#been arguing on reddit which is bad for my health

[all-pacas]

cameron: [fights for her relationship and marriage at every turn, only giving up and leaving when chase refuses to play along, spends every episode focusing on her and chase's relationship doing everything she can to make him happy]

everyone on reddit / tumblr / whatever: cameron never cared about chase what a bitch/girlboss

[shinra-makonoid]

To be honest this made me look into the r/detrans Reddit again and I see how I matured in my views of transition and all through it.

It used to scare me a little bit, before transitioning, because obviously you wonder if you'll have the same views or stress. I've spoken with two detransitioners too, so I was acutely aware this was a possibility for me and I still took the risk.

I remember that at some point I really doubted myself because these things just dig deep inside your head, and you start overthinking everything you ever do or ever did or ever felt. But the fact was, I liked the way I was living much more and I liked the changes of my body.

Then there was the whole "you'll never be male" and to be honest that was a difficult one to handle because people just go around biology and you can't argue against biology. So you think yeah I'll always be female and that sucks but also I cannot bear to have another period ever again in my life, I like how masculine I look now, I like having a beard and hair, so this is better. I hated feeling like I was some sort of freak show female man, that stigma really stung and I think a lot of detransitioners suffer from that, especially if they don't pass.

But then when you start being stealth and going through life and simply existing with cis people, all of those thoughts just disappear. Which is why I feel bad for a lot of them inside the r/detrans because I can see them being stuck in their head all the time and never escaping the thoughts that I had to deal with at some point. They never experimented with life just existing, they just stay inside themselves asking endlessly who they are, what they are, whether they deserve to be accepted or loved as they are, etc and I don't think it necessarily means they're not trans. I think there are several ways to deal with those feelings and that detransing is one of the ways to control it, and then rationalize it the same way I did, just from opposite views. I think it's linked to the way we're made to look at trans bodies, surgery, scars, body modifications, normality, gender non conformity, mental health issues, social acceptance, etc. We constantly think that the abnormality is to be trans, when the abnormality could also be to detrans, because it is politically motivated, and linked to obvious signs of distress regarding stigma of their own body and gender expectations.

Now I don't doubt that I'm male, that I'm a man, in every single way. And if someone says I'm not, I'll just laugh, because my experience as a man has been so vibrant and rich I don't think you can be in my place and genuinely think I'm a woman. In the end, I became so sure of this, so comfortable in my skin, that I'm simply above all those questions. I just exist, I'm happy in my body. I still change over some thoughts regarding my bottom parts, because I've read a fanfic that kinda opened my eyes in some ways and made me rethink things (which is why it's important to show trans people in the media, especially sexual intimacy imo), but that is basically it.

I love changing, and I love getting older as a man, and I love seeing my muscles slowly grow even after all this time, I love the form of my body, I love watching my beard grow, I love my body hair, I love my skin, I love my top surgery scar. Idk I just almost love it all, I'm filled with love with my body in a way I don't think would have been possible as a woman. Green in his autobiography says that he felt constrained in his masculinity as a woman and I really related to that. HRT freed me in a way I could have never been before, to express my masculinity in a way that wasn't possible ever, to really bloom.

Which is also why I think I should come out because I think I would have liked to have someone like me telling me yeah I had doubts and hyper focused on things, about whether I was male or female, about who I was, but I came through and I absolutely would do it again and again. Had I known I would have done it as a teen, it would have saved me so much time, heartbreak, violence, traumas. Because not transitioning leads you to not care about your life, your body, who you associate with, what you go through etc, and that was harmful to me, and those years will forever be lost.

[spudgoddess]

Back in 2020, I discovered a YouTube channel by a guy calling himself Mitten Squad. He did all kinds of crazy gaming challenges. Most of them were for Fallout or Elder Scrolls games. What they all had in common was that they were hilarious. Mitten Squad, or Paul as he also went by (his real name was Robert Joseph Wilson), had a dark, dry, deadpan sense of humor sprinkled with a bit of self-deprecation and a little silliness. I watched his videos constantly. 

Some of my favorite lines include: “I hid from Ringo, by hiding in Ringo.” (Can You Beat Fallout New Vegas with only Boxing Gloves?)

"You're probably wondering which is the boy and which is the girl. I won't give it away, but I will tell you this: the knife is a whore." (Can You Beat Skyrim With Only A Fork?)

“I spy, with my little eye, a vile whore, who needs to die.” (Context: he’s referring to an elderly woman NPC whose very presence always seemed to crash his Fallout 3 playthroughs).

“Explosions were happening. People named Paul were screaming. It was a mess.” (Can You Beat Lonesome Road Without Taking Any Damage?)

"With enough notches on my pistol to spell psychopath in Braille…” (Can You Beat Fallout New Vegas With Only Big Iron?)

“And when I say there were a lot of ants, I mean a lot.of ants. I wouldn't have said a lot of ants if I didn't mean a lot of ants.” (Can You Beat Fallout New Vegas with only Boxing Gloves?)

“You can get a two for one special on Raiders by using the code GRENADE at checkout." (I can never recall the episode, I just remember that it’s Fallout 3.)

“I know a guy who knows a guy, and both of those guys are me.” (Not sure which episode. Also, obligatory Transformers reference, this sounds like something Swindle would say XD).

There are so, so many more. But you get the idea.

There were signs early on that all was not well in Mittenland. He showed a brief clip of arguing with an air conditioner in a hotel room while drunk. Another time, he showed the aftermath of accidentally dropping a liquor bottle into his bathroom sink, breaking the sink. On another occasion, he displayed about 15, maybe 20 or so empty liquor bottles.

I remember thinking maybe he was being edgy, or maybe he’d saved those bottles up over a very long time. But I was wrong.

In 2021, he let his fans know that he was taking a break for several months to work on his issues surrounding alcohol. He’d been struggling for at least nine months, getting blackout drunk 3-4 times a week. Yes, a week. Like so many others, I realized he wasn’t joking, but really had a serious issue with his drinking. He was away for several months, and he seemed like he was getting or doing better. I didn’t follow his Twitter, nor was I on his Discord channel, so I was a little out of the loop. Quite some time later, I saw on the fan subreddit that Paul had been hospitalized for alcohol -related issues, and this was not the first time for him, either. He assured us he was getting better and wasn’t going to stop fighting.

Paul lost his battle with alcoholism in December of 2023. The official cause of death was pancreatitis related to his illness. He was 27.

I was working when I found out. I was on break, decided to look at Reddit, and the announcement  had been made. Since the internet is often full of said hoaxes, I stubbornly refused to believe it at first. But Paul’s dad confirmed it. I cried for the rest of the day.

Please, everyone, at the risk of sounding like a cliche or a commercial, if you or someone you love is struggling with any kind of mental health issue, including substance abuse, please, please get help.Even if you think to yourself ‘Oh it’s not that bad, I just like to have fun and drink a little too much.’ Please get help.

I struggle with mental health issues (C-PTSD, rejection sensitivity, and possible BPD–jury still out on that one, as ADHD can mimic it in some ways and I haven’t been tested yet) and I know the misery they can cause. Thankfully, I have a strong support system, and I know Paul did too. I like to think that if the pancreatitis hadn’t done him in, he’d have won the fight.

Rest in peace, Paul.

We love you.

[somebody-909]

Yeong-gi was arrested as a kid [I Love Yoo Theory]

In celebration of the return of my favourite webtoon, I thought I'd share the theory I shared on reddit a while ago about our favourite red head (revamped with pictures and extra discussion). This theory was eventually pretty much proven correct in Episode 112.

TLDR: Allusions to violent behaviour, a bad period of time where Yeong-gi was away, and stigmatized treatment resembling how you treat a criminal, lead me to believe that Yeong-gi, having been deeply affected by the events with his mother, developed violent behaviour, that resulted in legal trouble of some sort. He was then sent "away" somewhere for some time, likely either juvie or a rehabilitation centre of sorts for juvenile delinquents.

1. "How long has it been since you got out?"

In episode 16, when Kousuke visits Yeong-gi at Mrs. Lochlainn's (Yeong-gi's granny) place, he asks:

"How long has it been since you got out? Four years, maybe five? I'll stop for today. I know you don't like being reminded of what happened back then."

This suggests that Yeong-gi "got out" of some place/institution. The words "got out" are also quite ominous... (I would even argue that it implies being "locked" away). I find it hard to believe he would be using this for something that wasn't incredibly unpleasant/hard for Yeong-gi to get through. Kousuke proceeds to say, "Four years, maybe five? I'll stop for today. I know you don't like being reminded of what happened back then," confirming this implication.

I have seen a few possible interpretations of where Yeong-gi might've been "away" for a while. I personally think it's most likely something legal (juvie or juvenile delinquent related rehab), although others believe it might've been a mental institution, and others think it was a boarding school.

I see how "got out" could be used for the first two options easily, but the last one is a bit more shaky. "... since you left boarding school" might be a more natural way of referring to that, since it would have to be a really bad boarding school to refer to it in the way Kousuke does.

The following clues lean more towards Yeong-gi being away due to criminal reasons, however.

2. Treated like a delinquent.

The next clue and the biggest is how everyone treats Yeong-gi. His family treats him like a delinquent (I choose this word specifically because of its connotations... not just a troubled, hopeless kid... but more a kid you can't trust because he will be irresponsible and bad).

In episode 19, the students talk about how Yeong-gi hangs out with Soushi (who they think is a delinquent as seen in episode 20 probably bc he's a brown guy with a scar tbh TT)

"His family's got some great connections, that's the only reason I'm being friendly with the dude."

"But what's the point in doing that? He only hangs out with this delinquent from another school."

"You're joking..."

"I'm not! I saw him! Got a scar too... probably got it from a fight..."

"So it's true what they say then... Him being..."

"Shh! Don't say it out loud!"

They think Yeong-gi is hanging out with and is friends with a delinquent who they associate with having been violent. They immediately ask, "So is it true what they say then … Him being …"

What kind of rumour would they think is true if they saw Yeong-gi hanging out with a "thug"?

It would make sense to finish that question with "So is it true what they say then … Him being a criminal" or "a delinquent".

If we were to go with the mental hospital theory, it might work if they said "him being violent" but that doesn't really work as well here in relation to Soushi being a "delinquent."

There is a bit of nuance between what they would associate with someone with a criminal history, in comparison to someone who had been admitted to an institution for mental health issues, even if both possibilities were linked to violent outbursts.

As for his family, they treat him terribly. Like he's a screw up, a troublemaker. Not so much like someone with mental illness. I think by this point its clear that Yeong-gi made a big mistake, but what would be so bad that they treat him like this?

3. Hints of being "away" and having a criminal past.

There are several subtle hints that indicate Yeong-gi did have a criminal past of sorts. Or at least spent some time away.

Episode 79 - significant criminal past

When Yeong-gi and his father meet the lawyer about the assault and drug case in episode 79, the lawyer says:

"Your son does not have a significant criminal past."

Why not just say that he doesn't have "a criminal past" at all, period? Now this seems negligible, but Quimchee has used very subtle hints like this in the past so I wouldn't put it past her (eg. Yui calling Yeong-gi, "kid," and Kousuke "son," to indicate she is related to Kousuke and not Yeong-gi).

Episode 79 - Hansuke couldn't get to know Yeong-gi

Kousuke's cousin, Hansuke, states that he never got to know Yeong-gi back in their college days because:

"I was busy with my residency and [Yeong-gi] was… you know… "

This alludes to Yeong-gi having been unable to hang out because he had something going on...

Kousuke's Corner 2 and Episode 72 - a year behind

Yeong-gi is also a year older than Shin-Ae and his twelfth grade peers... Having any sort of legal trouble could cause a kid to flunk a year.

References to violent behaviour

In Episode 51, Kousuke mocks Yeong-gi, stating that he can have his assistant bring his punching bag if he needed an outlet for his frustrations.

Not being in "control" of his emotions is a recurring motif, with Yeong-gi's family members and even with himself.

Affinity for physical fitness (boxing) as a coping mechanism

I think it's significant that after being alluded to having had violent behaviour, his coping mechanism is something very physical. Boxing, interestingly, imitates violence.

Thematically fits with the end of the Black and White Formal arc

This is more my personal opinion... But I think Yeong-gi punching that pos Sangchul after constantly being passive aggressively criticized for violent behaviour is... cruelly fitting. Him being arrested and possibly repeating what had once happened, and after he had constantly been told not to repeat it, would be a sad parallel to what he once had to deal with.

Possible alternative explanations

TW: mentions of poor mental health and suicide attempts

I think it's most certain that Yeong-gi had legal trouble of some sort, likely due to a violent altercation, and that he was sent somewhere as a result of this incident.

Where he was actually sent to as a result, however, is a bit more shaky.

Since it was a minor criminal past, it's possible could've been simply arrested and not been sent to juvie at all. If his father was heavily involved in his life, he would likely have intervened if juvie became a possibility.

