#also they’re like teens shouldn’t be exposed to these topics

[gods-favorite-autistic]

I love the fact that people on tiktok are mad about Mean Girls jr and being like “teens shouldn’t be exposed and talking about these things it literally Mean Girls why would you let them perform this”

Like babes do you know whats a thousand times worse than mean girls? Heathers. Do you wanna know what also has a jr version? HEATHERS. Do you wanna know what kept the song entirely about having sex as your last action? FUCKING HEATHERS

Like shut up about Mean Girls Jr unless you are also gonna fucking protest Heathers Jr

[lil-princesshil]

Why I don’t believe wholeheartedly in the “Keep Minors Out of Kink” Trope - rewritten

PLEASE READ THROUGH FULLY BEFORE BANISHING ME TO HELL

That’s a loaded title. And a potentially scary notion that an adult is suggesting they don’t believe minors necessarily shouldn’t be involved in kink. But hear me out.

The problem with the “Keep Minors Out of Kink” trope is that it assumes we can keep minors out of kink. It’s the same thing as saying we can keep minors from having sex. Americans (I am Canadian), especially southerners, have approached the topic of underage sex by taking the blanket approach of abstinence. There is little to no sex education within the school systems and minors are left without even a basic understanding of their bodies, their rights, consent, or even a rudimentary awareness of contraception. When we look at abstinence only states we see the highest rates of teenage pregnancy. Not only is abstinence not working, but it leaves teenagers without any tools in which to protect themselves from disease or pregnancy, let alone an understanding of consent and their rights.

If we can’t control teenagers from having sex using a no tolerance approach, what makes us think we can control them from practicing kink?

As a teenager I was heavily involved in both the online and in person ddlg scene. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine the type of person willing to interact with a minor. It certainly wasn’t adults who respected my boundaries, practiced safe kink, asked for my consent, or listened to safe words. No, they were instead adults who took advantage of a naive child who had little education on kink and safe, consensual, healthy play.

We may not like the idea of minors in kink, but they’re already here. Since the advent of the internet, kink has been online. And today it’s more available for consumption than ever before. We only need to look on tik tok and search #KinkTok to find video after video of young people chatting about their kinks, their experiences within kink, and their preferences.

On one hand this is wonderful. There are open and honest dialogues happening about sexual preferences like there never has been in history. The stigma of kink is slowly eroding and individuals who don’t necessarily practice sex in the conventional manner are feeling less shame.

And minors have access to all of this.

The problem lies not with exposing minors to good, informed information about kink, it’s the bad information. While Tik tok, tumblr, redit etc are filled with good advice on kink topics, they are also filled with just as much bad advice. How can we expect uniformed minors to differentiate between good advice and bad?

Taking the “abstinence only” approach to kink leaves minors to their own devices. It’s metaphorically leaving minors without even a condom in which to protect themselves from disease and unwanted pregnancies. We need to provide minors with the tools in which to protect themselves against predators and against injury. The “abstinence only” approach only pushes minors into the hands of those adults who want to take advantage of them, not away.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I am not suggesting tumblr or tik tok or redit is the right place for minors to learn about kink and I do believe kink education for minors needs to be age appropriate. But if we know sex education reduces teen pregnancy and it gives minors the tools in which to make good, informed, consensual decisions about sex, why do we not think kink education could do the same?

What platform, how to deliver this information, and who should be providing this education, I don’t know. But I do know that minors are idiots and we need to protect them with information, because keeping them in the dark isn’t working.

[dovesndecay]

I’m thinking about Bo Burnham, and that new special of his. 

Don’t get me wrong, I really did enjoy it. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack basically on repeat since I first watched it. So much of it hits home in ways that other content just doesn’t. But I’m setting my feelings about that aside for the moment, and I’m focusing on other aspects. 

And I have two videos to talk about before I get to it. This may be slightly long, so buckle up, and the rest is under the cut. 

I saw a really great video on tiktok the other day from a black woman, talking about how she wished more places had space for white people to learn about racism, and related topics, in three stages. 

Stage one is all white students with a white teacher. This is the basic class, a space for white people to ask the questions they’re scared to ask and the questions that would only cause further trauma to people of color. 

Stage two is all white students with a teacher of color. This is a space for a person of color to educate based not only on theoretical/academic knowledge but also from lived experiences, etc. 

Stage three is where you then integrate students of color with white students, led by a teacher of color. The person in the video went on to talk about how most white people in leftist spaces are under the impression that they’ve already done the work to be in Stage Three, and they really ought to still be in Stage One. (10/10 very much agreed)

The person in this video (I wish I could find it again) talked about how the primary thought process behind this is that it helps protect people of color from uneducated and likely bigoted questions, opinions, and anecdotes, while providing a, for lack of a better term, safe space for white people to be educated. 

The second video I wanted to talk about was one I saw yesterday from a nonbinary black film major that I follow. I love their content a lot, and highly recommend them. (If you followed me initially for my Teen Wolf trash brain, you’ll likely enjoy Kenna’s content.)

They’ve very clearly said that they’re not interested in viewing Inside, and that’s 100% valid, absolutely understandable. When people in their comments pushed about it, they talked about how the clips/audios they’ve been exposed to have been deeply frustrating for them because, y’know...it is a rich allocishet white man talking about his journey unlearning bigotry, and parroting things that activists of color have been saying for...well... ever. 

And they’re not wrong. Bo wrote an entire song asking his audience, such as it is, if they were going to hold him accountable for the shitty things he’s done in the past, while simultaneously admitting that he is not likely going to hold himself accountable in material ways like giving away his money. 

(Personally, I would’ve loved to hear that proceeds from the success of the special were going to organizations supporting communities of color, but...y’know, he said he wasn’t gonna give his money away. So.) 

And the combination of this content -- the tiktok videos and the special itself -- got me to thinking about how the special really is written/directed/ performed/edited by a white man for a white audience. 

And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing? And like, I’m absolutely open to other interpretations/discussion about it; this is just sort of where my head is at for the moment. This isn’t the entirety of my thoughts about this special, or Bo Burnham in general, so much as it is one aspect of my interpretation of a possible unintentional, but not necessarily bad, side effect of it. 

Bo Burnham has built a very successful career off of bigoted jokes -- he’s used the N-word in his previous special, handwaving it because a “robot” said it. He’s used the F-slur a number of times. And these are just instances that I personally remember off the top of my head, and they are instances that are conveniently not mentioned in the song requesting that we hold him accountable for his actions. 

I think that, when it comes down to it, Inside -- specifically The Way The World Works -- is both Bo Burnham publicly self-flagellating as some form of atonement for past misdeeds as well as attempting to draw other white people into this space he’s created where they can confront their own mistakes and bigoted thoughts and feel comforted?? (this may not be the right word) that they aren’t alone in having this history. And I think we (a general non-specific we) can and even should hold space for that. 

But. I think it’s very very important that white people understand that that space is not safe for people of color. 

It’s not kind nor necessary to invite, let alone attempt to force, people of color into a space where we will be violently exposed to the ignorant bigotry of uneducated white people spouting things we’ve been trying to tell you for years as if it’s brand new information because a white man finally said it. 

People of color generally don’t need the primer course on racism, and being exposed to the seemingly-endless experience of watching white people take their baby steps to unlearning racism is not widely considered a good time by anyone. 

And the fact that Bo is making absolute bank off of this special says a whole host of things that my indignancy will not allow me to articulate at the moment, but just know that it is kinda supremely fucked up. 

And here, I’ll say I think I had more thoughts about this topic, but it’s almost 1am, I’m exhausted, and mostly I just need white people to stop recommending the historically racist white comedian to people of color as if anything he has to say is new to us. 

And this doesn’t mean the special is bad, nor does it mean that white people shouldn’t enjoy it and recommend it to other white people -- here is where I remind you that I am a person of color who deeply enjoyed the special. 

Just keep Bo Burnham and his content in context when you talk about it, and understand that people of color are not obligated to forgive past bigotry because the guy said sorry and seems like he feels really bad about it. There is unlikely to ever be One True Opinion About Bo Burnham, and mostly you’re just gonna frustrate everyone involved. 

[ao3-sucks]

An Archive of Someone’s Own: my experiences being groomed in fandom circles on AO3

TW: Childhood sexual abuse, grooming, mentions of incest and rape.

I used to be a big writer of fanfiction. It was the logical choice for me. I loved to write and create bold and immersive worlds, and I craved an audience who would enjoy my work as much as I did. Since my writing wasn’t actually good, I needed a community of other amateurs who wouldn’t mind that, and by tweaking my characters and settings into ones from canonical media, I got the audience I so craved.

I started writing fanfiction online when I was 14, posting initially on FanFiction.net and then moving to AO3 a few months later. As I got back into writing original fiction towards the end of high school, I lost interest in this community, and it’s been a long time since I posted anything much on AO3.

I’ve always struggled with the fact I display a lot of symptoms of CSA, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. Throughout my teen years, I refused to get changed or bathe when anyone was even vaguely nearby, constantly paranoid about being spied on; I developed a severe touch phobia, and would have frequent panic attacks from something as small as brushing arms with a passerby; I resolutely identified as asexual and refused to get into anything resembling a relationship with others because the very concept disgusted and repulsed me.

Weird, considering I had grown up pretty normal and all of these symptoms had started around my early teens. It was only when I told my friends about my friendship with a 30 year old I had met online that the pieces started falling into place for me.

Child grooming is usually discussed in the context of one adult going out of their way to befriend a child with the goal of lowering their resistance to sexual abuse, through normalisation and friendliness. I’d like to talk about how that worked on the fanfiction website AO3. Since it’s an open website and most communication takes place between anonymous users or accounts in the comments section of a work, there is very little delineation between spaces for adults to discuss whatever dark topics they like and spaces for kids to do the same.

This frequently leads to pretty inappropriate conversations between people of widely varying ages and life experiences, which is how I ended up talking sex as a fourteen year old with people ranging from a couple of years older than me, who were generally okay, to more than twice my age. The 30 year old in question listed on her profile how many pedophilic ships she loved, and she knew my age but pushed me to keep discussing sexual topics with her. Sounds like a red flag, yeah? Well. I was 14, and very stupid.

This 30 year old woman, who I will call Aku (because it’s similar to her screen name and because it’s funny to name her after the bad guy from Samurai Jack) would start conversations with me whenever I posted anything to AO3 and would refuse to take no for an answer when I tried to back out of conversations with her, and since these conversations were public and occurring within comments, I didn’t want to be rude to her since this was taking place on content I was trying to promote.

I told her my age multiple times and she would either pretend she forgot from last time (saying her memory is super bad) or continue as though it was just trivia about me and not a sign she shouldn’t have been pushing me. My primary objection to what she would say to me (since most of it was just her being annoying) was her insistence on sexualising everything I wrote, and her determination to push me into writing pornographic content, which I eventually gave in to.

Yes, she was a terrible person. She emailed me using her personal email address, so I know her full name and place of residence, because she’s an idiot. These emails also contain sexually explicit materials. Nothing much ever happened between us except for these very creepy interactions and the fact we remained online friends for a few years. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t the only person pushing me into creating sexual content. Lots of people would comment on my writing demanding that I show explicit sexual content when I really didn’t want to.

After a while it felt like I couldn’t write a longer, romantic fanfiction without including explicit sexual content. Like my work wasn’t valid without it. Other, more popular writers were usually sexual in their content, and I wanted to be like them and bring in the views, right? So, when I look at my back catalog of works, I can see how my content moved from completely non-sexual to featuring sexual content over time, and the views usually came with. In this way, I was in an environment that was encouraging me on many levels to sexualise my own work, which impacted the way I thought about my creative process.

Here’s another example I remember. When I was a young sprout, I remember reading down someone’s list of fanfiction recommendations and seeing a work called Hug Therapy, which I promptly read. While the work is marked as explicit and containing the Loki/Thor pairing, the use of relationship and rating tags on AO3 is so poorly regulated that it didn’t really mean anything to me to see either of those. People tag hardcore material as non-explicit and tag friendships as relationships, because there’s no motivation to tag properly. Plus, someone I followed here on Tumblr had recommended it to me.

Now, you wouldn’t know from the listing, but while this piece starts out as comedy, it turns out in the end to include rape, incest, and BDSM in very explicit terms. The fact it was tagged as being explicit didn’t slow me down, because the liberal use of these tags could mean that an explicit tag was just there because sexual content was implied or mentioned, which I thought would be the case based on the rest of the listing. Out of curiosity, I recently tried to report this work to the moderators for containing no warnings about incest or rape, and I got this in response:

“Selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” satisfies a creator’s obligation under the warnings policy. Users who wish to avoid specific elements entirely should not access fanworks marked with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. Our Terms of Service note: “You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled. ….. This decision is in accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness; we have therefore closed this case and will not be investigating further.”

Which, yeah, I guess. The frustration comes from how ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ is an extremely commonly used tag, and most things that it’s used on are totally harmless.

This fanfiction, which I was recommended by a friend, is hugely popular, in the top 60 most read fanfictions in the entire fandom. You wanna hear the kicker? The author, Astolat, is one of the founders of AO3. They’re not just some random author who isn’t following the rules. They’re a creator of the whole website, and they made the rules. This is pretty telling about how seriously the website actually takes protecting their users.

My final example I want to give is one of fetish content. People in fetish communities generally (not always) say that fetishes are probably something one should work up to after the onset of sexual activity, especially potentially harmful stuff like BDSM. In the circles I was running in, if you weren’t sporting a fetish or two (no matter your age) you were a boring bitch.

Maybe this isn’t true of everywhere in the fanfiction community, but I used to feel that bizarre pressure until I got out. Bear in mind that my main time in this community was from ages 14 to 17. I never made my age a secret, either. I told people outright I was that age, I was in high school, I was playing hockey and studying The Great Gatsby when I wasn’t online.

Since I was in the Avengers fandom and I liked Loki and the Asgardians, I was frequently exposed to incestuous content between Loki and Thor, and a lot of it came out of nowhere or was poorly tagged. This was considered the norm, and while I at first felt completely horrified and repulsed, within a year or two I no longer gave a shit. It’s only in the last few years as I’ve begun to unpack everything that I’ve started to get that strong revulsion reaction to incestuous content.

In the circles I was in, it was relentlessly normal. Normal to the point that people who disliked it were usually shouted down. Even to this day, debate rages on in fandom spaces about whether or not content like this normalises this kind of abuse. In my own personal experience, which I don’t usually like to talk about, it absolutely does.

In real life, this normalisation started to have serious consequences for my mental health and interpersonal relationships. In fanfiction, any occasion when you are alone with someone could become sexual, any familial relationship is possibly sexual, and it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I became incredibly anxious around male family members for fear of being sexually assaulted, and my OCD, which I had been developing since I was a child, turned from thoughts of physical violence to thoughts of graphically sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone around me.

My fear of being touched got to the point where I would have panic attacks if anyone came anywhere close to touching me. I quit sports, fucked up my romantic relationships, and didn’t hug anyone, not even members of my family, for years. All the while, I had bought my first laptop and was consuming more fanfiction than ever before. I struggled with my sexuality growing up, as I am bisexual, and while fanfiction provided LGBT content to help me, the content was frequently so disturbing that I viewed any expression of sexuality as something evil and predatory.

The community on AO3, whether you like it or not, is often sexual, and provides no barriers between the casual user looking for content and extremely intense fetish material. It’s sometimes called the Pornhub of fanfiction, but considering the wide range of people who use it, it’s more like if you opened Youtube and saw niche hardcore fetish videos just on the front page, recommended and trending.

Sure, you have to click a little button to confirm you’re 18 before you can actually read a story, but the tags and descriptions of readily available works can be extremely explicit. Fanfiction also brings you into close contact with fellow readers and the author, and encourages you to become a content creator, which in some ways makes it more dangerous.

I was affected much more strongly by what I saw than most people would be, because I was already treading shaky ground. But I’m also not the only person out there who has been hurt in this way. Most of my friends who grew up in fandom can report the impact that fanfiction culture had on them. One of my friends from high school knew a panoply of porn terms at age 14 or so due to reading fanfiction, and another of my other friends at high school almost exclusively read rape porn because it was her favourite. I didn’t have friends who watched porn; I had friends who read fanfiction. These are just as troubling to me as any other accounts of young people consuming visual porn from a very early age.

It’s frequently cited that fanfiction gives minority groups the opportunity for creative outlet. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth as a content creator, and a source of acceptance and kindness when times were tough. Fanfiction communities have historically been the domain of women and minorities, and create a space for these people to tell their own stories.

It’s largely because of this that fanfiction communities fear censorship and strict moderation, as they have been attacked in the past on homophobic or misogynistic grounds, resulting in mass deletions of works or the shutdown of websites. But there must be some middle ground between total censorship and the kind of free rein that puts vulnerable people in danger, and I strongly encourage the board of AO3 to seek this middle ground out.

But it’s the community itself that needs to shape up; AO3 is, after all, a community-led website built by fans for fans, so the fact that this website has such issues is a reflection of the issues that run deeply within the people who created it. Aku didn’t talk to me with the intention of doing me harm, or so I believe at this time, and she didn’t pursue me as a lone wolf or in isolation.

She was simply a particularly brazen member of a community that was used to having inappropriate conversations with young people and sexualising everything they did. Even people my own age were jokingly pushing me into discussing and consuming extremely sexual content. It was just normal. That’s what I want to say here. Inside the world of fandom on AO3, the grooming of children with sexual content is normal. And that’s scary.

- Mod Daft

[angel-tries-to-write]

New life from the darkness: Youth is like fireworks

Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan Rating: Teen and up Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Hanji Zoë, Eren Jäger x Mikasa Ackerman Word count: 1448 Genre: fluff, humor

They worked in silence for a while, before Eren spoke again, as he realized he forgot to share the news, which probably everyone but their superiors knew.

“Speaking of children and Historia: did you know her and Ymir are going to have a baby?” he asked. Hanji stopped their work and stared at him with wide eyes.

“Historia? With Ymir?” they asked, trying to understand what he said.

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, technically she's not pregnant with Ymir, that's impossible, but they're going to raise this baby together, so I guess we can say it's their baby” he explained and the commander seemed to understand. But quickly another question arose.

“How do you know that?”

“Annie received a letter from Reiner and he spoke to Hisu recently” Eren answered, it was not much of a secret anyway.

“Oh, Reiner? How are him and Bertholdt doing?” Hanji asked, remembering that the two of them were very problematic, yet rather good guys.

