#Parental involvement in virtual learning

[greenthestral]

COVID-19 Pandemic: Unraveling the Global Learning Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on the world, disrupting economies, healthcare systems, and everyday life. One of the most significant areas affected by this unprecedented global crisis is education. With schools closing their doors to prevent the spread of the virus, the world has witnessed the deepening of a global learning crisis. The pandemic's impact on education has been profound, exacerbating existing inequalities and creating new challenges for learners, educators, and policymakers worldwide. In this article, we will delve into the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the global learning crisis and explore potential strategies to address these pressing issues.

The Disruption of Education During the Pandemic

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic in early 2020, governments worldwide swiftly implemented strict measures to curb the virus's spread. One of the most crucial measures was the closure of educational institutions. Overnight, classrooms turned into virtual learning environments, and educators had to adapt rapidly to online teaching methods.

While some countries were better equipped to transition to online education, others faced significant challenges due to a lack of infrastructure and access to technology. The digital divide became more pronounced as students from low-income families or remote regions struggled to keep up with their studies. As a result, millions of children and young adults were left without access to education, further exacerbating the global learning crisis.

Widening Educational Inequalities

The pandemic has widened existing educational inequalities worldwide. Students from privileged backgrounds with access to reliable internet connections, laptops, and private tutors were better equipped to continue their education remotely. On the other hand, students from marginalized communities often lacked the necessary resources to participate in online learning effectively.

Furthermore, learners with disabilities faced additional barriers, as many online platforms were not designed to accommodate their specific needs. This disparity in access to quality education has the potential to have far-reaching consequences, as it perpetuates social and economic inequalities for generations to come.

Learning Loss and the Educational Gap

Extended school closures and disrupted learning routines have resulted in significant learning loss for many students. Studies have shown that prolonged absences from the traditional classroom setting can lead to a decline in academic performance and cognitive development.

Moreover, the pandemic has created an educational gap between different age groups. Early childhood education, a critical developmental phase, has been severely impacted, potentially affecting children's long-term cognitive and social-emotional development. Similarly, older students faced the stress of delayed examinations, college admissions, and uncertainty about their future prospects.

Mental Health Impact on Students and Educators

The pandemic's toll on mental health has been considerable, impacting both students and educators. The abrupt shift to remote learning and the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic have caused stress, anxiety, and feelings of isolation among students. Many have struggled to cope with the challenges of online learning and the absence of social interactions with peers.

Educators, too, have faced unprecedented pressures, adapting to new teaching methods, dealing with technological challenges, and juggling personal responsibilities amidst the pandemic. The resulting burnout and fatigue among teachers have affected the overall quality of education and student support.

Solutions to Mitigate the Global Learning Crisis

While the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated the global learning crisis, there are several strategies that policymakers, educators, and communities can adopt to address these challenges and build a more resilient education system:

1. Bridging the Digital Divide

Governments and educational institutions must prioritize bridging the digital divide to ensure all students have equal access to quality education. This can be achieved through initiatives that provide laptops, tablets, or internet connectivity to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Additionally, investing in the development of educational content optimized for low-tech devices can increase accessibility for students with limited resources.

2. Blended Learning Approaches

Blended learning, a combination of online and in-person instruction, can offer a flexible and inclusive approach to education. This approach allows for personalized learning experiences while maintaining the benefits of face-to-face interactions with teachers and peers. By incorporating digital tools and resources into the curriculum, educators can cater to diverse learning styles and individual needs.

3. Teacher Training and Professional Development

Empowering teachers with the necessary skills and tools to adapt to changing circumstances is crucial. Comprehensive training in online teaching methodologies and the use of technology in education can enhance the quality of remote learning. Moreover, providing ongoing professional development opportunities can help teachers stay motivated and engaged, ultimately benefiting their students' learning outcomes.

4. Prioritizing Early Childhood Education

Recognizing the significance of early childhood education, governments should prioritize resources for early learning programs. Investing in early childhood education can have a profound impact on children's cognitive and social development, setting them on a path to success in later years.

5. Strengthening Support Systems

To address the mental health challenges faced by students and educators, it is essential to establish robust support systems within educational institutions. Counseling services, peer support groups, and mental health awareness programs can create a nurturing and empathetic learning environment.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has indeed deepened a global learning crisis, affecting millions of learners around the world. The disruption of education, widening educational inequalities, learning loss, and the mental health impact on students and educators have posed significant challenges to the education sector.

However, by implementing innovative strategies such as bridging the digital divide, adopting blended learning approaches, prioritizing teacher training, investing in early childhood education, and strengthening support systems, we can begin to mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic on education.

As we navigate the path to recovery, it is vital for governments, educators, parents, and communities to come together and work collaboratively towards building a more resilient and inclusive education system that can withstand future challenges. Only through collective efforts can we ensure that every child has access to a quality education, regardless of the circumstances they may face. Let us seize this opportunity to reshape education for a brighter and more equitable future.

What's In It For Me? (WIIFM)

In this blog article on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on education, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of how the global learning crisis has deepened in the wake of this unprecedented health crisis. Discover the challenges faced by students, educators, and policymakers, and explore effective strategies to address these issues. Learn about the widening educational inequalities, learning loss, and the mental health impact on learners and teachers. Moreover, find practical solutions and actionable steps to contribute to building a more resilient and inclusive education system for a brighter future.

Call to Action (CTA)

Join us in addressing the global learning crisis deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Share this article with your friends, family, and colleagues to spread awareness about the challenges faced by learners and educators worldwide. Engage in discussions about the importance of equitable access to quality education and the need for innovative solutions. Support initiatives that bridge the digital divide, prioritize early childhood education, and promote teacher training and professional development. Together, let's work towards building a stronger and more sustainable education system that can withstand future challenges.

Blog Excerpt

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on education globally, deepening a pre-existing learning crisis. With schools closing their doors to curb the virus's spread, millions of students were left without access to education, exacerbating existing educational inequalities. This blog article delves into the far-reaching consequences of the pandemic on learners, educators, and communities. Discover how the sudden shift to remote learning widened the educational gap and led to learning loss among students. Uncover the mental health challenges faced by learners and teachers during these uncertain times. But, more importantly, explore actionable solutions to mitigate the global learning crisis and build a more resilient and inclusive education system.

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Discover how the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the global learning crisis. Explore its impact on education, widening inequalities, learning loss, and mental health challenges. Learn actionable strategies to address these issues and build a more resilient education system. Join us in shaping a brighter future.

[call-me-strega]

Ghost Selkie AU Tidbit: Abuela Soliña

I’m still playing with my Ghost Selkie Au, tossing it around like a cat toy trying to decide if and how to write it and one figure that I’ve kinda developed a backstory for is Abuela Soliña. Now said backstory may never see the light of day in the the main story so I thought this’d be a fun tidbit to throw out while I’m still considering the main story overall.

Okay so my inspo for Abuela Soliña, or Señora Mariana Soliña, actually came from a couple of different sources. I took some of the general headcanon from the DCU; Crime Alley has a large population of people of color, specifically Hispanic in the area Jason lived; that Jason has Hispanic heritage; that some of the older women in the alley occasionally feed street kids; and took them to create a person that would be a maternal figure for Jason bc I’m all for giving him Good Adult Influences.

She functions a bit as a plot device taking up the role of Jason’s magical mentor and helps move the story along. However, I wanted to give her more depth so I based her off an actual figure in Spanish history. Once I had decided a witch was the best magical figure to live in Gotham and guide Jason I actually did a bit of research on famous Brujas in folklore and came across María Soliña/Soliño a famous witch from Galicia who inspired the women of her village to fend off Ottoman raiders and survived the Spanish Inquisition without being burned at the stake. She was the main inspiration and namesake of Abuela Mariana Soliña. She did have children, though not much is known about them, so I wanted it to be implied that Mariana was a descendant of María. I wanna say I’m placing her around age 50 when she first met Jason and 65-ish(?) when he returned to Gotham.

Anyways, like I said I didn’t want her to remain a plot device and actually have depth so I kinda started building a backstory for her. Her grandparents or parents were likely immigrants who moved to Gotham from Galicia, Spain back when the city was younger. Back then the different magical communities were a bit more segregated. Vampires stayed clans with vamp doctors and leaders, gargoyles in their own community, fae in their courts, etc., but she did let that stop her. She was always deeply involved in the inter-magical community and was a central figure due to her interest in learning other supernatural cultures of the city.

She eventually grew up to be a full-fledged bruja who sold her magical remedies, charms, potions, etc to any supernatural being willing to pay her. This actually helped her amass a large amount of wealth quickly, especially when her charms, totems, and remedies caught the eyes of superstitious crime bosses across the city. She always insisted to cover her face with a shawl to protect her anonymity and had several mob bosses sign magical contracts agreeing to protect her and her rights to do business thus making her virtually untouchable in the Alley.

I wanted her to be a very strong influence on Jason. She is very strong, sassy, confident, clever, and street smart and taught Jason some of those traits. She actually meets Jason through Catherine. Mariana had many close friends with children though she herself never married. Catherine was actually the daughter of one of her close friends and Mariana was like an aunt to her. When her friend died and Catherine was left on the streets Mariana did what she could but her fear and unreadiness for motherhood held her back.

Catherine was taken in by her uncle’s family and the two were estranged for a time. In that time she falls into addiction due to her uncles on involvement in drug running as well as bad peer influences. She reunites with her Tía Mariana when she marries Willis and reaches out to invite her to the wedding. Even though they are no longer very close, after Catherine becomes pregnant Mariana offers to help out when she can. She lives in a different (read: magical) part of the Alley so she only sees Jason occasionally but makes a point to feed him, and when he discovers her secret, to teach him some basics of the supernatural world to help him get by.

After Catherine’s death Abuela Soliña is distraught. She offers Jason a hot meal and some money she had set aside (Catherine’s old college fund she never got a chance to use) but hesitated to offer a place in her home so soon after the loss. Jason sees her grief and hesitation, mistakenly assuming it’s unwillingness to deal with him full time and runs off. She tries to invite him back a couple of times but he mistakes it as one off events and remains a street kid until Bruce adopts him.

He still occasionally goes back to the Alley to visit her after that, usually as Robin. The first time he went to let her know he was okay she immediately clocked him as Jason but wished him well with Bruce. When he visits she still feeds him and gives him luck and protection charms to help with crime fighting. (Side Note: on one of his visits Jason finds out the Alfred and Mariana know each other and Have Met Before™️. Neither explains how or why)

When Jason dies Mariana grieves him deeply. When he comes back as a revenant she is both relieved and guilty. She’s happy to have the boy back but a revenant’s existence is not a peaceful one. When he searches her up and comes to see her he looks like he’s survived hell and back and he probably has. He seek out her guidance and help and this time Abuela Soliña is more than willing to pass on her vast wealth of knowledge of the supernatural community and its cultures to Jason.

One of the biggest two regrets Mariana holds with her is not adopting Catherine or Jason when they were at their lowest and she had the chance. That’s why as Jason’s rage cools and he begins looking to return to a (semi-)normal life she offers to adopt him as her grandson for real this time. She has a friend who owes her a favor and can fabricate the paper work to turn Jason Peter Todd into Jason “Pedro” Solina (and his mother posthumously Catherine Soliña-Todd). She offers to officially make him her little witchling and he emotionally accepts.

Mariana is still an active and well-known figure in Gotham’s underworld and supernatural community so having her backing gives Red Hood a lot of pull and credibility. Plus his revenant titles increase his claim to fame in the magical community. Red Hood is well loved and “Pedro” is well accepted with in the community. He’s kind of a public figure, bordering minor celebrity due to his connection to famous Bruja and witch doctor, Mariana Soliña. Not that he is aware of that fact.

