#your given name WHICH i ALSO recognize can be a more nuanced experience for someone with a non english name thats like

[toytulini]

lightly defending Toshiro while also fully understanding Laois frustrations. as a bitch who let teachers call me the wrong name all through high school cos it was kinda funny

[hellomynameisbisexual]

After waking up naked and hungover in the beds of countless men in college, I began to wonder if maybe I…wasn’t straight. (Reasonable!) I knew I loved women—dating them, having sex with them, connecting with them emotionally—so being gay didn’t seem right. So 12 years ago, while sitting in my sophomore dorm, I turned to the holder of all knowledge: Google. I searched for “bisexual man,” which didn’t reveal much beyond studies about gay/bisexual men and HIV, and an off-hand listicle arguing that male bisexuality was, in fact, real. (No kidding.) There wasn’t much else.

If you Google “bisexual man” today, you’ll find hundreds of articles pertaining to bisexuality. In fact, if you expand your search to just “bisexuality,” you’ll find thousands more. These articles aren’t just attempting to justify our existence; they discuss the nuances of bi identity—how to date as a bi person, how to come out as bi, how to know if you’re bi, and where to find a bi community.

There are also countless celebrities now proudly claiming bi or pansexual labels—Stephanie Beatriz, Willow Smith, Janelle Monae, and Aubrey Plaza, to name a few. For the love of God, Susan Sarandon just came out as bi. (Would I like to see more male celebrities coming out as bi? Yes, so I’m going to have to get famous myself.)

Media representation has also gotten stronger and more serious. We’re no longer depicted as morally dubious weirdos or the punch-lines of jokes. Instead, we're given complex bi characters in shows like Big Mouth, the new Gossip Girl, The Sandman, Sense8, Harley Quinn, and so many more. There was even a show called The Bisexual on Hulu in 2018.

In some arenas, we are in the heyday of bisexual visibility, and I, for one, am living. For the first time ever, women aren’t refusing to date me because I’m bisexual—they want to date me because I’m bisexual! But to be honest, I'm still not satisfied (even though I now get laid significantly more often—bless).

“Sadly, many people still believe that bisexuality doesn’t exist or that bisexuality is a character flaw—a wishy-washy failure to commit to one gender—rather than a commitment to embrace our whole selves," says Robyn Ochs, activist for bisexual visibility and editor of Bi Women Quarterly. “While we have made great strides, we are not yet visible enough. We still have very basic educational work to do.”

Of course, Ochs is right. We haven’t solved biphobia, and bi people still have the worst mental health outcomes of any sexuality by nearly every single metric, including higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts than both gay and straight folks, according to Current Sexual Health Reports. This is largely due to the double discrimination bi people face by not feeling welcomed or like part of either straight or gay communities, causing us to feel alone and isolated.

That aside, it's important to recognize that we are in (forgive me) unprecedented territory—where we can promote bi visibility while simultaneously moving beyond it, and where we can work to more directly address some of the issues plaguing our community. Visibility isn’t a cure-all. It’s just the first step in any movement, and yes, bi people are having a goddamn movement!

Visibility essentially says: Look, we’re real! You need to treat us with some damn respect. It also helps people realize they’re not alone, that they have a community. Given the aforementioned higher rates of mental health issues for bi people, community is essential. But seeing yourself on screen or reading about someone else’s experience doesn’t automatically transport you to a room full of bi people trying to make friends and find romantic partners. There is a large gap between bisexual visibility and bisexual community. Since I don’t think scientists are on the brink of discovering the key to human teleportation, we’re going to have to create and attend bi spaces ourselves in order to feel less alone. We, the bi people of the world, are going to have build bi communities.

“After visibility comes bi life,” Ian Lawrence-Tourinho, executive director of the American Institute of Bisexuality, says. “We’re not so easy to erase anymore, as much as some will try, there are just too many of us out in the open.”

Right now, bi communities are predominantly online. We have bisexual Reddit, bi Twitter, and my favorite, bisexual TikTok (or BiTok). Using hashtags, we can find and connect with other bi folks around the world, which is wonderful and how I’ve met many of my own bi friends. But it’s time for bi people to move away from the internet (and digital spaces) and actually exist in the real world. We need physical bi spaces.

We need bisexual bars! I want a queer place where I can bring my queer girlfriend and feel comfortable making out with her without gay men judging me for erroneously believing we’re a straight couple co-opting their space. (For what it’s worth, I get why gay men are protective of their spaces, but like, shit, where am I supposed to go? A straight bar? I’d rather die.)

We need bisexual sex clubs! At every queer sex party I’ve been to, I’ve only ever seen women hooking up with women, and men…also hooking up with women. Which, fine! But men should feel empowered to hook up with all genders—in raunchy positions, no less! I want a safe place where my boyfriend, girlfriend, theyfriend, and I can all go to town on each other. As it is now, it feels like sex clubs either cater to gay men exclusively or to a very straight clientele (e.g., men aren’t allowed down in the play section unless accompanied by a woman)—they are fundamentally not inclusive of bisexual folks.

Of course, we also need sober, non-sexual places for bi people. Hello, bisexual rock climbing meet-ups! Bisexual people are obsessed with rock climbing. Why? Unclear. Personally, I’m a grown-ass man who has better things to do than climb rocks, but I’m in the minority of bi folks. I’ve accepted that. So let’s give the bi people what they want!

Maybe you’re not a rock climbing bisexual, but instead, you’re a Dungeons and Dragons bisexual. (Don’t you dare make a “Why not both?” joke!) Why not D&D meet-ups where bi folks can bring everyone in their polycule and nerd the fuck out?

"LGBTQIA+ spaces are often dominated by gay people, in particular gay men,” Vaneet Mehta, author of the forthcoming book Bisexual Men Exist, says. “And while you’d hope that they would be more accepting of bisexuality, they often do not understand or support others in the [bi] community.”

So let's make our own damn spaces. Any bi person can work to create a safe bi space, even those who work traditional nine-to-five jobs. I know this, as I actually threw a massive sex party (over 170 attendees) in Brooklyn, New York called BISLUT. Since I hadn’t been to a sex club that felt genuinely bisexual for all genders, I threw a party for bi men and their admirers. At the risk of tooting my own horn, everyone has been and continues to be absolutely obsessed with it—not just because of the sex, though the sex was awesome, but because bi people were in a safe space surrounded by other bi folks where they could express their sexuality fully and be their most authentic selves.

“Like people of any sexuality, most bis want to have fun, meet each other, and have friends who ‘get’ them,” says Lawrence-Tourinho. “And let’s be honest, we want to have exciting, fulfilling sex and love lives.”

A loving, supportive, and fun bisexual community is what comes after bi visibility. Not only can this type of community improve mental health outcomes, but it can also encourage more bi folks to come out and embrace who they are. Countless studies have indicated how much better life can get once you embrace your sexuality, but there’s a caveat: Queer folks need to have friends, community, and support in coming out. If you lose your friends, your family and your home as a result, your mental health only deteriorates. Safe, physical spaces to foster community can be game-changers in helping bi people come out safely.

These spaces may even help decrease rates of homelessness in the bisexual community. For bi youth who get displaced or kicked out after coming out, safe spaces are essential for finding support.

Am I dreaming big here? Maybe. But why the hell not? By giving people the opportunity to be themselves, we might unknowingly raise the next President of the United States, or the next Lady Gaga, or the next bisexual icon.

Sign me up. My fellow bis: Let’s get to work.

[star-anise]

Thank you for your reply. My ask was kind of all over the place. (I've done some dbt before with a previous therapist and it helped! But that therapist was not a good fit I'm at a new one now tho).

Random thing, you mentioned bpd I heard in my abnormal psychology class that a lot of therapists won't treat someone diagnosed with bpd??? It was the teacher who is a grad student studying to be a therapist who said it. And like. I don't understand. They sound like a very in need population who was often abused and there's a whole huge book of treatment resources written by someone with bpd. I've heard they're "hard to treat" and talked about like they're hopeless. but like why be a mental health professional if you don't like mentally ill/different people?

This is also the same professor who insisted trauma is only the few things listed under dsm ptsd definition as traumatic events.. like she said parents getting divorced isn't a traumatic event because you aren't physically in danger... that class really scared me about the mental health field because of all the awful people in it aspiring to be therapists including the teacher.

Sorry for all the asks I love the work you do on this blog

Ahahaha, what IS it about undergrad abnormal psych professors? Mine said he wouldn't touch clinical practice with a ten-foot pole, and told a story about how once a student told him she had schizophrenia, and he knew that she was lying because obviously nobody with schizophrenia could actually manage to attend university.

(It's seriously untrue. I've had both friends and clients with psychotic disorders who succeeded in university. He was being an ableist bastard. Like, I know psych students can tend to over-identify with a disorder they're studying without actually having it, but that doesn't mean no psych student is ever entirely correct about their deal.)

Okay so, BPD. The thing about BPD is that it requires a special skillset that does not come standard in most clinical training. If a therapist who doesn't have that skillset tries to treat someone with BPD, the therapy will not be very effective and the process will be very frustrating for both them and their client. To be very frank, it's just as true that ordinary therapists are bad at treating BPD and don't like feeling stupid, as it is that people with BPD are hard to treat.

(And training to deal with people with BPD clinically is often not included in grad school education. DBT training is expensive and they won't accept you unless you have an adequate clinical placement.)

Also, part of dealing with BPD in particular is... people with BPD often have trouble seeing authority figures with anything more nuanced than "adoration and compliance" or "fear and loathing". As a therapist, you're signing up as an authority figure. Part of the work means letting your client express all their feelings about you, and helping them work to something more nuanced and sustainable, like, "I am furious and enraged that I'm in pain and I wish my therapist could take that pain away, but I realize that's not within her power. I have to admit that she's not being an evil villain here, so I can feel my resentment but let it go."

Which can be stressful to deal with, as a therapist. You have to live with a lot of hurt and anger and rage headed your way, and keep your perspective. Be empathetic without getting carried away in those emotions. You have to be able to face that pain and say, "I can't take that away. I can only help you learn to bear it."

Basically everyone I know in grad school had a nervous breakdown somewhere along the line because we go to therapist school because we're smart and capable and feel good about helping people, so when we encounter a person we can't help, or are put in situations where we have to stop helping, we tend to have existential crises and end up sobbing in the student lounge about What Am I Even Good For Now. I was lucky because I had a version of that breakdown before I entered grad school, and my therapist warned me to get a new shrink when I moved for my Master's, "Because if you don't need one at the beginning, you'll definitely need one by the end." So I was more equipped to help classmates for whom this was a wholly new experience.

In my opinion, the healthy way to approach the problem of A Person You're Not Good At Helping is to practice humility, set reasonable boundaries, recognize the limits of your competence, and see where you can learn and grow. But many therapists and helping professionals use what I consider to be an unhealthy approach, labelling such clients as "defensive" and "resistant" and "hard to treat" and blaming them for the difficulty.

Which like, I get that "practicing humility" is like "doing exercise", sometimes you're tired and cranky and don't want to go for a run. Sometimes you just want to blame the other person for not accepting your magnanimous help.

Anyway, within the field of mental health psychotherapy, complex trauma is a unique sub-speciality that many therapists don't want to touch at all. I had many classmates say, "Woof, you're into complex trauma? You must be so tough, I could never." 🙄

(Technically I have the ethical obligation to represent my profession in the best possible light to encourage public confidence in the field of psychotherapy. But I think it's not undermining the profession to admit what everyone already knows, which is that some therapists are oblivious assholes who do bad work. I've seen it, I've met them, I want them to piss off forever. Jordan Peterson is a blight to our names and Phil McGraw can go choke.)

So people who are on your wavelength about BPD and trauma and What Therapists Are For are out there. They're just a little rarer than the usual run of therapists. For what it's worth, I've found they cluster more in areas like complex trauma, DBT, Narrative Therapy, and the Hearing Voices Movement. Next year (knock on wood) I'l be going to a conference on the treatment of complex trauma with a friend, and this sounds weird given that it's a weekend all about child maltreatment, but I expect it to be a blast, because I'll get to be among My People, talking about the work that fills our souls.

I really wish that as an undergrad, I'd spent more time hanging out with Social Work students, and going to conferences and trainings. Those are where I met some of the coolest people I really clicked with. And in grad school, I had the extreme pleasure of meeting other people who were a lot like me. Those friendships were especially rewarding because as skilled helpers, we ended up playing a game of Needs Chicken, where each tries hide their own needs and caretake for the other, which finally ended up in a standoff where we had to agree to put down our caretaking skills and just be honest about what we wanted, even if that felt new and scary and raw.

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[the-ghost-king]

About the cupid scene, Nico was forced to come out, but its also made very clear that Cupid is the bad guy. So is Aphrodite to an extent. They have a twisted and fundamental misunderstanding of love and how it works for mortals. I get that people could be mad about how Nico was forced to come out and putting him through more emotional trauma, but I also think its very realistic in showing how callous and cruel the gods understanding of love is.

I am reminded of the quote by Madeline Miller, "There is no law that gods must be fair..."

I also understand why the scene might be traumatic for other young LGBTQ+ readers, I've seen a lot of people talk about the fear of being outed in regards to them reading that scene as a kid. I completely respect their feelings on that, and I understand that as well. However, as someone who had been forcibly outed once before reading that scene, that scene really helped heal me. I don't think the Cupid scene is inherently homophobic, and I'm often bothered by the lack of nuance regarding around how it's handled.

I recognize it's a very emotional scene, and that people may have a hard time fully separating their emotions from that scene, but at the same time if there's a group of people saying "hey I understand why you disliked this scene but it was really helpful to me as a child because of the different experiences I had" maybe slow the breaks and hear what others also in the community have to say before determining if the scene is homophobic. You don't have to like the scene, and yeah maybe the scene did hurt you but that doesn't make it homophobic.

I want to specify on my word choice there a little closer, because of course outing someone is an act of homophobia, and the scene is homophobic in that sense. However often times the conversation about homophobia in this scene goes to "Rick was homophobic for writing this" where personally I would say this scene toes the line at being too far without ever crossing it. Some people may think this depiction crosses the line into "Rick was homophobic for writing this" which is fine, but just because something depicted homophobia and hurt you doesn't mean it was homophobic. Something doesn't have to out rightly be stated to be bad, in order to be read as bad*, and the Cupid scene does a wonderful job of depicting this.

