#De-identification examples

[fatehbaz]

Coral today is an icon of environmental crisis, its disappearance from the world’s oceans an emblem for the richness of forms and habitats either lost to us or at risk. Yet, as Michelle Currie Navakas shows in her eloquent book, Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America, our accounts today of coral as beauty, loss, and precarious future depend on an inherited language from the nineteenth century. [...] Navakas traces how coral became the material with which writers, poets, and artists debated community, labor, and polity in the United States.

The coral reef produced a compelling teleological vision of the nation: just as the minute coral “insect,” working invisibly under the waves, built immense structures that accumulated through efforts of countless others, living and dead, so the nation’s developing form depended on the countless workers whose individuality was almost impossible to detect. This identification of coral with human communities, Navakas shows, was not only revisited but also revised and challenged throughout the century. Coral had a global biography, a history as currency and ornament that linked it to the violence of slavery. It was also already a talisman - readymade for a modern symbol [...]. Not least, for nineteenth-century readers in the United States, it was also an artifact of knowledge and discovery, with coral fans and branches brought back from the Pacific and Indian Oceans to sit in American parlors and museums. [...]

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[W]ith material culture analysis, [...] [there are] three common early American coral artifacts, familiar objects that made coral as a substance much more familiar to the nineteenth century than today: red coral beads for jewelry, the coral teething toy, and the natural history specimen. This chapter is a visual tour de force, bringing together a fascinating range of representations of coral in nineteenth-century painting and sculptures.

With the material presence of coral firmly in place, Navakas returns us to its place in texts as metaphor for labor, with close readings of poetry and ephemeral literature up to the Civil War era. [...] [Navakas] includes an intriguing examination of the posthumous reputation of the eighteenth-century French naturalist Jean-André Peyssonnel who first claimed that coral should be classed as an animal (or “insect”), not plant. Navakas then [...] considers white reformers, both male and female, and Black authors and activists, including James McCune Smith and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and a singular Black charitable association in Cleveland, Ohio, at the end of the century, called the Coral Builders’ Society. [...]

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Most strikingly, her attention to layered knowledge allows her to examine the subversions of coral imagery that arose [...]. Obviously, the mid-nineteenth-century poems that lauded coral as a metaphor for laboring men who raised solid structures for a collective future also sought to naturalize a system that kept some kinds of labor and some kinds of people firmly pressed beneath the surface. Coral’s biography, she notes, was “inseparable from colonial violence at almost every turn” (p. 7). Yet coral was also part of the material history of the Black Atlantic: red coral beads were currency [...].

Thus, a children’s Christmas story, “The Story of a Coral Bracelet” (1861), written by a West Indian writer, Sophy Moody, described the coral trade in the structure of a slave narrative. [...] In addition, coral’s protean shapes and ambiguity - rock, plant, or animal? - gave Americans a model for the difficulty of defining essential qualities from surface appearance, a message that troubled biological essentialists but attracted abolitionists. Navakas thus repeatedly brings into view the racialized and gendered meanings of coral [...].

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Some readers from the blue humanities will want more attention, for example, to [...] different oceans [...]: Navakas’s gaze is clearly eastward to the Atlantic and Mediterranean and (to a degree) to the Caribbean. Many of her sources keep her to the northern and southeastern United States and its vision of America, even though much of the natural historical explorations, not to mention the missionary interest in coral islands, turns decidedly to the Pacific. [...] First, under my hat as a historian of science, I note [...] [that] [q]uestions about the structure of coral islands among naturalists for the rest of the century pitted supporters of Darwinian evolutionary theory against his opponents [...]. These disputes surely sustained the liveliness of coral - its teleology and its ambiguities - in popular American literature. [...]

My second desire, from the standpoint of Victorian studies, is for a more specific account of religious traditions and coral. While Navakas identifies many writers of coral poetry and fables, both British and American, as “evangelical,” she avoids detailed analysis of the theological context that would be relevant, such as the millennial fascination with chaos and reconstruction and the intense Anglo-American missionary interest in the Pacific. [...] [However] reasons for this move are quickly apparent. First, her focus on coral as an icon that enabled explicit discussion of labor and community means that she takes the more familiar arguments connecting natural history and Christianity in this period as a given. [...] Coral, she argues, is most significant as an object of/in translation, mediating across the Black Atlantic and between many particular cultures. These critical strategies are easy to understand and accept, and yet the word - the script, in her terms - that I kept waiting for her to take up was “monuments”: a favorite nineteenth-century description of coral.

Navakas does often refer to the awareness of coral “temporalities” - how coral served as metaphor for the bridges between past, present, and future. Yet the way that a coral reef was understood as a literal graveyard, in an age that made death practices and new forms of cemeteries so vital a part of social and civic bonds, seems to deserve a place in this study. These are a greedy reader’s questions, wanting more. As Navakas notes in a thoughtful coda, the method of the environmental humanities is to understand our present circumstances as framed by legacies from the past, legacies that are never smooth but point us to friction and complexity.

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All text above by: Katharine Anderson. "Review of Navakas, Michele Currie, Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America." H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. December 2023. Published at: [networks.h-net.org/group/reviews/20017692/anderson-navakas-coral-lives-literature-labor-and-making-america] [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[03josten]

Some of my favourite terminology for sex, sexuality, and gender that have mostly fell out of use:

Sapphist: Similar to the term Sapphic which is still in use, derived from the woman loving Greek poet Sappho. The -ist has implications of doing rather than being. A Sapphist is a woman who has romantic and sexual relationships with other women. It was commonly used in the 19th and early 20th century, eventually replaced by lesbian in common usage. Some famous historical figures who used this term include Vita Sackville-West, who also used the terms lesbian and homosexual.

Mukhannathun: Translates roughly to "effeminate ones" or "ones who resemble women", typically refers to a feminine male, an intersex person, or one whose sex is indistinct. Modern scholars place the term Mukhannath in correlation with trans feminine. Mukhannathun traditionally took on the social roles of women in Saudi Arabia and feature in Ḥadīth Islamic literature. They were often musicians and entertainers, Abū ʿAbd al-Munʿim ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhāʾib (or Tuwais) being perhaps the first famous Mukhannath musician. I could not find any depictions of Mukannathun.

Invert: Sexology in the early 20th century believed that same sex desire and cross gender identification were natural in some people. It was coined in German by Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833-1890) and translated across Europe and eventually into English as sexual inversion by John Addington Symonds Jr. (1840-1893) in 1883. Inverts were people whose natural sex instinct (heterosexual, cisgender) were "inverted", causing a natural desire for the same sex or to live as the other sex. It was thought that most inverts desired a relationship with a "normal" member of their own sex, for example a masculine presenting woman would desire a feminine presenting "normal" woman, a feminine presenting man would desire a masculine or "normal" man. While most sexologists thought sexual inversion was natural, they worried about corruption of "normal" people by inverts. The writer 'John' Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) identified as an invert and explored the life of inverts in her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness.

Uranism: A Uranian was a man who was romantically or sexually interested in other men. One of the earliest records of the term comes from Friedrich Schiller's 'Sixth Letter' in the Aesthetic Education of Man in 1795. It is derived from the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, a manifestation of Aphrodite who was free of physical desire and instead was attracted by mind and soul. Ancient Greek literature was very important in the early formations of queer identity and self-recognition. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was known to use the term Uranian.

Tribadism: Derived from the Greek "tribas" which means "to rub", tribadism denotes both a sexual position (now known as tribbing or scissoring) and a woman who seeks to sexual dominate and/or penetrate another woman. This term could also be used to describe an intersex person who lives as female and is the penetrating partner during sex with women. It became the most common word to describe any kind of sexual intimacy between women in English literature from the 16th to 19th centuries. Marie Antoinette, queen of France from 1773 to 1792 was "defamed" in many anti-monarchist newspapers as being a tribade.

Eonism: Eonism was coined by English sexologist Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) to describe cross gender identification and presentation. "Eon" after the French diplomat Charlotte-Geneviève-Louise-Augusta-Andréa-Timothéa d'Éon de Beaumont, who was assigned male at birth but lived as a woman from 1777 until her death in 1810. Eonism was later replaced by transvestism in popular usage in the early to mid 20th century, coined by Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) in 1910.

Eunuch: the term Eunuch has many connotations but the one common factor that almost all definitions share is that a eunuch is an intentionally castrated male. Eunuchs can also be uncastrated, but put into the social role as eunuch due to their 1) feminine presentation 2) inability to procreate 3) attraction to men. Eunuchs were not seen as men in most cultures, they were specifically chosen and castrated in order to fill a specific, separate social role from men and women. It was sometimes punitive, for example under Assyrian law men who were caught in sexual acts with other men were castrated. Eunuchs often had positions in royal households in the Ancient Middle East, their sexlessness was seen to enhance their loyalty to the crown as they were less likely to be distracted by sex or marriage, and it also allowed for jobs to be given on merit, and not inherited since Eunuchs could not reproduce. In Ancient Greece certain sects of male priests were eunuchs. China had Eunuchs who were fully castrated (penis and testicles) and high ranking in imperial service. In Vietnam, many eunuchs were self castrated in order to gain employment in the royal households.

Homophile: coined in 1924 by Karl-Günther Heimsoth (1899-1933) in his dissertation Hetero- und Homophilie. The term was in common use in the 50s and 60s in gay activism groups. It was an alternative to homosexual coined in 1868 by Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882) which was thought to have pathological and sexual implications, whereas homophile prioritised love and appreciation over the sex act or pathology. It is still in use in some parts of northern Europe. The Homophile Action League was founded by lesbian couple Ada Bello (1933-2023) and Carole Friedmann (1944-?) in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. in 1968, a year before the Stonewall Riots.

[bodybeyondstories]

Just ignore it - 3

David realizes he may have overestimated his ability to handle the newly adopted deity in his head. In trying to figure out how to direct an unlimited supply of body transforming chaos magic, he discovers the power of words, leading to some interesting developments at the bar and in Lee's lab.

