#I was invisibly disabled as a teen and then my disability progressed to the point I use mobility aids

[silver-stargazing]

Everyone is rightfully celebrating the appearances of Barbies using mobility aids and prosthetics in the Barbie film but I've got to say: I really love that the movie can be read as a woman having a later-in-life disability and ultimately embracing the changes that come with having a disability.

As the film progresses, Stereotypical Barbie loses control over her legs and feet, develops cellulite (a common sign of aging, something which, under some models of disability, is considered a disability), and begins to experience intrusive thoughts as well as anxiety and depression, all common invisible disabilities.

When consulting Doctor Barbie and her friends, they all say she's malfunctioning and encourage her to get help which, speaking as someone with epilepsy, I can't count the number of times professional medical doctors have called my body "malfunctioning". Like a worn down piece of computer hardware.

When seeking outside help, she finds a tight-knit commune of other "malfunctioning" Barbies which includes:

Weird Barbie, who has a leg-control disability and constantly has to find places to lean against for support

Video Girl Barbie, whose physical appearance is considered unsettling to the other Barbies

Teen Talk Barbie, probably the most famous Barbie doll with a voice but almost completely mute during the film

Weird Barbie also encourages her to get help but not for the societal conformity reasons that the other Barbies had. She wants Stereotypical Barbie to get help because having intrusive thoughts of death is not healthy and she genuinely cares about her well-being (even though she previously called her "weird" both behind her back and to her face). 

While the starting point of her journey may have been to find a cure to her disabilities, by the end of the film, Stereotypical Barbie is able to accept the changes to her body by rejecting the perfect plastic body and fully committing to an inherently flawed human body.

I just dig the heck out of her storyline and how it shows how other disabled people can support each other on their paths of self-discovery.

[madpunk-crip]

a pet peeve of mine is able bodied neurodivergent ppl disparaging the term "invisibly disabled" bc it doesn't describe their experiences. and like. invisibly disabled is meant to refer to physically disabled people! people with chronic pain or fatigue or illness or whatever who have physical limitations but who don't use visible aids. so yeah, of course it's not a term that applies to mental disabilities! it was never meant to!

[greatfay]

controversial opinions?

Cold pizza actually not good. Tastes like angry bacteria.

There’s a completely separate class of gay men who are in a different, rainbow-tinted plane of reality from the rest of us and I don’t like them. They push for “acceptance” via commercialization of the Pride movement, assimilation through over-exposure, and focus on sexualizing the movement to be “provocative” and writing annoying articles that reek of class privilege instead of something actually important like lgbtqa youth homelessness, job discrimination, and mental health awareness.

Coleslaw is good. You guys just suck in the kitchen.

Generational divides ARE real: a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old right now in 2021 could agree on every hot button sociopolitical topic and yet not even realize it because they communicate in entirely different ways.

Sam Wilson is a power bottom. No I will not elaborate.

Allison’s makeover in The Breakfast Club good, not bad. She kept literally and metaphorically dumping her trash out onto the table and it’s clearly a cry for help. Having the attention and affection of a smart, pretty girl doing her makeup for her was sweet and helped her open up to new experiences. Not every loner wants to BE a loner (see: Bender, who is fine being a lone wolf).

Movie/show recommendations that start with a detailed “representation” list read like status-effecting gear in an RPG and it’s actually a turn-off for me. I have to force myself to give something a try in spite of it.

Yelling at people to just “learn a new language” because clearly everyone who isn’t you and your immediate vicinity of friends must be a lazy ignorant white American is so fucking stupid, like I get it, you’re mad someone doesn’t immediately know how to pronounce your name or what something means. But I know 2 languages and am struggling with a 3rd when I can between 2 jobs and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to just absorb the entire kanji system into my brain to learn Japanese by tomorrow night, or suddenly learn Arabic or Welsh. There are 6500 recorded languages in the world, what’s the chance that one of 3 I’ve learn(ed?) is the one you’re yelling at me about. Yes this is referring to that post yelling at people for not knowing how to pronounce obscure Irish names and words. Sometimes just explaining something instead of admonishing people for not knowing something inherently in the belief that everyone must be lazy entitled privileged people is uh... better?

Stop fucking yelling at people. I despise feeling like someone is yelling at me or scolding me, it triggers my Violence Mode, you don’t run me, you are not God, fuck off. Worst fucking way to "educate” people, it just feels good in the moment to say or write and doesn’t help. Yes I’ve done it before.

Violence is good actually.

Characters doing bad things ≠ an endorsement of bad things. Characters doing bad things that are unquestioned by the entire rest of the cast = endorsement of bad things, or at the least, a power fantasy by the creator. See: Glee, in which Sue’s awfulness is constantly called out, while Mr. Shue’s awfulness rarely is because he’s “the hero.” See also: the Lightbringer series, in which the protagonist is a violent manipulator who is praised as clever, charming, diplomatic, and genius by every supporting character (enemies included), despite the text never demonstrating such.

Euphoria is good, actually. It falls into this niche of the past decade of “dark gritty teen shows” but actually has substance behind it, but the general vibe I get from passive-aggressive tumblr posts from casual viewers is that this show is The Devil, and the criticism of its racier content screams pearl-clutching “what about the children??” to me.

Describing all diagnosed psychopaths as violent criminals is a damaging slippery slope, sure. But I won’t be mad at anyone for inherently distrusting another human who does not have the ability to feel guilt and remorse, empathy, is a pathological liar, or proves to be cunning and manipulative.

It’s actually not easy to unconditionally support and love everyone everywhere when you’ve actually experienced the World. Your perspective and values will be challenged as you encounter difficult people, experience hardship, are torn between conflicting ideas and commitments, and fail. My vow to never ever call the cops on another black person was challenged when an employee’s boyfriend marched into the kitchen OF AN ESTABLISHMENT to scream at her, in a BUSINESS I MANAGED, and threaten to BEAT the SHIT out of her. Turns out I can hate cops and hate that motherfucker equally, I am more than capable of both.

Defending makeup culture bad, actually. Enjoy it, experiment, master it, but don’t paint it as something other than upholding exactly what they want from you. Even using makeup to “defy the heteropatriarchal oppressors!” is still putting cash in their pockets, no matter how camp...

Not every villain needs to be redeemed, some of you just never outgrew projecting yourself onto monsters and killers.

Writing teams and networks queerbaiting is not the same as individuals queerbaiting. Nick Jonas performing exclusively at gay clubs to generate an audience really isn’t criminal; if they paid to go see him, that’s on them, he didn’t promise anyone anything other than music and a show. Do not paint this as similar to wealthy, bigoted executives and writing teams trying to snatch up the LGBTQA demographic with vague ass marketing and manipulative screenplays, only to cop out so as not to alienate their conservative audiences. And ESPECIALLY when the artists/actors/creators accused of queerbaiting or lezploitation then come out as queer in some form later on.

Queer is not a bad word, and I’ve no clue how that remains one of few words hurled at LGBTQA people that can’t be reclaimed. It’s so archaic and underused at this point that I don’t get the reaction to it compared to others.

People who defend grown-woman Lorelai Gilmore’s childish actions and in the same breath heavily criticize teenage religious abuse victim Lane Kim’s actions are not to be trusted. Also Lane deserved better.

Keep your realism out of my media, or at least make it tonally consistent. Tired of shows and movies and books where some gritty, dark shit comes out of nowhere when the narrative was relatively Romantic beforehand.

Actually people should be writing characters different from themselves, this new wave in the past year of “If you aren’t [X] you shouldn’t be writing [X]” is a complete leap backward from the 2010s media diversity movement. And if [X] has to do with an invisible minority status (not immediately visible disabilities, or diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, persecuted religious affiliations, mental illness) it’s actually quite fucked up to assume the creator can’t be whatever [X] is or to demand receipts or details of someone’s personal life to then grant them “permission” to create something. I know, we’re upset an actual gay actor wasn’t casted to play this gay character, so let’s give them shit about it: and not lose a wink of sleep when 2 years later, this very actor comes out and gives a detailed account of the pressure to stay closeted if they wanted success in Hollywood.

Projecting an actor’s personal romantic life and gender identity onto the characters they play is actually many levels of fucked up, and not cute or funny. See: reinterpreting every character Elliot Page has played through a sapphic lens, and insulting his ability to play straight characters while straight actors play actual caricatures of us (See also: Jared Leto. Fuck him).

I’m fucking sick of DaBaby, he sucks. “I shot somebody, she suck my peepee” that’s 90% of whatever he raps about.

