#'wait what do you MEAN the females are all intellectually disabled'

[fierceawakening]

Post on my dash: sometimes it annoys me that I pick up some sci fi and it’s rad until suddenly a sexism

People replying to it: Don’t say sci fi has a sexism problem. Read this instead!

Me: Thats very cool, but some days I STILL think back to no one bothering to warn teenage girl me about the kzin and get mad all over again. Can I say so please?

#'oh hey warrior cat people' #'cool cool' #'wait what do you MEAN the females are all intellectually disabled' #'the... the isms... they are LENTICULAR'

[sillyrabbit81]

Her Heavy Cross

Summary: Three years after tragedy hits, Lana she decides to start dating again. She meets Will through a dating app and they begin an online romance. After months of constant requests, Lana relents and agrees to meet and go on an irl date with Will. But is Will who he says he is? Lana is quickly pulled into an intense relationship forcing her to confront her tragic past. Will Lana face it or will she close her heart forever?

Pairing: OMC x OFC

Word Count: Approx 2.5k

Warnings: Swearing, smut, spanking, Dom vibes.

Authors Note: The story started as a Henry Cavill fanfiction but I changed it to be an original character, but shades of Henry are still there. Hope you enjoy the story and thanks for reading.

Part 8 Part 10

Part 9

We went to bed not long after that. I think we were both tired from staying up late the night before. Liam went to bed in his underwear, and I wore a singlet and PJ shorts. We talked some more before we fell asleep.

I asked Liam a bit more about his work. He told me the next two weeks were costume fitting, rehearsals, fight training and a few media events. "It's more of a nine to five thing at the moment. It'll be different after Easter when filming starts."

"How is it different?"

"Really long hours, usually fourteen to sixteen hours. There are a few weeks where I'm not needed, though. Although I'm the male lead, the female role is the central one."

"Who is the actress?"

"Myra Roberts."

"Oh, she's Australian."

"Yeah, most of the cast is Australian. I'm the ring in. I'm for, and I'm quoting here, international appeal and name recognition."

Liam asked me about my job. "I told you most of it before," I replied.

"You told me what you did, but you didn't tell me about it."

I told him about my work in a mainstream school support classroom. Most of the kids have cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. The classes are small. I was teaching a combined year 3 and 4 class.

Without mentioning specifics or names, I told him some funny stories about the kids, some of the challenges they faced. Some of the feel-good moments when they finally achieved goals they were working towards. Some of the goals were as simple as being able to feed themselves or to write more than a few lines without tiring.

I opened up and told him about the girl who passed away from aspiration pneumonia the first year I was teaching full time. She was in a wheelchair and had a genetic disorder that required ventilation at night. I smiled as I talked about her. I wasn't surprised when a tear rolled down my cheek.

"It's tough, but I love it. I like knowing that the kids get to have a real school experience, be part of the whole school community. They go on excursions, go to assembly, play at lunchtime with the other kids and its good that the mainstream kids grow up with people with disabilities around them. They get to be kids, not hidden away from the world like they were in the past."

Liam wiped my tear away with his thumb. He asked tenderly, "why do you do it?"

"Why do you act?" I asked rhetorically. "It's a calling, a passion, I guess. It's like nine days out of 10, I go home from school happy. Feeling like I've achieved something and feeling like I've supported eight kids to achieve their own small victories. It makes me feel satisfied that I'm doing good in the world. You know, adding something positive."

"That's really beautiful," Liam said. Then he laughed, "It makes what I do feel ridiculous. All I do is play make-believe all day."

"You help people too; you make us feel things. You show us truth and beauty. Give us hope when we feel hopeless. Laughter when we are sad. Make us inspired instead of apathetic. It's no small thing. Our scale is different, that's all. You can effect millions of people for a short time. I aim to effect maybe a hundred people over my career for the rest of their lives. Both are noble causes that will help to leave the world in a better place than when we found it."

"Did I say that you were intelligent earlier?" Liam asked. I shook my head. "I should have."

"Is that more important than being an excellent shag?"

"I don't know about that." Liam laughed, "But I know I like it."

Not long after that, we fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I was trapped by Liam's heavy arm over me, and his hand was cupping one of my breasts. He was still asleep. His breathing was long and deep with a soft snore. I didn't want to disturb him, but my bladder wouldn't wait.

I tried to lift his arm off me and climb out from underneath him, but he pulled me closer. I could feel his morning erection against my bum. As much as I wanted to snuggle into it, I couldn't wait. I lifted his arm again, and I was able to sneak out.

I went to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Then hopped back into bed. I looked at Liam while he slept. I brushed his hair off his forehead. His dark hair was so thick and soft. He had a few lines on his forehead that just seemed to make him appear more manly. His eyelashes seemed even longer as they laid against his cheeks. Up close, I could see a few faded freckles scattered across his cheeks and nose.

I traced my finger down his nose. He had a slight bump on the bridge. Somehow it didn't make him less attractive. His lips were so kissable, and I couldn't resist touching them either. I ran my fingertip down further, tracing his lips and then down to his dimpled chin. Liam opened his eyes and nearly made me shit myself when he growled and tried to bite my finger.

"Cunt!" I cried in shock, pulling my finger away.

Liam's face took on his own look of shock at my language. Then he laughed and tried to kiss me. I turned my head.

"Nuh-uh. You scared me half to death. How long have you bloody been awake for?"

"A while." He admitted, still smiling. My heart was racing, so I gave him a look exaggerating my anger. "Come on, Sweetheart. That was funny."

"Don't Sweetheart me. Here I was, innocently laying in bed thinking about how gorgeous you are. Meanwhile, you're laying there thinking wouldn't it be funny if I scared the shit out of her." I was trying not to smile, but I'm sure he could tell I wasn't really mad.

"You called me a cunt, though, so I guess we are even."

"That's a term of endearment in Australia." I grinned widely.

"Really?" Liam raised his eyebrows, looking dubious.

"Yeah, for sure. You'd say something like 'Oi mate! You're a sick cunt'." I was enjoying this.

"Which means?"

"Hey, friend! You're a good person, and I like you."

"I'll stick to calling you Sweetheart if that's ok?"

"Alright, cunt."

"Just bring your bum over here so I can fuck your cunt," Liam said, reaching for me.

My stomach flipped, and I felt myself getting aroused. Liam manhandled me onto my stomach and climbed on top of me. His bare hairy chest tickled my shoulders. I could feel him hard, thick and ready against me.

"Let's see if your tight little cunt is ready for me." Liam forced his hand down the front of my shorts. His fingers found their way to my centre, and I moaned as his fingers easily slid between my folds, my desire evident by how wet I was. He slipped a finger into me and my muscles clenched around it.

Too quickly, he removed his hand. Liam's wet fingers made their way to my mouth. "Open up, Sweetheart. Taste how much you want me." My lips parted for him, and he shoved his finger in. I closed my mouth around it, and my tongue lapped the sweet taste of my arousal.

Liam withdrew his finger, and his weight lifted off my back. I turned my head to see what he was doing and saw the condom in his hands. I continued to look over my shoulder as Liam dragged his underwear down, leaving them on his thighs. He held himself at the base and used the other to apply the condom. I watched in fascination as Liam rolled the condom down his shaft, his head was down, and his shoulders were hunched over the task. I really wanted to watch him masturbate one day.

When he was finished, he grabbed my hips and wrenched me up by them until I was on my knees. My head was still on the bed, and I was forced to look away by the new position. My shorts were pulled down my thighs. There was nothing gentle about Liam this morning. Then I panicked, realising how on display I would be. I tried to lay back down, but his firm hands gripped my hips, keeping me in position.

"Don't move," Liam ordered roughly. His hands moved from my hips, and he ran his hand over the curve of my bottom. "You should see yourself from this angle, Sweetheart."

He pressed his hand against my slit and put two fingers straight in. I jumped in surprise, pulling away as his thick fingers stretched me. I felt a sting on my arse cheek, and I flinched in pain.

"I told you not to move. Move again, and you'll get another one." Liam's voice was stern. He rubbed the spot he had just spanked, soothing it.

I waited, not moving, for what seemed like an eternity. The anticipation was killing me. I wanted to move, to tell Liam to stop, but I also wanted to scream at him to hurry up. I needed him inside me. Then I felt the tip of his cock rub against my wet opening, sliding smoothly up and down. Every time it grazed my clit, my anticipation built.

"Please," I murmured.

"Please what? Tell me what you want."

I licked my lips. "I want your cock."

I heard Liam inhale through his teeth. "I'm not going to be gentle."

"I don't care."

I felt Liam position himself at my entrance, and it was all the warning I had. Suddenly he was in me all the way. "Fuck," I cried out in relief and pain.

Liam didn't wait for me to adjust to his size. He started ramming into me like a piston. His hands were back on my hips, pulling me onto him with each thrust. The slap of our bodies meeting was so loud it was nearly all I could hear.

Grabbing my shoulder, Liam lifted me on my knees until our bodies were flush. He grabbed my head and turned it to the side. His lips met mine, and he forced his tongue into my mouth. His kiss devoured me, consuming me completely. His other hand lifted my singlet, freeing my breasts, and he kneaded one roughly before he found my nipple. He gripped me and pinched hard, but I barely felt it. My body reacted to the pain as though it was a pleasure, and electricity seemed to flow through my veins as my whole body felt ablaze.

Liam wrapped his fingers around my neck. The pressure was only slight, but it felt dangerous. He was so strong. If he wanted to destroy me, he could, and there would be nothing I could do about it. Instead of terrifying me, the thought thrilled me. I knew it was insane, wanting to play at the edge, confusing fear and arousal, but the combination was intoxicating.

He broke our kiss. I felt his lips tickle at my ear, and his voice was husky with exertion. "You fucking love this, don't you?"

"Yes," I panted. My voice was ragged and breathy. "Yes, I fucking love it."

I was thrown down on the bed again. My arse still in the air, and my head was pushed down into the bed. Liam held me that way while he unrelentingly pounded me. I felt like a plaything, a toy for his pleasure, as he threw me around where he wanted me. I felt helpless, but I didn't fight him. I submitted to his desires, knowing my body gave him pleasure was its own reward. I let him use me, dominate me, own me, and I knew I would beg for it to happen again and again.

He wasn't completely selfish though, his other hand found my clit, fingers moving over it in rapid little circles. "I need you to cum, Lana. I need to feel you cum."

He played with me varying his speed and firmness. He seemed to understand my body, my moans, my breathing because quickly, he found the rhythm I needed. I shattered beneath his touch. I shouted into the sheets as my release ripped through me. Liam didn't stop rubbing me until I was still.

Giving me no time to recover, Liam continued to rail me, but now he seemed to move impossibly fast. His fingers were digging into my hips, rocking them violently against his thrusts. I felt him engorge, and I braced myself for his release.

"Fuck!" Liam's voice thundered as I felt him pulse inside me. He held my hips still, his movements controlling his orgasm now. He grunted as he made each of his final drives.

Liam finally collapsed next to me, withdrawing himself as he did. I fell to the bed, unable to hold my own weight now that he wasn't holding me up. I took deep, calming breaths, and slowly I felt my strength return.

Shyly, I looked over at Liam. He was on his back, his chest heaving. A sheen of sweat glistened over his body in the morning light. He saw me peeking at him, and he half-smiled. A giggle escaped my lips.

"What are you laughing at?" He sounded amused.

"Nothing, I just feel really..." I didn't know exactly how I felt. I was sore, but that good way you feel sore after a hard workout. I was also calm, relaxed and euphoric. "Content."

"You really liked it?" I nodded. "I'm not too rough?" I shook my head. "Good, cause that was fucking amazing."

I giggled again and looked away. I felt Liam's fingers caress my back. My singlet was still pulled up, and my shorts were still around my ankles. He moved on the bed, and I felt him shuffle closer.

"Your bum's got a perfectly shaped red handprint on it. Did I slap you that hard?" He asked with a hint of concern.

