#they are two sides of the same coin both with flaws and virtues

[olis-inkwell-symposium]

A Character’s Flaws vs. Strengths

When it comes to balancing your character’s flaws and strengths, the goal is to create a multidimensional figure that feels real and relatable—someone who’s defined by both their virtues and their imperfections. Here’s how I approach it:

Make the Flaws Integral to the Plot

Characters need their flaws to feel human. But it’s not enough for them to just have these flaws—they should actually affect the story.

When a character’s impatience or distrust leads to mistakes, it makes their growth feel earned. Their flaws should push the narrative forward, not just sit there in the background.

Don’t Overbalance Toward Strengths

One of the biggest traps is giving your characters too many redeeming qualities to offset their weaknesses. A character who’s too good at too many things, with only one tiny fault (that’s conveniently not a big deal), won’t hold the reader’s attention. It’s all about dysfunction; flawed characters who still manage to push through the shit.

Reflect Flaws in Relationships

Let the flaws ripple out. Does a character’s arrogance put them at odds with their best friend?

Maybe their insecurity makes them sabotage a potential love interest. The flaws shouldn’t just affect them personally—they should shape how they interact with the world and the people in it.

Make Strengths Earned

Rather than giving a character prepackaged strengths, have those strengths grow organically from their flaws. Maybe a character’s stubbornness makes them unwilling to give up on a tough quest, or their mistrust means they’re great at detecting lies.

The best strengths are those that arise from a deep understanding of their weaknesses.

Balance in the Journey

Don’t be afraid to let your character break down. Sometimes they’ll fall, make the wrong choice, and face the consequences of their flaws. But that’s what makes their eventual triumphs even sweeter. It’s about letting the flaws and strengths dance together, creating a push-pull dynamic that keeps readers invested.

In the end, flaws and strengths shouldn’t feel separate. They’re two sides of the same coin. It’s in that tension, that friction, where the real depth of a character comes to life. That’s how I build my characters—flawed, messy, deeply human, and it makes them all the more interesting for it.

If you want to see how I pull this off in my worlds like Tenebraethia, Novaxiom, or A Healer’s Vow, check out more over at @oliolioxenfreewrites.

[burst-of-iridescent]

not to beat the "sokka's misogyny" disk horse even further into the ground, but while i agree with the take that sokka being sexist logically doesn't make sense, i would go further to say that the water tribes themselves being sexist is both illogical and thematically contradictory.

the flaws of each nation in atla have always been linked to their element, and specifically what those elements represent. fire is the element of power; power, left unchecked, leads to imperialism and authoritarianism. earth is the element of substance and stability; stability, prioritized too highly, creates and justifies the rigid class system and rampant corruption of ba sing se. air is the element of freedom; freedom, taken too far, becomes irresponsibility and abandonment.

meanwhile, water is the element of change... therefore the water tribes cling to antiquated ideas about gender roles instead of adapting with the times (especially when the times involve a fucking war going on).

not only is this unrealistic, it also breaks the thematic pattern of the nations' flaws being virtues taken to extremes, and how this dovetails into the show's overall message about the importance of balance. if we're keeping with the pattern of virtue and vice being two sides of the same coin, then the flaw of the water tribes has to be related to change. and here is where some of the (badly executed) ideas in the comics and legend of korra could have come into play: change, left uncontrolled, can lead to progress... but at the cost of tradition and spirituality.

(imagine a nwt cut off from the world and forced to rely solely on itself, ingenuity and creativity flourishing out of sheer, desperate need. imagine a nwt where waterbending is nothing more than a tool, used to build and defend and maintain a fortress always at risk, its spiritual origins slowly lost to time. imagine a nwt more military than community, whose architecture and technology far exceed anything the world has ever seen, who look down upon their less advanced sister tribe, and see no need for the avatar - after all, where was he when they had no one but themselves for the last 100 years?

when warned that the fire nation is coming, they show no fear; they have held strong on their own for the last century, bolstered by their weapons and wits, and will continue to do so. you need the spirits, aang implores, and is met with derision, for there is no place for spirits in a society always chasing more, greater, better. the spirits have not helped us before, avatar. why would they now? we are all we need.

when the moon spirit falls, unprotected and forgotten in an abandoned, rundown spirit oasis - so do they.)

not only would this fit better thematically, it would also ensure that the nwt's flaw plays a role in its own downfall. where the fire nation's warmongering resulted in the poverty and suffering of its own people, and the earth kingdom's corruption led - at least in part - to the fall of ba sing se, the misogyny of the water tribes is never shown to negatively impact them in any way. the north isn't defeated by the fire nation because they relegated half the population to healing. the south doesn't suffer raids or lose their waterbenders because they (supposedly) didn't let women fight. this lack of narrative punishment means that - outside of a few girlboss moments for katara - the sexism of the nwt isn't significant to the overall story whatsoever.

furthermore, while the ba sing se arc last almosts half a season, and the fire nation's actions drive the entire show, this supposed systemic oppression of women shows up for one episode in the first season before disappearing entirely. pakku is reminded of his lost love, magically turns into a feminist, and somehow the entire tribe follows suit? no one else protests, not even the other students or the chief?

and yet, though there are still no female waterbenders other than katara, or agency for kanna in her relationship, or any indication that women stopped being forcibly betrothed - the entire issue is simply swept under the rug and never brought up ever again in the show. i understand this was a children's cartoon made in 2005, and that even having female characters openly speak about and challenge misogyny was a radical feat for the time and genre, but the reality of patriarchy is that it's structural, sustained and immensely difficult to resist - if the show was going to depict that resistance, it should have done so with greater depth and nuance, as it did for many of the other difficult topics it tackled.

ultimately, handwaving misogyny away like it never existed is far more disrespectful to katara's character, her fight against injustice, and the girls who saw themselves in her, than simply toning it down or removing it could ever be.

[linktotheheart]

I've been thinking of two of my biggest fandom loves, Legend of Zelda and The Locked Tomb.

I've seen so many takes that paint Hylia as evil, cruel, an oppressor who rejects the personhood of her chosen champion and steals away Zelda's chance at a life like a parasite creeping in to fill the shell of the girl who was always meant to be a vessel.

I've seen plenty of takes exactly counter to that, which insist that Hylia is kind, that Hylia is a person too and doing her best to love and be loved and save the world and the people she cares so much about and preserve their personhood.

I've also seen a few (though to my taste, not enough) takes on Hylia's ambitions, desires, and reasoning simply being alien to that of Hylians due to her goddesshood. On a human scale, she is amoral, because she operates on the scale of wars and worlds.

But one thing I haven't seen is: what if it's multiple of those? What if she loves her champion and princess so deeply she hurts them in the cruelest of ways? What if she is imperfect? What if she is abusive but not evil and a victim but not good? What if she's all of the above, and is simply so powerful that the way her actions translate to the tiny lives of people are tidal waves that are tiny in her wide ocean but devastation to the tiny island chains scattered throughout?

What if her actions are necessary and inexcusable? What if she destroys Link and Zelda every time she is trying to save them, her hands too big for the tiny fragile pieces of their heart? What if she is the most flexible narrative force, meant to represent courage, wisdom, power, and love?

What if The Legend of Zelda is just as much a story about the horrors of love as The Locked Tomb is? What if the horrors and wonders are just two sides of the same coin that is love? What if Hylia is kind and cruel and all the messy human things and an unfathomable deity? What if she is more than one thing? What if she is many things?

I dunno. Maybe it's just my adoration for the many different, often contradictory lenses through which the fandom views her. Maybe it's the way each iteration of LoZ paints her in a different light. In Skyward Sword, practically a main character, driving the narrative and being herself swept up in it. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, nearly absent beyond her fingerprints left on the hearts of Link and Zelda and her faint voice granting her hero back his strength. In still other games, fainter but still present like a slowly beating heart beneath the skin of Hyrule and realms beyond.

I love every interpretation of her. I love takes that pull from classical mythology to make her flawed and as petty and cruel as humans can be. I love takes that pull from the idea of a perfectly good deity that is a paragon of virtue. I love takes that stem from religious trauma that find her more cruel than Demise and more culpable for the destruction of their war.

I love takes in which she destroys Link and Zelda. I love takes in which she saves them. I love takes in which she and Zelda are one and the same, in ways that either maintain their separate personhood or synthesize it into an entirely new being (plurality, hello!). I love takes in which she and her champions control the strings of fate, and ones where they are helplessly entangled and imprisoned by them. I love takes in which she devours and takes in which she is subsumed.

Why should it only ever be one or the other? Why can't it be both? What's mutual exclusivity to an omnipotent goddess? Alternatively, how could she not be many things when she is a deity too helpless to save anyone herself?

Idk. Just, the horrors of love and how they don't erase or negate the wonders of it. How the two build on one another to make each greater. How pain and pleasure are just two kinds of ecstasy, and it's all just stimulation of nerve fibers. How Legend of Zelda is, above all, a mythos being retold throughout the ages in different worlds, and how therefore, it necessitates it's characters being many things.

Y'know?

[last-blueknight]

I have a theory, though it's kind of dark and heavily relies on the whole "Audrey is working with Gabriel" and the "senti zoe" Theory. Basically Audrey with Gabriel's help used the peacock and butterfly miraculous and removed Chloe's "flaws" from her which resulted in Zoe's creation. If Zoe is the result of Chloe’s “flaws” being removed from her by Audrey and Gabe, then what would you think if Zoe and Chloe physically merged together later on?

Two sides of the same coin If chloe and zoe were two parts of the same entity (with very different faces) I think it would be a very interesting plot tweet from the series, I would really be surprised if that were the case and bringing them back together would make a big difference development of both towards their future this new girl with virtues and defects.

But unfortunately I don't think the writers are encouraged to do that much.

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

Misc tendencies I see from female character enjoyers that I am a little annoyed by, but I can’t quite articulate the exact why they annoy me:

This tendency to chalk up the female character being at her worse to ‘bad writing’, ‘unfairness in the system causing a person to act out’ or ‘trauma’. Like, I feel like they are two sides of the same coin, even though both also stem from valid criticisms as well. The best way I can phrase this annoyance is ‘there’s this assumption that flawed behaviour in women has to stem purely from external sources rather than her being, by virtue of a symbolic representative of a human experience, flawed’, but I feel like there are better ways of articulating that.

I feel that this is related, but is it weird that I’m a little tired of ‘fawning’? Like, the treatment of an ‘ideal’ female character as something to first be modified to an ideal state, and then preserved and looked at and upheld and protected from the ‘bad fans’, rather than something to be played with and engaged with to the same level that many male characters do. It’s treating storytelling as a museum piece to be studied and understood as opposed to something to be understood through some form of active engagement, which I prefer generally.

And related to those two, I recognise a lot of the response to that is because of the fandom behaviour of old. Wherein people *are* disproportionately unfair and vicious towards many. (Some spaces are still like this; it can be very disturbing.) I get the defensiveness.

Yet I feel like, a lot of it is very reactionary? Mostly because it is something done in reaction to something. I feel like we do need to be a little bit more open to playing around. Like, playing offense instead of defense if that make sense.

Like, I dunno. Maybe I have grown out of this need to construct ‘an ideal version in my head’. I have grown out of this need to ‘defend’. I have grown out of this need to do anything like that. And I kind of just want to... grow past that, whatever growing past that means? (I dunno, man.)

