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jo-harrington · 20 days ago

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Corroded Coffin Fest Halloween - Pride

Summary: Jeff goes head to head with his Dungeon Master.

Word Count: 1313

Rating: T

Warnings/Themes: Friendship, humor, angst, typical DnD shenanigans, Dungeon Master and Player dynamics (Eddie is a ruthless DM, but his players are little assholes and he isn't a tyrant).

Check Out the Main Post for @corrodedcoffinfest here! Thank you to @thisapplepielife for organizing another wonderful event for us! I already told them in a DM, this is not only giving me a chance to tickle the old keyboard but read everyone else's work when reading gets to be a challenge between work and writing bigger series. I've set time aside for this. I'm ready! THANK YOU AGAIN.

Also thank you Reddit for giving me some fuel for this because I hate writing combat sequences. The gameplay probably isn't accurate but I don't care. If you see something you know is wrong, no you didn't.

Tagging @the-unforgivenn @1lostsoul0fishbowl upon request.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

Friday, October 25th 1985

There wasn't much in life that was as daunting as staring across a table at Eddie Munson while he was DM'ing.

That's not to say that their sessions weren't fun. On the contrary, it was probably the most fun they had in their lives.

But when all of the players fell into one of Eddie's little traps, there was a certain sparkle in his eye that would make their hearts plummet directly into their asses.

Tonight, Jeff was determined not to let it get to him.

It was hard to see any progress in Dungeons and Dragons sometimes, especially when campaigns ran for weeks on end. Not only did you need to advance the plot, but you had to have character growth, not to mention leveling up. Plus, with Eddie's elaborate plots, there were endless clues and red herrings in the gameplay that would make or break future sessions.

Oh, and combat; you never knew if a wrong move would kill you.

That's what they were faced with right now. A dungeon full of adversaries, and a big bad slime monster. Half of their party was down, the rest with barely any hit points left, and morale was low.

So of course Eddie, crouched on his throne, smirked and laughed at each pathetic move they made.

"Back to the top of the cycle," he announced and pointed at Jeff. "You're up."

Jeff stood from his seat and squared his shoulders.

He knew he was a good player, had a great character, and a few tricks up his sleeve. Plus, he had been playing long enough to know how to get a leg up when he needed one.

They could turn this around; they had to.

"Alright," he began and stared at the board with calculating eyes.

He started narrating his series of moves; he crossed a distance to face the slime monster himself, attacked, then used his bonus action to cast Mage Hand and distract the monster by stoking a fire nearby.

The dice gods smiled down at him. All of his friends cheered as every move he made succeeded. Suddenly, they were motivated enough to rally, and Eddie grumbled as they cleared the field of enemies.

Soon, the slime monster was the only one that was left.

And it was Jeff's turn once again.

He smiled unabashedly as he calculated his move; he'd been picking up on some of Eddie's clues all night, and if he was right about one hunch, he could try something a little risky for a big payout.

Was this what Eddie felt like all the time?

"Don't get cocky, kid," Dustin quoted the legendary Han Solo and patted Jeff's shoulder in encouragement.

Jeff then announced his plan, something too simple for his sorcerer, but he knew would work.

"I'm going to try and suplex Slime Boy into that fire over there."

"What?" Everyone shouted, Eddie included.

"Why are you gonna use melee when you're a magic user."

"I've never seen something so stupid in my life."

"I just told you not to get cocky. It was nice knowing you guys."

"You sure you wanna do that Windforger?" Eddie questioned over the chaos.

"Yeah," Jeff nodded. "I'm sure."

"You know what," Eddie shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll entertain this. I need an athletics roll. I'll even give you advantage for the...courage.

"But!" he shouted over the din of his friends voices. "I need you to tell me how you envision this is gonna play out first, should you succeed."

Jeff didn't hesitate.

"You've been leading us all along," he began. "Slimey is afraid of fire. He'd pretty much melt in it."

"Then cast fireball!" Mike shouted.

"I just used mage hand for a distraction," Jeff ignored him. "So there's a fire over here. If I can just...grapple him into the fire, he's done for."

His explanation only caused everyone to shout louder, but he got his dice ready, regardless of the protest. He knew he needed something pretty high, but with Eddie giving him advantage and his luck at rolling all night, surely this would pay off.

And he'd be a hero.

"Well wouldn't you know," Eddie's brow jumped in amusement. "Someone was paying attention. Go ahead and roll. What do you need...uh...15 to succeed sound fair? He is slime, after all."

Everyone leaned in to watch with bated breath as Jeff threw his dice onto the table. Time seemed to slow as they rolled and clattered.

"Come on," he muttered and envisioned his roll.

A 15 exactly. A 17 to be safe! Maybe even a Nat 20?

"Come on."

Yeah he would get a Nat 20.

"Come on."

The dice slowed down and then came to a halt.

And then the world came rushing back.

Eddie grimaced theatrically, tsking at his friend all the while, and the others wailed at the sight of two Natural 1's.

"It was a risky move," Eddie offered sympathetically, then his face morphed into a feral grin. "But not one that paid off."

Jeff stood there, frozen, as Eddie narrated the clumsy failure of a grapple and his character falling headfirst into the fire.

Mercifully, it was a night where Jeff's mom decided she'd pick him up from Hellfire.

"Good," he thought as he grabbed his backpack and scurried out of the drama classroom. "Then I don't have to endure Eddie's gloating on the drive home."

He deserved it, though, didn't he? He'd made an absolute fool of himself, could have gotten everyone killed, all because he thought he was a better player than he was.

Once outside, he leaned against the building and tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for the sight of his mom's car. The guys patted his shoulder as they filed out and headed towards Eddie's van, each offering words of comfort that fell on deaf ears.

Eddie was the last one out, and he stopped silently at Jeff's side. He took a moment to light a cigarette, then once the younger boy seemed enough at ease with his presence, he spoke.

"You let your pride get the best of you."

"I know," Jeff grumbled.

"You're not a newbie, Jeffy," Eddie shook his head. "I would've expected a move like that from Wheeler or something."

Jeff stayed silent.

"Come on, you're not gonna laugh as I take cheap shots at Mike?" Eddie scoffed. "Man, you're really taking this harder than I thought."

"It's because I don't screw up like this," Jeff threw his hands out, as if presenting his failure to the world. "I'm the best player in that room. I pay attention, I take notes, I overanalyze about every single word that comes out of your mouth because I know you're out to fuck us all over."

"I do do that," Eddie nodded in agreement. "Don't I?"

"I should've known better," Jeff continued, hanging his head in defeat.

"No, hey," Eddie stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't say that. It was a risky move and damn, if it had worked, it would've been epic."

"But it didn't."

"That's the whole point of playing though." Eddie shrugged. "You try, you fail. You die. In this case, you're revived and live to see another day. You try again."

"I'm never doing anything as stupid as that ever again though," Jeff huffed.

"Yeah you will," Eddie clenched a fist and punched his chin softly. "And next time, you'll succeed."

Jeff looked up at him nervously, "You think so?"

"Of course I do," Eddie shrugged. "You are one of the best players in Hellfire."

He patted Jeff on the shoulder and then turned to head towards the van. He paused for a second though, and turned to call back to Jeff as he walked backwards.

"I wouldn't have even allowed the freshman to do a dumb move like that!"

#corrodedcoffinfest #corrodedcoffinfest: seven deadly sins #eddie munson #jeff stranger things #gareth stranger things #stranger things fic

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zinniajones · 2 years ago

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Florida’s newest Boards of Medicine appointees wrote an anti-trans letter calling for gender “exploratory” therapy, citing a report of a trans teenager being involuntarily hospitalized for nearly two years

Previously:

Gender Analysis calls for a hearing on the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine proposed trans youth care bans 64B8–9.019 and 64B15–14.014 F.A.C.

