Witch Way is Left

but sometimes it drops little things like this:

which. a) that's absolutely wild and TIL material. what the fuck. (wikipedia says versions of the treamill for power actually predate corporal punishment, but yes, in the 1800s prisoners were forced to use them as punishment. altho i would quibble at the word "torture." the point was more "indentured survitude" or "slavery," as the treadmill still like. did stuff. it wasn't JUST for the sake of pain, just free unethical labor. as opposed to something like solitary confinement, something designed just for torture reasons.)

a health policy paper has been published saying the name is officially updated to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)

polyendocrine= multiple endocrine factors

metabolic = affecting/affected by metabolism

ovarian = from the ovaries

essentially, instead of using the symptomatic term (many people with PMOS do not develop cysts) the new term widens the diagnostic area and makes it easier to diagnose, treat, and do research on people with PMOS (even atypical types, such as no cysts).

it may seem like a waste of time to change a name instead of focusing on research, but for a lot of medical professionals a name can be associated with a hard set collection of symptoms, so the name needs to change to acknowledge that the disorder is not well understood and has a broader, subtler, and often missed set of symptoms. for example ADD is considered an antiquated/unused term, and now comes under the ADHD umbrella. in healthcare names and terminology changes all the time, and this is a positive change. your local healthcare professional may not know about this unless theyre really up on the news though!

in case you want to read about the name change process that was published in the Lancet (one of the most impactful and well respected medical journals):

you've let in the vampire thank you. also most of this comes from leslie feinberg's transgender warriors which has a whole chapter on jeanne d'arc & which everyone should read imo!

so when i say "trans history" i do not mean that "trans" is a Real Thing that exists. we made up being "trans" and we cannot say that anyone in history is Objectively Trans, like its a fact we can prove. but we can say that people in history shared common experiences with trans and genderqueer people of today, and by linking them to our modern construct of transness we get a fuller picture of the human experience with gender diversity. also, and i cannot emphasize this enough: women afab can be trans. men amab can be trans.

but also, jeanne d'arc isn't just trans history because she crossdressed. the story often gets framed as her wearing men's clothes to fight in war, but its deeper than that! both from a secular trans sense and from a religious standpoint (which makes her an important figure for trans christians). & this gets compounded with the impetus in art to make sure jeanne d'arc looks appropriately feminine. which can be compared to the ways that, before fe/male impersonation had a queer connotation, male impersonators had to make sure that, even in drag, they always looked visibly cisfeminine.

on one level, regardless of gender, jeanne d'arc was oppressed by transphobia. she was the target of blatanly transphobic attacks for her gender expression. she was called a hommasse, a slur for masculine women, her crossdressing "contrary to Divine laws" and "abominable before God". while she was also a military threat, her trial was about her crossdressing- that was the crime that she was charged with after they failed to find evidence she was a pagan.

specifically, her claim that her wearing men's clothing and cutting her hair was a God-given command. and yes, part of that command was also going to war, but it does not seem like it was just "you have to wear men's clothing so you can fight." To Jeanne, crossdressing was its own command. She said she would rather die than stop, unless God told her to, and that "were [she] still so dressed and with the king and those of his party, it would be one of the greatest blessings for the kingdom of France."

Its claimed that she repented at first and was sentenced to life in prison as long as she started wearing women's clothing again, and that she later "relapsed" and started wearing men's clothing. some TERFs have argued that she had to wear men's clothing to avoid getting raped- but she was well known to be assigned female. The clothes she wore would not matter, given that she was famous enough that actual monarchs wanted her dead. And Jeanne said that she chose to start wearing men's clothing again which was compared to "a dog returning to its own vomit." And it was this that allowed them to burn her alive as punishment.

So on a second level, this is a lot more complicated than a normal cis woman wearing men's clothes to a specific end. Jeanne viewed her masculine gender expression as vital to her soul. It was used as the justification for killing her, so she quite literally chose to die rather than present as cisfeminine.

And on a third level, she didn't refuse to present cisfeminine to make a bold statement about the right of women to wear pants or go to war. She did it because it was God's command. And if Catholic canon matters to you at all, she is a canonized saint. The Church has given her a big ol blue checkmark in the sky. If Jeanne believed that crossdressing was its own command, and not just a means to an end, then she believed that genderqueerness is a holy command given by God. Which opens up a wonderful new trans-centric theology! It creates space within Catholicism (and anyone else who cares about Catholic saints) to view transness as a special role which comes from Divine blessing. And frankly, this cultural impact alone makes her part of trans history the same way plenty of cishet women are part of gay history because of their cultural impact on gay people.

Pay attention to what's on the first page of their website.

Are you immediately welcomed as a writer?

That's not always a good sign.

