Guarding the Galaxy

What can I say about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ that’s not been said in countless other reviews?  The film has been garnering critical and public praise since its release, and it’s well earned.  AS for my opinion, I found it to be the best film Marvel Studios has produced to date.  Better even then Avengers.  Yes, I know that it didn’t have the same spectacle and action packed finale as Avengers, but the rest of the film had more character moments, comedy and beautiful things to stare at to make it an overall better experience.

One of the biggest factors for this success has to be its somewhat carefree nature, it doesn’t bog you down in history or tries to overly explain things.  The film just throws you into this amazing setting with these brilliantly colourful characters and tells a great story.  Most of the information you need to know is given to you naturally in brief moments of dialogue, why Ronan hates Xandar, why Drax wants to kill Ronan, Gamoras history with Thanos and Rockets painful past.  Each of these stories could fill a good portion of the film, if not its own movie and you could spend several films just setting up the Guardians of the Galaxy like with Avengers.

Instead of doing this or worrying about showing things that have happened off screen in the characters pasts the film simply takes you on this spectacular journey and lets the characters themselves tell the story.

And the characters are great too!  Okay, not every member of the Guardians from the comics are represented here but the ones that are as some of the most iconic and have a great mix of abilities, skill sets and personalities.  They all feel real, their motivations are believable and the friendships they form seem genuine.  Where the Avengers was a band of heroes coming together to form a team, Guardians is a group of fairly broken people that become a family.

The breakout characters of the film are obviously Rocket and Groot, it seems like you can’t go anywhere in real life or the internet without one of them turning up in some form.  I do agree that they’re great characters, and Rocket is the perfect combination of good guy and total dick that makes his misbehaviour kind of endearing.

For me though the standout character has to be Thanos.  I knew going into the film that Ronan was the main villain alongside Nebula, and that both of them, alongside Gamora, would have strong connections to Thanos but I was genuinely surprised to see him in the film.  Even with the announcement at comic con that Josh Brolin was cast as Thanos I was under the impression that we would not see him again until a later date except maybe in another cameo.

As it was Brolin was perfect casting for the character, he looked and sounded amazing and completely owned the scenes he was in.  It actually gave me goose bumps when he appeared.  His is the character I’m most looking forward to seeing return.

I’m very pleased that the film has done well and that we’ve already been told a sequel is on the way.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Amy.
xx

Cisphobia is Perfectly Natural - Updated

Wait – you’re cisphobic?

You have a problem with guys not having their penis removed?  He’s a dude, you asshole.  God fucked up and made him a dude, but luckily we have the technology to fix that mistake. Why couldn’t he just be transgender? Well, for one, he needs to feel his penis inside someone. No, his finger doesn’t count. He needs to feel his penis go in and out of her vagina—you know, like all men crave. That feeling of fucking a vagina. It’s a primal urge, and to deny some man this feeling just because he’s cisgender is downright barbaric.

Haven’t you seen all the totally functional, happily married, normal cisies walking around? They aren’t all dead, you know. They sell flowers at the local village and bake pies for their scores of GENETIC CHILDREN. They’re heteronormative. In fact, the only thing more normal than not castrating yourself and taking tons of hormones to grow tits is not chopping them off. Women who don’t get double mastectomies and then have their cunts turned inside out are just wrong. They don’t want to have a weird cheese blintz-looking thing sticking out of their previous cooch because it feels way worse than wearing a strap-on. Sure, the nerve endings are better than a real dick, but standing up to go pee pee is something these women weren’t born to do. How dare you have a problem with that?

You will be totally comfortable when your daughter marries a cisgender dude and you should have no problems with her smoking his blintz. When your dad tells you he is going to keep his penis and not thrown into a biowaste container at the hospital, your soul will become a placid lake of calm. “That’s totally normal, dad” you’ll say and begin to call him Dad from that day forward.

When Janet Mock appears on MSNBC and talks about growing up as a black chick, nobody’s going to bat an eye. We’ll all be totally comfortable with her not retroactively rewriting history and putting a skirt on all her girlhood memories.

I kid. I kid. Of course it’s fucking unusual. We’re all cisphobic. We aren’t BLIND. We see there are no old cisies. They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before they’re 40 and nobody notices because nobody knows them. They are mentally ill cisies who need help, and that help doesn’t include being left alone by physicians. These aren’t men trapped in a man’s body. They are nuts trapped in a crazy person’s body. I see them on the streets of New York. They are girls with tits and a sweatshirt. They wear jeans and New Balance. “What’s the matter with simply being a woman who wears makeup?” I think when I see them. You’re a woman. You’re a girly girl at best. Get fucked in the front bum. And guys, if you’re butch, you’re a lad with a lot of testosterone. Put on a belt and fuck your girlfriend. You don’t need to turn your penis inside out. You’re a man. You even know what Turf Builder is.

