#especially considering we no longer die at 50
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Looking at Invader Zim age discourse trying to claim that X number of years in one species's lifespan is the equivalent of 1 human year makes all of my brain cells want to commit die. It's "Loki is 16" all over again. I'm begging yall to get off social media and take a science class cause Jesus Christ how do you function in society being this ignorant?
Different species do not mature at the same rate relative to their lifespan. Grogu being a toddler for 50 years is not a thing that actually happens in nature.
Let's look at dogs for a second. It's commonly said that a dog ages 7 years per 1 human year. Most dogs live about 10-13 years, or 70-91 years, which sounds about right, doesn't it? But some dogs live to see 20-31, or 140-217, way longer than any human has ever lived. But let's also consider their early development. Dogs can start walking after just a couple of weeks while human babies take several months. Dogs can reach adulthood and sexual maturity in less than a year. Some 7 year old children do experience premature puberty, but this is far from being the norm and does not mean they are fully mature adults. Additionally, it is said that a fully adult dog only has the cognition of a 3-5 year-old human child. No matter which way you look at it, you can not equate the way a dog matures and ages to human development and lifespan.
Most newborn animal species, regardless of how long or short their lives are, are much further along in their development than human babies are, closer to toddlers than infants. Many are able to walk or crawl within a few days or even minutes after birth. Compared to most animal babies, human babies would be considered extremely premature.
With Zim, we saw onscreen that as a newborn he could walk, stand upright, jump, grab and hold things, and speak, more like a human 3-5 year-old than an infant. If we were going by the logic of "1 Irken year is 10 human years" that goes around in fanon, 10-year-old Zim should still be a baby, only barely be able to walk, pick up objects, and say a few words. But in the unfinished episode The Trial, concept art for 10-year-old Zim shows him looking like about what you'd expect the actual Irken equivalent of a 10-year-old to look like; taller than a newborn, but smaller than an adult, which for Irkens doesn't get much taller than a human 12-year-old with rare exceptions. There really is no basis what-so-ever to assume that Zim has only developed to the equivalent of 12 or 16, especially when he has a job in the military and lives on his own with no supervision. I don't know why anybody who headcanons that for shipping reasons would even want that to be the case when by that logic it would mean Dib and Gaz and any other human characters they want to pair him with would very quickly grow up to be adults while he remained a child.
In most cases, when dealing with extremely long-lived fantasy/sci-fi races, if the rate of aging is addressed at all, it is much more likely that the characters develop at the same rate as humans until they reach their 20s, at which point they'd be fully mature physically and from then on their bodies would simply not break down and display signs of aging as quickly as a humans. It makes no sense for a humanoid species to remain in a state of helpless infancy for decades or spend hundreds of years going through puberty. The only times you'll usually ever see something like that in fiction is if it's being played for a joke, or because the writers actually wanted to address how messed-up it would be to be to go through developmental stages like that for so long. Usually it's not even a matter of aging, the characters are just vampires or androids or something stuck at whatever age for eternity, yearning to grow up but never being able to.
Keep in mind however, that physical age and maturity are separate things. There's no reason to think that just because a character is immortal or long-lived that they mature as slowly as they age. Maturity has a lot more to do with life experience than physical growth, especially once your brain finishes developing at around 25. Often in fiction, when dealing with an immortal adolescent, being condescended to as if they were a child is a source of great frustration because they do have the mind of an adult. On the flip side, even in real life some people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s may be stuck in a state of arrested development, with teenagers surpassing their level of maturity.
My personal interpretation of Zim is that he's a manchild. He probably aged more or less like a human until his 20s and then stayed physically 20-25 for decades or centuries until the time the show takes place. He's just so immature he finds his equal in a 12-year-old human child. However, if he were to stay on earth long enough, I could see him maturing along with his peers at skool and starting to act more his age when they get into their 20s, (assuming he actually follows them to hi skool and college and doesn't just keep repeating 6th grade forever). If he stuck around Dib and Gaz into their 30s and beyond, I could see him continuing to match their level of maturity into their old age while he remains physically young.
If you have a problem with Zim being canonically an adult pretending to be a child, I don't know what to tell you guys. Like, if you think it's sad, that's the point. Literally, in the commentary for Mortos, Jhonen says that's the joke. That Zim's "basically an old man" getting into slap-fights with actual children and it's funny because it's so pathetic. If you think it's creepy, that's also kinda the point. He's a villain. The fact that he's not even human and that he's plotting the demise of the human race is already disturbing. He steals a bunch of children's organs in like, the third episode. He used time-traveling rubber piggies to maim and eventually kill Dib starting from when he was a toddler and then took a victory sip after watching the life leave his eyes. The entire concept of Zim is inherently sinister and predatory. But at the same time, Zim being a sexual threat is completely off the table. Canonically, he's aroace. He has no reproductive organs and no sex drive. He finds humans repulsive, and between that, his germophobia, and general paranoia it would be far more in-character for him to be terrified of the prospect of unwanted sexual advances than to be a sexual predator himself. That's why I don't think anybody thought too hard about Zim trying to woo Tak when he thought she was an actual human child, and why you shouldn't either. Yes, he had ill intentions toward her, because he is a bad guy, but those intentions were entirely chaste. Zim is not a threat to children because he might try to manipulate them into inappropriate relationships, he's a threat to children because he might manipulate them into helping him enslave their race.
There's no need to hand-wring about problematic age discourse. We're talking about a horror comedy that was cancelled two decades ago where the prospect of romance was never on the table to begin with. There is no such thing as a canon-compliant romance fanfic, and all fanfic by definition is non-canon anyway so it doesn't even matter. Make the characters whatever ages you want and tweak their characterization or circumstances in whatever ways you need to make whatever the fuck story you wanna tell work. It's all make-believe anyway. You don't need to make up fake quotes or deny or creatively interpret real quotes or bend yourselves into pretzels to prove the age headcanons you use to justify why you do or don't like a ship.
But for fucks sake, if you're gonna go there at least pretend like you know a single goddamned thing about the way aging, development, and maturity work before you unironically make talking points following the same logic as "According to my calculations, this character first portrayed by Tom Hiddleston at age 29 is actually 16".
#invader zim#age discourse#about fictional characters#is so fucking stupid#like#i can't even believe some of the stuff you people say with a straight face#zadr#zadf
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i’m going to start. fucking. SCREAMING.
so, my university has a summer program which invites undergraduates from underrepresented and underserved communities in STEM fields to come and work in a lab for 8-10 weeks. they get paired with a lab where they’ll have an advisor and a “big sibling” grad student mentor.
they get a biweekly stipend as part of their experience here, to allow them to pay for food and fun and to replace the loss of income from another summer job.
anyway. we are now a few weeks into the program. the students were supposed to be paid at the very start of the program 2.5 wks ago, to offset food and travel costs and to tide them over until the dining halls opened for the summer session. as of yesterday, they should have received 2 payments (and reimbursement for travel costs, though that often takes longer).
as of this morning, my mentee had received no payments. zero. zip. nada. fortunately, they had family and savings to rely on, but i cannot emphasize enough how much this program is specifically targeted at underrepresented minorities, which of course includes all kinds of situations which may make having savings or other safety difficult to impossible.
afaik, my mentee and the rest of their cohort have all been paid both stipend amounts as of late afternoon TODAY, as in, they were paid FINALLY today after SOME OF THE STUDENTS (and my own advisor who emailed instead of allowing me to send out an extremely feral email myself, which. understandable) but in my opinion it is too little too fucking late. they deserve back pay AT LEAST. but it’s just so fucking emblematic of the problem STEM has with understanding the difference between recruiting and keeping minorities in STEM, particularly in academia.
you can probably guess the demographic of the program heads, but i’ll tell you anyway: they’re a handful of white male tenured faculty between the ages of 50-80, mostly PhDs or MD/PhDs making well over 100k a year. some of them, 200k. i want to tear my hair out because this is the problem. this is the cause of the problems academia is having with life science students (i am specifying because this is my field - not that it isn’t a problem in other disciplines!) especially women and people of color fleeing en masse as soon as they graduate. or leaving before they graduate because this system is not built to consider anyone but the stereotypical white, wealthy, able-bodied person, especially males.
when i die i want academics to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one final time. i am - we are - SO FUCKING OVER the blatant disregard and disrespect. anyway i will be tearing several people a creative range of new assholes in the IMMINENT future.
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Ask box is empty? Oh we can't have that. Give me your headcanons. Make em embarrassing for your characters. Literally just the stuff that would make them scream and rush to silence whoever spoke them.
SILVER HOW ARE U SO FUCKING FAST????? Color coding just bc this might get cluttered
Cinder and Fae both have the same taste in women so they are terrible wingmen for each other (not for lack of trying) It's just that since Cinder flounders talking to pretty women and Fae freezes, they're too paralyzed to be any help. WHEEZE.
Flora had a lisp as a young child
Wars had braces as a kid and don't ask me how that works but he'd rather die before u knew (and Mizu is now informing me that they are magic braces w tiny rupee shapes. Would that be sharp? It'd be cute)
Time told several of Lullaby's guards that babies came from plants as a seventeen year old and Malon had Talon give him the talk. He still doesn't look any of those particular guards in the eyes when he sees them and he takes every pain to avoid talking to them. He told them with confidence. With his whole chest.
Wild has had several several SEVERAL MANY MANY adventuring mishaps and only talks about some of them. Let's just say that... trying to shield surf off hebra peak and tumbling all the way down, and attempting to ride a dragon only to fall off and hit every single spike on the way down as they ragdoll due to elemental effects... Those don't make the cut, to just name a couple
Twi has had SEVERAL times where he has done a wolf mannerism as a human. But like where all of the chain can see so he gets teased relentlessly. There are stories Wind could force upon ppl that would make everyone uncomfortable xbgxgsnsn and they aaaaaaaalllll have to do w Midna. He knows too much and Twi wants to strangle him.
Wind practiced kissing tetra in the mirror, his pillow, and on the back of his hand before he ever tried to peck her cheek. Linebeck has caught him more than once.
Pre-quest, Odyssey had to walk into town half naked and covered in mud once, bc it'd been raining and while being surprised by a monster in his underwear, which was bad enough, he slipped and fell down a hill. Then he had to explain why he was not dressed, toting all of his gear in his hands, and back early from exploring TO HIS PARENTS. When one of his siblings asked why he didn't just jump in the river that runs right by his family's inn to clean off the mud..... He could have killed them. It was probably his older sister, who'd tease him about it mercilessly and have him consider murder.
Blue is mortified by how soft he is for red sometimes. If he is feeling touchy, just mentioning him holding red's hand will make him combust. (If four is dissociating there's a 50/50 chance it's bc Red and Blue are being mushy and insufferable. It's not that four's bored by your explanation, Cinder. It's just. Yanno. XDDDD)
Sky tries v hard not to bring attention to how much a little s h i t he used to be and still can be. The population of Skyloft in its entirety seems determined to never let him live it down. Yes I am referring to P e a t r i c e. He also flunked a couple of years until Zelda forced him to catch up. If it hadn't been for her he probably would have been held back longer than fledge
Champion thinks sharp teeth are sexy and he's terrified of anyone finding that out. Especially mipha.
