#clinical characteristics

[spideyjimin]

Bloodlines entwined: III | jjk

⤷ having a baby alone was supposed to be easy. but an accidental twist of fate pulled you into a hidden world of werewolves, and ancient bloodlines. navigating your already complicated life becomes even harder as you uncover your past; one tied to a legacy you never knew existed. and in the middle of this chaos stands jungkook, the werewolf king… and the father of your child. 

—  pairing: werewolf!jungkook x female reader 

—  genre: strangers to lovers, parents-to-be au, royalty au, werewolves au, soulmates au, angst, fluff, and smut 

— rating: 18+ 

—  words: 7,460

—  warnings: mention of death, murder, and abortion, crying, kind of heartbreak, nervousness, a tiny growing sexual tension, and some teasing  

—  author’s note: sssooo this chapter finally explains a bit more about the werewolf universe, and i hope it’s a bit clearer for you. a lot more explanations will come throughout the series as i can’t reveal it all in one chapter. the next chapter is actually my favourite and i definelty can’t wait to post it 😊 hope you’ll enjoy this one & let me know what you think <3  

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Chapter III: untold truth

SERIES MASTERLIST | previous | next

Jungkook spent the rest of the night thinking about you. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He couldn’t believe that you’re a werewolf.

Obviously, you’re not aware of it otherwise you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did when he revealed the existence of the werewolf word. Normally, you should have recognized him since he’s the king, but you didn’t. So, he strongly believes that you were adopted. That’s the only reason that could explain why you aren’t aware.  

Now, he needs to understand why you were adopted. A pack never gives up on their little ones. He can think of many reasons why, but he needs to figure out what happened to you. He doesn’t want to simply reveal your true nature without having any certainty.

However, what concerns him is the fact that you haven’t turned yet. Normally, around fourteen years old, under a full moon, you should have experienced your first transformation. Maybe the fact that you ignore everything about that has caused your wolf blood to be dormant.

The next morning, he started looking into every record he has access to about the Shadows. The blue eyes are a characteristic specific to the Shadow pack. Every pack has its own eye color; it’s the way to distinguish every wolf. Jungkook’s pack, the Bloods, has red eyes. However, his eyes have a darker red shade. This is a trait specific to the king; he inherits it the second he goes from heir to king.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung, his best friend makes his way inside his office.

The man looks up at his best friend before a bright smile appears on his face. It’s been a little while since they last saw each other. Taehyung has been traveling a lot lately; he said he wants to discover the world before settling with his mate. However, it looks like he doesn’t want to settle down at all.

“Hey, Tae,” he stands up to greet his best friend. “What are you doing here? I thought you were lost somewhere in France.”

“Well, I needed to come back,” he replies with a smile. “Couldn’t stay forever in France.”  

Both men start talking about what has been happening for the last month. Jungkook doesn’t go too much into detail. He only mentions he contacted a fertility clinic, and that he’s right now concerned about something happening in the Shadow pack.

Taehyung, on his side, tells his friend about all the places he went to. He was in Europe, discovering a lot of different countries. He definitely adored going around and discovering new cultures, new food, and meeting new people. For sure, his favorite place was Paris.

“Do you need any help with those Shadows research?” Taehyung asks casually although his sharp gaze indicates that he already knows the answer.

Jungkook nods, his shoulders visibly tense. He’s never been one to ask for help, but this time he definitely would need some.

“I wouldn’t refuse it,” he answers to his most trusted friend.

Taehyung crosses his arms, leaning against Jungkook’s wooden bookcase.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he frowns while grabbing a book.  

“I don’t really know,” Jungkook says. “A record, a mention, a trace of a couple that died or disappeared,” he explains.

Taehyung looks up at his friend before looking down at the book again. By pure coincidence, the book he’s holding is an old one about the different werewolf packs. It’s one of the first books he read; it details the characteristics of each pack.

“A couple who died or disappeared?” he repeats his friend’s words. “Is this by any chance related to a girl?”

Jungkook freezes for a split second, but it’s enough for Taehyung to catch. He’s been very observant, especially when it comes to Jungkook.

“No,” he lies, his voice steady and firm.

Taehyung isn’t convinced; his eyes narrow as he studies his friend. He knows Jungkook better than anyone else, and while he’s very good at hiding his emotions, there’s something in his posture, something in the way he’s looking at Taehyung, that betrays him.

 “You’re unreadable when you want it, you know that?” Taehyung finally says, walking closer to his friend who is standing behind his desk. “But something tells me this isn’t just about finding old records. If you’re diving into the Shadows' history, there’s a good reason behind it. You don’t waste your time on anything without a reason.”

Jungkook sights while running a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated, Tae.”

“You know I’m here, right? Whatever this is, whatever you’re digging into, you don’t have to do it alone.”  

The werewolf king would love to tell him everything, but he doesn’t want to involve anyone at this stage. First, he needs to make sure you’re a werewolf, and only then, he’ll reveal it.

“I know, Tae. I just need to be sure before I tell you anything,” his voice lowers. “Before I tell anyone anything.”

Taehyung nods, understanding that his best friend will share when he’s ready.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll start digging into the Shadow Pack archives. See if I can find anything about missing couples and unexplained disappearances.”

Taehyung’s aunt is married to a Shadow alpha so it will definitely help. As a king, he for sure has access to a lot of records, but not everything. Each pack has its own secrets, and that’s the beauty of it. If Jungkook knew everything, his job would be boring. There’s always something new to unveil. Like your past.

Taehyung disappears a little while after, leaving Jungkook alone with his eyes fixed on the flames in the fireplace. The shadows dance across the stone walls, but his mind is somewhere else, on you, and on the fragile heartbeat growing inside you. He can still hear it perfectly.

He runs a hand down his face before letting out a deep breath. This was never supposed to go down like that. This mistake was never supposed to happen. But the raw and undeniable truth has already sunk its claws into him.  

How can he turn away from this? From you? From the baby?

He remembers the flicker of blue in your eyes. It’s been replaying constantly on his mind, but what is deeply engraved in him is this connection with you. He constantly feels your presence around him, something he’s never felt with anyone else.  

Even though he’s been deeply sorry to have brought you to his world, this flicker of blue made him realize that he brought you to your world. A world you didn’t know existed until he revealed it. His duty has been telling him to stay away, but he can’t.

The thought creeps in quietly, yet with unshakable certainty: This was never a mistake.  

The world may call it an accident, but Jungkook can feel something deeper, something ancient, something undeniable. Fate, destiny… whatever name it might have, it brought the two of you here. Together.

Every choice and every moment has led to this point. To you.

Now, standing quietly in his study, he feels the truth settling deep in his bones. This child growing inside you was always meant to happen. Jungkook leans against the edge of his desk.

“I can’t abandon this child, my child,” he whispers to himself. “I can’t abandon yn.”

It isn’t about duty anymore. It’s about you. It’s about the fragile life caught between two worlds, and the bond he can already feel forming. Whether he’s ready to admit it or not. Jungkook straightens up, shoulders squared, and jaw tight. The king in him knows what needs to be done, but the man knows what he wants to do.

“I’m staying,” he runs his hand over his hair.

This isn’t just a choice. It’s the acceptance of what was always meant to be. Whatever challenges await, Jungkook knows one thing with absolute certainty: This was always supposed to happen.

For the past five days, Jungkook and Taehyung have been trying to find anything about missing couples and mysterious disappearances, but it’s been in vain. There’s absolutely nothing. Thirty years ago, nothing special happened.

However, Jungkook asked Sungmin, Taehyung’s uncle to meet. Records are one thing, but Jungkook knows better than anyone that there might have been something off records that happened. Some secrets are kept hidden, locked away in the minds of those who lived them.

“Thanks for having me, Mister Song,” Jungkook says as he enters Sungmin’s house.

“I couldn’t refuse my king’s visit,” he replies with a warm smile.

Many people believe that the Alphas of every pack refuse the authority of a king, but those closest to the throne are often the first to kneel. For sure, Jungkook’s natural leadership certainly helps. However, the truth is that the werewolf hierarchy isn’t just a tradition; it’s more than that. Every werewolf deeply holds onto it.

“I could say that I’m surprised, but it’d be a lie,” he admits while he guides Jungkook towards the terrace. “I was expecting it after Tae’s request.”

“I imagine,” Jungkook responds.

The covered terrace is a serene and private space. Jungkook’s eyes quickly scan the surroundings. It’s a little but pretty space. Plates, cups, and a selection of biscuits are neatly arranged on the modest wooden table.

“Would you like some coffee or tea?” Sungmin gestures for Jungkook to sit.

“A coffee would be fine,” Jungkook answers.

The man takes one of the porcelain carafes on the table and carefully pours the drink into a cup, placing it in front of Jungkook.

“I was originally looking for a couple’s death or disappearances in your pack, but I couldn’t find anything documented,” Jungkook is straightforward.

Sungmin nods thoughtfully. “When do you believe this event happened?”

“Around thirty years ago,” he says.

Tae’s uncle freezes for a brief moment at his answers. His eyes flicker with something that Jungkook recognizes instantly: recognition mixed with hesitation. This is it. This might be the key to understanding your past.

“Something did happen thirty years ago,” Sungmin admits. “But we didn’t keep any trace of it out of respect to the family concerned.”

Jungkook is definitely very intrigued about this.

“The eldest daughter of an estimated member of our pack fell in love with a human. Despite our objections, she decided to run away with him. We all knew why,” he shakes his head as he remembers the sad story. “She was pregnant with that human child.”

The werewolf king listens patiently, absorbing every word.

“We didn’t inform your father immediately as we thought we could handle it ourselves. Involving the king into this would have drawn unwanted attention to this. For us, Shadows, discretion is everything.”

Jungkook nods, knowing perfectly the Shadow’s reputation. They are the ghosts of the werewolf world, unseen and often unheard, but fiercely loyal and deadly when necessary. The Shadows blend into their surroundings, disappearing when needed.

“We looked for them for years but couldn’t find them,” he seems really affected as he recalls what happened. “They were clever. They stayed hidden, and after nine years, we had no choice but to involve your father.”

Jungkook nods, understanding that after all that time, it’s normal to be reaching out to the king. “And he found them.”

Sungmin sighs deeply. “Yes. Your father had better resources than us. Within a year, he found them. Thankfully, this stayed between us and the king. He let us deal with this internally,” he explains.

The air feels heavier now, the weight of unspoken words pressing down on the two men.

“They were living in a totally different city. And they had indeed a child. A ten-year-old kid…”

Jungkook notices how hard it is for Sungmin to remember this terrible event.  

“It was very hard to end their lives, but we had to. The woman, her human mate, the kid, the life they had built… all of it was extinguished.”

Sungmin pauses, his throat tightening. For a moment, Jungkook sees the weight of guilt appearing on the older Alpha’s face.

“Killing a child was way too hard, but hybrids are forbidden. A child of two worlds, carrying both human and werewolf blood could destabilize everything. We told ourselves it was necessary.”  

Jungkook grips the edge of his coffee cup, his jaw clenched. The thought of such a decision sits uneasily within him. He’s not sure he would have had the strength to do that. It is one thing to terminate a pregnancy, but killing a ten-year-old child is totally another story.

“Did anyone else know about this? Anyone outside the pack?”

“No, only your father, and now you.”

“Do you think it’s possible that the child survived?” Jungkook asks, his voice steady but intense.

Sungmin looks directly into his king’s eyes. “We are certain they didn’t.”  

Jungkook leans back in the chair, his mind racing. If the child had somehow survived, if they had slipped through the cracks of fate, then everything changes. And if that child was you… He shakes his head, not sure that it’s possible.

“Thank you, Mister Song. This has been illuminating.”

Jungkook steps away, his heart beating fast. There are too many resemblances between this story and your story.

To yn: hi yn, could we meet tonight or tomorrow?

Barely a minute later he receives an answer.

From yn: hi Jungkook, tonight is fine. Same place as last time?

To yn: sure

As you’re walking towards the location you agreed with Jungkook, you try to understand the reason behind his sudden need to talk to you. This is unexpected for you, so it definitely makes you nervous. Is he going to tell you that he changed his mind about the baby? Is he going to pressure you to abort considering the hybrid situation? Or even worse, has something happened? Your mind races through every possibility.

“Calm down, yn,” you mumble to yourself.

You take a deep breath, your eyes closing for a brief moment. The beating of your heart drums in your ears, and slowly, you can hear it calming down. You can’t start overthinking before you even get to listen to what Jungkook wants to tell you. Maybe it’s nothing serious or something you have to really worry about.

When you arrive, you notice you’re the first one; Jungkook hasn’t arrived yet. So, you decide to sit on the closest bench. You look at the passersby walking around you with ‘Tití Me Perguntó’ from Bad Bunny playing in your headphones. It’s one of your favorite songs.

After a couple of minutes, you feel Jungkook’s presence. Your eyes stare at the surroundings to check if he’s indeed nearby. Your senses are right, you see a man walking in your direction. Even when he walks, he has such an imposing posture.

This presence feeling grows stronger as he gets closer to you, and you can’t seem to look away, as if your eyes are glued on him. Weird things have been happening with Jungkook since you’ve met him, and you can’t quite explain them.

Once he’s in front of you, you stand up, a smile naturally growing on your face. He’s incredibly handsome and charming. Once again, he has opted for a casual look: a white shirt layered under a leather jacket completed with loose, brown suede-like pants.

His strong presence near you soothes you in a way you never experienced before. All the nervousness you were feeling minutes ago is completely washed away. His strong and bestial scent fills the air and calms down your racing thoughts.

For a moment, you remain in silence, but it isn’t an awkward one. It’s actually quite the opposite. His gaze holds yours, and the intensity of his eyes draws you even more. It feels like none of you needs to speak. It is as if the two of you are communicating on a deeper level that doesn’t need language.

“Hi,” you break the silence.

“Hey, yn,” he takes a step closer.

By the way he approaches you, you sense he’s about to hug you or something similar. You prepare yourself for such, but he ends up not doing it. Jungkook just stands there, a shy smile appearing on his face.

“How have you been feeling?” he asks with evident concern in his voice.

As always, being around him comforts you. It makes you feel like you don’t need to hold anything back. There’s no need to hide your thoughts and feelings behind a mask. You can be entirely honest, saying what you truly feel without the fear of being judged. It’s part of the weird things you’ve been experiencing with Jungkook. It’s something you never felt with anyone else, not even an ex. This makes you wonder just how much this connection truly means.

“Very much torn apart by the decision I need to make,” you admit.

“Have you already considered one of them?” he questions.

You decide to sit down on the bench, your hands rubbing your face. Should you be telling him that you’re very much inclined to keep the baby? Isn’t it better if he doesn’t know anything? In any case, he won’t be around anymore. He said he’d walk away.

“I’ve kind of made a decision,” you try to be as vague as possible.

Jungkook takes a seat next to you. This time around, he doesn’t seem to try to look away from you. His deep dark orbs stare straight into your eyes. As usual, he’s pretty much unreadable, but he has that soft expression on his face. It almost looks like he truly cares and worries about you.

“In case you…” he seems to hesitate, but he doesn’t look away. “If you keep the baby,” he continues, and your heart starts hammering in your chest. “I think I won’t be able to step away.”

You close your eyes while taking a deep breath. You’re not sure what you’re supposed to be feeling right now.

“I thought stepping away was the right decision,” he starts explaining. “Every time I tried to pull back, I find myself being drawn to you… to our child.”

The word ‘our child’ sends shivers down your spine.   

“I can’t turn my back on this—not on you, not on them.”

As he says those words, his eyes look down at your stomach, where a precious life is growing. Even though your eyes are closed, you can feel his gaze on you. You can feel it on your baby. You can simply feel Jungkook. His entire being calls for you, and your body responds to it by being completely drawn to him.

“Why now?” your voice trembles as your eyes open to look at him. “What has changed?”

This doesn’t make any sense. Almost a month ago, he told you that he couldn’t father this child because you aren’t a werewolf, and that this child's existence is completely forbidden. Things are still the same, nothing has changed since then.

“You said you couldn’t have this child because of the whole werewolf thing,” your voice tone is slowly getting higher.

Jungkook’s face now seems to soften and it looks like he carries an emotional weight. There is definitely something going on that you can’t quite explain. And it’s scaring you.

“I think…” he runs his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture you’ve started to recognize. “You’re not just a woman carrying my child,” he seems to struggle to express what’s inside his mind. “I think you might be one of us.”

His words hand in the air, your entire body freezing. For a moment, it feels like the world completely stopped moving. You blink at him, trying to process the enormity of what he just said. At this stage it feels like, Jungkook likes to make cruel jokes. First, it’s the werewolf world, and now, it’s this. How on earth can you be a werewolf? It’s simply impossible. If that was the case, you would have already turned or something like that.

