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fluffyblaire · 4 years ago

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why can’t Hawks refuse?

‼️MANGA SPOILERS‼️

Tootooroo~ 🎺Buckle up, folks, it’s time for a Hawks character analysis!

Today, we’re going to talk about what kind of person Keigo is, how Keigo reconciles with Hawks, how much of the HPSC is inside of Hawks and how all of that comes together to answer the question: “why can’t Hawks refuse?”

Section I: Keigo

Looking at Keigo as a grown up, it can be hard to tell which of his actions are natural to him and which ones are a result of the HPSC’s upbringing. However, there is one place where we can see what kind of person Keigo is at the very core, before the HPSC or any other major societal institution touched him.

Exhibit A: “Top heroes have stories about them from their school days. Most of their stories have one thing in common: their bodies moved before they had a chance to think.” —All Might

When Keigo was a kid, he saved this entire family. This is his origin story, the story “from [his] school days” if he had gone to school, the story where “[his] body moved before [he] had a chance to think.” As a child, he saved a family from a disaster, and that should tell you a lot more about his character other than just that he was a very physically capable boy.

Keigo has the heart of a true hero, and he had it long before hero society’s influence reached him. He didn’t need the society around him to tell him to be selfless. He didn’t need the media broadcasting heroics every day to tell him helping people is good. He just does. He lived in the slums and if anything, his environment and thief relative would have taught him the opposite: be selfish, that’s how you survive. But he’s not like that. He gives and gives and doesn’t even stick around for recognition.

This is who Takami Keigo is and while he will lose and gain layers of personality after the Commission recruits him, the core motivations, values, and emotions that compelled him to save this family do not change.

Section II: Hawks

After the HPSC recruits Keigo, Keigo’s heroic heart begins to blend with the tools and habits the HPSC gives him. Keigo, combined with the Commission’s training, becomes Hawks.

Now, what did the HPSC do to Keigo? I don’t think they physically or emotionally abused him for years—at least not in the conventional sense. If that were the case, I believe we would have gotten the details by now. I do think that Keigo must have suffered and that he was taken advantage of by the adults around him in a very strategic and unethical way. Let’s look at all the things I can dissect about Keigo’s upbringing by the Commission.

Exhibit B: “My back just ain’t broad enough to put the people at ease.” —Hawks

The first thing to note is that baby Keigo had big dreams when he was first recruited.

He wanted to be a shiny hero the likes of Endeavor but when we meet Hawks, one of the first major character depth details we find out about him is that he thinks his own back isn’t enough.

Sometime between when he agreed to the HPSC’s training and when he became the No.2 hero, something in Keigo died. A dream died, and he has accepted that he cannot be like his childhood hero. Comparing himself to Endeavor, Hawks thinks himself inferior in more ways than just power stats.

Keigo knows there is a disconnect between what he wanted to be and what he actually became, but he also knows his role well and still tries his best with it even though it isn’t the one he thought he had been promised when the HPSC recruited him. He is unsatisfied but he still does his best. Why? Because after all these years, the kid who flew straight into an automobile disaster to save an entire family is still there underneath the Commission’s manufactured hero.

He still wants to protect people who can’t protect themselves; his dissatisfaction with how he achieves that didn’t dampen that spirit. This is why he works his ass off but still seems discontent with himself. His role may not be his ideal one but through it, he can protect people, and that’s enough for him to keep doing his best.

Exhibit C: “A special program... to become a special hero.” —Unknown

The second thing to bring up is that if the Commission did not make Hawks like his role model, what did they make him?

Keigo just wanted to be a flashy hero that saves people from bad guys. A very simple, honest type of hero. The Commission did give him the skills for that, but they also gave him skills that a simple, honest hero should never need: espionage, acting, lying, manipulation, and who knows what else.

Hawks’ hero education was not the same education the UA kids are getting. In this panel, Hawks narrates as if his “negotiation skills” were a convenient coincidence, but come on. What straight forward, honest hero (like All Might, Endeavor, Miruko—you get the type) would need social manipulation skills? The HPSC knew what they were doing when they selected Hawks’ curriculum, and the material came in handy at last when they assigned him this mission that a simple, honest hero should never have to take on. The HPSC never intended to turn Hawks into a simple, honest hero; they wanted to turn him into a hyper-competent soldier to whom they can assign the hardest, dirtiest work that no ordinary hero would be willing to do.

Judging by the way he joked about the HPSC’s “proposal,” I am led to believe that Hawks is used to his own feelings and concerns not mattering. People, especially children, do not naturally accept that their wants don’t matter, so what does this tell you about how Hawks was raised?

Exhibit D: My Hero Academia ED7

The third thing I need to talk about is this photo. I think one look at this photo of Keigo from ED7 should tell you something was off with his childhood even after he was taken in by the Commission.

Out of all the photos Bones could have shown of baby Keigo, they chose a photo of him in a hospital gown, blindfolded, surrounded by nameless, faceless men in suits with a chain-linked fence in the background of a cold metal training facility. If you look too quickly, you’d think his hands were tied in front of him because of the way his posture and pose is drawn.

This photo choice alone is enough to submit to me that something unethical was going on when the Commission picked Keigo up, and Horikoshi and the producers of the anime want us to read it as unethical. We are meant to read Hawks as a victim here, but we are given no indication in the story that Hawks thinks of himself as a victim. Once again, I am led to believe that he is accustomed to his own feelings not mattering in the grand scheme of things. He has no expectations of being treated more considerately, so he does not view himself as a victim of anything.

Exhibit E: Lonely Birdie

The fourth thing I want to bring up is Hawks’ lack of human connections. The Commission talked as if he had a family when they picked him up, but there’s no mention of that family when we see Hawks as a pro. He leaves his sidekicks behind. He has a professional, frosty relationship with the HPSC, the people who raised him from childhood. He has no one who is a friend close enough that the question of his civilian name would have even come up. The colleague he trusted most with info on his PLF infiltration was Endeavor who he’d only know in person for a few months.

Hawks can be very likable; his approval rating is high and the common folk love him. He is also very perceptive of and constantly thinking of others. And yet he has no close human connections, and the only explanation I can think of for this is that he distances himself from others either consciously or subconsciously.

This tells me either Keigo had no chances/time to seek out human connections on his own as he grew up or he was discouraged from forming those connections altogether. In either case, I doubt he was shown much affection during his training. He was not treated as if a child adopted into a family; he was treated as a new recruit to be guided and whipped into shape. A lack of human relationships while growing up likely led to his lack of relationships as an adult.

Exhibit F: Guilty Birdie

The fifth thing to note is that Hawks blames himself for anything that is not swift, decisive success. He always moves like he’s running out of time and thinks like he must do everything on his own.

This mindset is very self-destructive and the consistency with which he repeatedly monologues lines like “think of the citizens/think of Japan/if only you did X” tells me this mindset was something that was drilled into him from the outside. These don’t sound like things you would monologue to yourself to psych yourself up. These sound like things a trainer or coach would tell you repeatedly in order to guilt you into working harder.

Section III: Why Can’t Hawks Refuse?

Accepting that his own feelings don’t matter, distancing himself from others, using guilt to push himself, etc.—I think these are small habits the HPSC strategically instilled in Hawks through his environment as they raised him. The HPSC had an agenda while raising Hawks, but it’s nothing as dramatic as brainwashing. Instead, the Commission focused on building small and seemingly harmless habits like the ones I’ve noted. These habits can be positive if applied correctly but instead, over the years, they’ve subtly broken down Hawks’ sense of self-love and made him a slave to his own heroic heart.

His own feelings don’t matter when it comes to fulfilling his role, so Hawks will never refuse a mission just because he doesn’t like it. He habitually guilts himself with a reminder of who he is doing everything for—the people—so he’ll always work hard and fast. He distances himself from others, so no one will ever get close enough to him to teach him his human value and change his habits. Take these tendencies and make them second nature to a man whose heart is far too giving, and it’s not hard to see how the Commission trapped Hawks without having to actually trap him.

I don’t think the HPSC is doing anything dark like threatening/blackmailing Hawks. They don’t need to. Hawks can’t refuse their request because, deep down, he is simply too kind. If he is given a chance to save people, he won’t let himself abandon the opportunity. If he can take the burden of a dirty job off of someone else’s shoulders, he will.

Keigo wasn’t a good hero candidate just because of his Quirk. His nature is too kind, especially to those he doesn’t know, and the Commission saw it from the beginning and took advantage of it. They don’t have to brainwash or leash him. All they had to do was teach him some self-destructive but seemingly heroic habits and those along with Keigo’s innate selflessness are more than enough to keep him focused on his role and unable to flat-out say no to the Commission.

Exhibit G: The Diamond

Lastly, let’s talk about how the diamond on Hawks’ hero costume matches the diamond on the HPSC building. It’s subtle, but I think it means something. It’s subtle just as the HPSC’s influence on Hawks is subtle in the form of small personal habits. The habits the HPSC strategically fostered in Hawks won’t disappear just because he has his own agency now and can carry his career alone. The diamond on Hawks’ chest is like a brand. Once property of the HPSC, always property of the HPSC even in the smallest ways.

In conclusion: If the HPSC wanted to indoctrinate Hawks, they could’ve easily done it, and the Hawks we know today who is skeptical of the HPSC and who observed that a villain could be a good person would not exist. Instead, the Commission knew they could make him independent (therefore, low maintenance) and easy to order around when needed if they went the subtler route: shaping not his values, moral code, or motivations but his internal habits. It’s sneaky, it’s shady, it’s unethical, but it’s kind of brilliant.

#does this make any sense at all people #i spent too long on this #the effort i put in for this boy #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #bnha hawks #hawks #takami keigo #mha hawks #blaire's delusions

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ghostiewriter · 4 years ago

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meet james maybank | character inspection

This is an insight into James Maybank, a character commonly used within my outer bank fanfictions. He’s portrayed as JJ and Kiara’s firstborn and eldest son. This is just to give you an idea on what he’s like rather than having to explain in each one-shot he shows up in!

James Maybank is the eldest child and first son to JJ and Kiara, in the little second generation I’ve created. The couple had him when they were twenty-three years old, he was admittedly unplanned. Most of their early 20s were spent travelling and the pregnancy with James did change their plans a little, but they loved him relentless. In fact, it gave JJ an excuse to finally convince Kie to go to a bunch of different theme parks since they had a kid and it was “basically a law” for them to do so. Yet, despite the fact he was an accident, it didn’t make him any less loved. It was nerve-wracking, he was the first venture into parenthood that the couple had ever had but James was also just the perfect little mix of his parents (whether that made the situation better or worse is debatable).

The name James was chosen by JJ, a little nod of respect to his mother (something that will be explained further in a certain one shot). He was the perfect little summer baby, born on 31st July, smack middle of summer. Despite being born at peak summer time, James isn’t the surfer boy you’d expect him to be. He loved the beach, don’t get me wrong. He enjoyed all the memories he had growing up, learning how to surf and building sandcastles with his little siblings but much to JJ’s disappointment, James wasn’t much of a surfing fan.

But where JJ’s love for the ocean lacked in his eldest son, his skill and interest in mechanics did not. Ever since he was a young child, James had the oddest fascinations with cars. Maybe it started from JJ taking him to work on the few days Kie would be on the mainland for her own work or maybe it was because he grew up watching old episodes of Top Gear, but James Maybank became a motorhead. The second he was old enough, he would be at his father’s side, oil and grease on his hands as he learnt everything he could. It started as a hyper-fixation and ended up being a passion. And just like his mother, James has a bit of a ‘do it yourself’ attitude. He is stubborn as hell, so when he was young and his grandparents (mostly Anna Carrera) was openly against his fascination and passion to be a mechanic, well you can guess how much it fuelled him to pursue this career further.

Like mentioned above, he is a healthy mix of his parents but maybe the combination is more dangerous. Whilst he has the wit and quick-thinking of his mother, the boy has the schemer ways and knack for trouble just like his father has. Again, a dangerous combination. James is a charmer, he has a way with words that just traps people in and make them want to be around him. He is a natural extrovert, a social butterfly if you will. You can throw him in a room with anybody and he would come out of it with new friends, it’s just the way James is. Even as a child, he just seemed to hold a charm over people that could not be explained.

Though, sometimes it can be mistake for arrogance and this is where the trouble slips in. James is a very self-aware person. He knows that he is a good-looking guy, he is quite intelligent and a bit of a natural flirt. But by god does it make his ego unbearable at times. Kiara claims this is something he gets from his father, but James seems to have an issue in letting his mouth run sometimes and it gets him into trouble with others. He is a friendly, flirty guy—you can imagine how many times he might have accidentally spoken to the wrong person and how many times he has realised his charming words won’t get him out of a fight with a very pissed off significant other (James seems to have a habit of flirting with people that are already taken, again not on purpose but more just because he can’t help it). His ego is definitely one of his fatal flaws that will come to bite him in the ass later on.

Despite this, James is one of the most loyal people you can ever have in your life. As a brother, as a friend, as a son. This boy is just the epitome of blind loyalty. Once you are in his life, you are under the protection of James Maybank, I don’t make the rules. The people he cares about mean the world to him, and though he may have a lot of friends, his inner circle is smaller than you would think. These are the people he can let loose around, not worry about reputation or appearance. He can be his usual loveable but goofy self. James thrives on making people smile and laugh, especially those in his inner circle. So although he may be an egotistical bastard at times, he can be quite the sweetheart too.

There are a lot of relationships to go through so I’ll focus on the main ones in James’s life. The main one being his relationship with his parents. Much to Kiara’s dismay, James is a daddy’s boy. Since he could crawl, he would always be at his father’s side. It was nerve-wracking for JJ considering his fears of fatherhood and walking into the unknown, but he was the best dad you could ever think of. James has a very healthy relationship with his parents, a very open one too. He has grown up in an environment that he knows is a safe place and wouldn’t be judged so there was very little he had to hide from his parents. Plus the fact they were a part of an illegal heist when they were his age does help him get away with quite a lot of stuff. James was a bit of a tester though, considering he was the first child and his parents were only 23 when they had him, but it did mean that everyone was learning together. With his short temper (courtesy of his father), James can get quite heated in argument very quickly which was a pain during his early teen years, but after reaching that eventual maturity, his relationship with his parents was a breeze.

His relationship with each of his siblings is quite different. He probably gets on the easiest with Gabriel, purely because his younger brother is a fairly chilled guy and avoids conflict as much as he can. Gabriel tends to be the first person James would go to whenever he needs to rant or get advise (his younger brother is oddly wise) and he tries to be the same.

Whereas, James’s relationship with the other twin is much more complicated. James and Zack are similar in many ways and that tends to be the problem. Both hot-headed and stubborn, they tend to clash and bicker the most. Deep down, James knows he would do anything for his brother but that doesn’t take away from the fact his youngest brother can be a right pain in his ass at some points.

Now James is an overprotective bastard, this can be seen by anyone. But his overbearing ass is definitely the strongest when it comes to his little sister Elliot. He promptly chooses to ignore the fact she could kick everyone’s ass and plays the part of ‘protective big brother’ as a badge of honour. She learnt quite quickly to just let him play his part, and though it can be irritating at some points, it means he cares so Elliot doesn’t mind too much. James just sees all his younger siblings as his responsibility to keep as happy and protected as he can. He loves his siblings, he would do anything for them just as they would for him.

The second generation of pogues are a big bunch and whilst James is friendly with most of them (maybe going as far as considering them to be his siblings too) his best friend is most definitely Charlotte Routledge. Being the first kids in the group, it was hard for James to not be around Charlie most of his life. She was born a couple of months after he was and a lot of their childhood photos are proof that the two of them were rarely seen without each other. Charlie is like a sister to him, someone he would trust with his life. She probably knows him better than she knows herself, and vice versa. One would very rarely be seen without the other growing up, and they became quite the troublesome duo. However, Charlie is also one of the few people that isn’t afraid to put James in his place. He can be cocky and arrogant and she is happy to knock him down a few notches. She is the slap of reality in his life (something James quite often needs) and after so many years of friendship, she soon learnt to help him avoid trouble by scheming with him rather than trying to stop him. Charlie Routledge is one of the most important people in his life, just like her father was to his own.

Now, the last important relationship I should tell you about is with Clover Martelle. Depending on who you ask, the view of their relationship can be very different. For Clover, James is nothing but an arrogant asshole who always gets what he wants. To James, Clover is the best thing to ever walk this earth. It’s a long story for these two, a long history that goes back all the way to their first day of school together. You could jokingly say that James is his father’s son, falling for a stubborn girl who happily put him in his place and resisted the charming smile he gave everyone else. But that is just what James loves about her. She is beautiful, but James fell for so much more than that. She was strong and kind and stood up for what she believed in. Little James Maybank has been whipped since he was 5 years old. Their story and Clover’s eventual realisation that his feelings are requited is one that will eventually be explored.

Physically, James is healthy and fit. Except for the fact he had to be kept in hospital for an extra few days after he was born. But in every other aspect, he is generally quite normal and well. The only thing that he does need aid for is his eyesight. Since he was around 4 years old, James has always worn glasses. He wears glasses because he has a “lazy eye” (medically known as amblyopia) which just means one eye is weaker than the other. In James’s case, it is his left eye. Glasses were a bit of a menace for him as a child, he hated it and usually did his best to avoid wearing them. But by the age of 8, he had grown up a bit and accepted his glasses and he has never really had an issue with them since. Growing up with his parents being Potterheads, James distinguishably has worn round glasses like the main protagonist since he had first watched the movies. It helped a lot with his confidence to wear them.

Mentally, James’s health is also quite good. Like mentioned earlier, growing up in an open environment where you were aware that you could talk to your parents and not be judged really did help. He has always been open with his feelings and thoughts, always been given healthy solutions to deal with his issues. The fact that his parents respect his privacy and space and give James the time he needs to open up is also a big help. Like his father, he can sometimes get lost in his own head and use other things to distract him but he will eventually talk to someone about what is bothering him—whether that be his parents, his siblings or his friends. He knows he will always have someone there for him.

JJ and Kiara had no plans to settle down anytime soon. They were young and adventurous and had the whole world at their feet. It was no surprise to anyone that the second they graduated, they hopped on a plane and visited all the places they only dreamed of going. They would go back and forth between a new place and returning home for a few weeks to visit the other pogues, and have a few dinners with the Carreras to keep Anna happy. It just so happened that during one of their trips back to the island, there was a massive rager at the Boneyard for Halloween. Seeing no harm in this, the couple went and had the time of their lives. Little did they know that one little night would change their lives.

James wasn’t planned or necessarily expected at least for a couple of years. Unlike John B and Sarah who had a wedding pretty soon after they graduated, JJ and Kiara saw no rush in doing so. They had all the time in the world. However, a wrench was thrown into their plans when that positive pregnancy test showed up in their lives. Despite the fear and uncertainty the couple shared on the path of parenthood, they decided to keep the baby and venture forward with this unexpected path. It became one of the best decisions in their lives.