-Kio & Mizu
#Ask#asau cinder#asau fae#ASAU Flora#asau warriors#ASAU time#ASAU wild#asau twilight#asau wind#ASAU Odyssey#ASAU blue#ASAU red#ASAU four#ASAU Sky#asau champion
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I just wanted to say to you thank you for introducing FDS to me ☺️
Ireally appreciate places for women to vent and uplift each other in regards to relationship creation and life stability. Red flags and low value behavior is something I’m learning to pick up on and I’ve seen first hand what going 50/50 does. I hope more girls see it too. It can hard to read if you’re used to lib fem stuff force fed to you but you know you’re doing something right when msm is literally telling women to ignore our standards and date sub par men instead of telling men to also uplift themselves to be the best versions of themselves. I want a family in the future but ONLY with a hvm. I want nothing less but the best because my future kids, if I have them, deserve the best father. If it doesn’t happen, then so what, you know? What will be, will be.✌️ we have already seen and read the horrror that comes from being desperate, settling and having babies from a subpar relationship. It’s not worth it. God created animals to seek out the best in mates, pretty sure it is also for us too lol.
You're welcome 🤍
lol your last sentence though I think shoving bio essentialism onto human relationship is peak scrote talking point buuuuuut there's some truth in what you say. Scrote will always argue that men should chase younger ans breedable women bc that's how nature works but they conveniently totally ignore how in the same nature female actually pick the best male mates. Like, ultimately the choice lies to the female and the male has to put up to outstanding assets to hope finding a female partner. But 99% of bio essentialist moids are losers/lvm, so they really shouldn't chose that hill to die on🥴
Yes indeed, you'll have less to lose remaining celibate with no children than picking a bum and struggling all your life with the consequences of picking a bad husband (especially if children are involved). I'll never understand the "you'll end up alone and childless🤪" gotcha scrotes love using against women with standards, when stats are literally showing unmarried/childless women are doing better than unmarried ones💀 (stats also show marriage last longer when spouse marry at an older age🤍) We have everything to win over not marrying.....unless it is with an actual awesome man that will unarguably improve our overall lifestyle. And it's a win win situation considering married men are actually doing better than unmarried ones - but only those worthy deserve this upgrade, sorry not sorry.🤭
Have you seen the story of the woman who ended up having her pregnancy video on a pregnancy porn fetishist website because her husband didn't respect her decision of never putting it on the internet? this one radicalized me. And that's why I'm having less and less patience with anti feminists acting like the concerns of some women about males disrespecting of female boundaries & safety weren't legitimate. I have so many things to say about how many anti feminist tradfem on this website show glaring characteristics of attracting lvcm (the c stands for "Christian" LOL) but that I already called them out enough for that 💅🏾
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Apparently the 4B movement from SK is getting the attention of American women, and men, ESPECIALLY Black men, are PISSED.
The funniest thing to me is the “American women aren’t strong enough for 4b” and the “yall won’t get all women to do it so it’s pointless” arguments because you never needed an entire group of people to get shit done. Most women were not, and still aren’t, feminists, but we got rights and protections for women thanks to the FEW who were willing to do the work. There were plenty of Black people who weren’t protesting and marching during the civil rights movement, but we got those rights thanks to the FEW willing to sacrifice their time, jobs, livelihoods, freedoms, and literal lives in some cases for the cause.
You don’t need everyone to be part of a movement; you just need enough to get results. And considering how shaking and scared men are about this movement getting American women’s attention, you know they know they’re fucked. One dude said this movement getting attention is a win for red pilled men because the only women considering this are supposedly all over 30, and all have kids and/or high body counts, so this movement will weed us out. Meanwhile, he himself had a full grey beard indicating he was likely in his 50s if not 60s acting like women over 30 are spoiled good or some shit lol. Also while obviously sitting in a basic apartment living room, not even a nice condo or loft; nigga, what 20-something is going to want your old, broke ass? The fuck? Lol. Men’s is delusional.
And the pick mes making videos like “what about continuing the human race” (not our job; who cares? Earth won’t be inhabitable in like 50 years anyway. Who wants to give birth to a child we’ll probably have to bury or abandon in a desert tundra?) or “that’s gonna be lonely” (despite multiple recent studies reporting that women make up not having partners by investing their time and energy into hobbies, friendships, their community, and themselves, and report feeling happier for it), like why do yall care? Women not dating or fucking men means more men for yall right? Raise your chances of being picked. Why do you care if other women decide to step out of the conversation? Get your alpha red pilled man and live happily in peace and leave us alone lol.
The reality is men are reporting being lonely af rn. They aren’t having sex the way past generations did/do. They don’t have deep relationships with their families or other men. They don’t take care of themselves unless they have to keep themselves up for a woman. They don’t make their houses/apartments homes, decorating them, cooking and cleaning and making it feel like a home, etc. Men with wives literally live longer than single men (while the reverse is true for women; married women tend to die earlier than single women).
The data shows time and time again that women will be fine without men while men NEED women to be happy. This is why everyone is freaking out and trying to discourage women and girls from adapting that movement. Hell, many have already declared they won’t date (at least for now) because of how trash men are and have been getting worse over the years. Many women are already doing it! And are reporting they are happy! Happier even than when they were dating!
Men are terrified of the few bombshells they want to guilt and shame into being docile and meek wives will wise up and realize she’s too good for them. These men don’t want the pick mes! They want the sexy women who will fuck them on the first date! They don’t want conservative Christian girls who want to wait until marriage. They don’t want a good girl!
That’s why they lean so heavy into the red pill shit. It’s all a movement meant to try to shame women into thinking she has nothing to offer a man so she’ll settle for his ass. They want women to believe the lie that they are not the prize when women clearly ARE THE PRIZE! And that’s why they’re afraid of this movement. Because what if women decide they won’t fuck in the first date anymore? What if women will dump them over every red flag? It’s not like they should be expected to self reflect and change right? They literally don’t want to do the work to be good partners to women in order to get one, and so their goal is to shame women into accepting their shit. And if women swear off men entirely, won’t even fuck them, how will they ever get laid?????
If you’re straight or bi, seriously consider the 4b movement because this shit got these men TERRIFIED.
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People-friendly cities
When most Americans think of going somewhere, it’s usually by plane or by car. The harsh reality is that public transportation in the United States is simply inferior to automobiles. Car infrastructure, whether it be from highways sprawling across the nation or to massive roads cutting through cities, is more prevalent than bus/bike lanes or railroads. However, from the exigency of needing to reduce carbon emissions to role model cities across the world proving that public transit is more safe, equitable, and efficient, a shift from American car culture is beginning to form.
Perhaps the biggest lesson we have all learned from the pandemic is that things that are invisible can in fact hurt and kill you. The same applies to the toxic fumes released by cars, most of which are powered by gasoline. Though their exhaust is regulated, research from the University of Southern California has shown car dependency is responsible for about 8% of childhood asthma cases in Los Angeles, a city famous for its car dependency. But cars also hurt and kill people in more obvious ways– like crashing. Every year, 1.35 million people across the world die in car crashes, while 50 million are injured, according to the World Health Organization. Not only is driving terrible for your health, but not driving can actually bring health benefits: walking and biking are considered legitimate exercise activities, which contribute to better overall well-being as well as longer life expectancy.
The rising cost of a car, along with higher prices in virtually every sector of the economy also means that owning an automobile is becoming more and more out of reach for many in society, especially the poor. A study from Harvard University noted that faster commute times, more than anything else like crime or test scores, is the single strongest factor in escaping poverty. But how can society’s most vulnerable, the people who need to escape poverty, the people who cannot afford to drive a car, get anywhere quickly in the car-dependent hellscapes that are American cities? How can they have basic necessities and quality jobs if they can’t even get to where those things are in the first place? In the face of this issue, public transportation acts as an equalizer, quite literally offering an escape to the American dream for those in poverty.
However, the issue of car dependency intersects with many other modern problems as well, including the housing crisis. Car-dependent infrastructure encourages single-family zoned homes and suburban sprawl, which are considered the most inefficient structures to house people in, whereas more walkable and transit-friendly infrastructure allow for denser housing to be built around bus and train stations. Car infrastructure also wastes so much space in cities where space is so valuable– if there were less cars on the road, there would be less need for parking lots. Less resources would have to be mined out of the Earth to produce miniature boxes of metal for everyone to travel in alone. Assume a single bus can fit 50 people; is that not more efficient than 50 cars in traffic at rush hour?
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Why Invest in Term Life Insurance?
Life insurance provides your loved one’s crucial financial safety if you suddenly pass away. While buying a life insurance policy, ensure that your coverage offers sufficient financial assistance and is also within your budget. One of the most common life insurance policies Canadians apply for is Brampton’s term life insurance. If you want to buy a term life insurance policy, then you can connect with SJ Financial. Our experts are well trained and can help you understand everything about term life insurance.
Basics About Term Life Insurance
Term life insurance offers coverage for a specific term of years and pays out the death benefits if you suddenly pass away during your insurance term. It differs from permanent life insurance because it does not come with extra benefits like working as an investment tool. The best part about term life insurance is that it is cost-effective regarding premiums. Hence it is the only reason why Canadians apply for term life insurance.
The term life insurance broker suggests that term life insurance is generally available for 35 years or is even set to last for a specific age, including 65 or 80. It offers protection all the years. It offers protection when you need it. Most are in their 40s, 30s, or even 50s. Like these are the years when you need to pay off your mortgage and have young kids to provide for. Your beneficiaries will receive a guaranteed benefit if you are likely to pass away in the insurance term. If you outlive this insurance, you will not be able to get any money.
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You have the opinion to convert or even renew the life insurance policy if you outlive the term or allow it to expire. Your family will not get any benefits if you are likely to die after the policy term. Most term life insurance is renewable but to a specific limit.
But if you go for renewal, you will likely pay more because life insurance costs increase as you age. You will pay high returns if you convert your term life insurance to a permanent one. You can renew or convert the term policy without any additional underwriting or without providing medical evidence.
— Know more about: A Simple Guide on Term Life Insurance
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Our term life insurance rates are cheaper than the whole life insurance available as it would cover only a specific number of years and does not include the savings element.
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The team here will always be there to help you have a solid financial back up in the future by guiding you in the best way possible.
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Guide to life insurance over 50
For many of us, getting married, buying a house, or having a baby is the reason we get life insurance. But what happens decades later when that baby is all grown up and the mortgage is (hooray!) finally paid off?
As the years bring new changes, your life insurance needs to change, too. If you’re entering your golden years, you may wonder how old is too old for life insurance or whether you even qualify. Here’s a closer look at who needs life insurance over 50 and how to find the best life insurance policy for you.
Do you need life insurance over 50?
Life insurance is designed to protect people who might suffer financially if you die. The need for life insurance is less about age and more about circumstances. While some empty nesters might think they no longer need life insurance because their kids are out of the house, it’s important to consider all your other financial obligations.
You may still need over 50 life insurance if:
You’re supporting other people. There’s a reason they call it the “Sandwich generation.” Many people in their 50s find themselves caring for aging parents, along with their own kids. About 24% of people aged 55 to 64 and 21% of people aged 45 to 54 are caring for a parent, often while they still have children depending on them — or even grandchildren, in some cases. At least 2.7 million older Americans are also caring for a grandchild, creating additional expenses that can last for years. If you have people from both generations depending on you, life insurance can help cover their expenses and pay for the care they need if something happened to you.
You’re paying college tuition or other big expenses for your kids. The average cost of attendance for a student attending a public, in-state college is nearly $26,000 a year, and those costs are even higher for private schools. Whether your child is planning to go in a few years or you’re already paying tuition bills, it’s a big expense that your paycheck is likely helping to cover. Life insurance can make sure their future plans don’t get derailed if the worst happens.
You still have a mortgage payment or other unpaid debts. Debt is growing for adults over 50, and people are carrying mortgages much longer. About 46% of people aged 65 to 79 still have a mortgage. Many more also have student loans, with 9.6% of adults 50 or older holding student loan debt. Since 2004, student loan debt has grown faster among those 60 and older than any other age group. Life insurance can help make sure those debts don’t fall on a spouse or family member, and that a death doesn’t mean losing the family home.
