#majority of people apparently never even consider it as an option

[orcelito]

Sometimes i look at statistics for # of ppl who have had suicidal thoughts / etc & I'm just kinda like. "There's No Way it's that low, right?"

Guys I think I have a normalized mindset that might not be entirely healthy

[the-lincyclopedia]

In Defense of Juliet

I just read Romeo and Juliet with @socialshakespeare, and I felt like I understood it for the first time, since it’s a play I’ve never studied, and I’ve mostly been exposed to it by seeing it performed a couple times. And I am so angry on Juliet’s behalf. She has been done so dirty, both by the adults around her within the world of the play, and also by the way she’s been remembered in pop culture. She’s not a foolish, simpering teenager the way she’s often thought of as being. I honestly think that Juliet is the most reasonable and pragmatic character in the play, and that there aren’t any major decisions she makes where she truly had a better option. 

Romeo and Juliet, the characters, are both often mocked for how quickly they fall for each other. And I do think there’s something to that when it comes to Romeo, especially given that he was professing love for Rosaline literally hours before meeting and apparently falling for Juliet. But Juliet? What people often forget is that, right before she meets Romeo, Juliet is informed by her father that he has arranged a marriage for her, and that she has to marry Paris whether she likes it or not. 

Now, a few notes on this: 

Juliet is 13 years old. There are plays and books where you have to kind of guess at characters’ ages or figure it out from context clues, but this is very much not one of those times. Juliet being 13 gets talked about, explicitly, a lot in this play. 

It was not normal for girls to get married that young, even in Shakespeare’s day. Here’s a great essay on that. 

Paris is definitely older than Juliet. It’s unclear by how much, but it could be over a decade, maybe by a substantial amount. He’s also canonically pretty skeezy. 

Even in many cultures where arranged marriages are common, it’s also common for the consent of the couple to matter. “Arranged marriage” does not by necessity equal “coerced marriage,” and indeed, the Church in Shakespeare’s day did (at least in terms of doctrine) require the people being married to consent in order for their marriage to be valid. (See the essay linked to in point 2.)

So here Juliet is, knowing she’s going to be forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Her options are basically to go along with marrying Paris, or to do something that her parents can’t undo that will make the marriage to Paris impossible. What are her options for that? Well: 

She can become a nun. This isn’t her first choice, and she’s not too keen on it even later in the play, when her options are much more limited and Friar Lawrence suggests it. 

She can run away but not become a nun. This would basically mean she would be destitute and incredibly vulnerable. It’s not surprising she doesn’t choose this option. 

She can kill herself. Again, unsurprising that this isn’t her first choice. 

She can quickly and secretly marry someone who isn’t Paris and present the marriage to her parents as a fait accompli. 

It’s really, really not surprising to me that her first choice is option (4). I mean, personally I would have considered becoming a nun, but I’m ace, and Juliet seems to, uh, probably not be. So, okay, you’ve got Juliet, literally fresh off a conversation with her father about how he’s going to force her into an unwanted arranged marriage, and she’s trying to figure out how to get out of it, and then this guy approaches her at a party and seems totally into her. Like, are she and Romeo hasty and probably hormonal to think they’re in love this fast? Yeah, probably. And Romeo a) was professing love for someone else this morning, and b) does not seem to be under urgent familial pressure to marry. But Juliet is desperate to marry someone who isn’t Paris, as soon as humanly possible, and Romeo seems both interested and more tolerable than Paris. Is it surprising that she’s all in? 

So then Romeo and Juliet have the balcony conversation, and then the next day they get married in secret at Friar Lawrence’s. Cool. Now they can break the news to their respective families, Juliet won’t have to marry Paris, and everything will be fine. Right? 

Except then Juliet’s cousin Tybalt picks a fight with Romeo’s friend Mercutio and winds up killing him, so Romeo retaliates by killing Tybalt. Romeo, by law, should be facing capital punishment, but the Prince commutes his sentence to banishment. Which is still a problem for Romeo and Juliet since they’re newlyweds and the Friar and the Nurse are the only ones who know. After spending the night with Juliet in secret, Romeo leaves town because he doesn’t really have a better choice. 

Meanwhile, Tybalt’s death has significantly increased the urgency of Juliet getting married (which her parents don’t know she’s already done). Tybalt and Juliet are the only two in their generation of the Capulets, so Tybalt was The Heir, which means that now that he’s dead, Juliet needs to marry immediately, because, as a girl, she can’t inherit. Ideally, she needs to start producing heirs as soon as possible. Her father suddenly moves the date of her wedding from some inexact time in the future to this Thursday. 

So Juliet’s close cousin has just died, her husband has been exiled, and her second (and, by the standards of the time, inherently sinful) marriage is suddenly very, very soon. She tries to talk her parents out of forcing her to marry Paris, and her dad is still very much not having it. She is, understandably, desperate. She goes to the Friar’s place and starts talking about suicide. 

The Friar tells her not to kill herself, and he gives her a potion that will make her seem dead for a couple days. He tells her to take it before she’s supposed to marry Paris, and then instead of getting married, she’ll be buried, and then she can wake up and get smuggled off to join Romeo in exile. Juliet goes home and takes the potion as instructed. 

But unlike Much Ado about Nothing, this is not a comedy. The potion works; Juliet’s family finds her “dead” and holds her funeral, and Friar Lawrence sends a letter to Romeo informing him of the plan. But the letter doesn’t make it--the friar carrying the message is quarantined for fear of plague--and meanwhile Romeo hears that Juliet has died. He comes back to Verona, duels Paris at Juliet’s tomb, finds Juliet seemingly dead, and kills himself. Juliet wakes up, finds Romeo dead, and (despite the deeply inadequate arguments of the Friar, who leaves Juliet by herself when he hears someone coming) kills herself. 

And like, what the fuck else was she supposed to do? At any point? I thought of the musical Six a lot during today’s read-through, and Anne Boleyn’s line “Like, what was I meant to do?” feels so appropriate for Juliet (as does "All You Wanna Do," for other reasons). She couldn’t just keep living with her parents and being a teenager--she was going to be forced into an unwanted arranged marriage unless she could find a way to make herself permanently unavailable for marriage to Paris. Marrying Romeo seemed like a better idea than becoming a nun, running away and becoming destitute, or dying. Taking the potion of living death and then joining Romeo in exile seemed like a better idea than entering a sinful second marriage. Maybe becoming a nun would have been better than suicide, in the end after Romeo has died, but Juliet has been through an incredibly stressful few days at this point, her cousin is dead, her parents clearly don’t care about her happiness or well-being, and, oh yeah, she just woke up with her dead husband in her lap--I think she’s allowed to be Done at that point. 

I’m not sure that Romeo and Juliet make a good couple with long-term potential or whatever. But this is absolutely not a story about how teenagers are dumb and impulsive. The adults are the ones making terrible decisions--the Montagues and the Capulets for having a deadly feud, the Prince for not doing more to end the feud earlier, the Capulet parents (especially Lord Capulet) for trying to force Juliet into an unwanted marriage at a very young age, Juliet’s Nurse for encouraging Juliet to marry Paris even though she knows Juliet is already married to Romeo, Paris for continuing to try to marry Juliet when she’s clearly unhappy about it, Friar Lawrence for leaving the tomb before Romeo arrives and then leaving again when Juliet wakes up and is freaking out--literally all of the adults suck, and Juliet is trying her best in the face of some seriously awful circumstances. 

If the throughline of tragedies is that they couldn’t have gone any other way, I think that’s especially true for Juliet, specifically. She’s so smart, and she’s trying so hard, and there is no way out.

[schizopositivity]

So I was searching for a new psychiatrist online, and every website filter, every description they have, for individual providers and medical groups will include a whole bunch of different mental illnesses and life situations that they specialize in. Basically every mental illness and stressful life situation you could think of. But I didn't see schizophrenia or psychosis on any list. They had mental illnesses that can have psychotic symptoms (like bipolar disorder or PTSD) and mental illnesses that have overlapping symptoms with schizophrenia (like ASD and ADHD) but didn't have psychosis or schizophrenia anywhere.

And this is so frustrating, because I'm used to therapists not knowing how to treat schizophrenia/psychosis at all, that's been every therapist I've ever had and I've sadly learned to deal with that. But for psychiatrists, I'd really love to be able to be prescribed high doses of antipsychotics by someone who knows how that affects people. Someone who has enough experience to list that as a specialty. I live in a small city with a long list of psychiatrists, I even checked ones farther away that could do online sessions. Still after hours of combing through websites I found nothing. I was even told by my therapist that normal primary care providers regularly hesitate or refuse to prescribe antipsychotics because it's a "liability".

And it feels so unfair. Seeing psychiatrists say "mental health is so important! I can help you find your best self!" while ignoring all of us who rely on antipsychotics to function. For me my antipsychotics are the biggest reason I'm alive today, that I have a job, that I have a long term relationship, that I have friends, that I can even function. Going off of antipsychotics is not a safe option for me.

The pharmacy requires refill approval from a psychiatrist or Dr. so that I can have access to my meds. And I shouldn't have to keep settling for mental health care workers who don't understand my illness, don't want to prescribe my meds, and don't care to try.