I talk here about how Nico is shown what love is, and how love is treated by Nico, and how it affects his character. I think it's important to note that Nico's entire storyline can essentially be encompassed in an Orpheus-like or Odyssey-like tale. Nico's undergone this huge emotional and physical labor all in the name of having some form of unconditional love. I think that post is a really important read in the context of this one because I very carefully outline how love shapes Nico and how Nico shape and chooses his own definition of love, but I want to specifically dig into the Cupid scene on this post.

The big criticism often seen is "it's homophobic" which I covered above, and I want to clarify I'm not upset with or mad at or trying to tell anyone they can't dislike it or even say you can't say it's homophobic (my words on my one post are a bit off I'll admit) but the problem I have is when people believe they hold a moral high ground for thinking it's homophobic, or they remove all nuance from the discussion with "it's homophobic". Which is frustrating and annoying because it's a very complex scene, and it really changes Nico's arc and personality and it does help characterize him.

The big reason it shapes him so much is because of the other largest reason the scene is criticized, Cupid's behavior. What often fails to be recognized in those scenes is that Cupid is intentionally painted as the villain, this is very important to the scene.

In the context of this scene Nico makes an unspoken choice, a choice of "what is love to me?". I talk about how Nico claims his narrative in BoTL when he overcomes Minos, and he partially peaks that arc by convincing Gods to join the final battle of TLO. Following that arc however, Nico falls into his second arc, his crush on Percy was important in PJO, but not as important as it is in HoO.

By HoO Nico's entire character revolves around Percy, how to help Percy, how to aid Percy, etc. All of this has to do with Nico's crush on Percy, but also as an act of repayment because Nico hurt Percy- Nico lied to him about knowing him at New Rome in SoN, and he goes to Tartarus shortly after... This mirrors what Percy did after Hades tricked Nico... Percy choked Nico because he was upset with him, so Nico tried to win back Percy's affection by bathing him in the river.

The Cupid Scene is the resolution of Nico's arc, he is essentially given a choice- Cupid or Jason?

For this reason, we do see Nico recognize love for what it has been vs how it could be.

Cupid is there to represent what love is, to Nico love is brutal, and painful, and a lot of hard work... Nico has made himself utilitarian in love simply because it is the only way he can find any affection. Love to Nico is about flaying yourself for the benefit of others, to trample any and all parts of yourself simply to appease those you care for, because you want them to love you so much as you love them. The parallels I could draw between Nico and Orpheus, or Nico and Odysseus... I'd be here a long while...

In that scene Jason represents the alternative form of love which Nico chooses after his interaction with Cupid.

Jason says during the scene that he "preferred Piper's idea of love" which has to do with kindness and caring, etc, and then Jason becomes the embodiment of that idea during the scene- which showcases the alternative of what love can be, thus making Jason a personification of love in the context of that scene.

Jason looks to Nico, he doesn't ask for more, he simply looks to Nico with understanding and acknowledges him for who he is, and he does the exact opposite of what Nico expects:

Jason loves Nico where he is, without conditions, without forcing Nico to become something more. Jason didn’t force Nico to say more than what was necessary for him to understand, Jason looked at Nico and he called Nico brave.

Cupid is a more volatile form of love than Aphrodite, Cupid shoots arrows that makes people animals, that can make a god grow insane, but Aphrodite's form of love is about acceptance and humanity (think to how she picked Ares over Hephaestus even if it was perhaps "wrong")- both are about truth but one is about force and the other about acceptance.

When Nico walks out of there, he makes his choice- he is forced to come out yes, Cupid is wrong for doing this, but Jason again stays a figure of love in Nico's life. Jason basically says, "Good job, I know that was hard, thank you for sharing and let me know if you need anything, people will care about you and understand you," again and again and again to Nico, he doesn't tell Nico he has to come out, and he agrees to keep it between them for now. Jason is love as acceptance, Jason is the first person who unconditionally loves Nico, and that's the choice.

Will Nico accept unconditional love? If the answer is no, then Cupid wins and Nico is denying himself. If the answer is yes, then Jason and Nico win, and Nico no longer needs to make himself utilitarian in love in order to be loved.

The choice is made with Reyna and Hedge, most specifically Reyna.

When he accidentally comes out to them, and they accept him without making a big deal of it, without show, just that acknowledgement and "thank you for sharing" and Nico accepts their words and friendship still- Nico made his choice then to accept the love he was being freely given.

“He carried so much sadness and loneliness, so much heartache. Yet he put his mission first. He persevered. Reyna respected that. She understood that. She'd never been a touchy-feely person, but she had the strangest desire to drape her cloak over Nico's shoulders and tuck him in. She mentally chided herself. He was a comrade, not her little brother. He wouldn't appreciate the gesture.”

This is where we see the slow and steady, and healthy, end to Nico's arc in regards to love really grow into itself, and he begins to heal. He no longer sees such an intense need to make himself utilitarian for love, and he begins to heal from his internalized homophobia too.

(Internalized homophobia discussions with Nico also bother me too often times, people too often assume you can't date while struggling with internalized homophobia or at least very heavy handedly imply that which is just not true... You may have some issues in your relationship, but you can work through the internalized homophobia while building a new relationship and be just fine. Also to assume someone has an unhealthy relationship because of internalized homophobia is weird and lowkey reinforces the idea that "broken" people don't need love, but also does a huge disservice to so many LGBTQ+ people who are happily married/themselves but still struggle with these feelings, and to see a healthy relationship depiction despite someone in that relationship struggling with internalized homophobia is fine and good actually. As long as the individual can recognize what they're dealing with, and work through it in a healthy and constructive manner, then there's nothing wrong there...)

When I started this post to be honest I thought I would have a lot more to say, it's a scene that touched and changed me so deeply as a person, and beyond that in a more objective experience it completely changes Nico's character, by turning his arc around and beginning his healing process. To be honest, there probably is more to be said on it, I just haven't found the words yet... I know parts of this post are clunky and in a year I'm going to read this and see all the places it could be better but for now I'm content with it.

Whether or not someone considers the scene homophobic is a subjective experience, but I think this is a very well written scene purely for the characterization and symbolism, intentional or otherwise. I don't really care that much to debate if it's truly a homophobic scene or not, I can see both why people say it is and why people say it isn't and that can be culminated into "people have different needs" and "minorities aren't a monolith". Personally my much larger complaint is the complete lack of nuance and insight scenes like this are handled with, not the matter of personal opinion an individual reaches on the scene.

*the post uses the word "adult audience" and yes, fair point, children should not be able to decipher symbolism to the extent adults can. But older children and young teens, which the RRverse series are sold for, is when critical thinking skills and media analysis do begin to become parts of classroom curriculum. The scene does an excellent job of not outright stating Cupid is evil, but of depicting that in a very clear cut way.

[gamebunny-advance]

The Thrilling Continuation~

@kujo-supernova​

As to not clog the dashes with increasingly long posts of anyone who has to put up with this, I started a new post~

[Original response here]

K, I agree with 95% of what you said, so I don't feel the need to go over it point by point. Even the stuff I don't agree with I’m not going to really address  because it's irrelevant to the argument I’m trying to make. This isn't even an argument about each other's opinions anymore so much as I'm just commenting on the fandom at large now. So basically everything I'm about to say is not really directed at you (except for the last part), and is more directed at this fictional straw man of the fandom that probably doesn't exist, but I'm gonna attack anyway because it helps illustrate my thought process.

But thanks for reading anyway if you do~

I don't take issue with the fandom because I'm trying to defend Kliff or say that anyone else is 100% in the wrong here. This is a story about flawed individuals that make bad decisions. It's multi-layered and complex, and that's why I love this game so much.

My issue is largely with how the fandom in general is hypocritical in the way they treat Kliff because they see him as *more* "wrong" than he actually is, but my goal is not to prove that he was in the “right”.

Yeah, B2J (mostly Mayday) did get to learn from the experience that they were wrong because they're the protagonists: the purpose of their story is to learn that lesson. Kliff exists to be Mayday's "shadow". He represents an extreme that Mayday could have become had she not realized that taking over NSR isn't the solution to her problem. But as the true antagonist, Kliff literally *can't* come to that same realization: it would be redundant. And that's fine. For the purposes of the story that it wanted to tell, Kliff getting a resolution was not necessary, even if it leaves him in a bad spot with the other characters.

But that story is done and now fandom gets to write new ones. He still has a lot of character that can be explored: Now that rock is back in the city, what will he do? Why is rock specifically so important to him? Why does he know so much about every artist in the city? Why does he look so much younger than he actually is? *cough*becausehe'savampire*cough*

But largely the fandom doesn't seem interested in exploring any of that and more than just a handful of people seem to outwardly reject the idea of writing him as even *capable* of the kind of growth that B2J went through.

I brought up DJSS specifically as a counterargument to Kliff because he is THE scummiest person in the cast for all the reasons you said and more, but he is still one of the most popular characters because he has a cool design and a sexy voice, and maybe some people see him as a "sad boi" and want to coddle him. I am also one of those people for all 3 1/2 of those reasons, but I don't believe that you need to think that a character is a good person to justify liking them. There's a lot of reasons to like a morally gray or even morally black character, and agreeing with their actions/opinions doesn't need to be one of them.

I just think it's hypocritical to excuse one character for their flaws and not another with similar ones. Like there's some nuance to it that can change what makes something okay in one context and not okay in another, but I think the comparison between DJSS and Kliff is apt.

In my opinion their shared flaw is being egocentric. They are both willing to sacrifice the health and happiness of others for their own agendas. They express it in different ways, but it all comes from the same place: They think that what they're trying to achieve is more important than the feelings/condition of others.

DJSS seriously does not give a damn about anyone other than himself and he doesn't even have the courtesy to try and hide it. Even after his district is restored, he's still the same asshole he always was. He STILL calls B2J "Plutonians" (and I don't count him saying that "they aren't so bad after all" as "change", because even as a professor he was capable of expressing backhanded gratitude) and his reason for playing music is STILL "self-importance". He is in the same place that he started and will probably continue to abuse his district over his sense of ego unless Tatiana or someone else finally forces him not to. And everyone either accepts that or disregards it because that's just who he is. And again, that's fine, but I find it hypocritical.

Like I feel like many people's problems with Kliff is that they're not interested in exploring his character beyond what has been presented in the text. And that's fine too. It is perfectly valid to enjoy the game as it is and not want to explore it beyond that, but if having such a small scope of a game's themes and characters causes you to get "bugged" when someone presents a different interpretation, then it might be beneficial to look at another reading.

For example, let's go back to the satellite argument. My point about the satellite being "symbolic" was to disprove "murderous intent". His motivations for dropping it are totally separate. You say that you still think his motivation is being fueled by bitterness over Tatiana leaving rock. Your exact words: "I still think part of it was done out of spiteness for Tatiana leaving rock", but I feel like that's a very surface level reading.

In my opinion, rock is just the window dressing to the core of his actual problem: he feels like he's not getting back what he gave. He drops the satellite after her response to this question: "Did my loyalty mean nothing to you?" Which was, "I don't give a damn about you. I owe you nothing." which I think is far from a trivial response.

In any relationship, even a non-romantic one like this, it hurts knowing that the other person isn't as invested in it as you are. Even more so if they were to flat out say, "I don't give a damn about you." Like, can you imagine being told by your favorite content creator that they hated you to your face after you've done everything you could do to support them as a fan? Would most people react calmly to that in the heat of the moment?

Like we don't know the extent that Kliff was involved in Tatiana's life, but Tatiana never implies that he's lying about supporting her after the Goolings disbanded. Their relationship couldn't have been completely parasocial because she immediately recognizes him and addresses him by name when she sees him, and her being Kul Fyra isn't common or easy to obtain knowledge, so he must have been close to her to even know that. We know what he may have been willing to do for her given how much he helps B2J, and had Tatiana been upfront about her feelings with Kliff in the past, then I don't think he would have even bothered to give his sob story because he would have known that she wouldn't be receptive to it.

What I'm getting at is that "abandoning rock" isn't the actual reason he felt hurt enough to want to retaliate. It was likely more about "abandoning him" than it is a loyalty to any particular genre.

Even with this reading of his motivation, I don't think he was justified in doing what he did. Tatiana was totally right in calling him out, even if she was harsh about it, because in the end it doesn't matter how much he might have done for her if she didn't want it to begin with. He should have just walked away and accepted that she wasn't the person he thought she was, but people don't always do the right or rational thing, especially if they're caught up in the heat of their emotions and I think that's a relatable emotion worthy of discussion and dissection, even if it's not positive.

Will reading any of that change your mind? Probably not, but it's another perspective, and that's really all I want to offer.

Saying you're okay with someone liking something that you don't, isn't the same as understanding it, and that's what I want to change. I don't need anyone to agree with me, I wouldn’t start these discussions with strangers if I did. My end goal is to get you to understand where I'm coming from, and I think you're just *barely* missing my point. Hopefully I’m understanding your points too, but maybe I’m wrong about you’re getting at as well. UoU

[sepublic]

Eda and Willow

           All right, but @megadan94 brought to my attention that Eda and Lilith parallel Willow and Amity, and I’m kind of caught up over this idea?

