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random-thought-depository · 2 months

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One of the thoughts I had while writing that post on Barbara Ehrenreich's Blood Rites, anti-predator defense, and the origins of the male gender role is if that model is correct it implies Larry Niven got the relationship between a sapient species's diet and culture/values pegged wrong, at least as far as the Kzin are concerned. Courage is the virtue of a prey species that engages in collective defense; a smart predator attacks the weak, avoids fights against strong opponents, and is quick to retreat from any fight in which it loses the advantage; a sapient species with a long evolutionary history of being big game hunting carnivore apex predators would probably value/honor courage less than we do, so Kzin biology and implied evolutionary history is actually kind of an awkward fit with the kind of assholes the Kzin are. Asshole aliens with a long evolutionary history of being big game hunting carnivore apex predators might be sneaky raiders with an unapologetic "if they outgun us, trade, avoid, or appease, if we outgun them, raid and pillage!" mindset, or something like that; they probably wouldn't have the prideful machismo, hotheaded aggression, and disdain for restraint of the Kzin (you could argue calling it machismo is an anthropomorphism because Kzintosh aren't men but lbr human machismo is very obviously what the Kzin attitude is modeled on).

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's unrealistic for the Kzin to be the way they are, cause Kzin values could plausibly arise from intra-species competition and my rationalization for why the Kzin are as they are is a mix of that and "the Kzin are like that because their right-wing authoritarians won their history and got to shape their culture." But, as I said, I think the kind of assholes the Kzin are wouldn't logically flow directly from their ancestral subsistence strategy/ecological niche.

Which makes me wonder: if as a spec-bio exercise I tried to make a species which's biology would predispose them toward becoming approximately the kind of asshole Proud Warrior Race the Kzin are, what traits would they have?

Here's what I came up with:

First obvious thing is to give them a "harem" social system like gorillas, elephant seals, certain ungulates, etc.. This lends itself well to a species with a highly competitive male hierarchy in which male social and reproductive success is contingent on being able to make credible costly signals of being strong and badass.

One major obstacle to a species like that becoming a threat on the interstellar scale is control by a single dominant male is a pretty hard cap on group size. I propose that this species has overcome that by developing a social system with dominant bull coalitions, so instead of being limited to groups of one to three dozen individuals controlled by a single dominant male, they can have e.g. groups of a few thousand individuals controlled by a few hundred dominant bulls and so on; this eventually scaled up to an interstellar empire with billions of subjects and probably at least a few hundred million dominant bulls in loose coalition (that big dominant bull coalition is the empire's warrior-aristocrat class).

Unlike the Kzin, in this species the females will definitely be sapient and have lots of soft power; all the internal male social competition and external war and imperialism is largely about impressing them.

Another major point of difference from the Kzin: this species definitely should not have much evolutionary history of cooperative big game hunting. Pack hunting strongly incentivizes and rewards cooperation and solidarity (I suspect this plus the smaller group sizes of carnivores is why you see "harem" social organization more in herbivores), whereas I think to get aliens that are assholes in approximately the way the Kzin are we want a social system that's highly internally competitive. This probably implies a mostly herbivorous diet, though there might be some supplementation with small game; the important thing is this species has had basically no selection pressure for being effective predators of animals strong enough to require cooperation to take down.

Related and important point: the evolution of sapience in this species was more-or-less entirely driven by social competition and sexual selection, and they got too big to be tempting targets for the predators of their ancestral environment long before they developed sapience. So this is a species with no recent evolutionary history of being a prey species.

I guess we're maybe looking at something like a mix of gorillas and elephants here; maybe ancestrally browsers of the savanna and open woodland (though they'd gradually switch toward eating more richer food such as fruit, tubers, young shoots, meat, etc. as they developed more efficient food production). If we're doing the Mass Effect "more alien-looking than Star Trek forehead aliens but still implausibly humanoid" thing some kind of big beefy horned minotaur-looking humanoids would be a pretty appropriate look for the dominant bulls (with the subordinate males being more slender and the females being more slender and substantially smaller - this would be a species with way more sexual dimorphism than humans), not sure what I'd make them look like if I went the route of making them more realistically alien-looking.

Organized violence (i.e. war) developed in this species partly as a mating ritual. Large-scale battles gave males the same kind of opportunities to demonstrate strength and courage that fitness signalling duels did, but the much more complex tactical environment of a large-scale battle also offered opportunities for males to conspicuously demonstrate intelligence and cooperation. The switch from duels to battles as the primary arena of fitness signalling was a major selection pressure driving the evolution of sapience in this species. Originally the ultimate aim of war in this species was group fusion in which the dominant bull coalition of one group would defeat the dominant bull coalition of another group and the two groups would merge with the victorious dominant bull coalition being the dominant bull coalition of the combined group and the males in the defeated dominant bull coalition being either killed or demoted to subordinate status with their new lower rank being rubbed in by bullying and humiliation rituals. As the species developed bigger and more sedentary social groups this developed into territorial conquest with conquered communities remaining in their old homes under the rule of viceroys. But the thing where wars were partly giant mating rituals meant often neither side was particularly in a hurry to finish off their enemies as no more enemies to fight would mean diminished opportunities for social mobility and impressing females; there tended to be a "we have always been at war with Eurasia/Eastasia" dynamic where the conflict itself was effectively treated as having social value and actively maintained and subject to various forms of ritualization that limited its destructiveness so it could be kept going longer.

So, this is a species that's gotten lots of selection pressure from intra-species competition and violence, but has no recent evolutionary history as cooperative predators of animals with comparable size and strength to themselves and has no recent evolutionary history as a prey species. This species will have instincts and intuitions about violence totally optimized for intra-species violence that's mostly a mix of coalition politics propaganda of the deed and male fitness signalling rituals (and, of course, their culture will build on those instincts and intuitions and the dynamics that selected for them). I think this would lead plausibly to people who share one of the defining traits of the Kzin: being aggressive imperialist warmongering swaggering bullies who endlessly congratulate themselves on their ferocious warrior spirit and supposed mighty warrior prowess and supposed right to rule derived from that but are not actually all that good at war compared to a species like us that has been shaped by hunting and being hunted.

The thing about intra-species violence that's mostly a mix of coalition politics propaganda of the deed and male fitness signalling is it simultaneously incentivizes restraint more than inter-species predator/prey violence and incentivizes aggression more consistently than inter-species predator/prey violence.

On the restraint side, intra-species violence means potentially violence against relatives or potential mates, and in a social species violence against potential helpers. This obviously creates an incentive for restraint. Violent intra-species competition is where you get natural weapons and combat set up to probably not do too much damage (bighorn sheep knocking each other on their hard blunt horns instead of stabbing each other in the fleshy flank or face with sharp horns), notions of fair and honorable fights, "why don't you pick on someone your own size?," chivalry, rules of war, boxing gloves and rules against hitting below the belt, etc.. This post touches on some of the dynamics I'm talking about here.

I think plausible cultural development of this species might enhance this. A highly competitive "harem" social system means at least the males of this species are likely to be less cooperative than humans, and a less cooperative species will have a harder time forming effective equalizing coalitions. This species never got our probable evolutionarily significant period of living in mostly relatively egalitarian societies; compared to us their males at least are likely to be less wired for cooperative coalition-building and more wired for trying to individualistically climb their way up viciously competitive hierarchies; again, it seems likely this would make the formation of effective equalizing coalitions harder. The females are a bit of a wild card here, not sure what'd be going on with them, but considering they find aggressive, violent, domineering males sexy, I can see them not having instincts terribly promising for forming effective society-wide equalizing coalitions either. A species that's not very good at forming effective equalizing coalitions is likely to be not very good at coming up with ideologies of equality; equivalents of liberalism, democracy, socialism, anarchism, etc. may not exist at all in their philosophical tradition, or if they exist are likely to be obscure and marginal. The implication may be the political landscape of this species was a pretty dismal picture of oppressive oligarchies everywhere for pretty much the entire existence of their species. Like I said, I expect this species would develop a lot of practices to limit the destructiveness of war and focus its destructiveness on direct combatants. Defeat of a community in war would likely mean little change in the social or material conditions of most of the community's members; one oligarchic dominant bull coalition would replace another, and the only real change for most people would be a change in the names and faces (or scents or whatever they primarily recognize each other by) of their masters. Plausibly, the females of a conquered community would even approve of the change, seeing their community's new ruling dominant bull coalition as having proven themselves more desirable breeding material by winning. All of this would tend to encourage a sensibility that wars are basically social games between males and the only thing important at stake in them is the personal social and reproductive success of the direct combatants.

On the aggression side... Violent coalition politics involves lots of costly signalling, bluff, and martyrdom. The kind of violence a species like the one I'm describing here engages in is probably going to include a lot of violence that's basically an implicit statement of "I am exceptionally strong and brave and badass and would be an exceptionally good subordinate or ally, please give me a promotion!" And when it comes to male violence done as male fitness signalling to females, well, sperm is cheap and ova and wombs are expensive; in a "harem" social system demonstrating your mere viability will probably not be enough to impress females into mating with you, they are likely to require a costly signal of exceptional excellence before perceiving you as a desirable breeding partner, and if you die trying to make that costly signal, well, rolling the dice on a 65% chance of getting killed while young and a 35% chance of getting to breed might easily be selected for over contenting oneself with dying childless at a ripe old age.

