#like. that doesn't fix the real issue it just treats the symptoms.

[lloydfrontera]

i don't think theo would relapse after rakiel dies but i do think he would overcorrect so hard to avoid it he'd end up developing a whole new eating disorder because of it. not really starving himself as much as controlling everything he eats down to the tiniest bite. not allowing himself to deviate from his diet at all and feeling extemely guilty and anxious when he does. in a horrible situation where nothing feels right and there's so little he can do to fix it, this is the one thing he has control over. this is the one thing he can do to make sure things go as well as they can. he fucked up once and rakiel had to step in to fix him but now his brother is gone and there'll be no one to catch the pieces if he breaks again so. he just has to make sure he never does. he has to control himself because there's no one now to extend a hand to help him up if he falls.

[headspace-hotel]

facts about The Fear, after 20 years of life with her

The Fear is NOT:

an intruder, invader, or some other entity from "outside" You

inappropriate, wrong, or incorrect

a responsibility

a punishment

"irrational" or otherwise able to be understood through a relationship to "rationality"

an "inaccurate" representation of reality

The Fear IS:

an innate part of you

extra-rational—she exists outside and completely independent from "rationality" and does not respond to being judged according to that lens

self-love—her purpose is to protect you and keep you safe

self-sufficient—fear is a 100% whole, complete entity that doesn't "represent" or "reflect" something else

earnest—fear is always a 100% real experience that is exactly as it is felt, and, needing no comparison or reference to any external reality, it is not "dishonest" or "inaccurate"— it asserts a claim about only itself

subversive [not quite the word I am looking for but it will have to do]— is not necessarily beholden to social and cultural norms of what should be feared, how much, and how you should respond. She does not stop existing in the absence or suppression of vocabulary to describe her.

a demand for care— she does not just communicate to you but to the community you are part of; she calls attention to an obligation that this community has toward you, to make sure that you are safe within it and that your experiences are heard and understood.

yeah, so, i've had severe anxiety for my whole life and the way it's been treated and dealt with, and the way I've been taught to understand it, has really fucked me up so I am trying to lay the groundwork for understanding it differently

I think it's pretty fucked up that we're taught to see anxiety as deceptive or inaccurate. Now, obviously the images or projections in my fearful thoughts do not usually "reflect reality," but I have come to see this as...not particularly important?

Teaching an anxiety sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict "irrational" fear is, in my opinion, the same as teaching a chronic pain sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict pain with no clear physical source. You might as well speak of "irrational" pain, and pain has the same relationship to rationality that fear has.

"Irrationality" is a quality assigned to fear that is judged by an outside observer, or by the collective cultural biases and hang-ups of a society, as not appropriate to a given situation. This is total fucking nonsense and we should be talking about that, because...well, the first reason is that it implies some kind of fixed standard for what fear ultimately is and isn't for. i like to tell people to watch one of those Coyote Peterson videos where he's going to get a tarantula hawk wasp to sting him, because he's obviously having a strong physical fear response, even though he knows it won't kill him. Is it "rational" to fear suffering and not just death? How much suffering? Sit with that one a little while.

The second reason, which is even more convincing, is that the "rational" brain is not consulted at any point, ever, when a person feels afraid. It's just a response. The fear response is not routed through the conscious, sapient, reasoning brain. And thank God, because if we needed to hear back from an upstairs executive before we could decide whether to run from a lion, our species would be extinct.

Techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy were absolute fucking shit at making my life any better, but fantastic at wrecking my ability to identify my own emotions, because Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety basically amounts to trying to brainwash yourself into thinking you don't feel the emotions that you do. It's a really neat way to develop bizarre psychosomatic symptoms and start experiencing anxiety through constant body pain, swollen lymph nodes, and digestive issues.

For an institution that pathologizes having "alters," psychiatry sure loves to encourage a suffering person to view normal and ultimately good parts of themselves as distinct, intruding entities to be shoved in a closet somewhere.

And yes. Fear is ultimately a good part of you, a part of you that loves you.

What began to set me free was feeling that acid terror and sickness and rage course through my body and realizing—really realizing—that I was being illuminated with this ancient, powerful force driving me to LIVE.

I want us to make it. I want you to live.

And you know what, I want me to live too.

I abandoned the doctrine of calming down—Lord knows it had never worked anyway—and started really just exploring and existing in the Fear.

How did that feel? Bad. Very very very very very bad and really not productive or helpful at all initially. Which was unavoidable. Necessary. She had been frantically clawing to communicate with me for so long, and I had been shutting her away, silencing her, resenting her presence in my psyche. I started trying to show gratitude toward the signals my body gave me. I started trying to show gratitude toward her—and i guess the Fear was a Her now, this just seemed more respectful.

And it seemed like nothing happened, but several things happened.

I stopped searching for validation. That was a big one. At some point I just...stopped needing a "reason" or justification for the fear I felt (trauma???? neurodivergence???? neurodivergence trauma????) and the fact that I experienced it became completely sufficient and satisfying to me. So much guilt and confusion disappeared.

I also became steadily more confident about my own boundaries, particularly in regards to recovery.

It's awful now that I think about it, but I think I felt this sense of almost moral obligation towards "recovery," as if I needed to "overcome fear" to be Courageous and Virtuous. It made me feel crushing guilt to feel any hesitation about this.

But then this started to change. It became more real to me that was the only person affected by the steps I did or didn't take toward recovery, and there was no moral dimension to it. A therapist couldn't put me in a box I wouldn't willingly go into.

Freedom from these judgmental frameworks is really important to me. I think that I always hated the idea of getting "better" because it seemed like "better" would mean just getting better at submitting to things I was afraid of while everything felt just as bad as it always did on the inside.

And on some level—even though I could never put it into words at the time—I violently hated the idea of "recovery" from some of my fears because it seemed like the ultimate denial of agency. I didn't want to "become okay with it"—the possibility felt dehumanizing. It felt awful.

And I realize now that this is because The Fear represented something I needed to have a right to. Many of my most life-destroying fears centered around things being done to my body, and if I could have pressed a button and been no longer afraid, I wouldn't have, even though it would have spared me so much suffering, because...I needed it to be okay to want agency over my body. I needed it to be right. The Fear, in this case, was a demand that my body be treated as sacred.

I realized that there were many cases where The Fear was a territorial claim of sorts, a demand that certain needs be honored and met—She needs this. This is FUCKING non-negotiable.

And it really...prompted me to look backward on my life and see The Fear differently: not as a responsibility I had failed to shoulder (me?? a little child??? responsible?? Responsible for being brave, when every day felt like facing a firing squad?????) but as a collective responsibility

Because I was not alone in those memories—I was surrounded by adults that saw me suffering, and often dismissed, ignored or ridiculed it. The Fear grew larger and larger; why?—to protect me. Because teachers, nurses, doctors, and camp counselors did not do any of the thousand thousand things they could have done to make that little girl feel safe. Because my well-meaning parents praised me when I was "brave" but I, a little kid, literally couldn't communicate how awful it always felt.

The Fear was not there to torture me. The Fear was and is doing her best to keep me safe. It's not wrong, there's no need for guilt. It just is.

It doesn't feel good. But maybe one day it will feel better.

[pallastrology]

observations on aquarius

artwork by jules pierre van biesbroek

aquarius moons, like other air moons, can treat their emotions kind of like a puzzle; they turn them over in their hands and really break down and analyse their thoughts and feelings. aquarius moons in particular tend to be very focused on the wider impact of their actions and emotions, which, while a testament to their kind and caring nature, can get in the way of them experiencing their full emotional range and the insight that comes with that.

a lot of people with aquarius dominance can go through life feeling dreadfully lonely. though (depending on individual placements) they often pride themselves on being different, or not needing to follow the crowd, deep down they can feel they don't belong, or aren't 'normal'. really, their uniqueness is what makes them beautiful, and while their journey isn't always predictable, they generally find their tribe along the way, and become people with a strong sense of self and steady values that guide them and their relationships.

aquarius on the ascendant tends to have a reputation for looking 'alien-like' or asymmetric, and while the second one especially can be true, my opinion is that a lot of aquarius risings have a doll-like beauty, with very fine and neat features, not unlike virgo risings actually. what sets them apart is that they are more expressive with their style, more congruent and more open to showing their true selves through their clothing. they are prouder and stronger that way, almost more dramatic.

mars in aquarius is a placement that has a strange relationship with anger and assertiveness. they tend to be very cool people, in that they're stoic, relaxed, grounded and pragmatic; they aren't as controlling or fearful as a fixed mars tends to be. but they can be quite detached from their anger and agency, and so if they aren't self-reflective, they don't see how it can affect those around them when they are angry. they are prone to anger at the state of the world and are sensitive to justice - or injustice, rather - but can be erratic in how they display this, at times seeming uncaring.

jupiter in aquarius is a placement that brings a lot of kindness, a lot of generosity, but a strict will and a clear vision. they are dreamers at heart, like a lot of aquarian placements, but if it's channeled properly, jupiter in aquarius gives the native the power and confidence to succeed. the other interesting thing about this placement is that the native tends to love to work; as long as the work means something to them, as long as it does good. they absolutely cannot work just to make money, it's bad for their souls.

aquarius in the sixth house can bring health issues that appear suddenly, are hard to diagnose or treat, or come and go. they may have unusual symptoms or reactions to things, and the phrase 'when you hear hoofbeats, think horses' doesn't tend to apply so well to them. somewhat nervous individuals, aquarius in the sixth house natives can be sensitive to lifestyle factors that help or hinder their health, and so they need a solid (if maybe a little unconventional) routine to really flourish.

aquarius suns are some of the funniest people i've ever met. they have a real deadpan, dry sense of humour and their serious delivery just makes the joke land better. although they may have unconventional taste in material, they don't tend towards the inappropriate and in fact are very even and fair in their roasts. maybe for this reason, they aren't the best roasters, but at least you know you won't be traumatised if an aquarius roasts you...

venus in aquarius gets a reputation for being distant, 'away with the fairies', even unromantic, but i don't think that's true at all. while they are a more grounded and cerebral placement for venus to be in, these natives are incredibly sweet. when they love someone, they will tell them so in a thousand tiny ways. they're the type to take their time getting to know every part of you, down to your microexpressions and innermost worries and favourites.

