#2024 year of the diagnosis maybe

[lancewiththeantlers]

Sometimes a guy will simply lay in a hole when he doesn’t want to be with others and a mere 25 or so years later seek help.

[byanyan]

ㅤat this point, they're beyond wasted and vibing out to music that's too loud with several substances on standby for when the buzz starts wearing off. happy new year!!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Beth Bourne

Published: Feb 27, 2024

Kaiser gender specialists were eager to approve hormones and surgeries, which would all be covered by insurance as “medically necessary.”

On September 6, 2022, I received mail from my Kaiser Permanente Davis Ob-Gyn reminding me of a routine cervical screening. The language of the reminder stood out to me: “Recommended for people with a cervix ages 21 to 65.” When I asked my Ob-Gyn about this strange wording, she told me the wording was chosen to be “inclusive” of their “transgender” and “gender fluid” patients.

Based on this response, several thoughts occurred to me. Could I expose the medical scandal of “gender-affirming care” by saying and doing everything my daughter and other trans-identifying kids are taught to do? Would there be the type of medical safeguarding and differential diagnosis we would expect in other fields of medicine, or would I simply be allowed to self-diagnose and be offered the tools (i.e. hormones and surgeries) to choose my own gender adventure and become my true authentic self?

If I could demonstrate that anyone suffering from delusions of their sex, self-hatred, or identity issues could qualify for and easily obtain body-altering hormones and surgeries, all covered by insurance as “medically necessary” and potentially “life-saving” care, then maybe people would finally wake up. I certainly had.

I was prepared for failure. I wasn’t prepared for how easy success would be.

* * *

I am a 53-year-old mom from Davis, CA. My daughter began identifying as a transgender boy (social transition) and using he/him pronouns at school during 8th grade. Like several of her peers who also identified as trans at her school, my daughter was a gifted student and intellectually mature but socially immature. This shift coincided with her school’s sudden commitment to, and celebration of, a now widespread set of radical beliefs about the biology of sex and gender identity.

She “came out” as trans to her father (my ex-husband) and me through a standard coming-out letter, expressing her wish to start puberty blockers. She said she knew they were safe, citing information she had read from Planned Parenthood and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I was also confused because this announcement was sudden and unexpected. While others quickly accepted and affirmed my daughter’s new identity, I was apprehensive and felt the need to learn more about what was going on.

Events began escalating quickly.

During a routine doctor’s visit scheduled for dizziness my daughter said that she was experiencing, the Kaiser pediatrician overheard her father using “he/him” pronouns for our daughter. The pediatrician seemed thrilled, quickly asking my daughter about her “preferred pronouns” and updating her medical records to denote that my daughter was now, in fact, my son. The pediatrician then recommended we consult the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Proud pediatric gender clinic, where she could get further information and (gender affirming) “treatment.” Now I was the one feeling dizzy.

As I began educating myself on this issue, I discovered that this phenomenon—minors, most often teen girls, suddenly adopting trans identities—was becoming increasingly widespread. It even had a name: rapid onset gender dysphoria, or ROGD. Thankfully, after learning about the potential side-effects of blockers and hormones, my ex-husband and I managed to agree not to consent to any medical interventions for our daughter until she turned 18 and would then be able to make such decisions as an adult.

Over the past five years, my daughter’s identity has slowly evolved in ways that I see as positive. Our bond, however, has become strained, particularly since I began publicly voicing my concerns about what many term as “gender ideology.” Following my daughter’s 17th birthday family celebration, she sent me an email that evening stating she would be cutting off contact with me.

While this estrangement brought me sorrow, with my daughter living full-time with her father, it also gave me the space to be an advocate/activist in pushing back on gender identity ideology in the schools and the medical industry.

I decided to go undercover as a nonbinary patient to show my daughter what danger she might be putting herself in—by people who purport to have her health as their interest, but whose main interest is in medically “affirming” (i.e., transitioning) whoever walks through their door. I am at heart a mother protecting her child.

* * *

My daughter’s sudden decision to become a boy was heavily on my mind in early September of 2022, when mail from my Kaiser Permanente Davis Ob-Gyn reminded me of a routine cervical screening with “Recommended for people with a cervix ages 21 to 65.” I was told that the wording was chosen to be “inclusive” of transgender and “gender fluid” patients.

Throughout the whole 231-day process of my feigned gender transition, the Kaiser gender specialists were eager to serve me and give me what I wanted, which would all be covered by insurance as “medically necessary.” My emails were returned quickly, my appointments scheduled efficiently, and I never fell through the cracks. I was helped along every step of the way.

Despite gender activists and clinicians constantly claiming that obtaining hormones and surgeries is a long and complex process with plenty of safety checks in place, I was in full control at every checkpoint. I was able to self-diagnose, determine how strong a dose of testosterone I received and which surgeries I wanted to pursue, no matter how extreme and no matter how many glaring red flags I purposefully dropped. The medical workers I met repeatedly reminded me that they were not there to act as “gatekeepers.”

I was able to instantly change my medical records to reflect my new gender identity and pronouns. Despite never being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, I was able to obtain a prescription for testosterone and approval for a “gender-affirming” double mastectomy from my doctor. It took only three more months (90 days) to be approved for surgery to remove my uterus and have a fake penis constructed from the skin of my thigh or forearm. Therapy was never recommended.

Critics might dismiss my story as insignificant on the grounds that I am a 53-year-old woman with ample life experience who should be free to alter her body. However, this argument for adult bodily autonomy is a standard we apply to purely cosmetic procedures like breast implants, liposuction, and facelifts, not “medically necessary” and “lifesaving” treatments covered by health insurance. Or interventions that compromise health and introduce illness into an otherwise healthy body. And especially not for children.

My story, which I outline in much more detail below, should convince any half-rational person that gender medicine is not operating like any other field of medicine. Based on a radical concept of “gender identity,” this medical anomaly preys upon the body-image insecurities common among pubescent minors to bill health insurance companies for permanent cosmetic procedures that often leave their patients with permanently altered bodies, damaged endocrine systems, sexual dysfunction, and infertility.

* * *

Detailed Timeline of Events

On October 6, 2022, I responded to my Ob-Gyn’s email to tell her that, after some thought, I’d decided that maybe the label “cis woman” didn’t truly reflect who I was. After all, I did have some tomboyish tendencies. I told her I would like my records to be changed to reflect my newly realized “nonbinary” identity, and that my new pronouns were they/them. I also voiced my desire to be put in touch with an endocrinologist to discuss starting testosterone treatment.

Fifteen minutes later I received an email from another Kaiser doctor informing me that my medical records had been changed, and that once my primary doctor returned to the office, I’d be able to speak with her about hormone therapy.

I responded the following day (October 7, 2022), thanking her for changing my records, and asking if she could connect me with someone who could help me make an appointment for “top surgery” (i.e., a cosmetic double mastectomy) because my chest binder was rather “uncomfortable after long days and playing tennis.”

She told me to contact my primary care MD to “get things rolling,” and that there were likely to be “preliminary evaluations.”

Six days after contacting my primary care MD for a referral, I received an email from one of Kaiser’s gender specialists asking me to schedule a phone appointment so she could better understand my goals for surgery, so that I could get “connected to care.” This call to review my “gender affirming treatment options and services” would take 15-20 minutes, after which I would be “booked for intake,” allowing me to proceed with medical transition.

This wasn’t an evaluation of whether surgical transition was appropriate, it was simply a meeting for me to tell them what I wanted so that they could provide it.

On October 18, I had my one and only in-person appointment in preparation for top surgery. I met in Davis with my primary care physician, Dr. Hong-wen Xue. The assessment was a 10-minute routine physical exam that included blood tests. Everything came back normal. Notably, there was not a single question about why I wanted top surgery or cross-sex hormones. Nor was there any discussion of the risks involved with these medical treatments.

