#free healthcare? nope!

[larrysblooming]

.

[feline-evil]

It wasn't funny at the time but looking back on it man it is genuinely hilarious how my first attempt at getting diagnosed and getting help with my mental illnessess went.

So imagine if you will the skinniest, most unwell, sleepless looking 18 year old, just real Victorian orphan vibes with permanent shakes and a penchant for passing out in fear if he so much as thinks of leaving the house. I need you to know that's the kind of state i was in when i walked into a doctors office to see one of the oldest men i've ever seen in an employed field. He sits me down and asks me what's wrong, he's the GP at my local doctors; that's a general practitioner, if you're outside of the UK maybe that's not a familiar term. Anyway he's not a psychologist, you don't get to see a psychologist unless your GP refers you! Anyway he asks me whats wrong and i explain to him my long list of debilitating anxiety symptoms, i tell him about not being able to eat or sleep or leave the house; i'm in a bad way at this point in my life, it's not a good time for young jay! Lad doesn't even know he's a man yet! Pretty bad time all round!

And so after i explain to him the situation we get our first of the many funny 'i'm not sure this man is qualified to have this conversation' red flags.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Uh oh.

Well no, sir, on account of the not leaving the house socialisation has been tricky, see?

"Oh you need a boyfriend and some friends, that'll help love :)"

Uh oh.

It is at this point in the appointment we are winding down towards the end of my time here at the doctors, and our next big ol' waving red flag hits like a jet liner. And this ones the big one, the one that gives me reason to tell this story and watch people look a mite aghast.

The GP laughs, claps a hand on my shoulder and says "well don't you worry, we won't be locking you up for this one!"

I freeze in shock.

What did this man just say.

Now, i don't wish to imply that this wouldn't be a horrifying thing to say to a different teen riddled with severe mental illness who didn't have a family history of relatives being admitted to psychiatric institutes, but i am suggesting that MAYHAPS. JUST POTENTIALLY. That was a slightly more horrifying sentence to come out of a medical professionals mouth to someone who has that as a family history in his own living memory! So i lock up in horror, alarms blaring in my mind, wondering how the fuck i'm going to politely and finitely end this conversation and meeting and leave vowing never to cross this mans path again in my life; but i don't get much time to ponder what to do, because here comes the final red flag, that second jet liner crashing right in, the final can of petrol being poured on the burning wreck that is the first appointment i have ever made to talk about my mental health.

This man, a complete stranger, i had never met this GP before in my life, hugs me. It is so uncomfortable, i would not say i am the most comfortable with physical contact from strangers even now nearly ten years later, but then? At age eighteen? This is just about the worst thing that could've happened in my eyes! I do not come from a family that hugs, i didn't not know how to hug back then, in that moment it's awkward and weird and i just freeze and wait for it to end, and then i leave the room with the GP beaming and waving after me like he's just performed a miracle and i'll forever be cured from this point on.

I walk to my mom waiting for me in the waiting room, she smiles and gives me a thumbs up.

GENUINELY it couldn't have gone worse, objectively the funniest awful situation i have ever been in.

[kenzie-ann27]

I genuinely don't know what this medicine did to me but it feels like someone punched me in my neck so I'm not taking it again

[elderwisp]

◁ || ▷

?: Listen skank.

Dan: God..?

?: I found a hair in my burger and I need you to refund it for me. Also make me another.

Dan: The hell you think you’re talkin’ to?

Kai: Hai.

Dan: Bitch! I thought you died! 

Kai: Nope, just life. Work. College. The usual.

Dan: Hmph. Let’s go sit.

Kai: Wait, aren’t you on the clock?

Dan: Yeah? Who gives a fuck? And if they do, I’ll punch ‘em.

Kai: DAN!

Dan: Meh, it doesn’t matter. I have news.

-

Kai: Holy shit, congrats!

Dan: It’ll be nice working near the bay. The company sounds pretty great too. 401k, free admission to the aquarium, and healthcare. First time in my life I’ve ever had that. Wild.

Kai: I’m happy for you! Who else knows?

Dan: Uh, just you, Frances and Atlas. I’ll probably tell the others at the record store soon. Gotta keep them up to date with the lore.

Kai: Ah. Have you told your dad?

Dan: No-uh. 

Kai: I see.

Dan: I want to tell him, I really do. 

Kai: So what’s stopping you?

Dan: Ugh, feelings. Don’t make me talk about them right now.

Kai: Fine! We can talk about something else.

Dan: Let’s talk about you.

Kai: Naur.

Dan: Si. Where’ve you been loca?

Kai: [ cackles ] I hate you!

Dan: I’m sorry! You seem so… Different. Confident, maybe? 

Kai: I didn’t realize. I dunno, a lot’s happened. 

Dan: Like?

Kai: I slept with someone. Well, multiple people, actually. Taryn knows I like men. About Atlas, too. Speaking of which, there’s no fixing that.

Dan: What the fuck.

Kai: [ chuckles ] I’m surprised you took all of this for confidence.

Dan: I mean, you seem to be holding up better than I expected.

Kai: I feel hollow, Dan. Like everything’s wrong but I gotta accept it.

Dan: You can change it. 

Kai: Maybe, but the way I left things with Alex-

Dan: Alex? Who?

Kai: He’s a good person and I… Took advantage of that.

Dan: What’d you do?

Kai: The night of the party. I told Atlas how I felt. Subconsciously I mean. It all sorta slipped out. I wasn’t really planning on it but he said some things. Well, we both said some nasty things. I was angry. He said that I knew nothing of compassion so I called Alex. I called him and I proved Atlas right. 

Dan: Kai…

Kai: I felt so ashamed after sleeping with him. Using him to mask the rejection I felt. He didn’t deserve that. I’m such a shitty person.

Dan: Don’t go there. 

Kai: It’s so hard not to.

Dan: So you made a mistake-

Kai: Several.

Dan: Everyone fucks up. There is not one person I’ve met that has done everything right. Look at our friend group. Complete mess but I’d like to think at the end of the day we’ve got each other. Regardless of flaws, it’s always been us. 

Kai: I miss it. All of us. Together.

Dan: I do too, but we’ve all got shit to sort out, yeah? Why not give yourself the space to do so as well.

Kai: Sure.

Dan: And stop calling yourself horrible, got that?

Kai: Maybe.

Dan: Bastard. 

Kai: How are you gonna tell me to be nice when you do this shit?

Dan: I never said I was perfect! Want me to grab you a milkshake? 

Kai: Hell no, you said you never clean it.

Dan: PFFT- Valid. I’ll grab you a soda.

Kai: Hey, wait.

Dan: What’s up?

Kai: Thank you for taking care of us.

Dan: Someone’s got to.

[smitethestate]

"If voting was worthless they wouldn't be trying to make it harder."

"If voting worked they'd make it illegal."

Okay these are both fun slogans but let's talk about what really happened here in the US.

First they made it so only white landowning men could vote. Then over the years other groups of people kept fighting for the right to vote and winning and the white landowning men were like "fuck well we can't defeat the masses outright on this so we'll just make a bunch of rules that make it hard for them to vote." And the oppressed masses fought against those too and won a bunch of gains on the issue like the Civil Rights Act.

So the powerful learned from their mistakes and made other, more subtle rules to make it harder to vote as the two parties battled back and forth to win the most power and influence and corporate donor money.

Republicans fought by making it as hard as possible to vote because they tend to win when less people vote, and especially when only the privileged with a lot of money and free time can manage it.

Democrats fought by trying to get more people to vote, but it's a bit more complicated than that. They're still beholden to wealthy corporate donors, so they can't just let pure democracy happen. They can't let real leftists become presidential nominees or allow real leftist policy like universal healthcare to pass. What they can do is convince you over and over to vote for the "reasonable" option under threat of Republican Hell so that you not only give them more power, but hand over your money and your time/energy to convince other people to give them more power and money.

