#events to exist. i can give u a reading list depending on what u like in stories (will list the same 3 events for everyone) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dahniwitchoflight · 4 years ago

Text

Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

#Homesquared #june egbert #john egbert #yeah theres no way there not gonna bring up June Egbert as a apossibility now #Roxy couldn't have quirked her eyebrows harder at the fourth wall if they had tried #Homestuck #I'm basically convinced now lol #that plus my reaction to chapter 14

21 notes · View notes

drmedicsgamesurgery · 5 years ago

Text

Danganronpa Togami Volume 3 Part 4 (Summary)

Continuing where we left of in chapter 2!

Thanks to @enoshima-pyon @shockersalvage @jinjojess @hopeymchope for helping out!

3. Continued

"Hey what's with that smile, do you think I’m really that great of a mood? I’m looking for my sister, so this is no time to be eating." says Hiroyuki.

Shinobu asks about Yuika and the Ketouins to which Hiroyuki says that he has no idea what she is talking about. This is not his identity, what made her think that? Shinobu answers that Borges gave her all the info she needed.

"You really are proud of Borges, the information retrieval library developed by the Togami’s. It seems that you’re convinced of the information given to you by this gadget is correct, but what if it isn’t? Is it really ok to believe everything Borges says?”

Shinobu searches for references about the Ketouin’s in Borges to check.

Borges = Search results

#67910104

Title "Dialogue after 7pm yesterday"

"The Ketouin Conglomerate... You ever heard of it?"

"Never."

(OMITTED)

"Ketouin Conglomerate. I remember hearing about it."

"Way to go, little master! Let me carry your bags! Should I fetch you some sandals and warm up some onigiri too?"

"Unlike the typical conglomerate, they're one of those 'underworld conglomerates', and top of the list, at that. Even I haven't met with someone from an underworld conglomerate before."

(OMITTED)

"What an honor. I'm Hiroyuki, the grandson of the Ketouin Conglomerate's current head,

Hatakiyo Ketouin. And that's my twin sister."

"You may call me Yuika."

"After that conversation, I searched the "KETOUIN CONGLOMERATE" #87654321 in your base inside the car factory. Even if Borges fails, you shouldn’t doubt the Togami’s.”

"Borges failing? And what did the little master say? Things are getting too complicated, it’s giving me a headache."

"Are you trying to say that the world I see is just a product of fantasy."

"'This is the world I want to see'. Hmm, I quite like that way of thinking," Hiroyuki chewed on some chicken. "Of course, this world is not just a dream you want to see, I live in the same world as you, but it seems that our Weltanschauung[1] is not the same."

"Weltan... Hey, what do you mean?"

"What I want to ask is about your talent, that is the key to your self-awareness."

My talent.

Secretary.

"Milady, do you know that it is said that the profession of ‘secretary’ was born in the Middle East around 3,000 BC, but the secretaries of that time had only one job, for centuries, despite the ability to use the privileged class of words. That's all they had."

"What kind of job?"

"Recording."

"What?"

"Recording, like, keeping records. How many beans are there, how many potatoes, how many slaves, recording these was the task of a secretary."

“They didn’t write books?”

I don’t know much about history. It’s really unexpected when I say it. I used to think that the job of secretaries were to write biographies of great emperors or a story that prospered the country with lyrical words. It seems that the earliest books are as clean as I am. Lies, exaggerations, and ambiguous expressions, they ruled out all of this, only recording the facts, and implemented this principle all the time. I felt that my approach was not wrong and I couldn't help but feel relieved.

"For centuries, the secretary has been making records," Hiroyuki nodded. " I have to ask some questions. What are the reasons for these secretaries to start writing stories?"

"Are you asking the reason why the modern day secretary has declined?"

"I don't know if this should be called declining. In short, from a certain period of time, the secretary no longer needed to record, so they started to write biographies and lyrics and such. So why?"

"Maybe because I am tired of endlessly recounting records..."

"Because of unemployment."

"What?"

"Unemployment, like, no longer having that job. Countless kingdoms collapsed, and the bureaucracy where they lived ceased to exist. At that time, the secretary found that he was abandoned like Wakame [2] on the beach, losing his original status and reputation. These secretaries have the ability to read and write words. In the past, they served the people of the national center. Their self-esteem was devastated and they felt despair."

"It is because they are in despair that there will be a story to write."

Those who have been abandoned by the world and whose desires are not satisfied, they use their only ability - literary talent, to try to find the glory of the past, if so, how much-

“Somewhat disappointing.”

Hiroyuki talks about how greek and egyptian mythology was likely written by these despair filled secretaries. They were at the top of the country in power structure, but were reduced to nothing but sheepherders living a boring life. Those people wanted to make something interesting out of their lives and pictured their ideal world, out of despair.

"You really know a lot." Shinobu answers.

"Oh, it's nothing really... When I was young, I spent my days at the library."

Shinobu feels like she is a person who feels like she has a duty to write a book, and record things, to which Hiroyuki jokes that maybe now she is out of employment she has become one of the despair fueled secretaries too.

"Your Borges, your partner, your writing aid, your left and right hand, your comrade and your mentor..."

"What's with the cool speech, are you saying that I couldn't write anything without Borges?"

Shinobu thinks about how she is in fact extremely dependant on Borges, and without it, most of “Journey Under The Midnight Sun” would not have been recorded. However she never once thought that this would make her talent somewhat fake or forced, but it's because of Borges she is able to have an ability like this. She only wants to write down and record the facts.

The reality I have witnessed including my self-consciousness - this layer of extra filters, misreading, mistaking, and thinking wrong, all these human-specific errors are excluded, only the truth is recorded, to be recorded so factually like this, Borges is essential.

"You are indeed a true secretary. The original job of the secretary is to record the volume of goods in a warehouse. So to ask a new question, what would happen if the actual volume of the storage space itself is wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"What would you do if the information Borges told you were fake?"

"Borges is perfect."

"There was a crash because the meter was broken. The pilot always believed that the meter had no problems, which caused the plane to fall. No matter what, believing 100% in something is very dangerous."

"Do you want me to doubt?"

"You have to doubt everything."

"That’s too cliché."

"I’m serious. Only prophecy can guarantee that there is no impurity in the real world."

"Prophecy……"

"If you don't find the 'Kudan' quickly, be careful that you won't be able to keep yourself. If you let the fat man take the fake goods, don't say how the world is, you must be finished."

"Who the hell are you?"

"My identity isn’t really that important."

"You aren’t answering me, Hiroyuki."

"So, uh, this person, Hiroyuki, never even existed in the first place. Hiroyuki Ketouin, Yuika Ketouin, the Ketouin Conglomerate, the Hasegawa Research Institute, Taeko Kanai, the Red Ribbon Army [3], the Black Gema-Gema Gang [4] and the International Criminal Police Organization [5], are all fiction. Fictional individuals and groups. If you think they are real, then well, your crazy. Well maybe not you who is crazy, but rather it’s Borges that is the crazy one.”

I have also noticed the differences between my memory and his testimony. However, I cannot agree with him. If I agree, then I won’t be able to trust myself, and I can't keep my story going.

"You want to get the 'Kudan' first. Be the first one to find the truth: it’s the only way to save you." continues Hiroyuki "You should let your mind run at full speed to deal with this event, as you did during The Biggest, Worst Incident in the History of the Togami Family.”

"Who are you?"

"I am your companion. I have been your companion since a long time ago. I hope you can be happy from now on. This is my only wish."

"Who are you?"

"You don't have to think about it. If you can't remember it, then blame Borges."

Hiroyuki showed a short but soft smile.

Do I... know? Do I know this unnatural smile?

"I asked, who are you. Please, answer me..."

"You can't remember. Maybe Borges not only eroded your present, but also eroded your past. You have to hurry, this has nothing to do with the Togami family and the world, for your own sake, please hurry..."

A hole opened in Hiroyuki’s head. Hiroyuki, who had a big hole in his eyebrow, still had a smile on his face, and held my hand in his. "Be yourself." his head fell onto his plate. We were under attack, so I rushed back. At that moment, there was a sharp impact on my face. I fell into the corner of the room as my face was shot. Aah, aaaaaah, lies, lies, lies, lies, aaaaah, I was hit, lies, lies, hit, aAH, I was hit, my face was hit, face, face, AAH, Byakuya-sama, I'm so scared, so scared, Byakuya-sama, I want to see you again, aaah, lies I don't want you to see, because my face is hit, I am going to die, am I going to die? I am alone, in a foreign country, I am going to die, are you going to die? A person? So scared, I don't want to be hit, █ hit, ███, I want ██, Byakuya-sama, Bya██ya, I ██ dead, █ want to see you, Byakuya-sama, want to see you, don't want to ███,█████ want to die, don't want to see you, want to see you, I want to die, I don't want to██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Translations notes:

[1] Weltanschauung is German for Worldview

[2] Wakame is a type of seaweed used mostly in soups and salads.

[3] The Red Ribbon Army is a paramilitary criminal organization from the Dragonball series.

[4] The Black Gema-Gema Gang are a group of evil-doers from the Di Gi Charat series.

[5] The International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, is an intergovernmental organization facilitating international police cooperation from the Marvel Cinematic Universe series.

To be continued?

https://drmedicsgamesurgery.tumblr.com/GameSurgeryDRTranslations

#Danganronpa #Danganronpa:Togami #Danganronpa Togami #DRT3 Summary #Danganronpa: Togami #Part 4

9 notes · View notes

youthincare · 5 years ago

Link

A third-year student at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus says she was handcuffed by campus police while at the Health and Counselling Centre seeking help for suicidal thoughts.

The incident happened five days after a student died by suicide at the downtown campus on Sept. 27, and amid students voicing concerns about mental health services on campus.

The student says it left her feeling traumatized and feeling like a criminal.

"I felt like this was basically all my fault for coming to get help. I feel like that should be a thing that people should never feel when they ask for help," she said in an interview.

Due to the sensitive nature of the incident, CBC News is protecting the woman's identity.

The woman's friend, Anita Mozaffari, says she went with her to see a campus psychiatrist, but they were told getting an appointment could take months.

"That's not something that you say to someone who's already feeling suicidal and very hopeless," Mozaffari said. "So [my friend] began to cry and felt very distressed."

'It doesn't feel human': Students angry U of T not acknowledging campus suicides

They were informed the first step is seeing a nurse specializing in mental health issues, but who wasn't at the campus clinic, so they met with another nurse, according to Mozaffari.

The student says she and the nurse came up with a "safety plan," which included staying at Mozaffari's home that evening. The nurse told her that before they could leave, it was protocol for them to speak briefly with campus police.

'I started to panic'

The student says that as soon as the two officers heard her mention a physical location where she was thinking of dying by suicide, they told her they had to arrest her. She told them it was unnecessary and she would go with them to Credit Valley Hospital.

"[They] told me to stand up and turn around. In that moment, I started to panic," she said. "I had no mental health professional with me to tell me what's happening ... I had to ask them why this was happening and they let me know that it was protocol."

Mozaffari says her friend was calm until that point, but once she was arrested, she started hyperventilating. The officers put Mozaffari's jacket over the handcuffs and escorted her through a busy building on campus as she cried, according to Mozaffari. The student says she was humiliated and felt as though others were wondering what she did wrong.

I felt like this was basically all my fault for coming to get help.- Student who was handcuffed

She and Mozaffari waited for a police car so the officers could take her to the hospital. Mozaffari wasn't allowed in the back of the car, which made the student panic and feel uncomfortable, she says. She vomited in the back seat.

The student says the officers wouldn't take off the handcuffs until a nurse at the hospital deemed it OK. She spent the night there and was prescribed medication.

Safety of students is top priority: U of T

When asked about the incident, the University of Toronto said in a statement it can't comment on specific cases, but students' safety and well-being are the primary consideration.

A spokesperson didn't confirm whether the use of handcuffs is part of the university's protocol in certain mental health incidents.

"Situations are sometimes fluid and evolve quickly. The steps taken depend on the officers' assessment of the situation," the statement reads.

"Campus medical professionals are trained to work with individuals who are experiencing a physical or mental health crisis. Hospitalizations are relatively rare, and most are voluntary."

The statement goes on to say campus police become involved when someone makes specific statements that indicate they have an intention to harm themselves and are unwilling to go to a hospital.

"In such cases, we have a responsibility to keep individuals safe."

The university says it's reviewing its police practices "in this respect" and its existing practices are consistent with those of local municipal police services.

We have a responsibility to keep individuals safe.- University of Toronto

Beverly Bain, a gender studies professor, teaches Mozaffari at the Mississauga campus and has shared the incident with administrators. She says she's heard of a handful of similar incidents.

Bain says she'd like to see policy change so law enforcement isn't involved in mental health situations on campus, leaving it up to mental health professionals.

"[This is] criminalizing our students for trying to get help or for having mental health issues. The administration needs to intervene in terms of the practice of campus police."

Improving mental health services

Second-year U of T student Ashwini Selvakumaran, who has been calling on the university to improve mental health services since September, says she hasn't seen any substantial change at the school, but notes student groups are taking action.

She'd like to see shorter wait times to see professionals, more communication with students when an incident happens, and a larger conversation about mental health and the services available.

"A lot of students don't really know that there is a crisis going on and therefore they don't know how they can get involved."

After the student suicide at the end of September, Selvakumaran co-founded UofThrive, an advocacy group aimed at giving students a voice about mental health.

The group held its first event last month. Mozaffari and her friend attended and shared their experience. Selvakumaran says she was shocked and angry, but it was inspiring.

"We really want to do something to make sure no student ever goes through that or feels that way again."

U of T students demand change in wake of suicide on campus

U of T open to ideas for better student supports after suicide, president says

The university says it's reviewing the services and supports offered to students and looking at how to improve them. It also points to the mental health task force that is gathering input across all three campuses.

U of T recently released its Draft Summary of Themes, which outlines what the task force heard from students, staff and faculty while doing engagement over the last few months

The draft lists seven areas to improve on, including communication, services and culture. Pop-up feedback sessions about the themes are being held across the three campuses this week. The task force is set to provide recommendations to the university's administration in December.

The student who was handcuffed says she wants others who are dealing with mental health issues to know things can get better.

"No matter what your life looks like right now, you can restart it again," she says. "There are mental health professionals out there who will not put you in handcuffs and who are there because they want your life to be better."

Where to get help

Canada Suicide Prevention Service

Toll-free 1-833-456-4566

Text: 45645

Chat: crisisservicescanada.ca

In French: Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)

Kids Help Phone:

Phone: 1-800-668-6868

Text: TALK to 686868 (English) or TEXTO to 686868 (French)

Live Chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.ca

Post-Secondary Student Helpline:

Phone: 1-866-925-5454

Good2talk.ca

Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre

If you're worried someone you know may be at risk of suicide, you should talk to them, says the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. Here are some warning signs:

Suicidal thoughts.

Substance abuse.

Purposelessness.

Anxiety.

Feeling trapped.

Hopelessness and helplessness.

Withdrawal.

Anger.

Recklessness.

Mood changes.

#u of t #toronto #.#k.#kl #l.#tw suicide #suicide mention

5 notes · View notes

thequantumqueer · 7 years ago

Note

hi sorry 2 bother u but would u mind explaining a bit more about how ppl in the military are victims? ofc no pressure only if u wanna I'm just curious to learn wht u mean

yeah definitely!

so it starts with predatory recruitment. military recruiters visit high schools and sometimes even middle schools to normalize the idea that joining the military is no different from going to college. almost none of those kids can actually join, but they try to sell them on it anyway with talk of how cool it’ll be and what a badass it’ll turn you into, and stuff like that. the army even has even put out three T-rated video games about army life since 2007, the most recent in 2015.

it gets even more intense in high school, when they start contacting kids directly. when you take the SAT and ACT, your information automatically gets sent to recruiters and they start sending you recruitment literature that blends in really well with the letters you’re getting from colleges suggesting you apply.

then, once people are old enough to actually join up, the recruitment pitch shifts to more tangible offers with little to no intention of ever following through. one of the biggest selling points is the G.I. Bill, but it comes with a whole host of terms and conditions that no one ever mentions, which often results in the benefits being mostly (or even completely) unusable for a lot of people, with just under half of servicemembers ending up using any of it at all.

they also recruit heavily based on the idea that your time in the military will translate into work experience and make it easier to find a job when you get out, but most military equivalents to civilian jobs deal with highly specialized equipment that makes the experience irrelevant, and you don’t get any certifications or equivalencies.

another big draw is Tricare, which is, quite simply, the best insurance in the world. What they don’t tell you is that your dependents get a shitty knockoff, and you also get kicked over to that shitty knockoff as soon as they determine that whatever’s wrong means you won’t be returning to active duty. they want to protect their investment as long as it can fight for them, but beyond that, you can go fuck yourself. and that’s to say nothing of the nightmare that is the VA, which is infamous for multiple-month wait times for even basic care, which is very often poor quality when you eventually do get it.

once you’ve actually joined, a few things happen that the recruiter never mentioned. first and foremost, you’ve entered into a contract with the united states government, which means that any breach of that contract is a federal felony. in other words, everything in this post from here on out is 100% completely and totally unavoidable without utterly fucking up your life.

the second is that you are now subject to two entire sets of laws that, most likely, you had no idea existed until just now. lots of those laws are standard federal law that only applies to military personnel (title 10, mostly), but the rest are called the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). a lot of the ucmj is pretty straightforward stuff that you’d expect, like “it’s a crime to disobey orders” (Article 92) and the like, but there’s a ton of general conduct laws as well. for example Article 88 - Contempt Toward Officials, which says:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

in other words, if you’re an officer it is literally a crime to criticize the government, even in private and even if you’re not in uniform. more generally, though, all military personnel have their political activity severely restricted by a combination of articles 10, 2, and 18 of us code, DOD directives, and military regulations. from this article, here’s a list of some things that you’re not allowed to do if you’re in the military:

Participate in partisan political fundraising activities, rallies, conventions (including making speeches in the course thereof), management of campaigns, or debates, either on one’s own behalf or on that of another, without respect to uniform or inference or appearance of official sponsorship, approval, or endorsement. Participation includes more than mere attendance as a spectator.