"Yeah, it was hard. Good hard. I mark pretty easily." I turned to face him. He was laying on his side, his elbow bent and his head rested on his hand. He was looking down at my bare bottom, rubbing the spot where he marked me. "Bruises also show up pretty bad. They usually look worse than they feel. I rarely remember where I got them."

"You'll need a safe word if we keep this up." Liam looked up. He smiled briefly when he saw I was looking at him. "I don't want to go too far and really hurt you."

"Yeah, it's probably a good idea." I rolled over and laid on my back. I lifted my hips and put my shorts back on. Liam leaned down to kiss my exposed nipple before helping me pull my singlet back down. He laid his head on my chest, and I played with his soft hair, curling it around my fingers.

"Any ideas?" He asked. "For a safe word, I mean."

"Freeze?" I suggested.

Liam was quiet for a moment before nodded in agreement. "Freeze," he repeated. "I like it."

Part 10

#original character #original fiction #romantic story #happy ever after

[autismisaokay]

Hey there, all my life I new I was different and always wonder if I was autistic and my parents never looked into it. I'm now 21 and I really want to know if I am or not but I'm not sure what steps to take.

If you are looking to get diagnosed?

Speak with a therapist, physician, local programs around that might be able to help you, or call someone up who actually does the diagnosis. This may take multiple tries especially if people don’t see you as autistic or  see you as “high functioning”. (Not my favorite term)

Once you get a hold of someone who says yes they will either refer you to someone or you will be with a person who can directly diagnose you. Receiving appointments can take up to months or years to happen depending on how busy the person is who is diagnosing you. There has been shorter wait times but I haven’t heard of many. While making the appointment get the entail coast for your insurance provider and yourself. Your insurance may not also cover this so be ready for that. Typically a diagnosis can coast up to 2 to 3000 dollars in America. Sometimes it can be less sometimes it can be more.

When you are in the process of the testing you will be asked questions to test your cognitive, intellectual, and emotional processing/thinking skills. They’ll also get an idea of your physical abilities too through this testing. They will want background information on you. Usually, they would like a parent present with you or someone who has known you since childhood. If that’s not a possibility most people diagnosing will understand. They will also take letters or emails from someone who has known you since childhood and send them questions sometimes. It all depends on who is diagnosing you. It took about two to three sessions the last time I was re-diagnosed. It took about two the first time.

Once the testing is done you will wait for a couple of weeks if not more for an answer. It was least two for me last time. If you get an autism diagnosis you can see what services are available to you where you are. You will be able to ask more questions at this point or they will explain to you what it means.  If you do not get the diagnosis you were hoping for and they diagnose you with something else. Don’t completely count it out, autism very much is a bunch of other neurodiversity’s and disabilities all in one big hangout spot, which is autism. Basically, comorbidity is very common. Be ready for all possibilities and none at the same time. It can take multiple diagnoses before you get to autism. Or you might not because maybe you find out through all the diagnosis that it wasn’t what you initially thought. Again be ready for anything. Many people who think they are autistic do get to the diagnosis if they keep pursuing it.

It’s worthy to note that many people who are identified as or identify themselves as females often have to go through multiple diagnoses before they become diagnosed. Often times they will be misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. Or some sort of other personality disorder.  Chances are low for people of color and LGBTQA+ often having trouble or don’t get diagnosed either. There’s also the trouble of the debates going on with “high functioning” autism and if you are seen that way getting a diagnosis there too.

A lot of people ask me about self-diagnosis as well. What I say to people who ask is it’s not my choice to decide for them. They know them better than I ever would and I do not know they’re personal histories or who they are.

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic #autism #autistic

[teaveetamer]

My Issues With TFioS (and Other Elements of John Green)

Alright I’m just going to preface this with two things.

It’s been about six years since I’ve read the entire thing through, so my points are probably not going to be as detailed or precise as they were when I first read it.

If you enjoyed the book, identify with the fanbase, or like John Green in any capacity... Great! You might want to skip this one. This is definitely not the post for you. I’m going to put all of my more controversial thoughts under the cut so if you don’t want to see them you can just move on.

I brought up the book in that other post because I felt it had relevance to the discussion of “authors using characters as a mouthpiece”, but that’s only a small part of my issue with the book itself. I suppose I could have used a fanfiction example, since there’s more than enough fodder there, but I brought up The Fault in our Stars specifically because I feel comfortable criticizing a book in a way that I don’t feel comfortable criticizing fan works. John Green is a public figure that produced a paid product, made money, and does this professionally, while most fanfic authors are amateurs that provide free entertainment and just do it for fun.

Now with that said, we move on to the meat of the post.

Some Background

Perhaps this is not a little known fact, but I absolutely adore love stories. I don’t have incredibly high standards for them by any means, and in fact I actively enjoy them even when they aren’t the deepest, most thought provoking pieces. Someone got me a copy of Red, White, and Royal Blue for my birthday this year and I read the entire thing cover to cover in a day (and I seriously recommend if you’re looking for a pretty easy read with a lot of gay).

The only thing I love more than love stories? Tragic love stories, of course. If anyone has followed my fanfiction or main blog for any amount of time then you know that I love a little bit of tragedy. Usually with a happy ending, but not always. So when one of my friends shoved (and I mean literally shoved) The Fault in Our Stars  into my hands and billed it as a “tragic but heartwarming love story” I thought it would be perfect for me.

I was sixteen at the time, the target age demographic, and I was always looking for books with smart, well written teen characters. At this point in my life I’d never heard of John Green or his fanbase before. I tell you this because I disliked the book as I read it, but I think John Green and his fanbase are a major factor in why I disliked it so much I’m willing to sit down and write a blog post about it six years later. Granted, that’s not all on the book, but it is a factor.

Needless to say, I was not all that impressed by it. At some points I was downright infuriated, really.

My Issues With the Book

In summary, it feels very meh and overly pretentious. After about two chapters I just wanted to put it down, and the only reason I pushed through is because my friend insisted that it got better. She said it was funny, relatable, and intelligent, but I found it to be none of these things.

The impression I got was that the author, whoever he was, fancied himself terribly clever and he wanted everyone to know it. You know the type, the kinds of people that go around and assure everyone of how smart they are? It feels like it was made for haughty teens to brag about how intelligent they were because they read a “deep” book.  The book itself, despite being a surface level of “witty”, didn’t really have anything to say. In the end it reads like a thirty-something year old man bragging about how smart he is and waxing philosophical about the nature of life (and... Breakfast food..?) and using a fictional teenage girl to do it.

That’s why I brought up the “mouthpiece” thing. I didn’t want to read a book about a thirty-something dressing up his thoughts as a teenage girl. I wanted to read a book about a teenage girl.

Speaking of Hazel Grace… I don’t know if this is a common experience, but can anyone else tell when a man writes a female character? I find that I usually can. Men have a particular voice when they write, and especially when they write women. Every single page hammered me over the head with the fact that this was a man who was trying (and, in my opinion, failing miserably) to write a relatable teenage girl. And, in my opinion, he parroted a lot of very upsetting, dangerous mentalities for young women.

There were quite a few “I’m not like other girls, and not just because of the cancer!” moments (a mentality that I find wholly problematic coming from other women, let alone a man writing for a woman) that just had me rolling my eyes straight out of their sockets. She doesn’t care about shoes, see! She reads books! Isn’t that awesome and unique? Because, apparently, women are not allowed to do both.

These problematic mentalities extend into the book’s romance plot, too. Augustus is, frankly, one of the creepiest motherfuckers I’ve ever had the displeasure to read about. Not only is his aggressive creepiness portrayed as romantic, but Hazel reacts exactly how men wish women would react to their advances. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the book in front of me so you won’t get much in the way of direct quotes, but some examples include:

He stares at her, completely unblinking, for the duration of their cancer kids support group meeting… before they’ve even so much as spoken a word to each other. Which also features this gem of a quote: "A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well." which just perpetuates the disgusting misconception that women are okay with being creeped on as long as a guy is attractive. Spoiler alert: We fucking aren’t.

He repeatedly refers to Hazel as “Hazel Grace”, despite her introducing herself as “Hazel” and asking him to just call her “Hazel”. And not only does he ask for her full name, he demands she give it to him. This rings all kinds of alarm bells for me, because you know who else does that kind of shit? Christian Grey. And it’s manipulative, disrespectful, and downright rude. It is essentially saying “I hear your desires, but I would prefer to address you how I want to address you, not how you would like to be addressed, because my ego is more important than your comfort”.

Hazel is perfectly fine with getting into a complete stranger’s car and spending time at his house mere minutes after meeting with him and after all of the questionable shit he just pulled.

Continuing this book’s litany of problems with women, let’s talk about Isaac’s (ex)girlfriend. The book treats their breakup as this massive betrayal, then even goes on to justify vandalizing her property because of it.

I’m sorry, but no.

You, as an autonomous human being, have the right to end a relationship with someone else whenever, wherever, and for whatever reasons you designate, regardless of previously expressed emotions or promises. How and when she did it was not the most ideal, but she’s an emotionally immature teenager, and there’s never going to be a good time to do something like this. What was she supposed to do, keep pity dating him because she felt sorry for him? Wait until someone invented technology to cure blindness? Assuming she did actually break up with him because of his disability… Are her reasons shitty? Sure. But she’s allowed to have them.

And you know what? He’s allowed to be mad about it. His anger might be completely understandable, if not totally justified. But you know what else? That does not give him the right to take revenge on her by vandalizing her property.

I would have no problem with this scene if it were honest about what it was: a bunch of teenagers with under-developed frontal lobes that are angry and feeling vindictive. But it’s not that. It’s depicted as not only completely justified, but heroic. I’m sorry, no. You are never heroic for harassing another human being.

And Augustus’s dumb little speech to her mom is such garbage. You really expect me to believe that a grown woman was so pwned by some jerk teenager’s super witty justification for destroying her property that she just went inside and, idk, watched TV? Didn’t call the police to report the crime that he and his friends were actively committing against her? Bullshit.

Speaking of bullshit, that scene is pretty egregious, but that doesn’t even begin to cover my issues with this book’s pretentious dialogue. If you told me that they ran every word in this book through Thesaurus.com then I would believe you without hesitation. The one hook, the draw, the thing that kept me reading was supposed to be the relatable characters, but they just aren’t relatable. They’re not realistic in the slightest. Seriously, go read any line of this book out loud and tell me how ridiculous you feel. I kept expecting Augustus to pull off his skinsuit and reveal that he was secretly a robot trying to imitate human speech the entire time.

I’m not sure how far I can go into this point without giving you direct quotes, but half the stuff that comes out of these characters mouths is pseudo-intellectual nonsense. “Put the killing thing between your teeth so it can’t kill you”?

It’s not a metaphor.

Putting an unlit cigarette in your mouth is still stupid. I guess it won’t give you lung cancer, but really? It’s still not a great idea.

Augustus has to go buy these cigarettes, which means he’s actively going out and giving money to an industry that has been funding pseudoscience and suppressing health initiatives that would prevent people from suffering what he did (i.e. fucking cancer).

Here’s a clue: Tobacco companies don’t actually care about what you do with the cigarettes. Their transaction stops as soon as you put the money in their hands. I could purchase a hundred packs and throw them in the garbage, and the only thing they know is that they got about $600 from me. Way to “stick it to the man”, asshole. You’re not clever.

With the exception of the Isaac’s-girlfriend thing, all of that is in chapters 1-4, by the way. This book turned me off so thoroughly that early.

So by the time the Amsterdam trip rolled around I was already not enjoying this book, but then this thing happened and it was just the final nail in the coffin for me. You probably know what I’m talking about already, but if you don’t… The Anne Frank Museum kiss.

I honestly cannot even articulate how incredibly tasteless and disrespectful I find the entire thing, and not only does that happen, but it’s followed by an r/ThatHappened “and then everybody stood up and clapped!” Seriously?