There are some who speculate Yeong-gi had very poor mental health, likely due to what happened with his mother and may have even attempted suicide. While this is possible, there isn't a lot to indicate past depressive or suicidal tendencies. For sure, his violent behaviour was coupled with poor mental health... but not necessarily poor mental health of this nature. I also feel that there is some nuance in how people would talk to Yeong-gi if his time away was precipitated by a suicide attempt. Someone who had self-harming tendencies isn't treated like a thug. Someone who beat up a kid might be though. (depressive tendencies could've been coupled with violence that caused his time "away," but once again, there is not a lot to really hint at severe depressive behaviours).

There are also theories of foster care, if his mother died (which seems to be the most likely scenario with her). I don't think this is the case because we have seen a young Yeong-gi interact with a young Kousuke. The two brothers (and their parents) were aware of each other. There is also his nana.

I think the most likely scenario is that Yeong-gi, having been deeply affected by the events with his mother, developed violent behaviour, that resulted in legal trouble of some sort.

He was then sent somewhere as a result: either juvie or a rehabilitation centre of sorts for juvenile delinquents, or an asylum (due to aggression issues). Regardless, it must have been tied to a violent incident, resulting in legal action and detention and possibly a follow up mental health related thing (rehab/asylum).

Episode 112's confirmation:

There is a vague flashback alluding to a period of time where Yeong-gi was in trouble, specifically stating

"Poor kid. No one is going to want him."

"Why not?"

"...Behavioural and aggression issues".

This alludes both to Yeong-gi getting into trouble for hurting someone, AND for being guardian-less for a period of time (no one "wanting him" seems to reference foster care or adoption).

Later in the episode, Yeong-gi's classmates gossip and say:

"Wasn't he at a detention centre for a bit?"

"I thought he was in an asylum?"

"He was sent somewhere for sure..."

[solarscholarsofmagick]

4 Ways to Juggle Adult Life With Your Craft

As the years go by, teenagers who experiment with witchcraft grow into adults. Some of these adults keep with the craft and find a lifestyle that really speaks to them. But, as we grow into adulthood, life (and our responsibilities) change. All of a sudden, we have jobs, relationships, finances, and more. At the end of the day, this means that life becomes busy. So busy, in fact, that sometimes our craft becomes lost and it become hard to find time between it all.

Miss your craft? Here are some tips to help you find your magick again!

1. All the Small Things, True Care Truth Brings

Magick doesn’t always need to include elaborate, skyclad rituals. There are tons of small, magick-filled actions that you can easily incorporate into your life on the fly.

A simple cleansing. You can clean more than your physical body in the shower. Imagine the soap taking the dark sludge of negative energy with it down the drain.

Charm your perfume as a quick and easy glamour. You can also do this to your make-up as well! Glamours are essentially real-life shape-shifting and/or invisibility spells. Here’s a quick glamour, if you don’t know where to begin:

*******************************************************************************************

Ingredients:

A rose quartz crystal

An amethyst crystal

10 (preferably small) regular quartz crystals

A black candle

Procedure:

Find a flat surface.

Place the candle down and place the rose quartz in front of the candle and the amethyst behind the candle.

Place 5 of the regular quartz crystals to the left of the candle and the other 5 to the right. The crystals should form a circle around the candle.

Light the candle and chant, “By my will, I shall control perception of me.”

Wait until the candle burns out.

Place the amethyst, rose quartz, and 1 of the quartz crystals either in your bottle/cap of perfume or in a baggy near where you get ready for the day. This will need to be charged once a week!

*******************************************************************************************

Take 5 minutes each day to say your thanks/prayer to your gods. This doesn’t need to be spoken out loud. You could even think it while on the bus!

Coordinate the colors of your outfit with your intent for the day. For example, wear blue to help with a stressful event, yellow if you want it to be a happy day full of good communication, green if you are asking for a raise, et cetera. Colors hold power!

As an easy offering to your gods, make a playlist dedicated to them.

2. Going Incognito

Sometimes, we want to proudly display our witchiness. However, with the stigma behind witches, sometimes we want to be recognizable to other witches, but not to the mundane.*

Wear crystal necklaces. While the popularity of this is growing, every time I see someone wearing a crystal necklace, I wonder.

Wear clothing with your deity’s image or symbol(s) on it. Not only is this noticible to other witches, but this is also a wonderful and easy way to worship said deity.

Try out rune/sigil nail art. To others who are not familiar, they will appear as simply abstract art.

Magickal symbol tattoos. The same logic as the last point applies to this one.

Find a community of witches near you! Having a community means that there is a space where you don’t have to hide who you are. Back in the so-called olden days, we could use a website called Witch’s Vox, but at the time of writing this article, it is going away soon. Instead, it is easy to find a community by looking for your local pagan society, Facebook groups, or other social media. You can even find a community online! Websites good for that include Reddit, Tumblr, and the Amino app.

3. Baby Shield Me One More Time!

No matter how busy, actually, especially if you’re busy, shielding is a very important task. If you are an empath, one could argue that it’s absolutely necessary. By shielding, I do not mean walking around with an actual shield. It means using your magick to protect yourself from unwanted negative energy. Sometimes this energy comes in the form of the stress from those around you, too many emotions or energy from a crowd around you, and even a magickal (usually psychic) attack. This writer’s favorite way of shielding is to imagine a golden, shimmering, impenetrable bubble.

4. You’re Stressed? Have You Tried Yoga?

A little stress is good for you! It’s what kept our species alive by telling us, “Hey, you should worry about this for your survival,” such as for finding reliable food and water and guarding against predators. However, there is a line (that is different for every person, dog, cat, and hedgehog), where it becomes unhealthy. Too much stress can impact your sleep and eating habits, your mental health, your productiveness, and even your physical health. If your stress is so bad that it is severely impacting your quality of life, you should consider speaking to a medical professional. So, as you read the tips below, remember, magick should be a supplement to medical help, not a substitution!

Carry a rose quartz with you. This crystal is known for its strong properties of calming and confidence. Alternatively, selenite will continually cleanse and shield your aura from negativity and/or harm.

Burn a blue candle/wear blue clothing. Once again, we reach the idea that colors are powerful! Blue is the most common color used for calming. Try burning one while meditating!

Meditating is probably one of the most irritating thing that people suggest when you say you are stress, but it really has the potential to help alongside professional help. The point of meditation is to work on controlling your state of mind. It is also a wonderful way to reach a solution to a particular problem that has been stressing you out.

Cleanse your working and living area. Chances are, your stress has caused the area to be saturated with negative energy. The more you stress, the more negative energy seeps from you, which causes more stress, becoming a vicious cycle.

Ever heard of Fung Shui? It is defined as a system of laws considered to govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to the flow of energy (qi), and whose favorable or unfavorable effects are taken into account when siting and designing buildings. Basically, it means that the way you organize your furniture has an impact on how energy flows around you.

Have any personal favorites for how you incorporate your craft into your adult life? Share them in the comments below!

*The Solar Scholars of Magick are not comparing the attitudes of people towards witches to those attitudes towards religious and ethnic minorites.

If you liked this article, please consider supporting us by visiting our website, here!

[charmedseoull]

The Aftermath of Fanfiction Authors with Reba Interview

Before You Read the Interview

I contacted Reba after she posted a Reddit thread titled “When a fic becomes too popular and the author deletes their account and/or work. Explained.” on a throwaway account. We discussed details of the interview during December over email, then started the interview in January. This interview is not associated with a project and is its own independent work. Reba has chosen to remain anonymous.

She provides insight on potential reasons to why fanfiction authors abandon their work from the perspective of a fanfiction reader. She also answered general fandom questions and questions about herself so readers could understand her background.

Charmedseoul is a BTS-focused anonymous historian who documents fandom history using Fanlore. If you would like to be interviewed to help document perspectives in fandom, please contact her on Twitter @charmedseoul or on Tumblr @charmedseoull.

Parts of this interview have been edited with links to Fanlore and Wikipedia pages for understanding. Any information in [brackets] serves for further clarity for readers and elaboration of information.

Now presenting the interview with Reba, long-time fanfiction reader and participant in fandom:

When did you first join fandom culture?

I joined fandom culture in 2014. I feel like fandoms really peaked during this time. [Presence of SuperWhoLock and other Tumblr specific fandoms.]

What fandoms are you in? How have your experiences in them been?

I will be honest and say fandom culture isn’t for me- so I can’t say I’m active in any fandoms (I’m just a silent consumer) but growing up I was a fan of music artists mostly; Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande… I loved the IT 2017 movie adaptation for a long time (I still do), and early 2020 is when I got into BLACKPINK, then BTS. My experience with all of these has been good, and maybe that’s because I don’t see any of the drama and arguments online- but I don’t regret any of my past interests because they all made me happy at one point in time.

What do you like about fandoms?

 What I like about fandoms is how happy it can make an individual; getting excited for a new music video, smiling at behind the scenes photos… it can bring someone a little joy if they are having a bad day.

What do you dislike about fandoms?

I don’t like stan culture at all; fandom drama, arguing on twitter with strangers to defend an artist who doesn’t even know you… it all seems toxic. While I'm sure healthy stanning does exist, I don't think it's easy to achieve at all.

How long have you been an ARMY? What are your opinions about the fandom? How has your experience in the fandom been? 

I became an ARMY in early 2020 when Map of the Soul: 7 was released, so only a year. I really do like the fandom; ARMY is the only fandom I’ve seen where there are so many fans worldwide of all different ages, and that just shows how BTS and their music really is for everyone. There is so much BTS content that there’s never a dull day, so my experience in the fandom has been enjoyable!

Did you ever leave ARMY and take a break then come back?

 I’ve never left ARMY, that being said, I’m a newbie and haven’t been here for long.

When did you first start reading fanfiction? 

I have been exposed to fanfiction since 2014, but I wasn’t in any fandom back then and started reading fanfiction in 2017.

What do you think the purpose behind fanfiction is?

 We mostly read for entertainment but there is definitely a purpose to fanfiction, as for all art. Fanfiction is a great thing for both reader and writers, it can be an outlet for many people, a way to experience things that you don't have a chance to experience in your own life. It also can be a good base ground for people who want to start writing, or for someone who finds reading huge paperback novels difficult. Fanfiction is so easily accessible, you can pull up a story to read or share your work at the press of a button.

As you’ve read fanfiction over the years, do you feel like anything about fanfiction has changed?

Yes! Fanfiction is taken a lot more seriously now, people who write fanfiction treat it like an actual novel with plotting and editing- the quality of fanfiction in general is a lot better. Fandom ships have also changed; when I was a teenager Harry Styles fanfictions were crazy popular, now the fanfics that seem to be more popular are BTS! So that just shows when music evolves, pretty much everything else does too.

As a reader, how do you view authors?

I'm always amazed by fanfic authors because they practically write whole novels for free. Writing can be such a personal thing, and it does take talent; there is a story the author wants to convey, and when a story is told in a beautiful way, it leaves a lasting impact on the reader. I’m sure that must be a euphoric feeling for the author- it means they told their story, and they did it well.

Do you think many other readers share the same view as you?

No, not at all. There are readers out there who don’t really think about the time and effort authors put into their stories. I’ve seen readers expect so much, and criticise something so little. It’s sad- people should be able to write whatever they want, writing is supposed to encourage creativity. Authors shouldn’t have to fear backlash for doing just that. Being creative. 

Why do you think so many authors delete/orphan their work after it gains popularity?

When a story gains popularity- it attracts good and bad attention alike. Unfortunately the negative affects us a lot more, it’s just human nature. While authors do put their work out there, I don’t think they are ever prepared for their stories to become so popular. I am sure it is overwhelming and that’s why authors feel the need to distance themselves from it all and delete/orphan their work.

What stories prompted you to start thinking about why authors delete/orphan their works? 

I read a story called mixtape (IT movie) and I was around long enough to see chapters be uploaded each week. I also saw the struggles the author went through when their fanfic began to rise in popularity, which eventually led to the story being completely deleted from the internet. So I thought this could have been a one-off since I hadn’t read many fanfictions. I then moved onto BTS fanfiction and decided to read the most talked about ones first, only to see a lot of them were by orphaned accounts (so not just a one-off occurrence!). House of Cards by sugamins was the one that got me thinking, I thought “why would somebody not want to be associated with this amazing writing?!” That’s when I began to do some research and stumbled across your interview with the author!

How do you think backlash for a work harms an authors mental health? 

An immense amount of feedback, positive or negative, can take a toll on one person. A lot of authors can be reserved people and they write because they are passionate, as an outlet or just a hobby. So when their work does receive backlash it can be very upsetting- it could make them doubt their reasons and capabilities and affect an author so much they might stop writing all together.

How do you think some authors manage their mental health and not delete a work? 

This is a hard question because everyone deals with backlash differently. I know some authors who are not bothered by backlash and they choose to ignore it and move on with their day, and then there are other authors who are more anxious and have to put a lot of measures in place to protect their mental health; from your interview with sugamins they explain how they didn’t want to destroy their work, just distance themselves from it, so that’s always an option.