Basically, I think you might plausibly end up with a species with bone-deep intuitions that:

- Violence is a performance, it is primarily communicative, using it to send a message to your opponent and/or to witnesses is at least an important secondary consideration and may even be more important than the actual concrete outcome of the fight. It is not enough to simply defeat your enemy, you must do so in a way that effectively communicates what you want to communicate.

- The most consistent purposes of violence are to show off your own strength, bravery, and fighting prowess and to terrorize and humiliate your opponent into submission.

- War is basically a game played among males. It's not a trivial game, it's literally deadly serious for the males involved in it and your society is largely organized around it, but it's fundamentally a game; the only people who have really big stakes in it are the direct combatants, and having fun and displaying good sportsmanship and putting on a cool performance are important secondary considerations and may even be more important than the actual concrete outcome. If you've ever read Ian Banks's Player Of Games, Azad (the game and the institutions and culture around it) in that book is the best analogy I can think of for what war would be to these people.

- Your enemies will be basically following the same rule book you have.

When these people develop interstellar travel and meet other sapient species, they'll apply the instincts and cultural institutions they developed for intra-species competition to those other sapients. I.e. they'll turn into nasty imperialists. Conquered aliens would get incorporated into their society in about the same social position as weak males. In their society weak males with little hope of rising to dominant bull status are kept around for labor and to assist with the care and education of the offspring of their female relatives and have a social status roughly equivalent to serfs; this would be the obvious niche to put conquered aliens in, with some modifications, e.g. conquered aliens would be expected to keep reproducing with each other.

Combine what I said in the previous paragraph with how much these people's social instincts would revolve around volatile male hierarchies reinforced by bullying and humiliation rituals, and I expect being a conquered subject of them would tend to be unpleasant to horrific. Being a primarily herbivorous species, these people wouldn't occasionally eat their slaves like the Kzin, but I could totally see the dominant bulls occasionally casually caving some poor slave's skull in out of a combination of some petty irritation and wanting to remind everyone who's boss.

Let's say we want these people to get approximately the same nasty surprise when they attack humans that the Kzin did. Model favorable to that:

In this setting, the most common pathway to sapience is through social and sexual selection. Sapient species usually evolve in environments without big predators, e.g. isolated islands, because serious predation pressure tends to prevent the very strong commitment to a long-lived slow-breeding very K-selected life strategy that leads to sapience. Sapient species usually do not have recent evolutionary history as big game hunters (the typical sapient is a physically not very strong omnivore, often primarily an eater of fruit, tubers, seeds, insects, and small animals, though also a lot of sapient species started with an ecological niche roughly equivalent of fish-eating birds that nest in large rookeries). Species that evolve sapience through this pathway usually have strong social and artistic intelligence, but lack instincts and institutions of organized violence (they aren't always peaceful, but if they do have significant intra-species violence it's murder, done by individuals or very small groups, not war).

When the warmonger aliens I've spent most of this post describing meet species like this it usually goes similarly to what happened when the Maori met the Moriori, or at least like that event as described in a book I read once. The warmonger aliens will roll up and be like "Yo, what's up, losers! You are now our slaves! We're awfully fond of presents called 'tribute' which you'll be giving us regularly from now on, and you'll be obeying our orders from now on! You can start by performing these humiliating submission rituals to acknowledge our superiority!" and this will be kind of an OCP to their victims, who will usually either basically surrender immediately or try to resist but fold pretty quickly cause they aren't well-equipped for war psychologically, culturally, institutionally, or materially. The warmonger dominant bulls honestly find it kind of boring, to the point that they fight a lot of highly ritualized flower war style conflicts among themselves as a mix of oligarch class dispute resolution, bloody enrichment, and live fire training to keep their warrior skills sharp.

Basically, the galaxy is full of weedy theater kid nerds, and these warmonger aliens are the meathead jock bullies of the galaxy going around shoving those nerds into lockers and stealing their lunch money.

The exceptions to this pattern the warmonger aliens met before us were a mix of 1) other species like themselves, 2) sapient species with a long evolutionary history of being big game hunting carnivore more-or-less apex predators (who are basically sneaky raiders). The warmonger alien dominant bulls tend to hate the latter and bitch endlessly about how they "have no honor," but savor tangling with the former in a "finally, worthy opponents!" way.

Then they met humans.

Humans have a long enough evolutionary history of big game hunting that this may have subjected us to significant selection pressure for increased cooperativeness that the warmonger aliens didn't get. But that isn't special in this context, the warmonger aliens have tangled with sapients descended from big game hunting carnivores before.

The thing that makes humans relevantly special is our relatively recent evolutionary history of being a prey species that engaged in collective defense, and the instincts we have that formed in that context but can be activated in other kinds of conflict.

Going back to that "real fights" thing earlier:

"but how often are you ever going to be in a fight where you’re willing to rip the other guy’s cheek out, gouge out his eyes and so forth?"

A fight against a predator that wants to eat your child looks like that.

If you're fighting a member of your own species, the entity you're fighting might be a relative, potential mate, or potential helper, so there's an incentive for restraint.

If you're a predator hunting, well, a carnivore species needs their prey species, that's their food source; smart lions wouldn't want to wipe out their prey species, they need their prey species, they would prefer their prey species thrive and be abundant and healthy; again there is an incentive for restraint; very plausibly one of the first lessons a sapient carnivore species would have to collectively learn after becoming sapient is restraint, learning that it would be all too easy to use their new, better weapons to kill too many of their prey and that they need to consciously avoid doing that.

Prey defending themselves from predators are the ones who'd have more-or-less zero incentive for restraint. If you can hurt or kill the lioness that's trying to eat your child, there is basically no reason to not go for it except self-preservation. Predators need their prey, but that's not symmetrical; prey don't need their predators, and sapient prey smart enough to do birth control and cull any dumber competitor species would probably be unambiguously much better off if all their predators dropped dead (Pleistocene humans could have done semi-reliable birth control by abstinence, outercourse, and lactational amenorrhea).

Humans are a slow-breeding species. A pride of lions could easily gradually eat a small early human band into extinction, and would have little incentive to avoid doing so cause humans aren't even their primary prey so when they ran out of humans they could just eat more of the antelope and so on that are already most of what they're eating anyway. The warmonger aliens have no evolutionary history of conflicts so existential.

The warmonger aliens have an idea of self-sacrificial heroism, but their version is entirely oriented (in an "adaptation executor, not fitness maximizer" way) toward burnishing the reputation of surviving close male relatives by association and thus increasing their reproductive success. They would have nothing in their recent evolutionary history like the experience of standing between a child and a hungry lioness. They would not grok "get away from her you bitch!" (that essay talks about the role of males in anti-predator defense but, yeah, women would have this too, who do you think would be the last line of defense for the children if a predator got past the male defensive ring?).

(The warmonger aliens definitely think it's a bit weird that we have mixed gender armies, not so much in a conventionally sexist way - they're inclined to see the size and strength differences between human men and women as obviously trivial compared to the much bigger sexual dimorphism of their species - but in that the idea of females caring enough about the outcome of a war to fight in it is alien to them. It's not that weird to them though, the big game hunter ancestry carnivore sapients they've encountered have mixed-sex armies and unwarlike sapients that try to resist conquest usually form them when they scramble to put a military together so it's got precedent in their experience.)

Like, yeah, the warmonger aliens are exactly the kind of people where some human commander would draw some of them into a clever trap they wouldn't anticipate cause prioritizing actually winning over looking heroic is alien behavior to them and then the comrades of the ones who died getting punked would bitch about how "dishonorable" it was of us to fight to win instead of obediently lining up to get slaughtered like cattle in some set-piece battle because that'd be the "honorable" thing by their definitions.

But also, something a lot like Londo Mollari's little speech about how brave the humans were in the Earth-Minbari war but it's some warmonger alien dominant bull describing the resistance we're putting up against his people and instead of admiration it's spoken with a tone of queasy puzzlement tinged with fear, irritation with our "irrational" resistance mixed with fear of the possible implications for what might happen if we start winning, it's alien behavior to him and he's admitting that it scares him.

Also, turns out species that have been strongly selected for solidarity (that's us!) are good at building equalizing coalitions and creating memes to coordinate them around, so not only are human ideologies of equality such as liberalism and communism effective at supercharging our resistance against imperialist conquest in a way that's an OCP to the warmonger aliens, they also turn out to be really disruptive to the warmonger aliens' shitty empire when some human chaos agents have fun spreading them around in it.

#writing ideas #warning: long

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alektohuj · 1 year

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GhostRoachSoap Headcannons!

Am I having a meltdown? Yes probably. Is writing Headcannons going to help? Absolutely!

I'm not a good writer but here you go! It's going to be random.

More sexual ones:

Soap is a (power) bottom. Roach a switch. Ghost also a switch. But mostly Ghost tops our boys.

Both Roach and Ghost are very caring when a top. But soap sometimes likes it rough and they always want to please him.

I don't have any sexy ones anymore so more fluffy or something:

Roach is semi verbal. All of them know sign language. Ghost and Soap get non verbal episodes so knowing asl is important.

Roach will randomly cuddle them to show affection. Ghost and Soap at first got caught of guard when he did that but now they are use to it.

Soap is the one who brings the most comfort and lets Ghost and Roach talk about their problems but will change the subject when it comes to him.

Soap has adhd. Ghost and Roach are autistic.

Small spoon Soap. Will and does lay on his boyfriends. Sometimes get suffocated by them.

