#i know medical mistreatment is like. only part of the problem. obviously. but this one made me so angry

[catboytenya]

i swear to fucking god black girls and women are some of the strongest fucking people in the world for dealing with the shit they deal with without cold clocking a bitch. let it be known that if a black girl or woman punched a doctor so hard she knocked him out i'd cheer her on.

[shaftking]

I literally do not understand why transmeds tend to be against teens transitioning. If you get why dysphoria is really that serious why deny a teen treatment? Y'all super adamant about needing dysphoria (I agree on this part) but also like no cure for you though. Only treatment for adults. Like it would be one thing to be against informed consent for teens, but like with genuine proper diagnosing (not some hack talking to them for an hour, meaning no trenders getting this) (though tbh only letting straight trans teens transition might help decrease regret rate as like I have yet to see a trender claim to be a straight man). Also transphobes against teens transitioning usually dont want adults to either, they'll always push the number higher if they could. 25 for brain development, but I guarantee if they got to that they'd say more time to experience after hitting full brain development. You're never old enough to know but also later is too old anyway. Also, genuinely curious as to what resource you say they should get as literally nothing other than transition helped my mental health in any way. It's not like a therapist hits you and the head with a wand and you feel better. It's not like talking about anything can solve these issues.

Eh… like I’ve said before. It’s a situation that requires some nuance, but overall the rule should be no minors transitioning, but perhaps with some exceptions. Of course dysphoria is a bitch, but there are ways to help trans kids and teens that aren’t immediately jumping to the medical side of things.

I’m against puberty blockers for trans kids wholesale because frankly they just cause more problems than they solve, ethical issues nonwithstanding. But I also don’t necessarily see a problem with a 16/17 year old starting HRT, given that they’ve had persistent dysphoria since childhood and have cleared it with a doctor and a psychologist.

It is definitely annoying that both sides seem to want this to be a black and white issue when it’s not. However, the fact that transphobes will use any kind of medical mistreatment of (potentially) trans minors to try and prevent adults from transitioning means that minors transitioning should be handled with the utmost care, in addition to the fact that a lot of kids and teens think they’re trans adamantly before settling out as adults.

And yeah, the “25 bc brain development” reasoning is dogshit and that’s not how the world works. There are things that have 21 as a limit that I think should be lowered back down to 18 because it the age of legal adulthood and if you can go to war, vote, acquire debt, live independently, etc, you can start making your own medical decisions too. Again, given that there is also a degree of ethical practice on the part of the doctor as far as informing the patient and assuring that the treatment s correct, etc.

Usually when I and other transmed aligned people talk about “other resources” we’re typically talking about mental health services and other methods of alleviating dysphoria like safe binding, voice training, packing/tucking, etc that aren’t invasive or medical but can ease some dysphoria and aid passing. Obviously theses things don’t solve everything, but medical transition isn’t a magic fix-all either. But I think it would help trans kids/teens specifically to have a baseline of trans-specific coping skills since it’s typically unethical imo for minors to go on HRT or have trans related surgeries on the whole.

[sinbadly]

Non Magicians in Magnostadt : an analysis over the possibilities of an analogy.

I love Magi, it's probably my favorite piece of fiction of all times. But most importantly, I love analysing stuff. And for a while, I wondered what are the non Magicians of the Magnostadt kingdom supposed to represent ? And after thinking about it for a while, I think I finally got an answer so ... Strap in !!(Please do be aware that this text will talk in depth about discrimination, if this subject is triggering to you I'd advise you to stop here !)

For obvious reasons, the first thought I had was that the non Magicians were supposed to represent Jews. Magi is heavily based on both Judaism and Islamic ideas and having almost a whole population being put in a specific district can be easily linked to a real event event. But thinking about it, something felt heavily wrong. The people that were discriminated against clearly weren't supposed to be Jewish. No, everything pointed to the magicians being the ones that were Jewish instead. I'm not an expert when it comes to Jewish tradition and beliefs, but I did my research. Non Magicians are often called Goi by Mogamett. Goi is a Jewish term that is used to describe non Jewish people. And when you dug a little deeper, you can also see that Jewish people are supposed to be people closer to their god, like magicians would be since they are directly linked to the world's magic sources. I could also argue that Mogamett's does ressemble cliché representations of Jewish people, especially with the nose. Does that mean that the Jewish were represented as the oppressor and the other people as the oppressed ? I don't know. I wouldn't be able to decide if that's the case at all, especially since in other languages, Goi has been Translated to Kaffir, which is meant to describe the people who aren't Muslims. It's overall very confusing. But still, what I could see is that the people who were oppressed weren't meant to represent Jewish people. Obviously, I quickly took a look at the biggest oppressed groups there are in the world. So I thought about Sexism, Racism and LGBTphobia. Sexism didn't seem to be it at all. Women are shown to have high positions in Magnostadt's society. We see it with Myers who is a highly respected teacher or obviously Yamuraiha that is treated as one of the best Magicians ever. So it couldn't be it. Racism seemed ... Off. One of the points of Aladdin's fear of discrimination is that these people are all of the same when it comes to their appearance. It was the point of the new world that Ugo created, all creatures became the same race to avoid discrimination. And with all of that, we have Sphintus who's at the very least Arabic. As for homophobia I couldn't see a link at all. It's not like they weren't able to have children together, they did have kids. It's not that they were hated for something they love and that they could just hide it, they weren't able to do something and that's all. It couldn't be that either.   But then, it clicked. The main point of this discrimination was because people weren't abled to do something. They were disabled. It wasn't even a metaphor. They literally were disabled. And now, here comes the part with explanations and details to better understand this theory, coming with an introduction to the world disabled, because I do believe that it is interesting to have a clear difference with a disability and a handicap. A handicap means that you are facing a disadvantage due to a problem. For exemple, if you start a race with a 20 pounds chain on your  foot, you will be handicapped compared to others in the race. A disability means something you can't do. Therefore, depending on the context, someone that is handicapped can be or not be disabled. Let's say a part of a human population grows wings. If they keep evolving in our actual society they will be advantaged yes, but no one will be unable to do their normal tasks. However if the world starts to be built around these people with wings, creating places that only them can access by flying for exemple, everyone who doesn't have wings will be considered disabled. Because they're unable to do the same. Now with that exemple, replace wings with magic and you get exactly what Magnostadt's society is. It is exclusively built for people who are born magicians. Normal human beings cannot function in it properly. And what do you do when someone can't function properly ? You start discriminating them. Mogamett truly believed that the non magicians weren't as useful as other humans were, so he built a society for the to be put in a position of weakness. Some people can work on the surface, yes. But it's because they're rich or they have talent like artists or crafters. You can see disabled people working in an every day life, but most often people are surprised. As for the poor people ? Well they're put in their little spaces of life to rot. The people born in the 5th district pretty much never see the outside world and to be fair, disabled people don't either. They're meant to stay at home, because things aren't meant for us outside. From now on, I'm gonna talk about disability using my own experiences. It's probably gonna be a bit raw, but I think parallels will be easier to make. The thing that I thought the most about is the "you should be grateful" part. It's really interesting and is a very manipulative technique to make sure people are under your control. The people in the 5th district are given food and water and don't have to work. Most of them could probably work if they were given the opportunity to with the proper help to make the job accessible. But no, they're trapped in their place with no possibility to actually work for the society. They've been forced into this district because they were mistreated into poverty without the opportunity of getting out of it, and now that they're stuck in this situation, they're meant to be grateful. Because they're provided the food and sleep they need that they didn't have before when it's basic human rights. And the fact is, they've been in such an horrible situation before that they'd rather accept being treated like animals than being mistreated even more. And that's exactly what happens when handicapped people ask for financial help. We might get 1000$ a month if we're lucky, but it's still not enough. And people tell us that we're ungrateful because we want an actual liveable wage. We don't think that giving us absolutely nothing is a good either. We want to be treated as human beings. Yet we should still be oh so grateful because we're getting all of this without work. I could work if the world did a little effort. But it does. And it also comes back to the hymn beings statement. Because that's also a very interesting thing : they're not seen as human beings. Mogamett sees non magicians as animals. Different people as seen as different animals, for exemple Marga was a kitten to the man's eyes. But her being cute didn't mean he respected her. And it's not rare to see disabled people as less valuable. That was insanely obvious during the COVID-19 crisis. People kept talking about disabled people as a necessary sacrifice for other people's well being. Because to them, a human life is important. But a "lower" human life isn't as important as being able to get McDonald's. Non Magicians are more than likely to be killed if they are ill or can no longer provide enough magical ressources to the city. Since they were born into poverty and unable to get out of this place, they will most likely die at a rather young age or if they catch an illness. It's not their choice to die, the government literally kills them if they're not enough. There isn't much an equivalent in our modern society for the government killing people directly, however this method did remind me of some atrocious things that are currently done to disabled people in countries like Canada. When you're disabled, you have to pay for medication. A lot. And if you're poor, you're likely to go in dept very quickly. And for that, the government came with a solution : assisted suicide. You can either choose to die slowly and painfully, or the government can give you the medication to kill yourself. All of that because you can't pay your medication and therefore you're not useful enough to society anymore. Non Magicians in the 5th district aren't just seen as a source of magical income for the rest of society. They're seen as people you can utilise and milk of their energy until their death. And with all of these arguments, I believe that the whole Magnostadt arc's treatment of non Magicians was a direct reference of disabled people.

[glimmerglanger]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 2

Time for Part Two of the Oof!au. Featuring Vader’s POV and... the first deaths in the story? Warnings for Vader being himself. Violence. Further mistreatment of a prisoner and a dip into some torture (good job, Anakin). Mentions of possible suicide. The “oof” starts in earnest tomorrow. I did not do all three sub-prompts today, just the one.

(Oof!au information: post-Order 66 Vader-catches-Obi-Wan au. Past/eventual Codywan. One-sided Vaderwan. Serious warnings to come. Eventual happy ending.)

No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY “Pick Who Dies” | Collars | Kidnapped

In his life before, when he’d been someone else, Vader had lacked patience. He’d learned to wait, since he first came to Mustafar. He’d had no choice. There had been nothing to do but wait while his body recovered, at least as much as it was ever going to, while he sent bounty hunters out across the stars to chase rumors and shadows.

He’d never much cared for patience, for waiting. But he was beginning to see that they could have their benefits. The joy of delayed satisfaction finally come to fruition was sweet, he found, when the bounty hunters he’d hired dragged out the battered body of his traitorous old master.

Obi-Wan looked a breath away from dying, sprawled across the hanger of Vader’s new fastness on Mustafar, limp and covered in blood. And, for a single, treacherous instant, the ghost of Anakin Skywalker kicked in Vader’s head, because he’d seen Obi-Wan like this too many times and there was something - something trained into him that made it his first instinct to jerk forward, to offer aid, and--

And he wasn’t Obi-Wan’s dog anymore. He gripped that weak lurch in his heart, harshly, and looked across at the dregs of society before him. “He’s alive,” the leader - a Twi’lek woman with purple skin - said, looking satisfied, “just like you asked. Now, about the other half--”

“Hardly unharmed,” Vader said, used, by now, to the strange sound of his own voice.

The Twi’lek frowned at him, lifting her chin. “He wasn’t cooperative,” she said, gesturing to the taller man by her side, scaled and fierce looking. “Arrok had to… subdue him.”

Vader considered the damage done to his prize and decided that patience was, indeed, a fine quality. But there was something to be said for more immediate gratification. He stretched out a hand, fingers flexing, and heard Arrok choke as he lifted. “Hey--” the Twi’lek started, even as he twisted his hand, satisfied by the crack of bone that echoed as Arrok’s neck twisted, nearly all the way around.

He let the body fall and waved a hand, absently, towards the troopers at his back. “Kill the rest of them,�� he said, flatly. They had delivered to him a long-denied prize, but they’d mishandled the situation, obviously.

And, besides, he did not want word of Obi-Wan’s capture getting out. The rebels would be far, far too interested in such information. He gestured to the trooper by his shoulder, the prize of his entire staff on Mustafar, while blaster shots rang out and he felt the rest of the bounty hunters die, one after another. He said, “Take the traitor to the medbay. I don’t intend for him to die. Yet.”

#

Vader went to view his prize, in the small hours of the night, unable to still his thoughts. Excitement, he told himself, stalking through the grey walls of his grey fastness, a shadow amongst all the white-clad troopers. 

None of them spoke as he made his way to the medbay. There were only droids in the space. His Master had decided the troopers had no place tending to the wounded. That wasn’t their purpose. 

He found Obi-Wan floating in a bacta tank, and something went wrong with the processors in his legs, causing him to lurch to a stop. Memories, unwelcome and wrong, sleeted through his head. He’d seen his traitorous old master floating thus so many times. The last time, Obi-Wan had taken a blaster through his side, after shoving the man Vader had been to one side, and--

Vader turned aside, because there was something wrong with his life-support systems. They’d all lurched out of alignment, suddenly, forcing his respiration and heart rate to accelerate, almost dangerously.

He turned on his heel and stalked away from the medbay. It would be better to gloat once Obi-Wan was awake to hear the words, anyway.

#

Vader stayed away from the medbay, during the traitor’s treatment. He was busy, in any case. There’d been trouble on Mandalore again. They were a people that, singularly, did not know what was good for them, always causing trouble, refusing to just listen to the instruction of their betters.

Vader’s Master had suggested simply… cleansing the planet. Mandalore was a beautiful world, or would have been, if it’s irksome inhabitants were out of the picture. And they were, without a doubt, asking for the harshest measures to be taken.

And so Vader did not hesitate to order the executions. He read the reports that returned from the planet’s surface, the death tolls climbing on an hourly basis, until he finally received a surrender from whoever thought they were in charge down there.

He left the Mandalorians to dig their mass graves. There was ever more work to do.

#

The medical droids sent Vader a message, when Obi-Wan was recovered. Vader read over the message thrice before deleting it from his subprocessor. He stood, rising from his rest chamber, enjoying a thrum of excitement through his chest. 

He’d waited for what was to come for nearly three years. 

He did not go directly to the medbay. He took the time to collect the special project he’d ordered constructed, just for his old master, sliding his fingers across the ring of metal, a smile tugging at his ever-chapped lips, under his helmet, where no one could see.

#

The droids pulled Obi-Wan from the bacta on Vader’s orders. They dried his limp body and dragged him forward, leaving him sprawled at Vader’s feet. He looked so small and weak, ribs visible, new skin pink, more of his hair faded to gray.

It was ridiculous that Vader had ever thought there was something impressive about this shell of a man. He was pathetic, and always had been. The Council’s lap dog, too weak to ever do what needed done.

Vader put a foot on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and pushed, rolling him onto his back. The great General Kenobi, nothing more than a tired old man. A bastard who had taken everything from Vader, who had turned Padmé against him, who had poisoned the Council, who had ruined everything---

Servos whirred in Vader’s hands. The leather covering his knuckles creaked. Across the room, a droid made a distressed sound and then crumpled in, crushed by the pressures in Vader’s head.

Vader ignored all of that. He’d waited so long for this moment, so long to look across into Obi-Wan’s eyes and begin his righteous revenge. He saw no reason to delay, and snapped, to the troopers standing by his sides, “Bind his arms.”

He had carefully chosen all the troopers to work around his prisoner. It had been difficult, finding members of what had once been the 212th. So many of them seemed to have perished, and in strange accidents. That was a problem with many of the troopers, one he didn’t understand and didn’t care about.

They’d never accidentally spaced themselves before, after all.

But what did that matter. His Master said they were little more than glorified droids, only less useful. Their organic nature made them weak, failable. They malfunctioned. And they reminded Vader of things he’d rather forget.

