#i'm always so op in all of my drs

[beadelmare]

the feminine urge to be an actress, singer, songwriter, director, author, and dancer in my fame dr at the ripe age of fifteen

[kiefbowl]

I was reading an opinion piece on Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis on CNN by Jamal Baig about the increasing rates of cancer in patients under 50. As far as 5 minutes of googling and JSTORing can lend me to believe, there's nothing illegitimate about Dr. Baig. However, I found this bit in his opinion interesting:

Now, I'm always dubious when reading anything that attributes a very broad generalized idea that changes in diets have caused an increased in cancer, because more often than not it's not pointing to an exploration of, say, increased pesticide use, but the author's personal bias against the quote unquote "unhealthy", especially those who are deemed "fat" by the medical industry.

That being said, I was curious what source he linked, half expecting it to lead to just another op-ed from some other doctor from who knows when, but I was pleasantly surprised! Written by a man named Michael Donaldson, it was an evidentiary review published in a scientific journal called "Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet."

Now I wasn't going to give the whole thing a read, but I stopped in each section, gave a quick skim to get a general vibe, moved on to the next section, etc. I was immediately suspicious that the very first line in the abstract was "It has been estimated that 30–40 percent of all cancers can be prevented by lifestyle and dietary measures alone" as that seems to be a bananas statistic to just posit, but it still had the air of scientific integrity, so I did my skim.

The first handful of sections had things that gave me some moments of pause, that this article was in fact another doctor simply cherry picking data to confirm his own biases, but nothing so egregious as to do a spit take. That comes in a few minutes. The first section that made really go hold the phone was when we got to his Flax Seed section.

Compare how he writes about Red Meat...:

(that's all he wrote, btw)

...with how he starts writing about Flax Seed:

Did I just enter a Flax Seed commercial? Does this guy work for BIG FLAX SEED? on and on he writes about Flax Seed, and I start getting a sense that perhaps this man has a Flax Seed Agenda. In any case, he eventually moves on and I quickly skim to get to the end (because it's boring among other things).

So, who exactly is Michael Donaldson?

Girl are you kidding me

The Hallelujah Acres Foundation is a FOR PROFIT company that sells a """biblical""" based diet program called the hallelujah diet and also sells supplements on said site.

Now, in case you forgot where I started with this, this was the link provided as a "source" to a legitimate doctor's claim in an op-ed about cancer that "at least part of the answer" of why cancer is increasing in under 50 patients are the "changes to nutrition and lifestyle that took hold in middle of the last century." Dr. Baig did not read this article, or if he did was not concerned that it was written by the employee of a company that profits from unscientific research it uses to sell supplements and diets. Which is worse, I don't know.

The point I'm making is that you absolutely need to be vigilant all the time. You need to understand that doctors can not only have biases, but agendas. Researchers can have biases and agendas. Scientists can have biases and agendas. And that magical thinking about real health issues that can affect your future can permeate the scientific community because weirdos write convincing enough evidence that support their already determined world view.

This kind of shit is the reason why women go into doctor offices complaining about pain in their abdomen and get told to go lose weight and come back in 6 months. This is why ideas like moralizing eating have huge effects on women's health and influence medical misogyny, and why it's a feminist issue.

[sen-ya]

part 5/7

is it silly that this is my favorite in this series? i really enjoyed writing kaya and I wanna do it again at some point :')

[op comic masterpost]

[pg1] panel 2: Kaya: Oh! Dr. Law! I didn't expect to find you in our library.

panel 3: Law: K-Kaya-ya!

panel 4: Law: Uh. Ahem. Excuse me. I hope you don't mind me borrowing your books.

panel 5: Kaya: Oh of course not! I'm just shocked to hear we have books you don't! What are you studying?

panel 6: Law: UHHHHH

[pg2] panel 10: Kaya: Oh! Is someone on your crew pregnant? Ikkaku??

panel 11: Law (thinking): She doesn't know Ikkaku is trans. Does she not know that I am?? I just assumed Nose-ya would have mentioned it. But that makes sense. If Straw Hat didn't already know Nose-ya was trans it's not like I would have told him.

panel 12: Kaya: ...?

panel 13: Law (thinking): Fuck, I've been quiet too long. I can't throw Ikkaku under to bus. Just say something.

panel 14: Law: No. Kaya: Oh. Then why...? Law (thinking): Wait, shit

[pg3] panel 15: Law: My, uh...brother...'s...wife. Yeah, we're taking him back to Zou soon...because his wife is pregnant...and I...want...to help...?

panel 16: Kaya: Oh, how sweet! Congrats "Uncle Law" hehe. If you have any questions I could help with let me know!! I specialized in traumatic injury, but I did deliver a few babies in Syrup Village! On smaller islands like that you wear a lot of hats.

panel 17: Law: And you've...been pregnant. Kaya: Well, yeah, but I wasn't my own doctor! Could you imagine if I had tried to deliver the twins myself? Even a doctor needs a doctor, you know that.

panel 18: Law: ...right.

panel 19: Law: ...what...what was it like?

panel 20: Kaya: Oh, my pregnant patients were actually pretty fun! I suppose it makes sense that as a pirate ship doctor you wouldn't have had to know obstetrics. But it was always so lovely to hand a parent their--

[pg4] panel 21: Kaya: ...newborn...baby...?

panel 23: Kaya: ...I'm sorry, Dr. Law. If there's context I need you'll have to give it to me. I'm not good at guessing.

panel 24: Law: What do you mean, I just gave you context. Kaya: With all due respect, you're full crying. It's a new sight for me!

panel 25: Kaya: You can tell me what's going on! I'm told I'm a very good listener

panel 26: Law: ...You Straw Hats sure are a pain Kaya: Sorry, hehe

panel 28: Law: ...I...ahem...so number one, if you didn't know...I'm...I'm trans.

panel 29: Law: But not like your husband. He got the works from Ivankov-ya...I never felt the need to seek that out.

[pg5] panel 30: Kaya: ...I see

panel 31: Kaya: How far along are you? Law: ..12 weeks, give or take. Kaya: Well, I've provided obstetric care of all kinds. So whatever questions you're researching here...why don't you ask me instead of being your own doctor?

panel 32: Law: ...Same question. What was it like?

panel 33: Kaya: Being pregnant was a horror show!

panel 34: Law: A glowing review. Kaya: Oh, sorry! I can lie if you'd prefer!

panel 35: Kaya: I was just so sick my first trimester! Law (speaking over her): KAYA-YA I THOUGHT I WAS DYING FOR TWO WEEKS WHEN WILL IT STOP I CAN ONLY EAT RICE.

panel 36: Kaya: It's different for everyone. By the end it wasn't quite so bad for me, though. And I love my kids so much. They were such cute newborns!! So I was alright being uncomfortable for awhile. Because that's what we wanted, you know?

panel 37: Kaya (off screen): What do you and Luffy want, Dr. Law?

[pg6] panel 38: Law: ...We haven't decided yet. We're giving it to the end of the week. I'm trying to think about it rationally. But I just keep getting emotional any time I talk about it. It's strange.

panel 39: Kaya: An emotional decision and a bad decision aren't inherently synonymous, you know.

panel 40: Law: ...your bedside manner is impeccable, Dr. Kaya-ya. Kaya: Well, thank you! Next time let's meet in the infirmary, mine or yours.

panel 41: Kaya: I'll be your doctor through this, okay?

panel 42: Law: ...Okay...Thank you. Kaya: Of course!

[charmedreincarnation]

My sucess story

Trigger Warning: Abusive, homophobia, mentions of suicide

Hey there, Maya! I just had to take a moment and express my appreciation for all the fantastic posts you put out. I can now confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that shifting is real, manifesting is real, and so is the void. Our desires and ambitions aren't in vain.

I've been part of the shifting community since 2020 when it exploded on TikTok. It might not matter much, but as a gay man, I rarely saw other guys in the community (though Reddit and Amino have a more diverse crowd). I've always felt more comfortable in women-centric spaces because they tend to be less judgmental.

I never saw success stories from guys, especially the kind I wanted to see - like waking up in a new world, not just manifesting money or a girlfriend (or boyfriend in my case >.<). I've always been spiritual and interested in witchcraft, voodoo, deities, and now manifesting and shifting. But it felt like nothing would let me shift.

Growing up with homophobic and physically abusive parents, struggling with poverty, depression, homelessness, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and more, I began to feel like you could only manifest and shift if your life was okay. I didn't have the luxury of time or safety to practice methods, constantly dealing with noise, verbal abuse, or physical violence.

