#horizons lesbian conference | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ophiuca · 1 year

Text

Oc tags

Realized that I’m using tags for my ocs more and that I should maybe explain what they mean? The main four are for my characters I’ve played with in Masks: A New Generation, which is a game I highly recommend! It’ll be a pretty long post so I’ll cut it off here.

😇 #Birdcage is for Isodora Maleciel (she/her and they/them), the angel daughter of a very powerful supervillain named Event Horizon. She’s got statues of herself in many of the banks in the city, a decently popular propaganda CW-esque tv show about her and her daughter’s life, a fierce rivalry with the local speedster Swift Wind and Tech CEO Max Million, and of course a secret lair on the moon. Isodora looks suspiciously almost exactly like their mother, aside from their hair, which they dye a platinum blonde from its natural black. Other than that, her large black wings, green eyes, and black horns that wrap around her head like a circlet make her instantly recognizable to basically anyone in the city. She decided that she didn’t want to follow her mother and became the magic hero Astarte, using her sorcery to protect people no mater how they felt about her. They ended up marrying their three teammates, (Sabrina Spencer (she/her), Nova Moretti (she/her), and Hermes Shapiro-Vogel (ve/ver) (the child of Swift Wind), and they eventually have a very magical daughter named Talia (she/her) together. Isodora is a trans girl, is pan and also polyam! She loves her partners a whole lot and loves spending time with them, even if she doesn’t really understand what’s going on much. You can find my pinterest board for Isodora here! featuring art from my friend @liatrelle!

😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇 😇

🎮 #of course you have purple hair and lightning powers is my tag for Lucille “Elly” Lovelace (she/her), a purple haired twitch streamer, library makerspace manager, lesbian disaster, and pretty okay best friend. She spends her days working, hanging out with her very genderfluid bestie Olivia Efflorescence (they/them) who also goes by Ollie (she/her), or Liv (he/him), and definitely not fighting villains as the superhero Lady Lightning, a woman who wears an all purple power ranger-esque costume with lightning motifs and has electromagnetic powers. She also spends her nights not doing that as well as streaming as lightspeedluvlace. Elly and Liv found out about her powers when they were younger, and used it as an excuse to escape from their very shitty families and live together in Halcyon city. They’ve recently gotten pretty stable living situations, or well, Elly would if she wasn’t a workaholic who does way too many things at once. She’s recently met and formed a team with Talia Spencer-Maleciel-Shapiro-Vogel-Moretti, who has mysteriously been thrown into the past a few years before she was even born, Tiktok conspiracy star February “Freddy” Dawson (he/him), and Henrietta “Henry” Pawline (she/her) a petty jock catgirl. Elly has a bit of a crush on Talia, but worries about what that means if she goes back to the future. Her fursona is a purple bunny girl and she’s a little embarrassed that you know that now. She’s a cis lesbian, but in the “my gender is lesbian” way. Elly’s story takes place about eight years after Isodora’s.

🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮 🎮

♓ #manic jelly dream girl ZOE MY BELOVED!!! Princess Threazoenine of The Myrine Dynasty (she/her) is from the planet Nalydea, a planet completely covered in water orbiting Pisces Alpha. She is a pink shapeshifting jellyfish alien who came to earth as part of a family mission to forge mutual defense pacts with other planets in case Nalydea is targeted, as they do not make any sort of weapons. Zoe fell in love with Earth almost instantly, and ran away during a press conference, to the annoyance of her parent and older sisters. She ran right into AEGIS Agent Bryce Gallant, who was eventually assigned to protect her when she convinced her family to let her stay on earth for a bit. Enamored with the superhero culture of Halcyon City, she decided to join Bryce’s team as the hero Prominence. Bryce had been placed on a team with fellow hero school graduate who she very much did not get along with Æsh, and superhero mentee Jess Arora, who Zoe developed a very strong crush on. They then dated for about two weeks before having the messiest breakup ever. And then kinda mostly got back together. Zoe’s powers include: shapeshifting, star generation (including heat and gravity manipulation), flight, having a telepathically controlled hoverbike, no bones, no lungs, no heart, jellyfish venom, bioluminescence, being very easy to talk to, getting drunk from caffeine, and water manipulation. She also has a cool scar that she got from being stabbed by a sword protecting her family. Aside from Earth in general, Zoe loves dinosaurs (there are a bunch that live on Nalydea’s moon), fashion and wearing frilly clothes, kissing cute girls, and spending time with her friends. As an alien, she doesn’t really have a conventional gender or sexuality, but if someone explained things to her she would probably consider herself a girl and sapphic. Her pinterest board is right here! and I would love to link the commission I got of her from @smallpolar-bear!!!!!! Zoe’s story is set 29 years after Isodora’s, the same time period that Talia is from.

♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓ ♓

🩸 #violet the teenage witch is the tag for my most recent character, Violet Chiwake (fae/faer), also known as the supervillain Vampire. Fae lives with faer aunt and her wife in Halcyon City after faer mother got scared that fae developed powers. Violet is a witch who uses blood magic, something that for the most part is not approved of by society. It’s not like Violet chose faer powers or anything. Fae was caught with faer mentor in the middle of a robbery and lied during faer trial that fae was tricked onto the wrong path and just needed a chance to fix things. This worked too well and Violet ended up at hero school with a bunch of people who fae is extremely wary of. Violet is goth, a femme trans lesbian, and very upset that faer life has become a disaster (teenage drama queen). Fae enjoys practicing faer magic, collecting interesting ear jewelry, being around people who don’t think fae should be in jail, and stealing valuables. Violet is also searching for faer best friend Selene Hellström (she/her) an extremely high energy fireworks themed villain who was sent off to boarding school by her parents. You can find Violet’s pinterest board here! (cw for blood makeup) Violet’s story takes place 15 years after Isodora’s.

🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸 🩸

I’ll probably mostly be talking about these four, and if you read this far uh. wow thank you I hope you enjoy knowing more about the girls in my brain!

#Birdcage #of course you have purple hair and lightning powers #manic jelly dream girl #violet the teenage witch

0 notes

bobbystompy · 3 years

Text

91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020

Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin

2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox

3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155

(via Twitter)

5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”

6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle

8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes

9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC

10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney

11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant

12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke

13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho

14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix

15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho

16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_

17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters

18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.

Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini

19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders

20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”

21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski

22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes

23) “I was raised by OGs. Some of you were raised by IG. I understand.” - Ice-T

* * *

[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]

* * *

24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin

25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner

26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum

27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin

28)

(Jojo Rabbit)

29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie

30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie

31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie

32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic

33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer

34)

(via Twitter)

35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine

36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill

37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth

38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan

39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson

40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale

41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo

42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”

43)

(via Twitter)

44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth

45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter

46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger

47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton

48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem

49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon

50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon

51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar

52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis

53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing

54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West

55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”

56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)

57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers

58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement

59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes

60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman

61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman

62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)

Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.

64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy

65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford

66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham

67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy

68)

(via Twitter)

69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”

70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman

71)

72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis

74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson

75)

(via Twitter)

76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly

77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)

78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas

80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182

81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes

82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”

83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly

84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy

85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers

86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy

87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy

88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki

89)

(via Twitter)

90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia

91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez

#covid19 #2020 #star wars #dave chappelle #volatire #ysac #kobe #kobe bryant #ladybird #bukowski #jojo rabbit #aoc #john prine #deadwood #bernie #rbg #notorious rbg #phoebe bridgers

12 notes · View notes

hellomynameisbisexual · 4 years

Text

Though there have been in the past various communities and individuals who were known to have lived a bisexual lifestyle (for example the Bloomsbury artists community, the Harlem Renaissance community, and Frida Kahlo [1907-1954] and her circle), the 1970s marked the beginning of the modern bisexual movement. The bi movement of the 1990s consists of social, support and political groups throughout the United States and other parts of the world.

The Early Years

The earliest bisexual organizations in the United States grew out of the sexual liberation movement or “sexual revolution,” which was, in turn, fueled by the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation movement, and the legalization of, and increased access to, birth control. A number of bisexuals were active in the formation of various chapters of the Sexual Freedom League. The National Bisexual Liberation Group was founded in 1972 in New York City. The Bi Forum, also in New York City, began in 1975. The Bisexual Center in San Francisco, California, formed in 1976, and Bi Ways in Chicago, Illinois, began in 1978.

These years spanned the era of “bisexual chic,” in which popular media publicized the bisexuality of rock stars and artists. The earliest bisexual groups were primarily social in focus, although some included a political element as well. The 1970s also saw the publications of several books about bisexuality. Janet Bode’s View From Another Closet (1976) was perhaps the first, followed [among others] by Charlotte Wolf’s Bisexuality: A Study (1977), and Fritz Klein’s The Bisexual Option: A Concept of One Hundred Percent Intimacy (1978).

The Second Wave

Many bisexuals were active within the gay liberation, and later the lesbian and gay, movement. However, several factors, including an increased focus on identity politics and hostility and rejection by some lesbians and gay men, led some bisexuals to create separate bisexual organizations.

The “second wave” of bisexual organizing, beginning in the early 1980s, was largely women led, and was strongly influenced by feminism. Many of the women involved in bisexual organizing in the 1980s had been, and were still, active in the gay, lesbian feminist, and women’s movements. Feminist bisexual women’s organizations were formed in Boston, Massachusetts (1983); Chicago (1984); New York City (1983); and Seattle, Washington (1986). While in the 1970s most groups were of mixed gender, in the 1980s a number of women-only bi groups and a smaller number of bisexual men’s groups formed.

The bisexual groups of the 1980s focused on providing support and social opportunities, and a number became increasingly involved in political organizing as well, especially in the wake of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. The number of bi groups continued to grow throughout the 1980s in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The mid-1980s saw the first bisexual groups devoted to political activism (San Francisco’s BiPol, and Boston’s Bisexual Committee Engaging in Politics [BiCEP], and the first regional bisexual networks (the East Coast Bisexual Network and the Bay Area Bisexual Network).

While some bisexuals focused on the creation of organizations for and by bisexual people, others were organizing within lesbian and gay communities. A major focus of the bi movement in the 1980s was to seek inclusion and recognition for bisexuals within lesbian and gay groups. Some formerly “lesbian and gay” organizations changed their titles or their statements of purpose to include bisexual people, while others chose not to. This was especially evident on college campuses, as many campus groups, which had in the 1970s had changed their names to add “lesbian,” did the same in the 1980s with “bisexual” (and increasingly in the 1990s, with”transgender”). In some areas of the country, inter-community relationships, particularly between some lesbians and bisexual women, remained tense; in other areas, bisexuals were more readily welcomed.

Bis Organize More Widely

In June 1990, San Francisco’s BiPol organized the first national conference on bisexuality, with a focus on consolidating a nationwide bi organization, then known as the North American Multicultural Bisexual Network. In 1991, at a meeting in Seattle, the organization was renamed BiNet (Bisexual Network of the USA). The second U.S. national conference took place in 1993 in conjunction with the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, the first national march to mention bisexuals by name.

The first U.S. regional conference on bisexuality was held in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1984. By the early 1990s, there were regional conferences taking place annually in the Northwest, the Southwest, Southern California, the Midwest, and the Northeast. The first International Conference on Bisexuality was held in Amsterdam in 1991. Other international conferences have been held in London (1992), New York City (1994), and Berlin (1996), and Boston (1998).

Bisexuality in Literature and Academia

The 1990s saw an increase in the participation of college students in the bi movement and greater bisexual visibility in literature and academia. There was another wave of books about bisexuality, this time including anthologies that focused on personal experiences, such as the influential Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1990).

The record-setting year was 1995, which saw the publication of numerous studies and anthologies by both mainstream and alternative presses, including the Bisexual Resource Guide (Bisexual Resource Center). The first national bisexual magazine, Anything that Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality, had begun publication in 1991. Computer newsgroups, electronic mailing lists and chat lines helped connect bisexuals across geographic lines. The first college course focusing on bisexuality was taught at the University of California at Berkeley in 1990, followed by a course the next year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and several more in subsequent years at Tufts University.

Conclusion

Not unlike lesbian and gay organizations, bisexual organizations have developed in a number of different directions. Some bisexual people focus on organizing for, and with, other bisexual people. Others focus on working within “lesbian and gay,””lesbian, gay and bisexual,””lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender,” or “queer” organizations to educate heterosexuals, fight homophobia, advocate for civil rights legislation, and build community. Still others are interested in creating a broad sex and gender liberation movement that is not as focused on identity politics. And like many lesbians and gay men, many bisexual people are not involved in any organizations or movements at all, choosing instead to focus their energies on their individual lives.