“Pretty good. They're almost done and told us that as soon as we're done here, we have to visit them, because they have some plans. Armin and Sasha are convinced they are going to get married.”

“Get married? That would be terrible for me and Levi. Another kids are getting married and we aren't even dating properly” Hanji chuckled and shook their head with disbelief. “When did you all grow up like that?”

“Don't worry, Hanji-san, at least you and captain have each other. Jean has no one” he chuckled.

“You shouldn't make fun of him. He's your friend.”

“More like frenemy. We trust each other with our lives, but only because we always had to, not because we wanted to. He's still jealous of Mikasa, as if it was my fault she loves me. Honestly, I wish he had a significant other, maybe we could actually get along. Everyone says we have a lot in common.”

“You do. More than you think.”

“I'm slowly acknowledging it. Don't tell him that, but I actually know he's a good man and I wish him all the best, because he deserves to be happy. And deep down I knew that if I wasn't meant to make it out alive, he would take a good care of Mikasa. And while I want her to love only me, I guess I could accept if she decided to be with him, because her happiness is the most important thing to me. But don't tell him that!”

“Oh, they don't have to” Jean spoke suddenly, as he appeared suddenly with Mikasa. Eren's face blushed furiously as he realized how much he exposed himself. “Captain Levi told us to check on you and to bring you this” he pointed out the boxes he was carrying, Mikasa also held some. They all contained stuff Hanji needed. “We didn't mean to overhear your conversation, but it's good to know you think that of me. I guess you should know that it's mutual” he admitted, not looking anyone in the eye. “But that doesn't mean we're going to be best friends now!” he stated, putting the boxes down. Suddenly Eren dropped what he was doing, approached Jean, grabbed his arm and pulled him in a hug.

“I hate you” he said, though his tone and body language were saying otherwise.

“I hate you too” Jean replied, hugging Eren. When they pulled away, they heard a sob.

“Mikasa, are you crying?” Eren asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I just never thought I'd actually witness something as amazing as this” she laughed, happy tears were running down her cheeks. She put her boxes down and ran to the men, pulling them both in a hug. “I'm so happy you finally matured enough.”

“Alright, as much as I wish for you to get along, we have something to do, so less hugging, more working. Levi isn't the most patient recently, I guess that heat is killing him. Let's not make him angrier” Hanji suggested and Jean immediately let go. Mikasa wanted to part either, but Eren stopped her and wiped tears from her cheeks.

“Don't cry because of me” he said quietly. “Ever. No matter what the reason is.”

“Your mom would be proud to see what man have you become” she smiled.

“I know” he replied, looking at Hanji. “Now go, don't make the captain wait” he gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

“I'm not afraid of him. Shorty needs to chill.”

“But I am and I'd rather not be punished, especially for last night. Yes, they know, they saw through my lie” he sighed.

“I know. Levi already gave me a talk.”

“How was it?”

“Not bad, actually. He really tried to not seem angry. Hanji would probably say that he was really nice and emotional, but I'm not as good at reading him as they are.”

“Hey, lovebirds, get your butts back to work!” Jean yelled at them.

“I swear, this guy...”

“Let him be” Mikasa smiled and kissed her boyfriend softly. “See you later?”

“Of course” Eren nodded and let her go. He watched her leave, love and adoration were very clear in his expression.

“Don't ever try to tell me you don't love her” Hanji teased him.

“I do, alright? I love her so much that it hurts to let her go, even though I know she's a couple of meters away and I'll see her soon, it hurts to watch her leave me. And to think we could have ended up like Hanna and Franz, it's scary” he admitted with a sigh.

“Who?”

“They were a couple when we were in training, always together, inseparable, despite denying they had any relationship. And they met a miserable end. I haven't seen it personally, but Armin told me once, when he had a nightmare about them. During battle of Trost, Franz was torn in half and killed, but Hanna was so shocked that she performed CPR on him until Armin told her it's pointless” he sighed again. “It's both romantic and painful, to love someone this much that you refuse to accept their death. I think that's how I feel about Mikasa and it scares me.”

“I understand that. I was really close to losing Levi and I was so scared then. I joked that he was so stubborn he refused to die, but later he made me realize that it was me, in fact. That I refused to let him die. I've lost so many friends, that I couldn't imagine losing him too. I still can't. And that is scary, how deep your bond must be that you'd like to bend the laws of nature for that person.”

“So you admit you love captain, commander?” Eren asked and Hanji sent him a death glare.

“Keep going and Mikasa or not, I'll murder you.”

“That's actually quite interesting how many similarities are between us. We're both impulsive, stubborn, with self esteem issues and in love with overprotective Ackerman” he noticed. Hanji still looked like they wanted to kill him, but they couldn't deny there was a truth in his words. “All according to Armin, of course.”

“Ah, that explains how you know that. Well, this kid is very perceptive and smart. Sometimes too perceptive, for his own sake” they chuckled.

“What do you mean?” he raised an eyebrow, not sure what they had in mind.

“That if you think you have a secret, Armin probably knows it already.” There was certainly more to the story, but Hanji didn't want to go into details.

“Unless said secret being Annie's feelings for him, right?”

“Yeah, I think he's a real pro in avoiding the topic by now. And he had the audacity to tell me I'm being obvious about my feelings.”

“I know, right? I can't even count how many times he told me I should confess to Mikasa, especially when I wasn't ready to admit it to myself, let alone to someone else. If only I knew about him and Annie, I wouldn't let him nag me that much” Eren said, definitely unhappy about the whole situation.

“We should make him pay” Hanji smirked and their eye twinkled with mischief.

“We absolutely should.”

“And I think I have an idea how...” they quickly filled him in. The plan was simple, yet effective and it had one goal: to make Armin confess to Annie.

“Hanji-san, you're a genius” Eren was definitely impressed by his superior's intelligence. He always thought his best friend was the smart one, but he totally forgot that their commander was behind most plans and only their combined abilities allowed everyone to save the world.

“I know. Now let's get back to work.”

[uncloseted]

I wish people weren’t so black & white in their view of skins. Yes teenagers do go through these issues and it needs representation but you can acknowledge that and also see the show does glamorise some aspects of serious topics. (Drug abuse, eating disorders) it’s kind of evident in people’s anonymous confessions that I see a lot. People seem to wish they were more like Effy/Cassie or feel like they missed out if they haven’t had drug filled teenhoods. The Cassie ones are sad because a lot of people seem to echo the statement that Cassie worsened their ED’a or encouraged it because they wanted to be like her.

So I think there's kind of a larger question in here that a lot of media has been struggling with recently- should media portray life as it is, or as it should be, and what should media do to protect those who may be vulnerable?

It might not be obvious to people who are newer fans of Skins, but Skins was incredibly groundbreaking and controversial when it came out. Up until then, shows that dealt with "teen issues" were basically like Degrassi; ones where "real life problems" were discussed, but the "bad thing" the character did was always punished, and there was always a lecture about why the Bad Thing was Bad and they shouldn't do it ever again. That rang hollow to a lot of people who had seen the people around them do Bad Things without any serious consequences. So when Skins came out and started showing things as they are (albeit in a heightened kind of way), it was huge. I don't think they knew what would happen, or really had any guidelines for what "safe depiction of dangerous activities" might be. They were trying to tell stories that were authentic to the teenagers they knew, and all the writing was informed by actual teenagers' experiences. I bring this up because in retrospect, I think it's very easy to say that they should have known better. But there wasn't really any point of comparison for them to learn from. They were going into this blind, and I think one can make the argument that mistakes were made because of it.

Back to the original question I posed, I'm honestly not sure if there's a good answer. Maybe we need both Skins and Degrassi, to show the ways in which things arguably should be (a person tries drugs, immediately gets in trouble, never does them again), and the ways things actually are (sometimes people try drugs, use them in party settings, and nothing particularly bad happens), to provide a balanced look at the issue. Maybe we should be trying to mimic real-life statistics as much as possible in our representation. We certainly need to be thoughtful about which stories are being told and which are being left out of the conversation, which in a weird way, brings me to my next point.

Eating disorders are an especially complicated thing to show on screen. By and large, media representation of people with eating disorders is a Thin, Pretty White Girl who just doesn't eat. Usually at some point, someone will tell them that Not Eating is Bad, or they'll faint, and then they'll recover and it's never talked about again.

Cassie was groundbreaking, because she was a Thin, Pretty White Girl who just didn't eat, but she talked about how she got out of eating, was shown putting weights in her pants to pass a weigh-in, and was hospitalized for her eating disorder (although we never really saw what that was like for her). Instead of telling her Not Eating is Bad, Allen told her You Want to Eat, Actually, and even after that, she struggled with her eating disorder before eventually recovering (I guess??) and then never talking about it again. There's not actually a huge difference between Cassie's portrayal of anorexia and the "very special episode" portrayal of anorexia that we were used to before that. But she was (and still is) controversial, because her portrayal shows some of the (less graphic) ins and outs of what life is actually like for someone struggling with an eating disorder.

My issue with the approach the Skins writers took with Cassie is that it's simultaneously too much and too little. It shows just enough of her life that some people tore it down for being an "instruction manual on how to have anorexia" (which, 🙄, in my opinion), but it didn't show enough of the grossness of the reality of actually having an eating disorder, which would help people to better understand what having an eating disorder actually looks and feels like. Other eating disorders, like bulimia, almost never get shown on TV, because there's not as pretty to show, and I think that's a real problem. We also rarely see men with eating disorders, or fat people with eating disorders (or even average weight people with eating disorders), or people of color with eating disorders, or LGBT people with eating disorders, which reinforces this idea that eating disorders are just anorexia, and anorexia is a Vain Straight White Girl Problem.

The reason I find the concern around Cassie's character a bit eye-rolly is that I think it's not an honest depiction of what's actually happening. I do absolutely believe that Cassie's character acted as a trigger for some people with eating disorders, but I think that's the key- some people with eating disorders. Cassie's character wasn't inspiring anorexia in perfectly mentally healthy teenagers as some sort of social contagion; she was impacting people who were already struggling.

And that's where this becomes complicated, because some people with eating disorders will purposely and compulsively seek out triggering material in order to further their disorder. I don't think removing Cassie from the equation would have actually made a difference in that regard, because triggering material is easily accessible and literally everywhere. I think the argument can be made that Skins should have added a trigger warning to episodes where Cassie is explicit about her disorder eating habits (and I do think they should have), but I think on the whole, she created more good than she did harm. She helped people who don't struggle with eating disorders to understand some of the internal logic of the disorder and to see what it's like to actually live with, and she helped people who do struggle see themselves represented in a way that they hadn't been before.

I guess I just think that instead of wringing our hands about what we can and can't show on TV, we'd be better served by adding warnings so that people can avoid potentially triggering content (and so that, in turn, that content can be more honest in its discussion of eating disorders), and providing support for people who are struggling so that they can recover. We should make it mandatory that any image that has been retouched must acknowledge it, and we should show more diverse body types in media and in advertising. But it's easier to wring out hands in a "what about the impressionable children" kind of way than it is to make systemic change to support people who are predisposed to mental illness. Instagram influencers are a much bigger culprit in shaping body image issues than Cassie ever could have been.

I feel kind of similarly about the drug usage of the Skins kids. Should Skins have shown teenagers doing illegal drugs at parties? Probably not. It did definitely make doing drugs look cool and fun. Did Skins need to show that kind of thing for realism, or to get its target demographic to tune in? Maybe. At the end of the day, I think teenagers would be (and are) doing illegal drugs with or without Skins' influence. It's not like we saw a giant spike in teenage drug usage from 2007-2012 that immediately disappeared after episode 10 of series 6 aired. Art imitates life and life imitates art. To me, the bigger questions here are, "what other factors (home life, peer pressure, curiosity, a need for novelty, anxiety, depression, etc) are leading teenagers to want to do drugs?", "if teenagers are going to do drugs, how can we make sure that they do drugs in the safest way possible," and "how do we help teenagers who struggle with addiction recover in an evidence-based way?"

I'm not trying to say that media plays no role in people's life choices and perceptions. We know that it absolutely does. But I think Skins as an individual TV show has a tiny, tiny impact, even if it's your favorite show and you watch it constantly, when compared to all the other factors that contribute to eating disorders and drug use. We absolutely need to be thoughtful about how we tell these stories, and we have to make sure that they're tailored to the audience who's watching them. But we also need to be thoughtful about our media consumption as a whole- which stories are being reinforced over and over again, which stories are entirely missing from the narrative, and which forms of media we're being exposed to all day, every day. We need to be thoughtful about the way we talk about and teach about difficult issues in our day to day lives. We need to have comprehensive support systems for people who are struggling. Those types of actions will do much more than taking even the most graphic portrayals of drug use or eating disorders off the air ever would.

[king-finnigan]

(I’m So) Human - Chapter 2

You can also read this on AO3! M A S T E R L I S T

A/n: So, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but there are so many dodie songs that are perfect for Geralt and Jaskier, so this turned into a six-chapter fic. I regret nothing. This chapter is based on Ready Now by dodie. As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy, and don’t hesitate to leave a like and a comment if you feel like it!

The first time he sees the blue-eyed Bard, Geralt is sitting in the corner of some tavern in Posada. He sips his ale as the man – barely more than a teen – gets pelted with food. Typical humans, cruel beyond reason. He wasn’t even half bad.

Still, he doesn’t really appreciate it when the Bard actually walks up to him, trying to strike a conversation with the Witcher. He smells of curiosity and excitement – a combination Geralt has rarely even scented around him. People always smell like fear or anger, more often than not both. Except for this man.

“Love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.” Geralt has to admit, the Bard has some guts. Still, it’s best if they don’t strike up a conversation. The Witcher has nothing good to offer, anyway.

He doesn’t look up, hoping it will discourage the Bard. “I’m here to drink alone.” Good. Precise, decisive, a sure way to finish this before it even starts.

He was wrong.

“No one else has hesitated to comment on the quality of my performance.” If people pelting you with food counts as a comment. “Except for you.” The man moves into his line of sight, and Geralt rolls his eyes. He’s not in the mood for small-talk or having to tell the Bard to fuck off, but he will do the latter if the man doesn’t leave soon.

The Bard is hard to ignore, though. A movement of his hand to accentuate the words that flow out of his mouth like a waterfall. A hasty smile, a flash of white teeth. Sitting down in front of the Witcher, uninvited. Everything about him is distracting and demands Geralt’s attention over and over again.

He bites the inside of his cheek, as the Bard finally realizes he is, in fact, sitting in front of a Witcher. Geralt awaits the reaction he’s come to anticipate over the years – fear in the Bard’s flowery scent, impossibly blue eyes looking away, rambling as he makes a hasty retreat.

Yet, that doesn’t happen. That’s strange. Confusing.

Instead, the Bard shuffles in his seat a bit, eyes lighting up as his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Oh, fun.”

Geralt frowns. You definitely did not expect that, did you, Geralt? It all becomes a bit too much, as he suddenly has no idea what to do anymore. He stands up, grabbing his swords, and making his way out the door, leaving the Bard behind him before he can corrupt the innocence and light that seems to emanate from the man. Or so he hopes.

You saw through me all this time.

 The Bard follows him out of Posada, for some reason. Geralt can hear him jogging up the dusty path, trying to catch up with the Witcher. He does, eventually. Geralt sighs and considers getting on Roach and riding away as quickly as possible, but the path is too steep and he doesn’t want to risk hurting her.

His hand grips the reigns tightly, knuckles undoubtedly turning white under the leather of his glove, as the Bard chatters on and on. He’s loud and annoying and Geralt’s already really fucking confused as to why this man is following him. It becomes too much again, and he shuts his eyes tightly, breathing in the hot summer air deeply, trying to calm himself down.

The birds are too loud, as is the crunch of footsteps in the sand, and the chatter behind him doesn’t cease. He feels acutely aware of every scent, taste, sound, and the places where his armour touches his skin. It’s overwhelming, and he wishes he could just clamp his hands over his ears, and bury his face in Roach’s fur to ground himself. As he always does when this sort of thing happens.

It is then that four words break through the static that’s assaulting his senses. “-the Butcher of Blaviken!” He stills, squeezing his eyes shut for a second longer, pushing away the noise that surrounds and invades his mind to the background. He shouldn’t do that – he knows – because if he doesn’t find a quiet place to let his senses rest now, this feeling will return later, twice as bad.

He turns around, now, though, regarding the wide smile on the Bard’s face. “Come here.” The idiot actually does as he’s told. Too trusting for his own good.

Geralt makes sure to hold back a little when he punches the man in the gut. That’ll keep him away. He turns back around, leading Roach along the mountain path, sure that, this time, the Bard won’t follow him again.

He hears footsteps behind him. You were wrong, Geralt.

“That’s an impressive right hook you’ve got there! Kind of hurt, but I’m sure you didn’t mean it like that-“ the Bard keeps on chattering, the words coming out of his mouth so quickly that they seem to blend into each other.

Geralt can’t help but smile, just a little. The man is a fool, naïve, innocent – yes – but apparently he’s also determined and not as weak-hearted Geralt first thought he was. An interesting combination.

They keep walking, and the Witcher can’t bring himself to push the Bard away again – not for now, at least. They will part ways after this contract.

I’d forgotten, people are kind.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been half a day since he’s met Jaskier – as he found out the Bard’s name is – and they’re sitting in a tavern a little ways outside of Posada. He looks out over the room, counting the people, assessing the mood of the crowd, making sure he knows where all the exits are. There’s a wall behind and next to him – as he prefers. Less sides for enemies to attack.

Jaskier, on the other hand, is sitting opposite him, back fully exposed, head down, writing in his notebook. He’s vulnerable, and Geralt can’t help but eye the room a little more carefully, making sure no one there might be planning to rob the Bard of his meagre possessions at some point. If they do, the Witcher will make sure they’ll think twice the next time.

His eyes widen a bit, and his ale stills halfway to his mouth, hanging in the air aimlessly, as he realizes he’s not intending on leaving Jaskier tonight - or even tomorrow, for that matter. He doesn’t know when he decided that, or even if he really did at all. Maybe it just came to him naturally. Stupid idiot, always going around trying to protect people. They’re better off without you, Geralt.

He takes a sip of his ale, pushing the accusing voice to the back of his mind. He casts another look around the room, noting how two gentlemen on the other side of the tavern are having a heated discussion. He decides to keep an eye on those two – in case a brawl breaks out and he has to keep Jaskier from getting hurt.

There it is again, that need to protect. You’ve always had a soft heart, Geralt. His hand clenches around the tankard a bit, as he tries, once again, to push away that little voice.