There are smarter, more well-versed people than me that have covered this topic, so I’ll leave the analysis for why that’s all kinds of wrong to them.

Those are really my big gripes, though there’s a few smaller ones (like Augustus throwing a pre-funeral like are you a psychopath? Why would you put the people you love through that???) that I’m not going to touch on because they weren’t all that instrumental in putting me off. Instead I’ll move on to the external factors.

The Fanbase

So I finished the book, a little miffed at having just wasted my time, and immediately told my friend that I didn’t like it much, and that I would be returning her copy the next day. Feeling pretty meh-to-slightly-negative about it, but whatever, it happens.

I was essentially met with “wow I can’t believe you didn’t get it.” and “Oh well maybe you’ll finally understand how deep it is when you’re older” from my friend. Which is really just one step away from the wow can’t you read?! BS that I’ve been seeing more and more frequently these days. So immediately I was pissed. All that aside, I was sixteen, the target age demographic? If I didn’t ‘get it’ then John Green was doing a pretty piss poor job of conveying what it is.

So I went online seeking something. Either validation that I wasn’t wrong and that I didn’t miss the point, the book just wasn’t great, or an explanation of what this it was that I’d missed. And let me tell you... Spotting a negative opinion of this book was like looking for a unicorn. There were a few, and many of them were met with the same kind of thing I had experienced. Vitriol, insistence that they were stupid or that they didn’t get it (again, with no explanation of what it was), and, apparently, a lot of harassment and threats.

I discovered that John Green’s target audience had a tendency to be… A bit obsessive. Lots of young, impressionable teenagers that were willing to jump on an opposing opinion with zealous outrage. If I had any interest in pursuing any of John Green’s other works or John Green as an internet personality any further, then it died in that moment. Absolutely nothing turns me off like a rabid, spiteful fanbase.

Now by this point I was already in the rabbit hole, and I began encountering a lot of criticisms of John Green and the things he’s said and done in the past. I did not like what I found.

John Green Himself

To be extremely blunt, the guy put such a bad taste in my mouth that it retroactively soured my opinion of The Fault in Our Stars even more. Since this is a post about my opinions on the book, I’m only going to be discussing things that affected my view at the time I read it. These are all things that happened six years ago, and I have no idea what this man has been up to or what he’s said about any of these topics since.

Let’s just get this out of the way… John Green writes the same book over and over. There’s always a quirky, nerdy white boy that is invariably cisgendered, and almost always straight. He is always an outcast with only a few friends, though apparently never directly bullied. He always meets an edgy girl that he falls in love with the idea of. Usually there is a road trip somewhere in there too.

The Fault in our Stars admittedly doesn’t follow the exact same framework, but it’s close enough in a lot of ways. Instead of the Quirky, Too-Smart-For-His-Own-Good cisboi being the PoV character, it’s the love interest (Hazel also fits this description, albeit a female version). Hazel and Augustus are both still outcasts. Hazel is attracted to Augustus because he’s Deep and Edgy and A Little Larger Than Life. The road trip is a flight to Amsterdam.

Looking at the man... Yeah the entire premise starts to come off as some weird self-insert fanfiction. I can feel the “I was a quirky, bullied teen and I wish this is how my high school life had been!” energy coming through absolutely every pore and every molecule of ink. Every character reads like John Green. John Green has written book after book and the main character always appears to be John Green in a slightly different teenage skinsuit.

And that’s fine, I guess. A little lazy, but I guess it’s working for him since he’s making hella bank? It’s certainly not enough to put me off the guy, just not something I’m interested in reading, and not something I find compelling.

What put me off for good were some of his comments. Dude skeeves me the fuck out. I’ll just go over some of the highlights I found at the time, and why they upset me so much when I heard them.

“Nerd girls are the world's most underutilized romantic resource.”

As a nerdy girl that has been stalked and harassed by men because I’m “good girlfriend material” (aka I like video games and traditionally masculine stuff and I’m pretty! I must be a unicorn!), this statement is disgusting.

I don’t care if it was a joke. I don’t care if he wasn’t being serious. This is the kind of shit that men think is a compliment because they think it makes “quirky” girls feel “unique” and “special”, but that “complement” is also an insult. You know why? Because it makes female interests all about how men perceive their sexual or romantic viability.

John Green’s penchant for writing “special” and “unique” girls (while simultaneously shaming “typical” girls, but I’ll get to that in the next point) and depicting them as the ideal woman just reaffirms my feelings about this quote. I think, on some level, John Green has no idea why this is such a bad take. And that’s not even getting into the fact that he called human beings resources. Women are not objects that exist to be a plot device or for your gratification. Fuck right off with that shit.

“She was incredibly hot, in that popular-girl-with-bleached-teeth-and-anorexia kind of way, which was Colin’s least favourite way of being hot”

This is just one quote of many that shames people with eating disorders and weight problems (on both ends of the spectrum, “too fat” and “too skinny”. Another fun one being: “there’s the weird culturally-constructed definition of hot, which means ‘that individual is malnourished, and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts.’")

Know what this line is? It’s called “negging”, and it’s a popular tactic of incels because it works. You make someone seek your approval by intentionally giving them backhanded compliments to undermine their self esteem. The idea is that the more you insult them, the harder they’ll work to try and impress you. It doesn’t work on everyone, but you know who it does tend to work on? Insecure younger people (usually girls). You know who John Green’s target audience is? Insecure teenage girls.

As for the actual substance of the quote… I hate it. He’s shaming a woman for the choices she makes over her appearance. Which are, fun fact, none of his damn business. Also the idea that “skinny” and “anorexic” somehow need to go hand in hand is just wrong, insulting women for a mental health disorder they have no control over is offensive, and using a serious mental health disorder (did you know that anorexia is the most deadly mental health condition?) as an insult is disgusting.

Coming back to my earlier point about shaming “normal” girls, this quote is just the tip of the iceberg. He repeatedly shames women in his books for looking or behaving “typically”, while quirky girls are lauded as the ideal. Quirky girls are “weird and interesting” and normal girls are “boring”. If this was intended as a compliment, it’s a shitty one. If you have to shame one group to make another feel better, it is not a compliment. You are lowering all women when you pull that shit. You teach them that in order to feel good about themselves another group has to be made to feel worse.

And hey, maybe the pretty girl likes her teeth bleached because it makes her feel confident? Why can’t bleached teeth girl and anime t-shirt girl both be beautiful and unique and confident in their own right? Why is it “powerful” for anime t-shirt girl to wear her nerdy clothes, but scorn-worthy for bleached teeth girl to like bleaching her teeth?

What John Green is doing is simply replacing one ideal (skinny pretty girl) with another (quirky cute girl), and then he pretends like his version is somehow “woke” because it’s not based on physical appearance (though all of the women in his books are also physically attractive. Hmmm. Guess “nerd girls” are only “viable resources” when they aren’t hard to look at?).

And trust me, I’ve been down this path. I’ve been taken in by guys who try to make me feel ~special~ by putting down other women, and it leads to absolutely nothing good. It doesn’t make you feel better. It just makes you feel angry and resentful, and that’s not a place you want to be in. In fact, this was a mentality I had recently escaped from around the time I picked up this book. Seeing someone with as much influence as John Green parroting this specific brand of toxic shit to exactly the audience that would be most likely to feed into it? I was never going to be able to like the guy, sorry.

I know some people are able to “separate the art from the artist”, and I might have been willing to do that had the book actually been good… but it wasn’t. So in the end the book just looked worse for all of the author’s shortcomings.

So yeah, in summary: The book was mediocre at best, the author pushed all of my angry feminist buttons, and elements of the fanbase were annoying, condescending, and spiteful. I didn’t like the book in the first place due to the myriad of problems plaguing it, but everything else just made it look so much worse in hindsight.

Anyways, this probably got kind of ranty, but it was cathartic and I did make this blog to vent about dumb stuff. I think this qualifies.

#Personal stuff #TFioS Opinion Piece #Sorry it took so long #I had a lot to say #A little ranty

[ctl-yuejie]

unusual asks: 14/15, 29, 40, 45, 48? (here is a selection so you can pick your favorites

14: What is your least favorite word?there might be more, but these immediately came to my mind for very different reasons so they are all good candidates!

atemlos (= breathless): because of a extremely popular schlager song (idk how to describe this genre, it’s like traditional pop songs mostly sung in german) of the same name that still haunts me every time someone uses that word

pomme de terre (= potato): just the ridiculousness of having to say “apple of the earth” every time you want to say potato. i love potatoes, but that’s a bit decadent in my opinion. 

Schwachsinn (= idiocy): too often used derogatorily and it finally got erased from law books where it was used as a descriptor for intellectual disability. also: there are so many more fun words to use as a synonym, because this one literally translates to “weak sense/mind” whereas “Blödsinn” (dumb sense/mind) is much more fun.

Fotze (= vulgar for vagina, used as expletive): not fond of how many derogatory terms are female coded (in lieu of son of a bitch etc) and there isn’t any term in german that i like to use for vagina because they all sound either too medical or derogatory but this one from an etymological standpoint is especially bad because it derives from the word “smelly”.

15: What is your favorite word?Even harder because I have so many words I love, but I’ll just list the ones that immediately came to my mind. 

merkwürdig (= strange): literally “worth remembering” which is such a positive foundation for a word that is mostly used with a neutral or negative connotation. 08/10 

herumgeistern (= to haunt): can also be used in the sense of “to wander around” which is so neat. love the supernatural vocabulary for a mere human like me. i feel much more powerful using this when in reality i am just walking around in a daze, forgetting where i meant to go. 09/10

間もなく (= in a little while): “mamonaku” has just such a nice flow to it that you just can’t wait to see what is about to happen or come in a while 08/10

把握する (= to get a picture of sth): “haaku suru” sounds very similar to “harken” in german which means “to rake” and I just love to use it in the sense of “gathering information” so I can imagine someone raking information on a neat pile in the crisp but warm autumn air. 11/10

shrubbery: just such a nice words that makes any nasty bush magical 07/10

shillelagh: you can here the swing of the club just by saying its name. 10/10

29: Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?only once, and he was a total douche and i totally should have listened to my friends. the only ex of mine i cut all contact with because he was a major dick before breaking up with me.

40: First concert you attendedprobably sth classical or a jazz concert???? i don’t really remember tbh.

45: Do you fall in love easily?i wouldn’t say that, but i get infatuated really easily so i have to be careful to not immediately get too committed so i don’t lead people on and then drop them once the infatuation has subsided. 

48: Are you a forgiving person? Do you like being that way?There’s a weird balance between recognizing people owning up to their mistakes & being earnest about it, not getting easily offended in the first place and also being very harsh on people when they do mistakes that I am also prone to make. the last part i’d say is something i don’t really like because it is very hypocritical to be petty as shit about some things i know i have done as well. 

some things i don’t forgive are general carelessness towards other peoples’ well-being. friend of mine texted me while driving and that was the end of our friendship. one girl in my grade bullied another girl and i still don’t acknowledge her existence (not greeting her etc) -> but here some of the hypocrisy comes into play because there is definitely some guilt involved in this since i feel like i didn’t protect the girl that got bullied enough....maybe i need to punish her to feel like i am doing sth for the other girl, which is not how these things work (goes off into mental spiral of self-analysis) 

unusual asks

#ctlyuejie writes #ask games #lovely mutuals are lovely #<3 #thanks so much!!! i love playing these #and i had to really control myself to not list even more words #long post

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: What I Liked About The New Lion King

I was admittedly harsh on the new “live-action” The Lion King in my last blog post. While I stand by everything I said last week – it is not what I would call a successful adaptation – there were a number of things that I enjoyed about the movie!

Here they are, in no particular order:

Black Casting

For all its benefits, the original Lion King is very white. Do a Google search for “1994 lion king cast” and you’ll see what I mean. Then Google “2019 lion king cast” and feel a little better about life.

