#into a more patient and kind person who allows for nuance in all things including within myself and what if that let me heal my fractured

[sophieinwonderland]

As a psychotic person with (harmful) delusions and hallucinations, I'd like to chip in and say the way people are responding to your switching + imposition guides with "but they're delusions and hallucinations, obviously these are bad" really rubs me the wrong way. Because it feels like they're trying to support people like me, but they speak about delusions/hallucinations in a way that doesn't really make me feel safe around them. Like, they feel like the kind of people to try and reality check me or tell me to "get help" instead of just letting me exist as a psychotic person, y'know? Shuffle me off to the side because anything related to what I experience (including I, myself) must be hidden away until it doesn't exist "like that" anymore. They're making such a huge deal out of this that it makes me wonder how they'd react if a psychotic person like I confessed to them about having delusions/hallucinations. Would they freak out? The way they talk about these things makes me feel like they'd freak out. And then try to tell me they "know what's best" for me and force onto me their own ideas about how I should manage my psychosis. It's something in how they talk about delusions without actually talking about or with delusional people. Arguing over what we experience without listening to the people experiencing it. Inadvertently promoting the idea that delusions and hallucinations can't be managed and gotten to a healthy level that sometimes people just live with, no need to panic about it. Idk, it's hard to put into words

I very much agree.

These posts often come off as very dismissive and othering.

They cast certain conditions and experiences as these just... objectively terrible things all the time... and then dive straight into trying to police how people are allowed to relate to them.

And while the bulk of this latest discourse has been focused on the dissociation aspect, it's not been exclusively that, as the hallucination subject has been brought up too.

See this post for example:

(Fact check: I have no idea what they mean about me "encouraging dissociation" outside of the switching guide, and I've never said schizophrenia is healthy nor do I believe every person with Schizophrenia to be a system though I do think there is overlap and this is one way systems can form. There's a ton of nuance being intentionally and maliciously cut out but that I don't have the time to bother with.)

This feels a lot more like what you're talking about.

The quoted line about treatment for hallucinations being akin to conversion therapy is something attributed to Dr. Romme of the Hearing Voices Network.

The Hearing Voices Movement started in the 1980s in Europe when a patient confronted Romme about the limitations of the psychiatric care being provided. Why, the patient asked, was it OK for Romme to believe in a God whom he could not see or hear but not OK for her, the patient, to believe in voices that she really did hear? To learn more about the voice-hearing experience and to try to help his patient, Romme had the woman’s story told on TV and asked for other voice hearers to contact him. Approximately 550 reached out. Remarkably, many of the people who heard voices did not need clinical help. Writing in the Journal of Mental Health in 2011 after conducting a literature review, Vanessa Beavan, John Read and Claire Cartwright asserted that it was safe to say that 1 in 10 people in the general population will hear voices. Romme eventually compared psychiatric treatment to eliminate voice hearing to conversion therapy for sexual orientation.

What I love about this story is how it shows a psychiatrist who was actually willing to listen to and learn from their patients instead of simply assuming they know what's best.

Psychiatry has a long history of starting with assuming something is just inherently bad and needs to be gotten rid of from the start and building treatment models around that. In this case, Romme was willing to re-evaluate generations of tradition and develop new treatment methods for the needs of the actual patients instead of trying to force people to fit into society's idea of normalcy.

And I think that's what we need more of in the world. To focus on people's own needs and their health first instead of trying to "fix" undesirable traits.

[suite43]

mini.megs hits different it just does trust me.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Autistic Hiccup x ADHD Anna Headcanons

SO I’ve been really into the whole Autistic x ADHD ship dynamic and Hiccanna...highkey fits??? Like y’all know I will die on my “Anna has ADHD” hill, but after reading this post by @hobie-brown I’m like wait, the autistic Hiccup headcanon is wonderful too??? And blends SO WELL with ADHD Anna??? And I absolutely HAD to explore it more so BOOM headcanon time! Another special thanks to @hobie-brown for writing the super lovely autistic Hiccup headcanon masterpost that inspired me to do this!

Disclaimer: I myself am not on the spectrum (part of the reason I’ve always felt a little weird about definitively HCing characters as autistic unless I see actual autistic people HC them that way too), so most of the stuff here is stuff I know secondhand from my autistic friends! I do have ADHD, so I can always promise that ADHD Anna will be 100% authentic XD

~Anna absolutely gets into Hiccup’s special interests to try and impress him. The most obvious one being, of course, dragons, but also dinosaurs (extinct dragons), lizards (tiny dragons), and Dungeons and Dragons (An RPG game that does, in fact, include dragons). Hiccup absolutely had that dragonology book as a kid and got obsessed with it beyond all reasonability. Hilariously, Anna’s wooing strategy of indulging his special interests works like a charm--mainly because a) he’s pretty flattered that someone takes THAT much of an interest in what he likes and b) half the time, ANNA finds that she genuinely gets into whatever said special interest is and finds them easy to hyperfixate on. It helps that the more she obsesses over it herself, the more she has to talk to Hiccup about XD

~Specifically, Anna definitely joins a DnD campaign at some point so that Hiccup will think she’s a “cool gamer girl”--and then gets unironically obsessed with it and starts writing 10-page backstories for all of her characters. She later tells Hiccup it started out as a ruse to win his heart via nerdiness, and he absolutely loses his shit laughing.

~One of their overlapping special interests/hyperfixations is high fantasy. Hiccup is, unsurprisingly, all about the mythical creatures while Anna is more into the magic and the zesty political drama, but you dun best believe they catch every CGI-ridden fantasy movie that ever comes out. They’ve both spent a literal fortune on fantasy movie tickets, even moreso on watching them in 3D or Imax. How embarrassing for both of them.

~Another less-obvious overlapping interest is history. Hiccup gets into it while looking into the cultural mythos of dragons (he’s pretty fascinated by the fact that so many cultures around the world thought up similar creatures independently), while Anna gets into it because she grew up cooped up bored and lonely in a big house, and entertained herself by looking into the history behind some of the family paintings. They don’t seem it at first, but they’re actually both huge medieval and ancient civilization history buffs.

~Hiccup is THE most touch-repulsed person you will ever meet. This is unfortunate, as he is also SUPER touch-starved and absolutely does not realize it (I mean, I’ve never gotten the vibe Stoic was the super huggy type, considering his and Hicc’s relationship in HTTYD 1). This means he has absolutely no fucking clue what to make of Anna when they first meet meet. Anna’s the sort of person to give physical affection pretty freely, especially if she likes you--usually in the form of hugs, arm pats or playful swats, putting her elbow on your shoulder, etc etc. Hiccup is kinda just like “this is way too much touching but like??? I kinda like having her this close to me??? What do???”

~Anna, meanwhile, notices that Hiccup kinda stiffens up whenever she touches him and seems to not be crazy about it and she’s just immediately like “yo what’s wrong???” And as SOON as he admits he’s not all that crazy about being touched randomly she’s like “OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY” and never touches him without asking again.

~As soon as she finds out touch a kind of A Whole Thing for him, Anna is like...AGGRESSIVELY respectful of Hiccup’s boundaries when it comes to physical affection. Almost annoyingly so. She gets in the habit of basically never initiating any kind of physical touch without asking first--even long after they’ve started dating, and he’s told her it’s okay to initiate touching as long as she’s not smothery about it. She still refuses out of principle.

~They come up with a kind of “consent language” so Anna can pretty quickly determine when it’s all right to touch Hiccup--because Anna still really likes being physically affectionate with him, and he does actually like receiving physical affection a lot of the time (because, again, touch-starved), he’s just choosy about who does it. They work out a system based off of small, light touches that Hiccup doesn’t mind where it’s basically 2 taps on his shoulder for “can I hug you around the neck,” 2 taps on his side for “can I hug you around the waist,” 2 taps on his arm for “can I grab/lightly slap/punch your arm,” and 1 tap on is shoulder for “can I put my arm/elbow on your shoulder.” If he’s cool with it he’ll either nod or just say “yeah go ahead.” It works a lot quicker than asking “can I do such-and-such specific touch” every single time, and allows Anna to keep some of her spontaneity. They develop this during their friendship and it ends up rolling over into their relationship, even after Hiccup has basically told her she doesn’t need to ask permission for a lot of these anymore. She adds a new one after they start dating--she taps him a couple times wherever she wants to kiss him to ask if it’s cool to give him a smooch! It usually is.

~INFODUMPING. Literally SO. MUCH. INFODUMPING. Hiccup absolutely WILL NOT SHUT UP when he gets to talking about one of his special interests. Anna just will not shut up in general, but when the topic changes to one of her hyperfixations, it’s even worse. If you try to have a conversation with these two while they’re infodumping, you WILL get talked over. Honestly, left to their own devices, they could probably infodump to each other for literal days on end.

~Despite how much they both like to infodump, they’re both pretty good about being patient and indulging the other when it’s their partner’s turn to infodump in the conversation XD They are, however, notorious about accidentally triggering a barely-related infodump in the other person. It’s not uncommon for one of them to finish a rant and then the other goes “OH THAT REMINDS ME” and sets off on a completely different, barely-related rant.

~Hiccup actually really appreciates how overexpressive--and occasionally overdramatic--Anna tends to be. He never has to try and figure out what she’s thinking because she just says everything in her brain, and her body language basically always matches how she’s feeling to a ridiculous extent, so he never has to give himself a headache trying to read her. The fact that she’s the opposite of subtle and has no filter whatsoever works great for him, because he doesn’t have to drive himself insane trying to understand her. He gets her better than he gets most people because she’s an open goddamn book. The boy’s never been the best with social cues at all, never mind the nuanced, obscure ones, so Anna’s general straightforwardness and utter inability to hide her true feelings at literally any time is a breath of fresh air. What you see is basically what you get, and Hiccup wouldn’t have it any other way.

~People think when Anna and Hiccup start dating it’s gonna be a disaster, mainly because he’s so blunt and she can be...”oversensitive” (i.e. has a REALLY bad case of RSD). Turns out they’re dead wrong--because Hiccup has RSD too! (I mean, come ON--look how BADLY he wants to get his village’s approval! And how hard he takes it when his dad or someone else is mad at him--even if he tries to hide it with snark) He’s actually one of the few people who can be blunt enough with Anna that she realizes when she’s being a dumbass but tactful enough not to hurt her feelings or set off her RSD--because god, has he been there. When Anna is being especially difficult and has worked herself into a real bad funk, Hiccup (and sometimes Elsa) is the only people who can talk to her and get through to her without getting blown up at.

~They stim in similar ways!!! They both tend to fidget or kinda bounce up in down in place as a way to comfort themselves and calm themselves down (I see them both having a lot of anxiety and generally being kind of paranoid, although Anna is MUCH better at hiding this via putting on a cheerful face). They both do the leg bounce!!! Also if they get SUPER excited they’ll do a little awkward happy dance!!! They both also tend to stim by rubbing things in small, repetitive motions--with Hiccup, it’s usually his sketching pens, his ear, his head, or the back of his neck, while with Anna, it’s usually her other hand, her arm, her clothes, or really anything with kind of a comforting, consistent texture (some favorites are rubber, felt, and velvet). After they start dating, they actually will stim with each other’s hands while holding hands--usually by squeezing the other person’s hand in kind of a repetitive pattern or doing the thumb-rub thing on the back of the other person’s hand. It’s not uncommon for them to each be doing something completely unrelated while holding hands and just stimming on each other’s hands the entire time. Anna especially really loves when she feels Hiccup stimming on her, because it’s her little indicator that he’s happy and feels at peace and content in her presence and she LOVES being able to do that for him!

~They both stim by playing with hair too! Anna likes to play with her own to stim--mainly by figeting with the end of her braids or tucking hair behind her ear. She DOES love to ruffle Hiccup’s hair too (and she LOVES how fluffy it is!), but it’s usually not a stim thing. After they start dating, Anna does occasionally stim by massaging Hiccup’s hair/scalp, but she doesn’t usually do it for very long. Hiccup really loves braiding Anna’s hair, or just playing with it when it’s down. it helps him relax and clear his mind to have something fairly repetitive and/or mindless to do.

~Even after gaining some confidence, Hiccup still has a fair bit of social anxiety, so he and Anna basically always go to parties and social events together and stick with each other the whole time to make it less intimidating for him. Hiccup generally prefers to let Anna do the talking when they chat with people, and sometimes if he’s REALLY nervous he’ll sometimes even let her kinda talk for him (not in a condescending “speaking over” kinda way, but more in like a “I can sense you’re not comfortable speaking here so I’ll help you out as best I can” kinda way). She always makes sure to leave space in the conversation for him to take over talking if he wants. She’s also incredibly prone to bragging about his accomplishments to basically everyone they know. Hiccup is both embarrassed and flattered by this.

~When Anna finds out about meltdowns (probably through Hiccup mentioning it kind of offhandedly--“Eh, sorry I went AWOL last night, I was having a bit of a meltdown. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine now.”) she lowkey gets super anxious and frustrated because she REALLY wants to help, but has no idea how. Cue literal HOURS of research on the internet and AGGRESSIVE memorizing of any and all tips that she reads that she thinks would help. Which, of course, means several MORE hours spent going over flashcards like she’s studying for a goddamn test, because Anna has never been known for her sharp, expansive memory.

~The first time Hiccup ever has a meltdown in front of her (maybe after a really bad phone fight with his dad or something? Just general sensory overload?), she takes him to a secluded room and IMMEDIATELY gets rid of anything that could be agitating sensory-wise. She dims the lights! She closes the blinds! She throws a nearby clock, an alarm, a timer, and several other objects with only the slightest potential of making an annoying noise out of a nearby window in a fit of passion! She goes on a frenzied quest to find Hiccup’s noise-cancelling headphones--and finishes it in record time! Even in a state of emotional turmoil, Hiccup realizes that Anna’s being just a little too methodical in how she goes about all this--these are the kind of things that wouldn’t ever occur naturally to her to do. So as soon as he calms down a bit and has screamed into a pillow for a while, he’s like “...did you go on the internet to look up how to help with meltdowns?” and Anna’s like “...yes?” And Hiccup is lowkey so touched he starts crying all over again...and then, naturally, makes a long string of snarky comments to try and distract from it XD

~For their anniversary Anna saves up a bunch and buys Hiccup a lizard and a terrarium!!! She gets him a crocodile skink because, I quote, “Well, they always look annoyed, they’re kinda shy, they don’t like to be touched, and they look like tiny dragons, so they reminded me of you!!!” Hiccup screams like a goddamn fangirl, he’s SO excited. As luck would have it, Hiccup’s crocodile skink is a lot less skittish and prone to hiding than they usually are, and he actually lets Hiccup pick him up and pet him without much issue. Which is honestly great, because repeatedly touching something smooth and even like lizard scales helps calm Hiccup down when he’s agitated and helps with some of his sensory issues.

~Probably goes without saying, but Hiccup basically NEVER genuinely gives Anna a hard time about her memory problems or how she’s not always the quickest on the uptake, and if anyone tries to call her annoying, dumb, or immature he will absolutely roast them into oblivion. He does sometimes like...lightly tease her about jumping into things without thinking or never shutting up, but he never pushes it if he can tell she’s genuinely bothered by it (and, again, Anna is very easy to read, so it’s not hard to tell XD)

~I’ve seen other people in the fandom HC either Hiccup, Anna, or both of them as BOTH autistic and ADHD, and honestly...fuck yes!!! I’m down for this too! I love the idea of these two disaster ND kids just vibing with each other on so many damn levels that it’s like...incomprehensible to the average human XD Like man, they fuckin GET each other!!! I’m pretty happy with most combinations of ADHD + Autistic headcanons for Anna and Hiccup, so long as they end up vibing!!!

~THEY JUST. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. SO MUCH. THEY LITERALLY WOULD DIE FOR EACH OTHER. I AM SURE OF IT. I’M CRYING. 

[krisrix]

Hi fam~ I haven’t been around much in the past little while, but I wanted to take a moment to address something happening in the fandom the past few days... 

