#I’m not some war practitioner

[dulcewrites]

I truly need to take whatever George was when he was coming up with which houses declared for which side during the dance

[mutalune]

one of the funniest things about star wars fic is that you can very clearly tell when an author has no clue what meditation actually is

[gv80gb]

Sheltered birth

Barbara cleaned the sweat forming in the palm of her hands on her skirt, the stress and nerves giving a physical manifestation through them. It wasn’t unusual for her to be trapped a whole night in a bomb shelter with all her neighbors, in fact it was becoming more common each day, since London was under constant threat of attack since the war started. But this time was different, she had been having intense contraction for around three hours when the alarm went off and she was forced to evacuate her house. Her husband was away, fighting in the war, and she hadn’t wanted to wake her neighbors up, so she had thought that first thing in the morning she would go to the hospital. But apparently, life had other plans for her. They had been in the shelter for around an hour, and with each passing minute it became Moree difficult to hide her distressed state. The contractions were getting closer together, and she wondered how much time would pass before she wasn’t able to hide it anymore. 

A new contraction began to form, Barbara tensed up, feeling her stomach tighten painfully. A small moan escaped her lips. Mortified, she looked around the room to check if anyone had noticed, but each person was to worried about the ongoing situation to pay attention to her. She truly didn’t want to give birth with so many people around her, she didn’t want her neighbors to see her in such vulnerable state. She closed her eyes and silently begged her baby “Please wait until we are by ourselves”. 

Time passed so slowly, it felt like an eternity, but in reality it had only been around an hour and a half. The pains were so much more intense now Barbara couldn’t keep a straight face anymore, and it felt like they were almost on top of each other. The few moments in which the pain wasn’t taking control of her, she tried to make sure no one was seeing her. Suddenly, the most intense contraction she had ever felt took over her body, and it was immediately followed by a loud pop and a wet feeling between her legs. An elderly woman who was sitting the closest to her turned her head towards her and opened her eyes in complete shock “Oh my god, child, you are giving birth”. The only thing she could do in response was clutch her belly and moan and stop her internal fight with her body. 

With her waters broken, the pressure inside her became impossible to ignore. A blinding urge to push her baby out overcame her. Next thing she knew, Barbara was yelling at the top of her lungs and pushing with all her might, the sound of the alarms muted to her ears. When the contraction passed she opened her eyes to find every single person looking at her, some in terror and some in lust, something you couldn’t quite understand. A young woman approached Barbara and touched her leg lightly, “I can help you, I’m a nurse practitioner”, she said softly. She muttered a strained “yes” while a new contraction started to form. The young nurse kneeled between her legs, sliding her wet underwear down her legs and opening them wide for her, and the rest of the shelter to have a better view. The elderly woman sat beside her and grabbed one of her legs so she wouldn’t close them. 

Fingers entered her, and they took her by surprise. “Okay darling, you are ready to bring your baby into the world, with the next contraction I need you to push”, the nurse said. The contraction didn’t take long to arrive, intensifying the pressure between her legs. Barbara pushed with full force, and she began her baby to descend, she felt her core bulge out with the head of her baby. With a new push she began to stretch, a teardrop forming between her legs. “You are doing great, keep going”. Barbara grabbed the elderly woman’s hand and pushed again. The contractions were no-stopping now, and the only thing she could focus on was on the feeling of her baby crowning from her body. 

“AAAAGHHHH!, she yelled, “ I can’t do this” Barbara said, drenched in sweat and fluids. 

“Yes you can” The elderly woman said. “You were born for this, I myself gave both to seven kids”.  She kept on pushing, when she felt the head pass through her skin and into the world. Relief flooded her, but only for a few seconds, since the next contraction came rushing. 

Barbara kept pushing, but the baby wasn’t moving anymore. It was stuck “I’m gonna have to do something that may hurt a little, but the shoulders are stuck and your baby needs to be born now”. She can only nod before she truly understand what she is talking about. The tips of her fingers stretch her skin more than it already is, to impossible limits, and her hand enters her and begins maneuvering her kid. Barbara screams, hurting her own ears, but the pain is unmanageable, a tear slips from her eyes. But at last, the baby starts moving forward. “That’s it, keep pushing”. Barbara gives a final strong push that allows her baby to slip free. The nurse catches it and gives it to her. With her baby finally in her arms, Barbara takes the time to look around, finding a big part of the shelter emptied, she didn’t realize when the alarms stopped echoing, still some curious eyes still lingered on her and her wrecked body. 

[lionheartapothecaryx]

PROTECT YOUR NECK ! Lyonessa’s Speedy Tutorial for Sharp Shootin

Protection, Uncrossing & Curse Freezin in a Traditional Hoodoo style.

A good practitioner eventually has the good common sense to be diplomatic and avoid a witch war. Avoiding drama, means avoiding headaches. It’s easy until it isn’t. Smoothing sailing isn’t always a guarantee in this world. Stay vigilant and well prepared.

Knowing how to protect, defend, uncross and cleanse yourself is a basic but crucial part of the Hoodoo practitioners spiritual hygiene.

Now this is a quick basic tutorial, to set you straight and keep you right.

⚔️ - KEEP YOUR HEAD SHARP & CULTIVATE COMMON SENSE

Hot heads, I’m talking to you. Emotional self control can save you from the stress of unnecessary witch battles with other practitioners. Be respectful, be mindful but take no shit. Try your best to avoid witch wars with other practitioners. I’ve seen these things be drawn out for years and it’s a huge colossal drain of energy and finances, usually over something very petty. Usually the person with most financial backing and resources wins but I’ve also seen clever maneuvering outweigh more powerful players.

It’s so easy to get caught up in drama in the spiritual community and have it spiral out of control. As your developing relationships, try to avoid warring and argumentative personality types so you don’t get caught in their crossfire. Committing all of your energy to constantly defending yourself from petty attacks is a waste of your energy. Cultivate social discernment & wisdom. This is not an invitation to live fearfully but smart. This is also something that takes time and practice.

On the other side of the spectrum, as you gain experience do your best to not become mad with power & trigger happy.

Constantly throwing jinxes, hexes or curses takes it’s toll mentally, energetically & physically, in some cases it can cause serious physical health problems further down the line. Don’t develop a god-complex. Stay grounded. Now I can’t tell you where to draw the line in the sand when it comes to certain situations, because every practitioner has their own code of ethics.

I’ll use myself as an example. On my spiritual journey I’ve acquired and invested in vast amounts knowledge and other resources which have made my defensive and offensive skills pretty extensive. Some of the things, rituals, and spirits that I have access to would be overkill depending on the circumstances. Coming into a massive powerful spiritual inheritance so early was hard.

I had to learn by trial and error to be more respectful of my own power. I was an overpowered baby witch shooting lightning bolts, while burning my own hands. Learning to practice emotional regulation allowed me to hone my skills better. I had to do shadow work and confront my traumas.

Cultivating a respectful working relationship between yourself, your own power and your emotions can save your life.

⚔️ - PRACTICE GOOD OFFENSE

A good practitioner will use various methods of divination to spiritually strategize before moving to attack. Attacking blindly without any knowledge, can cause all sorts of problems, especially if you’re dealing with someone who has strong spiritual or ancestral protections or a higher rank then you, worst case scenario you’re going up against a coven.

Excellent offense means doing recon. Good Reconnaisance skills means gathering information about your target, through various means of surveillance. Gather as much information about your enemies or targets resources, spiritual force or power, protection and activities. You should approach this like a military operation. Once you’ve got enough information, then you can strategize, prepare and do divination on what your next move should be.

This isn’t always easy either, depending on the skill of your target. People can cloak, shape-shift, even have guardian or monitoring spirits or ancestors to alert them. When in doubt, always use stealth. Always make sure to cloak and protect yourself when surveilling your target. It’s the most practical form of offensive protection. I’ve seen practitioners attack folks just for doing surveillance. Don’t get caught out here lacking, put on your damn armor.

All Power is intoxicating and life altering. Without self control you can seriously injure yourself and others. Ego often makes many people in this community think they are invincible, until they get humbled, tale as old as time. Respect your powers & yourself. Cultivate self control & discipline. Resist wild impulse. Build habits that protect you in the future.

Our plant allies are crucial to our practice and connection to spirit and the earth.

ASSORTED TOOLS & HERBARIUM

🌿 Mint- protection, cleansing, mental clarity refreshing, brings vitality and a fresh start. This herb is perfect for regular cleansing or removing negative energy, hexes, evil or crossed conditions

🌿 Angelica Root - strength, protection, warding off evil, safety, creates a happy home. This incredible ally is associated with Archangel Michael and said to be blessed by him in angelic lore.

🌿 Lemon Grass - clears out negative stagnant energy, breaks blockages, rejuvenates and brings positive vitality, breaks curses, uncrossing.

🌿 King Solomon’s Root - Protection, Wisdom, Wards off All Evil & Negativity

🌿 Red Brick Dust - creates an protective energetic shield around your spiritual and physical being.

🌿 White, Black, Sea or Kosher Salt - Cleansing, Purifying, Protective

🌿Rosemary - Cleansing, Purifying, Stabilizing, Protective

🌿 Camphor - Cleansing, Purifying, Protective, Wards off Chaos, Negativity, Evil Spirits, Hex Breaking

🌿 Cayenne Pepper - Speedy, Fiery Protection, Cursing, Hexing, Jinxing

Redbrick dust, Solomon & Angelica Root can be sprinkled along your widows or the four corners of the house to create a protective house space. This same blend can be mixed with holy water, an a petition and frozen as a defensive protective ward to temporarily freeze the effects of a curse, until you can remove it. This same mix can be used in a bowl, outside the freezer as regular defensive ward from any potential threats.

Lemongrass and mint can be used to make a cleansing spiritual bath to remove jinxes, crossed conditions and break blockages, while rejuvenating your spiritual energy. Angelica Root can be added to this bath for extra protective effect.

These herbs can also be used in candle magick, mojos, poppets and more.

Traditionally our Elders used beeswax, oil lamps, bonfires or cookpits, utilizing whatever the resources available, to conduct pyromancy. Color correspondence was utilized in other ways, with herbs, scarves & many other things but can also be used with candles etc

COLOR MAGICK

🕯White & Blue - cleansing, healing, purification, innocence

🕯Purple - increased power, strength, protective, the mind, wisdom, spirit

🕯Red - increased energy, protective, offensive attacks

🕯Black - energy removal, protection, reversals, hex breaking

It’s important when practicing candle magick to practice fire safety.

Place all glass & tin candles on plates, pans, aluminum foil or fire safe surfaces to prevent damage, burn marks or wax on surfaces, like wood and linoleum.

Never leave candles unattended for long periods of time or overnight without attendance, remove nearby flammable hazards, hanging debris + keep a wick & fire extinguisher on standby.