The troopers with him bent, obedient and without comment. They rolled Obi-Wan back to his stomach, dragging his arms to the center of his back, fitting on the shackles that Vader had constructed personally, enclosing his arms from wrist to elbow, metal biting against skin.

“Hold him up,” Vader ordered, his respiratory systems malfunctioning as they hauled Obi-Wan upright, though he remained unconscious. He just dangled there, head falling forward, hair still damp with bacta. 

The strands stuck to Vader’s glove when he reached out, closing his fingers in Obi-Wan’s hair and pulling his head up, sneering into his blank expression. This man, this piece of nothing, had ruined everything. But that was fine. Vader was, finally, going to have his revenge.

He let go of Obi-Wan’s hair, his head falling forward, all dead weight. One of the troopers - faceless behind their white mask - bounced a finger up and down on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, an unsteady rhythm. Some new defect, perhaps. 

Vader dismissed it. He didn’t need these models to survive for long. Just long enough for Obi-Wan to see them. To fully comprehend his situation and place in the galaxy. The place in the galaxy of everyone he’d ever cared for. They were all where they belonged, now. Under Vader’s heel.

He made himself smile, reaching for the ring of metal at his belt. It fitted perfectly around Obi-Wan’s neck, when he closed it. He’d had to guess about the measurements, but he’d spent so long considering Obi-Wan’s throat, in another life and--

The metal pressed directly to still-damp skin. The collar was a thick thing, wide enough to stretch from just below Obi-Wan’s jaw to his shoulders. There was a large loop in the front, perfect for connecting to the chain Vader had ready. It hummed, as he closed it, turning on. 

And Obi-Wan jerked in the hold of the troopers, as soon as it shut. He flinched, all over, sucking in a shallow breath, just enough to make a sharp, agonized sound. Vader stood there, motionless, watching him struggle his way to consciousness, relishing the way Obi-Wan jerked his head up, the way his eyes were already wide and horrified, the sharp drag of his emotions, twisting through the Force, a connection Obi-Wan wouldn’t be able to feel now, not with the collar around his neck.

The collar did so many useful things. Vader had tried it on, once, himself. Just to make certain that it worked. He knew, better than most, how conniving and tricky Obi-Wan could be. He’d wanted to be ready for this moment, and so he’d worn the hateful thing.

The power field it generated shut out everything. Every single scrap of the Force. Vader had worn it and felt… nothing, nothing at all from the outside world. It had made him aware of the noise in his head, the terrible, splitting agony thrashing within him, trying to get out, the boy he hadn’t managed to kill yet, and--

He’d been screaming, apparently, when a droid pulled the thing off of him. He’d destroyed the droid with a single movement of his wrist and laid on the floor, breathing hard, until he felt centered again.

It was easy to imagine how it must feel to Obi-Wan, shut up in his head, all alone. Cut off from the Force, cut off from everything. 

“Hello, Master,” Vader said, mockery in his voice, as Obi-Wan stared at him, small and restrained and weak, completely in his power, ready to face all the consequences for his crimes. Vader smiled. “Welcome home. I’ve missed you.”

Obi-Wan just kept staring at him, blue eyes unblinking, getting his feet under him. He should have been screaming. Or perhaps begging for mercy. That would have been appropriate. Shown an understanding of his situation. And so, of course, his old master drew in a breath that barely shook, and said, “Well, this is a new look for you, Anakin.”

Anger flared white-hot inside Vader’s skull. That Obi-Wan would dare use that name, would dare try to make him seem small and weak again--

He struck Obi-Wan across the face with the back of one hand, and heard something crack. His metal hands were so heavy, unwieldy. Obi-Wan’s head snapped to the side; he made a little sound, wet, and a moment later drops of blood splattered across the pristine floor.

“You will never use that name again,” Vader said, as Obi-Wan looked up at him through the fall of his hair, his mouth and chin crimson, his cheek already bruising. “I am Lord Vader.”

And Obi-Wan snorted, tongue darting out to poke at his split lip. He said, his eyes steady for all the agony he was trying to control, “You are Anakin Skywalker and--”

His words choked off as Vader lifted a hand, curling his fingers around open air, remembering, terribly, exactly what Padmé’s throat had felt like under his fingers, when Obi-Wan had forced him to kill her. Something was wrong with his system regulators. His chest hurt, horribly, like it was tearing apart. 

He released his grip with the Force, activating the collar’s punishment function, instead, watching as Obi-Wan thrashed against the hold of the clones, who only stood, dispassionately, tightening their grip as his knees gave and he sagged between them.

Vader turned off the collar’s nerve stimulator after a moment, listened to Obi-Wan breathe, his head hanging forward. His mouth twisted with distaste when Obi-Wan spat on the ground. He reached out and gripped Obi-Wan’s hair, pulling his head up and saying, his voice sharp and flat, “You will be punished for any impertinence, Obi-Wan. Now. I have tried to be reasonable with you, more reasonable than you deserve. What is my name?”

Obi-Wan made a sharp sound. A laugh, Vader realized, as one edge of his mouth curled up. “You,” he panted out, his eyes hard as they’d ever been on any battlefield where they fought beside one another, “are Anakin Sky--”

Vader left the collar on until Obi-Wan wasn’t twitching anymore, just dead weight in the clones’ grip. He cleared his throat, then, trying to process the burning in his gut and up his spine. And he said, “Take him away. Secure him as we discussed. I shall deal with him again, later.”

[smrwine]

Nurse AU part 2.

Part 1 here

Eleven out of sixteen hours into his night shift and Louis was finally able to steal a moment for himself. The break room was miraculously empty, and the sofa pushed against the wall was free for claiming. Louis wasted no time laying his body against it, knowing that he had at least thirty minutes to rest his eyes, and another thirty to warm something up to fill his belly.

The small sofa swallowed him whole as he snuggled against the arm and tried to clear his mind. He was already emotionally taxed from having to pick up four extra hours due to short staff, but the distrust he faced at the top of his shift had his self esteem upset. He wasn’t a doctor by any means, but he still knew what he was doing, and he genuinely cared about the health and well being of his patients despite his RN title. Most of Louis’ co-workers claimed to be used to that type of mistreatment by now, that all nurses face it one time or another, but unfortunately for him, he still took criticisms like that personally.

Louis took a deep breath as he pressed his palms against his temples and tried to focus on the sound of his breathing. The silence was normally soothing to him and drowned out the persistent beeps and blips that echoed through the unit halls and into every patient room, but it wasn’t working that night. The air was too sterile, his scrubs were too tight on his hips, and he could only replay the sounds of heart monitors, negative chatter, and the way his bones groaned in exhaustion with every movement.

He was trapped in the white noise of his own head, and just as he was about to reposition himself, the break room door swung open and heavy boots trudged against the floor.

“Well,” Louis heard before he opened his eyes to the sight of the safety guard. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Perfect, just what Louis needed in the midst of his attempted meditation. He rolled his eyes shut again and crossed his arms over his head. Perhaps if he looked asleep, Harry would respect that and let him be.

Unfortunately for Louis, Harry was a repeat nuisance and had no plans to let that happen.

“Is it hot in here?” he asked. “Or is it just the thought of us being alone together in the break room?”

Louis didn’t mean to, and he’d punish himself for it later, but he laughed. Brightly. His smile grew from within and warmed his creaking bones until he wasn’t thinking about them anymore. Louis resigned to uncovering his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t escape the charm he constantly fell victim to, and found Harry smirking at him with heavy eyes. He looked just as tired as Louis felt.

“Did I wake you?” he asked Louis.

“No, no, I wasn’t alone long enough to fall asleep.”

“Good,” Harry said as he packed his bag away and closed his locker door. “Mind if I join you?”

“Sure,”

Louis moved to sit up and make room on the sofa, and was nearly squashed in the process. Harry greedily took the corner where Louis’ head was as he slumped down into the cushion and rudely spread his legs to take up as much space as possible. Louis could only watch him in astonishment as Harry threw an arm over the sofa, behind Louis, and closed his eyes as if to rest. If Louis knew him better he’d whack him in the stomach and throw his arm from around him, but he knew even in his wildest dreams that wouldn’t affect Harry. Not with the size of his biceps and the abs Louis knew he was hiding under that thin button up uniform. His shoulders looked a bit more broad than usual under the sleeves as well.

“Like what you see?” Harry cracked an eye open and caught Louis open mouthed and staring.

“I would love to say yes, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is that I’m looking at.”

“Mmm,” Harry smirked and closed his eyes. “Why don’t you come a bit closer and find out.”

Louis was rendered even more astonished than before.

“Are you inviting me to cuddle in the break room?”

“Sure,” he said sleepily. “You don’t have to, obviously, but I think you might like it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You seemed to like being cuddled on our walk out the other week,” Harry pointed out. “You even greeted me with a cuddle. I’d say we’re making progress.”

“You stuck your arms out first, I was only being polite,” he said. “And progress? Progress on what exactly?”

“You pretending you‘re not fond of me,” he yawned. “I think you might even actually like me now.”

Louis’ skin tingled and his stomach swooped around his jarring words. He was clearly exhausted, seemingly just as much as Harry, and if he wasn’t so worn out from eleven hours on his feet, he was sure he would fight him just a bit harder and wouldn’t be crazy enough to consider it.

Normally, Louis wouldn’t fraternize with his colleagues or anyone who worked close to him, but Harry didn’t count. He was only a safety guard that helped with discharges, roamed the halls, and chased out the occasional stray animal that would sneak in. This wouldn’t count. This was fine. Cuddles were innocent, and Louis begrudgingly agreed that their acquaintanceship had become more comfortable.

Louis desperately needed the rest to be more alert for his patients, or that’s how he justified this at least.

“I will deny this ever happened,” he said.

Harry only laughed.

With a deep sigh and a belly full of butterflies, Louis moved closer and tucked his head against Harry’s chest. His assessment about Harry being solid was spot on, and his body was much warmer than Louis expected. In the process of getting comfortable, Harry wrapped his arm around Louis’ waist and let his big hand rub against his side.

The gesture was far more soothing than it should have been, and Louis couldn’t blame himself for melting into it. A man hasn’t touched him like that in years. The soothing strokes of Harry’s hand rid his body of any tension. Both of them closed their eyes as they settled in together. Harry’s clothing smelled like the same musk and sage cologne that he usually wore, but up this close, Louis detected a hint of his washing detergent that smelled heavenly of fresh linen. The scent lulled him into pure relaxation, and Harry’s body was the warmth he needed to relieve his tender bones.

Louis was finally at ease like he wanted, and the sounds inside Harry’s chest drowned out all the others.

“Your heart rate is high,” Louis said.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, I’m listening to it now.”

“Well, good thing you’re a nurse then. You can give me mouth to mouth should anything happen, right?”

Louis laughed brightly again, right against Harry’s chest as he snuggled in closer. His legs curled over Harry’s lap and another hand gripped him safely behind his knees. Harry kept him firmly in place whilst rubbing his side, properly cuddling Louis in his favourite way.

“I suppose I would have to if anything should happen,” Louis said.

“Something is surely happening,” Harry opened his eyes and peered down at Louis. “My chest is a bit tight, my heart is racing, I’m experiencing a bit of nervousness.”

“Hmm, sounds like a medical problem.”

“So do something about it then,” he said. “Nurse.”

Louis lifted his head to face Harry and bit down on his own eager lips. Harry lazily looked back at him with half lidded eyes and a cocksure smile on his face. He knew he literally had Louis in the palm of his hands.

Louis almost didn’t want to reward him for it.

“Quick, you’re losing him.”

...

[cuntess-carmilla]

Update: I stopped taking psychiatric medication because they turned out to have only ever been of “help” because I have POTS/dysautonomia and one made my blood pressure rise (Wellbutrin) while the other kept it from going up too high (Lamotrigine).

Now that I’m taking meds that are for what I ACTUALLY do have (POTS/dysautonomia) not only do I not need the psychiatric meds, but they were throwing off everything else. I hate psychiatry so much. Can’t believe I turned out to be one of those people who had their physical illness mistreated as You’re Crazy for years haha. :) With that out of the way...

Some Many of my Opinions™ on psychiatry, as a psychiatrized person myself who does take medication, but hates the institutions of psychiatry and psychology, and thinks a large chunk of it is white pseudo-science:

A good amount of the issues that the psychiatric institution addresses ARE absolutely real and, as a society, people who’re afflicted by them should by all means receive help and support so they can live happier lives. I experience many of them and take medication to help myself, I obviously don’t think the difficult experiences people seek help for are made up.

At the same time, psychiatry and psychology as disciplines ARE made up (like every other discipline), making them not infallible or objective, AND they were built on eugenics, patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalist exploitation.

Those very real issues addressed by psychology/psychiatry aren’t actual literal pathologies. They don’t need to be literal tangible sicknesses in order to matter or be deserving of help and compassion. Your literal brain as a bodily organ is not physically “ill”, at least in most cases. It doesn’t need to be for your problems associated with an “ill mind” to be real and to matter. Remember, these disciplines were created at a time in history in which (white, male) doctors and theorists were obsessed with turning everything into a material, scientifically tangible subject that could be objectively measured with numbers and shit, hopefully medicalized or otherwise turned into “hard science”. That’s where ethnography came from. It’s called positivism, which is extremely dehumanizing, white supremacist and capitalist.

Psychology should be largely considered as much more of a metaphysical or philosophical discipline than as objective science, which is how most people perceive it to be. It’s mostly pure theory about emotions, thoughts, cognition, relationships and subjective experiences + perceptions -- which isn’t necessarily a bad thing on itself. It not being hard science doesn’t immediately delegitimize it. Get rid of the white capitalist idea that only (western, white) science and “objectivity” are real or of value. Actually, holding psychology to the standards of hard science turns it into pseudo-science, so... Yeah. I genuinely think we’d get so much further As A Society™ regarding psychology's potential to aid people who’re suffering if we treated it as more of a metaphysical or philosophical discipline than as some objective scientific truth.

Psychiatrists often are super ignorant of the actual way the medications they prescribe work or affect patients lmao. I had that almost ruin a whole semester at college because a shrink prescribed me meds that in combination she should’ve known would fuck me up. Not that much is known about how the human brain truly works compared to other human organs, you can’t expect psychiatric meds to be well tried and true. The research on psychiatric pharmacy is very lacking + biased in favor of pathologizing and controlling psychiatrized people, besides attempting to make the most profit under capitalism like any other capitalist industry, so of course they’re gonna prescribe you shit. Plus, like doctors of every other field, many psychiatrists arrogantly disregard the experiences, requests, questions and ideas of their patients, who’re the ones taking those meds.

Psychologists/therapists, just like psychiatrists, also disregard the experiences, requests, questions and ideas of their patients.

There’s such a strong element of power imbalance in how psychiatry and psychology function. The more a patient knows formal information about anything related to psychology/psychiatry, the more the shrink can get upset, distrustful and dismissive of them, saying they’re faking it, or telling them “not to do their jobs” when they so often do said jobs like shit anyway lmao no matter how thorough the research and understanding of the patient is.

Psychological and psychiatric diagnoses are just as made up as any other human construct (such as language, race, gender, etc). They’re not tangible realities as if shrinks had ran into a previously unknown objective fact of nature. In the realm of psychology, someone takes a bunch of traits and behaviors that by their observation they consider to be interconnected with one another, put them in the same bag, stick a label to said bag, and ask other psychologists if they agree with the bag being a thing. These considerations are heavily influenced by sociocultural bias. You can’t tell me it isn’t true that they’re made up and very subjective when “diagnoses” such as drapetomania, hysteria, homosexuality, gender identity disorder, etc, have been seriously considered at least by part of the psychiatric establishment of their times as legitimate mental disorders. Hell, some still consider being gay or trans to be mental disorders. Don’t get me started on "Oppositional Defiant Disorder”, that shit’s just evil.

