#pathologic level of avoidance etc

[sillywebz]

hhh feeling hunted prey animal level of anxiety but my predator is responsibilities i signed up for .

[mariamegale]

More clarification on Dybowski's position within Ice Pick Lodge today from IPL ex-employee Luchin, after yesterday's comments.

Sorry for posting so much in the patho tag, but unfortunately it's what's best for visibility. I have, and will be, using the "Dybowski Allegations" tag for any post on this, so please block that tag if you don't want to see it.

Since my post yesterday on Alexey Luchin's comments/allegations against Dybowski, he has given Reddit some updates and clarifications. I'll summarise the Reddit thread, but quote Luchin in full for transparency.

The thread is on the topic of Dybowski's current involvement with IPL/Pathologic 3. Commenters stated that he has sold the company, and hasn't been very involved with the games since The Void (2008). Whether this is a valid interpretation of Luchin's earlier statements was discussed, and the fact that he's been a main P2 writer and involved with a lot of promo stuff over the years was brought up. Luchin, after being pinged, showed up to clarify:

Russian companies often use a "fake owner" for various reasons, this is the case here. Motivations may be to avoid alimony, to ease money transfers between the main company part in Kazakhstan and the original main company and it's Cyprus subordinary. It is not illegal, and even not a loophole, though. I wouldn't dwell on that much. It's important what people work in the studio factually.

and,

Yep, I'd say it's up to the currently employed to shed light reliably. But in general around after the Void he was more of an broad ideas guy — and a good one, it wasn't my intent to downplay him in that regard. At the same time, game development is a multistage process, and from my personal knowledge, I can attribute a lot of the new games qualities to "fresh blood", and the other co-founders acting more professional. E.g. Alphyna has covered a decent chunk of actual writing on Pathologic 2 and had a pivotal role in maintaining the timeline of events of the game, charater motivations, etc together. Ivan Slovtsov carried the detailed game design and balancing with his team — which gave him a good position in tinyBuild after, etc. IPL is to some extent an autere game company, with the source and numerous modifications coming from Nikolay, but in my time his input was irregural, disrupting, and in my personal opinion wasn't often for the good of the game. At the same time, the fresh blood in the studio grew on the principles on which the studio was founded and successfully carries its legacy already. This is an opinion, though, still. Personally, I'll still play Pathologic 3, it's great, from what I know / have seen. And all my posts here are done with a heavy heart — it's not easy to be dissapointed in a talanted figure such as Dybowsky myself.

So, based on this (keep in mind Luchin himself has stated to have no contact with Dybowski himself since 2018, although it feels fair to assume he'd still be in contact with other former coworkers) the exact role of Dybowski in the creation of these games seems a little unclear. But I also don't think anyone's been debating whether he's been involved up until p3, as much as how deeply involved he is in p3.

Ultimately, it's up to everyone to decide for themselves where they stand in terms of opinion on p3, buying the game, sticking around in the fandom, supporting the studio, et cetera., but that's the new info.

To just give my own personal two cents: I am still in the position I was yesterday, which is that I believe IPL has to make a statement on all of this, and cut ties with Dybowski, before I'll be completely comfortable giving them money. However, I do also want to acknowledge the fact that this is not a black and white situation, and that the discourse surrounding this does warrant some level of nuance. I'm, of course, speaking in relation to the other people working at IPL.

It's incredibly easy to say both, "Dybowski is not his team; they should never be punished for his actions," and "they may have helped cover for him for twenty years; they should be held responsible." Silence is, to a degree, complicity, and if Luchin is to be believed not just in his "open secret" statement but also here, in reference to the student grooming allegations:

That's the Nema-Soda episode around the same time previous accusations surfaced. Well known in the Russian segment of the internet.

That's bad. If this truly has been this out in the open and known, that's really fucking bad, and I want this company - at least its management - to be held responsible for their potential silence and complicity in this.

But, at risk of sounding like I'm excusing any of this, I do also want to remind you that according to Luchin, as well as earlier testimonies including Renata's, this is also a person who is apparently incredibly vindictive. He is also pretty rich by Russian standards, and has held some level of influence in academia and the Russian game dev community for many years. I don't know exactly how his vindictiveness would take its form, especially not against employees, but I've been in toxic workplaces before - it can be scary, downright terrifying, to go after or even up against someone like this. No matter how shitty they are, especially if you're not in a country with good whistleblower laws (and just, in general, a system which will take the original allegations seriously, which... I'm not Russian, but I'm allowing myself some possibly problematic doubt that you'd be able to comfortably know that. I come from a significantly more progressive country, and I would absolutely not take it for certain) it can be incredibly difficult to stand up for what's right and take that risk to your livelihood, safety, and future job prospects. Especially in a job market so (relatively) niche as Russian game development. I'm also pretty damn sure there's not a union, or anything like it, to back you up if you get inofficially retaliated against.

Human being end up in abusive situations and find themselves, for one reason or another, not doing anything about it all the time. SA victims don't always report their perpetrator. Fraud victims don't always come forward. People subjected to wage theft don't always call their union reps. And others, those who witness it, don't always do it either. Sometimes because it's not their place, sometimes because they don't care, and sometimes because they're afraid. I don't think it's fair to assume everyone is in the second category, just as how I wouldn't think it's fair to assume everyone is in any of the others - it'd be absurd to assume every IPL worker doesn't want to out someone else's victimhood, which is why they haven't said anything publicly, for example. However, not reporting is an incredibly common blame to put on a victim or witness, because it's assumed that by not reporting it, they're essentially enabling the perpetrator to do it again. And I personally just don't think that's just - not without knowing what else weighed into a person's decision not to speak up.

I'm not saying this absolves all of IPL. I especially don't think it absolves the people at the top with Dybowski, who would have been more protected than the bottom-line workers. I simply am asking for some honest-to-god nuance. Personally, I'm still not happy to give IPL any money - not until I know Dybowski is not getting any of it, and measures have been taken to protect their other employees. But I'm also not interested in broad brushing an entire company of twenty years as evil, because the employees haven't made (english) publically available attempts at getting this guy out. We know, by his own accord, Luchin didn't - we know nothing of the others. A conversation with a manager that went badly is not likely to become public knowledge. People lamenting their powerlessness to stop someone to their colleagues or friends won't reach us. Someone quietly resigning because they can't do this anymore, but not being willing to put themselves on the line, is not a detail we're going to have.

I'm happy the silence has, hopefully irrevocably and undeniably, been broken. I'm hoping some people, Dybowski in particular, will face justice, or at least consequences. I hope Renata and her son, as well as Dybowski's other children, are safe and happy. I hope that IPL will do something, and move forward as a better company.

I want them to make a statement about this. That's non-negiotiable, for me, personally. I also want to see a change, and a better company with a better work culture going forward, making games and nurturing a community safely away from all this shit.

However, I accept the grim possibility that this will never happen, and am trying to decide on what that means for me personally moving forward with the fandom. I don't have any moral qualms about piracy, that's not what this is about. And that's the wider conversation I think I personally will need more, moving forward, in regards to my relationship with Pathologic.

That's my two cents.

[drdemonprince]

Lots of great advice for trans guys looking to get some pole on Grindr to be found in this article by David Davis:

Like honking, blocking on social media has a bad rap. The mainstream take on blocking seems to be that it’s the prerogative of cowards, assholes, and even authoritarians, to the extent that those who disappear without explanation—whether by failing to respond or, more pointedly, by eliminating the opportunity for contact—are seen as antisocial, even pathological. I’m not here to argue about that (although believe me, I have my opinions!). I just want to point out that, like honking, blocking has different meanings across contexts. In fact, it’s naive to insist they are uniformly negative. In some situations, one or both parties understand that blocking is simply a more direct way of communicating desires, drawing boundaries, and granting and taking space. Take the gay hook up app, Grindr: to function well on this platform, you need to block, especially if you’re a fetishized minority. It’s not just trolls, spam, and creeps—it’s also the perfectly inoffensive people that you’re just not interested in (indeed, some users will put in their bio that you should block them in this case). Because Grindr is location-based, you see your grid—that is, the matrix of users in your immediate vicinity—every time you open the app. If you’re mostly opening it at home, that means you see more or less the same people every time, roughly 15 per scroll. If someone around the corner hits you up and you don’t respond, that could mean Not right now or Not ever. If you’re busy but potentially interested, you may just ignore their messages or likes until the stars align. If you know they’re not your type, blocking them saves you both some time. Anyone who’s used apps like Grindr for longer than a minute will know that while rejection doesn’t feel good, it’s part of the playing the game. Without failing to acknowledge the ways that normative standards of attractiveness affect us all, taking a block personally just doesn’t make sense1.

When I used Grindr previously, I avoiding putting FTM in my handle because it drew a preponderance of chaser-types (I enjoy and will fuck chasers2, but they do take more work to weed through), though I was obliged to put a kindergarten-level explanation of my genitals in my bio, since people often read me as transfeminine3. This time around, I started advertising as FTM out of sheer laziness: with my transness in my handle as well as my bio, I get more messages than I can respond to, which means I can pick and choose. This has also put me in the position of needing to block considerably more, which has led me to think more about when and why I do it. After a few years of being an FTM on gay hookup apps, my trigger finger is constantly itching. Within the first few words of an exchange, I can tell how worthwhile a conversation with someone will be. If there is any hint that I will be insulted or annoyed, I’m more likely to block than see it through. This is both good and bad: snap judgments save me time while limiting my range of experiences. I’ll deal with fewer time-wasters, assholes, and rapists, but I’ll also have more homogenous hookups as a result. This transgender hypersensitivity, while admittedly crazy, is the price of my safety and, paradoxically, my mental health (some have more tolerance, some less; your mileage, etc.). It is what it is. I don’t block because someone sends me unprompted nudes, is direct or aggressive, offers to pay me, or misgenders me in a well-intentioned way. In fact, I prefer this sort of interaction, as it shows that the other person recognizes that 1) we are on a gay hookup app for FAGGOTS, 2) attraction both transcends and reinscribes identity, whether or not we think it does, 3) it’s just sex, 4) acknowledging the potential of a financial transaction means they understand that that I understand that my attention is valuable4, and 5) that I am clearly fem and should be approached with the princess treatment.

[sebs-out-of-spoons]

💚♿️ Introduction Post ♿️💚

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Hi there, fellow spoonie! I’m Sebastian, and this is my blog for my diagnosis journey. Welcome! <3

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Things To Be Diagnosed

Physical

Hyperglycemia or Hypoglycemia (We aren’t sure yet)

Gastroparesis (Likely)

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) (Likely)

POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) (Was tested, came back with no indicators, the doctor was an asshat, so planning to test in other ways to make sure)

hEDS (Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) (Was tested, came back without enough indicators, the doctor was an asshat and did a lot of it wrong, so planning to test again by someone else to make sure)

?MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome)? (Not too sure, but there seems to be some correlations, and will get it checked in the future just in case)

Mental

ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder)

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) (Combined Type)

C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) or PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

Pure O OCD (“Purely Obsessional” Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder)

APD (Auditory Processing Disorder)

ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder)(Avoidant Type)

SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder)

Misophonia

Trichotillomania

Dermatillomania

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

Agoraphobia (“Mild”)

PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or Persistent Drive for Autonomy)

Alexithymia

Hypersexuality

DPDR & Dissociative Amnesia

Overlapping

PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)

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Already Diagnosed

MDD (Major Depressive Disorder)

GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)

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About This Blog

I’ll probably mainly be posting about the progress on my physical diagnoses. I will be posting about PT, my chronic pain, chronic dislocations and subluxations, chronic fatigue, pre-syncope and co., and everything to do with my physical symptoms and struggles.

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More Things

I’m going in for PT twice a week, and I’m doing home exercises.

I had an appointment with my eye doctor on 10/14/2024. Prescription changed, slightly worse.

I had an appointment with a cardiologist on 11/4/2024 to figure out if I have POTS and hEDS as well, and came back negative for all, but the doctor was a medical gaslighter, so we’re getting things re-tested by someone different.

I had an appointment with a gender clinic on 11/4/2024 to start the process of diagnosing and treating my neurodivergencies, and it went really well.

I went for bloodwork today (9/20/2024), and I was tested for diabetes and more things, but I do not have it. The tests showed that I have poor liver function, so we’re doing things to start helping with that. We’re hoping to test for the hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia in the future sometime.

I went for a gynecologist appointment on 11/15/2024 for suspected PMDD, and am now on menstrual-suppressing medication.

I had an appointment with the gastroenterologist on 11/26/2024, and now we’re going for testing later on to confirm celiac, to make sure my thyroid is healthy and okay, and then testing for both IBS and Gastroparesis.

I had an appointment with a Gender Clinic on December 2nd of 2024 to discuss testosterone for in the future, gender dysphoria, and had a binder fitting. I’m being referred to an endocrinologist for testing to see my hormone levels and etc., and we’ll hopefully be able to get an appointment in January, maybe February, but hopefully sooner than all that.

I also have an appointment with a Psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD and Autism, on December 4th of 2024.

I have an appointment with an endocrinologist on January 29th to test hormone levels and hopefully get on testosterone ASAP.

I suffer from chronic pain, chronic dislocations & subluxations, chronic stomach issues, hypermobility (about an 6/9 on the Beighton Scale, plus hypermobility outside the Beighton Scale), chronic fatigue, and more stuff.

I own some mobility aids (forearm crutches & cane) and am hoping to get more in the future (specifically wheelchair, I’m saving up for it, but might be able to get it this or next year), and I have compression socks to help with blood pooling. I also have joint support braces to help during flare ups with subluxations and dislocations.

I am also celiac, have a dairy allergy, have environmental allergies, like dust, mold, and pollen, have random allergies like bananas, peanuts, eggs, any sort of concentrated sugars or things with lots of sugar in them (natural or added), specific adhesives, amoxicillin, random hand soaps, random hand sanitizers, certain kinds of bleach, random kinds of metals, kiwi, some deodorants, and random acne face washes.

I struggle with my eating due to my undiagnosed ARFID, POTS, and possible Gastroparesis. So, beware, I am always incredibly mood swingy due to that.

Daily Pain Scale

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About Me

I’m a Queer, Nonhuman, Neurodivergent, and Disabled Transman (He/They/It/Any Neos).

I’m 16-years-old, and will be turning 17-years-old this year (2024).

I am taken by my amazing boyfriends, @funkydunkycorbin (He/Him) and @imin-lovewithaboy (He/Him).

I have one sibling (Any Pronouns), who I won’t be tagging since he isn’t on here much.

I’m a reality shifter, and have shifted about 5 or 6 times (parallel realities).

I’m a beginner Dual Faith Polytheist. I am in contact w/ a lot of Gods, and have altars for a few. I do have religious trauma with Christianity/God/Jesus though, so if you’re heavy with that on your blog, please shoo shoo.

My Special Interests are: Wings Of Fire, Harry Potter (fuck the author, I’m mainly here for the dead gay wizards), Dragons, and currently my most active special interest is Neurodivergency & Disabilities.

My Current Hyperfixation is: Neurodivergency & Disabilities, specifically my own.

I’m queer in many ways: Trans (FTM), Genderqueer, Enby (and under the umbrella), Xenogender, AroAce (Onealterous, Panqueerplatonic, Oneexteramo, Pansensual, Panaesthetic, Panplatonic), Polyamorous, T4T-leaning, and Lesboy.

I’m nonhuman in many ways as well: Polytherian, Polykin, Otherfix, Otherhearted, Otherflicker/Fictionflicker, Transspecies (radqueer fuck off), Humanfluid, Pseudohuman, Physical Nonhuman, and Voidpunk.

I love drawing, creating things, reading, and writing. Mainly, my hyperfixations and special interests take over my life, so I don’t have the energy or time for anything else (and then sometimes, my possible chronic illnesses take over my hyperfixations and special interests, and I’m not even able to muster energy to do them).

Tone tags/indicators are incredibly helpful for me, PLEASE USE THEM!

If you have any questions about anything, please ask me and I will not be bothered.

I don’t have the energy to make a DNI list, but just know that I will block you loads if you do fall under my mental DNI list.

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Userboxes:

(All credit to the original creators of the userboxes - I am hoping to individually credit them soon, I am just waiting for the energy to do so!)

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[fatalism-and-villainy]

Thinking more on this discussion -

I was going to say, “Will always acts up, not down” - i.e. doesn’t manipulate through pretending to be weaker and more vulnerable than he actually is. But that’s not strictly true - there’s the example of his faked tears for Hannibal and Alana while he’s in prison. (Do let me know if I’m missing some other example that would go against this argument.)

But I do think it’s true overall. When Will is manipulating others, putting on a front, etc, he’s nearly always acting confident and assured. In season 1, it’s established that he’s uncomfortable with being perceived as vulnerable, both because he’s used to being pathologized and treated as a spectacle and because he’s not used to people sticking around (“abandonment requires expectation” and all that). His dynamic with Jack is interesting in that regard, because he does open up to Jack and level with him about the work being bad for him, at the end of Coquilles. When that doesn’t go over well, by the time Jack expresses concern over him in Buffet Froid, Will’s instinct is to downplay and minimize what’s going on, and then later get angry when Jack tries to take responsibility for him and (in his mind) impinge upon his agency. His dynamic with Hannibal in some ways operates the same way - he opens up to Hannibal about what he’s dealing with, and asks him for help. The rarity of this gesture from Will makes Hannibal’s betrayal and manipulation hit all the harder, and he slams that door shut with Hannibal (well�� temporarily).

The kiss with Alana is an early example of Will putting on a show of confidence around others - he freaks out over hallucinating the animal in the wall, but then puts on a show of suave bravado with Alana. It’s only later that he clarifies the kiss was a desperate attempt to grasp at emotional stability and safety. Around other people, his instinct is to act more confident and collected than he actually is, and downplay his fears and vulnerabilities. And even letting it show that he needs help takes a massive amount of trust.

His deliberate manipulation of others in season 2 constitutes a shift in his demeanor, but it does follow the same patterns he’s already cultivated in his behaviour. With the exception of the faked tears (I can only assume he did that because he knew it would be the most effective approach with Alana - and then later on, the landscape of their relationship changes such that it would no longer be convincing), in his interactions with others while in prison (Chilton, Freddie Lounds, Matthew Brown, Jack later on) he’s very outwardly articulate and assured, while internally haunted by disturbing visions. And he carries that demeanor into his interactions with Hannibal once he’s out of prison.

In contrast to Hannibal, who plays the wounded bird a little bit with Jack and Alana in season 2, or Bedelia, who portrays herself as a helpless victim of Hannibal to avoid being taken as an accomplice, or arguably Abigail as well, who plays up her (real) fear so as to avoid suspicion, Will doesn’t usually portray himself as weak or helpless so as to appear innocent or drum up sympathy.

(Honestly, this is why Chilton gets Will so wrong in the court scene in Hassun, when he says that “the confused man” that Will presents to the world is “a fiction” - Will doesn’t generally project confusion or uncertainty to manipulate! He cares much less about appearing nonthreatening than appearing in control. The prickly and reserved attitude he has at the beginning of the show reflects this - his priorities are not with avoiding people finding him odd or offputting, but with preventing himself from being overwhelmed with people’s emotions, and losing control of his impulses.)

It isn’t that the persona he assumes in season 2 isn’t “the real him” - it draws on traits he actually has, and he expresses things he’s genuinely thinking and feeling during his sessions with Hannibal. But it’s used to mask his uncertainty, internal conflict, and emotional volatility. (Truly one of Will’s most fascinating contrasts is the way he’s outwardly very composed and firm in his convictions, while inwardly being extraordinarily conflicted and prone to doing a complete 180 on his intentions at the last minute.)