1 | 2 (Previous) | 4 (Next)

MaleTF // Ass growth // Dick growth // Growth // Suggestion // nsfw

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A Tuesday night during Winter Break was not the liveliest time at our usual haunt, the Cockatrice, but Lee and I weren’t complaining. We could gossip and scheme in peace in our back corner booth, a spot we so consistently occupied that the bartender, Jaime, jokes that our butt prints are permanently in the seats–which, in light of recent events, is probably true. As Lee had pointed out to my chagrin, the hemispheres of my ass had successfully carved out a noticeable dip in the cushion that would set a normal man off balance. Yet another reason the back corner booth was consistently ours to occupy. With the semester having ended and most of our colleagues having fled town as soon as grades were submitted, it was especially sparse, except of course, for the new regular to our little booth chats, Blake.

I had given just the essential details to the class about the extra dimensional reality warper that was seemingly auditing for most of the term, winning their silence with automatic As, no term paper, and any reference or letter of rec for any reason. I made myself available as a resident expert if they wanted to learn more about this exciting new research opportunity tied to my being through the astral realm. And of course, if they needed guidance on any unintended side effects, from wardrobe malfunctions to unwanted attention. Noah, for one, had developed a similar level of insatiability as my own and was tearing through every available hung top in the city, but had also developed a knack for coming across progressively bigger and bigger dicks; a pattern that was verging on unrealistic. I made a note to investigate further, but encouraged him to just slow down before we had an epidemic of dicks just as unwieldy as my superhung fuckbuddy sitting across from me.

The rest of the semester was relatively uneventful after I explained the situation. I decided I might as well use it as a teaching tool, one of the more extreme examples of what one might encounter in this line of work. I didn’t name Logan, though, for the risk of him drawing the ire of his colleagues. However, after some initial discomfort and surprising ambivalence, they were mostly okay with the changes, even appreciative, though they may not admit it directly. But golden boy park ranger Blake was especially enthusiastic, not to mention deeply interested in all these magical happenings. To the point where his own disproportionately meaty butt was leaving its own comical imprint in the booth next to my own. 

Blake became a fixture of our weeknight scene, eager for the latest updates from Lee’s lab, which had begun to research the power of my new mental roommate. Trying to understand the unfathomable deity living in my head was slow going, but I had figured out that while they don’t have a name for themself, or really a concept of naming that makes sense to us, they deigned to experiment with some sort of grammar of identification, a small part of which is interpretable in our dimension as Synt. Blake was usually in the field during the day, so would join us after hours to get caught up, even going so far as to jot down notes and ask questions we hadn’t even thought of. He was a de facto research assistant, and at the very least this whole ordeal had gotten someone actually interested in our little corner of the world. Apparently, he’d also been chatting with Logan about some mystical archival work (I really should pay more attention to what Logan actually does). But this evening he was getting excited about his own neck of woods (pun intended) with something brewing in a local forest reserve.

“It’s one of the old ones that got absorbed into the current system when they modernized it,” said Blake, leaning forward slightly with an air of playful conspiracy, his dense biceps straining against the cuffs of his sleeves. “Not entirely public property, but not really owned by anyone anymore either. We basically have de facto jurisdiction,” a phrase he pronounced with uncertainty, “over the Marshlands.”

I wasn’t familiar with this place–admittedly I didn’t get out enough–but I dissociated as a vague image popped up on my mental map of the region, carrying a resonance that felt like a string being plucked. As I sat with this, I was aware that Blake and Lee were carrying on a conversation without me but sound and light went slightly opaque as I tried to focus on this image of…a forest clearing? And some figures that looked suspiciously like–

“Palmer!” I was brought fully back to reality by a forceful slap on the shoulder from our park ranger friend sitting next to me. Blake quickly had an apologetic look on his face that said he hadn’t quite figured out his own strength. 

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Zoned out. What’d I miss? The forest?”

“Nah, we moved on to the BBL allegations,” said Lee, with a smirk.

“I’m just sayin’ my leg days are legendary these days,” said Blake, hands splayed in mock humility. “I don’t blame ‘em for thinking something’s up. You know it’s real because I keep maxing out machines at the gym and having to scrounge up more and more plates. It’s starting to draw attention,” he chuckled.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about the changes that Synt caused,” I offered, mentally putting on my researcher hat.

“Is still causing,” interjected Lee.

“Yes, still,” I said, suddenly feeling very self conscious. When I invited Synt to give Logan a break and join forces with me, I may have overestimated my ability to keep them reined in, and it was becoming a full time project just to keep their power from leaking out into this world at a reasonable trickle. Most of the time, I could relieve little bits of pressure here and there, resulting in acquaintances and strangers getting a little boost in passing; something to fill their pants a little more that they wouldn’t complain about. This got tricky when it comes to people I was not only intimate with, but vulnerable with. Hence why Lee’s lithe, muscular form not only filled the other side of the booth but looked downright ethereal. And yet another reason Blake enjoyed spending happy hours parked right next to me. He was, after all, enthusiastic about the situation.

“Not that I’m complaining,” said Blake. He leaned towards me slightly with a smile that was verging from friendly to flirtatious. “I look better than I ever have. Better than I thought was even possible, all thanks to our mutual friend.” He gave me (and Synt) a wink, allowing his ripped forearm to brush lightly against mine before pulling back at the static shock that visibly–and possibly audibly–jumped the centimeter between us.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no problem’,” he said, getting up and turning to the bar. “Y’all want anything?”

“I’m already at my limit,” I said, “but thanks.”

“Two-drink Tuesday,” added Lee, holding up his index and middle finger, as if that wasn’t something he had just made up. Nevertheless, I appreciated the support. Getting shlammered is no longer an option when you have immediate access to an unbelievable reservoir of chaos magic. Something Lee was constantly reminded of by the trouser snake bulging down the length of his left pant leg. 

What didn’t help the situation was that Blake was really taking his time in getting to the bar, swishing his hips back and forth as he moseyed over to Jaime. The park ranger uniforms are a flattering, relaxed fit, but Blake was bursting out of his. The khakis were stretched tight across his bubble butt and quads and the button up couldn’t be buttoned all the way against the mass of his pecs and shoulders. He was a wall of dense muscle, body so sculpted from the realm of fantasy that it was almost a crime for him to even try to wear clothes in the first pl–

I knew what he was doing. He, obviously, knew what he was doing. And most importantly, the reality-altering minor god that had tied themself to me knew full well what he was doing.

We can’t keep doing this, I said to my mental roommate. He’s getting hooked.

Hooked? came a voice like tectonic plates sliding against each other.

Like, he’s enjoying these changes too much. He keeps trying to grow more and more, I worry he might go too far.

Too far? It had become clear that they had no conceptualization of what this meant, but they were starting to figure out what one might call moderation. I felt a small nudge of encouragement as if right behind my shoulder blades, but a small nudge from Synt was like a cruise ship lightly tapping against a wooden pier.

Okay, but just a little, I thought. It’s about finesse, just like we practiced.

Synt was a powerhouse to say the least, and I wasn’t so much tapping into their reservoir of chaos magic as I was slightly loosening a small pressure valve. My fingertips sparked lightly as I felt the peculiar taste of raw possibility in my mouth, like a battery on the back of my tongue that crackled down around my vocal chords. I was focusing on Blakes’s broad shoulders and muscular backside at the bar. His overdeveloped glutes defied gravity, perched like two globes above his hamstrings. 

“Those could really do some damage,” I muttered under my breath. I imagined him at the gym, maxing out the machines as a warmup, having to stack weight after weight just to get a good pump. The blood rushing to his strained muscles as they repaired themselves supernaturally fast, swelling against the overstressed fabric until it couldn’t take anymore. At the bar, Blake was adjusting his waistband surreptitiously, his massive butt seeming to grow in real time to match my slapped together tipsy fantasy until finally his work pants began to give way, splitting open in a few spots to hint at a pair of bright green bikini briefs fighting for its life over his round cheeks. Much to his chagrin–but eventually to his delight–whoever he was chatting it up with failed to take notice of his sudden growth. His hand had left Blake’s hip to adjust his own crotch, which was displaying a surprising, and apparently uncomfortable, bulge.

I maybe shouldn't have done this two drinks in. I was going for more juicy pump and less wardrobe malfunction. And I didn’t even predict the spillover effect in this new beau who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe I wasn’t being focused enough, maybe it was some sort of daisy chain from their erotic connection, maybe Blake was figuring out how to re-route the chaos magic with which I had touched him. But as he apparently took notice, he played it off, turning his fat ass to squish against the bar as he faced out, glancing my way with an appreciative wink.

“He can’t keep getting away with this,” said Lee, an amused tone entering his voice. Lee had caught on to Blake’s little trick early on and found it more funny than concerning. “He pulled a fast one on you again!” he laughed.

“He’s kind of doing me a favor,” I reasoned. At least I had a willing participant to let some of the pressure off while honing this new ability. “But he could just ask me directly.”

“Well where’s the fun in that?” asked Lee, his eyes dreamily following Blake’s ass as his new friend let him into the cool winter evening, presumably to explore their respective new assets at one of their places. His eyes flicked back to me as he danced across the word fun, and I tried to evade losing myself in the chocolate brown depths of his irises, captivated by a gaze that had become hypnotic. I didn’t get very far as I began to trace the curvature of his plump lips, the rightmost third of the bottom one lost behind a row of playfully biting teeth.

This was a game we had begun to play and one I would inevitably lose. He knew what he was doing. He knew I knew that he knew what he was doing. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that a side effect of the changes in Lee was that he was beginning to have a draw on people that was hard to resist. It hadn’t taken Lee long to realize that whenever I released Synt’s erotic power into the world, I needed to in turn release my own. Hot and bothered would be an understatement, the recent double whammy in tandem with the pheromones coming from my friend across the booth were sending me into overdrive. And judging by the way Lee kept shifting in his seat, he was in a similar state of excitement.  

Apparently Two-drink Tuesday also gets its name from the fact that we can’t make it to a third round without fucking each other’s brains out. Soon enough, I’m plopping my fat ass onto a table in a half forgotten supply closet that makes for a decent hookup space if you’re cool enough with Jaime. It was one of the plastic folding ones that are always already old and whose supports were groaning under my weight. The ambient light from the bar that made it down the hallway framed Lee’s expansive form as he lumbered in behind me, round shoulders rising just past the level of the door frame as he ducked in. God he was massive. As he pushed the door closed behind him, sliding us into complete darkness, I could still feel his outline moving toward me, as if he produced his own luminescence just outside of the visible spectrum. 

