#top op journal

[shepfax]

boy I sure am glad I got that off my chest !!!!!

(top surgery complete)

[sparklemaia]

do you ever draw what you’re gonna look like after top surgery when you’re having a bad dysphoria day to help you cope and it’s happened so often that now you’re running out of canvass or are you normal

[r0semultiverse]

I think the Mindfang Journal upd8 would save me today ngl

Save me Homestuck Beyond Canon upd8

[deviouslittlecreature]

Everyone has been so lovely and supportive since getting out of surgery, I'm so happy that I transitioned, this is the happiest I've ever been!

[probablyasocialecologist]

The study itself is titled, “Long-Term Regret and Satisfaction With Decision Following Gender-Affirming Mastectomy,” and sought to study the rate of regret and satisfaction after 2 years or more following gender affirming top surgery. The study’s results were stunning - in 139 surgery patients, the median regret score was 0/100 and the median satisfaction score was 5/5 with similar means as well. In other words… regret was virtually nonexistent in the study among post-op transgender people. In fact, the regret was so low that many statistical techniques would not even work due to the uniformity of the numbers: In this cross-sectional survey study of participants who underwent gender-affirming mastectomy 2.0 to 23.6 years ago, respondents had a high level of satisfaction with their decision and low rates of decisional regret. The median Satisfaction With Decision score was 5 on a 5-point scale, and the median decisional regret score was 0 on a 100-point scale. This extremely low level of regret and dissatisfaction and lack of variance in scores impeded the ability to determine meaningful associations among these results, clinical outcomes, and demographic information. The numbers are in line with many other studies on satisfaction among transgender people. Detransition rates, for instance, have been pegged at somewhere between 1-3%, with transgender youth seeing very low detransition rates. Surgery regret is in line with at least 27 other studies that show a pooled regret rate of around 1% - compare this to regret rates from things like knee surgery, which can be as high as 30%. Gender affirming care appears to be extremely well tolerated with very low instances of regret when compared to other medically necessary care.

[...]

The intense conservative backlash, to the point of disputing reputable scientific journals, likely stems from the fact that reduced regret rates weaken a central narrative these figures have championed in legal and legislative spaces. Over the past three years, anti-trans entities have showcased political detransitioners, reminiscent of the ex-gay campaigns from the 1990s and 2000s, to argue that regrets over gender transition and detransition are widespread. Some have even asserted detransition rates of up to 80%, a claim that has been broadly debunked. Yet, research consistently struggles to find substantial evidence supporting this narrative. The rarity of detransition and regret is underscored by Florida's inability to enlist a single resident to bear witness against a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on gender-affirming care.

[viceroywrites]

deja vu - part 1

i decided to make a full-fledged multi-chapter fic out of this idea that i posted a few days ago with a cyoa ending potentially

thanks so much to everyone who showed so much love for it and hope you enjoy this series!

this is my first time writing for gravity falls so i hope to do it justice!

planning out your road trip through the pacific northwest, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the town of gravity falls.

little did you know that this town held more memories than you could have possibly imagined.

too bad you didn't remember any of them.

stan x fem!reader/ford x fem!reader

tag list: @awitchersbard / @theilluminatidragonqueen / @jazzypop-op/ @maryclanders/ @chaimshelii /

@starship606/ @swimmingrascalbatdragon / @stanfordsbaby

He wasn’t in bed.

You woke up in the middle of the night to find the space beside you empty, the blankets cool to touch, indicating that a warm body had not even slipped into the sheets. Begrudgingly, you slip out of the warm comfort of your bed to search for your lover.

Your bare feet pad against the wood floorboards, creaking with each step you take. Your fingers balancing a candle that you used to illuminate the way, too lazy to try and turn on the lights. 

You descend down to the basement, pushing open the metal door that reveals an intricate lab full of oddities and gadgets with a triangle shaped portal looming just behind the glass window. You let out a yawn, approaching the figure that had his back turned towards you. His six-fingers spin the pen in his hand effortlessly as he rests his chin in the palm of his hand.

Your soft yet groggy voice calls out as you place your hand on his shoulder, “Ford, come to bed. Your research will be here in the morning.”

Stanford jumps at your sudden touch before relaxing when he hears the sound of your voice. He puts his pen down, placing his hand over yours with his thumb running soothingly over the back of your hand, “I’ll be there soon, just head back upstairs. I just need to finish this last equation that's been driving me mad the whole day.”

“Stanford…” You say with an edge to your voice, knowing that he could easily stay up the rest of the night working tirelessly on this portal that he had been working on for the past few months.

“Alright… I concede. You win this round, my dear.” Ford sighs, turning to face you finally with a tired smile. He gets up from his seat, pressing a soft kiss against the top of your head before following you up the stairs but not before looking back at the portal.

-

You had the dream again.

It always starts the same. Walking down a staircase, the floorboards creaked with each step you took. Your eyelids feel heavy almost as if you’re resisting the urge to fall asleep. Your feet carrying you down to a basement. The warm flames of the candle you hold illuminating the way.

Your fingertips push the cool metal frame of the door to reveal a figure sitting in front of a desk, facing away from you. Your hand reaches out to touch their shoulder and as they turn around to reveal their face to you, you awaken.

Your eyes open abruptly, staring at the dark ceiling as your alarm echoes through the empty room. Slowly sitting up in bed, you instinctively reach across to turn off your alarm and turn on your lamp before your hand reaches to open the drawer of your bedside table, feeling around for something. Your fingertips brush against leather and wrap around the item, pulling it out to reveal a journal.

These dreams happened almost every night over the years. It had gotten to a point where you started logging them, just trying to find any pattern or meaning behind them.

You turn to the page labeled ‘The Basement’ - adding another tally mark in the margins that you used to keep track of the frequency of each dream. You close your eyes, trying to conjure up any distinguishable features from this mystery person but nothing new arises. 

Sighing, you shut the leather-bound journal, putting it to the side.

Now was not the time to be worrying about your cryptic dreams, you were supposed to be getting ready for the trip you had been planning for the past few months. 

A road trip through the Pacific Northwest, starting in Northern California and making your way up to Seattle.

You hop out of bed to start getting ready for your journey ahead. After completing your morning routine and slipping on some comfortable clothing for the long drive, you make your way to the kitchen, grabbing the map that was stuck to the fridge with a magnet from your alma mater, Backupsmore. 

Having already packed your bags into the car the night before, your feet make a beeline out the door, wanting to hit the road before sunrise to give you enough time to hit the places you wanted to visit on the way up to your final destination for the day, Portland. 

Unraveling the map in your lap, your eyes scan over it, reviewing over the route you had planned out today. Your gaze lingered on one particular spot you had circled closer to Portland that was unlike any of the stops you had chosen.

