#I know there’s a eugenics argument and I’m not here to argue. my decision is my decision and no one is suggesting I die but me

[justtogetthrough]

Anyway out of pure frustration and spite I let the MAID cat out of the bag soooooo we’ll see what the coming days bring. Wish me luck. I hadn’t yet figured out when to tell my family that I plan to have the government kill me because how the fuck do you bring that up?

Well. It got brought up when someone told me not only do they not think I’m disabled, but I also clearly don’t actually want to die or I would have killed myself by now.

I was so angry. I “well actually”d them and told them about my two suicide attempts that were so nearly successful it traumatized my parents, how many times I’ve come close in the last 2.5 years, and the only reason I’m not actively attempting again is because MAID was legalized and I’m trying to hold out for that.

I guess there’s worse things to say in a fit of anger.

I’m fortunate to live somewhere with reasonable respect for bodily autonomy and while the eligibility criteria haven’t been determined yet, I highly doubt family approval will be among the requirements.

If it does turn out I’m not eligible, I keep a plan in my back pocket. I’ll be mad about waiting 3 extra years but I really would rather go in a planned way that doesn’t traumatize everyone in my life.

[tweedfrog]

In a Rhaegar wins au where Dany is tptwp how do you think that affects his relationship with her and with his children? Especially if none of his kids are dragon riders?

so this ask has been sitting in my ask box for a while and I’ve been meaning to get around to it but I just saw a post that really irritated me so I’m kind of going to use your ask as a segue to talk about why I think Rhaenys not being a dragon-rider in an AU is a terrible idea unless handled very, very well.

I’ve been active in this fandom for an average/sort of long time (about 5-6 years), and let me say that it is ONLY ever Rhaenys and Aegon (whether you believe he’s real or fake) who are subjected to this ridiculous level of nit-picking over their ‘powers’. The post I saw was contending that Rhaenys could have her Roynish water magic from her ancestors but that she could never wake dragons (or freed slaves but that’s a whole other can of worms) like Daenerys did but that its fine because she has her special Rhoynish magic to fall back on.

Here’s the thing though. At its core that argument is deeply unsound because there’s already a character who will likely have access to powers from ‘both sides of his family’ - Jon Stark! I get that fandom head-canons aren’t fact yet so we don’t know if Jon will be a dragon rider or not but let me just say I have never ONCE seen anyone try to argue in meta that Jon can’t ride a dragon because he’s already a warg and therefore he should simply be content with his Stark powers.

Furthermore, any argument that Daenerys is somehow more special or integral to waking the dragons than Rhaenys is always going to descend into Valyrian eugenics tm because that’s what the whole idea is predicated on.

You can’t make the point that Rhaenys doesn’t have the personality or drive to make similar decisions to Daenerys like you could in a Jon vs Daenerys argument because Rhaenys was murdered far too young for us to make accurate predictions about her nature.

 You can’t make the argument that Rhaenys would never be treated terribly like Daenerys and would be in a better position because of her Dornish connection because:

a) she was treated worse than Daenerys in text. She literally was murdered, and her family couldn’t do anything to seek justice for her. Idk why people think the Martell’s are going to be all-powerful in a situation where the war went down in the exact same way except Rhaenys lived. In fact you could argue that they would be in a far worse position because they’d be more closely monitored and would have to be very very quiet if they were aiding Rhaenys

b) Whether you believe the fake Aegon theory or not the fact is that Illyrio, Varys and Jon Con managed to raise a boy they claimed was Aegon Targaryen for roughly 15 years without the Martells finding out. In a Rhaenys lives AU she could very well end up with Jon Con and Aegon and given the status of women in the story her hand very well could be given away in marriage (Think Calla Blackfyre being married to her half-uncle Aegor Rivers) and it could progress in a similar fashion to what happened to Daenerys and Drogo. Especially since Daenerys didn’t randomly get those eggs – they were given to her by Illyrio.

c) Any statements about how Rhaenys is “too Dornish” to ever wake a dragon are ridiculous given that due to the repeated sibling incest Daenerys herself is ¼ Dornish. According to half these theories Daenerys herself should be too *gasp* non-Valyrian and therefore not special enough herself to wake the dragons.

Everything about a Rhaenys lives AU is purely speculation and I very much hate it when in a series with dragons and magic people draw the line at a brown girl being special in the way their super cool Targaryen faves like Jon and Daenerys are.

And the thing is I hate making arguments like this because they make me sound like a Daenerys anti when I’m not? The core issue in Daenerys’ story is that she’s a strong female character who does make morally questionable choices and therefore is hated by a large chunk of the fandom who are just outright sexist. But also, that Daenerys is a white character in the midst of, let us be frank, mostly flat characters who GRRM didn’t develop further because he decided to lean on racist tropes and this understandably pisses people off. Oh and let’s not forget the ‘Targaryen madness” idea used to argue that Daenerys is doomed to be mentally ill and evil like her father. Daenerys story and her fandom presence is a hodgepodge of sexism, racism, and the stigmatisation of mental illness. Its seriously hard to engage in these debates because it’s hard to untangle the threads. 

Anyways back to your original question. I think Rhaegar would be absolutely crushed that Daenerys was TPWWP instead of Aegon who he believed was the one all along. I don’t characterize Rhaegar as actively malicious (more selfish, stupid, and with a messiah complex) so I think the idea that he plunged Westeros into a continent wide-war for nothing would deeply weigh on him. Throw in the personal element of how much hes destroyed his relationships with his children, and with Elia and Lyanna and I don’t see it getting better.In fact I see Rhaegar as harbouring an enormous amount of guilt about his treatment of all three of his children and it never really resolving itself because i head-canon Rhaegar as not the most emotionally intelligent.

Honestly even in a situation where 1 or more of his children end up as dragon riders I don’t see Rhaegar being too happy because he would have still had the wrong idea all along and made terrible decisions based on those wrong ideas.

[kingreywrites]

You’re always there, mon frère

Fandom: Tangled

Word Count: 3004

Summary: "Flynn! Buddy, do you hear me?!" The voice was directly above him now and it was- Flynn was pretty sure that it was Lance, but with the rain, his friend sounded weird. A little choked up, perhaps. And how could he be above him? "Flynn!" Lance called desperately, "Flynn! Answer me buddy!"

Read on ao3

Note: Happy Teengene Appreciation Day!! Thank you @carlyrider for organising it, I hope you’ll enjoy this!

Flynn was cold. That was the first thing he noticed, but it wasn't enough to wake him up fully because, after all, he was used to sleeping in the cold. And the wet - it was wet too, he realised, but once again, not the worst conditions he had slept in. Well, most of the time, he and Lance would- not cuddle, he wouldn't say cuddle, but they would manly share body heat and Flynn would often snuggle- uh, get closer to Lance because he was a literal human furnace, and things would be okay.

Lance wasn't there, though. He was cold, and wet, and Lance… Where was Lance?

"...ynn! Bu…"

It was raining, Flynn understood, a little more conscious now. It was raining heavily, and there was thunder, and he was wet because… he didn't find a roof? It was weird. He always managed to find a roof in these circumstances - he hated the cold with a passion and once, Lance got so sick that he feared-

Yeah. He hated the cold. Where was Lance? Was he cold too?

There was some noise above his head, and he felt something that was definitely not rain fell on his face. Pebbles? He should really find a better place to sleep, but he was too tired and too cold to move now. His head hurt. And he was tasting dirt, somehow?

"Flynn!" someone called from faraway. "Flynn, where are you?!"

Flynn groaned, and got more dirt in his mouth for his trouble. With all of this rain, his hair must be a mess now, he would have to take care of it thoroughly. Would Lance accept to go steal more hair products? It was a vital necessity, for sure, Flynn just had to convince him of that - and considering Lance didn't exactly have hair, it would be difficult, but Flynn Rider wouldn't back down from a challenge. Except if that challenge was getting up because, for now, that wasn't happening. Maybe he could borrow something from Stalyan? Nah, not worth her anger, Flynn thought with a frown that he regretted immediately as a flash of white hot pain made him groan once again. Ouch. His head hurt. Where was- where was Lance?

"Flynn! Buddy, do you hear me?!" The voice was directly above him now and it was- Flynn was pretty sure that it was Lance, but with the rain, his friend sounded weird. A little choked up, perhaps. And how could he be above him? "Flynn!" Lance called desperately, "Flynn! Answer me buddy!"

Flynn grimaced and opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. Why was Lance screaming in the middle of the night? Why were they both outside? His head hurt more and more as he woke up progressively, and Flynn had half a mind to simply go back to sleep. It would be less cold, less wet, and definitely less painful.

Then again, Lance sounded really scared. Maybe Flynn would stay awake a little more - just to check that it wasn't another spider related incident.

"Flynn! Fly- oh come on, Eugene Fitzherbert!" Lance yelled, his voice echoing sharply inside Flynn's head.

"Hey," Flynn groaned, louder this time, "don't call me that." His exclamation wasn't that loud, but thankfully, Lance heard it anyway.

"Sorry, sorry, I just wanted a reaction," Lance apologised, still sounding far away.

Flynn shifted and regretted it immediately, stars bursting behind his eyelids as he cried out. He might have lost some time, because when he finally felt like he wouldn't be sick, Lance was back to calling his name frantically.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm awake," he coughed into the dirt, before taking a deep breath and - finally - turning entirely on his back. It hurt, to say the least. Gasping, the rain falling right into his mouth, Flynn finally realised that Lance wasn't above him because he was flying, but because he was down in a… ravine? Random crack on the Earth? Anyway, not good.

And, if he had turned the other way, he would have fallen to his doom. Further down to his doom, exactly.

"Flynn, buddy, please stop moving," Lance pleaded, his head popping up a few feet above him. "I'm coming to get you, okay? Just- stay put!"

"Not sure… where I would go," Flynn breathed in answer, but Lance was already gone. And, it was still raining. What a day.

Honestly, he didn't remember how exactly he managed to fall here - he assumed he fell, since his entire body was screaming at him, most of all his head. Gingerly, he tested his hands and feet, and thankfully, he didn't seem to have anything broken. Being a thief didn't really allow for broken bones, and Stalyan would have probably been angry with him for being incapacitated - even now, she would probably blame him for his injuries. To be fair, he didn't remember how he got them, but innocent until proven guilty - it was not his fault until he discovered it was. Sadly, Stalyan often assumed the reverse stance, blaming him for things he didn't even do until he apologised for it. He was already imagining the argument about this in his head, and how he could try to calm her down, when it struck him.

He wouldn't argue with Stalyan. He- he left her at the altar.

Suddenly, everything came back to him in a rush - his decision to leave her, supported by Lance; taking part of the Baron's treasure for themselves as a goodbye gift; being chased down by his men, fighting under the rain, being pushed… being pushed to his death by The Weasel.

He remembered falling, and thinking that this was it. He was going to die. And the worst thing? He didn't even regret leaving Stalyan behind. She- they- Lance had been right about her since the beginning. Then Flynn hit the ground and didn't think about it anymore. He had been lucky to fall on something midway, instead of all the way down the ravine, because that was probably the only thing saved his life.

Well, lucky wasn't exactly the word here, but he would take it.

"Flynn! Still awake down there?" Lance yelled before leaning over the edge again.

"Yeah," he answered half-heartedly, shivering from the unrelenting rain.

He wasn't sure Lance heard him, but he must have seen him move enough to be reassured, because he turned back for a moment. Flynn waited in silence, feeling oddly numb as he thought back over everything he did to get them in this situation, his head still pulsating painfully with his heart. Gently, he put a hand above his ear, but took it back with a hiss. Between the darkness and the rain, he wasn't exactly sure that it was blood on his fingers, and decided to act as if it wasn't. If he didn't see the problem, there was no problem, for sure.

Lance threw a rope down. He pulled it harshly three times, but whatever he had anchored it on held.

"Lance," Flynn called, trying to sit up and failing miserably, his arms too shaky under him.

"Flynn, don't move, I'm coming!"

"No, no, Lance, it's too wet," he yelled back, "you'll slip!"

Even from down there, Flynn could see the glare Lance threw his way. "If you think I'm leaving you here, you're wrong!"

"The rule is-"

"I don't care about the rule! Jail is one thing, I won't leave you to die here!"

It was rare for Lance to sound that angry. Flynn closed his mouth, biting back his answers, because he knew he wouldn't be able to convince his friend not to do it. Which didn't mean he wasn't scared off his wits when Lance started to make his way down as carefully as possible. Lance nearly lost his grip at one point, and Flynn nearly had an heart attack at the sweet age of sixteen, but, thankfully, Lance caught himself and only kicked down pebbles into Flynn's face. On purpose, he'd bet, because he thought Flynn was being an idiot.

Lance jumped the last few inches, immediately going to Flynn's side, hands hovering above him.

"Are you okay? Is anything broken? How many fingers do you see- wait, I'm not supposed to hide my hands behind my back, I-"

"Lance, Lance!" Flynn interrupted, bating his hands away feebly. "I'm fine, help me up."

Lance nodded, put one arm under Flynn's and yanked him upright which- bad idea.

Very bad idea.

When he came back to himself, Flynn was on all four, heaving, and Lance had one hand around his waist to keep him off his face, and the other doing soothing circles on his back. It would have been sweet, if not for the nearly constant hysterical babbles in Flynn's ears as Lance panicked. Flynn didn't know where Lance heard all this stuff about head injuries that he was reciting, but it did sound grim worded this way. He really didn't want to slip into a coma either.

