#pharmaceutical exhibition | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

transmutationisms · 7 months ago

Note

this is probably shaped by my limited frame of reference, but im really fascinated by witnessing the real-time development of adhd as a diagnosis. people attribute so many symptoms to it now or maybe they always did? i was wondering if you have any thoughts on what is the use of adhd specifically as a category within psychiatry. I'm esl so sorry for any confusing wording

no you're right imo; diagnostic categories are always somewhat in flux ofc but ADHD is one that has seen a particularly pronounced shift in the last couple decades. obviously this is multifactorial but my observation goes something along these lines:

'hyperactivity' has been dx'd in children since about the 1950s (also when Ritalin hit the market) but the ADHD dx doesn't really take off until the 90s (also when Adderall, a 2nd-gen reformulation of the 'obesity' drug Obetrol, hit the market). so, it's not all that surprising that 20 years later you see increased patient awareness of the diagnosis, increased popular interest in it, and shifting / expanding ideas of what it means and what ADHD 'is'. it's a relatively young dx.

part of the reason it's young is because it's basically a 'biopsychiatric' dx, meaning it diagnoses certain behaviours as being a 'brain problem' rather than having social causes or context. in practice this is complicated because psychs do use pharmacological approaches in conjunction with psychodynamic ones all the time; nevertheless, the central promise of DSM ADHD and its pharmaceutical treatments has consistently been that the ADHD subject has a physiological, neurological disorder / dysfunction / aberration, and that the drug treatments on the market fix it. that none of this is actually empirically supported is conceptually inconvenient and entrenched by the research process.

the biopsychiatric narrative is worth paying attention to because the context here is one in which it has become commonly accepted that behavioural 'disorders' and affective distress of various kinds can be, basically, either of pure biological origin, or else Your Fault. in the case of childhood hyperactivity, Your Fault historically also included Your Mother's Fault; part of the reason many mothers embraced Ritalin in the 50s and 60s was because the proffered pharmaceutical narrative explicitly challenged the idea that these mothers had done something 'wrong' to result in their (mostly) sons exhibiting disruptive and hyperactive behaviour.

this dichotomy of biology vs personal failing is very overtly present in quite a bit of discourse around ADHD today. if it's my brain being 'wrong' or different, then it's not something I've done wrong but a disease with a simple chemical fix. in this context I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of popular and patient conceptions of ADHD have seen a considerable widening over the past few decades. often people like to blame this on pharmaceutical companies, and it's true that industry benefits from these discourses and frequently invests in them (eg, via instruments like ADDitude mag). however, that's a pretty simplistic explanation on its own and doesn't really account for the ways in which patients and potential patients also find this diagnostic category personally useful, for reasons ranging from identity-formation to the desire to access prescription amphetamines. ADHD increasingly shows up as a biologised explanation for behaviours ranging from 'eating too many sweets' to 'postural sway' and so on. you can see in such examples how invoking the idea of an aberrant ADHD brain is both reassuring to people who have been made to feel ashamed of certain behaviours, and provides a sense of shared identity and community with others.

all of this is to say: I don't find it surprising at all when I see a relative broadening of notions of ADHD, almost always expressed in biological terms (the 'ADHD brain' operates differently, 'seeks dopamine', causes this or that). ADHD is in some ways a particularly blatant distillation of this general trend in popular psychiatric discourses, for reasons relating to expectations about childhood and child behaviour, and the historical and present relationship between the ADHD label and the regulation of amphetamines. but much of what's happening with ADHD in terms of popular discourses about it can also be seen with many, many other psychiatric diagnoses, to varying extents and in various ways.

my experience writing about ADHD on this website leads me to close by explicitly stating the following: I do not think any ADHD behaviours / symptoms are people's 'fault' or an individual failing; I do not think using drugs for any reason is morally bad or needs to be justified; the fact that I do not think ADHD is a 'brain disease' does not mean I think people are 'making it up' or exaggerating wrt any difficulties they experience personally, professionally, emotionally, &c.

#psychiatry

412 notes · View notes

girlactionfigure · 3 months ago

Text

THURSDAY HERO: Tadeusz Pankiewicz

Tadeusz Pankiewicz was a Polish pharmacist who helped the starving, suffering Jewish residents of the Krakow ghetto by providing them with medicine, food, and other lifesaving supplies.

Born in Sambor, Poland in 1908, Tadeusz studied at the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 1933 he took over the family business: a small pharmacy called Under the Eagle. Germany invaded Poland in 1939, but Tadeusz’s quiet life and successful small business were mostly unaffected, until 1941, when the Nazis forced the city’s 15,000 Jews into a ghetto.