I don't understand how there can be such a major gap in mental health care that's never even talked about. For a lot of us with schizophrenia, antipsychotics are extremely important, and going off of them can have major consequences. The fact that medication can dramatically improve our lives is incredible, but the fact that so many mental health care workers don't understand it, don't want to prescribe it, or just guess when prescribing it is horrendous, and has life-changing consequences for us.

It feels so isolating to not even be on a long list of mental health problems, and to speak to countless people who've dedicated their life to the mental health field, yet don't even consider you as an option. I just got rejected by a group of 6 psychiatrists working in an office together. In a quick email they said they wouldn't be able to provide care for me. Apparently all of them, who are available and licensed to care for people with mental illnesses, don't even think it's possible that any one of them could help me. All I need is medication refill approval, but apparently they can't do that. It feels so defeating but I'm going to keep trying because I have to.

I am not an anomaly, I am one small part of a large group of people with my same diagnosis. And we all need care at the bare minimum, but we deserve care that has us in mind for once. One day, I'd like to think, that a profession centered around helping people with various mental illnesses and struggles, would add us to the list. Because we are here regardless.

[recurring-polynya]

Izakaya Kamenoya, part 3

It's been so long, and I kept getting busy with stuff, but rest assured, I have not stopped thinking about every shinigami's favorite watering hole, Izakaya Kamenoya, for even one second of that time, and today I am going to talk about what's really important: what kind of booze can you get there.

The multiplicity of drink options is honestly the thing I really love about Kamenoya. On a meta level, someone has to draw all this stuff, like, with their hands. I have no idea, actually, if the animators consider this sort of thing a break from all the powering up and sword fights and rolling across cave floors, or if they consider a Trip to the Bar to be really tedious. My point is, they very well could have just always drawn people drinking out of the same cups, except they didn't, they drew a series of loving close ups of sake-pouring and a variety of drinkware styles. On a more Watsonian level, I just like the idea that, like Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want at Izakaya Kamenoya. So let's get into it!

I think the thing that really made me notice this was this scene from the Amagai Arc, where you see Kira doing mokkiri, or overpouring his sake. (At least I think that's what he's doing. The articles I read sounded more like the server is supposed to do it, which emphasizes the establishment's generosity, so maybe Kira is just being a messy drunk. I'm pretty sure you're also not supposed to pour yourself sake, you're supposed to do it for your tablemates)

Often, mokkiri is done into a masu, which is a small square box that was used as a standard measure for rice. You can see Nanao drinking out of one here!

What kind of cup to drink your sake out of is a huge topic, but basically, it depends on the flavor and characteristics of the sake. The fact that Kira and the Lads are drinking out of clear glasses might imply that they're drinking chilled, summer-style sake (or possibly trying to appreciate the clarity of the vintage, as if this is what you call up Iba and Renji to go to the pub for).

I am not an expert, so I'm not going to attempt to identify exactly what these different cups would be classified as, but you can see a variety of shapes, sizes and materials.

I found less information on different shapes of tokkuri (that's the slightly bigger bottle that you serve from), but those come in a variety, as well. Mostly, they have either the large, oval-shaped jugs you can see in the first picture, or the more slender white ones in the second. I am really fond of these tall boys that Kira and Hisagi have, which seem to have straighter sides than the other kind, kind of like a milk bottle.

While we're looking at that picture, there's an ad on the wall for beer. Beer!

In modern times, beer is actually the most popular alcoholic beverage in Japan, which Wikipedia tells me came about after WWII because of restrictions on the use of rice. They've had beer since the Edo era, though, and many of today's major breweries got started in the late 1800s. I love the idea that beer is a thing you can get in Soul Society, but it's clear that it has not overcome sake in popularity the way it did in the World of the Living--which makes sense, because of they never had those restrictions. (In other words, throw this in the bucket of stuff like tattoos and attitudes toward homosexuality that I think diverged from the Living World because of weird quirks of history).

In fact, Kamenoya apparently imports beer from the World of Living (maybe it also has local brews as well).

Look how lovingly that bottle of Kirin is drawn. 😂 The fact that it's shown in a glass mug in the ad, but served in a Pilsner glass here supports the idea that there are multiple kinds of beer available. Now, I believe that Kirin Zero is non-alcoholic. It's surprisingly hard to do research on beer labels from 20 years ago. I couldn't find a label that looked exactly like that, and Kirin's non-alcoholic offering seems to be called Kirin Free now (Kirin Zero is now zero-carb and I couldn't figure out if it's alcoholic or not). In any case, I am choosing in my heart to believe that this is because of weird TV censorship and in no way implies that Rukia is not one of the champion drinkers of the Gotei-13.

Don't get me wrong! I love a bar that offers non-alcoholic options! You can also get tea at Kamenoya, which you can see Tobiume and Okyō drinking below; Momo has some as well (they also have a discussion about it)

earlier posts in this series: (part 1) (part 2)

[moondyad]

idk what i was expecting when going into The Acolyte. i didn't really look into promotional material, just waited to watch the show blind, like i do with most media. Mae and Osha were very compelling characters to me. i loved watching a "twins are not the same person" story where as they grow up, even people with the same DNA can choose different paths. which kind of became ironic with the reveal at the end of the season haha. i'm actually so intrigued by Mae and Osha being the exact same person. i desperately want to know how that happened and why Mother Aniseya created/summoned them. that part of the story makes sense and is great to follow along with for me.

my one gripe remains the same. i still can't quite take Qimir seriously. it stems from my understanding of Star Wars. Sith are never portrayed as morally grey in Star Wars. that's a specific request from George Lucas. the Sith were always evil and selfish while the Jedi were always good and selfless. Lucas always despised "grey Jedi" in the legends canon and didn't consider them true to the major canon. interjecting before someone gets mad, i love morally grey characters! i love people taking Lucas's characters and amplifying their grey qualities! however, as i understood it, no Star Wars media would ever show Sith or Jedi as morally grey (unless they were in the process of changing sides or something) due to it conflicting with the core values of those groups and Lucas's vision for them. so, when the goofball side character was revealed to be the big bad Sith i was ??? because it was to my understanding that Sith don't act like comic relief characters or show mercy. apparently this reveal only blindsided me, because i saw a lot of people who claimed to have picked up on it after his first or second scene. blinded by my understanding of the lore, I wrote Qimir off and was waiting for someone darker, more sinister to show their hand. i don't mind this series being the first to show morally grey Jedi and Sith. i love that Sol was so blinded by his righteousness that he could only see a path forward in which he removed one or both girls from their family and way of life. that's crazy! Sol was either on a path to becoming a Sith or staying light enough that he might have lead a splinter group from the Jedi Order, and either option would have been fascinating to watch. i feel like we haven't learned enough about Qimir yet to have his reveal felt earned. Sol's devastating past actions were earned! we got to know him how he is now and the absolute love he holds for Osha despite it being his biggest weakness. all we know is Qimir now. so i guess that's why the goof to Sith feels so sudden and the morally grey actions don't feel earned. i think Osha joining him was super fast-paced and didn't really feel earned either. i feel like he didn't challenge her beliefs enough. Mae did a better job at that than Qimir did. why didn't she just run off with Mae and not choose either side? she got a sick scene where she bled a kyber crystal and the blade turned red, but that alone doesn't make you a Sith. especially since this seems to be the morally grey Sith/Jedi series. what i need from the second season, if there is one, is way more of a focus on Qimir. i need his morality to have felt earned, just like how Osha's and Sol's were.

also insane how Vernestra just swept everything under the rug. another morally grey Jedi to add to the collection.

[catofoldstones]

The bemoaning of s@nsan's loss of popularity by shippers fascinates me because iv'e seen a lot of ancient fans stance on it was that sansa's flaw is liking pretty things/people so her lesson should be to marry the hound for humility yet not ONE of them look inside the text that all the men that attack/abuse/molest sansa all find her pretty or are infatuated with pretty women worst abuse them, the double standard of fans against sansa fascinates me as they ignore one of sansa's character traits is to treat people with courtesy,they also ignore every character has been attracted to pretty people even j0n yet not one person says that hes vain for liking val based on her attractiveness, the only person iv'e seen thats been as criticized is d@ny simply for her infatuation in daario and dismissal of quentyn and while we as readers didnt like that she did that she's also a teenager(and doesnt know quentyn) again there's huge double standard for girls and boys in this fandom yet no one saw it

im getting off track but basically s@nsan's loss of popularity shouldn't be such a surprise when there's a whole new generation of readers that might not have the same readings or bias from previous years especially when a lot of it was just misogynistic undertones

Has san/san lost popularity? It’s still heralded as one of the most iconic ships to come out of the game of thrones and late 2000s/ early 2010s in general, isn’t it? And the san/san posts I see have a good number of notes, always around and upwards of 400, which is a hefty number to me. But yes, it has definitely left major pop-culture discourse centres.

