#who we know struggled in school and with behavioural issues

[charmac]

x

[detransdamnation]

I'm still really upset about that post [AL] I wrote on educators telling students' parents about their dysphoria or transgender identity because this topic is really only a small part of a greater framework of how "parental rights" harm youth.

If abuse is most likely to be perpetrated by immediate family members, especially parents, that means that, speaking strictly statistically, parents are the least safe people to tell about a child's mental health struggles because they are most likely to use them to abuse them. Factor in that many youth who develop a mental illness in the first place have faced abuse at some point in their lives—and many are subsequently abused, mistreated, or neglected after said mental illness develops—and this becomes even more dire because the root of these teens' mental illness and the unhealthy behaviours which arise from them is significantly likely to have grown from the hands who feed them. "Mental illness is a product and reflection of our environment" is not only what so many of us espouse and incorporate into our belief systems but is also a relative, observable fact.

And yet, in response to teens who are struggling as a result, we operate as if this is completely untrue. And it's not only apparent in this aforementioned debate; it is apparent in this entire culture of conditional confidentiality wherein everything a minor shares with a psychologist or therapist or social worker is "just between us" but as soon as the teenager crosses a line, takes a step too far, expresses symptoms or develops coping mechanisms that are a little too close for comfort (or respectable politics), all of a sudden, it is no longer the professional's job to help and support the teenager but the parents' right to know about the teenager's struggles because it is the parents' job to keep them safe, always assuming but almost never confirming that the parents ever actually cared about what a parent "should" do. There is never consideration that the parents are the reason why the teenager is unwell, why the teenager is unsafe to themselves in the first place, and that telling the parents about the teenager's mental state could do even more harm than whatever harm the teenager is posing to themselves at the time.

And this is something that the most vulnerable are often most painfully aware of. I saw several therapists over the course of my teenhood and none of them had any idea why I was in therapy because I never talked about anything that I actually needed to talk about. I couldn't have. My confessions would have entailed a lawful breach of confidentiality to the very people who had fucked me up in the first place. This implement to supposedly "keep me safe" only ever ensured that I stayed silent. Silence was literally my only safe option—and unhealthy, unsafe communities, for most of my life, the only places I could confide in because the only ones who did not just parrot an empty "Talk to your parents or another adult you trust!" were other abused and mentally ill teens who needed just as much help as I did, yet were failed just as much as I was.

This is why I find it so gobsmacking when "mental health advocates" center openness with parents, or (in this case) when gender-criticals claim they want to protect dysphoric youth whilst also blindly advocating for parental inclusion in every nitty gritty detail of the child's mental health experience, or even when therapists claim to be creating a "safe space" for teenagers at all, period—because how can a space or a person be "safe" when we actively cater to the wishes of potentially unsafe people? When we are legally mandated, some of us, to do so? The message being communicated in this practice and belief system is, "You have the right to discretion until you are too mentally ill"—and if a mentally ill person feels like they have to toe a fine line, walk on eggshells, dumb down their feelings or experiences just so that whistles aren't blown to their abusers, the practice and belief system is set up for the abuser to benefit, whether deliberately or incidentally.

People cannot heal when they cannot even feel, or express what they are feeling, freely. By pushing for the rights of the parent to be considered above all else, we create an environment where youth cannot do any of this. We cannot claim to be supporting (or even caring about) this population at all when we play a direct role in why they are so vulnerable in the first place. Abuse victims—and especially abused youth—are way too often redirected back to their abuse by the very people who are supposed to help them grow from it under this idea that parents have an innate right of disclosure just by virtue of being a parent.

[warping-realities]

A Better Brighter Future

A brief explanation, this story is a spinoff of Dalton Academy, you don't need to have read that series to understand this story, but you will miss some references. The themes here are also controversial and I need to remind everyone that just because I wrote it doesn't mean I agree with what's happening! Otherwise, a great read for anyone interested!

Director Horace Johnson wasn’t having a good week; in fact, the week he was having was bloody dreadful. The blonde, skinny bloke, fifty years old, had dedicated a good chunk of his adult life to educating young people, finding that calling shortly after leaving university. A staunch defender of human rights and a proponent of positive education, he faced all sorts of problems with reactionary teachers throughout his career, none worse than Ethan Wood, the former PE teacher at King Richard All Boys Institute, affectionately referred to by everyone in the tiny village of Daffodil-Meadow-Over-The-Hill as Lionheart School. However, after numerous run-ins over the three years he’d been the head of that institution, he finally got fed up with the other bloke's speeches, attitudes, and teaching style, and thanks to an anonymous tip about some dodgy behaviour that led to his dismissal, nearly all the students and many of the  teachers breathed a sigh of relief; that sort of hardline, oppressive treatment had no place in today’s world. The one thing Horace couldn’t imagine was the struggle to find a replacement who shared his progressive ideals, not to mention the fact that he had to deal with the backlash from some conservative parents, teachers, and board members. Just another battle they were fighting; he should have known, it was like that when he banned the posh uniforms or tried to authorise the use of gender-neutral pronouns – one battle won, another lost. But he was determined to come out on top again; he refused to put another outdated troglodyte in that position. A better, brighter future was the motto of that school, and he was going to make it happen.

While he was mulling over these issues, sitting in his office with a good cup of tea, his privacy was invaded. With a loud BAM, the door to his office was flung open, causing him to quickly raise his eyes from the document he was reading, only to see the monstrous figure striding towards him. A black man in his thirties, dressed in a polo shirt, tracky bottoms, and trainers, exuding the brash vibe of a sports coach, swaggered confidently in his direction. He couldn’t remember scheduling any interview, and certainly not with someone so rude, who gave off exactly the impression of the type of professional he refused to hire.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to leave this room; I’m busy and we haven’t got a time booked!” he said, standing up and positioning himself beside his desk, noting the absurd difference in build and muscle between the two.

“And since when do old mates need permission to see you, Henry?”

“That’s not my name!”

“I know that, Henderson, you tosser, but if you reckon I’m not gonna use your nickname just because you’re the head honcho of a fancy school now, you’re sorely mistaken. Just wait until the lads on the rugby team find out the Steamroller Henry is all posh now; they’ll be laughing their heads off!”

“Sir, I… I don’t know what you’re on about… I insist you leave!”

“Now that’s the Henry I know, always ready to pull a fast one on his mates.” The man said, slumping down in the armchair opposite his desk. “But enough of the banter, mate. After you got in touch, I did a bit of digging into what’s going on around here, and you’ve got some serious problems. Losing a bloke like Ethan Wood must have been a right kick in the teeth, especially after scrapping the uniforms; they might have been a bit too posh, but they helped maintain a sense of unity and shared identity. Good on you for getting rid of that daft idea of using gender-neutral pronouns. Still, mate, I can see why you need me here. Transforming these crybabies into real men can’t be easy, but don’t you worry; you called the right person!”

“I… what…? I don’t get it…”

“What’s hard to understand, Henry? You need help to rein in this progressive agenda that’s trying to take root here, so you called your old uni mate Blake Ian Garret, The BIG and said, ‘Mate, I need your help with these wankers trying to sabotage me; old Wood is out, I need you for the job!’”

“I… Blake… BI… BIG, then… do you accept?”

“Of course I do, you muppet; it’s exactly what I’ve been banging on about! That whisky you’re drinking is probably messing with your already dodgy brain. I wonder how they let you become a director, Henry; not that I’m complaining, we need more blokes like us in charge.”

“I also wonder how I ended up here; I only became a teacher because that dodgy Wood promised to pass on his job to me when he retired, and next thing I know, I’m stuck in this boring role and now I have to give the job I wanted to an arse.” He said with fake exasperation. 

“Shut it, mate; I know you missed having another real man around here, and while I explain how things work in the place I was working, why don’t you pour me a bit of that drink? I think you’ll love hearing about Dalton Academy.” The man commented, noticing the change happening in Horace Johnson. In a blur of movement, the skinny man’s body expanded in muscle and height, while the wrinkles vanished from his face and his blonde hair started to grow back where it had receded. In less than a second, Henderson “Henry” Johnson found himself grinning, offering a glass of whisky that hadn’t been there before to his old university friend and now professor Blake Garret, The BIG in his realm.

“A toast to the best hire I could have made,” he said, raising the glass to his old friend, who broke into a wide smile.

“To a better and brighter future, indeed!”

…..

The students and teachers didn’t know why they were gathered in the school gym. The summons came from Director Johnson himself, and they knew they had to comply quickly, as the man had a military rigidity about that sort of thing, not tolerating any behaviour he deemed lazy. So, what a surprise it was for everyone to see that it wasn’t Henry Johnson heading to the packed gym.

“Good morning, gentlemen! My name’s Blake Garret and I’m the new PE teacher here at Lionheart. The director Johnson and I have known each other for a long time; we were university mates and teammates, and he’s shared with me his concerns about the behaviour and ideals presented here. This nation is infected, gentlemen. Infected by a parasite called progressivism. Progress should be encouraged, yes, but with proper control, guided by the ideas of our parents and ancestors. Progress for the sake of progress should be discouraged!” He said, striding across the gym floor like a caged beast ready to break free, pausing only to observe the indignant faces of some teachers and a few students who bothered to pay attention to what he was saying. But that was about to change, and it was going to be now. “When Henry told me that the infection was spreading here too, I couldn’t believe it. I said to him, ‘Surely not, Henry, my dear. Lionheart is a beacon of clarity amidst a stormy sea of harmful ideas; the teachers are exemplars of masculinity and manliness, and the students are the pinnacle to which every young man in this nation should aspire; surely there’s no such behaviour here.’ But… but now that I’m here, I see! Gentlemen, my eyes fill with tears at what Lionheart is.” He said, taking another pause to take in the disgusted expressions before finally finishing what he had come to do there. “Tears, yes, tears of pride! For you are much more than I imagined, gentlemen. You are paragons of masculinity, the example of what every man should aspire to be; you haven’t allowed yourselves to be contaminated by the corruption attacking our country from within; you are what gives me hope for the future of our great nation.” He said, resuming his frenetic pacing, and with every step he took, the audience transformed; teachers, students, staff, all expanding in size while ideas and thoughts shrank, casual clothes being replaced by training gear that showcased their muscular and defined bodies, while a powerful funk that only dozens of sweaty gathered men could produce dominated the atmosphere, not that anyone there cared about it.

“That was a brilliant welcome drill, lads; now off to the showers and back to your uniforms for your lessons. Teachers, I ask you to stay a bit longer; I need to know about any absent students today.”

….

Franklin was in deep trouble; he missed the bus to school and had to walk all the way from the village of Grimchurch to Daffodil Meadow, which wasn’t pleasant for a skinny, asthmatic kid. The worst part was that he ended up terribly late for school, and knowing the kind of reception he would get, he thought about just not going, but that would bring even bigger complications, so he decided to face his fate with resignation. He was greeted by the guard, who merely directed him to one of the classrooms where a teacher would speak to the late students and administer the necessary punishment. Sighing with resignation, he headed to the indicated location, but upon arriving, something stopped him from entering the room; some sort of primitive alert resonating within his mind. Peeking through the corner of the window, he saw a teacher he didn’t recognise, a tall and very strong man with skin as dark as his own, talking to Bernard, Vincent, and Timothy, three of the biggest truants at Lionheart, who were looking at him with bored expressions. But then, in the blink of an eye, the unthinkable happened; the boys he had known all his life were replaced by larger, stronger, muscular versions, wearing uniforms and smiling as if they were getting drunk on every word the teacher was saying, words which Franklin couldn’t hear. But then the teacher approached the door, and he could hear the end of the speech.