Tadeusz’s pharmacy happened to be within the ghetto’s borders. The Nazis shut down other businesses and essential services in the ghetto to make it impossible for Jews to get food and other necessities, but Tadeusz refused to close his store. He bribed the Gestapo, using his own savings, to keep Under the Eagle open. Tadeusz was inspired by his Catholic faith to stay and help people however he could.

Conditions in the ghetto were horrific. There was never enough food, and every day residents died of starvation or illness; others were shot in the street by Nazi soldiers. Medicine of any kind was almost impossible to obtain, except from Tadeusz, who provided health care and pharmaceuticals for free to residents of the ghetto. He also provided them with lifesaving products such as hair dye to disguise their identity and tranquilizers to keep children quiet during Gestapo raids.

Tadeusz’s pharmacy became the go-to place for Jews to meet, plan underground activities and acts of defiance, and get lifesaving care and equipment. Tadeusz and his pharmacy employees Irena Drozdzikowska, Helena Krywaniuk, and Aurelia Danek put their lives at significant risk to help the Jews of the Krakow ghetto. Besides medicine, supplies and a safe place to meet, the brave pharmacist and his staff shared their meager wartime food rations, and hid Jews on the property during deportations. They were able to smuggle some Jews out of the ghetto and take them to hiding places where they would be safe.

Tadeusz actually befriended German soldiers to get information from them! He got them drunk and cleverly manipulated them into telling him about planned actions against Jews so he could warn them. Another service Tadeusz to the Jews trapped in the ghetto was acting as intermediary between them and the Poles with whom they left their valuables.

Among the people who met in secret in the pharmacy were prominent figures such as writer Mordechai Gebirtig and artist Abraham Neumann, who were tragically shot by the Germans in the ghetto in the infamous Bloody Thursday of June 4, 1942. Julian Aleksandrowicz survived the war to become a doctor and medical professor who specialized in the treatment of leukemia. Dr Abraham Mirowski, another Jew saved by Tadeuszm later said that the kind pharmacist was “living among us, was continuously exposed to dangers, but it did not make him scared. He was full of sympathy for our tragedy and wanted to help us with all his heart. Each death of a man or a woman was a traumatic experience for him.”

After the war, Tadeusz stayed in Krakow and, in 1947, he published his memoirs of life under German occupation. He continued working as a pharmacist. In 1957, some of the Jews he’d saved brought him for a visit to Israel as their guest. Tadeusz was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in 1983.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz died in Krakow in 1993. His pharmacy is now a museum about the history of the Jews of Krakow, with special focus on the ghetto years. Tadeusz and his brave staff are also a featured museum exhibit.

For helping Jews in the Krakow ghetto, we honor Tadeusz Pankiewicz as this week’s Thursday Hero.

#Thursday Hero

58 notes · View notes

chemxpert · 5 months ago

Text

The Vital Role of the Agrochemical Industry | Chemxpert Database

The agrochemical industry is a critical sector that supports global agricultural productivity by providing essential chemicals used in farming. These chemicals include pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and other products designed to protect crops from pests, diseases, and weeds, as well as to enhance soil fertility. This blog will delve into the various aspects of the agrochemical industry, exploring its importance, key components, and the role of databases in maintaining and improving industry standards.

#packaging for pharmaceutical products #FDA approved drugs #pharma exhibition #food and drug #pharmaceutical preparation

0 notes

sophie-frm-mars · 2 months ago

Note

What does it really mean to let go of the feelings of alienation and isolation that capitalism socializes us with? What does letting go of yourself and allowing yourself to become integrated into a community really mean?

I ask because I thought that overcoming that sense of feeling abandoned and isolated from everyone else just meant building connections with other people. And I have tried that at times. I try to make it a point to spend time with friends and have those social connections.

But at the same time, whenever I bring up my psychological or behavioral problems to my friends, they often react badly, telling me to just "go see a therapist" or to stop relying on other people so much, to "stand on my own two feet." I would like to become integrated into community care and social support, but the actual people around me only care about solidarity up until something is asked of them, at which point they basically become Reaganites ("be more self-reliant", "stand on your own two feet", "I don't owe you anything", etc.). I can't really receive support from people who resent the concept of supporting others, who view relying on other people at all as "toxic codependency" or "being treated like someone's unpaid therapist."

As for therapy itself... even suggesting that is a cruel joke. Therapists exist to get you back to work and force you to conform to existing systems. They don't actually care about healing you in the fullest sense, hence why modern therapy purposely lacks any social or communal aspect, preferring to "help you" in a purely individualistic sense, i.e. giving you enough medication that you stop questioning how things are and go back to work.

The last time I reached out to a therapist for help, they threatened to have me TDO'd. I don't particularly trust them to help with my emotional problems.

So how do I find people who are willing to support me? Because after having been abandoned by other people so many times, I worry whether it's even possible for me to build healthy social connections with other people anyone. I'll always be worried that they'll just abandon me again the moment I do something that rubs them the wrong way.