Ghost sleeps at the open side of the bed (?) ,Roach at the wall side and Soap in the middle.

Price gave Roach and Ghost the dad talk. Laswell gave them all the dad talk too.

(little bit od Price and Laswell they are absolutely mlm and wlw solidarity)

All of them are scared shittless when others are at missions even if together but don't let it affect their work.

Ghost calls Roach 'Bug' , Soap 'Johnny'. The other two use pet names (?)

Everyone thinks that Soap is the sun but I ,the little shit who has weird thinking, says that he is the moon because he shines only by the light somebody gives him ( sunlight reflects on moon so it shines, the reference to 'The Moon will sing' is visible I hope). He is only the sunshine when people are around but get easily sad and overwhelmed when near negative emotions and when he's alone.

Ghost does not like talking to people he doesn't know and like. Roach likes to talk to people only when he sees that they are nice and respectful. Soap will talk to people to have someone to talk to.

Ghost has night terrors when not sleeping with Soap and Roach or unless he knows they are safe and alive.

Soap likes to sketch his boyfriends so no one is allowed to go through his journal because his boyfriends don't like when their faces are seen. Even though when both of them found about Soap's sketches they both posed for him.

Roach and Ghost are ligh headed while Soap can drink a lot and still feel sober. (Did make a drinking competition with everyone, everyone lossed because of Gromsko, I love my polish man)

All can cook but Roach is the best at it. They still order take out anyway.

Ghost is a cat person. Soap is a dog person. Roach just wants to pet the animal.

And that is all for now. Going to maybe make more, or write a fanfick idk. So that my children is your food for at least the month. Love ya.

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colorpuffball · 8 months

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I'm beating the buzzer with this one (^_^;)

Anyways I'm really glad to have been able to join this summer santa event! Big thanks to you @solarisfortuneia <3

I was assigned to @lychniis, hope you enjoy reading ╰(´꒳`)╯

I chose Zhongli fluff, here's a lil preview:

“Please lay down on me.” “Perhaps you mean with you?” “No. On me.”

“Do you have any plans for the day?”

Your question is directed at the man sitting in front of you. Morning sunlight streams into your shared home, making your teacups give off a warm glow.

“Aside from my usual walk through Liyue, no.”

“Then, could I make a request?”

Zhongli sets his cup down. "It would depend on what it is you desire. Although I am inclined to accept anything you propose."

You lean closer. “Could you please lay down on me.”

His brow furrows ever so slightly. “Perhaps you mean with you?”

“No. On me.”

A breath. He raises his cup, answering before taking a sip. "It is hard to refuse a request so simple."

_____________________________

Despite his acceptance, he was in no rush to finish his tea. Not that you minded of course. Conversation flowed as free as the tea he poured for the both of you.

When you do reach the end of the pot, you go quiet as he cleans the tea set. With a flick of his wrist another teapot appears in the air. The steam from within rises, curling into the light. He rinses every piece with such gracious movements that so obviously stem from years of experience. It never fails to capture your attention.

Finally, he sets everything aside.

"Shall we?"

_____________________________

The two of you return to bed. With the way you're laying, Zhongli is slotted almost perfectly against you. His head rests on your shoulder.

"Does this satisfy you?"

His warmth and weight feel more comforting than you'd imagined. Although… now that you've got your foot in the door.

“More.” You demand, although you’re mostly joking.

You thought he understood that with the way he inhaled, like a half finished chuckle. But then he stretches out.

You’ve seen him in his dragon form before, the great Morax in the flesh. Or more accurately, in the scales. You can only describe the transformation process as something akin to a molting reptile. Objectively, it isn’t pretty. To you though, it’s always a breathtaking sight.

The change literally steals your breath away. You struggle to breathe under his weight. How such a large being can fit into a smaller form, you have no clue.

“Is this adequate?”

His voice is a tinge deeper, and seems to hold a lot more power. You always wonder if it truly changes, or if it’s your brain playing tricks on you.

You laugh lightly. “Much, thank you.”

Knowing your satisfaction, he decides to make himself comfortable. Around and around he goes, until he’s balanced (mostly) on top of you in a coil.

When he’s finished he sighs. You sigh in solidarity. No matter for what reason he actually sighed for.

The two of you lay in silence for a while, simply enjoying the physical contact.

His scales are smooth to the touch. When your hand travels up towards his mane you’re hit by a puff of hot air. He watches with crinkled eyes as you run your fingers through coarse strands.

He’s gorgeous.

You can’t help but smile to yourself. From his grand horns to the steady beating of his heart against your chest, even the fact that he's so willing to show this form to you, it all makes you question how any of this is even real.

It’s like a dream come true.

If you had told yourself in the past that you’d end up in a relationship with a now retired god who happens to be able to transform into a dragon. Well, you’d think you were insane.

You unknowingly shake your head at the idea, to which Zhongli tilts his.

“Is something the matter?”

Your cheeks warm. “No, nothing.” You immediately change the subject. “Does it feel better when you get to take on this form again? Is it relieving, or- I mean, how does it feel?”

With the proximity of your faces, it's hard not to notice the way his eyes narrow ever so slightly. "It is a welcome change. Much like when one walks a different path as they would in their day to day."

"Do you wish that you could do it more often?"

He hums, the sound more akin to a purr with how it reverberates. In fact, it even relaxes you further. You feel as though you've shifted farther into the bed, the blankets brushing against your skin.

Or maybe you actually did, as you immediately tense when you feel his claws on you.

"Those are sharp!"

Immediately they're gone. "My apologies. I should be more mindful. These claws, they were not made for such activities after all."

You chuckle. "These activities? You make it sound so suspicious."

He yawns, his jaw opening so wide you realize he could swallow a boar whole. Several boars maybe. Or even a boat.

"I was referring to these more peaceful activities."

Your eyes widen. “Ah. Right.”

It's easy to forget what Zhongli is capable of. Especially since he's currently acting as your weighted blanket.

The silence stretches. Your gaze shifts between his mouth and literally anywhere else. Zhongli’s eyes rest solely on you.

“Do I scare you?” As he speaks you’re forced to face his teeth. You pull your eyes from the multitude of knife-like points to observe his face.

To you, it simply holds curiosity. You were afraid that he’d be unhappy with your reaction. Although he could be saving it for your response.

“Well…”

It’d be a lie to say that he is harmless. Or to say that you weren’t spooked just now. It’s a bit difficult to ponder on his nature and that of your relationship with him on top of you.

Of course, in his bountiful patience, Zhongli simply watches as you find the right words. His face betrays no emotion.

Although, if you’re being honest…

You start gently. “Yes, at times.” You watch him out of the corner of your eye as you stroke his mane once again. “However,” you grin, “I can’t say that I’m not into it.”

#— summer santa.#x reader #zhongli x reader #gn reader #no pronouns used #Zhongli #genshin impact #Big shout out to Misha for Beta reading <33 #Is it just me or do y'all hear the Minecraft ender dragon sound when you see Morax as a dragon

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eyeofhurakana · 11 months

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Title: “Unlike Fiction” Chapter: 1/1? Pairing: Sampo x Reader, Gepard x Reader Reader: Gender Neutral / Illegal Underworlder living in Overworld Relationship Level: Sampo - Ex-Beau / Gepard - Current Beau Trust: Sampo - Low / Gepard - Moderate Summary: You decide to show up for Gepard’s celebration for becoming Captain of the Silvermane guard at Serval’s request. However, things don’t go as expected… Warning!: Cursing, Thoughts of Self-Harm (No harm though!)

Glimmering glass chandeliers, bubbling champagne, and a cast of incredibly wealthy persons that all seem to know one another only skin deep…

This scenery is straight out of any romance novel conveying star-crossed lovers of opposing social classes. Though you had to admit, the authors really nailed it. You always thought that at least some of it had to be a little embellished. Yet just as they say, even the ceiling of this immense manor is painted with glorious recounts of Belobog’s long history with awe-inspiring detail.

Your fingers squeeze around the stem of your champagne glass.

The nobles that have gathered are all dressed to the nines. Some even go so far as to wear flowers that are worth at least six years of your own pay. You gulp when you catch sight of a few of the noble ladies standing off to the side in a huddled corner with handheld fans up, covering the lower part of their faces. Quickly, you avert your gaze.

You already know they’re talking about you. Not that it matters. Gossip is a game for the small-minded and weak-willed.

Though you can’t help a certain thought that keeps besieging your mind.

Should you really be here?

“There you are!” Serval calls excitedly with no bother to maintain the rules of decorum as she hurries over to you.

Thank Qlipoth…

Her outfit fits the atmosphere but you feel a sense of pride to see that she never took out her punk rock highlights. It gives you a sense of solidarity as there were a few things in your own look that you refused to change just for a single event.

She definitely gets a few irksome looks, for the mere sin of existing. But like the magnificent storm queen that she is, she doesn’t even care. Immediately, you feel like you’ve found refuge the second she hooks her arm around yours.

“Ugh, thank goodness that you’re here. I was about to lose my head just a moment ago,” she huffs lightly before leaning into you with a relieved smile, “Seriously. I’m really glad you came. I know this isn’t what you’re used to… but if I know Geppie, he’s going to love it that you're here.”

“You really think so?” you ask, still feeling a bit apprehensive.

“Of course! Oh god. You should see how he lights up whenever he mentions you. I swear, you’re like his favorite subject to talk about these days. He barely mentions work anymore. Thank you, by the way. That subject was getting a bit tiresome, but I never really knew how to break it to him, you know? I’m just still sore after the whole… Well… You know.”