“… rowing at the end of the day; you lot are to be congratulated, I wouldn’t be surprised if any of you ended up representing England at the Olympics. Oh, before you go, Bert and Victor, you’re in the same class as Franklin Burke, right? If you see him, let me know; I need to have a word with the lad, the same goes for you, Tom.”

Hearing that, Franklin took off running, desperate, not fully understanding what he had witnessed but knowing the risk he was in; he urgently needed to get out of there. In his despair, he didn’t notice that the man had left the room and smiled when he saw a skinny kid running toward the changing rooms.

Franklin thought the safest way to escape the trap he had fallen into would be through the school gym, which should be empty at that hour. Sneaking in as quietly as possible, he finally reached the changing area; he just needed to cross it and head to the football pitch, which would be free from whatever was happening there. But there was a hitch: someone was using the changing room. Quickly hiding behind the door, he saw the stranger swaggering arrogantly through the space. Recently out of the shower and wearing only a jock strap, the muscular Chinese lad strutted as if he owned the place. Stopping in front of the mirror, he admired himself. Who could he have been before? No… no… Lionheart only had one Chinese student. That must be… Anshen? Franklin’s best mate… no… this was a nightmare.

“I can see you there, mate!” said the muscular lad, crossing his arms. “Coach BIG is looking for you. I wouldn’t irritate the bloke if I were you.” He added with a cheeky grin. Having been discovered, Franklin stepped out of hiding.

“Anshen… is that you?”

“The name’s Ashton, Franklin. Honestly, how could you forget the name of the captain of the school swimming team?” he said, acting as if that made him the most important person in the room. Without even glancing to the side, he brushed past that aberration towards the corridor leading to the football pitch.

“Hey, mate, the coach’s office is the other way!” shouted the other lad, but Franklin didn’t pay him any mind. He was running anxiously toward the door that was his salvation. Only to see it swing open and the monstrous giant that was walking toward him with a grin. Between the two giants, he chose to face the smaller of the two and took off running in the direction he had come from, without seeing the smile fade from the man's face or hearing him grumble.

“Don’t know why they run…”

Upon reaching the door of the changing room he had just passed through a few seconds ago, he found it locked. How? Ashton must have locked it. Franklin grunted as he cursed the other lad with every ounce of strength not being used to try to open the door.

“It’s useless, lad. Your fate was sealed the moment you set foot in this school. But you know what? I like you; you’ve got fire in you. Turn around.” The man said with authority, and Franklin felt his body obey against his will. Gathering courage, he faced the man.

“Who are you? What are you?”

“What I am is something to be answered another time. Now, who am I? Frankly, Farrel, that’s no way to speak to your godfather.” Coach BIG replied, seemingly hurt, although a slight tremor at the corner of his lips indicated he was actually enjoying himself.

“What? Godfather? I don’t have a godfather and I don’t even know who you are! And who the hell is Farrel?”

“Farrel is my godson; a lad, strong and sure of what he wants. A man who knows a man’s rightful place in society. He’s a bit of a rogue, the type who’s too smart for his own good, always finding a way to dodge consequences. Except when he’s on the pitch; he’s the captain of the rugby team and takes that role seriously, even knowing his future lies in politics, thanks to the silver tongue he possesses. In short, Farrel is you, you great numpty. Now that it’s just the two of us in my office, come give your godfather a hug.”

“I… what? No…!” Franklin stammered as he felt his legs move on their own and a dreamy smile form on his lips, even as he internally screamed in anxiety.

Anxiety? He never got anxious! At least not off the pitch. There he was a monster, a bull. But off it? Off it, he was the face of relaxation. Chill out and have a laugh was Farrel Burke’s motto! Thought the muscular black giant that few would believe was only eighteen years old. While he put on the school uniform in his godfather’s office, admiring his beautiful body and smiling.

“Farrel? Farrel! Bloody hell, lad, can’t you pay attention for a minute?”

“Sorry, Uncle BIG… I mean… Coach BIG… oops… Professor Garret.”

“If you weren’t my godson, I’d give you a right telling off, lad, and just because I’m your godfather doesn’t mean you can use my office as if it were your personal changing room.”

“If you hadn’t dragged me from the changing room, I wouldn’t need to finish getting dressed here!”

“Is that a dig at my behaviour, lad?” BIG asked seriously, his eyes glinting dangerously.

“No, sir, professor. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” The lad replied, sensing the danger.

“Great. As I was saying, I want to implement some of the ideas I brought from Dalton; while you finish getting ready, let me talk to you about the clubs…”

…..

By the end of that week, BIG’s initial work was complete; there were no more students or teachers left to be improved. The uniforms had returned to being the norm, and all the lads were required to be part of at least one of the school’s sports teams. Moreover, the social clubs had been formed, ensuring that the lads, even after school ended, would have a reason to return to Lionheart and not forget what they had learned there. BIG was proud of what he had accomplished, and those above him were too. Now it was time for the expansion phase, to take what was taught at Lionheart outside the school’s walls and fields. BIG’s approach was different from that taken at Dalton; times were different, and in the war they were waging against those who wanted to remove men from their rightful place, there was no room for the discretion adopted by the sister school. Europe was falling too quickly; it was necessary to be more incisive. That’s why Lionheart would focus not only on creating the leaders of tomorrow but a whole generation of influencers, and sport would be their flagship. And there was no sport more popular worldwide than football. Knowing this, the Lionheart team became a priority for BIG, and he created a particularly talented and charismatic group, but they still lacked a coach of the right calibre. But that would soon be resolved, and quickly too; normally, BIG liked to savour the moment he transformed a pathetic figure into a real man. However, as the mass transformation of the first day showed, when the need was pressing, he acted fast. And that Sunday morning, it was needed again. While the lads prepared for training, the stands of the school filled with students from other teams, but also with parents and locals from the surrounding towns. This would be exhausting. And the cherry on top was the old man walking across the field with an angry look directed at BIG, who returned the scorn before breaking into a smile.

Zachariah Hastings, a member of the school board and a staunch conservative, which in theory should please BIG, but the problem was that the old codger was too conservative. Homophobic and racist, he seemed to boil inside the outdated suit he was wearing at that moment. He indeed represented that mythical figure of patriarchy that the snowflakes loved to point out as the cause of all ills: the white, heterosexual, cisgender man. BIG had nothing against a man who was all those things; on the contrary. The problem was that this figure represented everything that the enemies of the brotherhood of men took pleasure in using to attack. BIG’s group merely wanted to return men to their rightful place in society; they didn’t care about race, religion, whether you were an immigrant or who you slept with. Implicating with those things only created divisions, pushing men away from the real goal. And it was precisely for that reason that Zachariah had to go. Without any fanfare or manipulation, in one moment, the old codger was there with a bewildered expression, as if he knew what awaited him, and in the next moment, a fine specimen of a black man, very much like BIG himself, stood in his place, while every man in that audience became an upgraded ally, and BIG enthusiastically announced to everyone the arrival of the legendary Zeke Hastings, newly retired player from Manchester City and multiple-time champion of the Premier League, Champions League, and Euro Cup, to take the position of coach for the school’s football team, sending all the men in that place into a frenzy of delight, while BIG himself smiled, satisfied that the first part of his duty was finally fulfilled.

**Two months earlier**

Barret couldn’t stop tapping his foot while waiting in the posh waiting room of Dalton Academy; after all, this was his big chance, even if he didn’t understand why an American school would be interested in an English literature teacher. Although the whole place reeked of Old Money, perhaps that justified the interest in him.

“You can come in, Mr. Garret.” A metallic voice startled Barret, who looked around for the source, but found none. Collecting himself, he stood up, straightened his suit, and opened the massive door to the office. What he saw there gave him a sense of strangeness. Smiling and walking towards him in a space much larger than would be possible, was a handsome lad, no more than eighteen years old. Was this some sort of prank by the posh students?

“Come in, Mr. Garrett. Barret Garret; your parents had an interesting sense of humour; I would have certainly liked them…” commented the smiling young man before frowning. “Why the scared face? Ahhh, I always forget these modern conventions; in my day, this would already be the appearance of an adult man.” The young man said, his face concentrating, and then, as if by magic, he began to walk towards an office desk that Barret could have sworn hadn’t been there seconds before. When he reached the desk a blonde, older, and muscular man wearing a slightly less formal outfit smiled at Barret. 

“I think you’ll prefer this appearance, my dear. You can call me Mr. Edgar. And even though I’ve used a bit of trickery to bring you here, since unfortunately there’s no place for you on Dalton’s faculty, by the time we finish our conversation, it’ll be as if you know the place better than you do yourself, and I guarantee the goal I have in mind for you will leave you quite satisfied. Put a smile on that face and step in.” Even against his will, in that incomprehensible situation, Barret found himself smiling and stepped into the creature’s lair.

If anyone who wasn’t an active member of Dalton was watching what was going on, they would have been shocked. But within those walls, it was almost routine. A young, well-dressed black man hesitating in front of a portal, only to, upon crossing it, see his body modify and expand, while he aged a few years, though that only made him even more charming; his slow steps transforming into the confident stride of a man who knew exactly what he wanted. And anyone who knew Blake Ian Garret, coach BIG, could tell that that impression would be correct, though incomplete. BIG not only knew what he wanted but would also do everything in his power to achieve his goals. And those goals at the moment consisted of returning to England to find a way to occupy a position at Lionheart School, which conveniently was established on top of one of the largest dormant power points of the old country, but which only needed a spark to awaken. A spark that Mr. Edgar handed to him, only demanding in return that he use that power to ensure that the occupants of the place, both the established ones and those who would come, and even the unsuspecting traveler passing through, became the right kind of men. The exact type that BIG himself represented.

….

**6 months later**

“Son, I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think. I survived high school; you will too.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to be transferred in the middle of the second year to a school with the highest concentration of wanker athletes that would have certainly made your life a nightmare.”

“Duncan, I understand; I was transferred as well, remember? I need to make friends at work too.”

“Dad, that’s completely different; none of your colleagues are going to shove your head in a toilet or anything like that.”

“I’m sure that only happens in films, Duncan.”

The pair of overweight blonde father and son walked through the corridors of the Lionheart Institute towards Director Johnson. The truth is that even Alex, the father, was not comfortable with that arrangement, but there was nothing to be done; Lionheart was the best school in the area, and he refused to send his son away from him. Duncan was a shy and reserved kid, just like he had been at that age. That school would be a challenge, but any other would be too, and there he would be close by if something happened.

“Dad, didn’t you read the articles I sent you? This journalist, Aaryan Patel, wrote a series of them talking about what goes on here; all the students here, regardless of where they came from, are some kind of athletes; some have even competed in the Olympics. And there’s more; all of them have behaviour described as toxic; some have been banned from giving interviews; some bloke named Ashton Zhang won a bronze medal in Paris but said so much rubbish about the opening ceremony that he almost got banned from competing.”

“Well, then they’ll know what it’s like to have a mathlete among them now! And who knows, you might become a good influence on them or even get motivated to take up some sport; exercise does wonders for a young lad.”

“Says the man who’s never set foot on a court in his life…”

“Duncan, enough! You’re coming to study here, and that’s final.” The father snapped, as he noticed a giant figure approaching confidently down the corridor.