“Political Correctness” is not new. It was, at one point, unacceptable to walk into a fine establishment and inform the proprietor that you love a nice firm pair of tits in your face. 60 years ago, such a statement would get you throw out and possibly arrested under suspicion of public intoxication. But then something happened and I blame Woodstock and Nixon. And now I have to explain to a man 40 years my senior that no, you can’t casually mention to the staff here, many of whom are children, how you haven’t had a good fuck in a while. And then rant about the “Chinese who gave us the virus.” Can’t be that upset with them if you then refused to wear your mask for 20 minutes.

Triggering content should not have a blanket ban; trigger warnings are enough, and those who campaign otherwise need to understand the difference between helping people and taking away their agency. 13 Reasons Why inspired this one. Absolutely shitty show, sure, but it’s a choice to watch it knowing exactly what it contains.

Sasuke’s not a fucking INTJ, he’s an ISFP whose every decision is based off in-the-moment feelings and proves incapable of detailed and logical planning to accomplish his larger goals.

MCU critique manages to be both spot-on and pointless. Amazing stories have been told with these characters over the course of decades; but most of it is toilet paper. Expecting a Marvel movie to be a deeply detailed examination of American nationalism and imperialism painted with a colorful gauze of avant-garde film technique is like expecting filet mignon from McDonalds. Scarf down your quarter pounder or gtfo.

Disparagingly comparing the popularity and (marginal) success of BLM to another movement is anti-black. It is not only possible but also easy to ask for people’s support without throwing in “you all supported BLM for black people but won’t show support for [insert group]” how about you keep our name out your mouth? Black people owe the rest of the world nothing tbh until yall root out the anti-blackness in your own communities.

It is the personal demon/tragic flaw of every cis gay/bi/pan man to externalize and exorcize Shame: I’m talking about the innate compulsion to Shame, especially in the name of Pride and Progress. Shame for socioeconomic “success,” shame for status of outness, shame for fitness and health, shame for looks, shame for style and dress, shame for how one fits into the gender binary, shame for sexual positions and intimacy preferences, shame for fucking music tastes. Put down the weapon that They used to beat you. Becoming the Beater is not growth, it’s the worst-case scenario.

Works by minorities do not have to be focused on their marginalized identities. Some ladies want to ride dragons AND other ladies. The pressure on minorities to create the Next Great Minority Character Study that will inevitably get snuffed at the Oscars/Peabody Awards is some bullshit when straight white dudes walk around shitting out mediocre screenplays and books.

Canadians can stfu about how the US is handling COVID-19 actually. Love most of yall, but the number of Canadian snowbirds on vacation (VACATION??? VA.CAT.ION.) in the supposed “hotbed” of my region that I’ve had to inform our mask policies and social distancing to is ASTOUNDING. Incroyable! I guess your country has a sizable population of entitled, privileged, inconsiderate, wealthy, and ignorant people making things difficult for everyone, just like mine :)

No trick to eliminate glasses fog while wearing my mask has worked, not a single one, it actually has affected my job and work speed and is incredibly frustrating, and I have to deal with it and pretend it’s not a problem while still encouraging others to follow the rules for everyone’s safety and the cognitive dissonance is driving me insane.

It’s really really really not anti-Japanese... to be uncomfortable with the rampant pedophilia in manga and anime, and voice this. I really can’t compare western animation’s sneakier bullshit with pantyshots of a 12-year-old girl.

Most of the people in the cottagecore aesthetic/tag have zero interest in all the hard work that comes with maintaining an isolated property in the countryside, milking cows and tending crops before sunrise, etc. And that’s okay? They just like flowers and pretty pottery and homemade pastries. Idk where discourse about this came from.

You think mint chip ice-cream tastes like toothpaste because you’re missing a receptor that can distinguish the flavors, and that sucks for you. It’s a sort of “taste-blindness” that can make gum spicy to some while others can eat a ghost pepper without crying.

Being a spectacle for the oppressive class doesn’t make them respect us, it makes them unafraid of us. This means they continue to devour us, but without fear of our retaliation.

Only like 4 people on tumblr dot com are actually prepared for the full ramifications of an actual revolution. The rest of you just really imprinted onto Katniss, or grew up in the suburbs.

Straight crushes are normal. They’re people first, sexual orientation second. Can’t always know.

The road to body positivity is not easy, especially if what you desire is what you aren’t.

You’re actually personally responsible for not voluntarily bringing yourself into an environment that you know is not fit for you unless you have the resolve to manage it. Can’t break a glass ceiling without getting a few cuts. This one’s a shoutout to my homophobic temp coworkers who decided working a venue with a drag show would be a good idea. This is also is a shoutout to people who want to make waves but are surprised when the boat tips. And also a shoutout to people who—wait that’s it’s own controversial opinion hold up.

Straight people can and should stay the fuck out of gay bars and queer spaces. “yoUrE bEInG diVisiVe” go fuck yourself.

[fortune-fool02]

Steel Ball Roommates

Episode Two: Game Night

As per usual, the group gathered together to enjoy Game Night.

Author’s note: Please give thanks to @ymisiposts for coming up with this amazing idea. Please enjoy.

***

Saturday. One of Gyro’s most favourite days of the week for many reasons. The long lie in, eating breakfast at noon, no work or responsibilities for one whole day. And, of course Game Night. Game Night became a form of tradition for the four of them every single Saturday. It started at 6pm, they would order Take-Out and play games ranging from board games to the console set up to the T.V. 

There had been one occasion where they tried to do something else on a Saturday and Gyro went ballistic to the point he started shouting in Italian and no one could understand him but by the anger in his voice and the fast-paced tone, they could guess it wasn’t anything good. So, to avoid Gyro’s anger, they all did Game Night. 

Much to everyone’s -excluding Gyro’s- surprise, it was always fun. Even if it was the same plan each time, something new always happened and made the evening quite fun. 

Gyro ran back and forth in the living room, gathering all the games and setting them in order. Johnny chuckled at his friend’s childish excitement but didn’t say anything. Let Gyro have his fun, who was he to say otherwise?  

Johnny’s eyes fell upon one game in particular, a smile on his blue lips. “Just Dance?” Gyro looked over his shoulder at that. Just Dance was one of Gyro’s favourite games, mainly since he held the HighScores on most of the songs. His most favourite one was Old Town Road; the one song that no one could beat him at no matter how much they tried. Gyro was a “champion” and always made sure they knew that. There had been too many times that Diego has had to stand there and take Gyro’s victory dance, the annoyance building up each time. 

However, this night was different, this night Diego was going to beat Gyro at his own song and take the title of champion of Game Night. 

Not long after everything being set up, there was a knock at the door, informing the two males of their expected guests. Johnny smiled, welcoming his two friends in and closing the door behind them, not bothering to lock it as they were ordering Take-Out soon. 

Same order each time. Johnny would have pizza as well as Gyro. Diego would have a chicken burger with chips and Hot Pants would have a beef burger. Same every time but they never got tired of it. The tradition of Game Night. 

Diego took one look at the game console and narrowed his cyan eyes at Gyro, “I won’t lose this time, Gyro.” The way he spoke made it sound more of a promise than anything else, and that made Gyro chuckle. 

“Nyoho~ Is that so?” the light-haired Italian questioned, a glimmer of smugness in his emerald eyes, challenging the blonde. Hot Pants coughed into her hand, gaining their attention. 

“Can we order the food first before you both try and kill each other?” she asked as she took her seat, setting her coat over the armrest. Gyro shrugged his shoulders with a hum then looked over at Johnny who was already holding his phone up, ready to place their orders. Diego simply turned his shoulder and sat down. Weeks of practising in secret was by his side, as well as knowing the factors that could dampen Gyro’s performance. So there was little to be concerned about, Diego knew his victory was sealed. 

When the food arrived, Gyro and Johnny went into the kitchen to grab some drinks and gave Diego a window for his plan. Quickly, he opened Gyro’s pizza box and added quite a handful of salt onto the pizza, far more than what was flavouring and more of an awful bitterness that burned the lips. Hot Pants only sighed at this petty action, the things Diego would do to either secure a victory or just to annoy Gyro and Johnny. 

The two males returned and Diego acted as if nothing had happened. As Gyro took the first bite of his pizza, he almost chocked on the over-powering smack of salt. “What the fuck? It’s so salty.” Diego bit back a chuckle, masking it by taking a bite of his burger. But the joke was soon lost when Gyro smile and took a larger bite of the pizza, chewing it without complaint and swallowing it as if nothing was wrong with it. 

Diego’s jaw almost fell at that. Was Gyro serious? He just ate a full slice of over-salted pizza. Just when Diego thought he couldn’t hate the Italian anymore, another factor pops up that surprises him further. Johnny laughed at that, Gyro was -without a doubt- continued to surprise them all. 