As a caveat: I know I’m only active within one subsection of the fandom, so please understand that I am not trying to speak for everyone. On the Discord server I’m a part of, we’ve been having a very deep, nuanced discussion about this for the past two days now. I’m popping in to offer a summary of that discussion. Again, this is only one subsection of the fandom, but I hope that the takeaways of our discussion are something that others can find some comfort in as well.

The bullet points I believe we ultimately agreed on:

Smut with minors is not okay, it doesn't matter who it is written by

"Snowbaz smut" and "smut with minors" is a Venn diagram, not a perfect circle—the concern is with the overlap, not snowbaz smut in general

Anyone over the age of consent can write mlm smut with characters who are also over the age of consent—there is no upper limit on the age where this rule applies (aka no ageism in fandom)

You do not have to out yourself or "be X enough" to engage or create for this fandom and have a home here 

Cishet women are welcomed (for more reasons than can even be accounted for) so long as they are respectful and not fetishizing

Fetishization can occur by anyone, both inside and outside of the group in question

It doesn’t matter who the creator is—queer, questioning, or otherwise—so long as they have a certain level of self-awareness and empathy, they therefore are not fetishizing

If you are worried "am I fetishizing?", then the answer is probably "no", but self-reflection as a healthy routine is always good

Listen to others when they say you’ve done something to make them uncomfortable and try to reevaluate yourself accordingly—you do not have to bow to anyone else’s whims, but you do have to recognize the validity of what they’ve expressed, even if you didn’t intend harm

“Being heard” and “being agreed with” are not the same thing

Blanket statements that gatekeep people always do more harm than good—sequestering groups is historically proven time and again to be the worst thing we can do to each other and is antithetical to developing empathy

We all need to be mindful of the language we use, especially in nuanced discussions

We need to utilize tags appropriately as best we can—this includes adults adding NSFW/Explicit/etc. tags when relevant and the blacklisting of said tags by minors

I could go on for a very long time about so many intricate portions of this discussion, but unfortunately, I don’t have the strength for that at this point. I will leave you with this tangled mish-mosh of thoughts:

If you’re feeling frustrated and like you’re repeating yourself or talking to a brick wall, try to engage in good-faith questions and answers instead. I’ve found that this opens up new opportunities for communication and helps highlight misunderstandings. There was a lot of strong language and negative feelings being tossed around in the server, but after we discussed it for long enough and delved deeper, we realized we were all in agreement! There had just been a number of knee-jerk responses and misconstrued words, which led to an unravelling argument.

I also request that we be more mindful of tossing around the word "p*dophile", etc. That is an extremely loaded word, both for its true meaning and for its historical meaning. Queer folks have been lumped in as and labelled as such for so much of our history, and it is a term very much in fashion at the moment with the alt-right, as well.

Speaking of which, the strong reaction we all had to this discussion is because we are all dealing with our own personal baggage, and much of that baggage has to do with the complex political world we are constantly entrenched in. So it’s understandable that when faced with negativity, our first reaction is to go full fight-or-flight. Being defensive is not necessarily a sign that someone is guilty of something. We have to fight so hard, every day! But this shouldn’t need to be a fight, especially not amongst ourselves.

When they attack us, they do so from a place of negativity and fear. Their whole outlook is “you’re not allowed to do that” and “this is only for me”. That is not what we are about. When they attack us, it is because they lack empathy for our situation. Please note that sympathy and empathy are not the same. You can empathize with those you disagree with. Ultimately, that is what allows us to learn and grow and constantly improve.

We are imitating them when we don’t give other people empathy. We are imitating them when we yell and attack, rather than striving to understand and communicate. It is terrifyingly easy to take the hostility and language of the abuser and then apply it to yourself and/or those around you. Please take care not to mimic that which has hurt you.

We cannot be perfect. We cannot always have the onus on us to be the understanding one, the one willing to be patient and kind, the one willing to educate. The mental labour of that is overwhelming. I merely ask you to take time now and then to check in with yourself and your place within a situation to make sure you’re not adding more negativity into a system, especially one that is already struggling. Yelling at someone and making sweeping statements is rarely a good form of communication.

We’re here because we opened our hearts to these characters. We need to continue to keep our hearts open to each other.

We’re all in this together. 

We are all stardust.

[eolewyn1010]

3 seasons of Charité - upsides and downsides

Includes spoilers for all three seasons!

What I like about Charité, season 1:

- Ida is a relatable and stubborn woman, and while I think the protagonists of the newer two seasons are written better and more interestingly, she makes for a good central character

- Behring is great to watch, complex, enthusiastic, arrogant, passionate, desperately forlorn, sweetly encouraging, irascible, honest, and I’m always torn between loving and hating him with all my heart

- he also stands in for how badly society was suited to handle people with psychological issues back in the day

-  actually, none of the characters are simple or one-sided; expectations are often subverted – Behring is not heartless, but he can’t just be “saved” either, neither Koch nor Virchow are as benign as they seem at first, Tischendorf is not the sweet young Prince Charming who’ll give Ida the dream life she deserves, Hedwig is not a brainless little floozie with no deeper thoughts or feelings, neither Therese nor Martha are all the strict boss ladies they want to be, Edith is not just a snotty bitch etc.

- medical history of that time, a blunt look on methods and circumstances

- the rivalry between the doctors; it’s fun to watch them passive-aggressively piss on each other

- the staging of the Tuberculin scandal was really effective, with all the hyping, the downfall and the consequences

- we get sweethearts! Stine is a sweetheart, Else is a sweetheart, Therese is a sweetheart, Dr. Kitasato is a sweetheart, and most of all Dr. Ehrlich. I like kind people, ok? Especially in a setting where so many people are asses

- the music is atmospheric and quite nice

- despite two options of marriage, the female protagonist remains single and gets to focus on her career, even in a time and setting that’s not supportive

- I’m having a blast with Minckwitz – he’s such a bitch, I love it

What I hate:

- the lesbian dies for no good reason

- did our main character really have to be a tragic, left-all-alone orphan in debts? Would you like some cheese with that whine?

- the big, hammy speeches get on my nerves after a while

- my sweet lesbian Therese dies, awfully, of frickin’ tuberculosis

- say what you will, Ida and Behring could have made it work; I think they would have been good for each other. Kinda disappointed

- Else Spinola deserved better

- poor Therese dies, thinking that God punishes her for being in love with Ida

- those weird slo-mo shots between scenes don’t serve any purpose

- what’s with the random fortuneteller scene? What was that good for?

- THERESE DIES! We go with f***king Bury Your Gays??? F*** YOU!

_________________________________

What I like about Charité, season 2:

- Anni and Dr. Sauerbruch – different than with Ida, we get two focal characters who aren’t presented as doubtlessly morally good. On the contrary, Anni starts out as quite the happy-go-lucky little Nazi follower – and then we get all the character development; hell yeah!

- Anni chooses to keep and raise her disabled baby herself, come hell or high water; damn, she fights for that kid. And Martin is positive disabled representation, too – thanks for giving me a handicapped veteran who’s not a bitter, drunk wreck just whining about what a cripple he is! He’s got a grip on his life, and the leg only ever comes up on three occasions; it doesn’t define him

- Otto, Martin, Doc Jung, Margot, Maria Fritsch and Kolbe are more clearly positive characters, but they aren’t one-sided, either – like, Otto plays that bright sunshine, but there’s so much seething in him. My sweet baby boy

- same for the negative characters, because they aren’t flat either; Artur, de Crinis and Christel are super interesting, all different levels between quiet, only semi-aware compliance and full-on, not-so-blind fanaticism. Gawd, those shitheads, but they’re fascinating to watch

- all them relationships – Margot-Ferdinand, Otto-Martin, Otto-Anni, Artur-Anni, Margot-Doc Jung, Ferdinand-Doc Jung, Anni-de Crinis, Bessau-Artur, Martin-Christel, Otto-Christel, Anni-Martin… there are so many interplays, so many dynamics that influence each other! SO many layers!

- the acting is better, I think; the characters altogether feel less wooden, much more human than the first time around – perhaps because it’s not 19th century manners anymore now, I dunno; I’m getting really emotional over shit, and I love it

- incorporation of the political and social situation into the hospital setting – much more than in the first season, the state ideology influences the way the doctors can do their work, and many of them do their best to still hold onto their duty when everything around them falls apart, which is beautiful

- power struggles between the characters in charge and ideological / political nuances are more subtle; nothing is black and white

- but there’s nothing subtle about the presentation of Nazi crimes and how many people actually just went along willingly – that cold bluntness is just what that subject needs

- interactions with patients are better this time; they’re more now than passive, pitiable creatures who quietly die their way, they’re characters with their own minds and drives (Lohmann, Magda Goebbels, Hans von Dohnanyi, even Emil)

- the music is even better than the first time around, I love it – so gentle most of the time, but it can also really help to build the tension

- we get a very sweet, functioning queer romance between characters who consist of more than “well, they’re gay and it troubles them”, and they both live – THANK YOU for learning your lesson; there was no good reason to have the gay character die, so Otto and Martin get a happy end. Was that so difficult?

What I hate:

- Yrsa von Leistner is so effing random. Who the hell wrote this? If you can’t incorporate a character properly, why bother including them in the first place?

- the passivity and anonymity of the disabled children – why didn’t Artur or Anni ever get to perceive one of them as a person? That girl Traudel for example, Anni could have talked to her

- there’s a slight tendency to “I’ll just tell the character next to me” exposition – Artur when he and Anni wake up together that one morning (why wouldn’t Anni know yet what he’s working on? That long-winded explaining sentence just came off as awkward), Peter Sauerbruch to Margot about the Dohnanyis and Bonhoeffers

_________________________________

What I like about Charité, season 3:

- I’m all pro ProPro! Honestly, that man is a treat, both how the character is written and how the actor carries the situations and interactions he’s in. He’s arrogant and narcissistic, but he’s also principled, insightful and caring, unpolitical in a smart way and honest in a quiet way, and he gets how people are, and his mentorship of Ella, how he supports and encourages her and also bluntly gives her the dressing-down she needs, is a thing of beauty. And that she has to earn his attention first

- I have a personal soft spot for the scene where ProPro is doing his sports and going jogging while talking with Ella, and then just has her run along. That man’s hilarious, I love him

- Ella’s spirited, and while I don’t love the protagonists of this season as much as those of the second, she’s still great in her own right – the dedication to her research, the strength with which she handles the shit that’s thrown at her

- everyone’s so snarky!

- the wider focus on medical history and research; we see a lot past surgery now

- everyone’s taking shit in stride – staff is running off to the West? Ok; rest gets double shifts. We don’t have a senior doctor on the ward this morning anymore? We do shit ourselves. An illness we’re not prepared to treat anymore because, actually, there should be vaccination enough? We’ll make do. I love that spirit

- positive disabled representation! Rapoport’s daughter actually interacts with people, is presented as a person, has dreams and strengths and can handle her issues – yes, please!

- we get an intersex character, not for long and the story isn’t treated with the care and attention it should have, but props for the effort, I guess

- the setting allows for Ella to focus fully on her work and passion, not really giving much on romance and marriage without that seeming out of place – Ida’s conversations most often revolved around a man, Anni was considered a Nazi role model for being married and a mother, but Ella, while the relationship with Kurt is an option, never prioritizes this and never needs it

- personally, I’m smelling threesome subtext between Ella, Kurt and Alex Nowack – that may just be me, but I like it

- how everyone handles situations, how the changes happening in the country are incorporated into the world the characters live in, how they are able to cope with stuff and make decisions, in the end even without shifting blame

- even more so than in season 2, I really like how human the patients and their relatives are, that interacting with them in the right way is made an important part of the doctors’ work, even when some of the patients are asses

What I hate:

- people are mumbling – it’s not dialects, it’s not accents; they’re mumbling. They never were in the first two seasons

- the cancer stories were really no favorite of mine; what’s with the teary melodrama and the sudden gory shock value? Come on, Charité, you can do better. Presenting the human side of everything has always been the strength of this series, so why going so overboard now?

- I dunno, the crime cases ProPro investigates don’t seem to be incorporated that well? I suppose they’re there to establish his main field of pathology, but they spend a lot of time on that “Biter” case, and I’m not sure why

- would have been nice if Inge Rapoport had gotten to interact a bit with important characters other than her husband, Arianna and Kraatz – she’s a lovable, strong female character; why keep her so one-sided?

- what’s with the black’n’white painting? You showed us how conflicted and nuanced people under the Nazi regime could be; why now the clear line between “those people are good” and “that one sold his soul to the Party”?

- you show us an intersex person, introduce her as a character, make us sympathize, show us her hindrances and possibilities – and then she’s just gone? What about her treatment? Positive development? Making Kraatz’ interactions with her a counterpoint to his interactions with Doc Rapoport? What WAS that?

[eccentricpony]

juza dating hcs? thank you !!

Hey all! I received quite a few requests for Juza headcanons, so I tried to hit a few aspects of the relationship with this one.

Mostly gender neutral but some fem!reader towards the end.

 First Date

 ·        Firstly, don’t be insulted that you’re going to have to ask him on your first date. If you’re too high on your horse to take the initiative with this shy boy, you ain’t going anywhere.

·        It’s not that he doesn’t like you – quite the contrary, he likes you too much and when you’re around, the already limited amount of pleasantries which he uses to converse is reduced from level 3 (Short, yet complete, sentences) to level 1 (Single words, often times mumbled).  

·        “Hey.” “Yup.” “‘s okay.”

·        Unfortunately, “Want to go out with me sometime?” is at least level 4.

·        To your great relief, despite his furrowed brow you received a whole two words response of “Yeah, sure” when you asked if he’d like to go out with you sometime. The faintest of blushes painted his angular cheeks, and he could probably feel the heat in his face because he deflected his gaze to the pavement.

·        You decided you’d meet at a pretty casual local restaurant for dinner on a Saturday night. Well, more like you suggested it and he nodded, but he did consent.

·        The actual dialogue of your date was abysmal.

·        If Tsuzuru read the manuscript of your verbal exchanges, he would think a bot wrote it.

·        A very poorly programmed bot.

·        BUT

·        His body language belied the staleness of the conversation.

·        He tried not to chew on his thumb nail, but he kept his elbow on the table, hand close to his mouth. He’d look around the room wishing that someone would throw him a cue on what to say next, and every so often, his eyes would fall on you and he’d smile cautiously. It was one of those crooked grins that hooked up the side of his pretty mouth, made his eyes squint slightly. And when his cheek lifted it made his high cheekbone even more defined. Normally, you weren’t this quiet, but whenever he smiled like that it made your motor skills seize.

·        Still does, actually.

·        The night ended cordially, and unsurprisingly anti-climactically. You didn’t get a goodnight kiss but really just be glad he showed up at all, he was terrified. With a little patience and guidance, he’d make it up to you later in the relationship.

  Romance

·        Despite many of his fellow classmates finding him very scarousing, they either never built up the nerve to ask him out, or they tried to ask him out but they gave up when they discovered they’d have to carry the entire conversation, probably forever.

·        Hey, their loss is your gain.

·        It’s true that you’re probably never going to get Homare-level flowery speech from O High’s reluctant neo-gangster, but he finds his own ways to show you how he feels.

·        And talk is cheap anyway! You’ve come to love Juza as a man of few words, but many actions. It may not seem like he’s listening to you due to his lack of responses, but he absorbs everything you say like a sponge.

·        Case in point: Juza picks up some drinks for you both from your favorite coffee shop to surprise you, and you’re astounded that yours is perfectly customized to include all your preferred “no __” and “extra extra ___” even though he hasn’t heard you say it for a few weeks. Maybe all the line memorization has improved his overall information retainment, but know that anything to do with you receives priority storage in his mental notepad.

·        You allow his actions to speak for him, without making him feel badly for it. And it sure as hell pays off.

·        He knows that if you seem upset, he can lay next to you and pull you carefully into his chest without worrying that you’re going to make a big deal about it. You also won’t be angry at him later for his not verbally consoling you.  He trusts that if you need to talk about it, you will, and you trust that every action he makes is sincere and from his heart.

·        Juza really loves skinship. It allows him to speak to you without using words.

