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lifewithchronicpain · 2 years

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Physicians are using excuses to intentionally dissuade people with disabilities from their practices, researchers say in a new study exposing just how pervasive discrimination against this population is in health care.

In focus groups, doctors described making strategic choices to turn away individuals with disabilities. They reported telling patients with disabilities that they would require specialized care and that “I am not the doctor for you.” In other cases, physicians said they simply indicate that “I am not taking new patients” or “I do not take your insurance.”

The findings come from a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs. It is based on focus groups conducted in late 2018 by researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School with 22 primary care and specialist doctors who were selected from a national database.

Many of the participants described accommodating people with disabilities as burdensome and some used outdated language like “mentally retarded.” Doctors frequently indicated that individuals with disabilities account for a small number of patients, making it hard to justify having accessible equipment. They also had little knowledge of their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with one suggesting that the law works “against physicians.”

The latest study builds on findings published earlier this year from a survey of 714 doctors that was done by some of the same researchers. Just 56% of physicians who participated in the survey said they welcome people with disabilities at their practices and only 41% indicated that they could provide such patients with a similar quality of care to others. Meanwhile, more than a third of doctors queried said they had little or no knowledge of their legal obligations under the ADA.

“Taken together, the focus groups and survey responses provide a substantive and deeply concerning picture of physicians’ attitudes and behaviors relating to care for people with disabilities,” the study authors note.

The findings suggest that bias continues to greatly influence health care more than 30 years after passage of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, including in medical services.

Tara Lagu, a professor of hospital medicine and medical social sciences at Northwestern University and an author of the study, described the doctors’ attitudes toward the ADA in particular as “upsetting and disappointing.”

“Our body of work suggests that physician bias and discriminatory attitudes may contribute to the health disparities that people with disabilities experience,” Lagu said. “We need to address the attitudes and behavior that perpetuate the unequal access experienced by our most vulnerable patients.”

#disability #ableism #americans with disabilities act #medical bias #article

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thedomesticanthropologist · 4 months

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Astarion never felt full. Vampires tend not to, unending blood thirst being a well known aspect of their condition, but he wasn't JUST hungry due to his condition

He was starved. Then, through "food", he was tortured.

You cannot die from being starved when you are undead. Starvation cannot kill a corpse. We see this in his year of isolation. We see this in the 7000 Spawn locked in the dungeons without a drop of blood fed to a single one of them since their capture.

What Astarion WAS fed, was putrid rats and bugs. Lets stsrt with the rats. Putrid.

"Putrid" refers to something that is decomposed, rotten, or emitting a foul and unpleasant odor. It is often used to describe decaying organic matter or anything that has undergone significant deterioration.

This would have taken effort to produce on Cazadors part. Rats are easy to come by, with his labyrinthine temple beneath an expansive estate. To gather a rat is an easy thing. He has many servants. To gather a putrid, rotten animal is another. This would require gathering the animals via trap, letting them rot for days, and then providing them to Astarion. They could have been caught in droves, or a few at a time and laid out in the kitchens or pantries or within the closets to be gathered as a treat-meets-torment for the Spawn, but it required FORETHOUGHT and TIME. Animals do not /rot/ in a day.

Then there is bugs. The type of bug you'd expect to find within the kennels of the mansion would be your fairly typical selection of Ants, Spiders, Beetles, Flies, Silverfish, Mosquitoes, Centipedes, Cockroaches.

Each of these has up to a few MICRO LITRES of blood, which would be accessed by biting them and sucking on their entire corpse until you've got what you can get out of them. the amount of blood in these small insects is typically not enough for a human to taste. Vampire Spawn? Hard to say.

The feeding of these creatures to Cazadors Spawn would be for the purpose of torture alone, in my opinion. There is no way that they would provide relief or sustenance in any meaningful way. The rats, depending on their freshness (which I would argue was sometimes more or less fresh depending on when it was caught) would be the primary source of "reward/hunger suppression", and the bugs something eaten due to sheer desperation.

Let's look at rats and decomp now!

The blood of a decomposing rat undergoes changes as part of the decomposition process. Initially, bacterial and enzymatic activity breaks down the blood, and its nutritional content diminishes. The precise timing can vary based on environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity.

As decomposition progresses, the breakdown of organic matter continues, and any remaining nutrients in the blood become less accessible and less nutritious. It's challenging to pinpoint an exact timeframe, as it depends on various factors influencing the decomposition rate.

This means that if served a particularly rotten rat, Astarion could very well face the reality of its poisoned, rotten blood providing him with NOTHING beyond disgusting flavor. Keeping in mind this is all based on guesswork about how Vampire Spawn can obtain what they need to sustain themselves based on nutrition alone, when there's evidence its also *life force* that they absorb from their victims, which also would not be available in a dead victim/animal

And then suddenly, after 200 years of this, 200 years of having to fuck the food he cannot have, pressing his face against flesh that throbs and POUNDS underneath his touch from him administering pleasure that sets his targets hearts to THUDDING, veins pushing litres of sustenance through them in ways he would be incredibly attuned to but unable to access,

After 200 years of rotten, unsustainable dead blood

He's free. Surrounded by living animals- that boar, which he drained dry in one night, for example. Total blood volume of a swine (couldn't get boar on Google, but it's comparative) is 60 ml/kg or 6.0 % of total body weight. The average weight being from 60kg-100kg depending on sex and size. So let's say he drained a 75kg boar.

That means the night he snuck off, he exanguinated (completely drained) an animal of roughly 9 POUNDS OF BLOOD

Impressive

Let's go to the Bear, now. Cave bears are actually extinct, so I'm gonna go with grizzly bear but feel free to do your own math. He took down between 130kg-270kg of bear depending on its sex. Let's say 200kg for ease. As roughly 6%-8% of any mammal is its blood, I'm gonna use the Boar 6% from before to average the blood Astarion would have drank.

Total in pounds: 26.455

HE DRANK

26 POUNDS OF BLOOD FROM ONE ANIMAL IN ONE NIGHT

All my research on these numbers is from Google and a calculator so forgive me if I'm off. But I'd say this is evidence of binging after starvation, as well as solid evidence that Vampires absorb blood differently than humans drinking fluids, so I'd HAVE to assume it evaporates within him or is consumed in its entirety and converted to energy magically cause there's NO way a body could absorb all of that and just "get drunk"

Anyways thanks for coming to my Ted Talk about vampires, Astarion, starvation, and blood volumes in your average mammal. 🫡

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion bg3 #cazador szarr #vampire spawn #vampires

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genderqueerdykes · 1 year

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Testosterone HRT Overview, Guide & Information for All People Seeking It

Hello, we're a genderqueer person who's been taking testosterone HRT since 2015. I've also worked in a pharmacy and we've seen a lot of the roadblocks that comes with people trying to start HRT. Nobody really explains how difficult it can be, even when you get your prescription. Because testosterone is a controlled substance in many places, it creates hurdles. There can be a lot going on, and some folks become very disheartened if their T isn't covered by insurance. i get that. We wanted to create a relatively easy to digest and succinct post detailing some common hurdles people have to face on the doctor/prescriber and insurance level, as well as after getting their hormones. *please note that a lot of this information is United States centric as that's where i live, i can't give information for a country i've never lived in, unfortunately.*

The estrogen HRT version of this post is here!

Doctors, Insurance & Getting Your Prescription

If your primary care provider is already familiar and comfortable with prescribing HRT, you can go through them, find an informed consent clinic, or seek an endocrinologist or gender affirming care specialist. Planned Parenthood is a good option for many people. If you don't have insurance, check to see if your area offers medicaid or other low income insurance plans, T can get pricey in some areas, especially for topical. if you can't access insurance please look into services like GoodRx that offer coupons and discounted rates for prescriptions.

Here is a list of informed consent clinics in the US for HRT.