I have heard a lot about this “flaw” you are talking about and I consider myself extremely lucky that i didn’t join the fandom earlier. I absolutely cannot imagine being in the fandom from the 90s to 2018 as a Sansa stan, when hating her was the norm. I was just about to bring up this point you mentioned, that all men, who are full grown adults btw, lust after Sansa based on her looks. They consider her pretty and want them all for herself, and all the while she’s a 12 year old.

“Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me, and most especially not the part that seems to want her.”

Tyrion VII, ASOS

“Give your Florian a little kiss now. A kiss for luck.” He swayed toward her. Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an unshaven cheek, and bid him good night. It took all her strength not to weep.”

Sansa IV, ACOK

And these are just two people, with one out of many such instances each, among a hoard of men who think of her like that. A very simple answer to all of this is misogyny, in and out of the universe. Of course the entire san/san fandom has no hive mind, they were apparently the first ones to come up with the qitn Sansa theory while also coming up with the cottage theory, but shipping a 12 year old with a grown man who almost raped her at knifepoint is an open letter invitation for haters to find a settling point for making sansa suffer without actually getting called out for it. It becomes such a perfect cover for actively hating a 12 year old because even the haters realise how insane that actually is.

I think the “flaw rectification” argument was birthed to fuse the thought that yes, sansa did bad things, here’s how we can still enjoy her character while the undercurrent of unfounded hatred runs through the ship while we conveniently never acknowledge it. Obviously new readers came along who had never interacted with the fandom and realised “hey, what the fuck?” and had a different opinion of “that’s a defenceless 12 year old girl who actually did nothing wrong”. I’m sure there were voices who expressed such opinions before but were silenced. Internet is such a friendly place after all.

The “courtesy” thing is so true. She literally has no option but to respond the way she does. One wrong word and she might get beaten or killed. That girl is terrified and only trying to survive. Considering Sansa’s action as anything but survival mechanism is so superficial. This is so analogous to how women today are polite to men while because they’re scared that the men might hurt them/kill them. It’s the same shit, times ten, with Sansa. This also goes for when San/dor catches her during the battle of black water and demands a “song” from her (which is a thinly veiled euphemism for rape), and Sansa sings him a hymn of Mother’s mercy as a way to protect herself.

As for the Dany thing, I just want to say, what exactly is wrong about a teenage girl having a crush? Why is she termed as “lovesick” and “stupid” and “annoying” anytime she shows any interest in a guy? And it’s always the dudebros screaming this the loudest. Obviously, Daario is not a good choice and Dany herself acknowledges that.

“Daario might whisper words of love when the two of them were as one, but she knew it was the dragon queen he loved. If I gave up my crown, he would not want me.”

Daenerys VII, ADWD

I mean, the other shoe will definitely drop with this guy but this the first time we see Dany have a consensual relationship, which I feel is important to her arc - the relationship and the man she has the relationship with. Moreover, she has bigger fish to fry like her governance/dragons/moving towards westeros etc.

And berating her over Quentyn? Wasn’t she supposed to get married the next day to Hizdar? Didn’t she herself say that she’s not sure if Quentyn is the real deal or not? Moreover, she remembers Quaith’s prophecy about the “sun’s son” and double backs (Dany and prophecies are a whole another thing which we can talk about later) and solidifies her decision to go forward with her wedding with Hizdahr.

“Enough,” Daenerys said. “Prince Quentyn has crossed half the world to offer me his gift, I will not have him treated with discourtesy.” She turned to the Dornishmen. “Would that you had come a year ago. I am pledged to wed the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

“The sun’s son. A shiver went through her. “Shadows and whispers.” What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun’s son…”

Daenerys VII, ADWD

Although, the Martells will not understand that Dany didn’t order Quentyn’s death and might antagonise her so that’s a chekov’s gun waiting to go off. Clearly, Quentyn was clearly the first leg of a bigger arc that we’ll likely see in TWOW (consider Quaith’s whole prophecy) and a part of a bigger theme Dany has to fulfill. Her decision to make Quentyn wait was not based on whether she found him ugly or not, it was based on being right in the middle of a political crisis with another volatile variable being added that has the potential to uproot a lot of what she has struggled to maintain (which ultimately does happen). Dany does have a knack of picking the worst option and that does not bode well for her governance/politics but that is not the point here. The point here is how dare a 16 year old doesn’t find a guy attractive and another guy too attractive (which is a part of a bigger theme btw) and sometimes, it’s a thin line between misogyny and valid criticism. Let’s stop flattening female characters into digestible one-dimensional beings, especially when it comes to teenagers. The fact that they have more than one motivation to act a certain way, makes them so much more enjoyable and interesting and honestly, human, like you and me.

Let’s also stop pigeonholing (12 year old) female characters into high-school mean girl clique leader trope who is so shallow and superficial that she needs to be assaulted by an “ugly” middle aged man to come to her senses. Also, that is called projection. The character that we are talking about isn’t like that at all. But whatever 🙄

Sorry I got carried away and got angry, things like these piss me off so bad. Never change, fandom, never change.

[inchidentally]

(screencapped to stay out of the tags)

I'm going to be bundling my other tricky asks as always in one post under a cut but this one as actually a learning curve for me as someone who doesn't really follow Max stuff.

I genuinely hadn't realized just how much time Lando had spent with Max privately and non-F1 weekend related. I'm not esp a Max fan which would explain me missing a lot but I did know they had a pretty solid friendship that dated more closely to his friendship with George and Alex - but damn that's way more time spent with Max than any other driver this season!

what's funny too is that Max is actually super happy to be physically affectionate in a flirty way with other guys similar to how Lando is. Carlos is only like that with certain guys, namely Charles and guys his own age that he deems as "pretty". but as someone who pulled shippy shit from any car|ando interaction I can honestly say that the "ooh they touched in a sexy way!" stuff was just how Lando is with guys. Carlos firmly has Lando in the little brother/friend space and literally says he thinks Lando is "cute" and that it's weird when people ask them to kiss. and yes, they have dinner sometimes and travel on the same plane sometimes to the next race - but just this season Lando did that with Daniel and Oscar and Max as well.

so surely Max including Lando in all this personal life stuff and spending time together online and in Monaco during the winter break is a HUGE threat to car|ando? I genuinely can't and don't want to try and understand the larry mentality of RPF but if I had to guess then it's something as wild as them considering Max as already part of a major RPF ship (|estappen or maxtie|) that's supposedly ALSO taking place under cover of all these "fake" girlfriends? man I wish I could remove the terms "beard" and "escort" from these people's vocabulary.

I've also got an ask that apparently charlos causes rage for both |estappen and car|ando bc they have an agenda that Charles and Carlos hate each other but then keep getting infuriated when Charles mounts Carlos or Carlos won't stop touching Charles' thighs or they try to kiss for the millionth time. akgfsakfgaf how exhausting must it be keeping these theories going I caaaan't

but returning to your ask yea fact is that Lando is way closer and more of a friend outside F1 with Max than Carlos. they meet up probably the same amount during the drivers parades as car|ando and sometimes even get handsy. but I guess somehow that's different ?? even when Lando has teased that RB would be his only temptation away from McLaren and Christian Horner wants to en plein air fuck Lando ???

from what I can tell, Daniel was never considered a threat to car|ando which continues to be bizarre bc purely objectively again, I would say he's more of a friend outside F1 to Lando than Carlos. not by a whole lot but Daniel and Lando share road trips and private flights and Lando fits into Daniel's friend group really well. I guess maybe since Daniel's just widely loved in fandom in general there was less motive to try and tear down his relationship with Lando?

that's true, I also seem to recall starting to see this anti-landoscar BS starting around Japan/Oscar's contract extension. I suppose if I were trying to look at it through their angle then the Japan and Qatar double McLaren podiums coming right after Singapore - including Oscar's extension - would be seen as some kind of "insult" ? I guess Oscar went from being cute and non-threatening to suddenly cockblocking the Carlos back to McLaren pipe dream (that Carlos would literally only do as a fifth or sixth option and only if Ferrari gave him the boot lol). especially since Lando insisted on being crazy happy about the double podiums instead of I guess wistfully thinking of how much he wishes he could play second fiddle to Carlos getting the only non-RB win of the season instead of trying to idk help his team and himself in the standings.

then there was the crazy mood swing when Lando and Carlos went to dinner after Mexico and flew to Brazil together (with Rebecca) - to the rage when it turned out that Lando hanging out in Brazil for a day or two after the race wasn't car|ando bc Lando went to Cali almost immediately for sponsors meetings while Carlos and Rebecca both posted pics and video of their private holiday together that went right up until the day before the Vegas race. I definitely saw the uptick in car|ando agit prop after that whole shebang bc then Carlos wanted Rebecca at the "car|ando cup" and kept checking in on her. the hatred towards her truly took on a whole ugly and dark turn after that.

it is still so damn weird that Oscar/landoscar is the target that it is for them though. I have another ask where in some F1 group Christmas art the artist depicts Lando interacting with Carlos and not Oscar and ??? it's a drawing??? and I'm assuming they don't rate Lily's existence as security for car|ando since apparently any woman can be conveniently written off as a fake gf. but Oscar doesn't play gay with Lando and he didn't push for a bromance and generally keeps himself to himself unless Lando wants him around! he's a Lando fanboy but he's not even hardcore pushing content of him and Lando on his sm! the poor guy is literally just standing there catching strays bc of a mainstream bromance that has nothing to do with him

I'm sorry anon this went so wide of what you were saying but genuinely I used to spend so much of my time on car|ando accounts and it's slowly turning into a larry "they are looking to each other" edit type fandom ;__;

but fr why does Oscar get put in the "we hate the real life girlfriends" category ?????? I genuinely laugh bc it's so insane why isn't he like Max or Daniel why is he That Fake Bitch Standing In Our Ship's Way and they aren't is it bc he's prettier and serves natural cunt afglajfgalgfslafg

[steppin-on-the-last-train]

The Blood and Bruise

Part Two of The Damnation of The Flawless (1)

Natasha Romanoff x Taskmaster!Reader

4800 words

Summary: You try to accept Natalia’s decision to lay down arms. Two fights later and you’ve jumped off the deep end with her.