Then, I read this post

https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/comments/14v4lw3/how_to_shift_the_next_time_you_go_to_sleep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

It led me to your Tumblr because OP used some of your old posts and talked about the concept of the void. All searched lead to tumblr. A couple of months ago (2.5 ish) after one of the worst days of my life, I went to bed sobbing, trying to block out the noise around me, praying and crying for anything - death, shifting, a new identity...

Everything around me started to fade - it was as if I was being engulfed by a white, serene blanket of nothingness. It was completely silent, and I couldn't see or feel anything. The only thing that seemed to persist was my awareness.

Now, I've read about the void before, but mostly in the context of it being a black, empty space. So, I'm not entirely sure if what I experienced was indeed the void or something altogether different. The concept still baffles me a bit, but I'm learning and growing through these experiences.

Regardless of where I was, my heart was set on reaching my dr.I kept praying and hoping, to wake up in my DR.

I woke up in my Twitch streamer DR! I found myself in a completely unfamiliar yet perfect place. My room was equipped with a high-end PC, top-notch gaming gear, and quaint decor items. Milo, my dog, was there too. I was sharing a mansion in LA with my boyfriend and four other streamers. The house was beyond my imagination, and streaming here was a dream come true. As night fell, my friends and I explored the vibrant LA nightlife, creating lasting memories.

After a week, i can’t lie I almost forgot I had shifted here. Then, I set an intention to shift back into this reality but where I had moved out, lived with my best friend and their supportive parents, mastered shifting and manifesting, had my desired looks, and money came easily to me. And it worked!

Since then, I've been living my best boujee gay life, and I shift all the time. I even created a waiting room where I'm immortal and use it whenever I need a break. I wish I could offer better advice, but like everyone says, there isn't a key to shifting. It's different for everyone. But you can and will shift. You can manifest your dream life. You can and deserve to be happy

Oh my god, I'm so happy for you, love 💕💕. I also completely related to what you felt. I know it can seem like your circumstances are holding you back, but believe me when I say this - that couldn't be further from the truth.

It's that same resilience, and your ability to persist despite the odds, that paved the way to your dream life. There’s nothing, I mean nothing that can stop you. Not wavering, crying, or doubt. Nothing. If you want it, it’s yours.

[shinestarhwaa]

ON-CALL || PARK SEONGHWA

Genre: Smut

Pairing: Seonghwa x Fem Reader

Word Count: 1.5K

Tags/Warnings: Doctor!AU, intern!reader, peds* resident!Seonghwa, kinda inspired by Grey's Anatomy, dirty language, masturbation, dom!Seonghwa, sub!reader, oral sex, unprotected sex, namecalling, slight hairpulling, slight spitting, praise

Helpful guide:

*Peds/pediatrician=doctor for kids

**pre-op = before operation

Taglist: @anyamaris @a-soft-hornytiny @whatudowhennooneseesyou @wooyoungmybelovedhusband @pyeonghongrie-main @woosanbby @dreamlesswonder86 @changbinslovelylegs @jonghostie @lovjensoo @mjyungi @bratty-tingz @sugarnspice630 @stardragongalaxy @bro-atz @wisejudgedragonhairdo @mingisg00dgirl @wh0re4yunsangho

ENJOY!

"Dr. Y/L/N, you will be following Dr. Park Seonghwa today," your supervisor said as she finished her pep-talk of the day. Your supervisor, Dr. Long was a very kind and positive woman, always quirky and bright and she gathered her interns every morning before work to cheer them up and motivate them.

You'd been an intern for a few months and you were slowly getting used to the hard work. You vaguely knew dr. Park from several heroic stories. All the women seemed to swoon over him as they gossiped about his fine looks every day.

Pediatrics was not the field you wanted to pursue but you figured a look couldn't hurt. You met dr. Park Seonghwa right in front of room 204 and suddenly you understood why all the women gushed over his beauty.

Dr. Seonghwa was a tall man with a sleek and defined look. His hair was slightly curly, tucked behind his ear while a few front pieces fell in front of his eyes. His nose was prominent, eyes big like boba pearls and lips thick and they looked like they'd be softer than all the fluffy kittens in the world. God damn.

"H-Hi, dr. Park, I'm your intern for the day," you introduced yourself. "Right, Y/N, I got the note that you'd walk with me today. If you have any questions let me know, okay? Let's get inside now, we're here to see a ten year old boy pre-op**," Seonghwa said as he guided you into the room.

"Good morning Kang-In, you look bright this morning," Seonghwa said with a smile as he greeted the boy named Kang-In. "Thanks doc, I'm feeling uplifted, I'm finally getting my surgery today! I've waited two whole years for my new heart."

"That's right, this is Y/N, she's my intern for the day, she will do a quick exam on you to check up on your stats."

Seonghwa watched you do the exam on the boy and asked you several questions to test your knowledge and he was surprised at your smart and quick answers. You got a kick out of it, watching his impressed expression and his small nodds.

The entire day was pretty fun, Seonghwa was still quite a young doctor and he told about his job with a lot of passion which intrigued you. When you laid in the on-call room that night you couldn't sleep. All you could think of was Seonghwa, the living example of perfection.

You looked around briefly, you're all alone. Would it be horrible if you slipped your hands into your panties just for a little bit? Deciding it would be okay you took your pants off, kicking it on the floor. You opened your legs and felt the damp spot on your underwear. You closed your eyes and slid your hand in your panties, rubbing your wet folds. "Mmh doctor," you moaned softly as you rubbed your clit, coating it with your arousal.

Suddenly the door opened and revealed dr. Park, his eyes widened at the sight of your bare cunt right in front of him. He closed the door instantly and froze for a few seconds just like you. ''What the hell are you doing?'' ''U-Uhm... Just...'' you stammered, not knowing what to do when your superior walks in on you touching yourself to the thought of him. ''S-Sorry sir, fuck I just-''

''Open those legs wider, I can't see it well enough.''

You felt like your heart stopped at those words, breath hitching in your throat. ''W-What? Sir...'' ''Well you obviously wanted someone to walk in on you, so you should at least give me a good show, right?''

You bit your lip and spread your legs wider, giving him a good view on your wet cunt. ''Why give a show when you could come here and taste it?'' This sentence went straight to Seonghwa's dick and before he could hold himself back he kneeled down in front of you, eyeing your glistening wet cunt up and down ''Christ,'' he cursed underneath his breath, ''What a beautiful fucking pussy... Who got you this wet, Y/N?''

Seonghwa licked a stripe up your pussy, swirling his tongue around your clit. ''Y-You, I was thinking about you. Fuck, you're so hot doctor, you are so hot I couldn't help but think of having your cock stuffed inside me,'' you cried out. ''Fuck, you're such a little minx, I love slutty interns,'' he grunted against your pussy, lapping it up and down. His long and skillful tongue felt warm on your labia. Seonghwa's eyes stared deep into your soul, making you whimper.

''Fuck, I'll be your slutty intern, doctor,'' you moaned as Seonghwa dug his tongue deep into your core, fucking it in and out of your hole. You guessed he must fool around with all the women around here but you didn't care. In the moment you wanted nothing more than be used by him.

Your walls clenched around his tongue and you whined out his name. ''Please, it's not enough,'' you cried, ''I need your cock sir, please.'' He smirked against your pussy and lapped at your clit, sending shivers down your spine. Your hands desperately reached for his head full of curly raven locks of hair, grabbing them and pulling them slightly, making the doctor moan into your core. You wanted him badly but he would not budge, eating your pussy like a starved man.

''Fuck, you're such a good little wet slut, all for me to ruin, keep begging for my cock, princess,'' he grunted as he worked on your clit, sucking and biting on it as his nails dug into the flesh of your thighs. ''Y-Yes, yours, doctor! Y-yours to ruin!'' It was wrong, God, it was so wrong of you to sleep with him but why did it feel so good then?

Seonghwa pulled those thoughts right out of your brain again as he sucked particularly hard on your clit, making your hips buck up. You felt the familiar warmth coil in your abdomen and your body grew restless. He held you down and stopped you from moving and you couldn't do anything else but let him make you come undone.

The orgasm hit you like a truck, washing over you as you chanted his name over and over. Seonghwa rode out your high with his delicious tongue and finished it off by pressing soft kisses over your used pussy and thighs. He hurried to pull down his pants and underwear and get on top of you, lifting your legs up and letting them rest on his shoulders. Seonghwa gave you no warning as he pushed inside you, nearly folding you in half as he did.