Republicans benefit from the same kind of threat to their constituents, even as they're more blatant in their fight to stop people from voting.

The result is a system in which both the statements at the top of this post are true. If our voting system threatened to turn the US into a socialist utopia where the masses had all the power, they'd make it illegal. Democrats have never made a serious move to abolish the Electoral College. They absolutely mobilized to prevent even Bernie from becoming the Dem nominee. They'd do it again.

And you can see the same patterns in similar nations. Labor gained power in the UK only to become an anti-labor neoliberal party practically overnight. France elected a leftist government and Macron just went "nope."

But they're never going to make voting all the way illegal for just landowning men again, let alone make it outright illegal, because they know that would inspire the masses to rise up and make too much trouble again, and who knows what they'd lose? The current situation is working out great for them.

Meanwhile, of course Republicans want to make voting a certain amount of hard because they do want the most power, but even Trump probably knows better than to outlaw voting. At most he'd turn the US into a sham democracy like his idol Putin.

Which would of course suck, but the point it that the two statements up top are both essentially true but reductive.

Voting isn't worthless but those in power are never going to let us vote our was into a society that removes or even significantly reduces their power. You can maybe make things temporarily a little better or prevent them from getting worse for some people by voting.

But the problem is that people aren't just voting. They're voting and then telling themselves that they did their duty and using that as an excuse to do nothing else. Or they're voting and donating millions to Kamala in mere hours while GFMs for Palestinians and other desperate people stagnate. Or they're voting and giving all their attention, energy, and time to the two big party presidential candidates by volunteering or yelling at people on social media or both so all the money and power is funneled back into those who already have nearly all of it.

And nothing is left to actually fight for a better world.

I don't care to tell people whether to vote or how. It feels to me like a choice between a fast death or a slow one, which sucks either way. What pisses me off is that we're letting the powerful convince us to invest so much in them with this perpetual election season as the world circles the drain, and the most powerful know full well that this leaves us with too few resources to ever topple them from their thrones.

You're letting them pull your strings instead of breaking them. Things get worse every year and the longer we do this, the worse it's going to be for us all, and worse still for future generations. How long are you going to fight to slow down the train that's headed for the cliff instead of jumping off it while there's still time?

Don't scold me about voting on behalf of the train conductors hoarding all the train food. It's not a perfect metaphor ok but the point is fuck off and fuck this.

[franzkafkagf]

do you think aegon has read Das Kapital

He has! He even took notes and highlighted the most relevant parts in preparation for his rule. I actually found his manifesto (top secret):

Manifesto of King Aegon II, "The Dragonheart", King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm

Greetings, loyal subjects! It is I, your freshly minted ruler, here to lay down the law of the land like never before. As I sit upon the Iron Throne, I can’t help but notice a few things. Things like, oh, I don’t know, the glaring disparity between the Smallfolk and the Not-So-Smallfolk. So, listen up, here’s my grand plan to make Westeros great, for everyone (except maybe the Lannisters, but that’s just personal).

Article I: Redistribution of Dragons

Dragons are cool and all, but seriously, they’ve been hogged by a select few families for way too long. Henceforth, every region shall receive its own dragon. No more burning down villages or munching on sheep. Dragons will now be used for productive tasks like plowing fields, scaring off bandits, and providing free rides to children on their namedays.

Article II: The Abolition of Serfdom

Serfdom? Nope, no more! It's time to free the smallfolk from their chains. No more being tied to the land like a horse to a plow. Everyone gets to choose their own destiny. Want to be a bard? Go ahead, strum your heart out. Fancy being a knight? Well, good luck finding a horse and armor, but go for it!

Article III: Seize the Means of Production

Let it be known that the true wealth of our kingdom lies not in gold mines or fields of wheat, but in the people. It is the blacksmith who forges the swords, the farmer who tends the crops, and the innkeeper who pours the ale—these are the pillars of our society! Henceforth, all lands and castles shall be seized from the noble houses and redistributed to those who work them!

Article IV: Bastard's Rights

Enough with the discrimination against the innocent children born out of wedlock! From this day forward, bastards shall have the same rights and opportunities as any noble-born child. They shall be allowed to inherit lands and titles if deemed worthy. The stigma against bastards shall be abolished, and their mothers shall be treated with the respect they deserve for their contribution to the realm.

Article V: Universal Healthcare

Healthcare is a right, not a privilege for those who can afford a maester's visit. Henceforth, every village shall have its own maester, and every town a proper septa or septon trained in the art of healing. From the Wall to Sunspear, every man, woman, and child deserves a maester's care without needing to sell a kidney. Healing herbs and remedies shall be distributed freely across the realm. And don’t worry, there will be plenty of moon tea.

[vy-canis-melodis]

the following is a blog post, written by tanja, in the Bird HRT universe:

UPDATE and a cancelled article!

Hi all, it's been a long time since my last blog post. Here's the deal; I was in hospital. Long story short, some things went pretty wrong, and here I am, having to deal with a huge backwards step in progress then having had to retrace those steps with additional gooey complications and therapy.

Anyway, here's a journalistic article I was pretty close to finishing and submitting to actual newspapers before everything went down and I had to cancel it.

Rejecting Humanity - Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Just Be Myself

As I write this, I'm sitting in the waiting room of a Hospital cross Research Laboratory in London. By the time you're reading this, I'll have been on my treatment journey for over a year. What treatment, you ask? Well, it's Humanity Removal Therapy. One year ago, I undertook a radical new procedure which slowly transforms you from human to another form. Perhaps you've seen strange creatures out and about; a snow leopard at the supermarket, a dog at the drive-thru, or a tuatara at the thrift shop. Or, perhaps, you haven't; as I write this, the number of patients might not yet have reached triple digits worldwide.

Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Tanja ------, and I am an Iberian Azure-winged Magpie, scientific name 'cyanopica cooki'. One year ago, I was fully human, and now I look like a hybrid between our two species. So, let me guide you through my world.

How is this possible?

A little over a year ago, certain medical circles revealed that species transformation had been trialled in mice, turning them into various other creatures, with various success rates from 20 to 80% depending on size and how different the target species was. Now, I'm not for animal testing, but when I heard that human trials were going to open, I kept that pinned to my calendar. And so, after a few months, I was able to finally sign up and have my first interview. Which was… short. Turns out, they had pretty elaborate ways of gatekeeping people who really meant that they wanted it from those that they thought would regret the procedures. They also had a little joke, based on gender HRT, where they would ask if you'd spent years living as your preferred species beforehand. Or at least, I think it was a joke. And then, I was on my way to becoming the bird I love.

How much did it cost?

Well, luckily for me, the NHS provides free healthcare. Then, due to this being a clinical trial, I get paid for being a test subject. Then, due to the effects of the medicine, I receive Disability Benefits. The treatment itself is… a bit of a legal loophole, really. This very article may well be the first you've heard of it.

Is it just a magic pill?

Nope! It's a mix of CRISPR, gene replacement, hormone injections, and surgeries over time. It's a real mishmash, at least in my case. For example, keratinous structures can be grown through selective DNA editing and hormones that stimulate 'hair' growth in specific areas in specific ways. Bone structure can also slowly be altered in some cases through gene replacement, though in some cases, surgery is needed. My back, for example, will soon be undergoing surgery to adjust the way the vertebrae are laid out. Some aspects just are too difficult to be done naturally, and so artificial parts and prosthetics are added. But this complicated procedure has an upside - it means that there is more customisation possible! For example, a Harpy would be a very specific set of applications of Bird HRT that exclude certain aspects such as the face!

Are there downsides?

Definitely. There's the immunosuppression that has to occur to stop new parts from being rejected. There's the high risk of cancers and other diseases to occur as a result of this procedure. There's just the risk that your organs will fail. Most of this is irreversible too.

