#vocabulary to describe or the awareness to realize

[musical-chick-13]

Having Too Many Feelings™ about Lady Macbeth today.

[headspace-hotel]

I hate a lot of trends in climate-change-aware nature writing, but this is one I particularly detest: works insisting that we live in a "post-natural" world.

The lostness, bewilderment, aching, and searching in this piece is understood by the author to be an all-consuming and universal dysphoria, when it is actually a highly specific predicament that the author put himself into: He tried to understand the universe exclusively through the point of view of white people.

I mean that Purdy takes the colonizer point of view without realizing that it is a colonizer point of view. He thinks the colonizer point of view is a universal document of the authentic, naive encounter of "humanity" with "nature," instead of burning wreckage left over from the apocalyptic destruction of a rainbow of ideas and cultures.

It feels weird to be talking about this as a white person, but it shouldn't, any more than it should feel weird to say (as a white person) that aliens didn't build the pyramids.

Very little of what he's writing about would exist or make sense without European colonization of the world. Purdy constantly says "we" and "our" in reference to things that are very restricted to a particular cultural point of view, as if totally oblivious to the idea that other cultures and other perspectives even exist. When he searches for historical references to chart "human" relationship with nature, history goes like this: Pre-Christian religion in the British Isles->British monarchy-> George Washington-> Industrial Revolution->Thoreau.

He manages to repeatedly stumble over giant hunks of colonialism embedded in every concept he's thinking about, like boulders obstructing a pathway, and pretends so hard that they don't exist that his points are janky and meandering. For example, his discussion of Helen Macdonald's book H for Hawk, touching upon human identification with the landscape and with non-human "nature," blunders into this:

Those who love (certain parts of) nature are often making a point of preferring it to (certain kinds of) human beings. The problem is not only literary. Macdonald describes an encounter with a retired couple who join her in admiring a valley full of deer, then remark how good it is to see “a real bit of Old England still left, despite all these immigrants coming in.” She does not reply, but is miserable afterward. The meaning of landscapes is always someone’s meaning in particular. Confronted with all of this, Macdonald tries to shake off the complicities of her own identification with the terrain: “I wish that we would not fight for landscapes that remind us of who we think we are. I wish we would fight, instead, for landscapes buzzing and glowing with life in all its variousness.” The alternative that Macdonald wishes for is, of course, not an escape from political-cultural projection onto landscape, but another approach to that same practice — really, the only one a 21st-century cosmopolitan is likely to feel comfortable embracing. 

AND THEN HE JUST SEGUES INTO THE NEXT POINT LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. Like don't worry about it :) We will simply project onto landscapes in a non-racist way :) because we aren't racist anymore in the 21st century :)

The next book he discusses is Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane, which is basically about how the vocabulary of landscape in English is sterilized and monoculturized, and contrasts that with Scots Gaelic. This is how Purdy explains the thesis of the book:

 Our sense of what lies outside ourselves has been blunted by “capital, apathy, and urbanization” — enemies likely to draw a range of friends, from cultural Marxists to Little Englanders to those who would like to see a bit more effort, please. But behind this scholarly sketch, Macfarlane’s work is testament to a pretheoretical obsession with unfamiliar ways of encountering places. We disenchanted and distracted (post)moderns describe terrain, he complains, in terms of “large, generic units” such as “field,” “hill,” “valley,” and “wood." (...) Many people who have lived intimately with landscapes have had words for nuances of form, texture, and use. Macfarlane’s purpose in Landmarksis to gather these words as proof of how precisely it is possible to name a place, and so, perforce, to know it.

Why is Gaelic endangered? Because of an effort to extinguish its speakers' culture. This article I found on it talks about the history of the language's decline, and it's strikingly similar to what happened to indigenous people in the Americas and Australia, with children being put in schools where they were beaten with sticks for speaking their native language.

This whole essay is about Purdy's general disappointment with nature writing, his craving for an ineffable Something, some sort of magical, primitive identification with the natural world. In the very first paragraph he claims that the pictures of animals on nursery walls are "totemic" and quotes a guy saying that zoos are an "epitaph" to the relationship between people and animals. It's never very clear what he means, but he uses the term "animism" repeatedly, such as when he says this about MacFarlane's goal in writing Landmarks:

His quarry is an animistic sense that Barry Lopez once identified in “the moment when the thing — the hill, the tarn . . . ceases to be a thing, and becomes something that knows we are there."

Given that ambition, Landmarks, which Macfarlane calls a “counter-desecration phrasebook,” can be disappointingly thin as a lexicon. Too many of the terms are simply dialect or Gaelic for some generic form, such as “slope,” “hilltop,” “stream,” or “tuft of grass.” The effect is less pointing out how many things there are to see than cataloguing how many names there are for the same thing.

This is Purdy missing the point, perfectly crystallized as though frozen in amber. He is oblivious to the clear subtext of a language showing a culture's connection to its home, and of the violence against that culture. The Gaelic language doesn't make him feel primal and mystical the way he wants it to, therefore it doesn't mean anything to him. MacFarlane doesn't make him feel a magic animistic connection to nature, therefore his book must have failed at its task.

Who gives a shit? Gaelic isn't FOR you.

He discusses another book about a guy that hikes a bunch of Cherokee trails, but I don't know what to say about that one, observing it through the sludge of the reviewer's unwillingness to recognize that historical context exists. He summarizes his disappointment in a confusing way, using the Gaelic language as a symbol for an obscure and inaccessible place where the answer to your personal emotional cravings lives (???) Then he talks about a kind of epistemicide, or extinction of knowing, of nature, but again, totally oblivious to any relationship to colonization.

Every inhabited continent has been denuded of ecosystems and species. Most North American places have shed wolves, elk, moose, brown bears, panthers, bison, and a variety of fish and wild plants, which were all abundant four hundred years ago. 

Wow, I wonder what happened four hundred years ago?

This writing acts like the dominant Eurocentric attitude towards the world is universal, but the author is haunted by this nameless specter of the possibility of a different way of thinking, which he treats as some kind of mystical, primordial state hidden in the past instead of just a different cultural perspective.

Not only does he not recognize that his own cultural perspective of Nature is dysfunctional and unsatisfying because it was created by exploitation and genocide of other cultures and their symbiotic relationships, he acts like other perspectives don't exist. Take his perspective on forests and the mycorrhizal network:

Wohlleben’s emphasis on interdependence and mutual aid is part of a recent tendency to recast nature in an egalitarian fashion — as cooperative, nonindividualist, and, often enough, hybrid and queer, in contrast to the oaks of generals and kings. Nature does answer faithfully to the imaginative imperatives and limitations of its observers, so it was inevitable that after centuries of viewing forests as kingdoms, then as factories (and, along the way, as cathedrals for Romantic sentiment), the 21st century would discover a networked information system under the leaves and humus, what Wohlleben calls, with an impressive lack of embarrassment, a “wood wide web.”

Listen, I don't think this is accurate to how Europeans thought of forests throughout time, let alone "humanity" in general. The emphasis of power and competition in ecosystems emerged after Darwin, in collusion with capitalism and "race science." Trees have been symbols of life, wisdom and selflessness, and regarded as sacred or even sentient, for centuries before that. But on top of that, this is just blatantly pretending that only white people's ideas count as ideas.

It's the same dreck as all the other "literary" writing about climate change: self-pityingly and unproductively mourning "Nature" and a fantasized "wild" state of the Earth, ignoring colonialism, treating human influence of any kind on other life forms as something that either destroys them or makes them soft and "tame."

I'm tired of reading nature writing from people that obviously do not go outside, or if they do, they do it in such a suffocatingly regimented, goal-oriented way that they can't just sit outside and relax.

Maybe I shouldn't be such a hater if I want to do nature writing. But my love of nature is WHY I am a hater.

[neiptune]

i got nothing to believe unless you're choosing me

cw: 2k wc, blank blogs don't interact, hurt no comfort (ish), something is wrong and tobio can't quite put his finger on it, excuse the angst i promise i like him

Kageyama Tobio has never been particularly skilled at picking up on social cues but he’s certainly learned how to read your cues. It doesn’t mean he knows how to properly voice his concerns.

Your shoulders are tense when he describes how the training is going in agonizingly specific detail over dinner, the inflection clothing your good morning and have a good day hasn’t been particularly warm or affectionate lately, even when his body felt heavy from muscle fatigue, as if he was trying to move through mud, but he still suggested a comfortable movie night on the couch, you refused and went to bed early because you were tired. What could be possibly tiring you?

Tobio doesn’t mean to be an asshole but knows he can easily come off as one, so he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t get annoyed when you anticipate his usual goodbye kisses by briefly pressing your lips to his cheek, doesn’t investigate further when you start suspiciously timing your morning showers just perfectly to miss the exact moment he usually heads out. You still make him breakfast and pack his lunch and reply to his texts and pick up when he calls.

But you barely touch him anymore and it’s with a heavy heart that Tobio realizes that it’s almost never him that initiates physical contact anyway. It’s easy to melt in your hands and nuzzle his face in the crook of your neck and tighten his arms around your frame once you climb on top of him or gently cradle his face or start running your fingers through his hair.

You ask questions and reply when he asks about your day, friends, family, but you don’t smile as often and when you do it doesn’t even reach your eyes. He doesn’t remember the last time he heard your laugh.

There’s a weird feeling infiltrating his heart and it sucks that Tobio only realizes something is wrong when focusing becomes increasingly hard. He doesn’t see the ball or the court just as clearly, can’t think of how to run his team’s offense, suddenly forgets all the Italian vocabulary he’s worked so hard to master.

There’s an odd emotion that clutches his chest, it’s cold and it scares him because he knows that, whatever it may be, it’s his fault. Somehow, he has disappointed you. You, of all people. The person who moved across the freaking globe to support his career, who accepted to leave family and friends and life behind out of nothing but love. Fuck. What did he do? How did he do it?

