#+ i have issues and i am just very unproductive in general

[fearandhatred]

:)

[system-of-a-feather]

I am genuinely gonna say this even though it's syscourse (and that I prefer to keep syscourse off my blog) cause 1) its related to my views and recovery which is what this blog is about and 2) I feel people might actually hear me out as an ex-anti-endo and DID* system, but being anti-endo (talking about "endogenics existing" not any larger criticisms on individuals or communities; thats a different topic) really perpetuates some unproductive mentalities around alters and multiplicity that really honestly is very healing to let go of and stop worrying about.

Like even just from a solely selfish point of view and not a "don't judge how people get by in life and what works for them" - holding so tightly onto this idea that being multiple parts, people, identities etc and operating life like that as this sacred, unique, and trauma-defined experience just really holds you in a place of saying that "I am significantly different due to trauma and I am inherently not the same as a 'normal person' because of the trauma" which I GET it, its true trauma does change you like that, it has changed brain circuitry and there are things those of us who have Been Through it at a young age will understand.

But like... I know it might be hard to see and understand depending on where in healing you are, but interacting with yourself as multiple parts and individuals - while not traditional and orthodox - is honestly.... not new or that special? Especially as the dissociative barriers lessen, the idea that there is a straight and clear divide between "multiple" and "singlet" really starts to be debunked.

In my opinion, it's hard to see the difference between a person who has multiple parts due to trauma BUT recovered to lower dissociative barriers, and someone who has multiple parts because they are a multifaceted person BUT interacts with themselves in an Internal Family Systems manner because that helps them, and someone who has multiple parts that they choose to interact with as separate as it gives them company, insight, and comfort.

And personally? I think thats really beautiful honestly. Even though our brain has been royally fucked by trauma from an insanely young age to the point that it segregated parts to survive, it's not inherently anything that is "proof" that we are broken or changed significantly from any other person or human.

Of course there is nuance, I do think that especially earlier stage recovery DID systems really should have the option for their own space and what not, because the "going through it" experience of DID is so so so so so extremely different than that of someone who is late stage recovery, at functional multiplicity, and/or a system that is endogenic and/or operates within themselves as multiple for non-trauma related reasons.

But honestly? We stopped being anti-endo largely cause the more we recovered, the less and less sense and significance it held.

Also, do not argue "science!!!!" at me. I'll ignore it cause again, I used to be a feverous anti-endo. I know the texts, I've read them, I love reading research papers.

((Usual disclaimer: while we are generally / vaguely pro-endo / endo-safe we very rarely interact with the community due to lack of interest and limited time in our life (we aren't online enough) so we have limited awareness on how things work there and unspoken social rules; we are not In The Endo community, we just think they deserve to have their space and designated shared spaces. If we said anything that is Bad Rhetoric or what not, I apologize as I am not the most versed in endo-community talk))

((*DID = Dissociative System in general, I don't care for discourse regarding DID and if that is inherently trauma or not and any interprettation - in this post - beyond 'a system with notable dissociative issues and a dissociative disorder' is up to the person reading))

[heich0e]

Hi, feels like it's been a longtime but alas I've only been here since the Era of Vash lol. Anyways I think you've made a great point about reader inserts and in general that's my concensus like it's impossible for a reader insert to be one hundred percent inclusive. Not to mention people should be allowed to read and interact with what they want howver they want. I think the only thing that does somehow bother me is the trend with people treating reader inserts as cringe. Like I've seen a lot of takes where people complain that using things like (F/n) or (Y/n) feels so cringe to them. Which again ok cool you do you, but we're all mentally ill here. Bashing on something isn't gonna help if you don't like don't interact is usually my go to. But don't try to force others to change something just cause it makes you uncomfortable. Like sadly I think Fandom culture has become sort of toxic and everyone policing everything makes me tired honestly.... but anyways, you're a good noddle. Stay safe, drink water. Keep slaying.~

HI FRIEND!!

i'm happy to hear that my extremely long-winded tirade resonated with someone!! it's always very nerve-wracking to express opinions online, even if they are something you wholly believe in, so having someone echo or express solidarity with it feels very comforting!!

i agree that x reader bashing is an issue, but ultimately i just try to remind myself that not everyone is going to like the things that you like—nor do the have to!! though, i think this speaks to a larger issue of people being unable to recognize that their personal, subjective opinions and preferences are not OBJECTIVE measures of correctness or value. something isn't bad just because YOU personally don't like it. and this isn't even just about x reader—this goes for fic tropes, ships, characters, even entire pieces of media. there's a huge trend online that rly glorifies being a "hater" as though it's cute and quirky or somehow funny, but i think at the end of the day it's senselessly unproductive and rly poisons the figurative well of online fandom spaces. but like hey—if u get your rocks off talking about all the things you hate, congrats! who am i to judge! when it comes down to it i'm just here for fun, and instead of being preoccupied with what other ppl are saying or doing or hating i would always rather spend time focusing on the things i like and earnestly working towards creating a space that doesn't make anyone feel bad for the things they like too.

[teethkid67]

i havent said anything personally on the situation bc im not sure that its my place & not sure what my next move is .

first off shelby has been incredibly brave and as someone who doesn't watch her and hasnt ever, ive felt mostly that it was best for me to be supportive in a quiet way & that it wasnt my place to give my input . most of all i didnt want to reduce her solely to her abuse and "victimhood" as to me it feels extremely counterproductive to post only about that when she is obviously more than what she went through . it felt disingenuous to begin posting about it as if i was someone who's always cared about shubbles content when honestly im not . bc at the end of the day its not about me and its not about her abuser , its about shubble and ive never been a member of her community .

i dont want my silence to be interpreted as me not caring about the situation or not believing her because i do ; i don't want to speak where my voice isnt needed or could take away from others . from some of the responses ive been seeing though i feel its far more important to listen to and boost her voice than be quiet .

i dont want to talk about him because ultimately this is about platforming shelby and what shes gone through . that said i HAVE watched, posted about and supported her all-but-named abuser , so im involved at least on that level and i want to say i am horrified by the abuse shubble has described.

the general reaction to her coming forward i have seen on this site and others , from one end of the spectrum (she hasnt said his name so we cant know / its not that bad / blatant excuses and defense of him) to the other (leaktwt / posts about how hes always been a creep / jumping down the throats of anyone who words their thoughts in a way they deem wrong) has been horrifying to witness . some of the most unproductive commentary ive seen on an issue like this and i was here from cmc to drm .

im deeply upset and feel i should say somewhere that some of the shit ive seen is unacceptable and contradictory to shelbys initial point, which i understand to be 2 things: 1) highlighting how abuse is not always obvious, or 'normal', and ways to recognize these situations as a victim 2) to highlight her own personal experiences and to stop both her own abuser and others from being platformed .

mcytdom is NOTORIOUS for "drama" like this and similarly well-known for being unable to boost / listen to / BELIEVE victims or at least leave them the fuck alone . to anyone who's ever been groomed or abused, esp my mutuals who have received extremely insensitive messages and feedback in wake of this , my heart goes out to you and i hope you are doing alright & know how appreciated and strong you are . shelby, niki, and other victims of abuse should be listened to and celebrated for both their bravery and strength and for who they are as people .

on a more personal note heres ig what im going to do going forward

this is my blog & im not leaving it , wont be deleting any posts either , mutuals id love to stay in touch if youre moving out or moving on .

very likely ill still be here in the smp hell . just gonna have to see how i feel about it all . in the three and a half years ive been drawing reading and writing about these characters a lot has changed including my perspective . ultimately tho its not about me

general message i want to get across is that im glad shelby is healing and getting the help she needs, as well as doing well enough to help others recognize the signs . love you my mutuals and friends and followers . take care of yourselves

[weedplantar]

Hey everyone, a few days have passed and I just wanted to be completely honest and take accountability for my actions and apologize.

On Friday, I started making a lot of posts on here about disliking the ship Huntlow. Which is usually fine, however these posts got less opinionative and general, and more personal and mean to others who ship it. I was getting into arguments with fans of this ship and I was being really unnecessarily rude, argumentative, and aggressive. Instead of ending the arguments or deleting my posts like I should have, I doubled down and argued more, which was really unproductive and unnecessary.

As a lot of you know, I am professionally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and I have been under a lot of stress and inconsistently taking my medications. This ultimately lead to a manic episode that peaked on Friday. Mania can make you really irritable, aggressive, argumentative, impulsive, and obsessive and delusional over a specific issue. At the time, I was convinced that I was completely correct and everyone needed to know how I felt about the ship and I absolutely HAD to continue every argument for as long as possible.

