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butchdykekondraki · 2 months

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its time for scp required reading... TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

please for the love of god heed the fucking warnings im so serious . like as much as i want to keep the tone of this post jokey and funny you NEED to heed the warnings on these

ok with that out of the way. read about my blorbos boy

''incident 239-b clef-kondraki'' (general warning for violence and blood/gore) - this one fucks. thats all i have to say about it

''technical issues'' - this one's funny + im biased because i fucking love pat the tech guy

''routine psychological evaluations by doctor glass'' - again i have personal bias about this (<- simon glass enjoyer + host is a glass introj) + this ones funny + if you're more into the fanon versions of the foundation staff this is right up your alley

''tradition'' - halloween party fun :-)

''dr cimmerian hits reply all'' - this is exactly what it sounds like i don't now what to tell you

''stupid cupid / stupid cupid: stop picking on me!'' - my house my rules read about cimmerian and his boytoy

''hawaiian shirts'' - clef fucking Breaks. thats all i can say about this without exploding into viscera

''help me my (love for) my daughter was born too still'' (general warning for mentions of child death) - i have personal bias about this (<- #1 agatha rights enjoyer) but this tale is So Good in general and a super interesting look at how agatha perceives herself and her work/life balance

''so leave yourself alone.'' (warning for graphic depictions of vomit and attempted suicide) - REALLY really really good look at clef kind of dropping his cruel persona and iris' mental health struggles regarding the foundation

''yesterday'' (warning for violence and implied/reference suicide. kind of.) - :-( <- this is the only way i can express my emotions about this tale. anyway it's really good and an interesting way of showing clefs relationships with people

''an apple a day...'' - REALLY good look at how dr glass is as a person and how he acts with people + this entire tale fucks SEVERELY

''personal log of dr gears / personal log of █████ 'iceberg' ████'' - good example of how gears and iceberg both format their documents / how they speak + its vaguely gearsberg + this gives a look at how gears and iceberg met. read the gearsberg tale boy

''portraits of your father'' (warning for graphic alcoholism, suicide, survivors guilt, and blood/gore) - super good look at draven and his relationship with his father, and kondraki's alcoholism, and also talloran is there. also three cheers for dravoran

''life's cold'' - most normal day iceberg has at this fuckass foundation + this is a good look at how iceberg acts and thinks

''fond memories'' (warning for death and body horror) - draven proposes! Draven proposes.

''scp-3999'' (warning for bugs, paranoia, death, body horror, sexual assault/rape, unreality, self harm, and depictions of bodily mutilation) - unironically this one fucks me up so bad its so fucking good dude. go read about james talloran RIGHT NOW

''i stared into the face of everything and nothing and made it back alive'' - this one also fucks me up so bad like i dont even have anything to say. read about talloran and draven RIGHT NOW

''you are at the center of everything that happens to you'' - james talloran talks to himself. kind of.

''a suicide note'' (warning for mentions of rape, child murder, survivors guilt, and suicide) - interesting look at clefs thoughts on him and his work

''date night'' - objectum win! dr alto clef is objectoromantic AND objectosexual! <- that should tell you all you need to know about this one

''scp-4231 / montauk house'' (warnings for graphic depictions of sexual assault, rape, child abuse/neglect, murder, domestic violence, verbal/physical abuse and survivor's guilt) - absolutely gut-wrenching look at alto clef/francis wojciechoski and why he's so fucked up. uh genuinely do read the warnings on this one because when i say graphic i am not exaggerating. all of these things are explored in detail and are genuinely triggering so.

''okay, that's enough, let's get you home'' (warnings for some dubious make-out sessions, (mentioned) suicide, implications of rape/sexual assault, and vomit) - shameless moldhouse plug sorry not sorry. HIGHLY recommend reading this and it's other parts in their entirety because it genuinely drives me up the fucking wall it is So good. i will sing moldhouses praises until my throat goes out. read moldhouse Now

''duke 'till dawn'' - bpd king!!!!! anyway i dont have a lot of thoughts on this its just really good. also i didnt know dracula was an actual scp until i read this which is kind of funny to me

''rights' birthday party'' - my house my rules you're going to read about agatha rights whether you like it or not

''sex at a frigid temperature'' - again, my house my rules. read the depressing gearsberg tale, boy.

''7 things that new level 3 researchers should know'' - i dont have any thoughts on this i just think this one has really cool formatting

''home is where i want to be'' - no greater thoughts this is just really neat i think. also kiryu labs is in it and im biased as fuck

''gentle wings flutter quietly in the dark'' - read about zyn kiryu NOW

#[ren]#HHHHOLY FUCKKK. THIS TOOK ME SO LONG. AUUHGGH AUGHGHH AUUUGUHGHGH #please. please for the love of god reblog this im begging you #i did not put in all this goddamn work listing this shit for it to go unnoticed. coughing up blood #uhh. what else do i say.#honorable mentions to glass x diogenes 4ever! ; ship in a bottle ; and major tom which i left out. rest in pussy sweet princes #also if youre gonna ask ''wheres ___?'' the answer is probably either ''i dont like that one and therefore didnt include it'' or ''i have-#-literally never heard of that what the fuck are you talking about''#scp foundation #<- so i can find this later

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sarahowritesostucky · 2 months

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📖"Temporary Custody"

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve x ofc x Bucky; Steve x Bucky

Word Count: 4042

Tags: Dom/sub, bdsm au, dom Bucky, sub reader, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, gay sex'n'stuff, straight sex'n'stuff, Steve being a literal Golden Retriever, mental health issues, dub-con, forced submission, referenced childhood abuse and resultant mental health issues, bakery au, m/f/m, gentle domination, total power exchange

Summary: The stigma and shame of being a submissive has kept Mary unfulfilled and in the closet her whole life, until an inciting incident leads to Bucky and Steve taking her in and giving her everything she was always too afraid to ask for.

Trigger warnings: This story contains themes of eating disordered behavior, body image issues, childhood abuse, self-harm, and alcohol abuse.

Wait! I haven't read an earlier chapter of this fic! Story Masterpost

5. Jiggly Soufflé Cake

Steve

“I should be in there,” Bucky says again, making Steve roll his eyes.

They’re sitting next to each other, out in the waiting room at the Center. It’s been over an hour, but Steve remembers how the intake worker had told them that Mary’s evaluation wouldn’t be short. Already, he’s read through half the crappy magazine selection. He lets the edge of an outdated issue of Dominant Monthly flop down to his lap. “Babe …”

“It’s taking too long. What if they’re harassing her or—”

“You know that’s not true. The people here are good. You’re just trying to control everything,” he reminds Bucky.

“If I was in there I could—”

“Get in the way. She needs to feel like she can express herself.”

“What if she’s not honest? What if Linda’s not asking her the right—”

“Buck, stop,” Steve says, injecting some command into his voice. Bucky might be the Dom, but Steve can put his foot down with his husband when needed. “The therapist knows what she’s doing. All the people here do. This is what they do.”

They’re at the Center for Designated Peoples, the place where people like Bucky go for … well, anything related to their dominance or submission needs. That’s all Steve really knows. He knows that Bucky has been in and out of CDPs since he was a kid. “It took almost a week to get her this appointment, alright? You want to mess that up?”

Bucky grumbles. “No.”

“Good. Cause they don’t need you in there, interfering in her assessment. So sit tight.”

Bucky shuts up after that, satisfying Steve that he’s made his point.

“Well, what do you think?” Bucky eventually says, when another ten minutes have passed and the door to the therapist’s office is still closed. “Of her?”

Steve glances over. “You mean in general?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Steve can tell when Bucky’s being defensive. “You like her,” he says. “And not just cause of her lemon tarts.” He’d seen him looking at weighted blankets on Amazon, yesterday. “Admit it,” he prods, nudging Bucky’s shoe with his. “You can tell me how you feel. Why d’you need me to qualify it for you, first?

“Because I’m married to you, not her,” Bucky snaps. “Jesus, Rogers. Never met a man with less self-preservation instincts than you.”

“Mmhm. Aand?”

“... Okay I’m drawn to her,” Bucky says. “But I can’t tell how much of that is instinct and how much is normal people stuff.”

“‘Normal people stuff’,” Steve echoes, amused.

“I want to know what you think of her.” Bucky kicks his shoe back. “Tell me.”

“I like her too,” Steve concedes. “It’s not just you.” He can see as Bucky’s shoulders relaxing a little bit, knows that his opinion matters to his husband. “She’s different. Plain, but …” Steve searches for the right word. ‘Cute’ doesn’t seem right. She’s too prickly for that and too old besides. She’s a woman, not a girl, and he’s not just trying to describe her physical appearance. “I don’t know,” he says. “Editorial?”

“Editorial?” Bucky scowls. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I dunno, just, not off the rack. Different.” Bucky snatches the magazine out of his lap and chucks it back to the coffee table. Steve rolls his eyes. “Wish she wasn’t so defensive, though. And I wish we could’ve met her … you know, like on a date or at the gym or something.”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah.”

“She grows on you,” Steve decides. Like an angry, stray cat. That’s dirty and scraggy a little.

“She’s pretty,” Bucky offers, but the words fall flat. They can both see that she’s attractive, that isn’t news. Bucky and Steve are attractive people themselves. They aren’t hurting for opportunities to be with attractive women (or men), if they want to. And it’s been a while since they invited another person into their bed. But …

“I haven’t been with a woman since my twenties,” Steve mumbles, thinking about it. He glances at Bucky. “You have.”

They both know Bucky was dating women casually when he met Steve, years ago. “Yeah,” he says simply.

“You ever miss ‘em? Women?” Steve kind of does sometimes. He likes how soft they are; the contrast. It had taken him a couple of dates and a few glasses of wine, back when they’d first gotten together, to admit to Bucky that he was bi. Steve had told him that, and then Bucky had disclosed his designation status. “We used to talk about the whole poly thing a lot more.”