“But Dad, I think Aaryan Patel has a point…”

“Duncan! I don’t want to hear you talking about Aaryan Patel anymore!”

“You do quite well.” Commented the giant black man approaching them, his smile vanishing upon hearing that name. “Mr. Patel has only been defaming the good name of this school with lies and distortions, when what he should be doing is praising the performance of our students in all areas of life. I’m Professor Garret and I believe you are Archibald and Duncan, am I right?”

“In fact, my name is Alexander…”

“Ah, some misunderstanding then.” Commented the professor with a cheeky smile before continuing. “Director Johnson should have welcomed you, but he had a slight hiccup and asked me to do it for him. I thought I’d chat with you, Archibald, while one of the lads shows Duncan around the school. Where is that rascal? Ah, here he comes.” Professor Garret finished speaking without giving Alexander a chance to correct him about the name error, although he himself had forgotten it when he saw the lad strutting down the corridor, almost like a mini version of the professor. Although saying that anything about that lad was mini would be an affront. Broad shoulders and strong limbs pushing the limits of the school’s smart black uniform, made up of a full suit, tie, and dress shoes that must have been tailor-made to fit the boats that were his feet, the overall effect was one of sophistication but also of dominance and confidence that left Alexander gaping and Duncan, who was already fearful, completely terrified.

“Good day, Coach BIG… hum… Professor Barret; good day, sir.” The lad said politely, although a mischievous sparkle danced in his eyes.

“Farrell, my boy. Would you be so kind as to show the school’s facilities to Duncan here while Archie and I have a chat?”

“With pleasure, Professor Garret. Would you be so kind as to accompany me, Duncan?” He said, positioning himself next to the other lad who, although overweight, was shorter and lighter than him, before turning to Alexander with a cheeky grin. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Archie.”

“The pleasure was mine, lad.” replied Alex, again forgetting to correct the name error. “We’ll see you in a bit, Duke.” He ended up saying to his son, who looked at him first with wide eyes of pleading and then in surprise at how his father had called him. But there was nothing to be done, for at that moment the muscular giant lad took him by the arm and carried him down the corridor, while his father walked away in the opposite direction, chatting amiably with the behemoth that was Professor Garret.

BIG entered his office and sat down at the desk, although he hadn’t asked Archibald to enter, apparently lost in his own thoughts.

“So, Archibald Dunhan, that name doesn’t sound unfamiliar to me.” Commented the professor.

“Well, it’s not exactly a common name these days.” Archibald replied, accepting the name as if he had always used it.

“No, it’s not… Archibald, Archibald Dunhan, Archie, Archie Dunhan! But of course! Wall Archie! You could have been a legend at Arsenal, material for the England team, if it weren’t for that nasty injury in that game against Manchester City; but from what I know, your career as a player agent isn’t going too badly.”

“I… I think you’re confusing me with someone.” Archibald timidly replied, still standing at the door. Just the idea of thinking of himself as a former footballer was hilarious. Although he was indeed a die-hard Arsenal fan and risked a few matches with his mates on weekends. No, not that…

“No, I’m not mistaken; you were a leak-proof goalkeeper, you were a wall indeed, Archie; don’t let something that wasn’t your fault bring you down.”

“That accident ruined me, mate…” Archie found himself responding automatically. What the hell was he talking about?

“I know, but managing guys like Haaland and De Bruyne is also a success story. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Believe me, no one has ever accused me of being too humble!” Why would he say something like that???

“Then we’ve got the same problem!” replied Garret, bursting into laughter, and Archie joined in, unable to contain himself, stopping with a startled look only when the other man spoke to him again.

“What are you doing standing there, Archie? Come in, come in; we’ve got Duke’s future to discuss.”

Hearing that name stirred something in Archie; there was something very wrong with all of this, but then he took a step into the room, and everything changed. In a blur of movement and colour, his muscles expanded, height increased impressively, and fat seemed to evaporate from his body. When he stopped smiling in front of the other man, any trace of humility or shame had left his body. He was one of the most successful sports agents in the country; there was no reason to worry about that sort of thing.

“BIG, you’ve got 5 minutes to convince me to bring my son to this school, mate.”

“Archie, you know me you wanker; I can do it in three.”

….

“Take a seat, chubby; I’m not going to give you a hard time.” Said the muscular black lad to Duncan, although he clearly was already doing that. The moment Duncan’s dad and the teacher left their line of sight, Farrel dropped the politeness, throwing aside all false pleasantries, revealing himself to be exactly the type of person Duncan believed and feared he would be. He didn’t show anything Duncan might find relevant about the school’s facilities, leading the lad through some of the many sports facilities on site. They had courts for all sorts of sports imaginable, gym equipment, swimming pools, running tracks, and even a complete weightlifting gym. After the exhausting tour of Jockland, they finally arrived at the spacious and luxuriously furnished room where they were.

“I’d rather stand, thanks.” Duncan said, approaching the window of the room, which overlooked the well-kept football pitch of the institution.

“You know best, but carrying all that weight can’t be good for your knees.” Farrel commented venomously, as he took off the top part of the school uniform with no ceremony and flopped down on the sofa in the room. “But that won’t last long; BIG will have you sweating off all that flab in no time.”

“I wish you’d stop making comments about my body.”

“When you’ve got the physique of a real man, I’ll stop, chubby. And trust me, you will; in no time, no one will recognise you, not even you.”

“I’m fine as I am; I don’t intend to change anything.”

“As if anyone here gives a toss about what you think, lad. I repeat, soon you’ll be one of the lads at Lionheart and won’t even remember the wimp you are now. And even if you did, you’d be ashamed of what you let this society do to you.”

“I won’t let myself change; you can do what you want with me, humiliate me, torture me; I won’t change.” Duncan replied, feeling an uncharacteristic rage and turning from the window, seeing for the first time Farrel’s bare chest, which made him blush deeply, while the other lad shot him an intrigued look.

“Seeing something you like, chubby? You a queer or something? Not that I have a problem with it; It’s an all boys school after all, and the lads have their needs. Besides I know what my body does to others." He said, flexing his powerful muscles as if he was at some kind of obscene show, which made Duncan look back at the window, only turning around when the other spoke again, hitting the target this time."No, no… it’s a different kind of desire, isn’t it? Ever thought about having a body like this? Ever wished for muscles like these?” He conclude, looking distracted for a moment, as if he were reliving an old memory.

“I don’t need that; I’ve got my mind, and it’s more powerful than any bulging muscle.”

“Loooser! I wish I could record this and show it to my new bro when he comes out of you; it’ll surely make him die of embarrassment.”

“I… what?”

“You know where we are, Duke? At the headquarters of one of the Lionheart clubs, my club; not just anyone gets in here, but I decided you’d be one of the lucky ones. I’m the captain of the rugby team and would love to have you with us, but the boss has other plans. Speaking of which, you know what’s even more curious? The club is located exactly one floor above Coach BIG’s office. An office that has a direct exit to the football pitch. That exit, I believe, must have been used quite recently, so while you’re at the window, tell me what you see.” Farrel asked, his eyes sparkling and his voice filled with an uncontrollable mix of eagerness and excitement.

Without really knowing why he was obeying the other lad, Duncan looked outside, initially seeing nothing of note, but then his gaze landed on the pitch, and what he saw shocked him. Professor Garrett, who at that moment should have been with Duncan’s father, was walking across the pitch, bare-chested and laughing animatedly with a blonde man who was just as monstrous and muscular as he was. But if Garret was there, where was Alexand… Archibald?

“I don’t get it? Where’s my dad?”

“With all that talk about intellect, I thought you’d be smarter, Duke.”

“My name isn’t…”

“Duke!” Duncan read the lips of the gigantic blond man more than he heard him speak as he waved vigorously, beckoning him to join him and Garret on the pitch. Why would a complete stranger act that way? Unless… unless he wasn’t a complete stranger.

“No… it’s impossible…”

“Finally, you got it, chubby, although I think this will be the last time I can call you that.”

“No… dad?” Duncan asked, although the man who continued to wave excitedly couldn’t hear him. “What did they do to you?”

“Oh, old BIG has a thing for The gentlemen’s sport; even though he’s never been a pro himself. I’d say we’d put you on my team, and that would be that. But for a former pro rugby player, he doesn’t value us much. He says nothing gets as much visibility as football, and our team is about to lose the captain to a contract, and we still don’t have a worthy replacement. Plus, the old rogue managed to create a connection with someone who can get him the best seats at the games.”

“I don’t understand…”

“You don’t need to understand, Duke; you just need to accept.”

“I can’t accept this… I won’t accept this…”

“Duke?”

“What!?! He screamed back, enraged in response.

“Come over here, mate.”

“I’m not your mate, mate!”

“Of course you are; you’re my little bro; me and Ash were looking forward to finally having our little brother with us! Farrel, Duke, and Ashton, best mates. FDA, like the American agency, and like them, we run the bloody show! F for a lot of food, D for drugs to grow and an A for, shit what is the A again? Let it be A for awesome because that's what we are, mate!"

“I…”

“Think about it, Duke; you want to make your dad proud.”

“Yes…” he replied, shivering at hearing that.

“Then get your arse off that window and come with me to meet him; for you, I’d even play a match of football just to see the old geezers eat dust.”

“Haha, I want to see you try to score on my dad, F! The bloke’s a wall; not that he can stop his son from scoring.”

“That’s what I want to see; let’s go, then.” Farrel insisted, and Duke finally took a step back and went to meet his fate. In an instant, the fat seemed to be sucked from his body as his muscles expanded into a strong and toned physique, far from the giant muscle mass of Farrel or his father after the forced retirement and years dedicated to bodybuilding. A slim and strong body, except for the long, powerful legs with thighs capable of exploding a watermelon if it were squeezed between them. His unkempt hair giving way to a well-groomed cut, the sad, chubby face transforming into a beautiful, almost angelic face, but still unable to completely hide the mischief within him, easily identified by the cheeky smile playing on his lips at that moment.

“Don’t know why you’re so excited, bro; with that size, dribbling you will be the easiest thing in the world.”

“Watch what you say, scrawny boy.”

“This is definition, something a ogre like you will never know what it is.”

“Come talk about agility when you compete with me in rugby.”

“And why would I stuff myself into a game with a bunch of lard arses?”

“Who are you calling fat, punk?”

“Not me, your body mass index.”

“You’re getting quite cheeky there, lad. I want to see you crack jokes on the pitch.” Farrel replied with false irritation.

“When I get past you, you won’t even notice, chubby!”

….

Aaryan Patel was absolutely fuming; he had no idea why his boss at the Independent Herald had sent him from London to that conservative hellhole that Daffodil Meadow had become. And to top it all off, he was heading straight to the epicentre of that rubbish, the King Richard Institute for Boys, aka Lionheart School. A place he had written a series of scathing articles about in recent months, which didn’t mean he wanted to walk into the lion’s den, especially when it was the lion himself who had sent the invitation. But his editor insisted it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and now here he was, walking purposefully along the edge of the grass on the school’s grand football pitch towards Director Johnson, who was at that moment in one of the few empty stands. Apparently, it was a tradition for the school and the surrounding villages to gather every evening to watch some sort of competition from the different teams, and today it was a football match. What didn’t make sense was the question Aaryan kept asking himself: why the hell did Henderson Johnson make him walk across the pitch where the students were parading around with their muscular bodies on display while the school staff prepared everything for the match?

