#because it’s easier to try and provide help to others than to actually address my own issues 🕶️

[anadorablekiwi]

Congratulations, You’ve stumbled upon the Hug Kiwi! If you’d like a hug, the hug kiwi is here to give you as much as you’d like 💜🫂

[doctorghoti]

Reincarnation: ADDO Remaster

My favorite game series ever just had a remaster, and because I’m utterly obsessed and have too many thoughts on things, I figured I might as well write a more formal post. I’ll put under a read more so I don’t clog your feed, but TL;DR: I love it but you should play the old one first.

Gameplay

Okay, let’s start with what everyone actually cares about. This version of ADDO uses the inventory system that most of the other games do, unlike the first game that relied on clicking things in the exact right order. Honestly, this is a much better approach. It allows for different interactions (observe, use, talk) and fits better with the other games and with the controls in TROAE (TROAE is still unreleased for anyone outside of the Kickstarter, but it uses the same wheel system), so it serves as a nice transition for whenever that game gets released. The different angles for some of the rooms serve as both an extra challenge, such as the mouse hole living room puzzle (sorry for spoilers for a game that came out in 2008 btw), and to make things a little clearer, such as the picture puzzle in the upstairs hallway and the bedroom/bathroom. There’s also a tutorial at the very beginning of the game, so there’s not as much guesswork as the first game. This also helps establish Luke’s relationship with the demons more clearly than him just talking at the player like in the old introduction. Though speaking of…

Lore

Okay, so, the remaster does address how people go to Hell, how they can escape via reincarnation, and how demons go after them, plus Vile does give lines to indicate that the death needs to look accidental. However, I think a key part is missing, mainly that they don’t explain the urgency. In the old game, Luke tells the player directly that if enough souls reincarnate and get to Heaven, God will shut down all of Hell. To me, that provides more incentive for why Luke works the demons so hard. “But doc,” you say, “that’s not necessary. He’s the devil, he can be a dick to his demons.” True, but as a player, that one piece of information adds stakes. And it’s also very important for the eventual TROAE release since that’s a major part of what sets off the events of the story. Is it world-ending that that wasn’t included? No. Honestly, this game is advertised for established fans, so they should be familiar with that premise already if they remember the story. But for those who need a refresher or those who are new…

Personal Recommendation

I say play the first ADDO, well, first. It’s from 2008, so it will show its age, but I think it’s important for both the history of the game and for some additional story context. If you play ADDO Remastered right afterwards, it’ll be a wonderful compare and contrast, and it will actually make the puzzles in the new one a little easier in some areas. You’ll also get some fun little inside jokes. Of course if you REALLY want to get into all the games and see them develop from point A to B without a sudden jump, all the games are complied into one playlist on the Newgrounds website. Again, some of them haven’t aged well (looking at you ITNOE), but it’ll help you get more of a love for Vile and see how Hell works. If anyone wants a more narrowed down list, let me know, but I still say it’s best to experience all of them.

If you’ve made it this far, cool. Here’s some out of context fun points to try:

-Talk to the Newton’s cradle as your tutorial interaction. Luke has the same response no matter what, but this version of the interaction is the funniest to me

-Investigate the rug and button in the tutorial area with observe and use

-Talk to all the animals. All of them

That ends my ramblings for now, but I’m sure I’ll think of at least twenty other things to say after I post this.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Making emotional support teddy bears, because why not?

Never underestimate the power of having an emotional support companion by your side when you need a little lift. Life can get rough and sometimes we have a lot weighing on our minds, so why not turn to something that can provide you comfort to help you get through the day?

This crafting session turned out to be perfect timing for the visitors who dropped by the camp before heading home after meeting up to address some heavy issues. I wasn’t at that meeting, but I am aware of the situation, and so I really hope things turn out okay in the end. It’s never easy dealing with shit that really isn’t in anyone’s control - life can be cruel like that.

Daisy Jane and I came up with the idea of making teddy bears after seeing a bunch of videos of people making emotional support chickens. I don’t know, something about emotional support chickens just caught everyone’s attention, like the kind of thing we never thought we needed and now we’re intrigued. I enjoyed watching other people film their process on making it, which turned out to be therapeutic for them too, probably because they’re trying something new and different. Plus, you’re making a cute little friend and watching them slowly come to life - how is that not amazing?

It’s a knitting pattern, which was how we came across it, though I’m honestly still on the fence on actually making one for myself. First of all, I don’t have the right yarn for it - I mean, I could make it a scrappy project like a lot of people have done, but I don’t know if I have enough and whether or not it’ll look cohesive. Don’t wanna play yarn chicken while making a chicken - haha.

Also, and probably the biggest obstacle for me, is that I’ve never made anything like this before, so I really have no idea how it’s gonna turn out. The only experience I had with making a knit animal was a fish from a long time ago, and that just involves simple increases and decreases - two pieces knit the exact same way and then seaming them together. But a chicken’s gonna be more complex than that from what it looks like, and given my experience with crochet amigurimi, I’m gonna really struggle with my stitch counts.

(I’m still haunted by my wonky six tentacled octopus…)

Anyway, instead of an emotional support chicken, we’re sewing up emotional support teddy bears. We have kits from a while ago that I’ve been meaning to use for an event…only to completely forget about them. Finally did some long overdue cleaning and found them hidden under a pile of stuff that I really need to sort through - but that’s for another time.

The kits contain everything you need, as well as detailed instructions, so it’s beginner friendly. I’m kinda rusty when it comes to making plushies, which I usually use a sewing machine for anyway, and most of the group have little to no experience with sewing in general aside from basic mending skills.

The instructions are written to cater to novices and those who are more experienced, which is why there’s a lot of pages despite it being straightforward. A little annoying to flip through, I gotta admit, but I really appreciate the detail - it’s just the format that really bothers me. They really should’ve split it into three booklets for the three levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced so it’s easier to read. Highlighting definitely helps, or else you’d end up reading the wrong set of instructions.

Joining us in this event is quite a group - Ambrosia, Latte, Aymn, Connie, Olive, Della, Hongxia, Sadiki, and Madeleine. As for why they’re all together, it’s because they’re concerned about Safiyya. The situation in the Lunar Rainforest cannot go on much longer - Safiyya can stall all she wants, but patience is running thin on both sides. While they have managed to avoid a full on conflict, that doesn’t change the fact that there are many longstanding problems that should’ve been dealt with swiftly and decisively in the first place.

While that is a pressing issue, that’s not what this meeting really is about. To put it simply, Safiyya is not meant to be a leader. That doesn’t make her less of a person - it’s just that most people aren’t suited for that kind of position. Like personality traits - some are more emotional while others are more rational, some can work under pressure while others will crack. Safiyya does have some qualities of a capable leader, but in the words of her friends and colleagues, some of her greatest strengths are also her greatest weaknesses.

Being a leader is tough, and it’s not something I’d personally strive for. Having the option to choose to become a leader is considered a luxury to some. For people like Safiyya, Della, Hongxia, and Madeleine, they didn’t choose to become leaders, they were pretty much handed that role because they have obligations to fulfill. Of course, they’ll do their utmost to do their job, but often at the expense of their own well being.

That’s why we’re all worried about Safiyya. It’s bad enough that the Lunar Rainforest affairs are a huge source of stress for her, and now her personal life seems to be falling apart too. Ambrosia and Olive suspected that something had come between Aymn and Safiyya as they have grown distant over the past year. Shutting those close to you out and shouldering the burden only for yourself is never a good sign. Aymn tried his best to reach out to her, but I think this is just one of those things where it’s not entirely anyone’s fault, just a bunch of complicated circumstances tangled up together to create a situation where everyone loses out.

Could things have been handled differently? Yes, I believe so - to some extent. There’s really no way of knowing, so I won’t go down that route. That’s not to say that they didn’t try - I think they handled things as best as they can. It could be worse, should be better - again, there’s no use going back and forth on the past. What matters now is the present and what we can do about it.

I think Madeleine, Della, and Hongxia understand Safiyya’s struggles with being in a position that they never really wanted or felt like they deserved. It’s bad enough dealing with a lot of pressure from all around, it’s even worse when you don’t have the option to step away. I mean, you can, but then everyone will hate you for letting everyone down because your existence is basically tied to your ability to fulfill a specific role, which I know is not a good thing.

People aren’t tools, weapons, or pawns, they’re just people. Sure, some end up with more burdens and responsibilities than others due to birthright or whatever, but it’s not right to define them as their purpose and nothing else. I can’t imagine what it’s like being told since you were born that you have to be x, y, and z, and if you fail, you’re a disappointment because so many people depend on you. Even if someone can handle the pressure, it shouldn’t be something you expect from someone all the time. No one is invincible, after all. We are all prone to fail or fall short of expectations.

Hongxia and Della didn’t have much of a choice because of their families despite the fact that they have proven that they’re not meant to be leaders. Both of them actually developed severe mental health issues from running themselves to the ground - psychosomatic paralysis and substance abuse, to name a few. Like, that’s fucking serious and absolutely not acceptable. A stressful life like that can and will kill you, which was why Della’s mother finally had enough and intervened.

Safiyya may be immortal, but she is not invincible. Hongxia was able to recognize the signs of chronic overwork because Meiying hammered it on to him when he showed the exact same signs. He said he never realized how terrifying it was for those around him to see someone running themselves to the ground until finally seeing it for himself with Safiyya. The others have seen it far too many times than they’d like to admit, but it’s the kind of thing that often gets swept under the rug for various reasons.

In other words, if Della and Hongxia hadn’t fought hard to break away from their leadership positions, they will eventually work themselves to death. Della said her mother recently confessed to her that over the past year she had premonitions of her dying, which is naturally a parent’s worst nightmare. Not just from overwork or illness, murder or assassination’s another thing to worry about, especially if you’re high up there in terms of influence and politics. With one foot already in a grave, unless there’s an intervention, it won’t be long before they fall.

Hongxia said it was similar with his mother, and Meiying, Aiwen, and his sister in law, all of them putting it bluntly that he was going to wind up dead in a few years if he kept trying to shoulder all the responsibility on himself. While his brother means well and appointed him as the Xuelin for a reason, it’s just not something he wants out of life, which is why he’s been in kind of a weird position in terms of his status within the pavilion. Now that Hongxia’s on medical leave for an indefinite amount of time, that will make the rift between him and the others much more wider.

He’s got a lot to deal with too when he has to go back home, but right now his physical and mental health takes priority. Leaving home was the right choice for him as he’s no longer in a stressful environment, though that doesn’t change the fact that there are still a lot of things that need to still be addressed. Now he’s even more determined to not succeed his brother, which is a whole ‘nother issue that makes his whole situation even more complicated.

Well, the best Hongxia and everyone else can do is take it one day at a time. I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to go back anytime soon. He said so himself that he’s afraid that the second he gets home, his headaches and paralysis will return, and he’s probably right. I can’t comment on Qiangshou’s politics, but surely, they can work something out? I’m sure Hongxia’s not the only one who feels out of place in the Senlin Pavilion, though he’s probably one of the very few who not only actively fights back, but also has supporters by his side who care about his wellbeing over status and obligation.

Madeleine and Della were lucky in the sense that they were freed from the shackles that bound them for most of their lives. Della had aspirations to become an Eagle Stellaron, only to become disillusioned when she realized that the organization as a whole was corrupt. To make matters worse, her own parents were complicit, and so she was in a difficult position. There was also that whole thing with her friend being murdered by a captain who apparently had a habit of silencing those who didn’t see eye to eye with the Stellarons. If she wasn’t already so distrustful of most of her colleagues, she could have become one of his victims too.

Basically, it was a toxic environment where the people around her were actively driving her to her grave. And she was far from the only one who was a victim - there were a lot more like her who were not as fortunate. At least because of her mother’s status, Della had some sort of immunity, as in, most of her tormenters knew exactly how far to push her around without angering their superior. Sadly, most of the other Stellarons weren’t so lucky to be born to such families, and a good number of them ended up quitting or wound up dead in a matter of years.

For Della, cutting ties with the Eagle Stellarons and having a hand in their downfall was the right choice. She knew what she was doing by throwing herself into the crossfire, that she was never liked by her colleagues anyway, so being branded as a traitor is nothing compared to what they put her through. Although things have quieted down, she still has to be on her guard. Nothing too serious has happened, but she’s had some close calls with former acquaintances who failed to get a rise out of her. That’s just something she’ll have to deal with for possibly the rest of her life. The way she sees it, that’s a small price to pay for her freedom.

Madeleine was essentially created as a pawn and yet she willingly let herself be used that way because of her strong sense of justice. While she has no regrets for many of her actions, she does resent her loss of freedom and autonomy over the past few centuries, which really took a toll on her. If Connie and Fontaine hadn’t intervened with fate and essentially pushed things along, she’d probably lose herself completely with all the deception she had to put up with.

