#about how their child is not taking basic measures to function as an adult

[tacthescribbler]

I hate complaining in public (in this case, on my blog where strangers on the internet can see it), but I need someone (other than my close friends who hear me bitch about this all the time) to know how much I need my sibling to move out.

I am a solitary person. They were only supposed to live with me "for a few months," to quote their own plans.

They have been living with me for over 5 years.

There are a myriad other issues I have, but this is what I'm frustrated with at this moment.

It's dumb. Cost of living is high. Groceries cost too much. 5 years isn't even that long, in the grand scheme of things. I should be happy that my sibling isn't on the street with no roof over their head.

But in this moment, there is nothing I want more than:

To rearrange my apartment back to the way I had it before my sibling moved in.

To not have the presence of another human being pervading my space for all hours of the time that my sibling is not at work

To not be forced to leave my home to get any time/space to myself

To be able to do things without feeling like I'm always being heard/watched

To know that when I put my dishes away, they go where they belong and won't shift places every time they get washed

My sibling flew to visit our parents a few years ago. They were gone for a month. The moment they left the apartment, I felt so much freer and happier. My depressive symptoms practically evaporated.

I'm sorry I feel this way, but I'm also having strong feelings and I'm frustrated.

[bylertruther]

no cause the last anón is so right. I scrapped a 50k byler fic because I actually got worried people might call me weird or a freak like they do others. I was on twitter when the whole fiasco went down and it pissed me off but if you even tried to speak there were so many accounts saying you were “speaking over minors” and calling you a predator/pedophile. So many of my moots deactivated bc of the hate- they eventually started attacking people for their ages alone saying it was weird that 20 year olds theorized and talked about byler. Literally word for word “you’re a freak if you’re 20 and read byler fics. Why are you fantasizing about two little 14 year old boys making out” if they would take a step back and think that maybe people are so interested in this relationship is bc they see their younger selves in these two characters then maybe they wouldn’t say such stupid shit. Anyway sorry for ranting I just have been fuming since that whole thing happened. I just wish they would take a step back and stop and think about why they see a kiss between two boys written and immediately shout creep.

oh no, anon! i'm so sorry to hear about your fic & your experience. i hope you feel comfortable enough to post it one day, if you still want to. 🥺 and don't ever apologize for expressing yourself!

not to be a cunt, but i am a cunt, so, ahem. from the bottom of my heart... fuck them kids. 🫶 i literally do not give a single shit about any of the ""discourse"" they inflict on us all. "speaking over minors" why are you even speaking to begin with, huh? 🤨 why are you buzzing into an adult's space and picking a fight when a) literally no one fucking asked you to, and b) you're just going to cry "waaaaah but i'm a minorrr :(" as if you're somehow the victim in this situation after they dare to defend themselves against your serious and unsupported allegations? be normal or piss the fuck off and do your homework.

and why do people take them seriously? disregarding the fact that anyone of any age can be a shipper & the awful homophobia laced in such rhetoric...

this is the internet. no one owes you shit & the wild web will never, ever cater to you. you need to curate your own space and protect yourself. this is, like.. basic shit. like, bare-fucking-bones basic shit. it's not anyone else's responsibility but your own. they taught me that in school, my parents told me that, and also i have a functioning brain that can come to that conclusion, too. people need to stop pretending like what these people are asking for—which is your silence and your shame—is reasonable. it's not. content gets tagged, there are multiple extensions to blacklist any tags you don't like, some of it gets put behind a privacy wall, block buttons exist, many websites have filtering options, and so on and so forth. there are multiple measures people can take to both find things and avoid them. and a lot of the time, content is something you have to seek out yourself. so, if you don't like it, why did you click on it? why spend any time on it when you could've just backspaced? how is your ineptitude anyone else's problem?

also, people need to stop throwing the words pedophilia, pedophile, and predator around. you're being an insensitive jackass when you do that. someone writing about two fictional characters is not abusive scum of the fucking earth. you're watering those acts down and showcasing your ignorance for the world to see when you throw their names around carelessly. a child predator does awful, sinister, repulsive things to real life people who did not deserve that. someone writing a first kiss or practice kissing fic is not anywhere near that and i'm tired of people pretending like this is an okay thing to say or even think. just shut the fuck up and stop saying those words if you don't actually understand the gravity of what they mean.

another thing: a lot of these people aren't just kids. grown folk fall for the same shitty rhetoric, too. it's all just groupthink and herd mentality. no one wants to get attacked so they just repeat the same shit without thinking about it beyond "protecting" themselves (which is senseless as well because conditional acceptance is not true acceptance, but i digress). this fandom would be in a much better place if people were willing to stand their ground and defend their friends when this stuff happens. it gets worse and worse if you just turn a blind eye to it and fall in line. we're all waking up and finally seeing the consequences of that now.

of course, this doesn't really apply to when you're getting attacked by hundreds of people. that's... just shitty and hard and demoralizing. i'm not victim-blaming, because no one wants to be on the receiving end of that and i know that you can't control what others do.

my argument is that it gets to that point because the fandom as a whole just lets it slide by never holding the right people accountable for their actions. they allow the needless bullying to happen. they allow the rhetoric to get crazier and crazier. they allow people to get fucking crucified for shit that isn't even remotely inappropriate. they reblog posts they don't believe in because they don't want to be the odd one out and get accused of something by someone with more followers than them. it's just... we, as a whole, need to support each other more and put our foot down when shit like that starts happening.

it isn't normal. it isn't okay. it hasn't ever been okay.

like... i KNOW that you KNOW that it isn't weird for them to kiss, for people to want them to kiss, or for people to make them kiss in their creations. i KNOW that you KNOW that it isn't weird for anyone of any age to enjoy a love story of any kind. we know these things. some of us just pretend like we don't online for whatever fucking reason. and i don't get it! i don't get why they would do that and willingly allow this place to become worse for it. you don't get anything good out of that.

also, a lot of those people are being trolls. they get a kick out of attacking people as a group, because that's the only time they feel brave and the only way they get attention in life. they don't think before they say things, because they don't see you as a human being—you're just pixels on a greasy screen. they use catchy social justice lingo to make what they're saying sound like something you should support, but at the end of the day, they're literally just gussying up the same right-wing shit we've been subjected to for ages. it's regressive rhetoric that's clear to see once you've allowed yourself to see it.

like, i agree with you. i do. you're absolutely, undoubtedly right in what you say, but... i just can't bring myself to argue that, because it's in response to what was a senseless attack to begin with. and we shouldn't need to defend ourselves and our communities against what isn't true.

homophobia, bullying, and trolling are irrational, illogical pursuits and i can't stand the idea of treating them with any ounce of seriousness in this context. to apologize would be to accept their absurdity and validate their accusations—accusations we know in our heart of hearts to be incorrect and baseless. and i won't ever do that! i won't give them that satisfaction and i wish others wouldn't either.

they keep doing this, because they haven't met any opposition yet, because we keep acting like we have any reason at all to feel shame for wanting stories about people like us, about something as basic and universal as love and connection. they don't care about our reasons. they don't care about our defense of ourselves. it's not ever about us. this is their cry for attention, good or bad, at our expense and they need to be starved out already.

like.. this is just unsustainable. it's mind-boggling and i remember kicking and screaming about it months ago in what felt like an empty room. and look at where we are now! we're already at the point where you can't win in any kind of way no matter what you do. you can't age them up, you can't leave them as they are, you can't ship them if you're older than eighteen, you can't write AUs, you can't write canon compliance, you can't write canon divergence, you can't make them kiss, you can't make them anything more than friends but you also can't make them not-friends, etc etc. we've officially been shoved into the "fuck it, we ball" stage, because this is a pissy fandom and you are never going to please everyone so you may as well just do whatever the fuck you want.

i sound soooooooo unbearably preachy in this response lol, but like... literally... all we have is each other! we all love byler and we're all here to have fun and find like-minded people. we can't keep acting like this in-fighting lunacy is reasonable and just a difference of opinion, or like it's based in any kind of sense at all. we know that it's okay to ship byler at any age. we know that it's okay to have fun and enjoy ourselves. these people want to make us feel bad. they want to silence us. why let them and give them that satisfaction? why is what they want more important than us and our happiness? i hate the idea of anyone ever feeling any kind of shame or fear over something as innocent as this. i hate the idea of them winning by getting into any of our heads like that. i just hate it.

now, this last bit is specifically for you, anon, but it goes for everyone else, too: please, please, please, i am holding your hand in both of mine and begging you to not let anyone take away the things that you love and bring you joy or your wonderful creations that you've put so much of yourself into. i promise you that there will always be people who will see you, understand you, and cherish what you have to offer, and they are the ones that matter most (after you of course hehe). we all have to find our people and just go crazy together and block out everything else. that's the only way to get through this without getting burnt out. 💛💙

[ellieellieoxenfree]

So you can't complain no one's playing the choose violence ask game with you! I choose 6, 7, 16 and 22. You can pick a fandom for each, obviously. 🤣

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

usually every major/main ship in a fandom. i like a main pairing maybe 5% of the time because i’m usually relegated to side character and secondary pairing hell. doesn’t matter if the ship is canon or headcanon, there is an extreme likelihood that i will hate it. i get lucky occasionally (a business proposal and kiseki scored on both main and secondary pairings) but it’s rare. i hated just about every main pairing in MCU fandom (god my sins are vast) and i hated 99% of flash ships — fuck westallen until i die, fuck harrisco — in favor of ghost ships and decades-spanning headcanons.

i also hate when people get snide about exclusively shipping queer ships. ‘oh all hetero ships are annoying, oh the straights aren’t okay’ maybe take five minutes to actually seek out well-written work rather than dismissing it all immediately. as a bi woman in a relationship with a cis guy, i do fucking take it personally when people harp about queer supremacy like a ton of gays aren’t their own special brand of dumpster fire. there’s plenty of well-done m/f media out there and there’s plenty of absolutely garbage-ass m/m or f/f ships and stories. none of it’s inherently good or inherently bad based on the genders of the partners involved.

and because i know you’re baiting me, yes, KP fans were the most annoying motherfuckers on the planet bc they would be deliberately obtuse about their own pairing’s flaws in order to tear down everyone else’s. the number of times i wanted to shout PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF at people who looked at a narcissistic rapist and his kidnapped indentured servant as a model of a healthy relationship is beyond all measure. i don’t care if you ship the assholes, just stop acting like they were in any way, shape, or form a pair of functional adults. god knows those of us on the VP side weren’t exactly rocking the best moral high ground, but at least a lot of us acknowledged they were freak nasty disasters with the social skills of genie the feral child. the toxicity is the point! don’t sanitize it.

oh, and fuck people who think that harassing actors because the actor had the audacity to have a real-life relationship with someone who wasn’t their costar is acceptable behavior. i’m pretty live and let live about rpf until you start causing real-life consequences for people because you can’t let go of your delusions.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

man, doug renetti from minx is a great example of this. i don’t hate the character in the show. he’s great (he’s fucking awful), he’s compelling, he’s a fucking dirtbag trainwreck and i love watching him. fandom is entirely incapable of discussing literally ANYTHING ELSE about the show in favor of beating off to jake johnson in his greasiest form. i tend to get itchy when people ignore 99% of the show just to spam the tag with the one mediocre uggo they crank their hog to.

i don’t hate him and hopefully never will because he’s perfect, but i also tend to get itchy when people ignore basically all of kiseki and just focus on ai di. like, i love him, too! character of all time! louis deserves a golden bell for that performance! but k4 as a whole deserves that golden bell and just because chen yi and zong yi and ze rui aren’t overtly flashy murder kittens doesn’t mean they’re not fascinating and compelling characters. it’s irrational, but it irritated me as a kiseki lifer to watch people sort of tourist-cruise through and coo over ai di for a week or two before forgetting the show entirely. SO MUCH garbage BL out there and 99% of this site slept on actual good BL. (on the other hand, do i want more people in the fandom? jesus, no. i’ll keep the rent-lowering 21-gun salute going hourly if i have to.)

generally, though, a character is doomed for me the second they become a tumblr fave. if i see a character’s face five times in one day they’re likely to hit my hate list. my tolerance for overexposure is almost none.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

‘baby’ as a pet name, a/b/o (which makes me fucking puke — i cannot abide that it’s mainstream now), VP petplay, and an overreliance/need to make things porny. i’m no prude; i read it, i write it, and it’s not like i’m above seeking it out. but as someone who struggles with writing it, i wish it felt less necessary/expected to include. i also feel like a lot of shows use extra sex scenes to compensate for lazy/shitty writing, so rather than complement a narrative, it feels like it’s carrying the narrative instead. i like a good fuck scene as much as the next person, but when your simulated boning feels like a time-filler and not something that’s moving the story forward, you’re losing me fast.

i find a lot of enemies-to-lovers pretty poorly handled. not opposed to it, but a lot of people don’t do it well. i loathe miscommunication tropes. there can be exceptions if the characterization and context is strong enough, but it takes a skilled writer to pull that off. despise love triangles. i’m picky about AUs. i CANNOT STAND ‘love interest is rude because they secretly like their future partner.’ nothing will get me to throw the book across the room faster than an arrogant asshole who looks down their nose at their partner. i did not have a mr darcy phase at any point in my life. mr darcy and his ilk can eat paint chips. even watching a man get humbled by love is not enough to save that one for me. i read too much early/mid-2000s manga (this is a hot gimmick callout) to be able to deal with that shit anymore.

as a general rule, i am the cheese standing alone. i am unlikely to agree with a lot of the big/popular headcanons bc i’m contrary and i don’t like going along with the dictate of a handful of BNFs who handed the word down like they were giving the ten commandments to moses. the problem is that i have been in so many fandoms of various sizes over so many years that i have seen some of the worst human beings alive ruin the space for smaller/less popular voices. (and that’s a cassie claire callout. you were a cunt then and you’re a cunt now and even when you were ripping off every property you could get your grimy hands on, your writing was still unreadable OOC garbage.) so i tend to disregard whatever fandom is into in favor of being into my own weird little niche shit.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

already answered :V

[recurring-polynya]

Your thoughts and headcannons on Nemuri Hachigou because I don't think she gets talked about enough, when in reality she's pretty interesting, she's essentially, a blank slate, Mayuri's second chance that I don't think he feels like he deserves. She's Nemu but she isn't and I think people(especially Mayuri) forget that a lot, that's a fascinating position to be in.