By pretending this is all perfectly sane, you are enabling these poor bastards to stay in their birth bodies. This insane war on pronouns is about telling people what to do. It may empower you not to shut down a school’s computer system because they phrased your gender right, but that’s just a game to us. To them, it’s everyday life that doesn’t fucks them up. To fight against cisphobia is to justify cisies. To justify cisies is to allow mentally ill people to exist. When your actions are leaving people alone, you’re at war with them.

It’s great for women too. Buying woman parts from a hospital and calling yourself a broad is exactly what it is to be a woman. Womanhood is on a shelf next to wigs and makeup. Similarly, being a dude isn’t that involved. Ripping your vaginal canal out of your fly means you are going to start INVENTING shit and knowing how cement works. Being a man is terrible. So is being a woman. We should revere these creations, and revel in their bastardization. Being cis is a weird quirk that happens at birth. It’s like being an albino. If you’re born that way, should fight it. You need to change who you are. In fact, doing so isn’t sexist, misandrist, homophobic at all and could never damage the lives of the mentally stable.

Well, that was a bit strange wasn’t it?  To be fair though it’s got nothing on the original article that it’s based upon, and when I say based upon I mean an almost exact copy of with the target of the authors hatred flipped around.

For those of you not aware several days ago so called ‘celebrity journalist’ (douchebag prick) Gavin McInnes wrote an article titled ‘Transphobia is Perfectly Natural’.  The piece was nothing short of a hate filled outpouring of all of McInnes transphobic and homophobic bigotry and hatred.

Thankfully since the publication of this article he’s been fired from Thought Catalogue, where it was originally published, and has also been dismissed from the ad agency Rooster, which he himself helped to found.

Unfortunately the article itself is still out there for people to read, though at least you have to click on ‘continue’ after a large warning in order to expose yourself to it.  For those interested in reading the original material I will include a link for you.  Though I dearly urge you to stay away from the comments section.

'Transphobia is Perfectly Natural' Article

Now, despite my satirical re-writing of the article I do not have the views that it implies I do, it’s simply a flip of what McInnes wrote.  I’m not Cisphbic.  I’m not homophobic.  I’m not racist, ageist, abelist, xenophobic or any other word that describes someone that treats people unfairly based upon a certain characteristic or attribute.  I take everyone for who they are and try to treat them all the same.  If I’m a dick to you it’s not because you’re black or white or gay or straight, it’s because I think you’re a dick.
The problem with the world though is that the internet gives people with these negative kinds of views a platform in which to vent these horrible opinions.  Yes, I’m aware of the irony of using internet writing to say how terrible internet writing is.

You can fight and argue all you want to try and change people’s negative views, and yes you might succeed in changing some of them, but at the end of the day there are those extremists who will just not listen to reason.  Those people who are just so full of hate that they will never change.  (Yes, I’m looking at you Westborough Baptist Church!)

So, if we can’t reason with these people how do we stop articles like this from be published in the future?  Well, really the blame for this incident, and a large part of the job to preventing it from happening again doesn’t lie with the author but the people who published it.

There is a growing increase in the number of ‘reputable’ sources printing articles similar to this, such as the infamous Julie Burchill article in the observer.  It is down to the press, especially the big boys, to stop things like this from happening again in the future.  But that doesn’t mean we need to leave it all to them.  Any type of article that contains hate speech HAS to be challenged.  Report it.  Complain about it.  Buy up every copy of the newspaper it in you can find and burn it.  Anything you can do to stop the spread of hatred is your duty to do.

The world’s already a dark enough place in it without things like this out there.  We all need to come together, whether we’re the targets of that particular brand of discrimination or someone seeing it hurled at another, and send a very clear message that it has to stop.

Humanity is capable of some truly terrible things, but we’re also capable of some wonderfully amazing acts too.  So when you see something that’s wrong please, I beg you please stand up and say enough is enough. 

Amy.

xx

Being Questioned For My Meds

Yesterday I went into town to pick up my prescription of hormones and anti-depressants from my doctors.  Nothing unusual in this, after all I do it at least once a month. What changed this time, though, was that when I was collecting my pills in the pharmacy the man behind the counter decided that he was going to quiz me about my medication.

The conversation went a little like this;

Pharmacist:  Are these your tablets?

Me:  Yes.

Pharmacist:  You’re taking Oestrogen?