·        Sometimes in public, if you’re shopping for groceries or sitting on a park bench, he’ll curl his fingers around the back of your neck and gently stroke your spine, gazing down at you with fondness.

·         If you do happen to ask the reason for the sudden affection, he’ll just smile more widely.

·         “Just thinkin’“ he replies succinctly, but dripping with tenderness.

·        It’s not even accurate to say that he has an opinion on PDA because he doesn’t really behave differently to you in either situation, whether you’re around others or not.

·        He takes your hand in his all the time, without apology, regardless of location or surroundings, lightly stroking your knuckles and squeezing your hand on occasion to emphasize a softly spoken statement.

·        At the same time, he knows what to qualify as universally unacceptable in public forums. And those things he reserves for alone time.

 Alone Time (mildly NSFW)

·        This boy may have the face of a sinner, but he has the romantic experience of a saint.

·        I mean, he’s had a couple of awkward, clumsy juvenile makeout seshes but certainly nothing heart-stoppingly passionate or memorable.

·        That is, until you enter, stage left.

·        Juza isn’t a complicated man. You need not worry about layers of manly posturing, disguising what he really wants or needs, because he will just make it plain. As best as he can, at any rate.

·        He’s handsy, without question, and usually any sexy time that he initiates will begin with a subtle transitory finger glide. The hand across your back creeps steadily down your collarbone. The fingers along your knee trail seductively up your thigh.

·        Once in a while, if he’s really wanting you while you’re in public, he’ll hold your hand innocently, then find a way to “accidentally” brush the backs of his fingers across your butt. Or if he’s growing really restless, he’ll find a way to nestle your clasped hands in the dip of your lap, and then twitch and reposition that hand persistently until you get the hint. Grinning at you all the while with a fiery stare that could melt a metal bar, as though you were the only other person in the room.

·        You didn’t expect this kind of mischief from stoic Juza, but hot damn, you’ll take it.

·        Juza has also mastered the coy eyebrow raise. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but what he intends to be simply his manner of questioning your interest in a tumble is drenched in such a lusty smolder that you’re instantly seduced every time.

·        He’s not overly vocal when it comes to intimacy (surprise, surprise), but his functioning vocabulary includes an essential set of words that influence you to slow down, go faster, or just basic terms of affirmation and praise.

·        That’s the functioning vocabulary.

·        The non-functioning vocabulary, when you manage to flip a switch that turns stony Juza into steamy Juza, includes some unpredictably dirty words that evoke even dirtier thoughts, which ultimately crescendo into a Juza that is reduced to guttural groans that resonate like soft purrs through his heated body. His sweaty, taut, heated body.

·        Since this wasn’t a NSFW request I’ll stop there, but have fun with that imagery.

 Relationship

·        He said ‘I love you’ first.

·        To be more precise, he said “Love you.”

·        It seems completely improbable, I know, and you never would have believed it when you first started dating, but despite the chiseled poker face, Juza Hyodo is brimming with passion.

·        It was evident to anyone in Autumn Troupe who had witnessed his unyielding persistence as a fledgling actor. He was determined to improve his theatrical abilities, and that same steadfast devotion applies to everything in his life to which he is extremely loyal.

·        One such thing being you.

·        Case in point: riding the crimson wave.

·        “Hey Juza, umm… I need to pick up some, ahh…  girl stuff.” Juza just stared at you blankly, expression unchanged.

·        “So if you want to go wait in the car, it’s okay.” You added, blood rising into your face.

·        “Why‘m I doing that?” he countered with a blank stare, wondering if he did something to piss you off. This was challenging, and not entirely unexpected, that you had to explain yourself more plainly. You were still working on emphasizing your verbal nuances, and maybe you didn’t make your objective obvious enough.

·        “You know, in case you don’t want anyone to see you buying feminine products-”

·        “You think I care about them?” He held your hand tighter, resolutely, looking back down the aisle like a man with a purpose. “C’mon, let’s go get your stuff.”

·        He made you stop by the pain reliever aisle as well, in case you needed anything for your cramps.

·        And he bought you a carton of ice cream, just in case you thought you might have an emotional craving for some later (okay, he had every intention of eating some, too)

 ·        The TL;DR is you were a work in progress like any other happy young couple. You were, and are, patient and never forced him to chatter needlessly. And in turn, you have a partner who is sincere, resolute, and loyal to a fault. Sure, it took some time for him to adjust to a partnership (namely communication), but now you couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.

[aqvarius]

With people comparing Namba and Matsunaga (both older, both have an ex which feels redundant plot wise, and having moments of being laid back but also stern), which of the two do you think is the better?(Though I'm not sure if rmd will go beyond the 2nd epilogue since all the backlash from LC and we'll probably never see any more character development from each guy)

hmmmMMMM okay so i still have thoughts about the future of rmd (which i’m still working on slowly to try and get all my Thoughts in order) pending for another ask BUT i actually still haven’t read namba’s adversaries so i feel like i can maybe make a decent comparison without namba having too much advantage

so matsunaga and namba are REALLY similar. the sad thing is that matsunaga’s history with his ex should tie into the plot but it really doesn’t (or rather the link between ex and the plot comes out of literally nowhere) unless you’ve read all the right heart scenes (i’m just presuming this, it might also come out of nowhere even if you’ve read all the heart scenes and also i don’t know which ones exactly bc i didn’t wanna spend any hearts on this route lol). 

CUT FOR BIG SPOILERS

i do actually think that matsunaga’s route had more potential to weave in some more complex themes but ultimately ended up being a bit more basic(?) in terms of its core message. while yes, it is groundbreaking for voltage for them to write a bi love interest, i felt the way they tackled sexuality in this route wasn’t the most thoughtful. i mean, for the patient to basically go nuts (honestly don’t even remember his name bc this route made so little impact on me and i didn’t enjoy it enough to save screenshots lol) and murder his ex because he chose to preserve his public image as a celebrity and date a woman just felt like (1) not the most thoughtful character construction for a non-straight character and (2) just a way to (dare i say tokenistically) shoehorn in matsunaga’s sexuality without making it a genuinely impactful part of his personality and the development of his relationship with the mc. 

for one, i have to reiterate that it really did come out of nowhere. most of the route focussed on matsunaga’s health issues (frankly unnecessary imo). for me it felt like the health issue thing was a way for matsunaga’s backstory (particularly in relation to kasumi) to be written in, and then the thing with his ex was the way for his character to relate somewhat to a seemingly unrelated case (the actual medical/patient case aspect of the route), but they honestly threw that in so last minute and it was such a passing thing as well? like i feel like matsunaga’s route and his character were developed more from the whole downplaying his health issues thing than his sexuality. however, because the climax of the route was about the patient going berserk, they kind of were like let’s diffuse this situation with a dramatic reveal about matsunaga’s sexuality and that GENUINELY felt like all that was used for. like all of the “getting closer” moments were related to his health issues or hanging out the pomeranian lol. 

also honestly the ways in which both the patient and the female patient dealt with the singer’s death was exactly the same (i.e. wanting to die bc what’s the point in living if he’s no longer there) so i didn’t really see the point of there being two of them aside from setting up for a more dramatic ~gasp the singer was bi~ moment which in itself was just a setup for a more dramatic ~gasp matsunaga is bi~ moment right at the end. i also felt like they could have addressed the idea of fear of social discrimination in a more nuanced and thoughtful way? essentially i wasn’t a fan of the whole “he was afraid of being in a publicly gay relationship with me so i killed him bc he broke up with me to be with a woman” thing. and in my opinion, matsunaga contributed NOTHING to that entire theme aside from just saying “i had a boyfriend and we broke up for the same reasons except i didn’t become a murderer” which like........ you could have used this opportunity to actually explore the pain and difficulty of needing to hide your relationship because of social taboo or being discarded because your partner chose public image over you rather than just write this character off as a vengeful gay ex vs the good bi guy (matsunaga who just accepts injustices like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ que sera sera). i thought it would have been a stronger and more sophisticated story had they either focussed on either one theme or the other in this one route (health/life expectancy issues vs sexuality) instead of kind of having both be treated a little half-heartedly. the feeling i got was that the first step to getting closer (and i say this laughingly bc honestly the distance between them even after 30 chapters is GAPING) was the pomeranian and then the topic that gave their relationship a little more depth than “we’re just hanging out with your dog” was the revelation of his health issues. 

also the idea that people live on through your memories of them felt a little like... overdone/simple? or that it was lacking a more sophisticated engagement with the idea of death, legacy and memories. i’ve read school life shoujo manga that deals with that theme in a more interesting way. so for me, it felt a little ingenuine that it was treated by as a perspective or way of thinking about death that was like a mindblowing new way to look at life ahead, especially since the characters involved are in their 20s, not early teens. 

so anyway i think that matsunaga has potentially a deeper character? namba has more or less ‘healed’ or at least learnt to cope with his issues enough that you wouldn’t know anything is up but it’s clear that matsunaga still has a lot of personal issues to work through, so there was genuine potential to overcome some of that boss-subordinate power imbalance through having genuine connection between just humans or to develop him as a character whose prioritisation of others is maybe a flaw. i just think that they crammed so many things in that none of it really got addressed or developed properly lol.  

i will say that i find matsunaga is way less fun than namba? namba is more of a “my pace” kind of guy - he’s more random/eccentric which i enjoy. matsunaga’s persona is more just like a regular nice guy? you would NEVER find matsunaga just on the street in costume pretending to be a fortune teller for no reason but to give you random love advice? 

but on that same note, i definitely feel less chemistry between matsunaga and his mc compared to namba. maybe this is just bc i only read matsunaga’s normal ending in which she confesses and asks him out and he literally SAYS NO AND IT ENDS WITH HER GETTING REJECTED (and i’m p sure they still aren’t together even in the happy ending or the epilogue), but the whole time i feel like there was only ever a parent-child relationship between them. i never felt like matsunaga treated her any different than how he treats literally anyone else in the EICU. i actually think he treats kasumi the best out of everyone, including his mc. the weird thing is that rmd actually had way more time and potential - i mean they literally SET THE TWO CHARACTERS UP IN AN EXPLICITLY ROMANTIC CONTEXT and there was still NEGATIVE amounts of romantic chemistry??? HOW? namba and his mc literally were in a boss-subordinate dynamic the entire time and they still had more chemistry and genuine interpersonal connection without it feeling like the mc is a small pet vying for her owner’s attention the entire time while also somehow simultaneously trying to mother him? i’m not kidding when i say that namba and his mc are more fun in 10 chapters than matsunaga and his mc are in THIRTY.  

ALSO namba’s (consistent lol) berating of his mc makes sense with his character and the context and is justified every time because his mc is a thoughtless noob (but one with potential that he sees his old self in). on the other hand, matsunaga has one moment when he scolds his mc for... some reason... but because she’s supposed to be this superstar student, she doesn’t really make the mistakes that allow her those learning opportunities. and then matsunaga basically just lets her do whatever she wants re: dealing with patients.  

oh and also the plot of namba’s route is better. 

in short, matsunaga’s route had potential but i feel like the missed potential and the lack of thoughtfulness in cramming in too many themes and not making the most of them are huge negative factors. namba has a more fun character, there is SO much more romantic chemistry between him and his mc, the plot is better and more interesting and has a twist without it feeling forced, namba’s comments about his age/their age gap make more sense for his character, his sprite is more attractive (lmaoooo), the relationship development is more organic, even the moments of rejection feel both more earned and heartbreaking. tl;dr: namba wins

ALSO sorry it took me so long to reply!! i’m still half in and out of tumblr 

[bscom330commsr]

Computer Mediated - Communication

The term computer mediated communication is a term given to modern day communication with others. This communication is computer based, and may involve sending, receiving, or posting information, such as emails, instant messages, social media posts, blogs, etc. The vehicle for these forms communication could be phones, laptop and personal computers, modern cameras, and others. 

In my daily life, I use my smartphone and laptop to access Facebook, email, and instant messaging to communicate with my friends and family, as well as my colleagues at work and others. By far, I utilize Facebook on my cellphone more than any other form of computer mediated communication. Sometimes even before I lift my head off of my bed pillow in the morning, I feel an overwhelming urge to check my Facebook page and instant messages, and check friends’ pages for new, interesting and even opposing social and political views. 

What is it that leads all of us to favor computer mediated communication, versus one-on-one verbal interactions? Why have we adopted a form of communication that largely bases its interactions on words sent and received over the internet in an often impersonal manner, instead of conversing with people and forming personal and professional bonds with one another in a face-to-face manner? 

Optimists may say that internet forms of communication allow for faster, more streamlined communication, such as WebEx meetings in offices that may be on opposite sides of the globe. They allow allow friends and family the chance to communicate when face-to-face visits are impossible. 

Pessimists may take the opposite view, that computer mediated communication such as social media websites give participants a false sense of community and unity, that it facilitates a separation of family and friends that truly care about us, in favor of a series of impersonal posts that aren’t real.

My stance is that I fall squarely in the middle of the two views. I feel computer mediate communication has given us so much to be thankful for, like scientific collaborations, more streamlined processes for things like voter registration, census taking, social security changes, etc., and it has allowed many of us to find and communicate with childhood friends and other loved ones that we may have not been able to find otherwise. However, the nuances that come with traditional communication may become lost on all of us, if we continue the trend that computer based communication is our new favored form of interaction.

We must all remember that computer mediated communication does not come without a price tag. With the evolution of this relatively new medium, we now have to worry about cookies from our website visits storing information that may be used by social media to sell us products, information that may be stored and used against us in the future, and information that could be stolen from us, including our own identities. It’s a price many of us have in the past, and one that we continue to pay with each day that we log into websites. 

For instance, if I were to click on a blouse that I find stylish in an ad on Facebook, I might receive ads for that blouse and other apparel from that company and others in the future, based on my choices. If I were to log onto a patient portal for my medial records, and that server is hacked or if I were to use a password that isn’t strong enough and hackers are able to discover that password, all of my personal health information may not only be uncovered, but it might be used against me in the future by those who may want to harm me and my identity. We can counteract these threats by honestly being smarter about what we put out there about our lives, and we can also be smarter about answers to our security questions and passwords. 

The future has no limit with regard to computer mediated communication. Who knows, maybe in the future, video calls may consist of hologram “in-person” chats with business colleagues, friends and family. Maybe instead of watching videos and movies on our smartphones and computers, the scenes will act out in a hologram short of way, to bring us into a virtual reality without headsets. We may be able to have preventative and diagnostic medical visits in the same way, in order to be treated without even going to a doctor’s office, and have national medical records that store information about allergies, medical issues, etc. that make emergency medical treatment easier, and abuse of prescriptions a thing of the past. Truly, the possibilities are endless. What an amazing and exciting time we live in, with this kind of media evolution being within reach.

However, we must never forget that getting smiles and hugs from our family and friends and sharing our daily experiences with one another cannot ever be replaced - there is no substitute. Like anything else in life, we must proceed into the future with caution and common sense. 

That’s my view. What is yours? 

- Laura D.

[the2020romanceproject]

Review: The Wedding Date

(Or: Maybe I should only read the first half of romance novels from now on?)

Book two of my year of romance was Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date! I was excited about this one, since I had actually heard of it before I started reading romance, and also it has fake dating which is always gold. And I did enjoy it...up to a point. More on that below. :)

First, a summary: Alexa is chief of staff to the mayor of Berkeley. Drew is a pediatric surgeon in L.A. They get stuck in an elevator together when Drew is in San Francisco for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to his med school classmate. Drew was supposed to have a date for the wedding, but she cancelled, and on a whim he asks Alexa to go with him instead as his pretend new girlfriend. She says yes, and they have a great time at the wedding and fall in bed afterward and have great sex. Drew secretly changes his flight to leave later in the day on Sunday, and they spend the day together. They’re both hesitant because they know the other person isn’t looking for anything real here—Alexa in particular knows Drew doesn’t do relationships—but they keep reaching out to each other, and Alexa goes down to L.A. to stay with Drew the next weekend. There’s a brief blip where she texts him to ask if he’s sleeping with other people and he makes a joke instead of answering seriously and she cancels their next weekend together; then he runs into her (very conveniently) when he’s back in SF for a conference and they fall into bed again. Then there’s a more serious blip where she meets a bunch of his exes who let it slip that he broke up with each of them around the two-month mark when it seemed to be going really well. Alexa gets upset, refuses to let Drew say anything about his intentions because she doesn’t want to be hurt, and sneaks out of his apartment in the middle of the night to fly home early. Drew realizes how much she means to him and flies up to L.A. to support her at a hearing for the at-risk-youth arts initiative she’s pushing for, and the two of them happily reconcile (and the initiative passes). He shows her the job offer he got from his mentor at a San Francisco hospital, and she tells him yes, she wants him to move here. There’s an epilogue a year later where he takes her back to the elevator where they met and proposes.