A lot of the ideas spread by the psychiatric-psychological institution are legit pseudo-science that researches try time and time again to prove and end up coming with nothing, or they end up tweaking their own research or conclusions to maintain the established consensus that just so turns out to be very convenient to the people who make and sell psychiatric meds.

Many of the traits, emotions, thoughts, perceptions and behaviors that are pathologized by psychiatry and psychology aren’t inherently harmful. If they don’t make the patient or others suffer by their very nature (as opposed to like, homophobic parents “suffering” because their child is gay or a gay person suffering because of homophobia) then there’s no need to alter them. “Correcting” them is a measure of social control that crushes individuality and only attempts to mold people into obedient ~productive~ servants of capitalism. Much of psychiatric medical treatment (not just the diagnoses and therapies themselves) focuses on turning the patient into less of a social “burden”, than on their actual happiness. That’s why you have ADHD and autistic kids being given meds that turn them into zombies and that's been considered a good thing for DECADES. Like, why does the stimming of an autistic person or an “unusual” attachment to stuffed animals as an autistic adult have to be corrected? WHOMST does that harm? Nobody! But it makes allistics uncomfortable because allistics are fucking stupid and can’t mind their God damned business to save their lives like normal people do.

Even non-pharmaceutical treatments for psychiatrized conditions are or can be turned into measures of social control. 

Maybe CBT wasn’t meant to be a tool to control people and shit, but it can be misused as such SO easily! It can go from being therapy to help individuals process inner pain and redirect harmful behaviors in positive ways, to being turned into training someone to react, feel and process abuse and oppression in ways that are convenient to the status quo. 

Don’t get me fucking started on ABA as an inherently oppressive, abusive “treatment” for a psychiatrized condition that does nothing to actually better the lives of autistic people, instead punishing autistic traits, teaching autistic people to painfully repress said traits and ignore their needs, and seeking to appease allistics by prioritizing their convenience and subjective comfort.

Behaviors, emotions, perceptions or traits that on a man or white person would be considered a non-issue or given much more compassionate/less stigmatized diagnoses, are pathologized or given much more stigmatized diagnoses when it comes to female or racialized patients, which reaffirms psychiatry and psychology as subjective tools of social control.

While many of the traits, emotions, perceptions and behaviors of what are considered personality disorders are painful, harmful and real (and thus should be helped, with consent, not hammered down), literal personalities aren’t “ill”. They’re personalities. Pathologizing or medicalizing a fucking personality on itself is ridiculous. It is possible to address those problematic traits/behaviors/etc without saying that a fucking personality is “ill”. So much for “you’re not your disorder”.

What shrinks will deem as hallucinations or delusions can be subjective, and it definitely can be deemed as such out of white-centric cultural bias. Plenty of non-white cultures have considered different perceptions of reality as valid and worthy of respect for centuries, at times related to their sense of spirituality. Not to mention how psychiatry has deemed the real anxieties of oppressed people that they’re being followed, spied on, plotted against and all that, as hallucinations or delusions in order to discredit them.

Many patients are given medication to try to alleviate traits/behaviors/emotions that come from circumstance (poverty, ongoing abuse, trauma, oppression...) instead of addressing the root problems. While I 100% understand using medication as a palliative measure because, bitch, you can’t always fix those problems and you still have a life to live (the same way I take clotiazepam when the insensitivity of the allistics around me causes me sensory overload), this puts the burden of the person’s situation on their own body, as if their body was the essential source of a suffering that comes from outside forces they’re not responsible or in control of. This should ideally be addressed through material change in realities that can be individual (removing the person from an abusive situation, giving economic aid, giving proper treatment to an untreated chronic illness) or social (abolishing white supremacy, the patriarchy, capitalism, etc).

So many times when palliative medical treatments for suffering that comes from circumstances don’t work (BECAUSE THE PATIENT IS STILL TRAPPED IN SAID CIRCUMSTANCES, HELLO?) it’s blamed on a supposed defect of the patient’s body/brain rather than, like... You can give me as many anti-depressants as you want but I’m still gonna be miserable if I’m being abused or suffering from unending physical chronic pain lol. And then, instead of at least having the decency of recognizing the real source of the problem if your shrink can’t realistically fix it, they keep trying more and more different meds on you like you’re a fucking lab rat, keeping on blaming a made up defect you were “born” with. Imagine what that does to a person’s self-image! At least when I loathe my body for the chronic pain, chronic fatigue and more that my chronic illnesses give me, it IS actually true that it’s my body that has a defect that can’t be cured. Why convince a person in suffering due to anything, but especially when it’s due to outside conditions out of their control and your job is fucking supposed to be to help them be happier, that their pain refuses to respond to treatment because their BRAIN is so terribly defective? I don’t wish the hatred I hold for my objectively shitty body on anyone, and causing that to someone when it’s not even true...? Incredible.

Lots of genuine difficulties associated with psychiatric diagnoses are much better helped through accessibility and material considerations, or at least through teaching the patient pragmatic methods to better deal with those, than through pills. But guess what solution shrinks usually give you. Hint: it’s easier for them and they can charge you for it monthly.

Society™ medicalized emotions, bro... WE MEDICALIZED FEELINGS!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!

[silenthillmutual]

I beg your pardon! It’s me who is going mad.

So, I know I did a Twitter thread about the ways Daniil is manipulated in Classic, and I thought I’d put it on here too.

I’m going to stop short of calling it gaslighting here though, because too many people are using that term who don’t really understand what it means. Gaslighting is specifically a form of abuse where the intention is to make the victim feel they are going insane. Not all manipulation or abuse is gaslighting - which doesn’t make it less bad, just...not gaslighting.

That being said: in Classic, there are quite a few times where Daniil can say that he thinks he’s losing his mind, and there are times when the game seems constructed to make you feel this way. Particularly I had in mind the ending of the game, and not just the part where you find out you’re a toy and always have been (that falls more under cosmic horror). What bugs me about the end and how that fits into things, is the fact that the Sand Pest and its outcomes have been chasing you - the clouds, the angels, the muggers, the firestarters, the rats, literally chasing you through houses and through town, only for all of it to completely vanish without a trace on the exact day you’re meant to give a solution to it all. I made a point on Twitter about how people attempting to gaslight you will submit you to a large amount of damage - physical, verbal, emotional, take your pick - and then remove the abuse and any signs of it just before they’re caught. it’s how they show to others that it’s you who’s the problem, not them. 

Regardless of whether you think the intention is to make Daniil feel he’s losing is sanity or not, the question would be who is manipulating Daniil, and why? There are a couple answers.

The first answer is the Town. The first playthrough as the Bachelor of the game is probably the closest fitting to psychological horror as the game gets. Like Silent Hill, the Town is full of horrors that seem tailor-made to torture Daniil specifically: most of these people are uneducated (the Town doesn’t even have a school), their cultural beliefs (mostly appropriated from the steppe culture) actively prevent him from doing his job as a doctor, his word and name are constantly weaponized by people with ulterior motives, and men run around on the first two days beating women to death or burning them alive and intervening actively costs you reputation - which you need to do anything. He arrives with the hope of finding evidence to keep his lab opening and, as we later learn, keep himself from execution, only to find that both the man who would serve as this evidence and the colleague who informed you of his existence have been murdered just before your arrival. You have a lot of things riding on your success, and everything about where you are is actively working against you. The government wants you to find a cure single-handedly, but the Town has other plans for you. 

And those plans are: errand boy, and scapegoat. People throughout the Town will inform you that they are scared of you when you’ve barely interacted with them, let alone in ways that should inspire fear. It doesn’t matter how good your reputation as Daniil is (and through the course of the game, there’s very little you’re made to do that lowers your reputation, and it never gets bad enough for you to be attacked on the street or refused sale from shops), what matters is the fact that everyone in Town, from the nameless NPCs to the rulers, are putting every bad thing they’ve done down as being your fault. 

But the Town has another way it’s manipulating Daniil, by almost making him a member of it. I don’t think I got a screenshot, but I’m sure that somewhere along the line Daniil comments that he’s starting to talk like one of the townsfolk. You can see this happens to Andrey, too, later in the game; he talks in what Daniil calls “Griefisms”. 

You have been sent here to fight an adversary that inherently cannot be beaten - in foolish hopes that a miracle would happen and your outstanding mind would stumble upon a once-in-a-million chance. And just so that you wouldn’t give up, they kept insisting that the adversary must be destroyed. Do you see how insidious the Powers That Be are?     > But why? Their motives are becoming less and less comprehensible to me by the day.

The second answer is the Powers That Be.

Three people enter the Town that the Powers That Be want to get rid of: the Bachelor, the Inquisitor, and the Commander. It wants them all to fix or solve or demolish something in the town, and doesn’t really care what happens to any of them. Pathologic 2 spells it out clearer for you that Aglaya, Block, and Daniil will all be executed upon return to the Capital if their answers are not what the Powers That Be want to hear. And for the time that you are in the Town as Daniil Dankovsky, the Powers That Be - like the town itself - actively work against you. The trains that are meant to bring food and medication never, to my knowledge, arrive, and most days bring about a new letter from the Powers spelling out for you how disappointed in you and your progress they are. Some of the ways they attempt to manipulate Daniil through these letters are subtle, but most of them are unsubtle suggestions that what he’s been able to accomplish is not good enough, that he was meant to work alone.

Even one of your first letters from them is suspicious; early on in the game, they write to let you know that they are in no way responsible for the outbreak, which is an incredibly suspicious thing to say. What is the point of sending such a letter? Would the player have really thought that they were if they hadn’t suggested as much through denial? After all, what called you to Town was a letter from Isidor Burakh. But yet, the Powers That Be are the ones who leave you stranded in the Town with limited resources, no help, and constantly shifting goalposts. Aglaya makes this clear to you when she arrives: you were never supposed to be successful. 

The letters from the Powers That Be do not serve any purpose other than to upset Daniil, and most if not all of them contain lies: that a train will be arriving, that they don’t mind if you have help in carrying out your plans, that Thanatica still exists, referencing conversations you’ve never had, signing drafts of letters you didn’t consult on with your name. One of the reasons i had put this down as gaslighting is because people who gaslight like to keep you off balance and emotionally fragile so that you’re easier to manipulate. You’ll do whatever they want to make the feeling stop, because you just can’t handle the stress anymore, and in the process you come across to others as unreasonable, unhinged, crazy, dangerous, so that no one will trust you. And that’s exactly how Daniil starts to come across to the townspeople: deranged, strung out, dangerous, untrustworthy.

You can contrast all that to a different letter they send you where they claim to be proud to call you one of your own. Combine the two, and you get honeymooning. They want to remind you of the good (or at least, not-as-bad) times you’ve had with them. This behavior serves two, sometimes three purposes: to keep you off balance from the violent back-and-forth, dizzying nature of what they’re doing to you, and so that you’ll defend them to people who can see what’s going on and want to get you out of it. You’ll even convince yourself that you’re not really being mistreated. If you were being abused, would they be so nice to you? 

You are the last friend our family has. I hope our attachment to you doesn’t look obtrusive.      > It requires too much from me. I’m not comfortable with it.     > No, not at all. 

The third answer is the Kains. Specifically, Georgiy and Maria repeatedly manipulate Daniil, though I’ve no doubt in the text above Victor stating their attachment to Daniil is also a manipulation, and one possibly planned by either or perhaps both of them. The text above probably looks normal, but think about the purpose it serves: to reinforce that Daniil is friendly with the Kains. Your only two options are to say that it doesn’t bother you, or to express that you feel your boundaries are being violated by their attention. But I even thinking about picking that option... Well, it feels mean. 

Throughout the game, people will comment on Maria’s attachment to you and what they feel is your predestination to be romantically paired with her. All this, despite the fact that you don’t really interact with her that much. I’ve seen this be explained as forced heterosexuality, but I think it also is a way of the Kains manipulating Daniil into doing what they want. Daniil gets upset whenever people cry; when children cry, he tries to calm them and fix whatever’s upset them - there’s an entire sidequest after the army arrives in which Daniil kills a group of soldiers, spurred into action by upset children. Whenever he encounters Maria crying, he reacts with discomfort, and she uses these tears and upset to manipulate Daniil into thinking Aglaya has lied to him, effectively distancing him from one of the only people in the game with a rational mind to show him support and tell him the truth. I don’t think the two are in any way unconnected. Something abusers, manipulators, gaslighters love to do is isolate you so that you only have one source of information to go to. If they cut you off from other people, they can continue to feed off of you. You’ll never have a chance to question if what you’re being told about yourself or others is correct, you’ll just be a constant supply of drama for them. 

DANIIL: Was there any particularly notable backstory? I’m deadly tired of all these people. They’re inhuman. They tell the future, believe in walking zombies, and die in all manners of painfully abnormal ways. 

AGLAYA: Your line of thinking is obviously fallacious - and I was implying something rather mundane. I promise you no one can really tell the future around here and neither are deaths inspired by third parties uncommon. Mysterious phenomenons do occur here sometimes... but hardly more often than anywhere else.

You can see, first, the effect all this has had on Daniil, how dispiriting the past several days have been to him. But you can also see here exactly why a family that prides itself on multi-generational reincarnation and manipulation through “fortune-telling” wants to keep its blunt instrument in the dark. 

That is, ultimately, why they are manipulating Daniil. Georgiy knows full well when he tells Daniil at the beginning that everyone, even himself, will lie to Daniil, that being that honest upfront is more likely to lead Daniil to trusting him. They want to sway him to their cause; this is why you are told that your success here depends on the wellbeing of the people Maria considers useful: herself, her father and uncle - who she gets out of the way later on to come into her power, the architects of the Polyhedron - which she will use to ascend to power, and the theatre director who has pledged himself to be her loyal servant. Eva’s on the list, too, but her inclusion was deliberately set up to make you depend on the Kains later in the game, considering that it’s Maria who convinced her to commit suicide:

DANIIL: Why did Eva die then? AGLAYA: I have a distinct suspicion she was made to die. DANIIL: By whom?  AGLAYA: One of the Kains. I’d even go so far as to claim that they may have performed human sacrifice.

It’s a two-for-one deal: try in vain to make a Focus of the Cathedral, and remove from Daniil the last piece of influence who was not totally in love with Maria. Maria “cries” and is “upset” at you for thinking Eva’s death is her fault, but no one directly tells you Maria is responsible - all Aglaya does is tell you the Kains are at fault. The rest is just you remembering how nasty Maria was about Eva at the beginning of the game. I wouldn’t even say that Maria was removing a rival for Daniil’s affection. She really does only view Daniil as an object: if you speak to her on day 12, she assumes that you’re leaving, and doesn’t even ask you to stay (for kicks, contrast this with either ending of Pathologic 2 when you speak to Daniil as Artemy, where he’s supposed to be your rival. what was all that about Maria being in love with you...?); he’s not even present in his own ending cutscene. Even Mark Immortell says you’re leaving -

And actually, that’s a really fascinating conversation you can have with him on day 12. It’s where the game outright admits exactly what Aglaya told you: it’s all fake. Maria cannot really see the future, you’ve just been manipulated the entire game to achieve someone else’s goals, and unless you’ve gone around and saved Artemy’s or Clara’s bound, it’s too late for you to turn back and make a different decision. If you’ve picked Daniil’s ending, you just destroyed an entire town on the basis of outright lies. 

