#so there’s a lot of internalised nonsense going on

[vigilantejustice]

new melb friends were talking about how they were so touch–starved and hadn’t been with a guy in a couple years and i was just like “oh yeah so relatable me too girl” about it because the last sort of tangentially intimate thing in my life was my half–baked high school crush but then found myself very. enamoured? taken? fascinated? by the lady security guard at the barricade and it has been a weird time trying to a) name whatever that feeling was and b) reconcile that with my understanding of myself as someone who has precluded themselves from romantic and/or intimate situations as a rule

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Back on my analysis nonsense but not quite awake enough to write a full essay right now so please enjoy this snippet of analysis about Inej, language, and the word “girl”. It’s all stuff I’ve talked about before but I haven’t given it’s own post before and I’ve been rereading some of my old stuff to get back in the mindset so I thought I’d bring this back up because I find it really interesting - I’m also really hoping to write the post about Fruszi that I’ve been planning on doing for basically since season 2 came out tomorrow or at least very soon so hopefully that won’t be too long

Inej Ghafa, Language, and the Word “Girl”

⚠️As always in my analyses, constant spoilers ahead!! 🖤

⚠️I’m going to talk about Inej’s trauma and her ptsd, and this post will also possibly include references to the other characters’ trauma and ptsd as well

Hi okay it’s been a while since we did this and I realise it’s probably the reason most of you follow me so sorry about that but let’s jump right in - I often say it’s after midnight and I’m thinking about Soc so let’s talk but today I actually have to say it’s almost midnight and I’m thinking about Six of Crows, so let’s talk: Inej’s internalised misunderstanding of the Kerch word for “girl”.

In the Bathroom Scene during Crooked Kingdom (which I have a full analysis posted of if anyone would like to read it; I can tag you or you can follow the link in my pinned post), we see Inej at the point she allows herself to be most vulnerable with another character. I think we forget this because we know much more about it than they do, but the other Crows know very little about what Inej went through at the Menagerie - Kaz himself in that very scene describes having “the barest inkling of what she’d endured there” - and previously when we’ve learnt anything about her experiences they have mostly been through flashbacks that Inej experienced during other events of the book. On the boat to Fjerda, in the surgeon’s cabin with Nina, Inej battles with flashbacks and insists Nina sing to her and teach her the chorus of the song to try and distract herself - Nina of course knows that something is going on, but only the reader is actually told what’s happening in Inej’s head - and when she has a flashback at Sweet Reef (the man who smelled of vanilla) she’s alone until Dunyasha arrives. This scene with Kaz is really the only time we see her express herself and, as openly as she can, attempt to speak about some extent of what she went through out loud. I’ve dissected a lot of what she says in this scene in the past and formed theories about it before, but I haven’t talked as much about this quote:

“Tante Heleen wasn’t always cruel”

After this introduction she goes on to explain the emotional abuse and manipulation that Heleen put her through, going so far as to specify that because endearment became something akin to danger she flinched the first time Nina hugged her, and she also mentions in the scene that sometimes when Jesper puts his arm around her she feels like she’s going to vanish. This particular description of Heleen has very strong parallels to descriptions of Van Eck’s abuse of Wylan, and though I don’t want to go into that in too much detail now bc I’ve talked about it before and how their parallels are what create a lot of the Wylan/Inej parallels I do think that it’s a relevant thing to mention as I bridge into the next quote I want to bring up; when Van Eck takes Inej captive and is claiming that he has treated her like this because this is what he know her to expect from her life experiences, she internally comments that he sounds like Heleen and we get a memory of this quote:

“Why do you make me do these things? You bring these punishments on yourself, girl”.

This obviously had very strong links to the way Van Eck abuses Wylan and teaches him to actively blame himself, which I’ve talked about in the last, but I also want to add that it’s so interesting when we see Heleen call Inej “girl” because she very rarely uses terms that don’t actively dehumanise her/any of the other children at the Menagerie. Of course the use of the epithet is still a big part of the way Inej was denied identity at the Menagerie, remember she audibly sobbed when Kaz said her real name out loud the night she left, but it doesn’t necessarily hold the same immediate, discomforting effect that other epithets Heleen uses, such as “little Lynx” (actively diminishing and dehumanising Inej whilst using an oxymoronic phrase to effectively imply that she is a tamed animal and even though she should be able to fight free she never will. As a side note linked to this, the word “little” is often used derogatorily towards Inej, most obviously by Heleen and Van Eck and most notably when she breaks his nose and he shouts “you little wretch! You little whore!” and she replies “go on Van Eck, tell me all the little things I am”). But I would actually argue that when Heleen uses the word “girl”, she intends it with all the same dehumanisation as she does “Lynx”.

Throughout Inej’s experiences in the duology, the word “girl” is used almost exclusively in two ways: 1) as an insult, 2) possessively. Whenever the children at the Menagerie are referred to as “girls” it is always in a possessive context, for example these quotes are the Ice Court Heist when Inej is wearing the Lynx silks:

“… in front of her girls”

“Your girl will be returned to you”

“Where is my girl?”

“That is not my girl”

And this is an ongoing theme throughout the books. However, the idea is most obviously presented in a quote by Inej herself, and this is where it quite truly breaks my heart:

“not really people, not even really girls.”

Okay I'm really tired and this post is already longer than I was planning so from this point forth everything in the quotation marks is directly taken from another post where I talked more briefly about this:

' As if “girls” and “people” are two separate entities. As if “girls” are not human. This is the language and the attitude that she was surrounded by at the Menagerie and is still surrounded by in the city, and what was forced upon her throughout her experiences in the country. But you know what else might be a genuinely horrifying little detail of this????? Inej may have actually taught herself that the words “people” and “girls” are not synonymous. Because when Inej was brought to Kerch she wasn’t fluent in the language, she spoke some of it and quickly learnt the rest through circumstance, so if this was the way she heard Kerch people use the word “girl” this is how she would internalise the definition of it. I hope this makes sense I’m not sure if I’m relating my thoughts very clearly, it’s kind of like how Matthias was forced to learn Kerch because he was in a Kerch prison so he doesn’t know words that would easily come to him in Fjerdan, like the snow goggles, but instead of simply having gaps Inej has actually learnt a false grammar system that defines “girl” as a dehumanising term because it means someone who is less than or someone who is property. '

I feel like I might have had something to add but if I did then I have forgotten it; if it return to me in the morning then I will return to add it but for now I am going to bid you all goodnight. Thank you for reading these mad ramblings and I hope they made some semblance of sense and/or were interesting <33

⚠️This is a theory and this is my personal literary interpretation; I am not saying that this is an intentional choice made by Leigh Bardugo, though it may be I have no idea, and I am not saying that you have to agree with me. Literary analysis is not about presenting one definitive answer, and if you have either differing interpretations or further points you’d like to add then please do as I would love to read them! <3

[65thgames]

Okay now that we've sorted THAT here are some of my actual harvey headcanons (some loosely based on my fanfic that's in the works)

-I think when he was younger, I'd say 18-early twenties, he had a bit of a rebellious phase. Not necessarily as wild as most people's, but for him it was massive. He had internalised a lot of his insecurities and issues from his failed dreams and just general stress. So he became a bit untamed to try and fit in with the others, as he wasn't sure where he belonged. Certainly not in aviation (he's known this for a while), and he feels like an imposter within the medical field . So where else does he fit in?

-As expected this did not work. Someone tell him pushing away and bottling his issues isn't good for him bc he sure as hell won't tell himself. He was never able to feel like he fully fit in with the rest, like everyone else was speaking a sort of language that he was never given the dictionary for (yes I hc him as autistic).