Use official authority or influence to interfere with an election, affect the course or outcome of an election, solicit votes for a particular candidate or issue, or require or solicit political contributions from others.

Allow or cause to be published partisan political articles, letters, or endorsements signed or written by the member that solicits votes for or against a partisan political party, candidate, or cause. However, letters to the editor are allowed.

Serve in any official capacity with or be listed as a sponsor of a partisan political club.

Speak before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.

Participate in any radio, television, or other program or group discussion as an advocate for or against a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.

Conduct a political opinion survey under the auspices of a partisan political club or group or distribute partisan political literature.

Perform clerical or other duties for a partisan political committee or candidate during a campaign, on an election day, or after an election day during the process of closing out a campaign.

Solicit or otherwise engage in fundraising activities in Federal offices or facilities, including military reservations, for any political cause or candidate.

March or ride in a partisan political parade.

Display a large political sign, banner, or poster (as distinguished from a bumper sticker) on a private vehicle.

Display a partisan political sign, poster, banner, or similar device visible to the public at one’s residence on a military installation, even if that residence is part of a privatized housing development.

Participate in any organized effort to provide voters with transportation to the polls if the effort is organized by or associated with a partisan political party, cause, or candidate.

Sell tickets for or otherwise actively promote partisan political dinners and similar fundraising events.

Attend partisan political events as an official representative of the Armed Forces, except as a member of a joint Armed Forces color guard at the opening ceremonies of the national conventions of the Republican, Democratic, or other political parties recognized by the Federal Elections Committee or as otherwise authorized by the Secretary concerned.

Make a campaign contribution to, or receive or solicit (on one’s own behalf) a campaign contribution from, any other member of the Armed Forces on active duty.

Any activity that may be reasonably viewed as directly or indirectly associating the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security (in the case of the Coast Guard) or any component of these Departments with a partisan political activity or is otherwise contrary to the spirit and intention of this Directive shall be avoided.

most of that list comes from DoD Directive 1344.10 (full text here) and while there’s plenty of stuff you can do, politically, but almost all of it requires you to be either anonymous or passive about it. so now it’s illegal for you to do anything substantial toward changing policy in any way, and possibly also to even so much as complain about the president or call congress incompetent.

so now that you’ve been properly restricted (and remember, the only way out of this without a felony is with a DD214 (discharge paperwork)) you’re put to work. on the surface, it seems like any other job, but there’s subtle differences. for one thing, literally every person who’s gotten more raises than you is your boss and you have to do whatever they tell you unless it conflicts with what someone who’s gotten even more raises than them already told you to do.

your orders can also be literally anything that’s not illegal. if your boss at starbucks tells you to always stand on one foot while you work the register, you might do it for like an hour or two, but then you’d stop bothering and if your boss got upset about it then that would be unreasonable. if your CO tells you to always say the pledge of allegiance in Farsi, then it’s your responsibility to learn how to say it in Farsi and always do so until that CO or someone above them give you permission to say it in english again, and if you don’t, that’s a crime.

what that means is that if you get assigned to recruitment duty, you can and will be ordered to look and sound excited about being in the military as you tell 13 year olds they should join up after high school, and you will legally have to do it.

and all of this is without even mentioning the missions. combat, and the act of killing another human being, are traumatizing even in the most ideal of situations. if someone breaks into your home to attack you and you push them back and something heavy falls on them and kills them, that’s still a traumatic experience for you. even legitimate wars for good reasons against enemies that really do need to be stopped are horrifying experiences for everyone involved.

but when the war is bullshit and most of the casualties are civilians and you know all this and aren’t even allowed to say anything about it, let alone do anything about it? that combines with combat to royally fuck a person up.

this is the part where everyone who’s read this far gets ready to jump down my throat about how the people being bombed are the real victims and not the people dropping the bombs, so let me remind you that this anon was in response to a post i made that started with the words “The US Military is […] evil” and that im not in any way trying to say that the troops get the worst of it, just that they are being used and abused by the system.

because remember, those troops have been groomed to be recruited since they were five years old and asked their parents why they got veterans day off from kindergarten, and have been pursued more and more actively all the way up through high school. the military lured them in, is chewing them up, and will spit them out when it’s done with them without giving one single fuck about them.

and no matter how you cut it, that describes a victim.

#the us military is my culture of origin #military personnel and military brats are my people in a way that no one else is #and for better or for worse nothing can ever change that. not even my realization that #fuck the military tbh #wild doge appeared. much wow

7K notes · View notes

overanalyzing-homestuck · 6 years ago

Text

So, Marvus’ friendsim is interesting because Marvus seems to be aware of timelines, which points to the idea that he’s likely a time player (I’m very tempted to say he’s a Lord of Time), indicating that his sign is either Capries or Caprist depending on whether he’s a prospit or derse dreamer (personally, I’m leaning towards prospit, but I’m doubtful only because that was the sign on his hat in his troll call, which we were told was a trick, but that in of itself could have been a trick)

But I’m not here to classpect Marvus. I’m here to analyze all the time shit he says and make the nonsense he said make sense to all of you.

Long post, so everything is under the cut. rip mobile users

Alright, I can’t do jack shit w/o evidence, so here’s the evidence we’ll be using for this portion of the essay post. I’ll be reviewing two scenes in particular, so buckle up

“Oh well it wasn’t really much fo a stunt, you were just going along with your friend’s ludicrous plan to try to scam him into a friendship under false pretenses. But it was a really bad plan, and your friend was killed on the spot immediately, and now you’re pretty sure you’re cosmically fated to die due to making a non-canonical decision.”

“wat u mean non-canon

“all dis b non-canon fam

“wat can it even mean 2 be non-canonical w/in da context of an inherently extracanonical framework? skeet skeet brrrap!”

“You’re not sure. But you definitely have the sense that some of the decisions within the simulation carry greater values of truth and relevance than others, and that the linear progression of events is rigorously enforced by an obligate narrative flow that privileges those actions which most smoothly facilitate the designs of the story’s architect.”

“sure u can hear dat noize dat way

“but i say u the architeckt of ya own f8!”

Convo w/o Marvus’ quirk bc his quirk is sometimes hard to read:

“What do you mean non-canon? All of this is non-canon, fam. What can it even mean to be non-caonical within the context of an inherently extracanonical framework? Skeet skeet brrap!”

“Sure you can hear that noise that way, but I say you’re the architect of your own fate!”

So the first scene I wanted to analyze was this one, particularly because of Marvus’ comment on how “all dis b non-canon,” which indicates an awareness that the timeline they are currently in isn’t the alpha timeline, if we consider the alpha timeline as being “canon” and the other timelines to be “non-canon.” The following line adds onto the idea that Marvus is aware that he’s not in the alpha timeline, but in a more meta way, and we know this because of his description of “extracanonical.”

Extracanonical: being outside the body of officially accepted writings: not included in a list of authorized books specifically: being outside a canon of books held to be sacred an extracanonical writing.

This essentially describes what Hiveswap Friendsim as a game-a non-canonical work that is outside the “alpha timeline” of Homestuck and Hiveswap. In other words, everything that happens in Hiveswap Friendsim, even the “correct” timelines, are all, ultimately, offshoot timelines that are doomed. MC even mentions it themselves:

“But now, for some reason, you have a hunch that you’re near the ened of your Alternian travels.”

This, of course, is true. There are only two friendsims left-only five more trolls to meet, and I have a feeling that all the timelines are going to be cleaned up by the end-with the implication being that everyone is going to die, and it’s going to be official that the entirety of Hiveswap Friendsim is a doomed timeline, so none of your choices matter in the end anyway because it doesn’t affect the main timeline at all.

But... that’s not what it’s really about, is it? A large theme in Homestuck is the idea that your choices matter regardless of whether or not you’re part of the alpha timeline because what you do works towards making the alpha timeline happen, and this same theme is being reflected in what Marvus says: “u the architeckt of ya own f8!”

But, this also sounds familiar. Who else talked about fate in a doomed timeline?

Boldir.

In response to MC asking if she truly believes in fate, and believes that fate brought the two of them together, she says “that would imply that none of our choices matter, and that causality is inevitable,” which is a line more indicative of the fact that causality is inevitable for those whose deaths are required for the alpha timeline and those whose deaths happen because they don’t belong to the alpha timeline.

But, then, Boldir follows up that statement with “but that disregards our choices. fate dictates that all possibilities are, by their very nature, necessities.” The necessities part is important-it’s what I spoke about earlier, isn’t it? That doomed timelines are required to help the alpha timeline on their journey?

What’s interesting here is how different Marvus and Boldir’s thoughts about fate are. They both have similar viewpoints, but the way they’re phrased offers them different meanings that may give us a good viewpoint on how Muses and Lords (If Marvus is a Lord) see fate differently due to their, respectively, passive or active nature.

Boldir finds fate to be something that dictates all that is necessary-a more passive viewpoint, with everything that happens in alternate timelimes indirectly affecting the alpha timeline.

Marvus finds fate to be something you control-a more active viewpoint, with everything that happens being the result of your own actions.

But that’s enough of that. Let’s go onto the next scene:

“depending on how u look at it evry branch in the timeline b fundamental 2 da metatextual structure of da essence of existence itself

“even an incident dat faliz outside a the strict confines of canonical continuity contributez 2 a metaconsciousness dat b built by & could even b said 2 b at its most essential level defined primarily by the extratextual xxxchange of interpretation by those who observe it

“each path a tranzlucent fragment dat via mirrorin or distortin or magnifyin certain aspectz of the ‘ultimate reality’ foldz itself invisibly into da fabric of dat reality

“itzelf immeasurable & intangible but da space it once occupied indelible

“da observation of irreality can still inform how reality iz 2 b interpreted even if dat irreality doesnt satisfy even a cursory standard of legitimacy

“and the act of contravening continuity can in itself provide definition to dat very integrity it defilez

“even if watz goin down here cant b said 2 b ‘true’ dat doesnt mean we r meaningless”

Also this monologue w/o the quirk: “Depending on how you look at it, every branch in the timeline is fundamental to the metatextual structure of the essence of existence itself. Even an incident that falls outside of the strict confines of canonical continuity contributes to a metaconsciousness that is built by and could even be said to be at its most essential level defined primarily by the extratextual exchange of interpretation by those who observe it. Each path a translucent fragment that via mirroring or distorting or magnifying certain aspects of the ‘ultimate reality’ folds itself invisibly into the fabric of that reality, itself immeasurable and intangible but the space it once occupied indelible. The observation of irreality can still inform how reality is to be interpreted even if that irreality doesn’t satisfy even a cursory standard of legitimacy, and the act of contravening continuity can in itself provide definition to that very integrity it defiles (defines?). Even if what is going down here can’t be said to be ‘true,’ that doesn’t mean we are meaningless.”

To put this monologue simply, it’s the same thing Boldir said-that all possibilities and timelines are necessary to the continuation and implementation of the alpha timeline.

To go into more detail, each timeline that occurs has a specific job to do. Marvus describes it as “mirrorin or distortin or magnifying certain aspects of the ‘ultimate reality,’” which means that each timeline serves a purpose to enhance and understand a certain part of the alpha timeline or a certain fundamental theme of the alpha timeline.

This actually might be a kind of mockery of those who claim the game doesn’t matter and is just silly because it’s not actually canon, but the game does serve a purpose, and that’s to learn about all the trolls on the troll call. These friendsims serve as a way to understand not only the trolls, but also the society they live in, and possibly how that society is controlled and manipulated by outside forces in order to achieve a certain goal (but this is a topic that would be better supported by Fozzer’s route, a theory which is kind of addressed here)

Ultimately, the friendsims serve as a way for us to understand how Alternian society shapes and oppresses trolls in order to make an environment where the Homestuck Alternian trolls can have a chance to beat SGRUB.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Send me asks or tag me in stuff if you’re interested in this sort of thing or have your own two cents to add or feel like I missed anything. I’d be happy to here from y’all!

#hiveswap friendsim #hiveswap friendsim spoilers #marvus xoloto #spoilers #homestuck #hiveswap #meta #boldir lamati #long post #analysis #hiveswap analysis #hiveswap friendsim analysis #homestuck analysis #overanalyzing homestuck #overanalyzing hiveswap

162 notes · View notes

neurodivergentaf · 7 years ago

Text

I could not stop my cursed brain from spouting the sheer amount of bullshit it loves to provide the public with on matters that I really don’t want to deal with but here we are!! Review of the movie Split (2017) by a person professionally diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. I had to rewatch this crap on exam night so pay up anons and read under the cut. Warning for spoilers

I’m not going to be all “blah blah this is a horrible movie 1/5 stars” because let me be clear 2 u. This movie made me angry. This movie was also, from an objective standpoint, well done. I love psychological horror art, but as I weighed the pros and cons on the consequences that can arise from this movie existence, I can safely say Fuck All That. I know I missed a lot of details, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to explain the basics of DID and take up too much space on this post (lol failed).

Here is a half-assed review on Split by a sleep deprived college student messed up on about twenty different types of cold and flu medicine. Enjoy!

Accidentally watched on hulu the movie Split 2016. checked the genre halfway through and decided that the big fat ‘romantic comedy’ title probably meant it wasn’t the one i was looking for; proceeded to watch the actual Split movie via unsavory websites. i risked my life for this. the cops are coming any second to arrested me

Gave up and decided i didn’t want to ruin my night, so i watched John Mulaneyneyeney’s new movie on netflix. it was fantastic

Actual start of review:

I found it really interesting how the Buzzkill Girl protagonist was also shown to have experienced childhood trauma like Barry, yet the movie puts the antagonist as the only one with DID and homicidal tendencies. I think that a better way to have handled this was to also give the protag DID as a plot twist and to show that it really depends on the person, not the disorder itself. (But even if they had done that, there are still too many inaccuracies given about DID in the movie that are harmful to the community. I’ll explain more about that later.)

This woman looks EXACTLY like the therapist that also diagnosed me with DID. What the fuck. 5/5 stars for physical character accuracy

“Nobody even believes that we exist!” Very true. Do you know how many people I know irl that I’ve told about my disorder to? 0. When was the last time you ever heard about DID on the news or in irl conversation? Exactly. We don’t feel like we really exist sometimes, because no one wants to even acknowledge it. Therapists would rather consider the most far-fetched ideas before even thinking about DID, because they are never really taught the skills on how to handle it or identify it.

Some people with DID refer to themselves in plural form. Some don’t. Barry just happens to use the plural form, probably to remind the audience of his condition. Just wanted to point that out there.

“We always think of shattered people as ... less that us. What if they’re more?” I think that was a beautiful phrase. Really, I loved Dr. Fletcher’s quotes about DID and the way they wrote her. Too bad about pretty much everything else.

I was kinda “eh” about this part because alters don’t really talk out loud to each other; especially if we’re in a position where someone else can hear us, because we’re aware of how socially unacceptable it it. Usually conversations aren’t held with full sentences, most of the time it’s impressions of feelings or intentions. But Barry is shown whispering in a room alone, so I’ll accept it I guess

Oh yeah. This part. Fuck this part in particular. This doesn’t relate much to the DID topic as much as a transphobic one. They put the villain, a cannibalistic antagonist, in association with gender non-conformity and, by extension, trans women. Yeah. fuck that. On an actual DID note, differential genders between alters are pretty common, especially if you have 3+ alters.

I won’t post screenshots of it, but if you watch the movie it is obvious with it’s uncomfortable sexual displays of underage girls that it also associates DID with some form of perversion. This provides even more negativity towards people with DID when the fact of the matter is that people with DID are no more geared towards unethical actions than neurotypical people.

Some people with DID don’t see their alters as human, whether or not that comes from their trauma or as a type of coping mechanism. For me, I have a very scary looking alter that is that way as a defense system against the scary situations I’ve had to face. But that does not mean an alter is inherently violent.