Okay so there are a few things here.

Being meaningfully in community with others is hard work, and it involves a constant back and forth between your capacity and everyone else's. I see a lot in your question about wanting others to support you, but not much about wanting to support them. It's not that it's a trade per se, but if everyone in a community were looking for people to support them and not trying to be supportive to others, there wouldn't be a community, just a bunch of people struggling in proximity.

The reality is that we all have to do some work on ourselves in order to be in a position to support AND to receive support from others. I make this joke about "the three elfs" to my friends and comrades quite a lot, I just realized it's an out loud thing lol you have to imagine it's in a cockney accent "you've got three elfs: physical elf, dental elf, and mental elf. Everything else is just taking care of other people's elfs."

In dialectical behavioural therapy, the first proposition we are asked to accept is that "everyone is doing their best AND everyone needs to do better". While it is entirely fair to be suspicious of therapy, especially in contexts where therapists are very eager to throw pharmaceuticals at the problem, we all have work we need to do on ourselves. It is a cruel irony that although being in community improves your mental health, lots of people will drop others or cut them out when they start exhibiting mental health symptoms - the only way past it is to do everything you can to work on yourself, communicate openly with the people in your life about what you're working on and respect their boundaries wrt what they can offer. Some people will have more capacity to help you than others.

On the ZAD in one of our interviews the zadiste we were talking to described a sort of "virtuous cycle" of community and struggle. The struggle to be free enables us to find space to build community, the community enables us to struggle, and so on and so on. I think about this cycle a lot. It's true on the individual level too. Putting in time to making sure you're okay and as well as you can be ("living a life worth living" in DBT terms) enables you to build the capacity to form strong connections with others, and those connections will make your life richer and increase your capacity so you can deepen those connections, make new ones, and support each other.

My next really big essay project, The Mad And The Mentally Ill, is about how we free ourselves and each other from the paralysing effects of capitalism on our mental health, because I think this "internal frontier of liberation" might be the most fundamental underpinning element we need to tackle in order to make revolution possible. Everything follows on from us knowing how to take care of ourselves and each other, or to put it a little differently the question of how to organize in communities where everyone is struggling will be one of the most vital revolutionary questions of our lifetimes.

23 notes · View notes

nicolettemarionette · 1 year ago

Text

Business with Pleasure

Pairing: Kendall Roy x Reader x Stewy Hosseini Description: Stewy is preoccupied when Kendall comes to him with a pitch. You don't seem to mind the intrusion, though. Words: 1K Rating: SMUT (more under the cut)

Warnings: Cursing, drinking, implied drug use, smut, age gap, semi-public fondling, exhibition, teasing

A/N: A horny reimagining of S1E3 because I'm a slut for Kendall and Stewy ;)

Part 2 up now!

✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦

It's a party; Kendall Roy had attended more parties than he could remember. From lavish galas filled with pissing contests of charitable donations, to tedious mixers spent appeasing disingenuous executives from billion dollar corporations, to ragers mixing copious amounts of recreational drugs and hard liquor. The gathering he finds himself at now resembles the latter - pharmaceutical helpers being handed around like party favours as soon as he steps onto the threshold.

He swallows down the itch to indulge, manoeuvring his way through the coked up crowd. A thick curtain separates him from a private room and the familiar laugh of an old friend. He's prepared, thoroughly confident in his approach as he pushes into the red-lit space.

Then he's unprepared for the sight of you; eyes half lidded, makeup smudged, lips swollen, hand gripping the older man's wrist, fingers hidden under a silky dress, hips rocking of their own accord. Kendall tears his eyes away, clearing his throat, "Stewy."

"Kendall," Stewy doesn't move his arm, despite your cheeks flushing at the intrusion. He merely raises his brows, "Kinda in the middle of something here."

"Yeah, well...we need to talk." It's curt and a clear indication for privacy, which Stewy wilfully ignores, his breath ghosting over your neck as he bends down to breathe in the familiar smell: a luxury fragrance he'd gifted you. Sweet, floral, delicate, just like you.

"Then talk."

Kendall frowns, then sighs exasperatedly, arms crossing over his chest as he looks everywhere but the lavish love seat you're sprawled across. "Okay, so you know how everyone kinda...hates you."

Stewy hums, "Uh huh. No, that's not something I'm aware of. Do you hate me, sweetheart?"

His fingers touch you again, lazily sliding over your pussy, grazing your clit, drawing a soft whimper from your lips. You shake your head pathetically in response to his question, though you're sure it's rhetorical. In reward he applies more pressure, a shit eating grin plastered to his face, corners of his eyes crinkling and the edges of his lips turned up; thoroughly amused as he watches Kendall's gaze going up and down your body so quickly he would've missed it if he hadn't been directly looking at him.