Bibliography

Bisexual Anthology Collective, ed. Plural Desires: Writing Bisexual Women’s Realities. Toronto: Sister Visiohn, 1995.

Hutchins, Loraine and Lani Ka’ahumanu, eds. Bi Any Other Name: Bisexuals Speak Out. Boston: Alyson, 1990.

Off Pink Collective, Bisexual Lives. London: Off Pink Publishing, 1988.

Rose, Sharon, et al., eds. Bisexual Horizons: Politics, Histories, Lives. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1996.

Tucker, Naomi, ed. Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions. Binghamton, NY: Haworth, 1995.

16 notes · View notes

windrocklibrary · 6 years

Text

Galemont Talks About: Things That I Recall From E3 Conference (now that they’re over)

These are a collection of things that I mainly remembered the most in regards of the 2018 E3 Conference and my thoughts on it. They’re all a combination of things that I both like and not really like. Either way, all of these are my own opinions and spins on it.

Disclaimer Note #1: Yes, I like video games. No, I don’t/can’t play them or rather to an extent that I can play MAJORITY or ALL of them. Why? Because I’m poor -- so I might as well revel around other people’s emotions and mine (makes me sound like a vampire or something).

Disclaimer Note #2: I won’t include the sideshows or extras (e.g. Nintendo Treehouse). I am going to state things based on the things that are presented at the conferences.

ELECTRONIC ARTS (EA)

Frankly not the most memorable for me. They mentioned not much from EA other than sports games like Fifa, NFL, and NBA (ones I remembered at least), Battlefield V, Command & Conquer Rivals, and Anthem to name a few.

I kind of like how the folks at EA are somewhat self-aware on what they’re doing when talking about Battlefield V, stating that they want to depict their own image of WWII; though that’ll probably start a conversation for some folks I can imagine. It’s a bit of a downer for me considering that people are applauding at the information that there won’t be any lootboxes. Whether or not this will be true is beyond me.

Anthem looks interesting, to say the least. Though it’s such a shame that they didn’t mention, let alone, showed much. So with that being said I can’t say anything and even be very excited about it. We’ll see how it’ll go.

MICROSOFT STUDIOS

Lot’s of games. They showed off first party games like Halo: Infinite, Gears 5, and Forza Horizon 4. Ori and the Will of the Wisp was pretty neat and made me somewhat interested in trying out the Ori series.

The reveal of Devil May Cry 5 and Jump Force was very wild! The rumors that I often hear regarding DMC5 since last years Game Awards were very enticing, it was very cool to see it actually be true on E3.

Seeing Jump Force was surreal, especially when you’re watching Naruto, Goku, Luffy, and Frieza beating up each other in a hyper-realistic depiction of New York City’s Time Square; the shot of Ryuk and Light from Death Note is pretty wild too--would love to see what other Shounen Jump characters to be revealed there.

The trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice looks very slick, kind of expecting it to be shown here especially after the teaser during the Game Awards.

The Amazing Adventures of Captain Spirit looks charming; a story that sets in the same universe of Life is Strange makes it interesting in my book. The game’s also free.

I’m super glad that Studio MDHR is making an expansion for Cuphead! It has always been a dream of mine to for Cuphead to have an expansion of some sort and I’m actually really excited that it’s real! They even made Ms. Chalice a playable character so that’s cool!

The game Cyberpunk 2077 was almost thought to be a myth until now. It’s essentially one of those games where you heard it and you’ll never know when the game will actually be released or revealed again; so seeing it back up again is pretty cool especially with their own flares for an introduction. Hopefully, it won’t go off into dark again.

BETHESDA

What’s the deal with that big dude during the Rage 2 presentation? He was like silent for a straight 15 seconds or something, some said that maybe his prompter bugged out? Who knows. Most of the presentations there were a little awkward, though it’s probably because most of them aren’t exactly used to standing in front of a big crowd or something.

Speaking of awkward, the Andrew W.K. live performance was whacked. He didn’t sound good there if I have to be honest, I don’t think most of the audience were jazzed about it too.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood was interesting, DOOM: Eternal caught me by surprise. Most of the other games shown there were interesting but didn’t really move me a lot.

Frankly speaking though despite the often awkwardness, there were some funny moments as well. Todd Howard’s presentation was a fun one to me; he was very self-aware of the jokes that went all over about him. I’m glad that Fallout 76 was expanded more in this conference because it was showed on Microsoft’s; it’s going to be an online multiplayer experience but apparently, it’s pretty divisive among folks, I personally think it’s neat--the nukes, however, is probably going to be a little sketchy in my opinion.

They also announced Elder Scrolls VI. Well, I say announced, it’s basically a tease; then it’s over.

DEVOLVER DIGITAL

Same thing they did last year: a satirical shitshow that makes fun of the conferences. It’s pretty fun, but admittedly I kind of got bored with it and I just want to see games more than them losing their minds. I say that because most of the jokes they do are basically beating on the same old topics that have been talked by folks for so long. Their conference is basically a self-contained story-arc, this one being the continuation of the previous one and I’m sure they’ll probably continue it next year.

They did show some games. 3 I believe. A battle royale shooter (I think?) called SCUM, a frenetic and comical platform shooter called My Friend Pedro (the one I’m most interested), and something called Meta Wolf Chaos XD which is a remaster of the cult favorite FromSoftware game of the same name. I’ll probably need to look it up on that more, looks fun.

SQUARE ENIX

Not really intrigued with it to be perfectly honest. Some of the things that they showed there have already been shown during the Microsoft conference (Kingdom Hearts 3, Just Cause 4, and Shadow of The Tomb Raider). While they did somewhat expand on it a bit, it kind of lost the impact that I think it could’ve had.

They announced an expansion of sort for Final Fantasy XIV Online along with a crossover with Monster Hunter World, showed Dragon Quest XI, and a new title called Babylon’s Fall by Platinum Games that is basically a teaser. Speaking of teasers, they also teased another new title called The Quiet Man; which admittedly has the strangest trailer.

Somewhat disappointed that they didn’t show anything about Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s been so long since they announced it and showed a gameplay footage of it. Hopefully, they’re doing alright because the longer it goes on like this, it might become stale.

