benefited from the sense of pride, recognition and wellbeing that a large, well [publicized], public lesbian specific gathering encourages in the participants.”

However, this started to change in 2003 when trans activists challenged the organizers of the 2004 Lesbian Festival, accusing female-only spaces as being discriminatory under the law. This caused the festival organizers to seek and be awarded an exemption that allowed them to invite and only allow access to “lesbians born female.”

The exemption was revoked on a technicality, resulting in lesbian gatherings in Australia being driven underground for almost two decades in an effort to avoid more challenges from the transgender community.

The Sex Discrimination Act was then amended in 2013 to include gender identity, making it even more difficult to organize single-sex events.

Frustrated by the situation, the Lesbian Action Group attempted to organize a female-only lesbian event at the Victorian Pride Centre this past August. The event was meant to celebrate International Lesbian Day on October 15, 2023, but the Pride Centre declined the booking, claiming that it was exclusionary and conflicted with the organization’s aim of supporting “equality, diversity and inclusion.”

As a result, the Lesbian Action Group applied for a 5-year exemption with the Australian Human Rights Commission with the intention of approaching another venue for the International Lesbian Day event if the exemption was granted. The group also intended to subsequently hold regular female-only lesbian events during its exemption period.

After receiving the application, the Commission requested further information from the Lesbian Action Group, asking for more details about why it is “reasonable and necessary to exclude the relevant groups mentioned in the application and restrict the event to female born lesbians.”

The Group then complied and provided a document of additional information further explaining the importance for minority groups like lesbians to have the freedom to associate with one another and to hold their own events.

The Commission received a total of 236 submissions on the application from individuals and groups by the closing date of September 1, 2023. Of those submissions, 123 individuals and 15 organizations were in favor of the exemption while 82 individuals and 14 organizations were opposed.

One of the applications opposed to the exemption came from Equal Opportunity Tasmania and referred to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner ruling late last year that women-only events are discriminatory towards men who claim they are women.

In its ruling, the Tasmanian Commissioner wrote that “The applicants propose to exclude ‘biological males’ from their event… The exclusion of such persons engages the provisions of the act prohibiting direct discrimination on the basis of gender and gender identity.”

Like the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s preliminary view is that it will not grant the temporary 5-year exemption sought by the Lesbian Action Group to host its International Lesbian Day Event or to hold subsequent female-only lesbian events.

While the Commission recognized that “lesbians in Australia have faced structural and entrenched discrimination” and that “it may be important and beneficial for lesbians to gather together as a community,” it nevertheless was not persuaded that it is appropriate or reasonable to “make distinctions between women based on their cisgender or transgender experience.”

The ruling continued:

“The Commission notes that the grant of this exemption may lead to the further exclusion of and discrimination against same-sex attracted transgender women. Transgender women are a group who have and continue to experience discrimination, harassment and social exclusion.”

Australian women’s rights activist Janet Inglis took to X (formerly Twitter) to express her disappointment with the decision.

“Australian lesbians are being denied fairness,” she wrote. “They are being denied their humanity. I am so ashamed of my country.”

Speaking to Reduxx, Inglis said that Victoria is now joining Tasmania in “forcing lesbians underground and out of the public sphere.”

Inglis called it a “damning indictment of Australia” that both federal legislation and the Human Rights Commission have barred lesbians from holding single-sex events.

“The gender amendments to the SDA [Sex Discrimination Act] must be repealed. Our HRC has proven itself unfit for purpose and must be disbanded if it can no longer distinguish between men and women because of shonky legislation,” she explained. “A true HRC would be working to repeal those amendments and restore the rights of lesbians to be recognised in their own right.”

On X, Inglis also called on others to consider making a submission to respond to the Commission’s preliminary view before the October 3, 2023 deadline.

“The War on Women is gaining pace in Australia,” she added. “Australia is so far down the gender rabbit hole it’s truly frightening.”

This is not the first time that Australian women have run into issues with the law in regard to gender identity.

In May of this year, a woman was visited by New South Wales Police after she spoke to media about a trans activist by the name of Riley Dennis who was reportedly injuring female players in a women’s football league. The woman was given an Apprehended Violence Order which required her not to discuss Dennis. Reduxx was also contacted by the Australian eSafety Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Dennis.

Later that month, two women in Australia were contacted by Twitter and informed that they had broken Australian law by criticizing a trans-identified male for breastfeeding a child.

#Australia #Australia's Human Rights commission #Sex Discrimination Act 1984 #Lesbian Action Group #Equal Opportunity Tasmania #women-only events are discriminatory towards men who claim they are women on account that biology is real

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bumblee-stumblee · 2 years

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kIds ArEnT gEtTiNg SuRgErY! yOuR'e FeAr MoNgErInG.

If you're able to, please read the Twitter thread.(Jesse's)

>the article is paywalled

More Trans Teens Are Choosing ‘Top Surgery’

Small studies suggest that breast removal surgery improves transgender teenagers’ well-being, but data is sparse. Some state leaders oppose such procedures for minors.

Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher’s unusual embrace of social media platforms like TikTok has made her one of the most visible surgeons in her field.

Azeen Ghorayshi

By Azeen Ghorayshi

Sept. 26, 2022

Updated 8:36 p.m. ET

Michael, 17, arrived in the sleek white waiting room of his plastic surgeon’s office in Miami for a moment he had long anticipated: removing the bandages to see his newly flat chest.

After years of squeezing into compression undershirts to conceal his breasts, the teenager was overcome with relief that morning last December. Wearing an unbuttoned shirt, he posed for photos with his mother and the surgeon, Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher, happy to share his bare chest with the doctor’s large following on social media.

“It just felt right — like I’d never had breasts in the first place,” Michael said. “It was a ‘Yes, finally’ kind of moment.”

Michael is part of a very small but growing group of transgender adolescents who have had top surgery, or breast removal, to better align their bodies with their experience of gender. Most of these teenagers have also taken testosterone and changed their name, pronouns or clothing style.

Few groups of young people have received as much attention. Republican elected officials across the United States are seeking to ban all so-called gender-affirming care for minors, turning an intensely personal medical decision into a political maelstrom with significant consequences for transgender adolescents and their families.

Gender-related surgeries, in particular, have been thrust into the spotlight. Arizona and Alabama passed laws this year making it illegal for doctors to perform gender-related surgeries on transgender patients under 18. Conservative commentators with large followings on social media have recently targeted children’s hospitals that offer gender surgeries, leading to online harassment and bomb threats.

Genital surgeries in adolescents are exceedingly rare, surgeons said, but top surgeries are becoming more common. And while major medical groups have condemned the bans on gender-related care for adolescents, the surgeries have presented challenges for them.

Michael is part of a very small but growing group of transgender adolescents who have had top surgery to better align their bodies with their experience of gender.Credit...Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times

Much research has shown that as adults, transgender men generally benefit from top surgery: It relieves body-related distress, increases sexual satisfaction and improves overall quality of life. A few small studies of transgender adolescents suggest similar benefits in the short term.

But some clinicians have pointed to the rising demand and the turmoil of adolescent development as reasons for doctors to slow down before offering irreversible procedures. Although medical experts believe the likelihood to be small, some patients come to regret their surgeries.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an international group of gender experts who write best practices for the field, had been planning for months to set new age minimums for most gender-related surgeries, including endorsing top surgery for adolescents age 15 and up. Although the guidelines are not binding, they provide a standard for doctors across the world. But this month, the group abruptly withdrew the proposals, a shift reflecting both political pressures and a lack of consensus in the medical community.

There are no official statistics on how many minors receive top surgeries each year in the United States. The New York Times surveyed leading pediatric gender clinics across the country: Eleven clinics said they carried out a total of 203 procedures on minors in 2021, and many reported long waiting lists. Another nine clinics declined to respond, and six said that they referred patients to surgeons in private practice.

Dr. Gallagher, whose unusual embrace of platforms like TikTok has made her one of the most visible gender-affirming surgeons in the country, said she performed 13 top surgeries on minors last year, up from a handful a few years ago. One hospital, Kaiser Permanente Oakland, carried out 70 top surgeries in 2019 on teenagers age 13 to 18, up from five in 2013, according to researchers who led a recent study.

“I can’t honestly think of another field where the volume has exploded like that,” said Dr. Karen Yokoo, a retired plastic surgeon at the hospital.