Taking time away from social media and getting enough rest, it is important to not neglect your well-being. Finding a way to cope when you feel low; animals tend to ground me and improve my mental health- they are loving and don’t judge you for who you are. Maybe you cope by talking with friends, or listening to your favourite song. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it helps. 

At what point with mental health do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

I think an author starts to consider deleting/orphaning their work when it completely consumes them. It is not healthy to be fixated on something that is no longer bringing you happiness, you need to let it go. If you are an author reading this, just know you are not your feedback, it doesn’t define your existence, okay? Fanfiction should add to your life, not take away from it. 

Why do you think some readers invade an authors privacy?

Sometimes, people care more about the author than the work they have created. So when a fanfic has deeply touched a reader and helped them through so much, they want to reach out in any way and tell them so- this can be invasive if the reader is not careful about their approach.

How do you think authors manage this privacy invasion?

Stopping it before it happens; not using your real name, having a separate account for writing, don’t link social media accounts in your works etc. If privacy has already been compromised and a reader is making the author uncomfortable, then disabling comments on their works, making a new social media or changing their accounts to private would be smart. Just knowing how to keep safe online.

At what point with privacy invasion do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

When you are at risk of being doxed. I think when readers are going as far as finding authors’ personal accounts and messaging their friends- anything along those lines is scary and the reader is going from a supporter to an intrusive stranger real fast.

Why do you think anonymity is important for fanfiction writing?

When your full name is attached to everything you do, people have a very easy way to get back to you. This is why authors keep an anonymous profile, and it is important readers respect that.  Most authors don’t want their family, friends, employer etc to see that sort of stuff. It is completely okay to remain professional and keep fanfiction writing separate from personal life.

Do you think fanfiction writing should stay free? Do you think authors should be paid for their work? 

I do think fanfiction writing should stay free on the sites they originate from (AO3 for example). However, if the author wants to take their work elsewhere to earn money then I don’t see an issue in that. I am glad you mention copyright law with fanfiction in particular because the author of mixtape (the fanfiction I mentioned earlier) tried to self publish their work while keeping canon names, the author tried to justify it as a parody work and everyone was so concerned that they reported the book until it got removed. I have seen stories on Wattpad become published books to purchase, however, the names had been changed to original characters- I think this seems like a much more logical move to avoid any legal repercussions.

As a reader, how has an author’s work connected with you personally? 

I have had works connect with me on a personal level, one in particular is Somebody To Love by LOVERVMINS (orphaned). My standards are impossibly high after reading that fanfic and I don’t think I will ever come across something so beautiful again. Somebody To Love is a taekook fic that was uploaded to AO3 in 2019, the author ended up deleting all their works but thankfully left this particular story up. I was immediately captured by the incredible writing and unique plot; the story of two lovers who were never meant for each other, but destiny found its way anyway… I apologise in advance for how long this summary (with spoilers) is, but I think my thoughts are proof of how this story has connected with me so much!

(Spoilers for Somebody to Love by LOVERVMINS. Please feel free to scroll to the next bolded question to avoid spoilers.)

In this story, Taehyung is a successful lawyer while Jungkook is just a student, despite the difference in status and wealth, they are intrigued by one another from the very start. After meeting Taehyung, Jungkook is left feeling confused about himself, the internalised homophobia is strong to begin with but as the chapters progress Jungkook goes from someone who is afraid of society and what people may think, to strong and outspoken. Taehyung plays a fundamental part in this, because if Jungkook were to never meet Taehyung, he wouldn’t have realised who he really was, he wouldn’t have been brave enough to discover his sexuality and fall in love in a time where it was so unaccepting. Taehyung is bold and confident on the surface, giving little regard for anybody other than himself, but his concern for others soon changes after he meets Jungkook, he becomes a better man. He could have had his heart desires- but Taehyung was no longer selfish from those few months he spent with Jungkook, so he stayed with his wife to be a good father.

Taehyung makes Jungkook promise him he will find somebody to love (hence the title), and he does, Jungkook finds somebody to love and he is happy- Taehyung finds this out when they unexpectedly meet a few years later, this is the final time Jungkook and Taehyung see each other… but knowing Jungkook is happy, leaves Taehyung happy.

There are different kinds of love, some last forever, and some just for a chapter of your life. It is clear Jungkook was Taehyung’s forever. And I don’t think Jungkook’s love for Taehyung ever went away, he just found another kind of love like he had promised. Jungkook had to live his life; he couldn’t wait for Taehyung, to leave his marriage in the unforeseeable future, or watch him raise his kids from afar, this shows that even if society were accepting, their circumstances were too far gone- if only they met sooner, or in another life. It makes you imagine a world where they could have been together, it makes you think beyond the story even when it’s ended.

It has been a month or two since I read LOVERVMINS work, and I still feel a pang in my chest every time I think of Taehyung’s letter for Jungkook in the epilogue.

Why do you think others think they have the right to know an authors personal information?

I think in this day and age, everything about a person is on show, so people just expect that sort of information from you. Authors appreciate feedback- but they don't know the reader, their family or what they do for fun. Vice versa. You only see a small glimpse into the authors life, and the stuff you see is what they feel comfortable enough to show. That should be enough.

Do you consider writing an art form?

  I do consider writing an art form. Writing is like painting an image in the readers mind. I think it is better than visual art because when you are reading a story, not everyone is going to envision the exact same thing, it is up to the imagination. I think that is what makes it so beautiful- we all collectively love a story, yet, we somehow interpret it differently.

Why do you think Archive of Our Own is the ideal platform for fanfiction writing?

I think Archive of Our Own is ideal for fanfiction writing because they give you many options with your work so you are comfortable- it is easy to remove comments, delete an account, or orphan works while keeping your account etc. It is important authors get control of what happens to their work if they want to leave and go in a different direction.

Do you think other fanfiction writing platforms like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad are ideal or lacking?

I think Wattpad is ideal for younger audiences; it’s more visual with book covers and the layout in general is more appealing, I also feel like the stories on there are targeted for pre-teens. When I first got into fanfiction, I did start on Wattpad because it was easier to navigate. I look back now though and do think it is lacking in terms of quality, a lot of the stories are written for shock value and don’t really make much sense because of that. It is hard to find a story on Wattpad that ticks all the boxes (but not impossible). Wattpad also had a breach with data last summer and everyone’s emails got pwned so that made a lot of people move to AO3. I have never used Fanfiction.net so unfortunately I can’t speak for that one. Overall, AO3 has much more content, you can find a story with ease once you know how to use the site.

How has fanfiction writing affected the people in your personal life?

How did you find out that your sister is writing fanfiction?

My sister wrote a Harry Styles fanfic in 2014 which gathered around half a million reads on Wattpad, she got comments from people telling her how much her fanfic has impacted their lives pretty much every day. My sister and I are close and we share the same friends, I noticed when we would have sleepovers she was always on her phone and never paid attention to the movies we were watching. I think all the numbers did affect her for a moment and it wasn’t until my sister started her exams that she realised she had to put her concentration into those to pass, that’s how she came to the decision to delete the story. I asked her recently if she regrets deleting it and she told me she doesn’t at all, she now looks back and doesn’t think her writing was good back then. So I think that shows authors do know what they’re doing and what is best for them in the long run. 

My sister had a one direction fan account on Instagram that had 100k+ followers (insane!), she was always open with her interests and I found out she started writing fanfiction through that account.

What personal reasons do you think authors have for deleting/orphaning works?

The list is endless; maybe the author wrote the story in a bad time in their life and they want to delete it because it reminds them of that time, they could have left the fandom, or they simply do not like their story anymore- they grew up and know they can do so much better. It is okay for an author to grow apart from their work, it shows they are growing as a person too.

Why do you think authors get backlash from writing dark themes?

I think authors receive backlash from writing dark themes because it can be triggering for some and can bring up unpleasant memories.

What do you think are the responsibilities of an author when writing dark themes?

 A safe bet would be to tag anything relating to abuse (physical, emotional, etc), mental illness (eating disorders, self harm, suicide, etc), graphic violence and rape/sexual assault. That’s what comes to mind. And if a trigger occurs only in a certain chapter, then having an additional warning in the chapter notes would be helpful.  

What do you think are the responsibilities of a reader when reading dark themes?

If dark subjects are included in the tags, don’t read the story if it could trigger you. It is as simple as that. People decide to read the fanfic then get mad at the author for triggering them. I am not trying to insult anybody who has triggers, maybe they read a story and their specific trigger was never mentioned in the additional tags… this is what the ‘chose not to archive warnings’ box is for, with this option, it is handled in AO3’s FAQ that major tags are not necessary. In shirt, this means there may be triggering content in the fic that is not disclosed by the author. Plus, there is usually a pop up banner before you click on a story which reads ‘this work could have adult content. if you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content’. There are so many warnings, you can’t miss them. It is a case of reading at your own risk, you can’t blame the author if you do not like the result.

Do you think authors are facing too much pressure from readers about what themes they write?

I do think authors face unnecessary pressure with the themes they write; they are put on such a pedestal that when they write something that isn’t what the audience want, they receive a lot of negative criticism. Authors, no matter what themes you are writing, there is no need to worry if you are writing for yourself and putting out the content you set out to create.

Why do you think authors write dark themes?

 Dark themes are simply an exploration of difficult emotions along with unpleasant events or consequences. Authors write dark themes because it serves a narrative purpose. And authors don’t have to be ‘dark’ people or experience all of these unsettling things to write such content. 

Why do you think readers read dark themes?

Dark themes are not for everyone, I personally don’t think there are enough dark works out there. I read dark themes because it interests me more, I want to know how the characters are going to cope with the consequences, or heal from the trauma. Other readers might prefer dark themes for the graphic content, this is fine too. Fictional violence is not real- we all know this, so there is no reason to be terrified. 

Why do you think so many authors want to have their work get popular?

 People may disagree, but I think it has a lot to do with validation. Subconsciously, authors want people to like their work- a rise in popularity means readers are seeing the authors work, and hopefully taking enjoyment from it. This isn’t a bad thing as long as you realise validation does not equal self-worth. There are people out there who write and do not gain much attention, but that doesn’t stop them from posting their work anyway.

Do you think a work’s popularity is important?

I personally don’t. I read a range of fanfictions- some are super popular, others are not. It is the content I am more interested in, not how many hits/views it has.  

Should we judge authors for deleting/orphaning their work?

Not at all! I am sure authors have thought long and hard before coming to their decision.

How should we view situations where authors delete/orphan their work? 

For a reader, it can be upsetting when authors delete/orphan their work, especially if there is no possibility of reading that story again. However, we need to show compassion and view the situation from the authors perspective; gaining popularity on a fanfic isn't as pleasant as it might seem, it is much more complicated than that. A lot of feedback, both good and bad, can be overwhelming. Mental health is important, and if that means distancing yourself from something so popular, then it must be done. Privacy can be compromised, people in your real life might find out you write these stories and not be accepting, or readers become invasive which is a scary situation to be in. And a mixture of personal reasons, people are allowed to grow and change and want to distance themselves from things they are no longer proud of. 

What do you think authors should be aware of in case their work does get popular?

This is a good question… I think authors need to be aware that with good feedback, also comes bad feedback. You cannot please every single person on this earth, but that is not your job- so do not take it personally. 

Do you have any last messages to readers of this interview?

 I want to thank you in particular, Charm. This interview is probably the coolest thing I’ll ever get to do for the BTS fandom and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed so we could create this interview together. You are such a kind soul and it has been a pleasure from start to finish. 

For the authors reading this interview; I am just a reader, but I do understand how it can be hard for you to continue on when you are going through so many struggles readers don’t get to see. Just know you are appreciated, and you are supported no matter what you decide to do with your works in the future. Having popular works shouldn’t feel like a burden, there are blessings hidden in there- you have made readers feel a rollercoaster of emotions with your talent, you are able to engage with readers around the world, and you have created a beautiful story from nothing… you did that! 

For the silent readers like myself: let the authors of your favourite work know how much you loved it (in a respectful way) before it is too late! I so wish I had the chance to tell the author of Somebody To Love how their story broke my heart then healed it again. Treasure the fanfictions you love because they very well could be gone tomorrow!

Thank you for reading this interview. Further below are reminders and information about this interview and Charmedseoul’s Fanlore projects.

Reba has chosen to remain anonymous. No social media or information about her will be released publicly.

This interview was conducted through email from January 31, 2021 to February 1, 2021 with Reba’s consent and protections under Fanlore’s Identity Protection policies and the posting website’s privacy policies. Unauthorized reposting of this interview is forbidden. 

Due to the casual nature of this interview, repost of this interview is strictly prohibited. Linking and sharing is appreciated. Translation and unauthorized repost of this interview is forbidden.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.

[alteredphoenix]

I wonder what it says about Sylvanas as a character when you look at the community - whether it’s on Twitter, Reddit, MMO-Champion, on Tumblr or any other forum WoW can carve a niche in - and see the absolute divide she has on people the likes of which I don’t think I’ve seen in any fandom before. I can’t say I’ve seen the fandom be this tense since...hmm, well, I guess we can say Jaina in Battle of Dazar’alor, since she’s another long mainstay in the cast.