Puttin’ this under a cut because I’m gonna say some unkind things about Mayuri and I do not want to cause any distress to the many lovely people on this website who delight in his horrible antics.

This is not so much a headcanon so much as a thing I came up with for fanfiction purposes, but it’s all I got.

Right. So, like I said, I despise Mayuri. I just hate him. I understand that he appeals to some people, but I strongly dislike the dude and go to exorbitant lengths to avoid him ever appearing in my fanfic.

Additionally, I do not vibe with Nemu 7. She registers as not-a-person for me, she’s basically an extension of Mayuri himself. Don’t get me wrong, I find Mayuri’s treatment of her to be vile and I wish someone would take her away from him, but she comes off as very robotic to me. She is conscious, but she is not an independent being, if that makes sense. She is not a real girl. It’s funny that Mayuri keeps talking about how advanced she is, because clearly he means only her cognitive and fighting abilities. In terms of recreating a person, she’s incredibly primitive compared to the other mod souls we see. Take Kon, for example, who has a fairly limited powerset, but is never presented as less of a soul than any of the other characters. An even more interesting example is Ururu and Jinta. Ururu is described as being older than Jinta, and she is clearly “less human” than him-- she has less affect, she shifts into a distinct “attack” mode, etc, which implies that Jinta represents advances in mod soul technology. It’s notable that Urahara and Tessai and even Renji, in the canon scene where he protects the Shouten kids, never treats them as anything less than people. The contrast with the way Mayuri treats Nemu is stark. He likes that her feelings and personality are limited, he sees this as a feature.

I was completely unmoved by the entire chapter where Nemu died. Her sacrifice did not come across to me as anything indicating growth or humanity-- in every battle she's ever been in, she nearly dies because Kurotsuchi tells her to. She simply prioritizes Mayuri over herself. She always has. It’s simply the logical extension of her programming. A lot of people say they would have preferred Nemu to live and Mayuri to die and for sure I would have *preferred* that, but I have never seen Nemu as enough of a character to be worth rooting for. Like, at least Uryuu would have gotten some satisfaction form killing his clown ass, and that might have convinced me for at least half a second that he actually was on the side of the Quincy.

Caveat: if some talented fanficcer wants to write a short novel on Nemu discovering her humanity etc etc, I’m all for it, I’m just saying that canon hasn’t given us anything to suggest she would do more than just shut down without Mayuri to tell her what to do.

Onto Nemuri 8. I can’t believe they let Mayuri have another one. It makes my blood boil. The dude is an on-screen abuser and Kubo had the gall to try to make me feel sorry feel him (I did not) and then gave him another one.

So, I took her away from him.

I mentioned earlier that I go to great lengths to keep Mayuri the hell out of my fanfic, and usually the way I do that is to have my characters go through Akon whenever they have to deal with Squad 12. I think I started doing this because Akon is sort of weirdly familiar with Renji and Rukia in the TYBW, but I have projected all over him and he’s mine now. The way I assume Squad 12 functions, based on my career in scientific programming, is that Mayuri is like a primary investigator-- he's the Big Ideas guy and he spends a lot of time doing wholly self-directed research. He’s the face of Squad 12, so he has to go talk to the Captain-Commander and beg for money and defend blowing things up, but when it comes to science stuff, he does what he wants. Nemu is the lieutenant, and I think she handles most of the usual lieutenanting-- paperwork, meetings, etc., but I think Mayuri takes up a lot of her time by using her as a personal lab assistant on his wacky projects. There's nothing wrong with this, but I think in a lot of squads, the lieutenant is responsible for the day-to-day running of the squad and spends a lot of time dealing with their subordinates and other lieutenants. Nemu, instead, focuses on her captain. Now, the rest of the Gotei counts on Squad 12 for a lot actually-- gigai, Hollow tracking, Dangai monitoring, etc. etc. From the point of view of most science people, this stuff is mundane-- it’s all application, not development, and all the difficulty is in the twitchy little details. It’s frustrating and it’s unrewarding and you never get credit for it, and it is vitally important. There is a certain kind of science professional that makes a career out of this. They usually have master's degrees instead of PhDs, and they are usually tragically underpaid and underappreciated for what they do. In the real world, without these people, you wouldn’t have mass vaccination sites or weather data on your phone or cute li’l robots landing on other planets. In Bleach, these are the people keeping soul reapers alive in the field. And in my mind, this is Akon’s department.

So here’s the headcanon:

After Nemu’s death, Mayuri has so much sad clown pain about it that he wants another robot child poste-haste, but can’t bring himself to do the actual work, so he shoves it off onto Akon, with a list of the design specs he wants. The last one was pretty good, Akon can handle a few minor upgrades, it doesn’t need his personal hand in it. Thinking about going through all that work again just pisses him off, honestly. What a waste!

And Akon's like, yeah, cool, fine. It was heavily implied that he did a lot of the work on Nemu 7, it's just a matter of digging out his old notes and cleaning out some vats.

Except that, right around the same time, Rukia and Renji decide to have a baby.

Babies are super rare in the Gotei, and it’s not like those stuffy nobles are gonna let Akon look at their precious offspring. But Rukia is a rank weirdo, and Akon is their pal, so she’s always like “I hear they have these things in the Living World where you can pee on a stick and tell if you’re pregnant, can you make me one?” and Akon’s brain goes, “Wow, what even is the first detectable sign of a newly formed soul, this is very interesting.” So, at the same time he’s trying to grow a new and improved Nemu, he’s got access to the developing fetus of two captain-class shinigami. So when he has to pick between eight good candidate embryos to move to the next vat, he picks… not the one with the strongest reiatsu signature, like they did last time, but the one whose reiatsu looks the most like a real baby.

Akon reminds me of a lot of programmers I know, so I always sort of headcanon him as particularly interested in whatever passes for programming in Squad 12, and I think he takes special interest in revamping Nemu’s artificial intelligence system, which is primarily based on taking in information about the world and building up a realistic personality based on people she observes. In particular, it gives extra weight to “people who resemble her”. Nemu 7 was raised by Squad 12, so she came up very Squad 12, just like Mayuri wanted. Unfortunately, toddler Hachigou Nemuri’s algorithm unexpectedly decides that she has much more in common with toddler Abarai Ichika than any of the adult soul reapers around her.

Nemuri 8 is a very successful sample in terms of power and intelligence but she’s also very boisterous, and the rest of Squad 12 is like “Akon do something” so Akon takes drastic measures: he asks Renji for parenting advice. Distressingly, Renji is full of useful ideas like “tire her out” and “only fight the important battles” and “we’re signed up for baby yoga, you wanna start comin’ to baby yoga? Your back is gonna thank you.”

Akon didn't mean to let them hang out so much, but Ichika is a very useful data point and also if he takes Nemuri over to the Abarai house, the girls will entertain themselves (i.e. chew on each other) long enough for him to have a beer with Renji and Rukia and honestly my man really needs that beer.

I don’t think Akon thinks of himself as Nemu’s dad past the first time when she calls him ‘Daddy’ and he corrects her (she only did it because that’s what Ichika calls Renji, very predictable quirk of her programming). She’s just a work project. She’s not even his project, she’s Mayuri’s project, he’s just handling the little details. Fathering just happens to be an adjacent field of study that he’s found to contain a number of very useful best practices.

I would prefer not to get into the detail of the physical abuse that Mayuri uses against Nemu 7, but I would like to think that Akon finds ways to protect Nemuri 8 from the same, or barring that, maybe this is what finally drives Akon to murder Kurotsuchi and become Squad 12 captain himself.

Other Nemuri Headcanons:

Her favorite book is Rejection of the Twin Fishes!, Captain Ukitake’s posthumously published children’s book.

She prefers to be called “Nemuri” over “Nemu.”

Nemuri’s second favorite person in Squad 12 after Akon is Rin, because he always has candy. Rin actually likes having someone to share his hobby with and helps her make a World of the Living Snack Bucket List. When other shinigami come in for gigai, Nemuri constantly tries to con them into bringing something back for her.

Rukia teaches her to cuss, but tells her never to do it around Akon. Nemuri never actually cusses around anyone, but really enjoys having Forbidden Knowledge.

Speaking of Forbidden, she is mildly obsessed with Urahara, even though she’s never met him. She’s constantly on the lookout for thumbprints of his work in modern Squad 12 technology.

The one thing she does have in common with Mayuri is an absolutely batshit personal aesthetic. She starts painting her face as a tween and is somewhat inconveniently both into piercings and inflatable outfits.

The true proof that she has surpassed her predecessor, at least in terms of humanity, is that she is able to learn the name of her zanpakutou.

Oh, if you want to read any of my fanfics with Nemuri, here's one where she and Ichika play football and here's one where she tries to con Byakuya into buying her shaved ice. I really like writing Nemuri hanging out with Byakuya because I think an adult man who navigates social settings via rigid system of etiquette and class hierarchy and a small child with a pile of Markov chains for a brain would be natural friends.

[scripttorture]

Can a parent who is a torturer teach his child to become a torturer since childhood, but not teaching it as torture, but the techniques involved, and well, violence and abuse. Is it normal that the child is not being abused himself?? Or would such a parent torture their child if they wanted the child to grow up to become a torturer and take their place one day.

Torturers ‘teach’ on the job. I’m not sure if it would be possible for them to teach these techniques without exposing someone to violence.

 And even if it was that isn’t what they do.

 They bring the people they want to ‘teach’ into the cells with them. They have potential-torturers witnessing torture (and encourage them to participate) from the first day.

 And here’s the thing: this makes sense. It makes sense because torture is functionally simple and because it applies social pressure to the potential-torturer. It makes it harder for them to refuse to torture and implies that they will be at risk of violence if they do.

 The scenario you’re suggesting fundamentally misunderstands torture and torturers. You’re assuming that this stuff is more complex then it is and that torturers are more patient, thoughtful and restrained then they are.

 All of those are common misconceptions that feed into torture apologia.

 It’s OK to be wrong. The important thing now is the next decision you make; where you go from here.

 Child torturers are rare. And while I have heard of cases where children were abusers or torturers I’ve never heard of a case where a parent tried to encourage their biological child to become a torturer.

 There’s quite a lot to unpack and explain there so bear with me while I break this down.

 Child torturers are rare because generally children are not put in positions of authority, and the torturer being in a position of authority is an essential part of the legal definition of torture. Children are not (usually) allowed to become police officers, soldiers, doctors, civil servants, teachers or any of the other professions torturers are drawn from.

 There are ethical reasons for that but there are also practical reasons for it. Children do not make good soldiers. They are typically weaker then adults, have more complex nutritional needs, have shorter attention spans, cope less well with sleep deprivation and are not as good at performing repetitive tasks without fault.

 They are harder to train as soldiers, less physically able to act as soldiers and harder to keep at a base standard of health in a warzone.

 I am not saying children are incapable of torture: I am saying that they are not given the opportunity.

 The cases that I’m aware of involving child torturers are uniformly child soldiers. Usually those children are kidnapped and enslaved. They are not the biological (or adopted) children of the other torturers.

 Sometimes these children are deliberately drawn from despised minority groups. For instance the Daesh use of kidnapped Yezidi boys on suicide missions was part of a wider campaign of genocide.

 Sometimes these children are encouraged to take part in torture as part of strategy to make these children feel like they can’t return home. They’re made to participate in violent criminal acts then told that they will never be forgiven by their society. This is part of how these groups coerce cooperation from their victims.

 So child torturers are rare and the children who are usually in a position where they could be classed as torturers are generally not valued by the groups using them.

 This makes me think that a valued, blood-related child would be less likely to be used as a torturer.

 There’s also the question of why a torturer would want their child to follow in their footsteps.

 Because torturers generally do not enjoy what they do. They report finding the experience distressing and exhausting.

 Some of them frame it as ‘necessary’ and genuinely seem to believe they were doing something helpful. (This is not true, torture does not work). Some of them frame it as a punishment their victims ‘deserved’. Some of them don’t really seem to have much justification at all, everyone else was doing it so they did too.

 But as a general rule torturers don’t report having a positive view of their own job. The typical relationship is more complex.

