#discourse blogs are so. how do people have the mental strength to keep up with those things. aren't you tired. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thegrandkinghimself · 4 years

Text

who is oikawa tooru?

i guess that’s a weird way to start off a post, considering just how popular oikawa is in this fandom. i’m absolutely certain that he’s still one of the most popular characters if i can take the #oikawasear trend on twitter a couple of weeks ago seriously. (i will be mourning that iwaoi is no longer the top ship in this fandom. it’s devastating to me on a personal level). and i can’t say that i’m any different, either, otherwise i wouldn’t have made this blog or this post. but i guess the reason i’ve been itching to write this is because i’ve been in this fandom--and more specifically, a fan of oikawa--for about four or five years now. i devour the content available, and i can assure you that i’ve read too many of the fanfictions on ao3 to be healthy, and never before have i seen a character whose characterization is so hotly disputed.

and i get it. he’s a complex person. he’s kind of awkward in that there is a very clear disconnect between his outward personality and who he is alone. it’s a very hard balance to strike, especially when you consider just how much conjecture goes on in his characterization among fans and in discourse. he’s really easy to project and certain traits, correct or otherwise, are amplified based off how authors perceive him. there’s plenty of presumptions that can be made based on his on-screen actions/thoughts/beliefs that can be taken to some very logical conclusions.

but i’ve also seen people write him in ways that don’t strike me as particularly truthful. he’s type casted into stereotypes that don’t do him justice, or made into something that is vaguely like oikawa, but not quite. in the following post, i’ll be trying to dispel misunderstandings of his character, if only for my own sanity.

tl;dr i think that oikawa is chronically one of the most misrepresented characters in fandom and i want to fix that

exclaimer: i am solely an anime-watcher; i have seen snippets of the manga and therefore have a general idea of what is going on.

let’s establish some very very basic stuff. just to keep it simple, i’m not going to talk about anything beyond what has been published via the anime (as of season four).

Oikawa Tooru | 及川徹

gender: male

d.o.b.: 1994.7.20. or 20 July, 1994

height: 184.3 cm

weight: 72.2 kg

occupation: high school 3rd year, class 6

position/number: setter, 1 (captain)

here’s something that’s never pointed out: oikawa is in class 6 which, if we go off the trend of every other school in haikyuu!!, means that he is in a college preparatory class aka he’s pretty dang smart. it’s not confirmed or anything, but it a. follows the trend of every other class 6 student and b. is the highest class available among seijoh 3rd years (classes 5, 3, and 1). don’t get the idea that he’s dumb or unintelligent, or even that his strengths only lie in the classroom because that would be a gross understatement of his skills.

anywho.

generally speaking, i like to start with the building blocks of his personality because there’s so much room for assumptions. here are the things that i think make up his core personality:

intelligence/knowledgeable: not only academically speaking, but he’s also well-versed in people. he knows how to play them--what will make someone more confident, more doubtful, what will help his teammates succeed. clearly, oikawa is very knowledgeable in human thought patterns. or he’s dedicated a lot of time to knowing them.

loyalty: of all of oikawa’s traits, i think this one gets talked about the least, but we know it to be true. we make jokes about “you should have come to shiratorizawa” but it really shows you exactly how loyal, how much trust, oikawa has in this team that he has spent three years shaping. he never stops believing in the work that he has put in, and especially the hard work that his teammates have put into their volleyball.

hardworking: one of the most well-known things about oikawa. most fans already know that his white knee pad is actually a knee brace. ‘nuff said. i salute you, good sir.

insecurity: oikawa’s insecurities are perhaps his most notable trait. in a sense, he’s sort of the underdog--so good, but never quite good enough to accomplish what he’s set out to do. and we know that he’s struggled with his doubts since junior high, literally since he was 12 or 13, and that’s informed all of his character from the moment he ran into ushijima. oikawa is someone who is defined by his insecurities.

oikawa is a lot of things. he’s introduced as someone who is very flamboyant--he’s built up by kageyama as the best setter, his senpai literally and figuratively, his initial shots are all of smug smiles and easy, unfaltering swagger in the face of this new team. even his theme, all rambunctious brass and jazzy, is meant to be all in your face, here’s the big boss! he’s someone who is petty and silly and seems to favor shallow conversation. but he’s oikawa, so there’s a surprising amount of depth in the little time that we have with him. there’s a reason that, in any other franchise, he’d probably be the protagonist.

he is someone full of contradictions. he’s childish and he spends time with a bunch of girls and is very clearly someone who likes to project a certain image of himself to the public (see: his cute lil’ humming run after his yell in s4e23 to make him seem kind of normal). but he’s also spent a lot of time with himself. in fact, if we take the few scenes we have of him alone and his bedroom (bare, spartan, meticulous) into account, oikawa actually is much more solemn and/or serious than the image he projects. he’s comfortable in the silences between all the white noise. he’s alright just being with iwaizumi. he allows himself to dwell on the past and his shortcomings, while also looking forward to the future. his ambition and passion to improve drive him, but his past failures weigh him down. they haunt him.

personally, i think that he’s naturally a pretty silly guy when given the chance. it’s not just for show. iwaizumi would even corroborate this à la oikawa’s introduction speech in s1. he likes having fun when he can with his friends. if we assume that oikawa is most himself with iwaizumi, then we definitely know that’s the case (see: “are you my mom, iwa-chan?”), and there’s nothing wrong with that. but i think that the most basic traits of his character, combined with his experiences in volleyball, have pushed him to be this person who is mired in doubt. it’s forced him to go down a path where something that he once loved for the fun of it has now become the source of his ire. it’s really just that simple. maybe in another life, things would be different and oikawa wouldn’t have to struggle as much. but that’s really just a part of the human experience, isn’t it? and, in all honesty, would we really love oikawa as much without all his vices?

and maybe this is getting into speculation, but i don’t think it’s a difficult argument to make that oikawa is really mature. he’s introspective. i say introspective because the revelations that he’s had in regards to his own strengths and weaknesses--those are things he’s had to confront and deal with since he was in junior high (starts at 12 years of age). it takes someone with a lot of maturity and self-awareness to realize those kinds of things about himself.

and he’s stronger than he gets credit for. most people depict him as a crybaby, but he’s really not. he doesn’t cry or give up in the face of ushijima or kageyama’s unfettered growth and successes, he doesn’t cry when faced with defeat. oikawa is there to support iwaizumi in his own doubt as ace, and lend support to his teammates. and oikawa doesn’t get stuck on the what-ifs or has-beens. driven by his infamous ambition, he looks forward to the future.

it’s kind of a double-edged sword. it’s pushed him this far--he’s put in this much effort to be one of the best in the prefecture--because of his competitive spirit, but it’s also something that has caused him serious injury. oikawa’s motto (”if you’re gonna to hit it, hit it until it breaks!”) is the very epitome of this mentality. it’s a message to work hard to finish what you started, but i also think that you could interpret that hard work breaking you, too. he’s steadfast—obsessive, really—to the point that oikawa will let his passions break him before he would ever give up. it’s the point of all the strife in his life, because he would never have the problems he does if he were even a little less enamored by this sport.

and you really have to wonder where he would be without ushijima and kageyama as his obstacles. his drive will always be there, that is an intrinsic part of him, as are the standards to which he holds himself, but you really have to wonder just how good oikawa would be if he didn’t have such direct competitors. this is an incredibly important question to ask about kageyama and oikawa in particular. yes, oikawa does loathe ushijima: for his disregard for oikawa’s decisions, for his disregard of oikawa’s loyalty, for his flippant attitude of seijoh, who oikawa has poured his blood and sweat into creating. but ushijima is an opposite hitter. oikawa is a setter. those are two very different positions with little crossover. but with kageyama--that is a clear rivalry. they push each other to be better, made all the more potent by their differences as players; one setter’s growth as a player directly impacts how the other performs in each subsequent game. seijoh’s defeat by karasuno in season 2 just feeds into oikawa’s drive for the future. he has not intention of giving up. a light was lit under him, pushing him forward, to do better, to be better.

this is something that has been pointed out in a different analysis (linked below) but, narratively speaking, oikawa is kageyama’s foil. their interactions inform their characters and are a major cause of tension in their development. their relationship is really the most complex in the story that i have noticed, and is something that has not been appreciated enough. the iwaizumi-oikawa thing has been expounded and studied in every facet possible (i love the alexander the great/hephaestion allusions), but it’s true that kageyama has impacted oikawa the most. they begrudgingly respect each other’s talents, what it is that they bring to the court, while also envying what the other has in spades that they do not. in oikawa’s case, his strength clearly lies in his interpersonal relationships--his ability to intuit exactly what his teammates need to be at their best. kags is just a fount of overwhelming technical skill who has a really hard time getting to know those around him. living up to the standards that oikawa places on himself, in tandem with kageyama threatening his position as setter, leave oikawa floundering, fearing his own incompetence against opponents who are naturally much better than he. so he’s left with the knowledge that maybe his best isn’t good enough, but he still continues on anyway. he pushes himself past a seemingly unreachable threshold just to go toe-to-toe with this monster. it’s the purpose of his character--to tell this story of the ordinary v. the extraordinary--and it is perhaps the most relatable arc that a story like haikyuu!! can tell.