All of this is to say:

a) Will coming to lean more into his capacity to be a killer, and more actively deploying his ability to manipulate others, are key developments in his character arc, but his method of channeling those in his engagement with others is not new, it’s an extension of the kind of social performance and self-protecting impulses he’s already developed, and

b) Will’s behaviour towards Hannibal specifically, during the latter half of season 2, is a consequence of Will not feeling secure or emotionally safe around Hannibal. (This is for multiple reasons - righteous anger at Hannibal, the need to hide his deception from Hannibal, the fear that he himself is enjoying this little charade far too much and has to hold himself back from giving in, etc.)

Will wasn’t putting all his cards on the table with Hannibal in season 2, and hadn’t given himself over to him completely. Post-WOTL, he has. So I imagine a post-canon dynamic would feature Will being more willing to let his guard down around Hannibal, and more willing to once again be emotionally vulnerable with him. I don’t think the subtle antagonism would ever fully go away (just go dormant), because they do love pushing each other and testing the limits of each others’ behaviour. But I want to think Will himself would be much more relaxed than he is in late season 2, because they have a much more authentic relationship now.

[foxglovetawny]

My BSD kins and why I kin them:

I don't actually have a lot but I wanted to make this list regardless

Dazai

I kin Dazai mostly because I'm a compulsive, pathological liar. When faced with a conflict, my first instinct is to lie. Regardless of who I'm lying to(myself, my family, my friends, etc). This habit has made me very good at lying. So much so that I have a tendency to manipulate and be dishonest to my friends and family in order to avoid them posessing negative views towards me. I don't like lying and I try not to, but I simply do not understand why it's bad.

On a deeper level, I kin Dazai because I'm constantly seeking for a reason to live. Everyday I wake up without motivation to do anything, and I go to sleep with dread that I will wake up the next day. Life is just an ongoing loop of meaningless events. I feel as though I have a gaping hole in my chest, and I constantly try to fill that hole with my lies. I make jokes about wanting to die and act childish around my friends as a coping mechanism. I constantly tell myself, "My friends and family really do care about me," but it simply does not work. I feel only capable of feeling empathy(not sympathy), because I can't understand other people's pain until I go through it myself. This results in my lack of understanding of why most morals are the way they are.

Chuuya

I kin Chuuya mostly because I'm short. I constantly get made fun of for my height and weight. I am forced to turn to violence on a weekly basis, simply because no one takes me seriously. I fear the appearance of weakness, so I either compress my emotions or express them in a form of anger. I have not cried in a year due to this. I talk about the people I care about a lot, but in a way that doesn't express my regard for them. Sometimes I'll call them when I'm not in my right mind, just to call them slurs(dont worry I can say them). They find this entertaining. I would sacrifice my reputation and risk everything to avenge my friends, even if it may not be possible at the moment.

Ranpo

Ranpo lower on the list because I don't kin him that much. Though I am not that intelligent, my intelligence is like Ranpo's. Instead of creating plans to reach my goals like Dazai and Fyodor does, I'm more able to notice patterns in behavior. This allows me to deduce certain things about people, including their insecurities, occupation, and type of intelligence. I used to be able to figure out people's class schedules back in high school using small clues I picked up in their dialogue.

Unfortunately, I still don't understand people. I constantly struggle to fit in and I don't know why. It feels like everyone gets each other while I'm just the outlier. I ache to be like everyone else, but I have accepted that such a thing is unachievable.

Nikolai

I kin Nikolai because I feel trapped. I feel like my emotions are limiting me. Being an HSP, I am more empathetic than normal. Actions that remind me of my own past experiences deeply effect me, and I want to be free from them. I don't want to feel emotional attachment, but I can't help it. Like Dazai, I constantly mask my emotions and appear to be childish and immature. I am a sadist, but I can't tell whether I actually feel pleasure in seeing other people's pain, or if it is just another lie I have convinced myself of to make myself feel more free.

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Side note: I've only read and watched bsd once so some of these might be wrong, please cut me some slack lmao.

[transmutationisms]

I feel like this is likely a bat to a hornet's nest topic but I deeply respect your takes and thoughts overall a lot so here goes: I really appreciate that the show frankly goes out of its way to not pathologize its characters and lets the audience sit with them in the context of their own lives. So I'm kind of baffled that so much focus is given to "diagnosing" them in fan discussions, the vast brunt of which Kendall gets. I don't understand how you can watch this show and understand him as someone who's been heavily abused and had his reactions to being abused weaponized against him and come away being like "wow it's so cringe he acts like that, he must have a brain disease and is just too stupid to understand that. every action he takes is because he is manic/depressed/letting the disease manifest. if only he took the good moral Legal drugs that I do instead of the ontologically bad ones that are Illegal and for dirty addicts. hopefully one day he will Get Help and Receive Treatment so he will be more palatable (no whatever he's done up to this point doesn't count because it didn't work which must inherently be due to his own moral failings)." How did a show like this attract so many Reganites??

bat at a hornets' nest yes. yeah i've said before that i dislike diagnosing fictional characters as a general rule. it's tautological ("they do [x] because they have [y], and they have [y] because they do [x]") and abrogates further analysis of their motives or the meanings of their actions. and it's doubly irksome to me with succession, because unlike a lot of tv, i genuinely don't think that it's written within the weltanschauung of dsm neurobio determinism. ie, it's not a show where the answer to "why did he do that?" is ever supposed to be "his brain is just like that"—these actions are supposed to mean something about what the character wants and needs, and the effect of the capitalist milieu on those things. it's psychological, not psychiatric (& of course, psychoanalytic approaches are common in formal literary studies, whereas blunt psychiatric diagnosis is decidedly less so).

with kendall's drug use there are some particularly irritating ways this all plays out. i've been fiddling with my own reading emphasising the context of logan's demands on kendall and the construction of bourgeois masculinity, and have tried to place kendall's drug use as a response to neoliberal control mechanisms à la deleuze or foucault. i could certainly be challenged on elements of this reading, but what i see on this website is generally just an endless slog of very biomedicalised reads that seem to have no awareness of the particular historical and social baggage present in that model. i do agree there's an element of reactionary DARE-esque moralising going on here (stg if i have to read one more post written by someone who, like, has never so much as met a coke user and thinks all drugs instantaneously give you irreversible morally weighted heart damage, lmao), but it's honestly not just that.

i think most of the time when people do this they're not trying to be reactionary or regressive, and often they not only don't believe themselves to be moralising affective distress, but actually think the dsm diagnosis is the way to avoid that type of moralisation. this is essentially the "it's a discrete disease entity, so they have no control over it and can't help it, so it's not their fault" argument. in practice this fails on many levels. for one thing, it often implicitly assumes that 'ending the stigma' requires any kind of mental disability or affective distress to be treated analogously to physical disability or illness, as though those latter are not also consistently stigmatised and moralised—because ableism is actually more complex than that and has to do with the fact that capitalism values people on the basis of the 'use' it can make of them and their bodies, etc etc. it is also, again, a wildly decontextualised understanding of affective distress, the reasons why people use drugs—including in a manner that feels compulsive and out of control—and so forth.

i'll add also that wrt succession, i actually do see a LOT of pathologisation thrown at roman as well, and more than an incidental amount directed at connor, tom, shiv, and logan. which is to say, i don't think this is solely about people's discomfort with addicts. there's a broad tendency among fans, echoing the even broader social tendency, to see medical diagnosis as personally liberatory, and medicine and psychiatry as passing 'objective' judgments that are necessary in order for a person to 'get better.' this is essentially positivism and is very much a status that the medical profession has fought to obtain (in france you can trace certain 18th-century discourses on national decline, aristocratic luxury, and the corrupting influence of the city -> the birth of clinical medicine after the first revolution -> social hygiene and the pathologisation of the parisian urban poor -> the third republic's 'physician-legislators' and the general class status and professionalisation of medicine; i know less about the gory details of the american and british cases simply by dint of what i do professionally).

we tend to forget these histories when talking about science; it presents itself as a set of timeless, incontrovertible truths that are simply waiting to be uncovered, and we have entire industries of science communication and journalism that propagate this view. which is to say, circling back to succession, i don't believe that most people diagnosing and pathologising these characters are trying to be reactionary or are aware that there are reactionary and moralising elements inherently built into these discourses. i think they're largely people who have not been given the tools to see alternatives, like the perspectives dominant in the history and sociology of science, which are very much kept paywalled and inaccessible on purpose because this is profitable for the academe.

this type of popular literary analysis is simply not going to go anywhere as long as this is still the status and the moral resonance of medicine (and psychiatry by extension because it gained its professional independence without sacrificing the appeal to medico-scientific epistemological authority). i don't think succession viewers are any more or less prone to this type of thinking than the general population they exist amongst. i firmly disagree with this attitude, obviously, and like i said, i don't actually think succession is written 'psychiatrically,' which cannot be said for all tv lol. but i more or less expect to encounter this type of deference to medico-psychiatric judgments in 95% of social interactions and contexts, again because of a combination of institutional control of information, other forms of inaccessibility, and physicians' and psychiatrists' advocacy for their own class and professional interests, both historically and ongoing today.

[crimeronan]

re: your empathy posts. As someone who probably has higher than normal empathy (I used to ask people around me how they deal with sympathetic distress in common situations that occur in a job and only got blank stares) you're so valid!! The lionizing of this random subconscious process called empathy is so useless! It says nothing about the person and their values! As your other commenters suggested, people disparaging you may just be trying to boost their own shaky feelings about how their own emotional stability is deeply tied to their people-pleasing tendencies.

If anything, I think learning to function "normally" in society with "empathy" makes you more messed up. I understand this person's distress. I acknowledge it, and know how my actions will make it worse. I make them feel worse anyway, because that's the organizationally approved behavior, causing more pain for both them and myself. All the while I must behave as if I am cheerful and unbothered. Internalizing that hurting others and yourself to achieve your goals is Fine is necessary in order to stay sane. This is counter to everything people say they believe, so lying also has to become a virtue.

Buying kindness from the store seems like a really kind thing to do tbh. I am passing you on the street as I am schlupping over to pick up some callousness.

this last sentence made me giggle a lot. but YEAH!! a lot of this is spot-on to stuff i've been thinking about lately. like, "normal" empathy levels seem to be socially defined as "you care about people and want to help them, but you don't care so much that you'll harm yourself in pursuit of that" and it's all just..... i dunno. so much pathologizing of how we think and feel and whether we're Human (TM) about stuff. it's all so Weird

like..... i keep thinking that my lack of empathy gives me certain advantages in social situations. but in a similar vein to the ppl worried about sounding like tiktok empaths for being hyperempathetic, i worry that this makes me sound like an alpha male influencer writing youtube essays about why emotions make you weak, or whatever.

it's not that emotions make people weak or that having less empathy makes me like, a Cold Logical Calculating Math-Loving Strategist. i'm a writer who focuses solely on character-driven stuff, u probably wouldn't expect that from a stereotypically sociopathic person. part of why i LIKE writing character-driven stuff so much is BECAUSE i've had to actively teach myself how other people think, how they feel, how they struggle, etc

a lack of empathy means i can choose not to get invested in other people's feelings or lives, i don't feel guilty for emotionally disconnecting, i'm not afraid of being disliked. but i still know how to act like a decent human being. there's that one post about how stupid it is not to realize being nice gets people to be nice back, and fuckin. YEAH!! it's astonishing to me to read about cases of """clinical sociopaths""" (who are just people who didn't get the 'pretend you give a shit, moron' memo) manipulating and gaslighting people and whatnot. everyone in the comments will always be like "ooo so scary... they didn't feel bad at ALL... so terrifying that people who don't feel guilt exist..." and i'm like.

IS GUILT THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS YOU FROM COMMITTING ATROCITIES???

BLOWS MY MIND. IT'S LIKE..... THE LEFTIST EQUIVALENT OF SAYING EVERYONE WOULD BE MURDERERS IF THEY WERENT SCARED OF GOD. LIKE. YOU ONLY AVOID DOING BAD STUFF BC IT MAKES YOU FEEL BAD??????

good LORD. at least having no empathy means i've had to grow my principles organically. oh my GOD.

anyway what brought these thoughts up today was that i was thinking about gansey and luz noceda, since theyre extremely similar characters & on my All Time Faves list. and i've said this before but the things i love about them (the kindness, self-sacrificing shit, anxiety, etc) are things i don't see in myself. but Wish I Did. like i wish i was kinder on the inside than i am.

but i know that i admire ppl with luz and gansey traits both in fiction and in real life. so i simply just..... emulate the luz and gansey actions. not always successfully, esp because i have a temper and very little patience, but like. i try to be kind where i can bc i wish i was someone who tries to be kind when they can. so i'm just going to be. u know??

[sebstooqueerforthis]

Sebastian’s Introduction

I’m Sebastian, also called Seb, Sebby, Bastian, Seabass, and any other alternatives. I don’t have a preference. This is my blog for me to post random stuff, be funky, and find funky friends. Welcome!

About Me (Queer)

I’m a transguy, and I experience several other genders. Xenogenders, masculine/guy-aligned genders, and nonbinary genders. A lot of them are fluid, but on some level I am always a guy.

I use He/They/It/Any Neos pronouns. I don’t have a preference, but I would appreciate/prefer if you mixed them up when using them for me.

I’m AroAce, Aromantic and Asexual strictly, and I am Onealterous (I just say gay for this one usually), Oneexteramo (I also say gay for this one usually), Panqueerplatonic, Pansensual, and Panaesthetic (+ Panfamilial & Panplatonic).

I’m Polyamorous, and new to polyamorous relationships. I do have two boyfriends, @corbinsthinkingcap (He/Him) and @imin-lovewithaboy (He/Him).

I’m heavily T4T-leaning, and a lesboy. My attraction towards women/women-aligned/feminine/feminine-aligned people is queer, but I don’t consider myself a lesbian.

About Me (Neurodivergence + Disabilities)

I’m heavily Neurodivergent and disabled in many different ways.

I’m Autistic, ADHD (Combined Type), have OCD (Pure O Type), APD (Auditory Processing Disorder), SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder), ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder)(Avoidant Type), C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder), SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder), PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder), Misophonia, Trichotillomania, Alexthymia, PDA (Pathological Defiance Disorder, otherwise known as Persistent Drive of Autonomy), and Dermatillomania. I am in the giant process of diagnosing all of that, and a lot of them are medically recognized.

I have diagnosed GAD and MDD.

Because of a lot of my neurodivergence, I struggle with executive dysfunction a lot, eating, drinking, self-care, socializing, interacting, and a lot more. It all disables me greatly, even if I am most likely considered “high functioning” by society/allistics.

I have a multitude of suspected chronic illnesses: hEDS, POTS, Gastroparesis, IBS, & more.

Even though they are not diagnosed yet, and I am still currently in the process of diagnosing them, I am most definitely disabled from them. I am already treating them as well with Physical Therapy.

I experience chronic pain, chronic headaches, chronic fatigue, chronic dislocations & subluxations, daily nausea, daily pre-syncope episodes, frequent & easy bruising, sprains, even more disabling flare ups (where all of my symptoms become significantly/noticeably worse), and a lot more.

I am an Ambulatory Mobility Aid User, and plan on getting a wheelchair in the future.

I’m diagnosed with celiac disease, a dairy allergy, and have loads of allergies to different things otherwise too. Assume most things I cannot eat.

About Me (Nonhumanity)

I’m very Nonhuman. I’m Transspecies, Humanfluid, Voidpunk, Otherfix, Otherflicker, Polytherian, Otherkin, and Otherhearted.

I am also a Physical Nonhuman in the way that since I am nonhuman, so is my body.

I don’t often experience phantom shifts of any kind, and I more experience species dysphoria and euphoria.

I have some gear (one tail, in the process of making some masks, etc.), and I do quadrobics VERY occasionally, because it’s dangerous for me to do with my suspected health conditions.

About Me (Other)

I’m a Dual Faith Polytheist, and I’m currently working with Apollo, Lady Aphrodite, Lord Hades, Lady Persephone, Artemis, Loki, Hecate, and Athena. I’m currently worshipping all except for Hecate and Athena, although I’m hoping to make an altar and start worshipping Athena soon.

I have one sibling (Any Pronouns), and they’re the coolest ever. I won’t be tagging him since she doesn’t use tumblr that much.

I enjoy drawing, creating things, painting, writing, jewelry-making, and a multitude of other things.

My Special Interests are Wings Of Fire, Harry Potter, Dragons, My Boyfriend, and Neurodivergence + Disabilities.

My Current Hyperfixation is probably craft stuff and my boyfriend.

I’m a reality shifter, and have shifted way too many times to count, and all to parallel realities.

I have a few other accounts, but the only other one I’m active and actually on is @sebs-out-of-spoons.

And no DNI really, I will block who I block if I find we don’t align on stances in any way. Just assume you’re welcome until you aren’t. <3

[swearyshera]

I want to say I really respect how you're handling Glimmer's arc, her interactions with Bow in particular. Them dealing with the emotional fallout of this in a harsh and awkward but earnest way is really gratifying. I feels like pulling teeth in the best way possible. Glimmer's arc still rings amazingly to me and somehow hasn't diminished since the apology bit.

Is it weird that I "respect" Glimmer's redemption more than Catra's? I guess I always thought Glimmer's heart was in the right place despite like... everything she had going on. I never once felt Glimmer couldn't be redeemed and frankly my opinion on if Catra really "deserved" redemption still flips every time I think about it. If i thought I had a way to annihilate the people who took my family away, I don't know if I'd hesitate to top-rope elbow drop the Big Red Button even as much as Glimmer did. I guess that was Catra's rationale too on a deeper level, but at least Glimmer wasn't fine with the world dying once confronted with that reality, as sad a step up as that is. I feel like the fact I don't feel much sorrier for Catra reflects very poorly on me.

The series had a bad habit of Catra's choices having their more catastrophic potential consequences avoided so her redemption could go down smoother, my most prominent example being the corrupt shera virus. I'd pay damn good money to see how the story could even begin to salvage Adora and Catra's relationship if Adora killed someone like Glimmer or Bow under the effects of that. (not to mention the portal only kills one, albeit very important, person, Adora just happening to survive falling a pit, the story conspicuously forgetting about Angella etc) This sort of thing makes me think the author is cheating or working backwards from the ending they already want. Other characters were involved in some of those choices but that only expands the problem imo.

Glimmer's doesn't kill the universe either, but there's still disastrous consequences for Etheria and people she cares about, pretty much all of s5, and her story is all about understanding what she brought on them, and becoming a more responsible person to her friends/people. I really liked that. The only person Catra is really held accountable to is Adora, and maybe Perfuma on Scorpia's behalf. There's Entrapta but I dont think she operates in terms of blame/forgiveness, at least in canon. I know she literally forgave Catra explicitly, I guess I'm too mean to believe people could let go of stuff that "easily' and write it off like it doesnt count.

I know Catra's arc wanted a more intimate scale and they didn't have time to litigate all this, but my deep gut reaction is "tough shit, you shouldn't have had Catra do all that if you weren't gonna make her face what she'd done", especially since Adora makes a point that Catra is afraid to face people she hurt, then Mermista, Micah and Scorpia are conveniently chipped until the last minutes of the damn show. HP really did Catra a solid there. Glimmer's arc felt more willing to make her culpable in dire shit and not pull punches about it, even less so here, so sincere gratitude from me there. Not that Adora and Catra weren't put through hell but their s5 relationship seems to happen in its own little bubble safe from outside responsibility apart from Adora's martyrdom pathology.

