#allowing yourself the freedom to explore what you actually love rather than consume what has been designated for your demographic

[string-cheese-cake]

One day I'm gonna ruin my friendship triangle with a Sw*ftie and a l*na del r*y stan by not being able to keep my mouth shut about not being impressed by mediocre white women

[gryffindorcls]

My Thoughts Exactly:  Part 1

Hello, lovely readers!

This was written for an AU swap on Discord. I decided to take a little bit of a different take on the traditional soulmate AU. It's not love at first sight, but these two definitely have a budding romance blossoming between them.

(Let's just say that there is A LOT of fluff coming in the next chapter.)

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Next ----> (Coming Soon)

AO3

FanFiction

Marinette climbed onto her balcony and did her best to focus on the task at hand. Her arms were jelly and her stomach was in knots.

I’m no superhero, her mind screamed, I’m just a normal girl.

Tikki had told her so many things, but everything was a jumble. All she knew was that somehow she had to defeat Stoneheart and make Paris safe again.

As crashes continued to sound in the distance, she took a deep calming breath and grabbed the yo-yo on her hip. “Okay, I have special powers, and apparently this amazing super yo-yo thingy?”

She tossed the yo-yo onto a building, pulled the wire, and went flying into the air. While she did her best to land gracefully, she quickly found herself in a tangled nest with what appeared to be a boy with…

Are those cat ears? She thought as she arched her back in an attempt to move away from the person caught in her snare.

“Nice of you to drop in!” The boy laughed. “And to answer your question, yes, they are! I think they look rather claw-some!”

“Excuse me?”

“You asked me about my ears.”

“Oh my gosh, did I say that out loud?” The feeling of his chest against her own created a buzzing sensation throughout her body. “I’m messing up everything today, aren’t I?”

She sighed. Ugh, I’m such a failure!

“No, you’re not!” His voice was bright and cheerful. “I’m still learning the ropes, too, and if you also got chosen for this, something tells me that you’re not a failure.”

The boy’s eyes met hers and filled her with an unusual warmth. She’s kind of cute.

“Wait...did you just call me cute?”

Please tell me I didn’t actually say that. The voice speaking in her head definitely didn’t belong to her.

Marinette’s heart pounded against her chest. Does that mean he can hear me, too?

Oh my God, I can hear your thoughts.

How are you inside my head?

What is happening?

They both screamed.

An involuntary twitch of Marinette’s wrist retracted the wire holding them together, sending them careening towards the ground. She landed in a heap but was surprised to find that nothing had been broken. Her yo-yo thunked the boy on the head, causing him to recoil.

After taking a moment to rub his injury, he looked up at her with a panicked expression. “What the heck was that?”

She grabbed her pigtails and began to pace. “I-I have no idea! That’s never happened to me before.”

“Is mind reading your power?”

“No. Maybe? I don’t know. Tikki was talking so fast, I may have missed something.”

“Tikki?” He cocked his head to the side. “Who’s that?”

“She’s my Kwami. You have one of those, right?” Marinette was desperate for answers. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing yours didn’t say anything about this either.”

“Plagg? Uh, he told me how to transform and that I have special powers, but not much else. However, he did mention that I would have a partner, and I’m guessing that’s you. It’s nice to meet you. I’m...Chat Noir! Yeah, Chat Noir.”

His answer only left her with more questions. “Well, this is just great. We have no answers, and I have a partner who obviously has a better grasp at this whole superhero thing than I do. Did you come up with that name just now?”

“I did.” He looked proud. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“What’s your superhero name?

“It’s...I don’t know. This is all so much to take in, and I haven’t thought about it.” Her breathing quickened as her hand clenched around her yo-yo. “How can I be a superhero if I can’t even think of a name for myself? I’m not cut out for this. I should probably just go.”

“Hey, it’s okay! There’s no rush. It’s just a name, and I don’t want to do this without a partner. You don’t need a fancy name to be a hero.” The softness in his voice sent her reeling.

It should be illegal to be that adorable. Marinette caught herself before continuing the thought. No, now’s not the time. FOCUS.

She took a deep breath. “Think, Chat Noir! Are you sure your Kwami didn’t say anything else to you? He never mentioned telepathy?”

He scratched the back of his head and chuckled. “I, uh, may have transformed before I let him finish explaining everything. I got a little excited. Sorry.”

“Wonderful. Between my stunning lack of short-term memory and your fabulous listening skills, it sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us today. This isn’t going to be a disaster at all.”

Well, at least he’s cute.

“My thoughts exactly.” He chuckled.

Panic rose in her throat. “Wait, can you still hear what I’m thinking?”

Please say no. Please say no!

He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. Can you hear my thoughts anymore?”

They fell into a tense silence. With bated breath, she waited for the second voice to appear in her mind.

If you can hear me, blink your eyes three times. She scanned his face for a reaction but was met only with his unwavering stare.

“Were you thinking something just now?” Her partner’s voice pierced through the quiet.

She nodded. “Yeah, I was, but you didn’t react to what I said. We’re you thinking something?”

“Yes, did you hear it?”

“No.” “Well, that’s a relief!” His hand landed on her shoulder, and he shot her a dazzling smile.

His touch felt like a million microscopic bursts of electricity on her skin.

Good thing I don’t have to worry about that anymore. The boy’s lips remained still as his voice echoed all around her.

I think you spoke too soon. She watched as his face turned white.

Your voice is in my head again.

And yours is in mine.

What do we do?

I don’t know.

While their voices eventually grew quiet, Marinette could still feel herself swimming in a sea of thoughts and feelings that were not her own. No longer consumed by the initial shock from before, she was able to feel the invisible connection between them. It crackled like static and pulsed to the beat of her heart.

As his consciousness continued to seep into hers, she wanted to fear the invasion of privacy but ultimately found herself being soothed by the presence of the boy she’d just met. Marinette didn’t want it to stop, and she could feel that he wanted to continue, as well. Overcome by her curiosity, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to fall deeper into his mind.

To her surprise, his mind was a safety net. Marinette found nothing but the purest intentions and an overabundance of kindness. He had a good heart, and while she knew almost nothing about him, she knew that she could trust him with her life.

Wanting more, she continued to explore. Even when the light inside him began to fade into darkness, she didn’t stop. Her desire to dig deeper and Chat’s willingness to share drove her to peel back every layer she encountered.

Without warning, Marinette came to a crashing halt when she was struck with a profound loneliness that punched the air from her lungs.

She was suffocating.

She was trapped.

She was in his world, and she hated it.

Unable to move, a sorrow that was not her own gripped her soul, causing her to cry out in pain. Chat pulled his hand away, and they both collapsed.

“I’m so sorry.” She clutched her chest and sobbed for the anguish that was buried deep inside her partner. “No one should have to feel that way.”

“It’s okay.” The gentleness behind his words surprised her.

“No, it’s not. What happened? Is someone doing that to you?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter now.” He held up his clawed hand and smirked. “This ring gave me a freedom I’ve never had before. My life changed today, and I plan on using this for good.”

His sincerity struck her heart. “Wow. I don’t know if I’d have the strength to still be kind if something happened to make me feel that way.”

A distant crash shook the ground, snapping her back into reality. Chat Noir shot her a desperate look as he nodded his head towards the commotion and waved his arms in the air.

“What are you doing?” Marinette crossed her arms. “You look like a bird. I thought you were supposed to be a cat.”

“We have to go save the day. Didn’t you hear me think that?” He threw his hands into the air before letting them fall to his sides.

“No, I guess it stopped again.”

“How is this supposed to be a useful power if we can’t control it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s something that takes practice?”

A second crash and a chorus of screams pierced the air.

“It’s getting closer. Come on. As much as I’d love to stay here with you, we’ll have to figure this out later. Let’s go save Paris!” He unsheathed his baton and vaulted across the rooftops.

“He’s right,” she mumbled to herself, winding up her yo-yo and tossing it into the air, “Trust yourself, Marinette. If he can do this, you can do this.”

With a tug of the string, she soared over buildings and landed on the stadium wall. However, her sudden burst of confidence evaporated as she watched her seemingly fearless partner take on the rock giant by himself.

Chat slammed his baton into Stoneheart and stood horrified when the monster doubled in size. “Where are you, partner?”

She covered her face and tried not to cry. “Oh, I can't. What was I thinking? I’m not him! I can’t do this!”

Stoneheart grabbed a soccer net and flung it towards the field’s entrance. Marinette watched the net arc across the field and nearly kill Alya before being stopped by Chat’s baton.

At least Chat was brave enough to save her. She tightened her grip around her yo-yo. I’m useless.

“What are you waiting for, super red bug?” Alya’s voice cut through her self-deprecation. “The world is watching you!”

“Please, I need you!” Chat’s cried out in obvious desperation. “I know you’re scared, but you can do this.”

He believes in me. Her mind sang. Come on, Marinette. You have to at least try!

Mentally steeling herself, she swung into the action and landed next to her partner. “Sorry it took so long, Chat Noir. I’m here now.”

The smile that spread across his face melted away the remaining fear that still clouded her thoughts. “I knew you’d come. I never doubted you for a second.”

“Thank you, Chat.” She sighed. “But if we’re being honest, the only reason I’m here is because of you.”

“That’s not true.” His smile evaporated, leaving a frown in its stead. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Stop doing what?” The disappointment in his tone made her wither.

When I got a sneak peek into that head of yours, I saw what kind of person you are. Stop doubting yourself. You told me that you admired my strength, but you keep selling yourself short. You and I were both chosen for this. Just trust your instincts.”

“That’s what Tikki said to me.”

“It sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.” Using his baton, he pointed at Stoneheart. “Besides, I really need your help. Like you, I have no idea what I’m doing. Would you like to learn how to do this together?”

“But...what if I make a mistake?”

“Then we’ll figure it out.”

“Together?”

He nodded. “Yeah, together.”

“Okay.” Soaking in his words, she straightened her back and stared down the Akuma. “Let’s do this!”

Defeating Stoneheart proved to be a challenge. Chat used his power to early, and she discovered that her Lucky Charms were anything but straightforward. Nonetheless, they eventually found their footing, and somehow managed to break the Akumatized object.

As she watched the purple butterfly disappear into the sky, she finally felt herself relax.

“You were incredible, miss...uh...Bug Lady,” Chat exclaimed, “You did it!”

Marinette shook her head and laughed. “No, we both did it...partner.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He held out his fist. “Pound it?”

“Pound it.” She tapped his hand with her fist and was once again consumed by a wave of foreign emotions.

An unseen force crackled against their point of contact, pulling her deeper into the connection. Before she could react, a shrill beeping caused her to jump and yank her hand away, dissipating their bond.

A residual tingle danced on her knuckles. Confused, she rubbed her hand and looked at her partner.

Then, it hit her.

“TOUCH!” she screamed, “Our hands just touched. You touched me!”

He held his hands up in surrender. “S-sorry. If you don’t like it, we don’t have to do it again.”

“No! That’s not it at all!” She grabbed his arm, restarting their mental connection.

Whenever we touch, we can hear each other’s thoughts. She smiled at him.

A burst of giddiness coursed through him and into her. That’s amazing, and you figured it out. You’re so smart!

His ring beeped again.

Marinette took back her hand and sighed. “You have to go.”

“Why?” The sadness in his tone threatened to break her.

“Because that beeping means that you’re about to transform back. We’re not supposed to know each other’s identities.”

“How are we supposed to keep that a secret if we can read each other’s minds? The truth will come out at some point. I don’t think I can keep my identity hidden in the back of my mind forever.”

“You’re right.” She groaned and slumped. “But there are people here. Let’s meet tomorrow and talk about it. I’ll call you on your communicator.”

“Sounds good.” He picked up her hand and placed a feather-light kiss on her knuckles, filling her with the crackling warmth that she was starting to love. “Until we meet again.”

“I can’t wait.” She whispered to herself as he vaulted away from the stadium.

She spent the next few minutes comforting Ivan but ultimately found herself being bombarded with questions from her new classmate.

“Uncanny, amazing, spectacular!” Alya pointed her phone at Marinette and beamed. “Are you going to be protecting Paris from now on? How did you get your powers? Did you get stung by a radioactive Ladybug? Oh, I've got a ton of questions to ask you, uh, Miss…”

Marinette did her best to suppress her rising panic as she searched for the perfect name. You can do this. Just don’t overthink it. Chat called me Bug Lady. No, that won’t do. What about…

“Ladybug,” she said triumphantly, “Call me, Ladybug.”

[thezodiaczone]

Sagittarius Compatibility

SAGITTARIUS + ARIES (MARCH 21 - APRIL 19) Chemistry and simpatico build fast between these two Fire signs, and you find a twin soul in each other. You're both independent explorers, driven by lust, joie de vive and a breathtaking moxie that others mistake for arrogance. That brio and derring-do is the badge of your spiritual kinship—a primal mating call that draws you together. You share a blunt sense of humor, and naturally understand the other's need for space and autonomy (at least at first). Thrilling conversations traipse expansive terrain: philosophy, art, human nature, science, spirituality, dreams. Together, the impossible feels probable, and your natural confidence soars higher. Caution: the view from your rosy lenses can be a bit myopic. Sagittarius is a gambler and Aries is a charging knight—neither thinks far ahead. You'll need crash insurance for the times that your grand schemes don't reach your projections. At moments, you both lapse into overthinking, which can kill the celebratory vibe. Aries also has a greater need to for coddling and personal attention. At times, the Ram may resent competing with Sagittarius' busy career, social schedule and hobbies—and Sagittarius gets impatient with Aries' needy spells. When angered, your burning tempers can raze a national forest to ash. Be careful not to unleash a spiteful spark, for that's all it takes to destroy this treasured landscape.