"So," Flynn croaked, "what a break up, huh?"

If he hoped his joke would calm Lance down, he hadn't anticipated the tears in his best friend's eyes as he looked at him sadly. Flynn sighed and - carefully - sat up, Lance steadying him.

"I thought- I kept searching for you, but I thought-"

Lance swallowed, unable to finish his sentence, and Flynn thought he understood. Falling in a ravine didn't have the best chance of survival. He would say he was sorry, but he didn't think Lance would appreciate it, so he patted his arm feebly instead. His head was pounding right up to his eyeballs, which was weird sensation in itself. Lance rubbed his eyes to get rid of his tears, and Flynn didn't even tell him that it wasn't useful since it was still raining on them - he was nice like that. And tired. Very tired.

"C'mon, don't fall asleep on me," Lance said, jostling Flynn enough to make the pain flare up again. "Sorry, but we need to get out of here."

"I- I don't think I'm climbing up that rope, buddy," Flynn answered, shivering a lot more now that Lance had gotten up again.

He also felt woozy and since, despite all appearances, he wasn't a complete idiot, he knew his hands were shaking way too much to have some sort of grip. Especially under this rain. Take that, Stalyan - he did know how to think before he leaped. Which wouldn't help him out of this situation but at least he could finally have the last word on that argument. Why was he thinking about her again? His head hurt a lot.

"Yeah, we'll find a doctor, don't worry," Lance said, and Flynn realised he must have talked out loud. He wasn't sure any doctor would accept them as patient - they didn't have any money left - but it was a nice sentiment. "And you won't have to climb up, I'll take care of it."

Before Flynn could wonder what that meant, Lance was back before him and, in one swift movement, got him on his back. He would have sputtered a protest immediately, if not for his spinning head.

"A piggyback? That's your grand idea?" Flynn hissed through his teeth as he breathed against the nausea, arms tightening unconsciously around Lance. 

"You've got a better one?"

"No! Doesn't mean this one isn't stupid!"

"Well we can't stay here! You need help and we need a warm shelter and-"

"If you slip we're dead!"

"Don't let go and I won't," Lance snarked back, squaring his shoulders and jumping to start climbing up. Flynn yelped, and tightened his legs around his waist, not about to deconcentrate him now that their fates was in his hands. Quite literally.

From his vantage point, Flynn could see how Lance was straining to get both of them out of here. He could see him palms get hurt against the rope, could feel the rain running down his hair, could hear Lance's grunts and realised that he was glad to have him in his life. Maybe Flynn was an idiot - but at least, he had a best friend.

"I'll miss Stalyan, though," he whispered vaguely, forehead on Lance's shoulder.

"Hey, hey, you promised you wouldn't let go Flynn," Lance said in a panic, feet slipping against the rock.

"Didn't promise anything."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too! You've got a concussion, my word is worth more than yours," Lance concluded harshly, "so don't sleep."

Flynn hummed, Lance grunted, and thunder roared above them - it was all very dramatic. Once Lance was less freaked out about it all, he'd probably appreciate the setting of his daring rescue, since nothing was cooler than appropriate scenery. It would be a story for the ages... if they didn't die.

Lance cursed under his breath as he heaved himself up for the last few inches, falling heavily on the ground with Flynn still on his back. He crawled to get them both further away from the edge, before sprawling entirely on the ground. Flynn though he should try to move, since he was essentially squashing Lance, but his head was pounding and he really didn't want to.

"We're alive," he drawled ironically, and Lance snorted in answer. They were alive, and soaked to the bone, his head was still hurting, and he was pretty sure that Lance's hands were too, from the friction. Ah, and the Baron's men were probably still on their tails - or Lance's, at least, if they thought he was dead already. Yeah team.

After a while, Lance helped him lie down on the ground as he sat back up, and Flynn looked at the sky, trying to stay very still. The clouds were still dark and menacing, but he felt like the rain was falling a little less heavily. Flynn raised his hand to his head again, still flinching when he made contact, but with this new light, the fact that he was bleeding was undeniable.

What was the protocol in use when he did see the problem? He didn't remember right now, but it wasn't good.

Lance leaned over him and Flynn realised that he was talking, but he hadn't listened. He felt dizzy, as if his head was slowly floating away from him and that- that was weird. Lance frowned, moved away, and Flynn nearly asked him to stay, before he caught himself. Huh. The head injury was really messing with him. That, and Lance was the best way to keep the rain out of his eyes. Yeah, that was totally it.

Flynn closed his eyes but Lance immediately shook him, trying to keep him awake. Sadly, it only heightened Flynn's dizziness and pain, and he thought he mumbled something that made Lance look scared, but he didn't remember what - he closed his eyes again and lost consciousness before he even understood what was happening.

------

Flynn was warm and dry. That was a nice change from the last time he woke up, though he didn't realise it immediately, still too groggy. His head still hurt but the pain was dulled now, something faded in the back of his mind. Right here and then, as Flynn woke up slowly, he could have swore he hadn't been this comfortable in years…

If it wasn't for the elbow digging in his ribs.

Once he felt it, Flynn was unable to ignore it. He tried to shift away slowly and, when that didn't work, he pushed the arm away. At first, he thought he won that battle, but the arm came back with a vengeance, covering his stomach in a heap as a loud snore escaped its owner.

"Lance," Flynn growled, already missing his sleepiness, "move."

"Shut- Flynn?!" his best friend yelled, startled awake, while Flynn cringed away from the loud noise. "Flynn," Lance said more softly, "you're awake!"

"Yeah," he grumbled sarcastically, something that Lance obviously didn't get as he started talking fast about how worried he had been. Though, Flynn knew his friend - he totally got that he was being annoying, only, he liked to be.

Now that his eyes were open, he saw that they were both on a bed that Flynn didn't recognise at all. His hand climbed to his head but only felt the bandages that were on top of his wound.

"Told ya I would get you to a doctor," Lance winked, proud of himself.

"Yes but how are you planning to pay them?"

"I... uh, have my ways?" he answered nervously.

Flynn frowned, and saw that weird tick Lance always had when he was feeling guilty about something - his eyebrows took this strange position on his face and it outed him as a liar every time. His thought process was slowed due to his head injury, but it didn't take long for Flynn to understand what exactly Lance could be feeling guilty about.

"Oh I can't believe you," Flynn complained, "you stole from our stolen treasure?! We said we would do fifty fifty!"

"See, I wouldn't say stole, exactly-"

"Of course you wouldn't!"

"It helped you in the end! That has to count!" Lance insisted, and Flynn punched his shoulder in answer - not too strongly, but Lance was a big baby and whined about it anyway.

Then, he settled back on the bed, ready to go on with his nap.

"Isn't this my bed?" Flynn grumbled half-heartedly, getting comfortable again.

"Hmm."

"And you- ah, doesn't matter," he sighed, accepting his cuddly fate.

Only because Lance was a warm presence beside him and that he was still feeling cold. And maybe because he seemed to have scared Lance back there, so he wanted to make him feel better. And perhaps it made him feel a little better too, to have his best friend with him - because, despite their ups and downs, he knew that Lance would always have his back, even if it meant going to pick him up from a ravine.

Lance snored and hugged him closer - and Flynn smiled and went back to sleep warm, dry, and happy.

[sparkythehappygiraffe]

AIO Character Enneagram Types

Idk if y’all are into the enneagram, but I think it’s kinda fun so here we are. I’m no expert, but these are just some of my thoughts:

Eugene-Type 5 (possibly with a 6 wing): I think Eugene is pretty easy to type. He’s super intellectual, inventive, and enjoys pursuing knowledge. He tends to be a little eccentric, and is very independent and innovative. He can also become reclusive because he fears being incompetent and often struggles with relating to people emotionally. We see these struggles very clearly in his relationship with Buck, as he finds it difficult to open up to him. However, when he finally does, the vulnerability reveals a strength and maturity of character and creates a much stronger relationship to Buck. He’s pretty much the definition of a healthy five. 

Connie-Type 7w6: Connie’s a little trickier than Eugene, but I think 7 makes the most sense. She’s joyful, optimistic, values freedom, and seeks fulfillment in life. She has a natural charisma, especially with the kids, that attracts people to her. She can also be very scattered, disorganized, and distractible. The wing 6 accounts for her loyalty, her tendency to be anxious, and her need for security. Although I could see Connie being typed as a 2, I think the episodes that show her character before she became a Christian point more towards a type 7. (Generally the servanthood of a type 2 is the most valued among Christians, so those ideals can often lead to them, especially Christian women, being mistyped as a 2, despite that not being their innate personality). A case could certainly be made for her as a 2 (and probably also as a 4), but I finally decided that 7 made the most sense to me.

Whit-Type 1w2: Whit is such a well-rounded “perfect” character, that typing was pretty difficult for me, again the Christian tendency to value type 2 traits also made this tricky, so episodes that involve Whit as a younger, more flawed person were what I had to base some of this off of. Whit has an incredibly strong moral compass and constantly strives for improvement. He is wise, discerning, compassionate, an excellent teacher, and an inspiring leader. He sometimes deals with resentment and being a little self-righteous, even angry when his decisions are questioned (e.g. with Jana or Wilson). He stands up for what he believes in and for people who need help. He is also passionate, self-disciplined, and an advocate for truth and justice. These traits all lead me to see him as a 1w2, but if you can argue for another type, go for it, I think an argument could be made for several other types (3, 5, or 6 specifically).

Jack Allen-Type 9: Jack is actually the reason I decided to make this list because he is the NINEST NINE TO EVER NINE. He is stable, agreeable, and supportive, but his desire to keep the peace often leads to complacency. He avoids conflict at all costs and tends to seek peace in the spiritual. He is very profound and patient with others and he is good at bringing other people together. We especially see his tendency to avoid conflict in his interactions with Jason when they butt heads while running Whit’s End. His nine-ness is also very clear in the episode “And That’s the Truth” from album 43 when he can’t bring himself to confront PJ about the quality of his work. If you tell me Jack is anything other than a 9 I will probably fight you.

Jason-Type 3: Jason is a pretty straight-forward 3. He’s charming, confident, adaptable, ambitious, and driven. He pushes himself to do every task to the best of his abilities. He often struggles with arrogance, his competitive nature, a restlessness that stems from his ambition, and his tendency to obsess over his work. He has a strong desire to help others, but sometimes his desire to be “the hero” of a situation undermines him. We especially see Jason as an unhealthy 3 in episodes like “A Touch of Healing” and “Shining Armor.” As we currently know him in the series, Jason hasn’t quite reached the level of a healthy 3 as we still see him struggle with workaholism and with a tendency to run away from his emotions. His time in “the labyrinth” clearly effected his mental health and set him back significantly in the growth he had previously shown, but he has begun to show growth again during his recent time in Odyssey and at the antique shop.

Wooton-Type 4w5: Wooton’s eccentricity pretty clearly points to him being a type 4. He’s extremely creative, self-aware, and true to himself. He shows a desire to impact the world around him in a unique and significant way. He can be very profound, and uses his art to express the beauty he sees in the world. He has also shown an ability to take everything he has experienced, both positive and negative, and grow from it. He finds the value in every experience. The deep emotion he experiences help him to feel empathy and compassion for those around him and express it in a way that they find helpful and comforting. He also has a unique but specific and easily recognizable aesthetic, like many of his fellow type 4s. I could also see him being typed as a 2 because of his love for people and his deep need to be around them, but his artistic nature is why I lean more towards 4.

Penny-Type 6w7: Although I could also type Penny as a 4, there are a few specific traits that I feel make her more of a type 6. She is committed, loves people, and deeply values reliability and trust in her relationships. She tends to be very anxious, doubtful, and defensive when she feels uncomfortable or stressed, as well as becoming very indecisive and overly cautious when facing decisions that make her feel pressured. When she feels confident in a situation, she is willing to stand up for others, helping them feel seen and heard when they otherwise wouldn’t. When she feels strongly about a cause, she devotes all of her time and energy to it. She cares very deeply about people and is naturally very sociable and spirited.

That’s all for now. What do you guys think? Do you agree or disagree with my typing? I may do a part 2 with Tom, Bernard, Katrina, and other characters that I didn’t fit into this one. Let me know what you think! :)

[things-with-teeth]

“And Hope That I Don’t Crash You”: The Web, The Archivist, and Control

In her statement to Jon, Annabelle Cane states, “I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans” (MAG 147). In a lot of ways, the narrative supports reading this as an admonishment against doing the later. In MAG 149, Melanie shoots down the idea that the Web has some strategy beyond “to paralyze [Jon] with indecision, sitting here terrified that everything [he does] is somehow part of its grand plan;” Jon doesn’t necessarily concede to this point, but he does admit it’s a possibility. Every time we’ve met another avatar of one of the Entities or an organization that worships them, it’s turned out that they’re not all they were cracked up to be when they first appeared on the scene: Peter can’t protect the Archives as he told Martin he would, Elias isn’t as all-knowing as he would lead others to believe, the Cult of the Lightless Flame and the People's Church of the Divine Host are both 95% petty in-fighting and about 5% knowing what the heck they’re doing. (Simon “in it for the lulz” Fairchild is sort of a breath of fresh air; he also doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t pretend otherwise.) So maybe the Web is the same; even Annabelle suggests it, telling Jon that it’s entirely possible the Mother of Puppets is “simply sitting and reveling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia as those who hold her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory” (147).