Lastly I’m gonna tack on some nicknames Jason receives pertaining to his connection with Señora Soliña:

Soliña’s boy (el chico de Soliña)

Little witchling

Pequeño niño brujo or pequeño brujo (little witch boy)

Young brujo

El neito guapo (the handsome grandson)

Alborotador (troublemaker)

Heredero (heir/inheritor, referring to Mariana’s kowledge, wealth, and position in the community)

(P.S I tried my hand at drawing what I think Abuela Soliña would look like but I’m not super confident in it. I think I’m a better writer than drawer, but if you guys actually wanna see the drawing anyway let me know and I’ll make another post with it)

[theliterarywolf]

Hey, you don't think that future generations are royally fucked, do you? I mean, is it really too late to educate our kids for the real world. I sure hope not.

It depends on several factors, really: the school a teen goes to, the teachers a teen has, and parental/guardian involvement.

Because, look at me: before getting hired at my current virtual teaching job, I was at a private school that crowed about presenting opportunities and strict tech-focused curriculum for disenfranchised students.

The wi-fi would go out every other hour, the school didn't have enough computers for the students, and teachers (myself mostly) were constantly told that our curriculum was 'too hard'.

When, in actuality, it was just trying to get students used to meeting the technical length for a paragraph (200 words).

And then, of course, parents and guardians have to take some initiative with their students' learning; I'm sorry, even the most passionate educator can only do so much in the few hours a day they have with kids when they're just going to go home and have none of the parameters established in school reinforced at home.

There's a reason why there's the growing schism between educators and parents/guardians: because the prior's core job is supposed to be educating and preparing students' with applicable career and citizenship skills. Yet too many parents, particularly in the U.S., send their students to school thinking that it's basically government-sponsored babysitting.

So, of course, that schism has allowed the lazier of administrations and educators to come in, throw their hands into the air, and say 'well, the kids don't care anyway; why not just let them use ChatGPT and AI and just push them along to the next grade?'

Because, the way that things are going, the young adults graduating out of American high schools in the coming years aren't going to have half of the rudimentary skills that young adults graduated with ten years ago, allowing job gaps that will gladly be occupied by foreign graduates, and then the ouroboros of 'all the good jobs keep going to foreigners' will continue so on and forever ad nauseum.

[sp1cy-t0ss]

Astrobleme

Antares is officially a series! This one is pure fluff.

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49804744

‘Cuddling,’ Damian muses, is a more nuanced activity than he had thought as a child. There are a staggering variety of ways to do it, but he has found his favorite. 

People are often clingy when they hug, squeezing even if they try to rein in the impulse. It could be tolerated, even enjoyed, from anyone allowed to survive the attempt, but sudden restriction of his movements and tight pressure could still bring a vague sense of unease if he wasn’t prepared.

Danny, as in most things, is different. He is more than content to nestle into Damian’s arms like he has always belonged there, simply soaking in the affection as though there’s no safer place in the world.

At the moment Danny is curled up against him, head on his shoulder as they lay on the ground somewhere in Midwestern America to stargaze. It’s not something Damian ever thought of doing in the past, but his companion makes all the difference.

Danny speaks of space with wide-eyed passion, rambling excitedly about the properties of each planet, achievements in exploration, and how this sky’s constellations vary from those in his own dimension. It’s hard to keep up at times, but his enthusiasm is infectious and endearing. It’s impossible to watch Danny’s eyes light up and not share in his wonder.

Damian’s favorite part of stargazing, however, is the stories. The night sky is a tapestry of myths and legends, and Danny seems to know them all by heart. He weaves their tales with a softer, almost reverent tone, eyes on the sky throughout. On those nights, he can hypnotize for hours.

“Antares, can I ask you something?” Danny’s gaze is fixed on the sky, as it has been for two hours now, but a subtle tension in his face betrays his nerves.

“Of course.”

Danny steels himself with a deep breath. “Iwantyoutobiteme.” 

The words come out more like a bullet than a sentence, and are just as unexpected. Surely Damian heard wrong. Surely. 

“What?”

Danny looks away, clearly mortified. “That’s my question. If you would...bite me.  I swear I can explain.” 

The mental image is admittedly captivating. Very captivating. He would make the most beautiful sounds...damn it, focus! Careful to let none of these idiotic thoughts show, Damian allows himself a raised eyebrow. “I did hear you correctly then. Why?”

Danny rolls over on his side to look at him.

“You know how I spent a few months in the Realms before I came here?” At Damian’s nod, he continues. “Well, um. I learned ghosts have a thing about scars. They’re memories, you know? We only get scars when there’s a lot of emotion involved.” He drags a hand down his face and groans. “You already know that, why am I telling you?” 

He did. It was why his Beloved still bore faint burns from his so-called parents’ weapons.

“You may tell me again, if it will help,” Damian says patiently as he places a careful hand on Danny’s cheek. Danny does much of his on-the-fly thinking out loud, and this is clearly important to him.

Danny gives him a grateful look and relaxes into the touch. He takes a fortifying breath. “Right, right. Memories. And, well, most of those suck. Obviously. So ghosts will mark their best friends, their families, and…partners. Like tattoos, I guess. And...I want one from you. A memory that doesn’t hurt.”

Damian’s eyes widen in shock. They both enjoy the occasional teasing nip, but deliberate scarification is miles beyond that. The idea of irreversibly marking his Beloved, of injuring him to do so, is antithetical. He can’t.

And yet…an indisputable claim. A symbol of their bond that nothing could take away. His more possessive instincts virtually sing at the idea.

He needs more information. “...And a human can do this?”

Danny nods. “You’re liminal enough that it should work. But you wouldn’t be able to channel ectoplasm through a weapon like most ghosts do. You’d have to…bite. Maybe scratch, that might work.”

“I didn’t get to do it with my fraid before I left,” he admits. “We didn’t know about the…ritual, Dad calls it. Even if we had, everything happened so suddenly and...” Danny wilts at the unspoken memories.

“Are you certain you want my mark? It would be permanent,” Damian cautions. His Beloved can be so impulsive, after all.

“I know. I’ve thought about it for months, ever since our anniversary, and…even if Clockwork is wrong about us, even if we break up tomorrow…” Danny briefly looks pained, but he shakes it off with burning eyes. “I want to remember this.”

Damian suppresses a shiver at his conviction. The question is, does he want this? It seems a drastic act less than two years into a relationship. His rational mind wants to hesitate. 

But…

A vigilante’s life is one of constant danger. Any ordinary day might tear him away from his family, his friends, this ridiculous boy who has stolen his heart. Even if he never falls in battle, Damian is only human, only mortal. His love, with any luck, will live for centuries or more. 

The odds of becoming a ghost upon death are high in his circumstances, but there is no guarantee.

The pure hope shining in Danny’s eyes makes the decision for him. He cannot leave him behind. “So do I,” he finally says. “How will we do this?” 

Damian is rewarded with a smile that could end wars. He can’t help but return it.

Danny sits up on his knees and braces himself with his arms, practically vibrating with anticipation. “It’s pretty simple. Dad says you just make the mark, and I…concentrate on you. How I feel.” He mumbles the last bit, embarrassed. “It’ll take a bit for the mark to settle though, so I’ll be out of it for a few minutes. Just let me come back on my own.”

Damian nods his understanding. “And where do you want it?” 

“My wrist,” Danny says with no hesitation. “I want to see it all the time. ” Oh, it isn’t fair what those words do to him. Danny knows it too, if the glint in his eyes means anything. He transforms with a grin, but it fades in favor of a blush as he presents his upturned wrist.

Struck by inspiration, Damian drops to one knee as if proposing and lifts the offered wrist to his lips. Danny lets out an embarrassed meep at the gesture, as planned, but Damian isn’t done. A moment like this requires an appropriate vow.

“My eternity is yours, my love.” With that, he presses a gentle kiss against Danny’s pulse point, and bites down.

Cool flesh easily parts under his teeth, and he drags thick lines lengthwise another inch or so up Danny’s arm. The electric, almost citric flavor of ectoplasm fills his mouth. It tastes…good, contrary to his expectations, and he swallows the liquid on impulse before withdrawing.

For the finishing touch, Damian uses a fingernail to carve a thinner line back across the same skin in a simple, elegant flourish. It won’t do to have an identifiably human bite mark carry over to Danny’s human form, so an obscuring element will help disguise its origin. Perhaps more importantly, he has a point to make. After all, his Dove deserves only the best.

When the mark is complete, Danny gasps. He stares forward with eyes wholly consumed by green light, unresponsive. as though in a trance. A rumble of love-mine-excited-happy-LOVE radiates from him with startling strength, far beyond the rare faint impressions Damian is accustomed to from his Beloved. The ritual itself is all but forgotten as he basks in the emotions.

A ghost’s ability to project and sense emotions seemed like a glaring weakness at first. An aura cannot lie, and thus is a double-edged sword. Damian held that opinion, at least until an otherwise typical date nearly brought him to his knees when he sensed Danny’s emotions. 

Feeling his new partner’s contentment, security, and honest affection toward him was… humbling. Addictive. 

(He’s certain it always will be.)

After nearly ten minutes, Danny’s eyes dim and he blinks dazedly at his bleeding wrist. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, expression euphoric as he admires the wound. Though the scene is odd, knowing that he brought his partner this happiness brings Damian a rush of pride and warmth.

“Did it work?” he asks.

Danny faces him, his smile definitely beyond human limits now. “Yeah! See?” He shoves his wrist into Damian’s face once more.

Indeed, the wound looks as though it’s been healed for weeks. Raised lines stand out proudly from Danny’s skin with a faint silvery sheen. The only oddity is how wide the scar still is, as if something prevented normal human flesh from properly knitting together. 

“Beautiful,” Damian hears himself whisper as he trails a finger down the marks. And they really are; his signature, right there for all to see on this most precious of things. The knowledge sits like embers in his chest, crackling with satisfaction.

Danny preens at the comment, and Damian realizes he can still feel the echoes of love-proud-mine from his Beloved. Perhaps it’s an effect of the scarification process.

Eventually Danny clears his throat. “Normally we’d both get one. But I know you can’t have identifying things like big scars, so I got you something instead.” 

He reaches into his chest cavity and pulls out a black ribbon, carefully placing it in Damian’s hand. Closer inspection reveals the ribbon to be a silk choker, deep black and inlaid with gems that sparkle like nothing Damian has ever seen, in the exact green of Danny’s eyes. Deeper green thread connects the gems in a familiar shape: the Scorpius constellation.

“Crystallized ectoplasm,” Danny explains. “I made them from my own ‘plasm, so they have my ectosignature. Humans won’t know what it means, but ghosts and liminals will.” He gives a proud grin.

While Damian processes that, however, nerves rapidly encroach on Danny’s enthusiasm. His smile falls. “You don’t have to! I brought normal emeralds if that’s creepy! Unless–”

Damian hooks the choker into place, cutting off Danny’s fretting. The ribbon is exquisitely soft, flush against his neck without pressing into it. No one would be able to grab it in a fight, and the silk glides comfortingly across his skin as he turns his head. With a little focus, he can feel a faint chill from the gems.

It feels like home.

Damian finds himself fighting back watery eyes before speaking. A roughness in his voice still betrays him. 

“I will treasure it. Thank you, Dove.”