their connection naturally causes oikawa to seek out help, seen in the flashback scenes where he is talking to an unspecified coach/adult. that coach’s words then become the creed upon which oikawa plays, maybe even more than what iwaizumi has taught him, and is the final push that completes oikawa’s character arc in s2ep24. that change in mindset allows oikawa to see kageyama’s unbridled talent not as an obstacle but as a challenge. it’s very nuanced, but it makes all the difference. it’s why, following seijoh’s defeat, oikawa has the audacity to declare to kageyama and ushijima his plans for the future. in a sense, karasuno and kageyama and ushijima have won the battle but not the war. it’s the tipping point in his story and, more than anything, what makes oikawa so compelling. we have seen what has led up to the change, but now we want to know what he’s going to do to meet that challenge. what will he be doing beyond the story when he is no longer relevant to the narrative? we don’t know the details at this point, but we know that oikawa’s love and ambition for volleyball have been reaffirmed in this moment.

but to bring it back, the kags-oiks connection also makes us question what it is we are watching, makes us as the audience think: what qualifies someone as a genius? are there any limitations to what that genius can do? what can ordinary people do in the face of those geniuses?

these are questions that exist beyond the reality of sports and transverse into other disciplines. for me, those are very real questions that i have had to ask myself as a musician. i have dedicated nine, almost 10, years to my practice but there are still 10-year-olds who are just better at it than i ever will be. part of it is time and practice to be sure, but some of it is just innate. and i think the more appropriate version of those questions would be this: what qualifies someone as a prodigy? are there limitations for prodigies? what can we do in the face of prodigies?

oikawa is a genius player--he knows the ins-and-outs of his sport better than anyone, and he can accomplish great feats that others in his same position can’t. but even with all that veritable experience and skill, he is ultimately still overtaken by a prodigy whose talents seem endless. it’s why he can hate ushijima but fear kageyama. one is something he can actively fight against, the other is inevitable.

and really, i think that’s the beauty of oikawa tooru, why he’s so beloved by the fandom, even years after he has stopped being relevant to the narrative. beyond the fluff and goofiness and hijinks, there’s someone there who is really, truly, human.

an aside with much less significance/why do people think this??

so here’s one thing: even though oikawa has fangirls, i wonder what he actually thinks of them. for one, it’s only natural for anyone to be super flattered if people think you’re hot stuff. that’s just... i don’t think he’s weird if he pays attention to them. but i think that people are conflating his being kind to them to being genuinely egotistical due to the attention. actually, i think these are opposing ideas and a contradiction of who oikawa is. when you’re an arrogant person, you think that you deserve all the attention you’re getting and you’re not going to bother with the people who worship you.

but that’s not at all what oikawa does. he’s rather kind to his fans. i would never say that he’s self-effacing, but knowing what you’re worth is different from being pompous. and think about it. it’d be a real jerk move for oikawa to not say nice things to them and thank his fangirls when they spend time, energy, and effort to make him food and see his games. he would just be a genuinely awful person if he didn’t at least give them thanks. it’d be more alarming if he didn’t talk to them, at least in my opinion. more than anything, we should consider this: why is it that oikawa has the fan club and not anyone else on the seijoh team? i’m sure a part of it is because he’s attractive and the captain of a team, but i think it’s more than that, too. we see these interactions from other perspectives, but i think that reflects more on those around oikawa than oikawa himself if they don’t understand why he acts the way he does with those girls.

another thing: i don’t think that anyone can question that oikawa is very pretty, or handsome, or whatever descriptor you would like. it’s prevalent in fandom (see: pretty setters squad), but he is also the only person in canon to be acknowledged by other characters as being particularly good-looking. maybe the miyas count at this point? i’m not sure. but i don’t really understand where people get the idea that he is particularly focused on his appearance, though. there is literally no indication of that from the material that i have seen. and maybe he uses that to his advantage with his fangirls, but i highly doubt that, in all honesty. i think that it’s fun to imagine him being into these things as a hobby, but it irks me greatly when i see that people spend time saying that oikawa wakes up extra early just to fix his hair or slather on foundation/concealer just to look presentable.

he’s a teenaged boy who clearly has other things that worry him, he’s a full-time student, and volunteers to coach at lil tykes volleyball classroom in his free time. he wouldn’t have time to spend on his hair or makeup. and we even seen in the hanger tooru special that he even wakes up looking like that.

he is au naturale, my friends. and we even know how little he gives thought to his own body, if you take into account his knee brace. for oikawa, his body is merely the medium through which he can accomplish his goals. we even have evidence of this when we see oikawa up all night studying karasuno game play or via his knee brace. he doesn’t know how to stop or understand when enough is enough. he breaks himself if there’s no one to watch him.

also, just... how would makeup work, logistically speaking? i don’t wear makeup, but i’m thinking that foundation and concealer and hair product would be, um, really bad. like, it’d run down his face and stuff. also, it’d probably get into his eyes, too? seriously. i’m not against oikawa wearing makeup in the slightest cause he’d be even prettier, but we know that oikawa would absolutely not jeopardize his chances in any way.

thank you for reading this long-winded, probably awful look into my favorite character of all time. and i do mean that. he is my favorite character in all of media. which, like, says a lot when he’s competing against the casts of a:tla, call me by your name, and my actual favorite book, the song of achilles. after all of that, if you would like another (better) analysis of oikawa’s character, i suggest this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/haikyuu/comments/94irsi/character_analysis_16_oikawa_tooru_discussion/

#oikawa tooru #haikyuu #character analysis #i'm so sorry about this #i just had to get this off of my chest #thanks for coming to my ted talk

37 notes · View notes

donnerpartyofone · 6 years

Text

21 Questions

Tagged by @getoutofmyhouse who had oddly similar answers to mine

Nickname: only the one I use here, that I gave myself--Claire Donner, which has to do with my famous love of cannibalism. Claire is my real first name, though.

Zodiac: I am so very cuspy. I was born at about a quarter to midnight on April 20, so I tend to relate to, and feel insulted by, the suppositions about Aries and Taurus equally. I’m one of those jerks who will tell you astrology is a bunch of hoo ha...and then drone on with my Many Esoteric Ideas about it, so I’ll just stop myself right here.

Height: 5’ nuthin is what I prefer to say...because saying I’m 5 and 3/4′ sounds a little like saying I’m 10 and a half years old.

Amount of sleep: It’s all fucked up. Until I got into my 30s I could, and would prefer to, sleep endlessly. Now I go to bed around 10 (depression), get up around 5 or 6 (being old), and for extra fun, I’ve developed this insomnia that often keeps me up from about 2am-5am. I try make the most of it by getting up, getting high, watching a movie or two, writing...basically just having a secret private day by myself. I’d really rather go back to just sleeping constantly though.

Last movie I saw: I saw GRETA in theaters tonight, which was ok. I guess I thought any Neil Jordan film would be headier than this, but watching Isabel Huppert just running around acting like an absolute maniac is a rare treat! My last video experience was RAW, which I put on to bother my husband right when we got home from the theater. (I think he liked it more than I originally did, to my surprise)

Last thing I googled: The correct spelling of Sylvia Likens’ last name. I’m obsessed with this type of crime where a group of people (usually a family and/or some of their friends and neighbors) fall into some kind of shared hysteria where they protractedly torture to death an acquaintance for no particular reason. Some times there’s an element of mystery as to why the victim didn’t leave while they were still able to, which suggests to me that the murdered person was just as much a victim of the groupthink as the perpetrators. Other example victims include Suzanne Capper, Vera Jo Reigle, and I think to some degree Sophie Lionnet, James Bulger, and Junko Furuta. (Also a crime they briefly discuss in the book Lords of Chaos, where several people murder a friend in their trailer, but I can’t remember it specifically enough to look up the names--the other last thing i tried to google) I keep thinking there should be a psychiatric and/or legal term for this kind of crime, but I’ve never heard one, so let me know if you got one!

Favorite musician: I have trouble with questions that involve ranking anything, so I’ll just say that right now I’m listening to a lot of old White Zombie. I didn’t know anything about their origins as an East Village noise band, and I’m fascinated by the stories about how apocalyptically miserable it was to be in that group. I’m increasingly obsessed with people who work their asses off doing something they barely even enjoy, for what must be borderline spiritual reasons.

Song stuck in my head: Nothing right this second, for which I am very grateful. There’s something awful in my brain that causes me to wake up with some maddening, babyish tune stuck in my head more often than not. It is most frequently the Ten Little Indians nursery rhyme. This is literally killing me.

Other blogs: @anhed-nia, which started as a dumping ground for long posts about mental illness, and turned into almost only movie writing. at some point there was just so much movie shit that i started to feel awkward about posting anything personal there again. i also got @getoffyrass which is a group blog, and a repository for images that make great drawing references. everyone is encouraged to post their drawings, too, although it is seldom used. i still like having it around, for when i have time to draw. my “real” drawing blog is @neveratendermoment but i don’t draw often enough anymore...

Do I get asks: i used to get tons! i really enjoy them, even the trolls to some degree. i must have seemed like more of a regular tumblr geek girl back in the day. also tumblr has just changed a lot since then. my blog was definitely a casualty of Best Stuff First, i think my follower count stopped dead forever right when that happened, and now that practically every single fucking thing on this entire site is either fandom shit or *discourse*, i really have nothing to offer tumblr anymore, anyway.

Blogs following: 1,057.

Lucky numbers: 2! Also 5.