Anyway, very excited to see how the Catra reunion will be handled given everything so far, and for Glimmer and Bow stuff. You've never done wrong by us yet. Sorry for this fucking thesis. Please feel free to point all the ways I'm being a myopic dumbass.

I always see Catra and Glimmer as two sides of the same coin - the same person but treated very differently by those around them. Glimmer had love and forgiveness from the people she grew up with, particularly her mother, whereas Catra had none of that outside of Adora.

But I think the end of season 4, start of season 5, we see a little bit of a flipside of that, and that's what starts making both of them wiser, more mature, etc. Up until then, Glimmer had never really had to deal with consequences for her actions - her mother, outside of grounding her, didn't appear to really punish her when she did things wrong. Even Bow, at least until Fractures, felt he always had to support and agree with her (and his own arc played into that). But when Glimmer decided to plough ahead with her plan to activate the Heart and ignore her friends, she actually had serious consequences for once. She had to deal with losing friendships, attracting Prime. And that wasn't something she'd really had to deal with.

Catra, by contrast, always had negative consequences to even the slightest of actions. Usually by Shadow Weaver, and then by Hordak, she was punished for her mistakes. But in season 5, she gets shown kindness and forgiveness despite her actions, and it too, becomes a turning point for her.

I also don't really see the story as 'redemption'. It's not about Catra or Glimmer redeeming themselves, it's about accepting you've done wrong and making the choice to be better. Yes, they do have apologies to make, wrongs to right, and we don't see a lot of that in the show. But we don't need to. What we see is Glimmer becoming more levelheaded and choosing to use that in place of recklessness. We see Catra choosing to return to Adora in Heart not for herself, but for Etheria. Both these young women have done things that have had a huge negative impact on other people, but they both end up trying to do better, to be better.

Redemption is based on how other people treat you. This is a story about how you treat yourself. Both are important.

[kikuism]

hi mariam!!! oc pairs ask: 8 & 16 for kikou, 10 for naomi and noriko, and 20 for kiku and noriko <3 <3

hi sam!! ty for sending <333

kikou:

8. how do they communicate with each other? are there any reoccurring phrases or gestures unique to their relationship?

kikou: kou leads and kiku follows. kou is the yapper and kiku is the enraptured listener <3 esp at the beginning of their relationship kou always dropped him little lines he could grab to keep the conversation going. kou’s skill is that he can spin anything you throw at him into a colorful tapestry, so every conversation feels rich and well lived in, it's impossible to make small talk with him. being with kou also teaches kiku how to describe things without visual cues. it's a nice exercise. so if the view is nice from the train window, he won't say 'the sky is so blue and clear', but something like 'the sky is like a fresh batch of laundry', and kou will imagine the clean scent of sheets, light and airy after a new wash, a new day, and get the same sentiment.

they sparingly text, since kou has the text-to-speech feature set to the super fast speed, and he doesn't like conversing with people like that ('i can't hear You through it'), so they mostly do either video calls or voice messages. they will text if it's for trivial matters (do you need anything from the store, have you reached home, etc) but that's about it.

16. is one of them keeping secrets from the other? why? how would they act if the secret was revealed?

kou isn't the type to keep secrets. if there's something he needs to say he'll say it ... he will adjust his method of communication based on the situation of course, whether to ease into it gently or say it upfront, but he doesn't keep secrets. kiku on the other hand....he doesn't keep secrets per se, but he is a terrible, conflict-avoidant communicator, so he might....delay in saying certain things (he's working on it, it's hard shaking off your upbringing). the only actual secrets they would keep are probably certain carnal preferences, which they would eventually reveal to each other....with a mutual mixture of flustered teasing and enthusiasm.

naomi and noriko:

10. what is one major difference between them?

naomi has an almost pathological obsession with saving face while noriko just barely remembers to cling to the notion. for naomi this of course stemmed from her upper class upbringing rife with competition and false pleasantries where appearances were of the utmost importance, your clothes your house your grades your vacations, and to slip up was tacky and uncouth. can't let anyone see anything other than cool, level-headedness. she will actively avoid situations she knows are not her forte, and every conversation is like a chess game, conceding and withholding information according to the front she wants to maintain. since her input is vastly larger than her output, she is rather forgettable as a person.

noriko had quite a lax upbringing on the other hand, hers was quite a receptive, open-minded family, not so 'stuffy', owing to many relatives overseas who would come to visit and who they would visit; she's been exposed to other cultures and ways of life. she's resourceful and accommodating, which explains her immediate friendship with kou when they were kids. she didn't see his blindness as something to poke and prod at, something strange, it was just a part of him, something to fit into their games. noriko’s like an elastic band (flexible, multipurpose) while naomi’s a switchblade (excels in its limited range of motion).

kiku and noriko:

20. what is their best memory together?

aww okay so i can't think of a 'best' memory but one they're fond of is the movie nights they have with kou. once a month they'll each choose a movie and watch them in a marathon at kou’s apartment. noriko puts on western classics from the early 2000s in the original language so they can practice their english, much to kou’s chagrin (“can you spell gabbana?”). they don't really spend that much time together, just the two of them, kou is always with them (kiku doesn't think he's good enough company for noriko, he feels he's too boring hgjsgfh so he always tries to rope kou into it to even out the playing field), but i think eventually they do have a life changing field trip atla style.

[falseandrealultravival]

Open Dialogue: Endless Dialogue with People with Mental Disabilities (Essay)

Haloperidol(Schizophrenia drug)

I think Finland is an excellent country in many ways. Welfare and education at the highest level in the world... The topic I'm going to talk about now is "Open Dialogue," which supports people with mental disabilities. I first learned about this initiative when it was featured in the Tokyo Newspaper on May 8, 2018.

I searched the wiki for Open Dialogue.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Open Dialogue is a method of therapeutic intervention for schizophrenia, and has been practiced since the 1980s, mainly by family therapists at Keropudas Hospital in Western Lapland, Finland. Translated as "open dialogue". It has achieved great results in the treatment of schizophrenia, depression, social withdrawal, etc., and is also expected as a treatment for developmental disorders.

Medical staff requested by the patient and their family call the treatment team within 24 hours, visit the patient's home, and have a dialogue every day until the symptoms subside. Avoid as much as possible. There are rules such as don't criticize the patient and talk anyway. Patients with schizophrenia tend to fall into monologues (creative, but to put it bluntly, pathological), and my goal is to free them from it.

To open a monologue to a dialogue

• No decisions are made without you.

• Hold an initial meeting with the person and family members within 24 hours of request.

• It treats people with all mental disorders, including schizophrenia in its most severe form.

• Use as little medicine as possible.

• Have daily dialogue until the crisis is over.

• Do not prepare the theme in advance. There are no staff-only meetings.

• Of course, we also talk about hallucinations and delusions.

• The key point is “reflecting,” which is discussed by a team of experts in front of the person.

• The treatment team responds to all client statements.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I think it's an excellent initiative. It seems to have a therapeutic effect. In any case, compared to Finland, a country at the end of the earth, which has various social ingenuity, it is a pity that a similar country at the end of Asia, Japan, is not so intellectually productive. In Japan, "Open Dialogue" has just begun.

[bandofchimeras]

PDA stuff & long diary life update for those who care!

started sort of arguing with a popular neurodivergency Twitter person (not really, but got defensive) over the idea of PDA being a myth or a grab bag for those of us with severe burnout, etc. I'm open to not being CORRECT on this, but personally I've found both good and bad things in the diagnosis, the label, and community self-understanding, as with any diagnosis....its all based on a pretty flawed and pathologizing system. so why attack PDA in particular?

anyhow, on a personal level, today I stayed up into my natural noctural habitat to chop vegetables and make borscht. its a long, tedious process at my rate, and took two days + leaving the vegetables out overnight to do, but now its done! and yummy healthful soup for the rest of the week. :)

I'm slowly chipping away at rebuilding life and haven't tackled doctors, dentists, pharmacist, therapist aspect yet because of feeling vaguely unsure about where I will actually end up living once this couchsurfing period is over. its such an ordeal I don't want to repeat it again....but my teeth need urgent care, and meds are gonna be essential for any kind of work. which i've also been avoiding.... February is historically the hardest month for me to get thru. every year. have delved into other things astrologically but February...well I guess natal Uranus square Venus, Sun and North Node/Pluto plus oppositon Mars....that's a rough transit. But its probably the weather. Okay on to the PDA/ADHD/sensory/wtf bullshit I wanted to write about:

today I slowed wayyyyy down and just noticed in my body where and when resistance came up. It was a huge dark spirally last few days, but today had a few breakthroughs of being honest when my anxiety tempted me to lie/hide, saying no to somebody instead of people pleasing, and calming down before calling my mom, and actually having a pleasant chat.

also addressed the Cat Peeing on Everything issue in a multitude of ways. I felt much stronger in my self-acceptance despite the realization last night that my joints have deteriorated to the point carrying grocery bags disolates them! my life is pretty boring and I'm sort of floating along with no direction, but today instead of spiralling about it, I used the role-play technique to coach myself into a new mindset of "maybe you are not ready to find your purpose yet, just focus on getting the basics down" AND I noticed when my avoidance was coming from sensory needs! and tried to address them before making the demand. it worked pretty decently (turns out when i'm cold i will Not be able to move my body until until its warm??) A huge Axis of PDA is our intense willpower and drive to conform, fit in, understand, mask, etc. among people who are not us, and not like us. I appreciate this about PDAers, this will to understand and adapt, and the determination to succeed despite all setbacks. however, I think due to our slower processing speed, with the demand avoidance interference, we often miss the "steps" involved in success. there may also be some wilful delusion - if they can do it I can do it! that comes from being hypersensitive to the opinions of an ableist collective. so this week for me, i was feeling the weight of "not and never will be enough" and comparison to others. however, deactivating my facebook and slowing down to make soup, going on a sunshine walk, supple,ents, using the happy light, and starting to practice responding at least a little more compassionately but firmly to my own meltdowns....its working. i just have to release the need to do everything, everywhere, all at once. PDAers are characterized by a strong will to not only live, but to feed, to grow, to expand, to be competent. full of ideas and desires!! Unfortunately we often do not receive the accommodations necessary to actually do so or develop missing skills bc of being good at masking, or our disability being demonized as willful, selfish and in need of "breaking" this can be very heartbreaking - but as today showed me in my roommate's gracious reaction to a talk I was very scared to have with them - when you find someone who does accommodate and understand, and are willing, able, and open to connect with them, it is also heart healing. our struggles are an opportunity to exercise deep self acceptance and love for the Self despite physical limitations and inabilities!!! or they can be in the right environment. that's my thoughts for now, now its really past time to go to bed and have wild near lucid dreams again. goodnight!!

.

[thecurioustale]

This happens in the US because of human tribalism in general and because of the Christian paradigm in particular, into which the vast majority of "secular" and/or "progressive" people are raised. In other words, most non-Christians in America are actually still Christian in their worldview template, sans the specific theological assertions but still prioritizing the Christianity-motivated social frames such as sin, redemption, salvation, heroic sacrifice, hard work, the seven cardinal virtues (temperance, modesty, chastity, etc.), sexphobic attitudes in general, the eternal soul, slave morality, and many others. (Few of which are strictly "bad"; that's not what I'm getting at.) Together with the explicit Christian messaging that's everywhere, and the Christian vernacular and symbolism, it's no surprise that most secular Americans who aren't explicitly raised into something else are still culturally Christian.

The illustration becomes more apparent when you look at people who were raised into something else: Jews, as a permanent persecuted minority; members of non-Abrahamic religions; and first-generation immigrants from countries not dominated by Abrahamic religions. Conversely, people with a Muslim background often fit the Christian paradigm very well because the two religions, being brother-religions derived from Judaism but focused on salvation and conversion, are virtually inseparable in their structure, ideology, and, most importantly, their pathological need to dominate the world and tyrannize everyone in it.

As someone raised in a Jewish background, I have noticed throughout my adult life that many if not most secular and/or progressive Americans are indeed highly Christianized in all but name. It appears to be the default, and that shouldn't come as any surprise.

(Having said that, this paradigm can of course infiltrate any community, and I am not saying that any one one group is immunized from or specially privileged against the risks of Christianization. Avoiding that direction of development also requires personal strength of character and a strongly motivated vision of and for the world.)

Also, the religious affiliation numbers are rather misleading, because most people who claim no religious affiliation in the US were nevertheless exposed to Christian (and only to Christian) religious influences growing up, and many actually were religiously Christian in the past even if they aren't now. Better to think of them as "lapsed" Christians than anything. The programming is all still there, and oftentimes the effort of trying to consciously reject it only ends up reaffirming it. This is why many of the worst anti-religionists and ideological atheists in the US are ex-Christians. (And it's why some of the worst sexists are female, some of the worsts racists are non-white, some of the worst fatphobes are fat or ex-fat, etc.)

I have come to think that there isn't much we can do to change people's programming at the individual level, at least in any direct way. But we can shepherd community discourse by challenging, de-privileging, and debunking Christian frameworks in, for instance, our political discourse and policy justifications. It won't directly or immediately change the dominant paradigm in the progressive movement, which is quite an unhealthy mindset and is superior to the conservative position only in its positions on the issues themselves—and, markedly, not on matters of character or the logic and convictions underpinning issue positions.

That last part is important to understand: I have learned that progressives, and to a lesser extent leftists in general, are not generally "friends." They are not automatically nice or righteous or honorable or anything good. They are in fact human beings and therefore many of them are disposed to the same sliminess, cruelty, egotism, petty behavior, and most of all ignorance as rightists, centrists, and apoliticals. The left is broadly better only on the issues, and sometimes not even then, so a useful thing to remember as you go through life is that most of these people are allies at best. They are not necessarily good people, and they will not necessarily come to your aid when you are under attack. If you don't believe me, try being pro-Israel in 2024.

Lastly I want to circle back to human tribalism, because Christianity didn't come from nowhere and it doesn't stick around the way it does for no good reason. Christianity is outstanding at telling people what they want to hear in ways that they are able to receive it. To smash or at least dethrone Christian frameworks in secular and/or progressive spaces, it is important not only to challenge those frameworks but also to observably meet the needs in people that these frameworks have been satisfying.

Ultra-lastly, I also want to caution against overfitting the Christian paradigm explanation for some of these behaviors in secular and progressive spaces. Other things can contribute to this as well. The collectivist mentality continually pushed by the communist left is very unsympathetic toward nonconformance and definitely foments insularity and purity tests in groups—and that's just one example. So does the dogmatism surrounding identity politics and the utter excoriation and even excommunication that frequently occurs if one does not affirm the "right" ideas or even simply the "right" language. Also, leftist spaces in general tend to be fractious, isolated, and reactionary, which is yet another source of behavior that could also be mistakenly ascribed solely to the Christian paradigm. Etc. Accurately identifying the various independent contributing factors to these problematic ways of thinking, speaking, and interacting is important to eventually remediating problematic community norms—or, if nothing else, to extricating oneself from those communities and reducing one's status with regard to them as "ally" and not "member" (i.e., not "part of the problem").

The strange thing about growing up in conservative Christianity and then leaving it behind is that there are a lot of secular/progressive spaces that engage in similar thinking while sincerely believing their ideas are counter to conservative ones. So I thought I would just make a list of things I was taught within conservative Christianity, the stuff that was either the core of our beliefs, or the social dynamics that we created. Some of the language I use is specifically either scriptural, or Christian-speak.

This list isn’t to say “stop thinking this way.” This is actually intended to simply be informative because sometimes social justice spaces assume, “we are crafting our ideals in opposition to conservative ideals therefore whatever we think surely must be the opposite of whatever they think,” without ever seeming to know that their language and ideals look and sound the same.

So, let’s begin:

Sin-leveling: x is bad, and y is bad, and all bad things deserve an equal reaction

Sin-leveling part 2: because all things are equally bad, there’s nothing wrong with inverting the consequences. Hurting others becomes acceptable (because it’s no different than doing something distasteful), doing something distasteful is unforgivable (because it’s no different than doing something harmful)

Avoid all appearance of evil: if I assume that your behavior looks wrong, then you are wrong, even if further context would say otherwise. You should avoid doing anything that others would see as wrong because you are not allowed the benefit of the doubt or to defend yourself.

Sin by association: x company contracted with y company. Y company engages in something sinful, which means x company approves of said sinful thing which means if you purchase from x company, you are condoning, supporting, and have actually committed the sin.

Think only on what is good: or as the pastor of my old church liked to call it, “garbage in, garbage out.” Whatever ideas, thoughts, words, arguments, stories, pictures, books, movies, songs, friends, love you put in your head will create the desire to become that. If you want to be good, you must avoid any bad thought because you will “slip” into wanting it and then be unable to stop yourself from being it. (For example, type into google “is secular music” and click on the autocomplete of “a sin”)

Language as an in-group test: if you do not describe your life, experiences, and beliefs with the exact same vocabulary and in-group speak, you are either not really one of us, or you’re someone who hasn’t thought through their ideas as deeply as I have.

By any means necessary: Also known in the ex-Evangelical world as “lying for Jesus.” If my words create the necessary beliefs and actions in others, then it doesn’t matter if I am exaggerating, saying half-truths, or using manipulative language, because I’m saving others and helping them do what’s right.

Touch not God’s anointed: any critiques of those our community trusts, critiques of those we’ve deemed “the good ones,” are actually people trying to sow discord and disunity to destroy our community and their voice should be silenced because they must be lying.

Judge not lest ye be judged: A scripture that we throw at people when someone says our leadership is abusive, a scripture we cry is being taken out of context when we want to harshly critique someone ourselves. 

There’s more, lots more, but this post is already fairly long. Once again, though, this isn’t intended to be combative. I just want people to know the actual social dynamics that a lot of us grew up with in conservative Christianity communities, so they know when sometimes they’re sharing those social dynamics, not countering them.

[ainaosei]

Yesterday the neuropsychologist said that I might have a mood disorder instead of a neurodevelopmental disorder and to be honest I don't know what to think because somehow I feel like I have both (?)

When I think about the possibilities I relate emotionally and mentally to my dad's behaviour. He was a problematic man, alcoholic (I'm not but just because I avoid drinking due to trauma but when I was younger I used to drink to socialize), very aggressive and still used to have a very restrict routine and he never felt bothered by that. There are more things that are also related to some disorders criteria and I do believe we are both problematic because of something else™.

Unfortunately he will never have a chance to get an assessment due to his dementia (this is why I talk about him in the past) and while I'm on my own research, I've found some quite interesting things about myself that somehow I can relate to his problematic behaviour and I believe mostly are due to all the trauma etc BUT STILL there are things that I keep since from my childhood, so I don't know if it is just a mood disorder.

Talking about myself, I was a very curious kid and my interests never matched to my own age, which lead me to deal with bullies for almost my whole childhood/teenage years. I thought I had many friends but in fact I was never included in some activities like parties and all the social stuff even during my early twenties, so I endend up making fantasies on my own about what would be a perfect life.

(And that's how I found that in fact, I didn't like being with others that much and socializing was a very overwhelming activity for me - also, the alone time is the only moment where I can rest and feel like a functional person again.)

I'm also a very restrictive person when I talk about my routine and any slight change lead me to an emotional crisis where I can barely eat, bath or leave the house. I have this sense of perfection to function properly and I like to play the sims as a way to reorganize my brain when I'm too overhwelmed by regular life tasks - and it helps!

