#but considering what the standard of treatment of children was at the time. that still means in general there was probably a lot of

[sushisocks]

what do u think seans experience in reform school was like?? apparently the punishments were….well.

OH ANON!!!!! YES let's talk about this!!!!

So, a majority of the reform school horror stories that at least I've been hearing over the past few years have been largely been about schools that operated in the 20th century and into the 2010s at the latest, like the Dozier school or Elan. Then obviously there's the rest of the troubled teen industry but that's a more modern thing. Anyway, there's not a whole lot to go on for the late 1800's BUT I did manage to find a website which has a model for reformatory rules and regulations in 1890's Britain, which if nothing else, gives us something to go off in terms of what conditions could be like.

To start with, I think the fact that Sean was sent to reform school instead of other options interesting. Reform school was for delinquents; criminal children. Most likely, this means Sean was involved in criminal activity alongside his father - though, alternatively, it could mean whoever had to deal with Sean in the aftermath of Darragh's death, took one look at him and decided reform school was where he had to go.

Of course, Sean would never make life EASY for the officers and teachers of the school he was sent to. Not only is he there against his will, but those people and that place would, in his mind, all belong to the same entity which orchestrated his father's murder. That boy CAME to school with the intent to escape.

I think, with my HC of him having ADHD and dyslexia in mind, paired with his undoubted lack of respect for whatever authority figures that'd be at the reformatory, Sean would be singled out as a troublemaker from the get. It'd be one of those 'living up to expectations' thing from there, Sean making enemies out of the adults who were supposed to care for him and definitely coming up with ways to make their lives harder.

Sidenote; I definitely believe the little laugh Sean has after remembering his time in reform school was him reminiscing about all the pranks and shit he pulled to harass the workers there lmfao.

Of course, that also means he saw a LOT of the punishments they doled out. On the website they linked above, corporal punishment was VERY much on the agenda and I think Sean def saw the worst of it. I think an important aspect here is the understanding that once these things are seen as acceptable punishments, there's nothing stopping the person doling them out to up the severity of them despite regulations. A flogging shouldn't exceed 18 strokes nor a caning 8; but this offender has had several in the past few weeks and still keeps making trouble, lets add a couple extra just to get the message across.

I think the same goes for the punishments regarding isolation and meal deprivation; you can't tell me a young Sean already doesn't know the feeling of skipping meals out of necessity by the time he arrives at reform school - losing ONE meal as the regulations say with the assuredness of the next would do nothing to dampen Sean's spirits, nor a day in isolation.

Idk, Sean was truly desperate for money/food after 3 days, like that was when he tried to kill someone for it. Personally speaking, I go more than 12 hours without eating and I'd probably try to kill someone too. The 3 days speaks to a familiarity with hunger.

And idk, I definitely think Sean is used to being alone!!! It's why he likes being around people so much!! He grew up with only his father to rely on in the whole wide world, who probably HAD to leave Sean alone for prolonged amounts of time to do what he did as a Fenian & criminal. His scene in RDO also speaks to this; he gets lost and is on his own often!! It's not that he prefers it, but he is definitely used to it, and a day in isolation would probably make 0 difference to him fr!!

So, better up the ante to truly get those punishment across.

These are based on the British regulations for the time, mind! I couldn't find anything similar for the US, and I doubt there'd been a federal standard at the time, so I honestly imagine the punishments were more severe from the get, for Sean. Of course reform schools were supposed to be focused on reform over punishment, but when you're dealing with someone as possibly incessant and unyielding in their misbehavior as I imagine Sean was, punishment WOULD seem like the only option, with the knowledge they had at the time. I think he probably got the worse end of a LOT of it, because he wouldn't capitulate to the will of the reformatory very easily.

I don't think Sean stuck around for very long; around a year at most, I'd think. I also don't think he aged out of it, as the age of majority was 21 and it was more common for reform schools to set them up for some sort of legal work after 'graduating'. So yeah, he ran away, and promptly buried a lot of the bad shit he went through, as he is prone to do.

Thank you for this ask, anon!! I had a lot of fun thinking and reading about this, yall are REALLY indulging me here lolol

[bonefall]

Ooh, another based "Shellheart gets too much hype in canon" truther? Is it because he actually does shockingly little to stop or protest Rainflower's treatment of Crookedstar as a kit, or something else?

It's a few things honestly, all of them bug me just enough to make me pretty steadfast in feeling like Shellheart is overrated;

Crooked's renaming feels so preventable. Really, Dad Shellheart? You have no say in this? You can't protest this??

You too Hailstar, what the fuck. Leaders are theocratic dictators 90% of the time but TODAY you feel like just letting this woman involve your entire Clan in her emotional abuse?

So it feels like lip service, "Omg Rainflower's being so awful! Don't worry though us powerful men can still be likeable because we don't like this :( too bad our all-powerful hands are tied."

Shellheart wasn't very involved with his children BEFORE denouncing Rainflower, so he does this whole big show of it and theeeeen..... nothing changes.

I'm reminded of how deadbeat fathers will sometimes blow into town with a whirlwind of big talk about doing something big for their neglected family, only to be gone again before Christmas.

Or, worse, the idea that Shellheart ONLY stopped being official mates with Rainflower because he's deputy, and it would look awful if he did nothing at all in the face of such an unpopular situation. Washing his hands of it.

And listen. I know people will staunchly refuse to acknowledge that these aren't real people, they are WRITING CHOICES. But please. I'm begging everyone to stick with me for a goddamn second

Ask yourself these critical thinking questions:

Why have the writers chosen for the mother to be solely responsible for Crookedstar's childhood abuse, whilst portraying Shellheart's solitary big public denouncement as the pinnacle of fatherhood? As he's barely involved in his children's lives?

Do they functionally portray Shellheart as a father who helps his son through maternal neglect? Or are the scenes quite rare? If yes, then what did the author spend their time on instead?

Consider the narrative of Crookedstar's other main antagonist, Mapleshade. Does Mapleshade's backstory have any similarities to Rainflower? Consider the choice to give Crookedstar two cruel maternal figures who act on malice towards him as paternal figure Shellheart goes unexamined.

Is this a pattern that we have seen before? Are fathers typically held to a different standard in Warrior Cats?

I feel strongly that the answer is an obvious yes. So Shellheart, and all the praise and cooing he gets, bothers me immensely.

[happystings]

I am going to make one thing fucking clear.

Not all nonbinary people look the same, and if you say that they do, you are an asshole. My mum, a 40 year old afab person, identifies as nonbinary/gender fluid and uses she/they pronouns. She does not look like how transphobes describe nonbinary people as. They have wrinkles, shoulder length hair, are a midwife, have natural hair colour, wear "normal" clothes, use their birth name, and have four children. Yes, they have dyed their hair a couple of times, but that's the extent of her presenting nonbinary. and even then, hair dye is for everyone, not just enby people.

And you know what else my mother is? She's a hardcore feminist. She believes in women being able to dress however they want without fear of consequences such as rape or sexual assault, which ties into their beliefs of women deserving bodily autonomy, especially when it comes to reproductive rights. She believes that feminism is good for everyone, and that the patriarchy affects all people, especially LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals, as well as other minorities. They believe that women should have equal opportunities in life, and that they shouldn't fight against other women, and instead should work together to help fight unfair treatment, and the double standards that are extremely harmful to women. And even though she's non binary and gender fluid, she still identifies with the label "woman" because she feels as though it is a major part of her identity.

she's spent her whole life facing discrimination as a woman, and fighting to be treated equally as men, so when you stereotype all nonbinary people to look or act a certain way, you're also stereotyping a forty year old feminist who has been fighting gender norms her entire life, only for you guys to alienate her, and consider her misogynistic for simply using a label that feels comfortable for them.

If you consider yourself "anti nonbinary", I think it's time that you reconsider how "inclusive" your feminism is, and maybe even change your harmful belief system to be more kind to those who are different from you.

[go-rocksquadsfan]

Top 10 greek myths common interpretations that goes from slightly annoying me to make me want to unleash my inner Spartan warrior combined with Achilles' rage. Most of this list will be overall flanderization critic (and uh if this somehow offends any actual believer. Don't think it will but just in case tell me and I'll apologize)

1. Congratulations, you missed the point : Demeter being a bad parent. Been said a thousand times before, you know the drill. Listen I get wanting to make Hades and Persephone an actual loving couple, truly, but this is the prime example of making a story more misogynistic than it originally was. Also incredibly overdone.

1.5 Related to 1 but just the sentence "Hades and Persephone have one of the healthiest relationship in mythology" get out. Get out. (Shoutout to the other Olympian/Underworld gods couple Pasithea and Hypnos)

2. The wedding of Aphrodite and Hephaestus. So let me be clear. A woman is forced into a loveless marriage with a guy that sees her as a trophy. She still has sex with the guy she ACTUALLY loves (and that she was with before the wedding btw) but when he humiliates them in front of half Olympus people's reaction is "Omg poor Hephaestus he didn't deserve that he's a good guy" I'm going to strangle someone (also did y'all forget about what happens to Harmonia and her children ? The man was bitter. I don't like it much either but come on) . Also ironic considering Aglaia is right there but good luck seeing a mention of her lfmaooo. (We're a Aphrodite/Ares supporter in this house !) But NOOOOO we have to focus on the MAN's feelings AND villainize a woman (because since she "cheated" that's all she amounts to). I surely don't see Zeus and Hera get the same treatment !

3. The Iliad pack : making tue characters one dimensional : HELEN, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Hector, Achilles etc

4. ARES. My dude. Do I even have to say anything ? His characterisation is fascinating, even though some of it probably got lost and some was added to slander him. There's as much complexity to him as any other god (his relationship with goddesses/women, as well as the "Feasted by women" epithet even though women got the worst of it in war ?). The myth where he kills his daughter' rapist (a son of Poseidon) goes to trial in front of the other gods for it and get ACQUITTED ? The double standard between him and the other gods is insane.