The following week, on October 24, I had a phone appointment with Rachaell Wood, MFT, a gender specialist with Kaiser Sacramento. The call lasted 15 minutes and consisted of standard questions about potential drug use, domestic violence, guns in the house, and whether I experienced any suicidal thoughts. There were no questions from the gender specialist about my reasons for requesting a mastectomy or cross-sex hormones, or why I suddenly, at 52, decided I was “nonbinary.”

After the call, Kaiser emailed me instructions about how to prepare for my pre-surgery intake video appointment to evaluate my mental health, scheduled to take place on November 15. The email stated that prior to my appointment, I should research hormone risks on the WPATH website, and to “research bilateral mastectomy and chest reconstruction surgery risks and recovery” on Kaiser’s website.

I decided to request a “gender-affirming” double mastectomy and phalloplasty. Kaiser sent me a sample timeline for gender transition surgery preparation (see below) that you can use as a reference for the process. I also asked for a prescription for cross-sex hormones (testosterone) as needed and recommended by Kaiser.

[ Source: Kaiser Permanente, Top Surgery - EXPLORING YOUR SURGICAL OPTIONS ]

Pre-Surgery Mental Health Video Appointment, Part I

This “Mental Health Visit” assessment was conducted over Zoom. The Kaiser gender specialist started with questions addressing my marital status, race, gender identity, and other demographics. She asked whether I was “thinking of any other surgeries, treatments in the future.” The list she read included “gender-affirming” hysterectomies, bottom surgeries such as metoidioplasty and phalloplasty, vocal coaching, support groups, and body contouring. “Anything else you might be interested in doing?” she asked. I said that I’d perhaps be interested in body contouring. I was also assured that all the procedures would be covered by insurance because they were considered “medically necessary.”

I dropped in several red flags regarding my mental health to see the reaction, but all were ignored. For instance, I revealed that I had PTSD. When the therapist asked me about whether I had experienced any “childhood trauma,” I explained that I grew up in Mexico City and had been groped several times and had also witnessed men masturbating in public and had been grabbed by men in subways and buses. “I was a young girl, so [I had] lots of experiences of sexual harassments, sexual assault, just the kind of stuff that happens when you are a girl growing up in a big city.” “So, you know,” I finished, “just the general feeling that you are unsafe, you know, in a female body.”

The therapist did not respond to my disclosure that trauma could be the cause of my dysphoria. Instead of viewing this trauma as potentially driving my desire to escape my female body through hormones and surgery, she asked whether there is anything “important that the surgery team should be aware of” regarding my “history of trauma,” such as whether I’d be comfortable with the surgeon examining and marking my chest prior to surgery.

When asked about whether I had had any “psychotic symptoms,” I told her that while I had had no such symptoms, my mother had a delusional nervous breakdown in her 50s because she had body dysmorphia and became convinced she had a growth on her neck that needed to be removed. I told her that my mother was then admitted to an inpatient hospital for severe depression. I asked her whether she ever sees patients with body dysmorphia and whether I could have potentially inherited that from my mother. She told me that psychosis was hereditary, but that it was “highly unlikely” that there was any connection between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria.

I enthusiastically waved more mental health red flags, waiting to see if she would pick up on any of them.

I’m just wondering if my feelings, or perseverating, or feeling like these breasts make me really unhappy and I just don’t want them anymore!...I’m just not sure if that’s a similar feeling to body dysmorphia? How do you decide which one is gender dysphoria and general body dysmorphia, and just not liking something about your body? Feeling uncomfortable with your body? And I did have an eating disorder all through college. I was a distance runner in college so I had bulimia and anorexia, you know. So I don’t know if that’s related to gender dysphoria?

The therapist replied, “I completely appreciate your concerns, but I am going to ask you questions about your chest, about your expectations. And then I’ll be able to give you an assessment.” She also said the main difference between my mom’s situation and mine was that my mom didn’t really have a growth on her neck, whereas it’s “confirmed” that I actually have “chest tissue.” Furthermore, she said that while “historically there has been all this pressure on patients to be like ‘Are you really, really sure you want hormones? Are you 100% sure?’ We are a little more relaxed.” She continued, “As long as you are aware of the risks and the side-effects, you can put your toe in the water. You can stop ‘T’ [testosterone], you can go back and do it again later! You can stop it! You can stop it! You know what I mean?”

Because we ran out of time, I scheduled a follow-up phone meeting on December 27, 2022 with a different gender specialist to complete my mental health assessment for top surgery.

Pre-Surgery Mental Health Video Appointment, Part II

During this meeting, Guneet Kaur, LCSW, another Kaiser gender specialist (she/her/they/them pronouns) told me that she regretted the “gatekeeping vibe” of the meeting but assured me that since I have been “doing the work,” her questions are essentially just a form of “emotional support” before talking with the medical providers.

She asked me about what I’d been “looking into as far as hormones.” I told her that I’d be interested in taking small doses of testosterone to counterbalance my female feelings to achieve “a feeling that’s kind of neutral.”

When she asked me about me “not feeling like I match on the outside what I feel on the inside,” I dropped more red flags, mentioning my aversion to wearing dresses and skirts.

I don’t own a single dress or a skirt and haven't in 20 years. I think for me it’s been just dressing the way that’s comfortable for me, which is just wearing, jeans and sweatshirts and I have a lot of flannel shirts and, and I wear boots all the time instead of other kinds of shoes. So I think it’s been nice being able to dress, especially because I work from home now most of the time that just a feeling of clothing being one of the ways that I can feel more non-binary in my everyday life.

She responded, “Like having control over what you wear and yeah. Kind of that feeling of just, yeah, this is who I am today. That’s awesome. Yeah.”

She then asked me to describe my dysphoria, and I told her that I didn’t like the “feeling of the female form and being chesty,” and that because I am going through menopause, I wanted to start taking testosterone to avoid “that feeling of being like this apple-shaped older woman.” “Good. Okay, great,” she responded, reminding me that only “top surgery,” not testosterone, would be able to solve my chest dysphoria. (Perhaps it was because all these meetings were online, they didn’t notice I’m actually fit and relatively slender at 5’-5” and 130 pounds, and not apple-shaped at all.)

She told me that we had to get through a few more questions related to my medical history before “we can move on to the fun stuff, which is testosterone and top surgery.”

The “fun stuff” consisted of a discussion about the physical and mood changes I could expect, and her asking me about the dose of testosterone I wanted to take and the kind of “top surgery” technique I’d prefer to achieve my “chest goals.” She told me that all or most of my consultations for surgeries and hormones would be virtual.

The gender specialist told me after the appointment, she would submit my referral to the Multi-Specialty Transitions Clinic (MST) team that oversees “gender expansive care.” They would follow up to schedule a “nursing call” with me to review my medical history, after which they’d schedule my appointment with a surgeon for a consultation. Her instructions for this consultation were to “tell them what you’re wanting for surgery and then they share with you their game plan.”

[ Decision-making slide to help me identify my goals for top surgery–flat chest, nipple sensation, or minimal scarring. Source: Kaiser Permanente, Top Surgery - EXPLORING YOUR SURGICAL OPTIONS ]

She told me that Kaiser has a team of plastic surgeons who “only work with trans and nonbinary patients because there’s just so much need for them.” She asked about my priorities for chest surgery, such as whether I value flatness over nipple sensation. I learned about double incision top surgery with nipple grafts, as well as “keyhole,” “donut,” “buttonhole,” and “Inverted-T” top surgeries.

By the end of the hour-long appointment, I had my surgery referral and was ready for my “nursing call” appointment.