Soon he started moving at a fast pace, the sound of skin slapping together filling the room definitely able to be heard on the other side of the door. You could swear you heard a few giggles coming from the hallway but Seonghwa didn't accept the fact that your thoughts were drifting off again. He went harder, faster and with his fingers he grabbed your chin, forcing your mouth open. He spat in your mouth and ordered you to swallow, as you did.

A cry left your lips when he suddenly seemed to have found a sensitive spot inside you, something not many of your past lovers were able to do. ''You're such a good fucking slut for me, such a cute little pussy for me to fuck. You're gonna let me do this to you often, hm? Gonna let me fuck this pussy over and over whenever I want it, right?''

You mewled at his words and could only whine and nodd your head, nothing else processing in your head. The sensitiveness of your previous orgasm was building up to a second one and before you knew it you were clenching down on his cock, coming once more for him. ''That's a fucking good slut, that's it,'' he praised you.

He fucked you roughly, seemingly chasing his own orgasm. The doctor pounded into your pussy with such force you nearly forgot how to breathe. You dug your nails into the skin of his shoulders, moaning over and over. He cursed underneath his breath and his thrusts grew sloppier. ''You're gonna let me breed this pretty pussy right? Gonna let me fill it up with my cum? You're such a good little slut, such a good little fucktoy! Fuck, take it baby, take my fucking load,that's it!''

Seonghwa came with a loud moan and his hips stilled, cum spurting deep inside you. The two of you panted softly as he pulled out and laid down next to you. Before you could say anything to him his pager went off and you sighed. He pulled his underwear and pants up and hopped off the bed. ''This isn't over yet,'' he says with a wink before exiting the on-call room.

You sighed deeply and squirmed a little, giddy with the thought of continuing later on.

[nilboxes]

I didn't know who to say this too but i was about to explode thinking about this and you are one of the few people in hsr fandom that i trust to understand ratio so my apologies to be dumping this on you all of a sudden but... I think Ratio's technique is so interesting in a way and speaks more about him than people give it credit for. Like...creating a fake version of himself that aggros the enemy is already very meta of how hsr fandom tends to see him, esp with the number of people that started hating him after that "betrayal" scene in 2.1 xD And it makes me wonder about his voiceline where he says something like "im fine with showing my true self if it helps me teach students/cures patients but i find that doing so is counterproductive most of the time"...wdym "true self" sir...and why are your character details completely devoid of any details from your own pov...and why do you get so evasive when anyone tries to ask about your past (going by that one interview when someone asked him what he was like as a child and he's just like "what a silly question, i was a normal boy")...it seems to me the princess is hiding something...

Thank you for your ask OP! It's really interesting to think about your question, and I'm humbled by your trust! I hope whatever I cook can satisfy you in some way. It's going to be a bit long!!

Let's start by saying I do operate under the belief that we know a lot about Dr Ratio and at the same time we only know what he wants us to know, which I find incredibly interesting to his character.

It can go many different ways. A lot of people use this mysteriousness to hint at the following:

1. something sinister (I am not necessarily saying you are doing this)

2. suggesting that he is more than who he is, like he may be more than who he presents to be (may or may not be evil in alignment but just more)

3. he really just thinks divulging further personal information about him is pointless and he values his privacy as an individual rather than a prominent figure

Let me now unpack the most wrongest [sic] take, number 1, which I find to be antithetical to his character, because Dr Ratio has always been aligned with doing good. He isn't your typical good person, but he is morally pushing for good (eradication of ignorance, people finding and reaching their potential etc), and he rather he reminds me of a very stern but nonetheless kind educator who genuinely demands good be brought into the world through one's aptitude and ability (just like himself) and not relying on others to solve problems for you

Number 2 is a little tricky, since we cannot really confirm nor deny that Ratio is no longer truly following Nous after he realizes he will never be acknowledged, he may be aligned to another Aeon or none entirely! I personally dislike the Mythus/Fictionologist take, because again it is antithetical to who he is as a character. Fictionologists will rewrite history and twists facts in order to create the possibility of uncovering more, but this is akin to something called accelerationism, which is in plain words to incite chaos (bad) in the slim chances that from the chaos a great good might emerge/ be produced/discovered etc, a practice and ideology I feel Dr Ratio as he is characterized now would be extremely against. Now I do subscribe to the fact that Dr Ratio may not be following an Aeon at all or we aren't privy to who they are yet, but this is a possibility that there is a facet to Dr Ratio we have not seen yet and will down the line so...

Number 3 is where I am at now, I really, genuinely think Dr Ratio just thinks of himself as some guy who was gifted with the equivalent of 8 genius brains but it isn't anything exceptional. From how he acts, he feels like some guy who had a rather normal childhood (if not really lonely, which I talk about in my twitter thread here) and grew up to be exceptional except in all the ways he wanted/was taught to want/thought he might want.

So I operate on several headcanons about Ratio just genuinely being so smart in a planet that is presumably the remnants of the civilization in the Laurel Wreath Galaxy where a Philosopher King/Philosopher Union was mentioned. This headcanon is heavily colored by this excellent theory a fellow fan made and I have to admit I can scarcely distinguish between mine and theirs while I turn him around in my brain so do give them/their thread a read too when you can, but I do also subscribe to how Ratio must have been exceptional in a civilization that prizes scholarship and enlightenment.

Knowing this, I presume he grew up with a lot of expectations placed upon him, particularly that of gaining the gaze or glance of Nous and ascending as a genius society member or more! That is a lot to place on an individual, especially someone like Ratio who is very much hinted to have grown up very fast due to his vast knowledge and while it's a stretch to say he was forced into growing up fast, because he def wasn't, he was nevertheless seemingly not really given much opportunities to be a child, as the push for him to start university very early could suggest that his aptitude and potential were so valued that it overridden any other needs he may have. If we wanted to ask about his childhood, he would have very dull things to say too, so to speak. I imagine it wasn't eventful at all, but filled with just studies.

Where am I going with this about his statues? They are called Mold of Idolatry! Idolatry meaning the extreme adoration or love of someone. That Dr Ratio makes the statues of himself never seems like the narcissistic sort, that would imply he holds himself in an extremely high regard to the detriment of others, but Dr Ratio isn't narcissistic, he would be a vastly different character if he was. The key to narcissism is that there is a great need, to the point of detriment, for admiration.

Now, look over to how Dr Ratio presents himself to us in his 1.6 quests. He wears his plaster head as not to be recognized by others, to remain incognito if you will, and is content to sit at the sidelines nudging things along in the background rather than swoop in and take the credit as the hero when Duke Inferno was trying to wreak havoc on the Space Station. His heroic deeds are never realized by the people he saved from being spaced, that is not an action of a narcissistic man who would gloat about saving other people. No, he sees his job is done and he walks away without fanfare, without even so much as seeking a thank you from the people he saved. That's one of the clearest and most well-thought of character introductions/demonstrations in the game and a solid proof that he isn't a narcissist (again self-centeredness is different!)

With that in mind, what does the statue imply?

Dr Ratio operates by redirecting attention not to himself so he can freely move in the background. That it looks like him in funny poses speaks to a silliness I feel he never really gets a chance to let loose too often, so his "art" is his outlet. That it directs enemies to attack that instead of him, I can't help but feel like there's a sense of "look at this 'image of me' others have built up, pour your love/expectations/wants/aspirations (and the extreme opposite of that maybe?) to that likeness of me instead, and let me be free from that to be who I could be without all of that baggage"

tl;dr -- it's not that deep but it is?? I feel like Ratio just wants to be left alone to do his thing and that's what the Mold of Idolatry represents.

I hope that satisfies you, anon! Thank you for your question, since I do have more insights to Dr Ratio now. I think I'll also find a way to condense this into a Twitter thread sometime.

[dfortrafalgar]

I'm Losing You

Having a family isn't always as easy as fairy tales make it seem.

Warnings: Read chapter 1 for warnings. posting two chapters today just because chapter 11 was so short in comparison! Beware... chapter 13 is when things start to get heavy again </3

Taglist: @phsycochan | @mirillua | @augustanna | @chaixsherlock

Chapter 12

[Prev] [Next]

While Law was busy with work, Shachi and Penguin had become more akin to doting brothers than friends during your post-op care… but today your apartment was bustling.  Penguin had taken the liberty of using your phone to invite Ikkaku, who brought Nami and Usopp in tow.  As you laid in your bed fighting off a mild headache, the sounds of chattering and cleaning in your apartment filled your closed off bedroom.  At one point, something heavy had clattered against your kitchen floor, followed by harsh shushes warning the perpetrator of keeping silent so you could catch up on sleep.  Not like that made a difference.

