#Replacement Burner For The Source

[itsalmostavengers]

Good morning. Thinking of a fic where Steve and Tony have been happily married for a few years & very obviously, comfortably devoted to one another, and then Steve gets Stolen Away and replaced by a doppleganger of himself for whatever reason (information gathering purposes idk). And his copy, knowing that Tony would be able to suss out he’s a fake immediately, decides that the only way to circumvent this is to do something that he knows Tony will both never recover from and also guarantee to make him give up on trying to fix things.

So he cheats. Blatantly and repeatedly. And he does actually tell Tony the truth: it’s not even because he particularly wanted to, but because he just needed a way to make Tony leave him alone. He wants out, has for months, but he knew Tony simply wouldn’t take the fucking hint unless he did something drastic. And Tony is like no. No that’s not… you love me. You weren’t… you never seemed unhappy. But steve just waves his hands around as if that proves his point perfectly, and ends their marriage by dumping his ring in the trash and walking away. But this would be like a slow burner agony right, I’m talking 50k+, because not only does Steve cheat, he then starts a relationship with the person he cheated on Tony with (another doppelgänger perhaps). And Tony doesn’t have a choice, he has to keep working with Steve on an avengers basis, has to see him at events and charities with this new woman on his arm and there’s nothing he can do. There is absolutely nothing he can do except paste on a smile and a cocky eye-roll for the cameras and then fall apart into a million billion little pieces in private. And his PR agent says he needs to start bringing plus-ones of his own, his friends tell him to start dating again, but Tony can’t. Physically, spiritually, whatever-the-fuck-else-ly, Tony can’t.

Steve was it for him. It just turns out that Tony was more of a wake-up call than a soulmate for Steve.

BONUS BONUS BONUS if (stealing something from an older fic of mine) there has to be some sort of consciousness-to-consciousness connection in order for the fake Steve to have all the information needed to pass as the real Steve, and so the entire time while this doppelgänger is meticulously and methodically destroying Steve’s life and career and sources of happiness, Steve is stuck in a cell somewhere a million miles away just watching the play-by-play happen. Seeing the flashes of Tony’s absolutely destroyed expressions through his fake-self’s eyes as he’s told by the man wearing Steve’s face that he wasn’t a good husband, that the love was never really there, not in any way that mattered. And there is absolutely nothing that the real Steve can do to stop him saying that with his voice, with his mouth, in his clothes. He is stuck with nothing but the knowledge that it happened.

[purplepaigepurple535]

hey y'all, this is a research paper i wrote in my advanced research seminar... by popular demand im gonna post it because i think it ended up being really interesting. the books i read to do this were also so so good, like BG's autobiography and pat summitt's too. took me like a week to write but it was so so interesting. hope u guys like it!

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From Scrutiny to Stardom: The Media Evolution of Women’s College Basketball

Research question: To what extent have media portrayals of women’s college basketball evolved from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’, when did this turning point occur, and how much have these changes contributed to the sport’s growing popularity?

IB Extended Essay Language and Literature: Category 3

3,990 Words

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Introduction

Women’s college basketball: the cultural phenomenon that floods social media pages around the world. It seems as though it came out of nowhere, materializing in the early 2020s and sticking around since. But the truth is, it's always been around. Sitting on the back burner, waiting for its time to shine, while men’s sports dominated the media, the fans, and the world. As recounted by WNBA Star Brittney Griner, it survived periods where it would only be mentioned as a side note regarding a player’s gender, sexuality, or race. It thrived in moments of unbridled competition and fierce opposition. A dynamic, exciting, emotionally stimulating game, women’s college basketball is a rollercoaster that’s been bringing fans on an thrilling ride for decades. 

Between 1990 and 2020 (the “Old Era”) the game was defined by big rivalries like UConn vs. Tennessee and UConn vs. Notre Dame, and ended up producing stars such as Diana Taurasi (drafted from UConn in 2004), Candace Parker (from Tennessee, 2008), Tina Charles (UConn, 2010), and Maya Moore (UConn, 2011). Powerhouse programs, like those which the game’s biggest stars played for, dominated the game both competitively and culturally. 

But from the resurgence of Geno Auriemma’s legendary UConn dynasty in 2025 to the short stint of Caitlin Clark and Lisa Bluder’s Iowa squad in the early 2020s, women's college basketball is changing drastically. The star-studded sport is making headlines, breaking records, and drawing in more viewership than it’s ever seen. Some think this emergence seems out of the blue, unpredictable even, but in reality it has been brewing for quite some time. Since being sponsored by the NCAA in 1982, the sport has seen hundreds of iconic, big-name players. 

Marking the transition from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’ (2020-present), players like Taurasi, Charles, and Parker started to be replaced by modern legends like Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and A’ja Wilson. But, what makes today’s game different from the past isn’t just great players. It’s how much the world sees of them, their personalities, and their presence off the court. Though the problem was that, before social media, the only sources of information for fans would be heavily manipulated media narratives and expertly crafted headlines. Platforms like Facebook (started in 2004) and Instagram (2010) helped athletes to show their own personal styles and connect directly with their fans on a different level. Players’ hobbies, traits, skills, and sexualities have all become common grounds for healthy bonding with fans. More people celebrating their differences and appreciating their similarities, a major contrast to the judgemental and scrutinizing nature of the world before social media. This has come hand in hand with cultural shifts over the last few years, with the growing visibility of LGBTQ athletes and creation of online fan communities that have changed how enthusiasts engage with the sport.

Perhaps fueled by their well-earned “hype” on social media, the turning point in the sport’s popularity came after being blessed by the recruiting class of 2020. A group of electrifying, dynamic high school stars, the 2020 seniors were destined to have a major impact on their game at the collegiate level. They brought remarkable motivation and passion to the NCAA, taking their respective colleges by storm and playing hard through tremendous adversity. But even among incredible athletes like Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Hailey Van Lith and Kamila Cardoso, two stars stood out above the rest. They became household names, cementing their identities as some of the greatest to ever grace the college basketball stage. Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers ignited the flame under the ‘New Era’ of women’s basketball.

Since Clark and Bueckers began to play in college, the sport is now fueled by social media visibility, cultural movements regarding gender and identity, and a new group of athletes who are just as famous and impactful on a ‘For You’ page as they are on the court. The surge in the appeal for women’s basketball today brings up an important question: To what extent have media portrayals of women’s college basketball evolved from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’, when did this turning point occur, and how much have these changes contributed to the sport’s growing popularity? This essay will dive deeper into that transformation and conclusions drawn from it. As the world becomes more open and accepting of different identities, it seems as though the media has an important obligation to carefully and accurately represent female athletes, since the narratives that headlines build shape how the women are perceived.

The ‘Old Era’ Media Landscape

During the ‘Old Era’ (between 1990 and 2020), women’s college basketball was home to some of the biggest rivalries in sports. Even with the severely limited amount of media coverage allotted, most was taken up by such rivalries and the chaos surrounding them. Those rivalry matchups were often the ones streamed nationally, as opposed to standard regular season games. This era also saw the development of generational talents (for example, Taurasi, Parker, and Charles) who became household names and cemented themselves into basketball history. Some might think that the portrayals of those rivalries and athletes caused most media narratives to be straightforward, but that is far from the truth. This era in media was underlined by many cultural issues, which created a big challenge for anyone trying to represent the sport accurately. 

This section will dive deeper into the specific characteristics of women’s basketball media during the ‘Old Era’. Two main parts will be examined: first, the struggle for widespread media visibility, and second, the way players are portrayed in media, more specifically pertaining to gender and sexuality. Both factors can be used to show the inconsistent and unfair representation of female athletes, since women’s and men’s sports often competed for broadcast slots in a world where men’s sports were highly dominant. It is important to understand these dynamics and stereotypes if viewers want to truly see female athletes for who they are and not just what the skewed media narratives show them to be.

A main example of the men’s vs. women’s theme going on during this ‘Old Era’, is how women’s college basketball games often needed to fight for prime-time slots on major television networks. Even though certain games invoked what would be considered more than enough interest to be broadcast, networks were not able to turn that interest into broadcast priority. Very solid ratings were given to the most anticipated matchups, as explained in Jeff Goldberg’s Unrivaled. For example the 1994 UConn vs. Tennessee game, an MLK Day special, earned a 1.0 rating nationally . Tennessee star Kellie Jolly also talked about the buzz around the game: "People were excited about women's basketball. That was huge for our sport [...] no game was talked about like Tennessee-Connecticut." Headlines regarding women’s basketball though, showed how much the world doubted the sport and its growth. An example of this is a 1994 article in The New York Times, headlined, “COLLEGE BASKETBALL; N.C.A.A. Women Are Tipping Off In Untapped Areas”. By using words like ‘untapped’ and ‘tipping off’, the headline implies that the sport is entering an area that the world never thought it would reach. Although the wording might have been questionable, it did what was rarely done at the time: it acknowledged that there was in fact a tipping point and women’s basketball was reaching it. This, along with the attention on the 1994 MLK game, were major accomplishments for the sport, proving that viewers would in fact tune in to nationally broadcasted games. This was to the great pleasure of many ESPN network executives, but was particularly appreciated by Carol Stiff, a women’s sports content coordinator who eventually rose to the position of Vice President of Women's Sports Programming & Acquisitions . In Unrivaled, she notes, "You couldn’t walk away from the fact that [the Martin Luther King Day] game rated a 1.0, at one in the afternoon. I was pretty thrilled with that number. I would love to get that nowadays." After great successes like the MLK day game in 1994, “the NCAA and major networks signed a new contract in the spring of 1995, granting ESPN exclusive broadcasting rights to the women’s regional finals and Final Four beginning in 1996”. This created exposure and the sport began to gain more traction. 

The effects of this event, which seemed promising, quickly disappeared. Other networks took over the coverage of the main rivalry games, and their priorities were not always centered around women’s sports. As Goldberg explains, "the contract stated that the [UConn-Tennessee] game was under the SEC contract and CBS gets first choice.” Since they only needed to broadcast three regular season games, CBS would schedule them as triple-headers during the same time NFL wild card weekends. This caused the basketball matchups to go up against more popular football broadcasts. Stiff was upset about the situation, expressing how she didn’t think it was right that  "big marquee game[s] in prime time" were often "put up against the NFL playoffs.”  

These factors made the sport unable to reach a wider audience, causing rivals to play multiple times in a season just to gain viewership.

Tennessee legend Pat Summitt talks in her autobiography Sum It Up about a conversation she had with her greatest nemesis, UConn coach and 12-time national champion Geno Auriemma. She explains that one of the few things she and Auriemma had in common was their interest in growing the sport. Summitt agreed to Auriemma’s proposal for the ESPN game on MLK day, even though her team was clearly disadvantaged. Summitt stated, "I couldn’t say no. I’d always felt a tremendous responsibility to give back to the game... So I said yes. And we lost.” This decision she made, which prioritized the good of the sport over her own team, shows how most coaches were very dedicated to improving the visibility of the game. The stubbornness and blatant sexism of TV networks led coaches and players to react and make decisions they might not have otherwise made, simply to increase viewership.