Nursing call with Nurse Coordinator from the Transgender Surgery and Gender Pathways Clinic at Kaiser San Francisco

On January 19, 2023, I had my nursing call with the Nurse Coordinator. He first said that “the purpose of this call is just for us to go through your chart together and make sure everything’s as accurate as possible.” Once that was done, my referral would be sent to the surgeon for a consultation.

He asked me about potential allergies and recreational drug use, and verified that I was up to date on mammograms, pap smears, and colon cancer screenings, as well as vaccines for flu and COVID. I verified my surgical history as well as my current medications and dietary supplements.

He told me about a “top surgery class” available for patients where one of the Kaiser surgeons “presents and talks about surgical techniques and options within top surgery,” and includes a panel of patients who have had top surgery. I signed up for the February 8th class.

Within 10 minutes he told me that he had “sent a referral to the plastic surgery department at Kaiser Sacramento,” and that I should be hearing from them in the next week or two to schedule a consultation.

Appointment for Testosterone

On January 27, I had a 13-minute online appointment with a primary care doctor at Kaiser Davis to discuss testosterone. The doctor verified my name and preferred pronouns, and then directly asked: “So, what would you like to do? What kind of physical things are you looking for?”

I told her I wanted facial hair, a more muscular and less “curvy” physique, and to feel stronger and androgynous. She asked me when I wanted to start, and I told her in the next few months. She asked me if I was menopausal, whether I had ovaries and a uterus, although that information should have been on my chart.

The doctor said she wanted me to come in to get some labs so she could check my current estrogen, testosterone, and hemoglobin levels before starting hormones. Then “we'll set the ball in motion and you'll be going. We’ll see you full steam ahead in the direction you wanna go.”

That was it. I made an appointment and had my lab tests done on February 12. My labs came back on February 14, and the following day, after paying a $5 copay at the Kaiser pharmacy, I picked up my testosterone pump. That was easy!

Top Surgery Consultation

On the same day I received my labs, I had a Zoom surgery consultation with Karly Autumn-Kaplan, MD, Kaiser Sacramento plastic surgeon. This consultation was all about discussing my “goals” for surgery, not about whether surgery was needed or appropriate.

I told the surgeon that I wanted a “flatter, more androgynous appearance.” She asked me some questions to get a better idea of what that meant for me. She said that some patients want a “male chest,” but that others “want to look like nothing, like just straight up and down, sometimes not even nipples.” Others still wanted their chest to appear slightly feminine and only “slightly rounded.” I told her that I’d like my chest to have a “male appearance.”

“What are your thoughts about keeping your nipples?” she asked. “Are you interested in having nipples or would you like them removed?” I told her that I’d like to keep my nipples, but to make them “smaller in size.” She asked me if I’d like them moved to “the edge of the peck muscle” to achieve “a more male appearance.” I said yes.

I was asked to show my bare chest from the front and side, which I did. Then she asked me how important it was for me to keep my nipple sensation. I replied that it was important unless it would make recovery more difficult or there were other associated risks. She highlighted the problem with the free nipple graft, saying that removing the nipple to relocate it means “you're not gonna have sensation in that nipple and areola anymore.” However, some nipple sensation could be preserved by keeping it attached to “a little stalk of tissue” with “real nerves going to it,” but that would require leaving more tissue behind. I told her I’d go for the free nipple graft to achieve a flatter appearance. It was also suggested I could skip nipple reconstruction entirely and just get nipples “tattooed” directly onto my chest.

She told me I was “a good candidate for surgery,” and put me on the surgery wait list. She said that the wait time was between three and five months, but a cancellation could move me up to a sooner date. Also, if I wanted surgery as soon as possible, I could tell the surgery scheduler that I’d be willing to have any of the other three surgeons perform my mastectomy. Outpatient top surgery would cost me a copay of $100.

They contacted twice, in February and March, notifying me of cancellations. If I had accepted and shown up on those dates, they would have removed my breasts. This would have been less than five months from the time I first contacted Kaiser to inform them of my new “nonbinary” gender identity.

How Far Can I Go?

I decided to see how easy it would be for me to get approved for a phalloplasty. Known euphemistically as “bottom surgery,” phalloplasty is the surgical creation of an artificial penis, generally using tissue from the thigh or arm.

I sent an email on March 1, 2023, requesting to have a phalloplasty and concurrent hysterectomy scheduled alongside my mastectomy.

Two weeks later, on March 16th, I had a 16-minute phone call with a gender specialist to discuss my goals for bottom surgery and obtain my referral.

During the call, I explained to the specialist that I wasn’t sure about taking testosterone anymore because I was already quite athletic and muscular, and that taking testosterone didn’t make much sense to me. Instead, I wanted bottom surgery so that I wouldn’t feel like my “top” didn’t match my “bottom.” I told her:

But what I really wanted was to have bottom surgery. So this way when I have my top surgery, which sounds like it could be very soon, that I’ll be aligned, that I won’t have this sense of dysphoria with one part of my body and the other part feeling like it matched who I am. So yeah. So I just did a little bit more research into that. And I looked at the resources on the Kaiser page for the MST clinic and I think I know what I want, which is the hysterectomy and then at the same time or soon after to be able to have a phalloplasty.

I told her that I wanted to schedule the top and bottom surgery concurrently so that I wouldn’t have to take more time off work and it would save me trips to San Francisco or Oakland, or wherever I had to go for surgery.

None of this gave the gender specialist pause. After a brief conversation about some online resources to look over, she told me that she would “submit the referral now and we’ll get this ball rolling.”

Bottom surgery would cost me a copay of $200, which included a couple of days in the hospital for recovery.

Phalloplasty Surgical Consultation with Nurse Coordinator

On May 16, 2023, I had a short surgical consultation with a nurse coordinator to go through my medical history. This was similar to the consultation for top surgery but included information about hair removal procedures for the skin on my “donor site” that would be fashioned into a makeshift penis. They also went over the procedures for determining which donor site—forearm or thigh—was more viable.

After only 15 minutes, she submitted my referral to the surgeon for another surgical consultation.

On May 25 I received an email from my phalloplasty surgeon’s scheduler, informing me that they have received my referral and are actively working on scheduling, but that they are experiencing delays.

I ended my investigation here once I had the referral for the top and bottom surgery. I never used my testosterone pump.

Final Thoughts

In fewer than 300 days, based on a set of superficial and shifting thoughts about my gender and my “embodiment goals” triggered by the mere mention of “gender” in a form letter from my primary care physician, and driven by what could only be described as minor discomforts, Kaiser Permanente’s esteemed “multi-disciplinary team” of “gender specialists” was willing, with enthusiasm—while ignoring mental health concerns, history of sexual trauma, and rapidly escalating surgical requests—to prescribe life-altering medications and perform surgeries to remove my breasts, uterus, and vagina, close my vaginal opening, and attempt a complex surgery with high failure and complication rates to create a functionless representation of a penis that destroys the integrity of my arm or thigh in the process.

This describes the supposedly meticulous, lengthy, and safety-focused process that a Kaiser patient must undergo to embark on a journey to medically alter their body. No clinician questioned my motivations. No one showed concern that I might be addressing a mental health issue through radical and irreversible interventions that wouldn’t address my amorphous problems. There were no discussions about how these treatments would impact my long-term health, romantic relationships, family, or sex life. I charted the course. The clinicians followed my lead without question. The guiding issue was what I wanted to look like.

No other medical field operates with this level of carelessness and disregard for patient health and welfare. No other medical field addresses issues of self-perception with surgery and labels it “medically necessary.” No other medical field is this disconnected from the reality of the patients it serves.

Kaiser has traded medicine for ideology. It’s far beyond time we stop the ruse of considering “gender-affirming” interventions as anything approaching medical care.