Just because she was willing to get blood on her hands doesn’t mean she’s okay with it, but sometimes you have to take an impartial and somewhat cold stance in order to get shit done, even if it makes you an enemy to some. As much as she wishes she could be an idealist like Safiyya, to try to find a way to work things out so everyone wins and no one ever gets hurt, Madeleine knows that it’s just simply impossible. Not everyone is willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Sometimes you have to be the bad guy, the cynic, the traitor, or whatever. Sometimes you have to play dirty, burn a few bridges along the way, manipulate the general public so they see things in your favor. I’m not saying that I necessarily approve of that, but there are times when you have to do the hard thing if you want to see certain results.

Most of the time, it’s not personal, it’s just someone doing their job, so I think when personal feelings gets involved, that muddies everything up. That’s probably why Safiyya and Madeleine felt the need to isolate themselves to avoid dealing with complicated feelings. I get why they feel the need to distance themselves and shoulder their burdens alone, but that doesn’t mean they should, not if they keep sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

It’s understandable why Madeleine doesn’t want Safiyya to go down the same road she did. Like her, Safiyya was created for a purpose and ended up with a lot more burdens than she bargained before thanks to unseen circumstances such as her predecessor’s death. However, unlike Madeleine and Nahla - who came to her position in a similar way - Safiyya was completely unprepared, which probably explains her hesitancy and avoidance for any sort of conflict.

Between the three, Nahla has proven to be a capable leader after successfully regaining control of Dharma when it fell to the wayside. The events of Adrikha were somewhat similar to the first rebellion in the Lunar Rainforest, the obvious differences being that Nahla’s faction succeeded where Safiyya’s failed in their approach not only to restore order but also maintain peace. Another major difference is that Nahla was more ambitious and driven, not by power, but because of her sense of duty and obligation driven by the fact that no one but her can do the job that was rightfully hers.

While it might seem like the best option, having Safiyya step down will create even more problems. Aymn’s probably the best choice as her successor but he considers himself an ill fit for such a role for various reasons - one being that he’s a mortal human. Although he’s well respected among his peers, there’s many who still see him as an outsider since that’s what he is to those whose families lived in the Lunar Rainforest for generations. There’s also the complicated on and off relationship between them, which most of them had already suspected, though that’s an entirely different issue.

So, it’s a lot to deal with and no one has any answers. At least they’re getting it all out in the open, hoping that their personal experiences will shed some much needed insight.

Not surprisingly, making emotional support teddy bears was therapeutic for everyone. Since we had a lot of kits, we made extras as gifts. I made one for my sister, Hongxia made three for his niece and nephews, Sadiki for Amina, Connie for Pai, as well as the rest of the Epiphany and Harmonious Cafe crew.

While working on the teddy bears and pondering about Safiyya’s situation, I remember a conversation between Madeleine and Fontaine not too long ago. He was one of those friends who took her by the shoulders and told her flat out that he couldn’t bear to watch her drive herself to her grave. It wasn’t until she got involved with the discussions regarding Safiyya when she finally understood why Fontaine was so upset with her while she merely brushed off her near death experience like it was nothing.

How terrible it is for someone to look down on themselves so much, to see themselves as only a means to end that that they’re totally okay with sacrificing themselves over and over again like they’re disposable and insignificant. Fontaine had to watch someone close to him subject herself like that for centuries, which was why he finally snapped, so to say. Like, he literally grabbed Madeleine by the shoulders - not in an aggressive way, more like clinging to someone so they’d stay because you’re afraid of them leaving you - and made her promise to live a long, uncomplicated, and happy life.

Such a seemingly simple thing, yet at times it’s almost like asking for the impossible as there are no guarantees. She found it a bit naive, but nevertheless, she gave him her word. Maybe, she believes, if Aymn confronted her like that, being all open, and vulnerable, and honest, he’ll finally get through to her. It’ll be a difficult conversation, but a very necessary one.

For now, there’s really nothing they can do aside from trying to get through to Safiyya. Aymn feels bad for doing this behind her back, but I think he’s doing the right thing because he’s worried about her. Madeleine and Connie know from experience that having friends who are willing to intervene means that there is hope, that there is a way to work things out no matter how difficult it gets. It’s not easy, but sometimes you have to give someone a good shake before they end up self destructing and it’s too late to help them. I really hope they can get through to her.

Read on AO3

[ina-nis]

I can’t get my head around how people see issues of loneliness and social disconnection as something you can “simply” brush off or fulfill the needs with various things that do not directly address it.

The causes for loneliness are not mysterious mythical tales that have no why or how. They’re plain and clear, at least in my eyes.

I live with chronic pain.

Maybe you don’t hear people tell you to try and embrace pain, or to try to look on the bright side, or to see how much this pain have made your stronger (many do say these things, unfortunately, though).

There’s a name for that: “inspirational porn”.

That is frowned upon in disabled spaces and people get called out over that stuff because it is, indeed, really rude and uncalled for.

Why it seems like the pain of loneliness is inspirational? Romanticized even?

Because people cannot tell “loneliness” and “solitude” apart.

I live with chronic loneliness.

Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn to, I’m told and shown how much I’m “great” for being so “resilient” and “self-reliant”, how wonderful it is that I can “take care of myself” and “live independently”, how nice it must be to not have family troubles, kids to take care of, I don’t have to worry about providing for anyone other than myself and I can even save a lot of money like that!

The main difference between loneliness and solitude is control. The latter is a personal choice. Loneliness could start as solitude but the fact that you can become a prisoner of those feelings means they are not a choice anymore, nor they’re something you can control.

Solitude can be freeing, loneliness is a prison.

“Oh but if you’re so lonely, just go outside and talk to people, hit up a stranger and start chatting, become a regular in some space or club, maybe try volunteering too in your local orgs. The more you show up, and the more you’re around people, the easier it will get to connect with them and you’ll feel less lonely!”

I don’t want to go over the same argument again but the sentiment above is pretty much the “solution” I am given to deal with my dysfunctional loneliness. It should work, except it doesn’t. It actually makes me feel more isolated and alienated instead of helping.

The more I show up, the more I try to connect, the lonelier I feel.

I know why. These are superficial connections, casual conversations that go nowhere. In the end of the day, when we part ways, the connections are gone too.

The medium doesn’t really matter. I thought online connections would be more helpful (since that’s more accessible for me), but the same problem happens: it’s casual and goes nowhere.

It doesn’t matter if I’ve been seeing people regularly (online or in person) for 3 months or 3 years. It’s likely the connection will remain superficial and unfulfilling for me. It’s likely I’ll burn out eventually, It’s likely I’ll start resenting people.

So, yes... I should be more proactive and tell/show people what I want from them and what I want from these connections, but that becomes a problem because, in all cases and experiences I’ve had so far, we want different things from these relationships. I spend a lot of energy and time one-sidedly for someone who is not into me the way I’m into them.

It’s implied I’m a bad person for prioritizing romance over friendships, for only wanting to get closer to someone with “ulterior motives”, for distancing myself after being romantically rejected; also that I’m a bad friend because of these issues, that I should first “get comfortable being single” before I can date anyone, that I can’t see other people as anything other than love objects, that I should work on my own issues and on myself before I get others involved, that the way I love is wrong, that my attachment is wrong, that my issues will end up hurting people, that I will be abusive and toxic, that I’m focusing too much on my loneliness and not doing anything else with my life, that if I had a new hobby/pet or started some new activity or had better sleep and diet I would feel less lonely and happier, and so on...

I can cope better now with my chronic pain because I know it’s my own personal issue. Engaging in my hobbies and activities can provide relief of the pain, either directly or indirectly, and I can live my life as well as possible, considering my limitations due to pain. It doesn’t go away, never will. I’m better at dealing with it though, because it’s on me.

It’s not the life I wish I would live but it’s the reality I have to deal with. Nothing I can do about it but my best.

If I tell people I’m having a bad day, or a flare up, they might not understand but they will leave me alone. I’m not asking for advice, and they know it, I’m not looking for platitudes or a solution because I know there’s no cure for this, only management.

How do I cope with my chronic loneliness? Is it my own personal issue? Why engaging in hobbies and activities don’t provide any actual relief from loneliness? Why is it so hard to live my life at all, why is loneliness so limiting and disrupting?

It’s not the life I wish I would live and I don’t feel like any life is worth it at all with this pain. The fact that this is the reality I have to deal with and that there’s nothing else I can possibly do pushes me into an anguish I cannot describe as anything other than pure horror and agony. Even when I feel happy, even when I’m enjoying my passions and having a good time, that despair is always in the back of my mind, buried deep inside of my heart, as if it was part of my very existence.

If I tell people I’m feeling lonely, they assume it’s a temporary ailment, they assume it’s just a matter of talking more and showing up more, they assume the connections will fall into place with regularity and consistence on my part, they will tell me how being alone isn’t so bad and that you can have so much time for yourself etc. They don’t understand...!

My loneliness is not solitude.

My loneliness is not a personal choice.

Hobbies and activities can’t address my loneliness.

My attempts at connecting end up worsening my loneliness instead of helping me feel more connected and secure (because these connections are superficial and I see myself unable to deepen them).

I’m not asking for advice either, but they will try to help anyway because “this could be me, and I wouldn’t want to be this lonely”, they will give me platitudes and their sympathy, they might offer their shoulder for me to cry on, and “be there” for me. They may think the “solution” is to just be surrounded by people and it doesn’t even occur to them how harmful that very thing could be for someone who’s suffering from chronic loneliness.

There’s no cure for loneliness...? Well, unlike chronic pain, loneliness is not a personal problem, at least it doesn’t feel that way for me. A social issue can only be solved socially. Nothing you can do by yourself.

How to move past superficial connections then?

I don’t really know! I do what I can on my end. I don’t think the rest is up to me.

[morgannalefey]

I am 59 years old. I am a white, cis, queer autistic woman married to a white, trans, genderfluid, queer, autistic person. I have some chronic health and mobility issues, and as I age, pain becomes more common in my life. For all of my adult life I had to mask hard to survive in an office working environment. All this is to say that I have pretty much always had limited energy to work with.

The bottom line is there is too much out there that needs doing for any individual to try and focus on everything. I care deeply about a whole lot of the things going on in the world, but I have to, for my own survival, narrow my focus when it comes to what I, personally, engage with. That includes what news stories I pursue and how much of current events I expose myself to on a given day.

The things I have cared most about in my life have shifted some over the years, but not significantly. I have always cared about the environment dating from the second grade (1972) and our teacher who was very focused on recycling and reducing consumption. I care about poverty and food insecurity because I lived it as a child. I care about elderly folks because of my family, and now myself and my spouse. I didn't actually come out to myself about being queer until I was in my mid 40s. I basically erased my queer identity until that point. Now I care deeply about queer and trans issues.

Does this mean I don't care about other stuff? Drug addiction, wars, police brutality? Of course not. But for my own sake, I have to focus on the things I care most about. It's OK to have a hierarchy and to have some issues that we put more energy into than others.

So how does this all play out in my actual life? I have automated monthly donations set up to go to five different organizations that treat on issues that matter to me, and those are just part of our monthly budget. Places like Doctors without Borders and Nature Conservancy.

For my career, I chose public service. I chose to work for my state's environmental agency. I eschewed higher paying programmer jobs in favor of working for a job where I was making a difference. I was able to spend 23 years in this job, caring about what I was doing, and knowing that my work was making life easier for environmental scientists and policy makers.

Now that I am fully retired, I have time and energy to devote to volunteer work. I am vice chair on the board of a non-profit municipal organization that is constructing fiber internet across the rural parts of our state to provide reliable high speed internet to the unserved and underserved in our state who have been utterly ignored by the for-profit providers for the last twenty five years. This work is important because it addresses basic economic struggles and disparities in our very rural state, and making opportunities available that haven't been available in this region for decades.

I am further volunteering at a local queer community center. I perform administrative tasks for them, and host a couple of different clubs several times a month, as well as just showing up for other events.

These things suit my nature and abilities. There are plenty of other things I could be doing. I could volunteer at the food bank, for the organizations helping unhoused people in my area, for various sexual assault recovery organizations, or for the group helping train women and gender expansive individuals how to do trades work (we have a desperate need for trades people in our state), or for the many organizations working to help restore us post-severe floods.

But none of these play to my skill sets or my interests in the same ways. I don't have energy to do all of it. So I choose the few things that I know I have energy for, and where I will be able to do a good and consistent job.

We have far too many young folks volunteering for our community center who burn themselves out volunteering for EVERYTHING and protesting EVERYWHERE all the time, all at once. They're trying to fix all of the problems by themselves and they're making themselves sick. Also, they are unreliable. We can't count on them when we need them because at any moment they are going to be flat on their backs again, and unable to function. You're not any use to anyone in that state.