Experts said that adolescent top surgeries were less frequent than cosmetic breast procedures performed on teenagers who were not transgender. Around 3,200 girls age 13 to 19 received cosmetic breast implants in 2020, according to surveys of members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and another 4,700 teenagers had breast reductions.

An evolving field

Dr. Gallagher’s office in Miami.Credit...Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times

In the past decade, the number of people who identify as transgender has grown significantly, especially among young Americans. Around 700,000 people under 25 identified as transgender in 2020, according to the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, nearly double the estimate in 2017.

On Being Transgender in America

In Montana: Transgender people born in the state will no longer be able to change the sex listed on their birth certificate under a new rule that is among the most restrictive in the country.

Generational Shift: The number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report.

The Battle Over Gender Therapy: More teenagers than ever are seeking transitions, but the medical community is deeply divided about why — and what to do to help them.

Elite Sports: Although the number of top transgender athletes is small, the disagreements are profound, cutting to the core of the debate around gender identity and biological sex.

Gender clinics in Western Europe, Canada and the United States have reported that a majority of their adolescent patients were seeking to transition from female to male.

Because breasts are highly visible, they can make transitioning difficult and cause intense distress for these teenagers, fueling the demand for top surgeries. Small studies have shown that many transgender adolescents report significant discomfort related to their breasts, including difficulty showering, sleeping and dating. As the population of these adolescents has grown, top surgery has been offered at younger ages.

Another notable change: More nonbinary teenagers are seeking top surgeries, said Dr. Angela Goepferd, the medical director of the Gender Health Program at the Children’s Minnesota hospital, who is nonbinary. (The program does not perform operations but refers patients to independent surgeons.) These adolescents may want flatter chests but not other masculine features brought on by testosterone, like a deeper voice or facial hair.

After many months of deliberations over its new guidelines, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health initially decided to endorse top surgeries for adolescents 15 and up, part of a suite of changes that would have made gender treatments available to children at younger ages. But the organization backtracked this month, after some major medical groups it had hoped would support the new guidelines bristled at the new age minimums, according to Dr. Marci Bowers, a gynecologic and reconstructive surgeon and the president of WPATH, who is transgender.

“We needed consensus,” Dr. Bowers said. “I just think we need more strength for our argument and a better political climate, frankly, in order to propose this at a younger age.”

Instead, the guidelines kept the previous recommendations, published a decade ago, allowing surgeries for minors on a case-by-case basis.

Because teenagers in most states must be 18 before they can provide medical consent, surgeons require parental consent and approval letters from mental health care providers. The two- to four-hour procedure costs anywhere from $9,000 to $17,000, depending on facility and anesthesia fees. The procedure is often not covered by insurance until patients turn 18.

As demand has grown, Dr. Gallagher, the surgeon in Miami, has built a thriving top surgery specialty. The doctor frequently posts photos, FAQs and memes on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, proudly flouting professional mores in favor of connecting with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Her feeds often fill with photos tagged #NipRevealFriday, highlighting patients like Michael whose bandages were just removed. On her office windowsill sits a framed nameplate with one of her best-known catchphrases on TikTok: “Yeet the Teet,” slang for removing breasts.

Dr. Gallagher said she performed top surgeries on about 40 patients a month, and roughly one or two of them are under 18. Younger patients are usually at least 15, though she has operated on one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, she said, both of whom had extreme distress about their chests.

The surgeon said that most of her patients, teenagers and adults alike, found her on TikTok. Her online presence has drawn sharp criticism from right-wing media, as well as from some parents and doctors who say she uses the platform to market to children.

“She goes to the beat of her own drum,” Dr. Bowers said. “For a lot of us, that’s troubling.”

Dr. Gallagher said she doubted she had the influence her critics ascribe to her. “Most of the time I’m just trying to deliver educational content,” she said.

‘Comfortable in my own skin’

Michael and his mother, Annie. He learned more about top surgery through Dr. Gallagher’s TikTok page.Credit...Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times

When Michael first saw Dr. Gallagher’s TikTok page last summer, he was immediately intrigued. (Michael and others in this article asked to be identified by first or middle names because they were concerned about their privacy.) He liked the photos of her patients, observing that their scars had healed well, and liked that she seemed to be an ally of the transgender community.

Michael’s mother, Annie, had gradually come around to the idea of surgery after years of watching him suffer, she said.

Since hitting puberty at age 10, Michael said he felt a gnawing discomfort about his breasts. By the time he was 12, he wore hooded sweatshirts every day in their Miami suburb.

In eighth grade, after he had several severe panic attacks at school, Michael said he started seeing a therapist, who encouraged him to talk about his body issues. He experimented with small ways to appear more masculine, such as tucking his long curly hair into a beanie and wearing boys’ clothes.

“It was the first thing I ever did to try and make myself more comfortable in my own skin,” Michael said.

He came out to his parents as a transgender boy when he was 14. A year later, at the start of the pandemic, he started weekly testosterone injections while doing remote school. He got into strength-training and his voice dropped, a second puberty he relished but was grateful to undergo privately.

Michael started in-person school feeling “10 times happier,” he said, but his chest still tormented him. Testosterone and exercise had shrunk his breast tissue, making it easier to conceal with a binder. But the garment could restrict his breathing and give him panic attacks. He began seeing a psychiatrist, who prescribed antidepressants.

When Michael was 17, Annie said, she decided that waiting another year for surgery would put him in too much pain. Because her insurance covered the procedure only for adults, she took out a loan to help pay for it.

Michael’s psychiatrist initially wrote a letter signing off on the surgery. But he later revoked it, putting the surgery in limbo, Annie said. After Michael started a higher dose of antidepressants, the psychiatrist endorsed the surgery as planned.

Now, nine months after the operation, Michael is in his senior year of high school. He said he is focused on the parts of his life that have little to do with his gender: doing theater tech at school, seeing friends, painting and applying to college.

He also feels less pressure to prove his masculinity than before, he said. He’s growing out his hair and uses he, she and they pronouns. In June, he took his girlfriend to the prom, wearing a brown suit and a pearl necklace.

Weighing the risks

Jamie, a college student in Maryland, began identifying as a transgender boy in the eighth grade, but has since returned to identifying as a woman. Credit...Cheriss May for The New York Times

In 2018, doctors at the pediatric gender clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles published a study of 136 transgender patients ages 13 to 25, half of whom had undergone top surgery. Adolescents who had not undergone the procedure reported significantly more distress because of their chests.

Roughly one-third of those who underwent surgery reported ongoing loss of nipple sensation. Only one patient expressed occasional feelings of regret, when imagining wanting to breastfeed a future child.

“There’s very few things in the world that have a zero percent regret rate. And chest surgery, clinically, I’ve experienced that,” said Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the lead author of the study and medical director of the clinic in Los Angeles, which began offering surgeries in 2019.

But the study had caveats: Most patients were surveyed less than two years after their surgeries, and nearly 30 percent could not be contacted or declined to participate.

Few researchers have looked at so-called detransitioners, people who have discontinued or reversed gender treatments. In July, a study of 28 such adults described a wide array of experiences, with some feeling intense regret and others having a more fluid gender identity.

Because so few studies have looked at detransitioning, many doctors are asking young patients and their parents to provide consent without acknowledging the unknowns, said Kinnon MacKinnon of York University in Toronto, the researcher who led the study, who is transgender.

“I know personally many, many, many trans men that have benefited and are happy with their medical transition and their top surgery. I would put myself in that category,” Dr. MacKinnon said. “But just as a researcher, I do feel like there are questions that are deserving of answers and have implications for clinical care.”

Jamie, a 24-year-old college student in Maryland, was raised as a girl and began identifying as a transgender boy in the eighth grade. After being sexually assaulted in her junior year of high school and then dropping out, she said, she started taking testosterone. Three months later, just after she turned 18, she underwent top surgery at a private practice in Massachusetts.

For the next few years, Jamie said, she thrived. Testosterone made her feel energetic, and her anxiety dissipated. She went back to school and got certified as an emergency medical technician.

But when she was 21, her father, who was dying of Alzheimer’s, no longer recognized her. She fixated on her wide hips, which she worried stood out next to her facial hair and deep voice. After a date where she had sex with a straight man, she said, she realized she had made a mistake.

“I realized I lost something about myself that I could have loved, I could have enjoyed, I could have used to feed children,” Jamie said. She said she grieved for months and contemplated suicide.

This spring, after a year of fighting her insurance company to cover the procedure, she had surgery to reconstruct her breasts. She never told her original surgeon that she had changed her mind, partly because she also blamed herself. Sometimes, she said, “I still don’t like being a woman.”