I ended up coming out of the manic episode over the weekend, and now that I'm taking my medications and I'm more stable, I feel incredibly awful about my behavior. Most people who know me, know that I'm usually very good at respecting all opinions, and I don't typically seek out arguments and I HATE being rude to people. Fandom is supposed to be a safe space for everyone. I really love The Owl House and being a part of the fandom, and I feel horrible knowing that I made people have a less than awesome experience. I'm really really really sorry for making my blog a toxic space, and I will genuinely do everything I can to prevent it from happening again. The next time I'm in this state, I will take every step needed to keep this a safe space, including going offline altogether for a few days if needed. I know that my mental illness is no excuse, I need to be held accountable for my actions regardless of what my mental state is like, but I want y'all to know that that is NOT how I usually am as a person. Once again, I am so sorry and I hope this can be a strictly safe, non toxic, and positive space again.

[atlanticcanada]

Mother’s Day drag brunch focuses on love, positivity and inclusivity in Riverview, N.B.

Surrounded with love, loud music and glamourous makeup, drag performers put on a show for Mother’s Day with an important message

“You don’t have to fit into the male stereotype,” said drag queen Nova Gyna.

“You can play with Barbie and that’s OK. You can be the Barbie and that’s amazing! So there’s lots to play with and it’s just dress-up. We’re little princesses today and showing kids they can be whatever they want to be.”

Over 100 people were in attendance for the family-friendly event, which saw performers sing kid-friendly favourites. They also censored their stage names to be age appropriate for everyone.

“I want to try and break the stigma. We’re not dangerous, we’re not going to attack you or say anything bad,” she said.

The event was seen as a space for people to showcase inclusivity and positivity. For many, it was also a chance to be allies for the next generation.

Shelia Furlong was there with her two daughters, Stephanie and Zoe. She says being accepting is something that was a part of their upbringing.

“Just like with race and religion, it doesn’t matter your sexuality,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It should be more about the person, who they are, their character, their integrity, not judging them or generalizing based on rumors, or out of fear or propoganda.”

“My mom raised us since we were very small to be accepting of everybody no matter what you look like and I think it’s very important to get out here and support people who are just coming into it and trying to learn things and make sure that there are spaces for these people,” Zoe added.

Stephanie, who is currently pregnant, is thinking ahead to the environment her child will grow up in.

“I think it’s very important to raise the next generation to be very inclusive, very thoughtful about what you think of others, what you say and how you treat people,” she said.

Open to all ages, Sabrina Matinez brought her 22-month-old son, hoping these experiences will help shape him as he grows up.

“It’s incredibly important for me to have him grow up and be super inclusive and accepting and understanding of people and their differences,” she said. “He himself is a little mixed, I myself am a little mixed, so being accepting is incredibly important to us.”

While Sunday’s event was a happy one, it comes amid backlash and hatred that many in the pride community are facing.

“For this event, we had a lot of hate online, but instead of having hate, just have questions. I’m more than happy to answer the questions,” said Gyna.

Recently, protests have been seen at pride and drag events and in New Brunswick the government is currently reviewing Policy 713, which lays out a minimum requirement for school districts to create a safe welcoming environment.

“It is very sad to see that they would review 713 as it was something that took a lot of effort to put in place,” said drag performer Anastasia.

She says the policy didn’t exist when she was in school and she remembers staying late to talk with the school board and fight for change.

“Honestly, it’s on the side of the government that I would like to see change,” she said. “I would like to see big names in the government stand next to drag and be like, ‘This is OK.’ That’s what I’d like to see.”

Both Anastasia and Gyna say they have seen improvements in New Brunswick, but a lot still needs to be done.

“I think it’s part of a trend over time that when rights are secured, there’s always a backlash,” said St. Thomas University Professor Jamie Gillies. “But what I find particularly problematic with the kind of hate that’s going on currently is that it’s being mainstreamed and largely by right-winged political parties staying silent.”

He adds that what’s being seen today with groups protesting drag and pride events is disgraceful and unproductive.

“My issue in New Brunswick is that it’s up to politicans and government leaders and community leaders to stand up to hate and I don’t see the premier or people like Kris Austin and Pierre Poilievre doing that. I think they see this group protesting events like this as potential voters,” he said.

Adding, “It’s up to all of us to fight for these rights again. I think it’s just a reminder that you always have to stay vigilant and you always have to fight for these groups.”

As for Sunday’s performers, they say they’re focusing on spreading positivity.

“At the end of the day, we’re just here to show our art, show who we are, and at the end of the day, the kids love us,” said Anastasia.

“We’re little princesses.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/0uvlLyW

[hawkbitalpha]

[REPOST, 2022] - "Roe, Roe, Roe-ing my boat, gently into this stream"

(This was originally posted to my WordPress blog "Thoughts of the Free" in May 2022.)

Oh, joy. Here we go again.

Yep, it’s the internet’s laziest political commentator here, back after several months of silence to talk about one of his least favorite topics: abortion! Yay! In case you haven’t heard, this just happened, meaning abortion is now no longer protected here in the States under federal law. Not a huge surprise, but still a very facepalm-inducing moment for this country nonetheless. So, rather than sit around and debate every single person who’d like to argue with me on this subject, I figured I’d get in front of this whole thing, and preemptively put my logical scalpel to work here and now.

Before we proceed, let me make one thing absolutely clear right off the bat: if your go-to arguments against abortion are along the lines of “it’s murder!”, “it’s irresponsible adulting!”, “it’s against God!”, or more, do not even bother trying to respond to this post. Not only is this branch of reasoning weak (for reasons that I’ll dig into as we go forward), but the fact is that moral arguments in general do not stand up to scrutiny at all on this topic. I am also not about to grind to a halt here to argue about some unproductive conceptual nonsense like “when does life begin? 12 weeks?!” or “but what about edge cases like rape?!”, because these are where the point goes to die a slow and painful death. Got it? Okay, good. Let’s move.

Let’s really get started in a place you probably won’t expect: the Bible. If you’re one of the folks who follows it, I implore you to open yours to Numbers 5:11, read onward from there, and take note of what that section describes. What you’ll find there is a very detailed commandment, from God himself to his priests, for abortions to be induced on wives who cheat on their husbands. This also isn’t even to speak of numerous other moments, such as Exodus 12:19, where God himself goes a step above abortions and personally kills unspecified masses of born children, demonstrating multiple times over that the lives of both the unborn and children aren’t quite as sacred as claimed in this religion. To attempt to handwave this fact away in support of the Christian anti-abortion case by claiming “it’s okay when God does it” is to engage in a hilariously meta kind of moral relativism that conservatives would not accept in any other context, so please, don’t try this response either.

As an aside: the problem with going to church and listening to sermons about the Bible is that you rarely ever learn anything truly new from them. You just skip around at random and hear a lecture about some part that gets worked into a generic message about the positives of being faithful. If you’re a Christian, professing faith in the Bible, and you haven’t heard of these parts before, you should ask yourself why that is.

But you didn’t come here to listen to this, right? Nah, what does the atheist brony know about the faith?! We want some real meaty bits to take in on this subject, dammit! Argument bits so meaty that they make you feel like you’re choking to death on a 72oz. steak of RAW TRUTH, with a side of BUTTERED FACTS AND LOGIC! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA– [coughs uncontrollably]

Uh… Sorry. Moving on.

See, the religious part is only one part of this. When it comes to moral arguments, I hold the true centrist position when it comes to abortion: I do not care. I’m of the belief that I would never personally have an abortion (and would prefer my partners also not), but that if other people do want to have them, that’s their right, and not something for me to concerned with. Since this is a “moral gray zone” issue, and I have no desire to play to moral arguments on the subject of abortion anyway, ethics is what really needs to be talked about here.

An anti-abortion moral argument would state that a fetus is a person, and has the right to be kept alive through to birth as such. Now, this alone doesn’t hold up when you think about it for a minute. Picture, for a moment, a situation where someone is standing over a cliff, holding a 3-months-developed live fetus in one hand (we’re assuming it’s still, you know, alive in this hypothetical), and a 3-year-old named Billy in the other. This hypothetical person tells you to pick which one of the two they drop. I’m reasonably certain that everyone, in this scenario, would choose to save Billy. If a fetus were really a person, that would be closer to a 50/50 split.

BUT… Let’s go even further. For the sake of the argument, let’s say that, yes, fetuses are people, and they have full personhood. In that case, the best way to test the anti-abortion position is to think of a similar situation involving a grown person. How ’bout it?

The scene: I, an absolute moron, have just hopped in my car and gone driving up Highway 61 at half past midnight, after downing way too many liters of whiskey. I get my deeply drunk self to the Huey Long Bridge, drive up the wrong entry ramp, and promptly slam head-on into a fellow driver, surviving with only moderate injuries. A several-hours-long coma and a quick airlift to a Baton Rouge hospital later, I wake up to find that the person I played a game of automotive jousting with is barely clinging to life. They’re only able to do so because, while I was unconscious, the doctors discovered that we share a blood type, and decided to start transfusing my blood into them without my consent. If I tell them to stop pumping my blood into the victim of this crash, they’re guaranteed to die.