“Hm, yeah I guess.” Bucky shrugs and reaches to take his hand. Steve gives it a squeeze. “I dunno babe. Kind of hard to think about anybody else when I’ve got you around.” He gives him a lecherous look that makes Steve glad they’re the only ones in the waiting room. “Your hot body’s been enough to keep my attention.” His eyes drag up and down Steve, mentally undressing him.

Steve feels heat creep up his neck and he chuckles, pushing Bucky’s hand away. “Stoppit. Jerk. I’m a person.”

“Punk,” Buck smirks. “You like it.”

“Shuddup. Not here. God, you’re such a creep.” They’re both grinning—probably like complete, horny letches—when the door to the therapist’s office opens.

The professionally dressed woman offers them a friendly smile. “Bucky, Steve.”

“Hey Linda,” Bucky greets.

“How’d it go, Doctor?” Steve asks, not on as informal terms with the CDP staff as his husband is. “Is she …”

“Mary is fine. Would you like to come in and talk with us?”

Bucky is immediately standing from his chair. “Yep.”

Steve has to refrain from rolling his eyes. He grabs Bucky’s wrist. “Hang on now, Buck. Maybe she doesn’t want us in there. We should try and give her choices where we can.”

Doctor Linda surprises him by saying, “Actually, Mary says she’s fine with discussing this all together.”

Bucky shoots him a smug look and tugs his wrist back. “See?”

This time Steve does roll his eyes, but he nods at Linda and gets up to follow her back into the office.

Bucky

Bucky can recall very clearly the first time he’d been told he had a mental illness. He’d been ten, had been sent to the school shrink for misbehavior. He remembers how his mom had come in, harried about being called off from work when her kid wasn’t even sick. Bucky had felt bad about that, had felt like he’d done something wrong (well, he had scrubbed Trixie Wallace’s face into a mud puddle at recess).

But still, even at ten years old he’d been smart enough to know that this meeting with his mom and the counselor was more serious than another simple admonition or in-school suspension.

Long story short, His mom wound up reacting with something like embarrassment, and Bucky had wound up internalizing that for a long time, feeling like his “condition” was something to be kept private and not discussed.

Now, he sits in Linda’s office and makes sure to exude an air of calm and acceptance. He doesn’t want Mary to be embarrassed about this like he was. It helps that times have changed a bit since Bucky was a kid, and he knows this particular Center very well. They do good work with the designated community. Bucky knows that no one here is going to announce to Mary that she’s a deviant.

Mary’s sitting in her own chair, separate from where Bucky and Steve share the couch. Even though Bucky’s instinct is to tell her to come sit with them, he holds back. He knows that the seating arrangement is likely purposeful on Linda’s part. He tries to remember Steve’s words about giving Mary choices where they can. Domination may be what she needs, but too much of a good thing, administered too fast, can still be harmful.

“High needs,” Steve is saying, echoing what Linda’s just told them. “... So, she’s like Bucky, but submissive?”

“Yes,” Linda confirms. “We did the assessment twice, and both times Mary tested at the far end of the spectrum.”

“Fantastic,” Mary mutters.

“We’ve been discussing what this might mean for her care plan, going forward. Mary has several other issues that I believe tie into her unfulfilled needs as a submissive.”

“I don’t understand how it went undiagnosed for so long,” Bucky says, feeling vaguely upset about it. “Doc?”

She shrugs. “Mary’s from a part of the country where mental health awareness isn’t so advanced. They didn’t test in the public school system where she grew up.” Mary makes a quiet noise of discontent and Linda adds, “So we’ve been talking about the physiology of it, the role of neurotransmitters and how important it is for her to be dropped regularly. And we’ve discussed what that might look like, different options she has.”

“Options?”

Here, Linda hesitates. “Well … Mary has expressed an interest in taking advantage of the Center’s social programs.”

“No,” Bucky says right away. “Absolutely not.”

“She said you do it,” Mary counters, and when Bucky looks over he finds her glaring at him. “Apparently, I don’t need you after all. I can just come here and hook up with any old body.”

“I’m your legal guardian right now,” Bucky reminds her. “And the clubs are for people who know what they’re doing. It’s too unstructured for you. You need more stability than that.”

Mary scoffs and crosses her arms, but Dr. Linda is already nodding in agreement. “I think Bucky’s right, Mary,” she says gently. “A reliable, dominant partner and regular drops in a safe space are what you need right now.”

“Why can’t you just write me a prescription or something?” Mary complains. “You said it was a brain chemistry thing, so why not?”

Linda looks uncomfortable as she explains, “Medication is usually only considered as a last ditch treatment option … and with your substance use disorder and other issues I'd rather not —”

“I am not an alcoholic!”

“No meds,” Bucky says, hating that idea. “Come on, Mary. You don’t want to be drugged up, do you?”

She glares at him. “You just want to control me.”

He fights very, very hard not to roll his eyes. “Yeah,” he quips. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

Mary groans and slumps back into the cushions of her chair, looking put out. “This sucks.”

“It’s manageable,” Linda reminds gently.

"I don't want to be this way," she mumbles. "'High needs'. It's embarrassing."

“It's no different than needing air, or food or sleep,” Steve supplies. “You guys just have this extra thing.”

Mary makes a face, probably at being lumped into the ‘you guys’ category with Bucky. “So, what’s the plan then?” she asks mulishly, crossing her arms. “We go back to your place and you break out the whips and chains?”

Bucky barks out a laugh before he can stop himself. “Oh, honey. I promise there aren’t any chains.” He winks at her. “I prefer leather.”

Mary

After the therapist, it gets a little easier to be around Steve and Bucky. Mary’s still quick to anger, thinking about the situation that she's managed to get herself into, but there are some ameliorating factors to the situation.

Having an official diagnosis—no matter how much she doesn’t want this diagnosis—is at least a starting point. Mary doesn’t have to keep exhausting herself, arguing with Bucky that she’s not a sub. She is. That’s that.

And when he takes it upon himself to speak with Mary’s boss about her situation (effectively getting him to unfire her for the multiple days of work she’s missed) some more of Mary’s contempt for Bucky slips away.

“Thank you,” she says quietly once they leave the café, her next shift already scheduled for that upcoming Monday. “ I … this job, it means a lot to me.”

“I know.” Bucky says simply, though Mary can see the self-satisfaction in his posture. He takes her hand as they walk together down the sidewalk, and to Mary it feels like some sort of test, like he’s waiting for her to pull away.

So she forces herself to curl her fingers around his and keep holding his hand.

Again, she can practically feel the reaction coming off of him. He’s pleased with her. Mary’s cheeks flush from the domineering squeeze he gives her hand from time to time as they walk, and she’s grateful that she can blame it on the day’s chilly air.

Doctor Linda had explained everything, of course, when Mary went in for the assessment. The testing hadn’t been what she was expecting, hadn’t been embarrassing or invasive. And, perhaps most disappointing of all, it hadn’t been predictable. Mary hadn’t felt like she knew which way to fake her responses, to get the test to declare her mentally fit. So she’d answered honestly.

And where had that gotten her? Lumped into the same group of deviants as James Bucky Barnes. “High needs”—God it sounds awful.

“It’s not necessarily sexual,” Linda tells her at her second appointment. “Or, well … it doesn’t have to be, at least. There are ways around it, if you really need an asexual dynamic.”

Mary nods along, but inside she thinks about the last time Bucky scolded her or praised her or held her hand on the sidewalk. She thinks about when he’d put his hand on her throat and applied pressure. Thinking about those things doesn’t make her feel asexual at all.

The first time Bucky doms her in a coordinated manner, she’s actually unaware of what he’s doing at first. It’s one of Mary’s three days off and she’s terribly bored, researching how to make grapefruit soda caviar and wondering if there’s a gym nearby that she could join. She hasn’t exercised in weeks, and honestly, if there’s even the slightest chance that she’s going to wind up being naked in front of Bucky or Steve (or, oh god, both of them), then she really feels like she needs to work out.

Scratching fingernails over the skin of her lower stomach, she googles nearby gyms, finds one that looks decent, and tells Steve that she’s headed out to go join. She’s tying one sneaker when Steve objects.

“Oh but wait,” he says. “Um, Bucky’s going to be home soon. And I think he uh, I think he had plans. … For us.”

Mary raises an eyebrow. She likes Steve—thinks he’s kind of a big, beefy sweetheart, actually—but sometimes his devotion to Bucky and what Bucky wants is annoying. “Fine, you stay here and tell him where I went. I’ve got to get out of this apartment.” And out from under you and your bossy husband’s constant supervision. “Got to … I dunno, burn off some steam.”

Bucky’s timing is impeccable. He comes through the door just as she’s bending over to lace up her other sneaker. His arms are full of plastic grocery bags, which he dumps onto the kitchen counter with fanfare. "Honey, I'm home."

“What happened to using the reusable bags?” Steve drawls, earning an eye roll from Bucky.

“Forgot 'em.”

“Mmhm.”

“Shut up.” Bucky’s grinning at his husband, until he catches sight of Mary crouched in her gym clothes. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks her.

“None of your business,” she snips, standing back up and heading for the front door.

“Stop right there, Princess.”

Oh. Well that’s a new one. Mary turns back around with what she’s sure is an incredulous look. “‘Princess’?”

Bucky smiles warmly and drags her over to inspect the groceries that are in the bags. She’s quick to catalog: eggs, butter, flour, sugar, milk. “What?” she asks, looking up at him. “You think I’m going to cook for you?”

“Oh I know you’re going to cook for me,” he says calmly, taking dry goods out of one of the bags and arranging them in the pantry. “Bake, in fact.”