Gravity Falls.

You couldn’t explain what drew you in to choose this town to stop in out of all the surrounding towns near Portland. You knew that you had an old friend, Fiddleford, who had moved out to this area to do research. You had even visited him once during his time out there. However, you hadn’t heard from Fiddleford in years, correspondence seemingly dropping off as he stopped answering your calls and your letters always ended up returning to you.

Trying to push aside thoughts of your lost connection, you put your car in reverse, pulling out of your parking spot and heading out onto the open road. The winding roads take you through the lush forests that enveloped the region. As each hour passed, you could see the sun slowly starting to make its way up the horizon and decided to stop to watch the sunrise at Redwood National Park. 

After the brief stop that you used to stretch your legs and grab a cup of coffee, you make your way back on the road. Your original plan was to stop at almost every National Park on the way up to Oregon but after hitting a pocket of traffic that put you behind a whole hour, you decide to skip a few stops and make your way directly to the town of Gravity Falls, figuring it would be your last stop with the remaining amount of daylight you had left.

Unfortunately, you had hit another bump in the road, pretty much derailing the first day of your methodically planned out trip.

Your car had suddenly stopped in the middle of the forest about five miles out from the town.

Cursing under your breath, you step out to assess the cause of your delay. Your hands pop open the hood of your car, breathing a slight sigh of relief when you don’t see any steam or smoke. Figuring that the most likely cause is the battery dying on you, you pull out your phone, trying to look up the nearest towing company to hopefully bring you into town to get it looked at.

As you’re waiting for the screen to load due to the poor signal out in this forested area, a gruff voice calls out, asking if you need a hand.

You look up to see a red convertible with the phrase ‘El Diablo’ etched on the side on the other side of the road. Its owner, a man with gray hair, glasses and a stubbled yet chiseled jawline, wearing a black tank, a shiny medallion that sat on his exposed graying chest hairs, and a brown leather jacket, stares back at you, one hand on the steering wheel while his arm dangles lazily outside of the rolled down window.

You pause, taken aback as something about his features seems… familiar. You quickly snap out of your stupor, realizing you’ve just been standing there in silence.

"Uhm… yeah if you have jumper cables, I just need to get my car running to get to the next town and hopefully get a replacement battery,” You reply, figuring this option would be way cheaper than hiring a whole tow truck.

"Of course, I have jumper cables, toots - look at my car, you think I haven't been stranded out here myself." The stranger chuckles, making an effortless U-Turn with one hand before pulling his car close to yours. Your cheeks warm at the nickname given to you by this man you met literally seconds ago, This guy’s a total silver fox.

You step to the side to give him access to hook up the jumper cables after he fishes them out of his own trunk. You both stand in silence while he attaches the cables to your car before his deep voice cuts through, "So uh, what brings you out here? You just driving through?"

You almost chuckle at his awkward attempt to make small talk, "Sort of. I'm doing a whole road trip through the Pacific Northwest. I was gonna check out this town ahead, Gravity Falls, before I make my way up to Portland."

The older man blinks, expecting you to just be passing through the town at this time of a day. Normally, tourists only stop into town in the early hours of the day on their own journeys up north. His lips spread into a grin, pulling out a business card from his leather jacket. "Well, if you're stopping by, you gotta check out the Mystery Shack! One stop shop for mysterious oddities!"

You take the business card with a giant question mark on the front. He retreats back to his car, turning on his engine before nodding over at you as a signal for you to start up your own engine. You slip back into the car, slipping the card into your pocket before turning on the ignition. You breathe a sigh of relief as your car stutters back to life. Glancing up, you see him grinning back at you before the two of you step out of your respective vehicles.

“Thanks again for your help… sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Y/N.” You say, extending your hand out in gratitude. The silver fox’s large hand envelops yours, shaking your hand firmly, “Stan Pines, nice to meet ya. It’s no problem, wouldn’t want to leave a lady like yourself stranded in the middle of the woods.”

“Do you say that to all the ladies that end up stranded in the woods?” You can’t help but tease, earning a hearty chuckle from Stan. “Well, let’s just say that’s not a common occurrence out here. So you thinkin’ about stopping by the Mystery Shack?”

You pause, stuffing your hands into your pockets as you thumb the edge of the business card Stan had given you. On one hand, you should probably be heading back on the road to make it to Portland and this Mystery Shack sounded like a tourist trap. On the other hand, the sun was starting to set and you weren’t keen on driving through the forest in the dark. Maybe it would be best if you stayed the night in this quaint town and start again the next morning. As you look up at Stan, you make your decision, deciding to appease the man who helped you so graciously.

You also had to admit you found him quite charming and curiosity got the better of you.

“Sure, lead the way.” You say with a casual shrug. Stan grins, “I’ll make sure you get a personal tour of the Mystery Shack. No need to worry about other tourists.” Your eyebrow raises in amusement before slipping into your car, “What, you know the owner?” You blink at the smirk that spreads across Stan’s lips, “Sweetheart, you’re looking at the former owner, Mr. Mystery himself.”

You bite back a giggle, “No wonder you were laying it on thick, just trying to get more tourists to visit, huh?” Stan rolls his eyes mirthfully “Hey, I was trying to lend a helping hand… though I have a good sales pitch, don’t I?” He grins, shooting finger guns towards you with a wink.

This’ll be interesting. You think to yourself as you follow behind Stan in your car, pulling into the empty lot of the Mystery Shack. You snort, seeing how the S dangles off the side spelling out Mystery Hack, before pointing it out to Stan as he exits his car. His features grimace as he grumbles out, “I noticed” before beckoning you to follow him, twirling his keys on his index finger.

Stan proceeded to give you a detailed tour of the Mystery Shack, spinning elaborate tales surrounding the variety of taxidermy animals that he had mismatched together. Despite the absurdity of it all, you can’t help but get sucked into his tales, seeing the clear passion and excitement he had for this place. You burst out into laughter at the sight of the Sascrotch to which Stan beamed at, “Good one, right? Probably one of the highlights of the Mystery Shack.”

You weaved your way through the shack, though there were certain sections of it that looked oddly familiar. Almost like you had walked down these hallways before. A wave of deja vu hit you as you walked through the doorway into the gift shop. “Usually this is the part where I try to sell people on an overpriced souvenir but I have a feeling that the whole schtick isn’t gonna work on you, is it?” Stan admits.

“Probably not but I’ll take a look around and see if there’s anything that catches my eye.” You chuckle, making your way around the space as your eyes scan the various trinkets. Your fingertips run across the mugs with question marks painted on them. You decide to use this opportunity to make small talk as you mill around the gift shop while Stan leans back against the counter, “So, you said you’re the former owner? Who owns it now?”