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

this started off as navelgazing about a line from a book, then turned into an anxious rant about current events

“Inborn in nearly every artist is a tendency to accept injustice if it creates beauty” (Death in Venice, 21). well, idk about inborn, bc i had to go out of my way to shed the opposite tendency, but i do think it’s true that this mentality is necessary for… art and also other kinds of thought, anything where you need unfettered curiosity. but the painting of it as a vice interests me lately, because i’m starting to think i may have gone too far in this direction? the quoted line speaks to an assumption that indignation is a thing you should practice whenever relevant so you don’t lose it. that if something strikes you as unfair, you should always prioritize that impression over everything else you might notice about the situation that provokes that response. in this scene, that even though it’s not clear how it would help anyone for aschenbach to disapprove of this family’s treatment of the three daughters, it’s still a vice for him to brush it aside because he likes watching the son whose personality he thinks results from this favoritism.

i think we assume this because we fear that failing to deplore an instance of injustice when we see it makes us complicit? which, in and of itself, is clearly not true; that’s just thoughtcrime. like: unless you maintain that it’s his responsibility to tell the parents off, or to do something nice for the girls to compensate,* there’s no reason to view aschenbach’s feeling of “yeah well that sucks but it’s interesting to watch” as any worse than thinking “those terrible parents! how dare they deprive three out of four of their kids in this way”? bc there’s no consequential difference.

but. i think… maybe there is something to be said for cultivating this habit? because, at least for me, this kinda has led to a sort of complacency, a feeling that it’s not my place to judge people (or that there’s nothing i can do to fix injustice when i see it, but mostly the first thing: i tend to assume i don’t know enough about other people’s situations to judge, much less to try to correct or advise people). and that’s true??? like, in part i think this mental habit must have grown out of the axiom not to give medical advice to chronically ill people. i… have a tendency to internalize advice across the board, rather than situationally. i.e., to take this as meaning, “people know more about their own problems than you do,” and also, as meaning, “they’re already doing their best; nobody fails on purpose.” and generalizing that to situations where the “failure” is one of cruelty rather than of just not being as healthy/happy as it seems to you people should be. like: i have rooted out just-world hypothesis so thoroughly, i have so much contempt for that “obviously it’s possible to be better” mentality, that i apply it even when what i see looks to me like. someone being mean to their children. and to a certain extent this seems right to me??? like, parents fearing everyone around them thinks they’re evil because their kid is crying, when really all they deprived this poor child of is a piece of candy she found on the floor, is a real thing, and, i honestly cannot think of a time when i’ve seen a parent say or do something harsh to their child where something like this couldn’t easily have been the explanation. plus, the possibility they might take it out on their children still exists!

but i think maybe the specifics here are confusing the question? either that or the question is so abstract/fake that it’s not one i need to answer. so here: the root of my anxiety is this: i sometimes worry there’s something wrong with me because i’m not obsessed with the BLM protests going on, or at least, not in the way so many people imply i should be. it’s not that i lack empathy for the victims?—i do tear up when i think too hard about george floyd, or that man with the food cart who used to serve the cops for free. it’s just… that this sense of injustice doesn’t lead to any conviction. i don’t feel the righteousness of the protests; i’m detached enough to wonder intellectually about their effectiveness. although?? i guess that’s not wholly true either, because when i first heard about them my very first thought was “OH GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN! YOU’RE ALL GONNA GET KILLED!”—a combination of fear at what might (…would, from today’s perspective) happen to the people involved, and dismay at the knowledge i was going to have to perform supportiveness about it.

for the record: i do think police brutality is evil, and that the police are corrupt and overpowered and groomed to be racist; also, from what i’ve heard, the protests have helped create a lot of policy changes, so from that standpoint i guess i support them. or, at least, congratulate them on a job well done. but: i think holding protests during a pandemic is fucking insane, especially since the thing protestors demand a stop to is unnecessary death. people keep telling me this is a crucial moment for the black community, and i think that at this point that’s true, but, afaik there’s no good strategic reason we can point to for why it had to be now, and i don’t like… well ok, let me start again. i wouldn’t mind having to say “yeah, well, straw that broke the camel’s back,” if i didn’t feel like that excuse precluded all criticism of the protests’ timing.** in my own life, when i reflect on times in my life when i’ve done things whose consequences i regret, i often have to conclude that under the circumstances i can’t have expected anything better from myself. but i still get to say i shouldn’t have done that. maybe i’m being greedy with my cake here, i just. ugh. it just pisses me off, the hypocrisy about covid, because the whole point of lockdowns and social distancing &c. was that no one person’s or group’s interests outweigh the risks to the human race at large. but now it’s apparently more important for even the unaffected members of said human race to stand in solidarity with the minorities who are affected by this latest crisis--as in, literally stand there, in public, right next to them, even if that means that two weeks later they come down with the plague. like?? you can’t even say “but this is a matter of life and death”! because covid is an even wider-reaching matter of life and death!!!!

also, the most common justification i hear is that the number of horrible things we’ve seen the police inflict on protestors proves we need to keep protesting. and politically speaking that does seem to be working? but IT’S STILL KIND OF FUCKING GHOULISH to hear that we as a nation have a responsibility to give the cops more opportunities to kill innocent people. like. i can intellectually say “yes, you’re right, i think it’s working,” but i can’t seem to feel that as a duty or a righteous cause.

…what was my point again? oh right: that i worry this makes me a Bad Person, or at least that everyone around me would think i was a Bad Person if i told them how i felt. and that i specifically worry my emotions are wrong, because i should be having… the kind of patriotism proust talks about (though for BLM and the left &c. rather than for america itself, obviously), but instead i’m like “aaagh ok fine if you have to but GOD I WISH THIS WOULD STOP.” and apparently, wanting it to stop means siding with the oppressors. and i guess… god, do you know what it is? honestly, i’m so short-sighted that a return to the status quo does sound better to me than this chaos. i don’t disbelieve people who assert that only a bitter fight like this can force change? intellectually i think maybe that’s true. but emotionally, i hate it, and on an animal level i don’t really believe it. the animal in me believes only that positive change is slow and unsatisfying, regardless of how you accomplish it.

*both of which seem to me Too Risky because option a might end with their harassing the girls over it (e.g., “this stranger over here thinks you’re being mistreated. if he only knew you like i do…!”), while option b, coming from an older, solitary man, might strike both the girls and their parents as a creepy, lecherous thing, in which case the girls might view it as insulting or even traumatizing rather than as a favor to them.

**especially the timing of protests like the one in my own town last weekend. they marched to the city police station--even though the one widely-known violent incident in our town in the last decade was perpetrated by the university police department--on, afaict, general ACAB principle. my friend who attended says the anger felt real, not just like a performance, but they weren’t agitating for any concrete changes here, you know?? so idg why it was worth infecting people.

[nonbinarysasquatch]

Can Josh Take a Leap of Faith?

I’ve always had kind of unexplainable abandonment issues. Which I’ve mentioned before it past reviews. But I do wonder if it’s something I’ve buried the root of, much as Rebecca has seemingly buried her uncomfortable memories of Robert.

Rebecca has a lot of men to be angry at but it’s Silas who pisses me off the most. Silas Bunch, you are the WORST. Not only did he never give a shit about Rebecca as a child but then he only even comes to her wedding so he can hit her up for cash. And at the end when Paula calls him out for being a garbage father, he doesn’t hesitate to bounce out because he didn’t want to be there in the first place. He isn’t interested in defending himself OR apologising. He just wants out.

Rachel Bloom’s face acting is so good when he calls her crazy. The way her face momentarily is pained but she swallows it to channel her anger instead, embracing the mantle of crazy because in that moment it’s the only strength that she has.

It kills me when Rebecca goes to Silas’s hotel room and apologises for who she is. There was never anything wrong with Rebecca. She was a good kid. Silas and Naomi were the problems, not her.

And then there’s Robert, a memory so unpleasant that Rebecca has pushed it out of her mind. Robert is a barely a character here but what little we get is important. Robert is a main with power who used and mislead Rebecca until it was no longer convenient to him. It doesn’t justify Rebecca trying to burn down his home, obviously, but it still reinforces her desperation for a man to give her validation.

I think after her hospital stay post fire and having to leave Harvard Law, that Rebecca probably leaned on the medication to numb her and keep her focused on her career. After all, we know from the first episode that she was devoting 24/7 of her life to her firm. That doesn’t leave much time for romance.

And then we have Josh Chan, who rather than simply try to talk to Rebecca, decides that’s too hard and he runs off to become a priest. Something that seems surprising until you realise how hard it’s been foreshadowed. In fact, Josh is the only lead character who has consistently had a connection to religion since the beginning.

Rebecca is an atheist and we see that she isn’t fond of the religious part of her Jewish heritage. Paula never has anything to say about religion (fun fact: Donna Lynne Champlin is a Wiccan) nor does Darryl, or WhiJo or Greg or even Valencia. But since (almost) the beginning, we’ve seen that Josh’s Catholicism matters to him and one of his best friends is literally a priest. And then we were shown how he connected with Rebecca’s family’s faith in a way that she never will.

The title of this episode is, of course, a double entendre, meant to conjure both taking a leap of faith for Rebecca and religious faith. Josh does take a leap of faith, but not the one Rebecca wanted.

A lot of fans really hate Josh Chan. I don’t. I don’t find him relatable AT ALL but in terms of being a terrible person, eh, he’s pretty middle of the road for this show. But when he does piss me off, it’s when, of his own free will, he ignores Rebecca’s feelings. It pissed me off when he was completely insensitive to Rebecca’s feelings toward her mother and couldn’t even respect why she was uncomfortable at the Bar Mitzvah.

And obviously, Naomi, who Josh KNOWS has mistreated Rebecca her entire life, was the one who told Josh to propose in the first place. And Josh Chan, who is completely unable to explore what HE wants, just does it.

It’s ridiculous that Rebecca moved the wedding up but Josh should’ve engaged with the fact that he didn’t want to marry Rebecca.

Josh Chan likes Rebecca for one reason: she makes him feel good about himself. But the sort of confidence Rebecca bestows Josh with isn’t earned on his part, because she seems him as an ideal. A fantasy. Rebecca was starting to realise that before Josh proposed.

Neither Rebecca or Josh truly love each other. Not in an honest or healthy way, at least. We can say that perhaps Josh just isn’t that smart but I honestly think Josh just doesn’t challenge himself. He doesn’t ignore Rebecca’s well being because he’s not smart, he ignores it because… he just doesn’t care. Bursting into Rebecca’s therapy appointment wasn’t just stupid, it was insensitive.

The adult thing to do would have been for Josh to talk to Rebecca. Yeah, we all know how that would’ve gone. Rebecca would’ve lied to him and then either tried to get him to go through with the wedding or he would’ve had to tell her to her face that he didn’t want to do it.

Rebecca would’ve still felt abandoned but once that passed there would be pain but not the same anger she’s left with at the end of this episode. Because Rebecca is completely right to be angry with Josh. He fucked up. Big time.

The end of this episode emphasizes Rebecca and Paula, as they stand together, holding hands in the place where Josh and Rebecca would have been married. I mused earlier over whether we should be taking the foreshadowing with Rebecca and Paula more seriously. I’m honestly not sure but if there’s one thing that’s clear, their relationship is the important one for this show.

The Songs:

What a Rush to Be a Bride: I’m not really into metal but this number is amusing. Not one I ever feel like deliberately listening to, though.

Rebecca’s Reprise: This rips my heart out every time. This begins a bit of a trend that carries into Season 3, of the show reprising earlier numbers in recontextualised ways. This is the most earnest number the show has done to this point, the first one without even an ounce of humour (“What’ll it Be” from season one was MOSTLY earnest but did have a tiny bit of humour.)

Episode Rating: 9.5 out of 10.0.

That leaves season 2 with an average rating of 9.23, up a bit over 8.92 for season 1. I’m surprised I didn’t give any episodes in season 2 a perfect 10, but there’s a bunch coming for season 3 that’ll hit that. If I had to pick a best episode for season 2, I would go with “Who Needs Josh When You Have a Girl Group?” which I think is a pretty important and underrated episode.

[leftlovetragedy]

Why BBC Sherlock was ruined by bad writing - Part 1

This post is a part of a long summary of some of the problems with BBC Sherlock which in my opinion ultimately caused the show damage which seems practically irreparable now. One of the related problems actually is that it seems Moffat and Gatiss didn’t get why S4 was met with disdain by fanbase, why reviewers picked it apart, why ratings dropped. It means they don’t want to learn from their mistakes or simply can’t. In fact Gatiss outright refused to believe ratings dropped and that does speak about very huge denial as ratings are facts, not opinions. Both Moffat and Gatiss also suddenly lost enthusiasm about ACD, Sherlock Holmes, although they were gushing  about it just not so long ago.

But let’s get back to the problems of the writing I wanted to talk about:

1)     The problem with Moriarty

Looking back at first two seasons after clusterfuck of S4, sadly, I could now notice some problems which were already planted in earlier seasons. While S1-2 were the best out of the show some decisions which were made by the writers indicated their true approach to the material even back then. But these problems would only grow like a snow ball and in the end would contribute to the undoing of the show in many ways. Mofftiss were overusing Moriarty from the start. In ACD’s canon he appears in one story (and is mentioned several times) like the nemesis to take down Sherlock once and for all. Since it’s TV series it was perfectly understandable and fair  to expand the role of Moriarty, however it was way overexpanded. Moriarty was connected with the cabby, was behind Chinese mafia, then arranged the whole Great Game with Sherlock and then meeting with him in person took place-all in the scope of all 3 episodes of S1. Had the S1 been longer perhaps it wouldn’t have looked so  jam-packed with Moriarty and would have been more subtle, but since the S1 is only 3 episodes long it did. S1 also told us that Moriarty killed the school boy, the only case which young Sherlock was not able to solve then, thus setting up Moriarty as this ultimate enemy of Sherlock literally for decades.  Then in Ep1S2 we find out that Irene Adler was also working for Moriarty and that he consulted her. Ep2S2 has Sherlock having hallucinations about Moriarty and Ep3S3 have the grand finale where Moriarty tries to destroy Sherlock and kills himself on the roof, and then Sherlock jumps from the roof, faking his suicide.

Honestly by the end of S2 Moriarty was made by the Mofftiss as this be-all and the end-all guy and that already looked over the top. But it still could have been ok, if the Mofftiss could stop there with Moriarty. And that’s exactly what they couldn’t do. They didn’t know how to stop and so they ran this character into the ground.  S3 teased us if Moriarty really died or not, with “shocking cliffhanger” final,  adding more hallucinations and flashbacks and fake flashbacks with Jim along the way.  But the result was that by the end of S3 Moriarty no longer looked liked some threatening dangerous villain, but rather as a self-caricature. S3 also told us that Moriarty had in fact a death wish and that he would have killed himself anyway, making his whole suicide on the roof pretty  weak.  Instead of some diabolically clever villain with diabolically bold clever calculated plan, we got the guy who just was crazy and wanted to off himself. Big whoop.  It got only worse when TAB special was literally dedicated to Sherlock trying to understand that Moriarty, who shot himself standing right in front of Sherlock in broad daylight, was actually really dead. No shit, Sherlock. Moriarty was again present in Sherlock’s Mind Palace,  grimacing all the way, which probably was supposed to look cool and edgy, but didn’t, and looked like a tired rehash. Then S4 finally completely killed any coolness or sense which Moriarty still had in the show (and there wasn’t much left by the time). S4 told us how Moriarty met with secret super powerful sister Eurus, spent 5 minutes talking with her or smh and even teamed with her, recording some dumb edgy videos for Eurus, which she used when Moriarty himself was already dead. Since Eurus is capable to hypnotize people after talking with them the question was left open if Moriarty was really compromised by Eurus and was just her puppet since then. Either way Moriarty was pretty much destroyed as interesting and effective villain in the show, because a) he either was hypnotized by Eurus, made into her puppet and lost any personal agenda or free will since then; or  b) he wasn’t hypnotized by Eurus, remained himself but was just really unhinged, mad dude, whose unpredictability didn’t seem like a result of his great intellect or scheming or an act, but rather a result of him being a psycho, who wanted badly to kill himself, also hoping that Sherlock would ~ probably~ kill himself as well—and if Sherlock doesn’t kill himself, hey, no biggie,  he got those great choo-choo videos for Eurus which she could  use against Sherlock, though Moriarty wouldn’t be able to see this anyway, because he will be dead by then. But surely choo-choo videos will work! Surely the world's only consulting criminal could always count on choo-choo videos! Great plan! 2)     The problem with women

I already talked once about how Mofftiss treat female characters on the shows and the short answer is: they treat them pretty awful as they pretend to write “strong female characters” while basically doing “Feminism for Dummies: The Male Edition”. 