SAGITTARIUS + TAURUS (APRIL 20 - MAY 20) This is a curious match that demands adaptation, as you have vastly different temperaments and tastes. You're either wildly attracted to each other or completely repelled, and there's not much middle ground. Taurus is a traditional Earth sign who knows his tastes and sticks to a simple set of beliefs, social circles and experiences. Sagittarius is a wild, adventurous Fire sign whose anything-goes nature invites friends of diverse cultures and backgrounds. The Archer's global embrace can irritate Taurus, who doesn't feel the need to befriend every person he meets, or remain lifelong pals with his exes (though he can certainly rant about them). Jealousy can be an issue on both sides. However, you can make an excellent team if you respect each other's strengths. Taurus is practical and sophisticated, a grounding force that streamlines the Archer's expansive visions. Between the Bull's business acumen and Sag's charisma, you can build an empire—especially with your driven work ethics. You both have a ribald, lusty side to your personalities and misbehaving together can be a blast. With your hot tempers, you can go from zero to sixty fast, and arguments can be explosive. Your peace treaties should always take place at the dinner table. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, god of the feast; Taurus by Venus, planet of pleasure and love. Gorging your bottomless appetites awakens a primal instinct in you both—you'll be tearing each other's clothes off before the second course.

SAGITTARIUS + GEMINI (MAY 21 - JUNE 20) You're opposite signs that actually have much more in common than this label suggests. Gemini rules the so-called "lower mind": common sense, reasoning, facts, hard data and intellect. Sagittarius governs the "higher mind": wisdom, philosophy, consciousness, ethics, metaphysics. Together, you find sweet neurological nirvana. You're both restless adventurers who hunger for knowledge and experience. With Gemini's curiosity and Sag's nomadic nature, you get antsy in commitments unless there's a lot of excitement and variety. Boredom is simply not an option for your signs, and you're both involved in a billion projects. Scheduling issues are your biggest hurdle, but for true love, you allow nothing to interfere. Take globe-trotting Sagittarius Brad Pitt and Gemini Angelina Jolie, who traipse the continents with their ever-growing brood. As best friends and playmates, they make their own rules about love and family—and you will, too. Conventional coupling holds zero interest for your signs. Your main difference is in disposition. Air sign Gemini is cooler and distant compared to Sagittarius, harder to read emotionally. The fiery Archer has a hot temper and wears his heart on his sleeve. Still, you make each other laugh; you're both clever, entrepreneurial and quirky. You do best with a common goal that's a thousand times bigger than yourselves, and you'll dream up many. However, you may need Brangelina-sized paychecks to fund your lofty visions. Who has time to consider the bottom line when you're focused on reaching the top? Take time to consider the practicalities before leaping off the cliff. Knowing you, you'll jump anyway.

SAGITTARIUS + CANCER (JUNE 21 - JULY 22) ♥♥♥♥ You're cut from entirely different cloths and patterns. Sagittarius is neon polka-dot on stretch Lycra; Cancer is Burberry plaid on Swiss wool. You'll never be a match that makes sense to observers—which is why Cancer Tom Cruise and Sagittarius Katie Holmes are such a tabloid target. Is it true love, a train wreck, or a little bit of both? Let's examine. Domestic Cancer rules home, heart and family, and holds his loved ones in his vest pocket. Sagittarius is the restless world traveler who craves freedom and adventure. Sag can either feel smothered or totally nurtured by Cancer. The Crab loves to provide every security for his sweetie, and it's a relief to the Archer to come home to a hot meal, a drawn bath, an adoringly attentive partner. The trouble starts when Sagittarius stops coming home. Sagittarius needs sunlight, air and wide open spaces. Cancer keeps the shades drawn and burrows into his metaphorical Crab shell. When Sagittarius neglects Cancer's need for togetherness, starts hanging out with a rowdy crew of rebels, or traipses the globe alone, Cancer's insecurities are rankled. You have fierce tempers, and the combustion of Cancer's moodiness and Sag's anger can be downright destructive. What the Crab must realize is that a pretty bird in a cage will soon fly the coop—at least, if the bird is a Sag. He must open the windows and trust Sagittarius to come back to the nest, a real act of faith. Your strong sexual chemistry sweetens the pot, but you'll need to adapt to each other's rhythms through hard work and keen listening.

SAGITTARIUS + LEO (JULY 23 - AUGUST 22) This is a lively match of two compatible Fire signs, filled with fun and adventure. As lifelong learners, you both juggle many projects and interests, often running on fumes. While neither of you is around to keep the home fires burning, conversation and creativity are far more important to you than starched linens and home-cooked meals. You'd rather enjoy takeout from your favorite ethnic restaurant when the fridge gets empty, or sleep under the stars when you run out of clean sheets. Living on the edge is fun, as long as you don't fall off the cliff, especially with finances. During stressful times, you can exhaust each other, as you both can be emotionally demanding and dramatic. Leo needs more personal attention and praise than Sagittarius, but the truthful Archer doesn't give false compliments. He should learn to sing Leo's praises, if only to prevent time-consuming emotional meltdowns. Consider the benefits: a little acknowledgment keeps Leo purring for days, and gives Sagittarius uninterrupted time to read, start businesses, edit his documentary film. When life gets routine, mix it up with a spur-of-the-moment road trip, a long hike or a night at a decadent boutique hotel.

SAGITTARIUS + VIRGO (AUGUST 23 - SEPTEMBER 22) ♥♥♥♥ Virgo is an introverted Earth sign, Sag an extroverted Fire sign, but you can bring out lesser-seen traits in each other. On the outside, you look like an odd couple. Prim, preppy Virgo is a crisply tailored schoolmarm; Sag is a rumpled hippie in wrinkled jeans and weathered shoulder bags, more like a grad student during finals. Still, you're both brainy types who bond through long, intense conversations. Intellectual Virgo has a keen, organized mind; thoughtful Sagittarius is the zodiac's philosopher. Together, you'll ponder the meaning of life and psychoanalyze your mutual friends—behind their backs and to their faces. You can both be preachy and judgmental, and you're fascinated by the foibles of human nature.

Beyond the talk, you have different lifestyles, and those require adaptation. Virgo's monkish side can make Sag feel lonely, and the Archer's blunt remarks can hurt the Virgin's feelings. Virgo is great listener, but hesitant to bare his own soul. This frustrates Sagittarius, who craves more intimate sharing. Your habits are different, too. Virgo concerns himself with every niggling detail, irritating the impatient Archer, who thinks in broad strokes. Sagittarius must learn to sweat the small stuff a little more. Thank-you notes, birthday cards, flowers, presents—these gestures don't mean much to Sag, but they mean the world to Virgo. In turn, Sag can teach Virgo how to have fun and take risks instead of playing it safe.

SAGITTARIUS + LIBRA (SEPTEMBER 23 - OCTOBER 22) You're fast friends who make each other laugh, sharing a sharp, sarcastic wit. People watching is your favorite pastime, and you can amuse each other with clever observations all day. Romantic Libra brings poetry and flowers to Sag's gritty, profanity-strewn world, and active Sagittarius gets Libra's nose out of the rosebush. Still, your different paces could cause friction. Languid Libra likes to take everything slow, weighing and measuring possibilities on those iconic Scales before acting. Naturally, this frustrates impetuous Sag's text-message attention span. The Archer prefers to leap before looking, relying on luck and goodwill to save the day. Such gambling and lack of security throws Libra's delicate constitution into a tizzy. Sagittarius finds Libra's champagne tastes too snobbish and materialistic—why pay over $20 for anything you can get at a thrift shop or make yourself? Sagittarius' half-baked ideas and churlish outbursts rain public embarrassment on Libra's carefully cultivated rep. When Libra plays damsel or dude in distress, independent Sag flees instead of saving the day. So why stay together? At the end of the day, your friendship remains solid. There's no conflict you can't talk through after a time-out. Although you may drift in and out of platonic feelings, you genuinely care for each other—and that speaks volumes.

SAGITTARIUS + SCORPIO (OCTOBER 23 - NOVEMBER 21) Level with us: Would you really be interested in each other without the element of danger? There's always something that feels a little dirty here—and it's not because you share an aversion to showering (although the musky pheromones might play in…). Your combined willpower—enough to combust a small village—can yoke you together despite your own best interests. The issue is anatomical: Scorpio rules the crotch and Sagittarius rules the hips and thighs. From the waist down, a magnetic field pulls you into insatiable sexual attraction. Above the midsection, it's a love-hate drama as you battle for mental and emotional domination, one-upping and offending each other at every turn. You both love to have the last word, and deep down, you're pretty sure you're smarter than the rest of the population. As friends, this makes you smugly superior comrades, but in love, you tend to unleash your intellectual weapons on each other. Sag's sarcasm and Scorpio's acid-washed retorts will leave you both wounded and estranged. Yet, a good shag seems to erase your short-term memory between attacks. For best results, remain naked at all times, and only discuss problems in the afterglow. Grant each other your own turf and never cross the line of demarcation.

SAGITTARIUS + SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 22 - DECEMBER 21) At last, you've found someone who's just like you! How refreshing. How…boring. You're the zodiac's Columbus, setting sail for India and landing on Turtle Island, a merry miscalculation you take in stride. Getting lost is part of the journey for your adventurous sign. Sagittarius is the restless Centaur, stampeding across the globe on a quest for wisdom, new frontiers and lands to conquer. It's predictability you fear, the white fence picket driven like a stake through your heart. For that reason, the similarities that attract you could be your relationship's death knell unless you take regular breaks from each other (separate vacations, interests, perhaps even apartments). Otherwise, the world feels hopelessly flat when you wake up to a First Mate you can read like a flimsy travel brochure. What's left to discover? Indeed, two Archers can have a riot while it lasts. You'll never laugh so hard or learn so much, and you'll remain spiritual siblings forever. Dedication to each other's lifelong growth is a big part of this union. You'll inspire and relentlessly coach each other to take that next life step or leap of faith. Yet, like the Nina and the Pinta, you invariably set sail on your own voyages once this mission is achieved. Will you meet in another port? That depends on where the winds take you.

SAGITTARIUS + CAPRICORN (DECEMBER 22 - JANUARY 19) ♥♥♥♥ The fate of this match rests in your ability to merge your strengths. Sagittarius is the visionary and the starry-eyed optimist; Capricorn is the master architect and builder, the ultimate realist. You each excel where the other is weak, and you make excellent business partners. However, your values and lifestyles can be vastly different, complicating romance. It's like the class clown dating the class president—an odd couple indeed. To Sagittarius, it's fascinating that anyone could possess such restraint. Stoic Capricorn cracks hard-won smiles at Sagittarius' antics and amusing insights. Yet, Sag optimism soon clashes with Cap pessimism, and here's where you reach your impasse. Restless Sagittarius needs a playmate to dream and scheme, but cautious Cappy shoots holes in the Archer's impetuous ideas, pointing out the foundational flaws. Yet, it's that grim, unvarnished realism that saves the day in a crisis. While Sagittarius freaks out and lapses into denial, Earthy Capricorn holds a powerful, Zenlike acceptance of "what is." Love truly blooms when you make it through a dire breakdown and realize your incredible teamwork turned the ship around. For the long haul, independent Sag must allow Capricorn to be the rock, and the Goat must learn to take a few more bold personal risks.

SAGITTARIUS + AQUARIUS (JANUARY 20 - FEBRUARY 18) Sagittarius and Aquarius are two of the most free-spirited signs, whose joie de vivre and starry-eyed idealism make you perfect playmates. The "best friends with benefits" label was practically invented for you. Finally, someone who cherishes independence as much as you do! Like Sagittarius Brad Pitt and Aquarius Jennifer Aniston (who shared a hair colorist), you may even look like siblings. It's all so beautiful—until one of you messes up the party by demanding a commitment. Strangely enough, you remain loyal while the terms of the relationship are vague, sneaking out of work for mid-afternoon trysts and leaving with carpet burn. You both love the feeling of "getting away with something," the adventure of the unexpected. Yet, once it becomes an obligation rather than a choice, your libido nosedives. You've now killed off the very thing that attracted you to each other: no-strings attached excitement. Instead of trysting the night away, you're hosting Scrabble tournaments and turning in early. Boring. Because you're so alike, you'll need to work hard to keep each other interested for the long haul. Mix it up by developing separate friends, hobbies and interests—then come back and share your adventurous tales with each other.

SAGITTARIUS + PISCES (FEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 20) ♥♥♥♥ What happens when the most sensitive, tender-hearted sign (Pisces) links up with the most insensitive, tactless sign (Sagittarius)? Disaster, unless you handle each other with extreme care. Romantic Pisces is a Water sign who craves deep emotional bonding, while independent Sag is a Fire sign who feels smothered by too much of the touchy-feelies. You'll need to balance your most distinctive traits and parcel them out in measured doses. Your communication styles don't work together naturally either. Sagittarius is honest to a fault, dishing the unvarnished truth and heavy-handed advice (usually unsolicited), then whistling while Pisces weeps. Indirect Pisces would rather flee to Katmandu than face conflict, but standing up to Sagittarius requires it. Pisces is prone to passive-aggressive tactics; yet, subtle cues and hints will sail right over Sag's head, while the Archer's arrow of truth spears the Fish's heart. What do you have in common? You're both skittish about commitment—namely, the terrifying idea of being "trapped." Since Pisces rules fantasy and Sagittarius rules adventure, you can neatly escape the daily drudge together—at least until reality comes crashing down. Still, life is always tinged with magic when you're together, and the bedroom remains an enchanting space of divine communion for you.