Our energy and skills are finite. The best thing you can do is choose one, maybe two, smaller local issues/groups that mean the most to you, and focus on working with/for those issues. This doesn't mean you don't care about all the issues, it means you recognize your limitations as an individual, and that you're wanting to be effective in the work you do.

Being able to show up consistently when you say you will is something that organizations desperately need. We are chock full of people who are deeply passionate but also spread so thin we can't actually depend on them to show up when we need them. While it isn't useless to the organization, they do actually help when they're there, it just isn't help we can count on to show up when the chips are down.

Also, it's OK if your passions change over time. I didn't used to care more than tangentially in a vague way about queer stuff. Then my spouse came out as genderfluid, and I fully realized that I really was queer, and suddenly I was more interested in building queer community in my area. I have more friends now than I have ever had in my entire adult life.

Also, this is how you meet people (both in meatspace and online) that you can connect with. Get involved with a cause/interest/group that is doing something you care about. You'll find people like yourself who also care. It's a built in conversation and reason to meet up. This is how community is built, shared concerns/experiences.

anybody got tips and tricks on how to not go absolutely fucking insane because of the deranged world order we live in

[talknerdy-itsverystarlike]

Something I think about often is "you're not a burden" as the default response to people who are concerned that they need more help meeting their needs than other people.

Now I'm not saying don't say it, it's not my place to tell people what to do but I wanted to share my personal reasons why I find this response dissatisfying.

disclaimer: I am using disability as an example because I am disabled and I am sharing my personal experience not because I think this is a unique problem associated with disabilities

1. It never really felt believable to me, growing up. Like I had family members who struggled with similar issues as me and I saw that it really did take more energy for my other family members to support them. So people saying "people with disabilities aren't a burden," just felt like a hollow assertion that never rang true enough to give me comfort.

What actually helped me was "it's okay to take up space," and "we don't exist to make people comfortable." Or even my own experience with friends who needed more help taught me that I would always want to help them even if they didn't ask for it and it was actually much easier for me when they did ask. Like yes sometimes accommodating them was at times annoying and inconvenient but it didn't hurt me and the thought of them suffering silently did hurt me.

Also, I always wanted to know all of them and if they were trying "not to burden me" with the things in their lives I always felt like the relationship was more superficial than it otherwise could have been. So for me personally thinking about how sometimes I got hurt or frustrated by people who didn't tell me what they want helped me to be more open with and accepting of my own needs.

2. I think it puts pressure on people to act like things are perfect when they're not. I think sometimes in trying to reassure people they're not a burden we feel the need to make out like they have no negative impact on us whatsoever. In trying to fight for disability rights I see a lot of variations of "providing accommodations isn't hard," Or "you shouldn't have children if you aren't prepared to care for a child with disabilities." The problem is I find that there are empirical elements of these statements that get conflated with the political context.

Providing accommodations in some instances is hard. Like my inability to do the dishes does make the lives of the people I live with harder. Does that mean I should be made to feel guilty or invalidated for needing them? no. Does this mean that it is valid and fair for the people negatively impacted by it to express that it frustrates them or their struggling? Yes.

I think honestly this stems from an inability to separate "you need x" from "it's your fault I have to provide x." This causes issues because it takes the focus off the situation and onto the person. The thought becomes "wish you were different" or "I wish I was different," rather than I wish things were different. Resulting in this false dichotomy of you are either a good caregiver who shoulders all the extra needs silently or a bad caregiver who is ashamed of the people you care for.

Because "you're not a burden," can start to sound like a lie when you say "All of this extra work is a burden. "

Essentially, I'm not trying to say that "you're not a burden" is factually incorrect. I think for some people burden implies "more trouble than your worth," which I've never felt about anyone. But what I am trying to say is that sometimes in response to "I don't want to be a burden," the response doesn't address the key concerns. Which is "It's okay if you take up space. You're human, you're entitled."

[huenjin]

soulmate bruises.

you could have been stuck with any other soulmate mark, so why specifically did it have to be the soulmate scars theory?

pairing | lee juyeon x reader (ft. a few of the boyz) genre | fluff / soulmates!au, high school!au word count | 1,654 words warnings | mentions of bruises, swear words author’s note | reposting of an old fic, edited specifically for lover boy here.

"That looks like a real bad bruise," Haknyeon mumbles. His thumb traces the corners of the bruise and you wince, the pain scourging through your nerves, tingling and rushing through your brain furiously.

"Your soulmate must have gotten hit badly," Chanhee chuckles, looking through the photographs in your camera. You frown and curse under your breath. Haknyeon looks through the papers by your side and you look around the photography club you started with these idiots for the school magazine.

"I’ve got an idea," Changmin's eyes glint mischievously as he walks up to your table, having overheard your conversation. "Let's hit Y/N to inflict pain on her soulmate for having hurt her. It's the perfect plan."

Chanhee raises an eyebrow at Changmin but Haknyeon seems to be all in for the plan. Your forehead scrunches in annoyance, your eyebrows furrowing together as you pinch the skin to distract yourself. You groan, mumbling, "Shut up for a second, will you?"

"Fine, spoilsport," the one who suggests the plan says, pressing his lips together in disappointment. He soon began, "My idea was great. All you low lives will never understand."

"I'm going to find this nasty motherfucker," you stand up, determined. The chair pushes back and the table jerks forward as you press your hand down on it firmly. "And he's going to pay for hurting me so much. These bruises take forever to fade away."

Haknyeon stands up soon after, "We just have to find another individual in this city that has the same ugly bruise on their face as she does."

Chanhee and Changmin follow suit, albeit reluctantly. The latter chuckles sardonically, "This is going to be easy. How many people do we even have to search? Yeah, just mere tens of thousands in this city."

Chanhee digresses, "Let's cancel all the nice-looking dudes because our girl here doesn't have good luck."

"You're an arsehole, dude. An arsehole, I say."

"What's with the weird We're Avengers formation you guys have on?" 

Younghoon walks into the room with a cup of coffee and Ray-Bans like he's making an entrance and you roll your eyes. He places the glasses on the table and sighs, "It's cool and everything but Juyeon's hurt, Chanhee. He won't tell it out loud, but yeah, he's hurt and he needs help. The nurse isn't in yet."

"He's hurt?" Chanhee asks, concerned.

"Hurt, oh yes. This is perfect." Changmin chirps and Younghoon raises an eyebrow.

"You're Team Rocket now?" He furrows his eyebrows and glances over at you disappointed, almost as if it is your stupidity that has nurtured them into these. "Anyhow, Chanhee, follow me. The rest of you stay put."

Haknyeon, Changmin and you listen because Younghoon was a mere acquaintance. He was, however, Chanhee's childhood friend, and since he is Chanhee's friend, you have seen Lee Juyeon around — at parties, at the basketball court, in the hallways. And that is it. 

So, why would you care if this man was hurt?

Unless he got hit like a bitch on his face.

Later that night, you hold yourself close, tears threatening to spill from the corners of your eyes. It feels like your ribs are being slammed into something and the pain is unbearable. It leaves you breathless and a little shaky on the ground. You scream at one point and slow winces leave your lips as you try to hold it in.

Haknyeon knocks and walks into your room when you don't reply. He shifts you slightly, his hands rubbing your back slightly as you lightly cry, "I hate that bitch but he must be in so much pain if I'm feeling this much." 

Haknyeon's angry. In all honesty, he gets the soulmate mark and how that should help people be happy but never has it led you to your soulmate, only providing pain along with the entire experience. Soulmates are not supposed to bring pain.

Your teeth clench in pain as you sit up. Your feet dangle for a while before it touches the ground and you stand up, ignoring the pain that seers through your body.

"I'm finding that motherfucker, that's it."

Haknyeon chuckles at your resilience. He helps you stand well and watches your determined expression, mumbling, "The boy's dead meat for sure. Either in your hands or the one that's hurting him."

Finding him is easier than you expected. Haknyeon helps you and the two of you leave the house in pursuit of the man with injuries — a bruised face and now, bruised ribs. You have always wanted to meet your soulmate for, a) he was nasty enough to get himself hurt without bothering about your well being, b) he is your soulmate, and deep down, you want to care for him, heal his wounds, and. . . slap some sense into him because it's a connection and he should respect it. 

You message Chanhee, knowing if you should start anywhere, it's the closest person you know who has an injury.

You: chanhee? [11:23 PM] Chanhee is a hoe: Juyeon's number? here. [11:23 PM] Chanhee is a hoe: [Juyeon's contact] [11:24 PM] You: what the fuck? [11:24 PM] Chanhee is a hoe: thank me later. [11:24 PM] Chanhee is a hoe: don't kill him. but if it makes you feel better, i'm shipping you two and that his bruise is nastier. [11:30 PM]

"It's Juyeon, isn't it?" Haknyeon pipes and you watch his smile curve upwards. "Turns out Chanhee isn't that useless."

"He is. That arsehole didn't tell me till I asked him of it. What if I didn't? Would he have let me go on a wild goose chase?"

Your phone pings again and you groan, albeit very grateful for his existence 

Chanhee is a hoe: [Juyeon's address] [11:36 PM]

Haknyeon laughs, "Knowing him, yes." He drums the bonnet of the car, waiting for you to hop in and when you do, he enters, igniting the engine and zooming away to the address Chanhee has sent you.

Upon reaching his place, Haknyeon wishes you luck and tells you that he'd rather wait in the car and that if you planned on staying the night, then, you should text him so that he could leave. You smile and storm away, trying to build up the rage within you to lash out at your soulmate.

"Lee Juyeon," you slam at his door. "Lee Juyeon, open your door." 

You hit the steel door as hard as you can, unbothered by the pain that now seers through your fist. At this rate, you'll be hospitalized with your soulmate and you could have your first date there. How nice; not.

"Y/N?" he opens the door, and you notice the redness around the sides of his fist. Your eyes widen and the air is taken away from your lungs as you stare wide-eyed at the man before you.

Lee Juyeon is gorgeous. He leaves you feeling dazed like a comet hitting the earth's crater, strong and hard. He is tall enough to tower you and his eyes sparkle with hope. You notice the bruise on his face under the dim street light by his house and you gape.

"It could be you."

"Huh?"

You run back to the car, tapping at Haknyeon's glass. He pulls it down and hands you a paper cup of hot coffee. You look at him with a snug expression. You notice Juyeon watching you with confusion. You take big strides towards the man and open the cup, only to throw the hot coffee onto his chest, in the same area that had you wincing moments ago.

It hits you a second too late. You drop the cup, holding your upper abdomen, your fingers digging into the underside of your breasts as you fall on your knees. You definitely did not think this through. Juyeon merely clenches his teeth tightly, and you realise that with all this experience you both shared, he's the only one who knows how to deal with the pain.

Haknyeon chuckles at the sight, and almost on cue, he pulls his car back and drives a bit away, parking it by a big tree. Juyeon kneels along with you and helps you up, "Let's put some ice there."

"That was a very bad idea. 0/10 would not recommend."

You're holding your chest and your abdomen messily and you're cursing at Juyeon, "Are you a gangster? A thug? Why do you keep getting hurt?"

"A boxer, actually and I keep getting hurt because Sangyeon will not go easy on me. I'm sorry. You must have been through shit," Juyeon's voice is soothing. Like a fresh warm bath with your favorite soap bombs and a ducky. He helps you into his house, lays you on his sofa carefully as he goes to grab ice.

"Maybe this wasn't all of a bad idea," you shout, and Juyeon chuckles. He even laughs beautifully; how? He asks if he could lift your shirt up as he comes back to your side with a bag full of ice. You nod and he lifts your shirt up, grimacing at the purple bruises that have formed by your abdomen and the area under your breasts. Juyeon is too worried to let his eyes stray anywhere else as he mumbles apologies after apologies.

"It's okay," you chuckle nervously, feeling conscious and slightly bad for your soulmate. "At least now I have you. We'll get through this pain together. You can take care of me and I can take care of you."

Juyeon feels his insides bubbling, his chest tightens, and his heart bloom. If this is what a soulmate's love feels like, he could get high on it. His face gets close to your skin and his lips slightly trace the bruises, before placing kisses on it and then, the ice, all while mumbling, "I'd like that. I'd really like that."

[be-gay-do-heists]

hello yall :) the holy month of elul started last night, which is typically a time for contemplation, so since it is impossible for me to stop thinking about leverage, i decided to write an essay. hope anyone interested in reading it enjoys, and that it makes at least a little sense!! spoilers for leverage redemption

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Leverage, Judaism, and “Doing the Work”: An Essay for Elul

When it comes to Elul and the approaching High Holidays, Leverage might seem like an odd topic to meditate on.