[myadhdchronicles]

Time Blindness and ADHD

One of the major struggles of ADHD is time blindness or time nearsightedness. I prefer to call it time nearsightedness, it explains it better, thanks to Jessica McCabe from How to ADHD for the great term. Time blindness/nearsightedness happens in ADHD when those suffering from it cannot "see" time well. It is a problem where ADHD brains have just two time settings, now and not now. Things land on our time radar later than they do on that of those without ADHD.

What this means is that we are often late, underestimate or overestimate how long tasks will take, think 5 minutes have passed then look up at the computer to see that 50 minutes did, think we have time to do this one more 2-minute thing, and end up still doing the task 20 minutes later, and more. It means that a task that we think will be short ends up being long, and something we thought would take forever, end up being short. This time blindness means we must always have a watch, phone, computer, clock, or timer to keep us on track and help us "see" time.

This is a problem in all aspects of our lives. We can't figure out how long we need to get from waking up in the morning to arriving at work on time because we forget we need time for things like getting from house to car, from car to work, finding a parking space, etc. We plan our time as if everything will always go perfectly and we will have long enough to do everything without realizing what everything includes. We don't know how to break down assignments because we think it will take us 5 minutes to read the textbook chapters that the assignment is on when it will actually take half an hour, we think it will take half an hour to write the outline and it actually takes an hour and a half, and we think that writing the draft will take an hour when it actually takes 3 hours, we also forget the time it takes to actually get the assignment turned in.

Some things that can help with time blindness/nearsightedness are as mentioned earlier having a way to see the time EVERYWHERE, which means clocks in EVERY room, wearing a watch, always having your phone nearby to check the time, having a clock visible in the taskbar on all your computers, and timers everywhere. Another thing that helps is estimating how long you think something takes and then using a stopwatch to see how long it actually does take. We also need to have calendars handy wherever our clocks are as well because we can lose track of the date too. You can also ask people in your support system to help you with time by letting you know how long you've been doing something or giving gentle reminders that you need to be done with that task soon because you have that appointment soon and things like that. Reminders and alarms are also helpful.

It is very difficult to suffer from this symptom of ADHD and when added to the other symptoms it can be a very real struggle just to get things done and get places on time. It is also not the ADHD sufferers' fault that they suffer from this symptom, and treating the person as if they have some type of character flaw or moral failing because they struggle to see time the way you do will not help them at all and will just make it all worse, not to mention it doesn't help you either and you just stay frustrated. It doesn't fix the time issue people with ADHD have to be told we have a character flaw or moral failing when what we really have is an ADHD symptom that's making our lives and the lives of our loved ones miserable. Instead, focus on solutions. Because we can't help it.

Until the next ADHD Chronicles, put on your time glasses and remember we're not broken, we're neurodivergent!

[sylphofspaceyuri]

Re: your post on writing an intersex character. I wanna start off by saying that "intersex" is not a subset of "nonbinary", and in fact has nothing to do with gender at all. "Intersex" means "has sexual characteristics that don't quite fit in the male/female dichotomy" (so for exemple, "having a lot of body hair" would be a common intersex trait. It's called hirsutism btw look it up.) Intersex people can be trans, can be cis, can be non binary, can be gnc, just bear in mind that "being intersex" doesn't imply any of the above necesarily.

(Sorry if you already knew about that part, but "intersex = nb" is a VERY pervasive misconceptions especially in queer spaces, so anytime someone asks for info on intersex people I need to start with the big disclaimer of "INTERSEX IS NOT A GENDER THING, YOU CAN GIVE YOUR CHARACTER GENDER IF YOU WANT BUT KNOW THAT IT'S NOT LINKED TO BEING INTERSEX")

Anyways. Being intersex can manifests itself in a variety of ways, including but not limited to: genitals, gonads, chromosomes, hormones, secondary sexual characteristics, and probably a bunch of others I forgot about. If your character is intersex, this is gonna have an impact on their appearance, and possibly their health (since plenty of intersex conditions are disabling.) My advice is to either look up one specific condition (like Swyer syndrome) and then look at all the ways it would impact your character, or look at whatever traits you wanna give your character (like hirsutism as mentioned above), and look up whatever intersex condition could lead to that to reverse engineer how being intersex would impact your oc. If the variation you end up picking for your character is disabling, then you might have to mention whatever treatment she's undergoing to aleviate the symptoms (ie intersex people with hormonal imbalance REALLY need their T and/or E.)

(Also, sorry again if you're already informed, but again it's a common misconception so I gotta say it: there is no such a thing as having "both functional equipments." Futanaris aren't real. Genital intersex variations are usually more along the lines of "having a huge clit" "having a micropenis" "having a very shallow vagina" and the likes. And as I said prior, there are plenty of intersex variations that don't affect the junk at all.)

I don't know the setting you're writing, but if it's our modern world or something similar, then growing up in a society that enforces the sex binary is gonna have a huge impact on your character too. IRL, there is a LOT of medical malpractice related to "fixing" intersex children (either as infant, or when puberty kicks in "wrong"). It's also very common for intersex people to not know fully what's up with their body, because hospitals tend to straight up lie on your medical file about the fact that they did cosmetic surgery on your junk. If medical malpractice doesn't apply to your character, there might still be some issues with "puberty hit and everyone is growing differently than me what's up with that" "none of the biology books look even remotely like me that's weird" at best and "everyone insists my body is wrong for some reason and they're trying to force me back into a binary I do not understand" at worst.

Hope that helped! I highly recommend you look up your local intersex activist group, these usually have extensive FAQs on what intersex means, what are the intersex fighting subjects, common intersex experiences, ect.

Hi yes this is very helpful!

I do know a fair few of these things so I'm better off saying what I did not know and other information

-I did not know many of the actual terms like hirsutism and swyer syndrome

-In regards to setting, it's a post revolution sci fi world where things are A Lot Better so she is treated well socially, though the environment she is in is not a good one so I think that will create some deep insecurity and internalized issues with some of the more disabling factors of being intersex. Namely, the criminal faction she is in is extremist in nature and deeply ableist due to their mentality surrounding physical and mental strength, I imagine her treatment there would be "you can be intersex but only if it doesn't impair your capabilities in combat" which she may be deeply insecure about

-I VERY much appreciate you citing that activist thing, I will definitely use that it sounds incredibly helpful

-The intersex ≠ trans, cis, etc thing is quite helpful too! It helps me figure the proper terms for her, I think cisgender applies to her as she's very comfortable with her sex given that she's lived with it into her late 30s at the current timeline

-The other experiences cited like "puberty hit and everyone else is growing up differently" may be very helpful when fleshing out her childhood, which I need to do more of anyway

And no need to apologize for mentioning the misconceptions and such! I understand, while I do know about those things I appreciate the detail and attentiveness

[weirdestcornelius]

Starting this sparklecrit blog out with a bang of course. Hello fellow critics and those that will send me slurs /hj

Sparklecare and Cometcare their fandoms have a blatant ableism problem. The fandom consistently makes fun of characters that are seen as having "gross" disabilities or disorders.

Take Sly, for example. She doesn't take care of herself because of depression, something that is shown in comic and stated directly on her toyhouse profile. Fen is one of the MOST relatable characters I have ever come across. The moment I saw her in comic my first thoughts were "that's me. That's literally me in this comic, I've never felt so close to a character before." Untillll I saw how god awful the fandom and even Kittycorn treats fen.

Sly is so consistently made fun of for fens hygiene, it's disgusting. Sure, maybe one or two jokes would be fine. Hell, even a joke every arc would be fine, but it's something she's constantly made fun of for. The way the fandom and Kittycorn squeakself calls fen "stinky" and "gross" is TERRIBLE. There is no excuse to act like this. Yes, fen is a character and therefore not a real person, but it's really shitty behavior to make fun of a character for their legitimate illness. Jeez, I figured I wouldn't have to worry about this in a fandom supposedly made out of mentally and physically disabled/ill people.

Moving onto Sparklecare instead of a side comic, Polly. Poor, poor Polly has been done so nasty. It has a genuine illness, made up or not, that has terrible symptoms that cannot be cured on spinch. He can't remember their own friends, she can hardly feel emotions towards others, but all of that is tossed aside to make another "lmao being around Polly makes everyone else horny" joke. I guess it makes sense for them to act like that around Polly (sort of?) considering the whole heat retainment lore and the cold, but Polly is literally shown to be uncomfortable with this. They don't seem to be interested in Barry or anyone around them at all. She doesn't get any personality other than "numb fox dude that steals from people and can't feel emotions that well". You can write emotionally numb characters without giving them zero personality. Not to mention how Polly just doesn't use his cane despite it being specified that it needs it otherwise they're at fall risk. It seems like that issue is being fixed, but here's hoping it actually stays fixed.