“Let your death be a message to SHIELD. Do not fucking come after her again.”

a/n: blood and guts this chapter + innuendos of sexual assault

One major perk of a job professionally done - time off. Occasionally, you wouldn’t immediately be called back to the Academy or another rendezvous after sending in the mission report, always complete with a success marker at the end. Instead, you receive a ‘job pending’ status and are told to be readily available for the next update. 

You also know for a fact that even most other full fledged agents didn’t receive the same freedom, that for some reason they trusted you not to run. While it’s true you’d never considered desertion a viable option, you’d never quite figured out how they knew this about you. Then again it wasn’t your place to know, you leave the thinking for the politicians and the strategists. All you need to worry about is who you’re going after next.

For now, you have an entire city to explore, to map, to watch. Instead of doing any of those things however, you immediately begin scouting for a place to engage in your second favorite activity: drinking. 

Every city has at least one of these places. You don’t know exactly how to label it, bar, lounge, whatever. Open twenty-four hours, always serving, impossible to find. Well, impossible if you don’t know what to look for. Thankfully, you have a high expertise when it comes to spotting them. 

First, you stuff a wad of cash into your pocket. You take it out of your bag from where it was situated in between a variety of identification papers, a Glock, and an array of small knives. Pretty much the only rule with these places is that you have to have cash to get in. You can’t drink if you don’t pay. 

You set off out of the residential area and head towards the city center. The sun has risen enough to fully promote the morning, and the city is already busy with traffic. People are everywhere, walking, driving, biking to get to their jobs. Most are bundled in heavy winter gear, with hats and giant coats. The wind is somehow even more biting than it was when you arrived last night, cutting through the sleeves of your relatively thin t-shirt and raising the hairs on your arms. You continue on, wishing for the cold to let up and cursing this city for its energetic brightness. 

A few blocks down you spot a small set of businesses tucked around a corner that sits at a dead end. One is a meat shop, advertising local sausage and fresh cuts. Another has a big sign that says “Welcome” in cheesy pink font, accompanied by a mannequin dressed in attire you imagine would fit one of the Madames if they were, well, normal. The third storefront, or apparent lack of one is what grabs your attention though. Heavy curtains block the windows and there are no signs or markings. Faded paint peels from the walls and the door and there’s a layer of dust on the window sills. Someone doesn’t want curious civilians to come around. 

You walk up and knock on the door. Your fist lands solidly each time, creating more of a demanding pound than a polite inquiry. It’s only a moment before you’re greeted by a less than friendly man. His head is bald and round and he has muscles that you can practically see despite the thick sweatshirt he wears. He’s only standing in the doorway, but you’re already analyzing and subconsciously memorizing his typical fight patterns. He doesn’t need to engage often, usually only having to manhandle and throw drunkards around, but when he does it’s a typical brawl. He definitely packs a hell of a punch, but what he gains in strength he sacrifices in speed and agility. He’s ready to tell you off and shove you away now, but he’s also sizing you up. You understand the tight shirt you have on shows your strength as well.

“What do you want?” His voice sounds exactly what you’d expect, low and rough.

“I want to come inside, of course.” You don’t have a problem recalling the language or matching his exact regional accent. Courtesy of whatever the hell you were born with. The scientists have always called it photogenic reflexes. You grin up at him, making sure to show all of your teeth.

He turns wider, blocking the doorway and squaring his shoulders. “I will say this once. Go away before I make you.”

“Calm down, calm down,” you say, putting your hands up and making sure not to let your smile fall. You reach into your pocket and feel him brace for a fight. All you do is pull out the money and spread it for him to see. “Now can I get in?”

He relaxes a little before tensing up again. Great, he’s confused. The accent deems you a local, but he knows the regulars by name and he’s never seen you before. You look young and clueless, but you’ve got hard cash. His focus shifts to the bag slung over your shoulder, wondering if there’s more stuffed in there.

Eventually he lets up, opening the door wider and gesturing you inside. “Remember I am watching you. Do not start any trouble and I will not have to throw you out,” he warns.

“Don’t worry. I will not be getting thrown out.” You bite back a bitter laugh. Like he thinks he could take you. He doesn’t know anything of what you’ve done.

You walk in and are immediately hit with five different kinds of smoke. The stench of cheap nicotine, fine tobacco, and concentrated marijuana mix together and assault your senses. There’s a thick haze that messes with the already dim lights scattered around the room. It’s a small place, maybe accommodating a couple dozen people comfortably. A bar sits in the corner, a few wooden stools stand empty and lined up. There’s also a low coffee table with a couch and a few chairs around it. They remain occupied, a group of intimidating thugs playing cards and providing the smoke that threatens to choke you out. Well, intimidating to old women and small children. The complex tattoos and raggedy cut sleeves don’t do much to impress you.

They look up at you as you pass by them, but remain silent as you ignore them, beelining for the bar. The man who had been at the door is now behind the bar, appearing to clean up as you choose the corner stool and sit.

“Strongest vodka you have. Make it a triple.” He looks at you with disbelief, but turns to grab a bottle off the shelf anyway. 

Your mind wanders off to the reason you’ve ended up here in the first place. How she’s started on her slow march to death, wondering where exactly she is now. You think about your part in it all. How your inaction makes you inherently complicit in her choice. You might as well have been the one to push her off the edge. You might as well be the one pulling the trigger and watching her fall.

Three shot glasses are placed roughly in front of you and your hand picks the first up on its own accord, your mind busy trying to figure out where you went wrong. The liquid burns a little, but it’s nothing compared to Russian drink. If there are two things you would classify yourself a snob about they would be liquor and blades. The second is quick to follow, and soon, all three sit pooled and warm in your stomach. You miss the impressed look on the bartender’s face as you continue to stare into nothing.

“Job troubles?” He asks. 

It takes a moment for your brain to process the jumble of syllables your ears provide. 

“No,” you shake your head and gesture for him to pour another.

“Your girl leave you?” His tone is unserious and you realize how deceiving your looks are. He assumes heartbreak for you is a botched one night stand or a fling that lasted a couple of months. He assumes he’s seen and lived more than you. 

“Yea,” you scoff humorlessly. “Something like that.” More like the only person that could make you feel human is dead set on ending her life.

“Well,” he says, pouring you two more. “You have my condolences kid.” With that he moves out from behind the bar, joining the game of poker being played across the room.

You knock back the rest of the liquor and close your eyes, leaning back against the wall. Suddenly the thought of never waking up again doesn’t seem so bad. New waves of smoke enter your lungs at every inhale, the room warm and stuffy. Eventually, jet lag and lack of rest from the past few nights catches up with you and you fall asleep.

—

It was your first mission. You were in America. Those are the only two facts you would be able to tell someone about what your mind labels “The Incident”. The rest comes only to disturb your peace in the darkness as assaulting colors and gut wrenching sensations. 

Everything was fine, routine, until it wasn’t. You’re trapped now and it’s dark and you can’t breathe and you can’t move. You’re being suffocated and shattered and stripped. He smells of sweat and cologne that makes you want to vomit. His palms are moist and fear-sweat runs down your back. No matter how much you thrash and scream it doesn’t stop, you can’t wake up. You reek of violation and it angers you so. When you’re free you see red and his neck in your teenaged fists. Then it’s his head on the ground and his brains on your boot. Red rings through the air in the form of your cries, it stains your vision as blood floods the floorboards, it permeates the air with the stench of iron. 

You want to go home.

As soon as you touch down in Russia you let a heavy exhale go. You remember seeing Dreykov waiting in the foyer of the Academy. Home. You wince, expecting shouts and punishment for being compromised. Instead he takes your face in his hands and kisses the top of your head. He tells you that you are stronger than everyone else and that you are destined to cleanse the world. Then he asks if you understand the mission. You nod and force the lump in your throat down. Yes you understand. Yes you will be the enforcer. Gladly.

—

You wake. Something is wrong. A cool liquid runs down the back of your neck. You jolt and turn around, grabbing a wrist that had been too slow to move. You’re up faster than you can process what’s even happening and the man’s arm is about to be broken at the elbow. The beer bottle he had been tipping over your head crashes to the ground and shatters, glass and alcohol sticking to the floor.