I feel like I spent my last review talking entirely about why the book fell apart in the middle for me. This book also fell apart in the middle, but I’m going to start with some things I liked/noted about it, so as to not spend ALL my time complaining about shortcomings. :)

Things I really liked:

Chemistry. Alexa and Drew are both super charming. Their back-and-forth was really enjoyable to read. It was a big part of what got me into the book: I wanted to see these two charming people grow to like each other. All the thing where they’re at the rehearsal dinner and wedding and enjoy touching each other were really nice to read.

Tropes. This one had such good tropes! Stuck in an elevator together! Fake dating! Anything with plausible deniability, where they’re acting like they really like each other but each one thinks it might not denote real interest, is just the most fun. This one gave up the plausible deniability aspect way sooner than I would have expected, but still: great tropes.

Race. Alexa is black and Drew is white. I am also white, so my perspective here is not informed by personal experience, but I really liked how this was handled. Alexa does experience some microaggressions and outright racism—not from Drew—in ways that felt realistic to me. Drew doesn’t try to explain away any of the racism, which made him seem like a good potential partner to her. There was also a thing where he failed to understand a thing in her past that was impacted by race, and when she explained it he listened and accepted his ignorance. She was still concerned that he’d like her less for having made him aware of his privilege, which felt like a very sad and real fear. Overall, it felt like racial dynamics were allowed to come into the text in nuanced and organic ways that kept Alexa from being a token POC. (Jasmine Guillory is a POC herself, so I’m not surprised that this is handled well, and there are probably other things about it that I as a white person didn’t even pick up.)

Body type. Alexa is curvy! She’s embarrassed about it! But Drew loves it! As someone who fills out the top of a cocktail dress pretty well myself, I really appreciated both sides of this: the realistic body issues from someone raised in a society that valorizes thinness, and the way the text kept affirming Drew’s attraction to her. There’s a racial component to this as well—lots of skinny blond girls in this book—but it was something I was able to identify with even from my different societal context.

Things I noted/was surprised by:

How soon they had sex. At some point I’ll stop being surprised by this in romance novels. I’ve read a lot of fake dating stories, and written some, and I would have expected the charade to go on a lot longer before they had actual sex that couldn’t at all be explained away by the fake dating scenario. The purported fakeness of it is the fun part! They both think the other one isn’t interested for real, while their own feelings continue to grow! Why would you cut that part short?? As soon as they kissed and admitted to each other that they wanted it for real, the tension dropped from a ten to about a two. This book got a decent amount of mileage out of that lower level of tension—more on that below—but it’s so surprising to me that it didn’t keep the much more interesting and trope-y tension going longer.

Consent and power dynamics. This book was super good about consent: Drew made sure to check in about what Alexa wanted, and it was played for sexual intensity, where he clearly got a kick out of hearing her say it. But it was very, very one-sided. There was no implication that Alexa needed to check in with Drew on what he wanted. This wasn’t a surprise, exactly, but it did stand out to me, since I don’t read a lot of het (and honestly this is a big part of why—I don’t want to encounter gendered power dynamics in my leisure reading). Consent felt like a thing the woman had to give the man. I’m not saying this is a problem, necessarily; just something I noticed.

Sex scenes. The sex scenes almost faded to black but not quite. Maybe they faded to gray? I felt like I knew pretty much what sex act they were doing and when, but they weren’t described in any real detail. It was an interesting compromise, like the book was trying to give us a clear sense of their sexual relationship without any real titillation. I wonder if this is a genre thing—I’m not sure this book was published strictly as romance—or if it’s just Guillory’s style.

Romcom careers. They’re chief of staff to the mayor of Berkeley and a pediatric surgeon. Those have GOT to be two squares on the romcom career bingo card. I’m teasing a little, but I think this kind of character background serves an important role: we have to know that they’re accomplished, valuable people, so that when they feel rejected or insecure we can revel in it—look, they feel like I once felt! But it’s unjustified and they’ll end up happy!—instead of actually questioning the characters’ worth. Fanfiction usually gets over this hurdle by writing about characters the readers already know and respect and love, or, in the case of RPF, writing about people who are for-real successful and famous. Romance novels have to introduce us to brand-new characters, and one of the easiest ways to make us feel sure that these characters are worthy of our respect and of the other character’s love is to give them prestigious and intellectually or creatively rigorous careers. I’ll be interested to see how many other instances of this I run across.

Two points of view. It strikes again! Do all romance novels include both points of view? I don’t hate it, necessarily—but it does decrease the overall tension. You don’t get caught up in one character’s desires as strongly when you’re seeing both POVs.

Immediate attraction. Another thing I should probably stop being surprised by. Both Alexa and Drew are very physically into each other as soon as they meet; he has trouble not looking at her breasts, and there are so many narrative references to her wanting his touch, wanting to move closer to him, etc. To be fair, I think I’m pretty far toward the “not attracted to complete strangers” side of the spectrum, so I might not be the best judge of this, but it did feel a little over the top. I suspect this was an attempt to make us really want these two to be together. I think it was trying too hard—a more genuine reserve would have been more compelling to me, where they like each other but don’t immediately want to jump each other. Also, they’re going to a wedding together as fake dates! You don’t have to try that hard to make us interested!

Food as comfort. This was such a strong recurring thread in this novel. Alexa has a sweet tooth, and Drew is always getting her doughnuts; they get a lot of very satisfying takeout. It gelled for me with the thing where a lot of the satisfaction in the novel came from the comfort of “oh, this person is touching me; oh, they like me back.” Comfort instead of angst.

Subplots. One of my questions in approaching this genre was whether romance novels needed to be more novel-like than fic—i.e. whether they needed to engage with a plot beyond the romance. This does have a very slight B plot (Alexa’s youth initiative, which is connected to her difficult relationship with her sister) but it’s VERY slight. The book has an even less prominent subplot about one of Drew’s patients who develops cancer. Alexa’s subplot resolves, whereas Drew’s is only backdrop. Drew’s in particular is used the way I’d use a subplot in fic: it’s included to provide an excuse for scenes with or about Alexa, or to affect Drew’s mood in ways that reflect or influence the romance plot. It serves the romance instead of being an independent plot in its own right.

Okay, so those are my observations. Time to dig into the thing where this book lost me in the middle—much like the last book I reviewed, but for entirely different reasons.

I’ve already talked about the drastic drop-off in tension after they slept together. That actually was not what lost me this time. This novel managed to build enough of a rapport between the two characters that I was invested in their relationship becoming real. To be clear, I would have preferred that the fake dating trope go on longer and create opportunities for actual longing. But this novel wasn’t so much about longing; it was about that delightful feeling when you like someone and you reach out tentatively and they meet you in the middle. It was the very, very gentle tension of, “Maybe we could hang out today?” “Sure!” over and over, as a relationship builds. It was fluff-adjacent tension. Super enjoyable, the way a warm bath is enjoyable. I wasn’t dying to get to the end or anything, but it was nice.

I did wonder, about halfway through, how the heck this book could possibly keep going like that. And it turned out it couldn’t. That was when it introduced: the Misunderstanding Plot.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good misunderstanding plot. But they are hard to do well. They work best when they feel unforced and genuine, and don’t make either of the characters carry the idiot ball. Like, say, if Drew and Alexa hadn’t had enthusiastic sex where they talked about how much they wanted each other, and they were still under the impression that it was a fake relationship, it would be very easy to have the other character accidentally confirm that and drive a wedge between the two of them. Or if one of them was starting to think it WAS real, and then they overheard the other person confessing to someone else that it was totally fake. (Don’t mind me; just thinking about ways I might write it.)

The problem with this one was that they were basically just dating at this point, so in order for drama to arise, the characters had to act badly in ways that felt forced and off-putting. They’d known each other for a week and a half; things had been happy and a little giddy and chill between them so far. Then Alexa texts in the middle of the workday to ask if Drew is sleeping with anyone else. (Because that is the perfect way to initiate an important relationship conversation, obviously.) He makes a joke, because he is clearly also very good at this, and they don’t speak to each other for a week and a half.

Guess which one of them this makes me like more? That’s right! Neither!!

Look. I like characters who are stupid about their own feelings and blind to other people’s. But I also like characters who, when they know about the other person’s feelings, are very, very considerate of them. Drew was not—and Alexa compounded the problem by being confrontational with the question and then abruptly pulling back as soon as she didn’t get the magical easy answer. In short, it made me think that they were bad for each other.

They recover from the texting thing when they just so happen to run into each other (I mean, I can’t throw stones, I’ll buy the coincidence) and are happy to see each other, and apologize, and everything’s fine. But by this point the novel had lost me. I had been enjoying the happy dance of “Does s/he like me? Ooh, s/he does!” but only so long as it lasted. They didn’t have a strong enough core after a week and a half to get through the badness of those texts. They were happy again, but I wasn’t invested. I was mostly reading so I could write this review.

Then, fascinatingly, the book won me back.

It was a very specific passage that did it. On page 190 of the paperback, Alexa talks in the narration about how she wouldn’t admit this to anyone other than herself, but ever since that first weekend with Drew, she’d imagined him in bed with her every night as she fell asleep. And I was sold. I mean, it was still very gentle tension. But! A thing the character wanted that she wasn’t getting! I could be into this again!

And then...well, this is already super long, so I won’t go into all the details of the misunderstanding that ended the book. It had a lot in common with the text message fiasco: Alexa felt insecure, got upset that Drew might not be into her, and refused to engage with him about whether that was true. (Okay, it was actually more egregious than the texts, in that she wouldn’t let him speak.) Her getting upset made sense, but her refusing to let him speak when he was clearly trying to felt SO forced.

The funny thing is, there was actually a seed of potential real conflict there: Drew hadn’t really admitted to himself that he wanted a long-term thing with her. He could have told her that. He could have done anything, really, to indicate that and create a real conflict. (Also tricky to handle without him coming off as not actually interested—but doable, I think.) As it was, he didn’t call her his girlfriend at a party—which, it had been like a month, and they hadn’t discussed it privately, so it’s totally appropriate not to throw the term around in public yet!—and...that’s it. Everything else was just her fears, and the very cowardly way she handled them. I guess that’s relatable? But it felt so engineered. It didn’t so much make me dislike her as make me annoyed with the text for twisting her response so that they couldn’t have the very short conversation that would have cleared everything up.

In fairness to Guillory, a friend who’s read the whole series tells me she does better with misunderstanding plots later. But I’m really, really excited to read a romance plot that doesn’t lose me halfway through.

Next up is Red, White, and Royal Blue. I’ve been told this was basically written for me, so I’m hopeful. Fingers crossed it sticks the landing!

[mariposakitten]

Dear gods above, please grant me the strength to not go off on some folks here on tumblr.

Okay, so: I’m seeing a lot of people - including people I usually like and respect! - saying some really ignorant things about the issue of mental illness and mass shootings, and about the people - like me - who take issue with the conflation of the two. So let’s clarify a few things, shall we?

Nobody (except possibly someone who is VERY new to this whole social justice thing and doesn’t grasp nuance yet) is saying that it’s impossible for a mass shooter to be mentally ill. It is entirely possible that mental illness was part of the problem that led to many of these people deciding to grab a gun and go a-murdering! Yes, many of them likely would have been helped significantly if someone had caught the signs early and convinced them to seek help. We don’t disagree on that, and acting as if we’re howling at the moon at the mere possibility that a shooter might be mentally ill is a dishonest representation of our objections.

So why do we object?

Well, 1) because the only person qualified to diagnose a person’s mental illness is that person’s doctor - and that person’s doctor is generally not allowed to broadcast a person’s diagnoses over the internet. So everyone going “oh this person clearly had this illness or that disorder or the other whatever” is acting as an armchair psychiatrist. Any claims you hear someone make about someone else’s supposed mental illness are either pulled out of their ass (and yes, even if you’re a psychiatrist, if you’re not that person’s psychiatrist it is pulled out of your ass), or a horrific breach of privacy (if you are in fact their psychiatrist) - either way, unethical in the extreme. I and many others strongly discourage speculating about the mental illness of strangers, both because it is unethical and unreliable, but also because, while it is unlikely to harm the person being speculated about (at least in the case of shooters - who are usually either dead or under arrest by the time we hear about them - or public figures like the president), it’s very likely to harm other people who may have similar mental illnesses. 

But, even more importantly, 2) we object because so many public figures and politicians blame mental illness and only mental illness. This problem is twofold: on the one hand, it encourages people to seek “solutions” that won’t solve gun violence but will harm mentally ill people, and on the other hand it doesn’t do a damn thing to actually prevent more shootings. So let’s look at both of those!

2a) Things I have actually seen actual people in positions of authority suggest in response to “mass shootings caused by mental illness”: government and/or police keeping lists of mentally ill people; psychiatrists encouraged or even required to report patients with certain diagnoses to the authorities; people encouraged to Baker Act friends and acquaintances if they start to act “suspicious”; “involuntary confinement” of people with mental illnesses; barring people with mental illnesses from various activities.

I sincerely hope that I don’t have to explain why *waves vaguely* all of that is an ethical and civil rights nightmare, but beyond that: what’s the likely outcome? Because I’ll tell you right now, if I thought my doctor was going to narc on me and my mental weirdness to the cops, do you think I would have sought help? Oh hell no. If people think they’ll be in danger of being committed or confined, or that they’ll lose rights if they’re found to have the “wrong” illness, how likely is it that they’ll be honest with their doctors?

See, that’s the thing about stigmatizing mental illness: it’s not about “oh boo hoo, my feelings are hurt.” It has real-world consequences, in that the more stigmatized mental illness is, and the worse society treats mentally ill people, the less likely people are to seek out the help they need. That means more people suffering, more people unable to hold down a job or otherwise function, more suicides - and, yes, if someone’s mental illness feeds into their violent tendencies and vice versa, it means even less chance of them opening up to someone who could help them and prevent a disaster.

And 2b) there are a lot of common denominators among the vast majority of mass shooters. White supremacist (or other flavors of open bigotry, but this one seems the most popular these days.) Resentful and full of entitlement. Radicalized online, on one of a small handful of websites that exist to radicalize young men and encourage violence. Easy access to guns, especially ones that spray a lot of bullets in a short amount of time in order to kill as many people as possible, as fast as possible. These are known societal problems, and it is well past the time that we start looking at ways to fix or at least minimize them! But those who push white supremacist rhetoric and those opposed to even the mildest, most sensible forms of gun control have been using mental illness as a bogeyman to deflect blame. They’re not subtle about it. Painting a tragic picture of a mentally ill lone wolf and piously decrying the “mental health crisis” in our country (and mental health is not dealt with well, I know this, I’m not arguing that!) lets them distract us from taking steps that might actually make a difference.

So yeah. When I see people I like and respect mocking people who worry about stigmatizing mental illness, and acting like they’re being put upon and attacked for even suggesting that mental illness might be a factor (my brother-in-law had paranoid schizophrenia and once attacked my husband with an ax because the tv told him my husband was trying to kill him, believe me, I know that mental illness can and does influence violence) - I know that they aren’t listening to what we’re actually saying.