What I’m wearing: black wool long john pants from Chrome, and a white v neck teeshirt with the words BLACK MAYONNAISE on it in black Rocky Horror font. i live near the notoriously toxic Gowanus Canal, and “black mayonnaise” is the actual term used to describe what’s on the bottom of it, by the scientists who are trying to figure out what to do with it.

Dream trip: i am really excited by travel, it’s hard to pick. i’m hopefully making a dream trip soon though: my father’s mysterious finno-swedish family is from the åland islands, and my husband and i will be planning part of our honeymoon there, whenever that happens.

Dream Job: i think about this a lot, because the older i get, the more i object to the entire concept of having to work to live. i’m into the whole universal basic income thing. i’m at this point where i can barely stand to think about capitalism in any way--like i think about how the need for money is so mortally serious that there’s a lot of physical stuff in the world that only exists because someone was scared of starving, tons of useless products and packaging and factory byproducts and all kinds of fucking straight up garbage that was only invented due to the lethality of poorness. i would rather be left totally alone forever if possible. however, if i HAD to do something and i COULD do anything, it would probably be film criticism. this fantasy takes place in a world where people care so much about what i have to say that i can make a career, not only out of movie writing, but out of only writing about the specific movies i want to write about, referring to nothing other than my personal reactions.

Favorite food: i wish the answer weren’t just “cheese”, but it probably is. also mushrooms. anything cinnamon. i’m a pretty adventurous eater though. the most important thing for me is a variety of flavors and textures.

Languages: english. i took several years of italian in junior high-high school, and did nothing with it. i taught myself to read french pretty fluently, but i would fold right up if someone tried to speak to me. i learned a bunch of swedish on duolingo, shoulda kept it up. i’ll get back to it! i really regret never learning spanish though, so i’m easily torn on what to do with my time.

Play any instruments: clarinet in junior high/high school, also alto sax which i did not enjoy at all, a little guitar. i bought a used electric bass last year that i have really been enjoying, but i feel a lot of guilt around not playing enough. so much of it is just strength training. that’s probably what i like about it, though. also i got a lot of electronic music software and midi controllers and stuff...and then i realized that it could take me months to sort through the thousands of samples i have to program this stuff, and i only got so far into it before i started to get discouraged. i need to get back to it, it’s ridiculous to let that stuff lie around. this is a rare example of me wishing i knew someone local to play with, who could speed me along on how everything works.

Favorite songs: another one of these impossible questions! anybody who is even reading this can probably guess the answers from the handful of music posts i reblog over and over and over. the other night i got all hyperactive and forced my husband to drop everything and listen to “buffalo stance” by nene cherry, which i never ever get sick of. real top contenders for favorite song might be “Stand By the Jamms” by the klf, and this recording, which has gotten me through many difficult hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8k1HsF3EvY

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/sunray-sonic-boom-music-for-the-dreamachine-cd/STRAWB.003CD.html

Random fact: i’m sure i’m missing out on something really funny and cool, but for now it’s just the well-known fact that i read palms.

Describe yourself as aesthetic thing: man, how do i answer this without being totally pretentious? maybe nobody can! i’m coming up with something really hard to describe but it will be worth it. the other day i watched this insane, completely unnecessary movie about lorca and salvador dali (played by robert pattinson) as gay lovers. there’s a scene in it where lorca does that “pick a hand” thing to dali, and dali picks an empty hand. of course, they’re both poor students who couldn’t be buying any gifts, so they do this obnoxious pantomime where dali pretends lorca actually gave him something--but then it turns out that lorca really DOES have something. he opens his other hand and gives dali...SOMETHING. i don’t know what! they make such a big deal out of it, but what the hell? you see it for a second in this closeup, but it’s shot from like, behind and slightly underneath, and it is just unrecognizable. it’s sort of an orange blob? it’s probably meant to be a sculpture. but, i love the idea of doing the “pick a hand” thing to somebody, and the other person is just like...hey wait a minute, what the fuck even IS this??

it reminded me of one of the most amazing things anyone ever did at my school, bard college. this genius art student who I WISH I COULD NAME TO CREDIT HER did her senior project as this like...made up product. i saw them at the senior show, hanging off a spinner rack, like you’d see next to the register in the drug store. they were called Toilet Buddies. they were these plastic, brightly colored objects that looked like toys, but they didn’t have a familiar earthly shape, and because of the title, it was IMPOSSIBLE to imagine what to do with them. so, she gets the lipstick cam from the film department, and shoots this video of herself sneaking some Toilet Buddies into Walmart. then she takes them to the register and BUYS THEM--the baffled cashier looks for them for a while, and eventually just rings them up as a general grocery or something. then in part 2, the artist TAKES THEM BACK TO THE STORE WITH THE RECEIPT AND GETS A REFUND.

so anyway, i see myself as like a fake product--something that looks just familiar enough to exit, and that appears to have a designated purpose, but it’s just kind of cheap and foreign and it becomes nightmarish to try to imagine what to do with it.

I don’t know if anyone i know will want to do this, but i tag @negativepleasure @moviesludge @former-contender @dimestoreman @thefuzzydave @darkarfs @theoddsideofme @blueruins ...um, i don’t really know who would enjoy this. the ultimate would be @garbagenacht

#long post

7 notes · View notes

bestabsoluteshitposts · 7 years

Text

How ‘Honeymoon’ is saving my life

Quick warning for this little bit of writing here: discussion of suicidal thoughts etc, being grossly emotional about B.A.P, and just generally a whole bunch of Sad Stuff. Also, this is really long

Anyone in the Discord chat may have come across me talking about this before so I apologise if it sounds like I’m repeating myself.

For my whole life I’ve suffered with self-destructive and even suicidal impulses and thoughts. I’ts not depression, the closest we can pin it to is OCD. As a whole it hasn’t done me an awful lot a damage, but it’s not easy.

2 years ago things did get bad. I was in a difficult situation with friends, in my home, in my Uni education. The lower I got the harder it was to ignore the things my mind was telling me to do.

I started getting into the fandom of B.A.P during this time despite having been a fan since their debut. To some degree I was probably looking for a distraction or some sort of escapism, but being among other fans brought me many friends I could talk to every day and make me feel a little bit less shit.

Then Yongguk dropped 4:44. I will say outright that this song kept me alive. Several nights I wouldn’t sleep and would just replay this song over and over while I drew all over my skin with felt tips or ripped my clothes apart to relieve the need to break something. Hearing “everything’s gonna be all right” was the way I clung onto my life like a cliff edge.

I spent a long time not knowing who my bias was exactly but Yongguk openly discussing his mental health and being so determined to protect his members really pushed him up in the ranks. Were it not for him, I’m honestly not entirely sure if I would be alive right now. I can’t fully express how much I adore this man without writing a completely separate essay about it.

As I fell deeper down the rabbit hole that is online Baby fandom I began to crave content that was more to my taste in humour - especially since I’ve been on tumblr since 2010. I made this blog in June 2015. I figured I’d run it for maybe 4 months then abandon or delete it. It was... far more successful than I can have ever imagined and because of it I have met some exceptional people and your continued support is honestly so incredible.

I know I act like a heartless trashbag a lot of the time but I read all your tags and treasure every kind word you guys say. This blog has honestly been one of the best spur-of-the-moment decisions I’ve made and you’ve all been so wonderful....even though I keep getting in Heated Discourse. I’m so sorry about that.

When B.A.P returned to TS I was very mixed in my feelings, both full of anger at TS but also glad to know they’d be active again. For anyone who has, for some reason, gone through this whole blog you’ll now the whole story about how it’s been since then. Mostly dandy times.

B.A.P have been a huge part of my life for the past 2 years to the point that I got a Matoki tattooed on my side, and I’ve honestly spent a lot of money supporting these boys that I couldn’t really afford. Hell, I lived off 1 meal a day pasta and ketchup after I bought tickets for LOE London in 2016.

I can say I have been a lot happier lately, definitely. But, you know, stuff like mental illness doesn’t clear away just because a group of talented men released some amazing music. Not even the Carnival album was going to do that. It may sound weird, but during Yongguk’s haitus i felt closer to him after that, and certainly people became more understanding and supportive of me when I discussed my panic attacks with them. I’m overflowing with happiness seeing how much better Yongguk seems these days, and I hope I’m improving too.

Honeymoon has a lot of incredible lines in it that upon first hearing made me almost tear up. Hearing these boys who have been through much talk about how good life is, about how it’s worth pulling yourself through hard times, about how much happier they are and how their situation has improved was exactly the sort of message I needed to hear. I’ve spent a long time looping a song about how Yongguk nearly end edit all for himself and just managed to pull through, now I have a beautiful inspiring song about how fantastic and good life is and that staying alive is the best thing you can do. I would honestly put this next to ‘Praying’ by Kesha as a song to give me strength, courage and hope whenever things get too dark. It is absolutely one of my favourite songs they have ever made and it is definitely my favourite MV track they’ve released.

It’s not been long since the song’s release, but where I was planning to add 4:44 beneath my Matoki I’m now considering adding ‘Life Is Colourful’, which I think portrays the exact message I want to tell myself every day, and make what is a very monochrome tattoo into something spectacular and beautiful that will shine my own colours and B.A.P’s.