But it’s as the devs said: Sylvanas makes Garrosh look like a child; his crimes pale in comparison to what she has done and the people she has allied herself with. Not to mention the ‘let’s break the Machine of Death and upend the Cycle that shoehorns predetermination against our will for a new system where we can have free reign on our choices without the threat of otherworldly powers and artificial intelligence puppeteering us in the direction they want us to go’, which sounds well and dandy...until you remember that all souls post-Emerald Nightmare are being funneled into the Maw and, as the SL artbook states, tortured until they’re driven mad and side with the Jailer to increase his numbers.

As a fanfic writer and a player that tends to stay away from discourse as much as humanly possible, I personally don’t mind the direction the story is going in. I’m a lot more patient now than I was when I was a girl; after all, my white whale of anticipation isn’t Sylvanas, but Turalyon and Alleria, whom I waited on for eight years to properly debut. Even now, with their roles currently solidified in the current state of canon, I’m content to wait even longer for the inevitable Light Versus Void expansion to see what will happen to them. People like them have the equivalent of the Sword of Daedalus hanging over their heads. It poses the question “Will they or will they not die?” It is the natural progression one can see when we look at integral characters that we follow for a set number of expansions, such as Garrosh, Varok Saurfang, Jaina, and Tyrande.

It’s no different with Sylvanas when you look at her, except this time she doesn’t just come with the Sword. She comes with so many impressions and conclusive feelings that anticipating the finale of Sanctum of Domination is akin to betting all your money on the horse you want to believe for a fact is going to win the Kentucky Derby; hell, let’s replace that with the Super Bowl instead, because that’s how monumental this is being hyped up to be. There’s a strong taste of tension, bloodthirst, and outright mental anxiety over what will happen to her, and that comes off as a little worrying for me - more so the anxiety than the bloodthirst, that’s to be expected with Sylvanas. I have read posts from users during my Tumblr surfing sessions where the more diehard fans are having panic attacks just thinking about the outcome.

I am a Sylvanas fan. I like her. I disagree with some of her decisions, but I still like her just as I like Arthas - her parallel - and disagree with his decisions. But be she hero or villain, the story direction is not worth damaging your mental health over. The story so far has been told and will yet to be told. It’s okay to step away. It’s okay to turn out the noise and focus on yourself. As much as I find some of the dedication toward her to be too extreme and obsessive for my tastes, I also don’t want those fans that feel that strongly to hurt themselves in the process. Then again, I’m no doctor; that’s going into territory I’m not educated in. There’s not really much I can offer you other than that, and you are free to take of it what you will.

I’m not sure where else to take this; I’ve rambled far more than I wanted to, and I’ve deviated more than intended. But let me put it like this: if the story is easy enough for me to understand and I like it, then I’m content with where it’s heading. Maybe that makes me foolish and naïve, but that’s just who I am. I don’t think in terms of ‘is this bad writing’, I think of ‘do the plot and characters make sense for me’. I do wish the lore were a little more consistent, but WoW is going on 17 years old, some of the stuff I’ve seen from older expansions haven’t aged well or have holes in them that need to be patched. I guess that’s why I get confused when some people really stretch out the ‘irredeemable, unsalvageable, maniacal, mustache-twirling Saturday Morning Cartoon Snidely Whiplash’ impression they put on Sylvanas, and I’m over here thinking she’s always been that harsh, cruel Banshee Queen of Undercity who has had her moments of relatability born from tragedy and a specter of love for her people and family that has been stomped on so much she’s willing to tear down the System of Death. If the Split Soul Theory plays into any of this, that’s something I will have to accommodate to.

I am a writer, after all. I’m patient. Whatever happens, happens, and to see the amount of discussion that Sylvanas brings to the fandom solidifies her as a memorable character. You could even argue this makes her a great character, and as a person with writerly aspirations I think, in my personal opinion, that nothing would make me happier than seeing a character of questionable morality who commits even more questionable actions to reach such heights of sympathy, fame, and notoriety.

That’s all that matters to me.

Take care of yourselves. Be nice to each other.

[prorevenge]

Neighbours refused to be quiet, so I played the long game and made them move out

A few years ago I got hired at a job in a big city with expensive rent. I slept on my brother's couch for a few months while I struggled to find a place, but eventually found someone in an old building who wanted to get out of their rental agreement. The apartment was pretty close to work and in a nice area, so I took it, almost too good to be true...

It didn't take long for me to realize I made a big mistake. The building was old, and the walls were made of plaster. Any sound reverberated like crazy, I could hear people cough and sneeze like they were standing in my place. What's worse, I shared one of these thin walls with my neighbours, who were absolutely fucking insane. They just would not shut up. I would hear a man and woman argue constantly, often until 2 or 3 in the morning. And by arguing I mean literally screaming and shouting and throwing things against the wall. When they weren't arguing they were always just LOUD, shouting and whining at each other like little kids constantly. Pretty much the quintessential toxic, obnoxious couple. And the shit they would argue about was so stupid! I remember hearing an argument about who's turn it was to steal shampoo from the drug store. One time the boyfriend decided to yell "THE BIBLE SAYS WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS" over and over again for some reason. Almost every day it would be something different and uniquely annoying.

The first real incident happened when I was woken up by screaming and banging against my wall at 1am. I did what I usually did (blasted Kenny G through my speakers at the wall until they shut up), but this time it didn't work. The banging got louder so I stopped the music, but then it got worse and sounded like a fight. It was hard to describe, but it sounded like the woman was getting beaten up. At this point I was more concerned than mad so I called my superintendent, who told me to call the police (not the US). The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine, the police left, it was quiet, I went back to bed.

Literally the next night I am woken up again at 1am by my neighbours having another argument. This time I heard a BOOM, then the woman say "oh my god" in an weird voice, and then banging and what sounds like someone being strangled. The noises were freaky and way more concerning than even last time so I called the police again. The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine again, the police left again, and it was quiet again, but this time the police called me back and basically told me I was an idiot for wasting their time. They said there was no evidence of any fight and both neighbours denied anything even happened. Even the superintendent said that no one else on the floor complained and intimated that I was starting to become a nuisance. I decided from this point forward I was going to go full Spielberg with video evidence.

The noise was bad for the next 6 months, and I would get woken up at least once a week after midnight by yelling and screaming. I made a few written complaints, a few videos as evidence, and sent them to the property manager. There was enough to serve them an eviction notice and go to the landlord/tenant board, but somehow the property manager fucked up the date for the hearing and it never actually took place. Thankfully the noise stopped anyway (for now...), so I assumed the neighbours finally got the message and would be quiet from now on. I didn't fight for another hearing because the eviction notice gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet, which they sort of did.

As an aside, the video evidence I gathered during this time was BEAUTIFUL. I was pleasantly surprised that my phone was very good at picking up their voices. It got to the point where I would get excited when I was woken up in the middle of the night, because I would run out into the hallway and film their door and room number as the noise blasted out and echoed down the hall. I gathered some damning, unambiguous evidence, pure gold, and it was all timestamped at around midnight or 1am. But because the hearing got cancelled I didn't get to present my evidence (at least not yet...)

For a few months, everything was reasonably ok. They were still loud as fuck during the day. and there were a few times after 11pm on weeknights where I went to their door and asked them to keep it down, but other than that things were mostly better, and I was starting to be able to relax in my place for once. Yet again it was too good to be true...

One day around 2:30 in the afternoon I start hearing this weird, high-pitched screeching coming from my neighbours place. And it doesn't stop for hours. I'm sitting on my couch trying to figure out what it is. It sounds like a giant fucking tropical bird moved in next door.

Well it turns out, after all the shit we went through a year ago with the noise complaints and eviction notice, my neighbours decided it would be a good idea to get a dog.

And of course these obnoxious assholes couldn't just get a quiet, normal, well-behaved dog. They had to get a completely untrained, 4 month old, tiny, yappy Pomeranian that was INCAPABLE of being quiet. This thing would yap and screech and bark over and over and over EVERY DAY for HOURS.

While I'm still coming to terms with how miserable my life is about to become, I get a note under my door. On it, my neighbour writes that she just got the dog as an emotional support animal for her mental health, and asks the whole hallway to please try to tolerate the noise.

Fuck that shit. I'd already been living next to and listening to these neighbours scream at each other for over a year. They were confirmed fucking morons; two insane, toxic assholes in a mutually abusive relationship. I knew with CERTAINTY that they weren't capable of taking care of this dog properly and the noise situation would go to complete shit.

And regarding the mental health, I was going through my own troubles during this time (in part due to lack of sleep) and was seeing a therapist. The last year of complaints should have made it clear to anyone that noise was a problem for me, especially getting woken up at night. Of all the things this neighbour could have chosen to help their mental health, they chose the most obnoxious thing possible. They knew getting a loud dog was going to be a problem and they did it anyway. It was time for WAR.

I realized if I wanted this noise to stop, or to be even taken seriously, I needed a mountain of evidence against my neighbours. I researched the evictions process and everything that was required. I checked the forms my superintendent would have to send out for an eviction notice. I read threads on reddit about slumlords and neighbour disputes. It became clear to me the only way to win was to be religiously disciplined both in gathering evidence and refusing to retaliate (no more Kenny G). I became a noise-complaint monk, taking a vow of disciplined log taking, and relying on mantras like "shut the fuck up... shut the fuck up...."

Once I submitted my first written complaint, things got bad. My neighbours flipped out when they realized I was complaining again. I heard stuff like "OF ALL THE APARTMENTS IN --- WE HAVE TO LIVE NEXT TO THIS FUCKING GUY?!" for a few days. Then the loud arguments in the middle of the night started all over again. And one of the neighbours got into the new habit of SLAMMING their chest of drawers against my wall at 2am.

The barking also got much worse. The emotional-support-animal letter said that the barking would get better once the dog was trained, but from what I could hear my neighbours methods of training began and ended with screaming at the dog just like they screamed at each other each day. "NO! BAD DOG!", "BE QUIET!", "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" came through my wall in new and varied combinations every day. And every time an argument started between my neighbours the dog would always join in, even in the middle of the night. The constant level of noise was insane.

For over a year, l logged every instance of yelling, shouting, and barking coming from my neighbours apartment. It didn't matter if it was after 11pm or not at this point, I was trying to demonstrate how I can't get peace at any time of day. And when I say every instance, I mean I had minute-to-minute logs of every loud noise and every word I heard from my neighbours wall. If I was woken up in the middle of the night it went in the log. If I heard the dog bark from 12pm-1pm on February 2nd it went in the log. If I heard someone yell "YOU PEED ON THE FLOOR AGAIN, FUCK!" at the dog it went in the log. Honestly it sucked and made me almost lose my fucking mind, but by the time I was done I had pages and pages of notes

Obviously written logs wouldn't be enough. I already had a decently fat stack of video evidence to demonstrate the true character of my neighbours, but I needed current evidence if there was going to be another hearing. Fuck Spielberg, now I was Coppola in the heart of darkness. I got more videos of screaming and shouting coming out of their door. I got videos of banging and barking against my shared wall. I got videos of screaming, shouting, banging, and barking all at the same time, or in any combination. I had amassed a war-chest of video evidence to be deployed at the next available hearing, but I was getting war-weary

At this point I was like 6 or 8 months into the complaints process and I could barely take it anymore. I was getting woken up like 2 nights a week and would be a zombie at work (I complained about my neighbours at work often). I was finding it harder and harder to keep myself from blasting music, or banging on their wall, or kicking their fucking door down. But I managed to stay strong, and I followed the eviction process like it was my religion. I sent in a second written complaint, then a third which resulted in an eviction notice, which gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet. This time they didn't give a fuck, if anything they were louder than ever before. I was looking for other places to move into when I finally get good news from the property manager: there's a hearing date!

There was light at the end of the tunnel, but once the neighbours heard about the hearing date they did everything they could to fuck me up. There were no attempts to stop the barking anymore, it was constant. The screaming matches were back in full force, and when they started yelling and screaming the dog would go nuts! It was just an insane amount of noise.

And the drawers were ridiculous! Honestly I never expected the slamming drawers to be that bad but they easily eclipsed the barking and the shouting. They would SLAM and SLAM and SLAM the drawers over and over again against my wall. And because of the plaster it would BOOM BOOM BOOM and echo through my whole place. These assholes were definitely doing it on purpose.

3 days before the hearing date I go to bed at 9:45pm. At 10pm I'm still not asleep but I'm startled by BOOM BOOM of the drawers, I log it and go back to bed. At 11:30pm I wake up to BOOM BOOM BOOM again, and I'm pissed off. It takes me half an hour but I fall asleep again. Then at 12:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM there it is again! I call my superintendent, tell her what's going on, the super calls them and tells them to stop. I fall back asleep. Then at 1:30am BOOM BOOM BOOM I wake up super fucking angry, it's obvious they're doing this on purpose to piss me off before the hearing and get a reaction out of me. I call the super again, and go back to sleep again. Then at 2:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM I can't take it anymore. I scream "DO IT AGAIN!!!! DO IT AGAIN!!!" I lost it, I couldn't help myself. My discipline broke. My superintendent calls me and tells me my neighbours just said I yelled a death threat through the wall (what the fuck?) and that they're calling the police (WHAT THE FUCK?). Everything just feels fucked now, I can't sleep so I just wait until morning. No police show up and I go to work. I realized I couldn't even stay at my place anymore until this hearing was over, so I went back to my brothers couch for the next 3 days.