The bass of his voice filled the room as he chuckled, coming in for a deep kiss and sliding his fingers under the waistband of my leggings as our tongues danced. He was hungry. He pushed me back onto the table as he pulled my thighs toward him. The radiant heat coming off of his crotch became all the more enticing in the chill of the back room, tingles of pleasure echoing from my hole in anticipation. I arched my back as his fingers from one hand traced along my spine, the other tenderly beginning to peel the waistband of my leggings down the curves of my hips. His hands, at this point, were the size of dinner plates but moved with surprising grace. I could feel him resisting the urge to tear the fabric clean off as he struggled to get it over my colossal cakes and tree trunk thighs. A performance of agonizing slowness that had become part of our usual foreplay.

With my hole finally exposed, he slid in one finger, then two, opting for nimbleness and dexterity in light of the brute force that I knew was coming. He worked with a light touch, loosening me up as he undid his pants and slowly slid them off, bending slightly to finagle his prodigious cock free. I regretted not having hit the lights. The slow reveal of his member was a sight to behold, even in the weak fluorescence of the store room. With a grunt, I heard his pants fall to the floor, followed by a thwack against the underside of the cheap plastic table. I briefly fantasized about Lee’s gargantuan cock lifting the entire table with me on it, entertaining the notion that I really could make that happen if I wanted to.

Don’t you? Came a deep rumble from my psyche, the familiar crescendo of energy as Synt’s attention was piqued.

Don’t you start, I warned, still thinking of Blake and his now very well endowed friend. Finesse, subtlety, I added, knowing full well Synt cared nothing for the concept.

But didn’t I? In the haze of lust, I couldn’t shake the hypothetical of Lee with a truly impossible monster cock, and a corresponding body that shattered doorways rather than ducking through them. Was it Synt’s idea or my own? Was there a difference?

I was brought back to the present by a sudden absence. My hole ached with need as Lee’s meaty fingers were withdrawn, moving to caress my torso as he maneuvered his unwieldy dick into place, stroking up and down he pumped out a steady stream of slick precum. He was already starting to moan softly as he slowly worked inch after inch after inch of his schlong inside of me. Ever the scientist, he had last measured his growth at 15.25 inches, but personal experience told me it had definitely grown a little more since then. He settled into a steady pace, holding my body gingerly with his strong arms, leaning in periodically to nuzzle against my lips.

“Is that good?” he asked.

“Harder,” I muttered, the pleasure from his cock stretching my walls only leading to a deeper and deeper need.

“Like this?” he said, picking up the pace, letting more of his strength come through as he thrust into me.

“Harder,” I breathed, feeling the familiar taste of power, the crackle across my throat.

“Mmhm,” said Lee, audibly putting in some effort as he pounded into me, his gigantic hands digging into the globes of my ass cheeks, giving them a hard slap periodically.

“Harder,” I grunted, feeling some sort of release as I had the acute image of Lee’s pelvis corded with muscle, his hips and glutes flexing with vascularity as he pumped with inhuman power.

He made a sound that was some cross between confusion and pleasure, losing control as he jackhammered into me with animalistic lust. He dug his hands in under my thighs and lifted me up bodily, impaling me on his dick as his hips went into overdrive. He roared as both of us reached climax, shooting ropes of cum as his hips continued to buck involuntarily. After the last shudders of orgasmic release, he slowly came back to his senses, pulling his softening dick out of my hole.

“Was that…you?” he asked, his hands exploring a slightly more developed muscularity than what had been the reality earlier that night.

“...I think so.”

 —

I found myself in Lee’s lab early the next morning reflecting on what exactly had developed last night. Of course I was used to dipping into Synt’s power to change people, but this was different. More direct in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.

Lee was bouncing around with some extra pep in his step, his usual lumbering movements now imbued with much more grace and poise. One would find it hard to believe that just 12 hours previous he was rearranging my guts with wild abandon. His bubble butt filled out his form fitting khakis, glute and hip muscles becoming all the more apparent every time he squatted down to look at something more closely with his co-PI, Armand. At 5’6”, Armand was almost two feet shorter than the literal giant with whom he ran the paranormal research lab in the basement of the Center. I sat patiently, coffee in hand, watching them navigate the space and prep things for that morning’s procedures. 

Lee and Armand had taken it upon themselves to help me study how Synt’s power worked and what kinds of research implications it might have. Lee was  wildly enthusiastic about the possibilities presented by the deity in my head whose capabilities were seemingly only limited by the imagination of the host. Armand, if a little annoyed by being there earlier than the start of their usual workday, was more interested in how this development, if presented the right way, could secure some more reliable long-term research funding for the entire institute.

After all, the lab could use a makeover. It was kind of a drab, slapdash mix of alchemical and traditional scientific instruments, slowly cluttering into a maze of in-progress and semi-forgotten projects and experiments. One wall was an entire blackboard covered in a collage of equations, mathematical proofs, ancient grammars, bits of poetry, and a running list of takeout places that after many late night deliveries knew Lee and Armand by name. It at least drew the eye away from the rest of the color scheme, which consisted of specific shades of blue and sherbet-beige that one might see at a hospital or some sort of mystical DMV. But it was Lee’s high voltage magic lab. A cleanroom as he calls it.

I was crammed into an office chair at the center of a circle whose circumference featured sigils across multiple human and inhuman languages, each one glowing and fading lightly in slow sequence. I know a protective ward when I see one, and this formed an invisible, magically impermeable sphere. I sat in the middle of the snow globe, wondering what might get knocked loose were someone to come along and shake it, as Lee and Armand set about their final preparatory tasks. Lee was adjusting the angles of what looked like modified environmental sensors, following the wires back to his desktop to check that they were working. A cluster of wires ran not along the floor, but up to the ceiling and above the circle, dropping down and hooking into a brain scan helmet that sat lightly on my head. Armand was fiddling with what was certainly a decades-old fax machine, outputting a slow but continuous stream of paper while chittering softly to itself and occasionally jotting down little dots and symbols. According to Armand, it’s a device that “picks up magical grammars in ambient space and translates them into textual data for further analysis,” but I still think it just looks like a fax machine. He was not amused by this.

Our routine many mornings was me in the evil snow globe, relaying messages between Lee, Armand, and Synt as they tried to experiment with ways to activate, measure, or at least gather data on the texture of Synt’s magic. Bursts of erotic, body morphing energy were beyond impressive, but wildly unpredictable, and the research team wanted to start small and controlled.  We had made little to no progress. It’s not exactly a thing that I can just turn on and off and Synt doesn’t particularly care or even see the point of all this. These little science experiments are a blip on their radar and we probably seem like anxious primates hitting things with sticks. Which to a certain extent is true.

This morning was no different than the others. After enough failed attempts and false positives, Lee sighed, shaking his head at the monitor perched on his modified standing desk.

“I need some caffeine,” he yawned, loping off toward the exit and, I assumed, the coffee shop on the ground floor upstairs.

I was left with Armand, standing hands on hips, staring intently at his fax machine as if, with enough silent pleading, it may just start speaking English. It continued its indecipherable chittering, spitting out snippets of static on the page.

“Did you get a fax?” I asked. “From the cosmos?” widening my eyes for emphasis.

“It’s not–we’re getting basically background radiation and ambient noise. Nothing that really tells us anything,” he said, turning to glance at Lee’s computer. Armand awkwardly adjusted his lab partner’s standing desk, waiting impatiently for it to lower to his height. Eventually, he relented and grabbed a step stool just so he could read the data, shooting me an annoyed glance at having to have an audience for what seemed like a daily ordeal between them.

“So you didn’t feel anything this whole session? No surges of otherworldly power?” he asked.

“I felt hungry,” I responded. “Haven’t heard much from Synt.”

“But Lee said yesterday evening you did it without even trying,” said Armand, scratching the scruff on his chin in thought. 

My heart skipped a beat as I imagined Lee informing Armand about how he got his new power thrust pelvis as if it were anecdotal data, before I realized, “Oh, you mean Blake!”

“Yeah, that was his name. The park ranger guy. He’s been emailing me about some abandoned site out in the forest, I need to look into it. But you changed him just by what? Thinking about it?”

“Thinking isn’t really an apt descriptor of what Synt does,” I thought out loud. Armand had settled into a flat footed squat in front of the cosmic fax machine, on the edge of the ring of sigils. He was staring not quite at me, but at the space around me, as if Synt might materialize from my aura. “Sometimes it feels like the way their mind works is itself a sort of manipulation of space and time. Maybe the way all of our minds work, when you think about it.” The fax sputtered something out, but I couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or dissension. Armand’s eyes glanced at the printout then back at me.

“But you channeled that manipulation deliberately, right? Not just specifically to Blake, but specifically to his glutes.”

“Not just that, but yeah. I sort of focused the energy and…released.”

“And what did that feel like?”

“Like…singing?” The familiar feeling danced around my vocal chords. Synt perked up in anticipation.

“Singing. Ok.” Armand began to bounce slightly in his deep squat, which I’d come to realize meant he was on to something. As he mulled over this new bit of information, his eyes traced one of the sigils on the floor. Mine, however, were locked on to the bulge made more prominent by his stance. I could always tell Armand was packing something, and under ‘normal’ circumstances his bulge would be the focus of anyone’s attention, but it was an afterthought with Lee carrying around an unmistakable pipe in his pants.

“Have you done any work on metaphysical harmonics?” he asked.

“I’ve taught the basics, but it’s not something I deal with a lot in my research,” I said. “Bouncing different planes and dimensions off of each other by fiddling with the right frequencies and resonances, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll have to dust it off, but I think we do have the equipment for it,” said Armand. “Maybe instead of brute force reality shifting, Synt is actually doing something much more subtle and graceful, like moving through the pages of a higher dimensional flipbook. Which would explain why Lee, for one, is so good at carrying such big…changes.”

I don’t know why I said what I said next. I had that taste of possibility on my tongue and you know who was pushing at the back of my consciousness, dangling a small invitation to play with the warp of the universe, compelling me to blurt out “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got him beat.” With a wink no less.

A few things happened. One, I did manage to catch the feeling of that spark of power in my throat being released in a very specific direction, straight to the crotch which I had been trying to not look at in my early morning haze. Two, the fax machine printed out what looked like a poem of some mix of text, symbols, and glyphs before proceeding to rewind the spool of paper on its own and carry on printing blanks like nothing happened.