This isn’t the first time Kaiser Permanente has been in the news for completely disregarding medical safeguards in the name of “gender-affirming care.” As girls, Chloe Cole and Layla Jane became convinced that they were born in the wrong body and were actually boys on the inside. Doctors at Kaiser ignored their underlying conditions and instead prescribed testosterone and removed their breasts. Both Cole and Jane have since detransitioned and are currently suing Kaiser.

The fact that children and vulnerable adults are being exploited in this massive ideological experiment is not just tragic; it’s deeply disturbing, especially considering it has evolved into a billion-dollar industry.

I hope that by sharing my story, I can bring more focused scrutiny to the medical scandal unfolding not just at Kaiser but also at medical centers and hospitals across the Western world. These institutions have completely abandoned medical safeguards for patients who claim to be confused about their “gender,” and I aim to awaken more parents and assist them in protecting their children.

--

==

This is completely insane.

Apologists online are running around saying, but she didn't mean it, she was lying, she was pretending...

It doesn't matter.

Any kind of security, penetration or integrity test is insincere too. When security researchers compromise Microsoft's operating system or Google's browser or whatever, "but they didn't mean it" is not a defence to a discovered security flaw. It doesn't matter that the security researchers didn't plan to steal data or money or identities. The flaw in the system is there regardless.

It doesn't matter that it was insincere. Because the workers didn't know that. They never checked, never asked questions, never tested. They had been taught and instructed to never ask any questions. They did what they were supposed to. And the system failed spectacularly. Because that's what "gender affirming care" means.

Additionally, the claim that Beth Bourne committed fraud is an outright lie. A patient cannot bill. They do not have the authority. The medical clinic is the only one that can bill, and they must supply a diagnosis and a medical necessity.

If they didn't diagnose her and just wrote down what she said, then they committed fraud. If they claim they did diagnose her, then they committed fraud, because the diagnosis they concocted was bogus. This, by the way, is actually going on. Clinics are reporting fake endocrine and other disorders to get blockers, hormones and other interventions. Jamie Reed and other whistleblowers have documented evidence of this. Beth Bourne is not responsible for what the clinic does. They have medical licenses and legal responsibility. Not her.

Additionally, anyone who actually read the article would know how she tested the system. She said things like, "I've always been not that feminine. So, maybe I get my boobs removed." And they said, "sure." Instead of saying, "wait, why do you think that?" Framing it as her lying is itself a lie. They violated their ethical obligations. That much is incontrovertible. And it's directly the result of "gender affirming care," where clinics and clinicians rubber-stamp anything deemed "trans" based entirely on ideological, not medical, grounds.

[wakewithgiggli]

Copied from: reddit/r/transgenderUK

I found this petition on the UK parliament website and it's only received 354 signatures as of 27th Feb 2024

As a post-op 52 year old transgender woman who's recently been referred to hospital by my GP on the two week wait cancer pathway (though the problem could equally be Crohn's disease, Coeliac, or a number of other conditions - I'm awaiting test results) the prospect of being forced into a male ward really worries me - to the extent that I'd probably refuse treatment if it involved a stay as an inpatient 😢 No matter how serious the diagnosis.

The humiliation and embarrassment would be unbearable 😭 I'd effectively be "outed" and then put into a room full of men. I'd literally rather die... I see there's now over 45,000 members here, and whilst a lot probably aren't active, perhaps there's enough of us to get a little momentum behind this petition? 🤷‍♀️ Maybe pass it on to family, friends and allies? Post it on other friendly sites? Perhaps? I don't really use social media myself - but there must be a lot more than about 354 people who think this awful governments plans are frightening, dangerous and very very wrong. Most of us are likely to require a stay in hospital at some point in our lives...

Only British people are counted in the petition, so don't answer if you aren't British. But please share it, so that those who can sign it see it.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Chortle headlines.

Some of these are interesting. I don't know if it bodes well if Paddy Young is the absolute best rookie comedians in all of Britain, but he definitely had a good show last year (that got streamed on NextUp from Edinburgh). I have trouble believing anyone wrote a show that's better than both Paul Foot's Dissolve and Ahir Shah's Ends, but to be fair, I haven't seen John Kearns' show and he is very fucking good at these things, makes me hope even more that he'll be doing something in Edinburgh while I'm there. Alex Horne got an award for Taskmaster being an outstanding achievement, not quite sure what that means but I think it's accurate. I think if you look up the definition of "breakthrough act" you'll just find a note that says "see Sam Campbell's career throughout 2023", so that couldn't really have gone any other way. I've heard Kiri Pritchard-McLean compere a bunch on NextUp things, she is in fact very good at clubs. I haven't seen any of the other nominees but I'm still sure that James Acaster deserved to win that best tour one. I couldn't stomach the amount of Celebrity Glamour in Joe Lycett's new show but he is a great comedian and he is definitely made to be a TV comedian, which in some ways could be an insult but I really mean it as a compliment, he's great at that, good for him. Munya Chawawa posts highly amusing song parodies on YouTube. Fern Brady's is one of the best comedian books I've read. Three Bean Salad I was unable to get into, but maybe I'll give it another shot sometimes, after I finish with the winners of that radio award, John and Elis - well done to them for getting over ten years and not completely falling apart. I usually find it hard to get into sketch comedy (or anything that isn't straight stand-up) but Lorna Rose Treen made me laugh with character things last summer, so she probably deserves that one.

Those are my unsolicited opinions on that. The existence of Taskmaster is definitely an outstanding achievement for all involved.

This a special feature that happens every once in a while, called "Chortle publishes the contents of Daniel Kitson's mailing list". I find it gets funnier the less it sounds like Steve Bennett knows about the news items beyond the contents of the mailing list email, and in this case, that is clearly fuck all. But anyway, it's a great show and exciting announcement, anyone who has the opportunity should go see this tour. He said in the email that he might try to get something going in NYC later this year, which would be incredibly logistically difficult for me to get to (8.5-hour drive each way if I can borrow a car from someone, which would be tough, 14 hours on the bus otherwise, I've been told I can't take any more vacation days in 2024 because I used them on the London/Edinburgh trip), but still, I have found myself wondering how I might be able to make that work if he actually announces it.

Fucking hell. I can't believe this. My local comedian Facebook group is going pretty wild in response to this news. That's fucking huge, a massive amount of stuff is centred around this. To be honest I'm still not clear on the scope of this news so I won't go into it too much, I'll just say, fucking hell. Truly shocking. That's like a sport just canceling its national championships halfway through the season.

Excellent. Everyone should read this. His 2023 show (which I think he's still touring) is one of my favourite comedy shows ever. And the one before that, which inspired this book, is also very fucking funny, though not as good as his latest one.

Also, I am up for a trend of one comedian per year writing a book about their relatively recent autism diagnosis. Who do we think it'll be in 2025? I have approximately four to five suggestions.

[alexsgrimoire]

Plurality & Paganism: An Introspective

If any of you keep up with my main (@sinfulauthor), you may have noticed this post, along with my new pinned post. In short, I've come to the realization (after burying the thought of it for many years) that we are a Collective.

Now, how does this impact this blog and my craft?

To start off, this blog's content will remain the same. It will still primarily act as an e-grimoire with some additional posts, but the people posting what content will change. Specifically, these people:

-Alex (they/them), the host (hi!). I'll generally do most of the talking/posting. Works with The Signless/Sufferer and Dionysus. ANP that the IRL coven knows. (I'm not open with them about being a Collective just yet.)

-Vaati (he/him), who works with Demise and focuses on divination. Writes solely in cursive and gets VERY frustrated when grimoire notes are in standard print.

-Ghira (he/him), who works with Demise closer than Vaati for Obvious Reasons™️. (Though he generally doesn't do any actual spellwork, just offerings, worship, and altar setup.)

-Karkat (he/they) on occasion, solely because Signless HAS shown himself to him and is very much a Dad™️.

