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bonefall · 2 years

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Herb Guide to HRT for Warrior Cats

Have a warrior OC you would like to show being on hormone replacement medication? I’ve gone through herbs historically associated with femininity/masculinity, as well as those with effects on sex hormones, that a wild cat could hypothetically find and use.

Of course, this would still require a bit of a leap as there’s no herb in nature that can replace our friend Spironolactone... but if you’d like some herbs with a grain of truth or history to them that wouldn’t poison a semi-realistic cat? Here you go!

(DO NOT USE THESE HERBS ON YOURSELF OR A REAL ANIMAL.)

Let’s identify what we’re looking for;

Hormone suppressing herbs = antigonadotropins Prevents production and recognition of present hormones. This is going to be big for an agender transition; but even in a binary one, they’re often taken with-

Hormone producing herbs = estrogen/estradiol & testosterone/androgens Make sure your warrior doesn’t start on huge amounts! Smaller, controlled doses are more effective. Too much can cause the opposite effects and slow down transition.

Historical precedent = Just Cool If I find a cool story I’m just going to include it, but note that it doesn’t hold pharmacological basis.

I considered also including some thoughts on surgical treatments as well, but I’ve decided I’ll save that for a follow-up. This guide is purely focused on medication to stay SFW!

Hormone Suppressants

Lycopus (also known as Wolf’s Foot, Water Horehound, Bugleweed) is such a widespread species and has several other medical uses. Not only is it THE most well documented antigonadotropin I came across, but its different species have a wide variety of medical use, including treating anxiety, heart palpitations, stopping bleeding, and respiratory illness. This is also a mint that is not toxic to cats. Also it can be used as a dye.

THERE IS A CAVEAT; if Lycopus supplements suddenly stop or overdosed, it can cause thyroid enlargement. Keep this in mind if your trans warrior ever gave up their medication to a sick clanmate in leafbare!

Lithospermum ruderale (Aka western Stoneseed or Lemonweed) has similar suppression properties, but only in American fanclans, and not as many secondary uses.

Comfrey ROOT can also be used for this purpose, in addition to its canonical uses (funfact this plant is also called knitbone). But can cause liver failure in high doses.

Rosemary suppresses feminine hormones in the uterus, for warriors going from Female to Male. Additionally, it’s an excellent antifungal, smells great, and can be used as a cooking spice.

Molly to Tom (Female to Male)

Pine Pollen (particularly from the Scots Pine), can be added to water or foods and increase testosterone.

Stinging Nettle ROOT could also be taken for a transmasc warrior. The above ground plant can be processed for use with allergies, but the relevant part here is the root underground, which has no stinging hairs.

Sarsparilla ROOT is historically associated with testosterone, though modern studies haven’t held up the claims... but, it is a plant an American clan would have access to, and is also used to make root beer.

Tom to Molly (Male to Female)

FENNEL?? AGAIN??? It’s true.

Through Fennel, all things are possible

It has estrogenic properties in all sexes and has been explored for the creation of synthetic estrogen since the 1930s. This can be used for a transgender warrior, as well as for a cisgender queen with a hormone issue. It must be remarked though; it looks alarmingly similar to poison hemlock, and should not be collected by untrained cats.

Hops (Humulus lupulus) is up next, but first I think this education is worthwhile; phytoestrogens aren’t exactly like true estrogens, but in high enough quantities (as in, much, much more than a plate of soybeans or a mug of beer) they can have estrogen-like affects.

Hops are the uncontested queen of these, and they grow wild in several continents. Hops can sometimes be toxic to cats, based on a genetic predisposition, and mostly to the ‘cone’ (female flower). For the best hormonal effect, the ‘flower‘ (male flower) would be dried and eaten.

Flax flowers don’t contain nearly as much phytoestrogen, but are safer for cats. Additionally, flax is extremely useful in construction, and can be used to make fabric or twine if your Clan is advanced enough.

#I don't have a DNI so here's the warning; If I see TERFs clowning on his post I will block on sight.#Trans rights #I'm as queer as a rainbow steer #transgender #Clan Herbs #Clan Culture #Warrior Cats #Fennelposting #I have no idea how Fennel ends up on every single one of these lists somehow #In love with Bugleweed btw #God it has SO many uses #Most of this was sourced from The Review Of Natural Products #The fifth edition specifically because that was the one I could find #The newest one is going for like 200$ jesus christ

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literatemisfit · 3 months

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Badenoch's views, in case you're curious about who's the racist bigot here:

"Badenoch criticised the Labour Party's response to a report compiled by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities that had declared Britain was not institutionally racist."

"In a Black History Month debate in the House of Commons in October 2020, she reiterated the government's opposition to primary and secondary schools teaching white privilege and similar "elements of critical race theory" as uncontested facts."

"ConservativeHome readers voted Badenoch's speech on critical race theory 2020 'speech of the year', in which she said that any school that teaches "elements of political race theory as fact, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law"."

"During her leadership campaign launch, Badenoch expressed criticism of identity politics in a 2022 article for The Times, arguing that "identity politics is not about tolerance or individual rights, but the very opposite of our crucial and enduring British values.""

"Regarding the United Kingdom's colonial history, Badenoch has argued that "there were terrible things that happened during the British Empire, there were other good things that happened, and we need to tell both sides of the story"."

"Badenoch said "I don't care about colonialism because [I] know what we were doing before colonialism got there" and argued that Europeans "came in and just made a different bunch of winners and losers" on the African continent. She also stated that prior to colonisation, "There was never any concept of 'rights', so [the] people who lost out were old elites not everyday people"."