“What are you talking about?” the sharpness of your voice even surprises you.  

Anger grows inside you, but it masks the deeper emotion of fear that you can feel. Your heart starts pounding erratically in your chest as the air grows heavier. How dare he? How dare he turn your world upside down with this unbelievable claim? You stand up, trying to calm yourself down.

“That’s impossible,” you say with a trembling voice.

You rest a hand on top of your heart, trying to anchor yourself, but the panic bubbling beneath your surface is relentless. The thought of upsetting the baby crosses your mind, but it doesn’t help to calm you.

Jungkook stands as well, hands raising as if he’s about to reassure you, but as he does so, he watches you disappear before his eyes.

“It’s incredible,” he whispers to himself.

Now, he has solid proof that you’re indeed a werewolf, a member of the Shadow pack.

“Yn, listen to me.”

“No, Jungkook,” you cut him off. “I am not a werewolf. That’s ridiculous. If I were one, I would have transformed or something like that.”

“Maybe,” he says quietly. “But you didn’t know you were one so things might work differently in that case.”

“Stop!” you scream. “Just stop. Do you even hear yourself? Do you even realize what you’re saying?”

Jungkook stands there, looking somewhere, but he doesn’t even know where you are.

“Take your phone, yn,” he tells you.

“What?” you say with evident surprise, and your anger turns into confusion.

“Just take your phone,” he repeats, his tone calm but firm.

Still breathing heavily and with shaky hands, you look for your phone in your purse. You’re not sure why he’s saying that or what to expect when you look at your phone.

“Now, pretend like you’ll take a selfie.”

As you look at him, there is something in his expression that compels you to obey. Slowly you lift your phone, positioning it in front of your face. The moment your screen comes into view, your breath catches in your throat. Your reflection is completely gone.

Your mind struggles to understand what is going on. The town square is visible in the background, clear as day, but your face is missing. It’s as though you’ve been erased from existence.  

“What is happening?” you almost scream. “What kind of sorcery is this?”

Your gaze remains glued to the phone, your hand trembling so much that the image blurs. You’re gone. Completely gone. Your hand instinctively goes to your face, touching your skin as though it might bring you back into view. But when you glance at the screen again, even your hand remains invisible. This can’t be true. How can you even disappear? How is that possible?

“It’s not sorcery,” he calmly replies. “It’s you. It’s your nature. Only a werewolf can do that.”

“No! That’s not true. That’s not who I am. I’m human. I’ve always been human,” you shake your head before putting your phone back in your purse. “But I’m carrying your child so that must be it.”

Jungkook shakes his head.

“That’s not how it works, yn. I swear,” he’s trying to look for you, so it makes him look like a crazy man. “Pregnancies only bring out even more any abilities someone has,” he explains. “This pregnancy is simply revealing your true nature.”

Tears stream down your face while your heart hurts.

“Have you been experiencing some weird stuff lately?” he says. “Like heightened hearing or smell or night vision or superhuman strength or even super speed.”

Then, your body freezes once more.

“No,” you answer, and for a moment, you hesitate to reveal the truth. “But I’ve always had heightened hearing and smell, and I perfectly see in the dark.”

This all confirms what he says. You’re a werewolf.  

“I can hear your heartbeat,” you add. “I can hear everybody's heartbeats, even the baby’s.”

You close your eyes, the truth violently hitting you. All this time you’ve been a werewolf, and nobody told you anything. You’re not sure Felix knows it, but it hurts to realize that your parents hid something so big from you. It’s your nature after all. 

“You have your answer, yn,” he responds.

Now, you’re crying because the world is collapsing underneath your feet. Your life has been filled with lies, and you’re only discovering this now. It hurts even more that it’s the father of your child who’s revealing this and not your parents.

Jungkook follows the sound of your tears to come closer. You fall in his arms, holding him as tight as possible. He tries to hold you back in his arms, but he doesn’t see you at all. The only thing that can make you reappear is for you to relax. Your emotions are the keys to your powers.

“Focus on the baby’s heartbeat,” he murmurs in your ear. “Focus only on that.”

While tears keep running down your face, you try to search for your baby’s heartbeat. It’s super faint, but you quickly find it. This little sound has rocked you to sleep so many times, and it’s one of the most comforting sounds you’ve ever heard.

“Tudum, Tudum, Tudum,” Jungkook starts mimicking the sound of the baby’s beat.

You close your eyes to only focus on that sound. Slowly but surely, you reappear which reassures Jungkook, and he holds you tighter in his arms. His warm embrace and the sound of the baby’s heartbeat calm you down. He presses a gentle kiss on your head while his hands start to soothe your back. Seeing you like this is heartbreaking, and he hates the fact that he was the one delivering this news.

For a little while, you both remain like this, and his arms feel like the safest place on earth. Even if you hate this entire situation, his presence reassures you. Everything about this moment right now appeases your soul. There is absolutely no doubt that the reality you now have to face is devastating, but you feel like you’ll have Jungkook by your side. And strangely, it seems like it’s the only thing that you need.

Today was a hell of a day!

Everything was simply awful, and it felt like it was a never-ending day. Your mind was constantly thinking about the words Jungkook said. ‘I think you might be one of us.’ You swear you could hear them on repeat all day long.  

Due to how you’ve been feeling, you’ve left everybody on read—even Jungkook. Dealing with this strange reality is too heavy, and you need space. You need some time to digest the news. You need time to simply breathe.

Once you’re at home, you wrap yourself in your Harry Potter robe, lay on the couch, and play the first Harry Potter movie. Right now, all you need is to find comfort in something, and Harry Potter is your escape.

Although the movie is playing in the background, you’re not really watching it. Your thoughts are totally lost somewhere else, somewhere that includes werewolves. You can’t believe that this is your new reality. It hurts deeply that your parents never said anything to you. How could they keep something so monumental from you? Were they intending to let this part of themselves, this part of you die in silence?

Things would have been completely different if they had informed you about that side of you. Maybe you would have sought answers earlier. Maybe you would have explored what it means to carry this legacy. There is a whole culture, heritage, and part of yourself that you’ve missed out on for thirty years. And what hurts the most is that you hate your parents right now. For years, you’ve been hating your parents’ murderer, and now, the tables have turned.

You hate them for what they withheld, for what they never gave you a chance to understand.

This whole journey of becoming a mom has been a complete nightmare. This hasn’t been going as planned. This has been anything but easy. And now, it leaves you wondering if you should really keep the baby. Maybe, you should simply terminate the pregnancy and leave this all behind. But will this be so simple? Obviously, not.

Terminating the pregnancy won’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that Jungkook came into your life to completely wreck your world. Cutting short the life growing inside you will probably just make you feel guilty for doing it. Jungkook won’t disappear, and neither will your wolf side.

This isn’t fair.

Fairness has never been part of your life. It feels like your life has always been robbed. Everybody has been controlling it, making you feel completely powerless all the time. This pregnancy was about gaining control again, but even like that, it wasn’t. A big part of you wants to keep this baby, and you’re very much inclined to keep them. But you don’t know. Jungkook’s revelation still needs to be processed.

“What am I going to do, baby?” you whisper as your hands naturally caress your stomach.

In the end, this baby isn’t a hybrid one. They’re fully a werewolf. You can understand why Jungkook changed his mind. He didn’t want the child because he believed it was a hybrid, something completely forbidden in his world. But now that it’s not the case, he wants to be part of his child's life, if you keep it.

It makes perfect sense, but the hurt remains. He gets what he wants, doesn’t he? The chance to raise his child. But what about you? What about what you want?

“You’re a wolfy,” you continue saying. “So, your daddy wants you now.”

However, if you keep this child, you’ll have to teach them what it means to be a werewolf. You’ll have to guide and prepare them for a life you know nothing about. You’ll have to learn everything with them; every instinct, every tradition, and every secret. You’ll develop your wolf’s abilities together. This life inside you isn’t just a new life; it’s a symbol of your own transformation. This child represents the end of your human life and the beginning of something different.

Are you ready for that?

You’re not sure. You’re not sure if you want to embark on this new journey. A journey where you figure out who and what you are. A journey where you’ll have to dig into your parents’ past. A journey where you’ll have to face your ghosts. A journey where you might find all the answers you’ve always desired to have.

Jungkook seems to hold the key to all of that. The truth, the answers, and the future. You need him, more than you want to admit. He’s the only werewolf you know, and he might as well be your guide on this.

Even if everything scares you, this is what will help you to figure out what happened to your parents twenty years ago. This is the key to finally getting to truly know them. This hasn’t been going as you planned it, but it has been going the way you need it.  

For now, you’re simply going to enjoy this comforting and reassuring movie before truly facing this new reality of yours. Tonight is your last night as a human, and tomorrow, you’ll start to understand what it means to be a werewolf.

For the millionth time, you check that your apartment is perfectly cleaned and tidied. Jungkook is coming tonight; you’ve invited him over to discuss this werewolf thing. You’re incredibly nervous as you’re very scared of how things could go. Are you going to learn some unpleasant truths about your lineage?

Also, you can’t forget to tell him you have your first ultrasound tomorrow. He’ll probably want to come as he’s expressed his change of mind concerning this child. Your child. Instinctively your hand cradles your stomach.

Before the doorbell echoes in your apartment, you sense Jungkook’s presence behind the door. This thing of sensing him is definitely extremely weird, and you’re not even sure you’ll get used to it. But you guess, it’s part of being a werewolf.

You take a deep breath while opening the door to him. As he comes into view, his beauty takes your breath away. His hair is perfectly pushed back, only a strand of hair falling on his forehead. This time around, he’s dressed in a more formal outfit. Like the first time you met him at the clinic, he’s wearing a suit. Only this time, it’s a dark blue one.

And it fits him so well.

A smile grows on his face when his eyes lay on you. It warms your heart, and you can’t help but smile back at him.  

“Hi, yn,” he says.

“Hi, Jungkook,” you reply. “Come on in,” you take a step back to let him in.

Jungkook steps into your cocoon, his gaze briefly wandering at the entrance. With practiced ease, he shrugs off his long black coat, the movement accentuating the subtle play of his muscles. Your curious eyes can’t help but follow the way his shoulders shift and his arms flex as he removes his coat and slips off his shoes.

A little grin shows up when he realizes you’ve been staring at him. However, you both pretend you didn’t notice what the other was doing. It’s like you’re pretending you don’t feel drawn to each other.

“Would you like to drink or eat something?” you politely ask.

“No, no,” he shakes his head. “I’ve already eaten and drank enough for today,” a little giggle escapes his pretty lips. “I had a long and exhausting meeting this afternoon.”

“Oh,” you simply say. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to eat a bit because I’m quite hungry.”

His eyes inevitably look down at your stomach, the sound of the child’s heartbeat resonating in his ears. It’s such a comforting sound.

“No,” he answers. “Eat as much as you want.”

You drag him to the kitchen so you can eat something while you discuss about the madness that your life has become. You open the cabinets to check what you have, but then, you remember you bought your favorite yogurt two days ago. Without no further hesitation, you move to the fridge, grab it together with a spoon, and start eating it.

While you do that, Jungkook’s eyes are glued on you. His stare carefully follows you as you move through the kitchen. Honestly, he’s glad to be here with you; he finally gets to see you in your comfort zone, and you definitely seem to be glowing in this place.

“Can I ask you what you do for a living?” you ask while bringing the spoon to your mouth.

His eyes follow your hand before looking up. He leans on the cabinets while never looking away from you. Jungkook crosses his arms on his chest and heavily considers what to tell you.

“Well…” he seems hesitant to reveal it. “I’m not sure you’re going to believe me.”

You tilt your head, wondering what it could be. Is he working with the mafia like you thought before he announced his wolfy side? Or is he some kind of criminal? Or is it the opposite, like a doctor?

“Try me,” you tease him.

Jungkook didn’t know up until now how much he needed to hear the teasing tone in your voice.

His eyes never cease to follow your hand’s movements with the spoon. It’s mesmerizing, holding him captive as if he’s unable to look away. The way your lips wrap around the spoon sends shivers down his spine. Jungkook shakes his head, pushing away those weird thoughts. It’s inappropriate.

“I’m a king,” his tone is firm, leaving no room for doubts.

You almost choke with the spoon in your mouth. Of all the jobs you considered, this one definitely wasn’t on the list. This is beyond unexpected and by the way he looks, you know that he isn’t joking. You’ve seen his serious face so many times now, so you know he’s telling the truth.

“A king?” you repeat to make sure you heard it right.

Jungkook nods, and then, you can’t unsee it. This entire outfit breathes power—and money—, his charisma is beyond magnetic, and he has a strong presence. Let’s not forget about the unreadable face he always has on. There is definitely something royal about him, and he definitely looks like a king.

“That makes the child in my belly a future king or queen then?” you ask half-jokingly.

“Yep,” he answers. “And as a king, I’m expected to give the perfect heir, so the hybrid child wasn’t really one.”

When he explained the situation a month ago, everything made sense, but now it makes even more sense. This child carries royal blood.

“I’m not carrying anyone’s kid,” you playfully say. “A king,” you whisper.

This definitely changes your view of the situation. Now that he wants this child, it makes them the heir to the werewolf throne. The baby growing inside you will one day be a king or a queen. It makes you feel important but scared as well.

“It’s crazy,” you look up at him while bringing the spoon to your mouth once more.

Right there and then, your heart skips a beat when you realize the way he’s looking at you, or should you say, the way his eyes are devouring you. You can’t remember the last time someone looked at you in that way.

“It is,” he admits.

“And what does a werewolf king do exactly?” you curiously ask.

“Many things,” he smiles at you. “I’m the supreme leader of the packs which makes me the bridge between them. If any issue arises between them, I have to resolve them and also make sure the werewolves follow the rules. I’m also their protector. I must ensure the laws are respected and nobody reveals our secrets. And do many other things, but those are the most important ones.”

You nod, wondering if these responsibilities aren’t too much of a burden for him. It mustn’t be easy to be the one making decisions, and it definitely sounds like the entire werewolf world relies on him.

“And you?” he asks. “What do you do?”

A bright smile appears on your face. “I’m an Elementary teacher.”

Thinking about the little kids you see every day simply makes you happy. Being able to give those little humans the tools they need to grow in this world is one of the most fulfilling things. This job has been healing your inner child because teaching those young children has allowed you to guide and give them a stability you never had in your childhood.

“Oh, nice,” he says.

The yogurt is now over so you suggest going to the living room. This way, you’ll be sitting comfortably on the couch while discussing the hot topic. Werewolves.

Last night, while in bed, you were mentally going through all the questions you might have for him. There is so much for you to know about this new world, this new heritage. For sure, last night, you didn’t know he was a king, but now that you do, you believe that he might help you a lot more than expected.  

Jungkook sits down next to you, and you decide to face each other.

“So,” you start saying. “I guess you can imagine why I invited you.”

The man sitting next to you nods. “Your wolf blood.”

“Indeed,” you nod as you speak. “I have a lot of questions.”

You don’t even know where to start.

“You said there are packs,” you begin. “Would you know to which pack I belong?”

“Yes,” he answers without hesitation. “The Shadow pack,” he pauses for a couple of seconds. “Each pack has a wolf eye color. Mine is red as you’ve already seen, which indicates that I’m the king and member of The Blood pack. The Shadow’s eye color is blue, and for the third and last pack, The Lunar, it’s white,” he explains. “A week ago, I saw your eyes turning blue, that’s how I discovered it.”

The Shadow, The Blood, and The Lunar. Three packs. You mentally register the information he gives you. There is so much to discover about this new reality.

“The Shadows also have unique abilities, one of them being the fact that they can blur into their surroundings.”

That’s what happened to you two days ago after he revealed your true nature. It was just the confirmation of who you are.

“As far as I can remember, I’ve only had heightened senses, but I never came to shift into a wolf. How is that possible?”

“That is something I ignore,” he admits. “You’re the first werewolf who didn’t grow up with her pack’s member. My first guess is the ignorance of your nature prevented it from fully revealing itself.”

You look down at your feet on the couch. It seems so weird that only a part of your abilities has revealed itself throughout your life.

“I’ve tried to find something about you, but I couldn’t,” he admits. “I even reached out to an Alpha of the pack, but nothing.”

“Oh,” you simply say, your eyes meeting his. “Do you think I could meet that Alpha?”

“Yes,” he smiles at you. “I’m sure he’d be happy to meet you, and he might probably help you more than me with your past and even your abilities.”