-His relationship with his family now that he's older is more business-like than it is familial. He'll visit for major holidays, maybe stop by when he's near, but even in childhood he was always closer to his extended family. I don't think his parents were cruel, but I think that they were very strict, no nonsense people. They didn't support his inital dreams. Not because they didn't care for him, but rather because they thought they were unrealistic. Why be a pilot (when he's got bad vision anyways) when he can be a lawyer just like his father? Why be a pilot when he can become a doctor, like his brother? As a result I think he unconsciously associates his pain from his failed dreams with his parents.

-A lot of the food he "dislikes" in game don't actually come from not liking the taste. Instead he's conditioned himself into not liking overtly "unhealthy" foods to try and maintain his image of a good doctor. He already feels like an imposter in his profession, so he uses tactics such as these to try and lessen the feeling. Who needs therapy am I right?

-But despite this, he is a huge hypocrite. He is aware of this. He preaches health but then eats microwave meals in his secluded apartment where he doesn't need to keep up his mask. If any of you are familiar with Goffman's dramaturgical analogy, it's exactly like that in my eyes. His "backstage" is his home. But the main stage is Pelican Town. And he uses props moreso in the form of abstract things to build his mask of a good doctor, believing he cannot be effective if he's "just Harvey."

-Random but he's an olive AND marmite person. Not together, obviously. But trust that man has a jar of marmite in his cupboard, and one of these for his olives. His sister gifted to him over a decade ago. He's surprised it hasn't broken yet.

-His first big buy for himself was a turntable. It was his pride and joy and he'd polish it often. He still has it. Obviously we know he likes Jazz, but I feel like his dirty secret is that he listens to country on the down low. Shh don't tell anyone.

-He's gotten into only a few physical fights in his life. Most were when he was in school. But one was an alleyway fight he got into whilst defending his sister from a creep. Trust me, poor Harvey got his fair share of a beating. But that's the day he learned he can throw a punch if he wants to. However since them he's gotten a bit more out of shape. He could still punch someone, but he's a gentle giant so give him a second to stretch and practice his breathing techniques he gets anxious okay. (unless its for someone else. If someone he loves is in danger he'll go in, ham stretches be damned. He'll pay for it in the morning though.)

-On the note of gentle giant, I think Harvey was a surprisingly short kid. He shot up around age 13, though, and didn't stop for a while. He was asked to be on the basketball team, and he did try out whilst he was still trying to find himself. That dream ended quickly when he got a basketball to his face and it broke his glasses in half.

-On the topic of sports, I think he's a pretty fast runner but he does have limitations. When he was a kid/preteen, he had asthma. He's grown out of it mostly, but he still gets attacks from time to time. Now that he's older, it's because his body has started catching up to him. Sure he'll run a few laps for a charity run, but give him an icepack for his bad knees okay.

-He started greying fairly young. He's very insecure of it, because as he was growing up one of his most prominent features was his hair.

-Since we're talking about appearance, I know that man has good cheekbones.

-His eyes are hazel but he just calls them brown.

-The most he's ever let someone in was Elliott, but even then he keeps him at a firm arm's length. He's not good at letting down his guard at all until the farmer.

-He's had a few relationships and a few hookups, but they've never really stuck. He doesn't like hookup culture so he no longer participates in it. I think Harvey doesn't fall for people often because he's so guarded, but when he does it's hard and fast and usually soul destroying.

-Cries at the lion king

-He's neither a cat or a dog person. He has no preference, he loves both for different reasons. Cats are laid back, independent and (usually) quieter. Dogs are floppy and silly. If the farmer has a pet/multiple, he usually has to be attacked with a lint roller before leaving for work every day. I'm talking airport security pat down core.

-This man is TERRIBLE with technology. He definitely does the millennial pause god forbid he ever has to send a video to someone. He's not very well versed with the new meanings people have assigned to emojis and slang. So never text him "HELPPP 😭" unless you want your house barged into at 3am by Harvey with a medical bag.

That's all I've got for now

[vigilskeep]

wait when were zev and anders called slurs? :o i haven't played any mlm romance!

homophobia banter highlight reel i guess. shoutout to seb for making it on here because varric has something deeply wrong with him and is exclusively homophobic to the one of like two not openly bisexual people in his friend group

in general my point is that like. this was homophobic. if people didnt. uh. clock that oghren’s violent reactions and references to manskirt-wearing freaks were that. i’m using oghren as my main example because he’s the most overt. (generally orzammar’s dedication to lineage throughout the castes seems to give it more rigid gender and sexuality roles; there’s also significantly more overt sexism.) with zev and anders, it’s also compounded by fantasy racism and prejudice, in particular that male elves and male mages are both seen as effeminate in southern thedas. this isn’t just oghren. uh, for example, if a male hawke romances anders or fenris, gamlen, who iirc is as directly homophobic as it gets in da2, will make the comment ��i guess i don’t have to ask which one of you’s the girl”. he’ll also make a fetishising comment about female hawke and isabela

otherwise. uh what might people not have clocked. zevran only flirts with a female warden in his introductory scene, due to his real, not unfounded concern that it will make a male warden more uncomfortable with him and, let’s not put too fine a point on it, thus more likely to kill him. zevran’s discussion of being bisexual himself is incredibly loaded and as i recall involves a fair bit of internalised something. from my delvings into the toolset, if you romance him as a man, you seem to have countless opportunities to break off the relationship specifically saying it’s because you’re both men and you can’t do this, including as late as the second time he offers you the earring. generally the male warden romancing zevran has a lot of internalised homophobia coded dialogue options when you ask him about his sexuality and when others ask you about the relationship—you can express dismay that zevran has told anyone, for example, while asking leliana not to say anything—and it’s fairly heavily implied that you’re likely to be more unfamiliar with such things

with anders, the most glaring example off the top of my head is that he doesn’t tell female hawkes about karl. a lot of the gendered differences in the anders romances are from homophobia/biphobia on a writing level as well, but considering that we’re not buying into “playersexual” nonsense i think it’s also fair to read this in-world as anders choosing not to bring that up to a woman who’s interested in him/someone he doesn’t know he has this in common with. the dialogue again treats anders as more experienced and gives male hawkes the opportunity to act surprised/uncertain even when they are the one to flirt first

this is basically just. if you didn’t clock that, that’s going on here! in general, heterosexuality is an assumed norm in thedas, and particularly characters coded as andrastian and fairly naive/inexperienced like alistair or bethany will express surprise or confusion about it and not pick up on implications. particularly noble characters will be expected to continue bloodlines and make political unions, for example, the inability of a female warden to marry anora or a male warden to marry alistair, even though it’s possible to do the m/f version of those political marriages without any kind of romance. that’s a pragmatic concern about the succession in a world that values bloodlines and thus comes with a certain heteronormativity. at the same time, there’s not so deep a stigma as you might expect if directly translating from our world, so to speak; it’s much more about the hope of continuing families and the importance of that in this world than there seeming to be any kind of explicit religious stigma? although it should be noted that the andrastian story focuses on andraste and the maker in what is treated as an m/f marriage and might be considered an ideal

for example, leandra will make an offhand, semi-teasing comment about finding hawke an opposite gender spouse, which i think is her hope of hawke managing to settle into kirkwall noble society and continue the family line when there is, in most worldstates, little to no hope of the other surviving hawke sibling having children. but at the same time, she’s casually accepting of hawke being in a queer relationship, will lightly mention it in dialogue, and makes no comment about anders or merrill moving in. i’d take that as kind of a baseline level of understanding for southern thedas, though it also varies from nation to nation, culture to culture, person to person, and class to class

i hope that makes it clearer ??

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/730572795212398592/what-is-up-with-all-the-trans-men-on-this-hellsite?source=share

As a trans man, I might have some insight into this one. I'm a lot older than the standard uwu sparkle anti, but I was in my mid twenties for the first wave of weirdness about trans boys on Tumblr about a decade ago, so I was just too old for it then, and I saw a lot of guys my age and a little younger get swept up in it.