Regarding sensory issues, when I was a kid I never liked to eat. I was a very, very thin girl who hated to feel the textures of almost everything. Today I eat compulsively but still there are foods - like fruits, for example - that make me completely sick. I always throw up if I eat banana or papaya. I also hate the smell of smoothies for the same reason. Another fact is that I do have a good nose (smell?) for things and it's SO annoying because some smells also gives me the sick vibes - just like some sounds and images (?), I really don't get it. On the other hand, I do love listening to music to the point of feeling goosebumps and when I'm into some band/artist, my focus will remain for a very long period of time (that's how I still listen the same Allah-las and The Growlers songs for the past seven years). Listening to music also helps me to keep focused on some activies like just playing one particular song on repeat for hours and I enjoy it so much that I takes a lot of time to feel bored by doing this.

I do like music tho.

My stimming behaviour and hyperfixations are something quite particular so I don't know how to share this but I do have some.

On the other hand, thinking about my general mood, I'm a very emotional person. If someone is upset, so am I. If my boyfriend is feeling sad for some reason, I instantly feel sad as well even knowing that it's his sadness, not mine. I'm also alwas irritated about every single thing and I DO HATE THIS FEELING because everything in life seems to bother me almost on a pathological level and I don't know why. I just have this anger like a not so dormant volcano that sums up when I'm too overwhelmed by the existence in this universe. My mood changes a little bit fast but it happens more when I feel dirty before a bath for example or when it's too hot, when everything is loud and specially when the environment doesn't give me some space to process everything.

Following, I also deal with insomnia since I was 15 - probably - and I only can have a good amount of sleep with medications. Also, I don't know if I turned out to be a night owl because of this but my brain is just "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" during the day. I love the peace and quiet of the night because I feel productive and relaxed but it ruins my daily routine.

I'm not sure if any of these mean something, but for a person who has been in theraphy for almost ten years with a chronical depression, dealing with anxiety since I was a kid, a two years on medication (and probably a misdiagnosed ocd and bpd - my psychiatrist diagnosed me but for some reason refused to make my diagnosis oficial which is suspicious), an unsuccessful academic life, almost with no friends because I struggle so hard to deal with people, an inabillity to do basic tasks and a constat imbalace of energy - sometimes I'm on high speed, other times I'm as slow as a snail -, I mean... I don't know. It has to mean something, isn't it? I can't wait to have some answers.

[amphtaminedreams]

The Fashion, the Thoughts and the Food (ARGH): 2023 Pt.1

Hiiii to anyone reading!

Isn’t this quite the surprise! A gap in posting which isn’t so vast that the context in which I framed it has had to be adapted several times since its inception! This was a 2023 part 1 post when I started and if this surfaces on the dashboard before June finishes (almost managed it!!!!) just consider me queen of organisation. I’m nearly finished with a piece of coursework on Prospect Theory and now I’m unburdened by THAT fucking torturous demand the somewhat constant sense of creativity-quashing confusion and fear is semi lifted. 

Originally, ya see, I planned to sum up the last few months with just a winter outfits post but that time went by so quickly and was such a shitshow, that when I came to reflect, it turns out I made myself presentable and did something interesting with my life on far fewer occasions than I thought. The prospect of going full 2013 lifestyle blogger and using this post as a conduit for a more general overview of the first half of the year seemed more fun and in the nature of why I started this Tumblr which was just to do fun, creative stuff, lol. Trying to build a whole post specifically on one topic and making everything neat is so silly when I’m just a silly little girl doing this silly little blog. It’s not like this messiness was ever monetizable or is intended to be. I am far too insecure to ever need to assume that there is anyone following whatever it is I’m rambling on about. All I promise to bring to the table is the enthusiasm and lack of refinement that characterised the early days of social media back when Tumblr came under the same umbrella as Bloggr, lookbook.nu, Polyvore, WeHeartIt, etc., humble little hobby platforms that were recognised as such and not as springboards for a career because they were for FUNNN not to make money. What an era! You need time, consistency, likability and a bit of self-restraint to do anything serious online and I can promise you I only have about one of these traits even on the very best days. What I mean is that whenever I’m on Tumblr or Pinterest just scrolling freely and liking and pinning and seeing what catches my eye, when it feels like I’m treating this as a casual thing, it’s a lot easier, and so I really want to push myself to just post stuff like this even if it feels irrelevant and unstructured because it doesn’t need to have relevancy or structure for me to post it. You’ve been warned!

There is 0 need to post as if you have to consider where sponsorships are going to fit or whether you’re going to piss people off en masse when you don’t have much in the way of an audience and you don’t NEED to have to have either to justify posting something online in the first place, wtf. Capitalist interests are very predictable in the sense that they can't NOT gatecrash a good party when they see it, cannot possibly avoid the urge to make everythingggg people enjoy doing feel like it needs to be packaged as part of a slick business venture but like…if the photo dump can be re-popularised (though I am kinda convinced this was a thing Instagram started themselves on the DL to distance themselves from criticism in this vein), then let’s call this Tumblr page a mind dump. A vibe vault, if you will. I know, ew. I hate myself for that one too. Plus these are less so things I’m vibing with because I don’t have adequate levels of chill  to simply "vibe" with anything anyway. Soo here are the first half of 2023’s Pathological Obsessions™, outfits, new fashunnn finds, places, media and some general sensitive thoughts.

Now let’s get into itttt.

The Fashionnnn Bit

*(if you’re here from the recovery tag maybe skip through this, use the find option and jump to the next “recovery” mention)

Starting with the fashunnn, because if there is a single kind of continuity on this blog it’s that. I’m gonna break it down into a few things. First, the designers I’ve discovered/rediscovered. Big shout out to Vogue Runway for entertaining me in that respect on the few occasions it decided to function properly.

But also!! also!! big question mark over why I can look at unlimited collections on the app but hit a paywall on the desktop site even when I’m logged in??? I’m emphasising this because I’m genuinely searching for answers here, lol, I’m not about to dish out my coins unnecessarily, not in this £1.65 for a bag of Magic Stars economy, ffs.

Back to the topic at hand though, I’ll structure the fashion section kinda like a Currently Obsessing Over post and cover a other few things as well. For starters, anybody whose style I’ve been appreciating recently-I can’t promise you I’m going to blow your mind with some obscure, undiscovered Instagram model you’ve never heard of, but I’m starting this tradition by gassing up Florence Given so I don’t think there’s gonna be much expectation of that going forward anyway, lol. Also, this section seems an appropriate place to get all the excitement out of my system about my  favourite ethical clothing store drops. I like to think of it as a redirection of the excitement that usuallllyyy results in me spending money that I am otherwise incapable of reminding myself I DO NOT HAVE. 

Lastly, the winter outfits that were the preliminary basis of this post will slot nicely in here. Let’s be real, as much as I’d like to think my using Tumblr is alllll about creativity, it’s clearly filling some kind of egotistical self-expression need too, lol. Ego hypothesis aside, though, I can confirm that I love to refer to “oooo potential for outfit post!” to justify the unnecessary Vinted and Depop purchases I make to myself whilst continuing to complain about being broke. But BOTH THINGS ARE TRUE AND IT’S NOT A CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP FFS. Yah, becoming aware that there are just as many gems on Vinted as there are on Depop did not do wonders for my savings goals, I have to say it. But it is ethical and cheap. Anyways, I’m just gonna sprinkle these outfit posts throughout the fashion section to dilute the vanity a bit.

*2023 purchases marked w/asterisk

-20th & 21st March 2023, Shoreditch->Beyond the Streets exhibition @ the Saatchi Gallery, outfit details L to R: mohair cardi from Collusion*, beret from ASOS*, faux leather blazer from NastyGal, faux fur coat underneath from Urban Outfitters, bag from ASOS, shoes from ASOS*, trousers from @niamho31 on Depop>beanie from ASOS, mini skirt from Minga*, cropped jumper from @alexnrx21 on Vinted, lace up corset top from @kyliemccabe99 on Vinted, & Doc Martens-

Currently Obsessing Over: Patou

-Top to Bottom: RTW S/S20, RTW S/S21, RTW F/W20-

I want to thank girlie Dakota Johnson for many things, one of them being introducing me to Patou (though her making Ellen publicly uncomfortable by drawing attention to the besties with everyoneeeee bullsheet takes no.1 on the achievements list).

-L->R: RTW S/S 22, RTW F/W21-

It’s what I can best describe as a combo between Simone Rocha, Brock, and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy with perhaps a touch of Erdem, slightly twee and coquettish but fresh and modern at the same time; a few of the collections have a bit of a street style vibe, and these are the ones which show Patou at its best. If you told me this was the wardrobe of an upper east side school girl growing out of her Blair Waldorf era and into her Virgil Abloh groupie phase because she decided her true passions lay in music production and used daddy’s money to buy an apartment in the gentrified Harlem, I’d believe you. Every cloud has to have some kind of silver lining, and the lack thereof when it comes to the invasion of a bunch of posh arseholes suggests there’s room for an accidentally brilliant style lovechild like this somewhere out there.

-Top to Bottom: RTW F/W23, RTW F/W22-

It was Alison Williams in a very Audrey Hepburn Patou look at the recent Met Gala that solidified, for me at least, they’ve pretty much got the monopoly on old timey socialite with 21st century polish. I assumed they were a new brand but doing a bit of Googling for this post exposed my lack of formal fashion education, lmao, because they’ve apparently been established for, like. decades, and have just been bought by LVMH who aren’t the type to take a gamble on a fledgling label. Feeling silly rn.

-RTW S/S23-

The LVMH takeover begs the question, whyyy are we not hearing more about them? I suppose Julia Fox having closed their most recent show is a sign they’re growing in influence/fattening their money pot at the very least, but in the meantime, the theme for the designers included in this post is obvs just gonna be undeservedly slept on labels lol.

-24th March 2023: hat from ASOS*, dress from UO, rollneck from charity shop, NastyGal faux fur coat from @emily170620 on Vinted-

Whatever Happened to Stella McCartney?

-Top to Bottom: RTW S/S22, Resort 2022-

Stella McCartney is one of those names everyone knows in the fashion industry but I’d say is rarely given the level of praise she deserves? Dare I say the collective sentiment is to kinda write her off as a designer condemned to 2000s irrelevancy? Is it because the association people make with the McCartney dynasty is now a brand of vegetarian sausages which aren’t even that bloody good? omggg, I can’t speak to the Linda McCartney mozzie burger but the sausages are nasty!!

-Pre-fall 2021-

Disgusting sausages aside, if we are talking the products of nepotism or powerful “connections”, some successes are more merited than others. If we can manage not to begrudge a specialist vegetarian chef her dues despite our awareness that the famous name has at least partially played a role in getting those human rights violating sausages in the freezer aisle of every Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda near you? If we do that on the basis girly was onto a good thing by filling a necessary gap in the market? Well we OUGHT to talk more about Stella McCartney and make sure SHE gets her place in the freezer aisle next to the Carte Dior (comedy genius) too.

-clockwise L>R: Pre-fall 2017, Resort 2019, Resort 2017, RTW S/S18, RTW S/S17-

I say all this with the disclaimer that I too really fucking hate how dominated so many fields of work are by the importance of “connections” and the way that it makes pursuing a career in the things you’re actually passionate about the kind of pipe dream you relegate to the realm of those driven by delusional, childhood optimism next to the corpses of the princess and prima ballerina fantasies. I hate that if I had wanted to pursue a job in fashion or film the best I could hope for would be a decade as a coffee runner under Wes Anderson’s 2nd cousin’s son or sat in a windowless, underground LA office managing Lila Moss’ Twitter account for my entire adult life. But you know, the fruits of one’s rich and successful parent’s connections are better earned by some nepo babies than others and Stella McCartney is one of the good ones. Those M&S red diamond strawberries were not simply handed to her. Tossed maybe, which necessitates some kind of ability to catch, but not handed. 

-clockwise L>R: Resort 2020, RTW S/S20, Resort 2024-

-Top to Bottom: RTW F/W18, RTW F/W17-

You don’t end up the creative director of Chloe solely because your family has money-there might be people equally as talented as you that didn’t have that stepping stone but I’d like to believe there’s no stepping stone strong enough to explain surviving CSM, successfully maintaining the reputation of a label pretty much renowned for being the epitome of understated elegance, and opening your own fashion house on the back of that. The other nepo babies could jump on their lil rocks all they like but they just haven’t got the upper body strength to deadlift their way onto the ladder. Stella stays hitting the metaphorical weights zone whilst the rest of them stay walking on the treadmill with me in complacency Kingdom. The fact there was a time when I used to actually run on treadmills? I could not BELIEVE. We’re out of the metaphor zone now btw-probs shoulda made that one a bit clearer.

-Top to Bottom: RTW F/W19, S/S19, Pre-fall 2019-

-Clockwise L>R: RTW F/W21, Resort 2023, Pre-fall 2023, Pre-fall 2022, RTW S/S21-

For one, she stands apart from other designers in that her brand has been at the forefront of ethical fashion from its inception. She was doing sustainable fashion long before using animal byproducts like leather, faux fur and suede was frowned upon, when animal cruelty for aesthetic’s sake was thought of as a talking point mostly adopted by fringe environmentalist groups, and where any public figure being able to leverage a major fashion house into abstaining from the use of animal fur was something unthinkable. But honestly, I’m really not hyping Stella up just for that but because she genuinely has been rolling out quality collections for years now. 

-Top to Bottom, L>R: RTW S/S15, Resort 15, RTW F/W15, RTW F/W16, RTW F/W14, RTW F/W15-

-RTW F/W23-

I can see how you could stick her with the safe label but I do think there’s talent in being able to identify elements of the ephemeral, “out- there” fashion trends with actual staying power. Stella has been able to streamline those elements into something that works outside of the high fashion bubble, and looking back at the archives was a delightful browse through the volume of evidence proving that knack. I don’t know why the name doesn’t carry more prestige other than the tendency of the high fashion industry to dismiss anything that is somewhat attainable to the average person, but if consistency is enough to grant Chanel a pass to put out the sameeee thing everyyy season because it fits with the widely established image of the brand, welllll…on the other side of that coin, consistency born of a sustained, purposeful, and analytical observation of the trend cycle and a concerted effort to refine rather than regurgitate the insane amalgamation of buzz pieces that emerge from the ever growing roster of fashion weeks…that warrants way more recognition, no?

-Top to Bottom: RTW F/W22, RTW S/S23-

-3rd February 2023, Objects of Desire exhibition @ the Design Museum, Kensington: Corset & trouser co-ord from ASOS*, blouse from ASOS*, trench coat from charity shop, & Doc Martens-

-3rd March 2023: cardi from @alisi on Depop, skirt from ASOS*, beret & shoes from ASOS-

Antonio Grimaldi 

-Clockwise L>R: Haute Couture (HC) F/W23, HC S/S23, HC S/S22, HC S/S19, HC F/W22-

For all my attempts to articulate what it is I like about collections from buzzy up-and-coming avant garde designers or prestigious labels known for intellectually driven, abstract pieces, I am no better at describing why stumbling across collections from the likes of Antonio Grimaldi fill me with joy. Pretty dresses give me a serotonin boost. Imagining myself as a princess in one is good for the soul, lol. I’m team Barbie not Oppenheimer. Does that sum it up for you? And as much as I feel duped being reeled in by Vogue sponsored content, on this occasion I’ll let it go because these creations are masterful and I’d never heard of the designer before they were featured.

-Clockwise L>R: HC S/S20, HC S/S21, HC F/W21-

-8th February 2023: skirt from Urban Renewal @ UO*, cardi from Collusion-

-23rd March 2023, Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons exhibit @ the Hayward Gallery, Southbank: top from @kissmypeach on Depop, skirt from Ebay, waistcoat from @crisishawtline on Depop, coat from charity shop, shoes as before-

Gucci Resort 2024

I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d been through an AI takeover, another pandemic, and mass flooding throughout Britain by the time I get round to doing a 2024 collections post, so for the sake of making sure I cover my most pressing high fashion related concerns (I.e my opinions on runway shows I could only ever aspire to sit back row at in my very wildest dreams let alone own anything from), I thought I’d include the Gucci Resort 2024 collection from earlier this month in this post. See my expectations of greatness have been tentative since we lost my love, Alessandro Michele, under whose reign Gucci became my absolute favourite high fashion brand-I would get genuinely excited in anticipation of his collections every time Milan fashion week came around, which really is a little bit sad when you think about how far removed I am from that sphere of existence, but ya know, as a source of styling inspiration his maximalist, extravagant and wonderfully extra take on Gucci never failed me. 

Don’t get me wrong, this collection isn’t on the level of anything Alessandro did in his last few years as creative director but I suppose that’s something that comes with the confidence granted by time at the helm and this slots neatly into his body of work as a continuation of that elevated blend of the decadent retro aesthetic with modernity. Soo it’s promising and as a stand alone collection, comparisons prohibited, I do really like it.

-13th February 2023, Making Modernism & Spain and the Hispanic World exhibitions at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly: trousers from the Ragged Priest*, corset from ASOS*, beanie from @rosiejg2 on Depop, linen shirt from ASOS*-

-16th February 2023: beanie from Primark, skirt, cardi & corset from UO*, faux leather blazer & coat underneath as before, tights from ASOS*-

Florence Given (me life? Or some style inspo anyways, forgive me the bad pun)

Look, I know she’s everyone’s fave white feminist to go in on buut she hasn’t done anything egregious enough that we can’t appreciate her style that I’m aware of, at least? She makes a lot of valid points, one of which is that we will absolutely slaughter women for doing like 1/4 of the morally questionable shit male creatives do before we cross the threshold of dismissing their work. That man probs doesn’t deviate from jeans and a t-shirt 95% of the time!!! But Florence is the besttt at the 70s bohemian rock vibe, a shining example of why I may allow it on this occasion if the next in an endless list of tik tok’s aesthetic crazes is piratecore  (or have they been there done that already?), and an aspirational figurehead for all those of us who identify as members of the more layers the better agenda. To put it delicately, regardless of your feelings about her, with the acknowledgement maybe it’s not my place to give an opinion anyway, anybody who’s wondering how you combine the nomadic romanticism of Alessandro Michele’s Gucci/Etro/Erdem/Zimmerman/Johanna Ortiz with a little bit of that YSL glamour, we owe her one for the visual manual that her Instagram feed provides. You know, take some inspo. You don’t have to credit her. Level the playing field. Isn’t that what she did? Idk lol. It’s 2020 something. Expecting completely originality from anyone is a lot to ask. All I know is that there’s no harm in more popular feminist literature even it can be seen as surface level and her style is delicious, lol.

-13th March 2023, Lao Cafe in Covent Garden: jeans from charity shop, top from ASOS*, arm warmers from UO*, coat from @shikirajaydeen on Vinted, scarf from @jools560 on Vinted, coat underneath from UO-

-31st January 2023, @ Russell Cotes Art Museum & Gallery, Bournemouth: jumper from Bershka*, skirt from @semmoore on Depop, linen shirt from @alicialouwoods on Depop, hat, shoes and tights from ASOS*-

-10th March 2023, street art in Brick Lane: dress from the Ragged Priest*, faux leather blazer as before, coat from charity shop, tights from ASOS*-

You Better Buy, Bitch (as Karl Marx probably NEVER said)

Does it probably go against my principles to make purchase recommendations? I mean, I’d say probably, but let’s be real, being able to rave about something with minimal to no influence is a perk of the act of posting, for me at least, pretty much being an act of screaming into the void.

Pre-loved Faves

Given I’ve shown a bit of a Vinted bias in my last few posts, I thought I would stick to all the lush lil pieces I found on Depop recently. They were all still available last time I checked, which was a few weeks ago, so hopefully that hasn’t changed!