“What the hell, man!” He shouts, twisting and straining for release. His friends stand up from where they’d been watching, unsure of how to approach.

“Just let him go,” one of them says. He’s short and muscular with a stocking cap over his bald head.

You blink, otherwise unmoving as your mind races to catch up. You’re in a bar. These people are not a threat to you. No one is a threat to you anymore because you’re grown now and you’re stronger, smarter, faster. You let him go and he stands back, grasping his arm and dramatically rubbing the soreness away. He has an overcomplicated lion tattooed in the crook of his elbow. You watch him warily, you can already tell he’s not going to let this go.

He swings a clumsy right hook at your face. You step back then forward with lightning speed and kick him in the gut. He staggers back toward the circle his friends have made behind him.

“Back off,” you warn. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Yeah. Because you know you’ll lose. What do you think you can do against the five of us?” He gestures cockily back at the group.

The bartender stands with them. “I knew you were a troublemaker. Leave, or I will be making you leave.”

It would be so easy to walk away. You could throw your hands up and curse them and walk out unscathed. That’s not who you are though. You figured that out a long time ago while you were thriving in the pits of hell.

You put your hands up in faux surrender before stooping down and grabbing a shard of glass from the broken beer bottle. With a flick of your wrist it’s embedded into the thigh of the man that had been sipping out of it five minutes earlier. He goes down cursing and clutching the wound, caught between trying to stop the blood flow and being too scared to pull it out.

The already fragile peace breaks then, his three friends and the bartender rushing forward to attack you. They form a half circle in front of you, fists raised and muscles tensed. Boots scuffle and scrape against the ground in agitation. It’s mostly posturing however, you pick apart the subtleties in their body language and they tell you how at least two of them have never truly fought anyone before. A thumb caught inside a curled fist, arms raised too high, feet set in a stance that wouldn’t allow for explosiveness.

You pick on the man on the far right first, feigning a rib shot before popping up and jabbing him in the neck. It’s almost comical how fast he crumples, sometimes you forget not everyone has been trained to be unbreakable. He lays on the ground belly up, vulnerable to attack as his hands fly to his neck. You raise a foot and stomp, hard. The crack of multiple ribs is the pre chorus to his strangled screams. They force their way out of a bruised throat - music to your ears.

Upon seeing this the remaining three run at you, finally deciding not to let you pick them off one by one. Your head pounds as the adrenaline spike from being startled awake starts to fade. You really need a drink of water.

“Alright,” you mutter to yourself. “Let’s go.”

You back up toward the bar and blindly reach for the shot glasses you’d emptied earlier. Your hand connects with one and you hurl it at the head of the bartender who stands in the middle of your trio of attackers. It doesn’t shatter on impact, but it’s enough to distract him as you slide and hit his knee, allowing you to move out of the corner. The short one pulls a pocket knife from his pants and flicks it open. The blade glints and you’re forced to recalculate your approach. He runs at you and slices toward your abdomen, you narrowly dodge, but are met with a fist to the gut from the last guy. The wind is briefly knocked from your chest and you breathe in a strained gulp of air before hurrying to duck a punch aimed straight at your nose.

You bounce up a return the favor, sending a mean uppercut his way. You can feel the bones in his nose give way as you connect and he staggers back, blood gushing from his face. The man with the pocket knife dives toward you and you sidestep, grabbing the back of his shirt as he sails past you. You yank him towards you and the counter momentum throws him off balance. You kick his knee in for good measure and he flies into the row of stools, knocking a few over as he falls. His arm twists at an awkward angle on impact, freeing the pocket knife from his grip.

You turn around as the bartender swings and you duck, chasing after the dislodged knife. You slide and pick it up, cutting upward as you turn around and stand. The blade slices through the right side of the bartender’s face. He shouts in agony as blood spurts from his eye and he staggers away.

Nose bleed guy is back in your face, yelling as he charges with nothing but a raised fist. He’s persistent, you’ll give him that much. You use the now blood soaked blade to stab him in the gut as you sidestep his wild swing. It slides in silently and his shouts dim as it tears through more and more of his insides. You yank it out, one hand on the back of his neck to keep him upright, and stab him again. You lose count as you ram the knife into his gut over and over, only stopping when the body slumps completely over.

Your hand is coated in red, and you know your face and shirt are flecked with it. You shove the body away in disgust and guts leak out of the mutilated torso.

The man you had thrown into the barstools struggles to get up, watching you with wide eyes. His lips tremble and his arms shake so bad he can’t push himself up.

“Mercy.” He utters a word roughly meaning ‘demon’. “Mercy, please.”

You squat in front of him, looking him in the eyes.

“Shhh.” You put a finger to your lips and drop the knife before patting his knee affectionately. Then, your arm darts to his neck, holding it in a deathly grip. His eyes widen again and he thrashes wildly. His hands try to rip your arm away but it’s no use. Your forearm is a vice, forged in dark rooms with experimental serums. Long after he’s stopped breathing and his face is a sickly blue you let go, flexing your hand a bit to get the blood flowing.

You stand and move to claim your bag. It sits nice and clean in the corner, waiting. There’s a water bottle inside and you take a much needed drink, exhaling loudly when it’s drained fully. God your head hurts. Then you walk to the back and wash up. You hum an old Russian folk tune as you scrub your hands and wipe your face clean. The water turns pink before running down the drain.

You need a new objective, you feel free from the weakness that had plagued your body a few hours ago. The dragging weight of emotions that threatened to distract you. You step back into the bar room and scrutinize your work. It reminds you of who you are. It’s also very sloppy, blood everywhere and broken furniture. Not to mention the dull aching in your side from where you’d tanked that punch who should’ve seen coming. You have a shit ton of alcohol to thank for that error.

On a last thought you decide to strip the jacket off of one of the less bloody men. It’s cold here in Berlin after all; and you reckon it will be even colder in Moscow.

—

After a long journey of switching trains and stealing various vehicles you find yourself in Moscow, now hangover free. You had a lot of time to sit and think, and somehow your mind decided on bringing your body here. 

Full gray clouds hang over the city and provide a steady drizzle. The cobblestones underfoot are slick with water and the crowd of people out have umbrellas and jackets to ward off the chill. You’re thankful your new jacket has a hood to help keep yourself warm. You stand in the back of a surprising turnout of onlookers considering the weather. They chat excitedly about the weather, their families, and most prominently, the person that was capable of pulling them out of their cozy homes this morning.

There’s a man at the front of the square. He stands aside a podium, speaking last notes to a few colleagues. He wears a professional gray suit with a white undershirt and shiny blue tie, and over that he wears a giant poncho. Somehow, despite the drab weather and the odd way the poncho messes his hair, he holds an air of charisma and charm. You understand how he’s drawn so many people to hear him speak. You also understand why the Kremlin wants him dead.

You peel your gaze away from the awfully democratic statesman and scan the crowd for his assassin, and her assassin on top of that. You have a gut feeling things are about to get real messy. 

The crowd is a mass of dark blurs, far too easy to blend into. Coats conceal body language and weapons and the sheer amount of people make it impossible to properly analyze every one. You’re running out of time too. She’s likely not even down here. Tall buildings sit just down the street, they look far enough away, but you know better.

He’s taken the podium properly now and clears his throat. Silence rushes through the crowd. Any moment now you think, carefully surveying the people once more.

“To the people of Russia,” he begins when a bullet whizzes by, mere inches from his head. It crashes through the storefront a ways behind him, shattering the glass in a resounding note. It takes a moment for the audience to realize what had just happened. Then the screaming starts. The crowd bows their heads a bit as if that would protect them and they scatter like cockroaches in the light. Some slip on the slick cobblestones underfoot, scrambling with wild eyes to resume their rush for cover.

Amongst the mob you stand unmoving, people rushing in a current around you. Personal guards cover for the politician, ushering him to stay low and beelining for the nearest building. You look past them and towards the shattered storefront window. Inside stands a frazzled old woman, eyes wide at the chaos outside and watching the downpour stream into her previously dry shop.

You replay the moment in your mind, watching the bullet’s spiral, seeing it miss the statesman, his colleagues, and the store owner. You see it again, but watch the angle this time and try to pinpoint the direction and the height from which it was fired.

Turning to look down the street you spot a hotel four blocks away. You take off running. The rain has soaked through your jacket and your damp shirt sticks to your skin. Water streams into your face as a resounding thunderclap announces a new phase of the storm. You wipe the water off of your face in a futile gesture. You let your bag go, convinced you can run faster without it. As you near the building you spot a window on the fifth floor, cracked open despite the weather. You get inside, waterlogged boots squelching against the clean tile and race up the stairs.

You finally arrive at the room to find the door already busted open. You don’t think you’ve ever run faster before. Chest heaving and lungs burning you take quick stock of the space, hand resting on your holster. Muddy footprints litter the carpet and a lamp lays unplugged and destroyed on the ground. There are bullet holes in the wall and the ground is damp from where the window was left open. No one is here. Panic wells up in your stomach, hot and heavy. She’s already long dead and being dumped in a river somewhere. You shake it off, spraying water droplets from your hair.