Why even do it then?

Because, to that small number of people, it's so worth it. This is a new life, an opportunity to discard that uncomfortable human vessel and be yourself at last. For the vast majority of people, being oneself is being human, but that's not the case for everyone.

Is it going to be banned?

Well, that's hard to say. Governments worldwide are, I'm sure, now aware of this phenomenon. And I think it presents a threat to the status quo. This is something new, something scary, something intimidating, that shifts the power balance between subjects and governers. And it's not just because some people have become huge fire-breathing dragons - it's the meaning behind it. They've rejected the very notion of the social contract between humans and crafted a new identity. Do we still count as people? And that's really the question, isn't it. So much of the way government and society works is to split people into groups of those that are 'more' people, and those that are 'lesser' people - and that dictates what societal violences are permissible, for example. This whole new procedure will have to make governments rethink so much, and it can either be a source of worry for us, or a source of hope for everyone. We just have to be loud enough to be heard for who we are.

So what will come next? Well, I'm going to hop on in to my next appointment, and the Earth will keep spinning. My first set of wings has almost reached full-span, and my toe-dexterity is almost at where I was with hands as a human. With my next set of primaries, I may have enough of a wingspan to fly, if I keep my weight low enough. Meanwhile, Parliament will likely have a debate on the issue, as a petition to legalise the procedure has a few thousand signatures on the government's official petition website. I'll be waiting on that result eagerly.

If you have any other questions, I'd be more than willing to answer them!

[tomorrowusa]

Nope, Trump didn't "salvage" Obamacare as J.D. Vance claimed.

Some fact-checking from the vice presidential debate. From NPR.

During his presidency, Trump undermined the Affordable Care Act in many ways — for instance, by slashing funding for advertising and free "navigators" who help people sign up for a health insurance plan on HealthCare.gov. And rather than deciding to "save" the ACA, he tried hard to get Congress to repeal it, and failed. The Biden administration has reversed course from Trump's management of the Affordable Care Act. Increased subsidies have made premiums more affordable in the marketplaces, and enrollment has surged. The uninsurance rate has dropped to its lowest point ever during the Biden administration. The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and is entrenched in the health care system. Republicans successfully ran against Obamacare for about a decade, but it has faded as a campaign issue this year.

So just the opposite of what J.D. claimed. The Trump administration didn't save Obamacare, it tried to sabotage and kill it.

People who have a weirdly nostalgic view of the Trump administration forget how he tried to kill Obamacare with help from the Republican majority 115th Congress. From its inception, Republicans in Congress have tried to kill Obamacare 70 times.

Obamacare may not be perfect, but it is superior to what existed previously. The bulk of people who hate it are connected to Big Pharma, for profit medical corporations, and the Republicans who get big campaign contributions from them.

The name Obamacare tells us a lot. It was coined as term of disparagement for the Affordable Care Act by Republicans. But it became so popular that Republicans ended up shooting themselves in the foot by eternally connecting the ACA to the Democratic president who was the driving force behind it.

Trump has had nine years to come up with a viable alternative to Obamacare. But the "stable genius" still can't put together a coherent sentence about what he'd replace it with.

For affordable healthcare, vote Democratic to improve it or vote MAGA Republican to destroy it.

[dokiluvsk]

⚠️ POLITICAL POST ⚠️

With the recent election and the fact that i have many trans friends, id like to talk about some issues that i otherwise wouldnt talk about on my main blog.

Just to get this out of the way, i am not trans. I do not know and will not pretend to know how dysphoria feels, socially and physically. As well as the many other struggles trans people face day to day. However, my best friend is trans. So i do at least have a better understanding of it than i did say a year ago.

This election has been chaos. Its invoked fear not only in American's, but the world. The "Land of the Free" shouldn't make the world piss itself simply because of election day. And the lives of the LGBTQ+ Community, POC, and women all over the country are now endangered. For this post, i will be talking mainly about LGBTQ+ rights and my thoughts. Specifically because thats the area im most worried about right now. This is in no way to say that POC rights or Woman's rights are less important, that is not at all what i am saying. I plan to make separate posts for each of these 3 subjects in the next month, i want to dive into each of them fully and not have to skip over any details about our future (As an indigenous, gay woman.) So consider this 1/3 Parts of a very, long post.

Transitioning into the actual conversation, This election has been terrible. Millions of kids around the country terrified to have their rights taken away, the fear of how powerless they are and how little they get a say in politics is the driving nail in this coffin. Remember people, gay marriage hasn't even been legal in America for 10 years! Everything is very uncertain, and I wish people would understand the LGBTQ communities worries more. Our people are killed, tortured, and taunted around the world every single day. There aren't many countries nowadays where LGBTQ people have ALL their human rights, no strings attached. And one of the biggest countries in the world, supposedly the land of the free , is now trying to rip those rights away again. So many people i know are currently fleeing the country, planning to leave as soon as they are financially stable, or are mourning because they aren't able to. Thats horrid.

What i am especially worried about is transgender youth and transgender people in general. This is the part where my personal political opinions really come into play, if you aren't a fan, you can click off the post. Or read! i don't care! i encourage you all however to stick around and comment or reblog this post, telling me your opinions on the matter. I genuinely would like to hear to get more insight on my audiences views.

The reason i've been so worried about trans people specifically is because changing your gender is very different from loving someone romantically. Yes, we are all the same community. That is certain, and I am in no way trying to alienate trans people. But changing your gender is a physical, mental, and social challenge. Trying to get T or HRT? nope! sorry! top or bottom surgery? yoink! cant have that one either! oh you wanna cut your hair short or grow it out long? good luck with all the bullying and teasing you'll face! haha sorry kid! thats just the good ol' American way 😁

On a now serious note, I think im getting my point across. I can hide the fact im dating a girl, i can hide that from the neighbors across the street, trans people cannot hide their physical transitioning. Social transitioning cant even begin to happen because of uncertainties of your safety. You are denied medical products, denied public spaces, denied even trans unrelated healthcare, those aren't JUST trans rights, those are HUMAN rights. And I don't think republicans realize that mental toll. This isn't attention seeking, this is justice seeking. Do y'all know how many teenagers and adults contemplate suicide because of an unaccepting society? too fucking many. That number should be 0, yet never has been. Do y'all know how many gay teens and adults have to hide their love from the world? way too fucking many!

My girlfriend and I are obviously 2 different people. I am out of the closet, i have been for years and years. I am fortunate enough to have a family who accepts me and loves me. I am fortunate enough to have friends for the past few years who are also apart of the community, i am fortunate enough to have religious friends who don't hate or deny who I am. My girlfriend cannot come out to her family out of fear, she cannot be public about who she is, she does not have as safe of a space as I do. Despite me and my girlfriend both loving each other and being in the same community, we have very different personal lives. kind of like 2 sides of the same coin. No LGBTQ persons experience is the same. Every single one of us is different, you know why?? because we are fucking human! LGBTQ people are HUMAN! just like everyone else! what is it going to take to get that through politicians heads?? we deserve access to healthcare, we deserve to be able to comfortably talk about our lives, we shouldn't have to lie, hide and suppress ourselves just to be safe and live a normal life.

I hope the community hears me on this, LGBTQ people, do NOT kill yourself. do NOT do it. do not be scared, you need to remember that at the end of the day, nobody, not even your governors, can silence you. You have free will, the world is literally your oyster. Stay strong, I love you ❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[damnfandomproblems]

763632033850327040

TW.

I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I want to say that people using the term "mouth breather" is always really disheartening. It's a huge gut-punch in a situation many people have been dealing with for decades.