Danny still makes no attempt to hide his own tears, pressing his forehead to Damian’s and wrapping him in a hug. It’s tight this time, but eagerly reciprocated. 

“Thanks, Daylight. I love you so much.” The words are mumbled into his neck, and he meets them with a silent kiss to the half-ghost’s forehead. As their embrace loosens, Damian feels his Beloved slump against him. It seems the ritual is taxing on ghosts, and he feels himself flagging slightly as well. Carefully, he sets Danny on the ground and settles into a spooning position. It’s a warm spring night and there’s not a soul around for miles; they can rest here for a while.

It’s not surprising when Danny starts purring. He tends to lose control of the function while dozing – one of his many endearing quirks. 

What startles them both into waking is the other purr that sounds out to answer it. 

The boys bolt upright, cutting off the quiet rumble in Damian’s throat. Neither says anything for a long moment. Then Damian sighs. “We have to tell your father, don’t we.” It’s not a question. Gods only know what this means in terms of his growing liminality, no matter the cause.

Danny falls backward again with a groan. At the same time, his aura flares with abject mortification. “Oh Ancients, we have to tell him you bit me.”

“How dreadful,” Damian snarks. “I’m the one with five siblings that already call me a vampire.”

Danny laughs. “Good point– You’re totally screwed. Remind me to stock up on garlic, bee-tee-dubs.”

Damian glares without heat. “You’re the worst, Winters.”

“Oh yeah? Do you vant to suck my bluud about it?” Danny taunts, wiggling his fingers and hissing for effect.

A deep, theatrical sigh. “Pennyworth must cease feeding you after midnight.”

From there they settle into familiar bickering, but most of Damian’s mind is on other things. Tonight was a milestone, marking a stronger bond between them, yet it also feels like nothing has changed. He can’t bring himself to fear the future like Danny does, fully convinced they will be together forever. One day Danny will truly believe their happiness will last. Perhaps not someday soon, but Damian can wait.

He touches the ribbon around his neck, feeling pure devotion radiate from the glittering gems, and smiles.

After all, we have eternity.

[merymoonbeam]

Fionn

CC3 spoilers

in my wild hunt post I theorized that High King Fionn wasn't dead but was sleeping because Sarah loves to take inspo from the myths and in myths it says that he is sleeping in a cave.

According to the most popular account of Fionn's death, he is not dead at all, rather, he sleeps in a cave, surrounded by the Fianna. One day he will awake and defend Ireland in the hour of her greatest need. In one account, it is said that he will arise when the Dord Fiann, the hunting horn of the Fianna, is sounded three times, and he will be as strong and as well as he ever was.

and after hofas and what we learned about his "death" I went to find more. (that research paper about fionn's death)

we have different version's of his supposed death in myths.

This slight text unites three elements that recur, singly or in combination, in virtually all accounts of Finn's death; hence it could be argued that most versions of the death of Finn descend from the Aided Finn tradition. These are: 1.the leap (that is, Finn's death occurred when he failed to complete a jump across a stretch of water); 2.the Luigne (that is, the Luigne Temra were involved in Finn's death, often decapitating him); 3.the drink (that is, the act of drinking from an adarc or of drinking a poisoned drink caused or hastened Finn's death).92

when you take a look at the leap cause...it involves a fairy lover.

In these two accounts, although the depth of detail and the source length are different, the same narrative core is to be found: Finn trysts with the fairy lover of a character called Taoileachd mac Chuiligeadan. When Taoileachd discovers this, rather than having the two come to blows, the fairy lover makes a judgment that whoever best performs a leap will be the man she chooses. Both accomplish the forward leap and Taoileachd then challenges Finn to make the leap back. Taoileachd accomplishes the leap but Finn does not. Finn falls into the lake whereupon Taoileachd decapitates him.

Theia was Fionn's lover.

My mother and father, Fionn, had kept their love a secret through the years, knowing the Daglan would find it amusing to tear them apart if they learned of the affair. But they were able to meet in secret—and to plan their uprising.(hofas)

and there is that his age played a role in his death.

Finn's death either singly or in smaller groups, e.g. that his death occurred as a consequence of or was closely associated with a leap, that he was decapitated, that he died at a river or other body of water, and that his age played a role in the event.

Theia killed fionn bc she thought the right to rule was hers and fionn was getting old.

After centuries with an empty womb, my mother bore both my sister and me within a span of five years. My father was fading by then—he was centuries older than my mother. But Fionn did not consider my mother a worthy successor. The crown should go to the eldest child, he said—to my sister, Helena. It was time, he thought, for a new generation to lead. It did not sit well with my mother, or with many of those in her court— especially her general, Pelias. He agreed with my mother that Helena was too young to inherit our father’s throne. But my mother was still in her prime. Still ripe with power, and it was clear that she’d been blessed by the gods themselves, since she had been gifted children at long last.(hofas)

and his death by a body of water.

The image shifted to some sort of marsh—a bog. Fionn rode a horse between the islands of grass, bow at the ready as he ducked beneath trees in bloom. My parents often went hunting in the vast slice of land the Daglan had kept for their private game park, where they had crafted terrible monsters to serve as worthy prey. It was there that he met his death. A dark-haired, pale creature that could have been the relative of the nøkk in Jesiba’s gallery dragged a bound and gagged Fionn into the inky depths of the bog, the once-proud king screaming as he went under. Horror rooted Bryce to the spot. Theia and Pelias stood at the water’s edge, faces impassive. Petals began falling from the trees. Leaves with them. Birds took flight. As if sudden winter gripped the bog. As if the land had died with its king.(hofas)

so as you can see...it fits well with how fionn "died" in the myths to how it is described in the book. He died bc of a fairy lover, in a body of water.

now coming back to his "not being dead"

supposedly fionn is buried atop a mountain and there are stones.

'Shee-Mór and Shee-Beag' (D1) says that Finn is buried atop a mountain, this time Shee Beag in Co. Limerick, where a giant lived and in which giants throwing stones feature, while 'Old Irish Tales/Cavan1' (D19) informs us that Finn is supposedly buried under a stone on Ardkill Mountain, but because 'he is supposed to have been buried under so many stones that it is hard to say which he is buried under.'

I theorized in my wild hunt post that it could be Ramiel and that's why it was sacred to them. and I found this.

The location of the grave is sometimes combined with a feature of the landscape known as Suidhe Finn or Seefin, a placename for a hill or high ground in which hunting is usually good; such sites are readily associated with Finn, the fían, and their hunting exploits in literature and folklore.70 Association of elevated places called Suidhe Finn may have led to the association of further hills and mountains with the fían, as we see above with Murmod hill, or the stone features which were easily incorporated into giant lore may have been the original reason for such associations. Both could have easily played a role in these places becoming associated with Finn's grave.

hunting? blood rite? fianna the warriors of fionn in myths is also connected with a rite.

Scholars believe the fian was a rite of passage into manhood, and have linked fianna with similar young warrior bands in other early European cultures.

and this is blood rite?

“What’s the Blood Rite?” “What it sounds like.” He rubbed his neck. “When an Illyrian warrior comes into his full power, usually in his twenties, he has to go through the Blood Rite before he can qualify as a full warrior and adult. Would-be warriors from every clan and village get sent in, usually three or four from each—all of them scattered across an area in the Illyrian Mountains. We’re left there for a week with two goals: survival, and making it to Ramiel.”(acosf)

so....is Fionn really buried under Ramiel?

[nashishishi]

i've seen a lot of theories about what the virtual singers signify to each character. the two main theories i've been seeing are that they're either symbolic of what the members of the sekai need to grow, or are just milestones of their growth and/or their desires. i'm not quite sure which camp i fall into personally, but i do think both theories are really interesting. especially since, when you think about it, what do the wonderlands x showtime virtual singers signify?

first of all, we have miku. miku is a bubbly younger sister type character. she's curious about everything, thinks everything is wonderful and amazing, and she literally has stars in her eyes all the time. she talks in onomatopoeias and is high energy. she was part of the sekai when tsukasa first discovered it.

then we have kaito. kaito is a parental/older sibling figure. he takes care of the plushies in the sekai, takes care of the other virtual singers, takes care of the unit members, and basically takes care of the sekai as a whole. he's shown bits of being a workaholic as well. he was also part of the sekai when tsukasa discovered it.

next is len. len is curious about anything he finds interesting. he's willing to learn from others, constantly spouts about how cool everyone is, and is always looking for ways to improve himself in the things he likes doing. he manifests right after the main wxs story ends, but only makes his actual first appearance in the story during "It's On! Wonder Halloween!".

after that is meiko. her characterization is the trickiest. she seems to be a "supporting role" kind of person, happy to be on the sidelines helping out, instead if being the center of attention. she first appears in "On This Holy Night, I Sing".

next is rin. she "completes" len, in that she's curious about her friends. she always wants to learn more things about them so they can be better friends. she first appears in "Musical Twilight Parade" (which isn't actually a wxs-centric event but they are there).

and last but not least is luka. she's always sleeping. she's said to sleep when everyone is happy, because she can rest knowing everyone is doing well. she appears during the "Doll Festival at the Tenma's" event (which is a tenma siblings centric event).

so. what do they symbolize? well, the easiest ones are len and rin.

like i said, len first manifests right after the main story of wxs, and him being curious of things he finds interesting could be symbolic of tsukasa actually making new friends after like. a decade. which i WILL get back to.

it works with both theories. tsukasa needs to be more curious to get his friends to open up/get himself to open up to his friends, but it could also signify tsukasa Actually Being Curious About His Friends. he's never known anyone like emu, or rui, or nene, so he wants to get to know them and what they do. it also fits that len's first proper appearance was during the halloween event (or, if you remember events by the songs, the Becoming Potatoes event), because that's the same event where tsukasa gets injured by one of rui's robots, rui shuts down, and tsukasa has to reassure him that it's okay.

rin is basically the same. she's symbolic of love, care, and curiosity for her friends. i haven't read the twilight parade story in full, so i'm not exactly sure how she ties into the story, but it makes sense that she'd show up then, because right before her was meiko.

