#so you forget that communication even exists on top of being very sad and lonely and burying it with work

[sesamestreep]

I really feel like one of the best details in “A Scandal in Bohemia” that I never see people fixate on enough is that the story starts with Watson stopping in to see Holmes at Baker Street on a complete whim, because he happens to see that he’s home (and Watson is now married and living elsewhere). Like he doesn’t send word first, he’s not invited, he just shows up and surprises Holmes. Which is not that weird but then Holmes is like “oh good, I’ve got a case anyway, you might as well hang out!” which just makes it funnier when the King shows up and is like “I’d really rather speak to you alone, actually” and Watson tries to leave and Holmes is just like “anything you can say to me, you can say to my best friend John Watson, and if you ask him to leave, I would consider it a grave insult, you would be my enemy and I will not help you ever!!” And the king is like “…ok” and just moves on.

like, that is crazy behavior. Holmes is talking about how there’s probably lots of money in this case, and then almost turns away the client for…not knowing who the fuck Watson is?? He’s not even supposed to be there?? He just came to say hi?? “It is both or none”… girl, GET UP.

[fiddlespoons]

Order 23 Job THOUGHTS

Okay so I watched the order 23 job and I just have a lot of feelings about Eliot. Here are some bullets bc i love reading meta and i thought i’d try to contribute. One of my first attempts at tumblr rambling to work my feelings out so pls bear with me. Very long, not used to paring this into words. Spoilers for that ep!

Eliot takes his earbud out. I don’t remember if he’s done this before, but i don’t think so? not intentionally? To me that says that he felt he couldn’t let the team hear when he goes to talk to the abusive dad, not only because of how much it reveals about himself (which makes sense, bc it’s only season 2 and this is Eliot we are discussing) but also for how much he may or may not be willing to hurt this guy. Bc for Eliot, this is really personal. We get this through the end of the episode. I think from some of the fic I read I thought that the rest of the team figured out what Eliot was doing, but they actually don’t, this is a realization/task Eliot deals with by himself and it speaks to his years of not telling anyone about this aspect of himself/his past the same way Randy can’t talk about it, and that’s an interesting and devastating parallel to me.

It’s weird bc I don’t think we are used to seeing Eliot NOT come out on top when he threatens/hurts/beats someone up a bit? But for some reason, the abusive dad manages to come out on top of that little scene in the stairwell, even after Eliot has dangled him over a railing. The abusive dad comes out on top bc of his existing position in the community and that position’s unseen power; the power the abusive dad feels he can wield with any other local cops to keep his authority long-term, to keep beating up his kid, to make any red flags get brushed under the rug. You can see the moment when Eliot realizes he hasn’t helped in his eyes, and how much it wrecks him; but it also says something that his usual hitter skills of intimidation and violence and fear don’t work here; it’s sad the violence/intimidation tactic is what Eliot goes for first, but it also makes sense in the context of who he is. I have many emotions about this.

Side note here, that also makes me think about Eliot’s perception of cops, and how he knows, knows that they aren’t always (read: often) good. but maybe this is a moment where he’s blindsided by it a bit, bc this is a kid in trouble, and Eliot, even though he’s jaded and weathered and knows more about the ways people can hurt each other better than most, he still wants to believe that the system would be set up to help a kid like Randy, a kid like he was. Eliot wants to believe in the good of things, even when he’s proved wrong, again and again.

also, the “see how well his daddy taught him to lie” line really kills me, bc Eliot knows better than to go to the kid first, bc he knows what the answer will be, and the way this show weaves implications into script lines is really SO good, isn’t it?

Back to the earbud, Eliot also also forgets to put his earbud back in right away, which i think speaks to how much the exchange with the abusive dad really rattled Eliot. He should put his earbud back in right away! they are on a con! and separated! But he doesn’t, bc he needs a second to gather himself back from the place he went on that stairwell, and because maybe for a second, Eliot is a lone wolf again, someone who has had to live/fight/struggle for himself, used to fending off violence at every turn and the idea of putting back in the earbud and being part of a team isn’t something he’s ready for/feels he can trust, knowingly or unknowingly. It kind of backfires, bc the fake marshall is about to turn on them, and if Eliot had his earbud in (i.e if he’d let himself trust his team!!) he would have been more prepared. BUT Hardison still manages to get a message to Eliot over the intercom, and I think that was one of the best touches, bc it shows how Hardison was like “I am NOT going to let Eliot being an idiot and taking out his comms stop me from getting him a message when there is danger, hell no.” and that aspect of the team having Eliot’s back is really important for this episode in particular, given what Eliot is dealing with but not letting the team see, especially when usually Eliot has to have their backs and be focused on that. 

Do you think Eliot kicked himself over that, later? Kicked himself for not keeping his comm in, for missing vital information that could have impacted the whole con? Do you think Eliot asked himself what would have happened if Hardison had walked in on the fake marshal instead of Eliot? 

Many feelings about how Hardison is kind of randomly talking about using different Star Trek shows as a code for communication when Eliot first sees Randy, as if Hardison truly thinks Eliot would know the difference between good Star Trek and bad Star Trek?!? Come on, Hardison. Like, that’s hilarious. But it’s just the kind of silly chatter Hardison uses to help everyone feel grounded, and possibly you can tell he wants Eliot to push back on him/rib/heckle back at him the same way they had earlier in the episode (“a bully is just a cowboy with low self-esteem” and doesn’t THAT have loaded implications for the rest of the episode, for the ways Eliot has internalized some violence even in jokes, the hints of it we’ll never really see bc the show won’t go there, but as fans we can parse it out?) but instead the scene is undercut by the fact that Eliot sees Randy and suddenly nothing is grounded, Eliot is falling fast, and he claws himself back in time to answer Hardison but it’s pretty obvious he’s distracted. I wonder if the only reason Hardison doesn’t call him on it is bc, to be honest, they have a lot going on right now and lots of balls to balance anyway and Hardison doesn’t have time. But I wonder if he notices. 

I also notice how there is a very obvious security camera in the stairwell when Eliot talks to the abusive dad. It makes me wonder if Hardison, after the job is over and he’s peeling footage and cleaning up after them all, he happens to see it?? And then he tracks Eliot through the hospital, and he sees him talk to Randy? There’s a fic right there waiting to happen......

Oh GOD when Eliot tries to talk to Randy, the hopelessness of Randy’s voice and face and eyes (side note, very good child actor right here) is so sad, because right there, Eliot knows he can’t do anything, that he tried to scare the abusive dad and he tried being a pathway for the kid and it’s not working.  It’s really hurting him, you can see how he’s opening up to Randy in a way that he hasn’t opened up to anyone, just the little hints like “you don’t have to be scared anymore”, and leaning in toward him/looking around, the same way Randy has looked around him the whole episode, wary and watchful and ready to bolt. And then, when Hardison comes up to them, for a moment Eliot is so far away, bc he almost punches Hardison for startling him. That really gutted me. Eliot kind of blinks and comes back, bc this is Hardison, Eliot is safe and in control right now even if Hardison is worried about their cover, even if Randy isn’t safe at all. Randy is still looking at him, and in that moment Eliot doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to help Randy; but there’s lots of people in Eliot’s life he hasn’t been able to help. You can see the moment when Eliot has to turn away, the conscious choice and the door shutting, bc Eliot will do what needs to be done for the con, he’ll have Hardison’s back (he won’t take out his comm again on this job) first.

And finally, Eliot does get the chance to still do something for Randy, by giving the tip/request/flag on the abusive dad to the real marshall, and I think it says a lot that this was the final scene of the episode, that Eliot was there watching in the car. He was going to take an eye on the abusive dad whether or not the real marshall actually followed up. There’s no dialogue from Eliot, he’s just there, waiting and watching. The only thing he can do, the only thing he’ll trust himself to be able to do.

I haven’t touched on much of the rest of the episode, and this is already long enough, but to be honest the way that instilling fear was used as as a tool, from the mark, from the leverage team, from the abusive dad, from Eliot himself, it ran as a consistent theme through the whole ep. The show writers gave that to us, all these different situations and ways instilling fear can work in your favor or against you; how people use fear as a tool or a con or for control. Then, last line of the episode, from the marshall telling Randy he is going to be okay, and finally siphoning away a tiny bit of fear, one of the worst kinds of fear, well, I think that’s some damn good writing.

[letfatewritethewords]

I process things with art. I process with written words in the hopes that one day it can be spoken without my voice shaking. This week has been one for the books.. and I decided to share. This is long, but I want to remember what I’m learning.. how I’m processing.. if you decide to read, thank you. If not, this will still be here as a reminder of my progress every year.

I always tell people that there was no reason for my name, but it’s a lie. I’m named after Samantha on BeWitched. My grandfather loved that show and suggested it when my mother couldn’t decide. I was born in early September and that makes me a Virgo. Astrology is one of my favorite things. There’s something extraordinary about the idea that we’re connected to the universe by the positioning of the stars. Sometimes it’s so vague.. but other times, it’s right on the nose and my horoscopes will make me cry. Speaking of that, I’m an empath and a 2. When I’m unhealthy, I’m a 4 and If you know what any of that means, I’d love to talk to you more about it. Winter is my favorite season. Fall is a close second. I love the snow and how muted everything is. I like the quiet, the beauty. Sometimes, the light from the sun will shimmer off a fresh coat of snow on the ground. It is absolutely blinding, but I’d still stare, and when the snow fell at night, I’d watch it under the street light across from my house and it felt like time stood still. When I was little, I would lay in the yard full of snow, alone, in my puffy suite, until my fingers and toes would go numb from the cold, listening to the silence, but the best part of those days was going back into my grandparents house and warming up with hot coco made on the stove, wrapping myself in a soft blanket and watching old movies with my grandfather. To me, the Winter is magical. My love languages are Quality Time and Acts of Service. I’m an introvert but I love people. I like to observe, I like to really understand how the mind works and Im eager to help. I thrive in controlled chaos. I like puzzles, I love music, I like crafts, I like to fix things because grandpa always taught me that nothing is to broken to fix. Nothing. No one.