Your provider will ask you some questions about your experience with gender, any dysphoria, why you want to seek medical transition, if you'd like to seek surgeries, assess your mental health, and then screen you for potential health problems or roadblocks. Your liver enzymes will be screened, as will your hormone levels, blood pressure, and some other things. Make sure your doctor knows to note that you are a transgender patient so that your blood tests are not discarded because your gender says "F" instead of "M" on the paperwork.

In some areas it is required to seek treatment with a therapist who specializes in transgender care to make sure this avenue is right for you. Not everywhere requires this step.

Make sure you talk to whoever is prescribing the testosterone to you about insurance, and if they are aware that testosterone is a controlled substance. A controlled substance is a substance that has been restricted by your country's government or governing medical organization and has to be monitored carefully. You need what's called a "prior authorization" from your doctor in order to get your insurance to give you your hormones in most states. Talk to your doctor and pharmacy about prior authorizations for your testosterone and syringes if you need them.

Currently, the only forms of testosterone available for masculinizing HRT are testosterone cypionate (injectable), topical gel, and patches. Topical forms are usually applied daily, injections can be done once or twice a week, or even more or less frequently if a person needs it. There is no pill option available for masculinizing HRT currently.

Do NOT become disheartened if you do not see the effects you want to see right away. It can take several years for the full effects of certain aspects of medical transition to show themselves. Stay patient, talk with your provider, talk to other trans people!

Stay patient, Stay positive!

HRT and Administering Testosterone

When you get a prescription, how things go will depend on if you get your doses administered at the clinic, or if you choose to do them at home. If you are not comfortable self administering, ask if they will at the clinic. many places offer this service.

if you choose to administer at home, if you are using injectable T, note that pharmacies may give you the wrong gauges of needles because they don't often give out needles for HRT. You need two different sizes- a thicker, longer needle for drawing from the vial, as testosterone cypionate is thick. You will generally be given large 18g needle for drawing and a small 22 or 23g needle for injecting. Many people have preferences for different gauges so ymmv. Depending on if you are injecting intramuscularly or subcutaneously the gauge of the needle with vary. Sanitize your injection site and your hands, never using the same needle tips twice for any reason. Never use needles that have touched another surface, and get a sharps container.

Make sure you are injecting in different spots every time you inject. you do not want to inject into the same patches of skin every time, as this can cause tissue damage, tissue death (necrosis), and severe scarring after long periods of time of having to heal but being interrupted over and over again. inject into slightly different spots every time to make sure your skin and muscle tissue can heal.

Here is a guide on safely injecting your own testosterone, including steps on how to prepare your skin for the injection, hold the vial while drawing, change needles, and more.

Another guide for hormone injections.

Make sure to check with your provider to see what type of injection you are meant to do, many do intramuscular injections, but many opt for subcutaneous (just below the skin) injections because they are less painful and require less frequent injections.

If you receive topical testosterone like androgel or other alcohol based testosterone gels, make sure you read the informational packet that comes with it to ensure you are administering it in the correct areas- your exact formulation will need to be applied in a certain area, if you do not have the guide or packet that came with it, please read this page to figure out where you need to apply it. if your topical T isn't working you may be applying it in the wrong place.

When applying topical T, make sure you clean the skin before putting it on, and do not shower or go swimming for 2 - 5 hours after application. make sure you cover the skin with some kind of clothing. You want to make sure it doesn't rub off on other people, as other people can absorb it as well by touching you. Do not ever have someone else apply topical testosterone for you, even if they are also trans, as this can mess with their levels in a bad way.

After starting T you may have to adjust your dose over time to achieve desired effects. if so, you will start on a starter dose and then you can move up to higher doses as your body adjusts. This process is called titration.

No matter HOW tempting it is, NEVER TAKE MORE T THAN YOU ARE PRESCRIBED! It is processed through your liver, which can completely wreck it if you take more than it can handle. Slow and steady wins the race with HRT. If you take too much T at once, your body can also aromatize it, meaning your body will convert it and encourage the production of further estradiol, which will provide unwanted effects. Do not increase your dose without your doctor's advice or knowledge, and do not go any faster than advised.

Effects of Testosterone HRT

Growth and thickening of facial and body hair begins 3 - 6 months after treatment starts and the full effect happens within 3 - 5 years.

Menstruation (periods) stop. This occurs around 2 - 6 months within starting treatment, and is one of the most desired effects.

Voice deepens. The vocal cords thicken, which can cause uncomfortable sensations in the throat for a time, such as a scratchy feeling, dryness, tightness, pressure, and a 'sore' throat that isn't sore in an illness related way. This begins 3 - 6 months after treatment starts, and the full effect happens in 1 - 2 years.

Body fat redistribution begins 3 - 6 months after treatment starts and the full effect happens within 3 - 5 years.

Growth or enlargement of Adam's apple.

Clitoris grows larger, and vaginal lining can thin and become drier. Some experience vaginal atrophy and/or painful levels of dryness, while some maintain a healthy level of vaginal fluids without problem. This begins 3 - 12 months after treatment starts, and the full effect is usually seen within 1 - 2 years, though some experience growth over a long period of time if their dose is low.

Change in body odor and increased sweating occurs within 1 - 3 months of starting treatment.

Muscle mass and strength increase, this will begin within 6 - 12 months and the full effect will be seen within 2 - 5 years.

Possible libido increase, though some report no changes or even the inverse.

Potential but not guaranteed balding or receding hairline, which is treatable, and not seen in everyone.

Potential increase in energy in general, some report an almost antidepressant like effect.

Possible increase in red blood cell production leading to high blood pressure, which is treatable via medications and donating red blood cells when appropriate and safe.

There is not really a guide book to masculinizing HRT and medical transition, most of the information there is is passed along between each of us. We will continue to edit this post as we think of more important information.

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balioc · 2 months

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Oh, boy! It's Education Theory o'Clock again!

...I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. At some point, when I'm less busy and tired, I should probably try to write them up. Natively, I'm one of the school-is-a-nightmare-prison people, like so many others in this little discourse-sphere -- but I'm married to a middle school teacher, so I regularly encounter both the good arguments from the other side and the facts on the ground, and those things have altered my perspective somewhat.

But I am, in fact, busy and tired. So for now I'll just content myself with saying:

School is an institution that serves many, many, many purposes at the same time. A lot of those purposes are load-bearingly important. (A couple of years ago, I wrote this about college, and...it's double-plus true for primary and secondary schools.) If you don't try to account for all of that stuff in your theory of What School Is and How School Works, you will generate incoherent garbage thoughts. If you have a New Concept for school entailing top-down design that is optimized for a single function (like "increasing test scores" or "causing kids to love learning" or whatever), you'd better have a plan for how you're going to do all the other important things that schools do. And even if you think that some of those things aren't actually important or necessary, you'd better have a plan for dealing with all the people who disagree. Because...

-----

...school, as it exists today, is an inherently political institution. Both in the "soft" sense that everyone has strong opinions about what it's supposed to do and how it's supposed to work, and in the "hard" sense that it is actually controlled by democratically-accountable governments. (This is double-plus true in the US, where it is controlled by local governments, and therefore doesn't even have the protective insulation of a massive bureaucracy.) Everything about the way schools work is a compromise brokered amongst ideologues and self-dealers. Everything about the way schools work involves a lot of decision-makers trying not to get yelled at by the yelliest people around. If you're looking for elegant purpose-driven top-down design, you won't find it. You could probably make a case that any elegant purpose-driven top-down design would be better than the thing we actually have, but getting there would require finding a way to remove the political element.

-----

Most importantly: public schools are (1) compulsory, (2) universal, and (3) for children. [People who are legally children, anyway, whether or not they are actual children in whatever sense matters to you.]

This means that they cannot let students leave, and they have to keep control of all the students that they aren't allowing to leave.

