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#dr schreber
Meeting and Dating Dr. Daniel Schreber
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(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- Maybe you and Daniel met on the street. Or at your work. Or maybe just a coffee shop near your apartment. Maybe he was a stranger, a friend of a friend, a professional that you sought for one reason another: the list could go on. I could spin a tale at random and regardless of how implausible it may seem, you’ve probably; at one point or another, known it to be true; whether it be in this life or your next.
- But none of them are ever really true; not in the way they should be. Sure, you’ll believe them to be fact; instead of the carefully formulated fiction that they really are, but when push comes to shove, all they are are memories: memories that you yourself never created, memories that were created for you; created by the closest thing to a guardian angel someone in your position will ever have the pleasure of meeting.
- But where your story truly begins, the term “meeting” doesn’t necessarily apply. For two people to meet, they both have to be conscious, and considering the fact that you were nothing of the sort, it wouldn’t be fair to consider it as such.
- Alas, for lack of a better word, you and Daniel first “met” during the tuning: aka, the first time he entered your home and injected you with a new set of memories to base your entire existence around. The first time he laid eyes on you and found himself short of breath.
- In a few days time, you’d be moved into an entirely different home with no hope of remembering the former in the slightest, yet he’ll never forget the sight of you alone in that room; every last detail of it ingrained in his mind like the most important lesson he’s ever learned.
- Beautiful women aren’t scarce in your city and Daniel’s seen plenty of them; the type of women who could have been movie stars had they not wound up in the cage you called home. And yet, out of all of them, you compelled him the most. You were mundane, perhaps even a little flawed, and yet, to him you were perfect: a puzzle of interesting features that created a patchwork of beauty, beauty that few would take the time to notice yet many would learn to love.
- It isn’t often that Daniel allows himself to grow close to someone; his job makes it nearly impossible for him to do so even if he wanted to, yet he finds himself drawn to you against his own better judgement. He finds himself studying you, narrowing down exactly what makes you “uniquely you”; the inherent behaviors and morals and skills that you possess regardless of the situations you’re placed into. And he finds himself falling for those pieces of you just as much as he does your appearance.
- He soon grows protective of you; perhaps even a bit possessive. He finds himself creating memories that are sickly sweet; refusing to involve any tragedy or pain in your past so long as he can help it. If something horrid happens to you: if some accidental flaw in the systems sees to it that you suffer in some way, shape or form, it’s erased by nightfall; never to haunt you again.
- He favors you above everyone else; is constantly looking after you and seeing to it that you’re never harmed: he reasons to the overlords that you’re a control group, that you can show them the natural progression of a normal person living a normal life and they trust his judgement, unaware of his ulterior motives. He tries to convince himself that he’s protecting you because you’re pure, because you’re sweet and kind, and not because of some other selfish reason; but he knows deep down that that isn’t true.
- There’s a reason he can never bring himself to give you a boyfriend, a lover, a husband. Why he can’t bring himself to create memories of your first kisses or first times or whatever else one experiences in their youth. He can ignore the truth all he likes but that doesn’t erase it from history.
- The only person he can ever bring himself to set you up with is himself. He basks in the momentary bliss of your shared life and tries to enjoy the fleeting sensation of knowing you before it’s ripped away from him all too soon; lost to time as the tuning begins again. And yet, this experience is not without guilt and certainly not without risk, so he avoids it as much as possible.
- Instead, he’ll make it so you meet him by chance: enjoying the brief encounters that you share day after day; even if all they amount to is a few seconds of interaction between strangers. Almost always, you’re none the wiser: you might have a feeling that you’ve seen him before, a sense of deja vu that prompts you to pause and look at him for a second longer than normal, but never a life shattering realization; not at first.
- But at some point in time, you do remember him: he either neglects to erase your mind fully or your mind lapses momentarily and you greet him with a brightness in your eyes that he’s never seen before; a flicker of recognition that’s so foreign to your world that he struggles to respond accordingly. He racks his brain for the particular moment you must have remembered him from, and from there, the thoughts begin to surface; the idea that he should have you for himself in the way he’s always dreamed of.
- To him, your memory of him is a sign. If you didn’t hold some level of fondness for him, there’d be no reason for you to remember him and if your memory was going to continue to evade his attempts at changing it, then what was the point of trying to make you forget him. He could monitor you more closely if you knew him and protect you from your leaders; not to mention the fact that he’d be able to experience the relationship he’d always dreamed of.
- There’s very little Daniel can do without arousing the suspicion of your alien overlords and once he finds himself unable to plausibly deny his affections for you, he’ll find himself forced to confront them and ask their permission to keep you as his wife. Lucky for him, despite their constant studies, there’s still much about human life that evades their understanding; making it relatively easy for him to convince them of the importance of human contact and interaction.
- Thus begins his forging of the perfect relationship….
- Daniels imagined the details time and time again; planned everything out from start to finish, so much so that the story itself is ingrained in his mind like an actual memory rather than an elaborate daydream.
- He fine tunes everything to your liking; models everything around what he knows you’ll adore. You meet and fall in love in the way you’ve always dreamed you would: whether it be through one of your beloved hobbies, a particular book/movie plot, a casual encounter, etc. No matter what it is, it’s something you can look back on proudly and fondly and wonder how you got so lucky.
- He tries to restrain himself, reminds himself your memories must portray a version of himself that he can keep up with: that even though he’d like to be your perfect Prince Charming, he still wants to be honest with you and do everything in his power to form as real a connection as possible.
- One thing that Daniel knows for certain is that love cannot be faked; no matter how hard you try. You can convince a person of their physical attachment to someone, but you can’t create a genuine connection from scratch. You can be convinced you’re in a relationship but you can’t be made to feel like you’re in love.
- And that’s his reassurance that he made the right decision. You yearn to be around him the same way he yearns to be around you. You smile at him like you mean it, like there isn’t an ounce of disappointment inside of you, like you genuinely care for him. He can’t spot or remember a singular moment where you’ve acted as though you were merely playing an assigned role: and after years of being responsible for the casting of said roles, he can certainly tell the difference.
- Perhaps it’s because he knows you better than anyone else in the entire world; he can assume that it wouldn’t be difficult to fall in love with someone who acts as though they can read your mind, but even so, he knows that his observations aren’t prejudiced or obstructed by his own personal wants.
- You love him; regardless of his flaws and the reality of who he truly is: you love him as much as you love the person he convinced you he was and you love him as much as you love the things that are ingrained in the very fibers of your being. Against all odds, he found genuine love and very little could convince him otherwise.
- You’ll both remember all your firsts very differently; with you remembering the fabricated firsts and him remembering the real ones, and though he’ll think back on your first date fondly, nothing will compare to the first time the two of you kissed.
- You’d just woken up from your tuning; the first tuning that saw you become his girlfriend, and he’d discarded his briefcase before you began to wake up, watching you as you smiled at him warmly; blinking away the sleep from your eyes as he stood there nervously.
“You’re home.” You’d said happily and he’d smiled somewhat shyly, sighing in relief just quiet enough for you not to hear.
- He’d slowly approached the chair you were sat in and you’d pulled him down gently, pressing your lips to his own as he tried his hardest not to pull away out of sheer surprise. Alas, you’d still managed to sense his hesitation and asked if he was alright, listening to him carefully as he breathed shakily and swallowed softly, telling you that he “just missed you is all”. You’d merely smiled in response, kissing him again as he finally found himself able to return the gesture and kiss you back.
