INDRA

i'm over 2 weeks late but happy 20th anniversary to the Most Important comic book cover of all time. here is my homage

I don’t see why people don’t like them. I mean they’re one of the most adorable couple on the show

listen i think the thing that peeves me the most when people say they dislike maddie and chim cause theyre a cis straight couple, its dismissing the fact that chim is a whole ass korean leading man/romantic lead which is dope representation, something he literally spends a whole episode talking about!!!

The World Stands in Solidarity

Italy

Germany

Australia

United Kingdom

Canada

Japan

New Zealand

Sweden

Netherlands

Denmark

Ireland

Syria

Brazil

Iran

Switzerland

Slovenia

Spain

France

Israel

can I just say it's SO GOOD TO HAVE RAVEN REYES BACK IN HER PONYTAIL AND A RED JACKET AND SIDE BY SIDE WITH CLARKE

Is anybody out there? Can you lead me to the light? Is anybody out there? Tell me it’ll all be alright

In the wake of JK once more being a total jk, here’s a (non-exhaustive) thread of works by Black trans writers.

Don’t Call Us Dead - Danez Smith, poetry about Black masculinity, police brutality, gender and queerness. Probably the best book of poetry I’ve ever read. Smith has several collections available and you should read them all.

The Deep - Rivers Solomon, a speculative fiction novella about the descendants of murdered slave women. Themes of trauma and memory. Really beautiful writing. Their sci-fi novel An Unkindness of Ghosts is equally unmissable.

Redefining Realness - Janet Mock, the memoir of Mock’s childhood and adolescence as a trans woman before she transitioned. Mock’s second memoir, Surpassing Certainty, focuses on her life in her twenties.

Felix Ever After - Kacen Callender, a YA novel about a teenage trans boy (at the start of the book), Felix, as he further questions his identity, tries to find love, and works on his artistic future. Everything that makes YA novels great.

Reacquainted with Life - KOKUMO, a debut about Black trans womanhood and the power of her voice and body. This work is so hard to describe. Ferocious? Lively? Witty? Completely different to literally any poetry I’ve ever read? All of the above and more.

Mannish Tongues - jay dodd, a poetry collection about Black youth, queerness, religion, family, and gender. I hate how pretentious the word ‘visceral’ is, but it’s pretty accurate here. dodd’s collection The Black Condition ft. Narcissus is also phenomenal.

Pet - Akwaeke Emezi, a YA novel about a Black trans teenage girl and having to confront the existence of monsters. Emezi also has an acclaimed adult novel out, Freshwater, and I believe their new adult novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, is out in August 2020.

trigger - Venus Selenite, poetry about being Black, trans, queer, and unapologetic. This one is hard to get hold of, but worth it if you can. Selenite also co-edited and is featured in Nameless Woman, an anthology of writing by trans women of colour.

Surge - Jay Bernard, a poetry collection written in response to the 1981 fire at New Cross Road, as well as Grenfell Tower and the Windrush Scandal. Bernard is one of those poets who can use 10 words to say more than most of us can in 1,000.

Nameless Woman: An Anthology of Fiction by Trans Women of Color - ed. Venus Selenite, Ellyn Peña and Jamie Berrout, this one includes several stories by Black trans women and is, as a body of work, completely invaluable. The stories here range from semi-autobiographical and romance to sci-fi and speculative fiction.

Resilience - ed. Amy Heart, Larissa Glasser and Sugi Pyrrophyta, an anthology of writing by ©AMAB trans people. Again, this anthology is not specifically dedicated to Black trans people, but it includes work by KOKUMO and CHRYSALISAMIDST, amongst others. This book is super varied, with short stories, poetry and personal essays.

Consider ordering these, where possible, from independent Black owned bookstores.

You can also financially support Black trans people through donating to organisations such as this and these.

Important addendum: I tried incredibly hard to find published works by Black trans women, because trans women are the focus of JK Rowling’s tweets and indeed an overwhelming amount of violence and bigotry in general, but I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that Black trans women are enormously discriminated against by the publishing industry, and are routinely denied a platform for their work and their voices. Literally, when you Google ‘black trans woman author’, you just get Janet Mock’s author page. I think all of the books by Black trans women in the list above, with the exception of Janet Mock, are self/indie pub.

I have trawled through online indie and radical publishing magazines, message boards, and nearly 100 lists of ‘trans authors you must read now!’ and I would charitably say that about 1% of people featured in such lists are Black trans women. Obviously, Black trans women are writing, but the lack of available platform for their work is a huge barrier to their voices being heard. If anyone else has recommendations for work by Black trans women, whether it’s a physical book, an online chapbook, an Insta account of poetry, or anything else, please add it, because there must be so much more than I’ve managed to find.

"it's been 2,199 days..."

Hey FYI the way they show CPR on TV isn't how it actually goes. They can't do proper CPR on actors because its dangerous to do it properly on someone whos heart is still beating, but that pathetic soft little gentle chest-press that you see on films and shows? And the way their shoulders move a lot? Yeah, nah.

CPR is hard work. You've got to press the persons chest down one third of the chests depth. Thats not something you can do by pressing gently on a chest. You have to have straight arms, lock your shoulders, and use your whole body weight to press down on the chest. And you have to do it fast. A great song to sing to get the pace right is Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. Easy to remember, because when you're pumping someone's chest to manually manipulate their heart you are gonna be begging that they stay alive.

I really cannot emphasise the importance of learning CPR enough. It's so important. Please learn it. Even if you dont have access to a proper course -- even if you just look some tutorials up on YouTube, and then practice the pumping action on your mattress, that would be better than nothing.

You dont even have to worry about mouth to mouth, if thats a concern for you; most CPR advice these days is to not bother with mouth to mouth unless there are two of you and you're both trained; the action of chest compressions works well enough to compress and expand the lungs that it sort of functions as a two-fer; it beats the heart and it pumps enough air through the lungs that you don't have to do the mouth to mouth part.

Please learn CPR. Please.

Can I just?

Beliza Saving 2020 💜