"Badenoch was encouraged to "consider her position" as an Equalities Minister by Jayne Ozanne, one of a group of three government LGBT advisers who quit their roles due to the decision by the government not to include transgender conversion therapy in its plans to ban gay conversion therapy, with Ozanne describing a speech by Badenoch on the issue as being "appalling" and the "final straw"."

"Badenoch opposed plans by the Financial Conduct Authority to allow trans employees to self-identify in the workplace,[84] and opposed gender-neutral toilets in public buildings."

"leaked audio from 2018 in which Badenoch mocked gay marriage and referred to trans women as "men"."

"In 2023, Badenoch gave a speech before the House of Commons in which she announced regulations stripping the ability of transgender migrants from certain countries to acquire documents in the UK to match those brought from their countries of origin. This was stated as being due to these countries allowing trans people to transition "too easily".[88] Badenoch went on to announce the government's plans to move forward on a conversion therapy ban, while saying that gender affirming healthcare for young people who question their gender was "a new form of conversion therapy"."

"She further announced plans to ban social transition in British schools, claiming the existence of an "epidemic" of children being told they are transgender as the reason."

#david tennant #lgbt #kemi badenoch #text post

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feluka · 11 months

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the way the world's bravest journalists are risking (and losing) their lives and their families' lives to document the horrors for the world to see and yet hoe biden can say he doesn't believe the death toll without an ounce of shame meanwhile israel is out there making outrageous claims and the only "evidence" they can provide is some low-effort recording of a script that nobody even bothered to proof-read of local terrorist Sharmut Ibn Al-Mitnaka confessing in broken arabic 'ya allah i forgot my rocket launcher back in my tunnel!' like they've gotten ahead of themselves and forgotten that there are still arabic speakers that they haven't killed yet and that will fact-check their nonsense and yet US journalists will parrot it for days on end (a month now) uncontested. i feel like i'm losing my mind.

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end-otw-racism · 1 year

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2023 OTW Board Election Review

The election is over, and we'd like to congratulate (in alphabetical order) Anh Pham, Kathryn Soderholm, and Qiao Chu, who have been elected to serve full terms on the OTW Board of Directors, and Jennifer Haynes and Zixin Zhang, who have been elected to partial terms. We recognize that this is a turbulent time for the OTW, and that running for Board at any time takes guts and a lot of hard work, but especially so now, and we appreciate the time and labor you all have put into answering questions about how you envision your time serving on the Board and guiding OTW policy.

It really was a rollercoaster of an election season. With an original ballot of seven candidates for three seats, the field eventually narrowed to five candidates, and then unexpected resignations led to the opening of five total seats, creating an uncontested election. Still, voting mattered, as the number of votes each candidate got determined if they won a full term (three years) or a partial (two years), and we want to thank everyone who showed up to #VoteToEndOTWRacism.

Through their prepared bios and platforms, the Q&As posted to the Elections site, and the four Candidate Chats, OTW members and stakeholders had ample opportunity to get to know the candidates and learn about their ideas for improving the OTW, and we're excited to see how they might implement their plans once they take their seats.

Today we're going to take a look at how their stated priorities might guide the new Board, specifically in addressing our three main demands:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3 months.

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic.

As candidates, all five stressed the importance of updating the TOS (or the way the current TOS is enforced) to better protect fans from harassment on AO3, with Anh, Kathryn, and Qiao all listing it as a priority.

All five also spoke of hiring and working with a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultant, with Anh, Kathryn, and Qiao all speaking of filling the position soon, and Kathryn expressly calling it a priority.

And, continuing the positive trend, all five offered multiple ways the OTW could improve transparency within the organization and with stakeholders outside the organization! We are particularly interested in Zixin’s suggestion to increase the section on Board work in the monthly newsletters (something Qiao also mentioned!) as well as improve the Board Meeting process to have it better moderated and more efficient, as this would be a great step towards that transparency and engagement with the user base, and her idea to set up clearer internal guidelines on crisis resolution and make them accessible to all volunteers would be a tangible way of increasing transparency within the org.

Kathryn is also concerned about documentation and believes the OTW needs to establish: clear org-wide standards for when to use Constructive Corrective Action Procedures (CCAP), an org-wide crisis communication plan, and org-wide standards for moderating comments on news posts, and that these standards can, and should, be created within the first year.

And, finally, Anh discusses having the group tasked with implementation of the OTW's strategic plan develop infographics to better communicate that plan as a means of fostering outreach to OTW members and users to bring them in to contribute to the OTW’s processes. Unfortunately the strategic plan does not currently reference any of our goals, but if updated, this could be a great path of dialogue between users and the organization.

The new Board will be seated October 1, 2023, and we look forward to seeing what they can accomplish by working together to make the OTW and its platforms a safe and welcoming place for fans of color.