Many surgeons say that they rarely hear about patients with regret. But it’s unclear how many, like Jamie, never inform them.

Dr. Gallagher of Miami said that she follows up with patients for up to a year. “I can say this honestly: I don’t know of a single case of regret,” Dr. Gallagher said in May, adding that regret was much more common with cosmetic procedures.

But one of her former top surgery patients, Grace Lidinsky-Smith, has been vocal about her detransition on social media and in news reports.

“I slowly came to terms with the fact that it had been a mistake born out of a mental health crisis,” Ms. Lidinsky-Smith, 28, said in an interview.

She had top surgery when she was 23. About 16 months later, Ms. Lidinsky-Smith said she called and emailed her medical providers, including Dr. Gallagher’s office, to tell them she had detransitioned.

When asked about Ms. Lidinsky-Smith’s case, Dr. Gallagher amended her stance, recalling that years ago a former patient left a voice mail message expressing regret over a surgery.

“At the time, we wondered, Is it a hoax?” Dr. Gallagher said.

Chilling effect

A clinic for transgender children in Dallas, Texas, stopped accepting new patients for hormone therapy and gender affirming care under pressure from the Gov. Greg Abbott’s office. Credit...Shelby Tauber for The New York Times

Republican politicians in states across the country are pushing to ban all gender-affirming care for adolescents, focusing much of their rhetoric on surgeries.

In Florida, where the medical board is considering such a ban for minors, Gov. Ron DeSantis has argued that surgeons should be sued for “disfiguring” children. In Texas, where parents of transgender children have been investigated for child abuse, Gov. Greg Abbott has called genital surgeries in adolescents “genital mutilation.”

Dr. Bowers, the president of WPATH, said that politicians should not be involved in personal medical decisions. “They just don’t understand this care, so they just want to shut it down,” Dr. Bowers said. “That is a very dangerous precedent.”

Although most of the new state actions against gender care for minors are tied up in litigation, they have had a chilling effect.

Earlier this year, a Dallas children’s hospital shut down the only pediatric gender clinic in Texas, citing political pressure from the governor’s office. This month, a woman was arrested on charges of making a false bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital after it was targeted online for its pediatric gender program. Dr. Gallagher has also received threats online and said she might hire security guards for her office.

Other clinics have dropped scheduled procedures. William, 14, who has identified as a boy since he was a young child, was supposed to see a plastic surgeon in Plano, Texas, for top surgery in May. But the surgeon canceled the appointment in March because the medical center’s malpractice insurer stopped covering top surgeries for minors.

In August, William and his family flew to California, paying $10,000 more to get the procedure out of state.

Two weeks later, William started ninth grade as just another boy in school. He looks forward to swimming with his shirt off and going to class without wearing a binder.

“It’s like something was unburied,” William said. “My chest was just covering what was always there.”

#radblr #radfem #feminist #radfems #feminism #trans #radfems please interact #gender critical #transgender #radical feminist

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evalaruesource · 3 months

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Soap alum Eva LaRue, who became a fan favorite playing All My Children’s Maria Santos Grey on ABC on and off from 1993 to 2011, will make her General Hospital debut on February 26 as Blaze’s mother, Natalia Rogers-Ramirez. And though she’s been a working actress for nearly 40 years, LaRue admits she had some trepidation before starting her new gig.“I do still get nervous,” she shares. “Of all the different genres, soaps are by far the hardest, I think, because there’s an element of theater to it; there’s no stop-and-go like in nighttime television or in a feature film. There’s no getting to do it again unless there’s some major technical difficulty, so there’s that flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of feel to it, and it’s also so much dialogue, which is a little anxiety-producing, especially when you’re jumping back into it again after a bunch of years break. So, it’s exciting and scary all at the same time.”Fortunately, she saw some familiar faces upon arriving at the set. “That’s been the best part of the job,” she declares. “I started at GH in January, which was so fun because there are so many All My Children and One Life [To Live] actors over there; so many New Yorkers. When I went in to go do my wardrobe fitting, the first person I saw was Finola [Hughes, Anna], so that was fun. There’s a new guy on the show, Adam Harrington [who plays John], that I did a Lifetime movie [Cries in the Dark] with. He started the same day I did. And Nancy Grahn [who plays Alexis] and I hadn’t worked together before, but she and I are friends. Just seeing everybody has been a blast.”LaRue is enjoying getting to know more about her new alter ego, who is struggling with her daughter’s sexuality. “Natalia is a very conservative Latina, single mom who raised her daughter to be all of these amazing things, supported her and her talent, and went out of her way to make sure she had all she wanted,” the actress explains. “My first scenes are such chewy material, and I was really grateful for that. Natalia walks in as Blaze is coming out of the shower and Kristina is in her bed, so this feels like a major betrayal to her because Blaze has been keeping this big secret.She continues, “She knew her mom was not going to understand it and she doesn’t. It’s not malicious and it’s not out of hate; it’s just out of a surprise and shock and conservativism that Natalia is having a really hard time being okay with it. I think the storyline is great because it’s so topical. There are so many nuances to having to play it with some heart and depth and understanding.”LaRue is also thrilled that she gets to share scenes with Maurice Benard [who plays Sonny], a first for her. “We’ve never worked together before, but we’re acquaintance friends,” she details. “But it felt so legit, so iconic. When I told all my ‘mom friends’ who are huge General Hospital fans that I had scenes with Sonny, they were like, ‘No way!’ That was really fun. And our scenes together were great.”As was her first day in general. “I loved it,” she enthuses. “You don’t always walk away, thinking, ‘That was a great day at work.’ Sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe that’s gonna air,’ but I walked away that day going, ‘Oh, my God. I feel so good about this. Yay!’ I really walked away on cloud nine. I was very excited.”While her length of time on the show is undetermined for now, LaRue would be open to a longer Port Charles stay. “They brought me on for the story, and I don’t know anything other than that,” she notes. “I’m recurring right now, but I would love to hang out and recur for as long as they need me or want me. It’s such a great place to work.”

#eva larue #eva la rue #General Hospital

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femalecelebrityoftheday · 2 years

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My Most Posted Celebrities

I've been on tumblr for ten years now. It's a long time! I've posted a lot of female celebrities in that long time, so let's have a look back at who I've posted most often. Please remember that I only post people when I have new images of them, so there are some girls who I like a lot but haven't been able to post as often as I would have liked to. And some haven't been on the list for as many years as others. But if I've posted someone like thirty times or whatever it's fair to say they're one of my favourites! So here it is, the big list of everyone I've posted five times or more. (I left Elliot Page on because I posted him a lot back in the day and didn't want to pretend otherwise.)

96 times: Elle Fanning

89 times: Hailee Steinfeld

87 times: Emma Roberts

82 times: Chloe Grace Moretz

75 times: Michelle Trachtenberg

69 times: Natalie Portman

66 times: Kiernan Shipka

65 times: Anna Kendrick

61 times: Zendaya

56 times: Gillian Jacobs, Sophie Turner

51 times: Anne Hathaway

50 times: Kristen Stewart

48 times: Hayley Atwell

47 times: Karen Gillan

44 times: Emma Stone

43 times: Scarlett Johansson

41 times: Alison Brie

40 times: Olivia Wilde

39 times: Maisie Williams

38 times: Gemma Arterton

37 times: Kat Dennings

35 times: Amanda Seyfried, Emily Ratajkowski

34 times: Bailee Madison, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

33 times: Kate Beckinsale

32 times: Abigail Breslin, Chloe Bennet, Kristen Bell

31 times: Elizabeth Olsen, Natalie Dormer

30 times: Felicity Jones

29 times: Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift

28 times: Brie Larson

27 times: Jenna Coleman, Jessica Chastain, Kirsten Dunst

26 times: Elizabeth Henstridge, Tessa Thompson

24 times: Dakota Fanning, Emilia Clarke

23 times: Dakota Blue Richards, Dove Cameron, Elliot Page, Jennifer Lawrence, Kaitlyn Dever

22 times: Charlize Theron

21 times: Amy Adams, Avril Lavigne, Lauren Tsai, Ming-Na Wen, Peyton Roi List

20 times: Margot Robbie, Nathalie Emmanuel, Pom Klementieff

18 times: Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Sadie Sink

17 times: Ariel Winter, Aubrey Plaza, Candice Patton

16 times: Camren Bicondova, Evan Rachel Wood

15 times: Ana de Armas, Imogen Poots, Laura Harrier, Lily Collins, Sophie Tweed-Simmons

