#& I would personally like to stop seeing 50 different variations of the same post telling me what the appropriate way of discussing this is

[feral-radfem]

I'm not going to be tone policed on how I talk about any subject whether it personally affects any of you or not. I am certainly not going to be persuaded to speak more kindly to my oppressors and/or direct political opponents because they are personally affected by the issue I'm talking about.

Some of y'all are letting the female socialization that demands we be kind and considerate at the expense of ourselves (& our social movements) push you right into sugar coating important topics and out of being an effective communicator.

[sethmacenzie]

Spinner time travel quirk headcanons

For @whoatimetravel-main  whose answer to this post from @oldphone-whodis  my tumblr forgot to tell me and I saw by sheer luck.

 So thing is I have like a lot of different headcanons for different time travel versions, but all have in common that Spinner is not letting it happen again the same way, especially the death of Twice and Magne (even though they weren’t close).

And Spinner still wants to destroy hero society and be with his friends and wants them to succeed. Especially Tomura. And of course he does not want AFO to take over Tomura.

 Version 1: only Spinner gets time travel powers and it’s pretty much the original post base (some variations would be a little earlier, so Spinner can stop some other stuff from happening, but all versions where the League consists of already wanted criminals start this way.

Basically: Spinner can go two different ways, either he tells them, hopes they buy into it by using knowledge he should not have or he does not tell them and instead just tries to play it saver by reducing the damage the league gets, aka Twice and Magne alive, Compress keeps his arm etc.

While I do find the he tells them and convinces them interesting and a lot of fun it does lead to major changes in the story if the League can just ask Spinner: how did this go, he tells them, they do it differently and hope for the best.

But Spinner is the kind of guy who probably played enough games where one decision can change the entire outcome of the game, so he’d know that this could lead to way worse consequences.

So I think he’d play it safe and go with sticking to what he knows and only making sure his friends survive.

Especially because Tomura pre AFO imprisonment would still be under AFOs influence and saying something against AFO could lead to Spinner’s death, so while I think Twice and Toga would be on board right away with time travel person, Giran, Compress and Dabi could be persuaded through logic arguments, Tomura is the biggest issue to convince here, so Spinner would probably go and play it safe.

Even though I’d love the comedy of Spinner trying to get everyone to believe him. And I can see Spinner telling Dabi, Compress even Giran the truth, he’d probably be safe for them to keep the secret, the chances of Twice or Toga finding out and being distrustful (more so Toga, than Twice, I think he’d understand why such curtail information wouldn’t be given to him) are too high. And of course Dabi is a bit of a wild card in regards to his own goals.

So Spinner plays it safe: he doesn’t tell anyone and just tries to change things a little bit. The Forrest Training Camp and the Hideout ark stay the same (I know OP likes Mustard, and it’s really screwed up that this middle schooler villain just vanishes, but I just have to little knowledge about him to include him and I’d say unless that changes (bnha stand chapter 314) neither does Spinner, so he probably would let the 3 M get arrested.

And he’d definitely let AFO get imprisoned, so that Tomura is finally free of him.

He goes with them to the Overhaul meeting and stops Magne (and therefore Compress) to attack Overhaul, saving them. But he was still an ass, so the Overhaul ark remains relatively the same.  

So the next ark with big problems for the League would be the Meta Liberation Army which is where I am a bit torn like Spinner probably would be. Should Giran and Tomura get to keep their fingers? Issue being: if this goes down differently the outcome could be catastrophic for everyone. Tomura needs to win against Re-Destro (and unlock his childhood trauma) and so do Twice and Toga need their power up. So I’d guess that Spinner would let it slide because getting involved could mean a way worse outcome than 7 lost fingers.

Which leads to the currently biggest problem Spinner will have to face: the fight against the pro heroes and Twice death and maybe getting Tomura to not get surgery so that AFO can’t take over.

I’d say this would be a huge moment of Spinner going: this is the point where he’ll have to overdo everything because the outcome is too bad. Current standpoint: Toga missing, Compress arrested and in bad health, Maschia arrested, Twice dead, Tomura’s body got taken over by AFO, their forces lost.

So this would for me be the point where he decides to change everything he can to not let that happen, because saving that point seems useless for this outcome.

My personal favorite would be to get Twice to clone EVERYONE form the PLF and have them at the hideout but actually relocate everyone elsewhere so that the heroes are busy fighting the clones (we saw what the Re-Destro clone alone did). He would hate to find a way to hide this information from Twice as long as possible, until the last moment Hawks is around, then be fast of cloning everyone.

I’d say Spinner made himself a questlog for this, a to-do-list if you will, so in order to finish this mission he has to do the following:

Gets Hawks not to find out about the clones until it’s too late. Get the League into safety. Make sure Twice is as far away as possible from Hawks. Kill Best Jeanist probably, I mean he is just lying around in a bag in the corner right now. Get Tomura to not get into that tank. But have AFO believe that he does? Last thing would definitely be the hardest part but also might be the moment where he tells Tomura that time travel was involved, because by now they are actually friends and Tomura was out of AFO grasp for a while.

And of course to still stick close to the raid and the heroes getting Ujiko to knock him out and keep the heroes busy while the League gets out of there he’d need something to put into that tank. Twice clones would not be able to hold it up obviously, maybe Sceptic’s can?

Or Spinner forgoes the whole thing and just tells Tomura and the League just blows the hospital up themselves before getting to Tartarus to kill AFO before anything worse happens.

This is the moment for me where I go in like 50 different directions of what could happen.

Spinner could tell everyone about the future he stopped. Spinner could have everyone be complelty elsewhere and them just watching the heroes loose their shit because everyone is a clone.

The PLF having survived could go full on war against the heroes, which would probably not end well either.

Spinner might tell Dabi that he knows who he is and wants to help take down Endevour and they could make it bigger than what actually happened. I am sure Compress would help putting up a show and Toga and Tomura would be on board of: shitty father deserves to go down.

There are so many possibilities for this.

Other than that and other Version of Time Travel would be either completely different times, picturing baby Spinner trying to get to baby Tomura before he kills his family or stopping Dabi from burning himself, teenager Spinner straight up getting the gang together early, kidnapping Toga before she snaps and showing up at the bar with Kurogiri letting them stay (Oboro liked strays too), maybe it’s a groundhog day situation of the day of the raid and he has to figure out how to save Twice from Hawks and Tomura from AFO.

And then there are the versions of Time Travel where it’s not only Spinner but other people get it too.

Like every one of the League getting time traveled and now there have some meeting before everything goes down just sitting there like: now what? And Toga not stopping to hug Twice. Maybe ever person I currently see joining as a major player in the finale battle against AFO getting time traveled and they have to figure out how to not let that happen, with Shoto going all out trying to find his brother and talk to him, Uraraka reaching out to Toga and Deku knowing he has to save Tomura but not knowing how to in this timeline.

My personal favorite: Spinner and Bakugo being the only people who time travel and they have to work together to stop this whole mess and the whole thing just being an entire comedy because they keep in check with each other, planning out who does what like: If you take down Overhaul, we’ll take down the Doctor and his Nomus – We’ll have to wait until Daku wins this fight and unlocks this power otherwise it won’t work, -I forgot Toga can’t use quirks yet. Like the worst version of a buddy comedy you can think of.

[thewritershelpers]

Improving Your Writing when English Isn’t Your First Language (mega-ask)

As you can see above, we've gotten more than one question about writing, improving your writing, and even publishing in English when it's not your native language. First off: that's awesome. To anyone writing or even consuming in a language that's not your first, kudos to you.

You can google any variation of this question and get different articles with a ton of the same advice, and some with conflicting advice. Not only have I compiled the most commonly repeated information, but I've also reached out to people on our Discord server and others for their personal experiences.

I'll start off by listing concise versions of the advice and then expound on them further on in the article. Remember that we are not experts on your writing and that everyone learns in different ways and at different paces. These are in no particular order.

-be patient

-practice

-get feedback from native sources

-don't undermine yourself to your audience

-Grammarly

-research

-don't get discouraged

Be patient

That's first because, well, duh. Patience is so important for both yourself and your writing. Writing is hard enough of a passion without the added difficulty of doing it in a language that doesn't come naturally. In the world of literature, writing/publishing in your non-native language isn't just a matter of translating words. It requires translating of ideas, concepts, and even cultural norms, which is why just slapping it into Google translate won't work.

Part of the reason for the advice of having patience, too, is that writing in your native language needs to take time. It doesn't really matter how fast you can whip out 20 pages of a first draft--it'll still be a simple first draft. Writing is a craft that requires not just love and passion but time. So what if you need a little bit of extra time--or a lot of extra time--because you're accomplishing a feat most don't even think about attempting?

Next is to practice.

That goes hand in hand with what I said about being patient. Again, writing in and of itself is all about practice and doing it daily (not that I'm an expert on getting that done, but you know). But when it comes to practice another language, there are different ways you can do that. You can reach out to native speakers (for English, there are going to be so many people willing to help, even just in our community! you just need to ask) and practice having conversations or ask them to look over your work. Practice by turning on your favorite movie or TV show in English with subtitles in your native language. Watch videos on YouTube, find a Spotify playlist/podcast, in your target language. There's also plenty of people who have done what you're trying to do who have shared their experiences and what helped them on those same platforms.

Get feedback from native speakers

This is a bit of an expansion on what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In my experience, and from what others have shared, writing in a non-native language can be pretty clinical. Writing with figurative language or in metaphors won't be as easy or come as naturally as it does in your own language. Things like idioms and even pop cultures reference aren't always going to translate even if you have the exact words. That's where native speakers come into play. If they're willing to look over your work, whether as a friend or in an editorial position, they can give you advice about whether the wording in one spot sounds clunky or if a phrase doesn't make sense or if there're synonyms for what you already used to help convey your message even stronger.

Don't undermine yourself

This is something that I personally am saying. It's not mentioned on any of the linked sites, and no one I talked to said it. But as someone who is a native English speaker (and even has a degree in it) I think this is super important. This point goes towards native English speakers/writers, too. Don't undersell yourself and undermine your work to the audience before they have even picked it up. Disclaimers are different, and it all comes down to the words you use and how you use them. Let your readers know, whether it's people on AO3 or a literary agent, that English isn't your first language. Let them know concisely that they may find some basic errors--but stop there. Don't grovel. You have nothing to apologize for, especially once you've given that warning (those is it really a warning? what's so dangerous or scary about a few mistakes?). You're writing is not going to be any less of an accomplishment for a few grammatical errors, or mistranslated phrases, or even typos. I've seen so many mistakes in published works that it's kind of ridiculous. But if you put something out there for someone to read and in the same breath say "I don't know that this is worth reading" I'm going to need extra convincing to pick it up. *kicks soapbox away*

Grammarly

*NOT sponsored*

Grammarly is a wonderful tool that you can use, for FREE. It not only (with the free version) helps correct spelling and grammar, but can also help point out the tone you're writing with. For example, right now, Grammarly is telling me that this writing sounds mostly informative--which it's meant to be--and a little appreciative and friendly. When sending emails I've had it tell me that it sounds formal (which I was going for), and I've also had it not say anything because the text was a different kind of writing (like when I'm proof-reading something being posting it on AO3...). I honestly don't know what else it helps with once you've paid because I've been happily using the free version for about 3 years now.

Research

Don't be afraid to pick up a book, or head to the library, or pull up Google. Research is paramount to writing anyway, let alone once you're doing it in another language. Your research options are limitless and can include your mutuals on social media as well as those dictionaries that translate from one language into another. Research can also include (in my humble opinion) binge-watching/reading your favorite things...in English. In four years of university, one of the most frequently said things was to improve your writing 1) write every day and 2) read every day. You're never going to learn from worrying or overthinking, and you're also never going to learn from just doing DuoLingo (that's more conversational than literary anyway).

Something a member of Discord specifically said in relation to research was to look at morphology, at the roots of words (and root words). Morphology is, in linguistics, looking at how words are formed. For example, let's look at "biology". There are parts to this word that each has a different meaning, that formed together created a new/elevated meaning. "ology" means the study of something, and bio means life. So biology is, simply, the study of life. Once you've got those basics of things like "ology" under your belt it'll become easier to not just translate words but the concepts (if this works with your learning style).

Last but not least, don't get discouraged.

Writers of all kinds get discouraged when writing in their native language. Even those of us who speak English as our first language make mistakes worth discouragement (you will never know how many typos were corrected by Grammarly as I wrote this all out the first time). English is not an easy language. It's not the hardest, but it's far from easy (learning another language isn't easy regardless of what languages are involved). This is a post from someone who is a non-native English speaker but you would never know unless they told us.

While researching for this, I found some articles/blog posts that said mostly the same thing, and are where I got some of the information

This one is from a native English speaker giving advice

This one is for writing for non-native English readers, but still has good advice

And finally this one is a blog post (I think) from someone who is a non-native English speaker!

In specific response to some of the asks:

English, like any other language, changes. It's a very dynamic language, actually, and from region to region, there will not only be different accents but different frames of reference. 1950 isn't so far back in time for the English to be drastically different from what is spoken today, but I'm in the USA and you're asking about Oxford. English in England has very different nuances, even more so than you would get between California and Texas and New York. This is a link to the Oxford English Dictionary list of words that became more common in the 50s. However, this is a generalized list, not specific to any English-speaking country let alone region or city. If you're wanting to look at how to convey the accent of people from/in Oxford, there are videos on YouTube of people speaking in different accents so that you can have an idea, a comparison, at least in your own mind. With the 50s it's going to be more just thinking really of what words and lifestyles and things weren't around yet; cell phones didn't exist yet. Here's another link to some stock images of Oxford in the 50s. Remember, this time was very close to WWII so there'll be lingering effects of that, especially in England.

About fight scenes and curses, there's a ton of resources on that. If you just search "fight" on our page, you'll get a ton of posts answering that question. Also, here's a link to a superb and excellent source on writing fight scenes. When it comes to curses...just watch Rage Quit on YouTube, or spend a while on TikTok. If you want to dive right in just Google "English curses" and there'll be YouTube videos, entries on Urban Dictionary, you name it.

When it comes to publishing, once you've gotten your manuscript is a perfect time to have a native-speaking friend look it over. Whether editing is their thing or not, they'll be able to help with the things that are really obvious. I don't have any experience publishing in a different language, though, so there might be other resources along the different stages to help you. Some general publishing advice I've gotten: when wanting to publish fiction, literature, start small. Start with short stories in literary journals, online and in print. You really can't make much headway with large publishing houses without a literary agent and it'll be easier to attract one if you have evidence that you can write, and write well enough people want to read it. When it comes to poetry, just start submitting. Get familiar with the process, and educate yourself on things like simultaneous submissions and a good rejection. Publishing is an ever-changing game that isn't cut and dry in any language or country. We can't tell you what's best, but my advice is to go with your gut and try your best. Don't be afraid to try again, too.

Everyone overthinks their writing. Or at least, everyone I know who writes does. Honestly, in my opinion, if you're not overthinking at least a little bit, you're not worried enough. You will never be able to fully know whether you've explained or described enough. A good chunk of the experience is up to the readers, so you have to leave them some wiggle room for imagination. But that doesn't mean you have to cheapen your story or short-change your characters. You mention specifically that you're POC, which I'm gonna guess also means that your characters will be POC. It's never too much to specify the race/ethnicity of your characters, even in a fantasy work. How you go about writing those descriptions might need to change but it's kind of like chocolate chips, in my mind: you decide those things with your soul.

So, there you have it. A ridiculously long way to say: you're awesome, you do you, practice, love yourself and your writing, and don't be afraid to put yourself out there (in any way).

(images read:

Anonymous said: Im writing a book based in Oxford in 1950s. how was the language different from now. I am not from an English speaking country at all. Never been outside my country either. And Im going to write a book based in England in English

Anonymous said: Hi there, I’m a writer for almost 3 years now but since English isn’t my first language I get discouraged easily if things I write come off strange to myself. Do you maybe have any advice for me, on how to motivate myself and not comparing myself with native English speakers? Thank you in advance!

Anonymous said: Hello! I starting to work on this shortfic but it’s been really hard. It’s like I’m trying to building a house alone and with my bare hands. Even though I’m already used to write in mother tongue. Any advice for non-english speaker trying to write their first story in English?

Yaelburstine said: Hi. Do you have any tips about how to write a good fight scene and curses that people speak English get cus’ it’s not my first language

gyger said: I am not a native english speaker, but most of the books I read are in english and I generally prefer writing in english as well. However, I am worried about making mistakes that I can’t recognize myself. I have no idea how good my english is to a native english speaker, plus some things are easier to write in my native tongue (such as dialogue). I’m also worried about publishing, since that definitely would be easier in my country than abroad. How do I decide what language to choose?

Anonymous said: As a POC writer and English as their second language, I overthink all the writing I do. I feel like I don’t describe my ideas thoroughly or my character descriptions are vague or not good enough. I’m currently working on a YA novel but I plan on writing a YA fantasy novel but I feel like my lack of vocabulary and grammar structure makes me give up on finishing my book. Is this normal for native English speaking authors or is this considered a language barrier thing? Thanks! Love your blog!

Thank you for your questions, and for your patience as we do our best to answer them.

-S

[havemyoldusername]

Analysing and Comparing the Themes in Doctor Who Series 11 - Segun Akinola - and Doctor Who Series’ 1-10 - Murray Gold

For me personally, I think Murray Gold is a huge loss to Doctor Who, But Segun Akinola has a lot of potential to become an iconic part of the new generation of the show. In this, I’m going to compare the 13th Doctor’s theme, with the 9th, 10th, and 11th, plus provide some of my own opinions and draw attention to some things that bothered me about the new series music wise.

The Doctor’s Theme Season 11

It’s actually a really nice track, I admit, but the new season didn’t give Segun Akinola a chance to play this in full, or a chance to repeat this theme in areas of emotional significance. For the most part, the music in the background of Season 11 has been just ambient noise, and not a lot of orchestral or choir pieces that really add to the setting. Which is a shame, because the music is such a big part of Doctor Who. Just listening to the series 11 sountrack, I can tell he did some really good themes, really nice tracks, but going through the series, a lot of them weren’t used for very long, not allowing Segun Akinola to show off his music.

What I think of the track: I liked it. It calls back to series 1 - 4, while also making it something new. I like the new spin on it that Segun Akinola’s doing, and I just wish the new season gave him more places to play that.