⚔️ - PROTECTION, UNCROSSING & CURSE FREEZING TIPS

- Salt & Lemongrass, on a black candle can assist with uncrossing and cleansing yourself from negativity or hexes

- Cayenne, Angelica & Brick Dust on a black candle can create a decent protection spell.

- Cayenne, Rosemary, Mint & Angelica Root on a blue candle can assist with protected healing, quick recovery and rejuvenation especially when one is under attack, or restoring their energy.

- Holy Water, King Solomon Root & Red Brick Dust Boiled and prayed over, bottled & frozen in the refrigerator can freeze or slow down the effects of a hex or curse, without alerting the magician, it’s also an effective ward against curses and hexes.

- Bathing in Solomon Root, Rosemary & Mint regularly assists with good spiritual hygiene cultivating a protected aura and promoting spiritual health & wisdom, cleansing out negativity or gunk, purifying and stabilizing your soul.

- Solomon Root, Mint & Rosemary on a purple candle, cleanse and protect your mind from chaos psychosis & confusion, an give you protected mental clarity and inner stability. This is handy for curses, jinxes that are designed to make you go crazy.

- Four Red Bricks, with Psalms 91:3-4 written in sharpie, washed in holy water, placed in the four corners of your property creates a spiritual hedge of protection for you & your home against violence, evil and chaos.

- Rosemary Plants Potted are natural spiritual wards of protection, stability and purification and are great herbal ally, to have planted in your garden or keep in your home. You can tag lock these plant to alert you of any curses or hexes, sent your way & they will naturally filter and cleanse the energy of your space.

- A mirror washed in holy water & smoked cleansed with solomon root, angelica, mint and rosemary, can be commanded to be spiritually locked & sealed with Psalms 147: 13.

⚔️⚔️⚔️

Hopefully this speedy guide, has been ultra helpful for y’all. This is just a quick guide to wet your whistle and provide a good foundation of protective magical knowledge. As you grow in experience and power, your skill set and knowledge, about protective magic will grow even more.

Be smart. Be strategic. Don’t be a dumbass

xxx

Lyonessa Hart.

[imfromthemiddlekingdom]

If I had the time I would go through video and debunk all of the jabs the OP unsubtly digs at the Jedi masters.

Legit the first minuet in and he calls Ki-Adi-Mundi a psychopath. Like bro. I don’t think you armchair psychologists actually understand the words that passes through your mouths.

Looking at the comments I’m filled with rage ngl.

There is no tapping into the dark side for the good of others. The dark side isn’t some quaint power boost that people can use Willy nilly and come back without consequences. It corrupts absolutely. There’s no such thing as “oh lemme just tap into this side of the force that corrupts absolutely to save people uwu” when it would usually become “oh shit I tapped into the dark side cuz I wanted to save people but it twisted my desires and in the end I ended up not only not saving the people I wanted to save, but also wrecked destruction onto other innocents.”

Also congrats on grievously misunderstanding what Vaapad is OP. It’s a twist on Form VII the Ferocity form (aka forbidden Jedi kata since if the practitioner isn’t firmly in the light the passion channeled can and will corrupt absolutely). Mace Windu created this form as a way to channel his own personal darker emotions. It doesn’t control him as the original form VII does. Literally we have Sidious saying that Form VII is closer to a Sith Form than a Jedi Form since it can and will corrupt the practitioner. Mace Windu did not use the dark side when using Vaapad. There’s a reason that the other “co-creator” of Vaapad when he fell to the dark side and tried to use Vaapad to defeat Mace still failed. It’s because Vaapad is a firmly light side Form and using the dark side of the force when using the Form will mean you fundamentally fail At understanding the base of the form.

Why can’t Star Wars fans understand that there is no “balance” between the light side of the force and the dark side? The light side is balance. The dark side is an abbreviation on the natural state of being. And comparing Emerald Lightning that Plo Koon uses to Sith lightning, a technique that is STATED, to be a twisted abomination of five usage, is disingenuous and a bad faith reading of the comics.

I could screenshot every comment on this video and write essays on how they’re wrong but I actually value my time and I really do not want to engage in media that I disagree with. Blah blah echo chamber, what of it? If people can be blinded by their own beliefs that grey Jedi exist I can also refuse to engage in it. I clicked on the video thinking it would be a nice meta explaining the different colours we see in KOTOR and the new Ashoka show but instead I get a very thinly veiled Jedi bashing video.

[wat3rm370n]

Public comment to CDC HICPAC committee November 2024

Infection control in healthcare.

My public comment to the CDC HICPAC Committee.

Direct link to my comment in the stream.

Direct link to the start of the whole comment period.

Day 2 of the meeting link, with another session of public comments then the vote.

I’m Chloe Humbert. Semmelweis is known for his campaign for hand washing standards. He was attacked by contrarians until his death. Today he is vindicated yet respiratory hygiene is the science denier flavour of the day.  It’s not okay that doctors and nurses are maskless and breathing directly on patients who then get infected. Now is the chance for those in positions to do so to set a precedent for deserved protection of worker and patient safety. To be on record giving evidence based practitioners something to hang onto.  We are going back.   The only question is how far back people in medical leadership are willing to sign onto. The announced incoming department of defense secretary is someone who said on national tv that he doesn’t wash his hands. We know what can happen because of what has happened before.  In the 1850s Florence Nightingale went to the Crimean War - a hospital in Constantinople. That's Istanbul now, and that situation was no Turkish delight on a moonlit night. She arrived at a British military base ATOP a cesspool where patients lay in their own feces among rodents and more soldiers died from infectious diseases than injuries in battle. Under Nightingale the place was scrubbed and she reduced the facility’s death rate by two thirds. We might go back further.  The Dark Ages was called that because society moved backwards from the technological advances that had come before. The fall of the Roman Eempire was marked by elites who only cared about the status quo; they could’ve developed a steam engine as far back as Heron in 15 BC but didn’t bother.  Going forward is a choice.  In an article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases & Preventive Medicine there’s a description of what happened back then. “In medieval times, hospitals were hazardous places, Epidemic infections killed large numbers of hospital patients during this period. Hospital infection and death rates were high. When a sick person entered a hospital, his or her property was disposed of, and in some regions, a requiem mass was held, as if he or she had already died.” Going backward is a choice.  We know better now. We use surgical gloves, autoclaves, disinfectants, checklists and yes, respirator masks exist. But big healthcare corporations don't wanna pay for that, they lock up PPE, force nurses to work without sick leave at hospitals, and make patients beg for reasonable accommodation.  Going forward is a choice.  Let this not be a case of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But a time when serious healthcare professional leadership takes a stand for sanitary conditions in healthcare, and makes respirator masks and the precautionary principle the standard of care instead doing with masks what would be like calculating whether you should wash your hands after the toilet based on age or health status.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Ingram at NBC News:

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has repeatedly prophesied a future civil war related to immigration. Musk has posted about the subject on his social media platform X at least eight times in the past 10 months, according to a review of his posts by NBC News. And his posts usually include a specific prediction: He thinks that Europe in particular is headed toward a “civil war” due to the arrival of refugees from other continents.  Musk’s interest in the subject of a civil war poked into public view earlier this month when he weighed in on anti-immigration street riots happening across Great Britain. “Civil war is inevitable,” he wrote on X.  The post received 9.8 million views and it caused a furor among some in the U.K., initiating a heated back and forth with the office of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was dismissive of Musk’s prediction, saying there was “no justification” for such comments. Other U.K. critics said Musk was only inflaming tensions by making such a dire prediction. 

Musk’s rhetoric is unheard-of for a corporate executive speaking in public, but the prediction of a civil war has become a frequent talking point among some far-right activists who view a civil war in Europe or the U.S. as not only unavoidable but also as something to be welcomed. “What you’re seeing in these calls for civil war is a white supremacist clarion call. It is a dog whistle,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.  Musk has stopped short of issuing a call to arms and has not mentioned the race or religion of refugees arriving in Europe, but Lewis said that Musk doesn’t need to be explicit to get his message across. He said he sees similarities between Musk’s posts and the language in white supremacist chat rooms where commenters are obsessed with changing demographics.  “Rhetorically, there is very little difference, and at this point it’s barely coded language. It’s everything but explicit incitement,” he said.  “It’s only a matter of time, unfortunately, before someone listens,” he added, warning that Musk’s words could inspire violence by others. 

Musk did not directly respond to questions about his civil war predictions in an email to NBC News. Hyperbole about civil war is common on the far right. White nationalist Nick Fuentes said last year that Ireland was “on the brink of civil war” because of immigration, and followers of the “Boogaloo” anti-government movement have for years called explicitly for civil war.  The far-right’s rhetoric around a future civil war is part of a philosophical framework referred to as accelerationism. Extreme practitioners of the philosophy believe that stoking tensions around topics like immigration could lead to wars and hasten a larger societal collapse, creating an opportunity to reformulate society in a way that’s more favorable to extremists. A gunman who attacked a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 said his goal was to hasten the start of a “civil war” over religion, race and firearms. While some progressives also talk about dismantling existing systems, predictions of a civil war are less common on the left.

[...] Musk has invoked the idea in relation to numerous conflicts. Last October, days after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, he responded to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Europe with a call for reduced immigration onto the continent.  “If current trends continue, civil war in Europe is inevitable,” he said on X. It was a reply to Konstantin Kisin, an author, podcaster and Russian-born immigrant to the U.K.  Kisin responded to Musk: “Civil war implies someone will fight back. Based on current evidence, I’m not even sure that will happen.” 

[...] In the past two weeks, far-right activists in Great Britain have used misinformation about an attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class as a pretext for anti-immigrant demonstrations. There have been mob attacks on mosques, immigrant-owned shops and hotels housing asylum-seekers. The suspect in the dance-class attack in which three children died is a 17-year-old who was born in the country, according to police.  [...] Musk has a record of spreading false information that could stir up fear of immigrants. Last year, he embraced the debunked “great replacement” theory, which says that there is a top-down plot to replace the white population with nonwhite “hordes.” He has smeared Haitians as cannibals, and he has boosted false claims that non-citizens are registering to vote in the U.S.  After those claims were debunked, Musk has had various responses. He said he was “sorry” for his post about the great replacement theory but left it online. After criticism of his Haitian posts, he said he wanted to “screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism.” And after his claims about immigrants voting were found to be false, he has repeated them. 

Right-wing X owner Elon Musk has repeatedly trafficked in far-right “civil war” fantasies over the past year or so, especially in regards to immigration and refugees in Europe.

Read the full story at NBC News.

[mai-love-andthestars]

Hello! So, I’m not new to worshipping deities. I’ve worshipped Hades in the past. But, I’ve been worshipping Aphrodite for the past month and now I believe Apollo is reaching out as well. Funny enough, I’ve also thought of reaching out to Ares. What’s it like to worship all three of them at the same time?