UBISOFT

The things that they showed there feels rather unsurprising because I kind of expected the things that they would do at the conference.

Kind of happy that they showed their new Just Dance game as their first thing, that way they cut the fluff and make the rest of the show focus on larger titles. There’s also a dude who tripped himself into a television.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 showed a new cinematic trailer, featuring Jade--but evil or something. The presenters said they want to show a gameplay footage but they showed very little. Joseph Gordon Levitt popped in and talked about putting people’s creative work into Beyond Good and Evil 2 (at least, that’s what I recalled)--didn’t really go into details on the incentives though.

For Honor got a new update featuring Chinese warriors into the mix, and they’re making the game available for free to grab for a limited time until June-18-2018.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 was showed again but explained a little more there, it looked interesting despite feeling like another generic rpg shooter. It looked interesting, they mention how they’ll do season updates throughout the year for free and I thought that’s cool. I do hope they’ll do well on this one.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas was showed a bit more again there and good golly they made a surprise with Star Fox crashing the scene, especially making Fox McCloud being playable with his Arwing. Pretty slick. Yves Guillemot even made a surprise by giving Shigeru Miyamoto a gift and I thought that was adorable.

The DLC for Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle that features Donkey Kong was shown there, looks neat but didn’t show much, it was explained in further details during the Nintendo Treehouse though.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was announced there and it’s surprising to me considering that Origins was out since last year. It looks pretty I’ll say that much. You can also play between two characters in the game: Alexios and Kassandra. It also looks like they’re making the game very action rpg-esque, kind of like Origins.

PC GAMING SHOW

This flipping conference went on for WAY too long. 2 hours for crying out loud! I also fell asleep halfway through or something because many of the things they showed there weren’t fascinating to me.

Satisfactory won the award for the punniest game title.

Lot’s of SEGA games are coming to PC, ones that caught my attention being Shenmue I & II and Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0.

Untitled Publisher, a publisher that’s new to me announced 3 new indie games--2 of which I found the most interesting: Bravery Network Online and Overwhelm.

The game Maneater is basically a game about you being a shark and I have an iffy feeling it’ll shed a bad light on sharks for the public (I hope not).

Took so long for them to show Ooblets, a game that I’m very excited for, showed a new trailer though it showed some things. Wished there was more though.

SONY

The conference kicks out with The Last of Us: Part 2. Ellie is pissed as hell and I have no idea why and I’m scared. She also kissed a girl so that’s something. It kind of caught me off guard because I didn’t follow the previous game and its DLCs, so the whole information of Ellie being a lesbian is pretty new.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is revealed and it looks slick. The fact that Capcom released and announced games lately that actually looked cool as heck is wild. Hope it goes well for them in this one as well as DMC5!

This year’s E3 Conference showed off not one, but THREE samurai games; two of which were shown off in Sony’s conference: Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh 2. Not complaining, they all look slick.

Kingdom Hearts 3 also appeared in this year’s E3 Conference not once, but THREE times as well at different conferences. I should’ve mentioned before that every trailer did show something different, with the one in Sony having the most difference. It looks like Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to have Ratatouille and Pirates of the Carribean joining in.

I remember wanting to see more of Death Stranding and know what the heck the game’s about, and they showed some gameplay footage during the presentation. Still have no clue what it’s going to be about though.

There’s a weird looking game called Control, something to do about a girl with a gun who has telekinesis. Looks minimalistic and clean; it might be good too.

Spiderman features a handful of villains beating up on Spidey in the end. It’s a gameplay footage and oddly I don’t feel that intrigued by the trailer for some reason.

NINTENDO

Surprisingly not a lot of big games were announced on Nintendo Direct. I’ll say it here and now that the majority of the Nintendo Direct is mainly for the new Super Smash Bros. Aptly named as Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Needless to say, a lot of people were happy and so was I; though I’m surprised and mildly sad they didn’t show anything about Metroid Prime 4.

The first thing they showed was a mech game called Daemon X Machina. I first thought it was Armored Core, but the surprising part is I somewhat half-correct. The game was actually made by the same people who made Armored Core! Pretty funny to me considering that the design of the mechs in Daemon X Machina and Armored Core looked very similar. The trailer was wicked sick too so I’m sold.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 got a new DLC called Torna: The Golden Country that is available this September, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses is also announced to come out next year. So I’m sure the fans of those series would be very excited.

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee got a small spotlight there, but it’s mostly on the accessory Pokeball Plus. Turns out, every Pokeball Plus comes with a Mew for free inside; which to me is basically a way to make people want to buy the accessory then (that’s marketing ploy right there). This is interesting to me because it reminds me of the message in the last Let’s Go trailer that mentioned: “you’ll meet a special Pokemon”. This could either mean Mew or something else. So we’ll see.

Fortnite is on Switch, not a surprising thing to me and I think it’s good for the game and the devs who made it. I personally think Epic Games deserve the success with their game in my opinion.

Overcooked 2 is coming soon and now features online co-op which is great! Killer Queen Black looks interesting and my personal favorite Hollow Knight is finally out the day the Direct was on! If you’re into metroidvanias I highly recommend Hollow Knight very easily--the game is generally worth having as well in my opinion.

Super Mario Party was also revealed and I’m genuinely happy; it would feel weird for a Nintendo console to not have a Mario Party game. It also has a Goombah as a playable character there too!

The Direct also bust out a montage of games; the ones that caught my attention were Dragon Ball FighterZ, The World Ends With You, Splatoon 2 Octo-Expansion, Wastelands 2 Directors Cut, Megaman 11, Paladins: Champions of the Realm, Arena of Valor, and Ninjala.

Now for the big one. Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The announcement was great and crazy long, and you can definitely tell that Masahiro Sakurai and the devs were busy when they made this game. It’s essentially a port of the Wii U, but it’s brand new and it adds so many things it might as well be a new game. The game’s biggest feature is the fact that they’re having ALL of the characters throughout the history of Smash Bros. ever; being someone who got introduced to the series since Brawl, seeing Snake and many other old characters was super cool.

They also showed off new characters as well. Princess Daisy is finally in Smash and that was very exciting to me; she’s treated as something called Echo Fighters, which is a fancy term of a character that is a clone but with some variations (other Echo Fighters being Lucina and Dark Pit). They showcased Inkling and what they can do, and in the end, they announced Ridley from Metroid.