James was the sweetest young boy, a healthy mix of his parents both in attitude and in appearance. He was energetic and bubbly and charming. He loved people and loved making new friends. He was also the catalyst to the large family the young couple would have.

James knows of his parents’ background, where the two of them came from and how they got to the place they are now. In classic JJ fashion, of course his son follows through in the teasing and mocking of the other kooks. To keep Anna happy, they would attend the odd party here or there at the country club and James would do everything in his power to seem like the most charming man and simultaneously the kook parents worst nightmare. James is protective of his family, and knowing how they treated his father, he doesn’t plan on giving them the time of day to get under his skin.

Being the eldest, he also feels as though he holds a responsibility over his siblings to be a role model. Unfortunately, his big mouth can get him into a lot of trouble and usually it’s one of his siblings that will be helping him out of trouble. He’s a prankster, he can’t help it. He always has something up his sleeve, and this just so happens to be the exact thing that gets him on Clover’s bad list the first time they meet.

His relationship—or lack thereof—with Clover Martelle began when young James Maybank decided it would be hilarious to put gum on one of the chairs in the classroom. That chair just so happened to belong to Clover who did not find it very funny and in retaliation humiliated him in front of the class by doing the same back to him. It was the day James Maybank became absolutely whipped for her.

She was the person all the kook bastards thought they were entitled to tell him to stay away from. Even Clover herself made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be near James but that didn’t stop him. And eventually, years of pining and being like a love-sick puppy would finally blossom into a beautiful relationship between the two—but not without its hardships and bumps in the road (but you’ll just have to stay tuned to see how their story plays out!).

Being the oldest means that James is also the first to go through everything, including school. He knew pretty early on that he wanted to be a mechanic, his love for cars and motorcycles and boats proved this passion this further. In fact, by the age of 16, he had managed to build his own motorbike along with the help of his father and it’s his most prized possession and greatest accomplishment to this day.

James is a fairly laid back guy, he doesn’t like to plan too much into the future or dwindle on what is going to happen. He is definitely more of a “go with the flow” type of guy and that perfectly describes his outlook on life. Though his arrogance may be his fatal flaw, it also fuels the confidence that makes James who is and it’s a part of him you will grow to love.

#character inspiration #james maybank #outer banks fanfiction #second generation pogues

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theschizoidblog · 4 years ago

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Snape, the Schizoid

Blog 4: 30/07/2020

While I usually write about how Schizoid personality disorder affects me, I think there’s a lot to be learned from drawing comparisons to fictional characters. In fact, before I got my diagnosis, I was writing fanfiction in which I poured very large portions of my soul and very being, often without realizing I wasn’t really writing about other characters, but I was exploring my own inner self. I loved writing about outcasts, about recluses and sometimes I didn’t know if I just was in a sort of love with the characters I wrote about, or if they were me.

At the age of 18, we’re talking about 2001 here, I got into Harry Potter. And with that I mean: I got into Severus Snape. Described as an ugly git and a mean bastard, I still loved him to pieces. (And Alan Rickman portrayed him beautifully, RIP)

And here might be the reason why he lured me in straight away: Snape is a schizoid, like me. And that only clicked when I got my diagnosis a few months ago. 19 years after first encountering the character. And after rereading some of my own fanfictions, I started realizing that what I’d described as Snape’s problems and needs in those stories, were my own. Strange how that works!

In this blog, I’m going to run over some traits of SPD (schizoid personality disorder) and explain how Snape fits into the criteria.

This post serves three purposes:

To people who have no idea what schizoid personality disorder is, this is a means to familiarize yourself with the disorder by exploring the traits while you imagine a character you already know.

To people with schizoid personality disorder, this is just meant to be a fun little blog where maybe you can recognize some traits of yourself. No worries, I have not forgotten we’re all on a spectrum and each schizoid is different.

To fans of the Harry Potter novels, I hope that you come to realize that people can identify with flawed characters for very personal reasons. Don’t be mean to fictional characters (unless they’re Umbridge I guess XD), because you never know who identifies with them. Your rejection of a character can feel like the rejection of a person who struggles with the same things. Anti-culture, in all fandoms, has to end. It’s not adult. It’s not wise. It’s mean. It’s exhausting.

I also feel like I need to make a statement about JK Rowling’s intent: I doubt she knew what SPD was when she wrote Snape. She said she based him off of one of her old teachers – no idea if that man had SPD or was just generally unpleasant. The way that Snape matches SPD is eerie though, just like Luna matches schizotypal personality disorder rather well. (More on that later.) An actual psychologist might disagree with me and say “No he’s not schizoid because….” – and hell, I’d love to hear it. I don’t mind it if this post, written by a schizoid but not a psychologist, starts a discussion that will help people understand the disorder even better, even if I’m wrong in assessing Snape. Or if we can learn to understand Snape better because of me being wrong, that’s also a win-win situation.

Ready? Let’s dive into it!

Cause

SPD is said to be caused by a combination of genetics and environment – as is the case with many other personality disorders. But ask around in schizoid groups, and most will tell you that there were issues in childhood with abuse, lack of warmth or understanding at home, or the presence of a “bad parent”. According to webmd: “Some professionals speculate that a bleak childhood where warmth and emotion were absent contributes to the development of the disorder.”

We all know that Snape’s early childhood was not a happy one. He had an abusive muggle father and grew up at Spinner’s End, the opposite of what you could consider a happy childhood home.

When you grow up in a loveless home, it ruins a lot of your own enjoyment of life. You get trust issues, you become awkward, and so when Snape finally arrives at Hogwarts, he gets bullied. He’s already rather isolated (he only had Lily), and they picked on him because kids can sniff out weaknesses and he was an easy target.

The bullying did nothing to stop the disorder from developing further. Many schizoids have gone through bullying themselves, and it does nothing to help you grow closer to human beings as you get older, quite the opposite, a bond of trust is broken and it’s incredibly hard to heal that. You’ll be suspicious of everyone you meet once that sort of thing happens. The more bullying you receive, the more you hate the world as you grow up. Maybe that’s not true for all people or all schizoids, but I bet some can relate.

You might say: “But Harry also got bullied at the Dursleys and he turned out fine!” Well, I guess he did. That’s the thing with many heroes – their tragic backstories make them poster boys of “look what they overcame and how he saved the world!” – but it’s not that realistic, and if you’ve got a genetic predisposition to develop a personality disorder instead, you’re screwed. Let’s also not forget that Harry’s first year in life was a very loving one. The very first year in a child’s life is crucial, and if things go wrong in early childhood, that leaves scars that most people carry with them for the rest of their lives. Snape never had that steady sort of home, not even for one year, or if he did, there’s nothing to indicate he did.

Diagnosis Criteria

Okay, time to get digging! According to the DSM-V, you need to display at least four symptoms in order to be diagnosed with SPD. Also keep in mind that these traits need to be present for longer than just a few months or a year or so. You might recognize some of these traits as something you’ve gone through yourself if you’ve ever been depressed – it’s when these traits last for what seems like your entire adult life, that a diagnosis with the disorder can be made. (I’m also not familiar with every other trait of every other disorder in the DSM-V, so as I stated in the beginning, it’s possible that other personality disorders are even more fitting of Snape, but that I just don’t know them yet.)

The seven criteria are:

Lack of desire or enjoyment for close personal relationships

Always chooses solitary activities

Little or no interest in sex with other people

Experiences little pleasure from activities

No close friends other than immediate family

Indifference to criticism or praise

Emotional detachment and lack of emotional expression

➤ Emotional detachment and lack of emotional expression

While this is usually at the bottom of the list, I want to put it on top. This is what they also call “flat affect”. You can give us a present, and it might seem like we’re not truly grateful. We may laugh with a joke, but the light never reaches our eyes. Emotionally, it doesn’t seem to an outsider like there’s a lot going on, and if it is, it’s going on so deeply within our souls we’re hardly aware of it ourselves. Think of Snape’s monotonous voice when talking. Now Alan Rickman is a brilliant actor and emotes with very very small signs sometimes, and it’s not like when talking to me, you’re talking to a wall. (But my empathic mask makes me appear rather normal to most folks.) (I don’t think Snape has a mask like that.) Other characters that have schizoid traits are, for example, Mai from Avatar the Last Airbender or Geralt of Rivia from the Witcher. If you know and visualize these characters, you may understand better what I mean with the “lack of emotional expression” then. Also, Snape being a great Occlumens? It’s because he’s the reigning champion in suppressing his emotions, like all schizoids are. We would make wonderful Occlumens, I think. XD Snape being mean? Not all schizoids have a good amount of empathy, they’re too emotionally detached for that. (Others are very empathic to some causes, but might be picky in what they are empathic about. For example: they can be empathic towards animal cruelty and Black Lives Matter, but don’t give a shit about other causes.)

A lack of empathy is what makes plenty of people an easy prey to fascists. Without empathy, what moral compass is going to stop you from becoming a bigot? (And I also want to state that within the disorder you’ll probably find people of all political leanings – many schizoids also seem to have a thing for the underdog, and thus seem to often lean towards the left instead of the right side of the political spectrum. But as with ‘regular’ people, you’ll find people swing both ways.) But here, in Snape’s case, his hatred for his bullies and his father (a muggle) pushed him right into the Death Eater’s arms, and they were glad to welcome a man of his skill, maybe even giving him the illusion, for a while, that he had found a new family. It didn’t last, and eventually his eyes opened to what the Death Eater’s really were. He was too young and naïve to see what they wanted of him (and the one person he loved), and it basically ruined his life. He was a teenage fool, and after losing Lily’s friendship, he had no one left to keep him out of that bad group of friends.

➤ Lack of desire or enjoyment for close personal relationships

Does Snape strike you as the social type that’s trying to make new friends all the time? Have you ever seen the man enjoy the company of another character in the books? Not just tolerate, not just need, but ‘enjoy’? Even when it comes to Lucius or Karkarov, it seems he is just keeping an eye on them, observing them rather than offering true friendship.

Maybe McGonagall might be an exception. He seems amiable towards her, in a competitive way. He might get a kick out of their arguing. She’s certainly an intelligent woman so he might enjoy her company for intellectual reasons.

➤ Always chooses solitary activities

We see Snape engage in a few activities at Hogwarts, such as going to Quidditch matches, or being present at the Yule Ball. Death Eater meetings and gatherings in the staff room might be social activities, but let’s not pretend Snape has a lot to say about whether he attends those or not. As a teen he already excels at potions, a solitary activity, and when we are given a glimpse of his “summer” lifestyle at Spinner’s End in Half-Blood Prince, he’s just reading. He certainly doesn’t entertain a crowd in his spare time, like, for example, Slughorn does.

➤ Little or no interest in sex with other people

I hear you coming now. “BUT LILY!” Schizoids are often asexual, but not necessarily sex-aversive. When asking around in a schizoid group, about a third of the schizoids seem to be in relationships or are even married, perhaps even more. And many of the others have had sexual relationships in the past. Many have tried to make relationships work, only to realize at a later point that that sort of life was not for them and that they would never be truly happy in a relationship. Other schizoids are happy in relationships – so it exists! It’s not impossible! (Remember: you need 4/7 traits, not 7/7 to be schizoid.) Also keep in mind, if Snape really was interested in sex, why would he pine after a dead woman for 16 years? He’d be over her way sooner and into someone else’s pants way sooner too. Lily was the first person in his life that gave him any kind of warmth, so him pining after her is not strange or inexplicable behavior. She offered what he craved, what he lacked, and he mourned her for the rest of his life, because he feared no one would ever give him that warmth. (And he kind of turned that into a self-fulfilling prophecy by being such a recluse.) He dreamed of love, but we have no idea what it would have been like had he actually ever had his affections returned. Maybe he’d have enjoyed a relationship with her for a long while and she would have been the only person he could have tolerated, or maybe after a year or so he would have thought “this is suffocating” and ended the relationship.

➤ Experiences little pleasure from activities

Can you recall Snape laughing in any scene? Smiling, even? I can imagine him to feel rather content when brewing potions or studying the dark arts, and he does have passion for what he does. But to a schizoid, passion and pleasure are not necessarily the same. We experience emotions differently. In some ways we don’t experience them at all, in other ways, we might feel like there’s a wall around our emotions, and we have no idea how to get over that wall and check what the currently active emotion is. But with logic, we can determine “I guess I’m happy now that I’m doing this thing I like doing.” Intellectual pursuits are fun too – like solving a puzzle, it gives a little boost of dopamine when you make it to the next level, so it’s not surprising he excels at Potions.

➤ No close friends other than immediate family

Basically, Snape only really had Dumbledore, and that bastard only used him to win the war. (I have beef with old Dumbledore, okay?) But Snape confided in Dumbledore, and the other way around, and so I think it’s safe to say that there was a true friendship between the two. When Dumbledore died, Snape was truly alone. (Which is incredibly tragic and heartbreaking when you think about it – in the last year of his life, Snape had no one, really no one, as he tried to keep Hogwarts ‘safe’ and eventually died. And everyone hated him for killing Dumbledore, not knowing the truth about his allegiance. Everyone who had once spoken kindly to him, like the other professors at Hogwarts, now considered him arch enemy #2, behind Voldemort.)

➤ Indifference to criticism or praise

Compliment or insult a schizoid, and it’s not like they won’t give any response at all. They might say “thank you” or they might get a little defensive about the insult, but they won’t always lose a lot of sleep over it. It kind of depends on who the praise or criticism is coming from. I can imagine that it did mean something to him if it came from Dumbledore, whom he cared about. I don’t think it meant anything to him what his students thought of him, since he didn’t give a personal level of shit about them. There’s also a moment where Umbridge shrieks “You are on probation!” and it’s described as “Snape looked back at her, his eyebrows slightly raised.” Then she says that she expected better after how highly Lucius Malfoy always speaks of him and she dismisses him. Snape then gives her “an ironic bow” – he really doesn’t give a rat’s ass and I love him for it.

These are the 7 criteria that you need to fit 4 of to be diagnosed with SPD – I managed to link all 7 to Snape – so I think it’s not unlikely that Snape is truly a schizoid. Now, for the next part I would like to highlight some other comorbidities which many schizoids also have, that seem to appear in Snape as well.

Comorbidities

➤ Depression In about half of all schizoid patients, depression is or has been present. How do you notice that in Snape? The greasy hair, among other things. Bad teeth. Always wearing the same outfit. If you’ve ever suffered from a bad depression, you know how difficult it suddenly becomes to shower at a regular interval, how you can go days without brushing your teeth, how wearing comfortable clothing is more important than looking fashionable – how it is absolutely meaningless to look fashionable because who the fuck cares anyways. Snape doesn’t seem to give a hoot about himself or his appearance, which strikes me as a sign of depression. And what does he have to be happy about? He knows Voldemort is going to return and he’ll have a cursed job as a double-spy. He knows he’s probably going to die. I wouldn’t be happy either.

➤ Anger Outbursts/PTSD Not all schizoids have this, but it’s something I have myself and which I’ve written about extensively in one of my previous blog posts. I look at it as a way of my inner self breaking down the walls and coming out to say “I know that I’ve been quiet for the past 37 years but what the fuck I’m really angry about this and have been for a while and I’m not going to contain it any longer” – and then the anger comes out disproportionately. It’s hard to impossible to really control such an outburst. And often, there is a very obvious cause to the outburst. Sometimes it’s PTSD related. For Snape, while he does not emote often, you see a few outbursts – like when he is face to face with Sirius Black in the shrieking shack, his childhood bully. He seems mad at that moment, not at all composed anymore, the sign of a real anger outburst. (I think it’s PTSD helping that anger build.) A few moments later, he thinks he has turned in Sirius Black to the Ministry, Sirius, who he holds responsible for the death of James and Lily (and it’s especially the latter’s death he can’t cope with), so when Sirius escapes, he loses it again. Then the next time he gets really angry is when Harry enters his “worst memory”. That’s a few years later, during the Occlumency lessons. While he’s no longer shrieking, he’s white with rage. My pro tip: don’t impose on the privacy of a schizoid, we get mad. XD In Half-Blood Prince, he’s got a moment where he’s like “Don’t call me coward!”, looking ‘inhuman��. I too can get anger outbursts over false accusations, and this one must really hurt, because at that moment, he’s trying to save Harry’s freaking life while the boy is all like “lemme at you I’mma kill you like you killed Dumbledore for fun!” – Snape was probably grieving the loss of his only friend and confidant and knew he was on his own from that point onwards, and then you get this bloody teenager trying to drag you into a wizard’s duel you’re not in the mood for, calling you a coward, which is the last thing you are. Man it has to suck to be Snape. I also want to state that there are many moments when things go wrong in class, but Snape never loses his temper like that. He’s not pleasant and he punishes students, but he doesn’t get mad – he gets even. That makes it all the more interesting to analyze the moments that he does go bananas.

Random Thoughts

Before I finish this blog, there are still a few small things I’d like to get out of my system about Snape and SPD.

➤ Snape and Luna

They are my favorite characters, but also because they’re very, very alike and very, very different at the same time. Both didn’t have a great childhood (Luna lost her mother at a young age) and they get bullied as kids at Hogwarts. Snape is called Snivellus and Luna is called Looney. All the suffering they endure, affects them differently though. Snape gets meaner, Luna only seems to get nicer. I see them as two sides of the same coin. One dark, one light, both a little eccentric in their own way. When you look at it from a personality-disorder point of view, then they both have personality disorders that are related to one another. Snape has Schizoid Personality Disorder, Luna has Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Schizotypal Personality Disorder is where you’ll find a lot of eccentric people who believe in conspiracy theories. Both are class A personality disorders. Some people might even have the two personality disorders at the same time. Schizoids seem to be rooted in reality with their thoughts, schizotypals can really start believing strange things if they’re not careful, alienating them from others And, in case you’re now wondering: “So many schizo-personality disorders! Is this also schizophrenia?” No – schizophrenia is when you have delusions and hallucinations as well. Read up on those disorders if you’re interested, because these descriptions of mine are too brief and don’t do it justice.

➤ Snape was a bad teacher

Not fully, and yes, he was. I think knowledge-wise, Snape was way better at Potions than Slughorn ever was. You notice when Hermione can’t keep up in her sixth year while Harry is sailing through Potions thanks to Snape’s book. Snape’s a genius and would have been able to instruct his students to be more efficient when brewing potions. But personality wise? Don’t put a schizoid in front of a classroom. And for that, I kind of blame Dumbledore. Snape wasn’t asking for a job as a teacher, but that’s all Dumbledore had to offer, and thus he put Snape and his unwilling students in a room together where none of them wanted to be. I think Snape would have been better off as some kind of a scientist, just him and his books, inventing spells or potions. But he was not given much of a choice, and he was forced to socialize with teenagers (ew, gross), and that must have drained him terribly. It’s a wonder he was usually roaming the hallways at night because I would have been too exhausted to get out of bed. That makes you realize it’s truly a work of fiction because who on earth has that kind of stamina? :-P (No, in all seriousness it’s probably also depression at work, keeping him up.) Snape was a jerk to Harry and Neville and Hermione on various occasions, and not all of it was to “keep up appearances” to the Slytherins. He seemed to even enjoy a bit of sadism here and there. You could contemplate why he poisoned Neville’s toad. Was it just to spite poor little Neville, or was he hoping his student would perform better under pressure? (Which Neville did.. The toad didn’t die.) It’s a cruel way to teach a lesson, but I think he must have thought the end justified the means. But what a traumatic experience to Neville, who then had Snape become his greatest fear.