           There’s that idea that a perceived power disparity separated the two… In Lilith’s case, she saw herself as weaker than Eda. Amity saw Willow as weaker than her, or at least her parents fed this idea into her head and used it as justification, until even Amity began to believe in it… At least to the point where I believe Amity low-key began to blame Willow for not being strong enough to be her friend. Obviously the parallels aren’t one-to-one here, but they never were amongst various character’s compared and contrasted relationships…

           Additionally, you have Eda and Willow as being innately talented and powerful, much moreso than Lilith and Amity! Lilith talks a lot about having to work smart to keep up, and Amity of course likely has her own natural skill as well; But it’s not as much as Willow’s, and it’s not enough to keep up with her parents’ incessant expectations, so she really has to invest so much time and energy into being the absolute best. Amity and Lilith, of course, also want to be in the Emperor’s Coven- Well, Lilith wanted to and then WAS, but now she’s left and is open to realizing how much it truly sucked in retrospect. Amity and Lilith both have a lot of genuine skill and talent; But they constantly feel the need to be better regardless, because they’re always compared to someone who’s naturally better…

           In this scenario, we have Lilith comparing herself to Eda, competing for that spot in the Emperor’s Coven- And then we have Amity likely being set up against Emira and Edric. It’s a mutual feeling of never being good enough, and not being able to recognize your own worth… Likewise, Eda and Willow are incredibly powerful, although both were restricted by the Coven System, and left unable to really explore their talents. Eda couldn’t pursue all forms of magic, Willow was stuck in Abominations… It’s only by an act of defiance to the rules that they’re ultimately given the chance to explore themselves. Eda and Willow also arguably have a nurturing side to them, compared to others in the show; Eda has her motherly instincts with the Bat Queen’s children, and Luz and King for that matter… While Willow is incredibly nurturing to her plants, and encourages the best growth out of them.

           Eda and Willow encourage others to be the best they can be; And you can make that comparison between them and Luz, who plays a HUGE role in both of their lives, too! And while it’s not overt, and possibly more speculation than actual canon… It’s worth noting that even with Willow’s past issues with Amity, she never really brings them up, nor does she get in the way of Luz’s friendship with her. Maybe she might’ve brought it up out of potential concern for Luz; But otherwise, Willow didn’t want to impose her own experiences onto Luz’s, and she wanted Luz to form her own opinions on the subject.

           And that’s… A LOT like Eda’s stance on Luz, joining Hexside! Hexside hurt and traumatized Eda, just as Amity did to Willow- But Eda still recognizes the worth of Hexside and what it has to offer, just as Willow knows that Amity isn’t inherently terrible and was a good friend in her own way. Eda and Willow know that Hexside and Amity mean a lot to Luz, and they don’t want to get in the way of that; At least, they don’t want Luz to get hurt. But they also recognize that their experiences may not be universal, that things may have changed- And sometimes they won’t until you put a step forward and let your loved one participate. Eda and Willow have rightful reservations about the institution/person that Luz wants to engage with…

           But in the end, they decide that Luz deserves the right to form her own opinion. They don’t want to hypocritically impose their own will onto others, and tell them what to do; Not after going through the same, with Eda and Willow oppressed by the Coven System respectively. And by letting Luz engage with the institution/person that hurt them… It enables Eda and Willow to make amends through Luz, and emerge so much happier as a result! By letting Luz do what she wants, Eda manages to change Hexside for the better, and Willow also does the same to Amity- They both indirectly help the thing that hurt them, and ensure that nobody else is hurt by it either! Eda and Willow just don’t want others to be hurt like they were… And by being emotionally mature and recognizing this, they open the true opportunity to protect not just Luz, but really anyone who would interact with Hexside/Amity…

           It also allows Eda and Willow to make peace with a painful past, too! Because Eda DID enjoy her time at Hexside, she had fun with Grudgby and loved learning, even if a lot of her curriculum wasn’t exactly legal… And Willow truly enjoyed Amity and cared for her and vice-versa, just as Bump really wanted the best for Eda, he was just scared by Belos! Just as Amity wanted the best for Willow, but she felt pressured by her parents… One way or another, Eda and Willow recognize the circumstances behind their split as a bit more complicated and nuanced than the other person being terrible- And this applies to Eda recognizing that Lilith was also indoctrinated by the Coven System herself. Which, coupled with their sisterhood and Lilith’s change of heart, prompts Eda to make the steps to forgive her… Or at least make amends.

           This is all making me imagine Eda being hesitant about Luz and Lilith interacting later down the line- But possibly not wanting to get in the way of either of them. Because she sees how much happier the two of them are for it, she doesn’t want to unproductively bring up old pains if it only means causing a rift… And Eda knows that Lilith could really benefit from some new connections, and by getting to know Luz, Lilith can respect her surrogate daughter and better understand Eda’s own decisions in life. Obviously I can see Eda being hesitant- But she just wants the best for people in the end.

           Then, you have Eda and Willow being ostracized. Bullied, treated as lesser, having their status as Witches questioned; Eda is called the Owl Lady, no doubt treated as a freakish monster, and loses her magical ability as the curse progresses. Willow is called Half-a-Witch and repeatedly bullied and tormented, until she really begins to form a negative view of herself, if Inner Willow’s raging state in Understanding Willow is any indication… Both Eda and Willow have a crisis of self-identity, of how they perceive themselves. But ultimately, Eda learns to overcome this, while Willow does so as well- Especially with Luz’s help! Both of them have also become rebels to the Coven System in their own way… Eda’s reasons are obvious. It took a while for Willow- But after seeing the injustice done onto Eda of all people, fittingly enough… She takes a stance.

           Willow rallies an entire crowd at the Conformatorium to vouch for Eda’s release, thereby planting the seeds of revolution (ba-dum tsss) in a way that Eda always wanted to as a kid, but never quite could… Up until Luz arrived. When Luz the outlier arrives, she really changes things for the better, and spurs Eda and Willow to put themselves out there, to be themselves- To believe in old passions and connections they miss, while also learning to grow as individuals too! Eda learns to connect with society again, ultimately leading to her having a hand in making a change through Luz; And Willow learns to stand up for herself, recognize the injustice of Belos, and lead a protest!

          They can both be powerful leaders and symbols of rebellion in their own right, so it’s appropriate that Eda and Willow serve as focal points for the revolution’s beginning in the season finale… Eda’s treatment being an example of what’s wrong with the Coven System, and Willow pointing this out to others. Willow recognizes Eda for who she is, and while a lot of this is no doubt influenced by Eda’s connection to Luz… It’s with Luz that I see Eda and Willow potentially connecting with one another more, later down the line. Maybe they have a discussion or at least see the similarities; I can see Eda thanking Willow or feeling indebted in her own subtle way, while being proud of Willow’s rebellion and encouraging it. Eda inspired Willow in her own way… And really, who’s to say Willow doesn’t inspire Eda, too?

          Willow’s friendship with Luz shows Eda that there’s a lot Hexside can offer the girl; Interactions with kids her age, to name one of them! And Willow vouching for Eda shows that Eda is a worthwhile person… The protest leads Eda to realize she DID leave an impact, that others appreciate her, and it’s not just Luz or King that like Eda! Even this rando kid appreciates Eda… It was Eda who brought Luz to the Boiling Isles in the end, and it was Eda’s maturity that led to Luz getting to hang out with Willow more at Hexside. Willow appreciates Eda for who she is for Luz, and how this indirectly led to Luz’s impact on Willow; And the same could be seen vice-versa, too! Eda doesn’t care much for Willow, but Luz does, so who is she to judge- Luz deserves to interact with other kids her age, make connections with the students! And it’s all just bringing me back to Really Small Problems, how Eda includes Willow as among being her ‘dumb kids’…

           Obviously Willow already has two loving fathers who are married to one another- But hey, who’s to say Eda can’t be a fun aunt to her? The more the merrier… I’d love to see Eda and Willow, subtly if not openly, recognize a shared solidarity and kinship among them. Maybe Eda says that she knows how Willow felt, when Willow brings up past frustrations with the Coven System; And I’m just enjoying that one time Eda pulled Willow’s hood over her head at Covention! Maybe Eda can teach Willow to really revel in and embrace herself, to unapologetically practice self-love, the way Eda learned. In some ways, Willow is like Eda as a kid- But things turned out better for her, than they did for Eda in the past… And Eda, she’s glad and happy for this, that nobody else has to go through what she did! And Willow can show her that, hey, things can turn out better for Eda too- Not just for the present, but even retroactively with old mistakes and grievances addressed.

[jostenneil]

do you have shounen recs too? other than naruto and fma lol

naruto and fma are like decade long infections that have refused to leave me djdbkdn but yes, i do! i’ll apply the same logic here as i did in the other post where i include some seinen too bc ultimately the distinction is just an age demographic

sket dance (manga) - this is one of my favorite manga of all time! it centers on a group of three friends—bossun, himeko, and switch—who start a student support group at their high school for anyone to come to with their everyday problems. the clientele and their problems are varied in a pretty humorous way, and in the beginning it almost feels like the series is set up to be purely comedic, but as you get further into the series you learn just why the main characters started the club, which is the winning point for me. these characters are so fleshed out and so much of their individual trauma gives insight as to why they’re intent to help and befriend others, especially on bossun’s part. he is probably one of my favorite shounen protagonists period. his character propagates a really wonderful message of how people don’t need to be fixed in order to solve their problems, just listened to and supported, and i adore the series for its exploration of that concept. the mangaka was also an assistant to sorachi on gintama, so i think fans of gintama will rly enjoy it in the sense that both series share similar values, messages, and humor! there’s a few crossovers between the two, iirc. also! i don’t particularly mind the anime and it has a banger soundtrack but just imo the emotional beats hit harder in the manga

silver spoon (anime/manga) - this is the series hiromu arakawa wrote after finishing fma, and i would actually argue that it’s her better work of the two! it centers on a boy named hachiken, who spontaneously decides to enroll at an agricultural high school to get away from his stressful family life in the city, and obviously, it’s a huge reality check for him. he’s dropped into this school where every other student has farming-related ambitions in the long run, while he has no ambitions at all and simply used enrollment as an excuse to get away from his problems. the series is a masterclass in learning about the worth in hard work, camaraderie, and why thinking about your future and what you want to do matters, not just from a practical aspect but also in terms of self fulfillment. as expected of arakawa, it boasts endearing humor, a wonderful array of distinct characters, and a really fleshed out portrayal of farm life, made even more enjoyable and genuine by the fact that she’s writing in her element, as she grew up on a farm herself

tsubasa reservoir chronicle (manga) - this is a cult classic within clamp circles, but outside of that fandom it’s more known as the intimidating clamp series most ppl wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. and i get that! the fact that it crosses over with some other clamp series makes it pretty confusing to parse through at times. but i also think that’s the series’ greatest strength, bc when you understand the nature of that crossover, the depth of the storytelling is truly brilliant! at its most basic, trc follows a pair of childhood friends, syaoran and sakura, who live in a desert-like “clow country”. sakura walks into some ruins one day and is spontaneously robbed of all of her memories, which syaoran must then journey across multiple dimensions to recapture, as her memories have been scattered in the form of feathers. the pair also have three traveling companions—kurogane, fai, and mokona—and altogether the group visits multiple dimensions that are loosely inspired by clamp’s other series and characters. obv, as the plot progresses, we discover there’s more to the group’s mission than meets the eye, and it ventures into pretty dark, existential territory, as is the norm for clamp. it also may be unpopular of me to say this, but i actually think it’s a great introduction to clamp (it was mine lol), given there’s so many cameos from their previous series and the series sets up such interesting lore. just be warned that you do have to think while reading this series, as the lore is intense! also, do not watch the anime. at all. it’s the worst adaptation ever

ookiku furikabutte (anime/manga) - popularly called oofuri, this series is in my opinion one of the best sports manga published in the last two decades. it follows a boy named mihashi, a baseball pitcher who refuses to give up the mound and essentially alienates himself from his middle school teammates in the process bc they don’t know how to actually utilize his pitches. he enters high school as a total nervous wreck with little to no confidence in himself bc of this experience, until the catcher, abe, recognizes that he’s actually a really unique pitcher unrecognized for his talents by his old teammates. abe and mihashi basically latch onto each other, with abe believing he can mold mihashi into the best pitcher there is, and mihashi believing abe is the one person capable of making him into a good pitcher. it’s a fascinating take on codependency and building up your self esteem, and i would argue that higuchi asa’s sports psychology background lends itself splendidly to the messages oofuri sends about how to build healthy sportsmanship among teenage boys. overall i think it’s a great series to read if you’re looking for catharsis and comfort, as well as baseball lore!

gangsta. (manga) - this series is the most dark and complicated of the works in this list, just as an advisory. there’s prostitution, gang violence, gore, etc etc. but for the presence of all of that, gangsta. is probably one of the most well rounded series i have read in the last few years. it starts with alex benedetto, a prostitute who ends up as the sole survivor of a mass gang murder propagated by two thugs for hire, worick and nic. the two men take her under their wing as a friend and someone who answers their phone, and the three of them form a unique but really loving partnership with each other. the plot eventually extends into a turf war that plagues the town they live in, ergastulum, on account of a drug trade that allows for the breeding of “twilights”, who are essentially drug enhanced superhumans. it’s hard to explain much more without giving away spoilers, but the series has an incredibly diverse cast, in terms of race, disability, and sexuality, and it manages to tackle really dark subject matter without coming off as too edgy or tragedy porn-seque. the artwork is also absolutely gorgeous and the relationships among various characters are portrayed with such amazing nuance, that i can’t even complain when plot points make me sad beyond belief

this is what i have for now but i may add onto it later! do let me know if you enjoy any of these ❤️

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hi ash! i know you said before that you're not autistic you just did a lot of research to depict chris realistically- do you have any advice for finding resources on writing disabled characters that isn't like... horribly abelist? im writing someone with an intellectual disability from head trauma and who is nonverbal, and i want to get it right but everything online seems very autism-speaks-y. im autistic and semiverbal but i dont have an id and i want to be realistic and respectful.

I cannot speak with any expertise or sense of speaking from enough experience to be taken as an expert here, and defer as always to those with lived experience with intellectual disability!

But I will give a few more general tips for what to do when looking to write a character with a neurological makeup that doesn’t match your own, as far as what has worked for me with Chris:

1. The story should never be ABOUT their lived experience if you do not also have it. Chris’s story is not about autism, or being autistic. I would never presume to try and write a story like that because, whatever my intentions, I don’t have that knowledge that comes from living it. I would at BEST be taking the experiences of others, their voices. At worst, I would be someone standing with a megaphone shouting over those who deserve to be heard.

Making the disability what the plot revolves around is... generally just not going to be a good idea, in any sense. It’s moments like this where I feel like it’s best to defer to the writers who have lived it, instead. 

This is not to say “never write someone different than yourself”, because... I don’t think that’s at all good advice. I think that way lies stunted writers who never push themselves. But it does mean “do not center the story on this thing if you have not experienced it and don’t have that knowledge and understanding”.