OTNF rightly points out that young trans men are a particularily vulnerable demographic. This is part of it, but we're also a demographic that doesn't sit comfortably with our identites (gender identities or otherwise) and are told by everyone (on every side) that we are Doing It Wrong, that our existence harms others, and that we must be this specific way to be good people.

I'm sure you've seen the "trans men are better than real cis men" rhetoric. It's meant to be inclusive and to reassure us that we're not bad people just because of our gender, but it also denies us our entire gender identity.

So basically, you've got a bunch of young guys, most of whom were socialised like girls and learned to never be too assertive, many of whom are straight up suffering from dysphoria and stress, being told by people both within and outside of their communities that the are Wrong and Bad and Harmful just for existing. It makes sense that a lot of them would would find a movement based on moral posturing that will accept them if they perform correctly and will use their real name and pronouns. That's what Antis are; they say "use this vocabulary, send hate mail to that person, put these terms in your DNI, don't be caught reading that story", and, unlike other groups that police people's tastes and performance that hard, they're not overtly hostile to trans identities. So you can spout the right rhetoric, use the right tumblr icon, and they will actually accept you (on the surface, for a time, but we're talking about young and desperate people who aren't looking at the long game).

Helping them harass those badwrong horrible NOTP shippers or aces or middle aged women or some random artist who got caught drawing the wrong age gap or whoever is the fashionable target will prove that you aren't a horrible monster for being a man, you're moral and upright and correct.

And yes a lot of it is internalised misandry (that word has a lot of dumb baggage, but how else can I describe a boy who hates himself for being a boy?), or self-loathing born of dysphoria and just plain having to live in a world that's hostile to trans people.

Being an anti is a way out. It's a way to manufacture acceptence. And they're too young and too hurt to realise that that acceptance is as temporary and hostile as the people who accept them only if they pretend to be girls; the antis will turn on them the moment they start acting a little too manly or if they're caught liking the wrong ship.

(I've seen something similar happen to young cis queer guys and trans girls, too, but it isn't as pronounced since being raised as a boy means you probably already learned that standing up for yourself is ok sometimes)

--

I'm sure it also doesn't help that tumblr is absolutely full of BL/slash fandom. There's certainly plenty of gender diversity in these spaces, but it's inescapable that the majority of participants are women. So for a young, insecure guy trying to assert that he is a guy, it's easy to fall prey to "Waaaah, I need to reclaim my hobby for me!" gatekeepy nonsense.

Sure, it's going to be turned on nbs even harder than on cis women and will be used to misgender other trans men in the end and misogyny isn't cool anyway, but that's not what your average traumatized young fool is thinking when they first join up. They're thinking "I hurt."

TBH, though, probably the largest component is that all of us—all of us—have a mental image of a default human for a given context. It's rarely a trans man. And so anything a trans man does stands out and is A Thing Trans Men Do.

This is true even if you are trans. It is true even if you are not a transphobic dickhead. Unlearning the 'why girls are bad at math' xkcd strip is extraordinarily hard because recognizing patterns and having mental defaults is just how human brains work.

There are shittons of cis women who become antis, but they're just not notable in the same way.

Are trans men more vulnerable to becoming antis? It's possible, and the reasons you outlined above are likely why. I think it's an interesting question to discuss if we are specifically discussing why the trans men who do become antis do so.

But we don't actually have any hard facts to support that they are more prone to it than anybody else. My guess would be that vulnerable people are more likely to become antis, so any cis woman with a strong source of vulnerability like a shittastic home life is similarly vulnerable to a young trans man with no support network, but who knows.

Maybe only 5% of trans men on tumblr are antis and 50% of cis women. Maybe it's 90% of trans men and 20% of cis women. Maybe it's 1% and 1% and they're just all very loud.

We have no data. We just don't know.

And we will never be able to trust our own brains on this until trans vs. cis is such a nonissue that we don't even notice it.

[pomegrnteseed]

it's all political, babe

people use the phrase 'we live in a society' a lot, but i'm going to use it here too; fandom is not removed from the society we live in. fandom is a reflection of the society, because it is members of society that make up fandom. just like the internet is not unbiased because people built it and people use it, fandom is not unbiased because people create within it.

you may not wish to interrogate your biases, your beliefs, your ideologies, your opinions while engaging with fandom, but that does not mean that those things are not working subconsciously or overtly in the choices you make when you read fics or enjoy artwork.

dhr is especially political. i said it in a tweet the other day, but draco lucius malfoy was the child of supremacists, raised to espouse fascist ideology. he was radicalised, he was a child soldier, he was groomed. for draco fans to claim that they engage apolitically is nonsense. i hate most everything joanne rowling stands for, but she was writing a book about fascism that was (riddled with problematic ideas and language, but) an accessible route for younger readers to understand the realities of supremacist notions of heritage and ethno-centric belonging. in other words, voldemort and his followers' obsession with parentage, with blood, with purity - it's the same thing hitler and the nazis were obsessed with. and their methods were the same too - ostracise, eradicate, overpower. sound familiar?

to divorce yourself so wholly from the reality of israel's ongoing genocide in palestine is to side with the oppressor. genocide relies on complicity via silence - to say nothing is to suggest it's okay. to argue that x isn't political or y isn't that deep is to fundamentally, forcefully turn away. you need to stop flinching. wokeness isn't a fun term to bandy around, it comes from Black american activism - it's time to wake up to the reality of the situation.

dhr fandom will remain political because it was based in a universe of politics. it catalogued the catastrophic outcomes of weak governments (cornelius fudge may you burn in hell), of fascist leaders (fuck you a million times over umbridge), of apathetic masses, of complicit media, of the power of public perception. it's far from the best example of these things where fictitious representations are concerned, but these things are literally woven into the entire narrative of the harry potter series. to say you don't want to see it is to contort your logic so brutally that i cannot in good faith see anything but wilful ignorance and a whole lot of internalised discomfort.

it's okay to not feel good about the things you like reading. it's okay to recognise that fiction is a fantasy land for paper dolls to smash. but it's not okay to pretend that these fantasy worlds are not founded in realities, are not reflected in the geopolitical status of the world now and historically. it's not okay to decide it's not for you because fascism affects us all. the state of the us, the uk, and europe in particular is fucking terrifying. read the news - far right ideologies are gaining more than 10% of the public vote at elections. fascism means ultranationalism (hatred of imagined Outsiders), suppression of opposition, dictatorship, militarised governance. it's literally happening around us. we are living it. and that's terrifying. it's natural to be scared. to want to flinch. to want to escape and pretend.

but you can't escape into dhr fandom and pretend that those exact same things aren't the lifeblood of dlm's backstory. that's a dissonance you cannot afford to grow.

if you look at some of the most read dhr fics: Manacled; The Auction; Secrets and Masks; From Wiltshire, With Love - they deal with the politics of war, of fascist ideology, of violence. The are also love stories, they are stories of hope, they are detailed depictions of how much we lose in the fight against hate.

we cannot have our cake and eat it too. we cannot say we are not getting involved in discussions of genocide that affect us all, because these discussions determine the world order. while we remain silent, we allow our governments to pretend their inaction is the will of the people. while we're silent, we give them a scapegoat; us. we cannot sit idly by and wait for someone else to come along. isn't that one of the characteristics we love most about hermione jean granger? her endless capacity for love (not mushy love, but active, hard-won love that forces people to keep going, that moves mountains with its sheer strength). hjg is a beacon for a lot of us in that way, never stopping after the war with her fights for the rights of all creatures, critters and magical folk. she's righteous. she's horrified by injustice. and if we say we love her, the idea of her, this pervasive fanon notion of her unrelenting fight for a better world, how can we not be moved into acting the same way? how can we read the works of others who have clearly noticed the themes and used this fandom as a vehicle for exploring the nature of fascism, the kernel of undying hope, and still refuse to acknowledge the realities these stories draw on and reflect?

i don't think we can in good faith.

living in a world embroiled in war, fascism, power struggles is exhausting. and we do come to fandom to escape. but we also come to fandom to share and learn and collectively despair and hope. we can't have nice things while we peddle the lie that fandom is apolitical, because it does those who gift us their hearts and souls in fics and fanart a huge disservice. it's not just paper dolls doing horny things. it's not just a romance story for the ages. it's real lives and real fears and real stakes. please treat it as such.