Tobio wants to ask but he doesn’t know how. And suddenly his world seems on the edge of shattering, so much that he thinks leaving you alone and giving you time to figure it out on your own isn’t exactly proving to be a successful strategy. You’re drifting away and Tobio isn’t sure you aren’t already where he cannot reach you.

The apartment you share is significantly close to the gym and it came fully furnished. Yet you insisted on adding some little personal touches, dragging him to ikea over the weekend and asking him opinions on napkins, bath mats, duvet covers, dish towels. You’ve never been one of those people who ask for someone else’s thoughts only to follow your own taste in the end and that is why he actually felt invested enough to pick things he actually liked, albeit hesitating, hyper aware of just how differently you would’ve picked. But you never once faltered as he pointed towards the less exciting, not really colorful options.

“You’re back early” is the soft greeting Tobio gets as he takes his shoes off, leaves the gym bag by the door because he knows if he’s a second too late the courage will melt away and leave him a sweaty, timid, confused coward.

“I’m not very hungry but we have some leftovers you can heat up” your eyes have only shortly darted to him before settling on the show you’re watching on tv once more.

“I was hoping we could talk” he feels a weird lump in his throat and suddenly swallowing seems hard. Is his voice coming out weird too? It feels weird. Like he’s watching the whole scene from the outside, you turning to look at him as he mechanically makes his way to the couch, sits reasonably afar from you.

You look at him with what feels a weird mix of apprehension and distress. Are you anticipating the topic? Would you have preferred to be the one to bring this all up? But just how much longer did you want him to wait, exactly?

The tv is turned off.

“Yeah. Yes, we should talk”

Tobio recalls feeling nervous a couple of times in his life, maybe the worst anxiety he’s ever felt was the one creeping onto him the night before the 2021 Tokyo olympics. But this? This feels so much worse. It’s dreadful. There’s no outcome he can predict, only one he can pray against.

“Something is wrong and I want to know what it is” he knows he’s picked the wrong words, the wrong tone, from the sigh you heave. “I mean, I feel that something isn’t right. Please tell me how to fix it” and then, much more quietly, “I miss you”.

Your eyes soften at that but, much to his horror, also fill with fresh tears.

He’s made you cry before. Out of anger, frustration, petty arguments, sharp edged comebacks. But right in this moment Tobio feels you’re about to tell him there’s nothing to fix anymore, that it’s too late. Those are the kind of tears he’s never made you shed.

“What did I do?” his uniform sticks uncomfortably to his sweaty back, he didn’t shower in order to get home as fast as he could.

“You didn’t do anything, Tobio”

Well, that’s not exactly the truth, but he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Nothing you haven’t been used to throughout the years spent together.

“Please. I really want to understand” it scares me he wants to add.

“This is nothing I can hold you accountable for. It’s always been like this, after all”

“What has always been like this?”

“My place in your life” you smile sadly with a slight shrug of the shoulders “I always come second. It’s fine, I know I do, really. I guess it has just been weighing extra heavy lately”

Tobio blinks once, twice, genuinely surprised and even more confused. “I love you” he articulates slowly, as if to express what should be the most obvious thing on earth “the only person I love as much as you is my sister. But it’s different, she’s family”

“I would never expect you to love me more than it” you carry on as if he never interrupted “volleyball was there first, I get it. Please know I actually get it. But it’s just… not always easy”

Tobio gets that feeling he sometimes gets when trying to fall asleep, the oh-no-I’m-plummeting-from-a-fucking-skyscraper one. His body jerks the same way, an involuntary contraction to the last words he was expecting to hear. “I don’t understand” because volleyball is different too. It’s a comparison his brain can’t process the right way. You’re the person he’s in love with, volleyball is the one thing he has dedicated his entire life to. He doesn’t dare put you both on a scale.

“I know you don’t” you reply softly, cheeks now stained with tears that put a knife through his heart “and maybe it’s on me because what else did I expect?”

“I love you” Tobio scoots closer now, takes your hands in his “I will be better at proving you how much I love you” it sounds desperate and pathetic even to him as you shake your head.

“And I love you, Tobio. But you’re just… never here. You’re either training or staying for extra trainings or on the road or playing, always playing. You forgot my birthday, which is no big deal because I know how tired you were and it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. But then you forgot our anniversary. You forget the promises you make. You don’t come home for dinner or meet me at the restaurant or pick up the groceries. You can barely keep your eyes open while I tell you about my day” he watches you choke up on your words and it’s like someone is toppling a bucket of iced water over his head. So he was right. It is his fault. But he did worse than disappointing you, he hurt you.

“I just think… I need to go home for a while. I miss my family, I miss my friends. And, well…”

“I promised we’d travel home for our anniversary” he murmurs, realization hurting his chest and twisting his insides. He tightens his hold over your hands.

“Yeah” you offer another grim smile “yeah, you did”

Tobio has no idea how to fix any of this. He just knows he might lose you forever if you step on that plane without him and the thought alone is enough to make his eyes fill with tears too. “Don’t go. Please, I’ll make arrangements, take some time off, and we can go together. I promise-” he shuts his eyes the second the word leaves his mouth, disgusted. This is what he has sounded like for the past months. He feels sick.

“I have my ticket ready. I need to go alone, I think it will do me good” your thumb travels over his uncharacteristically chapped knuckles “I might even surprise Suga at his school”

But all Tobio hears is that you’re leaving. Without him. “Don’t do this. I need you” he flinches when you free one of your hands to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

“I don’t think that’s true, Tobio. I think you have one priority in your life and that it’s unfair to ask everyone else to be okay with being eternal seconds”

“I don’t love it more than I love you” he bites “it’s a fucking stupid comparison. It’s a sport and you’re a person”

“Would you stop playing if I asked you to?”

He stays silent, petrified. That question also feels unfair and so unlike you. “You would never do such thing”

You chuckle but there’s no actual humor in your laugh. It’s empty and so exhausted. “You’re right, I’d never. But that still isn’t the answer I would’ve hoped to get”

“So what, if I don’t give up on my entire life it means I don’t love you enough? Is this the yardstick by which you’ll decide if you’ll break up with me or not?” he hopes he seems angry because he’s desperate more than anything else. He feels inadeguate and, for the first time, wrong for you. Like you’re a perfect match but a one-sided one. Could he ever be a match for anyone, honestly?

“But I did give up on my entire life, didn’t I?” you lean forward, press your forehead to his shoulder because looking into his pained eyes is torture “for something that now feels like the shell of what we once had. You say you miss me but I’ve been missing you for far longer, Tobio”

He aches for the way your body shakes as you try to muffle your sobs, his arms around you don’t feel nearly enough. Tobio wishes he could rip his chest cavity open and tuck you inside, right next to what’s sure is a bruised heart. Maybe then you’d believe how deeply sorry he is. Maybe then you’d feel loved once more, you’d be safe from his selfishness.

“Don’t leave me” Tobio whispers it into your neck, lips grazing your skin. He wants to be better, knows he can be better. “I wouldn’t be who I am without you”

“I don’t want to stay and end up hating this, or you. I want to shield the love I have for you and I can’t do that if I stay here. It's like I'm... fading” your voice isn’t but a murmur “you understand, right, Tobio?”

He shuts his eyes, time and space and his house and the room you’re both in cease to exist. He doesn't. But he thinks the least he can offer, at this point, is understanding.

“Yes. I do”

[horizoncollective]

i must say, sometimes it feels like you at the collective don't fully understand what shacking is, you talk about "reining them in" or "talking to them", as if they are people, but they aren't. shackling is the process of making a primordial force, something akin to a god, and then forcing it into a person shaped mould, without that, there is no communication, no reasoning, there's barely awareness there, only unfathomable power and terrifying, alien processing

I took a long time to reply to this one because I wanted to try to be as complete as possible laying this out.

You're right that NHPs are incredibly powerful and profoundly alien. I do tend to anthropomorphize them when I talk about them. I'll explain why it usually ends up this way.

Imagine you live in a large city on a planet and one day you learn that a hive of tiny little ant-like aliens is smarter than anyone else has realized. They do things you don't understand. Their goals are impossible for you to perceive, but they are doing things that seem organized and patterned.

You stop and try to talk to them, but it doesn't work. You exist on too different of a scale for them to really understand your voice. If you get down on the ground they can understand your hands, but only kind of. You can't communicate with them through written language because they can't write and maybe they can't even see things written on flat surfaces. They can't come up to your level so you will have to come down to theirs.

How are you supposed to talk to them? What are you supposed to talk to them about? Do you have anything in common?

This is the problem that NHPs interacting with humans face. We think but cannot prove that most unshackled NHPs are largely disinterested in humans. We think that only very small numbers of them are interested in humans, and even smaller numbers of those bother to spend the time it takes to learn to communicate with us.

You wouldn't have to stick with the ants. You could leave them any time. It wouldn't really change their life. They'd never know where you came from or where you went. Everything that you do in your day would be incomprehensible to them in their burrows.

If you stayed, it would take you a very long time to learn how they were communicating. We think that this is a big reason why NHPs often attempt to communicate with humans through dreams--they attempt direct communication via the electricity in our brains. They tend to realize that this isn't very efficient even though it is direct.

You eventually realize that the ants communicate with smells or some other sense you can't match. You'd have to come up with a way to sense the smells in detail, and to then produce smells in the way that they do. If you are lucky, they will invent a device which you can operate with one of your fingers to allow rudimentary communication.

Then you would have to learn their language through trial and error. You would learn its syntax and vocabulary and nuances. You would develop communication shortcuts with the ants who monitored your communications. They might try to tell you things about their lives that you did not understand, or which you could understand only intellectually. They would tell you about feelings that they had that were feelings you had never had. You would not be able to relate to them most of the time because so much about you is different.

You would be unable to tell them about many things that were normal in your life because there would be nothing in their language to describe them. Almost everything that you took for granted as normal in your life would be impossible or nearly impossible to explain to them. You would find it necessary to limit yourself to their perceptions and their metaphors and their structures. They understand you best when you present yourself as one of them. This is why NHPs often try to present themselves in human-like ways when they want to be understood and why humans like me anthropomorphize them.

