#women deliver 2016

[reasonsforhope]

"The first modern attempt at transferring a uterus from one human to another occurred at the turn of the millennium. But surgeons had to remove the organ, which had become necrotic, 99 days later. The first successful transplant was performed in 2011 — but even then, the recipient wasn’t immediately able to get pregnant and deliver a baby. It took three more years for the first person in the world with a transplanted uterus to give birth. 

More than 70 such babies have been born globally in the decade since. “It’s a complete new world,” said Giuliano Testa, chief of abdominal transplant at Baylor University Medical Center.

Almost a third of those babies — 22 and counting — have been born in Dallas at Baylor. On Thursday, Testa and his team published a major cohort study in JAMA analyzing the results from the program’s first 20 patients. All women were of reproductive age and had no uterus (most having been born without one), but had at least one functioning ovary. Most of the uteri came from living donors, but two came from deceased donors.

Fourteen women had successful transplants, all of whom were able to have at least one baby.  

“That success rate is extraordinary, and I want that to get out there,” said Liza Johannesson, the medical director of uterus transplants at Baylor, who works with Testa and co-authored the study. “We want this to be an option for all women out there that need it.”

Six patients had transplant failures, all within two weeks of the procedure. Part of the problem may have been a learning curve: The study initially included only 10 patients, and five of the six with failed transplants were in that first group. These were “technical” failures, Testa said, involving aspects of the surgery such as how surgeons connected the organ’s blood vessels, what material was used for sutures, and selecting a uterus that would work well in a transplant. 

The team saw only one transplant fail in the second group of 10 people, the researchers said. All 20 transplants took place between September 2016 and August 2019.

Only one other cohort study has previously been published on uterus transplants, in 2022. A Swedish team, which included Johannesson before she moved to Baylor, performed seven successful transplants out of nine attempts. Six women, including the first transplant recipient to ever deliver a baby back in 2014, gave birth.

“It’s hard to extract data from that, because they were the first ones that did it,” Johannesson said. “This is the first time we can actually see the safety and efficacy of this procedure properly.”

So far, the signs are good: High success rates for transplants and live births, safe and healthy children so far, and early signs that immunosuppressants — typically given to transplant recipients so their bodies don’t reject the new organ — may not cause long-term harm, the researchers said. (The uterine transplants are removed after recipients no longer need them to deliver children.) And the Baylor team has figured out how to identify the right uterus for transfer: It should be from a donor who has had a baby before, is premenopausal, and, of course, who matches the blood type of the recipient, Testa said...

“They’ve really embraced the idea of practicing improvement as you go along, to understand how to make this safer or more effective. And that’s reflected in the results,” said Jessica Walter, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial on the research in JAMA...

Walter was a skeptic herself when she first learned about uterine transplants. The procedure seemed invasive and complicated. But she did her fellowship training at Penn Medicine, home to one of just four programs in the U.S. doing uterine transplants. 

“The firsts — the first time the patient received a transplant, the first time she got her period after the transplant, the positive pregnancy test,” Walter said. “Immersing myself in the science, the patients, the practitioners, and researchers — it really changed my opinion that this is science, and this is an innovation like anything else.” ...

Many transgender women are hopeful that uterine transplants might someday be available for them, but it’s likely a far-off possibility. Scientists need to rewind and do animal studies on how a uterus might fare in a different “hormonal milieu” before doing any clinical trials of the procedure with trans people, Wagner said.

Among cisgender women, more long-term research is still needed on the donors, recipients, and the children they have, experts said.

“We want other centers to start up,” Johannesson said. “Our main goal is to publish all of our data, as much as we can.”"

-via Stat, August 16, 2024

[qqueenofhades]

re your tags on that last post, you could say he was...biden his time

BA DUMP TSHH.

I think that everyone, having gotten through the initial 24 hours of rage, fear, terror, confusion, anger, and frustration, is coming around to the idea that this was possibly a good thing and has undoubtedly given the Democratic ticket a much-needed jolt of energy. There are still all the very valid conversations to be had about the sway of a tiny group of billionaire donors, the media and Anonymous Democratic Sources bullying, the decision to torch Biden when they could so easily (so! easily!!!) have done it to Trump at any time and have clearly decided to go FULLY into the tank for him instead. This has many worrisome implications for democracy, and it's not something to be celebrated. All of that is still very much true.

However, now that we have had concrete evidence of the party immediately cohering around Kamala and the grassroots donors busting down the door to give her money, it may also turn out that this was a very wise political jiu-jitsu move by a very crafty political veteran like Biden. As the post I just reblogged pointed out, he did it AFTER the GOP convention, when the Republicans had already locked in (by any reasonable metric) a terrible, terrible ticket. It makes the Democrats look like the ones responsive to the American people demanding a younger and more mentally "with it" candidate (no matter how obvious the slurs about ageism were in regard to Biden when Trump is literally THREE YEARS YOUNGER and far more obviously scrambled). It opens all the excitement and historic firsts of Obama in 2008, it gives the perfect "Prosecutor vs. Felon" tagline that's really easy to run with and stick in people's minds, it is beautiful revenge for all Trump's horrible sexist behavior in 2016 (and really, his whole life) and it gives the Democrats the narrative, if they can FUCKING STICK TOGETHER AND STOP STABBING EACH OTHER IN THE BACK. Now we get to hear about Kamala's running mate, Kamala's plans, feel-good pieces about how she appeals to youth, women/people of color, etc. etc. ALL THAT IS GOOD.

I think/hope the DNC will now be a massive celebration of Biden, who after all came out of retirement when he was already old to take on Trump, beat him, deliver an incredibly successful presidency, and pass the torch on to Kamala. I saw some criticism of Obama yesterday for not endorsing her immediately, but what I read is that he/the other Democratic big beasts (Pelosi, Schumer, etc) want to be a uniting figure with an endorsement of the final candidate, if there was a contested primary beforehand. Thank fuck, it doesn't look like there will be, but it also means that they might wait until the DNC before openly endorsing her. Now, I am still angry at the Biden knifing that all these three were complicit in to some degree, BUT I also have no doubt that if/when Kamala is confirmed as the nominee, they will line up behind her to endorse her and her VP pick. I have seen Mark Kelly, Roy Cooper, etc as possible picks (since alas, she will probably have to pick a straight white man; Kelly would be replaced in the Senate by Democratic AZ governor Katie Hobbs; Cooper is term-limited as governor in NC and might help us target that state for a flip). But what is number one most important is that we support her and whoever she DOES choose. I have also heard that she is already in the process of vetting picks and this is exciting news.

I am thrilled to vote for a woman for POTUS the second time in a few years, I think she has a real shot at winning, and I am heartened by how the base has rallied to Kamala in 24 hours. Let's fucking go. As my new office decoration says:

[femsolid]

"Feminists have long avoided putting too much emphasis on the biological differences between men and women, knowing that these will be used against us to classify us as inferior. In doing so, we have painted ourselves into a corner, accepting a politics which continues to regard male-bodied people as the default humans while downplaying the equally important experiences of female-bodied people. We have fallen victim to a patriarchal protection racket, which promised us the right to be considered as something more than walking wombs in exchange for the denial of our existence as a sex class, in much the same way we were promised sexual autonomy and reproductive choice in exchange for waiving any objections to hardcore pornography and the growth of the sex trade. In both instances, men have got what they wanted without delivering their side of the bargain, but still we wait. We don’t want to make a fuss, because to do so would only draw attention to the fact that we remain female, after all. This is gender equality conceived of as a polite lie: men agree to overlook our quite obvious "female inferiority", in return for which we ease up on the demands relating to actual sex differences. As the protagonist of Elisa Albert’s 2015 novel After Birth puts it, ‘Heaven forbid it might be true that female bodies are different [. . .] Because, what? We might lose the vote? Because we might get veiled, imprisoned? Best deny it, deny it, make it to the Oval Office, win, win, win.’ And yet, as we know from 2016, we don’t make it to the Oval Office anyhow.