It may sound sad but the cold truth is I am literally staying alive because and for B.A.P. If you have any issue with this and think it’s pathetic or I need a better reason, well, you’re basically saying you’d rather I be dead than have this as an excuse to stay alive. No reason to stay alive is stupid. No matter how small, any reason to keep going is a good reason.

Anyway if you read this whole thing wow I’m impressed and I hope it wasn’t dull or depressing, but these are all my feelings and I’ve opened up in a way I’m not used to. If anyone else has similar thoughts or feelings or wants to add anything of their own experiences feel free to PM me or send an ask (request not to be posted if you want conversation but dont wanna anon) or you know talk about it wherever else you want. I hope everyone’s having a good day and I hope if you’e in a difficult place you know you’re loved, you deserve the best, and things absolutely do get better.

#big emotional post about stuff #you dont have to read this #personal ramblings and what not

37 notes · View notes

mark7miller · 5 years

Text

A Year in Review: 2019 Part 2

Cycling

After applying to South Ribble Borough Council (SRBC) to ask for voluntary coaching opportunities, I went for an interview in February. Although it had been many years since my last one, I knew that this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Bike-ability is taught throughout South Ribble in Junior and High schools from year 5 to 7. After completing an intense four day training course, I qualified as a Bike-ability instructor and have taught pupils at forty five junior schools and numerous local high schools (Bike-ability, 2019).

I have also taught Tots on Tyres to pre-school children and Bike Fix to year five and six pupils, in order to improve their knowledge and technique with their bike. Not only is this information relevant but it is practical too. Whether life skills are developed through sport greatly depends on how coaches create suitable environments that promote the development of youth (Camire, Forneris and Trudel, 2012).

Hockey and Tag Rugby

I attended numerous sessions on a voluntary basis at local schools, through SRBC, to learn more about subject delivery and how to coach groups with large numbers. From these experiences, I was allowed to develop learning through reflective practice within the training environment (Irwin et al, 2010; Jones & Kingston, 2013). Communication skills are important for a coach because when meeting children and teachers, at a new school for the first time, first impressions count (UK Coaching, 2018).

As both Hockey and Tag Rugby are classed as invasion games, Bunker and Thorpe (1982) suggest breaking games down into their simplest format and then increasing their complexity, this is known as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). I have found that this to be very effective when players participate in “small-sided games”(Kerr, 2019).

According to Richardson (2017), a coach cannot be in several places at once and so is unable to watch every participant all of the time. With a large group, it is much easier to monitor and assess progress if participants are divided into small-sided groups, with a peer mentor allocated to each cluster to re-enforce learning objectives.

Coaching provides an opportunity to learn through experience and as Gilbert & Trudel (2001) propose, an experimental learning model forms the foundation for excellent coaching practice. With this in mind, I completed my Level 2 Multi skills course. Through SRBC, I have recently coached Tag Rugby at an after school club for an entire term (Hodges & Williams, 2012).

Through participation in sport, youngsters learn values and behaviours that are important for functioning in society (McCallister, Blinde and Weiss, 2000). Some examples of these are fair play, respect, co-operation, decision making, team building, skill development and resilience. I really enjoy their enthusiasm and passion to try their best, regardless if the outcome is positive or negative.

Cricket

In order to pass my Level 2 Multi skills course, I had to design and deliver four progressive training sessions and the relevant risk assessments. I chose cricket as it was suitable for both boys and girls. Using the local contacts I had made during my bike-ability sessions, I contacted a local Junior school and asked if I could work voluntarily to deliver the sessions(Renshaw, 2010). Once again, I coached several groups of children, all with differing ability and this was very successful, which gave me great confidence. The step method of teaching the bowling and batting technique linked well together (Kirk & MacPhail, 2002; Morgan, 2011).

However, on the day of my assessment, I had to chop and change my session plan immediately due to the lack of equipment that was available. Utilising Schon’s model of reflection (1983), allowed reflection–in-action, thinking and doing something about it during the actual event. I was complimented by the assessor for keeping cool (Vickers & Williams, 2010), even though I did not feel it and having a successful back up plan. The ability of coaches being able to communicate their ideas to participants is vital and one that successful coaches must have (Lynch, 2001; Frost, 2009).

Golf

Due to the success of the rugby I coached, I was asked to lead sessions of Tri-Golf at an after school club. My golfing technique is terrible but I did not let this deter me. I researched ways to break down the moves and by using the tick tock method, the young pupils were able to grasp the technique with some motivation and encouragement (Martin & Hall, 1995). Instructional strategies are a progressive way to challenge skills and are used by both coaches and peers to bolster an individual’s efficacy (Bandura, 1977). In the final session of the term, I designed an indoor golf course where the children could put their skills to the test in a real life situation.

Netball and Women’s Football

As part of my most recent university module, I am required to provide video analysis for a sport of my choice. I decided on women’s football as I have no prior experience in this area. During the summer, I was asked by a friend to provide strength and conditioning sessions for two women’s netball teams, aged fifteen to seventeen and eighteen to sixty five (South Ribble) at Wellfield High School.

I saw this as an ideal opportunity to prepare for liasing with women in sport in my upcoming assignment. I designed appropriate training sessions, along with risk assessments, taking into account mixed ability and older athletes where I could regress and progress as appropriate (Boyd & Fales, 1983; Breed & Spittle, 2011). These worked extremely well and I received some very positive feedback (Dicicco & Hacker, 2003; Matta, 2018).

The FA (2019)

In summary, I have had a fantastic time coaching a variety of sports to hundreds of children, young people and adults. I am extremely grateful for all the opportunities, advice and knowledge I have gained, reflecting on what I have achieved over the last twelve months (Cushion, 2018; Kolb, 1984). I am hoping 2020 will be even more successful.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychological Review, 84: P191–215

Bike-ability (2019). Levels 1-3

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://bikeability.org.uk/bikeability-training/bikeability-level-1/

Boyd, E & Fales, A (1983). Reflective learning: the key to learning from experience. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 23 (2): P99-117

Accessed 29/01/2020 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022167883232011

Breed, R and Spittle, M (2011). Developing Game Sense Through Tactical Learning. A resource for teachers and coaches. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press

Bunker and Thorpe (1982). Teaching Games for Understanding. The Curriculum Model. Loughborough University of Technology. Loughborough.

Accessed 23/01/2020

http://www.bugeyed.ca/seeds/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Bunker-and-Thorpe-The-curriculum-model.pdf

Camire M, Forneris T and Trudel P (2012). Coaching and Transferring Life Skills: Philosophies and Strategies Used by Model High School Coaches. Volume 26, Issue 2, June 2012.

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/tsp.26.2.243

Cushion, C (2018). Reflection and reflective practice discourses in coaching: a critical analysis

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13573322.2016.1142961?src=recsys

Dicicco, T & Hacker, C (2003). Catch them being good.: Everything you need to know to successfully coach girls. London. Penguin Books.

Frost, J (2009). The Sports Journal. Characteristics contributing to the success of a sports coach. Issn. 1543-9518 volume 20.

Accessed 13/11/2019.

https://thesportjournal.org/article/characteristics-contributing-to-the-success-of-a-sports-coach/

Gilbert, W & Trudel, P (2001). Learning to coach through experience: Reflection in model youth sport coaches. Journal of teaching in physical education. Vol 21, P16-34

Hodges, N and Williams, A (2012). Skill Acquisition in Sport: Research, Theory and Practice. 1st Edition. London. Routledge.

Irwin, G; Hanton, S & Kerwin, D (2010). Reflective practice and the origins of elite coaching knowledge

Accessed 24/02/20

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1462394042000270718?src=recsys

Jones, R and Kingston, K (2013). An introduction to sports coaching. Connecting theory to practice. 2nd edition. Oxon. Routledge.

Kerr, A (2019). Team tactics using small-sided games: How can we change rules during training to improve team tactics?

Accessed 04/02/2020

https://www.scienceforsport.com/team-tactics-using-small-sided-games-how-can-we-change-rules-during-training-to-improve-team tactics/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=5-Bullet+Friday&utm_campaign=5-Bullet+Friday+29-11-2019

Kirk, D and MacPhail, A (2002). Teaching Games for Understanding and Situated Learning: Rethinking the Bunker-Thorpe Model. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education.

Accessed 29/01/2020 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44164225_Teaching_Games_for_Understanding_and_Situated_Learning_Rethinking_the_Bunker-Thorpe_Model

Kolb, D (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Lynch, J (2001). Creative Coaching. Champaign. IL. Human Kinetics

McCallister, S; Blinde, E and Weiss, W (2000). Teaching values and implementing philosophies: Dilemmas of the youth sport coach. ProQuest. Accessed 24/02/2020

https://search.proquest.com/openview/42c2b3df6a6562d506b1e67229dc22f4/1?cbl=35035&pq-origsite=gscholar

Martin, K and Hall, C (1995). Using Mental Imagery to Enhance Intrinsic Motivation. Human Kinetic Journals. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Volume 17. Issue 1. Pages 54-69.

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/jsep.17.1.54

Matta, C (2018). Why It’s Important to Feel Valued At Your Job

Accessed 11/02/2020

https://psychcentral.com/blog/why-its-important-to-feel-valued-at-your-job/

Morgan, S. (2011). “Empirical Coaching”: Guiding Principles in Enabling Coach Expertise. Report from Dagstuhl Seminar 11271: Computer Science in Sport – Special emphasis: Football.