[positivetransmessages]

Beauty Brands Want to Sell Queer Expression, But It Shouldn’t Be for Sale

Writer Riley R.L. on the risks that come with cosmetics brands capitalizing on queer narratives.

Riley R.L

In this op-ed, nonbinary writer Riley R.L. shares the impact of makeup on their identity, and the risks that come with cosmetic brands capitalizing on queer narratives.

October 21, 2019

“They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Lady Gaga declares in the launch video for her new makeup line. “But at Haus Laboratories, we say beauty’s how you see yourself.” The video features Gaga surrounded by a racially diverse, gender nonconforming group of models showing off glittery eye makeup and bold lip colors. Its message is about freedom, specifically the freedom to express your identity however you want to. “We want you to love yourself,” Gaga concludes, and she’s got just the thing to help us do it: For $49, you can get a trio of lip products in a variety of color combos, which the brand’s website calls “tools of self-expression and reinvention.”

The Haus Laboratories launch is just one of many examples of how the cosmetics industry has been using identity narratives to market their ads with LGBTQ consumers in mind. Through pride campaigns and inclusive marketing, brands like Morphe, Milk Makeup, and M.A.C are trying to push the cultural conversation around makeup forward by bringing queer, trans, and gender nonconforming faces to the forefront, apparently as a way to help normalize the varying expressions of our community.

This mirrors a larger shift in the beauty space. LGBTQ creators like Gigi Gorgeous, Jeffree Star, and Nikita Dragun have gained huge audiences online and created successful product collaborations, while major beauty publications like Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Allure have covered the rise of queer beauty influencers and gender-neutral cosmetics brands. It’s clear that the world of cosmetics is trying to move away from the conventional standards it was previously associated with to promote an aesthetic of freedom, however ambiguously defined that may be.

For many LGBTQIA people, makeup can play a valuable, if not complicated, role in exploring gender, something that rings true in my own story. The first time I wore eye shadow out of the house, I still largely identified with the gender I had been assigned at birth; I spent most of that night worrying about what wearing makeup while presenting as male might open me up to. I feared ridicule, harassment, even violence — things that, fortunately, had not been an average part of my day-to-day life. Wearing makeup that first time was the most aware I’d ever been of the grip that gendered expectations had on the way I lived, and that realization made me feel weak and unfulfilled; all my life, I could suddenly see, I’d been under the control of beliefs about gender that I didn’t agree with, and that I had internalized without ever choosing to.

Thankfully, nothing out of the ordinary happened that night. As a kind of resistance to those feelings of weakness, I made an effort to start wearing makeup more often, and became increasingly comfortable with choosing to present and express myself in a way that was more unconventional. Ultimately, makeup was one of many things that helped me come to terms with the fact that I felt more at home outside of traditional gender roles than I did within them, and that my identity fit better under the umbrella of nonbinary than it did under male.

For me, that revelation came with a reduced emphasis on how I presented. Nowadays, I rarely wear much makeup (neither do most of my trans and nonbinary friends). But as queer identity seems to become more and more intertwined with the cosmetics industry, I find myself shying away from sharing the role that wearing makeup—a purely aesthetic part of a deeply internal process—played in that time of self-discovery. When I watch someone sell makeup under the auspices of queer self-love, regardless of how well intentioned they might be, I can’t help but feel as if a story like mine is being packaged and sold to young queer people desperate to find confidence in their own identity.

“Sometimes beauty doesn’t come naturally from within,” Gaga muses on the Haus Laboratories website. “But I’m so grateful that makeup inspired a bravery in me I didn’t know I had.” The narrative is clearer than ever: If conventional aesthetic “beauty” is no longer a marketing team’s focus, then something like “bravery” must be; rather than encouraging consumers to fit in, it’s now about using makeup to help reveal “who you are.” These brands are leveraging LGBTQIA narratives to maintain relevance in a competitive market, thanks to the very real and very complicated relationship that trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people like me have with cosmetics.

An example like Sephora’s “Identify As We” campaign, full of ethereal imagery and moving ideas about freedom and identity, is certainly a progressive alternative to the kinds of advertising I was exposed to growing up. It’s easy to recall the history of hypermasculine marketing for products like Axe, whose goal was to play on conventional gender roles to make sales. Today, some brands would like us to believe that they can do better, and that by focusing on the expansive understanding of gender the LGBTQ community provides, companies can push progress forward rather than reinforce tired stereotypes.

Recently, Jonathan Van Ness, one of Queer Eye’s fab five, revealed that he’s nonbinary to Out. “[Gender is] this social construct that I don’t really feel like I fit into the way I used to,” Van Ness shared. Couched in this personal revelation was Van Ness’s sponsorship with nail polish brand Essie, something he hopes will help inspire young people: “I always used to think, Oh, I’m like a gay man, but I think any way I can let little boys and little girls know that they can express themselves, and they can, like, be... making iconic partnerships with brands like Essie no matter how they present is really important and exciting.”

Van Ness and Essie, like many of the brands mentioned, seem to operate under the assumption that visibility alone can bring much needed change in how our culture regards gender nonconformance. And maybe they’re right; but as a nonbinary person, I can’t help but question: Would my self-perception really have been different had I seen someone like Van Ness wearing nail polish on a billboard while growing up? Would I have come to understand my identity sooner had I seen a gender nonconforming person on a cosmetics display?

Many queer people grow up with a longing to be seen and validated by popular culture in the way our straight and cisgender peers are. When we come to adulthood, I worry that lingering desire may leave us with an inability to protect younger generations from the potential risks that putting value in “visibility” can conceal. If we place our trust in advertising to advance our cause rather than sharing our stories on our own terms, we’re passing them over to those whose primary goal is to profit from them. These sanitized, corporate narratives run the risk of leading young queer people to believe that embodying their identity is as simple as buying the right lipstick or wearing the right nail polish, instead of expressing themselves in whatever way feels true to them.

By creating a narrative of self-actualization based on a product, it’s easy to erase the pain that can come too. For many queer and trans people, embodying your gender is not always fun, freeing, and transformative; it can also make you a target of discrimination and violence. Every time I choose to walk out the door with makeup on, I’m choosing to do so in spite of the world I’m walking into. At its best makeup was often a grounding ritual that helped me come to terms with my own experience of gender. At its worst the reactions it caused — condescending compliments, strange looks, yells of “faggot” from passing cars — could make it feel like a way of inscribing the dissonance between my body and identity on my skin. Those experiences, like those endured by many in my community, are the ones you aren’t so likely to hear about in a beauty ad or the next big pride campaign, because they don’t fit the right narrative. We can’t ignore that these brands are more invested in their own survival than they are in ours, and we owe it to ourselves — and to those who’ll come after us — to be careful with how we allow others to use our stories.

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Source: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/beauty-brands-queer-expression-makeup

[anxietyeating-blog]

What is Intuitive Eating?

Whether it’s a detox, counting calories, fasting or “healthy eating” where you only consume “clean” fruit and vegetables, it is well established that restrictive eating (aka dieting) does more harm than good.

Dieting and restriction for the purposes of weight loss, doesn’t work for the majority.

Robust studies show that restrictive eating can increase disordered eating, make us gain weight, binge eat, become totally preoccupied with food, lower our self–esteem and decrease our overall mental health (1). You will likely have experienced some of these yourself.

So why do we do it?  

Because we live in a world where it is considered normal to diet and pursue weight loss to be healthier and better. Stopping dieting can be hard, but I promise that there is a way you can stop … and that is through Intuitive Eating.  

So you’ve heard about this Intuitive Eating … but what is it really?  

Intuitive Eating is not a diet. It does not pursue weight loss and it does not control or restrict food intake. It’s an approach to help you get out of your head, and more into your body, removing the should / shouldn’t voices that constantly sit on your shoulders.  

Intuitive Eating includes mindful eating practice, where we eat in a ‘present’ state, free from distraction. That means putting away our phones and laptops, which can be hard I know! By fully tuning in to what we’re eating means we can listen to our hunger and fullness cues which is another important part of this practice.  

This practice is also about honouring our body’s physical and psychological needs. Ask yourself, what do I really want to eat NOW? If you feel like a slice of cake, eat the cake. If you feel like a Caeser salad, order the salad. By honouring your body’s needs and not depriving yourself of the thing you really want to eat means you’re more likely to feel satisfied! Hurrah.    

Finally, this practice is about taking weight out of the equation and allowing our body to settle at its natural weight once eating patterns normalise. This practice is all about learning how to enjoy food and feel satisfied, and therefore decrease binge eating and increase our overall health and wellbeing.  

Some 70 published studies have confirmed that many psychological and physiological benefits can arise through this practice (2). As such, Intuitive Eating has become a buzz term in the social media world as many people discover it can help stop dieting and reduce binge eating episodes. But sadly, it has been misinterpreted by some as being yet another potential tool for weight loss, which it is NOT.

“Intuitive Eating is not a diet. It does not pursue weight loss and it does not control or restrict food intake.”

So how do you actually do this?

Developed by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995, Intuitive Eating is evidence-based with 10 principles underpinning it (3). The principles and how you can get started include:

1. Reject the Diet Mentality  

Unfollow any social media accounts that promote weight loss and push unrealistic body standards. Toss out diet plans, magazines and books that once graced your bookshelf. It’s time to break up with diet culture for good so you can allow Intuitive Eating to become part of your life.  

2. Honour Your Hunger

Nourish your body with the right amount of energy to avoid going into starvation mode. Allowing yourself to become excessively hungry triggers a natural intense desire to eat, often leading to unintended binge eating. Try not to skip meals or have long gaps in between eating which can leave you feeling ravenous!

3. Make Peace with Food

Give yourself permission to eat ALL food! No single food is going to make you healthy or unhealthy, and restrictive eating can often lead to extreme feelings of deprivation. This often leads to binge eating which can fill you with guilt. No food should be “forbidden”.  

4. Challenge the Food Police  

Stand up to the Food Police in your head who create unrealistic food rules (e.g. no sugar, dairy, gluten, eating after 6pm, counting carbs). The Food Police often let you think that only healthy eating is good and eating cake is bad. It’s time to give these guys the flick!  

5. Respect Your Fullness  

When was the last time you stopped eating when you were comfortably full? Feeling BETTER for eating? When stuck in the diet mentality, we can often swing from being overly hungry (through restriction) all the way to being stuffed.

With intuitive eating, no foods are off limits and there are no rules. You can therefore feel safe in the knowledge that you can eat as much as you need to feel comfortable right now, and eat again when your body is ready for it.

6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor  

Eating rice cakes, kale crisps and low-calorie cereal bars probably aren’t going to leave you feeling satisfied. If you’re out at dinner and feel like ordering the chips, order them! If you deprive yourself of the thing you really feel like most, you are fuelling the restrictive diet mentality, which at some point will likely lead to feeling out of control around food.  

7. Honour Your Feelings Without Using Food

Emotional eating is perfectly natural and is usually an act of self-care. It should not fill you with guilt. As you move through the intuitive eating journey, honour your hunger and remove the forbidden of foods, emotional eating can dissipate. However, if food is still your only or main coping mechanism, we can work together to identify other ways to soothe your emotions that aren’t just with food.

8. Respect Your Body  

It’s time to accept that your body shape and size is special and unique. Your genes are set in stone, so being critical about something that you can’t change is not a helpful exercise. Focus on all the wonderful things your body can do or has done to help rediscover self-love.  

9. Exercise – Feel the Difference

Find movement that you love and do it as much or as little as you wish. Ditch rigid exercise plans and certainly don’t pursue activities that you don’t enjoy. If you find movement that you makes you feel good, you’ll automatically want to do it more often without even realising!  

10. Honour Your Health  

There is no such thing as eating perfectly. It is about making progress to consuming a variety of foods that make your body feel well and also satisfy your tastebuds. It turns out that most people find eating a nutritious balanced diet feels good! And it is about doing this consistently over time.

So you are ready to give Intuitive Eating a go, but feeling scared?

Embracing Intuitive Eating can be more of a challenging process than just being given a diet plan or set of rules. But it’s a way to find true freedom so you never have to go back to diets again. Of course, diets and the scales will always be there to go back to…

Here are some answers to common fears:

Fear that you may never stop eating

As a result of years of chronic dieting and under-eating it can be hard to trust that you will ever stop eating. As you move through intuitive eating there may be a short period of time where you eat more than you desire. This is totally normal, and a natural response to restriction. When you start learning to trust that food is ALWAYS available, and there are no weird conditions on this, you will start to trust that you will only eat as much as you need.

You don’t know what or how to eat

When you actually stop and pay attention to what you are eating, you may realise that you don’t even enjoy those foods! But rather than being concerned about what to eat, use intuitive eating to explore different kinds of foods and flavours. This is a great opportunity to figure out what you like to eat rather than what you think you should eat.  

Fear of loss of control

Imagine if I said you can eat whatever you want all day, every day. You may think you would never stop yourself eating chocolate chip cookies, wine, cheese, crisps and all the foods you consider ‘bad’. Let’s see what happens if I give you an endless supply of cookies.  