14 times: Emmy Rossum, Gal Gadot, Janina Gavankar, Jessica Henwick, Keira Knightley

13 times: Adelaide Kane, Diane Guerrero, Emily Kinney, Freema Agyeman, Magda Apanowicz, Olivia Munn, Rose Leslie

12 times: Deborah Ann Woll, Fan Bingbing, Isla Fisher, Samara Weaving, Sarah Silverman

11 times: Angourie Rice, Barbara Palvin, Eva Green, Florence Pugh, Millie Bobby Brown, Rachel McAdams, Rosario Dawson, Zazie Beetz

10 times: Cobie Smulders, Daisy Ridley, Genevieve Buechner, Jameela Jamil, Joey King, Krysten Ritter, Laura Prepon, Liv Tyler, Willa Holland

9 times: Anna Chlumsky, Maya Hawke, Rose McIver, Zoe Saldana

8 times: Danielle Panabaker, Hannah Murray, Ivana Baquero, Jessica Lucas, Kate Mara, Katelyn Nacon, Katherine McNamara, Larsen Thompson, Laura Vandervoort, Lauren Cohan, Olivia Rodrigo, Tatiana Maslany

7 times: Alicia Vikander, Amy Acker, Billie Lourd, Elizabeth Gillies, Gemma Chan, Hannah John-Kamen, Katie McGrath, Lupita Nyong'o, Mackenzie Foy, Marion Cotillard, Milana Vayntrub, Phoebe Tonkin, Rebecca Hall, Taissa Farmiga, Tiya Sircar

6 times: Brianna Hildebrand, Camila Mendes, Elisabeth Moss, Emily Browning, Evangeline Lilly, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jessica Biel, Kathryn Newton, Leven Rambin, Natalia Dyer, Rihanna, Saoirse Ronan, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sydney Sweeney, Zoey Deutch

5 times: Alexandra Daddario, Aly Michalka, Amber Midthunder, Cara Delevingne, Cate Blanchet, Jaimie Alexander, Jamie Hayter, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Kate Upton, Lili Reinhart, Lily-Rose Depp, Lizzy Caplan, Sophie Thatcher, Thomasin McKenzie

Maybe I should have just done "ten or more times" since "five or more" isn't as impressive after ten years, but hey it's all interesting stuff!

Congratulations to ELLE FANNING and thanks to my friend @whoiwanttoday for creating the spreadsheet I still use for this!

#Elle Fanning #female celebrity

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livewireprojects · 4 months

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Nagisa Kids

At some point long ago @tay-likes-toons introduced me to Kawoshin(I think specifically the Rebuild version) & we ended up making them a fankid. At some point I added 4 more kids & they've changed slightly over time. Vincent did most of the naming while I worked on designs. Also the RPs were very interesting due to very little knowledge of Evangelion.

This is the most recent attempt to draw the kids, these were posted to DA January 26, 2023.(I just realized these were posted on my Birthday) I attempted to recreate the art style of the Rebuild series but at best the hair & faces were the closest I got.

Before I introduce the kids I want to mention that they're all human due to the final movie Thrice Upon a Time. From what I get Kaworu & Rei are human since everyone is now in a world were Eva & Angels don't exist. I also explain this for something I'll be showing later, also all the kids after Lilith were originally quadruplets before recently being separated out.(With Ibuki & Kain being twins)

Left to right

Lilith "Lilly" - The oldest of the Nagisa kids, Kaworu & Shinji ended up having her at some point in college. She's a friendly & cheerful person that can often be seen with a smile on her face. Lilly studies architecture & history as old historical buildings & ruins fascinate her. She sometimes travels to thanks to some projects but mostly lives a nice life in the city her parents live in. The bow she wears in her hair is a hair clip Lilly has had since she was a baby.

In the RPs Kaworu named her after the angel Lilith & for whatever reason Shinji let it happen thinking it sounds like a flower. Her nickname comes from a RP with crossover elements thanks to Shinji & Kaworu being other characters' kids. Shinji's dad in the RP had nicknamed Lilith "Lilly". Her hair & eyes are suppose to be a mix of her parents' colors leading to cocoa powder hair & purple-ish eyes.

Adam - Adam is a lot like his dad, calm & friendly, sometimes to an awkward point to people outside of the family given his dad. Adam was born when Lilith was 3-4 years old, despite this he's managed to get a growth spurt leading to being a little taller than her. He's an artist that does a lot of painting in a studio, he often walks around in his paint covered jeans leading to often seeing Adam with paint smeared on the legs of his jeans.

Adam got his name from his "grandfather" the angel Adam thanks to Kaworu. He & the siblings after Lilith were originally quads before I made changes. His outfit is based off of an outfit called "Fare Kaworu" that was a pic of Shinji & Kaworu in interesting outfits.

Ibuki - Ibuki is 14 year old in his first year of school, he's prone to getting injured by mistake leading to having a few band-aids on hand. He can often be seen wearing his sailor themed jacket & his headphones(mostly the jacket) when Ibuki is out of the house. He's quiet & doesn't show much expression but he'll try to interact as best he can. Ibuki enjoys the anime/manga Sailor Moon & listening to music, he wants to study music one day & work on music for anime. While most of his family got silvery hair thanks to his pretty much albino dad Ibuki inherited his dad's family's side's blond hair.

Ibuki is based on draft Kaworu, who had blond hair & was in a sailor suit, he has a personality similar to Rei's. His name before now was Satoshi which was mostly so he wouldn't be called "Gendo Jr" as he was named after his grandpa in the RP were the quads finally got names & Gendo became a good person in the end that lives nearby Shinji & Kaworu.(To be a helpful grandparent) His name was changed to Ibuki as it has the same meaning as "Able".

Kain - Kain is Ibuki's older twin, he seems as if he's the opposite of his twin as he's more out going & into sports. Despite this he's very close to Ibuki & also into music, the two seem to never be apart when possible. I guess you could say they're Asuka & Rei if the two were twins that had a close connection. Kain is often protective of his mom & Ibuki, the twins often go to a local cat cafe.

Kain's design is based on a sketch/prototype Kaworu were he had smoothed down hair with bangs swooping to the left. His name comes from "Cain", for some reason I named him Cain with a "k". Kaworu named all the kids except Ibuki but even then Shinji unintentionally named him something similar to the meaning of the name Kaworu would have chosen.

Eve "Evie" - Evie is the youngest of her siblings, she is three years old & often clinging to her mom or is being carried around by him. She's a sweet heart that tries to help mommy out but can only do so much due to her young age. While her older sister looks like a mix of both parents & her brothers get their looks mostly from their dad Evie looks the most like her mom. A family friend, Asuka is the one that gave her pigtails. Evie's favorite treat is milk pudding with some jam/jelly on top of it.(Think of those cute milk bottle containers with Japanese milk pudding with strawberry jam or something on top)

Evie is named after an at the moment unknown person named Eve.(I'll explain them eventually) Evie's hair was originally short like Shinji's but now is longer, it's inspired by Nadia from an official sketch were it showed you draw Shinji by drawing Nadia first.

Here's Evie as an adult, she's meant to look like Shinji with long hair but she kind of looks like Yui

Adult Evie ends up living close to where her parents are. She lives a nice simple life while also running a book store, she's a pleasant person often with a smile she can be a little odd like her father & siblings. Evie sometimes has that odd smiling her family has as if she knows something. Maybe it's those no longer existing angel abilities, maybe something she knows like her mom? Who knows what it is.

#my art #kawoshin #oc #fankid #evangelion oc

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lumosatnight · 7 months

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Day 26: Foolish Girl

Bellatrix meets a ghost from her past and is determined to not let this chance slip by.

@kinktober2023 day 26: Grooming, @hpkinktober day 24: Power Imbalance

Bellatrix/Luna, Past Bellatrix/Pandora, M, 500 words

Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Unhealthy Relationships, Underage

Inspired by give my name to the abyss by @evadwrites

Note: A little Bellatrix POV for Eva’s amazing fic! Dialogue is directly borrowed.

—

They’re in the Department of Mysteries. Bellatrix is cackling because lightning strikes are in the air, and the thrill of death chases her every step.

Then, everything stops.

It’s just her and the girl. It’s her and the girl who looks just like her mother. Her hair is long and blonde and tangled. Her eyes are bright and brilliant and blue.