Society in the ‘Old Era’ also put a lot of pressure on female athletes. Instead of just being appreciated for their talent on the court, they were examined and judged on other parts of their identities. The media compared things like gender, where women’s basketball players would be put up against their male counterparts, and their “femininity” would be questioned. Brittney Griner’s experience, as she documents in her autobiography In My Skin, serves as a way to understand the scrutiny faced by female athletes regarding their identities. In the book, Griner talks about the public obsession with her physical appearance, gender, and sexuality as a 6’9” gay woman. She explains, “My decision [...] fueled crazy conspiracy theories about me—how I'm secretly a man, and I wanted to avoid genetic testing at the Olympics." This created an environment where discussions about the physical appearance and gender conformity of the female athletes moved focus away from their true skill in-game. Instead of putting in the majority of their effort on improving their game, they needed to navigate a world where their value wouldn’t even be judged on it. Griner’s quote can be tied to the themes of “ignorance and hate” that Griner had mentioned earlier in her book, which emphasizes how societal biases played a main role in the invasive media narratives. This speculation about things out of Griner’s control undermined her achievements and forced viewers to talk about her personal identity instead. It exemplifies the added burden on female athletes during that period, one that made them defend themselves against public scrutiny, and one that was barely ever seen by men’s players.

The uncertainty and hate for LGBTQ athletes was way more constrained in the ‘Old Era’. Even though social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram were out at that point, there was still not much discussion or acceptance about or for LGBTQ athletes yet. Because of that, media coverage of players’ sexuality was often careful, subtle, or just completely ignored. Media sources avoided those subjects because of preexisting stereotypes that limited how information could be conveyed non-judgmentally. As research done by sociologist Michael Messner concluded, "women’s sports get much less coverage, claimed to be because of stereotypes or lack of enthusiasm.” That lack of support and harsh environment meant that athletes needed to navigate their careers while also considering dominant societal norms. Thus proving why it was so important for the media to represent these athletes fairly and accurately, since any obscurities about their personal lives would be torn about and pull attention away from their game.

Evidently, the years from 1990-2020 made up a period where society not only judged women unfairly, but severely undervalued women’s sports and talent. A main cause of this was the pre-existing societal opinions of women and their abilities. Most media platforms were unable to keep up with the constant progression or inclusivity and acceptance, meaning that the sport was trying to grow within a society that wasn’t transforming fast enough. Because of that, the ‘Old Era’ of women’s college basketball was defined by its constant struggle to obtain prime-time media attention, in a world where any attention it did get would be consumed by judgement, homophobia, and other forms of hate. Broadcasting companies made decisions that proved to be detrimental to the sport’s growth and potential, as explained in Unrivaled and Sum It Up. This often forced coaches and players to make strategic decisions, for the sole purpose of increasing viewership. Instead of the thrill and skill of the game speaking for itself, attention was brought to the women’s basketball stage through the over-analysis of players’ identities and personal lives. The gender identities, sexualities, and races of players were all among characteristics that were scrutinized as opposed to those players’ skills themselves.

The Turning Point

Once players like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers hit the women’s basketball stage, the sport hit what Malcom Gladwell refers to as “The Tipping Point”. This concept basically describes how "thoughts, ideas and behaviours spread like viruses... at a tremendous rate" under certain conditions. Players, media strategies, and growing cultural awareness combined to create the perfect combination of variables. The sport entered mainstream media, signaling the beginning of its increased popularity. 

Gladwell’s theory involves the idea of people playing the parts of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Clark and Bueckers took on these roles for women’s college basketball. As connectors, their rivalries and individual skill helped to turn a diverse fan group into a connected community. Their personalities attracted many people, from casual sports fans to the basketball obsessed. The generated social media attention and headlines made them unavoidable, therefore drawing a larger audience to the sport. In addition to their connections, they also played the role of mavens, or “[people] who possess extensive knowledge and expertise on a particular topic or product, and actively seek to share that information with others.” Their generational skill and talent brought in lots of discussion: fans watched their games, celebrated their records, and invested emotionally in their journeys, transforming what used to be passive viewership into engagement. Finally, as salesmen, their charisma, athletic personalities, and major voices “sold” the sport. Interest in them moved past the court, causing them to become cultural figures whose stories were told widely, converting skeptics into fans.

The three main components of the “Tipping Point” theory are what Gladwell refers to as the “The Law of the Few”, the “Stickiness Factor” and the “Power of Context”, with the last two being the most relevant to the transformation of women’s basketball.. The “Stickiness Factor”, or “the unique quality that causes a phenomenon to stick in people's minds and influence their behaviour,” played an important role in the rapid development of the sport. Moments like Clark’s threes or Bueckers’ clutch plays made games more memorable and resonated with fans emotionally. The two players didn’t just make highlights, but culturally significant events. They were replayed and discussed across media platforms proving just how much the two players affected the game. Bueckers and Clark’s large followings on social media (2.6M and 3.3M on Instagram, respectively, and 3.8M and 702.9K on TikTok, respectively) are prime examples of how big of a role they play in modern media. 

The “Power of Context” strongly affected the development of the sport as well. According to Ashley Crossmann of ThoughtCo, it’s “the idea that the environment or circumstances surrounding an idea, trend, or epidemic significantly influence whether it becomes widespread.” Luckily for women’s basketball, the modern cultural environment supported its growth and expansion. Society shifted during the ‘Old Era’, becoming more accepting of women in prominent roles. This ‘New Era’ built on those changes, setting the stage for the sport’s breakthrough, and pushing it over the “tipping point”. This ended up bringing in unprecedented viewership. For example, the 2024 Iowa-UConn Final Four game shattered records, becoming "the most-watched hoops game in ESPN history.” This isn’t just a statistic, but a tool that shows the major transition of the sport from a lesser-known interest to a popular phenomenon.

The ‘New Era’ Media Landscape 

This new, modern landscape in the “Post-Caitlin/Paige” era is characterized by bolder marketing, the challenging of stereotypes, and greater acceptance of the athletes’ true identities. A direct challenge to the historical under-recognition of the game came through the ‘Everyone Watches Women’s Sports’ campaign, beginning in late 2023. This was created by TOGETHXR, a company trying to "uplift the next generation of women in sports.” The company was founded by female athletes Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird, which in turn brings in lots of credibility and authenticity to the opinions they convey. The EWWS campaign in particular targets a large audience. The slogan is declarative and it was put on various types of clothing, signaling their mass-appeal strategy. The message, “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports”, is deliberate and aspirational. This rhetorical choice provokes thought and challenges preexisting viewership assumptions. The shirts were also first made in a simple black and white color scheme, which speaks to the simplicity of the message being sent. There are no designs to draw attention away from the words on the shirt. This could be speaking to the fact that the world needs to be upfront and steadfast when confronting issues like sexism, homophobia, and racism, and that those problems should not be romanticized in the media. 

Another example of innovative media campaigns is the “So Win.” Nike campaign, beginning in early 2025. Similar to the EWWS slogan, the simple “You Can’t Win. So Win.” message is not complex at all. The wording is straightforward, easy to understand by the general public, and is often displayed in simple white letters against a black screen. Also, it is important to note that the statement itself is paradoxical, which serves as a direct comparison to the current state of women’s sports media. According to Andrea Paloian of NYU, the “Female Athlete Paradox” “describes the internal conflict faced by women athletes who are expected to both excel in their sport (which often involves strength, power, and athleticism, traits traditionally associated with men) and conform to societal expectations of femininity.” The slogan conveys this implicitly, taking a dig at the doubters of female athletes. The “You Can’t Win.” section acts as a summation of the certain things said about female athletes and their abilities. If this phrase was left alone, it would serve simply as a motivational statement. Something that could be used to convince women, young and old, to beat the gender stereotypes and disprove societal norms. Instead, the slogan answers the question by saying “So Win.” It states that as though it is obvious, something that should already be assumed. The campaign implies that the standard for female athletes should be set higher, that the bar should not be set anything below what doubters think women can’t do. This sort of “underdog” trope is used often in modern women’s sports media as a way of encouraging young women to step out of their comfort zones and take on challenges that society thinks they are unable to face. 

The commercials for the “So Win” campaign mostly involved clips of different famous female athletes put together, while being narrated by grammy-winner Doechii. Those advertisements demonstrate unity between women and encapsulate the potential of women’s sports by using prominent figures in the sports and music industries. But Nike also made a commercial starring only one athlete: Paige Bueckers. Bueckers narrates and stars in the entire 14 second video, confronting the constant scrutiny over her off-court life, and daring those who question her methods to realize her dominance in the game. She narrates, “People seem to get upset that I’m everywhere.”, while the video cuts to pictures of her at various different events in the off-season. This directly addresses the claims made about Bueckers when she attended awards shows, fashion week, and other high-profile events. People seemed to think that she was not spending enough time in the gym perfecting her craft, and were expecting her senior season to reflect that. Instead, in a calm and collected manner, Bueckers opposes those views when she states, “That’s funny. I seem to upset them here too.” By saying this, she implies that the doubters were incorrect in their assumptions that her game was going to show the consequences of her off-season “world tour”. She also takes on a confrontational tone, emphasizing her displeasure with the narratives. Bueckers ended up having one of the best seasons in women’s college basketball history, winning the national championship and getting drafted No. 1 in the 2025 WNBA draft (Dallas Wings). Even though some media tried to skew the narrative and write her story for her, she tuned it out and played to her potential, serving as an inspiration for young women and athletes everywhere.

Conclusion

The portrayals of women’s basketball have not always been positive or uplifting, and have definitely not always been consistent. From the scrutinization of the game’s old legends to the more accepting, yet cautionary portrayals of players today, the game has seen its ups and downs. In a world where societal norms are constantly changing, the media has been forced to to the new ways people are looking at things. During a time of minimal cultural awareness about LGBTQ players and severe sexism towards women, the ‘Old Era’ media coverage reflected that. Narratives were pushed that were very far from the truth, and the hate and underappreciation of female athletes was at an all time high. After the introduction of platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, the widespread cultural awareness for the unfair judgements placed on those players started to seep into the media. Headlines changed from things like “Brittney Griner’s deep voice in viral video shocks fans, sparks new wave of gender rumors” to more accepting narratives such as “Brittney Griner’s story always transcended sport. She’s a real American trailblazer”. In a society where hate spreads like wildfire, media networks have become more aware of the messages they are sending. Players have now been granted their rightful freedom to write their own stories and choose the parts of their identities they wish to share. Frontrunners in the sport, like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers, have taken advantage of this freedom and interacted heavily with their fan bases on social media platforms. They’ve drawn attention to their skills and playing styles by posting about their personalities, highlights, and service off the court. The effects are clear: women’s basketball grows when players, like Clark and Bueckers, work hand-in-hand with social media to write their own stories. 