In the original film, Young Simba had two voice actors – the speaking voice, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and the singing voice, Jason Weaver. Thomas, who is white, was on the publicity tours. Weaver, who is black, was not. Weaver isn’t even mentioned in the film’s credits until the “songs” section at the very end, likely after everyone left the theatre (this is before Marvel trained us to wait for after-credits scenes).

In the new film, Young Simba has one voice – JD McCrary – and he’s been publicized as the voice of Simba this whole time. He and Shahadi Wright Joseph (the voice of Young Nala) even showed up for a special performance in Walt Disney World together. This time, the black talent is front and center, rather than hidden.

It Is Photorealistic

Disney Animation was going for photorealism here. They succeeded. You could take a still from this movie and easily mistake it for a nature documentary. Even if I don’t think that this was the right choice for a musical about talking animals, they did succeed in creating a photorealistic Africa.

Along the way, the filmmakers put a lot of work into demonstrating the diversity and interconnectedness of the animal world. Rather than just being told, “when we die, we become the grass,” we see the circle of life in action – as a piece of a lion’s mane is eaten by a giraffe and later rolled up by a dung beetle. Again, not sure if this was the right choice for the story, but they were going for realism, and realism is what they made.

Cute Baby Animals!

Enough said.

The Music

This film’s music works on two levels. The first level is the soundtrack, which is an endless source of nostalgia. Disney clearly recognizes that we have had two decades to build up emotional associations to this music, so they know that all they have to do is play the same song again and we’ll react to it. It works.

The second level is Beyoncé. When I saw the movie, there was a family sitting next to me with a toddler who wasn’t really paying much attention to the movie. But as soon as “Spirit” began to play, this baby started to rock out. She was dancing so much in her seat that she nearly wiggled out of her mother’s arms. And I am so fricking excited for this and every other little girl to grow up knowing this music.

A Little Bit Of Schadenfreude

Multiple adult men left the theatre during Mufasa’s death scene, and I feel a little bad for smiling about it.

It’s okay, dads. You can cry in front of your kids. It’s okay.

No More Ableist Joke Character

Movies, especially animated movies, historically tend to create comedy by inserting a character who is so excessively stupid that they can only be seen as making fun of people with an intellectual disability. Ed the hyena is one such character, with his wonky facial features, lack of dialogue, and incessant clownish laugh.

This time around, Ed does not exist, to the film’s benefit.

SHENZI

Speaking of hyenas – Shenzi is so fricking cool. The moment she appeared on-screen and all the other hyenas took a step backwards, my brain went oh my god, that’s excellent. In the real-world animal kingdom, female hyenas rank higher in the pack than male hyenas, so this is a way that the film uses real animal dynamics to further a character narrative. Shenzi is the “boss hyena,” and she holds her own as a villain just as well as Scar. Her final battle with Nala is also so fricking cool.

Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight!

This film really shines with its comedic characters. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen steal the show as Timon and Pumbaa, bouncing off each other with rapid-fire wit. They were the source of nearly all of my genuine laugh-out-loud moments in the theatre, from “we’re gonna name him Fred” to “the meaningless line of indifference” to the wonderful, wonderful Beauty and the Beast reference.

The rest of my laugh-out-loud moments go to John Oliver, who didn’t so much play Zazu as he played a PG-rated version of John Oliver. “It’s the news!!!”

The Point Is…

Life is a pile of good things and bad things, and so are films, and I contain multitudes.

#the lion king #lion king #lion king 2019 #disney #animation #reviews #thursday thoughts #listicles #simba #nala #shenzi #africa #timon #pumbaa #zazu #john oliver #media representation

[dumdeeedum]

Here we go with the bullshit from the show-runners and the fandom.

No, stop it. What we’re not going to do is pretend that the show-runners and producers have any good will toward you now, do not start coming with the bullshit and excuses for these people just because they tossed you some nonsense pr “apology.” 

This was a premeditated act over year in the making, over a year in the making! Please fucking hear me! This is a team of very well off people who have the resources to have gone and spoken to experts and gotten advice and feedback on what they were planning to do to make sure they weren’t handling it in a completely insensitive way, instead they thought they were above it and this is the result.

They betrayed their cast and most egregious they betrayed a queer cast member and forced him (he’s on contract) to participate in baiting and betraying the community he belongs to. All of this, over a year in the making and with no remorse.

They didn’t have to include any of the poorly thought out content they did but creating shock value was more important to them than their own integrity, the integrity and relationships of the cast members with their higher ups and with one another, and the integrity of the story they were (barely) trying to tell.

Make no mistake, this was all done for shock value and to fuck over certain marginalized communities after courting the views of said marginalized communities with the illusion that they’d give them good representation and the delusion that people give enough of a shit about spoilers for this show that they had to apply a gag order on one of their core cast members and hide this from the rest of the cast. 

They wrote a story-line where they fucked over almost all of their main female characters, including diving right back into consent issue territory, queer-baited the lgbtqa community, and then made a clinically depressed character they’d (poorly) revealed as being queer decide to kill himself using entirely too many don’ts from any “how to depict suicide responsibly in media” handbook. They did all of this happily, proudly, and with intent. And now they’re lying about it by pretending they “hear you,” by pretending they give a shit about what their audience thinks about their choices as show-runners, and by pretending they give a shit about how it affected the communities they intentionally fucked over.  

Remember that even as they claim they were “away from social media” they were basking in the small amount of praise they got for their decisions by liking the positive commentary and ignoring the negative or blocking people who gave them negative feedback. That’s not giving a shit.

They’re trying to gaslight the communities they fucked over into believing that they give a shit about said communities when they’ve spent a year planning to betray them; please understand that!

The intellectual dishonesty and readiness to excuse this behavior is fucking baffling to me. For the life of me I cannot understand why people are so eager to accept the responses from these show-runners and producers that clearly contradict everything they’ve been setting in motion, intentionally, for a year!

They had a year to hear members of these communities but they didn’t even seek the advice! Their egos are so inflated that they knew you’d do just this and try to find ways to excuse their behavior when they give you these half-assed, obtuse apologies! This is psychopathic, abusive behavior!

Frankly, I’m surprised the network hasn’t stepped in at this point and asked them to step down but seeing as how one of the executive producers is coming with the bullshit caping, I’m completely unsurprised that these people will keep their jobs and continue to thrive after this.

And the worse part of all of this is that this was intentionally homophobic, sexist, and ableist behavior that they are now trying to excuse. And they’re not even just trying to excuse this behavior they’re trying to convince you that it was actually good for you and that you’re somehow fucking crazy or stupid for not seeing it their way and accepting it. That’s gas-lighting, that’s abuse. They want you to thank them for using their power against marginalized communities to hurt them. That’s what this is and every single thing they’ve said during this and in its aftermath speaks to just this. Go read those interviews with these show-runners again if you need a reminder of what they think of you and what they think of themselves.

I, for one, am convinced that these people are racist, sexist, homophobic, and ableist trash and they know this about one another and encourage one another because that’s the only reason I can think of for why this was allowed to go down the way it did. Even if I thought intent mattered when you put this ugly shit into the world, I believe this was intentional, this was not accidental, they didn’t do this not understanding the negative consequences for the communities it impacted. Why else do you all think that no one, no one can figure out why they did this from a narrative or social standpoint without delving into a nonsense, easily debunked reason for it or a to be deliberately cruel reason for it! Look at the overwhelmingly negative reviews of this season if you don’t believe that people can’t make sense of this! The only people who see this as some sort of good direction for this show are the people who belong to the hegemonic groups that don’t get it either because they don’t want to get it or because they agree with the mean-spirited intent. Period.

Try to think of one good reason why they, for example, even had to have episode 4.5 go the way it did, I’ll wait.

No, if you’re trying to find excuses to watch next season or to justify what they did let me tell you: don’t. There’s no good reason for either one of those things and you’ll just be doing yourselves and your communities a disservice. They need to experience negative consequences and you have to see yourselves and your communities as powerful enough to bring those consequences about even if you’re not sure it’ll do anything because they’re counting on your complacency to continue to behave this way while wielding the power they do. 

Please believe me when I tell you that I’m not looking to “hate” or start shit. I don’t identify as queer but I am a woman who has severe depression along with other disabilities and I understand the hideously negative impact these things have on the lives of people who experience them. I understand the desire for an escape that doesn’t go out of its way to undermine my experiences and my feelings for shock value and profit. 

I also go out of my way to understand the perspectives of other types of people and to try to empathize with their feelings when they’re fucked over in a world already set up to work against them. I do not take this lightly; seeing people suffer is not fun for me the way it is for these show-runners. 

So take all of this how you will and make your own decisions about how you’ll proceed but do so by applying critical analysis to this situation because these things are perpetuated when people don’t respond in thoughtful, impactful ways.

#the magicians #sera gamble #john mcnamara #social #media #representation #lgbtqa #lgbtqa representation #feminism #sexism #mental illness #depression #suicide #henry alfonso myers

[elizabethisdeadofficial]

Love

This is what the movie Love Actually would look like if it took place in America in 2019. 

Mr. Darcy/Portuguese lady - Instead of traveling to France and falling in love with his housekeeper after learning of his wife’s affair with his brother, Mr. Darcy hires a hooker with whom he develops a shared addiction to angel dust. Fate would separate them (he goes to a men’s prison, she — to a woman’s). But while they’re apart, he learns how to make toilet wine and she learns the true meaning of Christmas. 

Professor Snape/Trelawney - When Professor Trelawney sees Snape (her husband) dancing with his secretary (a tramp) at the office holiday party, she takes out her dangly macaroni earrings, marches up to the seductress with the LARGEST eyes of ALL TIME, and punches her right in her peepers. Later on, when Trelawney realizes that her no-good husband is still cheating, she has a complete meltdown in front of the kids whom she inevitably forces to end all communication with their father. She bought their lobster costumes on Amazon. 

Colin Frizzle - Sick and tired of the dating scene in America, this character travels to England where he assumes his accent will be appreciated. As it turns out, American accents are universally detested and no one notices him, except for one very tired Polish waitress who really needs a ride home after her shift ends. 

Body doubles - No body doubles here. These two are straight up porn stars. They do one film together (White XXXmas) and never see each other again — except once, at Harris Teeter, and man is very awkward.  

Kiera Knightly/Sign guy - Sign guy comes to the door with a sign that says, “Say it’s carol singers.” After American Kiera Knightly does, her husband replies, “Wait, what? That’s still a thing??? I gotta come see this!” ALTERNATIVELY, she shows up to sign guy’s apartment looking for more wedding footage. When she discovers the tape he made with just close-ups of her face on it she realizes that her husband is best friends with a fucking lunatic. 

Laura Linney/Brazilian model - Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of a homely American woman currently having hot sex with a literal adonis. I don’t know what he sees in me and boy do I not care. If you are calling and happen to be my brother or have an intellectual disability or both, I need you to know that I will not be answering this phone. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the pope. A-buh-bye now. 

Hugh Grant/Catering manager - This is more or less the same story line, except instead of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom it’s the President of the United States, and instead of the catering manager it’s the porn star from #4. 

Singer/Fat manager - The singer is an aging female artist who will do anything to still be relevant. The fat manager is whoever Madonna’s manager is. 

Liam “Very Specific Set of Skills” Neeson - This character starts dating another woman about two seconds after his wife dies. The stepson, who is incredibly neglected by his horny stepfather, will turn to the warm blanket of drugs to deal with the loss of his mother. 

Sam/Girl with the voice of an angel - Sam gets the sweet innocent singer girl to fall for him, not by learning the drums or chasing her through Dulles Airport, rather by treating her like a heaping pile of dog crap. He is a total fuckboy and his antics will keep her in therapy for most of her adult life. He is, lest we forget, on drugs that he bought from Mr. Darcy before he wound up in the clinker, but frankly that is no excuse. 

I guess what I’m saying is, in America, Love is... Potentially... all around us. 