His friend swallows thickly, then states, as loudly and clearly as he can, "Well, people do, hate you. Private equity, getting their meat hooks in, chiselling your profit like uh, like a vampire locust fuck."

"What is this? Is this a roast cos...if you haven't noticed I kinda have shit to do." Stewy punctuates the sentence by dipping his fingers lower, groaning at how easily they slip into your entrance. He always knew you weren't as innocent as you feigned - from the auspicious smile you'd given him the first time he took you, in the restroom at some pompous art exhibition, and now this. He's embarrassingly hard.

The tension in the air is thick and hazy, hanging over you, heat blooming in your stomach with every deliberate stroke of Stewy's fingers against your walls, the man watching only adding to the searing desire. Kendall Roy is an easily recognisable man. You chance a look at him: tall, impeccably dressed, strikingly handsome, far older than you.

Dark eyes meet your own, momentarily, a certain hunger within them, teeth digging into his lips, "Right, well, I'll cut to the chase."

"Okay."

"How about instead of taking us over, you give us four billion dollars; I stay boss, you stop raiding shitty companies for scraps, you invest for once in a blue collar corporation that's currently..."

He trails off at the sight of Stewy's fingers pushing into your mouth. The way your lips close around them, suck them, Kendall definitely isn't imagining your tongue swirling around them. And he's definitely not picturing those lips wrapped around his cock.

His oldest friend gives him a knowing look, waiting for him to elaborate, which he does, stammering out the rest of his pitch, "Yeah, right. You know, it's currently undervalued by some unfounded concerns about its leadership, i.e: the 'Lord Fuckleroy' here. But, you invest, the story twists, happy ending for all."

Stewy pulls his fingers from your mouth, trailing them down the valley of your breasts, brushing over your pebbled nipples, before ghosting over your thighs, toying with the fabric of your shift. "Obviously, I don't usually take minority stake in a company."

"Yeah obviously, because you're..." Kendall starts, then sighs. It's becoming increasingly hard for him to focus when Stewy's edging closer to your core again, the way your breath hitches telling him he's reached his target again. He folds his arms, "How about for once, you make things bigger? You know, with your old pal?"

Stewy suddenly plunges his fingers deeper than before, curling them and you can't help the needy cry that leaves your lips. He outright laughs, the sound dark and gruff as he shrugs to his 'old pal', "Bro, I can't even begin to think about this. But if I could, to sell it, I'd need boning stock."

"As long as we remain in control."

"Well," Stewy pauses when your hand finds purchase in the expensive fabric of his suit pants, self-restraint wearing thin, his hips chasing your touch, thrusting his fingers harder into you. "Effective control, okay. I'm also gonna need a board seat."

Despite Kendall's attempts to ignore the situation, the nervous rubbing of his neck gives away his discomposure. Still, his voice is strong, "Oh I'd force it on you, dude, for the optics. Shit hot CEO has some hot shit new money for investment. Yeah?"

"I'm not necessarily totally opposed to this notion."

"That's right, and luckily I speak Stewy. And that's Stewy for 'I've got a raging hard on for this." The moment the words leave his mouth he sees a barely suppressed bearded grin.

"If that isn't the pot calling the kettle a fucking minority," Stewy gestures to the sizeable tent pitching in the CEO's pants, brows raising comically.

Kendall grimaces, adjusting his stance, "Oh, uh, sorry. But we're good, right?"

Stewy moves his fingers quicker, focusing on that spongy spot inside that has your face contorting with pleasure, pushing you towards orgasm and then his hand returns from your sticky thighs to pick up his glass. He raises it, "Yeah, we're good."

He rolls his eyes when you whine at the loss of contact, frustrated with his teasing. He takes a long sip of the bitter liquor, then before Kendall turns his back, adds, "But, just a thought. Why don't you...hang back for a bit? Celebrate?"

The insinuation clouds the air and before Kendall can even answer, he's being cut off, "I don't think-"

"What do you think, sweetheart?" His pet name has you in the palm of his hand, half smile on his face. "You want Ken to fuck you?"

You look nervous for a moment, but it quickly fades with the offer of being shared between two of the most powerful men in the city, "If...if he does."

"She's been practically soaked since you walked in. And you and Rava are done, right?"

"We're..." Kendall thinks back to the hurtful words exchanged, the emptiness of his bed. It's been weeks without contact, his sex drive through the wall. "We're separated, yes."

"And the banks not fucking you anymore, so how about you do some fucking of your own," as if he needs anymore convincing, Stewy's fingers are teasingly pulling the thin straps holding up your breasts. "Come on, it'll be just like old times."

Kendall tilts his head, looking past his friend to search your face for a moment, wondering if you're lust drunk or just fucking wasted. Then, he decides he doesn't really care. "Fuck it, yeah."

✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦✦✧✦

A/N: This is my first time writing in a while and this is quite short and probably riddled with mustakes buttttt would totally be up for a part 2 if people want it. Any feedback is much appreciated :)

#succession #succession hbo #kendall roy #roman roy #stewy hosseini #succession smut #kendall roy smut #kendall roy x reader #kendall roy imagine #kendall roy x you #stewy hosseini smut #stewy hosseini x reader #stewy hosseini imagine #stewy hosseini x you #kendall roy x stewy hosseini x reader #kendall x stewy #stewy succession #kendall succession

281 notes · View notes

bravecrab · 7 months ago

Text

I was just listening to a podcast about the Peter Thiel backed Enhanced Games, a proposed alternative Olympics in which doping would not only be allowed but be the whole point. It's not an original idea, as long as doping has been in the conversation about the Olympics, there's always been people flippantly saying that they should just do something like the Enhanced Games, see how far we can push it. What's the harm?

There are plenty harms related in using cocktails of drugs to push the human body past it's natural limits, and there are plenty people who have made these comments in regards to the Enhanced Games. However a harm that I haven't seen mentioned yet, is the normalisation of pharmaceutical drug use and associating it with "peak physical performance". The Enhanced Games would be more than just an exhibition of sport, it would be a marketing platform for the pharmaceutical industry. Each athlete would have their own team to build them into the perfect athlete, more like Formula One, although who knows if the athletes will have to wear the brand logos on all their gear, so the audience know who sells the best steroids.

Let's not beat around the bush, an event that focuses on finely tuning the human body into a "perfect" form, is eugenics. The proponents of the Enhanced Games will deny it, but they want it to be successful and influential. They want it to be more successful than the Olympics. And that will require a normalisation of Eugenics.

A philosophy of domination is behind both the Enhanced Games and the Olympics. It's always been about peak fitness, as well as geopolitical bragging rights. A mindset of domination has always been used to justify eugenics, domination theology stating that God created the Earth for human consumption, and that of all creatures, Man is closest to God. That's been weaponized as white supremacy and as patriarchy, amongst many other oppressive norms, making claims through pseudo-science, that white, cis, straight men are the pinnacle of humanity. Both events are an exhibition of dominance, and while the Enhanced Games is definitely worse, the Olympics still promotes an idea that the winners are just Great Athletes, and their winning has nothing to do with factors like national wealth and resources.

Another concern I have over an event that normalises enhancing bodies beyond human limits, is that it will attempt to normalise it in work places. Despite advances in automation, a lot of physical work is still done by humans, and will remain that way as long as it is cheaper. If one of the biggest sporting events endorses performance enhancers, it's not a stretch for them to become popularly used in physical workplaces. I've done many years of warehousing work, and guys in those jobs are very much into the idea of being the biggest and strongest. Employers will definitely be happy to exploit this.

I think an event like Enhanced Games is easy to overlook. The concept has been the curiosity of a lot of people as soon as they're aware of doping. However it's the involvement of ghouls like Peter Thiel, people with a TESCREAL philosophy (Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effect Altruism, Long-termism), who want to control the future of all humankind, that make this worrying. These are billionaires who want to sell you your greatest sci fi fantasies, while maintaining a firm grasp on the controls. A future in which Peak Human Performance requires you to buy a steady supply of performance enhancing drugs, is one in which the Pharmaceutical industry is perpetually wealthy.

I'd also like to include that there is also the potential of a backlash to an event like Enhanced Games, it which all forms of alterations and modifications to the human body are labelled as evil and impure, which will likely be used to endorse transphobia.

#sports #politics #tech #cyberpunk #dystopian

29 notes · View notes

stevenbasic · 11 months ago

Text

Growing into the Job, Post 371: Melissa, Evolution

That was a nice little nap, thought Melissa Monroe, Office Manager at what was still Far Horizons Medical Associates. Here at Evolution Pharmaceuticals, of course, she was Subject MM-1A. She’d woken unaware of the time after a full morning of physical testing, invasive blood work and a battery of interviews. Had she been out for an hour, maybe? However much time it was, she was a bit upset they’d kept her this long. They should know better. Didn’t they realize how much he needed her with him? He’d just had his apartment ransacked over the weekend, for real, and we still didn’t know who did it!

He got nervous so easily now, and even though she knew her girls were there to take care of him, she still really, really wanted to get back and make sure he was okay. So, though she’d do her best to put on a smile, she was a bit miffed at them. She was also strapped down to the exam table by her wrists, ankles, and around her waist.

She could understand why they did that, these days: they were getting afraid, a bit. There’d been times, recently, that she’d gotten a little out of control during these scans, even under sedation. So, the leather straps and restraints were just for everyone’s safety. The thought made her have to choke back a giggle. It’s like they don’t even know that, if I really wanted, I could tear through these things like tissue paper.