In the most literal not-a-judgment-but-a-fact sense, they are indeed prisons. They are coercively keeping people inside. They have to do that thing, as per their most fundamental mandate within the current system. The alternatives involve letting kids run around unsupervised, and/or failing to give some kids even the most cursory kind of education, and those things are absolute non-starters under present conditions.

All the normal institutions-for-adults operate on the principle of -- If you really don't want to be here, you can leave, and deal with whatever consequences there may be for leaving. This is not an option for schools, and that fact accounts for...everything.

Classroom structure is built around the necessity of keeping the most-hostile, least-engaged student in the class present and supervised, and then trying to prevent him from disrupting things for everyone else. Because the obvious solution that any other institution would use -- "just cut him loose, he doesn't want to be here and we don't want him here" -- isn't available.

(I once talked to my wife about the rationed bathroom access thing, which is one of the most flagrant nightmare-prison aspects of the school experience. Her response was, "If you let kids use the bathroom whenever they want, as much as they want, then you don't have mandatory universal education anymore. Some of them will never return to the classroom, because they don't want to be there." Which is...obviously true.)

So you have something that replicates many of the features of prison, because it has to accomplish the same basic tasks that prison accomplishes. Yay, Foucault.

#education

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ms-demeanor · 10 months

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Okay but also putting the panic aside part of what is going on here is that I'm feeling stressed because I'm feeling helpless; I could be cleaning right now but I am at work so it's just a thing that's sitting there hovering over me and filling me with anxiety so ignoring the specifics of my weird timing and odd mess situation, here's the "So You're a Disaster Guide to Preparing Your Home for Guests"

Here are the things you should be able to offer your overnight guests:

A clean and comfortable place to sleep with clean sheets, pillows, and blankets.

A clean and sanitary bathroom with towels (and, optionally, toiletries)

Depending on the space you've got, a comfortable place to spend time outside of the area they will be sleeping in (this may also be your primary socializing or relaxing space)

Access to clean dishes and a source for (at the very least) water (and possibly snacks/drinks/meals depending on the length of the stay and your relationship to your guests).

Here's a quick guide to providing those things in the shortest amount of time possible based on order of importance.

Make sure that you've got clean bedclothes and towels for your guest; if you do not have these things immediately at hand your first priority is doing a load of laundry to get clean towels, sheets, and blankets for your guest [and wash bath mats if necessary].

Tidy the area they will be sleeping in by clearing away clutter. Your goal is to achieve an unobstructed sleeping surface (so if they're sleeping on a fold-out couch or a futon in a shared space make sure that it will require minimal effort to turn into a bed when they are ready to sleep; if they are sleeping on an air mattress move any furniture blocking the mattress out of the way and inflate the mattress then make the bed; if they are in a guest room make sure that anything stored on or near the bed is cleared away then make up the bed). Provide a space for your guest to put any travel bags and provide a place near their sleeping area for them to put their phone/medications/glass of water/etc. that they may need in the night. [This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time. If you have lots of time, completely sweep or vacuum the floor of your guest's space, dust the room, and ensure that there is a power strip or phone charger handy for your guest]

Make sure the bathroom they will be using is clean and functional (it's actually a tossup for me about whether you clean the bathroom or the sleeping area first; I'm less willing to clean a bathroom while guests are present than a sleeping area so I'd say bathroom first honestly). My recommendation for this is to do things in the following order (make sure the space is well ventilated): - Spray a cleaning solution in the tub or shower, focusing on any problem areas. - Let that sit while you spray the same cleaning solution in the sink. - Let that sit while you use a brush and your preferred toilet cleaning solution to scrub the toilet bowl. - Use a brush or sponge to scrub the shower/tub then rinse the shower/tub. - Use a brush or sponge to scrub the sink then rinse the sink. - Use a cloth with a cleaning solution or a cleaning wipe to clean the exterior of the toilet - Use a cloth to wipe down any surfaces like the countertop - Place fresh hand towels in the bathroom - Sweep and spot-mop the floor then empty the trashcan and spot clean the mirror tada clean bathroom [This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time; if you have lots of time do a full mop of the bathroom floor, clean the mirror, and dust any surfaces that need it]

Clean the kitchen in the following order: - Put away any clean dishes - Clear countertops of clutter - Wash any dirty dishes or load them into the dishwasher so that the sink is clear and rinse the sink - Use a cloth with a cleaning solution or cleaning wipes to wipe down countertops, dust appliances, and do a quick wipe-down of the range. - Place fresh hand towels in the kitchen - Sweep the floor and empty the trash [This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time, if you have lots of time mop the floor, do a deep clean of countertops, clean and sanitize the sink, check whether your refrigerator needs to be cleared of aging food or have any spills cleaned up, clean the kitchen range, and clean the oven door]

Prepare a living room for your guests in the following order: - Make sure there are clear seats available for at least every adult who will be in the household; pick up and put away crafts, toys, or projects that may be in the way of visitors. - Clear the surfaces of tables next to any seating options so that a seated person could easily set down a drink; consider placing coasters on each of these surfaces so they are handy if someone wants one. - Sweep or vacuum the floor as needed. [This is where you stop and move on unless you have lots of time; if you have lots of time consider vacuuming the creases of furniture, dusting shelves and surfaces in the room, and possibly cleaning the windows.]

My approach to this is basically "if you were picking someone up from the airport at midnight and bringing them back to your home, would they be able to get ready for bed and comfortably go to sleep right away?" which is why things are prioritized the way they are. Things would be different if I were cleaning in preparation for a party or if I were having people over for dinner, this is just the 'clean a house after you get off work and before you get in the car to go to LAX' list.

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niqhtlord01 · 19 days

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Humans are weird: Poop Crystals

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The pace in which human technology progressed over the millennia was rather standard for a class 4 species. Even when accounting the periods of scientific degradation which resulted from natural plagues or religious persecution; it was expected that humans would not achieve advanced space travel until another 2-3 thousand years had passed.

Scientifically speaking human scientists were well more advanced than the society they lived in, but due to the technological limitations of the human race they were held back from implementing their designs. A primary limitation was the lack of a sufficiently powerful power source. They did have many different forms of power generators ranging from solar to nuclear, but to power larger machines often required equally large energy sources. To power their ships alone around a third of their vessels were dedicated to the power cores.

With these restrictions in place travel between stars for humans often relied on decade long journeys in cryo sleep; which ironically required even more power generators to maintain. Their large size made them easy targets for natural disasters such as space debris or prowling space pirates seeking an easy profit margin at the slave markets. These dangers became a standard for human travel until the Terran civilization encountered the planet Nolla 987 and the species that called it home.

During a long duration colonization trip the human ship “Midas” was struck by the trail debris of a rogue comet and knocked off course. The robotic caretakers tried their best to maintain the course, but with the damage done to the ship their primary programming to maintain the lives of the crew kicked in and diverted the ship to the nearest habitable planet for debarkation. Nolla 987 was the closest planet with a stable atmosphere. Originally charted several years earlier but deemed unsuitable for colonization or industrial expansion, it was not ear marked for either and left alone; until the Midas incident that is.

The landing was not a smooth one. Several engines had been damaged and multiple hull breaches resulted in portions of the ship being shredded away during the entry process. It would be safer to say that the Midas crash landed during the final stretch of the maneuver, but with a 73% survival rate of the crew a rather acceptable crash landing.

One by one the crew and colonists were unfrozen to find the ship a burning wreck and only a handful of robotic assistants still functioning. The industrial printing machines were relatively undamaged but without the ships power core they could not be used to print components or tools needed to make the necessary repairs. The crew was then forced to ration its remaining power supply and divided into two teams. The first team would comb through the wreckage and salvage what they could of the wreck while also building shelter. The second group would scout the surrounding area for anything of use and then report back.

It did not take long for the second team to stumble upon a nest of the dominant species of the planet. An insectoid called the “Sectar” which ranged from the size of a house cat to as large as a two story building. These insects digested their food and excreted the waste into a dense crystalian substance that they then used to build massive hive like complexes.

