#janet needs to change her publisher

[romanticatheartt]

I was thinking thoughts, and realised the way sjm said it's too soon to say who's the next book (it's been almost 4 years lol) we ain't getting that announcement in the next 2 months lmao

[tyetknot]

I thought you were joking when you said that the Farrar's books were outdated but holy shittt, even for 1970s wicca/witchcraft those guys were like full gender heterosexual white magic ye harm none thing, I was also seeing their interview were christian kids interview them, and boy it is hard to watch, but on to my question kskk, do you know if they changed later down?,like Janet seems to be okay sometimes,I can't find anything of them on their "controversial views" except their later polyamorous relationship (wich come to think of it I would love to hear their gender rationale on that), and also, how do you personally (if you do so) reconcile this type of author?, like there is no doubt that they are important in craft history, but now they kinda do more harm than good.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry if you've been waiting for a bit, you know how Tumblr is.

So one thing it's important to remember is: back in the 1970s and 80s a religion where women run the show was very progressive. Feminism got bolted onto Wicca pretty quickly once it hit the American West Coast and Starhawk wrote The Spiral Dance. Things like worshipping a goddess who didn't need a man around to tell her what to do were really unusual for the time. All this hippie-dippy shit like being naked in your rituals and such was far out, man, not like those totally square and boring Christians.

The problem is that, like many older people who were once cool and progressive, they just kind of stopped where they were in the 70s and 80s and didn't really......well, progress past that point. This leads to things like statements like that one in A Witches' Bible where they think that actually gay people are perfectly OK in ritual (this was a bit of a controversial point at the time) as long as they act like their biological gender, which is hilarious to us in 2024 because they obviously conflate being gay with being trans in some bizarre fashion. This was progressive for the time. It comes across as incredibly ignorant today. And of course, if their ideas did change, well, the book is already out there, people are reading it, and you can't go back in time and change something that's already been published. You can add notes or amendments to further editions, but I don't believe they ever did that, and Stewart Farrar died in the early aughts.

I find the polyamory thing to be pretty cringe, NGL, because I am a judgmental and suspicious piece of shit and think that an awful lot of the time polyamory is a tool used to make younger women sexually available to older men - good Lord, the age difference between Stewart and Janet - and that's very distasteful.

In my opinion the Farrars are probably the stodgiest and most conservatively-written books you'll find from that time period, and they're a good example of what coven-based Alexandrian Wicca looked like at that time, but there were a lot of more relaxed writers out there at the time and LOTS more a few years later. My primary complaint with A Witches' Bible is rather specifically that asinine Oak King / Holly King thing which they made up entirely and then ineptly shoehorned into the Wheel of the Year, where it just doesn't fucking work, and then everyone else just kind of went with it. No! It sucks and is bad, don't do it!

Do I think they do more harm than good? No, I don't. I think that anyone fairly new to Wicca shouldn't read this book first thing out the gate because it sets a lot of very unrealistic expectations, and because it's pretty old - Eight Sabbats for Witches was published in 1981, which makes it a few years older than me, and The Witches' Way in 1984, which makes it a year younger than me, and TBH there's much newer and fresher material being published every year. I would much sooner recommend someone like Thorn Mooney to new person interested in traditional Wicca.

[untitled5071]

Could you possibly do a piece where Creature refuses to burn her and they find an alternate way to escape?

So I don't have a forensics degree or any real knowledge about this kind of stuff, but I hope this is serviceable (and thanks to @ceasarslegion for the extensive knowledge). Enjoy!

(EDIT: My stupid ass forgot that wisdom teeth removal was a thing and Lisa would definitely be the kind to keep hers so I hope you don't mind a little post-publishing edit, but I've decided to change the method of DNA she left behind, otherwise I would be really mad at myself. I hope that's okay with you guys, enjoy the new version!)

🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦

“I told you, I don't think there's any other way. They're going to find us soon, we don't have much time.”

Lisa wasn't even sure her new husband could hear her with how vehemently he was shaking his head, his still sweat-damp locks flapping around his face as he refused as passionately as he could. They were standing in her bedroom, where she had just finished telling him her plan of going out with a bang–or rather, a spark–by killing herself via the faulty tanning bed in the shed so she could escape the consequences of the three murders her and her creature had committed over the past few days.

Though she was mostly content in the plan, he was very much against it, as evidenced by the continued nonverbal refusal. She reached out to stop him by cupping his cheek in her hand, and he immediately softened with a quiet whimper, obviously still reeling over the fact that she was willing to touch him so freely and tenderly now.

She gazed into his eyes, and she had to fight the urge to cry when she once again realized just how deeply this strange corpse man cared about her.

“You don't want me to do it, do you?”

Her voice cracked around the question, and he shook his head again, gentle against her palm. To illustrate, he grabbed her hand and pulled it away from his face, squeezing it in both of his and kissing it before placing it over his slowly beating heart.

He still couldn't speak, but his meaning was still very clear.

No, I don't. Losing you would break me, there has to be another way. Don't make me go through this second life without you.

She sighed, a tear rolling down her cheek before she could try to hide it, but her husband (God, what was so strange to think about, she had a husband now, and one that she may very well have to give up soon) removed one of his hands from hers and used it to cup her cheek this time, wiping the tear away with his thumb, his eyes swimming with unshed tears of his own.

“Oh, I don't want to lose you, either. I only just got you, I don't want to let you go yet, but I don't know how else we're going to avoid this. They'll need to find a body or they'll never leave us alo-”

Her rambling cut off suddenly, her brow furrowing in thought.

“Wait…”

Her creature grunted questioningly, and she lifted her eyes to him, the gleam in them making him lean closer.

“I have an idea.”

Before he could inquire further, Lisa was tugging him along by his hand (as was their custom) and leading him to a closet in the hallway. She flung open the door to reveal an eclectic bunch of items that he didn't have names for, but Lisa was clearly gunning for something specific. She bent down and pulled away a cloth dust cover from a strangely lumpy object, which was revealed to be some sort of full-body mannequin, clearly meant to be used for tailoring or displays. Lisa hefted the plastic body up from under its armpits and hauled it towards her bedroom, all while her Creature looked on incredulously. She caught his eyes and huffed, continuing her mission.

“What? I got this from work; Wayne got it to display some of the new outfits on and decided it was too creepy to keep, so he let me have it to design dresses with. I had to keep it covered in the closet because it nearly gave Janet a heart attack l, so I had to put a cloth over it. I haven't used it for a while, but now…”

She had succeeded in bringing it into her room, and she propped it up against the end table at the base of her bed and leaned against it, smiling.

“Say hello to the soon-to-be-dead Lisa Swallows.”

Her husband tilted his head, confused for a moment before his eyes widened, understanding dawning on his mostly-human features. Lisa nodded along with him, voicing the plan she knew he understood.

“Yep. We're going to fake my death.”

The creature's eyes widened, and Lisa left the mannequin at the end of her bed while she ran to her closet, rifling through for some clothes as she explained the rest of her thought process.

“The way I see it, what we really need is time. If we dress this thing up to look at least a little bit like me, then we can put it in the tanning bed and let the faulty wiring do its thing, and while everyone is scrambling to take care of that, we'll take the next train out of here and get across as many state lines as we can before they realize the charred ‘body’ isn't me, if they ever do at all. We don't have to grab a corpse and the police will be all over Bachelor’s by now anyway, so this seems like the best option.”

She emerged with a black blouse and matching maxi skirt, which she made short work of dressing the mannequin in. Her husband helped as best he could, holding the plastic dummy down so Lisa could shimmy the clothing onto its unyielding body, and once she was done they took a simultaneous step back to examine their work. It obviously wasn't a perfect match, but it was serviceable for its intended purpose, they supposed.

Lisa placed her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, centering herself for a moment before she was taking her husband’s hand again, pulling them both towards the closet.

“C'mon, we've got to get changed. As comfortable as I am right now I don't want to flee the police in a nightgown.”

The creature hummed in agreement, and after Lisa had quickly selected a new outfit for herself, he had snuck away to her father's closet to find some alternative options for himself.

By the time he returned, dressed in another button down shirt, work pants and suspenders, Lisa had gotten changed into a pale pink blouse and a pair of black jeans, and was hurrying back and forth from the closet with different bundles of clothes in her arms as she filled a large backpack that was sitting next to the mannequin.

When she noticed him standing there and watching her with a raised eyebrow, she stopped just long enough to shrug.

“We're going to need a ‘go bag’, I don't know how long we'll be on the lam before we feel comfortable enough to stop at a thrift store.”

Her husband conceded with a nod, and the new bride occupied herself with adding a few toiletries, a large wad of cash from a nondescript envelope in her dresser, clearly sentimental accessories (such as two gold rings and a locket) and the picture of her mother before she walked over to her dresser to retrieve the last thing she needed; a small purple velvet pouch that clattered strangely when she placed it in her pocket.

In the time it took him to blink questioningly at her, she had handed him the mannequin and threw the backpack over her shoulders, taking his hand before leading them to the door. She took one last lingering look at her bedroom before she shut the door for the last time and led them both out to the shed.

Once inside, they stood facing the method of her ‘demise’; the tanning bed lay open for them like a gaping neon maw, and Lisa instructed her undead husband to lay the mannequin in it like a person, which he did. Once the false Lisa was secured, the real one reached into her pocket and pulled out the purple velvet pouch, and as her husband watched she untied the drawstrings and extracted the contents: four teeth, flecks of dried blood around the base of each.

Her husband made a slightly panicked inquiring sound, and she smiled knowingly up at him.

“I had to get my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago, the dentist said the little bastards would wreck the years of braces hell I endured in middle school, and I wasn't about to risk that. They let me keep them afterwards, and I was going to make them into earrings or something, but this seems more important. I'm going to need to leave some DNA behind if they're ever going to think it's me in there.”

The creature was given no opportunity to wonder what DNA was before Lisa was arranging the teeth around the approximate mouth of the mannequin, presumably so that they would be in approximately the correct place when the mannequin burned. All of this was completely baffling to her companion, but if it would help buy them time to escape then he was willing to go along with whatever she asked.

Once she was finished, she stepped back to examine her work. Once she was satisfied that she had left enough of herself behind, she closed the lid of the tanning bed and went to join her husband closer to the entrance of the shed, the two of them looking at the makeshift coffin with the “Kiss of Life” sticker. She took his hand, bringing it up to her lips and kissing it before she nodded to the contraption.

“Would you do the honors? Seems only fitting.”

He nodded, and he moved forward to the dial on the lid of the bed, Lisa calling from behind him.

“Make sure you set it to ‘Max Bronze'.”

Her husband nodded, doing as she asked before stepping back to join her a safe distance away from the now-sparking tanning bed.

As they watched, the sparks caught and turned into flames, ones that quickly started enveloping the shed around them. They slipped out as the sound of sirens started to approach in the distance, and Lisa had just enough time to bid one last silent goodbye to the life she knew before they were gone, fleeing hand-in-hand into the night together as newlyweds and onto a new life together.

[qnewsau]

Retiring senator Janet Rice wants to marry her partner Anne

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/retiring-senator-janet-rice-wants-to-marry-her-partner-anne/

Retiring senator Janet Rice wants to marry her partner Anne

Greens Senator Janet Rice has retired from politics, and after years of fighting for marriage equality has said she now hopes to marry her partner Anne.

Senator Rice, who is from Victoria and was first elected in 2013, announced her retirement plans last year.

Today (April 19), Janet formally stepped down and left the Senate for the final time.

“It’s been a huge ten years and it’s been a privilege to work alongside my colleagues, grassroots activists, and the community,” she said on Friday.

“[We’ve] achieved some huge wins, from marriage equality, to ending native forest logging in Victoria and Western Australia, and negotiating for better legislation on climate and housing.

“I’m sad to end this chapter, but also excited for what’s to come.

“I’m planning on having some time off, but not too much. I’ll keep working with people here and worldwide for justice and human rights, a safe climate and protecting our environment.

Janet Rice said her Greens successor, Steph Hodgins May, will be formally sworn in next month.

‘Marriage equality means I can get married’

Janet Rice delivered her valedictory Senate speech a few weeks ago.

She declared her work on the marriage equality campaign and the all-important legislation as one of her crowning achievements.

The bisexual senator hinted that after years of campaigning, a same-sex marriage was on the horizon for her.

“For me now, marriage equality means that my partner Anne and I, who have been together for the past two years, can get married,” she said.

“And newsflash, we probably will. Love you, Anne.”

Anne was watching on from the public gallery as the chamber applauded.

Senator Rice also thanked her late wife Penny Whetton, who was transgender. Penny died in 2019.

“Marriage equality meant I could stay married to my late wife Penny and she could change her birth certificate to say ‘female’ without us having to get divorced,” Janet said.

“Penny was such a star during the campaign for marriage equality.

“As a trans woman, she put herself out of her comfort zone to speak up, to say love was love and that all we wanted was to stay married.

“Being married to a trans woman inspired me to be such a fierce defender of trans and gender-diverse people during the campaign and beyond.

“I feel so grateful for Penny’s love and support and our lives together until her sad, sudden passing four years ago.”

‘If you don’t fight, you lose’

Janet Rice said her advocacy for LGBTQIA+ equality will continue post-politics, as the government negotiates religious discrimination legislation.

“I will continue fighting outside parliament against any bill that acts only as a Trojan horse for hate,” she said.

“There’s still discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people baked into our laws and our society.”

She concluded, “My final words: stay hopeful that things can change and keep working determinedly towards that change.

“Just because we haven’t reached where we need to be yet doesn’t mean we can’t and we won’t.

“We have to keep at it because one thing is certain: if you don’t fight, you lose. So onwards and upwards.”

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[jcmarchi]

A delicate dance

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-delicate-dance/

A delicate dance

In early 2022, economist Catherine Wolfram was at her desk in the U.S. Treasury building. She could see the east wing of the White House, just steps away.

Russia had just invaded Ukraine, and Wolfram was thinking about Russia, oil, and sanctions. She and her colleagues had been tasked with figuring out how to restrict the revenues that Russia was using to fuel its brutal war while keeping Russian oil available and affordable to the countries that depended on it.

Now the William F. Pounds Professor of Energy Economics at MIT, Wolfram was on leave from academia to serve as deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics.

Working for Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Wolfram and her colleagues developed dozens of models and forecasts and projections. It struck her, she said later, that “huge decisions [affecting the global economy] would be made on the basis of spreadsheets that I was helping create.” Wolfram composed a memo to the Biden administration and hoped her projections would pan out the way she believed they would.

Tackling conundrums that weigh competing, sometimes contradictory, interests has defined much of Wolfram’s career.

Wolfram specializes in the economics of energy markets. She looks at ways to decarbonize global energy systems while recognizing that energy drives economic development, especially in the developing world.

“The way we’re currently making energy is contributing to climate change. There’s a delicate dance we have to do to make sure that we treat this important industry carefully, but also transform it rapidly to a cleaner, decarbonized system,” she says.

Economists as influencers

While Wolfram was growing up in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, her father was a law professor and her mother taught English as a second language. Her mother helped spawn Wolfram’s interest in other cultures and her love of travel, but it was an experience closer to home that sparked her awareness of the effect of human activities on the state of the planet.

Minnesota’s nickname is “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Wolfram remembers swimming in a nearby lake sometimes covered by a thick sludge of algae. “Thinking back on it, it must’ve had to do with fertilizer runoff,” she says. “That was probably the first thing that made me think about the environment and policy.”

In high school, Wolfram liked “the fact that you could use math to understand the world. I also was interested in the types of questions about human behavior that economists were thinking about.

“I definitely think economics is good at sussing out how different actors are likely to react to a particular policy and then designing policies with that in mind.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University in 1989, Wolfram worked with a Massachusetts agency that governed rate hikes for utilities. Seeing its reliance on research, she says, illuminated the role academics could play in policy setting. It made her think she could make a difference from within academia.

While pursuing a PhD in economics from MIT, Wolfram counted Paul L. Joskow, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics and former director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, and Nancy L. Rose, the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics, among her mentors and influencers.

After spending 1996 to 2000 as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard, she joined the faculty at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

At Berkeley, it struck Wolfram that while she labored over ways to marginally boost the energy efficiency of U.S. power plants, the economies of China and India were growing rapidly, with a corresponding growth in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. “It hit home that to understand the climate issue, I needed to understand energy demand in the developing world,” she says.

The problem was that the developing world didn’t always offer up the kind of neatly packaged, comprehensive data economists relied on. She wondered if, by relying on readily accessible data, the field was looking under the lamppost — while losing sight of what the rest of the street looked like.