He sighs, and looks up, catching a glimpse of impossibly blue eyes before they quickly look away. He remembers earlier that day, when Jaskier tried to ask about his scars. He feels guilty now, looking back at how he had snapped at the Bard, but his scars are a topic he’s… sensitive about. They always remind him of the fact that he’s not as invincible as everyone assumes Witchers are, and that, one day, he’ll die too. Alone, forgotten.

Jaskier hasn’t asked about them again, though.

I was hurting, and you knew.

 He looks away again, ordering two more ales from the nice barmaid. She gives him a smile that almost – almost convinces him she’s not scared to the death of the Witcher, and hurries off again. He steals another glance of Jaskier, who’s looking into his half-empty tankard with a frown on his face, before Geralt empties his coin pouch on the table.

Well, fuck. There’s enough coin for those two ales he’s just ordered, and maybe a meal tomorrow evening. He needs a contract, fast. He sighs and hands two silver pieces to the barmaid when she places the tankards in front of them, taking the old ones away, after Jaskier’s quickly downed his.

The smell of lukewarm ale invades his nose and suddenly, he feels light-headed. He looks down at the table, shovelling the remainder of his money into his bag. The tavern reeks of ale and sweat and hormones, as middle-aged men try and fail to flirt with the women there.

The people are too loud, everyone chattering, the sound of dozens of footfalls, drunken laughter here and there and the occasional shout. The room is too dim, there are too many people, too many things happening all at once. He’s once again acutely aware of every little sound, smell, taste, colour, every press of the wood of the table against his arms, the bench underneath him, assaulting his heightened senses.

It’s overwhelming, and he curses himself for not taking a breather when the same thing happened earlier that day. He knew this would happen, that the sensation would return tenfold later, yet he had brushed it off. Idiot.

Amidst all the noises, he’s able to discern a voice, closer than the others but still so far away in the racket that invades his ears. “Geralt, are you okay?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to take deep, calming breaths, trying to keep his heartbeat down. It speeds up nonetheless, and his hands involuntarily ball into fists.

Then, a touch on his arm, loud in his already overflowing mind, pulling on him. He lets himself be dragged away, blindly following the person this hand is attached to. Dammit, Geralt, you should know better than to let your guard down.

All of a sudden, when he feels like he’s about to collapse under the pressure and the loudness of it all, everything falls away. The noises dim, and when he opens his eyes, the world around him is dark, empty mountains stretching out under the moonlight. The night air cools the sweat on his skin, and he sags against the tavern wall.

He waits, while the storm around him finally calms down, his heartbeat slowing to a normal level, the crickets outside not so immensely loud in his ears anymore, the touch of the tavern wall no longer overwhelming. He looks to his side, at last, after several minutes of silence and blessed nothingness, and sees Jaskier, looking at him, concern in his eyes.

He realizes the Bard was the one to drag him out of the tavern, when things became too much. He saw – truly saw what was going on and he helped. The Witcher doesn’t know what to say, so he simply stares, dumbfounded, grateful.

Eventually, Jaskier smiles at him brightly, slapping Geralt’s arm. “Right, I’m going back inside. I want to see how well people respond to my new song.” He walks backwards to the door, giving the Witcher a dorky thumbs-up before he disappears back into the tavern. “Wish me luck!”

So you showed me what to do.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been a month since he’s met Jaskier, and they’re in the woods, halfway between two towns, both of the villages too far away to reach before midnight. Geralt doesn’t think the Bard minds, though, as they’ve slept outside a lot in the past month – rooms are expensive, and they’ve barely got enough money to eat, anyways.

He works on the fire, and remembers two weeks ago, when Jaskier tried to build one. Always trying to be so fucking nice. His hand clenches around a branch, the wood creaking under his fingers as he recalls how the fire had nearly set Jaskier and the forest around them ablaze, and Geralt had managed to stop it from happening just in time. Something clenches in his gut at the memory, and he writes it off to hunger.

He sits down heavily on a log, once he’s done with the fire, and starts fumbling with the straps of his armour. They’re always a nuisance and he wonders why the fuck no one’s thought of a better alternative than all these goddamn straps and pieces of leather. He bites down on his cheek, trying to distract himself from the frustration that’s building up inside of him, when suddenly, Jaskier’s hands replace his.

He looks up, noticing how the Bard sticks his tongue out of his lips a little as he works – just like he always does when he’s concentrating. He does it when he’s writing, when he’s tying his shoelaces, when he’s trying out new chords, and now, as he undoes the straps of Geralt’s armour quickly. Not that you’ve noticed, right Geralt? Not that you’re looking at him all the time.

He brings his hand up to push Jaskier’s away. “I can take care of my armour perfectly fine by myself, thanks.”

Jaskier stands up, hands on his hips, like a scolding mother, eyebrows raised above brilliantly blue eyes. Stop staring, Geralt. “I know that, dear Witcher,” the Bard says, “but you take forever to do it. So, let me help, and we’ll be able to eat three hours earlier than if you were to do it by yourself. I’m starving.”

How could you ever say no to him, you weak-hearted fool? He can’t, so he doesn’t. “Hmm.”

He watches, as Jaskier continues undoing the straps, tongue poking out of his mouth again, blue eyes concentrated and focused and-

Looking at him. Great one, Geralt, now he’s caught you staring. Jaskier cocks his head, hands coming to rest on his knees. “What?”

The Witcher has to tear his eyes away, instead focusing on the brightness of the fire, hoping it might blind him, preventing him from staring at Jaskier. “Nothing.”

You said: “I will listen, tell it all.”

 “Come on, Geralt, surely you have some interesting stories to tell me.” Jaskier has his notebook in his lap, pencil ready to write down any sparse detail the Witcher might give him.

Geralt shrugs. “It’s monster hunting, Jaskier, it’s not as interesting as everyone thinks.” He smirks at the annoyed look Jaskier gives him, noting in the back of his mind how beautiful the Bard looks when he pouts. Don’t be weird, Geralt.

He continues: “You get the contract, you find the monster, you kill it, you get money sometimes. That’s all there is to it.”

Jaskier sighs dramatically, and rolls his eyes, making a show of putting the pencil and the notebook away. “Really, Geralt, if you won’t tell me anything, then I’ll just have to follow you around some more.” Please do.

He’s not sure why he wants the Bard to keep him company so badly – really, he’s mostly a nuisance and a bother. But he’s also a friend. He frowns at his hands, resting in his lap, the realization hitting him a little too hard to be comfortable.

He shrugs it away, and stands up, spreading his bedroll on the forest floor, and laying down. “You should sleep, it’s getting late.”

He turns his back to Jaskier, listening as the Bard stammers a bit, then lays down as well. He closes his eyes, desperate to shut out whatever it is he’s feeling, the guilt of being so short with Jaskier just now gnawing at him. He pushes it away, falling into a restless sleep.

“When you’re finished, we’ll talk more.”

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been a month and a week since he’s met Jaskier, and they’re sitting by the campfire once more. The Bard is huddling into Geralt’s side, notebook in his hand as he shivers. It’s not that cold, but the Bard only has thin, unpractical clothing, and they don’t have enough coin to buy him a cloak.

Geralt sighs, and takes his blanket from Roach’s saddlebag, wrapping it around Jaskier. He does not grow warm all of a sudden when Jaskier smiles up at him brightly. He does not feel something flutter in his chest when the Bard presses himself back into Geralt’s side when the Witcher sits back down.

His heart does not melt a little when Jaskier pouts at him. “Please tell me a story of one of your adventures, I need new song material.”

Geralt sighs, mind coming up empty on anything useful or interesting. “I don’t have adventures, they’re just contracts.”

Jaskier sighs theatrically. “Oh, please, you didn’t get your nickname out of the blue, did you? Come on, Geralt, please tell me.”

He feels his jaw clench at the mere memory of Blaviken, and the things that transpired there. “No.”

Jaskier pulls away, looking at the Witcher quizzically. “Is it too painful?”

Geralt closes his eyes for a second, trying to push the hurt away. How does he always see right through you, Geralt? “Maybe.”

The Bard purses his lips, brow furrowing and oh gods he does not look adorable like that. Suddenly, his face brightens up again, blue eyes alight with an idea. “If I tell you why I changed my name, will you tell me about Blaviken?”

Geralt cocks his head, taken aback a bit. He changed his name? Despite his reservations and the old hurt he can still feel at the thought of telling someone about Blaviken, curiosity flares up in him. “Fine.”

But I didn’t know how, so we took it in turns.

 A few hours later, Jaskier looks up at him from where his head is laying on Geralt’s shoulder. “So, it wasn’t your fault.”

Geralt frowns. “It was my fault. I killed those soldiers, I murdered Renfri.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes, looking at him with a half-smile that says ‘oh, gods, you’re so stupid,’ and makes Geralt’s knees a little weak. “They would’ve killed you if you hadn’t. It was self-defence.”

The Witcher snorts, looking at the embers of the dying fire. “The people of Blaviken seemed to think otherwise when they pelted me with rocks and chased me away with pitchforks.”

He feels a warm hand on his own, and looks at Jaskier’s thumb tracing soft, soothing circles in the back of his hand. “Well, the people of Blaviken are stupid. And so is everyone else.” Jaskier’s voice drops to a whisper. “I will fight anyone who calls you the Butcher of Blaviken ever again.”

Geralt smiles, finally meeting Jaskier’s brilliant, blue eyes. “You just said it, too, though.”

A smile in return, and Geralt does not notice a dimple in the Bard’s right cheek, barely there, little more than a slight indent of the smooth skin. “Well, I’ll fight myself, too, then.”

He does not startle at how close Jaskier’s face is to his, he does not see how the embers cast soft shadows on the Bard’s skin, how the blue eyes seem to light up in the dark, he does not feel how the entire world narrows down to the man pressing into his side, to the hand that’s resting on his own.

He does remember he’s a Witcher, and that Jaskier deserves better – so much better than anything Geralt has to offer. He pulls back, standing up, and his skin does not mourn the loss of contact. “Right, I’m going to sleep. It’s getting late.”

He walks around the ashes of the fire, laying down on his bedroll, back turned to Jaskier. He does not feel cold all of a sudden, and if he does, it’s only because Jaskier still has his blanket.

To my surprise, we found my words.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been four months since he’s met Jaskier, and they’re all but getting chased out of the town with pitchforks. People glare at them, angry shouts of ‘mutant’, ‘freak’, ‘monster’ thrown at his head. He doesn’t mind that much, though. He’s used to it by now.

What he does care about are the insults Jaskier has to endure, the likes of ‘Witcher’s slut’, ‘filth’, ‘whore’ that make Geralt’s blood boil. He holds his head up high, shooting death-glares at everyone who even looks at the Bard the wrong way.

He steals a few glances of Jaskier as they make their way out of town under the vengeful gaze of the people, lining the streets. He admires the way Jaskier doesn’t say a word in retaliation, for once, and holds his chin up, looking straight ahead.

Sure, this may not be the last time they will come across people like this, but Geralt feels a little less worried about it, now that he knows Jaskier will stand his ground and know when to strike back and – more importantly – when not to.

They leave the town as quickly as possible, angry shouts thrown at them until the wind is able to carry the sound away.

Feet firm on the ground, we stood hand in hand.

 “You okay?” Jaskier looks up at Geralt’s words from where he’s been fiddling with his lute, plucking a few random chords.

The Bard smiles a bit, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been… a bad day, I guess.”

Geralt sighs. “That’s one way to put it.”

It’s quiet between them for a few moments, and the Witcher goes back to cleaning his sword. It’s not dirty, or anything, and he actually shouldn’t clean an already spotless blade, but he still needs to be able to do something with his hands.

Get your mind off the shit of this world. Off the way you’re hurting him by simply being you. He closes his eyes for a second, pushing the voice as far away as possible.

“What about you, though?” Geralt looks up, meeting impossibly blue eyes. “Are you okay, Geralt?”

He nods curtly. “I’m fine, I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be.” His heart does not break a little at the sincerity with which Jaskier looks at him. He does not melt at the blind hope and trust in those blue eyes.

“No,” he says, ever so softly, “I shouldn’t be.” His hand stills for a moment, before resuming to rub at the silver of his sword with the damp rag. This is the first time he’s ever admitted, even to himself, that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment.

Jaskier’s made him more confident, he realizes. Has made him believe that maybe he does deserve good things happening to him, that he isn’t an inherently bad person. The Bard’s faith and trust in him has rubbed off on him.

He vows, right there and then, to become a better person. If not for himself, then for Jaskier. Because he doesn’t want the little lark’s heart to break once he realizes that Geralt’s not the person he thought he was.

So, he promises himself to be better, do better, become better – be deserving of Jaskier’s inherent goodness and light.

The world seemed to tell me that I have a plan.

 He smiles softly as the Bard strums another chord, the tip of his tongue sticking out from his mouth, brow furrowed in concentration. He’s beautiful.

He knows Jaskier needs more song material, and the past few contracts have given less to sing about than a particularly good sandwich – not to mention the coin has barely been enough to buy them said sandwich. They need the money, and the easiest way to get it is through Jaskier’s music.

He sighs, hesitation in the pit of his stomach. Though, for the first time in a long while, he’s determined. If he’s been able to talk about his worst scars, the ones caused by Blaviken, then surely he might be able to talk about the other ones as well, right.

And yes, they do remind him he’s mortal and not invincible, that he will die at some point, alone and forgotten, but…

Maybe, with Jaskier there, he won’t die like that. Not alone. Not forgotten.

And if that’s the case, well… the scars aren’t so scary all of a sudden. Maybe he can just talk about them, then. So he does.

Together we sang: “I’m ready, now.”

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been half a year since he’s met Jaskier, and they finally have enough coin for a room at an inn for the night. The innkeeper informs him that there’s only one room left, due to the upcoming Spring festival, but neither of them mind. After all, they’ve slept in each other’s proximity countless of times, and rooms are expensive.

He simply shrugs and takes it, ignoring the way the innkeeper seems to try to say something, but Geralt’s already gone, up the stairs to their shared room, as Jaskier trails behind him.

He sighs as he walks in, the prospect of sleeping in a real bed tonight already making him feel more at ease. He starts taking his armour of, suspecting that he won’t need it tonight, anyway.

His hands start fumbling with the leather straps, when he notices Jaskier – or, more accurately, the absence of Jaskier’s hands, undoing the harder to reach straps. He looks up, meeting big, blue eyes, looking confused and worried.

He does not feel a sharp jab in the pit of his stomach at the sight of Jaskier looking so unhappy. He does not feel the strange urge to hug the Bard, to tell him everything’s going to be alright, no matter what the issue actually is.

Instead, he cocks his head. “Are you going to help me or are you just going to keep staring at me?” Great one, Geralt. Be fucking rude to him, once again. Jaskier sputters a bit, dropping his belongings in a corner with a disregard that is so uncharacteristically not Jaskier. Geralt frowns, but decides against saying anything about it.

The Bard does come to help the Witcher take off the armour, but his hands are fumbling and unsure, something Geralt has rarely ever seen before. It worries him.

Finally, Jaskier speaks: “Uh… Geralt.”

His voice sounds almost unfamiliar, with the way he talks so softly, so concerned, as though the Witcher is a caged animal that’s about to lash out. A tiny bit of worry creeps into Jaskier’s scent, but not fear – never fear.

Geralt sighs, trying – and failing, probably – to look sincere. “What?”

Jaskier swallows thickly, and the Witcher’s eye is not caught by the way the Bard’s throat moves when he does that. He does not think about putting his lips there and inhaling Jaskier’s scent of strawberries and campfire smoke. He does not nearly miss what the Bard says because of this.

“There is only one bed.” Blue eyes evade his, and he does not want to beg Jaskier to just look at him again, so he can see the tiny ring of white that surrounds his pupils, barely visible against the light blue.

He almost forgets to reply, and his voice feels thick and syrupy in his throat. “And?”

Finally, Jaskier looks back at him, and Geralt does not become weak at his knees goddammit. “Who’s going to sleep on the floor?”

Geralt nearly laughs at that. Does he not know you’d do anything to have him close for at least one night, Geralt? No, he doesn’t even consider it. Of course he doesn’t, you treat him like shit.

He pushes the voice away, instead focusing on what’s real, what’s genuine. Jaskier, in front of him. Blue eyes, brown curls, rosy lips. He almost forgets his words again. He shakes his head slightly, trying to clear his mind. “No one is.”

“Oh.” Jaskier nods, hands coming up again to continue their work, tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly in concentration. “Okay.”

Geralt does not feel something warm blooming in his chest.

Something new, something strange.

 He’s standing in front of the mirror, porcelain cool beneath his fingers as he grips the edges of the sink. Jaskier’s downstairs, and Geralt can hear a few fleeting notes of the Bard’s performance filtering through the wooden planks beneath his feet, the crowd bursting into cheering and laughter as the song ends.

The image of himself in the glass is blurry, and he wipes at the mirror, though the years-old dirt can’t be rubbed off the surface that easily. He lowers his hand again, fingers holding onto the side of the sink as though it’s his last lifeline. It isn’t, though.

His last lifeline is downstairs, starting a new song.

He looks into his own amber eyes, for the first time in years – decades even, maybe. That’s you. Yes, you, Geralt.

He tries to will the voice in the back of his head to shut up, but his efforts only make it seem to grow louder and louder. Look at those yellow eyes, that white hair, that scowl. Ooh, scary face. A coward in monster’s clothing.

The porcelain groans under his fingers, and he makes a conscious effort to loosen his grip – a new sink would surely cost them a fortune and earn them a life-long ban from this inn. He squeezes his eyes shut, figures dancing behind his eyelids.

He opens them again, staring at the man in the mirror. A man – he tells himself – nothing more.

Not a monster, not a demon, not a coward. A man.

It’s been years since he really, truly looked at himself in the mirror – he never could bear the sight after the trials were over. He could even less after he had left Blaviken, the red stains on his hands never truly washing off, it felt like.

It felt like. Not ‘feels’, not anymore. He looks down at his hands, now, and can only see the dirt of the road under his fingernails, a bit of soot from last night’s campfire on the back of his right hand. He can almost hear Jaskier’s voice in his ear: “You need to take more baths, Geralt. Really, I can’t walk around with someone who’s covered in dirt all day, every day, can I?”

He smiles down at the sink, and gathers himself for a few seconds, before looking up again. Amber eyes stare back. Yellow eyes, white hair, an eternal scowl. Monster. The little voice is back, whispering in his ear, curling down his spine.

