#because i simply have too many health issues and live with my older parents and cannot afford to ruin my health or theirs

[syekick-powers]

every single goddamn day of my life I pray that the fucking nasal covid vaccine that's still in development pans out with the level of effectiveness in humans that it showed in animal trials and that similar technology is used to develop nasal vaccines for things like the cold and flu because i am so so tired of wearing masks everywhere. literally unbelievably unconscionably tired. nobody else is doing it so any time im out in public i stick out like a sore thumb and my shit ass lung capacity means that wearing a mask for longer than about an hour will in fact cause me to struggle to get enough oxygen. i want to get a membership at a local gym and work out in a setting that i actually enjoy again but i literally cannot imagine working out in a mask without passing out eventually, let alone being able to get enough water when i cannot lower my mask around others. i want to go to concerts and movies and other public events again without having anxiety that my mom's gonna fucking die if i bring home covid or that im going to catch covid myself and develop even worse fatigue than i already have or parosmia so that all food tastes disgusting for the rest of my life or get even worse autoimmune problems than i already have. please. if that shit can stop covid with a 99% effectiveness i will kiss the feet of whoever developed it as long as it means not having to wear a goddamn mask in public again. im desperate. im so fucking desperate. if i have to wear masks in public for the entire rest of my adult life i am going to go absolutely bonkers fucking yonkers.

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

There's been something going on in my head lately. This topic is about Shinichiro and I feel disappointed. Because Shinichiro is a man who I see as the ideal older brother and parent, who is really good-hearted and loves his siblings more than anything. This is definitely Shinichiro. He is a really good-hearted man who can be easily trusted. But today, some of the things written in Izana's letter confused me a lot. We had discussions about this issue on Twitter and many things came to my mind. Our topic is this friends;

Shinichiro knew that Izana was brother to Emma, so he went to the Philippines to pick up his brother. He picked up his younger brother and went back to Japan. He gave Izana an incredibly beautiful day on the first day, and in fact, in Izana's words, gave him the best day of his life. He gave her the opportunity to live her beautiful day. Afterwards, she continued to take care of him and spend the day with him. What bothers me is that Shinichiro knew that Emma and Izana were sisters. Why didn't he come and tell Emma this in the first place? Was it such a difficult thing to say that you found your brother? For God's sake, he wasn't just Emma's brother, but theirs too. As soon as he found Izana, why didn't he bring her home and introduce her to Grandpa? Why didn't he take Mikey and Emma to their orphanage visits? Why did he promise Izana an empty family?

so apparently, from the letter we saw in the trailer, we find out that shinichiro actually /knew/ that emma and izana were related and still kept them separate when he could have adopted him...shinichiro, that's so sick and twisted shit is there an adult who didn't do izana wrong?The adoption process is surely hard but at this point he could have simply brought emma to visit him and introduce izana to mikey when he got to see him at the orphanage. Mikey was positive about the idea (as we see in the manga) so why didn't Shinichiro do anything about it?When he talks to mikey asking him his opinion on having another brother , he was already an adult, so why didn't he do anything? It's like he kinda forgot about izana because they're not "related", but at that point, why did he get izana's life in the first place? Because he was Emma's brother? And like this we get to the initial point again: he could have, at least, introduced them all

Well firstly I'm pretty sure Shinichiro didn't pick Izana up from the Philippines at all. Since Izana was in a foster home adoption type place and then juvie in Japan (that's how he met Kakucho at the foster home and then the S62 at juvie). I'm also not sure how a Japanese teenager would've been just allowed to take a kid from the Philippines to Japan like that. Actually Izana doesn't even seem to have known he had family in the Philippines until Karen told him. He thought she was his mum and that he had the same dad as Shinichiro (not clear if he knew the guys name or what he looked like though).

I agree though, from our perspective it does seem like Shinichiro made a big mistake here with not introducing Izana to the others or at least telling them. However Shinichiro didn't have our perspective. Shinichiro had no idea what was going to happen or what the consequences of doing that would be. I feel like this is one of those things which will divide the fandom, with some ageeeing and some disagreeing (both are totally fine though).

Like I think Shinichiro was right not to rush into things here, taking on the care of another child is a big responsibility and Shinichiro was already practically raising two, not to mention what kind of impact a change in environment could have on Izana's mental health, a kid he had known for a few hours at this point. I don't know a lot about the irl adoption process but I'm pretty sure you have to spend more then a few hours with the kid before deciding anything. I think that's why they then started exchanging letters, as a way for them to get to know each other better and get more comfortable with each other.

I'm guessing the next part of Shinichiro's plan was to get to know Izana better and get Izana more comfortable with him before introducing him to the others. We know Shinichiro was at least thinking about introducing Izana to them because of the question he asked Mikey.

But then I'm guessing what stopped him was all the complications. Aka Mikey ripped Sanzu's face open and Izana beat up a bunch of kids and then basically forced one to take his own life. Put them together and they don't get along and you're going to have a big problem on your hands. Like I understand why Shinichiro wanted to move slowly here, this isn't something that should've been rushed. Not to mention the warning signs Izana was already showing towards Mikey by asking Shinichiro to stop talking about him and saying hearing about Mikey gives him a headache.

I'd say the main mystery here is why he didn't tell Emma/ bring Emma with him to visit. I'm not sure if he didn't wanna get her hopes up or if he wss worried about her or Izana's reaction (though they both seem like they would've been positive), or if he didn't want to make Emma keep the secret from Mikey but didn't want to let Mikey know yet. That is a bit of mystery.

Also to be completely fair to Shinichiro I don't think he ever would've expected things to play out the way they did. He was only a teenager himself when he first met Izana and even as a young adult it's a big responsibility to bring Izana into the house and make sure all his siblings were doing ok. He clearly wanted to unite them all but wanted it done in the correct way. Shinichiro has only been shown to want the best for his siblings so I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing here. Though obviously this is just my take and we're all going to have different opinions on this.

[sariahsue]

I'd love to know what movies get wrong about orphanages if you wouldn't mind sharing!

Oh, I'm so glad you asked!

So imagine all the movies with orphanages in them: Annie, Despicable Me, Meet the Robinsons*, Stuart Little, etc. The narrative goes like this. A bunch of poor orphans live in a home run by usually one person. When prospective parents come to visit, the children eagerly all line up, hoping to get picked! So exciting! The parents find the child they want, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and go home with their new child. There may be a couple bumps as everyone gets used to the new family dynamic, but they work themselves out by the end of the movie. Happily ever after!

Literally every single thing about that scenario is wildly incorrect. First off, and this comes as a surprise to most people, there aren't any orphanages in the United States. None.

Not many kids are orphaned these days thankfully, and if they are, there’s usually extended family or other arrangements previously made by the parents (like through their wills or godparents). If there’s truly no one that can take the kid, they’d be put into foster care and given an adoption worker along with their normal social worker.

The closest thing we have to orphanages are probably residential programs and group homes (which are basically a step down from residential and in a house with a smaller group of kids). I say they’re similar because they look it from the outside. A bunch of kids living together being cared for by adults who aren’t their parents. 

That’s where the likeness ends, though. Kids in residential aren’t up for adoption. Strangers can’t go in and visit. The kids are there to receive extra care. They have something going on that make them too much to handle for their parents or foster parents, and it could be physical disability, behavioral issues, or mental health struggles. Most kids are in programs like that temporarily, though some live there for years. The adults that work there don’t live there. It’s a normal 40-hour workweek and many people work in shifts to make sure it’s properly staffed.

The government does line the kids up to show them off to prospective parents sometimes. They’re called adoption parties, and for some reason they’re held at Jordan’s Furniture store a lot. (Because they volunteer the space, I think.) There’s food and music and lots of kids up for adoption and lots of parents hoping to adopt. 

Little kids tend to like them because they’re too young to understand what’s going on and, hey, lots of people to pay attention to me! Older kids HAAATE them. If they want to be adopted, then this is a great way to feel judged and rejected for a few hours. Most aren’t really excited about being adopted. Most kids’ birth parents are still alive, but their rights were forcefully terminated by the state. The kids can feel lots of things about this. Angry. Disloyal to their birth family if they want a new family. Scared of being hurt by the new family. Sad to leave their foster family. Still want to go home even if it’s not possible. It’s not a fun time. 

Nothing concrete comes of these parties usually. Parents can talk to social workers afterward if there’s a kid that they want more information on, but it’s really the beginning of the process. There are other ways to begin that process. I’ve heard of teachers meeting a foster kid and wanting to adopt, or someone knowing a foster family taking care of a kid who’s up for adoption. Others simply talk to an adoption worker. I don’t know what the process is like for that. Quite often, foster families will take care of a kid and then adopt them. (That’s what happened to us. We fostered a newborn. He wasn’t up for adoption until he was two, and we were couldn’t even contemplate giving him up at that point.)

Sometimes, social workers will try to get prospective parents to meet kids without the kids realizing the adults are thinking about adoption, to spare the kid the worry and rejection. Once the parents have decided to move forward, there is paperwork, but I think it’s normal foster parent type paperwork because, surprise, you can’t adopt them yet. Kids have to live in your house for six months before you can adopt

Since most kids will be with a foster family before going to a pre-adoptive home, and they probably are comfortable there and attached to the family, the transition to the new home is gradual. They start out with visits for a few hours, then sleepovers. If the kid hasn’t figured it out already, they’ll let them know these people want to adopt them around this time. Some kids take it well. Some... don’t. Longer sleepovers, then finally they officially move in. This could be a couple weeks if the kid is already familiar with the adoptive family or longer if they’re particularly attached to the foster family. 

If six months are up and things are still going well, the real paperwork can start. There are home evaluations, interviews with the parents, interviews with the children already in the family, psychologists determine if the adoptee is adjusted well and securely attached. I’m sure there’s a ton more that I don’t know about. It freaking takes forever. When you’re done, you have to go to court and have papers signed by a judge. I’m sure this is the best part of every judge’s day. There are smiles and pictures and kids happily banging the gavel to make it official!

Unfortunately, the issues that come from adoption are not all solved at the end of the 90-minute movie. My brother, who never lived with his birth mother and has only had us as his family, still has issues. I know a girl who was straight up abandoned by her mother. She’s got serious mental health and self-worth issues years later, even though she and family adore each other and they are so good to her and super supportive. On the other hand, some people have zero issues over it. They don’t know and don’t care about their birth family.

Some issues go away after time and love. Some people start out with no issues, but after a few months or years, things start to change. Their subconscious realizes that they’re not in danger, and this is a safe environment where they can finally start to work through the trauma they’ve been through, and suddenly they’ll start having mental health or behavioral problems, and sometimes they’re severe. 

It’s sad, but occasionally adoptions fail. This is part of the reason for the six-month wait. Sometimes the kids have so many issues that the parents can’t help them and keep them safe. Sometimes the parents weren’t as good people as they pretended to be and should haven’t kids. Thankfully, this type. of thing is pretty rare. I’ve never met anyone who it’s happened to. Most of the time, kids are put into good homes with people who love them and help them heal from the things their birth families put them through. 

TL;DR There aren’t any orphanages in the US. Adoption is very complicated and emotionally messy, but it’s great! I’m sorry not sorry I wrote an essay. 

*I give Meet the Robinsons a pass. Lots of kids who are up for adoption or who have been adopted struggle with it a lot. For some, they feel worthless because their foundational belief about themselves is that not even their own mother wanted them. For others, they feel guilty about betraying their birth family when they start to love the adoptive family. Some are rejected repeatedly. Almost all of them have been deeply hurt in the past. Meet the Robinsons acknowledges issues like these and told the story of a boy who dealt with them in a healthy way, and showed kids that it’s okay for them to be happy, and made a very cute and imaginative movie out of it, and I love it for existing. 

[dracowars]

can i request an imagine im so sorry if it’s too long for your liking but could it be a pureblood slytherin reader x draco imagine where the reader and draco are dating but after some bad news from home (maybe she doesn’t have the kindest parents like draco) she distances herself from everyone and keeps zoning out and finds herself astronomy tower thinking really dark thoughts but draco has constantly been watching over her and is super worried and maybe they have an argument at the tower and draco gets stupid and says something mean or even is dumb to think to accuse her of cheating at the end in which the reader maybe either slaps him (for dramatic effect) or if that’s too much she just says it’s over between the two and she walks off and draco is shocked and tries to stop the reader but she’s already gone and she doesn’t show up to breakfast or lunch and maybe in their class they learn about the boggart again and since they’re older their fears have changed and maybe the reader isn’t paying attention and she’s brought up to test her boggart and it’s draco saying those same things and maybe her parents come out as well and it’s essentially that draco’s unkind words are her fear because it’s the last straw for her until everything breaks because she was holding onto him and she runs out of class and class is dismissed because no one wants to go after that and the reader skips dinner and can be found in moaning myrtles bathroom having a panic attack and she gets really frustrated and hits the the sink really hard to feel something and you can hear myrtle begging the reader to stop and maybe someone sees her and runs to draco to get help but draco runs to the bathroom she’s not there anymore and he finds her at the astronomy tower feeling numb and he overhears her talking to herself and it ends in fluff because he can’t lose her and he figures out it’s probably her parents pressuring her too much again and he can relate because of his and they get back together and it’s just really fluffy at the end maybe they sneak in the kitchen for a quick minute dinner since the reader didn’t eat and draco has to be really kind to the elves heheh

darkness | draco malfoy

pairing: draco x slytherin!reader

word count: 3,1k

summary: where y/n's parents make her life a living hell and draco doesn't really help

a/n: normally i do not write about things like this but i actually really liked the request so i wrote it anyway. i don't mean to offend anyone with this if i misrepresented something, i did my best to get familiar with the topic <3

warnings: angst, major mental health issues including dark thoughts and self-doubt, hints of su*c*de, mentions of blood, cursing, very sensitive topics in general

universe: harry potter

The cold wind blows through your hair and makes it swirl around the air and into your face, goosebumps spreading all over your body at the sudden coldness. To prevent your hair from flying around, you tame your hair with a hair tie, your gaze fixed straight ahead while your face is illuminated by the setting sun.