“One of my former employees, Soos. Kid’s been working for me since he was… well a kid. Only person with as much passion as me about this place.” Stan says, glancing over at the Employee of the Month picture that still hung behind the counter that showed a younger Soos. “What made you step down as owner?” You hum, thumbing through the t-shirt rack. 

Stan smiles fondly, “Me and my twin brother actually just got back from traveling, we’re only in town for the summer. It was always our dream to travel the world together by boat, and we finally got to make that happen.” You look up, smiling at how warmly he spoke of his brother. Stan catches you staring and crosses his arms defensively, “What?”

“Nothing,” You say, shaking your head before thumbing through the assortment of keychains and stickers that were displayed. “So twin brother, huh? What’s he like?”

“You’re sure asking a lot of questions… not sure if I should be flattered but it feels like I’m being interrogated by a government official.” Stan comments with a grin. You pause with dramatic effect before looking up and admitting, “Well technically, I do work for the government.”

Stan freezes, his stance becoming defensive as he looks you up and down, “Oh shit, really? Man, these cover-ups are getting better and better but I swear I haven’t broken any laws… recently at least.” Your warm laughter fills the room, finding the look on his face priceless, “Relax, I work for the National Parks.” Stan’s posture relaxes at the realization and he rolls his eyes, “Alright, you got me good. So what do you do? Are you like a park ranger or something?”

“No, I’m a geoscientist. I pretty much study rocks and fossils. Kinda boring day to day but sometimes I’ll come across a precious gemstone and keep it for myself… even though we’re not supposed to take anything off a dig site.” You admit sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck. “Using the government’s resources to your own advantage? I like the way you think.” Stan chuckles.

You pick out a magnet to add to your fridge when you return as a reminder of your side quest at the Mystery Shack. Stan rings you up though you notice a significant markdown in the original price after he insists on giving you the employee discount. As you walk out of the gift shop outside, you round the corner back to your car. 

Little did you know that you would run into the man that you once loved as someone with a long tan trench coat was outside fiddling with a device with his back turned to you. Stan elbows you in the arm to catch your attention, "That's my poindexter brother that I mentioned, Ford. He's always working on some geeky invention."

"You know I can hear you, Stanley?" Ford sighs, turning around to face you two.

Time slows down as he meets your eyes, memories flooding back to him before landing on the last memory he had of you - your back turning away from him, your hand slipping through his fingers after he chose to continue with his research despite your pleas.

He freezes, seeing the woman that left him all those years ago, "Y/N?" He calls out to you.

You blink, staring back at this man that you had never met before calling out your name.

Stan is just as confused as you are, looking between the two of you. 

You tilt your head in confusion, “Uhm… sorry, have we met before? How do you know my name?”

[newblette0-o]

Here it is. My baby. My pride and joy. The reason I decided to learn this stuff. Part one of the Fallout 4 magazines; restored and recolored in simlish.

The biggest of thanks to the absolutely incredible and inspiring @surely-sims , not only did she let me use and include her magazine mesh from her Showroom Modern Living set, but she also was super kind and helpful with my questions.

The Sims community has always been so wonderful, and I'm very happy to stop lurking and start seeing what I can do. ^.^ I hope someone gets some joy from these. I know I have.

Below is a link to SimsFileShare. You can pick and choose any of the 12 magazines or download the merged file at the top. All items can be found searching Newblette, Fallout, or Magazine

Thanks again again to the simlish font makers. Ya'll the real mvps.

Magazines included are: Covert Ops (×10), Enclave Entrenchment Manual (×3), Guns & Bullets (x10), Hot Rodders (x3), La Coiffe (x5), Live & Love (x9), Massachusetts Surgical Journal (x9), Picket Fences (x7), Taboo Tatoos (x11), Tesla Science (x9), Total Hack (x3), and Tumblers Today (x5)

If you use my stuff, I'd love to see ^.^. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know.

[writingquestionsanswered]

so I want to start writing but I don’t know where and how to start writing. Any tips??

Where (and How) to Start Writing

1 - Start by filling your "creative well."

Writers are storytellers, but you can't tell stories if you have no stories to tell. That's why it's so important to fill your "creative well" by becoming an observer of life and consuming the stories unfolding around you. My guide to Filling Your Creative Well will help you with that.

2 - Learn about the different types of writing.

"Writing" doesn't just mean being a novelist. You could write fan-fiction, short stories, plays, poetry, screenplays, songs... you can journal, write a memoir, write non-fiction, write children's books, blog, become a journalist, or write op-eds. You can be a copy writer, technical writer, ghost writer, biographer, critic, essayist... Where and how you start depends on what type of writer you want to be. You can research the type of writing that interests you to learn the best way to start.

3 - Journal or do some writing prompts.

Regardless of the type of writer you want to be, a great way to start is by doing some daily journaling and/or doing writing prompts. Both options will help you practice things like sentence structure, description, grammar, and punctuation. You can find all sorts of free writing prompt resources right here on tumblr, as well as all over the internet, and there are also some great writing prompt books out there. Or, you may choose instead to journal about your day, your thoughts and feelings, or random subjects that pop into your head.

4 - Learn how stories generally work.

If you want to write fiction--whether that's fan-fiction, short stories, or long fiction like novellas and novels, it's important to learn how stories generally work. I say "generally" because there are many different kinds of stories and exactly how stories work can vary across time and place. However, there are a lot of general basics that tend to apply to modern popular stories. You can learn about those here: Beginning a New Story Guide: Starting a New (Long Fiction) Story How to Move a Story Forward

You might also find the following posts to be helpful: Want to Write but Can’t Come Up with a Plot It’s Never Too Late to Become a Writer Where to Go from Initial Book Idea

And finally, you can take a look through my master list of posts for additional help. :)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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See my ask policies

Visit my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions

[possibilistfanfiction]

happy new year! maybe a prompt for sleep/nap bc i need one lol

bea 🧑🏻‍⚕️🐝❤️‍🩹 (4:27 am): If you’re done with your post-op and would like to stop by, I’m in the on-call room. 

it’s so late it’s almost morning, and you really should be headed home because, technically, your shift is over and you’d been at the hospital for, like, too many hours to really want to keep track of at this point. but bea — beatrice choi, md, the resident in charge of you — is, like, so handsome, and kind, and an incredible teacher, with her perfect handwriting and her free gender-affirming clinic and all the languages she knows fluently. you think you’re a little in love with her, but who can blame you — you’re sleep-deprived and sometimes in awe of the skill and calm she has, even in just her third year. 