Meanwhile, older mothers, menopausal women, those with longer back stories, are less willing to pretend sex differences don’t matter, and are terrible at keeping quiet about it. The longer you live in a female body, the harder it is to deny its impact on your position in the world. We are encouraged to believe that any serious acknowledgement of sex difference and why it matters – and particularly any recognition of qualities which female people possess which male people lack – will lead to backlash, but once we examine what female bodies do over the course of female lifecycles, the difference between their socially constructed low status and their actual worth could not be clearer. Ageing can mean the shift from ‘I will be treated badly if I am overly identified with what my (shameful) female body can do’ to ‘My (brilliant) female body did all this, and still I get treated this way?’"

- Hags by Victoria Smith

[areacodefan]

I’m on a zoom webinar for Harris and there are so many people on it, they basically broke zoom. They’ve raised $1million in the first 30 minutes and the webinar kept crashing.

This webinar is particularly targeting white women and calling us to STEP UP and not freeload off of the labor of Black women like what happened in 2016. In 2016, 2% of Black women voted for T r um p, while 46% of white women did. Shameful but not entirely surprising if you know your history (and white feminist history).

We have a chance to do better this time, deliver an historic win, step up with love and power, restore so many important issues like gun control & abortion access, and protect marginalized groups from the dangers of Project 2025.

Let’s all do our part, quietly or loudly (preferably loudly), to steer the United States away from fascism and instead toward a more perfect union.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 06, 2024

Yesterday, November 5, 2024, Americans reelected former president Donald Trump, a Republican, to the presidency over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. As of Wednesday night, Trump is projected to get at least 295 electoral votes to Harris’s 226, with two Republican-leaning states still not called. The popular vote count is still underway.

Republicans also retook control of the Senate, where Democrats were defending far more seats than Republicans. Control of the House is not yet clear. 

These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.  

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020. 

But in 2024, it appears a majority of American voters chose to put Trump back into office. 

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, offered a message of unity, the expansion of the economic policies that have made the U.S. economy the strongest in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and the creation of an “opportunity economy” that echoed many of the policies Republicans used to embrace. Trump vowed to take revenge on his enemies and to return the country to the neoliberal policies President Joe Biden had rejected in favor of investing in the middle class.

When he took office, Biden acknowledged that democracy was in danger around the globe, as authoritarians like Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s president Xi Jinping  maintained that democracy was obsolete and must be replaced by autocracies. Russia set out to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that enforced the rules-based international order that stood against Russian expansion. 

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who overturned democracy in his own country, explained that the historical liberal democracy of the United States weakens a nation because the equality it champions means treating immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women as equal to men, thus ending traditionally patriarchal society.

In place of democracy, Orbán champions “illiberal democracy,” or “Christian democracy.” This form of government holds nominal elections, although their outcome is preordained because the government controls all the media and has silenced opposition. Orbán’s model of minority rule promises a return to a white-dominated, religiously based society, and he has pushed his vision by eliminating the independent press, cracking down on political opposition, getting rid of the rule of law, and dominating the economy with a group of crony oligarchs. 

In order to strengthen democracy at home and abroad, Biden worked to show that it delivered for ordinary Americans. He and the Democrats passed groundbreaking legislation to invest in rebuilding roads and bridges and build new factories to usher in green energy. They defended unions and used the Federal Trade Commission to break up monopolies and return more economic power to consumers. 

Their system worked. It created record low unemployment rates, lifted wages for the bottom 80% of Americans, and built the strongest economy in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, setting multiple stock market records.  But that success turned out not to be enough to protect democracy. 

In contrast, Trump promised he would return to the ideology of the era before 2021, when leaders believed in relying on markets to order the economy with the idea that wealthy individuals would invest more efficiently than if the government regulated business or skewed markets with targeted investment (in green energy, for example). Trump vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and to make up lost revenue through tariffs, which he incorrectly insists are paid by foreign countries; tariffs are paid by U.S. consumers. 

For policies, Trump’s campaign embraced the Project 2025 agenda led by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has close ties to Orbán. That plan calls for getting rid of the nonpartisan civil service the U.S. has had since 1883 and for making both the Department of Justice and the military partisan instruments of a strong president, much as Orbán did in Hungary. It also calls for instituting religious rule, including an end to abortion rights, across the U.S. Part of the idea of “purifying” the country is the deportation of undocumented immigrants: Trump promised to deport 20 million people at an estimated cost of $88 billion to $315 billion a year. 

That is what voters chose.

Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats��� obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.

There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat. 

But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing. 

In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.” 

X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged. 

Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for. In his victory speech, Trump said the American people had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” 

White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.” 

Today, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would launch the “largest mass deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants, and the stock in private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic  jumped 41% and 29%, respectively. Those jumps were part of a bigger overall jump: the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1,508 points in what Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said was the largest post-election jump in more than 100 years. 

As for the lower prices Trump voters wanted, Kate Gibson of CBS today noted that on Monday, the National Retail Federation said that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost American consumers between $46 billion and $78 billion a year as clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, and footwear all become more expensive. A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

U.S. retailers are already preparing to raise prices of items from foreign suppliers, passing to consumers the cost of any future tariffs. 

Trump’s election will also mean he will no longer have to answer to the law for his federal indictments: special counsel Jack Smith is winding them down ahead of Trump’s inauguration. So he will not be tried for retaining classified documents or attempting to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost in 2020. 

This evening, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán posted on social media that he had just spoken with Trump, and said: “We have big plans for the future!” 

This afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at her alma mater, Howard University, to concede the election to Trump. 

She thanked her supporters, her family, the Bidens, the Walz family, and her campaign staff and volunteers. She reiterated that she believes Americans have far more in common than separating us.

In what appeared to be a message to Trump, she noted: “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. 

“My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

Harris urged people “to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.” She told those feeling as if the world is dark indeed these days, to “fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service,” and to let “that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[astrangetorpedo]

On New Year’s Eve, during a house party at her home in Richmond, Virginia, Lucy Dacus had her fortune told. She thought why not. On a personal level, 2017 had been a wretched year – a steady conveyor belt delivering the 22-year-old bad news.

“This girl, who I didn’t even know, came to the party and gave me this year-long reading,” she explains. “Month-by-month it was so specific. So far, it’s kind of lined up.”

In the past Dacus has been sceptical about the prophetic powers of the tarot card deck, and was taught that the pentacles (coins) were a symbol of Satan. “It’s hard to look to the future and see nothing, to know nothing,” she muses. “I still don’t know what’s going to happen, but having something to have your mind bounce off is nice. That’s why I like tarot. It gives you something to reflect on.”

It’s all part of a fresh way of thinking for Dacus, a new “mood of just trying to be open to new things.” For so many reasons the past year has been one Lucy Dacus is keen to put behind her. “I guess I could just list things,” she says laughing, but not joking. To begin, some of her close family suffered health problems, compounded by her own serious issues including a bout of appendicitis that forced her to have surgery. She was attempting to buy a house for the first time, a process that proved “trying”. Three of her tours got cancelled.

“It was a little bit miserable,” says Dacus, sitting in an east London cafe. “Towards the end of the year, I just had to laugh… Like, come on!”

Interwoven with these practical challenges she was having to navigate something much more troubling. “I got out of a relationship in 2016, which I was waking up from in 2017 – realising that it was abusive,” she begins. “Letting myself say that, it took many months to come out of the numbness… to stop being brainwashed. So, that’s all been a growth. It’s ended up being positive, but it is difficult wondering how I let that be a part of my life for so long.”

Deepening the ordeal, still, this year of personal upheaval was set to the backdrop of Trump’s first 12 months in office. A vociferous supporter of Bernie Sanders through the 2016 election campaign, Dacus is a passionate advocate for equal rights, attending marches and collecting donations for community organisations at her shows. To have Trump sat in the White House representing her country, she says, felt – feels – “horrible”. “It’s just absurd and I feel like I’m in an alternate universe,” she says. “It’s really hard maintaining hope.