[alexbkrieger13]

Just a random thought but the Pulse club shooting happened 8 years ago. As an american I always felt so insecure doing everything, I've suffered 3 shootings/almost shootings in all my life but that attack changed something because it was an LGTB club.

I was 13 back then and sadly I knew this things happened everywhere, also in Europe with the rise of ISIS but this was a raging homophobe with a gun. I was starting to innocently believe that I "wasn't like what everyone wanted me to be" and right when I started to want to know what I felt about myself this happened.

The wave of fear that came upon me was so big that I forced myself to date men for years until a few years ago: I met a girl in college whose brother survived the attack, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. We got on immediately but every time we were alone I felt unease, I backed away from her touch and at parties I put up bathroom excuses to force myself to make out with some random guy and she was always left alone watching and left.

One day I met her brother and he said something about woso to which I replied passionately, he smiled and said that we had a lot in common but deep down I already knew that. I was so scared to hear that and he felt it, apologised and told me that because of what he had lived (and what I did too) life is to short to be unhappy just because you fear what's going to happen to you for being yourself and happy with it.

I kept his words in my mind and tried to embrace what I was and what I felt, I didn't panic with her touches or back down or avoid her, instead I actively looked for her which was hard because I'm so shy

A few months after the conversation with his brother she came crying to my room at campus at 4AM because she couldn't sleep and was confused, I had given her some signals then another ones then another and she couldn't bear it anymore because she liked me but also didn't want to make things weird or force me onto anything I didn't want. We had a very deep conversation and she felt asleep afterwards so the next day before classes I made her breakfast, bought her flowers, carried her bags on the way to uni, gave her my jacket because the AC was overpowered, voluntarily seek her hand and finally invite to a freaking date: all the things I deep down wanted to do but held because of internalised homophobia.

We have been dating for exactly a year now, I'm the happiest person on Earth and I'm extremely proud to call myself a queer nonbinary.

All this nonsense blurb has the single purpose of please inviting you to accept who you are, because you deserve to be happy just like that. Peace and love people, love yourselves <3

How on earth has it been 8 years...its probably the first one that I really remember happening and I was similar just turned 14 years old and just figuring out things about myself, and then that happened.

internalised homophobic is really had to work through so fair play to ya for embracing the person you truly are.

[swiftbluelightning]

While I rest, I suppose now is a good time to properly introduce myself.

My name is Astra, and I am a half-elf. Before I Fell into this region, I was a wandering wizard, and I've definitely kept some of my magic, if not my supplies. I am approximately fifty-seven years of age, which in human terms puts me at the equivalent of someone in their late twenties to mid thirties. It's a wide range but comparing ages and maturity is hardly an exact science.

Since Falling I have decided to embark on a journey to fill a Pokédex and challenge the gyms of this region, and have also ended up entangled in whatever nonsense Team Plasma is plotting.

My team, thus far:

-Sce��lang (Stoutland, F)

-Quake (Excadrill, M)

-Lilieae (Lilligant, F)

-Blight (Scolipede, M)

-Coral (Swanna, F)

-Fulgor (Galvantula, F)

//OOC info under the cut

wazzup

so if you're familiar with @thedangerstranger, that's me! this has nothing to do with that. Astra is an entirely unrelated OC that i realised fit the story of Pokémon White and its themes pretty nicely and i've wanted something to do with her for a while, so i dug out a DS and my copy of the game and got to work.

as you may have identified by the fact she has held a team plasma grunt at knifepoint and held no regrets, Astra is, uh, a little fucked up, and thus violence is going to be a semi-common occurence. bear that in mind if it makes you uncomfortable. further, her blog and story are going to touch on matters of mental illness, internalised ableism, and disordered eating a lot if those topics distress you.

[myriad-of-things]

Okay, so, the hagsfiend headcanons >:D

First, I am a simple person: I see dragons, I have to at least check out the idea, so when Lasky introduced Penryck "the Sky Dragon" and then did so little with him, I was very disappointed and made up a few headcanons about him:

- in the First Collier it is mentioned that Arryn had a son; my headcanon is that Penryck met Arryn's son first and he, in turn, convinced Arryn to hire Penryck (because I doubt Arryn would've considered hiring hagsfiends all on his own, he would've tried to get an owl warlord on his side instead)

- Penryck is actually better at diplomacy than Arryn, and he was trying to recruit some of Arryn's generals during the second half of The coming of Hoole; that's one of the reasons there are rumours about them going separate ways at the beginning of To be a King (also, his POV in the Coming of Hoole is him mentally rolling eyes at both Arryn's racist shit and his incompetence as a strategist, and I wish there was more of villainous flashbacks because trying to reverse engineer Sklardrog's personality off one pov and a handful of lines is painful)

- A bit more speculative one: Penryck crossed paths with Theo's father and uncle(possibly killed or ordered to kill the latter). Theo asks Grank if he's sure that Penryck killed the high king ‐ why specifically him and not any other warlord? Either Sklardrog's reputation is that scary or Theo had a personal reason to fear him. (This bit never came up again in the books, though, so it stays a speculation)

- Hoole's first time using firesight was a big missed opportunity. Imagine if he saw hagsfiends just living their lives and started doubting what Grank had told him?

- A rather sad one: I thought a lot about Ygreek and Pleek. A lot. (Mostly ranging between "Who hurt you, Grank?" and "Who hurt you, Kathryn?") Because the more I thought about it, the more it felt(at least the translation) like a part of Ygreek's desire to have a child comes from wanting to fit a "proper family" mold; we don't get a similar in-depth introspection about kids from Pleek's point of view, but since Grank picks him out instantly when he looks into the Ember, I headcanon that Pleek comes from a noble family (probably not as rich as Arryn, Siv or Grank himself), and he probably heard plenty of that "your purpose is to have an heir and pass on the family name one day" nonsense before he met Ygreek. So they both have their share of internalised issues about having kids.

(Oof, that got wordy)

I LOVE DRAGONS. I agree, I wish Penryck's character had been explored more. He does seem to be better at diplomacy from his short conversation with Lord Arrin. Lord Arrin's character pretty much boils down to "I want the throne" and "I want a wife," so it makes sense that Penryck was pulling all the strings behind the scenes. In terms of appearance I'd like to think Penryck had claws on his wings, perhaps scaled talons and very long ear-tufts to the point where they looked like horns.

I just think it's funny that owls are convinced hagsfiends are evil when all the hagsfiends in the legends books were hired by owl lords to overthrow King H'rath. The hagsfiends were definitely taking advantage of the situation there, but it's strange that they're considered more villainous than the owl lords who 1) have a gizzard so they know right from wrong, and 2) still chose to do wrong.

I believe it was confirmed that Pleek was a noble lord, which makes me respect his character more because like you pointed out, he probably faced a ton of pressure from his family to have an heir, and also backlash for falling in love with the enemy. When the war starts he would most likely have lost all his noble titles for consorting with a hagsfiend. He gave up so much for Ygryk, and it feels like a further punishment that they can't have a normal family together. Ygryk would probably also feel a lot of guilt for causing her mate to be cut off and shunned by his kind. Pleek and Ygryk may have been horrible parents to Lutta, but they also didn't have the best situation.

[theofreakingbell]

I'm proud of myself today.

(cw mentions of parental abuse and discussions of trauma)

I've been in this fandom for a long time, almost since I could legally have an account on here. There's a person on here that I used to follow when I was younger. at the time I was being abused by my parents and going through a lot of other shit in my life and Loki was something that comforted and validated me.