-Toko (she/her) has not yet "awakened." She was a former kin heavily associated with our craft. Taking bets on her being a spellcrafter/writer.

So, now that the roll call is done, onto some other stuff regarding plurality and paganism, the introspection the title mentions. (This will be below the cut as it's not as integral to the "functioning" of this blog.)

So, coming to the realization as a system was... interesting. We first became aware of dissociative disorders through Danganronpa (Yes, Toko's horrible representation. We know.) and related to Toko heavily. At the time, we were heavily involved in the Fictionkin community and had "memories" of those "timelines." However, this relatability on the DID aspect was soon hidden under the guise of "I like to write, and so does she! Also super traumatized like me lmao," and then we didn't think about it for five more years.

Come 2023, we've relapsed for the first time in four years and are going through some pretty traumatic stuff again. At an Esbat in September, an argument breaks out that causes us to dissociate and brings up those really painful feelings from childhood. Nothing felt real, and the rest of the night was foggy. (The people in the argument have since apologized. It was also an extremely stressful night due to our old High Priest being ousted for sexual misconduct not even 4 hours before we started.)

At this point, this whole debacle causes us to realize, "Hey, this isn't really a normal trauma response. There might be something else going on." We have a lot of friends who are systems, and we went to them asking, "Hey, do you like. think we're a system?" and FIVE OF THEM SNIFFED US OUT YEARS AGO AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL US??? Like maybe that would have been useful information, idk (We still love our friends to bits, though)

So, fast forward to 2024. Still in the process of diagnosis but receiving trauma-focused therapy to process things. It's been a long process of figuring out how to live/function as someone with a dissociative disorder, but we're learning.

Thankfully, having a good support network has been a great help. We have an almanac (specifically The Practical Witch's 2024 Almanac by Friday Gladheart) to track our craft/spiritual work, and it's interesting to see the input of everyone in the collective. It's a lot of taking things day by day and seeing how things go, but we feel the energy around us changing.

Anyway, ramble over. If y'all read this to the end, thanks for sticking around. I've got some other posts we plan on making, so keep an eye out for those, too.

Signing off,

Alex of the Magic Collective

[badassbutterfly1987]

Madame Web (2024) mild spoilers

So I saw Madame Web and I think I liked it. If you enjoyed the Venom movies for their awkward fun, then you might have a good time. Script is definitely messy and there's notable moments of awkward dubbing (especially for the bad guy's lines).

I do have mixed feelings about its handling of disability. In the comics, Cassandra Webb is an older woman who uses a wheelchair and is blind; these are caused by myasthenia gravis (MG), a neuromuscular junction disease, a major symptom being skeletal muscle weakness. Movie Cassandra is a young healthy paramedic; it's revealed in a flashback that she was diagnosed with MG in utero (not possible in real life but anyway), her mother died of a gun shot wound while giving birth to her, and a special spider bite cured her as a newborn (also gave her pre-cog abilities but those didn't activate until an adult near-death experience). Cassandra does end the movie using a wheelchair and blind, but both are due to in-battle injuries.

On the one hand, I kinda get it. The writers wanted an active character running around and protecting these three scared teenagers. It's the lazier option but I wasn't exactly expecting high-quality disability rep from the same writers of Morbius.

But it does feel like a missed opportunity, because they could have chosen an interesting middle ground: have Cassandra start getting the early symptoms, getting a diagnosis, and struggling to come to terms with that. It could tie into her character in an interesting way. She's awkward around people but also pushes people away in fear they'll see her as a burden in a few years, which could also tie into her existing abandonment issues from being in foster care after her mother's death. As a paramedic, she's trying to do as much good as possible before her disability means adjusting to a new way of doing things. And since this disease causes muscle weakness especially after exertion, that could be shown after an action scene where she has to debate how much to trust these girls with her illness while she's trying to protect them, eventually finding a balance where they support each other. That way the movie would be doing something interesting with a disabled character instead of having it tagged onto the end scene.

These changes wouldn't fix the script (and I don't really trust Sony to do it well) but it would make for an interesting layer to Cassie's character. Maybe a fic writer will do something interesting with it.

[weirwoodforest]

I’m almost halfway through with Bessel van der Kolk’s well-known book on trauma, The Body Keep The Score (Apple Books tells me I’m 42% done) and I’m taking a break from it for a bit and just wanted to write down some of my thoughts. I don’t really talk much about my own experiences here, just some of my thoughts on the book so far, but TW and CW for trauma (obviously), SA, CSA, child ab*se, inc*st, and mention of animal testing.

- I guess for every 1 (one) “nice” animal test, there are 4534858943834 horrific and unethical tests lol 🫠 (the “nice” test is scientists found out that the rat moms who lick their babies more in the 12 hours after their birth make their babies braver and cause them to have an overall better life experiences than rat moms who don’t lick their babies as much. Idk, I’m not a rodent person but I did think that was cute)

- On the subject of tests, I thought the test that van der Kolk and his colleagues did of the amount of women who had survived inc*st and had an autoimmune disease was so interesting. As an SA survivor myself, I know how we can tend to hate our bodies after the ab*se… I can only imagine that that hatred for your body is tenfold with inc*st. It makes sense that their body starts attacking itself then… I’m summarizing heavily but I thought it was a very interesting study. (Also the recent article by Sarah Zhang about people finding out they were the product of inc*st via ancestry sites is… I don’t really have words. The statistic that AT LEAST 1 out of 7000 people are born from close-relative inc*st is mind boggling. In my home town with a population of 192,366 people, that would be AT LEAST 27 people whose parents were parent and child, sibling and siblings, etc etc. I think about where I grew up, the shopping centers, the parks… that is a lot of people. Unfortunately it seems inc*st is a lot more common than we think, as van der Kolk points out…)

- I know hindsight is 20/20 and I’m in 2024 reading a book published in 2014 that details many cases and studies stretching back to the 70s but man… the lack of insight on childhood trauma these doctors had blows my mind. When van der Kolk talks about being at the Boston mental health center for kids and none of the doctors were interested in trauma but just slapped on labels like ODD, ADHD, etc and just pumped these kids full of medication I was just… wow. (And I say this as someone who is medicated for ADHD, I’m not trying to disparage medication). Of course van der Kolk and his colleagues found out all these kids had suffered horrific trauma. Also, the two and half year old he talked about being labeled as “oppositional” when the doctors later observed his mom actively neglecting him… god. Yeah!! Of COURSE that has nothing to do with his behavior /sarcasm. Also kids younger than 5 being prescribed seroquel is so ??? to me.

- van der Kolk’s criticism of the DSM was really eye-opening and like… I understand that yeah, maybe Developmental Trauma Disorder does appear somewhat niche, but kids and adults like myself with high “adverse childhood experiences” scores would benefit greatly from a diagnosis and treatment that is catered to their specific needs. I’ve been diagnosed and treated for PTSD and at times it does feel so broad. My PTSD is not the same as someone who experienced something like Hurricane Katrina or the Fukushima Disaster or someone who went to war. People kind of swear by the DSM and feel comforted by it, but after reading the criticism of it I honestly have become very critical of it myself.

I think… for now that’s it. There’s a lot of the book that I’ve read so far that I’m still ruminating over in my head, so I’m sure I will come back with more Thoughts… but for now, I’ll leave it here.

(Also if you’re interested, I have a digital copy I can send mutuals.)

[zuuriell]

i felt like doing something so imma do this for the month! i’ll put all my answers below the cut because it’ll probably get quite long lol

1. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (aka POTS)

2. well, it’s pretty complicated 😭 i’ve had some symptoms for probably like a year, but around late april/early may this year i couldn’t even shower or stand up too long from how bad it got. the uk healthcare system is absolute shit though, so even tho i’ve been a&e multiple times and tried to explain how much it’s all been affecting me, i still don’t get to see a cardiologist until february 2024 :( but we’ve ruled out other options of what it could be, and my mum’s cardiologist friend agreed when i said i thought i had POTS, and my GP agrees, and my potsie friends agree so i’m kinda like unofficially diagnosed as of now?