#love actually #colin firth #laura linney #liam neeson #hugh grant #kiera knightly #alan rickman #emma thompson

[my-whats-app-number]

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Link to Prior Versions

You will find prior versions of our Community Guidelines on GitHub, which will allow you to compare historical versions and see which terms have been updated.

http://github.com/tumblr/policy/commits/master/community-guidelines.txt

[harrietvane]

do you mind talking about why you dislike Love Actually and Richard Curtis's romcoms? I've seen you mention it in some of your tags and I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Long post, so scroll now, ye who care not.

OK, so like better voices than mine have articulated Why Love Actually Sucks Balls, but you were kind enough to ask for my view, so strap in I’m gonna talk about Jane Eyre, and the 1990’s Fran Drescher sitcom The Nanny also. It’s coming up on western civilisations’ holiday season, so why not, it’s a good time to tell this movie to choke, because it’s about to be repeatedly thrust upon us once again. (Disclaimer: I acknowledge Richard Curtis is responsible for Blackadder and Vicar of Dibley, so whatever else, we’re still cool on that basis. But I have spite and to spare, so there’s plenty to go around).

My main beef is actually the context. Technically, if all of the below bullshit was in an offbeat movie from any other movie market (I’m thinking maybe a French, or Spanish movie from the 90′s boom, Almodovar style?), the focus would probably be a black humour take on ‘Lord What Fools These Mortals Be!’, sort of look at the inherent ridiculousness of mankind, and how we get in our own way, blah blah, might have been cute. I’d buy that. This movie? A british movie for the american market? It’s sold with a big holiday sticker on it saying ‘ROMANCE’, and specifically ‘ADORABLE ASPIRATIONAL ROMANCE THAT YOU SHOULD ADORE AND ASPIRE TO’. Also the context *inside* the movie itself (through a narration voiceover no less) is that all of these narratives is somehow proof that ‘Love, Actually is all around’, and specifically in a good, wholesome, happy way, overall at least. These stories are redeeming, even if they’re not all happy, they’re Good™ or whatever. The context outside the movie is the same: british TV advertising, hard copy packaging, holiday specials, outdoor gala screenings: they all say over and over: THIS IS SQUISHY HOT PINK NEON LOVE, wholesome, healing, and healthy. You should want this, aspire to this, think this is the cat’s pyjamas! It’s a wide and varied look at the beautiful power of love from all angles, comic, tragic, the lot. 

Is it fuck. The ‘positive’ romance stories range from Stage-5 Creeper to Crotch Puppet Afterthought, the ‘melancholy’, thwarted romance stories seem to say ‘if you’re a woman who’s not readily/immediately bangable to your allocated straight dude, romance is over for you I’m afraid’. Let’s recap, shall we:

Much has already been said about Andrew Lincoln’s character BLANTANTLY SHARKING ON HIS BEST MATE’S WIFE being uhhh, less than fresh. I don’t even feel like I need to justify this one, it’s so over-the-top. The main point is that movie itself maintains this as a tragic, swoony, thwarted, heart-string-tugging missed connection, rather than The Worst Friend Ever (meaning: it assumes we’ll be 100% onboard with Keira Knightley skipping secretly away from Chiwetel Eijiofor to grant his best mate one treasured kiss, as opposed to saying ‘what the FUCK Mark, why are you telling me this, this is super inappropriate?? and my only wedding video is just you zooming in on my face? Pls get help’.

We all love National Treasure Colin Firth and all, but like is Love, Actually fixating on a woman who literally can’t speak to you? Has said nothing understandable to you? About whose own life you’ve never yet, and could never have asked about? Whose main interactions with you have been to wordlessly clean your room, bring you food, and tidy it away after? Your ideal woman, who you meet immediately following a break up, is one who silently meets all your domestic needs, while making zero emotional or intellectual demands on you whatsoever? WOW, SHOCKER. (Oh but it’s cute or whatever, they have him propose, and there’s a mix up when her sister appears, but she’s Ugly™, so it’s funny that the sister is not getting romance. I mean, how could she, an uggo?? Classic joke. Good times.)

The Prime Minster and his tea lady: more on Curtis’ Domestic Servitude Kink below, whoo boy.

Laura Linney would really really like to sleep with Rodrigo Santoro, and god bless her who wouldn’t, but she is tragically unable to, because she has family commitments as being the sister – not even fulltime carer, just RELATED TO -  a brother living with disability. Sorry folks, romance is OFF THE CARDS, FOREVER for Laura here. How can she??? That’s the nature of love, actually. Can you have sex right now this moment? No? Whelp, sorry, thanks for playing, back to the Tragic Assisted Living facility for you. Gosh it’s unfortunate that’s a truth universally acknowledged that any whiff of disability = no romance for you ever. (Don’t start me on 4 Weddings* [edit: *it’s totally Notting Hill, not 4 Weddings, thank] and how that husband is like The Best because he continues to love his wife even though her legs don’t work. What a champ, honestly, do they have an award for that?) I have to stop now before I get sarcasm poisoning, but my eyes will continue to roll.

How could I say anything bad about the Liam Neeson widower and his adorable lovestruck son storyine? Lol, I’m gonna. Have you seen the Buffy episode The Zeppo? Xander is convinced the only way girls (as a concept, not in the specific) will like him enough to sleep with him is if he has A Thing. The Thing is posited as ‘being cool’ by having an object or skill that alone will be the magic bullet to romance. Musical instrument prowess is considered, and he ends up just getting a car to be his Thing. This just seems like a redux of that logic. This kid could get some genuine direction from the movie to get to know this girl, learn her interests and share his, see if she likes him as a person by being A PERSON, but the narrative just backs away from that and eventually DOES just say ‘play the drums in the show, she’ll like you’ and that’s …it. But it’s cool, teenagers don’t learn key interpersonal dynamics at this age or anything, she kisses him for some reason, whatever. (Bonus points for gifting his dad with a literal supermodel as a punchline, after making that an actual joke earlier about the shallow nature of attraction, and love is about filling a one-sided need.)

I could go on, but I have very little to say about Freeman falling for a girl whose tits he’s been holding for a week, the no-homo pop star Nighy plot, or the guy that goes and has sex in Wisconsin with Bond Girls, and can’t be bothered, which leads me to…

Richard Curtis’ Domestic Servitude Kink. Must I kinkshame Richard Curtis in his own home?? Nope, I’m kinkshaming him AT WORK in his narratives, surrounded by his nubile, pliant, adorable female employee characters. Oh Mr Curtis, I seem to have dropped a pencil!

OK, so like a M/F Domestic Servitude romance is an extremely old trope, and extremely common, and I’m not here to tear that up, because done well it’s amazing, lot of petrol in that King Cophetua narrative tank. I’m a fan. The most famous in-context historical example being Jane Eyre, for instance: he’s her boss, she’s his paid subordinate, they’re both 100% aware of that. It’s a great way to explore the real-life class and power dynamics of these 2 train wrecks of human beings, and they vomit their ridiculous drama llama feelings all over a 600 page novel. Super fun, they’re both awful humans, I love them. Mid-century you might have The Sound of Music, and in more modern times you get 1990s sitcom The Nanny, both extremely well-developed romances involving paid employees, and part of their value is that the shows KNOW THIS. They’re aware it’s the basis for their dynamic, that they have to directly play with that, and develop beyond to go anywhere. Watching Fran Fine in her runway-fresh Moschino minidresses jump on Maxwell Sheffield’s desk for the 800th time making him super uncomfortable (and not a little turned on) is always such a treat. It’s right out there on the label. The problem with Love, Actually, is Curtis doesn’t want to admit that naughty secretary seems to be a cornerstone of what gets him going, romantic-stylez. 

One (1) time in the movie would be ‘sure, why not’. Literally the highest political office in the land, making overtures to the woman who brings him tea, i guess might be a bit off, but let’s say it’s done well, and maybe Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon’s charisma gets us over the line (his behaviour is cute because her last man didn’t like her body, but the prime minister DOES like her body! so it’s cute!). Whatever, seen worse. Two (2) times however is making a point, and Colin Firth is driving his silent portuguese maid home - not a french maid but so close! - and deciding he’d like her to bring him tea and clean his toilet for as long as they both shall live, and that also seems to be her greatest joy. Ah, l’amour. OK, I guess you like the thing, everyone has a thing, but at least you’re done now. Wait, you mean there’s a third (3rd) one? Everyone’s Fave Alan Rickman drives the plot of his own marriage’s tragic romance because he’s having stiffening feelings about his own Naughty Secretary halloween costume, after all. All the beautiful speeches about Joni Mitchell give Thompson some nice things to do, but it still assumes the Nature of Romance is to want to plough the help. A man can’t help it! It’s how romantic attraction works! Once would be whatever. Three times and there’s a tag on Ao3 for that, so please just scratch that itch and stop selling it to me in a heartwarming christmas movie as the Universal Nature Of Romance, so varied, so vast, the full spectrum! Just 2 hours to tell a story: but 3 whole narratives and 7 actors devoted to the variants on the naughty maid story. My point is be upfront about it and I’d be all for it - pretend it’s not A Thing You’re Doing and my creep-meter goes ping. Steven Shainberg’s ‘Secretary’ has a scene where the boss literally puts a saddle on his employee, and I find it to be one of the most genuinely moving romances I’ve ever seen. Love Actually makes me feel like Curtis is sending me a ‘u up?’ late night text about his secretary fantasy.

Anyway, I fucking hate this film, and not necessarily because of the content, but because of the context. The movie tells me to love it as aspirational romance. My culture tells me to love it as aspirational romance. Everyone tells me to love it as a varied and full exploration of reasons to get up in the morning, because it’s an aspirational romance. It makes me want to claw my own face off.

#replies #long post #ishipallthings #that kid in the octopus costume can't save it #look no judgement if you like it - whatever floats your stoat - but it's uhhhhh not for me

[thenightisland]

you know the drill:

this is becoming like its own series but idk how else to explain this awful year i don’t even feeling like properly linking so here’s just the URLs of the other ones in the series: 1. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/161087786689/explanationsupdates-under-the-cutmore-i 2. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/161920216354/additional-updatesexplanations-under-the-cut 3. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/163767959805/updates-under-the-cutmore-post-one-post-two-on 4. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/164398486219/on-the-fourth-edition-of-what-the-fuck-is

one of the assessors got jumped a while back. she was just walking past a pt in the main assessment dept and he jumped up, punched her in the back of the head, took her to the ground and beat the fuck out of her. she was out for weeks and weeks and had broken facial bones. i can’t believe she didn’t quit.

our nurse executive quit though. not like, went prn or gave two weeks notice, like just straight up was like I’M DONE and walked out which honestly is the closest i’ve ever come to respecting him.

while having more psychologically unstable pts isn’t new, having more medically unstable pts has been a problem lately. like our crash cart is not like a medical hospital’s crash cart it’s like. an ambu bag some iv supplies and a stethoscope no lifesaving medications. when a pt has a medical issue we send them out to a medical hospital because obv we don’t have the resources to treat complex medical issues where we work. which didn’t used to be an issue because you’d used to see maybe two medical codes a year on my unit. we’ve had /ten/ since my last update post /just on my shift/. two of which weren’t even “pt is going downhill fast” codes they were “pt has no heartbeat and isn’t breathing” like we had to fucking bring two people back from the goddamn dead /within ten minutes of each other/. we’re all like we’re psych nurses man if we wanted to do this shit we’d work er. [and the er we’re required to send these pts to is awful like they sent us back a guy who had almost died twice in three days who had an /untreated brain tumor/ bc obv he’s totally fine]. or we’ve been doing mash unit style medicine like the suicidal kid with partial thickness burns all over his chest and neck that literally no one was doing anything about. we were debriding burns with a mixture of different PO IM and SQ drugs to achieve the same effect as IV morphine because debriding is extremely painful but not doing it will just make things worse and no one else seemed to care so we just fucking did it. like we’ve done so much medical nursing lately. like the one with the uncontrolled severe seizures that led to the medical hospital labeling her first break schizophrenia despite no family history of mental illness but /five different medical issues that all cause psychosis/. or the one they let on the unit despite being on the do not readmit who has untreated hiv that he actively tries to give to other people and /active tuberculosis/. or the one with the aneurysm. or the one with severe CHF. and on and on and on. and remember: we’re not the most medically unstable unit in the hospital because we have a 40 bed /geriatric psych unit/ so you can imagine the kind of pts /they’re/ getting. on the plus side, all of our ten odd codes lived.