Bellatrix swears she’s seen a ghost.

“I believe I was meant to find you,” the girl says and shows her a picture from an ancient time. When Bellatrix was young and beautiful and loved. A picture of Her.

She stuns the girl and leaves her there, but the girl’s image follows her. It follows her home, to the bath, to the bed. Until the girl is all Bellatrix can think about, and she knows she must see her again.

-♦️-

“You foolish girl,” Bellatrix hisses, “I will hurt you just as easily as I would hurt anyone else.”

She backs the girl up against the edge of the astronomy tower. It’s a long way down, but Bellatrix is not afraid to fall. She has already fallen.

“No, you won’t. I know you won’t,” replies the girl — naively, stupidly. Because Bellatrix has killed more people than this girl can possibly fathom. She has bathed in rivers of blood, cracked the skulls of her enemies then hung them above her mantle.

But the girl continues to hold her so gently, look at her so fondly, that an idea begins to form.

-♦️-

The girl is still a student, still so pure, still so impressionable.

Bellatrix visits her every day the summer before her Sixth Year. She talks with her in the garden, caresses her sun-kissed skin, and bestows seventeen deliberately laid kisses on the girl’s birthday.

Every day the nights grow longer, the web spins tighter.

The girl looks just like Her, smells like Her, sounds like Her. If Bellatrix imagines, she’s twenty years in the past with a head full of nargles and eyes full of stars.

“Bella,” the girl calls her one day, just like Her, and Bellatrix’s breath catches.

She cannot live without the girl any longer. She knows the girl cannot live without her either.

-♦️-

Bellatrix books a room above the Three Broomsticks on Valentine’s Day.

She is careful not to mark the girl’s porcelain skin. She is gentle as she works her fingers inside. She is worshipful as she traces the swell of the girl’s breasts, as she nips at the ridges of her collarbone. She coaxes musical moans from her throat.

She does not allow the girl to touch her.

No, that will come later.

“I want you to gasp my name,” the girl blurts out, and Bellatrix falters.

The girl is in her bed, in her arms, but it’s Her who is in her mind, her memories. When she brings the girl to orgasm, Her name lingers on her lips. She does not allow it to spill out.

No, that will come later.

Also read it on AO3!

← Day 25 | Masterlist | Day 27 →

#kinktober 2023 #hp kinktober 2023 #bellaluna #bellatrix x luna #hp femslash #hp fanfic #500 words #lumosdrabbles

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sullustangin · 1 year

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Fluffy February Day 16: Glow

Fandom: SWTOR

Time: 25 ATC/26 ATC (early days of their post-nathema marriage)

Pairing: Theron Shan/Smuggler

Rating: T+....it’s a little spicy

Words: 872

The tingles of euphoria were still flowing through her as Eva got out of bed. Her bare feet didn’t take her far. She grabbed the taper off the table and extended up to the nearest lamp. Eva tossed her loose hair over her shoulder to get it out of the way. She heard a pleased hum from the bed she’d just left.

Once the taper had kindled, she used it to light fresh incense, keeping the heady atmosphere going. In the dark, the gentle glow of the festival lamps and fireflies barely lit the balcony, but it was enough. Eva looked over at Theron, sprawled out. “You look utterly debauched.”

“Says the one wearing a dancing girl’s belt.” Theron stretched his arms over his head and then flexed for her. “And only that.”

A well-timed clinking from the belt as Eva finished her task made both of them laugh. She felt the heat of his gaze on her as her body moved. Eva dunked the taper in a flask of water, set purposefully there for the task. “Still more than you. Shouldn’t you be suffering from some sort of spy panic about being… so exposed?” she teased him.

“If half of what you’ve said tonight is true, then they’re not looking at my face,” Theron shot back, sharp and sweet in the same breath. Eva giggled. He smirked as he continued, “Let’s just say the Chiss Ascendancy got some rather nice counter-surveillance equipment in exchange for my silence and confidence on a number of matters. I still owe them… but they really owe me.” He ran a hand through hair, the shots of silver in it catching the light. “And I’ve made sure we’ll be... undisturbed this evening.”

Eva made a stop at the low table that was laden with foodstuff and alcohol. “Told you that Copero wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Didn’t pay much attention to the scenery or culture the first time through,” Theron admitted, briskly. “But… yeah, this little weekend away from Odessen is nice. And we are getting work done. Otherwise, I’d be a real killjoy.”

Eva turned to give him a chiding look, and he responded with that lopsided smile of his. “Breath of Heaven?” she asked as she held up the bottle.

“Fits the occasion. And the company,” Theron replied lightly as he sat up.

When Eva approached the edge of the bed and extended her arm to offer a cup to Theron, he took an inordinately long time to ogle her before taking his cup from her. Then his free fingers reached to trace the skin just below the pretty belt about her waist. “You’re certainly something beyond what this mortal deserves.”

By the time their cups were empty, the still-burning incense had made a cloud about their balcony, the glow of lanterns casting unworldly shadows across them. The fireflies lazily bobbed around the perimeter. “Copero has redeemed itself, I think,” Eva said as she put her cup to the side and laid back in bed.

Theron’s lips curved upward. “Is this the start of some redemptive tour of the galaxy? Every awful place we’ve visited, we ‘do over’?”

“Well, some place are objectively just awful – “

Then in unison, “Tatooine,” and they laughed, low in the night.

“Taris,” she said.

“Balmorra.”

“Ord Mantell, no matter what Corso says.”

“Umbara,” he added, then he wore some wounded expression at his own mention of it.

“Ziost” was whispered. “But…other places would have been beautiful or at least fun if… we weren’t fighting a war across them.”

“Like Katalla. You should get that casino win you deserve out there.”

“And then you can ravish me in the conservatory. Rishi – I technically still own it.”

“Manaan. I haven’t run the swoop track there in years.”

A long pause.

“I’d… like to take you to Corellia,” Theron finally said. “I grew up there. Or at least, I made the transition from Jedi to … me.” Then he added, “They’ve been rebuilding – going there to support the reconstruction wouldn’t be the worst way to spend credits.”

Eva shifted slightly to let her skin touch his. “Your father did extend an invitation out to Alderaan. And … I had a decent enough time there the first time, with Lenn and learning to dance… and falling out of a tree with Bowie.” She paused. “Your call though.”

“…we can make it work.” His fingers found her dark hair. “Have you ever been to Tython? Like, really been to Tython? Not just a drop off-or a flyover?”

“Is there something other than a bunch of little kids going on their class trips these days?” Eva asked honestly.

Theron chuckled. “It’s… not as busy as it used to be,” he conceded. “But I think a lot of the things worth seeing are still there, if you’re not afraid of a few nights of camping – no light pollution out there.”

Eva made a face. “…are you going to get… uptight? Because it’s Tython?” She tried to phrase her question as diplomatically as possible.

Theron’s expression turned mischievous, and then he muttered into her neck as he pressed up against her, “I thought that would be a selling point for you – because it’s Tython.”

Then they both laughed, as fingers got to tickling and teasing, and the conversation was discontinued entirely.

The lanterns burned out eventually, but the fireflies danced til dawn.

@fluffyfebruary @ayresis @starlightcleric @ermingarden @bluephoenix1347

#fluffy february #swtor #theron shan #theron shan x smuggler #copero #swtor fan fiction #oc: eva corolastor

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thenuclearmallard · 1 year

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One Man's Fight Against Slavs-Only Apartment Rentals in Moscow

"You have to solve this problem. Otherwise, I will sue, no matter how much it costs me."

By Evan Gershkovich

Feb. 27, 2018

Alexander Ryumin / TASS

The threat was typed in a fit of rage, an emotional outburst that spilled forth after weeks of frustration.

"You have to solve this problem," Emil Allakhverdiev demanded in a viral Facebook post last month. "Otherwise, I will sue, no matter how much it costs me."

Allakhverdiev, 26, was directing his public frustration at Yandex, Avito and the Center for Real Estate Information and Analytics (CIAN), among other Russian apartment rental companies. Hunting online for an apartment in his native Moscow, the English teacher of Azerbaijani descent had run into a ubiquitous fixture: disclaimers that apartments will be rented to ethnic Slavs only.

The practice, aimed squarely at Central Asian immigrants, is one that Russian human rights advocates say has been prevalent in the capital for as long as they can remember. And because it is so entrenched, even Allakhverdiev’s singular Facebook post, they say, represents a step in the right direction.