Mary might stare a little, maybe with her lips parted. She feels equal parts annoyed and intrigued by his audacity. Something vaguely squirmy and warm stirs in her. She's planning on throwing some haughty quip back at him, maybe casually threatening poisoning, but somehow what comes out of her mouth is a subservient, “Well … what do you want me to make?”

He turns back around with bright eyes. “Oh, I’m sure you can come up with something,” he practically purrs. He gets right up in her space and says, “Something … delectable.”

Mary has to avert her gaze and turn away. She says a quick prayer that he hadn’t been close enough to hear the little hitch in her breath, then tries to focus her attention on cataloging the ingredients the jerk has brought her. Eggs, butter, flour, sugar, milk …

Hadn’t she … hadn’t she been going out somewhere? Oh yeah, right. The gym.

She squeaks when Bucky claps a cheerful hand on her shoulder and gives her a squeeze. “Good girl,” he simpers, then walks over to the couch and flops down next to Steve, giving him a kiss hello. They proceed to chat with each other and chat about their days like Mary isn’t standing less than twenty feet away in the kitchen.

She suddenly feels like some 1950’s housewife. … One with damp panties, now that Bucky’s called her that right in her ear. Christ. Had Steve heard? She glances back over to them, but they’re not looking her way. Mary flushes and looks back down at the countertop. Eggs, butter, flour, sugar, milk. She tries to think if she has everything she might need for soufflé cakes.

“How can something so plain be so good?” Steve wonders at the dinner table, where he’s squinting closely at his third helping of dessert like he can glean answers from it. “And what is it?”

“Satisfying,” Bucky says sagely. “That’s the secret.”

“The secret is buttermilk. And it’s cake, Steve. Just eat it.”

“How’re those dishes coming, Doll?” Bucky calls back, shooting her a sly look from over his shoulder. Mary resists the urge to stick her tongue out at him and dunks her hands back into the soapy sink water.

Steve pokes the jiggly cake with his fork. “What are yooou?”

By the time they’re finished with dinner and dessert (and dishes), she’s figured it out. All the pet names, the casual touches and the confident demands? Bucky’s trying to dominate her. She thinks about calling him out on it, but promptly forgets to do that when they go into the living room to watch a movie and Bucky firmly suggests that she make herself comfortable on the floor instead of the couch. At his and Steve’s feet.

Forget about damp panties, she just hopes it doesn’t start to show through her leggings.

Asexual dynamic her ass.

Mary had only held onto the illusion that the guys were gay gay for about two whole days, before it became very apparent that they actually like women, too. Steve’s comments alone about Daenerys while watching Game of Thrones are enough to broadcast that he swings both ways.

So that takes it from regrettable to just plain insulting when, as time goes by, Bucky doesn’t initiate anything sexual with her. He keeps doing his whole Dom thing, aided and abetted by Steve, and almost always in ways that take Mary off guard. He’s never mean, never does any of the intimidating things she’d imagined a dom would do to a submissive.

And Mary won’t admit it, but she’s starting to look forward to when Bucky gets home from work at the end of the day. She spends more time than she’ll ever admit planning out something new to make for dessert, all the while anticipating the beginning of Bucky’s early evening commands and how they elicit those first tendrils of effervescent, pink fizz giddiness.

It’s the later commands—the ones that come after dinner and during tv time, that tend to bring on the warm, sunken bathwater feelings. Marys pretty sure that Steve is a bit of a voyeur, because he seems fascinated by it all, watching every night as Bucky bosses her around, sometimes even joining in his own small ways, by petting her hair or telling her she’s sweet, or something like that.

Every evening, they play this strange game. And every evening Bucky and Steve each give her a kiss on the cheek and send her dazed little self off to bed, the two of them retiring to their own room. In the beginning, being left alone to go to bed is nice. She ignores the arousal between her legs in favor of floating in her syrupy sea of sweet feelings. Going to bed in subspace gives her the most solid sleep she’s ever had in her life. But after another week of it, and then another, the arousal starts to linger a little more at bedtime. She starts to fantasize about what it would be like to keep things going, to take Steve’s hand at the end of the night and let him guide her into his and Bucky’s bedroom, rather than her own; be held between their two big bodies while they whisper more sweet things to her and touch her in new places …

Maybe Steve and Bucky really do just want this to be platonic, she thinks, as another week of the same goes by and her dreams are getting dirtier by the minute. She’d surreptitiously stuffed her vibrator into a bag when they’d gone back to her apartment to retrieve her belongings, but she’s been too afraid to use it when Steve and Bucky are right across the hallway in their room, mortified to think that they might hear the buzzing and know what she’s doing.

Best not to add fuel to the fire, she thinks, when she ignores how increasingly horny she’s becoming and forces herself to lie still and count sheep and not fantasize about the two insanely hot, not-gay-gay men in the next room. They’re still a happily married couple, she tells herself. They’ve got no interest in her as of yet, and she’ll just be making herself into a homewrecker if she pushes for more.

… Or maybe they’re just not attracted to her that way, she eventually starts to think. Steve and Bucky are both in amazing shape, and they’re very good looking. They probably see her as like … maybe a solid five—with makeup and a blowout.

She gets a little down in the dumps about it, realizing that all the heavy drinking and crap diet of this past year and a half has taken its toll on her, and she’s just not physically their type. She convinces Bucky to start adding salmon to the grocery list, she researches the pros and cons of lip filler, and starts whitening her teeth with one of those nasty little gel kits.

She stands in front of her bathroom mirror each night and scrutinizes her naked body, dragging her nails absentmindedly against the skin of her lower stomach and cataloging everything that’s not as good as it could be. She considers the scars on her hip that have no new slices added to the roster, wonders if Bucky ever wound up telling Steve about how … how awful they are …

“Night, Mary!” Steve chirps from across the hall, making her inhale and flinch in surprise.

“N-night!” she calls back through the wall, feeling the pleasant effects of that night’s drop fading away faster than she’d like.

Maybe she should just be happy that she’s getting at least this much attention from them, that things have improved a little and she at least isn’t drinking herself into a stupor each night anymore. That’s a positive, even if she is still left pining after them like a fool every night. Steve and Bucky are okay guys, but they probably just don’t want anything more than this from her. They’re helping her because she shares this mental illness with Bucky, and that’s super nice of them, but it doesn’t mean they have to be attracted to her, too. Mary’s not entitled to anything.

She joins a 24 hour gym and takes to binge exercising in the middle of the night to push away the uncertainty.

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lesbianfeminists · 1 year

Text

From heart disease to IUDs: How doctors dismiss women’s pain

Several studies support the claim that gender bias in medicine routinely leads to a denial of pain relief for female patients for a range of health conditions

One woman was told she was being “dramatic” when she pleaded for a brain scan after suffering months of headaches and pounding in her ears. It turned out she had a brain tumor. Another was ignored as she cried out in pain during a 33-hour labor. She was supposed to be getting pain medication through her epidural, but it had fallen out. Dozens of women complained of torturous pain as their vaginal walls were punctured during an egg retrieval process. They were told their pain was normal, but, in actuality, they were getting saline instead of anesthesia. These are just some of the stories of women who say their pain and suffering has been dismissed or misdiagnosed by doctors. Although these are anecdotal reports, a number of studies support the claim that women in pain often are not taken as seriously as men.

This year, the Journal of the American Heart Association reported that women who visited emergency departments with chest pain waited 29 percent longer than men to be evaluated for possible heart attacks. An analysis of 981 emergency room visits showed that women with acute abdominal pain were up to 25 percent less likely than their male counterparts to be treated with powerful opioid painkillers. Another study showed that middle-aged women with chest pain and other symptoms of heart disease were twice as likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness compared with men who had the same symptoms. “I was told I knew too much, that I was working too hard, that I was stressed out, that I was anxious,” said Ilene Ruhoy, a 53-year-old neurologist from Seattle, who had head pain and pounding in her ears. Despite having a medical degree, Ruhoy said she struggled to get doctors to order a brain scan. By the time she got it in 2015, a tennis ball-sized tumor was pushing her brain to one side. She needed surgery, but first, she rushed home, hugged her 11-year-old daughter and wrote her a letter to tell her goodbye.

Ruhoy did not die on the operating table, but her tumor had grown so large it could not be entirely removed. Now, she has several smaller tumors that require radiation treatment. She said many of her female patients have had experiences similar to hers. “They’re not validated with regards to their concerns; they’re gaslit; they’re not understood,” she said. “They feel like no one is listening to them.”

Doubts about women’s pain can affect treatment for a wide range of health issues, including heart problems, stroke, reproductive health, chronic illnesses, adolescent pain and physical pain, among other things, studies show. Research also suggests that women are more sensitive to pain than men and are more likely to express it, so their pain is often seen as an overreaction rather than a reality, said Roger Fillingim, director of the Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence at the University of Florida. Fillingim, who co-wrote a review article on sex differences in pain, said there are many possible explanations, including hormones, genetics and even social factors such as gender roles. Regardless, he said, “you treat the pain that the patient has, not the pain that you think the patient should have.”

Women say reproductive health complaints are commonly ignored

Women often cite pain bias around areas of reproductive health, including endometriosis, labor pain and insertion of an intrauterine device, or IUD. When Molly Hill made an appointment at a Connecticut clinic in 2017 to get an IUD, she said she was warned it would be uncomfortable, but she was not prepared for “horrific” pain. Hill, now 27 and living in San Francisco, recalled that during the procedure, she began crying in pain and shouted at the doctor to stop. “We’re almost done,” she said the doctor told her and continued the procedure. “It was full-body, electrifying, knife-stabbing pain,” she said. After it was done, she said she lay sobbing on the table in physical and emotional pain. “It felt violating, too, to have that pain that deep in your core where you feel the most vulnerable.”