Jungkook then proceeds to explain how the werewolf world works. There is a hierarchy. Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omega. Alpha being the highest rank, and you only achieve it once you fully master your powers. Logically, you’re an Omega as you barely know what you can do. Jungkook is an Alpha which makes sense since he’s a king.

If you keep the baby, they will automatically become an Alpha when they become king or queen. Things work a bit differently for the royal family.

Normally, a werewolf experiences their first shift on the first full moon of their fourteenth anniversary. The difference with the royal family is the fact that they experience that at ten years old. It’s quite early in life, but that allows them to master their abilities a lot earlier than any other werewolf.

Obviously, the parents and the family remain by your side throughout your first full moon. They guide you through the pain when transforming, and they stay with you while you’re a wolf. Jungkook tells you that the first transformation is very hard to handle. The pain is unbearable and once you’re a wolf, all your human senses disappear. You’re just a beast. A hunting beast. Having your family by your side prevents you from killing anyone or anything. Slowly and with a lot of work, you are able to control that primal urge.

The question left hanging is when and if you’ll transform. If this pregnancy brings out your wolf blood, there are higher chances that you’ll experience your first full moon. But Jungkook doesn’t have an answer to give.  

Then, he informs you that you can’t transform someone by biting them, that’s an absolute myth. Being a werewolf is genetic. You inherit it from your parents, and you’ll give that gene to your children. Thus, the importance of maintaining pure blood.    

 “For now, I guess that’s all,” you tell him once you’ve asked all the questions.

“Since the next full moon is in two days, I’d like to be with you in case you transform,” he says.

Well, you don’t have much of a choice. There’s this unknown about you, and you wouldn’t like to be alone during your first full moon, especially if it’s painful and bestial.

“Thanks,” you mumble while looking down.

Jungkook offers you a little smile.

“I’m by your side now, yn,” he places his fingers under your chin to slowly lift your head. “I won’t let you navigate this alone.”

His eyes shine with sincerity. You’re thankful that, in the middle of this chaos, you found Jungkook. This man brings so much comfort and seems to have one of the prettiest hearts you have encountered.

“And I’ll support you no matter what you decide with the baby,” he adds.

You remain in silence for a moment, your eyes scanning his soft face. You’ve never seen him this close. You’ve never noticed that little mole under his lips, or the little scar on his cheek, or how perfectly round his nose is. He looks even prettier this closely.  

The decision about your child has already been made, but you haven’t said it out loud yet. Jungkook will be the first one to know, and it makes sense since he’s the father.

“I’m going to keep the baby,” you reveal.  

[brandyschillace]

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Transgender Clinic

I finished the first round of edits on my nonfiction history of trans rights today. It will publish with Norton in 2025, but I decided, because I feel so much of my community is here, to provide a bit of the introduction.

[begin sample]

The Institute for Sexual Sciences had offered safe haven to homosexuals and those we today consider transgender for nearly two decades. It had been built on scientific and humanitarian principles established at the end of the 19th century and which blossomed into the sexology of the early 20th. Founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish homosexual, the Institute supported tolerance, feminism, diversity, and science. As a result, it became a chief target for Nazi destruction: “It is our pride,” they declared, to strike a blow against the Institute. As for Magnus Hirschfeld, Hitler would label him the “most dangerous Jew in Germany.”6 It was his face Hitler put on his antisemitic propaganda; his likeness that became a target; his bust committed to the flames on the Opernplatz. You have seen the images. You have watched the towering inferno that roared into the night. The burning of Hirschfeld’s library has been immortalized on film reels and in photographs, representative of the Nazi imperative, symbolic of all they would destroy. Yet few remember what they were burning—or why.

Magnus Hirschfeld had built his Institute on powerful ideas, yet in their infancy: that sex and gender characteristics existed upon a vast spectrum, that people could be born this way, and that, as with any other diversity of nature, these identities should be accepted. He would call them Intermediaries.

Intermediaries carried no stigma and no shame; these sexual and Gender nonconformists had a right to live, a right to thrive. They also had a right to joy. Science would lead the way, but this history unfolds as an interwar thriller—patients and physicians risking their lives to be seen and heard even as Hitler began his rise to power. Many weren’t famous; their lives haven’t been celebrated in fiction or film. Born into a late-nineteenth-century world steeped in the “deep anxieties of men about the shifting work, social roles, and power of men over women,” they came into her own just as sexual science entered the crosshairs of prejudice and hate. The Institute’s own community faced abuse, blackmail, and political machinations; they responded with secret publishing campaigns, leaflet drops, pro-homosexual propaganda, and alignments with rebel factions of Berlin’s literati. They also developed groundbreaking gender affirmation surgeries and the first hormone cocktail for supportive gender therapy.

Nothing like the Institute for Sexual Sciences had ever existed before it opened its doors—and despite a hundred years of progress, there has been nothing like it since. Retrieving this tale has been an exercise in pursuing history at its edges and fringes, in ephemera and letters, in medal texts, in translations. Understanding why it became such a target for hatred tells us everything about our present moment, about a world that has not made peace with difference, that still refuses the light of scientific evidence most especially as it concerns sexual and reproductive rights.

[end sample]

I wanted to add a note here: so many people have come together to make this possible. Like Ralf Dose of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft (Magnus Hirschfeld Archive), Berlin, and Erin Reed, American journalist and transgender rights activist—Katie Sutton, Heike Bauer. I am also deeply indebted to historian, filmmaker and formative theorist Susan Stryker for her feedback, scholarship, and encouragement all along the way. And Laura Helmuth, editor of Scientific American, whose enthusiasm for a short article helped bring the book into being. So many LGBTQ+ historians, archivists, librarians, and activists made the work possible, that its publication testifies to the power of the queer community and its dedication to preserving and celebrating history. But I ALSO want to mention you, folks here on tumblr who have watched and encouraged and supported over the 18 months it took to write it (among other books and projects). @neil-gaiman has been especially wonderful, and @always-coffee too: thank you.

The support of this community has been important as I’ve faced backlash in other quarters. Thank you, all.

NOTE: they are attempting to rebuild the lost library, and you can help: https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/archivzentrum/archive-center/

[fouryearsofshades]

Some Chinese fashion styles

Disclaimer: The following styles and their definitions were observed by me and are not authoritative. I am only familiar with Hanfu and if I made mistakes and picked the wrong photo examples or fraud shops, please let me know. Also, this post focused on women's fashion because 1. I am not into men's fashion so I don't know much about them. 2. The algorithm also knew that so I don't really see them.

汉服/Hànfú

传统服饰/Chuántǒng fúshì （传服/chuán fú）

清汉女/Qīng hàn nǚ

旗装/Qí zhuāng

旗袍/Qípáo

新国风/Xīn guó fēng、新中式/Xīn zhōngshì 汉元素/hàn yuánsù 茶艺服/Cháyì fú or 茶服/chá fú 唐装/Tángzhuāng 中山装/Zhōngshānzhuāng.

汉服/Hànfú

The ethnic clothing of Han Chinese (not the Han Dynasty).

There was a prohibition of Han clothing and hair styles in Qing dynasty, i.e. the 剃发易服/Tìfā yìfú qu Queue Ordinance, so modern hanfu is an on-going revivalist moment.

Modern hanfu are based on archeological evidences with minor twists to suit modern like, such as the type of fabric used and cut.

As a result, there are many types of garments and sub-styles. The figure above shows some examples.

While which style should be included and promoted is a constant debate, but in general, the cutout line is the Qing dynasty (however small accessories such as purses are alright).

传统服饰/Chuántǒng fúshì （传服/chuán fú）

No example because I am not sure who identified with this label.

The Chinese traditional clothing.

This either referred to historical clothing restorers (regardless of ethnicity) or people who promoted that the traditional clothing of Han people should be in the late Ming dynasty style, since "people should get up at where they had fallen".

They might be agreeable with the hanfu movement or not.

清汉女/Qīng hàn nǚ

The clothing of women of Han Chinese in the Qing dynasty.

Since the Queue Ordinance wasn't that strictly enforced on Han women, the Han women clothing in the Qing dynasty had quickly absorbed Manchurian's elements while retaining the characteristic two-piece silhouette. (Manchurian women wore a one-piece robe.)

I believed it appeared around 2019 when the styles of hanfu had moved to fully embroidered surface to a more tone down brocade or weaved patterns.

旗装/Qí zhuāng

The ethnic clothing of Man people (Manchurian).

The women's clothing are generally in round collar opened on the left (youren) with straight sleeves.

The most basic item is a 衬衣/chènyī, which doesn't have vents.

However, the most common item I have seen on the street is a 氅衣/chǎng yī (probably rented), which should be worn on top of 衬衣, since they have side vents.

They usually have no standing-up collar but in some cases a fake collar could be worn.

On top of changyi they could wear a 马褂/mǎguà、坎肩/kǎnjiān、褂裥/guà jiǎn.

旗袍/Qípáo

The Chinese clothing of women originated from the Minguo era, known in English as qipao or cheongsam.

The male equivalent is 长衫/chángshān.

Currently in style is the retro-cut, while uses the traditional flat cut (no shoulder seam) instead of the more body-hugging modern draping style.

There are also many variations and cuts, but the overall silhouette is similar.

新国风/Xīn guó fēng、新中式/xīn zhōngshì

Innovative clothing that was inspired by Chinese traditional aesthetic.

It is an umbrella term.

汉元素/hàn yuánsù refers to clothing inspired by hanfu specifically, while xinguofeng could be inspired by qipao and other ethnic clothing. In addition, hanyuansu is a term more familair to hanfu-ers, so the target audience is slightly different between hanyuansu and xinguofeng.

茶艺服/Cháyì fú or 茶服/chá fú,i.e tea dress, which aimed to convey a zen and rustic aesthetic could also be considered a sub-style. They are often worn by retirees, artists or workers in tea shops, calligraphy shops, Chinese spas, Chinese traditional medicine clinics etc.

The older "Chinese style" generally refers to 唐装/Tángzhuāng and 中山装/Zhōngshānzhuāng.

Tangzhuang (Tang Suit) was a men suit characterized with a mandarin collar with a row of 盘扣/pán kòu frogs in the middle. There are two pockets at the bottom front of the suit. It was a well-known looked worldwide due to the 2001 APEC summit. However, other clothes resembled a 马褂/mǎguà could also be called a tangzhuang.

Zhongshanzhuang was designed and named after Sun Yat-sen but was often known in English as the Mao Suit. Mao Suit was characterised with a 关门领/Guānmén lǐng（“closed-door collar", but also known as Mao collar in English) with a row of round buttons. There are four pockets at the front of the suit.

中华lolita/Zhōnghuá lolita

A sub-style of the lolita fashion inspired by cheongsam/qipao, hanfu or other Chinese artistic elements.

The same item could appeared in different styles, but with different cut and accessories. The following examples showed a mamianqun used in different styles.

THE END

[hotchscoffeecup]

stricken

summary: hotch tries to hide a panic attack from the team. you walk him through it.

pairing: hotch x reader (platonic)

tags: panic attacks, recall to foyet attacking hotch, mentions of knife violence, recall to foyet killing haley

words: 2k

“He kept them alive.” Morgan sighs and throws the file containing photos of the most recent victim in a long string of murders down on the table.

“These stab wounds are precise,” Reid adds. “He must have extensive knowledge in a medical field; a doctor or a medic, maybe.”

“No,” Emily counters. “This man doesn’t have the confidence to match either of those professions. It would be something that allowed him to blend into the background, where he could observe and hone his skills. He might be a Medical Assistant or Vet Tech.”

“I’ll start cross-referencing work records with clinics, hospitals, and veterinary offices in a twenty mile radius.” Penelope ends the video call and disappears from the wide screen in the conference room, leaving the digital photos of the victims and the crime scenes in full view.

You stare at them, bewildered by the cruelty this unsub inflicts on his victims; the psychological torture he inflicted to coincide with the physical. You click your pen absentmindedly as you pour over the evidence left behind. As you tilt your head, squinting at one of the images, you notice Hotch in your peripheral vision. If you’re not mistaken, you see his hand shaking at his side. You blink and it stops; instead, he flexes his hand open and closed.

The others are talking, exchanging ideas and identifying characteristics to further bulk up the profile. You turn in your chair, brow furrowed as you watch Hotch reach up and loosen his tie.

“Hotch, what do you think?” Morgan asks. The team all turns to look at him and he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Hotch?”

Without looking at anyone in particular Hotch excuses himself, tucking his head and swiftly dipping out of the room.

Morgan arches a brow. “What do you think that’s about?”

“I don’t know,” you say, concern edging into your tone as you push yourself up and out of your chair. “I’m going to go find out.”

As you exit the briefing room, you survey the bullpen and catch a glimpse of his jacket fluttering around a corner. You weave through detectives and uniformed officers, the din of voices, papers shuffling, copiers whirring, and phones ringing echoing throughout the space.

“Excuse me,” you say, maneuvering around three officers chatting by the water cooler.

You turn down the hall you swear you’d seen Hotch disappear into, but all you see is a janitor’s closet at the far end of the corridor.

As you turn around to retrace your steps and search for Hotch, you hear a whoosh of breath. This stops you in your tracks as you strain your ears and turn back towards the closet. Hesitantly, and feeling somewhat foolish, you reach for the handle and open the door.

Your lips part and your heart drops as you identify your Unit Chief braced against a shoddy shelving unit. In the dim light of the single lightbulb illuminating the space, you make out the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he struggles to take in a full breath.

Without hesitation, you slink inside and close the door behind you. Fortunately, the space is wide enough to grant you enough room to be in there without it feeling confining.

“Hotch, what’s wrong?” you ask, inclining your head to look up into his eyes. They’re wild, dilated pupils flickering back and forth across your features as he swallows.

“I can’t—” he starts and stops, closing his eyes and scrubbing a hand across his face. “I don’t know why, I just— I can’t breathe. I can’t—”

“Okay,” you say, voice soft but firm. “Hotch, I think you’re having a panic attack.”

His brow pinches as he wrestles with that observation. “A panic attack? No, I don’t— I’m fine. It’s not—”

His hands shake as he reaches for his tie, fingers fumbling with the knot causing them to shake even more.

“Let me help,” you say and telegraph your next moves clearly; reaching forward to completely undo his tie and first button of his shirt.

He releases a heavy sigh and something of a sob escapes his lips. “I’m the, the Unit Chief. I see this stuff every day. I don’t—I’m not—” He swallows hard and looks up at the ceiling, as if there would be some sort of solace to find in the popcorn ceiling tiles.

“I just…I can feel it,” he rasps. “I can feel it.”

“Feel what, Hotch?”

His breathing quickens; coming in short succinct bursts that leave him panting and unable to catch his breath.

“His knife. I can feel it.” He squeezes his eyes shut and a tear leaks down his cheek.

Realization dawns on you then and your heart fractures for your Unit Chief, the pillar of the team; the one who bears the brunt of responsibility to ensure everyone else on the team is okay and ultimately sacrifices himself in the process.

George Foyet. You’d joined the team after this case, but everyone knew the story. He’d incapacitated Hotch inside his own home and stabbed him repeatedly; slowly, and in places that would inflict significant damage, but not kill him. Foyet later would go on to kill Hotch’s ex-wife, Haley. Hotch had been on the phone at the time of it all and heard his wife die. You can’t imagine the turmoil he must have gone through; physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s no wonder this case would trigger such terrible memories.

“I was alone.” Hotch breathes heavily and clutches an arm around his waist. “I can feel it now. I can—the knife, it was, oh God—” His hand taps rapidly against his leg. When his knees begin to wobble, you’re quick to react when he collapses.

Instinctively, you throw your arms out and thread your arms beneath his as you crash to the floor together, knees slamming into the hardwood as you fall. Hotch sobs into the crook of your neck as he clings to you and you wonder just how long it’s been since anyone has held him. Hesitantly, you shift your weight so you can hold him properly with one arm wrapped around his back while the other cradles his neck. You brush your fingers through his hair and speak grounding words to him.

“You’re safe, Hotch.” You then tell him your exact location and repeat your name to him, reminding him of all that is tangible. You describe the room you’re in, from the arrangement of products on the shelf to the cloying scent of bleach and Windex that lingers in the air. You draw attention to the distant sounds inside the bullpen and instruct him to focus on your voice. “I promise that you’re safe,” you repeat.

“Foyet is dead.”

His grip tightens around you and his tears soak into your blouse.

“He can’t hurt you or anyone else.” You fight to keep your own voice from cracking as you bear witness to your friend’s pain.

“I need you to breathe, Aaron.” His first name feels strange on your tongue, but you need to bring him back. “In for four,” you say and breathe deeply through your nose for four counts, patting Hotch four times on the back to offer a different type of stimulation for him to try and ground himself with through physical touch. “Out for your four,” you say as you release the air in your lungs and pat him four more times on the back.