Child alters are also common because of the same reason listed above. DID is a disorder that manifests in childhood, and I have yet to meet a person with DID that does not have a child or child-like alter.

A side-effect of DID is memory loss, also called dissociative amensia. There have been cases where alters withheld information (usually traumatic events) from one another as a way to cope. DID is all about being able to function at the most optimal level when faced with persistent trauma, so missing information about daily life or important events are common.

*deep sigh* Okay...the skype call scene. Let’s do this shit. First off, I’m gonna have to call bullshit on how good the video in this looks. 1/5 stars for skype accuracy

This is pretty common with DID. It can present itself in different styles of writing or talking depending on the alter. Some alters are similar enough that this doesn’t really apply to them.

Uh, yeah, no. This is just straight up untrue. False. Nein. Ne. Doesn’t fucking happen. The only way I can kinda of see what she’s trying to say is if she’s focusing on the fact that an alter can be unaware of their own physical abilities and as such, can act in a limited way. But physically, we are not different. DID is not a developmental disorder. If the body was born with ADHD, then all the alters will have ADHD, even if the ADHD will manifest in different ways for the alters (e.g., one alter can focus a little more on a certain subject than another)

It ain’t that deep dude. I’m just trying to keep my cool when Melli eats all of my fucking york mint patties and Andrei has hidden my fucking keys in a fucking spot where I can’t fucking remember Andrei you piece of shit

I don’t understand what he is trying to say here. I think I’ve ever only heard of one incident where a person with DID could control when one of their alters can take over, and it wasn’t from a credible source. We can’t control who can front and who can’t. I use the word “front” in place of “the light” here because i have neverrrrrr heard any person with DID use that term.

It can be very hard to distinguish who is fronting and who is not. The person fronting can give an educated guess, but can’t be 100% certain because personalities always change and grow and can hide things about themselves that they don’t even recognize.

Ouch...that scene hit home for me. Internal conflicts are common and can lead to self-stigmatization within the group. There can even be cliques like ‘here are the bad alters’ and ‘here are the good alters.’ This happens because we are simply human.

After more than an hour of rewatching Split i decided to stop because this post is getting too long and i want to focus on the more important issues of it instead of liveblogging. Also the small fact that my body has been trying to kill me via mucus in my lungs for 2 days straight.

Lets get one thing clear: “With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm… They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that’s what’s typical – not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery].” — Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)

“But it could happen!” You can say. Yeah, sure. It could happen because of the simple fact it’s not entirely impossible that a person with DID could kidnap girls and be a cannibal. The issue is not that it’s not impossible, the issue is that This Is It. This movie is one of the very few that even reference DID, and it’s a horror movie with inaccurate information about the disorder. When was the last time you heard something positive about DID? When was the last time you came across accurate information about it without having to consciously search for it? This is it. The therapist tells us that DID is not evil, and then an hour later is murdered by her patient, which encourages the audience to disbelieve what she claimed. This movie tells people that we are inherently violent, perverse, dangerous, and it has taken the progress made to understand DID 10 steps back. Fuck this movie. We don’t deserve this. We’re not some parody to make money off of. We’re people who have had a ton of shit thrown at us to make us this way and now these people want to tell us that we’re monsters.

I wouldn’t be so prissy about this if there were 10,000+ good movies about DID and this just so happened to be the only bad one. I wouldn’t even be writing this review. Curse you, parallel dimension me, you lucky son of a bitch.

So. Yeah. Fuck this shit.

#long post #split #did #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #split movie #lol sorry to the mobile users rip #mine #alter #alters #bluespace

142 notes · View notes

goldenscript · 7 years ago

Text

get to know me! [part 2?]

tagged by @tendershepherd <3 love u!!!!

1. Which BTS song means the most to you?

if i had to choose one then save me because as cheesy as it sounds it really did help me out at one of the most confusing and worst points of my life. when i hear it, i get so happy and nostalgic about all those nights i spent not sleeping and just binging through dps and bangtan bombs that eventually led me to where i am now! plus!!! this was also when i really got back into writing which is really big since i only did it every so often in high school (sadly enough).

2. How do you feel about astrology?

i love it!!!! i feel like i’ve met a lot of people who will say that they don’t like or believe in astrology because they don’t like being defined by their zodiac / sun sign and stuff but imo i think it really is just a personal preference in whether you believe or even like it or not. to me, this is something i’ve grown up with because my mom loves it and seeing it become such a huge phenomena now is so fun! i honestly feel like my birth chart explains me really well and that’s kinda important to me since i’m the kind of person who likes to understand myself considering i’ve spent 19 years trying to figure who i am anyhow.

3. Do you think ghosts exist?

oh fuck yeah

4. What’s your favorite instrument?

i love the piano for sure. guitar’s nice but there’s something about the piano that has this alluring vibe that attracts me

5. Who was the last person to make you really smile?

seeing my friend before my english final :( i haven’t seen her in a few days and seeing her just really made me happy

6. What do you do when you feel vulnerable?

it really depends because when i’m in a vulnerable state i find it hard to articulate - both through words and just overall. this is mostly because i feel like i can be really nit picky with what i hear in response to how i’m feeling and so during these moments when i’m most irrational i try to sift through the emotions myself and figure out what’s going on. if i want another opinion or the company, i’ll go to my closest friends.

7. What is the last dream you had?

ummmmmmmmmmmmmm. i know i had this one dream where i was basically studying with wooseok from ptg and he was explaining something to me before he just stopped and looked up to meet my eyes then looked away. but me being me, i just grabbed his chin and kissed him and he got so blushy and it was really adorable because then we kissed again. gbjfbhrijgkmr

alternatively, there was this dream with lucas from nct where my best friend called me and asked me if she could give my number to her cute friend and i was like “yeah ok” because i was half asleep in my dream and wasn’t thinking. so, later that night, i wasn’t sure if it really happened until he called me and i was kinda shook but very happy and by the end of it, he’s like “i can call you again right?” and i’m like “yeah” and it was just really cute and cheesy and my first initial reaction was to tell @jungnoir, as always.

ok, bonus dream but i also had one where jungkook and jennie switched bodies and i knew it and i confessed to jungkook in jennie’s body that i liked them and i even kissed them and and and it was just wild because there was a gang that was the cause to the body switching and they wanted to talk to jungkook-jennie and jungkook-jennie wanted to talk to me but i was embarrassed and i was just wondering where jennie-jungkook was by the end of it

8. Are you a nature person?

i do like nature, but i also feel like i don’t belong in it since i’m totally privileged to the indoors life.... and horror movies man

9. What’s your favorite thing to do to relieve stress?

if i’m stressed with things to do i like to actually do the things i need to do instead of procrastinating (which is ironic since i’m actually procrastinating on this research paper due tonight but whatever). again, it really depends. sometimes i’ll just tackle tasks head on or i’ll make a small check list of what i can do then save whatever else i need to do. of course, this is done by priority so really it’s just me categorizing shit. if that doesn’t help and i have no motivation, i’ll go to the gym or even nap or surf tumblr just to take a breather.

10. Do you have any other blogs you’d like people to check out?

everyone i follow??? idk??? i could just as easily make a follow forever for this since i highkey rec all of ‘em

11. Marvel, DC, or neither?

both! i grew up reading some of the marvel comics and i used to watch justice league as a kid so i love both universes man

12. What do you want out of 2018?

i forgot to answer this one kjsdfhjshf but anyway i just want to finish the school year strong, go into my third year of college with a license, and probably finish my drabble games since i started ten million of those.

alternatively, i would also like to just get through the year and the direction it goes in

13. Do you hold grudges?

not really? i stop caring after while

14. Who is your favorite Disney hero/heroine?

Mulan, hands down. i asked my family to replay that baby until my family taught me how to rewind the vhs in the tape rewinder lmaooo

15. Do you consider yourself a positive person?

i consider myself more of a realistic and literally all of my friends will tell you this. like i can be positive but i give it a realistic spin because that’s what people need to hear even if it isn’t what they want. that’s what i need at least so i try to dish out things how i’d like to hear it

16. What is something you love that’s underrated?

otome games lmao. bigkrbhtgijerok i can feel @wonhopes judging me but they’re a guilty pleasure and the storylines are just fun

17. What is your dream job?

squish together a job where i can travel, write, and plan events and we got somethin’! besides that, i’d love to just be a writer with a steady income cuz u kno adulting demands the steady income part

18. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

i haven’t traveled enough to know where i want to settle but i wanna say maybe socal?

19. When was the last time you faced a fear and how did it go?

driving on the freeway really wasn’t as bad as i thought. i mean i’ve done it maybe like 3.5 times prior but this was the first time i did it in a van and i had like 3 people in there with me LOL. we all came out alive and no one yelled at me so i consider it a success

20. Which would you prefer to read: poetry, fiction, or non-fiction?

fiction

21. Where do you feel most at ease?

i can’t really think of a place besides my bed / room but sometimes i can feel insane there so i can’t say for sure. i feel pretty at ease when i’m with people i love so yeah!

tagging: @jungnoir / @workofteaguk / @taesthetes / @boosoonhao / @baechuni / @taegetes

#about me #ok gonna work on that paper now byeee

6 notes · View notes

bisexualamy · 7 years ago

Note

hi ren! i think you're so cool and soft at the same time!! how do u do that!! teach me ur ways!!

I’m not sure what you mean by soft in this instance? I’m a little skeptical of soft as an adjective for trans men because I feel like it’s always used to infantilize us (like the uwu cute soft trans boy stuff).

If you mean soft as “in touch with my emotions/emotionally vulnerable” (which I think you do) that is something I can definitely touch on because it is an aspect of my personality I’ve really tried to cultivate. In terms of cool, I don’t really think I’m cool. I appreciate that you think I am! I don’t really known what cool means? Why is one cool? The best analogous thing I can see for it in my own life is “confident” and “does/makes interesting/fun/creative things.”

This is a lot of preamble to get my thoughts out, but I do actually have some advice in both of these instances! I’ll try and be brief, though I probably won’t succeed in that. And like, obvious disclaimer that I’m speaking from my own life experience.

EDIT: very long. All of this is now under cut. This was a good post and I’m happy I wrote it, so thank you! Feel free to reblog it!

IN TERMS OF “COOL”: the best advice I can give to you is put things into the world you care about. This manifests itself for me in the art and writing I produce. I became a lot happier and more confident creating work that I actually cared about existing. I get a lot of joy and drive out of filling voids that I see as necessary to be filled. A concrete example of this has been the work I’ve been doing (that I recently won an award for) in regarding to documenting and creating around the stories of different LGBT people of faith.

And this can be anything! This doesn’t even have to be necessarily “creative” work. There’s joy to be found in STEM fields, like building or doing math or science. It can be cooking or redesigning your bedroom! I find that always having a project to work on, no matter how small, gives me purpose that helps me do the other things in my life that I don’t want to do. Also!!! This doesn’t have to be “original.” I find that a lot of the hangups people get tend to center around filling a void that’s never been touched. My favorite professor I’ve ever had once told me: “don’t worry about doing something original. Just do something well.” I really like that and try and keep that in mind when I create.

I’ve noticed that when you’re working on things you care about it often creates drive, which looks like confidence. In my experience, people think I’m cool because I’m driven to do things I care about. I’m not like, cool in the sense of calm and collected, but I think I’m cool in the sense that I’m interesting. The other bit of advice I have for this is surround yourself with people who you feel safe and supported by. This also goes into soft as well, but your progress as a person is often hindered by unsupportive and harmful environments and people. Those two are often difficult to escape or avoid completely, but building up relationships in your life where you feel safe, where you feel supported, where you feel allowed to make mistakes, were instrumental in building my confidence and giving me the drive to stop settling for “this is the way things are.”

IN TERMS OF “SOFT”: Like I said above, a lot of this comes from being allowed to be soft in the first place. From being in environments and with people that don’t try to squash that softness. For me, I’ve made a conscious effort to be open, to be vulnerable, to be “soft” as you put it. I made this effort because I knew it helped people, and I get a lot of value out of helping people. I’ve been told that my openness about mental health, about emotional vulnerability, about LGBT things, has helped others when I see that I can be open and also succeed. That’s the reason I started this in the first place.

This mentality was very difficult for me to foster initially. I used to be very closed off and have many issues with trust, and I sometimes still do, but I’m working on self awareness. I started small and gradually adopted more and more emotionally honest practices and those grew into larger ones. The overarching theme to these is give yourself permission. Give yourself permission to be happy, to feel your emotions, to be in a world that makes you happy. Here are some of those specific things I worked on (not necessarily in this order):

When someone asks you if you’re okay, or how you are, answer honestly. Unless you’re speaking in passing to someone you don’t really know, answer truthfully. Don’t be afraid to answer “how are you” with “I’m feeling down” or “I’ve had a pretty bad day” or “I’m really angry.” This helped teach me that my emotions aren’t bad. I don’t need to hide them. I just need to be in control of them and know how to regulate them.

When you’re feeling a very intense negative emotion, stop. If you’re very sad, or very angry, don’t do anything. Stay still. Write down what you’re feeling. Talk to someone. Make no decisions in this headspace. Distance is important when assessing your own emotions. Distance will teach you what your reaction is saying. If you get very angry at a friend because they’re late, why? Did the situation hurt you, or is there something larger at play? If it was the situation, you’ll be grateful you didn’t over blow it. If there’s something larger, now you have the calmer headspace to figure out how to fix it.

Let yourself feel bad. I try to be a generally optimistic person, but acknowledging my negative emotions, and not shaming myself for them, really helped me get better control over them. Sometimes you feel shitty! It’s okay to feel shitty! Let yourself feel bad, acknowledge the badness, and then let it go when you’re ready. Don’t let yourself wallow, but don’t suppress your bad emotions. Letting myself feel everything helped me gain confidence in being vulnerable.

Tell someone if they hurt you, even if they didn’t mean it. This is not supposed to be an accusation, but being an open communicator has changed my life. If someone upsets you and you don’t tell them, it may fester and turn into something nasty. I tell my friends that if they have an issue with something I did or said, I want them to tell me so we can talk about it in a calm, open, non-accusatory way. I feel much better once I’ve talked through something that hurt me, because I usually learn the other person’s point of view and it feels less like a slight.

Be upfront about your expectations. People can’t read your mind, and expecting people to is wrong. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is having my time wasted. There are many people who view meeting times in flux. For them, it’s okay to shift appointments around, to double book, to be a little late. That’s another way of viewing the world. So, if someone is historically late, I might say “I really need you to be on time to this specific event” or set a precedent of “it’s okay if you’re late, but you have to let me know ahead of time that you think you’ll be late so I can account for that.”

Trust your gut. Don’t doubt yourself. Self doubt has always bit me. You can typically get a sense of when something is awry. Don’t be afraid to trust your instincts.

Lay out healthy priorities. I try and prioritize my health and well-being above everything else. If a topic is triggering for me to discuss, if an environment is a significant detriment to my mental health, if someone is hurting me, I try and fix the situation, and if it won’t fix, I leave. From there, my priorities are in flux. Sometimes I prioritize people, sometimes schoolwork, sometimes self care. It depends on the scenario and the time. Prioritizing your health is not the same thing as not doing anything that you dislike, or that makes you uncomfortable. We have to do things we dislike all the time. You know within yourself what’s unhealthy and what’s just unpleasant or annoying.

Learn how to fail. Admit when you’re wrong. I used to have a terrible time admitting I was wrong. If you’re in a healthy environment with decent people, you won’t be shamed for admitting your mistakes. In this way, change your behavior if you’re wrong! I often have unrealistic expectations of people. When that’s been brought to my attention, I’ve adjusted my expectations. Also, I’ve tried to remove “I told you so” from my vocabulary. I don’t shame others for failure. And, understand that partial successes are not failures. 50% successes are okay! Anything is better than zero. Sometimes, you will hit zero. Sometimes, you will fail. Learning how to learn from failure, from not seeing failure as a reflection of my self worth, gave me more freedom to try my hand at creating things I care about. First drafts are supposed to be awful! Just start! Once you start, you can often work off of momentum.

Take time to be introspective and understand yourself. What are your values? What’s important to you? How do you typically respond to certain scenarios? What is something that makes you consistently happy? Sad? Angry? Journal, blog, talk aimlessly into your phone, talk to other people, talk to a therapist if you’re interested. Often, you need to get to know yourself like you’d get to know another person. Once you gain this sense of self, you’ll better understand a lot of what you do, say, and how you react out in the world. For me, this is an ever-evolving process. I change, I grow, and I need to consistently reflect. I think constructive and position self reflection is very important.

I know that was a long list. This took me years and years, and I’m still working on these. The path to emotional softness and regulation is often not linear. Learning to forgive myself, learning how to understand myself, learning to be gentle with myself, was hard. I see a lot of “be gentle to yourself!” positivity on here without any concrete steps are principles. These are a bulk of mine. Employing these steps helped me to foster those safe communities, and be safe in my own vulnerability. Softness tends to follow work and action.