You want to make sure your spouse has enough to live on. Whether you’re still working or already retired, you want to make sure your spouse is comfortable if you’re no longer there. The average amount of retirement savings was $65,000 in 2019, and 40% of Americans are afraid they won’t be able to retire because of pandemic-related financial setbacks. Life insurance can help supplement an IRA, pension, or Social Security benefits, so your partner has a financial cushion to enjoy their last years.
You want to set aside money for end-of-life expenses, like a funeral or medical bills. The average cost of a funeral with a burial is more than $9,000 today. It’s an expense not everyone thinks about, but it is important to consider. Medical bills or nursing care can push the total even higher, and life insurance provides your family with a way to cover those costs.
Life insurance for people over 50 can provide a financial safety net to help your family pay for expenses like these and maintain their lifestyle after you’re gone. Especially if most of your money is tied up in your house or an investment account, life insurance typically offers a fast payout, without the hassles of selling a home or liquidating an account. For some people, life insurance is also a way to leave something extra for their kids or to a favorite charity.
When does it make sense to buy life insurance over 50?
Not everyone over 50 needs a life insurance policy. If you are debt-free, have savings for funeral expenses, and have alternate plans to leave a legacy and financial support for loved ones, you might not need one. However, if you fall into any of the below circumstances, life insurance may be a smart move.
If you still have big financial responsibilities. For people who still have children or other dependents they’re supporting, a traditional life insurance policy is the way to go. Term life insurance policies are the most affordable option and typically start at $50,000, so you can purchase enough coverage to provide real protection after you’re gone. Another option is permanent life insurance, which includes whole and universal insurance options and builds cash value over time. Permanent life insurance is more expensive than term life but may be a good fit if you have lifelong financial needs, such as a disabled child or spouse. As long as you’re in good health, you should be able to find relatively affordable rates if you apply for a new policy or reapply after your current one expires. With many carriers, you can apply up to age 70, although you may not qualify for as much coverage.
If you have health issues. Say your life insurance policy is coming to an end, but you’ve developed diabetes or another medical condition in the last few years. A simplified issue or guaranteed issue policy lets you skip a full medical exam and still get coverage. Guaranteed issue insurance is best for people with serious health concerns, while simplified issue is a more affordable alternative for people in relatively good health. Another option? If you have a term life policy with a few years left on it, some companies will let you convert all or part of it to a permanent policy. The company is guaranteed to approve you and will base the rates on your health when you bought the original policy, not your current health, although they’ll take your current age into account. This can get a little complicated, so talk to an agent about the best option for you.
If you just need enough to cover end-of-life expenses. You may no longer need a lot of life insurance, but there’s still one expense there’s no getting around: your funeral. Final expense insurance, or burial insurance, lets you earmark money for those costs. Policies usually top out at $35,000, so they’re not a good replacement for traditional life insurance, but they can help your family pay for a funeral service, burial or cremation, medical bills, or related expenses. Final expense insurance is relatively affordable, since the coverage amounts are small, and many carriers will let you buy coverage up to age 85. Before you shop, consider what kind of funeral you want and how much it will cost. Our final expense checklist can help you create a personalized plan based on your wishes and budget.
What type of life insurance policy is best for people over 50?
When you buy a policy, one of the biggest decisions you’ll make is the type of life insurance. Life insurance comes in two basic varieties: term and permanent. Whole life insurance is a common type of permanent insurance and often what you’ll find when you shop. Let’s explore the differences.
Term life insurance
Term life insurance lasts for a certain period of time, typically 10 to 30 years. If you’re in your 50s or older, you might find shorter term lengths available. Term life offers a death benefit if you die during the term. If you don’t, the policy ends and you can renew, buy a different policy, or let it expire. Term life is the most affordable coverage, since it just offers death benefit protection.
Whole life insurance
Whole life is a type of permanent insurance, which means it never expires as long as you keep up with payments. It also builds cash value, which is like a savings account you can borrow from while you’re still living to pay for anything you choose.
Final expense life insurance
Final expense is a type of whole life insurance policy that’s specifically designed to cover funeral or burial expenses. These policies have lower coverage amounts, from $5,000 — $35,000, making them a more affordable option that is easier to qualify for.
What to consider when buying life insurance over 50
Here are some factors to consider as you decide which type of life insurance policy to buy:
What’s your budget? Term life insurance is much less expensive than whole life insurance, since the life insurance just offers protection for a certain length of time. If you know you just need coverage for a few more years, like while you’re finishing paying off the house or putting kids through college, term life insurance can offer protection you need at a lower cost than whole life.
How old are you? In your 50s, both term and whole life insurance options are still widely available. As you get older, though, options will change. Many term life plans are available until age 70. As you approach that age, you might find that you qualify for less coverage or need to complete extra medical requirements, like an EKG. In your 70s, whole life insurance is typically the main option available, often through a final expense plan. You can buy permanent life insurance up to age 85, and there’s no medical exam required.
Do you need a guaranteed payout? Term life is the best for financial needs with a deadline. Consider why you’re buying and how long you need it to last. If you’re buying for needs that don’t expire, like funeral costs, whole life or final expense insurance is the way to go.
Why is life insurance over 50 more expensive?
For nearly every type of life insurance, you’ll pay the lowest premiums when you buy a policy at a young age. There are several reasons why life insurance often costs more over 50, including:
Health: The older you are, the more likely you are to have health issues that would impact your insurability. When you apply for a policy, you’ll answer a series of health questions that will help the insurer determine eligibility for a policy.
Age: The policies you may qualify for will change as you get older, and certain options may no longer be available based on your age and other factors. That’s why, as you get older, it’s more important to compare life insurance quotes to find the best rates.
Policy length: The older you get, the more risk falls to your insurer if you purchase a longer-term policy. For example, if you buy a 30-year term at age 25, the policy term expires when you’re 55. However, if you get the same 30-year term policy when you’re 50, the policy term doesn’t expire until you turn 80. As you can imagine, it’s much riskier to insure someone up to age 80 than it is to 55, so you’ll end up paying more in premiums as a result. Though, if you opt for a shorter 10- or 20-year term over 50, the rates will likely be more affordable.
Don’t delay getting life insurance quotes over 50
As you reach your 50s and beyond, you’ve likely checked a lot of milestones off your list. But you still have plenty of living left to do, and you want to make sure you and your family are protected in the meantime.
Planning for your life insurance needs now will save you money and worries down the road. Life insurance gets more expensive as you get older, and your health can also change at any time and cause prices to jump. That said, there’s a policy out there for almost everyone, even if you think you’ve aged out of life insurance. Term life can provide affordable protection up to age 70, and final expense insurance is typically available well into your 80s. Discover available policies and get a life insurance quote today with eFinancial.
Credits to: Efinancial
Date Posted: March 8, 2019
Source: https://www.efinancial.com/resources/blogs/blogpost/guide-to-buying-life-insurance-over-50/
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More Young Adults Are Buying Life Insurance Thanks to the Pandemic—if They Can Get It
In the Young Money column: Seeing loved ones die left me shaken, and worried about how my husband would fare without my income
Young people believe that at their age, life insurance should be a breeze, but it isn’t. ILLUSTRATION: EVA VAZQUEZ
Before the pandemic, I didn’t think of life insurance as something I needed. Why would I? At the end of 2019, I was 25 years old and newly married. I had no children. The only time I thought about life insurance was when it came up as the killer’s hidden motive in true-crime documentaries. (I watch a lot of true-crime documentaries.)
But last year, my husband, Ryan, and I decided to apply for policies. As we completed our online applications, I was self-congratulatory, full of pride. Every so often, I sang our praises to my husband: “Look at how responsible we are!”
Beneath my flippancy was a deep relief. The gravity of the pandemic and the recent loss of loved ones had shaken me to my core, and I worried about my own mortality. I fretted over how my husband would fare without my income if I died. There were no certainties; the unimaginable was no longer so.
I wasn’t alone. More younger adults have been looking for life insurance since the pandemic began. Applications for life-insurance policies jumped 3.9% year-over-year in 2020 in the U.S., according to MIB Group’s Life Index—the biggest annual increase in records going back to 2012. Applications were up nearly 8% in 2020 among people under age 45. In 2021, applications rose 3.4%, with the most growth coming from those ages 31 to 50.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How old were you when you first purchased life insurance? What was that experience like? Join the conversation below.
One source of the increased interest in life insurance was people whose jobs exposed them to Covid-19 before vaccines became available—service workers, first responders, teachers, healthcare workers—says Jennifer Fitzgerald, CEO and co-founder of Policygenius, an online insurance broker. But the effects of the pandemic made many people of all kinds consider their mortality and re-evaluate their finances.
Assessing the risk
For Ryan and me, one of the driving forces behind our decision to get life insurance was the death of my father-in-law at the end of 2020. As our family grappled with the sudden loss and the many loose ends Ryan and his brother were left to tie up in the wake of such a loss, I was a witness to the pile of costs that were left to the survivors: attorney’s fees, remaining bills, cremation costs. His father had some life insurance that eased the burden on the two sons.
The pandemic—especially before vaccines were available—made everything feel uncertain for us. We isolated ourselves entirely and took every precaution to avoid possible infection, but we worried that at any moment one of us could fall ill and leave the other in the lurch. Our youth gave us little comfort as we watched the death toll rise.
I thought of what Ryan would be left to cover in the event of my death. He would be responsible for the entirety of our Brooklyn rent, which neither of us could afford alone, and we were looking at buying an apartment in Manhattan, which would be just as costly. Ryan would lose my health-insurance coverage, and the costs of his chronic health condition would soar as they had before we were married. I thought, too, of my younger brother, who was nearing the end of high school. I had hoped that once he started college I could help him pay for textbooks or other incidentals. I imagined what it would be like if I wasn’t around.
Ryan did similar calculations, had similar thoughts, and we came to the same conclusion: Whatever we could do to be prepared, we would do.
Technically, I already had life insurance. Many employers offer group life insurance as a benefit, typically in a lump-sum amount such as $50,000 or as a multiple of one’s salary. Through my employer, I already had such a policy.
Still, that policy only covers me for as long as I work at this company. What’s more, John Carroll, a senior vice president at industry-funded research firm Limra, told me that for most people, insurance totaling a year or two of salary wouldn’t be enough to cover expenses in the event of their death. Not only are many younger adults not yet in their peak earning years, they also bear a heavier student-loan burden than generations before them. “When you start to add all of that up,” he says, “there’s a real impact if they were to die prematurely or unexpectedly, the burden that they may leave behind for their families, or their parents. Just because you die doesn’t mean that goes away.”
Approval is uncertain
Weeks after I applied for life insurance, I was approved. Now I pay $36 a month for a 30-year term policy worth several hundred thousand dollars. It’s enough to aid Ryan—and our children, should we choose to have any—in the event of my death. It eased the pressure I once felt to build up as much in cash savings as possible for an unlikely tragedy and freed me up to invest in our future.
That feeling of security was dulled when Ryan’s application was denied. Ryan, being in his early 30s, had his youth on his side, but his health history kept him from getting coverage. It was a disappointment: No matter how much he works to save money through other means, like his emergency fund and his 401(k), those savings can never come close to the value of a life-insurance policy.
Ryan’s experience isn’t uncommon. While it’s better to apply when you’re young, your age doesn’t mean you’re automatically a shoo-in for a life-insurance policy. Chantel Bonneau Stewart, a wealth-management adviser at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, says insurance companies may not take on a policyholder with certain health histories or one with what they consider a risky profession or hobby, such as a pilot, she says. A DUI conviction or poor driving record or a low credit score can also be grounds for a rejections, she adds.