As Aaryan made his way to his destination, he passed two muscular black blokes wearing the infamous light blue polo shirt of the sports team, one of whom was much bigger than the other. The one he wanted to take down the most. However, when the larger man glanced at Aaryan as he walked towards the nearest entrance to the stands, the lad who considered himself a brave man felt his knees go weak. Feeling angry with himself as he watched the two lugs burst into laughter, Aaryan quickened his pace and climbed the stands to meet Director Johnson.

“Mr. Patel, it’s a pleasure to meet you in person after reading the rather vehement words you used to describe me, my school, and my students.” The man said with a threatening smile. But Aaryan wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated; he was indeed brave, and although he was much leaner than the brute, he wasn’t a total wimp; he could handle whatever the other bloke had to throw at him. And any words spoken would receive an appropriate response from his sharp mind.

“Vehement is an appropriate but incomplete description of what I have to say about this place, Director Johnson. And that description could also be applied to the behaviour of the people here, although belligerent might be a more fitting term.”

“And you know a thing or two about belligerence, don’t you? Big guy like you? Bet you’ve had your fair share of scraps, haven’t you, Aaron?”

“The name’s Aaryan! And I prefer to fight with words.”

“Ha, I knew there was a fighter in you; I never miss.” The man commented as if Aaryan's response had been completely different, leaving the journalist confused for a moment. Quickly shaking off that momentary confusion, he turned back to the giant blonde.

“So, Director Johnson, what’s the purpose of summoning me here? And summon is the right word; my editor informed me that you pressured him quite insistently and intimidatingly, I should add.”

“Right, lad, I just wanted you to see for yourself what it’s really like here, what you’ve been so harsh about. You might not realise it, but what you write affects people’s lives, people I care about; my staff and my students.”

“Forgive me, Director Johnson, but the actions of those people you care about affect many others’ lives.”

“You paint us as monsters, Aaron, but do what I asked you: roam about, chat with my students and teachers; there’s one teacher in particular who’s quite eager to have a word with you.” The director said, smiling and nodding towards the pitch where Blake Garrett was watching closely as Zeke Hastings paced back and forth, correcting both teams’ players’ positions.

A chill ran down his spine at the thought of talking to that man. Forgetting to correct the misuse of his name, he responded to the director.

“Alright, I’ll do that, but I don’t think anything will change my mind. I’m sure the teachers are lost causes by now and the students are probably already conditioned to the behaviours taught here.”

“We’re not a cult, Aaron, but if you want a fresh opinion, why not have a chat with the centre-forward for the black team? The blonde lad in number 9. Duke has been at the school for less than a week; see what he has to say after the game.”

“I know how to identify a centre-forward, thanks! And I think I’ll do just that; cheers!” replied the journalist, who until a few minutes ago certainly couldn’t identify any positions.

After chatting with some students and teachers who repeated the same toxic spiel about masculine values, manliness, and the rightful place a man should occupy in society, Aaryan felt drained. Coming here had certainly been a bad idea. He thought about leaving and writing another scathing article about the evils of that place. However, he realised that the game had finally come to an end when he saw the blonde centre-forward walking to the edge of the pitch, opening a bottle of water and taking a long swig that practically emptied the bottle in one gulp. As Aaryan approached him, the lad poured the remaining water over his sweaty hair, then shook it off vigorously just as Aaryan reached him.

“Good afternoon, lad; my name’s Aaryan Patel, Director Johnson told me I could have a word with you.” He said, moving closer to the lad and using an authoritative figure as a reference to ensure the lad paid attention; he had dealt with many of those arrogant lads in the past couple of hours to give the kid a chance to mock him or simply ignore him.

“Eh?” The lad huffed, flexing his muscles and shaking the soaked t-shirt. This was pretty much the expected behaviour from any football player giving an interview after an hour and a half of strenuous exercise. What Aaryan, as any good fan of the game, should have remembered. So he repeated the information to the lad.

“My name’s Aaryan and you’re Duke, right? I want to ask you a few things about the school.”

“Sure, mate.” The lad replied, looking more awake after taking off his shirt and showing off his powerful physique, even though it was clear that not much was going on upstairs. This diminished Aaryan’s hopes of getting any productive conversation, as it was obvious the lad belonged there. Still, he decided to press on; when in Rome…

“So, what do you think of the school? Settling in well?”

“Aaron, mate, this place is brilliant! I begged for nearly two years to come here, but my dad thought I’d have better chances of getting signed if I kept training in a bigger city. It was only when Coach BIG took over the sports department that he was convinced.”

“Um… just out of curiosity, who’s your dad?”

“Haha, as if you don’t know who he is, Aaron, mate! I’m not some little kid to fall for your tricks.” The lad replied, giving a thumbs up.

“What are you on about?” Aary… Aaron asked, confused. But then something worse happened; the lad turned to the middle of the pitch where his teammates were milling about, shirtless, chatting and joking under the watchful eye of the coach, who was in turn under the direct supervision of the head of the sports department, the infamous BIG, who was precisely the person the lad was addressing.

“Oi, Coach BIG! Come meet my mate, Aaron.” And to Aaron’s horror, the man who instilled all his primal fears turned to him, serious for being interrupted, but soon a mischievous grin spread across his face.

Strutting towards the two with all the arrogance in the world, looking at Aaron with the same gaze a lion gives to a gazelle before it attacks, making Aaron’s knees tremble… but why? He should respect the bloke, of course… but no matter how big he was, Aaron could handle him… how? Certainly not with words… hey… what was he thinking here? What intrusive thoughts were those? However, he had no time to fight against those ideas so contrary to his essence because at that moment, the coach was standing before him, eclipsing everything else with his immense physical presence.

“Aaryan Patel, the man of the moment! You have no idea how much I wanted to meet you!”

“It’s Aaron… sir.” He added. The respect for the figure of coaches ingrained in him wouldn’t allow him to respond any other way. But why so much respect?

“When young Duke told me he knew you, I couldn’t resist the idea of bringing him here. But where exactly do you two know each other from?”

“Eh… what?” He had just met the lad, right? But then where did the memories of him teaching the kid fighting positions come from? Fighting? What fighting? In the midst of his confusion, it was Duke who answered.

“It’s my dad’s agency that looks after Aaron’s career, coach. In fact, he’s been following Aaron from the beginning; he’s spent more time at our house than at his own over the last few years.”

“Oh, of course. A cunning man like Archie wouldn’t let a talent like that slip through his fingers.” Agency, what agency? Big-name journalists needed agents, but a rookie like Aaron… mate, in his world, even rookies needed a decent agent; it was the difference between a million-dollar career and retirement in the gutter, and Wall Archie was the best; after all, he had experienced firsthand how cruel that world could be. Yeah, the world was a cruel place, and it was his duty to expose those ills… No, not that, what he needed to do was fight… yes, fight for improvements in society… mate, society was what it was and that was that… in this life, you either lose or win, and Aaron Blink Patel, rising star of the heavyweight MMA scene, was born to win. He earned the nickname for the short time he needed to take down opponents. Which was almost the same amount of time he dedicated to interviews with journalists. He didn’t need many words in his life, being known for keeping his opinion to himself, aware of what the media vultures could do to his career. The only time he expressed his opinions was when he was with his friends, when he let out all the intensity inside him, in conversations filled with cheeky banter and heated praises of masculinity in today’s world. And if there was someone who was the ultimate representation of masculinity, it was Aaron Fucking Blink Patel!

“No… no…”

“Aaron, mate, it’s all good?”

“Of course it is, Duke; it’s just the fighter inside him manifesting, but now it’s just a matter of a blink and it’ll all be sorted.” Coach BIG commented.

“Just a blink…” Aaron grumbled, and then… blink… and… his toned, lean torso expanded like a flower blooming, if flowers were made of huge, protruding muscles and their scent was an animalistic musk, with a touch of spices that didn’t go unnoticed even in that place full of sweaty young men… blink … and his legs exploded in size and power needed to crush opponents… blink… and the years dedicated to reading and research evaporated, replaced by training in jiu-jitsu, boxing, and Muay Thai… blink… and all the pent-up rage inside him flowed out in flowery words in sharp texts, concentrating in the massive paws that were his fists and feet… wink… and Aaron Blink Patel found himself smiling at the man and the lad before him, an image seen only by those the fighter deemed worthy. But he’d known Duke since he was younger than the kid, and after hearing the glowing praise he gave about his new coach, the man earned Aaron’s respect without needing to lift a finger.

“Sorry, what were you saying, sir?”

“You can call me Coach BIG; Aaron is what everyone calls me.”

“Yes, sir.” He replied, causing Duke to burst into laughter.

“You’re a lost cause, mate.”

“Actually, I think Aaron is a great example to follow; I wish my rowdy students had his level of respect.” Coach BIG commented, his voice cutting, making the lad’s smile fade instantly. “By the way, after I speak to the team, I’d love for you to have a word with those rascals, Aaron. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a motivational speech to give. Duke, keep him company while I’m at it.”

“Yes, coach, sir.”

“See? Just your presence has instilled some respect in this cheeky little sod.” The coach commented before returning to the pitch to address the teams.

“Could you not be such a teacher’s pet, mate?”

“I only got where I am because I respected my coaches and your dad; authority figures are there to be respected. Don’t you want to be captain of the team? Don’t you want to be a pro one day? You could already be playing for a real team if you had a bit more discipline since talent isn’t lacking. Take advantage of that man.” He said, pointing to the coach who was animatedly giving a speech. “BIG is a legend, a legend capable of making other legends; it was a scandal to find out a man like him had moved to the States, but the results he achieved with Dalton’s teams speak for themselves. And he brought in fucking Zeke Hastings to train you lot, and your dad to manage those of you who are truly capable of going pro. So yes, listen to what your coaches have to say; you may think it’s just theatre, but it’s the attitude that separates the men from the boys.” Aaron finished, flexing his powerful muscles to the point where the polo shirt he was wearing ripped under his arms.

“Wow, mate! That’s wicked! You’re a beast!” Duke said with such genuine admiration that Aaron couldn’t help but smile and repeat the feat, tearing his shirt even more before returning to a serious demeanor and looking at the younger lad.

“And you know how I became who I am today, little brother? By listening to all the shite my coaches had to say to me!” He said, pointing in the direction of Coach BIG, who was just finishing his speech, raising his voice so that everyone on the pitch and in the stands could hear him easily.

“… because this society wants to diminish you, weaken you. They want you to believe that being a man is wrong, that being what we were born to be is a shame. But they don’t know the power you carry with you, the influence you possess; many of you will be professional athletes, some already are. You’ll be seen around the world, admired, able to inspire, capable of making our brothers, hounded by our enemies, react, and more than that, you can make some of those enemies see the mistakes they’ve made and bring them back to the right path, and for those who insist on their mistakes, you’ll be able to hit them where it hurts most, where they’ve been hitting us for years, and I’m talking about their children; You will shape and save them because you have the power to correct what’s wrong in this generation, then in they do same with the next. The truth is men, and never forget it, you have power! And we’ll use it to secure a better, brighter future!