- After that moment, there was no turning back. And though he tries his best to keep your memories as similar as possible, he can’t help but thumb the wedding band in his pocket and contemplate whether he’ll have the nerve to slip it on your finger the next time he’s in charge of tuning your memories.
- For the sake of these headcanons, I’ll ignore the way the two of you met and just make the dating portion as in character as possible. They’ll most likely revolve around the idea that you’re relatively unaware of his occupation so try to keep that in mind as you continue reading.
- Though he knows the Strangers can view the two of you at any given moment, it still gives him a bit more peace of mind to save his affection for behind closed doors. He feels as though he could be putting you in danger by publicly linking himself to you; at least in a way that seems particularly genuine or romantic, so he prefers reserved Pda that looks more polite than intimate; affection that allows him to lie about your relationship to people who are none the wiser.
- Speaking of affection: Daniel is about as touch starved as a person can be. A simple caress or touch from you can make his breath hitch and a lump form in his throat in a matter of seconds. Hold his face in your hands and he’ll lean into your touch, immediately feeling as though everything is somehow alright again. Your gentle affection is like a drug; one that relaxes and grounds him like nothing else.
- Walking with your elbows interlocked or your hand clutching his arm; usually with him clutching his cane in the opposite hand.
- Lingering kisses pressed to your forehead and hairline.
- Daniels kisses always have a certain depth to them; an intimacy that makes kissing him in public a bit inappropriate. There’s a touch of clumsiness; the sort of clumsiness that comes with a lack of practice, and depending on the circumstances, there’s also either an air of desperation or a gentleness to them that you use to help determine his mood.
- Affection in itself is a good way to figure out how he’s feeling. Daniels a fairly secretive person; he doesn’t like involving you in his problems nor admitting to you when somethings the matter, so it’s best to try and learn the differences in his behavior. It gives you a bit more peace of mind and your silent understanding will visibly comfort him; even if he still refuses to speak about it.
- Sitting on his lap or the arm of his chair. It’s usually how you get his attention and start a conversation about something that’s worrying you: he’ll merely wrap an arm around you and insist that everything will be fine, patting your knee reassuringly as you sit in quiet thought.
- He typically just calls you by your full first name but on occasion, he’ll call you darling, dear or dearest as well. Sometimes; if he’s trying really hard to act normal or relate to someone, he’ll refer to you as “the old ball and chain” but it’s fairly obvious that the phrase is more sarcastic/put on than something he genuinely enjoys saying.
- Considering the fact that he typically has a job to do whenever you’re supposed to be asleep, it isn’t often that the two of you have the time to cuddle. But, whenever he does manage to get the chance, you’ll usually find yourself wrapped up in his arms; your head on his chest and his fingers tracing patterns onto your arms and back.
- Showering together. Like he said: water is the one thing that truly deters the strangers, so it’s only natural for him to enjoy the quiet and the peace of mind that comes with it; not to mention the obvious benefits of shared showers.
- Fetching him things; oftentimes without him asking. What are you gonna do, make him hobble across the room for something while you watch with perfectly functioning appendages? Be nice.
- Receiving calls from him when he’s out of the house. It gives him peace of mind to randomly reach out to you and ensure that you’re alright; even when there’s no real reason for him to be worried. On your end, it’ll just seem like he missed you and wanted to hear your voice, and while that is somewhat true, there’s also probably another reason for it as well.
- Visiting him at his lab/workplace. If you’re unaware of his real occupation then it’ll probably look a lot like a therapists office. But if you are aware then you’ll come and fluster him by appearing in his laboratory without warning; especially before the two of you begin dating.
- Speaking of: if you’d like to think that you knew about the Strangers all along, then you probably acted as a sort of partner in crime to him: either working alongside him to teach John or learning how to control the tuning yourself. I do sort of love the idea of Daniel slowly; and somewhat pathetically, falling in love with his coworker and/or his assistant.
- Helping him with his experiments.
- Helping to calm him down; even if you don’t know anything about his current situation. Sometimes, he’ll come home to you in a panic and just fall to his knees in front of you, clutching at you desperately as he tries his best to even out his breathing and avoid crying into your dress. It’ll scare you half to death but you’ll just have to reassure him that he’s alright and that everything’s okay; no matter how wrong you may be.
- Occasional spontaneity. There’s usually a reason behind his sudden decision to stay home from work and spend the day with you or go out for the night, but you’re almost always none the wiser. You’re just happy you get more time with the love of your life.
- Receiving flowers and other little treats and gifts whenever he returns home to you; things he’ll be sure to drop on instinct if he’s ever confronted with something shocking in your apartment.
- Going to the cinema and the theater.
- Dinner dates.
- Spending quiet evenings at home. Usually, you’ll just sit in front of your fireplace and enjoy each other’s company: reading from different books or having different mundane conversations.
- Listening to radio shows and records.
- Moonlit strolls; as if your strolls could ever not be moonlit.
- Him visiting you at your work and asking you about your day; even though he’s bound to know exactly how it plays out even before you open your mouth. He can’t deny how interesting it is to walk into an entirely different building than the one he’d entered the day before and see you acting in the role he’d assigned for you himself.
- Cleaning his glasses on your skirt and placing them back on his face, or taking them off to kiss him. The action makes him melt into a flustered mess.
- Him buttoning your shirts for you, zipping up your dresses, and clasping your necklaces. He likes how intimate the little acts are.
- He definitely keeps a photo of you in his wallet or office; or anywhere else that's safe and capable of being taken out and viewed at any given moment. He likes having a little piece of you with him at all times.
- Sweet affirmations, telling each other how much you love one another, openly admitting how much he’s missed you, etc. Romantic talk is common in your relationship and oftentimes sickly sweet; the sort of thing you’d be embarrassed to be seen doing because of how pathetically lovey dovey it makes the two of you look.
- For obvious reasons, he thrives in any scenario where a doctor is needed: whether it be putting eye drops in your eyes, making you a special tea to settle your stomach, or bandaging your wounds after a minor accident. Just caring, precise work that makes him feel needed and you feel cared for.
- It’s almost guaranteed that you live together; he wouldn’t have it any other way, and you probably adopt a pet together as well: a cat and some fish, or maybe a bird that serves as both a companion to you and an exercise in irony.
- You can insist you’re fine but he’s always one step ahead of you; picking up on your nervous ticks and pointing them out with a subtle flick of his eye. You’ll merely smile a bit bashfully and accept that he knows, admitting to what’s on your mind as he listens to you carefully. Sometimes it’s a pain to have a boyfriend who can psychoanalyze you but at least you never have to tell him how you’re feeling.
- I mentioned it before, but he knows you like the back of his hand: knows your thoughts as you think them and pulls the words right out of your mouth. Have a specific routine? He can write a schedule for you down to the very last minute. Favorite candy? He buys it the day you feel like having some. In a mood? He can tell the second he steps through the door. It’s like he’s found a way to tap into your brain….
- Daniel is always on your side, no matter the situation. He never lets you get deterred and always tries his best to help you figure things out: acting as a careful and comforting teacher whenever times get tough. Blame it on his occupation; he is a doctor after all.
- He likes knowing your every thought; even the arguably mundane things that should be of no real interest to him. Most of the time it’s to monitor what you know and remember, asking you to “humor him” as you chuckle and say “oh it’s nothing” or “it’s just sort of strange” after making like you were going to tell him something. You’ll think it’s just nonsense but his response, the way he goes quiet like he’s deep in thought before smiling and saying something like “that is strange” makes you wonder whether you should pay it more mind yourself.