Her cerulean eyes drift downwards.

Serval’s sudden termination from the Architects was definitely a huge blow. It was still fresh in her mind despite it happening over a few months ago. Even so, you could still see the cracks it left in her.

It was a miracle that she didn’t give up hope on everything entirely…

You squeeze her arm a little to bring her back to the present before she can drown herself in the past.

“Hey, let’s just enjoy ourselves then. We’ve been through hell. It’s the least we can do, right? We can even see this as, I dunno, reparations for stupid bullshit?”

“Reparations for Stupid Bullshit. RSB. I like it,” Serval laughs with a delighted nod, gladly going with the flow, “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

She squeezes you back. An appreciative thank you.

The two of you end up tearing up the tables filled with fancy cocktails and hors d'oeuvres while chatting about everything and nothing. By the time the great big announcement comes around, both you and Serval are incredibly - and happily - drunk. Restraint isn’t exactly a strong suit for either of you. It’s probably why you get along so well.

When Gepard is announced as the next Captain of the Guard, you both end up hooting and hollering like fools. You get a few glances from those surrounding you and even Gepard breaches the usual protocol to peek.

But he doesn’t smile when he sees you.

Instead, his eyes widen, brows flying up. Then he turns to face front and center like the soldier he’s trained to be.

“...”

A sudden sick, sinking feel forms in your chest.

What was that?

It doesn’t help that you’re intoxicated. The wall that usually keeps the worst thoughts out suddenly isn’t there anymore. Worries flood you without hindrance.

The dam of reason isn’t there to protect you.

“The hell was that?” Serval says, only escalating your worries, “He saw us, right?”

You purse your lips tightly, unable to reply.

Gepard receives praise from both of his parents as well as a few renowned dignitaries. It takes everything you have to keep Serval from breaking into tears at the sight of Cocolia. Serval ends up holding your hand with such a tight grip that her fingernails dig into your skin. But you let it happen. You know how deep those emotional wounds have cut…

She’s barely holding herself together.

“Serval…”

“Don’t tell me we should go. I-I deserve to be here too,” she insists shakily which is remarkably perceptive for own so heavily inebriated, “If anything… she’s the one that doesn’t belong here… This is my home. My home.”

The pain in her voice pulls at every heartstring inside of you. But you have to be the least drunk between you. …Since sobriety is long, long gone.

“I… need to use the bathroom,” you say.

It’s not a lie entirely. Besides, she won’t question it. You don’t know your way around this place like she does.

“Oh shit. Sorry. Yeah, of course. Come on. I’ll take you… woah. Um… Let me hang onto you.”

It takes a little while to find a washroom. It seems Serval’s mind keeps getting muddled from having seen Cocolia. But you keep your patience. It’s what you’d want from your friend if this ever happened to you…

By the time you get to a nearby empty washroom, you barely shut the door when you hear Serval breaking into tears. Your heart becomes heavier than you’re used to. Maybe because you’re pretty sure that you’re bound for one more heartbreak today.

Gepard’s face the moment he saw you in the crowd has yet to leave your mind.

As much as you’d like to hope… you feel that you already know.

He didn’t tell them…

You sit there on the closed toilet for barely a moment before breaking out into silent tears.

This… always… happens.

You try to keep quiet as best you can. You don’t like expressing your pain to others. Your upbringing discouraged showing weakness of any kind. To those around you at that time… you were an incessant inconvenience.

Even still, you hear a soft knock on the door.

Serval sniffles just behind it.

“Are you crying?” she asks with a genuine sweetness behind it, despite her own anguish, that just makes something inside of you crumble to dust.

A sob escapes despite your damnedest attempts to keep it in.

You don’t want to be a burden.

Yet before you know it, she’s already come in and hugs you tightly without reservation. You don’t remember how long the two of you bawl your eyes out, but it’s enough that Serval has to reapply both her and your makeup.

Every noble wears makeup and she’ll be damned if she lets one of her few closest friends walk around shabby.

“Hey, hey. I know you’re worried…” she says while gently applying another coat of foundation on your cheeks, “But I’m telling you, my brother would never ever do that to you. Ugh… He’s nothing like that con man. Ugh… I’m so sorry that I even introduced you to that jerk. He just… He didn’t seem like that, you know?”

She popped her foundation away back into her hidden dress pocket before pulling out some eyeliner to fix the mess under your eyes.

“Geppie is different. I swear. I’ve never heard him tell a lie in his whole life.” Her motions slow as she remembers the look he gave both of you during the celebration of his promotion. “I… I’m sure he had his reasons for reacting so weird. Maybe he was just really surprised?”

You smile weakly despite not believing that.

“You’re probably right,” you fib.

Damn. You were already exhibiting bad habits from said someone…

“Don’t worry. We’ll talk to him soon.”

And just like that, the two of you return to the party though it’s mostly over and done with. Only a few of the major boozehounds stay for the free alcohol while others try some last minute attempts to schmooze with those of higher standing.

Eventually, Serval learns where Gepard retreated off to in search of some solace.

“This’ll be great. I’m sure of it,” she says as she pulls you along.

But with every step, you feel like you’re nearing an execution. The type that can tear the very soul in half while keeping the physical body intact.

“Stay here,” she whispers to you, leaving you just outside the doors before dramatically shoving them open, “Little bro!”

You can hear the shifting of his armor along with his footsteps as he turns to face his older sister.

“Serval…”

Gepard's voice sounds heavy. No matter how much you rewind it in your head, there’s no mirth in it.

“Surprised?” she asks as she hugs him suddenly, “Didn’t think I’d miss your big day, did you?”

“...”

“Gepard?” she asks before leaning back to eye him better.

“You shouldn’t have brought them…” he murmurs but it’s not low enough that you can’t catch it.

The ground beneath you becomes like thin ice over a frigid lake. Each word he says produces a fresh crack, branching out to assure your inevitable destruction.

“What? What do you mean? Aren’t you glad to see them? Gepard, you two are dating. Of course, I’d-” Serval then suddenly stops.

You drop your head as you feel an uncomfortable heat rising along your neck and ears.

Mortification.

She takes a step back.

“You didn’t tell them?” she asks but she’s not really asking.

Her tone sounds utterly appalled.

“I-I was working on it!”

“Gepard! You said-!”

“I know what I said!”

You can’t take anymore.

Removing your shoes, your footfalls become nearly silent as you make a desperate retreat for the nearest open balcony. The freezing air greets you the moment you step out. With a shudder, you make it to the nearest portable heater, switching it on. With time, it glows a gentle orange that reminds you of the Geomarrow where you’re really from…

The place that you should feel ashamed of…

A tear escapes you but you quickly wipe it away, refusing to cry any longer.

Then… in just that moment…

A crazy thought invades your mind.

This is very high up.

…Anything could happen.

A despairing croak escapes you as you grip onto yourself tightly.

No, no, no. Not these thoughts.

Anything but these thoughts!!

It’s like fighting against the blinding cold winds of the Great Freeze. There’s no escape and before you know it, you’re completely lost within its windchill.

If only you hadn’t left… Being alone and disturbed with far too much alcohol always makes for a tragedy waiting to happen…

Please… Someone… I don’t… I don’t want…

And then the improbable happens.

A light flickering in the distance.

At first, it seems random until you realize it remarkably seems like the code that-

No bloody way.

‘Hey there, friend.’

That’s what it says.

Your eyes widen.

No way, no way, no way.

Quickly, you pull out the pocket mirror Serval had lent you. Well, given you, but it was way too expensive to keep on your person. You would sneak it back into the untouched mounds within her workshop later.

For now, you pop it open and use the mirror to reflect the light to message back.

‘Friend or foe?’

You wait with great anticipation for the next reply. At first, you think it might not come, but it does.

‘Friend?’

A desperate laugh escapes you as you can tell right away who this is.

‘Idiot.’

He doesn’t miss a beat.

‘Your idiot.’

You frown.

‘Not mine.’ You correct firmly.

Then nothing. A part of you gets tense.

Did you ruin it? If so, then was it for the best?

But those thoughts vanish when you finally see the light flash again.

‘Are you okay?’

Now it was your turn to give pause. Were you okay?

Your hands trembled around the mirrors as fresh tears fell. This was a pivotal moment. You could feel it.

The air felt like it had been sealed in an invisible vacuum. Static silently building within…

You look toward where you came from.

Neither Landau has come for you…

Too busy bickering, no doubt.

You lightly bite down on your tongue to try and stop the tears but it’s futile.

‘Not okay.’

The next response is so quick that you nearly miss it.

‘SOS?’

You tense.

Your next response will be huge for what happens next…

‘SOS?’ He asks again. “...”

No. The pain is too much. You want out.

‘SOS.’

You wait a few minutes there for a response or anything… but there’s nothing. Your shoulders drop with regret at showing even a hint of your vulnerability to an ex of all people. He probably just found your pain entertaining. Maybe he was taking pictures on his phone right now.

Well, might as well give him the best shot.

You weep quietly from where you lean against the railing… only to feel a sudden rumble from the west side of the manor. It… felt like the kind of shockwaves a bomb gives.

Did he just-?!

The clanking of metallic armor stomping down the halls fills your ears as commands are shouted at length. You debate leaving the balcony but now you’re scared. What if you’ve been lured into a trap? What if you’ll be made the scapegoat? What if-

“Hey there.”