To make up for a lack of available data on the state of electrification in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, Wolfram developed and administered surveys to individual, remote rural households using on-the-ground field teams.

Her results suggested that in the world’s poorest countries, the challenges involved in expanding the grid in rural areas should be weighed against potentially greater economic and social returns on investments in the transportation, education, or health sectors.

Taking the lead

Within months of Wolfram’s memo to the Biden administration, leaders of the intergovernmental political forum Group of Seven (G7) agreed to the price cap. Tankers from coalition countries would only transport Russian crude sold at or below the price cap level, initially set at $60 per barrel.

“A price cap was not something that had ever been done before,” Wolfram says. “In some ways, we were making it up out of whole cloth. It was exciting to see that I wrote one of the original memos about it, and then literally three-and-a-half months later, the G7 was making an announcement.

“As economists and as policymakers, we must set the parameters and get the incentives right. The price cap was basically asking developing countries to buy cheap oil, which was consistent with their incentives.”

In May 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury reported that despite widespread initial skepticism about the price cap, market participants and geopolitical analysts believe it is accomplishing its goals of restricting Russia’s oil revenues while maintaining the supply of Russian oil and keeping energy costs in check for consumers and businesses around the world.

Wolfram held the U.S. Treasury post from March 2021 to October 2022 while on leave from UC Berkeley. In July 2023, she joined MIT Sloan School of Management partly to be geographically closer to the policymakers of the nation’s capital. She’s also excited about the work taking place elsewhere at the Institute to stay ahead of climate change.

Her time in D.C. was eye-opening, particularly in terms of the leadership power of the United States. She worries that the United States is falling prey to “lost opportunities” in terms of addressing climate change. “We were showing real leadership on the price cap, and if we could only do that on climate, I think we could make faster inroads on a global agreement,” she says.

Now focused on structuring global agreements in energy policy among developed and developing countries, she’s considering how the United States can take advantage of its position as a world leader. “We need to be thinking about how what we do in the U.S. affects the rest of the world from a climate perspective. We can’t go it alone.

“The U.S. needs to be more aligned with the European Union, Canada, and Japan to try to find areas where we’re taking a common approach to addressing climate change,” she says. She will touch on some of those areas in the class she will teach in spring 2024 titled “Climate and Energy in the Global Economy,” offered through MIT Sloan.

Looking ahead, she says, “I’m a techno optimist. I believe in human innovation. I’m optimistic that we’ll find ways to live with climate change and, hopefully, ways to minimize it.”

This article appears in the Winter 2024 issue of Energy Futures, the magazine of the MIT Energy Initiative.

[dertaglichedan]

Hearing aids keep users alive longer, study reveals

LOS ANGELES — Hearing aids may help those wearing them live a longer life, new research explains. Researchers from the University of Southern California found a nearly 25-percent reduction in the risk of premature death among hearing aid users.

Globally, hearing loss impacts tens of millions of people, yet only a tenth of those in need utilize hearing aids. This latest study highlights the potential health benefits of hearing aid use.

“We found that adults with hearing loss who regularly used hearing aids had a 24% lower risk of mortality than those who never wore them,” says Janet Choi, MD, MPH, an otolaryngologist with Keck Medicine of USC and lead researcher of the study, in a media release. “These results are exciting because they suggest that hearing aids may play a protective role in people’s health and prevent early death.”

Previous studies have linked untreated cases of hearing loss to a shorter lifespan, social isolation, depression, and dementia. However, research examining the impact of hearing aid use on mortality risk has been limited. Dr. Choi asserts that this study is the most comprehensive analysis to date on this relationship.

The study involved nearly 10,000 adults 20 and older who underwent hearing tests and completed questionnaires about their hearing aid usage. Over a follow-up period of 10 years, the research team monitored their mortality status.

Among the 1,863 adults identified with hearing loss, 237 were regular users of hearing aids, while 1,483 never used the devices. The study revealed that the mortality risk reduction among regular users was consistent, irrespective of factors like the extent of hearing loss, age, ethnicity, income, education, and medical history.

Interestingly, the study found no change in mortality risk between occasional and non-users of hearing aids, suggesting that infrequent use may not improve a person’s longevity. Dr. Choi speculates that hearing aids may enhance longevity by reducing the risk of depression and dementia, as better hearing can improve mental health and cognition.

Dr. Choi, who began using a hearing aid in her 30s despite being born with hearing loss, is hopeful that this study will motivate more people to wear hearing aids. She acknowledges challenges like cost, stigma, and difficulty in finding suitable devices but is working on an AI-driven database to help customize hearing aid choices for individual needs.

The findings are published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity.

[superectojazzmage]

So to wash the taste of the MCU’s most recent disappointments out of my mouth (and hopefully yours), and just because I like showing off my encyclopedic knowledge of the REAL Marvel comic books, here is a list of some of my favorite totally 100% canon trivia tidbits about Marvel lore:

Adolf Hitler did not commit suicide in the Marvel Universe. He was assassinated in his bunker Inglorious Bastards-style at the end of the war by the Human Torch (the original robot one, not the Fantastic Four one; yes, there are two).

The Marvel Comics company exists in-universe. They publish autobiographical comics of dubious quality about the “real life” superheroes, which are sometimes officially licensed and sometimes not. Captain America — back when he had a secret identity — briefly worked as an artist at Marvel, and even drew his own comic book. Also, She-Hulk once used some of said comics in a court case.

The combined Summers-Pym family (linked via Kang the Conqueror and Havok’s daughter with Janet Van Dyne) has a family tree so vast, tangled, sprawling, and complicated from decades of overlapping stories and retcons that Cyclops could be considered the father-in-law of one version of Galactus. This combined family also contains multiple robots and links to two royal families, one the royalty of an alien empire.

Speaking of Galactus, Iron Man has had sex with so many people that — if you trace the idea that when you sleep with someone, you're sleeping with everyone your partner ever slept with — Tony’s dick reaches Galactus. As proven by this chart made by Wizard Universe Magazine. Which, bear in mind, is out of date; Tony has scored more people since.

Not one to be outdone, She-Hulk has directly had sex with the Juggernaut. Maybe, as Dan Slott felt need to suggest that maybe it was an alternate universe version of her in a gag story suggesting any out-of-character or continuity-breaking moments were alternate versions of characters touring in 616 universe.

Namor once caused an incident with the U.S. military by coming ashore to get a bagel in what was mistaken as an Atlantean invasion of the surface world.

There was an entire storyline about Iron Man’s armor coming alive and becoming an abusive boyfriend to him, complete with threatening to kill if he tried to leave.

New York has an Alcoholics Anonymous style support group for supervillains trying to reform from a life of crime. This support group has very few successes. There is also a bar that caters to supervillains — the Bar With No Name — which has to regularly change locations on account of raids and attacks by law enforcement, superheroes, and violent vigilantes.

During a time where a Superhero Registration Act was in effect, Howard the Duck tried to register only to be told that he did not need to as the US government does not consider him a legal citizen (on account of being a talking cartoon duck). Howard’s complaints of discrimination were quelled when he realized this means he does not have to pay taxes.

The Great Lakes Avengers have gone through four different superheroes named Grasshopper. The first was killed within 5.8 seconds of joining after having a sai thrown in his face, the second accidentally jumped into orbit, one was murdered by Deadpool, and the last turned out to be a Skrull and was promptly killed as a traitor.

Because many of Iron Man’s early comics involved him fighting communists (it was the Cold War), Nikita Khrushchev is considered a member of Iron Man’s rogues gallery; he was called Comrade K and was regularly depicted sending out villains to fight Iron Man.

Doctor Doom has pulled the “actually a doombot” trick so many times that there is a persistent fan theory that the Doctor Doom has never actually appeared in any comic or isn’t even human anymore.

Relatedly, the only defeat Doctor Doom has ever suffered that has not ever been suggested to have been a doombot is the time he got beaten up by Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl, by the by, is canonically the most powerful superhero, with power ratings that go above Captain Universe.

Leonardo Da Vinci was a time-traveling superhero. His arch-nemesis was Sir Issac Newton, who was an immortal supervillain that murdered Galileo and liked to leave gold apples as a calling card at the scenes of his crimes.

The reason gamma radiation kills or gives people superpowers is because gamma radiation is produced by an eldritch entity called the One Below All, which lives in the lowest dimension possible (i.e., Super-Hell). The One Below All is the dark mirror of the One Above All (i.e., God); think Zoroastrianism.

Puck, a dwarf (as in has dwarfism) superhero from Canada, is the rightful king of Hell, having gone there when he died and subsequently pummeled the ruling devils into submission. He did nothing with his kingship other then use it to leave Hell and return to Earth. This is only one of his many achievements.

Jubilee spent a bizarrely long time as a vampire before any writer thought to cure her.

Quasar and Beta Ray Bill are both atheists/anti-theist despite personally knowing multiple gods, including the aforementioned One Above All. Quasar, at least, was willing to eventually shift his viewpoint to more or less agnostic; him talking to his dead father in the afterlife was not the incident that provoked this change.

Deadpool has had so many contradictory origin stories and backstories given that he eventually had to break the fourth wall to declare that his past does not matter and to waste any more time on it was stupid.

Spider-Man had an “Ayn Rand phase” in college that he is deeply ashamed of.

Spider-Man also once tried to sue J. Jonah Jameson for libel with She-Hulk as his lawyer. During the trial, he lied under oath by claiming to be a black man simply to frame Jameson as a racist. She-Hulk and Spidey were forced to withdraw their case when Jameson tried to call on Peter Parker as a character witness.

Luke Cage has a persistent and deeply personal arch-rivalry with both the Harlem NYPD’s coffee machine and the vending machine in his own office.

There is an X-Men villain named Sauron who is a former British explorer and Tolkien fan (thus the name) that became a were-pterodactyl with laser eyes. He is an accredited scientist in multiple fields, and was once the psychiatrist of Cyclops’ brother.

The aforementioned Sauron lives in the Savage Land, which is a sort of primordial lost world under Antarctica filled with dinosaurs, Cenozoic mammals, cavemen, and a dude called Garokk who may or may not be a minor deity. This is accepted as a totally normal part of the world by now.

The Avengers have had to deal with their government liaison demand they make their line-up more racially diverse to comply with affirmative action multiple times. Iron Man accidentally made himself look racist when complaining about this, while Wasp developed white guilt.

Magneto has had to be deaged multiple times to preserve his Holocaust backstory. Sunfire has not received the same treatment, despite his original origin story involving Hiroshima; they just pretend that was never mentioned.

Black Panther once punched the devil in the face.

Feel free to add more!

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

I wish Tumblr could talk about the issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, colonialism, etc. in academia without quickly reverting to the image of academics as a bunch of stuffy old white guys sitting around a study at Harvard with their monocles going “Pish-tosh, this skeleton is dressed as a gladiator, how can it possibly be a woman?!” 

Like people talk about Janet Stephens, the hairstylist turned hair archeologist who came up with a very plausible theory that Roman hairstyles for women were sewn into their own hair rather than being wigs, as if she came up with the simple, obvious solution that all those ivory tower idiots were missing.  They gloss over the fact that Stephens, in addition to her work recreating the hair styles, also spent several years doing more traditional research - reading academic sources and translations of ancient Roman texts and looking at artifacts - before publishing her findings in the Journal of Roman Archeology.  But by boiling it down to a “gotcha” moment of this woman showing up the out-of-touch academics, they erase all the research Stephens did as an independent scholar, research using sources provided by those same out-of-touch academics.  I think the real lesson of Stephens’ story is that people are easily blinded by bias, that we should make research more accessible to allow for more work by independent scholars, and that we need more insight from people with practical experience.  Not that archeologists are all idiots.

There are women, POC, LGBTQ people and people from low income families in academia right now.  There are still a LOT of problems, I think most people won’t deny that.  But it’s not just snobby white dudes in top hats.  There are a lot of people working to change things for the better.

Editing to add - Speaking of nuance, I should also mention that this post is mostly about US academia, but the problems mentioned certainly reach far beyond the US.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

As a nonbinary bisexual, I’m no stranger to people erasing me and telling me that I’m something I’m not. With the rise of terms like “pansexuality” and “omnisexuality,” many people unfamiliar with the true nature of bisexuality now think that it’s transphobic or otherwise binary — some go so far as to claim bisexuals only believe in two genders.

People assert that, while bisexuality allegedly means “attraction to two genders,” pansexuality and omnisexuality, unlike bisexuality, denote “attraction to all genders.” It’s easy to think this way if only examining the terms at face value, but this comparison is an outright lie. Some others say that new labels were a response to transphobic exclusion from the bisexual community — this is similarly not the case. (I’ll be compiling a piece on the history of the “pansexual” label at a later date.) Using this “reasoning” to separate bisexuality from these other terms is woefully inaccurate and disrespectful to bisexual and transgender people.

While there are cissexist definitions of bisexuality, that holds true for “gay” and “straight,” too. Bisexuals have also described our orientation as attraction regardless of gender¹ for decades — at least fifty years or so — and we still do. Before words like “transgender” and “nonbinary” came about, bisexuals still often saw themselves as attracted to people beyond gender.

Androgyny and gender-nonconformity are also a staple in bisexual culture. Major bisexual icons throughout history explored and embraced it. Look at bisexual chic, especially the glam rock era. Some bisexual activists and organizations have historically included and allied with transgender and nonbinary people, and many of us are transgender or nonbinary ourselves.

Below are just a few examples of the hidden secret of our gender-expansiveness. (Including a quote here does not equal my approval of what was said. Keep in mind the times during which they were recorded as well as the footnotes.)

Sources without links can be downloaded for free from ZLibrary, borrowed from the Open Library, or found wherever you purchase or borrow physical books. Sources without a year next to them are those for which I could not find the publish date.

“…the very wealth and humanity of bisexuality itself: for to exclude from one’s love any entire group of human beings because of class, age, or race or religion, or sex, is surely to be poorer — deeply and systematically poorer.”

— Kate Miller (1974)

“It’s easier, I believe, for exclusive heterosexuals to tolerate (and that’s the word) exclusive homosexuals than [bisexuals] who, rejecting exclusivity, sleep with people not genders…”

— Martin Duberman (1974)

“Margaret Mead in her Redbook magazine column wrote an article titled ‘Bisexuality: What’s It All About?’ in which she cited examples of bisexuality from the distant past as well as recent times, commenting that writers, artists, and musicians especially ‘cultivated bisexuality out of a delight with personality, regardless of race or class or sex.’”

— Janet Bode, “From Myth to Maturation,” View From Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women (1976)

“Being bisexual does not mean they have sexual relations with both sexes but that they are capable of meaningful and intimate involvement with a person regardless of gender.”

— Janet Bode, “The Pressure Cooker,” View From Another Closet (1976)

“A sex-change night club queen has claimed she had a bizarre love affair with rock superstar David Bowie. Drag artiste Ronny Haag said she lived with the bisexual singer while he was making his new film, “Just a Gigolo,” in Berlin. […] Ronny says: ‘I am a real woman.’”

— Kenelm Jenour, “I Was Bowie’s She-Man!”, Daily Mirror (1978)²

“[John] reacted emotionally to both sexes with equal intensity. ‘I love people, regardless of their gender,’ he told me.”

— Charlotte Wolff, “Early Influences,” Bisexuality, a Study (1979)

“On Saturday, February 9, San Francisco’s Bisexual Center will conduct a Gender/Sexuality Workshop. ‘We will explore the interrelationships of gender feelings and sexual preference… We will discuss sexuality and whether we choose to play out the gender role assigned to us by society or whether we can shift to attitudes supposedly held by the opposite gender, if those feel good to us. We will deal with the issue of the TV/TS [transvestite/transsexual] in transition and how sexuality evolves as gender role changes. We will attempt to present a summary of the fragmented and confusing information on gender and sexuality.’”

— The Gateway (1980)

“J: Are we ever going to be able to define what bisexuality is?

S: Never completely. That’s just it — the variety of lifestyles that we see between us defies definition.”

— “Conversations,” Bi Women: The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network (1984)

“Bisexuality, however, is a valid sexual experience. While many gays have experienced bisexuality as a stage in reaching their present identity, this should not invalidate the experience of people for whom sexual & affectional desire is not limited by gender. For in fact many bisexuals experience lesbianism or homosexuality as a stage in reaching their sexual identification.

— Megan Morrison, “What We Are Doing,” Bi Women (1984)

“In the midst of whatever hardships we [bisexuals] had encountered, this day we worked with each other to preserve our gift of loving people for who they are regardless of gender.”

— Elissa M., “Bi Conference,” Bi Women (1985)

“I believe that people fall in love with individuals, not with a sex… I believe most of us will end up acknowledging that we love certain people or, perhaps, certain kinds of people, and that gender need not be a significant category, though for some of us it may be.”