5. APHRODITE. Again. On one hand you have the vapid woman obsessed with her looks, and on the other her being associated with the sentence "Make love not war" like... lmao. It's more complex than that. You're free to see her more inclined or repulsed towards it but making her completely dissociated with it is... exactly what they did in the Iliad... because they felt the need to because one war goddess is enough I guess. God forbid Aphrodite Areia goes on killing spree family bonding day with her man and Phobos and Deimos

6. Dionysus and Ariadne. Because I need the reasoning about why you would choose the version where he orders Theseus to leave her on the island other than wanting to make Theseus look good (and screwing a woman over). Which lots of people assume this version was made by the Athenians for that purpose 😭. But seriously why ruin one of the most beautiful relationships of the greek pantheon for a child kidnapper ??? (justice for Helen)

7. Congratulations, you missed the point : Eros and Psyche. She's supposed to be UNATTAINABLE. Something about changing that part of the story puts me off (maybe I'll try to explain it another time). Also depriving Psyche of her agency again god forbid a woman is the protagonist 😭 (I've seen it twice. There are probably more)

8.1. No, Artemis isn't a men hater (Unrelated but I realized she's the og lesbian hunter)

8.2. Now I have never seen Apollo hate with my own eyes but... apparently it's out there

9. Hera. Someone save her. She's the embodiment of the "You couldn't even handle her" memes

10. Now this is more on the "slight tick" side of the scale because the fanarts etc are gorgeous but. Achilles wasn't blonde. And even if he was... him and Patroclus are supposed to look alike. I'm aware the Hades/TSOA designs had an influence on this and I don't really mind it but if you want accuracy... yeah.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Sallie Baxendale

Published: Feb 12, 2024

What happens during puberty? And what happens if we try to stop it? It’s one of the most fraught questions of our time. Given its significance and the vulnerability of the people it involves, you might be surprised to learn that there have been more studies assessing the impact of puberty blockers on cognitive function in animals than humans. Of the 16 studies that have specifically examined the impact of puberty blockers on cognitive function, 11 have been conducted in animals. And most found some detrimental impact on cognitive function when the researchers gave these drugs to mice, sheep or monkeys.

The sheep studies were particularly interesting as they used twin lambs, administering the puberty blockers to only one in the pair. More than one year after stopping the medication, the sheep who had taken the puberty blockers had still not “caught up” with their untreated siblings in their ability to complete a test of spatial memory. It can, however, be fairly argued that we can only extrapolate so much from the abilities of sheep to remember the way through a maze of hay bales. It is really the studies in humans that are of most interest to those considering prescribing or taking these drugs.

Yet such studies are hard to come by. There are only five that have looked at the impact of puberty blockers on cognitive function in children, and only three of these have looked at these effects in adolescents given the medication for gender dysphoria. In one of these studies, the researchers didn’t measure how well the children were doing before they administered the drugs, so it is difficult to know whether the subsequent difficulties they had on a strategy task could be attributed to the medication. A second study established an excellent baseline, and the researchers employed a gold-standard measure to test the cognitive abilities of the children in the programme before they started the puberty blockers.

Unfortunately, they didn’t re-administer these tests to assess the impact of the medication, but chose instead to report how many of a subset of these children completed a vocational education and how many completed a higher vocational education years later. No outcomes at all were reported on 40% of the children who started out in the study. The final study, however, was beautifully designed: the researchers assessed IQ prior to the administration of puberty blockers and regularly monitored the impact of the treatment over 28 months on a comprehensive battery of cognitive tasks. The results were concerning and suggested an overall drop in IQ of 10 points which extended to 15 points in verbal comprehension. But regrettably, this was a single case study, and while alarming, the conclusions we can draw from one person’s experience are limited.

Last year, I wrote a paper to summarise the results of these studies. The paper explained in relatively simple terms why we might think that blocking puberty in young people could impact their cognitive development. In a nutshell: puberty doesn’t just trigger the development of secondary sex characteristics; it is a really important time in the development of brain function and structure. My review of the medical literature highlighted that while there is a fairly solid scientific basis to suspect that any process that interrupts puberty will have an impact on brain development, nobody has really bothered to look at this properly in children with gender dysphoria.

I didn’t call for puberty blockers to be banned. Most medical treatments have some side effects and the choice of whether to take them depends on a careful analysis of the risk/benefit ratio for each patient. My paper didn’t conduct this kind of analysis, although others have and have judged the evidence to be so weak that these treatments can only be viewed as experimental. My summary merely provided one piece of the jigsaw. I concluded my manuscript with a list of outstanding questions and called for further research to answer these questions, as every review of the medical literature in any field always does.

As a scientific paper, it was not ground-breaking — reviews rarely are. But by summarising the research so far, I thought it would serve as a convenient resource for the numerous authorities currently examining the efficacy of these treatments. It also provided key information for parents and children currently considering medical options. Every patient needs to be aware of what doctors do and do not know about any elective treatment if they are going to make an informed decision about going ahead. Doctors have a duty of candour to provide this.

I was surprised at just how little, and how low quality, the evidence was in this field. I was also concerned that clinicians working in gender medicine continue to describe the impacts of puberty blockers as “completely physically reversible”, when it is clear that we just don’t know whether this is the case, at least with respect to the cognitive impact. But these were not the only troubling aspects of this project. The progress of this paper towards publication has been extraordinary, and unique in my three-decades-long experience of academic publishing.

The paper has now been accepted for publication in a well-respected, peer-reviewed journal. However, prior to this, the manuscript was submitted to three academic journals, all of whom rejected it. “Academic has paper rejected from journal” is not headline news. I have published many academic papers and have also served on the editorial boards of a number of high impact scientific journals. I have both delivered and received rejections. In high-quality journals, many more papers are rejected than accepted. The reasons for rejection are usually a variation on the themes that the paper isn’t telling us anything new or that the data is weak and doesn’t support the conclusions that the authors are trying to draw. In a paper that is reviewing other studies, reasons for rejection typically include criticisms of the ways the authors have looked for or selected the studies they have included in their review, with the implication that they may have missed a big chunk of evidence. Sometimes the subject of the review is too wide, too narrow or too niche to be of value to the wider readership.

While imperfect, anonymous peer review remains the foundation of scientific publishing. Theoretically, the anonymity releases reviewers from any inhibitions they may have in telling their esteemed colleagues that, on this occasion, they appear to have produced a pile of pants. When it works well, authors and editors receive a coherent critique of the submitted manuscript, with reviewers independently highlighting — and ideally converging — on the strengths and weaknesses of the paper. If done sloppily, or if the reviewers have been poorly selected, the author may be presented with a commentary on their work that is riddled with misunderstandings and inaccuracies. Requests for information already provided are common, as are suggestions that the author include reference to the anonymous reviewer’s own body of work, however tangential to the matter in hand. I have been on the receiving end of both the best and worst of these practices over the course of my career. However, I have never encountered the kinds of concerns that some of the reviewers expressed in response to my review of puberty blockers. In this case, it wasn’t the methods they objected to, it was the actual findings.

None of the reviewers identified any studies that I had missed that demonstrated safe and reversible impacts of puberty blockers on cognitive development, or presented any evidence contrary to my conclusions that the work just hasn’t been done. However, one suggested the evidence may be out there, it just hadn’t been published. They suggested that I trawl through non-peer reviewed conference presentations to look for unpublished studies that might tell a more positive story. The reviewer appeared to be under the naïve apprehension that studies proving that puberty blockers were safe and effective would have difficulty being published. The very low quality of studies in this field, and the positive spin on any results reported by gender clinicians suggest that this is unlikely to be the case.

Another reviewer expressed concerns that publishing the conclusions from these studies risked stigmatising an already stigmatised group. A third suggested that I should focus on the positive things that puberty blockers could do, while a fourth suggested there was no point in publishing a review when there wasn’t enough literature to review. Another sought to diminish an entire field of neuroscience that has established puberty as a critical period of brain development as “my view”.

In a rather telling response, one of the reviewers used religious language to criticise the paper. They argued that the sex-based terms I had employed to describe the children in the studies — natal sex, male-to-female, female-to-male — indicated a pre-existing scepticism about the use of blockers. They suggested that the very presence of these terms would cause people who prescribe these medications to “outright dismiss the article”, and went on to say that by using these terms the paper was “preaching to the choir” and would do a “poor job of attracting new members to the fold”. However, the most astonishing response I received was from a reviewer who was concerned that I appeared to be approaching the topic from a “bias” of heavy caution. This reviewer argued that lots of things needed to be sorted out before a clear case for the “riskiness” of puberty blockers could be made, even circumstantially. Indeed, they appeared to be advocating for a default position of assuming medical treatments are safe, until proven otherwise.

Yet “safe and fully reversible” can never be the default position for any medical intervention, never mind a treatment that is now deemed experimental by authorities in Europe and the UK. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and the only extraordinary evidence here is the gaping chasm of knowledge, or even apparent curiosity, of the clinicians who continue to chant “safe and completely reversible” as they prescribe these medications to the children in their care. It is not the job of a scientific paper to “bring people into the fold”; it is the job of clinicians to understand the evidence base of the treatments they offer and communicate this to the patients they are treating.

I sincerely hope that any arrest in brain development associated with puberty blockers is recoverable for young trans and gender diverse people, who are already facing significant challenges in their lives. I would welcome any research that indicates that this is the case, not least for the significant insights that would present to our current understanding of puberty as a critical window of neurodevelopment in adolescence. Puberty blockers almost invariably set young people on a course of lifetime medicalisation with high personal, physical and social costs. At present we cannot guarantee that cognitive costs are not added to this burden. Any clinician claiming their treatments are “safe and reversible” without evidence to back it up is failing in their fundamental duty of candour to their patients. Such an approach is unacceptable in any branch of medicine, not least that dealing with highly complex and vulnerable young people.