You turn to see the dual dagger-wielding rogue lifting himself with ease over the railing. You were at least three stories high… Had he really just scaled all of that on his own?

Those enchanting green eyes capture you in an instant as they seem equally mesmerized to see you again. A relieved smile spreads across his face as he tilts his head.

“Heard you wanted a swift exit?”

AN: *sipping on Bicardi* Wow. I did not expect to write this… Thank you magic bat.

For those of you that made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

This could continue but we'll see. Love Triangles are pretty fun though, eh?

#sampo #sampo koski #hsr #honkai star rail #hsr x reader #sampo koski x reader #sampo x reader #hurakana fic #star rail #sampo simping #gepard landau #gepard #serval landau #gepard x reader

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denimbex1986 · 8 months

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'Irish actors claim they have been treated like the poor relations in the film industry for decades despite big government tax breaks for major studios.

LA-based actor Alan Smyth revealed that Colin Farrell, Ruth Negga and Cillian Murphy have signed a petition for fair and equal pay for native performers and crew.

Over 2,500 people have added their signatures online.

It says the Irish diaspora in the US and worldwide strongly support the efforts of Irish Actors Equity, which is in talks with several government ministers to secure a guarantee “that Irish performers will not be subject to lesser terms and conditions regarding their intellectual property rights than international performers in similar roles”.

“This, unfortunately, has been the case for many years,” it states.

The petition is still open as Irish Equity plans to hold a solidarity rally with the striking SAG-AFTRA union and the Writers Guild of America today.

Smyth, who is from Dundalk, has first-hand experience of the set-up on both sides of the Atlantic. He has reaped the benefits of the American system where actors traditionally got residual cheques whenever their performances are aired.

The threat now, he says, is that the so-called “streamer” networks are imposing drastic cuts to the value of the residuals.

Hence, the strikes.

“It’s a lot worse in Ireland,” said the actor, who has starred in a number of big TV dramas, including CSI: NY and Criminal Minds.

“The system in Ireland is that the Irish cast and crew for the most part, unless it’s Colin or Cillian, are put on buyout contracts so don’t get residual payments.

“The awful thing about it is the Irish Government gives tax breaks to film and TV productions. Within the productions, the Irish cast and crew are paid far less than anyone brought over from England or the US. It’s 100pc discriminatory.

“Colin, Cillian and Ruth Negga have got behind the petition. They know how hard it is until you get to a point where you’re doing really, really well. I can really see how hurtful it is in Ireland.”

Actor Gerry O’Brien lodged a cheque for $800 (€735) yesterday for his role as an Irish man in Pirates of the Caribbean years ago. The payment covers just a quarter of the year.

He got a US contract for the job, rather than the typical Irish buyout one.

In contrast, he has earned just €54 in residuals in the last 20 years here. That was for an RTÉ TV series.

O’Brien said Equity wants a contract for Irish actors like that on offer to their British counterparts. The coveted UK contract sets out minimum pay rates, residual arrangements and other terms and conditions.

Irish production companies offer the buyout contracts on behalf of the major international studios when they are in town, he says.

A Dublin-based actor (27) did not want to be named for fear he would be “blacklisted” when going for jobs.

He has been following the Hollywood strike very closely.

“It shines a light on just how unfair the industry is,” he said.

“Those at the top are earning incredible amounts of money and profit. In a large part, it is due to those at the bottom scraping a living.

“I graduated from drama school in 2017. Last year, I made the most money I ever made working as an actor and that was €14,000. Obviously that is not sustainable.

“If you work on an Irish film, you get paid for the day of work and never see another penny. I routinely sign off my rights for €600 or €700 a day.

“I’m delighted that Cillian Murphy and Colm Meaney are coming out in support of small fry actors like myself.”

Actor Owen Roe has won many theatre awards during his career and his film appearances including Breakfast on Pluto, Intermission, Wide Open Spaces and Michael Collins.

He said actors here are “not prepared to go on strike” but it is an opportunity to inform younger ones of their rights.

“It’s far more competitive as well . There is AI and all those things. The whole buyout situation is not good for us.”

He was glad to see Cillian Murphy and other stars walk out of the Oppenheimer premiere in support of their US union.

“They don’t have to financially, I’d imagine,” he said. “It gives confidence to people who feel they are being exploited.

“I think it will be interesting to see what happens in America. If the whole thing of buyouts and residuals gets sorted. The attitude that we’re cheaper is offensive,” he said.'

#Cillian Murphy #Oppenheimer #Alan Smyth #Colin Farrell #Irish Equity #SAG-AFTRA #Ruth Negga #Owen Roe #Breakfast on Pluto #CSI: NY #Criminal Minds #Gerry O Brien #Pirates of the Caribbean #Colm Meaney #Intermission #Wide Open Spaces

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xxlovelynovaxx · 6 days

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This is wrong (screenshot):

(screenshot of a tumblr post which reads: i saw another tme person being upset that people think trans women have it worse, and that every trans person has it just as bad. pls use ur brain. u gotta accept the fact that some people are more at risk than u are. and that means we have a huge responsibility towards protecting those who face more violence and marginalization. its truly not that difficult to think critically. all the evidence is there, anecdotally and otherwise, and i would be happy to provide it if asked with tags #transmisandry #pls try rubbing ur only two braincells together #tw transmisogyny)

The whole POINT is that transfems AREN'T "more at risk" than transmascs. The whole POINT is that transmascs (and abinary people, and outherine people, and so on) are equally at risk, but ERASURE of the violence and oppression that other groups face makes people THINK they are less at risk, and that that itself is a dangerous form of violence.

Trans people have a responsibility for solidarity and unity. No one has a responsibility to be meat shields for whoever has (often unwillingly!) been given the "oppression olympics trophy" by people who neither understand oppression nor history. We know the latter is what you mean.

If it's not that difficult to think critically, then why aren't you doing it at all? Neither about trans oppression, nor about the ableism in your tags, nor about the fact that you are neither protecting transfems nor even being transfeminist when you tell other trans people "sit down, shut up, stop whining about how you also face oppression".

"Happy to provide the evidence if asked" if you need to say you have evidence, quite frankly, you should be providing said alleged evidence already. Admittedly, I have been guilty of similar on other subjects in the past, but "I HAVE evidence but I won't give it unless you argue with me"... at minimum, it's manipulative with the goal of engagement, and likely it's also bluster covering up shoddy reasoning and utter lack of statistical support for their claim.

Anyway, stay the fuck out of the transmisandry tag.

#transmisandry

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intersexbookclub · 3 months

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Summary: Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex

For many of us, Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex (2009) turned out to be a particularly rich source of information about intersex history. So I (Elizabeth) have decided to give a fairly detailed summary of the chapter because I think it’s important to get that info out there. I’m gonna give a little bit of commentary as I go, and then a summary of our book club discussion of the chapter.

The chapter is titled “(Un)Queering identity: the biosocial production of intersex/DSD” by Alyson K. Spurgas. It is a history of ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, and how it went from being a force for intersex liberation to selling out the movement in favour of medicalization. (See here for summary of the other chapters we read of the book!)

Our high level reactions:

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): Until I read chapter 4, I didn't really realise how reactionary “DSD” was. It hadn't been clear to me how much it was a response to the beginning of an organized intersex advocacy movement in the United States.

Michelle (@scifimagpie): I could feel the fury in the writer's tone. It was a real barn burner.

Also Michelle: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

Introducing the chapter

The introduction sets the tone by talking about how in the Victorian era there was a historical shift from intersex being a religious/juridical issue to a pathology, and how this was intensified in the 1950s with John Money’s invention of the optimal gender rearing model.

Spurgas briefly discusses how the OGR model is harmful to intersex people, and how it iatrogenically produces sexual dysfunction and gender dysphoria. “Iatrogenic” means caused by medicine; iatrogenesis is the production of disease or other side-effects as a result of medical intervention.

This sets scene for why in the early 1990s, Cheryl Chase and other intersex activists founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). It had started as a support group, and morphed significantly over its lifetime. ISNA closed up shop in 2008.

Initially, ISNA was what we’d now call interliberationist. They were anti-pathologization. Their stance was that intersexuality is not itself pathological and the wellbeing of intersex people is endangered by medical intervention. They organized around the abolition of surgical intervention. They also created fora like Hermaphrodites With Attitude for the deconstruction of bodies/sexes/genders and development of an intersex identity that was inherently queer.

The early ISNA activists explicitly aligned intersexuality in solidarity with LGB and transgender organizing. There was a belief that similar to LGBT organizing, once intersex people got enough visibility and consciousness-raising, people would “come out” in greater numbers (p100).

By the end of the 90s, however, many intersex people were actively rejecting being seen as queer and as political subjects/actors. The organization had become instead aligned with surgeons and clinicians, had replaced “intersex” with “DSD” in their language.

By the time ISNA disbanded in 2008 they had leaned in hard on a so-called “pragmatic” / “harm reduction” model / “children’s rights perspective”. The view was that since infants in Western countries are “born medical subjects as it is” (p100)

Where did DSD come from?

In 2005, the term “disorders of sexual differentiation” had been recently coined in an article by Alice Dreger, Cheryl Chase, “and three other clinicians associated with the ISNA… [so as] to ‘label the condition rather than the person’” (p101). Dreger et al thought that intersex was “not medically accurate” (p101) and that the goal should be effective nomenclature to “sort patients into diagnostically meaningful groups” (p101).