2. At the same time, don’t try to be coy or dance around or hide the disability behind purple prose or refuse to acknowledge its reality. Trying to make a disability sound cute, or talk around it instead of speaking it out loud, can be minimizing or shaming in ways that I think it’s easy to miss, if you don’t live with that disability yourself! To me, this touches on one of my hugest pet peeves - characters who are written as having a particular neurodivergence in media, or shown on tv, but they never expressly admit to it or name it. 

I know I hesitated with Chris, more because I didn’t feel comfortable giving him a diagnosis until I understood autism better myself, and I do regret how long it took me to embrace that reality about him. I just thought it better to err on the side of researching before I embraced. But I do feel some guilt about waiting so long when I had readers who were identifying so heavily with him, and I kind of knew, but just didn’t feel comfortable owning it yet.

3. On a related note - disabilities in a story that become melodramatic tragedy or turn the disabled character into a ‘redemption story’ for an abled character. This is so, so prevalent in common media and pop culture and once you recognize it for what it is, it’s so hard to not see it in so many places. Think of how many movies, novels, etc contain a disabled character who exists to teach abled people some virtuous lesson about living life to the fullest or ‘what it really means to be human’ blah blah blah blah blah. Don’t do that. Please. (I mean, I kind of feel like you definitely won’t, but I’m just speaking very generally here). If you find the story going in a direction in which abled people learn something from the disabled person, please think very carefully and critically as to why the story is heading in that direction.

Language alone can also be a problem here - think about the difference between openly describing a character moving around their life with a wheelchair vs. calling them “wheelchair-bound” or “reliant on a cane”, when the cane or wheelchair may actually represent freedom to that person - an aid they need, yes, but one that allows them to live with far more agency than they might have had otherwise. 

To describe them, especially from their own POV, as “wheelchair-bound”, may ring false to disabled people who understand that the wheelchair isn’t a cage, but a tool that allows that individual person to feel less caged by being able to more freely leave home.  

(This varies person to person, just providing an example)

4. Educate. Research. And don’t just do so by asking people with disabilities to tell you their stories. I often express gratitude to the autistic readers, those with ADHD, etc who spoke up about Chris, talked about their own experiences, identified with him, found him very resonating for aspects of their own lives. 

These stories, this information, this sharing of their lives was given freely to me, and I’m fucking amazed and grateful for how welcomed Chris was, and how willing readers were to share about themselves when talking about him.

Their willingness to speak about these things is something I treasure. But I absolutely would never believe that a single person owed me the story of their life to make sure I got Chris right. That was my responsibility, you know? I try to keep in mind the concept of ‘emotional labor’. Asking a disabled person to be your resource is asking them to give, and give, and give of themself. They may want to give you that kind of labor, they may not. But I definitely wouldn’t ask it of anyone without understanding it was something they were happy or felt comfortable giving.

Research, on the other hand, is essential. You mentioned things being “autism speaks-y” when trying to research on your own, and oh god, do I feel you. It sucks that autism speaks is the first thing to pop up when trying to research the lives of autistic people - and in my research, I was lucky to already know AS sucks and write them off and anyone who heavily referenced them as not helpful. I can see how someone might not know that, though, and stumble on them and believe they were a helpful resource for writing autism when they... well. Nope. 

Try to think about the express disability you are writing for this person, and why, and then go research! I looked up “books on autism recommended by autistic people”, and found some invaluable books, yes, but also papers published online, websites, etc! Each of them vetted and looked over and recommended by autistic people, so I knew I was getting information that came from people with those experiences and that understanding. A good example - I picked up a book on the history of diagnosis and treatment of autism in the United States, mentioned it here, and @redwingedwhump recommended a book called Neurotribes... which turned out to be immensely more helpful, spot-on, and provided some really excellent foundational information I wouldn’t have found in the first book at all.

There’s a lot of information out there on Traumatic Brain Injuries and their lasting effects on individuals who receive them, so I would start there. What you’re describing sounds like a TBI with lasting effects! So I would start your research there, and also look up being nonverbal separately, as well as combining the two. Make sure you’re not just looking at the top links - often paid ads or problematic organizations that are able to pay more for better exposure - but also scanning for blogs, nonprofits, lived-experiences stories, too.

I found a lot of information on the second or even third page of results i would never have seen if I only stuck to the first. Remember the algorithm on search engines is usually showing you what other people are clicking on, not necessarily the best source.

5. This is one you the asker already know, but I want to include it for general reasons: do not ‘dumb down’ the thought processes of a nonverbal or semi-verbal person. I see this in fiction surprisingly often, and I think it’s this sense we have as abled people (’we’ just meaning I’m including myself) that being verbal is required to have a highly complex thought process, and it’s... it’s just fucking not. Speech and though are related but not completely wound around each other, and the ability to verbalize is not the same as the ability to think. 

Like I said, I know you know this, asker, but it’s something I see in fiction/media and it drives me up the wall. So I wanted to include it.

6. For the love of God, do not use medical terminology unless you actually know what you’re doing/talking about. Many disabled people or those with serious medical conditions become what amounts to experts on their own diagnoses, because they have to. They have to be experts to receive the care they should be able to rely on. If you constantly fuck up terminology - trust me - it will be noticed, and it will take people out of the story or hurt their ability to suspend disbelief while reading.

There are ways to do medical scenes/conversations with doctors that avoid falling into this problem! I would just be very very careful to heavily research before using any complex terminology.

7. This disabled person does not exist to evoke pity. They are a human - nuanced and multi-layered - living their life, and their story should always, always reflect that. I don’t really have anything else to add to that.

I would love to hear further advice from anyone with anything else to add.

[itsclydebitches]

I've never played WOW, but my friends into it. I might as well try. Any advice for someone who's never touched a MMO?

Oh, fun question! It’s actually hard for me to think of things I’d have wanted to know when starting out because I started playing MMOs around age... 9? So in some respects I grew up alongside the genre, rather than trying to learn it after the fact, but some things I’d highlight about WoW now is:

Don’t worry about your race/class. There is SO MUCH about the “right” and “wrong” way to create a character, but at the end of the day you should choose whatever interests and appeals to you most. The caveat to that is that picking a tank or a healer class will put a bit more responsibility on your shoulders  — whether you like it or not at times  — so just be aware of that. Some people like taking on a specific role, others (me) do not. There are also classes that are better suited to soloing as much of the game as possible, if that’s something you’re interested in. 

Regardless, you will have to play with others eventually. If your friends are already into WoW it sounds like you have a good community/potential guild to turn to, but I’d recommend waiting until you feel confident in playing your character before entering groups with strangers. Frankly, the WoW community can be pretty damn toxic. I’m no expert, but I’ve played it long enough to feel confident in my abilities and I’m still cursed out by pissed off dungeon groups if we wipe. Raids will expect you to have learned the fights via youtube prior to coming in and when many inevitably haven’t (because it’s a game and homework shouldn’t be required lol) they’ll start yelling too. PvP is just a mess of accusations and slurs, depending on how badly it’s going... so yeah. I don’t want to make it sound like WoW is made up of nothing but assholes, but there are enough to make an impression. It’s something to avoid if you’re not feeling up to it, but given how much of the later content requires working with others, wait until you’re geared, have a good handle on your class, and are in a good head space before diving in. Or stick to playing with friends. 

Speaking of friends, if you do want to play with them I’d recommend picking their faction (Horde or Alliance). That will allow you to visit each other in major cities, help with the same quests, queue up for activities together, etc. Though the story has moved away from the Horde vs. Alliance rivalry recently, the gameplay still very much divides them. 

Check out everything you can (without getting too overwhelmed!) WoW has a LOT going on and while very little is required, much of it is beneficial while also being easy to miss, just by virtue of there being so much to do. Pick up any quests you find, explore as much of the world as you can, talk to NPCs, save the loot you get, etc. You can always get rid of something  — drop a quest, destroy/sell an item  — but it’s a bummer if you just go and sell everything only to realize you actually needed all that stuff for something else. So go slow and check out your options before making decisions. 

To help with that, I recommend WoWhead and Icy Veins for info, or just good old-fashioned plugging the thing into google with “wow” next to it. How often do I look stuff up? Constantly. MMOs don’t have cheating culture the way a single-player game might (I mean, there’s absolutely cheating, just not in the same way), so don’t be afraid to just google anything and everything you want. The comment sections of a page are your best friend. Whereas the official description may give you an overwhelming amount of information you don’t actually need, player comments tend to focus on what others really want to know: here’s where to find this NPC, yes this quest is bugged, make sure you do X before Y, etc. WoW has become a lot more accessible over the years in terms of helping players figure things out, but it’s still confusing at times, so make use of any resource you please. 

Another “cheat” is to use addons. I’d recommend grabbing WoWMatrix which will allow you to (safely) download addons without any of the hassle of putting it in the correct folders. I’d recommend Bagnon (makes all your bags open as a single window so you can see all your loot at once), Bartender (allows you to customize your action bar), Coordinates (puts a tiny, movable coordinates button on your screen which is basically necessary at this point to find things. Players will almost always provide coordinates when giving locations), HandyNotes (provides lots of info on your map, like how you go about summoning a rare mob), Pawn (helps you compare gear to see what’s best for your class/specialization), and if you do any PvP, Healers Have to Die, or HHTD, which marks all healers with a cross so they’re easy to spot in battle (always kill healers first! :D). WoWMatrix is SUPER easy to use  — just search for the addons you want via the application, download them, delete if you don’t like ‘em, and open it once in a while to “Update All” — and the various addons you can use are an absolute godsend. They make playing the base game that much better. 

If you’re someone invested in the story side of games, lore is going to be very weird here, just because WoW is 16 years old and you’ll be entering into the 8th expansion. I’ve played WoW since it came out and I don’t know wtf is going on a lot of the time lol. So just roll with it, or if you’re interested, make use of wikis, the novels, etc. But it’s not the sort of game where you’re in trouble if you have no idea who this person is or what battle they’re talking about. Just accept whatever they want you to do and pick up the story wherever you came in. 

You’re going to die a lot. A lot, a lot. That’s fine, everyone does. Again, not the sort of game where that’s a problem. Just know that you can either return to your corpse (flying there as a ghost) or rez at the graveyard you appear in if you’re willing to deal with a bad debuff for like 10 minutes. Also, all armor has durability that goes down over time, but it goes down faster the more you die, so you’ll want to repair (finding an NPC with the anvil icon) soon afterwards. 

There’s lots of little things to learn like that: a brown bag icon means you can sell to this person, blue exclamation marks are quests that will reappear daily, items with a gray name (as opposed to white, green, blue, or purple) are pretty much just junk and you can always sell them... there’s a lot. Pick things up as you go, keeping in mind that you’ll be given SO MUCH INFORMATION and no, you’re not going to learn it all at once. Part of the fun is figuring stuff out and seeing yourself improve. Feel free to ask questions too (there’s a chat box and you can speak to an entire zone at once), though frankly it’s a 50/50 chance whether someone will give an actual answer, or just roast you lol 

If you ever want to play “seriously,” I’d kinda recommend learning WoW with keybinding early on  — AKA, creating button shortcuts for various spells/skills so your mouse is only used for camera movement and targeting, rather than wasting time looking for the action you want to click on. I say “kinda” because I don’t do that. At this point my click method is too ingrained in my muscle memory for anything else, but I recognize that I’m in the minority for saying that’s an “okay” way to play. 

Anything is okay though. Do whatever. I mean, the above aside, literally my best advice is to just throw yourself headfirst into the game, accept that you’re going to mess so much up, shrug, and have fun with it. I spent an hour of my life running a Tourghast floor today... and then wasn’t able to beat the final boss. So I “wasted” that time since I didn’t get the loot, but who cares? It was fun! Literally do whatever and don’t let any of the assholes get to you. Someone sends a message you don’t like? Block them (right click their name in the chat box to get the option). Group is making you uncomfortable? Leave. Don’t know how to do something? Google it! The best thing about an MMO is also the most overwhelming: it’s a whole world with (almost) endless options, so though that freedom is exciting, it also means you have to curate your own experience. It’s a bit like being here on tumblr. Figure out all the nuances at you own pace, lurk as long as you’d like, and if someone is being annoying, google how to keep them out of your inbox. 

Idk how helpful any of these tips are, but I hope you enjoy it!! 😊

[strangertheory]

What about my son, Mike?

Mike Wheeler

(Nothing I say can truly summarize all my thoughts about Mike Wheeler. He's one of my favorite characters in the story! I have so much to say about Mike. But... here we go!)

Favorite thing about them:

Mike Wheeler is so open-hearted and passionately determined to do what is Right. Injustice and unfairness absolutely infuriates him. He is intensely loyal and protective of his friends. He is very much a Paladin in not only his D&D campaigns but also his own real life.

I love how Stranger Things makes it clear that you don't need to be macho or physically strong (or well coordinated, or fast on your feet) to be heroic. Mike is a true hero. He is a source of comfort and strength. He is humble and kind. He clearly sees the beauty in all his friends, but not always in himself. I don't think he realizes how important he is to the people in his life.

Mike Wheeler is a truly wonderful person. I wish more people in the world were like Mike.

Least favorite thing about them:

That's hard. If I had to identify a trait that Mike struggles with... hmm. Well: I find it kind of endearing, but I might argue that Mike can be a bit naive and unaware of certain things sometimes. For example: while Mike has a passionate, fire-spitting anger towards unfairness, he seems repeatedly shocked by certain kinds of injustice and that's part of why his first reaction is anger before he turns towards seeking a solution. He passionately believes in what is Right, and he cannot fathom that the unfairness isn't clear to those perpetrating it, whether that's his parents, Hopper, or someone more threatening. ("No I don't! No I don't understand!")

Favorite line:

"Well, if we're both going crazy, we'll go crazy together."

brOTP:

Mike and Lucas! They are clearly super close. I really enjoy their heated debates, and relate to their conversations a lot: like comparing Classic Coke and New Coke to The Thing and the remake. 😂 I debate things like that with friends all the time because even though it seems like an argument, it's kind-of just a mutual expression of shared interests that you enjoy discussing in-depth even if you don't agree. (Friendly disagreement and debate about shared interests can be a lot of fun! Yay, nerds!) I appreciate how Lucas often tries to help Mike with his problems whenever Mike is being totally oblivious. ("I just wish you'd consulted me! Cause the way you handled this: you're in deep shit!")