Renshaw, I (2010). Motor Learning in Practice. A constraints-led approach. Building the foundations: skill acquisition in children. London. Routledge.

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203888100

Richardson, B (2017). How to coach a range of abilities within a large group. UK Coaching

Accessed 04/02/2020

https://community.ukcoaching.org/spaces/10/welcome-and-general/blogs/general/9255/how-to-coach-a-range-of-abilities-within-a-large-group

Schon, D (1983). The Reflective Practioner. How Professionals Think in Action. London. Temple Smith.

The FA (2019). Plan. Do. Review.

Accessed 29/01/2020

http://www.thefa.com/learning/coaching/plan-do-review

UK Coaching Research Team (2018) Communication and Coaching.

Accessed 15/01/2020

https://www.ukcoaching.org/resources/guides/communication-and-coaching

Vickers, J and Williams, A (2010). Journal of Motor Behaviour. Performing Under Pressure: The Effects of Physiological Arousal, Cognitive Anxiety, and Gaze Control in Biathlon. Volume 39, 2007. Issue 5.

Accessed 24/02/2020

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/JMBR.39.5.381-394

0 notes

curiousfancy · 7 years

Text

A decade of being fat positive

I recently realised that 2017 marks 10 years that I’ve been practicing fat positivity. It’s a slightly overwhelming thought. For one, I’m still convinced that 2007 was 5 years ago, so it’s a bit disorienting to discover that nope, it’s been a whole decade. Living a fat positive life for that long also means that I haven’t had to think about it very much in the past several years. It’s who I am, and fat positivity is just something I do, like sleeping or breathing. But a 10 year anniversary feels like a good time to take a look back and review how fat acceptance has transformed my life since that summer of 2007. 10 years ago I was still an undergrad with my twenties stretching out in front of me and no concrete plans for what I wanted to do in that time. I was also deeply unhappy with my body and consumed with the idea of trying to ‘fix it’ before I could fully embark on my life. I can’t imagine what a timeline where I didn’t come across the fat positive internet would look like because it changed everything - from where my life could have gone to where it actually did. I’ve talked at length about those early years - in fact when I think of the discourse surrounding body positivity, I find that most of it centers around those crucial first steps intended towards those who are just coming to grips with the idea of accepting their bodies. What I want to discuss, instead, are the long term results of living a fat positive life and how that’s played out in my case.

Fat Acceptance vs BOPO

Before I talk about the long term benefits of fat acceptance, however, I’d like to make the crucial distinction between what I call fat positivity/acceptance as opposed to what’s known as body positivity. Both these terms meant pretty much the same thing to me until the corporate takeover of the body positive movement in the early-mid 2010s which hijacked the phrase from its rad fatty roots and turned it into an anodyne, feelgood platitude. So when I say fat positivity, I’m referring to the core tenets of fat acceptance that I picked up from a tiny corner of the internet back in the day. It was very much a niche interest at that time, spread across a few LJ comms and standalone blogs. I spent those early years lurking on the Fatshionista LJ and in comment threads on Shapely Prose, following second generation fat activists like Lesley Kinzel and Substantia Jones. What stands for body positivity now wouldn’t have come into being without the foundational work laid out by radical fat activists, something that the bopo trend continues to ignore and remain wilfully ignorant of. Similarly, it ignores the demographic who built the movement in the first place - people on the larger end of fat, people who suffer the worst of systemic fat discrimination.

I also understand my rather awkward position in talking about this as someone who’s always been on the smaller end of fat by Western standards but pretty much on the opposite end of the scale in the Indian subcontinent. The face (rather body) of bopo looks closer to my own than that of people who bear the brunt of fat prejudice. However, when fat prejudice succeeded in destroying my life, it wasn’t because I suffered from disordered eating and body image issues. It was because the size of my body made me an outcast in the society I grew up in and continue to live in today. I still can’t walk into a doctors and expect treatment instead of prejudice, and when I want new clothes I have to resort to tailoring or shopping online, that too from stores outside India. If I wasn’t lucky enough to meet my fiance, I would have resigned myself to a lifetime of stoic loneliness considering how Indian men have never seen me as anything other than a fat joke. Outside the romantic context however, I’d still be trapped under societal expectations about the size of my body had it not been for fat acceptance. Some of it, obviously, is stuff I can’t change. I can’t make plus size clothing magically appear in shops, and I can’t make the medical profession take off its fatphobic lenses and see me as a real person. But I can call out doctors on their bullshit now and demand the treatment I need because fat acceptance has given me the confidence to do so. I still get the stares and the comments that I always have when I go out of the house but I’ve learned to not let them affect my everyday life. I managed to cut off all the toxic friends and acquaintances who saw my body as a receptacle for their fat hate. I’ve set clear boundaries with my remaining family, who in turn have learned to not bring up my fat in conversation, ever.

Fat acceptance hasn’t changed the landscape I have to survive in, but it gave me the tools I needed to navigate that landscape and make something of myself while doing so. Over the years, I’ve been more than aware of my unique position as someone who’s outsized in real life but physically closer to the ‘acceptably curvy’ ideal that’s turned the online and predominantly Western body positivity movement into a farce. It’s one of the reasons I avoid speaking on the subject, because unlike the majority of ‘bopo influencers’ I’m acutely aware of the need for people who are fatter than me, more marginalised than me to be visible in the community. The reason I’m writing this today is that I feel I have something useful to contribute to the discourse rather than just saying ‘hey, my size 18 body is okay too!’ I know my body is more or less acceptable in the online community I’m writing this for, I know that I’m not shunted aside for my size the way very fat people are. But I’m not writing this from the perspective of an online-only persona, I’m writing this as someone who continues to stick out like a giant thumb in a population of rather petite humans, someone who very literally was saved by fat acceptance.

Unhealthy Fatty

I’ve been seeing some talk recently about certain ‘bopo role models’ making statements like “body positivity is fine, but only as long as you’re healthy!” (And of course, I can’t find a link any of these discussions now because I’m disorganized af when it comes to writing, so if anyone can link me up, please please do!) When I started practicing fat positivity, I was similarly uncritical of this concept of the ‘healthy fatty’. After all, I’d spent my childhood and teens being mocked for not being able to keep up with my peers, in dread of becoming the stereotypical sweaty, out of breath, token fatty in the group. Even as I tried to come to terms with my body, I clung onto the idea of health, or rather the public performance of it. I’d push myself to walk faster and longer than my thin friends, I’d climb stairs while somehow controlling my breathing so that no one would know how my lungs were ready to burst. Health was the currency with which I had to buy my humanity as a fat person. In its absence, I had no way of justifying my existence. I had a skinny ex with whom I’d spend hours walking around town on weekends, not once able to articulate the pain that put me in, and the days of rest that I needed to recover from it. It was only after my scoliosis was diagnosed in 2012 that I finally started letting go of the pretence. I’m not proud of the fact that I needed to succumb to chronic pain before thinking critically about health and fat. I needed to go through the experience of my spine giving up before I could accept that I wasn’t a ‘model fatty’, and make peace with a body that didn’t cooperate with my demands from it. Even a couple of years ago, I couldn’t have admitted to this publicly, but that’s why fat acceptance is a journey. I’m no longer afraid of admitting that I am unhealthy, that I smoke too much and eat horribly and don’t get as much movement as I probably should, and none of that detracts from my humanity. It doesn’t make me any less of a person. That’s what fat acceptance is. It’s not about health, and it’s not confined to a certain range of sizes. If I take shitty decisions about my health and my lifestyle, that’s all they are. I’m no less human than my skinny friends who smoke just as much and eat just as badly. My fat is not a reflection of any moral or emotional lack, it just is. Even after my 5 year long backache started and I had to adapt to it physically, I’d feel like I had to justify why I needed to sit or lie down most of the time. I don’t do that anymore. I demand my space because it’s my right as a human being, and I don’t care if anyone thinks it’s because I’m fat. Having to justify your basic physical needs on a constant loop ends up whittling you down emotionally. Fat acceptance was what gave me the strength to break out of that mentally erosive cycle.

The morality of food

Related to this is the concept of ‘good’ or ‘healthy’ food as opposed to ‘bad’, ‘sinful’, ‘unhealthy’ food. Although I spoke about eating badly just now, I used it to mean not eating as regularly as I should for the sake of my gastric ulcers. The first few years of my fat positive journey were mostly spent in unpacking and mending my relationship with food. Eating disorders can happen to anyone, at any weight, but in my case it was inextricably linked to hatred for my fat body. To heal my relationship with my body, I had to stop looking at food through a moral compass of pure vs. sinful, and allow myself to eat whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted it. These days, when I admonish myself for eating badly, it’s because I’m skipping meals in favour of work and popping ulcer meds to counter the pain. Morality doesn’t come into it, acute, physical stomach cramps do. Back in my early 20s, when I mentally sorted food into morally opposed categories, it wasn’t because of any imperative towards health. I keep thinking about a journal entry from late 2006 in which I wrote: “It’s not even about being healthy anymore. I stopped caring about health a long time ago. I know what I’m doing is not remotely healthy but I don’t care about that. I just want to be thin.” ‘Healthy’ food was just the stuff that I thought would help me lose weight, even when that meant living on watered down soup and apples. Most of my health problems these days are a direct consequence of those years of starving myself with supposedly healthy food when I was young enough to feel invincible. The contemporary trend of ‘wellness’ with its juice ‘cleanses’ is no different from the soup diets of the 2000s. Both have a single, unified goal, which is to banish the existence of fat, and consequently, that of fat people. Because the so called health concerns of being fat are seldom about health - it’s about the value of thinness in our societies and how well we can perform thinness in public.