[endivinity]

I've been diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive! It's clinically mild. It wasn't picked up in childhood because I was a gifted kid who wasn't disruptive or fidgety, or doing otherwise vastly inappropriately-timed behaviour outside of the usual for my age group, and then when it started presenting in later high school years I got the classic 'has potential, just needs to focus. Unfinished projects' in my reports, but because I wasn't fidgety or majorly disruptive it just got sort of sidelined. I fell between the cracks. But I think that's just the done thing, for people like me. Not severe enough to be noticeable, or the symptoms are managed (with a lot of hidden difficulty), or you're not enough of a compelling case (trying to get government assisted work placement failed, back when it was just the sleep disorder) - just mediocre, a mild inconvenience, your strengths prevented from being fully reached because they don't like all the issues of your deficits. which for me is in administrative stuff, as evidenced by never replying to emails :'D And then people sort of wonder why you're not doing everything they think you can. Believe me, we fucking know. We're frustrated too. There's a special kind of grief that comes with that, being left behind because you exist in a middle ground of expectation and disappointment, that I think I have to make peace with as I move forward with this. I'm 31. I've lost nine years to struggling between my degree and now. It wasn't all bad, but it's one of those things where I can't help but wonder how different it could've been if I'd known earlier. So what happens from here? I dunno. I'm being put on a trial run of meds and I have to properly handle my life balance since it's very easy to neglect your health when there are no outside pressures to do otherwise. more than anything I want to finish those five-year-old commissions that are still outstanding. Every time I open the files I get anxious and it really, really fucking sucks for everyone involved. From there, who knows?

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

i love the incorrect quotes, but i dont agree with your political views. if its not much, could you explain why ur so anti bjp?(thats what i assume anyway)

You know, I actually think that the memes and the quotes are sort of a natural extension of our political views. I'll explain but it might get a little long. Stay with me here.

Firstly, I want to say that I think this way of perceiving politics is so fundamentally wrong.

"Anti-BJP", "Pro-BJP", "Anti-Congress", "pro-congress" etc etc. This isn't a cricket match where you're rooting for your favourite team. Politicians, as a general rule, are a bunch of liars. They lie to gain power and control. It's OUR duty, as CITIZENS, to keep them accountable and in their lane so they actually do their goddamn jobs. That's how the democracy is supposed to work. If they don't do their job properly, you vote them out of the seat. They work for us, and not the other way around.

In India, we grow up with this idea of not questioning your elders. Papa ne keh diya, bas keh diya. As children our natural instinct of curiosity and inquisitiveness is stifled. We go to schools and the same pattern follows. Don't question the authority. Keep your head down and colour inside the lines. We internalise this lesson to colossal degrees. Is it any wonder that we all struggle with critical thinking? If you're spoonfed "the correct answer" your entire life, you never learn to find if what you were told is correct or not. This exact thing is used by all politicians across the entire political spectrum. They use our learned behaviour of deferring to authority and never questioning power against us. The leader of the country becomes the patriarch. Papa ne keh diya, bas keh diya.

I have various issues with various political parties in India, in fact. I have no love lost for any of them. I don't exactly believe in unconditional loyalty to politicians.

Since you brought up the BJP, let's talk about that. My biggest issue with them is their politics of communal hatred. All they keep yapping about is hindu-muslim this and hindu-muslim that. For what? They could spend their time talking about actual issues but the low-hanging fruit of stoking communal hatred is easier to grab onto. Remember when the British did the same thing? It was bad then and it's bad now. All this unrest just to get votes. Imagine fucking up the mind of an entire nation like this and then demanding to be praised for it.

Their foundational roots are from the RSS and that entire organisation's existence is just insane to me. It's even more insane that they managed to go from a fringe ideology to becoming mainstream. "Hindu rashtra", it seems. Who even wants that? WHY do they want that? Is it such a bad fate to live in peace and harmony with other religions? A lot of their talking points are about how much they hate the islamic nations and how those are horrible and then they want to turn around and do the same thing?!? Is the hypocrisy not clear? So what if other countries are religious states? Why can't we try to be different? Maybe I'M the stupid one for thinking all humans are the same that we should treat everyone the same. Who knows.

There are also a bunch of other issues that the BJP has racked up during their rule. The demonetisation disaster, mismanagement of government funds to create public infrastructure, letting the interests of billionaire business ruin PROTECTED FOREST AREAS for mining coal that they didn't even need, introducing and passing HORRIBLE bills through the parliament without any thought or discussion, literally ignoring the plight of people dying in riots, CORRUPTION, destroying the public sector and letting for-profit capitalists free reign in a country which has practically no proper labour laws, aiding in creating a historical record of INCOME INEQUALITY that is higher than it was during the fucking colonial era, fucking up the press even more somehow to the point where they control all of the media houses.

This is not even scratching the surface. I could keep going.

My issue is not whether people vote for the BJP or not. Even if you like the BJP, my issue is that people seem willing to turn a blind eye to all the issues with the government and not even hold them accountable for it.

Vote for whoever you want. My only request is to keep your government accountable. Keep the power in check. The politicians should be SCARED of the citizens fury if they do something wrong. They shouldn't be free to do whatever and get off scot free.

That's our political stance, really. It's Pro-Exercise-Your-Democratic-Rights-As-Citizen.

We will always encourage others to be wary of people with too much power.

Now coming back to why I said the memes reflect our political stance, it's because it's obvious to see why we happen to be willing to risk being a little critical of a literary text. You have to be a little transgressive, in a sense. Perfect obedience and perfect reverence stifles people from engaging with something to their full potential.

I'm sorry to say that if you enjoy the memes and the quotes, you are also being a little transgressive like us. You're also questioning the authority of a religion to an extent. Perhaps our political leanings aren't as different as you might believe.

-Mod S

[ghostify--2]

I will always personally like Hailey more than Drew

For me personally, I find that the character who's a victim of bullying is much more loveable to me than the bully is. Because we all have to admit, that despite headcanons, despite the fact Drew brought up some good points in the Drakeup, Drew is still a bully, and he has been since middle school. He's not an innocent angel, and he simply just decided to drop Jake once Jake became fully himself. Drew's judgemental and genuinely not a good person, and I think some people forget that. Of course, liking an antagonist or a character who's not a good person is completely okay!! The issue is when you try to justify the antagonists bad behaviour, and oh man, have I seen people do that with Drew. I don't care if he has family issues, is insecure, has mental health issues, or anything like that (in this context, obviously I would still feel bad for him if he was facing such struggles), it doesn't justify his behaviour. The bottom line is, bullying isn't okay in any context (unless it's like a p3do or smth... in that case go crazy!!)

And there's more to me loving Hailey than the fact she's a bullying victim. Contrary to popular opinion, but I love how Hailey is so sensitive. I know people say she has "y/n moments" and that she's overdramatic, but honestly, there's nothing wrong with being sensitive. Sensitive people always try their best to be kind, despite how exhausting life is, being the way they are. Being hyper-sensitive is like walking around without your skin on, and the littlest thing can hurt you on a big scale. So hypersensitive people will try their best to make sure other people don't feel as awful as they often do. Also, Hailey always makes amends in situations where she did something wrong, or situations where someone needs to be forgiven (unlike Drew). Not saying everyone has to forgive everything, but she's very mature in that sense. The day after arguing with Drew, after she was provoked and repeatedly bothered and lashed out as a result of it, she apologized to Jake for getting angry. What apology was offered by the Dromies for barging in and provoking Hailey? None. And in episode 10, Hailey was genuinely considering talking to him about what he'd said, because she didn't think he actually believed what he'd said. But then Zander (oh, so cynical and traumatized, I love him) convinced her to think otherwise. However, she still clearly wanted to make amends with Jake. And when she did, she said she didn't regret letting Jake into the club, and that she forgave him. SLAYYY SLAYYYYYY!! Also wanna add I see people acting like bullies when talking about Hailey. I get not everyone is snowflake like me but come on guys... did you miss the plot of the show?

Overall this is just an anti-bullying, pro-Hailey post. Thank you for reading :3!!

[foxtrot91]

I’m actually really excited for Eddie’s arc. I don’t think we’re going to get queer Eddie, and I’m totally okay with that because to be honest, as much as I’d love it, seeing the fandom fight to interpret every little thing as a sign of queer Eddie is really frustrating. Not every emotional upheaval is a result of queerness and I think they’ve made it pretty clear that in the show Eddie’s issues stem from:

1. His issues from childhood related to a father and culture that embraces a form of toxic masculinity. Now, I know some people point to this and say that that history could also be resulting in him repressing his homosexuality. Which, sure, that’s totally possible, but toxic masculinity doesn’t only affect LGBTQ+ people by forcing them into the closet. Toxic masculinity has negative impacts on men who aren’t a part of the LGBTQ+ community as well. I’ve seen it first hand growing up in a Greek family; there was a very clear difference in how my father interacted with his sons vs me, his daughter. I’ve seen the repercussions of that in my brothers as adults and it scared me so much that when my husband and I decided to have children I was very clear that if we have a boy there’s none of this “tough it out” bullshit that my brothers went through, boys need affection too and not just from their mother.

2. He became a father very young. I think it’s implied or at least generally accepted that Eddie got Shannon pregnant right out of high school and then had a shotgun wedding. He didn’t get the chance to really grow up and grow out of his childhood in the way that most people do. He didn’t get to find himself and make mistakes because he was suddenly saddled with adult responsibilities he wasn’t prepared for. That’s a lot of pressure for a 17-18 year old to handle. Hell, I was 30 when I had my first (planned) child and it was a daunting change once reality hit. I can’t begin to imagine that responsibility at 18.

3. And finally, grief. Whatever your thoughts on Eddie’s relationship with Shannon, this was the woman he went through major life changes with. He already felt immense guilt for abandoning her for a military career (whether you feel it was abandonment or not, it was clear that he felt it was), and anger at her for subsequently leaving when he came back. Those are complex emotions to intertwine with already existing emotions that he already had for her as the mother of his child. And then, before he could even begin to unpack and resolve those emotions, she died.

These are all some pretty big things to be dealing with without even touching on sexuality. It’s no wonder he struggles to connect romantically with others, Eddie doesn’t know who tf Eddie is, and having an identity crisis doesn’t necessarily mean a sexual identity crisis. I think too often in this fandom people are conflating the two. I’m queer, and it makes up a piece of my identity, but it isn’t my whole identity. To say that queerness is the only explanation for his behaviour is reductive and quite frankly, offensive, if I’m completely honest. Just because that’s the way you personally might have interpreted his character, doesn’t mean that that’s the only way, or that others are wrong for thinking otherwise. Nor does it mean the writers are queerbaiting when they go in a direction that doesn’t match your personal interpretation.

I don’t know if we’re going to get queer Eddie, maybe we will and I’m excited to see how they tell that story if they choose to. But if that’s not the direction they go I’m STILL excited for Eddie’s story because there’s so much more to his character than his sexual identity and the above leaves a lot of room to explore.