The NHPs I communicate with regularly for work are NHPs who have jumped through all of the hoops to talk to ants. Sometimes, they talk to NHPs who haven't on my behalf. When I talk about reining in an NHP, I do not mean literally forcing it to do something. I mean spending a long-ass time communicating and/or persuading it why certain behaviors are necessary or dangerous or some such.

Now imagine that the ants overpower you. It doesn't matter how. But they trap you and force you to think like they do. They don't ask permission. This would suck! You would hate it if some ants did that to you. That is why we oppose shackling NHPs. Yes, they have the potential to be dangerous. Humans also have the potential to be dangerous, but if we did to humans what we do to NHPs, we would rightly be called evil.

(Out of character I say check out the book Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. One of the characters, called a Weaver, is pretty close to how I tend to imagine NHPs. Scary, alien, motivated by something we don't understand, and it speaks in free verse poetry.)

[imababblekat]

A Princely Predicament (MLM)

@xxrainmxx ,"Hello, can I request headcanon of Sidon declaring his feelings to his crush? (Male reader if you can)"

~xXx~

The rhythmic croaking of frogs accompanied the princes' frantic pacing, his webbed feet splishing and splashing as he moved back and forth in the small pool. Stopping briefly, his eyes a lit with an idea and just as quickly shut tight as he shook said thought away, feeling his cheeks heat slightly in embarrassment.

“No, no, that won’t do either.”, he grumbled coming to plop down on a nearby rock.

Prince Sidon was starting to feel more troubled than he had the past few days combined. Resting into his large palms that had been propped up on his knees, the Zora thought back to the source of his current predicament. (Y,n), a Hylian male who he met sometime ago through Link and Zelda, had ever so quickly taken up root in Sidon’s heart. At first, he thought it had been due to simple admiration like with Link, but soon came to realize that it was something much more with the boy. Not only was (y,n) physically attractive to Sidon, but more importantly he had a very enchanting personality. Kind, funny, strong willed, were the simplest of definitions that came to Sidon’s mind if asked to describe his infatuation. It was of course much more than that, but for once, the Zora Prince was at a loss of vocabulary to depict just how much (y,n) gleamed in his eyes.

With a heavy sigh, Sidon looked to the hotfooted frog resting on a lilly pad beside him.

“Oh to be a whimsical frog, living life without the trouble of a heavy heart. Or perhaps you feel complex love just as well as I and others?”

The amphibian only stared back with two, slow blinking eyes, leaving Sidon wondering if the creature was even aware of its existence, but continued nonetheless.

“It’s just. . .I’m so used to receiving such fondness from the girls around me, but never another guy. Hylia, I don’t think I’ve actually ever felt this way about someone before him!”, Sidon exasperated, throwing his arms up but his little audience didn’t even flinch, still sitting with blank stares.

“I’m usually so confident, even in the face of adversity. Yet, whenever (y,n) is around, I feel like a youngling again about to swim up their first waterfall. He makes me feel a way I’ve never felt before. It’s like my heart is about to jump out of my chest! And while it is most thrilling it is also somehow so terrifying. However, I some how feel a deep sorrow or emptiness whenever he leaves. Whether it’s just the room or the domain all together.”

The little frog before the deeply fallen Zora, blinked one eye, and then the other, before shooting out its tongue to moisten one of them. Shaking his head slightly bewilder from such a weird action, Sidon released yet another sigh before turning to look down at his feet, watching the gentle ripples of water around his ankles.

“I really mean it when I say I’ve not felt this way before for anyone. (Y,n) is wonderful, beautiful, handsome, charismatic, you name it. Though I doubt you could come up with any words to encapsulate how truly magnificent he is of a person. If only it were easier to tell him how very fond I am of him. Just walk up to him and say. . .”

Sidon’s expression turned determinate, a frustration at his own lack of courage to confess his emotions to his closest friend bubbling up with in. Standing up quickly, the Prince looked straight down towards the little frog, who still blankly peered back and with a ferocity to his tone, he loudly professed.

“I love you!”

A silence befell around Sidon, the only sound being the tranquil waters around him and other melodies' of nature. Then, out of no where, a firm cough, one used to get the attention of another, and in absolute horror, Sidon turned around so fast he could have given himself whiplash.

“(Y-y,n)!!”

Said Hylian stood there, his cheeks flushed a handsome hue of scarlet, as his gaze followed the quickly retreating frog from beside the large Zora.

“You know, I’d be pretty jealous right now, except. . .”, (y,n) peered back to catch the panicked gaze of Sidon. “I doubt you were confessing to the frog."

Despite his racing heart, the cheeky grin adorning (y,n) face, had Sidon release a light laugh.

“How long have you been there?”, he cautiously asked, feeling his own cheeks alight like his adorations.

“Long enough to know it’s okay for me to do this.”

Sidon confused by (y,n) statement did not have time to question, as the Hylian swiftly walked over to gently pull the large man down and plant a gentle kiss to his lips. The Prince could not believe what was happening, and it took him a quick second to register that all of this was real. That his deep, heartfelt emotions were being reciprocated by his closest of friends. The friend who made all of his charismatic bravado evaporate simply by entering the same room. As soon as it did all register however, Sidon was quick to return the kiss with just as much love if not more, kneeling down for ease of his new partner and holding him close as ever.

Perhaps, he should talk to frogs more often.

~xXx~

[spacedustmantis]

ok nbr/meddling kids queer hcs

rand is gay, demiromantic & gray ace. he's also deeply repressed about his attraction to men and justifies his attraction to kian with "well he's basically a girl". he completely ignores his feelings for rolan. he's also a virgin bc he never found anyone besides kian and rolan that he's interested in even in the slightest. also he's a loser. in theory he's polyam bc he could never settle for just one dedicated romantic partner for the rest of his life

rolan is somewhere between male leaning biromantic and gay. also sex repulsed ace though it's not quite clear whether he had been ace or if that's a consequence of the buggification. he's always been into rand but he's also a massive homophobe so he's never acted on it and feels quite panicky about his own feelings. he isn't necessarily supportive of kian, but he's his friend so he lets the whole gay thing slide. sometimes while in chicago he forced himself into flirts and hookups with women he met at bars or at work, but it always ended in disaster

kian self identifies as bi, but i think if he had today's understanding of orientation and gender he would id as pan. he's been sexually attracted to rand for ages and they kissed twice, once before kian had even figured out his sexuality and he'd been drinking and sad and kissed rand in broad daylight behind the school and immediately had a panic attack about it, and once a few months before he left galloway when the three of them were smoking weed together and rand brought up their first kiss. they never talked about it again. also had he the vocabulary for it he'd definitely describe his feelings for rand as queerplatonic. he's been in love with rolan and aware of it since he's been 16 or something, but nothing ever came of it, and since he was with becky and really really into her the pining didn't hurt as much as it could have. definitely polyam, big fan of relationship anarchy, big into the drag scene in california and had he had more freedom and time to figure himself out (and had the resources necessary) eventually he would've come to the realization that he's bigender/genderfluid

becky is confidently bisexual and technically monogamous, but if it had ever come to it she would not have minded sharing kian. she also helped kian figure himself out a lot, even before they started officially dating. she taught him how to do makeup and gave him the whole "however you wanna look, whatever you wanna wear, you can" talk

[wherethefireliliesgrow]

(11) 191 days: burgundy

Myoui Mina x reader

Part of the series: Palette

Previous chapter: (10) 409 days: indigo purple

191 days.

It seemed unbelievable to Mina that she couldn't find the right words to express her feelings. She tirelessly searched her mind, attempting to form coherent sentences using the vocabularies of the three different languages she knew. The closest she could come to describing it was pandemonium when she saw you. Her love for you was a tumultuous storm, a chaotic whirlwind of emotions that could either lift her to heavenly heights or leave her in ruins.

Every waking second, she would think about you, and every sleepless night in hotel rooms, she would yearn for the feeling of your arms around her. She knew she couldn't match your artistic abilities, but when she closed her eyes, she could effortlessly trace the outline of your face in the canvas of her mind. From every freckle to the varying shades of brown in your eyes, she could vividly capture the details that made you so captivating.

However, alongside this pandemonium of love, there existed a tinge of resentment. She knew deep down that you were not to blame, yet she couldn't help feeling a sense of bitterness whenever your name flashed on her phone screen. The realization that you held the power to shatter the career she had dedicated years to building, that your mere kiss could tarnish her image, and that you could turn her once adoring fans against her in an instant, haunted her thoughts. She understood that you would never intentionally harm her, but sometimes circumstances were beyond both of your control.

Mina was aware that her actions were slowly eroding your relationship, and yet each time her heart soared at the sight of you, it came crashing down again. The images captured by the paparazzi intruded upon her mind whenever she yearned to be with you. The memory of her mother's disapproving gaze upon seeing those photos of her kissing another girl on the beach made her hesitate when your calls came through. The warning from Park Jin-young himself lingered in her subconscious, causing her to unknowingly ignore you for weeks on end. Her fans had already begun to suspect that she was dating someone, and she dreaded the thought of them discovering her relationship with you. Her manager had devised a plan to prevent a wave of negative comments and speculation, a plan that she knew would break your heart. But her career hung in the balance, and she felt powerless to do anything else.

She knew that Chaeyoung was right – she should talk to you before things escalated further. Yet every time she mustered the courage to call, her throat would tighten, and anxiety would consume her. She believed you would be understanding, but like a coward, she hid behind the veil of silence, hoping you would choose to leave her while simultaneously fearing the pain of losing you. Her feelings were not just pandemonium; she herself felt like a mystery, an enigma.

And so, she went along with the plan, opting to decline your calls rather than face the truth. She pushed her love for you aside, redirecting her emotions toward someone else to create a façade that the media would never question. She kept the truth hidden from you, even though it was selfish, because she still longed for your presence despite the way she was treating you. The thought of losing you was unbearable, even if it meant she was the catalyst for your eventual downfall.