Here's my deal: I've had sleep-disordered breathing since I was a kid. It started with bad nasal resistance issues, which meant I I couldn't breathe through my nose and had to use my mouth. Parents didn't do jack shit about it because they didn't know it was a big problem. And it totally messed up the formation of my skull. Now my jaw is slightly recessed, I have vertical maxillary excess, I can't fully close my lips, and my airway looks like a coffee straw (I've seen an MRI of this and it's totally pinched when I'm on my back, and even when I'm upright), so I can't even breathe through my mouth properly without a ton of noise and resistance. Every day, I wake up with a sore throat, dry mouth, and feeling like death. That "mouth breathing" has given me sleep apnea and UARS. CPAP doesn't help so I'm looking at a bilevel now and failing that, ASV. My jaw joint sounds like gravel and constantly clicks out of place.

And doctors don't do shit. I've seen three different ENTs for my nasal issues, and all three of them just scoped my nose and said "idk, looks fine". None of them actually looked at the skeletal structure of my face despite being fucking ENTs who are supposed to, you know, know everything about the nose. None of them actually thought, huh, I'm using the pediadric scope for your nose, that might indicate there is a bigger fucking problem than just your turbinates, which you've already had a reduction for. Nope. Nothing.

The one jaw surgeon I went to told me, "idk, I can give you a sliding genio, but that's it, I don't want to mess up your ~pretty face~ (yerk) by doing an advancement". When I literally need an advancement of some kind because my jaw and tongue is encroaching on my fucking throat.

Meanwhile, I've been suffering for 20 years thinking I had treatment resistant depression and insomnia when in reality, it was my shitty breathing and every day, currently stuck with a CPAP, I look at my data and breathing waveforms and I observe they look like they've been shot with buckshot. All my breaths are flat or ragged. I see myself constantly gasping because I can't get enough air. My DME (CPAP) provider won't even look at that data, because all they want to look at is a shitty single number that isn't even accurate, because CPAP machines are garbage with actually detecting breathing issues so they constantly spit out lower-than-reality numbers, especially for people with UARS.

Now I'm looking into double jaw surgery and EASE, and the initial consultations for each are months away. I can't do anything in the meanwhile. And the real fuck-shit part of this? I live in a country with "free healthcare", but the doctors can't even solve this. And the system moves way too fucking slowly. Twenty years of languishing, only to be told over and over "you must be a hypochondriac, it's just depression, we don't need to look at the data"? Fuck that. So I'm going to go into debt paying nearly 200k for double jaw surgery and for nasal expansion. I've considered killing myself over this plenty of times. I can't imagine how many people have killed themselves over this. All because they can't breathe through their nose.

From the bottom of my heart, fuck anyone who uses the word "mouth breather" like it's a fucking joke or an insult. Fuck them.

Sorry, I saw an opportunity to vent and took it.

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[pikapeppa]

15 questions for 15 friends

Tagged by @elveny and @johaerys-writes -- thank you, my loves!

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My mom. Apparently my dad really wanted to name me after my mom and she was like "ugh really fine" LOL. My dad is also named after his dad, who was named after his dad... REAL ORIGINAL. This is going to sound like a total humblebrag, but my mom and I are both published academic authors, so we have to use our middle initials to distinguish who published what 🙃

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Probably in therapy last Thursday LOL. Though I got a little prickly-eyed earlier this week watching the episode of ATLA where Zuko and Aang go on their lifechanging field trip to the Sun Warriors' secret village 😂❤

DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Nope! Childless by choice.

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED? I played T-ball when I was 5 or 6 (hated it, cried so much that my parents pulled me out LMAO) and I was on the volleyball team in Grade 6. I'm left-handed and I had a habit of serving into the wall, unfortunately, and the habit got worse when I was nervous. During one game, they took pity on me so much that they paused the game until I got the ball over the net. I was fucking humiliated and have never played a team sport since then. 🤣💀 Re: other physical activities, I like dancing! I've taken a ton of different kinds of dance classes including swing, salsa, bellydancing, and Bollywood dancing, and loved all of them!

DO YOU USE SARCASM? No. Me? Never. 🙃🤣 Forreal though yes. All the time.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Uh...! I don't know if there's any one specific thing? I usually take in an "overall impression" of appearance. Vague, but that's all I've got. If the question was "what's the first thing you notice in people you're attracted to", that might be a different story 🤣

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOUR? Brown.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I am going to copy Johaerys's answer and say it doesn't matter to me, as long as the story was good. But also, who says scary movies/horror media can't have happy endings?? 🤣Haunting of Hill House, anyone? (Bittersweet, maybe, but it counts as happy to me!)

ANY TALENTS? Would it be wretched if I said I feel like writing might be a talent? Whatever, I'm saying it. 🤣😅

WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital in the same city where I currently live! Which I will chose not to reveal openly! 🤣

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES? Writing! It takes up a solid 75-90% of my free time. Also gaming (which I might count into the writing time since it often becomes Research™ for the writing 🤣). I also enjoy baking and cooking, though I don't know that I'd count those as hobbies since they're necessary ADLs?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? A cat named Meeko. She is my daemon. We can never be apart when I am home. Case in point, a photo taken in real-time while completing this quiz:

HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5'3".

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? Uhhh... what level of school are we talking here? In undergrad, I took an incredible linguistics/history course about writing systems, and that was probably my favourite class ever. I took a course during undergrad about different schools of psychotherapy that was pretty damned influential too.

DREAM JOB? I also loved Johaerys's answer here: "I don't think there's any sort of job anyone could do in this capitalist hellscape we're all currently living in that would be enjoyable enough to make up for, well... living in a capitalist hellscape." I'm lucky enough to work in the public healthcare system so I'm pretty safe from the worst of capitalism, I guess, though my job (speech-language pathologist) is one I chose more for practicality (certainty of employment) than because I was really passionate about it. If I could do something else and not have to worry about money, I would either want to be a fiction editor, or a sex therapist.

Tagging forward to @ranaspkillnarieth @iamcayc @heroofshield @fantasy-girl974 @hellas-himself @midnightacrobat @alyssalenko @vorchagirl @elinorbard @stuffforthestash @mwasaw @lordofthenerds97 @y0ureviltwin @ladyofthelake91 @perhapsrampancy @cha-mij and genuinely, anyone else who wants to share!!! Tag me so I can spy on your life! 🤣❤

[twyla19]

Happy Pride Month!

It's June 9th, and we are just iver a week into this amazing month.

Some reminders:

Trans men are men

Trans women are women

Non binary individuals are non binary

This also doesn't define them if these individuals look, dress, or have interested that don't "align" with their gender.

Men can wear skirts and like dolls

Women can be mechanics and like trucks

Non binary people don't owe people androgyny nor being masc or femme to "fit in" a box.

There is no pride in genocide, yes i am bringing this up cause theres a bunch of pink washing and general rainbow washing that makes certain countries look "better" to prove that the genocide they are commiting is "okay"

GENOCIDE IS NOT OKAY, DEATH AND MURDER ARE NOT OKAY!

No matter who you are, in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, and the many other places that are currently suffering from genocide, the oppressor wants them all dead.

They do deserve life and live freely. They deserve love, compassion, and to be able live on THEIR land without worries of being killed for it.

Im not gonna be a hypocrite either. This goes for Indigenous people, indigenous Hawai'ians, and all the other territories the US has power over. They deserve to be independent, thriving nations without the worry of a money hungry billionaire country stepping in the way.

Hell billionaires shouldn't even exist. Housing is a necessity. Food is a human right, and so is water. Education should be free. Healthcare is a human right and deserves to be given to everyone that needs it.

The US needs to bud out of other peoples business and focus on what is going on here. But nope, they dont care cause of capitalism. Where workers basically work until they die or die while working. And if you fit outside their standards (like myself being disabled), they dont want you to live anyways nor be happy.

Pride events need to be accessible FOR ALL, meaning spaces need to be wheelchair and accommodative to disabled queer people.

Intersectionality needs to be a part of everything we do and especially for activism.

So for some hopeful stuff.

Some states have been working on becoming state sancuaries for queer and trans people.

There have been many resources that i have reblogged about Gaza and helping palestinians get funds to get out of Gasa and to safety. If not, OperationOliveBranch on Instagram and Tiktok also have a great linktree resource of how to help.

Finally, love will win and conquer over everything else. This post may seem hopeless or doom posting, but that is the reality. It's not even half of what my brain goes through a cycle of hope and despair. I am hopeful things will change and get better, that we all will stop worrying about our differences and fight against the people who actually want us to fight while they play astronauts and water divers.

If you made it this far into this post, share an emoji in the comments or reblog this.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

I Took the One Less Traveled By - a Malevolent Fic

FINAL FIC OF SURROGATE: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, SEASON ONE

Faroe is given a choice.

A choice six years in the making.

She could never have predicted the result.

AO3

----------

Her birthday.

He’d forgotten the date, gotten lost in their travels and searching.

Six years.

His daughter. His Faroe. If they hadn't pleased this monster , she would die. “No,” Hastur whispered. “No! Please! ”

The audience cheered. “Aaaand coming to you live, from Carcosa!” Kayne cried, holding up the cake in one hand. In his other, he had a weird mic, long and thin, almost like a wand. “The season finale to the greatest show of this generation!” And he tilted the mic away. The audience cheering stopped with the sound of a record scratch. “Been thinking of calling it Lester Yellow, you know, almost like it’s some kind of seasonal Home Depot color, what do you think?”

“Leave her alone,” Hastur breathed, so terrified he could not move. "I beg you. I'll do anything!"

"What?" whispered Faroe in a daze.

"No!" shouted Arthur. "Don't touch her!"

“No?” said Kayne. “Naw, you’re right, that name doesn’t really make sense. Oh, well.” Record-scratch, audience cheering. “And here we are! The overall ratings are in, kids! How do you think you did? Well, I can tell you: you did fantastic. The drama! The tears!” His voice dropped sixteen octaves. “The character arcs like blades, hooking deep in the gut! Oh, and of course, filicide. Fucking delicious."

Hastur made a noise as if he'd been gutted as Kayne spoke.

How dare you, John groaned.

“And I brought cake for the occasion!” Kayne said, holding it up again, and eyed them. “But you know what? No, no, cut. Cut! Edit. This little clusterfuck will not work.” And he snapped his fingers.

They were abruptly torn away from each other.

Everyone shouted. Nibbles bleated. Hastur and Arthur found themselves on opposite sides of the throne room, just within the blazing light—and behind some kind of barrier. Whatever it was, neither could get past it; whatever it was, neither could be heard.

They banged, shouted, kicked. Hastur, then John, tried spells.

To no avail.

Faroe scrambled backward until she slammed into the throne, gasping. Nibbles had been placed behind her, on the seat, unbound, but similarly cordoned off.

Kayne loomed , leaning over her, blocking the spotlight so he was silhouetted except for the freakish whiteness of his teeth.

Faroe stared up at him, gasping loudly, fear upon fear after horror upon horror making her shake, making her feel so weak. She’d grown up around bigger beings, long been used to such large things as her father—but this human-sized man, right now, felt bigger than them all. “Kayne!” she cried.

“That’s my name, feel free to wear it out and I’ll make up another one!” he said, and laughed.

It was horrible, that laugh. Worse than in her head. This close, shocking, knife-like, it pierced, and she screamed, covering her ears with both hands.

He crouched suddenly, holding the mic out to her so her gasps echoed back at her from around the room. “Hey, now, don’t be sad! You won! What do you have to say?”

Faroe cringed. “Go away!”

“Mmm, nope, nope, I mean, my script has a lot of space for improv, but that’s definitely not on the docket.”

“What do you want?” she cried.

He laughed. “What does anybody want?” he proclaimed. “Affordable coffee! Universal healthcare! Vengeance! A damn good show!” He tilted his mic away like a cue, and the audience tittered.

Faroe's tears were hot on her cheeks. “I thought you were my friend!”

All the sound stopped. Not even a record-screech this time, just sudden, strange silence. Hastur and Arthur were frozen, unmoving. Over her head, so was Nibbles, still in place like a photograph.

Kayne’s look was pitying, and cold, humiliating, as if she'd just been stupid . “Did. I act. Like a friend?”

She stared.

He leaned in, crawling forward, crouching over her on all fours like some predatory beast, and his spine did not curve right. “Did. I act. Like a friend?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Trust what people do. Not what they say.” He patted her cheek and stood again, human again, and all the sound resumed. “And now, it’s time for the final game of the season!” The audience cheered wildly. He looked at her. “It’s your cue,” he mouthed.

Cue? Cue for what? She had no idea what was going on, what these crowd sounds were, what the hell he was holding in his hand. Just how many times did she have to go into a horrible situation like this and not know what was going on?

She wiped her face, furious. This wasn’t funny.

“Oh, I disagree,” said Kayne.

In their invisible barriers, her fathers (fathers!) both railed, physically battering themselves, trying to get to her.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to draw the sword from the stone like Arthur had and…

Kayne tsked . “I think she's a little stunned, folks, let's all have some patience, yeah?" The crow laughed and hooted. "Faroe, Faroe, Faroe... don't make me wait! This has been six years in the making, baby doll. You are a success. Your presence (and your opinion and your happiness and your love ) forced these idiots to work together and be interesting enough that you don’t get canceled tonight! Isn’t that lovely?”

“Canceled?” she whispered, and memories stuttered into place. Similar words, something about a mini… mini show? Something, from that night, years ago— 

“Hey, that’s pretty good,” said Kayne. “Good memory you got, there. Bet you made some new ones tonight, eh? You two, reaching toward each other like some famous ceiling painting! You, fucked in the head and sure he was going to kill you, but reaching anyway! Him, uncaring if he fucking died as long as you didn’t—and just making it in the nick of time, because you were about to pass out, and then he wouldn’t have gotten to you quickly enough if you hadn’t reached back. Wow. I mean, wow. I couldn't have planned it that dramatically.”

The audience began chanting her name.

She'd never hated her name before. She hated how it sounded now, ugly, violent, like a club in each hand, coming down. She shook and looked at her fathers again.

Arthur was sobbing, on his knees; he’d beaten his hands bloody, trying to get out. Smears hung in the air, on nothing, showing where he’d tried hardest.

Hastur had practically torn out the floor; it was like a meteor had landed on him, divoting, but he could not break through. Whatever Kayne had done clearly locked him in from above and below, too.

They couldn’t help her... but maybe she could help them. Slowly, Faroe looked up. “If I play, will you let them go?”

The audience cheered.

His grin was brilliant and shiny and white, and there were definitely too many teeth. “Brave little thing. Yes.”

Such a simple answer had to be a trap—but she couldn’t risk it. “Fine. What are we playing, Kayne, worst secret friend in the world?”

That title cracked him up, and she clutched her ears again as glass shattered somewhere in response to his levity.

Gasping, she yelled. “Well? Are you just going to… fuck around? ”

Well, maybe that wasn’t the way to go, because he laughed even harder, slapping his knee, and paced like a tiger. as if this was just so great that he couldn't hold still.

Faroe looked at her fathers.

No, she thought. She would not be crushed by this. She braced herself, reached behind her, and used Hastur’s throne to stand. (Like Arthur had, pulling himself up by a sword he made himself, like Hastur had, even after he'd had to do the worst thing, like—)

“Ooh,” said Kayne, low, his eyes lidded. “I liked that. You really are worth all that effort, maybe. Maybe. Still a kid. Well, anyway. Are you ready to learn what you’ve won ?"