Anti-trans group SEGM’s cofounder Stephen Beck is an executive at Bon Secours Mercy Health, the fifth-largest Catholic healthcare network in the US

Background

On December 2, 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Monica M. Mortensen to the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine, followed by the appointment of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Matthew R. Benson to the Board of Medicine on December 28. Benson previously spoke in favor of the state Medicaid trans care exclusion Rule 59G-1.050(7) at a July 8, 2022 AHCA meeting, and coauthored a September 23 letter to the Boards of Medicine with Mortensen and seven others in support of the trans youth care bans 64B8–9.019 and 64B15–14.014.

Benson and Mortensen’s positions are relevant to an ongoing issue: although the Boards of Medicine voted to advance the trans youth care ban at the November 4 meeting, it has not yet taken effect. Another joint meeting on the ban will now take place on February 10 in response to calls for a rule hearing from Southern Legal Counsel, ACLU of Florida, Gender Analysis and others. Public comment is now open for the upcoming hearing until February 7 at [email protected]. Benson and Mortensen’s letter provides important clues to how they will likely approach this rule and other issues involving gender-affirming care as Board members, and this letter warrants extended analysis.

The September 23, 2022 letter to the Boards of Medicine (“Benson letter”)

Benson and Mortensen’s letter was coauthored with seven other pediatric endocrinologists and pediatric endocrine nurse practitioners working at Nemours Children’s Health Jacksonville: Larry A. Fox, Rehem Hasan, Nelly Mauras, Lournaris Torres-Santiago, Lydia Snyder, Joseph W. Permuy, and Kaley Carroll (“An Open Letter to the Florida Board of Medicine: Regarding the Proposed Rules to Limit the Use of Hormonal and Surgical Care for Gender Variant Youth”, pp. 1308–1313 of October 28 meeting public materials). Benson’s background includes research in the use of GnRH analogues to treat central precocious puberty in cisgender children (Benson et al., 2021), while Mortensen was involved in providing medical and psychological records of an adolescent trans boy treated at Nemours Jacksonville in the case Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County in 2017 (Expert report of Diane Ehrensaft, 21 Sep 2017). The Benson letter repeats several common anti-trans talking points that have featured heavily throughout the rulemaking process, including:

Arguing for any gender-affirming medical treatment of trans minors to be restricted to “high-quality research protocols approved by an IRB” (para 9).

Citing Dhejne et al. (2011), a study of transgender adults from 1973 to 2003, to assert that adolescents who transition are at risk of “persistently high rates of suicide, depression and premature death” (para 7).

Asserting that the practices of Sweden, Finland, France, and the UK support adoption of highly restrictive regulations of trans youth care in Florida (paras 3, 9).

Relying on a flawed and widely criticized review of transition treatments commissioned by the state of Florida (para 8), which was conducted far outside the usual standards for the authors’ evidence reviews (see section 9) as well as outside the normal Florida Medicaid processes for making a coverage determination.

Claiming that evidence supporting transition treatments is “mostly low quality and largely expert opinion, which is among the lowest level of medical evidence”, with “limited data from prospective, controlled trials, which are the gold-standard by which we judge any therapeutic intervention” (para 2).

Arguing for “nonjudgmental exploratory psychodynamic therapy in gender-dysphoric youth” as an alternative to transitioning (para 10).

The letter features a number of erroneous claims and misinterpretations of evidence, and Benson et al. rely on mostly low-quality sources to support their arguments.

Exploring “exploratory therapy”

“Gender exploratory therapy” is a recent term for non-affirming prolonged psychotherapy for trans youth and adults (Ashley, 2022), now frequently promoted by the closely connected anti-trans groups Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) and Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA). These groups, emerging in only the last few years, repeatedly assert that “exploratory therapy” is not an anti-gay or anti-trans conversion therapy — while at the same time campaigning against conversion therapy bans (see section 4) and claiming that this psychotherapy may cause gender dysphoria to resolve without a need for gender-affirming treatment.

Benson and Mortensen cite five sources in support of their call for “exploratory psychodynamic therapy”:

We also support the expansion of competent expert psychological support with rapid implementation of nonjudgmental exploratory psychodynamic therapy in gender-dysphoric youth [7–11].

7: Levine, S. B., & Lothstein, L. (1981). Transsexualism or the gender dysphoria syndromes. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 7(2), 85–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/00926238108406096

8: Davenport, C. W., & Harrison, S. I. (1977). Gender identity change in a female adolescent transsexual. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 6(4), 327–340. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541204

9: Churcher Clarke, A., & Spiliadis, A. (2019). ‘Taking the lid off the box’: the value of extended clinical assessment for adolescents presenting with gender identity difficulties. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24(2), 338–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104518825288

10: D’Angelo, R., Syrulnik, E., Ayad, S., Marchiano, L., Kenny, D. T., & Clarke, P. (2021). One size does not fit all: in support of psychotherapy for gender dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(1), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01844-2

11: Lemma, A. (2018). Trans-itory identities: some psychoanalytic reflections on transgender identities. International Journal of Psychiatry, 99(5), 1089–1106. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2018.1489710

Levine & Lothstein (1981) is a case series of transgender adults in the 1970s; uncontrolled case series are considered one of the lowest “levels” of evidence in most evidence hierarchies (Stony Brook University, 2022). Churcher Clarke & Spiliadis (2019) and Lemma (2018) are also small case series of patients (12 and 2 subjects, respectively). Davenport & Harrison (1977) consists of a single case report of an adolescent, and D’Angelo et al. (2021) is a letter to the editor by six members of SEGM; this expert opinion is generally considered even lower in the hierarchy of evidence than case series or case reports.

While Davenport & Harrison (1977) long predates any formalization of “gender exploratory therapy”, the treatment described appears extreme and alarming. The abstract states that this consisted of “two years of individual and milieu therapy” for a 14.5-year-old trans boy, but the authors later explain that this took place at an inpatient psychiatric facility:

In accordance with those treatment goals, the patient was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric hospital for adolescents, where she remained for 20 months. In the hospital she was involved in triweekly, individual psychotherapy with a male therapist and milieu therapy. The milieu therapy included active intervention by psychiatric nurses and aides, therapeutic school, recreational therapy, and occupational therapy geared specifically toward adolescents. The patients admitted to this service manifest a wide variety of adolescent pathology. Approximately two-thirds of the patients are short-term admissions and one-third remain in residential treatment for prolonged periods of time.

It then becomes clear that this confinement was involuntary and distressing:

Her severe social withdrawal was striking, and she spent much of the time in her room avoiding both staff and other patients. … There seemed to be a quality of stubbornness demonstrated in her refusal of hospital activity and withholding of information in interviews. When first admitted, she refused to eat, and seemed to be using this to pressure her parents to sign her out of the hospital. Signs of anxiety, however, were also clear, and weeks later she was able to acknowledge in psychotherapy that she was scared and did not have any appetite.

…

She talked also about being angry about being in the hospital, having to come to psychotherapy and not knowing what to say. The material about cross-dressing again arose. Her cousin was getting married and there was to be a formal party to which she was invited. However, she knew that this would entail wearing a dress. She marked her ambivalence by saying that one way to avoid the problem would be to run away and then be restricted to the ward.

…

She then returned to the hard line: there was no conflict, she just had gotten the wrong body, when was the therapist going to quit bugging her by keeping her in the hospital? She began missing appointments and only returned when her milieu manager said if she did not go to therapy she would lose privileges, including weekend passes.

…

Her favorite female staff member was leaving, which aroused feelings of abandonment. She said that she wanted to leave the hospital when the staff member did, but her father would not permit it until she saw herself as a girl.

Psychiatric hospitalization from ages 14–16 is a drastic intervention, especially in cases where there isn’t actually any mental or behavioral disorder that disrupts normal functioning to the point of requiring treatment under constant supervision and confinement. TASN School Mental Health Initiative (2016) describes some circumstances in which children may be hospitalized for psychiatric reasons:

Severe mental disorders are associated with a variety of symptoms that disrupt life at home and at school. Not all mental disorders require hospitalization. However, when a child or youth manifests such symptoms as hallucinations, threatens to self-harm or harm others, and/or has not eaten or slept for days, psychiatric hospitalization is a common reaction.