SPEAKING OF MEIKO! meiko is also relatively easy to figure out. like i said, she's a "supporting role". there to help out when needed, not to take the lead. it makes sense that she'd show up during the christmas event because the event isn't tsukasa-centric. it largely doesn't involve him. but meiko is also loving and caring and, as i said before, supportive. she's symbolic of always wanting to help and support friends, even if from a distance. tsukasa reflects this by complimenting nene in the event, often saying things like "that's our diva!" and such.

again, this works in both theories. nene needed support and, seeing this and (likely) wanting to help (idk like i said he isn't shown much lol), meiko manifested. but she could also be symbolic of how tsukasa has grown past his earlier actions in the main story, where he yells at nene for messing up the show. meiko is a symbol of how he's come to care for her, and genuinely wants to help her.

luka is. a bit trickier. as i said, she sleeps when everyone is happy. that means, if she's wide awake, someone is upset. she first appears in the doll festival event which is. worrying.

in the doll festival event, tsukasa misinterprets a memory from his childhood. when he was younger, he wanted to give his little sister saki these 2 dolls, but on his way to the hospital, he trips and ruins them. when he shows them to saki, she cries. he misinterprets this to mean that she hates him for it, when in reality she was touched by the gesture.

luka's appearance in an event like this is... concerning, because tsukasa is also shown as a bit of a workaholic at times (kinda like kaito). he doesn't stop until he reaches his goal, and even then, he quickly moves on to an even greater goal. this means, depending on which theory we're following, luka could either signify

a.) how tsukasa needs to rest every once in a while. how he doesn't need to shoulder everything on his own. how he's Allowed to Rest When Everyone's Happy. or

b.) how tsukasa FINALLY LEARNS EVERYTHING IN A.

so then. we get to the last 2. the duo that had been there from the very start. miku and kaito.

miku and kaito are kind of polar opposites. one is bouncy and bubbly and full of energy, while the other is calm and collected. one is a playful little sister figure, while the other is a responsible older brother or parental figure.

i want to briefly talk about another theory (or rather, headcanon), separate from this, that has become quite popular lately: the theory that miku and whoever else was there since the discovery of the sekai has been there since the unit members were children. i mention this theory because...

miku is a little sibling. she thinks everything is wonderful. she thinks everything is amazing. she literally has stars in her eyes.

she could have only been made when tsukasa was a child because, depending on the theory, she's either:

a.) a manifestation of how tsukasa needs to let loose and have fun and enjoy life like a kid would?? (which doesn't make sense bc of kaito)

b.) a manifestation of either tsukasa's childlike wonder, tsukasa's Want to experience childlike wonder, and/or his want to spend more time with saki

and kaito is an older brother/parental figure. he's responsible. he's calm and collected. he's cool. so depending on the theory, he's either:

a.) a manifestation of tsukasa needing to be a reliable/responsible older brother figure for everyone around him (which is worrying)

b.) tsukasa's need for a parental unit in his life, or tsukasa's desire to be seen as a reliable older brother figure (Which Are Both Worrying (seeing as kaito seems to be a workaholic and tsukasa has also been shown to be a workaholic as well!!))

which brings me to my next point: the designs of some of the virtual singers.

miku, rin, and luka are designed a bit specially in comparison to the others. they all have elements of animals in them, implying their designs are supposed to resemble plushies. (which makes sense considering how many "fluffy" elements and pompoms they have in comparison to all the other characters.) miku is a cat plushie, rin is a bunny plushie, and luka is a sheep plushie. but.

why?

why is miku, the embodiment of childlike wonder, a plushie?

why is rin, the embodiment of excitement and love and care for friends, a plushie?

why is luka, the embodiment of resting well knowing everyone is happy and healthy, a plushie?

actually, why are plushies way more important to tsukasa than they ever were to saki?

tsukasa's sekai is all made of things he made for SAKI, right? all of the things, from the giant train in the sky to the singing flowers, were for SAKI, right?

but saki barely ever mentions it in her story. in fact, it only ever comes up when TSUKASA is involved. saki sees them as nothing more than toys, meanwhile tsukasa has personified them. it may just be because of his sekai, but let's not forget...

while these were SAKI'S plushies, they were also TSUKASA'S co-stars. they were with him when he put on all those shows for saki in the hospital. they were with him when the plushies were brought back home.

and what else is a lonely little boy at home, with no family and no friends, supposed to do, other than to anthropomorphize inanimate objects to keep him company.

suddenly, we have a reason why miku, the embodiment of childlike wonder, is a Plushie. we have a reason why luka, the embodiment of being able to Rest now that Everyone is Happy, is a Plushie. we have a reason why rin, the embodiment of the Excitement of Friendship, is a Plushie.

because tsukasa's childlike wonder Started with plushies. he made them act out scenes from the wonders created in his brain, and the plushies were there to bring them to life.

because tsukasa always used plushies to cheer people up (like in the shows he put on for saki). because the plushies were always there to cheer Him up.

because for the longest time, for maybe a decade, or more, for most of tsukasa's childhood...

his only friends

were

the plushies.

[raeuberprinzessin]

Lucky against all odds

Sibling!Timinette, Arranged Marriage!Daminette

Even before Tim learned, thanks to Bruce and his family, that the way his parents had treated him had been neglect, there was one thing, he could never forgive them: When he had been 8 years old, before he even figured out the identities of the local vigilantes, he and his little sister Marinette had been kidnapped. 

Only a week prior to that after Marinette had turned three, his parents had decided that he was old enough to take care of himself and his sister and they didn’t need a nanny anymore, only a housekeeper who would come three days a week. 

When they were kidnapped his parents, who had been on a business trip out of the country, decided to only pay the ransom for him and abandoned Marinette, doubting whether she was alive anymore anyway and they wouldn’t pay for a dead child. To the media they made it look as if Marinette just wasn't given back to them. Whenever he showed how angry he still was with them for this, they would put the blame on him, saying he had been responsible for both of them. 

Years later, when he started as Robin, he told Bruce everything and asked him to open up a case for Marinette. He just had to believe that she was still out there. He used software to let old photos of her age virtually to know how she would look years later and he tried to become the best detective he could be, solving cold cases every chance he got, to hone his skills.

Almost a decade after the kidnapping Damian takes a look at Tim's case files on the bat computer, looking for blackmail material or anything he could use to get under his brother's skin for worrying Alfred and Dick. He finds a case Tim is working on regularly but is still unsolved. When he opens it, he recognises Marinette, the girl his mother brought back from a mission one day, who turned out to be bonded irreversibly to a powerful magic his grandfather coveted for the league. Ra’s and the girl had been locked in a psychological war for days until his mother asked him to use what he learned about influencing others to convince the girl, so she would no longer fight the engagement. It took a few visits and during those he got to know her well enough to feel like it wouldn’t be the worst to have her as a comrade. Finally she agreed to the engagement, which was a form of magical bond the league practices that requires some kind of consent from both.

This is why Damian knows she is alive although he is not sure where she is. Believing Tim had found out and was planning to get involved in things that were not his business he confronts him in front of everyone.

After her kidnapping, Marinette had been given to another group of shady characters and another until she ended up at the last base where she found the miracle box and was chosen by the kwami as the rightful guardian of the box full of gods. Usually they cursed anyone who tried to abuse their powers to suffer, but Marinette had just been curious about the pretty box and never wanted the power of it. Part of this was also, because this was the best way to protect themselves as well.

Not even an hour later Marinette had subdued the people who were still keeping her and wanted to leave, to go back to her brother although the tiny girl didn't really remember much about her home, when Talia came in, to confiscate the miracle box. She didn’t want to use it, she just wanted to prevent her enemies from getting their hands on it. But instead of a group of thugs, she found a little girl giving her a rather impressive glare for one so young and holding the box close to her chest with her scrawny arms. Deciding the girl would be a perfect little playmate for her own glaring hellion, she took the girl and the box and brought both back.

Ra’s liked the idea to bind the guardian permanently to the league by having her be engaged to his heir and was half annoyed and half impressed by her resistance. After all, resisting his will for this long meant that she had a strong spirit which would be an asset. To prevent the girl from breaking eventually, Talia asked Damian to convince her to give in as long as her father was still willing to humor her attitude.

Marinette grew to genuinely like Damian the more she got to know him. She had been at another base when Damian had been sent to live with his father for his own safety. To prevent Deathstroke from finding her, her bodyguard Kagami, the youngest of an old line of high class fighters, had hidden her with the help of an old acquaintance of Talia: Gina Dupain. Since then they have hidden in Paris, until one of the two missing miraculous became active and Ladybug and Ryuko decided to get the butterfly back to the box.

It takes a while until the Justice League learns about the situation and as soon as Damian/Robin hears about the two heroes, he knows who they are and he won’t accept not being there to help them. And neither will Tim, after he had a nap and is capable of putting two and two together.

[ulysses000]

I have a new rpg started. Annotation from the master:

Gamers, Announcing the Gathering!

2019, Russia

Famous British scientists discover a new type of particle, later named Azur. After a brief investigation, wave activity emanating from a "new layer of reality" is detected.

As only writers, astronomers, philosophers and the military did not imagine the first contact of mankind with extraterrestrial intelligence. And the receipt by Earth's observatories of meaningful signals from deep space. And finding space artifacts or even living aliens in the excavation of ancient mounds and pyramids. And the appearance of ominous alien starships over the largest cities of our planet. The fall of celestial bodies, the crash of all kinds of UFOs. Meeting with "brothers in reason" on distant planets. Invasion. War. Extermination of all life….

However, what was happening was more like someone's stupid joke than anything else. On the screens of the Internet appeared intrusive and unconcealed advertising, where in all languages of the world some furry humanoid said: "People of Earth, by right of the discoverers, the Shiharsa civilization declares its power and jurisdiction over your world. We guarantee one tong of safety to your home planet, but beyond that, the fate of the human race will depend solely on yourselves. People, you have already reached the threshold of development from which it is possible to participate in the big game. So take part in it and earn the right to join the ranks of the great space races!" Soon this advertisement disappeared, and the government blamed it all on a group of hackers.

A couple months later, cutting-edge IT companies announced a revolution in the gaming industry and released the first VR glasses. Lots of people entered a whole new world, and existing games were re-released in virtual reality.

You are the gamers. Those people who have dived headfirst into virtual worlds. Perhaps a student of an elite university, or a simple working professional, but definitely an expert in any VR-game. Somewhere in the shadows, in secret from society, the government has already plunged into the big game. And while the world's forces are sorting out this game, the countdown timer is ticking down. And it's not clear what will happen when the protection of our planet comes to an end.

I really like my character and the characters of my co-players.

Lika grew up in a military family and followed in their footsteps. Even though her parents were against it. She participated in military conflicts as a radio operator, which made her disabled. She retired and immersed herself in gaming to brighten up her life. Lika is very good at shooters and military strategy games.

Denis is a student programmer, he has his own gta server. He is a dubious guy who is involved in bullying in games and extorting money. He also uses cheats a lot.

Ora is in her final year of chemistry, a part-time lab tech, an intuitive genius who occasionally steals reagents. She also sometimes records her Minecraft games for youtube.

Ilya was born in Ukraine in a village, but managed to enter the university on a budget in Moscow. He is one of the best carry in Europe. His favorite character is Shadow Fiend. He likes to work with data and has good strategic thinking.

Lyubov' (that's literally "love" in Russian. Faith (Vera), Hope (Nadezhda), Love (Lyubov'). I don't know if these names have analogs in other languages) is the daughter of a criminal authority from Kazan. Her father was lucky not to be caught during the "purges" and became a "respectable businessman". She is a financial fraudster, helping to launder money. But she's also an avid gamer. She often plays Dota 2 with Ilya. She goes mid. Favorite hero is Invoker. Also likes rhythm games.

Lyuba's father learned through connections that the government had some new secret program for gamers and decided to send his daughter there to learn more so he could use it somehow in the future. Lyuba came to Moscow to Ilya to organize a big tournament so that the government would notice her and take her into this program. Also, so that the government would have leverage over her, the tournament was illegal betting. The goal was to get her noticed as a good player and under threat of jail for illegal things, she was sent to participate in a secret program for gamers. (that's how it worked out) Almost all tournament participants were raked under this program. Everything went according to Lyuba's plan and she was satisfied that everything turned out as it should, but the others didn't really want to get involved in some secret government program. Because of that Lyuba and the others tried not to advertise to the other players that they were the organizers and because of them it all happened.