“Yes,” she said, as if pronouncing her own doom.

He raised both hands, legs apart, as if posing for some kind of explosion. “A second season!”

And the crowd roared, louder than at the games, somehow more human than at the games, wild with anticipation.

"What?" Faroe called over it. “A second season? What does that mean?”

“Six more years, baby-doll. I don’t kill all of you for six more years.”

She stared. “ Kill? ”

“Your dad’ll explain the fine print later,” Kayne said, waving his hand, and abruptly shoved a plate with a slice of cake into her chest. “Take it.” He smiled. And it was a warning.

Her hands trembling, she did.

The cake was weird. The frosting was shades of brown, like rotten fruit, and it smelled like a peach left long on the ground, putrescent. Bile filled her mouth. She did not eat.

“So!” he said. "Let's see where we are, shall we? Not a forced family anymore, and while I have personal preferences on that account, I hear you.” He shouted at the ceiling. “I hear you! Conflict resolution! Declarations of love! Old plot lines revived! Punishment! I hear you, cheese and crackers!”

The audience laughed. Some asshole bellowed, That's what I said!

Faroe swallowed again. She was so tired; her body was done, fight-or-flight  reserves already tapped, but Arthur had stood, and so would she. “Will you get to the point?” she said as imperiously as she could.

“I like the schtick, doll, but don’t push it,” he said. “You get to choose.”

The audience went oooooh.

“Choose?” Choose what? She wracked her brain. She’d missed something.  

He watched her twist, his smile eager, hungry, cruel . He was waiting for her to ask.  

She’d agreed to play—and whatever else Kayne was, his warnings and specific promises had always been true. She clenched her healed hand, memories of flesh melting too close to the surface. “Choose what?”

He winked at the ceiling and said, “Hastur. Arthur.”

The audience murmured, uneasy. She waited. He didn’t add to the sentence. “What?”

“Two choices, babe. You get one vote. You can’t abstain. No ties. You have to choose. Hastur. Arthur."

Choose what? Choose what?

She couldn’t do this. How could she do this? What did he mean? What was he asking? “I request more information.”

“No.” He angled the mic away from himself, and the crowd said ooooh .

She stomped her foot. “That’s not fair! I don’t know what I’m choosing!”

“Sure you do. Hastur. Arthur.” He laughed, arms out, and spun on one foot. “Choose!”

Choose?

It had to be death. He’d already talked about killing.

All the spells he’d taught her were cruel in some way. And Arthur didn’t even want to talk about what Kayne had done. And her father… 

Her father was afraid.

She had to choose who was going to die tonight. Faroe put her hand over her mouth, trying not to sob. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not to anyone.

“No one ever is, baby doll,” said Kayne in a mockery of gentleness. “You’re out of time. Choose, or I will, and oh… you will not like that penalty. You should ask your dad how it goes when my words are ignored. ”

Get him a body bag! Yeah! some guy in the crowd shouted, and they all just laughed.

She swayed. For one moment, just one, it almost drowned her. This choice. This weight. 

“Five,” said Kayne.

Arthur had stood.

“Four,” said Kayne.

Her father had done the hardest thing for her tonight and wept tears of gold. 

“Three,” said Kayne, holding up three fingers.

“I’ve decided,” she said, because she had.

Divorcing herself from the emotional angle. Stepping back from them being hers. From what she’d learned tonight. From the brand new beautiful things that helped to heal the horrors she’d seen.

She had to view this as an adult. She had to view this as a queen . The least harm to the most people. The most good to those in need. If someone was going to die, it had to be Arthur—because her father could bring him back. If Hastur died, Arthur would love her and be there—but he couldn’t bring Hastur back, and Carcosa would be in trouble.

She couldn’t think through it more than this. Felt like her brain stuttered and fell, face-first in the mud. She could not emotionally engage.

A drum roll began, low and menacing.

She spoke, and to make them proud, she tried to speak like the queen she was meant to be. “I choose Arthur to die,” she whispered instead, and then burst into tears.

#

Nothing happened. There was eerie silence; even Kayne was quiet, as though waiting for her to get it together again.

She couldn’t shut it off right away.  Hitching, choking, she finally dared look up.

Arthur was alive. Staring at her, clearly shouting her name. John kept trying magic, splashing gold along the invisible barrier, to no effect.

Did that mean…

She spun, terrified.

Hastur was alive, still trying to power his way through, his gold robe ichor-stained, his ragged half still fluttering as he tried with all his power to reach her.

Faroe was so confused she didn’t know what to do.

“Aaaaand we’re back!” said Kayne, and the audience cheered. “Excellent choice, baby doll! Real smart! I mean, I’d prepped for both options (and that’ll be fun when the other plays out) but honestly? I was hoping you’d choose him. Too much l-u-v and outright sappiness otherwise. Boring!”

“Wh-what?” she said.

Kayne snapped his fingers.

The barriers disappeared. 

“Faroe!” came from both sides, and suddenly, she had them back. 

Her fathers, both of them—and she and Arthur were both in Hastur’s arms, off the ground and half-hidden. She had them. They lived. They lived. 

"My daughter," Hastur cried, his voice broken.

"Faroe!" Arthur cried.

Faroe! John cried, and both Arthur’s hands took hers, squeezing them, comforting.

What had she chosen? What had she done? “I’m sorry,” she gasped, clinging. “I don’t know what... I don't know what I did!”

“Well it’s been a good night, folks, with our breakout star (pretty good show from a kid whose first scene in this show was grkk, you know, dead) , but it’s time to wrap up.” The audience cheered wildly.

“Go fuck yourself!” snarled Arthur.

“No,” Kayne said. “She picked you, loverboy.”

 What? breathed John.

“Couple of notes! Don’t make me repeat them, now.” Kayne counted on his fingers. “One! Arthur’s off the no-kill list. We all know you’re not going to do it, anyway, so that limitation is pointless.”

What the fuck? John demanded.

“Quiet!” Hastur snarled, focused, rapt.

“Someone learned his lesson,” Kayne said in a sing-song voice, and counted his second finger. “Two: new stars! Can’t kill them. Can’t send them away. You’re smart. You get the idea.”

Hastur got the idea. “Yes.”

“Good!” And everything froze.

#

Hastur stood alone, facing the being he’d tried to find a way around for six years, who now scared him more than anything he had ever known.

There was nothing here in this place. A vague blue-gray light, and nothing else. Eternity in emptiness. Hastur made a low, strained noise.

“And three… I don’t like you,” Kayne said, and it echoed, the words sound over and over again from all directions.

Hastur trembled. “I know.”

“I don’t like you… less than I did, though? The utter misery works for me. Crunchy heart, all in pieces . But still. I don’t like you. So here’s what I’m thinking, Golden Boy.” Kayne approached, and as he did, his guise melted away, and what he was came out to play.

Hastur fell back, crying out, huddled in terror.

Shadow bled from the thing “Kayne” had hid, madness threatening even Hastur's mind, and the next words burned themselves into him like brands. “She gets six more years. It’ll be played out at that point; I’ll probably move on. But you? You.”

Hastur panted, not daring to run, not daring to anger him more.

“I'm thinking I might just kill you, anyway.”

Hastur felt like his hearts stopped. He stared.

“Am I being greedy? Having my cake and eating it, too? Yeah, sure, but I mean, easy win, right? Everyone is gonna love season two. But you? You’re the one who did the shit. You did it all, didn’t you? Why, it was all… your… fault.” And his voice dropped low to a pleased and terrible rumble, eager, expectant, hungry.

Hastur’s whisper was nothing. “Yes.”

The darkness writhed, relishing. “You have to pay, don’t you? You know you do. You should hear their cries… they want you to suffer, bucko. They want you to hurt. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”

It was. He hadn’t suffered enough. Not for what he’d done, what he’d wrought. He could see that. He deserved… more. "Yes," he whispered, head bowed, because it was right. 