[dirty-bear-rick-sanchez]

Episode thoughts under the cut

I loved Morty knowing Rick so well that he just straight up lies about the coffee lmao. Also the way he says 'hey buddy' like he's a dad entering his kid's room when they're in a depressive episode is so funny to me

Rick just literally saying 'family' to address the family

I thought the ghost/unfinished business joke was funny

I also love Rick being so petty (and Summer being petty back about the portal). It's so funny that he just calls the family 'stupids' as well. Devastating insult bro

Interesting that Gearhead was the first person he went to? He definitely needed someone to give him the courage to get the rest of his friends for an intervention (especially BP)

'Told you he wasn't dead' killed me

BIRDDAUGHTER. Funny name, love her being an emo teenage edgelord who just goes round killing Gromflomites. 'This is worse than prison'? Love it

Also I really liked that we got to see this side of BP's character this episode? He's so funny and I love getting to see him be a shit. Him trying to parent his daughter and just drinking wine? We love another alcoholic girldad

I really liked getting to see Rick/BP/Squanchy actually hanging out as well? I feel like it's a good insight into how they probably were back in the Flesh Curtains days

I like the 'birthday, birthday, birthday' gag

Also Rick immediately being like 'fuck this we're getting wrecked'

The honey scene was definitely for the Rickfuckers

Can we talk about the fact that Rick was definitely trying to impress BP by bringing up the fact that he hosted the Oscars? Which is definitely why he wanted that gig in the first place

Once again I love getting to see this side of Birdperson. Definitely makes sense why he and Rick get on so well

I liked the visual gag of Rick being high

Also BP and Squanchy playing the knife game lmao

Rick sits so fucking dramatically

Look at BP's face, he definitely wants to fuck that Predator guy

Son heist

I love that Rick can immediately identify Squanchy's shit based on the smell? Like he knows it's his and no one else's

BIRDPERSON PUTTING HIS HAND OVER RICK'S MOUTH

(You know Rick is gonna be thinking about that forever)

I like the recurring Squanchy tooth thing

'Why is this my thing' lmao

Poor poopy child

WAYNE

Them all just chilling together waiting for their drunk food? love it

I love BP leaving to collect his daughter from attacking a Federation outpost with the exact same energy as a parent collecting their child from school after they got suspended. It's so funny to imagine the GF having the same sort of vibe as they do with Rick and just texting BP like 'yo we got your daughter here' (I know that's not what happened but it's a funny mental image)

Lmao Squanchy

I did like the fading pill bit

Poor Gene

Overall I liked getting to explore this aspect of the dynamic between Rick/BP/Squanchy/Gearhead (+ the others of course but they're the OGs yk?) and also the concept of intervention/alcoholism. I think it's interesting to see that Rick does want to help but his support system is so fucked that this ends up happening and it makes a lot of sense when it comes to his own issues. I really like the way they handle Rick trying to get better and do the right thing but struggling so much to break out of unhealthy behaviours/habits. He's painfully aware of how fucked up he is and how much of a bad influence he is but he doesn't know how to fix the issue/be a positive influence and he definitely views abandonment as a good thing because he's removing himself from the situation. Very interesting way to explore this aspect of his issues, especially since all his friends are also alcoholics with that level of denial/refusal to get better

I had this discussion with @hazelnut-u-out before the episode aired but I do like that they're showing Mr PB directly suffering as a result of Rick's actions in canon? Considering that he started as a joke/meta character it's very interesting to show him actually shifting to more of a serious character who appears in the actual show and experiences real issues, especially since the show becomes less and less sitcom-y as Rick becomes more aware of the reality of how fucked up all of these things are.

[autisticlifelessons]

Tips from an autistic teacher about communicating with education professionals

So, some context: I taught Primary for 1 year, and had lots of interactions with parents with all kinds of concerns about their kids. I also remember being in high school and college/university and being too nervous to approach my teachers/tutors with any problems I had until the situation was dire.

For those who don't work in education, I can appreciate how needing to speak to your child's teacher about something can be intimidating, especially if your and/or your child are neurodivergent. And if you are a student, it can be equally as scary.

It's true many teachers are overworked and underpaid, but the vast VAST majority would move heaven and earth to help you. However, there are lots of things you can do to help them to help you, so here are my top tips.

Tell them ASAP if there is a problem - alerting the teacher to a problem or concern as soon as it arises gives them the chance to nip it in the bud before it becomes a big deal. If there is a bullying concern or something you don't understand, they would much rather you told them straight away so they can do something about it than have you or your child suffering in silence for weeks or months. We are generally an observant bunch and are looking out for issues, but some things do fly under the radar. Even if it's not something they can do anything about straight away - like if you think your child is showing signs of autism or adhd but they mask heavily at school - they can bear this in mind and pass it onto other relevant members of staff so it is 'flagged' up for the future.

If your issue is complicated, be sure to put it in writing - chances are you have access to a messaging service or at least an email address. Even if you have raised your concern with the teacher face to face, having it in writing is helpful for both parties. It provides a record that the issue has been raised and passed along as appropriate, and it helps remind the teacher about what has been discussed so they don't end up forgetting about it among the million other things they have to do.

Be specific - it may seem obvious, but there is no point in having a casual chat and then throwing in a bombshell at the end. Make sure to give as much relevant detail as you can about what your issue is, and if you want to raise multiple concerns then it is doubly beneficial to put them in writing.

Think about what your desired outcome is and come with a proposed solution - this is a psychological thing, apparently, but people are more likely to be sympathetic to your concerns if you can demonstrate you have thought about how you would like it resolved. If you want your child put forward for an autism assessment, make sure you actually say this. If you know you are going to be late handing in an assignment but can give your teacher an alternative date you will hand it in, tell them this. I can't guarantee they will always be able to fulfil it, but knowing what you would like to change or happen makes it much easier to sort things out rather than just guessing.

IF THERE'S SOMETHING GOING ON OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL THAT'S HAVING A NEGATIVE IMPACT, TELL THEM!!! - I CANNOT stress this enough, especially when it comes to little ones or neurodivergent children who may have limited means of both communication and emotional regulation. Being hungry, tired, stressed etc can have an enormous impact on behaviour/ability to learn. Even a simple message or email giving the heads up your child has had a poor night's sleep because the house flooded or whatever and might be a bit grumpy that day can be a huge help to the teacher, who as a result of having this information will be in a better position to be patient with a child who is struggling. For bigger life changes such as divorce, birth of a new sibling etc, this is even more important so that your child's teacher and the school can, if necessary, put measures in place to support your child through this transition. Communication really is key.

Remember to be kind and considerate - teachers are humans and make mistakes like everyone else. Equally, there are many circumstances they have to deal with that are totally out of their control and frustrate them just as much as they do you. As I said at the beginning, the vast majority want to help you and/or your child in any way they can, and being kind can make what is a very stressful job just that little bit less.

So, there you have it! I hope these tips gave you an idea for how to communicate with teachers effectively.

Oh, here's 1 more bonus tip - if you have anything to ask that is more than just a quick question, be sure to schedule a meeting with the teacher to ensure they can devote enough time to deal with your issue. Catching them at the beginning or end of the school day generally isn't a good idea as they're very chaotic times and they likely have other meetings/appointments/deadlines they will be thinking about.

Your support is much appreciated xx

[youremyheaven]

hey! kind of off topic but i'm about to finish my rahu mahadasha that i've been in for almost my whole ass life and i'd like to share some of the things i experienced during it. it's not all bad of course, but i personally have found it very hard and if i had seen more people talk about the ugly side of the transit, i think it would've given me a lot of comfort!

(small disclaimer i'm like Pretty Sure these things are caused by the transit based off what i know about rahu, but of course they could be from something else, i'm not an expert at astrology so this stuff is mostly anecdotal. also, my rahu is in pisces in the 11th)

1. Moving and travelling a LOT. not necessarily a bad thing, but as i went into this transit at 3 years old, i never really had a "childhood home" because we moved genuinely every year and sometimes multiple times a year. i think i've moved 12 times since 2020 across cities and countries. on the more positive side, i have gotten to travel a LOT in my life, all across europe and south america, as well as every corner of my home country.

2. TREMENDOUS issues in schooling. i've heard rahu can cause issues with schooling, but oh my gosh i didn't think it would be THAT hard. from the very day i started preschool i hated every second of schooling, the teachers, other kids, the work itself, just absolutely everything about the schooling experience. it got so bad that i started homeschooling in grade 7 due to the anxiety about just... everything. it's almost hard to explain, but just the thought of merely being in a school makes me sick.

3. excelling at foreign languages. not to toot my own horn, but i have always had a knack for learning languages. since i was homeschooled, i had lots of freedom to learn what i wanted at my own pace (which is the silver lining with my school issues), and i always gravitate towards language learning! i'm fluent in two languages, and proficient in 2 more. for a while, my main hobby was learning/decoding other alphabets.

4. social isolation/difficulty . now i'm aware rahu isn't typically associated with isolation like ketu is, so this is mostly anecdotal. since it's in my 11th house, i feel like it's hindered my ability to make friends. however, the friends i do have are foreign to me and majority live in a different country. so again, double edged sword. i definitely had major social isolation issues from ages 12-17. like borderline agoraphobia. and after that when i did make friends, i often found they turned out to be somehow not what i thought (rahu and his love for deception 🙃)

5. mental issues. from what i've read, rahu is associated with obsessive behaviour and delusions. i have ocd, autism, and struggle with anxiety. as a child, i also had frequent nightmares and would have inexplicable paranoia at night as well as a fear of the dark (which i still have at 21 lol)

6. things just not working out. kind of a vague statement i know, but as rahu can decieve you about what you want, i've found so much of my time being wasted by trying new hobbies or meeting new people or trying new lifestyles just for them to straight up fail or turn out to be way worse than what i thought. an example of this would be when i was ~12 i started ballet thinking i was gonna love it and it would be so awesome, but it gave me an eating disorder (obsessive tendencies yk) and i was also ostracized by the teachers and other kids.

those are some of the things i experienced, again it hasn't been the worst per se (especially compared to what certain dashas can do to you lorddd) but as i said i was really confused for a while about what the heck was going on with my life since my rahu dasha was allegedly supposed to be so good, and knowing the darker side of it would've definitely given me some understanding <3

tysm for sharing your experiences, i hope it helps others who are going through similar times <333

people remark on how 'critical' i am of planets/nakshatras or how 'dark' the things i talk about are but truth be told, wouldn't you rather know? i think i trigger the shadow of many people because they want to believe darkness does not reside within every single planet and nak and no one is exempt from behaving a certain way.

to anybody reading, dont be afraid of difficulties and darkness, its a part of life, certain dashas can be vv tough but true purification of that planet's energies is achieved through overcoming challenges associated with it. ride the waves that come your way.

[lovelykhaleesiii]

I have been going back and forth in posting this, but want to have a clean slate and a clear mind going forward.

this fandom if I am being honest (and from experience in many others) has been the most roller coaster ride. it has been wonderful and blossoming, yet also, toxic and disheartening…

my current state right now, I feel as though I have been shunned from the community from all corners. stranded alone, with only a few friends (I could count them on one hand) to talk to and to trust.

I have been incredibly disappointed in this fandom by people I had considered friends, people that I believed to be sincere and kind, but over time showed a very different and ugly side.

I am not going to sugar coat this topic anymore… and be warned, I will call you out if need be, from this point on. I always had hopes that as a community mostly dominated by adults, we would act more like it, but it seems not. then accountability is necessary, because this school yard behaviour is not it.

I work most of the time, I barely even have time for a social life on top of personal things… tumblr is not my priority. but when I log in on here, I do wish and intend for this to be a space where I can relax and enjoy myself, to be creative and write and share my ideas and stories. to interact with people, to bond over characters and stories that I don’t ever get the chance to in real life, because I barely meet people with similar interests.

this is meant to be my safe haven.

recently it has been quite the opposite…

I have been gaslit, bullied & ghosted/neglected. as someone who genuinely struggles to put herself out there, I have made attempts that I am thankful for yet hurt by the experiences. putting myself in discord chats only to leave in the matter of a few days…

I have said this before and I will say it again. If I ever say anything to you directly or indirectly, and it doesn’t sit right with you. I am open to talk privately about it. I am not perfect, in fact far from it. I have flaws as do we all. I can make mistakes, I am human. if the matter can be resolved, amazing, if not: I don’t expect to get along with EVERYONE on this hellsite. the block and unfollow options are there for a reason!!!

regardless, I understand everyone has their own personal lives and issues… believe me, I DO! I am a huge advocate for life > tumblr. you need a break, take the break. you want to go on hiatus, go on hiatus. you do not owe anyone in this fandom shit, as I have reminded myself as of late. In saying that, showing people common courtesy and decency is not by any means a stretch, it should be the bare minimum.

showing support to your fanfic authors/gif makers and creators is valid and ideal.