Sallie Baxendale is a consultant clinical neuropsychologist and a professor of clinical neuropsychology at University College London.

==

But by summarising the research so far

Therein lies the problem. "Puberty blockers are fully reversible" is an article of religious faith and recited as religious cant. Not a tested, verifiable reality. Proposing to put a spotlight on the evidence - and especially the lack thereof - is a form of religious heresy.

[the-owl-tree]

I fr don’t know how the erins wrote such a twisted, triggering abusive couple and story line again and again. they don’t even answer for it in a way that takes into account their audience who reads their books and sees their parents doing this exact shit. this is some shit that would send me into a spiral as a kid. I am genuinely shocked and appalled that they’re still making books. not to say warriors should end but… they are actively producing harmful content marketed towards children

had to take a little women & cooking break from this book lol

i'm not done the book yet so i might be shooting myself in the foot....but at the same time i'm pretty confident i've identified some of the reasons why this book is the way it is. for how awful the book is, it is pretty revealing:

-Okay, get the obvious one out of the way: Warriors does not treat its female characters and its male characters equally. This bleeds into ALL their writing, and this super edition is just as impacted by it. Whether or not we like these characters or not, this double standard is at play.

-The books believe that Squirrelflight and Bramblestar's fighting makes them better, that their disagreements make them a good team and challenge each other. Squirrelflight in particular is considered argumentative by her clanmates, something which is treated as comedic in the early chapters:

(note the wording, squilf is the argumentative unreasonable one).

Obviously, this isn't true. Their quarreling does NOT make them stronger and Bramblestar frequently uses his position to actively punish her when she disagrees with him to the point he'd forbid her from arguing with him in public. Squirrelflight disagreeing with him is shown by the narrative as her doing what's right (which is good!) but the fact Bramblestar CAN and WILL use his position to shut her up is bad. These fights are not equal and the authors won't acknowledge that, so the rest of the cast in ThunderClan also don't see this as bad.

-Bramblestar isn't meant to be seen as right and we're SUPPOSED to see his actions as cruel and heartless....but the authors want you to think about how pressured and stressed he is. They do not want to acknowledge just how bad his actions are. People act like Squirrelflight is piling shit onto him (this is not true and i actually kind of want to make a post about just how this plot point as been taken out of context and misused by people who want bramblestar to look good but another time another time)....but the book does not want to see this as a repeated part of his personality because the authors do not see Bramblestar as a bad person at heart, just that he's misguided and not acting rationally. Not true! We've seen this behavior prior. But that leads to my next point-

-While the narrative isn't trying to convince you that Bramblestar is correct, it still wants you to think that Squirrelflight has done something to earn this treatment. Her going behind Bramblestar's back is treated as wrong and Squirrelflight's narration has her imploring the reader to think about his perspective. The writers want you to believe that things could have gone better had she just talked to him...but fail to acknowledge that the Bramblestar they've written is completely unreasonable and acting irrationally. He actively does not listen in earlier chapters but they still want you to believe Squirrelflight disobeying him is worth her being flamed as well.

Note: this is a repeated pattern. she apologizes to him about her suspicions about hawkfrost....despite being completely right.

-The authors use characters are situational antagonists (and often repeatedly use these characters! Thornclaw and Blossomfall have the consistent trait of being actively xenophobic and cruel to outsiders) but they refuse to address these as bad or have these characters be confronted for this. Bramblestar falls into this category, he is antagonist for this book but because he apologizes and is secretly good at heart or whatever, the authors don't have to interrogate just how much harm he is doing to those around him. They needed conflict, used Bramblestar for that, and once the conflict was resolved, went back to use him as a main character without examining the shit he did as an antagonist.

Thornclaw is like the prime example of this he is routinely bigoted and awful and yet is just treated like a normal member of the Clan. So it's not just a Bramblestar, this is a broader writing issue.

aannnd those are my little theories based on this reading. it sucks ass and i need bramblestar to die asap.

[identitty-dickruption]

Hello, I'm very sorry to bother you. I am about to ask a long and possibly ignorant question. If you don't feel comfortable answering or you simply don't want to (it isn't your job to educate other people, I know that) I totally understand it. Just know that I'm coming from lack of knowledge, not lack of respect.

I just saw this post (couldn't find the original one, sorry) and I wanted to clarify. What exactly do you mean intersex people shouldn't been brought up during debates about gender and sex? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that I don't understand.

Everything else in the post, I'm clear about, but when transphobos say shit like "you are biologically either a man or a woman and you cannot change that because you cannot change your chromosomes," I do consider it worth mentioning that biological sex isn't as easy of a topic as they think it is. Human bodies are not always clearly, unquestionably either male or female. And sometimes a person is sure she is clearly, unquestionably female and then, one day when she's 25 years old, she takes a sex verification test for the Olympics and turns out she has XY chromosomes, like María José Martínez Patiño, so chromosomes clearly are a lame excuse for transphobos to use. I'm not gonna give more examples because you probably have heard many at this point and I'm sure you understand intersex topics better than I do, but I think I made clear my point.

If we don't expect all intersex people to live as multigender or nonbinary, then why would someone expect all perisex people to live only as their agab, when we know that everything regarding biological sex (chromosomes, gonads, reproductive system and hormonal production) means nothing when we talk about gender identity?

Again, I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, I just want to understand. Why using an argument like this would be wrong?

hello. out of all the points on that post, this is the one I get challenged on the most, for exactly the points you make — biological sex isn’t binary, it’s bimodal, so talking about intersex people makes sense to a lot of people when they enter these debates. I stand by what I said though

firstly. TERFs, on the most part, don’t see intersex people as intersex. they already have a standard response to this and it’s, “those people just have disorders of sex development, they’re still predominantly either male or female”. TERFs know the cases of intersex athletes very well, and they have ways to talk around it. so, like. this argument doesn’t even work nine times out of ten. it just forces intersex people to see yet more people label them as defective for the sake of a debate

secondly, being used as a gotcha in debates is a microaggression when you consider that it’s usually the only time I see people talk about me and my community. dyadic queer people + allies will acknowledge intersex people exist so they can win a debate, and then never talk about us or think about us again

this is particularly true when these same people will make incredibly intersexist arguments within the same debate

they’ll say things like “nobody’s forcing HRT onto children!” when hi! that happens to intersex kids and teens all the time. they’ll say “cis kids with hormonal disorders get approval for HRT, what’s the difference?” when, again. we’re not “cis kids with hormonal disorders”, we’re intersex people who are forced into unwanted medical treatment all the time

I don’t want my existence used as a debate point if you’re only going to think about me when you can frame it as a zinger or a takedown. I don’t want support because of my position in “the trans debate”, I want support because people actually care about me and my struggles

[natequarter]

I was reading your posts about how badly most/all historical fiction and period dramas are when it comes to faithful portrayals and was wondering about your thoughts on Wolf Hall, whether you read it, watched it, or both. And also, are there examples that you feel do it well? Or are there examples where they get it wrong but you still enjoy them? (Can you tell I’ve been on a historical fiction kick lately?) I know that’s a lot of questions, so please don’t feel obligated to answer them.

oh boy, this is... complicated. i'll start off with wolf hall, because that will probably be easier: necessary disclaimer that i have not watched or read all of wolf hall, but i have read a significant chunk of the first book.

firstly, i actually enjoyed reading wolf hall a lot. there are a couple of bits that grated me when i read it (iirc it suggests that henry viii was to become archbishop of canterbury before the death of his brother, which is emphatically not true; nitpicky, i know, but it's one of the misleading "fun facts" you often hear about henry viii), but for the most part i found it rather refreshing. i have to praise hilary mantel's writing style, of course; it's beautiful prose, and a relieving change from first person present tense narratives, which are bad. (disclaimer: this is a personal opinion. i happen to think that 99% of all first person narratives are utter shit.) in terms of plot events, i think my favourite parts of wolf hall are cromwell with his wife and children, and him grieving his wife and children; the quiet reminders of their absence are heartbreaking.

now, onto the things i didn't like. i didn't love the tv show; nothing wrong with it, necessarily, it just didn't click with me - and it probably didn't help that when i watched it the screen light to room light balance was very off. and as for mantel herself... quite a few people have pointed out that her treatment of the women (notably anne boleyn and jane parker, her sister-in-law) in her series comes off as misogynistic, and i personally find the treatment of thomas more grating. essentially, she buys into a lot of the old narratives of jane parker being 'scheming' and betraying anne boleyn and her brother george; and her depiction of anne can similarly come off as that of a scheming woman and nothing more. there is an argument to be made that we're seeing this through cromwell's eyes, so naturally he's going to be biased against certain people - but mantel is the writer and she chose what she wrote. she seeks to balance out the classic depictions of cromwell as scheming and more as a literal saint, but it tips over into just making more look like a villain - things such as him choosing to educate his wife are warped into more being... evil? somehow? there's a double standard with cromwell vs the other characters: when cromwell is pious, it's devotion; when more is pious, it's fanaticism, and the same with cromwell vs the women in the books. finally, hilary mantel was transphobic. i'm not here to argue about that one.

granted, i don't think these things make wolf hall unforgivably bad, by any stretch of the imagination. i think it's a complex, flawed book and the same applies to the show. i think this youtube review summarises it well overall - and of course these things are always nuanced and complicated and so on and so forth.

there are shows which do historical fiction absolutely horribly, like the spanish princess. i have no interest in defending that, because, as far as i'm concerned, it's a mess not worth attacking; that's been done to death. i would also consider the vast majority of books by philippa gregory and alison weir to be a major waste of time. weir is also a non-fiction writer, and her non-fiction is exactly as bad, so for the love of good, please don't pick those up either. both authors like to draft in rape, magic (dear god, don't talk to me about the fucking magic), not-like-other-girls female characters, incest (???) and a bucket load of misogyny in lieu of actual plot. neither of them are good writers, either.