Studies consistently show that women who have not experienced vaginal birth have much higher pain during IUD insertion compared with women who have given birth. A Swedish study found that among 224 women who had not given birth, 89 percent reported moderate or severe pain. One in six of the women said the pain was severe. Although numbing agents and local anesthetics are available, they are rarely used.

In some cases, women have sued physicians for ignoring their pain. Dozens of women sued Yale University claiming that during an egg harvesting procedure at its infertility clinic, they were supposed to be receiving the powerful painkiller fentanyl. But some women were getting only diluted pain medication or none at all, according to lawsuits filed in the state Superior Court in Connecticut. Later, the clinic discovered a nurse had been stealing vials of fentanyl and replacing the painkiller with saline solution. The nurse pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced for tampering with the drugs. One of the plaintiffs, Laura Czar, wrote about her experience for Elle magazine, describing it as “a horrible, gut-wrenching pain,” and told a doctor at the time, “I can feel everything you’re doing.” Despite her protests, the doctor continued. Yale said in a statement that it “deeply regrets” the women’s distress and has “reviewed its procedures and made changes to further oversight of pain control and controlled substances.”

Racial disparities in pain management

For Sharee Turpin, the pain of sickle-cell disease sometimes feels like tiny knives slicing her open. Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that can cause suffering so severe, its attacks are called “pain crises.” But when Turpin, who is Black, experiences a pain crisis, the 34-year-old does not rush to the ER in Rochester, N.Y. Instead, she combs her hair, mists some perfume and slips on her “Sunday best” in hopes that the doctors and nurses won’t peg her as a drug seeker, she said. Sometimes, Turpin gets a care team that understands her pain. Other times, she is treated as a bother. “I’ve even been told ‘shut up’ by a nurse because I was screaming too loud while I was in pain,” she said.

Abundant research shows racial bias in pain treatment. A 2016 study found half of white medical students and residents held at least one false belief about biological differences between Blacks and Whites, and were more likely to underestimate Black patients’ pain. “The management of pain is one of the largest disparities that we see between Black people and White people in the American health-care system,” said Tina Sacks, an associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of “Invisible Visits: Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System.”

Labeling women “hysterical” or blaming psychological causes

Research shows men in chronic pain tend to be regarded as “stoic” while women are more likely to be considered “emotional” and “hysterical” and accused of “fabricating the pain.” Carol Klay, a 68-year-old from Tampa, had endured years of chronic pain from arthritis, degenerative disk disease and spinal stenosis. During a hospital stay last year, her doctor noted in her medical record that she was crying “hysterically.” Klay said she was crying because she was unable to sit, stand or walk without agony, and the doctor had removed morphine from her cocktail of pain medications. She wonders whether the doctor “would have called me hysterical if I was a man,” she said. Tampa General Hospital said it could not discuss specific patients, but stated: “Patient treatment plans, including medication orders to reduce pain, are prescribed by multi-disciplinary clinical teams.” Research shows women’s physical pain is also often attributed to psychological causes.

Jan Maderios, a 72-year-old Air Force veteran from Chipley, Fla., said the trauma of having pain dismissed by doctors has stayed with her for years. She saw about a dozen doctors in the early 1970s for pelvic pain. When clinicians could not identify the cause of her pain, she was referred to a psychiatrist.

“You start to doubt yourself after so many medical experts tell you there’s nothing wrong with you,” she said. After a hysterectomy in 1976, Maderios learned that fibroid tumors in her uterus had been the source of her pain. She said learning her pain was real — and physical — “made all the difference in the world.”

Why women’s pain complaints often aren’t taken seriously

During a 33-hour labor with her first child in 2011, Anushay Hossain, 42, of D.C., opted for epidural pain relief but said she still felt it all — every contraction, every cramp and every dismissal of her pain by her medical team. The doctor reassured her that she was getting the maximum dosage of pain medication.

In fact, she wasn’t getting any at all. She said her epidural had slipped out. By the time the error was caught, she was shaking uncontrollably and in need of an emergency Caesarean section, she said. “There’s a pain gap, but there’s also a credibility gap,” said Hossain, author of “The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women.” “Women are not believed about their bodies —period.”

This pain gap may stem, in part, from the fact that women have historically been excluded from medical research. It wasn’t until 2016 that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) required sex to be considered as a biological variable in most studies it funded. “We’re making progress,” said David Thomas, special adviser to the director of NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health. “But we do have a long way to go because there’s this whole institutional approach to doing research — pain and beyond — where it tends to be male-focused.”

Nearly 95 percent of U.S. medical school students said instruction on sex and gender differences in medicine should be included in curriculums, according to a 2015 survey. But only 43 percent said their curriculum had helped them understand those differences and only 34.5 percent said they felt prepared to manage them in a health-care setting.

“It is changing, but it’s changing very slowly,” said Janice Werbinski, immediate past president of the American Medical Women’s Association and chair of the mentorship committee of the association’s Sex and Gender Health Collaborative.

How women can advocate for better pain care

It took decades to solve the mystery of Maureen Woods’s chronic pain. Woods, 64, of Myersville, Md., started having joint pain in her teens and, over the years, told dozens of doctors her pain was “debilitating,” she said. Some told her it was all in her head. In 2017, she was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder often causing loose joints, dislocations and chronic pain. She said women who are not being heard should keep advocating for themselves. “You have to go with your gut — something is wrong and I need to find a doctor who can figure it out,” she said. Marjorie Jenkins, dean of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, urged women against feeling pressured to accept an “everything is normal” non-diagnosis. “If your provider does not appear to be listening to you or believing what you’re saying, then you need a new provider,” Jenkins said. “You are the client, you are the customer and you are the owner of your health.”

Women can also take a family member, friend or other support person who can corroborate their stories, said Alyson McGregor, an emergency medicine professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville and author of the book “Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women’s Health and What We Can Do About It.” Particularly in emergency departments, she said, there can be an inherent bias. “There’s this assumption that women are emotional and they’re anxious and that that’s the main issue,” she said.

#women’s health

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ms-scarletwings · 6 months

Text

On Defective Irkens

“It is theorized that Tak may also be an Irken defect because-“

“Say guys do you think Skoodge is defective? He did a thing he wasn’t told to do once do you suppose-“

“Service Drone Bob's contempt for the Tallest is extremely abnormal, even for most defective Irkens…”

“Hints of the comms officer being a defective are seen when-“

Ohhh mauling the fan wiki writers grr biting biting thrashing and then turning around to the rest of you before I’m done, you bet, for I have sat and listened for over 12 years of leaps and speculations of this sort and now I’m now one of the ones who gets to have what the cool kids these days call a hot take on the matter.

By the end of this I’M going to bring up and expose who I actually think may be the only other defective Irken(s) in the show besides Zim, whom I’m aghast I haven’t seen anyone suggest before.

But before anything else, I want to front one preassumption center and loud.

It took me a long time to guess at why very few people can ever seem to get on the same page of what it actually means to call an Irken defective. Implicitly, the bulk of what we are given is that something can be wrong with a member of this species, and Zim is our prime and singular clear example of that. So there’s a ton of trying to find patterns between Zim’s behavior and that of other Irken characters. Weirdly (to me), a lot of people have, in their efforts, chalked the status up to a sense of rebelliousness or insubordination- a defectiveness in the manner of D&D illithids, stomping out disloyal break-aways from the collective hive mind with punitive wrath. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool concept, and it’s definitely closer to my opinion at least than the comparisons to real life mental disorders or disabilities. Not knocking the comfort or the enthusiasm, obviously.

From my view of the canon, I hope it’s at least apparent to other fans that “defective” isn’t some empirical measurement or status to Irkens. Look at the way they determine the defects from normal society. IRL, if I have a faulty device on my hands, there’s some way out there to tell me in a clear cut fashion if there’s a problem and what exactly it is. If it’s code, it can be scanned and debugged. If it’s mechanical, something can be seen, fixed physically. Most organic health problems are only different in the complexity of the matter, but the entire purpose of medical research is to come close as we can to bridging that gap. In Irk’s people, that line is rapidly becoming one long smear of wet chalk. I’m going on like this because if defective paks were akin to hardware actually being damaged, as Purple had put it, it doesn’t make as much sense that they are neither “fixed” nor given real, concrete diagnostics. The only way we know of that the aliens are tested in a since on this merit is by existence evaluations. And existence evaluations are anything but empirical, impartial events. They’re worlds more political and cultural than clinical.

Digest the terms we keep seeing all around the concept: Innocent, justice, trial/evaluation, Judgementia, these are terms of judicial courts and moral weight and sentencing. In effective practice,

Irk labels defects by what one does, not by what one is.

Yet, defection is presented as if that’s not the case, and there are reasons for that. Reasons that reinforce the current power structures and promote what its leadership has decided is healthy for the broader society. When Zim was merely re-encoded from invader status to food service work, it was a more secluded evaluation, presumably done on Irk. His only seen witnesses then were the Tallests and the single control brain dishing the judgement. His existence evaluation, on the other hand, rings more similarly to the IRL historical practice of literal “show trials”. Show trials were something that existed way less for the actual crimes of the accused and so much more for their audience, which, show trials are always for an audience. Three main points about them off the Wikipedia cuff:

• Typically, the defendant of such has already been determined to be guilty (oftentimes of completely fabricated transgressions), and the trial serves mostly to make a massive public spectacle and warning of the accused.

• They tend to focus on retributive punishment over correction. The disproportional brutality and lack of mercy is often the point.

• Their goals are propagandistic in nature, and there’s many notable examples to be found in the history of Nazi Germany, the USSR, and in witch trials across the world (because it was never just Salem).

A formality? Well, that much they couldn’t have more brazenly admitted to. Retribution? There’s hardly a more absolute punitive sentence I could craft up over obliteration PLUS Damnatio Memoariae. And as for the degree of spectacle, I will let you make your own observation here.