(Or that they people they’re listening to aren’t good at articulating their objections. I know that when I run into the “they did a violence because crazy!” argument, I am not always immediately coherent; at best I can stammer out a cliff’s notes version of the above and then I have to go away and breathe for a little while because yeah, this is kind of a hot button. So I can see how someone might not know the whole of the issue, especially if mental health activist circles aren’t usually on their radar. But I promise we are not stupid. We do in fact have reasons beyond “it hurts my feelings to think I have anything in common with a killer!” So please stop infantilizing us into an unrecognizable strawman.)

[daniloqp]

The challenge of Covid-19 vaccines for immunocompromised people

The challenge of Covid-19 vaccines for immunocompromised people

https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/the-challenge-of-covid-19-vaccines-for-immunocompromised-people/

In addition, antibodies are not the only defense the body deploys to create immunity: we do too T cells., memory B cells and others. Clinical trials on vaccines did not attempt to measure the cell count needed to create an effective defense against the virus. They just reported clinic final criteria, such as whether someone became seriously ill or died from the disease. Therefore, focusing only on antibodies can lose important parts of the immune response.

“I try not to use words like‘ you didn’t respond ’to the vaccine when someone doesn’t make antibodies,” says Haidar, lead researcher of a larger study which is recruiting people with various immune deficits, including HIV, to study the response to the Covid vaccine. “I’m worried that this could cause the vaccine to falter if the message is that the vaccine doesn’t work for you. I think we need to be a little more nuanced to take into account the complexity that other elements of the immune system could have increased with vaccines. “

Even in the few studies conducted so far, it is clear that the immune response to vaccines varies, depending on the age of the patient, the type of immune deficiency they suffer, the type of transplant they received, the specific drugs they take, the time elapsed since the transplant or the last dose and a number of other factors. The likelihood of abundant antibody production appears to be higher, for example, in patients taking drugs to suppress immunity to treat chronic inflammatory diseases than in patients with transplantation and cancer. Studies done by Segev and the team show better antibody production rates in those patients later a i two dose. But an independent prepress, made by the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis. Louis and UC San Francisco, shows a wide range of responses depending on the pharmacological regimen a patient is taking.

This can provide a clue to managing patients ’vulnerability, so that they can get closer to the type of immune protection healthy people receive from Covid vaccines. “One thing we are telling patients who are on suppression, who have not yet been vaccinated, is to consider taking their medications,” says Alfred HJ Kim, lead author of the study and assistant professor of rheumatology and immunology. at the University of Washington. “Obviously, if you have medication, you risk outbreaks. And if it appears to you, this can make the side effects of the vaccine worse or make the vaccine itself less effective. It’s a really complicated situation. “

And, legally, doctors currently cannot advise patients to seek additional doses of the Covid vaccine. The FDA has only authorized one or two doses for all vaccines it has allowed to enter the U.S. market. For the Segev team’s study, doctors did not prescribe third doses: patients found third doses on their own, so the study did not specify. The Hopkins team tracked the results.

However, there is some evidence in the medical literature that supports the usefulness of additional doses. For example, the French government has recommended a third dose for any immunocompromised person. And in the United States, it has been understood for years that a second dose seasonal flu vaccine i larger doses of the hepatitis B vaccine are needed to create immunity.

But it will be necessary to gather more data to be sure. The Hopkins team is contemplating a broader trial in which immunosuppressed patients seeking third doses would be formally enrolled and screened. And, despite the appeal of higher protection, they do not urge patients with immune damage to start working independently on their own third shots. “There are risks of taking third doses,” Segev says. “There is a risk that the third dose will activate your immune system and cause an open rejection or a kind of subclinical, where you start to develop a little more antibodies against your transplanted organ. It is important that people who go out and receive third doses are part of the research protocols or do so in collaboration with their doctors who have assessed the risks and benefits. “

If tests like this can give data …another, recently announced, is run by the National Institutes of Health: they could do much more than let the immunocompromised return to everyday life. They could also illuminate aspects of the immune system and their interaction with vaccines that are not yet very well understood. And that will be beneficial not only during this pandemic, but for everything we need to protect ourselves from the next.

More from WIRED to Covid-19

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[scripttorture]

1/2 Hi! I'm the one who asked about the magical "truth serum." Thanks for answering my original question! I don't know if this changes things, but the police and the laws themselves have been portrayed as ineffective and often brutal, and the society that I'm writing about is already shaking itself apart because of huge injustices. The only times I've shown the spell in action, it's with people who were eager to co-operate anyway, and when it started to hurt the interrogation fell apart.

2/2 My MC does have lasting psychological damage from his encounters with them. If the way to proceed is to show that this technique is worse than useless, that it's one more reason why the prisons are filled with unjustly convicted people, and that the police who do this are torturers with everything that goes with that, I do think I'm in a position to write that.

For readers generally theoriginal ask with my original response is here.

 Yes that contextchanges things. It means that I think I completely misunderstood the originalask. That happens occasionally and I’m sorry about that. Thank you for being sounderstanding.

 A lot of askers tend toapologise for sending in long asks but honestly more information is morehelpful for me. Having wider context for the story helps. We’re tackling toughsubjects here and I think detail and nuance is incredibly important

 Knowing that you’reshowing this as ineffective makes all the difference.

 The original ask wasabout effects, both on the victims and society more generally. I’m going tostart with the MC, this is going to apply to victims generally though.

 I’ve got a summary ofthe commonpsychological effects of torture here. Symptoms are generally the same nomatter what technique is used (there are a few exceptions but even thoseinclude the common symptoms on the list). Victims won’t all experience the samesymptoms and it’s impossible to predict who will experience which symptoms.

 As a result I tend tosuggest picking symptoms based on what the author feels fits the character andoverall story best.

 Given the way you’reusing this magic I think memory problems would be an excellent fit for thestory.

 In the long term aftertorture memory problems can manifest in several different ways and theseproblems can occur separate or together. Broadly speaking they come in aboutthree categories: memory loss, intrusive memories and inaccurate memories.

 Memory loss can mean forgetting the traumatic incidententirely but that’s not a very common form of problem. More commonly what itmeans is forgetting chunks of time immediately before and immediately aftertorture. It can also mean a sort of long term forgetfulness which makeseveryday life much more difficult. Learning new things, remembering wherethings are, being on time- simple everyday things like that become a lot moredifficult.

 That sort memoryproblem is incredibly common and rarely shown in fiction. I’ve actually had afew survivors contact me to say they weren’t even aware what they wereexperiencing was a symptom.

 Intrusive memories are alot easier to explicitly link to torture. They’re basically continuallyremembering and going over a traumatic event. It means that the character isconstantly reminded of torture, by small everyday things. And those remindersprompt an extremely vivid, detailed memory of the abuse they suffered. It meansthinking about what they survived almost all the time.

 Inaccurate memories aremuch harder to identify as a problem from ‘inside’. They feel like normalmemories and people experience them generally are convinced that their memoryis accurate.

 They usually affectmemories of and around torture and they’re often about details. Someone mightsay that the door of the room they were tortured in was on the left, when infact it was on the right. They can affect things like remembering exactly whodid what when and in what order.

 This can makeprosecuting a torture case extremely difficult.

 For your story inparticularly I want to highlight the work Morgan et al did with US soldiers.The soldiers, who all had years of front line combat experience, went through afake capture scenario as part of a ‘training exercise’. Some of them were thenput through a ‘high stress’ interrogation which included shouting, abuse andthe sorts of clean beating US rules allowed at the time. The other had a‘low-stress’ interrogation, a chat over a hot drink.

 Morgan then tested themthe next day to see who recognised their interrogator. Depending on how theywere asked to identify the interrogator between 51-68% identified the wrong person. Most of them wereconfident they’d gotten the right person. (The paper can be found here: C AMorgan et al, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry in 2004, 27, 265-279pgs)

 The interrogations werearound four hours and I think this study is really relevant to what you want towrite. Don’t worry too much if you can’t access the paper itself. The generalpicture of memory problems are more important than the in-depth statistical andmethod analysis the paper concentrates on.

 I’ve stressed all ofthese memory problems for a reason: I think you should show this magic as worsethan useless and I think this is the most sensible way to tackle it. It’s not alie if you honestly think it’s true and our memories are incredibly prone toflaws especially when we’re stressed or in pain.

 To put that a bit morebluntly: what we think is factually true canchange if we’re in pain.

 And those falsememories can persist and feel just as ‘true’ as accurate memories.

 The next thing I thinkyou really need to consider are the police officers themselves. There’s lessresearch on torturers then torture victims but what we have overwhelminglysuggests that torturing other people causes severe mental illness in thetorturer.

 Idiscuss the kinds of effects it has in another ask here (the questionitself involves mentions of rape and sexual abuse but there are no graphicdescriptions in the question or answer).

 Have a read through ofthat because whether you focus on any of the police as characters or not ifthis system comes down that’s a lot ofpeople with those symptoms who will be out of work. Their society is goingto have to come up with a way of coping with that.

 That can take a lot ofdifferent forms. In Soviet Russia it was lethal purges. In South Africa it wasthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In the aftermath of the Bosnian war it’sbeen one of the most successful series of war crimes trials in history.

 On the nicer end you’relooking at long term mental health programs and re-training programs, jailsentences for the worst offenders and a structured plan to get these peopleback into the community in a healthy way.

 On the worse end it’signoring the problem and ending up with a lotof people who are violent, traumatised and can’t hold down a job anymore. Thatmeans a massive uptick in homelessness and problems related to addiction (iemore demand for health services then the set up can support).

 Those are problems forthis society afterwards. During all of this the problems are gonna be a littledifferent.

 This system will haveabsolutely destroyed the public’s trust in the police force. In a way that goesbeyond the ways torture normally destroys the public’s trust in the policeforce. There is normally a drop in people volunteering information to thepolice when the police torture but in most scenarios that’s because they’reafraid people they know will be tortured not because informants are at risk oftorture themselves. But everyone istortured in this scenario, including the witnesses and the people who reportcrimes.

 Simply put people willstop reporting crimes.

 The police might usethat to argue that crime has dropped and what they’re doing works.

 In fact you’ll have asystem of more or less complete collapse. I don’t know whether crime wouldactually rise but it would certainly go unpunished.

 With no onevolunteering information and a general culture of silence the police wouldprobably respond by arresting people at random. This is pretty common inpolicing systems that have come to rely on torture.

 Not only does this meanmore brutalised, injured people and less trust in the police it also creates aculture of fear. Because under these circumstances people tend to assume that there is a reason the police took the peoplethey did. They assume the raids and the disappearances are to do with someunder lying logic even when none exists.

 I think the best thingto read for the sort of societal affects you might see is Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. And luckily it’snow available for free over here.

 The only parts of Fanon’sbook I’ve read in detail are his psychiatric notes on patients he treatedduring and after the Franco-Algerian war. These included torture victims,torturers and the families of both groups.

 But the majority of thebook is about the injustice of colonialism, shaped by Fanon’s experience of France’sbloody, unjust policy of mass detention and torture of Algerians during thewar. (For further reading on France’s torture practices in Algeria see H Alleg’sThe Question)

 You’ve essentially gota society where there is no law enforcement and at the same time citizens areperiodically and randomly pulled off the street and tortured. There’s going tobe a lot of fear and a lot of distrust of authority. People may or may not haveformed their own parallel social systems already (with their own law enforcersand their own back-room courts).

 And that’s now edgingtowards @scriptsociology’s area of expertise. This is going to be an intensely fracturedsociety with a lot of genuine grievances and a lot of really profoundly illpeople who’ll need help. I strongly suggest consulting @scriptsociology if youwant this society to be rebuilt or come together, because it’s a lot easier forsocieties in this situation to fall apart rather than come back together.

 That may not havecovered anything but I think it’s a decent broad overview. If you’ve got any morequestions feel free to ask as soon as the box is open again. :)

Disclaimer

[theseadagiodays]

April 27, 2020

Art Became the Oxygen

It is true that artists, many of whom rely on public gatherings for their livelihood, are some of the hardest hit during this crisis.  Yet, it’s musicians who are toiling away in basements to serenade us through isolated days.  It’s comedic actors who are offering us essential nighttime laughs.  And it’s visual artists who make meaning from this madness with images that inspire, console and provoke.  The individuals of the creative community are like the unsung frontline workers of this pandemic, only without any salary to support their craft, or a 7 pm cheer to motivate them.  Yet still, they make things because they must, just as artists have done since the beginning of history, particularly in times of strife. (SEE: https://usdac.us/news-long/2017/8/9/art-became-the-oxygen-free-artistic-response-guide-available-now)

In previous periods of economic hardship, the US government responded with forward-thinking programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) of Roosevelt’s New Deal (1935 to 1943).  It was designed not only to fund huge infrastructure projects, but also to employ thousands of artists, musicians, writers, and theatre performers to stimulate the economy.  Legacies of this program include Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God; Jackson Pollack’s Composition with Pouring; and Mark Rothko’s earlier urban studies like Entrance to Subway, where you can see the seeds of his famous color studies from later work.

After natural disasters, senseless violence or war, artist activists have also rushed to the front lines, time and again, to help rebuild communities by activating their social imaginations and stimulating their civic agency with creative collaborations.  

Philippe Thiese gathered digital stories of Hurricane Sandy volunteers in this short film: https://www.sandystoryline.com/stories/sandy-volunteers-remember-the-storm-and-explain-how-they-got-involved/.  

The siblings of Eric Garner, a young African-American man killed by unjust police violence in 2014, came together in grief to write the song, I Can’t Breathe,based on his harrowing last words.  Their music served as a rallying cry to a community berieved and betrayed by their law enforcement: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/eric-garners-family-drops-moving-new-song-i-cant-breathe-192574/

And when a 2011 tornado took 161 lives in the small town of Joplin, Missouri, mural artist Dave Loewenstein asked kids about their dreams for the future of their town, resulting in this stunning piece, The Butterfly Effect.

So, in the great hope that we’ll kick this virus’ butt, and we will be left with a glut of ventilators, how about we use them to revive our society’s artists, since they are the vital oxygen that feed our souls.  

In Vancouver, we are already lucky enough to have our City government responding with funding for the Murals for Hope project (#makeartwhileapart), which is transforming solemn, boarded-up shops and restaurants into colorful and encouraging messages that can help sustain us until their doors reopen again.

Geoff and I are also trying to do our small part to stimulate the creative economy, while beautifying our home in the process.  We are very excited to have just commissioned a mural artist to spruce up our tiny backyard space, which we’re transforming from a gravel parking spot into our own tropical oasis.  Here are some inspirational images as well as a shot of the yard in its current state. And hopefully, I can post the finished product, which will be painted onto the rotting fence, in a couple of weeks.

April 28, 2020

Art of Relationship

This period is not just requiring us to get creative with keyboards and canvases and cameras.  It is forcing us to re-examine the very patterns that make up our daily lives and fit them all inside the same four walls with the same self, spouse, and/or kids, 24/7.  Suffice it to say, this is no small task.  But, if any of you are like me, the grand solutions have sometimes involved tiny changes.    

Personally, my greatest challenge has been to find ways to carve out slivers of shared pleasure amidst my partner’s insanely stressful, often 13-hour work day, now that the pandemic has his team at our local transit authority in serious crisis mode.  Of course, I’m a firm believer in hard-work.  The pursuit of a classical musician requires many years of 5+ hours-a-day of practice.  But I’m also a fun-lover, and a huge proponent of life/work balance, particularly having had to learn this the hard way, thru a chronic overuse injury.  So, for me, Geoff’s manic schedule during the first month of isolation seemed far from optimal. And while this was especially difficult for him, it compromised joy for both of us.  

Seeking guidance as we adapted to the new normal, we found a great online series by Esther Perel, whose regular podcast, Where Should We Begin? always leaves us with sound, simple dance steps that we can apply to the Art of Relationship.  Here, she has created a 4-part series that specifically addresses problems which co-habitators might face in our current reality.  https://events.estherperel.com/april-2020-webinar-resources/?fbclid=IwAR0kRHkuQvEGxcpNuHvPKmmExamZ2Jj_EMZzR-zGp8eDejCR94hE-ZvGYjY

Inspired by her wisdom, we decided that the 7:30 am meetings, which had been occupying our kitchen and bleeding into our morning coffees, every day, could be skipped for a 15-minute walk thru our neighborhood park.  And, let me tell you, what a difference a quarter of an hour can make!  