I felt a tremendous amount of doubt and insecurity about loving him. I didn't on a basic level know it wasn't morally wrong because he was a villain. I was intensely vulnerable and didn't know I was being abused and was looking for any validation I could find. her blog was, to me then, one of my safe spaces. the scarce few I had. She didn't think it was wrong for people to love him, and she clearly loved him very much herself. She spoke of many of his feelings like they mattered. validated things I had hardly seen elsewhere. She was a good curator of fandom posts too. I would go to her blog sometimes when I needed comfort in my anger and hurt from my abuse, and on at least one occasion feeling like that was a safe space stopped me from self harming. I thought for years that I literally in some ways owed her my life.

she also reblogged misinformation about abuse on multiple occasions. I ate it up and it made me feel more depressed and self destructive. She woobified Frigga to a ridiculous extent and refused to acnowledge any responsibility that she had in the things they shouldn't have done that it made me internalise problematic shit about my own mom (whose relationship with my own father and acting as a sort of peacemaker while also doing her own bad stuff mirrors Odin and Frigga very much) that I am still having to carefully detangle from me like glass shards. I nearly realised I was a survivor years earlier than I did because of how I was relating my own trauma to Loki and beginning to understand it, or at least that it existed, and it was what I saw on her blog, the assertions that what he went through wasn't abuse, the denial of certain areas of abuse, that sent me crying and thinking that I couldn't be one, and that I was wrong for wanting to know that he was a survivor too.

Her knowledge of psychology and the terms she used was clearly stuck in some past decade and she said multiple ableist and nonsensical things re loki's mental health. She said that Loki did what he did in the first movie because of psychosis which. just. absolutely not. She shared things that pathologised Odin instead of criticising him properly and without ableism.

I just. I was so afraid that nobody would ever care about what I went through or listen to me or respect me as someone who loves Loki and had bad luck in finding better people that I clung to her far longer than I should have, or should have had to, and I had a very hard time realising that while I saw her as someone who could be a safe space, she wasn't that, and in a lot of ways hurt me and made things worse for me. She validated his anger and pain while obscuring and lying about some of what hurt him and in turn made me think harder that what was being done to me was okay, because ~they were trying~, as if that should have been enough to protect me from what they were doing (it wasn't).

I know I'm a survivor now. I know Loki is too. I have met and talked with and befriended so many lovely people here. I feel safe in the fandom now in a way I literally never thought I would and I am so happy and greatful for that. (she was not the only problem, nor my only source of trauma within fandom, but she was a gigantic part of it)

She's never interacted with me on here. I have no idea if she even knows I exist. for multiple years I couldn't even bear to look her up to block her because there was a part of my brain screaming that that was too harsh, that I should be greatful to her, that I owed her that.

I blocked her today.

II'm still struggling to know, in the whole of me, that she and her feelings are not my responsibility. I cared about her so desperately for so long and part of me still does. But I do not owe her access to me when even seeing her username makes my entire body tense up, when she, a full grown adult, put me as a child in more danger that I was already in by not being careful not to spread misinfo about abuse and not be dismissive of it, when she gave me emotional wounds I will likely be dealing with long after she dies (she's quite a bit older than me), when I cannot even think of existing in the same space as her without feeling short of breath.

I do not owe her that. and I owe myself the peace and safety of knowing I never have to interact with her again.

Here's to relaxing a little more after today.

[lizziestudieshistory]

hi! how do you recommend i should prepare myself for college? im currently in the final year of high school. in what capacity would i need to change myself for college? i plan on developing habits this year which can help me in college. your suggestions will be helpful.

Hi, sorry for taking a while to respond, I've been ill all week and wasn't sure what I wanted to say. I was partly uncertain because I think you are from the US? (Correct me if I'm wrong!) And your college experience is very different from university here in the UK. However, there are a few universal tips I can give for anyone leaving compulsory education and entering into higher education for the first time.

Firstly, don't think about this as changing yourself! It's just another step and you will naturally fall into it. Everything I THOUGHT university would be like ended up being a lot of nonsense. You'll naturally fall into your working rhythm and find your place wherever you end up going! Be your authentic self and you'll have a blast. Seriously, going to university should be the best thing you do for yourself, otherwise it's not worth it!

Secondly, habits/learning tips. This is an easier one to give advice for, but it will probably feel incredibly vague right now:

Learn to how to skim and scan texts when reading (they are different!). Start practicing now and you'll thank yourself during your first term! You rarely need to read a whole text, so learn how to quickly and efficiently find what you need by learning how to find key words and arguments. Make skimming and scanning your first instinct when reading academically. It's hard and you'll find yourself slipping into reading the whole book/article a lot to start with, but I promise you it will save you A LOT of time and frustration.

Start developing a good routine for you to study. Learn when, where, and how you're most productive and make this a routine. I've learnt that I CAN'T concentrate properly in the afternoon, my brain gives up! But it took me YEARS to internalise this and I wasted so many hours trying to work in the early afternoon. Now I structure my study days around when I work best (seriously I get up at 5:30 so I can be working between 6:00 and 11:30, then have the afternoon off before doing a couple of hours around 8:30 at night) it can be irritating but I have a good study/life balance now AND I'm more productive!

Experiment with note taking styles. I've gone through SO many different systems, platforms, and techniques for note taking. It took me a while to work out that I need to take linear, bullet pointed notes BY HAND to remember information. I used to type everything and it went in one ear and out the other. Now I take notes by hand and it's been revolutionary.

Start everything EARLY. Don't let yourself be that person pulling an all nighter to get an assignment in on time. Start early, give yourself time to reflect on what you're doing, and finish a couple of days before the deadline. This way you have a buffer in case something goes wrong. I was never the person working up until the last minute (I'm too anxious to do that to myself) but I watched friends have breakdowns because they didn't start early enough.

Learn to draft anything you'll submit for formal assessment. Don't be the idiot who writes an essay and submits it without checking it... It makes you look stupid and you'll lose marks. Take the time to do a second and third draft, your grades will thank you. And proofread (I say having not proofread ANYTHING on this blog...)

Get out of the habit of thinking I don't want to go to X lesson/class. You might think it's harmless now, but as soon as you leave compulsory education and don't HAVE to go to that dreaded class you won't. Then you start skipping lectures, fall behind, and risk failing. Again, I watched too many people do this...

Practice self-discipline and motivation. Right now you HAVE to work on things, so you do. When the external motivators go away all you're left with is your own drive. For some people (me) this was GREAT because I hated performing to school systems. However, for others they can crumble without a teacher encouraging you to work... Learn to motivate yourself. If you take ANYTHING from this list then work on this one, seriously it'll be a life saver!

Honestly, the rest will come with time. The biggest thing you can do is work out what kind of learner you are, how do you LIKE to learn when away from the routines of school. When, where, and how do you like to learn? Practice notetaking and reading skills. Otherwise, the rest will depend on what sort of college/uni you end up at and what course you're taking.

The final thing I want to say is not really a tip, but something I think EVERYONE on the cusp of going into higher education should hear. Find out why you want to learn. Higher education is a big investment. It's years of your life and A LOT of money (especially in the UK and US with tuition fees and living expenses!) It's a lot of time, energy, and resources to throw into something if you're only doing it because it's expected of you or you don't know what else to do with your life.

So take some time to think about WHY you want to learn. What is it about your specialism that makes you love it? Why is it your passion?

I live and breathe history because I can't face living without it. For me it's the discipline where I really get to understand humanity, explore what makes us "tick". I feel connected with people through history. I'm fascinated by, and a little bit in love with, humans. I don't necessarily like speaking to people! But I love trying to find out who we are through what our history says about us. Fundamentally, humanity is both terrible and beautiful! And through history I get to see the best, worst, and crucially the most mundane of human existence... And it's in that mundane space where I find myself happiest because that's who we are. It's why I study popular religion, not high Church movements... But it is the curiosity about people that drives me to learn more. THAT'S why I study, THAT is why I bothered to drag myself out of bed a half 5 on a freezing January morning in 2018 to get to an 8:30 lecture and listen to a truly MAD man tell me about 17th century English preaching styles (real story, I loved that lecturer deeply... I was the only person at that lecture and it is the reason I am the historian I am today, I have so much respect for him and I am STILL inspired by what I heard that morning!)