According to Mofftiss strong female characters mean mostly villainous, dubious, criminal, weaponized psychopaths.

---Irene Adler – twisted rewritten version of ACD’s Irene Adler, here villainized cruel sex worker and blackmailer, who is told what to do by male villain, because she can’t figure it out on her own, loses  to Sherlock because she fell for him and later is saved by him. Moffat literally described Irene as psychopath, in fact he describes Sherlock as one as well, saying: ”He's a psychopath, so is she”. 

Moffat also considers ACD’s Irene boring, saying: “In the original, Irene Adler's victory over Sherlock Holmes was to move house and run away with her husband. That's not a feminist victory." Moffat is a very big fan of ACD’s stories according to Moffat. No comments here.  ---Eurus “Ebony Dark'ness Dementia” Holmes – OC, secret sister genius with super powers, who killed a child while she herself was a child, tortured her brother Sherlock and has been put to medical facility- prison for life (where she continued to torture and kill people, and even rape them-well, there was one case at least. She also was able to  leave prison at her will and kill people outside). A total psycopath, who fixed her multi-talents on playing some evil games with Sherlock. Turned out to be so, so very  needy, that the only thing she really wants is a hug from Sherlock, cause she loses the minute he hugs her. Obviously Mofftiss tried to build her as this greatest villain on the show who ever villain, but it didn’t work out.  --Mary Watson – practically an OC, since Mofftiss so heavily rewrote her, that she doesn’t resemble Mary Morstan from ACD’s canon. Even her real name is not really Mary Morstan here, she borrowed it from the grave slab of another person. She is ex-assassin who was murdering people for cash, but  retired now, who  lies and hides her past from everybody, then she shoots Sherlock almost killing him for good, in order to cover up the fact that she came to kill her blackmailer and Sherlock discovered her. Then Mofftiss make a big point that her main agenda in show is really a new life with a husband she loves and their baby (Mary shoots Sherlock while already being pregnant). Then Mary leaves her husband and little baby girl (the girl given to Mary by Mofftiss in the show, she doesn’t exist in ACD’s canon) when somebody hunts her ex-fellow assassins (yep, they still out there or some of them).  Then she is tracked down and returns, but then she is killed off because she jumped in front of the bullet meant for Sherlock leaving her baby girl without the mother and her husband as widower. Bye bye Mary’s agenda, it has been destroyed. (Also what an insult to professional  mercenary  getting killed by some institutional secretary, honestly).  Then it turns out Mary recorded some weird ass DVDs which are now regularly sent to Sherlock and John, and while she makes some kitch speeches there she barely remembers about existence of her baby daughter, if at all. In the process  we find out that John, while Mary was still alive, was already heavily flirting with another woman (it was Eurus “Ebony Dark'ness” in disguise)  and really wanted to cheat on Mary. Oh, and Amanda Abbington herself described Mary as psychopath.  --A small shout out to those Victorian ladies from TAB’s Mind Palace - they formed a secret sect in order to kill men, had creepy secret meetings and basically were an underground murder club on the loose,  even were referred to as “league of furies” at one point. Oh look, women are again portrayed as vile, criminal and agressive entities, with attached  aesthetic of KKK.  Straw feminism is strong with these ones. --Ok, let’s remember Molly Hooper, she is not a psychopath, she is not villainous, she is not a criminal, she is a nice, smart, normal, kind young working woman. At long last something different, right? Real potential?  Ehm, nope, Mofftiss still ruined it. Because she is kept in the show as a female character with a deep desperate unrequired crush on Sherlock who is ready to do a lot  for him, but repeatedly mistreated by the object of her affections. Sherlock humiliates, manipulates and abuses her emotionally several times during the show, when it gets better between them, but  Mofftiss make sure that poor Molly still can’t have personal life outside of Sherlock, her new BF/fiance Tom ins S3 is a poor copy of Sherlock, he even dresses like him (probably it was done for laughs in the show “ha ha, poor Molly, got replacement goldfish, can’t really move on” only it wasn’t really funny), but they broke up by the end of S3. Then Molly is pushed aside for most of S4, and then there is that famous “I love you” scene, which deeply hurts Molly and makes her cry.....the scene, which according to Mofftiss was a last-minute addition to the script and was not about Molly or her relationships with Sherlock at all, but only about Sherlock and his emotional development and how he is more human now. Molly was simply used by Mofftiss as show-case of Sherlock’s manpain. There was no resolution to this scene and Moffat simply said that  Molly would get over it, by having a drink and shagging someone. That’s...deep. Not.

It really makes you wonder what’s Mofftiss’s problem with women and why writing for female characters on the show is such a trainwreck?  Well, according to Moffat: --“The original [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] stories had a huge female following, which I'd never forgotten, and that's because the Victorian ladies liked the way Sherlock looked. (Laughs.) So I thought, use this massively exciting, rather handsome man who could see right through your heart and have no interest ... of course, he's going to be a sex god! I think we pitched that character right. I think our female fan base all believe that they'll be the one to melt that glacier. They're all wrong -- nothing will melt that glacier.”  --"Women are needy. Women are out there hunting for husbands."  Also his understanding of pregnancy and motherhood “Your wife turns into a boat, and shortly after that, you never sleep again and you clean shit off someone. It doesn’t seem like a very appealing prospect”.     Also the infamous “There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male.” I guess all of it sort of explains why Mofftiss write women that way. To be continued...

[zebra-warrior]

Why do I raise awareness for EDS? Sure I do it for myself but I also do it for others. Having this condition I've seen the devistation it causes. I've had friends with it who I have watched waste away and lose their battles. No EDS itself can't result in a persons life coming to an end but connective tissue makes up at least part of every organ, bone, muscle, joint, nerve, tendon ligament, fat cells, blood and even nails and hair so the entire body is fair came for this disease so though no, EDS cat take your life, I along with most consider EDS to be life endangering because it can cause anything to go wrong with any part of your body which in tern can result in the loss of life so ultimately it is can rob you of many years. I do this for my friends who have passed away. I do this for one friend I particular. Emet Tauber who told me to never quit spreading the word.

No one should ever have to go 28 years without a diagnosis, being told they are Hypochondriac, have Illness Anxiety Disorder, have a Somataform Disorder, Somatic Symptom Disorder, Psychosomatic Disorder have Conversion Disorder, a Functional Neurological Disorder or what ever new name continues to be created to replace it. They all mean the same thing. "it's all in your head, you're afraid your going to get sick so now your mind is creating these fake symptoms of illness. It's a term that is overused and someting a doctor uses when they don't know what's wrong with the person and are too egocentric to admit it and once a person does have a diagnosis that is very complex and has no treatment or cure, you are labeled with these conditions so that a doctor can send you out the door because they don't want to deal with it. Quite honestly im waiting for the day a doctor can be prosecuted for using these labels as an excuse not to treat someone after they have a diagnosis or for labeling them with these diagnoses even though evidence shows someting is obviously wrong even if it's not known what is causing these abnormal test results. Because they want you to become someone else's problem. Because they use as a way to put a blanket over top of the fact that they are letting you lay there untreated or even worse, in the cases for things such as whan I lost the ability to walk were they would pick me up and say I could walk and then drop me on the floor, using these terms to cover up physical mistreatment. I would also like to see Psychosomatic Disorders to legally only be diagnosed by a psychologist or psychiatrist as they are usually the first to tell us we were misdiagnosis and done for the Psychosomatic criteria at all. I had one personally tell me that the doctor who refereed me by reading his notes obviously has Narsocistic Personality Disorder so doctors who don't specialize in psychology should in no way be able to diagnose this. A referral is fine but of they can't diagnose it they don't leave the patient with a botched record to follow them around for more doctors to piggy back off of.

I don't want the future generations to go through this, to live their lives with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and would almost rather stay home during a life threatening event than have to go to the hospital knowing they will likely leave sicker than they went in. Afraid to go to sleep at night because their heart has stopped so many times before that they are afraid it will stop again and there will be no alarms to wake someone up or they struggle with aniphalexis and are afraid they will quit breathing it diabetes and afraid of a diabetic coma secondary to their Gastroparesis secondary to their EDS. For a patient to have to dedicate their lives to research because if they don't try to save themselves who's going to. Because they have to know what not to do in order to refuse treatments from doctors that can make them worse. It should be a doctors responsibility to save a patient but most of us don't have this leasire. We figure out how to save ourselves and go to the hospital when we need to not for a knowlegable doctor but because we can't write perscriptions for ourselves, do imaging on on ourselves, pick up a lactated ringer or oxygen tank at the local drug store. We go for life saving supplies hoping a hospital doctor will listen to what we need, read the medical journal pages we printed off for them to explain why we need what we need and provide us those materials. I don't want a botched medical history to follow patients around for the rest of their lives for lazy doctors to pick and choose these misdiagnoses, even after a diagnosis, to put a nice psychosomatic baidage on top of it so they have an excuse to not treat you. To flat line at a hospital yet sent home two hours later.

I don't expect a cure to be found because this is genetic but I do hope the future of EDS patients have access to an approved treatment and more knowlegable doctors and that even those aren't specialists are taught more about it then three sentences. Most schools don't address it at all in their curriculam. It would be nice if of all the time they spend in school and with how complicated the conditon is at least one week of education is dedicated to EDS. That's still only a fraction of knowledge on the topic but at least it's enough to know some of the symptoms or comorbidities common or possibly the more basic diagnosis criteria. Maybe a new profession. Will even be created such as a Connective Tissue Specialist since that's are so many connective tissue diseases yet no specialist dedicated to them. As of now we are supposed to be thrown into the category of Rhumatology but I've never met a Rhumie that knows much about it. I would also like to sew the "look for a Zebra not a horse" terminology totally thrown out of med school. Teaching medical students that rare diseases are nearly impossible to come across and to only look for a common ailment when diagnosing a patient is dangerous and leads to unethical outcomes. Zebras do exist. I raise awareness so future kids can get a diagnosis earlier, better treatment for the conditions early on, consistant treatment with no excuses for mistreatment of a patient and ultimately these individuals are able to live much healthier lives. Every person who sees my posts or has spoken with me, read my emails or has me as a patient. I hope to spark their interest and if noting else they take away one new piece of information about my condition that they can share or use when they meet the next person who has this conditon. It's all about knowledge. We can't have progress without knowledge.

(Video is me in shock at Mount Carmel East Hospital with micro tears along my spinal cord and inflamation. I was left on the floor in a room for people on things they had to come down odd of for 7 hours. I begged for a blood and urine test before it got this bag even offering to let them watch me on the toilet and they said no leaving me there hours only to find out I had nothing in my system and they had made a major mistake. By then the beds were full and I had to wait even longer. Before they knew they kept yelling at me for lying on the floor. The others in the weighting room went into an uproar about what they had done to me.)

[inktae]

You made me super curious about that veganism essay, if you ever feel like sharing, I'd really appreciate it (no pressure though!). I gave up dairy recently because it gave me almost daily headaches and I'm considering going fully vegan (I never really ate a lot of meat to begin with), but I find it really hard to make up my mind. I feel like a lot of the information out there is very us-centric too and doesn't really apply to me, so I'd love to hear a more European/international approach ^^

I did end up translating it, so here you go! :)

a few things I need to point out: I wrote this for a middle school student, so I didn’t delve too much into scientific facts — so please take everything I say with a grain of salt and do your own research if you’re curious, because these are things I learned after reading a lot of studies from certified nutritionists and medical researches.

I also most likely got a little preachy at times (sorry) but please remember that I’m not judging anyone because that is never my intention. I wrote this while keeping in mind that this girl needed it for a school debate where she needed to try and convince people of veganism, which is exactly what I tried to do. ^^” if you are still curious after reading and want to know what kind of documentaries to watch, let me know and I’ll be happy to lead you in that direction.

There are plenty of reasons to approach veganism, or to at least adopt some of the vegan principles into your everyday life; but the most important ones are health, the industry and the planet, and ethics.

Although a healthy diet does not necessarily need to be vegan, a plant based diet can be very beneficial for your body, especially for people with certain chronic diseases, deficiencies or to simply improve your overall health. It has been long since proved that nutrition is tightly linked to the reduction of particular symptoms and the improvement of the quality of life, and a plant based diet definitely carries these benefits. Personally speaking, veganism got rid of my migraines and stabilized my (otherwise disastrous) hormonal situation. It is also proved by nutritionists that a balanced vegan diet, based in real and varied foods, can cover almost every deficiency (except B12, which I will talk about in a second).

One of the myths that worry non vegans the most is the supposed lack of proteins in a plant based diet. This does not suppose any issue at all, as plant based foods are abundant in proteins and it is quite easy to reach the necessary daily intake as long as the diet is varied. A great example are grains — chickpeas, beans, lentils (these in particular are not considered complete proteins as they don’t carry all the amino-acids, but they can easily be completed by including another food that has said amino-acid into your diet, like rice, for example), tofu, tempeh, soy, etc. Plant based proteins are even of higher quality than animal based.

When it comes to supplementation, the only one that is absolutely necessary is B12. This vitamin comes from a bacteria which animals obtain from the ground and the food they’re fed (animals do not have the ability to manufacture vitamin B12), and we would obtain it if we did not wash our vegetables (which we obviously have to do), so it is not necessarily a bacteria that comes from the animals themselves. In some cases they’re even supplemented with said vitamin.

Plenty of people might argue that taking B12 supplements means that it is not a “natural” way of living or that we are not “designed” to be vegan, but in a world where we’re surrounded by technology, where we use phones and cars on a daily basis, what is natural is very relative and what is unnatural does not necessarily mean it’s harmful. The 21th century allows us to be vegan quite easily and that’s what truly matters, not that we were carnivores in the past. It may have been true that millions of years ago it helped us evolve, but we live in a time when we can lead a completely normal life without eating animals, especially if we take into account how harmful and dangerous the industry (industrial farming) has become.

Which leads me to my next point: the industry and the planet. The industry has definitely worsened over the years, as the more it expands and the more its production grows, the quality of the food gets worse and a piece of meat of one hundred years ago is completely different to the one they might sell you today, which is filled with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones… just so the animals grow faster and bigger and taste better. All of this is harmful for the human health (which is a longterm process you might not notice until you’re of adult age. After all, deficiencies take a long time to show up) and it also affects the quality of life of the animals. Unfortunately, there are very few regulations in the industry (both in America and in Europe), which continues to destroy natural landmarks and plays a huge part in the deforestation of the planet. This occurs because the industries need insane amounts of land to be able to grow the crops that serve as food for the animals. If you think about it, it’s quite illogical to destroy so much land to feed the animals that people will then feast on as processed meat full of hormones, instead of directly giving those crops to all the poor people around the world who have no food to get by.