#hailing frequencies open #advice ask #you may reblog #feel free to send follow up questions!#Anonymous

1 note · View note

hellswriting-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Spring writing prompts

Send me as many numbers as you want, as long as it is in a reasonable scale! You can add as many of the following points as you want, which also means you don’t have to mention them all. 2 or 3 might even be enough, depends. Feel free to add characters, pairings and other additional wishes if you’d like to :)

Groups/Artists of which I will accept as character requests

Just means these are people I am confident I could write well.

1. BTS

2. Got7

3. Mamamoo

4. Monsta X

5. Dean

6. IU

Setting

1. High school/University AU

2. Fantasy AU (Magical powers, Vampires, Werwolves, feel free to specify or not)

3. Idol AU (is it an au if I am writing abt kpop idols? lmao u get the gist)

4. Zombie Apocalypse AU

5. Trapped in different universes ( If u don’t know what I mean find out ;) xD)

6. Work place AU

7. Superhero AU

8. (Rock) Band AU

9. Gang AU

10. Soulmate AU

11. Afterlife AU

12. Pirate AU (because why the heck not?)

“Prompts” you can choose from if you have no idea yourself

1. Send me your favorite scent or flower, a season and a relationship status

2. Send me a song + artist and I will write something inspired by that song with the characters you request

3. You were one of the last people still studying in the library when you opened the book that would change your life. Unknowlingly you clapped it open and out fell a single piece of paper. As your fingers reached for the foreign note a new chapter of your life finally began.

4. Your dad said he's going to buy milk from the store. You've seen parents leaving children with this excuse too many times. You decide to go with him. You end up on a wonderful adventure.

5. You are born with two names tatooed on you body somewhere, one of your soulmate and one of the people that will eventually kill you. There is no way to tell who is who.

6. While walking on the beach after a massive thunderstorm, you come across a strange sight. A section of the sand, blackened by a lightning strike. In the middle of the strike zone, you discover... (fill this up or leave it open, both is ok)

7. Send me a picture or aesthetic and/or a quote you relate to, you find inspiring, you stumbled upon

8. “I’m homesick for a place that I’m not even sure exists”

9. “Everything is going to be okay”, they said. “Just take a deep breath.” You thought they were forgetting the part where you can’t fucking breathe.

10. “Why are you, of all people, always the one who’s breaking my heart?” / “I don’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me.”

11. “You need to pull yourself together. Drink some whisky and put on some lipstick or something.”

12. This was the point where you could either push yourself over the line and change your life fundamentally, forever. Or where you would get stuck in the old you for the rest of your excistence.

Themes

1. Efflorescence (Flowering, blooming)

2. Fugacious (Fleeting, ephemeral)

3. Amiable (Friendly and agreeable in disposition; good-natured and likable)

4. Compassion (a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for someone struck by misfortune, accompanied by a desire to alleviate the suffering; mercy; pity; empathy)

5. Heartstrings (The deepest feelings or affections: a tug at the heartstrings; One of the nerves or tendons formerly believed to brace and sustain the heart.

6. Determination (Firmness of purpose; resolve; A fixed intention or resolution)

7. Exhilaration (The feeling of lively and cheerful joy; thrill)

8. Melancholy (a constitutional tendency to gloominess or depression; a sad thoughtful state of mind; pensiveness; heavyheartedness)

9. Weltschmerz (Sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of romantic pessimism)

10. Heartsease (peace of mind; absence of stress/anxiety)

11. Nostalgia (A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past; sentimental; homesick)

12. Hope (To wish for a particular event that one considers possible; trust)

I will constantly update this list, but you really don’t have to use it when you send me a request. As long as it is at least one Character and one plot point/prompt/conversation snippet. Everything’s okay. You are free to add certain themes, settings and story stings you want. I just want to get in the habit of writing and want to give you some good reads.

#requests #prompts #my prompts #inspiration #writing #writing inspiration #bts #ff #fanfic #bts fanfic #kpop #fanfiction

3 notes · View notes

allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

Text

Getting Started In Hydroponics: Expert Tips, Plans & Secrets

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/getting-started-in-hydroponics-expert-tips-plans-secrets/

Getting Started In Hydroponics: Expert Tips, Plans & Secrets

Buy Now

If you’ve got 5 minutes a day, you can have juicy tomatoes the size of softballs…

without weeding!

You’ve heard how fast plants grow in a hydroponics system. You’ve heard about the huge harvests. Once you have it set up you will only need to spend a small amount of time per day monitoring the plants.

Discover shortcuts that will help you build a hydroponics setup quickly and easily… and cheaply.

Hydroponics is NOT complicated once you understand how to get started. There are five types of hydroponics systems, and this ebook will show you why matching the right system to your situation can save you a lot of frustration.

What’s the difference between hydroponics and an ordinary garden?

“Hydroponics how to” Plants grown in hydroponics have their roots in a clean neutral media such as clay balls or perlite, instead of dirt. A nutrient solution is circulated to the roots via a pump or wick action.

The plants don’t have to waste energy developing a large root system because the food is delivered right to the roots. Since it no longer has to search for its food, the plant’s growth and energy are redirected to lush foliage and abundant flowers and fruit.

Mixed lettuces, Day 9

Day 14

Day 23

My name is Stella. I have 13 years experience with hydroponics, and a little later I will explain my bizarre introduction to this easy way to grow plants. But first…

If you are thinking about getting involved with hydroponics you need to answer these three questions:

1. How are you going to build it?

2. Is there going to be enough space and light?

3. How are you going to maintain it?

Hydroponics How To: Choosing the right system is the 1st step

Before you start gluing pipe together shouldn’t you decide which system is best for you?

This e-book will take you on a journey, almost like going down a garden path, and help match the right system to your situation.

In this comprehensive gardening e-book, you’ll discover…

The quickest, easiest hydroponics system to build. You can get started in hours rather than days and the system is built from common materials so you can save money.

5 ways you can get started in hydroponics on a pauper’s budget. You don’t have to get the most complex system to get incredible results. There are 2 plans that can be built out of common materials you may already have. You can get the rest at Home Depot.

Which crops to grow and which to stay away from. You can grow just about anything with hydroponics, but some plants will take over, stealing light and space from smaller plants. Here you’ll learn which plants are the smartest, easiest… and tastiest.

A Forbidden Hideaway. The last chapter in the book shows you how to create a space in your home to grow plants that nobody will know about. To the outside world you are an ordinary neighbor. But inside “the Grow Box” a different world exists that makes plants grow like crazy.

*And don’t miss the bonus secret to supercharging your grow box with CO2.

Hydroponics How To: So what’s the big deal about lighting?

Give your plants the right amount of space and light and they will grow right before your eyes.

Obviously, you know that plants need light to thrive, but don’t you want a lighting system that will fit your situation and fit your budget? There are a number of different ways to get the right amount of light to your plants.

This e-book will show you where the deals are and also what to watch out for. Lighting can be the single greatest expense… and a critical component.

Too broke to buy lights? How to get around this roadblock. Hydroponic systems do better in a temperature controlled environment, but there is a way to use hydroponics on the patio- if you will obey this one cardinal rule.

The crazy way to get full spectrum lighting. Not only will you save money but your plants will have the closest thing to the sun. Your plants will think the house they live in is actually the Imperial Valley. You will get unbelievable yields- at a fraction of the price.

Plants are all the same and have the same requirements. Right? Wrong! If you are only growing lettuce, you may not even need artificial lighting.

On the other hand, if you want to grow tomatoes or anything that is going to have flowering buds, then you must provide the necessary amount of light and nutrients so the plants will have plenty of buds or fruit.

Hydroponics How To: I’m a little lazy… how much work is involved?

Certainly you knew you would have to do something to keep the plants going. If there were shortcuts that would make maintenance so much easier, would you use them? There are two main things to monitor to ensure a huge harvest.

Our “Hydroponics how to” insider secrets include…

What you must do to avoid getting eaten alive! Believe it or not, bugs can wreak havoc, even in a spare bedroom. Chapter 14 shows you the easiest methods for keeping them away from your crops.

Why organic fertilizers can stunt plant growth. Doesn’t make sense, does it? The trouble with organic fertilizers is they can be wildly inconsistent. If you are eager to use organic, wait till you are a little more experienced. The book will tell you the most potent fertilizer to buy… and where to get it.

How you can pack “extra wallop” into a lettuce growing season by using hydroponics. Once you learn this trick your family will never be late for dinner again. Chapter 5 has tips to keep the veggies coming one after another, month after month.

The magic numbers. Plants will grow best when the temperature is between 65°-78°. If you can keep your plants in this zone, you will have a mind-blowing bounty you can share with friends. The book shows you where heat comes from- and how to get rid of it.

Do you remember your first garden?

Remember how hopeful you were? You prepared the ground, planted the seed, maybe put on a little fertilizer. After a few days the little sprout popped up out of the ground.

What a thrill!

This ebook is like a seed. It is a different kind of seed. Instead of a tiny speck, it is a plan.

The first step to a hydroponic setup is getting the know-how and a good set of plans.

By getting this book you will be planting a seed. And enjoying a bountiful harvest.

Hydroponics How To: Here’s what you’ll get in this giant e-book:

The entire original Hydroponics-Simplified website in PDF form

Complete plans for 5 hydroponic mini gardens

Detailed instructions for the 5 most user-friendly yet prolific full-sized hydroponics systems we know

How to build our original Growbox-Bubbler Unit combo

Bonuses, including maintenance schedules, mixing chart, CO2 supplementation, equipment lists and resources- Read all about the cool bonuses at the end of the page.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction……………………………………3

2. What is Hydroponics………………………6 Knowledge is power!

3. Advantages & Disadvantages…………8

4. What to grow…………………………………14

5. Climate requirements……………………24

6. 4 Simple Systems……………………………41

This chapter will get you started fast… and cheaply

7. Mini Farms………………………………………44

8. U-Build-It (Full-scale farms)…………52

If you want huge yields..these farms can deliver

9. Growing Media………………………………57

10. Hydroponic Solution………………………63

11. Lighting…………………………………………72

12. Seeds & Seedlings…………………………80

13.

Plants & Produce……………………………86

14. Pests & Plagues………………………………94

15. Troubleshooting ……………………………109

16. Cheap Supplies/ Contact Us…………114

This chapter will pay for the ebook many times over

17. MINI FARM PLANS……………………… 115

18. FULL SIZE PLANS………………………170

19. GROW BOX & BUBBLER UNIT ………263

Put this hydroponic farm in a closet!

“Grab Your Copy Now”

Regular Price $27.00

Today and always $27.00 [No Fake inflated price, no limited time offer here]

ORDER NOW:

How I learned Hydroponics

I learned to love gardening during my own back-to-the land adventure in rural Louisiana in the 1980s. There on 5 acres, I raised two children, two horses, two dogs, a goat and some chickens.

Over the next decade, I tried it all…. a square foot garden, a french intensive garden, many large traditional plowed gardens, mulberry bushes, pineapple patches, muscadine grape vineyards; I’ve canned pickles, home brewed beer and made orange wine. I baked bread from scratch, made home-made butter, froze green beans and canned tomatoes.

It was wonderful growing our own fresh fruits and veggies. But the reality of it is, it took a ton of hard work and perseverance to fight the bugs and the weeds! Crop production and quality was always inconsistent… dependent on the soil, the weather, and the pest invasions.

Eventually, life events intervened, as they always seem to do, and by the 90s, I found myself divorced with 2 kids, and living in the city. My Mother Earth Adventure was but a fond distant memory.

My lightning inspiration came at the most unlikely place, Disneyworld! My partner Simon and I visited Epcot Center at Disney World in Orlando and toured the “Living With the Land” exhibit. This is an awesome hydroponics project in action. If you ever make it to Epcot, don’t miss it!

Well, that was it… the wheels started turning, and we were off and running with the hydroponics method of gardening!

At first, we were bewildered. There’s LOTS of conflicting information and product recommendations on Hydro gardening out there.

Since that time, we have experimented, tinkered and learned with the 6 major hydroponics methods widely used today. We have planted garden after garden in different systems, configurations, seasons of the year, and types of crops.

And we have it all figured out. 🙂

Hydroponics How To: Secrets of the Pros…

The secrets experienced hydroponic gardeners use to Turbo-charge plant growth. Use any of these secrets and your plants will grow faster than your neighbors. Use them all and you’ll be bringing home ribbons from the fair.

Why setting up a hydroponics garden in a bedroom can backfire horribly (all that work for nothing.) The book will show you how an adjustment that only takes 20 seconds to perform will transform a certain failure into breathtaking success.

How to whip the problem of “hard water”.

The two requirements for hydroponic success. Just do these two things and you are almost assured a bountiful harvest. HINT: Keep the plants in their comfort zone.

Why plants grown in a hydroponics system out-grow, out-taste, and out-perform ordinary gardens.

Discover the ordinary household appliance that makes bugs cringe every time it is turned on. Some of the safest ways to control pests are also the most effective… and cheapest.

How to turn a coconut into a tomato. Hydroponics is a different world; ordinary soil is not used and one of the best soil substitutes is coconut coir, which is the husk that surrounds the coconut. The book will explain why mixing it with perlite will give you the best results.

The better way to add spice to your cooking. Herbs are one of the crops that do great in hydroponics.

The e-book will show you an easy way to the freshest herbs instantly available- right in your kitchen. (Just like a gourmet restaurant!)

Do this one simple thing on a regular basis and your garden will flourish. Neglect to perform this easy test and your plants will enter a downward spiral they may not recover from. Adjusting the pH sounds like chemistry class, but the book shows a way so easy a five-year-old can do it.

What does car repair have to do with hydroponics?

When the clutch went out on our Toyota, my husband decided to replace it himself. He is handy so I thought it would be a good way to get the car fixed. He bought the parts needed for the job and thought he could save money by doing the work without a repair manual.

When he finished the job, he had a few bolts left over. One of them was for the rear engine mount. The engine shifted and caused the drive shaft to lean against the catalytic converter.

After the spinning shaft had ground a hole in the converter, it started spewing fumes from under the car. However, the most embarrassing thing about this car is it now sounds like a Hot Rod because the converter has a hole in it.

If he had bought the repair manual, he would’ve known how important that one bolt was. He would’ve saved money… and a lot of frustration.

This e-book is your “pre-repair manual” for hydroponics. So you can do it right the first time.

“Grab Your Copy Now”

Regular Price $27.00

Today and always $27.00 [No Fake inflated price, no limited time offer here]

ORDER NOW:

WYSIWYG… Huh? (What You See Is What You Get)

You saw the Table of Contents. You saw how packed with “Hydroponics how to” information this e-book is. It consists of 320 pages of information and step-by-step plans. If you’re the type of person that takes action once your mind is made up, wouldn’t this e-book help you create a bountiful garden in a very small space?

Included in this giant ebook:

The entire hydroponics-simplified website, converted to pdf version

Simon’s Simple Hydroponic Plans- Worth the $35 alone.

Simon’s Super-Charged Turbo-Cooled Hydroponics Grow Box- Super cool!

THAT’S 320 pages crammed with diagrams, photos, charts, shortcuts and sage advice.

Hydroponics How To: Why THIS Hydroponics E-book?

Just follow the step by step directions and in a matter of weeks you will have huge plants that will feed your family. Those plants will be giving you fresh produce and saving you money every month.

You will be able to grow crops at a fraction of the price it would cost to buy them. And won’t your friends be impressed when you give them samples of your harvest?

Hydroponic kits cost a lot of money but this ebook will show you how to create the same thing for hundreds of dollars less. The money you save by using ordinary materials to create a hydroponic setup will pay for the ebook many times over.

When you have this ebook you will have a source on where to get low cost soil media and fertilizer solution. This will also save you money. You know if you have step-by-step plans it will make it so much easier to build a hydroponic system.

Listen, you can get this ebook now, read it cover to cover, and if you are not completely happy with it you can get a full refund. That’s right, you decide whether this ebook is all I say it is.

You decide whether the book made starting a hydroponic garden easy. You decide whether the book saved you a lot of money and a lot of time. You must be convinced the book has put veggies on your table and money in your pocket… or you pay NOTHING!

I think that’s fair, don’t you?

“Grab Your Copy Now”

Regular Price $27.00

Today and always $27.00 [No Fake inflated price, no limited time offer here]

ORDER NOW:

Wait a minute! There’s bonuses!

BONUS #1- GROWING TIPS ‘N TECHNIQUES GUIDE

A complete but compact and concise guide you can print out and keep right there in your grow room. You’ll find yourself referring to this clever guide every day! It boils down the whole growing cycle and reminds you of steps you need to take at each stage of growth.

This bonus guide includes:

Nutrients: Quick mixing chart, proper ph and EC ranges, the super-simple 50% method, how to top up your reservoir, and when to mix a new batch of grow juice

Lighting: Which lamps for which gardens, how high to hang, when to switch bulbs, how long they last, and a concise lighting chart

Planting Media: How and when to use the most popular hydroponics growing media: LECA, perlite, CocoCoir and Rockwool

Seeds: The best way to start plants for from seed; plus a secret way to kick-start your garden and shave weeks off the growing time

Vines: How to tie up your vining crops for maximum production

BONUS #2- SIMON’S WISDOM-

THE BEST OFs… GARDENING CHECKLIST… AND RESOURCES

Simon’s list of the best trays, best lights, best nutrients, all his best ofs… and where to get them.