“Coming to Europe I’m embarrassed to be an American sometimes, but then I just have to hope that people know that I am not part of Trump. I’ve thought about wearing shirts at the airport – just like ‘not my president’. In little ways I just want to assert that opinion.”

And then there were the disturbing revelations surrounding Harvey Weinstein (and subsequently many other men) revealed in Autumn 2017, that opened out into a global conversation around the abuse and harassment of women.

“It’s been nice coming out of that really terrible relationship during a time when women are speaking up more. It feels like I’m allowed to say these things now,” says Dacus, crediting the #MeToo movement. “All these horrible, heartbreaking stories of women being mistreated are at the forefront but the solace that people are doing what they need in order to find closure and help each other prevent that happening ever again. For one of the first times I’ve been noticing male friends of mine actually examining their past behaviours.”

While there are some early shoots of positivity, the truth is, the culmination of all of these factors left the songwriter dealing with anxiety for the first time. “2017 was a new state of mind for me – and not really in the best way.”

Lucy Dacus was raised in Richmond, Virginia, about two hours south of Washington D.C. on the east coast. It’s a place sometimes described as “the biggest small town left in America.” The family home was in the rural suburbs and she travelled into the city to go to high school. “It’s hard to tell you in one answer how my whole childhood was,” she says. “It’s a large variety of things. Overall, I’m coming out with my thumbs up.”

In her household music was always there. Her mother is a piano teacher, as was her grandmother. Picking up songwriting was never a big deal, like a second language that was spoken around the house. “That’s how music is – like, it’s just part of my life,” she recalls.

Yet the dream of being a professional artist seemed almost so unattainable that it was invisible. In her late teens, Dacus went to college to study film but dropped out, primarily because she’d end up saddled with huge debt. “That, paired with the feeling of being misunderstood in my programme,” she confirms. “I just didn’t have a lot of like minds in my classes.”

That prompted a move back to Virginia where she took a job in a photography lab developing kids’ cheesy school photos. She’d been writing songs in her spare time and gathered nine of the 30-or-so she had together when her friend Jacob Blizard (now her touring guitarist) asked her to record them for his school project. Her 2016 debut album, ‘No Burden’, was made in one day in Nashville. Blizard passed school, and that album received rave reviews. NPR called it “vulnerable”, while Pitchfork said it was an “uncommonly warm indie rock record”. As a result, 20 different record labels reportedly scrabbled to sign Dacus. She settled on Matador, and began to prepare for what should have been a joyful 2017.

The first time Dacus remembers assuming the role of historian she was seven or eight-years-old. She was writing in her journal – and she smiles now recalling her first entry. It complained about how the babysitter spent the whole evening on the phone to her boyfriend. “There’s a point where I realise I’m journaling and so I stop and go, ‘I should probably introduce myself… I’m Lucy’” she laughs, remembering it clearly. “It’s really cute.”

More than a dozen notebooks, and many years later, she still keeps a diary now. Sometimes she writes every day, other times, weeks go by and then she fills 20 pages. Occasionally she flicks open an old one to either “laugh or cringe” at her younger self.

‘Historian’, then, isn’t just the title of her latest album, but also the way she thinks of herself. A chronicler, of her own experiences, but also those around her. Those pages aren’t just a document of a growing maturity, but also a therapeutic habit that helps make sense of many life events, including that recent damaging relationship. “Seeing that it had been broken for the whole time but that I was just oblivious to it, [reading about] it helps to accept that things didn’t change,” she says. “I just saw it for what it was finally, and so perspective is good.”

Those handwritten journals are sacred, which is why, when her tenth one was stolen on tour a few years ago along with a bag of possessions, it was the notebook she replaced first.

The album itself is a recent history – a narrative burrowing through those myriad dark times. Dacus knew that she wanted it to form a complete story, and wrote the track list before some of the songs. “It’s an arc” she says, that begins in a “relatable place” with the only break-up song she’s ever written (‘Night Shift’) that subsequently delves “deeper into darkness.”

“Then the subject matter gets a little more intense,” she tells me, “– going through identity crises, or loss of home, or loss of faith, loss of a loved one, loss of your life. I feel like I’m pulling people into an uncomfortable space.” She pauses. “There’s then a change where hopefully I’m turning on a light and saying, ‘Yes, all of that exists, but it’s a foil to joy.’”

It is an extraordinary piece of work. Musically it’s a colossal step up, reminiscent of recent albums by Mitski (‘Puberty 2’), Angel Olsen (‘My Woman’) and labelmate Julien Baker (‘Turn out the Lights’). The subject matter is heavy, but it’s never a dreary listen. In fact, it’s charming, funny even – like a brave smile emerging through a curtain of tears. And Dacus has a gift for lyric writing; like the eloquent way she pays tribute to the humility shown by her dying grandmother on ‘Pillar of Truth’. From first to final note it’s evocative and powerful. “The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit I had a coughing fit,” goes the LP’s opening line in ‘Night Shift’. “If past you were to meet future me,” she sings on the final line of the closing title track, “would you be holding me now?”

It’s heartening to hear that the contents of Dacus’ NYE tarot reading were largely positive. The forecast noted that she should enjoy the proceeds of her hard work, but that “something horrible happens in the summer, then there’s kind of a rebirth, growing back into, like, life in an even more knowledgeable and peace-oriented way.” Dacus is about to leave, and picks up a bag of books she’s been keeping underneath the cafe table.

“It could be wrong,” she says. “I’m not superstitious. I’m taking it in. When that does happen I hope I can take my own advice – let it be what it is, and look past it eventually

(x) 3/14/18

[elegantshapeshifter]

Fairy Seers in Serbia

"The fairy-seers of southeastern Europe are (mostly) women who are able to communicate with women-like creatures from the supernatural world. Sometimes the fairy-seers induce a trance state in order to establish communication with these creatures. During their communication with the fairies the fairy-seers can prophesy about future events. The fairy-seers can also deliver messages to the living on behalf of their deceased relatives. Similarly, they advise about how to heal an ill individual or the treatment of that individual can proceed after consulting the fairies. These illnesses are usually a form of so called " fairy-illness " —a disorder that has its origins in a curse or a spell wrought by fairies offended by that individual. In the narratives of fairy-seers, fairies are described as three young, beautiful longhaired women, dressed either in white or in black. The women who can see and speak to the fairies have been chosen by them early on, usually in their childhood or adolescence. By dancing and singing on special days of the orthodox Christian calendar, these women fall into a trance state and then communicate with " their sisters, " as these invisible creatures are called by these women. The fairy-seers are called numerous names in various languages across southeastern Europe. The semantic field of these varying designations is far from identical: sometimes the seers need not enter into a trance to see them, sometimes they fight (nocturnal) battles in the sky to ensure good crops for their region, where they live and work as any normal human being. But there is one common denominator to all of them: they undergo a process of initiation (prompted by these creatures) and the invisible creatures with whom they communicate are females. I choose to use this term in an attempt to cover and to depict a vast range of more or less similar phenomena across the Balkans with an English term, with the goal of creating an " umbrella term " in the English language (nowadays a lingua franca) for working purposes."

[Vivod, M. (2018). The Fairy Seers of Eastern Serbia: Seeing Fairies—Speaking through Trance. Oral Tradition, 32(1).]

There is a short documentary created with the video material filmed during the fieldwork (April 2015). It’s actually a partial recording of the trance. The documentary has been presented at the Kratovo Ethnological Film Festival in September 2016. The documentary can be seen at: http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi796439833/

[cassimothwin]

Why I chose the Urbanist font for Carved by the Garden

Fun fact about the Carved by the Garden cover!

The title font for Carved by the Garden is called Urbanist. Why is this a fun fact?

Within the folk horror genre, stories usually follow "outsiders," or those from urban areas, encroaching on land they don't know and misunderstanding the natural rules and order of that land.