my personal life is still a goddamn mess, of course, but that’s a given. don’t even know where to begin with all that. and i can’t talk about a lot of it which makes it that much more fun.

i had an entire crisis about the odyssey [which tbh is still kind of going on even after /weeks/] because i’m getting so cagey in memphis because i fucking hate this town. and i just got back from new orleans which is the closest thing i have to an ithaca at the moment and it killed me to come back to this fucking city.

i’m also really paranoid right now because after i come back from vacations, something terrible always happens and i’m not exaggerating it’s like clockwork to the point that the bad things have all happened between friday and sunday after i’ve returned from my vacation, each time, without fail. well that would be this weekend so i am just waiting to see what great horrors await me this goddamn time. [last time, it was the whole coworker killed in vehicular homicide thing]. but i guess paranoia isn’t the right word. you’re only paranoid if you’re wrong, and my life has already set the precedent. so i guess anxious is the better word.

the anxiety is increased given that my mother has been out of work all week because they’ve had trouble regulating her blood sugar and so she’s been really sick and even said so herself she’ll probably end up in the er over the weekend because she doesn’t think she can make it till her next doc appt because she’s miserable, and she’s already been in the er once when this weird shit started happening a month or so ago so the Vacation Curse has me even more concerned than usual, which is saying something. 

there’s a new psych doc working now and everyone is really unsettled by him and we’re pretty sure he’s a genuine psychopath like completely without exaggeration and he’s already done a lot of really creepy things to/with staff members and one nurse said in passing “i’ve known a lot of doctors like him he’ll end up fucking a pt at some point” which we initially left to hyperbole but he’s been doing shit like transporting female pts to other units without the staff’s consent in his own car which is like all kinds of not allowed, and the way he talks to some of the staff is just downright rapey honestly. and so we had a rough case this summer who, through the combined efforts of my squad, we got her from a diagnosis of intellectual disability with schizophrenia, nonverbal, self harming all the time, history of physical and sexual abuse, constantly in restraints and on a 1:1 obs level to a new diagnosis of autism spec with ptsd because her “hallucinations” were /flashbacks/ and she ended up very social and verbose and like fucking read william blake for fun and had a great sense of humor and was off all special observations and had a transfer to another facility pending so she could get more 1:1 long term therapy, and the creepy doctor was covering her case while her actual doc was out of town and he rode all the way to the other hospital with her which is another thing you do not do, and we found out from a coworker that she is now a /2:1/ [two staff members within arm’s reach 24/7], self harming again, in full shutdown/meltdown mode, and nonverbal. and it was such a rapid deterioration that all of us lost sleep over the possibility that this creepy doctor might have done something because even after she was at the other hospital and therefore no longer our pt, /he kept going to see her/. which fucked us up a lot because we were the ones who worked so hard for so long with her. like even the thought of it.

recently had 25th birthday so naturally had a crisis about that because i’d always said my goal was to be out of memphis by 25 and yet here we are. 

another of our fave pts, esp one of /my/ fave pts, died out of literally nowhere. the day before my birthday. so that was great.

also felt really surreal to see the news about the convictions in the holly bobo case, which i found out about when one of my coworkers was reading the news on his phone during a lull one night i forgot that to him and everyone else it’s a national news story [hell it even has its own wikpedia page] but to me it’s just /holly/ because she was /in the class above me in our nursing program/. my first semester in college i remember seeing her face on missing posters on every building on campus. so it was really a weird moment of dissociation for me. glad the motherfucker was found guilty on all charges, obv. 

the tech of mine who got his skull slammed into the floor, the one who’s been out with what can only be called severe psychological trauma, is supposed to be coming back the third week in october. which i just. i mean i’m glad because he’s one of our best guys, but i’m also like /why the fuck would he come back/ because he could be a fucking english professor again. motherfucker spent part of his youth growing up in italy and montreal, lived on the west coast for years, /was/ a college professor, did time as a script doctor in LA, and was a fucking thriller novelist who just gone girled himself for whatever reason and ended up working with us. there’s literally a reddit thread asking if anyone knows what happened to him and i want to be like don’t worry it’s fine he works with me. but so we’re like why would you come back to this place after what happened to you when you have so many other options available to you????? what are you running from that makes you so desperate to keep centering your life around a locked acute psych ward???? why did you gone girl yourself to begin with??? like he was screwed up enough there for a while that he wasn’t even answering his calls or texts and our boss had to send the police to do welfare checks on him because he lives alone so it’s like man why not go back to the life you had before and /get away from all of this/ it’s not like my situation where i’d rather be living a different life but have never done so, he already has the foundation because he’s already lived a different life he has an in that i don’t have and i can’t for the life of me figure out why he thinks working as an acute pysch tech is the better option. 

but i mean. we /do/ call our unit the hotel california for a reason.

#karen's adventures in trying to sort her life out #this got longer than i intended whoops

[clint-stevens]

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[trishgibsontx]

what happens when you ASSume things about others / how it relates to your EGO

photo by Jennifer Santaniello

in my life, one thing has remained constant: those who hurt me the most are those who I not only believed in the most, but whom I GAVE the most to. and I understand perfectly well why this could/would happen. EGO. and its convenient desire to ASSume in order to distance itself from truth. much of which I will discuss below.

people hurt us, not for the sake of hurting us — but rather for the sake of “proving” untrue that which threatens their egos. let me explain. if Jane grows up being abused by those who are supposed to love her the most, her entire being has committed itself to betrayal — just in order to SURVIVE. survival alone, for Jane, means committing herself to self-harm or betrayal by others. she may even fancy demeaning “creativity” as “fun”. as Jane grows and yearns to stop repeating certain patterns, she consciously or logically seeks love from others — teachers, lovers and friends. however, when actual love or truth begin to reach Jane BEYOND a surface or cognitive level, her unconscious (aka ego — which EVERY human has in spades so no, you can’t ohm yourself out of having it) mind does a karate chop and will create a story in effort to avert her core’s growth. Jane might read every spiritual book on the planet, travel to spiritual places, and even think that she is leading a spiritual life. but in reality, her ego adrenaline is charging in accordance with that which has kept it alive all along: betrayal. in this sense, when actual love or truth begin to hit Jane BEYOND surface level, she is threatened by it and must paint it black. it will take many, many attempts and experiences for Jane to come to terms with what she is actually doing. as she is on her journey to actually loving herself (this takes years — not weeks or months after recovering from trauma — it’s called a lifelong journey and our reason for breathing/existing), she will turn her back on that/who/what IS actual love or truth, over and over again — veiling it with a label of danger or deceit or disappointment. she will in turn seek out that which unconsciously feels familiar, but that which LOOKS/appears to be safe. this is pure ego, masquerading as “higher consciousness”. Jane has fooled herself, for a number of months or years, again, until she comes full circle back to the starting point of her test. (please read Dancing The Dream again!).

I’ve seen the above 1000s of times in humans. and, at some point, in myself. what we fail to understand is how our mind and adrenaline operate, because we live in a world of insta-everything. healing is not insta. there isn’t anything cool about it, either. there isn’t anything cool about being a “master” anything in the healing arts. healing is not taught. healing is only experienced from deep within the core of one’s very OWN soul — and no one can beat the clock on that in terms of what the Universe has in store in order to balance ego/consciousness/spirit accordingly or at the same speeds. we are at a disability when we out-intellectualize healing or try to understand it from a philosophical perspective. I have met so many smart (young) people who, with all that they “know” (thanks, internet), believe that they have “arrived” spiritually. and they have told me so. only for me to sit back and watch them fall into a steeper ditch than they imagined (often steeper than before they came to me for help), with the same lesson presented harder, so that they can learn to sense and operate from their core versus their ego mind that was trained upon certain patterns that are not shifted by reading a book or sensing someone’s energy. the point that we go to actually escape our processes bewilders me, and I have seen and felt the response in others as they avert, by avoiding and even hating that which spooked their ego into better alignment with their soul. (by the way, falling into a steeper ditch is not a fail but rather a win — so long as you are willing to look at it!)

for example. I was trained to run only toward things that were bad for me or did not serve me. or abused me. of course, I did not know this was my algorithm in my younger years, as it had only been set at one speed since I took my first breath. and I recall, in retrospect, coming across some people and situations that were truly of spiritual (not ego) benefit for me. I recall engaging in those situations, because on a spirit level I was a match, and then running from them — because ego-wise I was not yet a match. because I was trained oppositely ego-wise. this was not something my mind could overcome. no one’s mind can just overcome it. one can only move THROUGH it. with no shortcuts. my point is, the moment that I was in the presence of something that I had NEVER known (authentic love and truth), my spirit loved it and my ego hated it. then ensued the battle. I would default, in my early days (20s!, especially), to my ego. my ego would make up pretty amazing stories and rationale for disallowing authentic love and truth — via all human relationships — in my life. my spirit craved love and truth, yet my ego would default to what was “comfortable” — or familiar. that said, what was “comfortable”, looked to be ON THE OUTSIDE ONLY very “different” than the hurtful or scary experiences from the past. and that was the biggest problem of all. I was ASSuming, based on my human (not my spirit’s) perception, that things were now “different” because they LOOKED different. oh how wrong that is. oh, human ego.

the truth is, things are different only when we cease all unwanted patterns. and that is a chemical response that takes both time and work to correct into a healthy algorithm. as long as any unwanted patterns are in our life, we are committed to a false truth. in which we slide back into exactly the same patterns just using new faces to keep us up with the lie that things are ok…for a time. and then things implode again. and then we repeat it. until we do not…

the problem with ASSuming things about other people, is that we do not know which part of us is ASSuming. it’s nearly always our ego. because if we even have to make a judgement, versus flow with it, that is force at its finest. and when we ASSume about another person something to be true, especially because of good old gossip (aka cancer) or something another person said, we are royally screwing ourselves because we can not hear our core speaking to us.