➤ Purity culture vs Snape

We’ve seen a shift on both Tumblr and other social media where fandom is about purity culture. Back in 2002 folks were like “We love the baddies, deal with it”, and the people that didn’t love the baddies actually dealt with it and you could joke with people who preferred the Gryffindors and just poke a little fun at one another, but it was fun fandom. But over the years I’ve seen fandom change. Nowadays you can’t even express love for Snape without someone seeing it as their moral obligation to remind you of what a “bad person he really was”. To them I can only say that I like him for his best qualities, and forgive him for his worst. And honestly, I don’t need to justify liking a character to anyone. If I want to put Umbridge-posters in every room of my apartment, are you going to stop me or call the cops on me? Purity policing is weird. Very American, too. (Though I’ve seen some Dutch folks go apeshit as well over purity concepts.) And as a Belgian I don’t have time to put up with that shit. XD And purity policing also is just nasty when you consider that some folks are like “I relate to this character” and the next person is like “THIS CHARACTER IS EVIL AND DESERVES TO DIE!” My response to that part of fandom is: “Just fuck off already, jerkface.” Personally I was heartbroken by his death, because I feel like he could have made up to the people he’d hurt, I would have loved to see relationships mended between him and McGonagall and him and Harry and such, but instead we were left with him passing on some awkward memories to Harry and then dying. (Tbh I’m not the greatest fan of his crush on Lily, but whatever, I can accept it and understand it. She was the only light he ever knew.) It’s not his fault he didn’t get to redeem himself as a character, not fully - and that’s what makes fanfiction fun. So if people want to explore that in fic, let them. A character like Snape is too much of a treasure to shove under a carpet and pretend he never existed. Write all the things about him, have him have all the adventures!

I think I’m done now! If you stuck around until now, 10 points to Slytherin or whatever house you’re from. (Probably Slytherin if you’re reading about Snape.) What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment, send an ask, or whatever!

#severus snape #snape #pro snape #schizoid #schizoid personality disorder #blog

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gatheringbones · 4 years ago

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if you're so inclined, could you talk about manipulating that disgust/revulsion response in your audience more? your posts about the way that response is used in border/confessions of the fox vs in It have been bouncing around my head for months now and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on it - particularly relating to your own writing process/advice? which has been incredibly helpful for rethinking a lot of the negativity in my own writing process so thank you btw

Revulsion is powerful, and most people obey its directives without giving it a second thought, which is why it can be an incredibly powerful tool in your arsenal when used correctly. Revulsion also plays a huge unspoken role in how people internalize and navigate a lot of queer concepts and terminology, and like I said before, a lot of people obey revulsion's directives in their interactions with the community without examining where those directives come from.

I didn't come out as a lesbian thinking butch and trans and other gender non-conforming people were beautiful; I emerged from my family environment and dominant culture hating how much my appearance and sexuality failed my standards of gender and I projected that hatred outwards in all directions. Identifying gender-aberrant flaws and gushing about them between each other was how the people in my family reassured ourselves that at least we knew the difference, that we knew how to portray gender and presentation correctly, and everyone who failed those standards was pathetic, deluded, or worst of all: trying too hard. Feeling repulsed by someone's appearance, for whatever reason, had a ready-made response programmed into my brain since earliest childhood; it was wrong, it was shameful, it was a chicken with a spot of red paint on it that all us other chickens would promptly peck to death. It's a trap.

It isolates you, and it's a weapon you think only turns outward, but that's not how it works. I came out ten years ago, but I've written before about how long it took me to take even the smallest baby steps out of my comfort zone and my mostly straight social circle, and how long it took me to start to learn even the smallest amount without thoroughly distracting myself by sorting every last shred of gay culture into the GOOD/BAD category as soon as I encountered it. Hannah Gadsby described me perfectly; I had a child's mind steeped in shame from the moment it was born and looking back at those early years all I can see is how bottomless my internalized homophobia really was.

Going to the lesbian book club helped enormously: I could read a book and deride the entire thing as repulsive incoherent trash, and then I would sit through a group of twenty adults who would gently and joyfully pick the book apart between each other over two hours and in doing so expose every single one of my blind spots one after another. My automatic responses to things that triggered my (unexamined, surface level, deeply prejudicial) thoughts on power, sexuality, and gender were terrible guides to the books we were reading, and thank god I kept attending long enough to notice it. I needed better guides; I didn't know what they would be, but I knew I was on the wrong track where I was. I was missing too much information; information that made the smarter and older people in my community get so excited and happy when they got a chance to talk about it with each other. For the first time I realized how much of an island my prissiness and prickliness and purity had put me on (and how easily everyone in that room could see through it, sigh) and all I wanted to do was start building a raft.

Did it go away? Not at first, and not quickly; I didn't much like Confessions of the Fox the first time I read it, but I didn't like Dagger: On Butch Women either, or Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. I had a very hard time with Rae Spoon's chapters in Gender Failure, and the Sex, Lies, and Penetration essay in the Persistent Desire, and now, christ, all of those works have combined to form what feels like the bedrock of my identity. I couldn't read the smut books I love so much five years ago; everything about them would have tripped too many alarm bells in my head labeled "CHEESY" or "BAD" that were really just code for "GAY." My skin crawled with every piece of wreckage or palm tree I added to my raft, but that was just a response like any other, neither more interesting or important than any others. Emotional responses are information, not commands, and I knew the difference by now. I got over it, with the side effect that I now have great sympathy for people still stuck in the same cringing territories I was, but very little patience.

But as for using it in your writing:

Confessions of the Fox is master level, so's Border.

Beginner's level? good old gross Stephen King.

He often uses the dumbest laziest shorthand for it, but apart from the times when he's accidentally inciting revulsion (every time he writes about a pre-pubescent girl, for example), he's very deliberate about when and where he uses it. Revulsion is tension, it moves you away from an element, depending on how well he sets his hooks in you he can control which direction you go.

How do you feel about Franny from the Stand after her first few chapters of putting up with Harold? How does Bobby Garfield feel about his mother's boss? How does his mother feel about Ted? How dangerous does the incunk from Lisey's Story seem when compared to the Long Boy during their encounter? How about Norman Daniels and Rose Madder? How determined must Jessie from Gerald's Game be to do that to her wrist? Why is Pennywise in the sewer, and how brave do you have to be to go down there?

How do the many consensual rituals of sacred fluids in Confessions of the Fox compare with the rituals they uncover in the hold of the ship? What does that say? Tina can't stand up to anyone in the entire movie until they suddenly shout down Vore; why, what drives them, why is it so powerful?

Revulsion is a tool, a smokescreen, a red flag you wave in front of a bull before sinking one more dart into its shoulder while it charges past. It's how you trick people, but it's also how you contextualize and contrast various story elements; watching a character put up with a revolting situation admirably makes them seem sympathetic or brave. Conversely, uncritically employing repulsive tropes (sexy children, magical Black people, magical people with Downs Syndrome, goddamnit steve) will cut the legs out from under your writing when you need them most.

#writing thoughts

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nuttyrabbit · 5 years ago

Text

Oliver the Barn Owl Bio

So a few weeks ago I made a post where I said I’d start focusing on my OCs more and that, combined with the recent redesign I got for Oliver, finally prompted me into writing something that’s been long, long overdue: an actual bio for the boy.

Before I get into it, I have to give a couple of shout-outs.

First of all, shout outs to @shinkumancer for doing this excellent redesign of Oliver. She’s come so far as an artist and character designer since his first design almost 4 years ago, and in general is just a great artist all around. Check out her stuff and buy a commission, I promise you won’t be disappointed!

The other shout out is to my absolute best friend @pidgeonspen who not only helped me put together this bio, but was instrumental in helping me figure out Oliver’s new direction and a lot of the details for the worldbuilding surrounding him. There’s so much we’ve worked on in relation to his character (as well as certain others I have yet to share) and I’m so excited to start actually sharing it and doing stuff with it, but I’m getting ahead of myself

If you got any questions, comments, feedback, criticism, whatever, feel free to shoot me an ask or DM.

With that out of the way, here it is: Oliver’s bio. As usual, everything’s under the readmore.

Name: Oliver the Barn Owl

Age: 20

Height: 3'4"

Occupation: Aspiring historian/mage. Currently wandering around Eastern Eurish/West Yurashia

Sexuality: Bi

Personality: Kind, curious, socially awkward, overly eager, gullible and naïve; Oliver really wants to do right by the people around him and help out when he can, all while striving to learn more about the world around him and find the answers he seeks.

Oliver dislikes needless violence, but is not entirely opposed to the notion of self defense. That being said, he will try to settle most situations through nonviolent means if possible, whether by taking a diplomatic approach or using his magical illusions to trick them. When he is forced to engage in combat, Oliver never aims to kill, instead seeking to subdue or render his enemies unconscious; the only exception is when he is faced with a life or death situation, and there are no other viable options left.

His naivete shines through in his quirky habits and lack of fundamental social skills, such as voice modulation, wherein he has trouble gauging the volume at which he speaks, switching from being jarringly loud to incredibly quiet. He also rambles on about what interests him, sometimes speaking so fast others may not be able to follow. He's self aware, but unsure how to fix these problems. Because of these factors, he doesn't pick up cues when he's being flirted with, as such advances can go over his head, and he's rather uneasy in crowds, at worst finding himself panicking and fleeing to a more secluded, private location.

His naivete is the root of much of his sweet, seemingly positive traits: due to his isolated upbringing, he isn't a worldly individual and, combined with his compulsion to help others and overtly optimistic outlook, has lead to him being used and manipulated, as well as giving second chances to those who clearly do not deserve it.

Skills: First and foremost, Oliver is skilled in the use of magic, mainly what is known as "dark" magic i.e, magic that invokes the powers of a demonic entity. Using his tome as a conduit, Oliver is able to cast a wide variety of spells, though his preferences usually lie in non-offensive magic such as that of illusions and healing. The former in particular is something Oliver is quite skilled in, being able to invoke something as simple as an auditory illusion and something as complex as creating mirror images of himself, though that is something that cannot be done for too long. In regards to healing, while Oliver cannot completely heal life-threatening wounds, he is able to patch up relatively minor wounds and cure basic ailments. He is also starting to get the hang of more outright defensive spells, such as barriers and even reflectors, though, like his illusions, these cannot be maintained for too long, and he is not as adept with these as he is with his other spells. Finally, Oliver is capable of using offensive magic in the form of basic blasts of dark magic, but given his pacifistic nature, he uses these as an absolute last resort and even then, does not aim to kill with them.

Given both his isolated upbringing and nomadic lifestyle, Oliver is quite skilled when it comes to wilderness survival. He's able to forage for food, build rudimentary shelters and fires, and navigate all with relative ease. That being said however, when it comes to navigating urban environments, Oliver is completely out of his element and will quickly become lost and overwhelmed.

Hobbies: Oliver's hobbies revolve around his interests in magic and history; naturally, he loves reading and exploring. He often seeks out the libraries and bookstores of the towns he passes through, and will even investigate abandoned ruins and castles to satiate his curiosity, often taking barely legible notes in his tome. He can often be seen with his beak in a book, often forming a small collection of titles he's found or purchased with his spare earnings, though he tends to take on more than he can carry and so having to leave them behind is a bit of a sour point for him. He vows to one day get a library of his own so he can actually *keep* all of the books he finds on his travels.

Likes: History, magic, books (Mainly ones that pertain to the aforementioned topics), helping people, snack foods (Pretty much anything he can eat on the go, whether it be granola bars, pretzels, berries, etc. He's got a sweet tooth so anything that's super sweet is right up his alley), libraries, sharing his knowledge/findings with others, the cold (Grew up in it, so he's super comfortable in it as well).

Dislikes: Selfishness, cruelty, ignorance, crowds, excessively bitter food/drink (Not big on coffee), technology (Doesn't actually dislike it, he just has trouble actually using it), being lied to/manipulated (It's something he beats himself up over but continually falls prey to)

Backstory: Born in the remote, frigid forests of Sibral in Northeastern Yurashia, Oliver grew up in almost complete isolation, living in a simple wooden cabin with nobody else but his parents around.

Growing up, Oliver's parents attempted to give the boy the best life they could despite their circumstances, showering him with constant love and attention. They also attempted to provide Oliver with an education, with his mother teaching him the basics of wilderness survival including how to find food and basic first aid, and his father teaching him how to read and fostering his love for history. However, the foremost priority in terms of Oliver's education was in the art of magic, and it is here where Oliver received the most thorough teachings, with his mother teaching him everything she knew healing and defensive spells, and his father helping him to develop his signature illusions as well as some basic curses.

When Oliver wasn't receiving an education, he was spending most of his time either wandering around the woods by his home or reading the varied, yet also limited selection of books from his father's library. Not only did the stories within these books intensify Oliver's love of reading and interest in history, but they also gave him something far more profound: his beliefs. Whether set in fiction or reality, the novels all encompassed similar themes of good people making the world a better place simply by doing the right thing, even if they had to do so alone; the notion that no matter how bad things get or how bleak things look, the innate kindness and good in people will prevail even during the darkest hour - these are things Oliver took to heart and would carry with him for the rest of his life.

Things continued in this manner for most of Oliver's childhood and adolescence; his time split between education, reading, and strolling through the icy woods he called his home. In general, life was rather peaceful. However, the older he got, the more certain things began to bother him and gnaw at the edge of his mind. To start, his parents always seemed to dance around the big questions: "Why do we live out here all alone?", "How did you learn magic?", "Why are you so concerned about me running into 'demons'?" The demons question in particular was a sticking point for Oliver, as while his parents went to great lengths to warn him about "demons", they seemed to not know too much about them to begin with, or at the very least, weren't telling him everything. Then again, it seemed that they weren't telling him everything in regards to a lot of things.

Even outside of that however, there was something else that seemed to bother him: this growing desire to get out there. As much as he liked his home and his parents, he began to yearn to see the various places and people so vividly detailed in his books. He wanted to see what else was out there, what new things he could learn, what people he could meet and what experiences he could revel in. These sentiments of wanderlust only grew as time went on, and by the time he reached adulthood, it was becoming almost unbearable.

Which is why it came as a welcome surprise to Oliver that the moment he turned 18, his parents seemed eager to see him out of the house, helping him pack for what was surely to be a long journey, his father even giving him his favorite magical tome and cape, and his mother giving him a brand new outfit meant to show off her "handsome little boy". With a kiss goodbye and some words of encouragement, Oliver was soon off on his journey, thrust out unto the world with no real direction, yet still excited to see what lay beyond the confines of his isolated abode.

However, once Oliver got out into the world, he found that reality didn't quite match what he saw in his books. While many people he's met have been kind and compassionate like he expected , just as many have been callous, ignorant, or even outright cruel, attempting to either harm or take advantage of the owl's kindness and naivete. To make matters worse, while some have appreciated his magical talents, what he wasn't prepared for was the amount of people who treat his magic with fear, disdain, disbelief, and on rare occasion, violence. His parents had warned him that such things could happen, but he didn't imagine it could get as bad as it did.

While he has had many pleasant experiences thus far, and has even gotten to explore some of the locales described in his books, these unfortunate experiences have left their mark on the owl, and even though he still maintains his compassionate nature and optimistic beliefs, there is still a part of him that is hurt by what he's been through.

With all the unanswered questions hanging over his head - a list that only seemed to grow with each passing day - Oliver began to question things, such as why his parents had seemed to be in such a hurry to get him out of the house when he came of age.

Adding to the mystery, strange dreams have begun to plague his slumber - a voice belonging to someone (or something?), urging him to go to specific locations, searching for something important.

Now more confused than ever before, Oliver has one burning question taking precedence over all else:

Just what the heck is the "Jeweled Scepter", and why is it so important that he seek it out?

#Oliver the Barn Owl #OC stuff #Sonic OC #Sonic FC #Sonic #Archie Sonic #I've been thinking about making an OC blog just so I have all of this in one place and organized #What do y'all think?#Would y'all be interested in that?

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angelliliana28 · 4 years ago

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Understanding the Self (Chapters 1-11)

Name: Angel Liliana R. Cataytay

Section: BSBIO 21A

Subject: Understanding the Self

INTRODUCTION

Understanding the self is not simple for it must take time and effort because it is the essence of what it means to be a human being. Time, for it is not an instant thing that just comes to you when you want to. It is a gradual process that will take a lifetime to be attained or even a lifetime would not be enough for a person to have that understanding of one’s self. Effort, because it is not a simple task. It needs the struggle and the determination of a person to be able to grasp the true meaning of his or her self. The contents of this blog are a brief abstract of what I have learned and my reflection from the subject Understanding the Self, focusing on the self from different perspectives and different aspects that make up the self.

1 Philosophical Perspective of the Self

Searching for the true nature of the self has been a matter that can be traced back from the ancient times until the present days that a lot of concepts about the self were published and introduced. These concepts were introduced by various philosophers who were too inquisitive that they started to question what is the true concept of the self. Well, philosophers are people who keeps asking questions so it is not a wonder why they keep looking for answers to questions about the self. They have that desire to unveil the truth of the human nature especially, the true meaning of the self that they proposed a lot of ideas that were reasonable and relatable for me and a few that are somewhat not that logical for me.

From what I have understood from this chapter, it mainly introduced different ideas of philosophers in order for me to comprehend first that there are a lot of concepts about the self that there is really no definite one and that it is dependent on the individual’s own intrinsic understanding of one’s self. These various insights of great philosophers can be used as a guide, especially for a young person like me to be able to have a concept of my own about the self and of course to help me widen my perspectives on understanding the self.

2 Sociological Perspective: The Self as a Product of Society

Understanding the self does not only relies on the person alone. We cannot deny the fact that self is certainly is a product of the society. In a sociological perspective, the self we express is influenced by the people around us, by the society that we are living in, by the groups and institutions that we belong to that sometimes it confuses us on who is the real us from the various self that we displayed to the different types of people that surrounds us.

This chapter, similar to the first chapter, presented some concepts about the self, in the sociological perspective. What I have learned in the chapter, is that the concept of self cannot be separated to humanity or the society, especially when humans are social beings. That to better understand one’s self, we must relate it to the people around us and to the people’s understanding about us and the relationships that we have with them, Also, we can further develop our selves through interactions with others. The different concepts introduced in this chapter are greatly visible on today’s society because they are theories that are conceptualized based on the present society.

3 An Anthropological Conceptualization of Self: The Self as Embedded in Culture

Conceptualizations of the self are influenced by two factors, the biological and the cultural factors in the anthropological perspective of the self. Both have significant roles that helped on the development of self-understanding among the people in the society. Every individual is innate with specific set of genetic potentials and boundaries which affect his or her own construction of self and self-identity, combined with the cultural environment of an individual such as personal experiences, beliefs, norms, and values can also influence this construction.