Over time, these trespassers are likely to be consumed. It's an all too-common trope within folk stories. Either the "folk" who make their home in the land will deliver judgment or some supernatural entity that represents the will of the woods will devour those who do not respect it and the old ways. It's one of the reasons I love folk horror stories so much.

Sacrifices are a common way for the outsiders to be consumed. But sometimes it's just a scary monster that gets hungry.

On the cover of Carved by the Garden, nature is beginning to overtake the title text. It represents another example of someone from the "civilized" world succumbing to the power of nature. You cannot impose order in these wild lands, and if you try, you're likely to meet your end (because you'll be consumed).

The power struggle within folk horror works is usually what interests me most, as I relate the theme of "controlling the wild" to the taming of "women" who don't fit a civilized society's mold: "She's a witch." The Witch (2016) does an excellent job of exploring this, though it does focus more on the power struggles of religion and desire, (spoiler warning) in the end, it's the women who gave into the strangeness of their surroundings who survive. Did they sell their souls or did they learn the real rules of survival?

While Urbanist is just a font, it's an intentional choice that harkens back to these themes. It's a clean font. It's easy to read. But it can't keep the growth at bay. It's not strong enough to withstand what waits beneath the trees.

Carved by the Garden is my upcoming single-player journaling game focused on folk horror themes. You can learn more about it on the Kickstarter page linked below.

[transmutationisms]

given how you have talked about succession and race before, do you have any thoughts on the recent interview by Juliana Canfield in Vulture? The main gist of the Jess scene in the last episode being meant to be funny, according to one of the (white) writers. (Quote: "Three weeks later, a bunch of us went out to dinner and one of the writers, Lucy Prebble, was like, “We’re cutting together episode eight, and the scene is funny.” I was like, “It’s a funny scene?” It had never occurred to me that it was written to be funny. I saw it as deadly serious, existentially chilling, and reminiscent of the 2016 election.")

so, wrt that scene in particular, it's not totally clear to me what prebble thought the joke was, and imo that would make a difference. to me it read as a very dark joke aimed at greg, who's clearly torn between thinking mencken is 'bad' in a very distant way, and wanting to please his boss and do his job. jess's lines i did not think were delivered or played as funny, and the overall effect of the scene, to me, was to shift focus to the people who work for waystar but cannot really be said to make executive calls: assistants, underlings, &c. i read jess as feeling like she's been complicit in what atn was doing this entire time, and trying, too little too late, to stop it. her field of action is obviously very limited because she, like everyone else on the show, is still operating within waystar's orbit, and within capitalism.

more broadly, i think this jess convo is a little bit frustrating in some of the same ways the sophie stuff has been. it's a very last-minute shift for the show, to actually address head-on (sort of) jess and sophie as women of colour and what that means for them as people who are involved with the roys in different capacities. it's hard to do this well this late in the game, and especially in a season where by necessity the siblings' grief is so central. we still haven't spent any time with jess alone, and we've never really gotten into her head---also a problem with sophie. so, just as the sophie scenes work mostly as kendall characterisation, the jess/greg convo does a lot of its work as greg characterisation, and kendall's remarks to jess earlier in the season about atn covering african politics also tell us much more about how kendall sees jess, himself, and racism than they do about jess herself.

none of this is a new problem for succession; it has always been pretty clear that it's about its white characters. so, these last-ditch gestures toward more commentary on race can read as a bit tacky at best. with the election night thing, i don't mind a joke at greg's expense (it's continuous with him trying to claim he has "principles" in s2), but it is true that in that scene the show is using jess and her race (implicitly) to do that. the show's premise has always foreclosed a lot of potentially interesting questions about people like jess and in jess's position: again, disempowered, but also benefitting in some way from the company and from selling reactionary politics. that could make an interesting avenue to explore, but it's simply not one that this show has chosen to go down. again, it's not clear to me from that interview exactly what prebble thought the joke was so i can't really say much more about her specifically, but the scene itself in the show is part of a larger pattern in how the writers handle race (usually weirdly ignore it, sometimes use it to explore their white characters' psyches).

[ceruleanwind]

Giftwrapped

4433 | Explicit | 3.7k | Read on AO3

He does like them, just a little, as much as it embarrasses him to admit it to himself. He studies his reflection in the mirror, his gaze tracing where the thin strappy waist wraps around his hip and connects the two tiny pieces of fabric. The panties do an extremely poor job of covering him—the tip of his cock seems to slip out into the cool air no matter how Max arranges himself—but he somewhat likes it, likes feeling so exposed, like he’s nothing but a meal. Or: Lewis gifts Max an article of clothing he's never dared to try on before. Max likes it more than he probably should.

Max doesn’t often receive gifts, if he’s honest. Even on special occasions growing up, like Christmas or his birthday, Max would be lucky to receive just one gift from his family, usually something practical and not at all fun.

He’s more than surprised, then, when he comes back to his driver’s room after a rather unexciting round of free practice to find a gift waiting for him on the table—a white box made of thin cardboard, tastefully wrapped in a thick purple ribbon. Max’s eyebrows furrow in confusion; he peers outside the door of his driver’s room, checking for anyone who might know who delivered the gift, but ultimately he decides to find out for himself.

The ribbon comes undone neatly when Max tugs at one of the ends of the bow. He sets the ribbon aside and reaches to lift the lid of the box, morbidly curious to see what’s inside.

Max’s breath promptly catches in his throat.

Inside the box, on a nest of white tissue paper, rests a gorgeous pair of silk panties; they’re a deep rich royal purple, all thin straps and silver detailing, trimmed with delicate scalloped lace at the edges. On top of them, near the edge of the box, lies a folded piece of paper—a note, presumably. Max picks up the note, hands nearly shaking with it.

Put these on, and then you know where to go tonight.

The worst part is, Max does know where to go. He and Lewis have been messing around for the greater part of the 2016 season; Max doesn’t exactly know when it happened—he knew he’d always been shy and awkward around Lewis—but suddenly Lewis had started flirting back, his touches lingering, and to make a long story short Max has ended up in his bed several times this season already. Sue him—he’s eighteen, naïve, and desperate to please; he can’t exactly resist when the driver he’s looked up to for years starts returning his advances.

He sets the note aside and glances around before lifting the panties out of the box, his face flushing as he realises what he’s about to do. The set really is nice, Max thinks. They’re obviously made out of real silk, beautiful and soft to the touch, and the lace doesn’t feel itchy at all. Max recalls Lewis saying that his favourite colour was purple, and his face flushes an even deeper red when he pieces together that he’ll be wearing Lewis’ colour, practically giftwrapped in it just for him. Max presses one hand to his cheek, feeling feverish. He’s really about to do this, isn’t he? Dress in women’s underwear just because Lewis told him to?

Max puts the panties down and lays a hand over the zipper of his race suit, contemplating it, before he tugs the zipper down with sudden impatience. He has half a mind to go over and lock the door of his room before sliding the rest of the race suit off of him, then moving on to his fireproofs. “Fuck,” he mutters when he’s standing just in his boxers, the white fireproofs pooling at his ankles. He knows he can back out if he doesn’t want to wear them, but . . . if Lewis asks, Max is a weak, weak man. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers, Max sighs and tugs those down too.

Wincing at the cold air against his exposed skin, Max lifts up the panties again and holds them in his hands for a moment. He can just try them on, right? He doesn’t have to keep wearing them if he hates it. Lewis would understand. Slowly, Max steps into the panties and slides them up along his legs before settling them into position. The thin front piece barely covers his cock, the fabric straining with it, and the back piece slips between his cheeks as soon as he shifts to get a better look at himself.

He does like them, just a little, as much as it embarrasses him to admit it to himself. He studies his reflection in the mirror, his gaze tracing where the thin strappy waist wraps around his hip and connects the two tiny pieces of fabric. The panties do an extremely poor job of covering him—the tip of his cock seems to slip out into the cool air no matter how Max arranges himself—but he somewhat likes it, likes feeling so exposed, like he’s nothing but a meal.