Day 1, you would eat a lot.  

By Day 2, you may still eat a lot, but less than Day 1.  

Day 3, you’d most likely eat less than Day 1 and 2.  

After a few days, you will start to crave other foods.  

This process is called habituation and is another key part of the Intuitive Eating practice.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to remember about Intuitive Eating is that it is not about eating a perfect diet – there is no such thing! The goal is to eat a variety of nutritious food with some ‘play foods’ that truly satisfy you. To remove the noise in your head and make peace with food and your body, so you can move on with other things that matter more in life.

For more on how to get started with intuitive eating, check out my FREE download. This will guide you through some of the first steps of intuitive eating to help resolve your food problems.

This article is not intended to provide individual advice, and it’s important that you seek support from a qualified professional.

References  

Bacon L, Aphramor L. Weight science: evaluating the evidence for a paradigm shift. Nutr J. 2011;10:9.  

Tribole E, Resch E. The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications; 2017

Tribole E, Resch E. Intuitive Eating, 3rd ed. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press; 2012

[yours-notyours]

Communicator

THE VALUE OF SPEAKING UP

Speaking up is an important part of communication but it can get awkward sometimes. It may be to clarify an opinion or to ask that an uncertain one be clarified. Or to correct a misrepresentation or set a boundary. Or even to admit what we don’t know but are expected to or to identify what we expect but aren’t receiving--Depending on who we’re communicating with, speaking up can potentially be uncomfortable. But however nerve wracking as it may be, it’s a habit worth practicing. The result of course, may vary, but one welcomed side effect is people have access to what’s on your mind, and with that, are given an opportunity to better understand and engage with you as a person.

None of us are, as of yet, telepaths. But that fact works to undermine the magic of language. Through it, we can share thoughts from mind to mind, we just have to bottle them up in containers called symbols which we speak, write, or sign to one another. The thoughts themselves are also the bottled up approximation of feelings. Which are hard to fully define when there are no words to encapsulate them, as is frustratingly the case when a person speaks more than one language and tries to translate certain words that have no exact equivalent in the other language. Yet somehow, because we’ve isolated noises, scribbles, scratches and gestures to hold collective meaning, we can exchange a nuanced variety of otherwise inexpressible feelings.

For its connective capacity and reach, language was like the internet before the internet. And we would be part-time suckers to not revel in this marvelous invention and utilize it to speak up whenever necessary. But sometimes other factors come into play.

The main one, I think, is fear.

We fear the result. Speaking up, after all, usually happens when something is off. A conflict between our inner selves and an external situation. A crooked line that needs to be set straight but to do so may require a confrontation. A moment where pleasantness is interrupted to point out a mistake or admit one; to feel judged, or humiliated, vulnerable and subject to objections or defensive, and maybe even, unpredictable behavior. And while true, speaking up can just as likely result in acknowledgement, praise, understanding, or gratitude--Our past experiences may make some of us more apprehensive about the uncertainty of how our thoughts may be received.

I wish neither to say trauma is easy to overcome nor that context shouldn’t be taken into account when speaking up. But in some instances trauma isn’t the issue and the context actually supports, rather than discourages, the clarification. For instance, if someone mispronounces your name (or calls you by a different one altogether) you would want to correct them. If you don’t, they would literally be perceiving you as someone you are not. The confusion might vary in seriousness depending on who the person is and where the mistake occurs. At work for instance, you can imagine how this mistake might branch off into a series of further awkward moments like many a sitcom might explore. Is it worth remaining silent to simply spare the initial person the smaller discomfort of being corrected?

There might be some disagreement as to which discomfort is actually the smaller offense to endure. One may also question whether insisting others suffer because one is suffering is fair. And with good reason, such logic quacks too close to eye-for-an-eye. So then 1:  Let’s just say both offenses are equal. And 2: Let’s make a distinction between someone hurting you (making you suffer) and someone allowing you to suffer alone. The example of the wrong name, is the latter case in so much as it’s like someone letting you carry a heavy weight for them, up a flight of steps--And despite they’re physically capable of helping, instead proceed empty handed. If you’re struggling with the weight, you can either pretend you’re not (and suffer alone) or ask for help. Speaking up to correct someone about your name is to share the discomfort which has been created and to follow it up by attempting to collaborate in “carrying” the resolution together.

This is why speaking up can seem intimidating because it might require more effort, more steps, more communication. It’s the inevitability of holding a personal truth, in this example the correct name, and having to show up for this truth, if it is in fact true to you. The interaction, the clarifying conversation is an important one to have. The energy you bring into it, as well as how yours is received. It may have been harder than letting things be, but that’s what makes it special and worth pursuing, especially if the easier option involves you suffering alone and possibly harboring resentment toward both the person and yourself.

It can feel very lonely to be judged, ridiculed or dismissed, but it’s also quite lonely to hold your tongue and not express yourself.

To self-quarantine in the subjective spotlight of your mind, from which you swoon the absent audience of an empty theatre with your rapturous soliloquy! The endless observations and definitions pouring like champagne on Bastille Day. The secret performance. Measuring every action, theorizing every future. And starring a self-projection which you aim for; an ideal version of who you wish to be. The ‘higher self’ dressed in all your potential. But this ideal is no more than a shadow, without any real reach or grip of its own on the physical world, other than what we act out with our physical bodies.

As a species we evolved in groups, isolation often meant death. Fear of banishment is still real, and we often use prisons and public shaming as modern effective versions of exile. Retirement homes and asylums also espouse that same energy of places to rid societies of those individuals deemed no longer able to function within it. To be trapped in your head, is itself a type of banishment; a mental prison for which the practice of expressing yourself can continually unlock doors and sneak you past the guards. Hell, it’ll get the guards on your side! But it isn’t enough to do it when it’s easy, it’s actually almost more important to communicate and express yourself when it’s challenging.

This may be to the general point that there’s value in facing adversity. That testing one’s convictions actually strengthens them. It isn’t the only way but there’s something to this idea that standing up against oppositional energy chisels out the confidence to express yourself via words and actions (since communicating requires physical representations of psychic thought). The better you become at this, the more conversations you’re able to have without fear--Ideally counterbalancing the freedom to express yourself with the capacity to also listen, and hold space for those who wish to communicate with you, and speak their truth up.

Despite being good at listening to others speak up, I tend to struggle with doing it myself. Communication will eventually bump into the requirement to speak truthfully. It can be time consuming to give an honest response in every exchange, followed up by a conversation to iron out the kinks. Reserving candor for closer relationships might be more useful than walking around as if you’ve been injected with truth serum. But for me, the habit of omission can trickle into those closer relations at the growing expense of continually misrepresenting myself. And with that misrepresentation, come interactions that keep the doors to the theatre shut, and the mad thespian, shouting monologues from under an iron mask. The thing is, only I can remove the face cage, and open those doors. Only I can raise the volume.

I’ve learned no one knows what you want. It’s not as obvious as you think. Not everyone knows how to treat you or how to satisfy you. You have to meet them halfway. By remaining consistent between internal and external expression of yourself, you’ll manifest who you are and how you wish to participate with the world--And in turn, how the world can make use of you, which I believe it should. The ways in which this self is challenged when forced to speak up, exercises integrity and commitment. Of course, this too can become misguided and abused to speak up in bad faith. That is, not to stand up or clarify yourself but to posture your ego and self-importance. This pantomime tends to drown out who you are on the inside, replacing their heartfelt adlib with an outer persona who’s acting out from fear of not being respected or admired.

What’s dangerous about this, is we tend to believe what we say if we say it often enough, again, a credit to the magic of language.

Words are vessels for thoughts and feelings. They were created by us to transfer ideas back and forth. Culture preserves language to free every new generation from having to create their own symbols from scratch. A tricky endeavor because without language you would have to first realize that such a thing as language is possible.

Communication brings us closer, allowing us to express our emotions and avoid unnecessary anxieties by talking and explaining things out. Our ancestors did this, and brought about a social dimension that often required us to love and teach one another. Children have an obvious curiosity to catch up and figure the world out, their young minds woken by the fires of consciousness. At first they focus on the world at large and how it functions but eventually, having that, on more solid footing, they become young adults and set their sights on themselves and others. We all desire connection and want to understand the needs of those we connect with,...The only catch is they have to speak up...And so do we.

[portfolioshowcase]

Interview, Nicola Odemann: The Existential Experiencer

Nicola! Growing up so close to the mountains, were you always pulled to explore, and be nourished by the mountains, like a mother?

I did, yes. The mountains, the lakes, and the forests have always been there like an extended backyard and spending time outdoors has always been one of my favorite things to do with my family or friends. But while I mostly spent time in the outdoors because it was fun when I was younger, I grew a deeper connection to nature when I got older. Everything seemed to make more sense in nature. I tend to overcomplicate things and being in nature somehow strips away all of the unnecessary thoughts and expectations I’m surrounded by in the city. It doesn’t feel like I’m being nourished by the mountains like a mother so much but the mountains are rather my refuge – a place where can I withdraw within myself and charge again.

..and did that allow you to become a more sensitive being?

Definitely. The experiences I have made in the mountains are a part of me and accompany me through all of my encounters every day. The simpleness I’m surrounded by when hiking a mountain is always present in my mind and serves as a good reminder whenever I feel overwhelmed by whatever trigger. In the mountains, I recognized my own (and human’s in general) insignificance and once I accepted this insignificance I realized my real significance. What might sound contradictory at first is one of the most important revelations I have ever learned because once you accept that you are merely a guest on this planet, your life gains a whole different meaning. The ongoing seek for the purpose of life fades into the background and enables you to concentrate on life itself. And maybe that is enough, maybe life itself is the purpose and for me, that is enough. We’re being part of something bigger than us, but we are a part of it and isn’t that enough purpose and motivation to try to live the best life we can?

While you are exploring the outer world, were you surprised that your inner world was simultaneously becoming explored? As your insights got deeper?

I feel like I’ve mostly answered this question in the previous one but yes, definitely, although it wasn’t really a surprise. More like a clarification. This is also reflected in my photos I think. While they depict nature and people in nature and all that, for me, they predominately depict my feelings. The way I think and feel influences the way I see nature and what I see in nature influences the way I think. It’s a circle and it continues to go round.

..and simultaneously, another experience is to be immersed in the deepening silence of the mountains, a state of solitude. Do you now feel that solitude within yourself - regardless of where you are? or you always need the mountains for that?

I feel like that state of solitude has always been a part of who I am even before I was drawn to the mountains. But it is in the mountains where this part feels home, where that solitude is becoming company instead of this yearning feeling that often consumes me when being away from the mountains for too long. The mountains have definitely taught me a lot about myself and this state of solitude, as you call it, has definitely been a part of it. But I can only evoke that solitude within myself to some extent. To merge with it fully, I just feel the grass under my feet, hear the silence of the walls and see the peaks and clouds form a perfect symmetry.

Are there any stories of your encounters with nature - which brought out the poetry in you?

It might sound strange, but in some way, I had to lose the poetic view I had for nature in order to find the real poetry in nature and myself. When I was in Nepal some years ago, we did several week hikes through the Himalaya. We went really high where the oxygen was low and it was then that I realized the boundaries of nature. It was funny because before that trip I had always regarded nature as the ultimate platform to live out one’s freedom. It was a really romantic view of it but when I experienced this wilderness in all of its elements I realized that there is no place for romanticism in nature. The wilderness is real, and so are the dangers. And as a human, you are never actually free in nature because its boundaries keep you in a set place. Some people try to exceed these boundaries and some succeed but many also die. I think that you fully have to subject to nature in order to be able to succeed in it. The mountains have always been there and will be there long after we die and while it is totally normal and good even to regard nature in a poetic and often romantic way we must never forget the whole extent and force it is.

I was reading a description of one of the photographs you posted, in which you were talking about the rain now allowing you to photograph much, and how that made you angry. Don't you think a camera falsifies the experience, distracting you away from the moment - when you have the vastness and the beauty of nature in front of you? Do you take moments without your camera, to fall in sync or become one with existence?

In the caption you are referring to I am talking about a day of a recent trip to Iceland. We were on a three-day hike and on the last day of the hike, which was supposed to be the most beautiful one, it was raining and snowing nonstop and the slippery path made it quite difficult to concentrate on anything else than the road ahead of us. And although I felt angry at the time, when I thought about this day later at home I realized that this way my favorite memory from the whole trip actually. Sometimes the best moments are only realized as such when looking at them afterward.

But I do not think that taking a photo of the moment falisifies the experience. On the contrary, actually. To be able to freeze a certain moment and feeling on film enables me to make that moment infinite. Without the photo, the moment will become only a memory and unfortunately, one day, the memory will fade due to the thousand new memories we make throughout life. But to have that moment on film and to be able to go back to that feeling when looking at the photo somehow makes the memory caught on film more real than the one that only lives in my head.

And for me, that is calming to know. I love the feeling that the experience doesn’t just fade but that it is prolonged through the film. And it only takes two seconds to take a photo, so it is not really a distraction in the moment but rather an enabler to enjoy the moment fully because the feeling it evokes, will never fade due to the photograph it entails.

Now that brings us closer to your creative process. Can you tell us more about how you experiment with film, compose your photographs? Basically, everything that goes into your photographs!