On that note, please allow me to cocoon myself in red sting and theory: I think Annabelle has basically been engineering events since season one, and here’s why.

I want to be clear from the start: I think Annabelle is being completely above board when she tells Jon that she hasn’t influenced his decision to take statements and feed the Eye. It’s clear from the moment that he proposes the possibility that this is a bit of a reach, a desperate last-ditch attempt to convince both himself and the others that he hasn’t been acting with any kind of autonomy while doing something he knows will hurt people. He is. He does. Jon Sims is becoming a monster, and that wouldn’t be nearly as horrifying or as sad if there wasn’t some element of choice to it (and some element of inevitability to that choice, as with a lot of great tragedies, but the kind of inevitability that’s as much personally driven as externally motivated). In no way am I writing this in an attempt to say “the spiders made him do it, he had no choice.” That being said, Annabelle herself makes an argument for choice being dictated by circumstance, and I’m going to argue that Annabelle herself has dictated a great deal of the circumstance from the very beginning.

Some of this is very well-supported by the things that we already know for a fact; Annabelle, herself, admits to Jon that she’s been “been nudging something here and there to keep [Jon] safe, to keep everything on track” (ibid). I don’t think there’s much room to argue that Annabelle wasn’t the one who prevented Jane Prentiss’ plan to destroy the Archives from coming to fruition. As of MAG 123, we know that Annabelle was responsible for what happened to Carlos Vittery way back in MAG 16, the very same case that Martin is investigating when he discovers Jane in the basement of Carlos’ apartment leading up to MAG 22, and from MAG 16 we know that Jane’s presence there predates that of the spiders – Carlos says his building has an “infestation of some sort of insect [he] didn’t recognize – small, silvery worms [...] they provided a good meal for the eight-legged little monsters.” As a result, the Archives are aware that Jane is a present and immediate danger. In MAG 38, the infestation of worms in the tunnels and Jane’s attack on the archives is revealed when Jon damages the false wall while attempting to commit arachnicide, and she’s forced to attack early. This is almost definitely why she fails; Tim states that “[being inside the Magus Institute] made them weaker, and they’ve been down there for months, breeding, building up their numbers until there were enough to properly bury us. Except you found that hidden passage, and they had to act” (MAG 40). I think it’s also possible – although this is more conjecture at this point – that Annabelle was the one who sent the note that incited Jared Hopworth to attack the archives between seasons three and four, although that’s mostly because I’m not sure there’s a better candidate; Peter potentially has motive, but that kind of manipulation reads more as the Web than the Lonely. “I’m starting to think the letters were a trap,” says Jared (MAG 131), and I would argue that it was a trap, not for Jared but for Martin, meant to nudge him into looking outside the Institute for protection. It’s more-or-less explicitly stated that Annabelle sent Oliver Banks to coax Jon out of his coma: “I'm still not exactly sure why I'm here. But you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks” (MAG 121). Annabelle has nudged, here and there, and she has kept Jon safe, and she has kept everything on track.

I think Annabelle has been influencing events in more subtle ways, too, however. Very early in the series, Jon receives a delivery which includes “an old Zippo” with a “spider web design on the front” (MAG 36). He’s suggests that Tim have the others take a look at it, but that’s quickly lost in the realization that the other item delivered is the web table, which Jon recognizes from its description. As far as I can recall, we don’t hear another mention of the lighter until MAG 111, when Gerard asks Jon if he’s “a spider freak” after Jon offers him a cigarette and, presumably, a light. This means that, three seasons later, Jon is still carrying the lighter. A lighter with a spider web pattern on it, delivered by Breekon and Hope, who may belong to the Stranger but who are certainly willing to deliver parcels for other powers (the yellow stole Father Burroughs receives in MAG 20, for instance). Jon has been carrying around an artifact of the Web for the better part of the series, and I don’t think it’s impossible that it’s been influencing him, or that Annabelle’s been using it to influence him, in ways that are much less obvious than those I’ve listed above. Mostly I don’t want to speculate as to how it’s influenced him – I straight up do not know, and like I said, my intention is not to absolve Jon of all agency in his own actions for the last hundred plus episodes – with one exception. There’s one other time that Jon’s smoking habit has heavily impacted the plot: when he steps out to have a cigarette in MAG 80, leaving the way clear for Elias to brutally pipe murder Jurgen Lietner and keep Jon “on track” in his development as the Archivist.

This is speculation, but I think it’s speculation supported by past events within the podcast, most specifically those surrounding Gertrude and Agnes.

Annabelle wasn’t an avatar of the Web back then, of course, but I still think that there’s a lot to be learned when it comes to how the Web and/or its representatives influence the course of events nominally controlled by and benefitting other Entities. In MAG 139, Eugene Vanderstock says:

The compromise we came to was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of the Web, full of other children Agnes’ age. We would supervise from a distance but were confident she would be in no danger. The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand – all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.

And that’s—that’s weird, isn’t it? We know that the Cult is at least somewhat protective of Agnes; it’s how Diego convinces Arthur Nolan and the others not only to refrain from acting against Gertrude but to protect her for so many years after she binds Agnes to her, because it might be “catastrophic for Agnes” if Gertrude were to die “a violent death” (MAG 145). In spite of that, here they are, sending their baby chosen one into the lair of an enemy power so that she can get some normal socialization and learn not to bite (or burn) the other kids. As a result, Agnes ends up tied to Hill Top Road and Raymond Fielding, even after Fielding is dead, perhaps because of an early attempt at the same kind of binding that Gertrude eventually succeeds at creating. I don’t think it’s outside of the realm of possibility that the chain of events leading up to the Cult making this disastrous decision were not entirely without influence from the Web.

Then there’s Jack Barnabas. I’m ridiculously charmed by Jack’s whole mindset of “this girl is so goddamn weird and I’m really ridiculously into it,” and I’m not going to suggest that what he felt for Agnes wasn’t real; even Jon is “ninety percent” sure that Gertrude “didn’t pay poor Jack Barnabas to fall in love with Agnes” (MAG 139), and I’m about equally certain that the Web didn’t compel poor Jack Barnabas into being head over heels for her, either. That said, I think it’s clear that the Web did have some involvement. When preparing for his first date with Agnes, Jack smells burning and notices that “within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider's web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke” (MAG 67). The language in his statement, years later, is filled with confusion about his own motives and hints of compulsion: “I was drawn to her in a way I can't even explain,” “I don't know how it happened, it [asking Agnes for a date] just tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it,” “drowning in emotions that I still can't explain,” and “looking back, I'm still not sure what I would have done differently [...] I don't know if I would have had it in me to resist. I just couldn't avoid being drawn in” (ibid). Jack’s feelings for Agnes may not have been entirely manufactured, but they did receive a nudge, and the result was doubt and eventual death for the avatar and a necessary component in the ritual of one of the Web’s opposing powers.

Finally, there’s Gertrude. When speaking of the path that led her to the ritual which eventually bound her to Agnes, she describes it thus:

It was the Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident, but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations [...] I began researching what I thought was a counter-ritual of sorts. Like I said, I was young, naive. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hill Top Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a banishment ritual turned out not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a—an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. (MAG 145)

Somehow she found the right books. Blind good luck that led her to Agnes’ hair at Hill Top Road. I would call it an accident. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations – and this is Gertrude, who isn’t infallible, but who Arthur Nolan pinpoints as being “too practical” (ibid) to buy into the mystique of the Entities or to ascribe to them some greater motive, which would seem to belie the possibility that she’s falling prey to (as Annabelle suggests in MAG 147, as Melanie suggests in MAG 149) the tendency to succumb to paranoia while crediting the Mother of Puppets with some grand act of manipulation that the Web isn’t actually responsible for. I would argue that Jon has most likely been experiencing the same kind of quote-unquote happenstance that Gertrude once did, the same kind of subtle manipulation cloaked in coincidence, for the entirety of the series, all of it leading him toward whatever end Annabelle finds most desirable.

Some final notes that I couldn’t really incorporate elsewhere: I really, very much hope that Melanie’s therapy sessions really are just her getting good professional help for everything the Archives and the Entities have thrown at her, but I’m less and less certain that’s the case. Annabelle’s inception, her origin story, takes place in a psychology department. When doing follow-up in MAG 69, the archival staff find that all of the post-grads involved in the experiment have disappeared; in addition, Elizabeth “Liz” Bates, the advisor on the project, refuses to give a follow-up statement. The Web is about control and manipulation; it’s entirely possible that Annabelle has a large pool of qualified candidates to draw on when it comes to providing Melanie with a counselor who doesn’t have “cobwebs down her face” (MAG 149). I also keep getting stuck on the fact that very soon after Melanie asks Daisy not to call her “Mel” in MAG 147 because her therapist has advised her to be more open about these things, Annabelle opens her statement with “Free will is a funny old thing, isn’t it Jon? Can I call you Jon? I’m going to call you Jon.” Sure, it’s coincidence – but Gertrude was convinced, at first, that what she was dealing with was coincidence, too.

As for why Annabelle is doing this, I don’t know. Maybe the Lonely is as much in opposition to the Web as the Desolation is – after all, it’s difficult to manipulate someone in isolation – and she’s trying to impede Peter, not from stopping the Extinction but from benefiting from it, as Simon Fairchild says he will, thereby eliminating an enemy just as the Web did with Agnes and the Desolation. Maybe she’s trying to beat him to the same goal, establishing some level of control over someone beholden to the Ceaseless Watcher just as Peter is trying to gain control of Martin; Jon’s first experience with the supernatural involved the Web, and then there’s that Zippo. Maybe she has some goal all her own, some third option not yet even hinted at. Or maybe, like Jon, she’s acting on instinct, unable to do anything but “dance the steps [she is] assigned” (ibid), manipulating and spinning out her web because she’s incapable of doing anything else.

---

So I accidentally wrote 2.5k of wild conjecture about creepy spider people because I got stuck on the idea that there was a connection between the Zippo and Lietner’s death, that was fun. Shout out to @wildehacked for letting me yell about this and additional shout out to anyone involved in the wiki or the transcripts because oh goooooood would this have been more difficult to compile without being able to utilize those resources to check citations and grab most of the quotes. 

Quick edit to add a link to @caught-in-the-infinite‘s excellent alternative explanation for why Annabelle might have wanted Jared Hopworth to attack the Archives, which I think makes a lot more good sense than mine while also having even more ominous implications. 

[tacittherapist]

((HS2 Spoilers under the cut!))

((For all the shit I give the epilogues, it does have its moments. Specifically highlighting this bit of dialogue here: ROXY: you think you choice mattered so much that no one elses could measure up? ROXY: n then what ROXY: did u get what u wanted? ROXY: did your life end and the points got tallied and you came out on top or like what? ROXY: still p much seems like were movin to me ROXY: and you sure dont seem like ur winnin so wheres all this good shit you got that you gotta go around handin out apologies for? ROXY: also damn dude while were at it!! ROXY: u forgot to actually say sorry in that apology! JOHN: no, i didn’t — i just meant... JOHN: i’m sorry for fucking up your life, or making it not— ROXY: i like my life!!! ROXY: i mean it aint perf and i got my share of fuckups n mistakes in there but you dont get to tell me its fucked up ROXY: or that it isnt real or somethin ROXY: its mine!

First: criticism. The writers wield this little section like a crude cudgel. They use it to underscore the weight of ‘canon’. This is the ‘candy’ timeline, so it supposedly ‘weighs less’ than the ‘meat’ timeline, but its characters still have meaningful thoughts and emotions. Here, John supposedly makes a choice that supposedly invalidates a bunch of supposedly important events, and Roxy here blows it all out of the water by claiming she made these choices too and that part of the blame rests with her in the direction her life has taken... which is total dogshit used to justify a bunch of really overt swings in character thematic. Continued here: ROXY: you wished i was one way the whole time we were married ROXY: but i wasnt ROXY: but now that youre all convinced ur the only real boy in a crowd o puppets ROXY: here i am bein me just like you ordered only i did it without your help ROXY: widen ur zoom my man!! ROXY: im not actin like this now because you want me to or bc you dont want me to ROXY: i was bad at standin up for myself then and im learnin to be good at it now ROXY: ive got my own self actualization train ROXY: ur just pullin in to one of my many roxy figures some shit out stations right as i built it JOHN: but... JOHN: you were never like that before i... ROXY: dude ROXY: where tf do u get off trying to decide what is or isnt me being “like me” enuff ROXY: do u think ppl stay the same their whole damn lives or what JOHN: you’ve really never felt like anything about our lives here was... off? ROXY: off from what exactly?? JOHN: the way things should be? ROXY: what does that mean???

Roxy here argues that there is no ‘one right way to be’ as a half-baked wink to the audience that all this gross mischaracterization is intentional and that it diverges so grossly from the established character arcs in order to demonstrate that nothing is set in stone. While technically true, this also makes for some pretty terrible writing.