Make of these (and their potentially crappy quality given the sacrifice entailed when you want to include like 32 screenshots in one image with a pixel ratio designed for Instagram posts) what you will.

Ethical? Newness: Superdry

Any fashion company that has “it’s a start” as their rating on Good on You is practically saintly in the grand scheme of things hence Superdry’s tentative placement on this list.

What I want to know is when did their stuff get actually…a bit cute? 

My adolescence took place at a time when Hollister, Jack Wills, and (this one was practically a mark of the elite, it’s exclusivity only bolstered by my head of year’s banning of those paper bags with the anonymous male’s six pack on them) Abercrombie were the height of fashion, accessible to only an exclusive few, and Supedry, whilst not quite held in that level of esteem, was also up there. I might only have been able to get a couple of Hollister sale tops but a Supedry branded T-shirt was marginally more accessible; for whatever reason, my parents tended to see their stuff as high quality investments rather than lumping it in with Hollister, Abercrombie etc. as part of a fad of the youth, lol . Anyway, the point is, I very much dismissed all those brands as crazes of a bygone era. Buuut, despite a niggling discomfort with the English owner’s seeming attempt to masquerade as a Japanese brand,  it’s come to my attention that some of Superdry’s stuff (and actually, Hollister too) is a…bit of me? To be more specific, they do these retro style print sundresses which I have on my Karma wish list, my fondness for which is definitely in part attributable to their resemblance to Lana Del Rey’s early stage outfits. ARGH, her performing songs from the UV album in those psychedelic mini dresses were a cultural moment which still crosses my mind on the daily.

On top of that, their clothes fall within the upper regions of the high street’s price range which means they’re the kind of one-off pieces that are going to stay in your wardrobe for a long time and not end up in the fast fashion doom spiral that’s filtered through the local charity shops straight into a landfill 50% of the time.

The Ragged Priest

The latest drop I…girlies if I wasn’t BROKE already, this collection would be taking me there. I’ve gone on about my love for TRP ad nauseam already so I don’t think I need to add much more here.

Arcana Archive

Arcana Archive is an online Japanese clothing store which acts as a platform for small, independent designers to sell their stuff. It ships worldwide and despite a relatively more expensive price mark (I’m talking in comparison to a site like ASOS which operates on a similar business model), the pieces are really unique and quite experimental within the confines of current trends. But yeah, you really can’t get much more ethical than buying an independently designed piece and Arcana Archive cuts out the uncertainty by facilitating that through a streamlined medium.

Regal Rose

Behold their absolutely STUNNING new collection. I am sooooOooo obsessed with every jewellery line they put out. They have, quite simply, perfected the delicate to dominatrix vibe ratio lol, and have the most unique and show stopping collections of statement jewellery out there by a mile. 

Very Important Face Paint

1. Tarte Shape Tape

Look, nothing is every going to be able to fully erase these dark circles. I got into a space where I was okay with them because they looked hot on Bella Hadid, lmao, but as much as I don’t want to be influenced by whichever TikTok aesthetic we’ve deemed “of the moment”, this whole clean girl thing got me pretty much back in that “would under eye fillers really be thaaaat bad?” headspace. What is a clean girl? Why does the Pinterest tag look like a white supremacist’s inspo board for the creation of a master race? I’m overrrrr the back and forth on how WOMEN’S FACES, like our GENETICALLY DETERMINED FEATURES, should look to be “on trend”! Holy shitttt, like I’m sorry that tinted moisturiser isn’t going to cover up a break out on my chin but we are not blank canvasses to be used as ad billboards for skincare products. I’m not getting under eye fillers because 1. in this economy? I think the fuck not! but 2. because the concept of getting a needle under my eye bothers me to my core. I really want to try and practice what I preach in that our uniqueness is what makes us beautiful but ARGH it’s such a difficult stance to take when it comes to accepting your own insecurities. 

Soo let’s just call Tarte’s Shape Tape concealer the middle ground. I am under no illusion any concealer is going to get rid of my dark circles but anything that reduces the number of times people (usually men) feel the need to tell me I look tired is pretty much in the business of miracles. I have really tried EVERY other hyped up concealer from Touché Eclat to Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Away concealer and this is the only one which makes a noticeable difference. It isn’t super easy to get in the UK which is the only drawback but I managed to get it on offer through QVC, as much as it pained me to do that given the deeply embedded association that exists for me between borderline sociopathic individual Lisa Rinna and the enterprise. But needs must.

2. YSL Touché Eclat Foundation

I won’t hold it against the Touché Éclat range that it was not capable of fixing my dark circles. Many greats have tried and failed and that is no mark on their greatness but a sign of my unfortunate genetics and terrible sleep schedule. And this foundation is gorgeous on every level; it truly is so smooth and glowy but simultaneously matte and blends into the skin like the milk I imagine cleopatra bathed in. IK I like a hyperbole but don’t let it be the reason you dismiss this stuff because it is goldddd.

3. Bybi Babe Balm

Truly got me feeling like a babe, this is the closest thing my dull, crusty ass skin will get to looking alive.

4. Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Lipliner

The only lipliner I have ever known not to bleed, and to retain its pigment for any substantial period of time. I haven’t tested it’s staying power past the 14 hour mark but I can confidently say it made it with only a slight fade to that time stamp.

5. NYX Dewy Finish Setting Spray

Very decent for the price and gives an amazing finish. The claims of its similarity to the Urban Decay setting spray is all that stands between me and further damage to my bank account because look, if I can get something slightlyy cheaper for only a slight discrepancy in quality I’ll take the L. Like all NYX products, it’s vegan and cruelty-free as well which is a personal must. 

Food…for Thought (see what I did there)

*Hi, recovery people, it starts here!

See if I do this again, ideally, there’s not going to be a whole category for food lmao. And strap in, btw. This section is 90% of this post’s mammoth word count, I reckon.

I’m thinking in future I’ll break the things I’m about to mush into one up into:

A more specific “places” category which will go beyond restaurants, I promise, and actually include other must-dos around London and anywhere else I happen to visit!

A more specific purchases/recipes/general recommendation category.

And then keeping a thoughts section separate as long as what I’m about to address continues to be relevant and helpful. I’ll expand in a sec. It’s a topic I’m disproportionately afraid of posting about considering there’s not exactly anyone hanging on my every word, lol, but still. Ideally in time, a “thoughts” section will transcend the topic of the anorexia recovery experience, if I do manage to shake my 5 remaining brain cells out of their dormancy anyway. Yeahhh, I thought I’d just drop it in there, bite the bullet and reveal that recovery is this elusive “issue” I have some thotsss on before anybody reading thinks I’m about to go on some outrageously offensive rant which ends up being the thing that DOES catapult me to online infamy and gets all excited.

This potential future post structure is more for the sake of having a more clearly defined section to broaden my recommendation horizons beyond restaurants to museums, galleries, general activities/experiences etc. But like, on this occasion my food recommendations are prefaced with some thoughts n feelings because they give a little bit of context as to why a list of restaurants is the first thing that comes to mind whenever anyone asks what’s good to do in London aside from the obvious tourist traps.

I’ve gone back and forth on posting anything about this subject a lot, kinda unnecessarily really. Like I said, I don’t have a tonne of followers, nobody that I know irl follows me (maybe like one very close friend), and so it’s not like there’s any real ramifications of whatever I do or don’t choose to post about. The perception that I’m making a declaration to some vast audience I don’t doubt is just an extension of that internalised male gaze thang which makes everything in life feel like it’s an act of solicitation for other people’s opinions based on which I decide whether or not the crushing sense of shame I constantly feel atm is warranted.

Making my first post on the anorexiarecovery Reddit (which has the cushioning of anonymity that Tumblr obvs lacks) and just how much it helped me and on a more general level, how hearing from others who have recovered from a long-standing eating disorder has helped me, is the kick up the arse I needed to finally talk about it here. If feeling like you’re “sick enough” to accept help is hard, you can imagine openly identifying  yourself as “in recovery” is even harder so please just gently let me know if you come across this on the anorexia recovery tag and there’s ways you feel I could have more sensitively addressed the issue.

Like a girlie is vulnerable, lol. I’m a whole mess, most likely even more unbearable to others than I was in the depths of anorexia. Even when you start the formal recovery process and have the intention to follow whichever course of therapy or program or treatment you’re receiving, thinking of yourself as actually in recovery and the acceptance of everything that comes with that, rather than seeing treatment as a means of learning how to maintain your control and your weight and basically, your anorexia, in a slightly less dangerous and mentally exhausting way, takes fucking ages. I hate being out of control. Hate it, hate it, hateeee it. And I know I know. Anorexia is more about control than about the food itself so that is probably an unnecessary addendum. But it’s a cliche for a reason, lol.

Saying traight up that you’re in recovery and identifying with other people who are feels like a very permanent thing and a huge change to your life as you know it. It’s solidifying that there is no going back now, allowing your body to do all the things with the acceptance that this is a process you cannot control, and that you can’t use anorexic behaviours to try and get that sense of (fake!!!) control back. When disordered eating of some kind is all you know, in my case a cycle of anorexia and binge eating that has gone on for as long as I can recall being aware of the fact that there’s a correlation between what I eat and how my body looks, it takes time to accept that recovery could represent anything but a fucking unbearable and embarrassing existence. I’m not the happiest with where I’m at in recovery right now but being willing to call what I’m doing right now that R word and affirming that this is a process of change rather than an adaptation of my mindset to a less outwardly concerning form is, from an objective perspective, really big! And I know I couldn’t have got here without being able to separate anorexia (I’m just going to shorten it to AN because it’s always felt a dramatic word for what has just been my way of life, if anyone can relate to that? lol) from myself, which happens when you can recognise that rather than everything you think is an inherent, unchangeable part of who you are being the cause, it is just something that’s been manipulated to become a fundamental element of a parasitic illness:)

This realisation has come from two different sources. Firstly, from the formal course of therapy itself (I’m doing MANTRA treatment for anyone who finds this and is in the same boat), and secondly, from spaces (I mean mostly online tbh but I have a friend or two in real life who have some experience) where others, whether still suffering from their eating disorder or fully-recovered, are voicing their own thought processes and feelings. We like to think of our thoughts as completely authentic and complex and as resulting from a reasoned conclusion, and we want to believe we do have control over our lives, so it only fees right to act in a way that aligns with these thoughts, but what you realise as you see the exact same sentiments expressed by others with AN is that a lot of the “thought” processes that fuel anorexia aren’t so uniquely yours after all. It’s one thing to be challenged about a single, isolated AN thought by someone you know pointing out that it’s not true and that it’s just the illness etc. because you can just defend its legitimacy and why you continue to act accordingly to yourself like “okay, that’s not rational and maybe sometimessss that’s a baseless, anorexia driven false belief but it’s different for me, this isn’t irrational. It’s true. I know this because I came to this conclusion myself and so in my case what I believe will happen if I don’t do X/Y/Z will actually happen”. The cognitive symptoms sound and look and adopt the same ways of thinking that you believe to be an inherent part of who you are. If you are a rigid, routine-oriented, stubborn, all-or-nothing, obsessive (reading the list of traits identified as signalling increased risk of developing AN was a bit of a self-roast I can’t lie) perfectionist then congratulations! You won’t notice anything out of the ordinary when those “thoughts” run through your head and you certainly will not think for one minute that they are textbook mental manifestations of an illness masquerading as your internal monologue. But maybe you will when you see just how routinely they appear as part of a more extensive, specific set of “thoughts” described by people who have also been diagnosed with AN. Big oh shit!!!! moment when you feel a little bit of the special snowflake armour melting away. 

The sense of vulnerability which descends upon the realisation you can’t trust your own thoughts, not knowing which of the responses that come into your head where you’re put into a challenging food-related scenario is the AN one, the “wise”/recovery mind (I.e the truth), and which one is the most “you” and honours YOUR well-being in all of this, feels like presenting yourself to Simon Cowell on the X Factor stage circa 2007, at its peak popularity. Ya got the whole of the UK watching, Simon looks you up and down, and says “it’s a no from me”, and then him, Louis and Sharon all start bickering about whether or not he was too harsh and whether Louis is being too generous by affirming your star potential. Essentially, it feels like throwing yourself to the sharks with no clue which one is being honest about how tasty you are. Enough metaphors?

Basically, eating disorder recovery of any kind involves mediating between a LOT of internal voices who guide you with dramatically varying levels of empathy and none of them agree. Throw experience of binge eating into the mix and the “go on, you knowwwww you’ll feel better if you do eat X, Y and Z” sentiment that characterises your impulses and how similar that can sound to the things you’re taught in recovery about how to listen to your body and practice kindness to yourself ANDDDD then what is most likely the AN voice which draws on all that societal shaming we do of women having “too much” of an appetite and it’s just, FUUUUUCK. It is so FUCKING. EXHAUSTING to constantly have to distinguish one from the other. I never realised how exhausting it would be. It has really turned me into a foul person to be around at times, and that is the thing I hate about all of this the most. But hearing that other people have had these thoughts, that they aren’t an objective truth of life or the only option in your case, that disentangling them becomes second nature in time, is the reassurance I’ve needed to keep me working at it. To have evidence that these thoughts are a symptom, not a inevitable product of who I am, and that they therefore won’t always feel THIS crushing gives me hope to just stick out the extra mental stress that introducing a mediator to the internal argument creates.

Sooo it feels worth describing some of these thought processes on here in case, selfishly, it connects me with other real people who have experiences of their own to share, or less selfishly, it becomes one of the many many recounts of these thoughts that somebody stumbles across which pushes them across that same threshold of like (Kylie voice) realising thingsssss. Well, you know, realising oh shit, there are alternatives to how my brain is dictating to me I must live my life lest I self-implode in an inferno of shame and self-hatred. That’s the state I personalllyyy associate with the version of myself that has tended to precede a shift back towards restriction, probably stemming from multiple sources but that the AN voice whittles down to the single variable of numbers on a scale. Realising that being trapped by the all or-nothing rules or rituals and impossible standards isn’t something you just have to accept because it’s the only viable way to live your life, that it’s just that sneaky little anorexia MF drowning out the alternatives is one of the first steps laying the foundations for a wholehearted go at recovery.

The ability to disregard the AN thoughts doesn’t stick naturally past that initial lightbulb detection moment without a constant effort to identify and reaffirm that’s all they are but with the initial realisation comes a sense of relief. Underlying that initial commitment to recovery was the visceral sensation of detachment I had once I realised just how many of what I believed to be my OWN thoughts were cognitive biases symptomatic of anorexia and the impact of its resulting malnutrition on the brain. In other words, that what I perceived as my core beliefs were mental manifestations of problems attributable to an illness, like any that we so seamlessly identify when they present as physical ailments.

The possibility that the categorisation of these thoughts as symptoms entails, that an adherence to all the rules I developed based upon them and the misery they caused me doesn’t represent the best of a bad bunch of outcomes, that the anxieties attached to these AN thoughts aren’t legitimised by facts of nature akin to whatever it is Einstein said about gravity or the laws of motion, and thus are something that can be viably challenged, is the fundamental driving force to keep at treatment. When you’re seeing everryyy other person with shock! gasp! The exact same condition feeling exactly the same, coming to the exact same conclusions in a roundabout way, you realise...ahhh, I’ve been DUPED. SCAMMED! Like I said, we can buy into something irrational by perceiving it as a truth exclusive to our unique psychological, biological, and physiological makeup, our specific self-concept; it’s natural to want to think of ourselves as unique individuals whose decisions in life result from a sensible weighting of all these factors. Nobody wants to feel like they are pre-programmed to behave in a certain way. Our sense of self-determination gives our lives meaning and that feels all the more important when our other tendencies make the experience of being alive feel a bit scary or monotonous sometimes.

It gets harder, ya know Occam’s razor and all, however, to continue to give any merit to the anecdotal logic of these beliefs when the much simpler explanation is that they’re very cut and dry AN thought patterns just subtly tailored to include some of the idiosyncrasies of your internal monologue and thought style so they’re believable enough to you as a legitimate, reasonable, self-realised philosophy sustaining your behaviours. To live abiding by the principles formed from this “reasoning” process placates that instinctive self-determination drive.

What I’m trying to say in an overly convoluted way (this is what happens when writing about psychology usually involves the suppression of any creative flair or subjectivity as is the defining feature of an undergrad essay lol) is that talking about it, resonating with the experiences of others and how their symptoms manifested, it helps. It makes all the situations you put yourself in so much less scary when the trajectory you’re on in recovery, though requiring you endure thoughts and feelings that are intensely distressing in the moment, has ultimately helped people in the exact same position you are get to a happy, healthy place in the lives:)

Realising there’s nothing essential to your survival about these thoughts, that they don’t warrant an entire section dedicated to them (and hopefully, at some point in the future, will not get from me beyond how much better off I am without them!!!), is the beginning of a process which allows you to see the world in its whole again, and there’s so many recovery stories out there to support this. I look forward to being a much less self-absorbed person in my day to day life, lol, and being capable of meaningfully engaging with the expanse of vastly more interesting issues out there, even if this means opening myself up to a little bit more of that good old existential anxiety.

Getting to the point, then, this section exists to get these thoughts off my chest but in a way that is clear enough for anyone who comes across the tag to quickly be able to identify as similar to their own, and that gets across what I’ve found helpful in challenging them. It won’t usually be prefaced with all this context, lol! I really invite suggestions from others in the approaches they’ve taken to do this as well since you need as many tools to deconstruct AN logic as you can get your hands on, and I, for one, want my own toolbox to be full to the brim. I am to be the Bob the Builder of the anti anorexia agenda if you will, lmao.

For this reason, when I’ve managed to separate an AN thought from myself and isolate it, I’ve made sure to always note it down, trap that baby in a glass like a spider, and that’s that on how to do a perfect metaphor because I KNOW SPIDERS CAN’T HURT ME AND THERE IS NO REASON TO BE AFRAID OF THEM BUT IT FEES LIKE THEY’RE TARGETING ME, OMG. Yes, turns out spiders represented an eating disorder free life all along. To describe these thought processes on their own and just make them salient to somebody who is already trying to drown them out wouldn’t necessarily be helpful so I’m only going to address or articulate a thought when I have something to challenge it with, that I’ve picked up either through MANTRA, my studies, recovery advocates, or now and again that I’ve concluded myself and found to be reassuring. I can’t promise that the latter source will be of value but they’ve been important to me and maybe will trigger somebody else to apply that same (potentially questionable) reasoning process to their own circumstances and consider that new perspective. It’s rare but once in a blue moon sometimes this silly little brain of mine does strike something not quite gold but maybe bronze or silver, takes a dip in the pool of positivity, and shuts down the AN bullsheeet all on its own. I have to take stock of these incidences somewhere, lol.

On the basis it’s still pretty early days, there’s still a lot of AN thoughts I can’t quite convince myself don’t have some legitimacy, so when/if I do address them in a post it’ll likely only be one or two at a time as follows. Whether there ends up being too many to limit to a section in these seasonal update/summary posts because I go back to my typical lackadaisical posting schedule and end up having to just do an overall progress post at some point down the line we shall see but for now, I’ll get into it:-) on today’s agenda I wanna address:

The Spectre of Shame: 

Yess, AN really be on some Mike Flanagan shit when it comes to convincing you that recovery is the catalyst for some unbearable onslaught of shame. Hinting at it, revealing flashes of if, hanging it over your head but never actually revealing it or what would be sooo fucking unbearable about this experience that there’s no available coping mechanism or approach to remedy the resulting pain. 