- He doesn’t talk much about himself but on occasion, he’ll humor you: telling you about his backstory, his day to day life, etc. None of it is true of course, but it’s as true as any story he can spin. No harm in making up a lie when you can’t remember the truth; especially if it makes you happy.
- If he ever finds himself able to, he’d love to tell you how the two of you truly met and how he fell in love with you to an immeasurable degree. He’ll have to play it carefully though; of course, and he’ll have to do it one step at a time; unless he’s undeniably forced to do it in one fell swoop.
- There’s a moment in time where he finally admits to everything; nervous to the point of tears, explaining what’s happened in secret and what he’s done to bring the two of you together before telling you that he understands if you never want to see him again. And though it’ll take you a moment to process exactly what he’s telling you, you’ll ultimately tell him that you’re not leaving him just yet: watching as he blinks away the shine in his eyes and sighs like the weight of the worlds been lifted off his shoulders.
- A part of him feels as though he doesn’t deserve the happiness he’s constructed for himself. He wonders that if you knew the truth; the full truth, if you’d still be capable of loving him. He’s a traitor to his own kind, a coward, he’s ruined countless lives and you know nothing of that side of him nor the depth of his self loathing that you just barely pick up on. What would happen if you found out? Surely nothing good; though he could certainly hope….
- Daniels a fairly jealous person: mainly because of his fear that you’ll find someone you have a genuine connection with; a love that naturally exceeds the one he’s tried so hard to garner for himself. Most of the time, he’ll merely approach the two of you and passive aggressive say “oh, I see you’ve met my wife” or “if you’ll excuse us, we must be going” before dragging you off and away. By “morning”, you won’t remember them at all and they’ll be moved all the way across town.
- He’s protective in the way a father tends to be and it’s usually for good reason: telling you not to “talk to Strangers”, to call him when you get home, to not go out “tonight”, etc. They’re silly little things that you don’t think twice about so when he tells you to “humor him” it isn’t often that you refuse. Unfortunately for him, he’s never quite sure if it’s safer for him to stay close by or far away.
- Fighting is fairly rare between the two of you: your shared apartment is a refuge for him and he works hard to keep your lives stress free. But on occasion, you just won’t be able to stop an argument from happening; especially when you’re suddenly hyper aware of the fact that he’s lying to or keeping something from you.
- He’s always tempted to erase the fight from your memory but it isn’t often that he goes through with it; he only does so when knowing the truth will put you in danger. Typically, he just apologizes very earnestly and seriously and tries his best to come up with an explanation that’ll both keep you safe and placate you.
- He’s very open about how much he loves you: telling you that he does nearly everyday; amongst other things that would equate to it. He also loves hearing you say it back, and grows so used to you doing so that he’d probably question you if you didn’t; wanting to know if everything was alright.
- Marriage is a definite, but I also think he’d want to have his own little family with you as well. He’d dream about being a father but he’d never find the nerve to bring it up to you; feeling as though it isn’t fair to ask you about it before he’s able to be completely truthful with you.
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Guys!!!! I freaking love Dark City, and Daniel is one of my all time favorites of Kiefers characters, next to David that is. (Depends on my mood, weather I crave being dominant, or being dominated 😉.)
Link to the article here.
I really hope we get some more of my favorite skittish Doctor. 🥰 He's so freaking cute!
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Okay so I decided on a name and this is the final version of the story. Part 1 and 2 are pretty much the same as they were, but it felt weird to post part 3 without posting 1 and 2 first so I'm just starting all over.
The Scientific Method
Part One
Part Two
She looked down at the crumpled newspaper want ad in her right hand, an umbrella clutched in her left. It had been raining since Saturday, it was now Monday and showed no signs of stopping.
Help wanted – receptionist/personal assistant
Pay negotiable
 Inquire at 1106 South East Drive, 3rd floor
A sparse ad to be sure, but the only one she’d found advertising a job she thought she’d be able to do, and it was close to home. Pocketing the ad, she took a deep breath and reassured herself before heading through the lofty art deco lobby to the elevator. The metallic gold elevator cage blended perfectly with the décor and shone dully in the dim greenish light of the cavernous room. She noticed all this while procrastinating her entry to said elevator.
“Third floor, please,” she told the operator. He nodded, closing the gate with a loud clunk. He pulled a lever, and the car began to rise shakily. She half hoped the elevator would never make it to the third floor. She tried not to think about how badly she needed to land this job. Her last job hadn’t worked out too well, she’d worked as a waitress at a local restaurant, and the customers (and her boss for that matter) could be a bit forward in their dealings with the female staff.
The elevator door slid open shakily and she stepped out, trying to hide how nervous she was. She was in a long, sterile hallway, at one end of which, just past a line of uncomfortable-looking low-backed chairs was a large desk, presumably the desk the aforementioned and as-yet-to-be-hired receptionist would occupy. She wasn’t sure what would be expected of her as a personal assistant, but she hoped she could handle it.
She looked left and right, seeing a door on the other end of the hall, just adjacent to another door set into the wall and wondered which to try first when she heard the sound of uneven steps through the door facing the length of the hallway. She approached the door hesitantly.
Whatever this man was like, if he offered her the job, she had no choice but to take it. She’d accumulated quite a bit of debt trying to keep her head above water, even while she was working as a waitress, she never seemed to make enough to break even, let alone put money away for a rainy day. So she took out private loans to make ends meet. Now that money was due, and she was desperate to come up with it.
Dr. Daniel P. Schreber, read the frosted window set into the light-colored wooden door. She knocked.
The door opened partway at her knock; it hadn’t been latched. It led to a large circular room that seemed to double as lab space and personal office. A large, polished hardwood table sat on the right side of the room, covered in papers, scientific equipment, and various bric-a-brac. It seemed to serve as a desk of sorts.
At the back of the room was a line of full to bursting bookshelves haphazardly organized, atop which various glass tubes and beakers rested. At the center of the room was a large round maze, she assumed built for some sort of small animal. She’d read of some experiments like that before.
The left side of the room was home to a large hutch made of wood and chicken wire, a man standing in front of it with his back turned. He turned at the sound of the door.
He was a little taller than she was, with short blond hair parted neatly in the middle. He wore small round wire rimmed glasses and a white lab coat buttoned up to the collar. He was gently petting the small white rat he held in his hands.
“Can I help you?” he asked, not unkindly.
“Yes, I’m here about the receptionist ad in the paper? I hope I got the right floor.”
“Oh, of course.” He gently returned the rat to its hutch. As he approached, she noticed he had a limp, heavily favoring his right side, and he had a prominent scar over his right eye.
“Daniel Schreber, pleasure to meet you.” He shook her hand. His grip was much stronger than she would have expected. Realizing she’d taken a beat too long to respond, she mentally shook herself, not letting her anxiety get the better of her.
“I’m Katherine, nice to meet you, too.” She smiled, hoping she looked less nervous than she felt.
“Perhaps we should conduct this interview someplace more comfortable.” He spoke in a strange cadence, seeming to often be out of breath, she assumed an effect of whatever injuries had resulted in his scar and pronounced limp.
She nodded as he gestured toward the door as if to say, “after you,” though she wasn’t sure exactly where they were going. They stepped out of the lab/office together into the sparsely lit hallway beyond. He turned to lock the door before leading her to an unlabeled door in the hallway to the right of the lab. He then proceeded to unlock this door and held it for her.
He noticed her looking at the key in the lock and smiled sheepishly.