A knock on the door makes Max jump out of his skin, hastily bringing a hand to his front to cover himself.

“Max! Hurry up, your ride’s about to leave,” one of the PR people shouts through the door.

“Okay,” Max says back, and his voice comes out a lot wobblier than he expected. He glances back in the mirror and his face flushes at the sight he’s faced with before he turns away, reaching for the folded casual clothes on the table to change into.

Lingerie like this, as it turns out, is rather uncomfortable.

Max hardly gets ten steps out the door of his driver’s room before he’s acutely aware of how poorly the panties cover his cock and how the thin fabric of the back piece rests between his cheeks. His face burns with just how naughty this feels—he’s a Formula One driver, for fuck’s sake, secretly wearing a skimpy women’s thong underneath perfectly presentable casual clothes. He doesn’t even want to think about what his dad would say if he found out, but the thought of Lewis sizing him up later tonight and telling him how nice he looks in those panties trumps all worry Max has in his head.

He shifts in discomfort the whole car ride back to his hotel, tapping at his phone to reply to his friends, when a particularly interesting message pops up at the top of his screen.

L: get my gift?

Max’s face immediately heats up. Oh, did he. He can’t wait for Lewis to see him in them.

M: Yeah M: Thank you

L: ofc. i’m in room 1016

He can’t help the way his stomach twists at the prospect of Lewis seeing him like this—dressed so normally on the outside but sporting something downright slutty underneath his jeans. It’s never been like him to do anything like this, really; Max has always been a bit of a goody-two-shoes—never partying, never going out late at night, never even dating or sleeping around, but when Lewis asks him to do that sort of thing Max is suddenly pliant and very much susceptible to suggestion.

Max’s breath nearly stops once he’s standing in front of Lewis’ hotel room door, his hand lifted to knock. He can’t go back after this—but would he want to, anyway? Max quite likes how he looks in Lewis’ favourite colour, dressed in nothing but tiny pieces of fabric that barely cover him as is. He hopes Lewis will like it too.

He reaches out and knocks.

The door opens a few seconds later, and Max hardly has time to react before Lewis pulls him inside by the front of his team polo. Max gasps, bites his lip, and hurriedly rushes out “Hey, how was free practice—” before Lewis gets him up against the wall, all up in his personal space.

“Shut the fuck up about free practice,” Lewis says before leaning in to bring their mouths together, all hot and slick and wet where their lips meet and where they’re both panting for it. His hands find Max’s lithe waist—his waist always fits so nicely in Lewis’ hands—and slip up underneath his team polo, wandering across smooth planes of skin.

Lewis pulls away, leaving Max dazed and gasping, before lifting up the bottom third of Max’s shirt, revealing what’s underneath. The tiny waist straps of the thong peek out over the waistband of Max’s jeans, pulled tight over his hips and teasing what lies a bit lower. “Oh,” Lewis hums, hooking his thumb underneath one of the straps and pulling back a little before letting it snap against Max’s skin, “that’s nice. They’re a perfect fit, aren’t they?”

Max hates to admit it, but just one touch from Lewis and he’s already riled up, his cock rapidly hardening in his tiny panties. He swallows thickly, nods his head the best he can, and croaks, “Yeah. They, uh, they’re really nice.”

Lewis laughs softly at that, pushing up at the hem of Max’s shirt and reaching to tug it over his head. “Then they were worth every cent,” he says before stepping back to take it all in. “Come on, show me the rest of them. I want to see what’s hiding under there.”

His cheeks flushing a potent pink, Max nods and fumbles with the fastening on his jeans. He’d expected this to be plenty embarrassing already, but with Lewis’ dark, hungry gaze on him, sizing him up like he’s his next meal, Max feels more flustered than ever. Max hesitantly unbuttons his jeans and works them slowly down his legs before letting them fall to the floor in a heap, revealing him wearing nothing but the tiny pair of panties. His cock hardens even further at the attention, the knowledge that Lewis is seeing him all like this, dressed like he’s nothing but a common little whore, and it makes him move his hands to his front in a weak attempt to cover himself. It would be better if Lewis would reach out and touch him, Max thinks, keeping his gaze firmly on the floor and nowhere near Lewis’ eyes, because he’s never felt so exposed, so humiliated, in his life.

“Purple looks good on you,” Lewis says softly, teeth catching on his bottom lip. “Turn around for me, will you?”

Max obeys, like he always does. He turns around, showing Lewis how the back piece covers nothing. It nearly makes him want to bend over just like that, beg for Lewis to fuck him already, but Max knows better than that—he’d get in real trouble if he didn’t let Lewis look.

Finally, Lewis is behind him, hands roaming once more over the gentle sloping curve of his waist, then down to his ass, tugging teasingly at the piece of fabric that disappears between his cheeks. “I think I have to make you wear these more often,” he says into Max’s ear, his lips brushing the shell of it. “Would you?”

“Yes, of course,” Max answers perhaps a little too quickly for his own good. His mind goes wild as he imagines all the scenarios Lewis might make him wear these panties in; would he have to wear a pair during a race? During an important sponsor event? During a drivers’ outing? His mouth feels dry as cotton and his head spins, but he tries putting more words together. “It felt so—so naughty, wearing these in public,” he admits, voice softer and coming out nearly as a squeak. “Made me feel really dirty.”

“Yeah?” One of Lewis’ hands strays from Max’s ass, slipping forward until it settles between his thighs, resting over his prominent hard-on, which is barely hidden by the thin silk fabric of the panties. “Oh, Max, you’re wetter than a girl,” he murmurs, running his finger along the length of Max’s cock through his panties. “Does dressing like a slut really turn you on this much?”

Max’s face flushes impossibly redder. He brings his hands up to cover his face, resisting the urge to rock his twitching cock into Lewis’ touch. “I—I’m not a—” he tries to say, but this time it does come out as a squeak as soon as Lewis takes his clothed cock into his hand. Max grabs at Lewis’ arm, tries to move his hips forward and chase more of that delicious friction, but to no avail; Lewis simply chuckles from behind him and lifts his hand away, using his hold on Max’s waist to turn him around.

“You’re not a slut? Really?” Lewis teases, leaning back to take a good look at the way Max’s hard cock strains against the rich purple fabric and stains it with a generous wet spot. “Okay. We could just do room service and watch a movie, then.”

Max whines, panic rising up in his chest. Lewis wouldn’t leave him like this, would he? He has to just be bluffing. “Wait,” he says weakly, “no, I—I need—” He looks at Lewis, pleading. Max has always been downright awful at voicing just what he wants; he finds it embarrassing to say it out loud, admit that Lewis is right about him being a slut. “Okay,” he huffs, frustrated and flushed, “I am, I am.”

Lewis smiles at that and decides to take pity on Max. “Oh, I get it now,” he says, infuriatingly smug as he guides Max over to the bed. Max, of course, follows, lets Lewis manhandle him into the mattress. “You want me to fuck you in those, don’t you?”

Max nods frantically, his eyes big and wide and blue. He thinks he might implode if Lewis doesn’t start touching him right now. “Yes, yes,” he begs, his breathing coming heavier in anticipation when he watches Lewis break away from him to get the lube and shove his clothes off. “Anything you want,” he adds for good measure, his cock twitching as soon as Lewis glances back at him with that addictive hungry look in his eye.

When Lewis returns to the bed, Max expects him to at least slide the panties down his thighs a little, if not take them all the way off, but in his haste Lewis merely moves the panties aside and spreads Max’s thighs apart. One slick finger moves between Max’s cheeks and nudges at the tight furl of his hole before his fingertip eases just inside of him. Max lets out a surprised breath, but relaxes the best he can regardless, whining as Lewis presses more and more of his finger into him.

“Ah—that’s—” Max shifts on the bed, splaying his thighs further apart and reaching for a pillow to shove under his lower back. Lewis brings a second finger up to nudge in alongside the first, opening Max up with ease.