So would end the King in Yellow, Lord of Carcosa, fool.

But six years—that wasn’t enough time. If he were dead, who would protect them? They wouldn’t be safe. They would be prey. He couldn’t make them safe in six years. No one could. Hastur made one soft, helpless sound. "Wait..."

“That was lovely! Heartbroken is a damn good look on you, bubby.”

”I need more time,” he whispered, ready to bargain whatever misery this being wanted.

”No,” said the Faceless One. Then he flicked Hastur's mask. Hastur cried out. It reverberated, that pain, shocked him, briefly blinded, flashed through him like lightning, and he found himself flat-out on the ground, whimpering helplessly. He reached up and found a chip in the mask that was his face, an eerie, sharp jag along the top right edge.

“You can’t bribe me, no matter how pretty that was," Kayne said, withdrawing, shrinking back into his guise with every step. "Six years. Good luck making it aaaaall work out.”

And time started up again.

#

Hastur was where he’d been, protectively holding his family ( his family ), unable to breathe. 

His grip tightened. Fragile. They were all so fragile. His face hurt so much, throbbing with his hearts.

“Guest star number one!” Kayne bellowed as if there’d been no interruption.

Trumpets played.

“What the fuck?” came a new voice, a male voice, a heavily accented Bostonian voice, and a man came stumbling into the spotlight as though thrown.

Arthur twisted toward him.

Arthur? said John. Arthur, it… it can't be.

“Parker?” said Arthur, his voice going high and fragile.

“What?” Parker challenged, clambering to his feet. His clothes were a mishmash of Dreamlands commoner fare, as if he’d stolen it all off various washing lines, and they were sweat-stained and torn. His hair, long enough to tie back, was greasy and in his eyes; his boots were worn, and his beard was half grown in. “ Arthur?”  

Arthur gawked. Tears began rolling down his face. "Parker? Put... put me..."

Hastur let him down.

Arthur staggered toward that voice, and his breath hitched once. "Parker? Y... you're alive?"

" You're alive?" said Parker. "Fucking... you... son of a bitch, you're here?"

The drum rolled. “And guest star number two!” said Kayne. 

Watch out! a new voice snarled.

But not new. Not at all.

“I got this,” soothed Parker, but it didn’t matter at all.

Arthur stopped as though he’d been gut punched. “Yellow?” he choked.

MURDERER! the voice cried.

“Easy, Sunny,” said Parker.

No! Parker, get away from him! He’s fucking dangerous! Yellow snarled. He'll hurt you! He... he'll... get away from us!

Arthur staggered back as if punched. He shook now from head to toe, his breath going shuddery and shallow, his voice a soft whimper. 

The drum roll abruptly resumed, and the orchestra began building, louder and louder, adding percussion, strings, brass—“And of course, what’s a new season without a new villain?” Kayne cried, and his eagerness made the room tremble. “Guest star number three, straight from the wilds of the sweetest digs in the Dreamlands! Covered in the sins of his youth, filled with power from the nastiest rituals you’ve ever seen, scion of the Order of the Falling Star, and one of my favorite puppets… Wallace (ace… ace…) Larsooooooooon!”

The music exploded into chaos, a gargantuan blare of discordant noise, and the audience joined it, booing, shrieking, hissing and howling.

"What? What is... where am I?" came a syrupy drawl, smooth and unafraid, and Larson staggered into the light, dressed in colorful finery good enough for Court, with dragon-hide boots, with jewels sewn into the seam of his cloak, rubbing his eyes as though briefly blinded.

Arthur went completely stiff, as rigid as if he'd been electrocuted. It seemed he no longer breathed.

Hastur, John warned.

“What’s happening?" said Larson mildly, unafraid, confident. “I do declare… my, my. What is this place?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand action!" Kayne bellowed—and disappeared, along with the spotlights, the crowd, the ambient noise, leaving them all alone in Hastur’s throne room.

The silence was deafening. Then, it was broken.

“You!” Larson snarled... at Parker. “Thief! How in the hell did you get loose again?”

“Oh, fuck this guy,” said Parker. “He ain’t getting you back. You hear me? Try it, asshole!”

Parker, I’m scared, said Yellow quietly.

And Larson spotted Hastur, and fell at once to his knees, arms raised. “Oh… oh! Nilgh'ri l' vulgtmah Uh'eog ph'nglui Turor! Llll ahornah, h' ahuh'eog nilgh'ri! ” he proclaimed in R'lyehian, pronouncing what had to be worship.

Hastur! John cried.

Without a sound, Arthur lunged at Larson with every intent to tear him to shreds.

-----------

Notes:

Wow. What can we even say?

We wrote this crazy series as a love-letter to Malevolent. We're playing in the sandbox, raising castles (and razing them, too), and honestly never expected that anyone else would enjoy the mess we made like you wonderful readers have.

Thank you all for your comments, your encouragements, your reactions. They've meant more than you know - and ensured that we would actually WRITE this thing instead of just going, "Wouldn't it be amazing if..."

As for this forced FOUND family, their story isn't done. We're already working on season two—though we might need to catch our breath before we post it. :)

Thank you for trusting us. <3 Hopefully, you enjoy the ride to the end the way we are.

And thanks again to Harlan, who is awesome, and made these dolls for us to play with in the first place.

See you in season two. Love, Trin, @sepiabandensis, and @sparklyandheroic

[theynanigans]

💚,🤍, and 💔 for the unpopular opinion ask game? :3 (I'm an Octopath person I don't know YTTD so... I guess maybe for that series unless you want to do the other one. :D)

hii ty for the ask! and that's okay, i'm fine with just doing octopath!

💚: what does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

ot1: my fave character is gareth, but since no one ever talks about him, no one's getting anything wrong :') if i had to choose another one, though, i'd pick alfyn - i tend to get mildly frustrated when fics portray him as an uwu precious softboy without ever showing his rougher side? like, this man can be SCARY when angry! there's a reason amputate and last stand are part of his kit!! and his in-game dialogue has so much sass and snappy remarks in it that i WISH would be acknowledged more!!!

cotc: i refuse to believe stead is a smoker...

ot2: i haven't seen any bad opinions about trousseau yet that aren't just ableist bullcrap, so i'll go with castti instead. *clears throat* she is not the group mom! please stop forcing women into maternal roles because they care about their friends' and other peoples' wellbeing/are literally just doing their job as a healthcare worker, writers i am BEGGING YOU.... please............

🤍: which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

ot1: tough choice but honestly, imma have to say therese?? yes, spreading rumors that your teacher is having an affair with another student and in consequence getting him suspended is horrible, but i frankly don't think that was her intention to begin with- for all we know, yvon and lucia might've twisted her words to their liking and used her as a pawn without her noticing... she seemed genuinely surprised when she was told what happened, which makes me think that she wasn't aware of the consequences that her actions might have- and besides, she's a teenager!! let teens be silly and make mistakes without immediately writing them off as irredeemably awful people!!!

cotc: none that i can think of!

ot2: KALDENA omg the fandom hates her so much. free my girl (the writers did her dirty, too... we could've had a cool narrative about grief and trauma and survivor's guilt but NOPE. she doesn't get nuance!! god forbid a female villain experiences complex emotions!!!)