Once they had eaten enough, Gyro had turned the console on and got them game going. Grabbing a controller and tossing one at Diego who caught it easily. “Now, someone has informed me of a challenger wishing to battle me for my title of Champion.” he spoke, the ridiculous voice he used made Diego want to smack him repeatedly with the remote. 

Rising from his seat, Diego took his spot beside Gyro but ensuring they both had enough room to not bump into each other. Johnny and Hot Pants sat on the couch, watching as their two friends prepared for their battle for champion. 

“So, who’d you reckon will win?” Johnny asked, throwing a glance at the woman. Her dead-pan expression she wore ever present. 

“Diego. Even if he lost to Gyro, he would probably beat him with that remote.” Johnny shrugged his shoulders, the likeliness of that happening was not impossible as it has happened before. Many times before. 

As the dance begun, the two males were practically mirror images of the dancers on the screen, neither of them missing a beat or falling out of sync. It was very impressive. Their scores were neck-in-neck, both driving to their top, Gyro to maintain his title and Diego for wanting to defeat Gyro and claim that title. Johnny cheered Gyro from the side-lines whilst Hot Pants did the same for Diego, well, saying words of encouragement as emotions were not her strongest suit. 

As the song reached its end, the two males struck the final pose of the dance; both panting slightly as the screen faded to black as it got their scores up. 

Winner: GoGo Zeppeli! Loser: DinoBoy

At the score on the screen, Gyro laughed at his victory, slipping into that damned victory dance that Diego despised so much just to add salt to the wound. Diego turned to him slowly, cyan eyes burning from the splits in his fringe and making Gyro freeze. 

“Oh merda.” The blonde male lunged at Gyro, knocking him onto the couch and repeatedly smacked him with the remote, ignoring Gyro’s shouts and pleas. Johnny and Hot Pants watched this display, she held her hand out to Johnny, expectantly. Johnny sighed, his hand slipping into his pocket and fishing out the change he had gotten from the take-out and dropping it into Hot Pants’ palm. 

“You keep doing that damnable dance and I’ll claw your damn eyes out!” Diego shouted as he smacked Gyro, who only made the situation worse by laughing, adding fuel to Diego’s irritation. After Johnny and Hot Pants were finally able to drag Diego off of Gyro, they decided that it might be enough of Game Night and instead put a movie on. 

Apparently it was supposed to be a good horror movie Hot Pants had seen in a shop. “Horror movies aren’t scary, they’re predictable and unlikely to happen.” Diego commented as he took a sip of his drink. “What are the chances of someone running on a clear, empty pathway and trip over a tree root when the tree is nowhere close to where they were?” Johnny looked over at him, 

“Usually it’s just for effect and-” Diego cut him off by giving him that look. The group all sat around the living room in their own seat they had claimed over the weeks and before it came on properly, Gyro turned off the lights. 

“Creating atmosphere.” he said. And create the atmosphere it did. The movie was based upon the idea of a disabled child with a similar condition to Johnny finding a cursed book that could let him walk again but it changed him, letting his body become a form of playground for demons and evil spirits. 

“Ooh, so scary.” Gyro feigned when the door in the film suddenly slammed shut, a cliche scare that very rarely spooked anyone. Johnny laughed lightly at that but remained quite to continue watching. As the film progressed, there was a sense of discomfort seeping into the group’s skin, mainly with the moments when the main character would start to experience odd things. Faces of people he once knew, things that had haunted him in the past. 

By the time they were half-way through the film, they were all huddled together on the couch. Even Hot Pants seemed on edge. “No, no, no, don’t go in there, you daft woman!” Diego hissed at the screen. Who in their right mind would hear an unnatural sound from downstairs and go investigate? Gyro’s arms looped around Johnny, holding onto the teen like a teddy bear.

As the credits began to roll, all eyes shifted to Johnny. Confusion painted his face, “What?” None of them spoke, just blinked. Johnny glanced down at his legs, their behaviour sudden;y clicking in his head. 

“Hey! Like I would be possessed by evil spirits. That’s something Hot Pants would do.” She opened her mouth to argue but stopped upon realising Johnny’s point. Johnny rolled his eyes and grabbed his crutch before standing up and walking into the kitchen. As he stood there, an idea planted itself in his head and a smirk lifted his lips.  

Clearing his throat slightly, he set his crutch down and laid himself onto the floor, taking his hat off and setting it beside his head. Taking a breath, he released a loud scream before thrashing around as if struggling against an invisible force. The others came running in, eyes wide at the sight of their friend. Gyro grabbed the broom beside him and rushed over with it raised above his head like a weapon. 

“Wait , Gyro-!” Before Johnny could explain, Gyro brought the broom down onto him like one would do when trying to kill a spider whilst chanting, “Spirit begone! Spirit begone!” As Hot Pants stood there, holding onto a rosemary whilst muttering prayers. Knocking the broom out of its path, Johnny looked up at the three of them. 

“What the hell? It was a joke!” Gyro narrowed his eyes at him, 

“Don’t do that, Johnny. We thought you were gettin’ possessed.” the Italian spoke, Johnny rose a brow, confusion painting his face. 

“And you thought beating me with a broom was going to help?” He shrugged his shoulders, his hold on the broom not faltering, 

“I panicked, okay!” 

Maybe watching horror movies was not the best idea for them all. But they had to admit, it was pretty funny.

[averygim]

hello all. you can call me cal or jeepers, which is my discord name and i think is funny tbh, but i mostly go by cal. my pronouns are they/them and ‘m in the est timezone. i’m a bit late to the game but i’m still v excited to introduce my child avery to ya’ll. below is a whole mass of text that’ll help you get to know this mess of a child. uwu it’s easiest to reach me on discord at jeepers creepers #5103, but i also try and respond as quick as i can to tumblr ims so it’s really whatever you prefer !!

basics

name: avery gim job: baker at peau d’amour age: twenty-five gender: cismale pronouns: he/him sexuality: grey-asexual / panromantic birthday: february 6th zodiac: aquarius personality type:  advocate | infj pinterest board: HERE

aesthetic

the haunting sound of a piano in a memory you can’t quite reach

a warm summer night spent watching fireflies dance among the trees

a bite of a fresh peach that leaves your mouth sticky and sweet

theme song: the 7th sense by nct u

hatred that will not go away and dreams that torture me the clock laughs at me, it does not give a single error i’m a mess, I don’t even know myself, my future is colored darkly i’m struggling, coloring this night even blacker in the irregularity that’s hard to understand there’s a story that’s deeply hidden eyes are being opened through this song your dreams are being read it’s being awakened from a deep sleep my seventh sense

positive & negative

affable ( adj ) : friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to.

languid ( adj ) : (of a person, manner, or gesture) displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; slow and relaxed.

versatile ( adj ) : able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities.

candid ( adj ) :  truthful and straightforward; frank.

then

it begins when he’s four years old - this obsession in him. his parents couldn’t have expected that sending their son to piano lessons we enact such a wild passion in their small, quiet boy. it was hard to pick out at first. often, they would pick their child up from his lesson to find his small chubby cheeks stained with tears. his parents assumed he was simply being stubborn about learning the instrument. they would see the kids dragged to the lessons bemoaning their distaste to it to their parents and would tell each other “our boy is simply quiet with his dislike for it. he has never been a talker.” and  would keep taking him week after week. the piano teacher couldn’t enlighten them to what was going through their child’s mind in terms of why he seemed to work himself up into such a state. she explained to them that he seemed attentive whenever she would teach him and it was only until he started to practice on his own that the tears would begin. neither parties could get a word out of the child though he often seemed to calm fairly quickly post lesson, spending the car ride home pressing his small fingers into his thighs as though there was an invisible piano etched into his skin. at one point, his parents seemed to give in a bit to their uncertainty of how their child was doing, offering to take him out of the lessons. the aggressive shake of the four years old’s head and high squeaky voice insisting “ no, no !! “ was quite the surprise. it wasn’t until a year later, when he began to find his voice that he admitted to his piano teacher that he just loved piano so much, he couldn’t stop himself from crying whenever he got to play. the teacher passed this along to the parents with much amusement and relief.