The TNT crime drama that ran from 2008-2012, and which released a new season this summer following its renewal, centers on a group of found-family thieves who help the victims of corporations and oligarchs (sometimes based on real-world examples), using wacky heists and cons to bring down the rich and powerful. In one episode, the team’s clients want to reclaim their father’s prized Glimt piece that had been stolen in the Shoah and never returned, but aside from this and the throwaway lines and jokes standard for most mainstream television, there’s not a ton textually Jewish about Leverage. However, despite this, I have found that the show has strong resonance among Jewish fans, and lots of potential for analysis along Jewish themes. This tends to focus on one character in particular: the group’s brilliant, pop culture-savvy, and personable hacker, Alec Hardison, played by the phenomenally talented Aldis Hodge.

I can’t remember when or where I first encountered a reading of Hardison as Jewish, but not only is this a somewhat popular interpretation, it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap. In the show itself, Hardison has a couple of the aforementioned throwaway lines that potentially point to him being Jewish, even if they’re only in service of that moment’s grift. It’s hard to point to what exactly makes reading Hardison as Jewish feel so natural. My first guess is the easy way Hardison fits into the traditional paradigms of Jewish masculinity explored by scholars such as Daniel Boyarin (2). Most of the time, the hacker is not portrayed as athletic or physical; he is usually the foil to the team’s more physically-adept characters like fighter Eliot, or thief Parker. Indeed, Hardison’s strength is mental, expressed not only through his computer wizardry but his passions for science, technology, music, popular media, as well as his studious research into whatever scenario the group might come up against. In spite of his self-identification as a “geek,” Hardison is nevertheless confident, emotionally sensitive, and secure in his masculinity. I would argue he is representative of the traditional Jewish masculine ideal, originating in the rabbinic period and solidified in medieval Europe, of the dedicated and thoughtful scholar (3). Another reason for popular readings of Hardison as Jewish may be the desire for more representation of Jews of color. Although mainstream American Jewish institutions are beginning to recognize the incredible diversity of Jews in the United States (4), and popular figures such as Tiffany Haddish are amplifying the experiences of non-white Jews, it is still difficult to find Jews of color represented in popular media. For those eager to see this kind of representation, then, interpreting Hardison, a black man who places himself tangential to Jewishness, in this way is a tempting avenue.

Regardless, all of the above remains fan interpretation, and there was little in the text of the show that seriously tied Judaism into Hardison’s identity. At least, until we got this beautiful speech from Hardison in the very first episode of the renewed show, directed at the character of Harry Wilson, a former corporate lawyer looking to atone for the injustice he was partner to throughout his career:

“In the Jewish faith, repentance, redemption, is a process. You can’t make restitution and then promise to change. You have to change first. Do the work, Harry. Then and only then can you begin to ask for forgiveness. [...] So this… this isn’t the win. It’s the start, Harry.”

I was floored to hear this speech, and thrilled that it explained the reboot’s title, Leverage: Redemption. Although not mentioned by its Hebrew name, teshuvah forms the whole basis for the new season. Teshuvah is the concept of repentance or atonement for the sins one has committed. Stemming from the root shuv/shuva, it carries the literal sense of “return.” In a spiritual context, this usually means a return to G-d, of finding one’s way back to holiness and by extension good favor in the eyes of the Divine. But equally important is restoring one’s relationships with fellow humans by repairing any hurt one has caused over the past year. This is of special significance in the holy month of Elul, leading into Rosh haShanah, the Yamim Noraim, and Yom Kippur, but one can undertake a journey of redemption at any point in time. That teshuvah is a journey is a vital message for Harry to hear; one job, one reparative act isn’t enough to overturn years of being on the wrong side of justice, to his chagrin. As the season progresses, we get to watch his path of teshuvah unfold, with all its frustrations and consequences. Harry grows into his role as a fixer, not only someone who can find jobs and marks for the team, but fixes what he has broken or harmed.

So why was Hardison the one to make this speech?

I do maintain that it does provide a stronger textual basis for reading Hardison as Jewish by implication (though the brief on-screen explanation for why he knows about teshuvah, that his foster-parent Nana raised a multi-faith household, is important in its own merit, and meshes well with his character traits of empathy and understanding for diverse experiences). However, beyond this, Hardison isn’t exactly an archetypical model for teshuvah. In the original series, he was the youngest character of the main ensemble, a hacking prodigy in the start of his adult career, with few mistakes or slights against others under his belt. In one flashback we see that his possibly first crime was stealing from the Bank of Iceland to pay off his Nana’s medical bills, and that his other early hacking exploits were in the service of fulfilling personal desires, with only those who could afford to pay the bill as targets. Indeed, in the middle of his speech, Hardison points to Eliot, the character with the most violent and gritty past who views his work with the Leverage team as atonement, for a prime example of ongoing teshuvah. So while no one is perfect and everyone has a reason for doing teshuvah, this question of why Hardison is the one to give this series-defining speech inspired me to look at his character choices and behavior, and see how they resonate with a different but interrelated Jewish principle, that of tikkun olam. 

Tikkun olam is literally translated as “repairing the world,” and can take many different forms, such as protecting the rights of vulnerable people in society, or giving tzedakah (5). In modern times, tikkun olam is often the rallying cry for Jewish social activists, particularly among environmentalists for whom literally restoring the health of the natural world is the key goal. Teshuvah and tikkun olam are intertwined (the former is the latter performed at an interpersonal level) and both hold a sense of fixing or repairing, but tikkun olam really revolves around a person feeling called to address an injustice that they may have not had a personal hand in creating. Hardison’s sense of a universal scale of justice which he has the power to help right on a global level and his newfound drive to do humanitarian work, picked up sometime after the end of the original series, make tikkun olam a central value for his character. This is why we get this nice bit of dialogue from Eliot to Hardison in the second episode of the reboot, when the latter’s outside efforts to organize international aid start distracting him from his work with the team: “Is [humanitarian work] a side gig? In our line of work, you’re one of the best. But in that line of work… you’re the only one, man.” The character who most exemplifies teshuvah reminds Hardison of his amazing ability to effect change for the better on a huge stage, to do some effective tikkun olam. It’s this acknowledgement of where Hardison can do the most good that prompts the character’s absence for the remainder of the episodes released thus far, turning his side gig into his main gig.

With this in mind, it will be interesting to see where Hardison’s arc for this season goes. Separated from the rest of the team, the hacker still has remarkable power to change the world, because it is, after all, the “age of the geek.” However, he is still one person. For all that both teshuvah and tikkun olam are individual responsibilities and require individual decision-making and effort, the latter especially relies on collective work to actually make things happen. Hardison leaving is better than trying to do humanitarian work and Leverage at the same time, but there’s only so long he can be the “only one” in the field before burning out. I’m reminded of one of the most famous (for good reason) maxims in Judaism:

It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it. (6)

Elul is traditionally a time for introspection and heeding the calls to repentance. After a year where it’s never been easier to feel powerless and drained by everything going on around us, I think it’s worth taking the time to examine what kind of work we are capable of in our own lives. Maybe it’s fixing the very recent and tangible hurts we’ve left behind, like Harry. Maybe it’s the little changes for the better that we make every day, motivated by our sense of responsibility, like Eliot. And maybe it’s the grueling challenge of major social change, like Hardison. And if any of this work gets too much, who can we fall back on for support and healing? Determining what needs repair, working on our own scale and where our efforts are most helpful, and thereby contributing to justice in realistic ways means that we can start the new year fresh, having contemplated in holiday fashion how we can be better agents in the world.

Shana tovah u’metukah and ketivah tovah to all (7), and may the work we do in the coming year be for good!

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(1) Disclaimer: everybody’s fandom experiences are different, and this is just what I’ve picked up on in my short time watching and enjoying this show with others.

(2) See, for example, the introduction and first chapter of Boyarin’s book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (I especially recommend at least this portion if you are interested in queer theory and Judaic studies). There he explores the development of Jewish masculinity in direct opposition to Christian masculine standards.

(3) I might even go so far as to place Hardison well within the Jewish masculine ideal of Edelkayt, gentle and studious nobility (although I would hesitate to call him timid, another trait associated with Edelkayt). Boyarin explains that this scholarly, non-athletic model of man did not carry negative associations in the historical Jewish mindset, but was rather the height of attractiveness (Boyarin, 2, 51).

(4) Jews of color make up 20% of American Jews, according to statistics from Be’chol Lashon, and this number is projected to increase as American demographics continue to change: https://globaljews.org/about/mission/. 

(5) Tzedakah is commonly known as righteous charity. According to traditional authority Maimonides, it should be given anonymously and without embarrassment to the person in need, generous, and designed to help the recipient become self-sufficient.

(6) Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot, 2:16

(7) “A good and sweet year” and “a good inscription [in the Book of Life]”

[lost-onpurpose]

My first therapist wanted to ask the "what were you wearing" and "why were you alone with him" questions regarding my assault. She made me feel like I would never ever be safe and with a man and I should have known that.

My second therapist pushed medications and wouldn't let me talk much until I said I would talk to her partner, the psychiatrist, to get medications and then we would discuss my issues after that.

My third therapist only talked about her own shit. And her cats. And would interrupt me when I was talking about something. She treated me like a child.

My fourth, and current, therapist is wonderful. She lets me speak freely and interjects with relevant information. And sometimes we talk about her cats because I can't put words to my feelings and I can't think in silence. But as soon as I have the words we stop talking about the cats and go back to addressing my problems. She's happy to refer me to a psychiatrist if I want to try medications but is very supportive of my preference to limit the amount of prescription medications I have to take every day.

There are many many bad therapists out there. Please don't be afraid to change providers until you find that works for you.

I have progressed from weekly visits to monthly check ins because I found one that actually listens and helps me with the issues I find most pressing instead of trying to tell me that I'm trying to treat my mental illnesses in the wrong order.

Mention of PTSD, ASPD, depression, anxiety, and ADHD and my specific experiences with the good therapist below the cut.

Every other therapist wanted to work on PTSD or ASPD first because "PTSD is so much worse than depression or anxiety or ADHD or anything else" and "ASPD could make you hurt someone and you need to have friends".

This therapist asked me what I wanted to tackle first. I chose the ADHD and learned coping mechanism and skills to help manage it better so I can focus on the others easier. Then we worked on getting off my antidepressants. Now we're focusing on anxiety but are diving into the PTSD in spurts since it is tied heavily into the anxiety too.

And during all of this I have found coping mechanisms and things that have helped me make a few new friends but I'm happy with the small circle of close friends that I do have. And yeah, occasionally I get violent urges but they're just thoughts and I know how to redirect my brain because my therapist actually fucking listens to me.

[blindbeta]

I have a question! Thank you for existing I deeply appreciate it. I was wondering if it is possible for a blind person to be able to read by learning the shape of raised letters, rather than braille. I ask because I have a situation in which it is reasonable that the blind character would know this, if possible, and the person they are travelling with is completely illiterate.I thought it might be interesting if the seeing character could describe the letters, or find a way to texture them so the blind character could tell them what something says. I have done a great deal of research for this character, but this is the one part I can't find a clear answer for. Thank you very much.

Good question, nonnie.

The short answer is, maybe? It would depend on the time period and location of your characters.

Since you want both characters to read, I’ll assume this culture has a formal writing system in place and values written communication.

A Brief History

In order to address this, allow me to offer a brief history of Braille. Because what you’re describing is exactly what happened in France before Braille was invented. This informative video summarizes it pretty well. Here is the text version of the video. The video mentions the embossed letter or raised type method of reading that was used at the time. It was difficult to read and the letters had to be very large in order to be understood, making it harder to read words and sentences. Reading must have been very slow.

According to this page on the National Braille Press website, reading this way required slowly tracing raised print letters. To write, one had to memorize the shapes and try to create them on paper, although they could not read the results.

Creating books was even more difficult. According to this page, [quote] “teacher Valentin Haüy made books with raised letters by soaking paper in water, pressing it into a form and allowing it to dry. Books made using this method were enormous and heavy, and the process was so time-consuming that l'Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, or the Royal Institution for Blind Youth, had fewer than 100 of them when Louis Braille was a student there.” [End quote]

Braille books are already notorious for taking up several volumes. Large print books are only a little better. Textbooks used in schools take up several shelves to translate one print textbook.

Individual use and traveling with these things must have been impossible for the everyday person, even if you were a student.

Also, in this video by blind YouTuber Molly Burke, at the 9:05 time-stamp she answers the question: why don’t we raise print letters for blind people? She explains that it took too long to read and is not as efficient as Braille.

In the interest of time, I’ll try to keep this brief. The transition from the raised print letters to Braille was not a smooth one.

In 1826, first embossed letters published in English was James Gall’s triangular alphabet. Read about it and other systems here.

Another source says Gall’s writing system was introduced in 1831. The system did not gain much popularity outside of Endinburgh.