[queercodedvillains]

Look I may not know transistor all that well but I know a juicy tragic narrative when I see one!! Hello!! Put those bitches in a situation!! God knows I'm a sasodei shipper for life but here's my thing there are so many alternate universes and so many ways for their relationship to manifest and romance is fun and all but the inherent core of their dynamic is being tragic foils. Two sides of the same coin. They're both artists obsessed with death and decay and entropy and the ceaseless progression of time but deidara leans into that and lets himself live deliciously while sasori runs from it while simultaneously desperately trying hold onto it? Holding onto it so fucking tightly is what repels him from it in the first place? Both of their refusals to compromise their artistic philosophy for each other? Deidaras (correct) flexing of his right to live and love someone who's available and compatible and yknow remotely fucking healthy for him? Because of course he could never be anyone's possession he's so defined by his endless pursuit of freedom and transcendence? Do not get me wrong the original premise just between inudei makes me want to rip my heart out bc I don't need it anymore but G O D adding sasori in as an antagonist in THIS capacity is just fucking sending me into overdrive.

This is so perfectly in character for sasori being so obsessed with permanence and a pathological avoidance of grief. Like sure he could avoid attachment but he had no choice when it came to Deidara by virtue of time spent in close proximity. But for him to watch deidara pick someone else, even if he had no intention or ability to fill that role in his life, his nasty abandonment issues and cold blooded sadistic streak would absolutely drive him to bloody revenge. He is the epitome of "if I cant have you then no one can" (hello third kazekage and komushi).

He is so motivated by his fear of loss that it drives him to ruining the people he loves by turning them into things, because things can't leave him, right? Sasoris affection is so tied in possession that I don't think he knows the difference between them, in any universe this is so core to his character it just tickles my amygdala to see it explored in a new way.

Give him different tools sure now hes cybernetic instead of wood and chakra, but he uses them the same way to turn himself into an inhuman, seemingly indestructible, eternal being spared from all the messy physiological and psychosomatic emotions that plagued him so viciously since he was just a kid who didn't know his parents died? Pushed to horrific means to achieve his ends? His tragic flaw being that he brings about his own loss in his attempt to avoid it? Sasori wants him back so bad he's willing to irreparably hurt deidara and by extension their relationship forever? The urge to possess and preserve as a twisted expression of suppressed homoerotic desire that he can't even conceptualize bc he doesn't have the hormonal capacity to feel that or the emotional capacity to process it? How the pursuit of his art always fuckin brings about his tragic end??

Bro I'm chewing through plywood over this how dare you 😭😤😭😤😭

They want you back, I bet.

Well... so do I.

Parallel Play Week 2024

Day 1 - Fairytales

Woe, Parallel Play Week 2024 be upon ye! (For those uninitiated this is when I borrow the prompts of another ship week and play alongside them with my own blorbos because there's no one who will do a ship week with my obscure crossover ship and sometimes it's just nice to feel like a part of something. I will sit quietly in my corner and not disturb the ship week tags though.)

I searched for a bunch of different cultural fairytales that might have fit this prompt, but in the end I succumbed to my baser desires and made a Transistor AU, so it's more "Fiction" than "Fairytale."

I imagine the Akatsuki being the Camerata in this AU. Itachi is obviously Royce Bracket, Pain and Konan I think make a decent Grant and Asher Kendrell, and it would be really interesting for Sasori to be Sybil Reisz. You can insert any ship thoughts you would like in there, but I think he's the Akatsuki member most suited to being a flying multi-armed glitch monster.

[amistillsadaboutghostbur]

btw if a ghostbur post has alivebur/revivebur hate in it i'm not reblogging it. end of story

[lord-squiggletits]

Another reason to ship IDW MegOP specifically is the fact that both of them are the villains to half (or more) of Cybertron's population. Like, there's Megatron with his tyranny and genocide and hypocrisy, and there's Optimus as the former servant of Zeta's regime plus being a Prime. Sure, other continuities of MegOP have that "lonely at the top" thing that Megs and OP have because of being leaders, but IDW Megatron and Optimus? Not only are they lonely by virtue of being leaders who can't have/refuse to have personal attachments, but they're lonely because both of them set out with the best of intentions only for their lives to be primarily known for all their horrible deeds.

There's just something so melancholy about the thought that, besides a few sympathetic friends (who all either wander away, die, or can't show their friendship due to publicity), both Megatron and Optimus are doomed to die and be remembered as part of one of the worst eras of Cybertron's history. There's something so lonely about it. That they both lived such grandiose lives, the stuff of legends, only to be stripped by one path or another into being sad, pathetic relics of war, too late for either of them to live real lives before they die.

It feels like they really do have nothing but each other, like there are no other Cybertronians in existence that could see each other for all the worst things they did and still see them as people. The deeds and consequences of their lives stand larger than they could ever be as individuals. And maybe they can't ever redeem themselves to Cybertron/the galaxy, but because they're two sides of the same coin, they can find some sort of peaceful resolution in each other. No other person that has stood where they've stood and understands the effects of this entire lifetime of leading war. But maybe, between their different virtues and flaws, they could have found ways to forgive each other and find personal redemption between each other in the way they could never have in the eyes of the rest of the universe.

It's literally just them versus the world. Profound loneliness drowning in their own oceans of regret. But they're the same in their loneliness, so maybe together they don't have to be so lonely.

[paradife-loft]

why the nie sect leaders’ inevitable death by qi deviation isn’t (just) about the sabers

(now at AO3!)

So, okay, this is a meta I’ve been working on/wanting to write/dropping hints to various people about now for quite a while! I think it’s significant thematically to some of the main questions MDZS/CQL asks, about cycles of justice and vengeance, the tension between personal agency and aspects of a situation outside one’s control, and good intentions often not being enough on their own, particularly to forestall problems resulting from imperfect or fatally flawed means to an end.

As a fantasy story, I think one of the strengths of MDZS/CQL is how it uses magic to reflect aspects of its thematic questions in certain cases as literal external forces, events that exist in a format outside just a character’s internal journey. The metaphors and proper social and personal orders these characters live by, have very real physical consequences in the world that result from the existence and manipulation of magical/spiritual energies.

And to my view, the part of this that I want to make the case for here, is how this relates to the Nie sect’s cultivation practises, and why I think the clan’s history of leaders succumbing to instability and qi deviation is a more complicated interplay of a few different factors, rather than just an externally-imposed illness whose source is purely their saber spirits.

* * *

Like, okay. The characters and narrative do, in fact, spend a lot of time discussing the Nie sect leaders’ early violent deaths in the context of their sabers’ spirits becoming angry and aggressive and affecting their mental and spiritual stability. So it makes sense to focus on those actual items as the essential reason behind why they qi deviate and end up dying the way they do. But there was something… logically unsatisfying to me about the idea that just the number of edges on your bladed weapon would make such a difference that sword spirits (also generally used for killing! because they’re also deadly weapons!) are apparently morally neutral but sabers, on the other hand, just Cannot Stop with the killing once they’ve gotten a taste of it.

But if you take an experimental step away from the idea that sabers must somehow be Inherently Different from swords in their response to violence - what possible explanations are left? Or, asked a different way - what makes the Nie sect’s ideological cultivation focus distinct from other sects’? The Lan focus on regulation and self-restraint as the path to goodness; the Jiang focus on self-knowledge and following what you know as right even against difficult odds; the Jin seem to emphasise value in beauty and unique rarity… and what the Nie seem to place the most value on, is dispensation of justice and abhorring evil, even to an extent that refuses attempts at compromise.

The only problem is, the justice that they (and plenty of others) seem to focus on most often, is justice for capital crimes - paying with a life for a life - and no matter how righteous and justified the motives, what this still ends up with is a spiritual path that spends a comparatively awful lot of time on seeking others’ deaths. And we see, throughout the story, more than one thematic hint that this is maybe not the best method for moving toward harmony or immortality.

Lan Qiren’s impromptu quiz of Wei Wuxian when the latter is fucking off in class. His example problem specifies the resentful spirit was an executioner in life (societally-sanctioned to kill others for heinous crimes), and Wei Wuxian notes that one who’s killed so many is a very likely sort to become a resentful corpse; meanwhile his many victims also remain tethered to cycles of vengeance and anger, able to be easily stirred up into a force of resentful energy that would target him if their corpses were disturbed.

The dialogue between Wei Wuxian and Fang Mengchen in the Burial Mounds after the attempted siege turns into the major sects being saved from a trap. It’s all very fine and good to hold a grudge, to see a lack of justice for a harm that can’t ever be undone or repaired when the one who caused it gets to be alive and well (or even not!), but as Wei Wuxian says - what are you going to do about it? It’s so easy for there to always be a wrong that needs righting (in a real or alleged guilty party’s blood). But will it get you anywhere? Can a person, can a society, mete out justice or vengeance once and have that wipe the slate clean, or will the wound reopen again and demand yet more suffering? Where does it end?

The discussion about the Nie’s ancestral saber halls with Huisang, where Wei Wuxian notes that the method of suppressing the saber spirits edges rather close to demonic cultivation. In literal terms, that question seems to be directed at the actual use of evil individuals’ transforming corpses to contain the sabers’ power. But I think the entire conversation, and Huisang’s need to swear them to secrecy and enlistment as backup if other clans find out and get angry, contains a certain amount of thematic subtext reflecting not just on the saber tomb itself, but the Nie clan’s cultivation as a whole. These are significant and revered family heirlooms, not easily or justly discarded, but maintaining them isn’t without cost, and the spiritual fallout rests on the edge of a knife, needing the perpetual presence of an evil to fight to remain in balance: the saber tomb is both the literal and metaphorical end result of the clan leaders’ cultivation path.

“But why,” you may ask, “if the principles underlying the Nie sect’s whole culture have an edge that’s sharper and more harmful to the user’s qi than other cultivation philosophies of the rest of the sword-using sects, do we only see “death by qi deviation” as an issue for the sect leaders, and not more widespread among a larger portion of the disciples?”

And that’s where the “(just)” part of the title of this post comes in, because that aspect is where the difference comes down to the sabers - or, specifically, the named sabers that have spirits of their own. The spiritual sabers aren’t bloodthirsty and excited to haunt and/or kill people right out of the gate, but rather, as Huisang explains, they become restless after spending their wielder’s lifetime destroying evil. A cultivator and their spiritual tools develop a relationship over time, as their cultivation is practised and refined - they bond, they recognise one another, and crucially, they seem to be able to share a kind of spiritual feedback loop, with the energies and intentions of one connecting to and ideally bolstering the strength of the other. The Nie clan in general seems marked by particularly strong relationships between individual cultivator and weapon, considering the sabers’ refusal to allow a clan leader’s descendants to inherent them, and both the circumstances of Mingjue’s father’s death and his own trauma reaction to that death.

So in this case, the illness and eventual qi deviations the Nie clan leaders suffer, the way the saber spirits come to weigh on their minds and emotions, make sense to me as a confluence of the particularly close bond and almost spiritual symbiosis between wielder and weapon, and the particular subject of emphasis that the clan leader lives by in how they train with and use that weapon. Focusing on justice as killing, as violent destruction of evil (the last resort one should aspire to after other solutions have failed, per Lan Qiren’s lesson), may not be the most spiritually healthy in any circumstance, but it’s only when you have half a lifetime’s worth of a mental feedback loop between you and this external, semi-sentient part of yourself that’s reinforcing the spiritual toll of that path, that you actually end up with a resulting qi deviation and death.

* * *

So, anyway, I do want to be clear having put forth this argument, that my point here is not to condemn the Nies, nor for that matter blame the sect leaders for their own deaths - that’s very much not in line with how the text itself displays flaws and virtues as two sides of the same coin (at times divided only by the context around them), and shows how destructive consequences can result from the best of intentions. For that matter, each major sect has unquestionably valuable basic principles at its heart, and just like microcosms of any culture, society, or group, displays instances of those principles being distorted, misaimed, or taken to extremes in ways that cause disharmony and pain to those in their path.

I think the way it plays out for the Nie clan just interests me in particular because of the way their uniqueness in cultivation method plays such known havoc with its members’ bodies and minds, and the way it straddles the divide between upright and demonic cultivation. MDZS asks, I think, more questions than it offers definitive answers to, and a significant one of those is, even if vengeance, even if death-as-justice is righteous, where do you balance all the harm done to others (up to and including) the justice-seeker in deciding whether to continue down that path of action?

And if it’s the Nie sect’s spiritual focus in combination with the spirits of their sabers that wear down a slow stream of damage to their qi, rather than simply the external threat of the sabers alone - that seems congruent, to me, with the suggestions offered elsewhere in the story.

[simeramise]

Every moon in the stars

This is a winter gift for @myidlehand ​ , you know why my dear.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It was Yule night, the winter solstice, the longest night of all. Her silent and heavy cape of cold and snow, dark blue and soft, is draped upon every creek and hollow, mountain and meadow of the land.  

It was Yule night, the winter solstice, the longest night of all and in her arms slept a lost keep, its grey stoned walls, old and tired somewhere in a mountain.  

It was Yule night, the winter solstice, the longest night of all and in this keep, entwined, warmed by a low fire, laid two men. Shining with love and sweat, their dark hair are drawing a halo on the pale pillows. The feather-like fingers of the musician are tracing the scars of his lover’s face, the ones deforming every smile and laugh, every eye wrinkle. The ones born from love, hatred, cowardice, and bravery. The testimony of the man’s life and heart. The moon and her stars were shining bright, their cristal laughs carried away by the wind of the Yule night. 

It was Yule night, the winter solstice, the longest night of all, and a bard loved a witcher. He sang and hummed while his caresses were drawing unknown letters on the witcher’s scarred skin.

Can you hear the mad wind, jealous lover, riding the Earth endlessly, mmm, mmmm mmmmmm mmm....

The witcher is a man of impressive build, hard muscles hidden under a soft and protective layer of fat. He might look like a bear but his school is the one of the wolves roaming the lands. He’s one of the very last wolves of Kaer Morhen, fierce, reliable, fast, silent. His medallion is resting on his dark chest. His strong arms are wrapped around the sturdy waist of his singing lover...

Can you hear the mad wind, jealous lover, mmmm, mmm...

He tightened his hold around him a bit more and hid his face in his neck, nuzzling the soft skin of his underjaw just here. It’s been a long time since they last saw each other.

“Jaskier,… what about Geralt ?”

“What about him ?” yawned the bard.

A silence. “Eskel, what about him?”

“You’re singing about the jealous wind in love, mad with it. I know he loves you, his fire for you is steady and strong, Jaskier. He has never loved so before. I know it, I know him. Does, does he know you... Did you tell him, about you and me, that we... I mean...” A shaky breath, eyes closed “Jaskier, does he know?”

He scrunched his nose, and straightened up, gently pulling himself out of Eskel’s embrace, his hair almost golden in the fire glow.

“Eskel… open your eyes for me, my love. My love, don't you know?”  

He peered into those dark, dark yellow eyes almost brown in the low light and studied the frown disappearing into the soft brown hair.  

“Don’t you know Eskel, how much Geralt feels for you?”

“He loves you Jaskier. He does. So much. And his stories about you, the light in him because of you, well, it made me fall for you, in a way...”  

“Eskel, and he made me fall for you too. His stories about you, the light in him when speaking of you. My poet. I knew you before knowing you.”

The bard grabbed the paw-like hand of his fragile and strong lover and interlaced their fingers.

“Eskel, he has loved you for so much longer than I  have loved him.” A kiss on the thick knuckles. “And I have loved him for so much longer than I have loved you. But it doesn't matter.”

He settled his hand carefully on the witcher’s chest, flat and smooth despite the lute callous and exactly above his heart that beats slowly, so slowly... And the wind is still howling outside. It’s Yule night, the longest of all.

“Love is what counts, Witcher... Love is the only thing that matters. Are my feelings any different than if I’ve known you for centuries? They’re not. Love is I’ve known you for all my life, for centuries and eternity. Love is I’ve been waiting for you, walking the Earth unknowingly to find you someday... Love is eternity. You’re part of my Path, part of my life, part of my soul. You are. And he is. Both of you in a completely different and yet the same way. He knows that. He does Eskel. And he feels the same.”

And slowly Jaskier settled back between the witcher’s arms. Resting his head on his heart. Like he belonged there.

“ Don't you feel how our energies are beating in harmony ?”

“ I do. I do. I thought… I thought it was just me, that I was imagining it. I saw you and Geralt. Geralt, my wolf, my brother, my…” He could feel his hand bruising the soft flesh of his bard’s hip and tried to relax it...

“Yours. Yours, Eskel. I know how you love him. There’s no need to hide your heart from me, my love. I know its truth. Yours.”

“Yes…” he whispered, “Mine. For so long it was just the two of us, you know. Before the trials, the older witchers couldn't tell us apart. We were... one.

And then, then,... there had been life and an ocean of silence and looks and misplaced anger and hurt in between. I was afraid, Jaskier, so. I had no right to love him. And, and...”

“It’s okay, my darling, it’s okay...” and he placed a butterfly kiss on his chin, and another at the corner of his mouth “it’s okay, take your time.”

“And I pushed him away every time I saw myself quiver under his silent concern and his soft worry. And when the world definitively turned against him after Blaviken, I was unable to reach him through the walls he had build around himself. Geralt… He has always been quiet even when he was younger. He’s so much with his whines, grand philosophical opinions, and loud dreams and hopes and yet… so, so quiet in a way? But it was not just that anymore. It was carefully build walls, thick and dark, so dark... And I was helpless at their foot. And then you came, young frivolous man out of nowhere, fresh like a bead of rose… and you broke down these walls, brick by brick, blowing on the dusty cement. And he was almost here again. When he came back for winter he had this lightness in his steps, this lightning in his smiles and jokes. He was as well-fed as one on the road could be, soft white silvery hair, soft tired smile. He was... beautiful.”

“He is...” breathed the bard, curling closer into his lover's warm body...

“Do you know Jaskier how I hated you for that? For making him happy as I could never, for making his heart warm, his smile bright and his swords precise and assured? But I loved you so at the same time for these exact reasons... And I thought let him go. Now, see how himself he almost is again. Hear the tunes hummed under his breath, hear how he speaks of him, see how happiness suits him... Forget your heart. That’s what I thought, that’s what I kept repeating to myself winter after winter, but...”

“You love him.”

“I do. And he, loves you.”

“He does.”

“And you love him.”  

“I do.”

“We met and… “

“And my perfect body, angelic voice, and dark eyelash made it for you, is that it?”

“What? No! What are talking abo... Oh no, no stop that, Jaskier, stop” but the bard was cruelly ignoring him, tickling the tender spot above his right hip, and everywhere he could reach, giggling lightly at how the fierce hunter was wiggling in vain between his thighs “would you stop that now, you stupid bard, stop I said. Since when do you giggle like a brainless maiden, ngh, stop, you heartless idiot” and at last Eskel managed to grab the strong wrists and held them captive above his own head, high on the pillows.  

Chest to chest, honey eyes in sea blue ones, humid heavy breaths shared in the small space between their smiles and the bard flopping dark hair.

They stayed here for a long time, as long as a Yule night.

“Stop it Jaskier,... I was serious”

And Jaskier, he closed his eyes and kissed his witcher slowly, softly, like the most fragile secret laid bare, let his lips linger and as slowly, detached them from his...

“I know you are. You love him Eskel. And I love you Eskel. Don't ever forget that.”

“I’m not the White Wolf, Jaskier. I’m just a witcher. But I thought I could be him, a bit, for you. I wanted to have you like he had. I wanted to be loved by you like he had. And I felt miserable for that... It was the furthest thing I wanted. I wanted you to love me, for me, for who I was…”

“I know. And you’re so very much like him. Scarred by life and combats, by yourself. Scared of yourself. Feeling so much and far too intelligent for your own good. Soft under all these hard muscles. Connected to animals and nature... Even some of your mimics are the same. You’re two sides of the same coin. Your souls are the same. And he’s so much more than you... and you’re so much more than him.

Your lives are different, your feelings are different, your hearts are... your hopes and desires, your fears, your favorite sword moves, everything and anything in you both is so unique to cherish and so beautifully you...

Eskel, when we met, when I met you, you were the one I wanted, the one I needed, without knowing it. Not Geralt. Not anyone else. It was you. I had a void inside me that I didn't know you fit perfectly. I don’t love you because I love him, but you, you are the one I missed… I knew it was you that I‘ve been missing all along... and I learned to love you for more than Geralt’s tales about you. And it was you. Only you.  

My sweet brave witcher you’re not the White Wolf. You’re not Geralt, and you’ll never be. And I never ever want you to be. Each life, each beat of heart is so unique. Geralt is my first true love but my heart is big enough for more than one. Your flame is burning so high and so proud, how could anyone, how could I want you to be someone else. You’re you with all your flaws and with all your virtues. And that’s why I love you.  

Oh no my darling, chase those tears from your eyes, I do.”

Freed from his lover’s grasp, his fingers were caressing his rough cheeks, his brow, smoothing back the straight and silky strands of hair.

“You’re mine, the both of you. I will never love you like I love him, Eskel. And I will never love him like I love you. Do you, do you understand ?”

“I do. I do.”

“You’re you and he’s him. Every love is different, every life, every person, every joy, every cry, every shout, every voice, every music is different. Every shining sun, every storm. The stars who made us are different. I love him and I love you. I know it can seem strange but my heart beats for you both, do you understand? Do you? My love is endless. Eskel, do you know how much I hurt and burn for you both? Please, my love, say some- humpf...”

For as long as time has existed, for as long as a Yule night can be, there had never been a better or more efficient way to reduce a loved one to silence than a stolen kiss. Hot, desperate, fierce and tender were the lips of Eskel on his bard’s, his strong nose digging into Jaskiers’s pale cheek, his hands tugging sharply where they were buried in the short wavy brand strand of hair.

He kissed him, again and again, pouring his heart in every nip and bite, every caress of his tongue, every breath shared... He kissed him.

“I do. I do. I do.”  

He kissed him.

“I feel it too, Jaskier. You and Geralt, souls of my soul, lights of my life, I understand, I know. I feel it too.

I love you and I love him Jaskier”

“I love you and I love him Eskel...”

A shared smile. “... and he loves us both. No, don’t hide, come, come, my dear, the sun will not wake up soon, we have eternity for us, I have something to show you, come on...”

He jumped out of the bed, gathering clumsily the clothes they had discarded when the Yule night was young and feverish. Hair wild, pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, bright red hoses on, a long white nightdress hastily covered by a deep blue woolen doublet, Jaskier was a sight Eskel was unable to resist to.

He shook his head fondly and with much more care and method, the witcher dressed up, putting a plain green shirt on, with a thick darker vest over slack brown pants and his faithful leather boots. The last loop passed, and the last string tied Jaskier grabbed his wrist tightly and pulled him out of the bedroom, along the cold corridor. Across stairs and empty halls full of night he urged him, until they arrived into the courtyard covered in snow and stars, their hot breath swirling white around them.

The stable was lit, torches and lanterns projecting a warm light into the doorway.