Yellow eyes, like a snake – it says. Like a field of dandelions – he retorts. Like the sun, Jaskier has told him on several occasions.

White hair, unnatural, wrong. Except when Jaskier brushes it out, or runs his fingers through it, or comments on how beautiful he thinks it looks under the light of the sun.

Scowl, always scowling, always looking angry. He remembers the time Jaskier had laid his head on Geralt’s shoulder, a soft thumb, slightly calloused from lute strings, coming up to rub at the skin of the Witcher’s forehead. Smoothing the wrinkles away, dissipating the scowl. “Why are you so angry?” Jaskier had asked. Geralt had replied: “I’m not.” He closes his eyes, letting warmth flood him. Not when I’m with you.

Not a monster. Geralt. Just… Geralt.

Downstairs, Jaskier starts another song. It’s Toss A Coin, and Geralt smiles involuntarily. His heart skips a beat when he looks at himself in the mirror again, smiling. He looks… different. Not good different or bad different, he just looks a way he’s never seen himself before. More carefree, happier, yellow eyes lighting up like the sun. Is this the way Jaskier sees me?

Maybe it’s good different, after all.

He suddenly feels tired, his entire body weighing him down. He lets go of the sink, fingertips brushing against the small indents he’s left in the porcelain, and he hopes no one notices it. He doesn’t want to pay for a new sink.

He lays down on the bed, pulling the blankets around him as he hears Jaskier coming up the stairs. He smiles again, and finds joy in the action, as he remembers the man in the mirror.

Ten feet taller, I had changed.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been nine years since he’s met Jaskier, and he grunts as the Bard empties a bucket of water over his head.

“Now, now, stop your boorish grunts of protest.” Jaskier drops the bucket onto the floor, as Geralt tries to scrub the Selkiemore guts off his arm, only managing to smear it out more. Fuck.

Jaskier continues talking as he walks over to the towel cabinet. “It is one night bodyguarding your very best friend in the whole wide world, how hard could it be?” He wipes his already spotless hands on the towel, as Geralt turns around.

“I’m not your friend.” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it. Though, to be honest, he’s not wrong. Jaskier may be his best friend, but the Witcher’s been nothing but mean and cruel to the Bard, despite his intentions of treating him better. So he’s not Jaskier’s friend, really.

Yeah, whatever, Geralt. Anything to try and keep your distance and deny what you’re feeling for him.

Jaskier smiles at him, seeing right through the Witcher, as always. “Oh, oh really? You usually let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom?”

Geralt pulls his eyebrows up at him. That was one time, three years ago, because I got bitten in the ass by a feral dog. That you provoked. He says nothing, though, and Jaskier chuckles. “Yeah that’s what I thought.”

He continues to the shelf that holds all the bath salts and oils, nimble fingers picking at a few bottles before he chooses a particular kind of salt. Sandalwood, Geralt notices. Something that won’t assault his heightened sense of smell as much as flowery perfumes would. He knows me so well. His heart does not clench at the thought.

Jaskier keeps rambling, barely able to contain his excitement. “Every lord, knight, and twopenny king worth his salt will be at this betrothal. The lioness of Cintra herself will sing the praises of Jaskier’s triumphant performance!” With a swirl and a dramatic flick of his hand that’s so typically Jaskier, the bath salt lands in the water.

But that’s not why the Bard has asked him to come along, Geralt knows. As much as it hurts him, he knows Jaskier has a particular reason for inviting him. ‘Bodyguarding your very best friend in the whole wide world,’ he remembers.

“How many of these lords want to kill you?” He does not feel a sharp pang of hurt at the thought of how many people Jaskier has slept with to acquire such a large amount of enemies. Stop it, Geralt, you’re just a friend.

Jaskier looks away, blue eyes lighting up the whole room, candlelight flickering on his face and he does not look beautiful, stop thinking like that, Geralt. “Hard to say, one stops keeping count after a while.”

He walks around the bath again to hang the towel on the hook on the wall, rambling as he does so: “Wives, concubines, mothers sometimes.” Geralt does not feel hurt.

Jaskier turns around, and Geralt realizes he’s been scowling again, as the Bard frames his face dramatically. “Ooh, yeah, that face! Scary face! No lord in his right mind will come close if you’re standing next to me with a puss like that.” No wives, either, then?

Still, he feels a little bit of pride at the fact that Jaskier trusts him so blindly, lays his life in Geralt’s hands because he has faith the Witcher will always be there to protect him.

I believe you, I’m not wrong. Oh, it suits me to feel strong.

 He takes the tankard of ale that’s standing next to the bath, though Jaskier’s hand immediately swoops it away from under his nose. You’re lucky you’re cute.

“On second thoughts, might want to lay off the Cintran ale. A clear head would be best.” His hand slaps on Geralt’s shoulder as he stands up, leaving a trail of blazing fire in its wake as he puts the mug away.

Geralt sighs, hand clenching involuntarily. “I will not suffer tonight sober because you his your sausage in the wrong royal pantry.” He knows he’s being unnecessarily cruel to the Bard, that Jaskier has every right to sleep with whoever he pleases. But still – it hurts.

Jaskier doesn’t reply, and Geralt takes that as a cue to continue, to fill the uncomfortable silence with something, anything: “I’m not killing anyone, not over the petty squabbles of men.”

Jaskier scoffs. “Yes, yes, yes. You never get involved, except you totally do, all the time.” And goddammit how does he always look through me?

His eyes follow Jaskier as the Bard walks around the bath. “Ugh, is this what happens when you grow old, you become unbelievably crochety and cantankerous? Actually, I’ve always wanted to know, do Witchers ever retire?”

Geralt’s only ever known one way for Witchers to stop taking contracts. Dying. “Yes, when they slow and get killed.”

“Come on,” Jaskier continues, hand on his hip, brilliant blue eyes curious, “you must want something for yourself once all this monster hunting nonsense is over.”

Except it never ends, not that Geralt’s ever heard of, anyway. And even then, what would he do? Become a farmer? Settle down? Even if he does - which he won’t – he will outlive anyone he settles down with.

He will outlive Jaskier. He does not feel a surge of anger and hurt at the thought.

He cocks his head, as Jaskier looks at him expectantly. “I want nothing.”

He does not think he smells disappointment in the Bard’s scent. He’s definitely making things up. False hope.

“Well,” Jaskier pouts a little, resting his folded arms on the edge of the tub, and gods would he stop looking so beautiful, “who knows, maybe someone out there will want you.”

Only if it’s you. He almost says the words, but remembers once again that he’s a Witcher, and Jaskier deserves so much better than him. “I need no one, and the last thing I want is someone needing me.” Cause I will inevitably disappoint you.

Jaskier looks up at him, all blue eyes and candlelight on soft skin and brown curls. “And yet, here we are.”

Geralt blinks, not sure if he’s really heard what he thinks he’s heard. That Jaskier needs him. No. Not possible. It was just a figment of my imagination. Still, he feels a spark of hope, kindling in his chest. That maybe there is something other than monster hunting waiting for him, that maybe he doesn’t have to be alone, for the rest of his life.

You said: “I will listen, tell me it all. You don’t like the ending? Then we’ll find one that’s yours.”

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been twenty-two years since he’s met Jaskier, and he’s filled with grief and guilt as he sits on a rock on the side of the mountain. It was his job to keep Borch safe, and he failed. Not only that, but he couldn’t even save Téa and Véa. Now they’re gone. Dead. Because of him.

He feels Jaskier sitting next to him, a flash of the bright red of the Bard’s doublet in the corner of his eye, and he remembers how beautifully it contrasts with Jaskier’s blue eyes. Still, he keeps his gaze trained on the horizon.

“You did your best, there’s nothing else you could’ve done.” Reasonably, Geralt knows that. He knows the planks were half-rotten and unstable, he knows he never could have saved them, but still, it hurts.

They sit in silence for a while, as Geralt lets the guilt and grief consume him. Suddenly, again, that soft voice next to him: “Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow? That is, if you give me another chance to prove myself a worthy travel companion.”

Geralt scoffs at the thought of Jaskier not being a worthy travel companion. If he wasn’t, they surely wouldn’t have spent twenty-two years, three months, and five days together, would they? Not that Geralt was keeping track of how long it’s been since he’s met the Bard. Not that it means anything to him.

Jaskier continues, apparently spurred on by Geralt’s half-chuckle: “We could head to the coast, get away for a while.” Oh, gods, there’s nothing I would rather do.

He almost says it, but hesitates. What if he seems to eager? Comes off too strong? Maybe Jaskier doesn’t even mean it like a vacation, maybe he’s just heard of a contract or a monster on the coast. Maybe Jaskier wants to hear the Siren’s song for once, because Geralt wouldn’t let him come along on the hunt the last time they encounter one. What if-

“Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn’t it?” Geralt curses himself for overthinking the offer, for not taking it when he had the chance. Would it sound too awkward to do so now? Maybe it would but-

“Life is too short. Do what pleases you, while you can.” Jaskier’s voice has trailed off into a whisper. Geralt frowns. Life is too long if I have to live part of it without you.

Still, he knows Jaskier can’t possibly mean it like Geralt so desperately hopes he does. Twenty-two years and not once has the Bard made a move. So, clearly, he doesn’t feel the same way the Witcher does. Unrequited feelings. Sounds like a corny song.

Maybe that’s it. “Working on your next song?”

Jaskier chuckles, a sound that reverberates in Geralt heads and he does not wish he could hear the Bard chuckle like that every day for the rest of his long life. “No, just… trying to figure out what pleases me.”

What pleases me? Hearing Jaskier laugh pleases him. Seeing him smile does, too. Hearing him sing, watching his fingers on the strings of his lute, seeing those brown curls in the sunlight, having those blue eyes looking at him. The lame jokes, the stupid quips, the petty squabbles with other people that insult Jaskier’s music. The drunken laughter, the soft snoring, the yawns early in the morning.

Oh, gods, I’m in love.

He does not realize after twenty-two years that he’s in love.

What now? He looks at the sunset, acutely aware of Jaskier’s presence next to him. Now, he will go to Yennefer’s tent, tell her he’s leaving, and take Jaskier up on his offer to go to the coast. And then? He’ll see.

How did you know? That’s all we need. A promise of hope is enough to feel free.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been twenty-two years since he’s met Jaskier, and he makes the worst mistake of his life.

҉    ҉    ҉

It’s been twenty-three years since he’s met Jaskier, and he’s standing in front of a shitty inn, in a nowhere town. He’s heard rumours of the Bard being here, after a year of searching for him.

Of course, he doesn’t have much hope of finding Jaskier here, since most of the rumours he’s chased up until now were dead ends. Either Jaskier would be long gone, or he was never even there at all. Still, Geralt will take any chance he can get at seeing the Bard again.

If only so he can say sorry. For everything. For the shouting, for the hurt, but also for not showing Jaskier the appreciation he truly deserved all those years. For the mean words, for the ignored sentences. For everything.

Feet firm on the ground, we stood hand in hand.

 He walks into the inn, immediately noticing it’s quite packed, despite it being a small town. Maybe Jaskier’s here, after all. He does always gain a lot of attention.

Geralt approaches who he assumes is the innkeeper, a pot-bellied man with a – frankly, impressive – moustache. “I heard there was a Bard in town.”

The man wipes a glass on a dirty cloth, smearing out the filth over the surface. “Aye. You heard right, Witcher. Though, I don’t think he’s up for a performance tonight. ‘s Been drinking all day.” Geralt frowns. That doesn’t sound like Jaskier.

The innkeeper takes his silence as encouragement and continues: “As a matter of fact, he’s been drinking for the past few days he’s been here. Not really great performances, if you ask me. Can’t even distinguish his lute from a chair, if you get what I mean.”

Geralt cocks his head. That doesn’t sound like Jaskier at all. “What does he look like?”

Maybe that’ll clear things up. It does. “Brown hair, blue eyes, wears pretty fancy clothing, though they’re a bit old, if you ask me. Lovely fellow, even though he’s off the rockers all the time.”

That’s Jaskier, alright. “Where can I find him?”

The innkeeper raises his eyebrows at him suspiciously, relenting after holding a short staring contest with the Witcher. “Upstairs, last door to the left.”

“Thank you.” He walks up the stairs, ignoring the way people stare at him. The usual.

And I told the world that I have a plan.

 He stands at the top of the stairs for a few seconds, thinking about how torturous the last year has been without Jaskier. No singing, no humming, no music, no chatter, no Jaskier. And it was all Geralt’s fault.

How stupid he had been. Mistake after mistake, piling up into one big, shit-covered crescendo that left him alone and angry and regretful.

He’s been writing a letter, or a speech, or something – he’s not entirely sure how to label it - for when he would find the Bard again. He’s scratched it out and restarted it a hundred times. The right words never really seemed to come, or they would be… too much. Too sensitive, too revealing of his true feelings.

He doesn’t want to chase Jaskier away. Not now. Not while he still has a chance of at least getting him back as a friend.

He was finally able to perfect his speech about a week ago, and he’s not nervous. He’s definitely not more nervous than he’s ever been in his life. He walks up to the door, hesitating a bit, hand up in the air, ready to knock.

It might not be Jaskier. The Bard might not want to see him. Even if he does, he might not forgive Geralt. And, even then, things might never go back to the way they were before.

Only one way to find out.

He sighs, finally knocking on the door.

Together we sang: “I’m ready now.”

 He pats his pockets, and realizes he forgot the paper with the speech in Roach’s saddlebags. The door opens, Jaskier startling when he sees Geralt.

[vgdemy]

@gallagherintro​ here we f*cking go!

⌠ olivia holt, 22, cis female, she/her ⌡

welcome to gallagher academy, victoria grace demy! originally hailing from metz, france, they were exposed to too much during the protest, and the academy is now in charge of their safe care. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (short blond hair, missoma jewelry, and white nail polish). when it’s the (cancer)’s birthday on 06/20/1997, on the bad nights they request their creamy spinach parmesan orzo from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re safe in witness protection.

here's a timeline-slash-broad strokes biography of vg's life:

vg's mother, a then 19-year-old jeanette beymer, promised her parents she'd go back home to chicago and go to college after spending the summer in france after graduating high school. she never did that. jeanette stayed and worked to support herself, all to live her parisienne dream.

jeanette met vg's father robert wise, a fellow american traveler, at a student bar in lyon, and spent one night together before parting ways. that night they made vg, unbeknownst to either of them. once jeanette realized she was pregnant, robert had already gone back to the us, and jeanette chose not to tell robert of his child. instead, she carried on with her life in france as a single mom-to-be.

this was all a bad idea, of course, considering jeannette's parents insisted she come home, and she refused, as one does. she promised them she'd make it work. not the kind to abandon their daughter, jeannette's parents offered financial support, which gave her mother naming rights—hence victoria grace.

jeanette settled in metz, where life was peaceful and worked 16-hour days to support her little family. thankfully, jeanette had friends (and an elderly, maternal landlady) who helped her raise victoria grace. somehow, jeanette made it all work.

of course, little vg would often ask her mom where her dad is, and the only thing she's ever heard is, "he's just not with our family." for the most part, that worked.

fortunately, a 25-year-old jeanette met a 27-year-old rené demy at a company party where rené was an old friend of a colleague. one thing led to another, and four years later, they were married. 

rené formally adopted vg at 16 years old. vg adored her new (and seemingly only) father. he encouraged her to pursue artistic endeavors until she found her place in music. who knew that vg was a songbird?

the warm and happy household cultivated by her parents molded her into a passionate, empathetic, and joy-loving person, even when it's to the detriment of her productivity. but such is the life of a quasi-parisienne-but-also-an-american-girl-next-door, no?

growing up, vg wasn't much of a troublemaker than a girl prioritizing the pursuit of happiness. she was everyone's friend and, often, a fleeting lover. there's no questioning that vg had love to give, and through the years, she could've won a medal running a figurative marathon in search of that someone who could keep her heart. where she thrived in performing and making people smile, she failed in monogamous relationships. terribly. how did her mom make it look so easy?

by her late teens, vg had already labeled herself a lovelorn singer, because with passion comes a dramatic personality, and the only thing keeping her from becoming a chore of a person is her self-awareness. yes, she's bad at love, driving, and basic math, but she's quick-witted, is a fast learner when the topic interests her, and can sing better than anyone within a 25-mile radius (she thinks).

vg's pursuit of happiness couldn't have stopped in france—she would've never let it happen. as much as jeannette didn't want history to repeat itself, after vg graduated, she allowed her to travel all over europe to find whatever it was she was looking for. but once again, unlike her mother, instead of her finding her true love, vg collected sad songs and credit card debt. maybe it was time for a new scene and a new continent altogether.

i'll add more to this absurd novel once i flesh out how she got to where she is now, but for the time being, she followed suit what the other wp kids did that landed them in gallagher.

other information:

she formally goes by grace, and only close friends call her vg. it's a much more fun nickname in france than it is anywhere else.

she learned how to speak english by watching american television growing up, thanks to her nbc-loving mother.

she's visited the us a handful of times over the years. she loves american fast food, and she stands by that no matter what.

her fragrance of choice is le labo another 13, but in the summer, it's lush sikkim girls. they're nearly the same scents, but still.

she's an arachnophobe, stemming from a spider leaping onto her face when she was 7 back in her mom's old apartment. she's thoroughly unimpressed by spider-man as a result.

her first kiss was with a boy named georges when she was 14, which was also the first time she realized boys could be mean because georges permanently avoided her after they kissed.

she's never had a serious, long-term relationship before (despite her fruitful attempts), which led her to develop a minor inferiority complex, which she hides well.

she's good at making fruit bongs. apple bongs, coconut bongs, pineapple bongs—you need to get creative when your friend accidentally breaks your first bong.

she's trying to kick her cigarette smoking habit because she knows it's not doing her voice any favors, but she can't quit because of its convenience. fruit bongs take time to make.

wanted connections:

honest 2 god close friends — because she needs ‘em (chaotic good gang rise up!)

blunt buddies! — because when you’re traumatized you gotta hit that blunt

tutor — i assume she needs one. don’t ask me why (would also be great for her to have someone to pester about gallagher and an enabler because she wants to sneak around and go to places where she shouldn’t, but that can be a separate connection)

enemy — why not? someone hate on vg. as a treat

unrequited crush — let me show you a concrete example of vg’s dummy thot heart by letting her have a crush on you and she gets rejected

uh i don’t want to get presumptuous with romantic relationships because she’s a new girl but if anyone wants to be vg’s affectionate friend/casual hookup/adorable booty call/genuine romantic interest i’m down like chinatown

again, more to be added when i can think of it. also, hmu at my discord: tin#0697 🤍

[thecorteztwins]

I remember one I found a whole forum called "Bad fics and their authors" that was just a bunch of creeps with nothing better to do than "exposing bad writers" and leaving long ass "constructive criticisms" in their fics while posting updates of them to see if their "improved". It gave me cringe and it was so pathetic, really how sad you must be to need humiliating others to feel better with yourself? I feel so awful thinking about all the poor new writers they totally discouraged.