You really missed this place during the holidays. The astronomy tower.

Whenever you are stressed from doing a lot of homework or studying in general, this is the place you can hust go to and are somehow always able to relax. The view is breathtaking and you love to watch the sun - or the moon, depening on what time of the day you find yourself up here - shine.

And this special place also gives you the security that you so urgently needed.

The winter holidays were a living hell for you. You have extremely strict parents who see a great importance in your education, but that is basically the only thing that interests them about you. That you bring honor to your pureblood family. That they can proudly show you off to other pureblood families even though they know nothing about you and who you really are.

Until recently they did not even know that you are in a relationship. Unfortunately, one thing led to another and they found it out by an unlucky coincidence which consisted of them picking you up at platform 9¾ for the very first time since you have been at Hogwarts. There they saw you with a platinum haired boy, kissing.

This boy turned out to be Draco Malfoy, the son of the pureblood Malfoy family, who you parents cannot stand at all. To put it in other words, they loathe each other to death and that for probably no reason, at least you have not been able to figure it out yet.

So of course they were not very thrilled that you are in a relationship with a Malfoy, which they showed you straight away. They locked you inside of your room at home because you had to 'think about your actions and their consequences'.

However, when they realized that their behavior would not change anything, they began to put you down. They threw the worst swear words at you, wanted to force you to break up with him and told you what a terrible shame you are for your family. That Draco could never love you and that you are ugly, cheap and overall useless. That is how it went on for your whole vacation.

Your parents always treated you this way, it was not new to you. Nevertheless it hurts every time, even if you try to hide it. You would rather keep all the pain inside of you than to tell others about it, because they are not able to help you anyway. Unfortunately, you did the math without your boyfriend.

This morning at the Central Station of London, Draco immediately saw that you were not feeling well. Any attempts to get you to tell him what is going on with you had been useless though so he left you alone at some point, but you still noticed how he kept staring at you for the whole train ride to Hogwarts.

You would love to tell him, tell him about everything, but something inside of you is stopping you from doing so. An invisible barrier inside of your head, probably fear, that you simply cannot overcome. You know that Draco's parents are pretty similar to yours, but still you just cannot manage to talk to him and you notice how it slowly but surely destroys your deep bond with one another.

Continuing to look into the distance and watch the clouds encircle the beautiful setting sun, which colors the sky in reddish colors, your thoughts suddenly wander to gloomy places. Dark places where you usually only go to when you are locked inside of your own room at home.

But now they are even attacking you at your safest place.

You perfectly know yourself that you are not good enough for Draco. You do not deserve this incredibly great person as your boyfriend. You do not even deserve him as a best friend, no, you do not deserve him at all. You are worthless and for him you are nothing more than one girl out of many.

And still you keep on being selfish and do not end it.

Completely lost in your own dark thoughts, you do not even notice at first how the tears are already streaming down your cheeks like waterfalls. Sniffling, you rub your eyes, smeer your discreetly applied mascara, and wipe the tears from your face.

"Why am I still doing this to myself?", you sob and lower your head, looking deep down at the grounds of Hogwarts. The tears that are enriched with pain flow out of your eyes and fall into the dark depths, causing you to slowly close your eyes.

The sudden mention of your name from behind you makes you abruptly breathe out in shock and your head jumps up as you turn around. Your eyes lock with the gray, sparkling eyes of your boyfriend, who is currently looking at you with pity.

"W-What are you doing here, Draco?", you sniff and wrap your arms around your body in an attempt to hide from him so he does not have to look at you.

"Why are you crying?", he asks, ignoring your question, and before you can realize, he is already standing right in front of you and gently places his hands on your tear stained, puffy cheeks. Gently wiping away your tears with his thumb, he searches your eyes for answers that can explain your current terrible condition. He cannot bear to see you like this, so fragile and deeply hurt.

Whatever happened, he will make sure you know that he is and always will be here for you. And he will not let, whatever it is, continue to hurt you so badly.

"If you do not tell me, then I cannot help you", he softly whispers and brushes the strands of hair behind your ear that have escaped from your ponytail in the wind and then carefully lifts your head so you have to look him in the eyes.

"It's nothing", are the only words you get out, your throat thightening, but all you would like to do is to just finally tell him about everything.

"Do you even realize how worried I am about you, Y/N?! It is killing me!", Draco suddenly raises his voice at you, causing you to flinch and take a step back, your back now touching the railing. Noticing the power of his words, he sighs and looks to the ground in shame.

Your head processes his facial expression and his gestures and again makes you believe that his sadness is your fault. By not being able to control your stupid feelings, you hurt him.

"I-I really have to go", you stutter out and quickly run past him, pressing your coat around your body.

"Have fun with Blaise then", you hear him say and you abruptly stop in your motion. Not fully understanding the words he just said, you turn to him.

"What?", you ask with not more than a breath coming out, hurt evident in your expression as he suddenly stomps in your direction furiously, a disgusted look on his face while he looks into your eyes.

"Don't act stupid now, Y/N! You hardly speak a word to me anymore, you avoid body contact, you are totally dismissive in general and you can't even look at me anymore! Why do you not just admit that you are cheating on me?!", Draco accuses you out of nowhere, not knowing what he is even saying himself, and you could swear that at this very moment your heart has finally burst into a thousand splinters and your last hold has now completely disappeared.

Losing the control over your body for a second, your hand lands on his cheek with full force. There is a dead silence before you just turn and leave, leaving him behind on the astronomy tower. You can hear him say your name after you, but you block it out and run down the stairs, crying, your vision blurred.

Missing one of the last stairs in your hurry, you fall down onto the cold floor. You get up again as quickly as possible when you hear steps behind you and you run. You run for your life while you disappear into the endless corridors of Hogwarts, making your way to your dorm.

The next morning your eyelids stick together from all the crying and you have a aching headache. You did not close one eye that night and just laid there crying in your bed silently until at some point there were no more tears.

In front of the door of your prefect dorm room, you can hear how the other students are leaving your house on their way to breakfast, but your stomach makes a flip when you only think about food. That is the reason why you decide to stay in your warm, safe and comfortable bed a little longer and to skip breakfast, which is unnecessary anyway. Avoiding other people seems like the best idea for you right now.

Just in time for the beginning of your first lesson of the long day, you made it out of your bed and are now sitting in Defence Against the Dark Arts with Professor Snape.

Your thoughts are whirling around in your head and you do not understand a single word Snape is saying in front of the class, even if you are really trying your best to understand him. Furthermore does it not help your concentration that you see how Draco keeps staring at you from across the room out of the corner of your eye. However, you do not have enough strength for this anymore after a while and therefore focus your gaze out the window at the rising sun.

At least you are distracted until all of the students get up from their seats all of a sudden and you only watch them confused until you notice that they are only waiting for you to join them and you quickly walk, almost stumbling, to them. Ignoring the looks and laughter of everyone, you play around with the hem of your grey Slytherin sweater and ignore them while doing so.

"Well then, let us begin. Ms. Y/L/N, would you please do us the honor and start", Snape clears his throat as you look at him in shock, noticing by the expression on his face that he definetely knows that you did not listen to him at all and have not been present with your mind.

Since you do not have a chance to defy yourself anyway, you nod and go to the position he points at in front of an old, dusty closet. With confusion all over your face, you switch between looking at Professor Snape and the cabinet as he suddenly opens the door and you take a big step back, startled to death.

"Have fun with Blaise then", Draco spits in your face disparagingly and is now slowly walking towards you after stepping out of the cupboard, increasing your pulse. The tears find their way back into your eyes right away while you just keep looking at him petrified, frozen in your spot.

"Why do you not just admit that you are cheating on me?!", he yells at you again and your vision becomes more and more blurred, your ears start to beep while he shouts at you, bringing back the painful memories of yesterday.

"No! Please don't leave me, Draco!"

It is like you are back on the astronomy tower again, your hair blowing in the wind as he steps towards you. In the next moment he is gone all of a sudden and instead of him, two other people are now in front of you.

"You are a shame for our whole family, you stupid brat", your father insults you and you fall onto your knees, holding your hands against your head in pain.

"Stop it! Please!", you beg them, but of course they do not stop, they only make their words worse.

"Draco can never seriously love someone like you. I mean, look at you! You are less worthy than dirt", your father tells you and your entire body is now trembling when you finally see a black cloak in front of your eyes and your parents vanish into thin air.

"Please stay with me", you choke through your tears, words addressed to Draco who had to watch the scene in front of him with pure horror in his eyes.

Breathing heavily, you look up at Professor Snape, who looks at you in disbelief, but as your eyes wander around the room to see everyone staring at you, your legs automatically carry you out of the classroom in the next moment, unable to bear their burning glances.

You run down the empty corridor with a faint vision in search of a safe place to hide until you arrive at one of the girls' bathrooms and rush in, not thinking about someone possibly being in there.

Slamming the door shut behind you, you stumble to the sinks with trembling knees and support all of your weight with your hands on either side of one sink as your legs fail beneath you. Clinging to the edge of the sink, you cry bitterly. The cold walls of the bathroom echo your crying several times, allowing you to hear your own pain.

"What is wrong, Y/N?", you hear a soft voice next to your ear and when you look up it is none other than Myrtle. Apparently of all places you ended up in her bathroom and are not as alone as you wished for.

"I am fine", you say with a monotonous voice, forcing yourself into an upright position, but literally everyone would see that you are definetely not fine, even a ghost.

"Y/N. You look anything but okay. Can I somehow help you-"

"Just leave me alone!", you angrily yell at her and lose control of your body, only seeing a thick, red substance running over your hand when it is already too late. Broken pieces of glass lie around you on the floor, which flew through the air when your fist hit them and inflicted small wounds on your face.

"You need to stop, Y/N!", Myrtle commands, but you do not listen and let yourself fall onto the floor, kicking your foot against the sink and thereby unintentionally loosen one of the old pipes. The sound of flowing water fills the room, surrounding your body on the floor.

On the edge of passing out, you lie in the cold water and stare at the ceiling while Myrtle has disappeared without a trace.

What you do not know, however, is that Myrtle is already on her way to find help and comes across Draco, who is running back and forth through the hallways while searching for you.

It takes Draco a moment to understand Myrtle's fast explanation, but when he does he runs into the direction of the girls' bathroom without hesitation. He rushes through the door into the flooded bathroom and all he sees is the broken mirror and the slightly reddish puddles in the water.

But he does not find you in there and realizes that there can only be one place where you could be.

Walking through the corridors of Hogwarts at lightning speed, he finally reaches the staircase leading to the astronomy tower and goes them up in no time. Once he arrives at the top, he abruptly stops when you come into his field of vision.

There you are, completely broken, leaning your head against the railing, your knees closely drawn to your body while your painful crys echo through his ears.

"Why did you not listen to your parents, you disgusting piece of daughter", you talk to yourself, not noticing that you are not alone any longer. With your already injured hand you hit the pole of the railing once, immediately regretting it as the pain spreads through your body.

However, your gaze lands on a person standing directly ahead and your eyes widen, but unfortunately you lack the strength to stand up, to yell at him, or to resist as he slowly sits down next to you.

Neither of you say a word, but it does not take long before he gently takes you into his strong arms, providing you with the support you needed so badly, so you can cry while he strokes over your hair. He whispers repentances in your ear over and over again. That he regrets his words, that he takes them back and that he was such an idiot.

"You are so wonderful", he confirms and gives you a kiss on the forhead, careful not to scare you away, continuing to stroke your upper arm with his hand.

"Do not believe in what your parents told you, angel. I will stay with you", he shakily breathes and has to pull himself together to not let a tear slip out of his eyes at any moment. "I am sorry that I let you down."

His last few words pull a trigger inside of your head and suddenly everything pours out of your mouth at once. Your fears, your worries. Everything your parents ever said or did to you. You finally tell him about all of it now, even though you should have done it much earlier.

"I love you more than anything, Y/N. You are my world and the reason I live. Never let anyone make you think that I do not love or deserve you, especially not your parents", Draco explains to you sincerely as you stare at him, exhausted but happy.

You slowly put your head on his shoulder and close your eyes, letting the good and bright drown out all of your dark and bad thoughts. Meanwhile, Draco carefully examines your injured hand before scooping you up into his arms while standing up.

"No matter how much you hate me right now, you have to eat something", he tells you, but you do not answer and just enjoy his close presence while you wrap your arms tightly around his neck, letting him carry you away.

If he had known how terrible you were feeling earlier, he would have done something much sooner. He should have been more pushy and not let you get away with a simple 'i am fine'. But now that he knows, he definetely learned from it.

And Draco would have never forgiven himself if he had let you just go like that.