I have literally experienced this first-hand as a healer. only to have the person profusely apologize later. in one case a year later. for example. in one healing I had done, the person had been sexually abused by their opposite sex parent. I knew it upon seeing them. I didn’t say it when I was working with them. and when I first saw this person, I sensed both their spirit’s desperation for me to help them, and their ego’s commitment for ME to be their abuser. imagine that! but yes! this can happen, by the way, to any therapist or healer who is diving in substantially to the psych field as I do with another person who is lost/confused/in need (another reason, by the way, that I am hanging up the mainstream healer hat. time for a break from the crucifix). anyhow, for a strong moment or longer, this patient and I connected to the same truth and I saw their body/mind/spirit line up all at once. they saw the truth as I had intuited, without my commentary, and began to recall it verbally. as a younger healer at the time, I was so excited to see that this person was “seeing the light!” “hooray!”. I thought they were ready (I would later read MY lesson in Dancing The Dream!). in the following days, their “clarity” was new and exciting and they could not wait to begin their new life, even with the hard truth’s they had recalled on their own (in the presence of my offering of energetic truth/held space). however, as they got closer to happiness and liberation that was starting to CHANGE their life, they began to act funny. retract. they reached out to OTHER patients of mine (who of course, contacted me about it) to question MY truth or authenticity. oy vey. they were having an allergic reaction to the changing algorithm of their ego adrenaline. and, sometimes people can actually have a breakthrough at this point, whereas others go backwards. well this one went backwards. they were once again in contrast between their human world and their spirit world. and in order to keep their ego adrenaline or human world happy in a case such as this, they MUST make everything black or white. in this case, I would be black, and their abuser would be white again. do you know how hard it is to actually overcome abuse? it is EXTREMELY HARD. when people claim to heal overnight, they do not know what they are talking about.

the ego will talk us backwards to any pattern that has kept us at a certain rythym since birth. the journey is knowing WHEN it is talking us backwards. it is in this way that I have to be so careful in my own life as a healer not to take things personally. I have to remember that people are dealing with chemicals, not opinions. and we as people will seek out ANY ASSumption possible to prevent ourselves from breaking coursing (survival) adrenaline patterns. good or bad. when I was younger, not only did I experience not knowing who to trust (as my ego automatically rejected anything that was good/true), I experienced friends and potential romantic partnerships do the same to me. “you’re too good to be true — so you must be lying” — I heard that on more than one occasion. I recall meeting a wonderful man who had everything going for himself (actually this happened more than once); he seemed to have the world in his hand. and deep down, I knew that he had been molested by a female family member. I never brought it up. as we became closer, this seemingly very intelligent, attractive and worldly man began to look at me with fear. ME. the person who would not hurt a fly. the person who was always blamed for everything and just wanted love myself. and I heard for the first time in my life “you’re scary — because you can’t be real”. the fact that I operated with truth and love was so scary to this person, and countered every early life experience on this planet, that they went from throning me to trashing me. it was also the first time in my life that I realized this was not personal — I could see the energy field around it as it pertained to the psychological and emotional bodies. it made me realize that those I nearly broke my back for early on in my days of healing, who later thought negatively about me, were not opposed to me — but rather the truth that would continue to threaten their survival. maybe forever.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my own life to learn to deeply and unconsciously trust (still working on that as best I can) and to trust mySELF (major upcoming blog coming on that, by the way!), so that I don’t have to live in alignment with old ego chemicals. I’ve also been fortunate enough to attract mainly people who are far along enough on both their human AND spirit journeys (using spirit to overshadow human is a big, big mistake — the cost of spiritual bypassing is great) who don’t blame me when their old patterns want to either blame or peg me as something other than what I am. this is partially what has concerned me about coming out of the closet, as I realize that some people, as soon as they see me in an environment different than the one we met, will turn on me/change their opinion of me due to ego. something happened recently with someone I worked with who I really adored, which really disappointed me — and I had to realize again what I am good at realizing most of the time: someone’s “sudden” opinion about me, not based at all on our interactions but rather on later interactions of their own mind’s battle against itself and/or fueled by others who can’t trust themselves and therefore certainly not someone like me, has nothing to do with who or what I am. and I had to realize my inherent ability and tendency to look only at the higher self and potential, versus the actual human. I’m still learning to see in that light. it can be very hard at times not to take things personally with the work that I do, because it has oddly (or not) been proven to me over and over again that the people I went out of my way the most for (key phrase for my own learning too — “went out of my way the most for” — why did I do that? because I knew I was trying to fix something that was not in my hands — ego-check right there!), seem to want to blame me for something. this, by the way, also ties to a VERY old pattern I absorbed since birth, one that threatened my very breath if I did not internalize it, and so I have been working on erasing this energy signature. and that erasure is part of another blog post as I am digesting a recent breakthrough along the line of that pattern.

as I see this pattern leave me, I see evidence ALL around me of what that pattern represented: in the form of people. and their actions and words toward me. it never ceases to amaze me as to how obvious the carnage of pattern-breaking actually is, and how ALL of the many different people I’ve been in contact with respond during such a time. thank you to those who have made it harder, and thank you equally to those who have made it easier! because either way, it JUST IS. and I expand from that.

what I will say to anyone in a position of spirit and ego dissonance (if you are alive and breathing, you’re in the position!), be careful about what you ASSume about others. your ego may be at play, and no amount of education or info-intake can cure your unconscious mind from it’s desire to repeat what it is most familiar with. even though it may feel easy, or even “powerful” to ASSume something about a person, consider whether you are in force or power with that desire. you may find that it is simply coming from an old place that you don’t actually want to live in anymore.

The post what happens when you ASSume things about others / how it relates to your EGO appeared first on The Medical Intuitive Blog: Healing Elaine™.

from Trisha Gibson http://www.themedicalintuitiveblog.com/2018/01/11/happens-assume-things-others-relates-ego/

[reasoningwithmybody-blog]

Fragility

Last night, my husband looked at me and said, “Thank you for making us have a kid.”  He’s said things to this effect before, expressing how happy he is that I pushed the issue.  At the time we were struggling with my infertility– had it been up to him – he would have left it at the doctor telling me I couldn’t have children, and that would be that.

My OBGYN recommended a fertility specialist.  I went on my own.  I barreled through it without much thought for the fact that my husband only half-heartedly on board.  He was content with our lives.  I wasn’t.  Is that horrible to say?  I loved him. I do love him. But I felt something missing, not necessarily from my relationship with him, but from my life. I wanted someone to take care of.

The initial appointment wasn’t a physical exam; it was a consultation, and the doctor (I’ll call him Dr. B) laid out our options.  We would start small, the “turkey baster” method, then move to more expensive and invasive treatments like IVF.  I did genetic testing because why not?  It wasn’t expensive (it wouldn’t cost more than $100 even if our insurance didn’t cover it).  And I was not expecting anything wrong with my genes.  I was healthy.  My parents were healthy. 

I was still so optimistic.  To this day, I trust medical professionals.  So when Dr. B sounded so confident, I believed him.

It was July.  I remember it was too hot to run outside so I had just started a run on the treadmill when I saw his number on my phone. 

He told me that I was a carrier for a permutation of Fragile X syndrome.  I had never heard of it before, but Fragile X is the leading known cause of autism. It causes intellectual disabilities and behavioral problems. It’s called Fragile X because the X chromosome expands.

I do not have full blown fragile X as my X chromosome hasn’t expanded to what is called the full mutation, but I still have a chance of passing this along to my children.  A woman with the full expansion has a 50/50 chance of passing it along.  If passed along to a girl, it rarely presents itself because females have two X chromosomes.  Males have one, so that is where we see the genetic mutation presents.

There are moments where you can divide your life into before and after.  All of us have them.  They tend to be tied up in grief.  This was one of those moments for me.  Being told you have a genetic disease that you could pass on to your offspring is a world upending moment.  What’s more, not having the full mutation of Fragile X actually made my chances of having a child at all more difficult.  Women with the permutation undergo something called FXPOI which is Premature Ovarian Insufficiency, which means it’s very hard to conceive and carry to term.

Looking bad, it’s difficult to remember the spiral this sent me down.  For a while, my husband was the only person I confided in about this, only I stopped talking to him. At all. I shut down.  I felt so ashamed, as if I had done something wrong.  I felt like less of a woman.  Suddenly, all my feminism left me and I just knew the biological reason for femaleness was baby-making.  I couldn’t do that.  I failed my husband.  I failed my parents.  I failed my in-laws. I hated myself for waiting so long to get married, to get pregnant.  I hated that I put career and something as silly as being happy and compatible with the actual father of said baby if it meant I could have one. In the weeks to come, as I sat beside my husband but didn’t let him inside my despair, I grieved the loss of life I never knew.

When I got off the phone with Dr. B, I sat on the floor next the treadmill and cried for nearly an hour.  Even now, I can picture that moment.  I can feel the shame well up inside of me.  I can feel the terror.

Still, for a little while, I had hope that we would still conceive.

Dr. B said that we could talk about my options.  He said we could continue forward with treatment and hope for the best.  Especially now that I have a child, I can say 100% without a doubt, I would go through with the treatment even knowing the risk of having a child with intellectual or behavioral disabilities. It has no bearing on a parent’s love for them.  At the time, though, without having kids, I’m not sure I would have made that choice.

He connected me to a genetic counselor, who said I had a 20% chance of having a child with fragile X.  These were good odds, as far as I was concerned, so I kept my appointment with him to look at my follicles and move forward.

Dr. B wasn’t able to make it to the appointment, so his partner did.  His partner – Dr. A -  said the likelihood of me conceiving and carrying was so slim it was a waste of time to even try.

I sat in the leather chair of his office, my husband by his side, and stared hopelessly at him. He was so matter of fact.  So harsh.  Dr. B said we were still going to try!  He had given me hope!  And then Dr. A just squashed it all with one glance at my chart.

But holy shit.  I am so fucking grateful for that man.   He changed my life.  He made it possible to have my son.

#fragileX #XFXOPI #infertility

[matsitle]

ONE MUFFIN LEFT

Those damn CRC white devils again!  😡

But I had to get those muffins. I had to! I knew I had to get them soon as I started considering lesser taxing alternatives for my craving and coffee - like Romany Creams from the service station three minutes away. You see, I’m a serial victim of my laziness, something my mother always warned me about - ‘ga gona kgomo ya boroko’. My father too - 'o tla ja masepa a thaka tsa gago.’ (And ke a jele goed for a year-and-a-half). I always went for the low hanging fruit; and true to form it’s always the tholaborethe ee babang kha teng. Like with lovers - I always lie and say I don’t have a type. But I do: “disciplined intellectual beauty” as Immo Tech outlines. And I have a right to this, since I can also bring that to the table. But for my laziness. Or maybe like Kundera’s Mirek I suffer from a “weakness, that deprivation” of deeming myself “unworthy of anyone better than a Zdena.” A Zdena, in my case, would be anyone who doesn’t meet that Immo Tech rubric. I learnt through heartbreak that gwababa is dangerous. O tla feletsa o sunne masutlha! As such, I dared not give into gwababa once more, I wanted muffins. And muffins I would get! Come hell or high water. Or Bible thumping (never reading) devils.

So I finally convinced my body that we could get to the Engen garage in Brandwag no problem – some three or so kilometres away from my staff quarters. And besides, I stroked its arm gently, if we get tired we can always call a cab. It relented. But the tricky fuck I am, I “forgot” my phone on the charger. 😂 Cab se voet! You think money grows on trees ka bona. And it aint like there are women just waiting to drive a nigger. Haai! 😥 Chivalry is dead. Women these days; dikopa! I mean if a nigger is chilling in his shack, coffee brewing, mesmerised by its aroma, and suddenly he craves muffins – you would think (as any straight-thinking person would) that a girl will just drop by and say ‘hey, lemme take you for those muffins’. Mara kae? Kga!

So on foot we trekked. My body and I. Generally a useless gullible bag of healthy bones and sweet odour, but now and then redeems itself. Being cognisant of our fated-when as blacks, we took all necessary precautions to not fall victim of gratuitous violence, we took the safest path available. That is the roads littered with noble daughters of the streets. Because where there are prostitutes there are cops. Reducing crime. Prostitutes are keeping our streets safe. That is generally my use for them; and I compensate them for it too. When they ask “Rasta mphe two-rand,” I give them – there was one, ‘Lineo’, who was almost my friend, she walked with me once trying to avoid a rapey cop. And owing to my super-hero fantasies I revelled in being the Rape Walker. And ever since then she never missed a chance to shout “Rasturr” whenever she saw me. They’re an important part of the ecology of the city. 

Now enter these arrogant do-gooder fucks! Tjhessis!😠

I knew something was amiss when I turned the corner and did not see my people. I panicked even. In the far corner I saw a group of people. My eyes are not any more useful than the rest of my body but they did manage to discern that the people in that group were bulkier than the tiny frames that usually run these streets at night. They seemed to just be loitering. As I got closer I could draw up a clearer picture, a paler one. More disgusting than the black bodies that are up for sale day (male) and night (female) on these streets. I walked up to them with great pace – I might have even been angry, but they flashed that testicle chewing smile that disabled me. So I only got to ask them a banal, moot question. “Excuse me,” look at me being nice when I’m supposed to be raving mad *smh* “Which church are you from.” They answered. We left. I romanticised that encounter by thinking ‘at least this time I went to them, not the other way around’. See, I might be black but I have some agency. But I knew I had been castrated.