Oh, oof.So, in the interest of full disclosure, I won’t pretend I have a perfectly pure, non-problematic history with this. When I was young, like a teenager, I’d say 13-18, I actually followed sites like that. I enjoyed them. I’ve always had a passion for analyzing writing and had strong opinions about what was good and bad. Even at that early age, I had identified common fanfic trends and why I didn’t think they were good. What I didn’t have was the empathy to consider that the people writing this stuff were just kids my own age. If you had pointed that out to me back then for a reason why you shouldn’t do this, I would have been baffled, because, like most teens, I thought that being 14 years old was absolutely grown.  So I absolutely agreed with the people running these kinds of sites, and didn’t think it was shitty AT ALL that it might be adults picking on teenagers. But even then, I never participated directly, just watched. I never sent hate (which I’m guessing is what this “constructive criticism” actually was) nor did I ever volunteer anyone or their fic to be roasted. I think even at that very callous, critical age, I knew that was too mean, and much as I enjoyed READING the sporks (as they used to be called---ah, those were the days!) of “bad fics” and “Mary Sues” (a topic which I became a veritable expert on!) I never did any. I did eventually make my own “spork blog” when I was in college...but I used it only for PUBLISHED writers whose writing wasn’t just bad, it was also sexist/homophobic/etc and the writers had proved to be shitty people in general on their blogs. Not just published on Kindle for 99 cents authors either, but writers who had recognizable names agents, fan bases, all of that. They weren’t going to be hurt my tiny blog (I don’t want to name names but like...you would probably know them if I did name them) So I learned my lesson, I think, to use my “super nitpicky and critical of everything” powers for good, or at least not to use them for bad, though I can’t believe I ever had the energy to devote it to such a thing. Oh to be young and full of fire again!TL;DR Yeah that’s shitty. Most of the people writing these fics are kids, and even if they’re not, even if they’re 40somethings, it’s fun for them and they’re not hurting anyone and it costs you nothing to just leave them be and NOT READ. If you want to really stick it to some real bad writing and go over what works and what doesn’t because it’s something you’re truly passionate about, try punching up and going after the big dogs, who aren’t going to be personally hurt by some nerd on the Internet (bonus points if they’re shitty people who wrote shitty things) Fuck, I think it would be really cool to “spork” some classic literature, since a lot of what is considered “classic” isn’t actually good quality writing, it’s just considered a “classic” because it was deemed culturally significant to the literary canon. Honestly, I was so conscious of “bad writing” from such a young age, I didn’t actually write at all because I was so worried about it. And I sometimes wonder i that’s why I can’t/don’t write my own original stuff now.

[mohartproductions]

So in a nutshell, YouTube is "encouraging" content creators to mark their material as either child friendly or not. Sure it might make sense at first glance but if I may ask... Why should we have to? Why should labeling our own videos as either for kids or adults be our responsibility? Cause here's the thing, most content creators don't really make their videos with any age demographic in mind. Yeah there are videos with swearing, and some even have blood or even gore, but for the most part it's just swearing; and even then it's no most creators don't really specifically intend to make videos for kids or adults, they just make videos doing what they like to work on, be it gaming, reviews or so fourth. I could get into further detail on how arbitrary it is to label content as being "Adult" or "Kid Friendly" specifically language which we consider "bad words" but also even blood and any imagery of the naked human body to an extent but one topic at a time (And how we resort to scolding or even punishing children for using those words or looking at that imagery) but one topic at a time; anyway the consensus of what we consider to be for kids or adults is only distracting us from the real problem with YouTube's approach to sorting out which videos are okay for kids, apply it's probably not really for the sake of letting people know what kids can or can't watch, but possibly as one of YouTube's attempts at getting more kids to use their platform. I don't know about anyone else but, guys... This is kind'a, sort'a illegal! For those of you who don't know, in the early years of the internet, COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) was established to insure the protection of minors who may be surfing the web, by insuring that only individuals over 13 years of age are allowed to use social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Deviantart, or even sites for purchasing products like Gamestop, Amazon, or so fourth, and in that regard it actually makes sense because for one, kids under 13 still wouldn't exactly be as good with interacting with older people they don't know so probably for the best, for more reasons than one, to ensure they don't get themselves into trouble by either angering or bothering an adult or teenager, or worse making contact with an adult who has ill intent for said kids and their families; plus you probably wouldn't entrust a kid to buy something from the web without permission. Now bare with me folks, I am in no way saying that kids can't or shouldn't watch videos on YouTube or anywhere online, (Save for porn sites of course) I'm just saying that they shouldn't have their own accounts... which YouTube seems to be encouraging! Now it's possible that's not really their intent, maybe they just want to be more like cable television... except the internet is NOT television, the same rules of censorship, apply the S&P Department, do not apply to the World Wide Web, and even then, again people should not have to bare the burden of being responsible for what they consider for a particular age demographic. Again... Why should we have to be responsible for the sanctity of other people's children?! And honestly, as long as kids keep things to themselves do you REALLY think they're gonna care?! Sure they might care if their parents or teachers are present... if only because they fear being "disciplined" by them and facing the consequences. (again for some of the most arbitrary taboos in our society but again one topic at a time) Any you know what I just realized? YouTube is technically following the same vices, if we some how fail to label content being "for kids" then they are going to punish us, the older people! Now are you beginning to see the really problem here! They are enforcing arbitrary rules that we now have to follow based on the same conflicting traditional taboos, or they will either punish us, or force to make our content how they see fit themselves! And again... WHY should this many people have to be responsible for what they show to other people's children they don't know?! Again COPPA exists to ensure they laws they issues years prior which all websites have to follow, and whether or not you're encouraging kids to sign-up you either way are breaking one of the golden rules of the internet. And if I may be blunt YouTube seems rather pretentious and repetitive about how their making their site "for kids" to a point where it almost seems like they don't really care about the well being of children (and their parents/teachers) at all and are using it more as a ploy to meet Google's demands for gaining capital. Even then if sites like YouTube do want to appeal more to children without the risk of parents and teachers wagging their fingers at them then I think there is a solution that benefit everyone... of course this is just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt... JUST DON'T MAKE NUDITY & SWEAR WORDS TABOOS ANYMORE! Seriously, why are swear words "bad words?" And why do we feel the need to be put off by a woman's bare breasts, or a man's penis, I mean we have those things on our own bodies and we can see them right there when we're changing clothes or taking a bath or shower; plus look at animals, they're naked and we can clearly see their mammary glands and sexual organs! And why do we always tell our kids to not look at those things or say those things when we see or say them all the time?! And on a minor tangent, why do we constantly have to encourage people to be put off by the sight of blood, or even muscle when we not only see it all the time in a butcher shop (seriously that's a gore fest right their and you never even knew it) but we also see it in artwork in educational books and medical posters in public hospitals all the time; heck art and science museums also show depictions of gore and human body parts and they're public; and if I'm not mistaken we use to depict stuff like nudity and gore in fairy tales we use to read to kids at night, so you can't tell me it's because of sex and kids are too young to have sex, partly since I'm sure kids would be the least interested at all in any sort of sexual activity and would probably find it weird until their late teens anyway! Now the exact reasons as for why these things may vary from person to person; but I think a lot of us can agree that there's nor real reason why should continue condoning language or imagery or arbitrarily, and especially YouTube following those same vices are not only vague since again what we consider to be for kids or adults isn't 100% monolithic, but also contradictory to the rules they're technically breaking themselves and only hurting more of the people that could potentially benefit them. Sure, in concert we should be wary of what our kids are exposed to, but not at the cost of other people's free speech, and especially not at the cost of the sanctity of their own content they're trying to live off of. See what you're doing YouTube. You are acting just like how any parent or teach would, are are punishing people to follow rules that make no sense, and in the end doesn't encourage good behavior but instead just makes people fear you.

[kae-karo]

What are your opinions on the debate going on in the phandom about adults writing smut about minors?

oof first of all i haven’t seen this argument/discussion myself, and it is a seriously challenging topic to address but i’ll do my best to express my thoughts on the matter - please note, i fully intend to talk about both sides to this discussion but i have to start somewhere, so if people are intent on arguing, at least read the entire thing first

on one hand, there are many adults who deal with their experiences or traumas they had at a younger age through writing - and i understand the argument not to publish those works so as to prevent normalizing it, but there are also kids who are that age who have experienced/are experiencing similar things, and who might benefit from seeing that someone else experienced it as well (and is doing okay/still surviving/etc as an adult). they may also be providing advice that they’d wished they had in that situation, or prior to that situation, that kids who are or might end up going through that situation could benefit from. and i don’t necessarily believe that adults shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to write about those topics, because again, it may be therapeutic both for them to write it and for others at that age to read it, but i think that it should be very clearly tagged so that people who want to avoid that content can avoid it

i also think that, while it isn’t everything, intent is important - an author who’s writing about underage sexual encounters with the intent of just....writing smut between minors for shits and giggles/cause they think it’s hot/etc is creating a more problematic situation than providing a space where other minors with similar experiences can go ‘oh, this happened to me, i’m not alone in feeling [whatever they feel] about it’. but authors who incorporate situations into their works in order to say ‘hey, i don’t think it’s necessarily good/right/etc that i had to experience this (whether it be trauma of some kind, sex before they were ready for it or just sex as a teenager, etc) but i want other people to see this and know that if they’re in the same boat, i’m okay now, and you’ll be okay too’. there’s also something to be said about having some wisdom/advice/knowledge looking back on the events and being able to impart that wisdom through a work

now, i absolutely need to address the other side of the argument here: nobody, kids or otherwise, should feel pressured into having sexual encounters before they’re ready. and the thing that writing a lot of underage smut can do is it can create the stigma (or, really, propagate the stigma) that having sexual encounters at a young age is normal and expected. now, that’s not to say kids aren’t having sexual encounters at that age - i have no doubt that some of them are, but nobody should feel like they’re ‘behind’ or strange or whatever for not wanting to engage in sexual behaviors

and that’s like. layer one of the many problems that can occur - but i also see the flipside of this which is to say ‘well if kids are having sex at that age, shouldn’t they at least be exposed to some healthier sexual behaviors they might not see from peers/etc?’ which, yeah, i agree with that - i don’t necessarily agree that kids should be having sex, but if they are, then yeah let’s help educate where we can. but it doesn’t change the potential downsides, including the fact that there are just as many fics with misinformation about sex as there are that encourage healthy sex. and to the argument about better sex ed (and ofc that we should not relying on fandoms to relay healthy sexual behaviors) - yeah, duh, but kids may stumble into a fandom/be a part of a fandom without having any access to (reliable) health resources on sex (again, not that fic is reliable, but there are definitely authors out there making an effort). they may also be in situations where they wouldn’t be able to/allowed to visit planned parenthood’s (or equivalent’s) website to research that information themselves, either because of parents or someone else, but might be able to get away with reading fic. this is a whole other discussion i think but the only point here is that fic can be another potential tool for either good information or misinformation for kids who are already sexually active

i also often see the ‘adults are sexualizing minors’ argument, but i think this one’s a bit off base - yes, there are adults that are sexualizing minors which is a very very wrong thing to do, but i really don’t think every single person writing about sexual encounters between minors is doing so in a ‘it’s hot’ kind of way. again, i have to call back to the idea of writing to work through one’s own experiences - most authors will say they’re writing about the things that happened to them as kids, through the lens of a character that’s more well-known. the goal, as with a lot of writing, is to say ‘hey, look, this is a story about me and how i went through this thing, did this happen to anyone else? if so, we’re not alone, and i think things are gonna turn out okay’. or, as mentioned before, to add some kind of layer of advice or wisdom that’s come with time

anyway, on a very high level, i don’t think i’ll ever be able to lay down a blanket statement that says ‘[adults writing smut about minors/adults not writing smut about minors] is the Correct thing’ because that puts a lot of discouragement in both directions - kids that see that might get the idea that hey, they’re not ever going to be allowed to write about what happened to them/what’s happening right now/what they wish had happened once they reach adulthood/reach some kind of higher understanding about it because it might get ripped apart, and adults are told that they can’t write about it either, in spite of the fact that it allows them to help understand/cope with/advise on/reflect on what happened to them. but by the same token, you will always have the trash people who just write underage smut cause it’s hot and they want to, with little to no regard for how that could impact some kid who’s already feeling immense pressure to engage in sexual acts or who may have, up until reading the fifth fic about underage sex, had no interest in sex but now they think it’s a part of being a teen and they should be seeking it out. and the really dangerous thing about all that is it’s very very hard to tell what kind of story is actually being told when you stumble onto a fic at 2am that happens to include underage sex in the tags. the whole thing is too gray to say ‘it’s always right or wrong’

now, all that said, i personally don’t feel comfortable writing about/reading underage smut because i feel like all the things i experienced as a teenager are things that weren’t inherent to the fact that i was a teenager, and i’m perfectly comfortable reading/writing them through the lens of an adult character

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

The Baggage of Love

CoA prompt for Dec 2019 - “Love” [Call for Submissions]. Under a cut due to length; there’s a few sections: Family, Friends, So-Called “Puppy Love”, Love is a Four-Letter Word, and “not gay as in happy, but queer as in i love you”. (Link to that quoted post is provided.)

Family

In terms of feeling (personal experience) and topic (impersonal), there’s an iceberg when approaching familial love (and the lack thereof). I don’t have the spoons for poking at the effects of our parents’ lives on us, divorce, growing up in an essentially single parent house, or the fragility of familial love, usually framed in terms of acceptance, around queer and trans identities. Other people have written about the popularity of the Found Family trope in queer fandom, intergenerational trauma, and all kinds of family stuff, and I am but a simple blogger. I do remember that it was first with my family that I was exposed to the concept of love and saying that I loved them, and when push comes to shove, it’s not uncommon for stories to default to parental love as an important element of a character’s story (‘at least their family will always be there for them’).

Familial love can be fraught with complications of our own parent-child or caretaker-child baggage (if grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. raised us), but I suspect there are some aros who would say that it’s a different flavor of love from what’s talked about in relation to aromanticism. The whole offspring thing is a whole ‘nother can of worms that could be a separate CoA prompt, but I can see child rearing being separate from the alloromantic relationship elevator in a way that isn’t incompatible with being aro, even if co-parenting is usually presented romantically in most media. (At least, off the top of my head, I associate it with ‘becoming a step-parent’ narratives, but that doesn’t mean non-romantic co-parenting isn’t out there.)

Friends

I know I’ve seen it cross my dash about not emphasizing platonic love over romantic love or over emphasizing friends as a means of ‘aros are still human’, but I didn’t save links for an idea of how discussions about prioritizing friendship have been happening. On the one hand, I can understand how uncomfortable and alienating this can be for aplatonic aros, but on the other hand, I spend most of my time in the allo-allo world with people who clearly prioritize romantic love over friendships, so it feels like I don’t actually experience very much prioritization of friendship. I don’t mean that the aro community shouldn’t be cautious of prioritizing platonic love and relationships. It’s more of a personal balancing act, but I’m not quite finding the right words for what I want to say right now.

(Aside: When I think of love that hasn’t been otherwise specified, I think of the middle school banter with some of my friends - something like a minor inconvenience leads to “I hate you” “Aw, I love you, too” - juxtaposed against feeling blindsided in high school that, apparently, I’m misleading others if I say ‘I love you’ to a friend. Unbeknownst to me, I was dating someone for about two or three months in 9th grade because of that. I think of wanting to tell someone that I was proud of them facing one of their fears during the course of that day’s work (“I love you for trying”). I think of reassuring friends that I care about them.)

When I think of just the word ‘love’, I think of an amorphous, unspecific feeling love that seems to reasonably include friendships. Some posts that were probably meant to stay personal/venting posts from aro bloggers use love to mean romance, but sometimes, that feels about as restrictive as allo-allo people assuming I must be dating a friend in order to say love. I may not feel as comfortable saying it out loud anymore, but I still love my friends in a way that’s hard to name or specify any further yet isn’t romantic.

So-Called “Puppy Love”

I feel like I’ve explained this before, but I have memories of crushes that have faded and become hard to translate to present/future perceptions. One of my past rounds of shadow work was specifically aimed at recovering from a crush on a friend ending our friendship, and I’ve always been embarrassed to talk about it, particularly as the final straw that set off one of my depressive episodes in high school. ~ One of those overperforming emos writing sad poetry about an unrequited crush? The emotional dysregulation of experiencing the first major heartbreak and becoming a depressed teen stereotype? ~ It was cringey before calling things cringey was a thing. (Also, please don’t go looking for my middle/high school era DA account where that’s been immortalized.)

In hindsight, I can recognize a whole bunch of comparatively minor crushes were probably more based on aesthetic attraction because they didn’t actually come with the same type of ‘butterflies’ and daydreaming about hypothetical futures. The crushes that were more substantial and had to be accommodated were more likely on friends, and it faired better to just wait out the feelings with no disclosure. I can think of at least one occasion where I was semi-aware that my crush was aesthetically based and I didn’t actually want to date him, but that awareness didn’t come along until undergrad. The last situation I definitely call a crush was in Sophomore year of undergrad and involved a friend, who in the past year found out about it and wasn’t upset or anything. (Shout out to friendship that can survive accidentally revealing that time I had a crush on her because she follows my tumblr.)

The Lightning Incident (as I so creatively refer to it) was this random, out of the blue event in my (I believe) Senior year of undergrad where my brain just kinda blanked, I felt internally giddy, and I just forgot how to speak while a cute girl I didn’t know was talking to me. Like, I just mentally shut down a bit and wandered away from the salad bar in a daze. For sheer experience on my end, I’m including it here, but I’ve still never been sure if it was a crush because my brain forgetting how to talk is incredibly counterproductive to interaction (and hasn’t happened before). I felt incredibly nervous talking to her during future conversations, but it didn’t quite feel the same as what I’ve experienced as a crush before. (I’m also 99% sure she never picked up on any of my internal weird feeling experiences and hasn’t found out since then, so yay me for keeping a lid on that.)