(I'm bad at landscapes, but it's something like this.) Everyone was brought to a closed base. It was a large dome the size of a multi-story building. The introductory lecture began, where they told us that they had discovered a new layer of reality, on which all the states were now trying to develop new lands and technologies. Humanity was now in an alliance with one race, which gave three years of patronage to settle in. But during the lecture, a "call to arms" alarm occurred and all the recruits were left unattended. Lyuba knew that she would most likely be placed in the accounting department by her connections and then she wouldn't be able to get to the game. During the lecture it was announced that upon entering the game there would be a labyrinth test that could give bonus attribute points. There was an analog of this maze at the base. Taking advantage of the situation, Lyuba and Ilya ran to this maze in the hope that there would be a map there. But there was no map. With little time left, Lyuba tried to persuade Ilya to join her in the game without preparing for the maze, but Ilya refused. At that time Lika was leading the rest of the guys to the rest rooms, but Ora fought them off and went to the "corn", the area with virtual reality capsules. In the end, out of the five, only Lyuba and Ora entered the game illegally. The game offered a choice of avatar, nickname, and three classes to choose from. Ora made herself a scar in the form of a star on her shoulder (actually there is a Jewish star there. my mistake) and long white hair. She had a choice of biotic-geneticist (she chose that one), architect and chemist. Lyuba made a cute anime girl avatar. She had a choice of the classes rogue (she chose that one), knave and assassin. Lyuba completed the maze in 18 minutes, Ora in 22 minutes. They both received five additional attribute points each.

They talked a bit with a diplomat of another race they met when they first came out of the labyrinth, and ran towards the battle site. Their path took them through the forest, they armed themselves with sticks to have at least a semblance of a weapon, climbed trees to see where to go, and came to a wheat field. In this field, they spotted a level four bug about the size of a dog. They were both level four at that point, and decided that the two of them could beat this beetle to death with sticks. They crept up on it, but only at the last moment did they notice that the beetle was far from alone. Eventually a whole swarm of beetles pounced on them and they died. When Lyuba came out of the game and recovered from the death shock, she noticed that her skin had become lighter, and when she went to the mirror, she realized that her appearance was the same as her avatar's. Also, all the items that were with her disappeared (they remained in the game). Lyuba went to bed with mixed feelings, because she is on a military base without a passport and with an appearance that is not in any database.

(I didn't know that our characters would immediately change their appearance to that of their avatar. And I'm so sad that my Lyubov' lost her colorful little Tatar appearance……)

I love the last version of her so much….. My half little Tatar….. (when daddy called to meet his friends.) (when, uh. well, when)

We've already had three sessions. We managed to pass the quest with murlocs, kill an enemy saboteur, we were told off by Uncle Slava (a friend of Lyuba's dad), fought with centaurs and dryads, got captured by the Dark Faction.

Also, we learned that I don't have a brain tumor, I just have a new sense organ that responds to magic. We also found out who the traitor was in our faction and found the Dark Faction's secret passage into our territory. Yes, we're all prisoners, but we'll be returned…. Anyway, we're trying to fight off the Dark Faction hard right now.

Ilya has the nickname Leader and the diplomat class Denis has the nickname Hare and driver class Lika has the nickname Wolf and the class of space paratrooper

[mariacallous]

President Biden's persistent pressure on Middle East leaders was a key factor in sealing the deal between Israel and Hamas for the release of 50 hostages who were captured during Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, U.S., Israeli and Qatari officials say.

Why it matters: Interviews with the officials reveal how Biden's team shaped the agreement during six weeks of often-tense negotiations, how he was driven by "gut-wrenching" meetings with hostages' family members, and his aggressive push to seal the deal.

Zoom in: Biden's involvement began hours after Hamas' attack, when the White House learned that several Americans were among roughly 240 hostages being held in Gaza.

Israeli officials say Hamas has been holding about 180 hostages — including some Israeli and Israeli-American soldiers — while the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is holding another 40 or so. A few more are being held by local gangs in the southern Gaza Strip.

Under the agreement, 50 women and children will be released in several groups over a four-day pause in the fighting in Gaza. That would leave about 190 hostages still in captivity. U.S. officials hope the deal will lead to additional releases.

It's unclear exactly who will be released. Nine Americans are believed to be held hostage in Gaza, including two women and a young girl, Abigail Edan, who was kidnapped after Hamas killed her parents on Oct. 7. Abigail turns 4 on Friday.

Behind the scenes: Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, a senior U.S. official said, Qatar approached the White House with sensitive information regarding the hostages — and word that a deal for their release was possible.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivandirected Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, and another top adviser, Josh Geltzer, to establish a secret working group on the hostage issue.

A senior U.S. official said the group's work was not read into the interagency process because Qatar and Israel — which quietly created similar working groups — demanded extreme secrecy.

Only a few people in the Biden administration knew the details of the group's work. Biden was briefed daily on the group's progress.

"Gut-wrenching" meeting

Six days after the Hamas attack, Biden met virtually with the families of Americans who were then unaccounted for in Israel. Some were later designated as hostages in Gaza. A few others were found dead in Israel.

Biden spent more than 90 minutes talking with the families. A U.S. official who was on the Zoom call described it as "one of the most gut-wrenching things I have experienced."

Several days later, on Oct. 18, Biden was in Israel for an unprecedented wartime visit. He spent more than an hour with a group of Israelis who were survivors of the Oct. 7 attack or had family members taken hostage.

Two Israelis who attended the meeting said the Secret Service and Biden's aides told him several times he needed to move to his next appointment. But he put them off and kept talking with the survivors.

Later that day, Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's war Cabinet in Tel Aviv and had a lengthy discussion on what it might take to secure the hostages' release, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

At the time, Israel had cut fuel and water to Gaza and was bombing the enclave. Israeli officials were refusing to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza unless hostages were released.

A senior U.S. official said Biden made clear to Netanyahu and his ministers that humanitarian assistance had to reach Palestinians in Gaza regardless of any future hostage deal. Reluctantly, they agreed.

A breakthrough

The first breakthrough on hostages came on Oct. 23. Qatari mediators persuaded Hamas to release Judith Raanan, 59, and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie — two Americans from Chicago who'd been swept up in Hamas' attack.

For hours, White House officials followed their movements out of Gaza in real time until the charge d'affaires of the U.S. embassy in Israel, Stephanie Hallett, met the Raanans at the Israel-Gaza border. Several hours later, Biden spoke with them by phone.

The episode showed the White House that Qatar could deliver hostage releases — and gave U.S. officials hope that a larger hostage deal was possible.

Between the lines: The White House — under increasing pressure to push for a pause in Israel's attacks on Gaza — realized that the only realistic path to such a pause would be a deal for the release of a large number of hostages, U.S. officials say.

Biden's team decided to get CIA Director William Burns more involved in the hostage talks. Since then, Burns has been a key player in the negotiations, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Mossad director David Barnea has been negotiating for Israel.

Hamas comes to the table

On Oct. 24 — as the Israeli bombing of Gaza continued and a ground invasion appeared imminent — Hamas signaled it was ready to seek a deal to release a large number of women and children in return for a pause in the fighting.

A U.S. official said that after Hamas refused to provide a list of the hostages in its custody, the Israelis determined it was not a serious offer and went ahead with its ground invasion on Oct. 27.

The Israelis told the White House that only more military pressure could make Hamas move, an Israeli official said.

The ground invasion stopped the hostage negotiations for a few days. But Hamas re-engaged and the talks got into more detail, Israeli officials said.

Israel and the U.S. continued to demand Hamas provide lists of the hostages it was holding, or at least give some identifying information.

Biden: "Enough is enough"

Biden insisted he speak directly with Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani.

By phone, Sheikh Mohammed briefed Biden on Qatar's hostage talks with Hamas.

The White House decided not to make that call public — to avoid affecting the talks at a time when an agreement seemed close.

On Nov. 9, Burns traveled to Doha and met with Sheikh Mohammed and Barnea. The key hangup: Hamas still hadn't identified who it was holding, a U.S. official said.

Three days later, Biden called Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar. It was the first call between the two since the Israel-Hamas war had begun. A U.S. official said the call was difficult — and that Biden's message was: "Enough is enough."

The official said Biden told the emir the U.S. wanted the names or clear identifying information for the 50 women and children Hamas claimed it was ready to release. Without that, Biden said, a deal wasn't possible.

A Qatari official said the call wasn't difficult, and that Biden didn't press the emir.

Nevertheless, shortly after the call Hamas produced for the first time a list with identifying details for about 50 hostages it said it was willing to release in the first phase of the deal, U.S. officials said.

On Nov. 14, Biden spoke with Netanyahu again in what had become near-daily chats.

A U.S. official said Biden told Netanyahu that because Hamas had provided details on about 50 hostages and signaled it might be willing to release two dozen more later, he should take the deal.

In return, Israel would agree to release roughly 150 Palestinian women and minors who are being held in its prisons, accused of being involved in attacks against Israelis.

Israeli officials said Netanyahu didn't reject Biden's recommendation, but asked that he put more pressure on the Qatari emir to press Hamas on other parts of the emerging deal.

Heated meeting with Bibi

That day McGurk met with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. The meeting got heated when McGurk told Netanyahu the U.S. wanted the Palestinian Authority to have a role in Gaza after the war. Netanyahu pushed back aggressively.

"Our soldiers are not fighting in Gaza in order to establish 'Fatahstan' that will later turn again into 'Hamastan,'" Netanyahu told McGurk, according to a report by Channel 12, Israel's most-watched TV network. Israeli and U.S. officials confirmed the quote.

But a U.S. official said that as McGurk was leaving, Netanyahu grabbed his arm and said: "We need this deal." The prime minister asked that Biden call the Qatari emir again to nail things down.

While the negotiations continued between Washington, Tel Aviv and Doha, so did the ground invasion in Gaza.

On Nov. 15 the Israeli Defense Forces entered al-Shifa hospital, where U.S. and Israeli intelligence had concluded Hamas had a military command center.

As IDF soldiers searched for weapons in the hospital, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar suspended the negotiations and sent a message to the Qataris calling on the IDF to leave the hospital grounds immediately, a U.S. official said.

The Israelis refused, but said they would take steps to keep the hospital open.

Sinwar went dark. "Sinwar disappeared for two days," an Israeli official said.

Last chance for a deal

When the Hamas leader re-engaged with negotiators last Friday, Biden called the Qatari emir again. A U.S. official said Biden told him this was the last chance to get a deal that would temporarily stop the fighting.

A day later when they met in Doha, the Qatari prime minister told McGurk that Hamas had just come back with an answer. Burns and Barnea were updated, but after a few hours of talks there were still several unresolved issues.

Over the next few days, the talks continued. On Tuesday morning, Hamas informed Qatar that it approved of the latest text.

Israel's Cabinet convened several hours later. Netanyahu told the ministers about his request for Biden's help in sweetening the deal.

That led to an agreement on a four-day pause in fighting — less time than Hamas initially wanted — and an understanding that another round of hostage releases would be possible.

The deal "was improved," Netanyahu said: "President Biden helped and I thank him for that."

Shortly afterward, Israel's Cabinet approved the deal.

What's next: Netanyahu's aides hope the deal will be implemented — and the hostages released — as soon as Friday. By that time, the identities of those being released could be made public.

[the-consortium]

To Mr. Herik:

I hope this correspondence finds you well. Has the goose taken well the Consortium? Oh and I have a question... what was the best gift someone had given you

"The goose …?" Herik looks up from the datapad. Glances around the lab atrium for a moment, as if just his thought of the bird could lure the animal out somewhere. He waits for some time. The ticking and beeping of the apparatus fills the room. There are also muffled sounds from further away that could be screams. Otherwise it is quiet.

But Herik has learned that the goose can be very quiet when it wants to be. Duco has made it a habit to release the animal from its aviary again and again. No matter how many locking mechanisms Herik and Fabius add - eventually the goose reappears in places where it has no business being. That Duco is the culprit is also only a guess. So far, nothing could be proven against the Night Lord - but he makes far too big a badly acted show of it when he is accused of not being the one to release the bird.