#otw board election #otw elections #otw board #vote to end otw racism

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fashionbooksmilano · 10 months

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Pierre Frey Textiles, Wallpapers, Carpets, and Furniture

A Family Legacy of Passion and Creativity

Text Patrick Frey Photogeraphy Mattia Aquila

Flammarion, Paris 2023, 400 pages, 25x32cm, ISBN 9782080421999

euro 78,00

email if you want to buy [email protected]

Pierre Frey, the leading French producer of furniture, textiles and wallcoverings, seamlessly combines artisanal craftsmanship with modernity. Enchanting brocades and damasks, luminous hand-woven silken velvets, traditional woodblock printed fabrics, striking contemporary patterns made into works of art: Pierre Frey, a family business founded in 1935, is famous for the variety and boldness of its inspired designs, and has asserted itself in the luxury market as the uncontested global leader in soft furnishing textiles and wallpapers. Having acquired the venerable houses Braquenié and Le Manach, Pierre Frey possesses one of the most important private textile heritages in the world. Pierre Frey has worked with the Louvre and the château de Versailles, decorated castle interiors, and provides the fabrics and wallpapers of elegant private homes around the world—from Paris to Hong Kong to New York. Drawing from their archives of more than 25,000 documents, which date from the sixteenth century to the present, this indispensable volume will serve as a reference and a basis for contemporary inspiration to professional and amateur designers.

15/11/23

#Pierre Frey #textiles #wallpapers #carpets #furniture #brocades #damasks #silken velvets #designbooksmilano #fashionbooksmilano

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wherewhereare · 1 year

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The thing about an annulment is that the Catholic Church doesn’t grant most annulments even after they’re asked for. You have to meet very strict requirements. Honestly, I could see Gwen’s being approved or not approved. Maybe that’s why they weren’t married in the Catholic Church because the annulment was not granted.

First I am not Catholic. My wife is. She got her annulment in 12 months because she had the goods. It was even done under the old process.

The only thing that I will say is that the annulment process is not as hard as it used to be. One of the first things that Pope Francis did in regard to annulment in 2015, was to make it easier to get one, reduced some of the bureaucratic requirements and in most cases eliminated the cost. I believe that a lot of Catholics don't know about this, or chose to ignore it. Even during the "SAME" discussions held a few years ago, the input from professed Catholic anons did not even reference this. Most of the discussion that has been present by supposed Catholics have referred to the older formal process. In Gwen's case, if she had the uncontested proof, the local Bishop could have granted her the annulment. This outline a faster procedure if the case presented by the petitioner is very well documented and not contested. Here is an article from Catholic.com laying out the changes.

Pope Francis Reforms Annulment Process: 9 things to know and share | Catholic Answers

On September 8, the Holy See released a pair of documents by Pope Francis that reform the way the Church handles annulments.

Here are nine things to know and share . . .

1) What is an annulment? Is it the same thing as a divorce?

An annulment (formally known as a “declaration of nullity”) is a ruling that a particular marriage was null from the beginning—that is, something was gravely wrong at the time the time the wedding vows were made and it prevented a valid marriage from coming into existence.

This is different than a divorce, which proposes to dissolve a marriage that is in existence.

2) Why are annulments an important issue in the Catholic Church?

Jesus Christ expressly taught that if two people divorce and then remarry, they are committing the grave sin of adultery. He taught:

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12).

Because of this teaching, the Church cannot simply give divorced people permission to remarry. To do so would be to give them permission to commit adultery.

Consequently, if a divorced person wishes to remarry, the Church needs to examine the first marriage to see if it was valid or not.

If it was valid, then the person is still bound to his or her previous spouse and cannot marry another person.

If it was not valid, then the parties to the first marriage are not bound and so, unless something else affects the situation, they are free to marry other people.

The number of people in our society who are divorced makes this a pressing pastoral problem.

3) How does the annulment process work?

This is a complicated subject, but in simplest terms, the rules governing annulments are expressed principally in two documents: the Code of Canon Law, which governs the western Catholic Church, and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which governs the eastern Catholic churches.

When a man and a woman have divorced, they can contact the appropriate diocese and have their marriage investigated to see if it was valid.

This process could be simple or lengthy, depending on the nature of the case and the forms of evidence available.

If their marriage was not valid, they would be given a decree of nullity or “annulment.”

4) What has Pope Francis done?

He has issued two documents, each of which is a motu proprio. A motu proprio is a document issued on the pope’s initiative. Such documents are frequently used to establish or clarify legal matters (as opposed to matters of doctrine, which are dealt with in other documents, such as encyclicals).

A famous example is the 2007 motu proprio issued by Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, in which he gave greater permission for the celebration of the traditional Latin liturgy.

The two documents issued by Pope Francis are:

Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (“The Lord Jesus, the Gentle Judge”), which reforms the annulment process for the Western Church (Latin, Italian), and

Mitis et Misericors Iesus (“Gentle and Merciful Jesus”), which reforms the annulment process for the Eastern Catholic churches (Latin, Italian).

At the time of this writing, these documents are available only in Latin and Italian, though you can use Google to produce a machine translation of the Italian version using the links above. (Also, here’s a partial, unofficial translation provided by Vatican Radio.)

These documents were prepared, at Pope Francis’s direction, by a group of legal experts at the Vatican, whom he appointed to the task in October 2014.

Both documents contain an introduction explaining the pope’s actions followed by a set of canons that replace the sections on annulments in the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

Appended to each document is a set of procedural rules explaining to bishops (and others) how the new processes are to work.

5) Why has Pope Francis done this?

He did so out of a desire to make the annulment process more efficient. In many parts of the world, the process has been notoriously slow and difficult. In some countries, it could be practically impossible to get a Church court to even hear one’s case, and if a court did take it, it could take many years to get a ruling.

Thus, as Pope Francis notes, the 2014 Synod of Bishops requested changes to the annulment process. The Synod wrote:

A great number of synod fathers emphasized the need to make the procedure in cases of nullity more accessible and less time-consuming, and, if possible, at no expense.