In this hypothetical scenario, I’m the one who’s entirely at fault for this ordeal. There’s no question as to how we got here. The question is: should the state (or even just the hospital) have the power to force me to keep this person alive against my will, using my bodily resources? I would say the answer is no, but I invite you to ask this question for yourself. When you do so, remember that this is a hypothetical where we assume the other party is a fully-grown adult; trying to apply this logic of personhood to afetus will take this argument into some very, very absurd philosophical territory.

With the religious, moral, and ethical arguments against abortion not standing up to scrutiny… well, what are we really left with?

We already know what the myriad negative effects are of denying abortions to pregnant women. It’s not irresponsible adult behavior to not have a child when you likely can’t afford to raise one, for reasons that should be fairly self-evident. Nor is it reasonable to demand that every prospective abortion-seeking mom instead bear the kid and put them up for adoption, not the least of the reasons being that dumping a millionnew children would cause our already-overburdened foster care system to collapse, especially without a sudden surge in adoptive parent candidates to accompany it. (EDIT FROM FUTURE HAWK: Now that I think about it... don'tcha think that it would help on that front to stop arbitrarily outlawing queer couples' ability to adopt? We already know that the kid would be as fine in that company as they would be with a straight couple.)

In short… there’s no big socioeconomic benefits to banning abortions either. So, really: what reason is there?

Like I said earlier, I want all of you, anti-abortion people who may be reading, to take some time out and ask yourselves: why do I believe this? Was this knee-jerk hatred for pregnancy termination a position you arrived at through some process of critical thinking, with all of the above factors in mind, or something you’ve been told to believe by the people you listen to? Be it the biblical literalist pastors who can only claim the Bible opposes abortion by engaging in some very tenuous interpretation, a political apparatus that found an easy issue to get you sloganeering about as a distraction, or anything else: what was it? Most of all: can you arrive at your current position after asking yourself all of the questions posed here?

Well, I hope you at least have an interesting answer. Maybe that’ll keep me from wanting to measure my ruler every time this subject comes up. See y’all later.

[postwarlevi]

I think I need to get off Tumblr some.

Not disappear or an hiatus, exactly, but I think I'm slightly unnaturally obsessed. I never though I'd say that about social media.

I feel the need to check Tumblr all the time, even at work or on movie nights with the family, or at 2am when I get up to go to the bathroom.

I'm afraid I'll miss something that I would really like and open all these tabs on my phone to go back to things if I don't have time to get to them all.

Also, I'm a bit ashamed to say I've been looking at my notes a little too much. I get excited when there's a lot of activity and something I post is going over well.

And I do this thing (with real life, too) where I get overwhelmed thinking about the things I should be doing, so then I literally do none of it and am unproductive the whole day.

I want to read, I want to interact, I want to write, I want to organize my dash. There's tag games and inbox notes and I want everyone to know I see them and want them and want to get to them. I feel bad for taking a while to get to them.

But I can't decide which of all of those things to do first so I have a chat with myself as to how best to go about it and don't ever come to an answer and by the time I know it, it's dinner time and the day is gone.

Since I do not know how to fix that still, I think it would be best for me to just get off here once in a while. As I write this I feel I'm not going to do it properly like I should. Tomorrow my dash could very well be filled with stuff. I wouldn't be surprised with myself.

I guess what I'm saying is if you don't hear from me for a day or two, it's all good! I'm not ignoring anyone, I want nothing more then to be here with you all, I'm just trying to keep myself sane.

If you made it this far, you're a trooper LOL <3

I will be around! Bear with me! And good luck to anyone finishing up classes, or just dealing with life issues in general!

Ps anyone else feel they have this issue?

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hey. I'm INFJ. I want to ask about relationship problems. The relationship in question is between my ESTJ mother and I. Generally, I would describe our relationship as close and loving, but there is a conflict, and that came from our opposite ideology and political beliefs.

I want to say before continuing that we are neither American or European, so our ideology and politics shouldn't be understood from the "western" side of things, though to simplify by comparison, my views could be described as leftist and my mother's as conservative. I should also add that I used to hold her worldview when I was younger, but changed once I was old enough to form an opinion of my own. This caused my mother to imply many times in our discussions that I am "brainwashed" and dismiss me as "too young" and "too ideological". I should add that the latter (ideological) is a valid criticism. Still working on that.

Otherwise, I often tried to persuade, then later find middle ground with her, to no avail. We ended up arguing many times, until we decided to not talk politics with each other anymore. So, what's the problem, you might ask.

Recently, the political climate in my country got intense. Heated, even. I won't go into details, but there are protests again the government by young liberals/leftists-equivalent of my country. Many of my good acquaintances joined the protest. The government used police force against them, and it got violent. There are young unarmed protestors who were teargassed, beaten, and shot with rubber bullets and high velocity water jets. Some protestors were heavily injured. Some protestors were arrested and incarcerated in horrible conditions. My mother and I agreed to not speak about politics, so I said nothing.

Until my mother, right infront of me, with another family member, openly mocked the protestors, made judgments about them based on the goverment's propaganda, called them a nuisance, and implied that they "deserved it". It's not about her discussing it, but it's about how unempathetic she was when she said those things, towards those young people my age, with similar ideology to me, and how apathetic she was when she said that "nothing's going to change anyway". It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words. It still haunts me until now.

So my question to you is, how does one deal with that? I love my mother, I think I always will. I also know that she loves me, or at least the part of me that's still her child. But for a moment, I loved her less, and that frightened me. I began to wonder, what would happen one day if we have to actually take sides, because things are getting worse in my country, not better. This adds to other issues I have in my life and made me more depressed. A part of me tells me that I should tell her about how I feel, but how do you tell someone you love that they're one of the reasons for your sadness?

I'm sorry if this is stupid. I'm sure that this feeling I have is one-sided, and I wonder if I'm being selfish or ungrateful. Maybe it's because I'm too sensitive these days, so I thought if I have an outside neutral opinion, it will help illuminate my clouded mind. Thank you. I hope you had a good summer break!

------------------------

The sentence that sticks out at me the most is: "It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words." I would argue that the problem doesn't lie with her. In fact, nothing about your mother had changed. She was still the same woman as before she uttered those words. The issue arises from your perception of her and the standards by which you evaluate her.

I follow world affairs very closely, so I think I know which region you are speaking of. One of the biggest problems in the manner that people think and talk about politics is the tendency to stereotype. Stereotyping is basically a form of cognitive oversimplification. It makes your thinking ability fast but also very dull and blunt, unable to understand situations with the nuance and sophistication that is required for good judgment and decision making.

It doesn't matter which country/culture you are from, there is always some variation of "right versus left". Why? Because in every society, there will always exist an underlying tension between those who don't want change and those who do. You may label these two opposing forces as right vs left, conservative vs liberal, regressive vs progressive, etc, but the fact of the matter is that these labels are gross oversimplifications of people's political belief systems.

When you divide people along an oversimplified dichotomy, it's too easy to stereotype them, in terms of believing that all people on each "side" hold all the same beliefs and values. Stereotyping goes along with the natural tendency of humans to be tribal. You start to view those on your side as being intellectually and morally superior to those on the other side. This leads to dehumanization and even demonization of the other side. In essence, you lose the ability to empathize with people, as long as you believe that they aren't on your side or the "right" side.

It seems that your political thinking has become too stark due to how extreme the situation has become. You have the feeling of fighting for your life because of the way that the situation has been handled by authorities, as they are indeed putting people's lives in danger. Your feelings about the situation are completely valid. But you fail to recognize that your mom's feelings about the situation are also valid. Certainly, there are hard-core fundamentalists and extremists out there that you can never reach because their beliefs and values are not based in any form of reason. However, I don't think your mom fits into that category, does she?

Do you know what it means to have no humanity? You are accusing her of something like psychopathy. Is that really true of her? I don't think so. She said: "nothing's going to change anyway". I don't consider this an expression of "apathy", as you assume. This is an expression of hopelessness. In that sentence, there is a real possibility that your mom is sympathetic at heart, but she disagrees that the chaotic actions of the protestors (i.e. the method) will lead to any meaningful change... and she may be absolutely right about that.

You haven't grasped the nuances of your mom's beliefs and values because your mindset has been so hardened by the extreme nature of the political conflict. This means that, when you engage in political discussion with her, you are unable to: 1) acknowledge how she feels, 2) acknowledge that there is some reason/merit/validity behind her beliefs, and 3) be open-minded enough to meet her halfway.

Put another way: If you met someone who wouldn't acknowledge your feelings as valid, dismissed all of your beliefs and values as completely wrong without proper investigation, and only sought to "convert" you, would you want to communicate with them? Probably not. This is the unproductive attitude that you now both bring to the table. This is the divisive attitude that arises when a conflict becomes too polarized and everyone is forced to "choose a side".