Similarly, how the goose navigates the dangers of Urum without being eaten remains a mystery. Virtually every creature on the Consortium's world is clearly deadlier than the bird - long-forgotten experiments that have multiplied in underground chambers, the mechanically clanking descendants of the Chirurgeon, or mutant rodents the unusual size of Landraiders. Not to speak of the Astartes!

And yet - without any discernible caution and with an aura that makes it clear that the bird believes itself to be the Alpha Predator, the goose keeps roaming the halls.

The Apothecary sighs and writes with the quick messiness of every doctor since the dawn of time: "There is disagreement among colleagues involved in the experiment as to whether or not the goose embryos should be left in artificial eggs until fully matured and hatched by surrogate parents. In my opinion, as natural a gestation as possible is conducive. The goose itself is healthy and surprisingly robust. No traces of mutation are showing yet."

He muses a little to himself, then adds, "The greatest gift I have been given is undoubtedly Lord Fulgrim's Gene-Seed. It has allowed me to evolve far beyond what I would have been able to do as a human."

He wants to elaborate further, but then raises his head.

A noise?

Silence.

Herik puts the pen back on the datapad.

Tap. Somewhere behind him in the room. He closes his eyes briefly. The senses of an Astartes are far above anything a human would perceive. Where did that sound come from?

Aha! He turns around. Directly behind him stands the goose. Stares at him with yellow eyes. "HONK!"

"Slaanesh's tits and cock, Duco!!!"

The Night Lord's rasping laughter sounds softly from the darkness further back.

[pixiemage]

I would love to hear your conclusions! 👀

-🍂

[This is related to this post my sleep-deprived brain decided to write up after pulling an all-nighter recently.]

Which Hermits would be able to hold a baby properly? And how would they behave with a kid? Let's find out! (And remember, this is he c!Hermits, not the cc!Hermits. Half the cc!Hermits are parents irl, but most of the c!Hermits are NOT. So that's what I'm basing this on. :3)

Part 1 | Part 2? | Part 3? | Part 4?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Doc - Oh my god he can absolutely hold a baby properly, and he's also likely to bluntly correct the way someone else does it if they're doing it wrong. He gets quite excited about kids, actually, and practically melts when there's one in the vicinity. The dude turns into a puddle of goo if a baby smiles at him. But he'll also turn on a dime and get pissed and deadly-scary if he thinks someone is about to hurt a kid.

Bdubs - Loudly proclaims that he can hold a baby properly. Isn't entirely wrong. He's mostly got it right and he's surprisingly more careful than some of the other Hermits might be. He's an absolute PRO at getting a baby to sleep - but he also forgets his own volume, so the second someone else tries to take the kid from him or the second he thinks someone else is gonna wake the baby, it's Bdubs' own loud voice that wakes the poor kid up in the end.

Etho - He can hold a baby but he looks awkward and uncomfortable the entire time he's doing it. He's likely to hand off the kid for someone else to hold, but he also quietly enjoys being in the same room while it's happening (though he'd probably not admit it openly unless asked directly). Despite his hesitance to hold a baby, Etho somehow also has Dad Reflexes, in that if he sees a kid about to fall or get hurt from across the room, he'll be across the room in half a second to stop it before it can even happen. Ninja Dad Mode Engaged.

False - Similarly to Etho, she's more likely to feel uncomfortable being put in charge of a kid. It's like a completely foreign language. She'd be the most awkward babysitter ever. (Also might forget that kids shouldn't have swords in her desperation to find an activity to keep her ward busy.) She not exactly the type to actively choose to put a kid in danger, it's just that she Does Not Get how kids are supposed to work.

Cub - Definitely can hold a kid properly, though he doesn't boast about it like Bdubs. It's one of those things he just Knows How To Do and nobody knows where he learned it. He's pretty chill if he's gotta take care of a kid. He treats the task with the same level of interest as any other project he might undertake. Also likely to talk to a kid like they're an adult. (Also might involve them in a mild prank or two, but nothing reckless. Just innocent fun times!)

Scar - Shockingly good with kids, and can hold a baby like a pro. He's still a little accident-prone so he's had moments where he drops a baby and manages to catch them with vex magic. No kid has EVER been hurt in his presence but he's certainly given other Hermits a heart attack with how close he's gotten. (But being dropped and caught seems to make the kids laugh so - no harm done? I guess?) He's also amazing at telling stories because his brain is full of them...and he's also prone to Disney Movie Marathons if he ever has to babysit.

Grian - Oh god. Uh. Can he hold a baby? Yes. Should he hold a baby? Absolutely not. This man is too chaotic and inattentive to be responsible for a child. I mean look how Grumbot turned out! The first one had an existential crisis and got locked in virtual reality, the second one banished most of the Hermits to a parallel world for a few weeks (and might have killed Scar in another life), and the third one plotted world domination before he was destroyed. Grian would likely take a real kid for flying joyrides even if they were far too small for that kind of thing. No. Do not. Give. Grian. A child.

Gem - This woman can absolutely be trusted with any child any day of the week. She's naturally good at it, though sometimes she might get nervous and ask for help just to make sure she doesn't do anything wrong. Not that she needs it. She's gentle when she needs to be, but also fun-loving and high energy if a kiddo needs play time. She also LOVES to play dress-up and pretend...no surprise there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Part 1 | Part 2? | Part 3? | Part 4?

(I'll probably continue this later...but there are a TON of Hermits and I might have underestimated just how long this post would be xD)

[beardedmrbean]

Parents in Oregon are calling to replace a local school board following reports of a sexually explicit book in the curriculum and at least two instances where a teacher organized activities discussing sexual acts.

Fox News Digital previously reported how health class students who missed coursework at Churchill High School in Eugene, Oregon, were asked via Canvas, an online learning management system, to complete a 10-point assignment titled "Fantasy Story."

"For those students who were absent, you will write a short story of a paragraph or two. This story is a sexual fantasy that will have NO penetration of any kind or oral sex (no way of passing an STI)."

The assignment from teacher Kirk Miller also asked students to choose three items, such as candles, massage oil, feathers and flavored syrup, to use in the story.

But parent Justin McCall said his older daughter, who is in the 10th grade at Churchill High School, revealed the assignment had also been conducted in class and that the teacher had asked students to pick the sexual items written on a piece of paper out of a hat that he passed around.

Further scrutiny of the "Health 2 Human Sexuality" class found that students were also allegedly given an assignment called "With Whom Would You Do it." The project involved a virtual spinning wheel labeled with sexual categories. Students were allegedly instructed to respond when the wheel stopped and write the initials of the person they would engage in the sex act with.

"My daughter told me it was literally up on the board and it mentioned you know who are you going to have anal penetration with, oral sex, licking of the ear, kissing and vaginal sex," McCall said, calling the assignment "disgusting and wrong."

A Title VI and IX coordinator attempted to speak with McCall's daughter about the incidents but was directed to the family's legal counsel.

The Eugene 4J School District did not return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The above allegations, as well as a flurry of other complaints from parents, have prompted calls for new leadership on the Eugene School Board, which is holding elections in May. In the event leadership stays the same, a group of parents is in the process of knocking on doors and setting up tables outside the district schools to gather signatures for a recall.

Beth Ball, a 4J alumni who met her husband at Churchill High School in the 1990s, intentionally enrolled her children in the 4J school district following her positive educational experience. Her issues began when her child entered sixth grade at the Arts & Technology Academy in Eugene.

At home, Ball noticed a form that said she could opt her child out of health class if she disagreed with the contents of the syllabus or curriculum. However, after correspondence with the teacher, Ball was told the syllabus and curriculum had not yet been created and waited at the school for two days to get a meeting with the principal.

The principal informed her they could not access the syllabus and curriculum, but her child needed to be enrolled in health class to graduate. Given the lack of information, Ball instructed her child to wait in the office daily during health class. Her child received a "no pass" in the class, but because of COVID-19 school closures, the "no-pass" became a non-issue.

Once her child entered the ninth grade at Churchill, the same school Ball attended, he was assigned a novel called "I'll Give You the Sun."

"The first five pages of it the book talks about how [the main character] is getting beat up and he's turned on by it. He gets a boner," Ball said. "For me, that's completely unacceptable because it's saying that if you're getting abused or picked on, it's normal and in fact you should like it."

A review of the book by Fox News Digital found the scene described by Ball and takes place early in the book when the main character wrestles with another student. 

After contacting the school to ask why the book was placed in the curriculum, she was simply told that it got great reviews and spurred conversation on complex topics. She then pulled her child out of Churchill and began homeschooling him.

"And then this sexual essay hit, and I wasn't surprised in the least," Ball said.

Following the backlash, school principal Missy Cole said, "the district has begun the process of reviewing and selecting a new health curriculum to replace the OWL content that will be completed by the end of the school year."

According to the board, the changes to the curriculum were not related to complaints from parents and had already been on the docket for the 2023 school year.

During a March 16 school board meeting, citing "failures in our practices," Eugene School District Superintendent Andy Dey said they had identified "shortcomings" in their curriculum and recommended that the sexual fantasy's lesson not be administered again.

Dey also said the rumors of "spinning wheels" with "salacious acts" had not been substantiated or reflected in the materials the teachers used. However, Dey did confirm an "online virtual randomizer wheel" that did not have sexual acts on it.

He also said that the sexual fantasy's assignment was given out due to "inadequate oversight" and that future lessons will follow the curriculum verbatim and refrain from using supplemental materials, as was done in this case.

In a statement to the New York Post, OWL program manager Melanie Davis said the district was following an "unauthorized" and "out-of-context" facilitated group activity currently out of print.

The United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association claimed the material was not part of the comprehensive OWL curriculum it helped to develop.

Emails provided to Fox News Digital showed that McCornack Elementary asked McCall to sign paperwork agreeing to only correspond with the school over email and only through his wife and noted McCall was trespassed off the property "due to hostile behavior towards other McCornack parents, students, and staff that created fear."

McCall was allowed to speak at the March 16 board meeting despite his ban from the elementary school. Following his public comments at the meeting and his move to recall the board, McCall was banned from all 4J district property. The district said they contact McCall no later than April 20 about his formal complaints and trespass appeal.

At the meeting, McCall claimed the school was lying about the spinning wheel assignment and suggested the teacher had not yet been fired because he is also the football coach and the team was doing well.

"If you do not remove him, I'm giving you my word today that tomorrow morning I will go down to the County Clerk's office and I will file for the removal of every single one of you," he said as the room erupted in cheers.

Miller has been placed on administrative leave.

Dr. Michael Bratland, a local dentist and conservative running for school board in the May elections, said that he wants a comprehensive review of the situation but stopped short of supporting the termination of the teacher or board members. He also credited Superintendent Dey for his leadership and handling of the situation but was more critical of the current board.

"The school board's the top and they need to take responsibility and when I was at that school board meeting last week, I didn't really hear anybody take accountability," he said.

[vacantgodling]

GOTHICA (CHARACTER OVERVIEW)

yeah i seriously dk what else to call this wip so this is probably gonna be an instance where the fake me out title sticks pff

LENNON RHAPSODY GRANGER

(yes her first name is lennon rhapsody - all together. but call her len)

MOTIVATION (NEED): To stay alive

GOAL (WANT): To be with Aurora romantically

CONFLICT: By getting close to Aurora, Lennon has become a target of The Centurion because she could potentially learn their secrets. 

MAIN FLAW: Main Character Syndrome; aka she thinks of things only in terms of how they affect her and not the broader impact that her actions have on others. She doesn’t consider the idea that other people have rich inner lives, wants, needs, dreams/aspirations, etc. outside of how she interacts with them.