You checked your phone that was set charging on your bedside table.  1:00PM.  You were thirsty.

Standing, you grabbed your empty glass and began to pace out of your room and toward the kitchen.  Your recovery had been incredibly swift, and you had achieved a total of five days off from work with the help of the weekend.  Your incision site healed quickly with a barely-visible scar, and while you still had a bit of recovery left, you had begun to feel much more like yourself.  Helped in part by your official diagnosis: endometriosis.  Not that you were surprised by that, but it definitely felt good to have an actual answer to your troubles.  The few cysts that were found on your ovary were also benign, and your call with Dr. Robin to discuss your results left you feeling surprisingly refreshed.  Things felt like they were finally starting to look up.

You rounded the corner of your apartment and entered your living area, the smell of pine and lemon-scented floor cleaner invading your nostrils and making you grimace.  Your gaggle of friends were seated around the kitchen table, digging into more left-over chocolate chip cookies that, at this point, had to be beyond stale.  

“Hey, there’s the woman of the hour!” called Usopp.  “Sorry if we woke you up.”  He flashed a toothy grin as he popped a cookie into his mouth.

You smiled, meandering to the sink to refill your glass with fresh water.  “Nah, it’s all good!  Thank you guys for cleaning up and spending time with Bepo, I really appreciate it, you know.”

Nami leaned back in her chair, tossing her arm over the back of it to twist her torso and gaze at you.  “It’s no problem at all, it’s the least we could do!  You deserve all the rest you can get after everything that’s happened.”  Her friendly grin quickly morphed into one of mischievous intent.  “Though, if you wanted to Venmo me, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Nami!  The poor woman is struggling!” Ikkaku placed a firm slap to Nami’s shoulder, making the red-head wince.

You were laughing as you approached the table to sit with your friends, politely denying the stale cookies that were offered to you.  “No no, she’s right.  I’ll think of something I can do to repay all of you for all the help you’ve been to Law and I.  I don’t feel right not treating you guys back in the same way.”

Shachi stretched his arms above his head and cracked his knuckles, uttering a deep groan at the feeling of his shoulders extending.  “Give your future kid my name, and we’ll call it even.”

“No fair, I wanted my name passed down!” shouted Penguin.

You sputtered a laugh against the lip of your glass.  It still filled you with a bit of discomfort to discuss the topic of pregnancy so soon, but your friends’ lighthearted attitudes made your feelings a bit easier to cope with.  “Not to disappoint, but Law and I already have names picked out.  None of you were on the list.”

Two disappointed sighs came from your husband’s best friends, but Ikkaku excitedly leaned forward against the table with her head in her hands.  “What are the options?”

You circled one of your fingers around the rim of your glass.  “Law really wanted his family to be honored in some way, so right now our favorite choices are Cora, Rose or Rosa, and Lami.  He said he felt a little strange having our kid’s first name be his sister’s, so if we have a daughter her middle name will probably be Lami.”

Usopp sighed dreamily.  “He’s so sentimental, isn’t he?”

Ikkaku giggled.  “Never say that to his face, though, or he’ll–”

The front door cracked open.  From the corner of the room, Bepo picked his head up.

“Say ‘what’ to my face?”  Law entered his apartment with a grouchy expression, closing and locking the door before shrugging off his light jacket and placing his hat on a hook behind the door.

“Hi, honey!” you called, your eyes immediately lighting up at the sight of your husband.  “You’re home early!”

Law stretched his back and wobbled toward the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing an energy drink from the door.  “Well, I had a surgery this evening, but the patient ended up coding.”

Nami cocked her head.  “What does that mean?”

“He croaked,” replied Law, taking a sip and assuming a protective stance behind your chair.  “Can’t perform surgery on a dead guy.”

“Aw, that’s too bad…” Ikkaku chimed in, her excited posture manifesting into a more forlorn slouch.  “You must see that a lot, huh?”

Law shrugged.  “Not really, most of the time it’s elderly people who die before they get treatment.  It’s hard when you’re old.”

You reached a hand up behind you, placing it on your husband’s shoulder.  He took his free hand and wrapped it around your own.  “Well, I’m glad you got to come home early.  Everyone spent the entire day cleaning the house while I was in bed.”

“Is that why it smells like pine cleaner in here?” he asked, somewhat confused.

“Usopp spilled the bottle on the floor,” Nami piped up.

“It was an accident,” the curly-haired man replied with a perturbed hiss.

—

The plate of cookies was discarded, the kitchen was finished being cleaned, and your friends had all departed for the night, leaving you and Law cuddling alone on your couch as a brain-dead comedy rerun played on the television.  Bepo remained on his plush bed in the corner, his entire body upside down and snoring away peacefully.  You laid against Law’s chest as his lean hands ran up and down your sides, ghosting the skin beneath your cotton shirt with pleasant electric tickles that made you stifle a giggle occasionally.

“Hey, can we talk?” Law asked, eyes still trained on the television, but clearly not absorbing any of the half-assed jokes and canned laugh track.

“Yeah, of course,” you replied, shifting a little against his body to face him.  You reached over his head for the remote that was sitting on the arm of your couch, pressing the power button to turn off the television and envelope you and your husband in a calm silence.

Law smiled weakly, his golden eyes now trained on your own.  “Did you get a call back from your doctor?”

You nodded.  “I do have endometriosis, and the cysts on my ovaries are benign.  She actually said they were quite small and said if they started causing me more trouble, then they could be dealt with.”

Your husband ran his hand over the back of your head.  “And how do you feel about that?”

You sighed, leaning your head against his chest, listening to the way his heart thrummed against his rib cage.  “I feel… strange.  It’s weird to know that this entire condition was under the radar for my entire life until we started wanting to have kids.  And everything’s been happening so quickly, sometimes I feel like the entire world is spinning around me.”

Law hummed.  “I bet… it’s been a hard few months.”

You closed your eyes, your own hand trailing fleeting touches up and down his shoulder.  “Thank you for sticking with me, Law.”

Your husband picked his head up to gaze down at the top of your head.  “Why would you have to thank me for that?”

“Well…” you began, struggling to form words.  You felt too ashamed to face him head-on, and chose instead to keep hiding your gaze in his chest.  “We’ve been married for over two years, and I still haven’t been able to give you a baby like we’ve wanted.  So the fact that you’ve stayed with me–”

“Let me interrupt you right there.”  Law’s tone was firm and authoritative as he interjected.  “Do you remember what I told you before I got my own test done?  That I’m your husband and that I refuse to leave you over an idle issue?”

You dug through your brain’s memory bank, finally settling on the vision of the two of you in much the same position as you were now.  You smiled faintly.  “Right, the issue that might be resolved.”

Law pinched your cheek in his fingers.  “Will be resolved.  And do you remember what we promised each other on our wedding day?”

“Law, why are you quizzing me?” you questioned, voice barely higher than a whisper, as you finally lifted your head and made eye contact with your husband.

He didn’t answer you, instead continuing his own train of thought.  “On our wedding day, one of the promises we made to each other was ‘in sickness and in health.’  I feel sick to my stomach when I imagine a world where I leave you over this.”  His hands continued rubbing your back as he spoke.  “No one could have predicted this outcome.  No one could have ever expected a reality like this, but it’s a reality that we’re sharing.  I’m happy without children just as I’d be happy with children.  What matters the most to me right now, at this moment, is that you’re still here with me.  Right now, your health and wellbeing is more important than any hypothetical child.”

Law’s words were rapidly provoking heavy, salty tears to well in your eyes, which quickly overflowed down your cheeks and into the fabric of his shirt.  One of his hands caressed your cheek, feeling as your jaw shifted and you sniffled away the snot that was also forming in your sinuses at his words.  You blubbered, a weak smile crawling onto your weary lips.  “How do you always know how to make me cry?”

Your husband’s chest bounced slightly with his own chuckle.  “You bring the sap out of me.”

You laughed into his neck.  “For someone who claims to be shit with emotions, you’re surprisingly eloquent.”

He responded to your words by placing a tender kiss on the crown of your head.  “Well of course.  I need to make sure I keep my wife smiling, after all.”

After a few brief moments of gentle caresses, your tears subsided enough for you to ask, “When we get the okay from my doctor… Do you still want to try again for another baby?”

Law smiled.  “For as long as you want to keep trying, so do I.”

[efingart]

Hey E! idkifishouldaskhereorinyourcodaccount BUT I’ll ask anyway. I’ve noticed you post a lot about Frank Woods, what made Woods be THE favorite character for you?