 They have an inflated sense of their own importance and the importance of their job. They often depict themselves as the ‘only ones doing the real work’ and talk/act as though they’re the most important part of the organisation they’re in.

 But they also report feeling consistently under-valued and overlooked by their organisations. They consistently describe a hugely stressful, pressurised working environment and an atmosphere of continued, unhealthy competition with everyone else.

 Torturers do not take enjoyment in their work. They report finding it physically exhausting, extremely stressful and the development of mental health problems associated with torture.

 They often feel as though they’re at risk of violence from their colleagues and superiors. And they’re not wrong. Looking over modern historical records of regimes like Soviet Russia show that torturers were regularly purged by the state. And the fracturing effect they have on organisations is sometimes enough for them to be attacked by other members of their organisation.

 When this doesn’t happen they burn out. They reach a point where their mental and physical health problems become so severe they can’t even pretend to do the job they were hired for. And then they’re dropped, or ‘encouraged’ to quit.

 They struggle to find any employment. Because by that point they typically have really severe mental illnesses and no useful skills. Plus the general aura of asshole that comes with an inflated sense of self importance and a tendency to lash out at anyone who doesn’t feed that ego. A lot of them end up dependant on other people.

 Basically- I don’t think any torturer would want someone they value to become a torturer.

 Even when torturers see their ‘work’ as essential they don’t see it as a good job. They’re acutely aware of the dangers and the toll it takes on them.

 If this character actually cares for their child at all they’d probably discourage them from being a torturer.

 I think that leaves two broad questions: ‘Do torturers abuse their families?’ and ‘Are torturers typically torture survivors themselves?’

 And neither of those questions have clear answers because of the lack of research on torturers.

 There are reports of torturers who abused their families. But there are so few reports by mental health professionals on torturers that it really is impossible to say if this is a trend. And there are also reports of torturers who never abused their families. Familial abuse by torturers could be in line with familial abuse in the general population.

 There is no evidence to suggest torturers are any more or less likely to abuse their families then anyone else.

 The second question is more complicated because of the assumptions underlying it: people who ask this generally seem to assume that someone who is tortured goes on to become a torturer and…. That isn’t exactly what we see these people reporting.

 Yes some torturers are also torture survivors. Because a lot of them are soldiers and sometimes captured soldiers are tortured.

The pattern I tend to see reported (this is anecdotal because of the lack of research on torturers-) is torturers getting captured after they’ve been torturers for a while. Either by their own side or an opposing side in the context of a conflict. Then they’re tortured.

 Or their area is invaded by an opposing side, they flee the conflict and get targeted with… exactly the same stuff everyone else fleeing the same situation is targeted with.

 The child soldiers I described earlier in the ask seem to be particularly vulnerable to torture and other ill treatment.

 We don’t have a way to measure how many torturers have also been tortured. By which I mean, no one has really done enough research to answer that question.

 The vast majority of torture survivors will never go on to become torturers, because they won’t be put in a position of authority. Mentally ill people are systematically barred from positions of authority in most places. And torture survivors seem to be particularly vulnerable to unemployment.

 So I think torture survivors are unlikely to be put in a position where they could become torturers.

 But, yes torturers are sometimes put in a position where they might become torture victims. We don’t know how often this happens. My impression is that it’s no where near the majority, may be not even a particularly significant minority (though it seems to be more common in some specific areas/circumstances then others).

 Wrapping up: I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a torturer also be a torture survivor in this sort of narrative. I think that’s an incredibly complicated thing to try and handle and I don’t think you’ve got the knowledge base to do it justice yet. I also don’t think it adds anything to the characters as you’ve described them.

 There is no ‘safe’ way to expose someone to torture. Torturers do not try to protect the people they ‘train’, they throw them in at the deep end and encourage them to participate almost straight away.

 But torturers also don’t necessarily see their jobs as ‘good jobs’. They don’t describe it as a legacy they want to pass on.

 Why is it important that this child is actively taught? Could they be exposed to or witness torture in another context? Is it even important that the torturer is their parent? Using another influential adult character would allow the child to keep a more-or-less positive relationship with their parent. And it could make the conflict between child and parent about ‘You allowed this torturer access to me and they showed me awful, traumatising things’ rather then ‘You exposed me to traumatising things and you hurt me’.

 Does familial abuse add to this narrative? Because I’d argue that exposing a child to torture is abusive and it creates another layer of complexity. On top of torture, and the peculiar mindset of torturers, and the mental health problems torture causes in survivors, torturers and witnesses.

 Think about those questions. Go back to the sources page. Read O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Read Alleg’s The Question.

 And consider whether these elements actually help you to tell the story.

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[nuttystrawberrysalad]

All About Knitted Hats

Quarantine has sparked plenty of new at-home hobbies. Maybe you picked up a paintbrush and tapped into your inner artist. Or, you might have transformed your kitchen into a bakery. For some, perfecting their knitting and crocheting skills even led to a business — which is why you're likely seeing the knit hat trend unexpectedly taking off on Instagram.

For Delsy Gouw, founder of Brooklyn-based label Its Memorial day, crocheting started out as a fun activity. "[It] originally started as an online Depop vintage shop [in 2019] but when Covid hit, I wasn’t able to source any goods," she tells TZR. "I also lost my job and found myself with a lot of time on my hands." Gouw picked up the old hobby of hers and began making items for friends, and then her friends' friends were requesting pieces, too. She then began crafting knit hats because she believed the demand was there. "I started with bags but when I posted them so many of my friends and followers asked when or if I’d be open to making hats and taking customs for hats," Gouw tells TZR. While trends typically fade away and come back later on, Gouw hopes this style will stay long-term. "[I] can’t speak for knitting, but the way crochet is done is truly so intricate, unique, and is made to last," she explains. "Crochet can only be done by hand so I think there is something special about having an accessory that is unique and handmade." Fans of Gouw's emerging brand include influencers like Reese Blutstein, Jo Rosenthal, and Ella Emhoff.

Who knows when the first person decided to put something over their head to keep it warm, but knitters know that knitted hats for women are some of the most fun and easy things to knit.

When they’re worked in the round there is little in the way of shaping, except when you get to the crown.

Most hats are worked from the bottom up, with stitches cast-on and worked in a snug stitch pattern such as ribbing, or in stockinette for a rolled bring hat, using a smaller size needle than is used for the head portion of the hat.

In many hat patterns, the hat is worked straight for the desired length of the crown, then nearly all of the stitches are evenly decreased over the course of just a few rounds.

The yarn is cut, the tail threaded through the remaining stitches, pulled tight, and fastened off to the inside of the hat.

The hat can be topped with a pom pom, i-cord, tassel, or whatever embellishment strikes your fancy.

A great book for learning to make hats is Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns, from which some of the material on this page is excerpted. There are chapters on basic hats as well as the type of hats called “tams.”

There are several types of hats, but the most popular knitted hats for men are beanie-type caps, tams (sometimes called “berets”), slouch hats, earflap hats, and tuques.

Beanies: These hats can be super simple or dressed up with a lace or cable patterns. In cooler climates, they’re wonderful gifts for knitters to make.

Tams/Berets: There are so many different stitch patterns to use in this style. Tams and berets can be plain stockinette or intricate Fair Isle. This style of hat is really flattering on just about every face shape, too.

Earflap Hats: These hats are popular in cold climates. They’re great for keeping ears warm and they’re fun to knit. The knitters of Peru specialize in these hats, as shown in the photo at right.

Often a knitted hats for children will have a finished size that is smaller than the average adult head. That’s because hats meant to fit closely at the brim need a bit of negative ease to help them fit snugly and keep them on the head.

The amount of negative ease refers to the difference between the finished size of the object and the size of body part on which it will be worn. A hat that measures 19″ (48.5 cm) around and is worn on a 22″ (56 cm) head has 3″ (7.5 cm) of negative ease.

A beret-type hat might have negative ease at the brim, but a few inches of positive ease in the body of the hat. The extra fabric is what creates its loose, flowing shape, while the tighter brim keeps it fitted to the head.

Hats are a natural for circular knitting (or knitting in the round). This project for circular-knit adult hats offers three brim styles: hemmed, ribbed, and rolled stockinette. Whichever brim you choose, the directions call for shaping the top. Work this hat in plain stockinette stitch in a colorful or fashion yarn, or customize it by working the colorwork pattern included here. But don’t feel tied to those two options — use this hat as a canvas to express yourself.

If you knit the hat on one 16-inch circular needle, you’ll need to switch to double-pointed needles (or one of the other methods) at some point during the crown decreases because the stitches will no longer reach comfortably around the needle. It is easiest to knit hats using the magic-loop method with one long circular needle.

Choose a size

Determine the circumference you want for the hat. Most hats should be knit with negative ease (. Measure around the widest part of the intended wearer’s head and subtract 1⁄2 to 1-1⁄2 inches from that measurement to calculate the hat circumference.

A hemmed brim is not as stretchy as a rolled or ribbed brim, so it’s best not to include too much negative ease when using this hem.

Choose yarn and determine the gauge

Yarn for adult hats can run the gamut from practical to frivolous and fun. If you want a warm winter hat, for example, choose a yarn that is warm and durable, and knit it at a tighter gauge than recommended on the ball band. This results in a denser fabric that better retains heat. If, on the other hand, you are creating a fun accessory, you might choose a fashion yarn that adds a little flair. Because this hat is such a simple shape, it’s a great way to show off variegated or self-striping yarns.

To keep cool but stay warm during winter, you can’t skimp on great outerwear or outfit-making boots. The same goes for cold-weather accessories too: Because for the majority of the season, coats, boots, and, in this case, winter hats do most of the talking when it comes to bundling up while keeping things stylish. In order to break free from your standard winter-outfit formulas—and to keep your looks from looking like, well, everybody else—consider accessorizing functionally and fashionably this season. Here, find four headwear trends not to be missed, and shop 24 of the best winter hats, inspired by the most stylish women on the streets, from New York to Paris.

Buckets and Beyond

After runway debuts at Fendi and Loewe, the winter-ready hand knitted hat took over the streets last February—and this season the ’90s trend has continued to gain momentum. From shaggy faux furs to fuzzy angoras, from shearling to sherpa styles, the winter bucket hat is one of the cutest and coziest accessories of the season.

The ribbed-knit beanie has earned its place as a winter style staple for everyone from downtown urbanites to alpine skiers. New Yorkers might prefer sleek styles in a neutral color palette like black and speckled gray. Meanwhile, a pop of color would bring the perfect amount of joyous street-style-inspired Scandi chic to any drab winter look. And for those who wish to channel a bit of après-ski flair in their daily commute, look no further than one with a floppy, fluffy pom-pom.

The trapper hat is no longer just for the rugged outdoorsman or Elmer Fudd. Not convinced? The trapper has been deemed stylish enough for even the Parisians—in fact a black faux-fur version was spotted on the streets topping off a geometric-print coat, leather pants, and blue ankle booties for the ultimate in warmth and style. Et voilà! Not to mention everyone from classic winter-weather brands to It labels are backing the trapper trend—Heurueh, Kule, and R13 to name just a few. You heard it here first: The trapper is the ultimate winter hat for women this season.

On the tiny Peruvian island of Taquile, a man's worth isn't measured in his ability to hunt or fish, but in his ability to knit.

Alejandro Flores Huatta was born on the 1,300-person island, which is located on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, a three-hour boat ride from the nearest city of Puno. The 67-year-old learned how to knit the iconic chullo (a tall, floppy Andean hat) as a child, with his older brother and grandfather teaching him by using the thorns of a cactus as knitting needles.

"Most of the people learn by looking, watching. Because I don't have a father, my older brother [and grandfather] taught me to knit. So by watching, I learned little by little," he said, speaking through a Quechua translator.

Taquile is famous for its textiles and clothing, and while women weave and tend to the sheep that provide the wool, men are the ones who exclusively produce the island's knitting cap for baby. The chullos are seen as culturally significant, playing a key role in the island's social structure and allowing men to show their creativity while also displaying their marital status, dreams and aspirations – some men even use it to show their mood. It's a tradition that islanders are working hard to preserve.

Residents were relatively cut off from the mainland until the 1950s, and the island's isolation has helped to keep its heritage and way of life intact. Locals abide by the Inca code of "Ama sua, ama llulla, ama qhilla", (Quechua for, "Do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy"). Taquileans are farmers traditionally; the six island communities take turns to rotate crops of potato, corn, beans and barley in terraces on the mountainsides. They raise sheep, guinea pigs, chickens and pigs on the land and fish in the lake. Tourism kicked off in the 1970s, giving locals a source of income with tens of thousands of visitors drawn to the island annually to tour the villages and surrounding lake. Visitors typically stay with locals in humble, family-run accommodations; lend a hand-harvesting crops; try local specialties like fried trout and potatoes with rice, beans and mint tea; and purchase the island's famous handmade textiles.

Hats reveal men's marital status, dreams and aspirations

In 2005, Taquile's textile art was deemed so valuable that Unesco deemed it an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Alejandro is one of the seven men on the island recognised as a Master of Textiles, along with the island's president, Juan Quispe Huatta.