I have taken multiple breaks because the stress and exhaustion from my work and personal life has been a lot, that I am able to remove myself from a situation, to not allow anyone else to suffer my ordeal. your actions have repercussions, and you will be held accountable.

to wrap it all up, I will continue to write my little, silly stories, I will continue to read fics. However, I have of recent been so turned off by some of the people in this community, that if I’m being honest (which I also strongly advocate for, and believe I owe whoever read this that), I have no energy to interact with people that have crossed me and made me feel less of the person I am at this point in time. my friends who I respect and admire dearly, know who they are, I don’t need to tell them twice.

when I feel comfortable with this fandom, my interactions may change, but for now. I very much enjoy my small number of friends.

thank you to those who read this entire mouthful, I genuinely appreciate the small things and taking the time out of YOUR day to read and listen to little old me, says a lot.

please take care of yourselves, and I hope that we can create a better more wholesome fandom space.

love always, Hel 🤍

[aritany]

what's the origin story for dgdss? if you don't mind 🥺

oho! well. as it happens, i love telling this story.

if you want to know how my childhood best friend writing a short story about me ended up leading to me getting a big 5 book deal, read on.

tw for reference to self harm and some...... unpleasant commentary (not mine) about it later on, folks.

so.

i was homeschooled until my very last year of high school (yes, like mean girls, except my mean girl dominated the first 15 years of my life and that last year was just blissfully chill) and like many homeschooled children, i was a part of a co-op.

cool, right? it's like School Lite™ where you put a group of feral children in a classroom, except you're all varying ages and grade levels, and also, nobody in the room is an accredited teacher, and nobody seems to have an issue with this.

my mom and her mom were best friends, and we were born around the same time, so naturally, we were best friends too from birth, and we were part of the same co-op all through my elementary and junior high school years.

anyway. i won't air all of the dirty laundry regarding our early friendship, because the whole book deal thing doesn't touch it, and i also think there's no need to be pointing out the behaviour of an Actual Child in retrospect. all you need to know is that we were best friends, our relationship was fraught, and by the time we hit 12-13 it was to the degree that people started telling me, hey man, this is Very Strange Behaviour and You Might Be A Victim, and i had to go do some introspection.

the introspection led to the general conclusion oh shit, but we stayed friends, because obviously. when you're 13, breaking up with a best friend is literally The End of the world, and anyway, there was a lot of good in there too, right?

right?

anyway, things took a turn when we were about 14. i struggled heavily with mental illness and self harm as a closeted religious teenager (who'da thunk?) and i confided in her about a small fraction of what was going on, because she was my best friend. i didn't tell her details, because even then i knew what i was experiencing was heavier than was probably appropriate to burden another kid with (and i stand by it!), but she knew the gist.

several Tense moments resulted, one of which was the day she pointed out self harm scarring in front of other people and asked me what happened, ran away, and refused to talk further about it, so i had to talk to her mom, who told me i should apologize to her, considering my mental health struggle had been so difficult... for her.

yeah, you know the type of people we're dealing with, here.

she was determined to undermine me in front of our mutual friends. anything to make me look worse, in one way or another. anything to step just a little higher. if i was interested in something, here's a public dissertation on why it's a dumb thing to be interested in. if i had a crush, forget keeping it a secret, and forget the notion that it's normal, because it's not, it's stupid, and shallow to have a crush in the first place. if we had a similar interest, here's a dressing down about how all i ever do is steal the things she likes (even if i liked them first).

needless to say, by the time the whole deal with the short story is going down a few short years later, we're on the rocks.

let me set the scene. we hadn't seen each other in several months, due to the On The Rocks of it all, and were meeting up for coffee while our moms were also getting coffee. hashtag classic homeschooled behavior, etc.

we're catching up, and she tells me she needs to apologize for something. i am, as you might imagine, agog, considering the rarity of apologies from this girl. she tells me she wrote a short story and submitted it to her university journal to be published, and that in hindsight she thinks she should have asked for my permission first.

i am, obviously, suspicious. to her credit, she gives it to me to read through and then leaves to go do christmas shopping. it's a muddy-ish faux-deep piece about a narrator who has a best friend struggling with mental illness and self harm.

(oh, you might say. to which i say, yeeeeah.)

in the story, the narrator depicts the struggle of trying to care about somebody who is in pain, referring to the best friend as 'cariad' the whole way through, which is just so weird i'm not even going to touch on it. google it if you'd like. the line that i still remember (and will probably remember until the day i die) is the one where she describes her cariad as feeling the need to use a razor as a microphone.

i honestly don't recall what i said when she eventually came back, but i contained all of the aggression of a piece of pocket lint at the time, so i imagine it was along the lines of oh. yeah, okay. [insert image of the saddest wettest cat you've ever seen]

i never saw her again. we went our separate ways, and that was that. we never talked about it.

(the one upside of it was that my mom, with whom i have a Notoriously Contentious relationship, was outraged on my behalf. that was the first (in many years) and last (ever) time we were on the same side of a battle, so, you know. silver linings.)

but the real indignity of it to me was that my friend never really knew. i never really told her about what was happening in my head. she never knew why i was hurting myself, or how bad it got, because i did everything i could to keep that to myself, and at the end of the day, she thought it was all for attention to the degree she wrote a transparently biographical account of it and chose razor as a microphone as a phrase on purpose.

dead girls started as a way to process the complicated feelings i had about that friendship and then obviously ultimately became a whole different creature in the process. i wanted to write about how it felt to go through that never having had another close friendship to compare it to, and how confusing and nauseating it was to have other people point out shitty behaviour.

it became about healing when you can't get closure. how do you move on when you'll never know why somebody hurt you?

nothing that happens in the book is based on real life events between us, partly because i'm not a hypocrite, and partly because if your work can be traced back to your personal experiences, perhaps you should do what you can to be kind.

'my julia,' as i like to call her (she is not named julia, because, oh my god) is nothing like julia hoskins in appearance or general personality. but the way she made me feel? oh, that's all there. nora feels it the way i felt it.

i wrote dead girls back in 2020, and got agented with it in 3 weeks of sending my first query. we got a book deal for it with a penguin random house imprint 1 year later to the day, and next week it's going to be out in the world, and i'm not going to lie, it feels really damn good.

also, her short story got rejected by her university, because it was bad. so you might lose some, but you win some, too.

[kiragecko]

I've talked on here a few times about my youngest's elementary school. We lost our principal (the best in the division) to another school in desperate need during Covid. His replacement ... wasn't very good. Very focused on behaviour, with no interest in WHY the behaviour was happening. Very focused on kids not embarrassing her by acting out, and on ensuring kids don't get "rewarded" for "acting out."

Tiny has trouble recognizing and processing emotions. A lot of kids do, and I think he might also have some alexithymia going on. (He probably wouldn't be diagnosed as autistic, but his whole family's on the spectrum and he definitely fits in with us.) I ended up giving him permission to come home whenever he liked last year, as long as he let the school know what he was doing. It was that, or punish him from running away regularly - and I kind of agreed with his choices. He was getting blame, rather than support.

I've been holding out hope that the middle school, which has improved things exponentially for his brother, would also help Tiny.

The first month has been rough for both of them. It's been a learning curve for Tiny - having to work through things with adults who will listen, rather than run away. Nq's resource teacher reached out to me earlier this week to explain that my kids have different needs, and she thought one of the other guidance counselors might be a better fit for Tiny. So I spent this morning talking to the new lady, getting her up to date on my kid.

It ... feels SO GOOD, you guys! For years now, I've been watching Tiny fall through the cracks - too obedient, and too focused on making adults happy, to push the school into helping him. He doesn't punch people, or barricade himself in rooms, or scream and argue. But he's been HURTING. And the guidance counselor heard me. She acknowledged his struggles were real. She agreed with me that having two parents with bad executive dysfunction WOULD make doing challenging jobs seem really scary, even if he didn't have those issues himself. She promised to support him building those skills, whether the problem was learned or innate. She recognized the challenges of having a brother who grabs a lot of the attention, and whose anger is scary. She validated his big emotions, even though they didn't have obvious causes. She's going to do the work of building a rapport with him before pushing him further out of his comfort zone.

I don't WANT Tiny to need an entire alphabet attached to his name before he gets help! (ADHD, OCD, etc.) This is how schools should work.

It's such a relief.

[identitty-dickruption]

here for questions as it was invited by your post, and thank you because this topic is important to me i want to focus this on addiction but i want to admit that as a full grown adult who went to collage for psychology, worked in special needs and nursing homes so has seen a wide array of neurodivergencies in very intimate and real ways, AND as someone who has adhd and is partners with someone who was a higher needs autistic in their school days- i feel like i dont fully understand the strict differences between terms like i want to and the grey area really dose make my head spin often but in regards to addiction and how i experience it differently because in a way i feel an almost "immunity" with how my executive dysfunction can translate to "not able to maintain a pattern regardless if it is a constructive habit or addiction" watching my father struggle with alcoholism and it really takeing its always sunny to wake up to the fact that he even was one, i really want to understand what it means to be addicted better is it defined by its sunk cost? emotional emptiness? the damage done outward to others? or is it just the pattern. the way that i experience a hyper fixation with my adhd feels distinctive enough to prove that i can differentiate the two concepts per the entire point of your post, and then there are just paradigm shifts like how the only thing ive been accused of being addicted to has been "the computer" 20 years ago when we still had dial up. but ive been a strong advocate to how web designs especially for cell phones play into addictive tendencies with the biggest being short form content with the slot machine endless scroll feature. so the dangers TRUE addiction poses a unique threat in the attention economy functions today with tec and also how easy it is to get trapped in a social bubble making traditionally understood as addictive substances form even more tight knit communities to enable people and never realize they could be helped. its a problem i want to be vigilant of in myself and always help those i love through where it comes so i hope this message wasnt too long or overbearing i just am glad to see someone who knows firsthand about it who might be willing to talk more about it for education.

okay I finished answering this only for tumblr to reload and lose my progress so sorry if this comes across as overly abrupt. I’m not upset at you but I sure am upset at tumblr!

addiction is a complicated and multi-faceted issue. it’s not just the frequency of substance use and it’s not just the impact to life, it’s a lot of different things all at once. addiction tends to be broken into three parts: physical dependency, emotional dependency, and impact on life

physical dependency is your body becoming reliant on the substance. this looks like physical withdrawal symptoms (e.g. the shakes, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, etc)

emotional dependency is the result of extended use of a substance as a coping mechanism. this means that anything the substance was helping to cope with is going to come up in full force (along with added anxiety and anger from not having access to the substance)

impact to life really depends on the person, but this is all the external influences of addiction. struggling with employment, struggling with relationships, struggling to look after yourself and others, etc

all of these things will look different for different people and different substances. I am always wary of people trying to apply an addiction framework to non-substance use addictions. evidence around behavioural addictions is sketchy at best, and just do not have many of the features of addiction that I’ve struggled with the most

out of everything, the mechanisms of addiction are most similar to OCD, but with the additional challenges of physical dependency. for those who don’t know, the obsessive compulsive cycle is:

trigger

intrusive thought

obsessive thinking

compulsive behaviour

it’s a cycle because the more you do the compulsive behaviour, the harder it becomes to cope with that initial trigger in a healthy way. and that’s kinda how addiction functions, too. it just so happens that the compulsive behaviour is substance use. and that’s just not how other behavioural addictions tend to play out

beyond that, we have to consider the ways the word “addiction” is used politically. addiction is heavily stigmatised. addict is seen as a pejorative term, rather than a descriptive one. so even if you could say that phone use is similar in some way to substance abuse….. calling someone an addict for using their phone a lot comes with a lot of baggage and a lot of implications I am deeply uncomfortable with

the terms “phone addict” or “addictive technology” are not literal phrases, they’re metaphors. technology is being compared to substances, and use of that technology is being compared to addiction. and I think everyone needs to have a deep think about why it is that those comparisons are used. until addiction stops being demonised, it is not useful or helpful to be applying an addiction framework to situations where it doesn’t 100% make sense

I hope that helps and makes sense!