OTP:

Once upon a time a young boy went missing in Hawkins, and his close friend Mike Wheeler was determined to do everything he could to find him. Once he returned, Mike stayed by his side at the hospital, reminded him of the first time they met, and told him that he believes that "all this is happening for a reason" and that they would "go crazy together." Even if Will doesn't know about it yet, I truly believe that Mike is determined to keep that promise and that Mike is ultimately devoted to being by Will's side through everything. Now I'm just waiting for Will to realize that Mike is as devoted to him as he is devoted to Mike, and for Mike and Will to work through their fears together. I look forward to them finally being honest about their feelings with each other in future seasons. Mike Wheeler has no idea what to do with his feelings right now and he is also fully aware that his feelings are considered taboo in his community. Mike just wants to fit in and be accepted. He is trying so hard to grow up and be an adult now that he is going into high school. He thinks being an adult means abandoning things you love and conforming to societal expectations just like his mom and dad. "Just a little uncertainty can bring you down. And nobody wants to know you now! And nobody wants to show you how. So if you're lost and on your own... you can never surrender!" I believe that Mike is learning to accept and recognize his feelings for Will. Unfortunately, I do not think this will be an easy journey for either of them, but I am hopeful that they will each resolve their respective challenges and ultimately be happy together at the conclusion of the story.

nOTP:

As things currently stand for El's circumstances and life-experiences and maturity: I do not ship El and Mike. I care about El very much, and I am not very comfortable with her dating someone given that all of her memories of her life until a year ago involved being abused and completely isolated from normal society. She has no prior experience forming a healthy and safe attachment to another person. I don't feel comfortable with a 14 year old girl, that has not lived in society at all until very recently, and who has been horribly mistreated by those she had been taught to trust and obey, becoming romantically involved with the very first person that showed her any kindness in the outside world. She is a fast learner, but her naivité regarding the nuances of relationships is repeatedly and clearly demonstrated in the story ("What is friend?" "Would you be like my brother?" "Good screams?" "Bad screams?") Up until now: she literally lived her entire life being forced to do what Papa wanted. 👀 Even when she meets Benny, he manipulates her into telling him her name by withholding her food. Yes, he was a good guy. But I want El to know she doesn't have to give anyone ANYTHING in order to be fed. To deserve respect. To deserve safety and love. El might still be passively seeking to please others that are kind to her because it is how she has learned to survive. I hope she continues to learn that she doesn't have to do that. I'm glad that Max has encouraged El to be her own person, to demand Mike's honesty, to "try things on until [El] finds something that feels like [her]," to learn what she actually likes and to have her own opinions and desires that are not tied to the expectations and desires of others, and to "make her own rules." Whatever happens in El's storyline and in her relationships in the future: I hope she continues to embrace who she is and learns to love herself, while also learning more about this big world that is now at her feet for the first time in her entire life.

random headcanon:

Joyce is a little envious of Mike's collection of Will's drawings, but she doesn't say anything because she's glad they are so close. (My mom immediately wants to keep anything I make! When I give art to my sweetheart she still gets a bit jealous and wants it for herself.)

unpopular opinion:

My nOTP is probably (?) my most unpopular opinion about Mike. (And by extension, my OTP.) I am aware that not everyone interprets the story and the characters in the same way that I do. These are simply my interpretations of the subtext of Mike's relationships in Stranger Things, and we might have to agree to disagree.

song I associate with them:

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, which is on his official Spotify playlist.

favorite picture of them:

[kintsugi-sheep]

Orchard, 21.03.21: Vitamin Z

Vitamin Z

This week I was reminded of why I started this course of changes. I don’t know how appropriate it is to refer to someone as your muse today, but I knew regardless. It’s like an adrenaline shot to the heart, one of those cinematic, dramatic ones that snaps you out of the in-and-out, humdrum, mundane world around you and pulls you, heart-first, back into why you started what you were doing.

I probably won’t meet her again. I’m sure that ship is at a nicer dock perched on a virtuous coastline and carved out of six-pack abs. But, I’m grateful.

It’s easy to find the flaws in someone who rejected you. In her case, I couldn’t find any. She was just right to turn me down.

I missed her. I miss her. But there’s wonderful women everywhere. And I’ll take to heart the changes I need to make so that I don’t miss the next her that crosses my path.

 Budget

In the spirit of that, I sat down to figure out my budget for the next year. And it’s looking surprisingly optimistic.

My goal is to move up to Syracuse. With my financials figured out, I just need to not lose my job and I should be able to make it my next June.

Needless to say, I was happy to learn that.

 Facebook Writers

What I wasn’t so happy about is the series of Facebook groups I’ve joined. As you can tell, writing personal things isn’t really my strong suit. Certainly not in situations like this, where I’m making myself do it. But, considering that I am one writer out of hundreds of millions in the world, I imagined it be nice to acquaint myself with some people. Marketing for writers isn’t easy, after all. Especially when you’re not named.

But the communities are all pretty…vitriolic.

A man asked which of two covers worked better for his book. Being a group of writers, he received dozens of detailed responses. Answers wherein the speaker was more interested in showing off their understanding of literary and publishing nuances than actually answering the questions.

My response: “Number 1.”

A woman made a detailed list of the stereotypes applied when male writers write sexually active males against how they write sexually active females. Of course, the problem was these were stereotypes in writing. “Men who sleep around are great! But women who sleep around are sluts!” “Men who aren’t interested in sex are focused, driven by success in life! Women who aren’t interested in sex are lesbians!”

She applied this long list of writing faux pas on the shoulders of male writers. And this led to more arguing.

People post clips of their book as they’re writing it. A commenter tells them to use more commas and write shorter sentences. A poster volunteers themselves to give out their opinion, making sure to note that they’ve run a blog for the last ten years, so you know their word has value.

A Facebook certified “Conversation Starter” describes The Face by Dean Koontz as “tiresome, tedious, ostentatious” with “florid prose and so many extended metaphors”. This followed by a flood of comments about how much Dean Koontz sucks and questions of how he got so popular.

I’ve never read Dean Koontz, but I’ve heard of him. I don’t recognize any of these people by face or name.

Crabs in a barrel. There’s no success too small for these people to put down. There’s no templar too noble for them to not shit on. There’s a million complex, pretentious, “it depends”, pseudointellectual answers to simple questions like, “Does the blue cover or black cover look better?”

I’m happy I didn’t go to college to write. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to some out this exhausting.

It feels like people don’t understand that there’s success to be had for everybody when it comes to writing. There’s not always fame and critical success. Or an interview tour or a movie deal. Or a place in a high school text book or pop mythology. Or billions of dollars in the bank and vacations to hunt sharks with a shotgun.

But success is available to everyone. Appearance may vary.

I don’t know if I’ll stay in these groups. Or if a non-collegiate writer like me would be expunged. But I take peace in the knowledge that if I ever want to know what type of writer I don’t want to be I can just open up Facebook, click on the group, scroll half a page down, and find some example of how not to pursue this career.

 In the Name of Love for Shaman King

I should also make it clear that I’m going to forego the Shaman King breakdown I intended to write. I have enough distractions from what it is I need to do.

I’m disappointed twice over. First, I don’t have the ability to pick up a new discipline and edit a video together. Maybe if I were more patient or observant, but I’m just not there yet. Secondly, I let the new viewers, the ones who get legitimately excited to experience something I used to love, who craft theories and breakdown themes, get to me.

My love of Shaman King inspired me as an artist and a writer. And while I put down my colored pencils nearly a decade ago now, I still write. And I still carry those themes of spirituality and optimism into the stories I craft.

And that’s the best way for me to present my love. Through my actual work. Through what actually inspires me. Through patience. And not a six-hour list of things I love about the series.

And that wasn’t a jab at legitimate reviewers. That was the plan.

 Mom

Also, I was given a mattress by my mom this week.

Family’s a weird point for me. I don’t know if I’m ready to get into that, but I feel that I need to do a better job as someone who owes his existence to other people. I forgot who it was, but someone once said that there are two types of parents. You can be a role model or you can be a cautionary tale.

 Coworkers

I’m in a good place with my coworkers, too.

The front-of-house is mostly college-aged—closer to my age than most of back-of-house—and their optimistic look on life keeps me grounded in positivity as well.

I didn’t work in too many kitchens after culinary school, but they could definitely get rough. It’s nice to be able to enjoy your work.

 Commitment to Making Flash Fiction as Flash Fiction

I needed to reassure myself in my commitment to writing flash fiction.

I made an assurance to edit one of the stories when I posted it to Reddit a few days ago. It didn’t take me long to realize I shouldn’t have done that. Flash fiction is the nice decompressing poop that you take in the morning before you begin the stuff you legitimately work on. And if it’s nice enough you may even be compelled to mold that poop into a decent short.

I got myself caught up. I was afraid that, having posted many of these low-quality poops online, people would begin to judge me as nothing more than a poop writer. And when it came time to actually try to get people to read my web serial, they’d be like, “I don’t care if it’s free. You’re a poop writer. I can’t waste my time with you.”

Yahtzee Croshaw does a series called “Dev Diary” on YouTube, where he breaks down the process of making indie video games. In one of them he talked about how perfectionism sinks in. How it’s tempting to keep your work to yourself, to keep it from being judged so that others may not, by extension, judge you. He said he had to remember that he was not his work.

And I suppose I have to do the same. I’m not a hobbyist with a single story that I’m convinced will put my name on the map. I’m a writer with dozens of different ideas and could get excited about a dozen new ones in the next week.

Boxing matches are won by throwing many small punches, not throwing one with all of your bodyweight and hoping it’s a hit.

 A Non-Racist Uber Driver

I had a race-related discussion with an Uber driver.

It was nice.

 Pre-College Memories

I reflected on my lackadaisical approach when it came to applying for college. I was short tempered and impatient and ignorant.

It’s thanks to Vitamin Z that I realized I don’t have to actually go back to school to do what I need to do.

But the effort I need to put forward will be monumental nonetheless.

I told you I’d come back more positive.

[pro-bee]

“Ziva, sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons.” “People always think their own reasons are right. Especially parents.” “Yeah, they got perspective.” “Parents don’t make mistakes!”  “Yeah.” “My mother never told me what kind of a man my father was. Perhaps she thought I was not strong enough to handle it.” “Nah, she was just being a mom.” “How do you know?” “Perspective.” “Are you lonely Gibbs?” “You’re never alone when you have kids. ‘Night, kid.”

God, this is one of my favourite scenes of the series, and I think recent developments give it new depth because this conversation has kind of come full circle.

I love it because this moment, right here, is the Ziva-Gibbs relationship in a nutshell. 

[very long post with lots of feelings under the cut]

You’ve got Ziva frustrated at the tangled webs people weave to protect their families, even when it ultimately ends up unraveling one giant mess.

The whole episode, Ziva’s interactions with Mariam are fraught with both compassion and frustration. She feels a sort of kindred spirit in Mariam, trying to survive a conflict with no winner but only losers while escaping with some sort of humanity. Yet she’s also deeply frustrated, because Ziva is tired of this shit and particularly the kind of shit men will put the women in their lives through in the name of honour, and she has trouble seeing why any woman would stand by it when they can clearly see they are in the wrong.

It’s one of the most interesting aspects of Ziva’s character to me, one which I wish they would have explored more in the series, because she’s a bit of a dichotomy. She’s clearly deeply entrenched in the system her father raised her in, but she also is compassionate towards the very people she was probably trained to mistrust, knowing that at the end of the day, they’re all after the same thing -- a peaceful existence where they are free to be who they are. It’s a nuanced view that isn’t always given the chance to breathe in the media. 

But, here she is having just finished a case where someone -- a woman --  has once again covered up for the misdeeds of the men in her life, because she tried to protect them. Which gets her thinking about her own mother, who she now realizes covered up the things Eli did from her as a child so she could grow up with a father she could trust and love, even if we know now and Ziva would learn as a young adult that he did not deserve it. 

We don’t know what happened to her mom (other than Ziva says she was killed, like Tali and Ari), but we can probably infer that she went to her grave trying to protect Ziva from Eli’s exploits.

(Now I’m wondering if Tali and their mom were killed in the same event?)

She’s still reeling from the fallout of Somalia two years earlier, of cutting her father out of her life, of trying to figure out if she’s able to forgive him, look past what he put her through and put other people through, if she can find a place in her heart for him the way Mariam has for her son and husband even if they’ve committed atrocious acts.

And that is where Gibbs comes in: That it doesn’t make Ziva weak that her mom didn’t share any of this with her, one which she had to find out herself the hard way. It’s that her mother loved her so much that she wanted to shield her from that part of their lives, let her keep her innocence for as long as possible so that she could live in a world where her father wasn’t capable of heinous acts in the name of “duty”, because he was still her father and she needed that presence in her life, such as it was.

As we know now, Ziva seems to have grown up thinking that being strength = taking things and moving on. But we know that true strength, one which Mariam shows and arguably Ziva’s mother did, is being able to accept those parts of your life and still maintain your humanity and decency.

Then that flips to the Ziva-Gibbs relationship, because she has a moment of honesty with him, asking if he’s lonely. With Borin he brushes it off, but with Ziva, he offers his truth as he knows it. “You’re never lonely when you have kids.” Is it a delusion he tells himself? Perhaps, but in that very moment, I believe that he believes it, completely. Because he cares for these people, the same ones who have spent the entire week trying to set him up with someone specifically because they care for him and don’t want him to be alone. 

But more than that, when he tells her, “’Night, kid,” he’s not just teasing her about being one of the “office kids” who he looks over and takes under his wing. Coming off the discussion about the parents, he’s also telling her that he’s watching over her here the way her father couldn’t. That he sees her heart, the way she cared for Mariam and her family, and he knows where she belongs. He’s reminding her that she is part of a family here, one that may have had its own share of secrets to protect one another, but caring nonetheless. He’s acknowledging the love he has for them (and her) as much as the love they have (and she has)  for him. 