This is the light. This is the part of me that I give willingly to anyone I meet. I wear it on my sleeve. It’s only the light. Until the last 2 years.. this was all I could give of myself because I’ve always been scared of the dark.

The darkest part of me lasted 8 years, my rock bottom lasted 4.5, but as a whole it’s taken up almost 12 years of my life. Sometimes I worry that all I'm ever going to be is this thing that happened to me. That this will define me for the rest of my life and I need to remind myself that I’m a person that can live separate from an event.

I went to the police station this week, I filled out more forms. I’ve filled out so many forms over the last 2 years. For an emergency restraining order this time. For Florida this time. I knew it would eventually follow me here but typhus felt too soon. The clerk called me brave. I smile and thank them every time but I never know how to respond to that. She has no idea how weak it feels and I mean.. how could she. This is the right choice, the obvious choice, the smart choice. In a different situation, it’s one of the many steps I’d be urging someone else to take. In all the chaos, all the hurt, in all the anger and sadness.. it always circles back to “I loved him”. I did. I wanted to fix him. I wanted to see him grow and heal and if I loved him hard enough for the both of us, it would’ve evened out eventually… right?

I failed.

He was always who he was, but I was young and naive and ready to fix the whole world. When I was 18 and we were free, I would’ve told you he saved me. Now that I’m in my 30’s… and he’s in prison and I’m in limbo.. I don’t know what I’d tell you. He didn’t save me, but he didn’t destroy me either. I had every opportunity to tap out and give up.. but I grew into a person I might not have been if I never met him.

Am I angry? All of the time.

Am I scared? Yes.

I see things more clearly now though. People talk about how you never know someone’s story, and that’s because we are experts at playing pretend like we have it all figured out until we’re alone and have to face truest selves. The facade is the hardest thing to give up. Some people saw through mine and there are others, who have built their own, that never will. I share posts about what I’ve learned, how I see people, how I’ve try to treat people with grace and teach children with love and patience in hopes that a little of that sinks into whoever it reaches, but I very rarely show the journey. Partly because I know the details are gruesome and that’s not for everyone, but mostly because I’m scared.

How will you see me?

What will you think?

I’m learning that I’m not this big awful thing that happened to me. I was never anyone’s property and I’m not chained to it anymore. I was very much lied to and manipulated and hurt long enough that it flipped onto me and I carried it without missing a step. I wanted to love him so much that I would heal him. Instead, he “loved” me so much it almost killed me, and he did call it love. Enough times that he re-defined it and I didn’t use that word for a very long time in any meaningful situation. He, for better or for worse, drastically changed the trajectory of my life.

But it’s ok.

I’m wounded but I’m healing. I’m lonely, but I’m learning how to slowly welcome more people in and step out of my comfort zone. If I’m being honest, I’m relearning a lot of things, including how to exist in a world where I have room to make mistakes and fail. I can say or do the wrong thing and be gently corrected for it by my people and move on … sans violence. There are no words for amount of relief I feel because of that truth.

Is it over? No.

He was sentenced to 7 years last year and every year around mid July early August there is an opportunity to apply for an appeal based on his behavior, which will always be immaculate because he is not as tough as he thinks he is. This means that if he applies and it goes to trial, I’m also notified and have to reappear, show any new evidence, and reexplain why he needs to stay there for the safety of others and myself. Telling my story once a year on a whim to a room full of strangers, always men, so they can decide my fate, as well as the fate of this “upstanding young man with a good head on his shoulders” (actual words used during my initial rape/domestic abuse trial against him), was never what I imagined finally turning him in would look like. I really never thought that after everything, his sentence wouldn’t even be as long as our relationship. The original sentence was 5 years. After he got out on a Governor Cuomo Covid related prison loophole and broke his parole almost immediately, he was sentenced to another 2 on top of that. He has 6 left. We talk about how flawed our system is, but really seeing it is a different kind of punch. Women aren’t believed. There’s a reason so many of these crimes go unreported, and why so many women die at the hands of angry men. The hoops you have to jump through are miles high and on fire, and when you and the advocate show up armed only with your truth, your tears and a little evidence from one night at a bar when he got to drunk and forgot he was in public, it’s very easy for a judge to rule on the softer side. Because, as you all know, we’d never want to ruin a wealthy mans life unless there’s cold, hard, reason to.

Seeing his face when they read out his sentence, after years of terror, was satisfying to say the least and if I hadn’t been so numb to get through the hearing, I would’ve enjoyed it more. I will never forget going to a trusted friends house after that hearing and being completely overwhelmed with all of the emotions. Relief, guilt, sadness, anger, happiness, fear.. so many I couldn’t express.. all at once because the novocain wears off and numb isn’t forever and I fell asleep with their dog after a lot of crying. I’d be lying though if I said that 18 year old in me didn’t feel a loss. I grew up with incredible grandparents that did amazing things in teaching me how to love people and be a good human, but no one can protect us from everything. I also grew up with a mother who fights demons of her own and never had the capacity to love two kids. In a situation like that, someone becomes the punching bag. I became the punching bag and desperately looked for ways out, an opportunity to run.. and I ran right into him, who accepted me with open arms for the first time in my young, very inexperienced life.. and I followed him blindly and he was my whole world. Until I was 27, I didn’t have a guide. By the grace of God I landed into a community in Florida that slowly helped me realize my worth.

So.. what now.

How do we fix what our parents and past broke?

How do you reparent yourself?

The mental health journey is proving to be my biggest struggle yet. There’s no more outside factors, it’s just me and the lies that have fed me for years and altered how I think and feel and understand the world. I can feel myself frustrating people I’ve let close to me. I feel myself getting nervous and pushing people away. Sometimes I can catch it and regroup, other times that nasty little voice is too loud and I’m exhausted. My goodness though, how cool is it to learn so much about yourself? I know I have the capacity to love that broken part of me eventually, but it’s still hard to face. Getting to learn and understand the reason behind your actions is terrifyingly amazing. I am proud of this journey. Even when I don’t always come up on top. It’s hard to see the progress while you’re in it, but laying it all out like this.. I can safely say I’m never going to be that 18 year old girl ever again. Some days this journey looks different, some days the darkness wins, because healing isn’t linear. Sometimes it’s one step forward, 2 steps back… but nothing is too broken to fix.. and I will never call that darkness home again.

[delphinidin4]

 Forty-five percent of adults say they’re preoccupied with their weight some or all of the time—an 11-point rise since 1990. Nearly half of 3- to 6- year old girls say they worry about being fat. 

...

 I have never written a story where so many of my sources cried during interviews, where they shook with anger describing their interactions with doctors and strangers and their own families.

Chances of a woman classified as obese achieving a “normal” weight:.008%

SOURCE: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, 2015

Diets do not work. Not just paleo or Atkins or Weight Watchers or Goop, but all diets. Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that two-thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost. The reasons are biological and irreversible. As early as 1969, research showed that losing just 3 percent of your body weight resulted in a 17 percent slowdown in your metabolism

“As a kid, I thought that fat people were just lonely and sad—almost like these pathetic lost causes. So I want to show that we get to experience love, too. I’m not some 'fat friend' or some dude's chubby chasing dream. I'm genuinely happy. I just wish I'd known how possible that was when I was a kiddo.”— CORISSA ENNEKING

“If you looked at anything other than my weight,” Enneking says now, “I had an eating disorder. And my doctor was congratulating me.”

...

This phenomenon is not merely anecdotal. Doctors have shorter appointments with fat patients and show less emotional rapport in the minutes they do have. Negative words—“noncompliant,” “overindulgent,” “weak willed”—pop up in their medical histories with higher frequency. ... In 2011, the Sun-Sentinel polled OB-GYNs in South Florida and discovered that 14 percent had barred all new patients weighing more than 200 pounds.

...

When Joy Cox, an academic in New Jersey, was 16, she went to the hospital with stomach pains. The doctor didn’t diagnose her dangerously inflamed bile duct, but he did, out of nowhere, suggest that she’d get better if she stopped eating so much fried chicken. “He managed to denigrate my fatness and my blackness in the same sentence,” she says.

“There is so much agency taken from marginalized groups to mute their voices and mask their existence. Being depicted as a female CEO—one who is also black and fat—means so much to me. It is a representation of the reclamation of power in the boardroom, classroom and living room of my body. I own all of this.”— JOY COX

Physicians are often required, in writing, to prove to hospital administrators and insurance providers that they have brought up their patient’s weight and formulated a plan to bring it down—regardless of whether that patient came in with arthritis or a broken arm or a bad sunburn. Failing to do that could result in poor performance reviews, low ratings from insurance companies or being denied reimbursement if they refer patients to specialized care. 

...

Three separate studies have found that fat women are more likely to die from breast and cervical cancers than non-fat women, a result partially attributed to their reluctance to see doctors and get screenings. Erin Harrop, a researcher at the University of Washington, studies higher-weight women with anorexia, who, contrary to the size-zero stereotype of most media depictions, are twice as likely to report vomiting, using laxatives and abusing diet pills. Thin women, Harrop discovered, take around three years to get into treatment, while her participants spent an average of 13 and a half years waiting for their disorders to be addressed.

...

If Sonya ever forgets that she is fat, the world will remind her. She has stopped taking the bus, she tells me, because she can sense the aggravation of the passengers squeezing past her. Sarah, the tech CEO, tenses up when anyone brings bagels to a work meeting. If she reaches for one, are her employees thinking, “There goes the fat boss”? If she doesn’t, are they silently congratulating her for showing some restraint?

Emily says it’s the do-gooders who get to her, the women who stop her on the street and tell her how brave she is for wearing a sleeveless dress on a 95-degree day.