April 29, 2020

Finding Variety in Repetition

It occurred to me, the other morning, that this experience feels a bit like fasting.  Since college, I’ve routinely devoted a week, every spring, to some kind of dietary shift, for my general health, and as a general mindfulness exercise.   While I’ve tried versions of the Wild Rose and other popular cleanses with some benefit, the method recommended in Staying Healthy with the Seasons has always suited me best. It requires you to slowly wean off many foods (meat/fish, then sugar/alcohol/coffee, then dairy), gradually move to only liquids, eventually evolve to a middle day of just water, and then similarly reintroduce each food gradually.    What I’ve loved about this approach is how much more aware of my cravings I become, how much I notice the “manufacturing of consent” that happens all around me to inspire my “wants”, and finally how various symptoms are suddenly absent once I’ve eliminated certain foods.  Consequently, the slow reintroduction of foods allows me to notice, in much more specific detail, which foods stimulate which responses in my body (IE. huge bursts of energy from fruit; afternoon crashes from sugar; indigestion from soy; sustenance from bread and pasta - NOTE: Contrary to the wheat-vilifying trends that currently prevail, I typically thrive on an anti-Atkins diet, as someone who reaps tremendous fuel from carbs).  

The parallels we are experiencing now relate to the stimuli that we’ve been “denied” by our self-isolating reality.   Speaking for myself, instead of travelling frequently, as I often do, or eating at different restaurants every week, or working at a different café every day to switch up the creative energy around me, I have had, like everyone else, to learn to find sustenance and interest in a much less diverse set of circumstances.  I am eating at Chez Me three meals a day.  We are grinding our own beans and whipping up our own daily lattes.  And most all of our daily walks and bike rides now start from our home.  

But even within the boundaries that we can reach from the nexus of our own address, we have been able to slowly expand our radius of exploration to corners of our city that we had never seen before.  This has felt a bit like switching to a vegetarian diet and gaining new appreciation for the crunchiness of a snap pea, or the filling nature of a portabello mushroom.  

In these explorations, we have discovered infinite surprises which include a cliffside view of the Fraser River from Everett Crowley Park (top image), an old landfill-turned-lush green space in Vancouver’s southeastern-most quadrant.  We’ve seen old growth forest that we had no idea existed so many kilometres from the shore, in Burnaby’s Central Park on our city’s eastern border.  I’ve spotted my first-ever fisher (weasel) sneaking around beachside boulders on the northern edge of the city.  And closer to home, I’ve noticed the whimsy of our neighbors’ gardens in far greater detail than I had ever looked before (as in the Gaudiesque, smiley-face hedge pictured above).  Our ventures from home have been guided by little more than our edict to “follow the pink”, as in the most blossoming streets.  And to document these journeys, I’ve been mapping the various routes we’ve taken.  Interestingly, the trajectory somewhat resembles a many-petaled flower.

Looking for minute changes in what seem to be patterns of sameness is also the secret to one of my favorite movements in music and design: Minimalism. Perhaps this is why Max Richter and Steve Reich have become the soundtrack I’ve turned to most during the pandemic.  Because their music trains our brains to find beauty in repetition while seeking excitement from the subtlest nuanced shifts.  

Meanwhile, I know that many of us would love for there to be a magic wand that could lift all of our restrictions over night and allow us to return to exactly “the way it was before”, in the same way that I long for a mocha frappuccino when I fast.  However, what we have been hearing from our leaders is that the more likely and safe choice will be to move into a gradual re-opening of our cities - a slow reintroduction of certain freedoms.  So, the lessons we can learn from fasting and Phillip Glass ought to prove very useful as we try to be patient and appreciative of this prudent approach.   Then, once we begin to shop and drive and socialize more, perhaps this perspective can allow us to also more clearly notice how we respond to each stimuli as we re-engage with it, And hopefully it will inform a new normal that can be more sensible and moderate and in harmony with this planet that we call home.

And, in case you’re curious to listen to a little minimalist fare...

Notice how welcomed the first chord change is in Max Richter’s Catalogue of Afternoons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubjylmxrj9o

Or drape yourself in his hypnotic music like a warm duvet with his 8-hour lullaby, Sleep: https://open.spotify.com/album/0JLN7JryQ2T7lBEYIrSQF1

And for a mind trip of the eyes and ears, try Steve Reich’s Piano Phase on marimbas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3QoM7dgs_0

April 30, 2020

Film Festivals for free

Pahokee, at this year’s live-streamed Vancouver International Film Festival

Done wondering if Carol Baskin killed her husband?  Couldn’t care less if Giannini and Damian actually ever get married? Well, for those who’ve exhausted the Netflix catalogue, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy film from your home. Lots of festivals have generously uploaded their content online.  So, whether it’s mountain adventure, short films, foreign movies, or arthouse you’re looking for, here are some easy ways to link to those that are totally free:

Banff Mountain Film Festival - https://www.banffcentre.ca/film-fest-at-home

Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Venice, Berlin and others have collaborated to bring an awesome line-up of livestream videos to the world in their 10-day We Are One Festival, starting on May 29th.  While the festival will stream for free, viewers will be asked to donate to the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 solidarity response fund.

If you happen to remain gainfully employed, and it’s important to you to keep supporting independent film making, Vancouver International Film Festival has created a rental-fee structure for a number of films that they’ve now made available for streaming, too: https://viff.org/Online/default.asp

And Sedona Film Festival has done the same - https://sedonafilmfestival.com/mdfhome/

May 1, 2020

Boredom Killers: Ping-pong, birthday song, and Magritte gong wrong

Combing the internet for creative inspiration that I can share with readers has truly been a joy.   It’s also got our own creative jucies flowing.  So today, I thought I’d post just a few of the ways we’ve staved off boredom over these past weeks.

Tennis is one of our true passions.  It’s actually sort of how Geoff and my relationship began.  Given that we didn’t want our paddle skills to get too rusty, we didn’t let the fact that our little laneway house couldn’t fit a ping pong table stop us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kait-zCV94s

Coming from a huge birthday-celebrating family, I’ve tried to make sure that friends with birthdays during quarantine could still feel pampered on their special day.  So, 6 of us put together this silly ditty for our good friend Roger: https://youtu.be/EZKyrdOlvPk

And, we’ve jumped on the art replication bandwagon too.  The Met & the Getty Museum have both followed the lead of the Dutch gallery that first initiated the Instagram art challenge which asks people to recreate famous pieces of art with only 3 objects from their home. https://www.instagram.com/tussenkunstenquarantaine/

Here’s Geoff and my attempt with Magritte’s Lovers. The challenge also asks for participants to create new titles, so this is ours, Kissing Strategy for Stay-at-home Lazy Toothbrushers.

[sweettsubaki]

When creating characters I often like to do three things to help me understand their whole personality and help them come to life. It includes finding their MBTI type (through the functions not the letters, I usually do it last because it takes time and fairly deep understanding of the character), finding their Daemon (including their name, it helps a surprising big amount). Finally, finding their Hogwart House. It helps a lot especially as a first round up on who your character is and what they’re like.

For this I have my own sheet using the personality traits given by the books and Pottermore, which I thought I’d share with people who’re interested. 

Hufflepuff 

Dedication | Hard Work | Fair play | Patience | Kindness | Tolerance | Unafraid of toil | Loyalty

/8 -> /8 => /8

Gryffindor

Nerve/Daring Chivalry  (these are the most commonly accepted values of Chivalry): Courage | Justice | Mercy | Loyalty | Generosity | Faith | Nobility | Hope

/9 -> /9 => /9

Ravenclaw

Intelligence | Wit | Wisdom | Creativity | Originality | Individuality | Acceptance | Curiosity

/8 -> /8 => /8

Slytherin

Resourcefulness | Cunning | Ambition | Determination | Self-Preservation | Fraternity | Cleverness

/7 -> /7 => /7

A few precisions: First, you bold the traits your character has, and put in italics the traits that the character shows but not enough to be an actual important trait that define them. Now here’s the tricky thing. Some traits are shared by several houses and it comes down to the basis of each house. Here’s an example: If you think the character is extremely loyal but both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff has it listed and Slytherin has Fraternity which is actually what a lot of people think of when they hear the word loyalty. Hufflepuff is all encompassing. It goes with the fact that they’re patient. Basically once they’ve started believing in something/someone, might as well go all the way. It doesn’t mean they’re always gonna be totally loyal no matter what, if their own values goes against it they will stop. It also has the possibility of shaking them up completely (think Natasha from the Marvel Cinematic Universe when she learns SHIELD was Hydra). Gryffindor goes with the principle of Honor and Faith, it’s part of the Chivalry Code. Loyalty is an ideal so usually they’re loyal to whatever/whoever they decided to put their faith into. Harry’s loyalty to Dumbledore is a shining example of this. Slythering isn’t called loyalty but fraternity. Overall the principle is the same only their loyalty is very community oriented (whether it’s one person or a big family)…Also the principle of ambition is similar, it’s kinda the “loyalty to a goal”. Think Bucky from the MCU. His biggest trait is his loyalty to Steve yet he’s a complete Slytherin

Then there’s the count. A bolded trait = 1 point. A trait put in italics = 0.5 point. You’ll notice that they don’t have the same number of points. If there’s more than 2.5 points of difference between the two main results, you can either do the maths to reach a grade out of 9 (multiply Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw by 1.125 and Slytherin by  1.28571428571 and round the number to either .0 or .5). The italic traits don’t have to be used but I think it allows for a more nuanced result.

It’s fairly simple and here’s an example I did for some characters of the Bat-Family (characters from the Batman comics)

[serenavangstuff]

Juniper publishers-Aging In Grace and the Effects of Social Isolation on the Elderly Population

Abstract

Our conception, birth and developmental processes are as a result of human cooperation which establishes a necessity of our dependence on others for success, personal progress and well-being. Without this cooperation our full growth into adulthood will be grossly hampered. This article will discuss such cooperation and confirm the reality that we are summed by the contributions made in our lives by people we have been privileged to encounter in our journey of life.

It identifies successful aging or aging in grace within a framework of factors and conditions that encourage the potential development of the 'untapped reserves' of the elderly population. It is also aims at demonstrating how social isolation is a problem in the general wellbeing of the elderly population and "social death” as a devaluation of the humanity of others and of the human person in general. Finally, it recommends social support systems as imperative in promoting general well-being among older adults.

Introduction

In the light of our collective cynicism and stereotyping of aging and the elderly—elderly people are sick, elderly people are ugly, elderly people are obsolete, the question arises: is there any hope to age in grace or successfully, and experience some kind of tranquility and happiness in the process, and what would that entail? Aging in grace, graceful aging, successful aging, optimal aging, positive aging, productive aging, active aging, adaptive aging, or aging well, are all ideas without universally accepted definitions. A focus on aging includes concepts such as health, life satisfaction and quality of life and genetic, biomedical, behavioral and social factors.

Aging in Grace and Other Nuances

The terms aging in grace, graceful, successful, positive or optimal aging are usually used interchangeably, but, according to many gerontologists these terms focus on life-style choices that promote quality aging, and therefore minimize age-related problem. The term successful aging was made popular by Rowe and Kahn [1] in order to describe quality aging well into old age. Aging in grace is one of the ways of describing the other ways of growing old happily, successfully and normally, or the average aging development as assessed on any measure and with any age definition, and pathological aging, which incorporates acute or chronic disease that hampers a normal aging pattern and accelerates decline. Many people, view aging as 'something to be denied or concealed', but aging in grace and successful aging have to do with 'aging well' which is not the same as 'not aging at all'.

Successful aging is no longer an oxymoron but a reality. Nevertheless, a standard or uniform definition for successful aging still does not exist. Part of the problem in defining the term is a lack of consensus on what aging is, when it starts, and finding general criteria for success, since social and cultural values both play a role in the definitions [2]. Successful aging can be defined as the process of promoting gains and preventing losses through a process called 'Selection, Optimization and Compensation' (SOC). An inclusive definition of successful aging necessitates a value-based, systemic, and an ecological perspective. Both subjective and objective indicators need to be considered within a given cultural context with its particular contents and ecological demands. The solution according to Rowe and Kahn [1] is thus to use various subjective and objective criteria for successful aging, focusing on individual variability within a given culture.

Successful aging is the result of the interaction between an aging individual within his or her society over the life span, and can also be described as the process of 'adaptive competence'with regard to the challenges of later life, using both internal and external resources. Since dynamics in society influence the aging process, successful aging is not solely an inherent quality of an aging person. There is a bidirectional relationship between an aging individual's adaptive competence and the developmental tasks of society. Successful agers appear to fare well on developmental tasks. There does not seem to be clear scientific agreement on a definition of developmental tasks, but Featherman et al. [3] describe them as sequences of tasks over the life course whose satisfactory performance not only is important for the person's sense of competence and esteem in the community, but also serves as preparation for the future. Developmental tasks require using one's cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills to manage one’s life circumstances. Examples of adaptive competence include gathering social support, maintaining independence as far as possible and adjusting well to retirement. Featherman et al. [3] are of the opinion that as aging progresses, ill-structured tasks out-number well-structured tasks. Well-structured tasks are sometimes defined as problems with standard solutions or techniques, and ill-structured tasks as more ambiguous problems with relative solutions. Reflective planners tend to fare better in retirement because of their accumulated expertise in solving ill-structured problems.

I. With Rowe and Kahn, we identify three key aspects in successful aging

i. preventing disease and disability as far as possible, inter alia through good lifestyle choices,

ii. continuing with mental and physical exercise throughout the life span, and

iii. Keeping up an active life-style, by being productive and by fostering strong social relationships.

This identification was based on the 10-year MacArthur study involving a multi-disciplinary team of professionals that wanted to answer three questions:

i. the meaning of successful aging,

ii. what can be done to age successfully, and

iii. What changes are necessary in American society to facilitate successful aging.

This equally helped with a paradigm shift away from conceptualizing aging as more focused on disease and disability, to a more hopeful approach. However, research confirms that few very old people (older than 90 years) age successfully. Thus, the concept aging in grace, Ihenetu [2] suggests is more 'comprehensive' than successful aging, because aging in grace focuses on 'quality of life and a sense of well-being' despite age- related decline or ill health. Successful aging for some researches is an idealized term that is not necessarily in accordance with the present reality of aging, due to the fact that restrictive factors such as ageism, affordable housing, adequate income and quality healthcare are not taken into consideration. On the other hand, the value of successful aging lies in understanding that an individual can contribute to aging well, for example through specific activities or life-style choices. Nevertheless, few elderly people fit neatly into the categories of successful, normal or pathological aging for all capabilities and suggests that one should maximize successful aging in the capabilities one can control as early in life as possible, employing preventive measures to delay age-related decline for as long as possible.

Social Death and Social Isolation Among The Elderly Population

With the advance of science and modernity, the meaning and understanding of death has been evolving. Death can be defined on a variety of different levels but most people define death as a physical event in which there is a cessation of all bodily functions including beating of the heart. Some in the medical field will broaden this to include 'clinical' or 'biological' death. The 'social death’  phrase evolved and relates to those who die in a social sense consequent to degeneration of the brain or disease, which limits interaction with those around them.

The first available presentation of social death came from Glaser and Strauss (1966), during a discussion of 'hopelessly comatose’ patients, these authors describe their receipt of 'nonperson treatment from hospital personnel when talking freely about things that would matter to the conscious patient. They said that socially he is already dead, though his body remains biologically alive. They also describe some 'senile patients' as 'socially dead as if they were hopelessly comatose’ in the eyes of the families who consign them to institutions and thereafter fail to visit. Some individuals according to Ihenetu [4] regard certain health challenges as a result illness or old age as a social death in which the person is no more connected to society and is dying a little at a time with no hope for recovery. A person's true worth does not diminish as a result of certain health challenges, it becomes an assault for a system of society to diminish and devalue the humanity of others as socially dead or insignificant based on the condition of life.