The witcher halted, easily stoping the bard’s attempt to drag him closer to the low building. He turned his wrist to squeeze his hand gently.

“What the... No Jaskier, we can’t go out in this weather, it would be too dangerous both for us and for the horses. The night is too dark even with the Moon, later maybe, Jaskier, not now.” He cliqued his tongue “Since when are the candles burning inside? Did you lit them before coming to me? You know they’re precious, we can't waste wax like that, the winter is just beginning... who is here! Show your face!”

A happy laugh resonated in the night and the bard pressed a small kiss on the scarres marring his witcher’s face.

“Shhh, Eskel, it’s your surprise. Close your eyes for me, love, please? There you are, my dear. I know, I know, you don't like surprises, stop mumbling for a minute, right? You will like this one! Or I hope so... Don't cheat! Keep your eyes closed!

Geralt, Geralt my wolf, we’re here!”

The bard’s excitement was palpable in the cold air, filling it with a buzzing energy, almost sparkly on his tongue. Eskel licked his lips and shifted his weight, arms crossed over his chest, waiting, eyes closed.

There were hushed whispers and soon he heard the recognizable step of the White Wolf, sure, light despite his weight and imperceptibly favoring his left side, clear in the night. And following, other steps, unsure, clicking on the old stones of the keep.

A gruff voice, that had always send chills down his spine. Geralt. “You can open your eyes, Eskel”

And he did.

“We discovered her during one of our journeys, the merchant said it’s an alpaca? Or something like that... Anyways, he said he didn't want her anymore, said she was too stubborn, so we brought her back here. For you. Geralt thought that you’d like her... Right, Geralt?”  

“She’s very gentle, curious, and attentive. She’s very strong headed and smart.” The deep voice became hesitant here “She, well, she looks a bit like you… She could keep company to your goat? You... you can touch her if you want, her muzzle is very soft."

“More than Roach's?”

“Wha..? Shut up Jask!”

“My darling wolf. Don't worry I know Roach is the only true one in that heart of yours."

But Eskel was no longer listening to them, his full concentration on the strange creature in front of him. She had very thin legs firmly planted in the ground and a long elegant neck. A thick chocolate fur covered her entire body except for her head on top of which it ended in a wild fuzzy mop. The creature would have looked ridiculous but the big black eyes lined with soft, long eyelashes were hiding a rare intelligence and infinite wisdom.  

A trembling breath left him as he tentatively extended his hand in front of him, palm open, offered, and the alpaca stretched out her neck gently to sniff it curiously, her deep eyes not leaving his. Then, as delicately as a snowflake landing on a rosy cheek, she placed her muzzle against the open palm and closed her eyes for a brief moment.  

A smile bloomed on his torn lips and he sniffed, trying to blink away the blur in his eyes. He met the warm yellow of Geralt’s, and Jaskier’s, shining bright blue with hope. The two of them were huddled against each other, Geralt’s arm around the bard waist.

He took a step back as the alpaca turned around, back into the warm stable.

There was no amount of stars in the night that could compete with the love he felt on this winter night. He was so full of it he thought he couldn't feel more than the one beating furiously in his chest, tearing at his seams.

Until he saw their open arms.  

And he found himself falling in, closing their embrace and burying his face in the long white hair and wild brown curls of the two men his heart was beating for, deeply breathing their scent in.  

After a moment, Geralt broke their warm hug and slipped a hand on his jaw, tenderly. He drew closer and placed a gentle cold kiss at the corner of his mouth, then after a breath of hesitation, another one... He withdrew a bit awkwardly offering a small sheepish smile:

“ Merry Yule Eskel, and happy birthday...”

And Jaskier tightened his hold around his two wolves, shielding them from the outside world, listening to the mad wind, jealous lover of the Yule night, riding every creek and hollow, mountain and meadow of the land...

It was Yule night, the winter solstice, the longest night of all and in a courtyard of an old keep, lost somewhere in a mountain, under the starry vault of the night sky, three men, a wild spirit and two wolf-hearted warriors loved each other.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

(Can you hear the mad wind, jealous lover, riding the Earth endlessly, is an old french winter lullaby)

[didanawisgi]

Medicine’s Fundamentalists

The randomized control trial controversy: Why one size doesn’t fit all and why we need observational studies, case histories, and even anecdotes if we are to have personalized medicine

BY NORMAN DOIDGE

AUGUST 14, 2020

If the study was not randomized, we would suggest that you stop reading it and go on to the next article. —Quote from Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM

Why is it we increasingly hear that we can only know that a new treatment is useful if we have a large randomized control trial, or “RCT,” that has positive results? Why is it so commonly said that individual case histories are “mere anecdotes” and count for nothing, even if a patient, who has had a chronic disease, suddenly gets better with a new treatment after all others failed for years—an assertion that seems, to many people, to run counter to common sense?

Indeed, some version of the statement, “only randomized control trials are useful” has become boilerplate during the COVID-19 crisis. It is uttered as though it is self-evidently the mainstream medical position. When other kinds of studies come out, we are told they are “flawed,” or “fatally flawed,” if not RCTs (especially if the commentator doesn’t like the result; if they like the result, not so often). The implication is that the RCT is the sole reliable methodological machine that can uncover truths in medicine, or expose untruths. But if this is so self-evident, why then, do major medical journals continue to publish other study designs, and often praise them as good studies, and why do medical schools teach other methods?

They do because, as extraordinary an invention as the RCT is, RCTs are not superior in all situations, and are inferior in many. The assertion that “only the RCTs matter” is not the mainstream position in practice, and if it ever was, it is fading fast, because, increasingly, the limits of RCTs are being more clearly understood. Here is Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., former head of the CDC, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, in 2017, in an article on the kind of thinking about evidence that normally goes into public health policy now:

Although randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) have long been presumed to be the ideal source for data on the effects of treatment, other methods of obtaining evidence for decisive action are receiving increased interest, prompting new approaches to leverage the strengths and overcome the limitations of different data sources. In this article, I describe the use of RCTs and alternative (and sometimes superior) data sources from the vantage point of public health, illustrate key limitations of RCTs, and suggest ways to improve the use of multiple data sources for health decision making. … Despite their strengths, RCTs have substantial limitations.

That, in fact, is the “mainstream” position now, and it is a case where the mainstream position makes very good sense. The head of the CDC is about as “mainstream” as it gets.

The idea that “only RCTs can decide,” is still the defining attitude, though, of what I shall describe as the RCT fundamentalist. By fundamentalist I here mean someone evincing an unwavering attachment to a set of beliefs and a kind of literal mindedness that lacks nuance—and that, in this case, sees the RCT as the sole source of objective truth in medicine (as fundamentalists often see their own core belief). Like many a fundamentalist, this often involves posing as a purveyor of the authoritative position, but in fact their position may not be. As well, the core belief is repeated, like a catechism, at times ad nauseum, and contrasting beliefs are treated like heresies. What the RCT fundamentalist is peddling is not a scientific attitude, but rather forcing a tool, the RCT, which was designed for a particular kind of problem to become the only tool we use. In this case, RCT is best understood as standing not for Randomized Control Trials, but rather “Rigidly Constrained Thinking” (a phrase coined by the statistician David Streiner in the 1990s).

Studies ask questions. Understanding the question, and its context, is always essential in determining what kind of study, or tool, to use to answer those questions. In the “RCT controversy,” to coin a phrase, neither side is dismissive of the virtues of the RCT; but one side, the fundamentalists, are dismissive of the virtues of other studies, for reasons to be explained. The RCT fundamentalist is the classic case of the person who has a hammer, and thinks that everything must therefore be a nail. The nonfundamentalist position is that RCTs are a precious addition to the researcher’s toolkit, but just because you have a wonderful new hammer doesn’t mean you should throw out your electric drill, screwdriver, or saw.

So let’s begin with a quick review of the rationale for the “randomized” control trial, and their very real strengths, as originally understood. It’s best illustrated by what happens without randomization.

Say you want to assess the impact of a drug or other treatment on an illness. Before the invention of RCTs, scientists might take a group of people with the illness, and give them the drug, and then find another group of people, with the same illness, say, at another hospital, who didn’t get the drug, and then compare the outcome, and observe which group did better. These are called “observational studies,” and they come in different versions.

But scientists soon realized that these results would only be meaningful if those two groups were well matched in terms of illness severity and on a number of other factors that affect the unfolding of the illness.

If the two groups were different, it would be impossible to tell if the group that did better did so because of the medication, or perhaps because of something about that group that gave it an advantage and better outcome. For instance, we know that age is a huge risk factor for COVID-19 death, probably because the immune system declines as we age, and the elderly often already have other illnesses to contend with, even before COVID-19 afflicts them. Say one group was, on average, 60 years old, and all the members got the drug, and the other group was on average 75 years old, and they were the ones that didn’t get the drug. Say that when results were analyzed and compared, they showed the younger group had a higher survival rate.

A naive researcher might think that he or she was measuring “the power of the medication to protect patients from COVID-19 death” but may actually have also been measuring the relative role of youth, in protecting the patients. Scientists soon concluded there was a flaw in that design, because we do not know, with any reasonable degree of confidence, whether the better outcomes were due to age or the medication.

Age, here, is considered a “confounding factor.” It is called a confounding factor, because it causes confusion, because age can also influence the outcome of the study in the group as a whole. Other confounding factors we know about in COVID-19 now include how advanced the illness is at the time of the study, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and probably the person’s vitamin D levels. But there could easily be, and probably are, many other confounding factors we don’t know, as of yet. There are even potential confounding factors that we suspect play a role, but are not quite certain about: the person’s general physical fitness, the ventilation in their home, and so on.

This is where randomization is helpful. In a randomized control trial, one takes a sufficiently large group of patients and randomly assigns them to either the treatment group, or the nontreatment (“placebo” or sugar pill) control group, for instance. Efforts are made to make sure that apart from the treatment, everything else remains the same in the lives of the two groups. It is hoped that by randomly assigning this large number of patients to either the treatment or nontreatment condition, that each of the confounding factors will have an equal chance of appearing in both groups—the factors we know, such as age, but also mysterious ones we don’t yet understand. While observational studies can, with some effort, match at least some confounding factors we do understand in a “group matched design” (and, for instance, make sure both groups are the same age, or disease severity), what they can’t do is match confounding factors we don’t understand. It is here, that RCTs are generally thought to have an advantage.

With such a good technique as RCTs, one might wonder, why do we ever bother with observational studies?

There are a number of situations in medicine in which observational studies are obviously superior to randomized control trials (RCTs), such as when we want to identify the risk factors for an illness. If we suspected that using crack cocaine was bad for the developing brains of children, it would not be acceptable to do an RCT (which would take a large group of kids, and randomly prescribe half of them crack cocaine and the other half a placebo and then see which group did better on tests of brain function). We would instead follow kids who had previously taken crack, and those who never had, in an observational study, and see which group did better. All studies ask questions, and exist in a context, and the moral context is relevant to the choice of the tool you use to answer the question. That is Hippocrates 101: Do no harm.

Now, you might say that a study of risk factors is very different from the study of a treatment. But it is not that different. There can be very similar moral and even methodological issues.