Dreger et al argued that the term intersex “attracts the interest of a large number of people whose interest is based on a sexual fetish and people who suffer from delusions about their own medical histories” (Dreger et al quoted on p101)

Per Spurgas, Dreger et al had an explicit agenda of “distancing intersex activism from queer and transgressive sex/gender politics and instead in supporting Western medical productions of intersexuality” (p102). In other words: they were intermedicalists.

According to Dreger et al, an alignment with medicine is strategically important because intersex people often require medical attention, and hence need to be legible to clinicians. “For those in favor of the transition to DSD, intersex is first and foremost a disorder requiring medical treatment” (p102)

Later in 2005 there was a “Intersex Consensus Meeting” organized by a society of paediatricians and endocrinologists. Fifty “experts” were assembled from ten countries (p101)... with a grand total of two actually intersex people in attendance (Cheryl Chase and Barbara Thomas, from XY-Frauen).

At the meeting, they agreed to adopt the term DSD along with a “‘patient-centred’ and ‘evidence-based’ treatment protocol” to replace the OGR treatment model (p101)

In 2006, a consortium of American clinicians and bioethicists was formed and created clinical guidelines for treating DSDs. They defined DSD quite narrowly: if your gonads or genitals don’t match your gender, or you have a sex chromosome anomaly. So no hormonal variations like hyperandrogenism allowed.

The pro-DSD movement: it was mostly doctors

Spurgas quotes the consortium: “note that the term ‘intersex’ is avoided here because of its imprecision” (p102) - our highlight. There’s a lot of doctors hating on intersex for being a category of political organizing that gets encoded as the category is “imprecise” 👀

Spurgas gets into how the doctors dressed up their re-pathologization of intersex as “patient centred” (p103) - remember this is being led by doctors, not patients, and any intersex inclusion was tokenistic. (Elizabeth: it was amazing how much bs this was.)

As Spurgas puts it, the pro-DSD movement “represents an abandonment of the desire for a pan-intersexual/queer identity and an embrace of the complete medicalization of intersex… the intersex individual is now to be understood fundamentally as a patient” (p103)

Around the same time some paediatricians almost came close to publicly advocating against infant genital mutilation by denouoncing some infant surgeries. Spurgas notes they recommended “that intersex individuals be subjected (or self-subject) to extensive psychological/psychiatric, hormonal, steroidal and other medical” interventions for the rest of their lives (p103).

This call to instead focus on non-surgical medical interventions then got amplified by other clinicians and intermedicalist intersex advocacy organizations.

The push for non-surgical pathologization hence wound up as a sort of “compromise” path - it satisfied the intermedicalists and anti-queer intersex activists, and had the allure of collaborating with doctors to end infant surgeries. (Note: It is 2024 and infant surgeries are still a thing 😡.)

The pro-DSD camp within the intersex community

Spurgas then goes on to get into the discursive politics of DSD. There’s some definite transphobia in the push for “people with DSDs are simply men and women who happen to have congenital birth conditions” (p104). (Summarizer’s note: this language is still employed by anti-trans activists.)

The pro-DSD camp claimed that it was “a logical step in the ‘evolution in thinking’” 💩 and that it would be a more “humane” treatment model (p105) 💩

Also that “parents and doctors are not going to want to give a child a label with a politicized meaning” (p104) which really gives the game away doesn’t it? Intersex people have started raising consciousness, demanding their rights, and asserting they are not broken, so now the poor doctors can’t use the label as a diagnosis. 🤮

Spurgas quotes Emi Koyama, an intermedicalist who emphasized how “most intersex people identify as ‘perfectly ordinary, heterosexual, non-trans men and women’” (p104) along with a whole bunch of other quotes that are obviously queerphobic. Note from Elizabeth: I’m not gonna repeat it all because it’s gross. In my kindest reading of this section, it reads like gender dysphoria for being mistaken as genderqueer, but instead of that being a source of solidarity with genderqueers it is used as a form of dual closure (when a minority group goes out of its way to oppress a more marginalized group in order to try and get acceptance with the majority group).

Koyama and Dreger were explicitly anti-trans, and viewed intergender type stuff as “a ‘trans co-optation’ of intersex identity” (p105) 🤮

Most intersex people resisted “DSD” from its creation

On page 106, Spurgas shifts to talking about how a lot intersex people were resistant to the DSD shift. Organization Intersex International (OII) and Bodies Like Ours (BLO) were highly critical of the shift! 💛 BLO in particular noted that 80-90% of their website users were against the DSD term. Note from Elizabeth: indeed, every survey I’ve seen on the subject has been overwhelmingly against DSD - a 2015 IHRA survey found only 3% of intersex Australians favoured the DSD term.

Proponents of “intersex” over “DSD” testified to it being depathologizing. They called out the medicalization as such: that it serves to reinforce that “intersex people don’t exist” (David Cameron, p107), that it is damaging to be “told they have a disorder” (Esther Leidolf, p107), that there is “a purposeful conflation of treatment for ‘health reasons’ and ‘cosmetic reasons’ (Curtis Hinkle, p107), and that it’s being pushed mainly by perisex people as a reactionary, assimilationist endeavour (ibid).

Interliberationism never went away - intersex people kept pushing for 🌈 queer solidarity 🌈 and depathologization - even though ISNA, the largest intersex advocacy organization, had abandoned this position.

Spurgas describes how a lot of criticism of DSD came from non-Anglophone intersex groups, that the term is even worse in a lot of languages - it connotes “disturbed” in German and has an ambiguity with pedophilia and fetishism in French (p111).

The DSD push was basically entirely USA-based, with little international consultation (p111). Spurgas briefly addresses the imperialism inherent in the “DSD” term on pages 118/119.

Other noteworthy positions in the DSD debate

Spurgas gives a well-deserved shout out to the doctors who opposed the push to DSD, who mostly came from psychiatry and opposed it on the grounds that the pathologization would be psychologically damaging and that intersex patients “have taken comfort (and in many cases, pride) in their (pan-)intersex identity” (p108) 🌈 - Elizabeth: yay, psychiatrists doing their job!

Interestingly, both sides of the DSD issue apparently have invoked disability studies/rights for their side: Koyama claimed DSD would herald the beginning of a disability rights based era of intersex activism (p109) while anti-DSDers noted the importance in disability rights in moving away from pathologization (p109).

Those who didn’t like DSD but who saw a strategic purpose for it argued it would “preser[ve] the psychic comfort of parents”, that there is basically a necessity to coddle the parents of intersex children in order to protect the children from their parents. (p110)

Some proposed less pathologizing alternatives like “variations of sex development” and “divergence of sex development” (p110)

The DSD treatment model and the intersex treadmill

Remember all intersex groups were united that sex assignment surgery on infants needs to be abolished. The DSD framework that was sold as a shift away from surgical intervention, but it never actually eradicated it as an option (p112). Indeed, it keeps ambiguous the difference between medically necessary surgical intervention and culturally desired cosmetic surgery (p112). (Note from Elizabeth: funny how *this* ambiguity is acceptable to doctors.)

What DSD really changed was a shift from “fixing” the child with surgery to instead providing “lifelong ‘management’ to continue passing” (p112), resulting in more medical intervention, such as through hormonal and behavioural therapies to “[keep] it in remission” (p113).

Cheryl Chase coined the “intersex treadmill’: the never-ending drive to fit within a normative sex category (p113), which Spurgas deploys to talk about the proliferation of “lifelong treatments” and how it creates the need for constant surveillance of intersex bodies (p114). Medical specialization adds to the proliferation, as one needs increasingly more specialists who have increasingly narrow specialties.

There’s a cruel irony in how the DSD model pushes for lifelong psychiatric and psychological care of intersex patients so as to attend to the PTSD that is caused by medical intervention. (p115) It pushes a capitalistic model where as much money can be milked as possible out of intersex patients (p116).

The DSD treatment model, if it encourages patients to find community at all, hence pushes condition-specific medical support groups rather than pan-intersex advocacy groups (p115)

Other stuff in the chapter

Spurgas does more Foucault-ing at the end of the chapter. Highlight: “The intersex/DSD body is a site of biosocial contestation over which ways of knowing not only truth of sex, but the truth of the self, are fought. Both intelligibility and tangible resources are the prizes accorded to the winner(s) of the battle over truth of sex” (p117)

There’s some stuff on the patient-as-consumer that didn’t really land with anybody at the book club meeting - we’re mostly Canadians and the idea of patient-as-consumer isn’t relatable. Ei noted it isn’t even that relatable from their position as an American.

***

Having now summarized the chapter, here's a summary of our discussion at book club...

Opening reactions

Michelle (M): the way the main lady involved became medicalized really made my heart sink, reading that.

Elizabeth (E): I do remember some discussion of intersex people in the 90s, and it never really grew in the way that other queer identities did! This has kind of helped for me to understand what the fuck happened here.

E: It was definitely a very insightful reading on that part, while being absolutely outraging. I didn't know, but I guess I wasn't surprised at how pivotal US-centrism was. The author was talking about "North American centric" though but always meant the United States!!! Canada was just not part of this! They even make mention of Quebec as separate and one of the opposing regions. I was like, What are you doing here, America? You are not the entirety of our continent!!!

E: The feedback from non-Anglophone intersex advocates that DSD does not translate was something that I was like, "Yes!" For me, when I read the French term - that sounded like something that would include vaginismus, erectile dysfunction - it sounds far more general and negative.