It is important to debate the idea as to whether elderly persons who are faced with the challenges of old age can be considered socially dead because how they are perceived would directly correspond to how they are cared for and valued in society. A good place to start would be to ask the question; what it is that makes an individual into a whole person? What is it that would allow one to say that an individual has a worthwhile life or life of value? The perception of social death may have some correlation to anticipatory grief that precedes the impending death of an elderly patient. What this means is that the caregiver or family member who is in the position of contributing to the social life of the individual might have given up long before exhausting every available opportunity to communicate. Labeling someone as socially dead is a serious allegation. In essence, it is the end of an individual's social existence. It might even be considered as a self-fulfilling prophecy that could speed up actual physical death. Social death occurs when a person is treated as a corpse although he or she is still clinically and biologically alive. For instance, this is much like allowing someone who was brought into a hospital in a near death state to remain on the stretcher overnight for the fear of unnecessarily having to dirty a bed. Social death does not always lead to biological death nor is it a definite concept.

A survey by Pat Robertson (2011) which referred to Alzheimer’s patients as socially dead, 100% of the responses received from surveys sent out to caregivers show otherwise. When specifically asked if those with Alzheimer's are to be considered socially dead, here below are some of the responses received from caregivers: "Absolutely not; each time my father saw me I could see a twinkle in his sad blue eyes. He did not know my name but he called me pretty’. Another said, 'Not at all - we still can enjoy church; sing and he still goes to Sunday school but does not recall anything except the Lord 's Prayer” To the same question, a Hospice Medical Director writes 'No, because they are still relational to the family to which they belong. They interact with loved ones even until death.' Another doctor who specializes in geriatrics notes, "In those with advanced dementia though the interaction/conversation may be basic or repetitive, they can still interact and thus are not socially dead.” A palliative care doctor said, "I believe they are far from socially dead. Although they may not be able to verbalize, they do communicate in other ways - why can’t people see it?”

Self-perceived social death occurs when an individual accepts the notion that he or she is as good as dead. When a patient is given a terminal diagnosis, it can be a cause to precipitate such thought. However Kastenbaum [5] is of the view that social death must be defined situationally. In particular, it is a situation in which there is absence of those behaviors which we would expect to be directed towards a living person and the presence of behaviors we would expect when dealing with a deceased or non-existent person. Thus, although an individual may be potentially responsive and desperately seeking recognition and interaction, that individual will by this definition be socially dead if others cease to acknowledge his or her continued existence. Consequently, it is paramount to get this right. Non-cognitive or elderly persons should never be looked upon as those who cease to have continued existence [4].

On the other hand, when we look at social isolation among elderly adults, we discover that there are so many researches on the effects of isolation on children and young adults, but only a few on the effect of isolation on the elderly. However, the human need for social connection does not fade away among the elderly, which is to say, the elderly have the need for social connections. Decline of social connection is considered one of the various interrelated factors which compose well-being among the elderly. Hence, it is necessary and important to deepen the knowledge about social isolation among the elderly. According to some authors, social isolation is a subject concerned with the objective characteristics of a situation and refers to the absence of relationships with other people, that is to say, they believe that persons with a very small number of meaningful ties are socially isolated, (ibid.,35).

Meanwhile, Ihenetu [4] enumerated five attributes of social isolation as: number of contacts, feeling of belonging, fulfilling relationships, engagement and quality of network members. Consequently, even loneliness, depression symptoms and their temporal connection are not attributes of social isolation, but those concepts can be causes of being socially isolated. Therefore, lack of a sense of social belonging, lack of social contacts, lack of fulfilling and quality relationships, psychological barriers, physical barriers, low financial/resource exchange and a prohibitive environment can be possible reasons leading to social isolation.

Turning to the effects of being socially isolated, it has been associated with increased vascular resistance, elevated blood pressure, impaired sleep, altered immunity, alcoholism, progression of dementia, obesity and poorer physical health. In other words, socially isolated individuals have a higher possibility of suffering from health issues. Also, drinking, falls, depressive symptoms, cognitive decline and poor outcome after stroke, nutritional risk, increased rates of re-hospitalization, loneliness and alteration in the family process were are also specific effects of social isolation. These truly existing negative effects prove that social isolation has a far-reaching impact on elderly well-being.

Its effects on the elderly well-being are phenomenona which cannot be ignored. The socially isolated elderly persons are among the risk group for myriad other negative health consequences, such as poor nutrition, cognitive decline and heavy alcohol consumption. Therefore, social isolation has a non-ignorable influence on elderly well-being [4]. It is more prevalent in older adults due to diminished vitality and health. In other words, diminished vitality and health are direct causes for being socially isolated among the elderly. Simultaneously, vitality and health are considered a vital dimension of elderly well-being. In sum, the relevance between elderly well-being and isolation is arising from interaction.

Isolation

Working Definition

'Belonging' is a multi-dimensional social construct of relatedness to persons, places, or things, and is fundamental to personality and social well-being. If belonging is connectedness, then social isolation is the distancing of an individual, psychologically or physically, or both, from his or her network of desired or needed relationships with other persons. Therefore, social isolation is a loss of place within one’s group(s). The isolation may be voluntary or involuntary. In cognitively intact persons, social isolation can be identified as such by the isolate.

Some researches portray social isolation as typically accompanied by feelings related to loss or marginality. Apartness or aloneness, often described as solitude, may also be a part of the concept of social isolation, in that it is a distancing from one's network, but this state may be accom¬panied by more positive feelings and is often vol-untarily initiated by the isolate. Some researchers debate whether apartness should be included in, or distinguished as a separate concept from, social isolation. Social isolation as we can see has several definitions and distinc¬tions, dependent upon empirical research and the stance of the observer.

When Isolation Becomes A Problem

Social isolation ranges from the voluntary isolate who seeks disengagement from social intercourse for a variety of reasons, to those whose isolation is involuntary or imposed by others. Privacy or being alone, if actively chosen, has the potential for enhancing the human psyche. On the other hand, involuntary social isolation occurs when an individual's demand for social contacts or communications exceeds the human or situa¬tional capability of others. Involuntary isola¬tion is negatively viewed because the outcomes are the dissolution of social exchanges and the support they provide for the individual or their support system(s). Some persons, such as those with cognitive deficits, may not understand their involuntary isolation, but their parent, spouse, or significant other may indeed understand that involuntary social isolation can have a negative and profound impact on the caregiver and care recipient.

When social isolation is experienced neg¬atively by an individual or his or her significant other, it becomes a problem that requires man¬agement. In fact, according to much of the liter¬ature, only physical functional disability ranks with social isolation in its impact on the patient and the patient’s social support network (family, friends, fellow workers, and so forth). Therefore, social isolation is one of the two most important aspects of chronic illness to be managed in the plan of care.

The Nature and Distinctions of Social Isolation

Social isolation is viewed from the perspective of the number, frequency, and quality of con¬tacts; the longevity or durability of these contacts; and the negativism attributed to the isolation felt by the individual involved. Social isolation has been the subject of the humanities for hundreds of years. Who has not heard of John Donne's excla-mation, 'No man is an island', or, conversely, the philosophy of existentialism— that humans are ultimately alone? Yet the concept of social isola¬tion has been systematically researched during only the last 50 years. Unlike some existential¬ists and social scientists, healthcare professionals, with their problem-oriented, clinical approach, tend to regard social isolation as negative rather than positive,(ibid.). However, isolation can occur at four layers of the social concept. The outermost social layer is community, where one feels integrated or isolated from the larger social structure. Next is the layer of organi¬zation (work, schools, churches), followed by a layer closer to the person, that is, confidantes (friends, family, significant others). Finally, the innermost• layer is that of the person, who has the personality, the intellectual ability, or the senses with which to apprehend and interpret relationships.

In the healthcare literature, the primary focus is on the clinical dyad, so the examination of social isolation tends to be confined to the levels of con¬fidante and person, and extended only to the orga¬nization and community for single clients, one at a time. For the healthcare professional, the most likely relationships are bound to expectations of individually centered reciprocity, mutuality, car¬ing, and responsibility. On the other hand, health policy literature tends to focus on the reciprocity of community and organizations to populations of individuals, and so it deals with collective social isolation. At the level of the clinical dyad, four patterns of social isolation or interaction have been identified; although these were originally formulated with older adults in mind, they can be analogized easily to younger persons by making them age-relative:

a. Persons who have been integrated into social groups throughout their lifetime.

b. The 'early isolate’ which was isolated as an adult but is relatively active in old age

c. The 'recent isolate' who was active’ in early adulthood but is not in old age.

d. The 'lifelong isolate' whose life’ is one of isolation.

Normally there are feelings that isolation brings which are often characterized by boredom and marginality or exclusion. Boredom occurs because of the lack validation of one's work or daily routines; therefore, these tasks become only busy work. Marginality is the sense of being excluded from desired networks or groups. Other feelings ascribed to social isola-tion include loneliness, anger, despair, sadness, frustration, or, in some cases, relief.

Progressions In Social Isolation

Regardless of how social isolation occurs, the result is that basic needs for authentic intimacy remain unmet. Typically this is perceived as alien¬ating or unpleasant, and the social isolation that occurs can lead to depression, loneliness, or other social and cognitive impairments that then exacerbate the isolation. Several predisposing reasons for social isolation have been proposed: status-altering physical disabilities or illnesses; frailties associated with advanced age or developmental delays; personality or neurologic disorders; and environmental constraints, which often refer to physical surroundings but are also interpreted by some to include diminished personal or material resources.

A typical course of isolation that evolves as an ill¬ness or disability becomes more apparent is the change in social network relationships. Friends or families begin to withdraw from the isolated individual or the individual from them. This process may be slow or subtle, as with individuals with arthritis, or it may be rapid, as with the person with AIDS. Unfortunately, the process of isolation may not be based on accurate or rational information. Individuals with serious chronic illnesses come to perceive themselves as different from others and outside the mainstream of ordinary life. This perception of being different may be shared by others, who may then reject them, their disability, and their differences. Part of this sense of being different can stem from the ongoing demands of the illness. For example, social relationships are interrupted because fam¬ilies and friends cannot adjust the .erratic treatment to acceptable social activities. From such real events, or from social perceptions, social isolation can occur, either as a process or as an outcome.

Individuals with chronic illness often face their own mortality more explicitly than do others. Even if death does not frighten those with chronic illness, it frequently frightens those in their social networks, which leads to guilt, and can lead to strained silences and withdrawal. For those who lack this social support, social isolation is not merely a metaphor for death but can hasten it.

Possible Causes

The list to the possible causes of social isolation is endless. Retirement, death of a spouse or significant other, health problems and even reduced income can create situations where one becomes separated from social contacts. The key, however, is how the elderly person and caregivers choose to respond to these changes because the responses can make the difference in creating a positive or negative result.

Social isolation can develop when living at home causes a lack of communication with others. This results in the elderly person feeling lonely due to the loss of contact or companionship, as well as a deficit of close and genuine communication with others. It also can be the self-perception of being alone even when one is in the company of other people. We discuss the impact of these few:

A. Stigma: Social isolation may occur as one effect of stigma. Many persons will risk anonymity rather than expose themselves to a judgmental audience. Because chronic illnesses can be stigmatizing, the concern about the possibility of revealing a discredited or discreditable self can slow or paralyze social interaction. In a study examining chronic sorrow in HIV-positive patients, stigma created social isolation. Therefore, social roles and the robustness of network support affect social isolation. The individual with chronic illness or their families grapple with how much information about the diagnosis they should share, with whom, and when. If the illness is manageable or reasonably invisible, its presence may be hidden from all but a select few, often for years. Parents of children with chronic illnesses often manage stressful encounters and uncertainty by disguising, withholding, or limiting information to other, an action that may add to limiting their social network.

For example as siblings of children with infectious disease deal with the isolation of their brother or sister, they became vulnerable to being socially isolated themselves. Social isolation not only burdens those with chronic illness, it also extends into fam¬ily dynamics and requires the healthcare profes¬sional to consider how the family manages. Nurses must explicitly plan for the isolation in families with children who are chronically ill. Thus, with social isolation being a burden for the family, it requires the healthcare professional to consider how. The family manages the illness and the  isolation. Where the stigmatized disability is quite obvious, as in the visibility of burn scars or the odor of colitis, the person who is chronically ill might venture only within small circles of under¬standing individuals. Where employment is possible, it will often be work that does not require many social interactions, such as night work or jobs within protected environments (sheltered workshops, home offices). Regardless of what serves as reminders of the disability, the disability is incorporated into the isolates sense of self; that is, it becomes part of his or her social and personal identity.

B. Social Rules: Any weakening or diminishment of relationships or social roles might produce social isolation for individuals or their significant others. Those who lose family, friends, and associated position and power are inclined to feelings of rejection, worthlessness, and loss of self-esteem. These feelings become magnified by the person's culture if that culture values community. An example of social isolation of both caregiver and care recipient occurred in a situation of a woman whose husband had Alzheimer’s disease. The cou¬ple had been confined for more than 2 year? In an apartment in a large city, from which her confused husband frequently wandered. Her comment, "I'm not like a wife and not like a single person either," reflected their dwindling social network and her loss of wifely privileges but not obligations. This ambiguity is common to many whose spouses are incapacitated. Moreover, after a spouse dies, the widow or widower often grieves as much for the loss of the role of a married person as for the loss of the spouse.

The loss of social roles can occur as a result of illness or disability, social changes throughout the life span (e.g., in school groups, with career moves, or in un accepting communities), marital dissolution (through death or divorce), or secondary to ostracism incurred by membership in a• "Wrong" group. The loss of social roles and the resultant isolation of the individual have been useful analytic devices in the examination of issues of the aged, the widowed, the physically impaired, or in psychopathology.

C. Age: Old age with its possible many losses of physical and psychological health, social roles, mobility, eco¬nomic status and physical living arrangements, can contribute to decreasing social networks and increasing isolation. This will become even more of an issue as the numbers of older adults are expected to increase arithmetically and proportionately in the next two decades. The prevalence of social isolation in older adults has been approximated now to be at 2-20% and even as high as 35% in assisted-living arrangements [4].

Social isolation has been linked with con¬fusion, particularly in older adults with chronic illness. But when the socially isolated are also immobilized, the combination of isolation and immobilization can lead to greater impairments, such as perceptual and behavioral changes (e.g., confusion, noncompliance, or time distortions). Physical barriers (such as physical plant designs) or architectural features (such as heavy doors) also contribute to social isolation or home-boundedness. All of these limits contribute to social isolation in ways that motivation alone cannot eas¬ily overcome.

Social isolation has been shown to be a serious health risk for older adults, with studies indicating a relationship between allcause mortality, coronary disease, and cognitive impairments. In a converse finding, older adults with extensive social networks were protected against dementia. And, as described earlier, although low social engagement may not be a form of social isolation per se, it is a psychological isolator and thus a risk factor in social isolation. For example, depressive symptoms in older adults were shown to be decreased by social inte-gration. Isolated older adults were shown to have increased risk for coronary heart disease, and death related to congestive heart failure was predicted by social isolation. Similarly, post-stroke outcomes, for exam¬ple, strokes, myocardial infarction, or death, were predicted by pre-stroke isolation.

The extent and nature of a, social network from local to community, and integrated to contained, as well as the positive; or negative nature of the social relationships in the social network, impact health as well as social isolation. In fact, the quality of the social relationship may have more impact than the number of ties, which suggests that a few solid relationships may be more beneficial than many ties of poor quality.

Social Isolation and Well-being

Generally discussions on well-being both the best methods for achieving it and whether or not it is an appropriate goal of human activity, have been frequent throughout history. It is known that health status and personality are the most important predictors of well-being. In consideration of the relationship between health status and age, studies show that overall dysfunction comes along with the aging process. However, it can also be influenced by the quality of life especially of social isolation and loneliness. In order to understand better wellbeing in the elderly, We shall analyze the meaning of well-being, the relationship between well-being and elderly and well-being with other predictors in order to find out if they are mutually contradictory [4].