Unless one of you learns to listen and communicate more effectively, what will change? You say that you have tried to find middle ground with her but always end up arguing. Not finding middle ground is one thing, but getting caught up in interpersonal drama is a whole other thing. The option to amicably agree to disagree is always available. If you genuinely respect someone and respect their freedom to form their own beliefs, it shouldn't be hard to agree to disagree. Why do you find it so difficult to let her be her? Ultimately, you're not really interested in "middle ground"? You just want her agreement? Getting caught up in arguments all the time, especially on a recurring basis, indicates poor communication skills that stem from a troubling lack of objectivity. The more you argue with the intent to shame/change the other person, the more you push them away from your side, and the more myopic you get in your own beliefs.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of categorizing her into the tribe that you view as the enemy of your tribe, namely, the authorities that are cracking down on you young protestors. You've started to view her as the enemy, now you can't empathize with her, and even accuse her of having no humanity. You now consider yourself morally superior to her. If there is any possibility that she could be your ally, you've slammed the door on it.

You describe a very dire and desperate political situation that affects everyone, BUT, it doesn't affect everyone the same way. Different people have very different ways of dealing with intense emotions like fear, insecurity, grief, despair, helplessness, etc. Due to inferior Fi, ESTJs have extremely low tolerance for intense and uncontrollable emotions. Remember that one's ability to utilize the inferior function is not much better than a young child. If ESTJs can't neutralize or deflect their sense of powerlessness quickly, the burden of the emotions will quickly destroy them. I don't think you've really understood the thought process behind your mom's words and what is really motivating her "apathy".

Just because someone doesn't agree with your methods, doesn't mean that they don't have anything in common with you. Politics isn't just about good vs evil, as in, if you don't stand up for good, then you are evil. Everyone has their own way of looking at the situation because everyone has their own interests to take care of first and foremost, and everyone has their own ideas about the best methods to pursue. This is true for both you and your mom. It is possible to agree on beliefs but disagree on methods. For example, I'm assuming that you care about this cause so deeply because you care about your future. Sure, your ideas about the future differ from hers. But, certainly, you are both interested in securing your future, aren't you?

History has shown us that young people are always more willing to fight for causes because: 1) they would suffer less immediate material loss than the elder generation, 2) they have fewer life responsibilities, obligations, and commitments to take into consideration, and 3) their lack of life experience sometimes makes their thinking too simplistic when visualizing future implications.

Your interests aren't fully aligned with your mom's in this situation, perhaps because you are from different generations. However, this doesn't mean that your interests don't align in other important ways. At the end of the day, your mom is probably deathly afraid of seeing YOU on the news being beaten to a pulp and disappeared by the police, right? And it may be the case that she's passing harsh judgment on the protestors because she's trying to discourage you from meeting their horrible fate? That's hardly lack of humanity.

To be a good critical thinker, you need to learn to be more objective. Objectivity means understanding all aspects of the situation, or as many as you can manage. Objectivity and empathy often go hand-in-hand. You won't be able to empathize well unless you acknowledge that there might be some aspects of the situation that you're not seeing or understanding. When you take more time to get to the bottom of someone's thought process and why they really feel the way they do, you will discover all sorts of openings to influence their political beliefs in a friendly way. But when you can't even acknowledge that the other side might have an important point to be made, because you are so hardened in your stance, you've created a dead end for yourself.

[shihalyfie]

What are your feelings on the general tonal direction that the dub was given compared to the original?

I had this general feeling that the dub was always attempting way too hard to be funny. Like, jokes seemed to be shoved in at every opportunity. Establishing shot with nothing but the BG playing. Nope got to have a funny intercom moment about a jelly donut in the pool. Scene transition, nope got to have the kids running in the background call back to the donut.

I dunno. It was something that always seemed to bother me in hindsight. It was amusing, but out of place.

Preliminary point of disclaimer: I am absolutely not saying any of the following as an indictment of people who personally prefer the American English dub for any reason; I'm well aware that there's a lot going on in terms of accessibility, reasons of personal sentiment/attachment, and the fact that legally available subtitled versions of the earlier series range from limited accessibility to downright absent. I also fully admit to having my own attachments from the fact that said dub was what I technically got into the franchise via to begin with; I love the voice actors and I also have certain zinger lines from the dub I personally treasure, so please take everything I'm about to say with an understanding that there's a lot of extremely complicated personal sentiments mixed in with it.

I will say that, first of all, which dub we're talking about is important. There's a pretty huge difference between the Adventure/02 dubs and the Tamers/Frontier/Savers ones, and then of course the one for Xros Wars (although I think the majority of the fanbase is pretty critical of that last one, given that the "but my childhood" bias is out of the picture). There's also a mild difference between the Adventure and 02 ones, since the latter is probably the most aggressive in terms of how off-the-rails it could get with its changes (and I am confident in saying that I fully believe this is the case even outside my own bias for 02 as a series). I honestly never really had much to gripe about with Tamers through Savers; I think they were still fairly aggressive with the added jokes, but it wasn't to the level that I'm particularly bothered (even though I generally prefer watching with the Japanese version these days anyway). It's probably a matter of taste. The second 02 movie and the Tamers/Frontier movies were also dubbed during this era, and I have the same to say about those.

Adventure and 02 are a completely different story, and especially in regards to 02. I think added jokes are okay to a certain extent -- again, probably question of taste -- but I have problems when the desire to be funny starts actually cutting into characterization or story integrity. That definitely happened way too many times for my liking in Adventure and 02, and I have a lot of personal misgivings about it, especially since its definition of "funny" often overlapped with "these characters start insulting each other for no reason" to degrees that stop feeling like "comfortable friends" and more just "needlessly malicious". Certain characters (Mimi and Daisuke come most to mind) are very different to the point where I couldn't make sense of their intended character arcs, and actively disliked their characters as a kid for being rude, condescending, and obnoxious before I watched the Japanese version and realized how different they were. (I give my regards to everyone who saw the potential in them with the dub only, of which there are many, but please understand that I am not the only person in this camp, and that I feel the changes most certainly led to a statistical increase in people disliking them.) In the case of 02, I also think the insistence on being reckless about the changes adversely impacted the story and character arcs overall because a lot of things that were meant to be consistent in Japanese stopped making sense, a lot of the emotional depth and range of the characters got stripped out to make said jokes -- hard to believe Daisuke's nearly as emotionally pained and impacted at times when a joke has to be added in there, especially when most of his lines in the first half involve him dunking on others and others dunking on him for comedy purposes -- and in general, I'm not against adding jokes per se, but there are times I just really wish it could have learned to hold it back just once during some very important scenes that have vital story and character importance. I am personally very positive that this only contributed further to the stigma of 02 being a poorly written series with inconsistent character and story writing, especially when there was a lot of nuance lost in said character arcs.

I'm not a localization purist. I don't think changes are inherently bad. I'm fully aware that things were very different back then, and at the time it was considered that making those changes may have been necessary to reach the Anglosphere market. I don't personally know if it was actually true; nearly every other country got a significantly more accurate dub and they seem to be fine (and they're currently side-eyeing the Americans for being so weird about it, and I can't say I blame them for it, especially when Anglosphere fanbase denizens have this awful entitled attitude about acting like other dubs are lesser and that somehow "but my childhood" only applies if you've seen in American English, never mind that other people have childhoods too and the Southeast Asian English dub also exists). I wonder if it's really a good thing in the long run for Americans to be pinned as people who can't enjoy something unless you add a million jokes. I'm also disturbed by the fact a lot of people gave and still give passes to some sentiments that often feel like downright anti-Asian motives when it comes to dub changes, just because "my childhood". I completely understand that localization means that you have to alter certain cultural things lest they become difficult to relate to or understand, I cannot say I'm on board with the fact these kinds of dubs were and are often so aggressive about it that they feel like they're pathologically trying to scrub out the Asian scourge. I don't have any particular grudges against the dubbing staff for what they did on an individual level because, as someone who doesn't work in the localization industry, I don't know what pressures they had or what they had to consider in marketing this product, I think everyone has the right to judge which version of the product they prefer for themselves; I just am really uncomfortable with what kind of sentiment fuels the idea that these changes were necessary in the first place, I dislike the fact that I can't voice my concerns without being treated like I'm insulting a sacred cow, and I'm a bit frustrated that the "the dub didn't change anything significant" is still such a pervasive sentiment in this fanbase after 20 years, making discussion of this issue difficult and discussion of the series itself unproductive when we keep running into two people "arguing" about what's actually two very different things.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Hey, since the maximoffs are generally white-passing (though not always and “passing” is a complicated thing) in the comics, do you think it’s rude/unnecessary to confront someone for making very pale art of them? If I did it I’d try to be nicer about it than I would if they were just blatantly whitewashing a visibly brown or black character, but I see a lot of artist who I feel like might not know and I really wonder if it’s worth it. Do you have any thoughts?

That's complicated. It's not a misrepresentation of the characters in the way that, for instance, a blonde Wanda or a tall, muscular Billy would be.

I can't reasonably fault anybody, fanartist or canon illustrator, for drawing characters on-model.