Finally the big day arrives. I gather my evidence: Over a year of meticulously logged noise complaints, 6 instances of video evidence (I cherry picked the gold out of 20 good ones), the previous eviction notice the neighbours received, 4 written noise complaints (including the 2 from the previous eviction notice), a letter from my co-worker about poor work performance due to lack of sleep, and even a letter from my therapist about how my neighbours' excessive noise was affecting my mental health.

I got there and met the property manager and superintendent, who were there with the owner of the property management company and a slick looking lawyer. I handed the lawyer all my evidence. I gave him a usb stick with the videos. I even handed over my big bluetooth speaker to make sure the videos were loud enough to hear (laptop speakers suck).

I look over to my neighbours and they are wide-eyed. They look scared! Finally!

We all go into the landlord/tenant board room with everybody. The adjudicator first asks if anyone wants to mediate instead of going through with the hearing. My neighbour's hand immediately shoots up. I say in front of everybody "I don't want to mediate!" but apparently it's not up to me and the lawyer takes me aside.

The lawyer tells me if it goes to mediation, the neighbours and the property management create an agreement (e.g. no more noise at x o'clock), and if that agreement is broken once it results in an immediate eviction. He explains if we go in front of the board instead it's a 50/50 chance they either get evicted or get off completely. Obviously mediation is the better way to go, I know these idiots are already incapable of keeping quiet, so I agree with the lawyer. We go out to find the neighbours and they're nowhere to be found. Turns out they opted for the free legal counsel ( I wonder why) and won't be available until the afternoon.

While waiting I explain to the property manager, owner, and lawyer what happened a few days ago with the slamming drawers all night long. When I made my complaints before no one really took them seriously, but today everyone is very interested in everything I have to say.

The afternoon comes, and I'm excluded from the mediation meeting because it's between the neighbours, the lawyer, and the owner. I can't hear what they're saying but I can hear my neighbours yelling and shouting from inside the room so I know it's not going well for them.

Everyone leaves the room and the lawyer comes up to me. He tells me the mediation failed, the neighbours refuse to change their behaviour and won't accept any terms. The lawyer says they have to go in front of the adjudicator again but by now it's almost the end of the day.

I wait another hour or two and everyone comes out. I see my neighbours leave as the lawyer comes by again and explains. Apparently, after the mediation failed, the property management owner offered my neighbours 2 months rent FREE if they agreed to move out in 2 months. The neighbours agreed, but when they all went in front of the adjudicator the neighbours changed their minds and said no! And apparently a second offer was made, which they said yes to, and then no again, all in front of the adjudicator! They ended up running out of time and the adjudicator cut the hearing short and said it would have to be resolved in a second hearing. I was disappointed, but the lawyer assured me that because of how capricious and insane my neighbours behaved in during the hearing, they would almost certainly be evicted during a second hearing. I was dismayed that it wasn't over, but hopeful the end was coming soon. I also felt vindicated, it was finally clear to everyone that my neighbours were actually insane and I wasn't just making this up.

The next two months weren't as bad as before. I continued my long steady march of logs and videos. But the noise definitely let up, especially the drawers. One day near the end of the second month I started to hear insane barking, it would not stop. It went on for hours and hours and hours. I called the superintendent to complain when they told me it was probably because the neighbours were moving out today. YES! HAHAHA! FINALLY! Apparently she couldn't tell me earlier because of privacy reasons. As they were moving out I blasted 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye' on loop, put in some earplugs, and took a 2 hour bath.

My apartment is quiet now and I can finally sleep. It wasn't exactly the satisfying crushing blow I wanted but my discipline paid off and now I can live in peace.

(source) story by (/u/ZapoiBoi)

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The Sims – A personality-filled escapism

I logged onto the Sims on a Thursday after a full day at uni. Next thing I know, 3 hours had passed; my Sim Maya had advanced to the next stage of her career; she attended a party, met a guy and went on a few dates. I would have continued playing hadn’t it been for my growling stomach at 9PM calling out for the dinner I had skipped. In the span of 3 hours, I was completely immersed in a world of my own imagination. And that instance got me thinking of why I got into Sims in the first place. And why this game has attracted so many players and keep them engaged in its world for decades.

I took to Reddit and Tumblr to find out the answers and came back with various types of responses. I asked: “What  got you into playing the Sims in the first place? Would you consider it as a portrayal or extension of yourself/ your mind?”

The question was set out to explore the dynamics between the players and the play, to discover the initial attraction of the Sims and whether it provides its players with a mirrored world that they can escape into. The answers were varied, but there were certainly re-emerging themes (access via my other blog post to see all the responses). The initial gateway that leads players to play Sims is generally objective: some were given as a present, some started playing because a relative/partner/friend was playing, some were simply bored. There was one instance where a player stated that the Sims was a part of their mental healing from family issues and that the game helped them “cheer up” .  

However, the reason for their stay and their long-term commitment to the game was the ability to escape and immerse one’s imagination into the gameplay. The responses I get back majorly included the words “creativity” and “escape”, proving that the Sims allows their players to be freely creative and be completely engaged with their own simulated world. The Sims, as its genre falls into sandbox or simulation game, is designed to let people project their wish fulfilment and be in total control of their own “digital” lives. Many instances of the Sims modding community on Tumblr who offers expansion packs of celebrity-look-alike, vampire mansions, futuristic alien decors, etc are all created to satisfy players’ desire to escape in their Sims world and live out an alternative life. Myself included, though I did not engage in the modding community, I found myself designing my Sims to be the better-looking version of myself, making her have all the attributes and artistic ability that I wish I had time for in real life. The Sims has allowed me and many other players a space to fulfil one’s desire and goals they might never think they had.  

These observations led me to discover a concept often mentioned when discussing game media: escapism. The term is used to describe the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities (Oxford). Particularly in media studies, game has been a prevalent medium for escapism because of its immersive nature (Guan – Vulture)

We turn to games when real life fails us – not merely in touristic fashion but closer to the case of emigrants, fleeing a home that has no place for them.  (Guan – Vulture)

This is also where video games gain its bad reputation, for escapism is often discussed to be the factor for video game addiction and it is scarcely mentioned as something positive (Calleja, 2010). Video games are often viewed as being inherently escapist for two main reasons: its offer of an attractive alluring virtuality as opposed to reality, its play and games as opposite of seriousness and work from the ordinary life (Calleja, 2010).  But this negative notion of addictive gaming culture is challenged and argued that digital games are escapist, but not any more than any other engaging activity. If we consider movies, or volunteer work, or simply reading are experiences necessary to a person’s enjoyment and fulfilment, then video games are merely a form of simulated experience in which their distinct escapist trait is “their ability to provide such a variety of designed experiences” (Calleja, 2010). This is especially true to the Sims, as there are few instances of Sims addiction but more of Sims engagement. The god-like nature of Sims gameplay opens up a vast rays of opportunities for self-portrayal and self-fulfilment that may be a better alternative of escapism when compared with drugs, alcoholism and gambling addiction (UNILAD). Thanks to its reality-simulation nature, the Sims is perfect for a person to escape social normality where pressures and chronic stresses are prevalent. In the SIMS, the gamers are free to create a perfect reality in which they have full control over the outcome.

This is where the term “escapism” meets it complication. What exactly are we escaping from? The binary notions of virtuality and reality separated by our computer screen is arguably being blurred out by modern technology and the on-going debate over ‘what defines reality?’ (Calleja, 2010) . It might be because of the game’s spatiality: a digital game can, for now, only be accessed via a certain technology medium (laptop, phone, PC,…) as opposed to others types of escapism such as books, or DJ-ing where the experiences are enjoyed in real life. But escapism is an important and unavoidable aspect of our culture (Tuan, 1998), and video games just so happen to allow for such escape in a spectrum unlimited and forever broadened by technology. Playing into this notion, the Sims stands out as “a better reflection of who we are as humans today” (Crecente, 2013).

Here’s an excerpt from my random thoughts while playing the Sims:

Date N/A –

Maya is pursuing her hobbies of playing guitar, being an Art person while maintaining a relationship with her boyfriend. I try to let her go to work for half a day, then let her socialise, practice guitar and hang out with her boyfriend for the other half. She’s pretty much set until I can access another chapter for her. But looking at her stories laying out like this, I think she’s a better version of myself. These are all the thing I have always wanted but does not have the time or resource to do. Wishing I could go out tomorrow and just get myself an electric guitar just cause.

I was jealous of Maya, in a weird way, since she turns out to be what I projected personality and hobbies and desire will be like in the future. When I log onto the Sims, I’m living the life I want to live. When a Redditor play the Sims, all their Sims tend to be offshoots of their personalities. When a Simblr (Tumblr blogs dedicated to Sims) started playing the Sims when she was 8, it helped her with mental health issues and gain the feeling “when someone goes through whatever you been through but they have figured out to escape the issue before you”. When a Success writer wrote about the Sims, she said it “taught her to really live” (Friedlander, 2017). Not only does the Sims allow for an escape, but it allows for an escape filled with one’s own personality and traits, filled with freedom to create another chapter in one’s imagination. It’s a creative outlet as well as a mirrored image for its players that hardly any other game has the ability to recreate.

[grimoireoffolkloreandfairytales]

Hey! I'm the anon from slavicafire's blog asking about Yugoslav witchcraft traditions. I;m a child of recent immigrants from the ex-yugo regions and I'm trying to reconnect w/ my roots. Could you give me a very basic outline of simple traditions that might be common from the region? Hvala puno (:

Hi anon! Glad to see somebody interested in our traditions, that is always amazing. I hope this helps you.

Disclaimer, I’m not professional. This is just stuff pulled out of my own amateur research and love for balkan lore. Anybody with better understanding please pitch in.

First, to reiterate what likely everybody told you, Slavic traditions are very variable and unique, depending on which country you are looking at. While there is obviously much similar things, not all Balkan countries have same lore. So I would suggest looking up where your ancestors are from, and then digging in research ( sometimes there are differences even between like, villages in same country, which makes things both beautiful and amazing and irritating and bothersome).

Second, I am sorry to say that information can be kinda hard to come across when searching for Balkan sources. As result of most countries being ‘’still in development’’, (at least when compared to West), decades of communist regime which didn’t care much for spirituality, big influence of Christian church and being kinda small in population, there isn’t lots of people interested in such things, at least not openly. There has thankfully been revival and rise of interest in last years but ah still takes lots of work to find like minded people. You should have some luck searching through Tumblr and Reddit.

Rest of info under cut, keep on read more so we wouldn’t bother people with big wall of text.

Now, I want to say ( in case you aren’t already aware, in which case excuse me and forgive for taking up your time) that if you do research in Serbian or Croatian for veštica you will most likely come upon fantasy books, fairy tales and such. More folkloric stuff will talk about things like selling your soul to Devil, eating hearts of your family, soul leaving your body to do misdeeds and similar. Rather interesting stuff, which could be used for interesting if little dark path, but less easy to put in practice and being generally very Christian story about evil monsters ( I assume you can’t leave your body in shape of moth so you would cut up your neighbors and relatives and eat their insides but hey what do I know, that might work for you). If you are interested in hearing about that though please send me ask again!

What I assume you are looking for, and is generally much more likely to be practiced ( today too in some villages) are činjarice and vračare. These words while literally meaning something like charm-doer/maker and similar, are more like village wisewomen, cunning folk and similar, people who practiced mixture of magic, medicine, old Slavic lore and Christian beliefs, midwifery and superstitions. If you ask your parents, grandparents, relatives and similar, I’m sure they would be able to tell you of encountering or at very least hearing about at least one weird old woman who claimed to be able to read your fortune, help with fertility, protect you against evil eye… If you ever meet such old woman, remember they will most likely be very insulted if you call them witch. Some wouldn’t even call their workings magical, and many are very intensively Christian.

So, some advice which I hope will be useful. Traditionally those women (and probably some men, though I didn’t hear of it happening. Probably happened but people don’t like talking about such things because people are dumb) worked alone. I assume one witch was enough for one village. This doesn’t mean that you can’t join a coven or work with friends and learn from others, simply that solitary path is open to you and that lots of those witches worked on their own, combining superstition, tips passed to them from others and their own knowledge and thoughts. There is no hard tradition to stick to, you can freely experiment, and don’t listen to people who say you need witch’s blood or some nonsense like that. You only need your will and heart and what works for you.