And three, while Armand was watching his precious sensor apparatus misbehave yet again, the bulge in his slacks began to bulge even more. Like, really bulge, unspooling down his leg. To the naked eye, it looked like he was somehow oblivious to the fact that his dick was expanding in real time to over twice the amount of space it had just been taking up in his chinos, the mushroom head becoming distinct against the fabric and his balls alone putting catastrophic pressure on the stitching along the seam. Except, if one would look closer–though that would be rude–they might notice the seam continuously adjusting on its own.

I watched his package inflate as he seemingly didn’t register the changes at all. But through the other sight of Synt’s perspective, it was as if the area around his crotch, and to a lesser extent the area around his body was pixelating, shifting, and falling back into place piece by piece over and over again, resulting in a visibly larger and larger bulge until…what?

You’ve got him beat, said Synt, quoting my earlier comment with what felt like a sly smile. I had been through enough by now to know that the next move was not to investigate the prodigious member in front of me but instead reflect on the timeline–New? Altered? Unclear–that I now found myself in. 

“I guess you’re right,” said Armand, “but Lee still wears it better.”

I guess I had gotten relatively used to it because we were co-workers, but Armand has by far one of the biggest dicks I’ve ever seen. Not that I had ever actually seen it, but the bulge snaking down his leg was obscene on his small frame. Even with what I assume were tailored pants, it was unavoidable and unwieldy, drawing stares and even comments in public, much to introverted Armand’s annoyance. I kind of felt bad for the guy. Rumor has it that when fully erect it’s a whopping 16 inches, somehow just slightly bigger than Lee’s schlong, which though impossible to miss, still blended in better on a frame that was two feet taller.

If what Armand had surmised was true, and Synt had let their hands play across a multidimensional keyboard, then we had been moving through proximal dimensions in which Armand wasn’t actually growing, but simply had a bigger and bigger dick for whatever reason, following the path of least resistance until he arrived at a size that beat Lee’s, and my offhand comment proved true. I loosely wondered when Noah would get his hands on him, if he hadn’t already.

Armand rose out of his squat to head to the board and add the metaphysical harmonics angle to the parking lot of working hypotheses. His gait was wider and a little awkward, but he wasn’t adjusting to his new size so much as he had already been used to it for years. Had I progressed to what Synt had been doing in my class this past semester? Moving beyond brute force changes and reworking the time stream itself? What else had I inadvertently changed about Armand’s life? What other elements of his social, romantic, or work lives had been altered in unpredictable ways by his inexplicably massive cock?

I needed more caffeine. As Lee came strolling back into the lab, I rushed past him, bounding up the side stairwell to the ground floor and the conveniently placed coffee shop. This wasn’t the most high traffic part of campus, so even during the morning rush, the baristas were bleary eyed and underwhelmed, snapping awake as I lumbered up to the counter.

“Oh, hi, what can I, uh, get started for you?” asked a barista across the counter who was not one of the usuals, made obvious by the fact that he clearly did not expect to be staring up at a man in leggings and a plaid skirt who loomed a full head taller than him.

“Just a dirty chai, and can you throw in an extra espresso shot…Jamal?” I asked, leaning awkwardly to read his nametag.

“Gotcha!”

I still felt disoriented, standing in a sleepy coffee shop having just manipulated space and time through the power of horniness. We may have finally cracked the code for at least a piece of the mechanism of what Logan had been doing originally on accident. The implications were staggering for our understandings of physics, metaphysics, reality itself. I had no idea how far the possibilities went and it sent a chill down to spine to think of what could happen on accident, let alone on purpose, but to be honest I felt powerful. And incredibly horny.

The familiar aftershock of arousal finally hit me, a deep, tingly, insatiable hunger that I quickly realized I would need to find some way to take care of this morning. Lee was right downstairs and this wouldn’t be the first time we fucked in some back corner of the basement. I wondered if Armand might want to prove the rumors true and hit a spot even his lab partner couldn’t reach. I shivered at the thought of almost a foot and a half of rock hard cock jutting off his slim, twinkish body, a completely absurd image of it bobbed in the air as he walked towards me.

“Um, excuse me?” Jamal, with an intonation that implied that hadn’t been the first time he’d tried to get my attention in the past 30 seconds, and he didn’t much care but a line was starting to form. “Can I get a name for that?”

“Oh! Um, sorry. David,” I said. “The only giant in the coffee shop. Can’t miss me,” I added with an awkward laugh.

He chuckled. “You’d be surprised. There was just a guy in here who had to be like seven and a half feet, I don’t even know. Like freak show tall,” eyes widened and hands splayed out.

“Not nearly as tall as you, right?” I responded without missing a beat. “You’ve got what, a foot and a half on him?” 

In my defense I was horny. And in an experimental mood. And a little annoyed at the quip about my friend. And in retrospect, starting to get drunk on power.

But Synt got the message loud and clear, and I watched the fabric of spacetime pixelating and refocusing around Jamal as I craned my neck up and up and up to his wire rimmed glasses catching the reflection of mid morning light.

A blush across his cheeks. “Yeah, I guess so,” he muttered, with a slight smile and a roll of his eyes. “That chai will be right up.”

[unrealward]

Ecoposse (2021)

Drawn for a biomimetic design course; Collection of organisms and ecosystems that inspired me. Identification and fun facts below the cut:

Barometer earthstar - Puffball mushroom with a humidity-responsive outer casing that maximizes spore distribution. In dry conditions, outer layer curls around spore sac and allows the fruiting body to roll in the wind. During humid weather, rays unfurl and keep sac steady so rainwater disperses spores. The reaction is the result of the exoperidium's hygroscopic inner layer, and occurs without sensory organs.

Hagfish - Incredibly unique eel-like scavenger fish that have de-evolved a spine. Equipped with rasping jaws, baggy skin that protects the inner organs from damage and facilitates the body tying itself in knots, and a rapidly-expanding fibrous slime that suffocates predators. They are extremely cute and I love them so much.

Subterranean freshwater aquifer ecosystem (Specifically the Edwards Aquifer) - An ecosystem whose biodiversity is bolstered by favorable chemical conditions. Porous karst rock, alongside other natural processes, treat and purify the water to drinkable levels without the need for human intervention. Host to a plethora of stygofauna without pigmentation, eyes, and other features that allow for an efficient metabolism that can spend months between meals.

Harvestmen (aka Daddy Longlegs) - arachnids (not spiders!) adapted for movement in difficult terrain; voluntarily self-amputate limbs (autotomy) that do not grow back, but regain comparable movement speeds through behavioral compensation for up to 3 limbs lost. An interesting example of accepting greater risk by distributing resources among a greater number of less-specialized organs.

Caddisfly larvae - Caddisfly larvae are small insects that live in freshwater streams, rivers, lakes, and more, building protective cases with incredibly strong waterproof bio-adhesive and local detritus. Though they typically construct cases from specific abundant materials, they can incorporate artificially introduced objects like gold and precious jewels, which can be used to make jewelry.

Hydrothermal vent ecosystem - Deep underwater where no light penetrates, geysers of supercritical magma-heated mineralized water and high pressures create harsh conditions for survival. The unique adaptations of chemosynthetic bacteria convert the toxic sulfides into biocompatible chemicals, supporting the range of life in the ecosystem. Giant tube worms, scaly-foot gastropods, and eyeless, hairy Yeti Crabs are some of the interesting creatures that call this habitat home.

[subliminalbo]

10 Years of Subliminalbo

Candice Swanepoel: Mindless Supermodel on Tour Annotated [ 1 ]

Originally published November 26th, 2013

Hundreds of young women were gathering at a Victoria's Secret in Pasadena [ 2 ] where Candice Swanepoel was promoting a new lingerie line, Obedience by Victoria [ 3 ]. Many only showed up to get an autograph and a picture with the supermodel, but a select few were chosen to join Candice in a private meeting after the event [ 4 ].

Once the fifteen chosen girls followed Candice into the room, each one received their very own Obedience bra which Candice ordered them to put on [ 5 ]. When all of the girls had returned from the fitting rooms, they found that Candice had stripped down into her underwear and was waiting to greet them in her own pair of Obedience by Victoria lingerie. Then she began her demonstration. The girls listened intently to Candice's every word as she went over the usual stuff: how the bra gave enough lift to create the illusion of larger breasts, but didn't sacrifice the comfort that every bra needs [ 6 ]. How all the designs, for example her's with black and white polka-dots [ 7 ], were cute and flirty but sexy and mature all at once. And how the bra kept a woman mindless, blank, submissive [ 8 ].

"Each bra comes with its own unique identification card [ 9 ]," Candice spoke promptly, professionally, as if she were reading from a script [ 10 ]. "And the holder of that id card controls the wearer of the bra. As long as I'm wearing Obedience by Victoria, I have no control of my own. However, since I have your cards, I do have control over all of you. Does that make sense? [ 11 ]"

"Yes, Mistress Candice," the girls replied [ 12 ].

"Good," Candice smiled as she looked upon an audience of blank faces. "The bra was assembled in America with materials produced in Pakistan [ 13 ]. Utilizing research that is only legal in Yugoslavia [ 14 ], Victoria's Secret has created a bra that is truly a first of its kind, and a look into the future of the industry. Please refrain from wearing Obedience by Victoria for more than four hours; prolonged use may cause memory loss, catatonia, loss of motor control, and irregular increase in sex drive. If you experience any of these symptoms, remove the bra immediately and consult a physician for you could be experiencing early signs of mind control poisoning. Ask your doctor before use [ 15 ].

"Now, my girls, [ 16 ]" Candice took a breath.

"Yes, Mistress Candice?"

"You're all going to go home, and you're going to find another girl. It could be your sister, your friend, your mother, your cousin, it doesn't matter. You're going to find another girl and you're going to make sure she gets a bra just like yours [ 17 ]."

"Yes, Mistress Candice. We will obey."

"Good. We want every woman in America to experience Obedience by Victoria with us."

"Yes, Mistress Candice. They will submit."

Mindless, the women left the mall and headed home, all thinking about their mission [ 18 ].