— Ruth Hubbard, “There Is No ‘Natural’ Human Sexuality, Bi Women (1986)

“I am bisexual because I am drawn to particular people regardless of gender. It doesn’t make me wishy-washy, confused, untrustworthy, or more sexually liberated. It makes me a bisexual.”

— Lani Ka’ahumanu, “The Bisexual Community: Are We Visible Yet?” (1987)

“To be bisexual is to have the potential to be open emotionally and sexually to people as people, regardless of their gender.”

— Office Pink Publishing, “Introduction,” Bisexual Lives (1988)

“We made signs and slashes. My favorite read, ‘When it’s love in all its splendor, it doesn’t matter what the gender.’”

— Beth Reba Weise, “Being There and Being Bi: The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,” Bi Women (1988)

“…bisexual usually also implies that relations with gender minorities are possible.”

— Thomas Geller, Bisexuality: a Reader and Sourcebook (1990)

“Many objections have been raised to the use of [“bisexual”], the most common being that it emphasizes two things that, paradoxically, bisexuals are the least likely to be involved with: the dualistic separation of male and female in society, and the physical implications of the suffix ‘-sexual’.”

— Thomas Geller, Bisexuality: a Reader and Sourcebook (1990)

“Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have ‘two’ sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders.”

— The Bay Area Bisexual Network, “The 1990 Bisexual Manifesto,” Anything That Moves (1990)

“Bisexuality works to subvert the gender system and everything it upholds because it is not based on gender… Bisexuality subverts gender; bisexual liberation also depends on the subversion of gender categories.”

— Karin Baker and Helen Harrison, “Letters,” Bi Women (1990)

“I tell them, whether or not I use the word ‘bisexual,’ that I am proud of being able to express my feelings toward a person, regardless of gender, in whatever way I desire.”

— Naomi Tucker, “What’s in a Name?”, Bi Any Other Name (1991)³

“Some women who call themselves ‘bisexual’ insist that the gender of their lover is irrelevant to them, that they do not choose lovers on the basis of gender.”

— Marilyn Murphy, “Thinking About Bisexuality,” Bi Women (1991)

“Results supported the hypothesis that gender is not a critical variable in sexual attraction in bisexual individuals. Personality or physical dimensions not related to gender and interaction style were the salient characteristics on which preferred sexual partners were chosen, and there was minimal grid distance between preferred male and preferred female partners. These data support the argument that, for some bisexual individuals, sexual attraction is not gender-linked. […] …the dimensions which maximally separate most preferred sexual partners are not gender-based in seven of the nine grids.”

— M W Ross, J P Paul, “Beyond Gender: The Basis of Sexual Attraction in Bisexual Men and Women” (1992)

“[S]ome bisexuals say they are blind to the gender of their potential lovers and that they love people as people… For the first group, a dichotomy of genders between which to choose doesn’t seem to exist[.]”

— Kathleen Bennett, “Feminist Bisexuality, a Both/And Option for an Either/Or World,” Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism (1992)

“The expressed desires of [female bisexual] respondents differed in many cases from their experience. 37 respondents preferred women as sexual partners; 9 preferred men. 21 women had no preference, and 35 said they preferred sex with particular individuals, regardless of gender.”

— Sue George, “Living as bisexual,” Women and Bisexuality (1993)

“Who is this group for exactly? Anyone who identifies as bisexual or thinks they are attracted to or interested in all genders… This newly formed [support] group is to create a supportive, safe environment for people who are questioning their sexual orientation and think they may be bisexual.”

— “Coming Out as Bisexual,” Bi Women (1994)

“It is logical and necessary for bisexuals to recognize the importance of gender politics — not just because transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other transgender people are often assumed to be bisexual… […] I have talked to the bisexual practicers of pre-op transsexuals who feel they have the best of both worlds because their lover embodies woman and man together.² Is that not a connection between bisexuality and transgenderism? […] Some of us are bisexual because we do not pay much attention to the gender of our attractions; some of us are bisexual because we do see tremendous gender differences and want to experience them all. […] With respect to our integrity as bisexuals, it is our responsibility to include transgendered people in our language, in our communities, in our politics, and in our lives.”

— Naomi Tucker, “The Natural Next Step,” Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions (1995)

“The first wave of people who started the Bi Center were political radicals and highly motivated people. The group was based on inclusivity… for example, in the women’s groups, anybody who identified as a woman had the right to be there, so a lot of transgender people started coming to the Bi Center.”

— Naomi Tucker, “Bay Area Bisexual History: An Interview with David Lourea,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“[B]isexual consciousness, because of its amorphous quality and inclusionary nature, posed a fundamental threat to the dualistic and exclusionary thought patterns which were — and still are — tenaciously held by both the gay liberation leadership and its enemies.”

— Stephen Donaldson, “The Bisexual Movement’s Beginnings in the 70s,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“If anything, being bi has made me hyper-aware of the sexual differences between [men and women]. And I still get hot for both. But I do experience something that is similar to gender blindness. It’s this: being bisexual means I could potentially find myself sexually attracted to anybody. Therefore, as a bisexual, I don’t make the distinction that monosexuals do between the gender you fuck and the gender you don’t.”

— Greta Christina, “Bi Sexuality,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“[A]nd too / I am bisexual / in my history / in my capacity / in my fantasies / in my abilities / in my love for beautiful people / regardless of gender.”

— Dajenya, “Bisexual Lesbian,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“The bisexual community should be a place where lines are erased. Bisexuality dismisses, disproves, and defies dichotomies. It connotes a loss of rigidity and absolutes. It is an inclusive term. […] Despite how we choose to identify ourselves, the bisexual community still seems a logical place for transsexuals to find a home and a voice. Bisexuals need to educate themselves on transgender issues. At the same time, bisexuals should be doing education and outreach to the transsexual community, offering transsexuals an arena to further explore their sexualities and choices. Such outreach would also help break down gender barriers and misconceptions within the bisexual community itself. […] If the bisexual community turns its back on transsexuals, it is essentially turning its back on itself.”

— K. Martin-Damon, “Essay for the Inclusion of Transsexuals,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“As bisexuals, we are necessarily prompted to come up with non-binary ways of thinking about sexual orientation. For many of us, this has also prompted a move toward non-binary ways of thinking about sex and gender.”

— Rebecca Kaplan, “Your Fence Is Sitting on Me: The Hazards of Binary Thinking,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“And so we love each other and wish love for each other, regardless (to the extent possible) of gender and sex.”

— Oma Izakson, “If Half of You Dodges a Bullet, All of You Ends Up Dead,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“Similarly, the modern bisexual movement has dissolved the strict dichotomy between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ (without invalidating our homosexual or heterosexual friends and lovers.) We have insisted on our desire and freedom to love people of all genders.”

— Sunfrog, “Pansies Against Patriarchy,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“In the bisexual movement as a whole, transgendered individuals are celebrated not only as an aspect of the diversity of the bisexual community, but because, like bisexuals, they do not fit neatly into dichotomous categories. Jim Frazin wrote that ‘the construction and destruction of gender’ is a subject of mutual interest to bisexuals and transsexuals who are, therefore, natural allies.”

— Paula C. Rust, Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution (1995)

“Is bisexuality even about gender at all? ‘I don’t desire a gender,’ 25[-]year-old Matthew Ehrlich says.”

— Deborah Block-Schwenk, “Newsweek Comes Out as Supportive,” Bi Women (1995)

“One woman expressed the desire to elide categorical differences by reporting that she finds ‘relationships with men and women to be quite similar — the differences are in the individuals, not in their sex.’ Others expressed their ideal as choosing partners ‘regardless of gender…’”

— Amber Ault, Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The Case of Bisexual Women (1996)

“Most conceptual models of bisexuality explain it in terms of conflictual or confused identity development, [r-slur] sexual development, or a defence against ‘true’ heterosexuality or homosexuality. It has been suggested, however, that some individuals can eroticize more than one love object regardless of gender, that sexual patterns could be more variable and fluid than theoretical notions tend to allow, and that sexual desire may not be as fixed and static in individuals as is assumed by ‘essential’ sexual categories and identities.”

— E.Antonio de Moya and Rafael García, “AIDS and the Enigma of Bisexuality in the Dominican Republic,” Bisexualities and AIDS: International Perspectives (1996)

“I’m bi. That simply means I can be attracted to a person without consideration of their gender.”

— E. Grace Noonan, “Out on the Job: DEC Open to Bi Concerns,” Bi Women (1996)

“BiCon should accept transgender people as being on their chosen gender, this includes any single gender events.”

— BiCon Guidelines (1998)⁴

“The probability is that your relationship is based on, or has nestled itself into something based more on the relationship between two identities than on the relationship between two people. That’s what we’re taught: man/man, woman/woman, woman/man, top/bottom, butch/femme, man/woman/man, etc. We’re never taught person/person. That’s what the bisexual movement has been trying to teach us. We’re never taught that, so we fall into the trap of ‘you don’t love me, you love my identity.’”

— Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook (1998)

“Transsexuality and bisexuality both occupy heretical thresholds of human experience. We confound, illuminate and explore border regions. We challenge because we appear to break inviolable laws. Laws that feel ‘natural.’ And quite possibly, since we are not the norm or even average, it is likely that one function we have is to subvert those norms or laws; to break down the sleepy and unimaginative law of averages.”

— Max Wolf Valerio, “The Joker Is Wild: Changing Sex + Other Crimes of Passion,” Anything That Moves (1998)

“From the earliest years of the bi community, significant numbers of TV/TS and transgender people have always been involved with it. The bi community served as a kind of refuge for people who felt excluded from the established gay and lesbian communities.”

— Kevin Lano, “Bisexuality and Transgenderism,” Anything That Moves (1998)

“A large group of bisexual women reported in a Ms. magazine article that when they fell in love it was with a person rather than a gender…”

— Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward, “What is Gay?”, Now that You Know: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding Their Gay and Lesbian Children (1998)

“Over the past fifteen years, however, [one Caucasian man] has realized that he is ‘attracted to people — not their sexual identity’ and no longer cares whether his partners are male or female. He has kept his Bi identity and now uses it to refer to his attraction to people regardless of their gender.”

— Paula C. Rust, “Sexual Identity and Bisexual Identities,” Queer Studies: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Anthology (1998)

“Bisexual — being emotionally and physically attracted to all genders.”

— The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, “Out of the Past: Teacher’s Guide” (1999)

“There were a lot of transvestites and transsexuals who came to [the San Francisco Bisexual Center in the 1970s], because they were not going to be turned away because of the way they dressed.”

— David Lourea, “Bisexual Histories in San Francisco in the 1970s and Early 1980s,” 2000 Journal of Bisexuality

“Respondent #658 said that both are irrelevant; ‘who I am sexually attracted to has nothing to do with their sex/gender,’ whereas Respondent #418 focuses specifically on the irrelevance of sex: I find myself attracted to either men or women. The outside appendages are rather immaterial, as it is the inner being I am attracted to. […] Respondent #495 recalled that “the best definition I’ve ever heard is someone who is attracted to people & gender/sex is not an issue or factor in that attraction.” […] As Respondent #269 put it, “I do not exclude a person from consideration as a possible love interest on the basis of sex/gender.” […] For most individuals who call themselves bisexual, bisexual identity reflects feelings of attraction, sexual and otherwise, toward women and men or toward other people regardless of their gender.”

— Paula C. Rust, “Two Many and Not Enough: The Meanings of Bisexual Identities,” 2000 Journal of Bisexuality

“Giovanni’s distinction between what he wants and who he wants resonates with the language of many of today’s bisexuals, who insist that they fall in love with a person, not a gender.”

— Marjorie Garber, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life (2000)

“The message of bisexuality — that people are more than their gender; that we accept all people, regardless of Kinsey scale rating; that we embrace people regardless of age, weight, clothing, hair style, gender expression, race, religion and actually celebrate our diversity — that message is my gospel. I travel, write, do web sites — all to let people know that the bisexual community will accept you, will let you be who you are, and will not expect you to fit in a neat little gender/sexuality box.”

— Wendy Curry, “Celebrating Bisexuality,” Bi Women (2000)

“But really, just like I can’t believe in the heterosexist binary gender system, I have difficulty accepting wholeheartedly any one spiritual tradition.”

— Anonymous, “A Methodical Awakening,” Bi Women (2002)

“But there are also many bis, such as myself, for whom gender has no place in the list of things that attract them to a person. For instance, I like people who are good listeners, who understand me and have interests similar to mine, and I am attracted to people with a little padding here and there, who have fair skin and dark hair (although I’m pretty flexible when it comes to looks). ‘Male’ or ‘female’ are not anywhere to be found in the list of qualities I find attractive.”

— Karin Baker, “Bisexual Basics,” Solidarity-us.org (2002)

“Bisexual: A person who is attracted to people regardless of gender (a person does not have to have a relationship to be bisexual!)”

— Bowling Green State University, “Queer Glossary” (2003)

“The bisexual community seems to be disappearing. Not that there won’t always be people around who like to have sex with people of all genders, the community, as I’ve discussed in this book, is a different matter altogether.”

— William Burleson, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community (2005)

“Although bisexuals in general may or may not be more enlightened about gender issues, there has been, and continues to be, in most places around the country a strong connection between the transgender and the bisexual communities. Indeed, the two communities have been strong allies. Why is this? One reason certainly is, as I mentioned earlier, the significant number of people who are both bisexual and transgender.”

— William Burleson, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community (2005)

“Amy: […] But my friend’s question got me thinking: given the fact that so many bisexual friends and community members reject the idea that gender has to have a relation to attraction and behavior, why should I reject the bi label? Why did her question even come up? How relevant is gender to the concept of bisexuality? If bisexuals like me don’t care about gender the way monosexuals do, why would my identity label exclude my lovers’ gender variations?

Kim: …Like you, I’m a bi person who sees gender as fluid rather than fixed or dichotomous… I’ve also felt outside pressure to reject my bi identity based on the idea that it perpetuates the gender binary: woman/man. However, this idea reduces bisexual to ‘bi’ and ‘sexual’ and disregards the fact that it represents a history, a community, a substantial body of writing, and the right of the bisexual community to define ‘bisexuality’ on its own terms. Most importantly, this idea disregards how vital these things are for countless bi people. Identifying as bi doesn’t inherently mean anything, and it definitely doesn’t mean a person only recognizes two genders. However, to assume that bi-identified people exclude transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC), and genderqueer people also assumes they are not trans, GNC, or genderqueer themselves, when in fact, many are.”

— Kim Westrick and Amy Andre, “Semantic Wars,” Bi Women (2009)

“The [intracommunity biphobia] problem is very serious, because bisexuals, along with trans folks, are the rejects among rejects, that is to say, those who suffer from discrimination (gays and lesbians) discriminate against bis and trans folks. It is for this reason, at least here in Mexico City, that Opción Bi allies itself with transsexuals, transgender people and transvestites, and works together with them whenever possible. It seems to me we are closer to the trans communities than to the lesbian and gay ones.”

— Robyn Ochs, “Bis Around the World: Myriam Brito, Mexican City,” Bi Women (2009)

“I introduce myself as bisexual, because I am attracted to people, across gender lines, and ‘bisexual’ comes closest to explaining that.”

— B.J. Epstein, “Bye Bi Labels,” Bi Women (2009)

“Bisexuality is not some kind of middle-ground between heterosexuality and homosexuality; rather I imagine it as a way to erode the fixed systems of gender and sexual identity which always result in guilt, fear, lies[,] and discrimination.”

— Carlos Iván Suárez García, “What Is Bisexuality?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)⁵

“To me, bisexuality is a matter of loving and accepting everyone equally — seeing the beauty in the human soul, rather than in the shell that houses it. Being transgender, I know firsthand that love between two people can transcend — even embrace — what society regards as taboo. Bisexuality is a mindset of revolution, a mindset of change. We’re creating a brave new world of acceptance and love for all people, of all the myriad genders and methods of sexual expression that this world contains.

— Jessica, “What Is Bisexuality?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Bisexuality (whatever that means) for me is about the ability to relate to all people at a deep emotional level. It is an openness of the heart. It is the absence of limits, especially those that are defined by the other person’s sex.”

— Andrea Toselli, “Coming Out Bisexual,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Considering my personal preferences, calling myself ‘bisexual’ covers a wider territory regarding my capacity to fall in love and to share the life of a couple with another person without taking into consideration questions of gender.”