It might be that the press is new and still building its list of authors, so it has more to say about submissions than about the books it's published. That's not awful, but not awesome either (you may prefer to wait and let them make their beginner's mistakes on someone else's book. If the publisher finds its footing, you can always submit to them in a year or two!). Or maybe they just recently opened a new call to submissions and have that prominently announced. That's fine, but also look at when and where they post about new book releases.

A publisher should have a website that appeals to readers - with descriptions of the kinds of books they do or will publish, and ways for readers to connect like a newsletter signup option and social media links. If they have already published books: how easily can readers buy them? What do the covers look like? Do the book descriptions have any obvious typos? Do multiple books or pages on the website have errors?

No matter how proud a publisher is of how they serve authors, the main job of a publisher is to get books into reader's hands. That shouldn't be an afterthought on the website. If it takes you a few clicks to find submission guidelines, that may be a good sign. If, along the way, you spot several books to add to your to-read list, that's a great sign.

If the website seems to be downright screaming "Please let us publish you!" watch out for a catch. They might not be a vanity press, but they could be. Search "[Publisher name] scam" or "[Publisher name] legitimate" or "[Publisher name] vanity" and see what comes up. Or the business might be completely legit, just with a poorly organized website. Suggesting they're not great at selling books. Still not a good sign.

Always check the Amazon listing (and other listings) of the books from a publisher you're considering. What do the reviews say? What are the sales ranks like? What formats are the books offered in, and at what price point? Do you like the covers? Do you like how the sample is formatted, and can you spot any errors in the editing or formatting?

i dont really care that much about project hail mary. i watched it and thought it was fun. nothing more to say about it.

obviously i actually think you should ship characters together however you want. i'm not against fun. do whatever.

Don’t they know that murder is illegal? You just know there are a bunch of homicidal maniacs out there who love to read those stories. They write them, too, in between killing people. 

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

You're right that the internet is smaller than it used to be, but there's still some cool stuff left in the corners. I'd recommend checking checking out Neocities if you haven't--it's an independent web hosting platform like Geocities of the old web, and there are hundreds of interesting and active pages discoverable both through their search function and through web buttons (links attached to small pictures with the title of a website) within the websites themselves. Here are three examples of web buttons you may find in link pages:

Most Neocities websites have link pages or button collections with anywhere from tens to hundreds of these. Don't be afraid to explore!

If you're looking for something more like a search engine, I can point you towards Marginalia. It's not a particularly smart engine, but it's perfectly usable if you've ever been taught to use search engines back when they were mostly run through keywords instead of full sentence comprehension. There's also an "about" and "tips" section on the front page with more information. The algorithm of Marginalia can be filtered by the user to allow, disallow, or require JavaScript depending on your needs, plus there are filters designed specifically to prioritize web 1.0 sites or mostly text-based ones. It is possible to search for modern websites with it, but it can return websites from just about any decade (since the invention of the web, obviously) so long as they contain the information you're looking for. For example, here are some random interesting sites I've found using Marginalia:

Native Languages of the Americas: Native American Cultures

BASIC HTML COMPETENCY IS THE NEW PUNK FOLK EXPLOSION!

Earthbound Text Labs by Bill Eager

The possibilities for discovery are truly endless.

Now you might want to know about directories. These make browsing for websites easier, but require you to read through and judge which ones to visit, as there aren't algorithms ranking the sites besides the whim of whoever coded the directory. Some of them have themes, others don't. Here are two that I've used:

Yesterlinks Directory

Ichigo Directory

Directories can be harder to come by just by surfing the net, but they aren't impossible to find. Many personal websites have their own directories of interesting sites hidden within them.

Webrings are similar to directories, but are actually more community-based. You have to register your website to be a part of a webring, usually by sending an email to whoever runs it and meeting some kind of entry criteria. For example, my personal website used to be a part of a webring called Sweet Dreams, which was for websites that heavily utilize color palettes and images of cute things, particularly sweets. Webrings will give you access to a widget upon entry that allow visitors and other members to browse between the registered websites in a massive ring, ergo, where the term gets its name. Webrings can have any theme or criteria for entry. If you can make a website about it, you can find a webring for it.

Now, you might be wondering about social media alternatives. I can't offer much, but I can nudge you towards the idea of forums. Here's one I found that could really use some traffic. I also browse a bit on MelonLand forum, which is actually closed right now--it's currently closed on Mondays--but on any other day of the week, you can find a fun community there dedicated to web revival. You can find it through MelonLand's main page. I'd also recommend checking out SpaceHey, which is a MySpace clone that's customizable and easy to use.

Are you a word nerd like me, and my father before me?

Then may I introduce you to...

Today we remember the 49 lives lost and countless others forever changed on June 12, 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. What was meant to be a night of joy, music, and pride became one of unimaginable tragedy.

We honor the memory of those we lost—most of them young, queer, and Latinx—and we stand with the survivors, the families, and the community still healing.

Really?!?!?!