I want more disabilities to be shown so badly, but at the same time, I'm scared for them to be. I just know that the disabilities I struggle with, if they were represented in this comic, they'd be made fun of. For example, my really bad skin picking disorder causes me to leave flakes of skin and nail clippings wherever I go. I just know that this fandom would make fun of a character for that by saying shit like "they can't even clean up after themselves lmao. #lazy" or something along those lines.

I've been so consistently triggered by people making fun of Sly that it's not even funny. For a fandom that's supposed to be understanding, everyone sure does love to make fun of peoples illnesses the moment they're not played off as cutesy or a gateway into ship material. It's disgusting.

[lunalillyhbhb]

Lea's home

Chapter 2 pt.2

The climb up to her room is filled with worry, anxiousness and a little bit of lust.

My thoughts are running everywhere: I don't want to be fired; I hope she hasn't found out; I want to steth her; I hope Lea's safe; How did she learn about this; I want to palpate her neck vein; I need to fix this; I want to palpate her heart; I want to keep my job; I need to steth her-

Just a jumble of all too many things.

Before I know it, I'm at her door. I hear the shower going inside. I lightly knock on the door and hear a soft "come in". I make sure the corridor is empty, and slip inside her room. My heart pounds as I scan the room and wait for her to come out.

Promptly I hear the shower turn off, and after a few seconds Mrs. Nicole emerges from her bathroom, draped in nothing but a bathrobe, her hair wet and dripping, her face flush from the warm water, but with her glasses still on. She locks her foxy eyes on me, and walks towards her bed and sits on it, before tapping the space beside her motioning me to sit beside her on the bed.

"How've you been doing?" she asks, her silky voice alluring me, holding me in place.

"I'm doing well Mrs. Nicole. Lea and her family has treated me well, and work is going smoothly." I speak fast and slurred, trying to focus on calming my nerves. I quickly sneak a glance at her breasts against my wish and quickly flick my eyes away, noticing her very clear pulse on her neck and under her left breast, pounding away steadily and at a slightly quick pace, probably from the shower.

What I wouldn't give to place my steth there-

"And how is college? Is your studies progressing smoothly? I hope nothing's hindering your progress towards your goal" her voice is dropping steadily, doing things to me. A warm sensation grows in my lower abdomen.

"Everything's going smooth Mrs. Nicole, I'm keeping up to date with all my material." Why's she bringing up this small talk?? Is this a way to intimidate me? Is she indirectly threatening to ruin my college life?

"That's great, my dear" she says, with a hand reaching towards me a stroking my cheek. Is she....by any chance.....drunk?

"Mrs. Nicole, are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?" I mean, she did call me to her room, and she has yet to tell me why.

"I hear you're a medical student, yes? You see, I am getting old, and with my age I am noticing a few problems. Every now and then, I feel slightly out of breath, and my heart palpates a lot. It lasts for a few minutes at a time. Do you have any idea what these symptoms are?"

Omg. Is this what I think it is? This can't be real. She's asking me about a heart related issue? How do I interpret this? Is she genuinely asking for my advice, or is she insinuating that she knows I do "heart checkups" on Lea?

Wait.... whatever it is, doesn't this also mean that this is my chance to finally palpate her? Finally, after dreaming about it for so long, I finally have a (questionable) reason to palpate her beautiful breast.

"are you currently feeling palpitations?" She nods eagerly, her eyes widening a bit.

"I might need to palpate your chest area, do you mind?"

"Yes dear, please, and feel free to move around my boobs, I know they're in the way and I've seen doctors having to move them aside."

I waste no time and immediately palpate over her bathrobe, above her breasts and slowly make my way down. I gently untie the front of her robe and palpate her sternum, feeling a slight sternal heave. My brain is now divided into 2 parts: Analyzing the meaning behind a sternal heave, and bathing in the sensation of how amazing her heart is. I make my way to her point of maximal impulse, and it's almost like her heart is eager for me to touch it, pushing its apex as close as possible for me to feel it with minimal efforts.

"Wow Mrs. Nicole, your heart is really amazing" I say, quickly following up with "I can feel a heave, but I might need a stethoscope to carefully listen to the valves before I give any further advise. Unfortunately I don't have mine on my right now..."

She gets up and quickly makes her way to a small compartment in her desk and pulls out a Littman stethoscope and makes her way back to me. She stands in front of me, and hands me the steth. "Wear it" She commands, and I put it on without missing a beat.

I start putting things together slowly: Why does she have a steth? How does she know that sometimes doctors move breasts of heavier build people to properly hear their heart? I can't believe I'm thinking this, but is it remotely possible that....she's a cardiophile, like me? Or is this just my wishful thinking?

"Steth me, now." She orders, and i place the cold steth on her bare skin, in the pulmonic position and there I hear it: the beautiful strong heartbeat of a sexy woman, right at my fingertips.

Bu-thump Bu-thump Bu-thump

I stutter out a "It looks fine Ma'am."

She removes my hand of her chest and beckons me to get up. She then leans on the headrest of her bed, scoots her legs over to one side, and pats the other side.

"This position might help you hear clearer."

My mind is completely blank. I do as she says and obediently sit. She then says "I gave you the tool, now use it properly. Steth me."

I go in order saving the best for the last, first her aortic valve, her pulmonic, her tricuspid, and finally my favourite: the mitral valve.

Bu-thump Bu-thump Bu-thump Bu-thump

As I go in order, her heart rate picks up from a 90 bpm to a 120 bpm, and she now starts panting, her cheeks becoming more flushed. Her pounding heartbeat is becoming more and more visible, her PMI becoming more clearer and prominent. Her neck veins are pulsating hard, and it takes all my will power to not feel it. She places one of her hands on my own and pushes it strongly to her chest.

"What are you hearing? Describe it to me."

"I hear your valves, pushing hard and fast. It sounds beautiful and strong." All my medical knowledge leaves me, and I am left alone with my leud thoughts, my pounding heart and the most beautiful muse in front of me. All I would ever need.

"I can make it go faster.....for you....." she says, slowly, looking at me intently. With her eyes fixed on me, she pulls my other hand toward her chest, slowly caressing herself with my hand. Her eyes flutter close and she bites her lip, stifling a small moan threatening to escape.

"Your heart... it's pounding so hard.... I want it to go faster."

She looks at me surprised. Now I'm the one giving her instructions. It seems to have caught her off-guard. I stop stething her and she whimpers a bit. I pull off her glasses, revealing her full face, cute and flushed, now seemingly under my control.

"Don't stop your moaning. Moan for me. Make your heart go faster for me." Her hands have become weak and fall away, and allows my fingers to play around her nipple which has been hard for a while, begging for attention. I rub it slowly, twisting it and squeezing it gently, watching the once strong woman crumble under my touch, her fierce face melting into a flushed mess due to my touch.

I fully understand why she called me to her room. She's wanted this from me. She must've noticed me staring at her and knew I was the one she needed. The way her body quivers, tells me she's wanted this for a long time now. Getting drunk was her way of letting it happen. So now, I must give her what she's asked for.

"My heart's beating fast, steth me" she tries taking control but I don't budge. I look at her coldly, waiting for that magic word.

"Please!" She begs. That's more like it. I put my weight against her body and press the steth into her chest, and she moans. The warm feeling was now fully raging in my clit, throbbing with my heartbeat.

"Can I *huff* please... listen *huff* to yours? Please?"

I remove the steth, my ears feeling lonely, and place them in hers, and guide the bell to my own apex. My heart leaps out with excitement, hammering away strongly, as if showing her who's heart is best.

"Touch yourself" I order her, and her hands go down and insert inside easily, her underwear wet in anticipation. She rubs her clit and listens to my heartbeat hammering inside, pounding harder as I watch her twitch and moan. My heart is doing this to her. I did this.

She tried to reach for my vulva but I swat her hand away, "Did I tell you to do this? No. You only touch what I tell you to." She whimpers and nods.

Seeing this strong and powerful woman obey my every word is everything I've dreamed of with her.

I lay down on her chest, listening to her raw heartbeat. This pushes her to her climax, and I feel the wave of orgasm hit both of us. As I continue to touch her nipples, and slip my other hand into her clit and rub sensually with her fingers, both covered and wet, panting and heaving, her moaning loudly. With a final quiver, she cums and collapses down into the headrest, and I leaning on her chest. We listen to each other's heartbeats in silence till we both calm down and our breathing gets regulated.

"I've wanted you to listen to my heart since Lea introduced you here" she says, in between small breaths. "I also noticed how your relationship changed recently and how she watches your heart every time you're in the room. I wanted that for me, too."

I look at her, mildly shocked that she noticed. Maybe it takes one cardiophile to understand another.

"I thought I lost that, but I noticed you never stopped looking at me. Every time you're in the room my heartbeat picks up and you notice it. Every time it shakes visibly, you're the only one who notices. I've wanted you for a long time, and I was happy when it looked like you wanted me too."

I'm filled with happiness, and am so grateful that she was on my side. I knew that Mrs. Nicole would never betray me, and that I could trust her and her heart. Because today, her heart was mine to control. She belonged to me.