That said, in the last few years there has been an ongoing conversation in this fandom, at least here on tumblr, about who the Maximoffs are, and the ways in which their general representation is lacking. It's become more common to draw the characters with darker skin or more apparently ethnic features. If you're a fan of Wanda, or Pietro, or any iteration of Young Avengers, it's pretty hard to avoid that conversation, so it's easy to point fingers at anybody who seems to be ignorant to, or is intentionally ignoring, that trend. If I'm reading your message correctly, you seem to be asking if that trend represents a truer, more valid version of the characters that we should all adhere to, and if it is necessarily problematic to do otherwise.

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I believe that disrupting the representation of all Roma people as white-passing, or even interchangeable with white Europeans, is crucial. Setting aside the fact that the diaspora intersects with just about every racial group, not just white people, the broad whitewashing of Roma communities in media erases our origins and occludes the fact that the mistreatment of Roma people is a race issue. On a wider scale, I believe that this manufactured ignorance contributes to systemic antiromanyism, but within the sphere of pop culture, specifically, it allows people to get away with obviously racist art and writing, and it's why Romani history and identity are viewed as disposable whenever people adapt these comics for the screen.

On the other hand, I'm deeply frustrated by the tokenization and co-opting of Roma identity that this fandom performs. This may sound hypocritical, considering how much of my blog revolves around my edits, but I see a lot of folks on tumblr who draw brown Wandas, make fancasts with Romani actors, and, like me, photoshop comic book panels, but not a lot of people who demonstrate any understanding of antiromanyism, or better yet, material allyship. In everybody's haste to earn diversity points, they've produced a lot of unintentionally racist content. I've seen a lot of cultural tourism, inappropriately co-opted activist work, and even virtual brownfacing in the form of RP accounts. No one, myself included, should feel entitled to dictate what a true or valid image of Wanda looks like, but especially not a community of people who think that having a folder of Hiba Abouk gifs and a Wikipedia list of common chib phrases makes it okay to racefake for your MCU roleplay.

Anyways, when it comes to fanart, you're going to have to rely on your own subjective judgement, and try to think about more specific issues than "whitewashing" because these characters just don't fit into that idea. Content that's derived from the movies is complicit in erasure. Content that is derived from the comics, but which applies lighter and straighter hair to Billy or Wanda is complicit in eurocentric standards, and the trend of gradually lightwashing characters of color, and even white Jewish characters. Content which employs racist stereotypes is not better than canon "white-passing" depictions. Cultural appropriation is still cultural appropriation, even if the character you're drawing is a member of that culture. Many popular writers and artists have a history of ignoring or shutting down dialogues about representation, even harassing people like me.

Hopefully, thinking about that stuff gives you a more clear idea of what to look out for, what's worthy of confrontation, and how to articulate your problems with a specific person or their content.

I know this ran longer than was strictly necessary, but I wanted to roll your message together with a similar question about whitewashing:

The Maximoffs weren't conceived, written, or designed in such a way as to be intentionally whitewashed, at least not originally-- their background was established via a retcon, at least a decade after their first appearance. Up until that point, they were generic, apparently white, Central Europeans. The fact that they are treated as interchangeably white and Roma is both product and perpetuation of the broad whitewashing of European Romani that I described earlier. Nobody's going out of their way to make sure the twins always have at least one white ancestor in order to justify "whitewashing" them, rather, nobody has ever truly envisioned them as people of color in the first place.

People will perform all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to minimize the Maximoffs' ancestry, or come up with reasons why it makes the most sense for them to look white-- invoking Erik as the father; dredging up the short-lived Robert Frank retcon; or, for Billy and Tommy, claiming that their resurrection somehow erased their genetic and ancestral ties to Wanda, even though the text implies the very opposite. I'll let you in on a secret, though-- these characters aren't real people, and their stories aren't immutable truths. If anybody, fans, writers, or artists, is making leaps of logic to avoid making comics more inclusive, it's not because their hands are tied by the unbreakable chains of canon, it's because they don't want comics to be more inclusive.

Also, I could be off the mark here, but I don't think I am-- Sinti people are Roma. Different parts of the diaspora have different names for themselves, but are all part of the same larger population. It's mostly a regional thing, as I understand. If you want my opinion, it doesn't matter what version of the story you go with-- whether Magda, Marya or Natalya is their birthmother, Marya and Django raised them. They have direct Roma ancestry either way, and they were raised by a Roma family. It's hard to say exactly where in the world the Maximoffs lived, or what specific label they might have identified with, but the twins would likely identify with the community they were raised in, be that Sinti or Servitka or Kalerash or whatever else. If I'm being honest I don't think that distinction is relevant for non-Roma to make.

I've said this before, but I don't really care what the characters look like, and I'm not interested in playing identity politics with fictional stories that were created by and for American gadje. Obviously, I love these characters as a fan, and I do have my own vision, no pun intended, of who they are and how I'd like to see them represented, but I worry that these conversations are unproductive. I hope you guys understand that I'm not out here trying to canonize an arbitrary idea of what Jewish Romani people look like. American superhero media has a long history of exploiting, misrepresenting, and erasing Romani history. I want more people to understand that, and understand the material consequences it has, and think about how comics, American culture, and art in general can deconstruct this specific mechanism of racism. It's not about any one character's identity, and it's not about my creative vision.

[thelovelyghostwriter]

How many responses have you gotten so far, if I may ask?

Hello, thank you for your question. I open the Q&A if you guys want updates on the survey or any problems I'm facing.

Currently, there's 380 responses in total. [It was actually 362 last night, don’t know where I got the boost overnight, perhaps that Kurapika post] 

tThere's actually 84 questions in total, but I coded it in such a way that certain questions don't appear when you indicated an option. For example, if you indicated that you are not up to date with the manga (indicating that you have read the post-Election arc AND read till Chapter 390), the questions regarding the Succession arc theories and predictions will not appear. This is why the manga readers' survey is actually longer.

Currently, 149 respondents indicated that they had read up to date, and therefore, they indicated

Another example is the shippings part. For example, if you indicated you don't ship anything, you won't see the list of ships. If you only indicated that you ship, let's say, het ships, you will only see the het ships. This is to make it easier for people to do the survey. The key is for others to not answer unnecessary questions.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about certain issues/explanations that I need to address.

The reason why I'm always emphasising the goal of 385 responses and above (400 is a good number) because based on calculations. I checked on MAL and that there are over 1.2 million who have watched HxH. The "population" in this case is the total number of people who have watched/read the series. Since some people do not have MAL, the actual population number is higher (currently, we do not know what is this exact number).

At 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level*, the ideal sample size is 385 in populations above 100K, and it doesn't change after 100K.

*I do not really know how to explain this, but don't worry too much about it.

Alright, so I'm at 380, do I still need more than 5 people?

Yes, I need more people. Why? I have three concerns:

1) I said this before, but I need more men/boys to do the survey.

As mentioned, I did not put demographic questions because my country is strict with asking people for personal data. While this survey is casual, I do not want to encounter future complications. However, I can roughly guess the gender composition of respondents because of certain questions and the way the survey was distributed. 

Firstly, this survey blew up mostly on Tumblr and there’s a lot of mixed statistics. This says that 47% are female in 2021 and this other article says 72% of women use Tumblr in 2014. Anyway, most of my online (majority from Tumblr) are women and they had actively helped me sent it out to other women who likes the show as well. This same thing happened to my friends in real life. 

Actually, this is one of the biggest limitations of this survey - convenient sampling, which is giving the survey to only people that we know. Our friends who may have similar views/interest will get to do the survey, but people that we are not friends with who may have a different view/interest does not get to do the survey. Their thoughts/opinions are not recorded. 

Secondly, there are certain questions that makes it easy to guess for me if the respondent is a woman/man. 

For example, the “which character do you simp for” question. 

“nil” means they don’t simp for anyone by the way. Also, note that this is just the word cloud diagram. I will chart them manually in bar charts later on. 

Usually, when someone indicates a lot of male characters, they are normally women/girls. The ones who indicated Killua Zoldyck and Gon are usually young girls. Of course, I’m not saying men won’t indicate they simp for a male character or something, but yea know, common sense a bit here. The likelihood of someone placing Chrollo being a woman/girl is higher than the respondent being a man. That also same goes for the shipping questions. 

The survey is posted on Reddit that consisted of 83.1% males in the HxH area, according to the 1K survey that they had. This helped me boost more people (and possibly guys who do survey). However, I think only about 20 to 30 people did it (based on the boost I got after the Reddit thread was posted). I also had help from a large hxh IG account that had slightly more guy followers to give me a shoutout. I also went to reach out to some accounts whom I know the admin are guys. 

I still need a bit more help though, because currently the survey results... I’m sensing that there are more women/girls who did it from the way the results are turning out. 

Why is this important? 

It’s simple. I cannot just release the results that had an uneven ratio of the gender of the respondents and claim that this is the hxh fandom. It won’t be representative of the hxh fandom population as a whole when there are many cis-men who actually had watched/read the show, and absolutely loved it. I think it’s important to hear people’s opinions, be it men, women, young, old. 