onto works which do an alright or complicated job. i think wolf hall belongs here - it does some things very well, some things... not so well. i'd also put becoming elizabeth here - as you've said, this is one where they get things wrong but i can still enjoy it. the show covers the reign of edward vi (1547-1553) and the teenage years of elizabeth i (about 13-19, so literally her teenage years). the good parts? it's a fantastic depiction of edward vi and mary - both are brilliantly cast and the acting from them is amazing. it incorporates black characters into authentic period roles, the clothing is really well done, and it shows most of the important parts of edward's reign. the bad parts? well, elizabeth is played by a woman in her late twenties. this lets the whole thing down, frankly. it's supposed to be a show about elizabeth, and yet edward or mary could easily replace her as protagonists - i don't think the actor playing her is great, personally. and then there's the fact that this show portrays the grooming of elizabeth by thomas seymour. the show actually makes their relationship out to be genuine and the two sleep together, a deviation from history and a particularly troubling one given that the real elizabeth was uncomfortable with seymour's advances and actively tried to avoid him. it also spends six of its eight episodes on seymour when seymour was beheaded a third of the way through edward's reign. thus, it has its upsides and its major downsides - oh, and the characters say fuck a lot, which is mildly annoying. but i can enjoy it, as long as elizabeth's not talking and they're not focusing too much on seymour... a bit of a letdown from a show supposedly about her.

there's also the tudors, which is a bit of a mixed bag - it makes some inexplicable changes from history, but it often uses quotations from tudor sources in its dialogue. the casting can be a bit... wonky, but it does have its moments, and offers a somewhat more balanced version of more vs cromwell. i don't particularly like it because it often modernises the characters a bit - and i don't want that! making characters act like modern people seriously misses the point: this is historical fiction, not a modern thriller or whatever. the girlbossification of historical women who were often seriously held back by the men around them and wielded influence in rather different ways to what we think of as strong women is exhausting.

and there is historical fiction which i really enjoy. dissolution (and its sequels) is a murder mystery series by c. j. sansom, narrated by the fictional matthew shardlake, a disabled king's commissioner working for cromwell. he ends up investigating the murder of another commissioner at a monastery in scarnsea. it deals with the issues of religion, gender, and disability in very interesting ways; matthew is not infallible and clearly holds some very tudor views of the world. it's a richly-written world and it really does feel like you're in 1530s england, and i really recommend it. i also like becket (1964) and the lion in winter, neither of which are particularly striving for accuracy - but they're good dramas and brilliantly acted, and, you know, maybe henry ii was secretly in love with thomas becket. (both are heartwrenching films and i will never be over: 'You give the lions of England back to me like a little boy who doesn't want to play anymore. I would have gone to war with all England's might behind me, and even against England's interests, to defend you, Thomas. I would have given away my life laughingly for you. Only I loved you and you didn't love me. That's the difference.' my feelings on bill (2015) are more or less the same - it's an intentionally ahistorical film, and it works because it's well-written and not trying to accurately represent the past. the '70s series like the six wives of henry viii and the shadow of the tower are really enjoyable, too - because they actually cared about making decent series about the tudors relying on the actual events which transpired during the era!

i'll leave the question of costuming out in the open; i think this youtube video has some good points on whether period-accurate costuming is essential. i like it, personally, but i'm not going to be furious at a missed french hood; the only thing that will truly make me furious is a french hood with no veil. either bother, or don't bother! don't... don't do neither, jesus christ! as for historical accuracy in general - i think that's a question which will never have one true answer. personally, i do value a rough adherence to the historical timeline, at least for fairly well-know facts like, i don't know, henry viii having two sisters? why does the tudors merge them into one person? what? anyway. i think these posts offer some valuable insight into how vague and murky a concept historical accuracy really is and how it can be wielded as a weapon against people rather than in the interests of a good story (read at your own peril - they are quite long). there is also the problem of hindsight - as readers, we know that edward vi will die at only fifteen. the average person at the time did not! well, not until 1553. the point is, books where the narrator has seemingly prophetic powers or knowledge of future events are unrealistic. what i think is most important is writing stories that more or less accord to the timeline of history in the general details and capturing the attitudes of people who lived in the past decently. this is what really brings historical fiction to life, in my opinion. these also offer up good opportunities for parody and satire - a film which intentionally gets history wrong Because Incest is frustrating, but a film which intentionally gets history wrong to parody it, like blackadder, can be incredibly entertaining. inaccuracy is not always bad. that said, if you don't make henry viii ginger, i will hate you forever. soz. as for language - it's ridiculous to expect dialogue to be written 100% in middle english or what-have-you, but the occasional 'god's bones!' instead of 'oh my god' would be nice, and an avoidance of just putting a load of fucks in there...

and finally, for the elephant in the room... misogyny. there are certainly other -isms which permeate historical fiction as they do everything else, but this is the big one. so many depictions of women in historical fiction uncritically buy into the narratives of misogynistic medieval commentators which we have inherited from centuries of men recycling them. like calling women sluts, or witches, or writing them as genuinely sleeping with a male relative - taking the slander against them literally. like boxing women into a few stereotypes - docile and submissive; scheming bitch; old hag; and whore. like sexing up rapists and groomers. like forgiving historical men for things we condemn historical women for.

i hope this helped! i have many thoughts, none of which are easily summarised. i don't know if there's a right answer to this. but i do know one thing: the white princess is bad. thank you for the ask!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A ‘twisted’ experience: How KY’s abortion bans are depriving pregnant patients of health care

BY ALEX ACQUISTO

On the way to her 20 week ultrasound, Amy English texted her family group chat inviting guesses on her baby’s biological sex.

“Baby boy English muffin!” her father in-in-law texted.

“I thought boy at first but I’m thinking girl now,” her sister-in-law said. “My official guess is a girl :).”

It was December 28. Earlier that morning, Amy, 31, her husband David, and their 20-month-old daughter Annie had celebrated a belated Christmas at their house in Louisville with family visiting from out of state.

Amy and David had planned this pregnancy, and it was, in a way, perfectly timed. Their baby’s due date was five days after Annie’s birthday. Her children would be two years apart almost exactly to the day — a reality Amy was “ecstatic about.”

Sitting in a fluorescent-lit room inside Baptist Health Louisville, Amy looked for familiar shapes on the screen as an ultrasound tech probed her abdomen. Familiar with radiology in her career as a physical therapist, she has a baseline understanding of how to read ultrasounds: gray shapes usually indicate fluid, and bone shows up as white.

Amy remembers seeing her baby’s arms, legs and the curve of its back. But there was no recognizable outline where the skull should be.

“I couldn’t see the top of my baby���s head,” Amy said in an interview with the Herald-Leader. “I kept waiting for the tech to move the probe in a way where we could see what we should be seeing. I could tell she was searching for it, too.”

Amy had also learned in school about anencephaly, a severe fetal birth defect impacting the brain and skull. A lack of folic acid early in pregnancy increases the likelihood of this happening. This possibility flashed in her mind but she quickly batted it down; she’d been taking her prenatal vitamins, rich in folic acid, for months even before discovering she was pregnant.

The tech paused, then spoke.

“What we’re looking for here is an outline of the baby’s head, and right now I’m not really seeing that,” the woman explained before calling in Amy’s longtime OBGYN.

Over the next few minutes, Amy remembers the room blurring as she heard her doctor use the word “acrania,” which is when a fetus matures through pregnancy without ever developing parts of its skull. It can spur anencephaly, when the brain, too, is underdeveloped and partially missing. Pregnancies with either of these conditions are nonviable.

Amy’s baby, which they learned was a boy, had both. He would not survive into childhood, likely not beyond a few minutes after birth.

This, alone, was devastating news. Her dismay was compounded the next day when she learned that terminating her nonviable pregnancy, even by way of an early induction — a commonplace and provider-recommended method of treatment for such a diagnosis — couldn’t happen.

Even though Amy’s baby would never survive outside her womb, the pregnancy still had a fetal heartbeat — a technicality, considering the diagnosis. Coupled with the lack of immediate threat to her health, her doctors explained they couldn’t induce labor, much less give her an abortion. Kentucky laws forbade it, they said.

“I don’t know what was more shocking: to find out the baby had anencephaly, or that I would have to go out of state to get this care,” Amy said.

Kentucky’s abortion bans do not legally permit the standard of care treatment for a nonviable pregnancy like Amy’s. As a result, doctors must refer patients needing otherwise medically-recommended terminations out of state in droves, along with people desiring elective abortions, according to interviews with seven providers across four hospital systems. Providers who terminate pregnancies in violation of the trigger law can be charged with a felony in Kentucky.

Though this scenario is increasingly common statewide, it’s one arbiters of the state’s laws have yet to remedy, and one lawmakers are not publicly working to resolve.

Kentucky’s trigger law, enacted in late June 2022, criminalizes abortion except to prevent a “substantial risk of death,” or to “prevent the serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of a pregnant woman.” The fetal heartbeat law also includes these exceptions but otherwise bans abortion except in a “medical emergency” once fetal cardiac activity begins, usually around six weeks.

Any time a pregnancy is terminated, each law requires a provider to document in writing why it was necessary to, in the case of the six-week ban, “prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”

The law permits the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to audit any licensed health care facility to make sure its abortion reporting requirements are “in compliance” with the law.

Both bans allow physicians to use their “reasonable medical judgment” when deciding whether pregnancy terminations are medically necessary. But providers interviewed for this story said that guidance is antithetical with the rest of the law’s limits, which only permit terminations in medical emergencies. There are no exceptions for fetal anomalies, or for the gamut of conditions that may make a pregnancy nonviable but don’t pose an immediate or emergent health risk to a pregnant person.

Moreover, the lack of uniform guidance from the state on what’s considered an emergency means definitions across hospitals sometimes vary, the Herald-Leader found. This has created a legal thicket for health care institutions. As a result, the final say on some critical medical decisions affecting pregnant patients is falling not to medical experts, but to hospital attorneys and administrators, who are worried about legality, liability and reputation.