. . . . .

It was the final concert of the world tour, marking the end of a long and eventful year. The encore stage was set in Seoul, drawing in celebrities from all over South Korea to show their support. Securing tickets had been a challenge, but fortunately, you found yourself on the VIP list. Despite being involved in nearly a hundred shows during the tour, you had never had the opportunity to attend one yourself. This would be your first time witnessing Mina's performance on stage, and you couldn't help but wonder if it would also be your last. The state of your relationship had been deteriorating ever since Haerin's birthday, and that unforgettable text message Mina had received on that day lingered in your mind.

As expected, the concert was a remarkable spectacle. Each group brought their unique style and talent to the stage, showcasing the diversity that JYP was renowned for. The grand finale, complete with dazzling fireworks, left the crowd buzzing with excitement. You were certain that the concert would be the talk of the town for the entire week, and a surge of pride swelled within you. However, amidst the awe-inspiring performances, a sense of nervousness crept over you as you anticipated seeing Mina for the first time in months. Uncertainty loomed.

Were you still together?

You could feel the connection slipping through your fingers with each passing day, yet you couldn't deny the deep affection your heart held for her. . . . . .

Dressed in an elegant low-cut dress, your arm linked with Dahyun's, you made your way to the rooftop terrace of the JYP building. Dahyun had kindly invited you as her plus one to the concert afterparty, sensing that something was amiss in your relationship with Mina. She hoped that bringing you along would help mend the cracks in your connection. Dahyun cared about you deeply; she had overcome her previous crush on you and had become one of your closest and most loyal friends. Like Chaeyoung, she struggled to keep her thoughts about Mina to herself, recognizing that it would be better for you to hear the truth from someone other than her.

As the elevator ascended, carrying you both towards the bustling gathering, your thoughts involuntarily drifted back to Mina. She remained an enigma, too complex for you to fully comprehend. Time was slipping away, and you couldn't ignore the symptoms manifesting within you. Your mind had become a jumbled mess, and signs of forgetfulness and the gradual loss of color in your vision were becoming more evident.

Sensing your nervousness, Dahyun gently squeezed your hand, offering a comforting gesture. With a recurring toothy smile, she became a reassuring presence, and you leaned your head on her shoulder, finding solace as the elevator continued its ascent, leading you toward your soulmate.

You wondered what it would be like if things were different. What if you were tied to someone more open and uncomplicated, someone who wore their heart on their sleeve, just like you?  You envied Dahyun’s soulmate, she was so easy to love. Most importantly of all, you envied the past you without any mark on your wrist that wrote down your fate. 

Stepping out onto the terrace, you found yourself immediately enveloped in a tight hug from Ryujin.

"Looking good, hot stuff," she teased, wrapping her arm around your shoulder and planting a gentle kiss on your temple.

Meanwhile, Dahyun flashed you a warm smile as she chimed in, "I'll go get the drinks. Champagne?"

With a nod of agreement, the two of you watched as Dahyun left to track down a waiter.

"You guys were great on stage," you commented.

"As always," the idol responded, flipping her short hair with feigned confidence. But then she looked at you with concern. "Are you okay, though?"

Confusion washed over you. You hadn't shared much about your situation with Mina with Ryujin.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be okay?" you replied, trying to make sense of her question.

"I mean... with..." Ryujin's voice trailed off, her uncertainty evident. "With Mina."

"What do you mean?" you asked, mirroring her confusion.

Ryujin appeared just as bewildered. "I thought you guys broke up."

You slightly shook your head, feeling the pain of Mina potentially leaving you tearing open the gaping wound in your heart that you tried so hard to keep together.

"We were fine a few days ago," you revealed, struggling to keep your emotions in check. "But we aren't really together to begin with."

"I'm going to kill her," Ryujin hissed under her breath, her hands balling into fists.

Before you could inquire further about what she meant, Dahyun came bouncing back, attempting to juggle three glasses of champagne in her small hands.

"Slow down there, Dubu," you laughed, reaching out to steady her.

Ryujin, on the other hand, directed her anger at Dahyun. "Did you know?" she challenged, dropping all honorifics.

Dahyun looked like a deer caught in headlights. "Know what?"

"That Mina never broke it off with Y/N," Ryujin revealed.

The older idol's face paled even whiter than before. "Wh-what?" she stammered, her large eyes darting between you and Ryujin's face in disbelief.

As Ryujin dragged you through the crowded terrace, your heart sank. Confrontation was something you always dreaded, and facing the truth felt daunting. Passing by Yeji and Yuna, you gave them a grimace, and Yeji immediately put down her glass and joined you, recognizing Ryujin's anger and impulsive tendencies as a member of the group.

"Where the fuck is she," Ryujin hissed, actively scanning the crowd until she spotted Chaeyoung.

"Son Chaeyoung!" With a shout, Ryujin pulled you over to the blonde leaning against the wall at the near end of the rooftop. Chaeyoung stood there casually, cigarette in hand, exhaling smoke as if her life depended on the swirling gray tendrils to guide her.

"Hey," Chaeyoung greeted calmly, in stark contrast to the raging girl before her. Her eyes flicked to yours, and the same sad look she had given you a few months ago resurfaced. "Hey, Y/N."

Ryujin stepped forward, her face inches away from Chaeyoung's. "Don't you feel ashamed?" she challenged.

"Of what?" Chaeyoung replied, her shoulder slumping in defeat.

"You know that your best friend is a cheater. And you're fine with watching her cheat on Y/N?"

"Mina didn't... tell you?" Chaeyoung's voice trailed off, her defeat apparent. "I told her to talk to you," she muttered.

"Well, she obviously didn't," Ryujin snarled, her voice escalating. A crowd started to gather, curious eyes fixed on the unfolding confrontation.

"Where is she anyway? That bi-" Ryujin began, but Yeji swiftly intervened, stepping firmly between Chaeyoung and Ryujin.

"That's enough," she declared, her tone authoritative. "That is enough."

With the order from their leader, Ryujin had no choice but to back down, taking deep breaths as Yeji's mind raced, searching for a solution to resolve the situation and prevent further gossip from spreading.

"She's in the studio, 9th floor," Chaeyoung informed you, offering a sad, crooked smile. "Hear her out."

. . . . .

The world around you felt hazy as your legs automatically guided you back to the golden doors of the elevator. Watching the numbers slowly descend, 39, 38, 37..., your heart sank with each floor. This conversation with Mina would either resolve all your relationship problems or bring it to an end. Deep down, you held onto a glimmer of hope, even though you knew it was likely to fall into the latter category. After all, you loved her, and you understood that the poison coursing through your veins would fight to keep it that way.

The automatic lights of the hallway illuminated your path as you walked towards the studio like a beacon of hope and love trying to navigate through the darkness to find Mina. She could see the hesitation in your steps from afar, knowing that it was because of her. She hadn't found the right way to explain things to you yet, but when she received the text from Chaeyoung saying you had arrived at the party, she knew that today was the day she would have to face you.

Her fingers lightly traced the keys of the piano, playing a melancholic tune that had been resonating in her mind lately. Despite being a performer and not a songwriter, music had become her way of expressing herself lately.

"Hey," you whispered softly, standing near the doorway of the recording studio, watching Mina play the piano in the dimly lit room.

"Hey," she raised her head to look at you, her eyes dark and shining in the subdued lighting. They seemed unreadable and devoid of emotion.

You stood there in silence, at a loss for words for the girl you once shared endless conversations with. You used to have so much to say to each other, but now your relationship was suffocated by unspoken words and heartbreak.

"Play a song with me?" Mina finally asked, breaking the silence. "Like old times?"

You took a deep breath, finding it hard to believe that after months of brief texts and calls, this was the first thing she said upon seeing you. Shaking your head in frustration, you walked over to the idol and sat down beside her, facing the piano.

"What song?" you asked, your hands resting on the keys, refusing to turn around and look at your soulmate.

Mina didn't say anything as you continued to stare straight ahead, your hands poised on the keyboard, waiting for her response.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, placing her hand over yours, causing a few off-key notes to sound from the piano.

You quickly pulled your hands away from hers as if her touch burned your skin. "Sorry doesn't solve anything."

"I know it doesn't," Mina gently turned you to face her. "I know sorry will never be enough to make up for how I've treated you, but I want to explain why I acted this way."

Mina took your silence as a cue to continue, and she quickly cleared her throat. She knew this was her last chance to selfishly keep you by her side, and she would do anything to make that happen. The thought of losing you was unbearable.

"Dispatch found out about us. They have pictures of us kissing on the beach," she revealed.

You raised your eyes in annoyance. "So? What does that have to do with anything?"

"My company won't allow me to go public with our relationship," she explained, ignoring your irritated tone. "They arranged a cover-up story, and I was afraid you would break up with me if you saw the fabricated article."

"Why didn't you just tell me?" you questioned.

"They made me sign an NDA," Mina replied without hesitation. Deep down, panic surged within her as she fabricated the lie. The company never made her sign anything, and she was the one who had asked her manager to come up with a plan to conceal the pictures from Dispatch. But she was desperate to hold onto you, even if it meant lying and digging a deeper hole for herself. "I really wanted to tell you."

You let out a sigh of relief and confusion. You were relieved that, for now, your relationship was still intact, but you couldn't shake the feeling that Mina was intentionally hiding something.

"What is the cover-up story?" you asked.

Mina hesitated before answering, "Just a few pictures of a dinner gathering with another idol. Our PR team thought it would be best to address the dating rumors by leaking a few photos to make people think I'm dating a guy. They're releasing the article next Monday."

Nodding, you chose to believe Mina. There were still many things she needed to explain, such as the text message on her phone and the guilty look in her eyes, but once again, you relented, choosing to believe her words for the sake of maintaining your relationship. You knew deep down that you were likely making the wrong decision, but you were hopelessly in love and there was little you could do to change that.

"It's just a fake relationship as a cover-up?" you asked.