Then, remember those people lived in villages and most likely worked at farm, in fields, with cattle.. They likely lived together with their families ( unless they were of course widows with no nearby relatives or spinsters). Point is, they didn’t have fancy stuff, because they had to take acre of cows and dung and carrots, so you shouldn’t feel bad about not buying athames, wands, cauldrons and such if you can’t or don’t want. You can repurpose normal ordinary stuff around you in magical tools. As Granny Weatherwax would say, witch can use kitchen knife to do magic and make a bread. Some would argue it is still good to have separate tools for magic, or regularly cleanse and charge your cutlery so energy wouldn’t get too muddled, and that is good approach too. Look what works for you. Suggestions for tools: mirrors, candles, knives, threads,stones, scissors.

If you want to get ideas for how to incorporate everyday things in your practice, look up tag cottage witchcraft, or hearth witchcraft, which is based on idea of making your home practices in magic. Remember that you don’t need to define yourself as anything but witch, or even that, if you don’t want. Think of ways how your passions and talents could be used as outlet for witchcraft. Sing your spells, paint your sigils, however you want. Balkan witches let their craft go out through ordinary stuff too.

Research herb lore! Living in villages and near woods Slavic witches always worked closely with herbs.  That seems to generally be witch thing, as herbs were for long time basis of spices and medicine. Research what herbs you can get your hands on (spices and weeds are easiest I’d say) can be used for, both magically and as teas, tinctures and similar ( remember that herbs should never be used instead of actual medication, and that you don’t need to bother with them if you don’t want to). Some starting points-generally, oak is associated with Perun, strength, protection and ancestors and was heavily respected and venerated. Walnut is associated with darkness, death, misfortune and evil witches and spirits so I’d say it would for example be good for curses. Hawthorn was used as means of protection against demonic spirits and evil creatures, especially vampires.

Research correspondences! People for example believed that certain workings should be undertaken only on certain days, such as holy days of saints, or that magic was best to be done on Friday. Water has different powers depending on day and place it was taken- frozen water or melted ice is used for spells of forgetting, but generally water is used for healing and purification, though time and place and way you collect it can charge it differently. Salt is of course as always amazing for protection and cleansing. Colours are also good start- black for death darkness misfortune, red for life and protection especially against spirits, white for purity cleansing contact with dead and positive energy and so on. Some things require really weird steps. For example to protect yourself from plague you needed to pull over yourself a shirt made by several naked old woman outside during Saturday night ( which I hope you will never need, and have serious doubts for how successful it would be)… If you are in for more ritualistic path it may work for you.

Spells, often called bajalice ( I’m not sure how to translate, except it vaguely means something like murmured song, or chant  I think) were either passed down, picked from folklore, or straight up invented. They consisted of several lines and often rhymed, in fact many of them sound like nursery rhymes. Some are full of seemingly nonsenses, others call upon saints.

They also often had psychical component, a piece of paper, poppet, anything…Those were used as anchors for spell, and if you were casting for other person, closer those objects were to them spell worked better. Good luck and blessings were often in form of amulets person carried on themselves, curses often required burning object or burying it in victim’s backyard.

As with all witchcraft I’d say, sympathetic magic is one of basics. Hair, nails, blood, names, images, all those are often necesarry to work magic upon another. Be careful what is done with yours.

There is strong focus on body with Balkan witchcraft (especially hair). If you feel comfortable explore it, learn about it. Your body is wonderful and reveling in it can be very beneficial not just for magic but for your health, in flesh and mind both. Just stay away from things talking about stuff like putting menstrual blood in potions or anything unsafe. If you want to explore blood magic take care. Just cutting or pricking yourself isn’t good at all.

Look out for superstitions. Most of them contain ritualistic roots. Think and ask why they are done, and how can they be used in practice. Knock on wood for good luck or to prevent bad things, it calls out to spirits. Pinkie and index finger pointed on person is used for casting curses of evil eye variety. And so on…

You don’t have to work with dead, but as amazing zmija already mentioned, there is always something undead. Graveyard dirt is powerful. Look out for ghosts and similar creatures. If you want, try to connect to ancestors or tend to graveyards. Forty days after birth and death are when such forces are most active. Our dead are always with us, and those who have passed on often frequent and play with those who replaced them.

Treat nature well. Remember that it is full of spirits ( some of which may be similar to undead-is rusalka a water nymph or drowned girl, domovoi entirely spiritual caretaker of home or ghost of distant ancestor ). Try to connect with them, to reach out if you feel safe. Dragons, vampires, fairies ( zmey, vampies/upyrsi, vilas in english sources) were most important to Balkans, as well as creatures of wilds like snakes and wolves.

Spaces American side of tumblr would call liminal are important. Thresholds, crossroads and watermills are folklorically connected with magic a lot.

Balkan Traditional Witchcraft by Radomir Ristic  from what I heard is very good book, if little awkward to read as it is translated in English.  Journal for the Academic Study of Magic  from what I have heard has some stuff on South Slavic magic in issue 2 and parts of it are  put up online, such as  The Human Body in Southern Slavic Folk Sorcery Andrija Filipovic and Anne M. Rader.   Solvenska Mitologija ( The Slavic Mythology) by  Nenad Gajić  is great start if you want easy to understand and comprehensive list of Slavic creatures, beliefs, lore and so but I don’t know if you can find it out of Balkans. Belgrade publishing house Metaphysica also apparently has some stuff, no idea if it is good.

If you know Serbian or Croatian, I would suggest websitehttp://www.starisloveni.com/index.html, which is pagan site and also has forum (you need to be registered though).  I have also found several threads of that topic on  https://forum.krstarica.com/ and https://www.ana.rs/forum/ though they require digging, especially for good stuff. Site is also bit less modern. I have recently came upon  https://thewitchandwalnut.wordpress.com/, a Wordpress blog of Balkan witch from Canada which seems very informative. @everett-the-mage is very awesome blog with lots of content on Croatian folk magic and lovely Etsy shop and lots of recommendations for reading.

I hope this helps at least a little! Good luck with your journey!

[meeedeee]

Cancel Culture: The Internet Eating Itself RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

As social media platforms enter their collective adolescence – Facebook is fifteen, YouTube fourteen, Twitter thirteen, tumblr twelve – I find myself thinking about how little we really understand their cultural implications, both ongoing and for the future. At this point, the idea that being online is completely optional in modern world ought to be absurd, and yet multiple friends, having spoken to their therapists about the impact of digital abuse on their mental health, were told straight up to just stop using the internet. Even if this was a viable option for some, the idea that we can neatly sidestep the problem of bad behaviour in any non-utilitarian sphere by telling those impacted to simply quit is baffling at best and a tacit form of victim-blaming at worst. The internet might be a liminal space, but object permanence still applies to what happens here: the trolls don’t vanish if we close our eyes, and if we vanquish one digital hydra-domain for Toxicity Crimes without caring to fathom the whys and hows of what went wrong, we merely ensure that three more will spring up in its place.

Is the internet a private space, a government space or a public space? Yes.

Is it corporate, communal or unaffiliated? Yes.

Is it truly global or bound by local legal jurisdictions? Yes.

Does the internet reflect our culture or create it? Yes.

Is what people say on the internet reflective of their true beliefs, or is it a constant shell-game of digital personas, marketing ploys, intrusive thoughts, growth-in-progress, personal speculation and fictional exploration? Yes.

The problem with the internet is that takes up all three areas on a Venn diagram depicting the overlap between speech and action, and while this has always been the case, we’re only now admitting that it’s a bug as well as a feature. Human interaction cannot be usefully monitored using an algorithm, but our current conception of What The Internet Is has been engineered specifically to shortcut existing forms of human oversight, the better to maximise both accessibility (good to neutral) and profits (neutral to bad). Uber and Lyft are cheaper, frequently more convenient alternatives to a traditional taxi service, for instance, but that’s because the apps themselves are functionally predicated on the removal of meaningful customer service and worker protections that were hard-won elsewhere. Sites like tumblr are free to use, but the lack of revenue generated by those users means that, past a certain point, profits can only hope to outstrip expenses by selling access to those users and/or their account data, which means in turn that paying to effectively monitor their content creation becomes vastly less important than monetising it.

Small wonder, then, that individual users of social media platforms have learned to place a high premium on their ability to curate what they see, how they see it, and who sees them in turn. When I first started blogging, the largely unwritten rule of the blogsphere was that, while particular webforums dedicated to specific topics could have rules about content and conduct, blogs and their comment pages should be kept Free. Monitoring comments was viewed as a sign of narrow-minded fearfulness: even if a participant was aggressive or abusive, the enlightened path was to let them speak, because anything else was Censorship. This position held out for a good long while, until the collective frustration of everyone who’d been graphically threatened with rape, torture and death, bombarded with slurs, exhausted by sealioning or simply fed up with nitpicking and bad faith arguments finally boiled over.

Particularly in progressive circles, the relief people felt at being told that actually, we were under no moral obligation to let assholes grandstand in the comments or repeatedly explain basic concepts to only theoretically invested strangers was overwhelming. Instead, you could simply delete them, or block them, or maybe even mock them, if the offence or initial point of ignorance seemed silly enough. But as with the previous system, this one-size-fits-all approach soon developed a downside. Thanks to the burnout so many of us felt after literal years of trying to treat patiently with trolls playing Devil’s Advocate, liberal internet culture shifted sharply towards immediate shows of anger, derision and flippancy to anyone who asked a 101 question, or who didn’t use the right language, or who did anything other than immediately agree with whatever position was explained to them, however simply.

I don’t exempt myself from this criticism, but knowing why I was so goddamn tired doesn’t change my conviction that, cumulatively, the end result did more harm than good. Without wanting to sidetrack into a lengthy dissertation on digital activism in the post-aughties decade, it seems evident in hindsight that the then-fledgling alliance between trolls, MRAs, PUAs, Redditors and 4channers to deliberately exhaust left-wing goodwill via sealioning and bad faith arguments was only the first part of a two-pronged attack. The second part, when the left had lost all patience with explaining its own beliefs and was snappily telling anyone who asked about feminism, racism or anything else to just fucking Google it, was to swoop in and persuade the rebuffed party that we were all irrational, screeching harridans who didn’t want to answer because we knew our answers were bad, and why not consider reading Roosh V instead?

The fallout of this period, I would argue, is still ongoing. In an ideal world, drawing a link between online culture wars about ownership of SFF and geekdom and the rise of far-right fascist, xenophobic extremism should be a bow so long that not even Odysseus himself could draw it. But this world, as we’ve all had frequent cause to notice, is far from ideal at the best of times – which these are not – and yet another featurebug of the internet is the fluid interpermeability of its various spaces. We talk, for instance – as I am talking here – about social media as a discreet concept, as though platforms like Twitter or Facebook are functionally separate from the other sites to which their users link; as though there is no relationship between or bleed-through from the viral Facebook post screencapped and shared on BuzzFeed, which is then linked and commented upon on Reddit, which thread is then linked to on Twitter, where an entirely new conversation emerges and subsequently spawns an article in The Huffington Post, which is shared again on Facebook and the replies to that shared on tumblr, and so on like some grizzly perpetual mention machine.

But I digress. The point here is that internet culture is best understood as a pattern of ripples, each new iteration a reaction to the previous one, spreading out until it dissipates and a new shape takes its place. Having learned that slamming the virtual door in everyone’s face was a bad idea, the online left tried establishing a better, calmer means of communication; the flipside was a sudden increase in tone-policing, conversations in which presentation was vaunted over substance and where, once again, particular groups were singled out as needing to conform to the comfort-levels of others. Overlapping with this was the move towards discussing things as being problematic, rather than using more fixed and strident language to decry particular faults – an attempt to acknowledge the inherent fallibility of human works while still allowing for criticism. A sensible goal, surely, but once again, attempting to apply the dictum universally proved a double-edged sword: if everything is problematic, then how to distinguish grave offences from trifling ones? How can anyone enjoy anything if we’re always expected to thumb the rosary of its failings first?

When everything is problematic and everyone has the right to say so, being online as any sort of creator or celebrity is like being nibbled to death by ducks. The well-meaning promise of various organisations, public figures or storytellers to take criticism on board – to listen to the fanbase and do right by their desires – was always going to stumble over the problem of differing tastes. No group is a hivemind: what one person considers bad representation or in poor taste, another might find enlightening, while yet a third party is more concerned with something else entirely. Even in cases with a clear majority opinion, it’s physically impossible to please everyone and a type of folly to try, but that has yet to stop the collective internet from demanding it be so. Out of this comes a new type of ironic frustration: having once rejoiced in being allowed to simply block trolls or timewasters, we now cast judgement on those who block us in turn, viewing them, as we once were viewed, as being fearful of criticism.

Are we creating echo chambers by curating what we see online, or are we acting in pragmatic acknowledgement of the fact that we neither have time to read everything nor an obligation to see all perspectives as equally valid? Yes.

Even if we did have the time and ability to wade through everything, is the signal-to-noise ratio of truth to lies on the internet beyond our individual ability to successfully measure, such that outsourcing some of our judgement to trusted sources is fundamentally necessary, or should we be expected to think critically about everything we encounter, even if it’s only intended as entertainment? Yes.