At the same time, it is proved by diverse studies that animal farming produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transport clumped together, which has a huge effect on the planet and global warming. It is also a completely unsustainable system, as the demand continues to rise towards insane levels that the industry can’t even keep up with, which only worsens the deforestation issue. We have reached a point where every second more than three thousand animals are killed in inhuman ways, which only gets worse overtime. All of this is proved and studied through statistics (I really encourage everyone to do their own research on this), but most environmental organizations do not raise awareness as they are sponsored by the same powerful industries (Greenpeace, for example, is sponsored).

(now I get a little graphic on the following paragraphs, please avoid if you’re too uncomfortable about animal torture. Carry on after the *)

When it comes to ethics, I believe that everyone (or most people) would recoil if they saw the living conditions of these animals. As I mentioned before, there are not enough regulations in the industry that look out for the way they live, and the abuse and mistreatment of the animals is quite normal all over the world (even though I did my research through american studies, I was surprised to see that here in Spain it is actually way worse).

These industries only care about selling meat, not the animals. They’re beaten up, tortured, locked in enclosed spaces where they can barely move, they get so fat that their legs break under their weight, the hens get their beaks cut off (they are crammed so close together, they try to peck each other due to stress), and the chicks are gotten rid off by crushing them alive or getting thrown in the trash, where they asphyxiate due to lack of oxygen. It is quite cruel, and there are plenty of videos and documentaries where you can see that this is in fact very real. Earthlings is the most famous one.

*

Another discussion is related to organic meat, and if it is a good option when faced against veganism. Though it might be true that some companies treat their animals better, it is hard to be 100% certain as the regulations (and advertising tactics) can be quite confusing and ambiguous. In some places of the world it can be legal to say a product is organic just because the cages of the animals are just slightly bigger. From an ethical point of view, veganism is still the better choice. When it comes to health, I have to recognize that experts accept that there are lesser risks by eating high quality meats (except red meat, which is still unadvised by nutritionists) but if you compare how much you would spend a month eating organic meats against a whole foods plant based diet (without any processed junk or vegan substitute meats - they tend to be quite expensive, and that’s where the myth of veganism being expensive comes from) then the latter option is way cheaper and more comfortable.

One last argument I have to acknowledge is that veganism is said to be too “extreme”. In my opinion, it should not be considered something extreme or negative to do something good for your own body and for the planet, where the pros definitely outshine the cons. Meat should not be considered an essential staple into your diet, or something you need to be happy — if anything, it should be something additional, and it is crazy to think how so many people view vegetables that way when it should be the other way around. It should not be extremist to base your way of living around plant based sources, not when our society has forced people to believe that meat is essential for a healthy, happy living when it is far from the truth.

It is true that each case has to be treated differently, because each body is different and certain foods will suit some people better than others, but it is something relatively easy to delve into as long as you do your extensive research and are aware of what you’re doing. Veganism is not extremist at all as long as you have the knowledge and the support of a professional, as any changes in your diet (not necessarily related to veganism) needs to be monitored by a doctor.

Veganism should not be perceived that way — because in my opinion, it is mainly focused on reducing animal suffering in the best way we can. It is not absolute. It is not giving up everything in your life. We cannot solve all the problems of the world, but we can make an effort into supporting one cause and having a positive influence in it within our possibilities. We are only human, and just because we are defending one cause in particular (in this case, animals), it does not makes us hypocrites nor insensitive to human issues. There will always be unjust situations we will not be able to solve, and it is in our hands to choose our own battles.

Being vegan does not mean torturing yourself for it, it does not mean to stop enjoying life or getting obsessed with food just to “live a few years longer”. One argument I always see is that we will die sooner or later, so we have to live the way we want to and in the best way possible without worrying too much about those causes or the way we nourish our bodies. But if you truly want to lead an optimal, happy life, and leave a good print before you leave this world, should it not mean giving your body good, delicious and healthy foods that affect positively both your health and the animals, so you can lead an even better life? it is quite disappointing to see that veganism and a healthy plant based lifestyle are so related with “unhappiness” or “obsessing yourself” when it is the complete opposite. When it is done for the right reasons, when it is done right, it does not suppose any major struggle and it can turn around your life for the better. A well balanced plant based diet can even give you a better emotional wellbeing (scientifically proved), which inevitably comes with more happiness.

It is not extreme, it is simply making an effort (which can obviously be hard at first, but easily becomes natural as long as you do it right). Even just going to a restaurant and ordering the vegetarian menu instead of the one with meat does so much good, because you’re creating demand for those kind of products and are showing the world that there is growing interest in this kind of lifestyle.

And I have to add that even though I do defend veganism, I also defend small steps, and that being conscious of these situations and trying to approach some of the ideals of veganism (like meatless mondays, for example), is already beyond incredible in itself, and it is something anyone could easily do. I am sure that a lot of people would genuinely consider the entire transition if they at least tried some of these small steps and saw how easy and fulfilling it is. The sensation you get when you know you’re doing something good (for yourself and for the planet) when there is no meat on your plate is quite indescribable, even more pleasing than the act of eating meat. There are just too many advantages to this kind of lifestyle, and I promise it is truly worth it in the long run.

[queenkiara07]

Cont;nue

Note: This post is about Depression. If you feel vulnerable and emotionally unstable and you’re not sure whether you can deal with any post regarding this topic, please, don’t proceed. Come back when you’re ready. But, if you have the guts to take, reflect, and think about what’s written here, congratulations! Keep it up.

I AM NOT A THERAPIST. NOR A PSYCHIATRIST. I AM JUST A FRIEND.

—

I won’t lecture you about the medical side of depression. I am not licensed to do that. I won’t give you statistics on how many people are suffering from it ‘cause i’m pretty sure those numbers won’t show the actual number of cases all over the world. I won’t tell you stories of famous people who once suffered and survived. I won’t tell you my story. I won’t do any of that. I honestly don’t know what I will give or offer you with this post. Let me just spill my thoughts and hope for the best. Again, I am your friend here. I won’t sugarcoat anything. I will be bluntly honest with what I will say (type) so last warning, if you can’t handle it, leave. — Depression is obviously one fucking devil who keeps on messing with a lot of lives. Teens, adults, males, females, celebrities, ordinary people. Everyone. Anyone. It doesn’t have one major cause. Most of the time it’s the accumulation of the bad things that has occured. There’s just one trigger. And once it starts, it’s hard to stop. Your mind won’t stop bugging you. The voices inside you won’t shut the eff up. Everything that can make you feel sad, pathetic, alone, worthless, useless, it’ll fill your head and drown you when you’re not even close to any water. The bullying; how they laughed at you, dragged you down, called you names. The heartbreaks; how they cheated on you, mistreated you, left you hanging, made you beg for a love you thought you deserve. The grief of losing someone you love. May it be your Mom, Dad, sibling, grandparent/s, lover, friend/s or a pet. The failures; the exam you failed when you’re on sixth grade, the interview you messed up for your first job, the game winning shot you missed during a championship game. The mistakes you’ve committed; the lies you told someone that blew up on you face, the pain you’ve caused to someone that matters to you, that tiny error on a document your boss asked you to encode. The insecurities; your imperfect your teeth, the fats that shows when you wear a certain dress, your body hairs that grows way too fast and too much than normal, your complexion, your height, hair, brows, basically your whole body. Your dreams that you’re unable to fulfill. The pressure you feel when you see your friends or batchmates, living an amazing life, getting married, travelling, giving birth while you’re stuck in a place you have no idea how you got in. The opinions, judgements, hurtful words you’ve received from a total stranger to a family member. The abuse you’ve endured from your alcoholic father, your drug addicted mother, your pervert uncle and neighbor, your inconsiderate teacher, your asshole employer. Everything. Every single thing that will make you feel miserable will be on repeat inside your head. The voices inside you knows you very well. It knows what to say to break your heart, to tear you apart. Until it affects you. Until you get to this certain point of darkness where you’ll feel like its impossible to escape or find the light. Your self esteem drops. You don’t know your worth anymore. You feel useless. And you want to be alone. You’ll stop fixing yourself and start hiding inside your room cause you’re too embarrassed to go out. You don’t feel like going out. You’re afraid to go out. You push people away. Get distant, be cold, shut down and don’t talk to people for days, weeks or even months. You talk less, and cry more. You forgot what makes you happy or at least what makes you smile. The foods taste the same. The chocolates you used to love is not as sweet as it was before. Your favorite dish is not as savory as it was before. The memes you used to laughed at is not as funny as it was before. The music doesn’t make you groove or sing. Pen and paper doesn’t make you want to write again. The movies bores you. The colors on your palette irritates you. The skates you used to ride doesn’t give you thrills. The guitar you used to play is in the corner covered with cobwebs. Your definition of fun becomes blurry. The person you used to be becomes a distant memory. You totally forgot who you are. Then, you’ll find temporary escapes. Alcohol, cigarette, drugs, sex, physical pain. Anything that eases the pain inside is addictive. And that’s where the nasty part of being depressed begins. You drink until you passed out and wake up with a nasty headache, lying on a strangers couch. Smoke packs of cigarette, burn your lungs until you can no longer breathe. Do drugs, get high, and forget the world for a moment. Engage in casual and unprotected sex. Work hard for the pleasure you seem not to feel. And the physical pain. The nastiest and the most common escape. Self harm. Blood. Cuts. Bruises. Broken knuckles. Suicidal attempts. The feeling of hopelessness creeps in. You want to end everything. You can no longer take it. You can no longer handle the pain. — Stop. Breathe. Calm yourself. Clear your mind before proceeding to the next paragraph. — I won’t give you a quote to live by. I won’t tell you to pray and talk to God. I won’t tell you to go and seek professional help. I won’t tell you to talk to somebody you trust. This is what I am telling you; TALK TO YOURSELF.

Ask yourself these questions. How many times you’ve wanted to give up? How many times you’ve cried your heart out and said you can’t do this anymore? How many times you’ve cut your wrist, bleed, and got your wound healed? How long have you been fighting through this nightmare? Are you that weak to quit???? Have you fought this hard all through these years just to give up?

So far, you’ve survived 100% of your life. Why give up now?

Talk to yourself. Cause you’ll only listen to one person, and that is yourself. A psychiatrist or therapist can only do so much. They can give you drugs to lift up your mood or diversions but is that real healing? No. You need to convince yourself that you can do this, that you’ll pick your ass off the ground, dust it off and you’ll do everything to find the way out. Remember, its the voices inside your head that caused you this darkness. Its your inner demons that brought you to this hell. And only you can help yourself. Only you can control them. Only you can shut them up. Its hard. I know. But living everyday like everything will fall apart any moment is hard as well. Choose your hard. Control your mind and everything in it. You own that fucking shit, and you should control it and not the other way around. This is a war between you and you. And you can’t win this if you don’t trust your strengths. You’ve survived a lot. You’re stronger than you think. Trust your instinct. Trust yourself. You got this. You’ll win this. Be your biggest supporter when you feel down. Be your brightest light in times of darkness. Cause no matter what happens, day or night, yourself won’t ever leave you. It will always be there waiting for you to call. Unleash the beast you have. You are bigger than any demons you’ve got. — I want you to know, whoever you are, whatever you’re going through. Its okay. Its okay not to be okay (Credits to Jessica Cornish). You’re not alone in this. Everyone deals with shits everyday. Different demons, same hell, just different levels. Some are just good at pretending they’re fine. But I am telling you, to feel down is normal. To be sad is human. Even superheroes with superpowers feel depress sometimes. Its okay! You’re not alone in this. There are people who understands. And if you can’t find one, face a mirror and you’ll see one. Understand yourself.

The only thing that I can tell you is you’re on your own in this fight. Not because people don’t want or can’t help you, but because I don’t want you to depend on someone else. Don’t give the responsibility to make you feel good or happy to someone else. That’s your responsibility and yours only. 'Cause if you give that responsibility to someone else, you’re also giving them the license to make you feel bad or sad. We all got a life to live. And with that life includes problems to deal with. Deal with your own problem. Make yourself a priority. 'Cause not all the time people that cares about you will prioritize you. They’ve got a life too. Be there for yourself. Spend time with yourself. Get to know yourself more. Rediscover yourself again. Love yourself always! And help yourself. Healing starts from within and not from somebody else. If you’re in the dark, don’t wait for someone else to show you light. Be your own light. Shine bright and get the fuck out of there.

Let me believe that you can do it. The world is waiting for you. Believe it or not, the world needs you. I have this belief; that those who went through darkness have the softest, selfless and kindest hearts. And that’s the world needs now. Kindness. Inspiration. Stories of survival. Light. Love.

Our world now is so dark that even the younger ones go through this stuff when they’re supposedly having fun and living life to the fullest. The light you have in your heart, the glow that your soul has is what our world needs. Save yourself please, then, let’s save the world. Or at least someone else in the dark. — If you’re feeling down as you’re reading this, I will make you do these things. Cry. Scream. Punch the wall for the last time. Break the mirror. Throw things. LET IT ALL OUT. Cry. Scream. And cry. As long as you want. Think about EVERYTHING that brought you to this hell. The pains. The heartaches. The disappointments. The failures. The judgements. EVERYTHING. Cry. But promise yourself this– this will be the last time you’ll cry and be miserable because of those things. Enough. One last time, let it all out. Then, go to sleep or take some rest. Relax. Don’t think about anything. Wake up, get up, put some music you like, and fix the mess you did. Let’s start with that. Pick up the broken glasses. Wipe off the blood. Clean your wounds. Put some ice in your knuckles. Take a bath and put something in your eyes to ease the puffiness. Then let everything go. I know its hard. But, what’s not? Everything is hard. You just have to choose your hard. The first step of anything is hard. But, it’ll be all worth it. Take your time. Don’t rush things. Nothing happens in a snap of a finger. Healing is not magic, its a process. Fill your life with positivity and try not to contradict them. Listen to beautiful songs. Inspirational songs to lift up your morale. Try to stay away from social media, that shit is sometimes depressing. Eat. Eat on time! Whether you’re hungry or not, when its time to eat, you eat. Take care of your body. Do what you think will help you besides the temporary escapes you already did. Write. Sing. Dance. Draw. Edit photos or videos. Go out. Walk. Run. Work out. Play ball. Listen to music. Go to parks or museums. Cook. Sleep. Take a bath. Swim. Eat. Anything! Then, do it everyday. Make it your routine. Before you know it, it’ll be on your system.

Do things for yourself. Prioritize yourself. Help yourself. Love yourself. That’s the best I’ve got for you. And YOURSELF is the greatest thing and the only thing you need to get through this. YOU GOT THIS. —

Let me share some songs that inspired me a lot: (hope these will help you too) 1. Who You Are - Jessie J (My fav! And probably my most recommended) 2. Fight Song - Rachel Platten 3. You Don’t Really Know Me - Jessie J 4. I Need This - Jessie J/Chris Brown 5. Masterpiece - Jessie J 6. Nobody’s Perfect - Jessie J 7. Stand By You - Rachel Platten 8. Hero (Kick Ass OST) - Jessie J 9. Harder We Fall - Jessie J 10. Love Myself - Hailee Steinfeld 11. Burn Bright - Natalie Grant 12. Who’s Laughing Now - Jessie J 13. Heartbeat Song - Kelly Clarkson 14. Superheroes - The Script 15. It’s My Party/Sexy Lady -Jessie J (These are my confidence booster)

continue living and being alive ; I BELIEVE IN YOU

[catcomixzstudios]

How To Life Chapter 49

How To Avoid Being An Asshole

- NEVER create a religion out of these guiding beliefs, and ESPECIALLY NEVER create a religion out of these guiding beliefs where you spread the message by killing, harming, and/or prosecuting others who do not share your beliefs. Religions, in theory, generally seek to do good in the world. I respect that. However, almost all religions (or even just groups of people) will usually develop at least a sub-sect of individuals who spread messages of goodwill towards others by violently attacking them. It’s vain of me to assume someone would try to make a religion out of these ideals, but just in case, I’d like to clearly state that I do NOT want that to happen. That person is doing something I don’t approve of. If these guiding beliefs help you, that’s awesome, but I don’t want it to be any more than that. If you ever have to cause harm to someone else to try and spread a message, that to me says that either your message is shit, or at least you yourself are a piece of shit.