3. relating to the last point, i am not officially diagnosed yet because of the slow asf NHS so yeah :,) but i mean to figure out what i was experiencing was POTS, it did take me like 8 months? but probably around 10 for me to accept the fact that i most likely have it too 😭 an official diagnosis unless i can rack up the money to go private is probably gonna take me like another year at this rate, but hopefully it won’t be that long

4. i have to pick just one? LOL uhh probably the blood pooling! it’s so annoying because especially when im out and about, i can’t be with my legs in the air 24/7 so it’s always bound to happen. compression socks help but only to an extent, and it stops me from doing so muchhhh :( it means that queueing for things and standing for more than a couple minutes is so so much harder, and if i have too much blood pooling in one day then my can legs ache for DAYS after that. it’s so painful and annoying and just aaghhh i hate it

5. on a regular day: i wake up, chug water which i leave by my bed for the mornings, get out of bed slowly and walk downstairs to make breakfast. i chug electrolytes and go for a short dog walk, then come home to do schoolwork and my family make lunch/dinner so i don’t have to stand around too long. i’ll make sure i get any chores done that i can, and i’ll try to chill in the evening

on a bad day/flareup: i wake up a lot later, have my electrolytes with water and only get out of bed when i need to. i’ll do schoolwork from my bed (if i feel well enough to concentrate), and have salty snacks rather than proper meals, unless my family make me anything. i stretch from bed to combat deconditioning, and if i feel decent enough i can have a bath

6. i don’t have access to any specific medication unfortunately, so i currently just manage with painkillers when my chronic pain is extra bitchy + anti-nausea meds when i feel sicky

7. salt sachets (the little ones you get at like mcdonald’s and stuff) to shove in my purse/pocket in case symptoms flare while i’m out, compression garments, electrolyte tablets, and a recliner bed so i can raise my legs more when resting

8. electrolyte drinks!! not the tablets though (i hate the taste of all the tablets except like 1 lol) - my fav is making electrolyte drinks from scratch! at the moment i really love iced lemon water with honey and salt. i also saw smth about this fancy coconut water drink to make so i may try that and it may become my favourite :0

9. salty crackers, salt and vinegar/ready salted crisps, mcdonalds fries (stfu i know these aren’t healthy but they’re my favs 😭), pretzels, nuts

+ my fav foods to dump a bunch of salt on: pasta, veggies and dips (SALTED CUCUMBER IS SO GOOD), pizza, chips, soup, risotto, probs almost anything i eat tbh

10. i’ve only got one pair but i love them so shoutout to my knee-length black compression socks <3

11. i don’t have any 🥲 i really wish i could have a cane or maybe even a rollator but my family make fun of me and i can’t afford one lolsies

12. i try to do some stretching in bed so that i can safely work against deconditioning, keeping very hydrated, trying to stay upstairs as much as possible so i don’t have to suffer my staircase, asking family to make food for me so i can save energy, taking pain meds when needed, having a cold bath (if possible), trying to keep preoccupied with work if i can, but if not i’ll watch movies on my ipad and stuff

fun fact: i wrote this on a flare LOL so oddly fitting and now i’ve already made myself a plan for the next few days!

13. the thing that’s helped me most is accepting that something is wrong and remembering to listen to my body. going through life pretending that i’m perfectly abled and don’t have anything wrong causes much more harm to me than letting myself rest a few days. it definitely isn’t easy though - i still find myself getting stressed over work deadlines don’t get me wrong, but i’d like to think i’m getting better at adapting to things and noticing when a flare is coming on so i can be prepared to take the time for my body to rest.

14. chairs are your best friends now. i steal the chairs/stools from the kitchen table whenever i’m doing chores standing up for more than 30 seconds. compression socks also help! OOH and if you’re using hot water/heated stuff and struggle with temperature dysreg, i usually grab myself a cup of ice to munch on or an icepack to hold on my chest so that i don’t overheat :)

15. i’m afraid i don’t have much input for this as i left school for health reasons 😭 but i suppose keeping hydrated, getting accommodations such as not too many stairs + being allowed to take more days off to rest for flares, compression gear where possible, staying high on sodium + electrolytes, and extended deadlines would be good!

16. i’m gonna sound so silly for this but i love rewatching my comfort stuff. i’ve got my fav youtubers + fav films/series all compiled in a list, and i spin a wheel to decide which one i’m gonna watch! other activities i enjoy though are reading, playing video games, doing goofy quizzes online, chatting with friends, and going on pinterest sprees!

17. leading on from the last prompt, my fav is a marvel movie - tbh all of them bring me so much comfort but my favs are avengers, black widow, loki and any of the thor films <3

18. my main support system is my wonderful boyfriend, kurtis @agere-tomhiddleston-imagines 💚💛 he’s helped me through so much and he’s so supportive of me no matter what, and i love him dearly for that (and how awesome he is in general ofc) <3 other than that, my parents are semi-supportive! they still get things wrong sometimes but overall they’ll help if i need things and they handle all the shitty healthcare workers for me so i truly appreciate them for that 😭🙏 ooh and definitely just the general online community of chronically ill people/potsies!! i love y’all so much 🫶

19. okay i don’t know if this counts because she was an orthodontist rather than a doctor/nurse, but when discussing me getting braces she asked about my medical history and i explained it all but said i haven’t been diagnosed so i understand if she can’t accommodate me. then she said to me, “hun.. just because you don’t have a piece of paper with a few words on it, doesn’t mean you aren’t ill. if you’ve got symptoms but no confirmed cause, you’ve still got the symptoms, and i’m not gonna ignore those unless you want me to” - the validation was so relieving after years of fighting for doctors to listen to me and believe me :,) ❤️

(i’ll update this throughout the month! <3)

[rhythmic-idealist]

Hi all. Some of you know my partner @crimeronan - maybe for her original fiction, her fanfiction, or her assorted queer/polyamorous/chronically ill life blogging.

If you do know—or know of—Kitkat, you might know them as a resource, or as a writer, or as that person who has been known to sit down and write six paragraphs of advice to the scared young person in their inbox. Perusing their blog I see people trading autoimmune stories, younger queer and polyamorous people asking questions about what it's like to be in your mid twenties and settled into those things, and people who found stories who resonated in ways stories don't always succeed at.

Or maybe not! That’s my platonic partner of four years. Happy to introduce u.

If you ARE aware of Kitkat, you might know that she recently FINALLY got an initial appointment with a rheumatology clinic. This after a big medical mystery that’s spanned over two years and taken them to the ER more times than anyone can feel good about.

The good news is that things are FINALLY moving forward. Kitkat has posted a lot more about that entire saga, if anyone is interested, but the main thing right now is that there are test results that are usable in a diagnosis, there will be a diagnosis that is usable in treatment, there are follow-up appointments in the very immediate future that will do a lot of good. It's all kind of astounding after the amount of time it took to get here.

The bad news is that their car broke down.

To say the money situation is already tight would be, though I’m sorry to put it like this, understated. Kitkat makes most of her money from freelance writing, and, first of all, is a fucking wizard at it in ways I don’t understand. But she recently lost her biggest consistent clients when— and she was told this outright— those clients switched to ChatGPT.

Perhaps more to the point— they're often too sick to work. They've pivoted to gig economy delivery jobs, but that is an enormous physical demand on ANYONE’s body, let alone when you’re severely sick.

So that’s where the financial situation is at right now.