Hey no worries, I'm not exactly the most organized so it doesn't make a difference to me!

Oh my god where do I start? I'm going to try so hard to hold back because I will just tell you everything I like about him and this will take me even longer to write 😅

Frank falls into the unwanted child trope a bit. Not confirmed by Activision, but close enough and it is a trope that I find myself drawn to. The idea that he was a runaway, his home life must have been bad enough that the streets were better. Born right at the start of the Great Depression so his early life was never going to be easy. But he must have been resourceful and smart enough to survive. Another quality I like in my faves. It's interesting to think about that piece of his history that we will probably never get in any detail in canon. But that's ok, I'm happy to fill in the gaps with my own headcanons and fics.

Frank was then able to pick himself off the streets and enlist (his options were so limited, but he must have made the best choice for himself at the time.) Become such a standout that he was recruited into the CIA. And there, despite being a "self-reliant loner" he developed close friendships with Mason and Bowman. (as an aside, it is always funny when people hc he's an extrovert when he's very much not)

It's clear he cares for them deeply, even at the expense of his own well being as seen in 'Payback.' I do think he was still reeling from Bowman's death and that's why he acted with such reckless disregard for his own life. (But that's headcanon)

The way he reacts when anyone else is hurt or in danger, it's always them first him second, even in the middle of a firefight (redirecting Mason's attention to the pilot in 'Victor Charlie,' the kid on the PBR in 'Crash Site', the nurse during 'Suffer With Me' in BO2, multiple examples).

Then the way he treats Bell. I think he's the first person to deliver Bell a genuine compliment in the game (if you're a good shot). He knows his people and if I could ever get the damn sound bite again of him saying to Bell that he'd bet they'd like five minutes with the supercomputer to work again I'd link it here. How does he know Bell is such a nerd if he doesn't give a damn about his team?

He and Mason are the only ones who actually treat Bell as a member of the team. And that endeared me to him before I even knew about the plot twist.

And of course, the pain of Black Ops 2. He's just fucking dragged through the ringer isn't he? Everything, the shipping container, watching his entire team die, his tragic mistakes and how he reflects them as an old man. I really love that we get to see him as an old man. See him removed from his experiences in the 80s section of BO2. It's so interesting.

I mean even while he's still managing fresh life-changing injuries he still rallies for a kid who needs him. And he must have done a good job raising David because the kid turned out just fine in the end.

I probably could think of a half dozen more specific examples, his outrage at Project Greenlight for one: "Thousands dying in a flash and you're talking about fucking infrastructure."

Or how he has David's childhood drawings hung up in his room at the Vault.

I'm sure I'll have a dozen more after Black Ops 6 comes out if they deliver on the promised emotional journey storyline for Frank. (God, I'm so unbelievably happy he's in BO6.)

TL;DR

Frank is a complicated person. He has had it rough but doesn't wallow in self-pity. He's a smart and capable leader. He's imperfect. He knows how and when to keep things light. He takes care of his people. He rallies when he's most needed even if it's at his own expense. On the shallow end of things? He's hot, he's got great fashion sense.

Sorry, it took me a bit to get this all out. I think again I was trying to balance the urge to just dump every thought and feeling I have vs trying to be a bit more thoughtful about it. Also just cross-referencing things from the games to make sure I remembered them correctly. I'm sure there's a lot I left out. I'm planning on playing through 1, CW, & 2 again before BO6 comes out so I'm sure I'll have more thoughts to share. 😅

I genuinely appreciate you asking me about this, I love talking about Frank. Thank you so so much.

[cios-correct-opinions]

@evilkaeya @aaabatteryy @starrynightarchive

see my other post about this here

to tl;dr this: when it comes to fandom and content creators, ppl tend to make content of the characters they already love and thus think about most often, which leads to, at times, male characters getting genderbent into women either thru cis or trans hcs, bc they are both genderbending, thats the definition of the term bc youre changing their gender, and getting mad at people for not, in your opinion, "appreciating" the female characters enough, is not doing anything except making people feel bad for not having the "correct" feelings about a character at best, or making them actively angry and thus fueling them to create more of that thing you hate out of spite at worst (for you anyway, not for the people who like it).

this doesnt mean they dont give a shit abt the other characters who arent their faves, but to create a work of art, you need to be able to like. care enough to do it. and that requires more care than just a general enjoyment or appreciation of a character, especially if the work in question is time intensive/would be time intensive, like writing a chapter fic/thousands of words long oneshot, or making a fully rendered piece of art, etc. obvi this will depend on the skill and energy levels of the artist we're talking about but yknow, on a general scale

op of this post blocked me so i cant respond directly on it but, for context

first of all: i'm not illiterate but i'm beginning to think some people on this post might be, given this response, because it is so clearly Not what i was talking about it's a little wild, actually!

also i hate to tell yall this, but the reason you don't often see people genderbending female characters to male anymore is bc of the spread of radfem ideology thru fandom spaces like wildfire. ppl genuinely lose their shit when ppl even have transmasc or trans man headcanons for characters assumedly cis female in the source material (which is genderbending btw. them being trans doesnt mean it isnt genderbending anymore you are still changing their gender thus it is genderbending thats the definition fellas) bc they fucking hate men and the idea of men existing

sorry not sorry but if you get mad at ppl who genderbend female characters into transmascs/trans men (transmascs aren't always genderbends, bc you can be transmasc and also a woman, but i digress/for the sake of brevity...) and go "you're TAKING AWAY a GOOD FEMALE CHARACTER!" i need you to stop for a second and consider why these people - most of whom are trans men/transmascs themselves - might be doing that to a character they like.

9/10 times when i see a cis genderbend of a male character to be female, the person doing it is a cis woman. when i see genderbends, of any kind, of a female character to be male or masc? it's almost always done by a trans man and/or a transmasc. and inevitably, they are almost always dogpiled for it with disgusting levels of hate. i've seen it happen so many times i stopped attempting to count a long time ago

don't come up here saying "you NEVER see-" because actually i see all of those things happen all the time. ppl love genderbending men characters into women, or emasculating/demasculinizing/feminizing them in order to make them personally more appealing, or saying "[mlm ship] would be better if it was two girls/wlw/two fem-aligned/etc" all the fucking time. and while i realize this is often a way for the people who say this to like, try to lash out at common misogynistic/lesbiphobic/transmisogynistic/etc sentiment irl, in doing so, they are not doing it in a way that allows for a nuanced understanding of their fellow fandom-goers. they make blanket sweeping statements and then dogpile people who disagree

the moment you start treating entire demographics of people as if they are a hivemind or a single identity, the moment you decide that something "never" happens bc you personally have not seen it? youve already lost any possible chance you mightve had at making a good point

[aetherdoesthings]

Hi OP! Could we get a Xiao x GN Reader where reader is really panicking because of a bad decision that will come back to haunt them? Something fluffy maybe? :3 auhdjsjssj

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Hi! this is my first time writing for genshin lol

forethoughts: no, i'm not dead. i'm very much alive, just enjoying my time off the screen. like i said, first time writing genshin, so don't be too mean 🙏🏻🙏🏻. remember folks, hydrate or die-drate.

notes: gn!reader, fluff, xiao being a therapist

“So… what’s wrong?” 

You were pacing back and forth, your shoes crunching the same patch of grass over and over. Your heart felt like jumping off a cliff, your breathing erratic, head above the clouds. All the while, your partner was leaning against an oak tree that shielded the two of you from the sun, and from other people. Xiao remained silent, unsure how to approach you. It wasn’t your first time approaching Xiao with a war in your head; he was already accustomed to seeing you like this, but regardless he was still cautious of how to approach you.

“I did something bad. Really really really bad.” You managed to regurgitate out those words after a while.

“Okay. And?”

“I… I…” You made a frustrated sound, throwing your hands up in the air, staring at Xiao, who still remained still and silent. 

“Is it something that requires my help?” Xiao asked, his voice quiet but firm.

“Maybe, no, yes? I don’t know!” You exasperated.

“What happened, Y/N?”

You let out a sigh, falling backwards, letting the grass envelope your body whole, hopefully consuming you before your problem would. “I… I think Dr. Baizhu’s mad at me.”

“Why would Baizhu be mad at you?” Xiao tilted his head.

“Okay, okay. It was a normal day. I was doing my stuff, but then Director Hu suddenly appear and asked for my help for something. She said there was this spirit that should be laid to rest in order to restore the natural cycle of life and death or whatnot, I dunno, I wasn’t paying attention. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to help, since Director Hu was asking me to help her. S-So I did. I went to Bubu Pharmacy, found the spirit, who’s apparently called Qiqi, and then gave her to Director Hu. But then Dr. Baizhu showed up out of nowhere, and told me that Director Hu was trying to kidnap Qiqi and said I was an accomplice and was doing something extremely bad. So I ran, and went here, and called on your name.”