Now, I have no beef with prostitution per se. But I do have a problem with these women left with no option but to be on the streets. In as much as I have a problem with the men forced on the same street during the day. Prostitution is just a service just like any other – no different to a barber. You have your friend who can cut your hair for free, but there is also a professional whose labour and skill you have to pay for. Same with sex – it can be a billable service. But living in a capitalist patriarchal society, I know that (all) women’s bodies have already been codified as sex commodities. They have all been marked as available to the highest bidder. Which makes prostitution (as with all labour) unethical. That being said, I do not believe anyone has any right to deny women their freedom of forced choice to whore out their bodies to the bidder that will have them – be it mofeti-ka-tsela, moreki, mohlonolofatsi or mogatse. Even less so, the beneficiaries and perpetrators of this system that forces such choices down our throats.

This is what I meant to bring to light to these landthieves – with all the rage I could muster. But I only managed to ask them where do they wash their dirty hands off the blood of black people. Nicely le teng. My body was kind enough to carry me away from my shame. I had failed dismally to exercise the greatest power of them all – the power to pose the question. “If you want to save them, instead of disrupting their livelihoods, #BringBackOurLand you fucks!” ~ I didn’t say that. They were so white. So pure. So innocent. Smiling. They even offered to help me. With what I dunno. “Which church are you from,” is all I could mutter in the face of such provocation. 

The woke kids are onto something; black men aint shit! “Make me numb Nelson”, I don’t want to feel this rage that just never boils over to anything. Fuck I am not even a fuckboy. I don’t turn to the bottle. Kgosietsile said this is where all failed revolutionaries end up – ‘tween warm thighs and/or the bottle. Dostoyevsky did say everyone must have somewhere to turn to. Maybe, (I smile – my feet pick up the pace. Away from the corner of castration they take me. Away!), maybe that I have no escape means that I am still a revolutionary. Or maybe (my heart sinks, feet still in pace. Away! Away!), maybe I was never one; hence I suffer no vertigo, no litost. 

But fuck that! Positive thinking. I am a revolutionary. I am not Mdu. I can’t be. Dostoyevsky a re Mdu’s lies prevent him from loving – and I can’t live without loving, giving “way to passions and course pleasures” or sinking to the bestiality of my vices.  “Ndiyakholwa kuyw’ ihambo yam, ndizoy’mela nangamax’ anzima.” My credentials speak for me. This is my third encounter with these unsettlers. And on the other two occasions, I had clarified them. Goed nie bietjie! 

The first time I was with Neo, we were walking at great pace from the theatre. High on intellectual banter octane. So when we saw these people usurping our sisters’ corner, their land, their real estate (location! location! location!), we got angry. The proper patriarchs we are, we took it upon ourselves to protect ‘our women’. We didn’t even care to ask the one lady a few meters away carrying on with her business besides this white inconvenience if she needed any advocacy from us, we assumed it. What do women know about fighting whiteness anyway? After the thirty to forty-five minute lecture, I reasoned away my knight-in-shining-armour fuckery by telling Neo that at least we took away time from these devils that they would’ve otherwise used to disturb the women’s business (probably done on behalf of some man – be it pimp or husband or son). Kanye kana what do the ancient Nigerians say? Every man can defend his fuckyness? 

In the second encounter too I was not as cowardly as with this latest one. I was with my BAF, whom the know-it-all toenails of Satan mistook for a whore and me her John (well…🤔…but a re tlogele ditshele). That time too, although somewhat restrained by vodka and the pressure not to embarrass ‘the missus’ by launching a full-frontal attack on religion (something she subscribed to), I let them have it. So all in all I have a good record against these arrogant ignorant irritants. Tonight was just a bad day in the office. I still have no need for the bottle or warm thighs!😪

Buoyed by this warped reasoning I reached Woolworths in no time. Its doors wide open on the stroke of midnight. Oh god how I love open things at night! I went in and was welcomed by various bouquets of flowers. I have been meaning to get myself one. But I don’t have a vase. And R240 is a lot of money. I can’t justify that spend when I am not willing to spend R40 to give my rapidly numbing feet respite. This line of reasoning also prevents me from buying a tiramisu cake and the Mail & Guardian newspaper – my feet are not any less important than my taste buds or toilet reading. 

There’s only one tray of muffins left. I grab it lest these usurpers of land invading the store barefooted do. My feet could do with the coolness of these tiles actually – but I decide against taking off my shoes. Anyway the aisles are too narrow, I can’t exactly sit on the floor and read the newspaper for free. Why aren’t there any libraries open at night? I really feel like reading up about something I don’t know. Maybe anthropology. 

My feet feel like they’re swelling up inside my shoes; all these unavailable options I’m considering seem to be making my body snobby. The last tray of muffins are chocolate muffins. No lemon poppy-seed. I walked all the way here to not get lemon poppy-seed muffins. I’m glad for the ginger biscuits though. I look around a bit, even in the toiletries, to check what else I will not be getting. My feet send though an order; but a cab is also one of the many things I will not be getting. I have already denied myself so much on its account. If I don’t respect my own decisions who will? Besides if we take a cab how will I exact my revenge on those crackers? I can’t backtrack now.

I must trek back now. Hopefully those Be Good’s will still be there. Then I will surely give them a piece of my mind. Raw black rage. Got the speech all mapped out and shit. So I commission my body to do the work of shame; walk (a man who walks is shameful, carless women don’t tire saying. 👀 Go figure!). It does not have much of say. That is until we get to Westend – it slows down and lets me know that it knew about my little secret all along 😯; leaving the phone behind so that we would have no option for a cab. But here are cabs lined up next to the club, it pleads, surely we can take up one. I am always open to be convinced, so I hear it out. It continues with its passionate plea. I also hear something else. Or rather I eavesdrop on a conversation of a diva and her friend. I know that she’s a diva because that’s what the story I hear is about.

“Yoh friend I just had the most amazing orgasm ever,” that’s what piques my interest, the horny pervert I am. And also how I got to know that the other girl was her friend, see? I don’t just assume relations between people without evidence.

“Tlo ka tsona mati,” the other girl eggs her on. Again proving my suspicion that they are friends.

“So this guy stands next to me at the bar as I was trying to get drinks, and I have been struggling to get the barman’s attention. But he manages to. Men! But anyway after he orders he asks me what would I like. I brush him off and order my own drinks. Then he says “you can have whatever you like.” Sings it actually. Quietly in my ear. I mean boundaries! But he’s got the sweetest singing voice. I dunno what comes over me but I say “you.” We’ve already paid for the drinks that are still being prepared. He just walks away. Then turns back and asks me what am I waiting for. I roll my eyes but he stretches out his hand almost irritated, his eyes smiling. Girl I just lose it and he leads me out of the club. We go to his place. He tells me he saw me perform, actually gives me a raving review as he undresses. His voice is so so calm. He’s completely naked and flaccid. I can’t take my eyes off his thing. You never really get to see flaccid ones as often. He just goes on to describe my performance in great detail. Comes closer and starts undressing me. I’m totally naked. Wet and sad. Sad coz I thought performing was the best feeling ever, but this guy makes me realise that seeing me perform is way better. I’m just standing there perplexed. He sits flat on the floor. Then scoots on under me. Like he’s eye level with my dingese. Then starts kissing it all over. He tilts his head back and starts tonguing me. I grind on his nose. But I figure his neck must be getting tired. I mean you can see the veins popping out and all. So I pull away and kneel to kiss him. I taste so good on him! I get up and he gets up with me. Leads me to the bedroom, all the while continuing his appraisal. He tells me I’d be great with just a talented pianist doing the blues. I push him to the bed, he’s still flaccid. I don’t care. My tongue will resurrect him. I am about to teabag him when he says “sing for me.” I lay my head on his chest, his heart is racing, I listen to it to find a melody. I start singing. He starts humming along. In pauses. A deep throatily baritone. Soon we are in sync. I’m in another world completely. On stage. With a bass player. Just the two of us. No audience. He plays and I sing. Completely independent of each other. But in sync. Then suddenly there’s an audience of one. Me. I see myself perform. I am so happy. I sing my heart out. On stage. And I scream my lungs out. In the audience. I don’t see the bassist anymore. But there’s a subtle baseline that is a canvass to my melodic painting. As I reach the crescendo on stage I cannot hold myself in the audience and just let rip my ecstasy. Suddenly the private performance has filled up the dome. The stage is a full orchestra. But it’s all me. On stage and in the multitudes in audience. On stage I am in all black. Every bit of me. In the audience I am wearing all sorts of things. All the things I own, wish to own and have never imagined. Same as with the hairstyles. The crowd is screaming, tears all over our faces, up on our feet, clapping wildly. On stage we sigh as we bow. My head is down. And heavy. Eyes closed as the screams fade away into the far distance. I slowly open my eyes and a familiar scent hits me. Its sex. I find his face contorted and beads of sweat providing it a disturbing sheen. He is quite ugly. His chest is bruised and on the verge of bleeding, my nails are to blame. My palms are rested on either side of his chest. His still firm upright bass still buzzing inside me. I want it out but I’m too spent to lift myself off. So I just give my shivering hands a break and drop dead on him. At least this way I don’t have to look at his ugly face. He continues to slowly stroke, massage my insides basically, still humming. I dozed off.”

Personally I think she’s lying. Probably disappeared with the group’s drinks budget to go get a fix. Hence her ridiculous tale – ditiro tsa dithetefatsi fela tse! Orchestra orgasm se voet! But this little fib distracted my body enough to walk past the taxis without any more complaints. Naïve little thing😝. Of course now spotting a hard-on. Surely is going to be hard convincing those pseudo-Christian Calvinists of my convictions on prostitution with an erection.

The eye at the back of my head – a prized possession of anyone who’s ever been subjected to the violence that is the township – informs me that there are people behind me. Men. Black men. I know the woke ones with their Olympics of suffering don’t like it when we say we understand that they’re afraid of black men because we too are afraid of black men. Apparently we black men are all the same. Violence on a black cis-het male body by another black cis-het male body goes unaudited. It is not an event worthy of a hashtag. I am a black man. I am on my own. Against the four black men behind me. Whom I inflict violence on their person by casting them as criminals with no evidence whatsoever. There is a safe distance between us – but that’s what I thought the last time black men pulled me down by my hair and brandished their makeshift knives in my blind face (my glasses having long abandoned me in my fall. Sellouts!). So I commission my body to carry me quicker to my prostitutes, or the white bullet-repelling bodies disturbing their trade. I did not change the gears smoothly. My left knee gives in 🤕. I can barely keep the pace I started with before the failed acceleration. 

I have a soccer injury on that knee from high school. I tsamayad a friend with a tennis ball, tripped on his outstretched leg, spun in the air, and landed on the knee on the concrete floor. I didn’t have medical aid so nothing was ever done in its honour. I was not even allowed to cry. I had to live with the “harde dawg.” Black cis-het male tears – boring! It acts up from time to time. The other time I was at the physicist attempting to commit fraud in an effort to endear myself to my BAF (futile, futile exercise!), being a healthy idiot who has regular check-ups I really had no reason for my visit to there, and I couldn’t come out directly as to what exactly is it I wanted, so I told him about the knee. He put it under the scanner and found nothing. That convinced me that it was a phantom injury. A phantom injury that now threatened my escape from the knife. I struggled to keep my pace. 

But it turned out that it was indeed a safe distance between me and the men who unsettled me, sans the balaclavas. I reached the safe bosom of the prostitutes with a block still separating us beastly trashy black men. The white missionaries were gone. Darn! I guess they had clocked enough hours to earn their brownie points to heaven. All that preparation for nothing. My speech gone to waste. All that walking for nothing. I could’ve taken a cab and avoided all this impotent drama. I risked knife and knee for forty-fucken-rands!? For four muffins I can’t even eat. Fuck. Bayadika abelungu shwem!😩