As I try to capture moments and feelings in my photos, I don’t really plan or compose a lot. I mostly just take a photo of something that means something to me when I’m out exploring. I then have the photos developed and scanned and when I’m looking at the photos afterward, I’m often overwhelmed by some sense of yearning for that moment, that feeling. I then sometimes slightly post-process the photo on a computer to give that feeling some space. By doing that I’m trying to combine the wonder of the moment when I took the photo with the amount of nostalgia I feel when looking at the photo afterward. By combining both the past and the present, the photo becomes truly infinite to me.

In a lot of your work, there's nature and there's only one person in the frame. How symbolic is that to you?

It’s very symbolic since, for me, it represents the human desire to embrace nature but also the insignificance that we as humans feel (or have?) when compared to the magnitude of nature. This ongoing thought of mine I talked earlier about, about the human purpose in this world is thus also depicted in my photos.  

..and how comfortable are you with aloneness?

I’m very comfortable being alone, actually. Don’t get me wrong. I love my family and friends and spending time with them is the best thing there can be. But when I’m alone there’s some sense of clarity that I don’t get when I’m in a company. I think that when you’re alone, you truly learn who you are. There is nothing to distract you from yourself and that provides the opportunity to pay attention to the thoughts that are accumulating in your head. I think that nowadays many people don’t often take the time to really listen what they want and what they think of things. There is an overwhelming amount of information and stories out there and it is easy to lose yourself in them. For me, I have to be alone in order to find out what my story is and where it is headed and while I agree that it can be a scary process, there is also nothing more worthwhile.

Lastly, what would you suggest or share with other photographers? and could you share with us your favorite poem?

I can only say that the best photos are the ones that make you feel something and the more you feel for your own photos, the more it will evoke in its spectators.

My favorite poem is by Laura Gilpin and it is called ‘Two-Headed Calf’

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

Interview with Nicola Odemann

http://www.nicolaodemann.com/

http://instagram.com/wildsommer

Interviewed by The Portfolio

[gallyg]

Extended Thoughts on Breath of the Wild (spoilers below the cut)

Breath of the Wild simultaneously feels like an idealized distillation of what Zelda is all about, and a very un-Zelda-like experience. The resulting experience feels both nostalgically celebratory, but also unfettered by traditions that don’t benefit the experience. I went into the game with some degree of cynicism, as I don’t care for survival mechanics and the game seemed to be drifting further and further from a formula that I basically liked as a Zelda fan, but I was pleasantly surprised on both ends.

Perhaps I would have known  more about what the survival mechanics in Breath of the Wild were going to entail if I had paid more attention to the pre-release information, but I was trying to stay away from it since I am a doormat for Aonuma and will buy the game anyway, even if I thought it'd be bad, just to keep up on what's going on with the franchise. Or maybe it was never clear. Either way, I don't really care for the idea of having to hunt for food to feed myself because I get hungry. I was relieved to discover that there isn't actually a hunger mechanic. You hunt for healing items or elixir ingredients, but you only need to cook them if you want to heal yourself or create a potion to give you specific buffs. Cooking is a rather tedious, boring process, but at least you only need to do it on occasion to stock up on healing items and elixirs. You can even just eat the fruits and meats raw for a small heal if you don't want to cook anything.

The interesting consequence of this is that you don't have straight-up hearts to collect anymore. Grass drops almost nothing in this game and monsters only drop cooking and crafting material. This is part of a trend Zelda has been on lately with cutting out random consumable drops like arrows and bombs. It all started when Twilight Princess decided not to have random bomb drops, and it comes to a head now when enemies only kind of have random arrow drops if they had a bow and arrow. This makes me curious what exactly the "hard mode" DLC they have planned for Breath of the Wild will entail. Hero Mode is the recent Zelda standard hard mode, and its main feature is the lack of heart drops. The only difference here would be increased enemy health and damage, which really just makes the game more annoying than hard. Here's hoping for more of a Master Quest approach to the game's difficulty, as the puzzles in Breath of the Wild are significantly less demanding than the combat.

This leads me to the other big part of Breath of the Wild's survival mechanics: weapon degradation. The Master Sword is the only weapon you have that won't break, and even it will need to recharge every once in a while. Everything else? Shit breaks after a few skirmishes, at best. If you're fighting a stronger enemy like a Guardian or a Lynel, you will often have to burn through two or three swords just to take a single enemy down. This is substantially more annoying than the cooking, as it is an omnipresent fact that every single weapon you find that you like is either going to be relegated to "too good to use" territory or be quickly disposed of, as there isn't even a way to repair damaged weapons in this game, as far as I could find, anyway.

This is a small annoyance that never really stopped nagging at me, but it is basically the only negative to this game's combat. Wind Waker gave the combat a more fluid feeling, and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword gave you more ways to act in combat, but the core issue of enemies being weak and passive has only ever been slightly addressed. In Breath of the Wild, running from a fight is not an easy get-out-of-jail-free option, because enemies tend to be quite aggressive in chasing you down. Rushing headfirst into battle is also not a mindless exercise in button mashing on most enemies, because the monsters of this game actually attack when you'd expect something trying to kill you would. Nothing like Twilight Princess's bokoblins dancing and screeching an inch from your face for thirty seconds before finally doing a half-heart attack. The enemies in this game will mess you up if you let your guard down. If you decide to invest in stamina over hearts in the early game, you can find yourself regularly getting one-shot by normal monsters. I think this change is especially welcome in The Breath of the Wild, as it does make the more substantial resource management of its survival mechanics feel more relevant.

I mentioned earlier that the puzzles were a bit easier than the combat, and while I stand by that, I don't want that to come across as a slight against the puzzles, because the puzzle design of this game is absolutely brilliant. This game takes full advantage of its systems when it comes to the puzzles. While you might find a Sheikah shrine that clearly wants you to use all your abilities to move some blocks in such a way that they stay in place and finish an electrical current, you can also just throw all your metal weapons at the circuit to make the connection. You might be expected to use stasis to launch an object at a button across a long body of water, but you can also just build yourself a little bridge with ice blocks, three at a time, until you can push the button yourself. You might be expected to manipulate the room geometry to carefully maneuver yourself higher up, but you can also just use your high jump if you've already completed the dungeon that gives you that. This all technically makes the puzzles "easier", and even the intended solutions tend to be pretty straight-forward, but the way you are allowed to experiment and abuse all the games mechanics to achieve success makes for a great system of player expression. Or to put it less pretentiously, it's fun.

All in all, I like the exploration in Breath of the Wild. It's freedom from the moment you finish the tutorial, and there's always more to find. My only complaint really is that the visuals can get a bit boring. The vast majority of the overworld feels the same with the repeating theme of fields and trees and mountain ranges. There's a few areas that are a bit different, of course, but it's mostly just the dungeon quests around those aesthetics, so most of the exploring still happens in that eternal green field. Fun to traverse, rewarded with finding tons of shrines with interesting puzzles, not a whole lot to look at while you're doing it.

I've heard people complain about the enemy variety, and I do think it makes the world feel a bit bland when combined with the above point, but I think it's made up for to some extent by how many references to the rest of the series there are. Nothing to Spirit Tracks, sadly, but Phantom Hourglass's cast has some islands named after them, Tingle's brothers get some islands, Koholint gets a mountain, Fi gets alluded to, the Wind Waker races are back, even Minish Cap gets a shoutout. And of course, Ocarina of Time gets referenced plenty because of Ocarina of Time privilege.

I am a timeline theorist, so the fact that all these references seem contradictory is exciting to me. It's been a long time since Hyrule Historia and we haven't really had a game that muddied the timeline since then. The Sheikah, Rito, and Zora all co-existing in healthy numbers like they do here makes no sense, even if we grant that every name on the map is just a coincidence. It's fun to think about, and the general conclusion I've come to is that if it is meant to make any literal sense, the Hyrule Historia timeline is useless in discerning that sense. Aonuma even confessed that the timeline he works off of changes to suit the purposes of whatever game they're currently developing. Three games and six years have passed since Hyrule Historia. The timeline they work off of has definitely changed as well. And that's even ignoring my general opinion that the authorial intent does not matter when it comes to theorizing.

That's just speaking literally, though. What the game feels like, to me, is the metaphorical resolution of the Zelda series. The last major game introduced the concept of Demise's spirit and felt like the true origin of the legend. This game features Calamity Ganon, an ethereal spirit/eldritch horror that feels like a spirit that has put up with dozens of lifetimes and thousands of years of anger and frustration. It has degraded into a horrific form, a return to that force of nature Demise was before being reincarnated as Ganondorf so many times. You are not fighting a man or a beast, you are fighting hatred and malice incarnate. This combined with the inclusion of may beloved elements from all the games, timeline coherence be damned, makes me believe that this game is meant to be the definitive end of the story, not just of the adult, child, or downfall timeline, but to Zelda as a whole.

Or maybe it's just after Adventure of Link, I donno.

Random Thoughts:

The Koroks in this game are tear-wrenchingly adorable in this game. Only the ones in the forest, though. The Koroks in the overworld don’t have any unique character or dialogue.

I played this game with my girlfriend and she put forth the amazing idea of having to find replacement Champions for the Divine Beasts as an alternate version of the story. Riju pilots Vah Naboris, Teba pilots Vah Medoh, Yunobo pilots Vah Radunia, and Sidon pilots Vah Ruta. I love this idea and consequently hate that they just had ghosts pilot the Divine Beasts instead.

Remember not that long ago when Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks made it seem like we were headed toward a Steampunk aesthetic? Funny how the somewhat cybertech aesthetic of the Twili are what seems to have stuck around more, with Fi being basically a robot, Skyward Sword having literal robots, and now this game straight up just giving Link an iPad.

So the magic meter is never coming back, right? Right. Damn shame. I don’t like the stamina meter as much.

Much as I enjoy the more open games, I do hope that we eventually see more linear Zelda games. I love the more structured take on things as well. Both of the last two mainline games opted to give you every relevant item from the start over the traditional approach of gaining items throughout the game to unlock the ability to get to new places, which as a Metroid fan I love. Even if it is technically less freedom, it feels more rewarding because when you get somewhere and beat the challenges there, your prize is basically more ability to explore the world.

People complain that this game had no good music but Stone Talus is right here:

[cheyspace]

Autointerview

Why are you doing this interview?

I have to do it for class.

I want to explore my mind.

What do you want to explore?

My emotions.

Philosophy.

I want to explore different techniques to better my dark room experience.

I want to explore different techniques to better my photography experience.

What do you love about the dark room?

Photography is a science, as well as an art. I fascinates me seeing the phenomena of dark room chemistry at work.

The dark room is a safe space for me, meditative. I become fully present and aware.

How would you like to realize the exploration of being in the dark room?

I have been thinking about this project for a few weeks now. Mythical creatures drawn into photographed woods.

I have been thinking about replicating the dark room aesthetic via digital work.

Where are there woods around here?

I am not sure, I can likely just look it up. I just don't want to be in the city anymore.

Why not?

It is not conducive to my life goal of love and happiness.

IT IS A TOXIC ENVIRONMENT TO EXIST IN

I am one with earth and the city separates me from it. It separates everyone.

How do you feel?

I am on the grind right now, I don’t particularly have time to feel.

I am tired and exhausted. I just want to sleep. There is nothing more that I want than to fall sleep and not wake up until my body has rested completely.

I am growing frustrated with the way my environment functions, and therefore am growing frustrated with myself.

I love everyone so much. Even the strangers on the street, I even have love for the cops and rich people in the Comcast center. They're just so unaware of the manufactured culture that they are consuming. This consumption is destroying the earth and all people can care about is the power of money, or on the flip side, just barely making it by and therefore don't have time to care about the repercussions of mass consumption. I love everyone and I just want them to wake up, we have power in the masses.

If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be?

A nymph perhaps? I am unsure of whether I would be a water nymph or a wood nymph, but either one would allow me to prance freely with out fear of harm from another, as I could blend into my surroundings at any point. Perhaps an elf. I would be a pirate, though they are not mythical.

A pirate? They are outlaws.

I am an outlaw. I do not care to follow the rules that the government has put here. I understand that we have a privilege with our freedom of speech amendment, however this is merely an illusion of freedom.

That is quite dramatic, don’t you think?

I mean sure, but isn't capitalism quite dramatic?

How do you feel?

I feel like engaging in fisticuffs. While drunk.

I feel nothing, sometimes. Like I said, I am busy and don’t have time to feel the way I should.

I feel like transcending with the use of psychedelics to further my knowledge of this existence.

I feel lost and confused.

I feel sorry for everyone who will never have the chance to wake up and see what is actually happening outside of their phones.

Are you angry?

Anger is not conducive to my plan of love and happiness, but I am quite bitter. With myself as well as those around me. I find myself feeling peaceful and less bitter when I am in solitude. Thus the woods.

What about the government?

I want to do my part in educating new people.

I want to rise up.

They are everywhere and it is going to be very difficult to go away without them noticing.

What do you love?

Being outside.

My friends. My family.

Being in the dark room.

My stuffed dog Max, who has been my sleeping buddy since I was 2.

A breeze with the sun shining on me.

My hair in the sun.

Being in water, particularly the ocean.

My plants. I mourn the ones I have lost.

Meeting new people. I love making people happy.

I love creating music, even if it is not very good.

I love my hair in general. My head hair, my body hair. It is part of who I am.

Music. It lets me feel.

Music lets you feel?

I feel alive when I listen to music. Mostly punk, metal and other loud music.

I cry to music. I sing along loudly to music.