How it describes The Doctor: It shows her adventurous, curious spirit, her general nature. It starts as something almost sad, something that feels like ‘rebirth’ as that’s kind of the whole basis of 13. Once it picks up, it almost has a feel of wonder and feels similar to music from lord of the Rings. When it gets to the synthesizers, part of it feels like peril, like somethings weighing down on you as you listen. When it picks up again, that’s when you go ‘Okay, time to Run’. 

This theme completely describes 13 perfectly, and it’s a shame Segun Akinola didn’t get the chance to show this track off. That’s not his fault, it’s the showrunner’s I think. Unfortunately, not every track in the soundtrack is as good as this.

Then there’s Murray Gold. The Doctor’s Theme Series 1 and 2

This was used in other tracks that held significance for The Doctor. 

How it describes The Doctor: It shows that Nine and Ten are, at their core, softer than their exterior would allow. When used with Nine, it showed his caring side, more emotional side. When used with Ten, who is widely considered as one of the more emotional Doctor’s of the newer seasons, it basically just sums up his personality. Murray Gold changed it slightly for season 4, making the Track more epic, more dramatic, because Ten was a dramatic Doctor, and used it in both sadness and anger type situations.

The Doctor’s Theme series 5

This theme is epic and is adapted and twisted in other tracks. Murray Gold was a master of doing this.

How it describes This Doctor: Matt Smith’s Doctor wasn’t quite on the softer side from word go. No, he was all energy and running, he never really seemed to stop and take note of the littler things like 9 and 10 did. 11 was jumpy and action-packed, running towards the danger, and this theme showed that.

These themes were repeated and used in different tracks to create defining moments. Like Gallifrey. Whenever The Doctor talks about Gallifrey, especially in seasons 3, 4 and the Specials of the David Tennant era, we hear a variation of this track:

In the specials, this is the theme simply title ‘Gallifrey’

And again in the specials, the track ‘The Council of the Time Lords’ uses the same base theme. 

My whole point of this post is mainly to showcase Doctor Who’s finest music, and also to point out a few things I didn’t quite like from the new season. I hope Segun Akinola has a chance to really show off his skills like Murray Gold was able to, and I hope in the future, that Segun’s music will become such an iconic staple of the show, that eventually, when it comes time, it’ll be as much of a loss to lose him as it was Murray. He has so much potentional if he’s allowed to show off his themes, he’s limited a lot, and it’s not allowing his music to shine. He’s got a new style, a new way of going about it and I’m curious to see how he does series 12. I hope in series 12, he really lets himself go and gets the recognition in each episode that Murray got constantly. Segun’s a lot younger than Murray. He’s only 25 or 26, while Murray’s 50. He’s got a long way to go but is already incredibly accomplished. I have hope that he’ll find his footing in the show and be able to let his tracks shine.

[smis-five-creedmoor]

In light of all the news I’ve been hearing of, I need to get this off my chest. This will be a very, very unpopular post, and I’ll probably even lose a few close friends for saying this (you know who you are), but it needs to be said.

But first, some background:

See, I grew up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. As such, I was told to keep an arm’s distance away from any and all non-Witnesses. This made me a very lonely individual. Further compounding the issue was the fact that, at some point in my childhood, there was an individual who abused me to hell and back. All the while discouraging me from being close to anyone that isn’t him. Further compounding the issue was my autism making it hard to maintain what little social ability I had.

Basically, I was kept in isolation for large amounts of time at a time, resulting in me gaining a bit of a reputation of being quiet, weird, and at times unapproachable.

Then, after graduating high school, I was a NEET for about 6-8 months. I had wanted to use those 6 months to figure out what I wanted to do in life. The result is me staying at home playing nothing but Minecraft and watching MLP all day, even further ensuring my social isolation.

By the time I finally chose something for college, I was socially...stunted. I was highly combative, prone to fits, VERY distrusting of people, and just was an unpleasant individual to be around. But by this point I was used to being isolated.

An important tidbit of information here is that when I went to college, I had the whole thing paid for by my parents (mind you it was a fairly short program akin to the US’s “Community College” and I still lived with my parents for this, so the costs were kept fairly minimal).

It was also around this time I was interested in firearms (though, more specifically, air guns at this time).

This next bit of story will seem a little more familiar to the Millenials following me on this site, but with a slight variation. See, I went to school for HVAC-R (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration), and while I was able to graduate, I still had to take a test in order to be fully qualified to be a mechanic. I’ve attempted the test, and I failed three times in the course of one year, all the while keeping social interactions to a minimum. The rules state that if I fail the test three times, I basically had to go back to school to try again.

As you can see, this was a failure. My parents said they would not be helping me with payments for college. And thus, I was back in square one. This was around the time my mental health was at its lowest. And thus, I began looking for any work. My parents supported the endeavour, but was forever disappointed that it wasn’t related to my college education.

Basically, for much of my life, I was isolated. VERY isolated.

Now, what was the point of telling you this (quite frankly long-winded) backstory? This is a chillingly similar story to a lot of the Far Right terrorists I’ve been reading about. However, where I stopped with the backstory is where the divergence begins. See, in my case, after effectively throwing things up at the ceiling in hopes to see what sticks, with a further declining mental health and wallet, I eventually got myself a nice job selling guns to people (I do realize the irony in this and to this day it still makes me chuckle).

Okay, that divergence point wasn’t the only point where I differ. The positive about the air gun hobby (which evolved into gun hobby) is that I was exposed to a bunch of weirdoes (of which I consider to be cool people in my life), which, in many cases, were acting as the only social interactions I had.

See, in my case, I had just a few tiny embers of motivation to keep going, even in the worst of times. In the case of, for example, the El Paso shooter, I see a completely extinguished flame of motivation to succeed in life. A pitch-black pit of ashes and soot. At best this results in suicide (of which becomes, at best, a statistic) that nobody reports on. At worst is what I’ll be talking about next:

I can’t claim to know everything that’s happened to the guy in El Paso, TX, USA (or really any of the Alt Right), but the few commonalities I’ve seen between me and these Alt Right weirdoes is indicative of a problematic pattern:

Isolationism.

Humans are social creatures, and as such talking to one another and having dialogue is crucial. And at the risk of sounding like “hurr dburr technology bad Thomas Edison was a witch”, for all the good the Internet has brought us (and it most certainly has), it’s also acted as a double-edged sword.

I’m not going into a “in the past humans spoke with each other face-to-face myeh~” because that’s, at most, only part of the issue. I don’t know when, but at some point people kept cutting more and more people out of their circles due to differing opinions. This results in those social rejects to seek out anyone to speak with, both on and offline. Now, I do know why that happens. I forget where but I read somewhere that differing opinions trigger the same brain response as when a saber-toothed tiger rushes towards you: a fight-or-flight response.

I don’t know if it’s because of deliberate actions of some nefarious actors or just something that festered over time, but at some point the talking points between these groups of rejects became very extremist. But because nobody else would dare approach them with a 50′ pole (be it because they’re just that well hidden or their actions are really just that repulsive), their views go unchallenged.

Even further compounding the issue is all the news and media attention mass shooters have had received, especially around 2008-2017, but starting from Columbine (even though mass shootings took place before then, see Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, QC, Canada). And given the nature of Cable News around this time (24 hour coverage of everything ever), this only emboldened a lot of these killers.

Now, to their credit, they did slow down on the reporting on the mass shooters’ profile and what have you, but because there’s enough of a backlog of previous mass shooters, it’ll still be a while before it all dies down. Not helping is that these incidents are becoming weirder and crazier, with the latest one specifically targetting Latin Americans and leaving a manifesto (in the same fashion as the guy in Christchurch, also racially motivated). Why? Because they know it’ll result in The Clicks. It’ll result in The Attention.

The same Attention they never received as kids.

Mix that with the utter nihilism, and this results in a horrific cocktail of terror.

Before any of my followers to the right of the aisle say any sort of Shen Bapiro style quip of sorts, this is not limited to The Far Right. I’m bringing them up because right now that seems to be The Big Discussion Point right now.

You may have noticed that I’ve not mentioned Donald Trump or his rhetoric. Let me first make things clear: I do not like Donald Trump. I do not like a lot of what he’s done, or what he’s said.

But the reason I’ve not mentioned Trump is simple:

This shit’s been happening since at least the Clinton administration. It’s only gotten this insane because it had the time to grow over a very long time.

You may have also noticed that I’ve barely mentioned firearms. Well I can tell you from personal experience it takes more than just a drum mag to drive people to want to kill (I’m so afraid of conflicts that I kept this entire essay below a cut).

I can tell you right now, for every one drum mag used in a massacre, one thousand of them have been used strictly in the range (be it an official one, something cobbled together in some redneck’s backyard, or as gun owners call it: “innawoods”). Most gun owners don’t even like those things for the simple fact that they’re expensive, heavy, and unreliable.

Somewhat off topic, but the whole “sensible gun laws” discussion infuriates me, for the simple fact that nobody can really agree on what “sensible” even is. For some, semi is acceptable but pinned to 10 or 5. Others will say semis are unacceptable altogether. Some will say no guns longer than certain amount, others will say no shorter. Some will say only some guns are acceptable based purely on what they’ve heard, and others will flat out reject guns altogether. Some say shotguns are fine but rifles aren’t, others say rifles are fine but shotguns aren’t.

The fact that everyone wanting “sensible gun laws” have wildly varying ideas of what “sensible” is makes the whole discussion not only pointless, it also assumes that the person declaring their view of “sensible” is in charge of what is sensible, and everyone else must follow it. A very self-centred approach, if you ask me.

All the while having zero clue as to what the hell they’re talking about.

If you made it this far, or just sort of skimmed through everything (I don’t blame you if the latter), here is a scene from Steven Universe that sums up what I’m saying (not perfectly, mind you, but the gist of it remains the same):

So the solution seems simple, yes? Re-integrate these extremists back into society, right?

Well, at this stage it’s not that easy.

And I hate to disappoint, but I don’t really have any answers. At least, one that can be summed up in even just a paragraph. Rather, the way I see it, every individual is a different case study as it is. We all need to approach things in that manner.

Because sweeping legislation of what people can or can’t say, use, or do will only work until it is used against them.

But hey, it’s the fault of a piece of metal and plastic, isn’t it?

[ciarawritesmarvel]

The Forfeit [Teacher!AU]

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: Language in different languages (eheh), a teensy bit of alcohol?

A/N: I’m literally in love with the idea of cool language teachers Bucky and Y/N that all the students love and - surprise! - they love each other too. I don’t even know why I just love it. Anyway, this is for @bucky-at-bedtime‘s 1.5k writing challenge, congrats lovely! I had a lot of fun writing this so thank you for letting me be a part of it <3

Prompt: We’re both teachers and at the end of the year we compare how many gifts we’ve received from students and you’ve won for the past three years AU

MASTERLIST

You wrestled with the folders in your arms, propping them on your hip for a second to get a better grasp on them before continuing along the corridor. You received a few smiles from kids passing you and you just about managed to return them despite your concentration on not dropping your marking. There were even a few sweethearts who offered to help you but you’d never been one to rely on others so you simply shook your head kindly before hurrying off, heels clicking loudly against the wooden floors.

It was the last week of term which meant there were masses of tests to mark, particularly rowdy students to control and grumpy teachers to be dealt with. You had tried your best not to fall into the same trap they had of getting excited for the holidays too early and letting yourself fall into misery for the last week, so, at that moment, you seemed to be one of the only enthusiastic teachers at the entire school.

You finally made it to the languages office, dropping the folders down on the desk with a loud thump before dropping yourself into your chair. You checked your watch - 50 minutes until your next class to finish marking these essays. Opening up the first folder and skimming over the first few lines you groaned audibly, leaning your head back against the chair and closing your eyes. There was no way you had time to correct these.

It was only when you opened your eyes again then that you saw the bright yellow post it note stuck to the ceiling.

“Don’t stress, Y/N, 2 days to go!”

Bloody Mr Barnes.

You couldn’t help the smirk that appeared on your lips at the gesture. He knew you far too well if he knew you looked upwards everytime you were anxious or frustrated. But being the only two language teachers in the school and being forced to work together in a tiny shared office constantly did tend to form a pretty strong bond.

And that bond came in handy at moments like this as, spurred on by his encouragement, you knuckled down and began marking the essays. 50 minutes later and you hadn’t finished, it was an impossible task you’d set for yourself after all, but you got much further through than you normally would.

“Working hard?” a knock and a voice came from behind you just before the bell was due to ring for next period and you swiveled your chair round to face the intruder, a soft smile of greeting already on your face just from his voice alone.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve just finished,” you answered, pushing yourself up and beginning to gather your folders together, “How were the Year 7s?”

“A handful,” he grimaced playfully but it quickly morphed into a fond smile, “A wonderful handful though. Anyway, I know you have french now but I have something for you.”

“Oh?”

He leaned back outside the doorway to grab something from the hallway before holding it out in front of him.

“Surprise!”

It was a large plastic box, clearly meant to be used for storage. You furrowed your eyebrows at him, waiting for the explanation. Instead of explaining however, he shot you a grin that made your heart flutter involuntarily before striding over to you and, holding the box in one hand, took the folders out of your hand and dumped them into the box, holding it out to you again. It clicked.

“No way…” you breathed as you took the box from him and stared at him for just a moment longer than necessary. You just did not deserve this guy in your life. He brought a hand up to scratch the back of his neck.

“Hey, it’s hardly revolutionary, just thought it might stop you from nearly dropping your shit every two seconds.”

“Thank you, Bucky,” you grinned, snapping out of your dazed gaze and his eyes sparkled at your use of his name since you hardly ever used each other’s first names, preferring the game of using your ‘teacher names’.

“It’s nothing,” he replied sincerely, nodding to you as he turned to leave for his next class before he remembered something and turned back to face you, “Oh, and don’t even think about counting this as one of your gifts for the bet tomorrow.”

He winked and your breath hitched but then he sauntered out of the office and you didn’t have the chance to say another word.

You’d forgotten about the bet. The stupid, godforsaken, why-on-earth-did-we-start-this-shit bet. In your first year at the school, Bucky had introduced the bet as some sort of icebreaker between the two of you and it had been a thorn in your side ever since.

Every year, you’d both see how many gifts you’d get from students before the summer holidays and on that last Friday after school, you’d crack open a bottle of champagne, celebrate the ending of the year and open gifts together, counting how many each person got. Whoever got the most had the other do a forfeit.

And the stupid bastard had won for the past three years. Three. Years.

The first time, you’d had to come into school on the first day the next year wearing a costume of his choice. Mr Fury, the headteacher, found the whole bet so hilarious that he gave his permission more than happily and so you walked in to your new Year 7 class on the first day to a sea of confused faces dressed as Chewbacca. If they hadn’t been scared before, they certainly were then.

The second time he’d won, he’d gotten you to send an email to the entire school, teachers and students alike, and make it look as if you’d only meant to send it to the school matron:

Good morning Matron,

Sorry to bother you but is there any chance you’re free to have a look at something for me this lunchtime? I’ve just got this...rash that I can’t be bothered to go to the doctor about. It’s probably nothing but due to its placement on my body I wanted to get it checked out.

Best Wishes,

Y/N Y/L/N

Joint-Head of Languages

It was by far the most embarrassing thing you’d ever experienced, walking through the halls for a couple of weeks with all the giggles from students and judging looks from teachers. In the end, you’d made Bucky send an apology email with an explanation since you couldn’t deal with it any longer. He’d reluctantly agreed.

But last year was the worst. He’d made you set your Year 8 spanish class a few spanish swear words and act as if it would be cool for them to say them around school and no one would know they were swearing. At first, you refused that one but you couldn’t really say no when you’d lost the bet fair and square and had agreed to the terms long ago. The email you’d gotten from the Cuban maths teacher was interesting to say the least.

You were downright terrified as to what he might come up with this time.

But your train of thought was cut short by the bell ringing. You shoved the rest of your folders into the box before picking it up with ease and making your way to your french class, a wistful smile on your face the entire way.

***

“Were you going to start without me?” you asked playfully, sticking your head around the door to your shared office and you were met with Bucky stacking all his presents on top of his desk.

“No, just putting all my gifts in their rightful place,” he teased and you scoffed. Walking into the room, you placed your box down on your own desk before making sure to shut and lock the door behind you. You weren’t exactly supposed to have alcohol on school property, even if school was out but it wasn’t as if you drank more than one glass each.

“Ah, then I suppose I should start getting all of mine out of my box?”

“I suppose you should.”

You both stole glances at both each other and each other’s respective piles of presents, that both seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. Clearly, there were far more gifts on both sides than last year, it was surprising that this bet could inspire you both to try to become better teachers. Perhaps that was why Fury had no issue with it?

Once you’d both finished, you got the champagne bottle out of your handbag, laughing when Bucky asked you if you’d been day drinking and poured you both a glass, each of you rolling your desk chairs into the centre of the room to sit opposite each other.

“To our fourth year running this shitshow of a department. May it the next one be just as ridiculously exhausting, Miss Y/L/N,” Bucky raised his glass and you clinked yours against his own.

“I’ll definitely drink to that.”

Eventually you adopted your usual position on these evenings, each sat on one side of your chair with your feet up on the other side of the opposite chair, just in reach of your pile of presents. As you started opening them, laughing and reminiscing on the year that was now behind you, it became obvious that this year was going to be close.

“Another ‘World’s Best Teacher’ mug, how sweet! And this is from…” you trailed off to read the label and smirked when you did, “Peter Parker, you have him as well don’t you? I must be his favourite.”

“Afraid not,” he chuckled, holding up an identical mug with the exact same message on a gift card. You laughed.

“Does he not think we’d notice?”

“I don’t know, Miss Y/L/N, I think that boy has a lot on his mind at any one time, it’s a miracle he remembered to get us gifts.”

You hummed in agreement, continuing to sift through the pile.

“How many are you on?”

“As if I’m telling you!”

Variations of those two lines were said throughout the evening but still neither of you was prepared to tell the other how many you’d got. You were quietly confident this year, hoping beyond hope that you’d finally be able to give him a forfeit instead. You were totally going to make him jump in the school swimming pool in just his boxers.

Just for his own embarrassment of course. Not because you wanted to see that. You didn’t want to see that. Who would want to see that? Certainly not you.

Your internal monologue did nothing to help you to believe what you were trying to tell yourself, unfortunately. In fact, you’d been extremely transparent about your...view on Mr Barnes since you joined the school, so much so that many students and even parents had commented on it. At this point, it seemed it was only the man himself who hadn’t noticed your goofy grins and longing looks.

Thank god.

“Right, I’m finished,” Bucky announced, leaning back in his chair and locking his hands behind his head with a satisfied sigh. You frowned.