the passion the young boy had for the instrument didn’t falter over the years, even as his peers turned to other extracurriculars and sports rather than the piano. his parents opted to get him a keyboard to set up in his room on his seventh birthday, still wary about how long he would remain content with the lessons. they had never enjoyed the instrument with such conviction when they were forced to take lessons growing up. it was, at least, comforting to know that their quiet child still enjoyed spending time doing kid things, such as playing outside, playing pretend and colouring. he even showed an interest in baking, which he often did with his grandmother, much to the disbelief of his father. still, he was a good child and despite the wariness his father had of allowing him to indulge in his more feminine hobbies ( he was very much stuck in the throws of toxic masculinity ), his mother and grandparents supported him fully in whatever he wanted to do. so during the week, he would go to his piano lessons and play with the neighbourhood kids outside. then, on the weekends, he would spend time with his mother’s parents, often baking some sort of treat with his grandmother and listening to his grandfather tell tall tales of his own childhood.

as he got older, his skill in piano progressed more and more. between his lessons and the studious way he practiced, he ended up participating in a variation of different concerts. by the time he reached his early teens, he was playing with the adult orchestra with nine years of lessons and experience under his belt. it was an astounding thing- to hear him play. it was as if this lazy, beautiful human was gifted with talent from the gods, but he wasn’t. he worked for his ability. countless hours pressing fingers into plastic keys. perhaps that is why, for his sixteenth birthday, his grandparents and parents pulled together the money to buy him a grand piano. it was then, upon walking into the home to find the piano gracing the room that used to be the den of their house, that he discovered he hadn’t quite outgrown his habit of crying when overwhelmed with emotion.

between creating compositions, practicing, baking with his grandma, and the hell that was high school, he didn’t have much time for anything else. he didn’t mind. he was content with his work, both with the piano and at school. he had a tendency to overwork himself within the confines of his piano room and bedroom between the two. this led to him developing a bad reputation of being a lazy and privileged individual who got away with sleeping in class. his peers saw him as someone favoured by teachers, when in truth it was simply because he’d had multiple discussions previously with them about being awake in class. many of them had agreed to let it slide so long as his grades were maintained. it was a necessary thing to seek as if his parents found out they would no doubt put restrictions on how he was working. 

despite the peer isolation, which later led to a fair amount of social awkwardness on his part, he seemed to get along great with those he went up against in competitions. perhaps it was their shared love or enjoyment of the instrument. regardless, he created a group of friends outside of the school scene and, despite many of them being older than him, he was respected and treated much better than others his age treated him. 

the summer post high school graduation saw him doing something no one could have predicted ( aside from his grandfather who swears up and down that he saw this coming since he was seven years old ). he set out on a tour of major cities, performing alone on a stage with simply a piano, a mask, and a single spotlight. see, in the latter years of his teens, he really blew up thanks to the internet. he became known under a moniker the he’d used on his youtube channel, which he would post videos of his personal compositions and covers of songs on. it led to some artists and producers reaching out collaborate, which, in turn, increased his popularity.

( car accident tw ) life was good for five years. he got to do what he loved and loved what he did. of course, all good things must come to an end, even if that good thing felt like it is your entire life. at twenty three, the now grown quiet boy got into a car accident. a drunk driver hit the car his mother was driving with him in the passenger seat. his mother survived with a few bruised ribs and a broken arm while he came out of it with severe head trauma. head trauma that, out of all things, resulted in hearing loss. the cochlea and hearing nerves in his inner ears were damaged to the point that it sounded like a hush fell over the world. it was a difficult reality to swallow. 

( depression tw ) it was a loss like no other. he could no longer hear his piano. he could no longer get lost in the world his music created. depression hit him heavy and hard, dragging him under in a suffocating hold. seventeen years. he’d been playing piano for seventeen years and now that ability was severely disabled. he withdrew, cutting ties with almost all of his friends who were apart of the music world. his parents didn’t know what to do with their quiet child who seemed to become deathly silent after the accident. the whole family had signed up in solidarity to learn asl alongside him. the only ones who seemed to muster out any sort of reactions or responses from him were his grandparents who struggled to learn the new way of communicating. he tried hearing aids in addition, however, the damaged required a more intensive solution. cochlear implants. he refused despite the struggle he still faced with the hearing aids. his family tried to get him to go through with the surgery, however he was an adult and it was his decision to make. so he continued to allow himself to waste away in the distorted world around him. his father responded to his state with anger, while his mother grieved and worried over him from afar. his grandparents were around as much as they could be, reaching out with patient hands. it would take two years for him to reach back.

twenty-four and feeling stuck, exhausted, and just down right sick, the quiet boy finally inched out of the shell the accident had left him in. it starts with therapy, then medication, and ends with stepping into the kitchen with his grandmother again. his piano remained untouched, gathering dust in his home behind a locked door. no one brought it up, not yet, and instead slow steps were eventually taken. he spoke for the first time post asl and hearing aids to his mother. his voice raspy and barely there from disuse. he couldn’t hear himself, but his mother had burst into tears as his grandparents smiled at each other with watery eyes. it was progress. slow progress, but they were glad that he was finally taking steps forward. 

it was five months after his twenty-fourth birthday that he decided to undergo the cochlear implant surgery. he held no hope for what he’d be able to do with the upgrade. he didn’t allow himself to think of the abandoned piano or the possibility of getting back into music. no, instead, he simply kept his eyes forward as though the past no longer existed. instead, he spent his time baking with his grandmother, helping with the small business she’d started when he was in middle school. the surgery was a success, but the quiet man did not cry when he was finally able to hear with more clarity. there were no tears of overwhelming happiness, instead he’d simply smiled at his mother when she asked if he could hear her and said yes.

it took him six months to decide he needed to move. despite his family still living in the area he grew up in, he needed to get away. he wanted out of the city and eventually settled on moving to beauhart, a place suggested by one of the few friends he kept in touch with post-accident. the official transition happened three months ago where he moved out of the apartment he bought for himself at twenty and into his own home. it was a bit large for just himself and his mother worried that he would fall back into bad habits, but he loved the old styled place. it had a front porch and was painted a gentle yellow. the front was filled with a garden of flowers and bushes that wrapped around to the fence that encased the backyard. his father hated it, but his grandparents had approved when they first saw it, having travelled with his mother to help with the unpacking once everything had arrived. it held more warmth than his apartment had. perhaps it was because he was going to be living in it full time or the character / personality the house itself had. regardless, he felt settled for the first time in almost two years. no one mentioned the grand piano that had been placed in the third bedroom of the house.

three months post move found him working at the local bakery. the early mornings were tough, but the consistency was enjoyable for him. it helped, significantly, with his mental health. he promised his mother to call at least twice a week and his grandmother almost every other day to gossip. despite his awkwardness with social cues and languid nature, he managed to make connections with other residents. things seemed to be looking up, though there still remained that empty part of him and a door unopened.

extras

he is, for all intents and purposes, socially an idiot. he can’t pick up verbal cues up very well and often chooses to ignore them even if they are glaringly obvious. some kind find this incredibly annoying or be endeared by it. usually it’s the former, though avery has never minded. he has no desire to be liked by everyone and is more than happy to continue going by the beat of his own drum.

definitely often produces the wrong first impressions, especially with his looks. he takes care of himself, has been instilled with the habit, especially after how rough his twenty-third and fourth year was. so it’s not often he goes out looking like the drowned rat he enjoys being at home. it’s part of his routine that has helped him stay on track mentally.

definitely a momma’s boy, but would literally do anything for his grandparents. he is planning on having them visiting him as soon as he manages to get his guest room furnished and decorated. 

 if he wants to avoid something, he ignores it. it’s a terrible coping habit that manifests in small instances and larger situations. it’s very childish in many ways, but his therapist has yet to be able to break him out of it. 

is looking into adopting an animal, but is torn between what sort of animal. he has been looking at the humane society, but has yet been able to decide.

he is very indecisive about the smallest of things, but somehow manages to be able to make the bigger and more important decisions ??? 

has a very weird and varied taste in music.

 learned korean from his grandparents when he was younger but primarily speaks english or asl. 

often moves around his house without his hearing aids and keeps things quiet. a book nerd post accident. his favourite thing to do is spend the day on his porch swing reading.

he has been thinking of taking online business courses to learn more about running/owning his own business. he hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, not is planning to, but when he thinks about the future he’s wondering if owning his own bakery could be a possible option.

honestly a sleepy boy even though he has a perfectly reasonable sleep schedule ???

doesn’t know how to flirt. doesn’t even know how to hold a conversation with someone he has a crush on. is very awkward with them.

likes to try and make wacky things (baking wise) when bored then try and make you try it without any forewarning. 

is actually pretty good at making elaborate cakes and frosting designs. does cake commissions on the side for birthdays, in fact.

gets lost really easily. its been three months and he still sometimes forgets where to turn when driving home.

will steal your pet if you leave him alone with them ( not literally ).

is terrible at texting and is the type of person to call you to have a conversation. this is mostly because he’s too lazy to text.

enjoys memes and quotes them sarcastically, sometimes when it’s definitely not appropriate.

has a habit of staring without meaning too. this could either be off into space or actually at someone. he doesn’t necessarily mean to do it. at times it’s a case of dissociation and others it’s simply him having no common sense and/or is blatant day dreaming.

will not ride as a passenger in a car. he’s been able to drive again post implants but the trauma of the accident has caused him a real fear of being someone else’s passenger. 

sometimes, without him realizing it, he’ll mime playing the piano. the habit of pressing his fingers into invisible keys too engrained to erase. he attempts to avoid music a lot, especially classical. it’s somewhat impossible to do at work and outside of his home. at times, he gives in to his desire to try and hear it the way he used to and will blast the music until he can feel the base thrumming in his veins. it’s as detoxing as it is frustrating. as much as he can hear, it will never be like it used to be for him.

if you read all of this i applaud you. tell me your favourite colour, animal, and/or food and then we can plot C:<

[fightmeyeats]

Wrath Month: Probably Not Gonna Calm Down

I feel very frustrated by @taylorswift​’s “You Need to Calm Down” (currently “#3 On Trending” on youtube). This is not a particularly hot take.

Corporate pride tends to be highly contested in general: on the one hand, some argue that it's helpful to LGBT+ youth to see themselves represented in the hegemony and suggest that maybe it’s better that corporations are courting LGBT+ dollars over the money of homophobes; on the other, normalization (especially normalization through capitalist/corporate interests) has historically been complicit in the further marginalization of many queer folks--especially trans women of color. To some, “You Need to Calm Down” is simply one example of corporate pride, and therefore represents the same potential for an ambiguous reading. Personally, I have tried to imagine whether this song would have meant anything useful to me as a closeted queer teen; I remember looking desperately for queer themes in “straight” music, and I remember being slightly older (18, maybe?) watching Hayley Kiyoko’s “Girls like Girls” on a loop and how much my first exposure to actually queer music produced by actually queer artists meant to me, and I don’t think even that version of me would have felt connected to Taylor Swift’s attempt to reconcile her experience as a celebrity who has literally capitalized off of internet drama to the harassment queer folks experience daily for existing as themselves.

The Onion’s article “Taylor Swift Inspires Teen To Come Out As Straight Woman Needing To Be At Center Of Gay Rights Narrative” does a great job of simplifying why exactly this video and song is so exhausting to me and many other LGBTQ+ folks: the author argues that Taylor Swift uses “LGBTQ iconography to advance her career” and that, rather than letting people speak for themselves and control their own narratives, she’s making Pride Month about herself. The Atlantic and Vox both have run more in-depth articles breaking down the multitude of reasons why this song is deservedly coming under fire, which I highly recommend reading.

One counter argument I’ve seen here and there is that Taylor Swift is actually not a straight woman centering a gay rights narrative around herself--now that she’s said the word “gay” in a non-negative way in a song, its only a matter of time before she comes out! So one of the things I want to emphasize here is that while I personally don’t believe she’s queer (and per Swift’s own tumblr post explaining why she didn’t kiss Katy Perry in the music video where she says “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn’t needs to calm down. It costs zero dollars to not step on our gowns.” she doesn’t seem to anticipate coming out either), regardless of whether or not she turns out not to be straight, this song and its lyrics are appropriating LGBTQ iconography to advance her career, and Swift is using queer folks as accessories to perform “wokeness” and draw parallels between herself and actual marginalized communities for her own gain. She may end the music video with directions to sign her petition for Senate support of the Equality Act, but the links in the song description are all promotion for her song, her merch, and her social media accounts. She does not even follow through on the optics of social justice.

The main way I want to trace this argument is through her fundamental misunderstanding and, more significantly, misrepresentation of what homophobia is.Throughout the song/music video Swift is consistently trying to render compatible her own supposed experiences with being bullied/criticized on the internet to the violence of homophobia which is, quite frankly, fucking wild. She sings: “Say it in the street, that's a knock-out / But you say it in a Tweet, that's a cop-out.” What seems to be the intended interpretation of this line is that negative interactions online are cowardly, because people are “hiding” behind usernames and icons, rather than being “brave” enough to offer direct criticism and publicly/visibly own their words; I am not going to go into the potentials of this line of conversation, because I do think in another context (and said by other people) real conversations about the potentials and pitfalls of online culture in regards to purity/call-out culture, social activism/organizing, and bullying can be and are already being had. What I want to point out here is the cognitive dissonance: who can say anything in the street to someone as rich, privileged, and insulated as Taylor Swift? If Swift only accepts criticism delivered in person, she doesn’t accept criticism and she might as well own up to that. And when she is trying to tie this into a commentary on homophobia, maybe she should have considered for two seconds the kind of actual danger queer folks (especially trans and gender non-conforming) are actually in on the streets every day while she’s in a mansion/penthouse apartment (and to that extent, the gentrified trailer park imagery didn’t sit to well with me either, but I’ll get into the discussion of class later on). Queer folks really are getting knocked-out in the streets (1, 2, 3). Furthermore, in her desperate attempt to center her psuedo-discourse on homophobia and queer liberation around herself, she sings the lines: “But I've learned a lesson that stressin' and obsessin' / 'bout somebody else is no fun / And snakes and stones never broke my bones”. I’m not really surprised that it doesn’t “break her bones,” given how successfully she has marketed and monetized her feuds and her own victimhood; this is just a newnother rebranding of said victimized persona, and even though she may not be bothered, there are real stakes to it beyond the “lack of fun”.

So let’s get into it. As I said before, Swift is dangerously misrepresenting what homophobia is and what it looks like, namely through the use of a progress “wrong side of history” narrative. The lines run “Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?...Sunshine on the street at the parade / But you would rather be in the dark ages” and the music video shows what Kornhaber, writing for The Atlantic, aptly describes as “an unwashed-looking mob” holding childish signs with misspellings and the all-time classic “Adam + Eve Not Adam + Steve.” Korhnaber points out the more common use of “God Hates Fags” signs; personally, I’ve also seen a lot of the “HolyBible” “After Death, the Judgement” signs. In Swift’s narrative, homophobia looks like the obvious, regressive, primitive villain; the already defeated. Perhaps worse, it looks like the rural poor, against the backdrop of rich queer celebrities. This narrative works to render invisible the poor-and-queer, and it undermines the real dangers homophobic violence poses by imagining homophobia has already lost. Imagining homophobia as thirteen unwashed rural poor people who can’t spell the word “moron” obscures the reality that there are also the Mike Pences and the Philip Anschutzs and the laundry list of other rich and connected anti-LGBT politicians, activists, and donors who have very real effects on the lives of the disabled, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ folks, the poor, immigrants, and all the intersections thereof. This also ties into the way Swift puts forward the solution “You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace / And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate.” As meaningless as these lines are overall, the insinuation that there is a “peace” that we can be “restored” to that would benefit the marginalized and oppressed is ridiculous and harmful, and again misrepresents the problem. Moreover, it suggests the problem could be understood as one of bodily discipline: if homophobes “controlled” themselves better, didn’t scream so much, there wouldn’t be a problem--this gets us back to the problematics of representing homophobia as exclusively the undisciplined poor, rather than the rich and connected. It also leaves room for the potential insinuation that everybody who is angry on the internet needs to calm down; I’ve seen a lot of jokes that this Pride Month, the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, we’re returning to our rebel roots and also celebrating Wrath. I certainly don’t plan to calm down, thanks anyway, Taylor. 

In this same vein lets consider the much quoted line: “'Cause shade never made anybody less gay”. This was the first line I heard from the song, and my immediate problem with it was, as Korhnaber also points out, that throwing shade comes from queer communities of color, and “there are many ways to describe a parent who disowns a trans kid, or a lawmaker who tries to nullify same-sex marriages, or a church member who crashes a gay soldier’s funeral. Shady isn’t one.”

Swift hides from potential criticism/backlash behind a psuedo-feminist “female solidarity” with lines such as: “And we see you over there on the internet / Comparing all the girls who are killing it / But we figured you out / We all know now we all got crowns.” While there certainly are people who try to pit women against each other on the internet, again this is something which Taylor Swift has directly utilized multiple times to make herself money. I’m glad celebrities know they’ve all got crowns, but in what world does this benefit the non-rich and famous?

[theamberfang]

Got another impulse to write about ARCA, so I’m just getting into it before I spend all of the inspired energy just thinking about it while pacing my room.