Candice boarded the fastest plane out of LA, en route to Milwaukee [ 19 ] where the next Victoria's Secret on the tour was located. On the plane she received a call. "Yes," she spoke quietly into the receiver. "I fitted them all with the bras...Yes, the effect was instantaneous...Of course I'm still wearing mine...Yes, I do nothing but think of you when I'm wearing it...Yes, I will do anything...Yes...Anything for you, Master. [ 20 ]"

[ 1 ]. Mindless Supermodel Model on Tour created a lot of problems for me. It was originally meant to be a series of shorts where we see Candice in different little mind control vignettes, but the idea of a mind controlling lingerie brand was too broad to just bury in a random one shot, so I kept writing about it. I pretty quickly moved to writing fictional characters after this short, but Obedience by Victoria remained an important bit of lore for several years until I just said fuck it and swapped out Victoria's Secret for Fleur-de-lis, creating ersatz versions of the Victoria's Secret models that I'd previously written about. You can read a much, much better version of this story here as Obedience By Fleur #1.

[ 2 ]. Before Romero, I liked to set these stories in completely random cities that I've never been to.

[ 3 ]. Fun with brand name parodies. I thought Obedience By Victoria was so clever for some reason.

[ 4 ]. In my "just writing a quick caption to establish context for the manip" era, these stories start so abruptly. It feels really weird to just jump into something without any groundwork.

[ 5 ]. They aren't even mind controlled yet lmao

[ 6 ]. Incredibly painful to read a 19 year old kid write about women's underwear like he knows what he's talking about.

[ 7 ]. I used to go out of my way to place the story in the manip somehow, but this proved incredibly limiting. At some point I stopped letting the manips tell the stories and today I rarely reference imagery from the manips.

[ 8 ]. This is supposed to be a "murder, arson, jaywalking" joke, but the bit doesn't land because I spread it out over three long sentences instead of one list.

[ 9 ]. Huh

[ 10 ]. Because she's under mind control, you see. Totally unreasonable to suspect that a person pitching a new product for their company would be reading from a script.

[ 11 ]. Weirdly insecure for a mindless drone.

[ 12 ]. Nitpicking myself here but I don't think "replied" is the word choice I would use for fifteen mind controlled girls speaking in unison today.

[ 13 ]. I wonder if this was researched or if I just picked completely random countries. I'm guessing the latter.

[ 14 ]. Oof, most of the jokes in my early stuff just don't land. I've always been better at the melodrama.

[ 15 ]. Pretty good bit.

[ 16 ]. I would also probably not have her say "my girls" if I were writing this today. Just reads weird to me.

[ 17 ]. Not the first instance of serial recruitment in my writing at this point (the sequel to that Fleur-de-lis chapter that I posted the other night has it), but the first that I like.

[ 18 ]. Are they mindless or are they thinking? Just a weird transition paragraph that exists to remind the reader one more time that there's mind control in this story.

[ 19 ]. What even is this tour? Surely there are Victoria's Secrets between Pasadena and Milwaukee lmao

[ 20 ]. This is a Metal Gear Solid reference and it's fucking stupid

[frevandrest]

Hi!

I have a question regarding the investigation story. So Tallien and Legendre found the birth certificate of Pâris on the body, but even if he was Pâris, why would he have his birth certificate with him? Did people usually carry it with themselves? Did they use it kinda like an ID?

Oh lol, now I see that I keep saying "birth certificate" when I meant "baptism record". And I am not sure if one would typically have that - the originals were in church records, but maybe parents received a copy? Does anyone know?

The only example I can think of is SJ, who said that he didn't have a proof of his date of birth back when he claimed he was 25 while being 24. And it seemed like a legit excuse, because the only proof of his birthday was a baptism record from a church in Decize.

With Pâris, he was actually trying to flee France for England, so maybe he collected his documents? I would assume that he'd need a passport, which is not mentioned among the documents found on the dead man. (Now that I think about it, if Pâris did fake his death he would want to keep the passport so he could flee France, so maybe that's why it's not found on the dead man).

But all in all, IDs in the modern sense have only starting to appear; 18th century people didn't have generalized IDs the way we do now (which is why you have all those stories about people changing/faking identities). The revolution introduced some measures in terms of identification, but am not sure how the ID situation was in early 1793, nor would Pâris obey the regulations about that. I know people in Paris were required to have a Carte de sûreté, but he probably avoided?

[travosti]

It’s not easy for some queer/lgbt+ people to be able to go out and live the queer experience in person but what needs to be clear is that external queer spaces vs internal queer places are two different experiences inside our community, and those who live not having online discourse on Twitter or Tumblr over who’s more valid or what’s correct to identify as, most of the time, don’t care. I was so chronically online years ago that I got into silly debates that in the end never existed in real life situations. I ended up having constant hiatuses on Tumblr or Facebook because of how mentally draining it was to be fighting for situations that most of the time do not happen in person. Then I realized that there’s situations that needed more visibility of.

For instance, did you know trans masculine people in latin america have a higher chance of committing suicide before their 30s? One of the examples would be of a black Brazilian trans man, Demétrio Campos, was an activist who committed suicide on May 16th of 2020, because of social injustice towards the lack of opportunities he had from being black and transgender, many times also denying mental health services towards his well being.

Did you know that Argentina is the only country in the continent that has won the legalization to having a non binary ID? Being the first country to legalize this in all of LATAM.

Did you know that just a few months ago, a trans man named Estéfano González , was wrongfully sent to jail because he defended himself from being murdered in the streets with his girlfriend while the attacker kept shouting transphobic AND lesbophobic comments towards him even though he does not identify as lesbian?

Did you know there is no law in Chile that protects trans people who have the right to labor?

Did you know that Tehuel de la Torre, a trans masc in Argentina, was forcefully disappeared after he went to a job interview in 2021, and to this day the police hasn’t done proper investigations and closed the case saying he passed away when there is no body to be found?

And in another occasion, a few years ago another trans masc (Santiago Cancinos), again, in Argentina, was made to be off the radar, the police not helping this trans male whatsoever, just to find out approx 4 years later that the remaining parts of his body was found deep in a hole just a few meters away from his home?

Two Peruvian trans men went to celebrate their honey moon In Bali this year, both were detained by security airport, because of “supposedly having illegal substances in their luggages”. They were brutally beat up in their cells, to the point one of them died because of the attacks. Leaving the newly wed male, becoming a widowed individual in just short time.

This is what’s happening in Latin America towards trans mascs and men but the internet is so focused in the experiences of trans mascs in countries like the USA, or countries that are in Europe. The trans experience, in this case trans masc experience, is NOT the same in every country. As a trans masc living in Chile, it’s very frustrating to see that many comrades typing from their homes, in a first world country, dare to criticize our experiences saying that our privilege is the same as theirs. I invite you to acknowledge our pain and re-think that not everything is centered around countries that is socially looked as more important than others. Please take your time translating the articles I cited, because my job informing is sufficient. I’m not debating with someone that invalidates trans experiences from my continent. Thank you, and you’re welcome from your angry sudaca.

The suicide of Demétrio Campos (Brasil): https://www.hypeness.com.br/2020/06/mae-de-demetrio-campos-fala-como-a-alegria-de-viver-do-filho-foi-abreviada-pelo-racismo-e-transfobia/

Legalization of the non binary identification in Argentina: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/22/argentina-recognizes-non-binary-identities

The wrongful incarceration of Estéfano González (Chile):

https://www.eldesconcierto.cl/reportajes/2022/06/27/el-caso-de-estefano-el-joven-trans-encarcelado-por-homicidio-y-que-clama-legitima-defensa.html/amp/

No law that protects trans people from working in private establishments in Chile: https://www.latercera.com/paula/inclusion-laboral-trans-una-deuda-pendiente/?outputType=amp

The disappearance of Tehuel de la Torre (Argentina): https://agenciapresentes.org/2022/02/11/donde-esta-tehuel-a-11-meses-de-su-desaparicion-las-organizaciones-reclaman-justicia/

The disappearance of Santiago Cancinos (Argentina):

https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/policiales/2021/07/01/que-revelaron-las-pericias-al-cuerpo-de-santiago-cancinos-el-adolescente-trans-desaparecido-hace-4-anos-en-salta/?outputType=amp-type

The murder of Rodrigo Ventocilla and mourning husband, Sebastián Marallano (Perú): https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-62683218

[malorydaily]

In Lestoire de Merlin, Arthur’s ability to pull the sword from the stone amounts to an “election” to the kingship by God, a point that is repeated more than once as the Archbishop convinces the barons of Arthur’s right to the throne. The barons eventually agree to Arthur’s accession on the grounds that it is an enactment of God’s will. This divine confirmation of the king was a romance trope. In romance, dynastic legitimacy tends to be signaled by obvious means: Perceval of Galles, for example, is recognized by Arthur because of his physical resemblance to his father. His upbringing in the wilds of the forest does not alter visible marks of his heritage.

Divine support for legitimate inherited kingship in romance was in keeping with the theory of succession in medieval England and France, if with a strong element of wish-fulfillment in the undoubted identification of heirs. By the thirteenth century, the heir began to rule on the day of the old king’s death, rather than on the day of the coronation; there was no interruption to the king’s “body natural” and the descent of the Crown from father to son was understood as the manifestation of God’s will. The purpose of this was to avoid precisely the situation that arises in the Arthurian story, where dissension and delay over the choice of an heir leads to over half a year without a king.

Ironically, disrupted successions in late fifteenth-century England turned on occasion to the romance trope of the return of the lost rightful heir to prop up dubious claims. Although Henry VII preferred to emphasize his conquest of the throne rather than his hereditary title, which was indirect at best and cut out a number of other possible claimants, he exploited his dynastic association with Arthur to bolster his legitimacy. The expectations of romance and reality reinforced each other in the desire for a divinely sanctioned king.

– Ruth Lexton, Contested Language in Malory's Morte Darthur: The Politics of Romance in 15th Century England

[the-feminist-philosopher]

I honestly think that trans-exclusionaries and rad fems are fundamentally misunderstanding something: what detransitioning is actually defined as.

I see a lot of them self-report being "detransed gnc women."

And I've taken them at their word that they detransitioned after having identified, previously, as a trans man. I have taken them at their word and believed their experience because I believe we should normalize exploring identity. If it doesn't work, that's okay.