I let her listen to me for a while until she fell asleep, and I monitor her heart go back to a steady 60 bpm. Her neck veins go back to being slightly visible, and her apex pulses against her chest slowly.

I let my fingers linger on her neck, her breast, her nipples and her clit, slowly massaging it. I finally get up, turn off the light, and leave the beautiful Mrs. Nicole alone.

I pack up my things and leave the house, just on time to see Lea pulling up. I wish her good night knowing that if I stayed a bit longer she would call me to her room as well, and I'd had enough work out for now.

As I reach home, I think on how now, I have 2 very different yet very beautiful hearts that belong to me, and how I look forward to playing with them in the future.

[ina-nis]

I will never stop talking about how harmful some therapy modalities are, even if they're considered the first line of treatment for many mental illnesses.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is one I particularly hate, not only because it has harmed and traumatized me personally, but because the whole premise of this "therapy" (if I can even call it that) is based on victim-blaming and gaslighting. Full stop.

I found a very good interview/article about the harm CBT can cause on chronic pain patients (I am also one of them!) and it sums up most my feelings and why I would never recommend it to anyone - and I'll actually go out of my way to warn people about it, be mindful and know what they're getting into if they do decide to try.

It's important to note that, even though this is about chronic pain, this fits for a lot of other things, like personality disorders. They're all interconnected after all, and the ableism we face is always similar, unfortunately.

It was incredibly difficult for me to function day-to-day due to the pain and fatigue. It felt like no one understood what I was going through, including the therapists I saw who told me I was just anxious or overreacting. I was told that my pain wasn’t real, would pass if I stopped paying attention to it, or was being exaggerated. I received the same message from many others in my life. They told me I was faking to get out of school or being melodramatic for attention. None of that was true. So on top of being in chronic pain that just got worse, showing up more often and in more areas of my body, I felt dismissed, judged, and alone. Most of my chronic pain treatment, aside from over the counter meds and the occasional prescription for symptoms like heartburn or migraines, was therapy and psychiatric medication. Doctors continued to dismiss my pain and gave mental health diagnoses instead of investigating my physical symptoms. The underlying physical issues causing my pain were overlooked and misattributed to being psychosomatic. Psych meds never helped my chronic pain. I tried almost all of them, yet that didn’t signal anything to my psychiatrists except that I was a “difficult case.” They didn’t consider that there really was something physical going on [and many people do have co-occurring physical and psychological conditions]. (...) Unfortunately, even with my recent diagnoses, the conditions I have are under-researched and don’t always have clear treatment paths. The medical establishment has intentionally neglected researching and treating them. Most doctors don’t know much about the conditions or falsely believe they’re too rare to need to know about, so I’m basically back to square one. I’m still not being provided treatment that actually helps my chronic pain. Even with a growing list of medical diagnoses, therapy and psych meds are still routinely recommended to me, sometimes as the only treatment option.

As I said... way too similar, isn't it? This has been my experience with both chronic pain and most my mental illnesses. It's especially hard to digest regarding AvPD - where one of the treatments is to "just go outside and socialize" and the fact that doing that makes me suicidal is overlooked, conveniently. You're not taken seriously, people think it's just a matter of "willpower" and "positive thinking" and "just don't think about it." A big fat load of bullshit, huh?

But I guess I get it? People don't understand how it is. They most likely never will unless they go through it themselves so, of course, they will offer all these "solutions" and "fixes" - including medical professionals - and will blame you after things straight up don't work, or don't work for long enough.

I do not see anyone talking about side effects and the harms treatment can cause. Nobody. Not a single fucking soul. But if it doesn't work then it's because you're "treatment resistant" or you just didn't get the right mix of meds, or you're just not trying hard enough. Aha!

Now delving into CBT itself...:

(...) I remember pushing back when therapists told me my pain was exaggerated, “all in my head,” or that I was focusing too much on it and making it worse. Therapists told me my pain was psychosomatic. I wasn’t given the space or encouragement to process or discuss my grief, fear, or trauma around living in chronic pain and having it untreated and dismissed. Trying to ignore the pain didn’t stop it. I always knew there was something medical going on. I told them that I was suffering. It didn’t matter. They still thought they could convince me my pain wasn’t real, or that I was choosing to suffer from it even if it was real. That didn’t help, and they were wrong. CBT as a modality is based around gaslighting. It’s all about telling a patient that the world is safe, bad feelings are temporary, and that pain (emotional or physical) is a “faulty or unhelpful” distortion of thinking. That’s literally in CBT’s definition on the APA website. But how do they determine that someone’s thinking is “faulty or unhelpful”? From the first session, therapists told me my way of thinking was the problem, not the medical conditions I couldn’t control or things like systemic injustices, financial struggles, trauma, and discrimination. And that’s a big problem with CBT. When therapists look at patients through the lens of patients’ thinking being faulty or distorted, not the larger issues impacting their lives, therapists miss those larger issues and the patient is invalidated and harmed even further. [Maybe some people find CBT helpful] but what happens in CBT when your thinking is not actually distorted? When you’re someone who has chronic pain, chronic illness, and disability? Someone dealing with systemic and societal issues that are very real and harmful? Someone dealing with trauma, PTSD, or currently being abused? Someone living in a global pandemic that’s disabling and killing millions of people? I believe CBT is built to be dismissive and invalidating. And that’s what was done to me for so long that even I wondered at times if maybe I was causing my own pain, that if I “fixed” my thinking and could stop being anxious, my pain would get better. But two decades of therapy only made me feel more lost and confused, and the pain only got worse. I lost so much time focusing on therapy that I could have been seeing the right specialists and doing preventative treatments that might have stopped my illnesses from progressing the way they have.

CBT is based on the premise that any patient coming into therapy is experiencing distorted, “faulty,” “catastrophizing” thinking. CBT therapists are trained to convince patients that they’re overreacting and that they’ll feel better when they realize they’re overreacting. They believe patients will realize that the world is actually safe (or at least safer than they think it is) and that emotions are based on unjustified fears and misinterpretations. Except that isn’t true. I can’t say I know anyone that’s true for. And it very much blames the victim, the patient. It tells them the problem is their way of processing pain and trauma, not whatever is actually causing it. With chronic pain, the problem can be physical, worsened by the neglect of the medical system. I can’t wish that away. I can’t convince myself I’m not in pain that exists and is being neglected. It’s not true. And it’s harmful to tell me that’s how I’ll get better when it’s not. Also, CBT practitioners seem to work off an assumption that patients will feel better if they refocus their attention to distractions. I can’t tell you how many therapists told me to just go out, make new friends, join a club, even giving me worksheets to schedule and report those kinds of activities. None of that helped me. First of all, it was hard to go out and make friends when I was living in chronic pain. It also felt so dismissive to be told the solution was just to distract myself and pretend everything was fine when I had real, physical pain and trauma going on that wasn’t being properly addressed. I believe the way CBT is prescribed and enacted for people in chronic pain is certainly harmful and inappropriate. [It has been useless to me and many other chronic pain patients.]

(...) I’ve never heard of a pain coach, but from what I’m seeing via Google it looks a lot like CBT to me, except with even less training or oversight. I’m seeing phrases like “creating harmony,” “triumph over pain,” and “focusing on strengths” on coach websites. It looks like a form of life/wellness coaching? The websites seem scammy and ableist. Maybe there are good pain coaches out there, but I can’t tell that from what I’m seeing, and I’ve never seen anyone in the disability community recommend them. So, I can’t speak to it formally, but my guess would be that this is not a non-harmful or trauma/disability-informed method of treatment, at least not overall. I would caution against recommending something like that in lieu of CBT, and certainly not without the input of folks with lived experience of disability who have done it.

I have nothing else to add. This person put my own feelings into words I could have written myself.

I wish we never had to deal with this kind of issue and that it would get better someday. I wonder about that and I really doubt it... but the more people speak up, the more the harm will be seen and maybe something can change eventually.

(About this last part in particular: "coaching" is a huge can of worms because most are not medical professionals or trained psychologists. It is indeed a scam and the whole industry is just like that. You know multi-level marketing/pyramid schemes but make it "therapeutic"? Yeah...)

(...) Even some of the better-seeming doctors promote modalities like CBT, mindfulness, meditation, and biofeedback as first-line treatments. Those things have never helped my chronic pain. My guess is because it’s physical and structural, so at best those things could calm me down temporarily, but all those feelings come right back because the pain never stops, I’m being continually traumatized and mistreated, and I live in survival mode all the time. It’s been a long time since I found any mode of therapy helpful. ACT [acceptance and commitment therapy] had its moments because it was about coping, finding whatever power and agency I could in any given moment or situation, but I still found that limiting because truly accepting chronic pain doesn’t feel possible to me. The anger, fear, grief, and depression always come back because the pain, the source of those feelings, never stops. Sometimes it can just be nice to talk to someone, but I’ve also had problematic and traumatic therapy experiences even with therapists who say they specialize in chronic illness. Sometimes they can still be ableist, tell me I’m “catastrophizing,” and make the same mistakes. Many of them also practice CBT and seem to fall back into it with me when they feel stuck or overwhelmed by my situation. I’ve been unable to successfully do trauma work because therapists tell me we can’t work on past traumas while I’m living in trauma. The chronic pain ensures I’m always in some kind of trauma or survival situation, so I don’t know if or when real trauma work will be possible. My trust in therapy is very limited at this point. I believe much of it has been harmful and I’m not sure there’s a current modality that is truly helpful or validating for people experiencing chronic pain, disability, oppression, and/or active trauma.