[thedreadvampy]

talking to my mum last night and getting fucked up about the degree of trauma my grandparents' generation faced and how. unwilling and ill-equipped the care system is for the obvious fact that there's a huge incidence of PTSD and complex lifelong mental health issues in those generations

grannie was 17 when she became a nurse and she was working immediately in London at the height of the Blitz. her first day she saw blown apart children and had to comfort their parents. she was almost hit by a rocket cycling home.

grandpa spent the whole war in labour camps before being trapped behind the Iron Curtain in the ruins of Dresden, almost dead from starvation from the camp, for another 3 years before making it back to Blackpool to find out his parents had died in his absence.

granny got radiation sickness at 13 from being put under an X-ray with no protection and forgotten about for hours; she lost all her hair and developed chronic pain and health problems. after years of severe physical, emotional and sexual abuse from her family and the men around her, she got engaged to an American pilot who was shot down and killed in the last month of the war. her former boyfriend came back a dissociative shell of his pre-war self and she ended up trying to raise three small children on her own, with her family at the other end of the country and her husband often having violent flashbacks and outbursts of rage. she was suicidal and had violent psychotic breaks and got institutionalised and medicated on and off her entire adult life.

like. it isn't just the war. people born in the early-mid 20th century, especially women, have been subject to so much sexual trauma, domestic and social violence, bigotry, and grief on grief on grief.

with my granny, it's entirely understandable that she was 'mad'. when I knew her, she was on heavy daily dosage of lithium - she stopped because it was destroying her gut after 30 years and she became violently aggressive, vindictive, scared, psychotic, paranoid, frequently delusional and extremely abusive. She was terrified of doctors because of her repeated experiences with medical abuse, she was furious with everyone around her, she coldly hated her husband and seemed actively happy when he died, and the thing is all of that makes perfect sense because she was profoundly and repeatedly traumatised for at least the first 50-60 years of her life.

but the thing that worries and answers me is that the elder care system and the mental health system are completely unwilling to engage with the fact that many many many old people have severe pre-existing mental health conditions. after all, how many of us have PTSD or psychotic episodes or bipolar or BPD or special care needs related to autism or OCD or ADHD or whatever? those don't just Cease To Exist after a certain age. and our parents and our grandparents grew up in times with much less support for mental health and much less awareness of trauma. granny's early traumas were familial but she was institutionalised repeatedly and treated appallingly throughout her life and that's in itself traumatic.

when granny was 82 and she stopped taking her lithium, she was frail, ill and a danger to herself and others.

they put her on a dementia ward when she was sectioned because she was Old, and Old Mad People Are Demented. but she didn't have dementia! she had chronic PTSD and paranoid delusions but she knew who, where and when she was and she was perfectly sharp, she just wasn't coping. when we went to visit her she'd say furiously 'they think I'm like the other people in here but I'm not, I'm not losing my marbles, I've always been this way'

none of us got any support looking after her while she was in hospital or after she left the inpatient ward - nobody checked in on grandpa while she was in hospital or on weekend release, and after she was released Dad looked after her single-handed while trying to deal with his dad's death. (she may have murdered grandpa while on weekend release, or he may have died of heart failure - either way when she went off the rails after 20 years stable, he gave up on life and I me and my sibling (for the record we were 10 when she left hospital) listening to her trying to continue unpicking her past trauma was I think the most therapy she got after she left.

she couldn't go into a regular elder care home because she was too unstable, she needed specialist mental health care and she sometimes needed to be constrained for her own safety and that of other people. residential mental health care facilities weren't equipped to deal with her needs as a woman in her 80s. she couldn't go into dementia care, which is about the only residential care available for old people with serious mental health needs, because she didn't have dementia and it would have been utterly inappropriate and harmful for her and the other residents. she lived to 93 and for the last 11 years of her life it was up to Dad and us to look after her in her home because there was simply nowhere else for her to go.

and what really fucks me up is that she wasn't past help. a lot of people thought she was but when she left hospital she was trying really hard to continue therapy on her own without a therapist, she drew and wrote about her life and memories and she used to sit opposite me and open up in a way I now utterly recognise as trauma therapy, she would try to find ways to talk about what had hurt her and state into the middle distance for tens of minutes trying to get it together enough to continue. she wanted to do the work. but the only people there for her were her son who was shellshocked from losing his dad and traumatised from effectively losing his mum again and who was spending all his energy just trying to get through work and home and get her physical needs met, and a couple of preteen children who had the will but not the capacity to help. we were barely holding ourselves together (mum drove granny places but mostly her capacity was being spent being about the only support Dad or us could get) and we just couldn't meet the work of a trained therapist. and eventually she gave up on getting better and got angrier and more bitter and more abusive to everyone. but she wanted to feel better. she wanted to deal with her shit. but there was no support.

and there must be thousands of people like her. older people with lifelong trauma and mental health issues who are too mentally ill for elder support and too old for mental health support. and the MH system doesn't think they're worth the resource cost because after all they're old, they'll die soon. but where are they meant to go? and how much harm does unsupported home care do to the person in need of care and to the people carrying for them? it just multiplies trauma down the generations. you can't just expect mental illness to only affect the young when the old have been just as traumatised and you can't treat them as separate issues when old people need carers who are qualified to deal with both their age and their mental health issues.

like yes many people develop late life mental health issues like Alzheimers and dementia, just as many people become disabled for the first time by age. but a lot of people are disabled or mentally ill for decades before they reach anything approaching elderly, and those things don't suddenly go away and don't have the same support needs as late-life issues.

idk. I'm very angry. if there was recognition of the need to support older people with lifelong trauma then my grandpa wouldn't have died hopeless and unsupported, my granny might have got her life back and got some healing after 80 years of living in fear, my dad wouldn't have had his own mental breakdown and slide into paranoia and conspiracy theory, and me and my siblings wouldn't have lost our whole adolescence trying to shore up two badly neglected adults' catastrophic mental health while under constant fire.

literally a ten minute weekly phone call with grandpa while granny was in hospital and weekly follow-up talk therapy for her after she was discharged could have made so much difference but nobody fucking cared. because she was Old. she was in the hospital because she was a danger to the people around her and they discharged her for the weekend as a trial run and her husband died suddenly while she was in the house and she seemed totally unbothered and they still. let her out for good two weeks later with no followup care or therapeutic follow-up and no support or advice for Dad on looking after her. they started talk therapy in hospital and then dropped her abruptly and left her raw and cracked open without any way to put herself back together. and she isn't unique it's just. Careless. and so destructive.

[amandadeibert]

A Love Letter to Parents At the End of The Most Difficult School Year EVER

WOW, that was really something, huh?

It’s the end of the most difficult year school for all of us: teachers, parents, students… Hell, probably even the neighbors of parents and students. I would say “at least we survived!” but this has been more than a year of illness and mental health crises… not all of us did. Some of you are mourning those loses. I am so sorry.

As my daughter celebrates her final day of Kindergarten, and I celebrate my final day of supervising hours of zooms and packets full of work, of being her mother, teacher, confidant, chef, maid, PE teacher, and playmate… I have a lot of emotions. I’m sure you do too.

It was hard for those of us who, like my family, spent the entire year in virtual school: never meeting teachers or classmates in person. Those of us who spent so much of the year trying not to worry about excessive screen time while going against our intuition to coax children to sit up and pay attention to their computers.

It was difficult for families who did hybrid and had their bits of in-person “normalcy” sporadicly and suddenly turned to quarantines every time there was an exposure so that there could never be a true routine.

It was complicated for parents navigating this with multiple children who all needed different things at the same time. I know in my daughter’s own little kindergarten class we over-heard older siblings’ music lessons, younger siblings’ infant-wails, and parents trying to deal with their work zooms while 6 year olds struggled to concentrate on learning to read.

My heart especially goes out to the parents of children who need extra attention or services, some of whom lost out on months or a year of in-person therapies. This is unfair and horrible. This has been infuriating, unfair, and horrible. You have been dealing with far more worries than you should have had to and I am so sorry.

And then there’s work… whew. As a working mother who went to work in person in full PPE, then worked from home with endless Zoom meetings while my daughter put Elsa stick-on earrings all over my face, and then who lost my job due to pandemic related situations. I know it was difficult to work and teach and parent and be a child’s only friend and entertainment.

For those of you who are essential, for those of you who work in healthcare and mental healthcare… I just, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I admire you and also know my admiration doesn’t do a fucking ounce of good to help alleviate all you’ve had to juggle and endure.

So much has fallen disproportionality on mothers. We can see it in hard data. This will have ramifications for years to come. Just as it will on our kids… in ways we don’t even fully understand yet. Just while trying to write this essay…. my daughter and our kitten have crawled into my lap. They are both here right now.

And yes, I know plenty of amazing Dads who have been struggling right there with us. My dad-friends and I have leaned on each other TREMENDOUSLY this year, so please don’t think I don’t see you out there struggling through this too.

As I look back over this past school year (and the end of the academic year before) I am feeling sad for the milestones my child didn’t get to have. The things we didn’t experience as planned. The fond farewell to her preschool of 3 years we never had. The kindergarten teacher she never met in person. The first year at an elementary school where we haven’t yet been inside the building. I have so much dread for the coming separation anxiety after more than a year of never being apart. Hers and mine. This was not how things were supposed to be. No matter how you’ve experienced the pandemic, because we’re all doing it differently… this was not what we “planned.” It’s also not something anyone else alive has ever had to deal with before.

I want to stress that again:

No parent alive has ever dealt with anything like this. No one alive has experienced anything like this as a child. Bad things? Yes. Worse thing? Yes, even. But not THIS.

So if your parents/elders are giving unhelpful “advice” about how you should/should have handled things please remember THEY HAVE NO IDEA. None. At all.

This is one area where you can laugh and laugh and be like… “YOU HAD OPEN PARKS AND SCHOOLS AND KIDS COULD GO RIDE THEIR BIKES UNRESTRICTED. YOU COULD GO SIT IN CHURCH AND THE KIDS WOULD BE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL. YOU CAN NOPE RIGHT OFF.” Love them. Love their advice, but they don’t actually know what it is like.

I hope they are offering love and support. I don’t have living parents, but my grandmother is the first to say that even as a stay at home mom whose husband was away fighting a war, she can’t imagine being unable to simply take her kids to school or to run errands, or to let them play with other children. Her situation was very difficult and complicated. I don’t have it worse. Not at all. It’s just that this school year has been one hell of a weird one.

There have been bright spots. I loved getting to watch and experience my daughter learning in real time. Seeing the day-to-day progress and truly knowing what is going on in her classes. Again, that isn’t the experience for parents who have children unable to access their child’s IEP help in the way they should.

I love the extra time we’ve gotten together as a family. The movie nights outside and snuggles and lack of rushing around from place to place. I enjoy as an Angeleno not being stuck in traffic for hours. Not everyone has been able to work from home like my wife and I have mostly been able to do for much of this and I am grateful for that too.

My hope is that when this is truly over, when we get back to whatever new life looks like in the next school year, that some of the good will stay. That I will be more involved in our child’s education than maybe I would have been before because I know what it looks like. That we will spend more time as a family together just us. That I won’t say “yes” to things out of obligation that don’t add value to our lives. That we won’t be too busy.That’s probably naive, but we can sure try.

I hope that you have some bright spots to look back on from this past school year. I hope you can share them with your children and they can share theirs with you. Whatever you had to do to get through this, I am so outrageously proud of you. I am proud of me too. And wow, our kids. They’ve been through some shit. I’m super proud of them.

Please, please take some time to celebrate what you have managed to get through. I got cupcakes for the kiddo and some cocktails for grownups. Please do whatever version of that sparks some happiness.

PUNT THAT SCHOOL-ISSUED LAPTOP INTO THE SUN.

I mean, yeah okay, we’ll all responsibly return it fully charged and be so grateful to the school system that we didn’t have to use Mommy’s work laptop for it but you know… metaphorically it’s that scene from Office Space. (Your kids wouldn’t get this joke but this isn’t for them. JUST LIKE THE COCKTAIL/CHOCOLATE/BUBBLEBATH/WHATEVER YOU ARE GONNA DO TO CELEBRATE YOU )

Anyway, you are amazing. Maybe you don’t feel like many people noticed. I see you. I’m toasting you from this weird half-teacher’s lounge we share.

If you’d like to share some of your brightest spots, or most amazing, brilliant parent hacks from all this madness, I would love to read about it in the comments. We’ve got to hold onto the good.

[the-story-of-a-teen]

#mystory

I got inspired by a youtube video, which was a talk by a father that lost his son to suicide. This is what I wish I could tell my parents, when I was a teenager. (I’m 24 now)

If you are suicidal please call the suicide hotline for your country or talk to a mental health professional. TW: This posts discusses suicide, eating disorders, suicidal idealization, religious trauma, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, sexual assault, slut shaming.

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01/01/2010

That was the day I was the closest to killing myself, I wanted to poison myself, cut myself, or access the guns, of which I knew were the keys were and I knew where the ammunition was. The thing that stopped myself was my friend Edward, who you claimed was a devil worshipper, a bad influence, and a ‘hussy’. Edward was the only person who seemed to understand me, who took time to be my friend, and would rant with me about the things we went through. 

I don’t know how many times I tried talking to you over the years, those times when I went “Hey mom, hey dad, can we talk soon?” “Hey mom, hey dad, can I talk to you but you have to promise not to get mad.” “Hey somethings going on.” but every time I did that, you would get angry, get upset, or invalidate my feelings completely. You didn’t even seem to care that I was struggling, even though I made it as obvious as I could as a 13 year old could. Instead of making time to talk to me, you tried to get me to talk on your time/terms, when I wasn’t ready to talk to you about it. This wasn’t the first time you had done this either. I remember as a child I would try and tell you things and you would shush me, we even had a little nonverbal cue to when I wanted to talk to you, I would hold your wrist when I wanted to tell you something, but you would ignore that as well, no matter how long I waited. 

This is why I felt like I could never talk to you about things, you would brush me off as unimportant, you would tell me that without ever saying the words. You didn’t care if I wanted to tell you about something I found interesting, or wanted to ask you if I could go play with my friends. 

This leads me into the next reason, you would never let me out of your sight, let me have anything private, or simply do things by myself. Even if I wanted to go play with my friends on the playground less right outside the building you were in, I needed to ask your permission, tell you exactly who I was playing with, and make sure my friends also had permission (when they didn’t need permission). As I grew older this type of overprotection grew more and more. I had to ask you to play in the drive way or back yard, to have my friend’s parents talk to you when we wanted to have a sleep over, to have food from the fridge, to watch tv, to play pinball on the computer, to read, to do anything I wished to do. You then wondered why I had separation issues, you NEVER let me be alone. When I was 10 or 11 I started keeping a journal. It had a lock on it, and I put the keys in a safe place that I thought was secret. One day the keys disappeared. I had put them back, but still searched through my room and the rest of the house, except your room, because you wanted your privacy. The day after that my journal was different from how I originally put it. I thought it was weird, and hid it somewhere else, but you found that spot too.  You then brought up very private things I had put into my journal as a vent, things I had certainly never told you, and things I swore I had never told anyone else unless they swore on their mother’s grave and promised not to tell. 