As the cultural landscape of the world rapidly develops and society becomes more accepting of diverse personal identities, the media must adapt just as quickly. Narratives are built through headlines and front-page news, meaning that networks must exercise caution and be open-minded when representing figures as historically scrutinized as female athletes.

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thanks so much for reading, pls lmk your thoughts!! :))

[userm3rc]

downpours

thinking about rainy days with Jacob Black

being holed up in his garage with him watching him tinker with an old scrap of metal you can't even tell what it was supposed to be but you know he's gonna do his damned hardest to restore it, all the while listening to the soft patter of the rain dropping on the sheet metal roof.

words can't describe how beautiful he looks in the dim overcast, his light source being a singular bulb across the building and yet he still looks enchantingly handsome, focused on fixing a loose screw there or replacing a piece of rusty metal there.

and don't get me started when he finally decides to pay attention to you. putting his project on the back burner to simply admire you, his breathtaking and sweet partner whose done nothing but patiently bless him with their presence with no complaints. god how he loves you, the way you wordlessly watch him with nothing but warmth that rivals his body heat.

they say loving a werewolf is difficult, even dangerous at times, but its the tender moments like these where you're staring into each others eyes where those stories don't exist. where the cold ones or even his pack mates can't reach you two, both minds and souls so interwined with each other nothing could break them apart.

this came to me while listening to role model paired with Texas's disgusting weather... anywho hope u guys enjoyed :3 <3

[askengiecow]

It had been weeks since they had visited Taurie’s family and Dell was happy to say they had finished the repairs in time for respawn maintenance, but now that they didn’t have all that work keeping them busy, he couldn’t help but dwell on Taurie. The man seemed to be doing good, certainly did a great job reconstructing the kitchen roof, and it was nice how he cuddled up with Dell each night and updated him on how Beau was doing, which he was thankful to hear well, kumquat and his posey taking to her, swimmingly, as Dell would say.

Taurie had still appeared hesitant about Dell helping to milk him after a long day, but Dell was starting to get less of that feeling now. His hands once again being a relaxing reprieve from the pumps, though not as much of a source of intimacy. Most nights so far they had been too tired for such things though they did get a morning tryst or two. However Dell was sad to say he had yet to have Taurie do good on his promise to pay him back for all his missing shirts with wearing his knew chaps, and maybe that was one of the reasons he felt particularly giddy when thinking of his lover and the upcoming week and a half he’d have being alone with Taurie. Hell, maybe he’d even get his ring on the man.

That thought had him grinning like an idiot as he leaned back in his chair, waiting for Taurie to find his way back to the workshop through the crowd of men packing up the bus and trying to get all their arguing out before the trip where murdering each other would be off the table.

After helping Medic carry a few suspiciously marked boxes to the bus(most likely some organs on ice) and resetting the front door after a spat between Soldier and Scout saw the younger man thrown into the wood hard enough to knock it off its frame, Taurie was finally ready for a break. Doing a quick visual check in the vicinity for anything burning, breaking, or blowing up he was satisfied any other issues could wait a spell.

He smiled as he made his way toward the workshop. It had been harder than he thought adjusting to the team again, and he had taken to buckling his helmet back on just in case his watch failed, but with Dell he had never felt closer. They had been busy, true, but hopefully the coming maintenance period would afford them some quality time together.

"Please tell me the AC is workin in here. Hotter than bein snuck up on by a pyros back burner out there." He said, closing the door behind him and coming up behind Dell to rest his arms on the back of the lounging man's chair.

"Think we got everythin in order. Shipment of replacement coolant for respawn came in finally. Once everyone ships out we can get started, whenever ya see fit." He said, swiping an arm across his forehead to clear it of sweat before leaning down to kiss the Texan's cheek.

@dirty-dell

[meraki24601]

Indulge Me for a Moment

Caretaker knew who Hero was the first time they stepped into their apartment. The flimsy mask they wore as part of their costume barely covered any of their features, and the limp they’d sported that day matched what they had seen on TV. Though, considering they hadn’t wanted to scare a potential roommate away, they hadn’t mentioned it. Hero seemed happy and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, so Caretaker let them keep the apartment as a sort of safe zone.

Later, Caretaker would swear it wasn’t them who changed things. Hero was the one who brought work home in such a way Caretaker would either be cruel or just a fool to ignore it.

Back from work later than usual, Caretaker had seen the fight between Hero and Villain. It happened outside their office; how could they not have seen it? They saw the hits Hero had taken to protect innocent civilians. Particular interest was taken in how Hero convinced the emergency responders they didn’t need medical aid. 

The smell of bleach, weakly covered by scented spray, met Caretaker at the front door instead of their cat, Pounce. Hero’s quiet voice in the kitchen only added to the disturbing greeting, “‘M making ramen. W'nt some?”

“I think I’m alright.” Caretaker sighed. They made their way to the kitchen, nearly tripping over Pounce, stationed just inside. 

Hero had never come home that beat up before. They always had some carefully crafted “regular citizen” excuse for any minor injuries and would claim a work trip or family visits for the worse ones that needed time to heal. This was bad enough that even the cat knew better than to take their eyes off Hero. 

Caretaker shook their head at the clumsy wrapping on Hero’s arm, the two large regular band-aids slapped on their forehead that had already bled through, and the steady growing stain on Hero’s side. They had no idea why Hero hadn’t gotten someone to care for them like normal. It seemed it would be up to them, “Hey. You okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine, citizen. You don’t need to worry about me.” Hero whispered. They leaned forward to rest against the counter and stared down into the too-large pot of water on the stove. The burner hadn’t even been turned on.

Yes, this time, it was really up to Caretaker to save their Hero.

The first-aid kit was in the bathroom. Caretaker trusted Pounce to watch Hero while they went to get it. As they had suspected, the small room was the source of the bleach smell. Presumably, Hero had made a decent effort to clean up their mess despite their condition, but there were still a few splatters of blood around. They had taken the trash out but left it outside the front door, so Caretaker had seen it anyway and hadn’t replaced the bag. Even the first-aid kit had been left a mess. 

It didn’t matter. Caretaker would set everything right once Hero had been put to bed. Though mixed up and a few items were scattered, the kit had everything they needed for the time being. 

Pounce’s meow echoed in the small space as Caretaker reentered the kitchen. Hero was now completely bent over the oven, arms bracing them on either side of the pot. They seemed fixed on how the small but steady drops of blood from their nose disappeared into the water.

“Hey,” Caretaker called. “Come sit.”

Hero didn’t seem to hear them. They looked moments from collapsing. Though Hero’s hair hid their eyes, Caretaker saw tears had begun to join the drops of blood in the pot.

At that moment, Pounce decided she’d had enough. The cat bounded over to Hero’s side and raised up on her hind legs to lovingly claw at the back of Hero’s leg. Her strangled meow was overwhelmed by the sound of Hero’s pot smashing against the opposite wall and crashing to the floor. It was too much for both cat and human, but Pounce was the only one composed enough to run out of the room. 

“You’re safe!” Caretaker cried as Hero collapsed on the floor in front of the oven. “Can you hear me? Breathe. You’re alright.”

Whining into the hand covering their mouth, Hero curled in on themselves. The low squelch the action caused made Caretaker sick. They had to move this along. Consequences be damned.

Caretaker whispered each move they made out loud. Scaring Hero again would be bad. Likely very violent, too. Unfortunately, the only way they could think of getting Hero’s attention might potentially turn out even worse. Even the sound of them setting the first-aid kit on the floor nearby made Hero flinch. 

Raising their voice only slightly, Caretaker decided to test their luck. “Hero.”

It seemed that Hero had never once suspected Caretaker knew who Hero was. The shock of hearing Caretaker use their hero name was enough to pull Hero out of the depths of whatever memory they had been drowning in. They didn’t react more than looking up dazedly with a soft frown. 

“Hero, It’s okay. You’re safe.” Caretaker didn’t dare move so much as an inch.

“No.” Hero’s voice was rough. Barely half of what it had been when they called out to Caretaker only moments ago. “I’m not…”

“May I touch you, Hero? You’re hurt.”

“I’m not—”

“Enough. It’s alright.”

A slow tear rolled down Hero’s cheek. Caretaker had expected to hate the look Hero would fix on them once the secret was revealed—anger, disgust, betrayal, etc. They didn’t plan on fear they saw there. 

“You don’t know. You’re lying. This is a dream, a nightmare.” Hero fell forward on their hands and knees. Blood sprayed the floor below them as Hero’s groans turned to deep chest-rattling coughs. 

Caretaker didn’t bother to respond. Instead, they picked up the damp rag they had brought, lifted Hero’s head, and gently wiped away the blood and tears. Hero didn’t fight the touch, so they kept working. Removing the sloppily placed bandaids and cleaning the cuts was simple and quick. 

When Caretaker tried to move on and unwrap Hero’s arm, Hero pulled back with a barely audible “Wait.” So Caretaker did. They sat back on their heels, supporting grip still on Hero’s arm but not moving until Hero nodded. Caretaker could do this at Hero’s pace. They didn’t let the way Hero kept flinching away from even the softest touch drive them away.

Once Hero’s arm was bandaged correctly, Caretaker pulled Hero into their arms. “It’s alright, Hero. You don’t have to deal with this alone.” 

“But why?”

Keeping their grip on Hero steady, Caretaker lowered Hero to lie on the floor. They were glad they’d mopped it earlier. “Don’t worry about that right now. We can worry about answering questions once you’re feeling better.”

Hero’s fist tightened in Caretaker’s shirt. They barely had the strength to keep their back from pressing against the floor. “Why?”

Caretaker shook their head, “Trust me, Hero. Indulge me for just a moment longer.” They lifted Hero’s shirt, barely catching them as pulling the fabric away from the untreated wound sapped away the last of Hero’s strength. “We both have questions that need answers before tomorrow comes. For now, let me save my hero.”

Version 2

[flowerwiththemachinegun]

Fluff? Fluff. Only slightly sexual. Tseng x Gunsmith!Reader. It doesn't matter if it's noon or midnight. If Tseng feels like there's something off about his firearm, he's on his way to you. He’ll never take no for an answer since it's “what we pay you for.” 

*****

“One of these days, this crappy 1911 is going to get you killed.” You couldn't help the irritation seeping into your voice. Nor could you stop yourself from giving Tseng a lecture about upgrading his firearm entirely. Considering he woke you from your sleep at 2am, you had the right to be in an unpleasant mood. The frequency in which Tseng has come by over his weapon has been increasing quite a bit in the past couple of months. You weren't even sure what spare parts you had left for his gun right now. 

Pulling the slide back, resulting in a failed attempt to chamber a round. Next, dropping the magazine and dislodging the now stuck bullet. Giving Tseng a disapproving look over your kitchen table as you tried loading the gun a few more times, resulting in the same misfeeding problem. You were too tired for this shit. Going over your usual inspection, you note a considerate amount of damage as you break down the gun. ‘Is that rust?’ You think to yourself, as many parts as you've replaced in the last couple of months that just shouldn't be. You've never spotted rust on his weapon before either, Tseng has always gone out of his way to keep his 1911 oiled and clean. So why did the entire assembly look so...neglected? 