“I don’t know why you’re so pleased with yourself, surely if you’re finished before me, you’ve lost?” you argued but he simply shrugged, still leaning back and you huffed.

Eventually, you’d opened your last present and placed it carefully with the others, turning to your colleague with a smug smile painted on your lips.

“Go on then,” you urged.

“Ladies first.”

“Exactly, go on.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Just tell me you dumb dork.”

A pause.

“44.”

You went silent the smirk slipping from your face and sliding onto his. This was not happening again. This could not be happening again.

“T’es un salaud!” you shouted, not caring if anyone heard you and making sure to curse him out in french so he would know you weren’t being too serious. But still, you pointed at him accusatorily and he held his hands up in surrender.

“Firstly, wash your mouth out,” he deadpanned and then the smirk returned, “Secondly, I’m guessing I won then?”

“I got 40,” you whined, slumping down into your chair, “How do you manage to do this every year?”

“By being the better teacher?”

If looks could kill, James Buchanan Barnes would have been stone cold dead.

“Can’t we skip the whole forfeit part of the bet this year? I can’t embarrass myself again this year,” you muttered the last part and you could have sworn Bucky was stifling a laugh so you snapped, “What’s so funny, Buckle?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just, jesus doll, you’re a terrible loser,” he shook his head fondly, “And no we cannot ‘skip the whole forfeit part’. That’s the only part!”

You grumbled but sat in silence awaiting your punishment, a pout prevalent on your features. Your gaze was cast on the floor but after waiting for him to speak for just a few seconds too long, you looked up at him only to see he’d shuffled his chair far closer to yours. You gulped.

“Y/N,” he began, looking right into your eyes and your own were locked onto his too, unable to look away despite desperately wanting to, “This year’s forfeit is probably the worst yet. I mean nothing could ever be as embarrassing as this. Nothing. It may just be the worst thing you’ll ever-”

“I swear, Barnes, if you don’t say what it is right this-”

“You have to go on a date with me.”

You sat completely still, far too close to Bucky for comfort but finding yourself frozen in place. You weren’t sure you’d heard him correctly. You shook your head once. Blinked.

“I’m sorry?” you asked, your tone far harsher than you’d intended making Bucky’s eyes widen as he reeled back a little.

“That came out wrong, I didn’t mean you have to, this isn’t one of those forfeits you have to do because obviously I would never force anyone to go on a date with me but if you’re...happy to then...I-”

He trailed off slowly when you began to shuffle forward in your chair until you were closer to him than you’d been since you fell asleep together on the staffroom couch and all the teachers had taken about a million pictures. It would never be close enough.

“How-” you started, closing your eyes and placing a hand on his chest and bunching up in the fabric as a giggle escaped your lips, “-could you ever think that would be a forfeit?”

You opened your eyes to look at his and another giggle escaped when you saw the shock registering within them.

“I...I don’t-”

“...And not a reward?”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed, Mr Barnes,” you grinned, your face now inches from his and he finally cottoned on, a genuine, joyful grin adorning his entire face, his entire being. He was glowing as he finally closed the gap and rested his forehead against yours, both of you shivering at the contact.

“I’ve wanted to ask you out for so long, Miss Y/L/N,” he whispered, “Actually, I’ve wanted to ask you out for four years.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” you scolded, but it was playful and it was promising and it was perfect.

“Scared,” he murmured against your lips, and you began to laugh but were cut off by his lips on your own. You couldn’t help the small whimper you let out at the contact and that only seemed to spur him on as he growled deep in his chest before suddenly his hands were on your waist and you were lifted onto his lap with a muffled squeal.

His hands travelled up and down your sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake despite the fabric in between you and your other hand joined the one already on his chest, pulling him ever closer. You stayed like this for as long as you possibly could before your lungs began screaming at you and you had to pull away, panting heavily.

Bucky’s lips instantly attached themselves to your jaw and you closed your eyes momentarily at the sensation.

“Can I tell you a secret?” his voice hummed against your skin and you just nodded your head in response, unable to formulate the words, “I told my classes about the bet, that I was going to ask you on a date if I won and to buy me presents because of it. I’m so glad they did.”

Now that woke you from your haze.

“You cheated?” you asked indignantly, pulling away from him properly, letting his shirt go and opting instead to put your hands on your hips. His lips parted in surprise at your sudden movements away from him, and he tried to pull you back by the waist.

“Well...yes, but for a good reason,” he argued, frown deepening when you refused to let him pull you close, “I thought you’d find it cute, I cheated for you! For us!”

“You still cheated!” you were off his lap now and desperately trying to keep from laughing, but this was just too good and he deserved it anyway.

“But, doll-”

“It’s Miss Y/L/N.”

And with that, you turned on your heel and marched out of the office, leaving Bucky staring after you in total shock, lips swollen and mouth wide open. You waited outside for a couple of seconds, just long enough for him to think you’d actually left, biting your lip to stop yourself from bursting out into laughter.

When you were sure he would be suitably terrified, you opened the door again, rushing inside and twisting the key in the lock behind you with a flick of your wrist. You hurried over to him, pushing your own chair out of your way and straddling his thighs once again, cupping his face in your hands.

“On second thought, never call me anything but doll again,” you announced, just moments away from his lips, his breath ghosting across your face and you tried to suppress your shiver. He looked like he was about to reprimand you for your teasing but clearly thought better of it.

“Whatever you say, doll.”

He surged forward, capturing your lips once again and you were pleased to learn that each kiss was as spine-tingling as the last.

if crossed out, i couldn’t tag you for some reason - sorry! tag lists are open so please just drop me an ask ^-^

permanent tags: @mightyhemsworthy @aheadfullofsherlock @ign-is @buckysboobear @sooooo-thats-a-thing @thefridgeismybestie @avengersbabe13 @mixedupsammy @memyselfandmaddox @ginger-rxchxo @emergenciesstory @mehfuture @stephie-senpai @hottrashformarvel @queenoftrash97 @buckysmetalgoddamnarm @yknott81 @mell-bell @dolphinpink310 @sgtjbuccky @dreamerinfinity @selenasoftly @spiderlingss @slightlycatdependent @shamelessbookaddict @vintagepigeon @bodhi-black @realgreglestrade @demoncrypt1066 @skeltn @bucky-at-bedtime @hanscait @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @milkywaybarnes @scurtscurt2021 @jitterbuck @slowly-but-shurley @jaamesbbarnes @yesdruidess @dixonsbugaboo @lortise @residentdemonhunter

[dontgobreakingmyart]

Fanfiction: Why Is It So Popular?

As someone on tumblr, you probably know what fanfiction is and know why it is popular. My AP Literature teacher, however, wasn’t so informed. 

My senior year, we were required to write a research paper about a trend. Some people did the rate of divorce, others did the increase of body modification and someone even did the death of Pokemon Go. 

Our teacher recommended that we chose a topic that we were familiar with, and my first 2 thoughts were fanfiction and anime. I had already had a friend that had done anime the year the before, so I thought “why not?”

And thus, my senior paper was born:

March , 2018

Fanfiction: Why Is It So Popular?

INTRODUCTION:

Generally, the word “fanfiction” conjures an image of lonely hermits, obsessive fans, or even dangerous flirtation with copyrights, but lately, fanfiction has been given a new face―a face of validity, expression, and even publication. Since January 2012, the amount of fanfiction for just one fandom (a collection of fans supporting a certain medium) has increased an astonishing 1,154% (Pellegrini). Objectively, fanfiction is a fan-made story that contains strong elements of the original work, generally using the same characters, themes, and other various components. For example, there are numerous works based off Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, continuing on the story of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy; in fact, there has been a recent increase of published novels based on Pride and Prejudice of 32% since 2015 (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”). Why? Because fans were not satisfied with the original content; they wanted to see more of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship or they wondered what the characters would do in a zombie apocalypse or any other variation of “what if?” Fanfiction allows “amateur writers” to express their love for a book, tv show, game, etc., and whether it’s because of the lack of LGBT themes in most published works or the increasing ease of sharing their fiction, fanfiction writers are not likely to stop any time soon (Knorr).

BACKGROUND / HISTORY:

Although it might seem very unbelievable, fanfiction did not just start recently, or a couple decades ago, or in the 70s with that one Star Trek fanfiction. In fact, a good amount of older literature is fanfiction. If fanfiction is being defined as “any work of fiction that borrows major elements of another work of fiction,” then works such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet could technically count as fanfiction; Hamlet was originally an “ancient Scandinavian folk tale . . .[known as] ‘Vita Amlethi’ (‘The Life of Amleth’)” that Shakespeare not only re-wrote as a play, but inserted his own, personal experiences (Clark). The Iliad, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex were all orally-told, Greek myths that someone decided needed to be written down. The only reason theses works are not recognized as “fanfiction” was because copyright was not as strict in that time and practically did not exist; after all, no one knows for sure who the real Shakespeare was because he did not officially claim his work. 

Fanfiction didn’t really become a label until Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s and with the birth of the internet, the famous Star Trek fanfiction. Officially, “the actual term ‘fanfiction’ was coined in 1939” and was used as an insult towards crudely written sci-fi fiction (Reich). In the late 90s and early 00s, rather than the “all-purpose” fanfiction cites today, “fans carved out their own little homes on the burgeoning internet. Star Trek fans here, X-Files fans there, Frasier fans somewhere else” (Hill). Most of those sites, however, have since died and have been replaced with the “all-purpose” ones like fanfiction.net. One of the most infamous modern fanfictions is E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. Although it is technically a published novel, James has admitted that her novel was simply a Twilight fanfiction that she had written and aftered so that she wouldn’t break the copyright (Morrison). The largest development to the world of fanfiction, however, was the birth of Archiveofourown.org in 2007, a fanfiction website that “promised stronger resistance to legal challenges” to fanfiction writers unlike other, previous websites such as fanfiction.net (Burt). With the creation of this site, older ones have begun to die out just like the fandom-centric ones of the past.

#1 REASON:

Over the years, fanfiction has morphed from a shameful pass time to a socially acceptable medium of expression. Published authors have been, in fact, recommending fanfiction as a positive way to start writing. The author of the Princess Diaries Meg Cabot came out about her fanfiction writing, saying, “I myself used to write Star Wars fan fiction when I was tween. I think writing fanfiction is a good way for new writers to learn to tell a story” (Romano). And many other famous authors have made a contribution to the fanfiction community: Cassandra Clare, author of Mortal Instrument Series; Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game; S. E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders; Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman Series, and so many others (O’Brien, Kovach). 

While visiting a Writing Workshop, the published author hosting it, Pamela Thibodeaux, encouraged me to begin writing and posting fanfiction in order to start a healthy fanbase, so that when I go to get a book published, the transition is much smoother. Writing fanfiction is just as stimulating as writing an original novel. In a CNN article about fanfiction, they explicitly stated that “even if the subject matter is a little blue [writing fanfiction] is a positive form of self-expression,” compelling parents to “encourage writing” (Knorr). In fact, the main difference between the two is that writing fanfiction “takes the pressure of world-building off” which allows the writer to explore their writing style without getting tangled up in creating something from scratch (McQuien). In a way, fanfiction is the box of cake mix in the literature world―it helps amateurs to take the first step of baking without getting too overwhelmed, but in the end, it can taste just as good.

#2 REASON:

As the overall acceptance and validity of fanfiction has increased, fanfiction has found its way into the publishing world, being branded as actual literature. Time-honored novels such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have several published, fan-made additions and recreations of the original tale like Pride and Prejudice II: The Sequel by Victoria Park and Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was turned into a filmed phenomena in 2016 (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”). Although there have been many literary adaptations of this novel spanning as far back as 1932, there has been a 32% increase of published fanfictions just for this fandom (“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”).

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has also witnessed this movement with his iconic Sherlock Holmes series, especially with the popular television series Sherlock, a “modernization” (or modern au [alternate universe] in fanfiction jargon) of the classic cases between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (“8 unconventional Sherlock Holmes adaptations”). These published fanfictions have been able to keep the trademarked names of their beloved characters, but many novels had to undergo extensive editing to cross the line of “fanfiction” into “literature.” 

One of the most famous, or rather infamous, examples of this is how E. L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight fanfiction (Morrison). Another, perhaps not as well known, is L. Stoddard Hancock’s Cruel and Beautiful World, which was heavily based off of J. K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter; in fact, her novel indulges the ship [romantic pairing] of Hermione and Draco, fondly known as “Dramione” in the Harry Potter fandom (Sarner). While some fanfictions have to undergo a facelift in order to be published, their true identity still remains intact: they are still devoted extensions to the esteemed works of another author.

#3 REASON:

Fanfiction has evolved greatly throughout history, and how to post fanfictions and share them with the world is just getting easier and easier. As mentioned prior, the creation of Archive of Our Own revolutionized the world of fanfiction with its promise of legal support, but how? In 2002, there was a great purging of fanfictions on the original fanfiction posting website, fanfiction.net, shaking the fanfiction community and dissuading writers from posting their fanfics (Silver). It was this sort of mass-banning on works that encouraged the creation of Archive of Our Own and its legal branch the “Organization of Transformative works” where they “clarify the legality of fanfiction, champion fan-created works whenever they were legally challenged, and provide fans with legal resources in case they were targeted by copyright claims” (Silver). In short, Archive of Our Own gave fanfic writers a safe place to share their fanfictions. 

Because of this difference with websites, despite the age difference and advantage Fanfiction.net may have with it, the increase of Harry Potter fanfictions on Archive of Our Own, for example, have increased 795% more than those on Fanfiction.net since 2010 (Pellegrini). Not only that, but Archive of Our Own has many other unique features that makes both writing fanfictions and reading fanfictions much more convenient such as tagging (Romano). Speaking from personal experience as a user of both Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own, although the first is not a bad place to read fanfiction, it is not nearly as user-friendly. For example, if I wanted to read a Harry Potter fanfiction, I could easily do so on both sites, but if I wanted to read a Harry Potter fanfiction that had the ship “Dramione” or had “zombies” or where Fred didn’t die, I can only specify those tags on Archive of Our Own to find that perfect fanfiction. And fanfiction sites are still continuing to expand, to shape, to mold themselves in order to fit the preferences of the ever-evolving writers that post on them.

#4 REASON:

The world of literature is a diverse melting pot of ideas and people, but even with this diversity, there are many minorities that are pushed to the side such as the LGBT community―in the world of fanfiction, however, they are the majority. Seeing LGBT often connotes inaccurate concepts, especially in literature, where one thinks “gay” when they see LGBT and then “the label of ‘gay’ often overshadows the important elements of the story/author, often tarnish[ing] the book before it can be read” (Guy). The LGBT community is so much more than just “gay,” and those different branches are very rarely explored in published literature, but in fanfiction, they florrish. 

Although majority of fanfiction does involve romance and a good amount of it involves couples of the same sex, that is not the only layer as is with most “gay” literature. In fanfiction, everyone is represented―if you want to read a fanfiction where the main character is asexual, where the main character is genderfluid, where there’s a polyromantic relationship, where someone is aromantic, bisexual; no matter what it is you want, I can almost guarantee it’s out there somewhere. The fanfiction website Archive of Our Own found that only 38% of their users were heterosexual, meaning that at least 62% belong to the LGBT community and more people identified as genderqueer than as male (Hu). Everyone wants to be represented in media, to have someone to relate to. 

The little gay literature that is there, is only just now being reprinted, falling out of print since the 80’s, and a good amount of it is being banned (Healey). For example, Amazon refused to sell a gay Victorian novel, claiming it was “pornagraphic,” yet they have an entire section for “erotic” fiction such as 50 Shades of Grey (Healey). With fanfiction, writers don’t have to worry about labels, whether a couple is straight or homosexual or genderqueer or whatever. Writers care about the stories, the chemistry between the characters that make them a dynamic duo, and with fanfiction, writers can share that.

CONCLUSION:

Fanfiction has existed for centuries with Sophocles's Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek and it shows no sign of stopping now. In fact, the amount of fanfiction hasn’t just increased because of its acceptance or its publication or the ease of posting, but because of new and continuous material. 

Before the release of BBC’s show Sherlock, there were fanfictions based on the original book, and the addition of the show allowed Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to become more familiar, and thus, more fanfictions to be added to the overall fandom. The same occured with the Harry Potter fandom. When Jack Thorne’s play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (a published fanfiction continuing J.K. Rowling’s original series Harry Potter), fanfiction writers exploded with new material, new ideas, and new fanfictions; a total of 1,682 fanfictions concerning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have been posted on Archive of Our Own since the play’s release date in 2016 (Search Results for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). Due to the recent release of Voltron: Legendary Defender in 2016, there has been a staggering 5,054% increase of fanfiction for the show originally from the 80’s (Search Results for Voltron). 

With every reinstatement of a show, a new generation of potential fanfiction writers are exposed to it, adding on to the classic mediums other fanfiction writers wrote about before them such as Star Trek or Sex in the City, where there are still significant increases of 8,600% since 2005 and the show ended in 2004 (Kneale). Fanfiction increases because more and more people are being exposed to that world. Just as there will always be incoming literature and TV shows and movies, new fanfictions will be trailing in afterwards like a relentless shadow.

Works Cited

“Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own, www.archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=✓&work_search[query]=Harry potter and the cursed child.

“Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own, www.archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=✓&work_search[query]=Voltron.

Burt, Stephanie. “The Promise and Potential of Fan Fiction.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2017, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-promise-and-potential-of-fan-fiction.

Clark, Cassandra. “‘Hamlet’ Origins: The Legend of Amleth.” Shake It Up, 28 June 2017, sfshakes.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/hamlet-origins-the-legend-of-amleth/.

“Eight Unconventional Sherlock Holmes Adaptations.” The Week - All You Need to Know about Everything That Matters, 29 Feb. 2012, theweek.com/articles/477729/8-unconventional-sherlock-holmes-adaptations.

Guy, Lauren. “What's the Point of LGBT Literature?” The University Times, 16 Oct. 2016, www.universitytimes.ie/2016/10/whats-the-point-of-lgbt-literature/.

Healey, Trebor. “Early Gay Literature Rediscovered.” Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/trebor-healey/early-gay-literature-redi_b_5373869.html .

Hill, Mark. “The Forgotten Early History of Fanfiction.” Motherboard, 3 July 2016, motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4xa4wq/the-forgotten-early-history-of-fanfiction.

Hu, Jane. “The Revolutionary Power Of Fanfiction For Queer Youth.” The Establishment, The Establishment, 16 May 2016, theestablishment.co/the-importance-of-fanfiction-for-queer-youth-4ec3e85d7519.

Kneale, Heidi. “Final Staff.” The Appeal of Fanfiction, July 2005, www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10165.