M: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

E: it was very assimilationist in a way that was very upsetting. I knew intellectually that this was going on. There was such a distinct advocacy push for that. The coddling of parents and doctors at the expense of intersex people was such a theme of this chapter, in a way that was very upsetting. They started out with this goal of intersex liberation, and instead, wound up coddling parents and doctors.

Solidarities

M: I feel like there's a real ableist parallel to the autism movement here… It dovetails with how the autism movement was like, "Aww, we're sorry about your emotionless monster baby! This must be so hard for you [parents]!" And it felt like "aw, it's okay, we'll fix your baby so they can interface with heterosexuality!" [Note: both of us are neurodivergent]

E: A lot of intersexism is a fear that you're going to have a queer child, both in terms of orientation and gender.

E: You cannot have intersex liberation without putting an end to homophobia and transphobia.

M: We're such natural allies there!

E: I understand that there are these very dysphoric ipsogender or cisgender people, who don't want to be mistaken as trans, but like it or not, their rights are linked to trans people! When I encounter these people, I don't know how to convey, "whether you like it or not, you're not going to get more rights by doing everything you can to be as distant as possible."

M: it reminds me of the movements by some younger queers to adhere to respectability politics.

E: Oh no. There are younger queers who want respectability politics????

M: well, some younger queers are very reactionary about neopronouns and kink at pride. they don't always know the difference between representation and "imposing" kinks on others. In a way, it reminds me of the more intentional rejection of queer weirdos, or queerdos, if you will, by republican gays.

E: I feel like a lot of anti-queerdom that comes out of the ipso and cisgender intersex community reads as very dysphoric to me. That needs to be acknowledged as gender dysphoria.

M: That resonates to me. When I heard about my own androgen imbalance, I was like, "does that mean I'm not a real woman?" And now I would happily say "fuck that question," but we do need an empathy and sensitivity for that experience. Though not tolerance for people who invalidate others, to be honest.

E: The term "iatrogensis" was new to me. The term refers to a disease caused or aggravated by medical intervention.

M: So like a surgical complication, or gender dysphoria caused by improper medical counselling!

The DSD debate

ei: i think the "disorder" discussion is really interesting. in my opinion, if someone feels their intersex condition is a disorder they have every right to label it that way, but if someone does not feel the same they have every right to reject the disorder label. personally i use the label "condition". i don't agree with forcing labels on anyone or stripping them away from anyone either.

M: for me, it felt like a cautionary tale about which labels to accept.

ei: i'm all around very tired of people label policing others and making blanket statements such as "all people who are this have to use this label”... i also use variation sometimes, i tend to go back and forth between variation and condition. I think it's a delicate balance between being sensitive to people's label preferences vs making space for other definitions/communities.

We then spoke about language for a bunch of communities (Black people, non-binary people) for a while

E: one thing that was very harrowing for me about this chapter is that while there was this push to end coercive infant surgery, they basically ceded all of the ground on "interventions" happening from puberty onward. And as someone who has had to fight off coercive medical interventions in puberty, I have a lot of trauma about violent enforcement of femininity and the medical establishment.

ei: i completely agree that it's psychologically harmful tbh…. i was assigned male at birth and my doctors want me to start testosterone to make me more like a perisex male. which is extremely counterproductive because i'm literally transfem and have expressed this many times

Doctors Doing Harm

M: for me, the validation of how doctors can be harmful in this chapter meant a lot.

E: something that surprised me and made me happy was that there were some psychiatrists who spoke out against the DSD label. As someone who routinely hears a lot of anti-psychiatry stuff - because there's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of psychiatry, as a discipline - it was just nice to see some psychiatrists on the right side of things, doing right by their patients. Psychiatrists were making the argument that DSD would be psychologically harmful to a lot of intersex people.

ei: like. being told that something so inherently you, so inherently linked to your identity and sense of self, is a disorder of sexual development, something to be fixed and corrected. that has to be so harmful

ei: like i won't lie i do have a lot of severe trauma surrounding the way i've been treated due to being intersex. but so much of my negative experiences are repetitive smaller things. Like the way people treat me like my only purpose is to teach them about intersex people …. either that or they get really creepy and gross. I’m lucky in that i'm not visibly intersex, so i do have the privilege of choosing who knows. but there's a reason why i usually don't tell people irl.

M: intersex and autism have overlap again about how like, minor presentation can be? As opposed to the sort of monstrous presentation [Carnival barker impression] "Come see the sensational half-man, half-woman! Behold the h-------dite!" And like - the way nonverbal people are also treated feels relevant to that, because that's how autism is often treated, like a freakshow and a pity party for the parents? And it's so dehumanizing. And as someone who might potentially have a nonverbal child, because my wife is expecting and my husband and she both have ADHD - I'm just very fed up with ableism and the perception of monstrosity.

Overall, this was a chapter that had a lot to talk about! See here for our discussion of Chapters 5-7 from the same volume.

#intersex #intersex studies #queer theory #gender studies #actually intersex #intersex rights #intersex activism #intersex books #book reviews #book summaries #paper summaries #lit review #critical intersex #intersex history

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emeraldspiral · 18 days

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Episode where Zim is out in his kid disguise instead of one of his adult/old man disguises and someone takes notice of him trying to go somewhere he shouldn't. They come up and ask him "Young man, you know you're not supposed to be here without adult supervision. Where are you parents?" Frustrated that someone would dare disrupt his evil plans, Zim forgets his cover story and blurts out "I don't have parents!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. How long ago did you lose them?"

"Fool! I have never had parents."

"You mean you've been an orphan all your life? That's terrible!"

"It is not terrible! It's great! I have no need for guardianship or supervision."

"So there's no one looking after you?"

"Zim needs no one! Now rescind your pity human!"

"Oh no! It's so much worse than I thought. You poor brave boy. Don't worry, you won't have to be alone for much longer!"

And then the interloper calls child services, who forcibly place Zim in an orphanage. He can't take back anything he said about being an orphan before because neither he nor the Roboparents have social security numbers and their address and phone number aren't registered anywhere.

A couple quickly comes looking to adopt and they decide they want to take on the challenge of a "problem child" who's not likely to get adopted by anyone else. So they take Zim home with them for a trial adoption. Initially it seems like it's going to turn into something like Orphan where the nice family is oblivious to the danger Zim presents as he plans to make them into his latest test subjects. But just as Zim's about to implant some questionable device into one of the family members, something happens that freaks Zim out so much he loses his nerve.

He becomes increasingly anxious as the family members never give him a moment alone, following him from room to room constantly pestering him to ask if he's okay.

"Do you like this show? We could switch to a different channel."

"Is it too cold for you? We could turn the thermostat up."

"Would you like some hot cocoa? Some warm milk, perhaps? Soda?"

"Hey, we were thinking of Mac & Cheese for dinner tonight. But do you have any dietary concerns? Are you lactose intolerant? Gluten-free? Vegan? Diabetic?"

"Are you okay with the volume everyone is speaking at? We could speak softer if you want."

"OR LOUDER IF YOU'RE HAVING TROUBLE HEARING US!"

"Do you need a blanket?"

"We bought you some pajamas. But we can take them back if you don't like them."

"Do you want to talk about your feelings?"

"You know this is a safe place, right?"

"Don't be afraid to speak up if there's anything you need."

"Or if there's anything you want to talk about."

"We're always here to lend an ear."

Zim gets majorly creeped out and is convinced they're really human spies trying to get him to reveal himself and give away Irken military secrets.

He tries to get some privacy, but the only place where he can be alone is the bathroom. There's only one, and there are so many family members they have a schedule for who can use it when. But not to worry, they've already rearranged it to give him Thursdays at 3:30 and every other Saturday at 2:00am.

They send him to a new skool, which is much better than the one he went to before. It's clean, well funded with facilities in good repair, and best of all, there's no Dib around to harass him. But the staff at the new skool are far more professional than at the old skool and Zim's new teacher doesn't tolerate classroom disruptions, shocking Zim when he sends him to the principal's office within his first minute of class. At first Zim thinks it's a blessing in disguise because it means time away from his extremely clingy new foster siblings, but the one he shares a class with ends up getting sent to the office on purpose so he could stay by Zim's side. Zim does not appreciate the gesture of solidarity.

Zim comes home and his new foster parents tell him the principal called, but it's okay. They're not mad, they know it's going to take time for him to adjust. They also remind him that it's 3:30 and today is Thursday, which means it's finally his turn to use the bathroom.

He only has fifteen minutes, but he plans on escaping out the window. But it turns out the family have installed a state of the art security system to keep him from escaping. They aren't mad when he trips it though. They understand. Moving into a new home with a bunch of strangers can be scary, and he might think he wants to go back to the life he knew before because the familiarity of it is comforting, but they promise if he just gives them a chance they're sure they can make him happy.

Zim has no choice but to endure the two week trial adoption period. Initially, he figures if he acts like a little shit they won't want to adopt him and he'll get sent back to the orphanage from which he can make an escape. Halfway through however, he has a change of heart. He starts to enjoy regular kid activities like playing video games, family board game night, and riding bikes around the neighborhood, going to skool and learning actually useful and interesting things and not being bullied, having someone come and pick him up when he falls and scrapes his knee and give him an Adhesive Medical Strip and a kiss to make it all better, and the unconditional love and endless patience and forgiveness he's afforded.