Rosamund Lannin, age 36, and her husband, Sean Dove, 42, applied for life insurance in the fall of 2020, after the Chicago-based couple went to a financial planner for the first time. Ms. Lannin, who works in marketing, already had a life-insurance policy through her employer. The financial planner recommended they apply for their own policies, too.
The pair thought they might have to pay a higher premium for Mr. Dove, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and entered remission in March 2019. But after applying through their financial adviser, Mr. Dove was told that given his health history he would be denied coverage for five to 10 years posttreatment. Ms. Lannin was able to get a policy, though her monthly premium ended up being $4 higher due to her having anxiety and depression.
The outcome leaves Mr. Dove largely dependent on cash savings to build a cushion. “I’m a freelance illustrator, so my income changes so much from month to month, so saving has been a huge priority,” he says.
Credits: Francesca Fontana
Date: April 2, 2022
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/young-adults-life-insurance-11648844790
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I’m just gonna’ say it cause it’s been on my mind for a few days— why the fuck would I have a baby when I could actually just be happy and go on forty+ vacations with the same money it would take?
#this isn’t meant to offend anyone these are just my thoughts that I’ve been working through lately#coming from a woman working through the 14 years she spent in a hardcore Calvinist church where woman are brainwashed to want this#a lot people in my life (my age— 20 years old) have been talking about wanting to get married and have babies#the sheer amount of people I know who are between 20 and 24 that have gotten engaged this past year is insane#and I’m just here like#hey— I blog for fun#hey— I crochet for fun#hey— I obsessively vomit at the thought of men (of course— for fun)#and while I get that everyone has their own path or whatever the fuck#I think normalizing young people getting married isn’t healthy#especially considering we no longer die at 50#so hey— please stop telling me you want a baby#because do you want a baby or do you feel like you have to have one to be valued as a woman?#to each her own— I’ll respect you if you want a baby or if you don’t— but if you’re 20 and you feel like you want to have a baby right now#don’t tell me#tell your therapist#because I feel like they would want to know#this has been rambles with Dizzy#dizzy rambles#before making any rash baby decisions please eat a sandwich and consult someone you trust— you might just be going through it™️
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One of the most interesting aspects of long lived mortal races in fiction I think is overlooked a bit is the sheer different understanding of time itself between them and let's say Humans.
If you have a race that lives to even 200 years old that's still a century more than humans are able to live with modern medicine and life expectancies. To put dates on it a character could be born in 1821 and die around 2021, and if they reach maturity at a similar age to humans (around 20 years let's say) they will have experienced everything that has happened between those two dates as ADULTS for the majority of it. This races' cultural perception of time would be completely different to that of Humans. Even different cultures here on Earth have different perceptions of "a long time ago" but living an extra century, at least, would bump that up by 100%.
What would be "a long time ago" to them? What would be "rapid change" to them? What would be their understanding of "generations?" What would be "wasted time?" What would be "experienced" to them? etc etc.
Their perception of time in the eyes of Humans would be incrediblely wonky to say the least. To them someone dying at 70 would be too young and a tragedy, but to Humans it would be around a normal age to die. Someone being in a position for a decade or two would be surprising to Humans, but might be really normal for a long lived race. Things that take multiple years to do may be daunting to Humans, but be understandable to a long lived race and not that long at all to them. Cultural change in these societies may seem to be really really slow from the outside, but to them a cultural shift being done in 50 years would be extremely fast.
Like, if a race can live for thousands of years is it really ok to say that if something happened to that race 1,000 years it doesn't matter even though those affected are still very much alive (and may have not recovered) because Humans find that to be an absurdly long time ago? What if they only live for around 300 years, but things that happened 1000 years ago directly affected their parents or grandparents?
If these long lived people lived and integrated themselves into societies where the majority lives far shorter lives than they do, and a few found their way into positions of power, staying in those positions for a longer time than Humans normally do, would that be wrong? Would Humans misunderstand their intentions? What if that long lived person just wanted to help the place they call home and the people they call friends and family, so stayed in that position for as long as they could?
How long would a long lived person or family live somewhere where the vast society around them changes and does far quicker than they do? How would their friends and family living shorter lives honestly affect them? Would they choose to return to the society of their race and to a time scale that makes sense to them, or stay? What if they can't return for some reason even if they wanted to?
What of those born into a society that lives shorter lives? Would they adapt the cultural perception of time of the society around them regardless of how long they live?
What if this race is disparate? Would they form a society with shorter lives races around them? Would they instead form pockets where they are the majority because of the sheer difference in time lived?
I could go on and on because this is just fascinating to me, and unfortunately I don't see many people really engaging with that aspect of worldbuilding a lot. Especially in fandom discussions about things I think we default to our own understanding of time and forget that long lived races would experience it differently than us. Idk maybe I think about this a lot because Manaketes, the Nabataeans, Altmer, etc are often my favorite races, and that aspect of their worldbuilding gets ignored when we talk about characters belonging to those races and their reactions to things that happened "a long time ago" to us. Not saying everyone does but it's easy to not consider because "how does this race even perceive time" is probably not on peoples minds when discussing things.
#writing#worldbuilding#fantasy race#altmer#manakete#nabateans#cause this is primarily about them#stars' ramblings
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Ten Things We Hate About Trad Pub
Often when I say “I’ve started a small press; we publish the works of those who have trouble breaking into traditional publishing!” what people seem to hear is “me and a bunch of sad saps couldn’t sell our books in the Real World so we’ve made our own place with lower standards.” For those with minimal understanding of traditional publishing (trad pub), this reaction is perhaps understandable? But, truly, there are many things to hate about traditional publishing (and, don’t get me wrong - there are things to love about trad pub, too, but that’s not what this list is about) and it’s entirely reasonable for even highly accomplished authors to have no interest in running the gauntlet of genre restrictions, editorial control, hazing, long waits, and more, that make trad pub at best, um, challenging, and at worst, utterly inaccessible to many authors - even excellent ones.
Written in collaboration with @jhoomwrites, with input from @ramblingandpie, here is a list of ten things that we at Duck Prints Press detest about trad pub, why we hate it, and why/how we think things should be different!
(Needless to say, part of why we created Duck Prints Press was to...not do any of these things... so if you’re a writer looking for a publishing home, and you hate these things, too, and want to write with a Press that doesn’t do them...maybe come say hi?)
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1. Work lengths dictated by genre and/or author experience.
Romance novels can’t be longer than 90,000 words or they won’t sell! New authors shouldn’t try to market a novel longer than 100,000 words!
A good story is a good story is a good story. Longer genre works give authors the chance to explore their themes and develop their plots. How often an author has been published shouldn’t put a cap on the length of their work.
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2. Editors assert control of story events...except when they don’t.
If you don’t change this plot point, the book won’t market well. Oh, you’re a ten-time bestseller? Write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t make sense we know people will buy it.
Sometimes, a beta or an editor will point out that an aspect of a story doesn’t work - because it’s nonsensical, illogical, Deus ex Machina, etc. - and in those cases it’s of course reasonable for an editor to say, “This doesn’t work and we recommend changing it, for these reasons…” However, when that list of reasons begins and ends with, “...because it won’t sell…” that’s a problem, especially because this is so often applied as a double standard. We’ve all read bestsellers with major plot issues, but those authors get a “bye” because editors don’t want to exert to heavy a hand and risk a proven seller, but with a new, less experienced, or worse-selling author, the gloves come off (even though evidence suggests time and again that publishers’ ability to predict what will sell well is at best low and at worst nonexistent.)
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3. A billion rejection letters as a required rite of passage (especially when the letters aren't helpful in pinpointing why a work has been rejected or how the author can improve).
Well, my first book was rejected by a hundred Presses before it was accepted! How many rejection letters did you get before you got a bite? What, only one or two? Oh…
How often one succeeds or fails to get published shouldn’t be treated as a form of hazing, and we all know that how often someone gets rejected or accepted has essentially no bearing on how good a writer they are. Plenty of schlock goes out into the world after being accepted on the first or second try...and so does plenty of good stuff! Likewise, plenty of schlock will get rejected 100 times but due to persistence, luck, circumstances, whatever, finally find a home, and plenty of good stuff will also get rejected 100 times before being publishing. Rejections (or lack there of) as a point of pride or as a means of judging others needs to die as a rite of passage among authors.
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4. Query letters, for so many reasons.
Summarize all your hard work in a single page! Tell us who you’re like as an author and what books your story is like, so we can gauge how well it’ll sell based on two sentences about it! Format it exactly the way we say or we won’t even consider you!
For publishers, agents, and editors who have slush piles as tall as Mount Everest...we get it. There has to be a way to differentiate. We don’t blame you. Every creative writing class, NaNoWriMo pep talk, and college lit department combine to send out hundreds of thousands of people who think all they need to do to become the next Ernest Hemingway is string a sentence together. There has to be some way to sort through that pile...but God, can’t there be a better way than query letters? Especially since even with query letters being used it often takes months or years to hear back, and...
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5. "Simultaneous submissions prohibited.”
No, we don’t know when we’ll get to your query, but we’ll throw it out instantly if you have the audacity to shop around while you wait for us.
The combination of “no simultaneous submissions” with the query letter bottleneck makes success slow and arduous. It disadvantages everyone who aims to write full-time but doesn’t have another income source (their own, or a parents’, or a spouse’s, or, or or). The result is that entire classes of people are edged out of publishing solely because the process, especially for writers early in their career, moves so glacially that people have to earn a living while they wait, and it’s so hard to, for example, work two jobs and raise a family and also somehow find the time to write. Especially considering that the standard advice for dealing with “no simultaneous submissions” is “just write something else while you wait!” ...the whole system screams privilege.
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6. Genres are boxes that must be fit into and adhered to.
Your protagonist is 18? Then obviously your book is Young Adult. It doesn’t matter how smutty your book is, erotica books must have sex within the first three chapters, ideally in the first chapter. Sorry, we’re a fantasy publisher, if you have a technological element you don’t belong here…
While some genre boxes have been becoming more like mesh cages of late, with some flow of content allowed in and out, many remain stiff prisons that constrict the kinds of stories people can tell. Even basic cross-genre works often struggle to find a place, and there’s no reason for it beyond “if we can’t pigeon-hole a story, it’s harder to sell.” This edges out many innovative, creative works. It also disadvantages people who aren’t as familiar with genre rules. And don’t get me wrong - this isn’t an argument that, for example, the romance genre would be improved by opening up to stories that don’t have “happily ever afters.” Instead, it’s pointing out - there should also be a home for, say, a space opera with a side romance, an erotica scene, and a happily-for-now ending. Occasionally, works breakthrough, but for the most part stories that don’t conform never see the light of day (or, they do, but only after Point 2 - trad pub editors insist that the elements most “outside” the box be removed or revised).
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7. The lines between romance and erotica are arbitrary, random, and hetero- and cis-normative.
This modern romance novel won’t sell if it doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, but God forbid you call a penis a penis. Oh, no, this is far too explicit, even though the book only has one mlm sex scene, this is erotica.
The difference between “romance” and “erotica” might not matter so much if not for the stigmas attached to erotica and the huge difference in marketability and audience. The difference between “romance” and “erotica” also might not matter so much if not for the fact that, so often, even incredibly raunchy stories that feature cis straight male/cis straight female sex scenes are shelved as romance, but the moment the sex is between people of the same gender, and/or a trans or genderqueer person is involved, and/or the relationship is polyamorous, and/or the characters involved are literally anything other than a cis straight male pleasuring a cis straight female in a “standard” way (cunnilingus welcome, pegging need not apply)...then the story is erotica. Two identical stories will get assigned different genres based on who the people having sex are, and also based on the “skill” of the author to use ludicrous euphemisms (instead of just...calling body parts what they’re called…), and it’s insane. Non-con can be a “romance” novel, even if it’s graphically described. “50 Shades of Gray” can sell millions of copies, even containing BDSM. But the word “vagina” gets used once...bam, erotica. (Seriously, the only standard that should matter is the Envelope Analogy).