Being trans — identifying as a gender different from one’s assigned sex — is not like a hallucination, endangering oneself or others, or otherwise acting in a way that requires continuous monitoring by professionals. Trans youth and adults accept and embrace their identities as trans people all the time and have done so for decades, broadly to the benefit of their own well-being and sense of self, and generally with no need for psychiatric hospitalization in relation to this or any other matter.

Benson et al. assert in their letter that “data are lacking on the long-term safety and efficacy of the prescribed treatments” of puberty blockers and HRT (para 3), and they contend that “These decisions are too critical and important for young children to make as they cannot easily comprehend the long-term ramifications” (para 14). However, they fail to address the long-term developmental and psychosocial impacts of being involuntarily held in a residential psychiatric facility for almost two years in the middle of adolescence. This near-total separation from one’s family, community, and peers from ages 14–16 jeopardizes an adolescent’s well-being in ways that simply do not apply to trans youth who receive gender-affirming medical treatment while being welcomed in their communities. Tougas et al. (2022) describe a variety of adverse impacts on youth hospitalized in a psychiatric facility:

In the United States and Canada, it is estimated that close to one third are rehospitalized in the year following discharge (2- 6). Moreover, in addition to high social costs (7–8), youth hospitalizations may result in serious academic and social difficulties (e.g., absenteeism, social isolation, stigma, bullying, difficulty managing psychiatric symptoms, low academic performance, motivational problems, dropouts; 9–11).

This is a massive tradeoff of quality of life, particularly when hospitalization is not apparently necessary for any reason. A child kept in an inpatient facility during this time will miss out on countless milestones and memories that are irreplaceable, but this study seems to argue that this is preferable over freely enjoying your teenage years as a trans person with your friends, schoolmates, family, and others in a normal community setting.

The case report is also not an instance of “nonjudgmental” therapy as claimed by Benson et al. Although this patient wanted to leave the hospital, their parents would not allow this “until she saw herself as a girl”. The report goes on to describe hospital staff reinforcing “feminine traits” and “feminine behavior”, encouraging the patient to identify with their mother, and providing “therapy for her dread of femininity, which she had needed”:

Near the end of the first year of hospitalization, we had begun gradually to recognize feminine traits and to reinforce them. Her attempts to avoid being involved with the girls’ group were confronted, and she was seemingly merging with that group.

…

She began to experiment with “feminine” behavior, and this was encouraged and supported by staff.

…

In reality, the father was psychologically and physically absent; his appearance of strength was based on degrading the mother and the maternal role. Certainly the patient’s recognition of the true dynamics made identification with her mother more possible. It helped the patient take another look at the role of women and to see her parents’ marital situation as pathological and not like that of most families.

…

Therefore, she could now participate in the therapy for her dread of femininity, which she had needed but could not previously acknowledge.

Finally, note should be made of the role of the milieu staff in the treatment. They were able early in hospitalization to get her involved in the adolescent issues that are current on an adolescent service. They were very supportive of her feminine behavior and tactfully reinforced it during the second year in hospital when this was appropriate.

It’s clear that any “exploratory” therapy here was done with a fixed destination in mind: identifying with one’s assigned sex, and no longer requesting any gender-affirming care. This was a gender identity change effort directed toward establishing a cisgender identity, which is encompassed by the widely understood meaning of conversion therapy. Major medical and professional organizations recognize that conversion therapy is ineffective and dangerous (Forsythe et al., 2022), and a United Nations independent expert has described conversion therapy as “inherently discriminatory” and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” (UN OHCHR, 2020).

The treatment of a trans adolescent described by Davenport & Harrison may actually constitute a serious human rights violation. Even if an “expansion” and “rapid implementation” of long-term psychiatric hospitalization for thousands of new teenage patients was at all feasible or realistic, its use for this purpose would be completely immoral and ethically unacceptable. Being transgender, and identifying as such, is fundamentally not a treatable “illness”. As a trans woman living in Florida, I fervently hope that this pathologizing perspective will not be represented at the Boards of Medicine by Benson and Mortensen.

Familiar faces: Dr. Stephen B. Levine

The remaining four sources cited by Benson et al. to support “exploratory” therapy at least do not describe involuntarily hospitalizing us in psychiatric wards until we stop saying we’re trans. Regardless, they still fail to provide any high-quality evidence supporting this exploratory psychotherapy in its own right, let alone as any kind of replacement for gender-affirming care. Levine & Lothstein (1981) is a case series of 150 transgender adults — the authors describe a minimum age of 21 for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. This is a distinctly different population from the trans minors in Florida whose access to gender-affirming care is now being jeopardized by the Boards of Medicine. The authors also do not provide any detailed information on the overall outcomes of their patients who were treated with gender-affirming care or alternative psychotherapies. Instead, the study describes the baseline co-occurring mental health conditions of 51 adult trans women and 18 adult trans men, with 7 case vignettes, and only “overall impressions” of the patient population undergoing gender-affirming surgery at Case Western Reserve University. Only one of these vignettes illustrated an apparent disappearance of gender dysphoria following psychotherapy.

Levine & Lothstein acknowledge the shortcomings in the evidence base for psychotherapies to eliminate gender dysphoria:

These clinical impressions have not been documented by systematic studies. There have been numerous published case reports of apparent “cures,” and fewer papers by clinicians who have seen large numbers of patients but do not report on any one case in considerable detail. The latter group contains accounts of patients who improved in many ways but were not cured of their gender problems.

The psychotherapy they’re proposing is also not a “nonjudgmental” therapy. The authors posit “realistic” goals for trans patients:

Some realistic goals for gender patients include: strengthening the patient’s heterosexuality; decreasing the frequency of cross-dressing; enabling a comfortable acceptance of a homosexual life style.

All of these goals — being straight and cisgender, gay and cisgender, or cis without “cross-dressing” — are formulated with the intention of discouraging gender-diverse expression and identifying as transgender. This, too, is a gender identity change effort that can fall within the definition of conversion therapy.

Notably, the authors provide several arguments against prohibition of gender-affirming care or restriction to narrow clinical research settings as proposed by Benson et al.:

Prohibition of SRS in the United States. Some patients would seek a foreign source, but others might be totally dissuaded from the idea of surgery. Many professionals are familiar with patients who have “seen the light” about their gender identities after some media exposure to transsexualism. If SRS receives less publicity, patients may be forced to find nontranssexual solutions. Such an approach may actually be unethical, since SRS appears to help some patients. Should the moral objections of some citizens deprive others of potentially beneficial medical treatment?

…

Restriction of SRS to centers involved in a multiuniversity research project aimed at answering relevant clinical questions. This rational approach might yield significant new knowledge within five years. Given the current economic climate, however, it seems unlikely that the federal government, or any other granting agency, would fund research on a problem that is relatively rare, personally unsavory, and politically controversial.

What Benson and Mortensen are proposing would similarly amount to a de facto ban on any such care by effectively regulating it out of existence. Far from the “judicious pause” that Benson et al. request, this would be utterly disruptive to the status quo, where trans youth are able to receive these treatments as a matter of private clinical decisionmaking between themselves, their healthcare providers, and their parents or guardians.

After 1981, coauthor Stephen B. Levine has continued to contribute to the scientific literature, public discourse, and legal debate on gender-affirming care and non-affirming psychotherapies. In several cases, Levine has testified against allowing incarcerated trans women to receive gender-affirming surgery, and has more recently offered numerous expert declarations stating that reversible social transition causes persistence of gender dysphoria into adolescence. This claim relies on his misinterpretation of the findings of Steensma et al. (2013), a study which only examined associations rather than causation, and found only a minimal association in trans girls and no association at all for trans boys.

Levine has accepted thousands of dollars from SEGM to write and publish articles against informed consent for gender-affirming care (Deposition in Fain v. Crouch, 27 Apr 2022, p. 30):

Q: Okay. And what about to, did you receive any grants to research or publish about the treatment of gender dysphoria?

A: I received a $5,000 grant to publish, to work on, to develop an article on informed consent which of course involves the treatment of people with gender dysphoria.

Q: And what’s the name of that grant?