Dr. Ava Silva (4:31 am): sweet yah omw :)

when you open the door, a little harried, you immediately still and quiet as much as you can. bea has the room darkened, the only light coming in from a sliver under the window curtain, blue and red from the ambulances and easy white-gold from the street lights in the hospital parking lot. you’ve spent so much of your life — way too much of your life — in dark rooms in hospitals in uncomfortable beds that, for years, you could barely even feel, so you should want to run away. you should want to leave as soon as your shift is over and go home to your cramped apartment with its rickety table you found on the side of the road and its lumpy couch and the chipped mug in the kitchen — it’s not much; you can’t afford more, but it’s yours.

but you’re starting to think in some way maybe beatrice is yours too. all of the tension in your shoulders from the day — from countless central lines and three boring laparoscopic surgeries and one fatal stabbing in the er, from sutures and journals and so much to learn — melts away when you see her fast asleep. bea is on her back, scrub top off, one arm over her head, the blanket pooled around her waist, her phone face down on the flat plane of her chest — scars you haven’t seen before there that make you smile, just a little, beautiful — like she’d fallen asleep texting you. based on the fact that it’s only — you check your watch — 4:35 am, you’re pretty sure she did. 

camila keeps pestering you, and probably bea too, knowing her, to just talk to chief superion about your feelings so you can be on another resident’s service, so that there won’t be any issues and you can kiss bea if you want, but it’s, like, totally terrifying to imagine not only telling beatrice your feelings, let alone dr. superion, who puts up with your antics but just barely. 

you could leave. you could sneak out the door right now back to your apartment. it feels like a cliff to jump off, or a knife’s edge — but maybe it’s not that. maybe it’s something warm and easy and not really a choice at all, to love the steadiest person you’ve ever met. 

it’s easy to pull your running shoes off and discard your white coat and climb into the small space in the small bed next to her. she stirs a little, and so you say, ‘hey, i’m here.’ and she puts out her arm so you can lie down. it’s an invitation, albeit a sleepy one, so you make sure: ‘is this okay?’

she hums and nods. ‘hi ava.’

her voice is heavy with exhaustion; later you’ll come to find out that the hardest part of residency for beatrice — beyond literally everything else you personally find abhorrent and impossible — was just a lack of sleep. 

‘hey bea,’ you say, close enough to count her freckles and take in the warmth of her skin. she curls into you when you scoot closer to her, and it’s cramped and these beds are horrible for your back but it’s still basically heaven. you feel such deep fondness for her, small and in the dark like this, so different from her ramrod straight posture and clever hands in the light. 

she mumbles something incoherent and pulls you closer, and you fall asleep just like that. you’re awakened by the sound of her pager — a crime in your book, totally homophobic — just as the sun has risen. she’s disoriented, seemingly, as she wakes up painfully, and you kind of expect her to panic upon seeing you. but she smiles apologetically, a little nervous but apparently happy you’re there.

‘i don’t remember you coming in,’ bea says, searching for her scrub top until you hand it to her from where it was discarded over the side of the bed. she looks at you questioningly for one second, the tiniest bit of trepidation crossing her face, and so you just smile. 

‘you were very asleep, mere minutes after texting me. kinda rude to knock out after inviting me, don’t you think?’

her little blush is worth everything as she checks her pager and slips into her clogs. ‘you’re lucky i even managed to get that text off.’

’the er was that bad?’

she groans. ‘worse than.’ 

you’re ready to just lay around for a few minutes before you go home, but then she pulls on her quarter zip and you think about the scrub cap she’d had on earlier, blue with little otters all over it, unexpectedly adorable, and you decide to get up anyway. ‘have time for me to grab you a coffee as i head out?’

‘i’m sorry i kept you here. that can’t have been comfortable.’

you have to physically hold back the urge to tell her about how good she smells, even smooshed near her armpit. you’re, like, the best at all things self-control though, obviously, and so you don’t. instead you just shrug and stand, thankful for the last round of jillian’s shots that seem to be helping your back. ‘well, if you weren’t so ripped.’

she rolls her eyes, but her blush remains. camila is right, you think, because all you want to do is kiss her right now. but you don’t, you’re good for once, and you get ready too, as quickly as you can, and then hold the door open for her. she blinks a few times at the light, rubs her eyes behind her glasses, but then smiles at you — just for you.

‘maybe, soon,’ she says, taking a brave little breath after you’d waited in easy silence at the coffee counter, ‘you might want to join me on a hike? i go most days off if i can.’

and, like, that’s a terrible idea for you maybe, but whatever, some of your most ambitious terrible ideas have earned you an md and a phd and this very cool person in front of you, offering. ‘i’d really love that,’ you say. ‘text me.’

she nods, definitely pushing the time it would take to answer a page — lilith is going to be pissed, a delightful detail — and then reaches out to squeeze your hand, just once.

‘have a good day, dr. choi.’

she smiles. ‘see you soon, dr. silva.’

[dontcallmeeds]

Part 2 of Eddie Making Jewelry For Steve; Part 1 here / Part 3 here / Part 4 here

Steve had figured it out after the second little box that was left on the Family Video counter.

He didn’t see Eddie leave it, he was too involved in his conversation with Robin that happened to be about his panic surrounding Eddie.

See the thing is, he knew there were bisexual people and he knew he liked men for years.

But saying it outloud and falling for his best friend? Well, that was a whole other thing.

The way Steve figured it out was the handwriting on the little notes. It felt a little crazy comparing his Family Video card paperwork to the notes, but Robin was the one who suggested it.

Eddie looped his lowercase Es tightly, to the point they almost looked like Cs. And his Is were always lowercase with a circle instead of a dot.

It really just had to be him leaving the beautiful pieces that made Steve’s heart melt and his stomach fall out his ass. Although, he still had his doubts. There was no way his dream guy was just being that fucking perfect, that wasn’t usually how Steve’s life went.

But oh god did he sure have hope.

Steve thought he was being obvious that he knew, wearing the ring that he had fallen in love with in front of Eddie. He even fidgeted with it and caught Eddie staring at it before the other man quickly looked away.

He couldn’t help but tear up in the Beamer after the outing, asking Robin for advice only resulted in drunken living room karaoke, not a plan.

Steve tried to ask where he got his pieces once so maybe him and Robin could run surveillance like old times, but Eddie ended up being vague and elusive.

When Steve brought Nancy into the secret op, she suggested a stake out which felt like stalking. She started a board with dates and drop off locations and roughly estimated it was every 2-4 weeks on dates Steve was usually busy.

It was coming up on almost a month since the last drop and Steve was practically showing off with the last chain, making sure his polo was just open at top enough for Eddie to see.

The flushing across Eddie’s cheeks into his chest was everything, but still his metalhead said nothing.

It was time for Nancy’s plan.

Steve dropped days he’d be busy, watching as Eddie seemingly made a mental note of them. His feigned disappointment was shaky, Steve hoping he’d just blurt it out without confrontation.

But alas, nothing.