Anyway... Find your reason to keep going with your studies, even when it seems pointless and you'd much rather give up. I'm not saying it has to be a grand, abstract desire to understand humanity - I'm a pretentious humanities student who is far too fond of religion. Your reason could be anything, a dream job, a desire to "get out" of a situation, academic brilliance, spite! Seriously, it doesn't matter! As long as it gives you a purpose and drive to learn. Without that reason you'll be wasting your time.

So, before you go, have a think about why you're going to university at all and make sure it's strong enough to get you out of bed ridiculously early on a freezing January morning. That way you won't miss the most inspiring moment of your life. Or you'll get a fantastic degree. That's also nice 😉

[daemonhxckergrrl]

against my better judgement i'm jumping on. thought i'd (mostly) left discourse behind but that's not been the case since predstrogen got harrassed across multiple sites.

honest thoughts play-by-play. here we go.

title: oki, hoping this is a good faith post. i'll admit i'm skeptical, but i'll try be objective.

passing: yeah passing is bs and nonsense. the goalposts will always move bc it's about excluding all of us, not about actually meeting critera to pass.

feminine trans men: this is another common issue - cisnormative society can't handle being trans and gnc.

escaping misogyny: ugh yeah i've seen this take far too many times. y'all deserve better.

aren't oppressed: you're oppressed by a society that's transphobic. that's literally what transphobia is.

transmisogynystic problems: who's saying this ? i've seen transmisogynistic takes (and sometimes plain misogynistic takes) couches as "trans men's problems". kinda sus of this.

reduced to genitals: again, common issue and it sucks. biological essentialists, chasers, transmeds, doesn't matter. not hard to be normal about any of us. y'all deserve better.

inherently toxic: there's a problem w/ masculinity being seen as inherently toxic within queer spaces. if it's about that then yeah 100%. however "just being themselves" is vague and i've seen an increased performance of actually toxic masc stuff described that way too. i hope you mean the former.

seen and heard: i sorry what ? yeah this sounds exactly like the kind of stuff used to shut transfems down when we try to bring up transmisogyny, especially that which we face from other queers.

transandrophobia: yeah sorry it doesn't exist. you're not oppressed for being men. you're oppressed for being trans. there's no intersection here. transphobia sucks. it makes life more dangerous for all of us. i had a feeling this post was building to a point like this.

T and surgery: yeah this is that "masculinity bad" thing internalised in a lot of queer spaces. you deserve better.

discouraging T and surgery: see above.

bottom surgery: see above.

bottoms: there's that bioessentialism again. mirrors comptop for transfems (which, I learned by my own experience, isn't exclusive to cis partners. my ex expected me to top 90% of the time, and got to bc he hated arguments and didn't have to prep like i would).

fetishising cis gay men: fuck, people think this ? again, y'all deserve better.

transmasc artists: lmao what ?? people are saying this too ?? is this like an oddly-specific thing ? huh. yeah that sucks

uplifting transfems: who's saying this ??? doesn't look good when combined w/ the earlier stuff about "we get called transmisogynists just for existing"

masculine dangerous: yeah, here's that "masculinity in queer spaces" thing i was on about. something the queer community in general needs to work on. it's the same thing that gets femme transfems still called predators for being 'inherently male' or whatever, and what gets butch and masc transfems that but doubled bc we're wearing our masculinity. y'all ain't any more dangerous than we are.

feminine safe: passably feminine-presenting. clocky fems don't get the same treatment. but most of what needs saying is in the previous point.

women's bathroom: common ground issue and y'all deserve better. tbf is unsafe in both.

run of the mill: it literally is though. this is here as a way to shut down replies like mine. good job crying transandrophobia on your own post, at least, but like are you for real ?

transmisogyny: i would hope you didn't think it was fake or mattered less, and i'll take you at your word here.

wanting oppression: ah, another way to shut down replies like mine. wanting to be oppressed is something white middle class swifties do for the ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ so i wouldn't accuse you of that. nor of wanting attention. i'm not gonna accuse you of being a transmisogynist but i am going to ask you take what i've said in good faith. and think about it. because some of the points you're making are very close to ones transmisogynists make against us.

OP and anyone who reads all of this..tell the tranny to fuck off if you wish. stalk my blog for callout ammo (bc as we all know having kinks that personally squick you, or daring to talk about our own oppression, or expressing sexuality in any way is Immoral and Therefore Problematic and makes us Acceptable Targets of Harrassment (/s in case that wasn't incredibly obvious)). call me a baeddel. or....listen.

consider what i've said, consider your own response. we can listen to each other. we can uplift each other.

You Might Not Be Normal About Trans Men If...

You think we all pass 100% of the time with no issues or effort

You don't think feminine trans men are "real" trans men

You assume we're all transitioning to escape misogyny

You think we aren't oppressed by society

You think our problems are inherently transmisogynistic

You think it's okay to reduce us to our genitals for any reason

You think masculine trans men being themselves are inherently toxic

You think us demanding to be seen and heard and have space within our own community is us being "MRAs" and "transmisogynists"

You think transandrophobia (the idea that trans men experience oppression based on their specific intersection of transness and gender) doesn't exist or inherently is transmisogynistic

You're only okay with trans men if they don't go on T and/or get surgery

You actively try to discourage trans men from going on T and/or getting surgery

You think the previous two points don't include bottom surgery

You think all trans men are bottoms

You think gay trans men are fetishizing gay cis men

You think all transmasc artists are inherently cringe/bad at what they do

You think transmascs only exist to uplift transfems

You think anyone presenting as masculine is inherently dangerous

You think that only men/masculine presenting people can be dangerous

You think that women/feminine presenting people are always safe

You don't think trans men are in danger when forced to use the women's restroom

You think that any oppression/discrimination transmascs face is "run of the mill transphobia" or "run of the mill misogyny"

You think anything I've said on this post means that transmisogyny isn't real or matters less

You're about to leave a comment on this post accusing me of being a transmisogynist or wanting attention or wanting to be oppressed

[mostlylemonbased]

Reticence

I don't intend to make this space all my angst ridden nonsense, but hey, this is the first thing I've put up on my own blog in a bit, so I thought I'd crosspost it here. Because hey, why not.

One of the things that's happened over the past year is that I've had a bit of a reexamination of my transition. This was undoubtedly prompted by reading The Sisters of Dorley. There's actually a wonderful circularity to this for reasons I'm not going to explain right now. And I honestly don't think it'd've happened, certainly not soon, without it. The book deals with transition, it deals with examining and dealing with trauma. It deals with the importance of community. It slices in various places exactingly, directly, and disturbingly to some of the trauma that I experienced. And it, from discussions with a bunch of other trans people -- trans people who have been transitioned and to whatever extent it's ever possible, finished with their transition (or so they thought) -- does tend to prompt you to reexamine yourself. Deeply. I am not alone in this.

I'm sure there are other effective ways to get you to dig down and reexamine yourself. To explore yourself and the decisions you made. And perhaps more importantly, explore the decisions you didn't really make. The decisions which just happened, that got left in the dust of moving on with life. And obviously, for me, a lot of that centered around the trauma of the abusive relationship I was in immediately after transition. It's something that kind of horrifies me. That I was desperate for people in my life I could identify with, people who I could talk to about what was going on, and this person took that situation and took advantage. And I've talked (either on here, or on mastodon) about the gradual realisation that, well, I am certain that I passed on impacts of that abuse.