A: It’s from the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine and I, I, I don’t really have a, I don’t know the answer any further than that, that is a grant number or something, I couldn’t tell you.

Levine frequently coauthors commentary against gender-affirming care with SEGM cofounder Julia W. Mason (Levine et al. 2022a; Levine et al. 2022b; Abbruzzese et al. 2023), and recently coauthored GETA’s “clinical guide” to exploratory therapy with SEGM’s Roberto D’Angelo, Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano, and Dianna T. Kenny, as well as Genspect founder Stella O’Malley (Ayad et al., 2022). Levine also disclosed that he is a clinical supervisor of Miriam Grossman (Deposition in Brandt v. Rutledge, 26 May 2022, p. 34), who has worked as an anti-trans expert for the Florida AHCA and has previously endorsed anti-gay conversion therapy.

In contrast to his public-facing work, Levine was remarkably candid about the state of evidence for non-affirming or exploratory psychotherapy during deposition in Kadel v. Folwell (pp. 109–110):

Q: Okay. Understood. And as for your more conservative approach, can you cite to any studies or research that resulted in better outcomes than people who adhere strictly to the WPATH standards of care version 7?

A: No. This is part of the problem in the field for — although there are alternative approaches, there’s no randomized controlled study of any approach, including those which the standards of care seem to endorse. But the alternative approaches are equally deficient scientifically and are just like many people who are advocates are based on anecdotal evidence.

Q: Sorry. I missed the last part of that. You said your approach as well is not — has no controlled studies or support in that way?

Mr. KNEPPER: Objection, form.

A: Not only does it have no controlled studies, it has no systematic follow up based upon prior agreements about how we’re going to evaluate those things.

Benson and Mortensen’s own source attests, in 1981 and again in 2021, that this alternative of exploratory psychotherapy does not have an empirical basis sufficient to meet their high standards for evidence. In his foreword to a book coauthored by SEGM cofounder Marcus Evans (Evans & Evans, 2021), Levine describes the benefits of these psychotherapies as a matter of “faith” rather than “compelling data”:

What is known about the outcome of psychotherapies for trans-identified young people and adolescents? This book’s erudite chapters about highly defensive intrapsychic development provide evidence that some psychotherapies can enable some patients to decide to desist from a trans identity. Those of us who have faith in the benefit of such work regardless of the patients’ ultimate decisions about their gender expressions do not have compelling data to support our faith.

Where does faith sit within the levels of evidence? “Mostly low quality and largely expert opinion” would be too generous for this. As state regulatory agencies, the Boards of Medicine are intended to make policy and decisions based on compelling data, not unconditional faith. Faith-based policymaking at the Boards of Medicine would be unacceptable under any circumstances, but especially when this is used to disrupt access to real medicine in favor of promoting an unproven alternative therapy that runs on confidence instead of evidence.

A core group: D’Angelo, Syrulnik, Ayad, Marchiano, Kenny, & Clarke (2021)

D’Angelo et al. (2021) is a letter to the editor by six members of SEGM:

Roberto D’Angelo. D’Angelo is president of SEGM, an advisor to the closely related anti-trans group Genspect, and coauthor of the 2022 GETA clinical guide. Before his work with SEGM, D’Angelo served as the adversarial expert psychiatrist on behalf of a trans girl’s disapproving mother in the Australian case Re Imogen (para 4). This is notable as an early instance in which a core SEGM member directly attempted to interfere with a trans child’s gender-affirming care, in favor of imposing “psychotherapy and psychodynamic psychiatry” and “‘agenda free’ psychological exploration” (paras 174, 219). During the case, D’Angelo argued to the family court that Imogen, a 16-year-old trans girl, should be taken off her estrogen for at least one year to undergo weekly “intensive psychotherapy” (para 218). Imogen’s mother had a history of being physically violent to her (para 128) and had attempted to file complaints against her medical providers (para 244). D’Angelo sought to diagnose Imogen as having complex post-traumatic stress disorder rather than gender dysphoria (paras 170, 174) on the basis of “two online interviews” (para 182). Imogen’s mother then argued that Imogen was not competent to consent to gender-affirming care because she had not volunteered to D’Angelo that she had ordered estradiol from overseas (para 196). However, the court recognized that “Imogen did not want any medical information shared with her mother and she knew if she told Dr D’Angelo about the overseas drug, that information would be shared with her mother” (para 196). The court ultimately found that Imogen was competent to consent to treatment, setting a crucial precedent in Australia to protect access to gender-affirming care for youth. Elsewhere, D’Angelo has contributed a chapter to the anti-trans book “Inventing Transgender Children and Young People” (D’Angelo, 2019a), published a case report of a trans adult who “no longer believes he is a man” following psychotherapy D’Angelo (2019b), coauthored commentary with four other SEGM members (Clayton et al., 2021) and coauthored a letter to the editor with four SEGM cofounders (Malone et al., 2021).

Ema Syrulnik. Syrulnik is a healthcare data analytics expert who assisted with Clayton et al. (2021) and received an acknowledgment in Evans & Evans (2021). A 13 Jan 2023 privilege log in the Florida Medicaid trans care exclusion case Dekker v. Weida (previously Dekker v. Marstiller) shows that then-assistant deputy secretary Jason C. Weida emailed Ema Syrulnik on June 29, 2022 regarding “RE: Followup thoughts” (Plaintiffs’ motion to compel production, 20 Jan 2023). The privilege note describes Syrulnik as a consultant: “Email between General Counsel, Chief of Staff, and consultant regarding GAPMS Report.” This correspondence followed SEGM member Romina Brignardello-Petersen and SEGM associate Quentin L. Van Meter contributing two anti-trans expert reports for Florida AHCA on May 16–17, 2022, and the appointment of SEGM member Patrick K. Hunter to the Florida Board of Medicine on June 17, 2022.

Sasha Ayad. Ayad is a psychotherapist whose practice, Inspired Teen Therapy, provides “individualized therapy and parent coaching around adolescent gender identity issues” and advertises tiered monthly subscription memberships for parents of trans and gender-questioning youth. She describes herself as a founding board member of GETA, Genspect, and the International Association of Therapists for Desisters and Detransitioners. Ayad also serves on the board of the Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research with Roberto D’Angelo, Lisa Marchiano, and Stella O’Malley, and is lead author of the GETA clinical guide.

Lisa Marchiano. Marchiano assisted Lisa Littman in developing her “rapid onset gender dysphoria” study (Littman, 2018), defended Evans & Evans (2021) with Roberto D’Angelo (D’Angelo, Marchiano & Gorin, 2022), and is a coauthor of the GETA clinical guide. She has described the emergence of trans youth in terms such as “outbreak”, “psychic epidemic” (Marchiano, 2017), and “modern hysteria” (Marchiano, 2022). Health Liberation Now! has identified Marchiano, Ayad, and Stella O’Malley as constituting a “core trio” substantially responsible for the founding or development of nine highly similar anti-trans groups over the past five years (Leveille, 2022).

Dianna T. Kenny. Kenny is an Australian psychologist who contributed a chapter to “Inventing Transgender Children and Young People” (Kenny, 2019), coauthored the GETA clinical guide, and was paid $75,000 by the state of Alabama to provide an anti-trans expert report in Eknes-Tucker v. Ivey (now Boe v. Marshall). Kenny has described trans youth coming out, and even gender-affirming medical care itself, as “social contagions” (Kenny, 2021).

Patrick Clarke. Clarke is an Australian psychiatrist who coauthored Clayton et al. (2021) and submitted an October 2022 letter to the Icelandic parliament arguing against a ban on conversion therapy, claiming to be “greatly concerned that this Bill will result in ethical, neutral psychotherapies being conflated with Conversion Therapy”.