If something or someone online acts in a way that’s antithetical to our values, are we allowed to tune them out thereafter, knowing full well that there’s a nearly infinite supply of as-yet undisappointing content and content-creators waiting to take their place, or are we obliged to acknowledge that Doing A Bad doesn’t necessarily ruin a person forever? Yes.

And thus we come to cancel culture, the current – but by no means final – culmination of previous internet discourse waves. In this iteration, burnout at critical engagement dovetails with a new emphasis on collective content curation courtesies (try saying that six times fast), but ends up hamstrung once again by differences in taste. Or, to put it another way: someone fucks up and it’s the last straw for us personally, so we try to remove them from our timelines altogether – but unless our friends and mutuals, who we still want to engage with, are convinced to do likewise, then we haven’t really removed them at all, such that we’re now potentially willing to make failure to cancel on demand itself a cancellable offence.

Which brings us right back around to the problem of how the modern internet is fundamentally structured – which is to say, the way in which it’s overwhelmingly meant to rely on individual curation instead of collective moderation. Because the one thing each successive mode of social media discourse has in common with its predecessors is a central, and currently unanswerable question: what universal code of conduct exists that I, an individual on the internet, can adhere to – and expect others to adhere to – while we communicate across multiple different platforms?

In the real world, we understand about social behavioural norms: even if we don’t talk about them in those terms, we broadly recognise them when we see them. Of course, we also understand that those norms can vary from place to place and context to context, but as we can only ever be in one physical place at a time, it’s comparatively easy to adjust as appropriate.

But the internet, as stated, is a liminal space: it’s real and virtual, myriad and singular, private and public all at once. It confuses our sense of which rules might apply under which circumstances, jumbles the normal behavioural cues by obscuring the identity of our interlocutors, and even though we don’t acknowledge it nearly as often as we should, written communication – like spoken communication – is a skill that not everyone has, just as tone, whether spoken or written, isn’t always received (or executed, for that matter) in the way it was intended. And when it comes to politics, in which the internet and its doings now plays no small role, there’s the continual frustration that comes from observing, with more and more frequency, how many literal, real-world crimes and abuses go without punishment, and how that lack of consequences contributes in turn to the fostering of abuse and hostility towards vulnerable groups online.

This is what comes of occupying a transitional period in history: one in which laws are changed and proposed to reflect our changing awareness of the world, but where habit, custom, ignorance, bias and malice still routinely combine, both institutionally and more generally, to see those laws enacted only in part, or tokenistically, or not at all. To take one of the most egregious and well-publicised instances that ultimately presaged the #MeToo movement, the laughably meagre sentence handed down to Brock Turner, who was caught in the act of raping an unconscious woman, combined with the emphasis placed by both the judge and much of the media coverage on his swimming talents and family standing as a means of exonerating him, made it very clear that sexual violence against women is frequently held to be less important than the perceived ‘bright futures’ of its perpetrators.

Knowing this, then – knowing that the story was spread, discussed and argued about on social media, along with thousands of other, similar accounts; knowing that, even in this context, some people still freely spoke up in defence of rapists and issued misogynistic threats against their female interlocutors – is it any wonder that, in the absence of consistent legal justice in such cases, the internet tried, and is still trying, to fill the gap? Is it any wonder, when instances of racist police brutality are constantly filmed and posted online, only for the perpetrators to receive no discipline, that we lose patience for anyone who wants to debate the semantics of when, exactly, extrajudicial murder is “acceptable”?

We cannot control the brutality of the world from the safety of our keyboards, but when it exhausts or threatens us, we can at least click a button to mute its seeming adherents. We don’t always have the energy to decry the same person we’ve already argued against a thousand times before, but when a friend unthinkingly puts them back on our timeline for some new reason, we can tell them that person is cancelled and hope they take the hint not to do it again. Never mind that there is far too often no subtlety, no sense of scale or proportion to how the collective, viral internet reacts in each instance, until all outrage is rendered flat and the outside observer could be forgiven for worrying what’s gone wrong with us all, that using a homophobic trope in a TV show is thought to merit the same online response as an actual hate crime. So long as the war is waged with words alone, there’s only a finite number of outcomes that boycotting, blocking, blacklisting, cancelling, complaining and critiquing can achieve, and while some of those outcomes in particular are well worth fighting for, so many words are poured towards so many attempts that it’s easy to feel numbed to the process; or, conversely, easy to think that one response fits all contexts.

I’m tired of cancel culture, just as I was dully tired of everything that preceded it and will doubtless grow tired of everything that comes after it in turn, until our fundamental sense of what the internet is and how it should be managed finally changes. Like it or not, the internet both is and is of the world, and that is too much for any one person to sensibly try and curate at an individual level. Where nothing is moderated for us, everything must be moderated by us; and wherever people form communities, those communities will grow cultures, which will develop rules and customs that spill over into neighbouring communities, both digitally and offline, with mixed and ever-changing results. Cancel culture is particularly tricky in this regard, as the ease with which we block someone online can seldom be replicated offline, which makes it all the more intoxicating a power to wield when possible: we can’t do anything about the awful coworker who rants at us in the breakroom, but by God, we can block every person who reminds us of them on Twitter.

The thing about participating in internet discourse is, it’s like playing Civilisation in real-time, only it’s not a game and the world keeps progressing even when you log off. Things change so fast on the internet – memes, etiquette, slang, dominant opinions – and yet the changes spread so organically and so fast that we frequently adapt without keeping conscious track of when and why they shifted. Social media is like the Hotel California: we can check out any time we like, but we can never meaningfully leave – not when world leaders are still threatening nuclear war on Twitter, or when Facebook is using friendly memes to test facial recognition software, or when corporate accounts are creating multi-staffed humansonas to engage with artists on tumblr, or when YouTube algorithms are accidentally-on-purpose steering kids towards white nationalist propaganda because it makes them more money.

Of course we try and curate our time online into something finite, comprehensible, familiar, safe: the alternative is to embrace the near-infinite, incomprehensible, alien, dangerous gallimaufry of our fractured global mindscape. Of course we want to try and be critical, rational, moral in our convictions and choices; it’s just that we’re also tired and scared and everyone who wants to argue with us about anything can, even if they’re wrong and angry and also our relative, or else a complete stranger, and sometimes you just want to turn off your brain and enjoy a thing without thinking about it, or give yourself some respite, or exercise a tiny bit of autonomy in the only way you can.

It’s human nature to want to be the most amount of right for the least amount of effort, but unthinkingly taking our moral cues from internet culture the same way we’re accustomed to doing in offline contexts doesn’t work: digital culture shifts too fast and too asymmetrically to be relied on moment to moment as anything like a universal touchstone. Either you end up preaching to the choir, or you run a high risk of aggravation, not necessarily due to any fundamental ideological divide, but because your interlocutor is leaning on a different, false-universal jargon overlying alternate 101 and 201 concepts to the ones you’re using, and modern social media platforms – in what is perhaps the greatest irony of all – are uniquely poorly suited to coherent debate.

Purity wars in fandom, arguments about diversity in narrative and whether its proponents have crossed the line from criticism into bullying: these types of arguments are cyclical now, dying out and rekindling with each new wave of discourse. We might not yet be in a position to stop it, but I have some hope that being aware of it can mitigate the worst of the damage, if only because I’m loathe to watch yet another fandom steadily talk itself into hating its own core media for the sake of literal argument.

For all its flaws – and with all its potential – the internet is here to stay. Here’s hoping we figure out how to fix it before its ugliest aspects make us give up on ourselves.

          from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows https://ift.tt/2V13Qu4 via IFTTT

[ineedhelp5244]

I tried to post this in reddit and it got taken down but I need advice so I'm trying here

I think I'm living in a toxic situation but don't know.

This is a long one.

For some context I f 15 turning (16) am living with my grandma (60) and dad (38) and sister (14) (she wasn't for most of what I'm writing) I visit my mom on Thursday and spend the night and every other weekend I spent Friday and Saturday with her on top of that currently we have always been homeschooled except for in 4th grade.

When I had turned 12 yo we had just moved into a new apartment after living with a few family members and staying in a hotel, my relationship with my guardians were fine until I discovered my family's homophobia (note my mom isn't homophobic) and my father's alcoholism, It all spiraled from there. My father and sister had never had the best relationship as she has always clung to my mom more. after she found out he was Homophobic she was furious and didn't understand why it was so bad to love the same gender, my father and sisters opposing views started a ton of arguments between her dad and my grandmother since she lives with us, some of which I got involved in because they were being taken WAY to far some examples of this are

-My father punching a hole next to my sister's head after he got pissed and backed her into a corner when she asked him to give her some space.

-My grandmother calling my sister a C*NT (she was 12-13)

- my father slapping my sister so hard she flipped over a chair and hit her head on the TV stand.

- My grandmother cornering my sister and asking her to "hit me" my dad was standing right f***ing next to her and did NOTHING to stop her till I tried to step in and THREATENED me saying to "sit the fuck down unless I want my ass beat" then split them up.

- Later that very same day they compared to that situation to putting a misbehaving dog in their place and when called out denied it even happened.

- Me trying to open up and communicate on how I felt about dads Drinking and how it hurt my feelings and I lost a lot of trust and respect that he would have to earn back to which She laughed.

These events took place during on and of occasions where my dad lost a job then took several months to find a new one so we where constantly fighting while trying to do school. I began to realize the unhealthy tole it took on my health both mentally and physically and my weight was going DOWN and I now suspected I have anxiety and the weight issues was a side affect of me not being able to eat because of this. my father "quit drinking" a long with getting a afternoon shift job and so the arguments went down tremendously. In my most recent fight with my grandmother I was expressing how I thought dad could get better and that conversation turned into about dad and his drinking then her throwing a pitty party saying that all she's ever done Is good for me. I called her out saying this wasn't about how great she was and gave her multiple examples where she was HORRIBLE including but not limited to

- How she repeatedly said my mom abandoned me leading me to resent her

- Making consistent comments on my body

- criticizing anyone that claimed to have mental health issues saying it was only except able for her

- constant gaslighting

- not letting me and my sister now she was "behind us " when dad was drinking

- letting it carry on for to long

- Only giving non apology apologies

And much more

We argued back and forth a bit before I went to my room. When my stomach was feeling better I hadn't had much to eat and was hungry and went to get some leftovers but because of her coming in and nagging me I lost my appetite again. When I went to go put the food back in the fridge to eat later she made a sarcastic comment about food and I SNAPPED saying "well maybe if a psycho bitch wasn't yelling at me I would be hungry" she spanked me with a pan, a fucking pan, when I went to leave she started to corner me I asked her to back away but she didn't and came closer cornering me I asked her to move so I could leave but she didn't say anything so I went to put up the dish washer door so I could leave through the other side, but before I could she slapped my hand. I slapped her to try and get her away but that didn't work so I pushed her and ran to the living room where she cornered me again and asking her to " hit her again" I refused so she shoved me HARD I fell into some boxes. I ran to my room and looked the door my sister had come in with me and started to call my mom and aunt., But it was to late my grandmother called my other aunt and told her a whole sob story she came in asked me what happened and I could tell she didn't believe me she started saying I needed to be more understanding because of her disease s I told her I get it but anxiety PTSD and depression isn't an excuse for this but she added in that she has bipolar as well. For the next bit I had family members guilt tripping me defending what she did. I don't know anything anymore I thought I was right but there saying I want and I don't know anymore I don't have any friends to ask what's normal either so I am at a loss.

Am I the asshole?

[sounmashnews]

[ad_1] While Coccio ultimately left the subreddit, many others stayed. Dawn Cecil, a criminology professor on the University of South Florida and creator of Fear, Justice & Modern True Crime, says that many who interact with true crime boards have “good intentions of wanting to help solve a crime or find a missing person”; some additionally wish to draw consideration to miscarriages of justice and query the effectiveness of the prison justice system.Still, Cecil warns that true crime boards can turn into echo chambers that feed worry or buttress preexisting beliefs. Consuming true crime, as she particulars in her e-book, can even skew individuals’s notion of crime and reinforce stereotypes.It can even lead individuals to issues they remorse. Marcus is a 42-year-old from Seattle who joined Reddit purely so he might put up on r/serialpodcast. At first he discovered it “fun,” however in his time there he has been verbally attacked in addition to doxed—a stranger from the subreddit as soon as referred to as him at work. (He requested that WIRED not use his actual title for privateness functions.) He says he’s seen “some of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen on the internet” because of his curiosity within the Serial case.Meghan, a 30-year-old nurse from Washington who requested that WIRED not use her final title, has spent seven years on the sub out of “habit.” She loved the early “exciting” days when individuals usually posted new discoveries and says chatting with strangers through the years has been helpful. “At this point some of the other long-term posters feel a bit like old friends, even the ones that I fight with the most,” she says. But private assaults on the sub additionally heighten Meghan’s nervousness, and he or she has additionally come to reevaluate her angle towards true crime.“I am embarrassed and ashamed of how gleefully I came back to this sub to look at lividity documents, et cetera, without fully considering that the victim was a real person,” she says. “A teenager died; multiple other teenagers’ lives were completely upended … It’s just all sad. And I think that does affect my mental health.”Two years in the past, Marcus took a step again from r/serialpodcast. “It became really bad for my mental health, arguing the same arguments,” he says. When Syed was launched from jail final month, Marcus returned to r/serialpodcast—however he imagines it received’t be for lengthy. Meghan says she's going to cease consuming Serial commentary if Syed is not tried again. For others, true crime boards stay tantalizing areas—the place group has been solid and solutions look like simply across the nook.As of this writing, Dahmer is the top English-language show on Netflix, which studies that some 56 million households have seen the sequence. The streaming service is about to premiere Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes on Friday. [ad_2] Source link

[prorevenge]

"You're gonna regret that winky emoji"

Buckle down, because if this was a rollercoaster it'd be the Tower of Terror. It's also very long, TLDR at the bottom, if you can find it..