— Aida, “Why Bi?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“I’m sure I’m bisexual because I can’t ignore the allure and loveliness of a wide spectrum of people — differentiating by gender never seemed attractive or even logical to me. […] For me bisexuality means I don’t stop attraction, caring or relationship potential based on gender; I can have sex, flirtation or warm ongoing love with anyone (not everyone, okay? That part’s a myth). […] And we have enough trouble splitting the human race into two halves, assigning mandatory characteristics, and then torturing people to fill arbitrary roles — I consider that a wrong and inaccurate way to understand human potential, and that’s also why I’m bi. Men and women are different? Honey, everyone I’ve ever met has been different. I think being bisexual lets me see each person as an individual.”

— Carol Queen, “Why Bi?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“But to hell with respectability: the real point about being bisexual, a friend pointed out, is that you’re asking someone other than ‘What sex is this person?’”

— Tom Robinson, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Being bisexual… allows us to love each other regardless of our gender…”

— Jorge Pérez Castiñeira, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“‘Hello, my name is Jaqueline Applebee… if you want to see me later, or just want a kiss, let me know as I’m bisexual, and you’re all gorgeous!’ […] I have loved men, women, and those who don’t identify with any gender.”

— Jaqueline Applebee, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“[T]here’s nothing binary about bisexuals. Bi is just a provisional term reminding us, however awkwardly, that when it comes to loving, family and tribe, margins and middle intertwine.”

— Loraine Hutchins, “Bisexual Politics,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“My bi identity is not about who I am having sex with; it is not about the genitals of my past, current, or future lovers; it is not about choosing potential partners or excluding partners based on what is between their legs. It is about potential — the potential to love, to be attracted to, to be intimate with, share a life with a person because of who they are. I see a person, not a gender… I demand to be free to legally marry anyone without regard to their gender.”

— Rifka Reichler, “Bisexual Politics,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“To me, being bisexual means having a sexuality that isn’t limited by the sex or gender of the people you are attracted to. You just recognize that you can be attracted to a person for very individual reasons.”

— Deb Morley, “Bi of the Month: An Interview with Ellyn Ruthstorm,” Bi Women (2010)

“Q: Which gender person does a bisexual love? A: Any gender she wants.”

— Marcia Deihl, “Do Clothes Make the Woman?”, Bi Women (2010)

“While the bisexual manifesto being written following a workshop at London BiCon is still being worked on, the tweeters set to work on a shorter, snappier alternative… ‘Love is about what’s in your hearts, not your underwear.’ […] ‘We aren’t more confused, greedy, indecisive or lustful than anyone else. We like people based on personality not gender.’ ‘[W]e believe that lust is more important than anatomy.’ ‘What you have between your legs doesn’t matter. What you have between your ears does[.]’”

— Jen Yockney, “#bisexualmanifesto,” Bi Community News (2010)

“As briefly mentioned above and interlinked with the notion of ‘importance of individuality’, the binary concepts of gender and the stereotypes surrounding these is a notion which each of the [bisexual] women interviewed fundamentally reject. The participants here were keen to distance themselves and their experiences of romantic relationships from any notion of hetero-normative gender boundaries, although they did agree that unfortunately these gender boundaries still exist in contemporary society. Most participants do not link gender boundaries with concepts of romantic love; it was stated that although sometimes gender boundaries can be seen in romantic relationships this is primarily down to socialisation and the unnecessary importance that hetero-normative society places on gender roles. Therefore, gender boundaries seen in romantic relationships are not constrained by gender but instead are a product of gendered socialisation. For these women, claiming their bisexual identity and their romantic relationships illustrates the futility of binary concepts of gender as it is about individual preference or style rather than gendered norms values and expectations.”

— Emma Smith, “Bisexuality, Gender & Romantic Relationships,” Bi Community News (2012)

“And anyway, I’m generally not sexually attracted to men or women. I’m into all sorts of things, but a person being a man or a woman isn’t a turn-on. Certainly not in the same way it’s a turn off to a gay or straight person. I’m never going to think “Wow, Zie is really sexy, shame they’re a ____” because what turns me off isn’t gender.”

— Marcus, “What makes a bisexual?”, Bi Community News (2012)

“I am bisexual. That does not depend on my dating experience or my attraction specifications. It is not affected by my dislike for genitals (of any shape). All it describes is how gender affects attraction for me: it doesn’t. I am attracted to people regardless of gender, and I am bisexual.”

— Emma Jones, “Not Like the Others,” Bi Women (2013)

“I’m generally okay with ‘attraction to more than one gender’ [as a definition of ‘bisexuality’]. I think that the ‘more than’ part is important because there are definitely more than two genders. Some people like the definition ‘attraction regardless of gender’ and I like that too because it suggests that things other than gender can be equally, or more, important in who we are attracted to. I like to question why our idea of sexuality is so bound up with gender of partners. Why not encompass other aspects such as the roles we like to take sexually, or how active or passive we like to be, or what practices we enjoy? Why is our gender, and the gender of our partners, seen as such a vital part of who we are?”

— Robyn Ochs, “Around the World: Meg Barker,” Bi Women (2013)

“It may sound crazy but I’d never thought that carefully about the ‘bi’ part of the word meaning ‘two’. I’d always understood bisexuality to mean what Bobbie Petford reports as the preferred definition from within the UK bi communities: changeable ‘sexual and emotional attraction to people of any sex, where gender may not be a defining factor’. […] Participants in the BiCon discussion rejected the ‘you are a boy or you are a girl…binary’ (Lanei), all arguing that they were not straightforwardly ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.

[…] Because they discarded the dichotomous understanding of gender, participants rejected the ideas that they were attracted to ‘both’ men and women, arguing that they did not perceive gender as the defining feature in their attraction. Kim said: I don’t think actually gender is that relevant…gender is like eye colour, and I notice it sometimes, and sometimes it can be a bit of a feature it’s like “oo, that’s nice” and I have some sorts of gender types, but it’s about as important as something like eye colour.

[…] As I came to realise that you can actually be bisexual…your desires and your attractions can wax and wane as time goes on, I realised that there was a parallel to gender: you don’t have to clearly define, you don’t have to cast off the male to be female and vice versa. Despite the fact that the conventional definition of the word ‘bisexual’ could be seen as perpetuating a dichotomous concept of gender, being attracted to both sexes, Georgina concluded that it could challenge conventional understandings of gender…”

— “Bisexuality & Gender,” Bi Community News (2014)

“My fellow bisexuals… I stand before you as an unapologetic, outspoken, bisexual activist who has intimately loved women, men and transgender persons throughout my life span of 72 years…”

— ABilly S. Jones-Hennin, “If Loving You is Wrong, Then I Don’t Want to be Right,” Bisexual Organizing Project (2014)

“Coming out as bisexual in the late 80s, when I first came across the label pansexual it didn’t involve any kind of gender nuance: it was how someone explained their bisexuality feeling interwoven with their Pagan beliefs. Back then the ‘bi’ in bisexual didn’t get talked about as having some great limiting weight of ‘two’, it was an “and” in a world that saw things as strictly either/or. As I was pushing at boundaries of discussion around gender and sexuality with people in the 90s I’d sometimes quip that I was ‘bisexual, I just haven’t decided which two genders yet’. When I started to come across people saying that bi was limiting because it meant two, a bit of me did think: oh lord, were they taking me seriously?”

— Jen, “Bi or Pan?”, Bi Community News (2015)

“Pansexuality is sometimes defined as attraction to people of all genders, which is also the experience of many bisexual people. More often than not, however, people define their pansexuality in relation to bisexuality. In response to the question: ‘What does pansexual mean?’ I’ve seen countless people reply: ‘I’m attracted to people of more than two genders. Not bisexual.’ The implication is that bisexual means binary attraction: men and women only.

Since I came out in the late 90s, I haven’t seen one bi activist organisation define bisexuality as attraction solely to men and women. Bi and trans* issues began to grow in recognition at the same time. When I use ‘bi’ to refer to two types of attraction, I mean attraction to people of my gender and attraction to people of other genders. […] …it’s so upsetting to see internalised biphobia leading many pansexuals, many of whom until recently identified as bisexual, telling us we’re still not queer enough. Gay and straight people aren’t being pressurised into giving up the language they use to describe their attractions and neither should they be. As usual it’s only bisexuals being shamed into erasing our identities and our history.

The most frustrating thing to me about the current bi vs pan discourse is that it’s framed as a cisgender vs genderqueer debate. This has never been the case. In reality, many genderqueer people identify as bisexual… To say bisexuality is binary erases the identities of these revolutionary bisexual genderqueer activists, and it erases the identity of every marginalised genderqueer bisexual they’re fighting for.”

— Sali, “Bi or Pan?”, Bi Community News (2015)

“Currently some pansexual people argue that bi is ‘too binary’ and that bisexuals are focused on conventional male/female gender expressions only. This is then taken to mean that bisexuals are more transphobic, whereas pansexuals aren’t locked into a binary so they are open to all gender expressions. However we believe this is not the case since bisexuals: ‘… do not comply with our society’s imposed framework of attraction, we must consciously construct our own framework and examine how and why we are attracted (or not) to others. This process automatically acknowledges the artificiality of the gender binary and gendered norms and expectations for behavior. Indeed, the mere act of explaining our definition of bisexual to a nonbisexual person requires us to address the falsity of the gender binary head on.’

We do not deny that in actuality some bisexuals are too bound by traditional binary gender assumptions, just as many gay, lesbian, and heterosexual, and some trans people are too. Bisexuals, however, have been in the forefront of exploring desire and connection beyond sex and gender. When anyone accuses bisexuals, uniquely, as more binary and more transphobic than other identity groups, such targeting is not only inappropriate but is also rooted in biphobia — a fear and hatred of bi people for who we are and how we love.

Confusing the issue are the definitions in resource glossaries defining bisexual, most surprisingly in newly released books including textbooks. [...] These definitions arbitrarily define bisexual in a binary way and then present pansexual as a non-binary alternative. This opens the doorway to a judgment that pansexual identity is superior to bisexual identity because it ‘opens possibilities’ and is a ‘more fluid and much broader form of sexual orientation’. This judgmental conclusion is unacceptable and dangerous as it lends itself to perpetuating bisexual erasure. The actual lived non-binary history of the bisexual community and movement and the inclusive nature and community spirit of bisexuals are eradicated when a binary interpretation of our name for ourselves is arbitrarily assumed.”

— Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins, “Bi Organizing Since 1991,” Bi Any Other Name (New 25th Anniversary Edition) (2015)

“Herself a bisexual woman, [Nan Goldin] found that drag queens, to her a third gender, were perfect companions. By transgressing the bounds of the binary, they had created identities that were infinitely more meaningful.”

— Alicia Diane Ridout, “Gender Euphoria: Photography, Fashion, and Gender Nonconformity in The East Village” (2015)

“It is the job of those of us with links to children to continue to promote the language of bisexuality and validity of attraction to all genders — especially when that attraction changes over time.”

— Bethan, “Practical Bi Awareness: Teaching and LGBT,” Bi Community News (2016)

“The persistent use of the Kinsey Scale is another issue. Originally asking about the genders of people you have had sex with, more recently it gets deployed in more sophisticated ways which distinguish between sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and sexual activity. Nonetheless it is woefully inadequate in accounting for attraction to genders other than male and female — a key part of many bisexual people’s experience.”

— Milena Popova, “Scrap the Kinsey Scale!”, Bi Community News (2016)

“Robyn Ochs states where the EuroBiCon also stands for: bisexuality goes beyond the binary gender thinking. There are more genders than the obsolete idea of two: male and female.”

— Erwin, “Robyn Ochs: ‘Bisexuality goes beyond the binary gender thinking’,” European Bisexual Conference (2016)

“I call myself bisexual because it includes attraction to all genders (same as mine; different from mine).”

— Rev. Francesca Bongiorno Fortunato, “Label Me With a B,” Bi Women Quarterly (2016)

“Loving a person rather than a man or a woman: this is Runa Wehrli’s philosophy. At 18, she defines herself as bisexual and speaks about it openly. […] She believes that love should not be confined by the barriers put up by society. ‘I fall in love with a person and not a gender,’ she says. […] Now single and just out of high school, she is leaving the door open to love, while still refusing to give it a gender.”

— Katy Romy, “‘I fall in love with a person and not a gender’,” Swissinfo (2017)

“I’m bisexual so I can’t really come out as gay. When I’m gay I’m very gay. And when I’m with men then, you know, I’m with men. I don’t fall in love with people because of their gender.”

— Nan Goldin for Sleek Magazine (2017)

“I use the word bisexual — a lot / I’ve marched in the Pride parade with the Toronto Bisexual Network / I post Bi pride & Bi awareness articles all over social media / I’m seeking out dates of any and all genders / (not to prove anything to anyone, but simply because I want to)

— D’Arcy L. J. White, “Coming Out as Bisexual,” Bi Women Quarterly (2017)

“BISEXUAL — Someone who is attracted to more than one gender, someone who is attracted to two or more genders, someone who is attracted to the same and other genders, or someone who is attracted to people regardless of their gender. […] Other words with the same definition of bisexual, though they have different connotations, are ‘pansexual,’ ‘polysexual,’ and ‘omnisexual.’”

— Morgan Lev Edward Holleb, The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze (2018)

“In the heat of July [2009], and finally equipped with a word for “attracted to people regardless of gender”, I bounded out of Brighton station with that same best friend. At the time, I didn’t know that we bisexuals have our own flag…”

— Lois Shearing, “Why London Pride’s first bi pride float was so important,” The Queerness (2018)

“Being bisexual does not assume people are only attracted to just two genders. Bisexuality can be limitless for many and pay no regard to the sex or gender of a person.”

— “The Bi+ Manifesto” (2018)

“I realized I was bisexual at age fifteen, but although I am attracted to folks of any gender, I’ve always had a preference for men.”

— Mark Mulligan, “Fight and Flight: ‘Butch Flight,’ Trans Men, and the Elusive Question of Authenticity,” Nursing Clio (2018)

“Bisexuality just became, to me, about that openness — that openness to anything, and any potential to any type of relationship, regardless of gender. Gender is no longer a disqualifier for me. It’s about the person.”

— Rob Cohen, “Where Are All the Bi Guys?,” Two Bi Guys (2019)

“Oh no, Mom. I’m not a lesbian. Actually, I’m bisexual. That means that gender doesn’t determine whom I’m attracted to.”

— Annie Bliss, “Older and Younger,” Bi Women Quarterly (2019)

“A bisexual woman, for example, may have sex with, date or marry another woman, a man or someone who is non-binary. […] If you think you might be bisexual, try asking yourself these questions: …Can I picture myself dating, having sex with, or being married to any gender/sex?”

— “I Think I Might Be Bisexual,” Advocates for Youth

“Although it’s true that people have all kinds of different attractions to different kinds of people, assuming that all bisexuals are never attracted to trans or genderqueer folk is harmful, not only to bi individuals, but to trans and genderqueer individuals who choose to label themselves as bi.”

— “Labels,” Bisexual Resource Center

“My own understanding of bisexuality has changed dramatically over the years. I used to define bisexuality as ‘the potential to be attracted to people regardless of their gender.’ […] Alberto is attracted to the poles, to super-masculine guys and super-feminine girls. Others are attracted to masculinity and/or femininity, regardless of a person’s sex. Some of us who identify as bisexual are in fact ‘gender-blind.’ For others — in fact for me — it’s androgyny or the blending of genders that compels.”

— Robin Ochs, “What Does It Mean to Be Bi+?”, Bisexual Resource Center

“… bisexual people are those for whom gender is not the first criteria in determining attraction.”

— Illinois Department of Public Health, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Youth Suicide”

“Bisexuality is sexual/romantic attraction to people regardless of sex or gender.”

— “Bisexual FAQ,” Kvartir

“Please also note that attraction to both same and different means attraction to all. Bisexuality is inherently inclusive of everyone, regardless of sex or gender.

In everyday language, depending on the speaker’s culture, background, and politics, that translates into a variety of everyday definitions such as:

Attraction to men and women

Attraction to all sexes or genders

Attraction to same and other genders

Love beyond gender

Attraction regardless of sex or gender”

— American Institute of Bisexuality, “What Is Bisexuality?,” Bi.org

“This idea [that bisexuality reinforces a false gender binary] has its roots in the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment philosophy that has ironically found a home within many Queer Studies departments at universities across the Anglophone world. […] Bisexuality is an orientation for which sex and gender are not a boundary to attraction… Over time, our society’s concept of human sex and gender may well change. For bis, people for whom sex/gender is already not a boundary, any such change would have little effect.”