[jellyfish-neo]

The way that terfs discuss feminist issues in regards to trans people feels to me like they're trying to address symptoms of sexism while giving up on solving the problem of misogyny as a whole.

It's like putting a bucket under a leak in your ceiling; it makes the problem look contained so you don't have to think about it, but it's building up more and more water as it continues. It creates an obstacle in your own home, one that can easily be tripped over, stepped into, and spilled. It doesn't keep more leaks from appearing. Without addressing the problem, the structural integrity diminishes and the roof will collapse. We don't need more buckets--we need to fix the roof.

If a man pretends to be a trans woman to sexually harass or assault people in a women's space, the solution isn't to keep all trans women out, it's to put real consequences in place for sexual harassment and assault and work towards creating a society in which such a thing is treated as the horrific crime it is. That way, sexual crimes are less common and properly punished in any situation.

If a trans woman did dominate in a women's sport, the solution isn't to ban trans women from women's sports, it's to give women's sports equal resources to help them achieve their greatest potential in schools and in the professional sports industry.

If someone detransitions after getting surgeries, the solution isn't to ban gender-affirming care; it's to provide better mental healthcare for those whose dysphoria may be caused by something else, to create a society that's more supportive of gender nonconformity, gender experimentation, and social transition without medical or legal measures so that they can take their time in deciding.

I know it's a long, hard battle, but if we just stopped this infighting and worked toward fixing the real problem, I think we could get there much sooner.

[arueshalaetablebuildingsociety]

This list is only symptomatic. It fails to determine and treat root causes, which would be better listed as:

- Recognize that Neoliberalism has two entire tools and one of those tools is bribing a rich person to do something. The other tool is bombing the everloving fuck out of a South American town because Nestle wants to steal all of their water and ransom it back to them (assuming they don't just sell it to white people thousands of miles away instead), and they can't do that if the town has a reliable source of cheap water.

- Fix material conditions driving people across every demographic to a desperate and unempathetic "them or me" mode of living.

- Curb the ability of ANY one person or group of people to amass and control that much wealth and power.

- Hold political parties to the same standards we hold toothpaste brands; if a political party loses a crucial election against the worst person imaginable, that is a failure of the party for refusing to offer a better candidate rather than a failure of the voters.

- Dissolve the majority of "economics" as any sort of empirical model; like any system with outsized reliance on a single, arbitrary, derived number, calculations based on GDP can be easily poisoned so material conditions for the majority of people worsen but GDP improves.

- Reform education to remove the whitewashing of history that creates a false impression of "the arc of history". History is like every other system: it doesn't arc upwards unless people make it. This WILL mean talking about exactly the sort of things that make Neoliberals uncomfortable, like the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the Tuskegee Experiments, or how France invaded Rwanda to prop up the Hutu Power government, or how the German Liberal government ended Nuclear Power for Coal and LNG fossil fuels while also still claiming to be a leader in the fight against Climate Change.

- End, once and for all, the idea that anyone succeeds off of individual merit as even a majority factor. Elon Musk did not become the wealthiest man in the world by working hard and Tesla proves it: it was Trump's reelection that has saved Tesla, not any qualities present in Musk. Tesla was hemorrhaging money because Musk was using it as a pack animal to hold all the debt he was getting from running Twitter into the ground. Elon Musk became the wealthiest man in the world by inheriting the emeralds his dad forced slaves to mine at gunpoint, and using that to sue to be named a founder of SpaceX and prevent the real founders from ever taking credit, thus ensuring he would have a constant lifeline from the US DoD because SpaceX is an aerospace company and is "critical infrastructure" despite proving less efficient than NASA in every aspect.

You will never have a Liberal Andrew Tate; Andrew Tate is so seductive to angry young men because he doesn't pretend the problems affecting them don't exist but instead falsifies a cause for them to project their anger onto. Why can't Liberals address the actual problems affecting these young men? Because Neoliberalism as a model doesn't allow for those problems to exist, because it's a flawed model. GDP is going up, therefore there can't be any issues affecting these young men even though there quite objectively are. These are problems you can't bribe a rich person to fix. And while you can bomb the everloving fuck out of the young men, that doesn't really affect the root problem, does it?

And if you're only fixing the symptoms and not the causes, that's called palliative care. It doesn't mean the patient will get better, just that they will die in slightly less pain.

things we need to address:

gen z men getting pulled into alt-right pipelines through andrew tate, joe rogan, elon musk, jordan peterson etc

the gullibility and stupidity of half the country voting against our collective best interests

the broad effect social media has on public and common good

lazy minds and lack of empathy

outside-country interference (trump and elon’s connections to russia and the amount of bots from other countries spreading misinformation)

the long-term effects of AI and rampant disinformation

[drgeethashomeopathy]

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[sincelastsession]

BTW I'll probably be ok the nonverbal shutdown doesn't last forever but it's really hard to communicate verbally when I'm overloaded.

My dad needs to have ptsd and cptsd explained and what it does to people and how crippling it gets plus my other diagnosis and that they are real and valid and I do actually need accommodation and to be met at least halfway. Like he's a control freak about me.

It SCARES me.

This session he scheduled is important though. I'm stubborn and I want to give him a chance. Probably one more chance too many but I'd like to be on good terms before he drops dead from health issues or his mental illnesses kill him.

I am worried I'll have a reactive abuse or snappy response to him. I'd like to work on that.

I feel he thinks I'm not holding myself accountable for my behaviors as a 37yrold adult.

I'm still treated and spoken to like a child.

He has no respect for me.

He absolutely will be fake with you like a salesman and watch him flip moods if you correct him even gently.

My Aunts told my mom he's been angry and reactive his whole life.

My dead psychiatrist who used to treat him said he was bipolar probably with a personality disorder and possibly would develop violent dementia and it makes me sad.

It's hard to help people that have beat you down and punished you for being autonomous. The micromanagement is insane.

He does cherry pick. I'd definitely not bring up the DSM book with him and how you treat symptoms. He think I'm schizophrenic or something and my diagnosis actually need to be validated in this instance because I need him to take me seriously when I put up boundaries and he tries to bulldoze them.

He's of the mindset that he deserves respect because he pays for things and is my elder.

I'm of the mindset that he's abused the fuck out of me and I've never gotten respect unless I was playing by his rules.

He does think I'm trying to control him in a paranoid way.

Please remind me to play you the audio or email the clips before sessions with mom and dad.

Off topic: Worried abt my partner, I feel my stress is kicking his ass. He told me I was fine. He had a question for me today and was all horny which I was not mad abt but I had to deal with crazy people

Anyway idfk what else to say.

I'm tired.

Maybe I'll write more after I smoke out for the pain I'll be in tomorrow from being tense as fuck.

I wish I could have my emotional support burger now. 🍔 I'll see it on Thursday before I meet with you.

Dunno if I should eat before dad session.

I mean I'm stressed out about it and I don't know if you're questioning if it's a good idea or not but if I don't have a session with him and don't figure out some way to communicate to where it's not abusive then nothing is going to really get better because he's still basically in control of my financial shit.

Also his apology was basically the best apology and narcissist could possibly give and it's not really even a true apology and I'm really bothered by it and I don't even know if an apology with words would fix anything.

The fact that he made a session with you and is showing up means something to me but I'm also so scared that it's going to go bad. I'll be bringing my extra anxiety med that day for after.

I am worried I'll disassociate during session to protect myself and keep myself from reacting to the lies.

I literally thought about finding the dog training clicker I have to bring and click to give you a signal that I may need to excuse myself to keep composure or just let you know if it's absolute bullshit.

You're in charge with the parents. I wouldn't know where to start if you left it up to me.

I don't want to not do the hard sessions and work.

Speaking of work I flat out told my mom I was about to say "fuck it" and do like onlyfans or something because there's a market for all body types and random fetishes. I could be a findom or sell my used underwear or whatever the fuck. There's tons of legit sites. I've gone back and forth about it. If I make enough money then I could just escape. I do wish I was more an ethical slut. I don't like the gross feels that my flesh prison gives me but other people are keen on it. Maybe I'd hate being stick in it less.

Lucy who is my ex roommate...her dad died. He was just like mine but an alcoholic. Dad acts like a dry drunk.

Lucy used to encourage me to do nude modeling like she did for painters because she thought the artists would appreciate my body so I could see it wasn't terrible in art form.

Because it's really weird I look at other people and their bodies and features mostly like I look at art I don't really often sexualize people As much as I guess you're normal average person

I mean yes of course I've passed by people and been like oh God damn they're fine but more in my head it's like oh God damn their fine is in their fine art

[bookwyrminspiration]

is it still council-hating hours? even if not, this is something that's been bothering me for....so long. and i am going to explode if i don't say it right now. (In fact i actually have a doc titled "council incompetence rant" that is. getting a little long.)

One of the things that annoys me the most in Keeper is how utterly incompetent the Council is. They are shit at their jobs! They don't make sense! And that would be fine if that was something that was explored and talked about in the story, but it's not?

Like, sure, it's brushed on a little, but Keeper never goes in-depth in order to explain just how flawed and corrupt the system is! We have no idea how far the rot goes because we haven't been given a chance to see how far it goes, and despite the earlier books being really great setup for all kinds of plots and discussions surrounding the Council, it feels like Messenger is completely dropping that in favor of..."Neverseen Bad, Council + Black Swan Good". Which I call fucking bullshit on, by the way, because this series has gone to pretty decent lengths before to show that it's not the case! So WHY are we getting to that now?