That's when it dawned on you. Tseng didn't need to be here. He wanted to be here. You weren't sure how you didn't catch it sooner, but this wasn't his usual firearm. One look at the grips could've told you that.  Giving Tseng a chance to confess to his actions, asking when the last time he used the gun was. 

“Yesterday's target practice. I could only get a few shots off before it started jamming.” Lies, he was lying through his perfect teeth. 

“So what made you change pistols? Didn't like the upgrades I did to the last one?” You can't help the smirk dancing on your lips as Tseng frowns, knowing that he was caught red-handed. 

“Can you fix it or not?” Deflecting. It was his strong suit, that's for sure. Of course you could. You already planned on rebuilding it to ensure its full functionality.

“Yes,” you start, making your way around the table until you were standing directly in front of Tseng. Grabbing his face gently so he was forced to look at you. “Why don't you tell me why you're really here.” 

You knew why. You just wanted to hear it come from his mouth. Everything sounds so much better when it's coming directly from the source, especially if that source is Tseng. With the routine the two of you have fallen in, it's a wonder he still comes up with excuses just to see you. Popping up to ask you questions that you were sure he knew the answer to. At times certain he was lying when he'd complain about defects in his firearm. Often finding nothing to be wrong with it at all, but humoring him by replacing the parts that he claimed may be troublesome. Usually taking care of any additional 'needs' he may have afterwards.

Tseng grabs the back of your thighs, fingers grazing your ass as he guides you to straddle his lap. Looking up at you with soft brown eyes, his voice a bit too shy in comparison to his actions. “I just wanted to see you. It's been a while.” 

“It's been a week.” Placing a quick kiss on his lips, hearing him mumble that it had been ‘a long week without you’ before he pulled you into a much deeper kiss. Not breaking away from you as he picked you up and pressed you against the table.

Sleep would have to go on the back burner for now. Knowing Tseng, he would have his way with you until he was fully spent. Making sure to keep a mental note to inform Tseng he doesn't have to come up with excuses to come by. If he wants you. He can have you. 

****

I was just staring at a lot of Tseng and finally noticed boyo uses a 1911. At least it looks like it. Makes sense considering it's known as a government issued firearm. Not a fan of 1911's…maybe it's due to small hands. Or the fact that I have yet to go through a session where a 1911 doesn't jam. (I cannot confirm if it's a 1911 as I can't find anything about his gun. Just based off of what I see)

[smallmariofindings]

Unused level found in the files of New Super Mario Bros. 2. It consists of a typical end-of-level staircase with the flagpole being replaced by a Burner instead.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[intersexbookclub]

Summary: Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex

For many of us, Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex (2009) turned out to be a particularly rich source of information about intersex history. So I (Elizabeth) have decided to give a fairly detailed summary of the chapter because I think it’s important to get that info out there. I’m gonna give a little bit of commentary as I go, and then a summary of our book club discussion of the chapter.

The chapter is titled “(Un)Queering identity: the biosocial production of intersex/DSD” by Alyson K. Spurgas. It is a history of ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, and how it went from being a force for intersex liberation to selling out the movement in favour of medicalization. (See here for summary of the other chapters we read of the book!)

Our high level reactions:

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): Until I read chapter 4, I didn't really realise how reactionary “DSD” was. It hadn't been clear to me how much it was a response to the beginning of an organized intersex advocacy movement in the United States.

Michelle (@scifimagpie): I could feel the fury in the writer's tone. It was a real barn burner.

Also Michelle: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

Introducing the chapter

The introduction sets the tone by talking about how in the Victorian era there was a historical shift from intersex being a religious/juridical issue to a pathology, and how this was intensified in the 1950s with John Money’s invention of the optimal gender rearing model. 

Spurgas briefly discusses how the OGR model is harmful to intersex people, and how it iatrogenically produces sexual dysfunction and gender dysphoria. “Iatrogenic” means caused by medicine; iatrogenesis is the production of disease or other side-effects as a result of medical intervention.

This sets scene for why in the early 1990s, Cheryl Chase and other intersex activists founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). It had started as a support group, and morphed significantly over its lifetime. ISNA closed up shop in 2008.

Initially, ISNA was what we’d now call interliberationist. They were anti-pathologization. Their stance was that intersexuality is not itself pathological and the wellbeing of intersex people is endangered by medical intervention. They organized around the abolition of surgical intervention. They also created fora like Hermaphrodites With Attitude for the deconstruction of bodies/sexes/genders and development of an intersex identity that was inherently queer. 

The early ISNA activists explicitly aligned intersexuality in solidarity with LGB and transgender organizing. There was a belief that similar to LGBT organizing, once intersex people got enough visibility and consciousness-raising, people would “come out” in greater numbers (p100).

By the end of the 90s, however, many intersex people were actively rejecting being seen as queer and as political subjects/actors. The organization had become instead aligned with surgeons and clinicians, had replaced “intersex” with “DSD” in their language.

By the time ISNA disbanded in 2008 they had leaned in hard on a so-called “pragmatic” / “harm reduction” model / “children’s rights perspective”. The view was that since infants in Western countries are “born medical subjects as it is” (p100)

Where did DSD come from? 

In 2005, the term “disorders of sexual differentiation” had been recently coined in an article by Alice Dreger, Cheryl Chase, “and three other clinicians associated with the ISNA… [so as] to ‘label the condition rather than the person’” (p101). Dreger et al thought that intersex was “not medically accurate” (p101) and that the goal should be effective nomenclature to “sort patients into diagnostically meaningful groups” (p101).

Dreger et al argued that the term intersex “attracts the interest of a large number of people whose interest is based on a sexual fetish and people who suffer from delusions about their own medical histories” (Dreger et al quoted on p101)

Per Spurgas, Dreger et al had an explicit agenda of “distancing intersex activism from queer and transgressive sex/gender politics and instead in supporting Western medical productions of intersexuality” (p102). In other words: they were intermedicalists.

According to Dreger et al, an alignment with medicine is strategically important because intersex people often require medical attention, and hence need to be legible to clinicians. “For those in favor of the transition to DSD, intersex is first and foremost a disorder requiring medical treatment” (p102)

Later in 2005 there was a “Intersex Consensus Meeting” organized by a society of paediatricians and endocrinologists. Fifty “experts” were assembled from ten countries (p101)... with a grand total of two actually intersex people in attendance (Cheryl Chase and Barbara Thomas, from XY-Frauen). 

At the meeting, they agreed to adopt the term DSD along with a “‘patient-centred’ and ‘evidence-based’ treatment protocol” to replace the OGR treatment model (p101)

In 2006, a consortium of American clinicians and bioethicists was formed and created clinical guidelines for treating DSDs. They defined DSD quite narrowly: if your gonads or genitals don’t match your gender, or you have a sex chromosome anomaly. So no hormonal variations like hyperandrogenism allowed.

The pro-DSD movement: it was mostly doctors

Spurgas quotes the consortium: “note that the term ‘intersex’ is avoided here because of its imprecision” (p102) - our highlight. There’s a lot of doctors hating on intersex for being a category of political organizing that gets encoded as the category is “imprecise” 👀

Spurgas gets into how the doctors dressed up their re-pathologization of intersex as “patient centred” (p103) - remember this is being led by doctors, not patients, and any intersex inclusion was tokenistic. (Elizabeth: it was amazing how much bs this was.)

As Spurgas puts it, the pro-DSD movement “represents an abandonment of the desire for a pan-intersexual/queer identity and an embrace of the complete medicalization of intersex… the intersex individual is now to be understood fundamentally as a patient” (p103)

Around the same time some paediatricians almost came close to publicly advocating against infant genital mutilation by denouoncing some infant surgeries. Spurgas notes they recommended “that intersex individuals be subjected (or self-subject) to extensive psychological/psychiatric, hormonal, steroidal and other medical” interventions for the rest of their lives (p103).

This call to instead focus on non-surgical medical interventions then got amplified by other clinicians and intermedicalist intersex advocacy organizations.

The push for non-surgical pathologization hence wound up as a sort of “compromise” path - it satisfied the intermedicalists and anti-queer intersex activists, and had the allure of collaborating with doctors to end infant surgeries. (Note: It is 2024 and infant surgeries are still a thing 😡.)

The pro-DSD camp within the intersex community

Spurgas then goes on to get into the discursive politics of DSD. There’s some definite transphobia in the push for “people with DSDs are simply men and women who happen to have congenital birth conditions” (p104). (Summarizer’s note: this language is still employed by anti-trans activists.)

The pro-DSD camp claimed that it was “a logical step in the ‘evolution in thinking’” 💩 and that it would be a more “humane” treatment model (p105) 💩

Also that “parents and doctors are not going to want to give a child a label with a politicized meaning” (p104) which really gives the game away doesn’t it? Intersex people have started raising consciousness, demanding their rights, and asserting they are not broken, so now the poor doctors can’t use the label as a diagnosis. 🤮

Spurgas quotes Emi Koyama, an intermedicalist who emphasized how “most intersex people identify as ‘perfectly ordinary, heterosexual, non-trans men and women’” (p104) along with a whole bunch of other quotes that are obviously queerphobic. Note from Elizabeth: I’m not gonna repeat it all because it’s gross. In my kindest reading of this section, it reads like gender dysphoria for being mistaken as genderqueer, but instead of that being a source of solidarity with genderqueers it is used as a form of dual closure (when a minority group goes out of its way to oppress a more marginalized group in order to try and get acceptance with the majority group).

Koyama and Dreger were explicitly anti-trans, and viewed intergender type stuff as “a ‘trans co-optation’ of intersex identity” (p105) 🤮

Most intersex people resisted “DSD” from its creation

On page 106, Spurgas shifts to talking about how a lot intersex people were resistant to the DSD shift. Organization Intersex International (OII) and Bodies Like Ours (BLO) were highly critical of the shift! 💛 BLO in particular noted that 80-90% of their website users were against the DSD term. Note from Elizabeth: indeed, every survey I’ve seen on the subject has been overwhelmingly against DSD - a 2015 IHRA survey found only 3% of intersex Australians favoured the DSD term.

Proponents of “intersex” over “DSD” testified to it being depathologizing. They called out the medicalization as such: that it serves to reinforce that “intersex people don’t exist” (David Cameron, p107), that it is damaging to be “told they have a disorder” (Esther Leidolf, p107), that there is “a purposeful conflation of treatment for ‘health reasons’ and ‘cosmetic reasons’ (Curtis Hinkle, p107), and that it’s being pushed mainly by perisex people as a reactionary, assimilationist endeavour (ibid).

Interliberationism never went away - intersex people kept pushing for 🌈 queer solidarity 🌈 and depathologization - even though ISNA, the largest intersex advocacy organization, had abandoned this position.

Spurgas describes how a lot of criticism of DSD came from non-Anglophone intersex groups, that the term is even worse in a lot of languages - it connotes “disturbed” in German and has an ambiguity with pedophilia and fetishism in French (p111).

The DSD push was basically entirely USA-based, with little international consultation (p111). Spurgas briefly addresses the imperialism inherent in the “DSD” term on pages 118/119.

Other noteworthy positions in the DSD debate

Spurgas gives a well-deserved shout out to the doctors who opposed the push to DSD, who mostly came from psychiatry and opposed it on the grounds that the pathologization would be psychologically damaging and that intersex patients “have taken comfort (and in many cases, pride) in their (pan-)intersex identity” (p108) 🌈 - Elizabeth: yay, psychiatrists doing their job! 

Interestingly, both sides of the DSD issue apparently have invoked disability studies/rights for their side: Koyama claimed DSD would herald the beginning of a disability rights based era of intersex activism (p109) while anti-DSDers noted the importance in disability rights in moving away from pathologization (p109).

Those who didn’t like DSD but who saw a strategic purpose for it argued it would “preser[ve] the psychic comfort of parents”, that there is basically a necessity to coddle the parents of intersex children in order to protect the children from their parents. (p110) 

Some proposed less pathologizing alternatives like “variations of sex development” and “divergence of sex development” (p110)

The DSD treatment model and the intersex treadmill

Remember all intersex groups were united that sex assignment surgery on infants needs to be abolished. The DSD framework that was sold as a shift away from surgical intervention, but it never actually eradicated it as an option (p112).  Indeed, it keeps ambiguous the difference between medically necessary surgical intervention and culturally desired cosmetic surgery (p112). (Note from Elizabeth: funny how *this* ambiguity is acceptable to doctors.)

What DSD really changed was a shift from “fixing” the child with surgery to instead providing “lifelong ‘management’ to continue passing” (p112), resulting in more medical intervention, such as through hormonal and behavioural therapies to “[keep] it in remission” (p113).

Cheryl Chase coined the “intersex treadmill’: the never-ending drive to fit within a normative sex category (p113), which Spurgas deploys to talk about the proliferation of “lifelong treatments” and how it creates the need for constant surveillance of intersex bodies (p114). Medical specialization adds to the proliferation, as one needs increasingly more specialists who have increasingly narrow specialties.

There’s a cruel irony in how the DSD model pushes for lifelong psychiatric and psychological care of intersex patients so as to attend to the PTSD that is caused by medical intervention. (p115) It pushes a capitalistic model where as much money can be milked as possible out of intersex patients (p116).

The DSD treatment model, if it encourages patients to find community at all, hence pushes condition-specific medical support groups rather than pan-intersex advocacy groups (p115)

Other stuff in the chapter

Spurgas does more Foucault-ing at the end of the chapter. Highlight: “The intersex/DSD body is a site of biosocial contestation over which ways of knowing not only truth of sex, but the truth of the self, are fought. Both intelligibility and tangible resources are the prizes accorded to the winner(s) of the battle over truth of sex” (p117)

There’s some stuff on the patient-as-consumer that didn’t really land with anybody at the book club meeting - we’re mostly Canadians and the idea of patient-as-consumer isn’t relatable. Ei noted it isn’t even that relatable from their position as an American.

***

Having now summarized the chapter, here's a summary of our discussion at book club...

Opening reactions

Michelle (M): the way the main lady involved became medicalized really made my heart sink, reading that.

Elizabeth (E): I do remember some discussion of intersex people in the 90s, and it never really grew in the way that other queer identities did! This has kind of helped for me to understand what the fuck happened here.

E: It was definitely a very insightful reading on that part, while being absolutely outraging. I didn't know, but I guess I wasn't surprised at how pivotal US-centrism was. The author was talking about "North American centric" though but always meant the United States!!! Canada was just not part of this! They even make mention of Quebec as separate and one of the opposing regions. I was like, What are you doing here, America? You are not the entirety of our continent!!!

E: The feedback from non-Anglophone intersex advocates that DSD does not translate was something that I was like, "Yes!" For me, when I read the French term - that sounded like something that would include vaginismus, erectile dysfunction - it sounds far more general and negative.

M: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

E: it was very assimilationist in a way that was very upsetting. I knew intellectually that this was going on. There was such a distinct advocacy push for that. The coddling of parents and doctors at the expense of intersex people was such a theme of this chapter, in a way that was very upsetting. They started out with this goal of intersex liberation, and instead, wound up coddling parents and doctors.

Solidarities

M: I feel like there's a real ableist parallel to the autism movement here… It dovetails with how the autism movement was like, "Aww, we're sorry about your emotionless monster baby! This must be so hard for you [parents]!" And it felt like "aw, it's okay, we'll fix your baby so they can interface with heterosexuality!" [Note: both of us are neurodivergent]

E: A lot of intersexism is a fear that you're going to have a queer child, both in terms of orientation and gender.

E: You cannot have intersex liberation without putting an end to homophobia and transphobia.

M: We're such natural allies there!

E: I understand that there are these very dysphoric ipsogender or cisgender people, who don't want to be mistaken as trans, but like it or not, their rights are linked to trans people! When I encounter these people, I don't know how to convey, "whether you like it or not, you're not going to get more rights by doing everything you can to be as distant as possible."

M: it reminds me of the movements by some younger queers to adhere to respectability politics.

E: Oh no. There are younger queers who want respectability politics????

M: well, some younger queers are very reactionary about neopronouns and kink at pride. they don't always know the difference between representation and "imposing" kinks on others. In a way, it reminds me of the more intentional rejection of queer weirdos, or queerdos, if you will, by republican gays.

E: I feel like a lot of anti-queerdom that comes out of the ipso and cisgender intersex community reads as very dysphoric to me. That needs to be acknowledged as gender dysphoria.

M: That resonates to me. When I heard about my own androgen imbalance, I was like, "does that mean I'm not a real woman?" And now I would happily say "fuck that question," but we do need an empathy and sensitivity for that experience. Though not tolerance for people who invalidate others, to be honest.

E: The term "iatrogensis" was new to me. The term refers to a disease caused or aggravated by medical intervention.

M: So like a surgical complication, or gender dysphoria caused by improper medical counselling!

The DSD debate

ei: i think the "disorder" discussion is really interesting. in my opinion, if someone feels their intersex condition is a disorder they have every right to label it that way, but if someone does not feel the same they have every right to reject the disorder label. personally i use the label "condition". i don't agree with forcing labels on anyone or stripping them away from anyone either.

M: for me, it felt like a cautionary tale about which labels to accept.

ei: i'm all around very tired of people label policing others and making blanket statements such as "all people who are this have to use this label”... i also use variation sometimes, i tend to go back and forth between variation and condition. I think it's a delicate balance between being sensitive to people's label preferences vs making space for other definitions/communities.

We then spoke about language for a bunch of communities (Black people, non-binary people) for a while

E: one thing that was very harrowing for me about this chapter is that while there was this push to end coercive infant surgery, they basically ceded all of the ground on "interventions" happening from puberty onward. And as someone who has had to fight off coercive medical interventions in puberty, I have a lot of trauma about violent enforcement of femininity and the medical establishment.

ei: i completely agree that it's psychologically harmful tbh…. i was assigned male at birth and my doctors want me to start testosterone to make me more like a perisex male. which is extremely counterproductive because i'm literally transfem and have expressed this many times

Doctors Doing Harm

M: for me, the validation of how doctors can be harmful in this chapter meant a lot.

E: something that surprised me and made me happy was that there were some psychiatrists who spoke out against the DSD label. As someone who routinely hears a lot of anti-psychiatry stuff - because there's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of psychiatry, as a discipline - it was just nice to see some psychiatrists on the right side of things, doing right by their patients. Psychiatrists were making the argument that DSD would be psychologically harmful to a lot of intersex people.

ei: like. being told that something so inherently you, so inherently linked to your identity and sense of self, is a disorder of sexual development, something to be fixed and corrected. that has to be so harmful

ei: like i won't lie i do have a lot of severe trauma surrounding the way i've been treated due to being intersex. but so much of my negative experiences are repetitive smaller things. Like the way people treat me like my only purpose is to teach them about intersex people …. either that or they get really creepy and gross. I’m lucky in that i'm not visibly intersex, so i do have the privilege of choosing who knows. but there's a reason why i usually don't tell people irl.

M: intersex and autism have overlap again about how like, minor presentation can be? As opposed to the sort of monstrous presentation [Carnival barker impression] "Come see the sensational half-man, half-woman! Behold the h-------dite!" And like - the way nonverbal people are also treated feels relevant to that, because that's how autism is often treated, like a freakshow and a pity party for the parents? And it's so dehumanizing. And as someone who might potentially have a nonverbal child, because my wife is expecting and my husband and she both have ADHD - I'm just very fed up with ableism and the perception of monstrosity.

Overall, this was a chapter that had a lot to talk about! See here for our discussion of Chapters 5-7 from the same volume.

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

My avatar tla hot take ACTUALLY UNPOPULAR and not just minority opinion is that Azula is a terrible addition to the series. On her own? Oh, her character was great, complex, etc. She is a queen, a great diva, wonderful villain, interesting, deserved a great redemption too (She is 14! A baby!) etc. She just would have suited a magic girl show, a horror movie (in the typical scary, powerful little girl fashion), or a darker, more mature show with more characters like her, meaning child prodigies, better.

Combined with the rest of the atlab story? Kinda makes me laugh. She is such a ridiculous addition that makes it obvious this is a kids’ show. When I first watched the show, Zuko's father and the fact he had branded him was such a serious “oh shit” moment. Like, that is a father whose expectations are truly ridiculously high. It was scary. I mean who could meet them?

Zuko, whether a villain or an anti-hero, was a special, unique character the first few episodes because he was intimately acquainted with the scary main villain in a way no one was.

Then comes Azula. Come at me to debunk me (I may not even try to argue because this is such a weird opinion in the fandom, for real I haven't heard it) but she feels like a writer self-insert. Not a little kid’s writer self-insert, mind you, she feels like a well-written, dark, and complex self-insert or oc written by a talented fic writer in her 30s with years of experience that may become an original writer someday, but an oc nonetheless.

Azula feels like “oh, Zuko could never live up to his evil father’s ideals? Oh here comes my oc Azula, despite being 2 years younger she is soo much better at firebending and does everything better, even being evil, she is the main villain’s golden child and sidekick! And the sister of the main antagonist who interacts with him constantly!” (oh isn't that so cool?) “oh shit wait she needs flaws otherwise she is a villain Sue, let's see.… perfectionism! Perfect flaw! and at the very end after needing a 2 against 1 setting to be defeated she has a mental breakdown, perfect!”

“But gifted children and prodigies exist!!” you may say. Yesss I knowww. She is both too dark of a concept and too corny for atla. I see the flaws and contradictions in the ~vibes~ Azula gives me, thank you anyway. But regardless of rationally being aware of this, the reveal that this powerful character that comes to replace Zuko in causing the gaang trouble (Because let's face it, the beginning of Zuko's redemption arc and needing an even bigger bad to replace him and shock the viewers by how much more dangerous/powerful they are is the whole reason for Azula’s existence) is his 14-year-old LITTLE sister is so… dorky and laughable for me personally. And not only because of her gender in case you come to attack me from that angle. Zuko's prodigy little brother would perhaps have been an even worse and more ridiculous big bad replacement (Girls being shorter is understandable, but with a little brother we would visually see how much Zuko would be able to beat him if this weren't a kids’ show with magic, it would be even harder to suspend my disbelief to). Like, I am sure the reasons I hate the concept are the very same reasons some others love it, but you are telling me that the one capable of fulfilling the evil child burner father's expectations is… simply some rando younger child? It is not that Ozai was a freak who wanted the impossible, it is just that Zuko wasn't it. It is corny, it is dumb. It is so obviously meant for kids. Thanks, I hate it.

Azula also combines in a very weird and bizarre way with Zuko's tragic origin story (Also it is just another source of angst that is completely unnecessary, that distracts from what his father did to him and never living up to his expectations or being too compassionate for his own good, now there is a little sibling in the way being better than him at everything). Call me crazy, but Zuko as an only child, or at least a child without crazy op YOUNGER siblings would have had a MUCH more interesting relationship with his father. Perhaps an even ANGSTIER and more complex relationship where his approval is just within reach but also not quite there. Where it seems conceivable and yet out of reach. Where Ozai is the type of abuser who gives him praise when he does something right just to tear him down mercilessly when he doesn't.

What Zuko has in canon with Ozai and Azula is also interesting, painful, and angsty, but it is “never be able to be this other random younger child who happens to be a prodigy so what is even the point of trying when dad always reminds me of how meh I am compared to her” instead of “never be able to be like my father who is putting all his hopes and that of his empire on me, who at times seems to care so much”. That last one is much more compelling for me personally for a character that ends up being the opposite of his father and learns being like him is not a good thing, it also gives Zuko a good, believable reason to keep trying to please his father: there is actually a chance, there is no one there who has already won the race. Oh my, his search for the Avatar would have made so much more sense without Azula why does Azuka exist in this universe whyy 😭

Don't get me wrong, the sibling rivalry and abusers putting children against each other, having a golden child and a scapegoat, is realistic in many families, but from a storytelling perspective I find it VERY whatever, MEH. Like, the moment Ozai burns Zuko would have been a much greater instance of utter betrayal and shock if Ozai actually acted at times like he had some hope in his son instead of being constantly comparing him to his sister. Now everytime I am made aware of what Ozai did to Zuko I am like “duh” what were you expecting, Zuko, baby? It is still evil as fuck, but no longer shocking or a wtf moment, it is just the boring, edgy and predictable culmination of Ozai already having a “better” child he prefers to succeed him, a total overkill, and in fact, knowing Ozai, he should have done so earlier or straight up had Zuko killed, it makes no sense he is still alive when Azula is a much better successor from his perspective. It means nothing and Zuko should of fing course be traumatized and emotionally and physically distraught by the damage done to him by his own father, but he should not longer logically be that shocked or struck dumb. From a fictional, storytelling perspective, for me personally, the moment loses a tiny bit of its power, at least from the betrayal-someone-who-should-care-for-you—hurting-you—instead aspect.

If I had been there to write the ~big worse bad before Ozai~ meant to replace Zuko as he begins his journey of redemption, I would have chosen something much more serious (I get “abused child soldier” is serious, duh, I just mean serious in a way that makes me fear for the gaang being faced not with a peer but with someone bigger and much more experienced, and not just distract myself with how horrible it is that a “father” makes a 14-year-old girl into a soldier for an invading army). I would have chosen an equally or even more powerful, ADULT, right-hand man (or woman) of Ozai. If it really had to be a sibling of Zuko, it would have been a brother or sister 5 years OLDER, and that is AT THE VERY LEAST, perhaps the son or daughter of a minor wife or concubine (To fix the issue of why they are not the heir and why Zuko could be jealous of their much better skills while at the same time still having a good reason to keep trying to earn their father's approval, which is that there is still time to learn and improve as the younger party, this could have also made Ursa more sympathetic since the “evil” sibling is no longer a child of hers that she emotionally neglected). This could also give the character depth in the sense that they hate the fact they have no claim to the throne despite being older and “better”. They could still care for Zuko while having a love hate relationship with them, a sibling rivalry, Ozai turning them against each other, same as Azula, without taking away from Zuko's interesting relationship with Ozai (I just want his urge to overpower his better sibling to come from a place of his father actually expecting him to do it and be mad he doesn't instead of just Ozai putting all his hopes on the other sibling and Zuko for some plot related reasons still wanting his father's impossible approval despite never being able to earn it because Azula is there, better at a younger age, is that too much to ask? Like at this point Zuko should be smart enough to see that firebending skills are inborn and related to ~fantasy-version-of-genetics~, he should logically have seen it is not his fault and stopped trying to be Ozai or Azula MUCH earlier).

So in summary, believe it or not, I like Azula. I like the whole child prodigy golden child psychologically groomed and abused by evil father angle and I would love a redemption arc for her. I just don't like her AS an atla character. I feel like she does a disservice to Zuko by even existing due to how complex and interesting yet overpowered she is, actually. She ruins his motivations imo. Ironically enough, Zuko does not do a disservice to her, he makes her more interesting because he is a warning of what could happen to her if she is not perfect, he makes her vulnerable. But here is the deal, this would work better if she was the protagonist.

Edit: I just realized it is not just Azula who does a disservice to Zuko's story, it is the whole “Ozai straight up hated the little fucker since birth and tried to kill him before as a child therefore what he did to him was not a consequence of Zuko being compassionate as fuck, Ozai might as well have been looking for an excuse”. It just cheapens it immensely.

Zuko caring for those soldiers still counts just as much (of fucking course), but it would have been more poignant story-wise for his suffering to have also be a direct consequence of his first signs of goodness + his father being an abuser pshyco and not just the latter + Ozai always hated him because Zuko is the good guy and his father’s empire is evil so we need a way to make the children see Zuko is good and not like the rest from the beginning in a painfully simple way by making Ozai inherently hate him or smt because abusers “loving” their children in fucked up ways is too complicated

[the-jumblr-cookbook]

Champignons a la Russe

Type: Meal

Source: This is my grandmother's recipe!

Estimated cooking time: 30 - 45 minutes

Ingredients: 1 lb. sliced mushrooms -- baby bellas or creminis are perfect here! 3 TB butter, more if needed 2 onions, chopped 2 TB flour mixed with enough water to form a runny paste 1/2 pint sour cream Parmesan cheese (grated) to taste Fresh dill (to taste) Salt A little milk, if needed Noodles or rice for serving

This is a vegetarian but dairy-heavy meal. I don't know enough about vegan dairy alternatives to veganize it. To make it gluten-free, you could probably replace the wheat flour in the thickening paste with rice flour or potato starch.

Utensils + Tools: Knife to chop onions and dill and slice mushrooms, with a cutting board Mixing spoon Pot to cook noodles/rice in Saute pan to cook the mushrooms Cheese grater if you want to grate your Parmesan from a wedge. Stovetop with two available burners

Instructions: Get your noodles or rice cooking. If you have whole mushrooms, slice them, and wash sliced mushrooms in warm salty water. Saute the onions in the butter for a few minutes until translucent. Drain the mushrooms, and add them to the saute pan. After a while, they will release quite a lot of liquid. Push the mushrooms and onions to the edges of the saute pan, leaving the center free. The center will fill with mushroom liquid. Add the flour paste to this liquid and stir vigorously until smooth. Mix everything together and add the sour cream, Parmesan, and dill. If the sauce is too thick, you can thin it with a spoonful or two of milk. Serve over noodles or rice.

1lb sliced mushrooms - 453g

½ pint sour cream - 8oz/1 cup

[health-fitness-1960]

Nutrela Slim Choice Meal Replacement Protein Shake for Weight Loss: Your Complete Guide!

Source : youtube.com : must watch

In today’s fast-paced world, staying fit and maintaining a healthy weight can be a challenge. Between work, family responsibilities, and lack of time for cooking healthy meals, many people end up reaching for unhealthy snacks or skipping meals altogether. That’s where a convenient and effective product like the Nutrela Slim Choice Meal Replacement Protein Shake comes into play.

Whether you’re looking to shed a few extra pounds, manage your appetite, or simply improve your overall nutrition, this shake offers a powerful solution. In this blog post (and video), we’ll explore everything you need to know about Nutrela Slim Choice – its benefits, ingredients, how it works for weight loss, who should use it, and how to incorporate it into your daily routine.

🥤 What is Nutrela Slim Choice Meal Replacement Shake?

Nutrela Slim Choice is a scientifically formulated meal replacement protein shake designed to support weight loss, improve metabolism, and provide essential nutrients – all in a delicious, easy-to-consume form. Manufactured by Patanjali’s Nutrela brand, it’s made with plant-based ingredients and enriched with protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals to help you feel full and energized while reducing your calorie intake.

Whether you're a busy professional, a student, or a fitness enthusiast, Nutrela Slim Choice helps you manage your diet effectively without compromising on nutrition.

Click Here to Visit The Official Website For More Information:

✅ Key Benefits of Nutrela Slim Choice

1. Supports Healthy Weight Loss

The shake is low in calories but rich in protein and fiber, making it ideal for calorie control and fat burning. It helps create a calorie deficit without starving your body.

2. High in Plant-Based Protein

Each serving provides a good dose of plant-based protein, which helps preserve lean muscle mass during weight loss and keeps you full longer, reducing cravings.

3. Rich in Fiber

Dietary fiber aids digestion, regulates blood sugar, and promotes satiety. With adequate fiber, you’ll feel fuller, longer – which means fewer chances of reaching for unhealthy snacks.

4. Packed with 28 Essential Nutrients

Nutrela Slim Choice contains 28 essential vitamins and minerals, including iron, calcium, B vitamins, and more, ensuring your body gets balanced nutrition even when replacing a full meal.

5. Boosts Metabolism

Formulated with natural metabolism-boosting ingredients, the shake helps your body burn fat more efficiently, making your weight loss journey quicker and more effective.

6. Sugar-Free and Low-Glycemic

It contains no added sugar and has a low glycemic index, making it suitable for diabetics or those monitoring their blood sugar levels.

7. Convenient and Tasty

It comes in a delicious Chocolate flavor, making your weight loss plan not just healthy – but enjoyable!

Click Here to Visit The Official Website For More Information:

🧬 Nutrela Slim Choice Ingredients: What’s Inside?

Here’s a breakdown of some of the main ingredients that make Nutrela Slim Choice so effective:

Isolated Soy Protein: High-quality plant protein for muscle maintenance and satiety.

Dietary Fiber (Inulin): Promotes digestive health and supports a healthy gut.

Garcinia Cambogia Extract: A well-known natural fat burner that helps control appetite.

Green Tea Extract: Rich in antioxidants and known to improve fat oxidation and energy expenditure.

CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid): Supports fat metabolism and lean muscle mass.

L-Carnitine: Helps the body convert fat into energy.

Vitamins & Minerals Blend: Covers daily micronutrient requirements for overall health.

Digestive Enzymes: Improve nutrient absorption and reduce bloating.

These ingredients work together to support weight loss, promote satiety, and maintain energy levels.

Continue Reading...............................

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF: Isekai Invasion

The show where we take a character and drop them into a different franchise at a random location to see if they can conquer the world.

This Episode....

Mary Jane Watson invades Mount Massive Asylum!

Conditions:

Insomniac Games's Mary Jane

MJ as of Spider-Man 2 with all her associated equipment.

MJ will be replacing Miles Upshur in the plot of the original Outlast with all the same goals. If she can escape the Asylum alive with all the evidence needed to bring Murkoff to justice, that will count as a win.

MJ cannot call in the Spider-Men or anyone else for help.

Scenario:

The same set up as Outlast but with MJ replacing Miles Upshur. Mary Jane Watson, reporter for the Daily Bugle, gets an anonymous email from a burner account about the atrocities being committed by Murkoff at Mount Massive and goes in to investigate. MJ speculates that the building has a jammer when she mysteriously losses all signal after getting in range, but she pushes on regardless. It is only after MJ can no longer get out the way she came in that she realizes the building has been overrun, leaving her no choice but to push in deeper.

Invader: MJ

Mary Jane Watson. One of the most iconic damsels and love interests in comic book history. Though iconic for her role as damsel in distress in the Rami movies, Insomniac's Mary Jane is more in line with her comic counterpart. She's a freelance reporter capable of kicking as much ass as her superhuman boyfriend sometimes and she'll do anything to unbury the truth.

She's surprisingly an expert in stealth and infiltration. She's snuck into the compounds of crime lords like Tombstone and Hammerhead, snuck past the international mercenaries of Silver Sable and her men, and avoided capture by Kraven the Hunter's mercenaries. Using her boyfriend's Spider Lures as a distraction, she's even managed to break into the Oscorp undetected.

While writing a book on the country of Symkaria, MJ got some self defense training from Silver Sable herself, as well as a fancy new taser that can drop a goon in one shook. She later upgraded this taser gun with Peter's gadgets, allowing it to shoot webs and shoot sonic blasts loud enough to ward off a symbiote behemoth. With these tools, she's able to take down Kraven's hunters, who are strong enough to kick down steel doors with a single kick snd survive rpg rockets exploding in their face. These are the same rockets that usually explode with an energy equivalent to 650 kilojoules.

Source:

What's more, MJ is fast enough to dodge arrows from a hunter's crossbow, which csn travel up to 350 feet per second or 106.68 meters per second.

Source:

Honestly, Mary Jane Watson is kind of a badass. She's escaped from being captured by Kraven's hunters, fought her way through a symbiote hive, outrun a Symbiote controlled Spider-Man trying to kill her, and managed to fight off the control of the Scream Symbiote, with some help from Peter.

This MJ is a far cry from the damsel in distress she's stereotyped as and she's just as vital a member of Spider-Man's team as the Spider-Men themselves.

Invaded: Mount Massive

The Murkoff Corporation could never be said to have had a sterling reputation. The company had an unofficial history of human experimentation and exploitation. Never on American soil, of course. Never anywhere that the American public would actually care about. Not until they bought out Mount Massive Asylum.

Because if there's one group that Americans care about less than foreigners, it's the mentally ill.

Murkoff wanted to exploit the theories of the retired Nazi Dr. Wernicke by diving into dream theory. The enlisted him in their Morphogenic Engine program, hoping to summon, empower, and control the nanotechnological ghost known only as the Walrider. To this end, the experimented on the mentally ill, physically and psychologically torturing them. Turning the compatible into human engines so their nightmares could fuel the god they wished to enslave while leaving the incompatible to rot and die. Even loyal members of the company, like executive Richard Trager and Father Martin Archimbaud, were used as test subjects at the earliest convenience. The variants, as they were called, begain to mutate and deform. Tumors formed over their bodies, clogging their mouths and block their eyes. Their hair begain to fall out and they emancipated into borderline skeletons.

The variants pre-existing conditions worsened. At best, they became catatonic and unresponsive to the outside world. At worst, they became violent and murderous.

And then they found a subject fully compatible with the Walrider. Able to sustain it, control it, and survive as its host. Billy Hope. As soon as he was in control, all hell broke loose. The Variants broke out and happily took their revenge on their tormentors. Scientists and security alike were butched like pigs, heavily armed soldiers were impaled on pikes. And the Walrider was set free.

Notable Variants include the likes of Eddie Glusken, a misogynistic serial killer who was only made worse by the Morphogenic Engine. Granted superhuman strength by the treatments, he was now strong enough to lift a full grown man off the ground with one arm. "Doctor" Richard Trager was now strong enough to cut off limbs, decapitate his victims, and cut open the gates to the elevator with his giant scissors. And every varienty in the build was now strong enough to bash down doors and kill reporter Miles Upshur, who survived a massive explosion that blew him out a window. An explosion thst generated an energy equivalent to 11,840 kilojoules.

Source:

But the most dangerous Variant in the entire building was Chris Walker. Once a simple war veteran suffering from severe PTSD, Chis became a killing machine with an enhanced sense of smell, hearing, and sight that could let him track down his victims even in the dark. Obsessed with containing the threat of the Walrider, Chris's judo skills and military training make him a veritable beast, capable of easily ripping Miles's head clean off with one hand and bashing down reinforced steel doors.

But even he is still just a man next to the Walrider. A futuristic marvel of nanotechnology that feeds off the dreams of its host to survive, the Walrider can fly, go through walls, go through your pores and rip you apart from the inside, and is nigh-invisible to the naked eye, only complely visible on night vision cameras or during the day.

The only issue, however, is that the Walrider is completely submissive to the will of its perfect host, reliant on them to survive. And if its host is not perfect, as Miles Upshur turned out to be, they will be reduced to a walking corpse overtime by the possession.

Mount Massive Asylum represents one of the biggest atrocities committed in the name of corporate greed. A warcrime that even drew the digust of the Nazi forced to work on it. No one cares about "a building full of forgotten lunatics". Let it burn, I say.

Throwdown Breakdown:

The stats on this one are rather interesting. Miles Upshur is 11x more durable than the goons MJ can one-shot, meaning every single thug in the building is going to be strong enough to rip MJ apart if they get their hands on her, seeing how Miles is almost completely helpless against them.

But, none of the Variants have ever demonstrated superhuman speed, meaning they're absolutely never catching MJ, who can move fast enough to dodge subsonic projectiles. Sure, Chris Walker is fast, but MJ is faster than a speeding car. If he doesn't get the drop on her or corner her, he's not getting his hands on her.

Then there's MJ's other gadgets. Her sonic blasts will likely have no effect, as they're specifically designed to fight Symbiotes and ordinary humans are unaffected. At most, I could see them potentially stunning Chris Walker due to his advanced hearing. MJ's noise devices could be a good distraction, but her taser could likely be tanked due to how much stronger the Variants are. On the flipside, I don't see any of the varients breaking free of her webbing. This is the exact same webbing Peter regular uses to lift cars and restrain his supervillains. That's a bit out of the league of most Variants. Meaning she could probably skip Trager's whole segment by webbing him to the wall, which is admittedly funny.

This is compounded by MJ's far superior stealth. Walker might be a military veteran, but MJ's snuck past some of the best international mercenaries on the planet. It's no contest on that front, even with Chris's enhanced senses.

It's with the Walrider that this becomes tricky.

The Walrider isn't invisible or intangible in the same way, say, a ghost is. It's basically a cloud of microscopic nanites. It's difficult to spot and touch because it's a very thin cloud. For most people in most circumstances, it's difficult to spot until it's basically right in front of you, at which point it's too late to escape. This means that I'm pretty confident in it getting through MJ's webs, even if some of its components get stuck.

The issue is how damn fast MJ is. The second it appears in her face, she's gone halfway down the hall. It doesn't help that it prefers to throw its victims around before killing them, which would only give MJ the opportunity to escape.

I think the Walrider could easily end MJ's run if it got the drop on her. Which it very well could. It got the drop on Miles several times and he actually has the means to see it coming in less than optimal conditions, something MJ wouldn't without a night vision camera.

But, this is where MJ's superior stealth comes into play. With a sneaking ability far superior to Miles and a speed that the Walrider can't keep up with, MJ could avoid getting ambushed by the Walrider by never getting found by it in the first place.

There are plenty of scenarios where MJ gets ripped apart or, worse, possessed by the Walrider. But there are more where MJ uses her superior stealth and speed to avoid it long enough to complete her mission. And once she kills Billy Hope, whose sitting helpless in a tube at this point, the Walrider wouldn't be able to make her a new host to survive due to her just being too fast for it to catch.

Overall, I think Ms. Watson has all the skills she needs to get the scope she's after.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Mary Jane Watson!

[hesitationss]

fb+/meta or whatever is one severely unfunny joke. i know i am mostly a hater of social media, but i don't see how threads is going to be better for usability and reach. especially given how shit numbers are on IG (i get more noted "per capita" of followers on tumblr and twitter for untagged posts). i already made a small thread of zucc apps being shit which I'll copy paste here. i don't know how people are thinking threads is going to be better than any of the twitter alternatives when it's most likely the WORST option out there. anyway-

the reason why the other twit replacement apps aren't as insidious as threads (zucc/fb owned) should be obvious, but i'll list some things:

• infamously on zucc platforms you can get reported for saying "white people" which is why so many of us say yt now (a bit of poc social media history for u from the 2010s)

• private messages are sold/given to police no warrant: this could be anything used against you, could be protest info, where you've been, etc.

• right wing propaganda/misinfo is lucrative for facebook. this is something that heavily affects the global south btw.

• they lie about views and growth for business accounts to keep you on their platform. the case i know best is that they inflated college humor's analytics to compete w youtube. this resulted in so many businesses throwing money and labour at facebook w out much return.

also zucc sucks, he's pure evil... like u don't need me to get into *that* hopefully

addition:

omg 🙄 so shocked 🙄 that zucc is further propelling nazism on his latest app that has the exact same content moderation as all his other fucking apps lol 🙄 who would have guessed ?

Far-right figures, including Nazi supporters, anti-gay extremists, and white supremacists, are flocking to Threads (Media Matters)

Adding sources:

Point 1 - i can't find any formal articles that document the particular insidiousness of this, but I and many others who were in BIPOC only "leftbook" groups had either our accounts or groups we joined completely nerfed for using language against white people. hubs that had been for info dissemination, discussing theory, and organizing were marked as hate speech or reported by white reactionaries (even "leftist" ones)

Point 2 - Has been apparent since Michael Brown's murder by police in 2014 and the protests following, but was esp apparent in protest following George Floyd's murder and subsequent protests.

FBI trawled Facebook to arrest protesters for inciting riots, court records show (NBC News)

Point 3 Links - Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (NY Times) | Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, violence, misinformation (CBS) | How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation (MIT Tech Review)

Link for point 4 - Adam Conover talking about College Humor's inflated FB numbers (plus many other articles have been written about this)

more on the privacy shit - sex workers who have used fb AND ig on burner emails with fake names, had their emails and real names auto linked bcuz of how much a little bit of information goes. how fucked up is that.

How Facebook Outs Sex Workers

BTW i have been preaching this for years but if you want to learn why our internet is fucked up, learn about what happened with net neutrality cases in the US, and then later, SESTA FOSTA (primarily targetting sex workers but is the reason why everything is censored now). ppl online have been warning everyone about this for years, but you are just now experiencing the consequences. but again, nobody listens to things that target primarily sex workers.

plus from a functional standpoint, if you want to delete your threads account, your instagram is deleted as well. like it really doesn't seem worth it for people who are desperate to find the social media that will stick. i don't have anything nice to say about any of the other social medias except that some Mastodon instances do a great job at keeping nazi's out and using alt text, but the bar is extremely low and everybody else is even lower ^_^

[sreejithendrabal]

If you are the owner or operator of commercial deep fryers, you're aware of the importance it is to ensure that every part in perfect condition. If you own an Fry Master fryer there are three key components to assure safe and effective use are: Fry Master fryer gas valve, Fry Master fryer high limit control as well as the Fry Master fryer pilot assembly.

What Does the Fry Master Fryer Gas Valve Do?

It is the Fry Master fryer gas valve is an essential component of the heating system for your fryer. It controls the flow of gas into the burner, which allows your fryer to keep an appropriate temperature to ensure uniform cooking results. An inoperable gas valve could create temperature swings, which could lead to burnt or undercooked food and higher electricity bills. Routine inspections and timely replacement of an inoperable gas valve could help prevent the expense of interruptions.

Why the Fry Master Fryer Hi Limit Control Is Critical

The safety of your family and guests should always be first for any commercial kitchen. For instance, the Fry Master fryer hi limit control is a security device which automatically cuts off the gas supply when the fryer's oil temperature is higher than the safe limit. This stops overheating that may cause harm to the fryer or cause fire. If the hi limit controller is constantly tripping, this could be an indication that the part may be out of alignment or your fryer's thermostat is in need of calibrating.

Keep the Flame alive through The Fry Master Fryer Pilot Assembly

It is the Fry Master fryer pilot assembly will ensure that your burners start to burn securely when the fryer switches on. If your pilot assembly gets damaged or dirty it could create ignition issues, or gas leaks. Regular maintenance and cleaning is essential to keep your pilot assembly in perfect condition.

Keep Your Fryer Running Smoothly

If you own a bustling restaurant, food truck or cafeteria, it is essential to maintain these essential parts such as those of the Fry Master fryer gas valve, Fry Master fryer high limit control as well as the Fry Master fryer pilot assembly will extend the lifespan of your fryer, and ensure that your kitchen is running uninterrupted.

If you are in need of assistance getting replacement parts or resolving problems, you should always seek advice from an expert technician or a reputable source to make sure you have the correct parts for your particular Fry Master fryer model.

[pairfum]

Benefits of Using a Sandalwood Diffuser

A sandalwood diffuser is more than a source of fragrance, it is a way to bring balance, relaxation, and calm to your everyday life. With its rich, creamy aroma and grounding character, sandalwood has long been celebrated for its ability to soothe the senses and transform any space into a tranquil retreat. Whether you are seeking a beautiful scent to complement your living room or a wellness ritual to enhance your bedroom, the natural aroma of sandalwood offers a timeless solution.

Why Choose a Sandalwood Diffuser for Your Home?

The warm, woody profile of a sandalwood diffuser creates a comforting atmosphere throughout the day. Unlike synthetic air fresheners or short-lived sprays, a reed diffuser slowly releases fragrance over time, providing a consistent aromatic experience. By using reed sticks placed in a glass bottle, the fragrance oil gently travels upward, diffusing the luxurious sandalwood aroma into the air. This method requires no heat or flame, making it safer than votive candles, jar candles, or oil burners. The enduring appeal of sandalwood lies in its ability to offer both clarity and calm. It is no surprise that sandalwood diffusers have become a staple in modern homes seeking elegance, simplicity, and serenity.

The Allure of Sandalwood: A Timeless Scent

The scent of sandalwood is smooth, soft, and subtly sweet, often described as creamy and comforting. Blended with hints of amber, cedar, or vanilla, it becomes an even more inviting presence in any room. In aromatherapy, sandalwood is used for its calming and centring properties. Whether used on its own or as part of an essential oil blend, it supports relaxation, mental clarity, and emotional balance. The distinct, lingering nature of sandalwood ensures that it is never overpowering – just a steady, grounding companion in your daily rituals.

Wellness Benefits of Using a Sandalwood Reed Diffuser

A sandalwood reed diffuser offers far more than just fragrance. It supports physical and emotional well-being in numerous ways: Stress Relief Inhaling the scent of sandalwood may reduce stress and anxiety. It’s an ideal addition to your self-care routine or a long evening soak. Improved Focus A diffuser with sandalwood is perfect for workspaces or study areas, helping clear mental fog and improve focus. Better Sleep Its calming nature makes sandalwood an excellent bedroom companion, gently preparing the mind for rest without the need for flames or electricity. Cleaner Air When used in a reed diffuser, sandalwood helps neutralise unwanted odours and offers a purer air environment – especially during months when windows stay closed.

Ideal Places for a Sandalwood Diffuser

A diffuser adds elegance and warmth to any room. Consider the following placement ideas: - Living Room: Position near table lamps or floor lamps to softly enhance light and scent. - Bedroom: Place near the bedside for a comforting, sleep-ready atmosphere. - Bathroom: On a shelf with bath bombs and towels for a spa-like touch. - Office: Near your desk to create a productive yet peaceful work zone. - Hallways: Let the scent gently welcome guests as they enter. Just remember to avoid placing your reed diffuser in direct sunlight, near ceiling lights or close to wall lights, as heat can evaporate the oils too quickly.

How to Use and Maintain Your Diffuser

Using a sandalwood diffuser is simple and low-maintenance. Follow these steps to ensure you enjoy it for as long as possible: Setup: - Choose a safe, shaded location, away from direct sunlight. - Remove the stopper and insert the reeds into the glass bottle. - Let the reed sticks absorb the fragrance oil, then flip them to begin diffusing. Maintenance: - Flip the reeds weekly to refresh the fragrance. - Replace reeds every couple of months to maintain consistent performance. - Clean the bottle before refilling to keep the scent pure. - Keep away from delicate surfaces and fabrics to prevent stains. For best results, use all the reeds provided and ensure your diffuser is in a ventilated space.

A Natural Choice for Elegant Homes

With the rise of wellness living and minimalist design, the popularity of reed diffusers and sandalwood has grown. Choosing a sandalwood reed diffuser is not only a design statement but a commitment to a calmer, more intentional lifestyle. And for those who prefer variety in their home fragrance, you can pair your diffuser with wax melts, a room spray, or even a coordinating candle for a layered scent experience. Make sure to read all product details before use, especially if you have sensitive skin or wear contact lenses, as some essential oils may cause eye irritation or skin irritation in rare cases.

Practical Info: Delivery and Product Care

When ordering your sandalwood diffuser, always review the delivery information to ensure you’re aware of delivery options and lead times. Many online retailers offer standard delivery across the UK and Europe. Always store any spare essential oils, carrier oil, or fragrance refills in a cool, dry place away from heat sources or direct light.

Seasonal Use and Gift Ideas

A sandalwood diffuser makes a thoughtful gift for any occasion. Its natural elegance suits both modern and traditional interiors, making it a welcome addition to: - Winter holiday gifts - Spa-day kits with candle holders and bath bombs - Summer relaxation corners near garden furniture - Home office makeovers with bar stools and minimal decor And because of sandalwood’s year-round appeal, it transitions perfectly from cosy winters to breezy spring afternoons.

Related Products and Alternatives

To enhance your home environment further, consider exploring related products such as: - Electric diffusers for instant fragrance - Scented jar candles or votive candles - Blends featuring amber, musk, bergamot, or white sandalwood - Decorative candle holders or minimalist table lamps When layering scents, keep in mind the strength and harmony of each fragrance.

A Statement Piece for Scent and Style

For those who appreciate both elegant design and captivating fragrance, the Reed Diffuser Bell – Large offers a beautiful way to enjoy the timeless aroma of sandalwood. Housed in a stylish bell-shaped glass bottle, this luxury reed diffuser not only fills your space with a warm, grounding scent but also serves as a sophisticated decorative accent. Its generous size ensures long-lasting diffusion, making it ideal for larger rooms or open-plan living areas where fragrance can truly flourish. White Sandalwood Reed Diffuser - By Pairfum London Simply open the large reed diffuser and proudly display this ‘Eau de Parfum’ for your home to envelope your world with beautifully fragrant and natural couture perfume. This large reed diffuser is strong enough to fill a large room and ideal as a gift or as something special for your own home.

Final Thoughts

A sandalwood diffuser is a simple yet powerful way to enrich your space and elevate your daily rituals. With its comforting scent, calming benefits, and long-lasting effect, it remains one of the most beloved choices in the world of home fragrance. Whether you're starting your journey with reed diffusers or adding to a growing collection of candles, essential oils, and wax melts, let the essence of sandalwood guide your senses toward balance and peace. Experience the quiet luxury of sandalwood today and let your home truly exhale. Read the full article

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Weishaupt Burner Spare Parts – Genuine Components for Reliable Performance

 Maintaining your burner’s efficiency and safety starts with using genuine Weishaupt burner spare parts. Known for their high-quality engineering, Weishaupt burners require precise, durable components to perform optimally. Whether you're handling routine maintenance or an emergency repair, sourcing original spare parts ensures your system runs smoothly and reliably.

Weishaupt burners are widely used in industrial boilers, heating systems, and commercial applications due to their efficiency and durability. However, even the best burners need replacement parts over time. Commonly needed Weishaupt burner spares include:

Ignition electrodes

Flame sensors

Nozzles and diffusers

Solenoid valves

Burner motors and fans

Gasket and sealing kits

Control boxes and modules

By using OEM spare parts, you not only preserve the burner’s performance but also maintain compliance with safety and emissions standards. Non-genuine parts can lead to poor combustion, increased fuel consumption, and even equipment failure.

Authorized suppliers and service centers offer a full range of Weishaupt spares with guaranteed compatibility and manufacturer warranties. Many also provide expert guidance on installation, part identification, and ongoing system support.

Whether you're performing scheduled maintenance or need urgent replacements, choosing original Weishaupt burner spare parts means protecting your investment, reducing downtime, and ensuring long-term operational success.

In short, when it comes to Weishaupt systems, never compromise on quality. Always opt for authentic spares to keep your burner efficient, safe, and running like new.