The article is a letter to the editor rather than a study with any original research findings or systematic synthesis of evidence, and this expert opinion would be among the lowest levels of evidence as described by Benson and Mortensen. D’Angelo et al. is mostly an argument against the findings of Turban et al. (2020) that gender identity change efforts are harmful, against that study’s use of the 2015 US Trans Survey, and against using the USTS as a source generally. This is a criticism of one publication’s methodology, not a refutation or even an engagement with the substantial overall body of evidence showing that sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapies are ineffective and harmful. Were D’Angelo et al. to prevail in their argument that Turban et al. is an unreliable study, this would still do nothing to provide positive evidence that gender identity change efforts are themselves safe or likely to be effective. Elsewhere, SEGM members Stephen Levine, Ema Abbruzzese and Julia Mason briefly described the “evidence that psychotherapy can ameliorate gender distress in youth” as “low quality” (Levine et al., 2022b), but this is only mentioned informally and in passing. It is not the conclusion of any kind of systematic review that would rank this evidence as being even of low quality, rather than very low quality or completely excluded from consideration.

D’Angelo et al. refer to case reports of psychotherapy resolving gender dysphoria, citing the same Churcher Clarke & Spiliadis (2019) and Lemma (2018) sources as Benson and Mortensen:

Further, GD can present as a transient symptom that resolves spontaneously or in the context of developmentally informed psychotherapeutic treatment. Some common examples of transient gender-dysphoric states include adolescents girls, often on the autism spectrum, experiencing distress around the physical and social changes of puberty or gender-non-conforming young women struggling with shame about being seen as “butch.” These individuals, searching for ways to understand and remedy their distress, can incorrectly attribute their discomfort to being transgender. Several case reports (Churcher Clarke & Spiliadis, 2019; Lemma, 2018; Spiliadis, 2019) indicate that the distress of young people with GD can lessen or resolve with appropriate psychotherapeutic interventions that address the central issues.

Lemma (2018) is a case series of two patients: an adult trans man who stated he did not regret transitioning, and a trans boy who did not want to be in therapy (“She said she was seeing me only because her parents would not let her take hormones unless she saw me”). Churcher Clarke & Spiliadis (2019) is a case series of 12 patients, with crucial limitations; the authors state “the majority had not received a formal diagnosis of GD”, and 7 had not socially transitioned. By the conclusion of this study, 5 still identified as transgender. Worryingly, one of the study’s success stories appears to be a 14-year-old publicly performing masculinity for reasons of safety, while continuing to experience unresolved distress:

He spoke openly about continuing to feel confused about his identity and was still struggling with low mood, although his suicidal thoughts had decreased. However, in relation to gender, Alfie was reflective in talking about the ways he understood himself to be a vulnerable and sensitive young person, alongside the need to embody and perform masculinity differently across different contexts; to be read as a ‘guy’ in particular ways in public (Butler, 2004; Kimmel, 2004). He connected this to preserving his own safety as a non-stereotypically masculine young man. Clinicians understood these changes as signifying Alfie developing a more integrated sense of self.

Coauthor Anastassis Spiliadis serves on the board of the Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research with D’Angelo, Ayad, and Marchiano, and has repeatedly referred to “Gender Exploratory Therapy” or “Gender Exploratory Model” as though these were trademarked terms. In the UK, Spiliadis’ application in 2021 to trademark “Gender Exploratory Therapy” and “Gender Exploratory Approach” was refused. The services intended to be associated with the trademark were listed as training courses, workshops, and seminars, as well as psychotherapy:

Class 41

Training consultancy;Postgraduate training courses;Conducting training seminars;Provision of training;Educational and training services;Training;Training and further training consultancy;Training services;Continuous training;Practical training;Training courses;Providing training;Conducting workshops [training];Organisation of training;Education and training;Providing of training;Organisation of training seminars.

Class 44

Psychotherapy;Psychotherapy services.

Spiliadis and coauthor Anna Churcher Clarke also work at “Explore Consultation”, a group now conducting training seminars on gender exploratory therapy for the South London and Maudsley NHS Mental Health Trust in England. D’Angelo et al. similarly endorse an “exploratory psychotherapy that is neither ‘affirmation’ nor ‘conversion’”, repeatedly positioning this “non-affirmation-non-conversion” as “agenda-free evaluation”, “agenda-free psychotherapy”, or “agenda-free, neutral therapy”. It is nonsensical and unwarranted for anyone to position themselves as being “agenda-free” here, as though they are uniquely outside of a system of influences, assumptions, and attitudes that inform how all of us approach questions of transgender identities and gender-affirming care. In particular, there is nothing agenda-free about “non-affirmation”, because there is nothing agenda-free about refusing to recognize or address a trans person as their name and gender. Certainly it was not “agenda-free” for Roberto D’Angelo to argue before a family court that a 16-year-old trans girl should be deprived of her HRT for a year or more. Remarkably, D’Angelo et al. argue that trans people cannot be trusted when we say we were subjected to conversion therapy, because we may be mistaken or unreliable due to mental illness:

Further, patients with psychiatric diagnoses, highly prevalent in transgender-identifying populations (Gijs, van der Putten-Bierman, & De Cuypere, 2013; Goodman & Nash, 2018; Wanta, Niforatos, Durbak, Viguera, & Altinay, 2019), can potentially experience or misinterpret neutral interpersonal interactions as invalidating or rejecting (Barnow et al., 2009; Beck & Bredemeier, 2016; Gotlib, 1983). Not only does the survey question provide no detail to help discriminate between these essential therapy encounters and unethical conversion therapy, but it arguably biases the recall of neutral encounters toward recall of conversion by using emotionally charged language (e.g., “stop you being trans”) and by conflating recall of religiously motivated encounters with clinical ones. … As we have demonstrated, it is not uncommon for agenda-free, neutral therapy interventions to be experienced by the subjects as non-affirmative. However, non-affirmative is not the same as “conversion,” as the latter implies a therapist agenda and an aim for a fixed outcome (American Psychological Association, 2015).

It is hardly “agenda-free” to argue that cisgender healthcare professionals should be believed over vulnerable trans patients when we say that we experienced conversion therapy. In their conclusion, D’Angelo et al. openly acknowledge their specific agenda for treatment:

We call on the scientific community to resist the stigmatization of psychotherapy for GD and to support rigorous outcome research investigating the effectiveness of various psychological treatments aimed at ameliorating or resolving GD.

In depositions in B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education and Brandt v. Rutledge, Stephen Levine describes presenting an American Psychiatric Association symposium on May 24, 2022 with Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano, and Ken Zucker (Deposition in BPJ v. WV, p. 89):

A: I forgot to tell you. I also sometimes am invited to give continuing education lectures. And, for example, at the — I’ve given courses, for seven years in a row, at the American Psychiatric Association on sex and love, mostly love I use as — as the title, and we talk about sexual problems and the barriers to loving. And this year’s APA meeting, I — I am presenting a symposium with three colleagues on whether or not this is time to reexamine the best practices for transgender youth. So all those things are — in my review, are — are my teaching.

Q: I was going to ask you about the May presentation. Who are your copresenters for that?

A: Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marciano and Ken Zucker.

Levine later explained the agenda of this psychotherapy — “helping people to desist” (Deposition in Brandt v. Rutledge, p. 238):

A: Yes. I just came from a symposium two days ago where two people talked about their psychotherapy helping people to desist, what we call desist or detransition through psychotherapy. So these are, again, anecdotal reports. Basically psychiatry has a lot of those anecdotal reports.

Q: Who were those clinicians or those that spoke about their experience?

A: You want their names?

Q: Yes, please.

A: One was Sasha Ayad and the other was Lisa Marchiano.

In B.P.J. v. West Virginia, Levine agreed he was trying to dissuade people from being transgender (pp. 237–238):

Q: No, no, I — I — I just want to know the basis for these — these paragraphs, so I appreciate you telling me that. My question is — you know, I read 202 and 203, and you say — you list various perceived harms and challenges from being transgender; is that fair?

A: Yes.

Q: What I’m confused about is, is this premised on the notion that there’s a way to dissuade someone from being transgender so that they don’t have these outcomes?

A: Exactly. I — this is what I’m trying to do.