Well, I think all of this is the symptom of a bigger problem.

Note: I don't want to be mean, and please tell me if I'm being too critical here, but this series has some serious problems actually delivering on what it's saying.

Like, it's trying to tell us that Sophie shouldn't be doing all this because she's a kid, but then it treats her very own existence as a project as background information when that should absolutely be at the forefront (like it was in earlier books)!

It's trying to tell us that discrimination against the Talentless is bad, but then every single member of it's cast has an ability, has a strong ability, and regularly uses their ability! Even Dex, who could have easily been talentless and good with tech, gets to be a Super Good Gadget Person thanks to his ability as opposed to his own creativity and ingenuity.

It's trying to tell us that maybe banishing children is bad, but also tells us that Exillium is now """fixed""" because Oralie gave them...better tents? Food? And never touches on the fact that children are still. getting. banished. It doesn't explore Tam's anger in detail, Linh is only there to be the token asian girl, it does nothing to fully dispel any thought of the Council being alright.

And it's trying to tell us that the Council fucks up, it's showing us that Councillors have no problem being incredibly selfish and violent and so many other terrible things, but that never changes. Nothing in Keeper is changing. It is only maintaining the status quo!

I'm confused as to what Messenger is trying to tell her readers! Are the Council good or bad? Is working with the Council good or bad? Are the Black Swan and Neverseen actually morally grey? Should I be angry at what's happening in these books? Am I meant to look at all the rot and shrug because "that's just how it is"?

And like...I wouldn't be mad if Keeper was just...bad! I mean, I would, but I wouldn't be as distraught! What really grinds my gears is that Keeper has the chance to be good. It has the chance to do great things - and at times it absolutely does! - but it keeps reinforcing belief in a deeply flawed and broken system that is regularly hurting people. And those examples were just off the top of my head!

And again, if this was explored within the series, that would be amazing, but the problem is that it's...not. And that's just...a real fuckin' shame, honestly.

- pyro

(sorry if this was like...too angry? i started and then kinda just...couldn't stop. i should probably get a hobby that's not tearing a middle grade series apart. oops.)

it may have been over a week since you sent this (thank you for being patient with me!!), but fuck yes it is still council hating hours. it is always council hating hours in this household that is not actually a house. (also that incompetence rant sounds intriguing)

yes! you are right! they are so bad at what they're supposed to be doing it's like they're just figures for people to look to and say "yea they'll take care of it" to keep everyone else from acting out! but it's really interesting to see a government so awful and incompetent be such an integral and influential part of the story...without acknowledging that they're actually really bad? I know in Unlocked there's a line where Shannon says something like "Sophie had to figure out who the bad guys were: the black swan? the council? someone else entirely?" but then it's never touched on again that I can remember. Thinking through the series, I honestly can't think of a situation that the council, of their own volition, saw was an issue and corrected in a way that was beneficial to those who needed it. Like yea, Oralie gave money to Exillium, but that was after Sophie chewed her out about it. I think i've said it before but in case not: it feels like they've taken the "for the good of the many over the good of the few" ideology too far in a society that doesn't work for. If someone threatens the majority (and often that's just in appearance only) they get rid of them to preserve the image of the rest. It doesn't care about their people, it cares about the majority of people feeling undisturbed.

considering Sophie is part of a huge organization created literally because their society, led by that system, isn't working for a lot of people, they (the Black Swan) sure do go along with the council a whole lot. I think one of the linked posts in one of my masterposts is specifically about how making the Black Swan work so closely with the council screwed them over and completely undermined everything they were working towards. I'm going to make a very vague comparison here, but the Black Swan feel like "we need to fix the system" while the Neverseen are "the system is broken lets start over" (except the Neverseen added a lot more violence into the mix). It's absolutely infuriating to have them working side by side: one, because the Black Swan aren't accomplishing any of their goals and should cut their losses and go back to being mysterious underground groups with more freedom to move (in my opinion), but two, because it makes the council seem like it's trying to fix things when really it feels like a publicity thing to make the public think they're addressing the rebel issue while they're really just showing up in places and causing problems. And!! that's another thing! it feels like their collaboration with the Black Swan is to address the problem of having rebels, not the problems these rebels have identified and are trying to fix. Unfortunately, it seems the council is getting their way more than the Black Swan, getting them to act more legally and work closer with less room for working outside the system. if that makes sense.

considering it's literally stated in unlocked that there is no "good" and "bad," there does seem to be a lot of focus on associating the Black Swan with being Right, and the Neverseen with being Wrong. I can hope that it's the outward reactions to the Black Swan realizing they've done some fucked up stuff (Sophie) and are now overcompensating and trying to make sure their every move is the correct one. But I do think it will be interesting to see if Sophie makes the connection in canon (as she's already started to) that there isn't always a right option, there's just the best you can do with a situation and the Black Swan's insistence that she was "in the wrong" (a summary) helps her realize her own values and think through their decisions with her own perspective instead of just trusting them

response to your note: you're fine! you bring up a good point that this book sounds like it wanted to be a unique perspective (by having the "good guys" also be questionable and give the "bad guys" reasonable motives) but the execution misses the mark for a lot of us. so you're qualms and observations are entirely valid and I don't think you're being mean at all! I think you're expressing a frustration you have with something, which I support and encourage.

at times it feels like Shannon bit off more than she could chew in terms of all the complicated things she could get into when it comes to this series. not saying she's doing a bad job or a horrible author or anything, just that there are some things she introduced that kind of get left behind or unexplored because there's so much else going on. I think we can see that in the whole being experiment part of Sophie life. we saw sophie was uncomfortable with it in the first few books and would sometimes bring it up, but I personally would've been more satisfied if she'd either taken the time to process it (opposed to her think about that later strategy) or come to the realization that no, she isn't okay with it and she deserves to have her thoughts on the matter heard. she was literally created to serve someone elses purpose, and brought into the fight too early at that. and yet it's treated like an "oopsie, guess we just gotta go with it" thing, like this minor part of her story when I bet her thinking about it for more than a minute at a time would absolutely wreck her. but I'm getting caught up in this, so moving on!

I think we can see it in the talentless too, as it's treated like a "that doesn't affect me" thing for Sophie. because she doesn't have any friends that are talentless right now--the closest she's got is Marella, who I think is still legally considered talentless with her pyrokinesis. it's been acknowledged that she doesn't think the way talentless are treated is right, but it doesn't impact her right now so she's not really doing anything about it. maybe if this was brought back later with someone like Jensi, then that would be a satisfying conclusion to this issue (not a conclusion, but it wouldn't be left hanging, if that makes sense). And I can understand the benefit of leaving things open to go back and explore later from a writers perspective, but at a certain point it becomes more of a hindrance to the story than anything else.

and exillium! I have so many thoughts on Exillium that I actually started talking about it earlier in this post. They're not doing anything unless prompted and what they do is the bare minimum. With the tents and the food, they aren't fixing Exillium, they're making it into what it should've been at the very least were they going to actually go down that route. So I can't praise them for it when it's just basic decency to provide literal children with food and shelter when you force them to be somewhere they don't want to. But all this doesn't fix Exillium, because the problem is that it exists in the first place. The problem is that the council saw children who were struggling, and decided the best thing to do with them was to just get them out of the way for everyone else. Three coaches total for leadership? yeah, there's no way that place was ever supposed to be "alternate learning" or however Oralie phrased it, that was just so you could say you hadn't completely abandoned them in the middle of nowhere.

you're so right about the council fucks up bit--I think the most obvious example of this is with Sophie's ability restrictor. Yea, she's not wearing it anymore, but that's not because the council changed their minds. It's because she broke the law and the didn't punish her for it. this is a great example of how things keep trying to move forward, but the council isn't doing anything to stay up with it. "they are selfish and violent[...] but that never changes." yes!! this!! you put it so well! the council is still the same old council that we saw in book one, concerned with their own interests and their own views, just trying to mitigate the damage Sophie and her friends are capable of doing to their system. Note: the fact that a handful of teenagers who haven't even graduated can do this much damage might be telling of the structural integrity of their system. Bronte and Terik did a little flip, and Alina replaced the Now Crispy Kenric, but aside from that nothing has changed.

I will say, I personally don't want it to be clear who the good guys and bad guys are. (not saying that's what you're asking for! just piggybacking off your comment on the confusion). I'm glad that the characters make me think and I'm grateful there isn't just the "we're good and they're bad" element you see in other stories. not that that's bad, i just think realistically they'd be more complex and their simplicity grows repetitive after a while. But like I said, at times it feels like there's too much going on for there to be a clear message, which in and of itself could be the message. i could be seeing something where there's nothing, though. I think part of it might be Shannon trying to take on all these complex narratives and perspectives with a limited perspective (as in she only has Sophie to tell the story through), while also needing to make it enjoyable and palletable to a young audience.

and I agree with you! I think it's a lot of the potential we see not being used that makes us so infuriated (or me at least). Because there are some stories yo uread where you're like "ah. it's just one of those stories. cool." and you move past it. Because you know it's going to have a set perspective and you know it's going to accomplish what it wants, but Keeper seems to have so many possibilities and Shannon's getting stuck in this rut of good and bad after so long. maybe we'll get out of it in the next book with sophie thinking the Black Swan was in the wrong, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that Didn't Happen.

it's just like what i was saying about Ro! There's all these opportunities for these characters and this world to be really explored and fleshed out and complex, but we've gotten stuck in this romance drama and loosing fights again and again with little progress. All their actions are undoing the Neverseen's actions and counting it a victory because no one is dead. I just think there could be so much more that we're not getting because the story tried to go too broad when it wasn't ready for it.

this response got very long but in essence: I agree with your assessment of the story. is frustrating to see so many of the details and paths we'd like to see explored that often aren't in fiction just pass us by.

there is a special place for keeper in my heart and I will always appreciate it for that, but I also mourn what it could've been.