They proposed, among others, the dispensation of the requirement of second instance for confirming sentences; the possibility of establishing an administrative means under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop; and a simple process to be used in cases where nullity is clearly evident.

Some synod fathers, however, were opposed to these proposals, because they felt that they would not guarantee a reliable judgment.

In all these cases, the synod fathers emphasized the primary character of ascertaining the truth about the validity of the marriage bond.

Among other proposals, the role which faith plays in persons who marry could possibly be examined in ascertaining the validity of the Sacrament of Marriage, all the while maintaining that the marriage of two baptized Christians is always a sacrament [Relatio Synodi 48].

The new documents seek to make the annulment process more accessible and less time-consuming.

They do not require the process to be free of charge (dioceses need to pay the people who work on these cases, and in some cases that means paying a fee to partially cover the costs), but the procedural norms attached to the documents do call for the costs to be minimized (see Art. 7 §2).

6) What changes did Pope Francis make to the process?

This is a complicated subject, because he replaced the sections in the two codes of canon law that deal with annulments. In the case of the Western code, that means he had twenty-one canons rewritten (canons 1671-1691).

Some of the changes were slight, but there are too many to go into here.

Among the major changes, as listed in the introduction to Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, are:

Only a single judgment of nullity is required. Until now, in most cases, if one tribunal determined that a marriage was null, the decision was automatically appealed to a court of second instance, and only if the second tribunal agreed was an annulment granted. Now the morally certain decision of the first court will be sufficient in uncontested cases.

The bishop himself is a judge. Although the bishop has always been the principal judge in his diocese, previously, the section on annulments did not establish that the bishop himself was a judge in marriage cases. Now, in keeping with his role as shepherd of the faithful, it does. In fact, he is the principal judge in his diocese, to be assisted by others whom he chooses. The new law thus puts the responsibility squarely on the bishop as a pastor.

A new, briefer process involving the bishop has been created. Up to now, there have been two processes for handling annulments: the formal process (which is the lengthier one involving gathering and weighing testimony) and the documentary process (which deals with situations where a marriage can be proved invalid simply by presenting certain documents, such as showing that a Catholic got married outside the Church without the required permission). Now there is a middle process involving the bishop. If the evidences for nullity are especially clear, they can be presented to the bishop in a process intended to take less time than a formal process case. However, if the evidences require more examination, the case is to be referred to the formal process.

Appeals can be made against the judgment of the bishop to the metropolitan. As a check on the judgment of the bishop, parties can appeal his decision to the metropolitan bishop (i.e., the bishop who heads the local ecclesiastical province, composed of several neighboring dioceses). Or, if it was the metropolitan himself who heard the original case, appeal can be made to the senior suffragan bishop (i.e., the bishop in the province with the most seniority, apart from the metropolitan).

7) In what kind of situations can the new, shorter process be used?

According to the procedural norms attached to Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (see Art. 14 § 1), these cases include the following:

lack of faith (does this apply to GR?) resulting in the simulation of consent to be married or an error that determines the will regarding one of the requirements of marriage

the brevity of married life (i.e., the couple divorced very quickly after being married)

procured abortion to prevent procreation (presumably during the marriage itself, prior to bearing other children and thus showing an unwillingness to procreate)

the stubborn persistence in a extramarital affair at the time of the wedding or at a time immediately following

the malicious concealment of:

infertility

a serious contagious disease

children born from a previous relationship

an incarceration

a reason for getting married that is completely foreign to married life (presumably something like entering a legal fiction of a marriage to be able to immigrate or gain an inheritance) or consisting of the unplanned pregnancy of the woman

the physical violence inflicted to extort the consent to marry

the lack of use of reason proved by medical documents

8) When does all this take effect?

Not immediately. According to Vatican Information Service, the effective date is December 8, 2015.

9) Is there more to say about all this?

Lots. However, this will do for an initial look at the subject.

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bloodilymerry · 1 month

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Bird of Prey: The Primes and the Matrix

Like a lot of things about Cybertronian society, the role of a Prime is surprisingly fluid and therefore defining what it is, is not an easy task. Historically, the one constant seems to be that Primes take an active role in a crisis: starting with Prima’s failed rebellion up to the current Prime’s role as the military and political leader of the Autobots.

However, once the crisis is over, Primes tend to step down, allowing Cybertronians to govern themselves, and take on the role of a teacher and a guide. Guardian Prime’s primacy starts with a decision to remove himself from active governing of Cybertron and assuming an advisory role. Similarly, once the second civil war is over, Sentinel Prime makes a similar choice to remove himself from governing Cybertron and remains reclusive until the rise of Megatron.

Another point of confusion for some humans, is the fact that the role of a Prime is not wholly secular, which leads them to assume they are “robot Pope”, “robot Pontifex Maximus” or a divinely appointed king, none of which are actually all that close to what Primes are. While some Transformers, like the Reversionists, see them as divinely appointed by Primus, this does not mean the same Transformers view them as infallible oracles of Primus and will recognize their authority. Other Transformers may believe in Primus, but don’t see Primes as in any way divinely appointed by Primus.

Specifically, the retiring Prime selects the next Prime. The wisdom contained in the Matrix can steer the choice, but a Prime can select someone whom the Matrix will not support. Such a case would have been Zeta, who may have been a reliable follower of Guardian Prime but lacked the qualities that the Matrix responds to. To receive the Matrix’s support, a Prime must not just be ready to fight a losing battle, they must believe that the fact they are fighting for the right cause means they can win despite that.