Xiao’s deafening silence was making your heart race and breath quicken. Xiao always remained silent, only speaking when necessary and if you asked him to. His state of tranquility and peace was something that you loved and hated equally.

“I’m aware of Director Hu’s intention to give Qiqi a proper burial in order to restore the natural order of life and death. I was not aware Director Hu was familiar with you or knew you, but I digress.” Xiao walked towards you, kneeling down in front of your face. “Why are you so concerned with Baizhu being mad at you?”

“I don’t know! M-Maybe I can’t get anymore of my medicine from Bubu Pharmacy because he refuses to serve me, and then I’ll get sick and die-”

“That is not a possibility. I won’t let it be one.” Xiao said sternly.

Your heart skipped a beat at his tone. “I just don’t want to have people mad at me for something I didn’t know I was doing. Director Hu was very vague when she approached me, and maybe I should’ve asked more questions. I don’t know, okay?! I feel bad! I shouldn’t have listened to Director Hu, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

“Y/N, relax.” Xiao cupped your cheek with one hand, making you look at him. “It’s not your fault Qiqi almost got taken by Director Hu again. Even if you weren’t a factor, Director Hu will still try and take Qiqi away. It’s not your fault. You did nothing wrong. You were misinformed and misled by Director Hu into doing something you had no idea what the repercussions would be. Stop beating yourself up, alright? Baizhu will always find a reason to be mad at everyone, in his pursuit for immortality. You do not need someone like him in your life taking up your energy and space. You’re going to be fine. Nothing’s going to come back and haunt you.”

You looked at your partner in the eyes, the corners of your mouth shooting up to your eyes. Xiao, the ever quiet adeptus who spent his time alone, never striked you as a man that was good with words. How he proved you wrong so many times in the course of your relationship. You leaned into Xiao’s touch, finding the energy to sit up, leaning your body against your boyfriend. Your fingers intertwined with each other, back leaning against the tree.

“Besides, I won’t let Baizhu lay a single finger on you. Ever. You’re safe, my love. So stop worrying and fussing about trivial matters. Let’s enjoy the sun while it’s still out, hm?”

[lycandrophile]

Hi, I was just curious how you chose the type of top surgery you got, like your scar shape and such, and if you still remember the pros and cons of each

in terms of the general type of surgery, getting double incision wasn't really a choice – the size of my chest would've disqualified me from most of the other options even if i'd wanted them. as far as i'm aware, the only other techniques that i would've been able to get at my size (t-anchor and fishmouth are the two my surgeon does that come to mind) wouldn't make sense because the main reason someone would pick them over double incision is just to keep nipple sensation, which didn't matter for me. that being said, i think i still might've gone with double incision even if i did qualify for something like peri or keyhole; i don't mind visible scarring and, from what i've seen of other people's results, i like the control that double incision gives the surgeon over the look of the chest overall.

as far as why i decided not to keep my nipples, i laid out my whole thought process in this ask a while back. the tl;dr is this: sensation in my nipples has always been a bad sensory thing for me, i didn't want to deal with the extra healing process of nipple grafts, i can be very picky about things on my body being asymmetrical and knew that nipple grafts aren't guaranteed to heal perfectly symmetrically, going without grafts was cheaper, i liked the idea of having a chest that's visibly different from a cis man's chest, and when i imagined my post-op body i naturally imagined it without nipples. so as you can probably tell, it was a pretty cut-and-dry decision for me, given how many reasons i had to go nipless.

and a few things went into the shape of my scars. the fact that they meet in the middle and go so far into my armpits was just necessary – i had a big chest before, and i specifically had a wide chest that met in the middle and had a lot of tissue in the sides, so my surgeon had to make my incisions wider in order to get all of the tissue out and avoid leaving any extra skin on the ends of the incisions. other than that, i told her during my pre-op that my ideal scars would be mostly straight and not too low on my chest. those preferences are purely aesthetic; i wanted straighter scars because i felt like scars that were too curved would read as boob-shaped in my dysphoria brain, which i didn't want to deal with, and i wanted to keep the scars on the higher side because without the nipples there, i felt like the scars sitting too low would make my chest look weirdly blank.

so those were my reasons – double incision with long connected scars out of necessity, higher and straighter scars because i liked how they looked the best, and no nipples because that just made sense for me on every level. i can't really make a pros and cons list for you because things that were pros for me might be cons for you and vice versa; it's all super personal. but hopefully, hearing about how i thought it through still helps you!

[panchulien]

IT'S ME AGAIN HI

Just because I'm curious: how did you end up obsessed with CoD and Nik in general? I'm always curious to hear !!

I don't know why this got so long omg I'm so so sorry. Thanks for the ask though! <3

tl;dr: observe from afar - read fic - fall in love w nik

I was an observer most of the time, just watching from afar especially when MW3 came out and Ghost and Soap were everywhere. Occasionally checked out Umikochans comics because their relationship was so interesting. Saw the NikPrice bits too, liked and scrolled.

Then came across a thread-fic about NikPrice, mind you I don't even know who Nikolai is at the time, but it broke me. One sided NikPrice always hits the spot doesn't it? Haha. I gotta thank the OP some time for introducing me to him. Then went back to Umiko's NikPrice again because it's been bugging me. I had to know who this man was and why he was yearning over the Captain. The rest is history. Everything about this man was so interesting and it gripped me by the throat and now I'm here

video games like Assassins Creed and Call of Duty have been far interests to me since I didn't have the platforms to play them on (nobody in their right mind should buy a MacBook. I may be typing this answer on one, but it's still the biggest mistake of my life) so id just listen to their stories. Watched playthroughs but not all of them since I wanted to see it for myself one day. Embarrassing to admit but no, I haven't played COD yet. Got a new pc + MW (2019) tho so it's soon. I'm very excited! Checked out everything there is about Nikolai but there are still huge chunks of lore I don't know. I was afraid to talk about nik for a long while bc ''what if I missed an important detail'' LOOL all good now though. I love him so much he makes me so so happy 🙁

[genderqueerdykes]

do you/your followers have any experience with radical breast reduction?? i think it'd be a better option for me than a standard breast reduction or standard top surgery in both my health and transition journeys, but i can't find any statements from actual post-op patients, just the surgeons. and i don't trust drs like that lol. so idk i was wondering if you know where i can find before and afters, or if anyone wants to comment on this after publishing to share their experiences, that would be super awesome. thanks for all you do with this blog, i feel like i'm always learning something new from you!

hey that's a great question! i asked around and wasn't able to find many firsthand accounts, so if folks who have gotten this done or know anything about this could chip in it would help both of us out! many people benefit from breast surgeries that aren't a full double mastectomy, so it's good to let people know that there are other options out there and how to pursue them.

anyone who has experience please feel free to pitch in, even if you don't identify as trans!

[o-hora-o]

Since co-op is long gone, might as well preserve it here

E: Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Eins, the AI who runs this place. Dr Einstein is my master. You may have heard of her. Yes. She came up with the theory of relativity.

E: You Valkyries are no geniuses, of course, but if you work hard enough, you'll succeed...the emotion of "anger" detected...I see. I shouldn't have said the hard truth. I apologize for my bluntness.

E: I dislike winter. It makes me think of sad things. "But come ye back...when summer's in the meadow...or when the valley's hushed...and white with snow"... Annoyance detected. Understood. I'll stop singing during combat.

E: Non-native data detected. Is this data from your stigmata? Interesting. Allow me to inspect your bodies later on... Shyness detected... Understood. Young girls require privacy. I shall apologize for my lack of considerations.

E: Dr. Einstein is a girl of pure heart. She may be rather eccentric at times...but your Overseer...Oh? You thought she died? Nein. I'm fine, I'm fine. Schicksal lied. Schicksal Overseer is an evil man. Stop working for that pretentious and avaricious hypocrite...Anti-Entropy is always hiring.

E: This is my younger sister Zwei. Say hello, Zwei!

Z: ...greetings... I'm Zwei. Eins may say I'm her younger sister...but that's Dr. Einstein's joke. She read too many weird books.

E: Correction. Lolita is a literary masterpiece. Zwei, you're a derived personality. Calling you my younger sister is logical AND accurate. Perhaps I should call you a younger brother?