Nancy put on her ‘undercover journalism best’ aka a literally just a black sweater and black pants, borrowing her parents car instead of using her own. And I’m that moment Steve felt—

“Am I crazy? Is this whole thing crazy?” Steve paces the Family Video aisles between romance and comedy, which felt pretty fitting considering his love life was a joke.

Robin places a hand on his shoulder and gives him that all encompassing look between the fact that she thinks it’s completely sane, but also really fucking crazy.

“You want to know for sure, right? Not just the handwriting or little weird glances?”

Steve sighs and then nods slowly, he really did want to know for sure. But the problem is what came after.

“Okay then, we’ll just see what Nancy says then hmm? For all we know it could be a boring—“

As if on cue, the walkie they stole from the kids crackles.

“Steve—it’s for sure him, he just—“

“HE JUST WHAT?! WE NEED ANSWERS WHEELER,” Robin shouts into the speaker before Nancy can even finish, Steve grabs the walk-in out of her hand with a scoff.

“Say sorry to your eardrums for her Nance— so wait, what happened?” Steve tries to shove down his nerves, but his fingers on the device tremble.

“He leave something in your mailbox, do you want me to—“

“Steve, GO!”

He really needs to teach her what an inside voice is.

“Are you—“

“I’ll cover you, if Keith comes back I’ll—I’ll make up a dead aunt or say you ripped your pants, I don’t know! I’m not good under pressure, you know how I get Steve. Goddamnit, just go before I start rambling!”

Steve nods and handing her the walkie, running out the door. He knows he breaks the speed limit on the way home, knows if he gets pulled over he can just use the Hopper card. He normally wouldn’t, but extreme times and all that.

Nancy is pulled into the drive when he gets there, popping out when she sees him pull up next to the mailbox.

“Hey I wanted to stay, for you know, support,” she says with a small smile, seeming to enjoy this all way too much.

“Nance, you didn’t have to—“

“Yes I did, Steve. Now fucking open it before me and Robs burst a blood vessel.”

Steve nervously chuckles, his fingers twitching on the mailbox door before pulling it down to a little red box.

‘Stevie, something different,’ is all it reads.

He shares a glance with Nancy, before pulling it out.

[shepfax]

combo of day 3 and 4 post-op journal

this one has a photo in it of my body post-op so viewer discretion is advised. there is no blood, sexual content, or overall frightening imagery but it is "raw" so to speak in that it's actively healing flesh so it'll be under the readmore.

so yesterday (Jan 7th) I got to take a shower for the first time since surgery. this was my first chance to see my chest uncovered and when I tell you I legitimately could not be happier I mean it. my surgeon is apparently a fucking master human sculptor (my primary doc said today that she's typically on task for cis people's cosmetic procedures anyway) and she gave me a body that really, truly looks the way I always knew it should.

look at that. a fucking masterpiece. incisions lovingly shaped under my natural chest wall, nipples realistically placed, it's just organic enough to look symmetrical without actually being so, which is exactly how I wanted it for fear of looking artificial. it's soft, not flat, just like me, and it's mine. it's truly, honestly beautiful to me.

also I got a note that the pathology was normal on the tissue they removed and it confirmed that I lost 3.35 lbs of dysphoric meat. big win for me.

the showering itself was low-key awful though I'll be real with you all. removing the soft dressings from my bolsters and drains (which I was instructed to do I promise) made me all the more aware of them and while the bolsters are 100% numb the sensation of the drains made me almost faint it was so viscerally offensive. I sat in the shower and my wife helped me wash my head, arms, and back for as long as I could handle being out of the compression vest. putting it all back on was fine but then it was like. you know how you pack a suitcase perfectly before a trip and then you can never get all the shit you brought to fit the same way back into the suitcase? it feels kinda like that. ever since I unwrapped everything and re-wrapped it, I am suddenly slightly more aware of it's presence and it sucks ass. the drain outputs keep pinging me with a gnarly little itch of pain and the shower dressings I wore over the bolsters ripped out a bunch of my chest hair and those areas are itchy as fuck now. grrr

for physical activity I tried some of the neck/arm exercises the doc sent me and went with my mom to the grocery, picking up scar care gel for future use.

a friend of my family sent me not one, not ten, but a pack of 24 silly straws as a get well gift. I have aggregated 23 of them into a vase as the world's silliest bouquet and use one to stay hydrated.

today (Jan 8th) I took it very easy, with a small breakfast, a big hefty nap and a virtual appointment with my primary doctor for medication recheck on my hormones. she was very happy to hear about my experience with my surgeon and plans to recommend her to others in the future. big moment: I made myself lunch for the first time since surgery (literally just a banana cut in half with some peanut butter in the middle)! activity was only a short walk around the neighborhood with my dad, both because I was exhausted from poor sleep and because it was cold & windy.

tomorrow is my first post-op appointment with the surgical team and I believe it's the day I get my bolsters off but I could be wrong. we shall see what the future brings😀

[marley-manson]

The Young and the Restless really showcases how much more well adjusted and secure in himself and his medical skills Hawkeye is compared to the other surgeons lol. When the young surgeon shows them up BJ skips sleep to obsessively study journals, Charles proclaims his career over and goes on a 3 day binge, Potter throws himself a huge childish pity party over not being useful and refuses to get out of bed, and Hawkeye's just like, who gives a shit, good for this kid. Let me sleep. He makes one mild joke about borrowing the journals after BJ when he lists all the surgeon's admirable qualities while trying to reassure him, but otherwise he has zero negative reaction and makes fun of Charles and Potter for being so weird about him.

Also I love how exhausted he is throughout this episode, from falling asleep in Post-Op to be woken up and threatened by Potter, to falling asleep in the mess tent on top of his tray, to being incredulous that BJ has been awake studying when he sleepily wakes up in the Swamp to find BJ in a med journal.

And of course Klinger is great in this ep, I love how quick witted he is throughout, extremely delightful.

[fairuzfan]

In Palestine tag an OP was sneering at a tweet that warned that alt-right groups and other bad faith actors were now jumping on the pro-Palestine movement. Two posts below that someone had uploaded a video of ANDREW TATE advocating for Palestine against Piers Morgan. A pedophile sex trafficker is exploiting the trauma of a people being genocided to amass his following of Muslim incels. I want to throw up. We need to warn people to be more careful about who they're amplifying.

Oh my gosh I fucking hate him can he shut the fuck up.

I think a lot of Palestinians, though, kinda are annoyed with the idea that all the information on the side of Palestinians *is* "disinformation" or "bad actors" because a lot of the time the idea is weaponized against PALESTINIANS who are trying to provide as accurate information as possible.