No doubt some of it was reflected in the support group I took over from her and ran. I think that the best thing I've been told is that I wasn't intending to be harmful, that my approach to things came from a good place. But I know and I am deeply uncomfortable with the fact that I reinforced ideas that she promulgated. And I hope that the damaging things I did are outweighed by the good. Looking back I know I had a lot of internalised transphobia which I'm not sure to what extent that came out in the group. But it was always intended to be young(er) trans people supporting other young(er) trans people, so there's always going to be a chunk of the baby trans working themselves out in that kind of space. And while I've reexamined that, without digging into the backups of old, old computers -- computers that have long been consigned to e-waste -- there's no easy way to look through the group - and frankly - I don't think that me digging through hundreds of e-mails from myself and the other folks on the list would be positive or productive. Interesting, perhaps, as a snapshot of early aughts transition. Painful -- seeing those lost along the way. But probably not helpful.

But where I've been really digging and working is on the things that my ex buried in me. The ideas she encouraged in me that I never really rexamined. About my presentation. About how trans people should be. About all sorts of tiny fractional pieces of me. And look, some of it's fine. Some of it I think is fair - I don't think that I should have to adhere to traditional standards of women's beauty, because I don't think any women should have to do that. And if I want to slob about it jeans and a teeshirt, that's fine. If I want to wear that every fucking day, that's fine too. But that she stopped me exploring my presentation, that she stopped me fucking about with clothes, that I accepted that being kinda androgynous would be safer, and less obvious -- and that she planted and fertilized those seeds that meant I never really explored further with makeup and clothes than I had at the point where I met her.

That she nudged, pushed, encouraged, enforced, whatevered me back towards the presentation I'd had before I transitioned. A kind of androgynous but female coded. The easiest path, the one that didn't really involve work? And that I accepted that and didn't go back to reexamine that, or look at it as I moved forward with my life? That's a disappointment to me. Because it turns out I do enjoy makeup. I do enjoy fun clothes. And that was obvious from the fact I clung limpet like to the purple slinky fucking party dress that's one of the first pieces of clothes I bought for myself. And some of that is that I've lost weight - I've held steady at 66.7 kg for the past - oh, while. I bumped up by a kilo around Xmas and straight back down afterwards (damn mince pies and Xmas pudding) - and that's made me much more comfortable with my body. And some of that is that I'm probably fitter now than at any point in my life so far.

And look, it's not a case of assigning blame or fault. She had mental health issues and separating what was abuse from her mental health issues has always been tricky for me. Especially since they were undiagnosed for most of our time together. And I was young and new and shiny and impressionable and desperate for approval. And, fuck, it took me until sometime in the last two years to really grok that I am a survivor of domestic violence. That I'm a survivor of a deeply abusive relationship. And that that's coloured who I am, and how I respond to things, particularly layered on top of the bullying I had at school. Basically there's a solid decade of the time I've been on this planet, near a quarter of it, where I was in abusive places. And this isn't an oh poor me, woe is me.

This is a fucking celebration of the fact that nearly 24 years after I transitioned I am getting to explore myself again. I'm getting reexamine some of the foundational stuff about how I present, how I think of myself in relation to others, and getting to play with who I am.

And that's been really freeing.

[soracities]

i never really comment on anon or on other people's blogs but this discussion has been both fascinating and validating. i know this website tends to skew younger but i do think younger people (especially girls) get a chance to realize that so many things just get better and better with age especially with how society and media creates this false sense of a ticking timebomb on their value and wraps it up in youth. i sure wish i had more of that messaging myself as someone who shared some of these fears of 'it all going downhill' after my 20s.

as someone around mid30 now, would like to echo that it like really feels like your own life BEGINS after 30 so much of the time. i felt so much more immune to the nonsense around me and other people's expectations and it’s been a beautiful and liberating journey to keep learning more and more about myself and what's truly important to me. also feeling a whole lot steadier and more confident professionally, socially, and in my overall identity (though it will always always be an ongoing lifelong learning process) and honestly i wouldn't trade anything to go back to and relive my 20s and that supposed 'youth'

a 'ticking time-bomb' is literally the perfect phrase for it and i think one of the things that i'm very grateful for having been exposed to from a young age, and that i only realised was a benefit now, is the fact that most of the tv programmes playing when i was a kid were soaps. and....granted, i have internalised a lot of messaging around beauty and what i'm allegedly worth because of it and it's something i still struggle with, but the fact remains that getting older was never something i was freaked out about, partially because the media i saw, even if i wasn't always actively watching it, did feature older women: women in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, 60s, women navigating new relationships, or leaving old ones, or not being in relationships at all but not having that be the sole focus of literally every story line -- women falling out with friends and making up with friends and quitting jobs and finding new jobs or working the same job for 20 years that is neither exciting or glamorous but enough, women making mistakes well into their 50s and not making wise decisions and still working through their flaws and not being seen as abject failures, women just generally living their lives -- ordinary, simple lives (or at least as far as 'simple' goes in soaps because now and then something blows up or some serial killer shows up or someone ruins a wedding by sleeping with the groom or the bride or the groom or the bride sleep with their partner's sister/brother/parent/best friend and the whole town finds out at the altar etc., but aside from all THAT), and it's been subtle, admittedly, but i think it has counted in a way. if i compare that to what i would be seeing in terms of female representation as an adolescent now -- whatever would be fed to me through my friends' instagram feed or through tiktok, or whatever new teen-young-adult-aimed show drops on netflix (with 25 year-olds playing 16 year olds and wreaking havoc with what was already a fraught relationship with my body at that age), i don't know if i would have reached that conclusion, no matter how many times i could watch something like derry girls as an antidote. like, at this point, the older i get the more profoundly disturbed i become with just how much we emphasize youth for women because i am definitely growing more aware of what exactly it is that is being implied there: the best and most beautiful time of your life is when your brain still hasn't finished maturing? when you quite possibly are at your most uncertain, still figuring out your boundaries and how to assert and accept your own worth? this is what is most desirable? it's insane, literally just....insane.

i'm honestly so grateful to you for sharing this and am so happy to hear that you are finally in what sounds like such an amazing place to be because this is it. i hope you continue to feel even steadier and more at peace with yourself and your life as this journey continues for you because it is honestly such an underrated experience to finally have. i hope it takes you to all the places and all the new versions of yourself that you've always wanted to meet x

[brasideios]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts OP. It brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts in me, so I hope you won't mind my attaching some of them to your well-considered piece above.

I felt the same way after I graduated - my Arts degree is a double major in English and creative writing. I studied writing more broadly, both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, prose and playwrighting, for four years.

One of the things that really bothers me to think about now is the sneer that was consistently directed at genre fiction. In not so many words, it was literary fiction or trash. This trend was even worse when it came to poetry. Most of what we studied was just what you're talking about here - that is (I'm going to be blunt) wank.

Even knowing how to read and interpret it - I can sometimes get at the meanings in it, if there is any - I can write it - but with all due respect to those who love it, so much of it is just pretentious nonsense.

Over the years, I've heard so many people say they hate poetry, and I firmly believe this is why - this idea that literary poetry is the only legitimate form, while every other, easily understandable form, isn't really poetry at all. I find that a travesty really.

And sidebar to all this - when I think about traditional publishing, and how they favour this form of poetry and (here in Australia anyway) fiction, there are capitalistic overtones in it all that really suck. The message really is - Produce what is demanded by the machine or don't write.

For years after I got my degree, I felt creatively stunted. I felt compelled to be writing something very specific - and for me that was Australian, highly descriptive, hard hitting and concerned with social issues around post-colonialism. It had to be realism, of course, and it had to be literary - and when I tried to do anything else, it felt wrong. I'd internalised this sense that writing what I loved, as I wanted to write it, was failing to come up to some imagined mark of true art, true writing.