What really gets me, though, watching this now after season 17, especially these last two episodes, is how much their relationship has come full circle. We went from them being his “kids” to Ziva fighting for “her family” in the season 10 finale, to all the heartache between season 11-16, to the bitterness of season 17, and back to their father-daughter relationship.

Because now that Ziva is a parent herself, she has that perspective that Gibbs is talking about.

She, too, has now done the wrong things for what she believed were the right reasons. 

(Ahem, keeping Tali from Tony. Faking her death. Acting alone to fight terrorists. etc.)

And now, of course, with her perspective, she can see why Gibbs did or didn’t do the things he did, the same way she can probably now better understand why her own mother did what she did when she was a child.

(Except Eli. Eli is still the worst. In this house we drag Eli David.)

She has done things as a mom that have been painful and impossible but necessary, the way Mariam did or Gibbs did or her own parents did.

Yet another thing that I love about it is how it comes around for Gibbs, too. He wasn’t lonely here, he claims, because he had the love of his family, his “kids”. Admittedly I have only seen a few episodes between season 14-16, but the few that I have seen, what has stood out to me is just how lonely and isolated Gibbs has become. (I never saw the Paraguay arc, but I take it that messed him up a lot?)

Arguably, he’d lost his “kids.” Ziva was “dead,” Tony was gone, Abby left, McGee was around but now busy with his own family. (Of the newbies, Ellie is the only team member with a normal family so she doesn’t need the surrogate parent in Gibbs, and Torres, well, I don’t know enough about him but he’s got a whole other kind of personality and doesn’t seem to crave that parental bond the way the others do, and Kasie keeps herself a bit at a distance.)

And, yeah, obviously “kids” grow up and move on, but the episodes I’ve seen, it does seem that Gibbs holds himself back at a distance even further than he used to. (I remember in one of Ellie’s episodes in season 11, Gibbs essentially told her that he went easy on her and held back because every time he looked at her desk all he could see was that Ziva wasn’t there.) He has grown older and colder, at all-time peak aloof, save for rare moments. He just seems sad. (Like, not obviously grief-stricken, just... worn out.)

But then in these latest Ziva episodes, we’ve seen him more animated than we have in a long time. He’s laughed and yelled and choked up and smiled. Because something has finally clicked back into place. And it’s not just that Ziva is back, although that is a huge part of it, but it’s like this black cloud that has hung over them has lifted. The guilt and the grief have dissipated. The missing piece of the puzzle has been put into place. And even if Ziva isn’t actually around full-time, knowing she’s out there is comforting. 

And mending that relationship with her is a big part of that. Because Ziva was “the favourite”. I mean, I know Abby was, technically, but he had different relationships with them. Abby’s was a parent-child one, too, because she too was a girl who’d lost her parents, but she’s so sunny and self-assured that I think theirs was more one of comfort. However, with Ziva, I think he recognized immediately how vulnerable she was, how emotionally fragile she was beneath the bravado, and that she was a girl from a broken home who’d never really been protected, and was now making her way in the world without having learned the safety of her father’s love. Plus you add the shared combat experience between them, and the connection makes even more sense. If you think that she left under the most contentious of circumstances, then (nearly) met a tragic end, you can see why that guilt would have weighed down those memories of Gibbs’ even more than Abby’s, who left of her own volition to follow her own dreams. (lol let’s not get into the off-screen reasons.)

I digress.

What I’m trying to say is that now that Gibbs and Ziva are back in each other’s lives, and have laid their cards on the table and confessed their hurt and in turn forgiven each other for it, they have reached a new stage of their relationship. That they both have new perspective. That Ziva understands what her mother did, but also what Gibbs did. And Gibbs tried to protect Ziva then like he has now, but understands better what that actually means for her and what she needs. (Ah, communication, what a concept.)

So they’ve both done very wrong things for what they thought were their own right reasons.

He won’t be lonely anymore, because he’s got his kids back, and his almost-daughter most of all. He’s not going to let her go anymore than she will him.

And on another note: That puts Ziva’s comment in 17x02 about how she was never alone, even on the run, because she always had her daughter, into relief. Because, yeah, she was alone while Tali was with Tony, but she carried Tali in her memories and in her heart, and that was her guiding light throughout this whole ordeal. So Gibbs was right, you never are alone when you have kids. And Ziva will never be alone ever again.

[rigelmejo]

Just a bit of a self reflection:

Studying Multiple Languages at Once: 

French and Japanese were generally easy to keep separate in my mind, because they are quite different, and also because I had a good 6 months of French study to the point where I was in the A2 area of using the language before I started Japanese. So, they were at different levels - my french was getting close to intermediate when my japanese was starting at bare bones beginner.

And that is a tip polyglots have often given, if someone plans to study multiple languages at once: to get some level of skill in one language before starting another, and/or to have each language you’re studying at different levels. In this way, you’re rarely studying the exact same skills in both languages at the same time. For example, when you’re first learning japanese pronunciation, you are well past basic pronunciation in french and more focused on intermediate grammar. When you are learning basic everyday conversational skills in japanese, you’re learning how to write letters and essays and talk about special topics, etc. When you’re learning how to read kana in japanese, you’re already past basic reading in french and moving onto slightly more difficult reading etc. And then theoretically, you’d wait until you’re japanese (or equivalent 2nd language) is past those beginning learning tasks before adding another language to study.

For a short time I did have a 3rd language I was studying - Russian. At that point, my French was pretty solid, my Japanese was in the “starting to struggle to read manga” stage lol (but that was beyond absolute beginner, since I already knew many common words, basic kanji, all of Genki 1 and some of Genki 2, some other grammar etc). So Russian was the only language I was an absolute beginner in. I only needed to learn Russian because I was dating someone who spoke russian, who’s roommates all spoke russian, who’s family and baby brother all spoke russian, and it was helpful for me to be able to understand basic russian so I could understand all the daily household conversations I ran into. Also, so I could understand texts, and help babysit their baby brother. So I really just focused on basic everyday conversation skills. I learned high frequency words, words they used, the writing system, glanced through a summarized grammar guide, and listened to a podcast focused on speaking conversationally (and some basic grammar I’d need to speak/listen to others). In a few months I got where I needed to be. I ended up dropping Russian when that relationship ended later, since I didn’t need Russian anymore (although one day I might study it again so I can read, since I’d just started managing to read stories in Russian toward the end). My point though is, it was not hard to study it in addition to the other two languages.

I think that is because: Russian’s different enough from both French and Japanese in order to not cause confusion, I was not a beginner in either other language so I was never studying the same level or topics in two languages at once, and my French was advanced enough that I could put it on “pause” or only study 20 minutes every few days for some moderate improvement over time. Most of my French study at that point was just immersion reading/watching. Japanese in contrast was more difficult, I had to spend either most of my time on Japanese or on Russian to see significant progress in either - so of course both were slowing the study of the other down. I didn’t make significant gains in Japanese until I dropped Russian. So ultimately, I think it’s easier to study multiple languages, if only one language needs large amounts of study for improvement - and the other language(s) just need maintenance and improvement through immersion (so improving listening skills, or reading skills). I once had some success just working on French grammar, while more actively studying Japanese - but that was because the grammar study was mostly review and me formally filling in “blanks in knowledge” so it wasn’t very intensive.

Another tip polyglots tend to give: try not to study two similar languages at the same time. And, if you do, see the above point about AT LEAST making sure those languages are at significantly different levels so you don’t further add to your own confusion by studying the same “level” similar pronunciation/grammar/writing system topics etc at the exact same time. So like, do not start French and Spanish at the same time. You certainly can - and I think any progress is good progress. But I have tried to do this, and it definitely made everything more confusing for me. I tried to start Spanish after a year of French study. That was TOO SOON for me to try. I still did not have a solid grasp on French pronunciation, because I hadn’t studied it enough. Likewise, I had a vague recognition of French spelling but could not really easily differentiate it from Spanish or Italian. So when I started studying Spanish at that time, everything just meshed together in my head and both languages confused my understanding of the other. I did not make much progress. So I put off Spanish for another time. The upside of that experience is that I definitely realized where I should be focusing my goals in French - I read a lot more grammar at that point paying much more attention to conjugation endings and spelling, and I made listening a main goal of mine and did listening/shadowing practice regularly after that until I improved a bit. I still think my French listening, and pronunciation, is pretty basic at best. But I’m a lot better at differentiating between French and Spanish and Italian now. I am much better in my own internal mind voice, at sounding out words differently depending on the language - they’re no longer one “meshed” sound in my head, but very distinctly different sounding languages. A lot of that had to do with lots of French listening practice, and then when I started Spanish again I did a lot of Spanish listening practice to really hammer home how different they sounded. At 2 years, Spanish was a lot easier to start studying. I no longer ran into the confusion issue between the languages nearly as much. 

At that time, there was no great concrete need for me to progress in Spanish - I was not trying to read, watch, or speak with anyone in Spanish regularly. I had mostly been studying out of a simple broad desire to learn some Spanish. So I ended up putting that off for a later time - for when I’ve got more concrete motivations and goals for the language. Meanwhile, at that point, I’d been doing French mostly just through immersion and comprehensible input - very easy to do or not do, just over time picking up more words, and since i’d accomplished my goal of being able to read the novels I wanted to read, I was fine with that “mostly maintenance and a bit of listening improvement/vocabulary improvement.” I had also been doing Japanese - as usual, intensively, as either 30% or 70% of my time depending on the day or my goals for the month (versus spanish for the other portion). I’d been doing Nukemarine’s LLJ Memrise Flashcard Set, still chipping away progress at improving my reading comprehension. Eventually I got burned out from flashcards (because I TRULY hate flashcards, and while I APPRECIATE how much SRS seems to help people learn, I deeply desire a spaced repetition study method where I don’t have to touch any flashcards at all...)

So I paused my japanese study a bit, moving it to just ‘immersion’ like french - every once in a while playing Kingdom Hearts in japanese, and slowly chipping my way through some of my simple manga.

Then Chinese came in like a surprise. A big megalith of a surprise. Weirdly enough, I had deja vu of seeing a clip of Guardian, in a dream I had, like a month before I ever actually saw or heard anything about it in real life. Then I got into SOTUS and the thai drama community on tumblr by extension, and Guardian popped up occassionally as a show mentioned - which I had zero recognition of. Then, one day, that video clip from my dream was on my tumblr dash in real life, and I felt mega deja vu upon seeing it. And I played it, and it was just like my dream. Which was bizarre. So, since I’d seen this show name dropped a few times, and it’d been in my dream before I ever knew about it, and deja vu finally happened as I ran into the exact same thing in real life - I decided I might as well check it out. 

So I did. And it was exactly, specifically, everything I love in a story. It also immediately reminded me of that one semester in High School I took of Chinese - because when I was watching the show, the words learned back then were all I recognized (the numbers, ni hao, xie xie, zai jian). So while I watched I picked up some words, since it was frustrating (and a disappointment to my old Chinese class and teacher’s efforts) that I clearly knew so little. I used google translate to look up some characters and phrases. I looked into the hanzi a little in my spare time. By the time I finished the show, I was aware there was a novel for the book and at the time it was only 1/3 translated into english. So BAM - there was one giant motivation to learn chinese. So I could read the book. 

Nothing interests or motivates me like characterization and stories, and the details that build those things. Nothing in my whole life, for any of my life, ever captures my attention and my passion like these topics. So yes, wanting to learn to read in a language JUST to read a novel and get the full story, the characterizations and metaphors and themes the author originally intended with their creation, is exactly the kind of thing I do. 

(Incidentally, that’s also what drives me to study Japanese - some of my favorite artists and writers from childhood to adulthood create japanese stories, and at some point in my life I WANT to experience them in japanese with their most authentic intent and delivery... because often nuances are changed from a small to quite large degree in translation, and I want to also get to experience the original story closest to how it was intended.)

So with Chinese, once I was sure I wanted to learn, I made myself a somewhat solid study plan - since I’ve studied languages enough now to have a rough idea of what helps me most. I stuck to it. And I dropped all other language studies, except as passive immersion (on occasion I pick up a French or Japanese book and just read a bit to make sure I’m retaining what I know passively, even if the ability to actively recall words is fading a bit). I have been intensively studying Chinese. 

A great thing about Chinese, is it has so much art - shows, novels, music, active fandoms, communities around the world. The chinese internet feels as vast as the english one, with just as many endless things to discover. Even if I only ever had wanted to read priest novels - Priest has written a TON, and a TON are going to be adapted into dramas, and MANY have audio dramas if I ever want to listen to them! That’s years, decades, of content I already know I’m interested in! Then if one expands the content they explore, like I did, there’s so many other artists to run into and fall in love with! I ran into MXTX’s The Untamed, then mdzs, and that’s yet another megalith of content and fan communities and other novels by that author! That’s also an intro into a genre I didn’t even know existed, and there is SO MUCH MORE in that genre to be discovered! It’s an endless treasure trove of fantastic beautiful breathtaking creations, and efforts, and art. It’s bottomless, and once it caught my interest it ensured I’d have ample motivation to keep studying, and knowledge that whatever improvements I make will pay off for years and decades because I’ll have all of this content to enjoy over time. I’m guessing... for english learners, a similar thing is experienced. I would imagine, if I’d been as passionate about Japanese content, then I might have experienced this with Japanese. (However, for me, I’m not actually interested intensely in very much content in japanese except for my specific lifelong favorites... I imagine that might change if my ability to read improves, then maybe I WILL discover jdramas and jnovels that capture my overall lifelong interest more overwhelmingly... another big difference between my interest levels surely has to do with me being able to usually find english translations of the japanese stories I love, whereas with Chinese probably 40% of the things I’m interested in have no english translation - some of Daomubiji, some dramas with actors I like, some audiodramas, many novels, and FAN CONTENT which is HUGE is often untranslated like amazing fanvideos and fanfictions and fancomics).

I knew based on my Japanese studies, how long I should estimate it was going to take to do absolutely anything BASIC in chinese. So I dropped any other intense language studies, focused all my attention on chinese, and am still doing so. I knew both Japanese and Chinese are considered Category 5 languages by  FSI, taking a minimum of (88 weeks) 2200 hours to learn. I knew based on my personal experience with Japanese, just how long it took me in that language to hit what I consider milestones for my personal goals. 