What I can only emphasize in this chapter is that self is rooted with one’s culture. The ideas about the nature of self can be based on the understanding of the culture. And culture being diverse, conception of self can have different meanings in different cultures. While culture can influence the conception of the self, it can also be a cause of confusion for a few people. There are cases where an individual experiences identity struggles when there is an incongruity between his or her supposed identity and the identity forced by the society and other people.

4 Psychological Perspective of the Self

Studying the mind and personality of a person is complex yet interesting. That is what I have realized in this chapter. The chapter outlines different psychological theories that influence the way people understand the self. Some great psychologists were introduced in the chapter with their corresponding theories that explain and conceptualize the self. I have learned that this lesson can improve self-understanding and development by helping students like me to have a better comprehension about how our mind works and how this is one of the most important aspect of constructing a concept of the self. "The mind is everything." If we think about it, we cannot conceptualize the self, or anything at all, without our minds. So it is very important to give emphasis on the psychological perspective of the self because it is the most fundamental of conceptualizing the self.

5 The Western and Eastern Concepts of Self

This chapter taught me the differences between the western and eastern concepts of the self. It does not surprise me that the two greatly differ with each other for it is visible in the cultures of the two regions as shown in movies, books, news, etc. that it became a common knowledge for everybody. The western societies are described to be generally individualistic; the western self is deeply aware of itself, its individuality, sense of direction, purpose, and decision, it puts the self as the center of an individual, and the self belongs only to the individual and to no other. The eastern self is described to be relational rather than individualistic; the self is in relation with others, the society and the universe. While having different perspectives between the two, both contributed to the improvements in the conceptualization of the self and aim to combine the good elements of the different disciplines to totally understand the self.

6 The Physical Self

Physical self refers to the body. And that physical self is a product of heredity and the environment we live in. What makes this topic interesting for me is that during the reporting of the topic, I was coincidentally reading a web novel with a protagonist who was a fortune teller. He explains there how the face of a person can determine their marriage life and their partner. The theory of physiognomy was also stated in the novel which suggests that our physical characteristics such as our facial expressions and features, our body structures could be related to our character and personality. I’m not really into fortune telling, voodoos, and such but after I discovered that there are legit theories that the story based the protagonist’s fortune telling, I started to enjoy the novel more and learned a little bit about how our physical appearances can tell about ourselves which is really interesting. What only made me sad about the topic is that some people do not like their physical appearances that they tend to alter their natural features based on what other people said to be beautiful and ideal appearance. While change especially if it is for bettering the self can be a good thing, it is not, when we lose our true self and are not happy just to cater what others want to see.

7 The Sexual Self

Sexual self refers to sexual characteristics and behaviors. To summarize what I have learned from this chapter, let me tell you a story about two people whose names are Ana and John. Ana is a female while John is a male (if it is not obvious), their parents were able to determine their sex through their primary sex characteristics when they were born. (Ana = vagina; John = penis) The two of them are childhood sweethearts. And as they hit puberty, both of their secondary sex characteristics developed. (Ana = menstruation, enlargement of breasts, etc.; John = sperm production, testicular growth, etc.) As they grow older, they became a couple. Because they are really close with each other, they started to get intimate with each other. They kiss, cuddle, pet, and touch each other and discovered that these activities can arouse and turns them on. But of course, Ana and John didn’t do the deed and showed restraint for they are not married yet so that they won’t experience early pregnancy. When Ana and John had a stable job being healthcare workers, they decided to get married. When the night of their wedding day came, Ana and John go all the way. Fortunately, to satisfy each other, they searched Google and studied about the phases of sexual response, because during college, Ana and John once listened to their professor how important it is to know about this matter. Since the both of them are healthcare workers, they heartily volunteer on conducting symposium on sex education in small provinces and towns outside the city. They wanted to promote safe sex through the method of contraception to prevent the increasing cases of STIs and early pregnancy in the country. They also want the people to know about the Reproductive Health Law to spread awareness about fertility control, sexual education, and maternal care. And they lived happily ever after.

This blog entry is inspired from the report of Rennek Dela Cruz during the discussion for Chapter 7 about the The Sexual Response Cycle.

8 The Material Self

Material self refers to one’s possessions. All of my possessions including my body, my clothes, the house I live in, my phone, my favorite pajamas and blanket, my eyeglasses, my family, my friends, and other tangible objects makes up my material self. There are some people that give much more importance to material possessions over intangible ones, which is considered as Materialism. And when we talk about consumerism, what enters my mind first is the statement “What you eat is what you are,” especially when material self is related to consuming and buying things to be able to possess these things. Lastly, when Belk’s statement about the material possessions being an objective manifestation of the self was explained, I unconsciously nodded my head to agree. As what was said that when we able to grasp the true meaning of the self, it is when we became contented and happy with our selves, and it is through achieving success. Material possessions can be a reflection of hard work and success and became a driving force for us to strive hard in achieving the goals in our lives.

9 The Spiritual Self

The spiritual self is the inner essence that connects us with a higher being. When I heard the title of this chapter, the very first word that comes to mind is spirit. And when I think deeper, the next word was religion. Which of course, surprised and didn’t surprised me at the same time because the two were really what this chapter talks about. The spiritual self is a very important aspect of the self because it is what connects ourselves with the things that are beyond this world. Spirituality refers to the search for the connectedness with a transcendence and through religion, we can express one’s spirituality, by praying, worshipping, rituals, and other ceremonial practices. Through this, people may find comfort, security and stability in times of sufferings. It was also said that only through suffering that we can find the true meaning and purpose of life.

10 The Political Self

Political self refers to the self that is defined by his or her political convictions. The simplest form of the political self is being a citizen because it is the most basic identification of a person with the nation. This identity comprises our rights, freedom, responsibilities and obligations in our country. Our citizenship can be influenced by the following, the family, church, school, media, government, and non-governmental organizations and is developed through socialization. In addition, political participation such as voting, joining a political party, or standing for elections can be an important aspect for the development of the political self.

11 The Digital Self

The digital self refers to the self that is expressed and shared with others through online interactions.

Presentation of the Digital Self may vary from person to person, some aims to be authentic and others not. Regardless, the self presentation becomes an attempt to impress by changing how the person projects himself/herself to the digital society. This makes the dissemination of personal information in the digital world inaccurate or in most cases, selective.

Despite the shortcomings of the online interactions- negative self presentation and impression management- significant applications of digital technology have caused more good than harm: helping humans to store volumes of information, enables efficient communication, etc. These developments allows people to keep in touch and be updated, however these may hinder with physical interactions and increase the occurence of identity theft, false information and fake news.

The use of digital technology can produce either positive or negative outcomes. And these outcomes rely on us humans: our usage and management.

image (1) from: (https://www.alamy.com/philosophers-philosophy-philosophical-philosopher-in-action-set-vector-illustration-cartoon-image331774858.html)

image (2) from: (https://www.netclipart.com/isee/Jwwboi_annual-meeting-feb-people-cartoon-png/)

image (3) from: (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-change/201308/all-self-improvement-starts-here%3famp)

image (4) from: (http://bsix12.com/east-meets-west/)

image (5) from: (https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/people-looking-at-mirror-reflection-self-vector-29209877)

image (6) from: (https://images.app.goo.gl/eXhiXXvSPvCaRJdg6)

image (7) from: (https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2020/03/experience-possession-happiness-neuroscienews.jpg)

image (8) from: (https://www.freepik.com/premium-vector/cute-young-boy-cartoon-meditation-pose_6297093.htm)

image (9) from: (https://mantissocietystudycenter.blogspot.com/2018/02/fwd-todays-best-political-cartoons_16.html?m=1)

image (10) from: (https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/social_mediums.asp)

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supposedlyawitch · 4 years ago

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shadow work

i found a site that explains shadow work and i want to do some work with it and i’m willing to share the details the site has here. I’m putting this also here so i can look back on it. I already know my shadow is probably bigger and deeper than all the oceans combined. it might be interesting to explore, it might not, but it has to be done. This is basically free therapy.

Please note: Shadow Work exercises should not be undertaken if you struggle with low self-esteem. Exploring your demons will likely make you feel a million times worse about yourself and may spiral into self-hatred. Before doing Shadow Work, I strongly and emphatically encourage you to work on Self-Love. Shadow Work should only be undertaken by those who have healthy and stable self-worth, and a friendly relationship with themselves. See this article on how to love yourself for more guidance.

Why Focusing Only on the Light is a Form of Escapism

For most of my life, I’ve grown up firmly believing that the only thing worthy of guiding me was “light” and “love.” Whether through the family environment I was raised in, or the cultural myths I was brought up clinging to, I once believed that all you really needed to do in life to be happy was to focus on everything beautiful, positive and spiritually “righteous.” I’m sure you were raised believing a similar story as well. It’s a sort of “Recipe for Well-Being.”

But a few years ago, after battling ongoing mental health issues, I realized something shocking:

I was wrong.

Not just wrong, but completely and utterly off the mark. Focusing only on “love and light” will not heal your wounds on a deep level. In fact, I’ve learned through a lot of heavy inner work, that not only is focusing solely on “holiness” in life one side of the equation, but it is actually a form of spiritually bypassing your deeper, darker problems that, let me assure you, almost definitely exist.

It is very easy and comfortable to focus only on the light side of life. So many people in today’s world follow this path. And while it might provide some temporary emotional support, it doesn’t reach to the depths of your being: it doesn’t transform you at a core level. Instead, it leaves you superficially hanging onto warm and fuzzy platitudes which sound nice, but don’t enact any real change.

What DOES touch the very depths of your being, however, is exploring your Shadow.

What is the Human Shadow?

In short, the human shadow is our dark side; our lost and forgotten disowned self. Your shadow is the place within you that contains all of your secrets, repressed feelings, primitive impulses, and parts deemed “unacceptable,” shameful, “sinful” or even “evil.” This dark place lurking within your unconscious mind also contains suppressed and rejected emotions such as rage, jealousy, hatred, greed, deceitfulness, and selfishness.

So where did the Shadow Self idea originate? The concept was originally coined and explored by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. In Jung’s own words:

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

When the human Shadow is shunned, it tends to undermine and sabotage our lives. Addictions, low self-esteem, mental illness, chronic illnesses, and various neuroses are all attributed to the Shadow Self. When our Shadows are suppressed or repressed in the unconscious long enough, they can even overtake our entire lives and causes psychosis or extreme forms of behavior like cheating on one’s partner or physically harming others. Intoxicants such as alcohol and drugs also have a tendency to unleash the Shadow.

Thankfully, there is a way to explore the Shadow and prevent it from devouring our existence, and that is called Shadow Work.

What is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is the process of exploring your inner darkness or “Shadow Self.” As mentioned previously, your Shadow Self is part of your unconscious mind and contains everything you feel ashamed of thinking and feeling, as well as every impulse, repressed idea, desire, fear and perversion that for one reason or another, you have “locked away” consciously or unconsciously. Often this is done as a way of keeping yourself tame, likable and “civilized” in the eyes of others.

Shadow work is the attempt to uncover everything that we have hidden and every part of us that has been disowned and rejected within our Shadow Selves. Why? Because without revealing to ourselves what we have hidden, we remain burdened with problems such as anger, guilt, shame, disgust, and grief.

All throughout the history of mankind Shadow Work has played a powerful yet mysterious and occult role in helping us discover what is causing us mental illness, physical dis-ease and even insanity resulting in crimes of all kinds.

Traditionally, Shadow Work fell in the realm of the Shamans, or medicine people, as well as the priests and priestesses of the archaic periods of history. These days, Shadow Work falls more commonly in the realms of psychotherapy, with psychologists, psychiatrists, spiritual guides, and therapists.

Do We All Have a Shadow Self?

Yes, we ALL have a Shadow Self (see our Collective Shadow article for a deeper explanation).

As uncomfortable as it may sound, there is a dark side within every human being. Why is this the case? The reason why all human beings have a shadow is due to the way we were raised as human beings, often referred to as our ‘conditioning.’ (We’ll explore how the Shadow is formed next.)

“But I’m a good person! I don’t have a ‘shadow’ side,” you might be thinking. Well, the reality is that yes, you might be a good person. In fact, you might be the most generous, loving, and selfless person in the entire world. You might feed the hungry, save puppies, and donate half of your salary to the poor. But that doesn’t exclude you from having a Shadow. There are no exceptions here. The nature of being human is to possess both a light and a dark side, and we need to embrace that.

Sometimes, when people hear that they have a Shadow side (or when it is pointed out), there is a lot of denial. We have been taught to perceive ourselves in a very two-dimensional and limited way. We have been taught that only criminals, murderers, and thieves have a Shadow side. This black and white thinking is one of the major causes of our suffering.

If the thought of having a Shadow side disturbs you, take a moment to consider whether you have developed an idealized self. Signs of an idealized self include attitudes such as:

“I’m not like those people, I’m better.”

“I have never strayed.”

“God is proud of me.”

“Criminals and wrongdoers aren’t human.”

“Everyone sees how good I am (even so, I have to remind them).”

“I’m a role model.”

“I should be validated and applauded for my good deeds.”

“I don’t have bad thoughts, so why do others?”

Such perceptions about oneself are unrealistic, unhealthy, and largely delusional. The only way to find inner peace, happiness, authentic love, self-fulfillment, and Illumination is to explore our Shadows.

How is Our Shadow Side Formed?

Your Shadow side is formed in childhood and is both (a) a product of natural ego development, and (b) a product of conditioning or socialization. Socialization is the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society.

When we are born, we are are all full of potential, with the ability to survive and develop in a variety of ways. As time goes on, we learn more and more to become a certain type of person. Slowly, due to our circumstances and preferences, we begin to adopt certain character traits and reject others. For example, if we are born into a family that shows little interpersonal warmth, we will develop personality traits that make us self-sufficient and perhaps standoffish or mind-oriented. If we are born into a family that rewards compliance and shuns rebellion, we will learn that being submissive works, and thus adopt that as part of our ego structure.

As authors and Jungian therapists Steve Price and David Haynes write:

But, as we develop our ego personality, we also do something else at the same time. What has happened to all those parts of our original potential that we didn’t develop? They won’t just cease to exist: they will still be there, as potential or as partly developed, then rejected, personality attributes, and they will live on in the unconscious as an alternative to the waking ego. So, by the very act of creating a specifically delineated ego personality, we have also created its opposite in the unconscious. This is the shadow. Everyone has one.

As we can see, developing the Shadow Self is a natural part of development.

But you also formed an alter ego due to social conditioning, i.e. your parents, family members, teachers, friends, and society at large all contributed to your Shadow.

How?

Well here’s the thing: polite society operates under certain rules. In other words, certain behaviors and characteristics are approved of, while others are shunned. Take anger for example. Anger is an emotion that is commonly punished while growing up. Throwing tantrums, swearing, and destroying things was frowned upon by our parents and teachers. Therefore, many of us learned that expressing anger was not “OK.” Instead of being taught healthy ways to express our anger, we were punished sometimes physically (with smacks or being grounded), and often emotionally (withdrawal of love and affection).

There are countless behaviors, emotions, and beliefs that are rejected in society, and thus, are rejected by ourselves. In order to fit in, be accepted, approved, and loved, we learned to act a certain way. We adopted a role that would ensure our mental, emotional, and physical survival. But at the same time, wearing a mask has consequences. What happened to all the authentic, wild, socially taboo or challenging parts of ourselves? They were trapped in the Shadow.

What happens as we grow up?

Through time, we learn to both enjoy, and despise, our socially-approved egos because, on the one hand, they make us feel good and “lovable,” but on the other hand, they feel phony and inhibited.

Therapist Steve Wolf has a perfect analogy that describes this process:

Each of us is like Dorian Grey. We seek to present a beautiful, innocent face to the world; a kind, courteous demeanour; a youthful, intelligent image. And so, unknowingly but inevitably, we push away those qualities that do not fit the image, that do not enhance our self-esteem and make us stand proud but, instead, bring us shame and make us feel small. We shove into the dark cavern of the unconscious those feelings that make us uneasy — hatred, rage, jealousy, greed, competition, lust, shame — and those behaviours that are deemed wrong by the culture — addiction, laziness, aggression, dependency — thereby creating what could be called shadow content. Like Dorian’s painting, these qualities ultimately take on a life of their own, forming and invisible twin that lives just behind our life, or just beside it …

But while the Shadow Self may be portrayed as our “evil twin,” it is not entirely full of “bad” stuff. There is actually gold to be found within the Shadow.

What is the Golden Shadow?

Jung once states that “the shadow is ninety percent pure gold.” What this means is that there are many beautiful gifts offered to us by our Shadow side if we take the time to look. For example, so much of our creative potential is submerged within our darkness because we were taught when little to reject it.

Not everything within our Shadow is doom and gloom. In fact, the Shadow contains some of our most powerful gifts and talents, such as our artistic, sexual, competitive, innovative, and even intuitive aptitudes.

The ‘Golden Shadow’ also presents us with the opportunity for tremendous psychological and spiritual growth. By doing Shadow Work, we learn that every single emotion and wound that we possess has a gift to share with us. Even the most obnoxious, “ugly,” or shameful parts of ourselves provide a path back to Oneness. Such is the power of the Shadow – it is both a terrifying journey, but is ultimately a path to Enlightenment or Illumination. Every spiritual path needs Shadow Work in order to prevent the issues from happening that we’ll explore next.

What Happens When You Reject Your Shadow?

When shadow-work is neglected, the soul feels dry, brittle, like an empty vessel. — S. Wolf

Rejecting, suppressing, denying, or disowning your Shadow, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a dangerous thing. The thing about the Shadow Self is that it seeks to be known. It yearns to be understood, explored, and integrated. It craves to be held in awareness. The longer the Shadow stays buried and locked in its jail cell deep within the unconscious, the more it will find opportunities to make you aware of its existence.

Both religion and modern spirituality have a tendency to focus on the “love and light” aspects of spiritual growth to their own doom. This over-emphasis on the fluffy, transcendental, and feel-good elements of a spiritual awakening results in shallowness and phobia of whatever is too real, earthy, or dark.

Spiritually bypassing one’s inner darkness results in a whole range of serious issues. Some of the most common and reoccurring Shadow issues that appear in the spiritual/religious community include pedophilia among priests, financial manipulation of followers among gurus, and of course, megalomania, narcissism, and God complexes among spiritual teachers.

Other issues that arise when we reject our Shadow side can include:

Hypocrisy (believing and supporting one thing, but doing the other)

Lies and self-deceit (both towards oneself and others)

Uncontrollable bursts of rage/anger

Emotional and mental manipulation of others

Greed and addictions

Phobias and obsessive compulsions

Racist, sexist, homophobic, and other offensive behavior

Intense anxiety

Chronic psychosomatic illness

Depression (which can turn into suicidal tendencies)

Sexual perversion

Narcissistically inflated ego

Chaotic relationships with others

Self-loathing

Self-absorption

Self-sabotage

… and many others. This is by no means a comprehensive list (and there are likely many other issues out there). As we’ll learn next, one of the greatest ways we reject our Shadows is through psychological projection.