You continue to model this pattern until you feel him start to relax under you. His breathing continues to shudder, but he’s trying to self-regulate.

“Good, Hotch,” you encourage as he works to regain control. “Keep breathing. You’re safe.”

You continue to pat your hand against his back, acting as a metronome for him to keep time. You find yourself rocking him gently as you do this and eventually he shifts beneath you.

Tentatively, you begin to pull away. You don’t let go of him though, not yet. You want to make sure he has a tether to reality and physical touch can help him remain grounded.

Hotch sniffs and wipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. He keeps his eyes downcast and shakes his head. “I’m so sorry,” he says.

Your brow knits together as a wave of utter confusion washes over you. “Hotch,” you say, almost sternly. His eyes flick up to meet yours and you look at him straight on. “Don’t ever apologize for that. In fact, I’m sorry, actually.”

Now it’s his turn to look puzzled. “For what?”

“That you felt like this was something you had to do in private. That you felt like you couldn’t tell one of us.”

Hotch rubs at his eyes. “It’s not that,” he begins. “I’m not supposed to break. I’m the Chief of this Unit. I’m supposed to—”

“That’s bullshit, Hotch.” An exasperated sort of smile crosses your lips then as you realize you never use that kind of language, especially around your boss. “Apologies, Sir, but you know as well as I do that you don’t have to save face for any of us. We’ve all been to hell and back in one way or another. That case out there; the precise stab wounds, keeping the victims alive…it’s exactly what Foyet did to you.”

Hotch bristles, but you continue on.

“The body remembers, Hotch.” You drop your hands to his wrists and squeeze. “You survived the improbable. Your wounds healed and you did the mandated counseling, yes, but you’re still allowed to break down. You’re allowed to have bad days.” You incline your head to meet his gaze head on. “But you can’t shut everyone out. You don’t deserve to suffer alone.”

Hotch nods slowly and takes a full deep breath before meeting your eye. “You’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” you say and you smile when his lips twitch up at the corners. “I know because you taught me that.”

“I remember,” he says, though he doesn’t bring up the unsub that could’ve killed you. It had only been your third week on the team and the case had brought you out to Boise, Idaho. When you’d located the unsub, he’d engaged you in a physical altercation where he’d successfully disarmed you and put you in a chokehold. Oxygen had been effectively cut off from your airway and you were so close to losing consciousness that you’d be dead right now if JJ and Emily hadn’t incapacitated him when they had.

“I was going to quit the team,” you say. “After that case, I didn’t think I had what it takes to be a member of the BAU.”

Hotch’s brow twitches as he relaxes back against the wall. “You never told me that.”

You shrug, “I didn’t have to. When you found me in the break room after hours when I thought everyone else had gone home and talked me down from my own panic attack, I tore up my resignation letter.” You smile then. “The minute we stop feeling, that’s when we can no longer do this job. That empathy is what gives the families hope and keeps our victims alive. When we lose that, we lose our humanity. Never stop feeling. Feel everything, and then feel it again. Talk about it. You’re never alone. We’re a team. We’ll always have one another’s backs.”

“I said all of that?” Hotch asks, both amused and in disbelief.

“It’s what I tell myself every time I feel the strain of this job is getting to be too much, and it helps keep me grounded.”

He tilts his head and laughs to himself. “I should probably write that down.”

You laugh in turn, “You probably should.”

Hotch moves to stand up then, scooping his tie off the ground and offering you a hand as he does so. You take it and allow him to pull you to your feet.

“Thank you,” he says and offers you a genuine smile. “I just hope that these bags under my eyes don’t look puffier than they usually do now.”

You roll your eyes and open your arms to hug him. He chuckles as he embraces you and thanks you once more.

“Don’t ever change, sir.” You rub your hand up and down his back and feel that the tension has completely relaxed out of his posture. “Don't ever change.”

[alexandraisyes]

In light of the recent ableism on my feed, I'd like to reiterate that I am a clinical sociopath, I have traumagenic ASPD, and I'm not ashamed of it because it's out of my control. It's as much a neurodivergent disability as autism/ADHD/OCD/etc is, and people with ASPD deserve as much respect as anyone else. Here's some key ohrases that are considered ableistic language when referring to someone who has ASPD.

"You're a psychopath" or "You're a sociopath" - These terms are often thrown around casually or used as insults, which stigmatizes and oversimplifies complex mental health conditions. This one is the only really tricky one, because you shouldn't assume what strain of ASPD someone has, nor should you apply it to someone who doesn't have ASPD. You can call someone with ASPD a socio/psychopath as long as it's not in a derogatory manner and they have confirmed they are okay with being referred to as such (like myself).

"You have no empathy" - While reduced empathy can be a characteristic of ASPD, using this as a blanket statement can be dehumanizing and dismissive.

"You're just evil" - Labeling someone as inherently evil because of their condition contributes to harmful stereotypes.

"People like you can't change" - This phrase reinforces the misconception that individuals with ASPD are incapable of personal growth or improvement.

"You're dangerous" - Assuming that everyone with ASPD is violent or a threat to others perpetuates fear and stigma.

"You don't care about anyone but yourself" - This phrase reduces the person to a stereotype and ignores the nuances of their experiences and behaviors.

"You're just a manipulator" - This phrase reduces complex behaviors to a negative stereotype, ignoring the underlying struggles that someone with ASPD might face.

"You must be a criminal" - Associating ASPD with criminal behavior reinforces harmful stereotypes and ignores the diversity of individuals with the disorder.

"You're heartless" - This phrase dehumanizes the person and dismisses any capacity for emotional depth or connection.

"You can't be trusted" - Assuming that someone with ASPD is inherently untrustworthy is unfair and contributes to social isolation.

"You don't have a conscience" - This phrase oversimplifies the nature of ASPD and ignores the complexities of morality and behavior in individuals with the condition.

"People like you are born bad" - This statement implies that individuals with ASPD are inherently flawed or evil from birth, which is both stigmatizing and scientifically inaccurate.

"You should be locked up" - Suggesting that someone with ASPD should be institutionalized or incarcerated solely based on their diagnosis promotes fear and discrimination.

"You're incapable of love" - Assuming that someone with ASPD cannot experience or express love is reductive and perpetuates harmful myths.

"You have no morals" - This statement unfairly labels individuals with ASPD as completely lacking in ethical principles, ignoring the complexities of their experiences. Morals are things humans are taught, not things we are born with.

Assuming any of these things about somoene with ASPD that you don't personally know is just as ableist as assuming someoneyou don't know who has autism does or doesn't need accommodations based on how "normal" they seem to you (just an example).

Don't be ableist.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Capitalism's Big Lie in four words: "There is no alternative." Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they're hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don't care about your feelings).

The point of "there is no alternative" is to extinguish the innovative imagination. "There is no alternative" is really "stop trying to think of alternatives, dammit." But there are always alternatives, and the only reason to demand that they be excluded from consideration is that these alternatives are manifestly superior to the looter's supposed inevitability.

Right now, there's an attempt underway to loot the NHS, the UK's single most beloved institution. The NHS has been under sustained assault for decades – budget cuts, overt and stealth privatisation, etc. But one of its crown jewels has been stubbournly resistant to being auctioned off: patient data. Not that HMG hasn't repeatedly tried to flog patient data – it's just that the public won't stand for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/21/nhs-data-platform-may-be-undermined-by-lack-of-public-trust-warn-campaigners

Patients – quite reasonably – do not trust the private sector to handle their sensitive medical records.

Now, this presents a real conundrum, because NHS patient data, taken as a whole, holds untold medical insights. The UK is a large and diverse country and those records in aggregate can help researchers understand the efficacy of various medicines and other interventions. Leaving that data inert and unanalysed will cost lives: in the UK, and all over the world.

For years, the stock answer to "how do we do science on NHS records without violating patient privacy?" has been "just anonymise the data." The claim is that if you replace patient names with random numbers, you can release the data to research partners without compromising patient privacy, because no one will be able to turn those numbers back into names.

It would be great if this were true, but it isn't. In theory and in practice, it is surprisingly easy to "re-identify" individuals in anonymous data-sets. To take an obvious example: we know which two dates former PM Tony Blair was given a specific treatment for a cardiac emergency, because this happened while he was in office. We also know Blair's date of birth. Check any trove of NHS data that records a person who matches those three facts and you've found Tony Blair – and all the private data contained alongside those public facts is now in the public domain, forever.

Not everyone has Tony Blair's reidentification hooks, but everyone has data in some kind of database, and those databases are continually being breached, leaked or intentionally released. A breach from a taxi service like Addison-Lee or Uber, or from Transport for London, will reveal the journeys that immediately preceded each prescription at each clinic or hospital in an "anonymous" NHS dataset, which can then be cross-referenced to databases of home addresses and workplaces. In an eyeblink, millions of Britons' records of receiving treatment for STIs or cancer can be connected with named individuals – again, forever.

Re-identification attacks are now considered inevitable; security researchers have made a sport out of seeing how little additional information they need to re-identify individuals in anonymised data-sets. A surprising number of people in any large data-set can be re-identified based on a single characteristic in the data-set.

Given all this, anonymous NHS data releases should have been ruled out years ago. Instead, NHS records are to be handed over to the US military surveillance company Palantir, a notorious human-rights abuser and supplier to the world's most disgusting authoritarian regimes. Palantir – founded by the far-right Trump bagman Peter Thiel – takes its name from the evil wizard Sauron's all-seeing orb in Lord of the Rings ("Sauron, are we the baddies?"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

The argument for turning over Britons' most sensitive personal data to an offshore war-crimes company is "there is no alternative." The UK needs the medical insights in those NHS records, and this is the only way to get at them.

As with every instance of "there is no alternative," this turns out to be a lie. What's more, the alternative is vastly superior to this chumocratic sell-out, was Made in Britain, and is the envy of medical researchers the world 'round. That alternative is "trusted research environments." In a new article for the Good Law Project, I describe these nigh-miraculous tools for privacy-preserving, best-of-breed medical research:

https://goodlawproject.org/cory-doctorow-health-data-it-isnt-just-palantir-or-bust/

At the outset of the covid pandemic Oxford's Ben Goldacre and his colleagues set out to perform realtime analysis of the data flooding into NHS trusts up and down the country, in order to learn more about this new disease. To do so, they created Opensafely, an open-source database that was tied into each NHS trust's own patient record systems:

https://timharford.com/2022/07/how-to-save-more-lives-and-avoid-a-privacy-apocalypse/

Opensafely has its own database query language, built on SQL, but tailored to medical research. Researchers write programs in this language to extract aggregate data from each NHS trust's servers, posing medical questions of the data without ever directly touching it. These programs are published in advance on a git server, and are preflighted on synthetic NHS data on a test server. Once the program is approved, it is sent to the main Opensafely server, which then farms out parts of the query to each NHS trust, packages up the results, and publishes them to a public repository.

This is better than "the best of both worlds." This public scientific process, with peer review and disclosure built in, allows for frequent, complex analysis of NHS data without giving a single third party access to a a single patient record, ever. Opensafely was wildly successful: in just months, Opensafely collaborators published sixty blockbuster papers in Nature – science that shaped the world's response to the pandemic.

Opensafely was so successful that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the programme with an eye to expanding it to serve as the nation's default way of conducting research on medical data:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis

This approach is cheaper, safer, and more effective than handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Palantir and hoping they will manage the impossible: anonymising data well enough that it is never re-identified. Trusted Research Environments have been endorsed by national associations of doctors and researchers as the superior alternative to giving the NHS's data to Peter Thiel or any other sharp operator seeking a public contract.

As a lifelong privacy campaigner, I find this approach nothing short of inspiring. I would love for there to be a way for publishers and researchers to glean privacy-preserving insights from public library checkouts (such a system would prove an important counter to Amazon's proprietary god's-eye view of reading habits); or BBC podcasts or streaming video viewership.

You see, there is an alternative. We don't have to choose between science and privacy, or the public interest and private gain. There's always an alternative – if there wasn't, the other side wouldn't have to continuously repeat the lie that no alternative is possible.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876933345).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[lucky-stick]

vampire fact list if you did that a chinchilla fact list?

vampire facts 🩸

- vampires dont have a heartbeat

- they are scared of garlic, running water, holy water, crucifixes and sunlight

- they don't have a shadow or a reflection in the mirror

- most vampires like tea

- they are obsessive when it comes to counting so people would put out seeds to distract vampires

- there are some a counts of vampires counting knots in a rope then uniting all the knots

- there didn't used to be a difference between vampires and werewolves the original Dracula had but characteristics

- southeast asia vampires can detach their heads and upper torso from the rest of their body

- despite media saying vampires dont like silver going back into old folklore nothing has ever said that

- some can transform into bats while others can be dark mist and rarely rats/mice

- some theorys suggest vampires dont like garlic because of mosquitoes

- another theory was that garlic was seen as holy since its a natural antibiotic

- the idea of vampires stemmed from the idea from the limiting knowledge of a decomposing body like longer teeth and nails due to skin decomposing was due to them beinga vampire

- theres a condition (kinda like clinical lycanthropy/zoanthropy) call clinical vampirism which is delusional disorder where a person thinks they need others blood to survive

- some vampires need blood from animals instead of humans like chickens

[literaryvein-reblogs]

how to write characters with muteness/mutism? (i hope i'm using the right words)

Both words may be used :) Mutism seems to be the more frequently used term in research and clinical settings.

Character Development: Mutism

Mutism - an inability or unwillingness to speak, resulting in an absence or marked paucity of verbal output

It is a common clinical symptom seen in psychiatric as well as neurology outpatient department

It rarely presents as an isolated disability and often occurs in association with other disturbances in behavior, thought processes, affect, or level of consciousness

The condition may also be voluntary, as in monastic vows of silence or the decision to speak only to selected individuals

Mutism occurs in a number of conditions, both functional and organic, and a proper diagnosis is important for the management

To write your character with mutism, you may want to begin with their backstory. Below are some types of mutism you could consider.

Types of Mutism

Selective mutism - having the ability to speak but feeling unable to, often because of social anxiety and debilitating shyness

Organic mutism - caused by brain injury, such as with drug use or after a stroke

Cerebellar mutism - caused by the removal of a brain tumor from a part of the skull surrounding the cerebellum, which controls coordination and balance

Aphasia - occurs when people find it difficult to speak because of stroke, brain tumor, or head injury

Additional definition: Selective mutism is characterized by a consistent failure to speak in social situations in which there is an expectation to speak (e.g., school) even though the individual speaks in other situations. The failure to speak has significant consequences on achievement in academic or occupational settings or otherwise interferes with normal social communication.

After determining the possible type/s and/or causes of your character's mutism, below are some characteristics and behaviours. Choose which ones are appropriate for your character. Also determine the frequency and the degree in which these occur.

Some Characteristics of People with Mutism

Social anxiety or shyness outside of the home

Silence that interferes with work or school

Mutism that can't be explained by trouble with language skills

Having experienced trauma

Suddenly becoming silent after speaking regularly

For organic or cerebellar mutism, not being able to speak despite wanting to

For aphasia, mutism can come with difficulty reading, telling time, understanding numbers, and writing

Being silent in social situations outside of the home

Paralyzing anxiety

Using nonverbal communication when spoken to

Asking others to speak for them

Interruptions in daily well-being because of mutism

Is caused by intense anxiety or social phobia

The symptoms interfere with school or work

Difficulty connecting

For Selective Mutism:

Ability to speak at home with family or people they are comfortable with

Fear or anxiety around people they do not know well

Inability to speak in certain social situations

Shyness

This pattern must be seen for at least 1 month to be called selective mutism. (The first month of school does not count, because shyness is common during this period.)

Note: In selective mutism, the child can understand and speak, but is unable to speak in certain settings or environments. Children with mutism never speak. Selective mutism falls under the "Anxiety Disorders" category.

Sample Case Report from this article

A 35-year-old married male was brought by police personnel with chief complaints of not speaking for the last 3 months. The patient had been under trial for the last 6 months for the alleged charge of setting fire in a cowshed. He would not interact with any of the jail inmates. He would however ask for food by non-verbal communication/gestures and would perform all his daily chores normally as reported. He was asked to follow up with family members. History reviewed from wife and elder brother reveled history of 18 years history characterized by violent abusive behavior, wandering behavior, irritability, decreased sleep, restlessness, muttering to self, and at times reporting that other would harm him, associated with withdrawn behavior and socio-occupational dysfunction. On one occasion, he became mute also and did not talk for a period of around 4 months associated with sadness of mood and decreased interest in surroundings. 6 months back, he had symptoms of muttering to self, would often roam about naked and get irritable on minor issues. No other significant history was obtained. MSE revealed decreased PMA, rapport not established, eye to eye contact could not be maintained, he was mute and would communicate nonverbally appropriately. His affect was blank with no facial expressions. All his routine investigations were within normal limits. A diagnosis of schizophrenia was entertained, and he was started on risperidone 6 mg per day and lorazepam 4 mg per day. Gradually the patient started showing improvement in symptoms.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ⚜ Writing Notes & References

If this inspires your writing in any way, do tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read your work!