I endeavoured for a long time to do that - to write what I was 'supposed' to write. Then I stopped writing for two years. Eventually, I found my way back to myself as a writer.

Even so, there are still two wolves inside me (as the saying goes) - one that just wants to write for fun, to indulge in light genre fiction and prose poems that are only loosely poems, and vignettes just for the hell of it - and the one that is, frankly, intensely judgmental and says I shouldn't be wasting my time. I should be writing the timeless, "great Australian novel."

I'm glad to say that on most days, the non-judgemental wolf wins easily these days.

And I'm glad I did the degree. I learnt so much, got shaken out of my comfort zone in the best of ways, was exposed to so many ideas I would never have found for myself, and that make me the writer that I am now - but there's no denying that there's this negative side to it all which I don't see many people talk about.

I've been able to neither read nor write stories in a long time. Poetry too, for the most part. I guess what I mean is that the art of the written word has become a stranger to me.

I hate what poetry classes did to my writing. Yes, the Wikipedia poems, but they are easier because they're not my own words, and I have gotten so many comments on those saying they are powerful pieces of art, but for me personally they're a way of hiding from the awfulness of trying to assemble my own words into poetry.

I hate the poems I wrote in poetry classes. I hate the version of me I showed others in those classes. I hate the way poetry classes taught me to draw from my own experiences and thoughts for poetry. I hate everything I learned about how to interpret poetry, the eye with which I learned to read poetry, and the vocabulary I learned to talk about poetry, and ultimately, I hate "literary" poetry.

"Literary," by the way, is the category of art that has more meaning, value and legitimacy than the "other" category, which is not "literary." A "literary" poem is published in special, fancy "literary" magazines and almost invariably written by a person with a MFA or PhD in poetry.

You could say that the distinguishing feature of "literary" art is its overwhelming sense of legitimacy. A "literary" poem is a poem in the same way that a nonprofit organization is charitable, that a CEO is rich, or that an SAT score demonstrates your academic prowess. It is a poem completely immune to the possibility that someone will think it sucks. It expects to be absorbed, analyzed, studied, and discoursed upon because something feels "official" about whatever designates it as Good Art.

Literary poems are not only written by and for a special subset of people that have been formally taught to read and interpret poetry, they are written exclusively for audiences that will automatically assume they are Good Art; beautiful, meaningful, and worth interpreting. Because of this, most literary poems are literal incomprehensible nonsense.

Just take this one:

Say I climb the ladder of wheat/and at the top there is a faucet dripping beads of water/but the water takes a year to turn into an eagle/and the sky's forty-three shades of gray pierce/the first inflection of my heart, the point where the signals/throw grass into the river. Say the river sags/and the horizon sucks the lance out of the ghost's hands/like the moment of being born, the point where a shadow's/tongue slides through the faultline./Grace. Sunlight, cherries.

(it continues like this)

And conceptually, I love art as collaboration between the creator and viewer, where abstract, indeterminate and murky things are forced to take shape through the participation of the viewer as they interpret and associate things that stand out to them in the work! The "aliveness" of art in the abyss between what the artist attempts to communicate and what the viewer feels is the coolest thing to me!

But this philosophy of art is incompatible with the idea that there is an elite category of art that is worthy of interpretation, analysis, and reverence. I can fuck around with this random word generator and get something that is roughly as meaningful as the above. I don't mean that as demeaning to the poem, I mean that I feel demeaned by the poem, because its linguistic play and experimentation is something that everybody can do, that everyone should try doing, but this poem has been designated as something exceptionally meaningful and worthy and its writer teaches writing at the University of Chicago. You can click through that website for hours and not find a single soul without a MFA or above in poetry or creative writing.

For me, the world of "literary" writing was like a room with a splatter of vomit across the floor that no one else would acknowledge. The ability to formally study poetry in college was a privilege, but I was constantly aware of privilege, and the thing about privilege is the more you have, the less you think about it. What of the ability to pursue a PhD in poetry? What small fraction of people could expend so much time and money on something that didn't really have a career associated with it? And of that fraction, which fraction would be seen as "good enough" to publish poetry books and to teach? With poetry this indeterminate, how were the "good" poets selected at all?

Literary writing excludes poor people, and the existence of published literary poets who are immigrants or minorities doesn't negate this. Increasingly, published writing in general excludes poor people. A LOT of popular authors graduated from very elite schools!

But literary poetry I hate especially, because it puffs itself up on unlocking the universe and human experience and pain, as if insight into those things is a seldom-appearing gift instead of something many people have, except they don't have the time and money to train themselves into expressing it in a way that appears Literary.

The "literary" vs. "non-literary" paradigm had an inescapable rottenness to it. I couldn't stop thinking about the luminous conversations I'd had with people who lacked the formal training to express ideas in a "literary" manner, but still showed me something vital about the universe.

I've been bitching about literary poetry for like two years now, and really, I just hate what studying all that shit has done to my own writing style. It's so frustrating that the joy and playfulness won't come back.

[niuniente]

Hi Niu, as a fellow card reader I was wondering if you can maybe give me some advice. Namely, I'm great when doing readings for other people 10/10, but when I try to do a reading for myself I suck. The cards I draw are often nonsense and I really feel like the deck is refusing to cooperate. I feel part of this is to do with my internalised fears. For example, as an introvert when I ask "how can I meet more people?" part of me is afraid that the answer is going to be "Go to more clubs! Party! Book a flight to Thailand and mingle with drunk tourists!" (I'm exaggerating, but hopefully you get the picture 😂). Tbf I've never even gotten an answer that I absolutely didn't want to hear, mostly I just get random cards that don't make a lot of sense with the question.

Anyway, have you experienced something like this? Do you have any advice for me maybe? How do I get my personal readings to be as good as the ones I do for others?

I've heard of no one who does readings to say it is easy to read for yourself! It never is. You can't really get an outside view with no emotions, bias, judgment etc. of yourself by yourself. That's why it is challenging to read to yourself.

When I read to myself, I usually speak about myself like 3rd person, introducing my issue and my name to the Spirit the same way as I'd do with a client. It helps a bit. Still, the best reading ever I did to myself was an accident. I was reading to someone else but when the reading was done (and before the other person got it) I realized it didn't match the target person at all. I went the reading through again and what do you know; it was for me. I was thinking when I did the reading that "Wow, how nice, I can actually tell the person I'm doing this reading to all these examples from my own life which are present in this reading."

When I REALLY need guidance and can't seem to tap into it myself, there are 4 things I can try to do:

Ask from a spiritual friend their intuitive hunch or ask a small reading from my sister.

Order a reading from a professional reader (it's hard to find a good one but I've found a few who read well).

Go to Youtube and see if any of the Pick-a-card videos have any messages, especially something which would fit my own readings or hunches. If it's a specific topic with no hurry - let's say love - I see in a long period of time different readings from different readers and see what are the themes repeating in these readings.

I ask a direct answer from the Universe/Spirit. Either a very clear sign within 48h (best for Yes/No situation), or guidance in a dream. In 8/10 I get an answer and if I don't, then the issue is not big or important but will solve on its own as time passes

Then, to your situation: You know your issue is fear(s), so you have to deal with that. Otherwise, the messages and helpful guidance can't really come through fully as the Spirit has to try to speak between the lines, which makes the reading confusing.

Like you said, the Spirit will never give you any messages you're not ready to hear. :3 Sure, you can get guidance that is uncomfortable because it means you have to change something old or go outside of your comfort zone, but even still the choice is yours. You can follow the guidance or not. So, if you ask "How to get more friends" the uncomfortable answer can be "Mingle with like-minded people". Then, it's up to you if you want to continue your current state or take the guidance and go mingle with people, as uncomfortable and weird as it is. But, this isn't any different from a doctor giving you a treatment plan you don't like, an allergy forcing you to change your diet, or therapy asking you to do something you're not used to.

If you couldn't do it, the Spirit wouldn't even suggest it to you :3