To further the confusion, the First Cybertronians are sometimes also referred to as Primes (e.g. Solus Prime or Nexus Prime), despite none of them bearing the Matrix in Cybertronian legends. And if that were not enough, the bot who had been elected as the leader of Cybertronian government after Nova retired and Guardian stepped down assumed the name Nominus Prime.

The other point of confusion here, which may lead to the “divinely appointed king” comparison, is the fact that Primes carry the Matrix of Leadership. It should be noted that “leadership” is not the same as rulership in this context and seems to shift meaning depending on the political situation on Cybertron. A Prime does not have to rule Cybertron or the Autobots to remain the Prime. Only the Matrix is required, and even that might be completely inactive for a specific Prime.

Compared to human religions, Primes who can use the Matrix are most similar to shamans. Through the Matrix, the Primes have access to the wisdom of their predecessors, something that no other Transformer seems to have. They can access this wisdom by going on a vision quest, in which they will be guided by one or more of their predecessors and receive advice on how to solve a given crisis.

Finally, a Prime’s authority is purely customary. There is no official document that states that a Prime is the head of the Cybertronian government or even the leader of the Autobots. In fact the only Prime whose leadership was uncontested by all Cybertronians would be Prime Nova, her authority derived from the fact that she was the one who led the Cybertronians to overthrow the Quintessons.

The Matrix-bearing Primes are:

Primus - the first to wield the Matrix against the Hate Plague

Primon - Cybertronian constructed by the Quintessons early on

Prima - leader of a failed rebellion of military hardware against Quintessons

Prime Nova - leader of a Cybertron-wide rebellion against Quintesson turned explorer.

Guardian Prime - Nova’s successor

Zeta Prime - Guardian’s follower and the bearer of the Matrix after him. The Matrix did not respond to Zeta, other than guiding her to choose Sentinel

Sentinel Prime - the Prime who won the second Cybertronian civil war

Optimus Prime - the current Prime

First Cybertronians/deities sometimes also referred to as Prime:

Other Cybertronians to use the title Prime, who did not bear the Matrix:

Nominus Prime

The Matrix

The Matrix of Leadership was created by the pre-Quintesson Cybertronians to stop the Hate Plague - a way of converting the wisdom of those who bore it into a weapon. It was then wielded by the first Cybertionian - Primus.

It was then lost for a time, when Cybertron was taken over by the Quintessons. Eventually, it was found by Quintessons, who decided to find out what it does by putting it into Primon. Once his body was rebuilt, the Matrix was also placed in Prima, and then later in Nova.

If the Matrix approves of its bearer, it allows them to access the wisdom contained in it. This has two forms:

Conscious - a Prime can go on a vision quest into the Matrix and pose questions to it. Usually, a guide in the form of one of the previous bearers will appear to act as the conduit.

Unconscious - a Prime has access to the skills of the previous Primes, i.e. Optimus Prime has not only his own combat experience, but also that Prima, Nova and Sentinel, etc.

If the Matrix deems it necessary, it can also make a Prime bigger, stronger and harder to damage. The Primes benefit from the effect to varying degrees: some get a much more obvious boost then the others.

#transformers #maccadam #au #bird of prey #primes #the matrix of leadership #the thirteen primes #primus

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zoetic-tome · 10 months

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Unburied Secrets

Characters: Ursielle de Vauquelin, mention of Kyllian de Fosse (@thedarknesssings)

The sound of heels clicked soft on the polished wood of the hallways that led from the sitting room she had just abandoned, to the main study that her father had once occupied. It had been moons since the rich scent of his pipe smoke had filtered through the air, and it lingered like a thought in the back of her mind, ever persistent, loitering.

Hands smoothed across the gilt handles of the doors and she loitered there for several moments. The will had been read, and she was the Baroness. That was an uncontested fact. There was, in her mind, no one else to take her place. Save that the solicitor, at the reading of the will, had detailed and outlined a single piece of property that was meant to go to a bastard son.

She had been blindsided by the news, and not taken it gracefully. More than one glass had been broken that day, and while she’d had the servants clean up the study in the wake of it, she hadn’t returned to the room, instead content to let it stand silent and untouched.

Now fingers gripped the handles and turned, pushing the double doors into the study open. Anger filtered quick and hot in her veins. This place should have been filled with remnants of good memories. Things that brought her comfort, or peace. Instead, all she could wonder was how many times he had lied to her over the years.

Her father had last sat at that desk, nearly half a year ago at this point, and told her that all would be well. He was just sick with a cold. A cold had turned into something more, had turned into a rot in the lungs, and in four moons she’d had to fold his hands across his chest. That suddenly Baron Stephane de Vauquelin was gone.

He had left her entirely alone in the world; Giselle, her mother, having passed just over an epoch earlier due to an ailment of the heart. Except, as she knew, she was not in fact alone. Somewhere out there in the world, there was a brother. A brother who she had an inheritance for.

Hours had passed since she’d entered the study. Books and papers lay in disarray around her on the wide desk that had been her father’s. A hand lifted a bell that had sat, gathering dust, and she rang it sharply, once. It took less than a minute for one of the nearby servants to step into the room.

“Bring me the Steward.” Ursielle’s voice was sharp as a razor as she stared at the maid across the desk. “The Steward, and a fresh glass of brandy. You will not allow the first into the room until I have been served the second.” As the maid curtsied and rushed off to tend to her tasks, the dark haired woman turned to slide down into the empty chair behind the desk.