Ratio of soda and candy ads seen by black children compared to white children: 2:1

SOURCE: UCONN RUDD CENTER FOR FOOD POLICY AND OBESITY, 2015

This is how fat-shaming works: It is visible and invisible, public and private, hidden and everywhere at the same time. Research consistently finds that larger Americans (especially larger women) earn lower salaries and are less likely to be hired and promoted.... What’s worse, only a few cities and one state (nice work, Michigan) officially prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of weight.

...Paradoxically, as the number of larger Americans has risen, the biases against them have become more severe. More than 40 percent of Americans classified as obese now say they experience stigma on a daily basis, a rate far higher than any other minority group. And this does terrible things to their bodies. According to a 2015 study, fat people who feel discriminated against have shorter life expectancies than fat people who don't. “These findings suggest the possibility that the stigma associated with being overweight,” the study concluded, “is more harmful than actually being overweight.”

...

Kids as young as 3 describe their larger classmates with words like “mean,” “stupid” and “lazy.”

And yet, despite weight being the number one reason children are bullied at school, America’s institutions of public health continue to pursue policies perfectly designed to inflame the cruelty. TV and billboard campaigns still use slogans like “Too much screen time, too much kid” and “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid.” Cat Pausé, a researcher at Massey University in New Zealand, spent months looking for a single public health campaign, worldwide, that attempted to reduce stigma against fat people and came up empty. In an incendiary case of good intentions gone bad, about a dozen states now send children home with “BMI report cards,” an intervention unlikely to have any effect on their weight but almost certain to increase bullying from the people closest to them. [I have a friend who had to take a paper home in high school telling her family she was obese. Now, in her late twenties, she’s still dealing with the emotional scars.]

...

The effects of weight bias get worse when they’re layered on top of other types of discrimination. A 2012 study found that African-American women are more likely to become depressed after internalizing weight stigma than white women. Hispanic and black teenagers also have significantly higher rates of bulimia. And, in a remarkable finding, rich people of color have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than poor people of color—the opposite of what happens with white people. One explanation is that navigating increasingly white spaces, and increasingly higher stakes, exerts stress on racial minorities that, over time, makes them more susceptible to heart problems.

...

But perhaps the most unique aspect of weight stigma is how it isolates its victims from one another. For most minority groups, discrimination contributes to a sense of belongingness, a community in opposition to a majority. Gay people like other gay people; Mormons root for other Mormons. Surveys of higher-weight people, however, reveal that they hold many of the same biases as the people discriminating against them. In a 2005 study, the words obese participants used to classify other obese people included gluttonous, unclean and sluggish.

...

Fat people, though, never get a moment of declaring their identity, of marking themselves as part of a distinct group. They still live in a society that believes weight is temporary, that losing it is urgent and achievable, that being comfortable in their bodies is merely “glorifying obesity.” This limbo, this lie, is why it’s so hard for fat people to discover one another or even themselves. “No one believes our It Gets Better story,” says Tigress Osborn, the director of community outreach for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. “You can’t claim an identity if everyone around you is saying it doesn’t or shouldn’t exist.”

“I think some folks are genuinely surprised that a man who looks like him is with a woman like me. As a fat person, I'm very aware of when I'm being stared at—and I have never been looked at this much before. So I thought that taking the photo in public would be a good idea. It feels subversive to show my fat body doing regular stuff the world believes I don't or can't do.”— EMILY

Since 1980, the obesity rate has doubled in 73 countries and increased in 113 others. And in all that time, no nation has reduced its obesity rate. Not one.

...

The problem is that in America, like everywhere else, our institutions of public health have become so obsessed with body weight that they have overlooked what is really killing us: our food supply. Diet is the leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for more than five times the fatalities of gun violence and car accidents combined. But it’s not how much we’re eating—Americans actually consume fewer calories now than we did in 2003. It’s what we’re eating.

For more than a decade now, researchers have found that the quality of our food affects disease risk independently of its effect on weight. Fructose, for example, appears to damage insulin sensitivity and liver function more than other sweeteners with the same number of calories. People who eat nuts four times a week have 12 percent lower diabetes incidence and a 13 percent lower mortality rate regardless of their weight. All of our biological systems for regulating energy, hunger and satiety get thrown off by eating foods that are high in sugar, low in fiber and injected with additives. And which now, shockingly, make up 60 percent of the calories we eat.

4% of all agricultural subsidies go to fruits and vegetables.

SOURCE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP, 2014-16

But that’s still no reason to despair. There’s a lot we can do right now to improve fat people’s lives—to shift our focus for the first time from weight to health and from shame to support.

...

In 2017, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the expert panel that decides which treatments should be offered for free under Obamacare, found that the decisive factor in obesity care was not the diet patients went on, but how much attention and support they received while they were on it. Participants who got more than 12 sessions with a dietician saw significant reductions in their rates of prediabetes and cardiovascular risk. Those who got less personalized care showed almost no improvement at all.

“My son and I both like to play the hero. There wasn't necessarily any intentional symbolism in the costumes we chose, but I am definitely a member of the rebellion, and I see my role as an eating disorders researcher as trying to fight for justice and a better world. Also, I like that I'm sweaty, dirty and messy, not done up with makeup or with my hair down in this picture. I like that I'm not hiding my stomach, thighs or arms. Not because I'm comfortable being photographed like that, but because I want to be—and I want others to feel free to be like that, too.”— ERIN HARROP

A review of 44 international studies found that school-based activity programs didn’t affect kids’ weight, but improved their athletic ability, tripled the amount of time they spent exercising and reduced their daily TV consumption by up to an hour. Another survey showed that two years of getting kids to exercise and eat better didn’t noticeably affect their size but did improve their math scores—an effect that was greater for black kids than white kids.

You see this in so much of the research: The most effective health interventions aren't actually health interventions—they are policies that ease the hardship of poverty and free up time for movement and play and parenting. Developing countries with higher wages for women have lower obesity rates, and lives are transformed when healthy food is made cheaper. A pilot program in Massachusetts that gave food stamp recipients an extra 30 cents for every $1 they spent on healthy food increased fruit and vegetable consumption by 26 percent. Policies like this are unlikely to affect our weight. They are almost certain, however, to significantly improve our health.

...

What does work, Corrigan says, is for fat people to make it clear to everyone they interact with that their size is nothing to apologize for. “When you pity someone, you think they’re less effective, less competent, more hurt,” he says. “You don’t see them as capable. The only way to get rid of stigma is from power.”

...

This has always been the great hope of the fat-acceptance movement. (“We’re here, we’re spheres, get used to it” was one of the slogans in the 1990s.) But this radical message has long since been co-opted by clothing brands, diet companies and soap corporations. Weight Watchers has rebranded as a “lifestyle program,” but still promises that its members can shrink their way to happiness. Mainstream apparel companies market themselves as “body positive” but refuse to make clothes that fit the plus-size models on their own billboards.

...

“Fat activism isn’t about making people feel better about themselves,” Pausé says. “It’s about not being denied your civil rights and not dying because a doctor misdiagnoses you.”

...

There is no magical cure. There is no time machine. There is only the revolutionary act of being fat and happy in a world that tells you that’s impossible.

“We all have to do our best with the body that we have,” [Ginette Lenham] says. “And leave everyone else’s alone.”

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 42 : Hello, Darkness, my Old and Also Relatively New Teenage Shadow Magic Friend

Recently, on Yugioh, we asked ourselves, (well, I asked myself since I assume most of you have seen this show before) how does it matter at all if you lose your memories of someone for like, ten minutes, when you will obviously have to run into them again once the duel is over? And if you have lost the memories that they ever existed then what would it matter since you would not know that you had known them?

This is how - They become shadow people and you literally can’t see them anymore for what I assume is the rest of your life. I don’t know how that works since they can still like write things down on pieces of paper or I dunno, communicate entirely through texting like most kids do who haven’t been cursed with eternal invisibility.

But don’t think too much about the logic, because people can now be erased from your life via cards, AKA Yugioh is gonna throw us another heavy handed take on depression, get ready. And honestly, it’s not a bad take. Good on Yugioh for this fairly accurate metaphor of what sadness can feel like. Like, sometimes people feel like their friends don't like them anymore, although they may be surrounded by people the entire time who are rooting for them and want to help them, but they just can’t see them. I think every person in the world has been through that at some point. You don’t often see it addressed in a kid’s show, although it really should be, because it happens so often.

Probably shouldn’t have started out with Tea for this example though. Like for reals, when have Mai and Tea ever hung out? That one time Mai told Tea to take a shower because she smelled like a boy? Or...

...That’s it. That’s the last conversation I remember these two having one-on-one. Most of the time Mai has been on screen is with Yugi and Joey instead. Mai and Tea shared a tent once. That’s it.

Lolmao I can’t believe Mime came back.

So now, canonically, BDSM Mime got stranded somewhere in Japan and now Marik doesn’t have any memories to even go and pick him up. He’s just forever trapped in this country now like Shenmue.

(read more)

Mai seems to remember that she used to know someone, so it’s more of like you get the feeling of losing a friend. Like basically every time you lose a monster you feel like you broke up with someone, but you can’t remember who. I can’t really relate to that feeling, but I’m sure this has happened to Mai at least once or twice for reals before this tournament. This is the girl who forgot she set herself up to get engaged.

Again, if you just thought it through for like 3 seconds, you’d have enough evidence to say “Yeah but this is all in my mind, I am standing in weird ass purple fog” but that’s the Shadow Realm.

After Tea’s memory is dissolved, next comes the threat of losing the memories of Joey Wheeler, AKA the vague love interest that she was very mad at up until about 5 seconds ago.

Also please admire how far the storyboarder went out of their way to avoid looking up Mai’s skirt. Straight up, they did not even bother to try and cover up those panty upskirts in Sailor Moon, but the storyboarder for Yugioh was so extra that they said “Hell with it, I’m gonna try” and so Mai’s legs are like double jointed and sprawled in the weirdest ways sometimes to cover that crack.