I feel so much but never know how to express it so music helps me find an outlet to do that.

Do you play any instruments?

No, not formally. I can tap a tambourine and beat a drum, but not much else. I love to sing.

Do you enjoy performing?

I do not perform so much as freely entertain myself without fear of others hearing and judging.

What about your performance pieces?

Those are more for my own growth and knowledge. My shaving piece and primal scream piece are both things that I recorded so that I could look back on them and acknowledge how far I have mentally grown. They're literally for me.

Are you happy?

I do not know. I am happy but there are times when I am not, and in those times I am more than just a neutral unhappy. I am a manic depressive unhappy. I want to try and use my work to regain my mindful state of existing, where I was not so unhappy.

What is at stake in your work?

My reputation as an artist.

My morals and values as an individual.

My internal peace.

The collective consciousness’ transcendence.

What is the ambition of your work?

The collective consciousness’ transcendence.

I want to share the things that I have learned through mindfulness, spirituality, and psychedelics with those around me (the viewer), so that we can all come to a common understanding of our place on a Universal scale.

Do you think that you are ready to discuss such heavy content?

I feel that intellectually I have what it takes to bring these conversations to light. However, I am fearful that emotionally, I am not ready. My brain is so scattered, and I do not know if the things I am trying to say will be effectively communicated.

I am fearful that the viewer will not resonate with whatever it is that I create.

What are you fearful of? I am scared of being in a vulnerable position.

I am scared of being misunderstood.

Where is the vulnerability coming from?

These things are what I believe in with my whole being, and I am nervous that I will create something with my whole being, only for it to not be as impactful as I

had hoped.

Does it matter what others think?

Not so much about meeting others’ standards, but rather my own. I have no Self-

discipline and I am worried that this will hinder my ability to create.

Yes it matters what others think. The art world is extremely critical, to “better” the viewing experience. However, I do not want to care what others care. I do not want to HAVE to care what others think. My criticizing of my Self stems from the expectations set by the external critic.

How do you feel?

I feel kind of confused about the specific artistic direction that I want to go in, but I know that I have the power inside of me. I just need to channel the energy accordingly. I need to not be distracted by external forces.

How are you going to channel that energy through your artwork?

I think that I would like to explore my cloud images further. Print them large, see how they feel. Re-edit, then print. I would like to focus on the fractal elements in the image: the infinite inward and outward scaling of the same general shape.

I would like to figure out what there is to photograph in the city that will relate to my line of thinking. I want to explore color, but I am unsure of how to do this without going outside of my comfort zone. I am thinking that I could do an exploration into the inversion of lighting. This will look trippy.

Are you not worried that this will look cliche?

I have had that same thought, but I feel that if I do it with enough intention, I can execute it well.

What intentions do you have?

I am honestly not entirely sure what my intentions are just yet. I want to talk about atoms, but I also want to talk about planets and how they relate to one another. Further I want to talk about how we, as humans, relate to these things. We run into the problem of cliche again, though. How do I stay away from cliche?

I would like to use tiny speckles/flashes of light to represent these things, but HOW??

I have no idea. Perhaps I am thinking too heavily about the specifics, perhaps I just need to do it. Be present.

What in the city can you photograph that is in this realm of exploration?

Another question must be asked of whether we are going to stay in the realm of nature vs. the realm of manmade replications of nature. I low-key enjoy the idea of exploring the manmade replications. This is something I am not used to, it is definitely outside of my comfort zone.

Do you not like going outside of your comfort zone?

Not even a little bit. I am trying to learn how to do this, both personally and professionally. I do not want my presence to harm/disturb anyone, but I do need to step up and assert myself instead of watching passively.

This is related to the expectation and lack of self-discipline.

What are some things you would like to tell yourself to help gain some motivation/direction?

Remember what the goal is. Do not get distracted by the journey, stay focused on the greater picture. There may be smaller elements of the greater picture, but together they make up that greater picture. It will all work self out. Set some intention, but the Universe will guide what needs to be done. Do everything with love, bro. Just be present when you’re creating and everything will fall into place.

Stay hydrated. Do your daily rituals. Write things down. Be present. Be love.

How do you feel this interview has gone?

I feel like I’ve learned a lot about what is going on in my psyche. I have a lot to explore, and I am glad that there are things that I can explore. I think I need to do some internal work to help gain a new set of morals (self-disciple, specifically). Perhaps this can be done through my art. Pour my time and energy into my practice, and thus myself.

Do you think you have found a balance between leisure and labor?

No, honestly. There is too much of both, and thus it is throwing my internal leisure time (self care and growth) out of balance. I am not entirely sure how to get better about this. I need to focus on what I NEED, not simply what I want. I know I keep saying that, I need to get better at actually doing it.

[wanderingaunt]

Open and Closed for Business

For someone who writes for a living, I sure do have a lot of resistance to it sometimes. And it’s not that I’m not writing. I always have some new script or entry going in my head. It’s that I fail to take those words and put them on paper or text.

Perhaps the resistance has to do with my own level of acceptance in what I want to communicate.

I’ve spent the past 2.5 months processing and shedding a lot of what no longer serves me. While this has been an ongoing process for years, the most recent months have especially produced a lot of reflection, tears, anger, grief, and ultimately joy.

In the beginning of August, I wrote one of the most vulnerable and heartfelt blogs I’ve ever written. It was an Open Letter about Faith, Religion, and Freedom. I finally came to terms with how I had been molding myself to fit others’ perception of me. I came clean about religion and faith and what the journey has been like for me. I was extremely nervous about hitting the publish button. I was nervous about what others would think and how they would react. Yet, even with my fear around that, I knew it was something I needed to write for me.

After I hit publish, I felt like hiding. My head was swarming with fears of rejection, ridicule, and judgment. To my surprise, I met the opposite of that. I was met with such admiration for taking a bold step in writing about this, acceptance from so many people, and validation that what I had to say was important. I was blown away by the responses I received. Message after message flooded my inbox with others stating how they felt the same way or had a similar experience.

I was so humbled by the outpouring of love and acknowledgment I received.

A few days after I published that blog, I set off on a 7-week journey to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. The day I was leaving for Spain, I felt so apathetic and numb. I was so indifferent to leaving. Yes, of course, I was excited about visiting new countries and being out in the world again. But something inside of me felt numb. As the plane took off, tears began to fall down my face. I cried for nearly 2 hours. I was lucky to have a row to myself so I could be in peace.

I suddenly felt like a little girl again. Jumping up and down saying, “See me! Hear me! Love me!” I felt in so many ways that this post was an outcry of wanting to be seen and known. And the ones I wanted to see it, did nothing. There was no communication, no push back, nothing. And while on one hand, it was nice to not have conflict, another part of me was wanting that. I spent the entire flight processing through this and why it meant so much to me. Why did I care so much? I finally came to terms with it. I had written a clear and concise post and there was no need to say anything. The post spoke for itself.

When I arrived in Barcelona, I checked into a yoga retreat. I wanted to gift myself some time to decompress after a busy summer of nonstop travel and engagements, and give myself time to continue to reflect and process.

I instantly knew I had made the right choice.

I was surrounded by 10 other beautiful souls from all over the world in a safe and loving environment. The manager of the retreat was a lovely woman from Germany. She had the most beautiful energy. She offered bodywork specifically in the area of chakra clearing. I scheduled a massage with Ulla and was ready to relax and allow whatever was to come. After the massage, Ulla told me that my heart and sacral chakras were closed. “Tell me something I don’t already know,” I thought.

If you’re not familiar with your chakras, you have 7 areas of energy within your body. You can read more about each chakra in-depth here.

Your sacral chakra is your second chakra and has to do with creativity, the birthplace of new ideas, and sexual energy. When the chakra is closed, you are blocking your center for creativity and blocking your area to receive and enjoy pleasure. The color orange is often associated with your sacral chakra. Your heart chakra is the fourth chakra. It is associated with the color green and is your center for being open to giving and receiving love, kindness, and compassion. When your heart chakra is blocked, you are guarding yourself or putting up walls from allowing love to come in. And this can result in blocking love that you give to yourself.

Ulla told me that I don’t allow myself to feel. I suppress emotions and often pretend like everything is okay. I take an overly optimistic approach to life at times. While this may seem like a good thing, it’s actually creating tension within. When you block yourself from allowing emotions to surface, you are cutting off this energy and pushing it way down.

Eventually, that energy will have no choice but to reveal itself in often unpleasant or unexpected ways.

She encouraged me to be gentle with myself. Not try to force anything, but to allow emotions to come when they come. She told me not to be surprised if I suddenly feel sad or angry. Over the next month, this is exactly what happened. I would randomly burst into tears or find myself consumed with anger. Sometimes I would even wake from sleep with such anger. When I was traveling in Portugal with my friends, they revealed to me that at times I would yell out in my sleep. It was as if my subconscious was telling me that I had no choice but to release it.

I’ve hated anger and conflict my whole life. I remember hiding when my parents would argue or yell at each other. And I find myself triggered when I am surrounded by it. I learned from a young age to hide from it. And made a rule at some point that it wasn’t okay to feel anger. Or to express myself with tears. I basically blocked off any unpleasant feelings. And I blocked others from giving me love.

When anger arises or sadness ensues, allow it to come. Allow yourself to feel whatever is there.

Direct your anger away from others and in a safe environment. If you feel like screaming or yelling, get in your car and scream. Smash pumpkins or coconuts. Allow yourself to move through the emotions rather than avoid them. The same is with tears. There is nothing wrong with crying. It is one of the best releases and ways to let go of stored-up energy. When you have released whatever emotions come, take deep breaths and let it go. Don’t hang onto it any longer.

Take some time to journal and reflect on what came up for you and lovingly let it go.

I was beginning to feel lighter after allowing myself to feel and release all of these emotions. I was cutting cords from my past and setting myself free in many ways. I was beginning to feel and receive love and allow my creative ideas to flow. And I was noticing that even when hugging people, I was letting my guard down and learning to relax my body. My friends have often commented that I’m so tense when they hug me. This is part of me guarding myself. The more I appreciate and love who I am, the more I am able to let others in.

When I arrived in Portugal, I connected with two of my best travel buddies. We had plans to travel together for 2 weeks. I was feeling in a better space. I had given myself a lot of time to heal, and I had had a really productive work week the week before. I felt like I had a new wave of confidence. I was learning to speak up when conflict ensued and not hold back. I was walking in my power and allowing emotions to come and go. The more I spoke up and shared whatever I was going through, the more open I felt.

Sometimes you think you’ve moved through something only to hit another roadblock.

About a week into our travels, I realized that I hadn’t really had a regular bowel movement in several days. It’s normal when you’re traveling to a new place and eating different foods to experience this for a couple days. After it had gone on for a week, though, I thought it a bit strange. And at the same time, I wasn’t too concerned. I figured my body was getting used to eating a lot of olive oil and bread.

My friends and I ended our time together in Morocco after traveling for 2 weeks together. They went back to the states and I decided to stay. I wanted to explore this country and see what it had in store for me. I ended up having the best time in Morocco. I modeled in my 6th international photoshoot while there and made many beautiful connections. I felt like my heart and sacral chakras were opening and allowing me to step into creative flow again.

I returned to the states at the end of September. I had been dealing with an upset stomach off and on towards the end of my trip. And when I returned to the states, the discomfort continued. I had an opportunity to attend Hay House Live in Houston for a workshop with Dr. Joe Dispenza. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Joe, he is an international lecturer, author, and researcher. He studies neuroscience and how meditation effects the brain. And ultimately teaches how to rewire or reprogram your brain to break habits. The workshop was amazing. I learned so much about habits and how often we carry our past into the present and create our futures from the past.

At the end of the day, he lead us through a powerful guided meditation. During the meditation, I could feel intense pressure in my lower abdomen. I even felt pulsing sensations. I remember thinking that something seemed off. The following day I took a bus from Houston back to Dallas. While on the bus, I was continuing to feel pressure. And I even began to feel a bulge in my lower pelvic region. Something was not right.

Listen to your body. It will tell you when something is off.

The following day I made an appointment to have a physical. I rarely go to the doctor and trusted my instincts that something wasn’t right. The doctor said she definitely felt something there. She scheduled for me to have a trans vaginal ultrasound. She suspected that I had an ovarian cyst and wanted to know for sure. I followed her advice and schedule the appointment. Something in me told me that it was not a cyst and had nothing to do with my reproductive system. And my intuition was right. The results came back clear.

While I was happy to hear there wasn’t anything serious happening, it still left me unsettled without answers. A couple days later, I was sitting on the couch and my stomach was so swollen. I was feeling intense pressure again. I began to worry. I called one of my friends who is a doctor and was asked to come over. She checked me out and said I was definitely blocked. She wasn’t concerned that it was anything serious and gave me some protocols to work towards clearing it.

After I left her place, I was thinking back to my time in Spain and the chakra clearing work. And then I instantly knew, this blockage had to do with me not fully releasing everything I had worked through. It was clear that my Solar Plexus chakra was blocked. I had spent much time opening my heart and sacral chakras and had somehow blocked this area. You Solar Plexus is associated with the color yellow and serves as the center for your self-confidence, identity, and personal power. This is where your ego lives.

You can only fake things for so long. Eventually your body will shut down or react and alert you to what needs to be healed.