The occupants of the hive had been driven from the hive by the crash landing of the Midas leaving it almost completely empty save for a few eggs and new hatchlings who were not strong enough to flee on their own. Several of the second team members had been scanning the crystal structures while interacting with the newborn Sectar’s. To quote a journal entry of one of them, “They were like insect golden retrievers. Extremely derpy with at least four times as many sets of eyes. They followed us around on their legs like we were their mothers and clung to our legs when we began to return to our ship for the night.”

At least one of the second team was confirmed to have brought a hatchling back to their camp. There was a debate amongst the survivors on if they should try and eat it, but the notion was quickly squashed as they still had food reserves and no one was brave enough to see how the alien’s bio matter would react inside the human digestive system.

The same human who had brought the hatchling back offered it a portion of food which it eagerly ate. Not long after the hatchling excreted a hardened crystal roughly the size of a thimble. When the human made to pick up the seemingly beautiful gem they recoiled as an electrical discharge shocked their hand. This immediately drew the attention of the rest of the crew who began carefully examining the crystal substance. After some rather rough jury-rigging, the crystal was wired into one of the printer machines and to the surprise of everyone powered the machine. The crew quickly learned that the older Sectar’s would produce larger crystal excrements but were extremely hostile and territorial. Smaller Sectar’s were deemed more desirable for the time being as they were easier to train and harvest crystals from.

Within a matter of days the crew had not only collected enough crystals to power all of their machines and send out a distress signal, but also used the new found crystal power to create a full settlement on the planet complete with water filtration, crop fields, and a sizeable wall to keep out the native wildlife.

It would not be for another thirty years before a passing human shipped picked up their distress signal and went to investigate the planet. When they arrived on Nolla 987 they were astonished to find a fully functioning colony complete with limited orbital facilities. Nearly every human settler and their descendants had a Sectar in their household that they would take care of and feed and in exchange use their crystal excrement to power nearly everything they needed to live.

From there it was only a matter of time before the entirety of human space was aware of the events of Nolla 987 and the Sectar species. Within the decade the colony on Nolla 987 became the capital for a fully settled world with dozens of cities and communities. The Sectar species were transported throughout human space and began being implemented in all aspects of society.

There was initial resistance to the new power source by existing power blocks which realized Sectar power would be far more efficient than nuclear powered engines, but unlike other power sources they had squashed in development the Sectar power option had thirty years of trial and error to back it up with research as well as a fully functioning model with the planet of Nolla 987.

Sectar’s became a common sight on every human planet and were treated like common pets. It was even studied that when introduced to different food sources the energy output of crystal excrement could be increased resulting in certain food industries booming overnight. The composition of spices, cooking technique, and flavoring became an entirely new and highly prestigious academic field with the most successful of its practitioners being highly sought after by companies.

The technological capabilities of humanity experienced a massive surge in advancement within fifty years to the point humans no longer needed cryo ships to travel between stars. Those who had been studying humanity found themselves now being introduced to them as humans winded up on their doorstep with a Sectar on their shoulder and a perverse obsession with collecting its bodily waste.

#humans are insane #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #scifi #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01 #funny

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probablyasocialecologist · 19 days

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The Cass Report is fatally flawed in its methodology, and as a result, its recommendations are harmful. Speaking on behalf of TransActual, Keyne Walker said: “It undermines the legal competence of both children and adults to access medical treatment and dismisses almost all existing clinical evidence on trans people’s healthcare by applying impossible evidence standards which, if applied to other medicines would invalidate more than three quarters of the existing treatments used in paediatric care which, like puberty blockers, are currently being prescribed off-label.” The report’s primary conclusions rest on excluding 98% of the relevant evidence on the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers and hormones for lack of blinding and controls. What this means is that they require studies in which some patients are given the treatment, and others are unknowingly given placebos. This is not only a clear breach of medical ethics and monstrous suggestion, but also impossible due to the obviousness of the impacts of puberty blockers and hormones. The report also strays far beyond its scope and competence in recommending a review of adult services and in suggesting that young people ought to stay under the care of children and young people’s services until the age of 25. The latter is based on highly questionable understandings of brain development which have been repeatedly debunked as an oversimplification of the constant changes in human neurology over the course of our lives. This recommendation, especially in a context of an already broken system of care for both adults and children, has the potential to have a significant negative impact on the lives and wellbeing of trans people in the UK. Underpinning this report is the idea that being trans is an undesirable outcome rather than a natural facet of human diversity. This is clear not only from the recommendations but also from the exclusion of trans researchers from the design of the review process and the links individual members of the research team have to anti-trans groups, which the Cass team were warned about. Download the full briefing

#lgbt #transgender #uk politics #cass review

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theculturedmarxist · 6 months

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I think a big part of what is driving libs to double down on Biden is the fact that they really don't have any other (electoral) choice. In the US, the entire electoral process is run by the two big parties, which the government (that they just so happen to run) has decided are in fact private clubs and can do whatever they want and more or less run the election process however they want.

Liberals as a group are comprised mostly of two cohorts: the comfortable and the comfortable-aspirant. The first are made up of the professional classes which have the wealth, credentials, and connections to basically be okay except in the most dire of circumstances. The other are the otherwise comfortable or comfortable adjacent which are threatened by the policies of GOP and rely on the largess of the Democrats to get by, hopefully long enough for them to escape into the comfortable category.

Both of these constituencies want Biden (or whatever creature the DNC dredges up) to win because Democrat control is essential to their comfort, which is their primary concern. The Comfortable would just as soon vote Republican if it served the same purpose. The Comfortable-Adjacent are usually in more of a client position and more reliant on a Dem being in control for their comfort, real or perceived.

Stopping genocide, fighting fascism, protecting minorities, whatever, none of these are actual concerns of these groups, though they do make useful moral bludgeons. Their central concern is their own comfort, and because of that they are devoted to the status quo which provides it. Any alternative requires a greater or lesser degree of discomfort, to put it mildly. There's the discomfort of confronting their own complicity in the whole rotten system for so long. There's the discomfort in having to cut ties with friends, family, colleagues based on having values other than their own well being. There's the discomfort of having to do the actual work of building alternatives to the current political system. There's the discomfort of that system reacting oppressively to you trying to subvert it.

So for the liberal, there really isn't any actual alternative to Joe Biden. They're either already in or trying to achieve access to the best of all possible worlds, a world which they have no interest at all in trying to upset via anything except the most painstaking of incremental changes, much less destroying with something as uncomfortable as revolution.

#liberals #us politics #joe biden

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globledream · 2 years

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babyhatesreality · 10 months

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what if someone else tries to discipline stucky's babygirl?🥹🥹 like, some random dude who considers himself a daddy got mad for something she did?? i think daddy stucky would absoluty go ✨bersek✨

Oh....*Berserk* is putting it mildly....

But let's back up a bit first. You've been with Steve and Bucky long enough that you're truly and deeply one of the family. And with that, it means that you and your friends have gotten into plenty of trouble before at each other's places. You've been put in time outs by several of your extended family members- mostly Tony, Pepper, Natasha, and Bruce. There's a rule in the tower that if you're little and misbehaving while in their care, anyone in the family is allowed to give a time out. Of course it means you're in big trouble when your primary caregivers find out, so you don't ever MEAN to get into mischief. It just ...sometimes ...happens! Right?? :D

But there was this one time that SHIELD was introducing a group of new operatives. They were the ones who would be running some of the simpler operations that didn't require super strength, stealth, or swag. But they would have access to and contact with the Avengers, and so were brought into the Tower for training.

There was this one new recruit named Kenneth. He was tall, had a firm jaw, strong enough to handle pretty much anything- and had an extremely overblown sense of his own worth. He had decided (without asking anyone or confirming anything) that he was on his way to becoming the first civilian Avenger simply because...he was that awesome. Which he was not, but that comes later.