Believe it or not, the part where my comparisons along this line end with Existence Evaluations is that their standard for taking place isn’t actually this cartoonishly oppressive one that some fans try to make it out to be. In “The Trial”, Zim was not having his data read for some binary is/is not determination… he was having his experiences and actions interpreted by how much damage he has done against the Armada. He said it himself, that hotseat is reserved for criminals. Likely outright traitors and maniacs. Those who have given cause to alert the brains to a genuine existential threat to their civilization and who have repeatedly failed every opportunity given to redeem themselves.

Defective doesn’t just mean “different” to Irk. We’ve hardly seen an exploration of what the median Irken example even is, because the more we see of any one of these characters, the more they show us their eccentric uniqueness and will. Yes, Irkens are authoritarian; yes they’re over-militarized; yes, they’re a supremacist breed aligned under one ruling military… but listen, they are not literally The Borg, or illithids.

The biggest victims of this government itself are those races it colonizes. Average civilians on the other hand, they get to largely enjoy all the vices and pains and indulgences of hyper-space-capitalism. The height-ocracy may limit their opportunities, but even the lowest drones among them are supposedly hired into their positions in return for wages. Irkens are pretty selfish, but in a rugged individualism sense. It’s a dystopia of atomization instead of collectivization. If everyone had agreed that “defective” had anything to do with arrogance, free will, or an ability to feel one’s sense of self worth, no one would ever be pointing to Skoodge as a possible example. That guy’s the poster boy for what it means to be a “tool” in the derogatory sense. I’m not forgetting that he technically never even left his job. He was fired and more or less forced into hiding, and he’s still not even that perturbed over the whole thing.

Moreover, it also takes some extreme acts of harm to justify such a trial. Real harm- not rebellious attitude or even disrespect to authority. The control brains and the tallests alone get to define that threshold, and neither Tak’s/Zim’s insubordination nor Bob’s audacity concerned them enough for a ticket to Judgementia. In fact, they really don’t seem that bothered at all by deserters and those that abandon their encoded function. Tak is likely to be merely the responsibility of her janitorial squadron, the same way that enforcing Zim’s banishment was the responsibility of his Frylord. Because Irk actually does have standards of justice and layers of bureaucracy to work within when it comes to dealing with true malice. Small fry problems are for the lower rungs of the ladder to handle, until they become a higher priority by necessity. Incompetency alone isn’t a crime, either. The go-to punishment for failure in one function is demotion to a lower position. These are the only Irkens formally not allowed to change jobs, making what they do a kind of communal service or forced labor sentencing. Remember how Tak’s motivation for leaving Dirt wasn’t solely dissatisfaction with the grunt labor? Remember how she kept justifying her actions by the logic of fairness and setting things right? Not to mention how she fully made the Tallest aware of what she was up to and how her plan was well crafted enough to probably work out exactly like she wanted. Tak is utterly as loyal to the empire and competent as any invader. She was genuinely just dealt a shitty hand, and her response to it is at least understandable.

She even went to great lengths to identify and specifically target Zim and to use a planet that otherwise had less than no value to the armada’s operations. She is a great foil to Zim, but I can’t see how she’s any bit defective, only full of rage that she was screwed over by the actions of a real disgrace to their species. Genuinely destructive cases like Zim are an incredible rarity. Such a rarity that I can only guess it took this long for him to go to Judgementia because his degree of dysfunction outright baffles the system. It also would appear that it’s an event of such significance that it can only be set into motion by the command of the ruling Tallest. By murdering a couple of them, and then being a clown show for a couple more, he inadvertently bought himself some time.

And the crazy thing to remember here is that Zim doesn’t even understand that his actions are an existential threat to the Empire- that he IS a whole supervillain to his planet. This is how effective Irken programming and the education plugs are. They’re supposed to do 99% of the work of setting up the population, even the lowest drones, for not turning out like traitors to their kin in the first place. ALL of them grew up on a steady diet of the same drip-fed propaganda and essentialist ideology as their most militant soldiers. So I can see the logic behind the conclusion that the only explanation for criminals in their society must be outright brain damage or corrupted data… and I’m not gonna lie I do openly headcanon that the latter case is exactly what happened to bad egg Zim.

The limits of only having the one example in him notwithstanding, I’m anything but against theorizing about who else could be “worthy” in the Irken sense to also stand before those brains, playing sweaty advocate for the worth of their continued existence and all. I just don’t see it in Bob, or the Comms officer, or any other invader. Tak, there may be some hypothetical ramp to that end, in her future, but as things are right now, I only see a candidate that has become comfortable right in the control brains’ biggest blind spot of all. See, eggs don’t always have to crack in order to go bad. Sometimes, maybe they just spoil. Sometimes, I believe just the right conditions and time can turn them downright rotten.

Dramatic musical flourish, please.

I forget whoever said the quote “Power doesn’t corrupt, It just exposes who people really are”, but I’m a huge fan of the fact that they did. In my opinion, it’s less about power itself and more about a complete lack of accountability that allows the weakest and most toxic seeds to really fester in a seat of authority. Indeed, we all know that there is something pathetic, and vapid, and cruel floating around The Massive’s bridge. I am saying I’d call Red defective, but I couldn’t be certain enough with myself to say that Purple’s largely the one carrying a lot of fault. His greatest sin is his negligence and enabling his companion. whoever we can say shoulders more of the blame, they have been running this horror show as a joint unit, so they will both bear the guilt. Without a doubt, these two are terrible- popular maybe, but terrible leaders. Like, more responsible for the near ruin of their home world and species than I can even pin on Zim at this point. By almost every measure once you hold them up to Miyuki’s and Spork’s barely few moments of would-be screen time, they’re the worst Tallests for the Empire we’ve ever known. It’s too bad that they have no one over them we know of to flag them for an existence evaluation, because I am assured that the real orchestrators of the Armada would be disgusted to look over their track records since they took power.

I mean, what can I remember just off the top of my head?

- Full awareness of Zim’s blackout-causing history before the beginning of Operation Impending Doom I and not keeping a close eye on him, removing him from his position, or keeping him away from the homeworld’s WoMDs

- Overseeing the shipment of faulty equipment to Invader Tenn (even if the packages had not been switched, the Megadoomer still had a potentially fatal flaw), and then presumably NOT giving her urgent guidance/assistance to avoid being captured by native hostiles

- Showing an egregious amount of immaturity and frivolity when making logistical decisions, such as the flight path of the Armada or how conquered planets are utilized

- Repeated abuses of their standing, trying to extra-judicially get rid of subjects over the pettiest reasons (if they had the formal authority to just vaporize Skoodge, Bob, OR Zim on the spot, they wouldn’t need to come up with convoluted and indirect methods that they only hope kill said targets)

- Upon Zim returning to them from his banishment: not sending him back to Foodcourtia and not refusing to humor his wishes to larp as an invader

- Oh yeah, also granting Zim at least some invader tech and allowing him to leave Conventia in what I assume is a ship he could have only stolen

- Still not dealing with Zim with extreme prejudice in a timely fashion after the events of Backseat Drivers from Beyond the stars, or investigating enough to find out and deal with prisoner 777

- HAVING WAITED THROUGH ALL OF THE ABOVE BEFORE SENDING FOR ZIM’S EXISTENCE EVALUATION

- Spending the bulk of their reign so far dicking around in space and gorging themselves. Seriously, Red showed us one act of proactive competence… and it was in order to fix a mess that they allowed Zim to get them into. Not to mention, the Resisty got away from that scrap after thoroughly humiliating their flagship.

Red, and by extension, Purple, are the almighty, Tallest threats to the entire Irken project of galactic conquest, as much as Zim would have loved all the credit in the universe. By what they’ve done, and who they are. He might be damaged, but them? There’s some defective moral character if I’ve ever seen.

#invader zim #iz #iz theory #iz headcanons #tallest red #tallest purple #iz tallest #iz the trial #defective Irkens #long post #scarlet talks about things #Tallest slander

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stevetonyweekly · 1 month

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SteveTony Weekly - March 10 - Week 10

I’m late, I’m sorry! Spent all of yesterday in a haze of senior pictures for my kid, and I’m still not sure what day it is--ANYWAY! Here is this week’s reads--enjoy and be sure to drop a comment/kudos for your author!

business affairs by meidui

It’s two years of wanting him the way he hasn’t wanted Emma since their honeymoon to the pearl of the Pacific, eighteen months of Steve slipping into his hotel suite on business trips away from the prying eyes of New York, and twelve months of staying late after the cleaning staff clock out because Steve will ride him behind his desk with the door unlocked.

my thoughts: i’m a sucker for infidelity fics, and this one is just--very soft and tony’s love of steve and conflict with Emma, and the way that he focuses on Steve’s emotions over Emma’s was everything to me.

Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club by sara_holmes

Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club. (Invitation and pending mental health evaluation required.)

"When Steve brings Bucky back to the tower for the first time, Clint’s first thought is that Tony Stark’s pride and joy is quickly becoming a less of a very tall and expensive ‘fuck you’ in the faces of investors who don’t believe in self-sustaining energy, and more of a superhero rehabilitation center."

Boyfriends, compromises and learning to like oneself.

my thoughts: this is more focused on winterhawk than stevetony but what I LOVED about the stevetony background ship is how it looks at Steve as human, and the weight of juggling Bucky’s recovery and his ongoing relationship with Tony. Everyone of them--Steve, Tony, Bucky and Clint--are flawed and this fic doesn’t flinch away from that, but rather examines it in a real real and lovely way. The scene where Steve is sobbing in Tony’s lap is heartbreaking and beautiful.