Like: how long until I know the 1000 most common words, how long until I understand past/present/future tense, how long until I can parse what sentences mean if I have a dictionary (recognizing the different sentence components), how long until I can understand the gist of short captions and lines in daily life situations, how long until I can watch short basic videos for the gist of meaning, how long until I can read very simple stories like short daily life comics, how long until I can read straightforward summary texts (like wikipedia, news articles), how long until I can read Graded Reader stories for gist meaning, how long until I can read short stories in general for gist meaning, how long until I can read short things for complete/near complete comprehension, how long until I can read a page of a novel for gist meaning, read a page of a novel for near/complete comprehension, then a chapter, then a book, how long until I can watch a show in the language for gist meaning, how long until I can navigate a game menu screen or website navigation in the language, how long until I could talk about basic A1 topics, how long until I could discuss most any topic on a basic level, how long until I could start discussing topics more in depth, etc. 

In French, I had the “easy” baseline of how long these things took me. In Japanese, I had a “hard” baseline - because these things took YEARS in japanese and I only ever reached a few of those milestones in japanese. I still have a long way to go in Japanese. But, for the milestones I did reach in Japanese, I had an example of how long it took me in a Category V language to reach them. 

I planned my Chinese study accordingly. I knew what helped speed me up in Japanese the most, so I added those study methods to Chinese immediately - learning common characters, listening. I knew what helped with all my language studies and added those too - learning most common words, past/present/future tense, reading a grammar guide, and READING/consuming target language content frequently. I immersed myself in French often when I’d studied French, but with Japanese I rarely did that until 2+ years into studying the language. I knew it was a good way to gauge my progress, and suspected I’d improve in reading/listening faster than I had in Japanese, if i DID IT MORE this time around for Chinese.

---

Reading Specific Tangent: 

I was right. My Chinese has been steadily improving about half as fast as my French. The slower speed is to be expected, since Chinese generally takes much longer for native english speakers to learn than French. But my Chinese is also improving significantly faster than Japanese - twice as fast so far. Which is extremely motivating for me, and exciting. I could not be more grateful. I am so absolutely ecstatic that I can currently watch Chinese tv shows without subtitles if I want to and follow the gist - I still can’t do that in Japanese! I’m so excited I can read Chinese sometimes without a dictionary, and often with a dictionary - my Japanese lags behind at basic-reading-with-dictionary and absolutely NO ability to read complex text like paragraphs or light novels or news even with a dictionary.

I plan to keep focusing a lot of structured study on Chinese until I can read Priest novels comfortably with a dictionary. Right now, I can read them with a dictionary, but the speed is so slow because I have to look up too many words per page, so it’s not comfortable. I think, if I’m being optimistic, I’m about halfway there. As long as I keep studying consistently. Measurably, I’m in the middle of HSK 4 knowledge wise, and while I think getting to HSK 6 will only make me ‘intermediate,’ I do think that should be enough knowledge to be able to read what I want with the help of a dictionary a bit more comfortably than I am doing so now. If I’m supremely lucky, all the reading I’m doing right now will pay off, and maybe reading will be very comfortable with occasional dictionary lookup once I get to that rough HSK 6 goal. (I definitely think personal ambiguity tolerance matters - in Chinese, the statistics I’ve often found indicate readers at HSK 4 go in generally knowing only around 50% of words in target language texts, which is brutally low compared to the statistic of 98% comprehension to comfortably read extensively. Now... when I was first starting to learn French, I immediately dived into reading when I had pitifully little comprehension, like 50%! So I’m used to it feeling brutal at first, and still trying to do it! Then as my French improved, I experienced 70% comprehension and up as so refreshingly easier, that I didn’t personally see it as a slog (even though it very much still is a slog of ambiguity, dictionary use, and accepting you can only understand the gist usually and only occasionally specific details). 

With Chinese, pessimistically you hit the 70s percentage of comprehension in HSK 4 - HSK 6, and don’t get to the 90% at all. Optimistically, you hit the 70s% in HSK 3, and by HSK 5-6 you’re at 95-98% comprehension which is MUCH more comfortable for pretty much everyone. Which.... I can say from my own personal experience, that lines up. Once I passed HSK 3 knowledge and in the middle of HSK 4, I feel much more comfortable reading anything I want. Yeah, it’s still BRUTAL. But it’s more the slog French was at 70% comprehension - it’s hard to read for more than a few pages if the material is difficult, and its easier for me to read difficult materials for ‘gist meaning’ rather than precise details, and it’s easier for me to read simpler-materials for longer periods of time. But I can, technically, read any material with a dictionary without feeling lost and incapable of comprehending the main ideas. So if this trend continues, by HSK 6 I should actually be closer to the 90s% comprehension wise, if not well into them, at which point reading will genuinely feel comfortable in comparison to the difficulty of it so far. In contrast, if someone has a lower tolerance for slogging through ambiguity than I do, they might find 70% comprehension absolutely unbearable and give up. 

According to studies (one is “The Percentage of Words Known in a Text and Reading Comprehension” by Norbert Schmitt,  XiangYing Jiang, William Grabe), people generally do not feel comfortable reading to learn new words/for enjoyment until around 98% comprehension. Even in the 80s% and low 90s%, often people will find it too frustrating. So for a language like Chinese... where often the official study levels like HSK may theoretically get you to the 90s% but not always the high 90s%... then even after the highest HSK level some people will find it too frustratingly ambiguous to read! And with the pessimistic estimate, HSK 6 will only get them to 77% comprehension - so if they’re uncomfortable with a level of ambiguity I am used to, they’re going to hit a wall at how frustrating it will be at first to start reading! And all these percentages are based on spoken language comprehension - its likely all novels/long text are going to be at least somewhat more difficult, further lowering the % likely comprehended.

So... for a Chinese language learner, it is beneficial to either have a high tolerance to consuming content despite high ambiguity, or else to get yourself used to it. Because no matter how high an official level like HSK you study to, you’re likely to have to start off at a frustratingly low comprehension level when you first start diving into target language content. A comprehension level low enough that it’s expected for you to be frustrated. I... already went through this kind of intense frustration and just kind of slogged my way through it in French, and thankfully I studied French long enough to see what the payoff down the line was for such an attitude. I personally think my reading comprehension in French improved as rapidly as it did, precisely because I did start reading immediately (even when I was reading stuff I only comprehended 50-70%). I was fortunate to experience in real time that comprehension % increase through the months as I read more. This gives me an example of how the process should work with Chinese and other languages eventually, if I do the same thing. 

With Chinese, my comprehension % has increased half as fast, so the difficulty is harder for longer, but ultimately I’m still seeing the difficulty slowly lessen as my comprehension slowly improves. In my own experience, I also feel I had to consume a lot more chinese content than I did French content, in order to see my comprehension increase. So: Chinese is taking 2 times as long to improve, and also I am consuming content almost every day in comparison to about half with the once-or-twice-a-week French content I used to consume. So not only am I bearing the less comprehensible % levels longer, but I’m also dealing with it more often with more content regularly. Of course it is going to take a tolerance to bear ambiguity... in order to make yourself do this the way I did. A tolerance where, even if you had it for another (in theory easier) language, you will have to exercise that tolerance more for Chinese. At least, once you’ve decided to start reading. 

My point is that... one should try to be willing to tolerate to a higher degree of ambiguity when consuming content in Chinese, then they would normally tolerate in their native language. Because it seems like whether one starts at a low level, or a ‘high’ level, they’re going to eventually have to dive into content with a higher ambiguity than they’d probably prefer at first. And it will take practice building up that comprehension level through consuming real content, until that level finally gets up to what is considered more universally ‘comfortable.’ And if you, like me, can view what’s less comfortable as ‘more comfortable’ in comparison to where you started, that perspective has made the experience feel more bearable for me. It might help make it more bearable for others? 

When I browse Chinese learning forums, I usually see a few kinds of approaches to this steeper comprehension percentage, in comparison to say a language like French. 1st approach some people do is to learn ALL the characters they can beyond HSK (usually 3000-4800), and learn 5000-10k most frequently used words (if 5000, then some words outside of what HSK covered) - before they dive into reading. 2nd approach is those that decide to dive into reading at HSK 4-6, and make flashcards for the new words they come across - deciding that they’ll have to keep learning new words/characters anyway, for a significant amount of time, until they can read comfortably. This 2nd approach further splits into people who use software to make unknown-word lists ahead of time and pre-study all of them, and people who use SRS flashcard software to either pre-study those words or study while reading. The SRS flashcard crowd usually either also bases their cards on all the new unknown words they’ll need, or at least the words that pop up frequently in the new material they’re reading. A 3rd approach is people who rely on graded readers and learn words mostly through reading (outside of focused HSK/course/other study), then eventually get to the HSK 5-6 level and get frustrated by the low comprehension % they have of native target language material, so they move next to drama subtitles/comics/simple novels and either bear through the low comprehension for a while, or also use approach 1 and/or 2 above once they branch into the more complicated stuff. 

These approaches all overlap each other a bit. The big differences are just how some people deal with the low comprehension % by pre-studying huge amounts of material (to boost their comprehension at least for the one material they’re trying to consume) - like pre-learning all the new words in a book before trying to read it, or learning all the new words in the first chapters of a book so that in the future your comprehension % of the book is a higher level then it was at the very beginning. And the other people, who decide they’re going to bear with lower comprehension % for the sake of wide exposure and volume of material consumed. This second group would be - people following the Massive Immersion Approach, people who read for gist comprehension of main ideas rather then near/full comprehension of text (so 2nd approach SRS people who might add new words to study if they pop up frequently, but will also skip studying a lot of unknown words they run into), 3rd approach people who generally don’t make pre-study lists or plans and just kind of brute-force consume the content until it gets easier, etc. While I’m sure there’s MANY arguements out there about which way works better, which ways are more ‘efficient’ - I personally think either way eventually results in improvement in comprehension. The big difference is a decision on trade off: do you decide to study much bigger BULKS of information upfront, in order to temporarily make comprehension % higher for a specific new material you’re trying to comprehend, or do you study nothing upfront and bear with lower comprehension % for a longer duration of time as you consume a specific new material? Over time I would assume both approaches will result in future content eventually being more comprehensible, until it eventually becomes a high enough comprehension % that the learner no longer feels it requires bulk study ahead of time or high tolerance for ambiguity. 

I feel that, at least with studying Chinese, that question above about trade offs is relevant for a longer duration of time than it is for languages categorized as ‘easier’ for a learner to study. Like, French? I would guess, that if UNLIKE ME, you learned the 3000 most common words immediately, then started with graded readers (either during that word learning or after to increase vocabulary level more), and worked your way up to native target language content, you would generally find reading to be a comfortable level of comprehension all the way through. 3000 high frequency words in many languages gets you to about 95% comprehension. That’s still a little under the 98% comprehension you need to start reading and picking up most new words comfortably from context. But the 95% would get you close enough that graded readers, and simple texts would be easy to read extensively. And hopefully eventually, even more complex texts would be bearable with a dictionary and you’d quickly get to a point where your comprehension eventually increased to that comfortable comprehension % level. 

[everythingthatdidntfitelsewhere]

As someone that has lived Rue’s story

And as someone really not that far removed from it despite how many lifetimes ago it seems, I can't say how weird it is to really "see myself" on screen for the first time.

It is so damn refreshing too see the topics of addiction and recovery through the lens of a young person tackled authentically. When I first heard about Euphoria, I was intrigued given how much I related to the premise, but years of disappointment had me hesitant. I've seen many shows over the years try to tackle these topics, only to fall flat and teeter between glamorizing or overdramatizing, often turning into a shortlived after school special ripped right from the D.A.R.E. curriculum or devolving into a beautiful tragedy. Despite the increased visibility of those in recovery over the last few years, many of the creators/writers/producers/advisors etc. brought onto these series had struggled with addiction as young people, but entered recovery well into their adulthood, therefore lacking experiences specific to entering recovery as a teen. Needless to say, when I heard Sam Levinson's life story, I got hopeful, and that hope seems to have been well placed. The man lived through this shit, and it shows.

Something I'm particularly loving is the depiction of Rue's relationship to Jules and the nuances of it all. For those unfamiliar, it's common in the rooms of Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous to be told not to enter into a new relationship in your first year of recovery. It's a suggestion commonly ignored by the younger and older alike, especially by those trying to get into recovery for the first time. Heartbreak is a pain pertinent to the human experience, but for a group of people lacking the tools to cope and the experience to recognize when they're in trouble, that emotional ruin has life or death implications. As dramatic as that may sound, relapse has never been more dangerous with the emergence of fentanyl.

Nonetheless, there are many good reasons why remaining forseeably single is recommended, some of which revolves around the tendency for those struggling with drug addiction to replace their substance of choice with a number of things, healthy or not. Rather than using their newfound free time to work on themselves and their recovery, they instead transfer their obsession to anything from food, to sex, shopping, or relationships. Where once they fixated on getting and using drugs, now they may mood alter and avoid pervasive feelings of boredom, hopelessness, loneliness, etc. by inserting themselves into a relationship. Often times the person they are dating will also be troubled in some way, so they will alternate between rescuing each other, forgetting about their own problems by trying to fix someone else's. Although it is normal to share your struggles with a partner and them walking beside you, that is much different than needing them to carry you and coming to rely upon that, as you never learn to stand on your own two feet in the event that person can no longer be there. If you are the person looking to be carried, you are putting far too much pressure on another person, not to mention selling yourself short. If you are the person doing the carrying, you are robbing that person of their independence

THIS IS TOXIC. THIS IS CODEPENCY. Toxicity in a relationship can be subtle and innocent, it doesn't have to be abusive or malicious. As a young person, I had it in my head that being saved by another person was what true love looked like, like Freddie and Effy in Skins. They did love each other, but they were also extremely codependent, and there is nothing healthy about that, and it's so cool to not only see that being explored on Euphoria, but not being romanticized by the creators and viewers alike.