In the 1980s, quite suddenly, clinicians became aware that infants were dying, in large numbers, in their cribs, for reasons that couldn’t be explained, and a new disorder was discovered, sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, or “crib death.” Some people wondered if parents were murdering their children, or if it was infectious, and many theories abounded. A large observational study was done in New Zealand that observed and compared factors in the lives of the infants who died and those who didn’t. The study showed that the infants who died were frequently put to sleep on their tummies. It was “just” an observation. But on that basis alone, it was suggested that having infants sleep on their backs might be helpful, and that parents should avoid putting their infants on their fronts in their cribs. Lo and behold, the rates of infant death radically diminished—not completely, but radically. No sane caring person said: “We should really do an RCT, rule out confounding factors, and settle this with greater certainty, once and for all: All we have to do is randomly assign half the kids to be put to bed on their tummies and the other half on their backs.” That would have been unconscionable. The evidence provided by the observational study was good enough.

Again, all studies have a context and are a means to answering questions. The pressing question with SIDS was not: How can we have absolute certainty about all the causes of SIDS? It was: How can we save infant lives, as soon as possible? In this case, the observational study answered it well.

The SIDS story is a case where we can see how close, in moral terms, a study of risk factors and a study of a new treatment can be in a case where the treatment might be lifesaving. Putting children on their tummies is a risk factorfor SIDS. Putting them on their backs is a treatment for it. The moral issue of not harming research subjects by subjecting them to a likely risk is clear.

Similarly, withholding the most promising treatment we have for a lethal illness is also a moral matter. That is precisely the position taken by the French researchers who thought that hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin was the most promising treatment known for seriously ill COVID-19 patients, and who argued that doing an RCT (which meant withholding the drug from half the patients) was unconscionable. RCT fundamentalists called their study “flawed” and “sloppy,” implying it had a weak methodology. The French researchers responded, in effect saying, we are physicians first; these people are coming to us to help them survive a lethal illness, not to be research subjects. We can’t randomize them and say to half, sorry, this isn’t your lucky day today, you are in the nontreatment group.

There are other advantages to observational studies in assessing new treatments. They are generally lower in cost than RCTs, and can often be started more quickly, and published more rapidly, which helps when information is needed urgently, as in a novel pandemic when little is understood about the illness. (RCTs, in part because of the moral issues, take longer to get ethics approval.) Observational studies are also easier to conduct at a time when patients are dying in high numbers, and hospital staff is overwhelmed, trying to keep people alive. They can involve looking back in time, to make use of observations in the medical chart. In such cases, it is crucial that the initial observations about how patients responded to the medications and treatments that the staff had on hand is documented, in as systematic as way as is possible, because there might be clues and nuggets as to what worked.

Exclusion Criteria: Do RCTs Study Real-World Patients?

But there are also problems at the conceptual heart of the RCT. Often the RCT design sees “confounding factors” not simply as something that has to be balanced between the treatment and no-treatment groups by randomization, but eliminated at the outset. For a variety of reasons, includinga wish to make interpretation of final results more certain, they aggressively eliminate known confounding factors before the study starts, by not letting patients with certain confounding factors get into the study in the first place. They do this by often having a lot of what are called “exclusion criteria,” i.e., reasons to exclude or disqualify people from entering the study.

Thus, RCTs for depression typically study patients who only have depression and no other mental disorders, which might be confounding factors. So, they usually study people who are depressed but who are not also alcoholic, not on illicit drugs, and who don’t have personality disorders. They also tend to exclude people who are actively suicidal (because if they are, they might not complete the expensive study, and some people think it is unethical to give a placebo to a person in acute risk of killing themselves). There are many other reasons given for different exclusions, such as a known allergy to a medication in the study.

But here’s the problem. These exclusions often add up until many, maybe even most, real-world depressives get excluded from such a study. So, the study sample is not representative of real-world patients. Yet this undermines the whole purpose of a research study “sample” in the first place, which is to test a small number of people (which is economical to do), and then extrapolate from them on to the rest of the population. As well, many studies of depression and drugs end up looking at people who are about as depressed as a college student who just got a B+ and not an A on a term paper. This is why many medications (or short-term therapies) end up doing well in short-term studies, but the patients relapse.

If you are a drug company (which pay for most of these studies) and you’re testing your new drug, exclusion criteria can be made to work in favor of making your drug appear more powerful than it really is, if sicker patients are eliminated. (This is a good trick, especially if your goal of making money from the drug is your first priority.)

This isn’t a matter of conjecture. This question of whether RCTs, in general, are made up of representative samples has been studied. An important review of RCTs found that 71.2% were not representative of what patients are actually like in real-world clinical practice, and many of the patients studied were less sick than real-world patients. That, combined with the fact that many of the so-called finest RCTs, in the most respected and cited journals, can’t be replicated 35% of the time when their raw data is turned over to another group that is asked to reconfirm the findings, shows that in practice they are far from perfect. That finding—that something as simple as the reanalysis of the numbers and measurements in the study can’t be replicated—doesn’t even begin to deal with other potential problems in the studies: Did the author ask the right questions, collect appropriate data, have reliable tests, diagnose patients properly, use the proper medication dose, for long enough, and were their enough patients in it? And did they, as do so many RCTs, exclude the most typical and the sickest patients?

Note, other study designs also have exclusion criteria, but they often are less problematic than in RCTs for reasons to be explained below.

The Gold Standard and the Hierarchy of Evidence

So, why is it we also hear that “RCTs are the gold standard,” and the highest form of evidence in the “hierarchy of evidence,” with observational studies beneath them, and case histories, at the bottom, and anecdotes beneath contempt?

There are several main reasons.

The first you just learned. It had been believed that RCTs were a completely reliable way to study a treatment given to a small sample of people in a population, see how they did, and then one could extrapolate those findings to the larger population. But that was just an assumption, and now that we have learned the patients studied are too often atypical, we have to be very careful about generalizing from an RCT. This embarrassment is a fairly recent finding that has yet to be taken fully into account by those who say RCTs are the gold standard.

The second reason has to do with the fundamentalists relying on outdated science, which argued that RCTs are more reliable in their quantitative estimates of how effective treatments are because they randomize and rule out confounding factors.

But a scientist who wanted to know if RCTs, as a group, were universally better and more reliable than observational studies at truth-finding would actually study the question scientifically, and not just assert it. And, in the 1980s, Chalmers and others did just that, examining studies from the 1960s and 1970s. They found that in the cases where both RCTs and observational studies had been done on the same treatment, the observational studies yielded positive results 56% of the time, whereas blinded RCTs did so only 30% of the time. It thus seemed that observational studies probably exaggerated how effective new treatments were.

Three other reviews of comparisons of observational and RCT study outcomes showed this same difference, and so researchers concluded that RCTs really were likely better at detecting an investigator’s bias for the treatment being studied, and hence more reliable. Since many scientific studies of drugs were paid for by drug companies that manufactured those drugs, it was not a surprise that the studies would have biases. These reviews formed much of the basis for RCT fundamentalism.

Just because an RCT is performed and published is no reason to assume it doesn’t exaggerate efficacy.

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But here’s the problem: These were reviews of studies that were done in the 1960s and 1970s. Once the observational study researchers became aware of the problem, they upped their game, and improved safeguards.

In 2000, new reviews comparing the results from hundreds of RCTs and observational studies in medicine that had been conducted in the 1990s were conducted by scientists from Yale and Iowa College of Medicine. They found that the tendency of observational studies to suggest better results in treatments had now disappeared. They now got similar results to RCTs. This was an important finding, but it has not been sufficiently integrated into the medical curriculum.

There is another reason we hear about RCTs. As RCTs became the type of study favored by regulatory bodies to test new drugs, they rose to prominence, and drug companies upped their game and learned many ingenious ways to make RCTs exaggerate the effectiveness of the drugs they are testing.

Entire books have been written on this subject, an excellent one being Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients.Since, to bring a drug to market requires only two RCTs showing the drug works, these techniques include doing many studies but not publishing the ones that don’t show good results. But there are sneakier techniques than making whole studies with negative outcomes go missing. There are ways to publish studies but hide embarrassing data; publish the good data in well-known journals and the negative findings in obscure journals; not study short-term side effects; almost never study, or ask about, long-term side effects; or play with measuring scales, so that patients appear to achieve statistically meaningful benefits which make no clinical difference. If you do a study that gives you a bad outcome on your key measure, don’t report that, just find some small outcome that was in your favor and retroactively change the goal of the study, to report that benefit and that alone. Make researchers and subjects sign gag clauses and nondisclosures. Have the drug companies ghostwrite the papers, make up the tables, and get academics, who never see the raw data sign them. This is routine.

The list goes on, and those tricks have often been used, successfully, to gain approval for drugs. Becoming very familiar with these ruses can save lives, because in a pandemic, new drugs will earn Big Pharma billions because the illness is so widespread, and they have a large playbook to draw from. Once two RCTs are selected from the many done to take the drug forward, the propaganda campaign begins, and as Goldacre shows, drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as they do on research. So, to repeat, just because an RCT is performed and published is no reason to assume it doesn’t exaggerate efficacy.

One group of studies, though, that don’t often play by these corrupt rules are RCTs done on already generic drugs, because they are off-patent, and there is really very little money to be made in them. In these cases, when a drug company has a generic rival to what might be a big money maker, there are ways of making that generic look bad. If the generic takes four weeks to work, test your drug against it, in a three-week study (the placebo effect for your drug won’t have worn off yet). If a vitamin is threatening your drug, test your drug against it, but use the cheapest version, in a dose that is too low. It’s an RCT, that’s all that matters.

Despite all this, advocates of RCTs still teach that, all else being equal, RCTs are always more reliable, and teach this by cherry-picking well-known cases where RCTs were superior to observational studies, and ignore cases where observational studies have been superior, or at least the better tool for the situation. They take the blunt position that “RCTs are better than observational studies,” and not, the more reasonable, accurate, and moderate, “All else being equal, in many, but not all situations, RCTs are better than observational studies.”

The phrase, “all else being equal,” is crucial, because so often all else is not equal. Simply repeating “RCTs are the gold standard of evidence-based medicine” implies to the naive listener that if it is an RCT then it must be a good study, and reliable, and replicable. It leaves out that most studies have many steps in them, and even if they have a randomization component, they can be badly designed in a step or two, and then lead to misinformation. Then there is the very uncomfortable fact that, so often, RCTs can’t even be replicated, and so often contradict each other, as anyone who has followed RCTs done on their own medical condition often sadly finds out. A lot of this turns out to be because they have many steps, and because Big Pharma is so adept now at gaming the system. Like gold, they turn out to be valuable but also malleable. A lot of the problem is that patients differ far more than these studies concede, and these complexities are not well addressed in the study design.

The Hierarchy-of-Evidence Notion Does Harm, Even to RCTs

One of the peculiar things about current evidence-based medicine’s love affair with its “hierarchy of evidence” is that it is still proceeding along, ignoring the implications of the scientifically documented replication crisis. True, the fact there is a replication crisis is now widely taught, and known about, but to the fundamentalists, it is as though that “crisis” doesn’t require that they reexamine basic assumptions. The replication crisis is compartmentalized off from business as usual and replaced with RCT hubris.

The irony is that the beauty of the RCT is that it’s a technique designed to neutralize the effects of confounding factors that we don’t understand on a study’s outcome, and thus it begins in epistemological humility. The RCT, as a discovery, is one of humanity’s wonderful epistemological achievements, a kind of statistical Socrates, which finds that wisdom begins with the idea, “whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose I know” (Apology, 21d).