— American Institute of Bisexuality, “Questions,” Bi.org

Gender-expansive (or -fluid, or -blind) descriptions of bisexuality are nothing new — and with the exception of the Getting Bi quotes, the above compilation is just what I was able to find online. Arguably, the concept of excluding genders never even crossed the mind of many twentieth-century bisexuals — not just because “nonbinary genders hadn’t entered the mainstream” — but simply because many bisexuals understand bisexuality itself as “beyond” gender. Go to any bisexual organization and they’ll tell you bisexuality is broad and can include anyone.

Of course, the above quotes do not reflect the beliefs of every bisexual — no single quote can do that. These quotes were certainly not the only variation of bisexual-given definitions of bisexuality. I’m only pointing out that the “both” descriptions are similarly not the only ones that exist.

Even then, before wider knowledge of and language for nonbinary identities, attraction to “both” men and women was attraction regardless of gender. “Both” does not purposefully keep anyone out; it only (mistakenly) assumes how many groups there are. Gender not being a make-or-break, or not caring about gender in general, doesn’t depend on how many genders there are.⁶

Not to mention, all sexualities automatically include some nonbinary people — “nonbinary” isn’t merely a third gender. The mere notion that someone could just “not be attracted” to nonbinary people as a group completely misunderstands nonbinary identity.

Some bisexuals “see a person, not a gender,” while others, like me, see a person with a gender (that doesn’t stop us from finding them attractive), if they have one. Being bisexual has made me see people in more gender-neutral ways. Our experiences are far too vast to pin down, and there’s immense beauty in that vagueness.

Also, while bisexual activism and transgender activism have frequently overlapped, plenty of cisgender bisexuals are transphobic. But this is because all sexualities have transphobes. Even if we coined a sexual identity that only transgender people could use, some identifying with it would still likely be transphobes. Why allow transphobic bisexuals to erase the attitudes of all the bisexuals before and after them?

I find it incredibly odd that people now task bisexuals with proving our inclusivity considering that, for decades, we never had to. We had always (i.e., consistently throughout history, not as in every bisexual) been warping gender norms, but it was never to debunk a myth or make ourselves look good; it was just how we were. That hasn’t changed.

One of the predominant stereotypes is still that we’re indiscriminate sluts willing to sleep with anyone, but somehow there’s a new wave of folks insisting that we require our partners to obey the gender binary. I have a severely hard time believing this conclusion is based on reality. Almost all attempts to redefine bisexuality as binary come from people who don’t identify as such.

Imagine if we performed this revisionism with the word “gay.” For this example, I’ll use “gay” to describe gay men in particular.

“Gay” only means exclusive attraction to men, so the people who use that word only like cisgender men. I’m androsexual, which means I like cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary men.

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? So why do we only apply this rhetoric to bisexuals? (It couldn’t possibly be because of biphobia, could it?)

While it’s obviously unrealistic to say that no bisexual person has ever been transphobic, bisexual orientation is not, and never has been, about exclusion. Considering that bisexual activists were seldom (if ever) focused on the prefix in the word “bisexual,” this recent fixation people have on trying to find a way to use “two” in its definition is misguided.

Begging to differ is ignorant and arrogant, contradicting not only history but many current bisexuals who understand bisexuality as all-encompassing. Acting like it’s uniquely binary or inherently limited in any way is indisputably false and biphobic. Please stop speaking over us and erasing our history. It, like the bisexual community itself, is bountiful, beautiful, and never going away.

Here’s one final quote that, while a bit unrelated to the rest, I particularly enjoy:

“I understand bisexuality not as a mixture of homosexuality and heterosexuality as Kinsey did, nor as a particular sexuality on an equal footing with homosexuality and heterosexuality, but as a holistic view of human sexuality, in which all aspects related to human sexuality are taken into account.”

— Miguel Obradors-Campos, “Deconstructing Biphobia” (2011)

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers Annual #12: MOONRISE

September, 1983

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes battle -- the Moon’s Mightiest Heroes... The Uncanny Inhumans!

With the population of the Moon being just the Inhumans plus Uatu, that’s kind of an overly narrow superlative.

But I do love this cover! The Avengers all forming a big A? Good stuff!

So the timeline of this annual is all kinds of screwed up.

It was released in September and published in November (whatever that means) but its supposed to pre-date Fantastic Four #254.

FF #254 and Avengers #232 overlap. In fact, FF #254 coming out in May and Avengers #232 share the scene where She-Hulk bonks off an invisible wall with what seems to be the same dialogue.

But despite meeting Reed in this Annual, he doesn’t recognize new Captain Marvel in Fantastic Four #256.

But this has to happen before Avengers #233 and FF #254-256. Due to changes that are going to take place in and after that story but also has the FF show up in costume changes that will take place during the listed period.

Its also weird from the Avengers standpoint because Starfox is part of the Avengers in this annual but he just joined in #232 and got sent on his first mission which happens at the same time as She-Hulk is bonking off that invisible wall.

So it makes no sense anywhere but I’ll cover it here to get it out of the way so I can cover Avengers #233 and FF #254-256 in one post, heavily summarizing down on the FF as its not as relevant.

So long story short: this issue fits weirdly in the timeline but lets get it over with.

The issue starts with the Avengers being secretly escorted before the UN Security Council FOR THE TRIAL INFORMAL HEARING OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR!

Why?

Reasons.

Inhuman-related reasons.

In an area usually masked with lunar dust, the SHIELD space platform discovered a whole ass city on the Moon, distinct from the whole ass city that already existed on the Moon.

A city full of all kinds of fantastical life.

Guy who is not Gyrich: “Clearly, the region heretofore known only as the Blue Area, is not only habitable -- it is inhabited by a race of beings possessed of incredible science, technology, and, it appears, superhuman powers! Beings, honored ambassadors, who are not human!”

Ambassador Gregorovich: “Da! Inhabiting Earth’s Moon in a strategic orbital position -- but not human!”

Mr Fantastic: “No, Ambassador Gregorovich, the occupants of the city of Attilan are not human. They are... the INHUMANS!”

Reed... why do you think this is helpful?

He then decides to give their entire ass backstory. Explaining how they were humans once but then aliens came and did some experiments on early human and created a genetic offshoot who became known as the Inhumans.

How the Inhumans kept their numbers low and avoided contact with humans by hiding in various places, including the Himalayas.

The Chinese ambassador complains that the Fantastic Four knew about this entire ass city in China’s backyard but didn’t report it.

Reed defends the decision because the Inhumans just wanted to be left alone. And also that for a long while the city was stuck under a dome and incapable of posing a threat to the outside world.

How when the dome was broken by Black Bolt’s mighty voice, the Inhumans continued to want to be left alone but were eventually attacked by a group called the Enclave while at the same time being struck weak to a mysterious illness called POLLUTION.

And how to escape POLLUTION, the Inhumans just fuckin’ moved their entire ass city to the Moon.

Cap: “The perfect solution!”

Wasp: “Was it, Cap?”

She-Hulk: “If it were, I have a hunch we wouldn’t be here today!”

Heh. Love the peanut gallerying.

The Security Council objects too because the FF enabled a secret super human race to live on the Moon, which is a great strategic location for attacking the Earth. Just look at any number of sci-fi.

Of course, this argument is slightly undermined by the Inhumans and their ridiculously long track record of minding their own business.

It’s pretty notable that when modern human pollution threatened their entire race, they just shrugged and moved to the Moon.

But despite that, the Security Council needs reassurance that the Inhumans pose no threat to Earth.

The Fantastic Four offer to go to the Moon and talk to the Inhumans but the Security Council says no on the basis of ‘you’ve done enough already’ and says that the Avengers will go instead.

I was wondering what any of this had to do with the Avengers!

I’m actually surprised that the entire Security Council agrees to send the Avengers. Earlier, Ambassador Gregorovich was complaining that Security Council had called American Superhero Team Avengers to the hearing of American Superhero Team the Fantastic Four.

You’d expect him to at least insist that some Russian superheroes be sent too.

Which would be cool, honestly.

The Soviet Super-Soldiers had been introduced a couple years before. Coulda done a combination Soviet Super-Soldiers and Avengers mission. Or heck, superheroes from each member of the  Security Council.

I understand why Mantlo didn’t do that since this is pretty much a done in one Avengers vs Inhumans slugfest and what I”m proposing really complicates things. But he also created the Super-Soldiers so it just feels like it works.

Anyway, the Security Council sends the Avengers on a fact finding mission to determine whether the UN will enter into a treaty with the Inhumans on the Moon.

As ya do.

The Avengers travel to the MOON in one of the space quinjets that they have for flying to the Moon.

Also, at some point they picked up Scarlet Witch and Vision. I guess for the former’s ties to the Inhumans through Quicksilver.

The Avengers are met on the MOON by the Inhumans Royal Family, aka the only important ones. I know that there’s an entire city of these dinguses but whenever anyone says “the Inhumans” they usually just mean the royal family.

Anyway, its been a while since the Avengers and Inhumans had a get together, so Cap introduces the Inhumans to the Newest Avengers: She-Hulk, Captain Marvel (2.0), and Starfox.

We get some New To This Sort of Thing from Monica as she marvels, captainly, that she’s actually on the Moon!

Then Crystal shows off her new baby Luna. Named for the Moon. Like how sometimes people name babies Gaia, no doubt. Or Tara.

She-Hulk: “Quicksilver and Crystal’s baby? Oh, gee! She’s so... cute!”

Wasp: “You sound almost envious, She-Hulk!”

Wasp, pls. Just let Jen compliment someone’s baby without ascribing motives.

Quicksilver also has an awkward greeting with Scarlet Wanda and Vision.

Because actually they were on the Moon recently. Where they learned that Magneto Is Secretly Wanda and Pietro’s Father.

And Wanda is not really ready to come to terms with that.

If she waits long enough, she’ll never have to because the retcon pendulum swung the other way eventually and now he’s not their father. And since he was an albatross hanging around their necks, necks that weren’t unburdened by albatrosses already, I can’t say I’m upset about it.

And Also: he never did any parenting of them. He swooped in when they were full ass grown adults and tried to act like their relationship meant anything aside from the whole coercing into terrorism and making Wanda sexy dance for him parts.

Most of the people that are big upset that Magneto was retconned away from being their dad never gave a shit about the man who actually raised them.

Poor Django Maximoff.

Anyway, that’s a long rant to establish that now is when John Byrne’s masterplan to have Magneto and Quicksilver related because they have the same haircut finally came to fruition.

His plan to make Sandman and Norman Osborn related is still pending at the time of this issue.

And the impact of that (Magneto reveal) is a recent bombshell to Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Vision.

It doesn’t really affect anything in this issue though.

Annnyway.

Medusa asks whether the Avengers really popped up to the Moon for a social call but Cap says sadly no.

That they’re here because the various Earth governments aren’t happy that the Inhumans are looking down on them from space.

Gorgon and Karnak are a bit upset about this because they had to flee Earth because of all the human pollutions humans were polluting and now humans have sent people to hassle them at their change of address.

Wanda and Wasp smooth things over by saying that they’re just here to assure each other that humans (and mutants and etc) and peacefully coexist with Inhumans across the small vastness of space.

Black Bolt steps forward to react to this offer by doing a shrug which is interpreted as the open hands of peace and friendship.

Wasp: “The open hands of peace and friendship? We’ll tell the nations of Earth they’ve nothing to fear, Black Bolt!”

Cool beans.

Although, I’m pretty sure that the UN expected more than a... uh... ‘we cool?’ exchange.

I believe the term used was “fact-finding mission.” But whatever.

Lets instead talk about fashion, briefly.

Most of the Avengers and Inhumans are wearing the sort of thing that they always wear. But Wasp is wearing an outfit I’ll call ‘the Magneto variant of her ripoff Molecule Man costume.’

The one usually in green and purple except its in red and purple. It looks good on her. But her new (80s?) haircut looks good too. Its maybe a lady’s mullet? But whatever it is, Janet is rocking it.

On the other hand we have She-Hulk who is wearing an aerobics-chic type costume complete with legwarmers. She also was interested in an aerobics instructor job several issues ago. I do not know what’s going on with her lately.

The 80s, maybes.

The Inhumans take the Avengers on a tour of Moon Attilan wherein Lockjaw becomes very enamored with Starfox and would, if this were a modern comic where sensibilities have shifted more crass, probably try humping his leg.

He is very fond of Eros.

Anyway, the Inhumans decide to take the Avengers to the Royal Crypt because I don’t know.

Its kind of morbid for a tour of the city to show the Avengers the crystal coffin that contains the dead, deceased body corpse of Maximus (the Mad). Like, what the heck, the Inhumans.

I guess its important for plot reasons to establish that its here.

But what the heck, the Inhumans??

Medusa exposits that Maximus is the one who initiated the Enclave attack on Attilan that preceded moving to the Moon! But while all of the Inhumans were stricken with pollution sickness, Maximus seemingly had a change of heart and turned against the Enclave, saving Attilan at the cost of his own life.

Maximus is very like a dumber, less charismatic Loki in a lot of most of the ways.

Having doomed and then saved the Inhumans, they honor him by putting him in a crystal box right at the front of the crypt so everyone can look at it.

Weird.

When the Inhumans and Avengers are leaving the crypt, Lockjaw becomes confused and intrigued by a familiar scent from the crystal box and then doggy glares suspiciously at Black Bolt.

Then, as the doors to the crypt are shut, Maximus’ eyes open as he screams internally forever.

So that’s a thing.

A kind of easy to unravel the mystery of thing.

Because, just saying, the Inhumans have the same plots over and over. And I mean narrative plots and scheme plots.

With everything be settled forever by one tour where they looked at a dead body and the Inhumans definitely being no threat to Earth at all ever no way, She-Hulk vows that she’ll use all of her legal experience to present a brief to the UN defending the Inhumans’ right to inhabit the Moon.

In fairness, I don’t think they signed the treaty saying not to weaponize space so...

Now: its time to party down.

Annnnnd its kind of a half-hearted affair.

Half the people are standing around moodily instead of partying. Like Quicksilver and Medusa are glaring at each other. Black Bolt is doing what Black Bolt do and just sitting on his throne.

I know he can’t talk but he can dance, right? Or does that shatter mountains too?

In fact, only She-Hulk and Triton are dancing and Triton is ruining it by making fish puns.

Wait, this side of the party looks a lot cooler!

What the heck, was there an option to have this sweet butterfly lady as a recurring Inhuman all along and they never took it? What the heck!

Anyway, a few of the background Inhumans including sweet butterfly lady are all over Starfox and his come-hither psychic powers.

Meanwhile, Cap takes some time to stare at Black Bolt not enjoying himself.

Scarlet Witch goes over to Medusa and verbally notices she looks bummed. She confesses that Black Bolt has become aloof and distant since they came to the... Moon...

HOW THE HECK WOULD YOU TELL?

Anyway. Wanda tells Vision she’s concerned for those two crazy kids but Vision wants nothing to do with anyone else’s drama.

Scarlet Witch: “Vision, I’m concerned for Medusa and Black Bolt.”

Vision: “As am I... But it is their affair... For them to resolve. We are here simply as ambassadors of peace, my wife, nothing more.”

Scarlet Witch: “But...”

Vision: “Nothing more.”

She-Hulk decides that the thing to do at a party is obviously to go pet the host’s dog. I mean, that’s why people socialize, right? To pet dogs?

But Lockjaw is upset over something and teleports next to Black Bolt so he can growl in his general direction.

The narration says “But what Lockjaw knows... he dares not tell... yet.”

I hope this isn’t during the period where it was canon that Lockjaw wasn’t an Inhuman dog, he was an Inhuman that looked like a dog that everyone treated as a pet despite being as intelligent as any of them.

That was a weird time.

Thankfully retconned to be just a prank that Karnak and Gorgon were pulling on the Thing.

Weird prank but sure.

Later, after the party, Medusa wakes from a fitful sleep to stare dramatically into the night and drama fret over the rift growing between her and Black Bolt.

But Black Bolt has gone to the crypt where he leans in to speak to Maximus’ crystal coffin.

Weirdly, him speaking doesn’t break everything like it usually is known to do.

Perhaps a cluuuue.

Black Bolt (?) asks Maximus (?) if he’s sleeping well and then tells him he must be off to the secret staircase hidden under the crystal coffin.

As ya do.

Elsewhere, Scarlet Witch wakes with a start because her vaguely magically mutant powers have given her a DREAM VISION OF EARTH UNDER ATTACK

Also: I’m always amused when the comic remembers that Vision’s costume is a costume that he can take off. Enjoy some Vision fanservice.

Vision tries to tell Wanda that it was just a dream and that she shouldn’t be afraid of dreams because Logic but then Captain America runs by the room shouting AVENGERS ASSEMBLE because a distress call came from SHIELD about the EARTH being UNDER ATTACK.