I mean, it’s still a pinup--there’s no way around this character design--but I really think they were trying to not go too far, but then ended up making it kind of worse sometimes. It’s just what happens when you have a love affair a lot of extreme low angle shots but none of your girls wear pants because it’s 2001 and everyone’s wearing tube tops and minis.

Which was a thing. I’ll admit it, I lived through it, 2001 was kind of a slutty time, it was the era of the glittery backless diamond shaped halter top. Which, while time has tried to forget, I will never forget the 20 minutes I spent in a dressing room trying to figure out how to put on a backless diamond shaped halter top only to realize that I was putting it on sideways.

Now, stepping away from confusing 00′s fashion and back to the show. Mai losing these pile of kids might mean more to me if Mai had been hanging out with them this whole time, but it really does feel like they’re closer to Duke Devlin than they are to Mai Valentine, because Duke at least shared a school with them so I can assume that in the past they’ve passed each other in the hallway or talked on occasion. But, Mai is an adult who never comes in contact outside of cards, and when she does, she only ever pushes them away.

It’s especially that-Yugioh-brand-of-tragic because in the mind of all of the characters on this show, we’ve just kind of assumed Mai has had a life and friendships outside of these couple of kids. But this episode we realize there’s just...no one else but the people she sees at these rare tourneys. As we see here in this flashback to her childhood, in the most anime PJ’s ever drawn.

Why does every flashback look like everyone's straight out the American Girl Doll collection? Like Pegasus and Cecilia were in turn of the century clothes. the Kaibas were dressed like little newsies when they were orphans, little Mai looks like she owns a horse in matching ribbons.

And as it turns out, do you know the reason why Mai hates friendship? You’ll never guess--her Parents. Ah, Neglectful Parents, strikes again, that old Yugioh chestnut. It’s like I’m watching Once Upon a Time again. At least these neglectful parents didn’t lock her up underground and tattoo her eyes. Instead, these ones just worked a lot and she got kinda lonely.

Are there any good parents on this show? I assume if anyone’s parents are good we just never see them, right? Is that why we never see Mr Muto?

Anyway, Mai moved around a lot, her parents were always busy, and it rained like constantly--so Mai decided to get a job on a cruise line, where she became a card shark. And also where she randomly got engaged and then forgot.

I don't remember her tent looking like that but I’ll allow it.

You could have chosen any friends out there Mai, traveling the world on a cruise line, doing cards all over the planet, and you chose these guys? The ones with multiple curses? Like you nabbed both Yugi and Bakura in one go? Congrats!

Anyway she very quickly forgets Joey so Rip MaixJoey that was a good one and half episodes, surely the longest relationship on Yugioh!

So, Yugi decides to activate the millennium item chatroom, where apparently he could just butt into whoever is getting cursed at the moment. And mind you, he could just solve the duel but like, there is a card game going on, and although it’s super duper cursed, we gotta make it fair. Yugi’s just here to give some good advice and then bounce.

No laser fights today. He still isn’t aware he can do that.

freakin love this blue yellow color combo PS.

So something that I do like about this, is that the real threat here in these Shadow Duels is not the duel really--it’s to Mai’s relationships more than injury Mai herself. Yes, she does die if she loses, but the more she loses, the more she loses people in her life, even if she wins. The loss of the people is more scary to her more than the fear of dying.

And this hearkens back to the first time we dealt with the Shadow Realm with Yugi and his Grandfather. Yugi was over that duel in about 15 minutes or whatever the time limit was, and after the initial shock he brushed himself off and may have appeared fully recovered, but it took him almost an entire season to get his Grandpa back in his life.

So if you look at these curses as akin to getting an illness, when you lose a relationship because of illness, that can be a pretty terrible symptom that you don’t really see coming. Happens a whole lot though. In Mai’s case, if she does lose, she also loses the opportunity to repair what she’s lost, which is probably the greatest fear of someone who may be going through A Time.

Like honestly, the Mai duel is *kind of a downer* and I was just talking to my Bro about how of all the shadow duels so far, this is the one that is most clearly “I’m just going to fight you with straight up depression” and how apparently Marik is just so far into his own downward spiral that he no longer cares about who he drags down with him. He’s just given up trying to be better at this point. Like his only ‘friend’ left is BDSM Mime clown. That’s a pretty intense rock bottom, honestly.

But on a positive note, what Yugi points out to Mai is “You’re in this now, but we will get you out of it, no matter what he curses you to believe.” and of anyone here, Yugi’s the only one that can actually reach out and speak to her because he’s the only one who has been through it before and thus knows how it works.

Being cursed with heavy handed illness imagery AKA Shadow Magic does have that perk. You can help out the similarly cursed. Even though he could have probably launched at least a couple fireballs at the problem to help her out also.

Holy hell they actually edited out all the little details on this duel disk here. Good on you, animators. Good on you. I’m glad someone did it. Hope that saved at least one of you from carpal tunnel, you poor overworked animators that had to draw every line on these crazy complicated character designs.

So Mai, spurned onward by the ghostly voices of her forgotten friends figures out how to steal Marik’s God Card.

Again, everyone on this show is obsessed with these awful cards and they feel like they must play them to win when honestly--look how much this card sucks.

If this God Card ends up killing her it’ll only prove my point that all these cards are just fundamentally hella bad.

Same with Odion, he could’ve won just fine without playing a God Card but leave it to these dummies to just go crazy with the one of three cards that has been prophecies to kill them. Like, when Odysseus gives you a bag of wind, just don’t open the bag. That easy.

Anyway, tune in next week to see if Mai ends up blown overboard like the servants of Odysseus, or if she ends up devoured by a giant creature also like the servants of Odysseus. Or if she ends up dating Joey Wheeler. That part didn’t happen in the Odyssey, but I’ve read enough people comparing fanfic to Homer that I guess you could make it happen if you really wanted to.

Link to read these recaps from S1 Ep1

[amongthedeep-blog]

Social Media

It's bizarre to me how much experience in internet changed, especially tools which the purpose for was striking conversation and facilitating that. Many would say social media started with FB, but the reality was it already existed in MSN and then Skype, and before those it was forums and IIRC's. MSN and Skype made it so we would talk to each other, be it in groups or 1-on-1, and it felt like we were all connected.

Along the way, somehow social media became...disconnected, lonely, anti-social itself. Most of the tools are made so you're not talking with people. Likes, RTs, Reblogs, whatever else? It's interaction but not socializing.  We're just screaming into the void, hoping someone sees, notices us, answers us. It's become the antithesis of what social media should be. Interacting directly with words has become a bygone thing for a lot of people. Many would say, well that's why online friendships are not real, but even with family and friends that we know IRL there's less interaction, less realness. A lot of things are staged, as if it only happens if it's posted online, with pictures, and people congratulating you online even though that cousin? You haven't seen them in 5 years, and never messages you. It's very hypocrite. Mostly though? It's sad that we've had so much progress in technology, but it seems socially we're devolving. This is why mostly I am not in social medias, and by that it means I do HAVE them. I have a Twitter I sometimes check, a FB for family and friends, my websites to track what I do like GoodReads, Trakt, Anime-Planet, Grouvee, etc; but mostly? I prefer the social media that are made for actual messaging and talking with people, not at people. LINE is my fave because of the stickers, and my online friends are there. You can have groups and just chat about whatever. It's so much more real than having a lot of followers which never speak to you, that act like robots just liking or RTing, and I'm not much better. It's very easy to fall into those habits with social media like Twitter, it's done so it's fast-paced and forgettable. But I don't want to forget, I want to connect, make friends, engage, be real, be unforgettable. Disclaimer: I don't like discord because it reminds me of IIRC days, which I really don't like how it was. Also just feeling nostalgic when internet was easier to be, to have fun, and connect, where it was just people hitting it off over common hobbies and likes. A lot of that has left. Social media has become a paradise for SJW/fandom patrollers, and become incredibly toxic even with block and mute buttons. That's why I wasn't surprised when YouTube is actually one of the few social media that gives less depression/anxiety. Why? Because in YT you control what you're seeing. On social media like Twitter/etc, you can't really truly control because friends will RT things, they'll talk about things that might be heavy/downer without warning. I also see a lot of people complain that they feel invisible online, and it's no wonder when everyone is just screaming into a void, instead of speaking WITH people. Social media are no longer made to connect and talk with people, but instead a lot of platforms are made just to engage with big accounts, make money for the platforms, and they're not even made for long discussions, in-depth talk. Instead they're made for throwaway messages, mostly with gifs and memes, or likes. It's no surprise that Twitter thrives. It's the shortest of them. Y'all might think, but bitch you're right now writing a blog entry which is also a social media. Yes, but tell me, how popular ARE even blog platforms anymore? WordPress is popular, for those that blog or have websites. But it's actually an incredibly small niche. Smaller than you think. I've been involved and the top bloggers for anime community are maybe 5, 10 max. The rest falls to the wayside sooner or later. And the same will be for book reviewers, etc. Blogging has been something that's steadily died, the same as forums. Big time forums have seen their users leave for popular social medias. Reddit is a micro-forum, in a sense, but it ephemeral and comment sections will not go on 800+ pages like in some forums for 1 game discussion. Umineko, and Higurashi, had 800+ pages of discussion on 1 forum for EACH game. That was back when the anime community was on forums. Nowadays you can find them on popular social media, and some you can find on MAL forum of the discussions. I'mnot saying by this that there is NO forums, or NO bloggers. I'm saying it's stopped being popular, people stopped engaging and wanting to discuss things. People nowadays just want to throw their opinion, and their opinion as cement, their opinion as being the only right thing in the world. I miss debates, I miss discussions, I miss engaging in a way that is not shallow with a lot of people I meet but I find I can't deepen because it's just awkward on those sites. Messaging apps/websites are niche; blog websites like dreamwidth, Liveajournal, WordPress are niche; and that's a big pity. As technology evolves, we get more detached as people from others because it's just easier than having to do effort, than having to find a way to have long conversations. Twitter has DM limits, and also tweet limits, as does Tumblr, Facebook, etc. And that should tell you something.