“There, isn’t that good?” Lewis eases both fingers gently in and out of Max, then spreads them apart, stretching out his tight little hole. “You just needed something in you, didn’t you?”

Max whines, louder this time, bringing his hands up to cover his wonderfully flushed face. Lewis’ fingers always feel so good in him; they’re long and elegant and nimble and sometimes Lewis curls them in just the right way that makes his toes curl and his back arch. Lewis adds a third, curling them up into the tight heat of Max’s body, and Max doesn’t know how much longer he can go without losing his goddamn mind.

A surprised moan falls from Max’s lips when Lewis’ fingertips nudge into his prostate. He’s gasping for breath, needily shifting his hips in the direction of Lewis’ fingers, frantic for more, when Lewis chuckles softly and pulls his fingers out, leaving Max empty and clenching down on nothing. “Wait,” Max tries to beg, his eyes big and needy, “I wasn’t—I want—”

“You want,” Lewis teases, kneeling between Max’s spread thighs and squeezing lube out onto his cock. “You always want.” He moves the panties aside once more, exposing Max’s tight little hole and letting his cock spring free, hard and flushed and profusely leaking. Shifting closer, Lewis fits his slick cockhead against Max’s tight rim, exhaling softly as he takes in just how well they fit together, how hot and needy Max is for him. It drives Lewis wild.

Max, although thoroughly embarrassed, manages to squeak, “Please, please,” as he tries to rock his hips down to meet Lewis’ cock. “I’m sorry, I—” he moves to cover his face again, hardly able to look Lewis in the eyes out of embarrassment for being so needy.

Lewis pushes gently forward, letting the head of his cock slip just inside of him. He can’t help but gasp at the slick heat that envelops his cockhead, something downright addicting that lives constantly in his wet dreams. “Don’t be,” he insists, his breaths already coming heavy. “There, see? You always take it so well.”

Max whines, loud and desperate, as Lewis slowly sinks his cock into his tight little hole. He’s had Lewis in him before, of course, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever adjust to just how big Lewis is, all hot pressure that nearly splits him open. Max pants as he forces himself to relax, his desperate, untouched cock twitching as Lewis pushes further and further into him. The praise, of course, doesn’t mitigate his problem, either; in fact, it goes right to Max’s cock, the mere knowledge that he’s being good and taking it well making him crazy.

He barely has time to adjust to Lewis’ cock stretching him out before Lewis is pulling back and thrusting into him again, shocking a moan from his lips. He reaches up to grab at Lewis’ tattooed shoulders, blunt nails digging into his skin as he’s fucked, absolutely ruined, by the driver he’s looked up to for so long.

“That’s it,” Lewis encourages through his harsh breaths as he fucks up into the slick heat of Max’s hole, his hold on Max’s waist surely firm enough to bruise. He can’t stop thinking about how pretty they’ll look on Max’s skin tomorrow, purplish marks lining his waist, and he thinks he’ll have to teasingly press on them a little, just to watch Max gasp and hiss through his teeth at the pain. He leans down to mouth at Max’s neck, kissing hot and wet across that beautiful expanse of pale skin before sucking a generous mark into a spot right below Max’s jaw.

Max’s cock twitches when he feels Lewis suck a mark into his neck. That’s in a spot that’ll be hard to hide, for sure, but would he want to hide it anyway? He tilts his head back and moans as Lewis fucks into him again, his cockhead bumping deliciously right into his prostate and making his back arch. “More, like that,” Max begs easily, the embarrassment ebbing further with each second this goes on. He’s happy to be a slut if it’s for Lewis.

Lewis growls and fucks into him harder, adjusting the position of Max’s body to fuck into him at a better angle. His cock slides into Max impossibly deep, burying itself to the hilt, before pulling back and pushing up into his prostate yet again. He delights in the way a full-body shudder rips through Max as a result, goosebumps rising across the planes of pale skin. Max just feels so fucking good around his cock, all slick and hot and tight where he clenches down around him; Lewis doesn’t know how much longer he can last at this rate, with Max’s pretty sounds in his ear and the gorgeous sight laid out before him.

He brings one hand between their bodies, easily wraps it around Max’s flushed, leaking cock, and strokes it in time with his thrusts, his cockhead bumping into Max’s prostate each time. Max is a whining, moaning mess, his back arching impossibly high as he grabs at Lewis’ shoulders, then the sheets for something to hold onto. “Come on,” Lewis urges, his voice low and uncharacteristically gravelly. “You can come, come on.”

Max doesn’t need any further encouragement. He comes with a pathetic cry, his cockhead spurting hot and thick over his own stomach and Lewis’ fingers. It’s so intense that it nearly whites out his vision and leaves him gasping, his cock twitching with oversensitivity. The drag of Lewis’ cock against his hole immediately becomes too much; he whines with each push of Lewis’ cock into him, his legs instinctually kicking out in protest, but Lewis is unrelenting, using Max’s hole like a personal toy to chase his own orgasm.

“Fuck,” Lewis hisses, leaning down to press his lips against Max’s neck again, and that’s all the warning Max gets before Lewis comes in him, filling his tight little hole with it. Lewis fucks it into him with a few deep strokes, making Max twitch and let out a soft whine.

Finally, it all stops. They’re both left panting, trembling from overstimulation. Max looks downright ruined—his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks are impossibly flushed—but Lewis takes in the sight nonetheless, etching it into his memory.

“Oh my God,” Max sighs once he gathers the ability to form words, wincing as Lewis slowly pulls out of him. “That was, ah. Really, uh, really needed, I think.”

“You think so?” Lewis asks, more of a tease as he pulls the panties to the side to cover Max’s softening cock with the royal purple silk again.

“Yeah. I think—oh God, Lewis, those are gonna get so dirty,” Max whines, his face flushing with embarrassment for what has to be the umpteenth time tonight. He presses one hand to his burning cheek, something twisting low in his gut at how Lewis smiles at him.

Lewis touches at the front of Max’s panties, running over his soft cock and making him twitch. “I will buy you hundreds of pairs of these if I have to,” he says decisively, his smile turning naughty, “but you’re right. Guess I should clean us up.” The mattress idly dips as Lewis slides off the edge of the bed and makes his way to the bathroom.

Max sighs, content, then looks down at himself—the streaks of come across his stomach, the way the panties strain against his cock, his shaking thighs. He really is a wreck, but if this is what he gets for obeying Lewis’ requests, this sure as hell won’t be the last time he’ll do so.

[palant1r]

i know nothing about fallout 4. i still demand the essay

OKAY SO

Basically the central conflict of Fallout 4 revolves around synths. They're synthetic humans that look and act exactly like humans, to the point that some synths themselves don't even know that they're synths. The synths themselves are not inherently evil, but they're associated with their masters and creators, the shadowy Institute. So you've got a society aesthetically based on the 1950s, dealing with the spectre of people who Look Like Them but Aren't, who are fundamentally different, and who "Work" for a boogeyman entity. It's just BEGGING for a red scare analogy, but can also carry a potent queer reading. And instead Bethesda made the synths an analogue for...slavery.

Fallout 4 is a game where the romanceable companions are playersexual. However, as far as I know, they don't actually...reference having any queer relationships or leanings. We got some deadwife manpain characters sprinkled in, women flirt with men and men flirt with women when it comes to interactions between NPCs. You the player are in a heterosexual traditional marriage at the start of the game and there's nothing you can do to change that.

(here's some good further reading on the topic: https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2016/01/22/flirt-flirt-romance-fallout-4s-problems-with-queer-relationships/)

There is a lesbian couple in Sanctuary Hills (who get quickly annihilated by the nukes lol), so this suggests that pre-war society was to some degree accepting of queerness. Gay people get to slot into the jingoistic paradigm of cold war paranoia! So the message of Fallout 4 seems to be that queerness is accepted post-apocalypse just as it was pre-apocalypse, with no unique queer culture or way of seeing the world, and no discrimination, except for the things raiders yell at you to make you not feel bad about killing them. Female characters yell out taunts like "how do you feel about being beat up by a girl?" but without any suggestion of widespread misogyny in the game's main factions. You can romance any romanceable character as any gender with no change in how things proceed.