Since this new operatives team would also be responsible for looking out for low level threats to the Avengers themselves, they were briefed on all the Littles and Caregivers in the tower. So if, God forbid, something happened, they knew the chain of command to help take care of the Littles in a crisis situation- mostly getting the Littles to the correct Avenger.

Welp, as with most other things, Kenneth didn't feel these rules applied to him either. He knew that if he were ever to encounter one of you "littles" (as he put it, complete with his own stupid air quotes and a dumb look on his face), he'd make sure that he'd show his authority, and that would prove he could be an Avenger. *Sidenote-it's funny how these dude-bros' egos work, isn't it?*

One day Daddy and Papa had brought you upstairs with them, as had the rest of the caregivers with their own littles. It was an easy half day, and barring anything suddenly popping up, there was just regular paperwork and classified debriefings to meet about- a safe day for you all to be up there. The other littles were playing a game of tag in the big rec room, but you were feeling a little cranky from a rough night and just wanted to be on your daddies' laps. You would hop down off Bucky's lap ten minutes into a meeting to climb onto Steve's, and then back again ten minutes later. Hey, you were happy, they were happy, it was all good.

You politely asked if you could go get a drink of water, and after insisting that you could be a big girl by yourself, Bucky let you go down the hall to the kitchen area. And that's where you ran into Kenneth, who was sneaking up to the meeting, trying to make up some excuse as to why he needed to be in this Avengers-only debriefing (he was pretty sure they weren't even going to question his right to be there, but it was always good to have a plan B, right?).

He immediately identified you, and stopped you in the hallway by grabbing you by the shoulder (wrong move #1). "And where do you think you're going, little girl?" he asked you snidely (wrong move #2). You immediately stepped back, trying to get yourself out of his grip. You didn't know this guy, and you weren't supposed to talk to strangers. And no one was allowed to touch you without your permission. Daddy and Papa taught you well.

But Kenneth took that as defiance before you even opened your mouth, tightening his grip on your arm (wrong move #3...you get the idea). "You are not supposed to be wandering the halls by yourself, are you?" he sneered. "Some caregivers, just letting a helpless little girl wander around unguarded." He leaned into your face. "Someone could get hurt."

That scared you, as it sounded very threatening, so you shook your arm again, trying to pull away. "Please let go," you said through gritted teeth, trying to be polite (he was in the Tower after all, and no one got in without SHIELD's permission), but really wanting to kick this guy in his private area. Instead, Kenneth yanked your arm so hard that you cried out, and started dragging you towards the meeting room. He shoved you down onto your bottom right outside the doorway, then pointed a finger at you.

"You stay right there, little missy, and don't even think about moving. You've been very bad and you're in big trouble," he scolded, unwarranted. You just glared at him but didn't move. He didn't even bother knocking on the door to the meeting room- he just barged in.

"Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes? I've got something that you both need to see, immediately," he said arrogantly.

You heard the shuffle and scramble of your daddies moving quickly, and you knew they were panicking about you. But the second they got out of the doorway and saw you cowering on the floor with a glower on your face, they both stopped, confused.

"Baby, are you okay?" Bucky asked frantically, dropping to his knees and reaching out to you. You threw yourself into his arms, relieved.

"What happened? Why was she sitting on the floor?" Steve asked as he got down next to you and Bucky, brushing your hair away from your face and scanning you as hard as he could, looking for injuries.

"She was wandering around the halls, unsupervised," Kenneth replied lightly, the arrogance dripping off of him. "Then she was defiant and disobedient when I tried to help her."

" 'Tried to help her'?" Steve repeated, slowly standing up to face Kenneth. Anyone with half a brain could hear the steel in his voice and see the rage in his posture. Even Kenneth turned a bit pale at the fury he'd unknowingly invoked. "What...exactly...did she need help with?"

"Well, er...um..she wasn't supposed to be in the hallways-"

"She had permission to be there," Steve interrupted him. The aura of controlled anger about to snap that was radiating off your Papa was something to behold- you'd never seen him like this before and it was AWESOME. "She was getting a drink from the kitchen." He turned to you, smiling softly, but his vibranium-infused posture didn't change one bit. "Lovebug, were you able to get your drink?"

"No, Papa," you said simply.

"I see," he said, turning back to Kenneth as his gaze turned back to razor blades. "So you kept my baby from getting a drink when she's thirsty, you stopped her without permission and tried to get her to disobey OUR directives, and you barged into a classified meeting." He pinned the now completely pale Kenneth to the wall with only his clear cut steel blue gaze. "Anything else, baby girl?" he asked you without turning his head.

"He touched me," you added, then turned your gaze to Bucky, who was still holding you. "And it hurt my arm."

Bucky set you down gently, then stood up and faced Kenneth.

Kenneth was only able to remember three things from that moment until he woke up in the hospital. The first being the insanely loud thundering of crumbling concrete mixed with a strange whooshing sound that he couldn't immediately identify. There was also a cracking and a crunching that seemed to be coming from inside of him, but that didn't make any sense either...

The second thing was the fact that he was no longer in the hallway- he seemed to have somehow transported to another area that he was pretty sure was about three rooms away from where he'd just been standing.

The third thing was the sudden and overwhelming pain screaming all over his body. He had just enough time to realize that the Winter Soldier had thrown him through 3 solid walls before he blacked out.

When he woke up in the hospital, among the machines and IVs, he found a small cardboard box with all his desk items in it.

#there was also a letter from Fury #that made him vomit #it was so bad #daddy!bucky #daddy!bucky x little!reader #daddy bucky #daddy bucky x little reader #daddy!steve #daddy!steve x little!reader #daddy steve #daddy steve x little reader #daddy!steve rogers #daddy!steve rogers x little #daddy steve rogers #daddy steve rogers x little reader #daddy stucky #daddy!stucky #daddy stucky x little reader #daddy!stucky x little reader

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remidyal · 2 months

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What is Fig Doing? - Mechanical Discussion edition

So! I know a lot of people who watch D20 are relatively new to DnD, or may not have much experience with the game itself at all, and as a lover of exploring weird and mechanically ineffective multiclasses I thought I might dive in in advance of whatever the hell Emily's about to do to Fig's character sheet following episode 7. Spoiler alert: Weird it may end up being, but this is absolutely NOT going to be anything like an ineffective multiclass.

First, here's Fig's character splash screen as of episode 7:

In addition to the information shown here, we know that she's currently subclassed into a Hexblade patron and into being a Lore bard. The Lore bard part is less important, but Hexblade is an incredibly common subclass for multiclassers into warlocks and might actually be the most common multiclass subclass in the entire game for reasons we'll get into.

There is a very small elephant in the room: Multiclassing into or out of Barbarian would, by the rules as written, require 13 strength; multiclassing into or out of Paladin requires 13 strength and 13 charisma. The charisma Fig has in spades, but she's short on strength, and in fact I would actually argue that Fig's overall stats are the worst of the entire party - she has a whole lot of 0s or +1s, where most everyone else either has multiple +3s or higher or has almost all +2s past their primary. However, the multiclass requirements have been consistently ignored in Dimension 20 as a whole and have been ignored in Fantasy High in particular in the case of Gorgug going into Artificer back when he was at 8 int; I think it's safe to say that if Fig/Emily wants to add Paladin and/or Barbarian that either they'll move around stats to allow for it or just ignore the requirement, because that strength stat is, in fact, completely irrelevent to this build.

So let's get to the meat of this: There is almost no combination of bard, paladin, and warlock that Fig could end up with that is not going to be an incredibly effective build, as long as she has pact of the Hexblade and is at at least two levels of Paladin for access to Smite (the first level of paladin gets her almost nothing). There are some that are going to be better than others, but mostly it's going to reflect different strengths and focuses, and the reason for this is this little section of the Hexblade level 1 abilities:

The influence of your patron also allows you to mystically channel your will through a particular weapon. Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon’s type.