I’m specifically thinking about one of the main characters, whose work-in-progress name is Sharla—there’s a bit of an anecdote about how I got to that name, but I don’t feel like retelling that right now. What I do want to write about is her backstory.

Where I’ve had it for a while is that she comes from a powerful family—political power and/or wealth—but she ended up with the “technology allergy”. (I’ve never really settled on a name for it; I’ll get to that some other time.) This condition reflects very poorly on people socially, so the family did something like, faked her death and just sent her away to some isolated apartment in the city.

Tonight I’ve been rethinking it a bit. First, while it could be neat for her to come from a powerful family, that’s not really necessary with the story I have in mind. Second, rather than it being solely her family that’s practically exiling her, there could be some internalized shame and fear about it from Sharla herself. These things are because I’m drawing on a lot of my own experiences as a trans person, and these changes would bring things closer to things I know.

Backing things up a bit, Sharla wasn’t born with the “tech-sickness”—few, if any, are. It’s something that manifests at around puberty. Going back to the fantastical roots of my worldbuilding, this would also be when people could start developing magical ability—if only they didn’t live in an environment that actively inhibited it. So yeah, Sharla is fine as a young child, but as she’s approaching/getting into her teen years, she starts showing the symptoms (something I’m sure to get into some other time). As a parallel to my own experiences, this all approximately lines up with when I began questioning my own gender (though its something I can only recognize retroactively).

Instead of some weird sort of exile, Sharla’s largely ends up isolating on her own: for the practical dangers of exposing herself to the technology that can harm her, but also the shame of it—because it really is stigmatized in this world. Hmm, from this point, it would probably be better to look at it as another parallel I have in mind when thinking about this “tech-sickness”: mental illness. Both greatly impact one’s ability to live and work, are largely invisible, and are highly stigmatized. There would also be similarities to chronic physical illnesses and physical disabilities.

It’s not only Sharla isolating herself, though. Her family also subtly “hide” her. Like, they steer conversations away from talking about her. Make up excuses about why she never seems to leave the house anymore. And when interacting with Sharla herself, they’re unsure of how to talk to her. In part it’s just the way she’s isolating herself, but there’s also their own complicated feelings about her condition: from not knowing how to help her and struggling with the internalized stigma.

About where I want to begin the story, Sharla and her family manage to get her an apartment in a low-tech district of the city where people with her condition live. It is also, unsurprisingly, a poor district.

Hmm, something is still a bit off when it comes to paralleling my own experiences. I guess it doesn’t have to, but the thing is that I only fully realized that I was trans—and even that I was genuinely depressed and needed help—in my early-mid twenties. While I retroactively can recognize it began much earlier, that was when it really came together. So an addition to this backstory could be that Sharla pushed through her teenage years despite feeling ill, with Sharla herself doing her best to hide her struggles because of the trouble it would cause if she let it be known. Maybe she lets on here and there that she’s sick, but she leads her family on to think its some other illness. Maybe her family even suspects that something is wrong, but they don’t want to bring it up themselves.

Honestly, maybe all of this could just be story instead of backstory, but its not really what I’m interested in writing about. What I really want to write about is her learning about radical ideas, anarchism, and that sort of stuff: the sorts of things that I’m in the process of learning about myself. She can serve as a vehicle for me to explore some of these ideas, especially the riskier stuff that I wouldn’t write about doing myself (if I were to engage in such behavior, hypothetically).

Actually, I guess now is a good enough time to write about her origin of her current name: basically, it’s the result of transforming “Sherlock”, because one of my main inspirations is a character from a fan-fiction that was based on Sherlock Holmes. (I’ve never read Doyle’s works myself; not yet at least.) Some of my early ideas were for her to be something like... a socially and/or emotionally intelligent version of Sherlock, solving “mysteries” and problems in her community just by being someone that everyone felt comfortable opening up to, using that information to pinpoint what’s really at the core of problems and addressing them directly.

And maybe some of that can be there, but maybe that’s more of her goal; because I’m certainly not there myself. Actually, something I’ve had in mind is shifting a lot of that stuff to another character—or even a collection of characters—that Sharla can learn from.

That’s about all I have for now. A lot of it was retreading things I’ve written about before, but there’s some new stuff this time.

[david-lynch-ate-my-son]

I love that version of him too. But he also can be quite playful and sweet. Darn. I mean, your writing is amazing and I think however you choose to capture him will be wonderful. How do you personally portray him? And how does that fit into your own story? It is def importabt to keep canon into account but which facets do you wanna highlight? What drew you to him as a character initially? And what would you like to say in writing this?

there are a few things i’m kind of interested in with bucky.1. i’m always thinking about the way writers portray bucky’s relationship with his arm.  there’s a lot of “this thing is monstrous and it made me a monster, and because of this i hate it,” which i think is really interesting. but also, as far as we’ve seen, the prosthetic itself is not particularly burdensome or uncomfortable. in fact, it’s incredibly strong, to the point where it’s almost an asset. i also think that focusing bucky’s traumas on the prosthetic itself may be a little essentializing, and kind of problematic for disability representation?i think what bucky would probably find more monstrous isn’t the arm itself, but the idea that it is a physical artifact of his loss of bodily autonomy, right? like i would like to see him spending time coming to terms with the idea that the only thing on earth that is meant to 100% belong to you is your body--it’s like a sacred kind of belonging--and to have that taken away is something existentially horrific. the idea that the perceived boundaries that exist in the world between what is YOURS and what can be taken from you do not actually exist at all.a friend of mine at work has a prosthetic leg, and has had one since a car accident in her teens, and we talk about bucky’s portrayal a lot. she talks about how her own prosthetic can be painful--it’s not the most expensive thing on the market, and she deals a lot with chafing and soreness. and she definitely walks with a pronounced limp, which she’s mentioned before can make her feel awkward or too-visible. and we were talking about CA: WS the other day, and she said something along the lines that bucky should count himself lucky that he apparently has such advanced technology that his arm is able to move naturally, and doesn’t seem to cause a lot of physical pain. that, so long as he’s wearing a sleeve and a glove, his disability is invisible, whereas hers isn’t.so i was thinking about playing around with the OFC also having a prosthetic limb, but something cheap that her insurance could cover, and kind of pointing out to bucky how different their experiences are in that way.2. i’m also interested in the idea that, when a person undergoes trauma, sometimes the loved ones around them think healing = becoming the same person you were before the trauma.like if you speak to enough therapists and meditate enough, you will become the exact person you used to be. and how that way of thinking can be damaging for people processing trauma, because they won’t recognize their own progress if it doesn’t look like reverting back to an older version of themselves.so i enjoy the elements of playful, sarcastic, bucky, but i imagine that, in the moments where he’s letting himself be unguarded and silly, there’s always an element of searching or his old self. and maybe he has to unlearn this idea that he ever CAN become his old self. and that’s not a bad thing.3. i’m way more fascinated in developing an OFC for the bucky fic--i always find i spend a ton more time on my female characters, because i want them to be real and flawed.i’m trying to figure out if i want to attempt to set the story in the yet-unknown Falcon and Winter Soldier universe, wherein the main character is reluctantly recruited by Sam to work with him and Buck in a “his girl Friday” kind of capacity. in this case, she would be a former-SHIELD agent who ‘retired” after the Hydra-SHIELD schism in CA: WS (this would also set the story up for her to have lost a limb in the battle). i imagine that, post-SHIELD, she decided to find nice, calm, non-assassin related work as an IT specialist for a large company, where she spends all day convincing people with names like Janice and Teddy that “no, you’re not being hacked. you’re typing on a Google doc that is in the team drive, which means everyone has access to it. no--i know there are words popping up on your screen even though you’re not typing. like i said, you’re using Google docs and--oh fuck it. yeah, i’ll get rid of the hacker.”4. i’m also thinking about some aspects of the romantic relationship that i think it’s important to highlight. in particular, i want to emphasize the idea that loving someone with trauma does not mean that your job is to “fix” them. that a lot of times the best thing you can do is be there--just be there--while the other person figures out how to live day-to-day.i’m also thinking about how to love someone who is angry, because i’m a fan of creating angry OFCs. in my head, my OFC is still coming to terms with her own disability, and is in the process of grieving how much her life has changed since the events of CA: WS--and how a lot of processing grief is anger. idk....that’s all i had to say about that. i have more notes written, and plot points mapped out, but i’m still at the stage where i could scrap everything and start over, or just dive in and start writing.