"It feels like a new moment," Alexander Verkhovsky, the director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center, which tracks nationalism and xenophobia in Russia, told The Moscow Times. "Battling against discrimination requires citizens to be active and lawyers who will litigate strategically and attract media attention."

Although Allakhverdiev has yet to follow through on his threat to sue, he has forced the issue under Russia’s media spotlight. Before speaking to The Moscow Times, he shuttled between appearances on the state-run Moskva 24 channel and the independent Dozhd TV network.

"My primary aim is to bring attention to this problem," he explained in a central Moscow cafe one recent evening.

Emil Allakhverdiev

Facebook

Before setting out on his apartment search three months earlier, Allakhverdiev lived with his mother and rented from a friend. Previously, he hadn’t encountered much racism in Moscow, but the search, he said, had shown him how common it really is.

"It’s not just the disclaimers that you see in one out of every three ads," Allakhverdiev said. "It’s also the real estate agents who, after hearing your last name, just hang up the phone."

In a phone interview, Roman Babichev, who heads the leasing department of the Moscow-based Azbuka Zhilya real estate agency, defended the practice. The goal, he said, is less about keeping apartments in the hands of ethnic Slavs than it is preventing migrant workers from Central Asia and southern Russian republics from turning apartments into "hostels."

"It’s not discrimination," Babichev argued. "People who come from Central Asia, from the Caucasus, from Chechnya and Dagestan" — two predominantly Muslim Russian republics — "will say they will only have three people living in the apartment, but soon 10, 12 people have moved in."

NEWS

Moscow's Most Racist Landlords Revealed

"This is based on years of experience," he added.

Migrant workers from struggling former Soviet republics have long flocked to Russia in search of better wages to send back home. More than a third of Tajikistan’s GDP in 2015, for instance, was earned by workers abroad, 90 percent of which came from Russia. In 2017, authorities estimated that there were about 10 million foreign laborers in the country.

Last spring, Russian researchers at the Robustory data journalism blog found that roughly 16 percent of the ads on CIAN discriminated on the basis of ethnicity or nationality. In their report, the researchers laid out the ads with disclaimers in map form, showing users where it would be easiest to find an apartment.

"This discrimination is not a secret to anyone who lives in Moscow," Vladimir Avetyan, one of Robustory’s researchers, said in a phone interview. "What we wanted to do was to visualize it so that the phenomenon would not just be discussed anecdotally."

Eva Mizrabekyan, 46, was born in Azerbaijan and moved to Moscow in the late ’90s when her Armenian husband found work at a restaurant. In a phone interview, she said she dreaded when the time would come for the couple to find a new apartment.

“My husband is light-skinned, so sometimes we wouldn’t have any problems right away if he went to see the apartment alone,” Mizrabekyan said. “But when it was time to sign the agreement the landlord would find out our name and start cursing and would either try to raise the price or back out altogether.”

“Thank God we found a nice landlord, and for the past seven years we haven’t had to move,” she added.

NEWS

After Metro Blast, Racial Profiling Is on the Rise in Russia

In a statement to Dozhd TV regarding Allakhverdiev’s complaint, CIAN defended the disclaimers on its website.

"Such ads do indeed exist just as, for example, there are disclaimers on ads that say the apartment is ‘only for married couples’ or for those ‘without children’ or ‘without animals,’" the company said. "These disclaimers save our users time."

The company also pointed to Russian law, noting that, while it is clear on employment discrimination, for example, it does not "restrict renters in how they want to manage their private property."

Pavel Chikov, director of the Agora human rights organization, says that the practice is illegal. "The Russian constitution says that you cannot discriminate against people because of their race or ethnicity," he said.

Verkhovsky of the SOVA Center, however, disagrees. Discrimination according to Russian law, he said, is the barring of someone from their rights. "Nowhere in our law," he explained, "does it say that it’s a person’s right to be rented an apartment from another person."

Regardless, to fight the issue, he continued, will require people like Allakhverdiev to demand that discrimination be more thoroughly considered in the courts.

NEWS

Prominent Anti-Racism NGO Sued Under Russian 'Undesirables’ Law

Several days after the interview at the cafe, Allakhverdiev told The Moscow Times that his Facebook post had been removed for containing "open aggression against people on racial, national and religious grounds as well as ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability."

The social media platform’s algorithm that removes posts had been hijacked by Russian nationalists sending in complaints, Allakhverdiev suggested. Facebook did not respond to The Moscow Times' requests for comment.

Allakhverdiev also shared screenshots of comments on his original post and messages in his inbox from Russians urging him to leave the country. All of it had made him "want to throw my hands up in the air."

But it wasn't all negative. Others had reached out, too, including some offering him their apartments, and a human rights lawyer who suggested Allakhverdiev file a formal complaint to the Moscow’s prosecutor’s office as an intermediary step before suing. And going to court, Allakhverdiev said, remained an option.

Still, the stream of hate seemed to have taken its toll.

"I am a Russian citizen and Moscow is my home," he said. "Now it doesn’t feel like it so much anymore."

#Old news still a problem #Still a problem #Issues #social issues #racism #russian genocide #indigenous #culture #indigenous russia #indigenous russian #russia #important #colonization #fypシ #fypage #landback #Slavs only #russian imperialism

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duhragonball · 1 month

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Neon Genesis Evangelion 25

It... really isn't though.

Last episode, Shinji killed the last Angel, albeit reluctantly, and that pretty much wraps up the main conflict of the series. So now we just need to wrap up all the loose ends. You know, answer the lingering questions such as:

What is an Eva?

Where did the Angels come from?

When did the Second Angel show up? Did I miss that somewhere?

What's the deal with Rei?

What was SEELE up to?

What was Gendo Ikari up to?

No, really, what's the deal with Rei?

What actually caused Second Impact?

Where did the Dead Sea Scrolls come from, and why did SEELE and Gendo believe the apparent predictions that it made?

Why did they need fourteen-year-old children to pilot the Evas?

What is the Human Instrumentality Project, exactly?

I'm not kidding, what the fuck is the deal with Rei? You can't just dodge the question; she's one of the principal characters. You put her on all the merchandise for crying out loud.

Did Pen-Pen get reunited with Misato after she sent him away to live with friends just before the final battle?

Wow, that's a longer list than I realized. Anyway, Episode 25 takes a long hard look at those unanswered questions and then wads it up and throws it in the trash, then sets the trash can on fire and burns down the entire house. Then Episode 25 goes back in time and erases the very concept of information from the fundamental design of the universe, so that no coherent answers can possibly exist.

If you enjoyed Neon Genesis Evangelion, and are curious to know what happens after Episode 24, Episode 25 wants you to know that it hates you. When you watch Episode 25, you know less about this show than you did before you watched it.

Now, I expected something kind of abstract and surreal. I've heard about this. Fans were dissatisfied with the way the series ended, which eventually led to the release of "End of Evangelion", which promised to deliver a more satisfying conclusion to the series.

I never quite understood, until today, just how dissatisfied the fans really were at the time. I feel like I heard once, long ago, someone complaining that NGE was simply unfinished. Like it got cancelled or something or the writers gave up without writing the rest of it. But that appears to be untrue, so I'm left to assume that whoever said that was just being sarcastic. It's like that xkcd cartoon about the Matrix movie, and the characters lament the fact that they never made a sequel. The joke is that they know there were sequels, but they prefer to pretend that they didn't exist.

And I think at some point I found out that End of Evangelion was like a retelling of the story, but I assumed it was just because you see that a lot in anime. Adolescence of Utena basically does a whole other version of the story in the Utena TV series, basically.

But no, I eventually found out that fans just really, really hated Episodes 25 and 26, and EoE was a make-good. Like, it literally functions as a new Episode 25 and 26 for the TV show, from what I understand. I was looking over an episode list on Wikipedia, and that's how it's listed. There's Episodes 1-26, and then 25A and 26A.

That's wild. I've been curious about this the whole time, and now I'm here and man, Episode 25 is some serious bullshit. I kind of expected it to be weird, and maybe inconclusive, but still in a good kind of way. Like... well, Revolutionary Girl Utena is probably a good example. I watched that show a few years ago and I'm still baffled by most of it, but it had a charm and beauty to it that kept me engaged. I would have preferred a more coherent narrative, but I still found enjoyment from it.

But NGE 25 just sucks. There's no other way to say it. It doesn't advance the plot, it doesn't reveal any secrets or solve any mysteries. It doesn't really do much of anything. I'll try to explain this mess, but fair warning: I don't think there's much to unpack here.