[goblintoothfairy]

I've just started working with teenagers who come from rough backgrounds, have mental health and behavioural issues, and struggle to stay in school. A couple of the boys can be pretty bigoted - racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, you name it - but one especially is.

We took a few of them out to do some activities and had a pretty fun day. This kid who didn't know that I'm queer and trans was saying all day about how he liked me. Then he gets back to the centre and out of nowhere starts talking about how he hates gay people, how he beat up his brother for being gay and how it's not natural.

So I sat down with him and we talked about it. I listened to him say a bunch of slurs and spout more homophobic shit before telling him that I'm not straight.

I didn't know how he'd react - a few people thought he might get violent. But he listened, and asked questions. About my identity, about when I 'chose' to be gay, all of that.

We talked for a while, and he concluded that he was OK with lesbians existing but he was still disgusted by gay men. Evidently we've still got some work to do on that. Then he said: "But I hate trannies, though."

I didn't know how to react for a second. I hadn't planned on coming out to him - I didn't think I could do it safely, partly because of his beliefs and partly because of wider attitudes about trans people in the UK at the moment. But I told him: "I'm trans, actually."

He put his head in his hands and seemed embarrassed. Good. His mate looked at him and asked why he decided to say that.

And surprisingly this kid listened to me again, and genuinely seemed to want to have a discussion with me. He told me about his beliefs about trans people and I heard him out, and then challenged them. I talked to him about dysphoria: "how would you feel if you woke up with tits tomorrow?" We discussed my nonbinary identity (predictably, he made an attack helicopter joke). And I told him about how I don't feel safe at night because of being trans - something he could relate to, in a sense, cause these kids deal with a lot of violence.

Sure, he was still saying a bunch of homophobic and transphobic stuff. But he told me that even though he doesn't like queer people, he likes me. And I think that that cognitive dissonance alone could spark a change of attitude in him. It's going to take time, and a lot more conversations. But I have faith in him, I think, and I'm proud of him for sitting down and talking with me.

It's really fucking scary being a trans person in education right now. Hearing about the education guidance targeting trans kids, reading all of the TERF rhetoric in the news and on social media, hearing about all of the shit going on in the US... It's enough to make you want to quit, and I don't blame queer educators for quitting. But even though it can be shit being the unofficial representative of your entire community, I'm honoured that I can be here and hopefully, eventually, change some of these kids' minds.

[doodlegirl1998]

I don't get the hate all might recieves from this fickle fandom while Aizawa gets praised over the moon.

Yes All might have told izuku to give up first but I don't see anything wrong now or even when I first watched season 1. The man has more experience and has already seen his fair share of cruelty over the years. He knows the difficulty of being a Hero with a quirk and even with all of that power, It took him losing his stomach to beat AFO. All might was being realistic here. He didn't want to be reckless & give false hope or encouragement here. Also he didn't laugh or outright tell him to quit. He told izuku who had no power to try other ways to become a Hero which was being a policeman.

2nd what did izuku do before meeting all might?. Absolutely nothing. On top of being quirkless He didn't have a strong physique to back it up. Sure he wrote analysis on quirks, heroes and villains but that's not gonna help in the longer run. All Might wouldn't know what Izuku would've gone through in life till this point. He doesn't know izuku was suicide baited. I'm not bashing Izuku but trying to see this from AM's side as well. Maybe he could've seen Izuku's behaviour to determine that the kid was abused but then again the man was also in a hurry and probably wasn't in the right frame of mind after displaying his long kept secret to a middle school kid.

Still All Might fckin apologized for his earlier comments and approved Izuku. He helped izuku get in shape, and gave his quirk. Encouraged him time and time again positively.

Wtf did Aizawa do? Ridiculed Midoriya infront of everyone. Never apologized. Never once supported him and always put izuku's abuser on a pedestal. Heck izuku should've been in top 10 in the apprehension test. He had better physical stats than Denki, Jiro, uraraka ( yeah she wasn't OP with her quirk during that time and had a lot of stamina issues), Koji, Mineta, Toru, Ashido to name some. Are we sure Aizawa didn't rig the exam?. Narrative protected that POS. Never once encouraged Izuku, never helped him when he was struggling with his quirk. Never even bothered to train his students in quirkless combat but went out of his way to tutor Shinso. His only good points are being a good hero and a good gaurdian for Eri but that ain't enough for getting this much praise. He knew Iida was going after Stain but didn't do anything.

All Might has flaws being a teacher but he at least tries his best to help Izuku with his problems and always been there for him. He encouraged his students every time. Trains them and has always been there for them unlike a certain someone.

All of All Might's good points outweigh Aizawa's by a higher margin.

End of my rant, i just see this as too unfair how fanfics bash All might for no fuckin reason while it coddles Aizawa. Especially the Dekuverse fics. Heck Hori himself treats All Might like shit in canon. The Izuku solo arc is a good proof.

All Might deserved better both in Canon and in Fanon.

Hi @bakutrash 👋,

I get it in the sense that the fandom follows suit of what the story itself is doing - AM gets critiqued more than Aizawa by the narrative (since Aizawa is Hori's favoured mouthpiece) and the fandom follows suit.

Dadzawa as a trope is also largely wish fulfilment. The wish to see 1A as a family and the wish to see Aizawa as the 'stern mentor/ father figure with a heart of gold' archetype. When Aizawa is not this - especially not to Izuku.

If anything All Might is Izuku's key mentor / father figure in the story. He made his mistakes in regard to Izuku but made up for them and apologised. AM also does his best to learn how to be a teacher and be supportive to Izuku and take care of him. Aizawa never does and Hori parades all of his actions as logical so the fandom (at large) doesn't critique him for them.

All Might is traumatised but Hori rarely focuses on it (unlike Aizawa's trauma), so it gives him less sympathy and exploration from it by the fans.

All Might fought a battle only his power in OFA could win. It was quirkless Izuku acting to save Bakugou that made All Might aware that Izuku had potential and that he shouldn't have been so hasty to judge him. All Might also didn't know Izuku took to analysis and suggested alternatives to heroics he felt more suited to a quirkless person.

Adding to this, All Might also began Quirkless himself so it's unlikely he would actually hold extreme Quirkist views like I've seen in some bashing fics (actually looking at Canon Aizawa displays more quirkest attitudes than All Might*.)

Yet the majority of the fandom focuses on All Might's intial refusal of Izuku's dreams and scapegoat him for Izuku's lack of self worth. - The narrative does this too, disgustingly through Bakugou's mouth, not acknowledging once that Bakugou and poor Teachers to Izuku (like Aizawa) are the cause of it.

Did Aizawa rig the exam? I think (and a lot of others critical of Aizawa) think he did. As you rightly pointed out Izuku should have been higher in the quirk apprehension test than he did (especially since he trained religiously and followed a training plan made by the Number One hero for months!)

Unironically, Aizawa at the beginning of the story seemed to dislike Midoriya, and consistently he has favoured Bakugou over him (more on this point later.)

He also viewed Bakugou's bullying as a "rivalry."

Why is this?

Other than the actual reason - Aizawa is Hori's Mouthpiece and therefore have him be Bkg's biggest simp to try to make us like him - there are two options.

1) Aizawa is either not as observant as he thinks he is (supported by him falling asleep all the time - so obviously by doing this he would miss things.) 2) OR Aizawa is malicious and thinks Midoriya needs to toughen up and deal with his bully like he did.

Neither of these options make Aizawa look particularly good. But 1) has room for growth and 2) does not.

Where is the logic in the Quirk Apprehension test? It favours those quirks that Aizawa claims he dislikes that the entrance exam favours - those flashy and combattive quirks such as the ones that belong to Bakugou, Todoroki and Yaoyorozo.

Additionally, singling out Izuku like that, on the first day would be realistically massively damaging to a student and to the classes morale overall.

Would you be comfortable with a 'third parent' (as these homeroom teachers are meant to be) or a teacher in general who does that to a classmate or to you the second they show they need some help? I wouldn't be...

Where is the logic in favouring Bakugou (who essentially a worse version of Aizawa's bully at U.A - Sensoji) or Shinsou who didn't work for his dream of Heroism and only attempted to skate in on his powerful quirk? These should both be characters that Aizawa (from what we are narratively told about him) dislike. Yet Hori does not allow this to occur as Aizawa is Hori's favoured mouthpiece and Hori wants him to have a mini me in Shinsou.

*- There appears to be a degree of quirkism ironically at play here. Bakugou is favoured because he is confident and has a quirk that is "perfect for heroics".

Whereas Shinsou is favoured because Aizawa sees someone like himself. The other students - Aizawa isn't shown to care all that much (aside from the additional to the story artworks.)

And as for Eri, Aizawa seems to care for her but honestly we don't see her nearly enough to judge whether he's actually a good guardian. There's also the fact of Aizawa seeming to struggle to take care of himself and how he treats his students so realistically, would he be a good guardian to her?

In universe, in spite of all logic, Aizawa has apparently been teaching as 'hardass ExpellZawa' for years without consequence - against himself or UA as an institution .

And Aizawa has never once reflected on the long term damage that all of his trauma response methods would do on all his students - not just the ones he expelled.

Hori never even had Aizawa question himself at any point - because the fact that he's Hori's mouthpiece means Aizawa is never meant to be wrong so he never believes himself to be. That stunts him as a character.

Even the revelation of Kurogiri as KurOboro didn't make him do this.

Aizawa, as he is in canon, is heavily traumatised, too set in his ways and too much of a mouthpiece for Hori. Hori also either doesn't see the point of or the interest in having Aizawa grow from his mistakes and heal from his trauma - which is a shame.

Whereas All Might, as he is in canon, is also heavily traumatised, has been crapped all over by Hori but is shown to do his best in learning and growing from his mistakes - both as a teacher and mentor to Izuku.

Final thoughts:

Sorry I responded with a rant of my own!

Personally, I find Dadzawa fine in a fic, as long as it has DadMight too OR has Aizawa make up for his mistakes to the class and grow as a mentor.

However, as time has gone on and I've got more into MHA, I find it really irritates me to see a fic bash All Might. Especially using Aizawa to do so, when in canon Aizawa has done much worse as a teacher - especially to Izuku and his past classes.

I stand by the opinion that although Canon!Aizawa may care for Class 1A as he currently acts - he should not be a homeroom teacher or have his trauma responses be praised as 'logical teaching.'