Love is a Four-Letter Word

Originally, I had something about hearing the line attributed to this section from a cartoon villain and the presentation of an inability to love in some form as a shortcut to villain coding planned, but then, in the midst of ‘pre-headache brain static’, I remembered a line from a post, “M is for the lack of madness | Called love that others see” (‘Aromantic’ acrostic poem). For a certain amount of aros, it’s probably just a relatable line, and they don’t necessarily give it much thought. I still haven’t been able to figure out how I feel about equating love to madness. On the one hand, there’s somewhat of a literary tradition, so it’s not exactly a new idea:

“Love is merely a madness and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do, and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love, too” (As You Like It, Act 3 scene 2, No Fear Shakespeare link).

On the other hand, I have complicated feelings around the idea because of my own mental health issues. But if a crush ended a friendship that was important to me in high school, and it was tied up with depression, doesn’t that make it sorta relatable? Maybe for someone else, but I wind up thinking about the ashamed teen who couldn’t explain what was wrong in such a way to be believed and get help because it was ‘just an unrequited crush I would outgrow quickly’, and the isolation of not being able to talk to anyone about a same-gender crush that didn’t help the depression. I may not have had to face homosexuality being listed as a paraphilia, sexual orientation disturbance, or other listing in the DSM, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a supportive atmosphere to reach out to ‘trusted’ adults.

I don’t have the energy to poke at other relevant details around my mental health right now, but there’s a certain knee jerk reaction to feel uncomfortable with the implication that an element of a romantic, sexual, or otherwise specified orientation may get people called crazy. I know aros are usually trying to joke about alloromantics (punching up, as it were), and no one wants to disclaimer their posts for every little thing. It’s entirely possible I’m overthinking this, and it’s bumping up against other baggage (around gender therapy and not being ‘too mentally ill to be believed’, for example), but I would rather not have ‘love is madness’ be a thing that people try to fold into permanent aro infrastructure. (The use of ‘love’ to mean ‘romantic love’ might also cast too wide a net and people who use ‘love’ non-romantically might think they’re being included.) If someone wants to call me ‘mad’, I’ve got brain shenanigans and symptoms to use as justification instead.

“not gay as in happy, but queer as in i love you”

There’s something about the first half of this post [link] that seems suited for spoken word poetry, and I don’t know how to translate my feelings into a written reply or commentary. However, I want to end with this because it scratches a hopepunk itch, and since I’m wrapping up this post on New Year’s Eve 2019, I feel like I could use a little hope for 2020. Maybe love is a messy concept that’s broad and narrow, felt by everyone and felt by no one (depending on each definition), and carries only as much meaning as you give it. Maybe love has no inherent feeling that’s universal, and it’s all down to action and inaction, like radical kindness. (I don’t know.)

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Does ’13 Reasons Why’ Increase Suicide Rates?

Conflicting research released last month gave us a very unclear answer about whether simply watching or being exposed to a television show about teen suicide — Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why (13RW) — results in an increase in actual teen suicide in real life.

One study found a correlation (not a causal relationship) between the two, while another study found declines in suicidal thoughts and self-harm behaviors.

So what’s the real story?

13 Reasons Why is a Netflix television series that explores the first-hand account of a fictional teenage girl’s life and eventual suicide. The second season delved deeper into the aftermath of all the people touched by and potentially responsible for the teen’s suicide. Researchers, psychologists, parents, and experts were all concerned that after the release of the first season of the show, teens would be inclined to greater suicidal and self-harm behavior.

The media suicide effect (or Werther effect as coined by David Phillipps in 1974) has been well-researched, as summarized by Hawton & Williams (2002):

The impact of the media on suicidal behaviour seems to be most likely when a method of suicide is specified—especially when presented in detail—when the story is reported or portrayed dramatically and prominently—for example with photographs of the deceased or large headlines—and when suicides of celebrities are reported.

Younger people seem to be most vulnerable to the influence of the media, although limited evidence also shows an impact on elderly people.

In short, there is legitimate concern that the suicide rate tends to increase after the publicity of a suicide, especially that of prominent people or celebrities.

What research hasn’t looked into is whether this effect extends to fictional portrayals of suicide, such as the one in 13RW.

The University of Pennsylvania Study

Today, we have two conflicting studies that provide some possible answers to this question.

The first study, conducted by a team of international researchers (Arendt et al., 2019) led by a University of Pennsylvania professor, recruited subjects who were “young adults (ages 18–29; N = 729) with access to Netflix who completed surveys shortly before and one month after the release of the show’s second season.” Subjects were recruited from online gaming sites; women were over-represented due to methodological limitations (using a third-party audience survey panel).

The researchers also carefully considered the fact that there may be a self-selection bias when studying this issue, since only some people watch the show. And, importantly, “[t]hose who choose to watch in the first place are likely to differ from those who do not. To overcome this selection effect requires analyses that can compare viewers with non-viewers while holding constant predispositions to watch.” So the researchers took this into account when designing their study.

Subjects took a battery of surveys before season two was released, and then took the same surveys four weeks after the release of the second season of 13 Reasons Why.

The researchers found some unexpected and seemingly contradictory results: “our findings suggest that over the course of a month, the show exerted a beneficial effect on students who watched the entire show.” And even better, those at highest risk for suicide benefited the most by watching the entire season:

[… A]mong this higher-risk group, we observed unexpectedly that those who watched the entire season showed less suicidality than those who did not watch at all. (Emphasis added.)

Contrary to many people’s expectations, these researchers show that 13RW actually can help people at greatest risk for suicide. But only if they watch the entire season.

For those who didn’t watch the entire season, the findings are more grim: “For those who only watched some of the second season, we found that the experience predicted elevated suicide risk, especially among current students.” The researchers hypothesized that those who didn’t stick with the second season were exhibiting a sign of distress. When those people stopped watching the show, it may have been as a coping mechanism to stop their own upset and reduce the risk of harm.

The “full dose” effect seems to have outpaced the effect that emerged from only watching some of Season 2. This finding may also be consistent with the results of Zimerman et al. (2018), who found that those who watched the entire first season and who reported prior suicidal ideation were more likely to report improvement in their mental state than a reduction.

The show had no significant impact on people who had a lower initial risk of suicide.

Overall, this was very good research with solid methodological design. It didn’t have the best, most randomized sample in the world, which resulted in an over-representation of women and people who visit gaming sites (who may be different than those who don’t).

Does a Warning Make a Difference?

Netflix failed to include any type of pre-show warning about the content the viewer was about to view in Season 1. The lack of a “viewer warning card” led to an outcry among suicide experts, school psychologists, and well-meaning advocates. So in Season 2 Netflix included such a warning, which begs the question, did it help to keep vulnerable viewers from watching the show? Not according to this research: “Our analysis of the warning that Netflix put out prior to the second season suggests that it may have mainly served to increase viewing.” File under “Good intentions not borne out by the data.”

The Ohio State University College of Medicine Study

Unlike the UPenn study, Bridge et al.’s (2019) study simply looked at the association between suicide data in the U.S. (from data provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) before and after Season 1 of 13RW. The researchers hypothesized that the release of 13RW would have an “immediate and sustained impact on suicide rates in youth and emerging adults.”

Season 1 was released on March 31, 2017, and the researchers found statistically significant increases in the 10-to-17 year age group of suicide deaths during the months of April, June, and December. This means that after its release, the increases happened in only 3 of the 9 months during the study period.

To make this result seem stronger than it is, the researchers also proposed that since March’s suicide death rate was also statistically higher, the mere promotion of the show and the release of its trailer also contributed to this increase. If you feel like the researchers were reaching with this — that a mere advertisement can also significantly contribute to suicide deaths — you wouldn’t be wrong.

But this is not what the media highlighted. Instead of noting that the researchers did not find a sustained impact on suicide rates, they went with the highlights — that 13RW was associated with increased suicide deaths among those in one age group, 10-to-17 year olds. When teasing out the data by gender, the researchers furthermore found that this increase did not apply to girls — only boys.

The researchers offered no explanation as to why their study did not find increased suicide deaths during the months of May, July, August, September, October or November. And why December was the outlier, given that the series was released 7 months prior to then.

This data clearly shows there was no sustained effect of the release of the show on suicide rates in this age group, nor was the effect found in girls. This is particularly odd, given that the protagonist in 13RW is a girl. And while there was indeed an association of increased suicide deaths in the month immediately following Season 1’s release, it did not continue into the next month — which is also odd.

Data correlation studies such as this can be difficult to generalize from, since they seek to associate a population trend with a single variable from our environment — the release of a television show. Such a study needs us to suspend our understanding about the hugely complex social lives that teenagers live nowadays — that they could be so readily influenced by a single fictional account — as well as ignore national and international events happening in the world around us (which could offer alternative explanations for the uptick in suicide deaths).

Click for larger image

What 13RW Does for Suicide Awareness

The stronger of the two studies is the University of Pennsylvania study, since it was designed from the ground-up to examine the effects of 13RW. The second study was a retrospective examination of data, and while we shouldn’t ignore the uptick in suicide deaths in the month following the series’ release, we also shouldn’t panic about it. As the UPenn study demonstrated, the series may have a beneficial effect for those most at risk. But it may also negatively impact those who don’t take in the entire show’s message — which is ultimately uplifting and important.

In short, it’s not surprising to find that a television show may have an impact on people’s perception of a topic. But at the same time, we shouldn’t over-emphasize the impact such a show can have while ignoring the impact that others can provide to help a person with suicidal thoughts and feelings. If our country had a working mental health system, people who are suicidal wouldn’t be forced to turn to volunteer-run helplines as their first-line treatment option (which is a travesty). If people who were concerned about a friend simply asked them about how they’re really doing — and if concerned about suicide, asking specifically about suicidal thoughts — we could do a better job in making a dent in the suicide rates in this country.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

  References

Arendt, F. Scherr, S., Pasek, J., Jamiseon, P.E., & Romer, D. (2019). Investigating harmful and helpful effects of watching season 2 of 13 Reasons Why: Results of a two-wave U.S. panel survey. Social Science & Medicine. In press.

Bridge, J.A. et al. (2019). Association Between the Release of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Suicide Rates in the United States: An Interrupted Times Series Analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. In press.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/does-13-reasons-why-increase-suicide-rates/

[mentalcurls]

1. Sembri una pu***na

So I started the all-Skam Italia rewatch last Sunday and it turns out I have a lot to say about it. Like, four pages on Word of stuff to say. It took me three days to get evrything out and make it readable. So here, for you reading pleasure, my thoughts on ep.1 season 1 “Sembri una pu***ana”. There’s some kind of heavy stuff and I draw some parallels to my personal experience, since I was, unce upon a time, a teenager and a student at the same school all the highschoolers in SkamIT attend, and I’m also beginning to do the Bechdel test on the episodes!

The montage at the beginning is really powerful when you link the images from Giovanni and Eva’s class’s time at the Succursale to Gio’s essay, that Eva’s reading in the background, in particular the first part: LudoBesse is basically telling us how much of a waste Eva thinks her and Laura’s friendship is to Laura now

Something else about Gio’s essay (as someone who attended classico): it’s a YES from me because criticizing liceo classico is peak classico culture, it’s a HELL NO because classico is actually the best school in the world and I sincerely hope that if anyone else but himself said/wrote that kind of stuff about his school Gio would be at their throats

Eva has that “seeing someone outside the school gates and static fills your ears” moment just like Marti when he sees Niccolò for the first time! Hers is of course with Laura and Sara, who are with... Silvia and Fede! I like that they showed us a bit of this friendship that we didn’t really get to see in the og.

Martino and that iconic first “A zozzoni!” ❤️

Marti and Gio are competing for who got the best grades in the History test and I have a lot to say about this: we know Gio has really high grades (we are told he has an average of 9/10 in Latin and he got 8,5 in History) and that thing he does, bragging about it with his friend, the friendly competition between them, the actual talking about his grades without worrying who’s listening to him? That shit wouldn’t have flied for me, a once-upon-a-time student of liceo classico with an average of 8/10 in Latin, 8/10 in Ancient Greek and 9/10 in History and in part it was because I didn’t have the best classmates, but for the most part I couldn’t have done that because I am a girl (and my friends and classmates were 98% female)

girls are socialized to be humble about accomplishments, first and foremost, to avoid bragging AND humblebragging as well, and to always care about other people and their feelings; basically, whenever the topic of marks and grades came up while I was in high school, I had to try my best to avoid disclosing my own; if they were brought up directly, say them as dispassionately as possible and then try to change topic; I had be conscious of the fact I was talking someone who had much worse grades than me most of the time, so I had to keep into mind their experience of finding things I found doable (like translating from Latin) extremely hard, of disliking subjects I enjoyed (and most of the time the professor who taught them too, especially when they’d recently gotten a bad mark) and of being frustrated by their grades. I could never have competed with any of my friends about who got the highest marks (most of the time there was actually a sort of “gallows humor” competition over who got the lowest). I couldn’t show I was happy about my good grades, because I’d get negative comments from my friends (yes, even close friends, people I get on with and love to this day) who would dismiss my accomplishment as obvious, something that came easily to me because I was a nerd (the translation in Italian is “secchiona” and it doesn’t have any of the “cute” connotations pop culture gave its English counterpart) and something I shouldn’t “show off”. On top of that, if something was hard for me, it was whatever and what right did I have to complain when I had such high grades anyways, it wouldn’t be a problem in the long run.

So yeah, Martino and Giovanni, right now I kind of hate you for not having to take on any emotional labour in these kind of situations and society for socializing males and females in different ways when it comes to accomplishments and for accepting different behaviours from boys and girls.

QED Gio and Marti turn to Eva and ask her about her mark, she’s reticent but they get an answer out of her (that is not even the truth) and they mock her for it. Yes it’s all fun and games but Eva’s mark is really bad compared to Giovanni’s and Martino’s (especially her real mark) and grades are important for teens, no matter how much they deny it, if nothing else then because they influence their relationship with their parents

you can see Eva is hurt by their careless mocking, by Gio’s fake attempt at placating with “stuff she’s good at” (among which is re-heating pre-cooked food which is at the same time a way to have her “stay in the kitchen” and not even be able to properly cook) and by the way he and Marti underestimate her and laugh at her in the following exchange, when Marti shushes her and she calls him “asshole” with that annoyed face. It’s silly, “loving” mockery but it affects people anyways and it shows a lack of empathy only guys are allowed. She’s expected to take it with good grace (and this takes additional emotional labour) because it’s just for fun and they’re friends and they don’t mean it, but it’s not fair

“There are no secrets in a couple, but there aren’t between friends either.” THE WAY MARTINO PUTS HIMSELF ON THE SAME LEVEL AS EVA in Giovanni’s life, straight away! This boy. And Gio agrees! That shit must’ve been so frustrating, poor Eva.

This conversation  between Gio, Eva and Marti: G: Today we’re going to Elia’s place to study. E: Oh, so that’s what you’re calling it now, studying. M: Oh c’mon, 6 minus, shhh. is the beginning of the reoccurring dynamic between them in the season that will make Eva paranoid and will bring her to confronting Laura and to cheating aka Giovanni keeping a secret, lying to Eva about where he goes and what he does, Martino enabling him by misdirecting or distracting her or Gio doing it himself, then either or both the guys calling her crazy or paranoid for doubting their words. You know what’s that? It’s called gaslighting.

[Gaslighting means manipulating a person by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity. It’s the same technique that, according to some of his critics, Donald Trump used to get gain traction with voters (see Trump giving “alternative facts” and dubbing the media that fact checked and corrected him “fake news”).]

[I’M NOT SAYING THAT GIOVANNI IS THE SAME AS TRUMP, I DON’T THINK THEY’RE THE SAME, I only want to present an example of how this form of psychological manipulation is an actual thing in the real word and is really effective and dangerous.]

I am aware that Giovanni is just a dumb teenager trying to hide his weed habit from his girlfriend, that Martino is just being a good bro and covering for his best friend, that they’re doing this without any malicious intent towards Eva and that she’s insecure all by herself. Still, gaslighting is not a behaviour our societies should excuse, especially because it’s usually practiced by the usual suspects over women and minorities. I’d never seen it pointed out in the context of Skam Italia so I thought I’d bring it up, especially in light of S2 and of the “unproblematic” label Gio’s been given. He’s not perfect, he does shitty stuff too, then afterwards he simply grows up and becomes better. Let’s not forget about it and celebrate the person he’s become.

Case in point is the whole 1.2 Online clip. This is conversation between Eva and Gio: G: My battery died. E: But you were on-line. G: No, I wasn’t, my phone died a couple of hours ago. E: But I saw you. G: Eva, I don’t know how it happened. There must be something wrong with my phone, I don’t know. Sometimes I see you online and you’re not, too. I mean, everyone knows it happens. We can Google it if you want. E: No, it’s okay. And where were you? G: At Elia’s. E: Till now? G: Yeah. E: That’s weird. I talked to Martino earlier and he said you guys left a while ago. G: Eva, what’s wrong? Martino left earlier and I stayed till now. What, you don’t believe? Don’t you trust me? Are you insane, uh? [G kisses E] Everything’s alright. Little koala? Little koala always works. [G carries E to her room, then they have sex.] Giovanni lies about his phone being dead, then tells Eva that her seeing him online is impossible or a fluke, that everyone knows those kind of flukes happen, then lies again about being at Elia, when she tries to expose him he adjusts and starts questioning why she doesn’t believe him, finally calling her crazy and distracting her with kisses and sex. This is gaslighting.

(I had actual chills as I watched the scene again and typed this.)