But that beautiful idea, captured by a fundamentalist movement, has been turned on its head. The way the RCT fundamentalist demeans other study designs is to judge all those designs by the very real strengths of RCTs. This exaggeration is implicit in the tiresome language they use to discuss them: The RCTs are the “gold standard,” i.e., against which all else is measured, and the true source of value. Can these other designs equal the RCT in eliminating confounders? No. So, they are inferior. This works, as long as one pretends there are no epistemological limitations on RCTs. The problem with that attitude is, it virtually guarantees that the RCT design will not be improved, alas, because improved RCTs would benefit everyone. In fact, RCTs would be most quickly improved if the fundamentalists thought more carefully about the benefits of other studies, and tried to incorporate them, or work alongside them in a more sophisticated way. That is another way of saying we need the “all available evidence” approach.

The Case History and Anecdotes

Also disturbing, and, odd, actually, is the belittling of the case history as a mode of making discoveries, or what it has to offer science as a form of evidence. In neurology, for instance, it was the individual cases, such as the case of Phineas Gage, that taught us about the frontal lobes, and the case of H.M., that taught us about the role of memory, two of the most important discoveries ever made in brain science.

Here’s how the belittlement goes. “Case histories are anecdotes, and the plural of anecdote is not data, it is just lots of anecdotes.”

First of all, case histories are not anecdotes. An anecdote, in a medical text, is usually several sentences, at most a paragraph, stripped of many essential details, usually to make a single point, such as “a 50-year-old woman presented with X disease, and was treated with Y medication, for 10 days, and Figure 7 shows her before and after X-rays, and the dramatic improvement.” In that sense, an anecdote is actually the opposite of a case history, which depends on a multiplicity of concrete, vivid details.

A case history (particularly in classic neurology or psychiatry) can run for many pages. It is so elaborated because it understands, as the Canadian physician William Osler pointed out: “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” And who that patient is—their strengths, weaknesses, their other illnesses, other medications, emotional supports, diet, exercise habits, bad habits, genetics, previous treatment histories, all factor into the result. To practice good medicine, you must take it all into account, understanding that the patient is not any one of these details, but a whole who is more than the sum of the parts. Thus, true patient-centered medicine necessarily aspires toward a holistic approach. So, a case history is a concrete portrait of a real person, not an anecdote; and it is vivid, and the furthest thing possible from an abstract data set.

A typical RCT describes several data points about hundreds of patients. A typical case history describes perhaps hundreds of data points about a single patient. It’s not inferior, it’s different. The case history is, in fact, a technology, albeit an old one, set in language (another invention, we forget) and its structure (what is included in the case history, such as descriptions of the patient’s symptoms, objective signs, their subjective experiences, detailed life history, what makes the illness better, what worse, etc.) was developed over centuries.

Even anecdotes have their place. We often hear methodologists say, when a physician claims he or she gave a patient a particular medication, or supplement, or treatments, and they got better, “that that proves nothing. It is just an anecdote.” The problem is in the word “just.” Something doesn’t become meaningless, or a nonevent because a scientist adds the word “just” before it. That word really says nothing about the anecdote and a lot about the speaker’s preference for large number sets.

But anecdotes are very meaningful, too, and not just when lives are changed by a new treatment for the first time. This dismissive indifference to anecdotes turns out to be very convenient, for instance, for drug companies. If you are a physician, and you give a patient who had perfectly good balance an antibiotic, like gentamicin, and she suddenly loses all sense of balance because it injured her balance apparatus, the drug maker can say that is “just” an anecdote. It doesn’t count. And in fact, it is a fairly rare event. But it is by just such anecdotes that we learn of side effects, in part because (as I said above) most RCTs for new drugs don’t ask about those kinds of things, because they don’t want to hear the answer.

If we are to be honest, evidence-based medicine is, in large part, still aspirational. It is an ideal.

That’s why the approach I take—and I think most trained physicians with any amount of experience and investment in their patients’ well-being also take—might be called the all-available-evidence approach. This means, one has to get to know each of the study designs, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and then put it all together with what one is seeing, with one’s own eyes, and hearing from the particular patient who is seeking your care. There are no shortcuts.

One of the implications of this approach in the current COVID-19 situation is that we cannot simply, as so many are insisting, rely only on the long-awaited RCTs to decide how to treat COVID-19. That is because physicians in the end don’t treat illnesses, they treat patients with illnesses, and these patients differ.

The RCTs that are on the way may recommend, in the end, one medication as “best” for COVID-19. What does that mean? That it is best for everyone? No, just that in a large group, it helped more people than other approaches.

That information—which medication is best for most people, is very useful if you are in charge of public health for a poor country and can only afford one medication. Then you want the one that will help most people.

But if you are ordering for a community that has sufficient funds for a variety of medications, you are interested in a different question: What do I need on hand to cover as many sick people as possible, and not just those who benefit from medication X which helps most, but not all people? Even if a medication helps, say, only 10% of people, those will be lives saved, and it should be on hand. A medication that helped so few might not even have been studied, but if the others failed, it should be tried.

A physician on the frontline wants, and needs, access to those medications. He or she asks, “What if my patient is allergic to the medication that helps most people? Then, what others might I try?” Or, “What if the recommended medication is one that interacts negatively with a medication that my patient needs to stay alive for their non-COVID-19 condition?”

There are so many different combinations and permutations of such problems—and hardly any of them are ever studied—that only the physician who knows the patient has even a chance of making an informed decision. They are the kinds of things that arise on physician chat lines, that ask questions to 1,000 online peers like, “I have a patient with heart disease, on A, B, and C meds, and kidney disease on D, who was allergic to the COVID-19 med E. Has anyone tried med F, and if so, given their kidney function, should I halve the dose?”

Evidence-based medicine hasn’t studied some of the most basic treatments with RCTs or observational studies, never mind these kinds of individual complexities. So, the most prudent option is to allow the professional who knows the patient to have as much flexibility as possible and access to as many medications as possible. If we are to be honest, evidence-based medicine is, in large part, still aspirational. It is an ideal. Clinicians need latitude, and patients assume they have it. But now the RCT fundamentalists are using the absence of RCTs for some drugs to restrict access to them. They have gone too far. This is epistemological hubris, at the expense of lives, and brings to mind the old adage, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As long as we’ve not got the best studies for all conceivable permutations, medicine will remain both an art and a science.

So, does conceding as much and giving the clinician latitude mean I don’t believe in science?

“Believe,” you say?

That is not a scientific word. Science is a tool. I don’t worship tools. Rather, I try to find the right one for the job. Or, for a complex task, which is usually the case in medicine—especially since we are all different, and all complex—the right ones, plural.

[booksandwords]

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Read time: 3 Days Rating: 5/5

The quote: Oh my God, this is like all those romantic comedies where the girl hires a male escort to pretend to be her wedding date and then falls in love with him for real. — June Claremont-Diaz (it's accurate and says a bit about June)

You have two choices with Red, White & Royal Blue enjoy the sheer wonder and almost fairy tale nature of it or see and pick at the holes in it. I chose to let it go and all into the story, the characters and the writing. (my Goodreads review expands here on something that annoyed me until I did some research)

I spent a lot of my time reading this smiling. It's so fun Alex Claremont-Diaz is at least to start with a slightly unreliable narrator. With readers shown what he misinterprets. Henry Fox Mountchristen-Windsor is sweet. He is not at all what he fist looks like. Their emails are one of the best writing elements I've read in a while. It allows for a passion to seep off the page, for them to be themselves even when they are in their respective countries. It shows the research done by the author on potentially queer historical figures which I adored. Though some elements won't age well, pop culture references that aren't explicitly stated more implied with the understanding that we all know them. Rafael was a charming character his relationship with Alex and Oscar is one of my favourite elements.

It isn't perfect there are some sadly underused characters. Pez feels like he was introduced just to flirt widely and seduce June and play a bit of a role in the end. Cash, in particular, feels like someone who could have been more. Nora is bi and logical where Alex is emotion. They are two sides of a coin. But that was not explored enough for my liking, but that could be a personal concern I adored her. Casey McQuiston very much focused on her men. which is both a good thing and somewhat sad. It is just different for what I'm used to. But again I still give this 5. I still think it's brilliant, I still think everyone should read it.

This is a book in the same vein as The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee, it is a rip-roaring good time where love conquers all at a cost. The men are fun, their supporters are as relatable as possible and it shares a message of honesty to self. Even with all the flaws that are evident in the writing, I recommend Red, White & Royal Blue whole-heartedly. There is joy, there is love and there is everything I need in a book.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

The mad Targaryens

It’s interesting that the author intended for the House which held the power over Westeros for around 300 years to carry the trait of insanity on its bloodline. Of course, within the text it is explained that not every Targaryen has inherited the madness trait. According to King Jaeherys II Targaryen “madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin” and according to Ser Barristan Selmy “every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land”. 

 That’s why it irritates me that people are labeling any Targaryen they dislike *cough Rhaegar and Daenerys cough* as mad. They see the characters they dislike as flawed and equate flaws to madness. But that’s an erroneous thing to do. Not every Targaryen who has flaws or makes some mistakes is mad.  A great example is Aegon IV who made lot of mistakes and he was actually responsible for all the Blackfyre rebellions by legitimizing all his bastards and yet he wasn’t mad; just a terrible king. So, in this analysis I’d like to focus on those Targaryen who I believe that they had inherited the insanity trait of their family or developed it along the way.

1.  MAEGOR I TARGARYEN

He is better known as Maegor the Cruel, a sobriquet he earned with his actions. It was said that not only he enjoyed war and battle, but most craved violence, death, and absolute mastery over all he deemed his. According to information from the yet unreleased “Sons of Dragon” book,  even from a young age he had showed cruel habits - such as killing animals.

However, his cruelty peaked after he was waken from his coma state with the help of his lover, Tyanna of the Tower. Many years later, the same woman was accused by him to perform magic to his other wives in order to make them birth grotesque stillborn children. It’s obvious that she also used some kind of sorcery to woke him from the coma and it wouldn’t surprise me if the same magic turned him to the monster he became afterwards. I’m not saying that this magic turned a completely sane man to an insane and cruel one- because the actions of his youth showed that he was far from being sensible. But I do believe that the magic she performed on him fed the beast he was hiding inside him. After all a “revival” by magic always comes at a price (just look at Lady Stoneheart).

Famous acts of his cruelty include: burning the Sept of Remembrance to the ground, killing all those who had taken part to the construction of the Red Keep, terminating House Harroway because of his Queen Alys Harroway suposed infidelity, letting Tyana torture to death his teenager nephew in retribution of his mother and siblings escaping Dragonstone. There were also rumors of him being behind his Queen Ceryse Hightower’s death. The way he killed Queen Tyanna after she confessed she was responsible for the abominations his other Queens birthed, is also alarming ; he cut her heart with Blackfyre and fed it to his dogs.

His demise came by his own hands since he probably killed himself as he was sitting on the Iron Throne.

2. BAELOR I TARGARYEN

Baelor was quite the opposite of Maegor. While Maegor was loathed by everyone, people loved Baelor. Even within the current time line of the books he’s remembered as a merciful holy man by plenty of people. That doesn’t mean though, that his sanity can’t be questioned.

An interesting incident that shows Baelor’s state of mind is the imprisonment of prince Aemon by the Wyls. After Baelor had forged a peace with the prince of Dorne, Lord Wyl gave him a key to Aemon’s cage which was suspended over a pit of vipers. Baelor, feeling that the gods would protect him, fearlessly stepped into the pit. This resulted to him being bitten by the vipers (sources differ  ranging from half a dozen to half a hundred) and collapsed after he opened the cage. He remained unconscious until Aemon carred him to House Baratheon and even then he only fully recovered after more than half a year passed. 