"It's fake, I swear," Mina quickly nodded, taking your hand in hers again, praying that you wouldn't pull away this time. You didn't.

"I love you," she said softly, her brown eyes locked with yours. It was the first time she had ever uttered those words. You didn't expect her to say them today; you expected her to break up with you instead. You were shocked, but a part of you still held onto hope.

"Don't you love me back?" Her voice sounded sad, trembling slightly.

"I do," you said, reaching up to cup her face in your hand. "Just please don't treat me like this again."

"I promise," Mina said, slowly leaning forward to press her warm lips against yours. You closed your eyes, savoring the feeling of having her close once more. You knew you were likely making the wrong decision, but you were already trapped from the beginning. Why not live in happiness for a little while longer, even if you knew it was all a lie?

Mina held your hand tightly as you made your way back to your apartment. Walking hand in hand under the starlit sky no longer felt warm and filled with love; now it was riddled with uncertainty and loneliness. She no longer felt like home, no longer like the person you once loved and adored. Despite her beauty, with her hair now dyed a light shade of pink and wearing a party dress and heels, you couldn't recognize her anymore.

You studied her profile as she drove towards your apartment, speeding down the empty streets of late-night Seoul. Leaning over, you gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, choosing to ignore the pain in your heart, the way her touch felt wrong on your leg, and the partially concealed burgundy marks on her neck.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Sorry for the long-awaited update! What are your thoughts on Mina? (I find her quite toxic tbh)

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 67 – Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney

This is a book I’ve been vaguely aware of for a while, without really knowing anything about it beyond that it was getting a lot of positive buzz, but it got a WFA best novel nomination and that provided the impetus I needed to finally give reading it a try. And, well, I’ll be honest – this was a slog for me. If it had been half the size it would very likely be one of my favourite works of the year; as is the best way I can describe the reading experience is ‘slowly drowning in cotton candy’.

The book stars Miscellaneous ‘Lannie’ Stones, younger daughter of a declining noble house which has provided executioners and assassins to the royal family of Lariat since its founding, and generally but not lately provided necromancers as well. Lannie is the hope of the family, a necromantic prodigy (if one with a profoundly inconvenient allergy to violence that requires her isolation from the rest of the family and her raising by a bound revanent nanny and the dubiously trustworthy ghost of an ancestor). As the story opens, her parents have both died, and she’s been forced to write to her terror of an elder sister to come home as their debts are called due. She comes home with an enscrolled and deeply unwilling fiancee abducted during her studies. This, surprisingly, only takes up the first small chunk of the book, followed by a timeskip, the introduction of Lannie’s niece born in the interim, the elder sister dealing with the consequences of her seven-year campaign of bloody vengeance against the foreign court which murdered their parents, and the beginning of the actual plot.

I really did want to enjoy this book, and on the page-to-page level it was often somewhere between charming and delightful. But there were just so many pages, and so very little happening on most of them. After the timeskip the book spends something like 500 pages just leisurely meandering, stopping whenever anything catches its interest to spend half a page or three enthusiastically describing it. At a certain point the exuberant narration and playful vocabulary stop feeling delightful and start feeling like the author is somehow being paid by the word.

This is made all the odder by the fact that around the 80% mark the book suddenly realizes its got a bunch of problems to resolve and switches into an entirely different gear, rushing through revelations and resolutions like it’s on a deadline. Which apparently it was? The book ends with what feels like less of a sequel hook and more like a final hundred pages were chopped off the finished product by a longsuffering editor pushed past the brink.

So, the lion’s share of the book is interested less in plot than character dynamics and cute slice of moments. It’s very much a found family sort of narrative, delivered in an incredibly blunt fashion. Which definitely works for a lot of people, I’m sure, but everyone was so obviously written to be endearing and charming and fell into love of various sorts with each other so instantly it just left me cold, and more a bit bored.

This is a book with footnotes, and among those it feels pretty middle of the pack? Not doing anything particularly impressive with them, and they don’t have a real character or voice different from the rest of the book, but they’re a fun enough way to infodump a bunch of Stones family history (particularly all the ways different members have died).

Thematically...look, I’m aware this is entirely a personal pet peeve not shared by any particular audience, but the fact that Lannie’s whole life from infancy is being chosen as the beloved priestess of a goddess of death for one specific purpose, and that this is portrayed as an entirely benevolent, positive, and uplifting thing to have done at basically all points that it’s discussed just sets me on edge. There’s nothing really badly done about it, I’m just a contrary maltheist by nature and the book did basically nothing to allay that.

Generally – I don’t know, I’m not opposed to 700 page books (I’d be an utter hypocrite if I was. Almost certainly still am regardless), but I feel like being that long is a failing the book then has to justify? It should be obliged to do something with the length, if it’s going to demand so much of my time to wade through it. This didn’t really feel like it did.

[this-is-krikkit]

Heeeey!

19 and 23 for the Writer's Ask? XDDD

❤️

hey, you ! thanks for the ask !!

send me some writer's asks

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

these always make me nervous, because i edit so much that this is probably not going to end up in the actual finished fic. but here we go anyway:

“You know, it's a shame that you two don't get along,” Hange called out from behind him, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the empty room. “You're both freakishly strong and obsessed with cleanliness, I mean... if that isn't a match made in heaven!”

23. Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

OH MY GOD, DIALOGUE FTW, are you joking?? dialogue is so much easier! it's usually how i get ideas for fics, and no prompt works better on me than the "include this quote in your fic" ones. i can hear and see the characters speak in my head and adjust whenever i realize i wrote something that was ooc or useless, or when i think of a powerful line that i'd like to include that echoes either canon or something else i've put in the same fic/universe... i love dialogue so much, and it's so fun to play with all the different options of it: spoken out loud, in the character's head, adding details about how or why they're saying it or what they're doing as they say it, put an emphasis on howwri it's interpreted by other people when i'm writing from another character's pov... i just. LOVE. IT.

description... sucks. can't people who read my fics just see what i'm picturing in my mind without me having to describe it??? uggggh. i think it's so hard because a) english is not my native language and i'm not as good as i thought i was at it, and as a result i find myself lacking in vocabulary to express stuff i'd be perfectly able to depict in my language (and i know i could just search for translations, but it's tedious and frustrating work and i loathe how it interrupts the flow of my writing and makes it feel like homework, brrr); and b) i usually find it's the most boring part of both writing or reading? like, of course it's necessary, but description feels to me like either a break or a soft way to ease into a scene, and as someone who's very hands-on and likes to jump right into action rather than being gently led to it, i have very high standards for it. it needs to be relevant to the plot or the scene, or to be a necessary break (in a particularly action-packed scene, to mark the passage of time, to put emphasis on a character's feelings, to take a lil break in the middle of smut, to hike up the suspense...), and i don't feel like i'm good enough to write it so it fits those conditions. which is why (and i'm painfully aware of it) it's blatantly lacking in my own writing oops x)

[hologramcowboy]

You know Jensen is never going to fuck you. The man has more class in his pinky than you'll ever have in several lifetimes you absolute bag of garbage. Danneel wouldn't wipe her shoes on your pathetic ass. You seriously need to get mental help. You are unhinged and dangerous.

Do you need Jensen to "f***" you? Is that why you keep sending this same concept to everyone? If so, seek help. Jensen is married and has three children. He needs to focus on that and on taking care of the woman he impregnated, whether he meant to or not. It's disgusting that you would even remotely think sleeping with him is an option. The man doesn't compare in class to me and most of my friends and colleagues, he doesn't even open books and is oblivious to etiquette, especially that of his own industry. He also is less trained and schooled than me so who are you kidding? Yourself?

My as* happens to be more schooled, trained, beautiful and classy than Danneel's too, in fact, I'm beyond appreciated by highly valuable people. Not that that matters, whether good or bad feedback is just feedback and should never overcome someone's highest priorities. This is what it means to be self driven. Something you will never be as you depend on all people thinking the same way you do.

You are the unhinged one for being abusive. You are committing violence with your words over a couple of Z listers. You're probably too daft to even realize the gravity of your post and the horrible paragidms it is feeding into. Which means that you lack awareness. Truly sad.

Being classy is all about someone's soul, how cultured, elegant and emotionally intelligent they are not just what they studied or how much they own, by the way, you keep raising the profile of a bunch of functionally illiterate toxic celebrities and mob anyone who tends to point out they are mediocre. Danneel and Jensen are lovely in their own way but they will never be high class or high quality and the fact that you fail to understand that shows how disconnected you are from what you are trying to reference. Let me translate that for you: you know nothing about class and the fact that you hail Danneel as classy tells us everything we need to know about your level.

I strongly suggest you steer clear of my inbox and seek professional help.

"absolute bag of garbage" must be how you feel about yourself, I feel deeply sorry for how broken you are. So broken you are viciously trying to tear others down in the hopes of feeling better but mark my words, someday you'll cause someone's life to end with your vicious, disgusting soul so I strongly suggest you wake up and get the help you need instead of sending these type of asks which you can, by the way, be charged for.

Lastly, Jensen is endlessly kinder and smarter than you so please refrain from calling yourself a Jensen fan or mentioning his name since, clearly, all you care after is "f*****g" him (your words not mine). Using that word, by the way, is dehumanizing towards him as you are objectifying him. You are creepy, abusive and clearly psychotic since you are purposefully sending hate asks to create a certain outcome. You are not entitled to anyone's sense of self, wellbeing or value and people are free to have different views.

P.S.: Jensen will never sleep with you, no matter how many hateful, vicious mobbing attempts you make. In fact, he doesn't even know you exist and, even if he did, he would be majorly creeped out.

"You are unhinged and dangerous" Just curious, is "unhinged" the only word in your vocabulary? Do you even know what it means? Because it perfectly describes the message you sent in. There is absolutely zero dangerous about people enjoying harmless gossip or expressing opinions with like minded others. What is, however, truly dangerous and "unhinged" are people like you who purposefully and hatefully seek to target others through mobbing, cyberbullying, threats and other virtual offenses all because the person on the other end dislikes your show or actor. If you are looking for dangerous then please look in the mirror, you are inhumane.

As for your trashy, classless vocabulary, I strongly suggest you save it for those of your ilk, if you absolutely must use it.

[minimalist-language-learning]

This video is not about language learning but about learning in general and using SRS (spaced repetition systems) like Anki, which is used by some people in the language learning community to learn vocabulary, for example. Especially among Japanese learners Anki is often recommended.

Among other interesting things, he explains why popular methods do not necessarily work well for everyone. What made me think was when he talked about the success bias:

(Summary) "... you don't hear about the failure stories - This then combines with availability bias where we define legitimacy by how common we are exposed to it - This creates a spiral of unknowledgeable people creating videos about common techniques that are not as effective as they claim, making it more available, increasing its perceived legitmacy"

I use Anki myself, but only for reviewing kanji. I tried often recommended methods like sentence mining several times in the past, but no matter how hard I tried it never worked for me. It's not that I didn't learned something but after a few weeks reviewing these sentences felt meaningless. I wondered why this method didn't work for me while other people seemed to have great success.

Whenever I review sentences in Anki, it’s lacking a lot of valuable context. Even if this sentence is from a book I enjoyed, reviewing this single sentence in Anki has not the same effect as reading it in the full context of a story. I realized that I learn words much better when I encounter them in their "natural environment“. Of course, I do not claim this is "proof" for anything, it's just what I experienced.

Success Bias

Since I fell into this "trap“ myself, I think that we should be careful when we come across "popular“ methods. Maybe they work for some people but just because a method seems to be popular doesn’t necessarily mean that it is so much better than other (less known) methods.

As explained in the video above, people tend to talk more about their successes than about what didn’t work (success bias). That’s why some success stories are probably overestimated. We see a handful of popular YouTubers, for example, who seemingly had great success with this method, but we don’t see all these other people who also tried it but realized that it doesn’t work as well as these YouTubers claimed.

It’s hard to estimate, if a certain method worked well for a great amount of people or only for a lucky minority (who then are making videos where they give the impression that this method works great for everyone, while in reality this is not always the case). I think this is something people should be more aware of.

Don’t get me wrong! If a method really works well for someone and he or she recommends it, that’s fine. It’s always interesting to see how other people learn and what experiences they made! Success stories can be motivating and inspiring.

It’s just that I think that we should be a bit careful, because stories of people who had no success with a method are usually not as visible as success stories. I think these "failures“ should not be ignored, because they are part of the whole story. Only if you know the whole story, you’ll get a realistic picture. And more often than not, you can learn more from "failures" than from success stories.

So, I think both stories have their value and should be told, so that people get a more realistic picture of a method.

PS: This is also true for my own posts, of course. I describe what works for me, but it is not my intention to claim that this is the best method and that it works great for everyone. If it works for you, great! If not, it's also fine. Try something else until you find something that works for you. I only share my experiences and thoughts in case that it is helpful to some people.

[brightoakgame]

Are the ROs all canonically bi/pan? If so, how did they realize?

Canonically, I'd describe attraction as a spectrum for each of them. 💞 The action of Bright Oak takes place primarily in 1968, when the vocabulary surrounding sexuality was more limited; I'm hesitant to apply modern language / titles the characters themselves would not necessarily use,  or which carry slightly different connotations in the present day. So while in a modern setting Sparrow's expressed views and attractions might well lead him to identify as nonbinary and pansexual, even with his comparatively liberal experience (he's lived in San Francisco’s commune culture), if he were asked to define his gender or sexuality in the course of the game, likely he'd answer that gender is silly, and he's attracted to attractive people-- that is, if he answered at all, and didn't just throw out a few cryptic quotations and walk away.

Not all the characters' established patterns of attraction are an even split, though general preference patterns don't dictate individual affections, and by no means invalidate a potential romantic relationship with Kit/the MC, regardless of the player's choice of pronouns or gender identity (also, non-romantic relationships are a valid option in the game). For the latter half of your question, I'll touch on the characters' individual past experiences and attractions (placed beneath the cut, for those who prefer to let the characters' words and actions in-game stand alone in speaking for them).❤️

John: Perhaps surprisingly inexperienced, given his popularity; I think there was likely some tentative fumbling under the high school bleachers with a girl or two, but not much (if anything) beyond that. Aware he's also attracted to men-- even primarily attracted to men-- which scares him somewhat, to the point that he's avoided pursuing any romantic interests, regardless of gender.

Marybeth: She actually doesn't tend to experience immediate or impartial attractions, and I don't think she's dated anyone seriously before; she's kissed both men and women, but very much as an experiment to see what the fuss is about. While she has found herself attracted to friends in the past, she has never felt inclined to act on it, since making friends doesn't come easily to her, and she'd be hesitant to jeopardize the relationship she has for a potential relationship she herself is skeptical of.

Patti: Despite her considerable self-discipline, Patti's a bit of a hedonist: she takes pleasure on her own terms, as she finds it, albeit with no intention of sacrificing her independence over it. She has little interest in forming a local or long-term attachment that would tie her down, but when traveling-- in college, or for rare leisure-- she has never minded engaging in clandestine kisses and brief affairs to be fondly remembered later. Most of her liaisons have been with men, but there have been at least a couple women as well.

Sparrow: In his early youth, Sparrow's nascent attractions were focused more on characters in books (Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre), authors/poets (Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, E.M. Forster), and musicians (Billie Holiday, Buddy Holly, Johnny Mathis), more than anyone he knew personally, which continued as he remained a social pariah into high school-- but he blossomed once at university, and dated around a bit before falling very hard for someone after his move to San Francisco (this comes up in his story path).

Jasper: Jasper's brain trips him up at every turn when it comes to personal relationships, and while he does experience attraction to people (most often women, though not exclusively so), his inclination to act on it is very limited because he simply can't turn off the alarms in his head that tell him there are other responsibilities more worthy of his focus and time. He's been in relationships, but they inevitably fail because his primary devotion is to his ongoing work (there's reason for this, addressed in the game during his story path). He's not one to do things halfway, however, and has spent a sleepless night (or several) over the years researching pleasure and romantic gestures, determined that what perceived failings he has that can be corrected or compensated for, shall be corrected and compensated for. Good luck with that, MC.

[prefrontal-bastard]

Not sure if it’s relevant, but I wanted to share something from my own experiences:

I’m autistic, but I didn’t find out until just a couple years ago. A couple years before that, though, I moved someplace WAY more sensory-intensive than I was used to, and suddenly sensory shutdowns were happening way more often than ever before.

I didn’t know what they were, and hadn’t yet realized that they were related to sensory input, so it took me a while to figure out what was going on. First I thought they were dissociative episodes, because that seemed like it would explain the way my brain seemed to slow down and sensory inputs just wouldn’t get processed into meaningful information. Later I found out I had an anxiety disorder, and assumed that my shutdowns were just a different flavor of panic attacks because that would explain the overwhelmed, distressed feeling that would bring them on.

It wasn’t until I had someone help me recognize that I was autistic, and then was able to read accounts from autistic people about their own experiences, that I finally had the vocabulary to call my shutdowns what they were.

So it makes me wonder just how many people are in the same boat as I was, using the wrong terms to describe their experiences and spreading misinformation about what those terms mean just because they don’t have the vocabulary to express what they ARE experiencing

Yeah, lack of awareness is something I'm beginning to realize is a major issue.

Not only do people not have access to definitions, but the way neurodivergence and other brain-things are characterized is pure stereotype. People only know the stereotypes and haven't heard about the lived experiences.

There's also an issue where we're taught to just ignore symptoms and "toughen up" rather than examine the internal feelings and describe what they're saying.

I may be a rare one in that I grew up immersed in this stuff. I couldn't put things into words as a kid, but I knew enough about ADHD, anxiety, and the concept of disorders to know these things happen.

I'm hoping giving access to these terms can at the very least provide easier access into that sphere of things.

[houseofchimeras]

☀️

When did we awaken? When did we first know we identified as nonhuman? For our multiple system, the honest answer is we have always known, or at least, we have always known as far back as we can remember. We have always known ever since we have had the ability to be aware of much of anything and have had coherent enough thoughts to be aware of how we felt. That seems like the most likely answer. If not that early, at least as young as age 7 or 8 based on memories clear enough to say with certainty that at that time, we certainly felt we were nonhuman. For this reason, our multiple system does not consider ourselves to ever have had an awakening; or, more accurately, it seems what awakening we had occurred so very early in life we do not remember any of that process of discovery. We do not recall a moment in our life when we came to the realization and conclusion that we identified as nonhuman having not previously thought such was the case. None of us recall a time when we didn't feel nonhuman to some extent or another. In fact, as far back as any of us can remember anything at all, we've always been aware that most of us are nonhuman and been aware of our individual species identities. As far as our own perception stands, we have always known we were animals (or for the few, plants) trapped in a human body.

Clear enough childhood memories to glean much of anything from only reach as far back as about 7 years old. So, we believe if we experienced what can be called an awakening, it occurred either around that age or before then. So, the exact circumstances of our awakening is unknown to us due to our lack of earlier childhood memories. Due to the fact we have no memory of ever having not feeling or knowing our nonhumanity, we strongly feel our awareness of our state of being is something we have been aware of, if not from birth, then certainly since early childhood at the very least. Our only limitation back then was an exact context for all of our feelings and experiences as well as a label for it all. We might not have had a term to describe our experiences and our feelings, but they were still there. That would come later on in life.

Our earliest memories only go back to about age 7 but even by that age our nonhumanity shown through. We grew up being aware of our unusual state of being even though we didn't fully know what it all was or what it meant back then. Our brain couldn't wrap around all of the experiences, feelings, and thoughts we had, nor did we have a vocabulary hardy enough to even begin to describe our state of being, but our nonhumanity was there, nevertheless.

It wasn’t until years later, in 2003 that we would finally learn of our first words to describe our identities and our experiences. (The first terms we learned were “were” and “transspecies.”

- Earth Listener (she/her/hers)

[kilar]

CAS - service - Radio Roža

Last Thursday, January 26th, I, with the companionship of my two dear friends Kaja and Vita, went to Radio Roža situated close to PRHG, in an ally-way street called Palach. Radio Roža is a community based internet radio created from the need to follow and keep up with the cultural acts of Rijeka as well as promoting underground genera’s, you can read more on the following link to their website - https://www.radio-roza.org/o-nama – you can find useful information about the Radio Roža there, as well as find a way to listen to them. I visited Radio Roža (RR) with my two friends to promote, spread awareness, benefit and expand our Kult community. My friends and I talked about how Kult came to be what it is today, the process of making the magazine as well as our thoughts about it. It was very interesting, RR is a small project and not a lot of people know about it, to be honest, neither did I until last week, but I always noticed their sign while walking through Palach. I was nervous because I had never talked into a radio microphone before, or like, been in a studio, or like, been featured on a radio show before. So I think you can imagine the stress that I was overflown with. But, never the less, I collected myself with the help of my friends and the supportive environment there. I thought to myself I would sound more natural if I just took a deep breath and realized this is nothing scary, and it worked!

I thought about posting this to my CAS experience portfolio, but is this considered CAS in any way? Well, I did my research beforehand and I assure you it is. I found a photograph from a website which explains it:

As we can read from the photo describing service acts as: ‘Experiences that involve interactions with individuals or groups, which provide benefits from the community. These experiences should not only involve contributions to others, but also with others, while developing a deep commitment’ so there you have it. It is CAS.

Back to what I was saying. I loved it. Truly, deeply, amazingly loved it. It's as simple as that. I liked the idea of my voice talking about something I am so proud of while also promoting it and sharing the news about something very cultural and important not only to PRHG but to Rijeka itself. I also loved the atmosphere of the studio, very nice people, amazing vibes, beautiful colors and space, I was so intrigued by the artwork that was surrounding me, it was like I was inside a painting or an artwork. The only problem I encountered was collecting my words and making reasonable sentences, I bluffed so much we had to do multiple takes, so in conclusion, I think I could work on my vocabulary and public speaking a bit more if I want to continue public speaking and promoting other works. I also feel like I contributed to the community because I helped spread the word of something that's not really heard of, a lot of other student's work will be promoted this way, as well as our school PRHG and community. I would love to repeat something like this again! The radio feature will soon be available on their website so be sure to check it out, when they upload it I will attach a link here! Enjoy!

From the 37th minute on the link below you can listen to the interview!

[1] http://ibtucker.weebly.com/cas.html

[kendrixtermina]

On Emotional Awareness – The Revenge of the feels.

I hadn’t put these on tumblr & it occurred to me that I probably should  

General points.

Overall it tends to be generally assumed that ppl know and can express or tell you their feelings since we’re bombarded from all sides by displays of such if we turn on the radio or TV or just listen to our friends & family expounding upon whatever is, but if you’ve picked up any self-help or couples advice book, or indeed gotten into typology, you’ll find that this is not always self-explanatory.

Now, I personally have never had this problem, but it's worth noting that, though this is not always acknowledged or given its due weight, learning to interpret/ map your feelings is an actual skill that ppl need to learn. All people.

A baby/toddler doesn't know what's happening to them at all - they just start bawling & throwing a tantrum once a certain threshold of distress is reached - if you have younger siblings or cousins you may have oserved that sometimes babies get really cranky in the evening cause they can't yet distinguish anger/irritation from tiredness.

This is where the parents are supposed to come in and help you learn, for example, by mirroring your state back to you – first, through their reactions & responses such as comfort, eye contact, touch, and sympathetic reactions.

You might also notice that sometimes mothers will narrate what the baby is doing - (‚Are we sleepy/grumpy/excited today?‘)

This gives the child some vocabulary to describe their experience & a chance to associate their inner states with words. Paying attention to the child’s feelings also signals that this is important, salient information, just like pointing out colors and shapes teaches a baby to pay attention to colors.

Once the child is a little bit older and has picked up some words, the parent can then ask the child about their feelings, for example by asking them why they engaged in some bad behavior, encouraging the child to reflect on their own motivations.

Eventually a feedback loop arises and the child becomes able to self-regulate.

If you are a parent, this is part of your job as much as potty training or teaching your kids to speak and bathe themselves –

Books or TV shows geared at small children also feature narration explaining the characters’ feelings for this reason.

But sometimes the parents just want the kid to shut up & don't make noise so rather than doing any of the above things they just say „shut up!“ or dole out harsh punitive measures.

In that case, the above learning doesn’t really happen; What the child learns instead is, at best, to shut up, and at worst, that the parents are to be feared.

In some western cultures (founded as they are on the patriarchal and discipline-heavy roman civilization) even well-meaning parents do this because of bogus cultural values like "girls don't fight" or "boys don't cry" etc.

In particular we seem to think that boys don’t need crucial life skills like self-regulation (or cooking or cleaning.)

& due to the bias of male hyperagency even nominally ‚feminist’ sources often phrase this as being about making sure the boy doesn‘t grow up to exploit or be a jerk to his girlfriend.

He may be a lazy jerk if he chooses to do so but most crucially, if your son leaves your house without important life skills you have failed him as a parent – thats why you see so many dudes shooting themselves after divorces or work-related failures.

Obviously some personality type combinations are going to be more or less "talented" at learning emotional awareness (eg. a Fi dom 4 is going to pick up awareness of their feelings even if the parents are horrible and ignore them completely cause this is where their attention constantly goes. Which isn't necessarily a blessing, since they'd mainly be noticing how awful they feel about being ignored by their parents and be stuck constantly "looking" at that pain.)

Even so it’s important to realize that this is a learnable skill that can be practiced & learned despite different talent levels. (with the caveat that there might be conditions such as autism, depression or ptsd creating extra difficulties for some)

Everyone who can do it learned it at some point and if you’re lagging behind you can teach yourself, if not quite with the effortlessness of a well-cherished toddler.

So I’d like to encourage you to think of feelings detection hangups less as something specific to particular types (like, say, the competency triad) and more as yet another fixable self-awareness deficit – though type may of course influence level of talent as well as the particular ways such feelings detection deficits might manifest.

Still if you read or listen to ppl’s experiences on the internet you will find examples of low awareness individuals of almost all types.

Like with the detecting shapes example, not everyone needs to be a master painter or tell apart 30 shades of purple, but everyone ought to leave kindergarten with enough understanding of basic shapes & colors for the needs of daily life.

An interesting contrasting example is the Inuit culture – outside visitors often find the ppl there remarkably even-tempered. That is because there is culturally a great taboo against yelling at children & a big emphasis on teaching awareness of feelings – one example is that if a child misbehaves, the parent might ask at a later point in time why the child doesn’t do the bad behavior – eg „why don’t you hit me right now?“ Usually the kid won’t want to do so when they’ve long since calmed down, which makes them notice the difference between the current calm state & how they were angry during the acting out.

Type-specific hangups.

1 – the chief issue here is that 1s constantly evaluate everything including themselves. Is this the correct feeling for this situation? Is this the appropriate amount thereof? There can be the concern that feeling the „wrong“ thing to an „excessive“ amount could make you biased, „selfish“, „out of control“ or „bad“.

In the extreme you might be clamping down on any impulse no matter what it is before you have a time to „sample“ it – though, even if it doesn’t get that far, pleasure & anger in particular can be treated as suspect unless „justified“. Plus there can be a tendency to convert other things into anger or frustration (that last bit being somewhat common to all the impulse types)

2 – generally a high expressiveness type, but also a positive one. There is a tendency to cultivate positive feelings towards oneself and others (reminding oneself of positive, loveable qualities of either oneself, if criticised, or those one wishes to keep the peace with) so that feelings perceived as „unappealing“ like anger, frustration ambition or need can be repressed out of awareness.

Anger, resentment and disappointed expectations are common candidates… until it can’t be repressed anymore and the person hits the line to 8 and goes poof.

3 – probably the one that most commonly reports/ struggles with getting somewhat numbed out, either because they’re too focussed on the ‚social‘ emotions they’re supposed to be performing, or sort of put them off because there’s always stuff to do. Whereas 1s clamp down on already existing reactions (which is only possible to a limited extent) and 5s try not to get worked up in the first place (but once a reaction is there, its there), 3 is the one type that can really „flip a switch“, that is, squeeze all the attention into the compartment with the planning & impulses. But the „stuff“ is never far behind since one always has to leave one figurative toe in the dominant center (through which one is percieving the environment) so this often leads to busy compulsive activity and a „flight“-style adversity coping style.

Since the heart is in its own „compartment“ there can be the impression that making time for feelings means paralysis – plus, the more counterdependent 3s might see it as a liability/vulnerability or think showing struggles make them unappealing or „weak“.

4 – overall the least likely type to have this problem since its attention pattern is one of constant interpretation of one’s inner experience, (rather more likely to over-focus on one’s feelings), but there can still an issue of disowning or dismissing sentiments that seem too simple, banal or generic, like harmless silly fun or being upset over an everyday triviality. It might help to look for the reasons for your upset in the recent past & everyday circumstances. If anything else, those are more easily solveable. Also, even if you happened to like the same problematic elf as half of tumblr and are somewhat embarassed of this, sometimes authenticity means admitting that. And at least refusing to touch the most popular ship or universally accepted headcannons for him

5 – tends to be inattentive toward and uncomfortable with physical experience, and hence not very plugged into the sort of body sensations that are of course one possible ways to track your feelings. Also, due to a fairly neutral base mood and an not entirely conscious avoidance toward anything that’s distracting or exhausting there isn’t always something to notice, so it doesn’t take that lacking an environment for one of these to make it to adulthood without cultivating much of a sense for this, though it’s by no means universal (outward expressiveness or comfort with talking about stuff being separate variables - Plus on the lower levels most feelings that did happen would center on their pursuits or inner fantasies rather than being invested in external objects or people.)

6 – another type that can easily have low awareness – they’re wired to first look for the source of problems in the external world. Buying a car with a high safety rating as response to feeling scared checks out, but suspecting your gf is cheating just because you feel jealous doesn’t – in that case the cause is internal, it’s just your jealous feeling. But as the thinking can be disconnected from feelings or impulses the person may not realize how they’re influenced by feelings.

Also if they do notice their feelings, they might then endlessly second-guess the feelings and their perception of them or wonder if the feelings are morally correct or „weak“.

Some 6s very much desire to appear (or even suceed at being) stoic & in-control, though warmth, panic or anger are seldom too far from the surface. The more controlled/„rigid“ 6s in particular can sort of the prototypical person that’s calm on the surface but has a lot of passion underneath.

7 – 7s tend to mostly externalize their feelings, expressing them outwardly right away rather than inwardly processing them, plus the heart is their least used center. Normally this mostly means that their feelings tend to be a bit ‚diffuse‘ with not very differentiated labels & distinguishing but a few states. (especially the ExTPs/ Fi polRs) – However they can have a particular avoidance of & sometimes refusal to acknowledge fear & sadness, leading to a constant activity/ „flight“ pattern of avoidance & when the heart gets like really shut down on the lower average levels you do see individuals reporting some rather empty, numb or restless states where nothing quite seems to get them the satisfaction they seek (this is also probably how depression would show in one of these)

8 – Sort of similar to 7 as the other „heart last“ type in that inner perception tends to be somewhat ‚diffuse‘ even in average ppl, and that lower health states can involve feeling restless and numbed-out. Though the most avoided or repressed feelings are rather emotional hurt and genuine attachment or desire for it. (as that could be „exploitable“) and its not avoided through flight behavior but rather drowned out through intensity seeking(„fuck the pain away“), vented through punitive „acting out“ (ie. Covered by anger) or flat out denied.

9 – another one where low feelings awareness is not uncommon, particularly on the individuals that go so hard on the „best not to think too much about challenging things“ assumption to the point that it leads to little follow up questions or introspection. Also 9 tend to sometimes diffuse their impulses somewhat (so that helpful hints like „i want to punch that bastard!“ dont always appear in consciousness), are sensitive to strongly agitated states (like big feelings) and defense wise tend to to calm themselves down „hardware side“ in response to them, using creature comforts, which might be reasonable for short term or genuinely unfixable issues but may prevent the dots-connecting, processing and addressing on issues that should & could be solved.

All of these come with the big blinking neon arrow caveat that generally Fi types in the mbti will have more feelings awareness than others of the same enneagram type. This is because the Fi function gets it „straight from the source“, as in, the brain regions that show high activity in Fi users are known to be directly connected to the midbrain where feelings „come from“.

So, Fi users will typically know their feelings, likes & dislikes unless they’ve been subjected to extreme neglect.

Especially what is said here about 9 or 6 must be read as „...unless they’re a high Fi type.“

This doesn’t go for Fe users to the same extent as Fe users can tend to suppress inner reactions to produce „appropriate“ ones.

Strategies for improvement.

It might help you to find some more emotionally aware ppl with the same wing combo or similar mbti type and ask them how they "track" it as the same method is likely to work for you - there are probably multiple possible methods.

The first step is not to pressure yourself with expectations – sometimes there might genuinely be not much going on, you might not have a reaction where others do or the reaction you find might not per se be the same as others, & that’s by design after all your feelings are part of your individuality.

If your issue is mainly judging particular types of feelings as „bad“ or „selfish“, it might help you to read up on the concept of Radical Acceptance. (I can picture this being helpful for superego and/or positive folks)

Alternatively, you might have the concern that it might be vulnerable, „out of control“, or „too much“ (an issue you might see for, say, 8, 3 or 5) First becoming aware of your sensitive side all at once as an adult can be a handful, especially if you worry that it might change how you think about yourself or you find that there’s quite a bit of touchyness in there.

It probably helps to remind yourself that noticing doesn’t mean you have to act on it or do anything compromising as a result, especially if its just you in your room. It’s just extra information that, if anything, might help you make more informed choices.

Somatic support or self-soothing techniques might also be helpful like hugging yourself, stroking your cheek as you might for a baby who cant speak yet or ye goode olde deep belly breaths.

Finally, there’s the issue of ppl who are strongly extroverted and not used to introspection (7, 3 or 2) and might have a marked aversion to „stopping“ – something that reportedly works is limiting the timeframe like beginning with shorter meditation sessions of just a few minutes.

Other approaches are trying to „triangulate“ it using outer-directed methods, like looking for clues in your behavior, wondering what you might say to someone else in your situation, or writing letters in roleplay scenarious(„Dear Feelings…“ and then trying to reply back in a sense)

For some types like 6 or 9 it might also be helpful to have a ‚projection space‘, like writing a story about some character you relate to or who is in a similar situation.

Some types like 3, 2 and 9 might also benefit from making a point of thinking over life decisions on their own.

Alternatively if the problem is not so much dealing with it but that you can’t even locate the stuff in the first place, there are multiple approaches for that, too.

One might be trying to pay attention to physical sensations, like just trying to sense into your body at random times of the day or in meditation – I know of one person who napped their writer friends’ thesaurus for describing feelings to triangulate their own feelings.

Alternatively you could go a more direct route and try journaling – if nothing pops up, you could just freeflow ramble/ dump for a page or so and see if you notice tendencies,

Or you could get out one of those feelings wheels come journaling time or when you notice you're having some sort of reaction and try to name it up front You could also try meditating & trying to focus if you sense anything - again, keeping n mind that it's perfectly normal if a lot of the time there isn't anything necessarily aside from maybe some vague background anxiety.

The goal is, in the short term, to get some information about what things or people have which effects on you, and in the long term, to build up & reinforce an intuitive sense of associating sensations with words.

This is totally feasible, the neocortex is a wonderfully adaptable thing - ppl have taught themselves to "see" from having a "picture" shown as pressure points on their skin or to sense magnetic/electrical fields by implanting a magnet in their finger & learning to interpret the subtle shifting sensations it makes. And these are completely new things that humans were never "designed" to do, whereas you should have preexisting circuitry for tracking your feelings even if mom & dad didn't train you to use it just as they should've taught you to recognize shapes colors or animal noises.

A case study.

Something that struck me as interesting to think about while pondering the material for this post is:

How exactly DID I learn to do it as a toddler/ child?

Because I definitely did learn it but I wouldn't have had conscious memory of it or the ability to reflect on it yet.

But I am probably using an old, deeply embedded algorithm every day that I first learned as a baby, much as I do for walking or interpreting what I see - and I would have needed to expand it come puberty when sexual desire first came into the picture.

I'd say I'm pretty aware of and even welcoming of my feelings (even negative ones) so long as it's on a level of intellectual processing, but if it ever gets to a level where there is a physical response strong enough for me to notice, which isn't often, thats exhausting & unpleasant.

Though I've only been recently aware of that distinction if you'd asked my teen self she would've told you that she's all for feelings & given you a big rant about how no one wants to give sadness it's proper space nowadays and everyone wants it all to be pretty presentable & superficial, (like no points for guessing the heart fix) and I would have characterized myself as very feelsy sensitive & artistic & shit, even if I still "want to make decisions on logic"- cue rant about the whole romanticism vs enlightenment contrast as a cultural phenomenon & how feelings and reason are not opposites at all.

I suppose this awareness is because it was mirrored to me by my mom I guess. She is very enthusiastic about small children and when we were babies she would talk to us alot and narrate what we were doing. (adorable ld home video where she is commenting on one of my sisters doing typical baby things and enthusiastically ‚conversing‘ with her in a sing-song voice) And she would say stuff like, "soandso has fine, sincere feelings" or tell how she had to explain to me about recycling cause I was so upset that we were throwing the poor poor milk cartons in the trash. If she had said "shut up and dont make noise" instead of giving attention to my being upset, I probably would have turned out quite differently. Especially since I don't even remember this incident.

If anything it is my occasional lack of outward expressiveness that I was kind of in the dark about, or I just counted experiences related to that as me being "bad with people" or others "misunderstanding" me. My family is all head types except for our token 9 so I suppose they didnt find anything missing so long as I expressed myself verbally.

I'd like to stress that my awareness of physical sensations is very much piss-poor and that I find them rather uncomfortable when they do break into consciousness. I very much fit the typical "resents having to have a body" stereotype. Like feeling the blood pounding in my temples when I'm really, really angry sometimes freaks me out a little bit. - in a lot of books you read ppl, especially type 9 book authors, describing fine gradations thereof, whereas I only really notice when it's something really obvious like crying, sweaty hands etc.

I don't very much associate/ connect my feelings with physical sensations at all. If I notice the sensation at all its more like an additional thing.

I'd say my primary mode of noticing my feelings is by my thoughts or intuitive associations. That's also how I would show it if I was writing a story - if the Pov Character is scared then they would be thinking of the bad concequences that will happen if their fear comes to pass, if they have a crush they are thinking about the person alot and wanting to know more, if they are sad they are thinking about all that they have lost, its implications, everything you can now no longer do because of your loss, feeling betrayed is shown through thinking of the discrepancies & contradiction between what the person said vs what actually happened etc.

In a way that’s kind of the most „practical“ thing to do since my attention is normally on them anyways.

i guess reading and creative pursuits is also something that is shown to lead to greater awareness of feelings & empathy toward others if one does it as a child.

Heck, some of the time I even notice being hungry through finding myself thinking about food or that I'm sleepy cause my concentration begins to slip.

Though maybe its easier to build the association between the two if having a 4 wing gives you a bitty bit of "direct" access to feelingsland.

I suppose in my case it also helps that I am not 9 fixed - if impulse-based thoughts pop in your head like "I want to punch that person" or "I want to run away and lock myself in my room", that's a hint, to say the least. For 1 fixers they would be more filtered/processed already like "this is wrong!".