I do agree, watch who you retweet/reblog. Andrew Tate is. Not a good guy. But to say that its a problem unique to information about Palestine is inaccurate and dismisses the journalism and information networks of Palestinians themselves. Which is another reason why I say to try and center Palestinians — we do try to be as accurate as possible or point you to sources we know value accuracy.

So yes! Please do look to Palestinians for information. Many of us try to either only reblog/retweet things we've heard actual information about or know to be reputable sources. Our sources are on the ground, and we know the way the Israeli army works against Palestinians from past aggressions.

Here are some Palestinians I recommend checking out on tumblr:

I might make a post about who I look to for information on twitter if people want though.

[copepods]

holy SHIT the dsmp real world example i. sorry idk if you like people reblogging your posts with massive additions so this is an ask.

l'manburg realistically would be a city-state since it's not big enough to be a full city, with the populace in about something the size of the Vatican (~5000-10000 people) supplied by fields and the river, which is the main source of their trade. like the new england colonies, they would have relied on water to send exports to other countries and traded with greater DSMP citizens. additionally, hewing to the new england 1770 vibe (which is p funny because of the hamilton jokes) they'd be shipmakers and craftspeople.

this also means that the dteam burning the redwood fields would have devastated their economy for at least a few years; additionally, as it's a walled city, siege tactics would have been very effective and probably devastating in terms of famine and disease if the l'manburgians could not keep river access open.

on politics - ik cc!wilbur talked about c!wilbur running the whole government but that is. impractical and also poor governance, since concentrating all power in one executive leads to a lack of accountability and transparency. ofc we didn't get to see this but i imagine c!wilbur had a cabinet of actual people running things but probably took on a Lot of engagements. if we're working with "the dteam caused an ecological catastrophe", newly independent l'manburg would have needed to import food until its reserves stabilized again. this, combined with its newness and very aggressive neighbor next door, would mean local prices skyrocket and food is. fairly expensive. if the l'manburgians had their own currency it would trade at rock bottom prices against the DSMP coin, even if c!wilbur pegged it to gold/silver. he'd probably make it fiat to stimulate the economy (assuming he Knows about the economy) which would skyrocket inflation. tl;dr l'manburg is in pretty shit shape and would be a Lot of work to get up and running.

on manburg - the coalition is unconstitutional but we're playing fast and loose with constitutionality anyway; i feel like c!quackity's candidacy would have appealed to the subset of l'manburg business interests who may have wanted freer borders and freer trade + lowering interest rates that protect domestic industry but raise prices. (early american economic policies were heavily protectionist and had high tariffs to protect the young industries as well). c!wilbur could have hit against this by calling c!quackity out of touch with the common citizen (which he was) and a carpetbagger (which he was). however, there are some legit claims of corruption that c!quackity could've made and framed himself as the young upstart clean changemaker - after all, c!wilbur was not open about the presidency.

however, c!schlatt's presidency would have been marred by suspicion and protests early on; if there were civil servants working in the white house, i can picture a bunch of them resigning in protest and writing Very Angry Op-Eds in l'manburg new york times about it. income inequality prob spikes as industrialists can trade but the cost of living jumps due to mismanagement and the manburg cabinet needs to deal with threats of terrorism (pogtopia). what's super interesting to explore is the journalism of l'manburg?

like l'manburg def had a very busy and thriving political commentary and journalism culture; c!wilbur is a wordsmith, etc. there's definitely some scathing cartoons and 'anonymous' pieces attacking all sides during the election, with increasingly bitter skits written about the manburg cabinet - schlatt, the insensate and alcoholic tyrant, and quackity, his airheaded and venal henchman. if schlatt and quackity's marriage leaked, there's a Lot of slut-shaming jokes directed at quackity, which p follow him into new l'manburg. slept his way to the top, has more experiencing bending over the resolute desk than sitting behind it.

ANYWAY that's all i have for now? this is such an interesting idea i would kill to talk about it more holy shit. l'manburg politics win

YEAHH YEAAAAAAAHH all of this i love it so much. politics and socioeconomics and how it intersects with the actions of wilbur schlatt quackity dteam everyone.... aaaaah

[tainted-sweet-meats]

also got top surgery and I feel like a whole different person. thanks to @rudrakitty and my husband rotating shifts to watch me and help me. I was advised to not lay in bed all day so Im sitting but man if it wasn't for pain killers rn. they got me on antibiotics and oxy. And tbh its hard to sleep. I kept my hubs up till like 3 am just shuffling while he sleeps ont he coach..poor thing Im a hugger so we both don't trust the whole sleeping in bed while I got my drain tubes on. Any hoots when I finish heal Im making a blog post on my journal on my website with CW of course and pics along with all the information I have and insurance I use to get top surgery for free with an amazing doctor and nurse staff. I swear I felt so cared for by Dr. Kathy Rumer team. So many are asking me along with in my discord how to go about this. I'll be honest getting t and doing this I was lost but I did everything by researching and boom it was easy. I was nervous but hey you dont learn till you try. Welp now you won't have to I'll give you the knowledge I know. I'll slowly flesh everything out then post in one go. Keep in mind there will be blurred boob pics of pre-op and cw post-op cause of blood drains. But this is all educational so Please be respectful to my trans body when I do, Im posting this for you guys to learn not for other thangs <M<; kk love you guys just keeping you updated

[dragoneyes618]

The major lesson that reviewer Christine Rosen extracts from Rob Henderson’s new memoir, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, is: “The people who control a great deal of our cultural and political conversations are a rarified elite with little understanding of how most people live their lives.” (I have not yet read Troubled, though I’m eager to do so. What follows draws primarily on Rosen’s review in the Free Beacon and on Henderson’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.)

To comprehend the gap between those elites and the vast majority of Americans, consider a recent Rasmussen survey of what the authors call “elites” — more than one post-graduate degree, an annual income of $150,000 — and a subset of those “elites,” who attended an Ivy League school, or another elite private school, such as Stanford or University of Chicago, whom Rasmussen dubs “super-elites.”

Three-quarters of the elites and nearly 90 percent of the super elites describe their personal incomes as on the upswing, while almost none describe their incomes as on the decline. For all Americans, however, nearly twice as many view their income as worsening as view their financial situation as improving — 40 percent to 20 percent.

Despite having eventually made it to Yale as an undergraduate in his mid-twenties and later earning a PhD in psychology at Cambridge University, Henderson most certainly did not stem from the elite class from which so many of his classmates came. Students at Yale from families in the upper 1 percent of wealth are more numerous than those from the bottom 60 percent.

One of Henderson’s Yale classmates, who had attended Phillips Exeter Academy, America’s top prep school, once lectured Henderson on his white privilege — even though he is actually half Asian and half Hispanic. Yet it would take a certain obliviousness to label Henderson a child of privilege. One of his earliest memories is of his drug-addict mother being pulled away from him in handcuffs and hauled off to jail, when he was three. He never knew his father.