Turning her head, Melissa saw that two familiar technicians, young women in white lab coats, were in the corner of the big testing chamber, standing huddled together over their tablets in deep conversation. One was Marcia. She was nice, if a little boring. The other was the blonde. She was sweet, always brought Melissa water whenever she needed and she made really good protein shakes.Neither of them seemed to realize that Melissa was awake, and though the two were being careful to speak in hushed tones, Melissa could hear their conversation as clear as day. This super hearing is great.

They’d brought her in today, at the last minute, after getting reports of some new abilities she’d been exhibiting, some ‘unexpected developments’. It seemed to make them nervous. Specifically they’d asked her about the thunder-voice, the hurricane breath, anything else she’d noticed as changes. Some things she told them about, demonstrated for them; she hadn’t mentioned the hearing.

Maybe I’ll tell them about it later. Or haha maybe not.

But she heard the two lab girls currently talking about some of the strength testing they had put her through this morning, before they’d put her in the stasis from which she’d just awoke. Melissa always found it sort of fun, being able to show off how incredibly strong she’d been getting. She loved seeing the reactions of the technicians and doctors, which recently had been running the gamut between incredulous excitement and awestruck wonder at her frankly staggering physical power. There was, these days, hints of unmistakable nervousness, too, sometimes even a little alarm on their faces.

Haha good, she would sometimes think, a bit of fear is okay. Though of course they all tried to hide their little emotions, Melissa could feel it gathering in her, the amazement people felt when seeing what she could do, what she was becoming. Like, she was getting so fucking strong. Today she was finally able to basically max out their specialized weight equipment and the techs were - over in their little corner, with their little voices - discussing the need to get in something bigger, something even more industrial-grade. Melissa liked that idea. You can make it ten times bigger I’m just gonna get stronger.

Even though she’d hesitate to call what they’d put her through a real workout, Melissa’s muscles had been buzzing pleasantly after their little strength test. The blonde lab tech had given her her favorite chocolate protein drink while Marcia hit her with an injection that would knock out a horse. As usual, that had put her in an unconscious state so they could scan her. Melissa was used to it. They would watch as her body responded to the new challenges, the exercise. They liked to study how her muscle fibers repaired themselves, made Melissa even stronger. Maybe these scans would give a hint as to what the fuck was up with these new superp-…uh…developments.

“Well,” Marcia had said, as the scans were running and Melissa slept, “at least her IQ is still the same. Olivia will be happy about that.” Indeed, the results were showing up on their tablets as well as the larger monitors about the room. While her physical changes were again astonishing, the testing which tracked her intellectual capabilities however still had her squarely in the one-standard-deviation-below-the-mean category. Not quite classified as a “moron” on the old Goddard scale, but close enough.

The poor thing, the blonde tech had sometimes found herself thinking She knew about MM-1A’s life, origins and upbringing, and she couldn’t help but sympathize with her. Despite everything that had happened up until now, Melissa was really not designed to lead, originally, or think. She was designed as a weapon. But, recently, the blonde tech had felt the stirrings whenever Melissa came into the lab. She hadn’t mentionedanything to Marcia about it yet, but there was something about this enormous, overgrown girl with the muscles of steel and now the breath and the voice, whose very steps caused the earth to quake, that made her feel, well…funny. She felt like she should bow her head whenever Melissa approached. So, it hadn’t been pity that had been motivating the blonde tech to treat Melissa extra nice these days, bring her offerings of water and snacks. It had been awe, reverence, something like…well, yeah.

Earlier, when Melissa was asleep, both techs had watched MM-1A lay there in stasis as the scans ran and her body repaired itself. They each privately stared at her and were preoccupied with their own thoughts. While the blonde admired Melissa’s growing beauty, Marcia silently swore that she could almost see the superhuman blood rushing through the young woman’s veins, fueling her muscles.

What must it feel like? Marcia marveled, allowing herself a rare moment of reverie, to start each day stronger than the day before? Taller, bigger, more powerful? The girl was 203cm now (nearly 6’8”!), and an unbelievable 285lbs. She was obviously becoming denser in bone and muscle structure and every week bigger than the week before, able to lift more, stronger is all measurable respects. In a playful moment earlier, in fact, she’d taken an empty bar from the weight bench and showed she could bend steel with her bare hands! She was becoming…so much more. Was that a little bit of envy Marcia was feeling? Yes, she guessed it was.

In the meantime, though, they needed their data.

During stasis, the techs watched their screens as MM-1A’s body had begun to enter a higher anabolic state where it started to repair and rejuvenate tissues. However, beyond simply repairing the microscopic tears in her skeletal muscle cells, MM-1A’s enhanced genetics signaled her body to not only fix the tissue damage but also to improve and fortify her cellular makeup – enhancing her musculature in ways logarithmically above and beyond normal. Her regenerative abilities were proving themselves vastly superior to even those of the most elite human athletes.