[the-rawl]

my imaginary friend saves my life on the regular

I lived in an unpleasantly run-down house in a third-world country with my younger brother, and my parents, who were missionaries. My entire peer group had moved away in the space of six months, leaving me the only fifteen-year-old in our community.

Since only seven children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen remained, the co-op school neglected to hire a teacher to cover our grades, leaving our parents to negotiate their own means. Mine enrolled me in an online school, conducted via online chat and screensharing -- I never saw my classmates' or my teachers' faces. My parents were quite preoccupied with their mutual work, so that the family rarely ate together or spoke except for purely practical reasons. I was terrifically lonely.

No one noticed how late I stayed up, or how late I slept in, or whether I did my homework or attended class or ate regularly. I ate a lot of chocolate -- a bar of dark chocolate a day, sometimes -- and read every book in my collection over and over again, trying to become the characters, and have their problems, which were always solved by the end of the series. I ate toast when I was hungry, because when the power was on it was easy to make. I cried a lot. Some nights, about two in the morning, I'd walk around the silent house and the courtyard in the dark, too miserable to sit still or to sleep or to read. I remember looking up at the sky through the grapevines on the arbor and wondering if this was rock bottom, if I could possibly feel worse.

Well, I could.

long text post under the cut

My mom and I went to the shop down the street for groceries. It was probably a fifteen minute walk, both ways. Early on the way back, some young local man made an inappropriate gesture at me, and after we passed him, followed us for a short way. My mom told me I needed to walk with more confidence, that I looked like a target. I was afraid.

After that, getting home seemed to take forever. It was like I existed in dark fog with the consistency of cotton candy, thick, and cloying. Sound seemed muffled, like being underwater. I was cold.

I got to my room on autopilot. I laid down. I was at the bottom of a well, knee-deep in cold water. I couldn't see day at the top, just some specs of light, stars maybe. I couldn't get out. I had something living in my chest, thick and black, stinking like tar, or like rotten vegetation. If you cut me open it would seep out without depleting, like an infection. I had a hood over my head that smelled like dust from a closet that hasn't been opened in years. There was a pain in the back of my throat, like I needed to cough, or scream, but I couldn't make a sound. My bedroom light, a bare bulb, had a fuzzy halo around it when I looked up, so I knew it was on. But the corners of the room were dark.

That was the first time I thought about killing myself. Eventually I fell asleep.

When I woke up it was morning, and I was hungry. Emotionally, there was nothing. I'd been pressed flat between two slabs of concrete. I was a single grain of sand on a tile floor. I got up and made toast. Then I cleaned the rabbit hutches, and pulled down hay for them.

When I'd finished my chores I went to my laptop and plugged in the usb stick for accessing the satellite internet. I was only supposed to use it for school, but last night had told me that I wasn't just sad all the time -- there was something wrong with me, and if I didn't do something, I was probably going to die. That didn't sound all that bad, except that me dying would be a terrible burden on my family.

That's how I learned I was depressed, that it was a legitimate medical condition, and that I had no access to any of the resources the websites recommended -- not therapy, not medication, not social support (I didn’t feel like I could approach my parents at the time, although I eventually did, which lead to some major life changes later on).

I also learned that the way I was feeling and the things I told myself weren't normally-calibrated responses to my environment. That I couldn't trust my own brain to interpret what was happening to me without applying a false negative patina. This would have been quite alarming if I had been able to muster any emotional response at all. What do you do, when you can't trust your own brain?

I needed someone or something that could be with me. That could tell me the truth, serve as a reality check, remind me of my options and the reasons I had chosen not to pursue some of them, and that could be available at any time of the day or night.

So I made myself an imaginary friend. Her name was Ka, and she was shaped like a little dragon, small enough to sit on my shoulder. She was green, and the edges of her scales were soft, and the tips of her talons were blunted -- she wasn't there to protect me from things around me. She was there to protect me from myself.

I knew that making a construct of this kind was dangerous, that I was relying on my own faulty brain to regulate what amounted to a second personality. But I was at the point where having an alternate personality or a voice in my head could hardly make anything worse. I put in some safeguards, choosing to trust in my ability to create and maintain them.

Ka could only ever tell the entire, unbiased truth, and she couldn't force me to do anything. I wasn't allowed to give her the driver's seat. She couldn't interact with the physical world in any way, not as herself, and not through me. When I was very lonely, I would pretend she was sitting or walking next to me, but she only ever existed in my head.

I would wake up, and it would be two in the afternoon, and I would feel bad about wasting most of the day. But Ka would say, you are up now, and you didn't sleep for twelve hours this time, which is an improvement over yesterday. You have enough time to eat and to log in for your English class. Oatmeal would be a healthy alternative to toast. You could put honey in it.

I would forget to do my chores, and someone else would feed and sweep up after the rabbits. And I felt terrible about neglecting my animals, and I felt like I had been neglected, too, because whichever of my parents had done the work never brought it up, and I was desperate for some accountability. Then Ka would tell me that feeling bad about forgetting the rabbits was a good, reasonable thing, because it meant I recognised I had failed to maintain my responsibility to them. That before I look to my parents for accountability I needed to look to myself. That my parents had made sure my animals wouldn't suffer. That I had another chance not to make the same mistake. That possibly my parents hadn't failed to discipline me, but rather decided I had too much on my plate, and tried to be kind by not mentioning my lapse. That symptoms of depression include sleeping too much, tiredness, trouble thinking, concentrating, deciding, remembering, and so forgetting the animals was not entirely my fault. That I could forgive myself.

I would skip my most hated class, Biblical Worldview, and feel both guilty about doing it, and pleased with getting away with it, and confused and sad because while I was skiving I wasn't doing anything I enjoyed more, because I couldn't think of anything I would actually enjoy doing. Ka said, you're old and mature enough to decide for yourself whether attending lecture is necessary for you to understand the material in this unit. That if you made the wrong decision by not attending, the consequences will occur when you struggle with the homework. That some consequences will occur regardless in the form of your participation grade. That loss of interest in normal activities is a symptom. That choosing to do nothing rather than participating in an unpleasant activity is still an improved experience, and therefore a reasonable, if mildly hedonistic, decision.

When I thought about hurting myself, about hurting myself more than just digging fingernails into my arm without breaking the skin, Ka said that doing so was risky. I might experience a brief emotional relief by doing so, but the risk of infection or accident was considerable. That self-harm was noticeable, and as she reminded me, above all I didn't want to be noticed. That in all the stories or accounts I ever read about self harm, not one person failed to regret it later. That however much I might hate another person, I wouldn't take a knife to them. Why should my own body be an exception?

When I wanted to die... Ka said that by killing myself, I would abandon everything that would happen to me, and everything that I would do, and everything that I was responsible for. Yes, the pain would stop. Wanting to escape pain is normal. But the depression could ease, and that would also stop this particular suffering. If I died, who would finish the stories I wrote? If I died, our wandering outdoor cat might decide never to come home again -- I was her favorite. If I died, my parents would be very upset, and surprised (I don't think they understood the depth of my affliction until many years afterward). She said, even if you hate yourself, hate being yourself, there are creatures left who rely on your existence for their physical and emotional wellbeing. She said, cutting your ties to this place in that way means cutting all of them, even the good ones, even if there aren't many good ones left.

Ka wasn't all about dispensing sensible thoughts into my unbalanced brain. I would tell her stories, on my good days, and she would contribute to the plot. When I had a positive emotion (positive emotions were usually muted, when I felt them at all), she would echo that feeling back at me, so it was like hanging out with a friend who enjoys the same things you do. It was incredibly reassuring to be able to fall back onto her sensible, even-tempered presence when I felt anything but.

About a year later, motivated by my persistent mental health issues and my brother’s own health problems, my family moved back to the States, and I got some real psychiatric care, including counseling and a prescription. As my depression eased, I needed Ka less often, and eventually she retreated. She said I didn't need her anymore, and after a while, I didn't miss her. I made a few new friends. The sky seemed so much clearer for my last three years of high school. I rediscovered what it was like to enjoy life.

For many people, depression is a chronic condition. When I went to college, mine came back. Not quite as strong as before, because I recognised the symptoms early and started deploying coping mechanisms sooner. But it was there, that blackness welling from deep in my chest, creeping up my throat till eating made me feel sick. My dorm room was a poor refuge, because my roommate loved people, but not cleanliness. I had no support system, because I attended college out of state, and no one came with me.

I missed a lot of meals. I lost about fifteen pounds, and I was never heavy. I slept fourteen hours a day on weekends, and four hours on weekdays. I got all As, my first two years, with a full class load, in the engineering track.

At the end of one bad day, first semester of freshman year, I came back to a blessedly-empty dorm room, locked the door behind me, and had a panic attack on the floor. When that finished, I wanted something to make me feel better. Getting chocolate would mean leaving the room -- not an option. I had no comfort foods, my bedding was stale, the bathroom was grimy. No one I trusted lived within eight hundred miles. My betta fish swam to the surface when I lifted the tank cover, but it was not in their nature to be cuddly.

I remembered Ka. I wished she were there. I pulled at the spot where she used to be, wondering if I could recreate her, or something like her.

She uncurled, lifted her head, and said, "I'd hoped you'd look for me soon. I couldn't come back to help until you asked for me."

This depressive episode has lasted for four years, prolonged, I think, by my pigheaded stubbornness in pursuing a degree far past when the cost to my health exceeded the benefit higher education could bring me. And also by my parents' divorce precipitated by my dad's gender transition. I'm only recently starting to emerge from it, an improvement brought on mostly by my decision to drop out of college.

I haven't called on Ka as often as I did as a teenager. I have more access to external resources, these days, including finances, medication and trusted friends. But even now, if I tap at the part of my mind where she is, she'll uncurl and sleepily ask, "What is it?"

I think, "Just checking you're still there. Go back to sleep. I'm okay right now."