After that, he was shuttled between various foster homes, none of them stable, until he joined the US Air Force after high school. The discipline of the military helped him overcome some of the chaos that had characterized his life until then. But many of the old demons remained, including his penchant for self-medicating with alcohol, and he ended up in a detox program, where a talented therapist helped him work through some of those demons.

One of the central messages of Henderson’s memoir is that a non-stable childhood family life is not just bad because it hurts your chances of getting into an elite college or attaining a high-paying job later in life, but also because those raised in such an environment experience “pain that etches itself into their bodies and brains and propels them to do things in the pursuit of relief that often inflict even more harm.”

Given their difference in backgrounds, Henderson found many of the social rituals of his classmates incomprehensible. One example was when the Yale campus erupted in hysteria over an email from Erika Christakis to the students of Silliman residential college, of which she served as co-master with her husband Nicholas, suggesting that they were old enough to work out themselves which Halloween costumes to wear, without asking the administration to issue an elaborate set of rules to avoid “microaggressions” or “cultural appropriation” — e.g., a white student wearing a sombrero. After the childhood and teenage years he experienced, a fellow student in a sombrero did not seem like such a big deal to Henderson.

Erika was eventually force to resign her position in Silliman and on the Yale faculty, much to Henderson’s disappointment, as he had been eager to take her course on early childhood development. Meanwhile, the black undergraduate who confronted Nicholas Christakis in the Silliman courtyard, in an expletive-laden tirade, in front of a group of students cheering her on, was given an award for extracurricular excellence at the next Yale graduation.

Henderson offers an invaluable term to describe the opinions expressed so fiercely and with no tolerance of opposing views by his fellow undergrads: “luxury beliefs.” Luxury beliefs, as Henderson defines them, “confer status on the upper class at little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.” The conspicuous displays of wealth and leisure activities that broadcast elite status in Thorstein Veblen’s time have been replaced by opinions and beliefs that give proof of one’s elite education. After all, Henderson notes ironically, how many non-Ivy-League-educated Americans can easily toss off terms like “cisgender” or “heteronormative”?

Mantras such as “defund the police” are luxury beliefs because their impact on those living in gated communities or the most affluent neighborhoods is likely to be negligible. Henderson comments about the policies implemented to combat white privilege, “It won’t be Yale graduates who are harmed. Poor white people will bear the brunt.”

He recounts the story of a refugee from the North Korean police state, attending Columbia University, who raised concerns about the anti-free speech movement on campus, only to be taunted with “Go back to Pyongyang” on a social media site for Ivy League students. Normally, nothing will earn faster exile to social media purgatory than telling an immigrant, “Go back to where you came from,” but this particular refugee was deemed deserving of insult, writes Henderson, because she “undermined these people’s view of themselves as morally righteous.”

Incidentally, I would rank as near the top of “luxury beliefs” the familiar chants about Israeli genocide and apartheid. They cost their proponents nothing, yet effectively broadcast one’s moral righteousness and humanity, not to mention elite education, especially when terms like settler-colonialism and intersectionality are thrown into the mix.

Henderson is primarily concerned with the way that bad ideas — e.g., dismissal of matrimony and monogamy as passé, decriminalization of drugs — filter downstream in the culture, where they wreak havoc. As Charles Murray thoroughly documents in Breaking Apart, rates of marriage, children living in two-parent homes, and attendance at religious services have remained more or less constant in the most affluent quintile of the population, while plummeting in the lower quintiles. But on elite campuses, marriage is more likely to be portrayed as a prison for women, just as the same students for whom the words “capitalist oppression” roll trippingly off their tongues can be found the same day lining up for interviews with Goldman Sachs.

But the danger posed by the holders of luxury beliefs lies not only in their pernicious cultural influence. Holders of those views are quite comfortable with the use of coercion to advance their beliefs. Four-fifths of the super elites, interviewed in the Rasmussen poll cited above, would ban gas-powered cars. Just under 90 percent support strict rationing of meat, gas, and electricity, and 70 percent would ban all nonessential air travel.

The impact of these restrictions on the most affluent would likely be relatively small. They can afford electric cars, and would buy carbon offsets to circumvent some of the most onerous rationing or purchase them on the black market. And dollars to donuts that their air travel would be deemed necessary. The impact of such policies on the less affluent doesn’t figure into their calculations.

Elite campuses have been focal points for the limitations on free speech, and over half of the super elites educated on those campuses describe Americans as possessing too much freedom. That goes with a general contempt for markets, which allocate equal weight to the choices of the unenlightened and the enlightened.

That concern with “too much” freedom goes together with a remarkable trust in government among 70 percent of the elites and 90 percent of the super elites. Government is beneficent, in their eyes, because it can force people to do what the enlightened have determined is good. The elites know that their hands will be on the levers of coercion, particularly administrative agencies. (I would wager that the majority of those lower-level staffers staging mini-rebellions in the White House and the State Department over American support for Israel’s war on Hamas are holders of elite credentials.) Ronald Reagan’s quip, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,’ ” does not resonate with the elites.

Sixty years before Rob Henderson first stepped onto the Yale campus, another man already in his mid-twenties entered Harvard as an undergraduate. Like Henderson, Thomas Sowell came from a deprived background and served in the military before entering college. He was born in the Jim-Crow-era South, in a home without electricity, and served in the Marines during the Korean War, after dropping out of high school.

The 1969 black student riots at Cornell, where Sowell was an economics professor, and subsequent pressure at UCLA to lower his standards for students, soured Sowell on academia, which he left for a position as senior fellow at the Hoover Institution almost half a century ago.

Over 50 years and almost 40 books, most still in print and many of them standard texts in economics, and ten volumes of collected columns, Sowell has leveled a sustained critique at the dominant intellectual doctrines of our day, in particular those of his fellow black intellectuals, whom he views as having spectacularly failed the black masses by advocating for policies that may serve their interests but not those of the large majority of American blacks. (Only about one-third of his writing concerns issues of race, and he has penned classic works in intellectual, social, and economic history.) Jason Riley’s intellectual biography of Sowell is appropriately titled Maverick.

In a short new work, Social Justice Fallacies, which I would commend to every college student and social justice warrior, Sowell fleshes out many of Henderson’s observations, including the detachment of elite theorists from the lives of those whom they purport to advocate, and their sometimes subtle, sometimes not, contempt for those whom they view as their inferiors.

The second chapter compares the Progressive movement of the early decades of the 20th century to present-day progressives. At first glance, it would appear that little connects the two groups, apart from their position on the political left of their day. A strong streak of racial determinism characterized the early progressives, and many of their leading lights fretted about the disastrous impact of an influx of people of inferior races to America. By contrast, today’s progressives start from the premise that there are no differences between races and that all differential outcomes are a result of systemic racism.