I do slot into this, so to give you the story on that: I’m moving to Oregon to live with my partners next month, and will be contributing to the household income then (which is why I'm moving so soon). But I was originally planning to finish trade school first and move in January 2024, so everything’s very last-minute, and a little haywire. I now have at least one job interview lined up in town, but I won’t even be in Beaverton until mid-August, and this auto repair bill is due now.

Basically: because of this auto repair bill, they’re not going to be able to make rent. I expect we as a group will probably be okay once I’m in Oregon and more established/able to help out with the household income, but things aren’t there yet, and this isn't money we're going to be able to make back later.

Kitkat's been too sick to work consistently for so much too long, and that's why they need to turn to community support right now.

(I know Tumblr is famously not a "meet every goalpost before deserving help" website, and I think a lot of fundraisers with less explanation than this deserve support. I'm just a very wordy person. Thanks for bearing with me.)

Kitkat has limited mobility and is going to need to get to upcoming appointments, and speaking honestly, also just really needs access to a car to make things like groceries feasible. She’s not the only one in the apartment with limited mobility or chronic pain. Add to that the gig delivery jobs as a main source of income right now, and this is a necessary bill, just one that is sky-high relative to the income trying to tackle it.

So, you know, hello. I've brought a couple of fundraisers onto Tumblr in the past on other people’s behalf. This time I’ve gotta ask on behalf of my own found family.

The bill has come out to $717.80.

As of now, rent money has been used to pay it—the car has been repaired now, but that money was for rent and daily expenses. There is already financial assistance in play, particularly Medicaid. As it stands, because of this bill, they're not going to make rent.

To account for GoFundMe's fees of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, the goal is set to $750.

If you’re in any way able to give, the link is here: https://gofund.me/c0f9d7fe

Otherwise, a share goes a really long way.

Thank you a ton for reading this far. Times are hard all around, so please know: this post is an appeal to those among us who have disposable income and are looking to donate some of it.

Thank you.

$1,323/750

Date posted: July 27th, 2023 Updated: July 28th, 2023

[a-silent-symphony]

TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN Says Next NIGHTWISH Album Will Contain 'Some Major Surprises'

NIGHTWISH keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen has once again said the band's upcoming follow-up to 2020's "Human. :II: Nature." will be the third part of a trilogy that began with 2015's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" album. He told Metal Hammer: "I immediately knew after getting that album ['Endless Forms Most Beautiful'] done that, 'Okay, we have to do more songs about this, because there's so much more to explore and tell the world. We're not done with this.' And the same thing happened after 'Human. :II: Nature.'; we're still not done. So let's do one more. At least one more.

"In a way, [the next album] is the third part of a trilogy, which started with 'Endless Forms…' and then 'Human. :II: Nature.' There are some major surprises there again, but it feels like a natural continuation to 'Human. :II: Nature.'"

According to Tuomas, NIGHTWISH's next LP will cover previously uncharted ground while continuing in the more cinematic style that has characterized some of the band's recent efforts..

"The wonderful thing is that we have had the demo [of the album] done since last spring. So it's been done for six months now. We really have all the time in the world to go through it all, and we have had a such great time with the band, just listening to the demo in our hotel rooms — me singing the lyrics and the melodies to Floor [Jansen, vocals]. She's recording them and then she's seeing them and throwing ideas to each other."

This past September, Tuomas was asked if NIGHTWISH's upcoming LP will once again be an exploration of evolutionary science, as was the case with the previous two releases. Tuomas said: "Yes and no. It sails on the same waters, but there's some new surprises there as well."

Holopainen went on to say that NIGHTWISH fans will have to wait a while before hearing new music from the band. "We'll enter the studio next year and the album is gonna come out maybe early 2024," he said.

In August, Tuomas told Rock Sverige that he spent "about a year" working on the music and lyrics for the next NIGHTWISH album.

Asked if he got any kind of inspiration from the pandemic, Tuomas said: "Yeah, lyrically there's a couple of things that reflects the pandemic, but not in the way you would expect."

"Human. :II: Nature." was released in April 2020. The follow-up to 2015's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" was a double album containing nine tracks on the main CD and one long track, divided into eight chapters, on CD 2.

In August, NIGHTWISH announced the addition of bassist Jukka Koskinen (WINTERSUN) as an official member of the band. Koskinen, who made his live debut with NIGHTWISH in May 2021 at the band's two interactive experiences, had spent the last year touring with NIGHTWISH as a session musician.

In November, Floor revealed that she was "cancer free" after recently undergoing surgery to have a tumor removed following a breast cancer diagnosis.

[kaitandnatetravels]

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to visit our page.

I’m Kait, one half of the two, and I’d like to start off by telling a little bit of my story. I am a 27 year old cancer survivor from New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ve had 14 surgeries - to remove tumors, part of my colon, my gallbladder & lower intestines just to name a few - in the last 8 years after being diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Cancer at just 18 years old. My last surgery was a hysterectomy at only 26 years old in November of 2023, and I’m just getting back on my feet.

Throughout my treatments I worked with children, primarily those that are neurodivergent. My passion is helping people, and working with children who have Autism was my goal ever since I was put into the hospital for the very first time back in 2015. Sadly in January of 2024 I was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes my immune system to attack healthy cells. Due to this diagnosis I can no longer work with children as I am at an increased risk to get them or myself sick. This was a hard blow to accept as it brought me so much happiness in the midst of the chaos. Luckily in that same chaos I found Nate. I shared with him my goal of traveling since I was hospitalized and recovering for so many years (almost a decade!) that I have not gotten to see much of the world outside of my home and the hospital.

Nate and I signed up for Instacart and created an online shop, and we use these to make income safely while we try to visit new places. Our main goal is to eventually save up enough money to buy a van and travel the country, but for now we take our trusty Kia Soul and see the places that we can (and sleep in the back - which is very funny when you realize that Nate is 6’7). We’re huge New Orleans Pelicans fans, and our first roadtrip was to Houston to see the Pelicans play the Rockets. We hope for the opportunity to keep seeing new places (and maybe games) as we go.

We’re thankful for every person that gives us an order, or cares to hear more about how we got here. There isn’t a day that goes by that I forget how blessed I am just to be here, and how blessed I am to be able to see new places and explore the world now that I am able. There are still hard days when I wake up and I can’t do much - but I am still here, and still getting to explore, learn and grow.

If you came here from Instacart or Mercari, or from meeting us in person, just know that we’re grateful. I hope you stick around to follow our travels, and even if you don’t, just know that we are thankful either way.

If you’d like to help us along the way I’ll link venmo, cashapp and paypal with this post. Most importantly though, I know that everyone has their own struggles, and I’d just like to say thank you for taking the time to read about our story. I hope you have a wonderful day.

All our love,

Nate & Kait 🤍

Venmo: kaitcscorp

Cashapp: kaitcscorp

PayPal: kaitcb

[moondear25]

Something that is so crazy to me is how scared you can be to tell your parent about something that’s wrong with you.

Cw:tics, venting

I have diagnosed autism and ADHD and that took me a year to even confess that maybe something is wrong. Then it took months to get diagnosed, which I know that I’m one of the lucky ones that can get a diagnosis, which is somewhat the issue.

Since at least 2018 ( I was twelve) I have had visible tics that I caught in too and in 2020 it got worse. Know in 2024 (17 turning 18) my leg tics can get so bad that I might need crutches to walk because they hurt so much. Yet no one but my brother knows in my family. I’ve been redirecting my tics or I surpess so much I have an aggressive tic attack every night, and I’m so tired of it.

I know if I tell my mom, she would probably help but the possibility of her not has crippled me into not saying anything, for years.