You took away my door when I would accidentally slam it when I got emotional, and because you ‘couldn’t trust me to be alone’. You wouldn’t let me hang a curtain or anything so I could change and not have people walk in on me.

When I got old enough to have a cellphone, I caught you sneaking into my room and taking my cellphone, or sitting in my desk chair and going through the messages. You would then interrogate me on my text messages, and would openly take my phone and go through my messages, despite me pleading you not to. This lead to me intentionally setting alarms that would go off through the night, and could only be stopped with a passcode which only I knew.

You would interrogate me any time I wanted to go on the computer to do anything, you forced me to lie to have any sort of freedom to talk to people, look at memes, listen to music, or play games on the computer. You even put parental controls on my computer that would monitor everything and take screen shots, I was allowed exactly 45 minutes a day, which you wouldn’t compromise on, even when I was talking to my friends that lived hours away from us. Then you would get mad when I would trick you into allowing me access so I could change those settings, what else could I do? There was no compromise. Additionally you made me give you every password to every account I ever had, and would get mad when I would change the passwords because you would go through private messages and post on my accounts. Even when I was almost 18, and handed over my computer to show you the receipts, you couldn’t help but go through the whole conversation, even though I told you not to and you promised not to. 

On the xbox you would hack into my account (Which I had a passcode on), and would read through the messages, you would have to approve every game and made sure it stood up to your religious and moral standards, or hear me plea to be able to have a game I was interested in. Even when you had approved the game, you had to watch me play it, I wasn’t allowed to enjoy the game on my own.

You thought you were entitled to walk into my room at any time. You wouldn’t listen when I would tell you ‘one moment, I’m changing.’ Instead you would waltz right in, even when I was naked. You would barge into my bathroom, even when I told you to wait. Then you would get mad when I was upset over this. Maybe I didn’t want my parents to see me naked, even though ‘you saw me naked as a baby and child’.

How was I supposed to talk to you openly when you would violate my privacy? When I could have nothing to myself, be able to vent and get my feelings out in a healthy way, to talk about things I didn’t feel I needed to or could tell you, to talk about things I know you all opposed and would interrogate me on, to just talk about day to day things? 

When I started dating I was hypersexual. I admit that. When puberty hit I became very sexual and physically affectionate without knowing it, but you started to analyze and criticize me for every action I made. I was touch starved, and craving genuine affection. I wanted to feel loved, to feel wanted, to feel appreciated, and to feel alive. I felt dead inside. I barely got any affection, even from my parents, from other family members, and those I was childhood friends with and was no longer close to. I went to seek that affection with other people, I called my friends parents ‘mom and dad’ because of this and how you all were. You emotionally neglected me. Sure I had physical things, but that wasn’t what I wanted or needed. I need your love, your time, and your acceptance. The only way I got that was through teenage boys that would give me their love, time, acceptance, and physical affection. I even went out seeking any of those things online, which lead me to an early discovery of porn (I was 11), of online chat rooms where I could do smut rps and flirt (I was 13), and teenage dating sites ((common in the 2000′s)(I was 14)). Instead of figuring out what the root of this was, and trying to listen, actually listen, you went about accusing me of different things related to what I had found, even when I wasn’t. You were telling me that you were expecting me to do those things, and that I had to lie to you all to have any sort of freedom. You though dating was only to get married, you had the ‘date to mate’ mentality.

I started dressing in popular clothes of that time, and finding ways of expressing myself and my feelings. Gone were the days of pink dresses and frills. I liked black, blue, and purple, rather than pink and purple. I wanted to wear tighter fitting shirts that were comfortable, easy to move around in, and had fun graphics and words on the chest area. I wanted to wear cute skirts and shorts, as well as skinny jeans, and leggings. You were unhappy with all of it. I was 13 and a C cup, it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t find anything cute that would comfortably fit. I liked wearing shorter shorts, skirts, skinny jeans, and leggings because they were comfy, easy to move around in, and made me feel free and happy.  I can’t tell you how many times you criticized my hair, make up, and clothes. You would constantly tell me that I looked like a hussy, like a prostitute, like an attention seeker, like a devil worshipper, like I was ‘asking to be raped’. You said the same things about other people behind their backs, and you didn’t like it when I used your religion against you. You would ask me if I would wear that around ‘God’, or ‘Jesus,  and I would say yes. You would tell me that I would be distracting to guys, or that they would look at me a certain way. I simply said that they shouldn’t look if they can’t control themselves, and that the bible said that any man who looked at a woman with lust in his eyes should gouge them out. You hated when I was right, and would deny that you were wrong.

How was I not supposed to be hypersexual, even when I had been sexualized and been deprived of any affection since I was a child?

At the age of 6 you had me start working out because I had “baby fat” and was overweight at my age. You started only having and making healthy things to eat, then would get mad when I liked the taste of some of them, and would eat more than my ‘portion size’. You limited my food intake, and made me work out so I could ‘loose weight’. At 9 this all got worse, as I was beginning to go into puberty, was getting breasts, and had more baby fat moving to my hips. You started humiliating me for getting seconds at dinner, for eating three meals a day, and for continuing to go through puberty. You would also get mad at me for having things like white bread (I hate the texture of wheat and wholegrain), white rice (I don’t like the texture of brown rice), or any sort of junk food. It was no surprise that I started to starve myself so I would fit your standards. 

Why wouldn’t I have an eating disorder when that was all I heard all day every day?

These are the main things that lent to my depression, made it worse, and made me want to kill myself from an early age. These are the main behaviors that made me despise my parents and cut them out of my life. These are what you should avoid. If you want to have your kids in your life, don’t do these. 

[coochiequeens]

The quality of men’s sperm also declines over time yet no one seems to be telling guys to get their act together so they would be the type of men women would want to marry.

Female students at the single-sex Cambridge college Murray Edwards are to be given fertility seminars, because they “risk childlessness” if they leave motherhood “too late”. It’s irksome news – the seminars are only the latest example of the myth that women somehow need “reminding” our ability to procreate won’t last for ever, as though a baby were something we had simply lost down the back of the sofa.

This idea that women might “forget” to have a baby is perpetuated in modern culture. My generation spent much of their teenage years being told not to get pregnant lest it “ruin your life”. In our 20s, that changed almost overnight and we were told not to leave it too late, lest it (again) “ruin your life”. When women enter their 30s and 40s, they face a maelstrom of misogynist peer pressure, from “when are you going to have a second child” to “is it not unfair to have a baby in your 40s?”, not to mention the classic levied at the child-free: “but who will care for you when you’re old?”

The head of Murray Edwards college said that asking a woman about plans to have children had become “almost forbidden”. “We have swung too far one way. We rightly encouraged girls to get themselves a great education and to have great careers. But it came to be seen as old-fashioned and negative to say to girls the things that an older generation used to say like ‘Are you courting?’ or ‘When are you going to have a baby?’”

It is true that asking a member of my generation about the inner workings of her uterus is considered poor form, because who is to know what private pains she may have suffered: miscarriage, stillbirth, IVF, mental health issues, to name just a few. It is unfair and unkind to put women and their partners on the spot in this way, not to mention that it’s no one’s business. Keeping one’s own counsel is not the same thing as being blissfully ignorant about the matter. We are all well aware that fertility does not last for ever, and that a significant proportion of women without children did not choose that situation.

Where does this patronising belief that women need teaching or reminding about their fertility come from? There are a number of factors, one of which is an overcorrection led by older women. My mother recalls that, in the 1990s and early 2000s, the newspapers were full of “career” women (as I always point out, the term “career man” does not exist), raised in the belief that they could have it all, lamenting that they had “left it too late” to have a baby. One only needs to reread Bridget Jones to understand the “post-feminist” cultural context of women’s lives then: increasing emancipation coupled with extreme social pressure to couple up and start a family.

As a result of this overcorrection, women of my generation were bombarded with the “fact” that your fertility “falls off a cliff” at the age of 35, though this statistic is based partly on a study of French peasant women living 300 years ago, which has been largely debunked. I do not know a single woman who has not internalised this piece of disinformation, which has caused fertility panic, and though we are well aware that fertility does decline into your 30s and 40s, we apparently still need reminding of it. It is not helped that the media narrative continues to be dominated by voices from the baby boomer generation; as a result, the barriers to parenthood that exist for younger adults, such as high property prices, zero-hours contracts and the extortionate costs of childcare, are not fully appreciated or talked about.

Another reason that women are routinely reminded of their fertility is an increasing panic about the birthrate, which has been framed in the media as a “baby shortage” with drastic economic consequences. Yet little effort is made to bring about the structural changes that could better support would-be parents. This fear is compounded by the increasing number of women who are choosing not to have children, and are refusing to be stigmatised for that fact.

There are far more fruitful discussions we could be having about why many young people feel unable to have children. Instead, the myth that women need reminding of their fertility keeps being perpetuated. The issue here is not the concept of a fertility seminar; giving women more information about their health is no bad thing. But no one ever seems to think that men might need speaking to about this too. Some scientists are concerned about declining sperm counts, while male factor infertility contributes to 40-50% of all infertility cases and declining sperm quality as men age has been implicated in a number of developmental problems. Many men – especially those with older mothers – seem to think that women can go on conceiving well into their 40s. What about the men? Where are their seminars?

As usual, the burden of assuaging society’s concerns about fertility falls on women of reproductive age. If only people listened to us, they would hear that the question of whether or not to reproduce is an incessant background hum to women’s lives. The real conversation that needs to be had – about remedying the inhospitable society that has been created for young parents – continues to elude us. If there is one thing that is being left too late, it’s that.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

[therewrites]

We Are Who We Are Overall Thoughts *spoilers*

This review will be discussing briefly some of the episodes so far, so SPOILERS

So I started watching the HBO original series, We Are Who We Are, and I am conflicted. When I initially watched it, the dialogue made it hard for me to enjoy it so I stopped. Then after a couple of weeks after its airing, I thought, what the hell? And this time, I was pleasantly surprised. I always maintain the belief that pilot episodes are either boring, messy, or just bad so I try to push past it in order to get to the good shit. The pilot for We Are Who We Are was...I’m not sure how to explain...different? It certainly wasn’t bad and it made an impression on me, but this show as a whole is hard to limit by just a few words. It’s really something that you should watch and experience yourself.

It was only after the first 3 episodes that I began to understand the tone and mood that Luca Guadagnino was trying to convey. A lot of the time, the dialogue is abrupt and choppy and can make no sense. It can be frustrating, especially when you have two characters that aren’t communicating effectively. But I think that was the point. Guadagnino is a very realistic director, he captures the most realistic elements in a film. A lot of the conversations between characters is meant to emulate real life. Like, what the hell do you say when a conversation becomes awkward? Well, nothing sometimes.

While Guadagnino’s typical cinematography may suggest whimsy, in WAWWA’s case the small structured and synthetic model of the military base is juxtaposed to the very concrete characters. When I started to view the show less as simply a televised airing of fictional characters and problems, and instead looked at them as people, I began to really enjoy it. 

Take the main character of Fraser, played by Jack Dylan Grazer. Fraser is meant to be seen as an extremely complex and troubled kid, but the difference between him and every other teen in a coming-of-age drama is that he isn’t polished. His drinking and drug habit isn’t framed as romantic or beautiful, in fact most of the time it’s portrayed as his weakness of sorts. In the first episode, Fraser has one of his mothers drive him home after getting pretty wasted and Luca graces us with a direct shot of him throwing up. And before that, Fraser is stumbling on a bridge when he drunkenly falls and cuts his face. Everything the character does is messy, uncoordinated, yet extremely real and relatable. Hell, in one shot you can clearly see him do a Naruto run!

Caitlin/Harper is a character that I enjoyed watching, as well. Jordan Seamon did a fantastic job and I really connected with their character. Initially we see Caitlin as this mysterious girl, and in the pilot we are meant to assume that their relationship with Fraser is supposed to develop into a romantic one. This is not the case as it seems that Caitlin is trying to come to terms with who they are. The biggest shift in Caitlin’s character isn’t their friendship with Fraser but probably when they get their period. 

This was a moment that even I related to, even though I am cis when I first got my period I didn’t tell my mom until the day after. The possible confusion and shift in their reality that Caitlin felt was only heightened with the conflict of their boyfriend wanting to be more physically intimate, and Fraser’s eventual discover of Harper. I would have like to see exactly why Fraser seemed drawn to Caitlin. I’m assuming viewers were supposed to think that Fraser is attracted to her, or something. But both Caitlin/Harper and Fraser are queer coded and their respective sexualities are alluded to not being straight. It would’ve made their standing as platonic friends more clear if this had been established stronger. 

I definitely think the writer could have devoted more time to giving certain characters proper conversations. It would’ve given more development to certain characters and better context for things. However even without that, there is a lot that the audience is showed that can’t be told through dialogue. The power struggle between Sarah and Richard being one. So far, there hasn’t been any explanation as to why they have a such a volatile relationship other than Richard being a homophobe. 

Through deeper inspection, I was able to interpret it as: Richard may heavily resent the fact the Sarah was promoted to Colonel and not him. It is never made clear who has the better credentials, Sarah or Richard, but assuming that she was the one promoted it is a safe guess. This may be highlighted by the fact that Sarah is a women, and also gay. Even before episode 7, it was clear that Richard did not respect her authority. I also interpreted it as Richard being upset that and openly gay women was promoted instead of him, a black man. 

Of course this is just based on my own personal knowledge of how the U.S. military can be towards people of color and LGBTQ+. Regardless, the competitive tension between two parents is palpable without needing dialogue to explain.  

When conflict happens, I can kind of figure out which characters are going to react and which one’s will stay silent. I think the show is trying to accomplish a drastically realistic and raw series. It took me while to adjust to it, but by maybe the 2nd or 3rd episode, it starts to grow on you. Despite not liking a good majority of the characters, I was very surprised by how invested I was in them. 