With each passing second, MM-1A’s tendons and muscles, which had been torn and ripped to base fibers by the intense physical exertion in the weight area, re-wove themselves even stronger and denser than before, becoming hundreds of times more powerful than should be possible. The techs also watched the bone scans, as MM-1A’s skeleton likewise reinforced itself, crystallizing calcium further into super hard limbs capable of withstanding extraordinary forces. Even the subject’s skin – so smooth and perfect to the external eye, soft and supple to the touch – became paradoxically harder and denser, more resistant to harm.

While MM-1A’s genetic code was designed using arcane methods beyond what either of the technicians could comprehend, its function was currently working orders of magnitude better than it had in the past, or how it was originally designed. MM-1a was getting slightly stronger, faster and more durable with each passing second as she slept. Plus, she seemed more gorgeous every time they looked at her.

As they worked, talked, the two technicians had still assumed MM-1A asleep, blissfully unaware of their conversation. Yet a slight grin had begun to creep across her beautiful face. The young woman, now awakening, could not only feel that something truly wonderful had once again happened inside of her, but could also feel the awe and admiration of the two women in the room. She decided to bask in that feeling privately, for a good long moment, with the thought of knowing how strong she was now sending chills of excitement down her superhumanly fortified spine. She knew the two young nerds were amazed, watching what Melissa dealt with every day: her being slowly reborn as something completely new, the world’s first super goddess.

The thought made Melissa moan; the walls rattled with it.

“NNNNNNNnnnnnnggggh…”

“Y-you’re awake…” Marcia said, eyes wide as - in a moment of atypical discomposure - she looked up from her tablet. The set of beakers on the table in front of her had stopped clinking, but her nerves were still clattering.

“I am,” Melissa replied, enjoying how deep her voice sounded, echoing around the room and again setting glassware jangling. Here in the lab, she felt less like she had to hold back on her abilities, her strength. There was just so much of her these days and while the world outside was beginning to look more fragile and so little - needing her to curb her power so that she didn’t hurt it - she figured the lab here at Evolution could take it.

“Good,” Marcia replied, stepping around the table with her blonde co-worker in tow.

“I like your glasses,” Melissa said to Marcia, complimenting the dark-haired young woman as she watched them both approach, “Are they new?” Though she was nearly naked, just in her bra and panties while these girls were dressed fully in lab coats and sensible shoes, Melissa felt perfectly comfortable while they seemed…less so. In fact, Melissa reveled a bit in the anxiety she could sense in them. Even as Marcia answered, saying something about her new frames, Melissa could tell that she was trying to sound confident. But there was something a little bit twitchy in her tone.

Melissa got that reaction a lot, these days - little people feeling nervous around her. She would never admit it, but it felt good. Watching how others responded was gradually making her confidence swell to levels nearly as superhuman as her body. She smiled, as she could feel the subtle energy coming from the two young women as they neared, the blonde one especially. It was something she’d begun to notice recently, this nice warmth that seemed to feed her, almost like a pleasant electric current. It came from others, especially those that seemed to admire her. Like him, she thought in a sudden moment of edacity, I want more of this from him.

Marcia had begun to rattle off results, numbers and statistics as she proceeded to undo the straps around Melissa’s wrists. The blonde began to unstrap the ones at her ankles, pausing to look at her big feet. Quietly, Melissa noticed…and secretly smiled.

Marcia described information they’d gathered about her changing metabolism, bone structure, even neuroanatomy. Some of it - well, lots of it - went right over Melissa’s head. But some of it made her perk right up and listen intently with her now-superhuman ears.

“You’ve grown 29.3 centimeters…” Marcia began, but then noticed Melissa - just beginning to sit herself up on the exam table - cock her head, in question. Marcia paused, remembering the results of the IQ battery. 82. “…More than eleven inches,” she corrected herself, adding, “A foot, you’ve grown almost a foot - in three-and-a-half mon-“

“And six inches in the last five weeks..!“ added the blonde, more excitement in her voice than Marcia would like to see.

“We’re concerned how long that’s going to keep going-”

“And if you’re going to just keep growing faster and faster,” said the blonde, reaching out to hand Melissa another chocolate shake.

Don’t smile anymore than you already are! Melissa told herself, taking the pint of clinically-tested but never 100% governmentally-approved mix of amino acids, creatine, albumin and casein. “Never underestimate a girl that hits her protein goals every day,” she smiled.

“We’re worried that you’re changing too fast,” Marcia continued dryly, not looking amused by Melissa’s little quip and just able to keep a crack out of her voice, “Looking at your genetics, your new sequencing, it’s looking less and less like…well, a human’s. You’re becoming something…different.”