A list of helpful hydro supplies for your new hobby… “must have”, “nice to have”, and “luxury items”.

Gardening checklist… when to do what; daily, weekly and monthly.

Hydroponics resources guide. Useful books and magazines for your hydroponics library.

BONUS #3- AUTOPOT® FARM PLANS Build the ultimate lazy man’s hydroponics garden! With AutoPots®, you truly can “set it and forget it”. We tell you how to create a big automated Autopot® farm with this bonus guide.

Hydroponics How To: Pssst! Check this out…

Would you like to see a sample of some of the pages in the book?

Here you go…

If there was an easy way to get started, would you try it?

The first thing you must do is plant the seed. Planting a seed is easy. But it is also crucial. Nothing happens until the seed is planted but once it is, a tiny speck turns into bountiful plants and vegetables.

You have a chance to plant a seed right now. This e-book is a seed that will help you grow and see your dreams germinate. You’ll be able to see them grow from an idea to a super-charged hydroponics garden.

You’ve seen how plants started in hydroponics can grow fast, big and in a small space. Get this e-book now and you will be planting a seed.

You’ve seen how a fresh vegetable garden can save you money every month. But only if you plant the first seed.

You seen the Table of Contents and how much information is inside those 320 pages.

This may be the most important seed you’ll ever plant. This seed will grow into a full-fledged hydroponic garden that will feed your family. Get this book now and you’ll plant that seed.

“Grab Your Copy Now”

Regular Price $27.00

Today and always $27.00 [No Fake inflated price, no limited time offer here]

ORDER NOW:

Have questions about the ebook? Ask them here. “Getting Started in Hydroponics” giant ebook is simply the best way to get you started in hydroponics for the least amount of money.

Order your ebook today; a pdf file for instant download and use. You will need Adobe Acrobat to view the book, but we supply that for free if you don’t already have it on your computer. It is a quick and easy process.

“Grab Your Copy Now”

Regular Price $27.00

Today and always $27.00 [No Fake inflated price, no limited time offer here]

ORDER NOW:

No hidden charges!

For Product Support, please contact the vendor (us) HERE.

For Order Support, please contact ClickBank HERE.

We are Simon & Stella and we approve this message.

Would you like to sell this quality e-book on your own website? If you’re already a ClickBank affiliate, go to the Marketplace, find us under “Hydroponics”, then click on the PROMOTE button to grab your HopLink and get started!

Not with Clickbank yet? SIGNUP HERE FOR FREE.

For detailed information about our e-book affiliate program, CLICK HERE.

Return to Simon’s Simple Hydroponic PlansReturn to Hydroponics Growbox Plans

Return From Hydroponics How To to Home Page

0 notes

keshetchai · 7 years ago

Note

hey! i saw ur post about human sacrifice/Christ as a sacrifice. just wanted to let you know basically it's taught among Christians that Christ had to pay the price for our sins & He alone was capable of doing that. As someone fully human as well as fully God, He was able to fulfill & forgive that debt that we owed God bc of our sin. If a master tells his servant not to kill any of the master's sheep, it is right for the servant to obey, but it is still within the master's right to kill a sheep.

2/2 I understand that this isn’t the teaching in Judaism and I’m not asking you to agree, just trying to shed some light on the Christian perspective! This is a question that gets asked a lot in Catholicsm (not sure about the other Christian denominations) and if u want to look further into it i know there’s solid theologins out there that have talked about it!!

Ah, maybe it wasn’t clear in how I wrote my post, but I am an ex-Catholic! I am a Jewish convert, but grew up Mexican-Catholic.

I looked into this kind of theology quite a bit while I was still Catholic, and found the principles and reasons given (like the ones you gave me) to be personally dissatisfying. I get that lots of people believe this, that it is part of Catholic (and Christian in general) belief, and so on, but uh, I guess basically I didn’t accept any of the statements that lead to that conclusion. I know the teaching, I just find it spiritual unfulfilling and “Begging the question.”

For those curious, this is also a good example of why I was not good at Catholicism™. The asker is right, these aren’t how things are viewed Jewishly (this is all Catholic/Christian theology), but also just in the context of reading the Christian/Catholic Old Testament, I felt I had a list of theological problems I could not solve to my own satisfaction. Because while there are significant differences between Torah and OT, some of the underlying leaps of…well, faith, remain.

Basically I happily admit this is (part of) the reason why Christian theology was not good for me, but may satisfy others. (Or rather, what spiritually satisfies you, does not satisfy me, and that’s all okay!)

For the sake of…I don’t know, a dual view, my response to this line of reasoning, I think, makes it obvious why I decided Catholicism wasn’t for me. ;) It also shows I deeply appreciated a Jewish attitude towards theological questions and biblical events, that is to say, “@hashem, what the heck???”

So ex-Catholic me had the following…issues (and I come from a long line of very argumentative bible readers, ahaha):

“had to pay the price for our sins“

Original sin is not a concept in Judaism and was not “known” to the writers of the Torah/Tanakh. And so by extension, original sin was not a Thing at the time Jesus would have been alive.

So therefore, which sins?

If it’s just “sins” in general, why does someone need to die to “pay the price”? (Remember Hellfire and Damnation also Does Not Exist in Judaism)

Why must a price be paid by someone else? In Judaism and in the Torah, the price of a mistake/sin/harmful act should be rectified by the person who did the thing personally. If a “sin” (and sin means something different in Judaism than it does in xtianity) is committed against another person, then to fix the problem you must essentially pay the appropriate damages (as in a court of law) or make things right between you and them, and “Repent”. If the “sin” or mistake is made against G-d, then we are told A.) a sacrificial offering based on the kind of act done is appropriate BUT B.) failing that, prayer is the appropriate course of action, and a sacrifice is never the only option:Hosea 14:3 Take words with yourselves and return to the Lord. Say, “You shall forgive all iniquity and teach us [the] good [way], and let us render [for] bulls [the offering of] our lips.In point of fact, Solomon, during the inauguration of the temple, tells us that if someone is not in Jerusalem (and therefore able to make a sacrifice), then they should simply pray:Kings I 8:46-4946 If Your people go out to battle against their enemy, by what way You send them, and pray to the Lord toward the city that You have chosen, and (toward) the house that I have built for Your name.45And you shall hear in heaven their prayer and supplication, and maintain their cause.46If they sin against You, for (there is) no man who does not sin, and You will be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, and their captors will carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far or near.47And they shall bethink themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness.’48And they shall return to You with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, who led them away captive, and pray to You toward their land, which You gave to their fathers, the city that You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your Name.49And you shall hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause.And this will be enough for God.

What sins are exceptions to the rule that God will accept repentance through prayer and change of deed and action? (See also: God sending Jonah to have a community repent - and they do so only by prayer and fasting.)

Why are they exceptions? Why were these exceptions previously unknown before, and is that not a “Stumbling block before the blind?”

Why would God give us a debt we could not fulfill on our own?

Why does the master need to kill a sheep? For what purpose?

Why would “the master” declare killing men to be evil and wrong and banned, but then go and do it themselves?

Is that not hypocritical?

Does that hypocrisy not seem alarming? like if that was a test, then people who accepted the blood sacrifice of a man failed.

And shouldn’t we openly question and rebuke this change of the law, a very important and fundamental law to not sacrifice our children/sons? After all, Abraham rebukes God for threatening to kill everyone in Sidom and Gemorrah since he had promised not to do so after the Flood. Shouldn’t we, as humans, rebuke God for sacrificing his “son” in DIRECT disregard of his own command to not sacrifice children/humans in general?

Can we trust a God who would sacrifice their own son against their own law? (The lesson of Abraham’s near sacrifice might suggest No, you should not attempt to sacrifice your son, hence why an angel intervened. I also hold that Abraham misunderstood the instruction to “take up your son” as “sacrifice your son” - the words “take up” and “sacrifice” in hebrew sound the same!)

After all, Jesus said he did not come to replace the law, but to uphold it [Matthew 5:17]

Importantly, if Jesus was meant to uphold the law, then any sacrifice done outside the temple mount (as Jesus’s crucifixion most certainly was) is null and void, as sacrifices outside the mount are expressly forbidden and actually a grave sin.

Does that not nullify said sacrifice pretty dramatically?

[SIDE NOTE: God also very explicitly banned drinking blood at all, whatsoever, and yet Jesus says to drink his blood? what???]

If God is all-powerful and unending, why would God become a man and die, even temporarily? To what purpose?

God becoming a man takes away from his oneness attribute and quality. Trinitarian doctrine is the reasoning that god is one, except when god is three, which is also one.

“He alone was capable of doing that”

why?

Was God not capable?

Did God lose their all-powerful ability?

why (again) is an unrelated Son-of-God-figure the only one capable of redeeming people? (Did not God personally redeem the Israelites in Exodus?)

Is mankind not capable of atoning for our “sins” and righting our wrongs?

What could Jesus really do that God couldn’t, if they are indeed the same? (if they are the same, how is this still a singular God characteristic of monotheism?)

what was the point of making a non-human person the only one capable of solving and absolving very human problems? Does it really teach us anything except to be dependent and not worry about our personal responsibilities?

I could keep going, but these kinds of things are why my mom didn’t think it was wise for me to go to Sunday school, lest I get in trouble for arguing with a nun. lmao.

All of these questions “could” be answered, but they’re more or less rhetorical and I ultimately did not find myself satisfied with the answers I found in/from the Church and also found no person reason to believe in Jesus “saving” anything or anyone.

#ex-catholic things

16 notes · View notes

englishchinesetranslations · 5 years ago

Link

This is a piece about me visiting Riyadh, several times, for Formula E.

Formula E is an electric racing series that says OK, boomer to 20th century petrolhead culture.

I am a high-performing, self-absorbed diva who writes about cars for a living.

Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh. It’s not a place, in the western imagination — which despite my scattershot efforts to broaden my horizons I definitely have — it’s a synonym for the Saudi Arabian state. Which, again, in the western imagination is one millennial and a network of shadowy contract killers.

The name Riyadh inspires fear, like a monster under the bed, something unknowable and threatening that doesn’t say anything about a city nine million people live in. Like most people, I hate admitting I’m afraid of anything real so in my mind it’s never been more than an imaginary metaphor to shield my own delicate ego.

I don’t think about the place much outside headlines. Or well, didn’t used to.

If you asked me if I’d ever imagined going to Riyadh a few years ago, I would’ve had to first work out if I could imagine Riyadh. In my mind — and I have an international relations degree so this is extra embarrassing — it was a mediaeval fortress. Perhaps some heads on spears on the walls. I’d seen some pictures on the Daily Mail or something and for some reason never considered whether this was a bit racist.

This starts in Berlin, 2018. Formula E, a street-racing electric motorsport series, announce the championship is going to Riyadh. Which is a ridiculous concept because Riyadh isn’t even a place with streets, in my mind, because I have not yet managed to stop being racist about this and actually learn anything.

More ridiculous is that I can’t go — I’m one of half a handful of full season journalists in this series that I decided to upend my life for completely a few years ago and I can’t go to the season opening race for the next ten years.

Because of strict Sharia law in the Kingdom, I can’t work in Saudi Arabia without my dad or husband giving me permission. Which at then-31 years old, divorced and resigned to my parents disapproving of everything I do for some time now is extremely laughable. I can’t work in motorsport there at all, classed as a dangerous profession. And how the hell am I going to get in in the first place?

There is some quite emphatic shouting on a street near Tempelhof when a fellow journalist asks me what I think of it and accidentally triggers the nuclear codes on my brain. I can’t do this, are they joking? How can I even continue in the series, I used to work in the humanitarian sector, for crying out loud.

I spend a night stewing in my hostel bed and wondering how all this can be thrown back into my face so hard. And then, trembling with rage and the less hot emotion I don’t like to think I’m capable of, demand answers from then-Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag in a press conference where he’s meant to be passively introducing Nico Rosberg.

The press conference is important because he tells me that there will be women there, that there will be arrangements made, that I can go. Which is the moment Riyadh has to stop being a fictional, mythical fortress to me because if I can, then I can’t not. No matter what else I think right now, I can’t let my male peers go and exclude myself so now even worse than being banned from Riyadh I have to actually go there.

Then my handbag gets stolen on the U-Bahn and I have bigger problems in the immediate, because the British embassy’s closed for a royal wedding.

Why is going somewhere so bad? Especially if you’ve already sucked down the moral serving of working in motorsport, gone the distance and done the deeds to get there.

I don’t want to shy away from the facts, here. Firstly, that motorsport is an intensely conservative world — all sport is. Formula E is by miles and miles the most liberal, even confrontational element of at least the cars bit of it but there are no openly gay drivers at a top level, there are very few women.

It’s bizarre to me, as someone who lives in London’s very leftwing queer scene, to work somewhere where shaving half my head was a bit edgy not just ‘had a breakdown on Tuesday, lads.’ I am more left wing than most normal people and motorsport as a whole is considerably more right.

I love my job. I whine about doing it, constantly but I love motorsport. I am obsessed with it, it’s what makes me feel the most and I am fascinated by the tech and I adore my friends in it, this is a job I have worked insanely hard to get — not something I am being forced to do, disinterestedly. But there is a disconnect between the realities of it and myself as a person.

Even motorsport people, however, were shocked by us announcing we were going to Riyadh. Until this event, the FIA (motorsport’s global governing body) had never sanctioned an event in Saudi Arabia, not because there was no interest from the Kingdom (Saudia, the national airline, have been an F1 sponsor for decades) but because until recently, women were completely banned from driving.

That changes, in the months between the announcement and the race — because it had to, as a condition of the event happening. You can view that as the Eprix clearly directing positive change or not if you want but the fact that it had to is important as part of the situation, as part of understanding why people were shocked we were going there.

Saudi Arabia operates a guardianship law for women, who require their husband or male relative’s permission to do things like open a bank account, get a job or a passport. Women are required to wear an abaya (the usually-dark coverup garment that covers you from foot to neck) as well as modest clothing and muslim women must wear a hijab. All Saudi Arabians must be muslim and a religious police force exists to enforce strict adherence to sharia law.

Kissing in public is absolutely banned, as is alcohol and western music. There are no cinemas and media is restricted. LGBT acts can get you imprisoned, publicly whipped or even executed. Human Rights Watch lists the “dissidents” who are detained on long charges in Saudi Arabian jails — they are women’s rights activists, people who have criticised the government, protestors who in most countries would be considered very mild. Torture is documented by HRW as being widely used as an interrogation tool against detainees.

It’s not fully whataboutism to say “well, other countries have terrible records on human rights, too and sport still happens there.” But Saudi Arabia has been off the table for a long time, not least because events like this — people congregating and especially in mixed gender settings — have been banned for a long time by the government themselves.

So is Formula E so financially or morally bankrupt to take the Saudi Arabian money and go there? It’s not like the country has a longstanding connection to electric technology and green solutions — absolutely the opposite, Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

It’s complicated. WWE were the first big sports brand to announce an event in Saudi — but WWE isn’t really a sport and isn’t governed by a sporting body, wrestling a strictly choreographed entertainment product, despite the athleticism. As a consequence, the event in Riyadh could be bent to meet existing Saudi restrictions — no female wrestlers, no women in attendance, etc.

The FIA couldn’t do that and neither could Formula E. The event was somehow going to have to cater to, well, people like me. And they could have done that by spending the Saudia money on ferrying us around so we never saw anything but for whatever reason, they didn’t. They’ve never told me what to tweet or what to write about it. I don’t work for them, they didn’t sign this off and if anything happens to me as a consequence of writing it it’s not their problem.

They’ve got me access to princes to ask questions and put me in front of an exhaustive list of local TV and newspapers to prove that, yes, there is a woman — I’m aware I’m a bit of the PR to all this. And that that’s why people question whether what I think about it is true and why I’ve spent over a year writing this and why it’s so long.

I am incredibly sick of the persistent accusation Formula E journalists do not ask about this. That the media has not had to think about it, that nothing’s been written. So here you go, I’ve written it all.

There’s a view that these big, international events happening in Saudi Arabia is ‘sportswashing’ — that the intention is for Saudi Arabia’s international reputation to be rehabilitated by being thought of as a sports venue. That brief, highly-controlled environments are giving an unrealistic view of life there.

The events are short, for sure. I have made three brief trips to Riyadh and I am not about to pretend that I know about ‘normal’ life there in any meaningful way. This isn’t intended to be documentary about Saudi Arabia writ large, it’s about what it’s like to go there as a journalist to cover the events and what I’ve seen and the people I’ve spoken to. A lot of it’s just about what goes on in my head during the weekends — it’s part travelogue.