The Shadow and Projection (a Dangerous Mix)

One of the biggest forms of Shadow rejection is something called projection. Projection is a term that refers to seeing things in others that are actually within ourselves.

When we pair projection and the Shadow Self together, we have a dangerous mix.

Why?

Because as psychotherapist Robert A. Johnson writes:

We generally seek to punish that which reminds us most uncomfortable about the part of ourselves that we have not come to terms with, and we often ‘see’ these disowned qualities in the world around us.

There are many different ways we ‘punish’ those who are mirrors of our Shadow qualities. We may criticize, reject, hate, dehumanize, or even in extreme cases, physically or psychologically seek to destroy them (think of countries who go at war with the “enemies”). None of us are innocent in this area. We have ALL projected parts of our rejected self onto others. In fact, Shadow projection is a major cause of relationship dysfunction and break down.

If we are seeking to bring peace, love, and meaning to our lives, we absolutely MUST reclaim these projections. Through Shadow Work, we can explore exactly what we have disowned.

Twelve Benefits of Shadow Work

Firstly, I want to say that I have the highest respect for Shadow Work. It is the single most important path I’ve taken to uncover my core wounds, core beliefs, traumas, and projections. I have also observed how Shadow Work has helped to create profound clarity, understanding, harmony, acceptance, release, and inner peace in the lives of others. It is truly deep work that makes changes on the Soul level targeting the very roots of our issues, not just the superficial symptoms.

There is SO much to be gained from making Shadow Work a part of your life, and daily routine. Here are some of the most commonly experienced benefits:

Deeper love and acceptance of yourself

Better relationships with others, including your partner and children

More confidence to be your authentic self

More mental, emotional, and spiritual clarity

Increased compassion and understanding for others, particularly those you dislike

Enhanced creativity

Discovery of hidden gifts and talents

Deepened understanding of your passions and ultimate life purpose

Improved physical and mental health

More courage to face the unknown and truly live life

Access to your Soul or Higher Self

A feeling of Wholeness

It’s important to remember that there are no quick fixes in Shadow Work, so these life-changing benefits don’t just happen overnight. But with persistence, they will eventually emerge and bless your life.

Seven Tips For Approaching Shadow Work

Before you begin Shadow Work, it’s important for you to assess whether you’re ready to embark on this journey. Not everyone is prepared for this deep work, and that’s fine. We’re all at different stages. So pay attention to the following questions and try to answer them honestly:

Have you practiced self-love yet? If not, Shadow Work will be too overwhelming for you. I have starred this bullet point because it is essential for you to consider. Shadow Work should not be attempted by those who have poor self-worth or struggle with self-loathing. In other words: if you struggle with severely low self-esteem, please do not attempt Shadow Work. I emphatically warn you against doing it. Why? If you struggle with extremely poor self-worth, exploring your Shadows will likely make you feel ten times worse about yourself. Before you walk this path, you absolutely must establish a strong and healthy self-image. No, you don’t have to think you’re God’s gift to the world, but having average self-worth is important. Try taking this self-esteem test to explore whether you’re ready (but first, don’t forget to finish this article!).

Are you prepared to make time? Shadow Work is not a lukewarm practice. You are either all in or all out. Yes, it is important to take a break from it time to time. But Shadow Work requires dedication, self-discipline, and persistence. Are you willing to intentionally carve out time each day to dedicate to it? Even just ten minutes a day is a good start.

Are you looking to be validated or to find the truth? As you probably know by now, Shadow Work isn’t about making you feel special. It isn’t like typical spiritual paths which are focused on the feel-good. No, Shadow Work can be brutal and extremely confronting. This is a path for truth seekers, not those who are seeking to be validated.

Seek to enter a calm and neutral space. It is important to try and relax when doing Shadow Work. Stress and judgmental or critical attitudes will inhibit the process. So please try to incorporate a calming meditation or mindfulness technique into whatever you do.

Understand that you are not your thoughts. It is essential for you to realize that you are not your thoughts for Shadow Work to be healing and liberating. Only from your calm and quiet Center (also known as your Soul) can you truly be aware of your Shadow aspects. By holding them in awareness, you will see them clearly for what they are, and realize that they ultimately don’t define you; they are simply rising and falling mental phenomena.

Practice self-compassion. It is of paramount importance to incorporate compassion and self-acceptance into your Shadow Work practice. Without showing love and understanding to yourself, it is easy for Shadow Work to backfire and make you feel terrible. So focus on generating self-love and compassion, and you will be able to release any shame and embrace your humanity.

Record everything you find. Keep a written journal or personal diary in which you write down, or draw, your discoveries. Recording your dreams, observations, and analysis will help you to learn and grow more effectively. You’ll also be able to keep track of your process and make important connections.

How to Practice Shadow Work

There are many Shadow Work techniques and exercises out there. In this guide, I will provide a few to help you start off. I’ll also share a few examples from my own life:

1. Pay attention to your emotional reactions

In this practice, you’ll learn that what you give power to has power over you. Let me explain:

One Shadow Work practice I enjoy a great deal is paying attention to everything that shocks, disturbs and secretly thrills me. Essentially, this practice is about finding out what I’ve given power to in my life unconsciously, because what we place importance in – whether good or bad – says a lot about us.

The reality is that what we react to, or what makes us angry and distressed, reveals extremely important information to us about ourselves.

For example, by following where my “demons” have taken me – whether in social media, family circles, workspaces and public places – I have discovered two important things about myself. The first one is that I’m a control freak; I hate feeling vulnerable, powerless and weak . . . it quite simply scares the living hell out of me. How did I discover this? Through my intense dislike of witnessing rape scenes in movies and TV shows, my negative reaction to novel experiences (e.g. roller coaster rides, public speaking, etc.), as well as my discomfort surrounding sharing information about my life with others in conversations. Also, by following where my “demons” have guided me I’ve discovered that I’m being burdened by an exasperating guilt complex that I developed through my religious upbringing. A part of me wants to feel unworthy because that is what I’ve developed a habit of feeling since childhood (e.g. “You’re a sinner,” “It’s your fault Jesus was crucified”), and therefore, that is what I secretly feel comfortable with feeling: unworthy. So my mind nit-picks anything I might have done “wrong,” and I’m left with the feeling of being “bad” – which I’m used to, but nevertheless, this is destructive for my well-being.

Thanks to this practice, I have welcomed more compassion, mindfulness, and forgiveness into my life.

Paying attention to your emotional reactions can help you to discover exactly how your core wounds are affecting you on a daily basis.

How to Pay Attention to Your Emotional Reactions

To effectively pay attention to your emotional reactions (I call it “following the trail of your inner demons”), you first need to cultivate:

1. Self-awareness

Without being conscious of what you’re doing, thinking, feeling and saying, you won’t progress very far.

If, however, you are fairly certain that you’re self-aware (or enough to start the process), you will then need to:

2. Adopt an open mindset

You will need to have the courage and willingness to observe EVERYTHING uncomfortable you place importance in, and ask “why?” What do I mean by the phrase “placing importance in”? By this, I mean that, whatever riles, shocks, infuriates, disturbs and terrifies you, you must pay attention to. Closely.

Likely, you will discover patterns constantly emerging in your life. For example, you might be outraged or embarrassed every time sex appears in a TV show or movie you like (possibly revealing sexual repression or mistaken beliefs about sex that you’ve adopted throughout life). Or you might be terrified of seeing death or dead people (possibly revealing your resistance to the nature of life or a childhood trauma). Or you might be disgusted by alternative political, sexual and spiritual lifestyles (possibly revealing your hidden desire to do the same).

There are so many possibilities out there, and I encourage you to go slowly, take your time, and one by one pick through what you place importance in.

“But I DON’T place importance in gross, bad or disturbing things in life, how could I? I don’t care for them!” you might be asking.

Well, think for a moment. If you didn’t place so much importance on what makes you angry, disgusted or upset . . . why would you be reacting to it so much? The moment you emotionally react to something is the moment you have given that thing power over you. Only that which doesn’t stir up emotions in us is not important to us.

See what you respond to and listen to what your Shadow is trying to teach you.

2. Artistically Express Your Shadow Self

Art is the highest form of self-expression and is also a great way to allow your Shadow to manifest itself. Psychologists often use art therapy as a way to help patients explore their inner selves.

Start by allowing yourself to feel (or drawing on any existing) dark emotions. Choose an art medium that calls to you such as pen and pencil, watercolor, crayon, acrylic paint, scrapbooking, sculpting, etc. and draw what you feel. You don’t need to consider yourself an ‘artist’ to benefit from this activity. You don’t even need to plan what you’ll create. Just let your hands, pen, pencil, or paintbrush do the talking. The more spontaneous, the better. Artistic expression can reveal a lot about your obscure darker half. Psychologist Carl Jung (who conceptualized the Shadow Self idea) was even famous for using mandalas in his therapy sessions.

3. Start a Project

The act of creation can be intensely frustrating and can give birth to some of your darker elements such as impatience, anger, blood-thirsty competitiveness, and self-doubt. At the same time, starting a project also allows you to experience feelings of fulfillment and joy.

If you don’t already have a personal project that you’re undertaking (such as building something, writing a book, composing music, mastering a new skill), find something you would love to start doing. Using self-awareness and self-exploration during the process of creation, you will be able to reap deeper insights into your darkness. Ask yourself constantly, “What am I feeling and why?” Notice the strong emotions that arise during the act of creation, both good and bad. You will likely be surprised by what you find!

For example, as a person who considers myself non-competitive, that assumption has been challenged by the act of writing this blog. Thanks to this project, the Shadow within me of ruthless competitiveness has shown its face, allowing me to understand myself more deeply.

4. Write a Story or Keep a Shadow Journal

Goethe’s story Faust is, in my opinion, one of the best works featuring the meeting of an ego and his Shadow Self. His story details the life of a Professor who becomes so separated and overwhelmed by his Shadow that he comes to the verge of suicide, only to realize that the redemption of the ego is solely possible if the Shadow is redeemed at the same time.

Write a story where you project your Shadow elements onto the characters – this is a great way to learn more about your inner darkness. If stories aren’t your thing, keeping a journal or diary every day can shine a light on the darker elements of your nature. Reading through your dark thoughts and emotions can help you to recover the balance you need in life by accepting both light and dark emotions within you.

5. Explore Your Shadow Archetypes

We have a number of Shadow varieties, also called Shadow Archetypes. These archetypes are sometimes defined as:

The Sorcerer

The Dictator

The Victim

The Shadow Witch

The Addict

The Idiot

The Trickster

The Destroyer

The Slave

The Shadow Mother

The Hag

The Hermit

However, I have my own Shadow Archetype classification, which I will include below.

13 Shadow Archetypes

Here are my thirteen classifications which are based on my own self-observations and analysis of others:

1. The Egotistical Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: arrogance, egocentricity, pompousness, inconsiderateness, self-indulgence, narcissism, excessive pride.

2. The Neurotic Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: paranoia, obsessiveness, suspiciousness, finicky, demanding, compulsive behavior.

3. The Untrustworthy Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: secretive, impulsive, frivolous, irresponsible, deceitful, unreliable.

4. The Emotionally Unstable Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: moody, melodramatic, weepy, overemotional, impulsive, changeable.

5. The Controlling Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: suspicious, jealous, possessive, bossy, obsessive.

6. The Cynical Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: negative, overcritical, patronizing, resentful, cantankerous.

7. The Wrathful Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: ruthless, vengeful, bitchy, quick-tempered, quarrelsome.

8. The Rigid Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: uptight, intolerant, racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, obstinate, uncompromising, inflexible, narrow-minded.

9. The Glib Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: superficial, cunning, inconsistent, sly, crafty.

10. The Cold Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: emotionally detached, distant, indifferent, uncaring, unexcited.

11. The Perverted Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: masochistic, lewd, sadistic, vulgar, libidinous.

12. The Cowardly Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: weak-willed, passive, timid, fearful.

13. The Immature Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: puerile, childish, illogical, simpleminded, vacuous.

Keep in mind that the above Shadow Archetypes are by no means exhaustive. I’m sure that there are many others out there which I have missed. But you are free to use this breakdown to help you explore your own Shadows. You’re also welcome to add to this list or create your own Shadow Archetypes, which I highly encourage. For example, you might possess a judgmental and dogmatic Shadow who you call “The Nun,” or a sexually deviant Shadow who you call “The Deviant.” Play around with some words and labels, and see what suits your Shadows the best.

6. Have an Inner Conversation

Also known as “Inner Dialogue,” or as Carl Jung phrased it, “Active Imagination,” having a conversation with your Shadow is an easy way to learn from it.

I understand if you might feel a twinge of skepticism towards this practice right now. After all, we are taught that “only crazy people talk to themselves.” But inner dialogue is regularly used in psychotherapy as a way to help people communicate with the various subpersonalities that they have – and we all possess various faces and sides of our ego.

One easy way to practice inner dialogue is to sit in a quiet place, close your eyes, and tune into the present moment. Then, think of a question you would like to ask your Shadow, and silently speak it within your mind. Wait a few moments and see if you ‘hear’ or ‘see’ an answer. Record anything that arises and reflect on it. It is even possible to carry on a conversation with your Shadow using this method. Just ensure that you have an open mindset. In other words, don’t try to control what is being said, just let it flow naturally. You will likely be surprised by the answers you receive!

Visualization is another helpful way of engaging in inner dialogue. I recommend bringing to mind images of dark forests, caves, holes in the ground, or the ocean as these all represent the unconscious mind. Always ensure that you enter and exit your visualization in the same manner, e.g. if you are walking down a path, make sure you walk back up the path. Or if you open a particular door, make sure you open the same door when returning back to normal consciousness. This practice will help to draw you effortlessly in and out of visualizations.

7. Use the Mirror Technique

As we have learned, projection is a technique of the Shadow that helps us to avoid what we have disowned. However, we don’t only project the deeper and darker aspects of ourselves onto others, we also project our light and positive attributes as well. For example, a person may be attracted to another who displays fierce self-assertiveness, not realizing that this quality is what they long to reunite with inside themselves. Another common example (this time negative) is judgmentalism. How many times have you heard someone say “he/she is so judgmental!” Ironically, the very person saying this doesn’t realize that calling another person ‘judgmental’ is actually pronouncing a judgment against them and revealing their own judgmental nature.

The Mirror Technique is the process of uncovering our projections. To practice this technique, we must adopt a mindful and honest approach towards the world: we need to be prepared to own that which we have disowned! Being radically truthful with ourselves can be difficult, so it does require practice. But essentially, we must adopt the mindset that other people are our mirrors. We must understand that those around us serve as the perfect canvas onto which we project all of our unconscious desires and fears.

Start this practice by examining your thoughts and feelings about those you come in contact with. Pay attention to moments when you’re emotionally triggered and ask yourself “am I projecting anything?” Remember: it is also possible to project our own qualities onto another person who really does possess the qualities. Psychologists sometimes refer to this as “projecting onto reality.” For example, we might project our rage onto another person who is, in fact, a rage-filled person. Or we might project our jealousy onto another who genuinely is jealous.

Ask yourself, “What is mine, what is theirs, and what is both of ours?” Not every triggering situation reveals a projection, but they more than often do. Also look for things you love and adore about others, and uncover the hidden projections there.

The Mirror Technique will help you to shed a lot of light onto Shadow qualities that you have rejected, suppressed, repressed, or disowned. On a side note, you might also like to read about a similar practice called mirror work which helps you to come face-to-face with your own denied aspects.

#shadow work #witchcraft #mental health #secular witch #therapy

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catgirlxox · 6 years ago

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Ben 10 vs Kevin 11: Levels of Heroism

The Ultimate Kevin arc debate continues...

An argument I was presented with was that Ben’s characterization in the Ultimate Kevin arc was “out of character” in comparison to what he “usually” is like. He is apparently expected to do the right thing by doing what law enforcement wouldn't do, in most cases.

Furthermore, the argument claimed that he should have been portrayed the way he was in “Basic Training” - meaning that he is expected to bend the rules in the interest of doing the right thing. This implies Ben should have been like this in every situation where there is an intense conflict, such as the one in the Ultimate Kevin arc.

However, I would argue that being in a controlled environment such as the Plumber Academy establishment is different from being out in the field where the circumstances are unpredictable. In “Basic Training”, Ben was portrayed the way he was because he felt like he didn't need to be there. There was no immediate threat only he was expected to handle in “Basic Training”, and he was only bending the rules in the beginning because he felt he was already good at his job and there wasn't much they could teach him. On top of that, he isn’t too fond of school anyway.

Ben has wanted to become a Plumber like his Grandpa Max since he was 10, and this is how they treat him once he finally gets there to officially accomplish that dream job...

At the Plumber Academy, he wasn't treated like a superhero (by most of the individuals there) and all the things he has already accomplished didn't matter. Nothing about why he saves the world or how he does it so effectively matters here. He is only a cadet, nothing more to praise.

He got talked down to and yelled at.

He had little to no freedom to do things his own way and, I would assume, felt restricted.

He couldn't even joke around while in class because Magister Hulka was so serious about the job of law enforcement.

He was so restricted that he wasn't even allowed to use the Ultimatrix to help his squad mate.

He was also yelled at for saving Hulka and Tak because he used the Ultimatrix.

Tack: “You saved us! You are the greatest Plumber of all!”

Hulka: “He’s a larval dipteroid! He disobeyed orders!”

Ben: “I was supposed to let the grenade get you?!”

Hulka: “You were supposed to do what I tell you!”

I realize there is a point to not being allowed to resort to using superpowers while enrolled in these classes, but the main reason why Ben can save the world so effectively is because of the way he uses his powers. Going without them disables him so some extent, and he doesn’t typically like that.

Hulka wants Ben to listen to authority and do what law enforcement should do and act in the way they teach him to. He is “supposed to” do what he is told if he wants to be a Plumber.

I’d just like to add that, at this point in his hero career, Ben is not one to be extremely irresponsible because of his motive to continue to do hero work. It is comparable to the reason the Plumbers do - he is following Max’s footsteps, in a sense. So, if the situation gets out of control and becomes serious, he also does. But in these circumstances, he is already very constricted. He doesn’t typically seem to like to have to change “the way he works” and the social atmosphere of the Plumber Academy seems like a bit of a let down when he’s worked so hard to get there.

Just like the rest of his team, Ben is used to recognizing danger and jumps into action accordingly. So, it is no wonder he would disobey Hulka and get involved even when law enforcement tells him not to.

In addition to Hulka telling Ben how to act, Kevin is also very serious about following Magister Hulka’s orders because he, too, really wants to become a Plumber.

Gwen: “Someone tampered with that grenade. Hulka knows who it was.”

Ben: “He doesn't want our help. Let's take the night off, explore a little. We've been stuck in these barracks all week.”

Kevin: “Whole place is on lock down. Breaking curfew is against orders.”

Ben: “It's like I don't even know you any more.”

Kevin: “Being a plumber isn't something you mess around with. If you screw this up, you and I are gonna get into it.”