I just want to preface that everyone's relationship is different, so a lot of this is personal opinion lol.

Worshiping them together isn't bad, and they have been more than okay with my worship together. There are some days where my focus is more on one than the other. Because they all have different lessons that they have to offer, and realistically I can't keep having life lessons back to back lol. Worshiping them has been delightful and I appreciate them, some times their lessons are tough but I have come to understand that growth is hard as well. I started worshiping Ares and Aphrodite first, and maybe its because of their obvious history I've seen practitioners worship them together often. and together they have always worked together hand in hand in my growth. Aphrodite has always been gentle and patient in my growth and Ares has been encouraging and supportive. and is quite the opposite of what is often thought of him when it comes to him being a god of war. I started worshiping Apollo a little later and has always been (ironically) a ball of energy and sunshine, so sometimes he is straight forward and to the point but not without reason. And Honestly I checked in with Aphrodite and Ares first if they were okay with me worshiping with them. Overall, I suggest researching them and seeing how you feel. I encourage exploring anyone's worship and work with them. But again everyone is different. It could seem overwhelming to worship 3 deities as closely as I do, but once you learn how the flow of your worship works, it is not as hard. There will be some trial and errors along the way but its okay, we are human, we make mistakes and the gods understand.

[commiegoth]

Fun writeup on the goth subculture of the 1990s from FringeWare Review #6(66), published in 1995

Full text under cut

Subcultbabble 101: Magdalen on Things Gothic

So who ’zactly are these legendary Goth creatures? As with any subculture, it’s hard to pin ’em down. Let’s start with an image nearly all our dear readers will have seen at some point: kids with flowing black clothes, white faces, and lots of black eyeliner. You have perhaps wondered WTF is up with them, and with people who try to look like vampyres, and pouty twentysomethings in black T-shirts who seem too pointedly haughty to be generic Gen-Xers, and gorgeous fetish babes who sorta look like they’re dressed for the grave rather than for the dungeon.

Writers like yers truly just fuck it all up when they try to explicate subcultures, but somebody’s gotta do it. My own experiences have brought me in contact with the so-called goth scene intermittently over the last decade, though I should warn you that mine is a fundamentally West Coast point of view. YMMV. Like many others who end up returning to goth clubs and music every few years, I seem to have a fixation with Death which finds itself soothed and fulfilled by Things Gothic. Despite my propensity for slovenly attire and no-bullshit communication, I’m also addicted to the sense of ritual and aesthetic which differentiate the goths from most other American cultures.

I Wear Black On The Outside… ’cos black is how i feel on the inside

The two most prominent subcultures I’ve run into are punk and the hippie trip. In them, participants usually adhere to a loose cluster of aesthetic parameters, but everyone involved pretends that exteriors mean little to them. (Let’s bypass the hypocrisy involved, when they like the rest of society typically wear certain signifiers to identify themselves with the group.) Hardcore punks and hippies don’ t necessarily bathe very often, or wear makeup. Punk and its bastardized commercial offspring, the media-titled Grunge movement, aspire to externalize their rejection of conventional society by substituting fucked up, comfortable clothing for the clean, rigid, and perky duds yer stuck-in-the-fifties parents always wanted you to wear. The aesthetic relies upon potentially-violent sloppiness (or a carefully-reconstructed pretense thereof) and the attitude that you honestly don’t give a fuck what people think of you. Mortified though many latter-day punks might be to think of it, a similar motivation lay behind the original hippie anti-aesthetic, where organic materials and shapes sought to externalize the flowing qualities of nature where Cold War man had instituted three-piece suits and all they represented. Pardon the irony, but both mohawks and stringy long hair try to signify the rejection of a shallow society intent on keeping up with the Joneses and little else.

The goths fled in the opposite direction: past conventional fashion, whose crime isn’t its rigidity but its sheer dullness and tendency to follow embarrassing trends, and onward to a hyperstylised self-presentation reminiscent of the Courts of centuries past. Goths are renowned for their vanity and apparent shallowness; I believe the goth aesthetic is actually quite honest, embracing the notion that externalizations such as clothing and gesture form an intricate interpersonal art form, a dance of communication. It’s refreshing compared to the equally intricate games played by those who present a studiedly “casual” facade, hoping their Gap shirts will help them blend in with the wallpaper. Practitioners of theatre understand very well the subconscious semiotic games being played in the guise of supposedly “normal”, casual conversation: how the body moves, what it is draped in, the choice of words, tone of voice or the flick of an eyelash can determine the outcome. In the theatre, these external elements are mastered to create ritual and entertainment.

Walk into a goth club, and you see this same cunning, playful manipulation of details taken from the stage and thrown into what might be a costume ball. Black is everywhere: hair, clothing, eyes, lips. Perfectly blood-crimson lips and hair extensions materialize next, along with deep purple dresses and tresses. Proper white collared shirts glow in the dim light, while the occasional off-white Victorian wedding-gown or ivory ’30s dress will float by as well. The goths, who go out of their way to be a sensual set, get off on the tactile beauty of their gear as much as its visual effect: velvets, satins, leathers, brocades, sheers, laces (though lace has fallen by the wayside since the ’80s) — anything lush and sumptuous. For a group of people rumoured to be exceptionally dictatorial in their tastes, they can be most creative and eclectic. Cheesy classic deathrock bits like torn fishnet sleeves, and Robert Smith hairdos straight out of the early ’80s, nuzzle up against the hippest new fetish gear. Goths manage to dig up gorgeous period pieces, mostly evocative of the ’20s or of Victorian fashion, and many can even wear the things properly, playing the appropriate body language to the hilt.

You should be able to kick around a few Byron quotes here and there, and recount Shelley's death with heartfelt accuracy (didn't he like die on a boat or something?)

As you nervously approach the crowded bar for a dollar-drink special, you’ll notice some other things. Makeup ranging from pale to deathly white on many faces, both male and female, accompanied by exotically-applied eyeliner and severe lipstick. Lots of curious if pretentious objects: fluttering fans, scarves, silver cigarette cases, lunchbox handbags, crucifixes, hats, and miles of silver jewelry. A man bending at the waist to kiss a woman's hand. Angelic, dour boys in long skirts and pointy boots. Expansive, melodramatic dancers flailing and swirling, refusing to acknowledge each other even when they collide. Impeccably-dressed, attractive women sitting all alone yet not being harassed. Frankly, you may find them all ridiculously snotty poseurs, what with their wannabe-regal airs and seemingly unbreakable attitudes. Stay long enough, though, and the drugs and alcohol will kick in thoroughly, revealing kids with fake IDs and eyeliner drooling drunkenly down their cheeks, stoned speedfreaks giggling, drunk speedfreaks dancing and fighting, bedraggled gentlemen hiking up their skirts to take down the lights. Though it may appear otherwise, people have dressed up and come out to have a good time, and to do so in the most decadent of ways.

If you asked them, the majority of these people would not admit to being goths. Most of those who would are the sort of irritating obsessives you find in any cultural group, like the self-proclaimed hippie that buys every new Dead shirt as soon as it hits the market or the poet who wears a beret and turtleneck. These are the folks who desperately needed an identity to cling to, a pre-existing aesthetic to buy and adopt rather than create; they’re invariably the people who uphold and propagate the codes and cliches of a subculture. So what’s the stereotypical goth of this sort like? Where hippies have hyper-friendliness and Luv, these goths have a comical level of snobbery, cattiness, and a calculated air of impenetrable mystery. Where punks often pretend to be less cultured and articulate than they are, yer local cliche-goth will likely present hirself as well-read and emotionally intellectual, with a vocabulary of words and gestures gleaned from faerie tales, Victorian literature, and heroic ballads. The correct political stance is apolitical, and while the proper drags change over the years and according to geography, speed’s the classic drug of choice. The face will be pale and powdered, the eyebrows painted in black points which shadow the inner eyelids in an immaculate line; the clothing will most definitely come in black.

As The Millennium Turns: the emergence of a NeoGoth scene

What’s interesting about this culture isn’t the surprisingly small group of people who wear full costuming and whiteface 24/7, but the way that its recent resurrection integrate a variety of musical and aesthetic tastes. Odd as it may sound, my theory is that the increased popularity of Things Gothic owes much to the Rave trend at the turn of the decade. As, that pushed repetitive techno music into regular discos and radio formats, people started delving into darker technology-driven music such techno-industrialists Skinny Puppy. Much to chagrin of oldschool industrial types, a new “industrial” movement started gaining momentum, showcasing Ministry’s industrial deathmetal crossover and the Top 40 success of Nine Inch Nails. The explosion of general indie and "alternative" music as a popular phenomenon helped out, too: all these newly-mainstreamed bands had common influences from the days when frat boys would beat you up for having a leather jacket and funny hair, instead of jumpin' into the pit with ya at a Dickies show (Dude!).

People new to these genres of music and the subcultures they spawned started digging up those influences and giving 'em a spin, and pretty soon there was a fresh crop o' youngsters gazing at Blixa's made-up face on old Einsturzende Neubauten videotapes, discovering Bauhaus for the first time, finding Al Jourgenson's cheesy '80s dance tunes, and praying that the entire 4AD catalogue might be released domestically on compact disc. Some small group of goth types had endured through the '80s in most large cities and hipster towns, and found their ranks swelling as the population at large gained exposure to music and fashion previously confined to the underground and to independent music labels. For several years now, the goth capital cities (London, New York, San Francisco) have boomed with golf clubs, local bands, and 'zines. The resounding success of House of Usher, the East (SF) Bay club the proved you really could rejuvenate this tired old scene enough to make serious money off it, owed much to its owners' creation of two separate dancefloors in a single club: one industrial, one gothic.

But wait, there’s more! In addition to marrying the black-leather-wearing New Industrial scene to the extant retro-gothic scene, the neo-goth resurgence has cross-pollinated nicely with the fetish scene, the cyberpunks (yes, I hate that word as much as you do) the exponential growth of the Internet, the underground comic and ’zine network, and a rising interest in the arts of self-decoration (piercing, tattoos, etc.). As always, other marginal groups with proclivities for theatricality — SCA members, RPG fanatics, | drama geeks, Renaissance Faire guildmembers, wiccans, and the terminally suicidal — are still attracted to the goth set. It all makes for quite the tasty brew once it has fermented long enough.

Weeping, Wailing, and the Gnashing of Teeth

Music acts as the cornerstone of most popcults, and can’t possibly be treated thoroughly in this space. If you’re into the idea, get ahold of the fanzines listed under SOURCES. Suffice to say the music wafting out of gothish clubs ranges from historical deathrock (Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division) to second-wave gothic (Fields of the Nephilim, Christian Death, Sisters of Mercy) to new indie-goth hybrids. Some of the most distinctive music associated with Things Gothic can only be described as mood music, whether it’s ethereal, ominous, or sparse. Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins have popularized the ethereal sound, usually featuring lush arrangements, swooning female vocals, and often incorporating elements of Irish folk, medieval, classical, and middle eastern music. From the cruncher sounds of My Bloody Valentine and lovesliescrushing, and the symphonic chaos of Cranes or the recent Miranda Sex Garden releases, a whole new generation of post-ethereal bands continues to evolve.