I'm not writing this down as advice; I'm not saying, if you're depressed, make yourself an imaginary friend. Don't do that, or if you must, make sure you know what you're doing, and the risks. What I wrote up there about constructs like Ka having the potential to be dangerous is real. I was careful, but I was also lucky.

I wrote this on the off chance that someone already has their own Ka, in the unlikely event that that person reads this, to let them know that they aren't the only one. And I'm hoping, a little, to learn I'm not the only one.

[askshivanulegacy]

Yet Another OC Ask Meme 1, 6, 12, 17, 19 & 20 for Blakk

Yet Another OC Ask Meme

1: What’s something other characters will notice first about your character?

The fact that someone is there when they didn’t expect someone to be there.  The Intel experiments that left him without connection to the Force have the odd “side-effect” that makes him easy (and very likely) to overlook or forget, unless there’s a very direct interaction or unless someone is making a concerted effort to look for him.  Useful for a stealth agent, but also very sad.

Appearance-wise though, it would probably be the fact that he’s small, dark, and has a scar across his right eye.  After that, it’s the unexpected discovery that he’ll go from being 100% reserved to talking like he’s 10X bigger and stronger in 0.1 seconds flat. :’D

6: What kind of media would (or does) your character consume? This includes books, tv shows, video games, and movies.

Books - rarely, but the occasional mystery.  Also consumes much technical journals for “fun.”

TV shows - also rare, only when sponsored aggressively by certain annoying friends.  He likes Wrathful Wrats; will never admit.

Video games - not much in practice, but he would if properly motivated/challenged; learns quick like any teen/young adult.  Once crashed the entire Intelligence mainframe when a friendly coding competition-turned-RPG got out of hand.

Movies - also very rare and only with friends. He prefers mysteries and action/adventure, but will honestly be happy watching anything, especially if it means he gets to spend some quiet time with certain favorite people without having to admit it. ;)

12: Does your character have any addictions, allergies, diseases, illnesses, disorders, or disabilities? How does this affect their life?

Blakk has an immune deficiency as a result of his disconnect from the Force.  He gets sick easily and must visit medical prior to departure to every new planet for immunizations. That usually takes several days to a week, because they also tend to make him sick, so they want him there for observation and recovery to make sure he’s in top form when he begins his mission. Even with that, he often comes down with something unforeseen on-planet. Sometimes it’s even just an illness that would be mundane for everyone else but just completely knocks him out.

Speaking of diseases, Blakk does end up with a chronic version of the Rakghoul plague at some point. Chronic plague won’t turn anyone into a Rakghoul, but it does make you sick at times, and there’s no known cure.  (This is a total canon in-game thing, I can’t make this up. :’D )

As far as the disconnect from the Force goes, it has saddled Blakk with a sense of loneliness and a persistent feeling of cold, somewhere deep inside.  It’s why he gets chilled easily, and why he likes places like Tatooine, because they’re his best chance to finally feel warm, even if it doesn’t completely resolve how he feels.  He’s grown up with these feelings, though, so he doesn’t quite recognize them for what they are.  He isn’t aware that the way he feels is different from how anyone else feels.

After Blakk discovers what Intel has done to him and escapes the latest related medical procedure, he’s in very bad shape and turns to stims, adrenals, and spice in desperation to keep himself going.  He ends up addicted, and does his best to keep it secret.

17: How does alcohol affect your character?

Terribly. Blakk doesn’t drink, so he’s a total lightweight. It goes to his head pretty quickly, haha.

19: What words would your character use to define themself?

“… Skilled, intelligent, deadly, peerless, persistent …”

Or did you want the truth?

Lonely, sad, insecure, introverted …

20: Describe any AUs you have for your character/s.

Omg. :’D  Ok, so other than minor AUs with relatively small changes to relationships/events, the most extreme AUs are:

Dragon!AU - Blakk is a dragon trainer

Pokemon!AU - A what if? pokemon existed “realistically” in some way in Star Wars, and Blakk is the result of a terrible Sith experiment and has no life.  He would be the MewTwo of Star Wars. XD

Centaur/Mer!AU - I blame @trashmuh for this 100%.  Blakk is a centaur. 

Fantasia!AU - Minor AU concept, also @trashmuh‘s fault.  Blakk is a centaur pegasus. :’D

Cyborg!AU - Blakk has lost his eye and uses a cybernetic implant instead.  He falls in love with a certain dragon @askcarminelegacy.

Droid!AU - An extreme version of Cyborg!AU where Blakk ends up uploading himself into a computer mainframe and/or droid.

Droid!AU #2 - An alternate version of the Droid!AU where Blakk has a very close droid companion he communicates with via implant.

Sailor Moon!AU - Total crack AU where Blakk is a Sailor Soldier. Actually rather heart-wrenching. :’D

Pacific Rim!AU - Blakk is a solo Jaeger pilot (small Jaeger, kamikaze-style attacks), who is (so-far) Drift incompatible.

I think these are the main ones.  I’m an AU addict. XD

[to--love--and--be--loved]

Hi Mom,

It’s been approximately one month. One month that this universe has existed and you have not, one month that the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain have moved across the landscapes and you have not been here to see them. One month that I have somehow, unwillingly, managed to be where you don’t see me. I can’t stand it but here I am anyways. My existence without you is unimaginable, uni-fucking-maginable, but here I am anyways.

One month is 2,592,000 seconds and each one of them has passed or will pass very soon, one after another. The first month. And after this will be another month, and another, and another, for the rest of my life, for the rest of time. The universe will keep existing and I will keep existing but I will exist without you.

One month in which I have already forgotten a million things about you that I will never be able to get back. I was thinking the night before last about that thing I wrote a week or so ago, about how the scariest fact I know is that I was sad for three months because of Jack and Anagha. How batshit absurd it is to think that that was the scariest fact I know. That’s not even on the top ten list! The actual scariest fact I know is that I’ve already forgotten what your arms wrapped around me feels like. The actual scariest fact is that I will never again know you as a real person, that I forget you more every second of the day -- CS Lewis described it as a snowstorm, tiny flakes covering up you as you actually were until your outline is totally blurred. The actual scariest fact is that I will live the rest of my life without you.

I feel different. Not in the usual way that people are different, which is about specific features of their personalities changing (in terms of personality I feel pretty much the same, the grief mostly exacerbates my natural tendencies), but more like my organs have rearranged.

***

Here is what I have learned about grief in the last month: you don’t figure out how to do it. It’s not that you don’t know what to do, and then you figure out what to do, and then you do it. It’s nothing like that. “Do” isn’t even the right verb. The only verbs that fit are “survive” and “endure.” You just endure it. Even when it feels like you’re being burned alive or buried alive. Even when it feels unendurable. It is unendurable, and the fact that you endure it does not make it endurable, it just proves that grief is an impossible, illogical thing. It is impossible and yet you do it.

Sandy said, a few weeks ago when I messaged him saying that he didn’t have to room with me next year if he didn’t want to, and he said he would (and thank god for that; I want someone to witness this even if all they can witness is the sound through my bedroom door of me sobbing at 1am; I am brutally viciously cruelly lonely, a deep well that nobody will ever love me enough to fill except you but you are gone, and Sandy cannot fix that of course, no one can, but rooming with friends is better than not), that “I've been thinking about how beautiful the way you've been dealing with this in public is. Even from the limited vantage point afforded us, we can notice your vulnerability and truth, the solace you take in memory, and the care you show for others” and at first it made me happy because I wanted to do grief well and then it made me upset because it felt like the conditional praise for doing grief well that I now hate (because I will not always be able to do grief well -- thus far today I’ve spent most of the day on my phone and hardly talked to dad at lunch and didn’t play with Lily even though it’s her birthday and felt guilty but did it anyways and where does that leave me? conditional praise doesn’t work because grief is ugly and I am imperfect) but now I realize that I was wrong when I was upset. Projecting the Perfectly Grieving Daughter(TM) is not vulnerability and truth or solace in memory and not even really care for others, and I should never have thought it was. Vulnerability and truth is me here on my motherfucking knees (metaphorically. it has been literal as well, but that is too private for this letter which is written only to you but which I will post on a public blog) with nothing but the two most terrible facts I can think of: that you are gone gone gone gone and that the seconds keep marching on, one after another, inexorable, taking me further away from you every moment of my existence.

Vulnerability and truth is me here trying to fit words to it. Two nights ago I read “Before You Know It Something’s Over,” which is a post by Riese, the co-founder of Autostraddle (the people who run A-Camp), about how her dad died when she was 14 (and only now writing this do I remember that that was the exact age you were when your dad died, and I am sorry for forgetting but honestly I do not have any room for your grief right now, only my own; your absence is a hole that swallows things up) and could feel within me the storm of words coming, circling, rearranging, writing and re-writing themselves. And I then began to see and I could see even more clearly this morning how this will be the rest of my life: how I will spend the rest of my life trying to find words for this -- searching, reading and writing. I don’t think words can ever fully pin down any feeling, but sometimes you can find some that get you close to it, a flash, an almost, and I can feel how I will spend the rest of my life chasing the words that will get as close as possible to explaining this -- not to fix it (nothing can), just to explain. To stop the loneliness from crushing me, I suppose. Innate human need to communicate, I suppose. To be known. To be known even though you are not here to know me.

[gingrichvisualnarrative17]

reading response 3/11

THE VOICE OF THINGS

~thinking about;; general impossibility of accurate conceptual translation when a text is so fully about the richness of its language— the general (obvious) difficulty of translating poetry to get meter and definitions to match

~”Disclaiming any taste or talent for ideas, which disgust him because of their pretension to absolute truth, he abandons ideas and opts for things.” Are these mutually exclusive? Are ideas necessarily rooted in a presumption of truth?