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8. Authors are expected to do a lot of their own legwork (eg advertising) but then don't reap the benefits.
Okay, so, you’re going to get an advance of $2,500 on this, your first novel, and a royalty rate of 5% if and only if your advance sells out...so you’d better get out there and market! Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a following? Guess you’re never selling out your advance…
Trad pub can generally be relied on to do some marketing - so this item is perhaps better seen as an indictment of more mid-sized Presses - but, basically, if an author has to do the majority of the work themselves, then why aren’t they getting paid more? What’s the actual benefit to going the large press/trad pub route if it’s not going to get the book into more hands? It’s especially strange that this continues to be a major issue when self-publishing (which also requires doing one’s own marketing) garners 60%+ royalty rates. Yes, the author doesn’t get an advance, and they don’t get the cache of ~well I was published by…~, but considering some Presses require parts of advances to get paid back if the initial run doesn’t sell out, and cache doesn’t put food on the table...pay models have really, really got to change.
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9. Fanfiction writing doesn't count as writing experience
Hey there Basic White Dude, we see you’ve graduated summa cum laude from A Big Fancy Expensive School. Of course we’ll set you up to publish your first novel you haven’t actually quite finished writing yet. Oh, Fanperson, you’ve written 15 novels for your favorite fandom in the last 4 years? Get to the back of the line!
Do I really need to explain this? The only way to get better at writing is to write. Placing fanfiction on official trad pub “do not interact” lists is idiotic, especially considering many of the other items on this list. (They know how to engage readers! They have existing followings! They understand genre and tropes!) Being a fanfiction writer should absolutely be a marketable “I am a writer” skill. Nuff said. (To be clear, I’m not saying publishers should publish fanfiction, I’m saying that being a fanfiction writer is relevant and important experience that should be given weight when considering an author’s qualifications, similar to, say, publishing in a university’s quarterly.)
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10. Tagging conventions (read: lack thereof).
Oh, did I trigger you? Hahahaha. Good luck with that.
We rate movies so that people can avoid content they don’t like. Same with TV shows and video games. Increasingly, those ratings aren’t just “R - adult audiences,” either; they contain information about the nature of the story elements that have led to the rating (“blood and gore,” “alcohol reference,” “cartoon violence,” “drug reference,” “sexual violence,” “use of tobacco,” and many, many more). So why is it that I can read a book and, without warning, be surprised by incest, rape, graphic violence, explicit language, glorification of drug and alcohol use, and so so much more? That it’s left to readers to look up spoilers to ensure that they’re not exposed to content that could be upsetting or inappropriate for their children or, or, or, is insane. So often, too, authors cling to “but we don’t want to give away our story,” as if video game makes and other media makers do want to give away their stories. This shouldn’t be about author egos or ~originality~ (as if that’s even a thing)...it should be about helping readers make informed purchasing decisions. It’s way, way past time that major market books include content warnings.
Thank you for joining us, this has been our extended rant about how frustrated we are with traditional publishing. Helpful? No. Cathartic? Most definitely yes. 🤣
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This took me a while because I am terrible at coming up with prompts, but I wish you would write a fic where, Lip and Mickey acknowledge that they are friends and are important to each other. 🖤👬 I loved your post-anniversary fic and I just need more mickey & lip content!
Aww, thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoyed the post-anniversary fic. So, here’s a little sequel to that, set the morning after:
(This is canon-divergent as I’m changing it so either Frank doesn’t die or they aren’t informed until after this.)
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Lip (8:42am): need me to come and get one of you to pick up the ambulance?
Mickey frowns at the message on his phone that had woken him up. It’s too early for this. Ian is, of course, already awake and….changing into his running clothes? Ugh. “Your brother texted.” Mickey mumbles, watching Ian pull on a t-shirt.
“You’re awake.” Ian smiles at him and throws himself on top of Mickey, kissing him softly. “Happy first day of our second year of marriage.”
“Mmm, yeah. Same to you. You seriously going on a run?” He hooks his fingers into the waistband of Ian’s shorts and begins to pull them down.
“Yeah, only because I thought you’d want to sleep for longer. Was gonna come back, wake you up nice and slow and then-”
“Well I’m awake now, no thanks to Lip.”
Ian fumbles for his own phone, smiling as Mickey’s hands go lower, he reads the message that Lip had sent to both of them. “I’ll go.”
“Nah, man, go run. I’ll pick up the ambulance. Haven’t got any pick-ups till 11, so,” he smacks Ian’s ass, “we can start this second year of marriage off with a bang. Literally.” He wiggles his eyebrows and bites his lip.
Ian smirks at Mickey’s cheesy line and kisses him, “Sounds good,” before rolling off him, and pulling his shorts back up. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Don’t shower when you get back. I like it when you’re all sweaty.”
Ian laughs as he leaves. Mickey grins as he thinks of the fun they’ll be having later.
————
Grabbing his phone, he fires off a quick text to Lip - (8:50): meet you out front in half an hour?
Lip (8:50): k
Mickey showers quickly, pulling on a pair of jeans and one of Ian’s hoodies, and drinking the cup of coffee Ian had left him on the counter in the kitchen - next to a note that says ‘🖤 love you :) 🖤’ Fucking dork, Mickey thinks, but he smiles and shoves the note in his pocket.
Lip is already waiting for Mickey when he makes it outside. In the past, he would dread spending any amount of time alone with Lip. But as he slides into the passenger seat, he finds that he doesn’t feel as annoyed as he usually does and Lip’s stupid smirking face doesn’t make him want to throw a punch. Maybe it’s the promise of sex with his husband that has put him in a good mood? Or maybe he doesn’t hate Lip as much as he thinks? Nah, that can’t be right.
“Morning. Surprised it’s you up this early and not Ian. Thought you’d be worn out after last night?” Lip begins the drive towards the Southside, his fingers tapping on the wheel.
“You really wanna know if I’m too tired after getting railed by your little brother?”
“Mickey.” Lip groans, “Fuck no. I was asking if you were hungover. You were wasted.”
“Oh. Nah. M’fine. Ian’s gone for a run. He was gonna let me sleep in but you woke me up with that text.”
“Hazard of having a baby, you forget everyone else isn’t awake at the crack of dawn everyday.”
Mickey shrugs, and they fall into a comfortable silence, and he notices that he’s still not feeling that familiar sense of annoyance that he usually does with Lip. He’s definitely going soft. Ian’s fault probably. He supposes that Lip has been alright recently - helping with the wedding anniversary as though it was no big deal, acting like it was normal that Mickey had asked him for help. There were no sarcastic comments or dirty looks like Mickey was intruding in the Gallagher family. No, he just asked what he could do and helped round up the other siblings to help too. He treated Mickey like he was part of the family. Even Mickey can reluctantly admit that. Even if it is through gritted teeth.
“Thanks for…y’know, driving us home last night and helping me organise the party.” Mickey is staring out the window, his voice low. He doesn’t know why he’s saying this, but he knows Ian would like that he did. And maybe there’s a tiny part of him that likes that he can say this and it doesn’t feel awful. “Especially after that…uh…fight.”
————
Mickey’s words take Lip by surprise and he’s speechless for a moment. He supposes this is as close to an apology as Mickey would ever give him. And to be fair, Lip knows he needs to say sorry too. But he realises he can’t quite say it either. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. And it won’t happen again.”
Mickey snorts, “Don’t know how you can be sure of that.”
“Well, Ian said - and I quote - ‘hit my husband again, I’ll fucking kill you’. So. Yeah, ain’t gonna happen again. At least from my end. And he’s right. Shouldn’t be getting into it like that with family.”
Mickey is silent for a moment, sneaking a quick glance at Lip. “He said that?”
“Yup.”
“Ok. Then, yeah, I won’t hit you again.” He says it easily, with a firm nod. “Probably. If you don’t do anything to piss me off.”
Lip rolls his eyes, “Yeah, because it’s me who’s the annoying fucker.”
“Glad you can admit that.”
And he can’t believe it, but he genuinely laughs at that. Lip can count on one hand the times he actually found Mickey funny. Most of the time he thinks he’s a dick, but lately….well, there’s been moments when he’s not been that bad and, dare he say it, he’s actually not minded being around Mickey. Sure, these have also been countered by moments when he absolutely wants to kill him but there are less and less of those. He must be adjusting to the fact that they’re family now - Mickey’s not some scary, dirty kid from the neighbourhood anymore, he’s not just Mandy’s brother, he’s Ian’s husband. He’s Lip’s brother-in-law. And that means something. So, yeah, he’s gonna treat him like a brother, like family. (As much as he can that is, because Lip isn’t a saint and sometimes Mickey really is very fucking annoying.) But he’s gonna try. That’s the important thing. And it seems like Mickey is going to try too.
“You’re a dick.”
“Yeah, well, got a reputation to uphold. Can’t let you think I’ve gone fucking soft or some shit.”
“Wouldn’t ever think in a million years that the guy who planned a romantic surprise anniversary party for his husband with accordion music and dancers was soft.”
“Fuck off.” But there’s no heat in his words, he’s just got a pleased look on his face. Probably thinking back to the night before.
————
They get stuck in traffic - due to roadworks where there seems to be less work and more standing around going on. Mickey checks his phone and scrolls through the pictures he took last night, that get steadily and steadily blurrier as the night goes on. It really was a great night. He feels his face flush in happiness just thinking about it. He can’t wait to get home.
Lip is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel again, Mickey notices he looks tired. He thinks back to Lip’s admission that he’d slipped up and had beer, and wonders if he’s had another slip. He could ask him straight out, Ian probably would, but that feels like a step too far. So he decides to hint at it.
“Everything alright with you and Tami?”
“Oh, yeah, you know….just a lot going on.”
“Right.” He shifts in his seat, glances towards his brother-in-law, and sighs. “Yeah, lot of difficult shit going on. Stressful shit.”
Mickey thinks he’s going to have to say it but apparently it’s obvious what he’s thinking. Lip stops tapping the steering wheel. “You fishing to see if I want a drink?”
“Do you?”
“I….sometimes. A bit. I’m going to meetings so.” He shrugs, avoiding Mickey’s eyes.
“Tami know?”
“Sort of.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“There’s just been so much going on. We’ve kinda talked but not properly.”
The traffic starts to move and soon they are almost at the Alibi. “Talking…communicating. All that shit, it fucking sucks but it’s important.” Mickey feels awkward talking to Lip like this, but strangely it doesn’t feel too uncomfortable. “Don’t put it off, it’ll be worse the longer you wait.”
“I know.” Lip pulls up in front of the ambulance. “Thanks.”
“Whatever.” He peers at Lip cautiously. “You’re not gonna tell me you love me again are you?”
“Was hoping you might not remember that considering how drunk you were last night.”
“You’re soft as hell. I’d stick around to make fun of you but I gotta hot date with my husband.” He moves to get out the car, “Thanks for the ride, man.” He gives Lip the finger and a cheeky smile as he walks over to the ambulance, shouting “see ya!” over his shoulder.
—————
For the ask meme: I wish you would write a fic where….
#gallavich#ian gallagher#mickey milkovich#lip gallagher#shameless#ian x mickey#fic#ficlet#headcanon#as always feel free to continue this or add to it!!
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Concerning the incredibly far and deep reach of CCP’s propaganda, the narratives the government can spin and call the truth; does ‘the common normal populace’ actually know what’s really going on?
Hello everyone!!! Happy Chinese New Year!!