In the earlier period, Professor Edward Ross, the chairman of the American Sociological Society, warned that America was headed toward “race suicide” by virtue of being inundated by people of “inferior types.” American universities and colleges taught hundreds of courses in eugenics, defined as the reduction or prevention of the survival of people considered genetically inferior. The most famous economist of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes, was founder of the Eugenics Society at Cambridge.

Irving Fisher of Yale, the leading monetary economist of the period, advocated for the isolation or sterilization of those inferior types. Or as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, “Three generations of idiots are enough.” Sowell remarks upon how casually Fisher spoke of imprisonment of those who had committed no crime and the denial of normal life to all regarded as inferior. Not by accident did Hitler yemach shemo term a work on eugenics by Madison Grant, a leading conservationist and advocate for national parks and the protection of endangered species, his Bible.

At first glance, today’s progressives could not seem further removed from their namesakes. They are the opposite of racial determinists. In the modern progressive creed, all differences in outcomes between people of different races can have one and only one explanation: discrimination by the majority group.

Despite the opposite views on race, Sowell finds important continuities between the progressive movement of the early 20th century and that of today. Today’s progressives share, according to Sowell, their predecessors’ aversion to confronting empirical evidence that challenges their fixed verities, and a similar inclination to respond to empirical challenges with ad hominem insults — racist being the most powerful — rather than with counter-arguments and evidence.

And they are similarly inclined to use government power to coerce the less enlightened to behave in accord with their “expert” opinions, and too frequently oblivious to or unconcerned with the impact of their policy prescriptions on those constituting the “lower orders,” in their minds.

Woodrow Wilson, perhaps the leading figure of the Progressive era, served as president of Princeton before being elected president. Like many of his fellow progressives, he was an unabashed racist who insisted that black employees in government offices be physically segregated.

But what joins him to present-day progressives is his enormous confidence in government by experts. He presided over a massive expansion of the federal government and the creation of many of the largest administrative agencies, run by “experts.” He viewed the Constitution as outmoded for a modern age. But not to worry, government agencies headed by experts would usher in a “new freedom,” albeit not quite the freedom of a constitution limiting the power of government and enshrining individual rights.

Today, DEI bureaucracies on almost every campus seek to enforce right-thinking and enter into every aspect of university governance, including faculty hiring. Those mushrooming bureaucracies account for a large part in the explosion in higher education costs.

Sowell takes aim at the racial theories of the early progressives and contemporary ones alike. He seeks to empirically refute the claim that each race has a different “ceiling” for intelligence. (If anecdotes were data, his own genius would serve as refutation.) He met with and debated Professor Albert Jensen, one of the leading modern proponents of that view.

Sowell argues that environment, not inherent ceilings, underlies much of the difference in IQ between races. For instance, those raised in the Hebrides Isles and the hill country of Kentucky, though of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, have IQs comparable to American blacks. And like American blacks, their IQs tend to decline from childhood to adulthood. Social isolation appears to be the key. Sowell cites another study that blacks raised by white adoptive parents had IQs six points above the national average.

As an amusing example of the fallibility of IQ tests as measures of inherent capabilities, Sowell quotes Carl Brigham, who developed the SAT test. Brigham claimed on the basis of army mental tests administered in World War I that the myth that Jews are on average highly intelligent had been refuted. At least he had the good grace to admit by 1930, as Jews excelled on standardized tests, that his earlier conclusions had been without merit, and had failed to take into account that most immigrant children were raised in non-English-speaking homes.

Sowell is equally effective skewering the present-day progressive belief that all differences in outcomes are explained as products of racial discrimination. He chafes at the resultant cult of victimization that stands in the way of examination of cultural behavioral factors that prevent black advancement.

He insists that behaviors count and explain a great deal of the differences in income levels between different racial groups. For instance, black married couples have experienced poverty rates of less than 10 percent for decades, which is less than the national poverty rate for all families. And black married couples have higher income levels than white single-parent families. The problem is that black marriage rates overall are lower.

It is often said that the high illegitimacy rate in the black community is attributable to the “legacy of slavery.” But for nearly a century after slavery, the rates were relatively low. In 1940, they were one-quarter of what they are today. Sowell suggests that the rapid expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s explains much of that rise, as births to single mothers have also risen rapidly in Sweden, the welfare paradise, where there is no legacy of slavery.

Evidence cited to show discrimination against black children by “white supremacists” — e.g., discipline rates two and a half times those of white students — proves the opposite, Sowell suggests. For white students are themselves twice as likely to be disciplined as Asian students. Perhaps, then, disruptive behavior, rather than discrimination, explains differential rates of discipline. To get rid of school discipline in the name of equity leads to schools in which it is impossible to learn, and ends up harming black students, he argues. Attacks on discriminatory school discipline is thus another one of those “luxury beliefs,” like defunding the police.

One of the major causes of the burst housing bubble of 2007, which Sowell predicted, was government pressure on lenders to greatly reduce credit requirements for mortgages. The regulators’ theory was that blacks were being discriminated against in the mortgage market, as evidenced by the higher rate of rejection for black mortgage applicants. The only problem with the discrimination hypothesis, Sowell shows, was that black-owned banks rejected black mortgage applicants at even higher rates.

The hypothesis that different income levels are exclusively a function of discrimination founders on the fact that other minority groups — e.g., Asians — have, on average, incomes well above the medium national income, and dark-skinned Asian Indians earn on average $39,000 more per annum than full-time, year-round white workers.

The victimization narrative, in Sowell’s eyes, is not only unhelpful but damaging to blacks, as it shifts the focus from one of encouraging the types of behaviors that are associated with success. In the immediate wake of slavery, and for nearly a century afterwards, almost all graduates of all-black Dunbar High in Washington, D.C., went on to college. Black and Hispanic kids in New York City charter schools are six times as likely to pass city math proficiency exams as their counterparts in the regular public schools. Why? Sowell wants to know.

Focusing on the behaviors that foster success rather than wallowing in a narrative of discrimination — which he personally experienced in his younger years and does not deny still exists today — is for Sowell the key to black advancement. And that requires more empirical study and less airy theorizing.

Many of the panaceas that derive from au courant theories have been conclusively refuted on the ground. Black political power in most of America’s largest cities, for instance, has done little to change the lives of the vast majority of black citizens. And affirmative action has, in Sowell’s view, reinforced stereotypes of black inferiority, among whites and, even worse, among blacks themselves, while doing little to help inner city blacks.

Without a clear-eyed attention to empirical evidence and an openness to debate based on facts and logic, in Sowell’s terminology, we are forever consigned to the realm of “luxury beliefs.”