Currently, I’m trying to attract more men to do the survey by designing my hxh analyses posts from Tumblr and transporting them to IG, because I realise they like these kind of posts and they get to see my bio profile (with the survey link) + post about the hxh survey. I also get to befriend some of them in the process (and also because I have long been wanting to post my hxh analyses on IG, but it’s just a hassle to make it into pretty poster designs). So win-win. 

Of course, anyone is welcomed to do the survey. I just need help with “balancing” it out, so please help me by sending it to your bros, guy friends, boyfriends, fathers etc. Or if you know any social media platforms where most guys dominate, then yeah please send them. Or if you’re a guy, then yea go ahead and try the survey. 

2) While the responses are 380 in total, the number of people who have read up to date is 149. 

Okay, I’m not saying I need to get people who had read up to date to be 385 as well. Realistically, not sure if I can do it. However, most of the questions pertaining the Succession arc are the most interesting ones and it takes a large chunk of them. 

So yes, it will be great to have more people to do the survey especially if they had read the manga so that we can have more respondents in those questions. 

3) The 385 response calculation is only assuming 5% confidence level and 5% margin of error. 

I don’t exactly know how to explain this, but I will try to quote for the margin of error: 

“Company X surveys customers and finds that 50 percent of the respondents say its customer service is “very good.” The confidence level is cited as 95 percent plus or minus 3 percent margin of error. This information means that if the survey were conducted 100 times, the percentage who say service is “very good” will range between 47 and 53 percent most (95 percent) of the time.”

So if you put it in HxH context, with 95% confidence level, and 5% margin of error, it goes like this: 

50% of respondents indicated that Bisky is their favourite HxH girl (this one is only one option). If this survey was conducted 100 times, the % of people who indicated Bisky as their favourite girl would be from 45% to 55%. 

But if I actually key in 3% margin of error, the sample size goes up to 1056. 

I’m willing to open the survey for 1.5 more weeks. Three reasons: 

A) I will wait for more responses of course!

B) I am currently busy with my part-time student research assistant job during summer break till this week, and they are rushing to finish up the research paper. Therefore, it’ll be nice to just wait while I do my work. 

C) I am planning to write up the theories that I had included in the survey. This means having a lot of time finding the links/threads to the theories and reading them, making sense of it. I plan to post it and also merge that in my report. 

I’m closing the survey in 1.5 weeks because I need time to do up the charts and report by mid-August because I’m afraid I might be busy once the semester starts and I won’t have anytime to do this mini fun project. 

Another thing I want to address: 

Most of the time, certain options I created is based on technical reasons. The other reason is by mistake. 

For mistakes, I went to fix them if someone highlights a mistake.

Now, for the technical reason. I did not appreciate this response in the NOTP section that says: 

The reason why I listed out almost all ships in Hunterpedia, including the ones with a large age gap and the incest ones is simple - because it helps me chart easier when I put them into options. It also decreases the chances of nonsense answers like this one. It also places less fatigue on people doing the survey.  Text boxes are only meant if the options aren’t clear or “others, please state” so that I can include people’s opinons. 

The reason why I didn’t do that for the NOTP section is that I was unable to do a certain specific coding. That’s why it ended up as a text box. It’s also based on the assumption that if something is really your NOTP, you’d know and remember it. 

Why do people online goes straight to trying to prove they are morally superior and whatnot, assuming that I listed the options because of my morality. You do not know me personally. It is based solely on technical reasons.

This is why I used this disclaimer: 

Which part of this is not clear. You can leave, just like what I said in the beginning. Another thing is not following instructions and being rude about it. 

I had also instructed clearly to list out the NOTP combinations. I even noted it clearly. Some people put “any incest/pedo ships”, which happened more than five times. What’s more, one response contained “don’t tell me what to do”. 

Yes, I get it, you don’t like these type. But what you’re doing is making me guess everything, which is unproductive. If you don’t like certain ships that are common but a “taboo” like “HisoGon”, “Killumi”, then say that. If you say it generally, I’m just going to assume the ones on the Hunterpedia list. 

Another thing is the “any toxic ships”. This is very vague. Often, some so-called “wholesome” common ships in hxh are toxic. Mind you, Killugon is also a toxic ship (let’s not be blind to the CA arc please, this pairing is unbalanced), yet almost everyone perceives it as wholesome. Most characters in hxh are toxic in their own ways, and for sure their canon dynamics if they are in a relationship are likely more toxic than what is often portrayed in the headcanon way. I am wondering what to do with this, I might put it as invalid or “no”. 

This is why my instructions are to list them. I had already edited the question twice to make it even clearer yet there’s people who defy them. I’m not just doing the instructions out of fun or make people’s life harder. Those are instructions. 

I do not understand why certain people have to feel offended/be rude at an anonymous survey. 

I can understand if people don’t follow instructions because you might missed it out and I can help to chart it for you. It’s totally okay, everyone makes mistakes, but I do not appreciate the extra unsolicited comments about me because it implies that you have read them, you just chose not to follow it. 

If you think there’s a better way to do it, then DM me. I will explain to you why I had done it so, or I might even change it based on your suggestion. For example, someone actually told me to add certain options and I did it. Another person suggested to add the non-romantic dynamics and I love that, though I think it’s a little too late to add that. Maybe in the next survey.  

If you do not like the instructions, kindly exit the survey. Nobody is forcing you to do it. It won’t record your response if the survey is incomplete for one hour. 

[jakey-beefed-it]

Today was... almost completely unproductive, even for me, due to various mental Crises that arose in the like... Venn diagram overlap of my sundry issues. Mental health talk below the cut so you can avoid it if you’ve got your own shit to deal with/might be triggered by that kind of thing.

Kinda did almost a checklist of disorders being problems. ADHD brain? Represented. Autism? Probably! Depression? You betcha. Anxiety? Hoo boy and then some. Mania? Maybe! Self-loathing? Energy levels off the charts, cap’n. Basically my brain was the equivalent of blaring alarms from all quarters and spinning out of control.

Anyhow I eventually managed to... not be doing that ...and in the process kinda realized that maaaaybe I haven’t been Handling My Shit as well as I thought. Like I’m medicated... for depression. Which is good! I haven’t thought seriously about literally killing myself for several years now. That’s a big improvement! Not to be sneezed at. But it’s hardly a panacea for the rest of my bullshit.

Anyhow anyhow I’ve internalized a loooot of really horrible shit I’m always speaking out against as an anti-capitalist pro-mutual-aid aspiring feminist; basing my self-worth on lots of unattainable things that I don’t even believe in but that somehow equate to me being a Failure as a Man(TM) for being a hot mess disability soup. Some of it is also no doubt related to the whole ‘Gifted’ Kid Burnout phenomenon as well. I was ‘a pleasure to have in class’ and always sought approval and validation because I had anxiety, not because I was gifted, sheesh. Whole childhood equating my value with being ‘smart’ and then having my entire ego collapse under the inevitable weight of not being able to hack it in my first attempt at college because my brain was actively trying to kill me with self-hatred that only got worse the more I failed to live up to my ‘potential’.

I’m much less of an elitist shitbag these days regarding myself as no different from any other h. sapiens sapiens in that we are all fundamentally dumb, panicky apes who sometimes need a minute to remember the whole tool-use or reason things. But while I’m really good at not holding it against other people for being dumb panicky apes, even though I don’t regard myself as better than anyone (far from it) I still somehow hold myself to these standards I long since dismissed as unreasonable to expect of anyone, much less a guy with a grab-bag of mental illnesses that makes his spongy thinkmeat even less effective than biology normally dictates. And inevitably fail to live up to them, of course. And then feel worse about myself. Forever. Well, ok, not forever, even if I do continue to manage the no-self-murder streak (which seems likely) I’m still definitely going to kick off at some point. But for my whole damn existence, which sucks plenty.

Anyhow anyhow anyhow here goes the first of hopefully many simple admissions of imperfections and forgiveness of that.

I am not a digital artist. I could spend lots of time and effort to develop those skills, but frankly I don’t... wanna. Instead of feeling guilty at having abandoned pursuit of the lovely art tablet my family got me many years ago that they ‘wasted’ their gift, I can just admit that I’d much rather continue drawing in pencil, inking in pigment liners, and scanning into a digital format for sharing on the internet. I like tactile hobbies; it’s why I get so much out of painting miniatures. And digital art is still tactile in that you’re holding a stylus and/or tablet, but it’s not the same, and I prefer physical art on physical paper. And that’s okay.

I am not a fantastic dungeon master. I’m aight. I am, in the words of the best mug ever (a gift from my sister), the “World’s Okayest Dungeon Master.” I can put together a campaign, it will mostly hang together, my combat encounters will vary from ‘pretty good’ to ‘super boring’ but my plots are generally interesting and my players keep coming back so I must be doing something right.