I’m grouping these asks because if I hear them correctly, they’re all related to this question: how much do people in China know about the atrocities committed by their government, and why don’t they do something about it?
It’s a difficult question, isn’t it? A potentially upsetting one too, just to think about. My answers are more opinion-based, more personal this time. Since there’re no polls about what people know, they have to be based a little more on my own impression, which has more chances of error. Please bear with me and proceed with caution ...
As with people in most countries, what people know is hugely dependent on individuals. Specifically, re: politics, I can think of at least three reasons why people don’t have the facts
1) they have limited access to information
2) they’re being lied to about what they know
3) they’re not interested in current affairs.
1), of course, is what most people think about when it comes to China. You’re right, Anon(s), that VPN use is indeed rampant in the country and is essentially an open secret; there’re no official numbers but surveys have estimated the number of users can be up to 100 million, most of them being youngsters. They use it to do exactly what most of us would imagine: gain access to things they don’t have otherwise. Instagram has been (sporadically?) blocked since 2014 September and so while users may have set up their accounts while being overseas, it’s indeed, (very) possible, that they’ve set up and maintained their account under VPN use.
Wait, you may ask, so you mean the Great Firewall of China doesn’t exist?
That’s exactly the official stance. Not because of private VPN use, but because individuals/companies can apply for a license via their telecommunications company to visit all internet sites. Hence, the government’s claim that the Great Firewall doesn’t exist—you’ll be let through as long as you ask (and we’ll watch your every step)! There are also no explicit laws prohibiting the use of private VPNs; only a handful of arrests associated with private VPN use have been made and only since 2019, and the punishment is considered light—no imprisonment, just fines. It is, in contrast, against the law to *provide* private VPN services, and while companies have been shut down, the crackdown has still been incredibly sluggish by Chinese government’s standards, especially when the Xi regime has made its intention of banning VPN known and directives have been issued for that in 2017.
Why has VPN continued to enjoy this “grey existence”? Because without VPN, a lot of foreign businesses would leave—some, for example, require the most efficient online tools developed outside China to track the foreign markets, and talents have rejected job offers in the country when they realised they couldn’t get on their favourite social media. The science and tech sectors also rely heavily on VPN—programmers relying on Google to search stackoverflow, for example, to find known solutions to bugs.
VPNs have also served political purposes—Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-critical communities all over the world are all painfully aware of the Chinese government’s practice of hiring its own collection of internet commentators (”50 Cent Party”), and at times, mobilising their youths (gamers, fan circles) to scale the Firewall and astroturf, throw insults at the “CCP enemies” and bomb message boards with pro-CCP messages.
Also, a significant fraction of VPN companies, both in China and overseas, have been reported to have Chinese ownership, by companies with government connections. These VPN services provide a false sense of security for those who do not enjoy having big brother peeking behind their backs while acting as surveillance tools that extend beyond the country.
(Please be careful about free VPNs).
The next question: If until now, users of private VPNs only rarely get into trouble, what’s holding them from scaling the Great Firewall and learning the facts?
It is this: the law isn’t about “climbing the wall”, but what one does outside the wall.
Article 6 of the 2016 edition of Cybersecurity law states the following:
第六条 国家倡导诚实守信、健康文明的网络行为，推动传播社会主义核心价值观，采取措施提高全社会的网络安全意识和水平，形成全社会共同参与促进网络安全的良好环境
Article 6: The State advocates sincere, honest, healthy and civilized network conduct; promoting dissemination of the core socialist values, adopting measures to raise the entire society's awareness and level of network security, and forming a good environment for the entire society to jointly participate in advancing network security.
What this article implies is this ~ legally, Chinese citizens are bound to the Chinese government’s rules of good internet conduct, regardless of whether they use VPN to get on the internet. As with many Chinese laws, however, the vagueness in wording invites more questions than answers. Is it getting on Twitter, a banned website, “sincere, honest, healthy and civilized network conduct”? Obviously, it’s illegal to interact with other users about the Xinjiang’s internment camps, but what if one only goes there to talk about their favourite stars, because on Weibo supertopic they can’t even mention the stars’ name, can’t ahkgkhagjkfaskjgdf about their favourite fics? What if one goes there to discuss a M- or E-rated fic? Where is the line drawn and given its vagueness, will that line move tomorrow? How?
Most people, therefore, have opted to simply stay away from VPN. After all, China offers its own version of many of the fun websites out there (Weibo-Twitter; Instagram-Oasis; Tiktok-Douyin; Youtube-Bilibili). For those who do use VPN, they tend to stick to websites that are unlikely to cause issues (such as Instagram; Instagram became an issue when Hong Kongers started to upload information about the protests on there).
Now, let’s proceed to 2): People don’t know the facts because they’re being lied to about what they know.
There’s a difference between having access to facts and knowing that they’re facts. This is among the most painful lessons, perhaps, for those who followed the politics of the United States in the last few years (please forgive me for the US-centric-ness of the following few paragraphs!). Even with equal access to identical information, people can vary a LOT in their understanding of what are facts and what are lies.
This illustrates the power of propaganda—and propaganda in the US isn’t even centralised. Some media outlets and individuals (political leaders and analysts) have more say on what should be viewed as the truth, but parties without significant power—small foreign and domestic interests, fringe political organisations, conspiracy theorists, regular folks—have also made critical contributions to the “fake news” phenomenon in the US. There haven’t been apparent coordinations between these parties; little concerted effort has been made to create one coherent story out of the many tales told.
In China, the propaganda effort is centralised, coordinated, free of distractions from competing story lines. The One Story the government decides on is repeated, over and over again, on newspapers, in shows, in textbooks, on signs on the streets, on social media. To put it another way, when it comes to political discourse, the country is designed to be an echo chamber with 1.4 billion people. Over time, the One Stories inevitably become firmly held beliefs—so firmly held that even if the people are exposed to facts, they no longer believe in them.
This is especially true when the source of the facts are countries with strong traditions of freedoms of speech and press, where the facts are often laid out with a critical eye to the administration and with vastly different opinions attached to them. While we view the latter as evidences that the values we embrace are alive and well—a critical eye to the administration means the Fourth Estate is doing its job, and the different opinions means freedom of speech gets to live another day—people who haven’t been exposed to these values tend to interpret these things as signs of weakness of the government. They may think the Chinese government is better than its counterparts elsewhere because no one is penning scathing criticisms against it. They may think the Chinese government is stronger because it unifies the opinions of their people—the failure of which, they’ve been taught, would lead to social chaos and economic free-fall.
The Chinese population has also been “immunised” against the truths that may be exposed about their government by a propaganda talking point used since Chairman Mao’s days—that the “Imperialist” western world, particularly the United States, is always scheming its downfall. The phrase often used is 美帝亡我之心不死 (”The heart (intention) of Imperialist US to bring us down will never die”). Unfavourable truths exposed must therefore be part of the “bring down China” scheme. This decades-old demonisation of the political apparatus of the US and Europe also prepares the people to accept what most would see as outrageous conspiracy theories: for example, in March 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the US Army intentionally planted COVID in Wuhan during the 2019 Military World games. “Foreign interference” becomes a frequent and convenient scapegoat for policy decisions gone wrong, sometimes to a (somewhat) hilarious effect ~ for example, a Taiwanese journalist calculated the cost required for the CIA to fund the 2019 Hong Kong Protests, as the Chinese government had claimed—and it turned out that the CIA was too poor to do it.
(Many of us in the US would probably laugh at the idea that our government is capable of secretly paying 2 million foreign-language speaking strangers to show up together in one march.)
(It can’t even get the COVID relief payments to its own people right over a period of months.)
(Fun trivia for turtles! As 美帝=“Imperialist US” is the synonym of a feared, imaginary super-villain—super organised, super efficient, super everywhere and super impossible to take down—c-BJYX, the indestructible No. 1 CP fandom in China, has been nicknamed “美帝 cp” by those not so enamoured with it.)
Finally, there’s the psychological factor. Once a set of beliefs becomes personal truths, listening to alternatives can be very upsetting (for those in the US: imagine the blue voting block made to listen to Fox News). Hence, even when people gain access to the facts later—for example, when they study/work abroad, even emigrate—they often don’t take advantage of the access. Instead, they remain logged in in the Chinese social media sites where they’re comfortable with not only the politics but also the language and the friendships they’ve built, and continue to immerse themselves in an environment heavy with CCP propaganda. They remain defenders of the Chinese government; some have even gone out and harass people who disagree with it, in the name of freedom of speech that their country of origin never offered to them.
Censorship, of course, is an important component of building a One Story echo chamber, and I should add a note about it: censorship in China comes in vastly different strengths. The restrictions on LGBT+ issues, for example, are fairly lax, relatively speaking—“homosexuality” remains a term one can find on their internet and a topic the administration continues to address, and while BL dramas are censored, their adapted versions, along with highly publicised discussions of their original material, have so far been tolerated. The strictest form of Chinese censorship would’ve allowed neither: any mention of the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre , for example, is immediately removed, including any hints that the event may have happened. When the former leader of the Chinese government, Jiang Zemin (江澤民), was rumoured to have passed away, the censorship apparatus went so far as to remove all mentions of Jiang, which also happened to mean “large rivers”. Chinese netizens therefore joked that major rivers had ceased to exist in China that day, as one couldn’t find any information about them online.
(LGBT+ activists have therefore remained optimistic about the future of their campaign, despite the current state of affairs. To put it simply: the Chinese government has bigger fish to fry. Sexual minorities haven’t had major clashes with the administration, haven’t embarrassed the Chinese government with their demand for rights as the ethnic minorities—the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Mongolians etc did. Political dissidents, including the millions in Hong Kong, are also (far) ahead in the ranking of fish size.)
For most issues, the censorship effort sits somewhere in the middle and is often inconsistent over time. The people, therefore, often have knowledge that an event has happened — even when the event is considered, beyond the Great Firewall, damaging to the reputation of the Chinese government. However, critical information is often missing in their knowledge, or is heavily distorted. For example, overseas Chinese citizens have insisted that the motivation of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests was economic, echoing the longstanding CCP propaganda that Hong Kongers have been jealous of China’s prosperity (reality: China’s GDP per capita was $10,268 USD in 2019, and Hong Kong’s, $48,713—more than 4 times higher). They missed out a critical fact: while the fast economic growth of China has created some unease—Hong Kongers have always known the Chinese government has only tolerated them and their freedoms for their ability to generate wealth—what has truly ignited Hong Kong’s anger is the Chinese government’s violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, and the terms it had agreed upon to get back the then British crown colony. Hong Kong hasn’t been demanding autonomy and freedoms because it’s a troublemaker, but because these things were promised to the city as conditions of the 1997 handover. As residents of the world’s third largest financial centre, Hong Kongers are diligent drafters and executioners of contracts (which international treaties are) and above all, faithful believers of them. For an asker (the Chinese government) to claim a contract as “historical” because it has received the goods (Hong Kong) and no longer feels a need to pay (allow Hong Kong 50 years of freedoms and autonomy) is offensive to the principle, the very heart and soul of the city.
(Gg’s former boss was a Hong Konger, and his experience working for him was a rather accurate reflection of Hong Kong’s view on business. What made an impression to Gg—that the posters should be without rips and misprints, even if these imperfections were not the fault of the design company—is a no-brainer to the Hong Konger in me reading the interview. Delivering high quality goods and services isn’t an act of kindness but rather, of professionalism and respect for the contract.)
(This interview is a highly recommended read, for those who’ve missed it!)
(One more example of “conveniently missed critical information”: remember GG’s show on Chongqing? Did you know the underground bombing shelters were not built by the Communist government, but the Nationalist government that was still ruling China during WWII?)