Fig is a one-trick pony, statwise. Being a hexblade allows everything she would want to do in combat across all of these classes to use that trick. She'll have dials she can tweak across the three classes, and they're going to impact just what she can do, but if she's really decided to leave being a Bard behind it wouldn't surprise me to see her ditch Bard levels for Paladin and Warlock ones over the course of the season.

For those dials, one key thing to consider is the spell slots she'll have, which are WEIRD to calculate for any warlock multiclass with another caster. For every other caster class in the game, there is a pool of spell slots that go up as you level any of them that refresh on long rests. Warlocks, however, have a seperate pool from any of those, so her warlock spell slots are seperate and refresh on short rests. If she stays at level 2 in warlock, this pool will be two slots of first level. If she levels in warlock, the level of these spell slots go up but the number of them doesn't (unless she somehow were to end up at level 11, when warlocks finally get a third slot.)

The paladin and bard combo is a little simpler to look at - she's going to have spell slots from the table that a primary caster would have at the level equal to her bard level plus half her paladin level. Just as an example, let's say she by the next combat were to drop two bard levels for two paladin ones and she were to end up 7 bard/2 paladin/2 warlock. She would end up with the two warlock first level spell slots that refresh on short rests, and 7 + .5*2 = level 8 from the primary caster spell slot table. (4 1sts, 3 2nds and 3rds, 2 4ths). A very deep pool for using Divine Smites - a full paladin wouldn't be able to match this until level 16, and that's not even counting the warlock first level spells!

Key level breakpoints that might be worth looking at: At level 5 of Paladin, she would have multiple attacks; at level 6 Paladin gets one of the best abilities in the entire game, an aura where she and allies within 10 feet get her charisma mod as a bonus to ALL saving throws. In Fig's case this is an absolutely incredible +5 - at their level, this is a bigger boost than being proficient is! If she really wants to guard her president, this would allow even Kristen to have a +2 on dex saves! I'm not certain I could overstate how good this ability is in general; with a +5 it's completely insane.

She can also get multiple attacks through either Bard or Warlock, but neither is automatic. For Warlock, she would have to choose to take Pact of the Blade at level 3 (warlocks have, somewhat confusingly, two more-or-less subclasses, and Hexblade and Pact of the Blade are in fact different things) and Brennan has been HEAVILY hinting at wanting her to take Pact of the Chain so that Baby can be a class feature instead. She'd then have to get to level 5 in warlock and take the Thirsting Blade eldritch invocation, which are sort of little bonus powers warlocks get. I think this is the least likely path to multiple attacks but it is there. (Mechanically, while it's all still fine, I also think leveling warlock would be the worst of the three in a three-class build.)

Bard CAN get multiple attacks at level 6 but Fig would need to change subclasses to either Swords (which is what Fabian is) or Valor (which is, frankly, a worse version of what Fabian is, though it's still fine.)

Getting multiple attacks is a really big deal - Paladins can smite multiple times per round, and given being able to lay on mid to low level spell slots for ages Fig would likely want to.

I have no idea what Oath Fig would pick for a paladin if she gets to level 3, but honestly the level 3 subclass features for Paladin are mostly not that big a deal; she'd need to get to level 7 for the subclass aura for it to really matter all that much.

You'll notice I haven't been talking much about Barbarian above. If Fig dips into Barbarian mechanically at all, it's almost certainly just for one level given how spread thin she might be. This is a level she won't get any spell slots for, but she will get two rages per day, which will add 2 to damage rolls if Brennan allows it (technically it wouldn't apply normally because it does specify only to rolls made for attacks using strength) but much more importantly will halve quite a lot of incoming damage - bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage, more or less all of the physical attacks in the game.

Barbarian is a massively bad combination with caster classes in general because you can't concentrate on spells or cast them while raging; there's been a lot of in-character noise made about Gorgug's multiclass being unique and a bad fit together for exactly this reason. The exception to this, as Porter demonstrated to Fig in their last scene together, is that Smiting things is burning through spell slots but is NOT casting and you CAN do it while raging.

So, if by the end of the season, we see some wild 6 Paladin/5 Bard/2 Warlock/1 Barbarian build, know that it's going to be an absolute menace. And if Fig and Gorgug keep trending the directions they are, where she's adding heavy hitter abilities and he's shedding Barbarian levels for Artificer ones, don't be surprised if on the last boss she's the one up on their face and he's casting spells next to Adaine or casting the key Revivify.

#fhjy #fhjy spoilers #figueroth faeth #gorgug thistlespring #fantasy high #mechanical discussion #dimension 20

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snarky-art · 5 months

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The Grand Mages, my version of The Major Fairies in my Winx rewrite.

The reason for the term Mages instead of Major Fairies is that they weren’t all Fairies throughout history and it isn’t a requirement that they be fairies either. The reason for them all being fairies now is that they’re simply the most common group of magic users left on Earth currently after the great scourge of death and purging magical beings experienced on the planet.

The Grand Mages are chosen by The Grand Council, the delegation for magical beings on Earth, which is now on Tír na nÓg presently.

The current Grand Mages are as follows, some with a lot of info (mainly Sybilla) and some with simple brief descriptions, including so e job descriptions, personal histories, believix info and general lore below the cut:)

Nebula, Grand Mage of Peace. Her title is kept all throughout her history, not changed like it is in the series to war, for peace comes as the end goal, and to that with the Grand Mage title, if war is needed to achieve that, then so be it.

She is the second youngest, older than Aurora by about 900 years, born around the year of what we would call 400 CE. She is around the same age as Morgana, only a few years younger.

She would be classified as one of the Picts in the eyes of humans, born in what would later become known as the area of Scotland at the time before the Celts. As I mentioned in my first ask with her, I know there are issues of debated anachronism regarding The Picts and blue war paint, but it fit her color palette and I thought it looked cool on her so we’re going to say it was indeed a thing in this version of history, but as a result of the magical beings there mainly being the ones who utilized it.

As also mentioned in my original ask with her, she doesn’t always use her magic to treat her wounds, taking certain pride in her battle scars, showing them as a way to say “you see? No matter how many times you try to beat me down, I cannot be quashed. You cannot best me, I will always retaliate and I will always come back and so long as I am alive, I will win.”

Aurora is The Grand Mage of The North, a title given to the being who guards the Lovix transformation. She is the youngest of the current Grand Mages, being only 700 years old. It is her job to preside over the domain that Lovix is connected to (the areas of what are labeled as Fennoscandia) for if the connection to the areas the transformations were birthed from is severed or lost, those transformations cannot be accessed anymore. Her dedication, quick wit, and drive to protect and honor the land her master, The Grand Mage of The North before her guarded, is what lead to her being selected as the next one despite her relatively young age when compared to the other magical beings who served under the previous Grand Mage. This retired Grand Mage now lives at the small community that is located in what we would call Northern Sweden in the wilderness that she and the other followers dedicated to this cause call their home. This area acts as their headquarters of sorts.

Aurora is in change of overseeing all areas of Earth’s Northern Hemisphere and doing what she can to ensure general harmony with the energy of the planet and its environment, with her main focus being on guarding that area Lovix is tied to. Her primary way of combatting any serious issues humans intact on the environment and any disruption they cause is through the use of environmental influence, such as extreme cold, blizzards, long winters, early frosts, etc, causing things like famine, poor harvests, or direct death from the elements.

Diana is The Grand Mage of The South, her main location insulated to where she was born in what is referred to as modern day Bolivia. Sophix is connected to what is known today as The Amazon Rainforest, and this area must be protected with regard to the transformation for the same reason as Lovix. Much like Aurora, she is also in charge of doing what she can to ensure general harmony with the nature and environment of the southern hemisphere of Earth’s planet.

A strong warrior and combatant, she has resorted to more direct force as a tactic to deal with the issues humans have been enacting on the planet, doing what she can to still stay as hidden from them as possible while attacking, or leaving no survivors. Her and Nebula are close, a love of sparring and battle strategy being a large basis for what they choose to do in any of the spare time they manage to have together.