EPIPHANY: She learns sympathy and learns to value others as more than just npcs or hurdles/conquests in her life. 

Lennon Rhapsody has always struggled to stay out of trouble in school; causing her parent's divorce after the third expulsion and getting sent to Holy Oaks Preparatory Reform School by her stepfather after the fifth. Immediately feeling outcasted by her peers despite this being a school of “misfits,” the one person Lennon seems to get along with a boy from the boy’s school, Aurora O’Rion. Sneaking out to meet Aurora and growing closer to him causes feelings to begin to bud, but this more serious romantic inquiry has caught the eye of Aurora’s surperiors of The Centurion, a secret society. After Aurora nearly kills her on their word, he forgoes the final blow to try and help her escape to safety away from The Centurion’s clutches and hides her with his best friend and another Centurion lackey, Morrigan. Caught between her fear and her emotions for both boys, Lennon must recover quickly in order to escape and stay alive.

AURORA O'RION

MOTIVATION (NEED): To get Lennon out of the clutches of The Centurion. 

GOAL (WANT): To have his cake and eat it too; Aurora doesn’t want to give up his position in The Centurion where he can virtually do anything he wants so long as it aligns with The Centurion’s interests and he’s given room, board, pocket money, and isn’t subject to the boy’s school rules like everyone else. However, he does develop Real Feelings for Lennon, but because she’s an outsider he can’t swing that relationship even if he wants to.

CONFLICT: After developing feelings for Lennon and getting her involved more than she should be with him, Aurora must choose between his oath and his emotions. 

MAIN FLAW: Recklessness; Aurora doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions before it’s usually too late to do anything about it. His ability to shirk responsibility because he’s never had to care about anything causes him to make split second decisions and irrational choices that are detrimental to the people around him. 

EPIPHANY: Aurora learns responsibility, and how to think before he acts. His innate drive to fight for what he wants isn’t bad, but he learns that it can be done more effectively. 

Aurora O’Rion has been a lackey of The Centurion since he was born, and has been afforded a life of luxury at what seems to be a meager cost. As he grows older he gets into the business of smashing heads and breaking hearts, earning him the title of bad boy on the combined campus. Meeting Lennon Rhapsody at first just seemed like another game, until she proved to be somewhat different than the other girls he’s led on which sparked his interest. This closeness however catches the attention of The Centurion and Aurora is ordered to kill Lennon—and unwilling to fully give up his life or position, he goes in for the kill, but leaves Lennon alive and hides her away with Morrigan with a plan to sneak her away and have her be presumed dead. This plan turns out to be more complicated than he thought.

MORRIGAN BRIARCOS

MOTIVATION (NEED): To help Aurora.

GOAL (WANT): For things to stay the way they were before Lennon appeared in the picture. 

CONFLICT: Taking care of Lennon puts his position with The Centurion, his life, and Aurora’s life at risk. But he is unable to say no to his friend due to unrequited love. 

MAIN FLAW: Logical to the point of rigidity, self sabotage, and self sacrifice. He has a hard time accepting that he is more than just a pawn in other people’s games, and his emotional repression causes him to accept whatever small morsel of humanity he is given that takes the form of loving Aurora from afar.

EPIPHANY: He learns to be selfish; aka, he learns that it’s okay to want things for himself and to try and attain those things even if they could have bad consequences. This also causes him to learn to stand up for himself more than letting things just go with the flow. 

Morrigan Briarcos has always kept his head down and did what he was told to do, between his stellar grades, his rank in The Centurion’s bracket, and whatever nonsense Aurora gets up to. His best friend’s newest conquest however, has him raising an eye—Aurora has never entertained himself with people beyond the first encounter. It makes something shift in Morrigan’s heart, what he knows is the pang of his unrequited love, and he’s proven right as he watches Aurora and Lennon get closer and closer, until The Centurion notices and Aurora is forced to make a deadly choice. Despite his better judgment, Morrigan sticks with Aurora through the aftermath, hiding Lennon away as she heals and helping him concoct a plan to sneak her out of the campus while she’s still presumed dead. But when Lennon begins to show interest in him, well, how long will it be before he snaps?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Joseph Figliolia

Published: Jan 11, 2024

When I learned of the controversy over Lisa Littman’s seminal paper from 2018, which introduced the concept of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), I did not understand the nature of the backlash. Littman’s paper appeared in a respected journal, Plos One, and had passed through the peer-review process. Shortly after its publication, however, the dean of public health at Brown University, where Littman, a physician, worked, published a letter noting that the Brown community was concerned that “conclusions of the study could be used to discredit the efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate perspectives of members of the transgender community.”

The letter also claimed that Littman’s research design and methods were problematic, despite her paper’s surviving an unusual post-publication assessment by senior journal editors, academic editors, a stats reviewer, and an expert reviewer. Littman claims that, after the post-publication review, her methods and findings were left virtually intact in a republished version of the paper. Most of the changes involved highlighting how her data were collected from parent reports and the limitations of those reports.

But the dean’s letter and the backlash to Littman’s paper suggest that critics’ real concern was Littman’s tentative conclusion suggesting the emergence of a novel developmental pathway to gender dysphoria. In her study, Littman hypothesized that a new form of gender dysphoria, and trans-identification, was presenting among peer groups of adolescent girls typically immersed in online trans subcultures and who often had preexisting mental-health and developmental issues. Strikingly, most of these girls had no childhood history of gender dysphoria, or even gender nonconformity, and their newly announced identities seemed unexpected and caught their parents by surprise. 

Littman speculated that gender dysphoria was becoming a catch-all interpretive framework for a range of phenomena, from normal pubertal angst to specific mental-health issues. She also speculated that, among youth with existing mental-health issues or unprocessed sexual trauma, a trans identity could serve as a maladaptive coping mechanism to avoid dealing with intense negative emotions. This notion was tentatively supported by her finding that 61.4 percent of parents surveyed reported that their trans-identifying children were easily “overwhelmed by strong emotions and go to great lengths to avoid experiencing them.”

Critics realized that Littman’s hypothesis directly challenged the tenets of gender-identity theory, which hold that people have a felt sense of gender that is both innate and immutable. That theory has become a central justification for hormonal and surgical body modification. Critics alleged that Littman’s method of surveying parents was unreliable, but Littman showed that her method was consistent with other papers that support “gender affirmation” and are widely accepted by the pro-affirming side.

Fast forward six years, and Littman’s academic critics seem more committed to their intellectual and ideological priors than pursuing truth. Their main argument against ROGD is that what appears to parents as the sudden onset of transgender identity is really a late disclosure of an identity that has existed since childhood, even if the adolescent hasn’t felt comfortable revealing it to family and friends.

In a recent letter to the editor published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the Manhattan Institute’s Leor Sapir, along with Lisa Littman and Michael Biggs, take on the latest iteration of this argument in a paper by researcher-activist Jack Turban and his colleagues. The paper, “Age of Realization and Disclosure of Gender Identity Among Transgender Adults,” purports to show evidence of the early-realization/late-disclosure explanation for the rise in ROGD. Sapir et al.’s letter not only indicts Turban et al.’s subpar research but also, by extension, the current state of academic publishing on matters pertaining to identity (exemplified by the “ethics guidance” released by the journal Nature Human Behaviour).

Turban et al.’s argument is based on responses from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest of its kind to date, with a total of 27,715 respondents. USTS-15 asked adult participants to recall—and as critics have pointed out, recall itself is notoriously unreliable—at what age they “first felt their gender was different from their assigned birth sex” and at what age they “start to think they were trans (even if they did not know the word for it).” Turban and his coauthors took the answer to the first question rather than the second as the moment respondents first “realized they were transgender” and assessed the median time between realization and the disclosure of the identity to others. They divided participants into a “early realization” group (age ten or younger) and a “late realization” group (11 or older). Because a key premise of ROGD is that a trans identity develops rapidly within the context of adolescence, if the Turban study could show that a trans identity developed in childhood but was only disclosed later, it would undermine the ROGD hypothesis.

Yet, Turban and his colleagues seem uninterested in rigorously testing the ROGD hypothesis. Well-known for his mischaracterization of existing research, Turban made interpretive choices that strongly suggest he and his coauthors were avoiding any USTS-15 data that might undermine their broadside against ROGD.

Sapir et al.’s response is worth reading in full, but some examples of their findings should suffice here. First, to be eligible to participate in USTS-15, respondents had to identify currently as transgender. By definition, this means that anyone who identified as trans as adolescents but no longer did so as adults was excluded. Since this excluded group may include individuals whose dysphoria presentations match the ROGD phenomena, the USTS-15 sample is highly biased against ROGD hypothesis testing. Amazingly, Turban and another coauthor pointed out this limitation of the sample in a previous paper they published. Here, however, they simply ignore it.

Second, the ROGD phenomenon is hypothesized as an emergent phenomenon among a cohort of trans-identifying youth who came of age in the late 2000s or later—intersecting with widespread changes in social media, phone use, and the rise of the transgender social movement—which means that the phenomena would apply only to the 18–24 age group of the USTS-15. Despite this, Turban & colleagues analyzed the time period from realization to disclosure for the entire adult sample, and then only for those who said that they had early realization (age 10 or younger)—meaning not the cohort that would be relevant to ROGD.

Third, Turban and his coauthors chose as their proxy for age of realization a question put to participants about their age when they “felt that their gender was different than their birth sex”—instead of another question that asked them “at what age they first thought they were trans.” Asking people about their gender is more nebulous and less precise than asking them when they first thought they were trans. Not least, the problem of recall bias means that adult respondents—who, in this case, were recruited through transgender advocacy networks—could retroactively interpret reasons for “feeling different” through a gendered lens. In short, “feeling different” is a less reliable proxy for “realization” than an explicit question about the adoption of a transgender identity.

Turban et al. don’t explain this interpretive choice, but one suspects the reason: it produces a longer time from realization to disclosure. Because they take respondents’ answers about when they first “felt different” (which they code as “realized they are transgender”) at face value, they are left defending the absurd proposition that hundreds of USTS-15 respondents realized that they were transgender before their second birthday.

As Sapir’s letter notes, had the researchers analyzed data for the precise measure, they would have found that nearly 75 percent of the total sample reported late realization of a trans identity, compared with 40.8 percent originally reported. Moreover, data analyzed for the precise measure in the ROGD 18–24-year-old cohort reveals participants reported 83 percent late realization and only 17 percent early realization.

Of central importance, Turban and his coauthors claim to find that the median time from realization to disclosure was 11 years and the mode was 13 years. Had they analyzed the correct group (“late realization”), they would have found that both males and females had a mode of one year and a median of three years. In a follow-up reply to critics, Sapir and Littman point out that 2,127 respondents to the USTS-15 said that they went from “first feeling different” to disclosing a transgender identity to others in one year or less. The number of respondents who went from “first feeling they are transgender” to disclosing that identity to others within the same timeframe was 3,685. The denominator here (all 18–24-year-old respondents) was 5,880, which means that the data source Turban et al. themselves chose as reliable for testing ROGD shows that between one-third (if we’re being generous to Turban) and two-thirds (if we’re taking respondents’ report of “realizing they are transgender” at face value) meet the criteria for “rapid” development of transgender identity.