(also: you are not too angry! you have genuine thoughts about this series and they deserve to be heard! we are allowed to have complaints, even about the things we like. we don't have to appreciate every single aspect and we're allowed to be mad at the things we don't like.)

[hyenabeanz]

"who is it better for under Trump" is the wrong question.

Very few on the middle to left side of the spectrum are under the impression Trump is better.

But that isn't the point. It's a longer play. The end game is beyond the next election/term.

The question is "who is it legitimately not getting better for under Biden? How do we fix that?" And honestly, bigger than that, "who has consistently been not getting meaningful improvements, but platitudes, under Democrats?" That's not a single pet issue.

I'm almost certainly going to vote for Biden.... And for some Democrats I am currently really struggling to justify voting for (Amy fucking Klobuchar. I *hate* her. My democratic house representative makes my skin crawl with how literally every fuckin one of her emails talks about how much she loves and lavishes on law enforcement. The Minnesota state legislature which is wholly democratic is currently walking back a law that doesn't let police brutalize children in school because some cops said they didn't like it, and my local rep, almost everyone local rep, supported that.)

All that, and yeah, I'll probably still swallow and vote for these fuckers. I'm a lower-middle class, educated, white disabled trans person, I know what's good for me personally. But...

The parts of me that doubt and even entertain the thought experiment, and the argument I've seen that I do empathize with about not voting for Biden and these people have very little to do with Trump.

It's facing the fact that there are some really atrocious things many Democrats continue to make no progress on, or double down on supporting, even when I do everything in my power to have them do better. And I can't imagine how painful that is if the issues are ones that would more immediately and painfully affect me, like if it was my mom American funded bombs were falling on, or my family I maybe would never get to see again if the border is closed, or my cousin dying trying to evade the border wall, or my brother shot dead or killed in a restraint by ever increasingly funded and supported police.

These Democrats aren't listening to when we write them. They aren't listening when we call them. They're not listening when we protest their actions. They're not listening when we boycott. What is left? What is the final power we hold to try and force hands assuming we aren't the violent revolution type?

It's our votes.

I think most of the people also realize the steep sacrifice it is to say "enough. If you won't do better you will no longer have the support, regardless of the consequences. We'll deal with the consequences for at least a chance at real change for a more just and fair longer-term tomorrow, even if there's a lot of hell to get there first."

I suppose in some ways, it is still violent revolution, or at least accepting that may be the set up. Radicalism is what happens when people feel very hopeless and powerless.

So the question I ask you, "always vote blue" folks, is what are you doing to empower people, empower your communities, and really push to make it not feel so dire? To reduce that hopelessness and powerlessness? Because that's the antidote.

Because what I saw happen in 2020 was this: a lot of people who had never engaged besides the ballot box suddenly got engaged when things got dire with Trump. People paid attention. And then they swore up and down they'd keep pushing Biden. And .... That didn't happen really. No one has said boo as Biden continues to build the border wall. No one said much as he championed huge amounts of police funding. Most of the people I watched engaged in the Trump years went back to business as usual. People stopped showing up. And now that Trump's a threat again, because we didn't keep on the antibiotics to treat the disease once once of the symptoms waned, the response has been to shame and finger wag and threaten with things people already know, as if they're stupid.

That shit isn't going to work.

You need to try and convince people there are alternative forms of power. That means getting involved en masse and following through.

This Tiktok thing is a great example. It's absurdly draconian that our government is planning on banning a worldwide social media platform. You can kiss the election goodbye if that passes. Harass your senator. Harass Biden. Phone calls are super effective because no one does them, but literally anything is better than nothing. Because if they don't do better, they are going to lose.

It also means talking about the tangible positives this administration has managed. They exist. They're real. And not framed as "fighting against Trump." Remember it's not about Trump in this discussion. What have they done for people.

If you're a habitual poster of doom content... Stop it. Share actionable items. However small. Your goal is to make people feel like they have power beyond burning it to the ground.

I keep talking about this, because I desperately don't want another Trump presidency. but I am grossed out by the entitlement I'm seeing by especially white liberal queers about how Democrats seem to be owed votes, and how anyone who doesn't get that is an idiot whose engagement has zero merit. Which is insufferable prick behavior. It is gasoline on the "Democrats are elitest bourgeois enemies" fire.

Stop it. Please. I know we're scared. And tired. So tired. But this isn't how community or coalition building works. Lets try to do things that will even maybe work.

I answered this trusting those sharing it meant that genuine curiosity. Keep that in mind before you answer.

Who is helped in this scenario?

More to the point: how will your one issue improve under Trump?

[iamanartichoke]

I started to reblog this post on my dash, but then I ended up writing a long ass reply bc apparently I care about the how shitty the school system in America is? Which was news to me, but regardless, by the time I finished I didn't want to reblog it anymore bc it had strayed from the point of the post and was mostly just me yelling into the void -

- but, I mean, I wrote it and everything and now I have to do something with it, so, well, have a random brain dump about the US school system.

This isn't even a fandom post, smh.

___

I mean, obligatory 'I used to be a K-12 teacher' and kids are fucking messy. Like. When I was a teacher, kids weren't allowed to eat in the classroom and I would still be pulling empty chip bags and candy wrappers and half-eaten dum-dums and drink bottles from kids' desks every single day. And the gum, my god. They really will stick that shit anywhere and everywhere. These were high schoolers, not kindergarteners. I can't imagine what it would be like if eating was allowed.

So, I mean, "no eating/drinking in class" is a reasonable rule.

I get the spirit of the OP and absolutely agree with it, btw. Kids aren't animals and aren't robots, either, and the strictest teachers take reasonable rules and use them to be power-tripping assholes to kids and that's not okay.

I just think that "kids should be allowed to eat/drink in class" isn't exactly the conversation we need to be having here because it's not the real issue. The conversation we need to be having is, why does the structure of our school system lend itself so easily to reasonable rules being unreasonably enforced?

For example, why is the kid hungry in the first place? Bc their day is ridiculously long; the first bell was at 7:30am and they had a slice of pizza for lunch at 10am and the day isn't over until 3:30pm. That's an eight-hour day; an adult on an eight-hour shift gets two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute break for lunch (assuming their work place follows the law, which is another conversation). Kids get 25 minutes, 15 of which are spent standing in the food line, and 4 minutes between classes, all of which are spent getting from one class to the next without being penalized for walking in late. Bathroom? Good luck. Snack break? Pfft.

And the power-tripping teacher who treats that hungry kid like an animal by refusing to let them go to the bathroom or eat a snack? Here's a not-so-secret from the inside: teachers who are in it for love of the profession are rare. Most of them feel powerless against admin, parents, the school board, the state. They can't even create their own curriculum anymore bc it's all "collaborative" and "meeting the standards" and all that matters are test scores and the test scores are skewed data that doesn't actually matter and the teachers know that but they can't do anything about it. The pay is abysmal, the benefits might as well be nonexistent, the unpaid work builds and builds, and there's never any pencils. The kids are the only people they have any say over, and they abuse that power in order to feel important bc their jobs fucking suck and when you're a teacher, 80% of your life is spent on your job, so your life probably fucking sucks, too.

All of which is to say, teachers shouldn't be treating kids like animals or robots, but kids shouldn't be hungry in class in the first place. The structure of the school day needs a complete overhaul to allow for flexibility and meeting the needs of growing human beings.

And in order for that to happen, the entire system needs to be redesigned. Teacher pay needs a huge increase in order to attract people who love the profession but also want to make a comfortable living. The budget needs to be redone so teachers aren't constantly paying for materials and classroom decor with their own money. The curriculum and the standards need to be re-evaluated. Standardized testing needs to cease to exist. Teachers need to be allowed to be creative and fluid in their lesson plans; they need to be allowed to teach things that matter. Get rid of those shitty ass desks and chairs and invest in something less permanently damaging to one's joints and posture. Get some more fucking windows in those god-awful buildings.

"Teachers should let kids eat/drink in class" is a solution to the illusion of the problem. The rule is a symptom of the overall broken design. So how do we fix that?