All this only tells Ben that, in real circumstances, he should act the way they want him to. He should act like law enforcement, according to practically everyone, including Kevin. So, if law enforcement (such as Max) believes an offender that is out of control might have to be put down, it may seem weird to some people, but almost everyone expects him to get that serious. Max would have done it, Hulka would have done it, and even Kevin would have done it apparently.

And I can prove that Kevin is capable of killing because he previously went on a mission to kill the guy who, he was made to believe, killed his father.

In “Vendetta”, Kevin didn’t seem to have remorse for this guy (Ragnarok) either. And it makes sense why, but if this is his view on killing, it still supports my point about Kevin’s perspective while being a member of law enforcement, in addition to being a “hero.”

This was Kevin’s motive:

“I’m saving the Earth and avenging my Dad.”

Even though practically everything in the episode “Vendetta” pointed to it, in reality (because of Servantis altering everyone’s memories, which was revealed later in Omniverse), it isn’t even certain that Ragnarok was the one who was to blame for Kevin’s father being dead.

Killing is never a pleasant thought. It wasn't for Ben and it wasn't for Kevin respectively. And when you end up believing that it is something that might have to be done, I would assume it would make you quite numb. This is especially true for characters like Ben and Kevin, who have both gone through a certain amount of childhood trauma and seem to have taught themselves to hide or cope with their pain privately as to not come off as weak.

Ben: “He was a hero, Gwen. Right to the very end.”

Both Ben and Gwen agreed that Kevin was a hero for taking this guy’s life. This is not entirely wrong. If Ragnarok was not stopped, he would take out the sun and obviously that would affect everyone on Earth. But Kevin still did this out of revenge, and he was not an “official” Plumber yet either. There was no investigation done surrounding Ragnarok to prove his guilt, and the only actual Plumber (although retired) who knew what was going on was Max. The only reason Kevin would not be convicted of murder is the fact that he did not directly administer the final blow that would kill Ragnarok. He only refused to save him after destroying the ship, so it could be considered an “accident.”

Kevin was very cold in the end, even towards Gwen. This is not surprising, considering the circumstances. But he was still able to walk out of a scene where someone was killed relatively indifferent.

Between the entirety of Alien Force and the first season of Ultimate Alien, the amount of time that has passed in-universe was approximately a year, give or take. In that amount of time, Kevin has proved to be capable of doing good for the right reasons most of the time. But even so, he was still considered “evil” for longer than that, and he is capable of things like this. I am not trying to say Kevin is still evil, because he has definitely changed, but it is not entirely out of the question for Ben/law enforcement to be weary or cautious of Kevin going back to his old ways.

And if it means protecting the innocent, specifically his own cousin, I would believe that Ben would prioritize that over Kevin if he became the threat.

During the Ultimate Kevin arc, the circumstances where dangerously unpredictable. The only thing Ben was sure of was the fact that Ultimate Kevin could do a whole lot of damage if he wasn't stopped in some way. Keep in mind that Ben is a sixteen year old who is expected to act like an adult member of law enforcement, without the proper training required since this happened before “Basic Training.” Being “immature” and improvising is what almost everyone in “Basic Training” seemed to condemn. So, here, Ben was doing what he thought should have to be done, whether he liked it or not.

This leads me to the double standards of being a character that can be described as a “hero.” And in the context of these two characters, word “hero” seems to be subjective.

According to almost everyone in the series, Ben is the hero because of what he does and why he does it. And because he is the hero, there’s a lot of restriction on what he can and can’t do. Ben seems to be expected to be, not only a hero, but a “saint.” Doing anything “wrong” is highly looked down upon.

Kevin is also considered a hero by this point in the series, but it is because he has evolved from his evil ways and improved himself. Although this is something that can be considered admirable, he is also excused when he does something wrong because he used to be a villain so it is considered “in character” for him, and some may even say “humorous” or “endearing.”

Kevin can somehow simultaneously be a jerk and hero, while Ben can not.

And, apparently, according to the fandom, Ben and Kevin are not equal.

In terms of heroism, both Ben and Kevin seem to agree on the moral and ethical aspect of the job. They can relate to some extent because they have both been in possession of a large amount of power and had the chance to use it how they saw fit. The only difference is that excessive amounts of power drive Kevin literally insane while Ben stays in a relatively sane state of mind. And perhaps, because they have both been in that position, they can understand the threat it poses when someone has both evil intent and a large amount of power. Whether they are mentally ill or not, the combination of evil intent and excessive amounts of power at hand can and will do damage.

That is why Kevin seems to agree that, if law enforcement has the authority and power to do so, killing a powerful offender is a necessary evil in some cases.

Kevin: “If I were you, I wouldn’t have been such a wuss. If you ever lost it like I did, I would have taken you down right away.”

Ben’s entire team was ready to fight him as well when they perceived him as that threat.

So if law enforcement’s job is to eradicate evil to the best of their ability, what makes Ben’s intent in “The Ultimate Enemy” wrong? Is there anything wrong with the idea of a world where no one has to suffer?

Wouldn't it it be heroic to end suffering, pain, war...all things that are “evil”?

Wouldn’t more people die in a world where these evils still exist?

This is true, but if Ben is going to be a part of the Plumbers, he can not be the judge of whether people get to have free will.

“Plumbers are law enforcement, not judges.” - Magister Hulka, “Basic Training”

His job is to be there when others need him and fight any evil that exists. He can not always “bend the rules” or “improvise” when handling a situation. Especially when it is a very intense, real conflict, rather than a situation in which there is a controlled environment full of other Plumbers and Magisters.

The only thing I hear being argued to justify these double standards is the idea that Kevin is supposed to be a ”foil” to Ben. Meaning, one contrasts the other which then highlights certain qualities in the either character. And while I can understand that this is indeed true to some extent, does that give one of them more freedom and leniency than the other in terms of their actions?

If Kevin’s actions in “Vendetta” can be justified and excused, and then he can also go on to state (while in a sane state of mind) that he wouldn't hesitate to do it again, why is Ben so attacked for only considering to do the same thing?

So if a “hero” has such strict limitations as to how far he is allowed to go to avenge innocent lives, should it matter what that hero’s past was like when they are both trying to achieve the same end goal? Or does that make one more heroic than the other?

Besides, both Ben and Kevin are only considered “heroes” in their own respect because they actively try to earn the same title.

Just like in the Plumber Academy, every cadet is treated the same way.

In which case, they should be seen as equal if they are both “heroes.”

#i got into a fight on discord a few days ago and here I am ranting #a lot of people still want to argue that this could all just be chalked up to bad writers but tbh...the writers are kind of irrelevant to me #the story is still going to be canon the way it was written and u can't change that #so if this is the characters reality these are the facts that should be considered #ben tennyson #kevin levin #ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #bevin #essay files

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unicorn-sprinkles-101 · 5 years ago

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I'm an autistic, mentally ill young adult who very desperately needs to find a new place to live.

I can't exactly recount what happened during most of my childhood but I have to say that my parents have drastically spiraled out of control since then.

My mother had never really been a big impact on my life other than being my primary guardian and taking me from place to place. Other than that, she has little to no emotional connection to me and especially not now. I don't really "hate" anyone listed here, I just don't care for my family anymore and don't want anything to do with any of them.

My mother is completely unable to work, relying mostly on disability since I was a baby due to an ongoing condition. My father refuses to get a better job to support my mother and I, often leaving us with around $5-$10 at a for gas money (often with tons of quarters) or to take with me when it is absolutely required.

Now that I've turned 18, things have gotten much harder when it comes to me being used for financial gain. I do admit that alot of that money was used towards me in some way or another while I was growing up, but not anymore.

While my father is unable to let go of grandmother's old house (which has gone to shambles), one of my mother's friends has lives under us in the basement after being rendered homeless, which can make akward when describing family troubles.

She started living with us a while ago after her trailer finally caved in after we packed water jugs back and forth to her location for several years.

Ever since she moved here, she's developed an overbearing attachment to her "animals". It got so bad she refused time and time again to put her very ill 16-year-old dog to sleep, rendering them unable to walk, see, eat or hear for months on end. The breaking point was when they bled out all over the kitchen (which we knew would happen eventually), which was traumatic for us and highly unnecessary for the dog to go through considering how miserable they were when they came here.

She has made tons very rude and hurtful comments to me about how I'm such an "abuser" when I told her dogs (she has 3) to go away or get off the couch in front of her. She often claims that I'm abusive towards my guinea pigs, saying that I don't "take care of [my] animals".

This friend of my mother has also made comments ranging from my weight to my behavior and called me names ranging from "brat" to the more recent "trashy white girl" while my mother rolls her eyes and tells me it was all just a joke.

She's physically done things towards me such as shoving me out of the way, crushing me on the bed, and almost hauling a foot tall scratching post towards my direction after I refused to get her a broom the second she demanded it (I ended up getting it for her anyway.

However, physical altercations between me and my mom's friend are very rare and this type of behavior is often seen as the norm in my area, so unless it's something that left bruises or sexual assault, it isn't really that big of a deal compared to the other stuff I face on a daily basis.

It only got worse after I graduated from highschool. It got so bad that it became worse than all of the countless harassment I faced throughout my highschool education combined.

I was forced to give up over 3/4s of my $700 worth of graduation money to my mother in order to pay off bills, food, and other neccessities. While I ended up snagging some small gifts for myself (apx. $120) before it was all sucked up, I know I'll probably never be able to get paid back that amount of money from either one of them and I feel extremely cheated as a result.

While I was legitimately excited to see them grow as people in a good home, my sister's kids have drastically changed for the worse ever since they've been shoved in a tiny old trailer and moved back to the classic small town community full of people with money (maybe extracurriculars will keep them busy).

The youngest of them (8), who is often dumped here on a daily basis, has disrespected us in a variety of ways including: eating at the computer after my mom's friend made a rule not to, not picking up after themselves when they did so (often leaving uneaten food out), and using every other dollar my mom had to go get candy and drinks from the Dollar Store (they stole my leftover change in front of me and lied about it, but that was a one-time occurrence).

The back room often smells like trash because my mother puts off going to the dump until the very last minute.

Nobody can keep up with the animals, use a flyswatter on the cat to keep it from climbing everything and having to lock it up so it wouldn't take the food straight off our plates while we were eating.

While two of the dogs from my mom's friend stay downstairs in the basement, the third one stays up here and refuses to go downstairs.

The dog is well-behaved (aside from agressive barking) but while it doesn't pee anywhere in the house (as far as we know), it appears to leave, traces of leftover urine on pillows, blankets, and the furniture (or at least the odor, although I felt small wet spots on the couch before) which could spread germs, not good for someone with a few open sores.

None of them use leashes, so when this dog bursts out the door it takes off up the street aggressively barking at everyone and everything, with little to no repercussions from either adult. The overly intense noise from this small dog has gotten way out of hand, making me a nervous wreck.

These two stress factors combined with everything else makes it impossible to keep the house clean by nearly any means (I'm doing my best just to sweep off the porch).

I'm grateful that my mom's friend took one last shot at trying to clean up the bedroom, but there's no point in trying to keep anything kept up when all it does is get destroyed.

Moving to my own place means I won't have to look after anyone else but me and my pets (guinea pigs). However, I don't have anyone to support me in my endeavors.

As my parents often failed to attend my physical and emotional needs, I became highly unstimulated and constantly stressed as a result. This has lead to severe bouts of depression and executive dysfunction, which has caused my mom's friend's harassment to get even worse.

Not only did they fail to properly take care of my needs all throughout highschool, we've never been able to afford ANY sort of renovations to the house during our residence here (about 8 years), aside from basic roofing which was performed by a small Hispanic business instead of a professional company.

The only two instances of DIY fix-ups I can remember during my 8 years here are replacing the shattered windows with plexiglass (which happened years ago) and recently restoring some of the rotten floorboards under the washer that were caked in mold.

The simple act of taking a shower has now become one of my worst dreaded nightmares and unless I move to a safe environment then I won't ever be able to properly take care of myself like I dream of doing someday.

Even though it'll take top surgery to make me feel comfortable taking showers again, moving to an inspected apartment means I have one less worry about falling through the basement and the rancid smell of burnt urine that sometimes reeks from the basement.

I never went outside much, aside from sitting on the corner of the porch since the rest of it was turned green by air conditioning water and the walkway was flooded by overgrown plants (even they've been given more respect than I have).

I often vented through various social platforms but I decided that enough is enough: I needed to grow as a person and stop shoving all my problems on others.

It was then I knew I had to find a way to escape. Unfortunately, in order to move out I needed at least a little bit of stable funding, which I'm very, very far from.

My sensory issues make it hard to gain interests in whatever food was cooked (ex. spaghetti, dumplings), and I didn't have the desire to eat expired canned greens from the food bank, which have since been covered in roach poo. They're pretty much everywhere you go.

Even the cleanest of countertops could be seen crawling with a few roaches. They reside deep within the microwave along with fried maggots from ages ago.

They have also made their way into the refrigerator, making it difficult to scour what little there is without feeling grossed out. It's getting harder day by day to tell the difference between of the smallest of bugs and pepper. Since we we can't afford a closed-top hamper, our dirty clothes are often covered in roaches trying to find a place to hide, making it difficult to gather the strength to wash them like I should.

They've also taken over my computer, rendering my unable to even touch it for months.

No amount of bombing, traps, or pesticides will clear them either. They were there to begin with, and they always come back.

There's even been an increase in other types of bugs, most notably fly's and gnats.

The Crock-Pot would often fill up with mold every other week because me and my mother didn't like chowing down on her friend's grand "homestyle cooking" every day.

We didn't eat it as much as we should've because it was often bland in taste and we don't know how to make her stop (I know I can't). She ended up making a fuss when we tried to make suggestions, so we let her get what she wants even if it wasting precious ingredients we could've used to make something we could actually eat.

To make up for it, I often had to buy single cans of Spaghettio's at a time from the Dollar Store and call it my meal for the day.

Now it seems like I can't even do THAT anymore.

It got to the point where I even considered that any drink besides water, hell even soda, could have some sort of nutritional value. It was better that eating nothing, after all.

I often pondered mother's financial choices when came to these things but as we all have been told "mother knows best" and we as children should not be allowed to question our parent's decision.

She recently told me my SSI completely cut because the government labels me as "being able to work". It turns out that they cut my disability check as opposed to SSI but I'm still left just as broken inside as before.

Why? Because there's absolutely no way I can save up such a large amount, we need every last drop to survive off of. I've used a very small portion of it to buy some little stuff to help me cope from time to time, but I'm gonna refrain from that from now on until I completely move out.

Even though the issue has been resolved for now, I'm tired of being dragged through hoops when I know they'll just try to cut it off again. I can't keep staying here because I'm sick and tired of having our only source of income dangling on a string.

I would really like to gain some much needed work experience and I plan on applying to Wal-Mart as soon as I upload this post.

However, there's one problem: I have no source of reliable transportation to get to my job.

My mother had to borrow money off of my grandmother (as she has done in the past) in order to have the gas to pick me up from therapy this week. While that tank of gas may last a bit, this is not sustainable enough for me to keep any sort of job regardless if it were part-time or full-time. The three job options in this very small town don't offer a position that would be comfortable enough for me to perform the tasks I am assigned and two are often known for mistreating their staff members on a regular basis.

Another reason I want to get a job in a bigger city is so I can continue to work once I move closer to Wal-Mart, which will save tremendous amounts of gas money and time. To avoid the trauma of driving, I will probably be using a transport bus as opposed to using a car.

The reason it appears that I don't look after my guinea pigs as much as I should is because their cages are inaccessible making it excruciatingly difficult to clean their cages and fufill their needs. With my own apartment to live in, I will have the ability make room for them and I can organize a place for my piggies in a much more open location free of mess.

I'd really like to keep them with me when I move alone, especially considering that I adopted one all the way from Louisville (I live around the west side of KY). I want to give Marlene the proper life she deserves after traveling across the state to take her beautiful soul home with me.

While I probably won't have access to a small animal veterinarian to get a proper diagnosis, my older guinea pig Chloe (about 4 years) had a massive tumor/cyst on her leg burst open a while back.

Her weight has drastically increased to the point where she feels like a limp water balloon when I attempt to pick her up, so it lead me to assume that her body is slowly being taken over by some form of internal cancer.

Even though there's nothing I can do to heal her, my ultimate wish is for Chloe to drift away peacefully in a safe environment free of bugs and other filth. This means that not only do I have myself to care for, but my two precious babies as well.

I admit that I have been going through a slow regression in regards to financial behavior, but I would love to learn how to shop responsibly while keeping my true interests at heart. I have plenty of plushies and figurines to keep me company at the moment. Some I'll sell to make room for new ones, but most of them will there to comfort me during stressful times.

After buying one of the most beautiful children's lamps I had ever seen at GoodWill, I soon found out that buying doesn't have to be boring and dull like all the adults have told us all our lives. I learned that you should buy furniture and clothes based on how it makes you feel instead of relying on others to tell you what to do, I would love to purchase decorations for my apartment that reflect who I want to become as a person.

Not everything should have to be about scrounging for my next meal.

However, the funds from this will go towards covering down-payment, rental costs, and buying a new setup for my guinea pigs if they are allowed at the apartment (I don't want to track bugs from the old cages, plus they need a bigger space).

I wanted to let you guys know that I will have to use a portion of the donations

to cover my mother's monthly electric bill. As much as I want to talk myself out of it, she literally relies on me for money so I don't exactly have the ability to opt-out of that right now.

The extra stuff (such as small appliances, furniture, groceries, and of course... a limited-edition plush or two) will be paid for using a compilation of my paycheck and whatever I earn off of Redbubble.

I'd love to start a YouTube channel where I do things like art, gaming, and reviews to strengthen my voice and get it out into the world in a peaceful, sanitary environment free from interruptions or harassment over a seemingly innocent/important subject matter.

There's lots of things that I missed out on when I was younger and I bet it would be so awesome to finally express myself free of constant toxicity and hatred.

I deeply love OK K.O. and I'd love to honor the impact that this person of color and his creation has left on me someday, as well as continue down my path of original content that I've been waiting to share with you guys!

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anthropologist-on-the-loose · 6 years ago

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Some Issues with Johann Hari's Article

When I opened up my news feed this morning and saw an article in the Guardian about depression, I was excited and intrigued. As someone who has major depressive disorder, as a medical student planning on going into the mental health field, and as a clinician, I was hopeful that I would learn about some new therapy, some new resource or insight I could gain or offer to others. Instead I was met with the self-promoting, sensationalized ramblings of disgraced journalist who is dangerously promoting polarizing views of depression, treatment, patients, and the medical community as a whole.