Roxy was a caring, almost too involved individual before the epilogues. Her ditching Calliope for John and this messy marriage business and just letting Jane warp into a full-blown dictator makes no sense, even couched within the idea that ‘characters change.’ Yes, characters change, but there’s generally a reason for it! And not a shitty deus ex machina reason such as ‘John makes a choice!’ What even fucking happened to Candy Calliope anyway? She just fucked off somewhere? How do you sincerely throw a character away like that and then have the gall to wink at the audience as if what you’ve done makes sense? Changes in character are generally brought on by catalysts in their life! Trauma, joy, death, new settings, new ideas, events! Not... John deciding to eat a plate full of candy. If we had insight into Roxy’s thought process behind ditching Calliope and marrying John and having a kid on a whim, this might be saved. But we don’t even get a glimpse. Instead we’re pawned this shitty excuse for a very glaring departure from what we knew about Roxy. Character development is just that -- development! As in to become more complex or advanced! Roxy has made wrong choices in the past, yes, but her reasoning was laid bare in such a way that those wrong choices made sense for her to make. She then makes different decisions later because she learned from her wrong decisions. This is development! Her character is learning and changing behavior because of the things they’ve been through! Her reasoning for this awful series of bad choices is just... not explained, despite going against a ton of shit Roxy has learned. It’s slipshod. It’s careless. It’s sacrificing the tree to showcase the topper. The audience isn’t vested in this Roxy because she’s seemingly robbed of her agency, and then they’re trying to foist this idea that she somehow still has agency on us as if they didn’t preface the entire timeline with ‘well, all this shit is going to happen because we decided it and no other reason!’

Now: the praise. This bit of dialogue has huge implications for ‘non-canon’ dynamic. No, not ‘non-canon’ in the cheeky way the epilogues and HS2 claim to be ‘non-canon.’ I mean ‘non-canon’ as in this blog that I run and all the blogs that you, the reader, are writing and reading as well. Roxy’s insistence that characters change can swing the other way, too. Characters can develop in bad ways as well! Not bad as in bad writing, but bad as in flawed character reasoning! Suppose what Roxy learned from her time in HS1 was that most things can be solved by unvoiding fix-all solutions into existence? Then we might be able to see her trying to fix the human-troll-population issue by just... making more planets! Or unvoiding some sort of device trolls could wear that inhibits hivemind tendencies! That would be interesting and perhaps morbid to write about!! It would at least track with her past experiences!!! Or better yet: perhaps she actually takes a side against Jane (as she has done in the past) but instead of using their friendship as the moral plating, she went right into sarcastic arguments FOR eugenics to demonstrate how bigoted Jane was being? That’s a very Roxy thing to do!! She could have made the argument that if trolls need eugenics to suppress their violent tendencies, then so should humans! Having read about the Condesce’s eugenic practices during her formative years, this should have been fairly obvious to Roxy that what Jane was suggesting was from the same playbook, at least.

But I digress. What this bit of dialogue really does is give credence to us, the audience, in exploring these stories we’re currently writing for these pre-established characters. YES, canon Rose likely didn’t dabble so thoroughly in game magics, and she likely didn’t have as much anxiety as my Rose. BUT I prefaced my Rose’s current state with a bunch of events that make sense! She missed her rendezvous with the others! She had to float adrift, alone in a broadcast satellite, for nigh on a decade! She’s had a long fucking time to develop all these anxieties and mental illness because that’s what happens when you’re isolated for years! It is a tool I use to express my own anxieties and explore how someone might somehow overcome them! And most importantly: she’s still Rose. She has unprocessed mother issues. She cherishes her friends. She’s more than a bit gay. And she knows when the meta is using her and when it’s not, because she’s had a traumatic experience being used by Doc Scratch as a plot device. And that trauma isn’t going away (well, unless she gets therapy, but given the setting we’re writing... not likely), so she’s going to be overly cautious when it comes to big decisions involving her friends. What she’s not going to do is suddenly abandon everyone she’s departed from because uhhh Jade ate some bread the wrong way or whatever.

tl;dr: What this section of the epilogues/HS2 (well, really just this bit with Harry Andersen, Tavros, and Vrissy that is somehow more interesting than virtually EVERY OTHER PART of HS2) is telling us, the audience, is that it is good to diverge from canon. Non-canon characters will still have very real feelings and face very real consequences for their actions. Just... don’t do it like they did it. All these characters we’re writing for and all these events we’re writing around them... they’re valid! They matter! Just because they’re not canon doesn’t mean others are willing and wanting to read them, and that makes them important! Unfortunately, this also means the epilogues/HS2 are important, but let’s ignore that for now. What I’m trying to say is: be indulgent! Write the things you want to write! As long as they’re well-reasoned, they’re good writing! Characters can be overpowered! They can be cliche! They can have teenage problems as an adult! Just... give them a good reason.))

[deadinsidedressage]

What do you think of TMFCK defending dancing horses so much? Like obviously he’s not advocating for it but defending tying up and whipping/beating a horse in the name of tradition and cultural sensitivity fucks me up. Clinton Anderson relies on abusing horses to pay his bills, and everyone thinks that’s fucked up. so why is it suddenly okay for people in other countries to do that?

I’ll straight up admit that I don’t see the majority of his content and also can’t be bothered to go look at it to confirm what I’m about to say and this is going to be based off the what I saw in his arguments the last time him & dancing horses actually popped up on my dash:It’s sort of like watching someone try to explain the fact that if a black hole ever crashed into the Earth, the Earth would be fine but there would be an exit and entry point (like a bullet wound) but not quite Get It™. (The hyperlink/bad analogy is literally a cool thing I learned about that was NOT caused by a black hole crashing into the Earth but which caused me to learn what that might do theoretically and I wanted to share that).

So here’s the thing--- he’s not wrong about having to look at it in a cultural context. If you’re trying to look at it from an academically minded viewpoint and learn what their rationales for training in that manner is then you absolutely need to get rid of any biases and ethnocentric views. You’d need to learn it from the view of the people doing it. If you’re trying to look at why they’re doing it that way versus why they’ve not adopted another way, then you also have to look from a culturally mindful perspective. Especially if you’re trying to effect change and get them to adopt methods that are not abusive. You simply cannot change adverse cultural practices when coming in from the viewpoint that they’re Wrong and you’re Right (even if ethically that might be true). People shutdown when they’re being attacked, especially so if what they’re being attacked over is ingrained in their culture. Instead of being an attack on the practice, it turns into an attack on the culture. There are plenty of cultures that aren’t Bad that have Bad Practices and we can only change them through learning about them and empowering them with education to make ethical decisions. 

A great example of how to effect ethical change in a culture whose traditional practices are abusive practices is the Friends of Marwar/Kathiwari Horse organization and what it’s done to replace harsh, crudely constructed Indian bits with snaffles. They also work overall to educate about horse welfare and proper horse care in India, including being partnered with Flying Anvil Foundation (which focuses on bringing updated farrier techniques to the areas of the world that are still dependent on traditional farming and truly agricultural use of horses). What both organizations have in common is that they are aiming to correct very clear abusive/neglect by approaching it from the standpoint that it exists from a lack of education. They go in, they educate, and people adopt these proper care methods and non-abusive techniques/tools because ultimately these people do care about their horses--- even if they only care about maximizing the usefulness of the horse. That last bit there about the “usefulness of the horse” is also something really key to operating effectively in outreach work aimed at improving the condition of any animal that a culture is subsisting off of. You cannot change cultural views with a snap of your finger, so if you enter into a culture that only views the animal as a tool and not in the same Western concept of a companion--- then you need to implement a strategy that focuses on logos versus pathos. (Quick terminology lessons: Logos, Ethos, & Pathos are rhetoric terms that originated from Aristotle and describe the method by which you’re arguing a thesis ((thesis being used in it’s original context to mean a “point of view” or proposition)). Logos is an appeal to logic. Ethos is an appeal to ethics. Pathos is an appeal to emotion. When operating across cultural lines, you generally do not rely on ethos because what is considered ethical is not standard across cultures. You rely on logos and pathos either solely or interchangeably as necessary.)So, if you’re dealing with people who want to do what’s best for their horse because they also care for the horse as pet--- then you can focus more on pathos and use arguments like “if you use this snaffle instead of this traditional bit, it will be softer and cause your horse less pain which will make him happier and more responsive!”If you’re dealing with people who want to do what’s best for their horse only so long as it maximizes the use of the horse--- then you need to focus more on logos and use arguments like “if you use this snaffle instead of this traditional bit then you won’t cause sores and cuts in the horses mouth, and a if the horse is not in pain then it can work longer and if the horse doesn’t have open wounds then it won’t get infections in those wounds that could kill it or mean it wouldn’t be able to work; so by using this snaffle you can get more use out of your horse.”

However, where I’ve seen TMFCK go “wrong” in his arguments or defenses is that he’s not getting past looking at it from what ethnographers call an “insider’s perspective” and applying an “outsider’s perspective”. By only pointing out the the fact that the training is orally passed down and whatever else about it as a means to explain the why there is the abusive practice is only doing half the work. You need to look at the WHY (insider’s perspective) but also the HOW (outsider’s perspective)--- so let me give you my favorite example from an ethnographer about how to apply looking at it from both perspectives because it’s the most chilling:In Brazil, specifically I think it was the capital, within an extremely impoverished community there was an astronomically high infant mortality rate. Going in and studying why this was happening, an ethnographer discovered this was due to something that she translated roughly as “the breath for life”. When a child was born, the practice within the community was to take the newborn immediately after cutting the umbilical cord and places it in a corner of the room on the floor where they would leave it for something like 3 days. You would not look at the child or feed the child, or cover the child. You’d just leave a newborn crying on the floor for 3 days. Now the cultural explanation for this (WHY/insider’s perspective) was because all children born into the world are reincarnations of souls who’ve already lived. God is apparently very silly and doesn’t keep track of which soul just died very well and you need to wait the 3 days to make sure God didn’t make a mistake. The soul itself needed that much time to alert God that “hey I was just alive!” and needed isolation so that a) God could hear it better and b) to prevent the soul from losing it’s memory of it’s past life (which is what happens to babies so that they don’t have their old memories) so that God could take it back. A baby that lasted the three days was a soul that had “the breath for life” and had spent enough time in Heaven that it was ready to live another human life. So--- from the cultural perspective, they weren’t committing infanticide or doing anything wrong because that’s what was needed to help God out with his bad organizational skills. Now the actual, hard science explanation behind why this was a cultural practice and why people didn’t see anything wrong with it (HOW/outider’s perspective) was that this community was so horrifically impoverished that they could not devote resources to many children at all and couldn’t afford to waste them on infants that wouldn’t survive. The waiting the 3 days before even feeding the child was essentially a form of unintentional eugenics because the infants that would be able to survive it would have strong immune systems and clearly just a strong survival ability. The 3 days thing also mimicked a very real possibility of the children going days without being fed as that was a very real possibility in the community. These children would then be worth devoting precious resources too because it wouldn’t be a waste. Yes, this community was committing infanticide but they were committing infanticide on children that would have likely died anyway and preserving resources that would be valuable in keeping other community members alive. Is it wrong to let a baby die on purpose? Still yes, but at least there was a reasoning behind why that had become a necessary thing.The point is, you need both views of something in order to absolutely fully understand why it is happening. Only with an understanding of it can you remedy it. In the above example you could scream at them to stop leaving babies to die---maybe even get them to stop leaving babies to die, but ultimately those babies still would have died. Knowing that it was a resource problem meant that two viable options to prevent needless baby death would be 1) Give them more resources and/or 2) Introduce them to family planning so we’re only having babies we know we have resources for. Without both aspects of understanding you can’t provide a real solution. 

So, I get what he’s saying and he’s not wrong and he does make good points about racism (or at least he did the last time I saw it and I actually chimed in about it too--- and actually the Clinton Anderson thing is a great example of racial bias: people will accept his abuse because it’s in the context of a white culture but condemn the dancing horse abuse because of it’s context in a middle eastern or south american culture. They’re still both abuse and they’re actually both pretty closely related in terms of abuse but it’s important to understand that abuse is abuse even if a white guy is doing it and if you’re only calling it out when NOT a white guy is doing it then you’re not doing it because you care about horse welfare, you’re doing it because you’re racist) BUT at the same time he’s not going far enough in deciphering and breaking down what he’s sharing.

 He needs to be able to quantify the abuse without qualifying it. 

[patriotsnet]

How Democrats Can Call The Republicans Bluff On Impeachment

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-democrats-can-call-the-republicans-bluff-on-impeachment/

How Democrats Can Call The Republicans Bluff On Impeachment

Trump Administration Will Release All Vaccine Doses Adopting A Policy Proposed By The Biden Team

Republicans slams Democrats for ‘divisive’ impeachment vote after Pence rules out 25th Amendment

The Trump administration will recommend providing a wider distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, just days after aides to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said his administration would make a similar adjustment by using more of the already procured vaccines for initial doses.

Mr. Bidens team has said it would aim to distribute the doses more quickly at federally run vaccination sites at high school gyms, sports stadiums and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.

The Trump administration plans to release the shots that had been held back and aims to make the vaccine available to everyone over 65 in an attempt to accelerate lagging distribution.

The doses had been held back to ensure that those who receive a first dose had the second and final inoculation available when it was needed. The change means all existing doses will be sent to states to provide initial inoculations. Second doses are to be provided by new waves of manufacturing.