He starts to think maybe there's an advantage to the arrangement. He can learn so much more about humans from actually living like one, and surely that would be beneficial to his mission, wouldn't it?

At the end of the two week period, Zim is interviewed and asked if he would like to be permanently adopted. He says "yes", only to be told "That's too bad. It looks like they've decided not to move forward with the adoption." Zim is shocked and dismayed.

"How could they not want Zim?!"

The only answer he gets is that the family "didn't feel like it was the right fit", which leaves Zim perplexed, ruminating over whatever he did wrong to make them not love him.

The episode then ends with the Roboparents coming to the adoption agency to look for a new son. Zim tries to get their attention, but they pass him over for a different prospective child and jet off without him.

#invader zim #zim #roboparents #this is almost too cynical even for this show #all hurt #no comfort #just ripping open zim's deepest wound #and letting it bleed out

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burningtheroots · 9 months

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Okay, this might be controversial, but …

We all know and see how feminism — mainstream feminism — began to more and more include and revolve around men, although feminism is supposed to be specifically for women‘s rights.

I could say a lot about how mainstream "feminism" has become just another men‘s rights movement in disguise, BUT that‘s not the point of this post.

What came to my mind long ago is that every other social justice movement centers men, too. Now I‘m not saying that men can‘t be oppressed based on ethnicity, sexuality, class, nationality, disability etc., and they certainly are part of movements about these issues. (not comparable to FEMinism, of course, since men are NOT oppressed on the basis of their sex — even intersectional feminism is only for WOMEN as they face unique oppression for being female, and oppressive systems are the result of male supremacy)

However, the more I observe what‘s going on, the more I notice that men are the center of these movements although it affects women just as much, and even more because misogyny and racism, homophobia etc. intertwine.

So, we got an LGBTQIAwhatever+ movement which is more concerned with male sexuality and male feelings than women‘s voices and safety. Not only in terms of the gender debate and the fact that women get dehumanized (e.g. "menstruators", "birthing people", "bonus hole") and that their sex-based reality gets erased, but also when it comes to how LGBTQIAwhatever+ rights are framed. For example, "kink" has been heavily pushed forward by and centered around the men, even during the beginning of the movement, although lesbian and bisexual women have always been critical of it, yet it‘s now the public image we get associated with as well. Women are hoping for solidarity with the men, but the men somehow still don‘t bother to work on their misogyny. It‘s inarguable that while the women and men share the oppression through homophobia — and don’t get me wrong, I think that all LGB people should fight against homophobia together — the women are still oppressed by the men due to misogyny.

We also have a Black Lives Matter movement, which has thankfully raised a lot of awareness since it started and is an integral part of social justice. However, the phenomenon remains the same: Men are centered, whereas the women have to mostly fend for themselves. I‘m not comparing case X to case Z or something like that, but the outrage when a black woman gets violated and faces misogynoir is very little compared to cases of while man on black man violence. I‘m not saying "pay less attention to victims who are black men!", I‘m saying "pay more attention to victims who are black women!" (same goes for racism and hate crimes against other ethnicities). And I‘m not glossing over the fact that there are MANY amazing black women who raise their voices and do meaningful activism, I‘m just saying that they don’t receive the same platform as their male counterparts, face misogyny (including heavy sexualization) from both black and white men and often feel the need to give up some space for the men, as apparently women can‘t talk about the female experience exclusively in the society we live in without getting scrutinized.

Then we got the Disability Rights Movement, which is somehow less popular but still as important. While most of the rights and affirmations are for both men and women alike, the men are still seen as a priority, both compared to other disabled women and in some cases also non-disabled women. Many disabled women have spoken about how disabled men still sexualize them and subject them to their misogyny, and we even got to the point where disabled men are supposed to be given access to rape prostitutes (yes, prostitution is paid rape even when you‘re disabled) whilst disabled women barely have the right to same-sex intimate care and are also more likely to get medically mistreated.

I could go on about how poor/homeless women are belittled and forced into prostitution and therefore overlooked compared to poor/homeless men (the notion that there are more poor/homeless men than women and hence men have it worse is false as the poor/homeless women end up as sex trafficking victims, especially during war times, or at least get coerced into enduring paid rape), how the "body positivity" movement has become another men‘s sexual fantasy, how discussions about religious indoctrination and extremism usually revolve around the boys and men who get dragged into becoming violent fanatics whilst the girls and women are expected to have empathy for their abusers, how men assert their male privilege shamelessly and regardless of all these aspects above …

But in the end, what becomes clear, is that men enthusiastically use the tools of patriarchy even when fighting against other forms of social injustice, and we as women deserve so much better than this — and this is also why we need to unite ourselves and prioritize one another.

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letters-of-libertas · 4 months

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I'm bi and yeah your note on women not having solidarity seems sadly true. Apart from not dating men would there be anything you would suggest to improve ones life apart from stating away from those women if possible?

I love this question because this is how to start thinking: being practical.

What it takes to "improve ones life" is subjective so with that said firstly define what a better life(style) for yourself away from moids would look like. Temporarily mentally remove xy terrorist existence. What would your habits/routine be? What would you work towards & pour your energy into? What would you want to be? What would you center your life around? Take your time with these questions or anymore that come up. Have a general idea then be more specific and start breaking your life down into sectors/sections/areas, then look at where you want to be in those areas and work towards it.

For example; I divide my life into 6-7 aspects:

Physical Strength - Not just about muscle but knowing how to fight, where to hit and when to fight. Being stronger makes it easier to defend yourself in altercations (especially with other women). Some mfs will try you & you cant always rely on others coming to your rescue. Also work on building stamina to help endurance, and keeping as healthy as possible.

Emotional Strength - If you cant control your emotions they will control you. In a world of chaos being emotionally strong will let you cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters. Building emotional strength is not easy but it's worth it. Being able to rise above immediate reactions and pace yourself will allow you to assess situations more rationally & make more beneficial choices.

Finances - Get your bag up. Having money to gain resources is imperative to quality of life. I dont care what anyone says having a certain amount of money in life WILL make you happier as you're able to meet your needs better. Having more money/resources also makes it easier to support other women should you choose to do so, it also allows you to be more influential and have more control over your life. However, dont become a slave to getting money tho because that's how you get scammed.

Network - The type of people you hang around can make or break who you are as a person. Aim to connect with likeminded women who will encourage & inspire you as you go on this journey. Hang around people that value & will be honest with you while giving you grace. Not all women you engage with have to be single & childfree but beware the moid crazy ones because they will bring danger to you in their quest for maIe validation. Life isn't perfect but you cant go wrong having the right people around you, valuable relationships are hard to find but it goes a long way even if it's just online. However, no company > bad company.

Spirituality/Guide - Having something bigger than yourself to guide you through the chaos in this world can offer guidance/purpose that keeps you grounded & focused. For many people generally this is religion/god. Not everyone needs or ascribes to religion/spirituality though, but at least consider sets of morals/beliefs to follow. However even that isn't for everyone. So if you feel better off without spirituality or a 'higher' guide at least be clear on it & your reasons why (for yourself).

Hobbies & Interests - As turbulent as the world is, find things to enjoy amidst the chaos. Constant work, doom, and gloom will not change anything you will only hurt yourself. Take time to indulge in things that make you happy to recharge & relax. Engage in hobbies that serve you, share your passion with other women & hear theirs out too. It goes a long way in terms of mental health.

Security - It takes privilege to decide to not get married or have children as a woman & live it out. Everyone's situation is different so what I'll generally suggest is to constantly look into how you can protect yourself, have backup methods, and stay in the loop of xy predation. Dont drown in it but moids are predators & being completely blind to them is being blind to danger. Elaborated on point 10 here.

Sounds like a lot? Great, it'll keep you busy because this isn't a vacation or destination but a lifestyle. And to be honest, some of y'all can do with the busyness as it'll let you focus on what actually matters. This not to say to overwhelm yourself in things for the sake of it but to prioritise your energy on effective things for your life. As you focus on building you'll find that you have less energy to care about insignificant stuff or stuff out of your control anyways. For example, Instead of getting wound up about user somerandomadjectivefem stirring discourse calling you an extremist or whining about how impossible it is for her & other women to live without romantic love n' whatnot (or even women irl pulling this crap), you either ignore or quickly shut down the conversation & swiftly move on.

Everything I've mentioned are just examples, you may feel differently do whatever you feel best applies. Also remember to enjoy the process along the way as you are living through it afterall :3

Long story short: Work on building resources & other aspects of your life up for yourself.

#Many tend to shy away from the single childfree lifestyle bc the traditional map/railguards aren't there but thats the fun part of it #for me is figuring it out; figuring myself & the world out; trial-and-error to carve an environment & lifestyle best for me #Few side notes bc I dont want the blog to be too long:#Regarding physical strength: I know that no amount of training will make you as strong as the average moid but it isnt in vain #as other women can also act up & there's a higher chance of taking them on successfully without weapons vs xys.#Regarding section on being busy: Personally I dont care for discourse surrounding this topic because my mind is on other things like making #sure my reps for the day are in; making sure I'm staying up-to-date with knowledge I need to do my job; building sources of income #outside of my job;engrossing myself in my interests; for example. You become productively busy enough & what other women do doesnt bother #you. That's not to say completely ignore or not criticise moid-aligned actions; but dont spend too much time wallowing in doing so.#female separatist #female separatism #blackpill feminism #blackpill feminist #wineauntmovement #wine aunt #decentering men

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