Fearing my recovery body and other people’s reactions has always been a big hurdle in seeking treatment in the first place. Underlying it has just been this mental cacophony of potential responses. Notably, the idea that the people you care about will forget how ill you were at some point once you achieve a healthy weight and suddenly come to resent you for being “dramatic” about the whole thing and putting them through the things you did as a result of AN. 

Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Shocker! It’s some more AN driven bullshit! And it is part of the way it sustains itself by making you afraid of throwing yourself into treatment. The truth is that the people that expressed their concern when you were sick, at first my primary motivation to give treatment a third (lol) chance, are affected by it much more they let on. Seeing you at your sickest is not the kind of thing your loved ones forget, and if anything they’re probably massively fucking relieved and grateful when they see you becoming more relaxed around food. I didn’t realise how exhausting it was for my family to watch me be completely consumed by my eating disorder because it wasn’t addressed routinely, it was only when other situational factors pushed everyone to the edge that it would all come out and I’d see how much anxiety about my health was being kept from me for the sake of not causing upset.

I get that openly choosing treatment feels a lot like walking into a crowded room of your friends, acquaintances, every last human being you’ve ever encountered, and inviting everyone there to hyper scrutinise your body. Ooo, is she gaining too quickly? Has she let herself go? Has she lost control? She’s weak. She’s sick, she has an eating disorder, but one that makes her more pathetic than us because we all want a whole ass bar of chocolate you cheeky lil bitch but why are you so SPECIAL you get to have one just because you’re sad!? 

Again, AN, I BEG of you: shut the fuckkkk up. I know rationally that I wouldn’t for a second make that inductive leap about someone else who stated they were in their recovery. If anything I would be ecstatic for them knowing how good it feels to finally give your body all those things it has been gnawing away at you to give to it for so long, to experience that freedom. Think about the environment you’re in and the people around you. The people in my life are kind, and understanding, and if I’m judging their likely reactions by all their past behaviours, they’re likely to have the same thought process as I would about someone else just chowing down all that food that is so good for the soul. If they’re not, I don’t want them in my life anyway. 

The shame comes from me and me alone. At this point, every time I do actually pay attention to what I’m craving and try and respond to that in a non-judgemental way, and accept that the absolute worst scenario in my head (omg wow weight gain, a never before witnessed human phenomenon!), I take a step backwards, and evaluate what power the actual worst case scenario consensus actually holds.

So people do think I’m greedy or weak or whatever. It’s the way I coped and still do sometimes to give myself that little serotonin boost through food, to eat every delicious thing in sight. It’s not a moral failure. Everyone has their ways of coping with strong emotions and for every way in which we give in to one self-soothing impulse, there’s some other coping mechanism we’re resisting. The idea that there is an empirically verifiable relationship between eating for joy and any kind of negative trait is a load of shite. I can’t help but think misogyny has a lotttt to do with it too. Like, can you imagine a show called Woman Vs. Food? Wolfing down everything in sight is practically celebrated when it’s a man doing it, or at the very least, just accepted as part of the male predisposition, much like a high sex drive. Horny, hungry woman=slutty slob in the eyes of society, lol.

How much/what you eat can’t inherently make you a bad person. The only adverse effect is probs that long term, it isn’t going to feel great for your body. In my case at least, I know my internal fluids be moving like Valhalla after a mad one on the carbs and salts lmao, soz if that’s tmi but nobody with anorexia said anorexia is actually glam or a B&W 2013 tumblr inspired serve in anyway. It’s 40% annoying gross body issues and 60% internalised shame, boring food thoughts, fear and the constant burden of calorie counting because who the fuck wants to be doing maths 24/7. Recovery in the long run takes a fucktonne of will power. JFC, it’s a marathon, it’s the 800m you got signed up to doing on sports day without your permission. So if you describe the internal conflict you go through with that, anybody who will still look at you choosing to eat what you ACTUALLY want at the end of the day and think that represents weakness…ridiculousness.

To stand on that stage and announce “I’m in recovery” and for that to be visible in some way or another (reminder that thinness isn’t a complete measure of sickness anywaysss!), isn’t something embarrassing. it’s a sign that it’s working and that I’ve hit the “oh my god what have I done” hurdle and actually jumped over it this time, and not been sucked back into AN. To learn to be okay with your new body, and be okay with others opinions of it off the back of that, is a part of recovery I feel I’m only just starting to be asked to think about in treatment as I enter the weight restoration zone. It’s defo revealing itself to be one of the strong walls of my AN’s lil fortress. That opinions about the way we look are important isn’t something that can be just shut down with science like those other AN “facts” are. One thing I loveee about my therapist is that she always brings the feminist perspective into it. Like, as women it’s drilled into us from the moment we’re old enough to comprehend there’s some implicit societal code that our worth is at least in part determined by the acceptability of our appearance, to the extent it feels like an inherent truth that we owe it to others to conform to beauty standards if we want to be treated with respect. Anorexia pounces on that and uses it as evidence as to why it’s not an illness, but something to be cherished, something you would be useless without. Treatment has focussed a lot on personal values and principles to aid that self/anorexia separation process so far and I think it will come in useful here too, again to break down the legitimacy of these beauty standards which reinforce AN fuelled beliefs, and tbh, are ever fucking changing anyway. Psychologically speaking, conforming to an arbitrary beauty ideal would never be a reproducible (see, it may have been some term 1 year 1 week 2 level terminology but I did get one thing out of my Research Methods modules) anyway.

I wish I wasn’t a fashion loving girlie:( I wish the phrase heroin fucking chic had never entered my verbal lexicon:( I wish I hadn’t fucking internalised the ideals of the 2013 EFFY STONEM LANA DEL REY ARTIC MONKEYS SOFT GRUNGE BRUISED KNEES SAD B&W GIF 90S AESTHETIC etc. etc. etc. Tumblr era and allowed it to mutate into the enduring ideal of what external standards would constitute my perfect self, the one that would have all her shit togetherrr and be okay. I wish it wasn’t an ideal which I still have to see reinforced every now again, when I engage with something I’m passionate about, minding my business browsing Vogue runway and seeing that YSL once a-fucking-gain seemingly came to the conclusion they’d maxed out their body diversity quota by hiring just ONE singular model who may be, like, a size 10 at a push in amongst the 30 other size 4/6 girls walking.

Maaaaybe that I feel this way, though, have such conviction about how harmful these standards are, will give me something positive to focus my energy on rather than wasting it paying any attention to these kinds of arbitrary societal ideals. We don’t have to accept that respect would be given on a shallow basis, and tbh doing what you can to fight that norm sounds a lot more fulfilling anyway. 

Anyway, I look forward to adding some proper, professional logic to what I can only summarise as that brain fart as I cover it in treatment:-)

“This is the Best it Gets”:

The biggest lie AN will tell you.

It might mimic that harsh AN tone a lil but I find it necessary to remind myself “course this isn’t your best life. FFS, everyone knows what this disorder does to people. You know of people that have died from it. The number of people that have recovered happily is huge. The outcomes for the people who have maintained their anorexia into adulthood on the other hand are BLEAK. So why are you so special that you’re the exception to the actual, EVIDENCE based rule. Anorexia is horrible and it’s shit and it IS possible to overcome it. Get a grip.”

The way you think is not the result of you having been fundamentally and irreversibly changed as a person, and does not represent an irreparable apathy towards the goals and principles that used to motivate you in life. Not to repeat myself as I’m sure I am doing here but it has been so hugely validating to hear my therapist (whether she’s just very good at her job, speaking from personal experience, or both, idk! I want to ask but I don’t know if that’s appropriate or not? Thoughts?) essentially say “I understand. This doesn’t feel like something you’re suffering from. It feels like something you are deciding to maintain, that you’re choosing thinness over the people you care about. But it is hurting you the most and why would you choose that?” MANTRA is based on the idea of several factors coming together to cultivate an AN mindset, a combination of thinking style, personality traits, values, relationship styles, experiences, and emotional disposition. Of course these factors aren’t always possible to change but you can change the way they feed into your AN and develop methods of channelling them other than through the medium of restriction, towards achieving other, more positive and fulfilling goals. You’ve always had these traits and you didn’t always need AN to get by, right?

The belief AN is a choice, not an illness you can be inherently vulnerable for,  goes hand in hand with the way eating disorders in general are misunderstood, including those that manifest in extreme obesity. You see it most with the people who will tell you to “just eat” and “why are you doing this to yourself!”. And then you feel like a fucking awful person. Why AM I doing this to myself? Look at what this is doing to people who care about me. Either I’m a fucking horrible selfish person OR I NEED this disorder to survive. I don’t think I’m the best person on the planet. But I don’t think I’m evil enough of a person to want to cause everyone pain if there was an alternative. It’s the last thing I want to do. So there must BE no alternative. This must be my only option. The result of this logic is the sense that there’s nothing beyond AN. Shame is the only thing on the other side of the coin it feels like you have no choice but to flip, it’s prospective existence a phantom in your head that you use anorexia as a shield against because it tells you it is your only defence. This is what AN does. The less you eat; the more you think about food, and the less capable you become of thinking about the bigger picture. The more rigid and black and white in your thinking you become. It’s eat nothing or eat everything, so even eating something sometimes can feel like opening floodgates. When you starve your brain of nutrients, you don’t have the cognitive recourses to think about nuance or develop solutions. Learning that was another intense lightbulb moment, and I almost physically felt things slot into place inside me, like I’d got a bit of myself back. The realisation that this, the psychological process underlying our conviction that anorexia is the be all and end all, is the ACTUAL truth, not the thought itself. That I continue like this isn’t the only way forward. That moment where I finally understood these thoughts weren’t organic, that they weren’t MINE, that they’re textbook AN biases, was really eye-opening. I just needed, still need, a little help to get the ball rolling and bring my rational voice back into the convo. 

I might not know exactly what an alternative I’m comfortable with looks like though with each practical suggestion I try and can tolerate, that becomes more fully formed. And though I can’t predict exactly what the end result of that alternative will be, what I do know is at the very least it will take away a handful of minor inconveniences. Shopping in the little girl’s section for pants for example-the PARANOIA I get when someone even glances in my direction whilst I’m doing so that they might think I’m some nonce who just enjoys perusing the kid’s undies section. No more! Your body panicking when you eat a bit more of certain types of food and either A). Sending you into a food coma, and yes, that’s WHEREVER you are and whatever you are doing, sitting in a theatre show or the cinema and even more frequently, on public transport or B). Immediately demanding you go…expel that entire whole meal right now of your own volition or find yourself empathising with Will McKenzie in that episode of the Inbetweeners where his bowels took his A-levels for him. The COLD!!! I spent far too many days this past winter trying not to cry because I was that painfully fucking freezing. The circulation issues had the skin on my knuckles cracking open when I bent my hands FFS, I was out in the customer service trenches serving people with raggedy ass plasters all over my hands, getting dirty looks from the pensioner buying his 3rd pack of JPS Superkings of the day, I-

It’s such an unglamorous disorder, and yet we still romanticise the shit out of it. Well let me tell ya. I do not feel ethereal or delicate or fragile or any of those qualities that I probably internalised as being inherent to anorexia back in those tumblr 2013 days. I feel boring and grouchy and gross and self-absorbed and incompetent. Utterly useless except as a calorie counting machine. No wonder catwalk models always had such a rep for being airheads because depleting your brain of nutrients, as has finally happened this being the longest restrictive phase I’ve experienced, truly makes you dumb AF in ways you don’t actually realise. Like stuff just goes in one ear and out the other and I have become this truly chaotic, all over the place person which is incredibly frustrating because I used to be, and want to be, someone who makes every effort to be on top of their shit with everything, always. Unfortunately, your brain just loses the capacity to hold all the information you need in the right places or evaluate anything properly and your time management gets all over the place. Your common sense disappears and you don’t make the links that keeping up with the pace of daily life (especially true in London, lol) requires. Anything that isn’t related to your AN loses its importance and without the motivation to give other commitments your full attention, the considerations you need to make to fulfill them fall through the cracks. The worst part is that people get sick of your shit because it seems like you just don’t care about them. You either feel incompetent as fuck or wonder if you’ve actually always been like this which deep down you know you haven’t because you’ve never felt such frustration at the inability to actually execute all these plans you make. I don’t want people to worry, I don’t want to go back to a hospital ever again, I don’t want to be painfully cold all the time, I sure as helllll don’t want such irregular bowel movements or hot and cold sweats, crusty ass skin or purple hands. I want to live deliciously (sorry Florence Given antis), and I WANT to be able to romanticise my life and AN doesn’t provide the content the 2010s soft grunge corner of the internet would have you believing it does. It’s just exhaustingly mundane, uncomfortable, and awkward.

The best thing I’ve noticed since committing to a regular eating schedule, to give one example of a recovery commitment, is that the constant mental chatter has significantly reduced. Sometimes no thoughts head empty is the GOAL. I do not want my brain to feel like the store I work at on a summer bank holiday once all the other supermarkets have closed. There is so little space for anything else-I gave up reading the news like 2 years ago because anything outside of the ED perspective felt trivial and that’s ridiculous. Kourtney Kardashian could scream PEOPLE ARE DYING! In my face and I’d be like yah, whatever. But to be serious, and kinder to myself, the soundtrack to the past few years of my life has seemed to ricochet between 2 defaults: a shouting match at the Queen Vic fought not by Kat Moon and…some other Eastenders character  (idk, it’s been a while since I watched, I forget the rivalries) but instead between advocates for all the different impulses and urges and rules and regulations, OR a droning, mundane static, occasionally permeated by calculations and conversions of calorie consumption to weigh gain in pounds. There is very little feeling in the anorexic experience. Pretty much just frustration, boredom and anxiety, fear of the absolute worst happening but you don’t know what that absolute worst even is and can’t really articulate exactly why it’s so terrible. Like the end of life seems to be spiralling towards me sometimes (thanks chronic anxiety and climate change and late stage capitalism heh) and I can’t get over how much FUCKING TIME I WASTE THINKING ABOUT FOOD. FOOD. There is nothing interesting about food unless we’re talking about how good it is. The best meal deals, sophisticated subject matter like that. 

My intention in articulating these thoughts is because the more of their forms you encounter, the clearer the similarities in their underlying structure becomes, and the easier it is to recognise them as symptoms. Once we know symptoms are all AN “thoughts” are, and that it’s part and parcel for the distorted reality we experience to seem like absolute truth, it gets a lot easier to have faith that acting to contravene the rigid boundaries they’ve led to us imposing isn’t going to result in catastrophe. When we have evidence that treatment for any physical illness is effective and reduces symptoms, we trust it’ll ultimately reduce them for us too even in the face of short term unpleasantness we experience as a result. So the point of verbalising these thoughts is to affirm that they are something which necessarily become less intense each time we assess and challenge them.

To wrap this section up, I really, seriously welcome feedback from anyone in recovery coming across this. Like, I hope none of it is patronising, or comes across as if I expect anyone to read and be like “thanks girlie, ya cured me!” xoxo

I want the way I explained myself to be helpful. If not, it’s just a particularly self-indulgent ramble lol. It seems necessary to articulate an unhelpful thought pattern before I get into challenging it in order to highlight how textbook it is but ofc when I name or describe the thought, I don’t want to do that in a way that enables or reinforces anybody else’s similar belief. Any suggestions if this section has done that for you are welcomed.

On top of that, it goes without saying I’m extremely privileged to have won the postcode lottery in finally getting a long-term, holistic, person-centred form of therapy. I hate to say I’ve been unlucky in the past with what I’ve received because I know some people have had no help at all, but what I’m trying to say is that it does take intensive support to overcome this not just, like, realising things. It‘s a lot easier when you have someone you know knows what they’re talking about, and whose support extends beyond the scheduled hours you have with them. The AN voice doesn’t take a day off and so much damage can be done in just a week without the recourses to challenge it. Being able to reach out to someone who uses their knowledge to validate you and relieve that extreme loneliness that comes with feeling trapped inside your own head, who treats you as a whole person who needs pointers on how to adapt the knowledge taken from scheduled sessions to the complexities of your everyday life and doesn’t fault you for not knowing already, is so essential. You need that external voice to hold you accountable in actually translating the act of challenging your thoughts into action, but one that communicates with kindness and empathy because they know that otherwise it all starts to feel a bit too similar to the tone of AN. What I wish is that there was some kind of sponsor network similar to those attached to AA/NA groups/if there already is, it was more widely known of. Of course, a professional sounding board is the best you can get but any external, motivating voice that comes in conjunction with a thorough understanding of how deeply embedded an ED is and knows how difficult it can be to challenge what feels like the core of who you are, can help. I don’t like to sugarcoat stuff, so I say all this with the addendum that you can be as picture perfect a model of a recovered anorexic as they come and still be changed forever by the period you spent consumed by it, especially if that begins at a young age when your brain is still developing. I do kind of believe the echoes of any ED will always be there, and the framework the illness puts in place in your head to maintain itself never fully crumbles. Your perspective may always be through a slightly disordered lens. But that framework will become weaker and it will become easier for the objective truth to break through and storm the gates and ultimately be victorious against what becomes a very fragile, pathetic version of the disordered voice, to make decisions based on principles of self-care and compassion. Obviously, knowing all this stuff in isolation won’t always be enough. I can identify thoughts as a product of AN, know they’re not going to get me where I want to be in the long term, but honestly don’t always have the energy to ride out the fight or flight response that going against them entails. The self-criticism and shame is still quite instinctual at this stage. I’m at the point of slowly testing what actually happens if I make small transgressions of those food rules, tolerating weight gain regardless of how uncomfortable it is, basically debunking the existence of this spectre one bar of Dairy Milk Oreo or B&J’s Baked Alaska at a time. It’s kinda like the flooding stage of phobia-specific CBT. The trick is that in the meantime, whilst you’re distracted by all these difficult feelings, your brain is well fuelled enough to redevelop the ability to think in shades of grey, and remember the things about life you loved before you gave the illness your complete unyielding devotion.