So we start with Shinji agonizing over the way he killed Kaworu, the 17th Angel, at the end of the last episode. This might be promising, except he already agonized over this at the end of Episode 24. I mean, he could continue where he left off. That would be fine, except this episode even repeats the same scene where he talks to Misato about it and she assures him that he did the right thing. No new insights are introduced here.

Shinji imagines himself in the grasp of Eva Unit 01, and laments that he still has to pilot the Eva, even after all that's happened. Uh, who said you have to keep piloting the Eva, sport? I'm not saying this is true or untrue, but why does Shinji assume this when he has no more enemies to fight, and his dad hasn't assigned him to a new mission?

This is what pisses me off. In a good episode, the story would just move forward in linear time. The battle with Kaworu would be over, and everyone would dust themselves off and ask what's next. Gendo would either tell everyone what to do, or they'd defy Gendo and try to stop him. Or something. Someone would have to tell Shinji that he will have to continue piloting the Eva, or that he never has to pilot it again, and he could react to that information.

Instead, we have him whining about facts that aren't even in evidence. Does he have to keep piloting the Eva or not? We don't know! Neither does he! And we can't find out because this stupid episode is some sort of dream sequence/acid trip instead of being set in the "real" world!

And again, I kind of knew it would be like this, that NGE ended with Shinji having some weird introspection instead of a proper finale. But what drives me nuts is that we really don't learn anything new about him. He hates his dad for abandoning him! He does what he's told because he's desperate for the approval of others! He's afraid of people hating him! He hates piloting the Eva but he does it because people appreciate him for it! We already know this! Dammit, we've been hearing about it for the entire run of the show.

Hey, did you know Asuka's bio-mom hanged herself when she was little? Yes, you did, because we found out in Episode 24. Episode 25 just... shows us all over again like it's new information. It doesn't do anything new with it. It just rehashes the same observation that Asuka craves attention and glory and praise because she fears losing her identity without it. Nothing is added nor resolved.

I think the one new tidbit we get from this episode is that Rei has longed for the day when she would no longer be of any use to Gendo Ikari, and he would discard her. She waits for death, but now she fears it, which is pretty dark. Assuming that this is even the "real" Rei making that statement. We'll come back to that.

Oh, hey, Ritsuko Akagi is dead. When did that happen?

And so is Misato. Okay, maybe we're getting back to the real world, and seeing events play out. Gendo has triumphed over the Angels, and now he's liquidating his allies as he moves on to the next phase of his plan...

Wait, no, they're alive again, and arguing over the merits of the Human Instrumentality Project, which Ritsuko claims is designed to merge all human consciousness together into one big collective mind. Except... I don't believe that explanation, because it's being presented in a surreal fantasy. Ritsuko had a bullet hole in her a second ago and now she's fine. How can I accept any information presented in this scene?

Episode 25 then examines Misato's character for a while, under the pretense of proving some sort of oblique thesis, but in reality it just slut shames her for having casual sex with Kaji. The episode accuses her of giving in to base, carnal desires, and she screams denial after denial. I kept waiting for some deep dark secret to be at the heart of all of this. Like Misato only drinks and fucks to hide some secret shame, but no. She just drinks and fucks, because she's a grown-ass woman who can do whatever she wants when she's off-duty. This isn't catharsis, it's just filler disguised as drama. Who is she even arguing with?

Finally, Shinji finds himself in an empty theater, surrounded by other characters from the show. Like a Greek chorus, they inform him that this is but one of many realities, and what he's experiencing now is the reality he chose, a world cut off from everything that could possibly cause him discomfort. Also, he can't escape this fate, because he chose it, even though he repeatedly denies doing so.

And this is where I wrote off the episode as trash, because the like "This is real, but only one of the many realities" is the biggest cop out ever. So we're saying everything in this episode both happened and didn't happen? Then why does any of it matter?

This is why I question the point of Rei admitting she longs for death. If the real Rei thought this way, then it would be powerful. We know Rei. We've come to care about her over the course of the series. But the Rei we see in this episode may only be a figment of Shinji's imagination. Or she may not even be that. What she admits or denies in this episode is meaningless.

Anyway, yeah, fuck this episode. The only takeaway here is that Shinji has somehow gotten lost in his own head. He created a private haven for himself, but it's nothing more than a prison. Whooptee-shit.

Yeah, yeah, the next episode preview has deteriorated to mere script drafts instead of visuals. It's not cute anymore.

#neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #shinji ikari #you know what i'm not tagging the other characters because i'm pretty sure they weren't actually in this one #i'm punching out early

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evermorehqs · 1 year

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CATCHING MY BREATH, STARING OUT AN OPEN WINDOW

Alexandra Casoy is based on Alex from Totally Spies. She is a 26 year old human, vet technician, and uses she/her pronouns. She has no powers. Alex is portrayed by Eva Noblezada and she is open.

CATCHING MY DEATH, AND I COULDN’T BE SURE

There are people in the world who operate at a sprint when it came to life and Alexandra Casoy was easily one of those people. Athletics were interwoven in her DNA and the moment she could stand, she was running - whether it was around a track, after a soccer ball or through crowds at the mall to whatever plushy was on sale, the young girl was always on the move and she was talented. Thankfully, too. She might have been elite on any field but when it came to street smarts, critical thinking, and common sense? Alex wasn’t the one you’d lean on for any of those ( unless it was in video games ). The Olympics were constantly brought up in her house, which sport it was didn’t really matter. At the end of the day, all they had to accept was that she was destined to be an Olympian. The W.H.O.O.P agency had other ideas.

Alex was chosen to join two other young teens at the agency, rounding out the trio and doing so with an absent smile. Did she completely know what was going on? Not entirely but she got the basics and that was all she needed. As long as she had Clover, Sam, gadgets shaped like lipstick and her pet pig, Oinky, nothing bad could happen. And then something happened she didn’t see coming, though to be fair Alex had fallen for more obvious traps in the past, but Evermore was one they couldn’t get out of. None of their tricks worked against walls they couldn’t see and she felt like a kid who’d somehow lost their parents at a theme park. But she wasn’t alone. Though her mission days were on hold, Alex quickly found a spot to lean into her other passion - animals! Between being a spy and being a young adult, she spent her time taking veterinarian classes and it seemed like that work was finally going to come in handy.

I HAD A FEELING SO PECULIAR

❀ Ed Kazah: Finally someone else who thought about things the way she did....read: not a lot. There was something to be said about living in your naiveté and not taking things as seriously as everyone else

❀ Francesca Framagucci: Animals have always been a huge part of Alex’s life especially her pet pig and finding someone who loved the least loved animals just as much as she did was an immediate green flag

❀ Christopher 'Kit' Charming: Alex can’t deny that Kit Charming is exactly that - charming and boy, oh boy, does she fall for it every time. He’s cute, he’s strong, he’s a little intimidating but in a hot way. She can’t help but trip up a little around him

THAT THIS PAIN WOULD BE FOR EVERMORE

#totally spies #eva noblezada fc #disney bio rp #no powers #open bio #open female #female bio

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inwhvspers · 1 year

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☼☾ ( MADCHEN AMICK, 45 / 26 , SHE/THEY, DEMI FEMALE, SIKA DEER PÚCA ) - have you seen AOIFE VAUGHN? they’ve been living in afon vale for 45 YEARS and they really think they’re safe. people say that they’re ERUDITE but i heard they’re DISMISSIVE. you can usually find them working as a/an BARTENDER at THE ROYAL OAK. they’ve tried hard to keep KILLED THEIR MOTHER buried but the truth always comes out. a few things that remind me of them are … soft freckles across her nose; the scent of fur trees in her hair; fairy lights in apartment windows; faded lip prints on mirrors; a smile that can melt hearts.

basics.

name: aoife vaughn

age: 26 (45)

gender: demi female

species: puca (sika deer)

sexuality: demisexual / demiromantic

occupation: bartender, the royal oak

hometown: afon vale

ethnicity: caucasian

languages: english, gaelic, french

physical.

height: 5'5"

build: lithe

hair: light brown; long, wavy/curly hair for most of the time unless she chooses to straighten it. wild and free, like her spirit.

eyes: hazel, doe-eyed

tattoos: small deer marking on her left hip, a rook on her right wrist.