In the contemporary policy and practice, Well-being has become a high profile issue. Rather than talking just about 'improving health' we are more likely to read about 'improving health and wellbeing', and similarly, the notion of 'welfare' is now accompanied by 'well-being': as well as 'doing well', the aim should be to 'be well.' Well-being has been associated with 'happiness', with 'quality of life’ or 'life satisfaction'. And sometimes it is talked about as 'subjective well-being’ or 'mental well-being.' So the idea of well-being involves how we feel about ourselves and our lives, rather than how our lives might be assessed by others [4].

In relation to elderly people and others who use social care services, the importance of 'activity' or 'healthy lifestyles' are highlighted as factors that contribute to quality of life, wellbeing and remaining independent. This is also based on the idea of 'choice'- which we can benefit from choosing how we live our lives and what services or supports will help us do so.

Psychologically, well-being is considered as a vital dimension of the elderly person’s quality of life. Psychological well-being is generated by two dimensions which are absence of depression and emotional loneliness; and presence of happiness, life satisfaction, feeling of security, and plans for the future. An individual will be high in psychological well-being to the degree in which positives affect or predominate over negatives. On the other hand, when negative effects are in a dominant position, the individual will be low in well-being. That is to say, to gain subjective well-being, pleasure usually predominates over pain in one's life experiences.

It not surprising therefore, that some elderly people have talked about the significance of all kinds of relationships to their well-being. These included relationships with families, friends, neighbors, service providers, and also for some at least, the nature of casual encounters with strangers at bus stops, at the checkout counter of supermarkets and elsewhere. People feel a sense of security knowing a neighbour is looking out for them, and the opportunity to have a chat and cup of tea can help if someone feels isolated. The opportunity to strike up conversations in public spaces can also help people who have limited social contact to feel connected, particularly if families are rarely seen and friends have died. Losing friends can also mean losing the chance to share memories and some people suggested that, not only is it hard to make new friends in old age, 'new friends’ do not carry the history that 'old friends’ do. So that when people join in activities in the hope that they may develop new connections, this may not always positively contribute to a sense of well-being.

Friendships are important at any age. The older people we interviewed talked about how friends contributed to well-being through offers of practical help, sustaining connections with their past, and also by enabling them to give back and contribute to the well-being of others. Family relationships can be a source of support, security, joy and pleasure. They can also enable older people to contribute to others' well-being; not only caring for partners, grandchildren or other relatives, but offering their knowledge and experience (e.g. of places they have visited, journeys they have made) for the benefit of younger people starting out on exploring the world. Two way learning and support (e.g. grandchildren helping them use the internet) helps older people feel they are involved in reciprocal relationships, helps them feel valued, stay in touch with the world and maintain their sense of identity.

Social support in isolation

Social support was initially defined by taking cognizance of the number of friends an individual has; but this definition has been extended to include the person's satisfaction with the support that is rendered. Social support could include esteem support, whereby a person's self-esteem is boosted by other people, informational support that includes information provided by other people, and social companionship, which consists of support rendered by means of activities. Finally, instrument support involves a form of physical assistance. Social support has also been defined by some authors as any input that can further the goals of the receiver. Social support can be tangible, including provision of physical resources that can be beneficial to the individual in some way, or psychological, that assists the individual in developing emotional well-being Social support can also be explained as the specific people or community resources to which an individual turns for emotional and instrumental assistance. While social support could be defined as the active participation of significant others in the caregiver's efforts to manage stress, caregivers can easily become isolated from social support as a result of their confinement and responsibilities, which places them increasingly at risk for stress-related illnesses. Both the caregiver's as well as the patient's quality of life can be adversely affected, as social support is important for coping and satisfies the need for attachment, a feeling of self-worth, stress relief, and so on. However, social support is generally defined as any action that is to the advantage of the receiver of such support.

Categories of Social Support

There are six criteria of social support that researchers have used to measure the level of overall social support available for the specific person or situation [2]. First, they would look at the amount of attachment provided from a lover or spouse. Second, measuring the level of social integration that the individuals involved with, it usually comes from a group of people or friends. Third, the assurance of worth from others such as positive reinforcement that could inspires and boosts the self-esteem. The fourth criterion is the reliable alliance support that provided from others, which means that the individual knows they can depend on receiving support from family members whenever it was needed. Fifth, the guidance of assurances of support given to the individual from a higher figure of person such as a teacher or parent, the last criterion is the opportunity for nurturance. It means the person would get some social enhancement by having children of their own and providing a nurturing  experience.

Two other major categories of social support have also been identified [4], tangible support, which may include physical resources that could be beneficial to the receiver; and psychological support, which assists the receiver in developing beneficial affective or emotional states. Psychological support helps a person to feel more content (or to feel better). It is clear that social support from family and friends have an important role to play in assisting a person to translate intentions into health behaviours, while the absence of social support can have a detrimental effect on the individual’s overall health. Social support can also consist of support from individuals such as friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers, professionals and acquaintances. All types of support have been found to be beneficial in helping individuals to cope during a serious illness. There is enough evidence to suggest that in general people who receive support enjoy better health than those who do not receive such support.

Therapeutic effects of social support

Social support is one of most important factors in predicting the physical health and general well-being of everyone, ranging from children through older adults. The absence of social support shows some disadvantages among the impacted individuals. In most cases, it can predict the deterioration of physical and mental health among the victims. A regular social support is a determining factor in successfully overcoming life stress. It significantly predicts the individual's ability to cope with stress. Knowing that they are valued by others is an important psychological factor in helping them to forget  the negative aspects of their lives, and thinking more positively about their environment. It not only helps improve elderly person’s wellbeing, it affects the immune system as well. Thus, it becomes a major factor in preventing negative symptoms such as depression and anxiety from developing. Social support and physical health are two very important factors that help the overall well-being of an elderly person. A general theory that has been drawn from many researches over the past few decades postulate that social support essentially predicts the outcome of physical and mental health for everyone.

Studies have equally shown that social support can effectively reduce psychological distress during stressful circumstances. In addition to providing psychosocial benefits, it appears to reduce the likelihood of illness and to speed up recovery from illness. It is clear therefore that social support helps individuals to obtain a more positive outlook on life, increases self-esteem and resistance to illnesses, and encourages people to engage in more positive, health-promoting behaviours. The form of it received can play an important role. For example, if someone needs emotional support and receives only tangible support, it can further add to the person's frustration and stress. Studies have shown that immuno-suppression may be reduced by social support, which confirms the notion that social support promotes health in general [6]. It also indicates that people with a high quantity and sometimes a high quality of social relationships have lower mortality rates. Social support appears to help people to effectively resist illnesses and minimize complications from serious medical conditions.

Its regular provision essentially predicts the outcome of elderly adults' general health condition. Inadequate social support at any time would predict that elderly adults will develop depressive symptoms over time. Elderly adults would be able to ignore the negative effects in their lives with help and reinforcement from others. This is considered a psychological effect. A lack in the availability of social support would likely make the individuals notice their daily hassles and life stressors much more clearly. This step could accelerate the deteriorating effect of their physical and mental health [7].

Conclusion

There is evidence that social experience is very essential in predicting successful aging and well-being for everyone, ranging from childhood through older adults [8]. After a few decades of studies, researchers have finally gained some understanding about the relationship between social support, successful aging and well-being. Nonetheless, some areas of research still face some problems because they sometimes focus on one population, ignoring the generalization rules for using the random samples to generalize the result to a whole population [4].

The continuity of research on the effects of social isolation and the relationship between social support and general wellbeing of elderly population will enable us to understand better the effects of good social support toward physical and mental health, along with a general well-being. Many studies have shown that if a high level of social support becomes available to the elderly population, it will benefit their overall health in a long run. The importance of social support implies to everyone in our society, ranging from young childhood through older adulthood. The providers of social support can be anyone in society who brings positive environment and reinforcement to the individuals, especially from their family members. This article is optimistic that we can have a dramatic impact on the success or failure in aging, and that there is the possibility of continued growth and development in the later years. Not only physical well-being will be improved, but also emotional and spiritual well-being, when retirement and 'aging in place' become the best stage of all instead of an indirect isolation.

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Thanks! For your answer! That really cleared a few things up. My friend realized that I guess I am a bit niaeve? (Sorry for spelling) I guess I've been living in a bubble where I believe everyone is equal. 😕 got some growing to do I guess. Um on a nother note that my friend has Braught up that I don't really understand or I guess I should really say I don't fully beilive in and have a hard time understanding is "gender Fluidity".... What are your thoughts on that?

Glad I could help, and that I get the opportunity to try tohelp again!Especially with such engaging (and, for me, just plain fun) questions!

Now, don’t feel bad about not knowing these sorts of thingsalready. Heck, when I was younger, I had a hard time believing sexism andracism and homophobia were such huge problems, too, because I was also raisedin a bubble; I had a hard time believing violence and discrimination couldactually be things that really happen in the world—cruelties and crimes anyonewould actually want to commit—becauseneither I nor anyone I knew would ever think of committing those acts (or,y’know, so I thought). It was literally inconceivable to me for a long time.

Likewise for a lot of the concepts related to identity and gender, actually.Fluidity and transgenderism and intersectionality, etc. They weren’t things Ihad any experience with (they just didn’t exist inside my bubble, or weren’tallowed to be normal if they did), so it took me a long time to believe theyreally existed outside of itand then to gain any understanding of them.

And that’s okay. I want you to understand that. It’s okay tonot know things you’ve never even had a reason or the chance to learn. The wayI see it, being ignorant and/or naïve doesn’t make one a bad person, because weall start off ignorant and naïve about literallyeverything.

This, incidentally, is something a lot of people on tumblr need to accept: Weall start off knowing nothing, andwe’re all currently in the process of learning and growing (hopefully). So weshould be patient and kind with each other. Especially since a lot of theseconcepts are not exactly easy to grasp at first; they’re complex and nuanced, not simpleblack-and-white ideas, and they take time to learn, understand, and integrate.

Okay … Time for the question itself!Now, the way I see it, there are 2 aspects to gender fluidity (one whichapplies to everyone, one whichapplies only to some people), but I’mgoing to need to take a step back in order to explain both of them in a waythat makes sense.Please feel free to ask questions about any part of this, by the way. I meanthat for anyone and everyone reading this, too.

The first difficulty is that society tends to oversimplify all aspects related to identity (of which sex, gender, and sexualityare important parts … as well as race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status andsocial class, religion, and even what sorts of hobbies you like todo—everything that makes a person a unique individual) down to easy binaries.Now, a binary system is where there are only two options (two boxes, you mightsay) and everything has to be sorted, categorized, and labeled in to either one or the other, but not both.Classical examples include: White or Black, Good or Evil, Man or Woman,Straight or Gay.

The problem with binaries is thatthey’re very limited, and just notaccurate (and usually get used to dehumanize minority groups and oppress them).Reality is more complex than that—people(and their identities) are more complex than that. We don’t exist on binaries,but rather on spectrums.

Now, a spectrum system is where we have degrees, like a scale from 1 to 10, orshades of gray between black and white.Nuances, in other words, subtledifferences.

Like how there are varying degrees of bisexuality between being gayand straight, and varying degrees of intersex and masculinity and femininitybetween woman and man (I’m reallysimplifying that concept, by the way, for clarity’s sake). And one couldliterally imagine any aspect of aperson’s identity as being somewhere along a 1 to 10 spectrum which ismore-or-less completely separate from all the other spectrums. (How gay arethey? How religious? How much of a furry? How musical? How passionate aboutcoffee? None of these spectrums really influence any of the others). One of them might be low for you, and high for me, and really highfor someone else.

With me so far?Here’s where fluidity comes into it: we exist on spectrums, andwe aren’t permanently fixed in the same spots. For one thing, we changeover time. But, more importantly, we change according to the situations inwhich we find ourselves. Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, weemphasize and assert different aspects of our personality depending on thesituations in which we find ourselves.

For example: Martial Arts! Imagine a spectrum for how much the martial artsinfluence identity. Most people would be really low on it (they have noattachment or investment in it—they’re generally at 0). But me? I’ve been doingTaekwon-Do for the past 20 years; it’s an integral part of my identity (wecould say I’m generally at 10 on that spectrum).

BUT, even though it’s integral to who I am, I’m not always doing Taekwon-Do. I don’t open doors by kicking them; Idon’t open windows by punching them. I hardly ever talk about it with friendsand family (only when the conversation goes that direction, really, so it’smaybe 3 then). It’s important to me, yes, but the importance of it variesdepending on the situation. When I’m in class with my instructor or at aseminar or a tournament, it’s the most important part of my identity (10). When I’m in the car with my instructor driving toan event, it’s still important, but not as much (6 or 7) because we might talk aboutfamily, friends, work, books and movies, etc. and not always Taekwon-Do.Andwhen I brush my teeth before bed? Well, it doesn’t matter at all then (0).

So one might say my Taekwon-Do identity, because it shifts up and down thatspectrum, is fluid. Same with the other aspects of my identity (being a writer,being Francophone, being someone who owns a dog, being an older brother, beinga student, being a teacher, etc. etc. etc.); they are also on a spectrum, andalso fluid because they shift up and down depending on the situation.

Still with me?Great! Now, let’s take that same idea, and apply it to femininity andmasculinity, which exist at the same time in every person. It is NOT that thereis a single spectrum with both at opposite ends, but rather two separatespectrums that exist at the same time (yes, typically, most people will try tomaximize one and minimize the other, but even the machoest manly man will stillhave situations in which he acts more what we might call feminine—he mightnormally act 1 fem, but sometimes he’ll act 2 or even 3 fem).

Depending on thesituation, one will emphasize and assert their masculinity and/or theirfemininity more than in another situation.Like, a policewoman might act all tough at work (10 masc) yet still besensitive to people’s emotions while working (8 fem); once she gets off work,she might act all playful with insulting jokes to her little brother (4 masc)while also doing her hair so she can go dancing with friends (9 fem).

If you pay attention to your own behavior, I guarantee you’ll notice that youdo the same—you act different ways (sometimes more feminine, sometimes moremasculine) in different situations. And so do your friends and family. And sodo I, and my friends and family, and literally every person on the planet. Inthat respect, we all have fluid genders—in that respect, gender has alwaysalready been a fluid part of a person’s identity.

That was the first part (how everyone has some genderfluidity). The second part, really, is just an extension of it.

Y’see, even fluidityitself is on a spectrum, meaning that some people act more fluidly than others.Some people don’t change how they acta great deal for the situation (think of someone who’s always happy or grumpy no matter what,or someone who only wears jeans orblack clothes no matter what) … and some people do change how they act a great deal. They might want to feel prettyfor one situation (might put on makeup or a dress, even identify as a girl),then want to feel jock for another situation (might put on a letterman and slickback their hair, even identify as a boy). They might even feel strongly invested intheir gender fluidity, and choose to make that a very prominent part of theirlarger identity. People like this might, therefore, choose to specifically identifyas “gender fluid”, “gender queer”, or “bi-gender” (just like people who feelstrongly invested in their homosexual attraction might choose to identify as “lesbian”or “gay” or “bi” or “pan”).

At least, those are the two ways that I understand gender fluidity.

One thing I would like to emphasize before finishing isthis: It’s okay if you don’t fully understand why someone would feel that way. It’sokay if you never fully understandwhy. You haven’t had the same experiences as the people who do feel that way,so it’s only natural if you don’t really get it.The important thing, however, is to understand that you don’t have to get it. Other people do, and their experiencesare just as valid and worthy of respect as yours.

I’ll give you a personal example. I am an exceptionally homosexual man. On thespectrum of homosexuality, I’m probably 12 out of 10. I am gayer than a freakin’fruit bat. As a result, I do notunderstand why people find women sexually attractive; I do not get what all the fuss is about boobs, and vaginas kinda freakme out a little. BUT all of my lesbian friends assure me they very much find womenhot, as do all of my straight guy friends, and all of my bi and pan friends;they all agree that women are quite sexually arousing. I don’t get why theyfeel that way, but I don’t have to get it. They do, and I respect that, and that’s what really matters.They’re okay. I’m okay. We’re all okay.

Hope this was also helpful for you!

As always, everyone, remember the core of the lesson is: Don’t be a jerk to other people. Just be nice and kind and patient.