The seat was plush, just as she had expected, and it cradled her when she let herself relax back into the cushions. One of the papers was lifted again. It was a letter her father had written sometime during his last month, in the company of his solicitors. She now understood why he had employed so many of them.

She shifted, one of her hands smoothing across her mouth as she read over the details within again. She had a brother. A bastard. Alongside the letter, explaining things to her, was a deed to be given to said bastard. He’d had his schooling paid for, but nothing else. He had been afforded no comforts. None of the things that should have been his by right of his birth.

“Dammit!” She slammed the paper back down onto the desk, and was leaning forward, her hands clasped in front of her when the maid entered once again. A glass of fine brandy was set down in front of her, and the maid curtsied again as she dismissed herself. As she did so, her father’s steward─now her steward─stepped into the room.

“Find me Kyllian de Fosse.” She lifted the glass to bring it to her lips. “Sooner, rather than later. And bring me one of the solicitors my father employed. I don’t care which one. I have documentation that must be drawn up.” The steward started to speak, and Ursielle’s violet eyes lifted to peer at him over the rim of the glass, eyes narrowing in a way that was sharp, and had him almost recoiling.

Ursielle was possessed of her father’s complexion and his same vivid eyes. But they were cold now in a way that made the man uncomfortable. He had watched her grow up, and there was nothing now of the warmth he had come to expect from her. Had that kind mien vanished into the unyielding stone of the catacomb that held her father along with him?

“Yes, my Lady.” He bowed low, straightening a moment later. Ursielle downed the rest of the brandy as he excused himself from the room.

“You may have left these things unfinished, but I am not going to repeat your errors.” The words may have been to fill the silence now that she was once more alone with her tumultuous thoughts, but they were meant for the specters that felt as if they haunted the room. If any part of her Father was listening, would he be proud? At this point, did she care?

She stepped back out of the room and closed the doors behind her, her eyes going to the maidservant who accompanied her. She was perhaps only a year or two younger than Ursielle herself was.

“I want a bath drawn. I will eat once I have finished.” The maid dipped into that curtsy once more, before hurrying off, leaving Ursi to stroll down the halls alone. Portraits and paintings of their family members hung along this corridor, and she walked until she neared the doors that lead to the master bedroom, just shy of her father’s painting.

Her father had moved out of it before he’d gotten too sick. His bed, too, had gone with him, and all of the furniture. They couldn’t risk the ailment spreading. Her father hadn’t even died in his own room, relegated to a guest bedroom that would continue to be scrubbed regularly and left unused for years, just to make certain the malady wouldn’t spread.

All that dominated that wide room now were her own possessions. Her bed, her desk. All that belonged in the house, belonged to her. Her brother, too, belonged to her, whether he knew it or not.

#[ Ursielle de Vauquelin ]#[ A Black Rose ]#Kyllian

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uncontesteddocuments · 6 months

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mariacallous · 1 year

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(JTA) — Legend has it that in the early 14th century, the grand duke of Lithuania set out on a hunting trip. One night, he dreamt of an enormous iron wolf, which a priest would later tell him was a sign that he should establish a city on the site where he had slept.

Whether or not the origin story is true, it’s uncontested that the present-day Lithuanian capital Vilnius was first referred to by its former name, Vilna, in documents and letters in 1323 — making this year, in the government’s eyes, the city’s 700th anniversary.

The city is marking the anniversary year throughout 2023 with various festivals, visual art exhibitions, lectures and more. The organizers of Vilnius 700 stress that they are including Jewish people and themes in the celebrations through a range of programming.

That’s because for a portion of the city’s existence, starting in the early 19th century, Vilnius was also one of the most important Jewish centers in the world, known as the Jerusalem of the North. Roughly half of the city was Jewish, and it was a Jewish cultural powerhouse, a deep well of Yiddish and Hebrew literature. In 1910, the city had over 100 synagogues, along with Jewish schools, publications, and charitable and political organizations.

“The Jewish community is an integral part of Vilnius’ past and present, playing an important role in the city’s day-to-day life,” Tomas Gulbinas, Vilnius’ deputy mayor, wrote in an email.

Yet this weekend also marks a darker anniversary: 80 years since the final liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto, a Jewish ghetto that saw almost all of its over 50,000 Jews die at the hands of the Nazis.

On Saturday, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte joined others in a march from the city’s former Jewish ghetto to Paneriai, the forest site formerly known as Ponary where the Nazis and their local collaborators murdered 70,000 Jews, mostly Lithuanian, over three years during the Holocaust.

The twin anniversaries have brought into stark relief tensions over historical memory in Lithuania, where, as in neighboring Poland and Latvia, officials have downplayed the role of local collaborators in carrying out the Nazis’ murderous plans. Memorials to Lithuanians who fought with the Nazis against the Soviet Union are plentiful in the city, making that history loom both literally and figuratively over the 700th birthday party.

“There is an unresolvable tension between desire to celebrate and this history that is not much to celebrate,” said Laimonis Breidis, a Vilnius native whose book “Vilnius: City of Strangers” explores the city’s history through the insights of travelers. The biggest challenge, he said, is that “everything told about the city is compartmentalized.”

Almost all of the few thousand Jews living in Vilnius today have familial ties to people who died during the Holocaust, said Faina Kukliansky, chair of the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community. She said in an interview earlier this year that the community was more determined to commemorate the ghetto anniversary than the city one.