- Don’t kill, harm, or threaten people, animals, etc if you don’t have to. This is a very tough thing to fully elaborate on. I firmly believe that most situations can be resolved without the use of violence. But if someone is trying to stab you, I don’t think it’s bad to try and defend yourself. To me, violence is always and absolutely the last option and NEVER something you should start. If others have hurt you, acting on their level isn’t how you beat them. Be better than them. Actions taken on a violent impulse tend to have drastic consequences. Obviously I can’t speak to every single possible scenario, but you should seek to avoid causing others physical or mental harm whenever possible. A vast majority of people will likely not be trying to kill or hurt you. As a matter of respect, you should do the same for others.

- Don’t be a dick to people. You don’t have to be friends with everyone you meet to offer even the most basic levels of respect. If someone helps or just offers to help, be thankful. If someone disagrees with you, you don’t have to be an asshole about it. If someone’s a dick to you, dwelling on it is only going to get you to act that way as well. Not every day is a good day, of course, but trying to make other people’s lives worse because of your issues isn’t helping anyone. You have to take a stand at times, of course, but try to pick your battles wisely. Some dicks are going to be dicks no matter what you do, and just aren’t worth the time or brain-space. We have to live together, so the least we can do is go about our business without pissing each other off when we can.

- Don’t rape or molest others. No one owes you sex, no matter who they are or what you’ve done for them. You don’t owe anyone else sex, no matter who they are or what they’ve done for you. Your body is your own, and everyone else’s bodies are their own. Forcing or trying to coerce someone into sex they aren’t interested in is one of the most shitty things you can do to another person. Listen to people. If you pay even the slightest bit of attention, they will give you cues on how comfortable they are. If you choose to ignore these and force someone into that situation anyway, then I absolutely hope the most horrible things possible happen to you.

- Never own another human being. Slavery is great if you’re a slave owner. Lots of free labor done by people you get to mistreat with no repercussions. If the tables were turned however, I don’t think you’d be so happy to get up in the morning. I hope it becomes REALLY obvious that forcing or coercing people into shitty situations is a shitty thing to do. No sentient species should be subservient to their own people. No one should live a life feeling like they can never escape.

- Don’t use drugs or other things that can have a negative impact on yourself and others. With things like alcohol, use it responsibly. The medical field has made great strides with drugs that can help treat diseases and increase our chances of survival. Crystal meth is not one of those drugs. Hardcore drugs like that will fuck your body up something fierce, and the “benefits” are not worth it. Unless you enjoy staying up for several days straight and feeling like invisible spiders are crawling all over you. On the other hand, there are things like marijuana and alcohol. While I don’t use them myself, if used responsibly, I don’t think there are any problems with things like that. Those can be just as (if not more) problematic than the hardcore drugs if handled poorly, however.  

- Don’t steal from others. Would you be happy if your most prized possession was stolen from you? I’d wager not. Respect people’s property. If people have bought or made something, taking it from them is a dick move. There certainly will be cases where a person might have to steal to survive, but there’s a big difference between that and taking your neighbor’s sweet new laptop because you hate your current one.

- Don’t break or damage people’s stuff. Pretty much the same idea as stealing, while also remembering that destroying something of someone else’s is an asshole thing to do as well. If someone stealing your stuff makes you unhappy, just imagine how you’ll feel if it turns out they broke it instead?

- Don’t lie whenever possible. Spreading lies, mistruths, or withholding important information can and often will make situations worse. Technically, telling the truth in some cases may do that as well, but I’d personally rather learn to accept truths then become more comfortable with lies. Like with most things, there are levels of lying; saying you’re having a good day rather than a mediocre one isn’t on the same level as blaming someone else for a theft you committed. It’s absolutely good to tell the truth in most cases, but I will begrudgingly admit that sometimes you might have to lie to keep the peace. Just understand that lies built on lies may eventually be revealed as being just that, and the fallout for it will be much worse.

- Avoid holding grudges. Do the best you can to hang onto the positivity in life. I firmly believe that most people are generally good, though it might not always show. We can be distrusting and rude to one another, but at least part of that comes from a fear of the unknown. There might be some individuals that you come to know that hurt you, but I promise there will be others who want to help you. Focus on those that want to help you and who make your life better. I’m not asking you to completely forgive those that have wronged you; you owe them nothing. But once you can get them out of your life, don’t let your anger towards them continue to pull you back in. Doing so only serves to hurt your more.

- Try not to get too worked up over little things. In the day to day, lots of small annoyances will come and go. If you choose to hold onto them and let them keep breaking you down, it will make things worse. Acknowledge them, of course. Don’t pretend that bad things have never happened. Yet find time to consider how important some of these things might be. Consider what situations are things you won’t ever have to worry about a few years down the line, let alone even for tomorrow.

- Don’t fear those that are different from yourself. Things that you don’t know or fully understand can be intimidating. Some people react by dismissing these things. Some react by showing overt aggression. Most of the time, however, those that are different from yourself simply live their lives in a different way (usually one that doesn’t negatively impact you). There will certainly be individuals that seek to harm you for aspects of your being that you may or may not have control over, but spreading more of that behavior around never serves to make things better; it just validates fear. Try to look with fresh eyes to people that live differently but mean no harm. To me, it’s the differences between individuals that make life interesting and help us grow.

- (Generally) avoid absolutes. Very few matters in life are purely black and white matters of good and evil. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that one certain thing is always good or bad, but keep in mind that all groups are made up of individuals. Many things we get angry about are merely tools, and while some might absolutely be misused, it is the singular cases we should focus on. This isn’t always possible or practical, of course, but deciding that any thing or person is ultimately one way or another without much evidence can be dangerous. Carefully put pieces of evidence together and draw your own conclusions.

- Try to avoid frustration from perceived ignorance. Or to put it another way, remember that not everyone has the knowledge and/or the experience that you do. We’ve all lived different lives and had different experiences. Some of us have obtained much more knowledge of a particular topic over time, and keeping in mind that most others haven’t had the same opportunity will help you avoid some minor frustrations. Remembering that for yourself when learning from others will also help.

- Never get a tattoo of a romantic partner’s name. Look I know you might really love the person you’re with right now. But I swear, like the day after you get that tattoo of that person’s name, you’ll totally have some big fight or something and possibly even break up right there. Then you’re gonna be stuck with a tattoo of your exe’s name and you’ll have to go through a whole big process to either cover it up or get rid of it. Tattoos can be pretty awesome, mind you, but just be absolutely sure it’s something you won’t regret to have on your body like 50 years from now.

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[fuck-customers]

idfc anymore

I was tempted to go anonymous but I am far too tired.

I haven't really made a post yet, I've just been following this blog for quite a while as a release as I'm sure is the same for most. But things have changed and I thought for the better, not so sure now.

this does not include the 2nd job I'd gotten WHILE working this one, which put me at 7 days a week, a little around 60 hours a week, for 9 months. That in itself was hell and requires an entirely different submission.

It'll probably get long so just scroll to the tl;dr at the bottom if you want idc.

When I had just graduated HS, I waited the summer out before applying for a job. I already knew I wasn't going to college - a 2.3GPA isn't going to get you anywhere, especially when you're in the working class just brushing the poverty line. Getting loans is not something I wanted to do either, since everyone I'd ever met, seen, or heard who'd gotten them were miserable fcks.

At the suggestion of a relative I dropped off my resume everywhere it interested me. I got hired. Things looked good. I bonded with one of the coworkers, wasn't so bad. But I was inexperienced. And their idea of 'training' was to send 3 different people from 3 different parts of the business to train me on their own time, separately, and then argue about it because either something was miscommunicated i.e I was taught to do something one way but another person said that was wrong so they'd scold me and then "re-teach" me. This went on for a few weeks.

Okay, cool, fine. Whatever. That's stupid, you do you. Shit kind of improves. But because of this miscommunication, I get a write up for talking to one of the co-workers about something I wasn't supposed to because technically they're NOT a coworker and I don't find out exactly what that means until later (paid under the table) nor was I told I couldn't speak to them about the fact that this random ass volunteer was not only getting in the way of my work, but was being a safety hazard for my clients, despite my many warnings and corrections. Because obviously we are a hive mind and I must know that 1. Do not speak to paid-under-the-table "employees" 2. Do not tell mentally unstable child to not crawl into bin and taunt clients 3. Especially do not ban him when he was spraying the hose nozzle directly at clients.

So I get a "strike". Boss lady holds out her fingers and ticks them off once by one, as If I had made a horrible grievance upon the business. I'd only been working there for a few months, I believe. Still early, still new. Still young, fresh out of HS. 

A little back story cause I really feel this is integral to the story and hopefully for those with the same issues will look at this like "ye same" and those who haven't might be able to understand the following actions on the part of myself and others. Either way, here you go:

I've got diagnosed C-PTSD, Anxiety, Depression Bipolar, and ADHD. It has been heavily suggested I also fall along the Autism spectrum (by various doctors and nurses). I am also a victim of emotional, psychological, mental, and physical abuse (with a little stockholm I recently discovered, it's not something you yourself are generally aware of and now that I am it's ... It's worse than if I didn't know.), and I have been suffering with it for as long as I've been consciously aware to the present day. I don't always like to be so forthright with this kind of knowledge because there are quite a few people that either don't believe me, or then don't think I'm reliable enough to function and/or work. So it's usually best I don't.

And during the entire time of my employment there, I underwent a lot of manipulation and emotional abuse. A lot. By a person who believed they were doing a service for others. 

The months go on. I continue to be mistreated but it doesn't get bad until my family decide they want to adopt from the shelter boss lady also happens to run. I'm at work and I am notified of the cutest little puppy who had just gotten surrendered. I immediately asked my parents if they'd like the foster (we'd been looking for a 'family dog'). Said yes but couldn't get down there. I said that's fine, I'll fill the paperwork out. So I go to the other side and I fill everything out, we're set. We go home later on and she fits in perfectly. We decide then we'll adopt her come morning when the shelter opens up again.

Morning comes, I'm about ready to walk out the door to go to work, but I'm sent a message from one of the coworkers. "Bring the puppy in" was essentially the message being sent. Puppy's mom had originally surrendered puppy because she couldn't find a place to live that would accept dogs. So she surrendered her. But then in the morning she found a place. What a moron. Anyway.

Boss lady accepted her to having her dog back. No communication to me other than "Bring the dog in". Well we were about to adopt. Essentially what this scenario was turning into was: You work for me, therefore I 1. Don't have to explain myself 2. You work for me 3. The dog is my property.

So I'm texting the coworker back and forth like "Uh I need a little more info, also my parents want to talk with the ACO". This takes way too long, I eventually get the number, mom and ACO have a chat. I thought it went well. Apparently it didn't. He was giving her the script, paraphrased and a little blase. Moms pissed, understandably. She blows it out of proportion, note she's a psychotic bitxch and does this often with everything involving life but I can see where she's coming from with this. I'm like alright well I have to go to work, good luck barring the doors from the "Police". We go to work and it's kind of fcked.

We open the doors and everyone goes silent and turns towards us, in the kind of way you know they were just talking about you. Cause we got everyone in one room. The Boss Lady, the girl txting me over the phone, the ACO, some unnamed volunteer[s]. It's fcking uncomfortable and idk whats going on. The coworker I'd been txting was known and a little too happy to gossip, run her mouth, and cause problems. I was not surprised this was what was going on, but it didn't make me any less pissed.

Boss Lady confronts relative who'd dropped me off at work. He barely says a word, just stares at her, while she's maybe a couple inches from him. She says things like "Don't stare at me like that, this is how it works" "They are MY property, and as MY property I CAN call the police and they WILL show up on your front door do you want that?" "Peeriet, go with him to get the dog so I know she's coming back." And other really really volatile bullshit. The fact that she called the puppy her PROPERTY, threatened to call the POLICE, like...I was there during all of these interactions. My texts were neutral and just asking questions, my moms convo with the ACO was really calm and easy, and the relative was doing nothing but standing there and staring as she went off her rocker. So. 

I said no, I have to go to work, I'm not going with him to get the dog but he's going to get her. So he goes, I clock in, I leave.

I go to my job and vent to my coworker about the situation because I was still trying to wrap my head around it, when the ACO shows up wanting to have a private "chat."

The fcking conversation went something like this.

"So uh, you really care about your job, right?"

this fcking asshole was alluding, in so many words, probably to get the point across while also saving his ass so if I had gone to anyone saying he THREATENED MY POSITION OVER MY HEAD TO MAKE ME COOPERATE it may have been a problem. Wonder why.

So I said yeah, it's not even an issue also, they're bringing the dog back, etc. They'd even said because I filled out the application under my name that I was liable for anything to happen if it were to happen and that, because it's under my name, well, shucks, this is all your responsibility at the end of the day, we can wipe our hands clean and call it good.

Even though we were following the 'rules' and never once 1. Yelled 2. Caused a scene 3. Refused 4. Or threatened.

So that's settled. I thought. I go home and moms pissed. Que the next few weeks of absolute stupid shit storm via the internet by way of her leaving a trail of bad reviews. Of course this falls on me.

Everything my mom ever did or said, was my fault, as they "alluded" because we can't tell the truth in this business lest we be taken to court for whatever illegal activity we're probably doing behind closed doors.

So that started a whole new thing. They're hatred becomes amplified. Coworkers I'd bonded or befriended just outright stopped talking to me, barely acknowledging my precense and going to my manager for anything, including relaying messages to me. This did not stop for another 2 years.

So eventually things calm down, as calm as it could get. I continue to get harassed a lot, manipulated. I get injured at work fairly frequently, more than most - injuries that required medical treatment. I lied my first visit because it was after work. I was truthful the other time. I'd already been told by a few coworkers but Boss Lady specifically had a few special conversations with me about not telling any of my family I got injured at work, "Because you know how your mom is". They always spoke too sweetly, too nicely and feeding me excuses to cover up the real reasons. And I'd been so used to abuse my whole life that stockholm was bleeding into my work life and if anyone has ever fcking experienced that, it is fcking hell.

So I didn't tell anyone.

Until I'd gotten injured real bad. A dog had clamped full jaws onto my leg and shook. I had an indent for every tooth, including at least 3 deep punctures. I had it disinfected, shot a water missile into the punctures to make sure debris was out, wrapped, and given meds, orally and topically. I limped when I went home. And at the weekend went bye, I continued to get worse emotionally. I couldn't keep this a secret, I was experiencing actual physical pain because of the situation I'd been put under and I, mentally, could not cope. So I blew up in the kitchen. I had a meltdown, I showed my leg, I explained what happened, I said sorry but that I couldn't hide it anymore. 