I don’t think about Riyadh very much for the next few months because I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, until Formula E call me a few weeks before testing and ask if I’d like to go on a trip. Would I. My entire method of managing my fragile psychology is dependent on going off somewhere every few weeks and the pent up home time is sending me scratchy, I say yes before I’ve even heard where it is.

It’s Riyadh, obviously. They post me some abaya and I read some not very reassuring travel advice, most of which doesn’t make much sense, while trying to work out a way of covering up my confrontationally queer hairstyle.

At Jaguar’s season launch I scope out who else is going — it’s all men but then again, there are not many things like me in motorsport. I contemplate my own death in a mediaeval fortress a lot, because this, for some reason, seems likely to be something Formula E would be sending me to.

The flight over is blandly sober. My hobbies and interests are pretty much covered off by “getting extraordinarily lit on flights” so the self restraint to ask for coffee instead of wine, before we enter Saudi airspace and they stop serving it, is an immense struggle. I also keep falling over my abaya and still can’t do anything with the headscarf to save my life.

My male peers are not having these problems. One of them has a gin and tonic, for a start.

In my head, Riyadh airport is a jail. The entrance to fortress Riyadh, machinery of a despot. In my mind, this is where it goes wrong — where my hastily-issued travel authorisation is judged invalid, where the men are let in but I’m not, where somehow this turns into The Gang All Go To Saudi Prison. Sitting nervously on plastic chairs, we wait for our visas to be done and I try to be sanguine about my upcoming, certain death and consider if I could actually fancy one of the dudes or if I’m just surprisingly horny about my own mortality.

Spoilers: I am not dead.

When we get through customs, the Saudi fixer shakes my hand. My very limited googling has informed me this is absolutely illegal unless we are married and my heart leaps out of my chest because oh here we go, here’s where I die. It’s so stupid it’s unreal, my tabloid-mythological Saudi overlayed like VR on what’s in front of my face.

I’d say it’s the fact it’s 40 degrees centigrade at 1am but realistically it’s just me being ignorant as all get-out and believing whatever I read, especially the most ghoulishly outrageous bits, instead of being willing to find stuff out. Which is a particularly stupid situation for a journalist.

Riyadh is, through the window of the taxi, very clearly not a mediaeval fortress. It has Starbucks. It has Nando’s. Its late but there are people walking around and when we get to our hotel, it’s easy enough for me to buy a coffee, go for a quick wander around the block and then stare out of my thirteenth-story window at a sprawling city glittering with lights. Not as built up with forbidding glass as Dubai, not quite as antiquarian-ramshackle as my beloved Marrakech and there’s something somewhere to it, a little chaos and disorganisation, a little… rule-breaking tendency that twangs on strings tied to Tbilisi.

Riyadh suddenly isn’t a story to scare naughty children with, it’s a place — where nine million people live. And I realise I have been quite stupid about this. Embarrassingly, shamefully so. I don’t get anything like enough sleep, thinking about it because I hate being wrong and I’m not quite sure how I so bullheadedly was so off the truth.

At the showcase I interview some Saudi princes. In the back of my mind lurks a vociferous argument I had with my ex-husband once, where I called him morally bereft for even considering working with the Saudi state. It is funny when you schadenfreude yourself.

My image of a Saudi Prince at the time is very limited. And by limited I mean I can name one.

I have not thought about HRH Abdulaziz bin Turki AlFaisal Al Saud. At this point, he’s the person personally tasked with making Formula E happen and he is vibrating with anxious tension about making it work. In my steady realisation that Saudis are people, too, I clock that they’re as nervous about screwing this up for us as we are of doing something wrong. Maybe a lot more so.

Abdulaziz is funny. I worry halfway through the interview I’m going to get in trouble for flirting with him because when I listen back to it, we laugh a lot. It’s the slightly anxious giggling of people doing something weird they’re not sure will work, at the start and then just genuine jokes. We “do a bit” about everyone telling Saudi they need to make changes for decades and then telling them they’re going too fast when they do.

I find out most Saudis, in fact almost all Saudis, are aged between 15–30 and think about what that means for the life expectancy in this bakingly hot, dry country. 90% of the population works in agriculture, which must be backbreaking in the extremities of the peninsula’s climate and that quality of life is poor, especially compared to the state’s wealth. It is very obvious he is a devout reformer and wants to urgently improve things for Saudi Arabians, starting with what he knows (he used to race in Blancpain GT in Europe) by bringing motorsport and technology to push the country away from the oil enriching — and endangering — it.

He’s not a cold despot, or a charismatic liar — there are plenty of both in motorsport let alone other fields I’ve covered — he’s a little bit thousand-miles-an-hour, talks more like Formula E’s bouncy kiwi Mitch Evans than a politician and with slightly more honesty, not offended when I push things and offering more to ask about than he tries to hide.

If the whole trip has wrongfooted me a little by just bringing Riyadh out of the mythical then this does something else. I do some gormless, rapid recalculations, brain as vacant as that meme because despite my almost unshakable sense of western entitlement it has finally got through that there’s a chance the race in Saudi is not actually about me.

In all my righteous, ask-a-manager fury about having to do this myself, I haven’t thought about the Saudi equivalent of me. Who wants to watch motorsport, work in it, has been denied it right up until now unless she was privileged enough to get to other states — and 90% of the population isn’t. Doing the maths in my head, that 70% 15–30 year olds includes about 13.6 million women my age or younger who’ve just got the right to drive as part of the FIA negotiations for the race. And the right to work at it. And here I am pitching a fit because I have to comply with what might as well be a uniform, to a tourist, for a weekend.

Ok, somehow I have got some perspective. But that doesn’t make this all automatically fine, does it.

Aseel Al-Hamad, a Saudi woman who’s just driven an F1 car at the French grand prix, is there. There’s a flamboyantly camp young Saudi YouTuber or something who is flirting with everyone. I still can’t drink coffee without dripping it on my headscarf.

Everyone keeps saying “it’s just a normal place.” Which is true — it has coffee shops and supermarkets and I eat an extremely salty salad with two other journalists after we get back to the hotel and none of us get arrested for not being married to each other. But also that dumbs it down, to just our own flighty concerns about how to exist here.

I can’t stop thinking about those stats. Saudi, which I’d thought of as ruled by old zealots, is so modally young that I am above the average age here.

There are young, excited Saudis at the showcase. Obviously, because that’s what 70% of the population are. 39 million people live here, who I’ve either thought of as generically oppressed or generically oppressive, drawn on some very primitive gender grounds. When I worked in humanitarianism, no one ever mentioned being humanitarian to Saudis and to my genuine horror, against all my ethics, I’ve casually dehumanised an entire population.

Don’t tell me, sitting from the west and spitting blood on social media at the idea of racing series going to Riyadh, you haven’t done something the same. Because I’m pretty good at this and yet somehow I can get my head around going to New York while toddlers sit in ICE detention, can get on with living in the UK despite knowing full well the horrors my own government is committing but I didn’t know any Saudis, you see. So somehow it hadn’t occurred to me they might want things like entertainment and sports and other things I take for granted and don’t assume I should be denied just because the prime minister’s done a racism again.

Formula E wasn’t taking a compromised event — not like WWE’s male-only show for a select few. It was going to be an Eprix like any other, bar the podium champagne. Not only that, there’d be women on track.

Saudi Arabia was about to go 0–60 by never having had women driving to hosting an event where, during a test, the largest number of women, anywhere, ever would be driving current, top flight machinery alongside men. A statement, yes but not intended to me about Saudi but to Saudi women about motorsport. I mention it to the prince, who thinks it’s quite funny as a statistic — he’s raced in Europe, after all, he knows what the numbers are like in our glorious egalitarian societies.

(If you don’t: they’re atrocious. I can name every woman who’s ever got as far as single seater racing, while I can’t remember which men were in F1 5 years ago, there’ve been so many.)

I tell someone on Twitter that if other countries wanted to do it they’ve had the preceding 70 years and well, where is the lie?

The flight to Dubai, en route back, is weird. I rip my hijab off in the airport terminal, no longer able to cope with my own inept wrapping and try to stop the side-shaved bit of my hair standing up. A male journalist asks me why I bothered with it in the first place and I try not to give him too much of a death glare because actually it’s becoming apparent things aren’t what I assumed.

I absentmindedly delude myself into thinking I’ve been invited to hang out with the guys, not just tagged along by proximity, for the rest of the journey and it hurts for about half the subsequent season that I’m incapable of learning not to make assumptions, despite the big ol’ wisening experience I just got lavished with. But those are other places.

Jamal Khashoggi is brutally murdered in an embassy in Turkey shortly after our showcase trip and the number of names of Saudis most people can think of increases to two. One deceased.

I nervously ask Formula E, at testing, if we’re still going. We are. It’s fuel for some very gory nightmares for a few weeks and can I really go there? I feel pretty strongly about dismembering journalists.

As the days tick down to going, mythical Riyadh re-descends on my mind. I forget the place I saw in broad daylight and brood on the fact I’ll be arriving at 1am, totally alone. It’s stupid fear, not the healthy respect I have for the fact travelling so much on my own, anywhere, is generally dangerous.

My usual attitude to being presented with a dangerous opportunity is to immediately take it. My sense of self-preservation isn’t impaired but my survival skills are over-developed, it’s left me with some excellent stories I can never put my name to and which I often only tell softened versions of, to avoid upsetting anyone. I can think or… Well, let’s say manoeuvre or lie or cheat or manipulate myself out of almost anything and the things I can’t, I can chalk up to a big bucket of Things That Are Making Me Weirder And Weirder But I Just Can’t Stop Doing Them.

I don’t think that will work in Saudi Arabia. And I’m so incapable of behaving myself. I’ve already forgotten the manifest demonstrations I saw that Saudis handle strict rules the same way everywhere else with them does, ie by each pretending they must apply to other people and look like you’re doing it when it matters, my own MO for everything.

Meanwhile my own unelected leader in the UK nearly tanks us out of the European Union for the first of what will be several, increasingly grim times and I have this vague feeling of unassailable doom.

All the thinking about going to Saudi has stopped me doing any thinking about actually going to Saudi, which because I booked my flights late and am permanently broke, is via two Ryanair flights, a gruelling overnight layover in Milan Malpensa (0/10, do not do) and 11 discombobulated hours in Jordan that I thought I was going to enjoy but it turns out the fear is kicking in.

The silly thing is, the thing that scares me is a taxi driver in Ammam who I throw some Jordanian dollars at while bruising my thumb forcing the lock down at some traffic lights to escape after he tries to essentially extort me. But if I can’t handle Ammam how am I going to handle Riyadh? A lot of me wants to turn around and go home.

I get to the airport for my final flight much too early and when they tell me I can’t check in yet, it all suddenly hits and I unexpectedly sit down on the terminal floor and cry hysterically for ten minutes.

By the time I get on the plane, I’m delirious with panic. The insane idea I am going to get arrested at the airport dominates my entire thoughts — after all, last time I was with Formula E but I’m not normally in the group, the showcase a one-off excursion.

Also, most pathetically given I’m 32 not five, I have not told my mother I’m going to Saudi Arabia. My mother disapproves of most things I do but I feel like there’s a relatively legitimate case for that here and also that I am a gutless coward for not being able to take that on. Gutless cowards afraid of being told off probably shouldn’t be trying to do this.

I cry so pathetically with fear the Flynas staff, who are spectacularly kind, give me a free coffee and one sits with me, thinking it’s the thermal-buffeted take off that has me hysterical, not the country they live in.

It is, obviously, not Formula E’s responsibility to check I get anywhere. Or where I’m staying or in particular I’d really rather they didn’t attempt to regulate what I’m doing because I reserve my right to get up to all kinds of things without them trying to stop me. But sometimes there are moments when I think anyone would quite like to think there’s someone who’ll know if they don’t make it to their hotel and I’m having one, feeling much too vulnerable to be able to do this. The monster under the bed is scaring me, mooom.

Needless to say, it’s fine. Uber is very well-regulated in Saudi Arabia and the process of transferring to my apartment hotel is extremely straightforward and despite my sudden inability to do maths convincing me it costs three times more than it does, really cheap from a London perspective.

The guy at the check-in desk thanks me for respectfully wearing Saudi-compliant clothes; my hair at this stage is still difficult to not look aggressively asymmetrical and I’ve finally learned how to do a hijab but it sort of unnerves me. Am I either appropriating or colluding with something, here? After all, I’m not muslim. I’d be a terrible muslim, I already miss wine.

I really need to sleep but don’t, which turns out to be basically what I spend most of my time in Riyadh doing because my brain won’t stop turning over and there’s not enough hours before I have to get up and go to the track anyway.

Here is where things get interesting, of course. Because I’m not staying in a hotel full of Formula E people, I’m not staying with anyone else at all, I’m just any old regular person in Riyadh, staying in the kind of place an average-income Saudi might if they were visiting from Jeddah.

Formula E don’t have my address, I didn’t have to put it on my visa application (handled by the championship so I have no idea how difficult it would be to get one as a journalist otherwise) and unless someone very carefully trailed me from the airport then I’m just out here alone. I’m staying in Al-Aqiq, which is a neighbourhood sort of near Diriyah and as decentralised as the whole of Riyadh seems to be.

Riyadh is a weird city, from my perspective — it seems to have no centre and there’s motorways everywhere. In any 500m walk, you can find at least two demolished buildings with the rubble in situ and another one under construction, a petrol station and a kebab shop. Every road feels like a dual carriageway and I don’t understand the shops.

Not for the reason I assumed I wouldn’t understand the shops, which was more specifically cultural issues. I don’t understand the shops because they sell things that make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever — I’m staying in an apartment hotel and there’s a petrol station nearby, a coffee shop on the forecourt.

That’s reasonably sensible to me. I can also get my head round the oddly Roman-themed kebab shop and the phone shop the other side — fine, that’s how modern life works right?

What I do not understand is the stationery warehouse that also sells party gear and interior design trimmings that seems, by all accounts, to be the big shop in the area. It’s sized for a DIY shop and stocked by the crazy crap aisle in Lidl and although it sells me an exceptionally good pencil sharpener that I’ve jealously guarded ever since, I cannot work out what the heck its deal is. It opens at like 7am and has supermarket trolleys available but every time I go in everyone’s buying like one box of paper plates?

There will be no answers. Some elements of Riyadh, I have to accept, I will not fully understand.

But I find myself going in a lot. I buy some weird new stationery that doesn’t really set me up for the season, because Al-Aqiq doesn’t have much else going on. I get really invested in trying every type of latte flavour the petrol station coffee shop does because it sort of gives me a sense of direction in my attempts at exploration that are otherwise coming up short because I can’t find anywhere to poke around, sleepy residential and mosques the main features of the area.

I assumed it was because I was sort of on the outskirts but this continues to puzzle me a year later. I’m used to cities with centres, high streets — I don’t know if it’s the heat or just a different, dispersed way of doing things or because (and I definitely have noticed this) Saudis don’t really have a culture of congregating places, turning up in crowded scenarios or what. But the structure of the town kind of makes no sense to me, and maybe never will.

There’s, seriously, no public transport on the enormous roads and coming from London that confuses the heck out of me. Contrary to the imagined SUVs of gulf state, most of the cars on the road are old and Japanese — Toyota Camrys and Hyundais, clearly proudly cared for but long in the tooth on mileage. There are almost no European or American cars and the ones that exist look weirdly out of place, a Renault Megane looking like an undersized curiosity in a line of Honda estates.

From that, you can probably gather I walked around a bit. I actually walked around a lot more than I initially intended to, especially on the first day I was trying to get to the track.

This is where it gets a bit technical about the business of motorsport, which is that for the first and only time this year, I need to get to the accreditation centre and pick up the pass that will let me into the circuit — and the rest of the season. This is a very minorly stressful process — and only so because I haven’t been to the circuit before so there’ll be a degree of wandering around trying to find the right place.

What happens is that I initially book a taxi to the wrong place, as it turns out there are several bits of Riyadh called Diriyah. Then I rebook a taxi and it goes to a different version of the wrong place, including having to get through several military checkpoints that my taxi driver is increasingly confused why I think I should be going through — and to be fair, so am I. There wasn’t any of this last time.

I bail out when I see some Formula E hoardings on the basis I must be nearby. This is a stupid idea. I’m the wrong side of the track and have to walk through it to get to the thing that will let me get the lanyard that says I am allowed to go through it but there doesn’t seem to be any other sensible way of making it there.

This feels like the sort of thing you could get into a lot of trouble for. It feels more like that when I get to some catch fencing that hems me in so totally I realise the only thing I can do is walk a long way back, to possibly not be able to find a way through or to climb it. Reader, despite the clothing situation and the fact I am carrying a rucksack full of precious scarred Macbook, I climbed it.

Jumping down the other side, I realised one of the reasons was because it was next to what looks really like a military compound and there’s a bored-looking dude with a gun staring at me. To quote Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye: ok, this looks bad.