Ominous mood music ranges from the Wagneresque horror of In Slaughter Natives to the soundscapes of Caul; again, subcultural crossbreeding has birthed a wide range of techno-industrial-cybergothic soundtracks. On the sparse end of the scale, the Death In June/Current 93/Sol Invictus formula combines morbid lyrics, hypnotic acoustic guitars, and experimental sounds: for a heightened experience, be sure to keep razorblades poised at your wrists while listening. And you’re bound to find old farts who still keep some guilty pleasures around — ’80s English popsters like early Cure, Smiths, and Tears for Fears, the deathpunk of 45 Grave and pre-glam TSOL, or the moody disco of New Order and Tones On Tail.

Face it, kids, you live in a society whose obsession with Death is matched only by its insistence that one continually maintain a mask of cheerfulness or neutrality. Colonial-style religion, which used to provide a ritual release for feelings of fear and deah has largely been exposed as a patriarchal scam. You will watch Cops, you will run to see Natural Born Killers, but you will still toddle into work and smile after your best friend commits suicide. The hippies tried to make you too uniformly joyful and mellow; your foray into punk let out some anger but did nothing for the lingering melancholia. The poets gave you deep verbiage but they didn’t know how to dress, and the sullen slackers sneered at anything remotely dramatic. And while the Protestant preacher gave you lots of Death, and Mass gave you ritual satisfaction to breathe in like incense, they expected you to believe in GM, fer Chrissakes!

I can’t stomach being around it too much, but sometimes it’s a relief to sip Chartreuse with an entire room full of people who’ve given up and welcomed death. A good goth club or party feels like a Christian funeral smashing into a raucous wake: some are there to mourn, others to celebrate the dead with wine, song, and incoherent rambling. No one is going to stare at the scars on your wrists in such an environment, nor try to stop you from driving 120mph on the bridge after you’ve snorted up a quarter and chased it with a litre of bad red wine. No one’s gonna care whether your sour, aching mood arises out of severe pain or out of the need to make an impression. Nor does it matter whether you've actually punctured human flesh with those ridiculous fangs you had custom-made.

The house, club, or cemetery you’re partying in is likely decked out in Things Gothic. Among all the dead flowers, skulls, and candles, who’s gonna look askance at the crucifix around your neck? The props of Death attract people for different reasons. Some have a heartfelt reaction to religious iconography, often rooted in childhood experiences with the church; others are attracted to the mystery of the post-corporeal life represented in objects which evoke thoughts of mortality. Some just want a solid talisman to grasp while they mourn life itself, while many are drawn to the classical aesthetic often employed in rendering icons. And there will always be those who don’t really care to think about art, Death, or afterlives, but who want to look cool. Regardless of the motive, people who want to play with the props of Death aren’t given much of an opportunity to do so in conventional society.

Except in religious subcultures, of course. Is the goth scene religious? While a fair percentage of its members are ex-Christians or current pagans, goth has nothing to do with religion. The closest thing to a Deity it offers would have to be Peter Murphy or Andrew Eldritch — mere mortals who happen to be the subject of much fawning, rather like Elvis. Laughing at the corniness of Deathprops and quasi-religious elements is probably more common than revering them. Goth appropriates from religion, using its imagery in decadent stylization. It has no interest in either approximating religion or fostering it.

Deadly, theatrical, and a bit over-the-top, Things Gothic definitely hold a selective appeal. I for one will be thoroughly amazed if the goth subculture ever gets adopted by the mainstream, but then again in 8th grade I wouldn't have imagined punk ever crossing over. Times change, and if folks stop dismissing the goths as absurdly pretentious we just may see Rozz on the cover of Rolling Stone in a couple of years. Stranger things have happened.

[hiccupmistress]

Trying to Make Peace With Strange New Worlds’ Controversial New Episode

Warning: This post will contain major spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 2 episode 8, “Under the Cloak of War”, and will refer to the episode with the assumption that readers have already watched it.

 This week’s episode of SNW has already proved very divisive. Some people are calling it the best episode yet, others are calling it the worst. It tackles a difficult subject and doesn’t pull its punches. I’ve seen people crying “character assassination”, and others suggesting that its “character development”. And in all honesty, both parties are right. We’re used to seeing main characters in Trek be virtuous paragons, especially medical practitioner characters, and we’ve had fifty-five years to build up our own headcanons and ideals about Dr. M’Benga. But at the same time, in terms of actual canon content, M’Benga got nothing substantial in his Original Series episode and only one aspect of his character was focused on in season 1 of Strange New Worlds; you can’t contradict a character that hasn’t been developed yet. And I’m saying this as someone who was on the “character assassination” side when I first watched the episode!

It reminds me of M*A*S*H, and bear with me, because its probably not for the reasons you’re thinking, although this episode of SNW has a lot of scenes set in a popup medical camp in a warzone, that’s not it; there’s a specific episode of M*A*S*H its reminding me of. For the uninitiated, M*A*S*H was a show that ran from 1972-1983, following up from a movie in 1970. Set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, M*A*S*H started out as a sitcom. As the years passed though, it became a lot more sombre, dealing with heavier subjects, even though it never fully lost its comedic origins.

In season 7, there’s an episode (“Preventative Medicine”), where the hospital is flooded with tons of new patients, apparently a Colonel by the name of Lacy has been getting reckless and wilfully endangering his troops. Lacy even drops by the 4077 MASH unit to give his men purple hearts and hollow platitudes, neither of which his men want from him. The worst part is that Lacy isn’t even done. Once his men are recovered, he plans on sending them on a mission with a projected casualty rate of 30%, equating to one-hundred soldiers. And all for a hill with no strategic importance other than bragging rights. Nobody in the 4077 likes Lacy, but our main character, Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce decides to take it into his own hands. With the help of his buddy Captain BeeJay Hunnicut, he spikes Lacy’s drink to trick him into thinking he needs his appendix out, with the intention of actually removing his appendix so that he’d be unable to send his troops on that suicidal hill mission; he’d pulled a similar trick back in a season 3 episode (“White Gold”) with Hunnicut’s predecessor, Captain “Trapper” McIntyre. This time though, Trapper’s long gone, and Hunnicut’s having none of it. He lambasts Pierce, telling him:

“That man is crazy, but that doesn’t make this right. Some things are wrong and they’re always wrong.”

But Pierce can only see the troops he’ll be saving and goes ahead with deliberate malpractice anyway. Afterwards, wounded keep coming in. There’s a war on, after all. Colonel Lacy being out of the picture doesn’t stop the rest of the war.

The bottom line there is that Hawkeye did a very bad thing, and the episode doesn’t have any last-minute resolution or remedy for that. The audience are just left to contemplate that maybe the funny, charismatic Pierce isn’t the hero he makes himself out to be. And that’s kind of what “Under the Cloak of War” is doing for Strange New Worlds. Doctor M’Benga does a very bad thing, and the episode smartly ends on that note, leaving the audience to contemplate. The difference is, back in the M*A*S*H days, the landscape of TV was different - Continuity was rare. Whilst SNW isn’t as serialised as the other modern Star Trek shows, there’s still though-lines and ongoing stories for the main characters. Even if there were no immediate consequences at the end of this episode, that’s not to say M’Benga will never face consequences.

Its not a perfect episode. There’s certainly a number of things I’d do differently. And yes, that ending was absolutely a shock, one that makes us perceive one of the main characters differently, but that’s the point. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to agree with what M’Benga did – on the contrary, if you you’re disgusted at what M’Benga seemingly got away with, the episode did its job. That’s not to say you have to like or agree with Ambassador Rah either. Like with “Preventative Medicine”, “Under the Cloak of War” is (in my opinion,) very much about the risk that in our attempts to stop heinous people, we can allow ourselves to sink to their levels. Colonel Lacy and Ambassador Rah were both very nasty people in their own ways. But that doesn’t mean medical malpractice or murder are okay, and sometimes, on rare occasions, we need to see heroes become villains for a story to send its message.

I hated “Under the Cloak of War” when I first watched it on Thursday. I watched it again in preparation for writing this. I still don’t “like” the episode, but I can make peace with what I think it was trying to do, and I look forward to seeing how it shapes M’Benga’s character arc going forward.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By Jennifer Block

Published: Nov 7, 2023

In August, a Missouri law went into effect that limits gender treatment for minors to counseling. Such laws, which have passed in 22 states to date, can be particularly cruel. Minors already on puberty-suppressing drugs or cross-sex hormones are being effectively cut off. Trans adults on Medicaid who’ve been taking hormones for years may find their prescriptions are suddenly unaffordable. And often these laws are tied to overt acts of culture war — like a ban on drag shows in Tennessee.

This wave of legislation is unfortunate for another reason. A lot of fair-minded, thoughtful people may question whether hormones and surgery are appropriate for the growing number of young people who are distressed about their biological sex. But given all the campaigns in red states, many progressives are instead biting their tongues and trusting that doctors know what they’re doing.

The problem is that as more kids identify as transgender than ever before, it’s still worth asking whether “gender affirming care” is the right model for them. Despite the certainty advocates project that this is an open-and-shut case, it wasn’t long ago that this “affirming” approach for children was simply an idea — a hypothesis informed by experience, but an idea nonetheless. Yet in less than a decade, it became standard of care and is now practically gospel in the United States, even as other countries are redirecting services toward psychotherapy and social support.

A natural response on the left to bills restricting or even outlawing gender-related medical treatment is “keep your laws off my body.” As a vocal supporter of abortion access, I’m sympathetic. But it’s a mistake to conflate these two causes. Abortion is a thoroughly vetted, one-time procedure, and denying access to it reduces a woman to an incubator. That’s quite different from a relatively new hormonal protocol in children that can lead to major, irreversible, long-term impacts.

The practice of medicine doesn’t have perfect checks and balances, but it does have a history of proving itself wrong (for the latest episode, see: cold medicine). So when a new approach for children and adolescents involves powerful medications and surgeries, people aren’t necessarily misguided (or “anti-trans”) to voice concerns. Yet journalists, parents, researchers, and clinicians who have raised questions about the evidence have been ensnared in a conversation about identity and rights. Now it seems all we can hear are the loudest and most reactionary voices, echoing in statehouse rotundas.

Loaded terms

For as long as gender roles have existed, there have been people whose inner compass, even at an early age, felt unaligned with their bodies. What’s new today is the ability to medically address that mismatch in adolescence, before puberty has fully had its say.