The next day or days at work I told boss lady I couldn't hide it. I just couldn't. She backpeddled, explained "Oh no no, you shouldn't feel like you have to hide it, I never said that." This was her keyphrase after being called out for every single threat, warning, and manipulation. "I never said that.". Because it was true. She didn't. She said it in a way that couldn't hold her accountable in any true legal situation.

Months go by. I continue with the abuse not just at home but at work now. Abuse most people wouldn't even consider was abuse, but unfortunately I'd been groomed for this sort of thing my entire life, so when it happened at work? I fit in so naturally I didn't even know it was abuse/wrong until I'd left. 

And the real kicker is that she knew of my mental disorders. Because when stockholm had got me good, and I was especially tired, and I'd suffered some real hard shit at home, I'd break and I'd confess to boss lady in hopes of some kind of understanding: See, this is what I deal with, please don't mistreat me.

I wrote letters. I tried talking to her one on one. I tried working so hard at work to show how good I'd gotten.

Each letter was misunderstood. She'd bring me into her office after our oral talk and tell me that, because of what I'd written, I could be misunderstood, taken 'at my word.' "Well it says here that you don't ... want to work with your clients? Well if this is true then I legally can't have you with them. Because you wrote it. And legally I have to put this in your file." So I had to rewrite it, delete everything incriminating so I was left with my personal feelings.

Talking with her wasn't possible. She used tactics my mother does, so I physically couldn't talk, and I did, it was only "Sorrys" and "Thank yous" and accepting I was wrong and she was right and yes, I understand.

Working hard didn't work. I paid for my training personally and attended a school solely to improve. I kept making mistakes though. I wasn't good enough. I was doing some of the work my manager was with none of the pay, none of the acknowledgment or acceptance. I brought her in money, and clients, and good reviews, for nothing more than what I'd already had. Because she knew I wouldn't fight for it. Because she knew I'd continue giving her money and she didn't have to shell out anything more. And legally she didn't have to, because I had no experience, I was out of HS, and no official schooling.

But she'd always give me 'tidbits' of 'rewards'. The kicker for anyone with stockholm and/or abuse is you can basically continue to abuse them without too much issue if they 'reward' you and make it seem like they're doing you a favour. You know what I mean?

So she'd have occasionally 'positive' conversations, or she'd 'comment' something good about me, but I really loved when she'd give me a .50cent raise about twice in 2 years disguising it under her "charity" when it was probably because it was actually required. Cause in her office I was like "Why do I have a .50cent raise?" "Why are you asking, that's not something you normally ask when getting a raise." "???" "It's cause -....Just be thankful" Yeeee you see that? See that? How she almost said something but didn't? Yeah.

When she hired a new person they actually made about the same as me but more than another coworker, who'd been there longer, and when asked, boss lady said she basically didn't want to pay him if he wasn't sticking around (What kind of bullshit is that). He was. He corrected her, and his pay got fixed.

Again, months passed. Sometimes It'd be so good and I truly loved my job. I formed relationships with the clients to this day I can't think about because I get emotional. And every time she would critique me. Make things harder for us, she'd always be watching us on the cameras, and if she didn't see us, she'd assume we weren't working. She'd even come out of office to walk by just to watch us as she passed. 

2 months ago she made some changes. She'd hired someone that was her irl friend. The entire business save 1 or 2 people, were connected either by blood, marriage, or irl friendship. Which wasn't a good thing.

So she hires this new manager. Does ok for maybe a week or two. But then they started making some changes. She redid how we did our payments and filed clients in a really convoluted way. We went back to the old system in a week.

Then she switched everyones schedules. Really inconveniently and without asking anyone for confirmation like she said. She never even spoke to me like she did the others. 

Then she wanted opening crew to take our lunches back to back. Which made the early morning person take their lunch 6-7 hours after they'd already been clocked on, and me take mine only a couple hours after I'd been clocked on. Well, what about the afternoon crew?

Afternoon crew, as Boss lady told our manager and new morning crew person, didn't have to take a lunch now because of the new schedule. Which put him at over 5/5.5 hours anyway, despite the hour cut.

My hours were being cut. She'd just hired new manager and new morning crew, who'd taken over everything of mine previously. She'd also already fired a few people, and the new minimum wage mandatory increase was right around the corner.

I watched my hours. I waited. Few days pass. The next week comes, everyones on edge, I'm a fireball.

She tells us we're not allowed to keep our "belongings" with the rest of the other clients when we're on lunch. We must remove them into an entire separate room, because they would otherwise make our numbers higher (of total clients allowed in a space per person ratio) and thus become "illegal". We'd been seen by a health inspector twice in a year or so by request of a client who wasn't too keen on our 'policies'. Boss Lady was adamantly covering bases, which meant fcking everyone over.

It was kind of the last straw. I applied elsewhere, got accepted, and left. I spent 2 weeks after my last day literally going through a detox/withdrawal. I became physically ill. I had mental breakdowns about once every couple days. It was hell, it was horrible. I hated every minute of it.

Someone else left. A month later another person left. Several people that'd gotten hired have already been fired. And apparently a business too similar to the glory days of the place I'd left, has moved a couple blocks down the road to a second location. 

I've gotten a new job, but It's only partially an improvement, and I am still affected everyday by the abuse I'd suffered at that place, coupled with everything I already go through at home. And I am tired, and I do this alone, and I've been looking for a place to move into for years but minimum wage isn't a livable wage.

I am tired.

tl;dr how tf do you even summarize that?

[s-o-o-b-i-e]

Afraid of the Truth

Title: Afraid of the truth Personages: BonesxReader Note: Not everything is fact based and there will probably be a few mistakes in grammar and spelling, but I wanted to write this story. Another note: I , myself, think that I should have shown Bones character more and I’m not really seeing that in this story, because I find it hard to write it in. So forgive me for that, please still enjoy it :)

The only thing you were thinking of was, being able to eat better food than that you have eaten for 6 months or so. Six months ago you were abducted by the Romulans and you didn’t think you would ever get back and you thought everybody forgot about you. Well you were wrong, it just took a little longer to rescue you. You had missed your friends and wanted to see them badly, but you were also very hungry. You were okay, they didn’t mistreat you or anything, but they also didn’t feed you the best they could. You were also very exhausted and didn’t even have to go the sickbay to get checked upon. You were checked roughly by a certain doctor and he gave his clearance and said that you should really get some sleep first. And so you did, even though you wanted to see your friends badly, they would still be there after a night sleep. When you woke up, you already felt a lot better than when you went to sleep. You drank some water, because you were quite thirsty after sleeping. It was still early in the morning. You decided to check in at sickbay so that you could get a thorough check and also to see your best friend Leonard. He was the only one that kept you sane during these six months. He was there with you in your thoughts and that gave you strength. You knew he would never give up on you and you would never give up in your belief in him. You loved him and not just as a friend, a bit more. You didn’t want to admit it to yourself, because you didn’t want to ruin your friendship. So you kept it hidden, but during the six months you realized that it is something that was there. Still you would try to hid it from him, you just know realized it. When you arrived at sickbay you saw Leonard at once, but his back was facing you. That gave you the chance to be able to stare at him for a short while. Nurse Chapel had seen you and tapped Dr. Mccoy on his shoulder and pointed at you. He turned around and when he saw you he immediately came to your direction. You looked into his eyes and saw relief. At least that was what you could read so fast, because he immediately gave you a hug. A very firm hug to say at least. Even though it hurt a bit, you did not want to end this hug and you felt at home again. ‘ Dammit y/n,’ he whispered and you couldn’t reply to him and just waited. He spoke louder this time and said: ‘I’m glad you are back.’ You replied with: ‘So am I Len… So am I’ You sat down and got a full examination and you were alright, just a few bruises. The most important thing was that you should eat more, because you almost starved to death and it was visible. Dr. Mccoy couldn’t join you jet, because he was still on his shift. Even though he would disregard it for you, you said that you’d be alright. Although you actually  didn’t want to be alone. You had been alone for a long time. You knew you were on the enterprise, but you didn’t exactly know who was part of the crew for the rescue mission. They had a skeleton crew for this mission and you wondered if your other friends were on board. Of course Captain Kirk was on board, but you couldn’t disturb him for a meal and a talk. So you went back to your quarters and ate alone. Thinking about the things that you went through and all of a sudden you became really happy. You were safe again, you didn’t have to be on guard 24/7. Still you didn’t really feel safe, you were still on guard and restless, but you felt better. You decided to take a walk to engineering. That has been your workplace for a long time and maybe being around there would make you feel less restless. And maybe Scotty will be there too. You went to engineering and saw no sign of Scotty or other familiar faces and just looked around engineering. It was the same as always. It felt familiar and you actually wanted to get to work, but on the other hand you were also enjoying just looking around. You sat down and looked at the warp core. You had never looked at it this way before. Most of the time you looked at wires or circuits, but now you saw its appearance. It was a flawless design and you followed every single line of the design. Until someone touched your shoulder softly. You had wondered off and was off guard. You jumped up and you heard a voice saying: ‘It’s just me y/n, don’t worry.’ You looked behind you and saw Scotty standing there. You immediately gave him a big and fierce hug and he obviously didn’t expect it. Either way he wouldn’t let you go for a few minutes and you didn’t want to let him go either.  After a while he asked you what you were doing here: ‘Aren’t there better places to go on this ship, or did ya want to start to work already? Because if that is so, I would have to say that you can’t, because your just up and about and…’ ‘No that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to be in a familiar place and actually hoped you would be here too,’ you answered. You and Scotty talked for a while and you began to feel better and better. After an hour or two of talking and working at the same time, Scotty was called to report on the bridge and he had to leave. You decided to leave too, because you were actually really sleepy. You didn’t have that much energy that you thought you got from that little bit of sleep. You went back to your quarters and almost fell asleep as soon as you laid down on your bed. When you woke up you looked into Leonard’s eyes. He was sitting next to your bed. His shift was probably over and he decided to visit you, but you were asleep. ‘What are you doing creep, watching me while I sleep?’ you said with a deep voice and Len couldn’t keep his laugh hidden and said: ‘I just missed you, may I?’ ‘Do you have to watch me when I’m asleep then?’ ‘Well, dammit no of course, but I just thought you might leave after you woke up and that we wouldn’t see each other.’ You laughed at him and asked him if he wanted to join you in bed. This wasn’t weird for the two of you, you did it all the time. You would just lay next to each other and talk endlessly about your day. About Captain Kirk being reckless with his life and about what was so funny at engineering.  He took his shoes off and lay next to you and said: ‘I have really missed you, y/n, please never again.. don’t leave me ever again’ You looked at him and felt a tear falling down your cheek: ‘I’ll try..’ You kept talking a bit more and all of a sudden he noticed that you were not okay. He took your hand and said: ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend with me, I mean I get it,  those damned Romulans, if they try again, they have me to deal with’ You laughed at him for scolding the Romulans and about what they did to you. He was still holding your hand and that seemed to ground you. You actually began to feel better, because of him.  You fell asleep slowly , but still felt the presence of Len and you didn’t feel restless anymore. It was like nothing had happened at all. It felt normal. When you woke up, Len was gone. You didn’t expect him to stay of course, but still you felt better in his presence. You thought that he was probably in sickbay on duty and you  decided to get out of bed. You ate your breakfast and went to Scotty at engineering. You asked if you would be able to report for duty again and he said that it was fine. He had to have a full medical report on your status and he had to talk to the captain about it. That was no problem, so he was sure you would be able to start again the next day. Now you had a day of doing nothing. You were not good at that, you always wanted to be busy with doing something. You decided to go to the gym on board of the enterprise. It was nothing big, but you were able to run and the only thing you wanted to do was running away from all your experiences in these horrible six months. The closest you could come to that physically was by running. You kept running and running. The time stroke by fast and you were still running. You were out of breath, but you kept running, it felt like you couldn’t stop, but then your knees began to feel weak. You didn’t have enough air and in less than a minute you collapsed. When you woke again you saw the worried face of Dr. Mccoy hanging over you and scanning you with his tricorder. You were fine, you would only suffer from some pain in your muscles. ‘What were you doing, are you out of your mind?’ you hear Leonard Mccoy saying. You probably were.. out of your mind. Why in the hell would you not stop running. You felt like you couldn’t, it felt like if you’d stop running, you would die. It was a strange feeling. You were still lying on the bed in sickbay, while you could already go, but you couldn’t move. Again you didn’t know why, it felt like someone or something was holding you at your place. You didn’t try to fight it and you decided to stay for a while, but slowly fell asleep in sickbay. You woke up in the arms of Leonard, he was busy caring you somewhere, probably to your quarters. For a while he didn’t notice that you were awake and you wondered why he was carrying you instead of transporting you to your quarters. After that while you saw he had a hard time carrying you and you made clear to him that you were awake, by turning your head in his direction and saying: ‘You can put me down know, Len’ He answered nervously: ‘eh yeah, of course, I’m sorry’ He seemed really nervous and you wondered if you did something wrong. And you were not someone to let that go, you wanted to know what was going on. He was never like this with you. ‘What’s wrong Len?’ ‘ ehmm nothing it’s just…’ he stumbled over his words and went silent for what seemed like minutes. You looked at him and said: ‘You can tell me, what’s wrong?’ ‘Well you said, I mean.. You were asleep just now and… and.. well.. you said something and… I was just wondering if.. but probably not…and I don’t want to be.. I mean…’ ‘What is it Mccoy?  What did I say? I don’t know you this way, stumbling over your words.’ You were truly astonished by how he was stumbling on his words and thought that you must have said something really upsetting. ‘Well you were screaming because of something and dammit you looked like you were in pain so I tried to take care of you and it was like … well you… you said you loved me and…’ You were shocked. Did your sleeping self really say that in front of him, how stupid could I be. You waited for him to say more words, but they weren’t coming. You decided that you would just tell him. I mean you’d already said it apparently, you could take the chance. It was now or never. It was a stupid idea and you would probably regret it later, but you still did it: ‘Eh Len, I uh, well that wasn’t just the sleep and the exhaustion talking.’ ‘So you do, like love me?’ he asked carefully. You looked in his eyes and saw hope and thought you might have a chance. It looked like it, so you took the chance and said: ‘Yes Leonard, I … I love you and I do for a long  time. I just didn’t want to ruin everything so...’ ‘Dammit y/n, your good at hiding your secrets. I thought you weren’t interested in me at all, at least in that way.’ He kept quit for a bit and just before you wanted to say sorry and wanted to say that you could forget about it and that you could just stay friends, he said: ‘You crazy, crazy y/n, I love you too.’ You looked at him and actually thought he was joking, but he was not.   You didn’t know what to do, because you didn’t expect this at all. You expected to walk away sad after this, but that wouldn’t be fitting right now. You looked into his eyes and he looked back. You almost got lost in his eyes and you were just standing there. You said nothing and you didn’t move, until he slowly came closer to you. He touched your head with his hand and you felt a shiver through your body. It wasn’t like he never touched you before, but this felt so different and it felt good. Like it was meant to be. Even more slowly he stepped closer to you and you wanted him to get as close as he could. You felt your body against his and it fits precisely. Like it was meant to be that way. You look down to his shoulders and wanted to hide your face in them, but you looked up again. He was looking at you. He was really looking at you and then suddenly, but also slowly, he kissed you. It wasn’t a feeling you had ever felt before. You were intoxicated by the softness of his lips against yours and you couldn’t move for a bit. You started to go through his hair with your hands. You felt like you were falling. He broke the kiss and looked at you, he had a grin on his face that only made you smile brighter. This time you dove your head into his shoulders so that you could feel his shoulders against your head. He laughed and said: ‘Never in my life thought that this would happen to me’

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@medicatemedrmccoy