Knorr, Caroline. “Inside the Racy, Nerdy World of Fanfiction.” CNN, Cable News Network, 5 July 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/07/05/health/kids-teens-fanfiction-partner/index.html.

Kovach, Catherine. “7 Authors Who Wrote Fanfiction.” Bustle, Bustle, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bustle.com/articles/160939-7-authors-who-wrote-fanfiction-because-its-actually-the-best.

“List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice.” List of Literary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_of_Pride_and_Prejudice.html.

McQuein, Josin L. “My Bloggish Blog Thing.” Novels vs. Fanfiction, 18 Apr. 2012, 12:53 PM, josinlmcquein.blogspot.com/2012/04/novels-vs-fanfiction.html.

Morrison, Ewan. “In the Beginning, There Was Fan Fiction: from the Four Gospels to Fifty Shades.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Aug. 2012, www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/13/fan-fiction-fifty-shades-grey.

OBrien, David. “Famous Authors Who Began in Fan Fiction.” AUTHORS.me, 27 Oct. 2016, www.authors.me/famous-authors-began-fan-fiction/.

Pellegrini, Nicole. “FanFiction.Net vs. Archive of Our Own.” HobbyLark, HobbyLark, 15 Feb. 2017, letterpile.com/writing/fanfictionnet-vs-archive-of-our-own.

Pellegrini, Nicole. “FanFiction.Net vs. Archive of Our Own.” HobbyLark, HobbyLark, 15 Feb. 2017, letterpile.com/writing/fanfictionnet-vs-archive-of-our-own.

Romano, Aja. “10 Famous Authors Who Write Fanfiction.” The Daily Dot, 9 Mar. 2017, www.dailydot.com/parsec/10-famous-authors-fanfiction/.

Romano, Aja. “Is It Possible to Quantify Fandom? Here's One Statistician Who's Crunching the Numbers |.” The Daily Dot, 24 Feb. 2017, www.dailydot.com/parsec/toastystats-ao3-fandom-statistics/.

Sarner, Lauren. “This 'Harry Potter' Fan Fiction Author Adapated Dramione Into A Novel.” Inverse, 18 July 2016, www.inverse.com/article/15572-dramione-fandom-harry-potter-fan-fiction-romance-l-stoddard-hancock-broken-wings.

Silver, Farasha. “How Archive of Our Own Revolutionized Fandom.” FAN/FIC Magazine, 26 Mar. 2017, fanslashfic.com/2015/11/01/how-archive-of-our-own-revolutionized-fandom/.

Times, J.E. Reich Tech. “Fanspeak: The Brief Origins Of Fanfiction.” Tech Times, MENU$(".Topsearchbutton").Click(Function(){ $(".Srcframe").Toggle(); }); $('Input[Type="Search"]').Keypress(Function() { $("#Srcform").Submit(); });TechScienceHealthCultureReviewsFeatures, 25 July 2015, www.techtimes.com/articles/70108/20150723/fan-fiction-star-trek-harry-potter-history-of-fan-fiction-shakespeare-roman-mythology-greek-mythology-sherlock-holmes.htm.

[brynwrites]

Ask Compilation.

Topics covered:

Chapter Titles

Nonbinary character shenanigans

These Treacherous Tides, the series

Marketing yourself as an author via blog

Starting back up with writing

Writing children

Writing fighting woman with big hearts

Differentiating casts who feel similar

Writing in your native language vs English

And a few notes from my lovely followers.

All other questions should be listed on the ask queue page. (Except the last two WIP related questions I haven’t gotten around to answering…)

Chapter Titles

@aithlynfreyeaesthetic asked: Hello, I hope you're doing well. Are chapter title absolutely necessary? I've been avoiding chapter titles purely because I'm horrible at titles, but I've just always wondered.

Not at all! The majority of fiction books don’t use chapter titles. They can be fun, especially in certain genres, but they’re in no way necessary. 

Nonbinary character shenanigans 

@thebravetinsoldier asked: Hi! I’m writing a steampunk story were the main character is being hunted because they’ve cheated death and become immortal by changing their “deceased” parts with robotics and magic. I really want this character to be nonbinary, but part of the explanation is that they’ve changed parts of themselves so much that they no longer remember if they were a boy or a girl. Is this a bad thing? Sorry for the bad formulation, English is not my first language.

First up, I want to clarify that there’s nothing inherently wrong with most concepts in which nonbinary people are robots or mythical creatures, but it does paint an uncomfortable picture simply because there are so few nonbinary character in existence who are actually human, creating a implication that nonbinary people are not-quite-human because humans are the ones who have binary genders.

You fix that particular issue with a small adjustment: Let there be fully human/non-magical nonbinary characters in the world, even if they’re just a side characters who only appears in one scene. 

The main problem here though, is the idea that physical appearance determines identity. Rather than presenting the main character as not being able to identify whether they’re a binary gender, it’s far better to present it as them knowing they don’t (and have probably never) felt like a binary gender, and feeling happy with the way their body is androgynous, because they don’t feel the need to present as a specific gender*. 

Let me illustrate it this way: A girl who losses her physical, female body (or is born in a male body) will be no less a girl, even if society tries to tell her that she could or should be a boy. With time, she’ll still decide she is in fact a girl, no matter what her body says. The same is true with nonbinary people. If a person composed of robotics and magic decides they’re nonbinary, then it’s because they’ve always been nonbinary; they might have just taken a while to figure it out, especially if they original had a body their society told them had to assign them a binary identity.

(*this is not a qualification of being nonbinary by the way, though it is a common feeling among many nonbinary people.)

These Treacherous Tides, the series

@kiarazuri asked: You’ve mentioned before that Pearl is set in a mermaid series called These Treacherous Tides (awesome title, btw) and I was wondering how many books you’ve got planned? Also whether or not any of the books will interact with each other or just be set in the same world?

The These Treacherous Tides series is going to be a more or less unconnected series of romance/family-oriented books about different species of merfolk (and humans), though I’m not opposed in any way to cameos, especially of side characters. 

I don’t officially have a second book planned yet, but merpeople are one of my favorite things in existence, and the moment I finished Our Bloody Pearl I knew I wanted to write more books about them. I do have two concepts I want to play with in future books, so I’ll be fleshing them out further and picking a direction for them once I’m finished with We Are, We Are Monsters.

Marketing yourself as an author via blog

Anon asked: hi! i'm getting into the final stretch of writing my first novel (i have a few drafts left to complete and then i'll begin the self-publishing process!) and i was looking into how to market myself. among other things, i've been told to create a separate tumblr blog to post about my writing. obviously, yours is working very well! i was wondering if you would suggest doing this and if you have any tips to get it started/gain a following? thanks! 

I would definitely suggest creating some kind of blog for writing, and in my experience the writeblr community here is very encouraging and one of the most interactive writing communities on the web. The one thing I will mention though, is that every follower you talk to (i.e. are acquaintances or friends with) are worth a hundred followers you don’t know. I owe all my success to having a ton of writeblr friends who have (and continue to) reblog my posts like they’re gold. 

Check out my marketing tag for a ton of posts I’ve written about this! (Make sure you scroll down to the article on building an audience.)

Starting back up with writing

Anon asked: So I've just had exams so I had to stop writing for a while, but now I want to get back into writing my novel but I'm really struggling. I feel like I've forgotten everything ugh. Do you have any advice on how to jump back in?

My key tips:

Start small. Write 50 words. Take a break. Write another 50 words.

Remove distractions. If you’re on tumblr you’re not writing.

Don’t worry if your writing doesn’t sound good! (Follow the link for a full post!)

Writing children

@bloodybutterfly222 asked: Hey! I really love your tips, and I thought maybe you could help me with a problem I've been stumbling in. I have a story that partially revolves around parenting (bonding with a 2-year-old, more specifically) but I realized I don't know how to write children speech/dialogue. Since I've never had much contact with children myself, I'm even more at a lost about how to portray it significantly and yet accurately. Do you happen to have any tips on the matter?

I would love to help you, but I have little current experience in this area too. (Which I’m kicking myself over, because I did nanny through all of college, but I didn’t actually think about the way children speak while I was doing it and so when I write my own child characters they tend to be really stiff and generic.) 

The one piece of advice I will impart is this: Children are a lot smarter and braver and more creative than they’re given credit for, and they really do say the darnedest things. Some of my most memorable experiences with kiddos:

An eight year old asked me where evil and sin came from if god didn’t create it and then had a theological conversation with me that most adults couldn’t match.

He and his younger bother decided the heroes of our story would win by buying the villain a million ketchup covered pancakes.

Same younger bother spent ten minutes jumping on his bed shouting chocolate chips at the top of his lungs because he didn’t want to sleep. 

Also same young brother would tell everyone he was moving across the country for exactly seven years whenever he was angry.

Multiple instances of really polite 4-6 year old kids coming up to me while I worked retail at the Zoo, asking some variation of “Excuse me, miss, but would be okay if I could buy one of those cups, thank you” and then conducting the entire purchase on their own.

Writing fighting woman with big hearts

@tokinokagura asked: Hello Sir, Regarding your answer about strong female characters. In your opinion, where do females who are strong and independent yet have a very very kind side (like a fighting mom or big sis type, or a type who got something to be strong for) and also how do I approach this scenario of a strong independent fighting strong mother/big sis figure? Thanks in advance

There’s no trick to writing this sort of character; you just write them. Show her being both strong and nurturing, independent and compassionate. Explore the way these traits interact and enhance each other. Does she love her own freedom and want to provide others who are oppressed the same independence she’s found? Does she see compassion as something the strong are required to give? Does she believe true heroes are the ones who fight for others? Look deeper into how she became who she is and why she fights for those she fights for, and then carry that throughout the story in every scene, every choice she makes.

Differentiating casts who feel similar

@katekarl asked: Alright, I could use some help with this WIP. I have a heavy cast of female characters, and I need a way to keep them from sounding too similar. Some of them ARE similar, and the differences in worldview/personality/dialogue might be a little too nuanced. What are some ways that I can try and keep them from looking like they were copy-pasted into their different roles?

Bullet points!

Unless your world is heavy on the sexism and holds to very constricting gender norms, it shouldn’t make any difference that they’re all women; they should have just as diverse a range of personalities, hobbies, strengths, etc as if they were a group of any mix of genders, so long as the class and cultural diversity doesn’t change.

If your characters are too similar to differentiate between them, then you probably don’t actually need all of them. Any two characters who consistently make very similar choices should almost always be combined. If two characters are in fact making very different choices despite being similar in personality and background, then it might be time to sit down and figure out where those choices are coming from and adjust one of the characters to make the origin of their choices obvious.

In my opinion, quirkier characters are always more fun than un-quirky characters, and there are a million different crazy and eccentric traits you can give your characters to make them stand out. (I have a post about developing side characters here which has a few more, similar concepts.)

Writing in your native language vs English

Hi, I can speak English on a B2/C1 level but it's not my native language. I want to write a novel but idk what language I should write in. I have a poetry blog in English and I used to write stories in English but I feel like something more serious requires wider vocabulary and better language skills in general. I have nowhere to post/publish it in my native language though, so it would probably end up forgotten if I were to write it in my native language:/ what do you think I should do?

I don’t have any advice other than this: You’ll get better at a language the longer to try to write more complicated things in it. If you want to write something more serious in English someday, the only way you’ll get there is by writing something serious is English now, even if you do a poor job of it at first. 

Kind words

Anon said: I just wanted to say thank you for that fanfic answer and letting us in on what inspired you. I have an original novel in the works basically inspired by Steve and Bucky and wanting them to eventually build a definite relationship. But I didn’t want to write a fanfic, even though I love fanfic. It turned into a space opera thing

You’re very welcome! That sounds like an awesome space opera, and I wish you the best of luck with it! <3

Anon said: Hi I just saw what you said about writing through mental illness and I just had to tell you that it helped me so much! There is so much power in the advice and motivation you put there, thank you. 

I’m glad it could help! I’ve been struggling as a writer (and human) with depression and anxiety for year now, and I’m just happy to share what I’ve learned <3 I’ll admit that some days I don’t... well I almost said I don’t win this battle, but that’s not a mentally healthy way of looking at it. Some days I have to give myself time to recoop. Some days, taking proactive steps towards tomorrow is the best course of action, even if that doesn’t include writing. (And the taking to best course of action is always a successful day, even if you didn’t get to any of the things you wanted to.)

Anyhow, I’m proud of myself for coming this far and I’m proud of you all for growing alongside me!

Anon said: Not an ask, rather a message. Sorry if it's in the wrong place--I'm kinda new. So, yes, I'm a newbie and I found your blog, and I love it! Keep on writing. I'll be looking forward your works. Cheers! 

Thank you my friend! (This is exactly the write place. You’re so sweet to take the time to say this <3)

[seleswrites]

got tagged in a WIP ask game by @mister-eames​​ -- thank you!  sorry it took a bit, i got very anxious about sharing anything haha.

I have SO many WIPs (fics and originals), but not a lot I feel that I can share a decent prose of; not the best at summaries, but, send me a number and I’ll share an excerpt! 

✨1 - Untitled: “Good Day to be a Dog” AU - Arthur centric (Inception) 

Arthur and Mal’s family is cursed to turn into a dog after their first kiss, with it only breaking when they are returned a kiss by the same person. However after a New Year’s faculty party gone wild, he has no idea who he kissed that night. Cue trying to figure that out, all the while Mal keeps teasing him.

It’s supposed to be an open-ended short inspired by the ‘teachers’ prompt from AU-gust, but uh, my maniac self wants to give different endings for different ships lol… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

✨2 - Untitled Selina/psychic-but-weird!Reader, referenced BatCat | post The Batman

Selina probably shouldn’t have stopped at a roadside cafe stuck dead in the 50’s. She should have left when the waitress warned her about the food. She should have definitely left when said waitress asked to read her fortune. But, damn it, how the hell did she know about Selina’s time with the Batman all the way in Bludhaven?

✨3 - UMBRA | The Batman | intended endgame BatCatReader, Falcone/Reader (note: toxic)

Sometimes you have to sell your soul to the devil to keep alive. When the devil is the mob boss Carmine Falcone, you really wonder if a forced contract to the actual Devil would have been kinder.

Dark fic. Wanted to play with writing being in a toxic relationship and the way people have to survive doing things not in their morals. Unsure if polyam or triangle of sorts as I’m still working through it while writing it.

✨4 - “Hardly Safe” - Doctor Who | 11th Doctor, Amy, Rory, Companion Reader/OC

Traveling with the Doctor never gets old; but when an adventure starts to turn sour as people’s memories -- even the Doctor’s -- get altered as people are dying, it’s down to the group to see what is going on in this tiny village and try to save the dwindling population from whatever is out there.

I know what the ‘monster’ is and if anyone knows DnD, you might know too. ;) 

✨5 - Four of a Kind | Ariadne/Arthur/Eames/OFC | Inception | Pre, during, post movie events What do you do when you have no OT4s but you want to write one? Add an OC to your OT3 lol. Basically having fun with this one as it’s a relationship/character study. 

“Never in a million years would she think she’d be helping Cobb on a heist. But she owes Arthur, and if he says they need her, then who was she to argue if inception could really work or not?”

Honorable mentions (that don’t have prose but I’m excited for !!): 

✨ tattoo shop/floral shop AriArtEames (Inception) | Eames is a tattoo shop owner, Ariadne is working at her family member’s/close friend’s floral shop, and Arthur is their tired accountant  ✨ crack-taken-seriously idea of a reincarnated Loki (MCU) as a cat, who gets adopted by a 30-40 something catlady that’s telling off a TVA agent from collecting him because “no, that’s my son, how dare you” (and no i haven’t yet watched the full series yet don’t at me, i don’t care for canon) ✨sister story/long fic of “The Ghosts We Carry” | Maximoff Twins/Reader (MCU), basically reader/oc is a vampiric mutant version of Rogue and/or Copycat (cuz I love the idea of blood magic in any variation) ✨ An Ariadne/Mal (Inception) short short inspired by AUgust theme: ghost ✨”In Love but Doomed from the Start”, Dream Husbands (Arthur/Eames) | Inception, possibly a dark soulmate au? ✨”The Dream Team goes to Hell” | D&D fusion where the team goes to one of the levels of hell to rescue Cobb from a devil that looks like Mal (to which the very much alive Mallorie is NOT happy about).

I dunno, do people even want to read stories with OCs? If I could make these ideas original, I would but like, I also wanna just have fun and write stories i wanna see lol  

I don’t feel too comfortable tagging others, so if you see this and you wanna do it, please go for it! (And totally okay to tag me, I’d love to see what you’re working on <3)

[paleorecipecookbook]

RHR: What the Latest Research Says about Probiotics, with Lucy Mailing

In this episode, we discuss:

Why your stool microbiome may not be a good indicator of your gut health

Why probiotics aren’t useless

How your gut microbiome fights change

What really happens when you take probiotics after antibiotics

Why you should consider banking a stool sample, if possible

Key takeaways from these two studies

Show notes:

“Are Probiotics Useless? A Microbiome Researcher’s Perspective,” by Lucy Mailing

“Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and Microbiome Features,” published in Cell

“Post-Antibiotic Gut Mucosal Microbiome Reconstitution Is Impaired by Probiotics and Improved by Autologous FMT,” published in Cell

NextGen Medicine

[smart_track_player url="https://ift.tt/2DmnoTB" title="RHR: What the Latest Research Says about Probiotics, with Lucy Mailing" artist="Chris Kresser" ]

Chris Kresser:  Lucy, thanks so much for joining me

Lucy Mailing:  Thanks for having me on.

Chris Kresser:  So this was kind of a big bombshell that was dropped. This study we’re going to be talking about today … and I’m excited that you've been able to join us. Because every so often in science and research, we get a finding that completely contradicts what we thought before. And this is, of course, vital to science.

This is part of the scientific method, that we continually challenge our hypotheses and try to falsify them. And if you were to ask the average person on the street, I think, should you take probiotics after take antibiotics, and the average physician and the average researcher, the answer would probably almost universally be yes. But this study suggests that the answer may be no.

Lucy Mailing:  Yep. Yeah, I think you really have to be willing to put your bias aside here and we have to go where the evidence takes us. And sometimes that results in a total paradigm shift and directly contradicts what we thought before, like you said. But I think we need to be open to that and especially honest about it with those who trust us for health information.