[intersex-support]

Intersex Support FAQ

1. What is intersex?

Intersex is an umbrella term that describes people who have variations in sex characteristics that fall outside of the sex binary. This includes variations in genitals, internal reproductive organs like testes and ovaries, chromosomes, secondary sex characteristics, and/or the way that your body produces or responds to hormones. Some examples of intersex variations include AIS, CAH, PCOS, Klinefelters, hypospadias, and more. 

The three main factors that define intersex variations are: 

Variation in sex characteristics 

The variation falls outside of the sex binary and is different from what is considered typical “male” or “female” development. These variations in traits might often be stigmatized and discriminated against for being outside of the sex binary.

This variation is either present from birth or develops spontaneously later in life. It is not caused by transitioning or by something temporary like a medication side effect, tumor, or other medical diagnosis. 

(This definition is inspired by InterACT).

2. Does ____ count as intersex? 

There are around 40 different intersex variations that are currently known. InterACT”s intersex variation glossary lists out those intersex variations and gives a brief description of each one.

However, we know that isn’t a complete list. People have intersex variations that haven’t been medically researched yet, or might have a rare variation that the intersex community isn’t aware of yet. 

There are also some variations that might seem on the border between perisex and intersex. Some types of hormonal or reproductive diagnoses might not have a clear answer on whether they’re intersex or not. 

Ultimately,  intersex is a social/political identity rather than a strictly medical one. Increased research and changing social attitudes can cause the definition of intersex to expand over time. Regardless of whether someone has a confirmed intersex variation or an “intersex adjacent” diagnosis, if intersex resources are helpful to you, we hope that you continue to use them and act in solidarity with the intersex community. 

On this blog, we do include PCOS with hyperandrogenism as part of the intersex community. Check out our PCOS tag for more posts about our reasoning, and PCOS specific resources.

3. Am I intersex?

We cannot diagnose you with an intersex variation over the internet. We can share resources such as the intersex variations glossary, share tips for navigating the medical system, and share information on other non-clinical signs of being intersex. 

Some questions to ask yourself that can help you start the process of intersex discovery:

What do my sex traits (genitalia, secondary sex characteristics, hormone levels, etc) look like? Does this seem like it lines up with the “typical” descriptions of those sex traits? 

Do I have any information about my birth? Were there any complications? Did doctors do extra testing at birth? Did doctors take me away from my parents for long periods of time? Did it take me longer to have my sex assigned at birth?

What was puberty like for me? Did I have early or late puberty? Did I have to go on hormones to start puberty? Did I have any variations in puberty, such as unexpected breast growth, irregular periods, or other changes? Did I go through puberty at all?

If you’ve tried to have children, are you infertile or struggling with fertility?

Did I have any unexplained surgeries or medical procedures as a child? Was I ever told I had to have organs removed and was told it was because of a cancer risk? Did I have to be on specific medications or hormones throughout my childhood? Did I have to go see a doctor more frequently? Did I go to an endocrinologist or pediatric urologist as a child? 

Do I have surgery scars or scar tissue? Do I have more frequent UTIs than typical?

Do I have access to my medical records? Is there records of hormone panels, ultrasounds, physical exams, surgeries, or other medical procedures? 

This kind of information can help you start to piece together if you think you might have an intersex variation, or if you think your intersex variation was hidden from you. 

If you’re sending in an ask trying to figure out if your symptoms line up with a specific intersex variation, please share as much information as you’re comfortable with so that we can answer with the most helpful resources. 

4. Can I self diagnose as intersex? 

It’s complicated! Intersex is different from other LGBTQIA identities, in that it’s not only about self determination, but also about our embodied experience in a very specific way. In order to be intersex, you have to have an intersex variation. And there are many intersex variations that can only be confirmed through medical testing, so it’s not something that is easy to self-diagnose.

However, we recognize that the medical system is expensive, discriminatory, and often actively hides information about people’s intersex variations from them. (it wasn’t even until 2006 that the AAP stopped recommending that doctors lie to their patients about intersex status, so many intersex adults were born before that policy change!) Considering all that we know about intersex oppression, curative violence, and medical abuse, it feels incredibly cruel to tell people that they have to force themself through that system in order to seek answers. 

So, we understand that there are ways of finding out that you are intersex without having a specific, confirmed, medical diagnosis. Many of us might find out that we’re intersex because we realize that our genitalia visibly looks different, and we can tell that we are intersex, even if we don’t know our specific diagnosis. Others might find out that we’re intersex because of strange discrepancies in our medical record. We might find out through discovering surgery scars on our body. We might go through puberty and realize that we’re developing in an atypical way to our peers. We might do a lot of research into intersex variations and have a pretty good guess into what variation lines up with our experiences. We might have some test results that help us understand we have intersex traits, even if we don’t know our specific diagnosis.  

Before self diagnosing, we think it’s important to do thorough research into intersex variations, so that you truly understand what intersex means, what intersex variations exist, and understand how that information applies to yourself. It’s also important to be considerate of how we interact in community spaces, and respect other intersex people's boundaries as you engage in a questioning or diagnosis process. 

5.  Are intersex people trans?

Some intersex people are trans, and some aren’t. Most intersex people are still assigned a gender at birth, and many intersex people who are raised as one gender and then later identify as another gender identify with the label trans. Intersex people can be cis or trans just like any other group of people. 

Many intersex people have complicated relationships with gender, and don’t feel like labels like cis or trans really fit their experiences. For this reason, terms like intergender and ipsogender were coined.

6. Are intersex people LGBTQIA?

It’s complicated! The “I” in LGBTQIA stands for intersex. Intersex history is intertwined with other parts of queer history. For example, the very first protest for intersex people in the United States was organized by Hermaphrodites with Attitude and Transexual Menace. There are intersex inclusive versions of community pride flags. Many intersex people view their intersex identity as a queer identity. Intersex oppression overlaps in many ways with homophobia and transphobia. 

However, not all intersex people think that intersex should be included in the LGBTQIA community. Sometimes this is for bigoted reasons, with intersex radfems who use this stance as a way to be transphobic. But there are also intersex people who think that the “I” should only be included in the acronym when intersex people are actually meaningfully being included in queer spaces and resources. Many of us feel frustrated when people put “LGBTQIA” on a resource but then don’t actually have any intersex specific information in those resources. 

In general, this is an ongoing intracommunity discussion where we don’t have a consensus. 

7. Are intersex people disabled? 

It’s complicated! Intersex is an umbrella term for many different experiences, and there is not one universal intersex experience. Some intersex people identify as disabled. Some intersex people do not.

Many intersex variations do cause disabling impacts in our bodies and lives. Some intersex variations are comorbid with other health conditions. Other intersex people become disabled because of violent normalizing interventions we’ve survived, such as forced surgery or other types of medical abuse. 

Intersex people are also impacted by many of the same structures of oppression that harm disabled people. Both intersex people and disabled people are harmed by ableism. Both intersex people and disabled people are harmed by pathologization. Both intersex people and disabled people are harmed by curative violence. 

In the book Cripping Intersex, Celeste Orr explores all these concepts and creates something called “intersex is/and/as/with disability,” which is a model to think about all these different and sometimes conflicting relationships with disability. Some intersex people might identify directly as disabled. Others might sometimes think about the way that intersex is treated as a disability. Other intersex people might think about intersex and disability as a way to have solidarity. All of these relationships with disability are meaningful parts of the intersex community. 

8. What is intersex oppression/intersexism/interphobia/compulsory dyadism? 

Intersex people face a lot of oppression in many ways in society. At the core, intersex oppression relies on the idea that the only acceptable sex traits are sex traits that fit into the sex binary. Intersex oppression relies on mythical ideas of the “ideal male or female” body, where someone's chromosomes perfectly line up with their genitalia and internal reproductive organs, with perfectly normal hormone levels and perfect secondary sex characteristics that don’t have any variation. When people don’t fit into that “perfect” sex binary, they are seen as less valuable, abnormal, and threatening. There is then a societal pressure to eradicate any traits and people that fall outside of the sex binary, which causes a lot of targeted discrimination of intersex people. This form of oppression is called “compulsory dyadism,” and was coined by Celeste Orr. 

Compulsory dyadism is also rooted in, overlaps with, and is the foundation for many other types of oppression. For example, ableism is another form of oppression that creates ways of harming people whose bodies and minds are labeled as less valuable for societally constructed reasons. Check out Talila Lewis’s definition of ableism for more information. Another example is how racialized people are targeted by sex testing policies in sports--both intersex and perisex women of color are consistently targeted by sex testing policies designed to exclude intersex people from sports. Another example is that homophobia and transphobia contribute to why intersex bodies are seen as threats that need to be eradicated--society views existing with intersex sex traits as a slippery slope to growing up as a gay or trans adult. Compulsory dyadism is also at the root of a lot of transphobic rhetoric about how transitioning “ruins” people’s bodies. All these forms of oppression are connected. 

There are a lot of ways that compulsory dyadism causes intersex people to be targeted and discriminated against. A huge issue is nonconsensual surgeries at birth, that attempt to “normalize” ambiguous genitalia, remove intersex people’s gonads, and otherwise alter genitalia or internal structures. These surgeries are often referred to as intersex genital mutilation, or IGM. These surgeries do not have any medical necessity, but doctors lobby to continue to be allowed to perform them anyway. These surgeries can sterilize intersex people, cause lifelong trauma, and also cause many disabling medical complications. Alongside IGM, intersex people also face a lot of different types of medical abuse. 

Besides curative violence and medical abuse, intersex people also face discrimination in our schools, jobs, and public places. We face legal discrimination in changing our names and sex markers. We face discrimination from institutions like CPS, which often target parents, especially people of color, that refuse to put their children through intersex genital mutilation. Many intersex people survive targeted sexual violence. We have a widespread lack of resources, visibility, and representation. Many people still have prejudiced ideas about intersex people and call us slurs. These are just a few examples of the many way that interphobia/intersexism show up in our lives. 

9. What is intersex justice? 

Intersex justice is a framework created by intersex activists through the Intersex Justice Project as a way to fight for intersex liberation. 

“Intersex justice is a decolonizing framework that affirms the labor of intersex people of color fighting for change across social justice movements. By definition, intersex justice affirms bodily integrity and bodily autonomy as the practice of liberation. Intersex justice is intrinsically tied to justice movements that center race, ability, gender identity & expression, migrant status, and access to sexual & reproductive healthcare. Intersex justice articulates a commitment to these movements as central to its intersectional analysis and praxis. Intersex justice acknowledges the trauma caused by medically unnecessary and nonconsensual cosmetic genital surgeries and addresses the culture of shame, silence and stigma surrounding intersex variations that perpetuate further harm.

The marginalization of intersex people is rooted in colonization and white supremacy. Colonization created a taxonomy of human bodies that privileged typical white male and female bodies, prescribing a gender binary that would ultimately harm atypical black and indigenous bodies. As part of a liberation movement, intersex activists challenge not only the medical establishment, which is often the initial site of harm, but also governments, institutions, legal structures, and sociocultural norms that exclude intersex people. Intersex people should be allowed complete and uninhibited access to obtaining identity documents, exercising their birth and adoption rights, receiving unbiased healthcare, and securing education and employment opportunities that are free from harm and harassment.” (Source: Dr. Mel Michelle Lewis through the Intersex Justice Project.)

There are seven principles to intersex justice: 

Informed consent

Reparations

Legal protections

Accountability

Language

Children's rights

Patient-centered healthcare

10. What is intergender? 

Intergender is a gender identity for use by intersex people only. It doesn’t have one specific definition-it is used by intersex people to mean a whole variety of things. It’s used to describe the unique ways our intersex experience intersects with and influences our gender.  Some people use it as a modifying term, such as calling themselves an intergender man or woman, as a way to explain the way being intersex affects their identity. Other people identify solely as intergender, and have that be their whole gender. 

11. What is dyadic/perisex/endosex? 

All are words that mean “not intersex.” Different groups will have different preferences on which one they like to use. 

12. Is hermaphrodite an offensive term? 

Yes. It is an incredibly offensive slur that perisex people should never say. Many intersex people have a very painful history with the slur. Some of us reclaim the term, which can be an important act of healing and celebration for us.

12. Can perisex people follow? 

Feel free, but understand that questions by intersex people are prioritized! Anyone is welcome to follow.

13. I’m writing a character who’s intersex…

Check out this post:  https://trans-axolotl.tumblr.com/post/188153640308/intersex-representation. If you’re writing about intersex people for a paid project, you should pay an intersex person to act as a sensitivity reader before publishing. 

Check out our Resources and Intersex Organizations pages as well!

[ki-kink]

So in all these years of the were teen virus, has there ever been a cure or do the transformers enjoy it too much to care? Looks like they all have fun.

Bro, I had to grind a bit and stumbled on some stuff in a med book. It’s a real mission to read, man:

Seasonal Pubertal Regression (Regressio Pubertatis Temporalis): A Novel Syndrome

Abstract

Seasonal Pubertal Regression (SPR), also known colloquially as "Werteenager Syndrome," is an unusual, episodic condition characterized by the sudden reversion of adult patients to a hypersexualized, pubertal state during weekends. The condition exhibits a consistent temporal pattern, is suspected to have a viral etiology, and has profound physiological and behavioral implications. This paper outlines the clinical features, transmission mechanisms, potential pathophysiology, and observed complications of this emerging syndrome.

Clinical Features

SPR manifests as a dramatic transformation occurring primarily in adults with no prior history of endocrinological disorders. The onset of symptoms begins Friday morning with subtle prodromal signs, including excessive axillary hair growth and pronounced morning erections in male patients. By Friday evening, approximately one hour before sunset, the transformation is complete. During this period, patients exhibit:

Physiological Changes:

Rapid development of body hair, particularly on the chest and axillary regions.

Increased androgen levels, inferred from the heightened libido and secondary sexual characteristics.

Behavioral Changes:

Regression to adolescent-like language and interests, often mirroring the cognitive and emotional behavior of high school students with low academic performance.

Predominantly homosexual behavior, with a smaller subset displaying bisexual tendencies.

Compulsive sexual activity, often with multiple partners.

The transformation reverts spontaneously by Sunday evening, approximately one hour after sunset. However, in rare cases, a permanent adolescent state, termed Persistent Pubertal Regression (PPR), has been observed.

Transmission

SPR is presumed to be an infectious disease, transmitted through:

Sexual Contact: The primary route of infection, as evidenced by the sexual hyperactivity of patients during symptomatic episodes.

Body Fluids: Saliva, blood, and other bodily secretions are likely vectors.

Droplet Transmission: Close contact during symptomatic periods is hypothesized to contribute to the spread.

Epidemiological studies reveal a clustering of cases in densely populated areas with high rates of casual sexual encounters.

Pathophysiology

The precise mechanism remains unclear. However, the following factors are hypothesized:

Solar Influence: The timing of transformations suggests a strong correlation with circadian rhythms and solar positioning. This aligns with the hypothesis of a photoresponsive trigger.

Hormonal Dysregulation: An abrupt surge in androgenic and possibly estrogenic activity drives the secondary sexual characteristics and behavioral changes.

Neurological Impact: The regression in cognitive and linguistic abilities points to temporary, reversible alterations in neurochemical pathways.

Complications

One documented case of PPR provides insight into the potential severity of SPR. A pair of patients engaged in reciprocal oral-genital contact ("69" position) during the Sunday evening transition period. Both individuals retained their adolescent state indefinitely. This rare complication underscores the need for further study into the temporal dynamics of SPR.

Management and Future Directions

No effective treatments for SPR currently exist. Research priorities include:

Identification of the Pathogen: Advanced virological studies are needed to isolate the causative agent.

Therapeutic Interventions: Hormonal modulation and phototherapy are potential avenues for investigation.

Behavioral Support: Counseling and harm reduction strategies should be implemented to mitigate the social and psychological impacts on patients and their contacts.

Conclusion

SPR represents a unique intersection of infectious disease, endocrinology, and behavioral science. Its distinct clinical presentation, temporal predictability, and social implications warrant immediate scientific attention. Understanding this condition could provide novel insights into human physiology and the interplay between environment and health.