The tradition has been around for the better part of 500 years, with roots in the ancient civilisations of the Inca, Pukara and Colla peoples. The Inca in particular, used their headdresses in a similar way to the Taquilean chullo, to display the specific insignia of their particular province – but that’s where the similarities end. The Taquilean chullo and the Inca headdresses look vastly different. The elders of the island tell of the chullo design arriving with the Spanish conquest in 1535, and Alejandro's grandfather passed on stories of the early conquerors wearing similar hats that were white with ear covers, "but not the same patterns or symbols," Alejandro said.

[littleblackqrow]

((I think the most frustrating part of watching people analyze the actions of characters in vol8 is that the biggest complaint is that logic is thrown out the window and I would argue that’s the point. Especially because of the perspective of the show. I really hate to keep picking on Ironwood, Qrow, and RWBY, but those characters are the ones driving the plot, so I guess we gotta.

Lets start with RWBY. They’re kids first off. WBY are all about 19-20 years old and Ruby is 17. Lets start off by saying those are ages not exactly known for smart, long term decision making. Most people that age are trying to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives, struggling with college, dates, drinking, sex for the first time. They’re stumbling around in adult bodies while still having more or less the mind of a teenager because society has suddenly stopped treating them like a kid and expects them to be an adult. Except instead of having to struggle with decisions about their near future, RWBY is being asked to save the world. If you think you could handle that pressure well at 17-19, you’re lying. 

Does it make their decisions right though? No. The way they treated Ozpin for hiding the worst of his abuse and the fact that his ex-wife was an insane bitch who is functionally immortal is wrong. But again, I ask you, could you handle having all that dumped into your lap in an already stressful situation? The person who should be (and rightly is) condemned for his reaction is Qrow for throwing a punch. No matter how upset you are no hitting. Once you throw a punch in that situation, you’re the bad guy. And until he makes an effort of an apology he’s the bad guy in that situation. 

The biggest problem that team RWBY has is that all of their terrible decisions throughout the show have either been rewarded, or the got bailed out from having to see the real consequences. 

Ozpin allowed Blake to hide her White Fang past and therefore missed the least subtle component of the Fall of Beacon. Things could have been significantly less bad if he’d known about their involvement and was able to send Qrow in to spy on their operations. Maybe he could have figured out what Roman or Adam was up to, realized they were working for Cinder and by extension Salem.

Ozpin allowed team RWBY to do a mission that was a couple grades too advanced for them because he knew they’d break the rules otherwise. That was a tacit acknowledgement that he thought whatever they were up to was alright, and that they had his blessings on whatever it was that they wanted to do.

The best example of terrible decision after terrible decision that RWBYJNR makes is Argus. They have no idea how they’re getting the Relic to Atlas, and they seem road blocked. Jaune suggests stealing an airship, and Qrow, the adult in the room tells them that this is a bad idea, and if it goes bad it has the potential to screw up their entire life. He’s right. The problem is that he’d run off on his bender, and therefore the kids, and we in the audience, are supposed to see this as an unreasonable suggestion. 

However, it plays out as him being right. The incredibly complicated plan did go wrong. Now, they had no reason to suspect at the time that Adam was stalking Blake at the time (and I could go into why thats perfectly ic for him at another date), but there were a lot of moving parts in this plan and literally any of them could have broken. Everything that happened after they put this plan into motion was reactionary. Cordovan, obsessed with showing the Might of Atlas (TM), jumped into the mech suit. At that point, Ruby didnt really have a choice of not breaking it. But the ensuing fight created enough general unease that it summoned a Grimm hoard.

By rights, Argus should have fallen because of their bad decisions and in spire of their best efforts. Instead, Cordovan had a change of heart at the last moment and bailed them out.

This just reinforced the flawed idea that RWBY is always in the right and directly lead to s7′s climax. They are the unstoppable force.

Now you have Ironwood, quite literally the unmovable object, which I now realize is sort of his name. Ha.

Ironwood’s behavior does not come out of nowhere. Since his appearance, he’s had problem stamped all over him. He showed up with an entire goddamn army to a supposedly peaceful event that is to promote unity and the excellence of each kingdom. His rationale is that the people are going to be impressed with his big guns and feel safe. Ozpin gently points out that those big guns also signal to people that there is something out there that those big guns are designed to shoot. 

If its not a Grimm, could it mean that Atlas intends to shoot people?

Remember we’re not even 100 years out from the last World War, one that was basically started by Atlas. People are nervous. There are still grandparents and great grandparents alive today that were kids when the Great War was happening. Not only that but we’re also made aware that Atlas has rolled in the apolitical protectors of the people, the Huntsmen, into its military. This elite fighting force that is basically above the law and can go to any country in the world whenever they want, is now part of the military. The ONLY standing military that Remnant seems to have.

All of this has obviously caused friction in the Inner Circle. Qrow is not quite and never has been quiet about his disdain for James’ heavy handed techniques. Glynda calls James’ actions a dick measuring competition, and Ozpin was trying to be gentle about it, but he was clearly telling Ironwood to get his army off his fucking front lawn. And what did Ironwood do? He’d gone around Ozpin and talked to the Vale council.  They were threatening to remove Oz fro his position because they agreed with Ironwood: he was being too passive. Ironwood even tells Glynda that he cant believe that a man he trusted for so long would just sit by and stand to the side instead of meeting the problem head on. He didnt seem to understand why Qrow would want to go gather intelligence on an operation before sending in the big guns. 

Ironwood has never been a man to put a well thought out plan with all his ducks in a row into motion. This is a man who plows through opposition at every opportunity.

And when we see him again, we can see him steamrolling through opposition again. Somehow he got himself two seats on the council. That gives him an enormous amount of power. And his position as general means that at any point he can declare an emergency and become the de facto dictator of Atlas if he deems it fit. The problem is that he’s having these arguments against Jacques Schnee a man that the audience rightly hates, so he seems reasonable. Who gives a fuck about Jacques loosing business, he’s a dickhead. We’re not noticing the fact that James is consolidating power, or that he’s using that power to make unilateral decisions with no one telling him no.

There’s no one left in the room who is able or willing to tell him that these are bad ideas, that there will be consequences that he cant foresee. His  bullish behavior lead to both Robyn Hill and Jacques Schnee running for an empty council seat, and that created the environment that we walked into in s7.

Now, not all James’ ideas are bad. The Amity Project is actually a really good one, and James is right in wanting to keep it from the general public until its near completion. But you know who should have known? The other fucking council members. Probably the candidates. Playing your cards too close to the chest when you clearly need help and allies is a bad thing. But again, James didnt even trust Ozpin to be able to run his own kingdom, so durr hurr of course he’s the only one who can take care of Amity. And run a kingdom. And run an academy. And protect an ageing, ailing Maiden. And of course he doesnt have time to treat his horrific PTSD from the Fall of Beacon.

So when things go tits up because again, of course they will with a plan that complex James Ironwood doubles the fuck down on his terrible solo decision making. Clearly, non of this is his fault. No one is listening to him. He cannot trust others to make decisions so he’s going to make all of them. There’s no one around him to tell him no, especially because the first person that tried was publicly executed. 

James is scared. He’s had a mental break because of that fear. His paranoia, his PTSD, and the fact that there’s nothing there to help him back to stability means that he’s just going to be bouncing from one terrible choice to the next. He’s Hamlet in the throes of paranoia, heading down a road that is going to get everyone, including himself killed. He is King Lear as the world crumbles around him, acting cruel and making unreasonable, horrible demands of those around him. 

Working with Watts seems like an absolutely terrible idea, but to someone who thinks that he is in control of the situation because he has to be in order to keep functioning, there’s no way that this can bite him in the ass. For James, if no one is willing to follow his orders, he’s going to make them. This attitude is probably exactly why Watts did what he did and joined Salem in the first place. 

So when you combine the unstoppable force of Team RWBY, who’s been told they’re the child saviors of the world, and who’ve been either rewarded or bailed out of their bad decisions against the immovable object of Ironwood and his absolute conviction in himself, you have the mess Atlas is in now.

Honestly I find it kind of brilliant. 

[asocier]

an in-depth health condition headcanon post

cw: contains mentions of mental illness/mental health, trauma, eating disorder, depression, suicide, and anxiety -- ask to tag. 

alison clair, 24, female.

           unspecified feeding or eating disorder ( undiagnosed ) -- exhibits behaviors such as restrictive intake of food, a disturbed self-perception of her body, and lack of interest in regards to eating, but overall eating behaviors “do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the feeding and eating disorders diagnostic class” ( DSM-5; p.354 ), particularly because these behaviors do not typically persist for more than 3 months at a time and because alison is within normal body weight according to bmi measures. however, it is important to note that alison has a history of disordered eating behaviors stemming from her high school years, even if these behaviors do not usually last consistently for months at a time. 

          post-traumatic stress disorder ( undiagnosed ) -- exhibits a variety of symptoms both presently and in the past immediately following her sexual assault and forced prostitution such as:

reoccuring, distressing dreams related to the traumatic events she has experienced and intense psychological distress and physiological reactions at internal/external cues that are related to or remind her of her traumatic experiences

active avoidance of "distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s)” and “external reminders ( people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations ) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s)” ( DSM-5; p. 271 )

 negative changes in mood and cognition after experiencing the traumatic events, such as dissociative amnesia ( i.e. the inability to remember an important aspect of a traumatic events ), self-blame due to distorted cognition regarding the causes of the traumatic events, persistent negative emotional states ( e.g. shame, fear, guilt ), significant diminished interest in activities she originally enjoyed, and feeling of detachment and estrangement from others. 

hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response, problems with concentration, and sleep disturbance ( notably difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep )

          it’s important to note that immediately following traumatic events ( 3 days to 1 month ), these symptoms would be classified as acute stress disorder. due to how long it has been since alison has experienced the traumatic events in her life, post-traumatic stress disorder is more appropriate, particularly because she continues to experience theses symptoms in present time. 

           genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder ( undiagnosed ) -- acquired ( “the disturbance began after a period of relatively normal sexual function” [ DSM-5, p.437 ] ) and mild in severity. symptoms include difficulties having sexual intercourse, pain during penetration, anxiety over vaginal penetration, and tension of the pelvic floor muscle. tension of the pelvic floor muscle can be a reflexive spasm ( i.e. vaginismus ) or, in alison’s case, “normal/voluntary muscle guarding in response to the anticipated or the repeated experience of pain or to fear or anxiety” ( DSM-5; p. 438 ). penetration in the latter case may be possible when she is relaxed and at ease with her partner. 

nate cain, 26, male. 

          reactive attachment disorder ( childhood; diagnosed ) -- exhibited emotionally withdrawn behavior towards adult caregivers, specifically not seeking comfort when distressed and being unresponsive to any comfort given when distressed. persistent social and emotional disturbances include limited positive affect and minimal social and emotional responsiveness to others. has experienced a pattern of extremes or insufficient care, including social neglect in the form of not having basic emotional needs met by caregivers, frequent change in primary caregivers, and being raised in unusual settings that make forming attachments difficult ( e.g. institutions with high child-to-caregiver ratios ). 

          disinhibited social engagement disorder ( childhood; diagnosed ) -- actively approached and interacted with unfamiliar adults with reduced reticence, did not check back in with adult caregiver after going off by himself, and was very willing to leave with unfamiliar adults with little hesitation. note, this is not due solely to impulsivity but also socially disinhibited behavior. these behaviors began after receiving insufficient care as described in the earlier bullet point ( i.e. social neglect, frequent change in primary caregivers, and being reared in unusual settings ). 

          oppositional defiant disorder ( diagnosed ) -- displays an angry/irritable mood ( loses temper often, easily annoyed, and is often angry ) and argumentative/defiant behavior ( often argues with authority figures or adults, defies or refuses to follow requests of authority figures or adhere to rules ) to individuals who are not siblings. oppositional defiant disorder is prevalent in families in which “child care is disrupted by a succession of different caregivers or in families in which harsh, inconsistent, or neglectful child-rearing practices are common” ( DSM-5, p. 464 ) and is commonly co-occurring with the next bullet point, conduct disorder.

          conduct disorder ( diagnosed ) -- childhood-onset type; exhibits a repetitive pattern of behaviors in which the basic rights of others is violated as manifested through the following ( all bullet points are pulled directly from the DSM-5 ):

often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others 

often initiates physical fights

has been physically cruel to people

has forced someone into sexual activity

often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions, beginning before age 13 

has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in the parental or parental surrogate home, or once without returning for a lengthy period

is often truant from school, beginning before age 13

the disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.

           bipolar II disorder ( diagnosed; medicated ) -- exhibits both hypomanic and major depressive episodes. hypomanic episodes are distinctly different from manic episodes specific to bipolar I disorder such that hypomanic episodes are not as intense as full-blown manic episodes and do not impair social or occupational functioning as would a manic episode. additionally, individuals with bipolar II disorder typically spend more time in a depressive episode than a hypomanic episode. as such, nate experiences depressive symptoms for much longer than his hypomanic symptoms. it’s also typical for him to experience a period of normal mood in between each episode.  

          symptoms of a hypomanic episode include: elevated mood, increased activity and energy, irritability, inflated self-esteem/grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, increase in goal-directed activity, psychomotor agitation ( e.g. tapping foot, pacing room ), and impulsive/reckless involvement in dangerous or risky activities. 

          symptoms of a major depressive episode include: depressed mood for most of the day almost every day, diminished interest/enjoyment in most activities, hypersomnia  ( excessive sleepiness ), fatigue and energy loss, feelings or worthlessness, difficulties concentrating, and suicidal ideation. 

leah nguyen, 20, female.

          generalized anxiety disorder ( undiagnosed ) -- exhibits signs of excessive worry and anxiety on most days about a variety of events or activities. the worry is difficult to control and is associated with feelings of being on edge/restlessness, fatigue, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance, specifically difficulties falling asleep and unsatisfying sleep. the anxiety causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, and oftentimes has a longer duration than everyday anxiety and usually occurs “without precipitants,” meaning with no prior cause. to elaborate, leah’s anxiety prevents her from engaging in certain social activities and from taking on new opportunities regarding school or work. she spends a lot of her time worry about a lot of things and sometimes decides to stick to what is comfortable than to venture out even if it is severely limiting to her and ostracizes her from her peers. 

          lactose intolerance ( undiagnosed ) -- possesses a mild inability to fully digest the lactose in milk. condition is still very manageable as symptoms only become evident after consuming an abundance of foods containing dairy. discomfort usually manifests in the form of cramps, nausea, gas, and bloating. a severe reaction can lead to diarrhea or vomiting. 

aito matsuoka, 26, male. 

          caffeine withdrawal ( undiagnosed ) -- has established prolonged daily use of caffeine in the form of coffee consumption. lack of or reduced caffeine consumption can result in the following within 24 hours:

headache

fatigue or drowsiness

irritability

difficulty concentration

nausea

[blue-shaded]

High functioning is a problematic term that neurotypical people use basically to measure how “not- neurodivergent” you act and essentially place you above other people based on that. There’s probably a few posts and videos floating around talking about it, and this is why people argue it’s not an actual thing. I understand that you’re angry but you shouldn’t share links without having read them.