Performing thinness

Performative thinness is what I used to cling on to before I came across fat acceptance. As a visibly fat woman, I had to give off the unambiguous message that my fat body was only temporary and I was paying the price for it by always striving to be thin. I’d never eat in public, especially not the kind of ‘bad’ food that would implicate me further in my fatness. At university, I’d be hungry for the entire day, and then go back home to binge throughout the evening in the privacy of my room. Sometimes I’d throw up, and when I couldn’t bring myself to, I’d berate myself for not being ‘strong enough’ to do so. I’d constantly talk about the diets I was on, they were my disclaimer, the shield with which I defended myself from being seen as an unrepentant fatty. Repentance, sinning, and guilt were the trifecta of words I would immediately associate with food - words which continue to form the mainstream vocabulary behind something as universal and necessary as eating. If 10 years ago, popular culture dictated that a thin person eating a donut follow it up with ‘Oh my god I’m going to get so fat’, bopo culture of the present day has simply replaced it with ‘Haha, I’m going to get so fat.’ Outside of radfat circles, being fat is read to be as much of a moral failure as it ever was.

In 2008, after a year of daily exposure to the fat positive internet, I started eating in public for the first time as an adult. My ex girlfriend and I would get absolutely blazed and then go to our favourite restaurant for a three-course meal with milkshakes on the side. Funnily enough, becoming a dedicated pothead is what gave me the emotional space I needed to actually put fat acceptance in practice than just reading about it. Before I started smoking weed, I’d spend most of my time obsessing over food. There was this engine in my brain dedicated to running over calorie counts and meal plans 24/7 while the rest of my thoughts centered around daydreams of fat and sugar laden goodness. But once I was high and the munchies hit, I couldn’t bring myself to care about portions or calories anymore. I ate for the sheer joy of it, I delighted in actually being able to taste what I was eating instead of gulping it down in pangs of guilt. These days, my relationship with food has but a fraction of that intensity. I love cooking and my baked goods are infamous among my friends, I’m forever hunting down new places for the best street food and cake, but food no longer consumes me. It’s a necessity and a delight, not a calorie controlled prison. I haven’t had to think twice about eating in public for the longest time - if there’s tasty food at hand, I’m going to eat it and that’s that. At the beginning, however, it wasn’t that easy. I needed to be in a stoned fug before I could step out of the house without having a minor breakdown about what people might be thinking. In those early years, self identifying as a pothead gave me the break I needed to withdraw from social conventions, including those which were imposed on my body. The haze of smoke that surrounded me formed a cocoon in which I could ensconce myself and finally grow.

Inside the cocoon

Before I was a pothead, I was just fat, nothing other than fat. It was all I knew about myself. Sure, I was smart, articulate, and kind, but mostly I was fat. Back then fat wasn’t the neutral term I see it as now. It was the defining curse of my existence, the stigma I could never shake off even during the worst of my eating disorder. But once I started thinking of myself as a stoner, that’s what became my defining feature rather than my fat. Outside my smoky cocoon, the rest of the world faded to white noise. I dropped out of my MA within the first week with no plans for what I was going to do next. All I knew was that I had to fix my head before I could emerge as a fully functioning person instead of the one dimensional being that fatphobia had turned me into. I spent close to two years detached from everyone I knew except close friends and family, and in that time I started reacquainting myself with the body I had and figuring out ways to thrive in it. Even though I’d always been drawn towards pretty clothes, I’d rarely had the confidence to wear anything that didn’t disguise my shape. Accepting my body as it was opened the doors to a thrilling new world that I’d never believed could be mine. I never believed I could wear a sleeveless dress in public until the day I screwed up my guts and went out in one. People stared and passed remarks as I’d expected them to, but with 2 years of fat acceptance to prop me up, being called a fatty didn’t devastate me the way it once did.

By the time I went back to uni in 2010, I was actively calling myself fat, and inspired by The BMI Project, tagging my fashion photos with ‘obesity epidemic’ on Flickr. Without the self assurance that fat positivity had given me, I’d never have had the courage to pack up my bags and move halfway across the world to start anew in a place where I didn’t know a single soul. Like I said earlier, I don’t know what the trajectory of my life would have looked like in the absence of the ‘fatosphere’. Those first three years of self renewal and remaking are the foundation stones of who I am today. It’s because I’d found that corner of the internet where it was okay to be fat that I was able to normalise the idea of being a fat person and living as one, rather than a secretly skinny individual who just happened to be ‘trapped’ in a fat body. That was crucial. Recognizing that as fat people, we are individuals in our own right, and that skinny isn’t some default state of being that we have to aspire to.

Accepting my changing body

My journey into fat acceptance didn’t end with calling myself fat, it was a foundational block but also a stepping stone. I know this is a journey that’ll continue for as long as I live because there isn’t a destination, it always has and always will be a work in progress. At first I believed that all I had to do was get to my set point and accept my body as it would be then and that’s it, job done. I figured that once I reached my set point weight, I’d just stay there forever until I got old, shrivelled up and died. But our bodies seldom follow the plans we carefully lay out for them. Mine kept changing. I gained weight and lost it and gained it back again, and somewhere down the line I realised that fat acceptance wasn’t just about accepting one version of my body, be it the smallest or largest one. Everytime I gained or lost weight, it would send me into a full blown emotional crisis. My body would feel disjointed and alien, and I’d have to go through the process of becoming familiar with it all over again. I needed stability to feel good about my body - anytime it was in flux, so was I. For fat acceptance to work for me the way I needed it to, I had to be prepared for change. I had to understand my body and not just know it, I had to be comfortable enough with it so that I could change in tandem when it did. In all the time that I’ve spent around fat positive and bopo circles, I never found the concept of having to love my body either constructive or helpful. The radfat ethos that brought me into the fold focused not so much on love as acceptance, and inhabiting one’s body fully and without apology. I don’t know if I love my body, I don’t know how I could love something that’s such an intrinsic part of me. Love needs distance to grow so it can bridge that distance, but my body and I work as one. When my BPD flares up, my body suffers alongside my mind. I neglect to eat, I push myself through my nerve pain instead of trying to treat it because at that point, I just need to spite myself. I can’t disengage one half of me from the other, they’ll always have to coexist the best they can. But I no longer work against my body the way I used to, with deliberate, focused hatred. I know it too well to hate it, and I understand it too well to not be comfortable in it. And I know it will change, with children and age, and I no longer dread that. I’m a little curious, if anything - after all, pregnancy is bound to be a thrilling adventure with my lumbar scoliosis. I’m sure my body will frustrate and confound me like it does whenever I have a pain flare and am confined to bed, but we’ll work it out. That’s what old friends do. And that has been the most poignant gift of fat acceptance - turning my once reviled burden into a vessel I can mindfully inhabit.

Finding mindfulness

In the last few years, I’ve found myself looking inward a lot more than I used to. Taking pleasure in the quiet things, introspecting more and saying only what needs to be said. I feel like I’m finally conscious of actually living, of being a living, breathing, thinking creature that’s conscious of existing in every moment. I no longer feel like I’m careening abruptly through life, with no clue as to where I’ll end up next and how. I don’t think I could have found this inner quietude had I not spent all this time trying to inhabit my corporeal self as fully as I could. And that’s why the bopo line of ‘intentional weightloss is fine if you’re doing it to love your body!’ strikes me as utter garbage. If I was still trying to push change instead of accepting it as it comes, I’d still be chasing an arbitrary goal, feeling unfulfilled and incomplete, ever so slightly hollow. I started out to accept my body in all its fatness, so far on the way, I’ve discovered mindfulness. So before I conclude, here’s the 4 point version of my guidelines to living a fat positive life.

1. I will not diet or practice intentional weightloss. Instead I will focus on eating intuitively and continue to rebuild my damaged relationship with food.

2. I will not be critical of anyone else’s body, especially when that person has less body privilege than I do. Neither will I engage in any kind of body shaming or weightloss talk, but I will shut down instances of such talk when I encounter it.

3. I will not conflate weight with health but I will try to be kind to myself and look after myself the best I can with the resources I have.

4. And lastly, I will not let my body stop me from doing whatever it is I want to do. I will live the exact same life that I would if I was thin instead.

That’s what it is condensed down to its core: living the same life I would have if I was thin instead. Loudly, aggressively if I need to, demanding my space when I have to. No less boldly than if I were thin. And certainly not waiting until I was thin. When I think of my fatness now, I relate pretty strongly to this quote from Michelle Allison. It is completely arbitrary to me because it doesn’t affect any part of my life outside of others’ reactions to my size. And I’ve learned not to expend much thought on those reactions - a key contribution from my fat positive ethos. The day I realised my life was happening in the here and now is the day it began. Without fat acceptance, I’d still be waiting for it to start, just as I was waiting 10 years ago.