Like, Danny is my least favorite character because he displays very abusive and explosive tendencies, and doesn’t seem to care about the world around him. However, getting glimpses into his character and seeing how Richard ignores him for Caitlin/Harper, his suicidal thoughts, and how he is trying to reclaim his cultural and religious background makes me empathize with him. 

Even though I hate his character, I can see that he is struggling. I appreciate the way that this show freely shows dark skinned black boys dealing with mental health issues, and personal development. Rarely are issues like suicide talked about in the black community, so seeing Danny talk about it and Craig offering(admittedly poor)comfort was touching. This is a general vibe that I get from nearly all the characters on WAWWA. I also appreciated the how Danny is actively trying to convert to Islam. In shows, rarely is Islam ever portrayed in a positive manner. Especially when female characters are shown to be struggling with their religion, Islam is shown as this barrier that prevents them from living life. Hopefully it goes without saying that the “taking off the hijab” as a way to show that a female character is “liberated” is overplayed and does not offer any respect to the countless Muslim women who choose to wear hijabs. 

Now I think the pacing of some of the storylines could have been handled a bit more gracefully. Like how we jump from Fraser and Harper being kind of enemies(not really but you know what I mean), to just them hanging out in Richard’s boat was jarring. I would have at least liked to see the scene of them talking on the rocks at the beach. It would’ve given more insight on Caitlin/Harper’s character and also on Fraser too. Also how quickly Maggie and Lu(Jennifer but I love the name Lubaba, it’s my aunt’s name)jump into a physical affair. I just would have liked to see a build up of tension between all these characters but I don’t think this entirely ruins the plot. 

I was very iffy when I learned that the show would be focusing on trans identity and gender and sexuality, but not actually hire a trans male actor. I was afraid that the show would completely botch the experiences of being transgender, and honestly I don’t have the authority to speak on whether or not this affects the quality of the show. I am cisgender, and only can empathize with this particular situation as much as I can. But I would like to hear to the opinion of someone who is trans and elaborate on the ways that they did/didn’t like Jordan Kristine Seamón’s portrayal. 

Now at the time I’m writing this, the season finale has yet to come out. But I’d also like to briefly discuss the most recent episode and how it developed Jonathan and Fraser’s relationship. I was VERY worried that Guadagnino was going to take their relationship in the direction of inappropriate. While nearly all the depictions of Jonathan and his actions have been trough Fraser’s pov, it didn’t stop me from side-eyeing some of the interactions they shared. Of course after it was mentioned that Jonathan was supposed to be in his late 20s, nearing 30 I was immediately uncomfortable with the very flirty behavior he exhibited. 

So when the scene of Fraser going up to his apartment after Craig’s death, I was very on edge. If Guadagnino had gone the extra mile to show an even larger age gap then I would’ve been pissed. While I enjoyed Call Me By Your Name, the implication that sexual relationships between barely legal teenagers and adults well into their 20s was sensual is something that I see as very weird now that I’m older. So seeing Jonathan as the object of Fraser’s affections made me extremely warry. 

And honestly, I’m still surprised that the scene even happened in its entirety. I’m sure that Jack was not in any danger of being exploited but there were definitely points while watching I thought, what the fuck is going on? I was very worried that it would escalate, but I was happy to see that Fraser was the one who stopped it from going further.  It made sense to me that this scene took so many liberties to be as graphic as possible without being too graphic, in order to show why a situation like that would be scary and confusing for Fraser. It wasn’t lost to me that Marta and Jonathan were the one’s initiating all the sexual advances. They held all the power in that scenario, even more so because Fraser is younger and has the tendencies to not make the best decisions. Though it seemed that Fraser was trying, he knew that the situation was fucked up.

I’d like to hear what JDG felt and thought doing this scene. What was his character’s thought process?

I’ve seen a lot of people compare the show heavily to CMBYN, which is fine. Besides certain cinematic parallels that people pointed out, I don’t see the clear comparison. CMBYN is more of a love story and it’s more polished than WAWWA. Now when I say tat, I don’t mean it as a negative. Rather, We Are Who We is obviously more devoted to realism and its characters. I appreciate the inclusion of more LGBTQ+ people and black main characters with development, something that CMBYN lacked. And for some people who didn’t like the show based solely on the fact that it wasn’t a CMBYN tv show, I suggest just going into it with no expectations and enjoy the mess. 

And I’d also like to take a moment to commend Jack Dylan Grazer for his job in We Are Who We Are. All of the main cast are amazing actors and actresses and did a really good job bringing their characters to life. Though, I had always associated JDG with supporting roles that, while highlighted his acting talent, only put him in a one-dimensional light. As good as It 2017 was, JDG’s role of Eddie is only meant to be seen as a comic relief. In WAWWA, I was able to forget that he was teen actor, Jack Dylan Grazer, and really see him as Fraser. It’s worth mentioning that in a GQ interview, Grazer also mentioned how this role made him reevaluate is approach to acting. 

And after reading an interview he did with a Interview Germany, with him saying he spent months in Italy reading the script and trying to perfectly craft this character, I was immensely impressed. I hope that he knows that all his hard work payed off and made a really dynamic and interesting character. I really hope that in the future JDG continues with more mature or multi-dimensional roles because he displayed that he has the talent to do so. Him being so young makes me optimistic in knowing that he is definitely going places in his career. I also hope that there will be a season 2 of WAWWA because despite having hour long episodes, the show still felt way too short. There is a lot about Fraser’s character, and all the others’ characters, that I want more information and analysis on.

[this-is-my-main-i-follow-from]

I already wrote this post, but I’m coming backk up to the top to put a cut bc it’s p long.

my brother is singing falsettos out loud & I’ve already had a stressful day bc I’ve done nothing (lack of structure & lack of productivity gives me really bad anxiety) & he’s either singing out of key & out of time, or it just sounds really bad without the music. He’s the only one who can hear the music bc HeadPhones. & also the falsettos is probably really bad for my mom bc she’s mad that dad left her, esp bc the house is a mess & stressing her out & she needs to go grocery shopping & he used to do that “but now he doesn’t because he stopped loving [her]”, so my bro singing fucking falsettos is really bad. I can’t cook supper bc I don’t have a recipe & the stuff is still frozen & idk what kind of dough I should make & besides the kitchen is a mess & he won’t fucking clean it. I mean it’s also partially my fault bc I’m a lazy adhd mofo, but it’s his job today & my job to cook. I need to get into the kitchen & cook before mom & my OTHER brother get home from shopping but I can’t bc he’s just drawing & singing & the singing is so annoying- I was trying to listen to a thing but I couldn’t fricking hear it bc adhd auditory processing disorders, it didn’t have fucking subtitles or anything & it was not great audio quality & I couldn’t differentiate between the words he was singing, & I couldn’t hear the quiet parts when they overlapped with his singing. I wasn’t going to write all of this I was just going to say that his singing makes me want to cut myself, but apparently there’s a lot more to it. also I don’t want to end up cooking while mom is home bc I don’t have any drawings on my arm & mom is fucking nosy & wants to see my scars so I have to work extra hard at hiding them but even with ppl who arent nosy, like my little bro I don’t like them out, but the longer my older bro sits there fucking yelling out of key, the longer I’m delayed & I won’t be able to cook. By this point, I won’t even be able to cook the meal I was planning on, I have so much shit to do I’ve missed so much & I’m so behind, but I’m so incapable of doing anything like i can’t do chores bc I use the excuse I have homework but I never fucking do my homework so I’m also behind in school & even with the stuff I like like dnd & writing & violin I can’t do, & I skipped online kung fu & I’ve been slacking off under so many excuses but I’m just being lazy & anxious & I also gained so much weight & it makes my body feel so bad & i know this isn’t my body’s happy weight & being fat makes my boobs bigger & I’m fucking trans & I hate them I even tried cutting them off myself & ended up waiting 15 hours to go to the hospital so that I wouldn’t make mom suspicious (& they put me through triage really fast bc apparently I did a lot of dammage- I was planning on giving myself stitches, but my icepack melted & I couldn’t numb my body anymore so they’re lucky I even went to the hospital, it was bad bc I had to walk 20 minutes either way weighted down with a fucking toolbox & I waited outside in the cold bc my phone died & thus:) mom found out anyways so I lied to her about going to buy drugs bc obv /that’s/ a better idea than telling her I went to the hospital & SHUT UP UNNAMED OLDER BROTHER ok he’s between songs now. If I told mom I went to the hospital she would ask why & be like “y didn’t u tell me” & “r u cutting urself again” & like yeah bitch I have been for a while ik the social worker said I should tell you a codeword, but I don’t do that bc u blame yourself or cry or want to talk about & I yes I fucking cut myself what of it? Yeah I tried fucking removing my own left breast, bc u arent’ supportive of medical transitioning, at least not when they’re ur kids. Ur mad at dad bc he got a tattoo bc it’s  body modification & thus uncatholic, but u’ll support ur catholic university friends gettin gtheir eldest daughter a reduction bc her boobs are big & painful- bitch what’s so different about me? I went so far as to try giving myself a reduction, you say you’re concerned about me mutilating my body & making bad decisions, but, you know what? because of this I have legitimately mutilated my body, & made a dangerous & bad decision. isn’t autosurgery proof that I need top surgery bc it’s a danger to my life if I don’t get it? The government is able to pay for it I think & bc it’s a danger to my health (& i get pain & I can’t work out & I get back pain & my skin pulls & hurts & if I jump my tissues yank my skin & it hurts & it puts so much strain on my back, & binding gives me pain, so I need a reduction as much as your catholic university friends’ daughter does) I should be abe to qualify. Even if I don’t qualify yet & have to wait two years, at least that would be the start of two years now instead of in a long time, I mean, mum, you say you want me to talk about it & you’re afraid I’m rushing into it? guess what? They are too! the healthcare system will make me do a bunch of shit to qualify, & tbh, I think that they are better qualified to talk to me about surgery & what I really want than you.  Fucking finally, I hope my brother is done his play & finally shuts up. TA MA DE FUCK NO HE’S STARTING AGAIN CROWS DAMN IT CROWS CROWS CROWS & MAGGOTS I”m not even gonna be able to make anythiung for supper & i have no ideas besides the long one which I don’t have time for anymore. fine. whatever. I’ll go SH in my room. I won’t even work on fanfic bc I’m too fucking adhd & broken. I fucking hate it when ppl say “we;re all a bit adhd” like no bitch shut the fuck up, we all struggle with the things adhd ppl struggle with sometimes, but adhd is a neurological condition that makes those struggles so commonplace & intense that it affects our everyday lives. & no. adhd does not mean we’re more creative. Even if we do have more likeliihood of coming up with funky ideas, most of us struggle to articulate them or understand them, or we forget them as soon as they come. you’re not adhd bc you’re a little more creative, youre just an ableist asshole & fuck you. adhd isn’t creativity its’ a fucking disability. I’m directing this at those fucking parents who have the lovely nd daughter who gave me a hug, but you two are motherfuckers. Yeah I get thaat adhd, once you learn how to mannage it, can be useful, & I understand that part of the reason this disability is so hard is bc society isn’t designed for it (like a lefty using right hand scissors), but ot’s still fuxking REAL & if you can’t deal with it yet, it 100% is a disanbility. OK? Ok. I had smth I was going to say earlier, but I got distracted by smth else that made me mad, so I never got around to it. Youo know what I love? I fucking love how tumblr has next to no character limit so I can just type as much as I want. You know what I don’t like? I’ll probably get deactivated by some SJW maggot-eaten crow-fucker who thinks that my rant& mentioning my failed ed & my self harm (oh fuck shut up, my brother is chanting “dumb”) so anyways some fucking sjw fuck-hole will report this post & my blog & I’ll be deactivated for simply getting angry on tumblr. It’s fucking tumblr! You used to be able to say whatever you needed to say! But now, esp us ppl w EDs, have no safe place to talk about our issues (at least, not w/o fear of gettin gterminated for “encouraging” EDs, when we’re just trying to help ourselves). Anywasy, sorry for all the swears & go se, I swear when I’m mad. I’m gonna go do smth, idk what. Can’t be anything productive, Can’t even be unproductive stuff I like, like watching youtubem, or smth cathartic like playing fiddle. I might just go & bleed a bit & ignore everything for a while. I nkow that the world will still be stressful when I get back, & I’ll still have to cook, & I’ll still be behind in school, & mom will still be broken-hearted over dad, but I’m feeling calmer just thinking about it so that’s what I’ll do. 

[funkymbtifiction]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work

Although it isn’t, I could swear this was written by me. I deeply relate to these issues and the descripted anxiety and paralysis when it comes to these “adult” tasks. Do you think it’s merely a generational problem or are these traits related to MBTI?

(I’m not a psychologist, so take everything I say at the end with a grain of salt. I love to read and think and ‘fix’ things, so I have lots of thoughts about this.)

This phenomenon is something I have thought about and discussed, whenever I heard accusations against millennials. The short answer is there’s no particular MBTI type that causes this feeling of inadequacy by comparison, but I would say social dominants and Enneagram 3s suffer from it the worst (I suspect the person who wrote the article is a social 3, since the emphasis is all on success, achievement, paying attention to their social media feeds, and trying to compete on that level).

There’s a lot to unpack in that article, so I’ll just hit a couple of things – the tendency to avoid unnecessary, small, unpleasant tasks is a simple lack of motivation, follow through, and even a level of personal irresponsibility. It’s also a facet of not possessing self-love, because a person should do unpleasant or boring things out of self-love (because doing this now will reduce the guilt and anxiety of leaving that package on the table for the next six months, because I am a person who keeps their commitments, because this thing simply needs doing, and it doesn’t matter if it’s boring or tedious or not). If you do something immediately, you no longer have to think about it, or feel anxiety about doing it. Rip the band-aid off and do the boring “adult” stuff, so it’s no longer looming over you.It doesn’t matter what you feel like doing. Just do it.