Dude, so I did some digging and found out about these two bros who were, like, getting down in the 69 position. One dude was this 42-year-old McDonald's branch manager, kind of hefty. Bet he caught it from a weekend warrior coworker. The other guy's a 56-year-old trucker who picked up a hitchhiker with the bad vibes. Now they're both chilling as juniors at a sports college in Minnesota.

Got booted from the Olympic swim team 'cause they wouldn’t shave their chest hair. But no sweat, they’re still legends at the local pool, doing lifeguard duty.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Since my reply is hidden, I've decided to just make my own post about this and put some accurate info out there.

Covert DID vs Overt DID & Possession vs Non-possession: They don't mean what you think they mean!

Here's a bunch of facts and info in no particular order!

I saw a post about how masking isn't a type of covert DID, and I'm here to tell you that

Masking was the original covert!

Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders (by Dorahy, Gold & O'Neil, 2nd edition, 2023)

You know the statistic in the DSM about covert/overt systems? It's taken from Kluft, above. And it includes masking.

Covert and overt aren't actually used all that often clinically, but it actually has several meanings, INCLUDING MASKING. Neither has to do with possession or non-possession, but they're unfortunately often incorrectly equated as "possession form = overt" and "non-possession = covert". They can overlap, but this is incorrect!

Possession's biggest use is for a disorder that no longer exists as a separate entry in the DSM 5.

Possession-Trance disorder still exists in the ICD, though, and we'll start there.

Trance disorder

"The trance state is not characterised by the experience of being replaced by an alternate identity."

"Trance Disorder is characterized by recurrent or single and prolonged involuntary marked alteration in an individual’s state of consciousness involving a trance state (without possession)."

"The trance state is not characterized by the experience of being replaced by an alternate identity."

"The identities of the possessing agents typically correspond to figures from the religious traditions in the society."

"In Possession Trance Disorder, the individual’s normal sense of personal identity is experienced as being replaced by an external ‘possessing’ spirit, power, deity or other spiritual entity, which is not the case in Trance Disorder. Possession trance states often include more complex activities (e.g., coherent conversations, characteristic gestures, facial expressions, specific verbalizations) than are typical of trance states, which tend to involve less complex activities (e.g., staring, falling)."

We can already see how this is starting to play out with overt/covert and non-possession/possession form.

Possession trance disorder

"Possession trance disorder is characterised by trance states in which there is a marked alteration in the individual’s state of consciousness and the individual’s customary sense of personal identity is replaced by an external ‘possessing’ identity and in which the individual’s behaviours or movements are experienced as being controlled by the possessing agent."

"Trance episodes are attributed to the influence of an external ‘possessing’ spirit, power, deity or other spiritual entity."

"During possession trance states, the activities performed are often relatively complex (e.g., coherent conversations, characteristic gestures, facial expressions, specific verbalizations that are frequently culturally accepted as belonging to a particular possessing agent)."

"Presumed possessing agents in Possession Trance Disorder are usually spiritual in nature (e.g., spirits of the dead, gods, demons, or other spiritual entities) and are often experienced as making demands or expressing animosity."

"The identities of the possessing agents typically correspond to figures from the religious traditions in the society."

"This is distinguished from Dissociative Identity Disorder and Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder, which are characterized by the experience of two or more distinct, alternate personality states that are not attributed to an external possessing agent. Individuals describing both internally and externally attributed alternate identities should receive a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder or Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder. In this situation, an additional diagnosis of Possession Trance Disorder should not be assigned."

From Dissociative Identity Disorder, I only want to note one thing:

"Individuals who describe both internal distinct personality states that assume executive control as well as episodes of being controlled by an external possessing identity should receive a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder rather than Possession Trance Disorder."

So, already, we've learned that possession and non-possession have to do with whether the entities are experienced as internal or external agents.

You'll note that the ICD doesn't mention covert or overt at all.

So back to the DSM-- “possession” was diagnosed as Atypical Dissociative Disorder in the DSM-III or DDNOS in DSM-III-R. In DSM-IV, possession and trance were diagnosed as sub-categories of the Dissociative Trance Disorder (DTD), and in DSM-IV-TR they were merged into one, and recognized as a cultural variant of the Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified [DDNOS]. In DSM-5, possession-form presentations are linked with criterion A of DID: “Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession” (p. 292).

Another common myth has to do with amnesia and covert/overt. The facts are:

Covert DID is associated with the highest levels of blackout amnesia. That's how it stays covert. People have amnesia for their own amnesia. It's an incredible phenomenon that's highly documented.

Overt DID typically has the same or less amnesia. It's much harder to explain away noticeable behaviour so people are much more aware of their own gaps in memory and can begin treatment sooner. They're much more easily diagnosed. As internal dialogue and intrusion are far more different in these entities, people become aware sooner and experience more grey out amnesia thanks to this basic awareness.

Covert DID is no longer diagnosed as OSDD 1a. The DSM 5 introduced new reporting criteria that allow the patient and their family to self report switches. OSDD and DDNOS 1a were primarily used for situations where the clinician didn't witness a switch during interviewing. As such, OSDD these days mainly covers P-DID presentations where switching is genuinely rare, if it happens at all. While P-DID is less associated with amnesia, OSDD 1a will require it. P-DID without amnesia will fall into 1b or DID itself, thanks to the DSM's updated amnesia wording.

For this next bit, I'll be using the DSM 5, as that's what I have in front of me, for the purposes of this conversation, this version will do fine.

"Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by a) the presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession."

"The fragmentation of identity may vary with culture (e.g., possession-form presentations) and circumstance. Thus, individuals may experience discontinuities in identity and memory that may not be immediately evident to others or are obscured by attempts to hide dysfunction."

You know, overt/covert, and wow, it doesn't just have to do with the entities, BUT HOW YOU DESCRIBE YOUR DISORDER?!

You mean... like masking?

Holy shit, yeah, the DSM just said that.

These terms are not as interchangeable as some people think they are. They have very unique meanings and are very different concepts, not only from each other, but from how they're often used within the community.

To reiterate:

Possession form = external entities

Non-possession = internal entities

Overt = noticeable behaviour and mannerisms

Covert = hidden or sneaky behaviour or mannerisms

These can and do overlap, but exist as separate concepts.

More from the DSM:

"The defining feature of dissociative identity disorder is the presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession (Criterion A). The overtness or covertness of these personality states, however, varies as a function of psychological motivation, current level of stress, culture, internal conflicts and dynamics, and emotional resilience."

Oh, wow, it changes over time and can vary between alters themselves?! Wow.

"Sustained periods of identity disruption may occur when psychosocial pressures are severe and/or prolonged. In many possession-form cases of dissociative identity disorder, and in a small proportion of non-possession-form cases, manifestations of alternate identities are highly overt. Most individuals with non-possession-form dissociative identity disorder do not overtly display their discontinuity of identity for long periods of time; only a small minority present to clinical attention with observable alternation of identities."

"Possession-form identities in dissociative identity disorder typically manifest as behaviors that appear as if a “spirit,” supernatural being, or outside person has taken control, such that the individual begins speaking or acting in a distinctly different manner. For example, an individual’s behavior may give the appearance that her identity has been replaced by the “ghost” of a girl who committed suicide in the same community years before, speaking and acting as though she were still alive. Or an individual may be “taken over” by a demon or deity, resulting in profound impairment, and demanding that the individual or a relative be punished for a past act, followed by more subtle periods of identity alteration."

So, yes, according to the DSM, purposefully masking is a covert presentation, and it has nothing to do with possession or non-possession form. The way a system "naturally" presents will change many times over the course of their disorder.

IN FACT, if we want to get technical, covert actually refers specifically to heavy fragmentation in most clinical texts. Fragments are typically experienced internally and as intrusion, rather than switches. Here's a source.

Covert DID is a less dramatic and more subtle form of the disorder. In this variant, individuals with DID do not display overt switches or distinct personalities. Instead, they experience a fragmentation of their identity, leading to a lack of continuity in their sense of self and memory. These individuals may not even be aware of their condition and might attribute their memory lapses and identity shifts to stress, forgetfulness, or other factors.

Covert DID can be challenging to diagnose because the symptoms are less obvious. It often goes unrecognized for years, and individuals may suffer in silence without understanding the source of their difficulties. Therapy and expert evaluation are essential for identifying and addressing covert DID.

And another.

In addition, diagnostic challenges can result from identity alteration or personality switching not as obvious as expected. In fact, many patients have “covert DID” or “OSDD,” which is characterized by partial dissociation (e.g., dissociative intrusions) rather than full dissociation (i.e., switching plus amnesia).

In the end, though, these terms aren't used all that often, and various uses will still be understood in a clinical setting. Doctors can't even agree on definitions, so use them however you want.

It's not that big of a deal.

I hope this post was useful, even if it was a bit disjointed.

[trans-axolotl]

this is a shortened works cited from my thesis, pulling out the sources about American intersex history and activism from the past 30 years. i have pdfs for most of the sources there, if there's something that isn't linked send me a message and i can try to find it!

just thought i'd try to put a lot of intersex history sources in one place.

Works Cited: 

Amato, Viola. “The Intersex Movement of the 1990s: Speaking Out Against Medical and Narrative Violence.” In Intersex Narratives: Shifts in the Representation of Intersex Lives in North American Literature and Popular Culture, 55–102. Transcript Verlag, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xxrsz.6.

Bauer, Markus, Daniela Truffer and Daniela Crocetti. “Intersex Human Rights.” The International Journal of Human Rights. 24, no.6. (2020):724-749.https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2019.1671354 

Brown, Lydia X.Z., Erickson, Loree, da Silva Gorman, Rachel, Lewis, Talila A., McLeod, Lateef, and Mingus, Mia.  “Radical Disability Politics.” In Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, edited by A.J. Withers and Liat Ben-Moshe, 178-193. Routledge, 2019. 

Cameron, David. “Hermaphrodites With Attitude.” Newsletter. 1994. https://isna.org/library/hwa/ 

Carpenter, Morgan. “Fixing bodies and shaping narratives: Epistemic injustice and the responses of medicine and bioethics to intersex human rights demands.” Clinical Ethics. 2024;19, no. 1. (2024) :3-17. doi:10.1177/14777509231180412

Chase, Cheryl. “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 4, no.2, (1998): 189-211. 

---, Hermaphrodites Speak! 1997; Rohnert Park: Intersex Society of North America. Video tape. 

Cohen, Julie, dir. Every Body. 2023; United States: Focus Features, DVD.

Denny, Dallas.  "Chrysalis Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 5 (Fall, 1997 / Winter, 1998)."  Periodical.  1998.  Digital Transgender Archive,  https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/7s75dc39s  (accessed April 08, 2024).

Davis, Georgiann. “Introduction: Normalizing Intersex: The Transformative Power of Stories.”  in Voices: Personal Stories from the Pages of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: Normalizing Intersex, edited by James DuBois and Ana Iltis. 1-4. John Hopkins University Press, 2016. 

Dreger, Alice. “Rejecting the Tranquilizing Drug of Gradualism in Intersex Care.” Alice Dreger (blog). November 2015. Accessed April 9, 2024. https://alicedreger.com/dsd_human_rights/ 

Dreger, Alice and April Herndon. “Progress and Politics in the Intersex Rights Movement: Feminist Theory in Action.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 15, no. 2. (2009): 199-224.

Fausto-Sterling, Ane. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. 2000. 

“A Framework for Intersex Justice.” Intersex Justice Project. 2021. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.intersexjusticeproject.org/intersex-justice-framework.html 

"FTM Newsletter #37."  Periodical.  1997.  Digital Transgender Archive,  https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/kd17cs89j  (accessed April 08, 2024).

Hegarty, Peter, Marta Prandelli, Trove Lundberg, Lih-Mei Liao, Sarah Creighton, and Katrina Roen.”Drawing the Line Between Essential and Nonessential Interventions on Intersex Characteristics With European Health Care Professionals.” Review of General Psychology. 25, no 1. (2020): 101-114. 

Hermaphrodites With Attitude.  "Hey AAP! Get Your Scalpels Off Our Bodies! Flyer."  Ephemera.  1990.  Digital Transgender Archive,  https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/qj72p712h  (accessed April 08, 2024). 

“Hermaphrodites With Attitude,” Intersex Society of North America. 2006. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://isna.org/library/hwa/ 

“How To: Organize an #EndIntersexSurgery Protest in your hometown--a toolkit created by Intersex Justice Project (IJP.” Intersex Justice Project. 2019. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20191111232744/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EgYy2jfSO04HF_FGv-8RXYEgWW422L-RB7oxMOaIiBc/edit 

Hughes, Ieuan, Christopher Houk, Syed Faisal Ahmed, Peter Lee, and LWPES1/ESPE2 Consensus Group. “Consensus Statement on Management of intersex disorders.” Disease in Childhood. 91, no.7. (2006): 554-563. doi: 10.1136/adc.2006.098319

“I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US.” Human Rights Watch. InterACT. July 2017, accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/lgbtintersex0717_web_0.pdf 

“InterACT Statement on Intersex Terminology.” InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. 2015. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://interactadvocates.org/interact-statement-on-intersex-terminology/#:~:text=interACT's%20use%20of%20terminology%20and,of%20the%20term%20%E2%80%9Cintersex%E2%80%9D. 

Lindhal, Hans. “Is PCOS an Intersex Condition? Here’s 5 Reasons Why Some Say Yes.” HansLindhal.Com (Blog). February 2023, Accessed April 7, 2024. https://hanslindahl.com/blog/is-pcos-an-intersex-condition 

---., “9 Young People on How They Found Out They Are Intersex.” Teen Vogue. October 2019. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.teenvogue.com/gallery/young-people-on-how-they-found-out-they-are-intersex 

“M.C v. Aaronson.” Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/mc-v-aaronson

Merrick, Ten. “From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’: A Case of Epistemic Injustice.” Synthese 196, no. 11 (2019): 4429–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45220035.

Orr, Celeste. Cripping Intersex. University of British Columbia Press, 2022. 

Pagonis, Pidgeon. “#EndIntersexSurgery Protest At Lurie Children’s Hospital Recap + 5 Ways To Get Involved.” Intersex Justice Project. 2018. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.intersexjusticeproject.org/blog/endintersexsurgery-protest-at-lurie-childrens-hospital-recap 

Pagonis, Pidgeon and Sean Saifa Wall. “Open Letter to AIS-DSD Support Group.” EndIntersexSurgery. Intersex Justice Project. February 2018. Accessed April 8, 2024.  http://www.endintersexsurgery.org/ 

Redick, Alison. “What Happened at Hopkins: The Creation of the Intersex Management Protocols.  Cardozo Journal of  Law & Gender. 12 (2005): 289-296 

Reid, Graeme, and Minky Worden. “Caster Semenya Won Her Case, But Not the Right to Compete.” Human Rights Watch. July 2023. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/18/caster-semenya-won-her-case-not-right-compete  

Reis, Elizabeth. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. John Hopkins Press, 2021.

---, “Did Bioethics Matter? A HIstory of Autonomy, Consent, and Intersex Genital Surgery. Medical Law review. 27, no.4, (2019):658-674. https://doi.org/10.1093/medlaw/fwz007 

Rios-Espinosa, Carlos, Koomah, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Sean Saifa Wall. “Liberating All Bodies: Disability Justice & Intersex Justice In Conversation.” Webinar at the Crip Camp Impact Team and Human Rights Watch Film Festival, United States, October 2020.  

Rubin, David, Michelle Wolff and Amanda Lock Swarr. “Creating Intersex Justice: Interview with Sean Saifa Wall and Pidgeon Pagonis of the Intersex Justice Project.”  Transgender Studies Quarterly. 9, no. 2. (2022): 187-195. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-9612823 

Sharman, Zena. “Intersex Justice and the Care We Deserve: ‘I Want People to Feel at Home in Their Bodies Again.’” Ms. Magazine. 2022. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://msmagazine.com/2022/02/03/intersex-justice-the-care-we-dream-of-queer-trans-healthcare/  

Sharpe, Sam. “No one-size-fits all: Myths and Misconceptions about PCOS.” InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. Advocates for Informed Choice. October 2022. Accessed on April 7, 2024. https://interactadvocates.org/no-one-size-fits-all-myths-and-misconceptions-about-pcos/ 

Spurgas, Alyson. “(Un)Queering Identity: The Biosocial Production of Intersex/DSD.” in Critical Intersex edited by Morgan Holmes. 97-122. Ashgate Publishing, 2009. 