Anyway, where was I?
Right. We’re getting to 3): People are not getting the facts on the political situation in China because they’re not interested in current affairs.
Some—well, many— people are not interested in politics.
Some of you may be thinking: well, I’m not interested either. I follow politics because it’s important.
Why is it important? Because political engagement means you can do something about the many ills of the society, speak for those who cannot, force the government to change by voting, by voicing your opinion, by going to marches and protests etc.
What if you follow politics and still can’t do most of these things? What if, if you do choose to do these things, the price you pay may be astronomical? Will you still follow politics or devote your time, your energy to something else, something you’ve got more control over, something that won’t be as saddening, frustrating because it’s something you can actually change?
3) is therefore intricately related to why people often don’t do anything, even if they manage to find out about the facts.
There’re no national elections in China. Marches and protests are practically banned because while the Chinese Constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly (as it does freedom of speech and press; Article 35), it also explicitly states that "Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the State, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.” (Article 51) — ie. the freedoms and rights only go as far as if they do not stand in the government’s way. Social media and all communications platforms are under constant surveillance, and so only opinions tolerated by the government is allowed...
And so, the fact, social ill that has broken your heart—you can’t tell for sure if it isn’t talked about because the government has censored it, how many people know about it and more importantly, how many among the people who know about it will agree with your take. If you break your silence and voice your concerns, how many people will have your back, even if you also conceive them as victims of the social ill? If the social ill is the lack of rights of a minority group, for example, will they appreciate your speaking out, or will your “rocking-the-boat” make things even worse for them? A heavily watched net means communications with the oppressed/vulnerable social groups are often filled with obstacles, if not outright impossible. You don’t know how these groups feel; you don’t even know how many affected individuals are there. You watch the and news and shows and they all talk about how wonderfully things are going; how everyone seems so hopeful and positive and happy with their lives—are you the only person feeling that way? Are you wrong? If you speak out then, will you be yelling into the void, or worse, yelling at the police who “invites” you for a chat in the police station? To speak for those who do not have a voice to speak, are you ready, willing to take the risk of also becoming one who no longer has a voice to speak? Is your family ready?
To put it another way: the opportunity cost of “doing something” about the political situation can be astronomically high in China, compared to the opportunity cost of us doing something similar in our own country.
If I want to support the LGBT+ population in my part of the US, for example, I can do so effectively with minimal investment and most importantly, with minimal risk. By pasting a rainbow flag on this Tumblr post, for example, I’ve already signalled to those who need support on this issue that I’m ready to give mine. And this “signal” of mine will join the hundreds and thousands on the site, collectively telling the activists doing the “on the ground” fighting that they’re not alone; that they have my vote of support. I pose no danger to myself in doing so; no one will accuse me of, arrest me for infringing upon the interests of the State and the Collective. The rainbow flag, a display of my stance, will not turn into a blurred blob the next time I look at it, transform overnight from a symbol of solidarity to a warning sign to those who may wish to join the cause. There’s no danger for me, even, to carry an actual, huge rainbow flag to Pride, perform my activism in person. I don’t have to worry about my phone already giving away my identity as a protester to the government, especially in post-COVID times. I don’t need to watch out for plain clothes pretending to be my allies. I don’t have to look at the many surveillance cameras present and wonder if I’ll get blacklisted as a troublemaker.
Am I still being tracked and taken pictures of? Possibly. But for this cause, at least, I’m not afraid that these information will be used to arrest me. If I were arrested, I know there'll be lawyers and activists who would come to my aid. LOUDLY. ANGRILY.
I’m not afraid. Period. I’m having fun. And I doubt I can say the same if I try to carry a rainbow flag to Tiananmen square and march there.
This vast difference in the opportunity cost of taking political action is the reason why I’ve refrained from demanding those who live under authoritarian dictatorships to stand up for their neighbours who’ve been oppressed / bullied by their governments. I’ve refrained from criticising them for looking away, minding their own business. Do I wish they’ve take action? Of course I do. Am I aware that their lack of action is potentially more harmful because of the frequent atrocities happening around them? Yes. But I also understand that going on a fight is far more frightening when one doesn’t even have a sense of how many will join their side of the fight; I understand that fighting for what one deserves—freedoms, rights, justice—should never equal martyrdom, and just because a regime has elected to put equal signs between the two doesn’t mean those equal signs should ever be there. I remind myself that, to ask the people in any authoritarian dictatorship to stand up for a political cause is to ask them to make sacrifices that we, as people in relatively free societies, do not need to make when standing up for the same cause. In a country where a father demanding the truth about the milk product poisoning of his own son got jail time for “eliciting social disorder”, to stand up for even a single issue, no matter how small that issue is, requires courage that I’m not sure I have.
I can’t ask anyone to do anything I may not be able to do myself.
And this is why I, too, have chosen to support these people, even if many of them are single-issue activists, even when many support the Chinese government on other issues that matter. For example, the late Dr Li Wenliang, one of the eight COVID whistleblowers in China who passed away from the disease, was an opponent of the Hong Kong Protest, but I still (greatly) appreciate, respect him for what he did. As long as they’re not actively helping the government to cause (more) harm to others, as long as their cooperation with their government falls within what is demanded of them as citizens, they have my support. Why? Because most people who speak out in China cannot afford to stand up for more than one cause before it becomes dangerous for them. Because even if it’s only a tiny vulnerable social group, one small minority that makes a tiny step towards more rights, more freedoms, more justice, it’s still a victory in a country where rights, freedoms and justice are luxury items for those with neither political nor economic power. Because those who’re not part of the ruling class cannot afford to cherry pick their allies, cannot afford to in-fight when the ruling class already holds absolute power. Because I still believe in pay-it-forward, that most people who’ve benefited from someone standing up for them, even for one small incident, one minor cause, is more likely to stand up for someone else.
This is, admittedly, not always an easy choice to make—not for me, at least. I do get frustrated, can’t help but think at times that those who subscribe to and spread propaganda are, to a certain extent, corroborators of the atrocities committed by their government. (So, to those who’ve felt this frustration, you’re not alone!). And the Hong Konger in me has every reason to be furious with everything about China right now—all I could think of, when I listened to Gg singing 異鄉人 Foreigner the other night, are all the Hong Kongers fleeing the city now, as refugees, because of their political beliefs.
But for now, I’m hanging on. I’ve been able to tell myself that given the country’s political reality, given its tradition of collectivism (which tends to view confrontational dissent with scorn), the paths to freedoms, to equal rights and acceptance, will not be the same as what I’ve seen, what I’ve wished for. They’ll likely be slow; They’ll likely be long and winding, taking three steps forward and two steps back; they’d likely be unexpected in places, offer us surprises —
And since it’s Chinese New Year / Valentines and I’m feeling brave (irresponsible?), I’d venture a little bit of speculation and say this ~ yes, I’ve wondered if one of these many paths may be trodden, intentionally or not, by two beautiful male idols and their millions of turtles. Is it wishful, fantastical thinking? I’d be the first to admit the answer is yes. But the BJYX scheme has been so well executed as of now, so effective that I can’t help but wonder if it’s leading towards some sort of a goal, whether devised by the humans involved or by the gods/Fates who, as c-turtles have said so romantically, have been writing an original BL story with our favourite boys. The goal may be personal —simply two people being able to act more like themselves again under the spotlight—or a bit more ambitious…
… Because the sneakers + ice-cream post did catch my attention (will probably have to devote a post on that?). Another small incident that has caught my attention, unrelated to Gg and Dd but can significantly change the path they may be trodding, is this — in June 2020, People’s Daily, the state controlled newspaper, boasted its country’s increasing friendliness towards the LGBT+ communities on Twitter . While the tweet was met with skepticism and soon removed, the message it sent is this: the Chinese government may have figured out the the Western world (in particular, the younger generations) view LGBT+ rights as a measure of progressiveness. While I’m still leaning towards the government maintaining a tight grip on LGBT+ rights within its borders, with the strengthening call to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because of the country’s poor human rights record, I can see a glimmer of possibility that the same government may do the unexpected and cater to the queer community for the sake of propaganda. As I mentioned, the queer community hasn’t caused much headache for the Chinese government, and so it’s far more likely to be chosen as the “benefactors” of such a “we’re a human rights champion too!” propaganda campaign than, say, ethnic minorities and political dissidents. Promoting dissemination of core socialist values has always sat high on the CCP’s agenda list, and its target audience has always included foreign, non-Chinese populations; this effort is known as 大外宣—“The Great External Propaganda”. And who better to cast as leads of an international propaganda campaign on LGBT+ rights than two of its own stars who’ve already demonstrated loyalty to the government, who’ve already garnered international fame from a TV series widely viewed as queer, and who may actually be queer?
(And if—if!!!— this ever happens, may I ask everyone to please consider doing the following? Please do not feel a need to express gratitude. Please do not act as though it’s a gift. Celebrate as you would celebrate anyone in a free country exercising their birthright to live, to love the way they want — no less than that, no more than that.)
(For those who’ve asked ~ as international fans, not allowing the CCP to modify our expectations of how a government should behave may be one of the most effective ways to protect Gg and Dd.)
(I call this learning from the best: get the goods we want (more rights for the people in China), refuse to pay the cost (subscribe to CCP’s propaganda), and RUN! ❤️💛💚)
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On the Ideal of Tragedy
I've noticed a disturbing trend in both social media and media, as well as certain groups that I have participated in, which I will refer to as the Ideal of Tragedy.
The Ideal of Tragedy is when marginalised groups, such as LGBT or POC communities, are expected to have to lose something from themselves in order to be considered valid. I myself am not POC, but I am part of the LGBT community, so I will mostly be speaking on the LGBT community today. This ideal, I would say, stems back to the Romantic and Gothic period in literature, which originated with the death of a poet, who died in poverty after several publishing houses refused to publish his poems.
In the LGBT community, there have been four "ideal" paths to tragedy.
The first, succumbing to AIDS- we "worship" several figures in our past who have succumbed to the tragedy of HIV and AIDS (i.e. Freddy Mercury). This is a defining tragedy of the LGBT community, and it is one that killed many of us. There are three takes to this ideal: The government used it against us, resulting in the preventable death of thousands (We have since used that against the government. I have heard of some members of the community wishing that they get HIV or AIDS as a badge of validity and honor (and some have gone out of their way to refuse prevention). Some members use it as the pity tax- a large part of our population has died from this horrible disease, pity us.
The second, persecution. LGBT individuals have been persecuted for centuries, possibly longer. Back in the 20s-50s, there were special newspapers and magazines that only gay men and lesbians subscribed to, there were secret societies. A large part of our history is secret, because if we had been out and proud, we would have been killed. After McCarthyism and the rise of conservative religious factions and media, LGBT individuals expected to be persecuted. Now, we have significantly less persecution, but we are recovering from a sense of generational trauma. We expect to be persecuted, and idealise people who are. When LGBT individuals are attacked and murdered for being lgbt, we tend to fearmonger, and that person is held on a pedestal, a Queer Saint until the next attack happens.
The third, suicide. It is no secret that LGBT individuals have significantly higher rates of depression and suicide than their CisHet counterparts. As such, in several communities I have been in, suicide has been an idealised tragedy. If you are LGBT, and you commit, then you are seen as an angel attacked by an evil society who could not help. While the numbers are increasing, most individuals do not seek help or medication. Organisations such as The Trevor project have been created to help stop this ideal.