Only... for them to tell me that they never "believed" they were a man, only that someone, at some point in their youth told them the common lesbophobic/homophobic/misogynistic refrain that women who dress "masculine" (i.e. not explicitly "feminine" or not according to precise standards of presentation) are "mannish lesbians" even if 1.) they aren't a lesbian, or 2.) their presentation is pretty... run of the mill, or standard.

And I want to ask: "Did a trans person tell you this, or was it your Catholic Aunt?" Because I used to get told that all the time, but by Christian Conservatives. Given that trans adults make up less than 1% of the population and 9 in 10 people do not personally know a trans person, I didn't meet someone who rejected the gender-sex binary until University. Most of us never actually meet a trans person to tell us something as asinine as, "Dressing 'masculine' makes you mannish and gay." And since actually meeting trans and gender queer people, I have never, ever met anyone in the community who'd believe that. Does that mean it's not possible? No. I understand how fallacies work. Is it still rare/uncommon? Yes.

The prefix "de-" means "from," "off" or "away from." Detransition means, well, to move away from transitioning. But they often say they're "de-transed," and based on the way many of them are using it, I don't know if they're telling us they moved away from transitioning or moved away from accepting what they call the "trans ideology."

Because one refers to the cessation or reversal of a transgender identification or gender transition, and it's something most commonly done on a temporary basis. But it seems some of them are using it to refer to a cessation in the belief of what they think is an ideology.

The first definition is the correct use for that term. A synonym is "desisted." The second use is, well, incorrect.

Nevertheless, I've seen several of them use "de-transed" in the context that many of them also use "peaked." For example: "I de-transed after years of buying into that ideology because this one kid told me they're pan because they don't have a gender preference." Or... "I de-transed after realizing that being gnc or a tom-boy doesn't make me less of a woman."

And these sentences are confusing. In context, detransition makes little sense to use in these examples.

It's like: So, you're telling me that you identified as a man and now are a woman because someone told you that they're pan? Or, you're telling me that you identified as a man and now are a woman because... dressing in a non-conforming way makes you no less a woman? (And that last one is a: "no shit." The way you dress is not what makes your sense of self or the way you conceptualize yourself. Trans people accept that.)

And the answer has been, so far, some variation of: "I never identified as a man" or "I'd never voluntarily become a male 🤢" or "I am a woman because I am an adult, human female."

So... you were never trans?

And then you get accused of pulling a "no-true Scottsman" fallacy right before someone jumps on your post to, for the 567th time, tell you you're in a cult because you shun former "believers" as never having been "true believers."

Which leaves me confused because... even if you accept their premise that people "erroneously believe" in their identity, because they- the TERFs- think identity and the way we conceptualize who we are must align with sex, you still have to have previously "believed" that you were the opposite gender/sex; that you were trans, to be "desisted."

Which leads me to assume they're intentionally not using the term correctly. (Are there those on here who do use the term correctly? Yes. Am I talking about them right now? No.)

This is only driven home when they claim, "our butches/tomboys are being transed" even when you direct them to studies that show the social contagion myth is just that: a myth.

But they still believe, despite the evidence presented and despite the sheer statistical improbability (near impossibility), that there is a disproportionate and exponential increase in FtM transitioning because kids are being brainwashed by "gender ideology." Even though there has been a decrease in the number of trans and gender diverse youth. These individuals number at about 1.6% of the population, making it statistically improbable that all the tomboys and all the butches are transitioning into men.

And when I asked, these specific TERFs didn't believe that the girls in question actually "believe" they're men, only that they're being told they are. By who? "Trans people." Which trans people? "Trans people and doctors." WHICH ONES? "I saw someone online say that maybe these gnc girls are actually male."

So maybe not a trans person? Maybe someone like my Catholic Aunt? Because... who is this nebulous "someone"?

And they'll hit you with another "no true Scotsman" accusation.

And then they wonder whether they'd have been "transed" today as a tomboy yesterday. And you ask what that means and it inevitably bottles down to believing that they would have potentially been "inducted" into "gender-ideology," "pressured" into believing that trans people are "real and legitimate," and "bought" into the "trans-cult."

Which, again, brings me back to my first conclusion. They don't believe being trans is an identity, but an ideology or paradigm like feminism is or conservatism is or Marxism is. So, some of them are using "transed" to just mean someone who believes trans identities are legitimate. They're using it in the same way they use "peaked."

Are some of them actually rejecting the data you provide them with because they insist on believing, despite the facts, that some nebulous "someone" is pressuring kids to transition? Yes. But so many are honestly misunderstanding or intentionally misusing "detransition."

And many more are assuming that everyone behaves and thinks like they do and, when provided the same "evidence," reasons the same way, deduces the same way, and will come to the same conclusions. That's why kids need to be "pressured" into believing trans people are "real." Trans-rights must be a cult because otherwise everyone would come to the same conclusions they did about trans people. Someone must be brainwashing children because they're more accepting of trans people and more likely to reject the idea that people must hinge their sense-of self or conceptualization of themselves on their sex, especially in a way that aligns with the gender-sex binary. Even if the child is cis, they've been "transed" and tricked into believing that presentation = identity.

And all of that is incorrect.

[prnanxiety]

Stop sharing the intimite details of other peoples fucking lives on tumblr cunt.

4/6/24

Now, this ask has been hard for me to answer. This is a problem that's been on my mind for a while now. Is there a right way to share details about a case and a patient

I personally started this blog because I saw too many things for myself and the patients with these struggles to benefit from; I'm surrounded every day by people who think my patients are to be locked up and forgotten about. It's one thing to meet someone who doesn't give a shit about psych patients in a super market, I'm just about numb to that nowadays. It's another thing entirely to have someone who doesn't care, who's your god damned nurse coworker.

Somebody who you know for a fact is trained in psych. Somebody who has had to study the same subjects and pass the same tests as you, and Somebody who is expected to be an expert in care for a patient's psychiatric background, in order to save that patient's life. That somebody still looks at the psych patients on your medical unit and wants them gone. Looking at someone homeless, psychotic, paranoid, and desperate, who's been assaulted every which way, still trying to hold on to a reason to live, and wanting them gone? Because their psychosis is inconvenient? Because you don't like knowing that psychosis can happen to anyone? Because they have an addiction?

It's an attitude I have never respected, yet continuously ran into in the medical side of hospitals. The thing is, nurses who think stuff like that go to the same lectures and continuing education credits I do, and have to learn the same stuff about psych I do. They keep passing the competencies and retaining their licenses, and they keep treating psych patients like they're wastes of space and time. So as far as I'm concerned, just being another face saying "Here's a study that says treating people like people makes treating them easier, even if they're severely mentally ill," isn't going to change any minds.

I figured coming home from work every shift and writing honest posts about things I saw that I loved or hated, or what challenged me that day, would at least give the same subject a different angle; "Hey look at how this person was, today." Something to sort of aggressively hammer home the point that "No, goddammit, they're not wastes of space."

But damn, I'm not really telling the patients I'm doing it either, am I? I can sit here and change details all I want until someone is someone else entirely. "A guy who survived a suicide attempt talked about basketball with me today" and tell myself "that can hardly identify anyone." But I'm still talking about these same patients themselves, without their awareness or consent. Even when my posts are short, even when my posts are "just like any other reddit or twitter post any other doctor or nurse makes every day." That hasn't been sitting well with me for a few months now.

There's an article about this on the American Medical Association's Journal of Ethics website that tackles this issue with physician memoirs. I'm not a physician, but its the same issue, as far as I'm concerned; A Doctor cares about their patients. They write a book about a patient population they care deeply for and a case that has long since stayed with them. The book gets published. The doctor makes money. Did the doctor exploit the patients?

The article makes the point that this kind of thing is "Creative nonfiction in medicine," and discusses some excellent pros and cons to it.

In this context we’ve developed two main approaches to dealing with patient stories in medical memoir. One is informed consent; the other is de-identification [2, 3]. Each of these, however, creates new problems. For example, de-identification, i.e., changing the narrative to make the patient unrecognizable, decreases the factual accuracy of the account, raising the question, “Where does nonfiction end and fiction begin?” Alternatively, what about the patient who refuses consent? Must we never publish stories about angry, withdrawn, or paranoid patients who, like Melville’s Bartleby the scrivener, repeatedly tell us, 'I prefer not to'”' when asked for permission?"

I personally don't sweat the first question too terribly hard; I'd rather everyone who reads this identify with they thing they have in common with the patient than focus on what sport the guy I mentioned likes (it wasn't hockey). I might lose some people who like the real sport we talked about, but I'd gain anyone willing to find the humanity in the guy. The second question is what I'm more worried about.

Let me envision two scenarios for Dr. Cushman as he prepared to publish Picking up the Pieces. In the first case, he has taken the paternalistic attitude that his patients are, after all, poorly educated and lack the sophistication necessary to understand his project. He also felt that authorial license permitted him to alter patient stories at will and to invent situations and conversations in the service of a “larger truth.” Consequently, he neither informed his patients about his use of their narratives, nor obtained their consent—but neither did he alert his readers to his practice of altering or inventing patient narratives. Given this scenario, I would have to conclude that, despite his good intentions, Dr. Cushman should see his book as ethically flawed. Let me make another point about de-identification in creative nonfiction. By definition, “nonfiction” requires factual accuracy. The “creative” element is supposed to be confined to literary style and technique. Nonetheless, authors of memoirs often reconstruct characters, events, and conversations from memory, perhaps with little or no documentary support. Moreover, the memoirist packages his or her experience to present a coherent narrative. In this process, the author might delete, merge, or alter material in the pursuit of “truth.” Although perhaps appropriate, this can constitute a breach of contract with readers, unless the author lets them in on the secret. Readers of books like the one whose publicity blurb I mentioned above rightfully expect an unvarnished firsthand account of actual patients, just as advertised. The remedy for Dr. Cushman would be to explain the criteria and process he used in de-identifying or re-imagining the narratives included in his book.

The article does a great job summing up the perfect, ethical scenario for a medical memoir, or published journal; Obtain the patient's permission, preserve crucial details, change everything else, then publish. Man, I have no idea how to ask my patients if I can write about them like that. After all, I might feel pressured to only write positive and uplifting stories, when being brutally honest about someone's misery or hate would be a more honest representation of psychiatry, in the way laypeople like to pretend isn't real. "Hey, patient who just tried to sexually assault other patient, thanks for getting into the restraint chair for us. Can I write about you on my blog tonight? I promise not to identify you, I just want to talk about how fucked up your upbringing was, and ask the reader 'did they ever really have a chance?'"