And since about 2016, the number of young people receiving what are called “puberty blockers” — drugs that suppress the signal to the pituitary to release the hormones that transform tweens into sexually mature adults — has grown. An analysis by health technology company Komodo found that the number of kids between the ages of 6 and 17 in the United States who began suppressing puberty to treat gender-related distress rose every year between 2017 and 2021 and leveled off in 2022. Komodo counted more than 6,000 children in that category in that time span, although that number is likely an undercount because it only represents treatments covered by insurance. Massachusetts is among the top five states, generating 6 percent of claims.

At least 14,700 minors with a gender dysphoria diagnosis began taking prescription estrogen or testosterone from 2017 through 2021, according to Komodo’s analysis — especially testosterone, as female-born teens now outnumber males 3 to 1 in many clinics. And a recent study found that gender-related surgeries, such as breast removal, nearly tripled between 2016 and 2019, including among 12- to 18-year-olds.

Meanwhile, European countries, including those that pioneered early intervention for children with gender dysphoria, have generally limited gender-related surgery to adults.

“Puberty blockers,” “hormone therapy,” and “top surgery” fall under the umbrella of “gender-affirming care.” These are loaded terms, fraught with as much activism and obfuscation as “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” yet they were validated by medical sources like the 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) statement in support of the “gender affirmative care model.”

This document informs clinicians that “many medical interventions can be offered to youth who identify as transgender and gender diverse,” including drugs that suppress pubertal development, cross-sex hormones, and, “on a case-by-case basis,” surgeries. These kids, even before puberty, “know their gender as clearly and as consistently as their developmentally equivalent [cisgender] peers,” the statement says. An approach of “watchful waiting” to see how a young patient’s identity develops is “outdated” and “does not serve the child because critical support is withheld.”

The statement presented the affirmative approach as settled consensus based on evidence. However this past August the AAP — under pressure by several members — announced that it would commission an independent systematic review of the evidence. That’s typically the first step in developing what the National Academy of Medicine calls “trustworthy guidelines,” so that patients and providers can make decisions informed by a thorough, unbiased evaluation of the available research. But the AAP hadn’t done that before releasing its 2018 statement. The AAP did not respond to requests for comment other than to reaffirm its 2018 statement.

Existing systematic reviews have prompted Sweden, Finland, and England to restrict treatments for minors, because the evidence that they are likely to result in more benefit than harm is of low quality. But unlike US states that have taken legislative action, these countries are allowing hormonal treatment in select cases, and they are ensuring that researchers follow the recipients over time so the evidence base gets stronger.

The case for watchful waiting

Not only do red-state gender laws tend to lack the humanity and room for inquiry seen in Europe, I think they also distract progressives from fully absorbing what the people they’re marching with are actually chanting. The argument for early treatment is not just a medical one — it is a metaphysical one. It holds that gender identity is something that exists deep inside a person’s psyche and that this diagnosis, essentially, will be revealed to the clinician, even by young children. That is a radical interpretation of patient-centered care.

When I spoke with the AAP statement’s lead author, Jason Rafferty, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Providence, he reiterated that this model of care is fundamentally about “affirming and validating the child’s sense of identity from day one through to the end.” Its main principle is that when a patient says, “‘I’m X,’ we operate under the assumption that what they’re telling us is their truth, that the child’s sense of reality and feeling of who they are is the navigational beacon to sort of orient treatment around.”

Joshua Safer, director of the Mt. Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery and a coauthor of the Endocrine Society’s practice guideline — another influential document — told me, “I know that kids who are talking that way when they are 9 years old are overwhelmingly consistent in their thought processes,” and thus, giving such patients puberty blockers “would save them from surgery” down the road.

But when I spoke to the Dutch clinician and researcher Thomas Steensma — who joined the team that pioneered the early treatment model that migrated to the United States — he distanced himself and his colleagues’ practice from the current American iteration. In brief, he said, “That’s not our approach.”

In the Dutch clinics, he said, young patients undergo a “long, focused” process of assessment, and even social transition is not a given. “It’s not necessarily true that a child who feels gender dysphoria or incongruence will grow up with [those feelings],” he explained. “Our approach is to make developmentally informed decisions with the child, with the family,” and through counseling to explore what might help. “Identity is not the strongest force in providing medical treatment” because it becomes more fixed during puberty. “It’s common sense,” he said, that the brain matures with the body, and that one gains greater capacity to “reflect on your body and about your identity.”

In 2016 — while the AAP statement was being drafted and reviewed — Steensma coauthored a review of 10 studies of gender-incongruent and dysphoric youth. Among 317 kids, 85 percent resolved their identity distress “around or after” puberty. The review also found that most dysphoric kids turned out to be same-sex attracted, lending credence to the concern that enthusiastically affirming kids may mean “transing away the gay.” The article made clear that “there is currently no general consensus about the best approach to dealing with the (uncertain) future development of children with gender dysphoria,” even social transition. In its��2015 guidelines, the American Psychological Association also said there was no consensus.

Steensma’s article explains that, in the model of “watchful waiting” — what the AAP derided in its 2018 statement — children are neither discouraged from nonconforming behaviors nor counseled to accept their natal sex (denounced by critics as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, historically the term used to describe the widely condemned practice of trying to “convert” same-sex attracted adults). Rather, families are encouraged to allow their child to explore their feelings and given counseling “to bear the uncertainty of the child’s psychosexual outcome.” There’s an effort to “find a balance between an accepting and supportive attitude toward gender dysphoria while at the same time protecting the child against any negative reactions and remaining realistic about the chance that [dysphoric] feelings may desist in the future,” wrote the authors.

This is different from what has become the dominant approach in the United States, in which children’s sense of identity is supposed to be accepted as true and real by care providers and medically treated accordingly. Not affirming, by this interpretation, is tantamount to conversion therapy. But in the approach Steensma describes, children are in an unpredictable process of self discovery, and thus care providers must follow closely and exercise caution in treating. “We do think puberty suppression can be a good intervention for adolescents struggling with gender incongruence,” Steensma told me. But “you have to be very careful.” “We say, don’t make certain decisions where you close developmental pathways. Watch and see what happens with the identity.”

These competing approaches — one proactive, one restrained — could have been treated with equivalence by the AAP and other entities as they continued to evaluate the evidence. Instead, tens of thousands of pediatric providers, including the therapists charged with assessing prospective patients, were essentially told to trust their young patients in determining whether to recommend potentially life-altering treatment.

A risk-benefit calculation

In the mid-2000s, Boston Children’s Hospital became a satellite for the Dutch early treatment approach. Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, now retired, told me what motivated him to pitch this to his higher-ups was years of witnessing young adult trans patients struggling. Even with hormones and surgery they couldn’t easily pass as their felt gender, they had little support from family or society to express themselves, and many were fighting addiction, homelessness, and suicidality. Spack wanted to pilot a strategy of early detection, because it was at puberty when “they started to fall apart,” he told me recently. The idea was to catch these patients before “their bodies escaped from that neutral space of pre-puberty.”

Seeing the suffering of a population is often the impetus for a preventive treatment. Obstetricians began using electronic fetal monitors in the 1970s in the hopes of preventing cerebral palsy and stillbirths. Physicians began screening men for prostate antigen in the hopes of catching and curing deadly cancers. These were solid rationales, but what happened was an epidemic of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Strapping laboring patients to beeping machines initially succeeded in tripling the rate of Cesarean surgeries without any concomitant improvement in infant outcomes (and added harm to their mothers). PSA testing increased the rate of prostate surgeries without an overall survival benefit — and a not insignificant amount of resulting urinary and sexual dysfunction.

Spack told me that the evidence for early intervention was “the many, many years of nontreatment for transgender youth waiting until they were adults to do anything medically for them” and seeing where that led.

But what if he was only seeing a sliver of the population — the minority who continued to feel distress and seek treatment, rather than the bigger picture that included those who may have felt a mismatch in childhood and then realigned during puberty? Imagine only studying cases of emergency Cesareans and drawing policy conclusions based on those births rather than everyone who gave birth in a particular year. I ran that comparison by Gordon Guyatt, a research methodologist at McMaster University and one of the founders of evidence-based medicine. Earlier intervention is a “reasonable hypothesis,” he said, but if the population you’re observing is “a subpopulation that is unrepresentative and you make inferences about the entire population, you’re in trouble.”

Spack said the suicidality among his trans patients, even kids under 12, “was so strong that I felt we had to do something.” And he saw many kids “flourish” with treatment. Research does suggest that LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for depression and suicide, but the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s own systematic evidence review makes clear that it can claim no definitive relationship between hormonal treatment and mental health outcomes, especially in adolescents, and that it’s “impossible” to say what impact hormonal treatment has on suicide. Long-awaited research funded by the National Institutes of Health — Spack was one of the original lead investigators — recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported some improvements among 315 youth receiving treatment in university-based gender clinics, but there were also two suicides. “Sometimes you have to bite the bullet, and go with more than a hunch” based on “smaller numbers and not being able to answer all the questions at once,” said Spack.

By 2011, the Dutch had published on the outcomes of a cohort of 70, which seemed reassuring, though the findings had limitations and haven’t been replicated elsewhere. Steensma told me he and his colleagues have never thought of their work as “scientific proof” that their model would work everywhere. “We always have said, ‘This is what we can provide from evidence, but you have to do your own studies.’”

In a new analysis of the mental health outcomes of the first 44 recipients of gender-related puberty suppression at the UK’s Tavistock clinic, roughly a third got better, a third got worse, and a third did neither. The National Health Service has ordered the Tavistock clinic to close after a review found the care “inadequate.”

Like the Dutch, the Boston clinic didn’t take kids at their word without psychological assessment. In fact, the staff used tools the Dutch had designed. Laura Edwards-Leeper, the clinic’s original psychologist, told me that extensive, exploratory talk therapy was historically part of the model. But lately she’s been outspoken about her concerns that “more providers do not value the mental health component, largely because they believe if the young person says they’re trans, they’re trans,” she told me.

The dramatic rise in young people presenting for treatment, especially genetically female teens, and the number of clinics that have sprung up with little to no emphasis on assessment, all make Spack “anxious.” “I run into so many people who tell me they have a child or grandchild or niece who’s trans. And I always say, ‘Well, who made that determination and when?’”

The logic of affirmation

I’ve spent the last year reporting on pediatric gender medicine and policy for The BMJ, one of the oldest medical journals. Like other journalists in this space, I’ve been accused of transphobia, hate, bias, and worse. Some of the rhetoric is extremely hostile, but the underlying logic is apparent: If people need medical treatment to exist in their identity, and kids know who they are, then anything that might impede access is an existential threat. Politicians who simultaneously target pride parades and library books and “groomers” only reinforce that terror and turn up the political heat. That’s even more reason for journalists to keep cooler heads and stay true to our duty: to hold authorities to account.