#my writing #writing #eating disorders #fat positivity

797 notes · View notes

mulattafury · 7 years

Text

one of the reasons i dont like to get involved in Discourse here is because the truth is i’m generally okay with disagreeing with people about stuff. i think the “queer” thing is a big one -- i dislike the use of the word and that won’t change but i dislike more how the discussion about it is treated and used to project certain assumptions on both “sides” of the argument. i’ve been guilty of it, in knee-jerk emotional reactions. it’s impossible to have a discussion about it for that reason, though I do maintain close friendhsips with people who don’t share my views on it because our opinions on this area of nuance dont make us bad people either way. words are weird and hard.

there are a lot of issues discussed here that i have opinions on, and strong ones, but i don’t talk about them because i don’t feel they’re important enough to risk alienating people who might find some support and comfort in... whatever it is i’m doing with this blog these days.

i’ve learned this the hard way. i have made some mistakes. i hate when i see blogs that are pro-something become anti-something else, because that turns a safe space into a hostile one and i don’t personally feel that is constructive.

i am sorry if i have ever made you feel unsafe.

i’ve been living alone for a few months and have just had a lot of time to think and reflect and be introspective. i’ve made big swings of being really depressed to really inspired and more and more lately i just feel at peace.

i just really want to disengage with negativity in my interactions. i think on tumblr (and a lot of online spaces) there’s an obsession with punishment and vindication, which comes from good intentions but again, creates hostility where there should be a sense of safety and belonging.

i just really want to see more safe, pro-diversity, positive spaces, that foster learning and question-asking and growth and development of personal character. i’ve learned so much in my time here, from listening and reading and from mis-stepping and being corrected. i worry that other people aren’t going to benefit from the experience in the same way as i did, because of lines being drawn in sand in a tiny sandbox.

like, when i started posting here i was in the depths of depression hell. i was fresh out of being locked up in a psych ward on suicide watch. i had just dropped out of my dream school. i was carrying so much rage and despair.

tumblr isn’t entirely responsible for my recovery but the community and connections i’ve made here have been a big part of it. tumblr opened my eyes to the reality of a lot of social injustice, sometimes by exposing me to it directly in the form of hateful anons and direct racism, by making me navigate the way modern progressive movements still silence their most vulnerable. tumblr thickened my skin and tightened my resolve and exposed me to people who were positive, who made me feel appreciated and driven. who taught me the language to express injustices i faced, and the ways to move forward despite them.

tumblr helped me reevaluate the actuality of my mental illness, helped me name the monsters that robbed me of my future and helps me, now, as i beat them into my past.

it wasn’t callout blogs that did this, or lengthy arguments over semantics, or outrage over troll posts or elaborate takedowns of “anti-sjws.”

It was people who posted information and education. It was people who offered me different perspectives. It was people who asked if I was okay. It was people leaving kind messages in my inbox telling me they believed in me.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight oppression when you see it. It’s important to keep having debates, important to uncover issues that we may not have seen or understood before, important to challenge and demand more from your environment and your peers and the world that holds you down.

but remember the people you’re fighting with and for, because the strength for fighting comes from love and understanding. and understanding doesn’t always mean “agreeing.”

there are just, a lot of areas where we really need to stop projecting morality onto a topic and just listen to what everyone is saying, because in a lot of the debate i see on here everyone is saying a lot of the same thing:

that they are upset, that they are frightened, that they just want people to understand why.

#long post #big feelings #brain problems discussion #overall positivity

19 notes · View notes

down-with-terf · 7 years

Note

You don't get trans women mods because we don't want to run anti terf blogs. We want to just live our lives instead of having weird performative hatred directed at people who don't even have a cohesive definition (terf being anyone from actual transphobes to 13 year olds who don't want to date trans women). So yeah keep running your anti terf blog while doing nothing about the men that are actually murdering TWOC.

Listen buddy, everyone on this blog is a minor. Both admins are mentally ill, and on top of that, closeted, so magically stopping the murder of trans woc is kind of difficult, to be honest! Of course we care, and of course we would do whatever we could should the opportunity present itself, but I am not in a position to be solving the toughest problems presented to the trans community.

However, we couldn’t just sit by and do nothing, so instead we made this blog, which is mostly positivity, as you would notice if you took about 10 seconds to actually look through it! Any discourse would be the mods/admins essentially venting and arguing with a nasty group of people that has a large mental toll on ALL trans people, because this is the best we can really do as closeted mentally ill high schoolers. Confronting transphobia at its very highest level is not only too much for one teenager to handle, but is also dangerous and life threatening, which I already get enough of in my coming out process at school, thanks.

This blog is not for performative hatred, it is for spreading positivity and resource posts, and letting those in the community who don’t have the mental capacity to fight hateful groups like TERFs know that we are here to do some of that fighting, and defend those who are targeted. Because even if you don’t think so, so much hatred towards trans people (in our own community, even) takes a toll on us as a whole, especially trans teenagers! That’s what we’re here for. Because I may not be able to keep my trans sisters from being murdered in cold blood, but if I could just improve the mental health of one trans person, that’s one less trans person on the brink of suicide, and that’ll satisfy me until I’m in a position where I can tackle the bigger problems. Not every form of progressive resistance has to be tackling the largest problems, and if that’s how we treat making a change, then it’ll never fucking get done, and we’ll give up before we even start trying. This is the best I can do, which is better than nothing, and certainly better than sending hate to a teenager on a blog that ultimately isn’t hurting anybody.

Also, I understand that trans women don’t exactly jump at the chance to run an anti TERF blog, because no one except those with incredibly high strength mentally would do that to themselves, considering the horrifying and disgusting shit that comes out of Terfs’ mouths. As a trans man, I am still subject to harassment from them, but I recognize that is nowhere near the extreme that trans women experience it, which is why I’m here in the first place. I might be called a traitor, dick worshipper, monster, confused, among others, but that is nothing compared to what trans women face. Trans women don’t often fight TERFs because there is no low they will not stoop to, and it is incredibly mentally exhausting and harmful to deal with.

We’ve gotten many messages thanking us for what we do from trans women, as well as trans men and nonbinary people. We’ve also gotten interest from trans women to apply to be a mod since your first message a few days ago, so you were wrong about that, but thanks for helping us get the word out that we’re looking for trans women, I guess. Overall we’re not going to let some shitty ask stop us from what we do, because given the feedback, we’re doing a hell of a lot more good than harm.

-mod john

#admin john #mod post #asks #terf #anti terf #discourse #trans women #suicide mention //#trans #anonymous

13 notes · View notes

brentrogers · 5 years

Text

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol

The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of Psych Central. It is quite an achievement, especially in these days when even the most prestigious publications have been closing down at an alarming rate. John Grohol, the Founder and CEO, deserves the credit for his brilliant idea and all the work he has put into the site for the past quarter-century.

I’m Bella DePaulo, and I have had the good fortune of blogging for Psych Central since 2011. Five years ago, for the 20th anniversary, I asked John Grohol if I could interview him about the site. Happily, he agreed. Readers enjoyed the interview and learned a lot, too, so I asked if we could do it again to mark the 25th anniversary. I hope you appreciate John Grohol’s insights as much as I do.

Bella: How has Psych Central changed over time?

John Grohol: When I first began Psych Central in 1995, it was composed of approximately a dozen web pages. Today, it houses tens of thousands of articles on hundreds of different topics. It’s gone from my small hobby site to a powerhouse of mental health information, reaching over 7 million people each month.

I moved to working on Psych Central full-time in 2006, hiring a journalist to help us with writing news updates, as well as a part-time managing editor. We’ve grown the staff slowly, over time, as our revenues allowed us to hire more people.

After 25 years, we’ve reached an astounding 650 million people from around the world through our resources, support communities, and articles.

Bella: What are the different components of the site now?

John Grohol: At its heart, Psych Central continues to be about providing objective, unbiased mental health information to people, no matter where they may live. We do this primarily through our mental health library, where we house all of the information related to mental disorders, as well as their symptoms and treatments. We also have hundreds of parenting and relationship articles in the library, as well as self-help articles that teach common cognitive-behavioral techniques and other therapeutic exercises.

We have a fantastic daily news bureau that publishes news and research updates related to psychology, mental health, relationships, brain science, and parenting. Psych Central Professional focuses on articles and topics mainly of interest to mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists and marriage and family therapists.

Our blog network is composed of dozens of active bloggers. Our bloggers aren’t just mental health professionals, but also include those who grapple with various disorders since too often their voices are not heard in the same conversations we have about mental health.

Our Ask the Therapist feature, begun in 2006, is an advice column staffed by four different therapists who answer people’s questions at no charge. The questions tend to focus on relationship and personality issues, but also include mental health concerns and questions about treatment.

With dozens of different interactive screening quizzes, we offer people the opportunity to see if they may have mental health concerns that warrant further attention from a professional. We also have a daily Mood Tracker as well as the Sanity Score, an overall measure of a person’s general mental health and well-being.

Psych Central has a great self-help support community comprised of over 200 support groups and 500,000 members. Our Forums house self-help support groups for mental health and related everyday life concerns. It’s overseen by myself and a great team of moderators who help keep the community safe and supportive.

Bella: What makes Psych Central unique? What is its special mission, if you think it has one?

John Grohol:

Our Credo:

Provide the best evidence-based mental health & psychology information, regardless of profession. All voices are important and should be elevated in the discourse about mental illness & mental health.