Additionally, during deposition in Kadel v. Folwell, Levine explained that “people in SEGM are biased in the direction of being conservative and providing psychotherapeutic evaluations of the child, of the teenager and of their parents” (p. 112); in B.P.J. v. West Virginia, he stated “Parents would very much like me to be able to return their child efficiently and quickly … to a cis state” (p. 221). AHCA expert report contributor Quentin Van Meter described his work with SEGM at the God’s Voice conference in June 2022, claiming that SEGM members “all agree” that even social transition is an “abomination” for trans and gender-diverse youth:

[53:23] QUENTIN L. VAN METER: So there are little chinks in the armor that are starting to form. There’s a group called the Society of Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, SEGM. You should look them up because they are a reference, a beautiful scientifically-based reference group, that has a broad clinical spectrum of politics in terms of the backgrounds of these individuals. But what we all agree on is that the affirmation, from social to medical to surgical, is an abomination for these children, it is the wrong thing to do.

Exploratory psychotherapy is not “nonjudgmental”, “agenda-free”, or “neutral” if it considers the outcome of living openly as a trans person to be an “abomination”. Are trans people merely “patients with psychiatric diagnoses” who “misinterpret” this “neutral” stance by psychotherapists as “invalidating or rejecting”? This is the contention of D’Angelo et al., who ask readers to ignore SEGM members’ own documented activities and statements demonstrating an intended therapeutic outcome of desistance or detransition, and instead attribute any appearance of conversion therapy to the alleged mental incapacity of the trans community generally. This insulting dismissal of the trans population and thousands of respondents to the 2015 USTS, as though we are unable to recognize conversion therapy when we are subjected to it, is not agenda-free. It is an agenda of gaslighting a community whose medically necessary healthcare has been directly targeted and disrupted by members of SEGM in several states and countries. Such an agenda should not have any place on the Florida Boards of Medicine, and if Matthew Benson and Monica Mortensen continue to promote this “non-affirming” psychotherapy, every effort must be made to reveal this practice for what it is: anti-trans conversion therapy.

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anchanted-one · 2 years ago

Text

The Legend of Vajra Chapter 24

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43208574/chapters/109920748

The Senate Tower

Kira Carsen had returned to her post after two days in the infirmary. Kolto was running scarce already, but Vajra had requested extra be set aside for Kira and himself, saying that Jedi might be needed to confront Tarnis. She wished he didn’t consider her on the same level as himself. She was more of a smooth operator than a vanguard right now, better suited to stealth field generators and slicing back doors.

The place was chaos. Reports coming in from all sides. The skirmishes were getting smaller and smaller. Perhaps the Imps had run out of bodies to throw around. Instead, the focus now was on finding and crushing all the bases.

Some clever work by the SIS had allowed them to find likely locations a few of the larger armies had operated out of, and Master Vajra had sent in heavyweights like Havoc Squad to crush them. The kid had even gone out a few times himself, during particularly nasty fights.

But a change had come over him these past few days. He had turned over all command to Colonel Rebo, and requested a balcony to meditate in. He was Sensing a disturbance, and needed to pinpoint it. His final order had been to speak to Supreme Commander Rans about allowing shipments in dreadnoughts, the only ships big enough to carry enough for an entire population.

But that had been three days ago. Since then, he had disappeared into his balcony. Kira had visited him a couple of times, but had always found him in a deep trance, unresponsive to any external stimuli. Only his third eye was wide open, and staring intently.

The Guards had a different problem to contend with. The people of Coruscant were beginning to emerge from their houses to talk about the food problem. Thankfully, Master Vajra had called for help long before the stores had run dry, and the first shipments would be reaching the people soon.

But there were other issues too; a plague had started making the rounds in a few sectors. Several water reservoirs had been poisoned too, leading to hundreds dying. The only reason this hadn’t happened earlier was because Vajra had issued orders to protect the water supply. Good; his lessons from defending the Kalikori were still fresh in his mind. The poison, in particular, would be something he’d never forget.

But now the Guards were being stretched out even further, and there were only a few left to guard the Senate. Reinforcements had not been enough to keep up.

Every station was swamped with calls and alerts. Many had not gone to bed last night.

Morale was dropping. Kira had heard the derision in everyone’s voice grow more pronounced when they referred to ‘the baby Knight’. She wanted to say something, but didn’t.

Soon, T7 rolled up to her. The poor guy had been running until his circuitry began to overheat. He was returning to his station after a cooling session.

“Hey there, little guy. Can I get you anything?”

The little Astromech whistled. <Negative. Where = Jedi: Vajra? T7 =/= seen him.>

“He Sensed something happen a few days ago. I don’t know what, but he’s been meditating ever since. Seeing through the Force. He’s not stopped to rest.”

<Jedi: Vajra = seeing through the Force?!>

“That’s right. And I think his vision is good!” Kira raised her voice a little. “He predicted that all flare-ups were false alarms, didn’t he? Told us to scout with omnioculars and mouse droids instead of soldiers. If not for him, we’d have had a repeat of level 1313.”

<Affirmative! Jedi: Vajra = doing great!>

Everyone pretended they hadn’t heard Kira, but she could see some looking thoughtful.

Smiling, she returned to her own spot. Privately, she thought looking through the Force was a desperate move, which was why Vajra had only started three days ago. But like she’d said, he’d predicted the false red flags. She hoped he could help them. Master Satele still hadn’t found additional Jedi to send them, and they were tiring just like the rest of the planet.

An hour later, Vajra burst into the room. “SPEEDER!” he cried. “I NEED A SPEEDER! Fastest one you’ve got!”

The command center jumped to life, as one called for a speeder. The rest stood at attention, waiting for orders. “The Temple. He’s in the Jedi Temple. He has what he needs, and he’s finished putting it all together. We have hours now. Which means I need to get there in thirty. T7, Kira, you’re with me.”

“Yes, Master.” Despite her misgivings, there was no way she would doubt his orders in public. His authority was shaky enough at the minute.

“Colonel Rebo, Colonel Phelps; how many people can you have at the Temple entrance in thirty minutes?”

“Twelve squads, sir. Including Havoc Squad. We held them in reserve, like you ordered.”

“Good. Tell them to be discreet.”

Both Colonels saluted crisply. “Roger!”

“Pardon me, sir,” a technician called. “But we don’t detect any heat build-ups there yet.”

“You will.” The certainty was clear.

“I’m sorry for asking, Sir,” the guard Dina said reluctantly. “But you’ve not slept in days. Are you sure that—”

“Yes. I appreciate your asking. But the Force is clear, just like it was when I Sensed those bombs.”

She clammed up at once.

Kira followed him to the platform attached to the Command Center, where a speeder awaited them.

“T7, we need a maniac at the wheels again. Kira, I hope you haven’t eaten.”

“Course I haven’t, I’m on a diet!” she joked. “But honestly, my normal breakfast time is in an hour.”

“Good. I’ve asked T7 to go fast.”

“Thank goodness there’s no traffic.”

Vajra smiled grimly.

Kira waited till they’d lifted off before speaking. “How can you be sure the weapon’s there, Master?”

“I saw a Shatterpoint start to form, one that can destroy the Republic.”

“I think I’ve heard you use that word before. ‘Shatterpoint.’ What does that mean?”

Vajra closed his eyes to think for a minute. “T7? Maybe you should listen too.”

<Affirmative.>

“Please remember that this is a big secret for now. No one should know; especially not the enemy.”

“I understand.” <T7 = accepts.>

"The Force is in everything, and everything affects the Force, just as it is affected by it. Living or inanimate, metal or flesh, matter or energy... They each affect the currents of the Force. Whether they’re atoms or stars. And through it, they affect everything it’s connected to. The currents of the Force get stretched and compressed by all the actions and movements, and form this magnificent but brittle tapestry, but it’s on a sheet of thin ice. The ice starts to give, to fracture, where pressure is applied; the cracks spread and interconnect.

They represent causality, interconnectedness.

Strike one node, and others will also react. The points that affect the ice the most are Shatterpoints."

“Wow,” Kira whispered. “And you can see these?”

“Yes. According to Jasme, only two or three Jedi every few centuries are known to have this ability.”

“Neat!” Kira said. “That's handy! Is that why the Council gave you your early Knighthood? Because you have a supersense that lets you know who you gotta kill?"

Vajra looked at her sharply. "Killing is a last resort. Always."