~poems in paragraph form, not a form I’m used to seeing.. addressed in into though, “Written in prose, the orderly lines, grouped familiarly on the page in everyday paragraphs, suggest immediate communication. Even the language, at first glance, seems to be the language of everyday. “

~thinking about;; the importance of titles in poetry

~”It is within this seed that one finds —after the sensational explosion of the Chinese lantern of flavors, colors and perfumes which is the fruited ball itself—the relative hardness and greenness (not entirely tasteless, by the way) of the wood, the branch, the leaf; in short, the puny albeit prime purpose of the fruit. “

~Fire: “Fire has a system: first all the flames move in one direction . . . (One can only compare the gait of fire to that of an animal: it must first leave one place before occupying another; it moves like an amoeba and a giraffe at the same time, its neck lurching, its foot dragging) . . . Then, while the substances consumed with method collapse, the escaping gasses are subsequently transformed into one long flight of butterflies. “

~”I am easily convinced, easily dissuaded. And when I say convinced, I mean if not of some truth, then at least of the fragility of my own opinion.” — such a good distinction

~”Passing off one's opinion as objectively valid, or valid in the absolute, seems to me as absurd as maintaining, for example, that blond curly hair is truer than straight black hair, that the song of the nightingale is closer to the truth than the neighing of a horse.” Is preference tied to truth? It seems it doesn’t have to be, but maybe I’m just being dense??

~”Why is there this difference, this unthinkable margin between the definition of a word and the description of the thing designated by the word?” That idea of a word as representation of a concept— Plato’s theory of forms, the word is not the thing, but a representation of it, therefore imperfect, incomplete, and open to interpretation. Also language/definitions are cultural (speaking within a language, not between different languages) the definitions and understandings of words are in as much flux as ideas are, the language is constantly shifting, people’s experiences shape their understanding of words, and slang/vernacular move language and definitions forward. Not just in adding words but in adapting preexisting words.

BLUETS

~thinking about;; use of italics— creating a code or system for your writing that isn’t necessarily on the same page as typical use, but also not so far from it it becomes indecipherable

~”I admit that I may have been lonely. I know that loneliness can produce bolts of hot pain, a pain which, if it stays hot enough for long enough, can begin to simulate, or to provoke-take your pick-an apprehension of the divine.” — divinity in the pain of loneliness— very romantic

~thinking about;; I love this text!!?! this is beautiful and sad and so so TANGIBLE in a way I can’t totally explain??? I wish I could be more eloquent and maybe later I will be able to but currently I can only articulate that I love this text and can feel it in my body and through my blood and I don’t know why

~”On my cv it says that I am currently working on a book about the color blue. I have been saying this for years without writing a word. It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette.” yesyesyes

~”But why bother with diagnoses at all, if a diagnosis is but a restatement of the problem?”

~numbering sections— makes it a cohesive piece that clearly has an order but also allows it to be parsed out and taken in bits and pieces, while always keeping in mind that it does exist in a greater continuous context, but is not fully reliant on its situation within the larger whole

~”It was around this time that I frst had the thought: we fuck well because he is a passive top and I am an active bottom. I never said this out loud, but I thought it often. I had no idea how true it would prove, or how painful, outside of the fucking.”

~"What are all those I fuzzy-looking things out there? I Trees? Well, I'm tired I of them" — incredible last words

~”And what kind of madness is it anyway, to he in love with something constitutionally incapable of loving you back?”

~”If he hadn't lied to you, he would have been a different person than he is. She is trying to get me to see that although I thought I loved this man very completely for exactly who he was, I was in fact blind to the man he actually was, or is.” amazing !!!

~”that if what I was feeling wasn't love then I am forced to admit that I don't know what love is, or, more simply, that I loved a had man. How all of these formulations drain the blue right out of love and leave an ugly, pigment-less fish flapping on a cutting hoard on a kitchen counter. “

~”What seems clear enough: in 304 AD Lucy was tortured and put to death by the Roman emperor Diocletian, and thus martyred for her Christianity. What is unclear: why, exactly, she runs around Gothic and Renaissance paintings holding a golden dish with her blue eyes staring weirdly out from it.”

~I just bought Maggie Nelson’s book Argonauts on Amazon— I swear I saw it before but I forget the context?? Maybe when I was looking up queer lit to buy for Sarah…

~"What good is my peek at her pubic hair if I must also see the red lines made by her panties, the pimples on her rump, broken veins like the print of a lavender thumb, the stepped-on look of a day' s-end muff ? I've that at home." << what a gross thing to say, William Gass !!

~”Loneliness is solitude with a problem.”

~”Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.”

~”Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping-its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair. (Can a reflection be a witness? Can one pass oneself the sponge wet with vinegar from a reed?)” !!!!!!

~ I love the word cogent

~”the romance of seeking”

~I just bought this book on Amazon even though I am reading the PDF right now— why do I do this

~”to see blue in deeper and deeper saturation is eventually to move toward darkness.”

~”The Oblivion Seekers” by Isabelle Eberhardt

[ahmerjohnny-blog]

Sad Whatsapp Status

https://latestquoteswala.com/sad-whatsapp-status/

Sad Whatsapp Status

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Sad Status In English 2 Lines

One of the worst matters that could occur to a person is to be forgotten by a person they will in no way forget about.

I by no means felt proper love until I became with you. And I never felt true sadness until you left me.

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I am the only that said “Goodbye”, It’s over” but I’m the one crying.

I am the only that stated “Goodbye”, It’s over” however I’m the only crying. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

I’m lacking something in my life in recent times.

God handiest makes glad endings. If it is now not glad, then it is no longer the stop.

It sucks to be on my own, even if there are humans all around you.

The scars you couldn’t see are the hardest to heal.

What’s the point in all this screaming, nobody’s listening anyway?

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I’m sad. No. I’m mad. No, wait… I don’t understand I just want a freaking large… (Sad Whatsapp Status)

I have Many troubles in my life…But My lips don’t realize that They Always Smile.

Don’t accept as true with an excessive amount of, don’t love too much, don’t care an excessive amount of due to the fact that ‘an excessive amount of’ will harm you a lot!

The toughest part of dreaming about a person you love is having to wake up. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

Sad Status About Life

Once you lose a person, it’s never exactly the same person who comes lower back. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

I just wanna run away… Run far away from all of my issues and ache and never come again… Because I don’t think anyone could leave out me.

Always seems like goes the incorrect manner on a one-manner road…

Poor guy walks miles to earn the meals & rich man walks miles to digest the meals.

Smile and no person will see how damaged you’re internal.

Remember, you are lovely. But take into account that no longer anyone’s gonna be able to see that.

I am no longer just every other toy you could play with when all of your other toys are broken.

As I’m trying to make absolutely everyone else happy I’m making myself depressing into the system. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

The reality hurts for a bit whilst, however, lies hurt for a lifetime.

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I feel crappy interior like something simply broke.

Let nobody assume I gave in.

Two barrels of tears do not heal a bruise.

There’s no factor in crying, the tears won’t bring you returned to me.

There’s no point in crying, the tears may not convey you again to me.

There’s nonetheless handiest one character who hasn’t given up on me. God, thank you for loving me.

The unhappy part isn’t that we in no way talk, its that we used to talk each day.

It’s no longer usually the tears that degree the ache. Sometimes it`s the smile we fake. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

Sometimes what you don’t say is a greater power than what you do say.

When I smile and say “Yeah, I’m nice” it’s truly coded for “No I’m not ok and I experience like my world is crashing down around me.

Sometimes all you want is one character who cares. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

Feeling Upset Status

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It’s weird how the happiest memories force you to tears…

Seeing people alternate isn’t what hurts. What hurts is remembering who they were once.

Never cry for everybody for your lifestyles, because those you cry for don’t deserve your tears and those who are deserving will in no way will let you cry.

One day, you will wake up knowing how a good deal I imply to you. When that day comes, I may have woken up with a person else.

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The hardest element in existence is trying to expose the smile you recognize is faux and to hide the tears that won’t prevent.

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Only loneliness can train us the whole thing in this world besides the way to overlook the person who made us lonely

Don’t be sad because it`s over. Smile as it occurred.

I recognize my silence and my tears will heal my pain one day.

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An unhappy feeling is a mute reminder of what’s actually essential in our life.

My silence spoke one thousand phrases, however, you never heard them…

Sad Status Updates

Loves whilst you listen to a music and it relates a hundred% certain to the way you feel.

I hate being damaged. I hate that I can not pass lower back.

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I attempted to forget you, the, however, the harder I tried, the more I thought about you

It’s sad to be happy alone. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

How did I go from being so glad, so so unhappy?

Sometimes all you want is one man or woman who cares.

I’m that character everybody replaces after some time.

I don’t care for the human beings, who don’t take care of me.

Read This: Cute Good Night Quotes, Sayings, Wishes, And Messages With Images

I changed into your treatment and also you have been my disorder. I changed into saving you, and also you had been killing me.

There are just a few days whilst all of it appears to be wrong and nothing feels right

Never allow the pain out of your past punish your present and paralyze your future.

Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot I handiest exist when you need something from me.

One morning you awaken afraid to stay.

I need to cut as it’s the handiest way I can smile.

I recognize my silence and my tears will heal my pain sooner or later. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

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Don’t cry as it’s over, smile because it occurred.

I’m lacking something in my lifestyles nowadays.

I’m invisible until someone needs me.

Sad Whatsapp Status Download

I usually observed the proper one at the incorrect time.

Silence is the most effective SCREAM.

I miss the way you continually MADE time for me.

Never surrender to a person you cant spend an afternoon no longer thinking about. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

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SLEEP away the disappointment of nowadays!

Loneliness does not KILL, but from time to time I desire it DID.

I want you to be FREE, but I can watch you SOAR far from me.

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I simply need to fall asleep till I do not leave out you anymore.

Sometimes after I say “I am ok” I need someone To looks me in the eyes Hug me tight and say” I know you are no longer…

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But no longer knowing which to do is the more severe kind of struggling.