[dazzlingzebraspoonie]

Hello, my name is Renee Toussel and this is the hardest thing I have ever done. I never thought I would find myself on the other side of fundraising but here I am and below is my story of Invisible Illness. I have the very rare and life long sentence of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome hypermobility type, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, Fibromyalgia, advanced early onset osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, Tarlov Cyst Disease, Depression, Anxiety and Panic disorder. I know it sounds like alot but it's all part of the hEDS. I am unable to work due to daily joint dislocations, chronic pain, Fatigue, shortness of breath, syncope, blacking out, memory loss, brain Fog and severe social anxiety. I was born with this rare disease and all through my childhood and teens, I was labeled as double jointed and clumsy. I started having back, neck and hip pain in my late teens /early twenties after my first child was born then my second. In my late twenties, I barely survived my right ovary rupturing and then the left ruptured in my mid thirties after my third child was born, , again, nearly killing me. From there, I began immediate menopause and that's when things began to get really bad. I noticed that I was having hearing loss and was diagnosed with Meneirs Disease. My vision was rapidly changing and not for the better. I started having debilitating lower back pain to the point of struggling to bend or walk. Then in my early forties, my ligaments and tissues started to easily tear resulting in two right knee surgeries within two years and my Sacral joints began dislocating multiple times a day. My shoulders, ankles and knees were dislocating randomly too. In June of last year I had to have my left shoulder repaired because I completely tore and released the labrum when my shoulder dislocated. In August of last year I had to have a Sacrocolpopexy because all of my pelvic organs had completely torn and fallen. I am 52 now and in the process of having both knees evaluated for yet more surgery. After that, my orthopedic and I will begin working to solve some of the lower back pain problems. It won't be easy as I have twelve disc bulges, and couple of tears along with the severe osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, levoscoliosis and multiple Sacral Tarlov Cysts. Unfortunately, I will never get better. These all all progressive diseases. I am at the point now of needing a cane for walking assistance and will eventually be stuck in a wheelchair. I am mostly homebound, only going out to Dr's appointments and an occasional trip to the grocery store. I am fighting for disability but it's a long road and I need financial help with gas, medical, food and necessities for daily survival. Please help. Every dollar makes a difference! Your donation will potentially save my life! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my story. Please share XOXO

[deniscollins]

Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain

Do you or your coworkers look at your smartphone more than 52 times a day (which is the national average)? Do you or your co-workers need to unhook your brain from the harmful routines it has adopted around cell phone use? If yes, how can this problem be addressed to improve the relationship they have with their cell phones?

My name is Kevin, and I have a phone problem.

And if you’re anything like me — and the statistics suggest you probably are, at least where smartphones are concerned — you have one, too.

I don’t love referring to what we have as an “addiction.” That seems too sterile and clinical to describe what’s happening to our brains in the smartphone era. Unlike alcohol or opioids, phones aren’t an addictive substance so much as a species-level environmental shock. We might someday evolve the correct biological hardware to live in harmony with portable supercomputers that satisfy our every need and connect us to infinite amounts of stimulation. But for most of us, it hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve been a heavy phone user for my entire adult life. But sometime last year, I crossed the invisible line into problem territory. My symptoms were all the typical ones: I found myself incapable of reading books, watching full-length movies or having long uninterrupted conversations. Social media made me angry and anxious, and even the digital spaces I once found soothing (group texts, podcasts, YouTube k-holes) weren’t helping. I tried various tricks to curb my usage, like deleting Twitter every weekend, turning my screen grayscale and installing app-blockers. But I always relapsed.

Eventually, in late December, I decided that enough was enough. I called Catherine Price, a science journalist and the author of “How to Break Up With Your Phone,” a 30-day guide to eliminating bad phone habits. And I begged her for help.

Mercifully, she agreed to be my phone coach for the month of January, and walk me through her plan, step by step. Together, we would build a healthy relationship with my phone, and try to unbreak my brain.

‘A Bit Horrifying’

I confess that entering phone rehab feels clichéd, like getting really into healing crystals or Peloton. Digital wellness is a budding industry these days, with loads of self-help gurus offering miracle cures for screen addiction. Some of those solutions involve new devices — such as the “Light Phone,” a device with an extremely limited feature set that is meant to wean users off time-sucking apps. Others focus on cutting out screens entirely for weeks on end. You can now buy $299 “digital detox” packages at luxury hotels or join the “digital sabbath”movement, whose adherents vow to spend one day a week using no technology at all.

Thankfully, Catherine’s plan is more practical. I’m a tech columnist, and while I don’t begrudge anyone for trying more extreme forms of disconnection, my job prevents me from going cold turkey.

Instead, her program focuses on addressing the root causes of phone addiction, including the emotional triggers that cause you to reach for your phone in the first place. The point isn’t to get you off the internet, or even off social media — you’re still allowed to use Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms on a desktop or laptop, and there’s no hard-and-fast time limit. It’s simply about unhooking your brain from the harmful routines it has adopted around this particular device, and hooking it to better things.

When we started, I sent her my screen time statistics, which showed that I had spent 5 hours and 37 minutes on my phone that day, and picked it up 101 times — roughly twice as many as the average American.

“That is frankly insane and makes me want to die,” I wrote to her.

“I will admit that those numbers are a bit horrifying,” she replied.

Catherine encouraged me to set up mental speed bumps so that I would be forced to think for a second before engaging with my phone. I put a rubber band around the device, for example, and changed my lock screen to one that showed three questions to ask myself every time I unlocked my phone: “What for? Why now? What else?”

For the rest of the week, I became acutely aware of the bizarre phone habits I’d developed. I noticed that I reach for my phone every time I brush my teeth or step outside the front door of my apartment building, and that, for some pathological reason, I always check my email during the three-second window between when I insert my credit card into a chip reader at a store and when the card is accepted.

Mostly, I became aware of how profoundly uncomfortable I am with stillness. For years, I’ve used my phone every time I’ve had a spare moment in an elevator or a boring meeting. I listen to podcasts and write emails on the subway. I watch YouTube videos while folding laundry. I even use an app to pretend to meditate.

If I was going to repair my brain, I needed to practice doing nothing. So during my morning walk to the office, I looked up at the buildings around me, spotting architectural details I’d never noticed before. On the subway, I kept my phone in my pocket and people-watched — noticing the nattily dressed man in the yellow hat, the teens eating hot Takis and laughing, the kid with Velcro shoes. When a friend ran late for our lunch, I sat still and stared out the window instead of checking Twitter.

It’s an unnerving sensation, being alone with your thoughts in the year 2019. Catherine had warned me that I might feel existential malaise when I wasn’t distracting myself with my phone. She also said paying more attention to my surroundings would make me realize how many other people used their phones to cope with boredom and anxiety.

“I compare it to seeing a family member naked,” she said. “Once you look around the elevator and see the zombies checking their phones, you can’t unsee it.”

Withdrawal Sets In

Next, I gave my phone the Marie Kondo treatment — looking at all my apps and keeping the ones that sparked joy and contributed to healthy habits and tossing those that didn’t.

For me, that meant deleting Twitter, Facebook and all other social media apps, along with news apps and games. I kept messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal, and non-distracting utilities like cooking and navigation apps. I pruned my home screen to just the essentials: calendar, email and password manager. And I disabled push notifications for everything other than phone calls and messages from a preset list of people that included my editor, my wife and a handful of close friends.

Where you keep your phone is also important. Studies have shownthat people who don’t charge their phones in their bedrooms are significantly happier than those who do. Catherine charges her phone in a closet; for me, she recommended a locking mini-safe. I bought one and started storing my phone inside, which simultaneously reduced my nighttime usage and made me feel like I was guarding the queen’s jewels.

And I pursued activities that could replace my phone habit. On the recommendation of my colleague Farhad Manjoo, I signed up for pottery classes. As it turned out, pottery makes a perfect phone substitute. It’s manually challenging and demands concentration for hours on end. It gets your hands dirty, too, which is a good deterrent to fiddling with expensive electronics.

After a pottery class, I updated my wife on my progress. I told her that while it felt great to disconnect, I still worried that I was missing something important. I liked having a constant stream of news at my fingertips, and I wanted to do more of the things I actually like about social media, like keeping tabs on my friends’ babies and maintaining ambient Kardashian awareness.

“I’m sad that you’re having trouble with this,” she said, “because it’s been great for me.”

She explained that since my phone detox started, I’d been more present and attentive at home. I spent more time listening to her, and less time distractedly nodding and mumbling while checking my inbox or tapping out tweets.

Psychologists have a name for this: “phubbing,” or snubbing a person in favor of your phone. Studies have shown that excessive phubbing decreases relationship satisfaction and contributes to feelings of depression and alienation.