Chris Kresser:  Yes, this, of course, was a big topic on my recent appearance on the Joe Rogan debate, where the evidence over many years on saturated fat and cholesterol and their relationship with heart disease changed to the point where even the dietary guidelines in the US and other countries evolved. And yet there’s still a pretty committed group of people that is not willing to question those original hypotheses that were developed in the 50s and 60s. So let's maybe not make that same mistake in the case of probiotics.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Kresser:  So why don’t we start with just some general information about this study. We wrote, you wrote an article for a website that we published. It’s called “Are Probiotics Useless? A Microbiome Researcher’s Perspective,” and we’ll link to that in the show notes, and some folks may have already read it. But for those who haven't, why don’t you run us through the study.

What were the researchers trying to find?

How is it designed?

And then what were the findings?

And then we’ll talk little bit more about what to make of all that.

Why Your Stool Microbiome May Not Be a Good Indicator of Your Gut Health

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, absolutely. So for starters, I think it's important to go over a little gut anatomy just in case your listeners aren’t familiar. So we can think of the G.I. tract as a hollow tube, and all the inside walls of that tube are coated with this thick, protective gel. And so in this analogy, the gel represents the gut mucus layer, and the very inner center of that tube represents the gut lumen. And each of these regions has a distinct community of microbes, but these are rarely studied because these regions are rather inaccessible unless you undergo invasive endoscopy. And then of course we have the stool microbiome, which is the most widely—

Chris Kresser:  Let me just interrupt you, Lucy, because some folks might not know what that means. So that basically means a tube being put down your throat to look in your intestine. And not very practical on a broad scale to do that kind of testing to assess microbiome health.

Are probiotics really a good idea after taking antibiotics? Will banking our own stool samples to protect our gut health become routine someday? Check out this episode of RHR where Lucy Mailing, a microbiome researcher, describes surprising findings about probiotics. 

Lucy Mailing:  Right, right. And then of course we have the stool microbiome, which is the most widely used proxy marker for the gut microbiome. And you’ll often even hear these used interchangeably, the stool microbiome and the gut microbiome. But the first thing that was interesting about this study before they got really into the probiotics, was showing that, confirming previous findings that the stool microbiome was really not representative of the gut luminal or gut mucosal microbiome. And so that was really …

Chris Kresser:  That’s such an important finding. Again, you said it. It has already been known for some time, but I just want to clarify this for folks. What you see in your poop is not necessarily what's in the gut lumen, is what Lucy was saying. And that presents a challenge, doesn’t it?

Lucy Mailing:  Absolutely, yeah. And also not what's, not representative of what's most closely associated to the gut epithelium in the gut mucus layer, as well. And those might have the most impact on our health because they're so closely associated with the actual gut tissue.

Chris Kresser:  Right, and so all these studies that have been done, which are very useful and important, that have correlated the changes in the gut microbiome to health and disease states have been perhaps only seeing part of the picture, is really what we’re learning. And that there may be a whole other side.

Well, there almost certainly is a whole other side to this story that we don't know very much about yet. It's almost like the ocean covers two-thirds of the earth’s surface and we know quite a bit about what's happening up near the surface, but we know almost nothing about what's going on down in the depths. And in some ways we know more about space off of the surface of our planet than we know about the deep oceans. And I wonder if that's an apt analogy for the microbiome.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, I think so. They even showed that if they look at the total genetic information in the gut, so the metagenome, as it’s called, there was only 20 percent correlation between the stool microbiome and the gut mucosal microbiome. So we really can't necessarily use the stool samples to predict what is actually going on inside the gut.

Chris Kresser:  That's again an important point, and it's one that’s been so frustrating for me as a clinician, and I'm sure for you too, Lucy. That's what we have access to as practitioners is stool testing.

Lucy Mailing:  Right.

Chris Kresser:  Of course, there is a big variation in the quality of stool testing that's available. Some is better, some are better than others and then there … stool testing can still be very helpful for things like identifying pathogens.

Like, for example, I got recently caught up in an outbreak of Cyclospora in the Bay Area here, which folks on my staff know, but some listeners may not. It’s a parasite. It's an acute pathogenic organism. I also had in that same food poisoning episode, I contracted enteropathogenic E. coli. And so stool testing can be really helpful for finding, I did some testing and identified those pathogens and I was able to treat them.

So it's really helpful for that kind of thing. But what you’re saying is for identifying what the presence of “good versus bad bacteria” and the overall microbiome, stool testing may not be able to tell us all that much.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, I think you said it really well there. It's definitely still useful for identifying pathogens. But any bacterial abundance I get, whether it's from a comprehensive stool analysis, biome thrive, I'm always taking that with a huge grain of salt now. Because it's really not necessarily representative of what's happening in the gut environment. And so stool testing can be one piece of the puzzle, but we kind of need a consortium of tests to get a better idea of the total gut environment.

Why Probiotics Aren't Useless

Chris Kresser:  Right. So another thing this study found, which we've talked about before on my blog and in the podcasts, is that probiotic, when you take probiotics, the effect that they have is transient. I think there's been this notion that, I refer to it as like a gas tank analogy, where if your tank is empty, like, you don't have much good bacteria and then you take probiotics, you're kind of filling up the tank, and then once the tank is full you can stop. But that's not really how it works, is it?

Lucy Mailing:  No, no, definitely not. I mean, this is not a new finding, but of course it sent the media crazy all over again.

Chris Kresser:  Probiotics are useless, right?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, exactly. We have hundreds of randomized placebo-controlled trials in humans that have shown safety and efficacy of many different probiotic strains. So to just … outright, those media headlines saying “probiotics are useless,” they’ll maybe strip some probiotics, but there are certainly many probiotics that have been shown in randomized controlled trials to have beneficial effects.

Chris Kresser:  But what this is saying is they’re useful in a different way than we thought before and that maybe many people still think, right? So instead of working on that gas tank analogy where you're filling up your tank with good bacteria, what are they, how are they actually benefiting us as they transit through the G.I. tract?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah. So they found that there wasn't really significant colonization. They did this in both mice and humans. So there wasn't any significant colonization in mice. In humans, it was very individual. So some people did have some colonization, and those people, they turn into permissive colonizers, and other people were completely resistant to the probiotic colonization. And so, but it didn't really matter because when they lumped them all together and looked overall, there were significant changes in the gene expression in the small intestine in those that were taking the probiotic.

So this is in alignment with many studies we’ve seen before, where probiotics don't really colonize the gut, but they're having really beneficial effects in transit, including modifying gene expression, eating and digestion, lots of these different things, stimulating the immune system. And so just because they don't colonize in this case, in some humans, they did. But even if they don't colonize, they’re still having benefits.

Chris Kresser:  They’re still doing a lot of good, and that’s why I've often told my patients to think of them almost like immune regulators or balancers because of the impact that they have there. And I mean in the same way that makes sense because, historically, a lot of our exposure to these kinds of organisms came through food. And so eating those foods was something that we would do on a regular basis, not just a few times, until we got what we needed. We had this kind of ongoing exposure to these organisms.

Lucy Mailing:  Right, right, yeah.

How Your Gut Microbiome Fights Change

Chris Kresser:  So another interesting finding, which again was not necessarily new, but I think is something that surprises people, is that our normal microbiome kind of wants to stay the way it is and doesn't necessarily, isn't easily changed. So tell us a little bit more about what they found here.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, so they did a really cool experiment in mice where they use germ-free mice, which are basically raised in a sterile incubator with no exposure to microbes, basically in a giant bubble. And so they gave these sterile mice the same 11-strain probiotic, and they found that in the absence of a normal microbiome, the germ-free mice had massive colonization of the probiotic strains. So this suggested to them that it was the commensal microbiome, the normal microbiome, that was inhibiting the colonization of the probiotic strains.

Chris Kresser:  And that's interesting too in light of the way that human microbiome colonization happens, right? I think we used to think that a baby’s gut was completely sterile when they're born. Now I think we know that that's not the case and there may be some colonization that happens in utero.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, I think it's still controversial.

Chris Kresser:  Still controversial.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, still controversial.

Chris Kresser:  But anyways, even if there is some colonization, it's extremely minimal, right?

Lucy Mailing:  Right.

Chris Kresser:  It's not, like, a baby is not born with a fully colonized gut and that doesn't even happen until later in childhood. So this seems to mimic what we understand about how the human gut develops is that that colonization happens early in life and that's why exposure to the right organisms through breastfeeding and vaginal birth is so important.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Kresser:  So another finding you talked about is that the probiotic colonization in humans is individualized. So you mentioned this in the context of some people being … what was the exact term? It was—

Lucy Mailing:  Permissive.

Chris Kresser:  They had a permissive microbiome. So they were more likely to experience colonization. But that wasn't the only individual difference. What else happened there in the study? So I think it was not all of the probiotics colonized equally or were not …

Lucy Mailing:  Correct, yeah. So there were, they looked and they found nine of the 11 strains colonized.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah.

Lucy Mailing:  Significantly enriched in the mucosa, especially, but there were some people who had significant enrichment, and some people who really didn't have any. And that was where they made the distinction between the permissive colonizers and the resistant colonizers. And they did look into some different factors that might explain the permissive or resistant.

But they really had a fairly small sample size there, so they weren't really able to tease out anything. Although it looked like the baseline microbiome, certain characteristics of the baseline microbiome were able to determine whether, predict whether they’d be permissive or resistant.

Chris Kresser:  Right. But again this, as you pointed out, this doesn’t mean the probiotics didn't have an effect. I want to read a part of the paper that you highlighted:

Nonetheless, when all probiotic consumers were considered together, probiotic consumption led to transcriptional changes in the ileum with 19 downregulated and 194 upregulated genes noted, many of which related to the immune system, including B cells.

So again we’re seeing changes in gene expression and immune function, even though there isn’t colonization.

Lucy Mailing:  Yep, yep, and it did colonize in some people, which was contrary to what we probably thought before.

What Really Happens When You Take Probiotics after Antibiotics

Chris Kresser:  Right, right. So now we’re getting into some of the really surprising perhaps parts of of the paper, which is that probiotics may slow recovery of the normal microbiome after antibiotics. I think this is the most, again, the most surprising part of the paper and the part of it that conflicts most with maybe what was known before. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, so like you said earlier, probiotics are widely used and prescribed during or after antibiotics, often suggested by the physician with this idea that flooding the system with “good bacteria” can help prevent the, some of these adverse effects of antibiotics.

And so in this study they wanted to see how probiotics, how taking probiotics after antibiotics impacted the long-term trajectory of the gut ecosystem. And so what they did first, they treated a group of mice. They did this in mice and humans again. So a group of mice and a cohort of healthy human volunteers with a single course of the broad-spectrum antibiotic ciprofloxacin and metronidazole. And that was just to kind of wipe out the gut bacteria.

Chris Kresser:  Carpet bomb.

Lucy Mailing:  Yep, exactly. And both of those antibiotics have been shown to have widespread devastation of the gut ecosystem.

Chris Kresser:  Those are the two worst I can think of, cipro and Flagyl, okay. Yeah, so okay, continue, please.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, so then they split the mice and the humans into three groups. So group one was just allowed to spontaneously recover over time. Group two was supplemented with the same 11-strain probiotic that they used in the first paper for four weeks beginning right at the end of the antibiotic treatment.

And then group three underwent what's called autologous fecal microbiota transplant, or aFMT. And that one’s a mouthful, and I think we’ll come back to that group in a second. We’ll focus on group one and two at first.

Chris Kresser:  Such a well-designed study, and I love the autologous FMT part of it. I think that was really a smart way to do it. Why don’t we just go ahead and explain what that is. Basically, it means that they took a sample of the microbiome prior to the intervention, and then they put that back using a fecal transplant after it. So it wasn't a fecal transplant using another donor’s stool. It was a fecal transplant using the own individual’s stool.

Lucy Mailing:  Yep.

Chris Kresser:  All right, so what happened? We got these three groups. What were the results?

Lucy Mailing:  So most interestingly they found that treating the gut with probiotics delayed the return of the normal microbiota for as long as five months after stopping probiotic treatment.

Chris Kresser:  Wow.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah.

Chris Kresser:  What have you made of this and other people in the field? Like, what’s the chatter? I know you work in a microbiome lab. I imagine this was kind of like a big day for all of you and a lot of discussion amongst your colleagues about this. So what do you make of it?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, I mean to be honest, when I saw the headlines and I dove into this paper, or these two papers, I was prepared to say there's got to be something wrong with the methods here. Like, probiotics have to be good. We’ve known they're good for so long.

Chris Kresser:  Right.

Lucy Mailing:  And so you know, but I really tried to put my bias aside and really, like, look at it very critically. And I just couldn't get over this biotic treatment. And microbial diversity remained low for that five months as well. It was significantly lower at that five-month time point. Even lower than the spontaneous recovery.

Chris Kresser:  Right.

Lucy Mailing:  Which the spontaneous recovery group had no major differences in the stool microbiome within 21 days post-antibiotics.

Chris Kresser:  That's the part of it that I'm still not clear on because I know previous work has shown that, and I haven't gone into great, I haven't looked closely at these studies. So maybe there are methodological issues with these studies. But a single course of antibiotics can alter the gut microbiome for up to two years or even longer.

So it seems like they didn't find that in this case. And in fact, with no intervention, I think you just mentioned was about five months that they went back to normal, is that right?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah. So I'm unfamiliar with the studies you're referring to, the previous studies, and that was with ciprofloxacin as well. In those studies they found that it closely resembled the pretreatment composition fairly quickly in terms of overall composition of the microbiome. There were a few taxa that failed to recover within six months or two years.

Chris Kresser:  I see.

Lucy Mailing:  So those previous studies, we’re still seeing the microbiome is still very resilient and so we’re still seeing this bounceback. We might be missing a few taxa, but we’re not preventing the return of the bulk of the normal microbiota for more than five months.

Chris Kresser:  So has there been any speculation on what the mechanism is in terms of the probiotic inhibiting the natural recovery of the microbiome?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, so they did a really cool follow-up study to this, where they essentially took the probiotic pill and they cultured it in a bunch of different growth conditions that each supported the growth of each of the, there were four different genera in the 11-strain probiotic. And so they cultured it in such a way that one of the cultures had a lot of Lactobacillus and one of them had a lot of Bifidobacterium.

And so after 24 hours of culture they collected the supernatants, or kind of the soups that there are surrounding the probiotics on the dish. And then they took that and they kind of added it to a vat of a culture of human fecal microbiota. And they found that the soups, if you will, that had come from the plate with Lactobacillus, with a lot of Lactobacillus showed the strongest inhibition of the native human microbiome.

So this kind of points to Lactobacillus in particular might be preventing this recovery. So, and I mean, that's probably the most commonly used one, Lactobacillus acidophilus.

Chris Kresser:  Absolutely.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah. I mean it would be really interesting to see what the differential effects of different categories of probiotics would have in future studies. Like, wonder about soil-based organisms or something like E. coli Nissle, or even beneficial yeast Saccharomyces boulardii, which some people are often advised to take after antibiotics.

Of course, we don't know the answer, but I hope that future studies will be done to assess that. And then I also even wonder about different delivery systems because there are now companies that are, like Seed, for example, and others that are, have developed patented delivery systems which they claim make the probiotics more likely to survive the digestive, acidic stomach and upper part of the small intestine. And I wonder if there's a different effect there versus just a probiotic that doesn't have that kind of delivery system. So this study definitely raised even more questions than it answered, I think.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, definitely. And the other thing to point out is this was a single combination of antibiotics. Probably the most devastating of the broad spectrum antibiotics, arguably. And like you said, a single oral probiotic supplement mixture. So there's so many different combinations of antibiotics, probiotics, and even treatment timing.

So in this study they didn't begin the probiotics until after the antibiotic course was over. But there's some studies to suggest that if you begin the probiotics earlier, we don't know anything about how it affects the microbiome, but it certainly can prevent, be better at preventing antibiotic-associated diarrhea and Clostridium difficile infection.

Chris Kresser:  Right. And they didn't measure any clinical symptoms either during or after the antibiotic treatment, which would've been interesting to see if the changes are in the microbiome or the lack of change is correlated with any clinical symptoms.

Lucy Mailing:  Right.

Chris Kresser:  And I think you pointed out that it would have been also interesting to see, like they didn’t, one of the reasons it's often offered for taking probiotics after antibiotics is as a way of protecting against any kind of opportunistic pathogens, right? Enteropathogens like Salmonella. But we don't know whether maybe the probiotics would've protected against that even though they delayed recovery. So that might be another interesting study to see in the future.

Lucy Mailing:  Right, yeah. And I did dive into the literature a little bit on this to see what's the degree of the protective effect of probiotics after antibiotics for clinical symptoms or C. diff infection. And there are several meta-analyses, but there's a statistical concept that I think you’ve talked about before on your podcast or your blog. It's called the “number needed to treat.” And that's essentially a measure of the impact or efficacy of a particular therapy relative to the burden of treatment.

And so in this case, based on the most recent meta-analyses, you’d need to treat 13 patients with probiotics to prevent one case of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and at least 43 patients to prevent one case of C. diff. And so in all those other patients we’re potentially delaying restoration of the gut microbiome.

Chris Kresser:  Right.

Lucy Mailing:  And so there's definitely this trade-off here.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, yeah. Especially with the 43. I mean 13 is a little more of a gray area in my mind, but 43 it starts to, that starts to be, the calculus is pretty clear there. Although it may depend on the virulence of the pathogen. Like, with C. diff., there are some 30,000 people, I think, are still dying of that in the US each year. So tricky, very tricky.

Why You Should Consider Banking a Stool Sample, if Possible

Let's talk a little bit more about the autologous FMT because I thought that was one of the clever, most clever parts of the study and is certainly something that I think has a lot of potential in the future. I'm personally a lot less enamored with FMT than I was maybe five years ago as a potential treatment. Certainly I think it still can be lifesaving in the case of recalcitrant C. diff, where someone has failed antibiotics and they’re actually, they could die. In that case I think an FMT is a no-brainer and the research is still really solid on that.

But what I've seen clinically is a lot of people have come to think that FMT is some kind of miracle cure for all kinds of conditions, like fibromyalgia or even being overweight and autoimmune disease, etc. And I've seen definitely some improvement when people have done FMT and I've also seen no change, and I've seen people get worse.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, yeah.

Chris Kresser:  If we go back to what you said earlier about how stool testing is not necessarily telling us what's going on in somebody's gut or what's in the stool, like, I just don't know that we have the level, I'm not confident enough in stool testing right now to be able to know that we’re screening donors properly.