Thank you, taking the post down. As a neuroatypical person, with autism, I know that people perceive me as “high functioning” and I have that perspective on myself too. I’m gonna go on a bit of a tangent here and explain exactly why: My mom is an ableist. A really, really bad ableist. And so were practically all the adults in my elementary school, highschool, etc etc. When I was little it was very obvious I had autism. Honestly now that I’ve grown up and living an adult life very far away from my youth, I don’t understand at all how they didn’t get me to a psychologist or a doctor to get me diagnosed. Especially considering my mom works with neurodiverse children I really don’t understand how she just didn’t see it on me. Perhaps she was in denial about it all, didn’t want an autistic child.. but due to that I had to grow up, as an autistic child, without a diagnose, and thus getting the normal procedure in school. People blamed my lack of social and communication skills on everything, that I was just a failed child, that I couldn’t succeed in anything so I had to change myself and my performance to be perceived as “normal”. Then later on, when I actually got of age, and went to the doctor myself to get a diagnose, everything clicked. Not that I actually had any use of the diagnose at that point because I was well out of highschool at that point.. It just kinda made me realize that everything that had happened up until that point wasn’t just me being “faulty” as a person. These days, when I tell people that I have autism they will always tell me “You don’t seem autistic to me” or that I have too many social skills to be autistic. And still I catch myself in situations that I can link to my autism. I basically became high functioning because I had to, Because I didn’t get a diagnose as a child, because no one felt like “Hey let’s get this child to a doctor” Am I glad I grew up that way? No. But I think in the end it defined me as a person and without that happening I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I am more comfortable in my skin than ever. Comfortably being a high functioning autistic adult. Because I can do everything a neurotypical adult could do too, I just get burnt out more quickly and overstimulated. And because I don’t feel like sharing my life story every single time someone  tells me “You don’t seem autistic” to me.. I have to use this term. Because I do have autism. It’s just that my traumas in my childhood forced me to be more neurotypical. You can’t force someone to be “less autistic” I know I am not better than anyone else. And anyone who places me above anyone else can go fuck themselves. But I know who I am and that’s what I’ll stick by.

[zkenvs3000]

8 Arms, 9 Brains: Lean, Mean, Problem Solving Machines

Many people take their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities for granted. Imagine, for a second, where you would be if your parents or teachers hadn’t sat you down when you were young and explained in a human language what a shape was or why they fit into certain specially shaped holes. I have a feeling we’d all be very confused about everything going on around us. Without the ability to communicate complex thoughts and intricate processes with each other, most people would go on living without ever having reached a fraction of their full potential. However, there are several animals that have overcome this inter-species problem and have exhibited an extraordinary ability to think critically and solve problems without the help of English or any other language for that matter. Octopuses are probably one of the top animals on that list.

Octopuses have extraordinary critical thinking abilities and can solve problems with intuition similar to that of a young child. These invertebrates can squeeze themselves through any gap that is larger than their cartilaginous beaks. They can sense several different things using their tentacles including taste and touch. Each tentacle basically contains a brain of its own and can act independently, while the central brain maintains bodily functions and can exert top-down control when it's needed (Hendry, 2021). They can create complicated colours, patterns, and physical projections with their skin in order to blend in with their environment. They sometimes use shells and other debris from their environment to make complex shelters to hide from predators. They have distinct personalities and have even been known to hold grudges against people they don't like. They can be incredibly gentle and curious and at the same time, they can be vengeful and mischievous. They’ve even been observed using the venomous tentacles of the Portuguese man o’ war as weapons to immobilize their prey. They’re bags of jelly that have unlimited potential. The mimic octopus is a great example of a creature that employs all of these tactical skills:

These creatures are incredibly shy and clever so it’s often quite difficult to observe them in the wild doing all of the crazy things that they’re capable of. The picture below shows an octopus hiding inside of a broken glass bottle at the bottom of the seafloor. However, they’ve been observed doing all kinds of crazy things in aquariums around the world. There is a famous story from the Brighton Aquarium in England of lumpfish mysteriously disappearing from their tank overnight. Scientists were incredibly confused because there seemed to be no evidence of the tanks being tampered with. One night, they observed the octopus that lived in the tank next door climbing out of his own tank, opening the lid of the neighbouring tank that contained the lumpfish, capturing one of them, and then carrying it back into its own tank to snack on without leaving a trace. Scientists believe that the clever, eight-armed menace observed aquarium staff opening the tanks and learned how to do so himself (Borrell 2009).

Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock.com

Dr. Jennifer Mather, a comparative psychologist at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, said in an interview with Scientific American that an animal’s intelligence might be measured by its ability to learn new information and then apply it. She discussed an experiment at the Seattle Aquarium that involved putting octopuses in an empty aquarium with just a simple pill bottle to observe their reaction in a “boring” situation. What would the octopus do when there’s nothing to do? The octopuses figured out that if they used a jet of water to blow the pill bottle over to one of the tank’s water jets, it would shoot back and then return to the octopus. These two octopuses then did this around 20 times. They were basically playing catch! That isn’t even the most amazing thing they’ve done with pill bottles. You know the child-proof lids that they often put on medication that even some adults struggle to open sometimes? An octopus figured out how to open one on its own. It only took 55 minutes, and with some practice, it managed to open it in 5. It took only an hour for this animal to figure out how to complete a task that was literally designed to be impossible for young humans (Layton, 2015). So not only do they play when they get bored, they can also problem-solve better than some human beings. Here’s a video of an octopus learning how to open a puzzle box with a crab in it by observing another octopus. Unfortunately, it was recorded with a potato. Enjoy.

With all of this being said, I wonder what kinds of things they’d have to say if they could communicate with us. Would they have opinions on sociopolitical issues? Can they figure out where this all came from by understanding physics and the nature of the universe better than we can? Could they teach us what it is to be alive or the meaning of life? Could they start a Fortune 500 company? As of right now we have no way of knowing the answers to these questions because we can’t talk to animals. I hope that sometime in the future we can befriend some sort of physicist octopus that can unlock the secrets to intergalactic travel or even the origins of the universe. Who knows, maybe they’ll figure out how to talk to us before we figure out how to talk to them!

Thanks for reading my post! Have a video of an octopus thanking the guy who saved it.

- Zaid

Borrell, B. (2009). Are octopuses smart?. Retrieved 1 April 2021, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-octopuses-smart/

Hendry, L. (2021). Octopuses keep surprising us - here are eight examples how. nhm.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 April 2021, from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/octopuses-keep-surprising-us-here-are-eight-examples-how.html.

Layton, J. (2015) Can’t Open That Childproof Bottle? Ask an Amazing Octopus. Retrieved 1 April 2021, from https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/cant-open-that-childproof-bottle-ask-an-amazing-octopus.htm

[satonthelotuspier]

Day 7 of Xichengclipse is here, and we’re almost done!

This turned a little away form the original concept into wanting to explore how societal pressures affect JC's notion of himself. He has this role he has to play in canon, especially young jc, the sect heir, the more sensible one to WWX's shenanigans, and I wonder if he ever found that stifling. I wanted to take a look at what that might mean in a different verse. 

Lotus Lakes In Spring

Lan Xichen has suddenly started working late every night, and Jiang Cheng, insecure at the best of times, is imagining the worst. Although he had thought they had developed feelings for each other theirs was still a match of convenience, tying to powerful families together, and perhaps he's has enough of Jiang Cheng.

How far away from the truth is he? His therapist suggests there's only one way to find out - communication in relationships is key.

Featuring a JC struggling with societal expectations and his own nature, and a misunderstood LXC who's taking some matters into his own hands.

“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng assured, except it really wasn’t. It wasn’t fine. They hadn’t spent any time together for weeks because Lan Xichen had been working constantly, and this afternoon was just another call to excuse himself from dinner, because he’d be working at the office until into the evening again.

It was a herculean effort, but he killed the needy keen in his voice; an omega begging for attention from his mate might sound cute in theory, but Jiang Cheng hated that he was so weak to the natural reaction.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow evening then, I have to be up early for a conference across town, so I need to go to bed early tonight.” He didn’t sound terribly pathetic, but it was a close thing.

“Sleep well, Wanyin, I’ll be quiet when I get in, so that I don’t wake you.”

He could feel the wetness behind his eyes, but worked hard to keep it out of his voice.

“Thank you, Xichen.”

With a few more pleasantries they ended the call, and Jiang Cheng stared at the bright-screened mobile in his hand.

Was Lan Xichen growing bored of him? Their relationship was complicated, no doubt, it wasn’t any secret that their match had been a power move, two of the biggest families in Suzhou, united in an act of politically motivated showmanship.

But Jiang Cheng had thought they had come to care for each other, despite neither having been the other’s choice. Lan Xichen was a kind and caring man, and an attentive alpha mate, and Jiang Cheng tried his best to be a good omega. Despite his quick temper, neediness, and easily embarrassed nature, he did try to be as good to his alpha as Lan Xichen was to him.

Perhaps with mixed results.

And that must be why the other was pulling away, having had enough of having to pander to him, to address the flaws in his character, and yes, in his body.

Jiang Cheng whined low in his throat, as he acknowledged the white elephant in the room. It must be, in part, because their matings hadn’t taken yet. Despite numerous heats shared together, he had yet to become pregnant. He was failing in an omega’s most basic function, and powerful dynasties, like the families they both came from, required heirs, and he wasn’t providing.

What was the point in bringing an omega into the family if he couldn’t breed?

Lan Xichen said it didn’t matter, things would happen in their own time, but that was just Lan Xichen, being nice, paying lip service. If it wasn’t an issue why was it in every gossip magazine? Every tabloid newspaper?

Taunting headlines about separate bedrooms and a lack of intimacy between the Lan heir and the Jiang heir, married for convenience, to further two powerhouses of political and economic might, but cold and distant with each other.

Until a few weeks ago they couldn’t have been further from the truth, he had fallen asleep in his husband’s arms every night, and they shared a full and mutually satisfying sex life, even outside of his heat cycles.

He was assured by the specialists he had consulted that there was no physical reason for it, that everything was in perfect working order; Lan Xichen had even supported him, attended the appointments with him, even submitted himself to a physical examination and tests to ensure there was no problems on his side either.

Jiang Cheng had been pleased to find that out that the kidnapping he had suffered as a young adult had left him with no lingering effects other than a pervasive fear of the dark.

Which meant it was him. He wasn’t broken medically, he was just broken.

Had Lan Xichen gone back to the lover he had stopped seeing in readiness for their marriage? Had he finally had enough of a mate that didn’t provide the things he should?

Who could blame him? Maybe these were the first tentative steps towards divorce?

He unlocked his phone and dialled.

“Wen Qing, can I talk to you?”

“I’m not your therapist, A-Cheng.”

“Your monthly invoice says differently. You’re damned expensive for someone who isn’t,” he snapped, and she snorted.

“I have a client in half an hour, but I’ll give you a call before I go home. It will be around five, alright?”

He agreed and they hung up.

***

He tried to process her advice that night as he lay in the bath he had taken to try and relax a little. The gist of their conversation had said he could drive himself silly with the what ifs, the suppositions, and the only way he’d get any closure on the issue was to ask Lan Xichen directly.

And that he should also talk to the other about his needs, that he missed the other and wanted attention.

Out of the two, Jiang Cheng thought the latter was the least likely to pass his lips. How pathetic would it make him seem to be begging his own husband for attention?