The Herald-Leader asked the University of Kentucky, UofL Health and Baptist Health for insight into how their respective risk management teams and providers are navigating the laws. None responded to multiple questions about respective protocols for deciding when terminations are legally defensible, or how risk management teams, administrators and providers go about deciding.

“Clinicians have a responsibility to provide compassionate, evidence-based care and counsel to their patients, and also comply with the law,” Baptist said in a statement.

“UofL Health is committed to provide comprehensive health care to all its patients and their families,” UofL said in a statement. “In the case of a nonviable pregnancy that poses a health risk to the mother, we explain options for care while complying with all state and federal laws.”

“Although we cannot discuss when or how our legal counsel gives advice,” UK HealthCare said, “in Kentucky, state law prohibits the University’s physicians and staff from performing abortions except when the mother’s life is in danger. In the case of a nonviable pregnancy, our health care staff work with patients to determine the best course of care for the patient that is consistent with state and federal law.”

‘WE COULD NOT PROVIDE THIS SERVICE HERE’

The morning after Amy learned her baby likely had a fatal birth defect, the diagnosis was confirmed at a second ultrasound with a high-risk specialist. The buoyancy and excitement of the prior day was replaced with dread and grief. Amy remembers the quietness of the room during the second ultrasound, the hollow clicking of the keyboard keys and the intermittent clicking of the computer mouse.

Baptist Health refused to make Amy’s doctor available for an interview. But their conversation was outlined in Amy’s medical records, which were provided to the Herald-Leader.

“I discussed this finding with the patient and offered my sincerest condolences — that this was not compatible with life and that I am so sorry she and her husband are in this situation,” the doctor wrote in her notes. “She was understandably tearful.”

Amy listened as her provider explained her two options: Amy could carry her son to term and deliver him via C-section. He would immediately be taken to palliative care, where he would live a few minutes, maybe hours. Grief counselors would be on standby.

Her second option was to terminate the pregnancy early by way of an abortion or preterm induction. “Choosing not to continue the pregnancy: we discussed that this is also a loving choice for a baby that will certainly not survive,” her doctor wrote.

Pre-trigger law, termination under these circumstances would’ve happened in a hospital, and Amy’s health insurance likely would’ve covered it.

“No part of me wanted to be pregnant anymore,” Amy said. “Every flutter and kick he gave felt like a literal gut punch reminder that I would never get to take him home.”

Strangers were already approaching her at the grocery to ask to touch her stomach. Her patients at work often asked how far along she was. It seemed emotionally unthinkable to continue subjecting herself to a life where, at any moment, she would be forced to repeat that her growing body was nurturing a baby that wouldn’t live, she said.

Termination was what Amy wanted. She erupted into sobs when her doctor told her that under her current circumstances (her life wasn’t immediately threatened, and there was still a fetal heartbeat) it wasn’t an option.

“We discussed that due to our current Kentucky laws, we could not provide this service here,” her doctor wrote in her records.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Amy remembers the specialist saying.

She gave Amy a list of hospitals and clinics in surrounding states that might be able to terminate her pregnancy. Her doctor recommended calling Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, or another clinic in Illinois, where abortion is widely available.

“Am I just supposed to Google the number, call the front desk and ask, ‘How do I get an abortion at your hospital?’” Amy remembered thinking.

Over the next few days, she, her husband and sister-in-law cold-called a handful of clinics to request a dilation and evacuation abortion, common in the second trimester. But a combination of abortion restrictions in Indiana and Ohio, including gestational limits on when abortion is legal — Amy was 21 weeks along at this point — left her with few options.

Then, Amy’s sister, a nurse anesthetist at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital in Dekalb, west of Chicago, stepped in. Her hospital lacked the equipment for a D&E, but they agreed to induce Amy.

On January 4, after driving close to 400 miles, Amy was induced and gave birth to a son she and her husband named Solomon Matthew. He didn’t cry. His heart beat for about two minutes before it stopped.

‘NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO’

The Republican-led General Assembly has made no moves to amend or further clarify either abortion ban since both took effect seven months ago, even though the combined impact has harmed patients, doctors have told lawmakers.

The Kentucky Supreme Court still hasn’t issued a preliminary opinion on whether either law infringes on a person’s constitutional right to bodily autonomy and self-determination. Deciding so would temporarily block one or both bans from being enforced. Convened for a regular session through March, the Republican supermajority has yet to file any bills related to reproductive health care access and likely won’t until the high court weighs in.

In the meantime, there’s disagreement about whether or not either ban infringes on providers’ ability to dole out the standard level of care to pregnant patients.

Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Michelle Keller and former Deputy Chief Justice Lisabeth Hughes raised this point during November oral arguments in the pending court case from the state’s two outpatient abortion clinics challenging the constitutionality of both laws.

The trigger law “doesn’t recognize an exception for women who are under the care of a physician who tells them that the standard of care would be to terminate the pregnancy,” Hughes told Solicitor General Matt Kuhn, arguing on behalf of the Attorney General’s office.

As a result, “What’s really happening is physicians in (hospitals) all over the commonwealth are calling the risk managers and attorneys for the hospitals not knowing what to do,” Keller added. “You’re obfuscating what this trigger statute says. There isn’t a strict life of the mother exception.”

The law’s proponents, including Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, have cited the provision in the law that allows for use of “reasonable medical judgment” as protecting doctors’ autonomy, and that any challenge to that fact is overblown.

“The law has an explicit health exception, (which) depends on a ‘reasonable medical judgment’ from physicians,” Kuhn told Kentucky Supreme Court Justices that day. There’s been “a lot of misinformation” suggesting the law doesn’t adequately protect a pregnant person’s health, he said, citing two advisories Cameron’s office has issued since both measures took effect. Both clarify that in vitro fertilization, and abortions as treatment of miscarriages, preeclampsia and ectopic pregnancies don’t violate the law.

As for the host of other conditions not mentioned, “we are continuing to work with Kentucky doctors giving guidance on that,” Kuhn said.

But no written evidence of that guidance appears to exist. In response to an open records request from the Herald-Leader, Cameron’s office said this week it had no written or electronic records of communication between the Attorney General’s office and licensed health care facilities or providers regarding the trigger law or six week ban.

‘AN UNNECESSARY PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL RISK’

It was mid June when Leah Martin, 35, discovered she was pregnant with her second child.

Pregnancy at ages 35 and above is considered geriatric. Aware that her age meant she faced a heightened risk, she opted for genetic testing early on to gauge any abnormalities.

Her first ultrasound didn’t raise any alarm. At just over nine weeks, Leah took a prenatal genetic test. The results a week later showed “low fetal fractal numbers,” she said in an interview.

That result, her OBGYN told her, could mean there hadn’t been enough material collected to show a clearer result. It could also signal an abnormality.

Leah, wanting to be judicious, got a more exact genetic test just before 12 weeks. She quickly learned her fetus had triploidy, a rare condition that causes the development of 69 chromosomes per cell instead of the regular 46. It causes not only severe physical deformities, but triploidy stunts development of crucial organs, like the lungs and heart. It means a fetus, if it even survives to birth, will likely not live beyond a few days.

What’s more, Leah was also diagnosed with a partial molar pregnancy, which causes atypical cells to grow in the uterus and, as Leah’s doctors told her, could lead to cancer.

It was mid-July, and Kentucky’s trigger law and six week ban had been in effect for barely two weeks. Leah was familiar enough with what both laws restricted and assumed that because her pregnancy could cause her cancer and was nonviable, she would lawfully qualify as an exception.

So, she weighed her options with her doctors at Baptist Health Lexington, who included Dr. Blake Bradley, her longtime OBGYN.

Similar to Amy’s diagnosis, Leah’s doctors told her that even if she opted to carry the pregnancy to term, her baby “would live a short life in palliative care, most likely never leaving the hospital. It would really be a quite painful existence,” she said.

“I have a 2-year-old at home, and I’m 35, weighing how I would like to expand my family. It seemed like the safest option for me and the compassionate choice for my unborn child was to terminate the pregnancy,” she said.

Like Amy’s, a medically-necessary abortion under these circumstances would typically take place at a hospital, doctors interviewed for this story said. Leah’s health insurance had already agreed to cover it. It was also the quickest way to help Leah to her end goal: getting pregnant again in order to birth a child that would survive.

It was July 21 and Leah was just over 12 weeks pregnant when she learned that Baptist’s legal counsel had blocked her doctors from giving her a dilation and curettage abortion.

“I was told the hospital refused to perform the procedure while the case was being litigated. I was dumbfounded,” Leah said. Hospital lawyers cited an ongoing lawsuit from Kentucky’s two outpatient abortion providers that’s pending before the Kentucky Supreme Court.

According to Leah, hospital providers, relaying the message from administration and risk management, reportedly said if her fetus died on its own, doctors would be able to terminate her pregnancy. But their hands were tied as long as it had a heartbeat.

“People minimize that pregnancy, even under its best circumstances, is associated with life-threatening risks, life-altering risks and emotional impacts,” Bradley told the Herald-Leader. “So, to compel a woman to continue a pregnancy that is by everyone’s assessment, doomed, by definition places that woman at an unreasonable and unnecessary physical and psychological risk, period.”

Baptist Health refused to make Leah’s high-risk doctor available for an interview.

The following Monday, July 25, Leah had an ultrasound at the hospital to confirm what she already knew. As an ultrasound tech probed her abdomen, a wheel of dizzying emotions spun in her head: she desperately wanted a baby, but she didn’t want to birth a child into a painful existence.

Already faced with a gutting dilemma, she felt further burdened by having such an intimate choice ripped from her. And she was furious at now being forced to remain pregnant despite there being no chance for survival, despite the risks continuing such a pregnancy posed to her own body.