Additional features obscured in the Turban analysis also support the ROGD hypothesis. For example, ROGD is hypothesized to affect women more than men due to greater susceptibility to peer influence and because of the documented mental-health crisis among girls. While the Turban paper reports that 63.2 percent of the late-realization group was female, that percentage increases to 75.2 percent if only the relevant 18-24-year-old cohort is analyzed. Relatedly, data from the 18-24-year-old cohort also reveals that the younger cohort reported more psychological distress than older cohorts—lending more support to the ROGD hypothesis that trans-identification is a coping mechanism for preexisting psychological distress. This is consistent with research suggesting that comorbidities predate trans identification in this cohort.

Taken together, it is hard to see Turban et al.’s paper as anything but a sloppily engineered effort to discredit a hypothesis the authors disagree with for political reasons. That the Journal of Adolescent Health published their paper is yet more evidence of the ideological capture of medical journals. To add insult to injury, Sapir posted a thread on X regarding his letter to the editor and tagged the Journal of Adolescent Health, which promptly blocked him. This is behavior befitting a moody teenager, not the managers of a medical journal’s social media account.

==

Jack Turban is an activist, not a researcher, not a scientist. He just uses the language, but he doesn't even understand what "evidence-based medicine" means.

[shubhmittal2004]

Digital Marketing Magic: Elevating Schools to New Heights

Introduction

In today's digital era, schools are recognizing the importance of implementing effective digital marketing strategies to enhance their visibility, engage with their community, and attract prospective students. By harnessing the power of online platforms, social media, and targeted campaigns, schools can transform the way they connect with students, parents, and the broader community. Let's explore how digital marketing can work its magic and propel schools to new levels of success.

Key Takeaway Pointers to Promote Your School:

Tailored Messaging for Parents and Students: Craft messaging that resonates with both parents seeking quality education for their children and students looking for a supportive learning environment. Highlight your school's unique offerings, values, and achievements to attract the right audience.

Content Strategy for Engagement: Develop a content strategy that showcases your school's academic programs, extracurricular activities, success stories, and community involvement. Utilize blogs, videos, virtual tours, and testimonials to engage with your audience and provide valuable insights into your school's culture.

Social Media Engagement: Utilize social media platforms to connect with your community, share updates, and foster engagement. Create a social media calendar to plan and schedule posts that highlight events, achievements, student accomplishments, and important school news.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Visibility: Optimize your school's website and content for search engines to improve visibility and attract organic traffic. Incorporate relevant keywords, meta tags, and local SEO strategies to ensure that your school ranks well in search engine results.

Email Marketing for Communication: Implement an email marketing strategy to communicate with parents, alumni, and prospective students. Send newsletters, event invitations, enrollment updates, and personalized messages to keep your audience informed and engaged.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your digital marketing efforts. Analyze website traffic, social media engagement, email open rates, and other metrics to make informed decisions and optimize your strategies for better results.

Community Partnerships and Influencer Collaborations: Build partnerships with local businesses, community organizations, and influencers to expand your school's reach and credibility. Collaborating with influencers in the education sector can help you tap into new audiences and build trust with potential students and parents.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, digital marketing offers schools a powerful toolkit to enhance their brand, engage with their community, and attract prospective students. By implementing targeted strategies, creating compelling content, engaging on social media, and leveraging data-driven insights, schools can position themselves for success in a competitive educational landscape. To explore how digital marketing can help your school thrive and reach new heights, visit our website at www.shubhmittal.in. Let's work together to unlock the full potential of your school's digital presence and impact! Feel free to adapt this article further to align with your school's specific goals, values, and target audience!

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Monday, March 18, 2024

Trump Says Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He Loses (NYT) Former President Donald J. Trump, at an event on Saturday ostensibly meant to boost his preferred candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary race, gave a freewheeling speech in which he used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, maintained a steady stream of insults and vulgarities and predicted that the United States would never have another election if he did not win in November. While discussing the U.S. economy and its auto industry, Mr. Trump promised to place tariffs on cars manufactured abroad if he won in November. He added: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole—that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”

A Shooter’s Parents Were Convicted of Manslaughter. What Happens Next? (NYT) When the prosecutor Karen McDonald decided to press criminal charges against the parents of the teenager who carried out the deadliest school shooting in Michigan’s history, even some members of her own staff expressed doubts, fearing the case was too ambitious to win. “It seemed a huge reach to try to hold the parents responsible,” said Linda C. Fentiman, a professor emerita at Pace University who is an expert in health law and criminal law. “This was new legal territory.” But in the end, prosecutors were able to convince two separate juries that they had met their burden of proof. Now the question is whether the cases will affect the legal terrain around criminal law, parental responsibility and gun legislation.

Musk’s SpaceX is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency, sources say (Reuters) SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company and national security agencies. The network is being built by SpaceX’s Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites, the sources said. The plans show the extent of SpaceX’s involvement in U.S. intelligence and military projects and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low-Earth orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces. If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the U.S. government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.

Driving With Mr. Gil: A Retiree Teaches Afghan Women the Rules of the Road (NYT) Bibifatima Akhundzada wove a white Chevy Spark through downtown Modesto, Calif., on a recent morning, practicing turns, braking and navigating intersections. “Go, go, go” said her driving instructor, as she slowed down through an open intersection. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” Her teacher was Gil Howard, an 82-year-old retired professor who happened upon a second career as a driving instructor. And no ordinary instructor. In Modesto, Calif., he is the go-to teacher for women from Afghanistan, where driving is off limits for virtually all of them. In recent years, Mr. Howard has taught some 400 women in the 5,000-strong Afghan community in this part of California’s Central Valley. According to local lore, thanks to “Mr. Gil,” as he is known in Modesto, more Afghan women likely drive in and around the city of about 220,000 than in all Afghanistan. For many Americans, learning to drive is a rite of passage, a skill associated with freedom. For Afghan immigrants it can be a lifeline, especially in cities where distances are vast and public transportation limited. So when Mr. Howard realized the difference driving made to the Afghan women, teaching them became a calling, the instruction provided free of charge.

Looting is on the rise in Haiti (AP) As Haiti once again spirals into chaos with another wave of gang violence, a number of government and aid agencies reported Saturday that their facilities and aid supplies have been looted. Gangs have raged through Haiti in recent weeks, attacking key institutions and shutting down the main international airport. The chaos has pushed many Haitians to the brink of famine and left many more in increasingly desperate conditions. On Saturday, UNICEF said one of its containers containing “essential items for maternal, neonatal, and child survival, including resuscitators and related equipment” were looted in the capital of Port-au-Prince’s main port, which was breached by gangs last week. That same day, the Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry said that the offices of its honorary consul in Haiti was ransacked.

Russian exiles bring banyas and blinis to Buenos Aires (Reuters) When Ilia Gafarov and Nadia Gafarova host the grand opening of their “banya”, a traditional Russian sauna, in April, they hope it will help make a permanent home of their adopted city of Buenos Aires. The couple, a former banker and recruiter from Russia’s eastern port city of Vladivostok, moved to Argentina with their two daughters nine months ago, part of a wave of migration from Russia to Latin America since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third year, a growing number of Russian families are putting down roots around Latin America, according to previously unreported residency visa approval data from five countries and interviews with a dozen exiles and experts. Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, granted temporary or permanent residence last year to a total of almost 9,000 Russians, the data show, up from just over 1,000 in 2020.

A volcano in Iceland is erupting for the fourth time in 3 months, sending plumes of lava skywards (AP) A volcano in Iceland erupted Saturday evening for the fourth time in three months, sending orange jets of lava into the night sky. Iceland’s Meteorological Office said the eruption opened a fissure in the earth about 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) long between Stóra-Skógfell and Hagafell mountains on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The Met Office had warned for weeks that magma—semi-molten rock—was accumulating under the ground, making an eruption likely. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, national broadcaster RUV said.

Millions Battle Long Covid Aftermath (Spiegel) International Long Covid Awareness Day marks the focus on the plight of individuals with Long Covid and the lack of effective treatments. An estimated 2.5 million patients in Germany suffer from Long Covid, experiencing symptoms that last over four weeks post-infection, including breathing difficulties, fatigue, and neurological issues. The German government has earmarked up to 81 million euros for Long Covid research and patient care services between 2024 and 2028, but no treatments for Long Covid have been approved, highlighting an urgent need for more specialized care and support for those affected.

Putin is poised to rule Russia for 6 more years (AP/WSJ) Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to extend nearly a quarter century of rule for six more years on Sunday. The three-day election that began Friday has taken place in a tightly controlled environment where no public criticism of Putin or his war in Ukraine is allowed. The 71-year-old Russian leader faces three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties who have refrained from any criticism of his 24-year rule or his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Analysts who follow the country’s politics say Putin needs to win big if he wants a free hand in reviving what he says are Russia’s conservative Orthodox traditions and, ultimately, prevailing in Ukraine and in his broader confrontation with the West.

U.N. Documents More Than Two Dozen Attacks on Gazans Waiting for Aid Since January (NYT) The United Nations human rights office has documented more than two dozen attacks on Gazans waiting for desperately needed aid since January, with hunger spreading as a result of Israel’s near complete siege, preventing most food and water from entering the tiny enclave. In a number of U.N. reports and statements, the office has documented at least 26 such attacks since mid-January. They include Thursday night’s attack on hundreds of Palestinians who were waiting at the Kuwait traffic circle in Gaza City for an expected convoy of aid trucks. Gazan health officials accused Israeli forces of carrying out a “targeted” attack on the crowd that killed 20, and three witnesses described shelling at the scene. The Israeli military blamed Palestinian gunmen for the bloodshed and said that it was continuing to review the episode.

As Gaza war rages, U.S. military footprint expands across Middle East (Washington Post) Lt. Col. Jeremy Anderson tilted up the nose of his U.S. Air Force C-130 and tipped 16 pallets of emergency food aid out of the cargo bay and into the sky above northern Gaza. Thousands of miles away, off the coast of Yemen, U.S. fighter jets and attack helicopters roared off the flight deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, often just minutes apart, to combat Houthi fighters attacking ships in and around the Red Sea. In both places, U.S. service members said their missions were unexpected, changing as the White House has moved rapidly to contain wider fallout from the Israel-Gaza war. But now, along with a U.S. Army crew on its way to Gaza to build a floating pier, they are firmly part of the U.S. military’s expanding footprint in the Middle East. It’s a region President Biden had hoped to de-emphasize—and one where American involvement has often been devastating and costly. The war in Gaza and worsening humanitarian crisis there have taught Biden a lesson many presidents have learned before: It’s not so easy to quit the Middle East.

Niger junta announces end to military relationship with United States (Washington Post) The military junta ruling Niger—which until last year was seen as a major ally of the United States in West Africa—announced Saturday on state television that it was ending its military relationship with the United States. The announcement by a spokesman for the junta government, which overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president last year, came directly on the heels of a visit to the capital Niamey by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee, the State Department’s top official for African affairs, and Gen. Michael E. Langley, who heads U.S. military operations in Africa. That mission was among diplomatic efforts by the United States to find ways to work with military governments in the region. But in the statement read on television, Amadou Abdramane, the junta’s spokesman, said the Nigerien government “denounced with force the condescending attitude” of the head of the recent U.S. delegation, which he said had undermined the long relationship between the two countries.

South Sudan shutters all schools as it prepares for an extreme heat wave (AP) South Sudan’s government is closing down all schools starting Monday as the country prepares for a wave of extreme heat expected to last two weeks. The health and education ministries advised parents to keep all children indoors as temperatures are expected to soar to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit), in a statement late Saturday, They warned that any school found open during that time would have its registration withdrawn, but didn’t specify how long the schools would remain shuttered. Civil conflict has plagued the east African country which also suffered from drought and flooding, making living conditions difficult for residents.