“I promise you, we, the Lithuanian Jewish community, will not forget this date,” she said.

How Lithuania’s Holocaust history is remembered became an issue of high drama in 2019, after a Chicago schoolteacher named Sylvia Foti published a book recounting how her grandfather — Jonas Noreika, a general and formerly a national hero — had agreed with the Nazis about the extermination of Jews.

The book caused an uproar. Lithuania’s parliament then voted to remove the head of a national genocide research center, Adas Jakubauskas, after he insisted Noreika had tried to save Jews; 17 historians wrote to the center complaining that Jakubauskas was compromising the quality of their research. For his part, Jakubauskas charged that he was being pressured by Israel and Russia to indict Lithuanian participants without evidence.

Yet the country continues to memorialize the Holocaust without calling attention to the role that Lithuanians played in carrying it out. Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial authority, said this week in a special session of the Lithuanian Parliament that the country “must consistently acknowledge that many of the Lithuanian Jews massacred in the Holocaust died at the hands of their Lithuanian co-nationals and that Lithuanians also took part in the extermination of Jews in neighboring countries.”

Such an acknowledgement is not a centerpiece of the Vilnius 700 programming, in part because its emphasis on celebration is focusing attention to happier moments in local Jewish history.

Gulbinas listed the Jewish-themed projects the city has undertaken in conjunction with its 700th anniversary: city tours, put on by Undiscovered Vilnius, that highlight the city’s Jewish history; the city’s involvement in the reconstruction of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, which was mostly destroyed by the Nazis; the renovation of the grave of the Vilna Gaon, a hugely influential 18th-century rabbi, and the upkeep of Jewish cemeteries; and a graffiti art project, “Walls That Remember,” in which artists have painted images harkening back to the era when the city’s Jewish community was thriving.

“Simultaneously, Vilnius honors the present Jewish customs and traditions, for example, by celebrating Hanukkah together with the local Jewish community every year,” Gulbinas wrote.

A pavilion at the National Museum of Lithuania that is open until Oct. 15 recreates Vilnius as it stood 200 years ago — at the dawn of the city’s Jewish heyday.

Meanwhile, the Jewish community has held events tied to the ghetto anniversary outside of the Vilnius 700 umbrella. Earlier this month, in the courtyard of the former Jewish Council headquarters in the Jewish Ghetto, Šimonytė attended an exhibition and concert on the liquidation anniversary.

On Thursday, the city of Vilnius introduced a commemorative route — ”Panerių kelias,” or road of Paneriai, named for the site of a massacre of 100,000 people, many of whom were Jewish, during World War II — along which processions were organized on that same day and on the 24th. An additional exhibition, “Healing Soul Wounds,” which, per an official from the city, “reveals the traumatic experiences and dilemmas of young girls, teenagers and women in order to survive the brutal conditions of World War II and the Holocaust,” opened last week.

In a few cases, the histories — that of Vilnius and that of the Vilna Ghetto — were commemorated together in official Vilnius 700 events. At a concert outside the former Vilna Ghetto Jewish Council in July, Michael Gordon, the American composer and founder of the acclaimed Bang on a Can music collective, whose father grew up outside of Vilnius, debuted an original composition for nine trombones.

The courtyard was Gordon’s idea. The organizers of the music component of Vilnius 700 reached out to him, he said, and sent a list of sites where he could debut an original composition. In his reply, he said, he pointed out that “there’s a big and long and illustrious history of Jewish culture, both secular and sacred, in Vilnius, and none of these sites are Jewish sites. Can we consider a Jewish site? And they said yeah, great.”

Gordon chose the courtyard in part because of its connection to Jewish arts: on one side of the courtyard stood a Yiddish theater; on another, a Yiddish conservatory. And the city also has a personal connection to Gordon, whose father, a Litvak, lived in Vilnius in the 1930s. He called his composition “Resonance.”

Roughly 300 people came to the concert, said Gordon, who spoke a little about the event about “the presence of Jewish culture in Lithuanian history.”

“I was happy about that,” he said. “I kind of felt it was my responsibility…I felt, wow, I have this opportunity to go here and, in a certain sense, honor the Jewish history in this place, in this very important center of Jewish learning and Jewish arts and culture.”

That kind of attention was all too rare in the past, according to Laima Lauckaite, the curator of a collaborative exhibition between the Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City that is open now. Lauckaite did not grow up fully aware of her city’s Jewish history while a schoolgirl during the Soviet years near where the Great Synagogue of Vilna once stood. Soviet authorities had razed the synagogue’s ruins and erected a school; underground remains were not identified until 2015.

“I never knew about it, that there was the Great Synagogue,” she said. “I got to know about it only 30 years after.”

The collaborative exhibit in New York City displays an exhibition of Vilnius guidebooks that reflect the city’s 19th and 20th century history and “its multi-ethnic, multicultural landscape.” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda visited YIVO last week to pay tribute to the Jews who rescued rare books and documents from the Vilna Ghetto.

Dovid Katz, former professor of Yiddish Studies at Vilnius University, has spent the past 15 years editing Defending History, a site dedicated to fighting Holocaust distortion. He has also participated in numerous events to mark Vilnius 700.

“While it is very nice that authorities have included Jewish-themed programs in the year’s commemorations dedicated to the city’s history, it is shameful that they have not permanently taken down any of the state-sponsored public-space shrines to Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators,” Katz said.

He stressed that the narratives downplaying Lithuanian culpability in the Holocaust emanated from a relative few influential nationalists, not the mass of Lithuanians celebrating Vilnius.