💔: if you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

claude. his entire existence just pisses me off and both stories he played a part in would've been better without him there at all :/

[johannestevans]

Hi, this is the anon who was asking about the afab term stuff 👋

Firstly thanks for the longer explanation, I hope it wasn't too frustrating for you, I really don't mean to bother you, so if this is too many questions feel free to ignore it

Secondly, this has actually kinda explained a couple things about my own experience with the terms, like how people asking if I'm afab/amab (which doesn't really apply to me in a binary/dyadic sense) has always felt a little like someone asking my deadname. So thanks for making me consider that more from a different perspective

Thirdly, my experience from having my identity heavily medicalised (intersex healthcare in the UK is a mess) and from being raised by a doctor is that female sex vs female gender were two separate things, and that one doesn't always correspond to the other. I never really approached the idea that female/male sex weren't useful/real categories because their meanings to me were entirely anatomical definitions of a collection of parts that are usually found together. To me it would be completely the same to refer to them as Sex A and sex B, with the understanding that there are people who fit neither category. Intersex anatomy is often talked about as if its the crossover in a Venn diagram of characteristics, between the two categories of 'male sex' and 'female sex'. For this purpose having those categories for communication purposes, is somewhat helpful, e.g to say that an increase in my testosterone will cause my male characteristics to become more prominent. The categories serve a purpose for communication more than anything else.

If the categories weren't using the words female/male do you think it would be any better of an experience for you? Aka if the terms used to describe them had no relation to any gender identity, but there was still two prominent categories.

Of course I can see the issue with when people assume that you fall exactly into one category or another, so regardless of name/language no number of categories should ever be assumed to be a universal set, but that doesn't mean that the terms don't have positive uses. Our language exists for us to communicate, so if terms to describe a category of anatomical parts help us do that, surely they still have meaning/usefulness?

Nope, don't worry about it, Anon! If anything bothers me so much that I don't want to answer it, I'll say or I'll just delete the ask.

I absolutely think that some people do ask after ASAB because they want to just find out what people "really" are and whatever, have just internalised the whole gender aspect and do think of some trans people as being female (good) and male (bad), and there's so much transmisogyny baked into it, but also just... misanthropy, you know? Like a real distaste for the variety in humanity and a desperate desire to force everyone into particular categories.

The thing about current medicalised perceptions of intersex identities is that there are dozens of so-called "intersex conditions", but we literally have 0 way of knowing how many people are the "pure" standard of female with the exact female anatomy and the "pure" standard of male with the exact male anatomy without like, MRI-ing and later dissecting massive swathes of the population and comparing them all, and we don't do that because people want the male/female divide to exist when like.

It doesn't, not in the way people want to imagine it does.

These are broad categories people have projected onto people, and while I agree that medical professionals knowing someone's physical anatomy is valuable, I actually think that the M/F binary actually is more likely to harm them than otherwise.

Many doctors will meet someone who they assume was AFAB, and therefore they must have all this anatomy, and then they'll just put any abdominal or even chest pain down to their period, on top of not really caring how much pain they're in - and then they won't even check for shit like appendicitis or gut problems or even more significant uterine problems like endometrioisis, but also like... testicular torsion.

I frankly don't agree that "female sex" and "male sex" are genuinely useful categories. They're just weaponised too much for me to believe that - I think we should do away with M/F categorisations on birth certs and medical records, and that doctors should have to fucking, God forbid, examine people to see what their problems are.

I'm so sorry that you've received shitty treatment for intersex medical issues, several of my friends are intersex and experience just roadblock after roadblock - even as a probably dyadic trans dude with a few chronic issues it's just painful to navigate, and I just get pissed off because it's complicated by doctors religious devotion to a cis medical binary that's not nearly as important as they desperately want to believe it is.

[spaceofentropy]

Brain Weasels! Assemble!

aka: @creepkinginc (hi, Nosho! 💙) tagged me in this thing that @thatoneao3author (hiiii!) concocted, and today the brain is braining the right way, so here we are! With a long long long thing. I made it Gallavich. Maybe if the brain keeps on braining right, tomorrow I'll do another version for another ship, who the heck knows! Not me!

So, the rules (more or less) are:

use this au generator to assign you an au, this fan fiction trope generator to give you a trope/situation/sometimes another au, feel free to keep clicking until you get something that inspires you.

then try to come up with the title, plot, vibe, and details of a fic including whatever the generators gave you. you don’t actually have to write it, just put the concept into the world! this is basically just a thought experiment.

The randomizing gods gave me a Hacker(s) AU and (after a couple of nope tropes, because I don't know shit about Regency, sorry, gods!) on New Year's Day soulmates switch bodies for 24 hours and have to try and figure out who the other person is so they can find them when the time is up.

Title: Words within the margin [I'm terrible at titles but make do with music 😎]

Plot: it's after the cut because it's long! 🫣

Mickey as our hacker. He doesn't think the whole soulmate thing will ever happen to him, so he is well beyond plastered when the New Year starts and the switch happens. He wakes up in a cabin somewhere in the fucking woods, not a car, let alone a road or even dirt path, near it. He's in the middle of fucking nowhere. Not happy about it. Oh, and this weirdo doesn't even have a cell phone or computer or anything like that in the cabin! And clearly he doesn't believe in mirrors. All that Mickey has are food, shelter, and books on psychology and mental illness. The best idea of this weirdo's face he gets from the lid of one of the pots in the kitchen: pale, redhead, greenish eyes maybe? Hard to tell from a lid. Great dick. And tall, holy fuck it's weird to be this tall, he keeps on bumping against stuff because he miscalculates spaces and distances.

Meanwhile, Ian does not wake up early and bright in the little cabin where he's taking a well deserved pause from the world and his job as a counsellor. Nope. It's well past midday and he's in a body that's super hangover, in an apartment that looks more like a computer repair shop than anything else. All the devices are password protected, even the couple of cell phones he finds. There are two wallets with two different sets of IDs for two different names. No paper mail or useful documents anywhere that he can find. The more he tries to pinpoint who this guy is from stuff in his house, the less he knows, aside from the fact he likes cheap beer, knives, and videogames.

Mickey spends most of his time in the cabin perusing the books, there are little notes here and there, the guy has a dorky sense of humor that makes him chuckle, but he also sprinkles here and there glimpses of bad experiences with doctors, with meds and treatments and healthcare providers that were not great.

Ian leaves the apartment to look for more clues about, at the very least, where this weirdo lives, but it's even worse, one of the neighbors catches him as he tries to steal someone's mail (it would have been such an easy way to get at least an address!) and he runs, not sure why but he just runs. Wanders an unknown town like many others, no idea where he is. Finds his way back to the building, he has a road name and a number, except there must be so many Washington Streets around... He spends hours looking at the weirdo's stuff, feeling like he's intruding just by being there, every moment less sure of wanting to know this guy. They are soulmates, apparently, but... he feels like he's stepping into a cheap spy story. Perfect stuff to further unbalance the already unsteady situation inside his brain. What if this guy is even crazier than him? There are so many weird thing, in his apartment and potentially his life... 

There's a phonecall to one of the phones, he answers hoping the person at the other end will say something useful, a name, a detail, something, but the girl only calls him fuckface and dickhead. A relative, judging by how, after a while, she gets worried when Ian doesn't answer the way she expected. He's debating whether to tell her that he's a visiting soulmate or not, when midnight strikes and he's thrown back into his body, in the cabin, with one of his books open in his hands and a note in a different handwriting than his in the corner.

Nice refuge you have here, Firecrotch. Bet I still can find you in a week or less. Hope you didn't make a mess at my place. Had no idea what to do with them, so take your meds, dude. M.

It takes Mickey 8 days to come knocking on the door to Ian's cabin, and only because he has to go to an office in person, they do all stuff on paper in Bumfuck County, Wherever It Is Ian's Cabin Is, damn neanderthals!

Less than twenty minutes after meeting him in person for the first time, Ian's doubt about Mickey are relegated to background noise. The universe might be right with this soulmates thing!

Yeah. I think that's it. That's what happens when the brain weasels latch onto an idea they like (and they LOVE soulmates) 🤷‍♀️

I'm supposed to tag people, but honestly I don't know if I have the bandwidth left for it. 🥲 If you read this and want to do it, you're welcome to! ❤️