Just like Wanda’s dream.

Maybe try not to invalidate Wanda, Vizh.

Anyway, moon rocks are being flung at Earth and you’ll never guess from where!

From the Moon!

The Avengers are obviously not really but kinda implying that the Inhumans might know something about it

But before pointing fingers, Wasp tells Thor to go intercept the moon rocks since he’s the only one fast and buff enough to do it. Also he can hold his breath like a real long time.

Because, yeah, he explicitly has to take a deep breath of Moon air before launching into space.

Out in space, Thor sees where the moon rocks are being launched from (doesn’t look like from Attilan so that’s something) but he’s too busy launching Mjolnir to pulverize some rocks and punching other rocks to follow them to their source.

Also, onslought.

That’s possibly a typo but I like to believe that onslought is just how its spelled in Marvel so that Onslaught is an even stupider name.

But the onslought of rocks is too rapid for Thor to make any headway. For every rock he shatters, there’s two more behind it.

So he’s out of the plot and punching rocks for a while.

Meanwhile, now its the time to point fingers.

The Inhumans are getting pretty defensive at the suggestion that the moon rocks that are being launched from the moon might be from the moon and therefore that the Inhumans might possibly be involved as they are the only ones who live on the Moon except Uatu. And Uatu wouldn’t launch a moon rock unless he could find a way that it wouldn’t be counting as interfering.

Like maybe if it landed on Frank Castle’s family.

Gorgon: “I do not like being accused of betrayal, Karnak!”

Quicksilver: “Nor do I like hearing my adopted home slandered!”

She-Hulk: “Yeah, well, names won’t hurt you -- but those moonstones are gonna break Earth’s bones!”

Unlikely! Definitely be an extinction event but Earth has strong bones.

Also, what a weird thing to say, She-Hulk!

So in quick defense of the Inhumans who are probably obviously not behind this: if they were going to throw rocks at Earth, they’re definitely smart enough to wait until the Avengers are home instead of doing it while they’re within range to punch.

They’re slightly too smart for that.

Crystal asks Scarlet Witch and Vision to mediate since they have ties on both sides but Black Bolt arrives before any mediation can happen.

And Black Bolt clears everything right up!

By declaring war on Earth and ordering the execution of the Avengers!

Yup, no ambiguity there!

But surely, the Inhumans won’t just jump to obey an unjust order, right? Surely, they will object and demand an explanation for this new course of action that’s practically a 180 from his previous position?

Hahah, of course they don’t. These fucking idiots.

Gorgon: “If Black Bolt commands undying enmity between our races, it must be with reason!”

God.

So while the Avengers are still trying to be like ‘lets use our words, people’ the Inhumans just leap right into attacking.

Even Lockjaw jumps forward and locks his jaws on Cap’s shield.

Pietro frets, not knowing where he fits in.

Quicksilver: “Where do I stand? I am not an Inhuman, but a mutant! My child is human, tied to Earth!”

Crystal: “But Attilan is your home, my husband!”

Unspoken: ‘And what the fuck, I’m your wife!’

Quicksilver is convinced though and runs into the fray. Wanda protests so obviously Crystal starts attacking her.

Wow, the Inhumans come off as dicks in this.

So some pointless fight scene summarization.

Starfox ends up rolling around on the ground with Triton where Starfox gives Triton an orgasm. I assume. He pleasure blasts his brain making the guy laugh uncontrollably and collapse into a fountain. And then Triton gets Starfox all wet. By splashing him with the fountain water.

Quicksilver tries to punch Captain Marvel but she’s faster than him.

Because she can go lightspeed.

In fact, she makes him look like a dumb joke just dodging around and then punching him in the back of the head. And also, like, he’s the resident speedster of Marvel and he looks like a slow joke next to Monica Rambeau and Silver Surfer. And they had him flight Flash once and that was like Flash was challenging a baby to a fist fight, just remarkably mismatched.

But since there’s kind of a back and forth dealie going on, he spins her right round like a record round round round by running around her real fast when she makes the mistake of standing still.

Meanwhilelsewhere, Vision goes up against Karnak. And trash talks Karnak about how dumb it is trying to punch an intangible or diamond man. And then he fists Karnak with that fist thing he does sometimes. But Karnak vibrates his hand so he can smack intangible Vision.

Yup.

But nearby, Cap is still trying to wrestle his shield out of Lockjaw’s mouth and the dog flings him into Karnak, knocking the guy down.

The fight turns for the Avengers. She-Hulk punches out Gorgon quipping “steel toes can’t compensate for a glass jaw!”

Captain Marvel blasts out some of her energy, which knocks Quicksilver on his ass.

Annnnnd. Wasp never bothered to fight Medusa. Because designated girl fights are passe. But mostly because eh fuck it.

Wasp: “What of us, Medusa? Are we to fight, too? Will you blindly obey Black Bolt -- though you know some force upon the Moon is attacking Earth? Don’t you owe it to yourself to find out who -- and why... rather than accept the rash dictate of your leader that this battle must go on?!”

Medusa: “Though we have chosen Black Bolt as our king, Wasp, every Inhuman of the Royal Family is of equal rank. That status gives us the right to question Black Bolt’s decrees should we come to doubt their vision! Thus, I choose to exercise my right, Black Bolt, and pose the question... WHY??!”

Now, see, Gorgon? If you had bothered to think with your head brains instead of leaping right to “NEVER QUESTION LEADER” maybe you wouldn’t have had your block dented by She-Hulk. Think about that for next time.

Also, good on Wasp for being one of the best Avengers leaders. She’s super good at not jumping in half-assed.

She-Hulk decides Black Bolt is taking too long and grabs him and demands he speak.

Which would be a hilariously ill-thought out in other circumstances.

Black Bolt: “Unhand me, you -- you savage!”

Everyone is like ‘OH SHIT’ and tries to duck and cover but no mass destruction and loss of life occurs.

Captain America: “Black Bolt spoke -- and we’re all alive!”

Medusa: “IMPOSTER!”

Except its less an imposter and more someone stole Black Bolt’s body, apparently? At least that’s what Medusa figures.

Are... his powers not tied to his body? What??

Anyway, Lockjaw is finally like ‘my moment is here!’ I guess because he leads the AvengersInhumans to the Royal Crypt and Maximus’ cool crystal corpse box.

Captain America: “Of course! That’s the only logical answer!”

Because duh.

Medusa puts together that if Maximus is Black Bolt, Black Bolt must be Maximus so Maximus must not be dead. And then chokes ‘Black Bolt’ until he admits it.

Pretty hardcore, Medusa.

Karnak and Vision combine their respective powers to break the apparently self-healing harder than diamond crystal coffin.

That’s a lot of stuff that this coffin does but I get it. If you’re bearing Maximus and for some reason don’t want to just bury his body in concrete, you do the next best thing and put him in a self-healing diamond crystal coffin to minimize the chances that he’ll inevitably come back from the dead like he did do.

The freed ‘Maximus’ stalks towards ‘Black Bolt’ to real Maximus’ fear and begging that surely Black Bolt wouldn’t harm his own body.

And I’m further confused about how the powers work because Black Bolt in Maximus doesn’t say anything here so maybe the power is with his mind but also as he sternly corners Maximus in Black Bolt, the tuning fork on Black Bolt’s body’s forehead starts crackling with an awesome power.

So is the power still in the body? Or what?

Anyway, ‘Maximus’ lays hands on ‘Black Bolt’ and this causes their minds to swap back. Thankfully, considering how confusing all these qualifiers were beginning to get.

Now with everyone in the right bodies, its time for Maximus to Explain It All.

So back in that story where the Enclave attacked Attilan, Maximus was part of the plan scheming because he wanted to overthrow his brother and become the ruler. As is his repetitive goal.

But the Enclave pressed the advantage over Maximus’ objections when the pollution sickness made the Inhumans to weak to fight back. They were even going to execute Medusa.

So Maximus turned on the Enclave, used an improperly shielded giant laser, and ended up in a coma.

Maximus whines about how the Inhumans should have listened to him and subjugated humanity to stop their evil polluting ways so that the Inhumans wouldn’t have been forced to the Moon.

But ironically, getting forced to the Moon worked out for the dingus because there was a powerful crystal on the Moon which woke Maximus from his coma and gave him the new never before possible power to swap minds with Black Bolt.

And then like a guy that makes good decisions that aren’t bad, Maximus got in contact with the Enclave again.

Gorgon: “You again allied yourself with our human foes?”

Triton: “For good reason is he called Maximus the Mad!”

Or at least Maximus the bad at decisions.

Maximus: “No! Don’t you see? Our strategic location, combined with the Enclave’s tactical expertise, make us invincible!”

In his own defense, Maximus argues that the Enclave is going to bombard Earth with rocks until humanity is mostly dead and then the Inhumans can go back to Earth.

Presumably... I mean... after all that nuclear winter from all the stuff blasted up into the atmosphere?

Maximus is supposedly a genius but ehhhh I don’t see it.

He is squirrely though because he uses his psionic powers that he has to freeze everyone in place and then runs off, all but cackling.

And like a smart person, he flees right to the hidden base where Alpha Primitives have been pressed into the service of the Enclave.

He tells them that they’ve got to flee because the jig is up but the Enclave are less than convinced in their salmon jumpsuits.

An Enclave Guy: “What?! Just run off and abandon our meteoroid launchers?!”

Meteoroid launcher is a fun name for death from above.

Another one points out, hey wait Maximus screwed us over once, maybe he’s lying again.

And summoned by the opportunity to deliver a sweet line, Captain America (and others) are teleported in by Lockjaw.

Captain America: “You can believe him, mister -- this time, Maximus is telling the truth!”

Yeah. Maximus led the Avengers slash Inhumans right to the Enclave.

He’s not smart! Or he has that INT WIS division going on.

The Enclave don’t get a chance to try to fight (and thank god, we’ve had enough fight scene in this book) because Black Bolt just blasts them all in one go, resolving the plot in one panel.

Meanwhile, out in space, Thor is like oh good people have stopped throwing rocks at me. He was holding his breath this whole time after all and even he would have needed to reenter atmosphere soon.

With the Enclave in varying degrees of sprawled on their asses, the Inhumans can turn their attention back to Maximus for the assholery de jour.

He’s not repentant.

Maximus: “You don’t dare attack me, Gorgon! I am your brother, Black Bolt! I have as much right as you to the throne of Attilan! Like you, I wish only the best for our people! But, fool that you are, you refuse to admit our superiority to the humans! It is our destiny to establish dominion over the Earth! We must not be content with exile on this barren world! We must reoccupy the Earth! To do otherwise would be to deny our heritage! You know I’m right, Black Bolt! Admit it! Admit it!”

Black Bolt just turns his back on Maximus and gestures the others to take him away.

Since he never talks, he’s the master of the non-verbal shut down.

With the shooting meteors at Earth and also Maximus plots tied up, the Avengers get back to why they’re up here in the first place.

Wasp: “What reassurance does the Earth have that they won’t be attacked again?”

Gorgon: “What reassurance have we that the Earth will not attack us? Humanity is better equipped for war than we! And it was the human scientists of the Enclave that fomented this battle!”

Medusa: “Of our people, none save Maximus have ever waged war against mankind. The Inhumans will ever seek the ways of peace. That is the solemn pledge of Black Bolt and the family royal. Tell that to your leaders... and ask if they can truly pledge the same!”

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. The Enclave were humans but on the other hand, it was Maximus who invited them to the Moon.

So maybe guarantee that you’ll keep Maximus on a leash?

Or do you not want to make promises you know you can’t keep?

Maybe at least promise you all won’t immediately jump to action if Black Bolt suggests that it’s time to destroy humanity. Please. Apply some critical thinking.

Annnnyway, the Avengers promise to deliver this message to the UN and “pray that our fellow man is wise enough to reply in kind!”

But seriously. Maximus causes like. 70% of the Inhumans’ problems. Get a better handle on him, you dipshits.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I’m brave enough to say ‘I don’t always like the Inhumans’ which I can assure you without bothering to google is probably a rare opinion. Also, like and reblog to make me feel appreciated.

[corkcitylibraries]

Writing Techniques | Part 4

Lost & Found Poetry

by Dr. Sorcha Fogarty

A good poet must know things divine, things natural, things moral, things historical, and things artificial; together with the several terms belonging to all faculties, to which they must allude. Good poets must be universal scholars, able to use a pleasing phrase, and to express themselves with moving eloquence” – Bathsua Makin (1673)

 The ‘lost’ element of title refers to how poetry, like any other narrative source, can be mined from life experience whether first hand or otherwise. ‘Found’ refers to poetry that is already out there in the public domain, poetry in the guise of advertisements, notices in shop windows, horoscopes, recipes, bulletin boards, legal documents, ingredients on the side of a packet of tea (for example) or indeed, any text which doesn’t necessarily appear to possess poetic possibility.

"It’s not what you are looking at, it’s what you see" (Thoreau).

 Discovering texts and images which appear to be non-poetic but which are loaded with poetic potential is a tremendous way of honing critical faculties.

Using ‘found’ material, varying types of form can be applied in order to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. In general, form and content have a symbiotic relationship, the latter often determining the former. Form can range from a simple shopping list to a Shakespearean Sonnet. Making the form choice ensures that the work has structure and definition.

In its purest form, found poetry is poetry assembled from non-literary sources—can labels, road signs, clothing tags, picture titles, advertisements, etc. At some point it became acceptable to lift an entire section of text and arrange it using poetic devices. All of the text had to be used, nothing could be deleted and nothing could be added.

 Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.

A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

Examples of found poems can be seen in the work of Blaise Cendrars, David Antin, and Charles Reznikoff. In his book Testimony, Reznikoff created poetry from law reports.

Many poets have also chosen to incorporate snippets of found texts into larger poems, most significantly Ezra Pound. His Cantos includes letters written by presidents and popes, as well as an array of official documents from governments and banks. The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, uses many different texts, including Wagnerian opera, Shakespearian theater, and Greek mythology. Other poets who combined found elements with their poetry are William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, and Louis Zukofsky.

The found poem achieved prominence in the twentieth-century, sharing many traits with Pop Art, such as Andy Warhol's soup cans or Marcel Duchamp's bicycle wheels and urinals. The writer Annie Dillard has said that turning a text into a poem doubles that poem's context. "The original meaning remains intact," she writes, "but now it swings between two poles."

Found poetry is the literary equivalent version of collage. Much like the visual artist who combines multiple media (newspaper, feathers, coins, sheet music) into collage art, you can do the same with words, pulling concepts and phrasings from various sources to create “found” poems.

This is where your word artistry comes in. Start playing.  You can cut out words or phrases that speak to you and start rearranging them until a thought or theme jumps out at you.  You can start with a complete text and work backwards — start to erase words and sentences until something new emerges.  You can start with, for example, the directions to something and change out words.  Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of breaking up sentences in interesting ways.

 Example - Passage from Novel

from Holes, by Louis Sachar

There was a change in the weather. For the worse. The air became unbearably humid. Stanley was drenched in sweat. Beads of moisture ran down the handle of his shovel. It was almost as if the temperature had gotten so hot that the air itself was sweating. A loud boom of thunder echoed across the empty lake. A storm was way off to the west, beyond the mountains. Stanley could count more than thirty seconds between how far away the storm was. Sound travels a great distance across a barren wasteland.

 Found Poem

Holes

There was a change

For the worse.

The air became humid

Beads of moisture ran down

The handle of his shovel

It was almost as if

The air itself was sweating

Thunder echoed across the empty lake

A storm beyond the mountains.

Thirty seconds between the flash

And the thunder

Sound travels a great distance

Across a barren wasteland

How to write a Found Poem

 A found poem uses language from non-poetic contexts and turns it into poetry. Think of a collage - visual artists take scraps of newspaper, cloth, feathers, bottle caps, and create magic. You can do the same with language and poems.

 Writing this type of poetry is a kind of treasure hunt. Search for interesting scraps of language, then put them together in different ways and see what comes out. Putting seemingly unrelated things together can create a kind of chemical spark, leading to surprising results.

 You might end up rewriting the poem in the end and taking all the found language out, or you might keep the found scraps of language almost in their original form. Either way, found language is a great way to jolt your imagination.

 There are no rules for found poetry, as long as you are careful to respect copyright.

 Here are some potential sources of "treasure":

 instruction books

recipes

horoscopes

fortune cookies

bulletin boards

science, math, or social science textbooks

dictionaries

graffiti

pieces of letters, post cards, phone messages, notes you've written for yourself

grocery lists, lists of all kinds

 Here are some ideas you can use to write your own found poetry:

1) Take parts of instructions for some appliance such as a microwave. Replace some of the words that refer to the appliance, using that words that talk about something else. For example: "Lift the memory carefully. Caution: edges may be sharp..."