END

And thus concludes the many things I found interesting in 2018 E3 Conference. I think this year’s E3 Conference has been rather modest as so many of the games are mainly coming out next year--and these are the ones that are meteoric as well. As to who won E3, well that’s beyond me, especially considering all the factors on what makes someone win E3. If you’re talking about the number of games revealed, I’d say Microsoft. If regarding the games released in 2018, I’d say Nintendo. Either way, I just want to see great games that are fun for people to play with. If the anyone can have a good time and be genuinely happy with a game; then that’s a win in my book.

2 notes · View notes

anniekoh · 7 years

Text

black feminist futures reading list

[Photo of a conference attendee and child from the Black Feminist Futures Symposium 2016]

Via Black Perspectives - African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) Blog - the Black Feminist Futures Reading List of books published in 2016 that were compiled for the Black Feminist Futures Symposium at Northwestern University.

I’m listing the ten books that caught my eye in particular but check out the whole list, which originally appeared in BCALA Newsletter (Spring 2017). The book titles link to their WorldCat entry, per the original list, but I added the book descriptions and those link to the publisher’s page.

Adams, Betty L. Black Women’s Christian Activism: Seeking Social Justice in a Northern Suburb. NY: New York University Press, 2016.

Book description: When a domestic servant named Violet Johnson moved to the affluent white suburb of Summit, New Jersey in 1897, she became one of just barely a hundred black residents in the town of six thousand. In this avowedly liberal Protestant community, the very definition of “the suburbs” depended on observance of unmarked and fluctuating race and class barriers. But Johnson did not intend to accept the status quo. Establishing a Baptist church a year later, a seemingly moderate act that would have implications far beyond weekly worship, Johnson challenged assumptions of gender and race, advocating for a politics of civic righteousness that would grant African Americans an equal place in a Christian nation. Johnson’s story is powerful, but she was just one among the many working-class activists integral to the budding days of the civil rights movement.

... Adams examines the oft overlooked role of non-elite black women in the growth of northern suburbs and American Protestantism in the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the strategies and organizational models church women employed in the fight for social justice, Adams tracks the intersections of politics and religion, race and gender, and place and space in a New York City suburb, a local example that offers new insights on northern racial oppression and civil rights protest.

Carastathis, Anna. Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016.

Book description: Through a close reading of critical race theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s germinal texts, published more than twenty-five years ago, Carastathis urges analytic clarity, contextual rigor, and a politicized, historicized understanding of this widely traveling concept. Intersectionality’s roots in social justice movements and critical intellectual projects—specifically Black feminism—must be retraced and synthesized with a decolonial analysis so its radical potential to actualize coalitions can be enacted.

Cooper, Brittney, Morris, Susana M., and Boylorn, Robin M. The Crunk Feminist Collection. NY: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2017.

Book description: For the Crunk Feminist Collective, their academic day jobs were lacking in conversations they actually wanted to have—relevant, real conversations about how race and gender politics intersect with pop culture and current events. To address this void, they started a blog. Now with an annual readership of nearly one million, their posts foster dialogue about activist methods, intersectionality, and sisterhood. And the writers' personal identities—as black women; as sisters, daughters, and lovers; and as television watchers, sports fans, and music lovers—are never far from the discussion at hand.

These essays explore "Sex and Power in the Black Church," discuss how "Clair Huxtable Is Dead," list "Five Ways Talib Kweli Can Become a Better Ally to Women in Hip Hop," and dwell on "Dating with a Doctorate (She Got a Big Ego?)." Self-described as "critical homegirls," the authors tackle life stuck between loving hip hop and ratchet culture while hating patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism.

Haley, Sarah. No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

Book description: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries imprisoned black women faced wrenching forms of gendered racial terror and heinous structures of economic exploitation. Subjugated as convict laborers and forced to serve additional time as domestic workers before they were allowed their freedom, black women faced a pitiless system of violence, terror, and debasement. Drawing upon black feminist criticism and a diverse array of archival materials, Sarah Haley uncovers imprisoned women’s brutalization in local, county, and state convict labor systems, while also illuminating the prisoners’ acts of resistance and sabotage, challenging ideologies of racial capitalism and patriarchy and offering alternative conceptions of social and political life.

A landmark history of black women’s imprisonment in the South, this book recovers stories of the captivity and punishment of black women to demonstrate how the system of incarceration was crucial to organizing the logics of gender and race, and constructing Jim Crow modernity.

Harris, LaShawn. Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2016.

Book description: During the early twentieth century, a diverse group of African American women carved out unique niches for themselves within New York City's expansive informal economy. LaShawn Harris illuminates the labor patterns and economic activity of three perennials within this kaleidoscope of underground industry: sex work, numbers running for gambling enterprises, and the supernatural consulting business.Mining police and prison records, newspaper accounts, and period literature, Harris teases out answers to essential questions about these women and their working lives. She also offers a surprising revelation. Harris argues that the underground economy catalyzed working-class black women's creation of the employment opportunities, occupational identities, and survival strategies that provided them with financial stability and a sense of labor autonomy and mobility. At the same time, Harris shows, urban black women strove for economic and social prospects and pleasures, and in the process experienced the conspicuous and hidden dangers associated with newfound labor opportunities.

Hogan, Kristen. The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

Book description: From the 1970s through the 1990s more than one hundred feminist bookstores built a transnational network that helped shape some of feminism's most complex conversations. Kristen Hogan traces the feminist bookstore movement's rise and eventual fall, restoring its radical work to public feminist memory. The bookwomen at the heart of this story—mostly lesbians and including women of color—measured their success not by profit, but by developing theories and practices of lesbian antiracism and feminist accountability. At bookstores like BookWoman in Austin, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, and Old Wives’ Tales in San Francisco, and in the essential Feminist Bookstore News, bookwomen changed people’s lives and the world. In retelling their stories, Hogan not only shares the movement's tools with contemporary queer antiracist feminist activists and theorists, she gives us a vocabulary, strategy, and legacy for thinking through today's feminisms.

Morris, Monique W. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. NY: The New Press, 2016.

Book description: In a work that Lisa Delpit calls “imperative reading,” Monique W. Morris (Black Stats, Too Beautiful for Words) chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Called “compelling” and “thought-provoking” by Kirkus Reviews, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.Called a book “for everyone who cares about children” by the Washington Post, Morris’s illumination of these critical issues is “timely and important” (Booklist) at a moment when Black girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system.