Kira did her best to look appropriately abashed, and he went on.

"I've never told the Council. Master Satele might know. I recently told Master Orgus. Not in detail though. And even so, knowing where to strike is never enough," he said, expression clouding. "These Shatterpoints are threats and opportunities, and you can't tell them apart. Just look at my mistake with Tarnis-- I saw a massive Shatterpoint and the first thought I had was that he had to be protected at all costs! Instead, the Shatterpoint was a warning that he was a traitor. And I mistook it."

Kira considered that.

"These critical points...” he went on. “You don't have to see them to interact with them. Seeing only tells you which points are critical. But not how. I have to strike the Shatterpoint in such a way that I get the intended effect. Sometimes it's done by attacking it, but it's rarely a feat of raw power. You set events in motion. You teach, you guide. Most often, the best method is not direct intervention at all.

"I described it as shattered ice, but it's more akin to stacked dominoes. Hit the right one, everything falls. Reinforce the right one, or remove select ones from the arrangement, and the collapse is halted. But a lot relies on my instincts... and I am many decades away from good, let alone perfect..."

Kira didn't know what to say.

“Tarnis caught my reaction too; everyone did, there was no hiding it. He was probably spooked and set his plans into overdrive. I had activated this Shatterpoint... But wrongly. By misinterpreting it, I allowed Tarnis a window in which he escaped.”

Kira understood now, why he had been so troubled. “But it wasn't your fault, you know that right?”

He explained this "Sight" like it was straightforward enough. but to her it sounded like it was like walking around on a floor of crushed glass; you had no way of avoiding the shards. T7 beeped out an exclamation, and she thought that he had understood too, just what kind of gift burdened the young knight.

They sat the rest of the brief journey in silence. The ruins of the Temple loomed ahead.

It was time to land... and time to end this.

A block away from the Jedi Temple

The rendezvous was at a safehouse near the remains of the Jedi Temple. The twelve squads Vajra had been promised were ready and waiting, and clearly the cream of the crop. Lieutenant Queens stood near the door, inspecting his weapons.

“Master Jedi,” he greeted him at once. “Is this it?”

“This is it. Where’s Sergeant Jorgan?”

“Keeping an eye out. He’s a sniper, you know.”

“I’ve never commanded snipers.” He frowned and answered his comm. “Vajra here.”

“You… you were right, Sir!” It was Colonel Rebo, and he sounded awed. “There’s a thermal build-up. It’s totally different from the other ones. This is it.”

“Thank you. I’m going radio silent now. You have the helm.”

“Roger that.”

He looked at the soldiers. "The Planet Prison is here, but we don't know whether Tarnis. It would be best if he doesn't slip through our fingers again, which is why I’m going in ahead. Kira and T7 will go in with me, and we’ll make our way to the Planet Prison, if he's here at all, that's where he'll be. We'll signal you once we have visual confirmation. Once you get our signal, light em up. I don’t care if you bring down the Temple; Coruscant needs to be saved. It needs a new paint job anyway."

Everyone chuckled.

“Anyone here of a higher rank than Lieutenant Queens? No? Alright. Lieutenant, the squads are yours to command. Do Coruscant proud.”

He gave Vajra a crisp salute, and the others followed suit, their eyes gleaming. “Win, Master Jedi. Win.”

As they approached the Temple, he began thinking of how to sneak past the guards. A plan began to form in his head.

“Erm. Master? You have a smile which is making my evil heart hopeful.”

“You’re gonna love this. In fact, you should have thought of it yourself.”

Major Bolig waited with straightened up as two figures and an Astromech strode into view. They were wearing what looked like Jedi Robes, and had Lightsabers on their belts. They walked with a pride and triumph in their step that gave him pause.

The pair made straight for his cordon, neither one drawing their weapon. The girl in the lead raised an arm in greeting to Bolig, as a few of his men, concealed, leveled their blasters at them.

"Why, hello there, Major!" she said haughtily after inspecting the Rank Cylinder discreetly attached to his left sleeve. "We're the great Lord Tarnis's apprentices. Our Master has called us back at long last! We were getting so tired of playing the weaklings."

Bolig looked at them with careful suspicion. "Lord Tarnis didn't tell us about this..."

She sneered at him. "Ooo, does he tell you everything then? Are you his lover or something?"

Bolig felt an invisible hand on his throat. It didn't choke him, the way some Sith did, but its loving presence made him stand up straighter. He noticed that the men he could see from the corners of his eyes had likewise straightened rigidly.

"N-n-n-no, m-my Lords. I-I-I uh, I w-would confirm with him, but—"

"But he's gone off comms, we know," the boy’s voice was silky and bored.

"Why does the Master have guards here anyway?" the girl muttered. "No one can stop us now. Unless—How can we be sure you're not Republic Special Forces?"

“Better to kill them,” the boy reached for his blade. “They won’t be missed.”

Sheer terror coursed through his veins.

“My lords, I am Imperial! Uh—'From the Sands of Korriban I come, to watch, to wait, to serve!’” He intoned hurriedly. The phrase was how the infiltrators were to identify themselves to their Sith Masters.

The pair stopped for a second, considered him.

“Well, alright then. It’s not like the Republic can stop us anyway.” “Stay sharp, men. We're going on ahead.”

They turned and walked away, straight for the crumbling stairwell; a lone, battered Astromech unit trailing along behind them.

Bolig mopped his brow. He nodded to his soldiers, and they shakily went back to their positions.

Every time he thought he had learned to tread lightly around Sith, one came along and reminded him just how wrong he was...

Once they were out of earshot, Vajra started giggling uncontrollably. Kira joined in a second later, her face redder than her hair.

“‘Republic Special Forces’? You're horrible!” Vajra told her, doubling over.

“Oh no you don't, Mr not-so-good-cop, I saw you reach for your Lightsaber. And don't think I didn't notice you reach out for their throats earlier. Bad boy!”

“It was just a touch,” Vajra protested. “I wasn't going to hurt them!”

“You did rattle their nerves though. And broke someone's pride. That Major wet himself.”

“He didn't notice it though—" “That's what makes it worse, you idiot!”

Even T7 joined in their silent, barely restrained mirth.

They reached their destination within minutes. The former Council Chambers. The sight gave them equal parts awe and sadness; it was the final symbol, of just how many lives were lost. Of what defeat had cost, both the Republic and the Jedi Order.

Looking ahead, they saw a figure in hooded robes waiting for a holocall to connect. The glow of the Holotable lit up his face.

Tarnis.

“Tarnis in sight, we have visual confirmation, Lieutenant. Repeat. Tarnis in sight. Take the Temple.”

“Roger,” came the cool reply.

The trio advanced silently. Vajra stopped for a moment, motioned towards a makeshift console that had a lot of power cables attached to it.

T7 obliged, and silently cut the power, then melted the circuitry for good measure. Repair would take time.

As T7 worked, Vajra and Kira advanced on Tarnis.

His call had connected: five beings—clearly Sith—stood before him.

“The Planet Prison is activated, father. It will be charged in two hours. I will be leaving Coruscant now. The Republic will have no choice but to surrender completely."

“You return to me as a hero, my son,” the Leader spoke. He had a severe face, left cheek covered in cybernetics. “Our victory is complete.”

“Not really,” Kira called sweetly as they stepped forward. “T7 here cut the power you need for that extremely gluttonous machine of yours. Even if he hadn't, you need two hours for full charge.”

The masked Sith chuckled. “What's this, Tarnis? A loose end? For shame!”

"You're here already?" Tarnis snarled. "How did you get past my guards so easily? No matter. I have had enough of you. I will kill you and the Sith shall win some day."

"But not today," Vajra said. "Surrender. I don't want to kill you."

Tarnis's father roared at that. “How DARE you? Tarnis is MY son! The son of DARTH ANGRAL! We are of a powerful Sith line—while you look barely old enough to be out of your cradle! Are the Jedi really so short-handed as to send children? Channel your rage, my son! You are more than powerful enough to kill these insolent whelps!”