The Scars of Your Love by blue_jack

On the day Peggy moved out, Steve stood naked in front of the mirror and looked at all the ragged lines running over his body. He felt like someone had taken a knife to him, slicing every inch open, and he didn’t understand how there wasn’t any blood. He traced one particularly thick scar on his stomach, gritting his teeth against the pain, the memory of the first time he’d brought Peggy over to meet his family and all the teasing that had accompanied it burning through his mind. He couldn’t imagine her marks ever disappearing, and in that moment, he didn’t want them to, didn’t want to ever expose himself to that much hurt again. Once in a lifetime was enough.

my thoughts: oh this was so lovely. The idea of heartbreak causing physical scars was gorgeously executed.

Hot Stuff by sayah1112

Steve is an art major who can’t stop drawing his muse. The problem is his muse…is a stranger he met randomly on the street.

my thoughts: this Tony was so adorable and Steve was so besotted--perfection.

Draw Me by sayah1112

“Draw me like one of your French girls, Cap.”

Tony, Steve thought with cheeks burning a brilliant shade of red that was bright and deep enough to match the shimmering paint of Ironman’s armor, was a little shit.

Such a little shit.

Only Tony could turn a lost bet into a punishment for the winning party.

Steve had won, he thought furiously as his hand moved across the parchment paper, the blunt pads of his fingers dusted with charcoal. His fingers sketched out a form that he knew from memory. That devious curl of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, the way a lock of hair fell across his brow despite his best efforts to keep it tamed. The sharp line of his jaw, strong and willful, the arch of his brow as it lifted in mocking censure. Steve knew every curve and divot of that face from memory. Making this bet a really unnecessary one.

Or that one where Steve edges us all. A quick and dirty one-shot

my thoughts: I’m a sucker for artist Steve. It was delightful.

The Storm by sayah1112

Steve and Tony haven't seen eye to eye in a long time. Once inseparable, the two can no longer stand the sight of each other. But when he gets a call from Natasha telling him that there is something seriously wrong with his ex-lover, Tony rushes out into the wilds of Maine to meet her.

Only...there's a blizzard. And when he finally reaches the cabin, it's not Natasha there waiting for him. But Steve himself.

Crafty Russian.

my thoughts: I super love the drop everything for my ex trope and this is EVERYTHING.

with your own two hands by Thahire

There’s nothing quite like sitting still and letting Tony shave him, careful, precise strokes against his jaw and throat. Nothing quite like carefully washing Tony’s lovely hair while he sits and chatters away about his newest invention.

Steve and Tony take a bath together after a hard day’s work.

my thoughts: 1872 is such a depressing verse for the most part, and this one was very soft and gentle and I loved it.

The One That Got Away by lomku

Steve Rogers wants to go on a coffee date. Maria Hill is out for the enemy’s blood. Tony Stark is arguing with himself about what to do with a certain super-soldier’s advances.

Oh, and the Skrulls are invading. Again.

my thoughts: oh this one. This was a better of a mindfuck and I really loved that because so few of them are. Read it.

Leaves Me Wanting More by lomku

“You’re compromised,” Romanoff tells him one day. Steve doesn’t look up from where he’s swirling the spoon in his coffee cup.

No shit, he thinks. He’s been compromised since he first met Iron Man, all these months ago. He’s been nothing but compromised.

my thoughts: Villain Tony!!! I love villain Tony and Steve being so damn soft for him.

copacetic by starvels (dinosaur)

The man Tony spots across the market square looks just like Sheriff Rogers. When Tony catches up to the man, he moves just like Sheriff Rogers, touches Tony just like Sheriff Rogers, gets spitting mad just like Sheriff Rogers.

The problem is, Sheriff Rogers was murdered 4 months ago.

my thoughts: the 1872 angst I mentioned? Here it is.

wolf like me by starvels (dinosaur)

It's been a busy few days for Steve Rogers: he's been thawed from the Arctic decades after being frozen, battled a villain or two, joined a superhero team called the Avengers, and now been invited to come live at their new base of operations.

There's just one little thing they forgot to mention, and Steve can smell it the second he gets inside the mansion: there's another werewolf who lives inside.

my thoughts: I really love the sense of desperation that starvels conveyed in this and in steve finding someone like himself. It was gorgeous.

Confessions by Neverever

Tony is perfectly okay with his crush on Steve. But then Peter tells him that Steve might be in love with Tony. That can't be right, Tony thinks and needs to find out the true answer.

my thoughts: the oblivious pining is everything. Perfect.

what a way to lose (all of you) by tinystark616

On the night that the Superhuman Registration Act becomes law, Steve shows up in Tony's penthouse.

my thoughts: love this angsty beautiful sad thing.

The Billionaire Hooker's Deceived Artist by tsukinofaerii

During Tony's senior year at MIT, his partying habit finally hit the edge of his parents' patience. When Howard and Maria cut him off from his usual sources of money, he decides to turn to less conventional ones.

my thoughts: This is a reread, but a favorite. Love the identity porn and just how soft both of them are.

#stevetony weekly #steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony #stony #iron man #captain america #stevetony fic #stony fic #fic rec

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thelioncourts · 10 months

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Be honest please. Do you think Louis and Lestat even love each other?

I believe, wholeheartedly, that Lestat and Louis and ridiculously, hopelessly, horribly, beautifully, selfishly, insanely, utterly in love with one another.

We are looking at two extremely damaged individuals; Louis, prone to mental health issues already, is in a complete religious and moral dilemma that is centered around the fact that he wholeheartedly believes his existence to be an abomination to the world. He believes his queerness is, he believes his vampiric nature is, he believes his general existence as LDPDL is, and, I think to a point even, he believes his blackness is as well as his "role" in his family's downfall, namely Paul's suicide, his mother's hatred of him, and his sister's distance from him. Meanwhile, Lestat is lonely; he is so lonely, has been his entire life really. We don't know exactly what timeframe the show will work with, but Lestat was repeatedly rejected and abused by his own family, leaving him with no one, he gets Nicki for a short amount of time before he himself is snatched away and abandoned by his vampire maker, all while losing Nicki and everyone else from the theatre. Apparently (based on the conversation Lestat and Louis have at the opera in ep. 2) Lestat has been alone for some time, decades at a time, and now that he has Louis, all of those fears of losing everything again creep up and bring out certain behaviors, behaviors made worse by his distance from humanity, veering him much more on the side of "monster."

And yet - and yet - despite all of that (and whatever I know I forgot), they are both brimming with love for one another. They both fall so hard and so fast from the moment they meet, and it's palpable how gone they are with one another. Issues arise, as they do, because of all of the things listed above; they don't have to be perfect to be together, but they both need to evaluate and reflect and heal before they can both fully come to understand their own self-worth in the face of this all-encompassing, overwhelming love they have for each other.

I know things look rough for Lestat and Louis right now, but when they find each other again, in a better time, it will be the most beautiful thing we've ever seen.

#amc iwtv #iwtv #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #interview with the vampire #loustat #queue.

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 6 days

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By: Lisa Selin Davis

Published: Apr 11, 2024

A long-awaited report out this week found that medical professionals in the UK who advocate for gender transition in children are misguided ideologues.

Written by British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, The Cass Review, which is nearly 400 pages and took more than four years to compile, comes to the following conclusions:

Thousands of vulnerable young people were given life-altering treatments with “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

“It has been suggested that hormone treatment reduces the elevated risk of death by suicide in this population, but the evidence found did not support this conclusion.”

“Social justice” ideology is driving medical decision-making, and “the toxicity of the debate” has created an environment “where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views.”

Activists insist the science on this matter is settled, but Cass’s tone recalls a stern British nanny calmly explaining to unruly children how to get their room in order. She shows us that everything about this issue is unsettled, and unsettling. For instance, she notes that “social transition”—when very young children assume other gender identities—is an “active intervention” that may set youths on a path to medical transition. And it may even make gender dysphoria worse.

The review, commissioned by England’s National Health Service, comes after more than a decade of whistleblowing by clinicians at the country’s Gender Identity Development Services, or GIDS, which was established in 1989 (but mostly off the radar for its first 20 years, because few children and families sought its services).

These whistleblowers detailed how kids were fast-tracked to medication while a culture of fear grew around raising any concerns, even as demand for youth gender medicine exploded. Eventually, the NHS decommissioned GIDS and hired the neutral, no-nonsense Cass to detail what went wrong and what to do right moving forward.

Her report made the further damning conclusions:

Clinicians “are unable to reliably predict which children/young people will transition successfully and which might regret or detransition at a later date.”

A disproportionate number of patients were “birth registered females presenting in adolescence. . . . a different cohort from that looked at by earlier studies.”

Many parents feared their children had been medicalized by professionals who didn’t take other difficulties into account, “such as loss of a parent, traumatic illness, diagnosis of neurodiversity, and isolation or bullying in school.”

There is a lack of strong evidence to show that puberty blockers “may improve gender dysphoria or overall mental health.”

The majority of gender-dysphoric patients in early studies found that their symptoms desisted during puberty, with most coming out as gay or bisexual later.

Cass notes that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.” She supports expanding the treatment to regional, holistic centers, essentially ending the specialist gender clinic model. That treatment should be based on unbiased psychological care, and robust and consistent evaluation tools must be developed so reliable evidence can finally be gathered.

This final report—and an interim one Cass issued in 2022—echoes what a number of Western nations, such as Finland and Sweden, have found when they reviewed their own youth gender services. It also underscores what we see in the United States: poor quality research, an unstudied population, and detransitioners traumatized by the treatment they received.

Today, red states are banning the medicalization of gender dysphoric youth, while some blue states have declared themselves medical sanctuaries for minors seeking transition. Medical associations—from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the American Psychological Association—continue to support the “affirmative” model criticized by Cass in her report.

In her review, Cass directly addresses the 9,000 young people who have moved through gender treatments via the NHS, stating bluntly: research “has let us all down, most importantly you.”