You tear back out into the hall, spotting signs of struggle you blew past before. There’s blood on the handle of the stairwell door and more heading up when you stop to look. You take the stairs two at a time. The trail continues, with both bullet holes and marks from another weapon littering the walls as you go. Dread winds its way through your mind; it freezes the blood in your veins. Eventually you get to the roof, another bloody handprint stain on this door.

You don’t stop before shoving the door open and running out. A man stands with his back to you near the edge of the roof. His arm is locked around the neck of another person. The clouds make everything radiate shades of gray and black. He drops the body to the ground when he hears you burst through onto the roof. She falls limp to the ground. Your eyes track to her chest, watch the rise and fall. She’s not dead. Relief flickers through you like a warm flame. It quickly turns to burning, untamable anger at the man in a covert tactical suit standing above her. It rages a familiar wildfire in your mind, your pulse picks up and you want your knuckles bloody.

In one seamless movement he turns, pulling out a bow and arrow and firing two arrows in quick succession right towards your chest. You were expecting bullets, so the beginnings of a smile creep onto your face as you watch the arrows fly. Then, right before they hit their mark, you’ve caught them. One in each hand, the shafts feel warm from the sheer amount of kinetic energy that had been propelling them. You can see his eyes widen marginally as he reassesses the oncoming fight.

You twirl the arrows around and launch them back at the man, running after them across the roof. He snaps his bow into a staff, you hear the hinges lock into place. He slides below the arrows and tries to trip you up, feet kicking for your ankles. You jump, but he knocks your foot away as you’re about to land.

The slick tile underfoot slides away on impact and you fall. You knock your chin on the ground and the force jolts your jaw all the way up to your temple. Your teeth click together painfully and you’re glad your tongue wasn’t caught between them. You shoot back up, kicking away the staff swinging for your head. He brings the other end up to tag your ribs and you dodge, drawing two pocket knives from your belt.

Before he realizes you’re fighting with more than your fists he’s bleeding from a deep cut on his shoulder. The blade in your left hand is dripping wet, and not just from the rain. He hisses, air whistling through his teeth. 

To his credit the fight doesn’t change pace, and you don’t detect his style changing to favor his arm. For a couple minutes you match him blow for blow, toying with him as you memorize his fight patterns. He’s right handed, but can switch to his left relatively seamlessly and he uses a combination of mixed martial arts with a bias towards strike attacks.

A giant bolt of lightning cracks the sky open with a vengeance. With a scowl etched onto your face you tire of the fight, figuring a near weak point in his coming movements. You slip behind him and kick the back of his knee in. Your arm wraps around his throat and squeezes. He drops his staff to the ground and it lands in a puddle, splashing a new cold wave up into your boot. You lean down by his head as he tries in vain to free himself.

“Let your death be a message to SHIELD. Do not fucking come after her again.” The words leave your lips in a scathing whisper. His body is warm against the winds that whip around you, but not for much longer.

Just as you’re about to break his neck there’s a sound, booming and powerful. It echoes twice across the lonely rooftop. At first you want to believe it might be thunder, but you know better. You grew up with it punctuating your days and haunting your nights. Then there’s pain like you’ve never felt before in the lower part of your torso and more near your right shoulder. You drop the agent and roll to the left.

The pain blossoms like a grand firecracker until it’s all your brain can process. You’ve never been shot before, you were too good. You zig zag across the roof as more shots ring out, it’s getting harder and harder to stand. You’re about to tackle the shooter when a new pain erupts at the back of your skull and you black out.

[french-teapot]

Hey all!

I really wanted to sit down and write this out, just in case it might help anyone. Since so many people were so kind to help with suggestions when I was suffering with that UTI, I found a couple of other options that may be beneficial to some people.

It might be a little long, so I'll put it under a read more.

I'm still not 100% back to normal, but I've done repeated urine tests at the doctor, and there isn't even an infection anymore. It seems to just be a really stubborn inflammation, and it was recently getting to a point where I was really just mentally and emotionally wiped from it. It was never super bad, but obviously if you feel uncomfortable non-stop for weeks it really gets to you eventually, and last Saturday I was in tears again just from the frustration, especially since we're due to go away in a few weeks and I just want it to be gone. Nothing I got from the pharmacy did anything.

Now, my boyfriend's mother, while not a doctor or anything, is very good with researching natural remedies due to her own ongoing ailments and reluctance to rely too much on medications. A lot of what she knows is very 'old-wives-tale' style knowledge, but especially when it comes to more natural options, she knows a lot about the history of the plant and how old cultures would have used them.

Please keep in mind that everything I'm suggesting may not suit you. These have helped me immensely in the last couple of days, but they certainly haven't cured me. They may also be things you're allergic to, or if you take medications, may react with them. So please take everything I say with a pinch of salt, and common sense.

So these are what she suggested:

The three main things I've been taking are dandelion (flower and leaves), plantain herb (leaves) and nettle (I just bought this in tea bags).

I brew a tea mixture from them, and they've helped so much already. Apparently they're all diuretics, and help with urinary support and health. But they've given me a lot of relief considering they're all just plants you probably already have everywhere in your garden.

Both dandelion and nettle can be bought as regular tea bags, so that might be easier, especially since there's special preparation for nettles due to their sting.

This might be more common knowledge that I think, but it's certainly something I didn't know about, and I definitely didn't realise how potent they are. And since the majority of plant-related uti advice I think most people hear about it 'drink cranberry stuff', there's not as much emphasis on these.

ALSO. I just started this today as well, but this is something I did know about - eating raw garlic. I've just been chopping a few cloves on some buttered bread, and it's delicious. Garlic is also pretty brilliant for a lot of things, so even just in general I would recommend eating it like that. Or with some honey, whatever gets it down for you if you're able to eat it.

I'd really really recommend if anyone suffers from bladder issues at all, please do some research on this, because even in a matter of like, two days, it's really boosted my mood and general wellbeing.

Obviously I'm still going to the doctor. That's not ruled out, and I'd never tell anyone to rely only on plant remedies when medication could do more. But these have just helped a lot in the meantime.

Thanks to all of you who helped me before, I just wanted to add something back! c:

[oaxleaf]

mag 199 - seeing it through

i love this episode a lot, but it comes very very close to pushing over the emotional threshold of what i can handle. it is an in depth look at so many of the show's themes, and it is fascinating. it's the climax of all the moral discussions and there is so much to cover that i don't think i can even get around to it all

firstly, i really like how clearly not only everybody's stance is, but also why they think so. martin, like always, sticks his head a bit in the sand, denying even the possibility of any other option. he doesn't really care for any type of system of ethics. basira's views on morality are very conditional - to her, the correct choice varies greatly based on a ton of unknown factors. melanie very firmly cares about the people in her immediate vicinity, she has lost far too much personally to lose any more. georgie has, as is stated before, issues assessing risks, which is why she's the only one even vaguely suggesting not doing anything. she's always been more of a bystander

and jon, of course, is dealing with unfathomable levels of guilt. whilst, with the very limited information we have, his preffered option might be the most ethical one, i think it's very important to point out that there is some level of selfish motivations behind it. he couldn't live with the knowledge that he's caused even more pain, even if he never sees it. he doesn't want anybody else to ever go through what he is. he might not be power-hungry, but he wants a chance to make things right - which there of course is no way to do, especially not without severely abusing power

which is another thing: what i consider to be the show's two major themes, power and choices, are also discussed heavily. power in the sense that there's the issue that they don't even have the right to make this choice. but then, who does? not like there is any good results anyway. you can approach this through the cold lens of statistics or through messy human emotions, but no perspective is more valid and regardless of what you choose it won't be right. thus, they are forced in a position where they have to abuse power beyond their rights, unless they choose to do nothing, which, of course, they can't. because the idea that you have to make a choice, and the exploration of how manipulated your motivations and the outcome have to be for it to even be your choice, is presented over and over again. as well as the idea that, regardless of how the choice was made, you still have to live with the consequences. maybe the only right course of action is the one you can live with

jon and georgie's conversation hold a special place in my heart. she's a crucial character in his development, i think, because she's the only one that remains passive. she never tries to change what he's doing, even if she judges, but rather just lets it sit. i think he needs that. and clearly, she cares so much for him, but she can't let him destroy her with himself. the fact that she hangs onto the lighter just feels important to me, for some reason

jon and martin's little talk is also interesting, because it also establishes what's been apparent for a long time - that all of the trauma and everything awful that happened and broke them down, also brought them some good. and it's not even in a 'look on the bright side' kind of way. it's this grief that there are parts of yourself, good parts, that you only could reach because you were shattered open. i love them, and i love them as a couple, but it's really important to me to acknowledge that they'd never have been one had all this awful shit not happened. that's important, too

[starwalker03]

I realized WMLP Dick’s position in that army unit is similar to his early experience with the team. He’s the youngest has a lot of experience and skills his squad mates don’t, among peers for the first time in a while, hiding his true identity, gets pushed out of his comfort zone by the people he was with. Expect this time is was true war. And he came away without bonding with his team and looking down on them. Would this experience effect how he views his memories of The Team?

Huh. Actually that's a good point.