Okay, as to the entire mindset of the millennial generation… it comes from a lot of things. Parents that made a great deal of money gave the next generation expectations above and beyond what is feasible. The brutal truth is, most of our parents did not live in a five room house when they were 20, they had a crappy little apartment and barely made the rent. Yet for some reason we expect to get out of college, find a job that pays a hundred thousand a year, and buy that house—whether we can afford it or not. Things cost way more for us than they did for our parents, also—instead of 6 grand for a house, it’s 300,000 grand.

There is enormous social pressure to attend college, even though most jobs do not require it; this means the value of a degree is less, because everyone and their cousin now have the same degree. It used to be that trade schools were more the norm, or that you simply grew up working in your father’s business and assumed you were going to take it over from him at some point. Only a few people with specific ambitions went to college for a short amount of time, with an end result in mind, and it, again, cost less because fewer people were attending and driving up the prices. College is an extremely expensive place to “find out what you want to do,” instead of already knowing what you are going to do, and getting an education IF it is necessary for your career. (For the record, you can often get higher paying job obtaining trade skills such as working as an electrician or a plumber, with less cost and way less debt.) So most millennials come out of college with a hundred grand in student loan debts. They assume, because they grew up in a society that told them how special they were, that they can get an amazing job and make all this money and pay back their loans and buy that enormous house—but they are all competing for the same job everyone else wants.

Or they were raised thinking they were special, so the rules do not apply to them, and that their feelings matter. In a nutshell: they do not matter. Your boss will not care if you felt like coming to work or not. You will come in and do what you are paid to do, or you will get fired. It doesn’t matter if you feel like cleaning the cat box or not. You need to clean it, because your cat deserves a better life. It doesn’t matter if you feel like exercising or not. If you do not do it, you will gain weight and face a health problem later in life. Adulting is learning to do the things that need done, whether or not you feel like doing them.

Now, let’s think about the social networking component, because it is an enormous contributor to “the problem” this generation faces. Back before college became the norm, and before the internet was accessible to everyone, society on the whole lived a much smaller life. You grew up, you dated someone from high school, you worked weekends in a local store or business, you got a more permanent job, you got married. It was a no-brainer, because everyone did it, most people knew each other, and socializing was done in person, rather than online, through community gatherings, church groups, BBQ’s, and town events. You weren’t aware of all the things you “should” be doing, or could “own” or even the fun other people were having, and as a result, people did not over-think as much. The internet has opened up a thousand options and the millennial thinks they should carefully consider all of them, because they do not want to make the same ugly mistakes their parents made.

Most of their parents have had multiple marriages and maybe even several sets of kids with different partners. They experienced what all young people do—periods of debt and poverty. But they “lived” life, and the millennial is “not” living life—they are more cautious, more fearful of making a life-shattering mistake, and more fearful of experiencing pain, suffering, and loss of the lifestyle that many of them were privileged to have, which was comfort. Their parents provided everything they needed, and got them used to a certain standard of living, which raised their expectations about what they must earn to match it. Going without is not possible in their mind; they have to achieve more than their parents, at a younger age. But… instead of the 5 options their parents have, the millennial has 10,000. Who should I date and marry? Well, it could be the person next door… but what if I’m missing someone BETTER? Should I try online dating? Swipe through 8,000 people? How do I decide? Where should I get a job? Who should I work for? Should it be in this state or somewhere else? Can I find a job that pays me a lot but doesn’t eat up all my free time so I can have fun? Or will I feel trapped??

Less is more, and all our society has, is more – too many choices lead to what psychologists call “choice paralysis.” The point where someone doesn’t know what to choose, so they choose nothing. It can be as simple as deciding you want to watch something, logging on to Netflix, and seeing 250 possibilities, being unable to decide, and turning it off… or not knowing which of the 60 people to respond to on the dating site… or which of the 20 degrees you want… which causes people to shut down completely and avoid decisions altogether.

Faced with too high of and unreasonable expectations of their own self-importance and worth (brought on by the “everyone is a winner” culture), unfeasible standards that are much too lofty for partners (we don’t know how to just choose a person and tolerate their flaws, we want the RIGHT person, so we keep on looking endlessly at times, and don’t want to settle, leading millennials to being the generation who isn’t getting married young), incredible debt tied to college degrees and expenses, and choice paralysis on everything from our pizza toppings to Big Life Decisions… is it any wonder that we (I am one of you, just barely; I’m a bit older than most of you) don’t do anything?

There is a solution to this problem, though. Minimize your life. Make it real instead of abstract. Stop living it in your head, and do it in your body. How? Minimize your choices. Practice making them. Do the thing you don’t want to do, first, to teach yourself responsibility. Make your world smaller. Consider a smaller life with more freedom and free time in it. Cut social media down considerably. If Facebook tracking you, hording your information, and making a “file” on you troubles you, pull the plug. You are not missing anything. Consider what works better—an impersonal tweet or a conversation with a person in the flesh. Start by making small decisions, and lead into bigger ones. Learn to lower your expectation and set realistic ones. The odds are, the person you pick to be with isn’t any better or worse than if you tried out 50 other people. Living in a tiny apartment for 6 years is nothing to feel ashamed about, it’s how MOST PEOPLE start their life. Cut the things out of your schedule that you do not need, and focus on what matters. Family time should not be on your “to do” list. Watch Dave Ramsey videos on YouTube to learn how to budget your money. Get rid of the social media account that make you feel envious, or like your life should be “more” than it is. Most of the time, life is just life. It has tooth aches, bad tuna sandwiches, flat tires, and Christmases that aren’t as magical as you wanted them to be, and that’s… life. If you can’t tell the difference between Instagram “I took this photo 70 times to impress you and then airbrushed it” and “real life,” get rid of it altogether.

A lot of this anxiety and paralysis, we bring on ourselves. But we can also choose to do something good for ourselves, and … make decisions. Small ones that can lead to big changes.

[tosin-talks]

Tosin Talks about burnout, post-grad existential crises, and relearning me

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently graduated from university. Immediately after moving my tassel over during the commencement ceremony, I felt my heart start to sink—not because I was reminiscing over the amazing moments of college or I was heartbroken to leave so many friends but because I was contemplating what to do with my life now.

Even before graduation, I was applying for full-time positions to pursue upon moving back home. I was so in a rush to get a job simply to prove that I could get one and that my degree wasn’t useless. I felt pressured to impress my parents, professors, and peers. Being so accustomed to overworking, it felt wrong to not be under intense stress. I’m bad at taking breaks, I even worry that I’ll get in trouble for not working, so I jumped into a full-time job about a month after I graduated.

I didn’t last a month.

I was burned out, I was out of gas. This flesh vehicle is due for maintenance; it had some problems from the start and the warning light had been flashing for years but I ignored them so now I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere, shamefully calling for roadside assistance.

I don’t believe I’ve ever felt this lost and without structure before. I feel fortunate to have known what I wanted to do for a long time, an idea of how and when to do it, and who to ask for help. Even in my worst moments, I still had a general sense of what was going on. This time, I truly don’t know. I’m not in school anymore so I don’t have advisors/counselors to help me out. I'm a first-generation student so I don’t have my parents to guide me with the technicalities. Now it’s just me (and my little support system, of course) but I don’t know what I’m doing, how to do it and most especially, I don’t know who I’m doing it for.

I tend to live my life for others, especially my parents. I’m not entirely sure of who I am or what I enjoy anymore. I exhibit a bit of learned helplessness due to childhood experiences and other traumas. I feel like my parents, those who hurt me, and unhealthy societal beliefs put their chains on me and trapped me in a dark room. College came to the rescue and released me from those chains. My brain interpreted moving back home as being put back in that room; even without the original chains this time, I still feel trapped and too scared to leave* although I know it’s possible. I don’t know how to live for myself. I don’t truly know who I am, I’ve always been whoever you wanted me to be.

Unfortunately, I’ve internalized various messages that tell me that I’m not making the right decisions and I shouldn’t pursue that. The negative voices in my head tell me that nobody will ever be proud of me and I’ll never amount to anything worthy with those dreams. To earn their validation and the temporary gratification that comes with it, I do what they want. The worst part is when I still feel like I’m not enough. I’m an overachiever, I have been since I was really young; I worked extra hard to please my parents, authority figures and peers and I achieved my goals while experiencing and recovering from some really awful things. But I still feel like I’ve failed everyone and I’m not doing enough.

I’ve been told that someone will always have a problem with my decisions, I might as well do what I want. Being told to just do what I want or to do what makes me happy doesn’t process well in my head because I don’t know how and I’m convinced that I can’t. I often even feel bad asking for things I need because I’m afraid of the reaction I could receive. It’s a lot easier for me to say that I don’t want anything than wanting something that I can’t have. It’s a lot easier for others if I say that I’m doing what they asked because I want to so that when I fail, I only have myself to blame and punish. Sometimes, I feel I can trust myself because I’m under the impression that I make bad decisions. I desperately need to hear from other people that I’m doing the right thing, I need to be told what path to take. I need to be told to live for other people because I don’t think I’d live for myself. I need to be told who I am because I don’t know who that is.

I want to take the time to get to know myself, work with my neglected inner child, and learn what I really want from life and how to achieve that. Ideally, I’d like to take a break, an actual one. I’d like to receive a position in something related to early childhood/youth development and care while volunteering or interning at a mental health organization. I would love to seriously pursue Tosin Talks and even write a book or two. In the next year, I would like to attend graduate school to study counseling and eventually earn my counseling license. I want to make new friends, make new memories with old friends and reconnect with even older friends. I’m open to learning new things and picking up new hobbies. It’s evident that I know what I want and even have a basic idea of a plan—I don’t think I’ve lost my diligence and determination either, I’m just tired and need to recharge.

Despite this current issue I’m facing, I’m not worried or hopeless. I’m experiencing something that most people experience during early adulthood (although some won’t admit it and social media often gives inaccurate portrayals). I know things will get better, I know I’ll leave this dark room again, I know I’ll release myself from these chains again. I’ve made decisions for myself in the past which had positive results. For example, when I changed my major for myself, I started attending classes again and my grades began improving. Or when I started receiving therapy and finally healing. I just need to be patient and gentle with myself, I need to learn who I am and how to make more “me choices”. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me but I’ll enjoy it because I actually want to do it.

I appreciate the support that you all have given me over the years; many of you have witnessed my darkest moments and now you’re witnessing my metamorphosis. I’m grateful to those of you who have been so kind to me even when I think I don’t deserve it. I wish you luck in whatever stage of human metamorphosis that you are in. Do not forget that we are ever-changing, you won’t feel this way forever. If you are stuck right now, you will be free eventually. If you don’t know at this moment, you will learn over time and know when the time is right. I hope the changes you undergo are for you and for the better.

*: metaphorically, not literally

[petpediaweb]

A Complete Guide on Feeding Puppies - When, How & What

Welcoming a new puppy home is the biggest joy one could ever experience. In those initial months, your pup requires a balanced diet to fuel their speedy growth and to ensure they live a long, healthy and memorable life. As per AAFCO recommendations, your pup’s diet must have at least 22% protein, 8% fat, adequate carbohydrates, essential fatty acids with mineral and vitamin fortification. Puppy food is absolutely essential for the first year of your pup’s development as it sets the basis for their overall health and nutrition for the rest of their life. Not to mention, the growth deformities and deficiency disorders, if you fail to provide the right nutrition. Hence, getting the nutritional balance exactly right with just homemade food becomes an overwhelming process for any new doggo owner. But the good news is, we have done the research for you and with our selection of puppy dry food online, wet food, treats & more, you will find one that meets the needs of your growing pupper and your budget.

As a new or potential pet parent, you probably have these questions in mind; How often to feed my puppy? How much quantity? And most importantly WHAT to feed my perpetually hungry pup? We’ll break down each of these questions for you, so read on.

 How often should I feed my puppy?

Your pup’s feeding schedule will undergo quite a few updates in the first year. Owing to their fast development and tiny gut size, your pup will start off with 5 meals spaced out in a day before the age of 2 months. Your pup will soon graduate to 4 meals a day till 3 months of age transitioning to 3 meals a day after the age of 3 months. From six months onwards upto almost a year, you can move your puppy’s feeding times down to two a day. Feeding your pet at the same time every day helps them set into a routine. Your pup may start showing signs of feeling hungry during those times and not hungry during hours you fed them earlier.

AGE                                       FEEDING FREQUENCY

Up to 2 months                           5 times a day

2-3 months                                 4 times a day

3-6 months                                 3 times a day

6 months onwards                      3 times a day

 How much to feed my puppy?

Its best to feed them smaller, more frequent meals. Puppy food is formulated to provide a certain amount of nutrients per amount of food. Due to the rapid phases of growth puppies experience, they require food which has higher energy-density than an adult dog along with a larger volume of food than their adult counterparts. As they grow up, their feeding quantity gradually decreases with age. Surprising, right? Think of it as feeding for the future, rather than the size they are today.

How much food a puppy should eat is a question with a lot of variables, the biggest being the breed.” Different breeds have different daily caloric requirements due to differences in metabolism and level of activity. Furthermore, the puppy’s weight plays a major role in portion control. As a thumb rule, a puppy should be fed at the rate of 15 grams of feed per kg body weight of the pup in each meal.

Say your 3-month old doggo weighs 3 kgs.

So, one meal will comprise 15 X 3= 45 grams of food.

As the frequency of feeding for this age category is 3 times a day, the total allowance for the day will amount to 45 X 3= 135 grams. You can dodge this math simply by following the feeding table on the back of the bag of dog food.

Word of caution here, DO NOT let those puppy dog eyes trip you into giving them more food than what is advised.

 What should I feed my puppy?