The most important question is one that the Europeans and Americans seem to be answering differently: What if it’s possible that there are kids who identify as trans who indeed know who they are at very early ages — younger versions of the adult patients who haunted Spack — and there are also kids who identify as trans for a finite period of time? And what if there’s no sure way to tell them apart?

Before he stopped returning my calls and emails, Rafferty acknowledged that children are in a “process of discovery” and may understand themselves one way at the onset of puberty and another way five years later, but that uncertainty shouldn’t preclude medical treatment. “It needs to be an ongoing, flexible, dynamic approach that we understand from the beginning may change over time, and so we need to bring in interventions when they seem their most appropriate from our medical perspective,” he told me. “If we’re wrong, then we need to back up and say, ‘What do we need to do differently?’”

And what if a kid has taken hormones that caused permanent hair growth or vocal changes or damaged their sexual function and came to regret these effects? In a recent Zoom meeting — footage of which has been shared on social media — Marci Bowers, a California gender surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, shared a startling observation: Adult patients who transitioned from male to female couldn’t have orgasms if they had been “blocked” at the earliest signs of puberty and went directly on to estrogen. Bowers told me she was sharing a hypothesis, but that it was “a wake-up call for those who counsel this group of patients.” Safer told me “there’s some discussion about adjusting the timing of some of these treatments” to achieve more optimal function. “If you come to our meetings, that’s what we’re discussing. Nobody is worried about puberty blockers for a year or two.”

Yet data suggest that more than 95 percent of the children who begin puberty blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones. “The most difficult question,” the UK pediatrician Hilary Cass wrote in her interim report of a national review of gender health services, which led to the order to close the Tavistock clinic, “is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway . . . by impeding the usual process of sexual orientation and gender identity development.” In 2020, following a systematic review, the UK’s National Health Service removed language that called the blockers “fully reversible” and replaced it with “little is known about the long-term side effects.”

There is an unknown number of people whose identity shifted and feel they’ve been irreparably harmed by medically transitioning. Corinna Cohn, who was born male, began hormones at 16 and had genital surgery at 19. Now, at age 48, Cohn testifies in support of laws restricting treatments in minors. “The thing that I’m most convinced of right now is that the longer somebody puts off medicalization, the more opportunities they’ll have to really clarify in their mind whether transition is actually good for them,” said Cohn, for whom “transition was a way out of having to deal with puberty. But I’m sort of stuck in a state of arrested development, because I never completed the adjustment to my body as it was becoming an adult body.”

Bowers pointed out that “you can always find someone who is going to regret” and warned me not to “single out transgender care” when one in five people regret their knee surgery, for example. “People have to take some responsibility in making those decisions,” she said.

But how can young people and their families make informed decisions without strong evidence it will make them better? How can children who’ve never experienced sexual intimacy consent to treatment that may limit their ability to have it in the future?

Edwards-Leeper believes some children do benefit from early treatment. “But to the general question of how can a young kid consent to something like this, it is a huge ethical dilemma . . . because honestly, they can’t,” she told me. “The responsibility falls on the parent.”

Rafferty told me patients who live with harms or regrets do not signal a failure of the affirmative care model. If a child or patient doesn’t like the effects of an intervention, or begins to feel different in their identity, then the provider continues to affirm by discontinuing treatment. “They’re not treatment failures if that’s what’s affirming,” he said.

In other words, the logic of affirmation seems to ensure only successful outcomes, circumventing questions of risk and benefit entirely. If parents and providers find this untenable, they are rejecting an argument — not trans people.

[ Via: https://archive.md/guho4 ]

==

There are no grown-ups in charge. Children are self-diagnosing and self-treating.

[rogloptimist]

book recs for aapi heritage month 🕺🕺

a bit late, but happy aapi heritage month! i’ve been getting back into reading this past year after my pandemic slump, so here’s some books that i really enjoyed by aapi authors 

the poppy war trilogy by rf kuang - this series is a fantasy based on 19th-20th century china. it’s hilariously written with some of my favorite characters of all time, and deals with some really heavy topics like colonialism, the effects of warfare, and classism in a brutally honest fashion. i have so much to say about it but that’s for a much longer post-

babel: an arcane history by rf kuang - at this point i will read this woman’s grocery list, she is such a skilled writer and genius storyteller. babel is set in an alternate 1800s oxford university, in a world which the british empire’s power is built upon magic silver. babel unpacks the intrinsic ties between academia and empire from the perspective of someone on the inside and the concept of resistance. it also really hits home to the feeling of disconnect from your native language as a bilingual/third culture kid- overall just brilliant book imo. the magic system is also really interesting (as is that of rf kuang’s other work)- she builds upon the real world to create a fantasy that is engaging, but also very representative of the motifs of her work?? idk how to explain it but 🙏rebecca🙏

you’re the only one i’ve told: the stories behind abortion by meera shah - you’re the only one i’ve told is a collection of stories about abortion entrusted to shah, a medical practitioner who works as an abortion provider. the book humanizes these people and their experiences from a variety of different backgrounds and circumstances, and is a really compelling read. 

we have always been here: a queer muslim memoir by samra habib - we have always been here is a memoir about  habib’s experience growing up as an ahmadi muslim in pakistan, coming to canada as refugees in their teenage years, and grappling with queer identity within an environment where their body and personhood was thought to have been needed to be controlled. habib discusses faith, sexuality, and love through a lens of self discovery and finding community that you didn’t know existed. 

the henna wars by adiba jaigirdar - this book is set in dublin, and follows a young bangladeshi girl named nishat. nishat has fallen for an estranged childhood friend, flávia, who just so happens to be her rival in an upcoming school business competition. and by some luck, they both have chosen to create the same business; henna tattoos. i’m a sucker for fluff so this book got me, but it also deals with appropriation and queer romance (particularly from a 3rd culture experience) quite delicately. nishat’s relationship with her sister was also so well written, and i think was one of the most compelling bonds in this book!

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar - okay i’m still in the process of finishing this book, but it has been so good so far! this is a story about two rival agents moving through a war that stretches across time, fighting tooth and nail for their own victory in a vaguely apocalyptic world. they begin a correspondence that spills into something that could change the course of time extremely literally. the writing style and descriptions are gorgeous, and the fragmented format of letters jumping across thousands of years is a really interesting reading experience. very cool book!

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong - god this man is such a talent- everything good you’ve heard about his work is true and you should go read it rn. on earth we’re briefly gorgeous is written in the form of a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, and tells a story that crosses over 3 generations with it’s epicenter rooted in vietnam. the narrator unpacks how the effects of warfare, immigration and generational trauma have shaped his relationship with his mother and his own life. i’m not doing it justice (not for any of these rlly i cannot elevator pitch books), but vuong’s writing is so beautiful and intimate yet quiet? 💃💃🙏🫶👍🙏👌💃

that’s all i have for now, if you have any recs pls do tell!! to my fellow asian/pacific islander americans, your voices and stories deserve to be uplifted and celebrated without being fetishized, appropriated or pigeonholed. have a great may! 

[fizzigigsimmer]

The power of narrative empathy.

This is kind of a strange post about Billy, but I’m just gonna let it flow. I’m gonna start with this, I am a Billy Hargrove fan. I am a black, queer, female abuse survivor and I make no apologies about loving this character. Also, none of what I just said matters, I just think it’s important to note that we are out here. Even if I wasn’t those things I would still have the liberty and hopefuly the empathy to feel for his character. Today I want to talk about how Billy was written, why I think that’s dead wrong and damaging to those of us who survive abuse without a halo, and I am going to use another beloved fictional victim to do it. He also happens to be one of the world’s most iconic and well known villains. Yes I am going to talk about Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, and how his story is real. How it happened to me and it’s happening to someone else right now, and how I see evidence of the same societal failure shown in the films playing out in real time every damn day in the Stranger Things Fandom when it comes to Billy Hargrove. So here we go.

For a highly condensed slightly satirical recap: The genocidal tyrant formerly known as Darth Vader started out as Anakin Skywalker. A gifted child slave whose only living family was his mother. If the words child slave didn’t clue you in, let me just tell you that my ravenous consuming of any and all Star Wars companion novels confirmed that Anakin regularly suffered abuse and was put into life threatening danger by a greedy master because he was a protege pilot. As a result, Anakin learned from a pretty early age that how he used his gifts might literally be the difference between whether he and his mom survived. Fun shit like that.

Despite all, Anakin was a good person. Yeah he was a little rash and a little angry sometimes, but he was also kind, brave, and loyal and had all the makings of a great person - in other words he was an ordinary child who just happened to have a special power that gave his FEELINGS agency in the world.

Enter the Jedi Knights, literal space Knights, and fellow feelings practitioners. They’ve developed a truly insane way of dealing with the fact that their feelings are a literal force in the world, by forming a kind of religion around not allowing themselves to feel very much at all and keeping the peace. They’re the ultimate good guys whose reputation proceeds them and our enslaved child instantly looks up to and idolizes them as heroes. He’s willing to put his life in danger to help them even when there’s literally no gain in it for him and then they happily use him in order to get some parts they need to get off the planet. He’s 9 by the way.

But Anakin isn’t risking his life for nothing nothing. Jedi master Qui-Gon Jin has seen Anakin is a fellow feelings user and immediately thinks he’s the prophesied “Chosen One”, who is supposed to bring BALANCE TO THE FORCE THAT GUIDES THE UNIVERSE. Based on literally nothing nothing and possibly an immaculate conception. Anyway, he’s convinced. Even though he already has an apprentice/surrogate son, he immediately starts love bombing this slave child and filling his head with promises that he’s gonna be freed from his horrible life and trained to be this great Jedi - promises he has no idea whether he’ll be able to keep by the way. So Qui-Gon buys a child and calls it a rescue, and tells him he’s going to have to leave his mother in bondage and cut off all emotional ties to her. Like he can never see her again or even feel too strongly about never seeing her again because Jedi’s aren’t supposed to love. Love is too strong a feeling and it leads to all the other BAD FEELINGS. So the nine year old child slave is told to be brave and start acting like a Jedi already and stop with the whole being scared/guilty about leaving his mother thing.

The nine year-old child slave who has just been separated from his mother for life, does not do that. In a turn of events that should really shock no one, instead he immediately trauma imprints on the first girl who shows him empathy after he opens up about his EMOTIONAL PAIN. He then spends the next decade fixated on this girl and crying out for help because he can not just turn off his emotions. He is constantly criticized, demeaned, and treated like a pariah for not just being able to magically rise above his trauma or control his trauma responses, in order to become the white knight he’s supposed to be for the republic. Side note, when I say dude was erratic AF and crying out for help AF, I mean that. There are several Youtube Psychologists who have done reactions to this character and an interesting theme  throughout all of them is how Anakin displays all of the typical indicators for Bipolar Disorder and Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s interesting, and I’ve linked a favorite.