If the stakes are high enough that you’re facing death, then I think that, again, that calculus makes sense. But if it's like you've got an autoimmune condition, I'm not so sure. So it seems like autologous FMT where you replace … if there was a time where you were lucky enough to bank a stool sample before you were sick, of course, that's the big challenge here, the question. That makes a lot more sense to me than a donor that has not necessarily been screened adequately.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, certainly we only have this one study to my knowledge, but it certainly seems a lot safer because you’re not going to be re-inoculating yourself with anything that wasn't already there before.

Chris Kresser:  Right, right. And I mean, in this sort of situation, if someone knows they have to take antibiotics for some reason and they were fortunate enough to bank a sample, that's a lot more clear, right? But if someone is trying to use FMT to deal with a chronic condition, it's probably unlikely, at least at this point, that they would have banked a sample.

But there's no reason that in the future, it wouldn't be, that couldn't become something that people just do. That becomes part of our, sort of like when you’re 17 or 18 and you’re healthy, bank some stool samples, and then maybe when you're 30 and you develop an autoimmune disease, you could get an autologous FMT with your stool sample from when you were 18. Who knows?

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, definitely. And you can definitely imagine this being a part of normal clinical practice in the future. Like, if you, if you’re undergoing surgery and you have to have prophylactic antibiotics, then save a stool sample the day before your surgery.

Chris Kresser:  Absolutely.

Lucy Mailing:  Get your antibiotics and then you can re-inoculate.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, that’s a perfect example of where you know that you’re going to be taking antibiotics and it’s not because … and you can plan in advance, basically. Yeah. Well, this is really fascinating.

So let’s break this down. I know some people are probably scratching their head right now or just throwing up their hands, saying, “Oh, my gosh, should I even listen to anything anyone says anymore? It's just so frustrating, confusing.” And I totally understand that.

But again, this is how science works. We continue to learn, we continue to challenge our own hypotheses, even the most cherished held ones, and it doesn't mean that that process isn’t valuable. On the contrary, I think it makes it even more valuable, and over time if you look at the last hundred years, I think it's clear that what we've learned during that period of time is just enormous. And so it just means that we have to be willing to be flexible, right? And not hold on too tightly to certain beliefs that we may have had.

Lucy Mailing:  Right, yeah.

Key Takeaways from These Two Studies

Chris Kresser:  So why don’t you take us through some of the takeaways in a practical fashion. What can people take away from these two important studies?

Lucy Mailing:  Sure. So first, I just want to make sure we mention that we described what the autologous FMT is. But it resulted in rapid restoration of the gut ecosystem even within as little as a day to two days after the first infusion. So that was just dramatic compared to the probiotics and the spontaneous recovery group.

Chris Kresser:  Yes. And I've seen this in patients with C. diff who were on death's door, essentially, and couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs because they were so sick, who within a couple of days after an FMT are like running up the stairs and are well.

So it is pretty remarkable. When it works, it really works. And this aFMT, or autologous FMT, may even be better because it's, I think, Lucy, you may agree with this, what we’re beginning to understand is there's no one healthy microbiome. There's probably more like a fingerprint where each person has their own healthy microbiome. So it makes so much more sense to replace using your own stool than somebody else's.

Lucy Mailing: Yeah, definitely. There’s so much individual variability from person to person in the microbiome that I think this is a much, this is definitely the ideal choice is to use a sample from your prior, ideally healthy, self.

Chris Kresser:  Great. So what would you advise people now, given these results? I know this is just one study, or two studies, actually, but it seems to me that it was very well-designed. I’ve looked through it carefully and I know you have, and many have as well. And I’m certainly more reluctant to recommend probiotics after antibiotic use on this basis.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah, I think in most cases, this suggests that probiotic use during or after antibiotics may not be worthwhile. I certainly think it has to be a cost–benefit analysis for each individual person. So someone who's in a hospitalized environment where they have a greater chance of acquiring C. diff is very different from someone taking antibiotics in an outpatient setting.

Chris Kresser:  Right.

Lucy Mailing:  And so I don't want to blanket statement we should never take probiotics during or after antibiotics, but I also think this definitely suggests that caution is warranted.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, and I mean, another really key aspect of the scientific method is replication. So I really would love to see these results replicated by another research group, again, not because I think there was anything wrong with the way the study was done, but history is full of examples of really interesting findings that on the surface appeared to be totally credible and legitimate that failed to be replicated in subsequent studies.

So I hope that there are other research groups that are working on replicating these findings and that also we have research groups that are considering additional studies that would shed light on mechanisms and also maybe how these results would change if different antibiotics were used or if different probiotic preparations were used, etc.

Lucy Mailing:  Yeah. You and me both. I'm hopeful that those studies will come in the next few years as well, so that we can have more evidence to be able to give recommendations after antibiotics.

Chris Kresser:  Well, great. Thanks so much for joining me. This is, I think, going to be really enlightening for people, and I really appreciate you helping us to work through the studies. There's a lot of information there. A lot to unpack. And your article was fantastic, and I think this podcast will be helpful. So, Lucy, where can people find out more about your work?

Lucy Mailing:  So you can find me at NGmedicine.com or on Facebook or Instagram as NextGen Medicine. And I just wanted to say thanks for having me on. It’s been incredible working with you over the past few years, and it was your site originally that put me on this amazing career path and helped me heal my skin from healing my microbiome and my gut. So I certainly hope to continue to work together and expand our knowledge in this area.

Chris Kresser:  Absolutely. It's been a pleasure to have you on board, Lucy. I really appreciate your insight and your keen intellect and your willingness to dive deeply into the research and translate it in a way that people can understand. It’s so important to have that ability and that skill in today's world because as you and I both know, so much of what's reported in the media is just not really worth reading at this point when it comes to … I really miss those days where we had actual science journalists that were capable of reading a study with a critical eye and understanding it. Now, unfortunately, we just have, in most cases, there’s still a few good ones, but mostly it’s just pulling stuff off the wire and not really looking into it. Which is so confusing for people, right?

Lucy Mailing:  Right.

Chris Kresser:  It leads to an environment where people are just throwing up their hands and they feel like they've lost complete faith in public health recommendations. But I think now science literacy is increasing thanks to people like you who are out there translating your knowledge in ways that people can understand. And a more scientifically literate public is absolutely a good thing, with all the challenges that we’re facing. So thank you for your important work.

Lucy Mailing:  Thank you, and absolutely, your blog is doing the same, increasing scientific literacy.

Chris Kresser:  Okay, everybody, thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful. Continue to send us your questions at ChrisKresser.com/podcastquestion, and we’ll talk to you next time.

The post RHR: What the Latest Research Says about Probiotics, with Lucy Mailing appeared first on Chris Kresser.

Source: http://chriskresser.com November 14, 2018 at 11:57PM

[shalminesartist]

So I went back to college quite late in life, well there is late and then very late, lets just say before 50.  I never did well at school and I am not academically minded at all so I really hated artist research.  Over the years I have began to enjoy it and I have been inspired by an artist called  Severija Incirauskaite-Kriauneviciene who cross stitches into solid object, car bonnets, frying pan, helmets you name it she seems to do it.  She seems to use mostly metal items to create her work.  This process fascinated me.  Now as a working artist and working with obsolete items that damaged or stuff just thrown away I wanted to see if I could apply this idea to something that isn’t metal, something fragile, something that seemed impossible to do.

Now also as an artist I am very aware of coming across as copying someone else’s idea or work.  Me personally,  if someone asks me how I did something I will tell them and even encourage them to have a go.   I mean why not.  I have contacted various artist, become friends with some of them and asked how they produce their work, how did they get over hurdles, work out problems and 99% of the time I will always check to see if they mind me asking.  So far no problem till the other day when I posted a comment on a known book artists Instagram ( they shall remain nameless) asking how they managed to  stop there pages going floppy;  it was a very innocent question, but with the wonders of text and no emotions being shown because that’s how cold text is, dam you text, they decided to answer me after two weeks by telling me to go be original find your own media and stop copying their work!!!!!!!

This was my second every book sculpture.  I love to be able to leave the pages behind the image so it still looks like the book and not a diorama.

What the……….well if he had bothered to look at my work he would have seen that my book sculptures are nothing like his work.  One of my tutors once said ” Everything has been done before it all comes down to what version you can create”  and he is right, could you think what would happen if the person who invented books told this artist” You can’t use book’s stop copying my work and do something original.” Or if the first person who painted a picture in oil paint went ” Oi mine, you can’t use that, invent your own paint”  there would be a very exclusive club for all art works.

Rant and tangent over :/.  I can though understand where he is coming from and he may well get copied a lot and worked very hard on perfecting their method, so I do sympathise.  But that then set me thinking about inspiration and how you use it when you have seen something that does inspire you and  you don’t want to  inadvertently copy someone else.  Which takes me back to   Severija Incirauskaite-Kriauneviciene and her cross stitching into solid objects.  What could I cross stitch into that would be different………..

First attempt………

Picked an impossible pattern, well it is when you haven’t done cross stitch since infant school.

Snap shot from Mr X Instagram Page, https://www.instagram.com/mrxstitch/?hl=en

Side View of Musical Blooms

Musical Blooms at the Myst and Mystery Exhibition, The Workhouse Dunstable

Cross Stitched into a 12 inch 78 Vinyl disc, I was blown away with the reaction I got from this, and I plan to do more when I have a bit more time.  This project took me over 30 hrs to complete and I hit my usual ” my God why did I start this for, why did I think this was such a dam good  idea”…………… Well it was and then went and did it again but this time it took over 60 hrs.

You know when they say an artist suffers for their art………..yeah I did that alright with this one but it was worth it.  This is my most time expensive piece ever.

Penny for stitch size reference. 

I didn’t count at the time but it was approx 400 to 500 holes drilled, I think my eyes went a little squiffy half way through so I am not sure; as you can see there are quite a few colour variations as well.  Because the mannequin is quite big I also had to staple it to a block of wood to keep it upright to help with stitching and had to use a pair of pliers to pull the needle through the holes as once you get the thread going through the hole more than 3 times it’s begins to get tough.

It made me wonder what else I could do with thread but was not going to be quite so tough to do.  Do a portrait maybe.

Portrait of my daughter when she had green hair. Made with wool.

This was a fun one to do, still took quite some time but not as much as the previous too.  But it brings me to this question, is it copying or is it inspiration.  Is painting something in front of you copying or being inspired by what you see enough to paint it as well as you can?  As an artist I don’t tend to stick to one media or style as a lot of artist do, I love to mix it up, but I am sure if I googled all the processes and media I have used I am sure I will find someone who has done it all before me.  So I will still look up artist for research, I will still scour Pinterest for inspiration and I will tell someone else how they can do the same kinds of art if they want to give it a try.

Time to find something else to stitch into 😉

visit me and see my work on http://www.shalmines.com

Unusual Cross Stitch and the Plastic Tattoo. So I went back to college quite late in life, well there is late and then very late, lets just say before 50. 

[lordendsavior]

Ruth Capps’ reputation as one of the most hardcore One Direction fans precedes her. In the days before I see her in her pajamas under west London's Hammersmith flyover, I’m told by at least three people that she’s an “angel.” At just 19, she has as many tickets to see Harry Styles through 2018 as years she’s been alive. On Twitter, she posts earnest messages of support for her idol to her 110,000 followers. Offline, she projects a calm rationality that belies the reason she’s become so well-known within the fandom to begin with. Five days before the first UK date of Styles’ solo tour, Ruth is one of nearly 50 girls camped outside the Hammersmith Apollo in sleeping bags and foil blankets. When the Daily Mail stops by to interview them, Ruth diplomatically volunteers to be a representative.

“I’ll make us not look crazy,” Ruth assures the crowd of skeptical girls surrounding her. The reporter kneels down upon the sidewalk and pulls a notebook from her bag as Ruth holds court atop the pallet of £6 Primark duvets, and does her best to explain the situation as plainly as possible. “What’s going on here?” the reporter asks, assuming a “fun mum” tone with the girls in an attempt to get them to open up.

“We’re camping out here to see Harry Styles,” Ruth says, unperturbed by the fact that there are five days until he’ll take the stage. Her honesty with the reporter is a rarity among the camp. The truth is that the girls are waiting for the 23-year-old pop star, but if you ask them why, you’ll get a different answer. One fan tells a passerby they’re waiting for Mary Berry. Jacob Sartorius. A hot dog eating competition. All of which provide a simpler explanation than the reality, which is: it is Wednesday, and they already have tickets to the show on Sunday, but they’re sleeping on the street to perhaps – if they’re lucky – be noticed by Harry himself.

This is “camping culture,” an act of stan devotion in (often uncomfortable) pursuit of the rarest and most valuable fandom currency: proximity and access. For many fans on the street, this will be a one-time thing, an anomalous event only made possible by the grace of its novelty. But for some, camping is merely part of “following” an artist on tour. When the house lights rise in the Apollo on Monday, some will pack up their sleeping bags and head to Manchester. Then Glasgow. Then Stockholm. They will spend several hundreds, even thousands of pounds to see the same show over and over again. But what happens when these fans attempt to take the show into their own hands? What happens after – if, when, finally – Harry notices them?

London, Night One

Grace has spent five days camped outside of the Apollo, but four hours before the show, you wouldn’t be able to tell. In groups of two, Grace and her friends pose for photos in front of the bright red marquee. Last night, they cuddled on the pavement in sweatpants; now they’re made up in florals, high-waisted flares, berets. The temperature is 13°C, and Grace wears a crop top. Now 19, Grace became a fan in 2011, when she found solace in One Direction after moving from the US to Italy. “I wasn’t happy in high school, so I kind of invested in myself fully,” she tells me. What is it about Harry in particular that makes him stand out? “He’s just very accepting. He believes you should be whoever you want to be, and everybody’s going to love you.”

It’s this message of acceptance that makes Harry’s shows both empowering and entertaining. For £35, you can buy merchandise that reads, “Treat People With Kindness.” In the crowd throughout his set, hundreds of mini Pride flags – passed out by fans in the queue for free before the show – wave up at Harry as he sings. And when a larger flag makes its way onto the stage, he holds it up and dances, urging the crowd “to be whoever you want to be”.

“It’s not that I don’t have people in real life telling me that, but it’s different when someone you aspire to be like says it,” Grace explains. As anything might, these messages of support feel more significant when delivered from a stage, and echoed back by a crowd who agrees. From Harry's mouth in a room filled with admirers, such messages feel not only powerful, but genuine.

London, Night Two

Harry Styles, notoriously, doesn’t say much. While parasocial celebrity-fan relationships thrive on Twitter, his tweets read as if randomly generated by an extremely grateful bot. His live show is similar: each night, his between-song banter is near-verbatim to the previous, a carousel on which phrases like “I’m Harry, and I’m from England,” and “My job for the next hour is to entertain you,” spin round evening after evening. To see one show is to see them all. But for those in the front row, following Harry on tour feels like the only way to access the person beneath the persona.

“Because he’s so inaccessible online, it means more in person,” Grace says, “We’ve learned to work around that. If you’re first or second row, he’ll interact with you in some way. That’s your accessibility.”

Yesterday, fans attempted to use this access to bring Harry’s attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Hoping for an acknowledgement similar to his support for the LGBTQ+ community they brought Black Lives Matter signs which – whether intentionally or not – he didn't pull up on stage to wave as well. By the second night Harry’s lack of attention toward these placards has become a big point of contention among fans; the fact he didn’t respond to the signs the previous night felt, to some fans, off brand from his accepting persona. And yet, once again, his eyes passed over the raised signs as if they read a message in a different language and, for Harry, they might as well have. Aside from a small hat-tip to “all the different kinds of messages in the crowd”, the evening passes without note.

After the show, one fan roasts him online with a photoshopped image of a hand that reads like a cheat sheet of his onstage script: “You all look ____ this evening,” it says, alluding to the slight variation in adjective each night. After a parenthetical reminder for Harry to smile, it urges, as if he were in danger of stating the directive instead of acting, “Don’t say out loud!” But Harry doesn’t need the reminder. He doesn’t, after all, say much of anything anyway. He dances his dance, recites his script, then the lights go off.

Manchester, Night Three

Four hours before doors open, Ruth applies makeup in a hotel room she’s rented to store her things, which is littered with tour merchandise, hair straighteners, and phone chargers. When I ask about the second show in London, she confesses that she left the show early in order to join the Manchester queue. “We had to miss Harry in order to see Harry,” she explains. “I was in the back, having a great time, but I would sacrifice three songs to be able to see him closer for the whole set.”

For fans who follow their fave, going to multiple shows permits this type of comparative economics. But tonight, Ruth is worried more about Harry himself. After 16 nights of the same set, she’s concerned that he’s bored. Each night, Harry performs his new single “Kiwi” twice. Initially repeated at the request of fans on the American leg of the tour, the song’s encore has now become somewhat of a gimmick, as Styles and the band stop and restart the song depending upon the crowd’s level of energy. Tonight, however, Ruth is hoping for a change. “Instead of chanting ‘Kiwi’ again like normal, we’re gonna chant ‘Girl Crush,’ and see if he wants to mix it up a bit. As much as I love seeing it, he must be bored doing the same thing.” Ruth admits that that probably won’t happen. “But I think it’d be nice for him to know that people are interested in change,” she shrugs.

That evening, Harry sings “Kiwi” twice, as usual, and gives the same speech that he gave in London, that he’ll give in Amsterdam and Milan. His job, tonight and in perpetuity, is to entertain us; ours is to be whoever we want to be in this room, and the next, and the next. Injecting variety into this process feels a bit like a Sisyphean task, but the struggle is enough to keep fans coming back each night anyway. One must imagine Harry Styles fans happy. And they are. It helps, in the end, that the show is an entertaining one.

Amsterdam, Night Four

Dani, 21, is showing off her new trousers. After sleeping on the sidewalk, she realised she had nothing fun to wear, and stopped by H&M. Their floral print, she says, reminded her of Harry’s own predilection for flowers and patterns. Though One Direction “weren’t big back then” in her home country of Bulgaria, she’s been a fan since 2010 . Tonight is her fourth and final show, and she compares her three previous ones casually. Night one in London was great, but Harry seemed better the second night – happier, and “less stressed.” Manchester was her favorite because “he was more himself.”

Like many fans, Dani knows Harry’s performance by heart. But she finds the show’s sameness exciting: “He’s so predictable, I love it. I end up talking over him. But you never know what’s going to happen. All you know is, ‘I’m seeing Harry tonight.’ What if he ends up doing something nobody expects?”

Before the show, I’m given a “Black Lives Matter” sign which I hold from my spot in the second row. When Harry sees it, he nearly flinches, either in shock or out of discomfort. Though I expect this, the reaction stings as much as it empowers. Because for a moment, I understand why Ruth, Dani, and Grace sleep on the street – to look at Harry and have him look back is intoxicating. All continues as usual, but Harry Styles and I now share a secret. Few people notice that the show, for a second, teeters on his silence, his adherence to a script that most don’t even realise exists.