I’m hoping in time, especially as summer comes to an end, it will be easier to deal with the physical changes. I adore the sun and the heat and the beach but at this stage in recovery, I think I’ll feel more optimistic once the seasons change and bring with them the opportunity to wrap up and drape myself in layers. Like, although I’m almost within the healthy weight range now, there are moments when the (unfair and unwarranted) recognition that I no longer have the body that I was unashamed of and how that has become unattainable again fills me with self-hatred and disgust. For a second maybe, there is a rush of emotions worthy of the fear I felt at the beginning of the recovery process. To bring back the spectre, that initial full glimpse of it is sufficiently horrifying to make it tempting to reach out for the AN shield again. But the longer you share a space with that entity, the more obvious it becomes it’s just a costume. You notice the faint lines where prosthetics meet the skin and the rings around the contact lenses, and eventually it’s like seeing the lady who plays the Nun IRL on the red carpet, like witnessing a Scooby Doo unmasking, where you realise the horror is in the all the attachments and that what lies underneath it all can’t actually hurt you. These feelings aren’t a one time affair, they occur enough to make you feel really shitty and overwhelmed, but they are transient and there is a sense of freedom that comes with this being a body which doesn’t involve depriving yourself of everything you crave and the fear of all the other devastating consequences. A rush of painful emotions far supersedes death by a thousand cuts if you will, lol. There was a time when the thought of gaining even one pound was unbearable and yet here I am. So I know that I can get through these surges of distress too, and I don’t plan to set unrealistic expectations of being perfectly okay with it on myself right now. I said to myself yesterday I probably won’t wear shorts again this summer. But that’s okay for now. Any day that solidifies my commitment to resist AN is progress. This body acceptance should become easier with the luxury of a private, safe space to fully process these feelings, without any unhelpful outside influence on how I reshape my self-image. The last thing you need when you’re trying the radical self-acceptance thing is the prospect of external chatter that comes with being exposed to everyone else’s judgements too, as is the case in hot weather when you’re like, socially obligated to get ya bum out. I need that chance to be okay with my recovery body as it is rather than feeling pressure to accommodate it to others expectations, which I know I shouldn’t and once I know myself better, hopefully won't feel the need to. Being able to challenge the worst case scenario of shame and judgement from others isn’t possible if I still haven’t got to a place where my confidence and faith in the objective, non-disordered, empirically viable truth is robust enough to not give the hypothetical judgements any emotional weight, to stay neutral and detached as AN goes into overdrive trying to adjust the marker at which this unbearable, worst case scenario will occur. It doesn’t like it very much when you reach the previously established threshold, the one that was once so terrifying you couldn’t bear the thought of any kind of change pushing you towards it, and realise…oh…soOoo my world hasn’t fallen apart. Shit. And you wonder what exactly it was you were so afraid of. Still, with each revelation, whatever’s round the corner of this next threshold is still scary. It’s just that with each one you overcome you have more faith that you can muddle through it as you have before. It’s not an instinctual faith but one you have to actively search for on difficult days where you reflect on your lowest point and grieve because it was something you feel you really suffered for and LORD knowsss, we all love to romanticise tragedy. But you keep doing that over and over again and you choose to try and cope, something that takes practice, and ultimately the idea is that you won’t need faith at all, that acting against eating disordered thoughts will just make sense. The CBT-ish part, the restructuring of the cognitive framework maintaining AN into one which makes looking after yourself the easy, sensible option (I.e your new default) rather than something that’s gonna lead to eternal pain and suffering over just how grotesque it makes you, (tehe feels good girls x) can only work as it should once you’ve also had that exposure to observe how-decisions less dictated by anorexia actually turn out, as in maybe there is no earth-shattering catastrophe to follow. You need to have built up a body of evidence that the resulting scenarios are ones you can withstand. You also need to be able to perceive life in its entirety, outside of the disordered tunnel vision you’ve developed, to remind yourself, and wholly comprehend, the richness of the experiences AN steals away. That isn’t always there for everyone, which is why I want to reiterate that recovery doesn’t boil down to having “enough” strength, but about having reasons to recover too and I’m privileged in that aspect.

But anyways….flooding, a sponsor, CBT? Did I just create my own treatment programme? Much to think about. 

I don’t know how to round off such an intense section so I guess, here are some restaurant recommendations???? Which I felt compelled to include as a means of developing my budding Google reviews career (shout out to my one follower), and thennn onto some more lighthearted stuff, ya know, stand out films, TV, books etc. of the first half of the year. But maybe in future posts, assuming I continue to progress, I can start talking about some of the things I’ve gained in recovery to round up the thoughts section. It kind of sounds like a cliche that your AN tells you is bullshit that recovery is gonna improve your quality of life like of course they’re going to make this shit sound like a trip to Barbados, but just as accumulating other people’s accounts of anorexia symptoms delegitimises the truth you attribute to those symptoms, hearing the specifics of positive recovery experiences legitimises the idea that it’s something tangible. At this point I can already say I’ve got back into cooking, which I loved before my restriction got obsessive and health and balance and all that malarky was a goal of weight loss. SooOoo maybe I could share some recipes too. ANYWAY. Let’s get into my fave London eats, which I hope will also grow and evolve to include general London/travel recommendations as I regain the capacity to retain memories of experiences other than those revolving around food, lol. Unless I miraculously come into a large windfall of cash, the “travel” recommendations will most likely be limited to other UK places but on this occasion I can dip my toe into the “wAnDerrlustt” tag realm and kick things off with a few recommendations for Lisbon which I visited at the beginning of June. Having that goal of being able to write about these things in a few months time in a completely different mindset is definitively a good source of motivation. Being able to experience all these new places without the security blanket of my regular meal routines and advanced planning is scary but that spontaneity is part of what makes a trip away so exciting. Although on this occasion, being away and allowing myself to try everything I wanted didddd trigger a bit of a downwards spiral, in hindsight, that was a pretty good flooding experience and learning experience in general because like…I was bloated as fuck by the end and you know, 2 weeks later and I’m still here. Plus, all that boujie low calorie “healthy”, “high protein” food is costly!  Gym lads must be broke, honestly. If I want to do enough to justify an exPerIencES section I have to start eating like a normal human being, right? And just buy the Chicago Town pizza and the regular Ben & Jerry’s on Clubcard (as hard as Gym Kitchen pizzas, Yorkshire Prov. soups, Oppo ice cream and Halo Top Cookies & Cream/Cookie Dough flavours slap and you can’t tell me otherwise). I’ve gotta get some CULTURE and replicate the (mostly) fine dining experiences I had at these bad boys, which are my London stand outs of the last few months. 

Tavolino, London Bridge

Price Point: £15-30

Tavolino was fucking exceptional and thank god for that, because there is nothing worse than ordering a meat dish and it not feeling worth breaking the veggie streak at the end of it all. Their slow cooked lamb tagliatelle ragu was absolutely sublimeee, and so is the view, with the restaurant sat right on the Thames with the best view you can get of the City area. That’s the bit with all the skyscrapers that isn’t Canary Wharf, lol. When you’re sat with a beautiful dish of pasta in front of you and it’s all lit up, you almost forget all the moral corruption happening over there x

The service was also top tier. We had a waiter whose customer service performance was so elite you could almost believe they didn’t despise all other human beings which I feel at this point is an inevitability of working in a public facing job, lol. Like, he was super attentive but not annoyingly so to the point where you spend more time awkwardly swallowing your food as quickly as possible to feed back your enjoyment than you do actually eating it. 

My pasta was a leeetle bit on the pricier side (by my standards anyway, though relative to other London restaurants it’s one of the affordable ones, if you’re just doing mains and either a starter or dessert for instance). My pasta was probs the most expensive on the menu at about £17, discounting anything including seafood or truffle which are both icks for me anyway. I think I should take that as indication of the fact that my dream of living off the King’s Road is ill-fated, if I hadn’t worked that one out already when my card got declined in the Waitrose there when I tried to buy an own brand soup.

2. Ollie’s House, Chelsea

Price Point: £10-20

Sooo one of the absolute best things about treatment is that the clinic I go to is situated in the South Kensington/Chelsea area, which is how I came across Ollie’s House and a couple of the other faves I’ll mention. I should mention that yes, this is an NHS service, the clinic just happens to be based in Chelsea. I do not share a therapist with any Made in Chelsea cast members so no, I don’t have any wild stories about seeing Jamie Laing have a breakdown in the reception because being an heir to the owners of the UK’s bestselling biscuit company has given him pathological aversion to rich teas, or anything like that, sorry. 

-To clarify, that is a HYPOTHETICAL scenario. Jamie Laing’s family pls don’t sue me for misrepresentation, I’m a devoted fan of digestive biscuits, trust I’m a fan.-

What I do have is the location of one of the best all day brunch locations in London. Before you even get to the food, which constitutes a menu made up of Australian/Indonesian dishes (a fusion that produces reliably dreamy results and is arguably the only good thing to come out of rich Australians gentrification of that region), the interior itself of Ollie’s House is perfect. It’s spacious and airy, but also warm and inviting, full of plants and drenched in a colour palette inspired by sunset on one of Bali’s backpacker infested beaches. I should add here that I’ve never actually witnessed a Bali sunset but…a sunset is a sunset, you know. I’m gonna guess it’s the interior as a whole which gives the beach-y vibes, lol. 

Then there’s my Nasi Goreng which was ARGH. Beautiful, gorgeous, incredible. Rice for brekky, what a concept. Again, super friendly servers, which always adds to the experience.

3. The Jam, Chelsea

Price Point: £15-30

If I had to name just one of the restaurants I’ve visited in London as most worthy of the “hidden gem” title, it is The Jam, without doubt. From the outside it’s nothing flashy and it’s pretty small but the layout is everythinggg! The tables are on balconies! Like little treehouse structures! It’s adorable! I mean don’t get me wrong, you don’t HAVE to sit at one of the balcony tables if you don’t wanna climb the ladder up there (like, if you’re gonna be very thorough in your mission of trialling their very reasonably priced cocktails…perhaps…don’t?) but it’s so fun and makes you feel a little bit like a child again. It kind of does the impossible by creating an atmosphere that’s as lively as it is kitschy whilst still maintaining a sense of intimacy at each table, and general aura of sophistication. Say the food was just…decent, the novelty of the layout would make it worth a visit maybe just for the drinks, but idk, I feel like you can never be TOO disappointed by pizza ffs. What makes The Jam one of my absolute favourites, though, not of just the first half of this year but probably all time, is that the pizza is fucking heavenly and HUGE on that note. Mine was nduja, salami, and burrata and holy shit it was good. Like I am a pizza QUEEN. A good pizza outranks pretty much any other dish bar a good burger. This is up there with Crust Bros in Waterloo and this lil place called Pizza Baracca in my hometown area. This is a niche one because it’s a little family run takeaway in an area where the tourist industry is DYING (something I’m guessing the, uh, multiple recent stabbing as on the beach have a little to do with) but if by some wild and quite honestly bewildering coincidence you ARE reading this, and you have plans to broach the Dorset region over the summer, here’s your Deliveroo back up. You’re welcome. Consider them bonus recommendations xo

4. The Yorkshire Pudding Burrito Company, Kerb Market @ Camden Lock

Price Point: <£10

Look, Camden Lock in general is not what it’s hyped up to be. It is always teeming with people, seemingly regardless of when you visit. But the food on offer at the Kerb Market despite the lack of sheltered, and frequently, actually available, seating, makes it entirely worth a visit; on a warm, dry day you’ve also got the option of walking a little bit further along the canal to find somewhere quieter to eat. There’s a few Kerb street food markets dotted about London, and the South Bank one is a lot closer to me, but it truly pales in comparison. Not only does it house the Mac Factory (truly my bestie back in 2018 when I was in UCL halls and there was a branch at Euston Square station less than 100m away), but it has the Yorkshire Pudding Burrito Company which I’ve always wanted to try. That I spent SO much money on food in first year and passed the second half of it in a binge cycle and in that time, never tried one? A tragedy, lol, because it meant I’ve I spent the last few Christmasses telling myself that the ones they sell at my hometown’s Christmas market would suffice only to chicken out on that aspiration because it felt like a waste to go for the imitation when the real deal was out there. 

But recently, when I’ve travelled back up to London for therapy, I’ve been challenging myself and going through my Google maps list of all the places I bookmarked to eat whilst I was up there and couldn’t face the anxiety of at the time. My sister and I found ourselves in Camden recently for an art exhibition and on this occasion, it seemed like fate to test if it did live up to the expectations I’d formed over the years, which is a rarity. And guysss, the impossible occurred. It ACTUALLY DID. The meat was melt in your mouth tender, full of flavour, and the roasties and garlic and rosemary caramelised veg inside were exquisitely done. For it all to be wrapped in a fluffy Yorkshire pudding though like…ARGH. Otherworldly experience, truly. I know it was just that good because the lack of mint sauce didn’t bother me, and this was something which used to necessitate suppressing the urge to throw hands when I opened the fridge on a Sunday and noted it’s absence. Of all the cravings that stand in the way of going full veggie, a banging roast is one of them.

My last pro tip is that if you’re a caramelised biscuit fan, which it seems we all are atm (and I hope it’s a food trend that, much like Oreo filled/flavoured anything, salted caramel and “gold” chocolate, stands the test of time because I’m obsessed), follow up your Yorkshire Pudding Burrito company wrap with some Lotus flavoured ice cream from the Soho Ice Cream company. It is by far the most reminiscent of an actual lotus biscuit of the ones I’ve tried. There’s also a Chin Chin Dessert Club branch at the lock which is another magnificent way of tying a bow on top of what I advise you make a 3 course meal. If you want a YPBC wrap (I can’t type the whole thing out again, soz) or a Mac Factory pot but you also see something else you can’t resist trying, I say do starters too lol. You will spend more than you would at a sit down restaurant probs but look, if you’re a tourist doing the whole London thing, street food markets are an unmissable staple.

5. Badiani Gelato, various London sites (& Brighton!)

Price Point: £5-10

Anyone I spend any decent amount of time with will know I am an ice cream connoisseur. It’s a toss up with pasta for the one food I could eat forever. It is absolutely no surprise I have a list of every ice cream place I want to visit in London. I’m dedicated to the cause, whatever time of year, and no judgemental looks from McDonald’s staff for ordering a Mcflurry to go in December or tuts from the lunch lady at my secondary school for buying a Feast ice cream for lunch in sub zero temperatures has ever knocked my undying determination to satiate my yearning.

This pursuit continues to the capital and thus far, nothing has come close to Badiani gelato, another one I treated myself to for the first time after a therapy session given there’s one super close. I really can’t see anything tasting quite as good as their salted butter caramel flavour or their signature Buontalenti flavour (the Fior di Latte and white chocolate are fucking incredibleee too). Like listen, say heaven does exist. Say I don’t get to go there. There isn’t an Angel up in that cloud land who could whip up anything this ethereal tasting for God himself. Soo abandoning my disbelief in anything supernatural, if I’m allowed to stay as a ghost lurking on the King’s Road forever, I’ll be okay with that.

I’ve been enough now that I recognise some of the staff and they’re all really sweet and generous with the free samples too, lol, and there’s a cute covered patio area at the back too so you can sit in and eat. In the unlikely circumstance in which anybody with the same niche bucket list comes across this, this needs to be at the top.

6. Unity Diner, Whitechapel

Price Point: £10-25

Vegan cheese is usually pretty rough. I think most of us who eat both that and the real deal can agree. But whatever godly concoction it is Unity Diner drench their Philly Cheesesteak in is enough for them to deserve Vogue’s bestowal of the best Vegan restaurant in London award all on its own because they did the impossible: created something even more bursting with flavour than the dairy cheese on any similar dish I’ve had elsewhere.

Add to that the incredibly friendly, warm and informative service, the interior, the entirely sustainable business model and 100% cruelty free menu, and I hope this place stays open forever. If it becomes one of the long list of Veggie places in London that have shut down the last few years I will be absolutely gutted.

7. Bancone, Golden Square, Soho

Price Point: £10-25

Right off the bat, I do want to make clear that it is the Golden Square branch (not Covent Garden’s) of Bancone I’m hyping up. I’m sure this a statement that is going to absolutely devastate a restaurant which gets entirely booked up until 9pm on weekdays a fortnight in advance, lol, but yes, the former is very much in my bad books. It’s a policy which probably extends to both their branches but look, I got stung in Covent Garden so I’ll be damned if I favour that place. They charged me a £50 no show fee. FIFTY FUCKING POUND. Their most expensive pasta is probably half that price. Let me repeat myself: FIFTY. POUND. We are in a cost of living crisis here! And forgive me pls if I can’t wait for god knows how long for someone to pick up the store phone so I can try and reschedule because they don’t let you do it online if it’s not done days in advance or whatever. I was MAD mad. I sent a very strongly worded email. They did refund me but that I begrudge that I had to go pompous customer mode for that courtesy.

Moving on to the ray of sunshine, anyway, which is the Golden Square branch because I came here for a food love fest not a pile on. Yes, the silk handkerchief pasta is every bit as good as it looks and way more filling than you would think. Our waitress was also so sweet despite the fact she was stunning enough to make me reconsider the boy brow and resembled Dua Lipa. The internalised misogyny had me expecting a lil bit of snobbery and I’m mad at myself for that because I’m almost pleasantly surprised every time a pretty waitress gives good service and this is in spite of my worst service encounters being dished out by male waiters at 2 separate Big Mamma restaurants. Yes, I’m @-ing the guy at Circolo Poppolare who scoffed at one of our party for trying to order a dessert wine with her main (imagine mansplaining wine ffs), and at Gloria who stood glaring at my friend and I as we approached the midway point of what we were reminded was ONLY AN HOUR AND A HALF booking slot the second we walked through the door. He took my cacio e Pepe dish off me the minute I finished my last string of pasta COMPLETELY DISREGARDING THE BOWL OF SAUCE I STILL HAD! Sir, I am a broke student. You’re going to punish me for not being able to afford a multi-course meal by taking away the food I DID order before it’s finished. 

This is really turning into a restaurant rant section, I’m sorry, but I have a lot of feelings about food. Did I mention? I can only apologise. At least you can skim read a post, it’s the people I’ll bore to tears with this shit irl I owe the apology to, whoopsies. The next 3 are short and sweet!

8. Miscusi, Covent Garden

Price Point: £10-20

What Miscusi does really well is balance a quick and casual vibe with stand out service and incredible quality pasta which far surpasses in taste what you’d expect from how affordable it is. It kinda works a bit like Crust Bros (or Subway I guess, lol, which would ofc be worthy of a shout out if it wasn’t like, the world’s largest fast food chain. There are more of them than MDONALDS?!) that although there are preset options the main appeal is the create your own option where you get to pick the pasta, sauce and toppings. I made mine pretty much identical to the truffle vegan pesto pasta with the substitution of the truffle for good old regular sautéed mushrooms because as I’ve said, my taste isn’t that boujie, lol, and it was delicious. Can’t fault it. A perfect pasta dish tbh.

9. Chrome, St.Christopher’s Place

Price Point: £10-15

3 words: Biscoff french toast. Need I say more?

10. Patty & Bun, various sites (cheating, kinda)

Price Point: £10-15

Okay so including Patty & Bun in a London eats section even though there’s one in Brighton isn’t the part that makes it’s inclusion rogue because, like, Badiani has a Brighton branch too and I always tend to think of Brighton as London-on-sea anyway. It’s just that their Smokey Robinson burger (caramelised onions, smoky peanut butter mayo, and then I think the optional addition of chilli jam which stays improving literally any dish ever) is probs what saved me dropping out of uni for the second time at the beginning of 2nd year one night. I was sick of anorexia, sick of how hard it was making the basic organisational tasks required of my degree and sick of the imposter syndrome that came with that. I did what I had to do: flaked on the night at Ministry of Sound I’d organised with friends, stuck on a horror, and ordered myself a burger and fries. I knew reverting to 13 year old Lauren’s coping mechanisms wouldn’t do wonders for my mood in the morning but I also knew that this fuck everything and drop out impulse was just a result of a build up of emotions, culminating in a minor panic attack and that I would be able to think more clearly in the clear light of day, lol. So yeah I can overlook Patty & Bun being a food experience occurring outside of the 2023 window. IT SAVED MY DEGREE. And plus, it’s the only burger I’ve had which rivals the Bournemouth special from Central Story-again, another niche recommendation but it’s blasphemy to talk about burgers without name dropping this place. Both make an unbeatable case for why peanut butter elevates everything. Idk what it is but it truly takes a burger to the next level. And wilder still is HOW its the inclusion of BISCOFF SPREAD in the Bournemouth special that makes it magical!? Can’t explain that one because it sounds like a monstrosity but trust me, it’s mind blowing. I could do an “according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should fly. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible” Barry B Benson style monologue on the matter if anyone wants to challenge my statement on that fact. Like I appreciate that according to all accepted culinary boundaries, this crossover, I.e  lotus, beef, cheese, onions, BBQ and chilli, should be inedible. But whoever the chef at Central Story is, they decided to go where most chefs wouldn’t dare tread and made something gorgeous. A true pioneer. It sounds so rogue but oh, feels SO right.

Now, to go international...