She is the second oldest of The Grand Mages.

Sybilla is the oldest of The Grand Mages.

Her wings are present here, but she doesn’t usually have them out, simply not seeing a need to most of the time.

Lady of Justice is the title given by those of the order of Tír na nÓg, and this was the title given to her by many, magical and non magical, even before all magical beings were either sequestered away to there, killed, fled, or managed to blend in with the non magical beings.

She is much more elusive than the other Grand Mages and despite her very present record in that of history, she isn’t one to be easily reached, only deciding herself if it is worth it, answering to no single allegiance, creed, nation, etc. She is included in the category of The Grand Mages mainly by the choosing of the other Mages, and only agrees within her own terms to be accounted for as such.

Parts of magical history intermingle with non magical history in my thing. Her influence is felt in artwork, dress, customs, and tales from Greco-Roman antiquity, and even the time before that, during the eras of The Bronze Age with the Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean civilizations, and then even before that.

Much like the term irl, Sybilla is a term that simply means prophetess and sprung forth to give to the term sybil, those being what they are in our real world tales too. In my thing tho, this term stems from her name first and went on to become synonymous and defined as prophetess.

There were other sybils just like in old stories, these being followers of hers who wanted to act in her stead and honor and provide their services too.

Sybilla is the supreme head though, and is the grand origin for this.

She goes into stasis for longer periods of time so despite being the oldest, turning to stone by choice, this time acting a long sleep for her. When she awakes, it feels like she has only blinked. Sometimes towns would be built around her stony form, alters erected around her, offerings brought, pilgrimages made. And then suddenly, the mortals will see her “statue” is suddenly gone, and when she chooses to rest again, the cycle begins anew. Sometimes new statues are erected where she used to rest, legends telling that it actually is her and not just a statue, others believing it was just a statue put there long ago and someone decided to steal it so a new one must be placed.

There are many of her form in many places for that reason among other, her acting as a type of saint or figure to be kept to watch over places or people or whatever is deemed to need watching, memorabilia of her present in the forms of previously memorials statues, small talisman type objects, her figure on handkerchiefs, tapestries, walls of buildings, etc.

She has a history of intermingling with non magical beings far more than any of the other Grand Mages, even more so than most magical beings in general. With regard to that and her actions, she chooses to sleep when she feels she has done her job for the time being, overseeing and acting as whatever the mortals feel she is during times of great strife, whether that label be as a guide, an oracle, a prophet, or sometimes even a god or goddess.

She also chooses to rest after helping with grand issues with magical affairs too just the same. She awakens when she chooses to, whether that be because something in the ambient energy of the Earth feels off, signaling a great change, she has been sought out by a being, magical or not, that has made a great plea that she deems worthy, or she has decided she simply doesn’t want to rest anymore.

Her form appears through much of human history in the areas of the modern day Mediterranean and she has many stories about her weaved through old long gone told tales and legends, many lost to time, some still present.

Her aging is less visible than on Diana as a result of her sporadic periods of stasis, who has stayed active and present for her whole life, which has resulted in peak milf status.

She has no eyes, having had them voluntarily removed to be fully dedicated to her cause of what she deems proper judgement and action.

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botgal · 1 month

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If you're living in California and are concerned about the recent passing of the minor social media ban in Florida, then I urge you to write and call in to your state senators and assembly members in rejection of CA Senate Bill 976, the Social Media Youth Addiction Law.

While this law doesn't go specifically as far as the Florida law of outright banning anyone 14 and under from using social media and requiring a form of ID in order to have access to an account within the state, the law does pose troubling potential future legal repercussions.

This bill's primary focus is on the "protection" of young people who use social media from "addictive" features for the sake of their mental health. However, it intends to do this by implementing strict features such as parental controls which would require all minor users to have parental controls overseeing their accounts to limit their access to "addictive" feed features, as well as enforcing time periods where minor users will not receive notifications as well as mandatory time limits on how long minors can access social media that are restricted by the parents.

I need not tell you that this is a dangerous undertaking considering the only way that companies under this regulation could 100% ensure this level of compliance would likely be to follow the same ID verification systems which are feared to come about in Florida within the next year.

So if you live in California and don't want us to fall into the same trap which could strip away social media privacy and rights, I'd urge you to find your state representatives (state senators especially) and urge them to vote NO on CA SB 976, the Social Media Youth Addiction Law.

Source 1

Source 2

Website to help you find your CA state reps

#california #politics #law #social media #ca sb 976 #digital privacy

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3rdeyeblaque · 7 months

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On September 10th we venerate Elevated Ancestor, Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, & Saint, Marie Catherine Laveau on her 222nd birthday 🎉

[for our Hoodoos of the Vodou Pantheon]

Marie Catherine Laveau was a dedicated Hoodoo, healer, herbalist, & midwife who, "traveled the streets [of New Orleans] like she owned them", as the most infamous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

Marie C. Laveau I was born a "Free Mulatto" in today's French Quarter in what was then, New France); to a mother & grandmother who were both born into slavery & later freed via freedom papers. It is believed that she grew up in the St. Ann Street cottage of her maternal grandmother.

She married Jacques Santiago-Paris, a "Quadroon" "Free Man of Color", who fled as a refugee from Saint-Domingue, Haiti from the Haitian Revolution in the former French colony . After his passing, she became known as "The Widow Paris". She then worked as a hairdresser catering to White families & later entered a domestic partnership with a French nobleman his death. She excelled at obtaining inside information on her wealthy patrons by instilling fear in their servants whom she either paid or cured of mysterious ailments. Although she never abandoned her Catholic roots, she became increasingly interested in her mother’s African traditional beliefs. The Widow Paris learned her craft from a ‘Voodoo doctor’ known variously as Doctor John or John Bayou.

Marie C. Laveau I is said to have intiated into Voodoo career sometime in the 1820s. She's believed to be descended from a long line of Voodoo Priestesses, all bearing her same name. She was also a lifelong devout Catholic. It didn’t take long before Marie C. Laveau I dominated New Orleans Voodoo culture & society before claiming title of Queen. She was the 3rd Voodoo Queen of NOLA - after Queen Sanité Dédé & Queen Marie Salopé. During her decades tenure, she was the premier beacon of hope and service to customers seeking private consultations - to aid in matters such as family disputes, health, finances, etc, created/sold gris gris, perforemed exorcisms. While her daughter Marie II was known for her more theatrical displays of public events, Marie C. Laveau I was less flamboyant in her persona. She conducted her work in 3 primary locations throughout the city: her home on St. Ann Street, Congo Square, & at Lake Pontchartrain. Despite one account of a challenge to her authority in 1850, Marie C. Laveau I maintained her leadership & influence.

The Queen died peacefully in her sleep in her ole cottage home on St. Ann Street. Her funeral was conducted according to the rite of the Catholic Church & in the absence of any Voodoo rites. To her Voodoo followers, she's venerated as a Folk Saint. In² addition to her Priesthood in Voodoo and title of Queen, she is also remembered for her community activism; visiting prisoners, providing lessons to women of the community, & doing ritual work for those in need.

She is generally believed to have been buried in plot 347, the Glapion family crypt in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans. As of March 1st, 2015, there is no longer public access to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Entry with a tour guide is required due to continued vandalism & tomb raiding.

We pour libations & give her💐 today as we celebrate her for her love for & service to the people, through poverty, misfortune, bondage, & beyond.

Offering suggestions: flowers + libations at her grave, catholic hymns, holy water, gold rings/bracelets, money

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

#hoodoo #hoodoos #atr #atrs #the hoodoo calendar #conjure #rootwork #rootworkers #ancestor veneration #Marie c Laveau #Voodoo #Voodoo Queens #new orleans #new orleans Voodoo #Vodou Pantheon #Haitian Voodou

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken

From the moment I started using computers, I wanted to help other people use them. I was everyone’s tech support for years, which prepared me for the decade or so when I was a CIO-for-hire. In the early days of the internet, I spent endless hours helping my BBS friends find their way onto the net.