“I’m afraid I was a victim of a break-in years ago and it’s made me a bit more fastidious when it comes to security,” he explained.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, genuine feeling for the man’s misfortune evident in her voice. This didn’t escape his notice, very few things did. Her empathy for a complete stranger was touching and somewhat endearing.
He’d already made up his mind to hire her, he was as desperate as she was to fill the position, it had been weeks since he posted that want ad in the Gazette, and every applicant had turned down the job, not that there were many to begin with.
He knew he could be off putting, what with his appearance, his speech, even the way he moved, but he hoped this one would take the job anyway. She seemed not to notice or care about his limp or the way he spoke, and seemed completely unfazed by his scars. He found it refreshing and liked her immediately.
He led her into a small room, richly decorated with dark polished wood paneling and soft lighting. The only furniture in the room were two red upholstered chairs and a plush leather couch.
“You’ll have to excuse me for using this room, this is where I see my patients, but it’s also the most comfortable room in the office.” He smiled thinly, the left side of his mouth turning up farther than the right, his crooked smile transformed into more of a smirk. She thought about him being hurt during the break-in he’d mentioned and a fresh wave of feeling for the man swept over her. She’d always been too sensitive for her own good when it came to others, often at the expense of her own well-being.
“Please have a seat,” he said as he took one of the upholstered chairs for himself. She sat in the other across from it, fidgeting with the hem of her blouse for a moment before stopping herself.
“Before we go any further, I want to be honest with you Katherine, this job is yours if you want it. Somehow, I haven’t had the best of luck filling this position,” he smiled awkwardly if a bit sadly. “I can pay you a decent salary, but I keep late office hours. I hope that’s alright.”
She tried not to show the great relief she felt. The job was hers if she wanted it. And it sounded like it might actually pay enough to get her out of the hole she’d dug herself financially. This was better than she could have hoped for.
Some details of the job were discussed, and after another handshake she was on her way home with a job to report to tomorrow and the understanding that she may be expected to act as more of an assistant than receptionist in the future, for additional pay of course. As she left the building, she noticed the rain had stopped.
Part Two
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PART ONE
Okay so this is a list of my headcanon/preferences, with links leading to each post. I give a basic summary of the headcanon/preference, then what fandom it belongs to, and who from said fandom is involved. Plus whether or not it was requested, just because.
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1.) You ask if you can peg them. (X)
• It (Movie 2017)
• The Bowers gang.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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2.)They react to the phrase "Fuck me running." (X)
• Vikings (TV series 2013)
• Ragnar, Rollo, Harald, Halfdan, Ivar, Björn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Alfred.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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3.) They react to you telling them you're allergic to bullshit. (X)
• Vikings (TV series 2013)
• Ragnar, Rollo, Harald, Halfdan, Ivar, Björn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Alfred.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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4.) You ask if you can peg them. (X)
• Horror movies addition.
• Dr. Herbert West (Re-animator 1985), Dr. Daniel Schreber (Dark City 1998), Ash Williams (Evil Dead 1981), Stu Macher (Scream 1996), Bo Sinclair (Wax Museum 2005), Eric Draven (The Crow 1994), Otis Driftwood (House of a Thousand Corpses 2003), Djinn (Wishmaster 1997), Josh Lambert (Insidious 2010).
(NOT REQUESTED)
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5.) How do they feel about you being more badass than them? (X)
• Assassins Creed (Video game series)
• Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Connor Kenway, Edward Kenway, Jacob Frye, Bayek, Desmond Miles.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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6.) They react to you telling them to bruise your esophagus. (X)
• American Gods (TV series 2017)
• Mad Sweeny, Shadow Moon, Mr. World, Technical Boy, Low-Key Lyesmith.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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7.) They react to you telling them "I wanna choke on your dick until I pass out." PART ONE (X) PART TWO (X)
• Miscellaneous fandom's
• DIDN'T WANNA LIST THEM ALL, JUST LOOK INTO THEM YOURSELF LOL. (ALL AND ALL THERE ARE 14 PEOPLE)
(NOT REQUESTED)
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8.) They develop a mommy kink, & along with a bit of a lactation kink, because of how busty you are. (X)
• It (Movie 2017)
• The Bowers gang
(NOT REQUESTED)
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9.) You let them design your next tattoo. (X)
• The Lost Boys (Movie 1987)
• David, Marko, Paul, Dwayne.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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UNLISTED : How would each of the bowers gang react if the other members walked in while they’re being pegged/fingered/eaten out. (X)
• It (Movies 2017)
• Bowers gang
(REQUESTED)
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10.) The basics of their yandere obsession with you. (X)
• Type O Negative (Band)
• Peter Steele.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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11.) Basic relationship headcanons. (X)
• The Black Phone (Movie 2021) crossed with Stranger Things (TV series 2016)
• Vance Hopper.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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12.) The basics of their yandere obsession with you. (X)
• Star Wars (Solo triplets)
• Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, Matt Solo.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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13.) How would magni and modi handle their child being named Thor’s successor? (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Magni, Modi.
(REQUESTED)
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14.) What is the relationship between magni and modi’s children and their family? (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Magni, Modi.
(REQUESTED)
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15.) Magni, Modi, and Baldurs children reacting to their parents death. (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Magni, Modi, Baldur.
(REQUESTED)
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16.) Freya learning she is a grandmother. (Baldurs daughter) (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Baldur, Freya.
(REQUESTED)
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17.) Will Kratos take you in after the death of your father Modi? (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Modi, Kratos, Atreus, Mimir.
(REQUESTED)
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18.) How will they react when you die in place of them? (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Magni, Modi, Baldur.
(REQUESTED)
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19.) Romantic headcanons. (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Baldur, Magni, Modi.
(REQUESTED)
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20.) How do they react to you having visions of dark things? (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Modi, Baldur.
(REQUESTED)
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21.) They react to finding out you're pregnant with their child. (X)
• God of War (Video game 2018)
• Magni, Modi, Baldur.
(REQUESTED)
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22.) They react to finding out you're pregnant with their child. (X)
• Actors.
• Tom Cruise, Antony Starr.
(REQUESTED)
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23.) The basics of their yandere obsession with you. (X)
• The Witcher (TV series 2019)
• Geralt.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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24.) They react to you yelling "VIBE CHECK!" as you hit a victim with a baseball bat. (X)
• Slashers addition.
• DIDN'T WANNA LIST THEM ALL, JUST LOOK INTO THEM YOURSELF LOL. (ALL AND ALL THERE ARE 23 PEOPLE)
(NOT REQUESTED)
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25.) How do they react when you ask them to lay on top of you for the first time in your relationship. (X)
• Slipknot (Band)
• Corey Taylor, Joey Jordison, Mick Thomson, Sid Wilson, Jim Root.