piercings: twice on each earlobe, helix, rook

personal style: a lot of muted colors and soft fabrics, often choosing comfort over style and function over form. gravitates towards softer greens, reds, blues, and 'smokier' colors. has been known to dye parts of her hair temporarily but always ends up back with the light brown. can often be seen with her deer horns when wandering the forest. always a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that get a second layer of 'whiter' freckles when she's in partial deer form.

psychological.

positive: erudite, free-spirited, creative

negative: dismissive, secretive, touchy, absent minded

MBTI: istj

enneagram: the investigator

temperament: choleric

family.

father: calum vaugn (alive, estranged) , npc

mother: catrione vaugn (deceased) , npc

brother: (alive), open

aunt: (alive), open

headcanons.

her name is pronounced like 'eva' but with a softer v leaning more towards an f.

often slips into partial deer form if left alone to her own devices and especially if she's wandering the woods. full deer form is more likely in the woods, obviously.

one of her antlers/horns is tinged at the tip a bit more reddish but it's barely perceptible most of the time.

she has a pet rabbit named thumper.

she makes videos for tiktok sometimes with specific filters... yes, she tries to look like a deer. it's fine.

she and rory have known each other a while, probably since school but didn't really get into the best friend/ride or die zone until a bit later, but now they're inseparable and she'll easily fight someone for her.

she has an allergy to grapes.

she practices reading tarot and will sometimes do that for bar patrons; she also designed her own deck and it's extremely personal to her (she is a decent artist, at least)

she has absolute shit luck in most things. she's the one who always bangs her toes into furniture or cracks brand new phone screens almost immediately.

aoife sees a therapist of sorts but makes sure it's v quiet and sort of out of the way so no one sees her do it. she's already weird enough, she thinks (hopefully I can write her getting over this stigma because ew)

cw: abuse (child through young adult; physical and mental), abandonment, murder, death of a parent.

biography.

aoife's father left when she was young and she's resented him ever since.

her mother was taking care of her but very much not in a safe way and aoife suffered a lot under her.

she was kept from the outside world a lot in the beginning, her mother having lost the thread of reality and deciding they should live in a cabin off in the woods somewhere.

as she grew, the abuse turned more physical and at some points she was forced to be in deer form for days at a time and took lashings if she wandered too far from home.

aoife was a teenager when she'd finally had enough and lashed out. she hadn't meant for it to end how it did, with her mother impaled on her deer horns, but that is how it went.

it took a while for her to wash the blood off of her horns in half-form and to burn the body, but she did. Her mother's bones are somewhere in the woods near the cabin she used to call home, now abandoned.

aoife moved into the city proper at 17 and found her father's sister, being taken in and taken care of. She never told her aunt how it happened, but said her mother had died and her father had run off long ago and the woman was kind and looked after her. She could tell aoife had been abused and was gentle with her, which was new for aoife.

school was a revelation. she wasn't illiterate or anything as before her mother had lost the plot she'd taught her to read and gave her lessons... they just became less pleasant as time went on. the socialization however was so new and freeing and she immediately fell into all the worst, wrong crowds and got into trouble a lot.

her aunt was worried but let it go because honestly, the girl had been through a lot. when aoife hit 20 though she started to put the law to hand. she knew eventually aoife was leave her but for now she had to try and keep her safe.

aoife mellowed, still very much leaning towards the idea of bad decisions. this leads to one night stands and pushing away the 'right ones' for fear of something bad happening.

she now lives on her own, but calls her aunt every now and again to check in because she's the one she thinks of as her mother even after only a handful of years.

she's intelligent and could have still pivoted into some kind of degree if she'd wanted, but she chose to just stay where she was and take a job bartending.

she has her regulars that she's quite fond of and always offers a smile and a crinkle of her freckled nose for them when they come in.

connections.

best friend taken by rory!

friends, misc.

rival

potential love interests, slow burn

exes, misc.

favored bar patrons

other puca

someone who knows about her mom but is keeping it to themselves.

#aoife: intro #aoife: about #whvspers:intro #aoife

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bisexualbumblebee-writes · 2 years

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Julie and the Phantoms OCs

Oc Count: 8

Name: Daisy Johanna Sloane

Birthday: February 16, 1978

Perpetual age: 16

Died: October 31, 1994

Likes: Music, dancing, flower crowns, chocolate, orange fanta

Dislikes: Arrogance, Caleb Covington, spicy food, horror movies, bugs

Personality: Calm, soft, sweet, understanding, lovely

Ship: Luke Patterson

Side note(s):

Daisy had died at a Halloween party. Someone had spiked the candy, not realizing how lethal it was

Daisy and Luke had known each other from school but had never really talked until after they died. He obviously felt bad for her family but because they didn't know each other well, he didn't need long to mourn

They first met back up when Daisy was a dancer at Caleb's club and got to know each other more

Name: Juniper Eleanor Dalton

Nickname(s): June

Birthday: November 26, 1998

Likes: Reeses candy, Disney movies, filming, musicals/showtunes, playing piano, flowers

Dislikes: Chores, heat, heels, horror movies, long work hours

Personality: Musical, caring, compassionate, chill, hard-working

Ship: Charlie Gillespie (plays Luke)

Side note(s):

Juniper plays Daisy in the show

She’s a narcoleptic so she can literally fall asleep anywhere and everywhere

Name: Hattie Iris Rowland

Nickname(s): N/A

Birthday: July 14, 1978

Perpetual age: 17

Died: January 1, 1995

Likes: Exploring, music, dancing, fashion, the beach

Dislikes: Visiting her family, fighting, bugs, arrogance, getting scared

Personality: Nice, fun, loving, gullible, clumsy, clever

Ship: Reggie Peters

Side note(s):

She died on New Years day while she and her mom were going home from a New Year’s party. It had been raining so the road was slick and they slid off the road (her mother survived but Hattie didn’t)

There’s more to her than meets the eye

Name: Allison Charlotte Hicks

Nickname(s): Alli

Birthday: March 4, 1997

Likes: Boba tea, tiktok, fruit, Star Wars, swimming

Dislikes: Vegetables, nail polish smell, soda, sweating, needles

Personality: Bubbly, sassy, funny, caring, worldly

Ship: Jeremy Shada (plays Reggie)

Side note(s):

Allison plays Hattie in the show

Name: Evangeline Rose Buchanan

Nickname(s): Eva

Birthday: April 23, 1918

Perpetual age: 16

Died: September 2, 1934

Likes: Learning, California Cream (drink from the 1920s), dressing up, reading, popcorn

Dislikes: Taffy, dark makeup, feather boas, spiders, rude people

Personality: Curious, cautious, old-fashioned, kind, witty

Ship: Alex Mercer

Side note(s):

I’m going to say that Alex is bi/pan for this bear with me I’m emotionally invested in him

Eva died during the Great Depression because her family couldn’t afford to pay for heating; she died of hypothermia

She knows what her unfinished business, but there’s no way she can accomplish it so she’s content where she is, she’s made peace with it

Name: Hazel Aurora Matthews

Nickname(s): N/A

Birthday: December 15, 2000

Likes: Gymnastics, Christmas, Pepsi, guitars/playing guitar, gardening

Dislikes: Rumors, mac n cheese, cigarette/cigar smoke, bananas (allergic), thunder

Personality: Carefree, flexible (physically and metaphorically), passionate, caring, clever

Ship: Owen Joyner (plays Alex)

Side note(s):

Hazel plays Evangeline in the show

She always steals Charlie’s guitar to play it which he jokingly hates

She and Alex sometimes just have jam sessions

Name: Danielle Marina Poet

Birthday: May 2, 1973

Perpetual age: 16

Died: September 23, 1989

Likes: Playing guitar, singing, roller skating, dogs, movies

Dislikes: Country music, large jewelry, fish, white roses, snickerdoodles

Personality: Chill, loyal, funny, compassionate, kind

Ship: Willie and Alex

Side note(s):

**TRIGGER WARNING** She died in a school sh**ting (wrong place/wrong time)

She has no idea what her unfinished business is and she really doesn’t care to find out

Name: Mila Wendy Evans

Birthday: November 30, 1994

Likes: Pepsi, Disney movies, road trips, music, acting

Dislikes: Hot weather, sarcasm, slime, mustard, cats

Personality: Fun, laid-back, childish, passionate, loving

Ship: Booboo Stewart

Side note(s):

She plays Danielle in Julie and the Phantoms

They met when they both played in Descendants

#julie and the phantoms imagine #julie and the phantoms #jatp #jatp cast #jatp fanfiction #jatp ocs

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