The fourth, abandonment. This is an ideal I find especially heinous because it isolates LGBT individuals. I will define abandonment as the ideal of abandoning your (cishet, presumably conservative) family, with the assumption that they will never accept you for who you are. This ideal stems from the ideal of persecution, in which some families will throw out their queer kids. Recently, I've seen a lot of TikToks, Tumblr and Twitter Posts, and even discussions in the QueerWard server where people seem to think that ultimately, they will have to abandon their entire family, even if they have a family that loves and cares for them, even if their family is accepting. I myself had a friend... a "friend" who would repeatedly and often tell me that they couldn't wait for my Grandmother and her brother to die because I mentioned that I don't feel comfortable being out to them, despite them being the only family I have, and loving in all other ways.
If you are LGBT, and you have been encouraged to follow any of these ideals, especially if you do not feel comfortable doing so, please seek help. It is ok if you do not fit into the Ideal of Tragedy- being queer should not be a tragedy! Do not lose yourself to disease, persecution, suicide, or abandonment, and fight for your future. I will be fighting for you.
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more than words
50 words; 50 sentences
ao3
#01 - Motion
A spinning kick, a swing of blade — the two meet and hit but don’t hurt, and Nami sighs exasperatedly at such a pathetic display of a mating dance.
#02 - Cool
Zoro stands his ground as his enemy — finally, finally — falls unceremoniously on his back, unconscious, and Sanji thinks for a moment that the sight of Zoro — wild and victorious and ready to take on the world — looks kind of, maybe, slightly cool.
#03 - Young
Brook sees the two — dying to die for each other, the weight of their friends’ lives pulling down their shoulders — and he thinks too many people forget how young they still are.
#04 - Last
The Cook is the last person Zoro would consider lending a hand in a fight — “who would want to work together with that dumbass anyway,” he lies whenever anyone asks, and doesn’t admit that it’s because he trusts Sanji’s ability to stand his ground, wholly and fully.
#05 - Wrong
Sanji knows Zoro, like him, understands better than most — that this nakama thing isn’t just something you’d die for, but something you’d kill for, too.
#06 - Gentle
Sanji manages to catch Kitetsu before it rolls off from the deck during a storm, and in that moment, Zoro knows, from the reverent way he regards the swords in his hands, that this isn’t the first time the Cook has wielded one.
#07 - One
“Calm down, Marimo,” Sanji says with a dismissive wave of his hand when Zoro asks about the sword a few days later, “I’m not about to take your place as the ship’s swordsman; a cook doesn’t use his hands to fight, and I had a terrible teacher anyways.”
#08 - Thousand
“I’m worth two thousand men,” Zoro grumpily says, almost sulking, and Nami can’t resist patting his head like she would to a little boy pulling the pigtail of a girl he has a crush on.
#09 - King
You’re like the prince of Dumbass Kingdom, Zoro says, and it takes Sanji everything in him not to blurt out, Dumbass Kingdom sounds about right; wait ‘till you see the fucking king.
#10 - Learn
Watching Sanji converse fluently with a couple of tourists in a Northern language, Zoro wonders when he will ever stop learning something new about Sanji — or if he ever will, at all.
#11 - Blur
When Zoro finally comes to, the wounds from Bartholomeow Kuma is muted by Chopper’s medicine, a dull throb at the back of his consciousness; but the sharp pain against his heart feels raw still, visceral and razor-sharp, tucked alongside the ache of Sanji’s sacrifice.
#12 - Wait
“Wait,” he manages to croak out before Sanji flees the room, the word spilling out unbidden; he isn’t quite sure why, but he knows that he wants the Cook to stay.
#13 - Change
“Have some fucking decency ,” Sanji yells, throwing a shirt at Zoro’s direction; the brute has been walking around the ship bare-chested like an eyesore ever since they entered the summer island, and Sanji is just trying to do everyone a favor — and definitely not because there’s a different kind of heat pooling at the pit of his stomach.
#14 - Command
Robin watches the two in amusement — Zoro could have easily refused to be Sanji’s pack mule, and she can hear him grumbling about it still; and yet, here they are, once again, together at the island’s marketplace.
#15 - Hold
Sanji is rough around the edges, bristling at the slightest touch; Zoro knows he needs to be gentle, but he doesn’t quite remember the last time he held something that isn’t a hilt of a sword, without meaning to hurt . It’s a learning curve.
#16 - Need
Sanji knows Zoro is a dumbass, but it takes a special kind of stupid to think he would never be good enough for Sanji, when he’s all that Sanji has ever needed.
#17 - Vision
Zoro never regrets losing his eye, but he wishes, sometimes, he could still take in the sight of Sanji with an unimpaired vision, just to see more of him.
#18 - Attention
“You’re starting a fight, Marimo?” Sanji growls, voice low and dangerous, and Zoro thinks, yes, yes, anything to get you to look at me.
#19 - Soul
He loves the kid like a brother, but sometimes Zoro hates how Luffy can easily see past his gruff words and feigned ignorance; the way Luffy only needs to take one look at him to guess, “you’re worried about Sanji, aren’t you?”
#20 - Picture
He carries around everyone’s bounty posters, Sanji tells himself, and tries not to think too hard about how the only one he kept in his breast pocket is Zoro’s, folded neatly against his heart.
#21 - Fool
“This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done so far,” Sanji says when they part, lips still tingling from their earlier kiss, because Zoro’s love is fierce and consuming and Sanji knows, ever since he was just a kid with the iron mask, that he doesn’t deserve any of this.
#22 - Mad
“Don’t you ever say that kind of shit again,” Zoro snarls, slamming the wall beside Sanji’s head, his voice trembling with a kind of anger Sanji has never seen him with before — frustrated, desperate. “You’re important to me, Cook.”
#23 - Child
Grow up and cast your dreams away, Sanji tells himself every day, the voice ringing in his ears; you stopped being a child deserving of a dream the moment you chained Zeff down to the ground.
#24 - Now
Grow up and cast your dreams away, Sanji wants to tell himself, but the voice stutters, drowned out by the sight of the kid bleeding on the deck of Baratie — he’s a swordsman, too, acknowledged by none other than Dracule Mihawk himself — but a kid still, throwing himself headfirst towards the case of his dreams, steps unweighted by regrets.
#25 - Shadow
Zoro doesn’t know which is worse — Sanji, forever running away from the shadow his brothers cast; or Zoro, chasing after someone who is no longer around to leave behind a shadow anymore.
#26 - Goodbye
After Whole Cake Island, there’s a period of time where Zoro would follow Sanji around the ship like a lost puppy, unwilling to let the Cook out of his sight; Usopp definitely didn’t expect Zoro to have such a cute side, and crouches over his new invention to hide his smile.
#27 - Hide
“We’re not doing that here,” Sanji hisses, and forces himself not to laugh at the pout on Zoro’s face; the galley might be secluded enough, but they’re still on the enemy ship’s galley.
#28 - Fortune
It is annoying, the way Sanji keeps reminding Zoro that he could have collected Mihawk’s bounty and lived the rest of his life in wealth; especially when Zoro would trade any riches in the world just to stay by the Cook’s side.
#29 - Safe
It catches Zoro off guard when Sanji starts talking about his mother; it’s a short anecdote, a single happy memory, but Zoro can tell by the way Sanji tells it — guarded and hesitant, like he wants to keep the words close and safe — that he has never shared it with anyone else before.
#30 - Ghost
Usopp starts shaking like a leaf as soon as they enter the abandoned, dilapidated house, and Sanji gently tells him, sometimes the worst ghost is the one you create yourself; Zoro feels the weight of Wado on his hip, and agrees.
#31 - Book
“I don’t need this,” Zoro grumbles with a blush, pushing the book back into Nami’s hands, trying hard to ignore Nami’s laughter and the words ROMANCE FOR DUMMIES emblazoned on the book’s jacket.
#32 - Eye
Shusui sinks into the man’s stomach, all the way to the hilt, and Zoro thinks of the way Sanji curled into himself as the man landed a lucky hit on the cook’s hand. An eye for an eye.
#33 - Never
“This is my first time,” Zoro whispers, head ducking away as he feels his face flush at the admission; but Sanji’s hand rests on his cheek, encouraging, and he can feel the curve of Sanji’s smile as their lips meet and Sanji replies, “it’s mine, too.”
#34 - Sing
Luffy cheers when Zoro and Sanji comes into view, and he lets them take on the next batch of enemies; a good fight is always fun, but watching Zoro and Sanji fight is even more so — like watching a dance that only those two know the melody to.
#35 - Sudden
“What, are we supposed to be surprised?” Nami says, barely looking up from the map she’s working on; Sanji sputters, face redder than the tomatoes he served during breakfast, and Nami feels almost bad for him.
#36 - Stop
“But we — Zoro and I — how did you know?” Sanji asks, and promptly stops asking questions when he realizes the rest of the crew aren’t surprised either; who could blame them, when his and Zoro’s sexual tension can be seen from a mile away.
#37 - Time
Sanji knows they have to break apart soon, just to breathe, but right now all he cares about is to taste as much of Zoro as possible — he has waited two years for this, and it has been two years too long.
#38 - Wash
They have their fair share of fighting — and how, considering the amount of repairs Usopp has to do for Merry just from their petty fights alone — but what the crew doesn’t know is that they also have this thing, this quiet thing, just him and the Cook and a stack of dirty plates between them.
#39 - Torn
“In retrospect,” Robin observes, “dressing up our dear cook in a maid uniform would not only lower the enemy’s firepower, but also ours, considering how distracted our swordsman has clearly become.”
#40 - History
“Why do you keep him around, mister?” The kid asks, pointing at the old swordsman with three swords and an eye scar by the peer; Sanji laughs, pats the kid on the head, and says, almost wistfully — “you can say we have some history.”
#41 - Power
Sanji tugs at Zoro’s sleeve, and Zoro follows suit despite his complaints — Sanji thinks, distantly, how much of an honor it is, to have so much control over such a powerful man.
#42 - Bother
“I didn’t have enough time to make this three-tier ice cream cake for our lovely Nami-san and Robin-chan because you distracted me!” Sanji says with a hard jab of a finger against Zoro’s chest, and Zoro thinks, good .
#43 - God
Zoro does not believe in gods, but there’s a hymn of a noise when Zoro presses his lips against the crook of Sanji’s neck, the hallelujah of the world breaking apart as their bodies move together, and he thinks, close enough .
#44 - Wall
Zoro slams his fist into the wall of Polar Tang, and is taken aback by the depth of his own frustration; he knows Luffy and the others will get Sanji back from Big Mom’s place, but it unsettles him still, the way Sanji hides himself under layers of pretenses when Zoro has bared so much of himself to the Cook in return.
#45 - Naked
“What the fuck was that for , Mosshead?!” Sanji shrieks, justifiably furious, leg raised and on fire after Zoro sliced his tray into two without preamble; Zoro can’t exactly tell the Cook he did it because he was too surprised at the sight of Sanji in a swimming trunk and nothing else.
#46 - Drive
Why Zoro , people sometimes ask, but the answer is easy to Sanji — nobody drives him crazy the way Zoro does, and is that not what true love feels like?
#47 - Harm
Zoro knows Sanji will be furious ; but as he faces Kuma, knowing at least the Cook is out of harm’s way, he knows he would do this a hundred times over, a thousand times over, a million times over.
#48 - Precious
Sanji is sitting by the corner of the infirmary, face pale with red-rimmed eyes, and Zoro thinks he’s never had that, before — people who would weep for him, knowing that he is more than dried scars and calloused skin.
#49 - Hunger
This thing we have is dangerous, Sanji tells him, but Zoro doesn’t care — he already has a craving, the same way he needs a booze when it’s been too long, except he thinks that this vice will surely kill him.
#50 - Believe
This isn’t faith; this is the truth, Zoro’s truth, the same way he knows he will become the Greatest — Sanji will find that elusive sea of his, and Zoro will stay with him until it is the last thing he can do.
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