The U.S. needs to form a truly bipartisan commission that looks at the evidence regarding youth gender medicine. As things stand now, we will continue to be stuck in a perpetual culture war, with parents and distressed kids paying the price.

#Lisa Selin Davis #Cass review #Cass report #medical scandal #medical corruption #medical malpractice #gender affirming care #gender affirming healthcare #gender affirmation #detrans #detransition #Hilary Cass #Dr. Hilary Cass #gender ideology #gender identity ideology #queer theory #intersectional feminism #religion is a mental illness

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tarragonblack1235813213455 · 5 months

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THE TREE OF NATURAL SCIENCE

LIFE SCIENCE -> Any science concerned with the study of living organisms

THE BRANCHES OF LIFE SCIENCE:

BIOLOGY

This branch of life science will study living organisms, and it will be divided into many specialized branches that cover their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behavior, origin, and distribution.

THE BRANCHES OF BIOLOGY:

CONSERVATION

This branch of biology will study environmental conservation and biodiversity on Earth.

■Wildlife Management is a branch of conservation that will specialize in the concern for the management process influencing the interaction between wildlife, its habitat, and people in order to achieve the pre-defined impact.

ECOLOGY

This branch of biology will study how organisms interact with the environment around them.

■Autecology is a branch of ecology that will specialize in studying a specific organism of a species.

■Synecology is a branch of ecology that will specialize in studying an ecosystem.

EVOLUTION

This branch of biology will study any evolutionary process with its regard to diversification and adaptation over many years.

GENETICS

This branch of biology will study genes, genetic variation, and heredity.

MARINE BIOLOGY

This branch of biology will study marine organisms.

■Ichthyology is a branch of marine biology that will specialize in studying fish.

MEDICINE

This branch of biology will study managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of an injury or disease, and promoting the health of a patient through such mentioned practice.

■Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that will devote itself to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions.

□Addiction psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will focus on the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of people who have one or more disorders related to addiction.

□Forsenic psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will be applied in a legal context involving any civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative issues.

□Neuropsychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will examine both organic and psychological aspects as a cause for illness.

□Occupational psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will use the extension of psychiatric knowledge and skill to the day-to-day functioning of individuals in the workplace and their organizations, with the goal of helping both function better.

□Geriatric psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will center itself on prevention, evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of mental and emotional disorders in the elderly.

□Child psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will be concerned with the study and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders of childhood.

□Adolescent psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that will be interested in the diagnosis and the treatment of disorders of thinking, feeling, and/or behavior affecting children, adolescents, and their families.

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

This branch of biology will study the chemical structure and any biological process of a molecule.

PHYSIOLOGY

This branch of biology will study how the human body functions.

BOTANY

This branch of biology will study plants.

■Mycology is a branch of botany that will focus on the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, physiology, and any ecological role.

ZOOLOGY

This branch of biology will study the entire animal kingdom.

■Anthrozoology is a branch of zoology that will study the interaction between any human and another animal.

■Arachnology is a branch of zoology that will handle the study of spiders and any related species known as arachnids.

■Cetology is a branch of zoology that will be interested in the study of marine mammals.

■Entomology is a branch of zoology that will focus on the study of insects.

1. COLEOPTEROLOGY is the sub-branch of entomology that will concern itself with the study of the beetle.

2. DIPTEROLOGY is the sub-branch of entomology that will study all types of flies.

3. ISOPTEROLOGY is the sub-branch of entomology concerned with the study of the termite.

MICROBIOLOGY

This branch of biology will study any microorganism.

CHEMISTRY ->

The study of the identification of the substances that which matter is comprised; the investigation of their properties and the methods in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances.

THE BRANCHES OF CHEMISTRY:

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry that's concerned with the study of an organic substance and compound.

INORGANIC CHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry that will examine the properties and behavior of inorganic compounds, which would include any metal, mineral, and organometallic compound.

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry concentrated on the application of technique and theory of physics to the study of the chemical system.

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry interested in obtaining, processing, and communicating information about the composition and structure of matter.

STEREOCHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry illustrating the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms and molecules and its effect on the chemical reaction.

BIOCHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry that will evaluate the chemical and physicochemical processes and substances that occur within the living organism.

GEOCHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry that will study the chemical composition of the earth and its rocks and minerals.

FORENSIC CHEMISTRY

The branch of chemistry that will use the application of chemistry to help law enforcement catch their criminal.

PHYSICS ->

The study of the structure of matter and how the fundamental constituents of the universe interact.

THE BRANCHES OF PHYSICS:

OPTICS

The branch of physics that will study the sense of sight and the behavior of light, or the properties of transmission and deflection of other forms of radiation.

ELECTROMAGNETISM

The branch of physics that will investigate the interaction of electric currents or fields and magnetic fields.

RELATIVITY

The branch of physics that will examine special relativity and general relativity. For example, special relativity will apply to all physical phenomena in the absence of gravity, but general relativity will explain the law of gravitation and its relation to any force of nature.

THERMODYNAMICS

The branch of physics that will illustrate the energy and work of a system.

ACOUSTICS

The branch of physics that will vocalize the study of sound for us to hear it.

QUANTUM PHYSICS

The branch of physics that will focus on the study of matter and energy at the most fundamental level.

MECHANICS

The branch of physics that will examine the relationship between force, matter, and motion among a physical object. To define this, this force, when applied to an object, will result in the displacement or change of an object's position relative to its environment.

EARTH SCIENCE ->

See previous post regarding this topic.

#natural science #life science #biology #conservation

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a-better-life-treatment · 2 years

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Logo - A Better Life Treatment Centers

Phone- 800-683-7745

Working Hrs- 9am-9pm (Mon-Fri) | 9am-3pm (Sat) | Closed on Sun & all major holidays

Mail- [email protected]

#DUI Counseling ASAM Level 1 #DUI Evaluation #Individual Counseling and Therapy #LGBTQ Relationship counseling #SAP Evaluation #Addiction Recovery Center #Intensive Outpatient Program #Outpatient Drug Rehab #Immigration Assessment #Mental Health Assessment #Alcohol and Drug Evaluation

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eternal-echoes · 7 months

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According to the suit, Hein began experiencing mental health problems in 2015 when the then 13-year-old’s parents were getting a divorce and she was forced to split her time between two households. She began to struggle in school and suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, the suit claims. Hein soon lost her appetite, started self-harming, and talked about committing suicide. ... Because of what she read online, the suit claims, Hein thought that having her breasts removed might help her mental state and met with the doctors at the clinic — who, the suit says, made a “snap” diagnosis of gender identity disorder after just 55 minutes into her initial session in July 2017. This “fails to meet the standard of care for the proper evaluation of gender identity disorder,” the suit argues, saying the quickness of the diagnosis created a “feedback system that manipulates patients like Luka to [undergo] deeper and more damaging levels of transgender medical intervention.” ... It also argues that the doctors should have noticed there were several red flags about Hein’s gender dysphoria claims, including her past mental health hospitalizations, her online encounter with an older man, and the family pressures she was facing. “This litany of psycho-social factors should have caused a reasonably prudent plastic surgeon to not perform a double mastectomy on such a troubled teenage patient,” the suit argues. Instead, it says, Dr. Johnson told Hein’s parents she would likely commit suicide if she did not have the procedure — even though she had not had suicidal ideation in nearly a year before the surgery. “Doctors should not behave to vulnerable children or families in this manner, period,” attorney Harmeet Dhillon, from the Center for American Liberty, told the Daily Mail.

Source

#transgenderism #transgender ideology #lgbt #Luka Hein #gender ideology #mtf

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copperbadge · 1 year

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I hope these questions aren’t offensive, you can just delete this ask if they are… Did it help you, mentally speaking, to be officially diagnosed as ADHD? Like, is it easier to know for a fact you’re neurodivergent and not just,,, weird? I’m pretty sure I’m autistic, and only undiagnosed because I’m a girl and I test well (my brother is autistic and has the same tendencies and reactions I do, but he got dx’d at 5), but on the other hand, what if I’m wrong? And I’m also a broke college student, so I’m kinda waffling on whether or not to actually pursue a doctor’s opinion, but I thought I’d ask your advice first, since you’re both a complete stranger and have gone through something similar

Anon, you sent this in SEPTEMBER, my apologies, it got pushed down a bit in my askbox.

The thing is...okay I'll talk about the psychological impact in a minute, but I also feel like it's the least relevant aspect, for me. Whatever a diagnosis did for my sense of self, what it also did was give me a document that impacts everything else in my life.

With a diagnosis I have access to medication that materially improves my condition (which is less the case with autism than with ADHD, admittedly). I have access, should I want it, to accommodations for my disability; those are imperfectly applied, you often have to fight hard to actually get them implemented, but especially as a student you would be given access to things like longer time periods for tests, study aids like audio recordings of your required reading, extra tutoring, pre-registration access to classes, etc. based on need.

This bleeds over into the mental health aspect a little, but I am also more confident in my research on ADHD because I have a medical doctor's opinion that yes I do indeed have it (and evidence of that from the efficacy of the medication).

In terms of whether it helped me mentally/emotionally...research is ongoing, I suppose. It didn't emotionally devastate me the way it did my mother, when she was diagnosed late with learning disabilities, but she came from a different generation and didn't grow up with a sibling who was diagnosed young, so she had different issues than I do. There is some bitterness about my late diagnosis, but that's situational, and I'm old enough to know how to work through/past it. I suppose it gives me more confidence in asking for informal accommodations -- recently at a party I asked someone if we could move rooms because I couldn't process what they were saying over the two conversations happening behind me -- but I was already pretty good at that. I'm having to re-examine some basic beliefs I held about who I am, but that's not a bad thing, just unpleasant to be in the middle of.