Tamar-Matis, Anne. “ Advocates for Informed Choice, Newsletter Fall 2007.” Newsletter. 2007. AIC Legal .https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fall-07-newsletter-final.pdf

---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Newsletter Spring 2008.” Newsletter. 2008. AIC Legal.https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/spring-08-final.pdf

---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Newsletter Summer 2009.” Newsletter. 2009. AIC Legal.https://aiclegal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aic-2009-summer-newsletter-pdf.pdf

---. “Advocates for Informed Choice: Spring 2010 Newsletter.” Newsletter. 2010. AIC Legal.https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=5803ec8c71

---., “June 2011: Promoting the Civil Rights of Children Born With Variations of Sex Anatomy.” Newsletter. 2011. AIC Legal. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=cec68ddac 

---.. “June 2012: Promoting the Civil Rights of Children Born With Variations of Sex Anatomy.” Newsletter. 2012. AIC Legal. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f8291560ebb2dafc25097480f&id=b4d4dd90cf

---. “ 2012 Annual Report.” Newsletter. 2012. Advocates for Informed Choice. https://interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/AIC-2012-Annual-Report.pdf 

---. “2013 Annual Report. “ Newsletter. 2012. Advocates for Informed Choice. https://interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2013-annual-report-FIN1.pdf  

“US: Anti-Trans Bills Also Harm Intersex Children.” Human Rights Watch. October 22. Accessed April 10, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/26/us-anti-trans-bills-also-harm-intersex-children 

Vecchietti, Valentino. “A Journey to the Intersex-Inclusive Pride Flag.” Global Inclusive Pride Flag. Intersex Equality Rights. 2021. Accessed April 7, 2024. https://www.globalinclusiveprideflag.com/ 

Wilchins, Riki Anne.  "In Your Face No. 5 (Spring 1998)."  Newsletter.  1998.  Digital Transgender Archive,  https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/vq27zn45k  (accessed April 08, 2024).

Withers, AJ. Disability Politics and Theory. Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 

Woo, Elaine. “David Reimer, 38; After Botched Surgery, He was Raised as a Girl in Gender Experiment.: Los Angeles Times. May 2004. Accessed April 8, 2024. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-13-me-reimer13-story.html 

[fatesundress]

⭑ observations. tom riddle x reader

part ii here.

summary. you've been going to hogwarts for four months, and find this whole school-wide obsession with tom riddle a little bit ridiculous, and a little bit contrived. surely not all the rumours are true...

tags. smut (minors dni -_-), fem anatomy, fingering, reader who is soooo in denial, trying to worm into tom's brain like a parasite and failing miserably (me projecting), i think reader is implied to either be short or tom is implied to be tall, ooc tom because i am so far from the belief that he would ever just spontaneously hook up with someone but… it is what it is.

note. this is my first post so support is much appreciated!! god forgive me, i've never written smut in my life, and it's safe to assume any smut i write within hogwarts is a university au — these people are all 18+ tyvm. also, i tried my best to make reader fairly neutral, but it's late, and if i've fumbled over some description bc i'm sleepy i shall fix it in the morning ♡

word count. 5.1k

Your first observation is that nobody has Tom Riddle quite right.

He’s beautiful, yes (obvious, repetitive, shallow), and undeniably intelligent (being paired with him in Potions has proved that in a matter of weeks), untouchable (this one is a bit interesting), and, above all, unusual. The latter you like the most. It makes you feel unabashedly exceptional in all the very unexceptional gossip about him. No one ever uses that word to describe him. A rarity of charisma and charm — austere, refined, and clinically polite. Unusual has a negative curve to it that most people don’t attach to the elegant litheness of Tom Riddle, but your observations cannot be stated without the word.

It’s prompted and peddled by Selwyn’s much-too-enthusiastic vehemence in the wake of your first.

You narrow your eyes at her and say it again, no less certain than the first time. “Tom Riddle has not had sex with half the school.”

It’s a bit of a jump. Some necessary context is removed.

Riddle, once more, rarity of charisma and charm and austere blah blah blah, has been rumoured since you arrived this year from your last school to be some silent conqueror, oh-so nimble with his hands and nimbler even with his other appendages, and you — you’ve only been here four months and it’s laughable how many people believe it.

Backtrack to untouchable (this one everyone agrees is a primary characteristic of Tom Riddle, there’s no debate there) and the reason you find it interesting. Untouchable doesn’t exactly work if everyone in the bloody castle has been touching him this whole time. And it’s not as if he could hide it, not as if people wouldn’t be giddy to tell their friends of their exploits with the beautiful, revered Head Boy. And such exploits would be whispers among the halls in a matter of hours. You’ve considered this, with almost scientific determination, and it’s impossible. Tom studies all day, and when he isn’t studying he’s corralling Slytherin first-years away from forbidden corridors, attending to Dippet’s newest errand, escorting third-years to Hogsmeade, dining with the Slug Club, and — point is, someone would have noticed by now if he was disappearing into broom closets with a new lay every weekend.

But Selwyn shakes her head, because this rumour is such an integral part of Tom’s allure. He is, somehow, both untouchable and a master at touch. Distant until he isn’t, and then he can break you apart with practised, perfect hands. It’s all very mythical.

“Look,” she says, “maybe if I’d only been here four months, I’d think so too, but everyone else knows—”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve only been here four months that I have the objectivity to recognize how ridiculous you all are. He’s not a god, Selwyn, he’s a scholar, and an obsessed one at that — has it ever actually occurred to you he might not have had sex at all?”

This, now, is sacrilege. 

Selwyn gapes at you, and you shake your head in surrender before you burst out laughing at how offended she looks. “Fine, whatever. Consider the matter dropped. I give up.”

You don’t really give up. It’s very fun research.

Your second observation is that unusual is not an apt enough word for Tom, and maybe you don’t possess the vocabulary to think of one that is.

You’re in the Restricted Section. This is unrelated to your Tom research, and perfectly sanctioned, with a key granted by the librarian who you feel sorry to admit you have not remembered the name of, and the library, by all means, is still open. It’s a late Thursday night, but not past curfew. You’re there with a study partner you rather wish you weren’t — Gregory Godefrey, Gryffindor (the alliteration is nauseating), and the only half-decent fellow in your Ancient Runes class, but not especially bright. You feel more like his tutor than his partner. In short, the regular books on the topic you’re writing your end-of-term essay on are slim pickings, and thus — Restricted Section.

“So,” you say, “the scriptures might look the same, but they’re written in vastly different time periods, so the meaning has changed. If you were to charge a spell with one of Ashe’s runes now, there’s almost no doubt you’d get a completely different result.”

“I don’t get it,” Godefrey grumbles sleepily into his sleeve. “How’s anyone meant to use runes if they can just change like that?”

You sigh, shaking your head. “Any magic can change, Godefrey. Half of the stuff we learn is based on intention and skill. Uagadou barely even uses wands — all of this is arbitrary.”

“My head hurts.”

“Then… just… just go to bed. I’ll finish up here and we’ll try again on the weekend.”

He grins with heavy eyes, lugging his bag over his shoulder and leaving you a packet of sherbet lemons you bitterly wish he’d pulled out sooner. “Wicked — you’re the best. See’ya.”

“See you…” you mumble, unwrapping one and popping it in your mouth.

You don’t stay for long, twirling the key to the Restricted Section around your finger as you tuck your books back into their shelves.

“It’s ten past curfew,” says a voice from behind you, all cool, measured authority, and you nearly collapse.

You stare up from where you’re grabbing onto your knees for balance, your heart halfway out of your chest.

Tom Riddle is there, his Head Boy badge somehow still glittering in the dim light of the library, and it’s only by the half-smile quirking at his lips that you can detect his words weren’t some sort of threat.

“Right, thanks.” You gather your breath. “I was just leaving.”

“Pity about Godefrey.”

You blink. Having worked with Tom in Potions since September, you’ve become perfectly adjusted to speaking to him… only about Potions. He indulges in polite small talk, he smiles freely, but your distance from him is the same as it is with everyone else, if only for the fact that, you suppose, you aren’t actively pursuing anything closer.

Oh. That is interesting — would he be so easily intrigued? It’s a bit cliché, but you suppose he is too.

You’re making an awful lot of assumptions from the words ���pity about Godefrey,’ and then, you don’t actually have a damn clue what Tom could mean by that.

“Sorry?” you ask.

“Godefrey,” he repeats. “I assume you’re being made to tutor him.”

Right. He must have seen him on his way here. That would make sense.

“No, actually. It’s entirely voluntary — he’s my study partner for Ancient Runes.”

His chin lifts in some nearly imperceptible way, smiling still, and you know he’s a polished thing, an unusual thing, but it reads as an especially fake smile then. “Ah.”

… Oooookay?

“Well —” you start, a mechanical smile of your own forming — “curfew, then.”

The charm fixes onto his face like a damn ornament. You want to flick it away with your finger. “Of course. I’ll see you in Potions?”

You nod, leaving the key behind the librarian’s desk as you slink awkwardly away. Into the corridor. Off to bed. Yet another note to scrawl on the enigma of Tom Riddle.

You see him again first thing in the morning. You’re yawning into the archway of Slughorn’s stuffy classroom, eager to dump your bag over your table and empty the many contents necessary for today’s lesson. 

There’s one girl, the oldest of the Lestranges, who glares daggers into the back of your head every class. Tom is, as always, nonplussed, asking you about your morning as you both prepare your phials and ingredients. You can’t help but shake your head at him this once, a bemused smile on your lips as you glance between him and the Lestrange girl.

“Have I offended her somehow, or is it just that I’m paired with you?”

He laughs under his breath. “I daresay that is the offense.”

You can’t help it. You’re mumbling to yourself in amazement at the bizarre, borderline cultish devotion this school has to Tom Riddle. “Unattainable commodity that you are, Riddle…”

“Well," he begins, his smile small but his voice amused, “I hope you don’t think of me as quite that far outside your grasp."

You freeze.

Are you — have you missed something? Has your casual (really, very casual and not at all unwarranted or peculiar) research for the sake of dispelling Selwyn’s obsession skewed your memory of Tom? Has he always said things like this to you? Have you always read into them like this?

One of his eyebrows rises, and it might be his notorious flattery — but if so, he makes it sound like an obvious truth, and you stammer over the jar of foxglove in your hand. Then you look away, unscrew it, do well not to put too much weight on his words.

“Hm. I have no need for you to be within it, Riddle." You say it with all nonchalance you can muster. To spit it at him in some aggressive dismissal would be to treat it like a big thing. 

It isn’t a big thing. He’s talking to you like he talks to everyone else.

But you catch the barest flicker of disappointment on his face, a flash of something that might even be annoyance. Then, though, it’s gone, and he’s back to that same unshakable, confident smirk.

As the lesson proceeds,  he’s once again the sharpest thing in the room.

You watch for him in the library that weekend, a bit distracted while you and Godefrey study. Without your guidance, there isn’t much studying occurring at all. Godefrey is sort of skimming the pages of a textbook, yawning, as always, like he’s never had a good night’s sleep in his life, and you’re suckling sherbert lemons until the roof of your mouth feels raw.

“What was it you said about Calarook’s Method?”

Your eyes snap from the empty doorway to Godefrey’s face. “Huh?”

“Calarook’s Method.”

“Oh.” You sink boredly into your seat, twirling your quill between your fingers. “It revolutionised the usage of runes globally. She incorporated — um — a much simpler means of translating the scriptures for different methods of magic.”

“Ohhhh, I remember now. Did you write that down?”

“Yes, Godefrey, I wrote it down.”

The final hour before curfew dwells agonisingly longer than it should. It feels like three, at least, until you’re packing your things and bidding Godefrey goodnight, tired legs dragging you down the corridors.

And then you straighten. You stand tall. (You’re absolutely normal about the sight before you.)

Tom smiles at you as he turns the corridor to approach.

“On patrol?” you ask in a friendly tone.

You’re… friends, right? Being someone’s Potions partner for four months qualifies as some degree of friendship, does it not? After all, he did say not to think of him as too far outside your grasp. That was a line if you’d ever heard one, but — you could be Tom’s friend the way everyone is his friend: wholly detached until you were needed.

“Leaving detention,” he answers with a timbre to match.

Your eyebrows raise at that.

“Leaving the second-years I watched in detention, I should say.”

You shake your head. “I should have known.”

“And you?”

“Studying again.”

“Ancient Runes?”

“Mhm.”

“...With Godefrey?”

“That is the concept of a recurrent study partner, yes. It’s recurrent.”

He doesn’t look very much like he appreciates your sarcasm.

“So, then,” you mutter, clearing your throat. “Curfew, I suppose.”

“You performed well in Potions today,” he says after you. It feels like the sort of thing someone says when they don’t want someone to walk away.

You bite your cheek between your teeth — such assumptions will get the better of you. Such assumptions will lead you down a path of crude, obsessive analysis (though you suppose you’ve been doing that all this time, haven’t you?) where you think, in some unspooling knitwork, that there are really only a select few reasons he could want such a thing. Your mind draws to the irresponsible conclusion, as he walks toward you again, a new glint in his eyes, that it’s exactly the sort of thing someone says before rumour has it they disappear into the nearest broom closet with the one they approach. This, you’ve decided an observation ago, Tom Riddle does not do.

“Thank you,” you say carefully. “So did you.”

“We make for a good pair, don’t you think?”

Crude, obsessive analysis. “Slughorn certainly does.”

“And I am asking you.”

He stops a respectable, inviting space before you. His weekend attire is a grey jumper and black slacks, his dark hair in its regular, pristine waves, hands laced behind his back. Everything about him is a request to be met, and not to step forward and close the distance himself. Close the distance, pristine waves, inviting space — you’ve lost your damn mind. You sound like Selwyn. The sugar of a whole packet of sherbet lemons has rendered you imbecilic. You’ll be off to bed, then — sleep this absurdity off.

“Of course, Tom,” you say with a polite smile. “It’d be hard to disagree with the grades I get in that class.” You grab onto your bag to have something to do with your hands, to perhaps signify you’ll be making your exit now.

He seems a bit amused to have to contort himself through the specifics of his meaning. “I was referring to our… rapport.”

“Rapport?”

“We work well together. We communicate efficiently.”

We communicate efficiently? Damn if you couldn’t suddenly make sense of the rumour he’d be applying for the DADA post in the future — that one was definitely true.

“Yes, we do.”

He steps closer. “And I remain far outside your grasp.”

You blink, and there’s a stark, sinking feeling as your eyes drift over the unmarred ivory of his skin, his jaw, his throat, his — no, absolutely not his hands — and you let yourself wonder for the first time if the rumours, albeit exaggerated, have even a shred of truth to them. One exploit, perhaps, to satisfy his endless curiosity. Something academic, like — oh, God, like the way you’ve been studying him for weeks. His hands carving a path down someone’s body to etch it in his memory, another skill added to his arsenal, a new way to work his fingers without a wand, a new way to work his mouth without a word.

It’s only a moment that you wonder it. Some flash of pictures in your head. It is, nonetheless, a moment far too long, and one you don’t know that you can return from.

Tom looks at you from under his eyelashes with an expression that suggests he's the only one in on a very funny joke, and the air is… different. Thick like the Potions room but in a way that’s entirely unfamiliar, not cloudy with the steam of cauldrons but hazy with the proximity of him, cologne and quill ink and something you can’t catch because you’re trying too hard to breathe it all in at once.

But he steps forward again, and seems to say in the slow way he moves, that if you’ll let him, he'll place a hand on your shoulder, and if you’ll allow that — well — then he'll move that hand up to gently frame your cheek. And then, and you no longer consider yourself at all versed in the realm of Tom Riddle, but you think you know what’ll come next.

You allow all of it. You know very well in advance you’re going to allow all of it.

And still, like it’s a surprise, you shiver at the feeling of his hand on your cheek, at the gleaming, certain look in his eyes. Your gaze flickers to his lips for just a second (a fleeting, tiny second you pray fruitlessly he doesn't notice) but his lips curl into the barest of smiles. Something so like him, small but unrestrained, like it never had any hope of growing bigger, but then — you’ve seen the way he grins at you sometimes when you say something stupid in class — you know he’s capable.

“You know what I'm going to do, I assume," he says quietly. It's not a question, per se — more of a statement, and he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on yours as he says it. He's so close you can feel the warmth of his breath. And then he leans in so slightly it might be imperceptible if you weren’t staring, holding your damn breath. “Are you going to let me?"

“I..." You're humiliated to find you are actually struggling to speak. His lips are so close to yours you can feel the ghost of them, can imagine what they might feel like on you. Your mouth is very dry. “We’re… friends, right?”

His voice only wavers for a moment, even as his lips inch ever closer to yours. His voice is tauntingly low, and there's an intimate sort of smile there, a chastising, humorous gleam to his eyes. “Friends," he breathes, and then his lips do close that short distance, and you feel the barest trace of his mouth against yours — his lips, soft and supple against your skin. A moment's kiss. Gone as quickly as it came. “Should we be friends?”