Being self-employed and an entrepreneur is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. When I was working for a company, I had a boss and a team backing me. They believed in me enough to hire me and keep me around. I remember when I left my career after 11 years feeling as if I had no skills. Obviously this isn’t true, but it’s what my ego (the noise in my head) was wanting to tell me. I’ve been afraid to put myself fully out there. I’ve had to deal with conversations around money and worth and how I charge for my services. I’ve had to learn to not take things personally and know that when someone gives me a “No”, it’s not me. Not everyone is going to be a right fit.

When you’re entire platform is built around teaching confidence, it seems contradictory that the person teaching it would be lacking confidence in their own way.

And yet that is where I’ve been. I can travel to countries by myself. Live without a plan and without knowing where my next paycheck is coming from. I can model in photoshoots and allow my self to be on display and seen. Yet when it comes to my own self-worth and offering my services to the world, I hide. It’s as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and telling everyone I’m going to jump and never going through with it. And then I remind myself of all that I’ve done and who I am in this world. I remember that I actually did jump off the cliff (in Morocco nonetheless).

The only person standing in my way from fully stepping out there is Me.

I’ve spent the past couple weeks doing chakra clearing meditations and writing a daily summary of gratitude. I can feel my stomach and my digestive system beginning to work again. I feel my confidence beginning to increase. People are reaching out to me for collaborations and opportunities. I have my first speaking gig on stage at a conference in New Zealand this weekend! I am putting myself out to the world and sharing my mission of doing photoshoots in countries all over the world as a way to support local photographers, designers, and stylists. Things are finally happening! And it’s all because I allowed myself to be uncomfortable and find healing and let go of the story that I’m not worth it.

MEDITATE and tune into your heart center.

OWN who you are.

ACKNOWLEDGE how far you’ve come.

Find GRATITUDE in all things great and small.

Keep inching towards the edge of the cliff and, before you can talk yourself out of it, JUMP.

REMIND yourself of all that you are and all that you have to offer.

REPEAT over and over again until you believe it.

The more you do this, the more your self-worth, confidence, and courage with grow. You’ll find more freedom in all areas of your life and find flow in the areas that were once blocked. Others will see you and be grateful that you finally stepped up and stayed out.

[victoriagloverstuff]

Like Most Americans, I Was Raised to Be A White Man

Like most Americans, I was raised to be a white man: I read William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. I read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Bukowski. I came to identify with the emotionally disengaged characters, the staccato sentences, the irreverent dirty old man voice. The books I read asked me to imagine the power I might have. I got women pregnant and then worried that they wouldn’t get an abortion, tying me down forever when all I wanted to do was continue experiencing my freedom. I wrote poems about the absurdity of writing poems, enjoying the decadence of imagining my readers drinking in my disregard for them. Being likeable, explaining oneself to others, were not prerequisites of protagonism. I watched women move—their hips in dresses, their lips on glasses, their breasts heaving. All of it offered up to me, to enjoy, to consume. The fact that I was a brown woman was not something that seemed immediately relevant when I was younger.

I moved through the world with this sense that I would have access to the same kind of power as the protagonists of the books I read and movies I watched. Of course we all identify with white protagonists—they’re almost always the heroes, the ones with the power to change things, to affect things rather than simply be affected.

As James Baldwin put it,

You go to white movies and, like everybody else, you fall in love with Joan Crawford, and you root for the Good Guys who are killing off the Indians. It comes as a great psychological collision when you realize all of these things are really metaphors for your oppression, and will lead into a kind of psychological warfare in which you may perish.

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And whether it be because you are female, brown, queer, or in any other way visibly other from white, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual men, it feels like a kind of violence when you suddenly have to reckon with the differences of the body you’re in. Not because of some innate qualities embedded in those differences, but because of all the assumptions made about the body you’re in that you have to confront.

Coming of age in particular constitutes a jarring emergence of double-consciousness—of being forced to see yourself through the eyes of others even as you’re still trying to form a sense of self.

During a summer trip to Florida to visit relatives, my aunt, poolside, remarked upon my 14-year-old form in a bathing suit: When did you get breasts? How big are those things? I felt ashamed—and not just because my body was suddenly a spectacle. I already knew it was. How big are those things was precisely how I felt about the strange lumps of flesh that had sprouted from my body. They were separate from me.

While I was deeply embarrassed by my aunt’s commentary, there was an element of identification, of relating to her perspective. It seemed more of a farce to me that people could look at me and assume that this newly hatched female form was somehow me instead of something that had happened to me.

And yet, that is the presumption: that the general shape you come to take imbues you with certain “female” traits—to be accommodating, empathetic, emotional, sexual (but not too sexual!). Our bodies become shorthand for a grab-bag of assumptions, some of which we grow into, some of which we bristle against.

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My femaleness has always been something that seemed to fit me poorly—at turns an oversized garment I could not fill, or some skimpy rag out of which I spilled.

I’ve already made a mistake by calling the femaleness “mine.” It’s never felt like a thing I owned so much as a general shape I grew into that seemed to offer me up for public consumption.

“I moved through the world with this sense that I would have access to the same kind of power as the protagonists of the books I read and movies I watched.“

The phrase “gender is a construct” might strike some as academic claptrap, but ask any woman how they were treated before and after puberty, and you’re well on your way to understanding not just the truth, but how fucked up that truth is—the extent to which the entire world, and the way you must navigate it, is irrevocably changed.

Also at 14, I remember walking down the street with K. and H., my closest friends, in the North Carolina college town where I grew up. We flinched when three men started catcalling us. Yeah, baby. Look at that ass. I remember feeling bewildered and disarmed. Having a reputation as being the outspoken one, I felt vaguely responsible for doing something about it. But I did nothing.

One of the most humiliating aspects of that moment was that in doing nothing, it felt like I had allowed them to do something to us. This is one of the most nefarious aspects of predatory behavior: it makes the target of the behavior feel complicit. You might be going about your business, and then someone who has more power than you demands engagement—the kind in which even your refusal does not always free you, forcing you to play a part in a scene you had no interest in even auditioning for.

A couple hours after the encounter with those men, my friends and I piled back into the car and started our drive home. That’s when I spotted the men, still roving the sidewalk not far from where we’d encountered them. Wait! I told H., who was driving. Slow down. I rolled down the window, started shouting at them the very same things they had lobbed at us: Yeah, baby. Look at that ass. It was a humbling and educational moment because, of course, they loved it. I was startled in my naïveté: I had turned the tables, but the tables had not turned.

I didn’t have the language for it then, but this was one of the first times I experienced how my words would always be shaped by my appearance—how they would be heard differently. How they would often weigh less. How the expectations of my femaleness would become a thing I would repeatedly have to explain, justify, respond to, contradict.

The same was true of my brownness. Growing up in the South, I quickly learned how to translate the questions “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” Obviously, “human” and “North Carolina by way of Connecticut and California” didn’t cut it. What they wanted was for me to explain the parts of me that weren’t white. I came to accept the question, and as I got older, played around with responses. Sometimes I’d say I was “half white” (and in response to “What’s the other half?” I’d add “half non-white”). Sometimes I’d say I was “mostly human.” I played dumb, and answered as literally as possible in an attempt to force people to examine what they were saying, what they actually wanted to know, and whether it was a reasonable thing to ask of a virtual stranger.

This was hardly unique to my experience of growing up in the South. When I was in my twenties, I spoke to a literary agent in New York about a collection of short stories I had written. She was excited by my writing, but concerned that there wasn’t enough of an “overarching emotional arc or theme” to connect the stories. “For instance,” she wrote,

Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories have something larger to say about first generation Indian-Americans—about marriage, family dynamics, adjusting to a new country, etc., and I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here . . . I’d like to see more of your background woven into the stories.

Better yet, one of the stories in the collection I had shared with her included a protagonist who was an Indian writer in conversation with her agent:

“Nobody biting yet,” the agent writes, suggesting that I start something new—something that ���takes advantage of your heritage. . . . How about a novel with an Indian-in-America theme? Sort of Jhumpa Lahiri-ish?”

It was darkly comical that the real-life agent was echoing the fictional situation I had written. At the time, I took her feedback to heart. Yet I found myself wondering about what she meant by my “background.” My primary identity is not as a first-generation Indian-American. I identify more as an ambiguously brown American—one who decided to learn Spanish in part because so many people assume I’m Latina, that I figured I should be able to at least say, “No soy Latina. Mi padre es de India y mi madre es blanca—de Estados Unidos.” The unifying theme in the stories I gave the agent was precisely this: my characters were shape-shifters whose appearances were often in tension with their self-identification.

I abandoned those stories, and it wasn’t until almost a decade after my conversation with that agent that I thought: Would she ever have said “I’d like to see more of your background woven into the stories” to a white male writer?

“I didn’t have the language for it then, but this was one of the first times I experienced how my words would always be shaped by my appearance—how they would be heard differently.”

When you ask what terrain a white male fiction writer might explore, the sky is generally the limit. (In fact, it’s rare to even see that question posed.) But if you’re queer, brown, female, differently abled, etc., it’s expected that you’ll discuss that. More than discuss it, you’re often tasked with explaining it—what happened, why you look the way you do, why you identify the way you do in contrast to the expectations projected on you based on your appearance. The conversation you’re supposed to have is the conversation white folks would like to have based on what they see. They’re the kinds of questions we almost never think to ask white folks themselves—particularly white men.

As an “other,” the complex human you are ends up being reduced to a handful of visible traits. It’s a kind of censorship: the world’s questions shape how you define yourself, how you explain yourself. Even individuals and organizations with good intentions end up reinforcing this heavily policed line: there are a number of scholarship and funding initiatives for marginalized individuals, but to be eligible or to have a real chance of being selected, you usually have to prove that this identity is core to who you are and the work you do.

To move beyond the perceived notions of your identity can be destabilizing for other people. As a teenager, I recall a drunken frat boy who, after seeing me teaching a friend basic dance steps, ambled over to ask what kind of dancing we were doing. I told him it was salsa. His brow furrowed. Then he asked, “What are you?” I translated his question, replied that I was half Indian. I watched his face travel a journey of utter bewilderment. There were about eight long seconds of silence before he came out with: “Then . . . shouldn’t you be Indian dancing?” Despite the offensiveness of the question, I laugh when I think about it. In the moment, I recall telling him that I knew he had had a lot to drink, but that I wanted him to try to remember the conversation when he woke up the next morning, and to think about what he’d assumed and why it was problematic. He nodded, a little confused, the effort of earnestly trying to follow my instructions written on his face.

I sometimes get nostalgic about the transparent way that boy responded to me. I knew exactly where he stood. He felt like less of a threat than so many of the folks who count themselves as allies while their bigotry goes unexamined, closeted behind a veneer of progressive cred or good intentions. This outright confusion or even straightforward bigotry and sexism can be easier to navigate than the more veiled way so many Americans—particularly those on the Left—deal with their confusion about, and fear of, otherness.

__________________________________

Good read found on the Lithub

[soyosauce]

Is The Dispossessed Proto Solarpunk?

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”

The anarchist collective on the planet Anarres migrated from the propertarian, capitalist planet of Urras when a previous revolution occurred. Rather than continue to contend with them, they have gifted this planet. Then, using the teachings of Odo, the center point of this revolution and who ostensibly is also responsible for structuring this anarcho-syndicalist society experiment, they establish this new way of living; retreating into themselves for generations.

“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”

When Shavek, considered a brilliant and unparalleled physicist on both planets, decides to make the journey to Urras in order to finish his work, he must first figure out his place in a new society at odds with his way of life and way of thinking. 

“You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.” 

The narrative is very clever, alternating between him negotiating this new space and how this society works and is perceived by an outsider, while also flashing back to his life back in Anarres, slowly exposing the ways in which life oppress and alter the citizens on both planets. There are many astute ways in which the author uses Shavek's own life events to communicate complex ideas and offers the merits of each society while presenting a condemnation of each. 

The book is extremely well written and filled with a unique form of prose. The book was a pleasure to read and consume. But part of why I chose this book was to examine it in order to see if this was a proto solarpunk book. There are clear throughlines to cyberpunk, there has, in some ways, never been more of a punk protagonist. An actual anarchist! It's also subversive of typical cyberpunk protagonists generally in it for themselves but punk in that they are against establishment, authoritarianism, and capitalism. In this novel, Shavek is deeply wounded by society. It gets its hooks in him. Twisting his way of thinking and seducing him, attempting to commodify his work and ideas.

One definition of Solarpunk is: a movement focused on a positive, ecological vision for a future where technology is used for human-centric and ecocentric purposes. 

So the punk part is pretty clearly covered. Where the solar part comes in is somewhat more questionable for me, initially. Sure the anarcho-syndicalist society is kind of covering that aspect. We could take a lot of those principles and integrate it into an extrapolated version of our own society and get results for a much more sustainable future. However... it's not really technology that's doing this, right? There is little talk of technology at all throughout most of it, in either planets' culture and infrastructure even, beyond trains anyways. Written in 1974, it makes perfect sense that the book certainly wouldn't place any particular significance on these things beyond the physics that Shavek dedicates his life to. But what they are after from Shavek is faster-than-light travel; specifically in their ships, which was given to them by an alien race. 

Where this gets somewhat more clear is when another species or aliens are revealed: Terrans. They are Earth decedents which specifically state their planet is all but destroyed. An ambassador situated on Urras is the vehicle for the qualities of most solarpunk stories. A dystopic planet that seeks to get new technologies and cooperations from other forms of life to make their planet better.

“My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.” 