I dunno. Maybe I do need to do that.

If I ever suddenly stop posting on this blog without saying goodbye, it's because I decided that was probably the best route to take. Always wanting to do right by my patients and all. Not gonna stop writing about my patients though, that's too helpful for me. And I'm also not gonna stop trying to figure out how the fuck to get more people to care about this field.

[ohsalome]

Would you say putin is a dictator?

Dictator, in modern political systems, a single person who possesses absolute political power within a country or territory or a member of a small group that exercises such power. The term comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crises. Modern dictators, however, resemble ancient tyrants rather than ancient dictators. Ancient philosophers’ descriptions of the tyrannies of Greece and Sicily go far toward characterizing modern dictatorships. Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties. They may also employ techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain their public support.

In Latin America in the 19th century, various dictators arose after effective central authority collapsed in the new nations recently freed from Spanish colonial rule. These caudillos, or aspiring military dictators, usually led a private army and tried to establish control over a territory before marching upon a weak national government. Antonio López de Santa Anna in Mexico and Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina are examples of such leaders. (See also personalismo.)

Later 20th-century dictators in Latin America were different. They were national rather than provincial leaders and often were put in their position of power by nationalistic military officers. Indeed, many of them were military officers themselves. They usually formed an alliance with a particular social class and attempted either to maintain the interests of wealthy and privileged elites or to institute far-reaching left-wing social reforms. Notable Latin American dictatorships of the second half of the 20th century included the lengthy rule of the military in Brazil from 1964 to 1985; the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet of Chile, who led a coup de’état in 1973 that deposed the country’s president, Salvador Allende; and the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976–83, which became infamous for its terroristic “Dirty War” against Argentine civilians.

In the new states of Africa and Asia after World War II, dictators quickly established themselves on the ruins of constitutional arrangements inherited from the Western colonial powers that had proved unworkable in the absence of a strong middle class and in the face of local traditions of autocratic rule. In some such countries, elected presidents and prime ministers captured personal power by establishing one-party rule and suppressing the opposition, while in others the army seized power and installed a military dictator.

The communist and fascist dictators of the first half of the 20th century were distinctively different from the authoritarian rulers of Latin America and postcolonial Africa and Asia. Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union are the primary examples of totalitarian dictators. The distinguishing elements of their rule were the identification of the state with a single mass party, the identification of the party with its charismatic leader, the use of an official ideology to legitimize and maintain the regime, and the use of mass communication (in the form of newspapers, periodicals, and radio) to spread pro-government propaganda. Soviet-type communist dictators arose in central and eastern Europe, China, and other countries in the wake of World War II, though most of their regimes (as well as the Soviet Union itself) collapsed by the last decade of the 20th century. Other fascist dictators of the early 20th century were Benito Mussolini of Italy, Europe’s first fascist leader; Engelbert Dollfuss of Austria; and António de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal.

Encyclopedia Britannica

I would say he has a close resemblence to totalitarian distators of the 20th century Europe

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

The mystery of fullerenes in space explained

A study from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) which combines laboratory chemistry with astrophysics, has shown for the first time that grains of dust formed by carbon and hydrogen in a highly disordered state, known as HAC, can take part in the formation of fullerenes, carbon molecules which are of key importance for the development of life in the universe, and with potential applications in nanotechnology. The results are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Fullerenes are carbon molecules that are very big, complex, and highly resistant; their atoms are organized in three-dimensional spherical structures, with a pattern of alternating hexagons and pentagons, shaped like a football (C60 fullerenes) or a rugby ball (C70 fullerenes).

These molecules were discovered in the laboratory in 1985, which procured the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their three discoverers 11 years later. Since then, there have been many instances of observational proof of their existence in space, especially within the gas clouds around old, dying stars the size of the sun, called planetary nebulae, which have been expelled from the outer layers of the stars towards the end of their lives.

As these molecules are highly stable and difficult to destroy, it is thought that the fullerenes can act as cages for other molecules and atoms so that they could have brought complex molecules to Earth, which gave an impulse to start life. So, their study is important for the understanding of the basic physical processes that take part in the organization of organic material in the universe.

An unknown chemical footprint

Spectroscopy is essential for the search and identification of fullerenes in space. Spectroscopy allows us to study the material composing the universe by analyzing the chemical footprints made by atoms and molecules on the light that reaches us from them.

A recent study, led entirely by the IAC, has analyzed infrared spectroscopic data obtained previously from telescopes in space, from the planetary nebula Tc1. These spectra show spectral lines indicating the presence of fullerenes but also show broader infrared bands (UIR for their initials in English), which are detected widely in the universe, from the small bodies in the solar system to distant galaxies.

"The identification of the chemical species which causes this infrared emission, widely present in the universe, was an astrochemical mystery, although it was always thought probable that it is rich in carbon, one of the basic elements of life," explains Marco A. Gómez Muñoz, an IAC researcher, who led this study.

A new origin for the fullerenes

In order to identify these mysterious bands, the research team reproduced the infrared emission of the planetary nebula Tc 1. Analysis of the emission bands showed the presence of grains of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (HAC). These compounds of carbon and hydrogen in a highly disordered state, very abundant in the envelopes of dying stars, can account for the infrared emission of this nebula.

"We have combined, for the first time, the optical constants of HAC, obtained from laboratory experiments, with models of photoionization, and by doing this, we have reproduced the infrared emission of the planetary nebula Tc 1, which is very rich in fullerenes," explains Domingo Anibal García Hernández, an IAC researcher who is a co-author of the paper.

For the research team, the presence of the same object of HAC and fullerenes supports the theory that the fullerenes could have formed during the process of destruction of the dust grains, for example, by interaction with ultraviolet radiation, which is much more energetic than visible light.

With this result, the scientists have opened the way for future research based on collaboration between laboratory chemistry and astrophysics. "Our work shows clearly the great potential of interdisciplinary science and technology to make basic advances in astrophysics and astrochemistry," concludes Gómez Muñoz.

IMAGE....Center of the planetary nebula M57, taken by the astrophotographer Dr. Robert Gendler, and John Bozeman. Credit: NASA/ESA

[fixomnia-scribble]

WHOO!

I get to teach Forensic Sciences again next semester! With a prof I really like and have previously TA’ed for! It’s a super fun course - Intro to Criminalistics - so it’s a little bit of everything. Prints, bones, blood, DNA, drugs, mapping, and more. She’s also researching Forensic Anth, so we can dork out about bones.

AND I’m teaching Crim Theory, too, which is a designated writing-intensive course. I have not worked with the prof for this course, but I hear she’s awesome. Not only do I get to dive into the history of Criminology again, but go absolutely ham on essay-writing technique and tips. (YOU WILL LEARN TO STACK AN ARGUMENT. I can’t guarantee you will learn to love APA, but you will come to grips with it and develop a personalized checklist with samples of in-text citations and title page contents, in order.)

Lesson 1: Who Are You? (Who who? Who who?)

[Text ID: An antique parody of a double mug shot, in sepia tones. A 23-month-old infant with curly light hair sits in a plain wooden high chair, a winsome expression on his face. He is dressed in a typical child’s white frock of the period with a frilled collar, sleeves and skirts. The first panel is in profile, with the child facing right. The second panel is face-on. The inscription reads: François Bertillon, âgé de 23 mois. 17 - oct - 93.]

This infantile mug shot, now in the MOMA collection, is commonly known as: “François Bertillon, 23 months (Baby, Gluttony, Nibbling All the Pears from a Basket)”

Alphonse Bertillon, a French police officer from the late 1800s, sought to revolutionize criminal identification by statistical means. He developed a system, which he called Bertillonage, of body measurements - anthropometry - that could be tabulated and compared with others, under the assumption that no two people would share the exact same measurements.

Now, this idea was an offshoot of biological determinism, a theory that the body itself predicted behaviour and the state of the mind. Biological determinism was actually a revolution in its day: it represented a split from the previous belief that aberrant behaviour and physical infirmity were proof of demonic influence and a directly-involved God. However, biological determinism, itself an offshoot of Platonic essentialism, led to such notions as Lombroso’s “atavistic”-bodied criminal with a hulking body, a lowered brow and a “stupid stare”, as well as pseudo-science parlour fun like phrenology. Not to mention the blatant eugenicism and superior-more-developed-race blather that still persists in many branches of social sciences.

But two hundred and some years into the European Enlightenment, empirical science was moving slowly towards the acceptance of provable, testable hypotheses based in reason and repetition. So Bertillon reasoned that, if you went about the task scientifically, with enough detail, you ought to be able to prove that no two people had the same bodies, and could therefore be told apart. (And just maybe prove that you could tell a criminal from looking at them.)

But no. The collection of Bertillonage data was incredibly painstaking. Subjects had to have a long series of measurements taken, in the exact same postures, using the same equipment. Then, the subjects were required to have photographs taken, from specific angles: the first mug shots. Bertillion spent years perfecting his photographic system. The above photos of his little nephew François are just one example of Bertillon bringing his whole family into the process - an excuse to combine his work with his hobby of photography and his love of his close-knit family.

(Note the implication here: “My family is the control group, the ideal specimens. Normal people look and behave like us.” When thinking about data, always ask yourself: who’s taking the photographs? Who’s collecting the samples, and from where, and how, and why those samples in particular?)

Bertillonage didn’t take off. People have too many similarities as well as differences, and the human error involved in the measurements and photography was too great. But he did create a stunning longitudinal study of his family and friends over a couple of decades, as well as of local criminals. Here’s François a few years later. Can you see details that persist through out his aging? How would you describe them?

You can see here some of the prescribed measurements in the Bertillonage system - and they didn’t have spreadsheets to look up and compare cases! 

Bertillon’s underlying idea had merit. No two people are exactly alike. Even identical twins develop epigenetic differences over time. Fingerprints form in the womb, with randomized development due to the uterine environment. We can only measure these things with technical tools - low tech like magnifying glasses, high tech like digitized pattern recognition and molecular amplification. But we’ll get to that later.

Before you leave! Your homework this week is to write a description of yourself that is detailed enough that it would help investigators identify your remains. Under 500 words please. Point form is fine. Post to Canvas by midnight Sunday.