[bread-tab]

an antidote to social anxiety

or: i ramble at length about my thoughts on my own debilitating social anxiety and how i'm genuinely starting to get over it through one weird trick™ you can try at home.

i'm in this ongoing process of making myself remember that people are people. it's easiest with strangers on the street, harder with my family and friends, harder still with people on the internet, and most difficult of all with myself.

what does that mean? does it mean this is all a game to me, that i read your posts every day and judge you like a fictional character, that i don't care about anyone's feelings?

no.

what it means is that i'm autistic and have social anxiety, adhd, trauma, leftover identity issues from being trans, and a lot of ocd and dissociative tendencies—things that add up together into my mind being a dark, funky little place that i don't feel entirely at home in. there's probably varying levels of depersonalization involved, i don't know enough about that particular symptom to say. (something i should really probably look into more.)

anyway, what i'm trying to get at here is like, the cognitive side of all that. how it affects my thinking about people. how i relate to both others and myself. i've developed detachment as a defense mechanism.

i care immensely about people. maybe too much. i take things too seriously, i struggle to tell whether people are joking, and i'm way too anxious about every interpersonal thing ever. and that's just too much to process while i'm actively in a social situation. so, i push it to the side. i mask it. with the side effect of my mind going blank, and having trouble reacting emotionally to anything. someone tells me bad news? oh dear, i'm vaguely worried. someone tells me good news? oh nice, i'm vaguely worried. but i'm aware that that's an inappropriate response, so i fake an appropriate one—but i fake it as honestly as i can. i take a split second to go into the best social-analysis-genius mode i can muster and ask myself (without so many words, it's more of a feeling), how would i react to this if i wasn't incredibly anxious/feeling like i'm faking being a real person? and i can usually figure that out, and channel it, and it's almost as good as the real thing. almost.

(but hey, optimistically...maybe this is one of those fake-it-'til-you-make-it things. maybe i'm genuinely training myself out of having anxiety and back into having authentic reactions.)

and this works okay as a coping mechanism. it doesn't actually fix the anxiety, but it allows me to actually interact with people sometimes without spontaneously combusting in sheer terror.

thing is, that anxiety is still there, underneath. it's got deep roots. that anxiety warps how i perceive people. it warps my sense of self. and sometimes, when i'm really tired or really depressed...it gets out. it contaminates the mask. i find myself acting snarky, cynical, flippant, sometimes even genuinely mean.

and then i come back to myself, in the moment or after a good long sleep, and i go, that's not me. that's not who i really am. why did i do that? it's mortifying.

and that shame just reinforces the entire social anxiety cycle. fear myself, fear others, mask/put up walls, get tired, slip up, and worsen the fear. i'm not actually a bad person. but treating myself as if i was makes me a worse person than i would be if i could just somehow let all this anxiety go and be real with people. if i could forgive myself for being human.

so as to how this internal struggle relates to how i see other people... it messes with my empathy.

because like, that whole golden rule thing, "treat others the way you would want to be treated"? yeah, that doesn't work for me. i still try it as a thought exercise sometimes because i'm desperate. and it goes like... "how would you like to be told bad news?" either dump all the details on me right now (yes, trauma-dump, i need to know) or fuck off and deal with it yourself. don't ask me for help, i have my own issues, i don't have energy for you. "how would you like someone to comfort you if your pet died?" i wouldn't. i'd be too busy blaming myself and stewing in self-hatred. hit me up if you're an honest-to-god actual necromancer, otherwise leave me alone.

and uh, that's not who most people are! that's not even who i actually am! that's the full fermented toxicity of my social anxiety laid bare. because that thought experiment means i have to imagine being in a situation that would make me anxious and my response would involve imagining what i would want if i wasn't in that situation and that's where the whole thing breaks down because that's just too goddamn much for me to imagine at once. so i seem to get stuck on the anxiety, and damn, anxiety-brain is just in full fight-or-flight "leave me the fuck alone or else" mode.

so hey, it's very easy for me to empathize with people who are panicking! that's a plus.

the obvious answer to this little conundrum seems to be just...try that little thought experiment again but imagine not being anxious in the first place. and like...jeez, i wish i knew how to do that. i'm working on developing the emotional intelligence skills to be able to do that. i'm just really not there yet. i'm continually surprised by positive emotions, in other people and myself.

surprised and relieved. like, that person over there is feeling cheerful! thank god, jesus christ, i forgot everyone isn't severely depressed. wow, this thing inspires me with childish wonder! holy shit that's a real emotion? oh hey, me and the person i'm talking to right now are both calm and confident. sweet motherfucking pancakes batman i thought this only happened in movies!

so like...to bring this back to my original point... it's hard for me to realistically predict how people will react to things. up to and including myself. when i was a kid, i had really low/delayed empathy, maybe even impaired theory of mind, if that's a valid way to put it. (something i've struggled to convince my therapist of, because now i'm like this.) and as a teenager i realized i'd gotten fucked up somewhere in my development, and i care, so i got anxiety. so i try to think through it and i end up with either hardcore sherlock-holmes-style analysis or just panic that forces me to give up and distract myself. and the point is, i've ended up with a really screwed up twisted way of perceiving people.

and yet. miraculously. i've found a loophole.

i've somehow learned to sidestep the entire monstrous mechanism of my anxiety.

the frustrating thing is i don't really have the words to describe it.

it kind of feels like i've hacked the matrix.

it's like...

it's like i can put so much analytical energy into the social mask where everything is real pretending to be fake pretending to be real that i can just break through and come out the other side. like wait. everything is fake. so i'm free. so i can just be real.

and that just sounds like i'm saying, "hey, i figured out how to turn off my anxiety."

which is so wrong! i didn't! i'm actually still terrified. and i can't explain the reality of this breakthrough without all these miles and miles of background details because it just sounds obvious and/or fake.

reality is made up actually, so just do whatever.

your fears aren't reality. that's all in your head.

...well, i live in my head. i've had to get to this point the hard way. i'm glad some of y'all start out here and don't have to figure all this out for yourselves (seriously, not /s, i'm glad not everyone has to go through this)...but i've been down a different path.

so what does it mean, that "people are people"? that i have to remind myself of this, and that the reminder eases my anxiety?

i think it means i've developed a completely new concept of what a person is. what it means to be human.

and at the same time, that old anxiety-driven perception is still there, my social anxiety still gets triggered on a daily basis. and what i'm trying to do is notice that i'm using that old concept of "person." i'm trying to switch to the new concept. and that completely reframes the entire situation.

i can't encapsulate the old concept in a single word. it's the unsociable hipsterly refrain, "i hate people." it's person (derogatory), person (threat), person (predator). it's the competitive, hierarchical instinct...people are either ideals on pedestals or demons who have fallen from said heights. people is the generic popular kid from tv who will inevitably bully you for no reason, the sitcom studio audience who will laugh at the expense of everything you say. people is the eldritch, unknowable other, the alien intelligence that can outsmart you while remaining inherently unpredictable. it's barely even a concept of its own, really; it's a trigger, a vaguely person-shaped (friend-shaped?) sensory appendage attached to the network of anxiety nerves in my brain.

so i'm rewiring. i'm just going "fuck that, 'person' now means this other thing." it's infuriating how simple that sounds when i've put years of blood sweat and tears (aka, therapy) into getting myself to the point where it can happen.

and i don't want to understate that effort but... it is simple. if you're reading this and you have social anxiety and autism yourself, i want you to know it gets simpler. it gets easier to understand. you have to figure out how to get yourself there, and that's really hard, that's the struggle. but it's a solvable problem. it's possible.

and my new concept? i can't sum that up in one word either. it's humans. person (affectionate). my people. clever little creatures, like if you mixed a raven with a racoon and made it really tall and good at throwing things. warm beings that are so incredibly loving and loyal. but that makes it sound like i'm sanitizing humanity, making up a fake palatable version, and i'm not.

i'm constructing the concept of 'human' from new foundations, and i'm not leaving anything out. i'm building this concept in a hundred different ways, from so many starting points of different concepts that already make sense to me.

one starting point: babies. because i love babies and my social anxiety just doesn't apply to them. a baby can't hurt me. it's a baby. but a baby is also a person. a baby has every human need, and they'll let you know it with unbearable screaming because they don't know any other way to communicate. a baby is incredibly smart and focuses all of its energy on transforming into an adult, which is generally highly effective. babies are scarily competent. but they're also just...baby. small, soft, adorable. just literally baby.

and i can look at literally anyone, even the people who scare me the most, who in reality resemble person (old definition, threat, predator) more than they do person (new definition, literally just a little creature)—i can look at that person and go, dude, that was a baby once. i can look at a politician who could ruin my life with one stroke of a pen and mentally say, "that's a two-year-old with a gun." which is still a terrifying and heartbreaking scenario, but it's an effective reframe. it completely changes my role in the situation. it doesn't make me any less wary, it doesn't invalidate my sense that there's a real threat, but it changes the threat into something knowable and i can allow myself to be calm.

don't get me wrong, i'm not in the habit of infantalizing people. "baby" is just one ingredient out of many in the reconceptualization i'm using as an antidote to my anxiety. it's a variation on the old cliche, "imagine everyone in their underwear." just another reminder that underneath our serious, intimidating exteriors, humans in general are silly.

and i don't usually bother going that deep into a metaphor, in my daily life. i don't need to. all i need to do is remember to invoke the new concept instead of the old one.

with that one shortcut, i remember everything:

people are just little creatures

people are cool and amazing

people were babies once

people are just doing their best

people are silly

people are sweet

people are knowable

people are okay

i'm a person and i'm okay

we're okay

...and boom, i'm out of the matrix. phew. alright. i can handle this. i can take down the unnecessary defenses. we will not be needing the rocket launchers today. and suddenly even the darn the golden rule works, because what people (new concept) want isn't so complicated after all, and i'm no exception. i just want to be treated as a person (affectionate), not a person (derogatory).

so, daily reminder: people (old concept) are actually just people (new concept). people are people.