She remembers staring at the ultrasound screen waiting to hear the muffled heartbeat of her fetus, racked with guilt because she hoped she wouldn’t.

“It was such a twisted experience being pregnant with a baby I desperately wanted, lying there hoping its heart had stopped,” she said shakily. “It was horrible to have to wish for that in order to receive care. It just felt so unsafe and cruel.”

Leah had already arranged to drive to Chicago to get an abortion when a Jefferson Circuit judge issued a preliminary injunction on July 22, temporarily blocking the state from enforcing both bans. She immediately called EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville — one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state — and made an appointment.

On Wednesday, July 27, almost 13 weeks pregnant, Leah paid $950 out of pocket for her abortion. Her insurance wouldn’t cover it, since it was considered elective. The following Monday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals overturned the circuit court injunction, reinstating both abortion bans.

After Leah’s abortion, she sent a message to her high-risk doctor. Her doctor responded the following day. Leah shared that correspondence with the Herald-Leader.

“You’ve been on my thoughts a lot,” her doctor wrote. “Words cannot express the dismay I feel right now. I’ve spent my whole adult life learning how to care for mothers in heart wrenching or dangerous situations like yours, and the politics now make it not only impossible, but to work to take care of patients like they deserve — with compassion and science — in these horrible situations is wrong and immoral.”

“I hope your procedure yesterday was smooth, though I know it was hard,” her doctor wrote. “I’m so sorry we could not (were not allowed, rather) to take care of you here.”

[sokkastyles]

Boy, I've got a Azula stan take for you. Apparently, Zuko has no right to treat Azula the way he does and be angry at her, because Zuko himself abused Iroh and Iroh only ever treated him with kindness and love. They go on to say that Zuko's "abuse of Iroh" is similar to Azula's treatment of him (but Azula didn't abuse him actually), because Zuko called Iroh nasty things so many times, and Azula did the same to Zuko. It's amazing how deranged some Azula stan takes are.

First of all, if Zuko being nasty to Iroh means he has no right to want to not be treated badly by Azula, then how about we apply that standard to Azula as well, and her stans should stop saying that literally everyone in the series owes her since she's nothing but consistently nasty to them.

Also, the fact that the ways Zuko treats Iroh in book one are similar to the ways that both Azula and Ozai treat Zuko is something I've already been saying, and it's one of the reasons I consider Azula to be one of Zuko's abusers. Not only that, but I've pointed out the similarities in what Zuko says about Iroh - particularly when he's pushing back against Iroh telling him not to trust Ozai or Azula - and what Azula says about Iroh, that he's lazy and indolent and a loser.

Zuko repeats these things when he's trying to be what his father wants him to be, because he sees Azula as a powerful person who not only has his father's love, but also because Azula has power over Zuko. It's very common for abused children to mimic their abusers because it's a way of trying to reclaim power and control over their lives. That's also part of the reason that people who were abused sometimes become abusers themselves. It is hardly surprising that Zuko, particularly when he feels the most helpless, when Iroh is trying to get him to face the reality of how his family abused him, would mimic the things Azula says about Iroh.

The main difference though, between Zuko ridiculing Iroh and Azula ridiculing Zuko, aside from the fact that we're shown early on that Zuko really does admire and love Iroh, is that Zuko does not have power over Iroh in the same way Azula has power over Zuko. Not only because Iroh is an adult and Zuko is a child, but because Iroh is much more established. Even in exile and as a disgraced general, he has enough social power that when Zuko starts getting nasty to him, his own crew come to Iroh's defense and rebel against Zuko. Zuko's nastiness towards Iroh just ends up looking like a child's tantrum because it's never really effective and Zuko doesn't have power over Iroh. We see this again and again, down to Iroh delaying Zuko by taking a bath in a hot spring. Not only is Iroh completely unfazed by Zuko's yelling at him, Zuko doesn't even follow through on his threat to leave Iroh behind and Iroh knows Zuko won't do this, because Zuko is emotionally dependent upon Iroh in the way a child is emotionally dependent on a parent.

If we were to get into, though, for example, book three when Zuko tries to turn his back on Iroh and blames Iroh for his own problems, that would be a different story. Iroh is in prison, so Iroh has less power than Zuko, so if Zuko decided to be cruel to Iroh then that might be abusive. However, even when Zuko yells at Iroh in book three, the framing of the scene emphasizes that Iroh is really the more powerful one, because even though Iroh is hurt by Zuko's anger, he also is sure of himself and what is right, and Zuko still wants Iroh to tell him what to do because Zuko also knows that Iroh has all the emotional strength in the scene and Zuko has none.

Iroh also doesn't just put up with Zuko's crap, either in book one when Zuko is demanding to be taught advanced firebending that Zuko isn't ready for, or in book three when Iroh is desperately hoping that Zuko will make the right decision. He recognizes that Zuko has to make that decision on his own.

I've seen people point to that scene where Iroh bends fire in Zuko's face and Zuko doesn't flinch to show how much Zuko trusts Iroh, but there's another aspect to that scene I haven't seen talked about, and that is that Iroh is showing that he's not gonna just put up with Zuko throwing a fit at him, either. He has completely no problem dressing Zuko down. And then when Zuko can't do anything to retaliate against uncle, he turns and firebends at some nameless mooks. This shows the power that Iroh has over Zuko, but it also shows us how Zuko and Iroh trust each other even in Zuko's darker moments. Zuko won't hurt Iroh and he knows that Iroh won't hurt him.

(It also shows us that Zuko could become an abusive person if he doesn't learn to control his anger and feelings of helplessness and stop directing them at those who are weaker than him as a misguided way of taking back control.)

Azula does have power over Zuko, not just as the royal princess sent to track down the banished prince, not just as a firebending prodigy, but she has emotional power over him as their father's favored child. And she uses that power to hurt Zuko repeatedly. If we recognize that Ozai is abusive to Zuko then we also have to recognize that the ways that Azula participates in that and uses it against him and is empowered by Ozai to do so is also abuse. This is common sense.

[illfoandillfie]

2023 Advent: Day 11

Another one I've come up with myself. I think I got the idea for this from a reel on insta lmao. But I thot it'd make a nice Gwil blurb, especially because I felt I had to do something where he was nicer than the sugar daddy one lmao.

Warnings: Age Gap (unspecified but reader is in uni), P in V, unprotected sex, facial,

“Fuck Gwil,” you moaned, head dizzy and legs shaking as he made you cum for the second time. Fairly standard for him but vastly different to pretty much all the guys you’d been with before.   Gwilym groaned as your pussy tightened, managing to maintain his rhythm and keep his thumb working over your clit.   You squirmed, not sure if you were trying to get closer or further from his touch, but moaning as the wave of pleasure continued.   It was this sort of treatment that had convinced you to keep seeing him beyond what you'd expected would be a one night stand. You didn’t usually do the older guy thing but fuck he made a good case for switching. His cock alone was reason enough, not to mention his fingers and tongue and the fact that he knew where the clit was. But beyond sex you’d started to see why too. 

He had his own house and more money than guys your age which was nice. He knew how to cook and clean and was more emotionally mature, or mature in general really. The guys you’d previously been with, and the guys at uni you might have considered going out with, all seemed like children compared to Gwil. And he was respectful too. Of your space and your time and your belongings. He’d have happily spent the night with you without having sex at all. In fact, he’d suggested that when he realised his box of condoms was empty. But you’d been thinking about his cock all day and were practically desperate for it so told him you still wanted to. He’d double checked and was very sweet about making sure you didn’t feel pressured or anything like that.   “If it makes you feel better you could pull out and cum on me. That’d be hot,” you’d said as you’d reached into his pants, finding him stiffening already.   “Oh I like that idea,” he’d said, voice all low and rumbly and sexy, “You’d look good covered in my cum.”  “Yeah? Where would you like to see it most? Stomach? Ass?”  “Face.” 

After that there’d been very little room for talk. Mostly it had just been moaning and touching and kissing and fucking. He’d got you to cum very quickly, hitting just right as he pounded into you. And when you did, he moaned about how good your cunt felt, reminding you he was raw which made it all so much hotter. The second orgasm was better somehow but he must have felt the same because he pulled out nearly as soon as you were through it.  You whined at the sudden loss but he was already shuffling over you, his hand gliding over his cock, slick with your cum, as he held himself back while he lined up.   A groaned, “Close your eyes,” was all the warning you got and you hurried to do so before he grunted and you felt his cum spurt over your brow and cheeks and nose and lips seconds later. It went on longer than you’d expected to which just made you horny all over again.   Gwil was vocal throughout his release too, which you appreciated. You liked hearing him. Especially when he panted, “Fuck you’re so hot like this,” after he was done.  You would have opened your eyes and smiled except he’d already scooted back and begun kissing you desperately, pushing his cum onto your tongue with his. 

You were panting by the time he finally let you go, able to feel the cum and sweat drying on your skin even as your arched your body up into his, hoping for another round.   Gwil dropped a soft, much more chaste, kiss to your lips and said, “You must be getting uncomfortable under all my mess. I’ll find you something to clean up, give me a second.”  You nodded, sitting up as soon as his weight was off you. Surprisingly Gwil left the room, still naked which you supposed was a perk of owning your own home and not having flatmates. But, as far as your experience went guys usually handed you a shirt or, if you were lucky, towel from their floor. Once you’d even been handed your own dress to clean yourself up. Gwil’s dirty laundry wasn’t on the floor but he hadn’t stopped at his laundry basket in the corner of his room either, so you weren’t exactly sure what to expect. You sat there wondering if you were meant to follow or if you should just bite the bullet and tidy up as much as possible with your discarded shirt. But Gwil came back before long and knelt beside you on the bed.  “Close eyes again,” he said softly, lifting what appeared to be a damp facewasher up to your cheek.   It was comfortably warm against your skin, his strokes as gentle as possible as he properly took care of you. And once again you found yourself thinking that maybe there were a few goood reasons to date older men.   “Feel better?” he asked when he was through.  All you could do was look up at him and nod, speechless at how well he treated you.   His smile was adorable as he leaned in to give you a small kiss before setting the cloth on his nightstand and rejoining you under the covers.   You snugged into him, still not quite capable of anything more than gazing at him in rapt wonder.   “You’re quiet,” his hand rubbed over your thigh, “everything okay?”  “Perfect,” you nodded, pulling him into another, deeper kiss. 