Lisbon, Portugal

I am aware that talking about an entire city as if it’s a cafe you could pop to one afternoon is very much giving Americans talking about going to “Europe” (sans further specification) energy but I only went for a few days and I feel like there’s soooOOo much there, we barely skimmed the surface; a “top things to do” list doesn’t feel warranted! I would LOVE to go back at some point in the near future to give it the rundown it deserves. It gets called the San Francisco of Europe, not that I knew that before, but now having been I resent it because the comparison does Lisbon a complete disservice. I see why the association is made; both are hilly cities with tram systems being the dominant means of transportation, and are situated on a waterfront. They also share near identical bridges. Again, I never knew but Lisbon has a near replica of SF’s Golden Gate landmark. Lisbon’s is smaller but built first by the same people responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge because Portugal’s dictator at the time found out about the plans for the SF version and demanded one too. Dickhead, diva behaviour. But shout out to the Uber driver turned tour guide who told us that.

Having spent the same amount of time in San Francisco 5/6 years ago, though, I prefer Lisbon! It just has more spirit-I know that’s kind of an abstract concept to define but I suppose it has less of the typical American city sheen, where as shiny and new and exciting as everything is, a lot of it seems cold and impersonal, and you know there’s always some pocket of poverty just around the corner that’s been pushed out of sight for the sake of maintaining this image. Lisbon feels more organic and laid back and has a cool, unexpected balance of trendy, hipster-y (I don’t know what other word to use, lol, but I don’t mean hipster in the negative sense as it’s generally used nowadays) areas and eateries, street art and brunch cafes GALORE, as well as older, more traditional streets and architecture teeming with history and the vibrant energy of the local community. Last but not least, let me tell you something about Lisbon: they love a pastry. You’ll find pastelerias, source of the most delicious crossaints known to man, on most streets. Anywhere which counts sweet carbs as constituting a crucial part of the culture is somewhere I’m more than happy to be.

NOW. Seeing as I can’t dedicate a whole section to recommending Cadbury’s Twisted chocolate buttons or Magnum Billionaire ice cream, I’d better move onto the next thing-I don’t think I can quite justify raving about food purchases you can make at your local Asda. So tell your internal monologue to put its best Robbie Williams hat on because this next section has the working title of:

Let MeeeEeE EnterTAIN YOU!

 Let’s talk about my fave distractions of this year:-)

Podcasts

I used to be a music girlie but now all I do is listen to podcasts. I feel very out of touch and uncool because I literally have no fucking idea what’s playing on the radio anymore hence why the prospect of going clubbing nowadays feels like a nightmare, but idk I just feel like I’ve never been someone who’s been engaged by music on its own and when I’m studying new content I find it hard to digest wordy stuff with pounding music. I do want to try and listen to music again but gotta find some way to incorporate it into my routine because I feel like such a fucking grandma at the ripe age of 24. Anyway, for podcasts, here are a few of my faves, ignoring the fact that I’m going outside the box of this post because it was supposed to be confined to things I’ve gotten into this year. It’s my first one though, allow me a little flexibility in this regard. There’s a lotttt of recommendations I must make.

Katherine Ryan’s Telling Everybody Everything: is everything Katherine’s husband says undercover tory coded? Yes. Am I almost certain he’s the kind of guy who admires Elon Musk on the DL? Yes. But I adore Katherine Ryan and could listen to her talk all day. I rarely disagree with her and it is a breath of fresh air to have someone who voices things that do depart slightly from the occasionally frustratingly rigid, moralistic stance of the people I follow. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the online left’s consensus 90% of the time but I do hate how SERIOUSLY everything is taken and the pile-ons that result from an acknowledgedly uninformed, passing comment on an issue, and also the shaming that comes from being interested in something which giving attention to is deemed to contravene interests of that political stance. This is how we talk irl. Your friends don’t accuse you of being a morally defunct person because you have a simplistic or admittedly problematic view on some things. I feel like it’s possible to feel ways we know we shouldn’t and that we know rationally don’t align with our general philosophies and as long as it’s not anything prejudice driven, as long as those convos happen with the adage that we KNOW these opinions are a bit fucked, it shouldn’t be a criminal act to lightly discuss them in a setting free of consequence. I also kind of agree with her stance on comedy, in that there shouldn’t be anything off limits. Ofc, if there’s a pattern of someone making harmful and punch down kind of jokes, criticise them as much as you want. Don’t talk about them! Don’t make them a topic of conversation and bolster their audience! But if we start drawing a hard fast line between what’s punishable and earns an industry blackballing then comedy becomes completely predictable and that element of unpredictability is what makes it entertaining.

Stephanie Harlowe & Derek Lavasser’s Crime Weekly: I mean an interest in true crime may be exactly what I’m referring to when I talk about interests that contravene your expressed political stance because I see a lot of the people I follow online, who are pretty much as far as I know entirely left leaning, disapprove. But morbid curiosity is a human thing and Stephanie Harlowe, both on her podcast and YouTube channel always does it with the best intentions; the ridiculously extensive amount of research she does show an unparalleled level of commitment and intention to do justice (seriously, they have cases they spend about 6 or 7 hour and half episodes on), and even on the most infamous of cases you are bound to come away with a tonne of knowledge of the case that you were unaware was even out there.  I also love the dynamic between her and Derek Lavasser, whose presence is a crucial element of what makes this a standout podcast given his actual first hand experience of investigating cases. I think the best podcasts are those that feel like sitting in on a conversation with friends regardless of how serious the topic is and in Crime Weekly, they always manage to uphold that vibe. Stephanie is very opinionated and I know a lot of people might disagree with that and think we should take a neutral stance when discussing true crime but honestly, if I wanted to do that, I’d read a Wiki page. This is how we talk about things irl. We give our opinions, we have feelings, we relate it to our anecdotal experiences-as long as the line between opinion and fact is clear and respect for the victims is maintained then I don’t see the problem.

Red Handed: I love Suruthi and Hannah. I want to be one of their best mates, lol. Pls girlies, let me be your friend. Again, I know there are probably people out there who would be firmly against any kind of true crime content which has a lighthearted tone but I genuinely do feel like all the laughs come from the dynamic between these two and never at the cost of the victims involved in the cases they’re discussing.

Sounds like a Cult: I loved Amanda Montell’s book Cultish and this is again a podcast where the dynamic between the girls is what separates them from all the other podcasts of a similar nature. I do want to know about current events and the serious stuff that’s going on in the world but there is only so much existential dread a person can take without a bit of levity framing it; Amanda and Isa take a serious subject matter and apply it to something which at face value sounds trivial but results in some genuinely interesting discussions about just how pathological our appreciation of certain fads and individuals truly is.

Books

How to Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie: So technicallyyy, this is kinda cheating again because I read this last summer, lol, but I continue to recommend it above and beyond any book I’ve read in the meantime because it truly is the perfect novel. It’s Gone Girl dark subject matter but in snappy magazine columnist format and that is a feat of genre fusion rivalling the Indonesian Australian blended brunch. 

Boy Parts, Eliza Clark: an actual recent read, and the first knock out of a book I’ve read since How to Kill Your Family. Like, the narrator is a disgustingly awful human being, to the extent that has put me off reading books from the perspective of individuals who meet similar levels of awful in the past (for example, I could never quite get into Lolita). In this, though, it adds to the compulsion to keep going. It’s probs because she is awful in a way that never requires a suspension of disbelief, the kind of way I feel like we glorify in everyday life on a lesser scale, and so the satirical element feels very relevant. At the same time, it’s not so heavy on the satire that some of the left turns the narrative takes and how twisted things become is without impact. I’d say it’s a bit like the book equivalent of watching a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills episode where the women are at their most unhinged but with a more sinister undercurrent, like everything that takes place is referred to as if it’s an mildly scandalous everyday occurrence when in actuality it’s disturbing AF. Imagine watching back the episode where Brandi Glanville yells “at least I don’t do crystal meth in the bathroom all night, bitch” at Kim Richards with the foresight that not only was she on crystal meth but like, her and Kyle were actually in there carving up a body or something. All the dark stuff is woven into the protagonist’s co-occurring everyday mundanities that very accurately capture the worst parts of the mindset and social values of the present and the devastating realisation is like...it all fits, lol.

Television

House M.D (2004-2012): My brain cannot compute that Gregory House and Hugh Laurie are the same person. That thing people always say about standout performances “they brought the character to life”? Hugh DID THAT. He SERVED. His performance alone is arguably enough to make House a great show. But other than that, it’s the perfect blend of drama and levity and almost every series main with only a handful of exceptions is a character you truly want to see flourish. Plus, I love me a 40 min show; an episode of House flies by and I would say there are only about 2/3 throughout the 7 seasons I’ve watched so far I haven’t enjoyed, all of which were a bit too conceptual for my liking. Also can I just say? Wilson and House, one of the most engaging TV duos of all time. For them and them alone, I will condone the use of a word that is in all other circumstances cringe to me, to grant their relationship the title of the GOAT on-screen bromance. 

The Missing (2014-2016):  I do love a good Brit mystery drama, I do.

Search Party (2016-2022): so watchable, so ridiculous, funny as fuck, but also addictive.

Yellowjackets (2021-): A perfect show, truly. And I’ve just got to say...Christina Ricci’s Misty fills the Mona Vanderwaal shaped void in my life that Pretty Little Liars ending created.

Succession (2018-2023): Succession must be one of those shows that’s really annoying if you don’t watch it/tried watching it and weren’t a fan because anybody who does watch it never seems to shut the fuck up about it. But like, chill out, it’s ended now, and I feel like it did so in a way that was satisfying enough that we can put it to bed and appreciate it on reflection like a nice piece of art every now and again, lol. After Game of Thrones, the ending of which left me raging for a solid few months, I think we all breathe a sigh of relief at this point when a really hyped up show ends in a way that actually feels correct, and doesn’t violate everything we’ve been told about the characters right up until that moment. 

Also...with Succession ending, I realllllly hope we can firmly put a lid on the idea of stealth wealth dressing or whatever you wanna call it because I don’t give a fuck if the clothes are expensive, they’re bland, I’m SORRY:( I don’t like subtle, if that isn’t obvious from the Alessandro Michele appreciation, lmao.

Black Mirror, Joan is Awful, 6x01 (2023): Okay so the fact I like, just watched this before writing this post would suggest it would be better placed in 2023 part 2 but I don’t want to acknowledge the horrifyingly fast passing of time so I gotta talk about it now while it’s fresh on my mind. Because what a delight!!! Apart from the movie that came out a few years ago and one or two episodes, Black Mirror hasn’t blown me away in a while. This was like, classic Black Mirror for me. Like left me with an appropriate level of dread so as not to trigger a complete existential crisis but enough to make me physically shudder. It was also, off the top of my head based on foggy memories of past episodes, the funniest episode to date. I never knew Salma Hayek had such great comedic timing and I feel bad for that. I owe her way more appreciation.

The Trashy Stuff..

Married at First Sight: I have never ploughed through reality TV like I have Australian MAFS. I started watching it with my mum and was so incapable of waiting til she was free to watch the season we were on I started simultaneously watching the previous season on my own. We haven’t even finished that season together yet but my solo venture sees me 3 seasons deep at this point. The dinner parties, man! I can’t look away. So much second hand embarrassment, awkwardness and tension that manages to permeate its way through the TV screen and yet despite getting my fill of that in day to day life, I consume that shit like I do carbohydrates in a binge episode, lmao. I won’t deny it probably falls within the vein of exploitative trash TV but you know what, it’s in an exploitative trash TV league of its own and if I go another 10 years down the line without being bothered to go on a date because I GENUINELY FEEL LIKE I HAVE NO TIME!! Sign me up. Producers exploit TF out of me. Give me the awkward recluse who just does not have the energy for the shit that interaction with a solid 60% of men entails edit if you want, though the driven career woman who is just above them all works too xoxo I’ll make the same argument I make about Big Brother and say that I genuinely do think there’s at least a pat of me which enjoys it from the psychological perspective, like putting humans in high-stakes unknown territory has our common pathologies spilling out allll over the place to observe in the bright light of day/the TV’s fluorescence but yes, ofc my engagement with it goes beyond educational purposes. It must be a known fact that I love watching some toxic individuals because it came highly recommended to me; whilst it shouldn’t be a good thing if my friends think it’s on brand for me, I’ll take that hit to any illusions I have of my refinement if’s what brought this show into my life. 

Love Island: It’s in a similar vein to MAFs, but look, I have no shame in admitting that there are some summer days where knowing LI is airing later in the day is all that keeps me going. I need structure in my life. Time is a human construct but ITV2′s programme schedule is NOT and if this show airing at 9pm every night is all that’s set in stone I’ll take it. No speak of guilty pleasures here. Straight up pleasure. It’s trash, it’s staged, it’s shallow, blah blah blah, but it’s in this brief period when the annual summer season airs I feel a sense of NATIONAL UNITY that, for once, doesn’t stem from something a little too closely aligned with things you’d see or hear at an EDL rally. England is really lacking in things to feel patriotic about that don’t have some kind of murky colonialist past, lmao.  So SUE ME. It’s giving judgemental. If you want to miss out on the top tier comedy going on this far this season (best cast in years I thinkkk) then that’s your loss. 

Film

Maybe mentioning some of my fave movies in this post issss taking a slight shortcut by removing the need to include them in my eventual film list buuut anyways idk, I love going to the cinema and a post like this would feel compete without naming a few standouts. For the sake of emulating a film ranking post, assume all these would fall under God tier:

Barbarian, dir. Zach Cregger (2022): A bit of a creature feature and a wild ride from start to finish. Definitely has the qualities of a modern classic horror, relatively simple narrative but definitely layered and open to interpretation if that’s your kinda thing.

M3gan, dir. Gerard Johnstone (2022): I could definitely get a roasting for including M3gan on this list and by implication, that it warrants a God Tier ranking but like 1). I’ve gone on for sooOOo long now that I doubt anybody who has got to this point has the brain power left to process this controversial stance and 2). even if this does register, I am willing to die on the hill of it being a perfect movie anyways. There’s probably plot holes, nonsensical writing and bad acting galore, but if there was I didn’t notice it because I was having a WHALE of a time. Sign me up to rewatch this at the cinema over a night out any day. Hear me out…it’s all the issues and psychology debates about artificial intelligence and the singularity and attachment theory and the dark stuff that might entail, yes, on what is probably a very, very shallow level, a massively take on all that stuff I’m sure many will argue but okay, nerd!!!! Live a little! It’s of the moment! Isn’t horror supposed to take that thing we’re all really afraid and exploit the fact that we know, like, next to nothing about the science of it all to paint some utterly ridiculous worst case scenario!? For whatever reason I can think of 0 examples of this right now, but I’m sure there’s some smart video essays out there about it that will explain it in an intellectual, less indignant way, lol. Like maybe I’m just amalgamating a bunch of unrelated facts in my mind here and coming out with some bullshit false statement but I’m suuuure I have read/seen/watched a video about how the vampire craze within horror has some kind of origin in tuberculosis panic hundreds of years ago. Don’t quote me on that! The only thing I’m sure on here, that I take zero issue with being quoted on, in which I have no qualms saying, is that M3gan was WILD!! ICONIC!!! It’s Chucky for the Elon Musk girlbossgaslightgatekeep era. Giving campy halloween classic. I'm standing my ground on this one.

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, dir. Halina Reijn (2022): Imagine Bodies, Bodies, Bodies being your English language debut and still managing to capture the most annoying aspects of the speech patterns we’ve (and when I say we, I mean American and English youth, and yes, I include myself in that lol) developed this well. Uncanny. Even more impressively is how Halina Reijn is able to set the scene to communicate that very particular chaotic energy that hangs in the air when you put a bunch of intoxicated people with a messy group dynamic in a room together. The kind that unifies a startup company’s christmas do for their employees with a teenage house party. Like everyone’s kind of wild and throwing their weight around and letting off steam. The suffocating weight of the school/office/retail/what-have-you environment is lifted and at first the mood is electric and people who usually can’t stand each other are laughing together, getting on like a house on fire. But you KNOWW, you just know, someone’s gonna unleash some uncomfortable truth at any second, pull it back like an arrow back through the bow, fire it straight into the target and send half the room feral. Halina brought that dangerous kind of excitement to the screen in a way I don’t think any other director has managed in recent years, besides perhaps Gaspar Noé with Climax, but this was a lot more fun. It isn’t quiteeee on the same level but Bodies, Bodies, Bodies does the same kinda thing that the first Scream movie did in the 90s in making a film that is equal parts horror to Pandora’s Box for this moment in history, putting all the worst traits of our collective psyche in the...spotlight? Strobe light? Glowstick light? It’s glowsticks that were all over the ad campaign, right? She even got the Y2K aesthetic craze nailed down there, didn’t she.

 •Scream VI, dir(s). Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (2023): 

That segue, honestly. The stuff of legend.

Admittedly, I didn’t make the Scream/Bodies, Bodies, Bodies comparison just for that purpose. But it does round off the post in a very satisfying way so I’ll pat myself on the back for it regardless. 

Speaking of legends...see, clunky when intentional...

I have to, of course, gas up this year’s Scream. Howwww there’s been soOoo many at this point and how they continue to be wonderful yet consistently on brand, when the brand in question could so easily go stale, is a marvel. It’s probably the franchise that got me into horror (or maybe Final Destination, it’s a toss-up) and if I’d watched something like the Insidious series first I don’t know if I’d be the horror fan I am today, possibly deprived of my beloved genre. Like I started watching them back when I still believed in ghosts and I was super sensitive to high levels of what they tend to categorise as “threat” or “suspense” which seems to be code for supernatural stuff. Now I’m a non-believer (lol) I love the supernatural stuff just as much when there’s a good story but I will always, and clearly have always, loved a good slasher, especially with a sense of humour. Scream is truly the prototype for that. It never misses. 

Plus, side note, I love that they gave Sidney closure. It shows confident writing, which again is something the films always deliver on. Similarly, the casting of Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera as the series’ new protagonists makes perfect sense; a new Scream is an instalment that never disappoints.

Much like...this post? 

Let’s just pretend that was an intentionally awful segue for the sake of continuity and not me having no idea how to tie a bow on this fucking ESSAY from me. Whoops.

But yeah!!

I guess that covers it all! She says after a post that supersedes the word count of your average dissertation, which is probably the crux of why I struggle with academic essay writing, lol. I love a waffle, cannot help myself. It’s a need that would ordinarily be satisfied through the medium of creative fiction writing but until I finish coursework anything requiring deep and meaningful thought is out of the question. One can only hope I don’t completely flop my degree and that by summer 2024, posts of this nature will be significantly shorter. In the meantime though, I do have a couple of photo dominated posts planned, including finally posting what we’ll call a master post of all the FW22 shows I didn’t finish covering, as well as SS23 which are actually of relevance to balance out the notion that it’s just a content dump (which it essentially is but idk, we all love a good runway photo set). Blame Tumblr’s stance on the female nipple which means fashion week posts are always delayed because I have to go back and photoshop out all the tatas. As welll as that I have an outfit post planned which is one of my faves I’ve everrrr done and basically another “sitting front row at” thang. 

And to anybody who comes across this post on the recovery tag and reads that section, please don’t hesitate to inbox me. In fact, I’d love it if you did, regardless of whether or not it extends to anything beyond that. Like I said as well, constructive criticism is much appreciated, though I love hearing people’s recovery stories too. To anyone who identified with my ramble and is struggling too, I’m sorry you’re dealing with this and I’m sorry it likely feels as if no one understand. I do and lots of people do and even if it’s not fully fledged formal treatment there are recourses out there. Suggestions in that regards are very encouraged!

But yeah! In summary, love & hugs to all!:D

Lauren xx