(NOT REQUESTED)
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26.) Romantic headcanons (X)
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (Video game 2017)
• Lucas Baker
(REQUESTED)
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27.) He reacts to you being an absolute tech wiz. (X)
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (Video game 2017)
• Lucas Baker
(REQUESTED)
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28.) Being Rocky's little sister, and falling for Ivan Drago. (X)
• Rocky IV (Movie 1985)
• Ivan Drago
(REQUESTED)
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29.) Platonic relationship with The Grabber. (X)
• The Black Phone (Movie 2022)
• Albert Shaw
(REQUESTED)
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30.) Syd is a dilf/gilf. (X)
• Cocaine Bear (Movie 2023)
• Syd White
(REQUESTED)
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31.) He's got a breeding kink. (X)
• Batman Forever (Movie 1995)
• Dick Grayson
(NOT REQUESTED)
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32.) He loves his plus size sweetheart. (X)
• Rocky IV (Movie 1985)
• Ivan Drago
(REQUESTED)
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33.) Reactions to their partners nipples being pierced. (X)
• Miscellaneous fandoms
• DIDN'T WANNA LIST THEM ALL, JUST LOOK INTO THEM YOURSELF LOL. (ALL AND ALL THERE ARE 9 PEOPLE)
(NOT REQUESTED)
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34.) What is Valentine's Day like with them? (X)
• Miscellaneous fandoms
• DIDN'T WANNA LIST THEM ALL, JUST LOOK INTO THEM YOURSELF LOL. (ALL AND ALL THERE ARE 9 PEOPLE)
(NOT REQUESTED)
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mikesq10 · 2 months
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My Top 50 Favorite Movies
24
Dark City (1998)
Before Requiem For A Dream, Jennifer Connelly plays the partner to another male lead in a similar role she reprised a few years later. This time the lead is John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) a man who wakes up one day in a literal dark city and struggles to remember the past while being wanted for murder. He is then the target of the "mr. people" (The Strangers) these mysterious figures who run Dark City after they have discovered that he shares the same powers as them. They are out to capture John, as he looks to escape Dark City while trying to put back together his past along with help from Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland). This is an all in one action packed, sci-fi, neo noir, mystery, thriller blended into one massive movie that works out very well. This is arguably one of the most advanced movies I've seen and its recommended you watch with subtitles on and the Director's Cut version so you don't miss anything important. The special effects are top notch, the central theme being about life and consciousness and it concludes with a "too good to be true" ending that only further propels this cult classic high up on my list. Dark City gets better like aged wine, this film is truly mesmerizing.
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opera-ghosts · 7 months
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„WALKÜRE“ R. Wagner / SECOND ACT Some Sieglindes, Siegmunds and Walkyries
Henriette Gottlieb (Brünnhilde), ? Friechrichs and others, Berlin, ?
Walkyries: E. Overgaard (Gerhilde), M. Rassmussen (Ortlinde), E. Leisner (Waltraute), A. Maucher (Schwertleite), L. Hoffmann (Helmwiege), M. Schreber-Sattler (Siegrune), I. Dörwald (Grimgerde) and I. Sarauw (Rossweise). Bayreuth, 1925
N. Larsen-Todsen (Brünnhilde), Charlotte Müller, Ingeborg Holmgren, and others, Bayreuth, 1927
Walkyries and Sieglinde. No informations
Walkyries - No informations
Walkyries - No informations
Walkyries - Toulouse, 1920es
Anny Konetzni (Brünnhilde) and Walkyries, with ? Vienna Volksoper (Backstage), 1926
Alois Burgstaller (Siegmund), Rosa Sucher (Sieglinde) and Ellen Gulbranson (Brünnhilde)Bayreuth, ?
Heinrich Vogl as Siegmund. Bayreuth, ?
? as Siegmund, Strassbourg, ?
? as Sieglinde, Köln, ?
Hanni Weber as Sieglinde. ?, ?
Wälsungspaar: ? and ? No informations (probably Toulouse or a french opera house)
Dr Horst Wolf (Siegmund) and Anny Prell (Sieglinde).Dessau, 1955
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zoi-no-miko · 4 months
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My latest obsession is Alan Wake and the Remedyverse (which I'm sure you've noticed) but every time I watch videos of the one character, Dr. Darling, I think of Dr. Schreber, and then I think of you lol
Omg oh nooooo it's my jammmm!!
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hedgewitchgarden · 21 days
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Scattered throughout Germany are collections of what look like tiny houses surrounded by well-kept gardens. But people don't live in these small structures with flourishing yards. These are allotment gardens — a take on community gardens also known as Kleingarten or Schrebergarten. Originally developed to facilitate health and wellness, these gardens are described by The Local as a "a concept, a goal, a way of life."
In the early 1800s during a strong period of urbanization when many people had moved to the cities for work, impoverished families often had difficulty finding enough to eat. Some churches, city administrators and factory owners offered to lease them community land for a small fee so that they could grow their own food. These became known as Armengarten, or gardens for the poor, according to DW.com.
As urbanization continued, Dr. Moritz Schreber, a doctor and teacher from Leibzig, was concerned that children raised in the city would suffer both physically and emotionally if they didn't have more outdoor experiences. He proposed the concept of playgrounds where everyone could get physical exercise and enjoy the outdoors. Just a few years after he died, the idea gained traction and the concept of Schrebergarten was named for him, reports the Local.
The early spaces were mostly play areas on the outskirts of town. But families quickly realized there was value in the land and also began planting gardens in their outdoor plots.
While the kids ran around and soaked in all that fresh air, the adults grew vegetables for the family. But there was downtime for them, too. They pulled up their chairs and talked or played cards. The gardens evolved into a hub for relaxation and social life for everyone in the family. The gardens also became known as Kleingarten ("small garden") or Familiengarten ("family garden").
Most of the plots were converted completely to family gardens by World War I, and those plots helped a hungry populace survive both world wars, reports German Girl in America.
As the popularity of the gardens grew, laws were passed to keep leasing fees reasonable. The plots of land were kept in the family, passed down from generation to generation as long as the fees were paid.
Many of the gardens were located in relatively undesirable areas where most people didn't want to live, like along railroad tracks, airports and even on both sides of the Berlin Wall. They were usually grouped together in colonies, forming communities.
A way of life
Though they are no longer a necessity, Kleingarten are now considered a luxury or, some say, a key pillar to a recreational way of life.
These days, there are about 1 million allotment gardens in Germany and 95% of them are occupied, according to a study by the German Institute for Construction, City and Space Research.
The average age of a garden association member is 56, a drop in about five years since 2011.
"The allotment garden system continues to have a permanent place in the green and open space system of cities and fulfills important social, ecological and urban planning functions," the study authors write. "The allotment garden is rejuvenating: the generation change is becoming more noticeable ... The main reason for this is the increased demand from young households, mostly families with children, who are also becoming more international. In the big cities, club members are more often younger than in the smaller cities."
And these younger people appreciate the opportunity to be outdoors.
"Overall, this also reflects an increasing need to become more involved in nature and environmental protection and to use, secure and make green and open spaces, especially in the metropolitan areas, as places of rest and relaxation," the researchers write.
Garden laws and waiting lists
Gardens now are often so much more than just a few veggie plants. They can be elaborate spaces with loads of flowers, water features, barbecue grills and even the occasional garden gnome. They are spots for people to relax and socialize and enjoy the outdoors.
But it's not easy to just grab a plot and start growing. There's often a waiting list. According to the BBC, Berlin's gardens have a waiting list of 12,000 people, and it typically takes at least three years to get a plot.
And as attractive as the gardens might be now, with their colorful flowers and home-like accouterments, there are national laws to control what goes on in the plots. The garden huts can't be too big or used as residences, according to DW.com, and at least one-third of the garden must be used to grow fruits and vegetables.
But for many, the balance of rules versus relaxation is worth it, as generations mingle in the gardens.
"The amount of work that goes into taking care of the garden also makes you appreciate what you're eating — and makes you realize what's in season," Paul Muscat, 32, of Wedding, Germany, tells the BBC. "Except for the parks, there’s no immediate escape from the urban environment. This offers a reprieve from that."
Updated February 22, 2020
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By: Bernard Lane
Published: Mar 25, 2024
Not good medicine
The dominant “gender-affirming” treatment approach—which promotes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and mastectomy for minors—is “fundamentally incompatible with competent, ethical medical practice.”
That is the conclusion of a new paper by academic psychiatrist Andrew Amos in the journal Australasian Psychiatry.
Dr Amos says treatment guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (RCH) “assert without evidence that pathology plays no part in the development of gender diversity,” which is said to be part of nature.
“If it is admitted there are some pathological causes of gender diversity, then it becomes necessary to assess the health or illness of all presentations [of gender identity],” Dr Amos says.
But the gender-affirming model insists that self-declared gender identity be affirmed, not interrogated for underlying mental illness.
“The emergence of non-binary and fluid genders means there are no boundaries to self-reported gender identity, which may include a gender consistent with one of the two biological sexes; a combination of features consistent with both sexes; the absence of features of gender; an identity as a voluntarily/involuntarily castrated eunuch; or arbitrary and rapidly changing variations,” Dr Amos says.
“From a psychiatric perspective, the proposition that psychopathology plays no role in gender diversity is absurd.
“The most detailed personal description of the experiences of psychosis is that of Daniel Paul Schreber, a German judge who minutely described his belief that God had turned him into a woman and was sending ribbons from the sun through his body to impregnate him and repopulate the earth.
“It is difficult to imagine a more pathological aetiology [or cause] for gender diversity, yet the [gender-affirming model] provides no framework for assessing such a patient, and does not view Schreber’s case as an absolute contraindication to social, medical or surgical transition.
“As Schreber illustrates, it is certain that pathology causes some cases of gender diversity. Differentiating between healthy and pathological gender diversity, or, more likely, gauging the relative contribution of healthy and pathological processes originating within or in the environment of each patient, can only be achieved by the comparison of an individual’s patterns of behaviour with patterns of normal and pathological development.
“While [gender-affirming] advocates have argued transition is safe in patients with psychosis because it is easy to differentiate psychotic from non-psychotic aetiologies of gender diversity, they have provided no guidance on how to do so, and no empirical evidence that it is safe to try.
“To the extent they discuss the role of psychosis or severe personality pathology in the development of gender diversity at all, it is only to deny that either might prevent transition.”
RCH Melbourne’s treatment guideline—promoted as “Australian standards of care”1 and used by children’s hospital gender clinics across the country—states that psychosis in a minor “should not necessarily prevent medical transition.” It does not explain how to discern those cases when psychosis should indeed rule out transition.
In the leaked WPATH Files, clinicians were revealed debating how to manage “trans clients” with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities or alters) in which “not all the alters have the same gender identity.”
Dr Amos argues that gender-affirming treatment guidelines “abandon the clinical discipline of diagnosis and make treatment contingent upon the unconstrained subjective experiences of children and potentially disturbed adults.”
“This is unethical, because modern medicine relies upon accurate diagnosis and evidence-based clinical reasoning to ensure that treatment is likely to help and not harm patients.”
Dr Amos notes tension in the 2023 gender dysphoria policy of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists between a traditional mental health approach and the unevidenced assertion that, “Being trans or gender diverse does not represent a mental health condition.” This policy area has occasioned sharp divisions within the college since 2019.
“Although it is clear that this [2023 policy] compromise balances the concerns of different stakeholders, the medico-legal implications for psychiatrists and their patients may be too important to long defer a conclusive position on the aetiological role of mental illness in gender diversity,” Dr Amos says.
He points out that the lack of evidence for the gender-affirming model has led an Australian medical defence fund, MDA National, to restrict coverage for private practitioners facing claims because of their involvement in the medical transition of under-18 patients.
youtube
[ Video: England’s NHS has radically restricted puberty blocker drugs, but it’s business as usual for Australia’s gender medicine lobby ]
“A patient should be more than a number, but detransitioners [who regret gender medicine treatments] can’t even get that. Reclaiming one’s biological gender after a gender transition is so taboo, that there is no way to document it in a medical record with an official diagnosis code.”—FAIR in Medicine fellow Aida Cerundolo, opinion article, The Hill, 15 February 2024
“International Classification of Disease diagnosis codes label patients’ medical issues and electronically shuttle them through the US healthcare system. These letter-number combinations facilitate communication, help prevent medical errors and signal insurance companies to reimburse for treatments. 
“Codes exist for patients ‘struck by orca, initial encounter,’ or who have ‘problems in relationship with in-laws’ and even for those ‘sucked into [a] jet engine, sequela.’ However, detransition remains an unrecognized medical entity because it has no corresponding diagnosis code.”
Taking cover
On May 9 last year, GCN reported that MDA National planned to restrict cover for private doctors assessing minors as eligible for medicalised gender change or initiating cross-sex hormones for them.
The insurer cited “the high risk of claims arising from irreversible treatments provided to those who medically and surgically transition as children and adolescents.”
The news appears to have alarmed the lobby group LGBTIQ Health Australia (LHA)2, whose access to federal Health Minister Mark Butler produced an “URGENT one day turnaround” brief from his department on the issue, according to documents obtained under Freedom of Information law.
These documents suggest Australia’s federal government is focused not on the international debate about safety concerns and the lack of evidence for youth gender medicine, but on expanding access to gender-affirming treatment as requested by well-connected LGBTQ lobbies.
On May 23, LHA chief executive Nicky Bath—who sits on the government’s LGBTIQA+ Health and Wellbeing 10 Year National Action Plan Expert Advisory Group—alerted Mr Butler’s office to MDA’s proposed restriction of insurance cover. (By market share, MDA is the second largest medical defence fund.)
That same day, the Department of Health and Aged Care3 secured a detailed account from MDA chief executive Ian Anderson of the insurer’s rationale for the change to take effect from 1 July 2023.
In its urgent brief sent to Minister Butler on May 30, the department relayed Mr Anderson’s explanation that—
While MDA itself had not received any claims arising from gender medicine, the insurer was aware of claims emerging with other indemnifiers in Australia and overseas
Members of MDA had expressed concerns about growing demand pressuring general practitioners (GPs or primary care doctors) to prescribe cross-sex hormones for minors
Those concerns included whether the usual consent would be sufficient for children, given the life-changing, permanent effects of such treatment; and reliance on medical opinion influencing that treatment decision in the event of a claim brought by a former patient
For these reasons, MDA had investigated the underwriting risk of claims arising from gender treatment of minors and concluded that it was unable to quantify and price the risk, quantum and frequency of claims; nor was it able to source appropriate data
MDA members with experience in gender medicine had stated their view that the best model for assessment and treatment of gender-distressed children involved a multi-disciplinary team backed by “a significant hospital”
In its brief, the minister’s department makes no reference to systematic reviews overseas showing the evidence base for paediatric transition to be very weak and uncertain.
However, the note suggests that if the regulatory Medical Board of Australia had to intervene in a case involving gender treatment of a minor, it would use the treatment guideline issued in 2018 by the gender-affirming clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (RCH) and badged as “Australian standards of care.”
“In determining what is safe clinical care and what is the best available evidence, doctors should have regard to relevant Australian standards of care,” the briefing note says.
There is no hint of the controversial status of the RCH treatment guideline.
The department’s note says the RCH guideline “clearly outlines the role of GPs in the assessment and care of adolescents with gender dysphoria”, which the note says includes prescription of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones “in collaboration with a paediatrician, adolescent physician or paediatric endocrinologist.”
However, towards the end of 2023, the RCH gender clinic changed precisely this section of the guideline consistent with a campaign by the gender-affirming lobby to ramp up GP provision of cross-sex hormone treatment for minors—the very issue that MDA was concerned about.
Gender-affirming clinicians see the mainstreaming of hormones through local medical practices as one answer to long waiting lists at children’s hospital specialist gender clinics, where older adolescents may age out before treatment.
The current, version 1.4 of the RCH guideline still says a multidisciplinary approach is “the optimal model of care” but adds new advice that, “GPs with sufficient expertise and skill in initiating and monitoring [cross-sex] hormone therapy can consider initiating and optimising hormone therapy for [minors].”
“This would typically be within a primary care-led multidisciplinary team tailored to the patient’s needs and availability of services…” (Emphasis added.)
It is not explained how GPs will know when they can go ahead without a multi-disciplinary team. Version 1.3—still available on the RCH website—did not recommend that GPs initiate cross-sex hormones without the precaution of specialist back up.
In November 2023, gender-affirming GPs keen to mainstream hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds without specialist back up complained of mixed messages as to whether or not they would be covered for this4 by the country’s largest medical defence fund, Avant.
Avant, which is understood to be defending psychiatrist Dr Patrick Toohey against a 2022 claim by detransitioner Jay Langadinos, told GCN it had not changed its cover. The fund did not answer the question whether it would cover claims arising from GP members initiating opposite-sex hormones for 16- or 17-year-old patients without the backing of a multi-disciplinary team.
Version 1.4 of the RCH guideline did not cite any new evidence supporting the practice of GP-led hormones, nor was the opportunity taken to cite fresh data reported since the guideline was first issued in 2018.
The RCH document makes no reference to systematic evidence reviews in Finland, Sweden and England since 2019. These reviews, undertaken independently, found the evidence base for hormonal treatment of minors to be very weak and uncertain.
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"Gender affirming care" is pseudoscientific faith-healing quackery.
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eyesonsutherland · 9 months
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May I have some Fluff for Dr. Schreber meeting someone who’s equally as Shy and Awkward as him?🥺
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YESSS:)
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cryptic-michael · 1 year
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honourablejester · 1 year
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Top 5 movies you've watched
… I have forgotten every movie I’ve ever watched -_-; Well, no, but you’re literally getting whatever memories float up first here.
80s fantasy. This is a total cheat, but my entire childhood was 80s fantasy movies, and they’re a genre I miss so much. They had a whimsical-ness (whimsy, the word is whimsy, forgive me I’m not awake yet) and a faint joyful ridiculousness that you don’t get in fantasy any more, and that I miss so bad. Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, Krull, Legend, Conan The Barbarian, The Neverending Story, Ladyhawke … More specifically of those, The Last Unicorn is one of my forever movies. It’s gorgeously animated, it’s such an incredibly thematic story, and Molly Grue is the best character ever created.
The Innocents (1961) is quite possibly my favourite horror movie of all time (competing mostly with Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and various Universal/Hammer films). It’s so eerie. The lake scene is one of the single scenes in cinema that sticks with me the hardest. It’s not horror as in there’s a monster, it’s horror as in your own mind is breaking down. In broad daylight, full gorgeous sunshine. It’s amazing.
Dark City (1998). I love noir (Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler) and I love German Expressionism/Futurism (Metropolis, Dr Caligari), and I love science fiction, and Dark City is an utterly fantastic mix and merge of all three in a very 90s sort of way. The themes of memory and personhood and individuality, and the expressionistic motif of the shifting, surreal, night-shrouded noir city, and the battered character of Dr Schreber struggling to secretly fight his captors/employers … It had a lot going for it. (See also: The Crow 1994, Strange Days 1995, The Breed 2001, for movies with a similar late-90s/early 00s, borderline cyberpunk, horror, exploring personhood sort of movies, they’ve all got a very similar vibe, and I enjoy all of them)
The two movies I can quote top to bottom are Young Frankenstein (1974) and The Mummy (1999), which will tell you I enjoy comedic takes on classic monster movies where the humour is warm and well-meaning and fun. I watched Son of Frankenstein (1939) because of the character of Inspector Kemp in Young Frank, I wanted to see the original he was based on, and Inspector Krogh did not disappoint. And the main cast of The Mummy, all of them, are some of my favourite fictional people, full stop, the end. Heh.
What to finish on … The first thing to pop into my mind is Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), because we’re on a theme of horror comedy, and you cannot beat AaOL for zany gallows humour. Should I jump genres again, though, to give a broader spectrum? For tense action thrillers, I love Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976, do not speak to me about the oughties remake), the pacing and tension in that movie are fantastic, and the bond that develops between Bishop, Wilson and Leigh while under siege is amazing …
I’m cheating again, though. I think I’ve mentioned far more than 5 movies. So. We’ll go with what we’ve got so far?
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paineperdu · 11 months
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May 28th - Freud and Merleau-Ponty
today, this weekend, this past little while, I am reading Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and Sigmund Freud’s Three Case Studies. in the latter, where progress is faster, i have finished the case of the rat man, archetypal and unnervingly relatable obsessional neurotic. in obsession, memory persists but affect is severed and displaced, and the return of the negative affect, fear of which is spurred by the retention of the infantile belief in the omnipotence of one’s thoughts, occurs precisely in those places where the defense mechanisms have arisen. the wish for the death of the lover, the father, the competitor in love, &c. inserts itself unconsciously as a distraction in the prayers for their preservation, as we might be disturbed writing a letter, and we are forced in our uncertainty to repeat the procedure - unless the affect breaks through, is articulated. “May God not protect her.” Doubt spreads across the neurotic’s mental life, and the defensive gestures regress to infantile autoeroticism. obsession is a condition of misrecognition, disconnection, and regression. through articulation, the misrecognition can be put right, the affect reconnected to the memory, the patient freed from regression and repetition. (this point, incidentally, is why i do not agree with Sedgwick’s assessment of Freudian readings - Freud without the cure is not Freud at all.) His final note, made long after the fact in 1923, 14 years after the case’s original publication: “The patient’s mental health was restored to him by the analysis which I have reported upon in these pages. Like so many other young men of value and promise, he perished in the great war.”
i am on to the case of the ‘psychotic Dr. Schreber’, whose analysis is made at a distance and by virtue of his autobiography. Freud attempts to reconstruct the ��theologico-psychological system’ that would lead Schreber to believe that himself and all of humanity would be redeemed on condition of his miraculous transformation into a woman. God as an infinite bundle of nerves, who, having only intercoursed with the dead, does not understand the living - “And thereupon comes the question, ‘Why don’t you sh--?’” - Freud insists on the reproduction of, but disavows, Schreber’s censorship of profanity - “to which this brilliant repartee is made on my behalf: ‘Because I’m so stupid or something.’” God is incapable, by his nature, of learning, and so torments those to whom he is connected (by the attractive force of the overexcitation of nerves) with repeated demands of this absurd nature. and so on. but we really see here Freud’s attentiveness, his unwillingness to dismiss the delusion outright, his recognition of Schreber not just as someone possessing excellent faculties and an absurd delusion but excellent faculties within that delusion itself.
Merleau-Ponty reads slowly for me - high-density, in a much more intense way than freud. He too, in this chapter ‘The Spatiality of One’s Own Body and Motility’ is dealing with case-studies, in particular a patient who can complete intentional motions, such as his work in leatherworking, and that of grabbing, for instance, his own nose, but cannot point to a specific location on his body, or precisely identify a touched location, or even differentiate the two points of a compass placed on his body without being allowed to move the compass, to lift in succession the different points. Merleau-Ponty is discussing the privileged status of teleological motions and the constitution of the body-matrix, but not in terms of something the patient might lack - “Illness [...] is a complete form of existence” - the operation here is one of substitution, displacement (as in psychoanalysis). the patient is confined as regards his body as potentiality - he is only able to engage with actuality, with concrete activity. The critique of association theory is brought up again by the demonstration of the difficulty of discerning objects by stringing together their actual, immediate characteristics, rather than engaging with them in the potentiality of their other sides - the patient has to count in his conscious mind the right angles of the dice because his capacity for body as potentiality - that the dice could be turned, rather than needing to be turned - is inhibited. recall the first chapter of part one, and we see the building up of an argument about attention, potentiality, and potential attention, potential alteration of perspective.
they share an ethos of attentiveness, a search for the nature of the ‘normal’ within the exaggerated signs of the ‘pathological’ - seeing those two words together i am worried i will try again to read canguilhem.
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Kiefer Sutherland as Dr. Daniel P. Schreber in Dark City (Dir. Alex Proyas, 1998)
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Review: Dark City (1998)
Dark City (1998)
Rated R for violent images and some sexuality
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<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/review-dark-city-1998.html>
Score: 4 out of 5
Dark City is a film that failed at the box office in its time and, despite a critical reevaluation as one of the hidden science fiction gems of the '90s, still gets overlooked quite often nowadays, for one simple reason: despite its mind-bending plot and creative visual design homaging classic '40s/'50s film noir, it had the misfortune of coming out just a year before The Matrix, a sci-fi masterpiece with very similar themes about what we think of as reality being just an illusion designed to control us. This film was a much more cerebral thriller whose effects shots, while no less visually impressive, were a lot less punchy and action-packed, instead feeling like if the first half-hour of The Matrix got stretched to feature length, given a retro gloss, and focused mainly on Keanu Reeves slowly peeling away the layers of his world, saving the big action sequence for the very end. It's a moody, foreboding film that built up to a great reveal while slowly imbuing the viewer with a paranoid suspicion that their own world may not be "right", and while the finale wrapped things up a bit too neatly and conventionally for my tastes with a rather silly-looking confrontation, the meat of the film was still a slick and highly effective tale that I won't forget anytime soon -- ironic, given what the villains here like to do to people.
The film takes place in an unnamed city with vaguely mid-20th-century technology, aesthetics, and feel, specifically the kind lifted out of a Raymond Chandler novel, a place where the streets are always cloaked in shadows even during what feels like it should be the daytime -- and hey, while you may have childhood memories of sunny days, when's the last time you saw the sun, anyway? We start with a man who wakes up in a hotel room with no memory, only figuring out that his name is John Murdoch from the ID in his wallet, surrounded by the corpses of dead prostitutes that he probably killed, which is not a situation that most of us would want to stick around for so they can calmly explain everything to the police. On the run from the law and searching for both Emma, a cabaret singer who he finds out was his wife, and Dr. Daniel Schreber, who he finds out used to be his psychiatrist, John gets pulled into a twisted web as he's pursued by the Strangers, mysterious, inhumanly pale-skinned men in hats and trenchcoats who he soon finds aren't entirely human, and who seem to control the city from the shadows and regard him as a threat to their plans. Meanwhile, Inspector Frank Bumstead sets out hot on the tail of the suspected murderer, not knowing exactly what he's getting himself into.
I can't really go into much more detail about the plot. Like a lot of old-fashioned mysteries, this is a movie where part of the fun is piecing the puzzle together yourself and then the film revealing how close you came to the truth, albeit one that puts a sci-fi twist on the usual noir story. I can, however, speak to the production values and writer/director Alex Proyas' sense of style, and on that front, I was at once pulled into the film's world and wondering what awful truths lay outside it. The city is the kind of seedy place you'd set a hardboiled detective story, exaggerated to the point where it feels like a warped parody thereof and creating an unsettling feel that this place should not be. Some of the supporting cast members having spotty American accents (this was shot in Australia), something I'd normally ding a film for, only lent to the uncanny valley feel of the city, as did countless other little quirks that made the place feel like somebody trying to draw a picture of a mid-century East Coast metropolis without any reference points as to what that would look like beyond old movies. And that's before you get to the Strangers who are after John, who wear conspicuous trenchcoats and have names like "Mr. Book", "Mr. Hand", and "Mr. Sleep" that sound like somebody tried to come up with ordinary-sounding "John Smith" names to blend in and... didn't pull it off, on top of their general weirdness and stilted manner of speaking calling to mind the G-Man from Half-Life. While it takes a while to get to the "why" of the titular dark city, the film lets you know rather quickly that this is not a normal city, and even before we get to the big special effects shots, Proyas did a great job right off the bat heightening its artifice and pale imitation of humanity. More than anything, it felt like I was watching the darkest possible film adaptation of The Sims, predating the first game by a couple of years but otherwise, without spoiling anything, taking some of the series' central concepts and playing them for paranoid horror.
The cast also did great in making this world feel just the right mix of real and artificial. Rufus Sewell as John, Jennifer Connelly as Emma, and William Hurt as Bumstead all felt like they could've been lifted out of a real 1940s film noir, while Kiefer Sutherland played Schreber as a character wholly unlike the take-charge heroes he's been coded as since 24, a dweebish doctor who serves as the main characters' bridge between the world they know and what's really going on through his exposition. The special effects were not the focus, but they were astonishing to watch for a fairly low-budgeted '90s film, especially a key sequence where we witness the city's buildings shifting around as the Strangers' true power over the city is made clear. Only at the very end did it feel like Proyas ran out of ideas, as John's final confrontation with the Strangers after unlocking his true power ended with them shooting beams of light at each other with their minds while buildings crumbled around them. It all felt pretty goofy, like they needed to find a way to wrap this up and have the hero prevail, even though if I was writing this, there are some seriously dark directions I could've taken the story. The ending, I feel, underlines the big reason why The Matrix was the big late '90s sci-fi movie about reality being a lie that everybody remembers; when it did similar battles between the good guys and bad guys, they came in the form of epic shootouts and martial arts sequences straight out of Hong Kong.
The Bottom Line
Dark City is a film that doesn't get talked up nearly enough, even if I can't really say much more in a non-spoiler review. Ending aside, it makes a great companion to The Matrix as a more cerebral and noir-tinged take on very similar concepts, one that will, at the very least, make it very difficult for you to play The Sims the same way again. A big thank you to Popcorn Frights for screening it last week. Check it out.
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saucycowboy · 2 years
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10 characters ask meme
tagged by @north-bi-northwest 10 favourite characters from 10 different fandoms lesgo
Seiji Haitani from Masakazu Katsura’s Zetman
Dean Domino from Fallout: New Vegas
Inspector Clamp Grosky from the Professor Layton prequels
Booker DeWitt from Bioshock Infinite
Adeleine from Kirby
Sandra from Pyre
Zanza from Xenoblade Chronicles
hhhhh i rotate so few guys in my head wait okay Dr. Daniel Schreber from Dark City
Lucille Sharpe from Crimson Peak
Junpei Iori from Persona 3
I love how many of these are characters I literally actually hate and like fully get mad when they’re on screen... you know like you get it you know.
tagging @squid-brooke and @distortedfractals if you haven’t already done it!
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