Milan, Night Five

Grace has decided against queuing.

“It’s not about the show count. It’s about seeing and being with him. Obviously I’m there for the music, but it’s the same every time. I’m supporting him.”

For Grace, this means holding Harry accountable for what he does and does not say. And though they try to intervene, fans do understand the repetition. When I catch up with Ruth, it’s with the same kind of diplomacy that made them look less crazy back in London that she says, “Concerts are for people to go once, they aren’t meant to go to 500 times.”

In a few hours, the curtain will fall on the European tour without an unscripted word uttered about black lives, the controversy his silence has stirred up amongst fans, or anything else of significant consequence. Instead Harry will wave a Pride flag, silently. Grace will cry when he speaks Italian. For now though she’s visibly frustrated, longing for something that, seemingly, all his travelling fans are waiting for: the moment Harry goes rogue and deviates from the script.

“It’d be nice if he said something you didn’t think he was going to say,” she says, and it sounds a bit like his refrain in “From the Dining Table.” Why don’t you ever say what you wanna say? Styles is the one asking, but fans want an answer.

From Pride flags, to treating people with kindness, a good portion of Harry Styles’ popularity with fans lies in his populism. On stage, he is the embodiment of the will of the fans, the vessel who waves the flag they throw, and in him they find all things from acceptance, to fashion inspiration. But for many fans, his comfortable silence is, to quote the man himself, “so overrated.” For those who see themselves in Harry, urging him to use his platform to speak about issues that matter is as integral to the fan experience as camping and queueing and loving the product itself. The European tour may end tonight, but they will be back in the spring, and in the summer.

“Use your voice, Harry,” Grace sighs. She pauses, then adds, whether in defense of herself or of him: “I’m still here though.”

[chocolatequeennk]

What “pressuring authors to write smut” looks like

Every time I mention the way authors are pressured to write smut, I see a few people who doubt that it actually happens. Almost invariably, they are authors who do write smut--and it has occurred to me that the issue is that the same comments hit them differently. Since I got a particularly vile example this week, I thought I’d break it down. 

(Also, I would like to point out this ask where I was rudely asked how I could write baby fic if I don’t write smut, because don’t I know where babies come from? Yes, non-smut writers are sneered at by some. It happens.)

Pressuring someone to write smut isn’t always constant prodding. It isn’t always, “Oh, come on... you know you’d be good at it. I think you’d like it if you gave it a try. Why won’t you write smut? Are you a prude?” Sometimes, pressuring an author is making them feel like they have to constantly explain and defend their boundaries. Sometimes, it’s making them feel like they’re weird and unusual for not writing smut. And sometimes, as was the case this week...

Last Tuesday, I got this review on Healing Hands:

It starts out so well... and then devolves. 

First, here’s something I don’t think many people think about. Commenting on the lack of explicit sex in a story implies that sex is expected. It’s like looking at your friend funny when you go out for drinks and they order coke instead of alcohol. That implies that drinking alcohol is the norm, and doing otherwise is... different, and worth commenting on. This is the most basic layer of pressure authors receive, and it happens... frequently.

Second, telling an author something is missing from their story is never a compliment. Imagine I invited you over for dinner and served you spaghetti. If you ate a few bites, then said, “Wow, this spaghetti is great! It’s so good it nearly made me cry. The only thing missing is diced tomatoes--man, if this had diced tomatoes in it, it would be incredible!” 

Obviously, that would be extraordinarily rude and I would be within my rights to be angry. So why am I expected to take that kind of comment about my stories without getting upset? Why is it acceptable to leave that kind of comment on my stories? The parallel really holds true. Because I don’t like diced tomatoes, so I made spaghetti the way I like it and offered it to you as a gift. I don’t like writing smut, so I wrote a fic the way I like it and offered it to you as a gift. 

Still, I always like to give people a chance, so when I replied, I first thanked them for their kind words on the story, then added a line that I don’t write explicit sex, so this story stands complete as is. (Which should have been obvious since it was marked complete two years ago, but whatever.)

Yesterday, they doubled down on their rudeness.

(Going under a cut now)

Note that again, this starts out very well. Well... sort of. “I’m sorry to hear you don’t write the thing I want you to write” is a rude, entitled thing to say, but it’s at least better than the rest of the message.

It’s not uncommon for me to get comments from new readers who don’t know I don’t write smut asking if there will be a sexy “next scene.” I reply with some variation of what I told this person--nope, because I don’t write smut--and they almost all back off immediately. 

Instead, this person actually made their first comment worse. Not only is sex missing from my stories, now she claims it’s hard to read my stories because they never give her what she wants. No amount of, “yeah, but your writing is great!” can soften that rudeness. Back to our dinner analogy, this is the equivalent of staring mournfully at the bowl of spaghetti sauce and telling me that as good as it is, it’s hard to keep eating it when it never satisfies your desire for diced tomatoes. If I hadn’t asked you to leave before, I definitely would now!

The take away at this point is once someone makes it clear they do not write smut, do not talk to them about writing smut. If you know someone doesn’t write smut, either because they’ve said so or because they have posted 100+ stories that never go above a T rating, don’t bring it up (again). 

Also, this is classic pressure. “Gahhh, you’re teasing me so much with all this sexy romance and then never following through!” Essentially, they accused me of being a cocktease. That is not okay, and this kind of fic comment needs to stop. If a chapter ends with a fade to black and the story is rated T, and there’s no comment in the footnotes about the rating going up the next chapter? Just assume smut is not in the plans and don’t ask for it.

And this is the reply I sent last night, except for some minor edits.

"I'm sorry, but this whole exchange has been very hurtful to me. I have several very personal reasons for not writing explicit sex scenes. (Which I do not care to share.) Being told that they are missing from my story, or that my stories are unsatisfying because I do not include something that I cannot write is extremely painful. 

Being asked to write explicit sex triggers anxiety attacks for me. If you really get that sex is not everyone's cup of tea, I would advise against making people feel like they aren't enough because they can't provide it."

Guys. Guuuuuys. 

I really thought they would come back with an apology. 

And here we have the last step of pressuring people to do what you want them to do: victim blaming and gas lighting. “What I said wasn’t pressuring you to write sex... I just wanted to know if you’ve ever thought about it... If you can’t see that as a compliment...” etc etc. 

I’m honestly dumbfounded that they actually can’t see that telling someone something is missing from their story and that said missing element makes it hard to read because it never gives you what you want is rude. That would be rude no matter what thing they thought the story was missing. That the thing is sex just makes it very personal. 

Not completely apropos of the writing smut topic, but still important--learning to take responsibility for how your words affect people, even if it was unintentional, is grade school stuff. To fly off the handle and accuse me of needing mental help because her words hurt me is just... I don’t even know what the word is.

Also, her claim that she was just saying she wanted more of my writing is totally bogus. Cries for more are comments like, “I could read 50 more chapters of this!” She didn’t want me to write more, she wanted me to write something else.

Because here’s the thing. I’ve been going on the missing ingredient analogy, but really, when I’m asked to write smut, what people are saying is, “Your spaghetti is good, but I’d rather have lasagna.” And yeah. I love lasagna too, but it’s not what I want to cook for you. If you only want to eat lasagna, then you should say no when someone offers you spaghetti, instead of eating the spaghetti and getting upset that it isn’t lasagna. 

Don’t guilt cooks for not making lasagna, and don’t guilt authors for not writing smut.

There is one instance, and one only, where it is okay to get to the end of a story or chapter and ask if there will be smut. If you know the author and know they do write explicit sex, commenting that, “I’d love to see what happens next,” is okay. I would advise, as mentioned above, that you don’t phrase it as an expectation--especially if the story is marked as complete. Just a quick line at the end of a comment that mentions what actually does happen in the story to say that if they’re inspired to write what comes next...

But if you don’t know an author’s personal views on writing sex? Leave it off. If you don’t know them, that means you don’t know if this could be a trigger for them. There are lots of really serious reasons people could be triggered by requests to write smut, and honestly, we need to do a better job of respecting that. 

I want to thank @lastbluetardis, @pellaaearien, @theybecameanimagi, and @rudennotgingr for being wonderful friends this week. Your upset on my behalf has meant so much, and I really appreciate it.

[creativitytoexplore]

Larry's Terrible Day By James Rumpel https://ift.tt/2A1vr8G James Rumpel tells of a near future in which a malfunctioning phone is more than just an inconvenience.

Larry Boland glanced at his phone. He had his first phone implanted into his arm was when he was fourteen, a little later than most of his peers. Now, three upgrades and nine years later, his wrist was home to the most advanced communication device bit-coins could buy. Unfortunately, even with all that technology, he could not make the line to the med-distribution kiosk move any faster. His phone told him that it was 7:41. If he didn't get to the front of the line and get his daily dosage of medications soon, he was in grave danger of missing his train. For a moment, Larry considered leaving the line and going directly to the boarding area but he knew that was not an option. He needed treatments to deal with his attention deficit disorder, his dry mouth, his occasional bouts of gas, and the subtle throbbing he sometimes felt at his temples. He couldn't imagine trying to survive a day having to deal with all of those maladies. While waiting in line, Larry tried to examine the day's posts on his phone. For some unknown reason, the downloads were extremely slow. He waited nearly thirty seconds to find out if his friend, Greg, had gone through with the plan to send a private chat invitation to a girl he had met on a dating app. Unable to put up with the eternal delay, Larry decided to check his currency balance. Again, his phone moved at a snail's pace. The display bar which indicated how far along the data feed had progressed, much like the medication line, was barely moving. When he finally reached the front of the line, Larry placed his left arm in the machine and scanned his phone over the reader. To his great dismay, the monitor flashed red and a message appeared saying "UNABLE TO READ INPUT". He moved his wrist in front of the reader one more time with the same result. "Come on, Buddy. Get moving," yelled someone in the waiting crowd. Larry's third failed attempt earned him a different message: "PLEASE MOVE FROM THE LINE AND AWAIT THE ARRIVAL OF TECHNICAL PERSONNEL." Waiting for help would mean missing the train. He was going to be late for work. The next person in line was already starting to force her way to the kiosk. Frustrated, Larry moved to the side and watched as the young lady received her drugs with no difficulty. Larry rechecked the time on his phone. He noticed the display was not as bright as normal. The time was 7:53. It was with great anxiety that Larry decided to forego his daily treatments. He took off at a brisk pace toward the train platform. At the entry gate, he swung his wrist and phone in front of the scanner. He nearly tripped over the turnstile when it refused to budge. The scanner had declined his pre-paid boarding pass. A second attempt also failed. "Not again," shouted someone from behind. "Get out of our way if you don't know how to work a scanner." Larry was forcibly pushed aside by the agitated crowd. When he looked down at his phone, he noticed that the display screen was now totally black. He had only recently purchased the best available phone implant. This should not have been happening. It took all of his internal strength not to scream in frustration. "What seems to be the problem?" asked a voice from behind. Larry turned to see an elderly man of at least 50. "My phone isn't working. I can't get onto the train platform. I know my pass should be good. I paid for the year in advance." "Well, you're not getting through that gate without it reading your phone. I believe there is an office somewhere that will let you buy a physical ticket." Succumbing to the fact that he was going to be late for work, Larry decided that the man's suggestion was probably his best course of action. He looked at this blank phone before asking the old man, "Can you direct me to that office? I don't think my direction app is going to work." "It's somewhere behind the convenience stand. I think there are signs to direct you." Larry thanked the gentleman and began looking for the ticket-sales office. Usually, his wrist-phone would have directed him to the correct area. Without that option, he tried to decipher the multitude of signs posted throughout the station. He was amazed that he had never noticed them before. After fifteen exasperating minutes, he finally located the office. It was tucked into a remote corner of the building. He entered to find a small, unkempt room. Tiny pieces of paper and discarded tickets littered the floor. A man was behind the counter. He was leaning on his elbows; his eyes shut. Larry cleared his throat as he approached, causing the man to straighten with a sudden jerk. Larry couldn't help but notice the man's eyes. The ticket seller's eyes were very large and there was much more white in them than there should have been. Larry couldn't decide if the man's pupils were too small or if his eyeballs were too large. Those eyes would give anyone the initial impression that this fellow was insane. "Can I help you," asked the strange-eyed man with a remarkably normal voice. Larry started to lift his phone. He had to take a picture of this guy's eyes and post it on Pic-Share. He was reaching for the screen to open the camera app when he remembered that his phone was dead. "I need to buy a ticket to Foghill Station," he told the man. "When is the next train?" "The next train leaves in twenty minutes." The man clicked a few buttons on his computer screen and a printer could be heard humming behind him. The man extended a portable scanner towards Larry and said: "That will be forty-two dollars or twenty-five bit-coins." Larry waved his wrist in front of the scanner, hoping it would somehow read his phone and subtract the necessary amount from his account. It did not. "Oh, that's okay," said the clerk. He stared intently at Larry; his eyes blinked far less than they should have. "You can pay with cash." "I don't carry cash. Nobody does. My phone is broken. Can't you just let me have a ticket? I will repay when I get my phone repaired." Larry realized he was talking louder than he needed to. He felt a subtle throbbing around his eyes. The ticket clerk shook his head. "I'm not allowed to do that. Don't you have a friend who could let you get the money from their account?" "No," replied Larry before quickly adding, "I mean, I have friends, two hundred-thirty-seven of them on Social-Page and a bunch more followers on Insta-Quote, but I don't actually know them." "Well, I don't think I can help you," announced the man. After a brief pause, during which he glanced around the room suspiciously, he gestured for Larry to come closer. Thinking that the odd-looking man might be offering some sort of clandestine solution to his problem, he obliged. When Larry moved closer, the clerk whispered, "I think I know what happened to you and your phone. The government randomly deletes people. It doesn't kill them. It just takes away all of their accounts. I think the government has removed you from the database. If you ask me, it's the same thing as being killed." Larry pulled back. "That's stupid. My phone is broken. There is nothing more or less going on here." As he stormed out of the office, escaping the lunatic, he decided that his best course of action would be to find a phone repair shop. He was in the main station when he realized he had no idea where to find a such a shop. He wandered around the building searching for a directory of local businesses. There was none to be found. Again, the urge to scream was nearly irresistible. "Excuse me," said someone near. "What?" Larry snapped as he turned to face the same older man who had tried to help him earlier. When he realized how angry he must have sounded, Larry took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm sorry. I am having a terrible day and I have a headache. I'm trying to find a place to get my phone fixed." The gentleman shook his head slightly. "No problem at all. I understand your frustration. I believe there is a phone repair store about nine or ten blocks north of here. It's on this side of the street." "Thank you very much." Larry wasn't looking forward to a long hike. He had already reached three-quarters of his daily step goal on his treadmill earlier. With all of his searching about the station, he was certain he was beyond the required number of steps. Of course, he had no way to check his total since his phone was not cooperating. Larry took a couple of steps towards the station exit but suddenly stopped and turned back to the old man. "Oh, one more thing. Which way is north?" The first block or two of Larry's walk seemed very awkward to him. Eventually, he realized why. This was the first time in years that he had walked down a street with his head raised. He always walked with his eyes on the phone. Today, he was seeing the faces of passersby and not just their feet. None of the other people on the street made eye contact with him, however. They were all looking at their phones. Larry was struck by how dull and colorless the street was. For block after block, he passed one gray box-shaped building after another. The only variations from store-front to store-front were the bright video boards by the entrance of each business. The boards would call people by name as they passed by, telling them about the wonders in store for them if they entered. None of the video signs called out to Larry. They were unable to grab his personal information from his phone. He nearly missed the building he was looking for. His phone failed to announce that the destination had been reached. Had the store not called out to some other person about the great deals available on the newest model phone, Larry would not have realized he was at the correct place. Inside, he was quickly approached by a smiling saleswoman. "Good morning, what may I do to help you?" she asked. "My phone is broken. I think it's still under warranty. I need it fixed as soon as possible." "Let's have a look. Follow me." The woman led Larry to a booth in the back of the store. "Go ahead and scan your info." Larry, knowing that it would not work, waved his arm over the scanning device. "Well, that thing seems to be totally dead." A look of surprise replaced the salesperson's pleasant grin. "I've never seen that before. Let me go see if anybody else here knows about this sort of thing." Without another word, she disappeared into a back room. Larry waited impatiently for about fifteen minutes. When she returned, the smile was, once again, plastered to her face. "So, we have three options. None of them are going to be overly convenient for you, however. First, we could schedule surgery to remove your phone and then have it sent in to be repaired. You would probably have to wait a couple of weeks to get the phone back. The other choice is to install a second phone on your left arm. We could probably have that done later today." She paused before continuing. Larry mulled over those two alternatives. "I guess I don't want to have to go without a phone for multiple weeks, but I sure don't want the hassle of another phone. Plus, I would look like some sort of techno-maniac having a phone on each arm. What is the other possibility?" "We could scrounge up a non-implanted phone for you to use until a technician can be called in to repair your current device. I know having an unattached phone is a real pain, but it is the easiest alternative. It allows you to have a phone. Do you need a phone?" Larry's felt his face flush as he snarled, "Of course I need a phone." It seemed to Larry that every conversation he had this day involved him having to inhale slowly to control his temper. "I guess I will take the old-style phone." The saleswoman was still smiling, seemingly unaffected by Larry's angry tone. "I am going to need some information from you so that I can access your account." She handed Larry a pen and a questionnaire. The form was not overly lengthy. It asked for Larry's name, address, social identification number, and some banking details. Larry hoped he had remembered the banking information correctly. He found himself shaking his hand to ease the cramping, He couldn't recall the last time he had used a pen. Eventually, Larry returned the questionnaire to the woman. "Great," she said as she started to enter Larry's data into her computer. "Not great," she said after a short time. "Are you sure you filled out your name and SI number correctly? The computer system is not recognizing you at all." Larry grabbed the paper and verified that he had written the correct name and number. "Yes, that is me." "Excuse me one more time," said the woman as she returned to the back room. Ten minutes later, a large man emerged from the rear of the store. He walked up to Larry and said, "If you're being honest, we have to wait until someone at headquarters can verify your information. There is nothing about you in the computer system. Come back in three days and we should have your info. That is, if you're not trying to pull off some sort of hustle. If you are, you need to leave right now and not come back. Do I make myself clear?" Larry just wanted this day to be over. "OK," he said. "I'll be back. I'm telling the truth and I need to get my phone fixed. But I don't like the way I've been treated. I'll be posting some pretty low ratings on Biz-Star when I get my phone back." He stormed out of the store, realizing that his little tirade probably would not increase his chances of getting his phone fixed by this company. He didn't care. The seventeen-block walk to his apartment did little to improve Larry's mood. He had no way to hail or pay a Share-Car. He was tired and hungry. Without a working phone, he had been unable to purchase any food or drink during his long trek. He had derived a plan to use his old laptop to get hold of his parents even though he had not spoken with them in months. Maybe he could figure out how to send an old-fashioned e-mail. They were old, they might have some real currency. He reached to open the door to his building and nearly broke into tears when the door refused to budge. The scanner adjacent to the door seemed to mock Larry; beeping softly whenever he pulled on the door handle. He sat down on the curb and buried his head in his hands. "Excuse me, I think I can help you," said a somewhat familiar voice. Larry looked up to see the same gentleman he had encounter twice earlier in the day. "May I sit? We need to talk," said the man as he joined Larry on the curb. "You... you're part of all this," accused Larry. "Yes and no," replied the man. "I did not start the events that have transpired, but I can offer a solution. Have you ever heard the rumors that the government randomly deletes the files of people?" "I've heard about it once, from a crazy man." "Apparently, he wasn't all that crazy, because it's true. Well, mostly. The truth is the people are not selected randomly. They choose people who have small families, few close friends, and non-essential jobs. The goal is to create as little chaos as possible when they remove these people." Larry still found the story unbelievable. "Why would they do that?" he asked. "It's a secret. Some think it's to absorb the deleted person's funds, sort of the ultimate tax. Others think it's a punishment for failure to be productive. Maybe the government just does it to make things interesting. Whatever the reason, you are no longer recognized by the world's computers. You, for all practical purposes, do not exist." Larry did not feel any better about his circumstances. He also was still incredibly confused about what was going on. "So, what do you have to do with this?" The man smiled. "When someone is erased, the government tells me. I, or one of my associates, find that individual and offer them an alternative." "What kind of alternative?" "I can take you to a place where it doesn't matter that you have been removed from the grid. Everyone who is removed is offered the same chance. Most end up accepting. Let me take you to the place I am talking about. You can see it for yourself." Larry was far from convinced. "How do I know this isn't part of some con or scheme? How can I trust you?" Again, the man smiled. "You can stay and try to figure out how to survive on your own. You've seen how this day has gone. Maybe you can figure it out. I promise you will have a better life coming with me and being part of our world as opposed to being locked out of this one." Larry continued to search for an alternative. "I could go to the press. I bet if my story was posted on a newsfeed, I could get help." "Possibly. You would not be the first to try. But you still have the option of trying to do that after you check out my sanctuary." "OK, I'll come and take a look. I don't have to stay if I don't like it, right?" The man stood up and offered a hand to help Larry to his feet. "Exactly. Now come with me. My automobile is parked a short distance away." It was nearly a three-hour drive from the city. The man's outdated ethanol-powered car did not have any of the features that new vehicles offered. There was no automatic navigation or GPS instructions. There wasn't a media center to constantly read texts and social posts. Larry and the man spoke very little. The ride was quiet and peaceful. Larry stared out the window and noticed that the landscape had slowly transformed from a dark, gray city to lush green vegetation. He contemplated the events of the day. Why had he been erased? Why did have to be the one selected as the loser of this bizarre lottery? The driver exited the highway and taken a small paved path for the final half-hour of the trip. Larry turned down the window and took a deep breath. He noticed the scent of lilacs in the fresh air. It was then that he realized that, even without his meds, he didn't have a headache. He had not had one since much earlier in the day. When the car stopped in front of a large steel gate, the two men exited the vehicle and approached the compound. The gate swung open as they neared. "Here we are," said the man. He stepped back and watched as Larry looked at the scene beyond the gate. A group of children played on a field of thick green grass. Next to a large wooden home, five young men and women were busy working in a large, bountiful garden. A couple sat, hand in hand, on a swing suspended from the bough of a large tree. Everywhere he looked, Larry saw the beauty of nature and people basking in it. Larry realized he was smiling. Maybe, just maybe, he had won.