According to this page: [quote] “In 1832 The Society of Arts for Scotland held a competition for the best embossed type. There were 15 entries but Edmund Fry’s alphabetical system of roman capitals triumphed. Shortly afterwards John Alston began printing at the Glasgow Asylum for the Blind using a slightly modified version of Fry’s design. “Alston type” proved popular and inspired similar forms across Europe and North America.” [end quote]

None of these really caught on outside of certain areas.

In 1821, Charles Barbier was invited to the Royal National Institute For Blind Youth in Paris to demonstrate his Night Writing invention, which was developed for soldiers to read in the dark. It was too difficult to read and so was not used by soldiers, nor did it end up being used by the blind schools. However, a young Louis Braille was in the audience and was inspired.

In 1825, Braille thought he had figured out a good system of writing.

In 1829, he published the first Braille alphabet.

1834 - Braille is invited to Exposition of Industry in Paris, which extended the popularity of the Braille system.

1846- a school for the blind in Amsterdam starts using Braille’s system.

In 1852, Louis Braille dies.

1854- Royal National Institute For Blind Youth officially adopt Braille as official system after fighting it for years.

Because Braille didn’t take hold as quickly in Britain, the British and Foreign Blind Association, all of whom were blind, voted in 1870. They decided Braille was the best system. Braille quickly fell into use all over the world with the exception of the United States. By 1882, the embossed letter system was over.

In the U.S, from 1868-1918, the New York Point system was used. American Braille (developed by a blind teacher named Joel W. Smith) was also used from 1878 to 1918, when the U.S switched the standardized English Braille.

Would Your Character Know Raised Type?

Remember how I said you might be able to do this depending on the time period and place?

If you have French characters, you can used the raised type method as you described in your ask if the story takes place before, probably, 1825. It would be reasonable for your character to know the raised type method if they had attended a blind school before the Braille method was adopted in 1854. Between roughly 1829 and 1854, the French blind character attending school would know about the Braille system and probably complain about their school not teaching it despite Braille himself teaching there.

Similarly, they could used raised type depending on where the story is set, when the character attended school, and what system was in place at the time. If the story is a fantasy, you could make up a history similar to what I described above, although it would be important to have schools for the blind and have Braille or the equivalent be created by a blind character.

Remember that your blind character needs to learn the raised type method if you want them to use it.

If Braille would be available in real life (such as a more modern setting), I would prefer a blind character use Braille instead. Which is why I tried to offer alternatives that were historically justified.

I don’t feel very comfortable with a blind character having to use a raised type method rather than another system, because Braille literacy is declining nowadays and something about learning a raised type method over Braille (or other system, depending on where you set the story and what they were using at the time) doesn’t sit right with me. Your character doesn’t have to use Braille specifically, but I would rather they use the system that is available to blind people at that time. For example, if your story is set in the United States, it would be fine to use American Braille or the New York Point, depending on the time period.

If your story is modern, blind people can usually read raised print letters on signs, such as for the bathroom. In fact, a lot of people who can’t read Braille get by this way. However, keep in mind that we have screen-readers and audiobooks now. People aren’t reading entire texts or even many words with this method.

As for other countries, I tried my best to research what places, such as Japan, used before Braille. For several reasons, including the European-centric search results that keep coming up over and over again, finding the correct information is proving difficult. In some cases, previous methods may have unfortunately been lost due to colonization. It is important that we acknowledge that.

I feel that it would be easier to leave the research up to you since you know where you want to set your story and your own personal background, historical knowledge, etc.

Keep in mind that not all blind people in the world had access to formal education, depending on the place, time, their social class, etc. If you want your blind character to know how to read, you’ll need to find or create a setting that allows for it.

Generally, I would prefer blind characters use methods designed for blind people, whatever that happens to be in that time or culture. Prioritizing the other characters’ needs and having a blind character learn raised type over Braille when Braille actually exists in the story doesn’t work for me.

Like always, I suggest having more than one blind character in the story to avoid tokenism. Also, since your character is going to teach another character, be sure to show your blind character’s needs and goals as well.

I hope this helps. Feel free to message me or send another ask. I am not a historian and so if anyone wants to correct anything, such as dates, or provide any relevant knowledge, please feel free. I tried my best with this question. I would be grateful for help if anyone has more information!

-BlindBeta

[where-our-stories-start]

How to Write Dialogue, Part 1: Natural Speech, or Making Your Characters Sound Like Actual People

So a lot of creative writers struggle with dialogue, and it’s one of the things I actually find easier. I’ve learned a lot from various pieces of writing advice on tumblr, so I figured I’d contribute my bit as well. Some of my basic tenets for writing natural-sounding dialogue:

1. Actual people do not always talk in full, grammatically correct sentences.

When we talk to one another, we rarely use proper written grammar. We drop articles, don’t finish our sentences, abbreviate words, etc. Consider this exchange:

“Hey, what are you doing after school?” Aliya asked.

Leanne looked up at her friend. “I don’t know, why?”

“A couple of us are getting ice cream. Steve’s driving; do you want to come?”

“Sure. Hang on, let me just tell my mom.” Leanne pulled out her phone and sent a quick text. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”

“Cool,” Aliya said. “I have to grab my bag, so I’ll meet you outside in five minutes, okay?”

And now this one:

“Hey, you doing anything after school?” Aliya asked.

Leanne looked up at her friend. “Dunno, why?”

“A couple of us are getting ice cream. Steve’s driving; wanna come?”

“Sure, hang on, lemme just...” Leanne pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to her Mom. “Okay, yeah, I’m good.”

“Cool,” Aliya said. “I gotta grab my bag, so meet you outside in five?”

Which sounds more natural? Which feels more like teenagers?

That’s not to say that your dialogue should never be grammatically correct or include full sentences. In fact, grammar can be a useful way to signal how formal or casual a situation/relationship is. If your sibling asks if you’re busy, you might respond, “Nah, I’m free, what’s up?” but if your boss asks, you might respond, “No, I have a minute. What can I do for you?” Your speech becomes more casual when you’re comfortable or when you’re talking to someone you know well. Your speech becomes more formal when you’re in a stricter environment or when you’re talking to someone you want to impress.

2. We almost never say people’s names when addressing them.

One of the most common habits of inexperienced writers is to have everyone calling each other by their names all the time. In reality, we almost always use names when referring to someone we’re not talking to.

Generally, if we’re using a person’s name as a direct address, it’s for one of the following reasons:

We’re getting their attention (“Hey, Sarah, can you come help me?”)

We’re giving a piece of information to just them, rather than the whole group (“All right, everybody ready? Sarah, you lead the way.”)

We’re trying to really drive an important point home, particularly one we’re making in anger or frustration (“For God’s sake, Sarah, I’m doing my best here!”)

Other than that, we pretty much don’t say people’s names to them, so your characters shouldn’t do it either.

3. Break up dialogue with action.

Nothing makes a reader’s eyes glaze over like huge blocks of text. We know this when it comes to description--how often have you tried to read a book with huge, dense paragraphs on clothing or weather or social structure or any number of other things--but it can be true with dialogue too. Even if the focus of your scene is a conversation, we need action to ground us in the scene. If your characters talk for too long without a physical check-in, we start to find it difficult to “see” them. When we experience real interactions, we process dialogue and visual stimuli simultaneously. Threading them together in your writing will make it feel more real to your reader.

Consider this quick scene:

Adam walked into the kitchen to find his mom sitting at the table, reading. She looked up when he entered.

“Mom, I need to talk to you,” Adam said.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Lisa might be pregnant.”

“Okay,” Mom said, her voice even. “She doesn’t know for sure yet?”

“No,” Adam answered. “She got a pregnancy test after school. She said she’ll text me right after. She’s three weeks late, though, so.”

“So,” Mom agreed. “Thank you for telling me. If she is pregnant, you know I’m always here. Whatever you two want to do, I’ll help you figure it out.”

The scene is all about the conversation between Adam and his mom, so it makes sense for the focus to be on the conversation. It’s also not a scene where they’re moving around a ton. However, little bits of action can not only ground the scene for the reader, they can also provide additional information and insight. Let’s make some little changes:

Adam walked into the kitchen to find his mom sitting at the table, reading. She looked up when he entered.

“Mom, I need to talk to you,” Adam said.

Immediately, Mom closed her book and folded her hands on top of it. “Sure, what’s up?”

“Lisa might be pregnant.”

“Okay,” Mom said, her voice even. “She doesn’t know for sure yet?”

“No,” Adam answered, sitting down across from her. “She got a pregnancy test after school. She said she’ll text me right after. She’s three weeks late, though, so.”

“So,” Mom agreed. “Thank you for telling me. If she is pregnant, you know I’m always here. Whatever you two want to do, I’ll help you figure it out.”

I only added one action for each character, but see what they do to the scene. In the original, we hear Mom welcome Adam’s need to talk to her, but by adding a bit of physicality, we can see clearly how she recognizes his serious tone and immediately gives him her undivided attention. This lends specificity to this interaction, but it also gives us insight into what kind of mother she is in general, and makes it feel believable that he trusts her enough to come to her for this in the first place.

Adam’s action is tiny, just sitting down. However, it clarifies a few things for us. First and most obviously, we say what he’s doing. In the original, since we don’t see him sit, it’s left unclear whether Adam stays standing or joins his mother at the table. In the revision, we not only know where he is, but the placement of this action colors his emotional state. He blurts out the crux of his problem immediately and bluntly, perhaps to just get it over with, perhaps because he’s worried he’ll lose his nerve. Then, once his mom reacts well and they need to talk details, he sits down to continue the conversation.

Little actions like fiddling with something, brushing hair/sweat out of your face, closing a door, sighing, glancing aside, shifting in your chair, pouring yourself something to drink, etc. can ground your reader in the scene and remind them (and you!) where the characters are. They’re also a way to use your characters’ body language to say things that aren’t (or shouldn’t be) present in your dialogue or speech tags.

4. When in doubt, read it aloud!

The easiest way to find out if your dialogue sounds natural is to listen to it. You can read it on your own, or even better, with a friend to play each character. Read just the speech, not the dialogue tags or descriptions. How does it sound? How does it feel? Is there anything you’re tempted to phrase differently from how it’s written? Are there times one character responds to the other in a way that doesn’t quite fit or make sense? Obviously your characters may have different speech patterns from yours, but generally, if you stumble over something in the conversation, they will too. It’s worth reworking it into something that would more naturally fit into your own mouth, and therefore into the mouths of your characters.

[citrineghost]

Struggling to stay organized because you have ADHD?

Well, I have a fantastic solution for you! There’s this bitchin site called Trello and I’m gonna tell you all about it

This is not sponsored, I just really like organization and Trello is awesome. And, as always, no readmore because this is targeted at ADHD people and y’all ain’t gonna click it

[ID: a picture of a website with many columns/lists. Behind the lists, there is a customized background. To the right is a sidebar showing that you can search Unsplash for backgrounds right from the site. Each column/list has a bunch of ‘cards’ on it. The cards each have a title and color coded label(s) /end ID)

Here’s a picture of my to-do board

There are some things blacked out, mostly just my avatar, name, and some original creative stuff I don’t feel like broadcasting.

So, Trello is broken up into different levels of organization. Let’s start with the most important level: boards.

Boards

A board is what’s pictured above. Think of it like a corkboard where you pin your notes. You can make as many of these as you want. You can title them, invite people to them, automate certain parts of them, and more.

On your board, you can make

Lists

Lists are those columns you can see on my board. You can title each list, click and drag them around to reorder them, set them to automatically label the things on them, and so on.

My lists on my to do board are titled with a time period for when I aim to do something. The time periods are large and vague, which makes them great for my ADHD. I can move things between them as I need, which is also great for my ever shifting brain thoughts. 

But! What makes it great is that whatever I put in the left list, titled Next, I know is what I need to be focusing on at the moment. It makes it easier to ignore what’s to the right of it and let’s me relax knowing I won’t just forget everything I’m not prioritizing.

Lists are used for holding

Cards

(ID: A picture of a small window that opens after clicking on a card. It contains the title, the labels (with their names now visible), and a functioning checklist. There is also a place to type a description, a place to add comments, and a list of buttons on the side for managing the card and its place on the board /end ID)

Each card can be as simple as containing just a title (making it a simple entry on your list), or as complicated as housing photos, descriptions, checklists, labels, and comments. You just click the card and it opens the window shown above.

My card is for a tabletop I’m working on, nicknamed TAP. I have it labeled with all of the things pertaining to what it involves (world building, writing, in progress, spreadsheeting, and art/creative). These color coded labels make it easy to see what kind of cards I’m looking at when looking at the overall board and lists.

As I do things on the checklist, I can mark them off. You can even set it to hide completed items on the checklist.

When I’m done with an item on my to do list, I click and drag the card to the Done list (which is offscreen on the far right). If you don’t want a visible Done list, you can also just archive a card and it will disappear from the board.

You can also set due dates on cards, which will notify you when they’re almost due or when the due date arrives.