Romeo, Sharon. Gender and the Jubilee: Black Freedom and the Reconstruction of Citizenship in Civil War Missouri. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2016.

Book description: Gender and the Jubilee is a bold reconceptualization of black freedom during the Civil War that uncovers the political and constitutional claims made by African American women. By analyzing the actions of women in the urban environment of St. Louis and the surrounding areas of rural Missouri, Romeo uncovers the confluence of military events, policy changes, and black agency that shaped the gendered paths to freedom and citizenship.During the turbulent years of the Civil War crisis, African American women asserted their vision of freedom through a multitude of strategies. They took concerns ordinarily under the jurisdiction of civil courts, such as assault and child custody, and transformed them into military matters. African American women petitioned military police for “free papers”; testified against former owners; fled to contraband camps; and “joined the army” with their male relatives, serving as cooks, laundresses, and nurses.Freedwomen, and even enslaved women, used military courts to lodge complaints against employers and former masters, sought legal recognition of their marriages, and claimed pensions as the widows of war veterans. Through military venues, African American women in a state where the institution of slavery remained unmolested by the Emancipation Proclamation, demonstrated a claim on citizenship rights well before they would be guaranteed through the establishment of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Sanders, Crystal. A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

Book description: In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. Women who had previously worked as domestics and sharecroppers secured jobs through CDGM as teachers and support staff and earned higher wages. The availability of jobs independent of the local white power structure afforded these women the freedom to vote in elections and petition officials without fear of reprisal. But CDGM’s success antagonized segregationists at both the local and state levels who eventually defunded it.Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders’s book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state’s closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.

Threadcraft, Shatema. Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Book description: In 1973, the year the women's movement won an important symbolic victory with Roe v. Wade, reports surfaced that twelve-year-old Minnie Lee Relf and her fourteen-year-old sister Mary Alice, the daughters of black Alabama farm hands, had been sterilized without their or their parents' knowledge or consent. Just as women's ability to control reproduction moved to the forefront of the feminist movement, the Relf sisters' plight stood as a reminder of the ways in which the movement's accomplishments had diverged sharply along racial lines. Thousands of forced sterilizations were performed on black women during this period, convincing activists in the Black Power, civil rights and women's movements that they needed to address, pointedly, the racial injustices surrounding equal access to reproductive labor and intimate life in America. As horrific as the Relf tragedy was, it fit easily within a set of critical events within black women's sexual and reproductive history in America, which black feminists argue began with coerced reproduction and enforced child neglect in the period of enslavement. Intimate Justice charts the long and still incomplete path to black female intimate freedom and equality--a path marked by infanticides, sexual terrorism, race riots, coerced sterilizations and racially biased child removal policies. In order to challenge prevailing understandings of freedom and equality, Shatema Threadcraft considers the troubled status of black female intimate life during four moments: antebellum slavery, Reconstruction, the nadir, and the civil rights and women's movement eras.

#feminism #black feminism #critical race theory #african american studies #reproductive justice #american history #education #reconstruction #jim crow #intersectionality #social justice #criminalization #to read #reading list

4 notes · View notes

normanregg-blog · 5 years

Photo

Looking for things to do in Sydney? Australia’s largest city has no shortage of fun, family-friendly activities throughout the year! Watch one of the world’s most incredible fireworks shows on New Year’s Eve, see the city light up like never before during Vivid Sydney, and indulge your tastebuds during Good Food Month.

These are the 10 best events and festivals in Sydney:

1. New Year’s Eve

December Join one of the world’s biggest parties at Sydney New Year’s Eve, famous for its spectacular fireworks display on Sydney Harbour. Many of the city’s hotels get into the spirit with festive New Year’s Eve events, special meals, and accommodation packages.

New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Sydney. Image: Destination New South Wales

2. Australia Day

January Celebrating Australia Day in Sydney is a can’t-miss event! It’s a day of fun for all, with much of the action taking place on and around Sydney Harbour. The day includes a range of performances taking place in the city’s finest outdoor locations, including Hyde Park, Darling Harbour, and the Sydney Opera House. Other highlights include the ever-popular Ferrython races and a fireworks extravaganza at Darling Harbour. And of course, you can celebrate with the locals at many of the pubs in town.

3. Sydney Festival

January The epic Sydney Festival comes alive for 3 weeks in January with city-wide performances taking place by over 1,000 artists, including international headliners. Performances are held all over the city, from Carriageworks to the Riverside Theatre to the Sydney Opera House itself. You may see burlesque dancers performing in a circus extravaganza one day and catch the Sydney Symphony delighting crowds the next.

4. Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

March Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is the world’s most joyous and spectacular celebration of LGBTQ+ pride. The event attracts over 20,000 visitors each year, who enjoy a diverse and exciting line-up of events culminating in a dazzling parade.

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. Image: Destination New South Wales

5. Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour

March – April Each year, the iconic Sydney Opera House puts on a spectacular show outdoors at Sydney Harbour. Raise a glass as the sun sets and drink in the view as you share a meal in one of the 5 bars and restaurants onsite. Then sit back to enjoy the enthralling show, complete with live orchestra hidden beneath the dramatic stage and state-of-the-art sound design so you’ll hear every note.

“Aida” performed at Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Image: Destination New South Wales

6. Sydney Comedy Festival

April – May The Sydney Comedy Festival is Sydney’s biggest annual comedy event, featuring performances from the finest Australian acts, the biggest international stars, and the most promising emerging talent. Every April and May, hundreds of the world’s funniest comedians take to stages across Sydney to entertain an audience of more than 120,000 people.

7. Vivid Sydney

May – June Witness the city of Sydney transform into a canvas for brilliant light installations and projections during Vivid Sydney. The annual event attracts more than 2.3 million visitors, and sees historic sights—including the Sydney Opera House, Customs House, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Taronga Zoo—illuminated in brilliant color. The program also includes big-ticket music performances, creative conferences, talks, and workshops.

Vivid Sydney lights up the city. Image: Destination New South Wales

8. Good Food Month

October Good Food Month is the world’s largest food festival, with everything from fine dining to free, family-friendly outdoor gatherings. The much-loved Let’s Do Lunch portion of the festival serves up Sydney’s introduces fabulous prix fixe menus at Hatted restaurants (the equivalent of a Michelen star). Meanwhile, the Night Noodle Markets transform Hyde Park into a bustling Asian street food festival each evening.