This one’s kind of cheating because I’ve acknowledged it before both publicly and internally for like... fifteen years ...but I am not, and never will be, a world-class miniature painter. I don’t have the manual dexterity, the patience for producing and executing many many layers of very fine glazes, or a strong enough desire to devote more effort to improvement than befits a hobby I mostly do to relax. And that’s okay. I paint pretty good, and I slowly get better. Sometimes I’m the best painter in my local store! And that’s good the hell enough to satisfy my external competitiveness, while my internal competitiveness of striving to do better than I myself have done before gets all the real attention. I do want to improve! And so I do, but at a steady pace that doesn’t stress me out.

I’m not a diligent writer at all. I like writing, and I love coming up with plots and characters, but I’m terrible at sticking to a daily writing habit. I’d like to get better at that, and I can, with effort. Honestly giving myself permission to write more fannish bullshit (Warhammer stories, SW:tOR stories, D&D stories) might help clear some of the roadblock. I don’t shit on other fan writers; I long ago admitted that it’s valid and cool when other people do it, but to this day I have still only written a handful of Warhammer bullshit and one (1) Mass Effect fanfic. All the while my idea for a novel has grown and evolved and never really gotten past a very rough first draft that is now almost completely useless due to rethinking everything because I’m not in the habit of actually writing. I can do something about that!

I desperately want everyone to like me and think well of me and never be mad at me but you know what, that’s not... remotely achievable much less healthy. I have various tendencies toward ‘people pleasing’ that tend to end up with my own boundaries trodden upon and far more people taking advantage than real friends. I am very fortunate in that I DO have some real friends, many of them online, but yeah. It’s okay if not everyone likes me. Even if they somehow did, it wouldn’t make up for the all-consuming singularity-like wound of self-loathing that the people-pleasing urge is probably trying to fill.

I can be unreliable due to my many, many issues. Most of them are mental, but some of them are physical. I can’t always do things that should be ‘easy’, whether it’s my brain saying no, or my body. Instead of making too many promises for fear of ‘looking’ disabled and/or trying to make everyone happy... sometimes I need to admit that there are things I do not have the capacity for. Preferably ahead of time, rather than bailing at the last minute or just.... not showing up. This probably would’ve been good to know about myself before I nearly failed out of college in my first attempt but hey, hindsight and all that.

I might be about as cis and straight as a guy can get, but I am not and will never be anything remotely like an Idealized Man due to my weight, disabilities, general body type (even at my thinnest I had a belly pooch and flabby chest), shit, right down to my hair but that’s got some big overlap with the Idealized Man being a straight-haired white boy when I’m merely a wavy/curly-haired white-passing boy. And shit, if I had some gender fuckery that’d be a whole other animal, but even though I kinda got assigned male and went ‘Yeah that’s about right’ I still deserve to not have to live up to some unattainable ideal.

There’s... a lot more, obviously (hoo boy is there a lot more) but that’ll do for a start.

[etirabys]

Grab bag of NVC advice that I liked

Sorted in order of decreasing importance, as perceived by me. The first two are their own posts.

1. People deal better with facts about you than facts about themselves

2. When you notice self-blame, ask what the blaming self is trying to get out of the blaming, and what the blamed self was trying to get when they took the action you now regret

3. Separate observations from the feelings they make you have

Obvious but very good advice and most people are not good at consistently following it, including me when I’m stressed. Instead of “You neglected me by being disrespecting our date time”, say “You were an hour late for our date yesterday, and this makes me feel neglected”. Several good reasons for doing this, in descending order of perceived importance:

1) My partner can show up to dates on time more easily than they can keep me from feeling neglected.

2) I’m identifying two steps for my unhappiness – my partner’s action, and then my interpretation / the particular way I happened to react to it, which I think is more truthful.*

3) ‘You neglected me’ is my framing, it’s probably not theirs, and once I inject it into the conversation, there’s an unnecessary disagreement-layer.

4) People find it easier to engage with you when they don’t feel criticized.

* Rosenberg says “[The first speaker] attributes responsibility for his disappointment solely to another person’s action. [The second speaker] traces his feeling of disappointment to his own unfulfilled desire.” I reject Rosenberg’s general philosophy that you should take complete responsibility for all your feelings, but I do think responsibility should be split, and agree that “You caused me to feel X” statements are unproductive and misleading.

4. Many things I do because I ‘should’, I am choosing to do, and I will deal with them better if I recognize that

Another time, when I was consulting for a school district, a teacher remarked, “I hate giving grades. I don’t think they are helpful and they create a lot of anxiety on the part of students. But I have to give grades: it’s the district policy.” We had just been practicing how to introduce language in the classroom that heightens consciousness of responsibility for one’s actions. I suggested that the teacher translate the statement “I have to give grades because it’s district policy” to “I choose to give grades because I want … ”

She answered without hesitation, “I choose to give grades because I want to keep my job,” while hastening to add, “But I don’t like saying it that way. It makes me feel so responsible for what I’m doing.”

"That's why I want you to do it that way," I replied.

The obvious application for me is also my job, which I approach with a sense of duty and fear-of-punishment. I know why I choose to keep having this job – because I want to learn from my very bright coworkers, because I value building up runway for a period of unemployment/recovery, because I want data on whether I can succeed at a megacorp at all, and most of all because having a demanding job gives me a sense of purpose and self-sufficiency. It’s scary to not be able to provide for myself because then I have to rely on other people to do some of it for me, which means my livelihood is dependent on my ability to maintain relationships with other people (or navigate government paperwork). I choose to go to work and do my job because that protects me from that reality. I can’t always hold onto this mindset, but whenever I do, the sense of being shackled falls away.

5. If someone isn’t giving you something you asked for, get a clear understanding of why they’re not giving it to you before asking again

Choosing to request rather than demand does not mean we give up when someone says no to our request. It does mean that we don’t engage in persuasion until we have empathized with what’s preventing the other person from saying yes.

I have issues with Rosenberg’s descriptions of requests vs demands, and his assumption that you can get through life never making demands, but I think there are many situations where you could request instead, and be better off by doing so.

[amfgeog2260]

A Glimpse of the Semester...

Everyone always says how fast semesters go once they get going, and it's true once again! It is crazy to think that we are already writing our final blog posts for this class, and it feels like last week that I was creating my first Tumblr account and following all of my classmates who I did not know anything about. I am not sure whether it is the format, the class, or the layout of our discussions but it feels as if this semester has had some of the most engaging and interesting discussions while I have been at university. I find it difficult to take a whole semester of readings, course content, assignments, and discussions with peers, and pack it into a relatively small blog post… but I am going to do my best! 

3 Things I Know About Human Geographic Research

1. The first thing I can say I know about human geography, is more broadly what it is, and how qualitative methods of human geography are used in human geography. The first chapter of the textbook does a really good job at outlining from the beginning what it is, and how its complexity and open-endedness can be used. What I mean by that is exactly what the textbook says, that qualitative methods in human geography are concerned with “elucidating human environments and human experiences” (Hay 2016, p. 5). Fundamentally, all of the analysis, research, interpretation, and methods employed by qualitative human geographic investigators circles back to the goal of answering questions related to social structures and or individual experiences (Hay 2016, p. 5). At the beginning of the course, this idea of tackling both structural macro questions/issues along with individual experience or micro issues was hard for me to conceptualize. At this point I have a better understanding of the goal of qualitative research, human geography, and the methods employed to find answers about social and human behaviour. 

2. I mentioned the breadth of human geography in my first point, which leads me to the second thing I know about human geography. I know now how much is captured in the term human geography, or human geographic research. Not only was the idea of human geography not clear to me, but the ideas and sub-topics of human geography were not either. From the textbook readings, weekly course content, and our newest Digital Storytelling Project, some of the most prominent subtopics of human geography have become more clear to me. We have all taken a different approach and topic in our group projects; from social, cultural, economic, political, health, environment, and the list goes on (Hooykaas 2021). These are only a few subtopics, and the important thing I realize now is that human geography is everywhere we look, and it matters in order to find answers and ask more questions about the world we live in! 

3. Since the topic of human geography is so broad and all-encompassing, I now know how important and diverse the use of research, knowledge, and analysis can be in the real-world with the help of human geography. The specific example from this course that allowed me to value knowledge, analysis, reflection and research most was the way we can use it to break down social barriers of knowledge. Using cross-cultural research methods, ethics, and relationships, we can impact more inclusive research methods and break down previously colonial ways of understanding knowledge (Hay 2016, p. 45). Specifically from chapter 4, we gained an appreciation and understanding of the way colonial values and power shaped our understanding of the validity of knowledge (Hay 2016, p. 76). Using different, and equally valuable knowledge like feminist and indigenous approaches to research in geography can not only further our research in human geography, but can keep strong subjectivity and equal value in different kinds of knowledge, from people, cultures and places around the world (Hay 2016, p. 85). 

3 Things I Am Confused By

1. I am still confused by concepts about Foucaldian Discourse Analysis in chapter 14. This might be too narrow of a topic to take for this blog, but the idea of discourse analysis still does not seem to make complete sense to me. I understand Gordon Waitt explains it as an “interpretive approach in geography… used to make sense of the world within particular social and temporal contexts” (Hay 2016, p. 288). This still teams like too large of a definition, or unspecific an explanation to make sense to me, or make me understand that it is in fact important and integral to the way we see the social structures we live in. 