Customization

One of my favorite things about Trello is that you can customize the appearance of your boards! My ADHD brain can’t stand looking at the same thing constantly, so it’s great that I can change things up. Each board can have its own design too, so you can match the vibes of the board with the appearance.

You can pick from a bunch of solid colors for your board or you can use the connection Trello has with Unsplash to search and select free stock images provided by photographers.

Other Parts of Organization

Not only do you have boards, lists, and cards, you can also make Workspaces, which are basically categories to sort your boards into. If you use Trello for projects, and have a board for each project, you can sort your boards into a Projects workspace.

There is also a function called Butler, which you can use to automate boards. For example, you can set it to automatically create a card called “Pay Rent” at the start of each month.

On the right, in the same sidebar where you can see the background options, there’s also an activity feed, tracking every time a card is moved, commented on, added, archived, and so on.

Team Work

Not only is Trello great for keeping private boards, you can also invite people to them! That makes it incredible for household management, group projects, or even friend groups who feel like storing plans and personalized memes. You can literally use it for whatever you want and in whatever way you want!

ADHD Applications

So, now let’s get down into the specifics of how this is great for people with ADHD.

You can make as many boards, lists, and cards as you want.

This is a big one for me, because I really struggle with websites that limit how much you can do with one account and force you to make multiples and then juggle multiple logins and so on. Start a new project? Make a new board. Follow your heart. Be free. If you end up giving up on it, just delete it, or store it for later. You can Star the boards you actively use and just use the Star list to access the boards you need, so if you star all your active ones and then ignore the unstarred, failed projects, you can leave them to rot or abandon them until the mood strikes again.

You can organize in a way that works for you.

So many organization applications are made to work one way and that can be really difficult to navigate as someone with ADHD. So many people with ADHD have such specific needs in regards to how they organize that it can be really hard to find something that works. Half the time we end up just scrambling around from application to application, cursing them as we go because one has one thing we like, but it doesn’t have the thing this other one has that we like and nothing ever seems to just work.

Trello makes it possible to personalize how you organize and even change how you organize halfway through. I keep my to do list organized in 4 priority levels with the addition of a Pin list and a Done list. You could also:

Keep a list that works as a calendar, with a card for each entry, organized in order of date

Keep a list of reminders where automated weekly/monthly/yearly responsibilities pop up

Jot down reminders as you think of them

Keep lists of school assignments in the order they’re due

Use descriptions and photo uploads on cards to collect information or resources needed for said assignments

Keep lists of information that’s easy to forget or lose track of on paper like address history, work history, references, contact information, and so on (like I’ve done on my ‘Pin’ list)

Use boards for projects, to keep track of things like resources, due dates, meeting times, sending files between classmates or project partners, and so on

Use boards for planning events like weddings, parties, conferences, school dances, or whatever else you’re into

Collect resources, references, or recreational to-dos (like links to fanfiction you want to read)

Literally anything

You can separate everything onto different boards, making everything visible from the titles of cards, or combine it all into one, with lots of information available on a click

The sky’s the limit

You can automate repeat tasks.

ADHD comes with a lot of forgetfulness when it comes to regular tasks, such as weekly appointments, medication reminders, and a yearly charge for your Nintendo membership. You can put that stuff into your calendar, but that can also be tricky because then you have information spread across multiple platforms.

Just as easily, you can set Butler to make new cards with reminders on them.

There’s probably more but I have ADHD and I forgot

Just think of the possibilities!!

I used to get debilitatingly stressed out because I would have 10 things floating around in my head because I was simultaneously trying not to forget them and also stressing about them and I would make what I call “spaghetti lists” where I would list all the things I’m thinking of, just as a way to calm down and know that I won’t forget them, so that my brain could quiet down.

Since starting this board, I haven’t had to do that once because all of the things I’m afraid of forgetting are already listed, even if they’re on the list titled ‘ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ‘ because idk if they’re ever actually gonna happen.

It can be incredibly stressful to see all of your to do items in one place, but since starting this, I have been less stressed overall, because I now know I can find them all in that one place. Learning to manage and cope with the stress of knowing I have a lot to do is easier than forgetting things and then realizing I’m late on something or things just never happening because I never remember them when I’m in a place where I can work on them.

And when you have everything in one place to reference when you have some executive energy, you can suddenly just start doing things. I have them labeled by type so I can go, “I’m in the mood to draw,” and then check all the dark blue labels for creative projects. It makes everything so much easier.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to some of you, it’s genuinely been life changing for me

[i-will-drink-your-soul]

*Caretaker here

As a CNA pretty much my whole job is assisting disabled and elderly folks who have a wide variety of need assistance from incontinence care, ostmy bag empty& changes, showering, oral care, dressing, feeding and drinking, etc. Also assisting in communication needs (many folks have trouble expressing needs like needing to be turned, needing help stretching, needing to drink or get a snack, changing Tv channels, etc.)

As an able bodied person, you have NO idea the varieties of level of care any individual needs or wants. None of my clients are any less people with thoughts, feelings, histories. Like most folks do not like dealing with body fluids and that’s fine, but it’s not the end of the world by any means.

It would be AMAZING to have adult sized changing stations in disabled stalls so it would be so much easier and one less worry when taking an adult with incontinence out to do chores or activities. Or if they are able address that situation themselves with minimal assistance it’s great to encourage them to take the reins of their care themselves when out and about.

I’ve not met someone who has high-needs that doesn’t want to be a part of their own care because it is their LIFE. And it’s not the end of the world to help within your ability to provide help. Disabled folks are very ingenutive with finds way to communicate and get their needs met. That’s not lazy. If you’re concerned about how ‘gross’ something is I can promise you they care more about having to ask for help with it. The more ‘simple’ something is for able bodied people that some with different needs has to ask for help with, they think wayyy more about it before, during and after the interaction than you will ever.

I’ve never understood this insistence of shaming people with different needs. I hate to use this but I’ve found it most effective when speaking with friends and family of clients.: No two babies get the exact same care from parents. No two babies have the same needs. The same progression pattern or learning curves. Shaming children for having different learning styles does not help children. Most teenagers do not have the same connection style. Adults are all so very different, just ask 10 people the specifics of how they do dishes. People shit differently, people shower differently, people eat and drink differently. And some people are different in ways that require assistance from others. And that’s not fucking weird. It’s not shameful. It’s not the end of the gosh dang world.

We as humans need other humans. That hasn’t changed. We don’t stop needing people. We need each other. If your ego is so big that it takes precedence over other peoples actual needs then you’re a POS. Life happens. (Again I hate to do the whole until it happens to you thing but it’s in the effort to encourage empathy).

What happens when your father is a type 2 diabetic and doesn’t take it seriously and ends up an amputee with kidney failure? He is regularly physically weak from dialysis and is unstable on his own when transferring and now he needs help using his bedside toilet. Thoughts?

What happens when your high school friend gets into a serious car crash and becomes paralyzed from the waist down? Now she cannot do many things by herself (cooking is extremely difficult, really most kitchen activities are hard from wheelchair height) and needs assistance with transferring, stretching her legs so they don’t atrophy or cause blood clots, etc. Thoughts?

What happens when your sibling becomes addicted to a variety of drugs and results in heavy mental affects that causes them to have panic attacks and paranoia which adds to their agoraphobia? They can’t leave the house and are regularly disabled by their anxiety so their house is covered in grime and trash, laundry piled high and smelly. Thoughts?

Shit happens in life from birth onward. And people have different needs. And it’s absolutely enraging that anyone would look at folks just trying to live and turn away in disgust or get angry. We have more in common with each other down here in the trenches just trying to live our best lives through every ounce of bullshit we trudge through. Fucking help our fellow comrades. Because it happens. If you’re lucky enough to get through life and not have your need level change and are able to remain mentally and physically independent that’s amazing, good for you. But use it to assist others so they have an easier time getting to enjoy life (or just make it through the day) the way you do. Just offer the helping hand. Or at least don’t fucking judge them for trying.

mannnnn until we all get okay with the idea of people needing other people to get them water/food/etc like. idk we’re just never gonna make it

[comfortwriting]

Papa Don’t Preach - F.W

Fred Weasley x Reader, inspired by the song ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ by Madonna.

About: the reader discovers that she is carrying her boyfriends baby, the two of them decide to keep it; but the storm gets heavier when she breaks the news to her father.

Theme: fluff and angst

Warnings: teen pregnancy, mention of abortion, swearing.

Throwing up into the toilet, moaning Myrtle giggled at you and sat on the window ledge. “That’s the third time this month” 

You wiped your mouth with your sleeve and got up off your knees, flushing the loo you unlocked the door and washed your hands at the sink. “I’m aware Myrtle.” You answered, glaring at her before walking out.

You rushed into the common room, luckily the only people in there were Fred and George. They were messing around pretending to duel with their wands, little sparks hissing out the end. 

“Have you seen my bag?” you asked, searching around the room.

The boys couldn’t hear you over their loud laughter, you stood there and put your hand on your hip, glaring at your boyfriend. “Fred, please. This is important.” 

Fred and George stopped messing around and spun on their heels. 

“You okay love?” Fred asked, walking over and putting his arm around you.

You shook your head no and sighed “I just need my bag” 

George walked across the room and picked up your red toiletry bag. You quickly retrieved it, walking over to the sofa you sat down and rifled through it, flicking past your period pads and tampons you pulled out your mini calendar.

Fred and George sat down next to you, the two of them sharing looks of concern. 

You counted through the squares, week by week and flicked the page, then another. A wave of sickness and panic pooled inside of you, you put your head in your hands and shook your head.

‘I can’t be, we used a contraceptive charm... surely it worked’ you thought to yourself, your knees shaking and your stomach churning. 

“Y/N, what's going on?” George asked, his brother too worried to utter a word.

Everything started to make more sense: the persistent morning sickness, the bloating, the all-day long nausea, your weepiness and mood swings, your breasts constantly feeling tender.

“I think I’m pregnant” you choked out, swallowing hard.

Fred felt his heart sink, feeling scared and annoyed at himself for getting you into such a scary situation.

You went back into your red bag and pulled out a pregnancy test you got from the pharmacy at Christmas when you were back in muggle London.  

You stood up, putting the test up your sleeve, walking to the same bathroom, hoping Myrtle would be elsewhere harassing Harry.

“Back so soon?” Myrtle questioned you.

“Fuck off, Myrtle!” You yelled at her, losing your temper.

You walked into the empty stall, locking the door behind you. Fred waited outside as you pulled down your skirt and knickers and sat down. “Fred, put a tap on for me will you?”

Fred walked over to the sinks turning the tap on waiting for you.

You followed the test instructions and stood up, the sound of the fast flowing water made this a lot easier for you, but then again you were always needing a wee with the growing pressure on your bladder.

Flushing the toilet and putting the lid down you placed the stick on lid and walked to the tap to wash your hands. “Thanks love” you smiled at Fred.

“You know, whatever happens won’t make me run away.” Fred smiled, tucking a stray hair behind your ear. “How long do we have to wait?”

You smiled at him, drying your hands on your skirt you walked into his arms and pulled him into a tight embrace. “I’m surprised that you didn’t leg it” you joked, trying not to linger in your fear. “we’ll find out in five minutes.”

Fred stood outside the stall where the test was waiting. “Want me to get it?” He asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

You shook your head “it’s okay, I’ll get it.”

Walking into the stall, you creeped up on the test like it was a pest you were about to wallop. You grabbed it, your whole future, your whole worth and life would be determined by this stick.

You walked out of the stall standing next to Fred, he wrapped his arm around you. You took me a deep breath and turned the test over so it was facing you. Two blue lines in the little windows stared back you, looking at the key on the handle you got your answer; you were pregnant.

“What does it say sweetheart?” Fred asked sounding nervous.

You turned around to face him, wrapping your arms around him. “I’m pregnant with your baby Fred and.. I want to keep it.” You decided.

Fred pulled away for a moment in shock but he smashed his lips against yours, kissing you like he had never kissed you before; his pool of love spilling into you.

“Let’s go and find George, I want him to be the first to know.” Fred beamed, you nodded your head in agreement with him.

“Am I really?!” George asked, sounding like his father, he grinned at the two of you.

You nodded your head and showed him the test, George got up on his feet and hugged you and then his brother.

By 5 months your little Weasley started to move inside of you, you would jolt at first and you started to notice stronger movements and little kicks during your classes, grabbing Fred’s hand you placed it on your bump.

The students started to spread rumours and the professors couldn’t ignore it anymore, after all, you weren’t denying it.

You and Fred were forced to address the rumours, you were both scolded for being so irresponsible but you were also provided with support for your academic studies and a much needed appointment with Madame Pomfrey.

You were lucky, Hogwarts still accepted you, The Weasley’s (after taking time to adjust) were so excited for you and Fred, but you were most nervous to tell your dad; the man who always believed in sex after marriage, hated the Weasleys, and slated pregnant teens who needed help.