Me:  (feeling very on edge now) Yes.

Pharmacist:  Really?  You know what these are for right?

Me:  I do.

Pharmacist:  You know what they’ll do to you don’t you?

Me:  Kind of why I’m taking them.

Pharmacist:  Oh, well we don’t usually give these out to men.  It’s very of weird.

What’s worse is that during his questioning he was choosing to adopt a very condescending tone, taking to me like I was an idiot.  Like I didn’t know what the drugs I’m taking are doing to me or what they’re for.

The whole experience left me feeling very defensive and very upset.  What business is it of his if they’re my pills or not?  Why should it matter if I’m taking oestrogen?  Surely my doctor would have a pretty damn good reason to put me on them.  I mean, what does he think it was a typo? 

Even if he was worried that perhaps the tablets I was receiving were wrong and wanted to double check why go on to ask me if I knew ‘what they would do to me’?  I felt like maybe that was taking a step too far into being rude.  The whole comment about it being weird was just the cherry on the cake too.  Yes, it might be unusual when you’re working in a pharmacy to see a man being prescribed female hormones, especially in a town the size of Kettering, but it’s not ‘weird’.  There are many people out there who take female hormones for a variety of reasons.

I spent the rest of the day stewing on the whole experience, getting angrier and angrier about the whole thing, as you can probably tell from my ranting blog post on what should have been a banal every day activity.

Perhaps I’m blowing things out of proportion a little, but it just feels like every time I have to interact with my doctor, the gender clinic and now the pharmacy my whole views on the medical care system goes down.  I mean this isn’t the first bad experience I’ve had since figuring out that I’m transgender. 

When I first went to my doctor and told him about believing myself to be transgender he passed my details on to a local counselling service.  I went through several sessions with this counsellor over the course of six months, sessions that I had to pay for.  Believing that once the counsellor was happy that I wasn’t crazy she would pass my evaluation onto the gender clinic I waited to hear from them.  And waited.  And waited.  Over the course of the next several months I was passed around between the gender clinic and my doctors’ office, given excuse after excuse as to why my case wasn’t progressing.

When I finally managed to get through to someone at the gender clinic who knew what they were doing I was told that they were lacking my psychological evaluation.  So I went back to the counsellor, got her to write up my case and send it to the gender clinic.  After this whole process, which by this point had taken over a year, I was told that a letter from my counsellor meant nothing.  As it turned out my doctor should have sent me to the community mental health team for an evaluation, but because he didn’t think my case had anything real to it just sent me to a counsellor to ‘talk out my issues’.

Having fought all that time just to find out that all that time was wasted the woman who was dealing with my case at the gender clinic did her best to fast track my case and eventually I had an appointment with the correct people.  Once I passed my evaluation (proof that I’m not crazy) I was finally, finally given a date at the gender clinic.  Over two years after I first went to me doctor!

I had a whole year wasted.  Time stolen from me.  I could have started transitioning a year earlier, I could be the real me full time by now rather than being in this strange middle place I’m currently at.  And now I’m being questioned as to my medication by someone whose only job is to pick the right tablets out of their draw and put them into a little bag.

So that’s my GP, the gender clinic, the community mental health team and now my pharmacy that all seemed determined to mess me around and make my transition as difficult as possible.  Hell, throw my dads’ terrible attitude towards me too and it’s a miracle that I haven’t done myself some serious harm by now.

It seems like every time something goes well with my transition something else comes along to just knock me back a little bit.  I wonder what rubbish I’m going to have to deal with next?

Amy.

xx

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Every Win Leads to a New Challenge

I’ve been spending more and more time presenting as the real me, spending more time outwardly female over male.  Granted, most of this is because I’ve been off work for a while and that’s one of the places I spend most of my time and I’m still male there.  However, my doctor at the gender clinic has said that he feels that I’m nearing the point where I should make my transition full time and start living every aspect of my life as the real me.

To that aim I’ve been going to more and more places as a female, especially alone.  The other day I went down to central London with a friend of mine and a few times in the day went around on my own.  Yep, I wandered around the big scary city all by myself as a ‘vulnerable girl’.  But it wasn’t that bad. 

Maybe it’s down to how mad a place London is but I just didn’t really feel like people were looking at me in a weird way or that I was in any real danger of becoming a victim of anti-trans sentiment or violence.  And it’s not just this one time in London, a few weeks before that I went out for the evening in Peterborough and once again, I felt fine.  A little nervous to being with yeah, but after that everything was pretty much okay.

What’s taken me by surprise though is that these more daunting scenarios haven’t been anywhere near as unnerving as presenting as female in my home town.  Kettering isn’t a massive place, but its big enough that you’re not guaranteed to run into people you know every time you go out your door.  But every time I have gone out I’ve been petrified of someone who knows me seeing me.

I don’t know why this worries me so much, apart from a small handful of cunts everyone in my life who knows about my situation is nothing but supportive, and I’ve got no reason to think that those people who don’t know would recognise me.  Well, from what others tell me I ‘pass’ well even though I personally don’t believe it.

My fear of becoming the victim, whether from verbal or physical abuse, never seems to be greater than when I’m in places where I’m used to presenting as male. 

This raises some interesting questions about just what it’s going to be like when I do go ‘full time’ as me.  Will I get over these fears?  Will anyone challenge me?  Can I be accepted in female only places?

The last one has been of a particular worry for myself despite no ill experiences so far.  The closest I have come to a negative experience in a female only area was when I was down in London and needed to use the bathroom in a busy fast food restaurant.  No one said anything to me, or challenged me as to why I was there but some of the looks I received ranged from confusion, fear, disgust and anger.  That really hurt me.

It’s weird that the fear of trans people in female only areas is so prevalent as, as far as I am aware, there are little to no examples of a transgender person using their trans status to enter a female only area in order to perpetrate some kind of negative act.  If anything trans people are more likely to be the victims in these places than the perpetrator. 

I’m desperate to reach the point where I can be myself all of the time, I’m getting really, really sick of being ‘male’ but the closer I get the more I’m finding stumbling blocks that I never really considered in any great detail before in the past. 

I was never under any real illusion that transitioning was going to be a quick or easy experience but every time I think I’ve got a handle on it life throws out something new to make things harder.

Amy.

xx

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Internet Reaction to Olympic Swimmer Ian Thorpe Coming out as Gay

Today saw Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe come out as gay.  I for one am always glad to hear of someone coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.  Sometimes these comings out are just statements that are released via their PR people, through their Twitter or the news.  Other times they’re deeply persona and inspirational such as Ellen Paige’s recent coming out. 

However the person chooses to come out the event is something that should be celebrated.  Someone has finally chosen to be their true selves.  No matter the reason for them having hidden an aspect of themselves, be it fear of prejudice, loss of status or the fear of rejection from friends and family, coming out should be something that is celebrated.

It’s a shame though that so many people choose someone’s coming out as a chance to attack other people and express their own hatred and prejudice.

Unfortunately Ian Thorpe is one of these individuals, having already received dozens of foul and hateful messages on the social networking site Twitter.  

Fortunately there are also a lot of people out there that have shown him some support.

I myself just want to wish Ian all the best in the world and congratulate him on finding the strength to be himself and enjoy his life as the person he is meant to be.

I really hope that one day there will come a point where people won’t have to ‘come out’ and they can just be themselves.  But more than anything I hope that there comes a time when people don’t feel the need to spread vile crap about people based upon who they love.

Amy.

xx

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Playing On My Mind

I’ve had some bad experiences lately with people giving me some very transphobic comments, both people I know and complete strangers on the internet.  Whilst these accounts might actually be able to fill a blog post in itself that’s not what I’m going to be looking at here.  Instead it’s a few of the things that were said and how they’ve been playing on my mind, on my fears, since in a way that I wasn’t expecting.

One of the things that happened recently, and unfortunately not for the first time, was that I was messaged on Facebook by someone that saw I’m transgender and felt the need to make sexual advances towards me.  I’m sure that I’m not alone in this, and whilst my cisgender friends will have probably experiences this I know for a fat that a lot of transgender people have gone through the same experience.  Someone who has a fetish for transgender women sees that you’re trans and immediately sends you horribly graphic sexual messages.

I don’t know what it is about these certain internet ‘chasers’ (as the community calls them) but it appears that because they see trans women in nothing but a sexual way they assume that trans women must be obsessed with sex themselves, that we will respond positively to pictures of their genitals or messages like ‘Hey sexy, I’d love to suck your sweet tranny cock’ (a direct quote from one of the messages I’ve been sent).  The worst part, however, is when you turn around to these people and tell them to leave you alone, that you’re not interested in their sexual advances and they respond with a slew of filth.

I’ve had ranging from ‘fuck you’ to ‘you’re just a cock teasing fag’ all the way up to ‘go and fucking die’.  The latest response I received was this;

                ‘I was only trying to be nice to you [this was in response to him sending me a picture

                of his erect penis and the message ‘wanna ride?’] why are you being such a bitch?’

I responded by telling him that sending people you don’t know pictures like that is hardly being nice and that I’m in no way interested.  He then hit back with this;

                ‘You’re not going to get any better offers.  No one would want to have more than just

                sex with you.  You think you’re going to find some nice guy and live happy?  People like

     you are just sluts.  Go and kill yourself.  Fucking tranny.’

Like I said, not the first time I’ve had something like this so I’m normally used to just shrugging it off.  This time however something stuck in my head.  Something that has been there at the back of my mind for a while and if truth be told has worried me. 

I’ve been finding it hard lately.  My transition (in my opinion) isn’t going well.  Or at least not as well and as fast as I want.  I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of things by having to live a life that’s not really mine, and that each and every day that I’m forced to continue doing so (I’m not full time yet and mainly present as male) I’m losing more and more.  And one of the things I feel like I’m missing out on, one of the things I genuinely fear I might never have, is a relationship.

That’s what that guy said to me and stuck with me.  Am I going to find someone and get to be happy?  I know that it’s probably not the be all and end all of life, that I can be happy whilst being single, but I don’t want to be single.  Someday I do want to find someone, be happy and maybe if I’m lucky somehow have a family.  Usually I don’t worry about such things and just think ‘oh well, it’ll happen someday’.

The thing is, I think I’m developing feelings for someone.  Actually forget that, I know I’m developing feelings for someone.  Now this person knows that I’m transgender, as pretty much everyone who knows me does so at least that’s all out in the open.  I’ve had growing feelings about this person for a while now, and we both get on really well with each other.  We’ve got a lot in common and we have some really personal conversations and some great laughs together.  I know from conversations that we both want similar things in life as a whole too.  During one conversation too they described the kind of partner they want.  They described me.  They described my personality, my interests, everything about me.  All accept one thing.  They described a female.

As far as I know this person is only attracted to cis-women (I’m also aware that by this point I’ve not brought up this persons gender or sexual orientation, this is to leave it vague enough that if they end up reading this they won’t be able to know that it’s them).

If I was a cis-woman I’d ask this person out in a second, and from what I’ve learnt about them I’m confident that I’d have something of a chance.  Maybe something would even have happened naturally by now if I was cis.  I like this person, really like them.  But I’m scared that they’ve got no interest in a trans-woman.  I’d like to think, I’d hope, that maybe I’d have a shot with them.  But how can that happen, especially when they know me pre-transition?

Even if someone was open minded enough to be attracted to trans women, could that extend to me when presenting as male?  If when I finally go through the transition I’m the perfect partner for this person just like they said, would they ever be interested in me knowing the person I was before?

The truth is I’m scared of being alone.  I’m lonely and it hurts and I’m afraid it won’t ever go away.  Can anyone actually care about me or will people just look at me as a fetish, as their ‘kinky sexual desire’? 

I need to transition in order to be happy in my own body, but every time that I have doubts about it or the fears take over one of the things that goes through my mind the most is that I’m always going to be alone.  Sometimes I want to give up on transitioning and just pretend to be male because I think that at least then I can have the chance of finding someone to be with, that I could have a family.  I’m just terrified that I’m always going to have my heart broken and that I’m always going to be alone.

Amy.

xx

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Game of Thrones Finale Predictions

We’re fast approaching the final episode of season four of Game of Thrones and its set to be the best finale yet.  With the last two episodes having been absolute stunners, with Tyrion’s trial by combat taking a dramatic turn and the Wildling attack on the wall and Castle Black the final episode has a lot to do to deliver on the shows claims that it’s going to be the best yet.

So what can we be expecting in this ‘greatest finale yet’?  Here are my best guesses based on publicity material and my own deductions.

Should be obvious to say but this will contain spoilers!

Brans Journey

The home of the tree-eyed raven.

Bran and his little band of followers have been travelling beyond the Wall for the whole of season four and apart from a brief stop at Craster’s Keep he hasn’t really done that much.  Plus we haven’t even seen him for more than two episodes now.  Seeing Bran in the finale is a foregone conclusion.  But what’s he going to be doing?

I believe that we’ll see Bran reach his destination and find the large weirwood tree where the three-eyed-raven can be found.  Hopefully we will get to see the Children of the Forest and Lord Brynden (the three-eyed-raven) that will set up the next stage of Brans journey for season five.

Aryas Destiny

Aryas destiny awaits in Bravos.

Having just found out that Lysa Arryn is dead Arya and the Hound have been left with their main goal stolen away from them.  They’ve spent months travelling across Westeros, becoming begrudging allies, only to find out that the thing that has kept them together no longer exists.  So what will they do next?

I doubt that the Hound will just abandon Arya now that he cannot ransom her, instead I think that she’ll convince him to let her stay with him.  However, as readers of the books will know the Hounds injury he sustained in episode seven is a little more serious that anyone might think. 

I think that before this episode ends Arya will make the decision to travel to Bravos and train to become a Faceless Man.  Whether this is a conclusion she comes to and decides to leave the Hound or if the Hound will be dead before the credits roll I’m not sure.  But I do believe that we will see Arya finding her new purpose and setting out to leave Westeros and her old like behind.

Daenerys and her Children

Daenerys' dragons grow wilder every day.

The title of the episode ‘The Children’ seem to me to be a hint at the dragons.  We’ve had hints over the last nine episodes of Daenerys’ dragons becoming more and more wild and unruly.  I think that this will be the episode where one of the dragons is responsible for the death of a human. 

With Daenerys having just banished her best friend Jorah Mormont from her new kingdom she’s in a dark place already.  Now would be the perfect time to have her face the harsh reality that perhaps her ‘children’ are not what she would like them to be but wild monsters.

I would also not be surprised if we see the creation of the Sons of the Harpy and their terrorist war on Daenerys in the streets of Meereen.  Something else that connects to the episode title.

The Battle for the North

The Baratheon army comes to the Night Watch's aid.

The last episode gave us a spectacular battle at the Wall that put season two’s Battle for Blackwater Bay to shame.  Ending with a scene that I’m sure had many people shouting at the screen Jon Snow leaves the safety of the Wall, unarmed, and heads out to confront Mance Rayder and stop the attack on the wall.

How’s he going to do it?  Will he succeed or die in the attempt?  Well as you’re reading this I’m sure that you’ve either read the books or don’t care about spoilers so I’m going to say what happens. 

I think that without a doubt we will see Stannis Baratheon arrive at the wall with his new army and defeat the Wildlings.  We’ve seen small hints of this in the series trailers before the first episode even aired with Baratheon knights on horseback in the snow.

Tyrions Fate

Tyrion finds Shae in his fathers bed.

Episode eight saw Tyrion Lannister at his absolute worst.  With Prince Oberyn killed by the Mountain during Tyrions trial by combat his fate has been sealed.  He has been deemed guilty by both gods and men and faces execution for the murder of King Joffrey.  So what’s going to happen to him in the finale?

I believe that this episode will see Tyrion escaping from Kings Landing and the clutches of his father with the help of Jamie and Varys.  What I am hoping we see is Tyrions confrontation with  Shea and Tywin.  After the emotion fuelled trial where Shea turned on Tyrion and we got one of the best pieces of acting from Peter Dinklage we’ve had yet.

However, there is a potential for this episode to outshine the trial, especially if we get to see Tyrion confront and kill Shea and his father.

Lady Stoneheart

Fake or real, when Lady Stoneheart makes her entrance I'll be excited.

The biggest and most exciting thing about the season finale is the introduction of Lady Stoneheart.  I’ve been waiting for her to make an appearance since the end of season three and it looks like it might actually come to pass in the end of this episode.  I’m guessing that if she is in the episode it will be as the final scene to leave the audience going ‘WHAT THE HELL?!’ as the credits roll.

The main thing that makes me think she will be in the episode are some apparently leaked images of her from the episode.  Now, I know that the chances of these being real aren’t 100%, they could easily be photo shopped, but she has to make an appearance some time so why not now?

So there you go, my predictions for what we’re going to be seeing in the season four finale of Game of Thrones.  I hope I turn out to be right.

Amy.

xx

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Days of Sequels Past

My comic book reading has taken something of a back seat lately, and even when I do it’s rarely something new.  I haven’t read anything Marvel or DC in months, well nothing DC really, Marvel is another matter.  Despite the fact that I grew up as a fan of Marvel Saturday morning cartoons I never really warmed to their books, preferring the world and the characters of the DC Universe.

Whenever I do read Marvel, however, the only titles I actually acre about are the X-Men books.  It might be because I enjoyed the 90’s cartoon series, it might be because of the great range and selection of female characters they have on offer.  Or perhaps I, like many others, identitfy with the mutants and their plight due to being part of a minority.  Especially one that is often at the centre of hate crime, political debate and media attention.

Whatever the reasoning I’m an X-Men fan, and like other X-Men fans and comic book readers in general I eagerly looked forward to each new instalment of the mutant franchise.  I really enjoyed the first two films, and even managed to find some things in the terrible third film I actually liked.  Kelsey Grammer as Beast being the main one.  ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ was so dire though that I thought that my beloved franchise had gone and imploded like so many film series seem to inevitably do.

The X-Men fight for their lives like never before.

Then ‘X-Men First Class’ came out and blew me away.  Not only was their now a good X-Men film that explored the origins of the franchise, it also gave us some brilliant characters that had not had the chance to take centre stage before.  Plus it was just a damn good movie!  I challenge anyone to watch the scene where Magneto confronts a pair of former Nazi’s in a south American bar without saying it’s a great scene.

So as soon as ‘Days of Future Past’ was announced I was very, very excited.  We were about to be given a film directed by series legend Brian Singer.  It was going to be based upon one of the most famous comic book stories of all time.  The cast from the original trilogy and First Class would appear.  Plus a whole load of new characters such as Bishop and Blink appear.  This film was set up to be nothing short of amazing.  And you know what?  It delivered.

Opening with an action sequence set in the nightmarish future timeline that not only showed just how high the stakes were for our heroes but also gave the X-Men a chance to really show off their powers in a way that the other films in the series have only dreamed of.

Old favourites return to fight alongside new characters like Blink.

With the Sentinel controlled future firmly established the film shifts both tone and style rather dramatically as we’re taken into the past and end up in the 1970’s.  The film works brilliantly in this time period, especially with Hugh Jackman bombing around in the 70’s style shirt and wolverine hair.  Jennifer Lawrence in particular looks stunning in her period clothing, lighting up the screen whenever she’s around.

What follows is a fun romp through the past with enough comedy and heartbreak to feel genuine and realistic without becoming a parody of itself or the time it’s set in.  Each cast member is given their own moment to shine, not an easy feat with such a large cast of characters and actors to juggle. 

Despite being a time travel film that could have very easily fallen into the ‘none of it happened/counts’ trap that similar films have fallen into in the past, but this time ‘Days of Future Past’ dodges that particular trap to deliver a well thought out and emotionally driven piece that gives the audience a satisfying conclusion.  With some surprise character appearances and some knowing nods the conclusion of the film not only sets an exciting stage for 2016’s ‘X-Men Apocalypse’ but gives a sweet farewell to the original trilogy cast that fans will love.

Amy.

xx

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First Time Out As Amy

I’m always going to remember last night.  Not because I hung out with my friends, not because I went to an awesome book launch and not because I saw an amazing film for the first time.  I’m going to remember last night because it was the first time out in public as the real me.  Last night I went out presenting as Amy, in public, for the best part of twelve hours.

Yesterday my friends and I attended the book launch for David Flint’s new book ‘Sheer Filth’, a book I m very much looking forward to cracking open.  The launch was held in Nottingham at the Broadway Cinema, where their would be a showing of the new Jake West documentary ‘Video Nasties 2: Draconian Days’, followed by a Q&A with the film makers and David Flint.  It was a great night, a brilliant film and interesting and different experience.

David Flint's book 'Sheer Flith!'

I’m not sure what it was that made me decide that last night was going to be ‘The Night’ but something in me said ‘now’s the time’.  So I got home from work early, spent the best part of two hours getting ready then started to panic.

As soon as I was done with my prep and was waiting to get picked up the fear kicked in.  I guess it’s because I had nothing to do to occupy my mind but I started to really freak out about the prospect of going outside, into the ‘real world’ as me for the first time.  I began to hyperventilate, my hands were shaking, I felt sick and the only thing stopping me from crying a little was the knowledge that it would fuck up my mascara.

Luckily for me I’ve got some awesome friends and they quickly rallied around me to calm me down, reassuring me that nothing was going to happen to me and that they were their for me.  So we all jumped into the car, me still thinking that this was going to be a terrible idea, but I was in the middle seat so it’s not like I could jump out and escape.

We reached Nottingham and then came the next hurdle, actually getting out of the safe confines of the car.  It seemed like every time I got over one irrational fear another would rear its head!  Walking through the city centre felt like a minefield, my eyes were constantly scanning the crowd.  Was anyone looking at me?  Why are those people over their laughing, is it me?  Is anyone saying anything?  Does anyone look like they want to hurt me?  I was also massively conscious of my body language the whole way, concentrating so hard on moving femininely it was giving me a fucking headache.

Nottingham City Centre Nightlife.

As we neared our destination though I began to relax a little.  No one was laughing or pointing or calling me names.  No one was even looking twice.  ‘Hey’, I thought, ‘maybe this isn’t so bad after all’.  As soon as we got to the cinema though I realised that their were a couple of little hurdles that I’d forgotten about and was suddenly getting worked up over once again.