"Your blood flows through my body, father. I cannot fail," Tarnis said, drawing on the Force.

He released it as a blast of Force Lightning.

Vajra and Kira both caught the lightning on their blades, but the force of it pressed them back hard.

Through the strain, Vajra opened his third eye. He had been curious about Force Lightning for some time now. This was the first time he'd ever seen it being used... not counting Bellicose. Tarnis was compressing different flows of the Force, causing a massive strain in those currents as they fought to return to their original paths. The strain built up and exploded quicker than the eye could see, and Tarnis was Channeling the explosion in the form of bolts of lightning.

Looking at such a blatant use of Dark Side, Vajra considered that the difference between Light Side and Dark Side use of the Force was in how you tended the Flows. The Jedi way of surrendering to the Force meant that these Flows all moved to accommodate the changes the Jedi introduced. Yet the Sith way of domination placed an iron grip on those flows, causing them to scream and break apart in ways that normally wouldn’t occur. Looking at it, he wondered if it was possible for a Jedi, using only the Lightside, to use a version of Force Lightning. It should be—lightning occurred naturally, after all—but it would require working in tandem with the currents, not against them. Perhaps using the naturally violent flows—in clouds or power cables, for instance—a Jedi might be able to call forth a bolt of Lightning…?

And if the Force could be used to create lightning in that manner, then perhaps with practice he could undo Force Lightning by soothing the currents.

Tarnis scowled. “What are you laughing about, cub?”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just… underwhelmed. Is this the same Force Lightning I’ve read so much about? It looks so… trivial. Maybe it’s because the user is weak?”

Vajra swung his blade in an upward arc, using the momentum of his spin to close the gap with Tarnis. The Sith Lord’s eyes widened when he found Vajra’s blade at his throat.

“Pathetic,” Vajra hissed. He withdrew his blade, suddenly confident that this Lord was not the warrior that he was an infiltrator. “Clearly you weren’t trained to fight, just cheat. Try again!”

The Sith roared in fury.

The pureblood Sith—marked by the red skin and bony protrusions on his face—interjected. “It’s a goad, Tarnis. Just ignore him—”

“Why ever would I need to goad him? I already had him dead to rights. He. Didn’t. Even. See. Me. Move! He’s nothing but a lie!”

“I’LL KILL YOU!” Tarnis yelled, his mask melting off at last. His eyes turned yellower, and his skin became chalky. The tips of his hair turned white. “I’LL KILL YOU!”

He fired off another blast of Lightning, but Vajra evaded it. His stroke left a light gash on Tarnis’ right cheek.

Incensed, Tarnis reached for his Lightsaber. Vajra grinned.

Tarnis attacked like a madman, little thought given to form or footwork. Truly, Vajra could have cut him to pieces in an instant, but now that he had seen Force Lightning, he wanted to see what threat Berserking posed. There was a lot of power behind those attacks, but any number of ways worked to negate raw power. Especially since Tarnis stuck to the good old ‘Attack using only downward cuts’ strategy.

“Have you been taught any Forms at all?”

The question reached through his rage-fogged head, and he remembered the basics of Shii-Cho as though it had been taught to him a lifetime ago. But his fury seemed an old friend to him. A long-bottled up friend, but not neglected. Vajra had known anger and seen it falter, but this man’s rage was unending.

He struck thrice in succession at Vajra’s chest before spinning to deliver a power attack.

When those basic drills didn’t work, he tried switching it up a bit. Every time he tried something halfway sophisticated, he ended up tripping on his own feet. Vajra batted away one desperate attack after the next before deciding he’d seen enough. When the next assault came, he swatted aside the man’s blade, then punched his face.

“This farce is at an end,” he said. “Surrender. Now.”

He saw fear and humiliation battle it out on his enemy’s face—perhaps the rage wasn’t bottomless after all—but eventually he got back to his feet. He yelled another battlecry and attempted to charge, only to trip on a fallen piece of rubble. Vajra watched in bemused surprise as the Sith Lord fell… and ended his own life. Stabbed himself in the head.

All five Sith in the transmission watched in utter shock; then one began to laugh like a maniac. “Tarnis, Tarnis, Tarnis, my dear boy!” she cried. “What a pathetic way to die!”

“Lady Dizyre!” the pureblood said, looking aghast.

Tarnis’ father shook with uncontrolled rage. “YOU!” he screamed. “YOU KILLED MY SON!”

“Actually, dear husband, Tarnis killed himself,” Dizyre said snidely, and Vajra was perplexed. Was she Tarnis’ mother? Did she not care about her own son? “I told you he needed a guardian.”

“You will rue this day, Jedi!” the father screamed. “You will rue the day you brought the wrath of Darth Angral!”

“Oh, so you’re Darth Angral? Right, I thought you looked familiar.”

“That’s right, alien filth… and I will rain blood and destruction on the Republic for my son’s death! You will pay a thousandfold for this! A million! When I’m done, you will be the final remaining Jedi in the entire galaxy, and you will repent your insult with an ocean of tears! YOUR ENTIRE REPUBLIC WILL DIE, BY MY HAND!”

The transmission ended, and Vajra sighed.

“Such a charmer. I miss him already.”

Vajra was not in the mood for jooks.

“Why didn’t you just knock him out earlier?” Kira asked, looking sad. “You could have taken him prisoner, and we’d have been able to force terms.”

“I—I needed the practice, alright? I’m going to face more Sith soon. I never thought it would end like this.”

“Well, I guess no one could’a seen that coming,” Kira sighed. “Take this as a lesson. No situation is ever truly under your control, no matter how in the zone you feel. Angral is bad news. I won’t be surprised if he starts attacking worlds at random. Just drops out of Hyperspace somewhere and—”

Vajra deflated. “I fucked up so bad. I guess I proved them all right in this, at least.”

T7 whistled sadly. Kira patted his back. “On the bright side, you did save Coruscant, so way to go there!”

“Yes. Yes, that’s the important thing here. Let’s take Tarnis’ body back.”

“What for? Leave him here. He died so poetically after all. Killed by the very temple his father treacherously destroyed.”

“Sadly, Angral was not amused by the recital. And his pain will soon be our pain.”

“Something happened…”

“The Shatterpoint blew. Not as badly as it could have, but… there will be shockwaves. Not that you need any special sight to tell you that.”

“Look, don’t sweat it. You got the intro course you were looking for. What did you think?”

Vajra sighed. “I Saw a few interesting things. Maybe I can learn how to stop Force Lightning.”

“Damn, your Sight is way too convenient.”

“Let’s see if I can find a way to master it someday.”

“Sure thing, Master. Come on. Let’s go home.”

“One last thing to do.” Vajra walked up to the Planet Prison. For such a dangerous device, it was only seven feet tall, not counting the protruding antenna. Its structure looked much like a vase, with a cylindrical top and a flattened bulb at the bottom. There was a tall dish on a stick emerging from the top, which was probably the barrel of the proverbial gun. The bulb had only a few panels and knobs, but quite a few indicators. With a sigh, Vajra made a final call to the soldiers below.

“Lieutenant? Have you won?”

“Affirmative. You?”

“Tarnis is dead. The weapon is in our hands… but I’d like your help in slagging it.”

“I could bring a few charges, if you don’t mind the Temple crumbling a bit more.”

“I believe the lower levels are completely abandoned, right? That’s all that matters right now.”

“Right. On my way.”

Vajra took a walk around the entrance to the Council Chambers, trying to picture it its glory days. This had been majestic, once. Jasme had described it for him in great details; the statues of the first Jedi which had stood vigil for hundreds of generations. The fountain outside was much more recent than the fabled room of a thousand fountains, but had grown famous in the centuries after the Sith Triumvirate fell. He could see pieces of it, but the rest was buried under tons of rubble.

All around them were torn paintings and smashed sculptures.

“You look troubled.”

“I’m starting my first mission as a Knight by destroying a part of the Jedi Temple. Old, and in need of reconstruction, perhaps. But still. It feels… ominous. I’m off to a great start as a Knight.”

#star wars #the old republic #swtor #fanfic #fanfiction #jedi knight #hero of tython

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