For years, I’ve justified my phubbing by treating it as a professional necessity. Isn’t it my job to know when news happens? Won’t I be neglecting my duties if it takes me an extra hour to learn that Jeff Bezos is getting divorced, or another YouTuber did something racist?

I put this question to Catherine, who reassured me that I wasn’t jeopardizing my career by being slightly later to the news. She reminded me that I’d been happier since I dialed down my screen time, and she gently encouraged me to focus on the other side of the cost-benefit analysis.

“Think of the bigger picture of what you’re getting by not being on Twitter all the time.”

A Thoreau Cleansing

The biggest test came with a “trial separation” — a 48-hour period during which I wasn’t allowed to use my phone or any other digital device. (Catherine’s program calls for a 24-hour separation, but I decided to try a more hard-core version.)

I had dreaded this idea at the outset, but when the weekend actually arrived, I got giddy with excitement. I rented an off-the-grid Airbnb in the Catskills, warned my editor that I’d be offline for the weekend and took off.

A phone-free weekend involved some complications. Without Google Maps, I got lost and had to pull over for directions. Without Yelp, I had trouble finding open restaurants.

But mostly, it was great. For two solid days, I basked in 19th-century leisure, feeling my nerves softening and my attention span stretching back out. I read books. I did the crossword puzzle. I lit a fire and looked at the stars. I felt like Thoreau, if Thoreau periodically wondered what was happening on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram story.

I also felt twinges of anger — at myself, for missing out on this feeling of restorative boredom for so many years; at the engineers in Silicon Valley who spend their days profitably exploiting our cognitive weaknesses; at the entire phone-industrial complex that has convinced us that a six-inch glass-and-steel rectangle is the ideal conduit for worldly experiences.

Sadly, there is no way to talk about the benefits of digital disconnection without sounding like a Goop subscriber or a neo-Luddite. Performative wellness is obnoxious, as is reflexive technophobia.

But I cannot stress enough that under the right conditions, spending an entire weekend without a phone in your immediate vicinity is incredible. You have to try it.

Rewired and Renewed

Allow me a bit of bragging: Over the course of 30 days, my average daily phone time, as measured by the iPhone’s built-in screen time tracker, has dwindled from around five hours to just over an hour. I now pick up my phone only about 20 times a day, down from more than 100. I still use my phone for email and texting — and I’m still using my laptop plenty — but I don’t itch for social media, and I often go hours without so much as a peek at any screen.

In one of our conversations, I asked Catherine if she worried that I would relapse. She said it was possible, given the addictive properties of phones and the likelihood that they’ll only keep getting more essential. But she said that as long as I remained aware of my relationship with my phone, and continued to notice when and how I used it, I’d have gotten something valuable.

“Your life is what you pay attention to,” she said. “If you want to spend it on video games or Twitter, that’s your business. But it should be a conscious choice.”

One of the most unexpected benefits of this program is that by getting some emotional distance from my phone, I’ve started to appreciate it again. I keep thinking: Right here, in my pocket, is a device that can summon food, cars and millions of other consumer goods to my door. I can talk with everyone I’ve ever met, create and store a photographic record of my entire life, and tap into the entire corpus of human knowledge with a few swipes.

Steve Jobs wasn’t exaggerating when he described the iPhone as a kind of magical object, and it’s truly wild that in the span of a few years, we’ve managed to turn these amazing talismanic tools into stress-inducing albatrosses. It’s as if scientists had invented a pill that gave us the ability to fly, only to find out that it also gave us dementia.

But there is a way out. I haven’t taken an M.R.I. or undergone a psychiatric evaluation, but I’d bet that something fundamental has shifted inside my brain in the past month. A few weeks ago, the world on my phone seemed more compelling than the offline world — more colorful, faster-moving and with a bigger scope of rewards.

I still love that world, and probably always will. But now, the physical world excites me, too — the one that has room for boredom, idle hands and space for thinking. I no longer feel phantom buzzes in my pocket or have dreams about checking my Twitter replies. I look people in the eye and listen when they talk. I ride the elevator empty-handed. And when I get sucked into my phone, I notice and self-correct.

It’s not a full recovery, and I���ll have to stay vigilant. But for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel like a human again.

[dazzlingzebraspoonie]

Hello, my name is Renee Toussel and this is the hardest thing I have ever done. I never thought I would find myself on the other side of fundraising but here I am and below is my story of Invisible Illness. I have the very rare and life long sentence of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome hypermobility type, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, Fibromyalgia, advanced early onset osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, Tarlov Cyst Disease, Depression, Anxiety and Panic disorder. I know it sounds like alot but it's all part of the hEDS. I am unable to work due to daily joint dislocations, chronic pain, Fatigue, shortness of breath, syncope, blacking out, memory loss, brain Fog and severe social anxiety. I was born with this rare disease and all through my childhood and teens, I was labeled as double jointed and clumsy. I started having back, neck and hip pain in my late teens /early twenties after my first child was born then my second. In my late twenties, I barely survived my right ovary rupturing and then the left ruptured in my mid thirties after my third child was born, , again, nearly killing me. From there, I began immediate menopause and that's when things began to get really bad. I noticed that I was having hearing loss and was diagnosed with Meneirs Disease. My vision was rapidly changing and not for the better. I started having debilitating lower back pain to the point of struggling to bend or walk. Then in my early forties, my ligaments and tissues started to easily tear resulting in two right knee surgeries within two years and my Sacral joints began dislocating multiple times a day. My shoulders, ankles and knees were dislocating randomly too. In June of last year I had to have my left shoulder repaired because I completely tore and released the labrum when my shoulder dislocated. In August of last year I had to have a Sacrocolpopexy because all of my pelvic organs had completely torn and fallen. I am 52 now and in the process of having both knees evaluated for yet more surgery. After that, my orthopedic and I will begin working to solve some of the lower back pain problems. It won't be easy as I have twelve disc bulges, and couple of tears along with the severe osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, levoscoliosis and multiple Sacral Tarlov Cysts. Unfortunately, I will never get better. These all all progressive diseases. I am at the point now of needing a cane for walking assistance and will eventually be stuck in a wheelchair. I am mostly homebound, only going out to Dr's appointments and an occasional trip to the grocery store. I am fighting for disability but it's a long road and I need financial help with gas, medical, food and necessities for daily survival. Please help. Every dollar makes a difference! Your donation will potentially save my life! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my story. Please share XOXO

[dazzlingzebraspoonie]

Hello, my name is Renee Toussel and this is the hardest thing I have ever done. I never thought I would find myself on the other side of fundraising but here I am and below is my story of Invisible Illness. I have the very rare and life long sentence of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome hypermobility type, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, Fibromyalgia, advanced early onset osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, Tarlov Cyst Disease, Depression, Anxiety and Panic disorder. I know it sounds like alot but it's all part of the hEDS. I am unable to work due to daily joint dislocations, chronic pain, Fatigue, shortness of breath, syncope, blacking out, memory loss, brain Fog and severe social anxiety. I was born with this rare disease and all through my childhood and teens, I was labeled as double jointed and clumsy. I started having back, neck and hip pain in my late teens /early twenties after my first child was born then my second. In my late twenties, I barely survived my right ovary rupturing and then the left ruptured in my mid thirties after my third child was born, , again, nearly killing me. From there, I began immediate menopause and that's when things began to get really bad. I noticed that I was having hearing loss and was diagnosed with Meneirs Disease. My vision was rapidly changing and not for the better. I started having debilitating lower back pain to the point of struggling to bend or walk. Then in my early forties, my ligaments and tissues started to easily tear resulting in two right knee surgeries within two years and my Sacral joints began dislocating multiple times a day. My shoulders, ankles and knees were dislocating randomly too. In June of last year I had to have my left shoulder repaired because I completely tore and released the labrum when my shoulder dislocated. In August of last year I had to have a Sacrocolpopexy because all of my pelvic organs had completely torn and fallen. I am 52 now and in the process of having both knees evaluated for yet more surgery. After that, my orthopedic and I will begin working to solve some of the lower back pain problems. It won't be easy as I have twelve disc bulges, and couple of tears along with the severe osteoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease, levoscoliosis and multiple Sacral Tarlov Cysts. Unfortunately, I will never get better. These all all progressive diseases. I am at the point now of needing a cane for walking assistance and will eventually be stuck in a wheelchair. I am mostly homebound, only going out to Dr's appointments and an occasional trip to the grocery store. I am fighting for disability but it's a long road and I need financial help with gas, medical, food and necessities for daily survival. Please help. Every dollar makes a difference! Your donation will potentially save my life! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my story! XX 💜