Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?
I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?
In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".
Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.
This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.
Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.
The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]
There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.
This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]
As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.
But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?
Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.
if i see a single one of you pissed that your faves canceled an event or a con appearance because they're striking for fair wages then imma come for you in your sleep 🔪🔪🔪
(direct that fury where it belongs: AMPTP and the execs)
Turns out when you actually do your own research and writing [AHEM!] it takes time to make good content. These awesome names and plenty of generous people like them help make that happen. Their pledges give me the time to research the show PROPERLY and also go towards paying the crew, who make the show look spectacular.
If you can, and you wanna support what I do, sign up and join them :)
no joke but what I really want for Buddy Daddies as a fandom is to make fanart and fanfic post present time ep12 where Rei wears an arm orthosis when working.
I think varied disability aids being represented would be fantastic, and personally would write Rei as someone being deeply proud of something he's done for his family, but also understanding with time that using an orthosis also helps him at work and in raising Miri. with a giant portion of mobility/motorics aids being represented by prosthetics, seeing more variety and exploring it in fiction would also help making a step in normalising disability treatments.
one of the funniest aro traits i have is that i NEVER notice people i know being romantically into each other. they can be the most obviously pining couple in the world flirting ridiculously hard right in front of me and ill just be like wow, look at us three besties all just hanging out :) and then they'll be like btw we're dating now! and ill go WHAT???? oh that was romance??? WHOA. like yay happy for you!!! i just didn't clock it at all whatsoever!!!! (part of this is that im just an affectionate person with my friends and ill happily flirt with my besties and physically lay all over them with absolutely no romantic intent. so i forget that sometimes people are flirty or always concerned with each other for romantic reasons. like. EVERY time it's just oh YEAH... i forgor again...)
anyways, i like to hand this to bart allen, aroace extraordinaire. guy who just straight up forgets romance is real and not something they made up for video games with romanceable companions. he's happy for his friends when they say they're dating someone, bc they're happy so yay! but until they come out and say it he will NOT clock any sort of romance going on.
now i also like to imagine that when the gang are all like in their late teens to early 20s, there's some RIDICULOUS lesbian drama going on. cassie and cissie have been kinda sorta dancing around each order for ages, but then after kon's death and resurrection cassie got distant and cissie and anita started spending more and more time together, and cassie isn't proud to admit it but she maaaay have gotten jealous and fucked rose about it, and now cissie is giving her the cold shoulder. and rose keeps flirting with cissie even though she and cassie keep having unplanned hookups, and anita just asked cassie to be her plus one to a wedding and cassie is shocked she didn't ask cissie and what's going on?! is anita hitting on her??? omg??? wait but what's going on with cissie?? and....
anyway, all of this to say cassie is going the fuck Through it and it's a mess that she keeps bemoaning to kon while languishing on his couch and eating all his ice cream (kon is listening wide-eyed like "wow. if i ever need romantic advice, i'll ask you and then do the exact opposite of whatever you say.") this whole ridiculous affair is going on for months.
until one day there's a core four sleepover and kon is like soooo is it the time of night where we start unpacking the latest developments in cassie's love life? and cassie goes AUURGHGHRHH!!!! yes but oh my god shut up don't say it like that auugghhhh
and bart just looks at her and tilts his head like a puppy dog and asks "wait. you have a love life?? since when???"
silence.
cassie gawks. kon looks positively gleeful.
and then tim starts laughing so hard he doubles over and accidentally slams his head into the corner of the coffee table hard enough to get a mild concussion. bart's aro swag claims yet another victim
Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.
When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?
Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?
I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.
I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.
An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.
So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.
Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡
I combined footage from my Detektiv Conan Blu-ray with audio from my Case Closed FUNimation DVD and made an HD English dub clip compilation for Episodes 57-58, "The Holmes Freak Murder Case."
omg guys I just found my beautiful, hardcover, illustrated, deluxe 30th anniversary edition of The Princess Bride and I forgot how fucking stunning this fucking book is 😭😭😭
I thought it was so gorgeous when it was gifted to me for Christmas several years ago from my mother that I never even opened it up long enough to read any of it because I fucking cherished this copy of one of my all time favorite book and film adaptions so so so much, I didn’t want to mar the book at all by reading it because it’s just so beautiful that I packed it away, in a separate box, cushioned by my own shirts since I don’t have a bookcase anymore, and just kept it safe there and, UGH !!! it still looks pristine now that I’ve taken it back out !!! 🥺🥺🥺
but now I have the urge to actually open it and read it, because I haven’t read the book in like 20 years now and it was one of my favorites the first time my mom let me borrow her copy when I was 7-8 years old. and then when I bought my own hand me down falling apart ass paperback version I found at the library for like $2 during one of their like book sale things when I was 10, and read it over and over again until it was missing pages. like, that’s how much I love this book. I read it to DEATH. like. that book was so loved that I read it until it couldn’t be pieced back together anymore. and even though it was in rough shape when I got it, I didn’t care. I loved it because it was finally MY copy. and now I have this just absolutely gorgeous copy to replace that old falling apart book I had lost ages ago and was devastated about, and it’s one of my most prized possessions.
I’m going to be much more careful when reading this version, seeing as it is a deluxe anniversary edition that was gifted to me, and has quite a lot of beautifully illustrated pages and even some extra chapters. and because, eventually, I want to pass it down to my kids so they can read their mother’s favorite book, from her own copy of it (if I ever have any kids, that is), like my mother did by letting me read her copy and just fall in love with the story. which is a big part what instilled my love for this book/film at a very young age, that connection over it that I had with my mother, because her and I have never really connected on much so this book holds a lot of sentimental value to me. and I want to one day pass that down to my children for them to read (not keep, just read and decide if they want their own copy so I can go buy them an edition of it, like my mother did by gifting me this edition when it released even though it was years and years after I’d first read the book and fell in love with it, she just remembered how enamored I was with the story and the characters that she wanted to surprise me with a brand new, beautiful copy of my own). so I’ve def gotta keep it in really good condition. that’s my drive to not ruin this book and read it to death like my poor old paperback version I had, lol 🥺🖤