So back to this child slave who is either the victim of a three movie long mental health crisis or the Worst Writing Syndrome (I’ll take both for 300 Alex). Obi-Wan, Anakin’s big brother/father figure has no idea what the hell he is doing or how to help him, because he hasn’t processed his own trauma. Time for a side note about Obi-Wan’s former master Qui-Gon. He was an overly critical and emotionally unavailable teacher/father whose teaching style was essentially to give out tiny scraps of approval every now and again just so Obi-wan didn’t decide to swallow his light saber.

So there was Obi-wan, 25 years old, still out here trying to get daddy’s stamp of approval so that he can be a real man who has MASTERED HIS FEELINGS, but he’s being told he’s not ready and reminded of all of his short comings on the regular. It’s Tuesday in other words. But then dad finds this new kid and literally just stops caring about training Obi-wan. He tells Obi-wan it’s time he moved out and got a job with zero notice.

Qui-Gon announces to the Jedi Council that he wants Anakin as his apprentice. Which is super awkward because his actual apprentice is standing right there. When they point out that he’s already got one, he’s suddenly all ‘oh Obi-wan is ready to be a big boy now’. Obi-wan was rightly jealous, hurt, and low-key pissed off, but Jedi’s aren’t supposed to let FEELINGS get the better of them so he swallows sadness.

Qui-Gon might be a bit of a dick but he is still dad, so when he tragically dies right in Obi-wan’s arms and uses his very last breathes to beg him to train Anakin, this fresh as fuck Jedi-Knight suddenly becomes a father figure to a traumatized slave child. And the saddest thing is Obi-wan is a better man than Qui-Gon. He has every reason in the world to hate this little twerp, but he tries so hard to break the cycle and he be the father figure Anakin needs.

But the thing about breaking cycles is someone has to teach you how to do it. The Jedi Council is not out here encouraging Obi-Wan to be emotionally present and empathetic to Anakin’s unique struggles and challenges. And LOLS do he have them. In fact Obi-Wan is constantly in the council room defending Anakin against their prejudice for shit Anakin can’t control, and is often being criticized himself for being too soft with his apprentice. Like they would literally sit him down and essentially tell him to stop being an Anakin defender and apologist 😂.

So the end result was Obi-wan landed somewhere in the messy middle between the dad he promised himself he wouldn’t be and the one he wanted to be, and the child slave’s mental health continued to decline (surprise surprise) until he finally met a creepy groomer who manipulated him by VALIDATING HIS EMOTIONAL PAIN. Nobody intervened, although there was ample opportunities to do so. Anakin was literally as well as figuratively crying out for help the whole time. He didn’t get it. He was told to just stop being afraid. Just stop being angry. Just stop loving your mother and don’t think about what may or may have happened to her. Just stop and do the savior thing okay? JUST GET OVER YOUR FEELINGS ANAKIN.

And the rest is just tragic history.

I took the time to write all that because I have been in Anakin’s and Billy’s figurative shoes. I was abused more ways than I want to recount here, and I’ll just say it. It messed me the fuck up. I know what it’s like to cry for help, over and over again and never get it. I know what it’s like to be blamed for blowing the whistle the same day you’re blamed for behavior that stems from the rage of utter helplessness. I know what it’s like to break shit and hurt people who don’t deserve it because that’s what you know. And I know what it’s like to be told I have to break the cycle somehow, even though you wouldn’t know the first place to begin even if you were in a place safe enough to start.

I aged out of my abuse. Nobody rescued me. The systems failed me. I simply got old enough to move away from my abusers and then after considerable self harming behavior I got lucky and broke good. I reached my lowest low and realized I did want to live and that I had to fix my shit in order to do that. I started going to therapy and working to build the life I wanted. And in case this isn’t clear enough I will spell it out. The world did not look at me, an abuse survivor and empathize. There was not a reliable support system, no heroes in capes. I’m here, stable, loved and in a good place because I survived long enough to buy the help I needed. That’s it. It’s fucking tragic and as a society we have a lot to be ashamed for. We fail.

I empathize with Billy Hargrove because his story is my story. Right down to societies response, and the way his writers decided to condemn him from conception.

As terrible a writer as George Lucas may be that is the one thing he did not do. He could have condemned the character of Darth Vader with his narrative, but instead he wrote what is essentially a redemptive six part epic about an abuse survivor that the ENTIRE GALAXY FAILED. Anakin’s story is a text book case for why it is fucking awful to look at an abuse survivor and put the burden of healing on them. Like they’re just supposed to be organically “resilient” to the shit that you claim you wouldn’t even know how to survive, in order to be some virtuous example to others about how to “stay good”. 

People expect that of characters like Billy Hargrove because that’s what people expect of real victims too. You’re only worthy of empathy if you somehow survive the unsurvivable mentally and emotionally intact. That’s how the Duffer brothers related to Billy’s trauma. In their own words, he’s not written as what he is (an abused child) he’s a villain whom they wanted to look like a real boy so they gave him trauma. He’s written to be judged, hated for his inability to just magically STOP, and then die so that the story can plod forward.

And just in case you don’t yet see why that matters, just stop and think about how people are more accepting of the character who literally decimated planets and slaughtered children, than the teen who was abused and then possessed. Anakin is allowed to have fans who empathize with his struggles, who dream of the better life he might have had. Anakin’s sacrificial death is allowed to be the redemptive moment that it was, and he’s literally allowed to shed the name of Darth Vader and be remembered as the friend and brother that Obi-wan loved within his own narrative. Because he’s written with empathy.

And society responds to that empathy. I have never, not once, been shamed, ridiculed, or called a child murder apologists (or what the fuck ever) for loving his character.

Billy isn’t real, but the people who empathize with and see themselves in his character are real. Nobody’s required to like him, love him, or even want to think about him for that matter but this drive some people have to blanket judge other fans and start calling people weirdos and monsters for feeling anything for him that isn’t disgust - that’s what can stop. You can literally just stop. Back away from the keyboard and take a deep breath. Agree to disagree. Feel how you feel. But don’t go fucking far out of your way to tear strangers down over the internet.There’s no justification in the world for it. I promise.

[littleragondin]

SHIPPER TAG GAME

I was tagged by @lurkingshan, thank you very much (´꒳`)♡ My memory is not the best so some of these are going to be a little challenging lol but let’s try!

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

I don’t know how to “not care” about things I once loved I’m afraid lol. But ships that consumed my life that I now don’t think about very often and am more “what a good surprise to see you here, I still like you" than "oh you are back to consume my life for the next two to fifteen months" are most of the things I watched when I was younger: Logan/Max from Dark Angel, Sam/Jack and Daniel/Jack from Stargate:SG1, Jim/Blair from The Sentinel, Piper/Leo from Charmed, Tim/Tony and Gibbs/Tony from NCIS, etc...

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Hmmm… I think the first time I felt emotionally invested in two characters ending up together – in a “watching religiously and asking my mom to tape the wedding episode because we would be traveling on the day it was to be diffused” kind of way – is Fran Fine and Maxwell Sheffield from The Nanny.

We knew they were end game, but STILL!

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Oh, good question… I came into fandom via manga and while they were not the ones I shipped the hardest (I was a hardcore Gaara/Lee fan ♡♡♡), I think the first fics I read were NaruSasu and/or Kakashi/Iruka – on personal fan websites.

The first shipping fic I wrote hmmm… I think it actually was some Kakashi/Iruka? I tumbled into fandom really fast once I found it so it’s a bit of a blur lol but yeah, pretty sure it was something Naruto related.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

… Not really, but probably either something from One Piece (Zorro/Luffy or Zorro/Sanji) or Neon Genesis Evangelion – those two were the very first manga I read (circa 2002), and I vaguely remember checking them on Google Image for my favorite hobby: “collecting images from the internet that I would then organize carefully in the computer’s little folders” so I must have found some cute stuffs that I didn’t even realize were shipping…

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

No. While I generally have strong opinions about stuff, I am pretty non confrontational and I’m here for a good time, not to fight with people, so I avoid it. I’ve seen stuffs that I’m glad I didn’t poke with a ten feet pole. On top of that, I am a huge believer and practitioner of “shipping one character with more than one person (in a polycule or not)” so ship wars have never made much sense to me. Even in qL, even when I really adore the endgame couple(s), I often like thinking of the options, the what-if, etc. so fighting about that does not sound appealing lol

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Talking about my very first fandoms, I never wanted Sakura with either Naruto nor Sasuke lol I loved her, but hated the idea of either options. Still not sold on it tbh. I also really hated the idea of Hermione with either of the other two lsdfj same reason, I loved her so much, and I loved that they were friends!

I have ships I am uninterested in but I always feel like notp is a little stronger than that, so I don’t think I have any currently.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

Oof, okay, life does come back full circle lol I binged the One Piece Live Action at the start of the month, so the last fics I’ve read since were all Zorro/Luffy.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

DO I EVER?? I have OTP that have been in my heart since I’m 10. And, I mean, by virtue of watching so much QL I have an OTP in every couple I watch get together for 8 to 12 episodes, I’m a big, mushy romantic. Also I will daydream about ships from about anything I watch so…But! My current OTP, the one that owns my heart, that gets me to literally squeal in delight, makes me gasp and cry and twirl my hair while kicking my feet is Nomoto and Kasuga from She loves to cook and she loves to eat!

I love them sooooo much it’d be ridiculous if I had any sort of dignity about that kind of things (I don’t) (*´▽`*)

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Ok you know what? I rewatched some episodes with my mom over my christmas break so I will say yes, Jack O’Neil and Samantha Carter in Stargate:SG1. Yeah, yeah I don’t care that he is her commanding officer and blablabla.

After all this teasing, damn, we could have gotten a little something something when the team finally breaks alright?

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

I can’t really think of anything right now to be honest… I feel like anything I’d feel strongly enough to remember I would still dislike now, though, to be frank.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be canceled over?

I guess? I mean, I came to fandom and to QL via yaoi – wich I started reading around 2005, so you can imagine the amount of “problematic” content I enjoyed. Age gaps (I was a HUGE fan of Naono Bohra who like those a lot), power imbalance, dub-con (one of the first yaoi translated in France was Gravitation), and so on and so forth.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

I can’t answer that one, mainly because I used to have so many of them (I still do, don’t look at me). I got into superheros comics when I was something like 18 and I did RP with a friend where looking back, it seems like our main game was to pair everyone no matter how silly it might have been. I guess in those, I still have a fondness for everything we did that crossed the DC/Marvel divide. We also played a lot with those random ship generators? They gave you two characters and you tried to find a way to make it work. I still like those!