He was that pathetic though, he really, really wanted to.

He bathed, changed for bed, and, ensuring the small lamp near his side of the bed was on, settled down to sleep in a bed that seemed all too empty, because Lan Xichen wasn’t in it beside him.

***

It must have been the sound of the thunder that awoke him, as he shot upright in bed, and began to panic. The room was pitch dark, and he felt his chest tightening and his breathing speeding to shallow pants in immediate reaction to the darkness. He mewled; a lost child. It was oppressive, and closing in on him ever faster.

“Wanyin?” Lan Xichen’s voice sounded, clear and soothing by his ear. “Damn.” There was some scrabbling around, then a flare of light in the darkness. “Here, take this, baby.” Lan Xichen’s phone, with the torch function on full, was pressed into his shaking hands, and he waved it wildly around the room, checking in the shadows while the other gave him space to ensure he was safe.

Eventually he calmed enough to accept Lan Xichen’s arms around him, as he was pulled into the other’s lap and hugged tightly.

“You’re safe, sweetness, you’re safe here with me.” Lan Xichen kept up the steady, soft, stream of reassurance, stroking his hair and kissing wherever his lips landed until Jiang Cheng regained some measure of control over himself.

He didn’t have quite enough to control his tongue, however, “Don’t leave me, Xichen, please don’t leave me. I’m trying so hard to be better for you. I am.”

The stroking hand paused, then slid to his shoulders and held him away from Lan Xichen’s chest so the other could look at him, “What do you mean, Wanyin? Of course I’m not going to leave you, I know you don’t like the dark, it’s not a surprise to me. I’ll hold you until dawn or the power comes back on. I don’t mind.”

“B-but you’re avoiding me. You’re staying at work all the time now, like you don’t want to be with me, or you’re seeing someone e-else.” It could only be described as a wail, and Jiang Cheng hated himself for it, but he couldn’t stop now the dam had burst. “I kn-know I haven’t given you heirs yet, but I’m trying my b-best.”

“Wanyin? Why…” Lan Xichen sucked in a breath, then moved his hands up to cup his face gently, “you silly thing, we’ve discussed this again and again. I don’t care. It will happen when it happens, or it won’t, and that’s fine too,” Lan Xichen’s thumbs rubbed over Jiang Cheng’s cheeks, wiping away the tears, “I’m working late because I’m trying to clear my schedule early, before your next heat cycle. I’ve been looking for places we can get away from the city and take it easy for a while, and you might relax enough to enjoy yourself a little more, instead of worrying incessantly about something that is so completely out of your control.”

Of course, Lan Xichen’s words only made him cry harder, and try to wrap himself around the other.

“And how could I consider seeing someone else? Who would ever match up to my beautiful omega? No one else smells of lotus and soft spring rain on a lake like you, no one else has that fiery, challenging gaze for me,” Lan Xichen feathered his lips against Jiang Cheng’s jawline, and he preened at the praise falling from the other’s lips, hmming his approval, “and no one else would look half as divine spread across our bed, tousled and well-loved and marked so completely as mine, as you do.”

Jiang Cheng growled, “Yes, I want that, show me, alpha, Xichen, show me I’m yours.”

Lan Xichen pulled the torch phone out of Jiang Cheng’s hands, and placed it besides them, so it still cast a glow, and pushed forward to pin the other beneath him. “As my omega wishes.”

***

Jiang Cheng lay back against the unfamiliar-smelling bed, while Lan Xichen rubbed gently at the arch of his right foot. He had never considered his feet erogenous zones but the way Lan Xichen touched him, anywhere, everywhere, so possessively, so soothingly, with such an intent to relax, to make love to. He made a soft, light sound of delight, surrender, and contentment in his throat, which was mirrored by a more aggressive sound in his alpha’s.

The bed would soon be flooded in the scent of their pheromones, overwhelming whatever neutral washing agent the hotel used, when his heat hit in earnest.

But at the moment he was riding it’s edge, extremely sensitive, a little excited, by the nearness of his alpha, but too relaxed to move. That would change soon enough, but he intended to enjoy this for as long as he could.

He was so lucky, to be this cared for, to be this precious to someone. He still felt so guilty that he had suspected Lan Xichen of having an affair, when the other had been working hard to provide an environment where the mate he knew was so tense and stressed about their inability to fall pregnant, could relax, let go, and forget about the newspapers, the pressure of his family, and just enjoy what should, after all, be a  pleasure-filled few days, worshipped by his alpha, like any beautiful omega should be.

“I love you.” The words were out before Jiang Cheng realised, and he would have slapped a hand over his mouth, but the deep, pleased, possessive sound that came from Lan Xichen’s throat made his toes curl.

He felt a flush of heat begin to run through every nerve ending in his body at the same moment Lan Xichen released his ankle, and moved between his lifted knees, almost more tuned in to Jiang Cheng’s heat than he was himself. He looked dangerous, and hungry as he lowered his head to mouth at the pulse pounding at Jiang Cheng’s throat as the room flooded with the smell of lotus lakes in spring.

“Love you too,” he raised his head briefly to reciprocate, before returning back to sucking a mark against Jiang Cheng’s throat.

***

It had been a wonderful idea, to take this away from the city, from all the factors pressing expectation down on Jiang Cheng, and they decided to stay for a day longer than Lan Xichen had originally planned, as they were both exhausted after a very pleasurable heat spent worshipping each other.

It became a regular thing, and it was no surprise to Lan Xichen, who had theorised privately, that it was probably the stress of expectation and regard on Jiang Cheng, that was causing the problems, that it wasn’t too many heats later that they were cuddled on their bed together awaiting the results of the chemist-bought pregnancy test Jiang Cheng had purchased on his way back from the office earlier that evening.

He had sat through so many hopeful tests himself, only to have them come back negative, Jiang Cheng was almost too terrified to look after the required time. He hadn’t wanted to expose Lan Xichen to this side of him, the failed omega, desperate to fulfil his purpose and obsessed with his inability to do so, but he felt that this time, even if it was negative he was in a better place to deal with that, with his alpha, his mate, his husband, by his side.

It was positive, however, and it was a long time before Jiang Cheng was coherent enough at the news to discuss it with Lan Xichen, who held him close as he went from elated to terrified and back again over and over again.

The feelings only abated a little that night in bed, where they lay together in the soft sheen of the lamp behind Jiang Cheng, talking about their future.

“You’ll have to cut back on those ridiculous coffees you drink, baby.” Lan Xichen teased him gently, and Jiang Cheng frowned unhappily.

“Ugh, but where are the gossip mags going to get their photos from if I don’t go to the coffee shop?” He grinned suddenly, “I can’t wait to maternity it up, they are going to get so many baby bump shots. Infertile, separate beds, hah,” he ground his teeth in irritation, then forgot it just as quickly as he went through another plateau of delight at the thought their child growing tenaciously in his belly.

[themoguls]

"What Inspires You?" by David Pailin Jr.

What is inspiration anyways? It feels like motivation, but not quite... it seems less defined by our circumstances. The feeling's so fleeting, but when we grasp it, it's exhilarating! There are plenty of things that move us emotionally and physically, but this is a bit more intense. It's our dreams, our goals, but somehow it's not that at all. It's like the bridge between us and our dreams. It's that momentary awareness of the talent it takes to get where we want to be and the realization that we possess it. Maybe everything is inspiration. But if that's true, why don't more people have it, where do we find it, and why is it so important? Those three questions will be the focus of this article as we look to ascertain some of the mystery that is inspiration.

The Uninspired

Admittedly, it's very hard to avoid being self-righteous when you speak about what inspires you, but what about when you aren't inspired by anything? In an effort to gather some perspective, I decided to ask several people what inspired them. Below are some quotes of individuals I interviewed (men and women).

"Contributing to the greater good of humanity and leaving the works a better place if I can help it :)"

"Being surrounded by people who are constantly on the move to better themselves professionally, physically, and personally. I'm competitive and like to measure myself against the best of others. They keep me in check."

"When people know and work towards accomplishing their 'purpose' is the biggest for me. There's something about someone deciding, 'ok, this is what I way to do with my life and then doing it. Nothing is more inspirational than that to me."

"My Family, my kids."

"In so many words, Fulfillment, the ability to look back and say it was done by me. Of course, the first thing that played in my head was "girls and bottles!" lmao. The hood in me is always trying to outshine the calm."

"All the people who did me wrong lol make them regret every screwing u over because all your writings and blog posts can get u closer to you dreams."

"What inspires me is being in a relationship where you are each other's BFF, #1 fan, and dream keepers. Also, what inspires me is making a difference with people and having them be empowered and inspired :-)"

"The most inspiring thing to me is the way the music I truly love...like Michael Jackson or something like that makes me feel...I want to make other people feel like that. Also, the fact that anything is possible... I want to be one of the people that is a testament to that… you know."

"Nothing inspires but myself."

"Idk anymore, man, my drive is gone"

I definitely agreed with some answers more than others, but the last two took made me physically shiver. At first, I had the audacity to think, "how can people feel this?", but thankfully I came to my senses and pondered over. I realized at some point everyone feels this way if they're honest with themselves (if not just keep living). When things are going wrong, and people are hurting, the things that normally inspire become frequent reminders of how far they have fallen. You don't have to be immersed in self-loathing to lose inspiration; sometimes, it's just as simple as giving up. There are times when pure exhaustion and routine sap all the inspiration out of us. Soon the refreshing feeling of creative juices just seems harder to draw out than usual, and sometimes it really is. Without proper grounding, these feelings can spiral out of control, and words similar to the quotes I mentioned above can leave our own mouths. 

In my research, I crossed Kurt Cobain's suicide note. In it, I saw a man who had completely loss his passion for what he once loved. He was so earnest that he felt like a fraud every time he took the stage because he was just going through motions with the audience. He explains that he tried everything to get that feeling back (including drugs & alcohol), but in the end, even his wife and daughter were not enough to draw from. His tragic case certainly isn't the first and sadly won't be the last. This lost inspiration for life isn't a remote as you think, as a staggering amount of American's (11%) rely on anti-depressants to function.

The Ingredients

Isn't it strange that the things that innately inspire us seem almost heavenly? Often times they are the best of man, but even then, it seems... superhuman. Dictionaries define it as a divine influence, but what does that translate to? At the Plutocrats Club, we believe three elements catalyze inspiration.

Lack of Knowledge. Put simply, you can't get inspired by something you know absolutely everything about. Even masters are constantly learning; as the craft itself continues to evolve, the more time they spend with it. Time and innovation make sure that all things progress. This progression fosters doubt, and doubt leads to curiosity, and determined curiosity leads to epiphanies.

Passion. Though you can have epiphanies about subjects that you aren't interested in, it's impossible to get inspiration from them. Here genuine interest is critical to finding inspiration. Inspiration resonates with our very spirit, and if there is no soul in what we are trying to draw inspiration from, we will find ourselves empty-handed.

Wonder. The feeling of admiration, awe, or marvel. Wonder is probably best exemplified when a child goes to Disney World for the first time. Unfortunately, as we get older, it takes more and more to make us wonder. Reality creeps upon us, and we start to lose the wide-eyed view of the world that we had in adolescence. As hard as it is, it's important for us to seek wonder. It encompasses doubt, passion and then adds surprise. Admittedly, it's also the hardest of the three to ascertain because there are few things that adults can categorize as truly wondrous; even fewer stay this way.

It's Importance

Sure we shared who doesn't have inspiration, what it takes to construct it, but why is it important? The truth is so that we can enjoy life. There are "Existors" all around us. You see them at home, at work, and on the subway. They speak only because their job requires it, they have a job only because they need food, they eat only because it's required to live. Just typing that, I felt the monotonous redundancy of that lifestyle weighing in on me. No joy or enjoyment is in anything they do, just basic, logical goal after basic, logical goal. What happens after all goals are achieved? Death? The goal of inspiration is to provoke creation. The creations of men and women at their best are truly emotional experiences. 

After watching your favorite movie, take a serious look at just how many people it took to make it become a reality. At one point, that was just one person's vision! As much as we try to restrain ourselves, we aren't robots. We are full of thoughts, emotions, and illogical mechanisms that need to be explored. Not just for the sake of exploration, but so that our fellow man can use them to the best of their abilities. So I'll ask, what inspires you?

Photography by Demetrius Baker

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Initial impressions

Titles can be deceiving.

CW: child abuse, childhood trauma, mental illness, depression, anxiety

I think I can recall hearing about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality at some point in the fairly distant past, though I can’t be sure. What I can say with relative certainty is that if I did encounter it, I probably wasn’t very likely to read it. I probably assumed that HPMOR was one of those obnoxiously misguided and pedantic critiques of fiction by scientists who neither know how to utilize suspension of disbelief, nor understand the basic nature of symbolism. At best, I might have imagined it to be a piece attempting to discover or construct a coherent logic from the magic within the Harry Potter universe, just for the pure amusement value, the absurdity of attempting to apply logic to that which defies it. I could see the appeal of that, but probably not 122 chapters worth of it.

After actually reading the first ten chapters of HPMOR, however, I can say that my first guess was incorrect, and my second guess was insufficient. HPMOR does capitalize on that humorous absurdity, but that’s hardly the core of the story.