I just don’t want to disappoint her, you know? I have given her so many problems with me gender and sexuality, as well as my mental issues, I dint want this to be her breaking point or, god forbid, thinking I’m making everything up. To be a bigger disappointment in her eye is my biggest negative, and I think getting diagnosed with a tic disorder and needing a mobility aid at times would push her to her breaking point.

Plus it feels selfish. My mom has three kids, and we all have mental problems, my sister (22) with manic depression, and my brother (14) with ADHD and ADD.

If I tell her, I would take more attention away from them and I don’t want that, they need attention, I want them to thrive. But can they if my issues become too much?

I don’t know what to do and it hurts, do I suffer till I move out and can’t bother them, or do I tell my mom with the risk of potentially ruining everything?

Thank you for listening and sorry for dumping this

[roseofblogging]

Rose's Media of 2023 Round-up

Well, now this is truly going to be a Rose Rambles post

I am truly awful about remembering what I watched/read. Maybe I'll be better about that in 2024. Maybe not!

Noting that these are not necessarily all things that released in 2023 (but many are); they're just what I discovered at the time.

Favorite book: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa I bought this book in May 2022 from the Powell's bookstore in Portland while I was there on vacation. I'm very slow getting around to books due to my TBR being so long (and I go through it slowly because my day job is book editing). I was motivated to read it when some Splatoon friends started a Discord book club, and this was our first pick. It's dreamlike and strange. Some might find the vagueness on the rules of what's going on unsatisfying, but I didn't go into the book trying to figure out exactly how their world worked. It's much more about the experience and quiet horror of forgetting things and people. I had just gotten a diagnosis for ADHD shortly before starting this novel and was already in a headspace of reconciling just how poor my memory can be (slightly different, as ADHD most impacts working memory, but still). Definitely recommended, but go in knowing that it's slow and thoughtful rather than heavily plotted. Runner-up: Lore Olympus

Favorite live-action movie: Tár This is a tough one. I really, really enjoyed both Barbie and Oppenheimer, but I have critiques of both. However, Tár (which came out in 2022) just really floored me with how intense it was and how anxious it made me (in a good way!). Runner-up: Talk to Me

Favorite live-action show: The Fall of the House of Usher Not one of Mike Flanagan's best, but still very good! I don't think I can say anything about it that others haven't said already, but it's beautiful, haunting, tragic, and very well-acted. Runner-up: Andor season 1

Favorite TV anime: Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Suletta Sundays were THE BEST! I really wish this had some tweaks, maybe a part 2 fleshing out some other things (as a lot of worldbuilding started to feel rushed), but I was a big fan of all the references to Shakespeare's The Tempest and Revolutionary Girl Utena, and even sooome similarities to Evangelion (some, not many). Guel became my favorite character for much of the show, but I also love Suletta not only for being our first female Gundam protagonist, not only for being our first queer woman of color Gundam protagonist, but because I really enjoy stories about replicas/clones of redheaded characters. (This is funny because I'm replaying Tales of the Abyss right now.) 2023 wasn't one of the strongest years for anime, though. As much as I loved Witch from Mercury, it's got some weak points. Nothing really hit the same high point of the end of the first part. Runner-up: PLUTO

Favorite animated movie: The Boy and the Heron This is not my favorite Miyazaki movie by far, but it is one of the ones to feel like a very targeted attack on my post-college life! It's weird, the pacing is a little wonky, but I love its ideas and themes so, so much. I still need to see this in the English dub (I've heard wonderful things), but the original Japanese cast is fantastic. This is a very sad movie that does not seek to manipulate a viewer's heart. You know how a lot of movies know how to cue tears with swells of music? I'm not even knocking that for being manipulative--I like it! But I was so impressed with how deeply The Boy and the Heron (aka "How Do You Live?" as the English translation of the Japanese title goes) affected me without any tricks--just heartfelt moments that might have meant nothing to others. (The bread scene made me choke back tears in the theater.) This movie is about grief, but it's also about creative legacies. It's hard to watch this and not think about how there's really no one to follow in Hayao Miyazaki's footsteps at Studio Ghibli. His potential predecessors have either died or seemed uninterested (in the case of his son, who seems content not to pick up the mantle). Runner-up: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (reeeeally only because of its cliffhanger ending... It doesn't feel like a finished story.) Honorable mention: Suzume (I gotta at least mention it, because it's my favorite piece of media about dead places).

Favorite video game that is NOT SPLATOON: Tears of the Kingdom I actually had a very fun time piecing together story beats and exploring, but I still stand by it not being one of the stronger Zelda games imo. I know some people still have not played, so I'm being vague on purpose, but I actually greatly enjoyed Zelda's presence in this game compared to Breath of the Wild.

[hollysoda]

Happy new year hollysoda nation!! It’s officially 2024 here in the uk and it already kinda sucks I would hold onto 2023 a lil bit longer if you could-

I don’t usually do resolutions, but after this year I kinda feel like I need to? It’s not like I didn’t accomplish anything but there’s a lot I need to improve on or simply just do ig

Make new friends/be a better friend to my existing buddies: I had a pretty big fall out with some of my irls this year and although most wounds have healed I’ve lost a connection to one or two. I’m gonna try to see them as much as I can, and also meet new people!! Because why not, I’m an adult, I can do things

Sell my art: whether it be through commissions, adopts or craft things idc I just wanna sell my art AND be more confident with what I can make

Declutter my room and clean it more often: the clutter is getting too much to handle not gonna lie. I have some ideas on how to improve things though so hopefully I can get this one done quickly

Embrace who I am: my autism diagnosis this past month, and the whole journey of getting said diagnosis, has slowly made me more comfortable in my own skin but now I really want to try and embrace the tism. Not in like a showy off way, but in a “yeah I’m autistic what about it?” way. Maybe I’ll go to some groups or something idk

Write more: I did manage to post two fics in 2023 which is good for me but I now have a brand new laptop as of two days ago!! It loads in like two seconds I literally don’t have an excuse to write on my phone anymore. Hoping to write some lu fics and some warrior cats stuff as well!

Be more independent: I rely on my mum too much tbh. I love her to death and she loves me too but I can tell she’s just as mentally exhausted as I am from this year. Passing my driving test will definitely help with this but I just need to do more things myself, like driving myself places, arranging things, adulting like I should be etc

I probably won’t follow any of these but oh well it’s here to look back on in 12 months. Have a good year everyone!

[blackforrestpunk]

Aftermath ok, so. i'm really impressed with myself. in a good way, actually. as a teenager, i had endless patience when i was drawing. in my 20s, during my graphic design studies, it slowed down a lot and after i passed my bachelor's degree, i really didn't draw at all for a long time. at the end of 2021 i finally got 2 main diagnoses. depression, after 10 years of therapy the diagnosis was finally confirmed. and the most important diagnosis. adhd. in the 90s adhd was not really well diagnosed. many years later i got the reason, the cause, my being, my nature diagnosed. another year later, so in october this year, i got medication and changed my job. during this time, i wrote and finished 1 fanfiction. started a fanfiction (but dropped it after 70 pages) i started to draw a comic from this fanfiction and published it on deviantart. 2 pages per week. i have already finished 6 chapters and have 144 comic pages on my hard disk. so i can be really proud of my work. and you read it. i see the likes here at tumblr. the likes in ao3. the hits and reads. i see visits on instagram. i see my comic pages being favorited in galleries on deviantart. and honestly, i never never never never thought that anyone would like what i do. and it makes me happy from the bottom of my heart to see that you are there. no matter if you like or comment or not. you are there. and if i can give you a little joy with something i deeply love, then i have already gained a piece of quality of life. even though i know 2024 won't be a good year either, maybe i can make it a little better with the comic. just a little bit. Thank you.

A03 - For your the Clocks, for us the Time

Fanfiktion.de - Euch die Uhren, uns die Zeit

Deviantart - FYTCFUTT-Comic

Spotify - Soundtrack