“I love living here. The people of today’s Lithuania are terrific,” he said. “The problem is with a small ultra-powerful, state-funded ‘history fixing unit’ that dominates on these issues in politics, museums, media, arts and academia.”

Katz suggested, as well, that the Jewish community should have focused on a different anniversary — and that its attention to the September dates related to the ghetto’s liquidation reified the country’s Holocaust memory problems.

“Of the thousands of Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust survivors we interviewed over more than three decades, all felt that the appropriate day for commemoration of the Lithuanian Holocaust is June 23rd,” he said. On that day in 1941, “600 years of peace was broken by the outbreak of barbarity, humiliation, slaughter in hundreds of towns across the land. By the end of 1941, all the close to 250 or so storied shtétlakh (shtetls) were destroyed, as were the overwhelming majority of Lithuanian Jews.”

Focusing only on the liquidation of the ghetto, he said, “reflects a state attempt to deflect from the primary narrative via one that focuses only on the Germans (the ghetto history) and not on the thousands of local participants all across the land.”

Vilnius 700 events are scheduled through the end of the year, ensuring that the tensions over history and memory in the city continue to simmer.

But not all see the need to bring up the city and Holocaust anniversaries in the same conversation. David Roskies, chair emeritus in Yiddish literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, wrote in an email: “I don’t see any intersection between the two anniversaries. It’s pure happenstance. Who can say with any precision when Vilnius was established?”

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dertaglichedan · 4 months

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The Deepfake Privilege? The Justice Department Makes Startling Claim to Withhold the Biden-Hur Audiotape

We have been discussing the dubious constitutional basis for President Joe Biden withholding the audio tapes of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur. I have previously written that the claim of privilege makes little sense when the transcript of the interview has already been released. It seems curious that Biden is claiming to be the president “who cannot be heard” in withholding the audio version. It just got wackier as the Justice Department seeks to create a new type of “Deepfake privilege” that would effectively blow away all existing limits on the use of the privilege when it comes to audio or visual records of a president.

Multiple committees are investigating Biden for possible impeachment and conducting oversight on the handling of the investigation into his retention and mishandling of classified material over decades. Classified documents were found in various locations where Biden lived or worked, including his garage. The mishandling of classified material is uncontestable. Broken boxes, unprotected areas and lack of tracking are all obvious from the photos.

Biden made the situation even worse with a disastrous press conference in which he attacked Hur and misrepresented his findings.

Hur’s ultimate conclusion that Biden’s diminished cognitive abilities would undermine any prosecution left many dumbfounded. After all, the man who is too feeble to prosecute is not only running a superpower with a massive nuclear arsenal but running for reelection to add four more years in office.

From impeachment to oversight to the 25th Amendment (allowing the removal of a president for incapacities), there are ample reasons for Congress to demand information and evidence from the government on these questions. Congress is also interested in looking at repeated omissions for “inaudible” statements. Under this sweeping theory that Biden can legitimately withhold these recordings under executive privilege, any president could withhold any evidence of incapacity or criminality.

As previously explained, the claim that the audiotape but not the transcript remains privileged is hard to square with precedent or logic. However, now the Justice Department appears to be pivoting with a new claim with a late Friday filing. The filing obtained by Politico states that the audiotape must be withheld due to the risk that it could be altered by artificial intelligence and passed off as authentic in a deepfake release: “The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files.”

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hotforharrison · 4 months

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I was always the paperwork person in the marriage when it came to doing that sort of thing, like filing our taxes, renewing vehicle registration, researching and enrolling in the following year's insurance plans during the annual enrollment periods, and taking care of any other documents that have popped up over the years for either one of us or both of us.

I'm taking on that role again now, for the last time. (I never thought I'd actually be sad about having to do less paperwork.)

I spent well over 5 hours (interrupted sometimes by bouts of crying to the point of getting sick) researching and acquiring forms for what I'd need to do for an uncontested divorce with no legal representation -- from filing the petition to the final decree with the court appearance and our testimonies.

Printed off 40+ pages of forms and a guided testimony template for each of us. I neatly filled out what I was able to, which was the vast majority of it fortunately.

The only thing I wasn't able to finish filling out was the final decree because I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do about the house we shared that he's currently moving out of.

I learned during my research that the judge has to feel like the division of community property is fair and just to finalize the divorce.

That might be a problem.

What my ex-husband had in mind was him taking ownership of the house and me staying here rent free for a certain period of time.

After that period of time came to an end, he planned to use the house as a rental property.

I would be free to remain here as a tenant if I did pay rent and utilities, but that would involve me having roommate(s) or a significant other move in with me. I wouldn't be able to afford to stay here otherwise, unless I have a major change in financial circumstances between now and then.

Working out that sort of arrangement legally would absolutely require a lawyer, which are super expensive, and that's something we're very much trying to avoid. And I'm not sure if a judge approving that arrangement is even possible period, to be honest.

There are also some other complications when it comes to that arrangement.

The mortgage is in both of our names, and he'd apparently have to refinance to remove my name.

The problem with that is that the mortgage currently has an interest rate of about 3%, and refinance rates are 6.5% at the moment.

I absolutely wouldn't force him to do that.

I'll have to talk to him after he gets back from his vacation to figure out what he wants to do.

I've been so ridiculously emotional for the last several hours that I can't fall asleep.

I'm also very nervous and stressed about my appointment tomorrow afternoon with the employment network provider.

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