Now, just as a little disclaimer, the person involved may not read reddit but her son very well might. So, I've changed names, places and specific details, and I'm not going to describe the person's appearance. I will however, be telling you of a revenge that started off petty in nature, has since had a pro outcome - and is still ongoing.

I'm a University student (f,19) in *Canada*, studying *history*. Since September, I've been struggling with both my physical and mental health. The problem with a free healthcare system is that sometimes there is long waiting lists for mental health services and despite being put on medication, my condition was worsening. I'd gone to a member of staff, who we shall call PC, to explain the situation. Initially, she was helpful, giving me extensions on assignments and special considerations for my exams. I passed the first semester with a whopping 62%, impressive given the fact I hadn't really been into any lectures.

After the Christmas break, my mental health was so bad that I ended up in hospital. I also struggled to get back into lectures as planned and submit much work. I was seeing the student support team the university had supplied, and the mental health team the hospital had provided. I have a personality disorder and sometimes find it hard to control my emotions, and PC is well aware of this. However, she is going -above and beyond- her normal duties and it's starting to get a little distressing. She'd offer to come to my GP appointments with me, constantly email me (3-4 separate email chains a day), and then got my personal phone number off the university system and started texting me. Being naive, I thought that having her phone number would be useful, as I check my texts significantly faster than my emails.

What. A bad. Idea.

What was confirming attendance for meetings quickly turned into "hope to see you soon", and asking how things in my personal life were going. The event that knocked me for six was when she turned up at my GP surgery after I had told her my appointment went badly. Luckily I was on the other side of town by this point, but she sent me a string of four texts starting with "I'm at the GP, where are you?" and ending in "I'm not going to nag you" before ringing me 3 times despite me hanging up IMMEDIATELY the first time.

(Side note at this point, she very obviously cares about me, but she's incredibly overbearing).

I had gone in for a routine procedure at the hospital to try and sort my physical health out (a cystoscopy, if you fancy a cringe), so she sent me a text asking how it had gone. I'd been put on the same antibiotics as I was before, and when I tried to explain to the consultant that I was already on them and that the pain hadn't stopped in months, I started getting a little angry and upset. Not enough to cause a scene - but enough for them to firmly tell me to leave. I explained this to PC and she replied with "stop arguing ;)". Now, given the nature of the procedure, the position of responsibility PC has and the fact it's coming from her personal phone number, I found this extremely inappropriate.

This kind of behaviour went on for a couple months, I'm trying to keep her at arms length - I still need her in terms of getting assignments in and stuff, but I don't want her reaching in to my personal life - but she keeps trying. She's told me repeatedly that I will have a "fit to work" procedure put in place due to the lack of assignments put in, which would decide my future at the university - and that the options would be getting suspended or getting expelled. This added a load of anxiety to my life and ultimately destroyed my mental health, so after a *not so helpful* session with the mental health team, I submitted the worst essay I've ever written with a sarcastic note at the bottom (still got 18%, success!). In hindsight, this was probably the worst way of trying to get back at her, as PC called me in for another meeting, but not before ringing my boss and my mental health consultant asking to attend my therapy sessions, and then telling me I'm "making it more than it needs to be".

This meeting was hell.

She started off by stroking my knee - not sensually, but wayyyy too close to be comfortable - which put my back up immediately.

She tried to get me to cancel the submission, which I wouldn't, and then told me I'm going to get her fired or reprimanded if I don't. (hello, emotional blackmail).

I repeatedly tried to explain I was struggling, and it's a case of mentally having to fight myself to get out of bed in the mornings, let alone research and write essays, do complex maths and attend 12 lectures a week. She kept shouting me down with things like "Just because you have a mental health condition doesn't mean you're special" and "it took me 3 years of intensive therapy to sort my head out, so you should be fine by August".

Eventually I was frustrated, sobbing and bent over, head to my knees in the chair. This cut off the circulation to my legs after 40 MINUTES of feeling trapped in her office, so when I finally got the courage to leave, I physically couldn't. I made it halfway across the room before stumbling. I didn't fall, I had hold of the table. PC shot up from her chair like she'd just won the lottery and HELD ME FROM BEHIND. I got out as quickly as I could. She later sent me a text (at 22:50) telling me that "it was really valuable".

Finally, the revenge;

I was so angry I decided I was going to come down on this woman like a ton of bricks. I spent 8 hours collating the year's emails and texts, annotating them all and putting them in a folder alongside evidence I was actively seeking medical help - a condition of the university for students who are ill. I affectionately called the folder The Brick, because if all else fails I'm going to hit her with it. This folder weighs at least 5kg, just to give you an idea of the amount of trees I had to kill for this. I submitted a complaints form for 3 separate issues (emails and texts/blackmail/physical contact), as well as a designated form for harassment. This would normally go to PC, but since I was complaining about her, I took it to THE DEAN. Phase 1 complete.

Phase 2 was the picking apart of her emails and making a case for mistreatment. The fit to work panel I attended (after 5 months of being told that it would happen), were going to expel me completely, until I whipped out The Brick and showed them 8 cases of unprofessionalism in ONE EMAIL. My "sentence" was reduced to only suspension, meaning I still have access to my uni email address, and student union services. Useful for phase 3.

Phase 3 is taking my case to the University Legal Team and holding this over the Dean's head until a satisfactory outcome is achieved, or I'll take it to court. I'll keep you updated.

And so, dear redditors, after successfully enacting phases 1 and 2, I can confirm PC has gone on 6 MONTHS of "sick leave". Let me tell you exactly why she's not on sick leave and has in fact been suspended - she was supposed to be on my fit to work panel, 3 DAYS after going on this sick leave; the whole department has been told not to contact her and if they have an urgent matter, they must send it to a different person through an online reporting system which will be "more closely monitored". We were also told that she would not be replying to emails because she's "ill", which made me laugh because she'd been wanting me to write 5000 word essays despite the fact I am genuinely ill. Given the nature of PC's role at the university (handling sensitive information, dealing with vulnerable students), this will be a major blemish on her record at the least, and could well cost her her job and prevent her from getting a new one in the same field. I have since left the university for health reasons, no doubtedly made worse by the actions of PC.

​

TLDR; tutor at the university harasses me in more ways than one, causes a severe decline in my mental health. I complain with 8 months of evidence and get her suspended/nearly fired, potential legal case pending.

(source) story by (/u/archercolne)

[automatismoateo]

I hate it when people say “Everything has a purpose” or “God sees everything” via /r/atheism

Submitted June 26, 2021 at 06:58PM by icallmydadstranger (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3wYOjOd) I hate it when people say “Everything has a purpose” or “God sees everything”

I come from a Hispanic household which many know are very religious.

I have been an atheist for most of my life and when I first came out as a non-believer to my family in my freshman year of high school, my family basically exiled me spiritually and mentally. Trying to convince me back into religion but I knew that they were the ones who were wrong and I still do.

In the beginning, I used to be a hateful atheist trying to open peoples eyes by arguing with them and just blasting people who would mention god or religion. I look back and I was really annoying and made us atheist look bad. I am now a very different atheist from the kid I used to be. I know accept that people might need religion for either or both spiritual and mental health. I don’t bash people anymore for praising a ludicrous idea that an all seeing being has control over everyone’s life. I just accept it and move on because that might be the only thing that keeps them from falling apart.

Put there is always one thought that hasn’t changed since I was a hateful atheist and that is when people tell me that “everything has a purpose” and “god sees everything” I just get mad.

Not everything has a purpose! Bad things happen to good people because that how life just is. My grandfather was the best man I knew, he would help everyone out without asking anything in return. He would give his own food away to feed someone else who needed it more, and yet he suffered a very painful death through cancer. That just one example of why I hate that saying because it’s personal to me.

What about children that get cancer or a terminal illness? What was their purpose? Why do those innocent children have to be a lesson while suffering so much? That’s just cruel and fucked up if there is a god.

The same goes to the saying “god sees everything” well if that’s true then, he chooses to ignore many bad things. What about people suffering all over the world from famine, plagues, and wars? Are they just not “part of your plan”? Why make them suffer? My make people starve to death, my make children see their own parents die through acts of war? For character development? Get the fuck out of here!

This might be to irrational but I never stopped hating those phrases and probably will for the rest of my life.

What’s a religious phrase you don’t like?

[millievfence]

Everything I’ve Done For You That You Didn’t Ask For

Here’s a reddit thread about a woman who left her dojo and got a really negative reaction. On one hand, the dojo’s reaction is indeed insane, convincing her to come back and stay back when she didn’t want to, and shaming her for not. On the other hand, something is bothering me about the reddit comments.

Let’s take an example. Here’s from the OP:

Kevin said I was a dickhead who didn't have the courtesy to come down and say goodbye to the people who cared about me, that I thought 'so little' of them to suggest we were colleagues and not friends, he had showed my FB convo to James and the owner, who 'were disgusted', and that he 'knew I was going to spread rumors about the club being manipulative and cult-like'. He said "Oh she thinks we don't care about her at all, thinks we didn't like her or see her as a friend, is she trying to get me to feel sorry for her?"

Again, that tone and insults and sense of entitlement are not okay. But the comments are acting like the feelings behind them are completely illegitimate. OP describes senior students attending her shows and supporting her through a mental health crisis (which upon her quitting they describe as “emotional bullshit”, another not okay thing). I would be hurt if I did all those things for a friend and then she just disappeared. I would express that as sadness and not entitlement, and the dojo people should have done that too, but it’s not an illegitimate feeling. I don’t think reddit is parsing the difference between the feelings and the expression.

I was discussing future plans with my boyfriend, in particular the idea of us working together. I’ve always been very for that on side projects but very trepidatious on main projects, because of the potential fallout if things go bad. He advanced the theory that if you do it right the expected value of these kinds of collaboration is quite high, but society pays for the fallout more than they benefit from the gains, and so takes a hard line against them. I’m not totally ready to endorse this theory, but I do think it’s pointing at something real, and that it’s related to my discomfort with the reddit thread.

If you don’t believe in obligations to people, then you dramatically cut down on the investments people will make in one another. You can argue that it shouldn’t, that people should give freely out of the goodness of their hearts with no thought of return, but that’s dumb.  You shouldn’t expect to be paid back necessarily, but expecting acknowledgement seems fair to me, in the sense that you can feel hurt if you don’t get it (which doesn’t entitle you to be an asshole about it).

I once had a friendship with a fairly lopsided favor ratio, because of who each of us was and our stages in life. I was totally fine with that. Then an opportunity arose for the friend to help me move. It wasn’t dire, I had enough people, although in that range where more people would still have been helpful. But she had D&D that day, and didn’t want to cancel, so she didn’t help. I don’t think she offered some other moving help like cleaning or set up either, although it’s possible I was fixated on moving day and she did. I felt really hurt by the lack of help, and that the reason given was recreation. I hadn’t given her the help on the assumption of repayment, but it was kind of on the assumption that she would if she could (in part because she was always talking about the imbalance and how she wished she could help me like I helped her). And when I found out she wouldn’t, we drifted apart quite rapidly.

On the other hand, I really don’t believe in obligations you didn’t agree to. I hadn’t told that friend my emotional support was contingent on her one day helping me move, and she had every right not to help me.

There are really good reasons to keep things clean and not befriend co-workers and not date your roommates and go to a commercial dojo that doesn’t care if or how you quit. But something is lost when you do/don’t do those things. It means spending 40+ hours a week around people you’re meh on, which is not what your monkey brain was built for. It means your emotional support comes from a very narrow band of people who are increasingly hard to find as you age. It pushes marriage into being shared consumption rather than shared production. It lowers the ceiling on what you can build.

(dating your roommate is still stupid though. If you’re so sure they’re the love of your life, move).

The dojo didn’t handle their hurt well, at all. And I can see scenarios where they have no right to be hurt (perhaps they didn’t support OP as much as they remember, perhaps she gave more back than they’re giving her credit for). But I can also see situations where the hurt would be valid. And denying that pain makes the world distant and sterile.

I just don’t think we were meant to live the way we are right now.