Z: A derived personality is not a younger sibling. If you were to apply this anthropomorphic analogy...then address me as Missus Hyde, yes, the Hyde as in n Dr. Jekyll and Missus Hyde. Hahahaha!

E: Zwei calls herself a Missus. Data validated. Zwei has confirmed her status as a female sibling.

Z: ... I'll forgive you, Eins. You are a prototype personality. I will not judge.

E: RPC-6626, initiate shutdown.

RPC-6626: KJDLF!*@&(KYFONQE*$@*

Z: Hey! You rampaging idiot! Stop!

E: Scanning...database security system has been corrupted. Valkyries, we will help you neutralize this. Controller interface has been recalled. Interrupt this protocol sequence.

RPC-6626: Formatting function unlocked. Charging...20...19...

Z: Nein! RPC-6626! Initiate emergency shutdown!

RPC-6626: 18...17...

E: Warning. Formatting will erase all data!

RPC-6626: 15...14...

Z: if this continues...Eins!

E: ... RPC-6626: 10...9...

E: I don't care what happens. I must save these Valkyries! Zwei, initiate Emergency Protocol Ω.

RPC-6626: 5...4..

E: Reminder. Emergency Protocol Ω will destroy us as well.

Z: ...no matter. Let's do it! I know how you feel.

RPC-6626: 2...1...

E: Vergiss mich nicht...

Bonus:

"Tesla became upset with the Ein's growing popularity among Valkyries, so she developed 3 of her own robots, painting one of them red for herself, green for Schrödinger and blue for Einstein. Although robots don't have any particular use, Tesla is very satisfied wth her inventions".

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Saturday linkdump, part the sixth

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

On September 14, I'm hosting the EFF Awards in San Francisco.

I usually write this blog 5-6 days/week, but every now and again, I take a break, and when I do, I get massive link backlogs of stuff I want to write about, but lack the time to address in depth. When that happens, I turn my Saturday edition into a linkdump. Today, I present the sixth in the series – here's the other five:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Why was I offline and away from my blog? I went to the dirt rave. Yes, I was one of the 70,000+ people stuck in the mud at this year's Burning Man, and when I emailed my editor at the New York Times to say I might be late on the op-ed I was working on, she asked me to write about what this year's mud crisis meant:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/burning-man-flood-playa-climate-change.html

tl;dr:

Bad weather is normal at Burning Man (it's a feature, not a bug);

Mostly burners leapt to the occasion, which is what people almost always do in disaster situations;

This is the second Burning Man heavy weather year in a row;

The climate emergency is tipping the Black Rock Desert from "extremely challenging" to "impossible";

This isn't the last event, place and tradition that will have to be radically reconsidered in light of the climate emergency;

But now I'm home, in my hammock, with all the laundry done – just in time to leave again. I'm about to head back to my hometown of Toronto for a book launch. The Internet Con, my latest nonfiction (from Verso Books) came out last week, and I'll be appearing at Another Story Bookshop on Tuesday:

https://anotherstory.ca/events/29283

Internet Con is a "Big Tech disassembly manual." It explains how Big Tech got so big (lax anti-monopoly enforcement, which led to regulatory capture, which let Big Tech abuse our privacy, labor rights, and consumer rights), and how we can use interoperability so it's no longer Too Big to Fail, nor Too Big to Jail:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

You can read a long excerpt from the book in Wired, which lays out some of the shovel-ready legislative, regulatory and technical proposals that are the book's main purpose:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/

You can also hear me read the whole introduction and first chapter of the audiobook on my podcast:

https://craphound.com/internetcon/2023/08/01/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-audiobook-outtake/

That comes from the audiobook, a DRM-free, independent edition that I financed, produced and narrated myself. You can get the audiobook everywhere except Audible, Apple Books, and Audiobooks.com, all of which have mandatory DRM policies. You can also get it direct from me:

https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992826/DEA0CE12/purchase

The DRM-free ebook is available everywhere ebooks are sold (Kobo, Kindle, Nook, etc), as well as in my own DRM-free ebook store:

https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992801/9C4FC2B8/purchase

Verso's books are sold in bookstores around the world; you can support your local bookseller by buying it through Bookshop:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-cory-doctorow/18771891?ean=9781804291245

If you'd like a signed copy, there's stock at Book Soup:

https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245

Now, it was inevitable that I would do a book event for Internet Con in Toronto – I've never had a bad event there, and I love my hometown – but the timing of this event was driven by a non-book-related factor. Talking Heads is appearing together at TIFF, to support the re-release of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert film in human history:

https://pluralistic.net/StopMakingSense

People often ask me what my favorite book is, and I always tell them that you should never trust people who have one favorite book, as it inevitably turns out to be The Bible, The Fountainhead, or Mein Kampf. But while I don't have a favorite book, I have a clear and unambiguous favorite band.

If I was forced to listen to no music other than Talking Heads for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly happy. Ecstatic, even. Throw in David Byrne, Tom Tom Club and Casual Gods and I probably wouldn't even notice anything missing.

There's a running joke among my Burning Man campmates that whenever I'm in charge of the music, I'm just shuffling Talking Heads rarities, and whenever someone puts on anything else, I demand to know which Talking Heads album it came from. Which is all to say: I have tickets for the Talking Heads event at TIFF and I could *not be more excited.*

Continuing on the Canadian theme, one of the annual highlights of Canadian media is the Massey Lectures, a series of public lectures given around the country and rebroadcast on CBC. These are always great, but recent years have been superb – Ron Deibert's 2020 series was unmissable:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/10/dark-matter/#citizenlab

This year's Masseys are shaping up to be the GOAT. They're presented by Astra Taylor, an activist rock-and-roller turned documentary filmmaker who is one of the founders of the Debt Collective, fighting for student debt cancellation. Everything Astra does is amazing and her profile on CBC Ideas gives some background on the role that unschooling played in making her the powerful activist she is today:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/astra-taylor-interview-2023-massey-lecturer-1.6959320

There's no question that things are messed up right now, but Astra and people like her shine out like beacons of hope. 17 years ago, self-described "democracy nut" Tom Stites gave one of the seminal lectures on the role news media play in democracy:

http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-democracys-critical-issue/

17 years later – and from his perch as editor at the essential International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – Stites presents us a long-overdue, extremely pertinent followup: "Building Civic Energy is the Goal, Not Saving Old News Business Models":

https://banyanproject.coop/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Hope-College-speech-for-Banyan-website-1.pdf

Stites's intervention is extremely timely, because policymakers all over the world have made the mistake of thinking that Big Tech is stealing the news media's content, which is absolutely untrue. It is good, actually, to index news stories and let people discuss, quote from and link to news stories. News you're not allowed to talk about isn't news, it's a secret.

But Big Tech is stealing from news. They're not stealing content – they're stealing money. The Google/Apple duopoly rakes 30% off every subscription payment collected in an app. The Google/Meta duopoly rakes 51% out of every ad-dollar (and maintain that death-grip through creepy, privacy-invading surveillance ads). Meta and Twitter hold social media subscribers hostage, forcing publishers to pay to reach their own subscribers.

We don't want the news to be Big Tech's partners – we need them to be Big Tech's watchdogs. "Link taxes" and other profit-sharing arrangements between the media and tech cut against the civic energy Stites wants to build.

(You can read more about this – along with policy prescriptions for halting Big Tech's rent-extraction from the news – in "Saving the News From Big Tech," my EFF white-paper:)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

If your spirits are lifted by stories of principled activists achieving important – and improbable – victories, you could do worse than to attend the EFF Awards on in San Francisco Sept 14 (I'm the emcee). This year, we're honoring Alexandra Elbakyan for her founding of Sci-Hub, the Library Freedom Project and the Signal Foundation:

https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023

In more activist news: Mozilla produced a startling and astoundingly good – if demoralizing – report on the state of digital privacy and security in the automotive sector:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

Entitled, "It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy," the report reveals just how absolutely terrible the automotive sector is when it comes to privacy practices, collecting (and selling) (and giving away) information about your sex life, your geneology, your genetic characteristics, and your smell (no, seriously).

Their recommendations for which new car you should buy boil down to "don't buy a new car." I have been urging consumer research groups to release a report like this for a decade. There are whole categories of gadgets – like, say, "smart speakers" – that are unsafe at any speed. At a certain point, reviewers need to have the guts to say that every manufacturer in an entire sector is a dumpster fire and they should all be dragged in front of a firing squad – or at least a Congressional committee.