As you can probably already tell, I found Hari’s recent works offensive - on many levels. From the perspective of a medical student, Hari’s “novel” insights were incredibly disappointing. Our social and physical environment has an effect on our mental health? Shocking! Hari presents this insight as if this is some sort of fringe, radical idea rather than the well accepted theory upon which a good portion of treatment for depression is based on today. The biopsychosocial model has been a standard of treatment and teaching in the medical field for decades. Any decent professional acknowledges that this is one of the major complicating factors in treating patients who have major depressive disorder or a major depressive episode. While pills are incredibly easy to prescribe, it is much much harder to control what happens outside the clinic, which is often the major influencing factor in a person’s mental health. Physicians know this, and there is a growing portion of the medical community that places a priority on dealing with the psychosocial part of the biopsychosocial model of medicine. Hence the swelling of interest, over the past decade or so, in the medical community around community involvement and building resilience.

Furthermore, Hari’s comment that the medical community only offers “one option” for treatment of depression is spurious at best. Pharmaceutical intervention may play a role in an individual’s prescribed treatment, but nowhere does it say that it should be the only or even the major portion of the treatment. Ideally, a treatment regimen is a complex combination of multiple different resources, from pyschodynamic or talk therapy to mindfulness activities, and yes, medication. Ideally, treatment regimens should be deeply personal and individualized, decided on by negotiation between the physicians recommendations and the patient’s desires. Of course this is an idealized model and this doesn’t always happen for a multitude of reasons*, but to claim that that patients are offered only one option for therapy (pill-way or the highway?) is a gross misrepresentation.

Hari’s article was also triggering on a personal level. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder about a year ago, but likely had it from childhood having grown up in a deeply toxic household. When, finally, as an autonomous adult, I started to seek treatment, no one pushed me towards medications. My therapist and my psychiatrist didn’t even mention medication until I myself had reached a point where I felt that life was untenable. At that point, I was willing to try anything. Anything - just so I could get out of bed in the morning and do my school work and pass my exams. Medication was offered to me then and I was hesitant, but I tried it and transformed my life. I am not saying taking antidepressants “cured” me - they didn’t. But they did lift the fog a little to the point that I could do talk therapy and actually have it make an impact. I spent the whole of my childhood in and out of psychologists’ offices, like a revolving door and it made little to no impact on my mental health. In comparison, the strides I have made in the last year with the help of antidepressants have changed my life. I feel like I have a future and even when it feels like the world is in flames around me, I feel I can walk through the fire and survive. It’s not all because of the pills, but they certainly helped kick start my progress.

But from the first day that I started taking antidepressants, there were always people around me who were trying to get me to go off them, despite the improvement they saw in me. Always the constant question and nudge - Can’t you cope without them? Maybe learn new coping strategies? Have you tried yoga? Turmeric? Meditation?

Yes, yes, and yes. I have lived with this problem for 20 years. I coped with my depression for 20 years and never really lived because of it. I am not trying to say that just because antidepressants worked for me, that everyone should use them. But I am worried that my experience of people trying to take away the things that do help me is not unique and the pressure put on vulnerable people seeking treatment to just power through without help (whether pharmaceutical or therapeutic) will turn people away from trying something that may help them. Hari dangerously veers toward this perspective, adding additional pressure on top of the extreme social pressure that treats depression like a personal weakness. Tomorrow, when I go into clinic, I am worried that there will be patients who Hari has convinced to drop their medication. Of course, no patient should take anything they feel uncomfortable with, but it frightens me that I will have to stand to the side and watch people who are slowly getting better regress because some journalist published an irresponsible and highly polarizing account to springboard his own flagging career.

And maybe I am being exceedingly paranoid about Hari’s own reasons for publication, but I can’t help but feel that this is a publicity ploy. From the monolithic, black-and-white, good-and-bad characterizations he makes of the medical community to the way he chose to sensationalize long held and accepted theories to the excessive media campaign and promotional advertising for his book, I can’t help but feel that this is yellow journalism. Hari’s own journalistic integrity has come under suspicion more than once- for plagiarism in the past as well as anonymously editing his critics’ wikipedia pages. Who’s to say this is any different?

And just one final plead. Even if you read my entire monologue and decided that it is just the over bilious nattering of a self-important windbag, please, please DO NOT STOP YOUR MEDICATION COLD TURKEY. You put yourself and you health at considerable risk stopping antidepressants immediately without tapering off. Please go and talk to your doctor (doesn’t need to be psychiatrist, primary care will do) who can help you adjust your medication regimen to your satisfaction.

*Dear G-d, the medical field is so, so far from ideal. Can you believe that it takes 8 months to make an appointment with a psychiatrist in Chicago? And that an initial 50 minute consultation costs about $400, which is likely going to be out of pocket because so many psychiatrists don’t accept insurance? And when you mention this as an ethical problem to psychiatrists they just shrug as if it isn’t in their control to accept insurances (It is. It totally is.). Don’t get me started on physicians not spending enough time with patients to explain their medications and potential side effects so they can make an informed decision, corporate structure in large hospitals, and any one of million things I could rant about.

Please, please read this response. I know it’s long, but it brings up some incredibly important points.

And yes, PLEASE do not quit any medication cold turkey without consulting a medical doctor. There are so many things that can go wrong if you do.

The rest of this you can ignore if you want, it’s just me blathering

It is relation to this article, which I reblogged earlier today. This is a very important criticism of a topic that is near and dear to me, one where I let my emotions get in the way of my critical thinking.

I did a brief search on the author of the book, Johann Hari, and found that not only is he know for plagiarizing and hack journalism, but he has been open about having issues with drug addiction which makes me suspect that his views on medication in general might be a little biased.

I didn’t realize until a second reading that I had been internally refuting aspects of the article in my head, and how damaging it might be for people who don’t have an intimate knowledge of the medical system, or for those who already distrust it. Sometimes I forget that some of my experiences are not universal.

I’m so glad you took the time to write this, and for your willingness to share your own story.

Thank you so, so much for sending this in.

#important #health care #mental health #medicine #i'm not sure who you are or what to call you #but seriously I applaud you for writing this #I'm so glad you felt comfortable telling me that something I reblogged or said has legitimate issues #it really means a lot to me that other people are willing to help me learn and grow #submission #in which i say things

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so-shiny-so-chrome · 6 years ago

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Witness: Livia_LeRynn

Creator name (AO3): Livia_LeRynn

Creator name (Tumblr): Livia-LeRynn

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livia_LeRynn/works

Creator name (other platform- please specify): I am also So-Shiny-So-Chrome on Tumblr. Witness me interviewing myself.

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: The Mad Max franchise has a few of my favourite things (I should write this song...) like: deserts, obsessively detailed world building, post-apocalyptic setting, women being gritty, weird religions, and characters that hit the right combination of badass and broken. You have all this angst in the characters, but then there's this great sense of fun with how extra everything is. I'm a real sucker for deep social and philosophical concepts hidden behind explosions and cool fight scenes. Fury Road also came out at just the right time for me. I was just really ripe for so many of the themes and aesthetic components.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Stylistically, I like to change things up. I kind of oscillate between long, descriptive sentences and almost obnoxiously pithy ones. I break rules, start sentences with 'but' and 'and;' I use commas like breath marks, especially in dialogue to give it the rhythm I hear in my head. I also world build to an obsessive extent.

A frequent one for me is being female in the wasteland: relationships between women; portrayals of women finding themselves and their strengths; and the trade-offs women make to keep themselves safe. I also work a lot with religion in the wastes. Most fic have their own themes that come from the characters and their emotional struggles. For example, “Stranded” is about Furiosa being stuck between her past and future selves. “Blood and Breath” deals with a lot of different themes, but one of the more prominent ones the struggles that come with being in an unexpected and sometimes undesired position of power; it’s another theme that pops up rather frequently.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: I really enjoyed writing “Stranded.” It was just so different from anything I'd written for the fandom before. For me personally, it's still a good read.

The most difficult was “7000 Days,” both because I was new at fanfic in general but also because both parts I and II are really raw, dark, and personal. I needed to take breaks while I was writing it and shift gears to something lighter. It also doesn't get much reader attention, probably because it is so heavy, and that always makes writing harder for me. This one just felt like I was shouting into the void for a lot of it.

Currently "Daughters of the New World" is a struggle for me. The premise is a bit out there, what with Wonder Woman coming to town and being romantically attached to K.T. Concannon. Diana is a difficult character for me because she is complex but seems simple, and the whole thing is from the perspective of Furiosa who just doesn't get her. I worry that I've bit off more than I can chew because I want to explore some heavy stuff.

My most popular overall is “Blood and Breath,” which I kind of get because it scratches a lot of different itches. “Little Mate is my most popular short, which surprises me because it definitely is not in my comfort zone. It's cute; it's fluffy. It's just not something I would seek out to read.

My most successful might be “Crux.” Being a remix, I had set parameters to follow, which I find creatively useful. The author of the original was also quite please with it, so: success!

I think the fic I have written that most closely aligns with my personal tastes right now is “Wasteland Jukebox.” It probably helps that it is also my most recent. It bounces from angsty to fun to bittersweet to campy and back again multiple times over, all the while showing really intimate character portrates.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: All of the above. I like my wasteland realistic where everything hurts, but some things are still funny, and big wins are possible, but they come at a cost. Even when I'm filling my wasteland with ghosts and vampires, I still want it to feel very grounded in reality and populated with realistically complex people. This especially applies to medical stuff; if I'm going to write about something I want to portray it accurately and realistically within the context of the story. All the injuries, diseases, and treatments are based off of real things.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: It depends. Sometimes I can just crank something out. These are typically shorter, more atmospheric pieces. More often I have one or more specific scenes, and the rest of the fic grows off of them. Like for “Daughters of the New World,” it's Diana riding on top of a bonnet/hood while Furiosa is trying to shoot out the window, and they keep getting in each other's way. None of my longer fic is written in chronological order. For “Blood and Breath,” I have scenes that I first drafted probably two years ago, but I still haven't gotten to them in fic. Most of my first drafts are dialogue. Then on second pass I add or replace those words with body language.

Getting to the finished product is the hardest part for me, especially when I already have all the major parts of the puzzle figured out, and I just have to polish them up. I also tend to have that writers' curse where I think of what to write when I can't possibly write it, like in the shower or a work meeting. I'm also very much the type of writer where I live off of interaction with my readers. I love it when people question the choices I make in my fics. I don't really have a preferred environment for writing, but I know I can't do it if there's the slightest chance anyone near me might be reading over my shoulder. I just get paranoid. If I'm on an airplane, I have to wait for my neighbors to fall asleep.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Lots. Too many to list. I make playlists for each of my major projects. I listen to them mostly when I'm not writing so the stories stay in the back of my mind. They're all public on Spotify so just ask if you want a link.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Finishing my long projects, especially when there isn't much reader response. I can lose interest quickly, but I want to be reliable; if I know someone is looking forward to updates on my fic, I will keep writing for that one person.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: I think I've found a writing voice for myself. My early work tends to have a lot more of a throw shit against a wall and see what sticks approach. In my working with Furiosa especially I've definitely found some of myself in her. For example, a few interviews about Fury Road have stated that Furiosa avoids learning names to protect herself from emotional pain when people move on, die, betray her, she betray them, etc. I realised that I do that do. Of course, my situations aren't quite as extreme. :)

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: Right now I relate most to Furiosa, and that answer shouldn't surprise anyone, but initially I felt more like Toast. I thought Furiosa was really cool, but I didn't feel worthy to compare myself to her. It took me a few months to go - fuck it, I want to be her for Halloween. Of course, that wasn't enough. I wanted her backstory. I wanted to spend more time in the costume, and make the costume better. I choreographed a dance about her so I could wear the costume more, but I really needed to get to know her as a person to really feel comfortable taking on her persona, not to mention I needed make the dance make sense in character (”She Used to Dance” is that fic.) The more I got to know her, the more I took apart all her insecurities and neroses, the more I found her in me and myself in her.

I relate to her being a woman caught in the middle of a lot of things: being both young and old, hero and villain, masculine and feminine, strong and weak... The list goes on. I relate to how she has spent most of her adult life in a predominantly male environment, and how that manifests as difficulty relating to other women like in the, "Everything hurts," exchange with Angharad.

My favourite character to portray is whomever I'm currently writing once I find their voice. I enjoy the process of getting to know these people. Dag's POV is especially refreshing to write after working with characters who are super guarded like Max and Furiosa. I can just ramble and take weird turns in the narration. I need to write more of her. Capable is the hardest for me of the franchise ones I've tried.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I'm full aware of it. There is a bit in 7000 Days Part II where it's mentioned in memory that a the Vuvalini get ahold of some vaccines from Melbourne, which in my chronology falls significantly later than other cities. Furiosa is a little kid, and she is so determined to not get the shot that a couple of adults have to hold her down. This was me. This is literally a story from my childhood. Mostly little things like that. There's also the bit about Furiosa reading "Dune;" I fucking love "Dune," and her being trapped in the Vault while she's reading it, how can she not imagine a giant worm coming out of the sand and eating the whole damn place? On a larger scale, I use fic to explore themes and issues that are going through my head.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: Well, we've already established that I have a bit of a crush on Furiosa. I ship her with Max in my main continuity and with Valkyrie and Angharad in a couple of side projects. I'm interested in Furiosa with Max because of how they relate to each other. Yes, they are both terribly fucked up people, and who knows if the relationship would actually work, but that tension is a big part of the interest for me. It took me about six months in the fandom to open up to the possibility of there ever being any kind of romantic or sexual relationship between them, and in my chronology that's about the amount of time it takes for them to move from one time plautonic snuggle buddies to romantic/sexual partners. I do most of my writing in that time frame. The fact that they massively respect each other definitely is something that shouldn't be squandered, and I think they recognise that. I don't headcanon either of them as asexual (though my Furiosa is demi), and I think that the best shot they have for a happy partnership is with each other. They are both fundamentally good people who don't think they are worthy of kindness, let alone an actual relationship, but they both look at the other and see all the wonderful things about that person. I'm interested in how they navigate this dynamic and how they eventually come to the decision that even if it does end badly, which it probably will, it's worth trying. Everything hurts, right? Easy relationships are boring anyway.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: Sometimes I watch with specific details in mind, like to see the details of a prop or costume piece. Other times I'll watch something and see a detail I forgot but suddenly becomes an inspiration for a fic. For example, the Crazy Diamond chapter in “Wasteland Jukebox” came from me rewatching the first movie and seeing Jessie with her saxophone.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: Most of my stories are in the same chronology. Setting change AUs and “Crux” are the exceptions. Part of the fun for me is keeping tracker of the chronology. I don't expect my readers to work that hard though; every story stands on it's own.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: I do not break canon; I bend it to my will. Setting changes are an exception of course. I just work better within the structure that canon provides. If I change canon, I change one thing and only allow other changes that are a result of that first change. I develop and justify my interpretations of canon so that I find enough wiggle room for my headcanons to comfortably coexist with it. Where canon contradicts itself, e.g. video game vs. comics, I chose my preferred version. I even take little blurbs from interviews and try to work them in as lore.

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: Pretty much all my fic are based around headcanons. There are many, many of them. Some are the premises for fic while others are big reveals. Others are back story or missed scenes or just what was going on in someone's head. Here's one that's not a spoiler and doesn't make too many fic appearances:very Rockatanskyup name. Max's original last name was Patansky, and Jessie's was Rockwell. They're parents were millennials; of course they were raised to value gender equality :)

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: I rarely work with real OCs for anything other than side characters, but I often use characters who have little (Miss Giddy) to no screen time (K.T., Mary) or no canon name (Promise the Milker). They effectively become like OCs. K.T. had the most of a design process because all I had to go on were her name and Vuvalini affiliation. I made her black to bring more racial diversity to my 7000 Days cast, and I made her American because I wanted to have an instory explanation of Furiosa's accent not being Australian. Warboy Kai exists because I felt Furiosa needed an ally among the War Boys cuz fuck if the Imperator pumps her own gas. He will eventually become the History Man we see in the comics so he's still not a true OC. My true OCs follow the same process: 1) identify a logical gap or role that needs filling, 2) establish the character using canon reference points, 3) fill in the character's appearance, personality, etc. not already established by 1) or 2).

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: I'm not doing originals at the moment, but when I look back now at what I was doing pre-Fury Road, I realise just how fannish it all is. We're talking many thousands of words of world building, character development, angst, and pining. So yeah, not much different.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: I learned a lot about working with themes in different sub plots from "Wishbone." Seriously, if you've never seen that shit go check it out. A cute doggo dresses up and tells stories from classic literature while his human learns similar lessons in the "real world."

I consciously avoided other fic when I first started writing because I didn't want to accidentally injest headcanons and not be able to remember where I got them. Once I found the story I wanted to tell, I dove into the wealth the fandom had to offer. I owe @sacrificethemtothesquid for paving the way in making these characters as gross and gritty in fic as real humans. I owe @lurkinghistoric and @fuckyeahisawthat for warming me up to Maxiosa first through their less and then through their more explicit fic. And of course @youkaiyume for drawing the art that inspired many of those fic. Really the whole of the Smuttyartfic group got me writing smut again after a good decade away from it.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?

A: I'm gonna go with the good ole, "Write what you know; so know interesting things." Show off your passion and the depth of your knowledge.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: Yes to all of the above. I really like deserts and tend to pick them for my vacation spots. I stopped in Sydney on my way to New Zealand a few years back, but I didn't get to go outback; crossing the Nullibor is in my to-do list. If anyone plans a fandom-cation count me in. I've been to Wasteland Weekend twice and intend to be back, but probably not this year because this summer I will be going on a camping safari through Namibia. Don't worry, there will be pictures. And yes, I will be asking our guide obnoxious questions.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned projectThis is my year of finishing projects. I'm also signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate. Bid on my listing and you can choose my next project.

Thank you @livia-lerynn

#Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight #Mad Max Fandom Spotlight #mad max fic #fury road fic #mad max fandom #fury road fandom #mad max fanfic author spotlight

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oneweekoneband · 6 years ago

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Today’s first guest post is by my friend and fellow The Singles Jukebox contributor Vikram Joseph.

Counting to 15, 20, 30… - Delayed Queer Adolescence and the Songs of Troye Sivan

- Vikram Joseph

On a humid early August evening a few weeks ago, in one of those converted warehouse bars endemic to inner north-east London, I was chatting over drinks with a guy I’d once dated and had last seen in 2014. There was a lot to catch up on, and the conversation ran unexpectedly, rewardingly deep. It became clear that, though we’re both well into our adult lives by any conventional measurement, we’d each changed and grown significantly in the intervening years in a way that films, books and the media seem to suggest happens in your late teens. The idea of delayed adolescence being a common trope for queer people came up, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. Why do those formative years of growth and the exploration of self-identity seem to happen later for us? Is it a delayed phase of development, a prolonged phase, or both? And how is this reflected in the way we interact, the spaces we choose to spend time in, and the art we consume?

***

A recent viral tweet:

“Gay culture is your life being delayed by 10 years because you didn’t start being yourself until your mid-20s.”

At the time of writing, this tweet has 117,000 likes. Clearly, this is a phenomenon which touches nerves across the spectrum.

To the extent that we can “know” a pop singer through their songs, it seems like Troye Sivan – still just 23, and releasing his second album – has done his growing fairly early on. In just a few years, we’ve heard him go from singing about tentative gay crushes to the fully-realised queer euphoria of his newer songs. And yet, the concept of protracted, stuttering adolescence is crisply, poignantly refracted through his music, and I feel that a lot of his immense appeal to queer people far older than himself can be attributed to this.