The idea of using existing vaccine supplies for first doses has raised objections from some doctors and researchers, who say studies of the vaccines effectiveness proved only that they worked to prevent illness when using two doses.

The agency is expected to announce the new guidelines at a briefing at noon Eastern on Tuesday, according to an official briefed on the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly about the change. Axios earlier reported the new guidelines.

Fake Subpoenas For A Fake Impeachment Inquiry

To fully grasp the fraud being perpetrated on the entire country by congressional Democrats, you must go back to how this impeachment farce began last September. Doing a real impeachment investigation with real subpoenas that had real legal teeth would have required a full House vote. But thats not what happened.; Instead, House speaker Nancy Pelosi merely announced that an impeachment inquiry was beginning without;the full House having voted.

Not only is Obstruction of Congress a make-believe impeachment charge, the subpoenas sent out by Schiff and Nadlers House committees werent even real. The Democrats knew all along the subpoenas they were issuing were not properly authorized, and no one was breaking the law by not responding to them. None of those subpoenas had any legal force and Democrats managed to successfully hide this fact from their base.

When House committee sent one of these fake subpoenas to Charles Kupperman, he took it before a federal judge so the judge could rule on this exact issue. Was this a real subpoena with legal force and did Kupperman have to comply with it? What happened when Democrats who had issued that subpoena learned what Kupperman was doing?; They immediately rushed to the courtroom to withdraw the fake subpoena before the judge could rule on its validity, then they asked for the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, ensuring he would never rule on the validity of the contested subpoena.; That also is very revealing.

Tell Gop Senators To Call The Democrats’ Bluff By Faxing Them Now

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi held the articles of impeachment passed against President Trump for more than a month. She lost her gamble demanding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allow new witnesses at trial. McConnell refused to “do House Democrats’ homework for them” by enabling an extension of their investigation. That should have been done BEFORE their impeachment vote.

But after Pelosi finally relented and began the process of sending the articles to the Upper Chamber, a small group of Senate Republicans;pitched McConnell on the idea of “witness reciprocity.” The basic premise is that if Democrats get to call a trial witness, the GOP does, too.

Recommended Reading: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Impeachment Is An ‘act Of Political Vengeance’ Trump Lawyer Says

“At no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger,” Michael van der Veen argued, adding that there is “nothing at all in record on this point.” Van der Veen also accused the House impeachment managers of failing to do their due diligence on this issue.

“What the president did know is that there was a violent riot happening at the Capitol,” van der Veen said. “That’s why he repeatedly called via tweet and via video for the riots to stop, to be peaceful, to respect Capitol police and law enforcement and to commit no violence and go home.”

But van der Veen’s argument left senators with additional questions.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who says he is undecided on whether he’ll vote to convict Trump, asked for more details regarding Tuberville’s account of the call with Trump and his tweet railing against Pence.

“Does this show that President Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence?” Cassidy asked.

But again, van der Veen disputed the sequence of events, calling discussion of Tuberville’s call “hearsay.”

“I have a problem with the facts in the question because I have no idea,” van der Veen responded.

Cassidy told reporters later that he didn’t think his question got a good answer.

Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, hailed by many for his heroism during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, participates in a the dress rehearsal for Inauguration Day.hide caption

toggle captiontoggle caption

“History will wait for our decision.”

What’s The Debate About

Mrs Pelosi affirmed on Tuesday that there is no need for a full chamber vote as her party’s probe proceeds.

“There’s no requirement that we have a vote, so at this time we will not be having a vote and I’m very pleased with the thoughtfulness of our caucus with the path that we are on,” she told reporters.

But Republicans, who control the Senate, where any impeachment measure would go to trial, disagree.

Trump impeachment inquiry: The short, medium and long story

Citing past impeachments, the president’s supporters have called for a full House vote to formally start the inquiry and to give Republican lawmakers more powers, like being able to issue subpoenas for their own witnesses and schedule hearings.

As it stands, several House committees, all chaired by Democrats, are investigating the president, looking for evidence to support impeachment. The White House has refused to co-operate.

“We’re not here to call bluffs. We’re here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Mrs Pelosi said on Tuesday.

“This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious, and we’re on a path that is getting us to a path to truth and timetable that respects our Constitution.”

Also Check: Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

Trump Impeachment Goes To Senate Testing His Sway Over Gop

WASHINGTON House Democrats delivered the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate late Monday for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of the former president and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Its an early sign of Trumps enduring sway over the party.

The nine House prosecutors carried the sole impeachment charge of incitement of insurrection across the Capitol, making a solemn and ceremonial march to the Senate along the same halls the rioters ransacked just weeks ago. But Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled since the Jan. 6 riot. Instead Republicans are presenting a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questioning whether Trumps repeated demands to overturn Joe Bidens election really amounted to incitement.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked if Congress starts holding impeachment trials of former officials, whats next: Could we go back and try President Obama?

Besides, he suggested, Trump has already been held to account. One way in our system you get punished is losing an election.

It is a critical moment in American history, Coons said Sunday in an interview.

Trump Lawyer: His Call To Georgia Officials To ‘find’ Votes Was Taken Out Of Context

Trump’s lawyers largely sidestepped Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked during the question-and-answer session: “Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie, or in your judgment did Trump actually win the election?”

Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen shot back, “My judgment? Who asked that?”

“I did,” Sanders replied.

“My judgment is irrelevant,” van der Veen said.

“You represent the president of the United States!” Sanders yelled back before Sen. Patrick Leahy, the presiding officer, gaveled the chamber back to order.

Trump’s rhetoric about widespread fraud and a stolen election was false, dismissed by many courts stemming from dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and allies across several key states.

Read Also: Who Is Right Republicans Or Democrats

Republican Leaders Misjudged Jan 6 Committee

Addison Mitchell McConnellLindsey Graham: Police need ‘to take a firm line’ with Sept. 18 rally attendeesManchin keeps Washington guessing on what he wantsCEOs urge Congress to raise debt limit or risk ‘avoidable crisis’MORE , the two Republican congressional leaders who are into power and party, made a big political mistake last spring in opposing a bipartisan commission to investigate the mob assault on the Capitol.

McConnell pressured enough Republican Senators so the measure couldn’t get the 60 votes necessary for passage. McCarthy ludicrously claimed he was opposed to any inquiry that didn’t investigate left wing activists who had nothing to do with the violent Jan. 6 attack intended to prevent Congress from certifying Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump endorses challenger in Michigan AG race On The Money: Democrats get to the hard partHealth Care GOP attorneys general warn of legal battle over Biden’s vaccine mandateMORE‘s presidential victory.

Neither man anticipated that House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOn The Money: Democrats get to the hard partBiden discusses agenda with Schumer, Pelosi ahead of pivotal weekStefanik in ad says Democrats want ‘permanent election insurrection’MORE would outsmart them, maneuvering a select House committee with two prominent Republicans who are more interested in finding out all that happened that terrible day.

The context and totality of Republican actions this year tell the story.

Why Won’t Pelosi Pull The Trigger

GOP lawmaker: Democrats turned impeachment into a âbig political fiascoâ

With almost every Democrat in the House on board, Nancy Pelosi has the votes to pass an impeachment inquiry resolution. So why hasn’t she pulled the trigger?

The House speaker might be trying to protect the handful of holdout Democrats or view the move as a waste of time. She might also be afraid that a House vote would encourage Republicans to press for the kinds of investigatory powers that congressional minority parties had in past impeachment proceedings.

The last thing Democrats want is congressional Republicans subpoenaing Joe or Hunter Biden in an attempt to shift the focus away from Donald Trump.

Ms Pelosi could also be hoping that the longer the investigation grinds on, the greater the chance Democrats could uncover that damning bit of evidence that breaks Republicans ranks. She may believe that it would be easier for Republicans to support impeachment if they weren’t on the record voting against an investigation.

Recommended Reading: What Is The Lapel Pin The Republicans Are Wearing

Jamie Raskin Is Leading The Effort To Impeach Trump While Mourning The Recent Death Of His Son

A day after Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, buried his 25-year-old son, he survived the mob attack on the Capitol. He is now leading the impeachment effort against President Trump for inciting the siege.

Mr. Raskins son, Tommy Raskin, a 25-year-old Harvard University law student, social justice activist, animal lover and poet, died by suicide on New Years Eve. He left his parents an apology, with instructions: Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me.

As he found himself hiding with House colleagues from a violent mob, Mr. Raskin feared for the safety of a surviving daughter who had accompanied him to the Capitol to witness the counting of electoral votes to seal Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory.

Within hours, Mr. Raskin was at work drafting an article of impeachment with the mob braying in his ear and his sons final plea on his mind.

Ill spend the rest of my life trying to live up to those instructions, the Maryland Democrat said in an interview on Monday, reading aloud the farewell note as he reflected on his familys grief and the confluence of events. But what we are doing this week is looking after our beloved republic.

The slightly rumpled former constitutional law professor has been preparing his entire life for this moment. That it should come just as he is suffering the most unimaginable loss a parent can bear has touched his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Trump’s Defense Closes Its Case By Saying Impeachment Trial Is A ‘complete Charade’

Manager Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado rebutted the defense’s argument that Trump has been denied due process.

“We had a full presentation of evidence, adversarial presentations, motions. The president was invited to testify. He declined. The president was invited to provide exculpatory evidence. He declined. You can’t claim there’s no due process when you won’t participate in the process,” he said.

He noted that impeachment is separate and distinct from the criminal justice system.

“Why would the constitution include the impeachment power at all, if the criminal justice system serves as a suitable alternative once a President leaves office?” he asked. “It wouldn’t.”

Neguse also sought to address an allegation raised by defense attorneys, that the impeachment trial was rooted in hate. He turned to a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“This trial is not born from hatred,” said Neguse. “Far from it. It’s born from love of country. Our country. Our desire to maintain it. Our desire to see America at its best.”

On Saturday morning, senators voted to hear from Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler as a witness in the impeachment trial. Later, an agreement allowed a statement by her into the record without calling her.hide caption

toggle caption

The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump won’t be hearing from witnesses after all.

toggle caption

You May Like: Number Of Gop Debates

Opinionnancy Pelosi Was Right About Everything

Schumer and the Democrats should therefore agree to the witnesses that Trump claims he wants. If they do so, both Republicans and the president will have to explain why they are now reversing course and not making them testify. This, despite the weeks of whining from Republicans in the House who complain the Democrats case is built on hearsay.

Backtracking now would make Republicans and Trump look like liars. And it would severely undercut their claims that they can prove their innocence.

Trump is also very susceptible to a certain kind of public pressure. A steady drumbeat of Democrats daring Trump to call witnesses could goad him into demanding his witnesses be called. At this point, Democrats should make their case to McConnell and, if rejected by him, to Chief Justice John Roberts, the presiding officer of the Senate trial.

Opiniontrump’s Impeachment Will Be Driven By One Thing And It’s Not The Constitution

But if the Senate does not dismiss the charges, a ban on witnesses would be a stark break with precedent in every impeachment trial in American history, whether of presidents, judges or other officials; all have heard from witnesses. President Andrew Johnsons impeachment trial in 1868, for example, heard from 25 witnesses for the prosecution and 16 defense witnesses. In the Clinton impeachment, the Senate allowed testimony from three named witnesses accuser Monica Lewinsky and Clinton associates Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal each of whom testified in nonpublic videotaped depositions, excerpts of which were presented in the public Senate trial.

In following the Clinton model as McConnell initially promised no bombshell moment would have occurred in the Trump trial even if Bolton or Mulvaney had testified, because their evidence would have been prepackaged in a deposition rather than heard live by the senators. Thus, even grudging Republican support for these limited witnesses under that model would win no accolades from swing voters, and would still alienate staunch Trump supporters who simply want a win for their side.

Read Also: Did Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid

Trump’s Big Lie Is Changing The Face Of American Politics

Trump’s Big Lie is changing the face of American politics

The Big Lie is already tainting the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Relentless efforts by former President Donald Trump and his true believers in politics and the media have convinced millions of Americans that Joe Biden is a fraudulent President who seized power in a stolen election.

This deep-seated suspicion of last November’s vote, which threatens to corrode the foundation of US democracy, mirrors the message adopted by the ex-President months before he clearly lost a free and fair election to Biden.

It has immediate political implications — the lie that the last election was a fix is already shaping the terrain in which candidates, especially Republicans, are running in midterm elections in 2022. And the widespread belief that Trump was cheated out of power is building the former President a 2024 platform to mount a GOP presidential primary bid if he wishes.

Trump’s great success in creating his own version of a new truth about the election and his still-magnetic talent for spinning myths into which his supporters can buy is revealed in a new CNN poll released Wednesday.

Such is the power of Trump — and the conservative media propaganda machine that created an alternative reality for his followers — that the President is able to reinvent the truth in plain sight, and get away with it. The former President effectively writes the script.

[aint-ashes]

Let’s talk about Eugene: Chapter 3

Holy shit okay, this is so long and I didn’t expect to have this much to say but if you make it all the way through Eugene would really appreciate it, and so would I. If you make it all the way through, you’ve arrived at stage two. You’re a survivor. Here goes! (THERE ARE PICTURES! if that helps lol)

By 6x8, “Start to Finish”, everything has gone to hell—Alexandria is overrun by walkers. Eugene finds himself alone, surrounded by reanimated corpses who all want to eat him alive. And he’s scared shitless.