Which...is simply not interesting, for two reasons. One: it makes the worldbuilding feel flat. Two: it makes every run feel the same.

Let's take a look at Fallout: New Vegas. One of the companions, Veronica Santangelo, is a canon lesbian belonging to the Brotherhood of Steel. She considers the Brotherhood her family, but the previous elder forced her and her girlfriend apart from each other, justifying their homophobia by saying reproduction was necessary to keep their insular, isolationist chapter alive. This gets a payoff in the DLC, when you meet her girlfriend who is hunting that elder down.

Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of little nods like this to queerness and how it's treated by various factions. It makes the world feel richer, because you gain insight into how these factions have not just different ideologies and goals, but different social norms. And it's delivered in an organic way.

Also, you can pick perks that allow you to enter into this world. (Fallout 4, despite its "progressiveness," only has options for the Straight Perk). As a confirmed bachelor, you can skip a whole quest by flirting with Manny, recruit Arcade without having to get in good with the Followers, and get more exposition from Major Knight about how the NCR views homosexuality. Because of that, your playthroughs are made unique based on your courier's sexuality. It feels like an actual character trait that affects how you interact with the world. You know, like how queer people are.

Fast forward to Fallout 4, where you can play as a man and dick down Paladin Danse right in the Prydwen a door away from the rest of the Brotherhood, and no one says shit about the gay sex those two brotherhood members just had. Is the East Coast brotherhood just less homophobic than the Mojave chapter? No, Bethesda just chose not to think about queerness as an actual aspect of how people and factions can interact with the world.

And Paladin Danse's storyline in particular is begging for that kind of storytelling! He's actually a synth, unknowingly belonging to the same group his faction hates and wants to exterminate, and when he finds out this information, it takes a LOT of rizz to keep him from killing himself. Can you imagine the sauce if Bethesda incorporated themes into that about homophobia during the Cold War? It would go SO HARD if romancing Paladin Danse as a man actually involved engaging with the Brotherhood's flaws! And that's just one example!

It also just makes the romances feel even flatter than they already are. You can get into anyone's pants by just, like, lockpicking enough, or crafting a ton of weapon mods. It doesn't feel like they're actual people with preferences, likes and dislikes, or a type of person they like. They just feel like skill checks. Like challenges you can check off by doing things on a list.

Anyway. This isn't super well thought out, fellow Fallout enjoyers please help me out on this

[time-being]

The Biden Presidency and Harris campaign plan...

was always and only about redeeming their good friends, Republicans, who had been "misled" by Donald Trump.

They decided, from day one, that showing the perfidy of Donald Trump to their friends Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney would wake Republicans up from Trumpism.

Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney because she wanted to win with Republican support or not at all.

Queer people and immigrants and women were never their concern.

That's why they delayed investigating and prosecuting Trump. They wanted Republicans to freely choose to give up on him. And they wanted the election in 2024 to be a referendum on Trump.

They had a lot of agency in all this. Biden and Harris deserve the blame.

But so does "Vote Blue No Matter Who". That's an attitude of utter complacency that explicitly tells Democrats you don't expect anything of them.

So do all the Trolley Problem comics. And the "lesser evil" shit.

Liberalism has delivered this result, in many ways. Harris and Biden both ran very bad campaigns, and for the last year, when you said that, you'd get a bunch of liberals repeating "But, Trump!".

And yet, the people who instantly resorted to "But, Trump" were unwilling and maybe even incapable of acknowledging the possibility of Trump winning (or of Biden/Harris losing). They feared it so much that they decided it was impossible and unthinkable.

Denying the possibility of Trump winning made it impossible for them to criticize or even look at how bad Biden's policies have been. They recoiled into denial and -insisted- that Biden's genocide was somehow good enough, or more careful or whatever.

Denying the possibility of Trump winning made it impossible for them to hear any criticism of Harris's awful campaign. It was bad from the convention on. She campaigned in bad ways, on losing positions, in ways that were a repeat of 2016.

And liberals acted like the adults in The Emperor's New Clothes. The Emperor is naked, everyone can see it. But they denied it and insisted that we were getting great policy and a really good campaign.

The blame for Trump's win belongs on Biden, Harris, Liberalism, and liberals.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steph Whiteside at NewsNation Now:

(NewsNation) — A jury has found former President Donald Trump guilty of felony charges for falsifying business records in an effort to keep information from voters ahead of the 2016 election. The jury, made up of seven men and five women, delivered the verdict after nearly 12 hours of deliberation. Sentencing is still to come, where Trump could face fines, probation or prison time.  The verdict does not disqualify him from continuing to run for the presidency. The case was the first of four criminal cases against Trump and may be the only one to be decided before the election in November. The case centered around hush money payments made to Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels who said they had affairs with Trump and were paid to stay quiet ahead of the 2016 election. Trump then allegedly paid former fixer Michael Cohen back for the payments. Trump was charged with 34 counts related to falsifying business records to conceal damaging information from voters ahead of the election. Cohen previously pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws for orchestrating or making the hush money payments.

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: 🚨🚨🚨 Former “President” and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 felony charges in the People of New York v. Trump criminal business records falsification trial. This is the first (and likely) only trial decision to come down prior to the general election.

For the first time in the history, a former President has been charged with a felony.

We can officially declare Donald Trump to be (34x) Convicted Felon Donald Trump now.

[seoul-bros]

Han So-Hee in her own words.

I started writing this when I heard that Han So-Hee was rumoured to appear in Jungkook's upcoming MV for Seven. I love to explore the intersections between the world of kdrama/kfilm (which I have followed for some considerable time) with the world of music and BTS (which is a much newer love).

I haven't seen her in many roles but what I have seen convinces me she is someone who is working on her craft and constantly looking for ways to improve and deliver more for her audience.

After seeing her first in a supporting role in Abyss (2019), I've seen her with Song Kang in Nevertheless (2021) where she plays a sculpture student in a much more Bohemian world than we generally see in kdramas and then in My Name (2021) where she played a revenge seeking bad ass. She had to do a lot of physical training for the part and said that it was a habit that stayed with her.

"If I get hooked on something, I’m the type to do it no matter what anyone around me says. That’s one of the things I like about myself."

She isn't your average Korean actress. When she published photos of herself with tattoos she received a lot of public criticism in Korea but she has a clear philosophy to life which she is determined to stick to.

"I want to live youthfully while wearing, eating, and expressing what I like. As long as I don’t stray away from what’s ethical and moral, I want to live while expressing myself freely. Instead of being passive, I hope others also find their own spark and color to shine."

She loves and respects other women.

"There are so many cool unnis. I think people who live their life doing what they want are cool. ..........., since you only live one life, I want people to live while doing what they want. These days, I think people like that are the coolest."

She is serious about the people in her life and she is ready to express her love and support publicly. She is close to Song Hye Kyo and they often post for each other on Instagram. When Song Hye Kyo won the Baeksang Arts Best Actress Award for The Glory this year she was quick to post her congratulations on Instagram.

The two were set to star in the The Price of Confession together, that project seems to have been shelved but their relationship is still going strong. Song Hye Kyo recently sent a coffee truck to the set of Han So Hee's latest project Gyeongseong Creature.

Isn't it nice to see women supporting each other perhaps certain parts of the fandom could take a lesson from that.

I've seen people online compare Han So-Hee to Jungkook and having read her words, I don't think they are wrong. Both are unconventional individuals living in a strictly conformist society. Both are proud of what they call their stubbornness which I actually think is more about their being determined to live an authentic life on their own terms. Both seek to express publicly the love and support they have for the important people in their life. As such I think she is a good choice as a co-star for this music video.

It won't be her first time appearing in a Kpop MV. She appeared in SHINee's video for 'Tell me what to do' in 2016......