It would definitely make him remember how unprepared they were for That Whole Situation, just thrown into missions having never worked together except for the Cadmus mission which ended with an exploded building like. Bruh. I know they weren't giving the league many options but also what the fUCK guys y'all just sent them off on their merry way like that. The fact they didn't die in episode three is a miracle.

But then also he's so aware of the difference between working with people who are fighting because they're genuinely good people with a desire to help others, as opposed to... Well. People who wanna shoot guns, had no other options, want the military to pay off their degree, et cetera et cetera so on so forth. Like this team is so different to his old one it's almost distracting. It's almost problematic. It's almost enough to snap Dick out of the constant unrelenting need to do as he's told and question Slade because 'uh hey yeah what the fUCK is up with these people'

Dick has to force a level of indifference between himself and his new team because if he doesn't he can't focus on the task at hand. He can't help but think about the fact that these people should not be running around armed with thousands of lives in their hands.

It doesn't help that they're all unaware of half of the shit that goes down in the world. Even Dick's superiors have only the smallest understandings of figures like Count Vertigo and Gorilla Grod and none of them have any idea who Vandal Savage is. Queen Bee? Uh you mean the dictator of that small kick of desert in the middle east?

(CW for conversations about the "war on terror" ahead)

Oh my god. I didn't even consider that if Bialya and Qurac are middle eastern countries they're surprisingly close by during the wars of the early 2000s. Like I've hand waved and said 'yeah going off timeline Dick probably got sent around the middle east' but completely failed to realise he might have even been in Bialya or Qurac for missions.

I wonder how those countries engaged with wars in the area in lore. It's apparently north of Saudi Arabia and Iran in wider DC lore? But YJ isn't specific?

Here's a Reddit thread I found where people start getting into nitty gritty details:

Essentially they're depi ting Bialya and Qurac as west and east Iran, respectively. And also offering theories as to how those countries could have come to be.

If I continue to use Australia as the example (which I suppose I should cause I've essentially canonized it in the fic at this point), Australia was only particularly involved with Afghanistan and Yemen I believe, but I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge.

Bialya and Qurac could, possibly, border operations in Afghanistan. Young justice lore states that Bialya is a part of the UN and therefore may not be particularly open to military operations but very well could have housed a few bases on the borders.

Jesus. Getting this into the lore of YJ feels so strange and I'm honestly not sure if it's inappropriate or not. I could believe Queen Bee being involved with the war on terror, whether it's a part of Savage's plans or not, just because she enjoys conflict. Moreover it helps with the anti-Quraci thing she has going. From what I can tell of the show, Qurac seems to be a majority Islamic country? So I could see her manipulating the image of things to benefit her attempts to take back Qurac.

Well this spiralled. Uh I might end this answer here actually.

[mneiai]

Which established characters are you hoping to see in Dreadwolf?

Obviously I think Dorian will be at least appearing and I'm hoping Maeveris ends up in an advisory role or something like that. I'd also really like that for Fenris, where he advises us and we have some sidequests with him, but his own work and ours maybe diverges a bit, to give it the feel of there being just so much going on and so many moving pieces.

I would also really like Feynriel as a companion, I think it would be a great nod to DA2 and be an interesting way to work in some great moral conundrums for us (like having the option to influence someone's mind through their dreams or the like).

From Absolution, I'm hoping either Qwydion or Tassia become companions (though Roland and Lacklon as a pre-built set would be pretty fun). Qwydion would be like a less annoying Sera sort of role, playful and silly, but very good at what she does and with a heart of gold. Tassia would also work I think in an advisory role, but I could see her as a companion (and them both as love interests). She could be a more conservative Tevinter viewpoint, but very anti-blood magic and with a Dorian-esque desire to "save" her country from itself.

Prior to the VA's bullshit, I had actually really hoped Cullen might be a companion, simply because it would get him in basically every role he could have taken in the games and because he's one of the only characters to appear in all three prior games without DLCs, so I want those parallels. Since his epilogues never actually count, he could have been in Tevinter for a year or two before starting the game--he'd fascinate the Tevinters while also having Templar abilities they wouldn't at all be ready for.

Dagna is another "older" character who would be great as a companion and give some interesting insight. I'd love to see them go deeper into lyrium/Titan lore and having someone like Dagna around (as well as Fenris and even to some extent Cullen) could add to that. There are a ton of dwarves in Minrathous, after all, who live under the city so they don't get exiled as "surface dwarves."

Krem could also be a great companion (and finally a love interest??), perhaps under an assumed name or something like that, with a side quest involving searching out his family or having to deal with being recognized, considering he's basically a fugitive.

If they're using Tevinter Nights characters, there's soooo many options. Perhaps Myrion or Strife for their Qunari invasion experiences (and Strife as a contact to the Dalish), Hollix or Mizzy already are connected to Dorian of course, Neve has great contacts in the Templars, Lucanis could give us a connection to the Crows (would absolutely love to see my fav pair from the book, Viago and Teia, appear, and through Viago we could also get a connect to the Antivan king). Philliam, a Bard! could be the comic relief character if we don't already have one, Vadis and Irian are a great all around pair with a ton of connections to different possible plotlines.

As for repeat companions from DAI...I don't know. I've seen people say Varric, but I think they're reallllly close to overdoing Varric, and also his usage in so much other material implies he may have been "released" from tight control they normally like to keep over major NPCs. Dorian would obviously be relevant, but kind of falls into the same category of being used in a decent amount of other media now. I think Cole has some great insight, but apparently he was fairly controversial, and obviously a lot of the others from player choices.

As for DAO...I'd absolutely love to have Shale back, but most of the other characters are either dead or too affected by player choices. Though Zevran could also be interesting, I'd prefer one of the newer Crow characters.

[macgyvertape]

BG3 Act 3 thoughts and liveblog part 1

I couldn't stop comparing DOS2 act 3 and BG3 act 3, since act 3 is a bit underbaked in both games compared to the other acts, but wow BG3 just has so much more polish and content.

The prologue reveals my character is a Bhaalspawn, I feel like it's just so widely known at this point

Defining character moment for Astarion “the problem with what Cazador has done is he did it to me”. Since Asatarion really wants this she’d help him sacrifice his “siblings” what matters to her is that Astarion is safe, but she’s worried about the unknown details but is still planning as if its possible. The dialogue options of “a killer isn’t worthy of respect” is fucking laughable my character would never say that lmao. 

When the narrator was saying you have a bunch of options what will you do, for my character it felt best to say “when the moment comes I’ll do what feels right”, since she's more of an opportunist

Ooof that fight with the gith was rough even on easy mode.

My character wanted The Emperor to prove he was the protector, but then tried to read his thoughts anyway. She’s also very grateful Lae’zeal wasn’t around when this happened considering Orpheus is real and a renegade mindflayer has him prisoner

Learning that the protection against the Absolute comes from Orpheus being trapped really puts a damper on my character’s plans to not get rid of the tadpole and associated powers. It's too dangerous to count on Orphues being imprisoned. Also the Emperor was a successful power player in Baldur’s Gate, so she’s more wary of his plans and agenda than the fact he is a mindflayer. 

My character did turn down the Emperor’s offer to evolve her, sorry she just is too attached to how her body looks. She also thinks this is a line in the sand she’s not going to persuade her companions on, unlike the tadpole powers. (personally it's the fact that it messes up your teeth, huge personal squick). I guess had my character take on so many parasite powers it gave me a fucking 21 score roll to not evolve. 

EDIT: the next day I got spoiled on the Emperor’s seduction scene and it’s friendly manners being all a front; real fucking surprise pikachu face moment for me. That my character who manipulates, lies, and seduces people might encounter someone who emotionally manipulates, lies and will seduce people. I didn’t fully trust it and thought it might have its own agenda, but still I was a little too trusting that there might have been some genuine emotion. Like DAMMIT I was rewatching Felix rvb scenes before I started the game and he has a line “Funny how an act of sacrifice like that [getting hurt] buys you so much trust”. Which is exactly what the Emperor did, where it knelt down and made a big show of how it trusts me not to hurt it and when it calls on us for that dramatic rescue that while genuine was an excellent opportunity for it to be revealed. Apparently the 21 roll is because I used so many tadpoles which the game treats as buying into The Emperor’s promises. Its repeated lines of “just like you” and “i’m on your side” to establish common ground and then presenting itself as a criminal with “a heart of gold” in its backstory. I/my character was skeptical on some details considering it also presented itself as a major power player, but bought into it’s use of “allies” when what he meant was “pawns”.  

Gale had the comment “you’ve not taken this power for yourself… why offer it to me” and I wish I could respond like what Astarion said, that don’t want to sacrifice my body. Astarion had a whole lot to say on the subject but Karlach only had 1 line about being surprised I hadn’t taken the power/transformation. Funny to see how other companions had lines about how they hadn’t done any tadpole powers and they weren’t about to start now. 

My character’s made an enemy out of the undead lich Gith queen, whom only Orpheus can oppose, and there’s an entire Gith resistance working to free him as well. So that really kills any plan of using the Absolute for herself because she’d be better off with Orphues fighting the Gith queen

Really Astarion and my character have come so far from act 1 where he was warning me about how easily Cazador could kill me to now where he’s saying if Cazador comes for him he’ll strike back and he’ll have my character along with him 

The one group my character has been consistently nice to with no promise of reward is kids, so at this point she’s just resigned to them showing up at camp as long as there’s someone like Withers, Halsin, or Wyll to keep them from getting hurt. 

My character is helping the strange ox yet again. It won’t reveal what it is but she’s really curious, and it hasn’t seemed to kill people, so she’ll help it because it might be a useful ally in the future

I love Biscotti what a GOOD DOG (love the animal writing in this and DOS2)

I think its funny that for a while I was thinking that Astarion wasn’t that pale, but in the bright light of Baldur’s Gate he really is. I think it's due to my monitor that has super high contrast

Surprised Halsin has the most dialogue in the refugee area mostly about how he’s rapidly becoming disillusioned with the city, and I tried a earlier save without him and the other companions like Astarion or Karlach don’t speak up if he’s not there.

Community meme about Gortash: I can excuse him being the chosen of an evil god and using his power to found a murderous evil cult but I draw the line at him and his PMC making surveliance cop robots. Bane is just the god of cops and Gortash works for Boston Dynamics

I like to think a bunch of the companions have been a positive force on my character so she’s helping the refugees in her own manner (lots of intimidation), and wants to see the Tiefling refugees make it after all the struggles. That there were explosives in toys justifies her being nosy and helping

Karlach really wants to go to the circus, unfortunately my character is a vicious murderer lmao. Thankfully she’s great at [persuading] and charming. Astarion, Halsin, and Karlach seem to be the best “go to the circus” group

Incredibly cool to hear my bard character perform along with the other bard in the circus

The dinosaur and the magic cat in the circus are being mistreated, Halsin is right to be mad about it. I used Astarion to pickpocket the key, then mage hand to open both cage doors

My character doesn’t like clowns and after she felt that murderous urge there’s no way she’s getting on stage. I watched the different versions of sending Halsin or Karlach up on stage but sending Astarion up on stage really is the best version. Role playing it as after he made that comment about clowns being a horror and with how both Karlach and Halsin approve of picking Astarion while he doesn’t approve if you pick someone else; its some light hearted group teasing of a guy who usually has a joke at others expense “You love the spotlight, don’t you… here’s your big chance”. Yeah he says he’s going to kill me but he’s not seriously upset.

Astarion and my character both enjoy killing clowns, see we’re great together

My bard character was pissed about the Djinn scamming with the spin the wheel game so of course she went back to rig things to get the jackpot. 

Ok so my character gets her meteorites back, that she’s a Bhaalspawn, she’s not surrendering to the D!urge or worried about atoning, but that she’s being encouraged to slaughter her line and that its the woman who hurt her before is a opportunity for power and revenge coinciding nicely

For now the only person my character is telling is Astarion, this is a big thing to confess and she wants to play this close to the vest for as long as possible. While she did have earnest suspicions since the oubliette, she’s more afraid about standing up to a god and the loss of control. I personally like how Astarion comforts you after that dialogue a lot more, especially the way he says you must try to beat Bhaal and not become a slave.

[eorzeashan]

Thoughts about Echoes of Oblivion: I consider Eight to be cosmically insignificant. That he's just a blip in the giant lifeform that is the Force. It doesn't make him any less important than the next character, but he's not some grand savior or even anything next to say, the Hero of Tython. He doesn't even show up on Force radars half the time. This obviously clashes with a major portion of KOTFE/ET and after that keeps trying to make you somebody, but he is literally nobody. The fact that he matters so much to someone like Jadus who is a gigantic presence and galaxy-shaker delights the hell out of me, but it only makes him special to their relationship, not the rest of the world.

To that end, I think not even Arcann would remember him. Senya would still be angry; she deserves to be and they both made and accepted their choice with him as their murderer. He holds nothing against her if she wants him to suffer for the rest of his life. Given the tweaking of his role as Outlander however, I'm unsure of whether Arcann would hold the same grudge. He might, given this nobody killed his entire family-- but Eight barely spoke, and I think Arcann's vitriol is much more directed at an Outlander who... has a presence at all. Eight might have appeared as just an unknown soldier to him. But I suppose even he needed someone to hate, if he could never reach his father. It's hard for me to imagine him doing so for Eight however, as he did promise he'd defeat him in his stead.

Oddly enough, this time Vaylin had no objections compared to a LS playthrough which is very sad given she must have just wanted to be free of her life of pain and misery, so it made me sigh in relief a little. She deserved a bit of catharsis. It's ironic that the path most would assume would heal her made her more overcome with rage. As mentioned before, it's strange how she and Eight sometimes would silently see eye to eye like that. Maybe that's just how those mired in endless violence are.

I also don't think they needed him to be there for this one given a huge chunk of the vital Force-users there were like uh.... we hate this guy for killing us. Made it really awkward.

It's nice to think of Eight as one of those nameless phantoms in the back who show up just to get a good hit in for Valkorion though, and while I don't think he couldn't do such a thing, he's more of the whimsical surprise character who shows up mysteriously out of nowhere to wreak havoc while simultaneously being helpful and acting on his own agenda (Jadus sends his regards!).

It still got me though when Valkorion pulled him to the side alone and asked him if he really did kill his entire family without being controlled-- I was very curious about the point of lying about it, which I imagine would've been good for RP purposes, but Eight would never shirk the responsibility or the weight of his decisions-- his kills. Valkorion laughed and said he must have enjoyed it if he was so steadfast in his conviction, but Eight would never. Not that him or his family could understand, as they've only known emotions that lead to murder their entire lives. The curse of being empaths, I suppose.

Though I had to pick the apology button to Senya, he wouldn't do that either. He didn't do it then. He couldn't do it now, and she knew it was too late for feelings (it always is. at some point you give up on justifications. you accept this as who you are) and so she brushed past him saying his time would come, and Arcann saying he would suffer eventually.

Ironically, he'd never turn that on them had their situations been reversed. Not that the game had any neutral options for this expac, haha.

He probably wished he got to stay outside Satele's head with Theron. There's something symbolic about him finding the loneliest, coldest vistas of Valkorion's barren mind filled with darkness as comforting, like it's the only place in the galaxy where he could ever be. KOTFE/ET... really made it apparent how other people became his hell, when all they could see was a tool for their victory and a bloody knife to blame.

He was oddly happy when Valkorion didn't remember him. He was grateful. Thank the stars. I should wish to be forgotten.

Then the arc tied off with a cheeky nod waking up to the same Lana with a stim like the PC does first leaving carbonite, but it was more bittersweet than anything to once again jet off...somewhere with her knowing Eight's history with the one he deferred to this entire expac. He tiredly went "I don't care," when she asked him where to go next, just the two of them in a shuttle again. No further words were exchanged and we don't know where she picked, but that summarizes their relationship pretty well: being dragged off not even half-awake by Lana without asking lol. He's still her agent even now, huh?

...Though given the garbage fire and lots of dead people that resulted because of their disastrous power dynamic, I could very clearly hear the frantic holocall from Theron ringing 30 minutes later asking where the kriff she's taking him and to put him back right now.

[maream-zaream]

Just heard about The Watcher streaming announcement video, and dang. I’ve never seen a company misjudge their fan base so, *so* hard in my life. Like, I’ll concede on the wanting a higher budget and more creative freedom but like. Guys. You have like 2-3 shows *at most* that people genuinely get excited for. That is NOT ENOUGH to justify a $6 (or more if your non-US)/ month streaming service.

Also, if money really is that big of an issue, why don’t you turn on YouTube memberships? Like, you acting as if you’ve exhausted all other options, but you haven’t even turned on the thing that like every other YouTuber turns on to make more money without alienating their audience. Also, in regards to their apparent want to become “TV quality” (something that no YouTube (let alone Ryan and Shane) watcher EVER wants), why??? Cause no (and I mean NONE) of you fanbase have ever even thought the existence of the feeling that a higher production cost was needed. I mean, I literally stopped watching a bunch of their stuff cause it started to feel too overproduced and corporate-/business-like. And also, may I remind you that streaming services have historically been considered literal money pits??? Like, even big dogs like Netflix and Disney have trouble turning a profit on these things, why do you think you — a singular YouTube channel with a singular YouTube channel level of output — could??

Additionally, like, the demographics just don’t add up! Like, even from a purely corporate, sterile, and logical perspective this decision makes absolutely no sense. Like, the vast majority of your audience are middle school to collet student in terms of age and/or budget. What makes you think that these people can afford to pay for this service even if they wanted to? Like, the platform literally only accepts card and isn’t accessible to a lot of non-US countries. Additionally, we’re also in a big international economic downturn. Like, guys, even the people who support this can’t really afford this!

Also also, and this is my personal opinion, but fire Steven. Either fire him or demote him cause it seems like he’s kinda of like a money pit for the company. His shows’ premises are based on things being horribly expensive and they’re also the least popular shows on the channel, making them, if anything, unprofitable and a waste of time and resources.

TLDR; this the most idiotic and greedy decision of I have seen in my life. And I’m a Pokémon fan.

[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.