You gape at him, breathing far too heavily for such a chaste kiss, and you imagine your eyes are blown wide, and you lick your lips for a reminder of his taste but it isn't enough. You don't think before standing on your toes to find his lips again. Of course, Tom is stood impeccably straight, his chin almost pointedly jutted so that he can look down at you, and you actually — it's horribly embarrassing — you groan, or whine, or make some sound of blatant discontent at the fact that your kiss doesn’t reach him.

To his credit, his laugh is a very small one. Had it been the other way around you would have been far less forgiving. “I suppose the answer is no, then?" he says, with the implication that the next move might be yours.

“Tom," you as good as hiss (really very foolish of you to use the word forgiving to describe Tom Riddle), “you're being... you're being mean." And you refuse to make the first effort again, even though you probably appear to be a train wreck, your chest is heaving, and you... you want him.

“Am I?" he asks, and he tilts his head to the other side, almost as if to get a better look at you. “How so?" You think he's enjoying himself far too much. But he remains where he is: close enough for you to reach him if you would just yank him toward you and be done with it, and far enough away that you can't take that step without giving him the win.

You stare at him for a long moment, and then with teeth gritted so tight you might chip one, turn to walk away. Tom makes some very hollow, annoyed sound at your stubbornness, and thank god you feel him behind you: soft, lulling, not so immovable as you. 

You stop. His fingers brush your hair to the side. His mouth hovers over the skin of your neck. You shudder.

“Tom..." you sigh, half-exasperated, half-sighed, half-surrendered, but he doesn't answer or stop or do so much as acknowledge your mumbling. He only presses forward, until his breath is right by your ear and his lips, soft, gentle, are against the junction of your exposed neck, and you feel his mouth, the gentle pressure of his lips against your skin... so tender, so light that it doesn’t feel at all like something merciful.

It feels singularly, purposefully cruel.

Your third observation (if you can manage the thought) is that Tom is driven by your reactions. Every little mewl, every shudder, every gasp, he wants more of. He wants whatever you're willing to give him, and you suspect it wouldn’t be hard for him to take it all. Every movement of his hands, his mouth, his — oh, oh no — his tongue, abide by whatever you respond to most. He draws in patterns. He stops. Appreciates the speed of your pulse on the curve of your throat for a moment and then tastes it again. It doesn't seem like he particularly cares what he gets out of it. The intrigue for him is having the proximity (he greatly enjoys that you’ve allowed him it) and capacity (that, you think, he’s always had) to make you fall apart.

He's spinning you then, so you're pressed facing the wall, his chest against your back, and the way he whispers against your skin makes you shiver. You dare to think he feels it, his chest heaving against your back, his breath warm and steady by your ear. And as he kisses you you can't help but imagine what might happen if he were just a few inches lower, if he were to sink to his knees, kissing the soft flesh of your chest, and down, and down, and down…

Your eyes flutter closed, and it's clear you like what he's doing by the sound that escapes you — something loud enough for him to stifle your mouth with his palm. Perhaps a little too much. Perhaps you’ll be embarrassed about it later. But right now his tongue is brushing against your skin again, and there’s something very dizzying and hot that starts with his mouth on your neck and works its way down until it's a challenge just to stay standing. You wonder if he can tell just how weak in the knees you are right now, whether that only makes him push forward, and —

And that must be it. He must know, because you think you're trying to say something but you can't form the words, and he has to feel the reverberations with his teeth bracketing little violets on your neck, he must feel the way your legs buckle, how you're held up only by the weight of him behind you.

He must know.

He pushes forward, his fingers bury in your hair, and he pulls your head back slowly — not necessarily to expose you further, but to better see your face. Your eyes lock with his over your shoulder, and there's that hunger there, lips swollen with the print of you... and his voice, when he speaks, is as if he's only barely stopping himself. “Do you want me to stop?"

You shake your head before you think he’s actually finished the question, swallowing the cotton-dry feeling in your throat. No, no — him stopping is the very last thing you want — you feel entirely rational and not at all melodramatic in saying you might just die if he stops. You want more, and he's looking at you like that’s the only thing he’s ever wanted.

He bites down gently on your neck, and you gasp as your knees finally go out from under you (you almost think he planned for this with how quickly he catches you), and you wonder if he'll do something you can't bear; if you'll be reduced to a mewling, drooling mess before he's finished with you.

Your fourth observation — which really is the last one you can muster before it starts to melt into something else — is that you make him human in the only way he can understand: panting into him, fingers in his skin, white-hot and damp at the centre of his obsession. The object of his affection. You make him understand something more singular than ambition. 

Want.

And then his spare hand is dipping past your skirts, and you dig your fingers into his wrist — the combination of the hardness pressed against your back, his hands marking a path to forbidden territory, his finger curling into your mouth as his lips continue their assault on your neck — it's too much. It’s deliriously, disastrously not enough. Your vision is starting to blur.

His fingers stop at the curve where your thighs part and you bite gently down on him to quiet the noise that wants to escape you. He hums against your throat, continuing to kiss and lick and bruise you. You're dazedly aware of the cool air on your thighs as your skirts halo your waist, the heat inside, the shudder as his fingers find your core, and carefully begin to circle you. You feel self-consumed, immolated, devoured and spat out again. You feel like you're still falling, and Tom is the only force that keeps you standing.

He draws in slow, expert patterns — and you think, nonsensically, somewhere very distant where you still have sense, that they can’t be expert, he must have read something or observed some — oh. He’s pushing the thin fabric aside until his fingers are pressed directly against your flesh, and he makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat as the evidence of how much you need this soaks his fingers, as they begin to sink in without resistance. Oh. Right. You don’t remember exactly what you were saying. 

You gasp at the feeling of having him inside when they finally curl into you. 

His finger is pulled from your mouth with a small pop, and you can’t even really muster the capacity to be embarrassed by the lewd, wet sound of it. He watches you over your shoulder, at his fingers vanished between your legs, at the drool clinging to the digit he’d quieted you with. He’s smiling into your neck now, proud and grateful all the same.

“Mine,” you think he murmurs, but it’s more something you feel than hear, some vague, hazy consonants pressed to your throat. It would be very like him, so you decide that yes, that’s probably what he said. And there’s something funny about it — the idea of being his — about what it means for him to want you so badly that he says it out loud. It feels a little bit like he’s yours, too.

Tom’s breathing is harsh, the fingers inside you moving as if they have a will of their own. Every muscle in your body constricts and squeezes around them; every cell, every neuron, comes roaring to life; and you’re fucked. You’re so completely fucked. His teeth scrape against you again, wholeheartedly pleased. This is what he wanted to see — the utter loss of you — when you are nothing but sensation, barely aware of your limbs as they slump against him. Tom is it; Tom is the only thing you can think of.

Tom is, inexplicably, upsettingly good at this.

“Look at you," he says softly. And his touch changes; it becomes slower, more deliberate and careful.

You’re trembling hopelessly. The way you coil and collapse under his touch is just further encouragement. He doesn't even bother to speak anymore, only pants, his eyes half-lidded, his lips swollen and slick when they attach to your throat again. Your whole body is on fire, and he's the one setting you alight — there is not a single inch of you that is not alive with the feeling of him, and you can barely breathe through the slow, heavy rush of it. 

You think you cry at the divine curve of his fingers carving inside you, slow and soft and then intense — when you grip his arm for more friction, and one of his hands is coming up to wipe a tear away but the feeling flares in your abdomen and you're only half aware of it, really — you think your eyes have rolled back. You think you've gone somewhere else. 

He keeps you just on the precipice, just shy of losing control, just far enough to leave you craving for more.

“To—Tom," you sob, gasps cleaving his name in two — you're on the brink of something incomprehensible, building inside you to something you can't help but think is about to shatter, your eyes clenching shut as you grip him so hard you're certain your fingers will leave marks. “I'm gonna—"

“I know," he breathes against your neck, hands running a familiar path along your body; he's so very, very proud that he's made you like this. He just barely bites into the spot above your collar, curls his fingers, and then you’re falling — something unfurls inside you and can’t be collected, something hot and depthless that your hands can’t clutch at from where they’re clinging so desperately to him — and you think, coming down from it with trembling, debilitating ecstasy, that he looks very much like he’d be proud to make you like this over and over again.

You're flattened, and that triumph in his eyes — the absolute satisfaction of seeing you this way, of knowing that that he's the one that did it to you — that feeling fills your mind and makes you collapse even more, makes you want to melt and flow into liquid at his feet; to give in, do whatever he says, even if all he says is just be like this for him.

He slowly removes his fingers as you come down, and your eyes are blinking for focus when he turns you around, his thumb coming up to brush over your bottom lip and you sigh at the taste of yourself as he pushes it inside your mouth. His other hand brushes away the damp, stray hairs that have fallen across your face, almost reverently, a silent worship as he takes you in, appreciates everything you just gave him.

He smiles gently at your half-blinking, half-vacant expression, his thumb still in your mouth; he watches you for a long moment in silence. His eyes are heavy-lidded and he's got a small quirk at the corner of his mouth as he pulls his thumb away and swipes it once more over your lip.

You're still not quite sure you can find words. Still not sure they'd form right as your tongue darts over the residue of Tom's finger and you flush impossibly hotter at the feeling of your own arousal on your mouth. Tom fixes your hair behind your ears and it doesn't seem like he's ready to stop taking you in in this state — your hair wild,  lips swollen, throat bruised and dress askew — and he leans in so tenderly it startles you, pressing a faint, almost imperceptible kiss to your forehead.

“Tell Godefrey he’ll be needing a new study partner. I think you’ll find yourself committed elsewhere." And with that he turns on his heel, perfectly composed, and disappears into the darkness of the midnight corridor.

Oh God, you think, and you’re too stunned to even react as you watch him vanish. It takes you a moment before you regain your senses, and you can only just manage to sputter out a breathless, miserable sigh into the air before you.

You are so completely, utterly fucked.

[infiniteglitterfall]

here, have some Official-Looking Info on Autistic Burnout

“Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout

Although autistic adults often discuss experiencing 'autistic burnout,' and attribute serious negative outcomes to it, the concept is almost completely absent from the academic and clinical literature. Lay summary Why was this study done? Autistic burnout is talked about a lot by autistic people but has not been formally addressed by researchers. It is an important issue for the autistic community because it is described as leading to distress; loss of work, school, health, and quality of life; and even suicidal behavior.

This is one of those "WE ALL KNEW THAT" studies, where they have to study and write about Things We Already Know in order to make them part of the Official Body of Knowledge out there, and maybe even get useful research done on them.

I went digging on Google Scholar because I want to be able to send my smol child's summer day camp director something that actually explains why he's only shown up two days in the past two weeks.

I would kind of rather have something in the form of a cute handout, but I didn't think of that before I hit Google Scholar. (Also, the first thing I found in a regular Google search was kind of basic and kind of confusing; it seemed to be referring to shutdown, but was calling it burnout.)

What were the results of the study? The primary characteristics of autistic burnout were chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. From this we created a definition:

Autistic burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic life stress and a mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate supports. It is characterized by pervasive, long-term (typically 3+ months) exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimulus.

Participants described negative impacts on their lives, including health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people. People had ideas for recovering from autistic burnout, including acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking.

Oh, wow, this is a good burn:

...mental health treatment/therapy as a means of remediating burnout came up, but in the context of a missing resource, a negative experience, or unrelated to burnout (e.g., for treating a co-occurring mental health condition).

Yeah. That tracks.

[serpentface]

With eunuchs in-universe, is it the whole package or just the Bals

*******This contains clinical but somewhat graphic descriptions of castration and its logistics, be warned*******

As with Real Life history, that varies by tradition and intent. It can be anything between exclusive removal of the testes (leaving the scrotum and everything else attached) and the full removal of the penis, scrotum, and testes. These procedures carry a non-insignificant physical risk in even the best medical contexts available in the setting, and the latter is the most dangerous due to the presence of major veins in the penis and potential complications with the healing process (even if the procedure itself is successful, the urinary tract becoming obstructed during healing will be fatal unless successfully corrected). 

In Imperial Wardin, people castrated as a strictly punitive measure have the penis, testes, and scrotum all removed (or sometimes just the penis). This is expressly intended as a form of humiliation, mutilation, and sterilization. Eunuchs made for non-punitive purposes by default Do Not have their penises removed. (There ARE instances where people who have bottom dysphoria may take this opportunity to have everything removed, this is just nonstandard procedure).

This has levels of rationalization in terms of how the reproductive system is physically and metaphysically conceptualized to work. This is largely based in observation- castrated animals and humans do not undergo typical masculinizing puberty (and even adults may gradually lose some male secondary sexual characteristics post-castration), often have reduced sex drives, and are infertile. In cases where only the penis is damaged or removed but testes are intact, an animal still undergoes normative development and exhibits a sex drive, it may not be physically capable of mating but is not truly sterilized.

Therefore 'maleness', fertility, and virility is all reckoned as being Stored In The Balls. The testes are THE defining feature of male sex assignment in this cultural sphere- having no/nonfunctional testes (whether by birth or active removal) makes a person considered Not Male. The penis is considered more of a secondary aspect of the male system- it can be an Indicator of fertility and virility, but is not a Source. It's the part of the body that enacts the male system's expected functions on the external world- both on dead literal levels (organ through which ejaculation occurs, used in intercourse to produce pregnancy) and more metaphysical levels (a tool to enact change and transformative effects and associated with masculine strength and protection, which gives phallic imagery its strong apotropaic functions).

The castration of Galenii is regarded as a sacrifice of one’s own fertility and reproductive potential for the benefit of the land and people, a degendering and desexualizing act (loss of 'maleness', becoming genderless) that separates one from the trappings of standard social systems and human bodily need, and as induction to the service of Mitlamache, devoting one's entire body and its potential to serve this Face. Therefore the testes are removed to eliminate fertility and male sex identity, the scrotum itself is removed as a permanent mark of service, and the penis left intact. In non-religious eunuch roles (in court and as servants, in theater), the procedure often just involves the testes being removed (leaving the scrotum intact) in order to serve the basic intended de-gendering and sterilizing function, without additional layers of Marking the body in devotion.

Castration is most prominent as a concept with the mammalian peoples and their vulnerable, easily accessible external genitalia, but also exists in some qilik and caelin/delkhin cultures.

Qilik have no penises (mate through cloaca contact), but can have their (internal) testes removed (basically the same process as caponizing roosters). This process is often framed DISTINCTLY as a form of feminization, as castration prior to puberty usually prevents the development of typical male coloration and results in an individual having most of the secondary sex characteristics of a hen/faeder (though usually being smaller in average size). Castration after puberty will not prevent development of male-typical coloration, but prevents the brighter seasonal molts and skin color changes.

To speak broadly about the cultures of an entire species, qilik eunuchs are VERY rarely produced as a form of punishment (qilik cultures trend towards matriarchal power, so connotations of emasculation and humiliation found in patriarchies are rarely present). It instead is usually a form of induction into priesthoods, separate gender spaces, and/or celibate social roles.

Caelin and delkhin DO have penises, and their testes are less accessible within the body than in qilik. Thus, surgical removal of their testes is highly invasive and VERY dangerous, and as such is rarely performed for any reason. The penis being removed is substantially more common in caelin and delkhin cultures, and is a form of punishment in the vast majority of cases. This is somewhat less dangerous than in humans (as the caelin/delkhin urinary tract does not run through the penis and therefore does not directly risk being obstructed in the healing process) but is still very risky and painful. It also does not affect typical development of typical male secondary sex characteristics (it only renders an individual mechanically sterile) and thus does not usually carry additional implications for gender and sex designations that occur in many eunuch-making practices.

Archin identity is built in the collective, with individual drones and queens being essentially the colony's reproductive system, so there is no motive to sterilize an individual. Forms of ''castration'' (by a really, really, really loose sense of the term) do exist in the context of conflict, in which a colony's reproductive members will be specifically sought out and killed. Much of a colony's resources is invested in its drones and their killing may be a major blow with political consequences (preventing reproductive alliances from being fulfilled), but they are ultimately replaceable. Killing a queen sterilizes a colony, and is a death sentence. The collective personality of an archin colony will be dead within a year without new eggs being laid to continually replace the short lived individual units. Sterilizing a colony as such is a form of brutality and humiliation in conflict, either used to give an enemy a slow 'death', or force their hand into an unwanted colonial merger.

Forms of castration have no presence in yotici (who have internal genitalia (aside from their clasper 'arms', which have no direct reproductive function), reproduce by spawning, and rarely delineate gender to begin with) or talking crows (who do not have the ability to perform surgeries).