***

HEAVEN “The truth runs wild, like kids on concrete.”

“Heaven” deals with the internal struggle for self-acceptance – by no means unique to LGBTQ+ people, but one that everyone who’s grown up on that spectrum will understand intimately, in the form of coming out to yourself. “Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?” Religion is a useful allegory here, but ultimately a distractor – the duality Sivan is really concerned with here is about happiness. For a lot of us, coming out for the first time feels like a crossroads, where we have to make a choice between one kind of happiness and another, and “Heaven” captures this (false, but very powerful) dichotomy beautifully.

Sivan’s first album, Blue Neighbourhood, hangs heavy with the imagery of suburbia. It’s rich, relatable visual and psychological territory, exemplified in decades’ worth of teen TV dramas and coming-of-age films. Many of us will recognise it as the backdrop to the fraught intensity of that long, tangled conversation with ourselves; the feeling of being on the brink of everything and the precipice of nothing, the intoxicating, paralysing combination of anticipation and dread. Sivan deals with this at 15; for me, I was 20, during university Christmas holidays, back in the dull hum of suburbia. Maybe there’s something about it that gives us the emotional space to plumb the depths of those brave new ideas. “Heaven” conjures this musically as well as lyrically, with a tense two-chord shuffle, close, muffled production, and Betty Who’s guest turn evoking a better angel from the future, reassuring us, beckoning us towards the light. If I’d heard it at 20, or earlier, it would have destroyed me; it might even have accelerated my own journey.

Sivan sings about “counting to 15”, the age at which he came out to his family. There’s something that invariably surprises straight people, when I’ve tried to explain it to them, but will come as no surprise at all to anyone else, and it is this: coming out never stops. Every new environment presents a decision to make and a challenge to face; and while it gets easier (and can often be an incredibly liberating experience), it’s never a formality. The subtler aspect to this is that there is no end-point to coming out to yourself, either. Accepting yourself as a gay person is just the beginning; there follows years and years of figuring out what that means. And I think this lies at the heart of delayed queer adolescence. These are questions of identity that are near-impossible to figure out alone, and many of us aren’t surrounded by other people with the same questions until much later – either due to geography, or opportunity, or not realising how badly we need to be, or maybe all of the above. And so “counting to 15” (or however old we are when we get there) is a countdown to the real start of our lives, rather than to any sort of conclusion.

***

TALK ME DOWN

“You know that I can’t trust myself with my 3 a.m. shadow.”

Queer mental health remains poorly understood and inadequately talked about, both in the mainstream press and in medical circles. Working as a doctor, I’ve witnessed the stigma towards LGBTQ+ patients from other medical professionals – rarely overtly hostile, but often casual, unthinking and pernicious. The mental health charity Mind believe that 42% of gay men, 70% of lesbians and 80% of transgender people experience mental illness; the statistics for gay men are almost certainly an underrepresentation, as men in general are less likely to report symptoms.

Early on in his powerful book “Straight Jacket: Overcoming Society’s Legacy of Gay Shame”, the journalist Matthew Todd runs through an harrowing litany of case studies of young gay people who have lost their lives to suicide, violence and addiction. He then explores the factors behind this, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the gay community, and hones in particularly on the near-universal gay experience of shame (in its many forms) during our formative childhood and adolescent years as a key determinant of depression, anxiety, poor body image, low self-worth, and harmful patterns of behaviour.

On the gorgeous, shimmering ballad “Talk Me Down”, Blue Neighbourhood’s emotional centre of gravity, Sivan sings (possibly from a friend or partner’s perspective) about dark thoughts, struggling for self-acceptance, and, implicitly, ideas of suicide. The accompanying video is high melodrama, but then, so is coming to terms with your sexuality. “I know I like to draw the line when it starts to get too real / but the less time that I spend with you, the less you need to heal” cuts to the heart of the conundrum most young gay people face – desire, and a need to be open and liberated, versus deeply-ingrained feelings of guilt, fear and shame. In his book, Todd argues that these are socially determined but can be overcome, but it’s hardly surprising that it takes a long time to get there – and hence, “normal” emotional development is a protracted experience.

***

YOUTH

“What if we’re speeding through red lights into paradise?”

It’s easy to forget that there are very few conventional pop songs on Blue Neighbourhood. “Youth” (and “Wild”) are probably the closest, but while it might be tempting to read “Youth” purely as a love song, I think its real core lies in escapism, another trope prevalent among (although, clearly, not unique to) young gay people. The imagery is wild and fantastical – “trippin’ on skies, sippin’ waterfalls” – and I distinctly remember writing similar (albeit much worse) songs at 15 or 16, cosmic love songs to no one in particular about things I knew nothing about.

Todd’s “Straight Jacket” has an interesting chapter on how he believes escapism informs archetypal LGBTQ+ tastes in pop, musicals, science fiction, horror and drag. I don’t always agree with the specifics, as I think we’re a broader church than he implies. But it’s hard to argue with the queer impulse for escape, particularly in our years of self-discovery, into spheres where our possibilities are limitless, our own selves freer and more confident, and our fears diminished. It’s maybe a symptom of that delayed development, of more years spent in limbo. When I listen to “Youth”, it gives me a clean hit of that feeling, particularly in the bridge, with “the lights start flashing like a photobooth” simulated by pulsing, strobe-light synths.

***

MY, MY, MY!

“Let’s stop running from love.”

Bloom, Sivan’s second album, finds him confident, assured and in love. It’s a big step, though not a quantum leap, from much of Blue Neighbourhood, and I’m interested in the in-between. “Running from love” perhaps gives a little away. It’s hard for us to know how to approach dating, love and sex. Certainly, queer people might feel unconfined by traditional heteronormative conventions or ideals, but equally many of us crave what our straight friends and families have. (It’s important to note that, of course, it’s not one or the other.) I think “running from love” speaks to a queer (and perhaps more universal) anxiety – after what feels like forever waiting for opportunities that feel tantalisingly out of reach, embracing a singular, tangible thing at the expense of all other potential things is terrifying.

Still, this is a dizzy, ecstatic, seductive love song. The expression “my, my, my” can seem trite in a pop song, but Sivan sells it as breathless disbelief. Some things are hard-earned.

***

ANIMAL

“No angels could beckon me back.”

And so we come full circle. The religious imagery is no coincidence; on Bloom’s stunning closer, the gorgeous, hazy reverie of “Animal”, we understand the heaven the Troye Sivan managed to reach.

It takes some of us a long time to get there, and the destination is different for all of us. I’m currently reading Michael Cunningham’s classic queer novel “A Home at the End of the World”, in which the character of Jonathan, at 27, tries to navigate the differences between the sort of settled, faintly bleak domesticity of the kind his parents have lived (“the fluorescent aisles of a supermarket at two in the afternoon”) and the often lonely, unfulfilling search for a different kind of home and family in the city (gay literature is fascinatingly fixated on homes and families, albeit often unconventional ones). It resonates with me. As queer people, the usual rules don’t have to apply – the expectations of one milestone and then the next, the pragmatic retreat back into suburbia at 30 – and that presents a different set of challenges.

I believe it’s a double-edged sword. Queer adolescence might be delayed because of our differences in the world, but equally, we are different because of that delayed development. It informs the way we experience life. Beautiful art is created because of those differences; hell, we might even be lucky enough to create some ourselves. And so, way beyond 15, most of us are still counting, still trying to understand, still discovering ourselves and each other, searching for logical families and people to grow with. No angels could beckon us back.

#troye sivan

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tmitransitioning · 6 years ago

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What causes gender dysphoria to develop? I was well-past puberty by the time I had any, and it wasn't like performative genderfluidity where I was like "oh, so there's a word for it, it's A Thing!" ps. How long does it take for a question to get answered and posted? I sent one about a week ago on clitoral hardness that isn't up yet, and in the past it's been shorter for any questions i've asked. I wanna check how long I should expect to wait or if maybe it just didn't send properly.

Second question first—timeframe varies a lot; a bunch of us got hit with real-life issues lately (academia, work, and a monster flu strain) so a backlog accumulated again and we’re working through it. If you’re the person asking about going on/off T and “erections”, I’m drafting an answer for that one; if not, maybe send again because I don’t see another ask along those lines in either the week-back inbox or the queue. Sometimes Tumblr eats things; if you send a question checking up on a previous question in such a way that it can be identified, I’ll look for you (general you) and see if we got it—we strongly prefer that to just resending the question. c:

As to your first question—if anyone can answer that conclusively, they’d make a lot of money off of it. We don’t know; nobody knows. The ways people explain their dysphoria vary because experiences vary. The best guess that we have right now is that it’s a combination of neurological, social, and emotional factors that relate to how we internalize, understand, and form our identities in the face of social gender.

The shortest answer that we can generally accept is that dysphoria comes from the dissonance between how we conceptualize ourselves and how we exist in the world in relation to gender. This cause "holds” room for a lot of different experiences; some people have had identifiable dysphoria from really young ages, for example, where they “knew” internally that they weren’t their birth assignment. Other people, like you and I, didn’t have anything identifiable as dysphoria until past puberty. For me, a lot of that happened because I was a “tomboy” as a child in an unusual social environment (secular homeschooling) that had little imposed gendering, but puberty meant that suddenly I was being very aggressively gendered based on secondary sex characteristics that I couldn’t control.

I’m guessing what you mean by ‘performative genderfluidity’ is the kind of... reactive thing that a lot of people do when they first realize they’re trans where they feel like they have to embody it very outwardly in the name of Oh This Is A Thing!, because that’s a pretty common experience that a lot of people go through before we feel comfortable moving presentation around in various directions. But the framing of your question to me says that you had dysphoria before then (please correct me if I’m wrong), where it evolved as a thing before you ever had a word for it. That absolutely happens. What you attribute it to is up to you and is as scientifically valid as anyone else’s concept.

I don’t know if this narrative would strike any chords with you, but maybe it will, so here it is. I don’t feel like I would still “be” trans if I had been raised entirely in a society without any strong forced gendering. My identity as a nonbinary person would still exist, but I would feel less pressure to outwardly embody it or contravene something expected of me. Part of that would probably be a different set of feelings about my body and my physical dysphoria; I might be more okay keeping my boobs, for example, or being less hairy. If I had never been hit on, or harassed, or preyed on, or degraded, or assumed to be nineteen at age ten based on my secondary sex characteristics, I would probably feel a lot less dysphoria about them.

That is not because such a series of experiences has led me to believe that they’re lesser; by contrast, I still think of them as neutral objects in existence. But on me, as a person, they are irrevocably associated with accumulated traumatic experiences of being gendered as something I am not, and that didn’t manifest until after puberty for me because they didn’t really exist until that point. I got boobs really early and really fast; I was my adult height by age ten and had like a D-cup. The years that followed that were a steady, crushing weight of not being allowed to exist as an androgynous weirdo who liked horses and YA fantasy—suddenly straight people were assuming that I was fair game for their dynamics, and people were forming ideas about the social roles and behaviours I was expected to hold based on something about my external appearance I couldn’t control.

I think that in a nongendered utopia I’d still have things I want to change about my body—I’ve always disliked having a voice in “female” ranges, for example, though I have no clue why that persisted. And frankly, I would probably want my boobs changed anyways, because of back pain—but if I hadn’t spent over a decade being forcibly categorized based on them, I would probably go with a reduction instead of removal.

I don’t want to imply that all dysphoria is due to socialization because that is very easily twistable by TERFs. I think there’s a strong neurological component to how people develop internal gender identities outside of the debunked “male/female brain” model, and I don’t think that we understand what that neurological component is yet; I would put money on it being a primary driver of dysphoria. But I also think that the medical narrative of trans people who always know about their gender and experience marked dysphoria from childhood is, while a real thing that happens, only accurate for some of us and in no way true to the diversity of experiences within the trans umbrella. I talk about social gendering in this context because I think that, for a lot of us who only experienced what we could call dysphoria after puberty, our dysphoria is in part a result of accumulated traumas from being forcibly gendered into something that does not match our internal experience. It comes from the mismatch between how we are, how we’re treated, and how we want to exist. The forms that it takes, then, vary depending on where the individual person lays the “fault”, and what sort of experiences have been associated with our physical appearances over time. Being misgendered and told that we cannot know our own reality is traumatic. For a lot of us, that only becomes identifiable during or after puberty, when we have the cognitive capacity and life experiences necessary to understand this in ourselves.

- Mod Wolf

#dysphoria #mod wolf #long post cw

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vogavogavoga · 6 years ago

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All my childhood I was a restless kid. Never sitting in a one place for more than five minutes, never sitting in a chair properly — crossing and clamping legs, twisting hands. I could start running in rounds, jumping and pulsing with energy minutes before I was supposed to go to sleep. Oh… if only you’d know how I myself wished to be calm and to be able to sit still. Though that active, I’ve been shy and a socially awkward child — I can`t say that friendship and contacting people was easy for me, it was pretty hard to communicate with other kids and grown ups and to understand and maintain appropriate group clues and norms. Kindergarten was not so easy, but not that hard, ‘cause it’s easier to deal with the little children and I was under the watch of my grandmother who was working as a schoolmaster in the kindergarten I’ve been attending. Or more correctly, I was attending kindergarten where my grandma was working.

It really became tough in school since the day one. Sit quiet for a long time and keep the constant focus. If you’re not able to do it — it’s all your fault, why do you do it? From slight questions and disturbance of more experienced teachers to a quite hurtful and dumb humor of the young ones. One crazy episode which I will never forget was getting some young girl as an arts teacher who thought that I WAS SUPPOSED TO DRAW GOOD, when I simply couldn’t often maintain an attention span to draw a straight line. Bad marks, criticism, self-deprecation… Gosh, somehow, maybe thanks to my late grandma, I’ve found an activity to direct my energy whilst overcoming shyness and showing that there’s a thing I could do good, somehow I was in a drama class since 3rd to 8th grade approximately. It helped a bit.

The further it went, the harder it become. Adolescence, you know. Did I mention an important detail, that I was not much of a strong kid too? Combine that with an emotional instability, social awkwardness and so on. Somehow I managed through it. Thanks to my then only big friend and a classmate (with whom we’ve been classmates in a university too) who is still my good friend — he was teaching me how to behave and approach the society of teens and sometimes ready to stand for me physically. And then there was a very shiny period with a small break, which all is an achievement of one of the two great teachers I had. Some people never have one, I guess. I was a happy kid.It was an English teacher Svitlana Zelenskaya, who were also responsible for our class in the 6th grade, as far as I remember. I don’t know were she, how they write — “the kind of person who enjoys their work”, but I can definitely say, that she is a kind of person who does it real good. We were all friends in our class. No bullying. No major problems. Everyone is interested in something. Lot of activities. Forest walks. Who do you want to be when you grow up?I liked learning English a lot, and I don’t know where I’d be now without it. Thank You So Much, Svitlana Volodymyrovna.

The most strange thing was, than on the start of peak of all of this teen blast in 9th grade, 13-14th years old, it was the best time in school. We’ve had another homeroom teacher, not so young and enthusiastic, but somehow we all were maintaining good status. It was friendly, it was interesting.

Then, when I was 12th or 13 years old, there were computers. First at home and father’s job and then on some kind of courses for kids ran by then colleagues of my brother. It was very important to see that there are a lot of kids like me. I waited for these Sundays as for the one real holiday, to hop on a trolleybus with my friend, ride to the Aerospace University, quickly finish the assignments and chat and play computer games and exchange oddball humor remarks.

Now I understand that, probably, something happened in a school structure, which caused a lot of people to leave after 9th grade to some kind of university pre-schools and some teachers left too and then it became real bad.Idea of mixing together quite different kids from established class environments in their 14th-15th looks to me now as an idea to splash some fuel into a running heating chemical reaction and stiring it a little bit.There were good persons who were friendly, smart and open and there were not so good persons, who were angry, stupid and lazy. I have the right to write that about those people. And nobody at school gave a shit about it. Somehow I managed through all of that. Sure, my parents always have been concerned with all of that and when I was 15 years old I got diagnosed with ADHD. The thing was, nobody quite explained what it is, and I obviously didn’t pay much attention to it and soon forgot about it.

University could’ve been good, unless all my problems which I brought with me for years have finally started to reach me and I got into a terrible episode of depression in the middle of my first year. Had a fun time with neuroleptics. Somehow I managed through all of that.Then I became interested in sports, especially martial arts and found that it helps me to focus, to relax, and in the same time gain control of myself. Also, in the beginning of second university year I started working part-time as a programmer, and I still can say it was the best job and one of the best people I’ve ever met. In those years my young radicalism and search for communication and involvement brought me into some regretful activities, but I was socializing with other people. That’s how desperate this could be. Do I feel sorry for that? A lot. Do I regret about it? Nope, what’s done is done.

Finished the university, found the love, started to live together. One day I came home after work and she said that it’s finished. I’m still sorry for that — other person should not pay for my unawareness of myself with their stability and happiness. I was a hell to live with — impulsive, often grumpy, extremely picky, forgetting to spend time together and remembering bad things for years.Those were circa two years then with post-break-up recovery and strange relationships, which was my turn to end then. Which turned-up into a summer depression.The thing that I want to write down in scripture is Many Thanks To Tetyana, if not you, I’d not probably made it that time.

And then there were job problems too. I mean I’ve always been a good worker in sense of performance, if I loved it, but if I didn’t love it — I really did not love it.And then I started to hate everything about my profession. Looking for something I didn’t know I want. Frustrating. Thanks to my wife, we had an ability for me to spend almost two years not working. It helped. I had a structure and plan after that.

Things followed, and then was the major depression (summer again) which peaked before my 30th birthday last year. Things were really bad. I started to attend psychotherapist and somehow it worked for me. Not only this though, also some medications, exercise, meditation and other things big and small. But now I feel much better. Last year my mom said to me, that she’s wondering that I made it past 30. I made it again and with the G-d’s help suppose to make it again and again. Now, after almost 14 years of neglecting, I’ve finally returned and admitted who am I, and I’m learning how to live with that, I’m feeling proud of myself.I’m feeling disturbed about the situation with mental specifics, particularly how most of the people don’t know about that and how neurodiversity is still a new and exotic concept. And how it’s hard if people just think you are “weird”. I hope it will be better.

I was a happy kid.

I don’t blame my parents for anything and I’m really thankful for everything they did for me, they did all what was possible and even more in realities of being something of a poor family in Ukraine, in the 90’s. And no one knew what is ADHD and how to deal with it, even therapists.

I’m thankful to all of my friends for cheering me up, listening to me and being with me.

I’m thankful to my ex-partners for being with me and I’m sorry that it didn’t work out. But it is how it is.

I’m thankful to my therapist for working with me.

I’m thankful to my wife for being with me through all of that and I’m sorry for all the bad moments we’ve had because of me.

I’m thankful to myself.

Love, Voga.

#writings #mental health #mental health awareness #adhd #add #neurodiversity #neuropride

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