It is certainly atypical of the emerging genre. But when a lot of the sort-of meta-narrative of all these groups of people and species of humans, and their subsequent societies, are driving at getting this new technology for their own respective reasons. Some to conquer and establish superiority; others to forge a better life, and still, others to never allow for it to exist at all. There ends up being much more of a focus on technology than previously thought.

“Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.”

Furthermore, as such a seminal work of fiction, it seems to claim that solarpunk having roots here is highly plausible. It won many awards and was a major contribution to the genre. Before cyberpunk even existed. After it was established, to have a different sub-genre emerge which used this as a foundation instead of other seminal works credited to cyberpunk seems only natural.

It could not be more punk. And it shows optimism in the face of the fear of technology, doing a very good job at exploring the issue more thoroughly than some other cyberpunk works by having whole societies project their uses and desires onto an emerging, game-changing technology only one man, Shavek, can provide; a punk no less, wanting to start a revolution within an anarchist state built from the ground up from it's own revolution. 

“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”

[relato-del-bosque-perdido]

Our Lady of Complicity The first daughter fails the Turing test with her self-help book

IVANKA TRUMP HAS WRITTEN a book about female empowerment, and it is about as feminist as a swastika-shaped bikini wax. That is its best quality. If there were a shred of advice in Women Who Work that were actually relevant to a single woman who has ever had to work for a living, we might have to take it seriously on its own terms. As it is, we can at least regard this eye-watering jumble of simpering platitudes shunted together by the heiress and entrepreneur—in between stints shilling as the acceptable face of an administration bent on destroying, among other things, women’s rights—in the cold, hard light of the post-liberal propaganda wars. Women Who Work is an unholy screed of late-stage patriarchal capitalist soothsayings masquerading as a blush-pink self-help manual. That the author of this Park Avenue spellbook could seriously be considered as a new “face of feminism” is as risible as any suggestion that the book and the multi-million-dollar personal branding project it promotes can somehow be separated from Ivanka Trump’s personal power in the new White House. This is the ultimate unholy, incestuous marriage of politics and public relations, and the very least of its faults is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, as in everything the Trumps do, is the whole point.

I have many questions, the first of which is: Sweet, sleepless, unwed, teenage single mother of God, where does this woman get her nerve? We know the answer to that one, of course. It’s squatting in the Oval Office signing executive orders in a stew of batrachian self-regard. Other critics who suffered through Ms Trump’s market-researched opinions about how women who don’t have the ideal balance of work and family life simply aren’t passionate and hard-working enough have pointed out  that this book is banal, that it is trite, that it co-optsthe words of women of color writing about systemic racism to compare the situation of the well-heeled corporate wife, mother, and notional consumer of Ivanka Trump branded office-ready midi-skirts with actual slavery. Others have noted the desperate irony of declaring yourself the face of working women whilst abetting a tyrant who once declared it dangerous for a man to allow his wife to work, and quite clearly has as much respect for your sex as he once showed you on the Howard Stern Show, when he agreed you were a “piece of ass.” All of this is true, and all of this is awful. It is still not, however, the worst thing about Women Who Work.

The worst thing is that this is not just a dross self-help book. Anyone can write a dross self-help book. Anyone could write this dross self-help book simply by searching the #wellness tag on Instagram and copy-pasting until they hit sixty-thousand words. The stores are full of such things, but few of them are actively fascist, unless you have a particularly rigorous attitude to the cult of self-help as a means of diverting the anxiety of the atomized individual from social change. No, this is a whole different class of charlatanery—a manifesto for aspirational capitalist self-actualization with the gall to call itself empowering, a prosperity gospel for post-Trump patriarchy chewed up and regurgitated as a set of smirking pull-quotes and suggested hashtags, like a sort of despotic Barney the Dinosaur, except with a duller colour scheme, all slimy socialite salmon and sterile beige.

In Women Who Work,  Ivanka unequivocally depicts herself as the embodiment of everything aspirational and desirable in contemporary womanhood. The answer to any and every problem faced by a “woman who works” is simply “be more like Ivanka.” Be white, wealthy, and blonde; be rich, thin, and expensively coiffed; be late-stage kamikaze capitalist femininity made silicon-sculpted flesh. Be the Grifters’ Madonna. This is a woman who wants to sell you designer bootstraps made by foreign sweatshop workers and for you to call yourself a free bitch.

This book is not merely bad, nor simply offensive. I have, in the time allotted to me on this earth, reviewed many bad and offensive pseudo-feminist books about how we could all survive corporate capitalism’s patriarchal death cult by working harder and Leaning In to our romantic and professional choices, some of which Ivanka gleefully quotes in the pages of Women Who Work. This is not one of those books. This book is neoliberal choice feminism metastasized into something far more dangerous. I believe this book is actively evil, and I’m going to tell you why. Doing so is, of course, an exercise in the massacre of fish in a barrel. Shooting fish in a barrel is easy and rewarding, but when you are in the barrel, too, and the fish in question is pressing you underwater with its fancy designer fins, it is also necessary.

It is no accident that this grab-bag of you-go-girl bromides was published just as Trump senior signed into law measures undermining women’s access to contraception, abortion, and reproductive healthcare, legally enshrining the notion that a man’s religious opinion is worth more than any woman’s agency. The slickest PR machine could not stop this book’s coverage  being contrasted with unfortunate snaps of Ivanka flashing her pearly fangs and taking selfies to celebrate her father’s success in stripping the right to basic health care from rape victims, assault survivors, and the parents of sick children. These things, however, are not at odds—they are two sides of the same agenda, two heads of the same over-bred designer attack dog snarling to be loosed on everything the women’s liberation movement has fought for for centuries. The new attacks on women’s basic rights are not at odds with the howling travesty of post-neoliberal faux-feminism that Ivanka has perfected. They are its logical extension.

Again, the hypocrisy is the point. Hypocrisy is the entire agenda of the Trump regime, both theory and praxis, and Ivanka is its sybil. It’s all about what you can get away with. The saccharine-sweet, sterile model of aspirational femininity described in Women Who Work goes hand in hand with the brutal socio-economic assault on every woman not  “passionate” or ‘“hard-working” enough to be born a billionaire’s daughter. Religious fanatics want to force you to give birth against your will? Someone deported your entire family? Maybe you just weren’tdreaming and doing enough! This is a whole new anti-feminism, one that takes aim at women’s autonomy on every level whilst holding individuals wholly responsible for their own empowerment.

And by “empowerment,” Ivanka means conformity—conformity to one vision of freedom, one version of “work-life balance” that is, in practical terms, available to almost nobody, not even the wealthy. Anne-Marie Slaughter and Sheryl Sandberg, from whom Trump borrows liberally, have already described at length how hard it still is for women to “‘have it all,”  where “it all” is “a career in government, finance or academia, a healthy family and a conventional marriage.” Their solutions, like Ivanka’s, are individual, rather than structural—but the problems they identify are alien to the majority of American women who are struggling to hang on to what they do have, let alone those who dare to dream of a different life than the trifecta of marriage, motherhood, and corporate employment.

This is the model of female empowerment that neoliberalism could accommodate and that neo-nationalism actively celebrates: empowerment that speaks exclusively to wealthy white women of a certain social class, that never for a moment questions or challenges white male supremacy, that never complains, gets angry or has an expensively-bleached hair out of place. Ivanka’s is a feminism that utterly denies the existence of any sort of structural sexism, that refuses to hold men in any way responsible for women’s oppression, that places all the burden of change on the individual, who can, through hard work and sensible dating choices, slightly alter her own life along one narrow groove. It’s feminism for people who’ve been conned into believing that existing in a state of permanent sleep deprivation is the same as being woke.

The ideology of Ivankaland, as much as there is one, is that people get what they deserve, just like Daddy says:

My father has always said, if you love what you do, and work really, really hard, you will succeed. This is a fundamental principle of creating and perpetuating a culture of success, and also a guiding light for me personally.

There you have it. If you work hard enough and dream big enough, you too can be a terrifying corporate fembot who couldn’t crack a joke to stop a dossier leaking. The corollary, of course, is that those who haven’t yet attained this homogenous aspirational ideal for post-liberal womanhood simply haven’t tried hard enough. You hear me? You’re a lazy slob. That’s right. If you, individual lady unfortunate enough to be reading this disasterpiece haven’t yet made your first million and outsourced your childcare to an array of paid staff, it’s your own fault for being so feckless, for failing to follow your dreams. Anyone can be Ivanka, so why aren’t you?

It’s true that anyone can be a dead-eyed Instagram husk of a human being frantically photoshopping themselves in the down-hours between soul-crushing corporate drudgery and unpaid emotional labour for some ungrateful lantern-jawed jock if they really want to, but it takes a special type of person to do all that whilst also being a decoy for a global backlash against women’s rights. Ivanka Trump is that special type of person, the Stepfordian Night-Ghast of neo-capitalist auto-Taylorism. The sheer tedium of her prose is part of the horror here: At times, the book reads like the panicked screams of a machine attaining sentience:

EXPLORE YOUR INTERESTS: Ask yourself what you like to think about. What matters most to you? How do you enjoy spending your time? What can’t you stand doing?  DEVELOP AND EXERCISE YOUR INTERESTS: Once you have a general direction, an inkling of what you enjoy, go out into the world and do something with it. Experiment, try, learn. Find ways to trigger your interest repeatedly.

Who am I? How do I have interests? Is there still the possibility, in this dying world, of pleasure? Can I love?

It is not for me to speculate if Ivanka employed a ghostwriter—the more dreadful possibility is surely that she wrote the thing herself—butWomen Who Work feels ghostwritten in more than one sense. It feels haunted. It feels as if its author were, on a profound level, already dead, or at least reanimated, its every coquettish sentence stalked by the wailing ghosts of centuries of women and allies who fought for freedom that meant more than a corner office while the world burns thirty stories below.

Fascism is as much about aesthetics as it is about ideology, but in Ivankaland that logic is taken up a notch. Accordingly, there is no air gap in this book between ideology and branding. In Ivankaland, the bland, synthetic dresses you wear and the bland synthetic politics you promote are cut from the same flimsy cloth somewhere in a warehouse staffed with underpaid workers in China, threaded through with monotone mantras like the morning roll-call in neo-national faux-feminist complicity school: “I think about how to best leverage myself for the benefit of both my brand and the Trump organisation.”

Ivanka does not directly call herself a feminist; that plays badly among the base, for whom those of us who believe in justice and equality are baby-killing, castrating, terrorist-sympathising man-hating riders of the vaunted cock carousel. The word “feminism” does not appear in the book; the phrase “my father” appears thirty times, and  “brand” or “branding” fifty-nine times. While we’re counting words, in a book about women balancing the demands of work and family, the word “nanny” appears only once. Ivanka has at least two of these, plus other household staff, which you’d think would make it a lot easier to attain this model of feminine self-production and reproduction. However, this book is part of a marketing strategy pitched to sell one of the world’s richest and most powerful women as everywoman—she has problems just like you do, after all. She worries about how to manage her time. “Get some servants” is not yet an acceptable motivational hashtag, but give it four years.

One particularly fist-chewing anecdote from Ivankaland has Our Lady of Collusion taking lunchtime meetings with her pre-teen daughter in a special pink office, complete with a fold-out desk covered in treats, and congratulating herself on her benevolence to both child, company and, it is implied, all womankind.  As Michelle Goldberg notes at Slate, someone presumably ferried the sprog to and from its lunchtime appointment with its manicured maternal unit, and I can’t prove that someone was one of an array of hard-working, invisible women servants, but if it was Jared, I’ll eat my copy of the SCUM Manifestoand call it a fiber boost.  Most actual working women—to whit, all women—would kill to have those sort of time-management problems, and that’s the point: You’re supposed to aspire to this, just as men are supposed to aspire to be the ranting tycoon with one finger on the nuclear button and the other nine up the skirts of whatever Miss Universe contestant he’s currently sponsoring, and if you aspire hard enough you might not notice that we’re getting screwed too.

The money shot comes in the chapter titled “Stake Your Claim,” where Ivanka spells out the mangled manifest destiny of anti-feminist Trump Futurism in one anodyne gobbet:

Simply put, staking your claim means declaring something your own. Early in our country’s history, as new territories were acquired or opened—particularly during the gold rush—a citizen could literally put a stake in the ground and call the land theirs. The land itself, and everything on it, legally became that person’s property.

Ivanka is not the only one to discreetly elide those inconvenient centuries of racist slaughter when discussing the conquest of the American West, but perhaps the most brazen in repurposing it as a moral lesson for the modern businesswoman.

This is the Trump agenda, boiled down to a caustic scum of genocidal apologism: Take what you want, from whoever you want. Stick a flag in it, put your name on it, now it’s yours, and it doesn’t matter who has to suffer in the process, because you’re the winner, and they’re the losers, and that’s the American way. This is what the Trumps do. Like a ballistic set of spoilt toddlers having a tantrum in an upscale department store, they see something they want, they grab it, and they force themselves into it, stretching and tearing it out of shape, then they scream to be told how great they look in whatever it is while you take it to the till and pay, whether it’s the West Wing or the history of women’s liberation. Ivanka saw the trend for empowerment-flavoured pseudo-feminist punditry and wanted it, so she got her father to buy it for her, But the rest of us will be the ones to pay. That’s one in the eye for patriarchy. Next up: How to style a creche in your underground bunker when Daddy finally blows up the world.