Fred pulled out a chair for you at the kitchen table, once you sat down he pushed it in for you making enough room for your little bump.

“Pack plenty of food on that plate, dear” Molly smiled warmly at you.

This caused Ron’s mouth to gape open “All because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean she can—“

“If I were you I’d shut it” Fred warned his little brother

“unless you want to wake up to spiders in your bed.” George added, smirking.

Papa I know you're going to be upset

'Cause I was always your little girl

But you should know by now

I'm not a baby

“So what’s with the visit?” Your father eyed up you and Fred, trying to figure out why you were home on a Saturday.

Fred sat awkwardly on the sofa, his focus shifting on various objects around the room, he feared that your father would rip his head off if he were to look him in the face for longer than a second.

“I just wanted to come and see you, I thought I’d come here instead of going to Hogsmeade for the fifth time in a row” you smiled shyly, trying to keep calm.

Starting to sweat, you fanned your face with your hand, if you were to remove your jumper showing your larger bump you’d be kicked out before you could offer an explanation.

Your father noticed the fishtail braid in your hair and smiled.

“I remember braiding your hair like that when you were a little girl, you could never sit still on my knee. You would always fidget wanting to go and play with the other little girls and boys down the street”

You smiled at such a fond memory of you and your dad, hoping that he would do the same if you were to have a little girl.

“Dad, we uh.. we’re actually here because we’ve got some news.” You opened up bravely, remembering to not place your hand over your bump.

You always taught me right from wrong

I need your help, daddy please be strong

I may be young at heart

But I know what I'm saying

“Has something happened at Hogwarts?” He asked, “have you done something?” He turned to Fred with a fast forming glare on his face.

Fred shook his head, “I—“

“Fred hasn’t done anything” you replied quickly, stopping Fred’s chance at coming clean.

“I brought you up to know right from wrong, to work hard, to respect yourself, to stay away from vermin.” Your father spoke, his words like tiny pins pricking at your chest.

You held your dads hand walking through Diagon Alley to buy the equipment you needed for your first year at Hogwarts.

Waiting in the queue outside Ollivanders a young girl with a baby bump walked past, holding out her dirt covered hands. “Could you spare a sickle or two? I’ve got nowhere to go.” She begged.

Your father pushed you out of her presence, standing in front of you “not a chance, you silly girl.” He spat at her.

You gave her a glance of sympathy and stared down at your shoes.

“Don’t have sympathy for that pathetic girl, she got herself into this mess and she shouldn’t rely on hardworking people to get her out of it!”

The tears in your eyes made your vision go glassy, wiping them away with your sleeve, Fred was quickly asked by your father to leave the room and to wait outside in the hall.

“Dad” you cried, feeling a lump form in your throat “I don’t want you to be angry or upset, I’m responsible for my own actions and choices—“

“What have you done? Tell me!” Your father began to lose his patience.

Fred stood outside the door in the hallway, pacing up and down in tears, he blamed himself - you grew up without a mother and thanks fo him you might be losing your father.

The one you warned me all about

The one you said I could do without

We're in an awful mess

And I don't mean maybe, please

“I don’t want you hanging around them Weasleys, Y/N. They’re bad news.” Your father droned on, walking you to the train.

“They seem really nice” you muttered quietly, admiring the twins getting onto the train.

“They’re too poor for their own good, Arthur has a strange obsession with muggles. That wife of his clearly has a problem closing her legs with all them kids!”

You sighed, feeling annoyed and embarrassed to even be related to the man who was dropping you off.

“I better hurry up or I won’t find a good seat” you replied.

Your thoughts spinning around your head made you dizzy, you had to swallow down the bile. “Please don’t be mad with Fred, he’s a really good guy”

Your fathers hands were bunched into fists, his knuckles started to turn white. “What has he done? Fred, get in here now!”

Fred felt he could faint at any moment but walked back into the living room and sat next to you, taking your hand in his.

“We’re in a really tough situation.” You trailed off, more tears spilling from your orb like eyes.

Papa don't preach I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach, I've been losing sleep

But I made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby,

I'm gonna keep my baby,

“I’m pregnant.” You breathed out, feeling the weight suddenly lift of your shoulders “and I’m keeping it”

Your fathers face flushed with rage, he got on his feet and pulled out his wand but your instincts beat him to it, disarming him you shielded Fred.

“Dad please don’t do this.”

“You’ve really done it this time, girl!” Your father yelled. “Did I not raise you better? Did all those lessons mean nothing?!”

You began to shake in your shoes, but you stood your ground, Fred took himself away from your shielding. “She’s done nothing wrong!” He defended you.

“I bet you’ve done this on purpose, haven’t you? Get a beautiful young girl up the duff so no one will want her!” Your father bellowed at him.

He says that he's going to marry me

We can raise a little family

Maybe we'll be all right

It's a sacrifice

You and Fred cuddled in the upgraded double bed, his thumb circling yours as your hands glued together.

“I’m going to marry you, Y/N. Once we have this baby and get on our feet.” Fred murmured lowly, trying not to wake up his brother who laid fast asleep on the floor.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” You replied, your hormones making you weep in relief.

“We’re going to have the most amazing life, mini Fred’s and Y/N’s running around.” He chuckled, kissing your head. “We can get through this.”

“It was an accident!” You yelled at your dad through tears, you gripped your bump feeling the little one kick out.

“A mistake more like!” Your dad yelled back “I was begged not to bring you up after your mother died, that was my mistake! And even worse, there will now be a bastard in the family!”

His horrible comments ripped you into pieces, the pins now turning into hot pokers.

Fred wanted nothing more than to tackle your father to the ground, to beat him senseless but he grabbed your hand and tried to control his emotions.

“We’re going to get married dad, but now it’s more common for non married couples to have kids!” You argued, trying to persuade him.

“Married! With what money! You’re more deluded than I bloody thought, he doesn’t even love you!”

But my friends keep telling me to give it up

Saying I'm too young, I oughta live it up

What I need right now is some good advice, please

“Have you truly thought this through?” Hermione bored into you, pacing in the common room.

You looked up from your books and nodded “yes, how many times do I have to explain?”

“I’m just saying it’s not too late to change your mind, you’re too young to be bringing a child into this world.”

“I’m still studying and attending classes aren’t I?” You huffed, scowling at her. “You’re younger than me!”

“But what about getting a job to provide for your child? It’s irresponsible!”

“I get it!” You yelled at her, you slammed your book shoot and tossed it across the room, storming out.

You were hyperventilating, Fred rubbed your back helping you regulate your breathing.

“You’re dead to me, now get out, both of you. Leave my house and never come back!” Your father yelled.

“Daddy please” you wailed “I really need you, please don’t do this.”

You walked away from Fred and up to your dad gripping his hand in yours, “I need my dad” you cried, searching his lifeless eyes for a response.

Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach, I've been losing sleep

But I made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby,

I'm gonna keep my baby,

You cried your eyes out, climbing into your dads arms for a cuddle.

“Please don’t cry” he wiped your tears “what’s got you so upset?”

“I’m not ready to go to Hogwarts, I don’t want to be so far from you.” You wailed, your hair sticking to your face from all the tears.

Your dad tutted and chuckled at your silly worries “you’re going to love it once you’ve settled in, and you can always write to me if you need to.”

Your father snatched his hand back out of your grip, he picked up his wand and stared down you and Fred.

“You both need to leave before I do something I can’t take back.” He warned “NOW”

You cried all the way back to Hogwarts, Fred and George comforting you when you broke down into a mess. Hermione helped you catch up on all the work you had missed from being unable to attend classes as you got into the later stages of your pregnancy, you were about to burst at any moment.

Daddy, daddy if you could only see

Just how good he's been treating me

You'd give us your blessing right now

'Cause we are in love

We are in love (in love), so please (so)

“Mum!” Fred yelled from the bathroom, holding your hand “It’s happening!”

Laying a pool of the water that burst from inside you, you were slammed with contractions making it hard for you to get back on your feet. This was it, the moment you had been waiting for the past nine months.

Molly stumbled into the bathroom and moved her hands around rapidly, piles upon piles of towels and blankets filled the room and the bath started to run.

“Fred help me get her trousers off so we can get her into the bath.”

“Mum we can just use—“

“We can’t use magic for everything!”

After finally getting you undressed they placed you into the bath.

Fred held your hand and knelt beside you, stroking your hair and placing kisses against your temple.

“Please don’t leave me” you cried, feeling frightened.

I’m not going anywhere, love.” He reassured you.

Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach, I've been losing sleep

But I made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby, hm

I'm gonna keep my baby, ooh ooh

You opened your eyes and looked down still thinking you were in the bath, you found yourself in Fred’s bed, wrapped in blankets with a towel over your chest.

You tried to sit up but Molly stopped you, “take it slow, dear” she said softly.

“Where’s Fred? Where’s.. where’s my baby?” You asked feeling panicky.

Before you could drive yourself into worry, the bedroom door opened and Fred walked in with your bundle of joy.

Fred now delighted you were finally awake came by your side and placed your child into your arms.

You had passed out from losing too much blood just as your child came into the world.

“Madame Pomfrey was hammering at the door, brilliant timing really.” George told you as you counted your child’s fingers and toes.

“Is it a girl or a boy?” You asked, looking up at the Weasleys standing around your bed.

“A beautiful baby boy.” Fred replied, kissing your head.

“Fabian Weasley” you smiled, looking at Molly. “Let’s name him Fabian.”

[firelxdykatara]

ppl love to forget that katara: 1. has her own taste, 2. developed around aang, he needed her for his development and vice versa, 3. ZUTARA IS SHIP BETWEEN AN OPPRESOR X OPPRESSED!!! Ignoring all of the development they had with their respective partners and the trauma Zuko caused Katara!!

In the infamous words of one Luke Skywalker: amazing. every word of what you just said was wrong.

It’s actually kind of ironic that you bring up Katara’s taste, since, throughout the show, we have examples of the guys she likes, to greater or lesser extents in canon--Jet (explicit romantic feelings on her part, word of god that jet was her first kiss--a kiss that would have been consensual, incidentally, something you should keep in mind for later) and Haru (she denies the crush, but that could just as easily have been because of the abomination he’d been growing on his lip rather than denying those feelings ever existed), both of whom have much more in common (in terms of both emotional and physical maturity, and physical appearance) with Zuko than either of them has with Aang.

Zuko’s book 3 hairstyle is almost exactly reminiscent of Jet’s, even, if not quite as floofy.

(This is probably in part because of Jet’s function as a foil of Zuko within the narrative, particularly given their book 2 encounters, which I think just further solidifies my point that, were it not for extenuating circumstances [like the fact that Zuko was introduced as an enemy and they had significant obstacles to hurdle before they could be friends], Zuko would have been exactly Katara’s type. Had they met under different circumstances, she could have been the girl he went on a date with in Ba Sing Se. Just something to think about.)

So, yes, we’ve established that Katara has her own taste. Her tastes seem to be boys with great hair who are taller than her, the same age or older, and of a similar maturity level.

Aang falls short (heh, short) on all counts. So it isn’t Katara’s taste in boys that led her to be interested in him. Hm!

Next, you claim that Katara ‘developed around Aang’--that she was necessary for his development, and that he was necessary for hers.

Let’s take a moment to examine that, shall we?

I will absolutely grant you that Katara was necessary for Aang’s development--only to a point, of course, but we’ll get to that later--but was he really necessary for Katara‘s growth? I suppose I could grant you this on a generous technicality--he did, after all, provide her with the means to finally leave the South Pole and find a waterbending master to teach her (although she wound up largely self-taught anyway). But that had nothing to do with his relationship to Katara and everything to do with the structure of the plot--Katara and Sokka find Aang (and he never would have gotten out of that iceberg without Katara’s own righteous anger, so even that leads back to her own power), and then they go on a quest to find teachers for the Chosen One and save the world.

The story could not have begun without first finding Aang and then providing means for the other main characters to travel with him (or, in Zuko’s case, chase him), but this has nothing at all to do with Aang’s relationship to Katara. Aang was not a mover in Katara’s developmental arc--if anything, he acted as an obstacle more often than not, his actions ranging from innocent but obnoxious (playing and flirting with girls rather than helping with chores like picking up vital supplies, leaving Katara to do all of the quite literal heavy lifting and keeping her stuck in the role of caretaker that she’d been thrust into following the death of her mother), to deliberate and harmful (hiding the map to Katara and Sokka’s father, a truly selfish action, regardless of his lack of malicious intent, and one for which he never actually apologized), to somewhere in between (”she didn’t really mean that” he says to the man refusing to train Katara because she’s a girl, when yes, she very much did mean that, and Aang was no help in finally getting the old codger to eat his words--Katara had to shove them down his throat her own damn self).