Helping other people use technology requires humility: you have to want to help them realize their goals, which may be totally unlike your own. You have to listen carefully and take care not to make assumptions about how they “should” use tech. You may be a tech expert, but they are experts on themselves.

This is a balancing act, because it’s possible to be too deferential to someone else’s needs. As much as other people know about how they want technology to work, if you’re their guide, you have to help them understand how technology will fail.

For example, using the same memorable, short password for all your services works well, but it fails horribly. When one of those passwords leak, identity thieves can take over all of your friend’s accounts. They may think, “Oh, no one would bother with my account, I’ve got nothing of value,” so you have to help them understand how opportunistic attacks work.

Yes, they might never be individually targeted, but they might be targeted collectively, say, to have their social media accounts hijacked to spread malware to their contacts.

Paying attention to how things work without thinking about how they fail is a recipe for disaster. It’s the reasoning that has people plow their savings into speculative assets that are going up and up, without any theory of when that bubble might pop and leave them ruined.

It’s hard to learn about failure without experiencing it, so those of us who have lived through failures have a duty to help the people we care about understand those calamities without living through them themselves.

That’s why, for two decades, I’ve always bought my hardware with an eye to how it fails every bit as much as how it works. Back when I was a Mac user — and supporting hundreds of other Mac users — I bought two Powerbooks at a time.

I knew from hard experience that Applecare service depots were completely unpredictable and that once you mailed off your computer for service, it might disappear into the organization’s bowels for weeks or even (in one memorable case), months.

I knew that I would eventually break my laptop, and so I kept a second one in sync with it through regular system-to-system transfers. When my primary system died, I’d wipe it (if I could!) and return it to Apple and switch to the backup and hope the main system came back to me before I broke the backup system.

This wasn’t just expensive — it was very technologically challenging. The proliferation of DRM and other “anti-piracy” measures on the Mac increasingly caused key processes to fail if you simply copied a dead system’s drive into a good one.

Then, in 2006, I switched operating systems to Ubuntu, a user-centric, easy-to-use flavor of GNU/Linux. Ubuntu was originally developed with the idea that its users would include Sub-Saharan African classrooms, where network access was spotty and where technical experts might be far from users.

To fulfill this design requirement, the Ubuntu team focused themselves on working well, but also failing gracefully, with the idea that users might have to troubleshoot their own technological problems.

One advantage of Ubuntu: it would run on lots of different hardware, including IBM’s Thinkpads. The Thinkpads were legendarily rugged, but even more importantly, Thinkpad owners could opt into a far more reliable service regime that Applecare.

For about $150/year, IBM offered a next-day, on-site, worldwide hardware replacement warranty. That meant that if your laptop broke, IBM would dispatch a technician with parts to wherever you were, anywhere in the world, and fix your computer, within a day or so.

This was a remnant of the IBM Global Services business, created to supply tech support to people who bought million-dollar mainframes, and laptop users could ride on its coattails. It worked beautifully — I’ll never forget the day an IBM technician showed up at my Mumbai hotel while I was there researching a novel and fixed my laptop on the hotel-room desk.

This service was made possible in part by the Thinkpad’s hardware design. Unlike the Powerbook, Thinkpads were easy to take apart. Early on in my Thinkpad years, I realized I could save a lot of money by buying my own hard-drives and RAM separately and installing them myself, which took one screwdriver and about five minutes.

The keyboards were also beautifully simple to replace, which was great because I’m a thumpy typist and I would inevitably wear out at least one keyboard. The first Thinkpad keyboard swap I did took less than a minute, and I performed it one-handed, while holding my infant daughter in my other hand, and didn’t even need to read the documentation!

But then IBM sold the business to Lenovo and it started to go downhill. Keyboard replacements got harder, the hardware itself became far less reliable, and they started to move proprietary blobs onto their motherboards that made installing Ubuntu into a major technical challenge.

Then, in 2021, I heard about a new kind of computer: the Framework, which was designed to be maintained by its users, even if they weren’t very technical.

https://frame.work/

The Framework was small and light — about the same size as a Macbook — and very powerful, but you could field-strip it in 15 minutes with a single screwdriver, which shipped with the laptop.

I pre-ordered a Framework as soon as I heard about it, and got mine as part of the first batch of systems. I ordered mine as a kit — disassembled, requiring that I install the drive, RAM and wifi card, as well as the amazing, snap-fit modular expansion ports. It was a breeze to set up, even if I did struggle a little with the wifi card antenna connectors (they subsequently posted a video that made this step a lot easier):

https://twitter.com/frameworkputer/status/1433320060429373440

The Framework works beautifully, but it fails even better. Not long after I got my Framework, I had a hip replacement; as if in sympathy, my Framework’s hinges also needed replacing (a hazard of buying the first batch of a new system is that you get to help the manufacturer spot problems in their parts).

My Framework “failed” — it needed a new hinge — but it failed so well. Framework shipped me a new part, and I swapped my computer’s hinges, one day after my hip replacement. I couldn’t sit up more than 40 degrees, I was high af on painkillers, and I managed the swap in under 15 minutes. That’s graceful failure.

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Hinge+Replacement+Guide/104

After a few weeks’ use, I was convinced. I published my review, calling the Framework “the most exciting laptop I’ve ever used.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/21/monica-byrne/#think-different

That was more than a year ago. In the intervening time, I’ve got to discover just how much punishment my Framework can take (I’ve been back out on the road with various book publicity events and speaking engagements) and also where its limits are. I’ve replaced the screen and the keyboard, and I’ve even upgraded the processor:

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Mainboard+Replacement+Guide/79

I’m loving this computer so. damn. much. But as of this morning, I love it even more. On Thursday, I was in Edinburgh for the UK launch of “Chokepoint Capitalism,” my latest book, which I co-authored with Rebecca Giblin.

As I was getting out of a cab for a launch-day podcast appearance, I dropped my Framework from a height of five feet, right onto the pavement. I had been working on the laptop right until the moment the cab arrived because touring is nuts. I’ve got about 150% more commitments than I normally do, and I basically start working every day at 5AM and keep going until I drop at midnight, every single day.

As rugged as my Framework is, that drop did for it. It got an ugly dent in the input cover assembly and — far, far worse — I cracked my screen. The whole left third of my screen was black, and the rest of it was crazed with artefacts and lines.

This is a catastrophe. I don’t have any time for downtime. Just today, I’ve got two columns due, a conference appearance and a radio interview, which all require my laptop. I got in touch with Framework and explained my dire straits and they helpfully expedited shipping of a new $179 screen.

Yesterday, my laptop screen stopped working altogether. I was in Oxford all day, and finished my last book event at about 9PM. I got back to my hotel in London at 11:30, and my display was waiting for me at the front desk. I staggered bleary-eyed to my room, sat down at the desk, and, in about fifteen minutes flat, I swapped out the old screen and put in the new one.

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Display+Replacement+Guide/86

That is a fucking astoundingly graceful failure mode.

Entropy is an unavoidable fact of life. “Just don’t drop your laptop” is great advice, but it’s easier said than done, especially when you’re racing from one commitment to the next without a spare moment in between.

Framework has designed a small, powerful, lightweight machine — it works well. But they’ve also designs a computer that, when you drop it, you can fix yourself. That attention to graceful failure saved my ass.

If you hear me today on CBC Sunday Magazine, or tune into my Aaron Swartz Day talk, or read my columns at Medium and Locus, that’s all down to this graceful failure mode. Framework’s computers aren’t just the most exciting laptops I’ve ever used — they’re the most exciting laptops I’ve ever broken.

[Image ID: A disassembled Framework laptop; a man's hand reaches into the shot with a replacement screen.]

#pluralistic

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