2. The second thing I am confused by still is in that discussion about the broad topic of human geography. I know it relates to most, if not every thing in our social and physical lives, but when is it not human geography? That may seem unclear as a question, but it seems confusing to me to try and place human geography within a boundary. Every topic or research method has parameters in which it focuses, but this seems like such a broad idea that I am not sure I can wrap my head around what is and what isn’t human geography, if it actually relates to everything. 

3. The last thing that is considerably still confusing to me is the idea of universal objectivity and situated knowledges. We read about these topics in chapter 19, and I still am having a hard time understanding them individually and how they exist together. Situated knowledges is explained in the text as one of the most useful approaches to “contest universalist forms of knowledge” (Hay 2016, p. 400). This idea however, still gives me a hard time to fully understand it.

3 Things I Know About Myself as Human Geographic Researcher

1. I can’t assume that I am a human geographic researcher now, and that my road to learning, analyzing, research, reflecting, and creating is done just because this course is coming to an end. I can however, distinguish the very few things I know about myself so far, as a human geographic researcher. The first is that I know I won’t place inherent value on a specific type of research or knowledge. I mentioned it earlier briefly, but I feel that the impacts from assuming a type of knowledge or method of research is “correct” compared to another is problematic, and has the power to perpetuate age old colonial values. I know I will use the skills I have learned and will continue to learn, to provide reflection and knowledge of my own, while never discounting or taking for granted the knowledge of others. 

2. Secondly, I know I am a people person. I have known this for a while, but specific to human geographic research, I will always feel more confident and comfortable having discussion, reflection, or doing research in groups, or with others rather than alone. I found that although it was a lot of fun too, this blog post forum made this class a lot more enjoyable and gave me an environment to discuss and reflect with others! This comment goes along with now knowing the power of critical reflexivity in research and discussions, and to not discount the value of discussion with peer researchers, interviewees, or during the research process. 

3. The final thing I have learned about myself as a human geographic researcher is my interest in qualitative methods of human geography, over quantitative ones. Although I understand the importance of having both, I much prefer the use and methods in qualitative research rather than quantitative. This ties into my interest in group work and working with people, instead of numbers. Asking questions, making inquiries, participants in research, and listening to the stories of people (Hay 2016, p. 117-120) is what I find most interesting and appealing about this type of research method.                                                                                                                                                              

3 Things I Need To Spend Time On 

1. Having expressed my interest for qualitative methods of human geographic research, I need to start focusing and learning more about quantitative methods. I think its important to have a wholistic view and understanding of human geography, and I can’t do that if I isolate myself from an entire side of geographic research. I understand that this textbook is aimed directly at qualitative methods, however, there are lessons from quantitative research that can be used in qualitative research as well. Organizing, analyzing, coding, and surveys all can be used (as seen in chapter 18) as a means of communicating and interpreting qualitative research (Hay 2016, p. 373). Yet, these are different skills than interviewing, listening, or reflecting on the very typical qualitative methods of research. I need to spend time on the things that don’t come to me as easily, or interest me as much, to give myself a general confidence in human geographic research. 

2. The second area of human geography I need to more fully appreciate and understand is the value in historical perspectives and accounts and research. I find myself interested in human geographic research now, and interested in the future of social structures and individuals. Historical geography and reflecting on the past seemed boring or unproductive to me. I discredited the research that can be done contemporarily, based on the history of social identities, and not just solely focusing on the research that has yet to be done or discovered. This specific need relates to chapter 11, when Roche discusses historical research and “archival sources” (Hay 2016, p. 226). Michael Roche even discusses interest he has had in the past “30 years of being a historical geographer (Hay 2016, p. 225). There is something here I have yet to find interest in, but again, in order to further my skills and my full research potential, this is a crucial part of human geography I need to spend more time on.

3. Lastly, I find myself rushing to get answers or skipping ahead to find the ultimate “research findings” when I am reading, or even trying to do research of my own. I need to work on my patience as a researcher, and not be so set on finding a single concluding answer in research. Instead, I need to assume that the process of research and analysis is the answer, and that the answers will appear sometimes in the wait or in the depths of research. Finding definitive answers is exciting, but especially in a field as broad and open as human geography, I need to build my ability to reflect on and analyze answers that come from the research process. 

I hope this small amount of information has given you all a glimpse into my perceptions of the course, and my own learning along with it. I truly did not know the importance of human geography, qualitative research, or its actual application in the real world. I have really enjoyed being a part of this class and sharing blogs with one another every week! I hope you all have had a similarly educational, interesting, and engaging semester in this blog forum. All the best to everyone this summer!

References 

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/668082/viewContent/2730478/View

[phil-dwyer-stan-account]

If you could only give out one piece of advice for the rest of your life what would it be

I’ve been sitting on this for a few days. I mean I don’t know if I’m the best person to give advice I just run a shitty twilight blog I’m not a therapist or anything but I’ll do my best! I’ve been trying to think of something generic enough to be the only advice I ever give. This is going to be real preachy and I’m going to reference myself as an example but not to make it about me just to show where I need this advice too (because I’m not talking to a specific person so I can’t focus on them) so I’m sorry in advance.

I would say first(this is a two parter), be gentle with yourself about your emotions. Every emotion exists for a reason and there’s a time and place for all of them. There are situations where it’s important to feel sad or angry or scared. You are allowed to feel things. But also there’s a balance (my “default” emotion tends to be sadness and while it’s okay to be sad it’s not good to be sad all the time. And I have to work on that). Don’t fight your “negative emotions” but if you’re feeling them “too often” try to identify why you feel that way in a situation that doesn’t “make sense” for it and see if there’s something you need to work through. I’m the type of person that feels what I’m feeling at 100%. So when I feel sad or angry or scared at the “wrong time” I have to remind myself that it’s okay I don’t have to fight myself for feeling the way I feel. I take a minute to let myself feel it, but then I examine “okay why do I feel like this” and I try to work through it. Maybe it reminds me of a past trauma. Maybe I’ve been holding in my emotions for too long. Maybe there’s a misunderstanding. But I’ve learned to never get mad at myself for my emotions because there’s a reason I feel that way. Suppressing doesn’t fix anything but identify the issue and working through it does.

Okay part two is much happier. Find something simple and enjoyable to spend some time on. It’s so easy to get caught up with making yourself busy. I have a very hard time shutting my brain off and I know that’s common when there’s so much push towards productivity. I love making art and reading but even doing that for pleasure can be too much because of the push to feel accomplished. Trust me if you find something simple to enjoy when the push to create and be productive and stay busy is overwhelming it makes the world of a difference. Personally, I love the game(it’s in the App Store for apple for sure but most likely for android as well) Neko Atsume. It’s an adorable game where you just put out food, cat toys, and furniture in a virtual back yard and cats just come and visit you. That’s it. They have names and personalities and you can take pictures of them. But there is no leveling up or trying to be the best. I was talking to @the-golden-onion about it because we’re both big fans and she said “two cow cats in the cow tunnel is how you win neko atsume i don’t make the rules”. And I don’t know about you but the idea of the coolest thing being based on “two cats hung out at the same object hell yeah” is refreshing. It’s so simple and calming. I always say that I was born stressed. I genuinel don’t know what it means to just relax, but with this game I do. And it’s so noncommittal. You check it when you feel like it. If you get busy and forget to put out food for awhile. Guess what happens? Nothing. The cats still love you. Oh you can’t afford(in game currency based on the cat visits you don’t have to spend money it’s a truly free game) the fanciest food? Guess what? The cats still love you. Literally you just enjoy cartoon cats being adorable. And YOU DESERVE to just sit and be “unproductive” and enjoy how cute these cats are.

And maybe Neko Atsume isn’t the game for you and that’s totally fine. Maybe games aren’t it for you at all and that’s totally fine! Maybe it’s going outside and looking at the sunset every night. Maybe it’s just sitting down and breathing for a few minutes. Maybe it’s listening to your favorite album. Maybe it’s watching YouTube videos of people making old fashioned hard candy(highly recommend this as well) BUT SERIOUSLY LIFE IS HARD AND EXHAUSTING TAKE A BIT TO ENJOY SOMETHING SMALL. I used to roll my eyes when people would give me advise like this but trust me it’s necessary.

You are loved! But you don’t need someone random on tumblr to tell you that. I hope you find your own reasons within yourself to believe that. No matter who you are you are loved and you deserve to love yourself. I know it’s hard trust me I know. But you do deserve good things and to feel good about yourself.

(I’m gonna dip out before I start quoting folk punk bands. Sorry for being so preachy and thank you to the anon that sent this I hope you’re doing okay. If anyone ever needs advice or to talk or anything please don’t hesitate to reach out. Again I’m not a therapist so I can’t promise to fix anything but I am a person who cares)