Some lords were speculating that Baelor’s later erratic decisions were due to the vipers’ venom affecting his mind. It can’t be proven that this was the case but it’s true that after Baelor returned to Kings Landing he made a lot of questionable decisions.

First of all, he resolved his marriage to his sister, Daena and placed her alongside their other two sisters in the Maidenvault claiming that it would prevent any carnal thoughts. His obsession with purity can be also found on his decisions to outlaw prostitution and to exempt lords from taxes if they protected their daughters' virtue through chastity belts.  The list of his questionable decisions also include forcing Lord Belgrave to wash the feet of a leper and burning books he deemed immoral.

Also, it is interesting to note that when the High Septon died, Baelor choose a simple stonemason called Pate as the replacement because he thought that the gods told him so. After his death, he made an eight years old street urine the new High Septon because he claimed that the boy could perform miracles.

In the end his demise came by starving himself to death. Some people don’t believe that Baelor was the one responsible for his own death and put the blame to his Hand and uncle Viserys. In either case, his death served the good of Westeros because otherwise his beliefs would have lead towards a war between those worshiping the Old Gods and the Drown God and those who were believers of the Seven.

3. RHAEGEL TARGARYEN

He’s only a minor character in the Mystery Knight novella, but he makes a strong impression to the reader since the first mention of him (if I remember correctly) is about how he was dancing naked in the Red Keep. This also proves that he wasn’t the sanest person. The book describes him as weak minded and touched by madness.

4.  AERION TARGARYEN

He’s also known as Aerion the Monstrous but he liked to call himself Aerion  Brightflame. He stars in one of Bran Stark’s favourite tales  "The Prince Who Thought He Was a Dragon". As the title of the tale indicates, Aeron was convinced he was an actual dragon so he drank wildfire in order to be transformed into one. And as anyone can guess, he died screaming.

According to Raymun Fossoway while the prince acted quite noble in front of his father, he revealed his monster self when he was around other people. Even his own brother, Daeron, described him as “quite the monster”. Similarly, his other brother, Aegon, despised him, because Aerion bullied him all his young life going as far as putting a knife to Aegon’s genitals once and joking about removing them.

5. AERYS II TARGARYEN

He’s the most infamous mad Targaryen king something that it is indicated even by his nickname being the Mad King. However, he wasn’t insane by birth. He slowly descended into madness as the years passed.

A factor that greatly affected the King and perhaps helped to prompt his insanity was his Queen Rhaella’s  stillbirths, miscarriages and the births of two princes who soon died. While Aerys was at first sympathetic towards his sister-wife’s case, later he accused her of being unfaithful and confined her in Maegor’s Holdfast. He even went as far to humiliating her as to order two septas to sleep in her bed with her so he could be certain that she remained faithful.

His madness was lessened once the Queen Rhaella gave birth to a healthy boy, Jaehaerys. However, it was short lived as Jaehaerys died later the same year and Aerys put the blame for his son’s death to his wet nurse and had the woman beheaded. Later on, he decided that his mistress was to blame and put her and her entire family through torture and eventually had all of them executed.

When the Queen Rhaella gave birth to another boy, Viserys the king became more paranoid fearing that his son would follow the same fate as Jaehaerys and the two princes that were born before him. That’s why, no one could touch the boy without the King’s permission, not even the Queen. He even commanded his own food taster to suckle at the teats of the prince’s wet nurse to make sure that there was no poison in them.

  While signs of his madness were already obvious, his insanity only peaked after the Defiance of Duskendale incident. Aerys decided against his Hand’s (Tywin Lannister) council to accept Lord Darklyn’s invitation to come to his castle and discuss about a new charter and traveled to Duskendale with only a small force. That unwise act of his, lead to him becoming a prisoner of the Darklyns. Tywin Lannister laid a siege to the town but the King was freed only after six months of imprisonment. 

Those months had a huge impact on him, feeding his already existing paranoia. Signs that shown his paranoia include: destroying House Darklyn and House Holland by burning their members alive (with the exception of Dontos Holland), believing that Tywin Lannister had assassinated Lord Steffon Baratheon, not attending his son’s Rhaegar’s wedding and neither letting his other son, Viserys, to attend because he was afraid that either of them could be assassinated, becoming so fascinated by wildfire that only used that as the way of executing traitors and finally becoming unable to be aroused if he hadn’t watched someone burned alive first.

Even his appearance reflected his troubled mind. He was described as someone who looked much older than his actual age and  he was very thin because he only ate a little as a result of his phobia for poisoning. His beard was dirty and his hair was matted. Also, he had developed a phobia of blades and thus he refused to have his hair or his nails trimmed. 

Aerys not only was an insane King but also the one who held the most responsibility for his House’s demise.  Not only his actions made many Lords wanting to overthrown him but by killing both Rickard and Brandon Stark and wanting the heads of Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon to be presented to him, he marked the beginning of Robert’s Rebellion.

6. VISERYS TARGARYEN

In Visery’s case I’m a bit reluctant to call him mad. I believe that his difficult upbringing brought out the bad traits of him, but being narcissist, violent and abusive doesn’t necessarily mean that he was insane, just that he had a shitty personality.

According to Daenerys, Viserys was driven mad because of all the difficulties he faced on their exile.

[... ]She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. He must have known how they mocked him. Small wonder he turned so angry and bitter. In the end it had driven him mad[...].

Also, according to Ser Barristan Selmy Viserys showed signs of being mad like his father, even from his childhood:

[...]...even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did." "His father's son?" Dany frowned. "What does that mean?"    The old knight did not blink. "Your father is called 'the Mad King' in Westeros. Has no one ever told you?"

It seems that Ilyrio Mopatis also shared the opinion that Viserys took after his father in terms of sanity.

"Viserys was Mad Aerys's son, just so. Daenerys … Daenerys is quite different”

So, I guess I’ll have to trust those people’s judgement and thus why I included Viserys to the mad Targaryens list.

[codeprologue]

Integrity, the Court of Honor.

Where belief and action overlaps is Integrity. It is both having the strength to do what you say and the courage to admit what you have done. 

Here we will explore Integrity and the workings of this inner court. 

Commitment- impartial, and bold. Like flame.

Integrity could be defined as self-control, honesty, and transparency, and through these three facets we will better come to understand it as a whole.

Self-Control

Acting as the judge of this court, self-control, manages and directs many elements of the other virtues as well, but it’s home is here, in Integrity. The ability to both resist temptation, and take action is piloted by ones ability to control their self.

Practice every moment of everyday to improve this skill. It is absolutely paramount to the repertoire of the Code. It is the ROOT OF TRUE WILL. 

Honesty

Here, Honesty means self truthfulness. Self-Honesty as it were. It is the practice of unbiased self awareness and examination. It is the act of accepting your short comings, and realistically honoring your strengths. Honesty and Humility are two sides of the same coin, but with an important polarity.

Honesty- force, the constant straightening and pruning of a growing tree, the tangible balance that is crafted.

Humility- not-force, the growing of the tree itself, the resting balance that only is.

Practice Honesty with focused self observation and reflection. Humility can not be made by use; only not-use. Like the growth of the tree. Honesty can only be made by use. Like the axe handle made with an axe. Understand this and these two aspects will come naturally.

"...it is an easy thing for one to empower their Virtue of Awareness and Knowledge, yet without shaping the mirror of Honesty they can never effectively turn that power inward..."

-excerpt, Ghost "Two-Sided Fist"

Transparancy

Transparency is honesty on the outside. It is planting your flag and standing by it. It is as much speaking up for yourself as it is letting the bandwagon roll by. Do not hide yourself. Do not bolster your appeal with false histories and attitudes. Act as you are. It will always be enough to not be complete, so do not hide your flaws.

"I once new a boy with a tender, loving heart, but cruel friends. He had come to think his soft emotions were something to be ashamed of, and he buried them deep... how sad it is to hide our flaws, not truly knowing what flaw is..."

Excerpt, Ghost, personal journal.

In Conclusion

Integrity is at its root, a simple virtue. Stand up straight and let you light shine out, and in.

The root of the word Integrity is a french word meaning "to be intact". When all aspects of yourself are one, when you are intact. You will have Integrity. Meditate on this.

WE ARE HERE TO LEARN,

Ghost

[coin-river-blog]

Ethereum Classic and Ethereum have their differences, ideological or otherwise, but do these differences preclude collaboration between the two communities? Tracing my own journey with tribalism and misperception, I believe the two groups are better off unified than opposed.

Several million Ether were stolen from The DAO in 2016, precipitating an Ethereum fork to restore users' funds. Some then-members of the Ethereum community opposed the fork, citing immutability and the concept that "code is law." Various dissidents ultimately rejected the change and, in doing so, established Ethereum Classic (though it's important to note that ETC didn't technically establish anything – it remained the same while Ethereum forked).

When I initially learned of ETC's genesis, I imagined it like Avatar: The Last Airbender. Ethereum was a community in harmony until ETC attacked. A once-unified group had devolved into two warring tribes, uncompromising in their ideologies and unwilling to cooperate.

Although my interpretation of the split is admittedly overdramatic, it represents a sentiment I've seen expressed elsewhere, especially among those of us within the Ethereum community. I've seen anti-ETC comments throughout my Twitter feed, some of them originating from trolls, of course, but also from well-respected Ethereum community members. Further, I've seen accusations that ETC doesn't have developers or is a glorified scam.

With this overwhelming amount of criticism, it seemed that ETC development was antithetical to the advancement of Ethereum. If so many individuals, particularly Ethereans, disliked or were skeptical of ETC, then I thought there must be some truth to what they're claiming on social media forums like Twitter and reddit.

Then I heard about the Kotti testnet, equivalent to Ethereum's Görli cross-client testnet but on ETC. What appeared to be an unlikely collaboration between the ETC and Ethereum communities arose naturally from discussions between the ETC Cooperative's Anthony Lusardi and Parity's Afri Schoedon. Especially surprising to me was learning that Lusardi approached Schoedon, not the other way around.

"It was maybe five or six months ago, and just on Twitter, I saw Afri had posted about needing funding for this project [Görli]," Lusardi told ETHNews. "There were all these very dedicated people for a project that, when I read about it, it just sounded very important. That's basically what led to us [the ETC Cooperative] funding it. It's just a very important piece of infrastructure work that needs to be done."

Why would a supposedly uncooperative group of immutability maximalists intentionally fund an open-source Ethereum project, one that may not directly benefit ETC? While Lusardi noted that ETC needed a better testnet anyway, those funds could've been allocated toward a separate project run entirely by ETC stakeholders. The decision to support a "competitor," for a lack of a better word, must stem from more than self-interest.

Indeed, Lusardi emphasized the community-building aspect of the partnership. "ETC benefits a good deal from a lot of work that people do on the Ethereum side," he said. "On the Ethereum side, they benefit from work that ETC does, so this was just another way to do it, and particularly a far more direct way." Görli and Kotti exemplify this sort of mutual benefit.

Moreover, Lusardi places ETC and Ethereum under an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) umbrella. Although there are a few small opcode differences between the two chains, most of the divide is ideological, not technological. In many ways, infrastructure-related developments like Görli benefit all EVM projects, whether they be ETC- or Ethereum-focused, because much of the underlying code is the same. For example, a project incubated at ETC Labs called Ethernode runs an ETC variant of Geth that features many similarities to Ethereum's Geth client.

After talking to Lusardi, my own sense of tribalism became apparent. I had acquiesced much of the negative sentiment toward ETC because it emerged from my community, Ethereum. I had allowed myself to subconsciously side with the anti-ETC critics because I was so entrenched in Ethereum's community-oriented, (generally) inclusive, fun-loving culture. In my mind, any group that didn't clearly understand and agree with the virtues of Ethereum must've been flawed.