I’ll talk about this more at the very end of the chapter, but up until this point (and this point included) Eugene has never proven himself to be brave when it’s only his life on the line. Which is really ironic, considering that up until “Spend”, that’s pretty much the only life that Eugene seemed to show concern over—his own.

The few exceptions? When he led Rosita to the opposite end of the tunnel to save Glenn and Tara (4x15, “Us”), or when he saved the Washington team by killing the walkers with the fire truck hose (5x5, “Self Help”). But these actions were hardly brave. After all, in 4x15 he wasn’t diving into the tunnel to fight for Glenn and Tara tooth and claw. He was protected by riot gear, safely situated in the passenger seat of a fully-fueled car. In 5x5, he climbed on top of the truck, out of reach of even the most ambitious walker, attacking from above (which, like, thank you, Eugene, you saved the day but...Also that was a lot of fresh, drinkable water). He was in a place of safety, both times. And even then, the argument could be made that he only showed concern over the others’ lives because they were valuable resources to protect his own.

The one (pretty early) moment of remarkable and surprising bravery was Eugene trying to kill the walker behind Tara at the church bus. This came directly after Eugene’s mind was stuck on Gabriel and the lives of those he sacrificed in order to keep himself safe. This came right after Tara got him on his feet and out of the bus–where he would have died in the following explosion–by saying “I know it sucks and it’s scary, but it’s time to be brave.” Eugene was brave, then, because someone else’s life was on the line. Because someone he liked, someone whose bravery and selflessness he admired, was in danger. Because Tara was someone worth being brave for.

The logic follows: since Eugene has never exhibited any amount of bravery in order to save his own life, he does not believe he’s someone worth being brave for. He does not respect himself. He subconsciously does not believe his life holds the same worth as someone like Abraham, like Tara. Yet.

So, back to 6x8, Eugene cannot bring himself to put on a brave face for the sake of saving himself. It’s so much easier to be scared when there’s nobody around you to make you brave. It’s a good thing Tara and Rosita are there to save him, to kill the walkers that are too close for comfort, and to lock themselves in a garage—safe, clean, dark.

Here, he can pull himself together. Eugene has time to come to terms with the situation. He can calm down in a place of safety. It’s still clear that although he’s learning, he’s a bit of a way from that ‘survivor’ title—he needs time to muster up his courage. He’s not yet ready, as the rest of team family, to summon it on the spot, to feel it instinctively whenever there’s a threat. To jump into battle despite their fears at the drop of a hat.

Eugene needs the quiet to calm him, the safety to clear his head, and the time to talk himself into his bravery.

Despite this, he is not discouraged. As we see throughout 6x8 and 6x9, Eugene is determined to make progress toward that “stage two” he’ll talk about later. From the time that he’s locked in the garage with Tara and Rosita, Eugene does not let us down.

Once again, it’s Tara that gets him in the mindset to take things into his own hands. To not give up. She’s talking to Rosita, but Eugene is listening to every word when Tara says:

“No, [I don’t think this place is over.] I think we’ve got to earn it. All of us. Whether it’s waiting, knowing if everyone’s safe, dealing with that, or fighting them. A place like this has got to have a price, doesn’t it? [Abraham’s] not dead […] Because I didn’t see it. Doesn’t matter what it feels like, he’s not dead, and this place isn’t over. Hey, we’re here. So what are we gonna do, gorgeous?”

This is an awesome pep talk. It’s meant for Rosita, because Tara knows that the two of them are going to be the ones to move to action. Eugene is not included, because Tara knows that he will opt to stay inside, as he did in the infirmary, as he tried to do on the supply run in “Spend”.

But Eugene is listening, and everything Rosita fears is everything that Eugene fears and doesn’t say—Tara calms them both. She calls Eugene to action without knowing it. Abraham is alive, Alexandria is worth saving, and we’re going to do it together, no matter when or how, so let’s take our fate into our own hands. Eugene is no longer alone, which means he now has the resources necessary to be brave.

So when Rosita and Tara take their first steps toward taking back their town, he offers up his services and spares them a bullet—“lock picking is within my skill set.”

What is also within his skill set, it seems, is standing up to the Wolf once they break in. Though Rosita and Tara stand in front of him, Eugene also stands at the ready against the Wolf, machete in his shaking hands, willing to do anything to save Denise—and that includes not hiding while Tara and Rosita do the intimidating.

Being brave comes with hard choices, and Eugene looks helplessly on as the Wolf takes Denise out into the fray, Rosita’s words from 6x7 likely ringing in his ears, wondering if they’d done all they could to keep Denise alive.

Denise probably weighs on his mind for a long while, up until Carol assures Tara that she made it to safety—how could it not, when it’s so distressing to Tara, one of the most important people in the world to him? But Eugene is safe, and what he can do to be useful now is to help Carol and Morgan—so he focuses his energy there. We’re here, so what are we gonna do?

Much of what we see from Eugene following this moment is similar to what we saw from him in 6x2; he makes use of his safe environment and helps Carol and Morgan come to after their fight. But there comes a time when they are both fine and no longer need his care—Eugene no longer has a distraction, and is left alone to his thoughts, a weapon, and a window.

Twenty-two minutes into 6x9, “No Way Out”, he speaks up: “Sooner or later, we’re fighting our way out.”

Rosita dismisses him: “We will. Not you.”

And when Eugene protests (“Well, by my reckoning—“) she interrupts him: “Eugene, come on!”

What Rosita (mis)understands of Eugene is that he is a coward. That he allowed nine lives to be sacrificed for him, that he can’t even fend for himself. That he is hesitant in weapons training. That she had to save him from an army of walkers just a matter of minutes or hours ago—and now he’s spouting some kind of nonsense about fighting alongside the others? When has he ever been able to do that? So she walks away—Eugene’s argument, to her, doesn’t even warrant a discussion.

Eugene is trying to make a case for himself, not to stay inside and keep safe as he did seven episodes ago in the infirmary, but to do exactly the opposite. He’s trying to step up as the brave man he hopes he can be.

It’s the thought of being with Rosita and Tara when it goes down, of having the chance to keep them safe, to be a part of saving Alexandria—and to therefore justify being a part of Alexandria at all—that gives him the courage to believe in himself.

There are few things more difficult than believing in yourself, or in a decision you make, than everyone around you insisting that you shouldn’t. That you’re wrong. That you’re weak. That you’re not worth believing in.

When Rosita shuts Eugene down, we can see this struggle in his face. He looks downcast, unsure, ashamed. He seems to weigh her opinion of him with his opinion of himself—is she right? Will he allow her to be right? Eugene’s belief in himself—his outright knowledge and surety that he will pull through because more than his own life is on the line—is so strong, that he is able to overcome this strike against him. That is a very strong conviction.

When the time comes to fight, he is as ready as the rest of them: “I’m right behind you.”

When Rosita gives him an out (“Eugene, you don’t have to.”) he does not take it. He doesn’t even consider taking it, whereas in 6x2 he was begging for it. Eugene has changed, and we see this plainly when he says:

 “That’s incorrect, I do. No one gets to clock out today. And hell, this is a story people are gonna tell.”

For the first time, Eugene actually claims a responsibility to helping his family, hands-on. Even in previous cases of his bravery, like when he saved Tara at the warehouse, he never outwardly claimed responsibility for it. He felt it—that much we know—but he argued with Tara while she was unconscious, explicitly saying: “I claim no responsibility for this.”

Now, although he is given every opportunity to back out, to stay safe, Eugene continually pushes forward. Forward, past Rosita. Forward, out the door and into the fray, machete in hand.

Eugene kills walker after walker. He dives headfirst into this mess, and he is suddenly brave because he is with others. Because their lives are worth saving. Because he feels, in his heart, that he has arrived at stage two. That he is a survivor. That he is on par with all the amazing people around him—with Tara, with Rosita, with Abraham, with Rick.

And finally, he feels that he’s worth them. He’s worth belonging with them.

Okay, mullet time! 6x14 “Twice as Far” is an amazing episode for our guy. Directly following the Wolves attack and the walker assault on Alexandria, Eugene begins tying his hair back. Which is notable for several reasons. It’s a piece of a whole collection of changes that Eugene has undergone since the attack, as noticed by Abraham: 

“Guard duty, weapons training, changing up the hairstyle, swigging some swagger with the ladies, spitting game…” 

But the hair bit is probably at the top of the list, because previously, the mullet is what made Eugene. It was his pride and joy, the thing, as Maggie figured out, that set him apart from everyone else. And, duh, he likes it.

But Eugene is changing, and so too must the Kentucky waterfall. Tying your hair back or cutting it is only practical in this world. Making that change shows us that Eugene is taking initiative. He’s showing a complete understanding of the circumstances around him. He’s making himself more and more equipped to interact and be involved hands-on with the world, and to be prepared for whatever dangers that might put him in. More and more equipped not only to survive, but also to live.

We see the same thing happening with Maggie in the next episode, in which Enid cuts her hair. This parallel is not an accident—at this point in the series, Maggie is really coming into her own. She’s in charge of growing crops at home, she’s stepping up and calling the shots between Hilltop and Alexandria, she’s “carrying the future”, as Abraham put it. She’s on an upward path toward the role that we all know she was born to play: a leader. When Enid asks why she’s cutting her hair, Maggie says: “I have to keep going, and I don’t want anything getting in my way.”

Eugene ties his hair back because he isn’t who he used to be. He isn’t who he pretended to be. He is also on the upward path toward being who he is, truly, and he doesn’t want anything getting in his way. When he says, “the hair doesn’t make the man, the man makes the man”, we see Eugene valuing himself for who he is, instead of for an image he can depict of himself.

And it’s huge that we see this from him. From a man who, up until now, valued himself for the reasons that others might value him rather than valuing himself for the reasons that he values others, this is a milestone. Eugene likes the mullet. But for the first time, he likes himself, too. He doesn’t cut it, but he doesn’t need it—what he needs is to keep it out of his way so that he can continue to grow.

You’re probably thinking the same thing as Abraham:

“Man seems to be changing. At least, trying like hell to. Makes me curious what that’s about.” 

This is the first time that Eugene has received any feedback or acknowledgement of his efforts. It’s probably validating to know that the change is as outward as it is inward—that his work is showing. And that he is changing after all. For the better. And to Abraham’s inquiry, Eugene has a reply I could never do justice with summary:

“It’s simple, really. As with any RPG, tabletop, electronic, or otherwise, the key to survival is allowing oneself to be shaped by the assigned environment. In doing so, a broad range of capabilities are acquired, allowing one to flip the script and use said capabilities to shape said environment for maximum longevity. I’m saying I’m in the process of said stage two. I’ve changed, adapted. I’m a survivor.”

Please allow me a moment of WOWOWOWOW HE DID THAT! Even after Abraham dismisses him with “keep telling yourself that”, Eugene continues to not only talk the talk (he literally does ‘tell himself that’ immediately following Abraham’s comment, bless him) but also to walk the walk of a survivor.

Eugene leads Abraham to what he intends to repurpose as a bullet-making factory. Awesome. Not only is Eugene is becoming a contributor to the group, rather than just to himself (a real, family-oriented family member like the rest of them), but he is also planning for the long-term in manufacturing bullets for trade and defense. He is actively a part of the family, the community. He wants to be a valued part of that family, rather than riding for free just to have a few walls to hide behind. He wants his community to succeed, to thrive, and he knows exactly what he can do to make that happen—and he’s willing to do it.

He’s also willing and eager to put his life on the line. When a metal-clad walker approaches them and Abraham moves to kill it, Eugene says, “pump your brakes, red,” and calls dibs. He approaches the walker without hesitation, without fear.

This is the same—and equally not the same—man who flailed his arms and ran away when a walker touched him at Terminus. This is Eugene Porter, man of the hour, who stuck like gorilla glue to Abraham on the road, who depended on Abraham to keep him alive. Who no longer wants to have to depend on anyone. Who wants others to be able to depend on him. He’s changed, adapted. He’s become a survivor.

Even when his first attack on the walker doesn’t work and he enters into a struggle with it, Eugene doesn’t back down. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t run away, he doesn’t even ask for help. He’s changed, he’s adapted, he’s become a survivor—and he wants to believe and prove that so badly that when Abraham steps in, it’s a big deal.

In Eugene’s eye, Abraham robs him not just of the opportunity to prove that he’s a survivor, but of the title in general. By coming to the rescue, Abraham has shown that he doesn’t believe Eugene has what it takes. It doubly means that Abraham giving him the chance to kill the walker in the first place was not to let Eugene prove that he could handle himself, but to prove that he could not.  And to Eugene, who has put his heart and soul into changing, into becoming a survivor, this is a punch to the gut.

The complete opposite of how we’re used to seeing him throughout seasons four and five, Eugene does not want to be seen as helpless. He wants to be acknowledged as the capable survivor that he wants to be, that he believes he is. He attempts to assert himself to Abraham (“You had zero authority to—“).

We’ve seen Eugene trying to stand up to Abraham only a handful of times, if more than once. I’m thinking of the night in the church where Abraham fought with Rick over leaving immediately—he told Eugene to get up, get moving, and Eugene said “I don’t want to.” Abraham said, “now,” and Eugene obeyed immediately. Abraham’s word was law because Abraham was the survivor, the leader. But now, Eugene considers himself a survivor also, on par with Abraham. Equals. To Eugene, that’s worth fighting for.