One major reason for my misperceptions was a lack of familiarity with the difference between science and rationality. In layspeak, we often use these terms near interchangeably, and while they do go hand-in-hand to some extent, they’re not the same. Science is a method of obtaining knowledge. Rationality is an approach to living life, which dictates utilizing philosophy and science to obtain desired outcomes. You can be a scientist and be completely irrational, which actually reflects back on my initial concern; there are some scientists who will attempt to use the theory and language of science to denigrate works of art, completely ignoring the point of art.

HPMOR itself deals with this problem, not only the conflation of science with rationality, but the conflation of science and rationality and aptitude and general intelligence. The very first chapter highlights how AU Harry’s (Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, HJPEV for short) father is a professor, knowledgeable about science, presumably quite intelligent, and yet behaves incredibly irrationally. Rather than attempting to settle the dispute about the existence of magic objectively, he refuses to entertain the idea on principle, saying, “Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!”

And here’s where the real story begins to unfold. What makes HPMOR hit hard, at least for me, is not the discussion of science and rationality in the abstract, or even the very useful, illustrative scenarios, but the emotional struggle of trying to be a rational person in an irrational world, especially when you’re a child. In so many ways, HPMOR is a story about the trauma of growing up as a so-called “gifted” child. Almost every chapter that I read was painfully reminiscent of my own childhood:

Seeing my parents speculate and argue endlessly over things that could be proven;

Attempting to reason with them only to be shut down;

Having my value in their eyes dependent on their perception of my intelligence and academic performance, being praised for when I was perceived to have succeeded in these matters, while at the same time having my perspective completely ignored when it came to anything that mattered;

Being mocked relentlessly for things I did when I was younger, ignoring the incredibly rapid growth that defines childhood;

Constantly feeling as though, as HJPEV puts it, I was being treated as “subhuman,” my feelings, thoughts, and opinions all invalid because of my age;

Feeling so, so frustrated that the people who were supposed to protect me were so absurdly, ridiculously, unfairly, woefully, tragically ill-equipped to do so.

I became hopelessly isolated from my parents, and my self-esteem became self-degrading. Being told over and over again how what I felt or thought didn’t matter because I was only a child made me doubt and disrespect my own emotions and doubt my very sanity. I don’t think that my parents meant to gaslight me, but that’s exactly what they did. For years, and years, and years, and it hurts. so. much. It...I cannot express how much it hurts.

And I am left with all of this damage, these lines of irrationality programmed into my brain, this obsessive need to to be perceived as intelligent in order to believe that I could be loved, in order to merely function, this irrationality that I hate so much because it hurt me so much is now encoded into my very being and it fills me with existential horror to this day.

It was difficult for me to get through as much of HPMOR as I did, and I genuinely wonder if it would be detrimental to my mental health to go on. It triggers both the suffering that comes with remembering past trauma as well as the compulsions that have resulted from that trauma. Hearing HJPEV list all the books he’s read sends a bolt of anxiety down my spine, knowing that I will never measure up to people like him, I will never have read enough, I will never be smart enough, I will never...be...enough—

Enough. I know when to stop torturing myself.

I was shocked to see how quickly HPMOR itself comes to the conclusion that what HJPEV has endured is a form of child abuse. It took me years to become comfortable using the words “abuse” and “trauma” to describe my experiences, and HPMOR introduces the word “abuse” in Chapter 6! I give HPMOR’s McGonagall much less credit than HJPEV does, but even so, it’s kind of astonishing to me to see an adult pick up on the existence of abuse in a so-called gifted child, even in fiction. I find myself wondering how I might have turned out differently if I had had someone like McGonagall in my life, or someone better than McGonagall in my life, who had told me in no uncertain terms, “What is happening to you is abuse, it is not okay, it is not your fault, and while I’m unable to legally extricate you from your unfortunate circumstances, I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

Because that didn’t happen. No one told me that I was abused or damaged. They told me that I was “smart,” “gifted,” “advanced,” or “mature”; and if they noticed anything odd about my behavior, it was because I was just “quiet,” “shy,” “introverted,” or “diligent.”

I also find myself wondering if I might have been a little different if I had read HPMOR when I first had the chance. But then again, I don’t know if I would have understood it as I do now, after years of studying psychology and working to heal myself.

God, seeing it all laid out so starkly, things I worked years to understand, in a few short chapters of someone’s fucking fanfiction*...I sure do feel like an idiot.

But then, this whole conversation has primed me to feel those feelings.

I must not undervalue myself. I am not playing that game. That game is the problem.

One thing does irritate me, though. Putting aside my misconceptions about HMPOR specifically, there’s this huge barrier to entry to the rationalist community in general. I think people perceive (correctly, as far as I can tell) that it is a community of highly intelligent people, who are highly skilled in STEM disciplines, particularly math. The one friend who could have introduced me to all this was someone who I saw as hopelessly more intelligent than I, and that perceived disparity made it incredibly difficult to approach him even as I admired him, envied him, and desperately needed the things that he could teach me. (I don’t know what things were like on his end. I still don’t.)

We’ve already seen that someone can be highly intelligent and completely irrational. I wish we could take that logic a step further and really make clear that rationality is not something that requires high intelligence. As with learning anything, intelligence helps, but intelligence can’t be a prerequisite for this skillset, because literally everyone should have it. I guess this might be controversial, but so far as I can tell, rationality is just the best way to go through life. And of course, knowing the best way to move forward is especially critical for those of us leaving behind dark pasts.

For fuck’s sake, this doesn’t have anything to do with quarks or discrete math or machine learning. It has everything to do with reducing human suffering.

And I wish...I really wish that there was a way to share this world with my friends. The only reason that I made it here is that I’ve constantly existed on the borderline, wavering around the threshold of what is broadly considered intelligent, attempting mastery of both STEM and humanities, science and art. As much as I doubt and denigrate myself, I am able, if I really want to, under certain favorable circumstances, to convince myself that I belong here. Not all of my friends have the same privilege. I have friends who have lived their whole lives believing that they just aren’t that smart, or that they aren’t any good at math or science. Maybe they decided early on that that stuff wasn’t for them, or maybe they tried and felt like they failed. I know that, for many people, academic language is frustrating, triggering, or otherwise completely inaccessible. I know that many people will find HJPEV absolutely insufferable and most of what he says incomprehensible.

And I’m really not sure what to do about that. I’ve not sure how to convince people that striving for rationality is both possible and worthwhile for everyone, and if I do convince them, I’m not sure what to actually show them that will make any sense to them.

I don’t know. Maybe it does have a bit to do with math. Because a lot of what I get from rationality, I can get from other places, be that art or psychology or witchcraft, but the stuff that is unique does tend to be the mathematical and statistical thinking. And philosophical thinking, academic thinking. Talking about things with precision...That’s always been my problem with trying to translate the academic into ordinary speech, it feels like all the precision is being lost. To be precise, you need unique words, and unique words tend to be obscure, and people find obscure words upsetting.

Obviously, this isn’t a problem I’m going to solve in this blog post. But it’s something to think about.

So, I guess that’s my review of the first ten chapters of HPMOR, if you can call it that. If one of the purposes of fiction is to unlock a bizarrely intense cocktail of existential horror and unadulterated wrath deriving from the wrongs of one’s childhood—and I certainly believe it is—then HPMOR succeeds spectacularly.

*Edited to add: In my unfortunate compulsion to drag myself down, I often drag down other things or people too. I shouldn’t trivialize the value of fanfiction. And, quite honestly, I really shouldn’t be surprised that it could be a source of profound insight. After all, writing fanfiction has been one of my own ways to cope with and sort through my emotions and illnesses for a long, long time.

[thisstableground]

I know you've done this before (and I loved it) but I would LOVE some "Abuela Claudia and the barrio kids" wholesome content ^^ Especially with characters like Benny or Vanessa, or Carla and the Rosarios - basically, Abuela Claudia being awesome and crazy big-hearted.

[Under a cut because as always, this got carried away. edit: now also on ao3, please leave a comment if you like it! Content warning for parental neglect.]

***

The only instructions Naomi Garcia gives, when she dropsVanessa off at Claudia’s is, “she’s got a coloring book, she can pretty muchjust look after herself. Do not takeher to the Rosarios. I’ll pick her up on Sunday.”

Vanessa stands there mutely, in her pink backpack andsmudgy-kneed overalls and, despite the mid-April warmth, a woolly winter hatwith a bobble on. She’s clutching her coloring book like she’s ready to beatsomeone to death with it. Claudia gives her an encouraging smile as her momleaves and says, “it’s good to have you here, Vanessa!”

“I ain’t see why I can’t go play with Nina just ‘cause ourmoms is fighting about dumb boring mom stuff,” Vanessa says, scowling. “I’mstill gonna be friends with her no matter what they say.”

She gives Claudia a challenging look, as if to say, and you aren’t going to stop me. Claudiajust says, “¡Bueno! So what do you want to do today?”

“I want to go to Nina’s.”

It’s going to be along weekend, Claudia thinks.

Much as Claudia agrees with Vanessa that a fight betweenparents shouldn’t get in the way of children’s friendship, she’s loathe to directlyignore one of the few direct instructions given by Vanessa’s mom. On realizingshe isn’t going to get her way, Vanessa slouches off to a corner of the livingroom floor and quietly colors in while Claudia goes about her usual morningcleaning, feeling faintly stumped.

This is so strange in comparison to Usnavi, who always thunders right in as though he owns the place, or Nina who always stays firmly by Claudia’s side the entire time she’s there.From the time she’s spent with both Nina and Vanessatogether, Claudia knows that Vanessa is a very headstrong young lady, usually farmore boisterous than this – bossy, even, always taking the lead while Ninafollows her around admiringly. But on her own, Vanessa is silent, hidden downbehind the side of the couch and only speaking up to say “no, I’m fine” whenever Claudiaoffers her a drink or asks if she wants to watch la television.

Her short, terse answers are bordering on what might becalled rude, but when Claudia asks if Vanessa’s hungry and Vanessa hesitates,looking hunted for a long moment before ducking her head back down very close to thepage, scribbling intensely without giving an answer, she realizes that perhapsVanessa is shy. It has, after all,been many years since Claudia looked after her alone without Nina there too,not since the girls were toddlers, and it is much easier to be brave and bossywith a good friend there.

“I haven’t had my breakfast today,” Claudia lies. “I wasgoing to get myself some food, if you wanted to share?”

“…I guess maybe I’m a littlebit hungry,” Vanessa concedes.

“We will make something together, then.” Claudia says, thenspots all the felt tip pen smudges on Vanessa’s hands, and the dirt under herbitten-short fingernails, and adds as they walk to the kitchen, “but first noslaveremos las manos.”

She pushes a chair up next to the kitchen sink so that Vanessacan reach. Vanessa sticks her hands quickly under the water then wipes them offon her overalls, still inkstained and dirty.

“No, no, con jabón.” Claudia rinses her own hands andlathers the bar of soap between them, more thoroughly than she usually would sothat Vanessa can see what she’s doing. “Like this, see?”

“I know!” Vanessasnaps, but she watches Claudia and copies carefully anyway, every movementmimicked exactly.

When she’s done, Claudia moves the chair over to the counterfor her, sets a cutting board and knife down ready, then rummages through thedisorganized cupboards looking past long-expired half-empty jars of pickles andsauces and preserves for the ingredients she needs. She really needs to tidy upin here but somehow it’s so hard to bring herself to throw anything away. “Ay, ¿dónde está?I’m sure I had una cebolla here somewhere…”

“What we makin’?” Vanessa asks, climbing up onto the chair.She picks up the knife and examines it, sharp end very close to herface. Claudia swiftly takes it out of her hands. “Hey!”

“We’re having arroz con pollo.” Claudia puts theknife safely out of Vanessa’s reach and finally locates an onion nestled inwith the bananas and mango in the fruit bowl.

“I usually have peanut butter jelly sandwiches,” Vanessa tellsher. “They’re easiest to make.”

“You make your own lunch?”

“Uh-huh! I do it all the time when Mommy isn’t home.”

“Oh, vaya, that’s very grown up.”

Vanessa beams proudly and Claudia smiles at her, but in herheart she didn’t mean that as a compliment: Vanessa has barely been six for amonth. She’s so young to be spending any time at home alone, never mind feedingherself while she’s there. Perhaps it would have been less surprising back in Claudia’sday when children were far more independent far younger, but Claudia thinks thatthere are many things in her day that she’s glad have gone out of fashion now.

But she says nothing of it, only shows Vanessa how tomeasure out enough rice and rinse it so that it doesn’t all stick together whenit cooking, lets her open the little glass jars of spices and sniff each ofthem individually. Vanessa follows along with an unexpected focus, likeshe’s trying to memorize every instruction for herself.

With the air conditioning barely functioning as ever,Claudia’s apartment is small and stuffy, especially on a day like this. By thetime the pot is full and bubbling away on the stove and it’s time to clean up,Vanessa’s cheeks are bright pink from the heat.

Claudia says, “aquí, why don’t you take that hat off,” andwith the unconscious familiarity she’d show for Usnavi or Nina, plucks thebobble hat off Vanessa’s head. 