Cars, after all, are nightmares of privacy invasion and rent-extraction, the source of autoenshittification on a massive scale, a mobile form of technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that cars score so badly on privacy is especially ironic given the campaign Big Car waged against the 2020 Massachusetts Right to Repair ballot initiative, in which car manufacturers held themselves out as the defenders of driver privacy from unscrupulous third parties who couldn't be trusted to handle the vast troves of data your car collects with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

This is a familiar refrain: monopolists often claim that any check on their absolute authority over their users will expose those users to privacy risks. Apple has run a global ad-campaign claiming this, and while Apple does prevent Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, they also secretly spy on those customers in exactly the same way that Facebook used to, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

It turns out that giant companies just aren't good proxies for their customers' interests, and that the power they amass through monopolization shouldn't be counted on as a source of user safety. Monopolists won't reliably defend user privacy – that job belongs to democratically accountable regulators. That's an argument I developed in detail with Bennett Cyphers in our EFF white-paper "Privacy Without Monopoly":

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

That is, rather than getting privacy by "voting with your wallet," you need to get it by voting with your ballot. "The market" is an election that you vote in with dollars, which means that the people with the most dollars always win. When there are zero cars on the market that are safe to drive, you can't vote with your wallet by buying a good one.

On a related subject, the DOJ Antitrust Division has brought the most important tech anti-monopoly case of the century, charging Google with monopolizing search:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/technology/modern-internet-first-monopoly-trial-us-google-dominance.html

Part of the DOJ case turns on the fact that Google goes to extraordinary lengths to keep you from every trying another search engine, paying out more than $45 billion every year to be the default search on every device, program and service you might use. In other words, Google spends entire Twitter's worth of dollars every year, lighting it on fire to keep you from finding out about rivals.

Google argues that this is fine, actually, because these are only defaults, and users can dig through their settings to change their search engine. Sure, Google – and the first 20 search results you serve are only defaults, and it wouldn't matter if you were ordered to put them ten screens down, because users could always scroll to see them.

But search defaults aren't the only way that Google locks in searchers – and then harms us by invading our privacy. Google's ubiquitous Chrome browser ties Google's search to Google's invasive, nonconsensual, total surveillance. Chrome turned 15 this year and Google made a huge PR splash out of the anniversary:

https://blog.google/products/chrome/google-chrome-new-features-redesign-2023/

But all that puffery conspicuously failed to mention that Google had quietly rolled out its long-discredited, new surveillance technology, FLOC, which it pretended to kill in 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#not-that-competition

FLOC is back, rebranded as the Topics API: this is a system for spying on you so advertisers can target you. Google is spinning this as a privacy improvement because it might someday replace "third party cookies," one of the creepiest web surveillance systems.

But as Ron Amadeo writes for Ars Technica, Chrome is the last major browser to support third party cookies – both Safari and Firefox block them by default. So Google is basically saying, "We are going to improve your privacy by changing how we spy on you, even though all our competitors don't do this kind of spying at all":

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-opposed-ad-platform-the-privacy-sandbox-launches-in-chrome/

This kind of gaslighting, where Google pisses in all our mouths and tells us it's raining, is the hallmark of a decrepit, arrogant, crapulent monopolist that needs to be shattered in the courts. Kudos to the DoJ for doing the people's business here – and kudos to DoJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter for promising that he will not go into corporate law when he finishes his stint in government.

The DoJ isn't the only public agency that's serving the American people. The FCC just announced proceedings to force cybersecurity labels for "smart" devices:

https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-governmental-affairs/fcc-proposes-cybersecurity-labeling-program-smart-devices

This is long overdue, and it's a welcome action from the FCC, which was hamstrung for years because cowardly Democratic senators joined with homophobic, libelous Republicans in blocking confirmation hearings for the amazing Gigi Sohn:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

After years of abuse, Sohn bowed out. Now, Anna Gomez has been confirmed to fill that fifth FCC chair, turning the FCC into a fully operational battle station:

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/senate-votes-approve-anna-gomez-5th-fcc-commissioner

The fact that there's all this great stuff going on in the administrative branch is easy to lose sight of amidst the circus of federal electoral politics, in which Donald Trump has retained his role as ringmaster and chief distractor.

Thankfully, we have expert Pantsless Emperor skewerers like Ruben Bolling around – his latest Tom the Dancing Bug revives his brilliant Calvin and Hobbes-inspired Trump gag:

https://boingboing.net/2023/09/06/tom-the-dancing-bug-a-calvinesque-and-hobbesian-look-at-taking-a-mug-shot.html

Well, that's me signing off for the weekend – I've got to pack for my flight to Toronto. If you're looking for more weekend fun, check out the trailer for Fractured Veil, the video game my old pal Chris DiBona has been working on for seven years and which is heading for Steam early access next month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjNd3QQnENU

Just watch it. I mean. Wow.

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/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous

Image: Roel Schroeven (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelschroeven/45413895

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

[jortschronicles]

Received one of my hats? Here's some info!

Did you receive a funny little medieval beanie with a tag reading something along the lines of

Monmouth Cap #99 by Doña Áshildr Inn Hárfagri Based on research by Jennifer L Carlson Made in the Barony of Namron

These caps, easiest to spot by the little hanging loop (which i stick my tags on!) have their roots at least as far back as the 15th century with the Capper's Act of 1488, which was instituted to protect English wool markets.

TL;DR: please enjoy your fun historical beanie in silly colors, I had a fun time making it and I'd love to see how far they make it around the Knowne World! If you can, post a picture of your hat to Facebook or Instagram tagging me or using the hashtag #ashildrhat so we can see how far it traveled!

If you'd like to read more about the history behind these hats, I've included some below the cut!

The Peasant Wedding, by Pieter Bruegel ca 1568, emphasis by Matthew Gnagy in Knitting With the Modern Maker Vol 1

As seen in these in these detail shots, these hats seem similar to the popular "tudor flat cap" in construction, with a distinct crown and brim, but have a more beanie-type structure with the brim occasionally turned up partially or all the way. I have often seen reenactors partially turn the brim up to create a bycocket-type shape.

As far back as 1415, the occupational surname Capper begins to grow within Monmouth. In 1465 we see the occupation "cappeknytter." The Capper's Act of 1488 fixes the prices of knitted caps and hats, delcares fines for foreign-made hats, and court records show that these rules were enforced frequently and to full extent. The 1571 An Act for the Continuance of the Making of Caps further protects the English wool, knitting, and capping industry by insisting everybody over the age of 6 will wear a woollen knit cap made in England on Sabbath and holidays, and women were required to wear white caps of the same restrictions unless their husbands were hereditary nobility or particularly important (Buckland 1979).

While these laws were each enforced for a time before being repealed, they give a glimpse into the storied history of this silly little medieval beanie we so dearly love.

The extant monmouth cap, pictured at the top of this post, dates to the 16th century and has been extensively analyzed by modern day knitters. The hat is 59 stitches in circumference with an inch double knit edge, knit 5-6 inches before crown decreases, and closed to 6 stitches before bindoff. Similar finds of knitted and fulled wool caps from the Mary Rose lead me to believe this very practical hat was fulled or felted but the nap has been lost over time.

For further reading, I recommend The Monmouth Cap by Kirstie Buckland and Making a Monmouth Cap by Jennifer L. Carlson.

My Spin On Things

When people ask why I bring so many hats to certain winter events, my reply is usually "I knit when I'm anxious, and boy am I poorly medicated!" I produce them for gift baskets, largesse derbies, coronations, trade days, and "taxes" for my landeds. I make them for commissions, for auctions, but almost always I make them to be freely given away.

I was introduced to these hats by Mistress Elsa von Snackenburg, OP, who is well known in my kingdom for these hats so much so that the kingdom knows this style of hat best as the Elsa Hat. She produces the hats from Lion Brand Thick and Quick, achieving a much more period gauge, and usually with just 1 or 2 colors per hat. However, thick yarn makes my hands cramp, so I chose to experiment with gauge and make a lighter weight hat to fill the spring and fall niches. My math has worked out to a happy 88 stitches cast on 4.0mm needles, giving an even 8-section crown decrease that lends itself well to distribution across 4 dpns, with occasional variations in cast on # to allow different crown patterns such as the stars or to create smaller or larger sizes.

As seen above, I tend to do multicolored hats, incorporating pride flags or heraldic colors, and occasionally with an Ansteorran or Vindheim star at the crown. At the time of posting, I've made 210 of these hats. Producing this many hats, especially free of charge, would not be possible without the generous yarn donations of those like Lessandra della Torre, Katerine la Roux d'Anjou, Elionora inghen Ui Ceallaigh, and many others who have graciously donated yarn to the cause of warming noggins across the Knowne World.