So now to the heart of it: "What if I'm wrong?"

First, almost nobody who self-diagnoses is whole-cloth wrong when it comes to neurodivergence. They might have the wrong diagnosis, or might not fully understand what's going on, but when that "Oh, I'm different" light flicks on, it's usually for a reason.

Second, okay, what if you are wrong? It's okay if you're just weird. You won't be punished for being Neurotypical-But-Weird any more than society was already punishing you, so you risk nothing in getting tested in that sense. You don't lose any ground, and you gain some self-knowledge. Might not be the self-knowledge you wanted, but it's not going to kill you.

True, there is the cost to consider, but as a student you should be able to go to the campus health center and at least get more advice on how testing would work, the costs etc. Your school's disability office, if they have one, may also have resources in that regard. It IS important to get adequately tested -- a lot of people miss a diagnosis because their evaluator's idea of testing was "asking combative questions and dismissing the answers" -- but more knowledge is always better than less.

The only downside to testing is that if you do get an official diagnosis, that can follow you for life -- earlier discussions I've had about this have brought up the fact that it can impact job placement, whether you're allowed to adopt or care for children, and other issues surrounding the way we punish people with disabilities for being disabled. A diagnosis of Autism can impact you legally. But I also think it's worth it to know and to have documentation that says you need accommodation.

I mean. This hasn't been the most fun process in the world, but I do think it's been one of the most important things I've done in my life. If you felt strongly about your self-diagnosis I'd say don't bother with the official, just live your life as if you had one, but it sounds like you have a lot of self-doubt -- so I'd work, as and how you're able, to lay that doubt to rest one way or another.

#sam has adhd

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offender42085 · 11 months

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Post 927

Jacob Allen Barber, Oklahoma inmate 2007100. born 1997, incarceration intake 01/06/2023 at age 25, Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Murder

In January 2023, a 25-year-old man convicted of killing his father was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Cleveland County District Judge Michael Tupper followed a jury’s recommendation and sentenced Jacob Allen Barber, 25, to life without the possibility of parole as punishment for killing Glenn Barber, 48.

Glenn Barber, his father, was the former youth pastor at First Moore Baptist Church.

Tupper called the case “a real tragedy.”

“The jury has clearly spoken in this case,” he said. “They had an option of doing something less in this case given the evidence they heard, and they were quite deliberate in this sentence.”

A jury in September 2022 found Barber guilty of stabbing his father to death in the summer of 2019. He was arrested near Sanger, Texas, and brought back to the Cleveland County Detention Center.

Court records indicated the father and son “argued daily and had a volatile relationship.”

“The suspect has been to several mental institutions but refuses to take his prescribed medication,” a detective wrote in a court affidavit.

After a 7-day trial, jurors voted unanimously to recommended a sentence of life without the possibility of parole and a $10,000 fine.

The trial was delayed several times due to the pandemic and for mental health evaluations. Much of the testimony during the trial centered on Barber’s mental state.

But lead prosecutor Abby Nathan argued Barber’s actions were premeditated.

“It is important to show the circumstances and the manner of this homicide,” she told jurors. “It is our duty and honor to the jury to do so.”

Two family members attended the hearing Friday but neither addressed the court.

The defendant also declined to speak.

“We know that there isn’t anything that anyone can do to change what happened, but we believe that the collaboration between the different agencies to bring justice for the victim, Glen Barber, honors Mr. Barber’s memory,” Nathan said in a statement following the hearing.

“During the trial there was one commonality among the testimonies of Mr. Barber’s family and friends. They all said he was an incredible person. We hope to honor and remember Mr. Glen Barber in that way, as the incredible person he was.”

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ghostybourbon · 8 months

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Something Else

Ch. 3 || Evaluation

Warnings: MDNI, Canon-typical violence(?), Swearing, Mention of a mental health condition (DID) .

A/N: Hey there! I hope you enjoy this chapter~ Unfortunately, no König interaction on this one, YET. Sorry it took a while <3

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“All settled, Katastrof?”

“Please, call me Split, Cap.”

She answered with a smirk, setting the knives down on a small table before turning to face him. Price wore a faint, amused smile as he regarded her. "Very well, Split," he acknowledged. "We're here to assess your skills today, and I've got a few evaluations lined up."

The marksman evaluation was first on the agenda. Split's cocky persona emerged seamlessly, the one they call "Azrael" , a master of precision and confidence. She walked to the shooting range with swagger in her step, her fingers caressing the stock of her sniper rifle.

Price watched as Split lined up her shot, the scope fixed on a distant target. Her breathing was slow and controlled, her finger squeezing the trigger with unwavering confidence. The gunshot echoed through the range, and the target's bullseye shattered into fragments.

Price couldn't help but smile at her skill. "Excellent shot, Split. Now, let's see how fast you can use that pistol of yours."

Split holstered the sniper rifle and withdrew her sidearm, a compact semi-automatic. Her hands were a blur as she drew and fired, hitting multiple targets in rapid succession. Each shot was dead center, demonstrating her proficiency in close-quarters combat.

Next came the knife-throwing evaluation. Split's hands moved with deadly grace as she hurled her knives with pinpoint accuracy. One after another, they embedded themselves into the wooden target, forming a tight cluster around the bullseye.

Impressed by her marksmanship, Price nodded. "Now, it's time for the hand-to-hand combat evaluation."

Price had arranged for Split to spar with Ghost, and as she approached Ghost, her demeanor shifted instantly. Her icy persona took over, and her presence became intimidating, like a frigid winter storm.

Ghost squared off against Split, his guard up. They circled each other, the room's tension palpable. Split moved with calculated precision, her movements fluid and methodical. She blocked Ghost's strikes effortlessly, countering with swift and precise blows. It was a dance of combat, each movement purposeful and lethal. As Price observed the intense spar between Split and Ghost, he couldn't help but mutter quietly, "Thana." Soap and Gaz exchanged curious glances, both intrigued and puzzled by Price's muttered word. Soap was the first to speak up, his brow furrowing. "What was that, Cap?"

Price's gaze remained fixed on the spar, but he took a moment to explain. "Thana means 'death' in Greek. It's the name she's given to that persona she's in right now. It's like watching a living embodiment of cold, calculated lethality."

Gaz nodded in understanding, his eyes still locked on the intense battle taking place before them. "I see what you mean, Captain. She's a force to be reckoned with when she taps into that side of herself."

Price watched as Split's Thana persona continued to dominate the sparring session, her movements precise and relentless. He couldn't help but feel a mixture of admiration and wariness for the deadly alter ego within their team.

Price, Soap, and Gaz watched in awe as Split's persona transformed her into a formidable adversary. Ghost, a skilled fighter in his own right, struggled to keep up with her. Despite his best efforts, Split landed a devastating blow to his midsection, sending him crashing to the mat.

Price called an end to the sparring match, and Ghost slowly rose, acknowledging Split's victory with a nod of respect. Her cold demeanor melted away, and she offered him a hand to help him up, reverting to a more neutral persona.

Price, Soap, and Gaz exchanged glances, clearly noticing the change in Split's behavior throughout the evaluations. She was a chameleon, seamlessly shifting between personas, each one a master of their specialty. It was a testament to her unique and invaluable skills, making her an asset to their team. The training area was slowly emptying out after Split's evaluation. Soap and Gaz, already familiar with her personas, approached their Lieutenant as she stood by the sparring mat, adjusting her gear. They exchanged a glance and then addressed her with friendly smiles.

"Hey there, Lieutenant," Soap chimed in with his characteristic Scottish lilt. "Care to introduce us to another one of your personas today?"

Split, now assuming the persona of "Loki" the infiltration expert, turned to them. Her voice maintained its usual tone but took on, what Soap calls the smartass talk, "Of course. Today, you may refer to me as Loki."

Gaz, with a playful grin, joined in the interaction. "Loki, huh? Sounds intriguing. What does Loki bring to the table, Lieutenant?"

Loki, maintaining her sophisticated demeanor, replied, "Loki similar to the Norse god, known for his wit and cunning. He appreciates clever solutions to challenges and enjoys pushing the boundaries of conventional thinking. I'd say this Loki is much more mischievous."

Soap chuckled in response, his Scottish accent carrying warmth. "Well, Lieutenant, it's always a pleasure to have such an esteemed god on our side." Gaz nodded in agreement.

The trio continued to chat, with Soap's jolly and playful personality complementing the sophisticated and articulate tone of Loki. The banter flowed smoothly, with the unique dynamic between the personas adding an intriguing layer to their interactions.

As Soap, Gaz, and Split engaged in conversation, Price, moved closer to Ghost, who had taken a moment to catch his breath, his voice steady and authoritative. "Ghost, you held your ground quite well against our new recruit." Ghost, still masked and enigmatic, responded to Price with a low, grunt. Deep inside, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something strangely familiar about Split, something that tugged at the edges of his memory. As he pondered this, he resolved to keep a watchful eye on their new teammate, determined to uncover the mystery that had sparked his curiosity. "Had to test her mettle, Captain. She's a tough one."

Price nodded, acknowledging the unspoken understanding between the two. "Indeed, Ghost. We've got a unique team here. Keep an eye on her transitions, but I have faith she'll be an asset." Ghost gave a subtle nod of agreement. "Of course, Captain. I'll keep an eye on things." They took one last look at Split, in awe and with respect. Price gives Ghost a pat on his back before walking off, Ghost nods in return before his eyes landed back on Split. "She's something else."

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A/N: Hi there! I hope you liked this <3 Any type of support is very much appreciated~

Stay frosty~

Bourbon, out.

#bourbonwrites #something else #cod mw ghost #kyle garrick #simon riley #john price #john soap mactavish #call of duty #cod modern warfare #mwii #141 x reader #task force 141 #tf 141 x reader #cod x reader

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