Check: Sad Quotes About Life Best Collection For You

This isn’t a Whatsapp Status…That is simply to show that no reputation fits my feelings proper now.

Six letters, words, easy to mention, difficult to give an explanation for, more difficult to do. MOVE ON.

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It hurts the worst whilst the person who made you experience so unique the day before today, makes you experience so unwanted today. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

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I’m slowly giving up. (Sad Whatsapp Status)

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#Cards #Card #Sports #Jersey #Deals #city #relax #boy #night #streetstyle #light #findhappy #sadness #luckyme #partyhard #longway #admin #meme #quote #quotes

[workreveal-blog]

Female gamers: can they game?

New Post has been published on https://workreveal.biz/female-gamers-can-they-game/

Female gamers: can they game?

They say Female gamers game better than male gamers. My earliest childhood memory is pointing and crying at a kitchen cupboard that presumably contained apple sauce. In my next most initial reminiscence, within the identical condo, my start father is gambling Mountain King at the Atari 2600 There have been different video games in our circle of relatives library: Berzerk, Asteroids, Haunted House, Adventure. But Mountain King, released in 1983, became mystical. It is also frequently stated, 30 years on, because the toughest sport for the Atari gadget.

game

as the “Intrepid Explorer” my father could deftly manoeuvre up the mountainside, accumulating gems and hunting the elusive Flame Spirit, which seems onscreen as a dancing shadow. (As soon as the Flame Spirit is captured, it encircles the Intrepid Explorer’s head like a flickering, ghostly wreath.)

Then my father would assignment down the treacherous peaks closer to the Throne Room, that is guarded via the ominous Skull Spirit. He would kneel at the Cranium, provide the Flame, be granted safe passage into the Throne Room where the crown rests. As quickly because the queen became settled on my father’s head, the music – a violent However strangely lively rendition of inside the Hall of the Mountain King – would play. My dad might clamber returned up the mountain, in a ballet of arcing leaps. (There’s also a tremendous inexperienced spider that trawls alongside the mountain’s base, that is ever a lot greater scary to a toddler than grey bats are. In spite of the Atari 2600’s constrained sound competencies, the spider made this lousy skritching sound as he approached.)

From time to time my father made it to the top of the mountain But regularly he didn’t. This turned into after I’d usually pay attention him swear a little bit.

In lots of methods, Mountain King was my first bedtime story. And like any toddler with a favourite bedtime story, I wanted my father to inform it to me time and again. Best, my dad advised it to me with small, dexterous bends of the 2600’s joystick, with a cartridge and a tv set. He was in his late 20s then.

Besides, I assume this is how I fell in love with video games.

A year after my father’s death, my adoptive mother and father gave me a laptop, a Packard Bell 486-33. Of route, I in no way asked for a laptop – I wanted a Splendid Nintendo or, God helps me, a few type of Sega aspect – However my old dad and mum had decided that video games corrupt young minds and that PC video games are so much more highbrow. (For anything cause, recreation Boys have been high.)

I was pleased, though, and using Christmas 1993, I used to be on the line for the primary time. My piano instructor – an older neighbour with a brilliant-red dye job and a penchant for floral muumuus – taught me the way to navigate file directories in MS-DOS. Soon my piano classes had was me, an obstinate eleven-year antique, traumatic that my neighbour educates me ever-more tricky DOS commands.

It by no means As soon as struck me as strange that my piano teacher – a politically conservative retired nurse with cats – also became a Pc whiz. I don’t think kids ever absolutely be aware that form of component.

Or perhaps kids do. When I was round 12, my adoptive mother advocated me to inform an own family buddy what I desired to be when I grew up. “I need to jot down PC video games!” I instructed her triumphantly. “I’m going to be a clothier!”

“Well, then,” the lady warned, “you ain’t be capable of having children.”

“I gained,” I promised her in a serious voice. Proper around the time I demanded my dad and mum let me pick out my very own garments – being dressed like Patty McCormack from The Terrible Seed does little good on your social standing – I began choosing out my very own video games, too. I played plenty of Adventure video games during the next five years. Those games had been heavy on textual content and tale-pushed, and they took a long time to complete.

And at the same time as I gained defend it as a favourite sport, I keep in mind loving Myst once I first played it in 1993. Superficially, the sport is about strolling round, getting misplaced and clicking on matters; at its coronary heart, even though, it is very similar to Mountain King. Each is approximately a type of video game agnosticism; about learning an esoteric mechanical vocabulary and, from there, intuiting the way to absolutely play.

My mother and father had a coverage stipulating I wasn’t allowed to have a new computer sport until I’d finished the last one. After months of being stuck in Myst, I sooner or later lied. I don’t forget it because it was my first actual lie. I hated Myst.

Using 1996, most of my girl classmates had stopped gambling video games. I assume some of this had to do with societal pressures, but the rest of it had to do with the Nintendo sixty-four. Even now its controller is nonsense; in 1996 it was outright galling. Where had these types of buttons come from? Why became it shaped like that? Why become there an analogue stick stuck in the middle of it?.

In the meantime, liked franchises inclusive of Mario and Zelda had shifted from dimensions to a few, and not every girl become without problems able to adapt to those new spatial challenges. For the primary time, some us started out to think about console gaming as “boys’ toys”. I did, too, and that I began to regard my personal regular after-faculty laptop gaming as my secret shame.

I suppose 1998 marked one in every of video games’ hugest upheavals. The Sega Dreamcast – which would move on to grow to be a technical failure – supplied thrilling arcade studies (Loopy Taxi) for gamers at home. Journey games had been additionally trying to adapt and failing. Sierra’s King’s Quest franchise, as an example, chose that yr to alienate its in general girl target market with 3-D platforming and hack-and-lessen fight (which was routinely amusing But in the long run did no longer paintings. That attempt, King’s Quest VIII, would be the closing access in the series). The similarly maligned Gabriel Knight three has long past down in history as incorporating the dumbest puzzle of all time.

However that same 12 months, Sierra published a primary-person shooter known as Half-Existence, which instantly became the enterprise’s gold famous for high-quality. The market was flooded with modern thoughts, most of which failed, But Half of-Existence seemed to stick. And the marketplace, in turn, narrowed its cognizance and became greater homogenised in its services. A variety of genres died that 12 months.

In 1998, my very own tastes – which are fortunately flexible, luckily – adapted to this climate shift. The two CD-ROMs I took to college have been 1/2-Existence and American McGee’s Alice. Each day after lunch, my subwoofer boomed in time with the subwoofers up at the 1/3 floor of our residential university, wherein the men lived. Perhaps not coincidentally, my roommate transferred to every other university.

I loved multiplayer video games. Playing video games had continually been any such lonely endeavour; I’d ultimately determined others. I ended being shy about games, started evangelising approximately them.

The idea of gamers as a unified network become new to me – to each person. It felt like When someone abruptly turns up the lighting in a darkened bar, and you understand there are some humans within the same room, all jostling for the area and they all appearance distinct to what you expected (and lots of them, to my excellent remedy, had been ladies). I assume that second must be very jarring or scary for actual humans and Possibly makes them feel even extra alone.

gamer

But I never wanted to move again to the darkness. I by no means once more wanted to experience like a 13-12 months-old lady, hopelessly by myself and disconnected, go-legged in front of a Tv or sitting at a computer, hiding.

In 2005, sparkling out of university, I took on freelance paintings reviewing games for a mag called Digital Gaming Monthly. I welcomed this work specifically to harass my mum. But I additionally took on the process due to the fact I intended there could be 13-12 months-antique ladies like I had been, who would possibly turn via the magazine and experience remedy to see my byline.

It wasn’t easy to work. I remember wondering that EGM has been probable giving me evaluations because a salaried writer couldn’t end them. I often received games Only days before the opinions have been due. Once, I fell asleep in the course of a longwinded Suikoden cutscene (a series where the participant has restrained manipulate). Every of those evaluations paid about £37. And I’m describing the enterprise When pay was at its exceptional.

In 2006, I commenced paintings as 1UP.Com’s community supervisor, an article role that worked with fellow writers, PR, builders, the advertising and marketing department and “person retention” groups. I was not very good at that activity and that i had never purported to be. I in no way labored Well in a group. I often want I could have remembered that approximately myself on my way in.

However the position opened my eyes to positive aspects of online gaming, consisting of harassment, abuse, threats and even stalking, and In many methods, it’s far an sad enjoy that I wish I should undo. After that activity, I spent a yr in therapy.

Weeks in the past, I wrote a 500-phrase opinion piece in the Mum or dad, titled “the way to attack a lady who works in video gaming”. I used my pulpit to sentence abuse, which is rampant in my enterprise. I have lengthy witnessed on line abuse firsthand, and that i trust the mainstream video games industry’s silence tacitly condones it. I don’t care who the goals are or what harassers can also agree with they have performed. it’s miles unacceptable. it is usually unacceptable.

But ultimately saying so was by no means my “dream article”. Once I, elderly 12, advised that female I dreamed of being a laptop video games designer, I used to be not dreaming of ultimately writing an opinion piece denouncing abuse. However acknowledging that violence exists is – sadly – enough to inspire it. Days after the book, I retired from writing approximately games.

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Then an editor on the Mum or dad requested me if I’d task out of my two-week retirement and give an explanation for why I like video games. It’s smooth to be coaxed out of retirement if you have loved video games for 30 years and written professionally approximately them for nine.

And so I had to take delivery of because I clearly do love games. Oh, my God, I cherish them, all the way down to my material, right down to the crude, essential Lego bricks that made me. I like what they’re, and what they can be. And that I wholeheartedly love everybody else who plays them, all people who would name themselves a “gamer”.

Being a gamer, though, way you essentially must trust in belonging: consider that people of all attitudes, from all walks of Lifestyles, can peaceably coexist. And while I would in no way outline myself completely by using just one pastime or function – whether or not it’s analysing comedian books, gathering toys, playing video games or being female – I do trust that some rare matters in Lifestyles, like loving video games, defy all limitations.