Those theatre kids are so awkward, but quoting weird passages from greek/latin/italian poetry by heart is peak liceo classico culture

unsupportive boyfriend Gio shows up again when Eva suggest they go to the Easter party: his first reaction is “What? Why? You don’t even like that”, so savage, but fair Eva reminds him he’s actually a loser who, at 16, plays card to have fun with his friends like a 60 year old

Gio is being an asshole, he only considers going with Eva’s suggestion in exchange for something, then guilts her into accepting his “deal” bringing up Marti’s difficult family situation and her grades, implicitly, by promising to volunteer for the philosophy oral test, plus he’s rude and insensitive af because he brings up her inviting a friends when he knows fully well that when they cheated on Laura she got completely cut off

this will show up again, but let me just start to say it in the first episode: how unfair is it for Eva to be suffering most of the consequences in her life for getting together with her best friend’s boyfriend, when Giovanni faces no consequences that we know of for cheating on his girlfrien? And how unfair it must feel, deep deep down, to Eva

then, when she agrees, he takes back his side of the deal and Eva has to say it’s fine, it’s nothing because he says sorry and that’s socialization kicking in, telling her not to be difficult, not to be needy and not to complain cause that’s annoying and girls guys want to date are not any of those things; honestly, the emotional labour Eva has to go through

that getting ready montage, Eva really goes full on revenge mode like Lady D and she’s fully feeling her oats

the first dress Eva tries on is the same we saw Laura wearing at the party, but Eva’s red while Laura’s blue: I put all my money o it being a dress they bought together and on it being kind of their go-to dress, Eva thought about wearing it to remind Laura of their friendship but in the end decided it would only make things harder

oh, the conversation with Laura at the bar. God, if the situation is this tense can you imagine being in the same class as her and as Gio six hours a day everyday? We’ve talked about how shit it must have felt for Niccolò to be in the same class as Marco Covitti in S2, but Eva’s situation is awful too. I wonder how much of that factors in her bad grades and troubles with school

how more people don’t ship Italian Evanora is beyond me, have you seen this interaction?

on the other hand, I wonder how much Eleonora thought about it later, about how she must have come on too strong, about how maybe Eva thought she was weird or hitting on her and how much that weighed on Eleonora not reaching out first again, cause she makes a face like she regrets her life the minute Eva walks away

it breaks my heart, honestly: Eva has just been told she’s a whore by someone she once considered a friend, but when she finds this person’s new friend, who she doesn’t know, crying in the bathroom she doesn’t bat an eyelash, reassures her and tries her best to help her (so much emotional labour that women “naturally” take on themselves because we’re taught to be empathetic and caretakers even when we’re ourselves in distress)

one question: if Federico Canegallo is as popular as the Villa crew seems to be, how the hell does nobody know him when Eva is looking for “Fede”? Besides, Silvia doesn’t even react to the fact that he’s a friend of Edoardo’s when she sees him in the bathroom!

the interaction between the two Fedes kills me in every version

ok fuck you Silvia for not even saying thanks for trying and looking at Eva like she’s a decerebrate

Bechdel test: the episodes passes the test because of the conversations between Eva and Laura (nice 😑), Eva and Eleonora (though they’re mostly talking shit about other girls, so still not very good) and Eva and Silvia (though we actually don’t know her name yet at this point, we can only guess it from context, so it’s borderline). So this is cute.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1.  If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

[seenashblog]

Nash Watches & Rates Cheesy Hallmark & Lifetime Winter Movies So You Don’t Have To

a.k.a. -  Nash Records Her Viewings Of Hallmark & Lifetime Winter Movies, which are fanfic in visual form & are gold. And yes, it’s a apparently a legit sub-genre. Best I can tell, if it’s not Christmas or Valentines, and there’s snow, then it goes. Spoilers abound.)

Note: This adventure has been moved to here from my main blog @seenashwrite, so my SPN peeps can rest assured they’ll not be exposed to this any longer - I have a feeling I’ll not be done purging my soul for a while yet #bless my heart

As per last time during the Christmas round-ups, 4 and 5 stars mean the best of the lot, 3 stars means it’s not necessarily a waste of your time, 2 stars is up to your discretion, and 1 star means it is time you will never get back.

Winter's Dream (Kristy Hot Damn Swanson, Dean Mothafukkin' Cain - Hallmark)

With it packing this level of stardom, how can it go wrong? Understand that I can take or leave Dean Cain, but Kristy Swanson is the shit. 

The official summary/another summary from somewhere:

When a former ski champion re-enters the competitive world after a 16-year-old downhill racer asks for help, she finds a new love and reawakens an old passion.

Former pro skier, Kat, is asked to coach a younger skier, named Anna, and finds love with the girl's widowed father, Ty.

These are both kinda garbage summaries - I mean, they're accurate, but it doesn't paint the whole picture. There's nothing really to spoil, and though it hits a couple things on a winter bingo (still forthcoming), they're more the Hallmark staples, such as the kid (in this case, a really great teen gal who's a good actress) who brings people together, and that the lodge/the resort is in danger of being lost, and somebody teaches somebody else how to skate, and that shit, but the bottom line is it's a fine watch. It's not spectacular, but it's not dipped in cheese, and there's some really pretty shots of the skiing (especially something they do at the end), plus kudos for the body doubles (the ones doing the actual skiing) were spot-on, and the teen actress did an impressive end-of-run stop at one point, you know it's her because she immediately whips off her mask.

Bottom line, this movie woulda been ass if not for Swanson and Cain, who didn't have greeeeat chemistry, though they made it work. In any event, the script was solid - like I say, not a great deal of cheese and any lines that were aren't sticking out to me because they were delivered so well - so I'm actually gonna rate this one decently high.

4/5 stars

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Love on the Sidelines (this dude who's been in three movies I've seen so far, John Reardon, and some basic blonde chick who is vaguely familiar - Hallmark)

This isn’t technically a winter one, I don’t think, but it’s on, so it counts.

So they try to throw you from the get-go with "Is injured dude gonna be the love interest which is totally inappropriate since he's her boss and clearly got about 12 years on her and has made multiple patronizing comments to her, about how physically strong she is and about her classic car and about her abilities in general, or is it the other dude on the team who took an immediate interest in her and has thus far been polite and respectful and friendly and flirty?"

(By the way, main dude has cock-blocked his friend, but he has a model girlfriend [who is styled to be a stereotype from extensions to heels] and it's also shown he has no idea about stuff she likes/is into, such as her favorite flowers - but chick knew because she had 'em out for their romantic dinner. That's right, it's part of her assistant duties - and she's supposed to be helping him with activities of daily living stuff - is to prep his bone zones.)

If they make dude #2 turn out to be a douche and that main dude is somehow awesome underneath all his shit----- what am I saying, of course they are. The latter, that is. You know I'm right. Hundred percent.

People are like losing their chickens over this jersey she's tailored to be a "girl fit" - you know what I mean, it's not a box with sleeves, there's tailoring to it, so the sleeves aren't so ginormous and it's tapered on the sides. This jersey's been the topic of about three interactions thus far and we're only 40 minutes (so 30 mins airtime) in. They're all "Wow!" and "This is so creative!" and "My wife would love that, where'd you get it!"  Y'all, google for this, that type of jersey, I mean. [pause] Nevermind, here:

I put in the mystical combo of "women's NFL football jersey".

THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY

Hey, and heh-heh.... quick bonus....

WHYENNE!!!! THAT BITCH IS EVERYWHERE

But hey, how else would we know that fashion design is her passion? Scriptin' be hard, yo. Speaking of her clothes skillz - "I think there's more to him," she says to BFF, whose wedding dress she's fitting. First, *eyeroll*. Second, if your friend is trying to watch a football game and learn the basics, don't let them fit you for your farging wedding at the same time. Which is what is happening.

There's twinkly magical music when his hand runs over hers when they're both searching under the couch, feeling around for his dropped cell phone.

*more eyeroll*

I do like the car, it's a red Mustang.... early 70s, maybe?.... but I can say I don't care for the shade of red, it's a little too cherry popsicle or hooker scarlet lipstick.

(My dream car is probs a Mustang muscle in black, but as far as zoom-zooms go, I tell ya, a friend of mine had a Porsche Boxster, and What. A. Ride., and he'd offered to teach me how to drive stick on it - not a euphemism, I swear, I was 16, my dad was his mentor, he's like the child my father never had - I'M A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT OKAY - so like my big brother, and anyhow, it was so beautiful I gasped at the very thought. But sweet babby jeebus, those suckers are smooth rides. None of this matters.)

Anyway, she keeps having trouble starting it, and I can tell by the sound it isn't the alternator, nor is it the battery, nor is it a belt, nor is she flooding the engine. I know fuck-all about cars as a general rule, but I know those sounds because I've experienced all of them. It has now gone to commercial, as he's just looked under the hood and announced after 3.8 seconds "Yup, I think I see your problem."  He must have x-ray vision. I am on pins-and-needles, shivering with anticipation.

Back from commercial, he's shutting the hood and she's saying "Wow you did it!" and wiping grease from his face. He's got an absolutely wrecked calf/ankle/foot (and straight up, they've done a good job making it all seem legit, props to... well, props... and make-up), but you're telling me he was standing and bent over long enough to get all greasy, and he's supposed to be - most of the time - either sitting or standing with that bitch elevated. This was stupid. This was a stupid, wholly unnecessary scene. Oh except we find out - because it's visible in the back seat - that she's read his children's book.

That's right. He's written a children's book.

Dude's mom: "I think he's dating the wrong type of women". Subtle, screenwriters, subtle. Now he's sneaking and working out. I really hope they show his ankle buckling out at a wicked angle. I'm gross like that. Twinkly music plays as she waits for him in the locker room while he's in with the sports trainer because he shouldn't have been working out.

Forgot to mention there's an awesome dog, this really beautiful Dane, and of course it loves her and hates Stereotype, because reasons for him to go ga-ga. She's honestly not bad, I have zero issue with the actress, nor with this actor, they're actually both good, but between the music and this script, I'm fighting over what rating to give it. (Checks clock) Welp, the next 45 minutes should tell me. It's dragging ass, I'll tell you that, though.

Like, nothing's happened. Nothing. He has an injury, she's his new personal assistant. I can list traits they each have. I've seen groups of moments. I don't know what the story is. Is it just "they get closer and fall in lurve"? That's... not a story. That's a series of facts. People meet their partners/spouses via the workplace all the time. What's the plot? What's the conflict? The obstacles? The tension? The OOMPH, I'd call it, is missing. This is what kills me about most fanfic - they just tell me stuff, they aren't showing me a new perspective or a twist or a unique take or differing interpretation that's still supported by canon, or an inventive plot that or what-the-hell-ever. Dean and Whyenne were in the bunker and they researched and they cooked and they talked about Cas and Sam, and they argued about her going on a hunt, then they kissed, the end! That's not a story, that's a daydream. I've digressed.

Now he's texted her "the emergency code" while she's at her best friend's wedding, and turns out it's because he's cranky because his sister said he's got to learn how to not be the center of attention. And she - I am proud to say - lets. Him. Have. It.  Part of what she says is - Can you do *anything* for yourself?!  And he goes - This!  And he kisses her, and it takes her off guard, but then they go for it, and I am actually happy for them.

Shit. I still hate that this isn't a story, but holy hell the difference when some conflict is introduced. Ahhhhhmazeballs. Conflict, however minor, is what shows us who these people we're watching/reading really are - and no, conflict does not mean angst, nor does it mean some sort of heart-breaking, can't-take-it-back fight, nor does it mean life-and-death, just divergent paths or opinions is all it takes. I've digressed again.

My interest is piqued because we have a half-hour to go, and typically this is how Hallmark blows their wad in the last fifteen.

[time passes]

Okay, a couple things turned out decent. Y'all will *love* what the best friend pulls at the end, and she and her hubby have been great throughout, but this one particular thing was clutch. And everybody had chemistry, family and friends and romance alike. It just can't help the lack of story, and I really detest the manner in which they made lead dude a jerk - there's other ways to do that besides going the lazy route, a.k.a. being sexist. It's not as bad as a two (a.k.a. - this is a matter of taste), because there's some objectively good stuff.... on the other hand, my lord is dragged. So I'm going with a three, because it's a toss-up as to whether you're gonna really like it, or think "Meh".

3/5 Stars

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One Winter Weekend / One Winter Proposal (Taylor Cole, some other people - Hallmark)

So the former was in last year's winter line-up, the latter in this one. Taylor Cole played Sarah Blake on SPN. I see she's also on deck for some detective thing on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.

And.... that's all I got to say about that.

I genuinely tried to watch these. They played them back-to-back, and speaking of backs, mine was acting up so I was laid out, and I thought - all right, this'll kill some time. And I fell asleep at 6 p.m., y'all. I took ibuprofen, I was not getting liquored up, I slept plenty the night before, and I fell the fuck to sleep. These movies are boring as fuck. 

I saw no sparks, and there were two couples from which to divine said spark. The co-lead chick was incredibly annoying, she plays everything too perky, and it's really evident in scenes with her romantic interest, who is a good actor and came off completely naturally. Actually, he should've been the main-main male lead, I bet he'd have had great chemistry with Cole, who's a better actor than the dude they had her paired with, but I say all that to say, the script was... meh. The pacing of both movies was weird, and the conflicts that were in them (see above for discussion on what conflict in stories actually is) were nothingburgers. It was stupid. Don't waste your time, seriously.

1/5 stars

.

We interject for a non-review that needs to be mentioned. Oh, Lifetime. Holy shitsnacks.

Double Mommy (I... I don't know... people... - Lifetime)

This is the synopsis:

Ryan discovers his friend Bryce is the father of one of his girlfriend's twin babies and that he date raped her at a party over the summer. With college looming over Bryce's head, he will stop at nothing to make sure that he clears his name.

Because the guys' feelz are what's important, here.

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The Birthday Wish (Jessy Schram, who only acts one way and that is coked-up squirrel with blonde barrel curls - Hallmark)

This is the official summary, and it should let you know how pleased I was to watch this:

On her birthday, a woman who desperately wants her boyfriend to propose to her wishes for the opportunity to see into the future, with surprising results.

'Cause I love seeing "desperate" and "woman" in the same sentence about my main character! This was precisely what you think based on the summary - though I will say Schram doesn't play it "desperate" so that was kind've a weird word for them to use - she somehow has these premonitions (it's never explained) and the boyfriend's a dick and she ends up with her co-worker who's a great guy. The end.

1/5 stars

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Once Upon A Prince (Megan Park, who is familiar though I don't know how, and a quite charming British fellow who isn't really, he's actually from Canada by way of New York but sounds really damn convincing - Hallmark)

Also unsure this is “winter”, but it’s worth talking about. Seriously. Still, let's get the shite - and it's minor! - out of the way.

First complaint: they blew their wad in the title. Not that we don't get the scoop fairly quickly, but... welp, no we don't, the beans aren't spilled for a while - they *easily* could've skirted it, and they HAVE, it's very nicely and smoothly done, I mean, you can divine it but it's not plot anvil'd, his situation unfolds gradually across the first act, which is so refreshing. Whoever titled it was the screw-up. I'm looking at you, Hallmark execs. All their titles spoil.

Second complaint... despite the adept nature they handled main dude's backstory, there's a really bad clunker of an anvil in that first bit - we know exactly how he's gonna propose to her in the end because they shoe-horned in really abrupt and almost non-sequitur dialogue for her wherein she tells him her dream proposal not terribly long after meeting him. It was weird and awkward. I mean, the fuck. I get she was still rattled as her longtime boyfriend with whom she had both business and personal futures planned out breaking up with her in the prior scene(s), but shit. They do recover a bit by having our dude - and damn, I love him, I genuinely do - comment something to the effect of "Well oftentimes it's easier to tell a stranger things we can't tell the ones to whom we're close". My point is, they knew it was a dog of a line, but I thought of three options to get the topic out there over the course of them getting to know each other just while I’ve sat here typing this recap - hell, they revisit the damn location later, when they are friends vs. strangers! It was bad writing.

Third complaint... y'all know by now: I hate the fake made-up countries. And this one is (wait for it) Cambria. Google Cambria. Go ahead. I'll wait. [pause] Nevermind, I'll just tell you, and this isn't because I have some bizarre encyclopedic knowledge of the way-back-when in Jolly Ol', it's because - well - I'm a reformed dinosaur nerd, and that overlaps with having an understanding of geology, because fossils. There, I said it. There were charts and sketches and stuff of the various periods of dino development from National Geographics on bedroom walls. I had it bad. For the record, I loved the book Jurassic Park, and the first movie was great, and the rest are good for laughs. The last two are good for mocking. I probably would've been a paleontologist, except for when my Christian father, who at the time  I thought was the smartest man in the world (and he is objectively intelligent in many ways) told me God put the dinosaurs in the earth, that there's no way the earth is as old as science proves. (I say proves, he said claims.) 'Cause, y'know, an almighty being is totes into pranks. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Funsies. I've digressed.

The quick-and-dirty is that the Cambrian is the geologic period that's from around 550 million years ago. (Okay this part I'll look up, because I'm so nerdy.... yup, I see it's 542-488 mil.) Anyhow, the dude that coined the name found the goods, the exemplars that proved this stage in earth history/backed up earth's age in Wales. And the area now known as Wales used to be called Cambria a way long time ago. Not millions time ago, of course. Trilobites and whatever can't speak... THAT WE KNOW OF. So I don't know if somebody was just like "Oh, that sounds like it could be a country" or somebody was being cute, thinking Cambria wasn't real, like it was something akin to Camelot, I've no idea. Who cares, it's stupid.

However.

Guys.... y'all.... my peeps.... um.... this'n is a keeper, so I'm not going to break it down and spoil it. It is very much worth watching, if you're into these types of movies, because it differs in a huge, very positive manner. Here's why this movie is above average for Hellmark: there's legitimate conflict (see above, re: what that means), and - most importantly - they are friends. They are buddies. They genuinely like each other. This isn't just about romantic love, this is about two people who care about what happens to each other. They care that the other person is living a life in  which they are happy.

There's also some realism here, not because it's an identical situation (it is not, trust) but in the broad strokes, I think of the Prince Harry-Meghan Markle situation. Middleton is uppercrust Brit stock, if memory serves (I'm not looking it up) with some sort of pseudo-distant-whatever royal line connection. She was gold for William, she's a good option for a queen (I mean, I'm sure there's duchesses out there, but that ain't who Wills loved). Now, Markle? So far from what would be called uppercrust. So, so very far. And yeah, yeah, I get that it's not as big a deal since he's not direct but more adjacent in line to the throne, but c'mon. It was a big deal. And you know all the ways why, I won't go through them here. My dude broke about a bazillion years' worth of tradition, and good on him.

And at the end of the day, that's what this movie is about - making your own way, creating your own traditions, adapting the old traditions, having confidence to do the things you're good at, the things you believe you're meant to do, and doing them the way you think is best. Is this a deep movie? No, it's fucking Hallmark, haven't you been paying attention? You think they let us escape without a super-rushed, wrap-it-up-in-the-last-five-minutes ending? You know better. I'll tell you this, though - it may not be deep, but it ain't shallow. And it's the best royal movie we've had so far, despite the too much haste with information-giving in the beginning and with the title and, as you'll find out, a really bleh last line... and of course with him being king of Fossilville. (I'm not letting that go.)

You're going to love him, he's a doll and classy and darling the entire time. You're going to love her, she's self-assured and fun and mature and hard-working. And you're really going to love John the valet. We find ourselves at ratings time and, somewhat shockingly:

5/5 stars

.