[dynared]

Yes! Burning justice for Star Saber! I also once made a post about the unfair treatment he received from IDW comics, and now I really hope that he will have chances to appear in other projects.

And about that. I don't think having Optimus or Rodimus can be a big problem for him to appear in the media. Everyone has already got used to the fact that, for example, Elita One is the commander of a certain number of fighters or units, so why shouldn't Star Saber be something like a field commander of some part of the troops on distant borders, if the war is more global? This could show that the Autobots (and Decepticons) have some kind of chain of command and a hierarchical army structure, not just a leader and a few assistants.

I have, perhaps not the smartest idea of how to tie this atmosphere of Super Robots to the character.

If we include Jan's adoption in the story, then the development of events may be as follows.

Jan could grow up and socialize on the base among transformers or partially even among other aliens. But at some point, Star Saber could decide that a human child still needs to communicate with his kind and peers, or decides that it is becoming more dangerous for Jan to be around him. In any case, this is a kind of repetition of the plot from the anime.

Gradually, Jan gets acquainted with Earth culture, with local media, in particular with anime about Super Robots, because it seems to me that this genre would have arisen anyway, despite the presence of transformers, even if they were known to people.

At some point, Jan, due to resentments, difficult age, or still insufficient level of socialization, could quarrel with Star Saber and say something like: "If only you were like (insert the name of some character)!". Considering that they were fighting in the manga as well, that would be partly in Jan's character. In addition, sometimes children, at some moments of resentment against their parents, really tend to compare them with some kind of ideal or example.

Such a comparison or some reason for the quarrel could cause a sense of guilt in Star Saber that he did not pay enough attention to his adopted son because of his responsibilities or did not meet the expectations of the child. This reaction could also be caused by an old sense of guilt that he did not have time to save Jan's parents (as it was in the original).

All this could lead to the fact that Star Saber would consciously or not begin to copy the behavior and character traits of Jan's favorite character in order to become "that real hero" for his son. Something like overcompensation.

And if this were a children's media, it could lead to the morality that you don't have to copy someone to be a real hero for your child, for children the moral is that parents, despite the fact that they are not as cool as heroes, can still be for their own children. Or you can take it in the other direction altogether, that with the help of such changes, Star Saber became even more inspired by the ideas of justice and the fight against evil and became, I don't know, a symbol of hope for children like Jan.

I repeat, the idea may be stupid, but, okay, in any case, it's better than what was shown in the IDW comics.

Being better than the IDW comics is an admittedly low standard, but there is a lot here, and most of it is based off of what already exists of the character rather than the insane Roberts portrayal.

I like what you’re suggesting, as a sort of journey for the character, maybe going TOO over the top in the vein of his Earth Wars character from what I originally saw as a more stoic character to something a bit more balanced between the two extremes. The martial arts master who’s used to acting in solitude and fighting his enemies without a single care given for what civilians think of him would definitely be taken aback by how disapproving his son is of his focus on work and would probably do everything he could to keep his trust.

There is also something to the idea that Star Saber presenting himself as a Brave Hero in the hopes of being someone Jan can admire and while Jan ultimately learns the lesson that parents are people (robot people but imperfect people all the same) his new portrayal ends up making him very popular with kids and civilians even if the other Autobots end up finding the whole thing completely ridiculous. How would the Cons react to such a thing? Ignore it? Poke fun at him? Make him an active target because of his popularity with the flesh creatures? Maybe a rival of his chooses to portray himself as an over the top villain to contradict the hero? There’s a lot that one can do here.

[wild-at-mind]

Just listened to the new episode of Tortoise’s Slow Newscast about Gender GP and it’s sooooo bad. Maybe I should have known better than to bother with it, but I’ve enjoyed their non-gender related stuff. I also know at least one person who uses Gender GP, and I separately have been hearing from an FTM support group I’m in that a lot of NHS trusts are no longer willing to do shared care with Gender GP while still doing it with other similar services. I had hoped maybe it would shed some light on why that might be, because even though trans healthcare is vital it’s still important that it be done ethically and held to the same standards as other healthcare. But no, instead it was basically a referendum on whether medical transition is good/bad. Again. Fucks sake.

(For non-UK people, Gender GP are a private service for transition related healthcare but they can, or have in the past, worked with the NHS to provide shared care e.g. blood tests for HRT monitoring. It is needed because it’s a very, very, very long drawn out and difficult process to access NHS transition care.) The podcast’s thesis was that the founder of Gender GP (a cis GP named Helen Webberley) is not practicing ethical healthcare because there isn’t enough assessment before providing HRT. They do treat children but the majority of their customers are adults. However you can guess which demographic was focused on. No children or adults who had undergone treatment with Gender GP were interviewed. There was a suggestion from the interviewer that maybe Helen Webberley is y’know a little bit ditzy, naive as hell of course, but also isn’t she bad for making money out of this? In this way she is juxtaposed against the NHS, which is the Good and Right way to transition, because they don’t profit off trans kids I guess. This argument stops working in any country that doesn’t have free at point of use healthcare of any kind, but never mind that. Also the podcast to its credit acknowledges several times that there are no currently practicing NHS gender clinics in the UK, and that this is a problem. But that’s about all we get in that department. There’s a waiting list, but no clinics. That list gets longer and longer. It’s so fucked up.

I would argue that the podcast is sceptical about the entire concept of being transgender, and I wonder if they even realise this about themselves. Two mothers of trans sons are interviewed, one who used Gender GP and one who accessed black market hormones. The first mother says that Gender GP ruined her child. But she was still referring to her child as her daughter and using she/her. You would think that if medical transition was the only concern, the mother would have been fine with the social and 100% reversable changes in pronouns and name. I know it’s hard for someone who has known you their whole life as one name and set of pronouns to remember at first, but this was different, she just hadn’t done anything. Without saying it out loud she was clearly waiting for it all to blow over, and not even considering that it might not. Meanwhile the child’s father (they were divorced) is helping the child access Gender GP, which can’t have helped matters. The mother sadly laments how Gender GP tore her family apart. The 2nd mother was worried about her child accessing black market hormones and using home syringes. This is a valid worry. However she also referred to her child purely as daughter, she/her and actively aschewed his new name. I don’t even know why she was interviewed as her son wasn’t using Gender GP, and this wasn’t a perspective about what Gender GP was clearly designed to be- a safer option in between black market hormones and the endless wait for the NHS. It was very clear she was even more ‘wait for it to blow over’ than the first interviewee. She spoke with apparent disgust (though to be fair was voiced by an actor who may have been hamming it up a bit) that since socially transitioning at school her child was suddenly really popular and was liked by many people he wasn’t before, and they all loved using his new name....that part felt especially weird, like she was angry that her child was being called a name he preferred by his friends. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of parents alluding to children coming out as trans at school to become popular. I read an article where a parent was relaying what their child had said, where apparently their classmate came out as trans in assembly and everybody clapped. The idea that there might be other factors involved, such as novelty that will wear off for the classmates, the classroom social standing of the child in question, or even in the case of the 2nd podcast interviewee’s son, increased confidence post coming out making him more sociable, was ignored. I do understand that this is a relatively new area of medicine without much long term data to draw on. However all types of healthcare has to start somewhere, and I wouldn’t have thought that the fear of an army of angry and betrayed detransitioners one day (which the interviewer was clearly disappointed that Webberley had never seen) should hold back progress. There are older adults who transitioned as children out in the world. On tumblr almost a decade ago I remember young trans guys in parts of the US accessing hormones through informed consent clinics, to much hand wringing from certain reactionary internet circles-see if you can contact those people. How are they doing?

There is so much more I could talk about but I have to stop there or I’ll go on all night. Edited to add: this should not be interpreted as a defence of Helen Webberley, only as a condemnation of the podcast episode’s framing of the concept of gender services that don’t require stringent assessment as very dangerous and scary and automatically malpractice. There’s a reason why I listened in the first place- because I had heard not great things about Gender GP. Sadly I didn’t get a look at its problems and its founder’s problems, I got yet another highly biased condemnation of the entire concept of transness with way too much airtime for parents who don’t believe their teenage children have their own internal selves.

Edit again: I understand now what the podcast was saying about clinics- there are currently no gender clinics in England that treat children. There are a few in the country that treat adults over 18, and the waiting lists are really long but at least you can refer to one in any region. My referral was for Nottingham even though I’m in the south as it currently has the shortest waiting list on the tracker.

[sutcliffe-v]

| Character Info ; Personality

Masterlist

— “Heh… Humans are cruel people. That’s probably why children like you exist. As for me though, I’m a different case. I’m not like any of you at all… Which I guess means that I was never human to start with.”

— 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰

; Virek at first glance can be perceived at quiet, distant, and carrying an eerie aura about him. He doesn’t seem all that special, and can easily be written off as weak or not a threat.

; The man is extremely intelligent, though distrustful of others. His isn’t assertive, and prefers lay low and move as quietly as possible without causing a fuss. He’s not a leader by any means, and simply skirts by on the ideas of others, not once putting in input or making a counteracting decision.

; he responds in cryptic ways, often leaving more questions than answers, and rarely talks about himself; instead leaving only cryptic hints that one would have to piece together.

; virek is a manipulative individual, acting only in ways that will benefit him in the long run. he considers the lesser of two evils in a lot of situations; and even if he dislikes both options, he’ll go with the outcome with the most chance of survival— this furthering his own goals. he uses others in this way as well, simply ‘putting up’ with the treatment he gets if that person could provide any kind of usefulness to him. he views building relationships the same way.