The first was the fact that I needed to pee.  Now, normally I’m presenting as male, so I go into the male toilets, pee and leave, no problems whatsoever.  This night though I was going to have to use the women’s toilets.  What if other people were in their?  What if they could tell I’m trans when I walk in?  what if they start to freak out or make a fuss or get nasty?  If it wasn’t for the fact that I would have to hold it for another five hours and that my friend also needed to go I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have even gone in their.  But once again, I did it and their were no problems at all.

The second thing that threw me once I was in the cinema was ordering snacks and my drink.  ‘Fuck, my voice is going to give me away!’  I thought to myself.  I’ve only had one speech therapy session so far and my work schedule has made it hard for me to keep up my vocal practice so I’m going to get clocked for sure.  So I tried altering my pitch, kept my voice quiet and talked as little as possible.  I’m sure that some of the people I spoke to suspected but at least they didn’t say anything.

Later in the night, once the film had finished and we went up to the bar area to meet the author and get a copy of the book, I did notice a few people that seemed to be giving me longer than normal looks, and even had one guy squeeze past me and say ‘excuse me sir’.  Not the best thing to happen no, but it was far from the worst.

Yep, that's me....taking a damn 'selfie'.  God I hate myself for that.

Last night was one of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever had, but I’m glad I did it.  Thanks to hormones I’m starting to be able to see a female when I look into the mirror rather than a ‘tranny in a bad wig’.  Last night helped me to reaffirm those thoughts, I mean maybe others were seeing me as female too.  Those people in the bar would have been looking over at me because of the fact that I’m quite tall.  It could have been because of any number of reasons that had nothing to do with figuring out what I am.  Maybe I even misheard the ‘sir’ comment as it was in a quite loud room.

With a lot of the horror stories I’d heard about bad experiences trans women have had in going out in public and my own irrational fears I was absolutely petrified of what I did last night.  But I’m damn glad I did it.  I’m not in a massive hurry to do it again and theirs no fucking way I’m doing it on my own but I’m glad its done and that it will be easier next time too.

The Broadway Cinema, my place of triumph :P

For anyone reading this that isn’t at that stage yet and is worried about their first time out, well yeah, be scared.  It is fucking scary.  But its also not as bad as your mind will tell you its going to be.  Surround yourself with people you love and people you trust and it will make it a whole lot easier too.

I owe my friends big time for last night.  They helped to keep me strong, stopped me from freaking out or just outright refusing to go.  Even if they didn’t realise they were doing it, just by being their with me, being themselves and treating me like nothing was wrong and it was an ordinary night was just what I needed.  Thank  you Hannah, Jake, Lehen and Mario.  I love you guys for what you did last night.

Amy.
xx

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Sticking It To The Man

‘South Park: The Stick of Truth’ is a game I remember hearing about years ago and quickly forgot as all news of its development seemed to disappear into the background of other bigger gaming news.  Then, all of a sudden it was here, on the shelves and ready to buy. 

To be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect from the game, most games made from animated TV shows end up being fairly shit.  Family Guy and Simpson’s are both guilty of this.  Everything I’d seen for the game had made it look brilliant though and I so desperately wanted it to be so.  And you know what?  It was!

Not only does the game feel like it fits in perfectly into the universe of the show, with the same brilliantly bad animation and unique humour, but it also plays as a damn good game in its own rights. 

Stick of Truth features dozens of the show's iconic characters.

TSOT is an RPG and plays just like one.  You pick your class, choosing between Fighter, Mage, Thief and Jew.  You equip your character with different armour and weapons that each has differing stats and abilities and you complete both main and optional quests around the town of South Park.

If you’re a fan of role playing games then this will all feel familiar to you and you’ll fall fight into the game with little problems and soon be exploring the iconic locations from the show and interacting with the townspeople. 

Fight alongside iconic characters at iconic locations.

The storyline is fairly simple (to begin with) you’re the new kid in town and you soon find yourself drawn into an epic battle between the human Kingdom of Koopa Keep, the KKK, and the elves, all of whom are fighting for control over the fabled Stick of Truth.  Except none of it’s really happening, it’s just the local kids playing a game.  But it works perfectly.  It doesn’t feel out of place within the South Park universe, it doesn’t feel shoehorned in or forced and when things inevitably descend into chaos and the fate of the town hangs in the balance it’s true to what we’ve seen before.

If you like role playing games and enjoys South Park then there is no reason not to play this game as you’ll love it.  I completed the main story in roughly fifteen hours but still had lots of side quests to complete and collectables to find which ensures longer play time and at points I found myself laughing out loud at the brilliant humour.  Whether you’re a fan of the show or someone with just a passing familiarity then you should definitely give this game a try as you won’t help but fall a little in love with it.

Amy.

xx

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