But every time he speaks up, Abraham interrupts him. This is invalidation. This is dominance. And this is very similar to how Rosita treated Eugene in 6x9. As I said then, it’s hard to be your own only defender when everyone is telling you that you shouldn’t—maybe even harder in this episode, as it comes from Eugene’s best friend—but he still doesn’t back down. That’s how strongly he believes in the path that he’s on. That’s how strongly he believes in the person he can become.

Eugene allows Abraham the opportunity to apologize. When he doesn’t—going as far as to call Eugene a dumbass, actually—Eugene still keeps up his dukes: 

“With all due respect, screw you. Dispatching walkers is well within my skill set, so screw you for suggesting otherwise.”

I’m so glad to see Eugene standing up to those who don’t believe in him rather than letting their opinions shape his own. Rather than backing down. But in his anger, desperation, and ambition to prove himself, Eugene overcompensates by saying: “You’ve outlived your usefulness to me.”

Fighting jackassery with jackassery. Fire with, uh, you know, fire.

I don’t really blame Abraham. From his perspective, Eugene is trying to front a new façade—the hero outfit looks good on everyone else, so he wants to take it for a spin. Meanwhile, Abraham has been a hero figure from the start, and knows it’s more than an outfit. It comes with more than glory. It comes with having to be brave, having to make difficult decisions, having to live with the guilt of thinking you made the wrong one. It involves hard work, but more than that, it involves instinct. If you want to be brave, the bravery has to be in you—you don’t always get to plan and prepare. Many times, these hard decisions and heroic acts are done in the spur of the moment, without preparation.

And from what Abraham knows of Eugene so far, considering he hasn’t seen his arc from cowardice to bravery, why should he believe that Eugene has what it takes? He found this man running from a whopping two walkers in a parking lot. Since then, Eugene allowed nine people to die for his lie, for his own safety, while he hid behind Abraham’s guns, trucks, and genuine bravery. It’s only now that he’s safe that Eugene is trying to fend for himself—to Abraham, that is not convincing. That is not bravery. If Eugene was at all brave, he would have been brave before, when it really mattered.

And he won’t believe Eugene until he sees him being brave in a situation that it really matters. When lives depend on it. When he’s backed into a corner.

11 minutes later in the episode, Eugene gets this chance. After Denise is killed, Dwight and the Saviors (good band name, by the way) emerge from the forest, legion, and force Eugene to the ground. The tables have officially turned.

Eugene had the upper hand against the walker in the factory, despite it being a particularly tricky one to kill. It was only one, he had a weapon, and he had time to make a decision and prepare himself. And if it got messy, he had Abraham as a backup. It’s easy, comparatively, to be brave in a situation like that. Maximum comfort while in danger.

This is completely different. This is where bravery matters, where the survivor, the hero, can really come through. Eugene is the most under of dogs in this situation. Dwight and the Saviors have the upper hand, and even Daryl and Rosita, though weaponless, are standing. Eugene is on his knees, hands bound, his life being threatened at the expense of his family’s safety. And he’s just witnessed one of them be killed.

Eugene is afraid. He’s sweaty, he’s wide-eyed, he’s shaking. This is when it’s hard to be brave. This is when bravery matters. And while the old Eugene might cry, might beg for his life, survivor Eugene does not. He analyzes his surroundings and finds Abraham—of course he didn’t leave Eugene all alone, he cares about his friend bless him—hidden behind oil barrels. He does the math. He uses Abraham to create an opening for the others to attack.

Eugene keeps a cool head and improvises with his lack of weapons by clamping down on Dwight, oh my god. Eugene! Is a legend!!

And if you can possibly look past how iconic this is for a second, you’d see how heroic it is, all jokes aside. Eugene is not doing this to save himself. His life is only assured, as far as Dwight has indicated, by leading the Saviors to Alexandria. By surrendering “whatever and whoever [they] want”. Anything else would result in his death.

But his family in Alexandria is of utmost importance.

Eugene may lose his life in the next couple of minutes, but Daryl, Rosita, and Abraham may still win. Eugene believes they may have the resources to defeat or chase away the Saviors, to keep them away from Alexandria, to keep everyone at home safe. By giving the others an opportunity to fight at the possible, even probable expense of his own life, Eugene embodies the peak of selflessness and bravery in the face of the ultimate danger. The ultimate danger that he’s always been most afraid of.

But as Rosita told him, “The people around you dying, that’s the hard part…What you should be scared of is living knowing that you didn’t do everything you could to keep them here.”

I’m sure these words have stuck with Eugene, and I’m sure the message is very present in his mind at this moment. He was powerless to stop Denise from dying, but is he powerless now? To save himself, maybe, but not to save the others. The ones he loves. The ones whose well being he now prioritizes over his own. He may die, but the possibility that they won’t is worth it. Because sacrifice is part of being a survivor, too. And he wants to be a survivor—full-on, with all the benefits and dangers that comes with. With all the hard decisions, the guilt, the sacrifices that Abraham didn’t think he understood.

Eugene understands. He’s seen it, first-hand. He saw nine people die in his company. Good, brave survivors, who are still survivors even though they didn’t survive. Eugene has what it takes, and he knows it.

In the following moments, all-out war ensues. Even with gunfire raining down around him, Eugene stays clamped down on Dwight. That’s his job. That’s what he can contribute to keeping everyone safe. He’s right in the line of fire, attacking the enemy on the side of the armed enemy, and doesn’t back down. I don’t think I need to make the case for Eugene anymore—he’s proven to you, to Abraham, to Rosita, to everyone, that he is a survivor. He is brave. He is everything that we admire in the rest of team family. He belongs with us.

Eugene is shot in the battle. I think this is critical—he does suffer consequences from being brave. When he saved Tara, Glenn, and Nicholas, and when he joined the fight against the walkers at Alexandria, Eugene not only saw direct benefits of his actions (Tara coming out alive, Alexandria being saved), but he also came out unscathed.  It’s easier to say his bravery was worth it when he wasn’t hurt by the effects of acting on it. When nothing but good came out of it.

The moment of truth is whether or not Eugene will still choose to be brave after he suffers personal injury from it. The answer is: yes, he will. He does.

When Eugene awakens, Rosita and Abraham are at his bedside, and Daryl is at the window. He’s home. This is immediate validation that everyone he had hoped to save is safe. It’s significant that the first thing he says is, to Abraham, “I was not trying to kill you”. Eugene doesn’t ask what happened, he doesn’t ask if he is, himself, okay. His first priority is to clear the air with Abraham, to clarify that he was “looking for a moment”. That he was not so cowardly as to give Abraham away out of anger for what happened in the factory in exchange for his own life.

Abraham already understands.

Then, Eugene asks, “do you apologize for questioning my skills?” Again, he doesn’t brag or boast about his heroics, but he does demand an apology.

Eugene has proven that he is a survivor, not only to Abraham, but also to himself. In a dangerous situation he could never have planned for, in which not only his own life but other lives were at stake, he was able to be brave. It seemed as natural to him as it always was in Abraham.

Eugene is not surprised that he acted the way he did—he knew he could step up to the plate, and he knew that he would deliver in a situation like that. Eugene has proven himself to be fully self-aware, to be completely comfortable with himself and to be confident in what he can do. For the first time since we’ve seen him, Eugene respects himself. So he still requests an apology, as well as the opportunity to be seen as the survivor that he is.

Abraham apologizes: “Welcome to stage two.”

Eugene replies: “You don’t need to welcome me. I’ve been here a while.”

While nobody was looking, Eugene changed. And he did it by himself, without the conscious help or encouragement of anyone else. Of course, it’s all because of everyone else, without them even knowing. Helping others, saving others, is what made Eugene brave in the first place. It’s only through being of help to the people he loves and respects that Eugene came to respect himself.

Being brave only for yourself is still cowardice—through saving Tara, through urging Denise to try and save Holly, through fighting hoards of walkers to make sure Rick and the others were not alone, through sacrificing his own safety to save that of Daryl, Rosita, and Abraham, Eugene realized that he was brave.

And he so believed in this bravery not because he could rely on himself to save his own life, but because he was so confident in his love and respect of his family that he knew he would do anything to save them. He would always be brave for them. And someone who is willing to risk their life to save respectable, brave people is a person worthy of respect themselves. And so Eugene came to respect himself, too.

I expected to get through the entirety of season 6 in this one, but ideas keep coming and these things keep getting longer so I’m gonna address 6x16 “Last Day on Earth” (maybe together with 7x1 “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”?) next time. I’ve built you all up with Eugene feels, hopefully, and now I get to kind of tear you down. Sorry about that, in advance. If it’s any consolation, I’m tearing myself apart, too.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

[thegloober]

The New Formula For Personal Fulfillment

Todd Rose has an unusual resumé. He’s a high school dropout who stocked shelves instead of getting a diploma; he’s also a Harvard professor and director of its Mind, Brain, & Education Program. His 2015 book, The End of Average, shattered conventional notions of how people thrive in a world that exalts, well, convention, arguing for a new (and more practical) focus on success and individuality. Last week he published his new book, Dark Horse — co-authored with neuroscientist Ogi Ogas — which takes the argument even further.

Dark Horse is the culmination of the Dark Horse Project, a years-long study Rose and Ogas conducted at Harvard’s Laboratory for the Science of Individuality. Through interviews with unusual success stories in a variety of fields, from mycology to astronomy to bespoke men’s tailoring, the team developed a new paradigm for success — one that suggests people can find success by doing what fulfills them, as opposed to finding fulfillment through conventional models of success.

ADVERTISEMENT

Dark Horse tells the inspiring, unpredictable stories of the dark horses Rose and Ogas studied, and uses their stories to outline strategies you can use to achieve your own version of success — even if you don’t know what that is yet.  Fatherly spoke to Rose for a glimpse of these strategies and 

What, in your view, is the problem with conventional understandings of success, or how people achieve success? 

Featured Video

Loading Video Content

I think the biggest problem with our conventional success is that it’s largely comparative. It’s almost always defined as being better than somebody else. And that starts early in school. While comparison’s not always bad, when that becomes the driving way you think about success, it  turns out that it’s not so much that you could achieve something, it’s just that you’re better than the person standing next to you. And I believe that limits not only what the best people can accomplish, it ends up creating a picture of society where success is pretty rare and the rest of us are just expected to being mediocre.   

How did this come about, historically?

My read on it — and maybe historians have a different take—but my read on it is, I see this closely related to the rise of eugenics and other things, where we really had a deep belief in the social Darwinism of, like, Francis Galton, where the idea was: “Wait a minute, People are innately better or worse than each other,” and you basically needed a way to actually figure that out. If you believe that, how are you going to figure out who the better people are? So people like Francis Galton end up inventing things like percentiles to figure out a way to put people in an actual number. And I think it’s just grown from there. And I think when you live in economies and societies that have a lot of scarcity, it also contributes to a sense of comparison. The problem is, that doesn’t really describe our society very well at all. 

What does the “dark horse mindset” suggest differently about success?

One is the idea that dark horses really get super focused on just being the best version of themselves. No matter how quirky that is, no matter how different that is from anybody else, this is what they do. So it’s about constant self-improvement rather than relative comparison. And one step down from that is that they’re focused on the pursuit of personal fulfillment, right? Which is just accomplishing things that matter to you. And that’s what ends up driving them. 

ADVERTISEMENT

It’s funny — I really did think, when we were studying all these dark horses, that they probably were like Richard Branson personalities or Steve Jobs: “Who cares what people think of me?” But it’s actually not true. They just deeply care about the pursuit of fulfillment. And if you live in a standardized world, that’s going to take you off the beaten path more times than not. 

What are some strategies people can take to reorient their mindset?

The first thing is actually knowing yourself. And I know that sounds almost stupidly simple, but dark horses actually teach us something here too. Because for most of us, when we think about who we are, we often talk about what we’re good at or the job we do. That’s how we define that. And what we found in dark horses is that they focus incredibly on what matters to them and what motivates them, and use that as a basis for their identity. And I think that when you anchor around what truly motivates you, that is getting you on the path of fulfillment. It’s not everything but it’s a start. 

How can people try to identify those micro-motives?

ADVERTISEMENT

It’s funny, because you’d think it would be pretty simple, right? It’s like, wait, the things I care the most about? But our society is built around a handful of motives that we’re all supposed to be moved by it, whether it’s competition or money or whatever. The reality is we are just more complicated than that. 

So in terms of how to do it, I actually do it this is a simple approach that, when you try it, it’s kind of surprising how revealing it is. Just start by thinking about the things you enjoy doing and ask why. And the reason I say that is, we sometimes confuse the things we enjoy with our actual motives. I recently used the example of football: I like football, but I’m not motivated by football. It’s not the same thing. I do like the strategy of it, I like the competition, I like the fact that it’s a team sport — you can’t do it by yourself, you actually have to rely on other people. 

As you ask the “why” question, it quickly reveals something about what truly motivates you. And what we found is, if you ask that question of yourself enough, pretty soon you do reveal a broad range of things that really matter to you. And then you can start using those in how you make decisions. 

Can you talk a bit about the difference between picking and choosing?