Puppies are likely to eat whatever is found under their nose! As the parent, you need to decide the right pet foods. With countless years of research and dollars spent on perfecting the best formulation for your furry companion, they are the best bet for your pup. Your pup’s unique nutritional requirement will depend on its size, breed and age. Puppies of small sized breeds can reach their full adult size at about nine to ten months of age. While the large breed puppy can take anywhere from fifteen to twenty-four months. There’s no “one-size-fits-all diet” that could possibly cover all the needs of all the puppies in the world. Additionally, puppy food comes in a variety of types such as dry kibble, wet food, raw, freshly made and treats.

With so many tasty and healthy food options for pups, it’s definitely a good idea for pet parents to invest time in understanding the important ones.

 Dry food

Dry food is a popular option for many pet parents owing to the convenience and ease along with acceptability in vegetarian households too. By the time puppies are six weeks old, they will start weaning off their mothers onto a mixture of puppy cereal and a specially formulated puppy food. The type of dry food you choose for your puppy will further depend upon the age and breed of your puppy. So, to provide a more specific nutrition, the dog food is categorised according to breed size into Mini, Medium, Maxi and Giant breed food.

FOOD CATEGORY: BREEDS INCLUDED

Mini/ Small (Adult weight below 10 kgs) : Shih-Tzu, Pomeranian, Toy Poodle, Miniature Pinscher, Yorkshire  Terrier, Chihuahua

Medium (Adult weight : 10-24 kgs): Cocker Spaniel, Beagle, Poodle, Basset Hound, Dalmatian,  Bulldog, Standard Schnauzer, Chow Chow

Maxi (Adult weight : 25-50 kgs): Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Boxer,  Akita, Siberian Husky

Giant (Adult weight over 50 kgs): Saint Bernard, Bullmastiff, Great Dane, Rottweiler

 So after figuring out the category in which your pup belongs according to their breed, find the food appropriate for his age within that category.

Each breed category has a starter, puppy and adult food which changes with your puppy's age. Starter food is an energy dense feed which supports the rapid growth of pups without disturbing their digestive system which is at an immature stage. Kibbles easily rehydrate to a consistency that is porridge-like which is very palatable for weaning puppies. Puppy food further facilitates proper growth and helps avoid excess weight gain thanks to an adapted energy content. Skeletal development is the hallmark of this growth period; hence an appropriate puppy food provides the right nutritional balance of calcium and phosphorus in their diet. Adult food is a tailored diet to maintain a healthy body conformation throughout the dog’s life.

 Starter food: (Age group- Up to 2 months)

Till 2 months of age, gradually transition your pup from mother’s milk or the feed the breeder was giving to a category of dry food known as starter food. It has a combination of nutritional elements present in mother’s milk that actively promote digestive health and help maintain the puppy’s natural defences. This food facilitates an easy transition from mother's milk to solid food. If your puppy is struggling to eat dry food, you can try mixing it with a little warm water to make it softer, until their teeth get stronger.

 Puppy Dry food: (Age group: 2-10 months (small breed) , 2-15 months (large breed))

Most commercial puppy dry foods have a range for puppy stage which applies for small breed pups till the age of 10 months and large breed pups till the age of 15 months. This food has excellent sources of protein namely chicken, lamb, fish and turkey which is extremely essential for proper growth. It is rich in calories from protein and fat sources. Crunchy dry kibble has an add-on advantage of keeping your dog's teeth healthy by reducing plaque and tartar build-up. Which is why kibble eaters generally have way better breath!

 Adult food: (Age group: After 10 months (small breeds), after 16 months (large breed))

While puppy dry food has many of the same ingredients as adult dry dog food, puppy meals tend to have higher concentrations of essential nutrients. This is because puppies have different requirements as compared to older dogs; just as human babies have different diets from adult humans. So, they’ll need fewer of the resources in their food to contribute to growth, but need more to support maintenance. They are enriched with probiotics, vitamins, essential fatty acids to support digestive and joint health, maintain skin barrier and manage an ideal weight.

The best time to change from puppy dry food to adult dry food depends on their breed, but most dogs are ready to change foods between 12-24 months of age.

Make the change gradually: Irrespective of your dog’s age, any form of food transition with dogs must be done gradually. Start by mixing a little of the next stage food (10-15%) with the previous stage food. If your puppy shows no unusual signs and tolerates it, (translation: no intestinal disturbances), you can double the amount of new food the next day. It should usually take about a week to make the full transition.

(P.S.- make sure there is plenty of fresh water available for your pup)

Pet parents usually have their hands full with their pup’s feeding schedule, potty training and teething that they often miss out on their most basic necessity; WATER. Every single bodily function from digestion to brain development, requires water. All efforts put into providing the best possible nutrition will turn to dust, if your pup is in a dehydrated state. Therefore, it’s very important to keep your pooch well hydrated at all times so they function at the peak of their capacity and avoid any health issues that could creep up due to dehydration. As a thumb rule, puppies must have direct access to at least one-half cup of water every two hours or so. Each time you reach for your own water bottle, think of your pet’s water needs, too.

 Wet Food

Whilst dry food mainly brings advantages for the owner in terms of price, cleanliness and convenience, the advantages of wet food benefit the dog itself. Most doggos would probably opt for wet food if they could choose themselves, since wet food, more intense in smell and taste, simply tastes better to them. It is ideal for fussy eaters or pets with illnesses. With grain free and chicken free options, wet food is one of the best options for dogs with food allergies.  Wet puppy food also offers your dog more hydration. Wet food becomes an important source of hydration in dogs that are hyperactive and don’t drink a lot of water themselves.

Both dry and wet food have their fans, so most pet parents provide the best of both worlds by feeding a mix of the two or simply using wet food as a topper for dry food. But remember, it is the content that matters, not the variety. So, focus on a food that best supports their growth and development and helps them thrive.

 Treats

These titbits not only serve as a pat on the back for when your puppy does something good, but can also be used for mental stimulation, dental care, teething and supplementation.

It should be noted that even the healthiest dog treats can never replace a balanced diet in a dog’s life. Treats should be seen as enjoyable supplements to a dog’s daily diet.

 Foods your dog should never eat

It sure is difficult to resist those big brown eyes and that adorable face. But remember before giving them a little reward off your table, that certain human foods are downright dangerous for your bundle of fluff. Due to differences in body composition, digestive enzymes and physiology of the body, some foods can upset your pup’s digestive system and send them straight to the emergency vet.

Avocados, grapes, raisins, onion, garlic, almonds, chocolate, coffee and tea are certain foods that are perfectly suitable for human consumption but are TOXIC for your dog, posing a serious threat to their health and well-being. Dairy products can cause dysbiosis in certain dogs further leading to diarrhoea as well as food allergies. The bones in meat, chicken and fish can be hazardous too. They can splinter and stick in the throat, break teeth or cut the intestines. Candy, gum, toothpaste, baked goods, and some diet foods which are sweetened with xylitol are also extremely dangerous. Also, accidental consumption of alcohol, tobacco or marijuana can be lethal. So, keep these foods out of your dog’s reach and contact your vet ASAP if they do consume any of these!

A human takes 18 years to fully grow and reach adulthood. Whereas your pooch has to cover this 18 year worth growth in mere 12-24 months. This only emphasises the need for proper nutrition in puppyhood. Proper research and a consultation with a vet will help you map out the best combination of dry, wet, homemade food and treats to ensure good health for your pupper who is just starting out in life.

For more information about Puppy Food Online visit: Pet pedia

[thejustmaiden]

I’ve seen so many shippers say that sesshomaru would be such a terrible parent because he didn’t give her shoes or didn’t prevent her death and that’s why it’s not a father-daughter relationship. Yet also claim that he loved her and proposes to her (drama cd 12 year old girl) and somehow those same arguments don’t count? There’s no leg to stand on to argue that sesshomaru and rin were romantic because that’s literally pedophilia, so the only thing they can do is claim he was a terrible guardian?

Hey anon, thanks for the ask! Hope I can help. :)

You made some great points, thank you!! By their logic, why would somebody even want Sesshomaru with adult Rin at all if he was such a terrible "companion" to her in the first place? If they really believe he neglected her that much and put her in harm's way all the time (because let's be willfully ignorant here and pretend he didn't rescue her multiple times too and eventually leave her to live a normal *safer* life with Kaede), shouldn't they be concerned that he'd be just as bad to her in a romantic relationship once she's old enough, too? That should be something that crosses their mind as well if they weren't so preoccupied with Sesshomaru's supposed lack of parenting skills.

A lot of those shippers like to act like we're only attacking them for implying they must be pedophiles or that they condone pedophilia, but I personally would never make such a nasty accusation about a person in real life. Often times they refuse to address those other serious issues we have with this ship though, because it's really just the pedophilia talk they'll focus on since that's their only easy point to refute.

Aside from the possibility of Sesshomaru grooming Rin since her time in the village, a lot of us anti-s*ssrin fans never actually viewed him as a pedophile-like caretaker to begin with during their times traveling together. The only reason we even bring that up is because we simply cannot ignore when those shippers insist that:

1. He supposedly proposes to her (even when she's still only a child)

2. He's not like a father to her anyway so that's totally acceptable

Nah, even if they're right about him not being like a father to her, that's still plain wrong!! Because then now they're trying to justify an adult male very inappropriately making a move on a young girl here! Perhaps he wasn't pressuring her or forcing himself on her like a true pedophile would do at or around the time of the proposal, but can they really stand there and say that they'd be more than okay with witnessing something like that in real life and not in the slightest cringe??

Okay, this is where a lot of them will argue that this is not real life (so I guess that means we can forgive the child grooming if it's just fiction?), or that older men courting girls soon-to-be young women was the norm in feudal Japan so then that's cool in their books, too. The thing is, even if we can tolerate all that like they do, that's not enough reason to deem it acceptable since it's more than about that. We MUST also factor in that Sesshomaru isn't just some man who took a liking to a blossoming Rin he saw from afar. No no, this man KNEW her and was LIKE a father to her, too!

We can't stress that enough really! Whether by their standards he was a bad father or not doesn't matter, because all that does matter is that he took on a role resembling that of a father- YES, even if we never hear them call each other father or daughter exactly. We also didn't hear him claim outright that he's (falling) in love with her either, so why is one implied but not the other?! It's not like Sesshomaru is a man of many words anyway, but his actions have sure demonstrated to all of us that he cares for this young girl he took in very deeply and very truly. I mean, just look at the large portion of fan art out there for Sesshomaru and young!Rin (not S*ssrin). He's usually fondly embracing Rin or comforting her like a GOOD father or male guardian/caretaker would. So somebody please explain to me why Sesshomaru is only sweet or loving to Rin when it's convenient to your narrative but not ours? You can't just take an angle on their relationship and bend it at your will to justify him being a terrible demon father who didn't know how to protect a young human girl on one hand, but then show and share all this fan art of him doing the exact opposite on the other! It just makes no sense at all. You can't have your cake and eat it too!

So the special bond they formed over the YEARS they traveled alongside each other isn't something they can up and forget just because Rin is finally an adult. That can't simply clean their slate as if they had no prior established history between them. Their relationship resembles one a young girl shares with a grown man who looks after her for a significant amount of time (she didn't view him as just a demon; to her he was at the very least akin to a lord/vassal). So knowing all that we know about what they've endured together, I'd like to believe that Rin could never develop romantic feelings for her main role model, because whether he was physically there for her less than Jaken was is irrelevant. Sesshomaru is the one she really looked up to since that day he brought her back to life, and he's protected and cared for her the best way he could and in a way everyone failed to after her family died. It's safe to assume that Sesshomaru filled that role as you can tell that she finally felt safe and loved for the first time in a long time. Now if Rin were to start to become sexually attracted to this demon who basically came to represent everything she lacked in a family, then I'd be deeply troubled and concerned for her mental health. And same thing applies to Sesshomaru.

I would hope that whenever I have children someday, that they would never become physically intimate with whomever was their babysitter back when they were little. Nah, that man would be arrested!! He was around to watch her grow up and the thought of that being sexualized or romanticized, even if it wasn't intentional, makes me sick. I don't care if she's a consenting adult who is free to make her own decisions, because I guarantee you this is not an image any of us ever want to picture! And I didn't even choose an example with a father. I mean, can you even imagine that? Yeah, I rather not either.....

Nobody liked it when Woody Allen did it in real life regardless if he makes excellent movies, so why would I like to see it on my TV even if it's one of my favorite characters? Nope, Sesshomaru is amazing- and yes, nOt rEaL- but not even he gets a free pass here. Nobody should in any capacity or on ANY MEDIUM (fantasy, reality, etc.) be remotely allowed to get away with such a disgusting act even if it used to be tradition. And no, this isn't just some Western way of thinking. This is a 21st century way of thinking!

Recently, another user on here nicely pointed out to me that an adult can form loving relationships with children and it not be considered a parental one. At that moment, it was like a little light bulb went off in my head!!!! Yessss, this is so true and I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier!!

Because all that S*ssrin shippers like to repeat over and over again to us (as well as to themselves), is that Sesshomaru was not Rin's father. So fine, hypothetically speaking, let's say he isn't her adoptive father. That still doesn't take away from the truth that he was very much invested in the overall safety and well-being of this young girl. He contributed to her care even if it was just passing a message along to Jaken before taking off again. I was a teacher for a few years, and the love and affection I had for those children was real, even if I wasn't their parent and I didn't see them every day. That doesn't change the fact that I would've done absolutely anything in my power to keep them safe-- I would've even gone to the underworld and back!!! You know, kinda like that one character who was such a bad dad. 😉

So you see, you don't need to be the parent or even around all the time to love and care for a child. Bottom line is that Rin, Sesshomaru, Jaken, and Ah-Un are a FAMILY! Granted, they may be a little dysfunctional, but it's not like there's such a thing as the perfect family. They may be far from what a conventional family looks like too, but that doesn't make their family any less valid. Nothing or nobody can or should ever change that ❣

[xxcureangelxx]

5, 9, 10, 13, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 30-35, 38-42, 44-46, 50, 52, 54, 60-62, 66, 71-74, 86-91, 96, 100! 😊

okay I literally have no clue how old this is and if I'm even taking the questions from the right post but here goes I guess? 🙈

<u>5. What is your favorite Color?</u>

PURPLE

<u>9. How tall are you?</u>

about 1,70 meters or 5'7"

<u>10. What shoe size are you?</u>

size 40-41, I think that's about 8 in US sizes?