2) Try writing a love poem that quotes graffiti you have seen somewhere, or one that quotes personal ads in a newspaper. This could be very sad love poem, or a funny one, depending on how you decide to write it.

3) Write a poem called "Possible Side Effects." Use phrases from the instructions for some medication in your house, and combine these with language from another source, such as newspaper headlines, advertisements, a TV guide, or a mail-order catalogue. Put these two very different elements together and see what happens.

 Pulitzer Prize winning author, Annie Dillard, published a book of found poems—Mornings Like This, and she changed the rules. She lifted lines of text from various books (one book per poem), discarded the original intent, arranged the lines into a poem. Dillard dropped words from the text. She did not add any words of her own, except for the title. She always credited the source.

There are a couple of ways to write a found poem. Pick up a book, find a line you like, write it down—find the second line—create the poem as you go. This works well for free verse or haiku. If you are creating a form poem, such as a villanelle, sestina, cinquain, etc., you will need to gather lines you like and then see if you can arrange them to fit the chosen form. Rhyme is difficult but it can be done.

Writing found poetry can help you grow as a poet. You'll see new word relationships, new ways of developing thoughts. You'll put lines together that you may have never thought of yourself. You will hear sounds and you'll find fresh imagery. Some sources urge poets to start with "found" lines and then add to them. That is using "found" lines as a trigger. Adding your own words is not creating found poetry. Found poetry is all about being a good editor, having a good ear, learning how to "shape" a poem. It will push your poetry to another dimension as long as you are "crafting," not merely presenting a "list" of lines. Found poetry is not a poetry-generating machine. Good found poetry takes work.

 Erasure is a form of found poetry or found art created by erasing words from an existing text in prose or verse and framing the result on the page as a poem. The results can be allowed to stand in situ or they can be arranged into lines and/or stanzas.

"Radi Os" - Ronald Johnson's "Radi Os" is a long poem deconstructed from the text of Milton's "Paradise Lost".

A Humument - Tom Phillips' A Humument is a major work of book art and found poetry deconstructed from a Victorian novel.

Mans Wows - Jesse Glass' Mans Wows (1981), is a series of poems and performance pieces mined from John George Hohman's book of charms and healings Pow Wows, or The Long Lost Friend.

Nets - Jen Bervin's Nets is an erasure of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Hope Tree - Frank Montesonti's Hope Tree is a book of erasure poems based on R. Sanford Martin's How to Prune Fruit Trees.

The O Mission Repo - Travis Macdonald's The O Mission Repo treats each chapter of The 9/11 Commission Report with a different method of poetic erasure.

The ms of my kin - Janet Holmes's The ms of my kin (2009) erases the poems of Emily Dickinson written in 1861-62, the first few years of the Civil War, to discuss the more contemporary Iraq War.

"Seven Testimonies (redacted)" - Nick Flynn's "Seven Testimonies (redacted)" in The Captain Asks a Show of Hands, is an erasure of the testimonies from prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Of Lamb - Matthea Harvey's Of Lamb is a book-length erasure of a biography of Charles Lamb.

Voyager - Srikanth Reddy's Voyager is another book-length erasure, of Kurt Waldheim's autobiography

Jonathan Safran Foer did a book-length erasure of The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz which he entitled Tree of Codes. Schulz was killed by an officer of the Gestapo during the Nazi occupation of his hometown Drohobycz, after distributing the bulk of his life's work to gentile friends immediately prior to the occupation. All of these manuscripts have been lost. Safran-Foer writes: “All that we have of his fiction are two slim collections, The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under The Sign of the Hourglass. On the basis of these, Schulz is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Their long shadow--the work lost to history--is, in many ways, the story of the century." The Tree of Codes is Safran-Foer's attempt to represent the unrepresentable loss which occurred in the Holocaust by deleting text, rather than by writing another book about the Holocaust as a historical subject or context for a work of fiction. Safran-Foer's approach to the Holocaust as an "unrepresentable subject" recalls the use of negative space in the poetry of Dan Pagis.

Jenny Holzer's Redaction Paintings may be considered a work of erasure.

In Detained, Holzer exhibits new works including a series of paintings and a large LED configuration. Each painting depicts a handprint of an American soldier accused of crimes in Iraq, including detainee abuse and assault. Culled from documents made public through the Freedom of Information Act, Holzer’s hangs the hands of the charged next to those of the wrongly accused and those whose culpability has been lost, representing the fog of war. Her LED artwork, Torso, displays in red, blue, white, and purple light the statements, investigation reports, and emails from the case files of the accused soldiers. The installation lays bare that it is the individual who suffers and confronts the mechanics of politics and war. Detained makes substantial Wislawa Szymborska’s lament and statement in her poem “Tortures” that “the body is and is and is and has nowhere to go.”

The work consists of enlarged, colorized silkscreen "paintings" of declassified and oftentimes heavily censored American military and intelligence documents that have recently been made available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. Beautiful in their own right, the works are also haunting reminders of what really goes on behind the scenes in the American military/political power system. Documents address counter-terrorism, prisoner abuse, and even the threat of Osama Bin Laden. Some of the documents are almost completely inked out, like Colin Powell's memo on Defense Intelligence Agency  reorganisation.

Anthropologist Michael Powell writes: "While the literal act of redaction attempts to extract information and eradicate meaning, the black marker actually transforms the way we read these documents, sparking curiosity and often stirring skeptical, critical, and even cynical readings. As redacted government documents make their way from government bureaus into the hands of citizens, a peculiar transformation seems to take place, one that seems to create a paranoia within reason.

Erasure in Philosophy

Heidegger practiced erasure as a way to define nihilism (in an indefinite sort of way). In a 1956 letter to Ernst Jünger, Heidegger wrote the term Being, then crossed it out: “Since the word is inaccurate, it is crossed out. Since the word is necessary, it remains legible.” Here erasure, or what philosophers call sous rature (“under erasure”), illustrates the problematic existence of presence and the absence of meaning.

Write a Found Poem

Carefully re-read the prose text you have chosen, and look for 50–100 words that stand out in the prose passage. Highlight or underline details, words and phrases that you find particularly powerful, moving, or interesting. Note especially examples that reflect your loving feelings or loving feelings of the subject of the prose text.  

On a separate sheet of paper, make a list of the details, words and phrases you underlined, keeping them in the order that you found them. Double space between lines so that the lines are easy to work with. Feel free to add others that you notice as you go through the prose piece again.

Look back over your list and cut out everything that is dull, or unnecessary, or that just doesn’t seem right for a poem about love. Try to cut your original list in half.

As you look over the shortened list, think about the tone that the details and diction con- vey. The words should all relate to love, since you are creating a love poem. Make sure that you have words that communicate your emotions or those of the person in the prose text.

Make any minor changes necessary to create your poem. You can change punctuation and make little changes to the words to make them fit together (such as change the tenses, possessives, plurals, and capitalizations).

When you’re close to an edited down version, if you absolutely need to add a word or two to make the poem flow more smoothly, to make sense, to make a point, you may add up to two words of your own. That’s two and only two!

Read back over your edited draft one more time and make any deletions or minor changes.

Check the words and choose a title.

Copy the words and phrases. Space or arrange the words so that they’re poem-like. Pay attention to line breaks, layout, and other elements that will emphasize important words or significant ideas in the poem.

Read aloud as you arrange the words! Test the possible line breaks by pausing slightly. If it sounds good, it’s probably right. Arrange the words so that they make a rhythm you like. You can space words out so that they are all alone or all run together. You can also put key words on lines by themselves.

Emphasize words by playing with bold face and italics, different sizes of letters, and so forth.

At the bottom of the poem, cite where the words in the poem came from.

[moonlightreal]

So, this book is a scam.

Kind of.  Accidentally maybe?  So I took a family studies class and my teacher listed Annual Editions: The Family as one of our required textbooks.  So I bought it, since required.  But when I was writing one of the assigned article summaries i was too lazy to walk across the room and get the book so i googled the article and there it was free on the internet.

It wasn’t until class was almost over that it occurred to me to wonder just how many of the articles were free on the internet and spent a few hours googling every title in the book.  Out of 56 articles four were only available to people with a subscription to The Atlantic and six I could only find as abstracts. 

So my classmates and I dropped good money mostly for free articles!  A scam?  I can’t think of any other word for it.  During a global pandemic while some of us have lost our jobs. That’s pretty epic scummy. Did our teacher know?  I did ASK the teacher-- nicely, didn’t want to accused her.  She dodged the question and just said “students like having the articles all in one place.” I don’t think my kind teacher was scamming us, I think she just didn’t think.  The publisher may actually be epic scummy.

So if you get assigned an Annual Editions, try to wrangle a list of articles out of your teacher so you don’t have to pay for it.  And then be angry.  In these uncertain times we gotta protect people from scumbaggery when it appears.

Annual Editions: The Family Forty-Third Edition

Unit 1 Evolving Perspectives on the Family

1.1 Five Reasons We can’t Handle Marriage Anymore by Anthony D’Ambrosio

https://blog.cambly.com/2015/07/25/five-reasons-we-cant-handle-marriage-anymore/

1.2 Family matters by W. Bradford Wilcox

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/new-harvard-study-where-is-the-land-of-opportunity-finds-single-parents-are-the-key-link-to-economic-opportunity.html

1.3 The New Nuclear family by Suzy Kimm

https://newrepublic.com/article/122349/new-nuclear-family

1.5 Migration and Families Left behind by Sylvie Demurger

https://wol.iza.org/articles/migration-and-families-left-behind/long

1.6 American’s (sic) Think Their Own families Are great But like Judging Other People’s, A New report Suggests by Amanda Marcotte

https://www.salon.com/2016/10/24/americans-think-their-own-families-are-great-but-like-judging-other-peoples-a-new-report-suggests/

1.7 Why We Need to separate Kids from tech—Now by Martha Ross

https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/05/19/why-we-need-to-separate-kids-from-tech-now/

Unit 2 Exploring and Establishing Relationships

2.1 What Schools Should Teach Kids About Sex by Jessica Lahey

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/what-schools-should-teach-kids-about-sex/387061/

2.2 Sex and the Class of 2020: How Will hook-ups Change? By Conior Friedersdorf

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/what-sex-on-campus-will-look-like-for-the-class-of-2020/381572/

2.3 There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting love (According to science) by Emily Esfahani Smith

https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/theres-no-such-thing-as-everlasting-love-according-to-science/267199/

2.5 Sliding Versus Deciding: How Cohabitation Changes Marriage by Galena Rhodes

http://familyinamerica.org/files/9014/7274/6179/Rhoades.pdf

2.6 Is There a Shortage of Marriageable Men? By Isabel Sawhill and Johanna Venator

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/09/22/is-there-a-shortage-of-marriageable-men/

2.8 Teen Moms need support not shame by Alex Ronan

https://www.thecut.com/2015/05/teen-moms-need-support-not-shame.html

2.9 What Happens to a Woman’s Brain When She Becomes a Mother by Adrienne LaFrance

https://www.baby-chick.com/what-happens-to-a-womans-brain-when-she-becomes-a-mother/

Unit 3 Family Relationships

3.1 Can Attachment Theory Explain All our relationships? By Bethany Saltman

https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/attachment-theory-motherhood-c-v-r.html

3.2 The Marriage Mindset  by Annemarie Scobey

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+marriage+mindset%3A+lasting+love+isn%27t+just+a+matter+of+the+heart...-a0464449743

3.4 The Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Staying Married Forever by Janet Clegg and Hilary Browne Wilkinson

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3728507/The-divorce-lawyer-s-guide-staying-married-forever.html

3.6 Parenting Wars by Jane Shilling

https://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/lifestyle/2013/01/parenting-wars-tiger-moms-versus-helicopter-parents

3.7 Raising a Moral Child by Adam Grant

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/raising-a-moral-child.html

3.8 The Collapse of Parenting: Why it’s Time for Parents to grow Up by Cathy Gulli

https://www.macleans.ca/society/the-collapse-of-parenting-why-its-time-for-parents-to-grow-up/

3.9 The Science of Siblings by Francine Russo

https://parade.com/23970/francinerusso/the-science-of-siblings/

3.10 How to Make Peace With your Siblings by Evan Imber-Black

https://www.nextavenue.org/how-make-peace-your-sibling/

3.11 The Sandwich Generation Juggling Act by Sherri Snelling

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2015/12/18/the-sandwich-generation-juggling-act/?sh=614ed73e2643

3.12 More Grandparents Become Caregivers for Grandkids. Is That Good? By Jessica Mendoza

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0216/More-grandparents-become-caregivers-for-grandkids.-Is-that-good

Unit 4 Challenges and Opportunities

4.1 Anguish of the Abandoned Child by Charles A. Nelson III, Nathan A. Fox, and Charles H. Zeanah Jr.

https://bettercarenetwork.org/sites/default/files/anguish%20of%20the%20abandoned%20child.pdf

4.2 An Epidemic of Children Dying in Hot Cars by David Diamond

https://www.kidsandcars.org/2016/06/29/an-epidemic-of-children-dying-in-hot-cars-a-tragedy-that-can-be-prevented/

4.3 Gluten-free Baby: When Parents Ignore Science by Aaron Hutchins

https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/gluten-free-baby-when-parents-ignore-science/

4.4 Family Privilege by John R. Seita

https://reclaimingjournal.com/sites/default/files/journal-article-pdfs/10_3_Seita.pdf

4.5 Terrorism in the Home by Victor M. Parachin

https://www.coursehero.com/file/26982014/English-3docx/ Full article seems not to be available.

4.6 When Your Parents are Heroin Addicts by Tracey Helton

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-your-parents-are-heroin-addicts

4.7 “We Never Talked About It”: As Opioid Deaths Rise, Families of Color Stay Silent by Leah Samuel

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/13/race-stigma-opioid-death/

4.8 Growing Pains: Are Perfect Families a Recipe for Stress? By Vanessa Thorpe

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/08/perfect-families-stress-exhaustion-modern-parents

4.9 Your Kid Goes to Jail, You Get the Bill by Eli Hager

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/03/02/your-kid-goes-to-jail-you-get-the-bill

4.10 Separation Anxiety: How Deportation Divides Immigrant Families by Hank Kalet

https://www.njspotlight.com/2016/11/16-11-29-separation-anxiety-how-deportation-divides-immigrant-families/

4.11 Myths about Military Families by Jennifer Woodworth

http://www.eparent.com/military-uncategorized/myths-military-families/

4.13 Working Hard, Hardly Working by Chris Sorenson

https://www.macleans.ca/work/trendswork/working-hard-hardly-working-our-problem-with-productivity/

4.15 Supporting the Supporters: What Family Caregivers Need to Care for a Loved One with Cancer by Leonard L. Berry et all

https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JOP.2016.017913

4.17 Why Do Marriages Fail by Joseph N Ducanto

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/29/breaking-hard-do-arkansas-why-divorce-laws-are-getting-stricter-332531.html

4.18 Breaking Up is Hard to Do in Arkansas: Why Divorce Laws Are Getting Stricter by Tracey Harrington

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/22/children-divorce-resolution-survey-rather-parents-separate

4.19 Children of Divorce: 82% Rather Parents Separate Than “Stay for the Kids” by Owen Bowcott

https://herstontennesseefamilylaw.com/2013/02/28/helping-children-endure-divorce/

4.20 Helping Children Endure Divorce by Marlene Eskind Moses

https://aifs.gov.au/publications/family-matters/issue-92/effects-co-parenting-relationships-ex-spouses-couples-step

4.21 The Effects of Co-Parenting Relationships with Ex-Spouses on Couples in Step-Families by Claire Cartwright and Kerry Gibson

https://aifs.gov.au/publications/family-matters/issue-92/effects-co-parenting-relationships-ex-spouses-couples-step

Unit 5 Families, Now and into the Future

5.1 The Changing American Family by Natalie Angier

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/health/families.html

5.2 What Will the Family of the Future Look Like? By Ann Berrington and Agnese Vitali

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/what-will-the-family-of-the-future-look-like/

5.3 Why Are Fewer People Getting Married? By Jay L. Zagorsky

https://news.osu.edu/why-are-fewer-people-getting-married/

5.4 Relationships in the Melting Pot by Tina Livingston

https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/healthcare-counselling-and-psychotherapy-journal/july-2015/relationships-in-the-melting-pot/

5.5 Family Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children by Philip Cohen

https://contemporaryfamilies.org/the-new-normal/

https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2019/11/23/family-diversity-new-normal/

5.7 Strengthening Ties: the Case for Building a Social Policy Centered on Families by Phillip Longman et al.

https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/2886-strengthening-ties/FCSP%20Framing%20Paper.40ac19781c8346d59786b2b1cc973fae.pdf

Articles in The Atlantic, only available with a subscription:

2.7 Not Wanting Kids is Entirely Normal by Jessica Valenti

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/not-wanting-kids-is-entirely-normal/262367/

2.10 Sperm donor, Life Partner by Alana Samuels

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/sperm-donor-life-partner/383421/

3.3 Masters of Love by Emily Esfahani Smith

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/

3.5 The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss by Liza Mundy

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/

Articles that were not obviously available, or only available as an abstract:

1.4 Bridging cultural divides: The Role and impact of Binational families by Samantha N.N. Cross and Mary c. Gilly

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270406380_Bridging_Cultural_Divides_The_Role_and_Impact_of_Binational_Families

2:4 Dating as if it were Driver’s Ed by Lisa Jander

4.12 A Whole-Family Approach to Workforce Engagement by Kerry Desjardins

https://stemecosystems.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/awholefamilyapproach.pdf

4.14 In Whose Best Interests? A Case Study of a Family Affected by Dementia by Rachel Webb and Karen Harrison Dening

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/In-whose-best-interests-A-case-study-of-a-family-by-Webb-Dening/501267662dc1ec43bf8f4f563dd40a2ac39cf10d

4.16 The Challenges of Change: How We Meet the Care Needs of the Ever-evolving LGBT Family? By Nancy A. Orel and David W. Coon

https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/the-challenges-of-change-how-can-we-meet-the-care-needs-of-the-ev

5.6 Family strengths and Resilience by Eugene C. Roehikepartain and Amy K. Syvertsen

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1039018

[lligkv]

In her book October Child, Linda Boström Knausgård writes about an experience in a psych ward.