9. Sculpture by the Sea

October – November Photographers and art lovers won’t want to miss this annual event featuring surrealistic sculptures and stunning ocean views! Each year, 2 km (1.2 miles) of the Bondi to Bronte Coastal Walk is transformed into a public sculpture park. The park extends from Bondi to Tamarama Beach and is on display for 3 weeks, featuring 100 sculptures by artists from Australia and across the world. A variety of walking routes are available for all mobility levels.

“Horizon” sculpture by Mu Boyan during Sculpture by the Sea. Image: Destination New South Wales

10. Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

December The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has become one of the most popular and exciting yacht racing events in the world. It kicks off each year on Boxing Day in Sydney and finishes in Hobart, Tasmania. Join the festivities and watch the impressive vessels in Sydney Harbour from the Opera House or Mrs. Maquerie’s Point.

The beginning of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Image: Destination New South Wales

Want to experience all that Sydney has to offer? Find inspiration with our Australia travel packages, or give our travel specialists a call at (888) 229-0082 to start planning your handcrafted trip of a lifetime!

The post Top 10 Events and Festivals in Sydney appeared first on Down Under Endeavours.

0 notes

confessionsfromachristian · 4 years

Link

Story time! It’s long, so my reflections are under the cut.

TLDR: I’m hopeful but cautious. This may be what keeps the UMC a viable denomination, if it can pass General Conference 2020, because right now we’re a church of divided theology, and neither side is going to compromise their beliefs.

Long before I left my former church, back in 2015, I was at church preparing for the following week’s VBS when I got a news alert on my phone about the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges. At the time, I kept my elation mostly to myself - I didn’t know how the pastor at the time would feel about it, and I didn’t want anything to dampen my mood. Just over two months prior, I had defended my undergraduate thesis, which argued that bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, and proposed one thread of reasoning that I thought the Court might reasonably adopt, and while my research advisor and my thesis advisor had both thought I was dead wrong, I was pleased to be proven right (and, of course, pleased that the Court was taking steps to fix what seemed to me to be an ongoing injustice in the United States).

See, I had left the Catholic church, in part, over the same-sex marriage issue. While I’m not LGBTQ+ myself, I felt that the issue was one of fundamental fairness and compassion - and it was important to me that it be resolved. The Methodist church also didn’t support LGBTQ+ rights, but it had always seemed less vehement about it than the Catholic church, so I always kind of just hoped that the change was coming.

In 2016, with the same-sex marriage issue broiling in advance of General Conference, I took an interest in how the UMC underwent changes for the first time. My pastor’s encouragement of that interest started me on the path toward serving at Annual Conference in my area, but I read news from General Conference 2016 praying for a resolution. The debate, and the protests, left an impression on me, and I had real hope heading into my Annual Conference that year that the compromise - the Way Forward Commission - could actually work.

At Annual Conference, I heard the story of bishops meeting late at night, summoning people from both sides of the debate, to try and find a way to avoid a schism. And at the time, “schism” was a scary word - could the UMC survive a split? I also encountered the Reconciling Ministries Network for the first time. They gave me a rainbow stole; I wore it happily. I also saw my pastor wear one, and for the first time I really believed, not just hoped, that change was on the horizon.

Things stagnated, then, though I had the pleasure of getting to really know a woman who brought their adopted daughter to Children’s Church every Sunday, and occasionally her former foster daughter as well. She was in a lesbian relationship, and especially after I started law school she opened up to me frequently about how frustrating it was for her and her partner to constantly be viewed with more suspicion than an average straight couple. It was one of the reasons, she implied, that her partner didn’t regularly attend church.

In came a new pastor. He was friends with our former pastor, so I had high hopes for him. As my previous posts will display, the hopes were misplaced on a personal level, but we actually had somewhat compatible politics. The Way Forward Commission came out with their three plans.

The Traditional Plan would retain anti-LGBTQ+ language in the Book of Discipline, and strengthen disciplinary measures against gay and lesbian clergy members.

The Connectional Conference Plan would form three sub-churches: one for traditionalists, one for progressives, and one for “unity”-minded churches and clergy.

The One Church Plan would remove the anti-LGBTQ+ language and permit local churches and clergy to express their conscience on the matter.

And in February of 2019, a special session of the General Conference voted on the Traditional and One Church Plans. I had school obligations those days; I ignored a good chunk of my classes to follow the news. I knew - I just knew - that the One Church Plan would succeed. I had already formulated my arguments to my local church as to why we should embrace our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. It was the perfect compromise; I never expected it to fail.

But General Conference 2019 voted it down. At the time, this is what I wrote, and I stand by it today when I think back on it:

“I cannot fathom a church that would choose divisiveness and alienation over compromise and compassion. We waited three years in the hope of progress. The delegates gave us nothing but regression.

The United Methodist Church is dying, at least in the United States. Fewer and fewer people are joining. More are leaving. I don’t understand the reasoning behind choosing to alienate and reject people who are begging for inclusion and acceptance.”

The next day, Reconciling Ministries tweeted that they had been informed by the General Conference staff that the area now had “police with their guns and security with pepper spray (or similar) roaming and ready for action.” What it sounded like - and sometimes appearances are everything - was a violent precautionary measure, aimed at intimidating those who had supported the One Church Plan, and who vehemently opposed the Traditional plan, so that those who wanted inclusion and compassion would sit down, shut up, and take what was coming quietly. I felt sick at the time, and still feel sick thinking about it now.

I was in class during the vote on the Traditional Plan, ignoring my professor as I watched Twitter and Facebook for the news. And by the time I got home, I had recognized why passing the Traditional Plan bothered me so much: John 8:3-11.

For those who aren’t Bible buffs, John 8:3-11 recounts the story of the Pharisees bringing Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery, then punishable by stoning. When the Pharisees demand that Jesus tell them what to do, he famously responds: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Of course, no one could live up to Jesus’s standard. Those hoping to stone the woman disperse and, when the woman observes that her accusers have left, Jesus sends her on her way: “Neither do I condemn you.”

Back in February, I summed it up like this, and I can’t really think of a better way to phrase it now:

“To declare that clergy members who do their earnest best to live the life God calls them to live should be punished because we disagree with their moral determinations is arrogant. We allow liars to be clergy. We allow those who speak unkindly to be clergy. We allow it, even if these sins happen more than once.