There’s a sort of weird thing that happens when you are in a genuinely bad situation. Like, this is obviously not what I am supposed to be doing and it’s hard to guess whether the FIA or the Saudi government will get angry at me wandering into places I am clearly not meant to be first — or most severely. Technically I haven’t signed my behaviour waiver with the FIA for the year yet and also they probably have fewer guns.

As you can probably guess by the fact I’m writing this a year later, the next 45 minutes are quite stressful but ultimately end up in the accreditation office with extremely smudged eyeliner but no permanent damage. And for the record, the Saudi soldier I end up speaking to through Google Translate is nothing but helpful.

Which should probably be the end of me getting lost in various places in Riyadh except it’s kind of only the beginning. I very rarely get lost, I’m great at yeeting myself round the world and reading cities from their layout alone — I don’t know if it’s just that Riyadh is so decentralisedly alien to me or if it’s just the same thing that happens where I cannot stop myself trying to read Arabic the wrong way round and it’s just that I’m too stupid to understand it.

Whatever it is, I get lost a lot. Nearly continuously. I have to develop an uncharacteristic level of chill acceptance for not knowing where I am or when I will next be able to work that out. For sometimes wandering at length down motorways, in the rain, trying to hope that there’s a point on the horizon where GPS will work and maybe I won’t run out of road before then. It’s never that horrible, as an experience — Riyadh actually has fairly decent pavements — it’s just slightly bizarre and adds to my sense of being constantly wrong-footed and out of my depth, which is the kind of on-the-edge-of-fear feeling that makes me crotchety and unobservant and the whole problem ten times worse.

Anyway, that’s for later.

Occasionally, people call me inspirational. How inspirational of me, pursuing a career in a male dominated field. How inspirational of me, tootling round the world on my own and with no budget. How inspirational of me to not have ended up dead given all that.

It’s a weird feeling. I am outrageously flattered by it but I don’t feel very inspirational; I’m broke, I have a professional respect level probably best described as ‘tolerated’ (and barely that) and I’m hardly out here getting awards. When I finish a season I mostly feel a crushing sense of disappointment at myself for not having done that better.

Which is the kind of thing, when the drivers say it, you feel moved to say something encouraging. But it’s true — I’m frustrated by the number of times the titanic effort to get to a race limits the ambition of what’s possible there. And I’m kind of breaking myself a bit and in denial about it.

Anyway, should I really be an inspirational figure for dragging myself to Saudi Arabia on budget flights and white-knuckle bracing to hang on for another season? Probably not. After all, the whole reason I can do this sort of thing is because I’m an overpaid London media professional with a devastating sense of entitlement about travel.

It gnaws at me a bit, because all weekend when I’m in the Riyadh paddock young women keep coming up to me. They grab at my media pass, newly-minted and full-season heavy in the folds of my abaya and we stagger through conversations in Arabic via google translate or if they know enough English to talk.

It’s very exciting and inspirational, seeing a woman journalist succeed. I know because a few months previous to this event, I got amazingly drunk and embarrassed myself telling Suzi Perry how much she inspired me. I look up to the broadcasters and the journalists I find digging through old magazines and suddenly realise that’s a woman’s byline, often from a point when I assumed there weren’t any.

To be honest, I think most people just assume there aren’t any of us either way. Women in motorsport are grid girls or PRs — at least, in that same spooky, popular imagination where Riyadh’s barely a map location but you definitely have an opinion about it even so.

As far as the young women grabbing at my pass are concerned, I’m as ludicrously mythical as I can’t seem to stop myself thinking about their city if I let my mind wander for even forty seconds. A female motorsport journalist, travelling around on her own and from their perspective the most extraordinary thing, which is that I’ve apparently come to Saudi Arabia of my own volition. In fact, I’ve had to work really hard to do so, when I could have just… not.

This is kind of incomprehensible, to the Saudi teenagers. They’re excited by the idea I’d do it but when I live in London and can go anywhere, why would I? And on my own? I must obviously be the kind of incredibly celebrated and important person who thinks they can get away with that sort of behaviour and I don’t have the heart to tell them I’m actually panicking a bit about whether I can get anywhere to even take my coverage this season.

Riyadh’s one of the problems, actually. Editors don’t want to be seen to be endorsing it and the ones I can get to take it say they have to include critique of the situation, which is maddening when they won’t let me write about anything I’m actually seeing.

Ok, yes. Here is the situation: the Saudi government has paid for the race. Someone, somewhere, always pays for a race — championships sustain themselves on hosting fees and Formula E doesn’t go for the scalp like F1 but ultimately ‘who is willing to pay’ is a major persuasive factor to an events’ viability. Not to peel back the final veil but this is how big sporting events work, everywhere.

It’s proved controversial in the past. Montreal paid extra to host a season-ending double-header over several seasons, then it turned out the (I’m compelled by journalism standards to write the word ‘allegedly’ here) corrupt mayor had made promises the city wasn’t willing to keep.

It put Formula E in a position where, contractually, they had to sue the city for a settlement — not the most popular thing to do but FE itself can hardly just wave away a contract or they’d look like mugs everywhere else. Also probably, you know, needed the money for something because no one knows more about how much doing all this costs than my Ryanair-seat-shaped arse.

And why? Why wheel and deal to make a global car racing championship happen. Well, I don’t know — there’s no actual point, is there? There’s not a moral at the heart of this, a heartwarming lesson for humanity that’s perfectly illuminated by the chance to watch one millionaire athlete smash another millionaire athlete into a concrete barrier in a shower of carbon fibre.

You’ve got to tell yourself something to sleep at night though, right? There’s got to be some reason you’re doing it. We make it up for any job, the reason you’re logically doing these things. Here’s mine.

The planet is dying. That’s not hyperbole — the seas are emptying of whales drowned by plastic as fast as they fill with Antarctic meltwater. We can’t put either of those things back, there isn’t a fix except prevention.

The sky is choking, we’re shutting off the stars with satellites and smog and after a few hundred years of building a world dependent on massive — and mass — mobility, we’ve realised we can’t use the types we’ve been reliant on. We talk about the screaming, hurtling destruction of the only place we can live in bland, corporate terms, these words like ‘mobility’ and ‘transitive economics’ neatly editorialising the end of the world as the closing remarks of a conference on disaster mitigation.

It’s terrifying. It’s so incomprehensibly, mind-crushingly fearful that even if you can somehow get yourself together enough to think about it, it’s really hard. Scientists say the risk numbers are into the bit where human minds actually don’t understand them because we just can’t really be that scared.

Which is a problem, because the last thing we need right now is numbness. A few years back, I’d slipped a long way into it — not really specifically the planet but more that some very immediate things were going very wrong in my life and the only way I could continue to get up and go to work instead of lying down and screaming was to just not feel anything. Which isn’t very sustainable, you need a cathartic ability to make sense of things even if they’re terrible.

There’s lots of crutches people use — alcohol (a generally reliable and disastrous one for me) and other mind-altering distractions, getting overinvested in box sets, obsessively hyperfixating about your OTP, pinning your emotional wellbeing on the success of a sports team.

I went for pinning my entire psychological and professional future on Formula E being the thing to dive into right that moment. In the moments where I couldn’t think of a reason to carry on, there’d be another race on the horizon. In the long nights where I didn’t want to live anymore I could motivate myself with the sheer, stubborn desperation of throwing myself into getting in.

Frivolous, yes. But Formula E does also have a point: on this dying earth, amidst the keynotes on the end of transport, we need to do something. Just stopping flying or transporting or using the massive systems we’ve rigged to plug the earth in won’t work. Same as we can’t put the whales back in the barren sea, we can’t just pull the brakes on a tangled juggernaut we’ve spent decades chaotically assembling because as much as we urgently need to, to save lives, if we do then people will literally die.

It’s complicated. It’s those things too big to think about and we needed solutions before I was born, are living through the dying moments of panic while we scrabble for a fix that makes things least-bad. The trolley dilemma between apocalypse and slightly mitigated endtime.

We’ve got to be brave. We’ve got to do things like say ‘we actually cannot use oil anymore’ — for fuel, for plastic, for millions of things that keep us alive in abstract or direct ways. The 20th century was built on such a proliferation of oil products it’s hard to imagine extracting them from your home, you can’t even extract them from your supermarket trolley without making a very contorted list.

And there’s so little time. There’s so much to do. We’ve got to fix cars and planes and medicine and supply lines and food and it’s really hard to think about it all because there’s nothing you can do, you need some sort of thing to rally around.

Yes, it’s cruder than a barrel to say that Formula E can be that thing. It’s a racing series, it’s a day out, it’s entertaining sport — but it’s also a test of shame for automakers caught out in dieselgate, it’s an on-track annoyance that says actually it is possible to make electric cars populist, you can do this.

If all the absurd, awful things we have to deal with now were built in the panicked competition of the twentieth century, then welcome to the 21st edition of that scrap. There’s no time to tear into the companies and people that have orchestrated it — half of them are dead and none of them care but if you can make a system where to succeed, they have to do what you want then that’s something else.

There’s never been and I hope there never is again a moment where motorsport, as inch-grabbing competitive hot lab for transport, has had such a crucial moment. All the years of F1’s development need to be drowned out in the next half-decade by the wind-up banshee howl of electric technologies making up for decades in absence.

And you can’t politely do that on the streets of Monaco as a nice little spectacle. You have to go where you’re not wanted and explain that, actually, you are what is needed. You can’t disrupt anything without causing a little chaos and you’re gonna have to do some stuff that scares you and other people might not approve of.

So for all that, I’d better be fucking inspirational. If I’m the in, I’d better live up to it. If I’m, somehow, the lens that someone can see something worth getting excited about through then I’d better wipe off the grime and get on with it. If I’m how someone can see themself being part of this, across whatever incomprehensibly vast gulf, then I’d better not be churlish about it.

Yes, I am a colossally privileged westerner. Yes, I am ignorant and disastrously naiive — no one looks at me in a paddock and takes me seriously. Formula One journalists consider my curious electrical proclivities like discovering the intern is into something kinky and I’m never going to get a Pulitzer.

But in a paddock in Riyadh I’m a thing people haven’t seen before because all that colossal western privilege means I get to do things they’re not allowed to. And things people have never seen before are inspiring, whether they’re race series screaming round a UNESCO world heritage site or grandstands where women sit with men or Jason Derulo’s shiny jeans.

And the government paid for it, yeah. It’s a little incomprehensible. Why would the Saudi government pay for an event that’s hardly aligned with an oil state’s economy?

One answer is the propaganda. A greenwash over ARAMCO’s continued production of the majority of the world’s crude oil. But New York has an Eprix and no one looks across the Atlantic and says ‘well, the US is green now’ any more than anyone thinks of Oman as the home of football.

So if you talk about greenwashing, you either think the Saudi government is hopelessly naiive or that the entire world is, stricken by lack of knowledge about the place. Formula E is part of a plan, though — the Vision 2030 programme of reform and transformation, which includes a focus on opening Saudi to visitors.

Saudi Arabia has a lot of visitors per year, to Mecca. But visas for non-Muslims were very hard to come by until recently, with tourist visas not at all and a lot of the country restricted.

The first year, lots of journalists were flown out by the Saudi tourism board and taken on an ultra-luxury, whistlestop tour of the Kingdom. I obviously wasn’t one of them. This doesn’t come from a place of delusion where I think those lovely people from Saudia took me on such a nice trip, I learned so much during the cultural briefings between private jet flights…

The thing about being the unexpected element, that weird thing no one expected to see in a paddock anywhere let alone Saudi Arabia, is that no one notices what I am doing most of the time because they assume I’m just recording a Vine or gazing wistfully at a drivers’ hairline or something. I don’t really get fussed around by teams or pushed out of garages or moved away from conversations because despite it being pretty obvious by this point that I do know what I’m looking at, I am also still the comedic relief.

It has turned into a bit of an act. If I actually am I tremendous dumbass then I can’t get mad when everyone treats me like one.

And no one cares what I do or where I go. As soon as I leave the circuit I’m a black shape as swaddled as any of the others. Which is why I think I can trust what I saw and what I think about Riyadh, why I don’t think anyone there was trying to impress me.

The teenage girls, after all, were there for the Black Eyed Peas concert. It was purely incidental that they discovered nice western ladies women could be motorsport journalists in the process, that my big, heavy permanent pass drew so many eyes because I couldn’t get the lanyard to bend to sitting right yet.

One of the women I speak to wistfully says she’d like to be a journalist herself but she’s been arrested before and couldn’t face it happening again. Which is where the teenage excitement melts away.

The reality is that I’m seeing Saudi Arabians get to do stuff they haven’t been able to previously which I take wholly for granted. I’m not inspirational, I’m just an exotic glimpse of someone who, for all my bleating and crying about going to Riyadh, is in absolutely no danger whatsoever.

And when I blend away into the night the only thing that stood out was I have no cocking idea how to keep an abaya out of the puddles from the unseasonal downpour. But going to Saudi is not about me.

I don’t think you can fake teenage girls. You can fake loads of things but you can’t pretend it’s plausible a restrictive state faked teenage girls’ enthusiasm. (the next year I’d get in a mosh pit with them but that’s later)

I meet a really lovely, wonderfully dedicated Saudi journalist out there. She’s a credit both to her youth and frankly to motorsport and I don’t think she even half realises how great she is at making both internet content and quality traditional journalism.

(I’m not putting her name here because this is a reasonably low-risk piece for me, I think — but I wouldn’t force anyone else’s name to be put to my words, any more than I was willing to let my own be edited)

So there are Saudi women doing this. And you should listen to them about the race far more than me and what they say is obviously the same thing I say about the London Eprix; of course you want the sport you love in your city.

Boris Johnson’s an odious prick and I’m allowed to say that. I don’t have to express gratitude to him for facilitating the event, when it happens next year. He didn’t have anything to do with it and I can be British without having a single miligram of respect for the people running the place.

I can’t tell you what Saudis think about their own leaders because I don’t know — but the attitude is definitely quite different. The situation is different, the structure is different. I don’t want to say that people are lying when they say they’re grateful to the leaders for bringing sporting events there because I don’t know that they are.

The politics of anywhere is complicated. There’s not a requirement to engage, except when there is. When you have to go somewhere the issues loom in massive print or your prime minister keeps straight-up lying about things that will get people killed.

People think we don’t ask about this. But what is there to say? I can tell you what was said in a press conference, I can tell you what I inferred from the total disregard for a lot of the stricter rules that’s obviously running through Riyadh.

Saudi Arabians like being Saudi Arabian. Much more than I think most British people like being British but that’s kind of cultural. It will come as no surprise that a young population finds strict religious law grating and wants reforms, that the handful of cinemas that have opened in the past few years are popular, that people like being able to go on dates and go out for dinner without being strictly separated into male and female and they love to party. Some of them probably wouldn’t say no to a beer.

If I tell you that Saudi Arabians (largely) approve of the race, will you approve of the race now? If I tell you that there’s young Saudis, especially women, getting the chance to do stuff they really want to do because we bring the circus to Riyadh, are you onboard? Not if you weren’t before.

I would say: why do you think you deserve the opportunity to go to things and they don’t? What are you gonna tell my friend, ‘hey, an accident of your birth location means my politics ban sport from your country?’ I don’t know if that sits right with me, personally.

Here’s some tea: the Riyadh paddock, in that first year, is the nicest motorsport paddock I’ve ever worked. As a woman. I mean, I always work in paddocks as a woman but like in terms of me being there, womanly, it was the nicest.

Within the Formula E paddock, people behave pretty much like they do in a lot of the rest of Riyadh, from what I can tell. Western women uncover their hair and some fully do away with the abaya, by year two that ratio increases to pretty much everyone but me shedding it as soon as they’re through the gates.

Women have never been banned from motorsport, in liberal western Europe. We make up 1.5% of race license holders — over the course of 125 years of motorsport events — and it’s conventional for men in racing to be able to say wildly misogynist things without it affecting their careers but we’re not banned and never have been.

Women always have been in motorsport, working and as pure fans. Most people in it start as one, end up as a combination. It’s a passion field, you can’t commit to the schedule otherwise.

But we’re a minority. And people quite often either forget we’re there or forget that any group who are so completely marginalised actually kind of needs some extra catering-for. You get used to it after awhile and kind of forget but you will never be one of the boys.

Riyadh isn’t like that because this is a totally new event. They have to make sure that it caters to a population not used to attending these kind of events at all and also that it specifically advertises to and makes itself welcoming to women, because otherwise they’re at risk of getting in trouble with the FIA. The organisers here 100% have to prove how liberal and reformed they are.

Which means everything includes me. People add “and ladies” every time they say “guys,” everyone asks for my opinion about things, I get brought to the roundtables and possibly actually given more time with people than the men.

It’s so strange and flattering, it gives me not a weird impression of Saudi Arabia, who I completely understand the motivations of about this and yes I know it’s PR and an act. But it’s an act that’s working, I do feel welcomed not specifically to Riyadh but to motorsport in a way I simply never have back home. It makes me a bit genuinely hysterical about having to go back to normal paddocks.