“Something…better?” Melissa asked, now unable to fight back her marvelous, delighted smile.

“Well, I, um…” Marcia began, not really knowing how to answer.

Her blonde co-worker - resisting the sudden urge to kneel - did it for her, with a demonstrative:

”Yes.”

=========================

thanks to brother Ankle4u for the base image for this offering and to RiF for his always appreciated editing

#growing into the job

48 notes · View notes

goingrampant · 11 months ago

Text

There's an increasingly common plot device or framework that I'm seeing applied where a basic antisemitic narrative is retold with the evil Jew figures replaced with Nazis in an effort to make it no longer antisemitic while still telling the same basic narrative. For a concrete label, let's call it... Protocols of the Elders of Nazism. The Illuminati exists; there is a secret society threatening children with bloodletting, but it’s the Nazis this time, so it's no longer antisemitic (?). With enough care, this can be executed well, but it may be substantially flawed and wind up supporting real world antisemitism with what reads as a dog whistle or first layer of Nazi propaganda to make new recruits accept basic premises of Nazi ideology before hitting them with the hard stuff. This latter condition may be due to bad writing or literal Nazi propaganda and the lack of clarity is part of the problem.

There are a few instances where this is done reasonably well (YMMV), to make an antifascist point from a place of respect toward Jews and Jewish culture. Roald Dahl was very antisemitic, and his The Witches book reproduces the blood libel narrative, as does the 1990 film adaptation, but the 2020 film attempts to spin this around to code the witches as Nazis with a smattering of German (I believe I read somewhere that Anne Hathaway deliberately played her witch character as a Nazi). Guillermo del Toro's The Strain draws heavily from Dracula and Nosferatu, both frequently labeled as antisemitic, and spins the narrative to have the vampire bad guys intertwined with the Nazis while heroic Jews oppose them. Hunters does similarly, with a Nakam-like rogue group of heroic Jews (eh... *handwavy gesture*) opposing a secret conspiracy of Nazis.

And then there is worse execution, with the framework often appearing as leftist populism while also ferreting in ideas in common with rightist populism/actual Nazism. The Boys comics drip with allusions to antisemitic conspiracy theories as part of its populist message but technically has a Nazi bad guy and villainous American fascism, which makes me consider the comics to read like an antifascist work made by an ex-Nazi the day after he decided he was antifa. The Boys TV show (which has a significant Jewish presence in the production) is better but still suffers this problem with its depiction of an evil pharmaceutical company exhibiting traits in common with antisemitic conspiracy theories, just now with a Nazi origin associated with a revamped version of the comics' Nazi bad guy as well as the American fascism element. Associated terf ideas bring Abigail Shrier's antisemitic conspiracy theory to mind, as well.

Hogwarts Legacy dresses its goblin antagonists up like Nazis, has a line of combat dialog be "I was only following orders!", and depicts them as racist against humans... while also an allusion to anti-SJW Nazi propaganda characterizing feminist game critics as a Jewish conspiracy. The goblins drip with antisemitic imagery but are supposed to be Nazis. With one of the main developers' active advocacy for Gamergate and fixation on Anita Sarkeesian, who I believe was demonized through the main goblin antagonist in allusion to neo-Nazi antisemitic memes ("Anita Jewkeesian"), I think it's reasonable to characterize the game as Nazi propaganda. It's worth note that journalist Robert Evans suggests in The War on Everyone, his audiobook chronicling the development of American neo-Nazism, that Gamergate could have been created by Internet-savy neo-Nazis to spread propaganda.

Most recently, Wonka--also an adaptation of a Roald Dahl work--depicts an evil money-grubbing cartel with characters alluding to Hitler in name and appearance... and seemingly alludes to terf Abigail Shrier's antisemitic conspiracy theory with this evil cartel drugging a woman's daughter to give her a mustache. A chocolate that makes you get clever ideas, made of the essences of lightning and sunshine, is also concerning. ("The lightning and the sun" is a phrase from Nazi occultism representing Hitler as a heroic god figure opposing spiritual chaos, and you can find references to it as dog whistles in various places. Joe Rogan seems to have been indoctrinated in this ideology and similarly dropped references to it. It's possible someone involved in the production of Wonka stuck in lightning and sun references to dog whistle?)

This trope should not be seen as an instant fix for narratives grounded in antisemitism and may indeed carry ideas serving to induct people into coming to accept antisemitic conspiracy theories and associated problems. My takeaway is that depictions of Nazis should be handled with great care. It's not simply acceptable to stick them into any old evil archetype and call it a day. When resurrecting antisemitic narratives, care must be taken to insure the antisemitism itself doesn't propagate, whether or not Nazis are in it as bad guys.

#antisemitism #tw nazis #tropes #transphobia

37 notes · View notes