Vanessa shrieks, and Claudia sees instantly thatshe isn’t wearing it just out of one of those odd childish whims like she’dassumed: her hair is an absolute rat’s nest, not just messy fromplaying but hopelessly tangled and sweaty like it hasn’t been washed or brushedin weeks.

“No! Give it back!” Vanessa shouts. She stamps her foot onthe chair and leans over on tiptoes making a grab for the hat. Hurriedly, Claudiahands it back before she overbalances and lands right on the stove. In asplit-second Vanessa has jammed it back on her head, jumped to the ground and boltedout of the kitchen, the door to Claudia’s bedroom slamming shortly after. WhenClaudia follows and knocks on the door, she yells, “go away! Leave me alone!”

Claudia taps her fingers against the doorframe and pursesher lips. Dealing with Vanessa, she thinks, is very, very different fromdealing with the children she’s used to. If Nina has ever raised her voice inher life than Claudia wasn’t there to see it. Usnavi wouldn’t even think to beembarrassed about something like messy hair in the first place: the boy wouldbe a walking mud puddle if his parents didn’t intervene.

Hm. Maybe that’s a point. She leaves Vanessa to calm down onher own while she goes to call Camila and find out exactly why it is that Naomidoesn’t want Vanessa going to visit.

The second she mentions Naomi’s name, Camila makes asquawkingly aggravated noise down the phone and says, “ay, do not get me started on that woman. Shesends her daughter round here practically every day and we feed her and look after her forfree and what thanks do we get? She should learn to take good advice when she’sgiven it.”

“What kind of advice?” Claudia asks, and then because sheknows Camila very well, “and how did you give it?”

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Claudia, but it wasjustified. I see enough of what goes on there to know that she isn’t fit to be a mother. It’sno wonder the girl is growing up half-wild.”

“Camila!” Claudiascolds. “No es justo, Naomi is still very young herself, she is only trying herbest with what she’s got.”

“Ha! If that’s what you call trying I’d hate to see what happens when she stops. The amount of times Vanessa’s complained about having aheadache here because nobody ever taught her you need to drink water and eatduring the day? El otro díashe says she can’t pick Vanessa up from our place so ‘just let her walkhome by herself’! I ask you, at herage? In this neighborhood? And then I try to talk to Naomi about it and shecalls me interfering!”

Claudia makes a sympathetic tsk noise.

“She might have been young when she had her but she’s anadult now, she has responsibilities,” Camila says firmly. “If she’d rather haveher own pride than listen to me, well, I wash my hands of the whole thing.”

It’s all very well tosay that from the outside, Claudia thinks as she hangs up, as much toherself as to Camila. She’s always felt for Naomi, who moved here with nothingbut a teenage pregnancy and that waste of space she called a husband - what aman of his age was doing with a girl barely out of childhood herself,honestamente – and whose fierce pride and broken heart and sharp temper made it very, very hardto get along with her for very long. But as young as Naomi is, Vanessa’s even younger and wheredoes all of this leave her, this odd, stubborn half-wild half-adult child, whoalready makes her own lunch and walks herself home from school the days hermother forgets to pick her up but was never taught how to wash her hands orbrush her own hair properly?

The bedroom door is still closed when Claudia returns to it.She knocks but lets herself in without waiting for an answer. Vanessa issitting on the floor by the bed hugging her knees, looking furious and ashamed.With some difficulty because her knees aren’t what they used to be, Claudiasits on the floor beside her.

“Don’t want it brushed,” Vanessa mutters sullenly, andscuffs her fingertips against the floor, picking at the fake wood-effectlinoleum.

“¿Por qué no?”

“Mommy used to brush it and she always pulls too hard, and Isaid ow and she told me to stop beinga baby but then I told her it hurts and she got mad and said if I know so muchabout everything I can just do it by myself.” Vanessa gives a heavy, put-uponsigh. “And I tried but it’s too tangly.Anyhow, it’s just hair. Why’s it matter if it’s messy?

“Because if you leave it like that then eventually birdswill start living in it.”

Obstinately, Vanessa says, “maybe I want birds to live in it.”

“Perhaps you do,” Claudia says, “but then they will sing allday and wake you up so, so early en la mañana.”

She makes cheepy bird noises, her fingers tapping against her thumbs like little cawing beaks all around Vanessa’s ears until Vanessastarts laughing then immediately looks outraged about it.

“Can I try to help? I promise not to pull it,” Claudiaswears. Vanessa gives her a suspicious look but then relents and takes the hatoff. It looks even worse up close. Claudia does her best not to react but Vanessaseems to have picked up on it because she bunches her shoulders up so high theyalmost hit her ears and stays like until Claudia tries togently finger-comb it out. She barely touches her before Vanessa hisses andgoes “owww!” in a high-pitched whine.

“Lo siento,” Claudia says, though she knows it couldn’treally have hurt.

“I told you, it’s too tangly,” Vanessa says, with an edge toher voice that means I am on the verge ofhysteria. “I already tried to brush it but it won’t work!”

“What if we call the ladies at the salon and ask what theythink? Daniela will know how to fix it, I’m sure.”

“She’ll laugh at me.”

“I’ll tell her off if she does.”

That makes Vanessa pause. “You’d tell Dani off?”

“Believe it or not, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Vanessa says, “don’t tell her it’s about me?”, something sopitiful and pleading about it that Claudia wants to hug her. She resists theurge and says, “our secret” and with Vanessa’s nod of permission, calls up thesalon.

“I have a very young friend here with very tangly hair,” sheinforms Dani. “Un cepillo will not work. ¿Qué hacemos?

Dani says, “I told Rosa that next time Usnavi gets gum stuckin it she should just bring him here straight away.”

“No, not Usnavi. And nothing is stuck, it is just…ah, descuidado.”

“Oh,” Dani says, suddenly serious and sighing. “It’s Vanessa,isn’t it?”

Claudia makes a noncommittal sound: Dani is closest of allof them to Naomi, and she suspects probably could give her more of an insightinto the Garcia family than anyone, but she did make a promise. There’s a mufflednoise of Dani covering the handset and talking to someone for a second and thenshe says, “Carla says to work a lot of conditioner into it and comb it through,starting at the bottom.”

“Will that work?”

“It’s worked before for some little problemas,” Dani says.“But if her hair’s that bad it might take more time than it’s worth.  Sometimes the only thing to do really is to cutit all off and start again. Do you want to bring her in and we’ll have a lookand see how much we can salvage? Sin cargo.”

“No, no, we’ll try the conditioner first, gracias. Give Carlamy love.” Claudia isn’t going to make Vanessa go and have all her hair cut off ifshe can help it. And so they eat their arroz con pollo then afterwards, she gathers everything and has Vanessa sit on a kitchen chairwith a towel round her shoulders, and gets to work with a comb and a bottle ofconditioner. She does her best to keep up chatter to cheer up a morose-lookingVanessa, but with very little in the way of responses and such a long taskahead, Claudia eventually just concentrates on what she’s doing, making slow,slow progress.

After about ten minutes, there’s a quiet sniff from thelittle figure in the chair, and then another one. Claudia stops what she’sdoing and leans round to see that Vanessa looks seconds away from crying. “¿Esto duele?”

“No,” Vanessa mumbles.

“What’s wrong?

Vanessa just shakes her head, staring at the floor with acrumpled brow and tears in her eyes, and though it may be overfamiliar, Claudia’syears of instinct immediately demand that she pull Vanessa into a tight hug –how could she possibly do anything else? With no noise but one tiny, miserable whimper of breath, Vanessastarts crying silently but hard, face against Claudia’s shoulder.

“Ah, pobrecita, I know,” Claudia murmurs, strokes Vanessa’shair as best she can, her hand sliding over the gloss of conditioner. She mightnot know Vanessa quite as well as some of her other children but one thingshe’s certain is that she’s a proud, independent little thing. This must bemortifying for her. There seems no good way to say to her that it isn’t herfault, that there are many small but crucial things in life that she should be taught to do, not left alone to figure out, and that this is probably only one of many. Telling her that won’t fix anything. But it does remind Claudia of a far-off and absurd memory. Shemoves Vanessa off her shoulder, still holding her by the arms and says, “when Iwas una niñita, we used to curl our hair withstrips of newspaper.”

Vanessa frowns at her. She’s already stopped crying, wipingher face on the towel round her neck. “Huh?”

“You’d take  un pedazo de periódico  in your hand and put yourhair around it like this – “ she makes a wrapping motion in the air, “and leaveit to dry en la noche, and you wake up with beautiful curls. My mama used to doit for me, but one day when I was a little older than you, she was not feelingwell and so I tried to do it myself. I thought, it cannot be so hard, if shedoes it all the time, and so I wrapped all my hair in newspaper and I went tobed, and you know what?”

“What?”

“It looked terrible,”she says. “At the front, too many curls, like the wig of a clown! But at theback, where I could not reach properly, all the paper had come out and so itwas not curled at all. Can you imagine?” She gestures down her back as thoughlong straight locks are still there, then holds her hands up at the frontmimicking the explosion of badly-curled ringlets.

Vanessa giggles at the image. “That sounds silly.”

“It was,” Claudia confirms. “And in those days we did nothave a shower and so I couldn’t wash it out so easily. I tried to get it wetand make it lie flat but it only made it look worse, and because Mama was sick Ihad to go out and run all the errands with my hair so crazy.”

“Oh noooo,” Vanessa says, hands over her mouth, utterly invested in the story. “What didyou do?”

“Well, first I cried very, very hard,”Claudia says,remembering it with a smile because it seems like such a small thing to be so upset over now. “And I wore una bufanda  around my head, because I thought everyonewould laugh at me. And even when I went in to see my Mama in bed I wore labufanda because I was so embarrassed that i did it so wrong. And she did laugh,when I told her what had happened, but then when she was better she showed mehow to do it right, and I still curl my hair that way to this day.” She patsher neat, pinned-back rolls of rapidly-greying curls.

“My mommy wouldn’t do that,” Vanessa says. “She’d just getmad at me for doing it wrong.”

“Maybe,” Claudia says, because it seems even harsher to lie about it, “but I neverwould, if you ever need somebody to tell you how to fix a problem. It’s okay if youget it wrong for a while. Many things take a lot of practice and a lot ofpatience.”

Vanessa mulls it over, then gives a very solemn nod and sniffs hard one lasttime. “Okay. We can carry on now.”

Daniela was right: the whole process takes well over anhour, and they have to move to the couch so that Claudia can sit down halfwaythrough, but what of it? Claudia’s got plenty of time to spare in herretirement and, she reflects a little sadly, it has probably been a long, longwhile since anyone paid Vanessa this much attention.

All worth it in the end, when she announces that they arefinished, and Vanessa touches her own hair with her eyes lighting up. “You didit!” she gasps, as though Claudia had performed a miracle. “You fixed it!”

“We still need to rinse all the conditioner out.” Claudiahesitates about that: if it were Usnavi or Nina she’d simply throw them in the tub. They’re both getting old enough to be left unsupervised for short moments when they’re in there, but thedoor is always open, and she always calls reminders to not forget to wash theirfaces and scrub under their nails. They still need help rinsing out shampoo andclimbing out of the bath. Both of them still let her rub one of her oldfaded-pink towels thoroughly over their hair to dry it, and they still play thegame where she covers their whole faces with it and puts her hand therepretending she is going to scrub away their face just as roughly while theyshriek in pretend-fear and yell “no, Abuela!”. They’re getting too old for suchthings, but what are abuelas for if not to baby the grandchildren? They allknow that these moments are not forever, and why not hold onto childhood justas long as possible?

But Vanessa probably won’t allow anything like that, alreadyso clearly ashamed of the things about her that speak to the age she really is,and she’s already had enough embarrassment for the day. Claudia spares her thediscomfort of asking, instead rinsing her hair tipped upside down over thekitchen sink the way Claudia’s mama used to do for her so many years ago: cleanit all off with warm water and then one last jugful of cold to finish. Vanessa hollersloudly at the shock of cool water, but she laughs about it right afterwards.

Later in the living room, when Claudia is reading thenewspaper and Vanessa is lying on her belly on the floor with her felt tips,there’s the sound of ripping paper, very slow and quiet like she’s trying notto be heard. Claudia looks up to see Vanessa with a strip torn out of hercoloring book, trying to tie it in a knot around her still-damp hair.

She looks sheepish when she sees Claudia watching. “I want it allcurly,” she explains. Her hair uncoils itself from around thebadly-wrapped strip of paper.

“Would you like me to teach you how?”

“You don’t gotta.”

“I would like to.”

Vanessa hmms, and says, “only if you don’t make it go allcrazy at the front, then.”

“I’m much better at it than I used to be.”

Claudia takes the pages of her newspaper she’s finished readingand tears them into strips, and this funny, prickly hedgehog of a girl sitsclose in front of her, allowing her carefully roll her hair up into twists. Vanessaisn’t silent or sulking now: she’s talking about how she wants her hair to looklike Nina’s because Nina has the most beautiful hair, and gives a high-pitchedbubbling giggle as she recounts Claudia’s story about her own failed papercurls. She sounds just like the six year old she is instead of a tiny, furiousadult. Claudia’s back and eyes already ache from bending over and concentratingfor so long earlier, but she doesn’t mind pushing through it for this. Some things justneed a little patience.