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

Across all of time?? I… have no idea… like really none. Recently, it’s probably any variations of 3zuns from The Untamed, but for the early years I could not say.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

The love I have for them (*¯︶¯*)

Joke aside, I’m not sure? I’m a simple creature, I’m easily swayed, if there is something compelling in the dynamic, I will be interested. I like them sweet but I also have pretty toxic ships, so I think the main thing for me is that there is something interesting going on that makes me want to root for them and/or think about them and how they work together.

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

I need to believe there is a way for them to genuinely love each other. But sometimes, ~the vibes~ just feel rancid to me and I can’t get into it, I can’t explain more than that ^^”

I'll tag, if you feel so inclined: @benkaaoi @troubled-mind @bengiyo @gillianthecat @iguessitsjustme and @heretherebedork

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 8.a

She reached into her pocket and threw out some more tiny candies into the bushes.  Plants summarily died in the ensuing fracas, caught between goblins who were fighting over one cent, strawberry-flavored granny candies.

goblin magic seems very cost effective

“And ‘Meri’s one of the coolest people you’ll ever meet, so hop on board, don’t cross her, it’ll be great!” “And if Libs or me are up to something, follow our lead!”

Meri is a good nickname. Libs, not so much.

“A kind word?” The scowl became something more closed, face scrunching up, mouth closing for the first time. Looking away, he muttered, “‘sed I was big and strong.” “What I said just now? Was that the most recent, or was it the first and only time? Really? Buddy…”

awww

At her urging, he laid out flat, until he was draped out across her belly, her arms around him. She held him there with one hand and pet him with the other.

weirdly cute!

and guys are gross and guys dads are grosser and you’d think the girls and women would get it and they don’t.  Humans suck.

she should talk to Verona

One human being besides family who was willing to ask me who and what I wanted to be and who cared?  Who was willing to work with that? 

this is a rare positive opinion of Alexander. For all that he was self-interested and sometimes awful, he was also willing to put in time and effort for people who seemed useful. And seems like he was willing to look past standard practitioner biases

“I’m pissed and I don’t know why!  I’m a little freaked I’m as bothered as I am!  I liked him and I might have loved him a bit and that’s really fucking lame that I might’ve loved some old hot guy because he listened to me and was nice to me sometimes and shit!”

pretty self-aware, huh

the closest things I’ve got to having anyone to blame are three kids

... so about that.

Flops, though, just lay there, having finally relaxed enough that he’d kind of melted a bit around the edges, muscles untensing. Trusting her.

aww.

Their entire world had turned upside-down, she hadn’t known if she’d ever get a clear answer about America, and those three that America was so pissed at had sorta helped.

division in the ranks, could be useful for the Kennet Trio. That's the kind of thing they used Alpeana to go after during the coup

But they’d made a deal early on.  To not let their sisterhood slip away, like so many sisters did. No other choice, thanks to a years-old oath.

goddamn practitioner childhood oaths. This would be sweet! And it's clear they care about each other, and it is meaningful that they wanted to make sure not to drift apart. But that oath means that they no longer have a choice about it. I can see that becoming resentment down the line if they want to pursue different lives.

“They’re trying to make nice. Estrella introduced them to Silas, and Silas and his guys have influence,”

good to see they're building that connection

“Transformation: war bikini!” America shouted, hurling a pellet at the ground. Smoke exploded all around her, and in the trees, a goblin hurried to get out a scrapbook-style booklet and flip through pages, squeaking out orders as goblins hurried forward, pulling off outer layers to reveal the swimsuit ‘Meri was wearing underneath, or putting on other accessories, like spike-studded straps and belts. They squabbled here and there as they got entangled.

goblin-powered magical girl transformation is hilarious

Through the girl she was fighting, a deep-set tiredness, close to the heart, running through the core of her, crown to root.

aww Avery. This has not been a restful summer

The cracked rusted fork, abandoned, did one full rotation, then cracked further. Like an egg, it popped open. A tiny red goblin lunged at Avery, “Boo!”

oh. I had wondered, back in the packing lists, what was up with this rusted fork of Snowdrop's. And all along it was a goblin... I'm going to guess Cherrypop. Staying in weapon form all this time because she's not the smartest or strongest, and there was never a good time to be useful. All along, she's been here supporting Snowdrop. Because they are friends.

Liberty smiled, seeing how happy the little one was.

Very glad that Liberty is letting them go. Between this and her treatment of Flops earlier, it seems like she has a soft spot for the little goblins, which is unexpected but sweet. It's nice to see someone who genuinely likes goblins and wants to support them, as opposed to just tolerating and using them.

When they’d sworn to stay close, to be good sisters, they’d also promised each other they’d play along and go along.  The idea had been that they’d be cool to their kids and any students in ways their teachers hadn’t. But it went for goblins too.

oh interesting. That seems like a terrible promise to make, way too vague and potentially disastrous. Oddly, it's reminding me of Faerie? And how they can be manipulated with a good narrative.

But putting practicalities aside, I really like this as a worldview. It seems like, especially as goblin practitioners, the sisters got shut down a lot, and they don't want to bring that forward. I remember being a bit worried by how their father was characterized when mentioned, and this feels to me like the sisters making a commitment to be better than the previous generation.

I think that's been something touched upon through this story: how incredibly fucked up the world of Pale is, particularly practitioner society, and the children of that world trying to build something better.

The Blue Heron Institute was a first approach towards that, moving from insular apprenticeships to more open learning, but it was also a power source for personal advancement of Alexander and Bristow. But in these past arcs we've seen the students start to reject that, and rededicate the school for learning rather than power games. I'm also thinking about Zed, pulling his friends together to offer help, and Nicolette, taking Seth in because forswearing isn't a weapon people should use on each other anymore

If this was the best this little mouse-sized goblin could manage… Liberty would respect the shit out of it.

:)

Avery was standing now, hand at her stomach, where it had been scraped up, a dozen red lines of varying thickness and a bit of ripped up skin extending from pelvis to ribs.  She winced. “It’s okay, getting used to it,” Avery said. “Thanks for not going as far as you could have.”

not thrilled by Avery getting used to this

America getting kidnapped by Bristow had been scary for Liberty in the exact same way that Liberty saying no now was scary to America.

So I can see how that would feel the same: the one person you can trust absolutely to have your back isn't there doing that anymore. But these situations are not the same! You are allowed to make your own decisions, not just follow your sister! I hope after this they talk things over.

“I know stuff,” Flops said, voice deep but small. “Stuff. About the hot dead guy. A goblin saw."

shit.

... I'm hoping Liberty won't tell America what she learns, or will deliberately not ask for the information, but all the same that would do a number on their sisterhood.

“America doesn’t need to hear that.  It makes her angrier for longer.  It’s going to get out sooner or later, because that kind of thing always does.  Has to.  But not now.  Not while it’s all raw and she’s already bloodthirsty enough.”

so a middle ground. Hopefully America wouldn't be inclined to chase the girls back in Kennet after she's had time to process

Also, very lucky for the Kennet Trio that Liberty is suppressing this, because while goblins are not most people's favorite information source, they may be questioned sooner or later.

[disastardly]

characters out of context game

Rules:

Include one character quote — of your choosing ⁠— from each chapter of your WIP (or as many chapters as you'd like)

Give absolutely no context, save for what's between two parts of an interrupted sentence, should that occur. You may mention who said it.

Have fun, no pressure!

@eriquin​ tagged me, thank you!!

Gonna do Emergence just because that’s the only WIP I’ve got right now with more than one chapter remotely written, haha. Buckle up, it’s a long’n, so it’s going under the break.

Chapter 1:

The apprentice added, voice squeaking, “What does this mean?”

Chapter 2:

“It’s all the magic,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Totally interrupts typical radio waves.”

Chapter 3:

“Good luck with your war.”

Chapter 4:

“Can you hear them too? The trees?”

Chapter 5: 

“So what are you gonna do now, knowing what’s out there?”

Chapter 6:

“So I guess you see us in that future, huh?”

Chapter 7:

“Nick, jesus, did you forget how keys work?”

Chapter 8:

“No comments on my skanking, got enough of that in middle school.”

Chapter 9:

"Listen, I'm not saying plants aren't great. Love the stuff. Can't get enough. But isn't botany kind of, you know… slow?"

Chapter 10:

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It all just happened so fast and I was worried what people would think.”

Chapter 11:

“No, but Xander and I had a great talk. Really aired out how I’m not wanted here.”

Chapter 12:

“They’re dating, ya ding-dong.”

Chapter 13:

“Do you even know how to drive one of these things?”

Chapter 14:

“Still can’t believe you, Madison Rocca, conned me. No one cons me. Was all that before, was that a ploy? Lull me into a false sense of security?”

Chapter 15:

“Gotopromwithme.”

Chapter 16:

“How many ‘maybe a dingo ate your baby’ jokes did you get?”

Chapter 17:

“Oh cool, it’s dirt, just like all the other dirt.”

Chapter 18:

“And yet, against all odds, you have survived, when the Darkness kills most it touches. It is a truly remarkable feat for anyone, let alone a new practitioner.”

Chapter 19:

“Toby thinks we’re getting ice cream from that fancy truck round the corner.”

Chapter 20:

"Is it still leering if we're all naked?"

Chapter 21:

“Okay, so, dark magic.”

Chapter 22:

"Hey, I think if you hit them in that big Z on their chest, they explode!"

Chapter 23:

“Hey Xan? Good catch on this one. Having a heads-up isn’t a luxury we’re gonna get often.”

Chapter 24:

“I’m gonna find that monster and I’m gonna tear it to pieces with my own hands,”

Chapter 25:

“You flaunt your power and yet it slips through your fingers so easily,”

Chapter 26:

"Very little goes on in Root Core that I do not know about. And," she added, leveling a wily smirk at them, "I too was young once. You would not believe some of the tomfoolery we engaged in at your age."

Chapter 27:

“Filled with life, joy, and power, we now declare our wills for the next year. Jump the coals, pass through the smoke, and send your will into the greater universe.”

Chapter 28:

(this chapter is all internal monologue!)

Chapter 29:

“If we’re not duly impressed, guaranteed he’ll sulk all day, so prepare yourselves.”

Chapter 30:

“You’ll have to go through me if you want them, you sick fuck.”

Chapter 31:

“My magic doesn’t work, your magic doesn’t work, there’s no way out. Good job, Dad, we’re going to die here.”

Chapter 32:

“Least this narrows down where we need to look. ‘Torture dimension’ is a lot more specific than ‘anywhere, ever.’”

Chapter 33:

"Haggling with a dying man. How noble. What would your White Witch think?"

Chapter 34:

"If it is not, it is something wearing his face,"

Chapter 35:

“Yeah, anyone else want to come out as my parent today?”

...and that’s as much as I have written right now! Currently 50 chapters on the docket, so I’m inching closer to completion (and therefore, actually posting this behemoth.)