We’re unique in that we’re the oldest and largest independent mental health website online today, still overseen by mental health professionals. We’re also special in that the company isn’t run by businesspeople looking to simply monetize mental health information. We’ve outsourced our actual advertising so that we spend about zero hours a year worrying about or focusing on advertising. This makes us more editorially independent than most other sites.

We’re driven by the daily reminder that through our efforts, we are saving lives. Education is the answer to stigma, discrimination, and prejudice. So we work to provide the best and most diverse set of education resources to help people better understand mental illness and its treatments.

Bella: What are you most proud of?

John: Well, I’ve got 25 years’ worth of things to be proud of. Next to our recognition by mainstream media outlets (included the New York Times and being picked as one the Top 50 Websites of 2008 by TIME.com), I’d have to say I’m most proud of the community we’ve built up, both in our self-help support groups and among our wonderful set of bloggers and contributors.

Our support groups are filled with so many inspirational stories of hope, overcoming horrible circumstances, and recovery. Our members in these groups are warm-hearted, real, giving people… And so many find strength in giving support to others.

The group of bloggers and contributors we have on the site are just amazing. I’ve never met a more creative, thoughtful set of people who constantly inspire and make me think. We’d be hard pressed to offer the kind of diversity of viewpoints without them. Sharing a breadth of experience is so important when dealing with mental illness, because there are so many variants not only of conditions, but of treatments and self-help strategies that work for people.

Last, I’m also very proud of our support of people who live with mental illness every day. Not only do we do this through our online support community, but we also do it through direct action too. For instance, we hire people who struggle with mental illness in their own lives. It’s never been an issue for us, and in fact, I often find that people who are in recovery from such challenges are more resilient and make more passionate workers than those without.

Bella: What do you see as the future of Psych Central?

John: I think the future is wide open, as the Tom Petty song reminds us. People are mostly interacting with websites through their mobile devices and apps. So that suggests a couple of avenues to explore, such as creating a really spectacular all-in-one mental health helper app. Something that not only allows you to track your mood and remind you of therapy appointments and taking your medication, but also provides just-in-time resources for support or immediate treatment. Imagine you just needed someone to talk to, and could log in and find someone immediately to have a conversation with… That could be a very powerful helping tool.

The digital publishing landscape has also changed significantly in the past 5 years. When we last talked, it was far more stable and easier to run a business with online advertising. With changes that Google has continuously made to its search engine algorithm, such stability is less assured. Even long-time, high-quality websites like Psych Central can be impacted, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of Google’s changes.

So it might make sense to take a hard look at how we can continue to grow our business in an increasingly challenging marketplace such as this.

But I believe today more than ever, we need such independent resources that Psych Central provides. I believe there will always be an audience for high-quality articles that span the mental health spectrum — something we do a great job producing.

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol syndicated from

0 notes

aster-azimuth · 6 years

Text

Moon in Leo & The Journey of Venus

Artwork by @vonnart

Tonight the last quarter Moon moves in to Leo and joins her South node (eclipse point), activating the ongoing fixed grand cross between Venus, Uranus and the nodes. I wrote about this grand cross in my previous blog post, but I'd like to expand on it here.

The Moon in Leo and this image both remind me of the strength card in the tarot. The card represents not the outer strength that you would think would be required to tame a lion, interestingly, but the inner strength and grace that is required to remain calm and collected in the face of strife and struggle. It's about strength of character. It's about learning to apply that strength to control our animal instincts like fear and aggression, in order to master our own circumstances to the best of our ability, and ultimately to shine like only Leo can do... And we do that shining when we discover just how much we are actually capable of enduring... it's always far more than our fear tells us is possible. And what is often the most difficult thing to face that we all fear? That's right. Change. Especially for the fixed signs. But change is happening and it's time to determine and embrace our individual roles in that change.

This Moon is a Last-Quarter Moon, meaning she is square the Sun, who is incidentally now just about exactly one quarter of the way through the sign of Scorpio... Squares are about what? You guessed it: Also change. Not the kind of change that happens without direct provocation (like Uranus usually brings) but the change that comes as a result of striving and struggling to create it. Change that comes from DOING something (creative & constructive, hopefully) about our discomfort.

On a personal level (and ultimately all things Moon are personal) the square between Leo and Scorpio is about self expression. Leo doles it out freely, Scorpio does not. They are also both about self-worth, being fixed signs. Leo is concerned with outer self worth being accepted and loved by others, and Scorpio is primarily concerned with inner, self-determined self-worth.

This theme may be present to some extent in the decisions and changes at hand, especially with Mercury and Jupiter still conjunct, and Mercury moving from a water sign to a fire sign tonight as well... Perhaps there is too much emphasis on one or the other?

Whatever the case, the theme of change is omnipresent in the heavens at this point. The astrologer Dana Gerhardt has this to say about a Last Quarter Moon: "Squares bring stress-and a potent thrust of energy that makes necessary changes possible.... During the Last Quarter's waning square, we're prompted to find a new direction. The 'something wrong' is generally inside, the change required a mental adjustment, some shift in our thinking, our intentions, or beliefs. Rudhyar called the waxing square a 'crisis in action' and the waning square a 'crisis in consciousness.'"

And he (Rhudyar) says this of quarter moons in general: "Moon phases help us decide our wise next steps. Whatever occurs at the Quarter Moons, we're invited to see it as two forces in conflict. Something wants to move; something else resists. This tension seeks its release in change, involving struggle, or assertive and decisive action."

Now... All this talk about change may feel overwhelming to some, but this particular opportunity for change is not just massive, it's also very well-supported by two grand trine aspects happening at once:

The Moon on the North node in Leo is activating the destiny of humanity right now. (NBD) The north node deals with the evolution of the individual soul and the collective evolution we are all a part of. She is making a grand trine to Jupiter and Mercury in scorpio and to Chiron in pisces, which is also offering a profound opportunity for healing. My last post on instagram (from this morning) is about this particular aspect pattern. It's under this image:

The other two trines are being made by Pallas Athena (the principle of creative wisdom) and Juno (the principle of divine marriage commitment) to the south node, which represents our karma on a personal and collective level. The south node deals with gifts and talents we naturally have that we have a tendency to rely a bit too heavily on, but which are very valuable nonetheless. I believe this aspect pattern is indicating an opportunity to address our relationship issues from a creative angle we may have previously not thought of or overlooked... or perhaps a creative commitment to the changes we know we need to make. Whatever the case may be, the support is there, as two grand trines = a very stable support system indeed.

Back to the changes.

While there is likely a very personal component for this transit for many people, there is also a larger-context social change that's happening. While Jupiter has been in Scorpio the last year and some change, (excuse the pun) he has set the foundation for this slow transformation. Venus in Scorpio has sped it up and made it more personal for everyone. Both of those planets are considered "benefics" in classical astrology, meaning that they are bringers of good fortune, but in the sign of Scorpio it's not all rainbows and pots of gold.

Scorpio quite literally *IS* transformation on a deep and profound level, and the change these two have been bringing us looks like the #metoo movement, the #blacklivesmatter movement and the exposure of the racist, homo/transphobic, mysoginistic, xenophobic, bigoted, hateful undercurrent in the blood running through the veins of this "once great" nation we call the U.S. - those are their gifts to us; They are hoping we will use them wisely. Mercury also having just transited through Scorpio has brought these conversations further to the forefront of political discourse:

NOW is the time for us to DO SOMETHING to create the change we want to see in the world. Pluto (deep profound change through relationships) and Saturn (rules, laws, boundaries, litigation, etc) both in Capricorn are urging us to do something PRACTICAL about it, not just talk...

Now, it's worth noting that there are always multiple ways any planets position can be interpreted, and Pluto and Saturn in Cap also represent the existing paradigm in all of its might: The oppressive powers that dominate the political landscape and have for centuries: the ones fighting tooth and nail to keep their power using fear tactics and war strategy... AKA the toxic Patriarchy and all that it represents:

But to hell (Scorpio) with those guys. It's time to take real, grounded and meaningful action, because the nodes and the two retrograde planets (Venus and Uranus) are about to move in to cardinal signs, where action begins... Uranus moves in to Aries on Nov. 7th, where he spends about 4 months before going direct and heading back in to Taurus on March 6th. We can plausibly expect some pretty major events in the world stage around that time.

Back to the lion and the inner strength of conviction and determination:

What this boils down to, IMHO, is that the stars are telling us that we need to do the inner work (NOW, not whenever it's convenient) so that we can make our unique contribution to the work that needs to be done to change the outer world - in particular the old, outdated structures that our society is built on... Where do you need to build your inner strength? Where can you change your behaviors and beliefs to be in more alignment with the vision you want to create? Because NOW is the time to address that...

There's one more planet I've left out, regarding all of this change, and that's Mars: The ruler of action. Mars is in Aquarius, the sign of tearing down the old structures in order to build ones based on more freedom for the individual and the collective as a whole... That is what Mars (who rules action) wants us to focus on now. He is currently ruling Jupiter and Venus in Scorpio, and in a week Mars will also be ruling Uranus when he moves in to Aries. To me, this is evidence that this (over any of the myriad of other possible interpretations) is the one that bears the most weight in regards to this transit...

To sum it up:

The time for revolution is here, dreamers. Will you let stodgy old Saturn and mean old Pluto in Capricorn keep you bound by fear to the matrix that was set up by crusty old rich racist white dudes? Or will you tear it down to create a new world? It's yours now, Millenials... just sayin'

0 notes