[mask131]

The arduous path to French fantasy

If you recall, not too long ago I posted a rough translation of an article by the BNF (National French Library) called "A cosmogony of French fantasy", taking a look at the fantasy genre in French literature. Well I just discovered something that blew my mind.

The journal this article was part of, was actually one of a series of journal-reviews published by the BNF entirely centered around fantasy. The article "Cosmogony" was from the issue centered around "Worldbuilding", but I found another article talking about the history of the fantasy genre in French literature, this time coming from an issue of "BNF - Fantasy" with for theme "Modern success".

So here is the rough translation of: Fantasy in France, a long road... Originally written by Anne Besson

Fantasy has been present in France for numerous decades, but it had to wait until the turn of the 21st century to actually be recognized as its own genre, thanks to the work of fans and of independant publishing houses.

The main reason fantasy arrived quite "late" in French literature was due to a lack of identification. Numerous fantasy works were already published in France for a long time - but there was no specific collections dedicated to fantasy, and the very name "fantasy" wasn't used. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was translated in France in 1972-1973, by the publishing house Christian Bourgois - which is VERY late compared to other European countries, that had done a translating work long before. Other main works of fantasy only came in France under the shadow or as satellites of other literary genres. First, under the fantastique genre, with the collection "Aventures fantastiques" (Fantastical adventures) by Opta, then under the science-fiction genre. [Note: I said it before, but "fantastique" is a genre of French literature centered around a supernatural element arriving into a mundane and realistic setting very similar to our own. Dracula is "fantastique", for example] The works of Jack Vance were translated by the "Club du Livre d'Anticipation" (The Anticipation Book Club), Roger Zelzany's Chronicles of Amber was found originally in "Présence du futur" (Presence of the future), then in "Folio SF". In fact, for a very long time the term "science-fiction" will dominate the French edition, used as a general category for many non-realistic work - even what was identified by the 80s as "heroic fantasy" was named by French editors "science-fiction".

It is only at the end of the 1990s, and at the beginning of the 2000s that the word "fantasy" appeared - it was when specific collections and specialized publishing houses also formed themselves, such as Nestiveqnen or Mnémos, all derived from the editing industry of role-playing games. In 2000, the publishing house Bragelonne will decide to translate the works of David Gemmell and Terry Goodkind, great fantasy authors that hadn't been translated in French yet, and which were massive successes that helped the expansion of the fantasy industry in France.

Fans are definitively those that make fantasy live the most in France. Alongside the fantasy boom of the 90s-2000s, numerous actors appeared in what was called the "micro-edition", a very dynamic but very fragile world. Numerous festivals started popping out everywhere, and fandoms appearing thanks to the Internet became the main sources of information about the genre.

The growing importance of this sector, and the apparition of "experts" of fantasy, is translated by a new care for fantasy as a genre. Numerous classical authors ignored until this point get translated (such as William Morris, by "Aux forges de Vulcain", "In Vulcan's forge"). Numerous "integral" editions are offered by Bragelonne, Pocket or J'ai Lu. You also have several re-translations, offering a new French text closer and more respectful towards the originals (Patrice Louinet reworked on Robert E. Howard, while David Camus offered new H.P. Lovecraft translations, and Daniel Lauzon completely redid the French Tolkien works).

But truly French fantasy works - as in, French-written fantasy works created by francophone authors - were for a long time considered as "secondary" works. Late to the party, they had a hard time imposing themselves among the many translations of English-works. But today, we can consider that the French creation reached a level of "full maturity". In fact, we re-discover today an old French fantasy that had been forgotten by previous generations - Les centaures by André Lichtenberg in 1904, re-edited by the Callidor editions in 2017 ; or the duology Khanaor by Francis Berthelot in 1983. But, again, it was at the end of the 90s that the "New French School" of fantasy appeared, embodied by the trio of Mathieu Gaborit (Les Chroniques des Crépusculaires, 1995-1996, The Chronicles of the Dusk-people), Fabrice Colin (Arcadia, 1998 or Winterheim, 1999-2003) and Henri Loevenbruck (La Moïra, or Gallica, both starting in 2001).

Editors started accepting in their ranks authors with very unique, peculiar or demanding imaginations. Among these specific works we can find the Horde du contrevent (Horde of the counter-wind) by Alain Damasio, in 2004, by the house La Volte, or Jean-Philippe Jaworski's works (Récits du vieux royaume, Tales of the old kingdom, 2007, or Rois du monde, Kings of the world, 2013) in the house Les moutons électriques.

Other independant editors (note: In English I don't know if you can say "indie publishing houses" or if the "indie" term is only applied to video games and animation) also started imposing themselves. Scrinéo published Gabriel Katz, ActuSF published Karim Berrouka, Critic's published Estelle Faye and Lionel Davoust. Finally the "historical" actors of the domain, the "ancients" of the fantasy genre, also started encouraging the growth of French talents: L'Atalante published Régis Goddyn, Mnémos published Adrien Tomas and Charlotte Bousquet. As for Bragelonne they have Pierre Pevel, who is the great example of a fantasy inspired by the old French feuilletons - his Les Enchantements d'Ambremer (The Enchantments of Ambersea, 2003) are inspired by Arsène Lupin, while his Les Lames du Cardinal (The Blades of the Cardinal, 2007), reference and pay homage to Alexandre Dumas. About this last series: it was actually the very first French fantasy series to ever be translated in the United-States!

[radical-revolution]

Suffering exists in “me,” so when you identify “I” with “me,” suffering begins. Attachment begins. Illusion begins. You have identified with a fabrication. Drop the fabrication and you will see that we are, all of us, endowed with a mystical mind and mystical heart. These are faculties that make it possible for us to know God directly, to grasp and intuit Him in His very being . . . apart from all thoughts and concepts and images.

Look at yourself as if you were watching another person, then write down on a piece of paper in brief terms any way you would describe yourself. For example: doctor, lawyer, businessperson, spouse, parent, priest, Catholic, Jew. Anything. See these labels as a phenomenon called “me.”

Then ask yourself, “Who am I without these transient things?”

Now, notice you’ve got “I” observing “me.” Recall how your “me” has changed over time. Understand that what constantly changes is “me.” Next, think of anything that caused or is causing you pain, worry, or anxiety. Pick up the desire under that suffering—that there’s something you desire very keenly or else you wouldn’t be suffering. What is that desire? It isn’t simply a desire; there’s an identification there. You have somehow said to ourself, “The well-being of ‘I’—the existence of ‘I’—is tied up with this desire.

Anthony de Mello

[carolinaaraujo00]

Challenge 2

My dissertation aims to create a digital game in European Portuguese as a means of supporting language therapy for preschool children, both in session and at home. Note that the purpose of this work has been narrowed, from speech and language therapy to language therapy, as a result of further discussions with my advisors, including the therapist.

Speech and language therapy are two separate fields of study, and each subdivides itself into many different areas of intervention, meaning it would not be feasible to aim for a solution that would encompass all areas. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [1], people with a spoken language disorder (SLD) face challenges in acquiring and using language due to difficulties in comprehension and/or production in any, or multiple, of the 5 domains of language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Having little to no prior knowledge about these topics, especially scientifically supported information and data, it is of the utmost importance that preliminary research is conducted about subjects such as:

Spoken language disorders in preschool children;

Different methods used during therapy intervention sessions for preschool children;

Mechanics used in digital games to assist language/speech therapy for preschool children;

Methods used in digital games to best engage preschool children, in order to retain their attention, and enhance the potential for better results;

Methods used in digital games to include the parents of preschool children.

This information will be sourced from scientific literature, such as peer-reviewed studies, and conference papers, but also from conversations with specialists in the field of speech and language therapy for children.

The exploration and understanding of the most relevant studies and theories on these topics, as well as the current context of the problem is, indeed, invaluable. It will be a continuous component of this dissertation, with a heightened focus during the initial stages of the project. This will establish a strong, robust foundation of knowledge, allowing for a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, and, in turn, fuel me with information that can directly be applied to the conceptualization, development, testing and deployment of a possible solution.

The purpose of the game will be to immerse children in a new universe, making therapy not feel like therapy. This will be achieved by delivering intervention exercises as a means of achieving progress in the overall game, for example having to answer correctly to the identification of images to unlock a door and move on to new challenges. There are age-appropriate considerations that need to be taken into account when designing the game, such as the developmental stage of the target audience and how to appeal to them, as explored in Chapter 9 of Digital Storytelling, Tackling Projects for Children [2]. It is, however, yet to be determined if these exercises will encompass all five domains of SLD, or focus on the selection of a few. The Programa de Intervenção em Competências Linguísticas [3] is the only Portuguese-validated program for intervention in the domains of semantics, morphology and syntax, and is currently and habitually used by therapists in sessions. It provides great insight into what types of games and play are employed with preschool children, which will later serve as an inspiration, and moulded to fit a digital game format, used amongst other game mechanics directed towards this age group.

Therefore, this represents an instance of action research, more specifically interactive research, using an interpretive approach. The primary goal is to address a practical issue, specifically the absence of digital game-based resources within the context of Portuguese language therapy for preschool children. This involves taking proactive steps and developing a solution, therefore action research, commencing with a comprehensive and thorough literature review on pertinent subjects to best inform future decision-making for the product. These decisions will be shared with all stakeholders, and their experiences with the product will be assessed, to register, and subsequently analyze, all their input and feedback. If deemed necessary and feasible, adjustments will be made to the product, in order for it to best fit the requirements, perspectives, motivations and expectations of the professional practitioners and the target audience, hence an interpretive approach. This forms a cyclical process, as the product will continually undergo development and improvement phases, thus too, an interactive approach to the development of a solution.

Moreover, considering that the primary objective of this dissertation is not to validate the solution through a case study, but rather to introduce a solution validated by the stakeholders actively engaged in the process, it paves the way for potential future research with an explanatory focus, as other researchers may be interested in assessing the potential impact of my work.

References

[1] Spoken Language Disorders, Publisher: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. [Online]. Available: https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/spoken-language-disorders/ (visited on 10/20/2023). [2] C. H. Miller, Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment. USA: Taylor & Francis, 2004, ISBN: 0-240-80510-0. [3] M. Lousada, M. Ramalho, and C. Marques, Programa de Intervenção em Competências Linguísticas. Universidade de Aveiro, 2015.