But then came the Kotti testnet, the funds the ETC Cooperative intentionally provided to Schoedon, and the positive relationships that have been built between the Görli team (including members of the Department of Decentralization) and ETC. I don't agree with complete immutability or code as law, but the Görli-Kotti collaboration has undoubtedly changed my misinformed view about the ETC community.

To dispel any uncertainty I still felt, I also saw that Bob Summerwill, a man historically outspoken about cross-blockchain collaboration, had joined the ETC Cooperative. He hosted a Twitter AMA on February 4 wherein he specifically espoused ETC-Ethereum collaboration. Responding to the question "Is funding the only way to collaborate?" from Golem's María Paula Fernández, Summerwill said he "would love to see cooperation in all and any sensible way." He continued:

"At the most basic level, that can happen at conferences, hackathons and meetups. Turn up. Talk to each other. Realize all the commonality that we have."

Summerwill went on to say he doesn't subscribe to the dichotomy of ETC vs. Ethereum, nor does he believe the two chains to be "mortal enemies."

These answers resonated with me and solidified my newfound understanding of ETC's synergistic role in the greater blockchain ecosystem. With folks like Summerwill onboard – those who avidly support bridge-building whenever possible across projects seemingly in competition with one another – it was no longer possible for me to maintain an us-versus-them mentality about ETC and Ethereum. There's even an ETC project called peaceBridge meant to promote ETC-Ethereum interoperability by allowing representations of each coin to exist on the other chain.

All that said, I still love Ethereum – I'm firmly part of the community and will likely remain within it. But why can't I be part of both the ETC and Ethereum communities? Why must we ally ourselves to a monolithic group when the crypto ecosystem is so vast and multifaceted?

ETC Labs' Dean Pappas says it best when it comes to cross-blockchain cooperation:

"There's zero to gain for anyone in the entire blockchain ecosystem to be fighting amongst each other. This is such a niche technology still; the population related to this is so small. We've got plenty to do to prove ourselves. We need to be working together. It's completely stupid not to be. Every time somebody's tweeting anything about this project being a shit project because X, Y, and Z, let people build. They're not bothering you. Stay focused. Too much time is wasted on the rhetoric that is negative."

Dani is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor's degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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[snarktheater]

Movie review — Power Rangers

Say, did I ever mention I was a Power Rangers kid? Because I was. I was a little too young for the original generation, but when Zeo aired, I was so into it it was kind of embarrassing. I watched as religiously as a small child can when he doesn't know how to VCR a show and has to rely on his parents remembering to record the episodes. I played pretend Power Ranger a lot. I had (and…still have) more toy Megazords than I am fully comfortable listing. And I'm pretty sure I still played with them into my late teenage years, because I am exactly that kind of dork.

Ahem. Point is, a Power Rangers movie reboot came and I was…intrigued, but mildly scared too. This series is not exactly top quality, and the wave of nostalgia-driven adaptations hasn't really led to great stuff that often.

Does the movie hold up? Well, honestly…yes.

Mind you, Power Rangers the movie (does it have a proper name? I wouldn't know) isn't high art or anything. But it's probably better than anyone expected when they heard about this movie in the first place.

This movie does a good job at striking a balance between recreating the original show and doing its own thing. Part of that is due to the media transfer (we can't tell the same kind of story in a show and a movie), but part of that is clearly a creative effort on the part of the crew.

So, the aesthetic is something most people have been critical of. "The suits look bad", and so on and so forth. Honestly, I'm on the fence on this one, but I have to admit that it's the only Power Rangers we could have gotten in 2017. I mean, look at the Flash in those Justice League trailers. This is just what's in vogue. I don't mind the suits, honestly.

No, if we're going to talk bad aesthetics, I have to point out that this movie is another victim of the "MAKE EVERYTHING DARK" trend of this decade. And I don't mean "dark" as in "serious and gritty". The movie has a fairly light tone overall, if you look at it honestly, but the color palette is washed out and the brightness is dialed down way more than it needs to be. That's an issue.

But aside from that, the adaptation strikes in world building as well. And that's actually my favorite part of it. We get backstory for Zordon and Rita (which I fully approve of), they worked in the Zeo Crystal as a plot device that's more than a McGuffin to give the Rangers new powers. Oh, and of course, the Green Power Ranger is already established here (although saved for the potential sequel), and Rita is given a connection to it that she didn't have in the original show. They even thought to explain why the Zords are modeled after prehistoric creatures!

It makes the world feel a lot more cohesive, rather than the "let's just pick a Super Sentai series to adapt and invent a connection" method that formed the plot of the original Power Rangers seasons. Not that I don't understand why the original series had to do it, but it's good to see that they decided to up the storytelling game for the remake instead of relying purely on the franchise name and nostalgia value.

Speaking of storytelling, the plot. After some backstory to the time Rita first wreaked havoc on earth, we skip to present day, and meet our teenagers with attitude, all the while witnessing Rita's return. It's a pretty standard hero's journey, if we have five heroes who stand almost (almost) on equal footing and follow a similar path.

Most of the movie is spent with the Rangers first finding out about their powers, then, once they meet Zordon and Alpha (i.e. the mentor figures), trying to master them. All the while, we cut back to Rita's progress. It's better than it sounds.

Allow me to elaborate. First, we spend a considerable amount of time introducing the protagonists before they're even chosen to be Rangers. Second, they don't just get picked by Zordon; instead, they actively make their way into becoming Rangers, first by finding the Power Coins, then by seeking out answers as to why these coins gave them the abilities they have. Active protagonists! It's important to have them.

Third, while Rita's earlier scenes are fairly standard and mostly serve to establish her motivation, powers (and rules thereof), and the threat she poses, she doesn't stay separate from the Rangers forever. She does clash with them halfway through the second act, gives them a more personal reason to fight than saving the world, all that jazz. Not that they weren't on board beforehand, but it's important.

Because…see, these Rangers have actual characters instead of being blobs who each wears a different color. They have personal conflicts, and while they're not exactly all resolved by the end of the movie (which is probably a tad overconfident by counting on sequels), they do progress. The Rangers make the right decision to save the world, but giving them a personal stake is what gives them resolve to fight the final battle. This is good, it's exactly how you should blend character motivation with heroism.

Speaking of personal conflicts, let's talk about these teenagers for a moment. The phrase "teenagers with attitude" associated with the show (which I already quoted above) is much more applicable here, when…you know, the protagonists actually have issues instead of being perfect role models. I understand that different times mean different sensibilities and I guess the original cast was more palatable to the 90s, but I'm glad about the change.

So we have Jason, the red ranger and leader of the group. He's the gold star athlete student of Angel Grove—big enough to be in the local papers, apparently. His issue is…basically an existential crisis of "is this what I want, or what everyone else wants from me?" Well, kind of. He's already past this issue at the start of the movie, since we meet him in the middle of acting up. I guess his conflict is actually more trying to reconcile the two, putting the things he's good at (i.e. leadership) to the service of something he actually wants to do (being a Power Ranger) instead of something he's expected to do. It works…mostly because he's definitely a little more central than the rest of the crew. Which is a negative point on the movie. I'm sorry, but you have a diverse cast, and you choose to focus on the white boy? Boo.

But on the plus side, this is a conflict we've seen done a lot, and I think this movie manages to do something new with it. Mostly by being more subtle about it. It lets the movie avert clichés (you know, the "No, dad, it's your dream!" speech), and it makes the whole progression feel a lot more natural when it's all understated. When the Rangers bond together, he doesn't even need to say his problem, because everyone knows. Including us. It's almost meta in its self-awareness.

Moving on. Kimberly is the pink ranger, and while I mentioned that all out protagonists are flawed and have conflict, she's the only one who's actually done something bad. In two words: revenge porn. Yeah. It's pretty bad. But…she owns up to having done something terrible, and grows from it. It's sort of put aside rather than actively being resolved, but again, I think this is more because the crew expected sequels. Oh, also, that kiss between her and Jason from the trailer was cut out of the movie. No romance here. Apparently focus tests finally showed that an unnecessary straight romance wasn't something people wanted!

Zack and Trini, the black and yellow rangers, are the least developed members of the team, by virtue of being the last to even show up in the movie. Not that they lack personality, mind you. If anything, them being a little harder to decipher feels intentional, since Zack stays out of school to take care of his sick mother, and Trini is "the new girl" (who's been here a year, but that's just details) and kind of self-ostracized, in a "don't let them in, don't let them see" kind of way.

They're still both pretty enjoyable characters. Zack is the brash comic relief archetype most of the time, but seeing his sweet side with his mother was a nice addition to the trope (also, having him speak Chinese, I approve). Trini is implied to be some shade of not straight, although I think the cries of "yellow ranger is gayyyy" were a bit exaggerated. More importantly, she's the one Rita chooses to go after first because she's more guarded than the others…and Trini does the right thing and ask for her team's help. Just like with Jason, it's a subdued kind of character development that I like a lot. No one goes "wow, you trust us now?" like it's some kind of grand change. She just trusts her team, and the others accept it. I like that. Also, she calls out her younger brothers' casual sexism, that's cool too.

Which leaves us with Billy, who I think is pretty unanimously the audience favorite. One, he's a black autistic guy, unambiguously so, which is already pretty rare. Two, his autism actually feels…you know, real. It's consistent, it shows itself in symptoms that make sense, but it also doesn't define all of Billy's character. His interests are his own, even if they express differently because of his autism. And three, and perhaps most importantly, he's the group's emotional core. That's pretty groundbreaking as far as autistic characters go.

And I don't mean he's the poor autistic kid that everyone feels pity to and therefore stick together to help—he's an active participant in it. He's the one who discovers the Power coins and gets several of the other protagonists involved (he definitely brought Jason, attracted Zack's attention, and I think Trini also followed him to the quarry), he's the first to embrace that they're Rangers and a team and he's the one who works to make everyone else work together. So hey, that was nice.

As for Rita…she's a little bit of a mixed bag. First is the whitewashing issue, on which I will…choose to remain cautiously silent aside from mentioning that, yes, Rita Repulsa was originally portrayed by a Japanese woman by virtue of all her footage being dubbed over from a Japanese show, and the movie cast Elizabeth Banks as her. Make of that what you will.

She is the biggest aesthetic departure from the original, which is partly because of her retconned backstory, but frankly? I think it's probably for the best because of the aforementioned whitewashing. Maybe my standards are low, but at least she's not trying to pretend like she is Machiko Soga at all. If you get my drift. And if you don't: I mean Hollywood loves to pass white people as Japanese (or other Asian ethnicities).

Far from me to claim I have a final say on this issue, of course.

But as a character on her own, I actually liked her a lot. She felt threatening in a way show!Rita never really did, probably because, you know, she actually does things instead of staying cozy on the moon and sending monsters to do her work. They established her powers more clearly, which is good, because rules means we know what she can do and we can feel the threat she poses, instead of having her pull random shit at us.

And yet, in spite of having a more threatening villain (including her underlings) and higher stakes (i.e. world annihilation, more or less), the movie manages to retain its light tone I previously mentioned. Which is…hit or miss (the very first present-day scene includes a particularly tasteless joke, if you ask me), but it's still less cringey than the original show, while keeping with its spirit.

So overall, I'd say the Power Rangers movie is a pretty successful adaptation. If we must keep readapting everything in the name of nostalgia, I hope we get more work like this. I wouldn't be too optimistic about it, though.