While Katara’s overall arc wasn’t exactly big and dynamic (like Zuko’s redemption arc), or in-your-face (like Sokka getting force-fed Respect Women Juice and his eventual growth into a tactician and leader), it was very much present and woven into her character--and Aang had almost no part in it. He provided her with the means to get to the North Pole, but left Katara alone to fight the patriarchy herself. He messed around while Katara took it on herself to do the chores and keep the Gaang alive, but he did almost nothing to decrease that burden so she could grow out of the caretaker role. (Contrary to popular shipper claims, Aang didn’t actually teach Katara to have fun. She already knew how to have fun. But she couldn’t indulge, because she had a responsibility to her family and her tribe, and later to her brother and Aang and Toph, and Aang goofing off and trying to get her to do the same only added to her burdens rather than subtracting from them.) He provided Katara with the necessary motive to learn to heal herself, but he certainly didn’t seem to learn from the experience of accidentally burning her, preferring instead to claim he was never going to firebend again, despite already knowing, at that point, that he was going to need to master fire along with the other elements to become a fully realized Avatar and defeat the Firelord.

He didn’t help Katara keep them alive during The Desert. (In fact, he ran off, leaving her to desperately try to keep Sokka and Toph from succumbing to the heat while worrying for his safety.) In The Painted Lady, Katara makes the decision to stall the Gaang and do what she can to help the Fire Nation villagers on her own--Aang agrees to help her when he finds out, but he wasn’t actually instrumental in her making that choice. The Puppetmaster was, again, Katara finding a master of her own, and having to deal with the fallout from that. And in The Southern Raiders, Aang was--perhaps unknowingly, if I’m being generous, because he is a child and could not reasonably be expected to fully understand the implications of what he was asking her to do or why it was impossible--actively impeding Katara’s development! She desperately needed closure, something he could not understand and actively belittled and dismissed. The only reason he relented in the end (but not without a condescending ‘I forgive you! Does that give you any ideas???’ parting shot lmao) was because Katara was planning to take Appa anyway, and letting her go (and hoping she’d just magically wind up doing things his way) was easier than trying to fight her on it.

While Aang’s existence was necessary for Katara to start down her own path, she needed neither his guidance nor his approval to follow it--and absolutely nothing would change about Katara’s arc if you removed their romantic relationship entirely.

Possibly because the only changes needed to do so would be to remove the two times Aang kissed Katara without her consent (which, hopefully, no one would actually miss), and the epilogue kiss (which was awkward and unnecessary to begin with, since ending the entire show on a romantic kiss as the final shot kind of missed the point of the story to begin with, but that’s another discussion). None of these kisses (which are the only moments in which Katara’s feelings for Aang are so much as addressed; do note that addressing them, or hinting that they needed to be, is not the same as saying she exhibited any sign of reciprocating them) altered anything about Katara’s behavior, her personal arc, or (and perhaps most critically) her relationship with Aang.

It’s that last point that is really damning, as far as ‘Katara obviously had feelings for Aang, she kissed him in the finale!’ goes. Because she didn’t ‘obviously’ have feelings for him. And the fact that he kissed her before the invasion and then she forgot about it (she literally had no idea what he was talking about during the play’s intermission until he reminded her that he’d kissed her) is pretty clear evidence that she didn’t actually have feelings for him. Not the kind he had for her.

I’ve been a teenage girl. I know what it’s like to be surprise!kissed by your crush. And I absolutely for a full fact know that I had not completely forgotten about that kiss three months later and had, in fact, spent most of my waking hours thinking about it and remembering it and trying to talk to him about it. Now, granted, I was not in the middle of a war, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have needed reminding about the fact that the boy I’ve supposedly been developing feelings for had kissed me and showed clearly that he had those feelings for me too.

At the very least, if Katara was harboring feelings that she was worried about approaching until after the war, her relationship dynamic with Aang should have shifted. But it didn’t. She acted the exact same way with him after the Day of Black Sun as she did before it--that is, as a mother figure and a caretaker, responsible for his wellbeing. (And it’s clear she never took him down off the pedestal she needed him to occupy, either--let it not be said that the unhealthy aspects of their relationship only went one way.)

And book 3 is, incidentally, where Katara went from being vital to Aang’s development to being detrimental to it--or, rather, Aang’s refusal to let go of his attachment to her (despite ostensibly having done as much at the end of book 2) was. Because despite having been told by, perhaps, the greatest authority left in the world on Air Nomad culture (even more than Aang, who had left his temple with a child’s understanding of his culture that was never able to mature because he got stuck in the ice berg while his people were wiped out) that he had to let go of his possessive attachment to this girl who never even expressed the possibility that she might harbor romantic feelings for him to begin with, after Azula killed him and Katara brought him back, he went right back into the mindset of Katara is mine, it’s just a matter of time.

And the narrative validated him for it.

Notice how, during Ember Island Players, Aang says the following (emphasis mine):

“We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.”

First of all, if you go back and watch the scene, it’s clear it wasn’t a mutual kiss. Aang sprang a surprise kiss on Katara, which left her shocked and unhappy after he flew off. (The decision to have her looking away and frowning was a deliberate one on the part of Bryke, who wanted Katara’s feelings kept ambiguous. Heaven forbid you allow the animators to make it clear that this fourteen-year-old girl who was just kissed without her consent by someone she’d never once demonstrated romantic feelings toward might actually have some. Heaven forbid she have a little agency in her own romantic narrative. But whatever.)

Second, he says he thought they were gonna be together.

He thought.

He never once even asked Katara what she thought--or even how she felt. He just assumes. He assumes that if he kisses her, she’ll kiss him back and they’ll get together. He assumes that she must have feelings for him, even though her body language is closed off and she told him with her words that she did not want to talk or think about this right now, and kisses her regardless of those signals, upsetting her and leading her to storm off.

And the narrative rewards him, because despite the fact that they don’t have a single significant scene together after that second disastrous kiss, Katara just decides off-screen that she Does Love Him Really and walks onto the balcony to make out with him.

The upshot of all this being that, while Katara was indeed instrumental to a lot of Aang’s early growth and development, Aang was not necessary for her own arc, and their romantic relationship (such as it was) actively hampered Aang’s development in book 3, while removing it would change absolutely nothing for Katara (except saving her from some painfully embarrassing memories).

As far as your third point, I’m simply not going to get baited into explaining how reducing Zutara to an ‘oppressor/oppressed’ relationship is not only insulting to interracial couples irl (not to mention any other couple with a potentially unbalanced dynamic of societal power, since there are many more axis of oppression than just racial), but demeaning to Zuko and Katara, their personal arcs as well as their relationship development together.

However, I will point out that Zuko was not responsible for any of Katara’s trauma. She did not find violence and fighting in bending battles to be traumatic--in fact, she reveled in it. She enjoyed fighting against Zuko at multiple points (especially noticeable in their battle at the end of book 1), because she wanted to fight--she always had--and once she had the ability, she was ready to throw down with anyone who gave her the slightest reason. (Including, by the way, her own potential waterbending master.) Aang’s death at the end of book 2 was Azula’s doing, and while I think that contributed to Katara’s extreme reaction to Zuko joining the gaang, it was not something for which she actively blamed him, and it wasn’t something she believed would be repeated--she let him go off alone on a journey to find the original firebending masters with Aang well before she chose to forgive him. So she already trusted Zuko’s intentions and that Aang would be safe with him.

Finally, because this has gotten long enough already, I hope you now understand that Zuko and Katara getting together would not require ignoring any of their development with their canonical romantic partners. We’ve already established that Katara’s arc wouldn’t change in the slightest if all of Aang’s romantic advances were removed, and I haven’t even gotten into how Mai meant nothing in the grand scheme of Zuko’s development because I’m pretty sure that’s just self-evident. I mean, the video compilation put together by Nick showcasing Zuko’s journey throughout the series doesn’t include a single scene with Mai, though it does include several with Katara, and even Jin makes an appearance--because Katara, and even Jin, played key roles in Zuko’s personal journey, while his relationship with Mai happened entirely off-screen and her only real function was to showcase just how unhealthy trying to force himself back into the role of the Crown Prince was for him.

What development, exactly, is there between them to even ignore?

At any rate, I’ve gone on long enough--I hope you enjoy the fact that you activated my wordvomit trap card right when i was about to go to bed, anon, because I just spent two hours writing this instead. In case you’re interested in the TL;DR: at the end of the day, there was no meaningful, mutual development in Kataang’s romantic relationship, and those romantic feelings that did exist were largely one-sided and ultimately detrimental to Aang’s development in the final third of his overall arc. Meanwhile, Mai meant nothing to Zuko’s journey--rather like Aang’s romantic overtures, she could be removed from the show completely and nothing about his story would change--while Zuko and Katara were both vital to each other’s overall storylines, arcs and development. This, coupled with the fact that Zuko never actually traumatized Katara and, in fact, helped her achieve closure from the biggest source of her own trauma, means that Zuko and Katara have better and more believable build up that could potentially lead to a romantic relationship than either of them have with their canon romantic partners.

So no, anon, I didn’t forget anything--I think you may have, though. Perhaps a rewatch is in order? Make sure not to close your eyes for the back half of book 3 this time.

[flamagenitus]

I'm terribly sorry, Kess, but you appear to have activated my trap card.

I honestly don't think it's googleable info! The project involved making small utility programs for gathering info about a big graph. The teacher knew what he was doing when he assigned it to us, and there's no easy way to just... look up the answer. The only way to do it properly is to actually know how to use python and to understand graph theory, and combine the two yourself to fulfill the assignment.

However. The people on this course are all biologists. Nobody knew programming before, like, 4 months ago, and there haven't really been enough classes teaching people python since then. Nobody knows how to program in python this year, and they kinda didn't know how to program in python last year. It's a problem inherent to the way the degree is taught, I think (and I do have many thoughts on the matter). When I took this module last year, I straight-up just didn't do the project bc I had no idea how to go about it. I'm actually pretty shocked I was able to get my programs working how I wanted them to this year! And I'm fairly sure the teacher will look at them and tear them to pieces bc they give the right results sometimes but don't actually work, like he has on non-evaluated work earlier in the semester lmao. So even though I'm "helping", it's kind of the blind leading the blind.

The actual reason my classmate is using ChatGPT, I'm pretty sure, is bc everyone in my class but me is using it routinely for assignments and practical classes. The teachers know this is happening, they just don't have a coherent policy about it yet other than, like, don't use it in exam settings pls. They want to incorporate its use into the curriculum, but they don't know how to yet. We had a teacher last year tell us to use ChatGPT to generate code (syntacticly perfect, logically terrible) then adapt it so that it worked, to show us the limitations of language model-generated code. It is a workable way of programming, but it requires that you know enough about programming the be able to fix the errors, and so it doesn't actually address the problems my class has: none of us know what the hell we're doing.

I'm not sure how my classmates are actually faring using ChatGPT, because while they are all smart people who have been given exactly the same information as me, and probably put in a lot more work and thought to the problem than me, there's no reasonable way to be like "hey person I don't really know, can I look at your work for the assignment? No no I'm not stealing it, promise, i just want to see if your methods actually work. What do u mean that's insulting". I myself am not using ChatGPT bc I am addicted to doing things the hard way, which involves reading loads and loads of very dry program documentation pages and spending hours banging my head against walls bc I didn't understand the difference between a matrix and a data frame. I'm the kind of freak who likes breaking things into their constituent parts and then rebuilding them, probably wrong, to figure out how they work, even if it takes a billion hours. Sometimes this works, but often it's just me repeatedly throwing myself against the walls of my own ignorance, desperately wishing there was an easier way to accomplish what I want. It sucks, but I won't learn how to use ChatGPT bc I simply don't trust it to do what I want to do, and also because I would rather do things myself because knowing that I did it is infinitely more satisfying. Like I said, I am addicted to doing things the hard way. (My classmates are biologists. I am a biochemist. There is a difference and the difference is that nobody has ever made them try to read an NMR spectrum.)(there's probably a reason I'm retaking my year c:)

Also: all the documentation available is in English and I am the only native English-speaker in the class. At least ChatGPT also exists in French and doesn't speak like a technical manual or a genie providing you with exactly the information you need and not a spare morsel more.

Anyway, I don't blame her for asking for help. We all need help, and since none of us are getting it from teachers we may as well band into little coalitions to share our confusions. I'm just used to working with my friend from last year, who only uses ChatGPT when she's desperate. Adding a new person who uses ChatGPT as a matter of course just made the gears in my brain grind bc I was trying to shift gears too fast! Hence the original post, basically. Also, I was at my grandma's house and my mum was treating me like a teenager, and I was generally kind of irritated bc family at Christmas

Trying to help one of my classmates with a programming project we all have due in 2 days and it's hard bc she keeps asking ChatGPT for code. Like. Girl. The language model isn't capable of logic and it cannot write a coherent python script for you