ADVERTISEMENT

So choice really is the heart of fulfillment. It’s how you’re going to convert passion to purpose. And in our society, especially in the United States, we think we’re drowning in choice — and it is true from a commercial standpoint, we probably have more choice than we know what to do with it. But in most of the bits of our life that matter, we actually don’t have a lot choice. Think about all the way through education up to your career, the number of real choice points you have are pretty limited. So we end up having a lot of picking, right? Someone else is going to decide, “here are the options, you can pick from them,” versus the ability to actually say. “based on what matters to me, this is what I actually want to choose.”

And what we see in dark horses time and time again is their ability to create their own choices out of what looks like is not there to begin with. Which is pretty fascinating. To me, the difference is, choice is when you actually care about the difference. Like, “one of these these things is definitely better for me, and it might be something I have to create all by myself,” versus “here are some institutional options that are available, I can pick one.”

Can anyone do this? What do you say to like a 45 year-old dad who’s sick of standardization and wants to be fulfilled? What considerations should they take?

I know that’s kind of an easy answer, but I sincerely believe this is something anyone can do. For a couple of reasons: One, fulfillment doesn’t necessarily require some massive upheaval of your life. Quite often what you’ll find is that people have focused too narrowly. Say, for example, they think their job is going to bring them all this fulfillment when in fact what they really had to focus on was, “I need a better connection with my family,” “I need a better social life,” “I need new hobbies,” things like that. So the ability to even maneuver like that is quite possible. The other thing is, we talked to plenty of people who actually didn’t have to change jobs, they just had to tweak the way they were doing their job in the same company. Taking on different tasks and stuff like that.

ADVERTISEMENT

The other kind of concern is that maybe this is just a rich person’s game. Like, it’s nice to talk about fulfillment but if you don’t have a lot of money, you just gotta do what you gotta do. I strongly believe that this kind of dark horse mindset is probably more important to people that don’t have a really broad safety net. Like when I was growing up: I had a wife and kids and we were on welfare. I didn’t have a high school diploma. I had to make every choice really matter. For people that have to hit home runs all the time with these choices—your ability to know who you are and know what really matters and motivates you, and know how to use that to make good decisions, is really important. And I think it’s really [important to] make sure fulfillment doesn’t become a luxury item for the rich or just for a small group of people.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-new-formula-for-personal-fulfillment/

[nancyedimick]

Right to try, right to buy, right to test

Surgeons begin a kidney removal in San Francisco in 2015. (California Pacific Medical Center/Reuters)

(Dr. Sally Satel, who has guest-blogged here before, was kind enough to write up this item on a topic that has long interested me; I’m delighted to pass it along: -EV)

In 2007, Eugene Volokh, the host of this site, published an essay in the Harvard Law Review titled “Medical Self-Defense, Prohibited Experimental Therapies, and Payment for Organs” in which he argued that the government should need “a very good reason” to prevent sick people from saving their own lives.

That insight impels the Right to Try movement, which seeks to give terminally ill patients the right to try drugs that show promise but not have received FDA approval and which has received sympathetic hearings from President Trump and Vice President Pence. One of the leaders of Right to Try reform, the libertarian Goldwater Institute, said it best: “We just fundamentally do not believe that you should have to apply to the government for permission to try to save your own life.”

That principle has vital implications for patients needing bone marrow and kidney transplants.

Each year, 2,000 to 3,000 individuals with leukemia and other forms of bone marrow disease die while waiting to receive another person’s bone marrow cells. It’s not that strangers are indifferent to their plight, but that suitable biological matches are hard to find. And even when a match is found, there is a 1-in-2 chance that the needle-in-a-haystack donor either can’t be located by registry personnel or, incomprehensibly, refuses to donate even though he had earlier volunteered to be tested.

We can enlarge the pool of potential donors while increasing the likelihood that compatible donors will follow through if they are paid — or if sick patients (or charities acting on their behalf) have the Right to Buy, as I call it.

But there is an obstacle to buying. The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act, or NOTA, bans exchange of “valuable consideration” — that is, anything of material worth — for solid organs, such as kidneys and livers, as well as for bone marrow.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, fought the prohibition. It sued the Justice Department on behalf of families afraid their ill loved ones would die because they couldn’t get a bone marrow transplant.

In a unanimous 2012 ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the federal government’s argument that obtaining bone-marrow stem cells through a needle in a donor’s arm violates NOTA. The judges based their decision on the fact that modern bone-marrow procurement, a process known as apheresis, is akin to drawing blood. Indeed, filtered stem cells, they held, are merely components of blood, no different from blood-derived plasma, platelets and clotting factors, all of which are replenished by the body within weeks of a donation. Because it’s legal to compensate blood donors, it’s also legal to pay bone marrow donors, the court ruled.

Unfortunately, the Department of Health and Human Services rejected the court’s ruling. In 2013, it proposed a rule that would extend the NOTA prohibition to bone marrow stem cells. Under the proposed regulation, anyone who accepted material gain for giving bone-marrow stem cells would be subject to NOTA’s penalties, facing imprisonment for up to five years. According to HHS, compensation runs afoul of NOTA’s “intent to ban commodification of human stem cells” and to “curb opportunities for coercion and exploitation, encourage altruistic donation and decrease the likelihood of disease transmission.”

The solicitor general could have asked the Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit’s bone-marrow decision, but he declined. Perhaps he grasped the central folly of HHS’s position: How could the agency justify its worry about “opportunities for coercion and exploitation” and the “likelihood of disease transmission” when it came to bone marrow cells, yet not apply those same concerns to plasma?

For three years, HHS has been silent on its proposed rule. Meanwhile, people are dying because nonprofits that want to begin paying donors on behalf of needy patients can’t move forward until they are assured that the agency can’t shut them down. The Institute for Justice is considering a legal challenge over the HHS delay, which is causing needless deaths.

But perhaps the lawsuit can wait. With a new administration that is skeptical of overregulation, HHS Secretary Tom Price could withdraw the proposed rule. Ideally, Congress would thwart future regulatory blockades by amending NOTA to stipulate that marrow stem cells are not organs covered by the act.

Changes to NOTA should also be made for other organs. I feel strongly about this on fundamental grounds of liberty but also because, in 2005, I needed to save my own life. I developed kidney failure but could not find a donor. Thank goodness, an angel, or as some readers know her, Virginia Postrel, heard about my predicament and gave me a kidney. And this summer another living saint, Kimberly Hendrickson, who saw how desperate I was many years ago, offered me one of hers when the first transplant began to fail. Every day, 12 people die because no one was able to come to their rescue and, had a patient offered money for an organ, both the patient and the donor who accepted the money would face felony charges.

Congress could take the bold step of revising NOTA to permit donors who are willing to save the life of a stranger through kidney donation to receive valuable consideration from governments or nonprofit organizations. Or, lawmakers could take the intermediate step of creating a pilot program allowing doctors to study the effect of such measures, as proposed last May by Rep. Matthew Cartwright (D-Pa.), who introduced the Organ Donor Clarification Act of 2016.

Rather than large sums of cash, potential rewards could include a contribution to the donor’s retirement fund, an income tax credit or a tuition voucher, lifetime health insurance, a contribution to a charity of the donor’s choice, or loan forgiveness. Only the government, or a government-designated charity, would be allowed to disburse the rewards. Consequently, all patients, not just those with financial means, could benefit. The funds could potentially come from the savings from stopping dialysis, which costs roughly $80,000 a year per person.

The pilot programs, to be designed by individual medical centers, could also impose a waiting period on prospective donors, thereby cooling any impulsivity. Prospective donors would be fully informed about the risks of surgery and carefully screened for physical and emotional health, as all non-compensated kidney donors are now.

The idea of the government standing between a dying person and his salvation is deeply troubling. I know. We need to at least test better ways to recruit more marrow and kidney donors.

Dr. Sally Satel is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of “When Altruism isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors.”

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/02/21/right-to-try-right-to-buy-right-to-test/

[wolfandpravato]

Right to try, right to buy, right to test

Surgeons begin a kidney removal in San Francisco in 2015. (California Pacific Medical Center/Reuters)

(Dr. Sally Satel, who has guest-blogged here before, was kind enough to write up this item on a topic that has long interested me; I’m delighted to pass it along: -EV)

In 2007, Eugene Volokh, the host of this site, published an essay in the Harvard Law Review titled “Medical Self-Defense, Prohibited Experimental Therapies, and Payment for Organs” in which he argued that the government should need “a very good reason” to prevent sick people from saving their own lives.

That insight impels the Right to Try movement, which seeks to give terminally ill patients the right to try drugs that show promise but not have received FDA approval and which has received sympathetic hearings from President Trump and Vice President Pence. One of the leaders of Right to Try reform, the libertarian Goldwater Institute, said it best: “We just fundamentally do not believe that you should have to apply to the government for permission to try to save your own life.”

That principle has vital implications for patients needing bone marrow and kidney transplants.

Each year, 2,000 to 3,000 individuals with leukemia and other forms of bone marrow disease die while waiting to receive another person’s bone marrow cells. It’s not that strangers are indifferent to their plight, but that suitable biological matches are hard to find. And even when a match is found, there is a 1-in-2 chance that the needle-in-a-haystack donor either can’t be located by registry personnel or, incomprehensibly, refuses to donate even though he had earlier volunteered to be tested.

We can enlarge the pool of potential donors while increasing the likelihood that compatible donors will follow through if they are paid — or if sick patients (or charities acting on their behalf) have the Right to Buy, as I call it.

But there is an obstacle to buying. The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act, or NOTA, bans exchange of “valuable consideration” — that is, anything of material worth — for solid organs, such as kidneys and livers, as well as for bone marrow.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, fought the prohibition. It sued the Justice Department on behalf of families afraid their ill loved ones would die because they couldn’t get a bone marrow transplant.

In a unanimous 2012 ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the federal government’s argument that obtaining bone-marrow stem cells through a needle in a donor’s arm violates NOTA. The judges based their decision on the fact that modern bone-marrow procurement, a process known as apheresis, is akin to drawing blood. Indeed, filtered stem cells, they held, are merely components of blood, no different from blood-derived plasma, platelets and clotting factors, all of which are replenished by the body within weeks of a donation. Because it’s legal to compensate blood donors, it’s also legal to pay bone marrow donors, the court ruled.

Unfortunately, the Department of Health and Human Services rejected the court’s ruling. In 2013, it proposed a rule that would extend the NOTA prohibition to bone marrow stem cells. Under the proposed regulation, anyone who accepted material gain for giving bone-marrow stem cells would be subject to NOTA’s penalties, facing imprisonment for up to five years. According to HHS, compensation runs afoul of NOTA’s “intent to ban commodification of human stem cells” and to “curb opportunities for coercion and exploitation, encourage altruistic donation and decrease the likelihood of disease transmission.”

The solicitor general could have asked the Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit’s bone-marrow decision, but he declined. Perhaps he grasped the central folly of HHS’s position: How could the agency justify its worry about “opportunities for coercion and exploitation” and the “likelihood of disease transmission” when it came to bone marrow cells, yet not apply those same concerns to plasma?

For three years, HHS has been silent on its proposed rule. Meanwhile, people are dying because nonprofits that want to begin paying donors on behalf of needy patients can’t move forward until they are assured that the agency can’t shut them down. The Institute for Justice is considering a legal challenge over the HHS delay, which is causing needless deaths.

But perhaps the lawsuit can wait. With a new administration that is skeptical of overregulation, HHS Secretary Tom Price could withdraw the proposed rule. Ideally, Congress would thwart future regulatory blockades by amending NOTA to stipulate that marrow stem cells are not organs covered by the act.

Changes to NOTA should also be made for other organs. I feel strongly about this on fundamental grounds of liberty but also because, in 2005, I needed to save my own life. I developed kidney failure but could not find a donor. Thank goodness, an angel, or as some readers know her, Virginia Postrel, heard about my predicament and gave me a kidney. And this summer another living saint, Kimberly Hendrickson, who saw how desperate I was many years ago, offered me one of hers when the first transplant began to fail. Every day, 12 people die because no one was able to come to their rescue and, had a patient offered money for an organ, both the patient and the donor who accepted the money would face felony charges.

Congress could take the bold step of revising NOTA to permit donors who are willing to save the life of a stranger through kidney donation to receive valuable consideration from governments or nonprofit organizations. Or, lawmakers could take the intermediate step of creating a pilot program allowing doctors to study the effect of such measures, as proposed last May by Rep. Matthew Cartwright (D-Pa.), who introduced the Organ Donor Clarification Act of 2016.

Rather than large sums of cash, potential rewards could include a contribution to the donor’s retirement fund, an income tax credit or a tuition voucher, lifetime health insurance, a contribution to a charity of the donor’s choice, or loan forgiveness. Only the government, or a government-designated charity, would be allowed to disburse the rewards. Consequently, all patients, not just those with financial means, could benefit. The funds could potentially come from the savings from stopping dialysis, which costs roughly $80,000 a year per person.

The pilot programs, to be designed by individual medical centers, could also impose a waiting period on prospective donors, thereby cooling any impulsivity. Prospective donors would be fully informed about the risks of surgery and carefully screened for physical and emotional health, as all non-compensated kidney donors are now.

The idea of the government standing between a dying person and his salvation is deeply troubling. I know. We need to at least test better ways to recruit more marrow and kidney donors.

Dr. Sally Satel is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of “When Altruism isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors.”

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/02/21/right-to-try-right-to-buy-right-to-test/