Why is the sin of loving the wrong person worse than lying? Worse than being unkind? And even if you believe that the sin is worse, who are we as humans to overrule what Jesus said about justice and mercy?

In my heart of hearts, I can find no rationale for pushing to increase enforcement of the anti-LGBT language in the Book of Discipline other than hatred for that which the Traditional Plan’s supporters do not understand. Jesus calls for compassion; and, as a church, we have no right to ignore that call.”

As time wore on, I observed one more thing: if God calls a lesbian woman, or a gay man, or anyone else, to the clergy, who are we as humans to deny that calling? Who are we to tell God that he called the wrong person? How arrogant and presumptuous must we be under the Traditional Plan?

In February, things were drawing toward the end at my church. But in the days following General Conference 2019, I found myself heartened by the message on the marquee sign outside: “ALL MEANS ALL.” My pastor signed an open letter to the church condemning the Traditional Plan, and one of the women in the church whom I’d thought was genuinely a good friend told me that she, too, was broken over the decision, but had resolved to fight for something better.

My co-teacher and I made the decision on Sunday to talk to the kids about the decision of the General Conference. It was difficult - remember, one of our students had lesbian parents - but, we felt, it was necessary. And I have never been more inspired than when our little kids expressed their confusion and outrage over a decision that, to them, made no sense. One little girl expressed confusion at how something as basic as the freedom to love someone and get married to them could be controversial.

The little acts of resistance, the outrage from the kids, it all came together to reignite my own hope.

In the months that followed, just about everyone expressed their opinions. In the Washington Post, a queer clergywoman summed it up: “We queer clergy begged our fellow Methodists to love us. They voted no.” On Facebook groups, on Reddit, and in person, the heretofore forbidden s-words became more common: splitting. separation. schism.

A prominent minister on the traditionalist side, less than a month after “winning” at General Conference 2019, made clear that unity, compromise, and compassion were never an option. Mainstream UMC posted his e-mail in full - in summary, he gloated over the traditionalist win at General Conference 2019, and suggested that those who opposed it should leave, as their continued presence in the UMC is an embarrassment.

And talk of schism, and of separation, has continued to simmer, until now. Now, the water’s reached its boiling point. We have a plan. We have the Way Forward we were promised. And at General Conference 2020, at least the way I see it, the delegates have two options: stop the pot from boiling over, or ignore the problem and hope we can clean up the mess in 2024.

Membership in the Methodist Church in the United States has been dropping for years. Increasingly, young adults looking for churches veer away from churches that preach or even merely accept exclusion and intolerance. Splitting the church, accepting that we cannot compromise on issues of love and compassion, seems to me to be the only way to prove that we mean it when we say “Jesus is Love.” It seems to me that this is the only way to prove that we’re convinced of our own beliefs, that we’re serious about welcoming everyone, that we’re a church of love, and inclusion, and protection of human dignity.

So long as it passes.

#christian #methodist #united methodist #united methodist church #christianity #gay rights #diversity #news #christian news #umc news #methodist news #gc2020 #umc split #methodist split #methodism #general conference 2020

0 notes

garynsmith · 7 years

Text

Marriage Equality and Its Impact on Real Estate

http://ift.tt/2wmusJn

It has been a bit more than two years since Jim Obergefell, a former Coldwell Banker West Shell agent in Cincinnati who has since moved to Washington, D.C., won his landmark Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, that made marriage equality the law of the land.

Those of us in the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP) were obviously thrilled that one of our own members led the fight that changed our nation—but we also knew the decision would ultimately pay major dividends in the real estate industry.

Think about it. Homeownership has always been predicated by the circle of life. Marriages, kids, more kids, new jobs, promotions, divorces and so many other events trigger home-buying and -selling. While the LGBT community—and so many others—cheered the simple act of marriage equality, we knew there was so much more coming on the horizon.

And now it is here.

Our LGBT Real Estate Report for 2017 showcases how the real estate industry is poised to reap massive benefits from the 2015 Supreme Court decision.

Our report shows that 47 percent of NAGLREP members believe LGBT couples are buying more homes than prior to the decision and 46 percent believe the entirety of the LGBT community is more interested in homeownership.

And, as you might expect, marriage is leading to children. Nearly 60 percent of NAGLREP members are reporting an increase of LGBTs with children, which may be why 29 percent believe that more LGBTs will move out of urban centers.

Our study found that job change/relocation is the clear driver, followed by retirement, marriage, engagement and children. Divorce and death of a spouse and partner are also on the list.

Here is another exciting development: The LGBT community desires larger and better homes. Nearly 50 percent of our surveyed members report that, of their LGBT clients, move-up buyers will dominate downsizers by an almost three-to-one margin in the near future.

And don’t forget: the LGBT community has almost $1 trillion in annual buying power, which is more than the Asian-American population, according to Witeck Communications.

Embracing the LGBT community seems like a really smart business decision, and I also urge you to consider the power of NAGLREP members. The report found that our members are working heavily in the real estate sweet spot of Gen Xers (35-54), but, more importantly, our members dwarf the productivity of what NAR reports for its members in experience, transaction sides, sales volume and earnings. The comparisons are staggering:

NAGLREP is celebrating our 10th anniversary with explosive growth. We now have more than 1,500 national members, which includes a year-over-year increase of new members by 30 percent. We have thriving chapters in such markets as San Francisco, San Diego, Austin, Denver, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, New York City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa/ St. Petersburg and Kentucky. You can easily become involved by joining at NAGLREP.com.

I also urge you to consider attending our fourth annual conference in Palm Springs on October 17-19. It will be the largest LGBT and allies event in real estate history, with 700 expected.

I have been so impressed over the years of how the real estate industry has embraced NAGLREP. Clearly, the support starts with NAR and in the who’s who of corporate and media partners we have, including RISMedia. We also see the interest at the grassroots level in state and local real estate associations.

I strongly believe that those who embrace the LGBT community will continue to reap great rewards, because we are just beginning to realize the enormity of how marriage equality will change our lives and our home-buying and -selling needs.

Jeff Berger is the founder of the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP).

For more information, please visit www.naglrep.com.

For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

The post Marriage Equality and Its Impact on Real Estate appeared first on RISMedia.

from News | RISMedia http://ift.tt/2vtNZuX via IFTTT

0 notes