Past entries below

Winter Castle (people you’ve never heard of - Hallmark)

Holy shit, cliché on parade and nobody can act?! Jack-friggin’-pot. Zero chemistry amongst anyone, from family to friendship to romance?! Hot damn.

So they’re all at this place for a destination wedding (a.k.a, Selfish And Life-Disrupting And Huge Expense For Guests Thing And Oh Here’s Our Registry Too, come at me brah), and everyone is staying in a hotel. HA! KIDDING! They’re all in this giant faux igloo, and by “faux” I mean there are these church-esque doors in what is, I guess, a specially-flown-in iceberg on land. Google tells me it’s an actual place.

Anyway, through the doors you’ll find hallways (that have people carved into them, not creepy at all) which are lined with rooms. Suites? I never saw a bathroom door, doesn’t damn matter, nobody poos in Hallmark’s world. Oh, also, for lighting, we have Target pillar candles, then everything’s backlit in ‘80s neon:

Are they shitting me?

But that’s beside the point. Point is, it may be pretty to look at but in execution, it’s stupid. No way people haven’t had to peace out and find a new joint to stay in because of near or actual hypothermia. Based on the warm, cozy, wood-floored, windowed, staircase-and-balcony-having rehearsal dinner area in a large building with stone wall exterior, this hotel actually has some, y'know, hotel to it. Lodge? Who cares, but I bring it up because of the standard precocious child who is there to bring everybody together whilst turning into a popsicle.

The poor kid is bundled within an inch of her life, dumb bunny-eared toboggan to puffy jacket, and is burrito’d in a sleeping bag, with a quilt on this bed that looks to be carved out of ice, as well, and I say “as well” because our leading lady is shown frequently perched on what looks to be a chair carved out of ice (fur puffy thing for ass protection) with her laptop on a table carved out of ice when she’s face-timing her Not Gay Male Best Friend in a bow-tie and sweater vest back home, and - bonus! - he doubles as The One Person Of Color. Now, if memory serves, legit igloos made by actual First Nation(s) folks (meaning both Canadian and American - specifically, Alaskan - and probs any groups that found themselves in the way-way-North in the way-back-when and had to come up with this genius or, you know, die) are actually pretty damn warm once the fire gets cranking. Not to say you don’t keep some fierce socks and gloves on, that’s plain smart, but enclosed space with heat is enclosed space with heat - just don’t lick the walls. That’s good advice, igloo or otherwise.

On that topic, via the article linked above, says one of the actresses:

“It’s like an igloo,” Mullen told the Standard. “The further you go into the hotel, it gets colder and colder. As you walk down the hallway into the different rooms, it’s just getting into your bones.” She said every time they called “Cut!,” everyone would put on jackets to warm up.

She’s incorrect - that’s not like an igloo. It’s too big, that’s why it doesn’t stay warm. I have *zero* desire to go to this place. That sounds like Dante’s Frosty The Snowman circle of hell. I digress.

I say all that to say, this movie is straight dumb because the script is basic bitch, they were leaning on the location and hard. It gets a star because they tried in the sense that they did use a unique setting, but the rest was neglected (the story and the casting). Everything else was so blaaaaaand, and the acting was so stilted and unnatural, and they cast the mother with someone who looks the exact same age as the lead gal/her sister (the bride), and then there’s this one chick character who was so pathetically desperate, and the leading man was such a pussy who wouldn’t make a fucking decision, and they had our leading lady be all *sniffle* and tolerating that shit AND SHE JUST MET HIM BY THE WAY, and I just…. ugh.

1/5 stars

.

Royal Matchmaker (Bethany Joy Lenz - Hallmark)

This isn’t an “official” Winter '19 jam, google tells me it’s from the '18 spring movies, but everybody’s bundled up, so I’m calling bullshit. It ain’t half-bad, despite the fact that it’s a “royal” one, who’d-a-thunk? There was one over Christmas that got a 4 (see link up top), and I never would’ve predicted it. But that was an oldie-goldie, this is now. This one has the traditional royal romance beats and, no shit, the sidekick is the same one from another “royal”, the absolutely horrid “Christmas At The Palace”, from Christmas ‘18. I cannot reiterate how bad that movie was - not ”My Christmas Love“ bad, but bad.

All right, so - she’s a matchmaker from NYC, which is at least a new take on what’s coming next - and you guessed it, a prince HAS to get married or some reason, even though it’s mentioned they are under a Parliamentary system and not a monarchy, but he still has to because it’s the 17th century, oh wait no it’s not. The king, who is from a random made-up locale (*sigh*) has hired her (and said partner) to find a suitable wife for his son, who’s presented as the typical eligible rich bachelor, and “presented as” is the key phrase. It’s one of the things I like about this plot, but it doesn’t outweigh the bleeeccchhh.

For one, it wears me out, the making-up of countries. It’s distracting. If you’re gonna do royalty, the right move is to have the royal not be a king/prince but make it a duke/duchess jam, refer to the locale vaguely as a duchy in England or Ireland or Scotland or Sweden or Norway or whatever Americans will fall for, 'cause as a rule, Americans aren’t typically hip to other countries’ jams. Hell, say someone is a prince/princess, but it’s more in inherited title only - that’s what the 4 from the Christmas list did right. Nobody called him “Prince Whatever”, he wasn’t presented as this hot commodity, it was a nothing burger, we didn’t even find out that he had the title til near the end of the movie. I’ve digressed, back to this flick.

I detest the royal garb they’ve got lead dude in at the conclusion, it looks like you or I waltzed into Party City and slapped down $30 and walked back to the set. It’s ill-tailored and in too-bright colors and is, again, something utterly distracting that could’ve been avoided, and same with the king’s, too-small jacket to too-long length of slacks. All the women, including our main gal, are in prom dresses straight off the rack from Sears and J.C. Penney’s. This is not praise. The men are all in identical rented tuxedos with clip bow-ties. Thanks, I hate it.

I mean, and I hate that there’s a ball at the end at all, but it goes hand-in-hand with the core premise, which is that they’re on a tight schedule - ol’ Bethany has 4 weeks. They, of course, fall in love with one another, and props to casting because these two look good together and have decent chemistry, but that could be because Lenz knocks these movies out of the park - this is the third… maybe the fourth… that I’ve seen with her - she elevates everything she’s in. When I mentioned her to a friend, I was told she also elevated some shitty TV show that I never watched, so perhaps you are already familiar with her.

Anyhow, once again there’s too much filler and the ending draaaaaaags and then BOOM it’s done in the last three minutes, which is standard for these movies (both Lifetime and Hallmark), I’d say, about 95% of the time. The story was good in that the prince wasn’t a typical playboy and he kept his philanthropic side a secret because he didn’t want press invading these small villages and whatever he was helping rebuild - he genuinely likes getting his hands dirty and he actually knows how to do shit, he fixes a radiator at a community center at one point. Eh. I dunno. It had such potential in the front half, then just shit the bed in the back half, so it was half of a waste of my time. But you may dig it. It’s far from the worst of Hallmark’s offerings but, again, I think it’s because of Lenz, she’s the only thing getting it up from a 1/5.

2/5 stars

.

Oh… oh mah… what the… we interrupt the winter fare for what looks like a rando that’s snuck in and christ on a cracker, no. No. No. NO. The summary:

A woman begins an online relationship with a famous photographer, not realizing that she is actually communicating with the man’s young son.

This caught my ear because as I was sitting here writing up the last movie, it came on, and I hear this woman’s voice, her typing (so it’s her voice in her mind), then a man’s voice (as she’s reading), and I looked up when the man’s voice started switching to a kid’s (boy’s) voice back and forth every sentence or so - and then I looked at that summary, and….

NO

"Chance at Romance”, it’s called –> 0/5 stars, I don’t even need to watch it, what a stupid garbage fucking premise, and it’s gross, and I hope that shit kid gets punished, like as in, no computer til he’s old enough to own his own home and pay for his own internet, because scumbag kid. If he has the balls to pull this catfishing shitstorm on a fucking adult and gets away with it, what the fuck will he do to manipulate girls his own age? Gross. IT’S A GROSS PREMISE YOU GREETING CARD FUCKTARDS

.

Love On Ice (Andrew Walker, who’s in every fourth movie, and  the lead chick’s familiar her name is Julie Berman - Hallmark)

Former pro skater, now teaching - don’t worry, it’s not the aforementioned “Christmas At The Palace”, despite the similar M.O. - and decides to go for one last run at regionals because the new coach in town who’s teaching the next big thing is like “You used to be the next big thing, why don’t you undo eight years of not training aggressively in, like, a couple weeks and compete against the girl I’ve been hired to make a winner, and I’ll coach you both, because I have a boner for you and your shitty blonde extensions! No, that’s not what he says, but that’s the deal, yo. The next-big-thing’s got an overbearing mother and, once his boner gets found out, here comes a new coach that used to be the former-next-big-thing’s coach, and she’s a horrible actress, she can’t play sneaky-evil to save her life. I liked the two leads, and they did a better job than the other ice skating scenes/movies with concealing the real skater actors, but overall this was as boring as watching paint dry, I just wanted it to be over.

1/5 stars

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The Perfect Catch (Nikki DeLoach and… shock of all shocks, no not really… our old buddy, Andrew Walker - Hallmark)

I swear, I don’t know if Andrew Walker is on some mission from god, or being punished by him. I’m in the same boat, so I empathize. At least I’m not contracted. I can’t speak for him, but I remain happy for DHJ, that he’s escaped this purgatory, and is safe on the shore… at least, at present.

In any event, this one doesn’t seem like a "Winter official”, but there were jackets and no definite spring or fall standards (pastels or orange leaves), and it’s airing now, so here we are. It seems to be baseball season, so I know they mean for it to be spring, but they are wearing coat-coats, not it’s-still-kinda-chilly light jackets. I don’t fucking care, I watched it, so I’m reporting on it.

It ticks many boxes on the Winter Fanfic Bingo card (forthcoming), specifically the ones that are carryovers from Christmas and will be carried over to all the Hallmark/Lifetime movies regardless of time of year. Because being formulaic, when playing the long game, is cheap and efficient, and in the restaurant business, or products made on a factory line, or in healthcare standards, things of that ilk, you want streamlined coupled with the trieds-and-trues. In writing? Not-so-much. It’s lazy.

And speaking of restaurants, that’s the first box that got ticked - our leading lady owns a restaurant and, next box, it’s in danger of being lost. Other boxes include: our leading man is famous; he’s the character that comes back home, leaves/might leave, then changes mine/comes back, and it’s to stay!; adorable child who ideally will bring everyone together; a character’s parents are dead. Blah-blah. Blah-blah-blah. Blah-blaaaaah-blah-bleh. <—- that had more variety than this flick. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this movie. It’s vanilla. It’s white bread. It’s mashed potatoes with no salt or a touch of sour cream mixed in, no loading with shredded sharp cheese and crumbled brown sugar-and-cracked-pepper bacon and the barest touch of chives. I’m hungry, shut up.

It doesn’t just get 1 star because it’s not bottom barrel - everyone’s competent in their acting, there’s nothing outlandishly stupid about the script, it’s not shellacked in Velveeta. I will say that they pull a little teensy, micro-twist with how they resolve his balancing a primo offer that in no way should he pass on career-wise fairly realistically. The very last scene is, of course, stupid and embarrassing.

2/5 stars

.

The next movie has palm trees, so officially not Winter. But oof…. it’s got Kelly Rutherford and Cameron Mathison, both of whom are ringers. Hmmm. Yeah, I still ain’t subjecting myself to more than needed for this adventure. Oh, and they continue to play the basic-basic-BAAAAASIC-boring “Hope At Christmas” on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries", if you’re interested. It is a mystery to me as to why they continue to do so. Anyhow, there’s apparently 3 or 4 more brand spanking new offerings from Hallmark for the next several weeks.

More to come. I’ll reblog this with every new entry added to the top, so you can always just keep this post URL bookmarked if you think you missed it. Send an ask if you want to be tagged.

[its-an-inxp-again]

Narcissistic INTP - Disgust

Disclaimer: alright guys since I don't know where to start talking about narcissistic/unhealthy INTPs I'll use the five main emotions from Inside Out - and analyze how each one of them is experienced and manifested. I may alternate this with step by step analysis about how each cognitive function is distorted by narcissistic traits. And then order them properly. Maybe. Sources: things I've read about both MBTI and narcissism (and that I may link if you want, but for now I'll link just some silly websites that explain main things quite easily), and personal experience. Yep, quite subjective. But what isn't when we talk about mbti, especially unhealthy manifestations of it? Also, I'll tag posts like this with #narcissistic intp

Ok, so, let's start with "disgust", which is strongly related to contempt.

* Narcissism and contempt: As you may know, the typical narcissist, whether covert or overt (please if you don't know what I'm talking about check this quick site), loves holding in contempt everything and everyone. That's obviously necessary if they want to feel always on top on the world and, therefore, worthy. Sounds childish? You may want to know that everything is childish when we talk about narcissism. In fact, according to Freud, primary narcissism is a fundamental growth phase for an infant, but when something goes wrong, the infant regresses to the previous narcissistic phase, that's then called secondary narcissism. Sounds scientific and maybe pathological and while it surely can be, in the end it's just about a rather common (even though not healthy) coping mechanism called regression, indeed.

* MBTI and contempt: Now that I'm done with digressing (for maybe five seconds or less), let's talk about contempt and disgust in INTPs and narcissists. As you may have guessed, INTPs are usually covert (cerebral!) narcissists. This fits nicely with their general attitude and cognitive functions order. I don't know if you guys noticed that, but when a whatever mbti type gets quite immature you find that they start to think their own primary functions are absolutely the best and that all other functions are useless and pathetic, especially the ones lower in their own stack. Guess why? Not only because they go in different directions in comparision to the most used ones, but also because the xxxx type KNOWS how much they suck at them, and this is a huge threat for self-esteem, even if - or better yet, especially - it's a constructed one. So guess which functions the narcissistic INTP will hate, contempt (and deep inside, envy) the most? Si and Fe. Since they suck at them, they usually also expect (via a thing called narcissistic entitlement) that the world solves problems related to these two functions - instead of trying to do that by themselves.

* Si and contempt: So they will get mad if things aren't in the usual, proper space, or done in the usual, proper way (which often is estabilished based upon childhood memories and caregivers lifestyle. This is an actual problem because the INTP may want to, you know, travel around the world and make some new experiences ((Ne)), but how they can do that if they're scared to leave what they're used to - it could be a threat to their self-image and to their regular, safest intake of narcissistic supply - and won't accept any less?). Will they bother with arranging Si-related things on their own? Of course not, because those humiliating things were done by mommy/daddy/whoever, not by them. They don't have time for those petty issues. They are too occupied, admiring their brilliant intellect and researching about their last, new topic. Even if they are of course counter-dependent, aka clearly contrary to intimacy or being dependent and influenced in any way, (average INTPs tend to be, let alone unhealthy ones), this is the only case in which they will indeed directly depend on someone else. (There are other cases but they are way less overt).

I once saw a nice post about an abusive INTP, I think, a folk who would give his wife a list with all the domestic chores that she needed to do in the exact way that he wanted them done - while also demanding no physical or intimate contact. If any of you guys knows where ended up that post, I would be grateful if you told me - I think that's a pretty nice example of what I'm trying to say here.

* Fe and contempt: If there's a function that causes more issues than Si, that's of course Fe. I could spend an eternity talking about how much I hate and despise this function and people that got it high in the stack. My internal Ti logic of course knows perfectly that every function is useful, necessary, and so on, but my narcissistic side can't help but think that Ti and Ne are the functions that correspond to genius. Especially Ti. The tug of war between Ti and Fe is strongly related to the covert narcissism issue per se. From the source about covert narcissism linked above, for example, we have this point: "Impersonal and Difficult Relationships: As mentioned earlier, part of the introvert narcissist’s insecurity is the inability to genuinely connect with people. To this extent, the aloofness and/or smugness serve as a defensive mechanism keeping people away, lest the narcissist is exposed for her or his interpersonal inadequacies." That really resembles your typical unhealthy low/inf Fe. Of course it doesn't happens only in IxTP folks, lol. Maybe INxx teens in general. By the way, the most difficult thing as an INTP narcissist is, indeed, balancing your need to be alone, indipendent, self-sufficient, withdrawn and not exposed with the need to actually being exposed, seen, noticed - to basically have narcissistic supply.

Since the narcissistic INTP suck at Fe even more than they suck at Si, though, their natural entitlement will make them expect that others are the ones that should be coming for them - showering them with all the love, attention, care, attention, admiration, attention, adoration, attention, friendliness, attention, that they deserve naturally. All in all, they're such a genius - why shouldn't everybody recognize that instantly and give them what they deserve right away? The world can be such an unjust place sometimes. You know what? - the covert narcissist says to themself - I'm gonna deprivate them of my wonderful and glorious presence and intellect, and they will come back to me because, of course, they can't live without it. They're so unjust. Why should I be the one trying to get their attention? That's humiliating and stupid. I'm way too mature and intelligent for that.

And then, once they realize that nobody is coming for them, they'll be like:

Ok, you know what? I don't need any of you anyway, you wretched creatures, human beings, crawling upon the Earth like ants colonies, wriggling, swayed constatly by these petty impulses called "emotions"... you're so fucking pathetic. Why should I even bother with you? My mind is way more interesting than your pitiful, human problems. Yes, that's it, I don't give a fuck. Wait, you should have realized that I don't give a fuck, by now. You see me here? Do you? Are you noticing that I don't give a fuck? THATS RIGHT I DONT GIVE A FUCK IF YOU CARE ABOUT ME OR NOT OR EVEN IF YOU NOTICE ME. YOU HEARD ME?

I wonder if any of you INTPs is familiar with these dynamics. You know, just to be sure if it's a common INTP thing, so/sp thing, teenager thing, or really kinda narcissistic. They don't even have to be mutually exclusive, and probably aren't. So if you do relate to what I've just written, don't worry, you aren't pathological or irreversibly ill. I'm not either. It's just that your Ti and Fe are quite unbalanced. QwQ

If anybody would like to point out some inaccuracies or just thinks it works differently, please tell me. I can't do this very complicated work all by myself, I guess. Not without being a bit too subjective.

Welp, see you next time. I may edit this, because it's really messy. Some time. When I don't feel too entitled and I'm not holding in such contempt my Si. It may mean that I won't edit this whatsoever. Bye.