I don’t think Riyadh deserves a medal for it or anything — but it makes me think a lot about the ‘regular’ motorsport events.

Back to that first year; it’s fine. I distract myself by looking after one of my friends, who is finding it all much harder and who I designate myself the food and drink carer for the majority of the season.

By the time we’re leaving the circuit I promise to come back for a week next time, to see more of the city. I’ve already made myself a playlist for the way home and although I’ve been cheerfully, relentlessly convincing myself I am coping fine and the kilometre and a half down a dark motorway I’ve walked every night doesn’t bother me and I feel perfectly safe, there’s a cathartic reason it opens with the Pet Shop Boys’ Home & Dry.

But it’s done. We’ve been to Riyadh and nothing bad happened and I ate some really great falafel. Also had one of the best experiences of my life when I walked up to media pen on the test day and there was a near-equal number of female to male drivers due to a test stunt where teams were allowed to run a second car if a woman drove it.

Yeah, it’s a stunt. But it’s the one that means Saudi Arabia has now had the most women driving in a mixed-gender, top flight motorsport series, simultaneously, of any country ever. If anyone’s mad about that then motorsport has been happening for 125 years and somewhere else could have done it first. I mean, this is just sport. Somewhere could have done that. Somewhere could do it now with a larger number. In the interim, well played HRH Abdulaziz.

I decide maybe I don’t want to drink any wine in Cairo airport on my way back, for roughly the amount of time it takes me to get off my plane, walk to a place that sells wine and immediately order some. It tastes so good, I have a little cry.

Thus ends year one of what’s going to be ten years of me taking myself to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as a lone woman and trying to get around.

Something weird happens the day after that season’s final race in New York, which is that I go to a lunch with a load of other journalists. They’re all F1 and important and cool, I probably shouldn’t have even been invited. Especially given I’ve just got off a heavily delayed overnight flight from JFK and I am not feeling it.

Anyway, I inevitably mention I’m from Formula E and this guy goes off at me about Riyadh. Then when he discovers I actually go, he goes even more in on me and my moral decay. I’m genuinely shocked by the ferocity of it, especially from a group of people who go to Bahrain.

I’ve got used to having to explain myself but this guy just won’t let it lie, says I’m dancing on Khashoggi’s grave and and mocking the idea of journalism, supporting crimes against women. I kind of think, privately, that that’s a bit much coming from the lofty podium of working in, uh, famous humanitarian agency Formula One but then at the time I also do that so perhaps that’s not a great stone to start throwing in a room full of people who do too.

I don’t manage to get my brain together enough to sell it to him. I mean, I don’t know if I want to sell it? Do I actually think it’s good that we go, not just survivable?

You know what, I do. I think it’s difficult and it stresses me out and every year it makes the season opener tough and you know, people shout at me over lunch and things. But look, if you just close the door on Saudi Arabia then how’s there gonna be reform? How is freedom of the press and rights going to improve if you don’t know anything about anything that happens there? Or anything about the country? The people that live there?

It’s 2019; the same way that Saudi Arabia can’t stop the flow of information as a young, internet-savvy population gets extremely online, you can’t stand in the way of things

My most succinct summary of why I think we should go, though, is simpler: Formula E getting paid to race in the home of oil and sit there going ‘that’s bad’ without getting censored is the biggest middle finger move.

Ah, Riyadh alone: round two. Now, surely, I would be armed with enough knowledge to not screw up constantly by disappearing into my own bizarre alternate reality.

Guess what? I absolutely do not. If anything else I’m even worse. I get really, really anxious in the runup — partly because this year my mother knows I am going and oh boy am I getting told off. Which is pathetic, what the hell, what kind of tiny, baby child am I?

I booked my flights really early this time, before testing. They were way better flights and I was excited to be going home via Beirut because apparently I am a lot better at inventing fictional versions of countries that sit in my brain like mirages than I am at reading the news.

Anyway, great life choices aside (it’s not like this is even my worst one) I, in theory, should be really chill about this. Except I miss the FIA email to apply for a visa and end up doing it late and it doesn’t turn up for ages and I get really stressed and then also ill and I start a new job and everything is really full on and I want to throw up.

I don’t do my packing until the last minute, then prepare by drinking too much wine and sleeping through my alarm so I have to book a last minute Uber to Stansted. Which isn’t ideal because I’m not sure if I’ve been paid but better than missing the whole thing.

Anyway, my point-blank refusal to ever check my bank balance is very much a me thing rather than anything directly connected to Saudi Arabia. So, off to Stansted and I have to re-buy everything I need and obviously forgot in the airport but again, this is pretty standard behaviour for anyone who’s as much of a total mess as me.

This doesn’t seem like the way to do it. I can get most places half-cut and sloppy but this is not most places. Nevermind — also it turns out Pegasus serve surprisingly pleasant in-flight wine and by the time I get to Istanbul I’m feeling quite relaxed; I have hours of stopover for it to wear off in, don’t worry.

I don’t want to go. It’s got into my head. I’ve been getting all these weird emails with hate-filled fantasies about me getting killed and I keep thinking about the guy at that lunch and also about the texts from my mum and the way I don’t feel cavalier enough to be doing this.

Why am I going? Because it’s my job to go. Because I have stuff to do. Because I have this endless compulsion to do it and it’s a massive privilege. I don’t know. It’s all weighing on my brain, am I an instrument of state PR now? I wouldn’t put up with that from anywhere and besides, I don’t think I am. I’d probably be on a fancier flight if I was.

But getting onto my late-night flight in Istanbul, I know it’s descended again. The fictional, fearful Riyadh is in my head and every radical thing I’ve tweeted from the past year is haunting me. What the hell am I doing going to Saudi Arabia?

And the thing is, I can’t (at this point) recognise it’s the VR. Yet again, I’m expecting to get arrested at the airport, to get trailed, a million paranoid things that won’t happen. But now they’re incredibly real in the sort of simulated reality everyone’s told me definitely exists and is more important than my own memories.

I’m not normally like this. I haven’t been sleeping enough (I’ve had ten hours sleep over five nights) and it’s really starting to show.

Still, on the plane now so better live with it — obviously I get to Riyadh without incident and am through the airport with a warm bag of falafel and a coffee, into an Uber where I manage to stagger through a mostly-Arabic conversation and send a selection of my wilder and more enthusiastic tweets about politically safe but morally questionable topic: Lando Norris is really hot lately.

I know I said I’m never going to win a Pulitzer but with that kind of bold reporting, I really should.

Finding my hotel takes a bit (it’s another, different dubious apartment hotel) and by the time I’m in and arrived, it’s like 3:30am so I just pass out in the massive bed. By which I mean, look at memes on my phone and rewatch the camping episodes of It’s Alive and wonder at which point I stopped just writing about semi-teenage idiot sportspeople and actually became one.

Nevermind, anyway, soon enough it’s time to revisit ‘finding the accreditation centre.’ This year I am determined not to have to climb any catch fencing so pick my Uber dropoff point VERY carefully. It is to absolutely no avail and I end up lost in the enormous Diriyah Season compound down near where Ruiz and Joshua will be going at it in a few weeks but certainly there are no electric cars currently.

Because I’m still freaking out and only managing to psychologically sustain myself by internally commentating on the situation it gets steadily worse as I wobble across the paddock on a combination of caffeine, adrenaline and inadvisable 4am hotel tap water. Once I actually find the place, collect the thing and get in the media centre things feel less out of control, except that I need to write two season previews before anyone wakes up in the UK still.

At least there’s fruit and coffee.

Thursday is a bit of a mess, for me. I don’t eat enough (I’m vegan and it’s a genuine problem in paddocks) and I’m so sleep deprived I’m really not coping very well and keep having to watch Calming YouTube Content to get a grip on myself and churn out another thousand words. To be fair, all of this is just the business of being me, doing journalism so can’t really be attributed to Riyadh or anyone there.

A team are doing an event later where I’m meant to be interviewing someone who I inevitably don’t get to interview because scheduling is a nightmare and also it’s really obvious that I am about one second from falling asleep on the floor and considerably over my stress limit. Another woman in Formula E asks me why I’m letting the side down by wearing an abaya (most team personnel are taking them off the second they enter the paddock) and I just snap.

It’s because I’m on my own. Because I arrived at 1:30am. Because everyone’s spent the last month telling me how stupid I am by going here and how certain I am to get killed and it turns out even I have a limit to self-determined risk enthusiasm. Because if anything happens to me, no one knows where I am and Formula E don’t look after me -

This comes as a surprise. They don’t? Surely no one lets me run round Saudi Arabia totally on my own?

Oh, they do. And being alone is psychologically testing and I feel so pathetic at how pitiable it all sounds. One of the drivers sympathetically tells me that sounds “really fucked up, to be honest.” It, err, doesn’t help.

By the time I get back to my hotel the absolute most I can manage to do is go to a shop and buy the ingredients for a big night in in Riyadh. Which is to say, some crisps, some mystery thing in a jar that turns out to be definitely not vegan kind of fake cheese with the consistency of mayonnaise that tastes amazing on crisps (food waste is bad) and one of everything from the drinks section.

I love foreign supermarkets. Full of weird stuff. This one is crucially full of men who are understandably surprised to see a western lady wandering around shaking like she’s on a billion drugs and trying to find the hummus (I can’t) or work out which colour of water is fizzy in these parts.

Obviously there’s no beer in Saudi Arabia but there is a wide selection of like beer-adjacent malt drinks that have weird fruity flavours and also cider-adjacent things with frightening coloured labels. I go for a beer-adjacent thing in flavour ‘original’ and a threatening can of Mirinda which poses the question about itself: watermelon or cantaloupe?

(my investigative powers don’t stretch that far, it mostly tastes of heavy-handed corn syrup)

I’m freaking out, though, because when I was in the supermarket the guy packing my bags gave me a present. It was just a chocolate wafer thing and I was concentrating on understanding what number I needed to pay so didn’t really pay any attention until I left and suddenly thought: what if they’re setting me up to be done for stealing it?

There was no evidence for this at all. Every Saudi I’ve met has been genuinely helpful or openly friendly, the worst reaction being a kind of morbid curiosity about why anyone would do what I am doing. But instead of using all 10ft-across of my weirdly gigantic hotel bed to get the sleep I really, really desperately need I obviously just send myself insane googling ‘setup to be arrested Saudi shops’ and variants thereon. It’s so stupid and I am only getting stupider as I waste precious resting hours on doing the opposite of that.

Now fully convinced I will be in jail before the end of the day, it’s time for the Friday race. Either you’re into motorsport and therefore know how race day works or you’re not and so don’t care but basically a lot of things happen all at once and I have to stop writing worryingly thirsty things about drivers in other series and do some work for once.

I’m really in the toilet, brain-wise, by this point and have to cry in the loos three times during the day. Which is difficult when the loos keep being closed because of some kind of water supply issue (Formula E uses temporarily-built paddocks so these things happen) and requires quite a lot of timing effort.

Also people keep interviewing me, which actually now seems to happen more than I interview other people and the whole thing feels completely ridiculous. Why are you interviewing me? I’m an idiot and I can’t remember my own name or feel most of the left side of my body because I last had ‘adequate sleep’ about three weeks ago and for some reason I forgot to bring any socks with me so I have these really aggressive blisters and I’m probably going to go to Saudi jail over a chocolate bar.

A lot of stuff is happening to me and very little of it is conducive to doing anything useful. Which then gets in my head more and this is how every weekend goes, except with an added, imaginary carceral threat.

I relay my woes to one of my friends who advises that maybe it really would be a good idea to eat something that isn’t crisps and get more than three hours’ sleep and like ok, I can believe that.

My Saudi friend notices I am having a meltdown and says she’s worried I hate her city. It finally kicks me into functional gear — I can’t be coming over here, making people feel bad about the fact I have a wholly imaginary version of their country down over my head like a visor.

So that night I first go to the concert after Formula E and purchase ‘potato,’ the most vegan thing I can find to eat. This helps somewhat and gets me into the mindset where when my taxi drops me off, I head off to the malls near where I’m staying (which are not the grander, designer sort you find in some of Riyadh) to complete the incredibly trivial task of buying socks and ordering stir fry.

Socks it turns out are easy, as there’s a shoe shop nearby and I could’ve saved myself a world of pain really easily. Which is pretty much the moral of this entire episode: stop making your life really hard and driving yourself insane and instead of just doing things like a normal, woman.

Dinner is also easy in that I get an absolutely monumental quantity of stir fry vegetables from a mall food court place and eat them in a sort of blissful semi-coma while listening to the sounds of Dr Dre’s seminal album 2001, over the mall tannoy. I seem to be staying in a very Asian district this year and most of the restaurants seem to be authentic Indonesian places.

This helps the sleeping problem enormously. It turns out just ‘not being scared’ is really key to getting six straight hours in bed and so being able to operate normally. And that’s the thing, what am I even scared of? Myself?

(to be fair, I am definitely the biggest danger to me)

It feels better. But I’m still relieved when I leave — it’s all the things: my own stupid ideas, the judgement from other people, the pressure of trying to make sure I’m doing it right.

Before I do though, I go to the last concert with a group of Saudi young people who I’ve tagged along with. Everyone is covered in glitter and dancing suggestively and jumping on each other and starting mosh pits. It feels like being at a gig I am about 15 years too old for in any other country, except that unlike if it was in London no one sloshes a pint of Tuborg down my back at any point.

It definitely does not feel like government collusion when at the end of his set, a Lebanese rapper does a dubstep version of Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do (I Do It For You) and I, an old person, absolutely lose it in front of this surreally gigantic stage, surrounded by excited young people.

For me, I could go to a gig like that every night of the week in London. But this is one of a handful. The first western music concerts were played at the Eprix the year before and there’s something there that feels big. You can claim the sport is a distraction for the rest of the world but you don’t televise concerts, these are for the Saudis.

(The concerts actually caused a really problematic ticketing situation this year where people were buying them, looking like the Formula E numbers were good because it was a combined ticket and then not turning up — when the organisers were asked they admitted they screwed up and would be trying to fix it next year)

This is what it comes down to, about the race. It’s a good track, it’s one of the best ones we have in fact — it’s produced two exciting races this season and despite torrential rain making the first year difficult, it worked then too. And yes, we have done all the bits about turning up to torrential rain in Riyadh; it snowed on the Sahara when we were in Marrakech once, too.

Climate change doesn’t really deal in imaginary metaphors.

So it’s a good track, the drivers like to drive on it, it produces a genuinely good sporting event. It takes electric racing and green principles, confrontationally, to one of the homes of oil. It has forced some small changes — which should not overshadow the achievements and struggles of Saudi Arabians themselves in getting those.

If you think it is just sportswashing then that’s too simple, it isn’t. It depends if you think the Saudi 2030 Vision plan is for you, probably sitting in the west and still thinking of this as some distant horror theme park, or for people there.

There’s an open PR angle, but those stats — the ones from way back at the show case, about how low life expectancy is in Saudi Arabia and how generally Saudis have a poor quality of life — well, a lot of this is not about how you see it. It’s about things like the massive investment into grass roots sport (especially motorsport, a nice upside to the now-head of the Sports Authority being an ex-racer) might improve things for regular Saudis.

You want to know what going to Riyadh is like? It’s a bit boring. People want stuff to do, same as you. And to meet people — each other and weird, jetlagged British women who can barely hold a coffee without tipping it down themselves.

So long as we acknowledge the other stuff (and we should do it everywhere) then I think you’re taking the wrong side, if you believe your opinion trumps their right to access that.

Ok here’s some more tea: Riyadh is covered in rubbish. If you want proof I’m not lying, here it is: the whole place is absolutely bedecked in trash.

This happens a lot in places with poor infrastructure, which Riyadh absolutely has. Because making life easy for people to get around and to meet up and to get places hasn’t been a social or specifically political priority, Saudi quality of life suffers in more ways than one. Who cares if the streets are filled with garbage if you never go out?

But people do now. Young Saudis go out in big groups and nearly all Saudis are young. Stepping around overspilling rubbish becomes the first thing I get the hang of keeping my abaya out of because man, it does not smell ok.

Rubbish in a city is a pollutant and I really hope, for the people living there, that Riyadh sorts this out. It’s all the ‘being a metaphor’ thing, isn’t it? Metaphors for governments don’t have extensive municipal recycling programmes.

I can’t tell you to unconditionally support Formula E racing in Riyadh. I don’t think you should unconditionally support anything, really, apart from maybe Lando Norris but we’re all just having a big one about that at the minute.

But anyway, this wasn’t to tell you what to think. It was slightly just to write about going there because not many people do and slightly because everyone keeps insisting no one in the Formula E media is thinking about this stuff when I have tortured myself for weeks with it. Also some of the anecdotes are funny. I could write a lot more, from my run-ins with ‘rose Lattes’ to the time I bought a lime juice and recklessly refused extra sugar in it only to discover I’d got an actual pint of just undiluted lime.

But this is long enough and it’s already much too much about me, for something that really shouldn’t be. We all have to live in our own heads.

0 notes