.....and to be honest if she is appearing in JK's video I hope he gives her more to do. It seems such a waste of a good actress to have her just strike a pose.

Quotes taken from Allure Magazine Interview as reported online.

Post Date: 04/07/2023

[ashitakaxsan]

🌟 Celebrating the Fearless Nikki Bella: A Trailblazer in the World of Wrestling 🌟

Join me in raising a toast to the one and only Nikki Bella, a force to be reckoned with both in and out of the ring! With her unparalleled strength, resilience, and charisma, Nikki has cemented her legacy as one of the most iconic figures in the world of professional wrestling. From her electrifying performances to her unwavering determi-nation, she continues to inspire fans around the globe.

As a founding member of the renowned Bella Twins and a multiple-time WWE Women's Champion, Nikki has shattered glass ceilings and blazed a trail for women in sports entertainment. Her fearlessness knows no bounds, and her dedication to her craft is truly unmatched. Whether she's delivering a devastating spear or delivering a powerful promo, Nikki captivates audiences with her raw talent and undeniable passion for the sport.

Off the mat, Nikki's influence extends beyond the ring, as she empowers women to embrace their strength and live fearlessly in all aspects of their lives. Through her philanthropic efforts and advocacy for causes like women's health and empowerment, she continues to make a positive impact on communities worldwide.

Below: The WWE Divas Championship belt (2014–2016)

So here's to Nikki Bella, the epitome of strength, resilience, and grace under pressure. May her legacy continue to inspire generations of wrestlers and fans alike for years to come! 💪👑

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 12, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 13, 2024

I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. And I write about how that so-called liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the Reconstruction-era image of the American cowboy—who, according to myth, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against what they insisted was creeping socialism that stole tax dollars from hardworking white men in order to give handouts to lazy minorities and women. 

But five major stories over the past several days made me realize that I’ve never written about how Trump and his loyalists have distorted the cowboy image until it has become a poisonous caricature of the values its recent defenders have claimed to champion.

The cowboy myth originated during the Reconstruction era as a response to the idea that a government that defended Black rights was “socialist” and that the tax dollars required to pay bureaucrats and army officers would break hardworking white men. 

This weekend, on Saturday, May 11, Paul Kiel of ProPublica and Russ Buettner of the New York Times teamed up to deliver a deep investigation into what Trump was talking about when he insisted that he must break tradition and refuse to release his tax returns when he ran for office in 2016 and 2020, citing an audit.

The New York Times had already reported that one of the reasons the Internal Revenue Service was auditing Trump’s taxes was that, beginning in 2010, he began to claim a $72.9 million tax refund because of huge losses from his failing casinos.  

Kiel and Buettner followed the convoluted web of Trump’s finances to find another issue with his tax history. They concluded that Trump’s Chicago skyscraper, his last major construction project, was “a vast money loser.” He claimed losses as high as $651 million on it in 2008. But then he appears to have moved ownership of the building in 2010 from one entity to a new one—the authors describe it as “like moving coins from one pocket to another”—and used that move to claim another $168 million in losses, thereby double-dipping. 

The experts the authors consulted said that if he loses the audit battle, Trump could owe the IRS more than $100 million. University of Baltimore law professor Walter Schwidetzky, who is an expert on partnership taxation, told the authors: “I think he ripped off the tax system.” 

The cowboy myth emphasized dominance over the Indigenous Americans and Mexicans allegedly attacking white settlers from the East. On Friday an impressive piece of reporting from Jude Joffe-Block at NPR untangled the origins of a story pushed by Republicans that Democrats were encouraging asylum seekers to vote illegally for President Joe Biden in 2024, revealing that the story was entirely made up.  

The story broke on X, formerly Twitter, on April 15, when the investigative arm of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which promises to provide “aggressive oversight” of the Biden administration, posted photos of what it claimed were flyers from inside portable toilets at a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, that said in broken Spanish: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” The tweet thread got more than 9 million views and was boosted by Elon Musk, X’s owner.

But the story was fabricated. The flyer used the name of a small organization that helps asylum seekers, along with the name of the woman who runs the organization. She is a U.S. citizen and told Joffe-Block that her organization has “never encouraged people to vote for anyone.” Indeed, it has never come up because everyone knows noncitizens are not eligible to vote. The flyer had outdated phone numbers and addresses, and its Spanish was full of errors. Migrants who are staying at the encampment as they wait for their appointments to enter the U.S. say they have never seen such flyers, and no one has urged them to vote for Biden.

Digging showed that the flyer was “discovered” by the right-wing video site Muckraker, which specializes in “undercover” escapades. The founder of Muckraker, Anthony Rubin, and his brother, Joshua Rubin, had shown up at the organization’s headquarters in Matamoros asking to become volunteers for the organization; they and their conversation were captured on video, and signs point to the conclusion that they planted the flyers. 

Nonetheless, Republicans ran with the story. Within 12 hours after the fake flyer appeared on X, Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Dan Bishop (R-NC) brought posters of it to Congress, and Republicans made it a centerpiece of their insistence that Congress must pass a new law against noncitizen voting. Rather than being protected by modern-day cowboys, the woman who ran the organization that helps asylum seekers got death threats.

The cowboy image emphasized the masculinity of the independent men it championed, but the testimony of Stephanie Clifford, the adult film actress also known as Stormy Daniels, in Trump’s criminal trial for falsifying business records to cover up his payments to Clifford to keep her story of their sexual encounter secret before the 2016 election, turns Trump’s aggressive dominance into sad weakness. Covering Clifford’s testimony, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times yesterday wrote that “Trump came across as a loser in her account—a narcissist, cheater, sad Hugh Hefner wannabe, trading his satin pajamas for a dress shirt and trousers (and, later, boxers) as soon as Stormy mocked him.”

In the literature of the cowboy myth, the young champion of the underdog is eventually supposed to settle down and take care of his family, who adore him. But the news of the past week has caricatured that shift, too. On Wednesday, May 8, the Republican Party of Florida announced that it had picked Trump’s youngest son, 18-year-old Barron, as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, along with Trump’s other sons, Eric and Donald Jr.; Don Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle; and Trump’s second daughter, Tiffany, and her husband. 

On Friday, May 10, Trump’s current wife and Barron’s mother, former first lady Melania Trump, issued a statement saying: “While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments.” It is hard not to interpret this extraordinary snub from his own wife and son as a chilly response to the past month of testimony about his extramarital escapades while Barron was an infant.

Finally, there was the eye-popping story broken by Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow in the Washington Post on Thursday, revealing that last month, at a private meeting with about two dozen top oil executives at Mar-a-Lago, Trump offered to reverse President Joe Biden’s environmental rules designed to combat climate change and to stop any new ones from being enacted in exchange for a $1 billion donation. 

Trump has promised his supporters that he would be an outsider, using his knowledge of business to defend ordinary Americans against those elites who don’t care about them. Now he has been revealed as being willing to sell us out—to sell humanity out—for the bargain basement price of $1 billion (with about 8 billion people in the world, this would make us each worth about 12 and a half cents). 

Chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration Richard Painter wrote: “This is called bribery. It’s a felony.” He followed up with “Even a candidate who loses can be prosecuted for bribery. That includes the former guy asking for a billion dollars in campaign cash from oil companies in exchange for rolling back environmental laws.”

The cowboy myth was always a political image, designed to undermine the idea of a government that worked for ordinary Americans. It was powerful after the Civil War but faded into the past in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s as Americans realized that their lives depended on government regulation and a basic social safety net. The American cowboy burst back into prominence with the advent of the Marlboro Man in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the idea of an individual white man who worked hard, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone, was a sex symbol, and protected his women became a central myth in the rise of politicians determined to overturn the liberal consensus. 

Now it seems the myth has come full circle, with the party led by a man whose wife rejects him and whose lovers ridicule him, who makes up stories about dangerous “others,” cheats on his taxes, solicits bribes, and tries to sell out his followers for cash—the very caricature the mythological cowboy was invented to fight.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON