#anti 3 body problem
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Next week will be released on Netflix "3 Body Problem" and I'm here to remind you all this series is made and created by not only the two most incompetent writers in the world, but also by two misogynists who wrote rape scenes even when it wasn't needed by the plot, find incest sexy and hot and tried multiple times to romanticize it, have zero respect for their actors seeing them as parrots who are there only to repeat the words they wrote for their characters and are so narcissists that they compared themselves to God.
I'm not going to say don't watch it because everyone should do what they want with their free time, just be aware that THESE are the people you are going to support by watching the series.
#I truly hope it flops like everything else they touch deserves to flop#I don't know the story of the series I know the book has its own fandom and I'm sorry if you are part of it but#I'm going to be against everything that involves these two hacks#the fact that netflix trusts them with another project after what they did to got is beyond me#anti d&d#anti dumb & dumber#anti 3 body problem
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🤭🤭🤭 ‘3 Body Problem’ Already Dethroned In Netflix’s Top 10 List By A New Show forbes(.)com/sites/paultassi/2024/03/28/3-body-problem-already-dethroned-in-netflixs-top-10-list-by-a-new-show/?sh=1a0a2b76b793
Thanks for sending this to me anon lol. So 3BP spent the weekend getting beat by a true crime show and just barely hit #1 for like 2 days only to be beaten by a new Moses series that did something 3 Booty Problem couldn't do which was debut at #1....
Not a good look for them. I know Easter is this week but still....if 3BP had legs and hype then it's viewership should be increasing not decreasing but fact is seems like general audiences just don't give af. Also that GOT audience that Netflix hoped would come back...did not lol. GOT backlash still going strong.
Unfortunately though even with low viewership I still think it's possible 3BP could get a second season because of that overall contract Netflix has with Dumb and Dumber. Netflix could also choose to save the show just to save face since everyone knows it's their most expensive show to date just like Amazon did with Rings of Power which cost 1 billion to make but flopped with viewership with only a 37% completion rate. So they'd be failing upwards again. Either way I won't be watching no matter what and Game of Thrones still sucks and S8 is still universally hated thanks to Dumb and Dumber. The end.
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Honestly the premise of The 3 Body Problem is right up my lane as a science fiction fan. And yet the second I heard David Benioff and Dan Weiss....
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I've been watching the three body problem series and (besides the fact that I just generally hate it for peak levels of Benioff/Weiss douchebroeyness) it is just so clear that there were no monster fuckers involved at all in either the book or series production.
"What do you really look like?"
"You wouldn't like it."
FUCKING TRY ME. BULLSHIT COPOUT COWARDLY UNCREATIVE ANSWER.
It makes me fucking feral when people think that's supposed to sound scary or sinister when it's actually just boring and unimaginative.
#i never liked the concept of the book even before the show came out and im only watching it for Rosalind Chao#this is a Keiko O'Brien fan account#literally the core concept of this series is xenophobia and it's truly the anti-star trek#miss me with that shit#3 body problem
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bebe is sooo super graphic ultra modern girl by chappell roan
Anonymous asked: YOU GIVE ME SUPER GRAPHIC ULTRA MODERN GIRL VIBES TOO LOWKEYJFKDKD
me x bebe x being super graphic ultra modern girls!!!!
PLEASE!!!!!!! this is the Highest compliment!!!! i love when people tell me what music they think i sound like/what songs -- i literally died and went to heaven when that one anon told me they think i sound like a mazzy star/cure mashup & i think abt it Every! Damn! Day! <333
and, to be hooonest: i feel like a lot of people want to be like bebe stevens...but i do actually think i'm /extremely/ Bebe Stevens Coded. like she is me, i am her. we swap goss in the juicy tracksuits, drink cute pink whitney lemonades, trash talk our exs and on weird nights, kiss.
but most specifically i think i am a bebe stevens sun bc i present like an extremely extroverted 2cool4u slay olay girl boss whos constantly doing hot girl shit ( i feel like i can also be read as kenny in a main five context tbh bc i'm freak nasty fuccboi gutter trash ) a true blue stan moon bc i'm actually a pathetic sad girl failure w/ bad punk rock self destructive tendencies who uses the bisexual finger guns as a coping mechanism waaay too often and a kyle rising, tbh, bc i am fucking neurotic, introverted, kind of a haunted narrator and what’s more?
A Hater...through and through, darling. <3 :*
-uncle nina, super graphic ultra modern girl ;)
#AAAAAAAAAAAA#I SCREAMED WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED#i feel like i am a top 100 pop song that sounds cute and flashy#but the lyrics are actually sad and the singing is unhinged#and im main5 kenny bc bebe and kenny are rlly the same ppl in my personal opinion bebe is just more girly pop like me#i am definitely a kenny girl that causes a lot of problems dies every day but cant stay dead and enjoys watching chaos unfold#also loves hot moms bad bitches marjaritas living fast dying young going crazy stupid and being a secret eldritch horror tbh#but for the most part i am a bebe/kenny sun#a stan moon like...very heavily#and am a kyle rising bc i'm introspective and pissed and rlly do have all the makings to be moderately evil and unhinged#i'm also a little pretentious and v *mar-nina and the diamonds vc* feel like i'm the worst so i always act like i'm the best#does this make sense#it makes sense to me#a y2k princess chaotic bi disaster slay olay v sad writer girl#a haunted final girl narrator and an cute but insane anti hero#with several mental illnesses that i call my hot girl accessories#it does depend on the day tho bc sometimes i am serving girly girly pop <3 & sometimes i'm a backwards snapback frat boy ;)#the duality of woman#i am a secret fuccboi i am afriad#so sorry to every body#kenny nation khslkahd#also fun fact i took my most recent id pictures in the gigantic false lashes hoop earrings and the pink juicy tracksuit <3
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If you feel like talking about it — what’s the *aftermath* of anaphylaxis like? I know that an epipen is just step one, and further treatment and observation follows at a hospital, but I’m curious about what the subjective experience is like in the longer term; whether one can bounce back fairly well or whether there’s lingering unpleasantness.
So with the caveat that everyone experiences things differently (and putting this under a cut because I don't want to trigger anyone):
After epi is administered, you're usually put on a cocktail of drugs ranging from several different IV antihistamines (typically a mix of h1 and h2 histamine blockers and a giant whack of benadryl), anti-nausea meds, a beta-agonist to assist with breathing, and a shit-whack of steroids.
Once you've been stable for a few hours and discharged, you'll be told to watch for symptoms for up to 72 hours, which is the period in which a biphasic reaction can happen. (For me, it's always within 20 minutes to 8 hours after rescue medication is administered if I'm going to slip back into an allergic response, but everyone is different.)
Depending on your symptoms, you'll sometimes be told to take an antihistamine for up to 72 hours (if you're not already taking one daily), but the one thing they always send you home with is a steroid like prednisone. I usually need a 5-7 day dose because I need to taper off it or my adrenals crash, but some people get a 3-day dose and come off it with no problems.
Body-wise, it's a draining experience, and the medications often leave you both tired and wired. It's an odd sensation.
Mentally and emotionally, it takes me a lot longer to recover because I've just been smacked with a proverbial mallet of stress hormones and adrenaline, and that can often lead to depressive moods and even rage for some people. The prednisone also heightens emotions, so it's not unusual to be having some of the wildest mood swings of your life while also processing the stress of what just happened.
It takes me a while to bounce back, typically about a week on full rest, but I know some people who claim to feel fine in a couple of days. Couldn't be me, haha. My body goes into hibernation mode for quite a while, and I'll be lying in bed exhausted and jittering like I've had ten espressos, but I don't know how much of that is general anaphylaxis or how much of that is specific to my mast cell disorder.
So, for me, it's a desperate need to sleep, jitteriness, depression, and rapid mood swings from the prednisone followed by a general feeling of blegh. It also takes me about 72 hours to be able to eat solid foods again because of the effect anaphylaxis has on the digestive tract (the esophagus is lined with histamine receptors; that's why some heartburn meds are actually antihistamines.), but I suspect that's my MCAS.
It's basically just a bit shit, lol.
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Holy shit, the New York Times is FINALLY interviewing and listening to detransistioners.
The tide is turning.
Opinion by Pamela Paul
As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.
Feb. 2, 2024
Grace Powell was 12 or 13 when she discovered she could be a boy.
Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.
“I felt so detached from my body, and the way it was developing felt hostile to me,” Powell told me. It was classic gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort with your sex.
Reading about transgender people online, Powell believed that the reason she didn’t feel comfortable in her body was that she was in the wrong body. Transitioning seemed like the obvious solution. The narrative she had heard and absorbed was that if you don’t transition, you’ll kill yourself.
At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college, then went off as a transgender man named Grayson to Sarah Lawrence College, where she was paired with a male roommate on a men’s floor. At 5-foot-3, she felt she came across as a very effeminate gay man.
At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she’d been sexually abused as a child.
“I wish there had been more open conversations,” Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”
Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won’t let kids be themselves.
But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.
Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.
And while Donald Trump denounces “left-wing gender insanity” and many trans activists describe any opposition as transphobic, parents in America’s vast ideological middle can find little dispassionate discussion of the genuine risks or trade-offs involved in what proponents call gender-affirming care.
Powell’s story shows how easy it is for young people to get caught up by the pull of ideology in this atmosphere.
“What should be a medical and psychological issue has been morphed into a political one,” Powell lamented during our conversation. “It’s a mess.”
A New and Growing Group of Patients
Many transgender adults are happy with their transitions and, whether they began to transition as adults or adolescents, feel it was life changing, even lifesaving. The small but rapidly growing number of children who express gender dysphoria and who transition at an early age, according to clinicians, is a recent and more controversial phenomenon.
Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States, said that when she started her practice in 2007, most of her patients had longstanding and deep-seated gender dysphoria. Transitioning clearly made sense for almost all of them, and any mental health issues they had were generally resolved through gender transition.
“But that is just not the case anymore,” she told me recently. While she doesn’t regret transitioning the earlier cohort of patients and opposes government bans on transgender medical care, she said, “As far as I can tell, there are no professional organizations who are stepping in to regulate what’s going on.”
Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, several researchers have documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.
“The population has changed drastically,” said Edwards-Leeper, a former head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization responsible for setting gender transition guidelines for medical professionals.
For these young people, she told me, “you have to take time to really assess what’s going on and hear the timeline and get the parents’ perspective in order to create an individualized treatment plan. Many providers are completely missing that step.”
Yet those health care professionals and scientists who do not think clinicians should automatically agree to a young person’s self-diagnosis are often afraid to speak out. A report commissioned by the National Health Service about Britain’s Tavistock gender clinic, which, until it was ordered to be shut down, was the country’s only health center dedicated to gender identity, noted that “primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.”
Of the dozens of students she’s trained as psychologists, Edwards-Leeper said, few still seem to be providing gender-related care. While her students have left the field for various reasons, “some have told me that they didn’t feel they could continue because of the pushback, the accusations of being transphobic, from being pro-assessment and wanting a more thorough process,” she said.
They have good reasons to be wary. Stephanie Winn, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oregon, was trained in gender-affirming care and treated multiple transgender patients. But in 2020, after coming across detransition videos online, she began to doubt the gender-affirming model. In 2021 she spoke out in favor of approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way, urging others in the field to pay attention to detransitioners, people who no longer consider themselves transgender after undergoing medical or surgical interventions. She has since been attacked by transgender activists. Some threatened to send complaints to her licensing board saying that she was trying to make trans kids change their minds through conversion therapy.
In April 2022, the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists told Winn that she was under investigation. Her case was ultimately dismissed, but Winn no longer treats minors and practices only online, where many of her patients are worried parents of trans-identifying children.
“I don’t feel safe having a location where people can find me,” she said.
Detransitioners say that only conservative media outlets seem interested in telling their stories, which has left them open to attacks as hapless tools of the right, something that frustrated and dismayed every detransitioner I interviewed. These are people who were once the trans-identified kids that so many organizations say they’re trying to protect — but when they change their minds, they say, they feel abandoned.
Most parents and clinicians are simply trying to do what they think is best for the children involved. But parents with qualms about the current model of care are frustrated by what they see as a lack of options.
Parents told me it was a struggle to balance the desire to compassionately support a child with gender dysphoria while seeking the best psychological and medical care. Many believed their kids were gay or dealing with an array of complicated issues. But all said they felt compelled by gender clinicians, doctors, schools and social pressure to accede to their child’s declared gender identity even if they had serious doubts. They feared it would tear apart their family if they didn’t unquestioningly support social transition and medical treatment. All asked to speak anonymously, so desperate were they to maintain or repair any relationship with their children, some of whom were currently estranged.
Several of those who questioned their child’s self-diagnosis told me it had ruined their relationship. A few parents said simply, “I feel like I’ve lost my daughter.”
One mother described a meeting with 12 other parents in a support group for relatives of trans-identified youth where all of the participants described their children as autistic or otherwise neurodivergent. To all questions, the woman running the meeting replied, “Just let them transition.” The mother left in shock. How would hormones help a child with obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression? she wondered.
Some parents have found refuge in anonymous online support groups. There, people share tips on finding caregivers who will explore the causes of their children’s distress or tend to their overall emotional and developmental health and well-being without automatically acceding to their children’s self-diagnosis.
Many parents of kids who consider themselves trans say their children were introduced to transgender influencers on YouTube or TikTok, a phenomenon intensified for some by the isolation and online cocoon of Covid. Others say their kids learned these ideas in the classroom, as early as elementary school, often in child-friendly ways through curriculums supplied by trans rights organizations, with concepts like the gender unicorn or the Genderbread person.
‘Do You Want a Dead Son or a Live Daughter?’
After Kathleen’s 15-year-old son, whom she described as an obsessive child, abruptly told his parents he was trans, the doctor who was going to assess whether he had A.D.H.D. referred him instead to someone who specialized in both A.D.H.D. and gender. Kathleen, who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her son’s privacy, assumed that the specialist would do some kind of evaluation or assessment. That was not the case.
The meeting was brief and began on a shocking note. “In front of my son, the therapist said, ‘Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?’” Kathleen recounted.
Parents are routinely warned that to pursue any path outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people like emotional blackmail. Proponents of the gender-affirming model have cited studies showing an association between that standard of care and a lower risk of suicide. But those studies were found to have methodological flaws or have been deemed not entirely conclusive. A survey of studies on the psychological effects of cross-sex hormones, published three years ago in The Journal of the Endocrine Society, the professional organization for hormone specialists, found it “could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.” In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”
Moreover, the incidence of suicidal thoughts and attempts among gender dysphoric youth is complicated by the high incidence of accompanying conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder. As one systematic overview put it, “Children with gender dysphoria often experience a range of psychiatric comorbidities, with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, eating disorders and autism spectrum conditions, suicidality and self-harm.”
But rather than being treated as patients who deserve unbiased professional help, children with gender dysphoria often become political pawns.
Conservative lawmakers are working to ban access to gender care for minors and occasionally for adults as well. On the other side, however, many medical and mental health practitioners feel their hands have been tied by activist pressure and organizational capture. They say that it has become difficult to practice responsible mental health care or medicine for these young people.
Pediatricians, psychologists and other clinicians who dissent from this orthodoxy, believing that it is not based on reliable evidence, feel frustrated by their professional organizations. The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have wholeheartedly backed the gender-affirming model.
In 2021, Aaron Kimberly, a 50-year-old trans man and registered nurse, left the clinic in British Columbia where his job focused on the intake and assessment of gender-dysphoric youth. Kimberly received a comprehensive screening when he embarked on his own successful transition at age 33, which resolved the gender dysphoria he experienced from an early age.
But when the gender-affirming model was introduced at his clinic, he was instructed to support the initiation of hormone treatment for incoming patients regardless of whether they had complex mental problems, experiences with trauma or were otherwise “severely unwell,” Kimberly said. When he referred patients for further mental health care rather than immediate hormone treatment, he said he was accused of what they called gatekeeping and had to change jobs.
“I realized something had gone totally off the rails,” Kimberly, who subsequently founded the Gender Dysphoria Alliance and the L.G.B.T. Courage Coalition to advocate better gender care, told me.
Gay men and women often told me they fear that same-sex-attracted kids, especially effeminate boys and tomboy girls who are gender nonconforming, will be transitioned during a normal phase of childhood and before sexual maturation — and that gender ideology can mask and even abet homophobia.
As one detransitioned man, now in a gay relationship, put it, “I was a gay man pumped up to look like a woman and dated a lesbian who was pumped up to look like a man. If that’s not conversion therapy, I don’t know what is.”
“I transitioned because I didn’t want to be gay,” Kasey Emerick, a 23-year-old woman and detransitioner from Pennsylvania, told me. Raised in a conservative Christian church, she said, “I believed homosexuality was a sin.”
When she was 15, Emerick confessed her homosexuality to her mother. Her mother attributed her sexual orientation to trauma — Emerick’s father was convicted of raping and assaulting her repeatedly when she was between the ages of 4 and 7 — but after catching Emerick texting with another girl at age 16, she took away her phone. When Emerick melted down, her mother admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. While there, Emerick told herself, “If I was a boy, none of this would have happened.”
In May 2017, Emerick began searching “gender” online and encountered trans advocacy websites. After realizing she could “pick the other side,” she told her mother, “I’m sick of being called a dyke and not a real girl.” If she were a man, she’d be free to pursue relationships with women.
That September, she and her mother met with a licensed professional counselor for the first of two 90-minute consultations. She told the counselor that she had wished to be a Boy Scout rather than a Girl Scout. She said she didn’t like being gay or a butch lesbian. She also told the counselor that she had suffered from anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. The clinic recommended testosterone, which was prescribed by a nearby L.G.B.T.Q. health clinic. Shortly thereafter, she was also diagnosed with A.D.H.D. She developed panic attacks. At age 17, she was cleared for a double mastectomy.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m having my breasts removed. I’m 17. I’m too young for this,’” she recalled. But she went ahead with the operation.
“Transition felt like a way to control something when I couldn’t control anything in my life,” Emerick explained. But after living as a trans man for five years, Emerick realized her mental health symptoms were only getting worse. In the fall of 2022, she came out as a detransitioner on Twitter and was immediately attacked. Transgender influencers told her she was bald and ugly. She received multiple threats.
“I thought my life was over,” she said. “I realized that I had lived a lie for over five years.”
Today Emerick’s voice, permanently altered by testosterone, is that of a man. When she tells people she’s a detransitioner, they ask when she plans to stop taking T and live as a woman. “I’ve been off it for a year,” she replies.
Once, after she recounted her story to a therapist, the therapist tried to reassure her. If it’s any consolation, the therapist remarked, “I would never have guessed that you were once a trans woman.” Emerick replied, “Wait, what sex do you think I am?”
To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best, it is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time. One mother told me that after her teenage son desisted — pulled back from a trans identity before any irreversible medical procedures — he explained, “I was just rebelling. I look at it like a subculture, like being goth.”
“The job of children and adolescents is to experiment and explore where they fit into the world, and a big part of that exploration, especially during adolescence, is around their sense of identity,” Sasha Ayad, a licensed professional counselor based in Phoenix, told me. “Children at that age often present with a great deal of certainty and urgency about who they believe they are at the time and things they would like to do in order to enact that sense of identity.”
Ayad, a co-author of “When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents,” advises parents to be wary of the gender affirmation model. “We’ve always known that adolescents are particularly malleable in relationship to their peers and their social context and that exploration is often an attempt to navigate difficulties of that stage, such as puberty, coming to terms with the responsibilities and complications of young adulthood, romance and solidifying their sexual orientation,” she told me. For providing this kind of exploratory approach in her own practice with gender dysphoric youth, Ayad has had her license challenged twice, both times by adults who were not her patients. Both times, the charges were dismissed.
Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.
Proponents of early social transition and medical interventions for gender dysphoric youth cite a 2022 study showing that 98 percent of children who took both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones continued treatment for short periods, and another study that tracked 317 children who socially transitioned between the ages of 3 and 12, which found that 94 percent of them still identified as transgender five years later. But such early interventions may cement children’s self-conceptions without giving them time to think or sexually mature.
‘The Process of Transition Didn’t Make Me Feel Better’
At the end of her freshman year of college, Grace Powell, horrifically depressed, began dissociating, feeling detached from her body and from reality, which had never happened to her before. Ultimately, she said, “the process of transition didn’t make me feel better. It magnified what I found was wrong with myself.”
“I expected it to change everything, but I was just me, with a slightly deeper voice,” she added. “It took me two years to start detransitioning and living as Grace again.”
She tried in vain to find a therapist who would treat her underlying issues, but they kept asking her: How do you want to be seen? Do you want to be nonbinary? Powell wanted to talk about her trauma, not her identity or her gender presentation. She ended up getting online therapy from a former employee of the Tavistock clinic in Britain. This therapist, a woman who has broken from the gender-affirming model, talked Grace through what she sees as her failure to launch and her efforts to reset. The therapist asked questions like: Who is Grace? What do you want from your life? For the first time, Powell felt someone was seeing and helping her as a person, not simply looking to slot her into an identity category.
Many detransitioners say they face ostracism and silencing because of the toxic politics around transgender issues.
“It is extraordinarily frustrating to feel that something I am is inherently political,” Powell told me. “I’ve been accused multiple times that I’m some right-winger who’s making a fake narrative to discredit transgender people, which is just crazy.”
While she believes there are people who benefit from transitioning, “I wish more people would understand that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she said. “I wish we could have that conversation.”
In a recent study in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, about 40 young detransitioners out of 78 surveyed said they had suffered from rapid onset gender dysphoria. Trans activists have fought hard to suppress any discussion of rapid onset gender dysphoria, despite evidence that the condition is real. In its guide for journalists, the activist organization GLAAD warns the media against using the term, as it is not “a formal condition or diagnosis.” Human Rights Campaign, another activist group, calls it “a right-wing theory.” A group of professional organizations put out a statement urging clinicians to eliminate the term from use.
Nobody knows how many young people desist after social, medical or surgical transitions. Trans activists often cite low regret rates for gender transition, along with low figures for detransition. But those studies, which often rely on self-reported cases to gender clinics, likely understate the actual numbers. None of the seven detransitioners I interviewed, for instance, even considered reporting back to the gender clinics that prescribed them medication they now consider to have been a mistake. Nor did they know any other detransitioners who had done so.
As Americans furiously debate the basis of transgender care, a number of advances in understanding have taken place in Europe, where the early Dutch studies that became the underpinning of gender-affirming care have been broadly questioned and criticized. Unlike some of the current population of gender dysphoric youth, the Dutch study participants had no serious psychological conditions. Those studies were riddled with methodological flaws and weaknesses. There was no evidence that any intervention was lifesaving. There was no long-term follow-up with any of the study’s 55 participants or the 15 who dropped out. A British effort to replicate the study said that it “identified no changes in psychological function” and that more studies were needed.
In countries like Sweden, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Britain — long considered exemplars of gender progress — medical professionals have recognized that early research on medical interventions for childhood gender dysphoria was either faulty or incomplete. Last month, the World Health Organization, in explaining why it is developing “a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people,” said it will cover only adults because “the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender-affirming care for children and adolescents.”
But in America, and Canada, the results of those widely criticized Dutch studies are falsely presented to the public as settled science.
Other countries have recently halted or limited the medical and surgical treatment of gender dysphoric youth, pending further study. Britain’s Tavistock clinic was ordered to be shut down next month, after a National Health Service-commissioned investigation found deficiencies in service and “a lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”
Meanwhile, the American medical establishment has hunkered down, stuck in an outdated model of gender affirmation. The American Academy of Pediatrics only recently agreed to conduct more research in response to yearslong efforts by dissenting experts, including Dr. Julia Mason, a self-described “bleeding-heart liberal.”
The larger threat to transgender people comes from Republicans who wish to deny them rights and protections. But the doctrinal rigidity of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is disappointing, frustrating and counterproductive.
“I was always a liberal Democrat,” one woman whose son desisted after social transition and hormone therapy told me. “Now I feel politically homeless.”
She noted that the Biden administration has “unequivocally” supported gender-affirming care for minors, in cases in which it deems it “medically appropriate and necessary.” Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR in 2022 that “there is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, et cetera — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”
Of course, politics should not influence medical practice, whether the issue is birth control, abortion or gender medicine. But unfortunately, politics has gotten in the way of progress. Last year The Economist published a thorough investigation into America’s approach to gender medicine. Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor, put the issue into political context. “If you look internationally at countries in Europe, the U.K. included, their medical establishments are much more concerned,” Beddoes told Vanity Fair. “But here — in part because this has become wrapped up in the culture wars where you have, you know, crazy extremes from the Republican right — if you want to be an upstanding liberal, you feel like you can’t say anything.”
Some people are trying to open up that dialogue, or at least provide outlets for kids and families to seek a more therapeutic approach to gender dysphoria.
Paul Garcia-Ryan is a psychotherapist in New York who cares for kids and families seeking holistic, exploratory care for gender dysphoria. He is also a detransitioner who from ages 15 to 30 fully believed he was a woman.
Garcia-Ryan is gay, but as a boy, he said, “it was much less threatening to my psyche to think that I was a straight girl born into the wrong body — that I had a medical condition that could be tended to.” When he visited a clinic at 15, the clinician immediately affirmed he was female, and rather than explore the reasons for his mental distress, simply confirmed Garcia-Ryan’s belief that he was not meant to be a man.
Once in college, he began medically transitioning and eventually had surgery on his genitals. Severe medical complications from both the surgery and hormone medication led him to reconsider what he had done, and to detransition. He also reconsidered the basis of gender affirmation, which, as a licensed clinical social worker at a gender clinic, he had been trained in and provided to clients.
“You’re made to believe these slogans,” he said. “Evidence-based, lifesaving care, safe and effective, medically necessary, the science is settled — and none of that is evidence based.”
Garcia-Ryan, 32, is now the board president of Therapy First, an organization that supports therapists who do not agree with the gender affirmation model. He thinks transition can help some people manage the symptoms of gender dysphoria but no longer believes anyone under 25 should socially, medically or surgically transition without exploratory psychotherapy first.
“When a professional affirms a gender identity for a younger person, what they are doing is implementing a psychological intervention that narrows a person’s sense of self and closes off their options for considering what’s possible for them,” Garcia-Ryan told me.
Instead of promoting unproven treatments for children, which surveys show many Americans are uncomfortable with, transgender activists would be more effective if they focused on a shared agenda. Most Americans across the political spectrum can agree on the need for legal protections for transgender adults. They would also probably support additional research on the needs of young people reporting gender dysphoria so that kids could get the best treatment possible.
A shift in this direction would model tolerance and acceptance. It would prioritize compassion over demonization. It would require rising above culture-war politics and returning to reason. It would be the most humane path forward. And it would be the right thing to do.
*~*~*~*~*~*
For those who want tor ead more by those fighting the cancellation forquestioning, read:
Graham Lineham, who's been fighting since the beginning and paid the price, but is not seeing things turn around.
The Glinner Update, Grahan Linehan's Substack.
Kellie-Jay Keen @ThePosieParker, who's been physically attacked for organizing events for women demanding women-only spaces.
REDUXX, Feminst news & opinion.
Gays Against Groomers @againstgrmrs, A nonprofit of gay people and others within the community against the sexualization, indoctrination and medicalization of children under the guise of "LGBTQIA+"
#detransitioners#detransition#gender critical#New York Times#gays#lesbians#trans#trans insanity#long post#article#detrans#transgender#post trans#desisted
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Too Young to Die- Part 1
Masterlist
Part 1 of 3 part Mini Series
Pairing | Massage Therapist Joel Miller x F!Reader with Autoimmune disease, no outbreak, AU (I changed up his timeline a bit).
Summary | You were referred to Dr. Joel Miller, a massage specialist, to help manage your joint and muscle pain with autoimmune disease. What you didn’t know was that Joel was an insanely attractive man, and that you’d be coming undone underneath him before your first appointment was even over with.
Series Warnings | 18+, Minors DNI, Smut!
Age gap (he’s 47, she’s 29), language, Smut (with a capital S, watch out!!), daddy reference, f!(fingering), squirting, female reader has autoimmune disease, Joel is a massage therapist, slight reference of medical stuff, reader verbalizes anxiety with treatment, fluffy Joel, soft Joel, sexy Joel, terms of endearment, Joel asks her out on a date at the end.
A/N: This one is completely self-indulgent and has been sitting in my draft folder since before Christmas. I have autoimmune disease, and treatment hasn’t worked much for me in many areas, so I know some of the troubles and struggles that the reader here has. Not everyone who has autoimmune disease may experience these symptoms, concerns, or struggles. This will be only a three part mini series. Very smutty with story building throughout. Enjoy!
Word Count: 9.1K (we’re establishing a story here)
Fuck you were wrecked, seconds away from crashing through, or into, a brick wall with an orgasm, you thought. This felt different though, so much different than what you’ve ever experienced before. “Joel, fuck, pressure, it’s a lot of pressure and I’m, fuck, I’m, I’m-”
“Come f’me sweetheart. Come on baby, fucking soak my fingers.”
Joel Miller sat in his office of his massage studio, looking over the referral paperwork that Dr. Samson, an autoimmune specialist, had sent him. A female patient was being referred to him for treatment of musculoskeletal pain and tenderness.
“Patient has reoccurring musculoskeletal tremors of unknown origin that come and go. Bilateral joint swelling seen in all extremities with positive inflammation noted in laboratory test results and X-rays. Arthritis and arthralgia positive in all joints. According to the patient, anti-inflammatory and arthritis medication only works slightly for pain. Recommended gentle massage therapy to see if joint lubrication and increased joint mobility is plausible, and if pain and muscle tremors will cease. Immediate referral requested.”
When Joel glanced at the bottom of the form a week ago, he had seen that the referral had come in three weeks prior. Now today, four weeks after the initial referral, he was finally able to see you for the first time. When he had inquired with his secretary as to why it took so long before he saw you, she had said that there was a problem with your private healthcare insurance. Delaying treatment was never something that Joel Miller prided himself on. In fact, he was usually the opposite with trying to get his patients in for their first appointment within a week following their referral. Joel, having been a contractor in his previous life before becoming a massage therapist, knew the difficulties with treating joint and muscle pain. The goal was to never delay treatment as it would lead to widespread body inflammation. And once inflammation fully set into muscles and joints, it was harder for someone to find relief of their discomfort.
You were Joel’s next scheduled patient to arrive in 20 minutes. As he waited for your arrival, he went back over your X-rays, lab test results, and dictation notes from your autoimmune specialist. He had already reviewed it previously, but now he was refreshing himself on your in-depth history as he took some last minute notes of things that he wanted to ask you for this particular session. He had booked your first appointment with him to be about 2 hours, instead of the usual hour. Joel always conducted very detailed exams with his patients. He was also very knowledgeable in understanding autoimmune patients, especially knowing that each person was unique. He wanted to tailor a program that was going to help you specifically.
Joel Miller wasn’t just your average run of the mill massage therapist, he had a specialty license in massage. He specialized in patients with pain, joint stiffness and swelling, inflammation, autoimmune disease, injuries, etc. People usually only came to him by doctor referral, which usually meant two things. First, he prided himself on taking his time to get to know his patients and how he could help ease their suffering and pain. And second, he typically charged more money for his services. Most massage therapists would charge people a fee based on how long they performed their massage, Joel charged by the session. The maximum time he would give a client with his hands was 1 hour, but he’d pencil in 1.5 hours of time with them just in case they felt pain. Sometimes he’d have to stop and let patients breathe and relax for a minute before he started massaging their muscles again. Joel had a lot of training and education in the technique that was required, and many patients walked away from him stating that they felt a lot better. By glancing at your history he didn’t think that you’d be a one time only patient. He thinks that you would benefit from regular massages with him to help treat your inflammation and pain.
“Mr. Miller, your 10 AM appointment is here,” his secretary, Ashley, said.
“Thanks Ashley, I’ll be out in a minute. Please take her back to Room 5, and I’ll be along in a minute.” He replied, still studying the notes from your doctor and making notes for himself of the things that he wanted to focus on with you for your first appointment.
When you had arrived at the address for your first massage, you felt a sickly feeling in your stomach. Your doctor had reassured you that Mr. Miller would be the person to help you feel better. But just like all the other promises that your primary care provider gave you, and how none of them worked the way that you hoped, you were very skeptical at this new treatment option. Nothing helped you feel better, and you were beyond frustrated. It took you a bit to convince yourself this morning to come here, telling yourself that Dr. Miller was an expert at this, and that you should give him a try. What could hurt, you thought. Worst case scenario, it didn't do anything, which sadly was the norm for you these days.
For the last several years, your body had been poked and prodded more times than you would care to admit. Each time there was a promise of a better understanding or discovery of why this was all happening. But with each test, came more conflicting and confusing results, and you were exhausted from it all. You have been giving more blood for the sake of medical testing than what you’d think was truly normal. As ridiculous as it sounded, you felt that if Dracula was actually a real being, that he would be impressed with the amount of blood that you've donated for the sake of medical science.
With shaky hands, you got out of your car, locked it, and then entered the facility. When you entered you noticed that the space was calm. There was pale muted colors that covered the walls, colors that often helped people relax. But it did nothing for your nerves. You were shaking and not wanting to do any of this anymore. You felt like you had a huge lump in your throat, and that you couldn't fully swallow. Of all the things that you had to be afraid of in this world, you were the most afraid of medical treatment. Yet, that was the one thing that you were blessed with in having to always do. ‘Thanks body for betraying me with autoimmune,’ you thought.
As you walked up to the registration window, you found the secretary typing away on her keyboard while looking at her computer screen. You tried to settle your nerves before opening your mouth, but you felt like you were drowning in a pool of despair. Anxiety was getting the better of you again, and you felt like you wanted to run away and hide from everything. But where could you go when autoimmune always seemed to follow you, especially with the pain that came along with it.
“Um, excuse me,” you said meekly, after standing at the window for a brief moment.
The secretary continued to type away, not looking at you nor acknowledging your presence. You went to clear your voice again when she abruptly stopped and said, “what can I do for you hun?”
“I- uh, I have an appointment, with um, with Dr. Miller I think,” you said softly.
“Oh, hun it's just Mr. Miller, or Joel for short. He doesn't like being called Doctor. He always says he has a doctorate degree in massage, not in medicine. Yet they're kinda the same thing if you ask me.” The secretary said, shaking her head with a slight laugh. You stood there in silence, looking at her as she continued to ramble on. You were trying to listen to what she was saying, but all you could feel was your heart racing in your chest at the prospect of once again meeting a new person with the promise of helping you.
After listening to the woman who you thought was named Ashley ramble on for 15 minutes, as that was the name that you noticed on her name tag, you were finally sitting down in the general waiting area. You were slowly trying to calm down and relax while staring outside and watching the birds hunt for bugs in the grass. You didn't know how long you were waiting there, just staring outside, before you heard Ashley call your name again to take you back to Room 5. You didn’t know what to expect when you entered the room, but what you saw shocked you.
The room was softly lit, with soft music playing in the background, music that you liked. You also heard running waterfalls, sounds that came from the little fountains scattered all around the room. There was also a hint of cinnamon and slight vanilla aroma in the air, your favorite scents that would usually calm you. You tried racking your brain as to how, by chance, these scents and sounds were present when Ashley said, “it was on your intake survey. Your favorite classical music, scents, and sounds. Joel's very thorough, focusing on relaxation as much as muscle and joint relief.”
You stood there shocked. You thought those questions were just asked of people to try to ease the tension of how you were going to let a stranger put their hands on you. You had no idea that your answers would actually be taken seriously. Usually doctors, when they’ve asked those questions, never really did anything with the answers. Well, Dr. Miller was definitely different. It was at this moment that you were grateful that someone actually listened to you. You just hoped that he would continue with the same dedication while speaking with you, and not ignore what you said like everyone else seemed to do. You were frustrated with the medical field. You’d tell them something hurt, or something was happening and they only looked at your lab tests and X-rays and made decisions based on that, never actually listening to what you were truly telling them. You had only been in the room for maybe 5 minutes when you heard a gentle knock on the door, and the entrance of who you only could have suggested was Dr. Miller.
“Good day, I'm Dr. Miller but you can call me Joel.” He said while holding out his hand for you to shake. You shook his hand, and as you did, you felt how rough his hands were. They were calloused and strong, very sturdy hands. Not something that you'd expect to see from a massage therapist. This intrigued you, as you've always loved a man with rough hands.
After you introduced yourself, Joel walked over to the small desk in the room and sat down on the rolling stool. A typical doctor stool that you’ve seen countless times in exam rooms. He grabbed a piece of paper and then sat there for a moment writing a few notes, things that you thought were probably dealing with your medical file. After a moment he finally looked up at you and then asked with a slight Southern drawl, “How are y’feeling today?”
“I- I’m ok” you said meekly as you slowly looked over Joel. Joel was a gorgeous man, clearly in his later 40s with chocolate brown curly hair. He had a mustache and a slight beard by his jaw, one that had a slight sprinkling of gray in it. He also had glasses on his face with gentle eyes behind the glasses, ones that you could easily get lost in. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt, framing his broad shoulders perfectly. He had a slight tan on his arms, and hands that once again you couldn't wait to touch you. By looking at him, you didn’t think that massage was the only thing that Joel has done in his life. Something told you that he had spent many years doing hard work with his hands. As you continued your exploration, you then noticed that he was wearing a nice pair of black pants that hugged his hips perfectly. As you continued, you saw that Dr. Miller was definitely someone who was a decent sized man in the bedroom, seeing the soft bulge in his pants as he sat down with his legs slightly spread on the stool by the desk. You couldn’t help yourself but you stared at his package, wondering what it’d look like outside of the confines of his pants, and what it would feel like fully aroused inside of you. The longer you stared, the more you felt heat rise up the back of your neck. When you noticed the awkward moment of him looking at you, clearly having asked you a question that you didn't hear, you shook your head slightly, looking down fully at the floor while saying “sorry” out loud.
“It's ok darlin',” he said, giving you a small little smirk at the fact that he caught you checking him out. You were hoping that he didn’t see what you were checking out the longest though. You didn’t want to explain to your massage therapist that you were fantasizing about his package, and what types of moans or grunts he’d make while fucking your brains out.
Joel continued to talk to you, explaining why you were here, and how his services could help you. You were only half listening to him, embarrassed about how you had behaved previously. Joel was devilishly handsome, the type of guy that you were into. You were, however, internally scolding yourself at the importance of having proper social etiquette, and not eye fucking your massage therapist, which is what you were doing every time you looked at him.
As Joel continued to talk with you, he slowly moved around the room, grabbing different things off from the shelves. He instantly noticed your meek and shy attitude, even though he had caught you checking him out earlier. He had to admit, you were very cute, but Joel was a professional. He couldn’t allow himself the joys of thinking about you in a different sort of way. Nevermind, that if he wasn’t your massage therapist, he would definitely want to explore those other possibilities with you. What he did notice though was how you turned inward at the mentions of pain, autoimmune disease, and how your doctor said you didn’t have much abilities to do activities that your peers could do. You were 29, and he knew what the world did to 29 year olds who didn’t, or couldn’t, do the same things that their peers could. The world would ignore you. Joel, himself, remembered those days when he was 29 and worked construction when Sarah and Ellie, his daughters, were younger. All his friends went out partying after work, when he went home and raised a 10 year old and a 2 year old all on his own, Sarah and Ellie’s mom were already out of the picture. Joel was lost in his own head, remembering those earlier days, when all of a sudden he heard you speak up in an irritated tone.
“Mr. Miller, no disrespect, but I don’t think you understand what it’s like to not be able to do things that most 29 year olds can do.” You didn’t think he understood. So once again you found yourself trying to explain to a medical professional how much autoimmune has negatively impacted your life at such a young age, and how agitated you were at the fact that no one seemed to help you or listen to you. Joel, being the attentive man that he was, sat across from you on the stool and listened to every word that you had said.
Once you were finished, Joel took a deep inhale, then followed by a long exhale and then said “I am so sorry that people haven’t listened to you, or have taken you seriously about your concerns with your body. You’re right, I don’t know what it's like f’ya as I’m not you. But, I do know what it’s like to not be able to do everything a 29 year old can do. I may not have autoimmune, but I had different responsibilities that didn’t allow me the joys of doing everything that I wanted, including the joys of being with a beautiful woman like yourself at that age. That’s why I want to help you.”
As soon as Joel called you beautiful, he saw your reaction. You started to blush on your cheeks from the compliment. You felt flattered by the older man that was in front of you. Meanwhile, Joel internally scolded himself at how his statement wasn't proper patient-doctor etiquette. Joel had vowed to himself that he wouldn't cross that line again, especially with you, no matter how drop dead gorgeous he thought you were.
Joel began to run a few tests with you, checking your reflexes and testing your mobility. You didn’t say anything else to him after his statement. You felt embarrassed by your actions and assumptions that he didn't care or understand, when you could clearly see that he did. The longer you looked at him, the more you could see that he was someone who truly did care about helping others. You silently wondered if his treatment would actually help.
“Dr. Miller?” you asked, wanting to scratch the itch of your curiosity in understanding the treatment that he was suggesting.
“Joel” he said as he pushed on your shoulder blades. When you winced he said “are you tender here?” as he pushed on the same spot again, but this time with a little less force.
“Yeah. I’m tender there, and everywhere,” you said with a hiss as he moved his hand down to your biceps. “It’s tender inside every joint, and sometimes muscles. Winter’s in Minnesota aren’t too nice for people like me,” you said, head hanging low as a tear slipped down your cheeks.
You felt Joel stop testing your joints and muscles, hands still on your arms when he placed his finger gently under your chin, slightly tilting your head up so you could look him in the eyes. After a moment he said, “Well, we’ll try to rectify that now won’t we. Massage is more than just relaxin’, it helps a lot of people in ways that can-”
“Can it cure me?” you said, interrupting him, with wide eyes. “Cause if it can cure me, I’ll do anything. But don’t tell me that it’ll work miracles. Don't get my hopes up and then have it fail. I-I can’t take it anymore with all of the disappointment” you said, closing your eyes to take a steadying breath as tears gathered at your waterline. It has been a very long and exhausting road these past three years with your autoimmune journey. You found out early on that your body couldn’t tolerate medication, and nothing else seemed to work.
“I can’t promise that it’ll do miracles by curin’ ya, but I can promise that I’ll try my best to make you feel better. How’s that?” Joel said with a tender voice, trying to soothe your emotional discomfort of years of failed treatments. Joel remembered reading the last line of your referral by Dr. Samson which had stated;
“No treatments have been successful. Patient has voiced wanting to stop trying autoimmune treatments, stating that she didn’t feel like it was working. Patient was informed that if she decided to fully stop taking immunosuppressant medications, that the end result would be major organ damage that could lead to death. Patient agreed to try one more treatment for pain, stating that if the treatment didn’t work, then she’d stop autoimmune treatments altogether and ‘let whatever happens, happen’.”
‘Fuck,’ Joel had thought when he first read that last line in your medical file. Someone giving up, especially at such a young age, didn't sit well with him. Being 29, your entire world was still in front of you. You had a lot more years and possibilities of life in front of you. Giving up wasn't something that Joel did, and the fact that you had voiced wanting to stop treatments to your doctor bothered him immensely. Truly, it wasn't necessarily the fact that you had wanted to stop treatments that upset him. It was your willingness to allow death to potentially consume you that truly got to him. You were too young to die.
20 minutes later, you were lying on your stomach with a sheet covering your lower half. You were completely naked, scolding yourself internally that you didn’t wear underware today with your pants. Joel was slowly massaging your back, trying to work out the knots that he felt in your muscles. As his hands continued to work out the knots and tension, you felt an overwhelming sense of relief. His touch was not only skilled, but carried a reassurance that echoed through your body. You felt safe with him, safe in a way that you haven’t for a long time. You felt like if you were near him, that he’d take all the bad in the world away for you. And if you were being honest, this comfort was something that you haven't felt in a very long time from anyone.
"You're doing great, darlin’," Joel whispered, sensing your vulnerability and turmoil you had been feeling. Joel could tell that you were working through something major in your head, just like most of his patients did. Most of the time he focused on trying to distract people from their internal thoughts, giving them a break when they were here. But there was something about the silence between the two of you right now that he felt like you desperately needed. Every time he’d open his mouth to ask you a question, he’d feel you tense up, and that was the last thing he wanted you to do. So he slowly worked your sore muscles and joints, giving them the tenderness and affection that they needed, while allowing you to stay seated in silence.
Throughout the session, Joel maintained an empathetic connection with you. He explained each technique when he’d switch it up, providing you with the most gentle sense of comfort. He’d tell you what he was going to do, if he moved down your body or up, giving you moments to breathe when he felt like it was too much. But most of all, he gave you that warmth and unawkward silence that you craved. He wanted you to just live and feel, to just be in the moment with him.
As Joel's tender touch continued, you felt a warmth spread throughout your body, slightly dissipating the pain that had lingered there for so long. His words became a comforting melody, echoing a promise to you of relief. “You’re doing so good f’me, gentle breaths in and out, there y’go.” He said, encouraging you to stay centered and remain in the moment. That was the key in pain relief, staying grounded and living within the moment. When we just allow our body to feel, and not force anything, we can find peace and calmness. These feelings of peace and calmness are what leads us to having pain relief.
As Joel moved down to your lower back, you let out a hiss in pain, followed by an “ouch that hurts.”
“What hurts darlin’?” Joel said, slowing his deep strokes on your lower back, right above your tailbone area. He doesn’t remember reading in your file that you had lower back pain, so this was something new that caught him a little off guard.
“Right there, low” you said, hissing again as he pressed his finger into the lower part of your back, on your left side, by your hip.
After you hissed a second time, Joel immediately stopped and walked around to the other side of the massage table. He gently pressed on your lower back and hip joint on the other side, saying, “how ‘bout over here, does this hurt?”
“No, not as bad,” you said. “It's my left side, god that hurts.” You said, as he reached over and lightly pressed on your left side once again.
“Ok, let’s try somethin’,'' Joel said, moving completely over to your left side now. “I’m gonna hold up the blanket, where you still are covered, and I want you to flip completely on your back, okay? I wanna see if your pain continues in a different position.”
You nodded your head and then gently felt the blankets pull off from you. Joel was completely looking away from you, giving you privacy as you turned to lay on your back instead of your stomach. When you finally settled, you told him that you were ready. He then informed you that he was only going to uncover your left leg, to the mid thigh region. As he did, he explained how he was going to test your leg's range of motion to see if it was your hip joint that had caused you pain.
With only doing simple joint motions with your leg, Joel noticed that nothing was painful. When he bent your knee, pointing your knee outwards towards the left, followed by gently lifting your leg higher, to open up your pelvis more, he didn’t see any outward signs of pain from you.
“If I do this, does it hurt?” He said, placing a little weight on your leg.
As soon as your knee got about level with your pelvis you hissed again. Joel tried pushing down on your pelvic joint to determine where it hurt, but all you did was whimper. The pain wasn’t coming from your joint, it was coming from someplace else deep inside of you. When he returned your leg back down he said “I’m sorry darlin’, I can’t determine where your pain is coming from. Have you had it-”
“Just forget about it” you said, turning your head to the opposite side, closing your eyes as you felt the tears start to stream down your face.
“Hey, none of that, '' Joel said, gently turning your chin towards him so he could see your face in its entirety. “If somethin’ is hurting ya, I wanna hear about it. Help me out, where does it hurt?” When you didn’t respond right away he said, “does it hurt here” as he gently pressed on your hip bone. He watched you shake your head no. “How about here?” He asked, moving slightly inward, towards the inside of your pelvic bone.
With a shaky breath you said, “no, but it hurts straight down, but lower and inward more.”
“Here” he said, moving down about halfway where your hip joint was, towards the inside of your pelvis. You let out another shaky breath, closing your eyes as tears fell more from your cheeks, shaking your head no to him.
It took Joel a second to figure it out. But when he did, he finally understood why you were crying. You were embarrassed about what was happening inside of your body. When he moved his hand down towards the lower left side quadrant of your abdomen, and gently pushed where your ovaries were, he asked, “does it hurt here darlin’?” As soon as he applied a little bit of pressure to your left ovary area, you let out a stuttered breath, nodding your head up and down.
Joel flattened his hand on your tummy, where the sensation was, knowing what the culprit was. You were probably mid cycle and ovulating with an ovarian cyst. He didn’t remember you being pregnant, but he wanted to make sure that it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy before he ruled it as an ovarian problem.
“If I press over here, does it hurt?” Joel said, pressing on the other side in the lower abdomen. You had your eyes closed, tears lightly falling, shaking your head no.
“Ok, ok, darlin’. I know, I know. Deep breaths for me though, ok?” he said, as he watched tears stream down your face. He gave you a moment to collect yourself, before he asked his next question.
“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?” He said, slowly stroking your tummy where a baby would be laying. He knew he shouldn’t, but somehow imagining you having a swollen tummy where a baby would lay was giving him fantasies that he didn’t even know existed.
You let out a sarcastic laugh, saying, “no, it’s not that.”
Puzzled, Joel looked at you and said, “y’know, if an ectopic pregnancy happened, y’still could have a normal period. If there’s any chance that you could be pregnant, like having unprotected sex, or even if the condom broke, you probably should-”
“Joel, I haven’t had sex in 3 years,” you said, barely above a whisper. When you noticed the shocked look on his face you turned your head away from him adding, “guys really don’t want to have sex with a woman like me.”
“What’d y’mean, a woman like you?” He said, furrowing his brows at your odd phrasing.
“A woman who’s sick with autoimmune, Joel.” You said, closing your eyes and trying to pull back the tears that were threatening to fall again. You didn't want to have this conversation, and you sure as hell didn't want to admit how the act of even having orgasms were difficult for you. There were just some autoimmune embarrassments that you wanted to keep to yourself, no matter how much it shattered your soul inside. You didn't feel like a beautiful, young, sexy, attractive woman that you knew all the other single 29 year old ladies felt. You felt like you couldn’t offer anything to the male race that wasn't medical tests, sickness, and heartache combined.
Immediately Joel felt irritation and anger at your careless comment of how men wouldn't find you attractive or want to be with you. Without dwelling on it, Joel did the one thing that he knew he shouldn't, he opened his mouth to speak more on the issue. He hoped he could get you to understand that not all men were like this, that he sure as hell wasn't like this.
“Darlin’, boys, not real men, are like that. A real man wouldn’t allow sickness to stop him from wantin’ a beautiful woman like yourself. A real man would enjoy making you feel good. Real men, honey, not boys.”
Once he said it, Joel knew that he shouldn’t have opened his mouth, especially with the look that you were giving him. You looked back at him, shocked, and taken aback by his forward statement. But he couldn’t just stand there and listen to you accuse men, like him, of not caring. He would do anything to be with a beautiful woman like yourself, whether or not you were sick with a permanent illness.
After your head caught up with Joel's statement on men, you just shook your head. You then gave him a genuine, honest to god, belly laugh. “Yeah, well, Mr. Miller, show me where a real man is who wouldn’t care about all of that. Tell me who he is, because honestly, I haven’t found one single guy out there who’d be willing to have a real relationship with me because of this illness. And for the record, I can’t even get a guy to fuck me with no strings attached either. Not that I’d want that, cause I don’t do the casual sex thing, but still, you get it.” You said, snapping right back at him.
It was Joel's turn this time to look shocked. He thought to himself, why the hell has no one treated you right? He could see that you were exhausted with your own body and with your own life. He could tell that you were exhausted at the reminder of what you didn't have, of what your autoimmune disease had taken from you. He wondered if you ever truly tried, or if you just gave up right away. The longer he looked at you, the more he realized that you had tried, but obviously you weren't successful.
As you sat there partially propped up onto your forearms, you felt the tears well up into your eyes once again as you watched Joel look at you. You were embarrassed at what you had said. At admitting how easy it was for everyone else in the world to have relationships, everyone except you. Hell your own family even disowned you after your diagnosis stating that it was “too hard for them to handle.” So you've been doing this on your own, all alone, for the past 3 years. Exhausted didn't even come close to describing the way that you felt.
As you gently laid back down at this realization of loneliness once again, silently scolding yourself for opening your mouth, you accidentally hit the back of your head on the table, muttering “shit” under your breath. After a moment, you heard Joel let out another long sigh and then he gently grabbed your chin and said, “hey, look at me.”
When you looked into Joel’s eyes, he was staring back at you with concern and tenderness lacing his features. Joel saw your frustration and array of emotions, and he felt like it was important for him to take away all those insecurities by telling you that he wasn't like all those other boys you were with. With a slight smile, he gently cupped your cheek and said, “darlin’, a real man, like me, doesn’t fucking care if you’re sick or not. Men, like me honey, would take care of you regardless of the problems that you have. And honestly, it’s a damn shame that no one has ever taken their time with you, making sure your needs were met. If I was with you, I'd make damn sure you were enjoying it the entire time.”
Joel then removed his hand and placed both hands on the side of the massage table, stepping back and exhaling through his mouth as he looked down at the ground. He knew he needed to end this session right now. He's already stepped over far too many lines, and if he didn't watch it, he'd cross an even bigger one of showing you how a real man gave a beautiful woman pleasure.
You laid there watching the turmoil unfold on Joel's face. He wouldn't look up at you, kept staring down at the floor, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet periodically. He had checked his watch several times, attempted to clear his throat once, and had quickly glanced out the window. You knew those signs, he was trying to find a nice way to end the session or end the conversation. The more you watched him, the more upset you got.
After Joel stood there staring outside for a while, he finally cleared his throat again. “I- uh, I think Dr. Anderson can probably help you better, she’s very good with this type of stuff,” he said, waving his arm at you, but not looking at you.
When he straightened up to walk away you closed your eyes and said in a soft voice, “Please, please, help me.” You wanted to keep your voice steady, but you found that it slightly cracked at the end, which made you internally scold yourself. You weren't a weak person by nature, you couldn't afford to be with a disease that was slowly destroying your organs and killing you from the inside out. But somehow you felt like you were weak, like you were just a shell of the person that you once were. At first, when you asked for his help, you didn't know what exactly you were asking for. But as the seconds ticked by, with him not answering, you realized that you were pleading for him to see you.
Without looking at you, Joel asked in a gentle tone, “what do y’need help with?” When he turned back around towards you, his eyes were closed, and he was taking several steadying breaths. He was trying to calm his nerves and to silence the war that was going on in his mind. His mind was screaming at him, reminding him that this was inappropriate patient-doctor conversation or relations. He knew he needed to stop. So it shocked him to hear himself say a little louder, “Darlin’, what do you need help with?”
You just stared up at him, searching his face to see if what you wanted to voice was okay for you to do. You wanted him, as a man, to find you attractive and to touch you. But how could you ask him to go against all of his code of ethics as a medical provider just to touch you like a husband would touch a wife, desperately and passionately. You didn’t even know if he was married, or even in a relationship with someone else.
As Joel opened his eyes, he looked down at you, and it was then that he knew what you wanted. You were looking at him the same way his ex-wife used to look at him from time to time. When she’d plead with him to fuck her, to silence all her insecurities in her head. He hasn't seen a woman look at him like that for almost 20 years, and it did something to him. It made his resolve crumble instantly where he said ‘fuck it' in his own head, and he gave in to his primal instinct of helping you as a man, not as your doctor.
“Baby, come on. I ain’t gonna ask y’again. What is it that you need, honey? Tell me, and I'll do it.”
“Joel, please,” was all you could say, begging him with your eyes, trying to tell him what you wanted.
“No, now, come on. Y'gotta use your words for me. Be a good girl and tell Daddy what he can do to help you and make you feel better.”
As soon as Joel had said the word daddy, he instantly scolded himself. But when he saw your eyes glaze over with arousal at the name, he knew what you wanted. You lightly whimpered and started squeezing your thighs tight together.
Joel felt dizzy for a moment as blood rushed fast to his cock at your whimper, his cock hardening to the point of being painful. But this wasn't about him. This was about you, about showing you that a real man, like him, could give you affection and attention like you so desperately needed.
He walked towards you, gently placing his hand onto your thigh, lightly stroking it. He was trying to center you and help you communicate with him in what you wanted and needed. He knew all of this was wrong, but he couldn't help himself, especially when you begged him to touch you.
“Joel, please, touch me,” you said, while grabbing his hand and guiding it to below the blanket to where you were practically throbbing.
“F-fuck,” Joel slightly moaned, closing his eyes at the feeling of you not wearing any underwear as he touched your slick velvet folds underneath the blanket with his hand. Your lips were slightly swollen, aroused, and desperately needing attention. You were making a mess on his table, slick pouring out of you from your needy little hole. You wanted Joel to help soothe the ache deep within you, to take your pain away.
Joel slowly moved his finger down to your center. Feeling your pussy spasm and clench around nothing. He rested his finger at your opening, not pushing his finger inside of you just yet, but slowly stroking it with feather-like touches. “Baby, we shouldn’t do this” he said, still slowly circling your opening, and not stopping or pushing his finger in. He needed to hear your verbal confession that you wanted this, that you wanted him. As Joel felt your hole clench a second time at nothing, he said, “baby, please, say somethin’.”
You moaned slightly while opening your hips up to allow him better access to you. “More” was the only audible thing that you could say at the moment. And that's when Joel’s resolve fully crumbled, and he pushed two fingers knuckle deep inside of you, stretching you perfectly around him.
“Fuck baby, that's tight. Ya squeezing my fingers in a goddamn vice.” He said, growling low, followed by a soft grunt.
You willed yourself to relax, to allow Joel in more. To allow him to get deeper within you, to where you knew that you needed him. To say his fingers were a stretch was an understatement. His fingers were longer and thicker than what you were used to. It was a comfortable stretch, but almost borderline on being painful. You've never been stretched out this much with just fingers alone. If you had to guess by his slow movements he was doing right now, you thought that Joel was a very experienced man, especially when he curled his fingers and found that spot deep within you that you've never found before. As soon as he hit it, your eyes rolled back in your head and you softly moaned “fuuuck.”
“There she is, right there huh, baby?” He said, angling his hand a bit more to get a little deeper as he started to stroke your g-spot with those perfected come hither movements.
Joel was good at three things: First, he was a very hard worker. He had the perfect street smarts to own and operate two successful businesses in his lifetime. Second, he was an amazing father. Always listening and being there for his girls. And finally, he was an attentive lover. He listened, and found what worked for every woman that he’s ever been with. He knew how to fuck a woman just right, and how to bring her the most and best pleasure. And that was something that he made sure you understood at the moment with his fingers.
As Joel continued to work his magic with his fingers, pushing them a little deeper inside of you, and picking up the pace in stroking you, you felt your walls spasm more. You let out a low moan, breathing starting to become erratic as the sensation of pleasure took over your body. You were right, you obviously hadn't had a good fuck for a long time, especially considering that you were not far from coming undone on just his fingers alone with no clit stimulation whatsoever. And if you could describe the feeling that you were feeling right now with his fingers moving inside of you, you would describe it as being ‘fucking fantastic.’
Joel found himself matching your small moan with a groan of his own, especially when he looked down and noticed your pussy was dripping all over him. He slowly started withdrawing his fingers, giving you time to adjust, before pushing them back in. It was obscene, the wet squelching noises that your beautiful cunt was making for him. You were biting your lip, eyes casted away from him. He gently grabbed your chin with his other hand, turning you towards him while saying “no darlin’, eyes right here. Ya keep ‘em on me, ok?” He said, as he slowly kept pushing his fingers in and out of you. He kept up the slow pace for a bit, working you up, not wanting to fully tip you over the edge just yet. He knew that you needed this, that you needed to enjoy the experience.
“Joel, it feels- fuck, it feels, it feels,” you were at a loss for words at the moment. You were struggling to keep your eyes on him right now, fighting them from wanting to roll back into your head at the sensation of pleasure.
“I know baby. Fuck, just listen to her, she needs this huh? Your pussy needs this, doesn’t she? This. Nice. Slow. Finger. Fuck, huh?” He said, slowing down more and thrusting harder with his fingers at every word he said, drawing out your pleasure more. The longer he fucked you slow with his fingers, the more your pussy gripped him hard, sucking him in, not wanting him to leave. You were panting, starting to squirm, getting lost in the pleasure. Joel wanted to tease you a little longer, but he figured you weren’t used to this kind of play. Something he intended to do next time he had you alone, preferably in his bed with you begging for his cock.
When Joel saw you start to match his thrusts with your own, he knew it was time for him to tip you over the edge. So Joel really started to finger fuck you you now, the way that he knew women liked. When he did that, you cried out at the stimulation and surprise of his actions.
“Shhh baby, it's alright,” he said, cooing at you to quiet you down. “Now, darlin’, you’re gonna be a good girl and come all over these fingers, ok? Then you're getting a full refund today. I don't charge money to finger fuck my clients.”
You nodded your head, trying to keep your eyes open as Joel massaged the inside of your velvety warm walls, getting closer to the edge. Your toes were starting to curl, breathing was very erratic. You were getting very close to cumming.
“And lastly sweetheart,” he said, putting pressure down on your lower abdomen, and curling his fingers in a way that he knew would make your vision go blurry, while building a firm pressure sensation inside of your abdomen. “You must communicate with me with your words when something doesn't feel good, or if you want me to do something differently. You know your body better than me honey. I don't, so help me make you feel good. Okay?”
Fuck you were wrecked, seconds away from crashing through, or into, a brick wall with an orgasm, you thought. This felt different though, so much different than what you’ve ever experienced before. “Joel, fuck, pressure, it’s a lot of pressure and I’m, fuck, I’m, I’m-”
“Come f’me sweetheart. Come on baby, fucking soak my fingers” Joel growled in your ear as the rubberband inside of you snapped hard. When it did, your cunt seized around his fingers as you felt the gush of fluid come out of you, he made you squirt for the first time. Your vision went white, ears ringing, legs shaking from the intensity of it all. You’ve never come so hard ever in your life, and you couldn’t help the loud moan that escaped your lips around Joel’s hand that was now covering your mouth. He continued to fuck you through your orgasm, whispering “good fucking girl” with a strained voice as he watched you come undone. His own pupils were blown wide, eyes impossibly dark with lust, wanting nothing more than to bury his cock deep inside of you, to feel you spasm around him hard like this. But that would have to happen at a later time. Today was about you, about giving you something that you needed, attention from a man. You were a beautiful woman, and you deserved to have a man take care of you in this way, and other ways too, even if you did have autoimmune disease.
Joel continued to slowly work you through your high, pumping his fingers gently in and out of you. When you finally came back to Earth, he removed his soaked fingers from your cunt and then he slammed his lips hard against your mouth, kissing you fervently. You licked the seam of his lips, asking for access into his mouth, which he quickly granted. You two were wrestling your tongues together, each seeking dominance over the other. Joel has never been kissed like this, with so much passion that he hated pulling away from you mere moments later, gasping for breath as his heart raced out of control in his chest.
“Fuck woman, no one’s ever kissed me like that,” he said, gasping for breath. Joel placed his forehead gently against yours, eyes closed, breathing you in as his heart rate slowed in his chest.
“Do you want me to take care of you?” you asked, laying your hand gently on his crotch, feeling him buck slightly into your touch beneath you.
“No baby, I wanna do this right, take ya out first, if y’don’t mind.”
“You don't have to if you don't want to, I mean-”
Joel snapped open his eyes and stood up looking at you, furrowing his brows. He then shook his head and said “don't”, and walked over to the sink in the corner of the room to wash his hands. You sat up, chewing on your lip, overthinking things once again. After a moment of silence you heard him speak when he shut the water off.
“I'm not some 20 year old punk ass boy who only cares about getting his own rocks off, darlin'. I don't do that sort of thing. Now, if you don't want to have dinner with me, then that's fine. But I'd really like to take y’out.”
“Like a date?” You asked, looking into his eyes hopeful.
“Yes baby, like a date.” He said, standing in front of you, holding a robe up for you to take to cover your naked body up.
“Yeah, but what happens when I- when we- when it's done? Or what happens if I can't because of this- because of autoimmune?” you say, motioning your hand up and down at your body.
Joel took a big breath in, and then slowly let it out through his nose. He then cupped your face with both hands and said, “ok, I'm gonna stop you right there. First, I don't fuck on the first date, ok, so don't worry your pretty lil’ head about it. And second, I don't give a damn if we have to reschedule. I understand you have autoimmune disease, remember I've read your file.” Joel immediately winced at that reminder, of how he has crossed every line in the sand with his actions. He didn't know how he was going to explain to Dr. Samson that his treatment wouldn't work with you and that he was going to refer you to Dr. Anderson. It was going to cost him big time, he knew that. Dr. Linda Anderson wouldn't just drop it, she'd want an explanation. But Joel couldn't think about that right now, he'd deal with it and her later.
“But Joel it's-”
“Do you not want to go out to dinner with me?” He asked, the color draining from him face. Did he read you wrong? Were you just looking for a quick orgasm and nothing more? He rubbed his neck in embarrassment, thinking he completely fucked up at your signals once again. “You-uh, you don't have to say yes if you don't want to. I mean, if I read you wrong you can- uh, no pressure to say no.” He was internally scolding himself at this entire situation, of how much he's fucked up today. His ex-wife was right, he thought, he definitely doesn’t understand what women need nor want. Proof was here, right in front of him, with your reluctance to say yes to just dinner.
Joel turned to walk out, mumbling “I'll give you some privacy to get dressed. I'll tell Ashley to give you a refund when I see her tomorrow, don’t worry, she’s already left for the day. And you can just forget about today if you want, if I made you feel uncomfortable. I’ll sorry, I just-”
“Stop, please,” you said, grabbing his arm. “Don't leave. Everyone does, everyone leaves me. I-I want you to stay with me right now, please.”
Joel stopped and looked at you, seeing the gears in your head turning. After a moment he said, “please honey, ya gotta tell me what you're thinking. I can't-”
“I want to go out on a date with you Joel, it's just, don't have high expectations or hopes for me, ok? Men do, and then as they get to know me they- they get mad when I don't meet something that they wanted. I- this- it’s hard ok? It’s hard ‘cause I have a gorgeous man in front of me that I've been attracted to since the moment I saw him, and all I want is for him to see me. To really see me. And I- I don’t wanna fuck that all up where you hate me, or think I’m a failure and I- I should just really stop talking.” You said, laughing at yourself and blushing at the fact that you just spilled all of your insecurities in the air to a stranger. A very hot stranger, but a stranger nevertheless.
“Honey,” he said, grabbing your hand softly. “I want all that too and, if I'm being honest, I'm a little scared of a date too as it's been a long time since I've done this. The whole dating thing, it hasn’t been a priority of mine for a while. But I wanna do it f’you, with you. We can take it slow, we can figure it out together, ok? How does that sound?” Joel then leaned in and gave you a soft, delicate kiss on your lips, one that immediately calmed your nerves.
“Ok, yes. Dinner would be great,” you said, a tad breathless after Joel pulled away from kissing you. You took a moment to compose yourself, to will the butterflies to calm down in your tummy at the thought of getting a chance to have a date with this man.
Joel watched the blush rise up in your cheeks, and if he was being honest, it flattered the hell out of him. That a simple gentle kiss could get you all hot and bothered, where you were blushing for him. “Ok, good,” he said, smiling. “How about I pick you up around 6pm this Saturday?”
You nodded your head, and noticed that Joel furrowed his brows at the lack of your speaking to him again. You quickly said, “Saturday would be perfect.”
Joel stood there for a moment, glancing over your features, looking at you intently, making sure that you in fact truly wanted this. Once he found what he was looking for, he stepped back and gave you a small smirk.
“Ok, darlin’. Now for life's biggest, and most important question. What toppings do y’like on your Pizza?” Joel decided to take you to his favorite pizza place on Saturday. When he saw you smile, he knew that he picked a good choice.
“Well Miller,” you said, while giving him your best playful smirk. “You’re just going to have to take me out to find out.”
End of Part 1
Dividers by @saradika-graphics
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#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller#joel miller fic#joel and reader#pedro pascal#joel miller masterlist#the last of us#joel miller smut#joel the last of us#joel x f!reader#joel x oc#joel x reader#joel miller fanfic#joel miller tlou#joel miller x y/n#joel massage therapist#joel miller and female#joel and female#joel x female reader#joel miller x female reader#female autoimmune#tlou hbo#the last of us hbo#original character#original story#joel miller x f!reader#f!reader#f!reader chronic illness
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Stede in Season 1
After seeing some rather awful bad faith takes flying around after 2x7, I'm throwing out a beginning defense of Stede Bonnet (loml). It seems insulting Ed's fish is the worst thing that anyone has ever seen, and it really seems to be a continuation of anti-Stede sentiments within the fandom and viewing him as a prop for Ed (and sometimes Izzy) rather than his own character. Fanon Stede is ever patient, ever kind, ever devoted to his partner, and I'm seeing a lot of shock that Stede is a flawed, imperfect person with his own needs, that he says things in the heat of the moment, that people are seeing a less interesting character than what DJenks and friends have created. Stede's a fucking lunatic and I like it.
I'm going to break this into a few posts as I ramble on to the end of 2x7. I have big thoughts on the ending, but I need to lead up to it! I am going to try to be as brief as I can up to the lead up, but I'm not happy with certain parts of the fandom right now (it's just a spat, love you all).
(If you haven't seen the "I hate Stede!" and "I'm so mad at Stede!" posts after 2x7, I am so, so jealous of how you have curated your social media experience.)
Part 1: Season 1
I'm going to note first that this is really a more rambly companion piece of this:
In time budgeting, most of Stede's character introduction and motivations are built into 1x1 through 1x3, but you all know it is a common refrain of these episodes: "Just wait for episode 4!" (OK for newbies, but huge side eye from me with people who have watched multiple times.) Episode 4 is when Act 2 of 3 of Season 1 begins. The foundations of the story have been laid, the cast has been fully assembled, and we enter the rising action (i.e., the meat) of the story in 1x4. It is not that Blackbeard alone improved everything: it was the story structure itself that shifted.
Preferring Act 2 (ep 4 to mid ep 8) and saying Act 1 was bad and "boring" is a disservice to the story and really robs yourself of the payoff action in Act 3 of Season 1 (and now Season 2), in particular with regards to Stede's character. It's a TV show, so you don't have to like all parts or watch it equally, but if you're going to criticize Stede and what he does, you can't ignore the part of the story that tells you the why of everything.
For example, we see people saying Prince Ricky is "exactly how Stede used to be!". Episode 3 disagrees.
Ricky is some Evil Star Trek Mirror Universe version of Stede, and they have fundamental differences in their view of piracy, which feeds into the action of the tail end of Season 2: Stede wants to be part of the piracy world, but Ricky thinks he's above it. The few hours in 2x7 that Stede spends enjoying being cool in the Republic of Pirates is overall sweet (sliding past the murder, lol), not a relationship red flag or Stede being a dick. If you tried to join a group and they finally embraced you, how would you initially act? Being excited for a few hours does not mean Stede has made a forever commitment to piracy and not Ed.
But, I digress. To me, Episode 2 (along with 6, 9, and 10) is far and away the peak of Season 1. We see the crew bonding (and those unique interactions are missing in Season 2's truncated runtime), and we get a deeper look into Stede's head: his initial naivety toward violence, his insecurities, his unique captaincy style and problem solving. If I look at just his insecurities, Badminton's Ghost is Stede talking to himself (like Hornigold was vocalizing Ed's feelings in 2x3). Stede is harsh with himself about his abilities and maturity, and we even see that he took Badminton's petty body shaming in 1x1 to heart.
(Oh, I have thoughts on Stede finally being told he's pretty and then instantly dumped!)
But he continues to degrade himself.
"You're a child with a toy" Stede says to himself. Compare this to Ned Low calling him a "bumbling amateur" in 2x6. Real people voicing these thoughts (like Chauncey in 1x9) messes Stede up.
The local therapist clearly lays out the motivation behind 1x9&10, and Stede still continues with the negative self talk.
And then we get the best mantra!
Yes, baby! You can only be as good as you can be, and you deserve the world.
Stede does not banish his guilt that is haunting him, but Ed comes in at Episode 4, and any more serious feelings is all about Ed.
(Second GIF is a joke. I know it's important to Ed's character. Plz, don't be mad.)
Ed is the deuteragonist, and the story now needs to spend time establishing Ed's character and motivations. This doesn't make Stede's go away, but if you only watch Episode 4 and on, that's what it looks like. There are brief moments of Stede's vulnerability and guilt from then, but not much.
(Side note from a Midwesterner: I've spent too much time finding out if "grain tower" is colloquial for "grain silo" somewhere, and I still don't know.)
Ed and Stede just met here. Ed isn't absorbing much of Stede's comments (Stede also feels trapped, Stede has family guilt, etc), but it goes the other way, too, doesn't it? Stede is recovering from his gut-stab, they're still in a life-or-death situation, and Stede is still feeling his guilt (and just saw more guilt ghost hallucinations). Registering and internalizing what Ed is saying doesn't take priority.
And they enter their cute early relationship phase: They have fun together! They can easily talk to one another! Stede easily forgives Ed wanting to kill him!
Again: in between all the cute and fun, all the heavy stuff is about Ed. Stede deals with the aristocrats who mocks Ed. Stede is gentle with Ed's red fabric. Stede listens to Ed's past without judgment. Stede openly accepts Ed as a friend. We don't see Ed engaging with Stede in a reciprocal manner.
(I was so delighted when Stede called some of this out in 2x4.)
Stede is a few steps behind in their relationship: He doesn't know it's a romance. He doesn't know he was flirting with Ed. He's not immediately understanding what the Act of Grace was to Ed (hubby commitment!) as he's having his Nigel guilt, family guilt, and being seconds away from death swamping him all at once.
In the academy, Ed isn't even listening to Stede. He's moved onto his domestic marriage role while Stede is dealing with his demons.
With 2x7, I see people saying, "Ed was very clear in wanting to leave piracy!" If he was speaking to someone fully engaged with him, I would agree. (That also doesn't make Stede having a few hours' fun the worst thing ever.)
(Aside of what I see below: In Season 2, I see overwhelming praise of Ed and Izzy's performances and very little on Stede. This is not to disparage TW or CO, but Ed and Izzy are more in-your-face and obvious with what is going on internally in their scenes and they are nailing the drama scenes. However, Stede becomes quieter, shutting down into himself, when having high feelings, and RD's acting is very subtle and very beautiful in these moments.)
In The (First) Kiss scene, Ed is clear! He just wants to be Ed, and Ed is happy just being with Stede.
But look what Ed walked in on:
Ed is saying things, but Stede is trying to process big feelings of his own at the same time. Stede is there self soothing, still thinking about what Ed ignored him about in the bunks. "How are you handling things so well?" means Stede isn't handling it well. Ed is excited, but he (and apparently some of the audience!) is brushing off all of what Stede is saying while expecting Stede to take to heart everything that Ed is saying. (I mean, the beginning of S2 shows why Ed is so excited for this life change, but it is frustrating!)
If you only feel bad for Ed at the end of 1x9, please try to imagine Stede's perspective: suppose you have low self worth and are consumed with guilt about people you've hurt and then are seconds away from death twice, are you going to be thinking clearly and prioritizing (and recognizing) the feelings of a guy you've known for a few weeks and didn't know you were dating?
Stede has drawn inward this whole conversation. His answers turn monosyllabic, and his body language turns more and more panicy as the heavy reality of everything sets in.
Stede enjoyed The Kiss, but was this the appropriate time for him? (Like Ed enjoyed The Sex, but was that the appropriate time for him?) They aren't in sync yet, but that doesn't make one party's feelings more valid than the other's or one party evil for being a bit ahead.
With 2x7, I don't know why people thought Stede should be a mind reader and be able to quickly piece together a few statements Ed made while Stede was mentally drowning.
I think it should be noted that as of the end of 2x7, Stede is the only crew member who hasn't had mental reflection and/or therapy in Season 2. He realized Mary, Alma, and Louis didn't need him and he was in love with Ed in 1x10, but the voice calling him a child with a toy, an idiot, weak, and ugly is still there.
Continued in Part 2! (Still to come...)
#stede bonnet#stede did nothing wrong#our flag means death#ofmd#ofmd s2#ofmd 2x07#ofmd s2e7#blackbonnet#gentlebeard#ofmd s2 spoilers#ofmd spoilers#rhys darby#Baby's first attempt at GIFs#ofmd meta
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D&D's 3 Body Problem debuted #2 on Netflix's official charts at 81m hours. That is so low for a $160m series most expensive Netflix show and with all the spending Netflix did promoting this, they want this show to be as big as Game of Thrones.
I didn't know it cost that much. Yikes! In that case, higher budget comes with higher expectations so Netflix probably assumed this would easily debut at #1 with 100+ million hours over the weekend like other high budget Netflix shows. Ngl I'm happy to see it didn't get a #1 debut! HAHA! Dumb and Dumber deserve to flop each and every time for what they did to GOT. I'm sorry to my bb girl Eiza Gonzalez caught up in this mess not John Bradley though he can continue being in flops lmao.
Anyways I gotta add that Netflix purposely postponed any other big releases this week so people can watch 3BP...talk about artificial "success". This is Netflix's most expensive show and yet it won't be the most successful of 2024....
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I got a bunch of questions concerning this AU Sukuna of mine. They inspired a lot of thoughts.
Please remember that my view is just my own subjective opinion. It is clouded by my unhealthy affection towards him, and it is developed based on my own bias and unprofessional analysis of him.
Let me go one by one.
1) Occupation
He is either a mafia boss or just a good old CEO. In my opinion, one does not need to be in the underworld to be the devil he is. (I actually find it attractive if somebody "makes it" in legal ways. Seems much harder.)
On the other hand, I see parallels between yakuza and the historical/mythical figure of Ryomen Sukuna (being a folk hero and anti-government), so I think being an oyabun kinda suits him (or maybe someone lower-ranked, he seems a bit young, but who knows when it comes to him...)
Note: yes I'm aware that Gege specified that he is not identical to the mythical figure, but those stories line up with the background I imagine for him, the background that contributed to him turning out like this. That is an entirely different analysis though...
2) His thoughts? Hobbies?
He probably suffers/suffered from every drawback of a dysfunctional family or growing up in an orphanage, including but not exclusive to trust issues, attachment issues and self-control issues (alcohol, drug, women), etc. However, he got these setbacks under his control. He had nothing so he wants and gets everything, he had no one so now he wants and gets everyone but never keeps anyone close by for too long (unless they are useful in a professional environment).
He is a very active and competitive person. He is a workaholic, he made it to the top at a relatively young age. He ruthlessly used everything and everyone at his disposal and reached all of his goals. He ended up lonely at the top, which, on one hand, is the essence of his nature and source of his ego and pride, and it is also how he feels comfortable, utterly detached from the good will of anyone. On the other hand, it's probably very lonely. Of course he also rationalised this and swept it under the rug. It turned him bitter, quite a nihilist and even more selfish. He very likely prioritises low-effort relationships in his personal life, unwilling to create attachment to anything other than himself.
His hobbies may include
culinary pleasures (as canon)
mastering new skills, such as languages, shooting, cooking, etc
he enjoys pushing his own boundaries in gym/sport (probably everything else too)
he also enjoys fine and expensive things in life, like cigars, wine, etc
He needs constant mental stimulation to stay content.
3) Deformities
Option A:
He is just a human. He has only 4 limbs. He lost his right eye (and his right cheek?) in a fight or accident.
Option B:
Reincarnated demon lord fitting into society. I think he can morph his own body at will. He is hiding his deformed face that is also a source of some secret abilities.
4) His type?
If the question concerns his type in partners...
Option 1: Toys.
Anything goes. I think he likes people he can get rid of without much problem. Probably someone who doesn't need too much mental investment. Just make them have an interesting quirk that piques his curiosity, and easy to deal with. One thing though: I believe he is always 100% honest about his intentions. He never needs to lie and manipulate someone into any kind of relationship with him.
Option 2: Partner.
He probably doesn't believe this person exists, as he is used to being alone and never experienced devotion and care. He automatically treats everyone as a toy, that's all he knows how to do, that is what is comfortable for him.
The problems start when he discovers emotional attachment to somebody. It probably stresses him out greatly, he doesn't know how to deal with it. It infuriates him and it takes a toll on his confidence and usually calm demeanor. Probably to a point till he behaves aggressive even towards the subject of his affection, unintentionally hurting her. It probably takes a lot of patience on both sides to get through this. It's possible he would try to treat her even more harshly than everyone else, to punish her for causing him such misery, hoping that she would abandon him - because he cannot abandon her.
This person is someone who can challenge him mentally. Somebody who is not identical to him, but he sees her as his equal, somebody who shares similar views and values but can broaden his horizons. She is intelligent, a free spirit willing to obey only him, mysterious but also honest, reserved and opens up only to him to reveal an endless treasury of new experiences. She is somebody who can challenge his authority and forces him to step up his game, but is also able to admit defeat and happy to submit. Power play is fine, but at the end of the day, it's him on top, always. Most importantly though, she is loyal and naturally reciprocates his efforts (if they ever reach that stage).
As far as physical traits go... (...was this what you really wanted to know and I was babbling about her character?)
I think he likes it when a woman takes care of herself, but doesn't like them "fake". I also think he likes long hair and feminine characteristics (typical beauty standards of the Heian period). I think he admires natural beauty and can be fascinated by many different features though.
5) Colors
complexion: slightly darker (not super fair like Gojo's skintone) Google says it's "medium beige" but it sounds weird, haha
eyes: red
hair: I use a darker shade than the official true form art, resulting in a pale mahogany color
Here you go, @rosemaydone321 ! Sorry, it got long.... Hope this is what you meant with the questions. Thank you!
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Real Skincare Guide
Level 1: breakouts, non-painful, a little scarring
Minimize your skincare routine, all you need is an oil cleanser (if you wear a lot of makeup) than a good foam cleanser, moisturizer, and sunscreen. Repeat the same routine before bed just without the sunscreen.
Wear sunscreen everyday!!!
Always apply more moisturizer than you think you need.
Drink a lot of water (2-3LT)
Get consistent sleep
Take a multi vitamins to balance your hormones. I recommend the One-A-Day Woman’s Vitamins (get a real pill cause the gummies don’t have enough iron)
Work on your stress (breathe work, meditate, journal, yoga, walks, going out with friends, therapy, etc)
Look at what body oils/shampoo/conditioner you are using. Could be your akin reacting poorly to something in there.
Level 2: consistant breakouts, acne, scarring
All the stuff for Level 1 apply.
Minimize your skincare routine and than slowly add back in stuff like hydrochloric acid and retinol. Having an elaborate skincare will just make your skin worse. First, focus on healing your skin barrier.
If you are a teenager, it just might be your hormones/growing pains. It will go away eventually.
Pimple Patches work and are especially good if you are trying to stop touching your face.
Wash your pillow cases every 1-2 weeks.
Try to sleep on your back.
If you pop a pimple than apply an antibiotic ointment.
No point in using anti-aging products if you are under the age of 25. It just won’t do anything for you.
Note that if you take in a lot of nicotine you will breakout. If you smoke and you have bad skin, it probably won’t improve unless you quit or lessen the dosage.
Level 3: painful consistent breakouts/acne/scars, redness, irritability, hurts,
Go see a dermatologist!
Acne is can be a real problem. If your acne is painful seek professional help.
If Accutane is recommended, than I would do it. Based only on the experiences of my friends, I have seen great results after a couple months. There are side effects and it is not for everyone but if a professional says you should than I might consider it.
No topical treatment is going to make those scars go away. You are going to need to laser resurfacing which is like this secret treatment rich people do to clear up their skin. It is expensive but really works. Beauty brands want you to think that the right cream can clear up your skin but if you have bad scarring you are only going to see real results with laser treatments
All of the above recommendations still apply
Your acne does not take away from your beauty or your worth as a human being. Remember that acne is normal and social media is fake.
Product Recommandations:
Disclaimer: Not every product will work for every skin type. Do your research for what will be beat for you!
Korean skincare! It is reliable to buy from yesstyle or Olive young. Don’t buy on amazon. (Japanese skincare is good too)
AESTURA Atobarrier 365 Cream
Ma:nyo Pure Cleansing Oil
Ma:nyo Bifida Biome Conplex Ampoule
Beauty of Joseon (sunscreen, eye cream, and serum)
Round Lab 1025 Dokdo Cleanser and Round Lab Birch Juice Sunscreen
Torriden Serum
KAHI Multi Balm
Anything from The Ordinary
CeraVe Daily Moisturizer
CeraVe SA Face Wash Cleanser
CeraVe Acne Foam Cleanser
CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Face Serum
La Roche Posay spot treatment and soothing balm
EltaMD sunscreen
Soon Jung brand
Laniege Toner
Royal Honey propolis Essence
Aware Lip and Eye remover
TIRTIR- Centella Foam Cleanser
KAHI wrinkle bounce collagen mist
Real Calendula Toner Hyaluronic Toner Pads
Abeille Royale double R renew and repair serum 
Tom Ford Lip Balm
Rovectin activating treatment lotion
LA MER moisturizer
PanOxyl Acne Foaming wash
#beauty#books#fashion#kate moss#lily rose depp#makeup#self love#skincare#tiktok#workout#kpop#korean#beauty tips#skincare tips#moisturizer#product recommendations
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For super-powered individuals, if we assume the standard of characters being stronger, faster, more durable than normal, is there a reasonably thin enough material (i.e. not just 5 inch thick hardened steel) that a super strong individual could carry to be bullet-proof (enough), presumably in some form of plate armor where you can still be agile?
Not exactly. The problem with armor (in the context of armored vehicles) is that you can just hit them harder. Something that can stop a .50 round might not do so well against a guided explosive munition, and if that fails an artillery strike. But, against a roughly human foe, those anti-material rounds would probably get the job done.
So, let's stick with your hardened steel solution for a moment. A .50 BMG round will penetrate ~1.5 inches, but for the sake of argument let's say 2 inches. That's a pretty good defense against a sniper with an AM rifle. However, this is also used in heavy machine guns, where you're looking at a cyclic rate of ~750-850rpm. In a situation like that, your armor might hold up to a short burst, but probably will not survive multiple bursts in the same area. As is often the case, the real problem isn't the bullet with your name on it, it's the 20 or 30 buddies who wanted to swing by for a fun time.
This leads to another problem. While bullets punching holes in you is bad, your armor taking a hit can be pretty unpleasant in its own right. A .50 BMG will deliver somewhere north of 14k joules of force into the target. That's enough for the bullet to do some pretty unpleasant things to a person in the armor, even if the armor itself isn't compromised. This a large part of why there isn't any armory rated to soak a hit from one of the AM rifles. (The Russians claimed that their Ratnik-3 armor would be able to... and then it never really appeared. The claim was someone dubious to begin with, but that's a much larger, and wilder, rabbithole than you're asking about.)
For a normal person, wearing high end body armor, hits from normal combat rifles (intermediate and high power rounds) can result in broken ribs and internal hemorrhaging. It's not just about your armor being bulletproof, it's about your armor being able to effectively dissipate kinetic force as it's received. If it doesn't do that effectively, the bullets may get the job done, even if they don't manage to penetrate the body armor.
On an individual level, simply adding more armor isn't a particularly efficient solution. It makes sense to a point, but if you're already saying someone is super-humanly strong, and tough, covering them in steel plate isn't going to make them immune to harm.
Beyond that, there have been experiments with developing combat exoskeletons, to allow normal soldiers this kind of protection. The aforementioned Ratnik-3 was the Russian program, while the American project was named TALOS. TALOS was scrapped sometime before February 2019, citing technological limitations. So, this isn't a new concept.
Something I found deeply amusing is the “See also,” section on TALOS's Wikipedia page includes a link to Crysis. For those unfamiliar, Crysis was a first person shooter set in the distant future year of 2020, which would have come dangerously close to matching the intended schedule for TALOS, if the project had continued.
Powered exosuit research is probably not dead, even if TALOS has been scrapped. It may be a bit further out than was originally expected, but it is a reasonable bet that it will happen at some point. There are a lot of technological hurdles, including both the issue with the armor failing under direct fire, and dealing with kinetic force, but, at least from an optimistic perspective, it's somewhat plausible.
Unless you're talking about vehicles, modern armor isn't about adding more metal, it's about being more efficient with dissipating the kinetic force from a hit, and still survive to do it at least a couple times.
That said, whatever you do come up with, it's likely that the old adage will hold true, if force doesn't solve your problems, you're probably not using enough of it. No matter how good your armor is, it won't survive sufficient application of high explosives.
Even ignoring all that, a Type IV plate will still take a hit from most rifles (up to and including .30-06 AP rounds.) You don't need fantasy armor for that, it's something that already exists. Real world body armor is designed to take hits. Full plate was designed for melee combat. Neither one is particularly good at doing the other's job. That's not a limitation of the materials or technology, it's a function of what the armor is designed to deal with.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, one of my scoutmasters warned us that if you use a knife as a screwdriver, you'll break it. It has an intended purpose. Trying use that tool, (whether it's a knife or body armor) for a purpose other than it's intended ones, will usually end poorly. (Of course, I also remember a crayon eater who was rather vocal in his opinion that the USP's only effective use was as a hammer.)
If you want to put a character in fully enclosed armor, take a look at Ratnik-3 or TALOS armor. If you just want a character who's unusually durable, and you're willing to go for (low key) superpowers, you don't need special armor to get that idea across.
-Starke
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A small summary of my beliefs
In no particular order:
1. I'm 100% pro-choice.
2. Gender does not exist. Only sex is real, and there are only two of them. You can be attracted to the same sex, the opposite sex, both or none. I think asexuality exists, but it's not a spectrum and it's way rarer than other sexualities.
3. I'm kink-friendly: I see no problem with kinks that follow the SSC (safe, sane and consensual) rule. I do engage in it on occasion.
4. I'm against professional porn, but I don't mind porn if the people creating it are doing it without a monetary incentive. I personally don't use it.
5. I support the Nordic Model of prostitution.
6. Since most of the people working in sweatshops are women and girls, unnecessary consumption of clothing (and other items) directly hurts women. I do not buy clothes that aren't second hand. The ones that I can't buy secondhand (i.e. underwear) I sew them myself.
7. I'm atheist, could be considered anti-theist by some. I have no spiritual beliefs.
8. I don't shave most of my body hair and I don't wear makeup. It's still difficult for me, specially my leg hair, but I want to show women near me we don't need to harm ourselves doing what men want us to do.
9. Kindness takes us a long way. I do my best to be kind to others even when I disagree with them.
I might be missing some stuff, but that's everything that comes to mind now. This blog is friendly to crypto-terfs. Asks and DMs are welcomed.
Tags I use:
ask (self explanatory)
anon ask (also obvious)
rec (posts to which I add something I deem relevant or posts I make myself)
rant (personal complaints, most times unrelated to feminism)
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Looking through my old notes again, I found a brief bit where a friend of mine (@lilacnothlit) and I discussed an Animorphs bodyswap fic.
Details: The narrator was going to be Tobias. The bodyswap was caused by a Yeerk plot device that was supposed to interfere with the morphing ability - possibly a revisit of the Anti-Morphing Ray in a new form, or a Morph Scrambler, or something to that effect.
Rachel and Ax switch bodies. Ax is terrible at being a teenage girl, but Naomi is busy with a case and Rachel's little sisters think Rachel acting funny is hilarious, so no danger there. Rachel hates having to live in the woods, so she promptly acquires herself with Ax's help and can be herself 2 hours at a time. Long enough for shopping trips at the mall, doing damage control at home. and hanging out with Tobias.
Cassie and Jake switch bodies. Both are too embarrassed by the situation to do anything but put their noses to the grindstone and get through it. Luckily for them, Jake was already a fixture at Cassie's barn every other day anyways, so no one raises an eyebrow when "Jake" comes over to help "Cassie" with medicating the animals and mucking out the barn.
Tobias and Marco switch bodies. This is where most of the problems arise, as neither of them is even remotely prepared for the kind of life the other leads. Tobias is also frustrated because the Side Plot involves yet another hawk threatening to take over Tobias's meadow, and Marco cannot, will not defend the meadow because he doesn't know how. Where Tobias valiantly and nobly exiled himself to the woods to live as a wild bird, Marco hangs out with Cassie and Jake all day, eating hamburger and watching television and doing his best impression of a teenage boy even though he's currently a bird and weighs 3 pounds soaking wet.
We never quite figured out a resolution. Maybe the device screwed with Visser Three's morphing ability too, so the Yeerks have to undo it and accidentally help the Animorphs in the process. Maybe the Animorphs manage to hold themselves together for a mission, steal the device, and get Erek and/or Ax to reverse it. I do know the Animorphs still being able to acquire their original bodies from each other and pretend to be themselves 2 hours at a time makes things easier, though.
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