Then there is Rue's friendship with Fez. God, does addiction ever have a way of twisting things up. That scene where she flips out on him, my heart broke for so many reasons, such an amazing perfomance of that desperation, but yes, I say friendship very purposely, because that is another nuance not often depicted. Drug dealer usually = bad person, addict usually = bad person. People often say you can't care about someone and _______ . In this case, that Fez can't possibly deal the drugs that are fueling Rue's addiction and really be a friend, or that Rue can't be funding the criminal behavior that may land him a lengthy jail sentence and really care about him. That's an easier reality to accept than that someone can both love you and hurt you, can do bad things and be a good person. In addiction, I hurt the people I loved one way or another every single day, and some days I could keep that shoved out of my mind, but other days it made me want to pull my own hair out. It's so cool to see that they're showing Fez is a good guy that legitimately cares for Rue despite the contradictory behavior leading up to him finally doing the most loving thing a person can possibly do: refusing to enable someone even if it means they hate you for it. I'm sure we can all agree Rue is better angry at him and alive than happy with him and dead.

But yeah, I mean there are some minor screw ups in Euphoria, like the fact that they're still using the terms OCs/Oxycontin (which is a brand name that hasn't been produced since 2010) in reference to oxycodone and not to fake, pressed pills often containing fentanyl. Also, the fentanyl storyline where Rue took it from Fez's supplier does not reflect the typical climate of fentanyl on the streets that is responsible for thousands upon thousands of overdose deaths the last few years if that was what they were going for. Rue took some gel from a patch, which is dangerous all the same, but pharmaceutical grade, making it marginally easier to dose. The stuff on the streets now isn't pharmaceutical grade, but created in a lab and then mixed by black market suppliers into powders, so no quality control on dosing whatsoever. It's so toxic that two grains of salt worth is enough to kill someone without a tolerance, hence the public health crisis.

That's just me being picky though, all and all I can't complain one bit!

[rapeculturerealities]

Here are a few ways we can add nuance to consent culture:

Add a power analysis.

I’ve seen cis men on a few occasions now tell me that I or someone else is violating their consent by interrupting a boundary violation that they were committing, or by talking about it with them to repair harm.

This is a power issue. There are many tactics people use to stay in power in a situation, and if someone is used to being in power in a culture (like a cisgender white man in our U.S. culture), he may do everything he can in that moment (whether consciously or not — much of this is learned behavior so inherent in us that we do it unconsciously) to stay in power. A cis man using consent culture to avoid accountability is a tactic used to keep himself in power in that situation, and it needs to be named, interrupted, and stopped.

In addition, there are other power issues at play — who feels safe or comfortable saying no to who in an interaction? I often feel unsafe saying no to a cis white man or a cis white woman if they are asking something of me or to interact with me in some way, so I will oblige them rather than risk emotional or physical violence. As far as I can tell, and from my experience, many women feel similarly about men. It’s not that I don’t want to be in relationship with cis women and men — I deeply do want that connection! But the power dynamics also need to be taken into account when we interact, and it’s the responsibility of the person with more power in that situation to take on that labor.

One of the ways we can help heal from this socialization is that when we are in power over someone, we can talk about it in a way that is appropriate given the relationship that already exists. “I think there may be a power dynamic between us [they may disagree — power dynamics are tricky], with me being a man/white person/facilitator/cis person/etc. so I want you to know that a no is fine with me.” We can also focus on having a non-violent and supportive reaction when someone says no to us. “Thank you” is one easy example.

As many consent teachers in my life have taught, a no to someone else is a yes to yourself, which is a sacred, wonderful thing. So if you’re feeling rejected, feel free to reframe it.

2. Include conversations about race, gender, and disability.

This isn’t just about touching and interacting with each other’s bodies, and when it is, we need to include consent for trans bodies, POC bodies, and disabled bodies as well. We need to include in the conversation that many of us from marginalized communities do not get to give consent before experiencing a microaggression. Black people do not get to consent before a white person starts talking about their hair. Trans people do not get to consent to how often we are harassed in restrooms or spat on in public. Disabled people do not often get to consent to being in spaces that are accessible to them, in scent-free spaces, or to trauma-informed interactions. There are many other issues around consent that stretch way beyond the realm that consent culture currently talks about.

We need to include consent around conversations. Ask trans people if you can ask us a question about our genitals or if you can tell us your opinions on pronouns. Ask if you can compliment my physical appearance. Ask me if you can ask me about my disabilities without any relationship to me whatsoever — and then reinforce that a no is welcome, that you recognize it may be trying for me to answer your questions, and ask if you can provide care for me afterwards.

read more

[andihowl]

Polyamory is queer.

Or rather, Polyamorous folk are queer if they self-identify as such.

Below, I’ll be explaining why any attempt you make to deny that is by definition gatekeeping, and why you need to stop. This will be added to / updated as I talk to more polyamorous folk and hear more of their stories. This is not a debate, I will liberally use my block button, I’m just sick of repeating myself over and over in group after group because polyphobic assholes think they can throw polyam folk under the bus and we won’t say anything. Read. Think. Do better.

Given the shared premises that “queer” is being used in it’s non-pejorative, reclamative usage as an umbrella term representing sexual and gender minorities who have been marginalized and oppressed as a direct result of their identities, and that gatekeeping members of it is an inherently shitty thing to do (goodbye swerfs, terfs, aphobes, etc.), the main reasons I see for people denying polyamorous folk into queer spaces, or into queer discussions generally read like this:

why are we even having this discussion, omg, wtf, gtfo

it’s only used by skeezy heterobros who are looking to get a second girlfriend

it’s only used by skeezy “bi” couples who are unicorn hunting

there are oppressive countries around the world who are practicing polygamy and that’s certainly not good

it’s a kink

it’s a choice

it’s a practice, not an identity

it’s a relationship dynamic, not a sexual orientation or gender identity

everyone wants to be polyam anyway, it’s not an oppressed class.

I'm personally polyamorous, and I don't see it as an identity

I'm uncomfortable with cis-het-allo folk claiming the term queer

These arguments can be categorized more or less into the following main sections:

The Disregard

why are we even having this discussion, omg, wtf, gtfo

By disengaging conversation about this, you are preventing the growth and learning of the community, and you need to knock your shit off. Only through critically assessing our own behavior and the behavior of the community with which we engage can we ever hope to make ourselves, and our world, any better.

The Bad Actors

it’s only used by skeezy heterobros who are looking to get a second girlfriend

or

it’s only used by skeezy “bi” couples who are unicorn hunting

This is one of the weakest arguments against this, and one of the quickest debunked. Simply put, all identities have bad actors. I've certainly interacted with gay men who haven't taken no for an answer. I've certainly met bisexual people who have used their sexuality as an excuse to cheat on their partners. Just because bad actors exist within a community, does not invalidate the entire identity. You cannot hope to have such a diverse group of people from such diverse backgrounds and upbringings and mental health statuses and economic statuses and expect them all to behave and think the the same homogenous way. Not all gays are alike. Not all trans folk are alike. Not all polyam folk are alike. Deal with it, move on.

Conflation

there are oppressive countries around the world who are practicing polygamy and that’s certainly not good

or

it’s a kink

Polyamory =/= polygamy. Stop conflating the two. Polyamory (when referring to the practice) is the egalitarian ethical practice of non-monogamy between consenting adults. Polygamy is an authoritarian tool used by patriarchal societies to oppress and silence women, most often without consent. Stop conflating, and move on.

Also, Polyamory is not a kink. To call something a kink, you are tacitly and wilfully admitting that the behavior in question is and should be seen as deviant in society, and derives sexual pleasure out of that deviancy. Polyamory is not, at least not in any healthy relationships I've seen, practiced in such a shameful manner. If you're equating the two, maybe you should address your own underlying phobias regarding polyamory rather than gatekeeping others.

The Choice

it’s a choice

or

it’s a practice, not an identity

or

it’s a relationship dynamic, not a sexual orientation or gender identity

These are a bit trickier of a discussion. No, the United States, nor any other country offcially recognizes polyamory as a valid sexual orientation to be protected under federal law. And yes, some people feel they opt-in to a "polyamorous lifestyle". There have been studies conducted on this, and while many respondents to do not classify their polyamory as an orientation, many others did respond saying that they felt they were wired that way, that they felt they were that way since childhood, that monogamous relationships always felt wrong for them.

The polyamory community houses both types of folk, those who feel it's a lifestyle, as well as those who feel it is deeply engrained. As polyadvice writes (specifically toward other polyam folk):

Is polyamory an orientation? Why do we care? Why are we so caught up in whether the way we love other people is a way of being or a way of doing? Why do I get this question so often, and why are we all so invested in the answer?

  If you experience your polyamory as an innate part of your self, as something you are rather than something you do, great. It’s part of your orientation. We can split semantic hairs and say it’s a “relationship orientation” as opposed to a “sexual orientation.” Some people don’t experience it that way, and that’s fine too.

  What’s not fine is if we start fighting about it and make it some big political or identity-political issue within the [polyam] community. Because you know what? The rest of the world doesn’t care nearly as much about the nuances of our definitions. They’re prepared to deny us health insurance, child custody, media representation, hospital visitation, and plenty else regardless of whether we sort this out amongst ourselves. If we start turning on each other, there’s no one to have our backs.

Simply put, it's none of your damn business if it's an orientation or a choice. Even if it is a choice, as Michael Carey with Slate wrote:

We are all human first. Everything else—nationality, sex, race, orientation—is secondary, and irrelevant to our fundamental rights. As Brian D. Earp recently argued in “Future Tense,” even if homosexuality becomes a choice, mutable under pharmacological “treatment,” it should still be regarded as part of the normal range of human behavior. We should agree on the principle that anyone pursuing consensual, loving, respectful relationships, forming happy families, and participating productively in society should be welcomed, not ostracized in the name of irrational, ossified stigma.

Not Oppressed

everyone wants to be polyam anyway, it’s not an oppressed class.

Hooooooooold up there partner. Y'all gotta be kidding me. Let's put aside the fact that one of the most common thing's polyam folk hear when they come out to people is "well, that's nice, but I could never do it myself". Let''s put aside the comments/sneers of "so you just sleep with whoever you want?", or the automatic assumption that polyam folk are sluts/skeezes/sex-addicts/cheaters.

The fact of the matter is, for someone who is polyamorous, there are no legal protections for them, whether they be for housing, employment, or medical care (in any of the 50 United States or any other country that I'm aware of). That means if someone is outed at work, they can be fired on the spot for that reason. They can be kicked out of their apartment, lose their home, or be denied medical coverage because of it. Polyamorous relationships are not recognized as valid spouses in hospital situations, they cannot receive tax benefits for their relationship, and they are routinely denied next of kin rights and inheritance. Loss of child custody is common, as family courts do not recognize polyamory as a valid responsible child-rearing environment (which experience and common sense can tell us otherwise)

It's bad enough that Ann Sweeny argued in 2010 in favor of legally expanding the definition of sexual orientation to include polyamory to help protect polyam folk against these kind of grievances (you can download the original pdf argument at that link, it's a long but interesting read). An excerpt:

... polyamorists risk custody loss, workplace discrimination, loss of friends, alienation from their families, and ostracism from spiritual and other communities as a result of revealing their polyamory. In addition, their children often face discrimination at school. Indeed, in one study, nearly half of [polyam] respondents reported having experienced prejudice as a result of their polyamory. Additionally, Emens has noted that the “social hostility [against relationships involving more than two people] sustains various legal burdens on polyamorists, including two-person marriage and partnership laws, adultery and bigamy laws, [and] residential zoning laws.” Furthermore, Rambukkana documented negative reactions to the formation of an on-campus polyamory group that included the university newspaper’s public ridicule of the group on the basis that the group was comprised of “a bunch of ‘culty’ sex maniacs” and the suggestion that the group was a “recruitment machine” that sucked people in “‘with promises of sex and more sex.’”

She goes on to argue:

These forms of discrimination are considerable, and they have the potential to impose severe, indeed devastating, burdens on individuals who espouse polyamory... The many ways that monogamy (as represented by marriage) is privileged under the law, while non-monogamy is burdened, demonstrate that non-monogamous persons, including polyamorists, are oppressed under an “organising principle of inequality” and therefore that they meet Cooper’s test for extension of legal protections.

Honestly, go read that article. It lays out a lot more than I could ever hope to properly summarize here, and outlines pretty succinctly why polyamory is an oppressed class.

What goes for me goes for everyone

I'm personally polyamorous, and I don't see it as an identity

First off, wonderful! Thank you for being polyam and for demonstrating your courage and representation in a world that wants to erase you. Full stop.

Second off. It's fine if you don't feel like your polycraft is inherently part of your identity. That's allowed. Many Nonbinary folk don't feel trans describes their experience; many gay men don't like to use the term queer. That's fine, that's your biz. That doesn't mean that holds the same for everyone else, though, and you shouldn't be limiting the voice and power of others because you have enough privelege to disregard opression you may experience. They do deserve a voice, they do deserve rights, and you consistently chiming in saying "Well I don't" isn't helping the conversation, it's distracting and beside the point.

One person's experience with a community is not necessarily representative of an entire identity's experience with it, and you don't get to claim the right to silence the voices and experences of others in your community.

The Personal Appeal

I'm uncomfortable with cis-het-allo folk claiming the term queer

Well, I'm sorry you are uncomfortable. Honestly. It sucks. However dealing with an expanding and inclusive community is and should be uncomfortable. It should force us to ask questions we didn't want to ask. It should make us rethink things we once thought were firm and held dear.

But just as -allo was added to cis-het bring light to the added axis of identity and oppression that is the asexuality spectrum, it's about time we added -mono to that, to bring to light the fact that being polyam, and being polyam + other identities, brings with it unique problems and unique pride that is deserving of attention, and deserving a seat at the table.

Included Links and Additional Resources

CW: some of these links use the nickname "poly" for "polyamorous" rather than "polynesian". Inclusion here is not an endorsement of that kind of usage, as I have tried to refrain from that usage here and in my everyday conversation. Additionally, I have replaced its usage in the above quotations with [polyam] to prevent further crawlers linking to it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-polyamorists-next-door/201610/is-polyamory-form-sexual-orientation

(http://polyadvice.tumblr.com/post/114048167048/this-might-be-a-question-you-get-often-but-is

https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/10/is-polyamory-a-choice.html

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632653

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/10/polyamorous-excluded-queer/

https://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/dan-savage-is-poly-queer.html

https://www.autostraddle.com/six-queers-on-polyamory-and-identity-419254/