I plucked up my courage and said that, in the short term, I understood the wisdom of diverting your thoughts to get rid of the feeling of not being able to breathe, and continued by saying that the method of replacing one pain with another wasn’t going to get to the bottom of why I suddenly couldn’t breathe, and this applied to all human suffering, of course—this needing to understand the reason for the torment that makes life feels so unlivable—and why do you advocate electroconvulsive therapy when all that happens is that I forget everything that’s important to me, but then our time was up and the chief physician asked me to leave the room, as he noted in my files that I was to continue the treatment.

October Child is the latest in a series of books and articles I’ve read recently, like this piece on the philosopher Richard Wollheim’s memoir Germs or this obituary for Janet Malcolm, in which there seems to be an interest in the time when psychoanalysis, not behaviorism, was the dominant force in our frames of mental health and wellness. And a recognition of what we’ve lost now that behaviorism’s implicit assumptions—that behavior can be controlled by the adjustment of inputs and outputs (as the chief physician seeks to input various techniques to erase Boström Knausgård's sense that she simply can't go on), it can be optimized, and any behavior can be intervened in—structure so much of society, and so many of our habits of mind.

I admit I haven’t read Freud; this summary will be potted. But as I see it, in psychoanalysis, conflict can be unearthed, understood, but perhaps not solved. The resulting regard for human difficulty can be aloof and austere in its presentation. Analysts can seem like removed, somewhat cold authorities working to lead patients to something they already seem to know, whereas professionals of behaviorist schools behave in ways that seem more collegial, presenting to you the thought that causes your dysfunctional behavior and giving you the technique or action to try instead. But behaviorists seem more inclined to turn their benevolent authority into a tyranny, crossing the boundary that between analyst and analysand stays settled. If you can isolate a patient's problem as precisely as Boström Knausgård's chief physician can, at a certain point, you might think, Why work with you to fix it? Why not just reach in and fix it for you? Or change your environment such that it no longer develops. Such techniques are easy to scale and to systematize, too, where psychoanalysis remains firmly one individual in interaction with another.

And so, at its core, the analytic approach seems gentler than behaviorism, with the technocratic approach to the management of behavior it yields—and the “great story of psychiatry” it sees itself as heir to, as the blurb from the Gothenburg Post on the back of October Child puts it, “with its simple, ready-made answers” about how to fix what’s wrong with you and send you back in to the world that caused your suffering, this time as a better fit.

What's more, the aloofness and austerity I associate with psychoanalysis is more a quality of the practitioners than the patients. Here I’m thinking about Portnoy’s Complaint, which I’ve just read: its fast pace, its agility, its sheer life force, and all the joy Portnoy seems to feel in his psychological conflicts—with Jewishness, with neurosis, with his compulsive attraction to shikses and what it might say about him, with parents who frustrate and endear themselves to him by turns, with the desire to be his own person against the comforts of the solid, known identity they bequeathed him. So many of Portnoy's conflicts are inherited; none of them are resolved. There’s a manic vigor to the way Portnoy chews and chews them over as the book unfolds, an immersive and propulsive quality that takes you all the way up to its explosive punchline—when you figure out it's structured around a bit, a breathless monologue that perhaps hasn’t even been made, delivered entirely before Portnoy begins therapy at all. It's a delightful denouement to neurosis; you can only laugh.

October Child is also a terrifically written, immersive experience—but immersive in its despair rather than in its joy, and in the force of Boström Knausgård’s search for answers to her questions: Am I truly free? What can I do with the pain I feel? How can I escape what others expect of me when I can’t find the will to fulfill that? How do I live when my mind betrays me?

The fundamental question—why am I the way I am? and what can I do about it?— isn't one with a clear answer, but an eternal one, and psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy seems to have more space for the eternal questions than behaviorism does. And yet so much fiction that’s published now speaks to a world structured by behaviorist assumptions. Such a reductive regard for human behavior would seem to enervate the literature human minds can produce... Maybe, if more of us diverged from those assumptions—the belief that all our dysfunctions come from insufficiently managed inputs and outputs, and all our conflicts ought to be resolved—we could do something deeper than the kind of tortured ambivalence that—in, say, so much of the most popular autofiction—is the dominant mode.

Again, I enjoy autofiction. I enjoy the literary performance of anxiety and constriction, of the dead affects we assume when the pace of life and the amount of stimuli by which we're beset outstrip our capacity to deal, even as we were told the lives we're living now were the best any people had ever lived. And I enjoy the literary performance of the qualities we use to submerge or overcome anxiety: ambivalence or detachment in the Cusk mode, or verbosity and earnestness in the Lerner mode. These are valuable testaments to a particularly vicious time in our living memories and the deadening effects it's had. But at a certain point, I feel a desire for a book that’s not just descriptive but generative, a book in which I can know a self striving to be a self, in joy and in anguish; a self that's simply being, without calculating, without such self-consciousness, without anticipating how it's falling short or how you, the reader, will perceive it. Give me straightforward cries of joy, or despair. Give me feeling.

[dertaglichedan]

The Chinese government has made five demands on the United States, including the cancellation of its chip exports ban and sanctions, during US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s four-day China trip ended Sunday.

China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Monday that it has expressed concerns to Yellen about the extra tariffs, company sanctions, investment restrictions, export controls and Xinjiang product bans imposed by the US on China in recent years. It said the US should take concrete actions to respond to China’s concerns.

Chinese commentators said the China side arranged meetings between key economic officials and Yellen, showing that Beijing attaches great importance to her visit. They said Washington knows clearly what to do if it wants China to purchase its treasury bonds.

During her four-day trip ended Sunday, Yellen met with Premier Li Qiang, Vice Premier He Lifeng, Finance Minister Liu Kun and People’s Bank of China (PBoC)’s party secretary Pan Gongsheng, as well as former Vice Premier Liu He and PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan. She had a total of about 10 hours of discussions with them.

“China’s development is an opportunity, not a challenge, for the US. It is a gain, not a risk,” Deputy Chinese Finance Minister Liao Min said in a statement published on Monday. “Strengthening cooperation between China and the United States is the practical need and the correct choice of the two countries.”

“To achieve a healthy Sino-US economic relationship, we must fully respect the legitimate development rights and interests of all parties, and conduct healthy competition in accordance with market economic principles and World Trade Organization rules,” he said. “Differences should not be a reason for estrangement, but rather a driving force for strengthening communication and exchange.”

He said China and the US should seek consensus on important issues in the bilateral economic field through candid exchanges, so as to inject stability and positive energy into their economic relationship. He said that during Yellen’s trip, China had shown its willingness to help resolve global challenges, such as financial stability, climate change and smaller countries’ debt problems.

[scotianostra]

Happy 59th Birthday Scottish Makar Jackie Kay born in Edinburgh in 1961.

Jackie's mother was Scottish, her dad Nigerian student studying here in Scotland and she was put up for adoption, her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay brought up their family in Bishopbriggs, just outside Glasgow, where Janet encountered racism from children and teachers at school.

As a teenager she worked as a cleaner, working for John Cornwell who wrote under the pen-name John le Carré—for four months. She recommended cleaning work to aspiring writers, saying: "It’s great ... You’re listening to everything. You can be a spy, but nobody thinks you're taking anything in." Cornwell and Kay met again in 2019; he remembered her, and had been following her.

At first Kay wanted to be an actress and attended part-time classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. She was encouraged towards writing when a teacher sent some of her poems to the late great  Alasdair Gray who recognised their merit and told her that she really was a writer.

She studied English at the University of Stirling and then moved to London, originally with the intention of becoming a dramatist. She has written poetry, fiction and plays, as well as a non-fiction work about the jazz singer Bessie Smith. Though she has continued to live in England, latterly in Manchester with her then partner, the poet Carol Ann Duffy, they stayed together for 15 years.

Jackie has said that she regards much of her writing as Scottish, not necessarily in subject but in language and speech rhythms. Among other awards she has received the Saltire First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

As well as many adult works, Kay has also published several books of verse for children and a children's novel, Strawgirl, which is highly valuable in giving expression to a child's feeling of being different - for whatever reason - which she herself has experienced and which still fuels much of her work.

Jackie Kay was announced as the third holder of the post of Makar in 2016. Before Kay was appointed, it was suggested that the role might now only be referred to as the National Poet for Scotland, because of concerns that the word makar had to be explained outside of Scotland Kay states that she argued for retaining the Makar name, which is still used.

If you follow my posts you will know I'm now a fan of long winded poetry, bar the ones by Burns I get bored easily with them, Jackie Kay's poems are often short and too the pint, and never boring, so for a change I have chosen to of my favourites from her.

Scotland, My Jo is a fantastic poem, that really speaks for Scots, the people, the country and what it means to be Scottish. If you have not heard it, or read it, you really need to, it is beautiful...........it really brings a tear to me eye.

Scotland, My Jo.

You’re a blether: you’re a beauty,

You’re a right warmer, a wee charmer.

It’s no overstating things to say:

Scotland, you take my breath away.

You’re braw, you’re bonny, dreich or dry.

You brag and blag but you’re modest tae.

Even when blawing up an absolute hoolie:

Scotland, you take my breath away.

You’ve a spark in your een, you’re gutsy, gallus.

You speak yer mind, you’re kind; trusty,

You can be nippy, touchy tae, aye but:

Scotland, you take my breath away.

Never alone if together with you,

Oot by your lochs and your brochs - och!

You’re the most spirited of all company:

Scotland, you take my breath away.

.

I also love this poem love this poem from Jackie, much of her writing is from personal experience.....she said of it:

"When I was growing up, there did not seem many people on the TV who looked like me, Evonne Goolagong at Wimbledon and Trevor McDonald. That has changed massively but the image of what a Scottish person looks like has not changed enough. I belong to Glasgow, but does Glasgow belong to me?"

In My County.

walking by the waters,

down where an honest river

shakes hands with the sea,

a woman passed round me

in a slow, watchful circle,

as if I were a superstition;

 or the worst dregs of her imagination,

so when she finally spoke her words spliced into bars

of an old wheel. A segment of air.

Where do you come from?

‘Here,’ I said, ‘Here. These parts.’

[marvelvsmarvel]

MCU X-Men Theory #72942593 Transferred Energy Concept

This theory takes in consideration that mutants have been in the MCU this whole time and will not need to come from another universe. There’s been this developing concept of pulling energy from another dimension (eh universe) or extraterrestrial object and being able to manipulate it. This mixed with other things will help to explain the existence of mutants I hope.

Magic:

Exhibit A - The Ancient One: Thor once explained that where he comes from science and magic are one in the same. Consider something like spontaneous combustion that yields fire is such a phenomenon it might as well be magic. Magic is actually just as tangible for humans to learn as being able to start a fire with sticks and stones but it takes studying at practice as the Ancient One expressed with Doctor Strange and there is no specifications of who can learn magic as Strange was obviously human and Mordo only said there’s a strength to him and he even had a disability. Then Frigga was an Asgardian raised by witches who taught her magic and then she in turn taught her adopted Frost-Giant son Loki. Above all the Ancient One explained that they are not conjuring anything but instead are drawing energy from other dimesions and manipulating it in our world. Now this could be universally expected for all magic users but an interesting comparison is found in Janet Van Dyne in Ant-Man and the Wasp who was effected by Quantum Energy and brought it back into the main world and manipulated it within the Ghost Ava.

Enhanced Individuals:

Exhibit B - Janet Van Dyne: This term was only used in Avengers Age of Ultron in the very beginning when Pietro and Wanda Maximoff first appeared. But to be clear Captain America would be considered an enhanced individual as would Bucky the Winter Soldier and the Hulk because their physical beings here enhanced through science. By this it would come to reason that someone like Ava who was exposed to Quantum Energy is not manipulating it as she obviously had no control as a child and stands to reason that she too is an enhanced individual as well. Then Janet Van Dyne can be considered enhanced as well but she tells Hank something very specific “This place... It changes you. Adaptation is part of it but some of it is evolution.” For Marvel it has long been stated that mutants have been considered the next step in human evolution but most specifically these individuals who are mutants genetically carry the X-Gene that would usually manifest during puberty or under extreme situations. Which brings us back to our original enhanced individuals Pietro and Wanda who were experimented on with exposure from the Mind Stone. This would have made them simply enhanced but the MCU Anniversary Book made sure to explain that this exposure activated latent abilities within them. As this book was published before the Fox-Disney merger that statement could have been a hint at an X-Gene.

Mutants:

Exhibit C - Pietro and Wanda Maximoff: While she’s never actually been coined as Scarlet Witch it’s better off because she at least in practice is not a magic wielder here because her powers were activated within herself. This would mean that any magic she is doing she is manifesting herself as her mutant ability. So the question begs why would Cap or Captain Marvel not be considered mutants as well as if they have the X-Gene and Cap’s experiment and Captain Marvel’s exposure to the Space Stone activated their abilities. Well as explained above Cap like Ghost are both enhanced physically but in different ways and are not manipulating anything to manifestation besides major ass kicking. Captain Marvel on the other hand is interesting and the only thing I can draw is utterly lame in that mutant abilities are unique and Captain Marvel is more or less a conduit for Time Stone energy much like Janet Van Dyne who absorbed Quantum Energy and then let it back out. While Wanda can use inception in peoples’ minds would seem like she’s a conduit for the Mind Stone that doesn’t explain why she can also move objects with her mind and why Pietro has super speed. The only explanation is that these are their mutant abilities! ...or at least Pietro’s and Wanda is honestly a little bit of all these things. Janet and Captain Marvel could very well be labelled mutants under evolution standards but I said what I said.

X-Men:

Exhibit D - New Mutants: The fact that they had a term of enhanced individuals indicates that there must be a record of others and some may have been mutants. While Pietro and Wanda are the prime example of extreme circumstances there may have been many mutants who may have had their mutant abilities manifest in the traditional way during puberty. So in X-Men fashion a kid who gains powers is likely to be uncontrollable and scared and instead of simply mastering these abilities all lone Wolverine status I’m sure the great battle between Xavier’s Institute and the Brotherhood of Mutants and smaller groups like the Marauders or even the Hellfire Club alike have had their means of finding young mutants and recruiting them to each of their own causes and then they continue their lives in peace and secrecy. The New Mutants being considered a part of the MCU is a great example of a group finding young mutants and bringing them in for their own intentions but presenting the children a safe environment where they can’t hurt anyone anymore and can try to learn their abilities. So then the question is why haven’t any mutants interfered during such catastrophic events? The answer lies in peace and secrecy that for mutants to have existed long before Avengers that hate and fear towards mutants have been around since as well. Plus most of these mutant groups are not human loving hero types. That leaves the X-Men and for Xavier realistically a team that’s not a sports team does not seem necessary for a school but an event like Endgame seems like the perfect reason to train up a specific few mutants to work as a team and to fight for good. And with that my friends the X-Men are coming soon...