<u>13. What talents do you have?</u>

uhhh good question... not sure if it counts but I guess I'm quite good at a lot if things but can't do anything extraordinarily well?

<u>20. Are you religious?</u>

Absolutely not. Due to family history and a lot of other things I'm actually against it a lot but people can do whatever they feel like is right for them as long as they don't harm others with it.

<u>21. Have you ever been to the hospital?</u>

Yes, quite a lot actually. practically grew up in hospitals as a baby because of kidney issues, broke both my legs with 4 years old, had to revisit for tests a lot during my childhood because of the kidney issue. it calmed down afterwards until I was back in hospital last year because of my terrible mental health and I'm currently in a rehabilitation clinic for it as well.

<u>24. Baths or showers?</u>

Shower's because we don't have a bathtub

<u>25. What color socks are you wearing?</u>

currently none, I love going barefoot, but usually I wear white, gray or black. I know... I'm a bad gay.. no rainbow socks (;ŏ﹏ŏ)

<u>28. What type of music do you like?</u>

you know.... I hate this question with a passion even though I love music so I'll just throw in my yt-playlist here and everyone who's interested can look through it to get a picture xD not sorted in any way and not a conclusive list at all, I just add songs as I find them

<u>30. How many pillows do you sleep with?</u>

mostly just one at a time but I've got two different ones. one is the normal fluffy kinda pillow, the other is made of some kinda foam material and rather thin.

<u>31. What position do you usually sleep in?</u>

I'm always lying on the side! have been doing that since I was a baby too.

<u>32. How big is your house?</u>

compared to what? 🙈 I'd say decent size for 5 people to live in, would have space for 1-2 more if rooms were used differently but definitely not enough to comfortably live with 12 or even more people like my family used to. we've got like 3 proper sleeping rooms (one of which is the attic so not very nice in terms of heat and the staircase is smack in the middle of the room), a kitchen, a dining room, a big living room, a tiny bathroom that barely fits a toilet and shower, and the basement is a mix of storage, electrics and stuff, washing room/utility room and it's got another smaller room that's been turned back into a small workshop but used to be the room of my brother and later my grandmother.

<u>33. What do you typically have for breakfast?</u>

I guess this is where it shows that I'm german but we usually just eat bread (preferably whole grain) with cheese or slices of salami or ..meat sausage? is that a proper translation? 🤨 idk... it's rather simple really. on the weekend maybe buns and boiled eggs. on the occasion that I'm too tired for it or don't have enough time I eat cereals but it's not very common when I'm at work/school

<u>34. Have you ever fired a gun?</u>

No, and I don't want to

<u>35. Have you ever tried archery?</u>

Yes!! I did last year when I was in the hospital and it was super fun! was quite good at it as well, even for my first try 😤

<u>38. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep?</u>

I think about 3 days? if we count "barely unconscious for a few hours" as sleep that is... otherwise no clue...my memory of the bad sleepless time is quite hazy lol

<u>39. Do you have any scars?</u>

yeah, quite a few tbh. got 2 huge ones from surgeries due to my kidney issues, well they look like 2 but it's actually multiple ones since they simply cut open party of the old ones again, tiny hooman apparently have very little skin. then I got some other ones here and there from accidents, general dumbness, etc, like when I cut through my sunday morning bun and almost cut half of the tip of my finger off because my mother sharpened the knife and didn't tell me or that time as a kid I couldn't wait for my ironing pearl pictures to be done and burned myself on the hot iron, mostly stuff like that.

<u>40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?</u>

I mean.. if they're a secret... how would I know? ;) not sure if it counts that it took me months to realize I had a crush on my best friend and the feelings were reciprocated and I was too blind to see the signs?

<u>41. Are you a good liar?</u>

Nope. People actually think I'm lying more often than I lie... so.... :/

<u>42. Are you a good judge of character?</u>

I'm.. honestly not sure what this one means? like, am I able to judge what kind of character a person has after barely meeting them or smth? if so, I'm terrible at it

<u>44. Do you have a strong accent?</u>

in german? nope. in english? hmm hard to judge since I rarely hear myself speak. I think the stuff I do know how to pronounce is mostly okay but since I learned it through reading I'm simply unsure of a lot of pronunciations. 'also'.... I can not for the life of me pronouns that word no matter how many times I hear it... it's kinda become a quirk after some classmates pointed it out to me and I'm incredibly aware how terrible I say the word but.... just can't get rid of it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

<u>45. What is your favorite accent?</u>

I.. actually really love the way my best friend talks? 👉👈 they're french btw. just... typical me for struggling to understand them though, already terrible at it in german too...

<u>46. What is your personality type?</u>

honestly, I don't think I can answer that. I'm big on self loathing and everything's pretty shitty so, no thanks

<u>50. Left or right handed?</u>

Right handed. but does it even count id I'm bad at doing things with that hand too? lol

<u>52. Favorite food?</u>

hmmmm tough question... not the biggest fan of food in general a lot of the time... probably Züricher Geschnetzeltes

<u>54. Are you a clean or a messy person?</u>

Definitely messy. my allergies did not like this post trying to clean and tidy up more often though. my depression does not like this post either

<u>60. Do you talk to yourself?</u>

sometimes. quite a bit when watching movies or if I mess stuff up

<u>61. Do you sing to yourself?</u>

barely. got a lot of bad experiences with that so i keep my singing to a minimum. my shower is a great listener though

<u>62. Are you a good singer?</u>

I was in a choir for a few years when I went to 'middle school' and I had like one solo part once but other than that I can't really say because I barely ever sing in front of people

<u>66. Do you like long or shor hair?</u>

this question is currently my absolute nemesis.. I've got suuuper duper long hair and have had it ever since elementary school and I used to be super happy with it and sometimes I still am happy with it but other days, depending on where I'm at genderwise, I absolutely hate it and I just want to take the closest scissors and cut it all off... currently haven't had the guts to look for new hair styles though... but in other people? or women more specifically? I love long hair 🥺

<u>71. What makes you nervous?</u>

Or the shorter question: what doesn't make me nervous... I'd say pretty much everything has got the potential to make me nervous. I'm an overthinker, anxiety is a big thing for me and ptsd makes me scared of almost everything. so.. yeah... sucks to be me sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

<u>72. Are you scared of the dark?</u>

Yes, very

<u>73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?</u>

I try not to but sadly I sometimes do, even if it's not my place to. I really don't like that part and hope I'll be able to learn not to sometime

<u>74. Are you ticklish?</u>

Yes and I hate it 😭

<u>86. What are you allergic to?</u>

again, easier question: what am I not allergic to... it's... a lot... like, really a lot. with the test on the skin of my arm I reacted to every single substance and the more thorough blood test lead to much of the same result. the absolute worst are birch trees (pitty, love those), then the usual pollen of pretty much every tree or flower, all animals with fur or feathers, dust and... yeah list goes on and on, you get the picture... :/

<u>87. Do you keep a journal?</u>

no.. have tried to multiple times in the past but never made it more than a week... too depressing to write and read... the therapist at the rehab clinic is currently forcing me to try a positivity diary for the millionths time, can't even get that done each day even though I'm doing it on my phone and get notifications to do it each evening...

<u>88. What do your parents do?</u>

making my life hell lol.. okay on a serious note, my father was a car electrician, he's retired by now, my mother is a housewife, she used to work different jobs before her first kid, later on she took care of my grandmother who was suffering from dementia, got some money and retirement points for that too.

<u>89. Do you like your age?</u>

I-... I don't know? it's weird because I both feel a lot younger and a lot older than I am rn....

<u>90. What makes you angry?</u>

another tough question... I actually have anger issues in that way that I'm barely capable of feeling anger... used to be worse but I already worked a lot on it in therapy so there's at least some there now... in the past I simply started to cry and felt overwhelmed by sadness whenever I was supposed to feel anger... so I can't tell very well what makes me angry because I first have to realize that I'm feeling anger or more like should be feeling it....

<u>91. Do you like your own name?</u>

Not really, no, but I guess I finally figured out some reasons why.. I've recently started going by a bit of a different name too but only my closest friends know so far and I'm not sure if I'll be using it irl at all..

<u>96. How did you get your name?</u>

I'm still trying to get my mother to admit that she named me after this song but she keeps denying it.. she's a fan of this band so it would have fit.. but she keeps saying she just liked the name, no long thought process behind it..

my chosen name is a bit of a different story. an ex friend I got to know through yt gave me that nickname almost 10 years ago after I complained that you can't make a shorter nickname out of my birthname and it's also the name of s character I like, especially his voice, and... idk it just feels more gender neutral and I simply feel comfortable with it. it just fit.

<u>100. Color of your room?</u>

same as question 5: Purple 🥰 or... well half the walls are purple, the other half is white

phew... can't believe I made it through all of these....

in case people haven't noticed yet, I'm currently kinda getting back into tumblr? I think I've already stayed a lot longer than any times I tried getting back before. it mostly started because we've got super bad wifi at the clinc I'm at rn and reddit takes up waaayy too much mobile data and... idk, I guess I just missed the vibe of tumblr

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stick around but we'll see

[soulvomit]

Aspirational figures can be a double edged sword because for every person who finds in them a role model - there’s someone for whom it’s a totally unattainable standard, and worse, a yardstick they’re held against and found wanting.

That’s why I don’t identify with or like about 90% of the female figures I’m supposed to like. Show me women who stumble through life and fuck up and somehow still manage to be the hero of their world (which may not be THE world, but it’s THEIR world), and I’ll be excited. I can’t find a character aspirational when they’re the kind of person who would have never been seen with me in high school. I fucking HATED Book Smart because the main character reminded me so much of the main woman I was pitted against. Like, seriously, all I could think the entire time about the character who was the bossypants, was “god I hate her.” She was the exact type of person who treated me the *worst* in middle school. The only female superhero figure I’ve ever really liked is Wonder Woman (which will take some unpacking but it may be because her origin story is just preposterous enough for me to never feel like people expected me to be Wonder Woman). For that same reason, I didn’t find princess narratives alienating, because the standard Disney Princess schtick pre-2000s was basically so much in the realm of mythology and fairy tale that I never saw it as any more than escapist fluff anyway. What ideals were oldschool Disney Princess stories teaching me, exactly? What aspirations were they teaching me, a future of drag fandom? There is a lot of language around overcoming adversity, abuse, authoritarianism, family dysfunction, and unjust leadership in older Disney stories that disappeared from later stories.  Whereas later Disney Princesses were actually written as aspirational figures with practically perfect happy families who will welcome them back with open arms once the girl is done having her little independence tantrum.  And it’s also why I love and relate to so many male “loser” and “everyman” stories - seriously, I love stoner comedies and so many dumb bro movies. (I also enjoy movies that deconstruct masculinity, like “Fight Club.”) In general, I enjoy stories that *aren’t about aspirational figures.* Sometimes the pleasure I get from watching a movie or reading a story that’s NOT ABOUT ASPIRATIONAL FIGURES, is that I walk away feeling better about my life choices.)  One thing is that because of my upbringing, I often relate more to male characters than female, though women put into the same situations will be relatable too. Part of it is because I feel like I have more in common with the male character based on our lives, than I do with the women characters I SHOULD relate to just because we’re both women. Part of it is that I never feel pitted against male characters or like they’re a standard I should live up to. I have more in common with the average Seth Rogen character than I do with the average Felicia Day character and that’s why I relate a million times harder to Seth Rogen than I do to Felicia Day. Part of it is because - as a Jewish woman and as someone identified as “gifted” early on, with social climbing parents, and having certain expectations placed on me that I could never live up to - seeing really intelligent men just waste their lives or fuck up, and still end up okay in the end, as a person from a broken home and with ADHD and health issues who’s struggled through a lot of shit, is more actually hopeful to me than any story about how I’ll have to have been born rich or obtain magical powers or become a space wizard. Also, maybe I just don’t need my protagonists to be aspirational.  I’m utterly fucking alienated by stories about women saving the world (and in general, stories about individual people being responsible for saving the world). For a long time I loved sci fi because the men and women in many sci fi (especially space opera) stories are utterly interchangeable in ways they aren’t in any other genre and because sci fi, before American sci fi was forced to become young adult, didn’t generally have “one person saves the world” stories or - surprisingly, for a genre popular with gifted-labeled kids - anywhere near as many stories that were basically gifted kid wish fulfillment.  Star Trek didn’t *have* a female captain front-and-center at any point before I was 21, but... there wasn’t any reason it *couldn’t have.* It’s only sci fi that specifically fetishized female characters or had heavy emphasis on sexual situations, like Heinlein and Piers Anthony, that rubbed me the wrong way; emphasis on sexual situations would take me out of the fantasy of a future of gender interchangeability and freedom from assigned reproductive duties that my enjoyment of sci fi was 100% based on.  

But for every sci fi story I could name that was particularly bad in this way, there were plenty that weren’t. The thing I loved about “harder” sci fi was the emphasis upon the gadgets and the science and the exploration. Practically every male and female character in an Asimov story, is interchangeable, and plenty of the characters could even be non-binary and it would simply never matter and never be part of the story. Asimov was the writer that, in my late childhood through teens, I found the *least alienating.*  Sci fi, until relatively recently, didn’t overwhelmingly have “one person saves the world” themes.  I realize that a million other women and girls who *aren’t like me* and don’t have my particular upbringing, need these stories, and HEY! That’s why I say, WE NEED MORE STORIES - the answer is ALWAYS *more* stories.  Anyway, I have no idea where I was going with this long diatribe. Carry on.