[nebris]

Veve Bee

The diagram is from the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota.

With the recent celebrity attention to hymens, I have been meaning to write some thoughts on the matter. For the past 10 years, I have been working as a child abuse pediatrician, taking care of hundreds of girls who have been victims of sexual assault. Those of us in this line of work know a lot about hymens, the female anatomy, and so-called virginity.

So here’s my PSA:

Virginity is NOT a physical entity. It is a social construct, a tool by which women have been kept powerless and shamed for centuries.

“But what about the hymen?” you ask. Doesn’t it “pop” or “break open” when a woman has sex for the first time?

Nope.  

Look at the diagram above. The hymen is simply a thin bit of tissue, a vestigial remnant that sits at the entrance of the vagina. It is absolutely useless (unless you are a guinea pig. Their hymens do regrow for protection and recede when the female is in heat.  To quote Todd Akin, female guinea pigs can actually “shut the whole thing down.” But humans aren’t guinea pigs).

Here are some facts about the hymen:

1. The hymen has no purpose. Zero. None. Nada. Contrary to popular belief, it does not serve to help infant girls from getting fecal matter into their vaginas. It does not protect from infections either. 2. Hymens look like hair scrunchies, and much like hair scrunchies, they are stretchy. They stretch to fit a penis and other objects. They really stretch to fit a baby. 3. The hymen is ALWAYS open. Baby girls are born with holes.  On rare occasions, girls are born without openings. This is a medical condition called an imperforate hymen, and it requires surgery to fix. There are other variations on hymen morphology as well, such as septated hymens (with extra bands of tissue across the opening), but since the vast majority of women fit into the typical category, I will keep to that here. 4. If hymens weren’t open, girls would not be able to have periods. That’s why imperforate hymens need surgery to make an opening. 5. Studies show that women who were pregnant and women who have never had sex have identical looking hymens. 6. Only 50% of women bleed at first intercourse. (Beware of technique issues too). 7. If injury does occur to the genitalia from sexual activity (or otherwise), it does not mean that anything got “broken open”. The vulva has many parts to it that can be injured (see diagram), not just the hymen. Also, the vulvar tissue is the same as what is inside your mouth. If you bite the inside of your mouth, it may swell or even bleed. But a couple of days later, it will be completely healed. A woman’s vulva, and hymen, does the same.

So why is the myth of virginity one worth busting? Well first of all, it’s not accurate, and women need to know the truth about our bodies. Secondly, women around the world are still subjected to virginity testing and other intrusive and dangerous practices to prove, ensure, or “reinstate” the mythical virginity. Third of all, this: (trigger warning)

A 13 year-old girl sits on my examination table. Her uncle started raping her when she was 7 years old. I tell her that she looks healthy, and that she is going to be okay. She asks me, “Am I still a virgin?”

I say yes, and I tell her why.

Because she looks just like any other girl her age. In 95% of cases, the hymen heals completely after an assault.

And because virginity is not a physical state.

It’s not something that can ever be taken from you.

It’s a concept, a mental and emotional decision you make to give of yourself when you are ready, and not when someone decides to be violent with your body.

And because being raped is not the same thing as having sex. Having sex WITH someone can only happen with consent. Otherwise, it’s just violence from one person to another, period.

She cries, her whole body shaking, with tears of relief. Then she dries her tears and smiles for a new beginning.

So let’s stop the shame and humiliation. Enough is enough.

Disclaimer: Thank you all so much for reading this post. It was originally private on my personal page, but a handful of friends asked me to make it shareable. I never thought it would touch such a chord.  

This post is for information only. It’s not meant to be medical advice. Please see your doctor for any concerns about your body.

Also, I have used the terms “women” and “girls” in the post, but certainly it would apply to anyone with this type of anatomy, as the topic above would pertain to them as well.

I have seen many folks mention the different appearances of hymens, especially septates and cribiform morphologies. These variations are important to acknowledge. This post is dealing with the most common appearance amongst people with vaginas. This is not meant to take away from the experiences of others. Perhaps I will write more about these morphologies in a new post at some point. Once again, if you have a question about your body, please consult your doctor.

[lefthanded-sans]

Your Soriel post reminded me of a thought I had. I don't think Sans was being serious with the whole "you'd be dead where you stand" thing because when he judges Frisk he presents you with the choice of killing Asgore and leaving or letting him take their soul and destroy humanity, Sans says that he believes they can do "the right thing" which makes me think he didn't approve of either of the options from the start. Would make sense for the guy who judges you for killing to be a pacifist himself

From this. This is such a fun topic - thank you so much for responding with these cool thoughts!

I find Sans’ post as judge a fascinating and somewhat enigmatic role. In truth, I feel as though him being a judge is, in many ways, rather ill defined. We only see Sans in this one instance acting as a judge over Frisk, and the best we can do to understand this situation is to look at what Sans does here across various timelines. To me I feel as though Sans’ dialogue in the judge role, combined with similar comments he makes elsewhere in the game, do not suggest he is a pacifist so much as they suggest he believes there’s no point stopping Frisk.

Evidence Sans believes there’s no point stopping Frisk can be found in his comments about giving up and in his comments about alternate timelines (SAVE, RESET, etc.). In short:

Sans talks about giving up several times. He even talks about giving up when it comes to stopping the human.

Sans talks about trying to steer the human in the right direction in other hypothetical timelines where the human has different LV values. His comments suggest that there’s not much more he can do to get the human to change their trajectory.

Sans understands that timelines are jumping back and forth in the timespace continuum and he deeply suspects (or knows) that Frisk is a time traveler. He knows that in the Genocide Route, the end result of the timeline is different than for other timelines. The end result of the Genocide Route is the destruction of the monster world... and that’s the only one where he steps up to do something about the human when he “judges” them.

So to me it seems like Sans letting the human by is based upon his ideas that there is nothing he can do to stop the human from killing people. If he stops the human in a fight, the human will just go back to a previous SAVE point and try again. So he gives up trying to stop the human, does nothing when he “judges” except suggest the human be nice, and only makes an effort to stop the human when the timeline is truly in danger (the Genocide Route).

And the longer version of what I just outlined:

1. Sans talks about giving up several times. He even talks about giving up when it comes to stopping the human.

One oft-quoted comment from Sans comes from when he is a Lost Soul. “just give up. i did,” he says. Another comment he says here is “why even try?” The interesting thing about the Lost Soul dialogue is that all the characters seem to be talking about their greatest internal struggle as Lost Souls - suggesting that one of Sans’ biggest personal problems is giving up.

What is Sans giving up on? As far as I can tell, Sans’ only other comments about “throwing in the towel” are regarding him stopping the human. 

There is his comment in the Genocide Route about how he feels he has to fight the human in this timeline because of what comes next: the destruction of the monster world:

all i know is... seeing what comes next... i can’t afford not to care anymore.

Here, he says he can no longer sit back apathetically. This suggests that Sans usually defaults to letting the human pass in the final corridor, regardless of whether the human is a pacifist or not-such-a-pacifist. Him saying he doesn’t care usually means that Sans doesn’t seem to be “judging” the human with full effort. Instead, he’s only deciding to do something at this moment of judging in the Genocide Route because of “what comes next” - the end of the timespace continuum.

2. Sans talks about trying to steer the human in the right direction in other actual or hypothetical timelines where the human has different LV values. His comments suggest that there’s not much more he can do to get the human to change their trajectory.

Even outside the Genocide Route, Sans has different dialogue as a judge depending upon what LV the human is. Some of the words he says appear to correlate with this idea of “just give up.” I especially find his words interesting when the human is between LV 10 and 13:

hmmm… over lv9, huh. that’s over halfway to lv20, the maximum. but don’t think that means you’re still 50- percent good. 50-percent, 20-percent. those are both still failing grades. besides. chances are… i’ve already tried to steer you in the right direction. so what can i say? what can i say that will change the mind of a being like you…?

I’ve bolded what I find particularly interesting. Sans comments that he’s probably already tried to convince the human to go in the right direction and not kill monsters. But at the same time, his questions suggest that he doesn’t know a way to change the human’s mind to go a better path. He cannot do anything more to get the human to be a better person.“What can I say?” he asks, a question that sounds a bit like giving up on trying to change the human. It’s almost like he lets the human pass because he knows it will make no difference to their actions and to the result of the timeline. 

3. Sans understands that timelines are jumping back and forth in the timespace continuum and he deeply suspects (or knows) that Frisk is a time traveler. He knows that in the Genocide Route, the end result of the timeline is different than for other timelines. The end result of the Genocide Route is the destruction of the monster world... and that’s the only one where he steps up to do something about the human when he “judges” them.

Multiple quotes throughout the game demonstrate that Sans has decent knowledge about the unique time properties of this world. If Frisk has not killed anyone and returns to talk to Sans multiple times at the judging point, he’ll give Frisk a secret codeword, “so i know if someone tells it to me… they’ll have to be a time traveller.” Then, of course, there is that large chunk of dialogue in the Genocide Route where he comments:

our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting… until suddenly, everything ends.

So the reason I’m bringing up Sans’ knowledge of time traveling, the SAVE function, alternate timelines, etc. …is that it seems like his knowledge of Frisk’s time traveling capabilities might influence how he acts as a judge. And the reason why I’m bringing up Sans’ apathy and comments of “just give up” is because it could play into the concept of why Sans doesn’t do anything when he usually judges the human. All these ideas culminate together in yet another Genocide Route quote:

you can’t understand how this feels. knowing that one day, without any warning… it’s all going to be reset. look. i gave up trying to go back a long time ago. and getting to the surface doesn’t really appeal anymore, either. cause even if we do… we’ll just end up right back here, without any memory of it, right? to be blunt… it makes it kind of hard to give it my all.

It seems from these quotes that Sans knows Frisk can reset and return to relive moments that have happened before - with some variation on the human’s LV. It seems that Sans knows that there is nothing direct he can do to prevent these timeskips from occurring and repeating. If the human dies, timelines will yet again reverse (as correlated to the human’s last SAVE point) and events repeat.

It also seems that Sans knows that there is something special about the timeline if the human is a LV 1 or a LV 20. If the human is a LV 1, he might give the human his secret password to prove they are a time traveler. Sans doesn’t give the code word to the human for any other LV. Then, if the human is a LV 20, Sans will take action to prevent the human from destroying the entire monster world. But if the human is a LV 4 or a LV 9 or a LV 16, Sans will give the human some suggestions that they probably should not harm anyone… but he always lets the human pass, perhaps because it doesn’t matter. The net outcome of Frisk not reaching a True Ending will happen whether they are a LV 2 or LV 19. There won’t be a full RESET, timelines will keep jumping back and forth like Sans’ reports indicate, and nothing will get “completed” until the human either goes full pacifist or full genocider.

Now, I’m not trying to say that Sans has special knowledge of the game or has this acute understanding of game mechanics. But his Genocide Route quote does indicate that he is putting his apathy aside to stop the human… because if he doesn’t stop the human in this route, then “suddenly, everything ends.” He’s willing to fight the human in the Genocide Route because the Genocide Route ending is different. It’s that horrific. Sans doesn’t have knowledge to everything, but the reports he’s seen on the timespace continuum suggest that he really does need to step up. The reports say that the timelines jump and stop until “suddenly, everything ends,” suggesting an end to all timelines, suggesting an end to the monster world, and suggesting such a terrible fate that Sans can’t be his typical apathetic self.

So when the human isn’t a LV 20, Sans doesn’t have to worry about everything suddenly ending and the timelines being ominously truncated. In a non-Genocide Route, Sans’ reports of the timespace continuum would not indicate the monster world was in imminent danger of ending. Therefore, he could understand that the loop of timelines jumping back and forth would just keep happening regardless of whether Frisk is a LV 2 or LV 12. 

To use the quote from #2, Sans’ comment when Frisk is over LV 9 makes sense. Sans might not remember other timelines where he judged the human, but from his timespace reports, it’s likely the human has come to him before with an undesirable LV, he’s tried to convince them to change, but the human is still here with a high LV anyway. Sans can’t do anything to stop this cycle. So he might as well just give up on this current timeline, let the human pass, and get this current timeline cycle over and done with.

It’s oddly actually in Sans’ favor to let the human pass and fight Asgore in all routes but the Genocide Route. If Frisk reaches Asgore in the Genocide Route, the king is dead and the underground is in grave danger of being obliterated. But in all other routes, Frisk has to pass Asgore to either finish the Neutral Route or find the True Pacifist Ending. If Sans lets Frisk pass, then presumably he can get out of this current timeline more quickly. But even if Sans doesn’t understand that much, he probably understands this:

If Sans tries to stop Frisk in a route that is under LV 20, the human is just going to keep returning to previous SAVE points and fight Sans again and again. There’s no point in Sans killing Frisk because the human will just return for another timeline. So it’s in Sans’ favor to let the human pass regardless because him fighting the human here doesn’t matter. One way or another, one timeline or another, the human is going to pass him and meet Asgore. Sans knows that killing the human won’t stop them… so he can just let them go, even if they’re a horrific murderer.

So what does Sans do with this knowledge? He says some words to Frisk. He “judges” them. Sans does the only thing he can do: hint to the human that everyone is better off if they are a LV 1. Sans has given up stopping the human, but he hasn’t completely given up on trying to steer the human in the right direction. He’ll still suggest to the human that they should be pacifistic. In all the routes Sans judges Frisk, he hints to the human that a LV 1 score is ideal, that they shouldn’t kill monsters. 

That’s all he can do to get this timespace continuum ordeal straightened out in his favor, where the timeline is one where he and his companions reach the surface.

Sans being a “judge” isn’t necessarily some official role. There’s no indication that what he is doing is official. It feels a little odd because he’s talking in more formal language (with capital letters and better punctuation). But that could all be in his favor to try to get the human to listen to him... part of his tactic to convince the human to do a LV 1 route.

I think that Sans telling Frisk he believes they can do the right thing ties back to the idea Sans is trying to convince Frisk to pursue a Pacifist Route… not necessarily because Sans is a dieheart pacifist, but because he has reports on the timespace continuum. So long as Frisk isn’t on a Genocide Route, there’s no point to Sans stopping the human, so he might as well just give up trying to do that. I feel Sans isn’t necessarily following his morals moreso as he is being pragmatic here.

I don’t think there’s any way knowing whether or not Sans actually is a pacifist at heart. This is just my interpretation of the game, though. Feel free to believe he is a pacifist! I suppose this is just why I myself am not convinced. I’m not convinced that his comment from MTT Resort about killing the human is genuine, but I’m not sure that I can conclude he’s a pacifist, either.