; he can also be quite violent when he needs to be. he harbours a lot of anger towards humanity, specifically those in government positions. thanks to his childhood, he is skilled in both physical and mental torture, and is not afraid to use it if the times call for it. this also means that he is able to endure even the most extreme kinds of punishments.

; his walls are hard to breach, and the man is damn near impossible to get close to, but if you manage to you will see some slight changes. the most notable being his willingness to speak more. sure he may still be as nonsensical as before, but it’s a start. you’ll get to see him be a bit more lax, and watch his facial expression go from something that says ‘unimpressed, or blank’, to saying ‘calm, and comfortable.’

; he’ll start to show more interests in someone else’s hobbies, and may he more willing to open up about his life. he’ll admit to wanting to see new places, and a want to work through eating and trying new foods. it’ll become increasingly obvious that his intelligence and survival experience don’t align with his knowledge of the basic and more enjoyable things in life.

; it quickly becomes apparent that virek has a low view of himself, and others himself from humanity. he holds a belief that he doesn’t have the qualifications to be a human being, thus doesn’t include himself when speaking about them. he talks about himself like he’s some kind of sin-filled entity, despite not being any different from those around him.

— 𝐌𝐁𝐓𝐈

; INTJ — The Mastermind. The Architect

Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging

; INTJs are perceptive about systems and strategy, and often understand the world as a chess board to be navigated. They want to understand how systems work, and how events proceed: the INTJ often has a unique ability to foresee logical outcomes. They enjoy applying themselves to a project or idea in depth, and putting in concentrated effort to achieve their goals.

INTJs have a hunger for knowledge and strive to constantly increase their competence; they are often perfectionists with extremely high standards of performance for themselves and others. They tend to have a keen interest in self-improvement and are lifelong learners, always looking to add to their base of information and awareness.

INTJs are typically reserved and serious, and seem to spend a lot of time thinking. They are curious about the world around them and often want to know the principle behind what they see. They thoroughly examine the information they receive, and if asked a question, will typically consider it at length before presenting a careful, complex answer. INTJs think critically and clearly, and often have an idea about how to do something more efficiently. They can be blunt in their presentation, and often communicate in terms of the larger strategy, leaving out the details.

Although INTJs aren’t usually warm or particularly gregarious, they tend to have a self-assured manner with people based on their own security in their intelligence. They relate their ideas with confidence, and once they have arrived at a conclusion they fully expect others to see the wisdom in their perceptions. They are typically perfectionists and appreciate an environment of intellectual challenge. They enjoy discussing interesting ideas, and may get themselves into trouble because of their take-no-prisoners attitude: if someone’s beliefs don’t make logical sense, the Mastermind typically has no qualms about pointing that out.

[letters-to-teaching]

Teaching in FL with standards while bi and liberal

Letters to Teaching

I hope very much that you will read all of this before commenting. I am a human being and have made my own mistakes, to which I have consistently owned up. That being said, 

CW for general shittiness of US, Florida, gun violence, mental illness, poor treatment of teachers and kids. 

Anyone have time/spoons for a frank and open conversation about teaching in the US, Florida in particular?

Still into it? Please consider whether you’re ready to consume this information. It may end up being surprisingly un-traumatic for you, but for me it’s both rambling and just ~a lot~.  Buckle up, star children. 

So yeah here we go. Diary entry or whatever. March 29 2023, in which I say a few of the many wretched things that have sucked in the last four years. This will take a while but I promise it’s all important. 

What follows is a brief summary of my personal experience and the desperate hope that I can fall in love with teaching again. The classroom used to be my most joyful place, but with each year, particularly after leaving my former position at a wonderful school, the profession that once gave me passion and purpose has increasingly become nothing but a cesspool of dread and broken promises. 

Frankly, my students and my program deserve someone like my 23-yr-old self: willing to do and give every particle of my being to teaching,. Realistically, those teachers shouldn’t be willing to do that. We are not able to do that. We all deserve better pay, more respect, and better training, both social and emotional. Our worth should not be determined by our productivity. 

I’m tired now. I’m so fucking tired and so incredibly devastated to see how much teaching, this school in particular (my alma mater), has warped me. Especially with the comparison between my former school’s response to COVID vs that of my current employer. Mine truly used to be an exceptional school, and I’m devastated to see how far it’s fallen. I thought I could be part of the solution, but here’s what has happened in my time here:

Year 1: accepted a job making the same salary ($46k) as my previous job bc I wanted to be close to my mom and I naively believed that this school shared my pursuit of excellence and inclusivity. Taught 7 classes with no planning period for no extra money. Helped colleagues navigate online challenges during COVID, hosted lunches and socials to help students connect in isolation, and designed entirely new curricula to best support online learning. 

Year 2: Forced (on threat of firing) to teach two periods of English with two week’s notice and neither training nor a textbook. Parents and students were vocal, toxic, and furious that I was drowning and couldn’t keep up with lesson plans and grades. Their concerns were valid, but the administration left me entirely without help. 

Year 3: Began with zero support /confidence and increased scrutiny due to my challenges from the previous year. Admittedly, this lack of respect and support did cause me to be behind often on grading and communication. Written up for (legally) discussing pay when I learned a coworker was making $10 less per hour than I was. Took on all of the classes in my program when my co-teacher (justifiably) bailed due to discrimination and poor treatment with literally a week’s warning, which led to me teaching a lunch class and another period with two classes at the same time for a total of nine preps. From day one, a group of students actively tried to get me fired and intentionally bullied kids away from my program. Admin refused to do anything and blamed me, taking away my entry level classes and functionally killing my program. I expressed that this decision ensured that there was no possibility for growth, but was again ignored without consideration. 

Year 4: intense criticism over the fact that I haven’t been particularly successful in my position. I fully admitted my own part in this. Constant terror that my contract means nothing in an at will state. Two new situations in which I am teaching multiple classes in the same period. This year alone I am generating curricula for 10 unique classes during 6 class periods. 

No matter what happens, I will always be honest. In this hostile environment, my grades ~were~ often  late in my second and third years. Parents complained, students actively worked against me, and I have been paralyzed with fear and largely unable to dig myself out. I am not blameless here, nor have I ever pretended to be. My frustration is the choice of my administrators to place every ounce of the blame upon me. My department chair was told that the classes which could save my program were taken away due to scheduling conflicts, while I was told that they were a punishment for my low recruitment numbers. Whatever improvements I make are ignored, while every mistake is a point of discussion. 

My own dean suggested that I get out as soon as I can. He sees the writing on the wall. 

The one breath of fresh air is the possibility of returning to the only school that treated me reasonably well. The school that I loved, the school I left to be nearer my mother. The school that, despite its own problems, I never forgot. 

The education system is broken. In ten years and three schools, my salary has gone up by $8k (now $46k) while my living expenses have skyrocketed exponentially. I am unable to purchase Expo markers or even notebook paper and pens for my students. 

Teachers and students risk our lives every day we set foot on campus. Our livelihoods are threatened when we speak out. 

I generally try to end posts on a message of hope, but at this point I am sincerely asking for help. America’s teachers are HUNGRY; we are TERRIFIED; we are THREATENED; we face DEATH each day. Help me. Help us. Be a voice for the voiceless. I beg you. I love you. I honor you. 

[loominggaia]

So polygamy is the norm in Etios. What are these poly relationships and marriages like and the typical Etios family structure? And what are the beauty standards of etios as well for men and women?

Polygamy is common in Etios Nation, mostly among minotaurs due to their traditional culture in that region. Monogamy is still a thing, but the majority of Etiosi minotaurs are polygamists.

Most often you will see a male with a bunch of wives, usually 2-3 for poor men, 4-6 for middle class men, and 6+ for rich men. More rarely you might find a female with a bunch of husbands, or even same-sex arrangements.

Here is how Etiosi law works regarding marriage: when a couple gets married, one of them must be legally registered as the "head of household". This person becomes financially responsible for their spouse and children. If they do not pay their bills or provide adequate support for their spouse/child, the law will get involved and they can be fined, jailed, or their marriage can be nullified.

The head of household is allowed to marry as many spouses as they can reasonably support. They must pay a tax every year for each spouse they have. In return, they get benefits like ownership of property/assets and a bank account, among other things. Meanwhile their spouses cannot legally own property or have bank accounts, so long as they are married to a head of household. To get these things, they must register as a head of household themselves. A head of household cannot marry another one--there can only be one head per household.

Let's say an Etiosi man is designated the head of household and he has 4 wives. If he dies, gets too sick to manage things, or he just doesn't want the responsibility anymore, he can legally transfer his head status to one of his wives. Now all of his property and assets, including his bank account, belong to that wife. She now acts as power of attorney for him and his other wives.

If he dies and none of his wives accept the head status, the whole marriage will be nullified. All 4 wives are now considered single again.

Now let's say one of these wives buys herself a house. She is unmarried, so her status defaults to head of household. But if she gets married again and her husband takes the role as head, then the house she bought now legally belongs to him. This also means he is responsible for paying it off if it isn't paid off already.

Getting married might sound like a raw deal for the spouses of a head, but there are actually many legal benefits to doing so. Married Etiosi citizens are entitled to free childcare, food bank access, retirement benefits, special medical care, and even financial help in some situations. They get preferential treatment over unmarried folks in all federal business.

Being unmarried in this kingdom actually kind of sucks. If you’re single, the government pretty much doesn’t give a fuck about you. Etiosi society expects you to live off your parents' support until you get married, then you live off your spouse's support (or support them, if you are the head of household). It's an extremely family-oriented culture. You're going to have a very bad time in this kingdom if you don't get along with your immediate relatives.

As for beauty standards, I really can't say much on that because it differs wildly depending on region, species, and culture. There are many smaller cultures operating within Etios's borders, and each of them have their own opinions about what is considered beautiful.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost