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autball · 4 months

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Part 1 of a 5 part series about the ways harmful practices are being made to sound more appealing through the co-opting of language and how to spot the differences between helpful and harmful approaches.

The language of the Neurodiversity Paradigm is soooo hot right now. Everyone from ABA centers to social media creators are adopting it to sound like they’re safer and more knowledgeable than they are.

But you can’t just pop some neuro-word in place of “autism” and stop picking on a couple of Autistic traits and call yourself “Neuro-affirming.” That’s the low-hanging fruit of #neurodiversitylite.

REAL Neuro-affirming practice comes from a complete shift in mindset, unlearning all the harmful things you once thought were true, and learning about all the things you never even knew you didn’t know. It’s also an ongoing process, not just something you can learn from reading an article or taking a single training.

ABA practitioners are probably the worst offenders right now, mainly because they know they need to rebrand as more and more people learn about what ABA really does to people, but also because their practices in particular are THE furthest away from being Neuro-affirming compared to any other discipline.

They are not the only ones, though, so be wary of #neurodiversitylite in ANY resource aimed at autistic people that appears to be saying all the right things, including: OT, speech, play/talk therapy, early intervention, education, your favorite parenting expert or social media personality who just discovered the world of Neurodiversity, etc.

Look beyond someone’s use of the “right” words or symbols. Do they talk about teaching people to fit into the normative world, or how to more safely and authentically navigate a world not made for them? Do they talk about making the person easier to deal with, or making life easier for the person? Do they concentrate on external behaviors, or are they more concerned with internal experiences? Does most of what they know come from people who studied autistic people from the outside looking in, or from actual autistic people who can speak from lived experience? And are they even using the words right??

The good news is that there are SO MANY resources out there BY autistic and otherwise Neurodivergent people for anyone who wants to learn how to make their practice *actually* more Neuro-affirming. SO MANY!! Three such resources are featured in the second panel from Autism Level UP, Neurowild, and Kieran Rose-The Autistic Advocate. (Big thanks to them for letting me include their work in the cartoon!)

EXPLANATION OF WHAT’S WRONG IN THE “FAKE” PANEL:

- The phrase “individuals with neurodiversity” misuses the word “neurodiversity” and utilizes person first language. The Neuro-affirming phrase would be “neurodivergent people,” or “autistic people” if they specifically meant autistic people.

- Getting rid of puzzle piece stuff is merely a surface level first step, not an end point.

- Not forcing eye contact and allowing hand-flapping are also only surface level first steps. The fact that they still target other stims means they do not understand the importance or functions of stimming, making them incapable of being Neuro-affirming.

- Social skills training aimed at ND people usually centers NT social skills as the “right way” and frames ND social skills as the “wrong way,” making them shame inducing and not at all affirming.

- “Tolerating distress” most often means “suppressing distress.” Neuro-affirming practice would concentrate on identifying and avoiding triggers, helping the person stay regulated, and teaching the person how to accommodate and advocate for their needs so that they are not distressed in the first place.

- “Sensory desensitization” is not a thing that can be done to someone without harm. It is usually done with exposure therapy, which should not be done TO someone who cannot consent. It is also inappropriate for sensory issues, which tells us they don’t understand sensory processing differences at all.

- The posters: Whole Body Listening is based on neuronormative expectations; “They say I’m neurodiverse” is incorrect usage of the word “neurodiverse” (it should be “neurodivergent”), and “but I say I’m perfect” insinuates that being “neurodiverse” is a bad thing, while the use of the rainbow infinity symbol with such a non-affirming message adds to the dissonance; the ABC’s of Behavior is an indicator that ABA/behaviorism will be used, which is the opposite of Neuro-affirming practice.

EXPLANATION OF WHAT’S RIGHT IN THE “REAL” PANEL:

- The person accurately explains what Neuro-affirming practice looks like, without needing to use (or misuse) any Neurodiversity “buzzwords.”

- Bumper, A Whole Body Learner, is a resource created by Autism Level UP that encourages people to discover what it looks like for them to be ready to learn, acknowledging that there is no one right way to appear attentive.

- The poster by Neurowild indicates that they value difference and neurodiversity and that they know there is no one right way of being.

- They use the Advoc8 Framework, a resource created by Kieran Rose, The Autistic Advocate. Using this framework means they want to help the people they work with achieve Agency, Autonomy, (Self) Acceptance, and Authenticity.

#autism #autistic #actually autistic #adhd #audhd #neurodiversity #neuro-affirming #neurodiversity lite

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rnelodyy · 1 year

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The Owl House And Restorative Justice

At the end of Season 1 of The Owl House, it is revealed that Lilith, the main overarching antagonist of that season, was the one to curse her sister Eda, one of the protagonists, to win a tournament when they were teenagers. This information causes Eda to fly into a screaming rage and attack Lilith, and understandably so.

Eda’s curse is essentially a chronic illness, one that, in Eda’s own words, has ruined her life, being the reason she’s considered a social outcast and why, before meeting King and Luz, she hadn’t gotten close to anyone in years. In season 2, it’s revealed that the curse is why she pushed away her partner Raine to the point that they broke it off with her, and that during a particularly bad flareup, she accidentally maimed her own father, leaving him half blind and with permanent nerve damage to his hands, making him unable to continue working as a Palisman carver. The curse has ruled Eda’s life for decades now, so to Eda, this is the ultimate betrayal.

In the first episode of Season 2, Lilith has defected from the Emperor’s Coven, split the curse between Eda and herself to mitigate the symptoms for her sister, and has moved in with Eda at the Owl House. While Lilith herself still feels guilty and feels she has to make it up to Eda, everyone else, Eda included, has seemingly either forgiven her or chosen to look past it. Eda even makes fun of her for feeling bad about cursing her, and Lilith’s guilt is seemingly absent for the rest of the series.

The response to this was… Less than stellar, shall we say. A lot of people were angry, saying Lilith got away with her crimes without even a slap on the wrist, and that Eda’s forgiveness of her was far too sudden.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of critique. Amity spent years bullying Willow after her parents forced her to break off their friendship, and when she began trying to mend that relationship, the response from fans was that Willow should have been a lot more angry at Amity, and that they went back to being besties far too soon. I’ve even seen this criticism leveled at Hunter for the things he did while working for Belos, at Vee for impersonating Luz for months to trick her mother, and at Luz for hiding the fact that she helped Philip find the Collector from her friends. And it does seem strange for the show to keep tripping on this same point again and again.

Except, it’s not really. Because I think that, when viewing this show from a different angle, those supposed flaws are actually symptoms of something very important to understand – The Owl House operates on a system of crime and punishment that is very different from our world’s.

More specifically, our world mostly utilizes retributive justice. The world of The Owl House utilizes restorative justice.

So first, what do those terms mean? Broadly, they’re two different forms of handling interpersonal disputes, or dealing with crime.

Retributive justice is the one our current justice system uses, where the focus is primarily on punishing the perpetrator. Retributive justice can mean detention, suspension, expulsion, jail time, monetary fines, some kinds of community service, exile, or in more severe cases, corporal punishment or the death penalty. It’s the lens most people view the world through, where if someone hurts you, hurting them back is the correct response.

Restorative justice is a very different approach, where you instead focus on helping the victim recover from what happened, and rehabilitating the perpetrator to prevent this from happening again. Restorative justice can look like verbal or written apologies, monetary compensation for costs and trauma, therapy for both victim and perpetrator, education for the perpetrator, mediation between victim and perpetrator, a restraining order, etc.

When viewed through a retributive lens, The Owl House lets its characters get away with a lot of shit. Lilith cursing Eda, Hunter rounding up Palismen knowing they’ll be killed, Amity tormenting Willow for years, it’s all stuff that, in a retributive environment, they should be punished for, and they’re just not. Eda is only genuinely angry at Lilith for two scenes, Amity and Willow fix their relationship very quickly once Amity starts making amends, and Hunter isn’t punished at all.

However, I believe the story of The Owl House is best viewed not through a retributive lens, but through a restorative lens.

Let’s look at the Lilith-example again. Lilith’s offense was cursing Eda, which she did because she wanted to win a spot in the Emperor’s Coven. Knowing Eda was better than her, she cast a curse on her, thinking it would only last for a day. But when the time came, Eda forfeited the match, soon after which she transformed into the Owl Beast and was pelted with rocks until she ran. The curse turned out to be very permanent, and Lilith spent the next 20 years trying to fix her mistake by working for Belos to try to capture Eda, since he promised to heal her curse.

However, when she finally succeeded, Belos went back on his promise. Instead of healing Eda, he ordered her to be publicly executed. When Lilith protested, Belos essentially told her to shut up, that it was the Titan’s will, and left her there.

So, having realized her method of fixing her mistake has gone real bad, Lilith sneaks down to the Conformatorium to free Eda herself, but arrives too late and finds Luz instead. After a brief fight they end up teaming up, and Lilith leads Luz to the elevator, but they are captured by Belos and Lilith is thrown into the cage with Eda. There, she restores Eda’s partially petrified body, and after fleeing with her, Luz and King, uses a spell to split Eda’s curse evenly between their two bodies.

From a restorative justice point of view, Lilith has done pretty much everything she reasonably could do to fix things. She’s denounced the Emperor’s Coven, returned Owlbert to Luz, helped Luz find the elevator to the execution platform, saved Eda from petrification, apologized to Eda, and while there’s no way for her to cure Eda’s curse entirely, she took on half of the curse at great expense to her own health, in order to ease Eda’s symptoms.

Eda isn’t angry anymore because in her eyes, Lilith has already fixed things with her. Punishing her more at this point is pointless. What more could Lilith do, really? What other lessons could she learn? The only thing that punishment would bring at this point would be more suffering.

Let’s look at another example: Amity and Willow.

Amity’s offense was breaking off her friendship with Willow because she was a late-bloomer, bullying her for years, and allowing her friends to do so too. Willow is left with horrible self-esteem issues because of this, and combined with her failing grades, turned her into a horribly shy and withdrawn wallflower (no pun intended). After she’s moved to the plant track she starts actually getting better, but Amity and Boscha especially continue to torment her. While Amity’s bullying of Willow does peter out over time, Willow is clearly still extremely resentful of her. In an attempt to make Willow forget their friendship, Amity accidentally sets most of Willow’s memories on fire, leaving her confused, amnesiac, and unable to grasp basic concepts like that chairs are for sitting in.

Luz pushed Amity into fixing Willow’s brain by going into her mind together and piecing her memories back together. There, the Inner Willow revealed what happened to Luz and the audience.

At this point, Amity shows her that her parents were actually the ones who forced her to end the friendship because they didn’t think Willow was a suitably powerful or influential friend, threatening to make sure Willow would never get accepted into Hexside if Amity didn’t force her to leave. Amity then apologizes to Willow for going along with it, and for the bullying, and vows to make sure her friends never mess with Willow again.

Willow accepts her apology, but also makes it clear that, while it’s a start, she’s not yet ready to accept Amity in her life again. Restorative justice has not been fully attained, because to Willow, Amity hasn’t fixed everything – Boscha and her squad are still bullying her, and still consider Amity one of them. This changes two episodes later, when Amity tells Boscha to grow the fuck up when she starts bullying Willow again, and joins her and Luz’s Grudgby team despite her personal issues to get Boscha to back off. Willow doesn’t make a grand gesture of forgiveness in this episode, but it is after this point where the two become comfortable around eachother again.

Did Willow forgive Amity too quickly for years of trauma? Maybe. If she had chosen to continue keeping Amity at a distance I certainly wouldn’t have blamed her. But in the end, Amity fixed the mess she caused as best she could, and has proven herself to want to be a better person, to want to be Willow’s friend again. She worked hard to prove herself to be a person worth trusting, and Willow decided to give that trust a chance again.

And while they did become friends again, that friendship was clearly still affected by what happened, which led to bumps that the two of them had to work through. Like in Labyrinth Runners, where Amity’s overprotectiveness over Willow makes Willow feel like Amity thinks she’s incompetent, and still only sees her as the helpless person she used to be.

Willow continuing to be mad at Amity and punishing her for what she did wouldn’t be an unreasonable reaction, but it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It would certainly have an impact on Amity, seeing her former best friend rejecting her attempts to make up for what she did, but the hurt on both sides would have continued festering, because deep down, Willow missed Amity too.

In Hunter’s case, there’s the question of whether he can even be held responsible for his actions. The Palisman-kidnapping in specific was explicitly done under duress – if he failed he would face verbal and physical abuse, and be threatened with his nightmare scenario: getting thrown out of the Emperor’s Coven.

And that’s not an empty threat either. Hunter has no magic, and Belos has drilled it into him that witches without magic have no future. Without the Emperor’s Coven, his only future prospects would be starving to death on the streets or wasting away in prison. Either way, Hunter would be alone, without family or friends, without a job or job prospects, without anyone to turn to for help. Any child would be terrified of that. Hunter wasn’t always acting on direct orders – in fact he defied direct orders to stay in his room in Eclipse Lake to go look for Titan’s Blood, and then again in Hollow Mind to arrest the rebels. But he made those choices based on the idea that Belos wouldn’t want him if he was a failure, and that he needed a chance to prove that he could still be useful.

And contrary to popular belief, Hunter does know right from wrong. He has a very strong moral compass, he’s just been forced to ignore it in favor of doing whatever the Emperor wants. To shut up that little voice telling him he’s doing the wrong thing, he uses what’s called a thought-terminating cliche, a statement that feels so fundamentally true that the argument need not continue. In Hunter’s case, that statement is “It’s for the greater good.” Sure, kidnapping his new friends and abducting Palismen to feed to the Emperor and threatening someone who’s been nothing but kind to him to take the portal key from her girlfriend and justifying terrorism makes his stomach feel like he swallowed a cactus and saying it out loud makes him sound like a horrible person – but it’s for the greater good. He’s doing it to serve Belos, and Belos knows what’s best.

So by the time Hunter is out of active danger and able to rest and recover from what happened to him… what would further punishment accomplish? He already knows that he did fucked up shit while working for the EC, and he’s proven time and time again that while he’s not fighting for Belos’s approval, he’s actually a genuinely kind-hearted kid. Punishing him now would likely cause him to react very poorly, because he’s been at the wrong end of that stick so often that he’s developed severe PTSD because of it.

And if you think restorative justice is still in order – Hunter is currently hyperfixated on making sure Belos can never hurt anyone again, and for the long term, he has expressed that he wants to become a Palisman carver when he grows up. While it won’t bring back the Palismen that were killed, it will help the current Palisman population recover and reintroduce Palismen to witches who may have had to give up theirs.

When viewed through this lens, the writing of The Owl House starts to make more sense. As a show, it is extremely forgiving towards its characters – they’re still held accountable for their actions, but as long as they’re willing to grow and learn and fix the damage they caused, they are very quickly forgiven.

However, I do understand why these writing choices can be… controversial, so to say. Because it doesn’t feel very satisfying, does it? When someone hurts you on purpose, your first impulse would be to try to hurt them back, that’s just how people work.

That’s the hardest thing to come to terms with when you become an advocate for prison abolition for example – you’re not just arguing for freeing a guy who got 5 years because a cop found weed in his pockets, you’re arguing for the release, and most importantly, the humanity of some of the most vile, disgusting people this planet has ever produced. Even now, when someone commits a truly awful crime and gets sent to prison for life, my first thought is “Good, I hope they rot in there.” But that’s not justice. That’s just revenge. And revenge is not something we as a society should want to build our justice system on.

It’s not satisfying to see Lilith go from using Luz as a human shield in her fight against Eda to sleeping on the couch in Eda’s house within 2 episodes. It’s not satisfying to see Willow let Amity back into her life when Amity has hurt her so badly before, or to see Hunter become romantically involved with Willow after he literally abducted her the first time they met. But that satisfaction isn’t really the point. Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and if someone shows a genuine willingness to change, it’s often better to give them a chance to.

However, my final point is about what happens when this approach fails. Because not everyone is willing to change. Some people, when faced with the consequences of their actions, decide to dig their heels in and refuse to admit fault, or blame the victim(s), or use those same thought-terminating cliches that Hunter used to justify their actions, “I was just following orders” being a big one.

And thus, we come to Belos.

If Belos showed a willingness to change, a genuine one, not an attempt at manipulation, should he be given the chance to? That vengeful part of me is VERY empathetically saying no. But logically, reasonably, he should be given that chance, if only because he’s a human being and no human being deserves to be mistreated. That doesn’t mean his victims are obligated to forgive him or be around him again, in fact I think that, for the sake of Hunter’s mental health, Belos should stay as far away from him as humanly possible. But he should be given the chance to start over, to truly better himself and do something good with the rest of his life.

But Belos isn’t willing to change.

Belos is a product of a bad environment and grew up with a cult-like mentality and hatred for witches that he had to adopt for his own safety. It’s hard to break out of that mentality, but not impossible. Case in point: Caleb. The tragedy of Belos’s character to me is that he had so many chances to change, so many people to help him make that leap, but all of the people who offered him that help ended up dead by his hands because he couldn’t handle the idea that he may have been wrong.

At this point, Belos is stuck. Changing would mean not only giving up on his life’s work, but acknowledging to himself that everything he’s done, mutilating his body, killing his brother, slaughtering thousands and installing himself as God-Emperor of a population he despises more than anything in order to facilitate a genocide, was completely pointless.

He can’t admit that to himself. Especially the thing about Caleb’s death. He’s sunk-cost-fallacied himself so far into a corner that all he can really do when faced with opposing viewpoints is dig his heels in even deeper and lash out in a rage at anyone who challenges him. Even now, when his body is literally falling apart at the seams, he’s still trying to commit witch-genocide, because it’s all he has.

Restorative justice doesn’t work in this case, because the perpetrator needs to be receptive to it. Logically you would assume the show would default to retributive justice, and characters like Willow and Camila do take a very vengeful glee in imagining themselves beating the snot out of Belos. But right now, the primary motivation of the Hexsquad and Hunter in particular when it comes to Belos is to end the threat he poses. As long as Belos is alive and free, he will continue to hurt and kill people, and if he can’t be talked down, he needs to be either contained or killed to prevent him from causing more harm.

The Owl House provides, in my opinion, a very nuanced take on restorative justice. It shows how it works in action, how different situations impact what it looks like, and what happens when it’s simply not an option. It’s not the most satisfying story to tell your audience, because when someone hurts our babies we want them to suffer, no matter how sorry they say they are. But in this case, I think that sacrificing that bit of audience comfort is worth it to tell the story like this.

#the owl house #the owl house meta #toh meta #toh lilith #toh amity #toh hunter #toh belos

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andthespidersfrommars · 16 days

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other people have worded it better then me, but inej's assertion about having kaz in the without armor scene was clearly not just about emotional vulnerability. it’s a powerful line in the books and a nice metaphor for emotional intimacy, (something inej deserves from kaz) but let's not shy away from the fact that she also made it clear she meant physical intimacy, as her words were "fully clothed, gloves on, head turned away so our lips can never touch"

this nuance is important to consider, as it reflects the depth and complexity of her feelings at the time. it’s ironic that for people who apparently care so much about inej’s boundaries, the fandom rarely pays attention to what she says. inej has flaws and virtues, some affected by different experiences she's had, and that affects her choices. her words aren’t any less hurtful because of this. she got kaz in a vulnerable moment and said something cruel. later she reflects on this and admits she shouldn’t be holding kaz to standards she can’t meet herself, and she likely said that to him in the first place because she lashed out about something that’s personally a trigger for her and she’s vulnerable about. they both have a lot of issues surrounding physical intimacy.

that’s one reason why kanej is such a good ship- one of the most healthy, beautiful and nuanced relationships ever between two children who have been through horrific things, exploited, abandoned, and put in danger every day, who have found safety and friendship and understanding in each other. they aren’t going to be speaking super politely and using sensitive, respectful, inoffensive woke therapy speak at every second because that’s not their situation or their relationship and their interactions are raw and real. sometimes they make mistakes (kaz calling inej an investment, inej saying kaz wouldn’t be able to have her if he couldn’t touch her, etc) but they recognise and admit when they do and work through that. the beauty of their friendship lies in their imperfections and their capacity to learn from each other. the bare honesty they share is a testament to their growth, even when it leads to moments of pain or misunderstanding.

to suggest that holding inej to a higher standard and not acknowledging that her words could be perceived as hurtful is akin to ignoring the very human aspects of her character. it’s essential to recognize that she is capable of making mistakes or risk turning her into a perfect fandomised queen incapable of fault. her character's journey is not about being infallible, but about growth, self-reflection, and the courage to confront and overcome her fears. strong and resilient, yet also capable of causing harm, even unintentionally.

there’s a phenomenon in fandom spaces but particularly the grishaverse where fans have an opinion of something and then deem everyone else’s as bad or wrong, going so far as to make posts calling out other people for having different analysis. literary discussions should encourage an environment where different interpretations are welcomed and discussed respectfully, not minimised and devalued for a more popular fandom take that’s often incorrect when compared with the text of the book anyway. it’s okay for inej to make mistakes and learn from them, just as it's okay for readers to have varied interpretations of their interactions.

#six of crows #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #kanej #grishaverse #kaz/inej #shadow and bone #mine

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punksocks · 5 months

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Warning Signs That You May Have A Toxic/Karmic Significant Other

Hey everyone, you may have seen my recent post about breaking up with my ex partner after 5.5 years. If not, I’ve been deep in reflection after ending this relationship. My reasons for ending it were that he refused to seek professional help to manage his anger which would come out in constant outbursts of violence (not physical ab*se but hitting walls, kicking furniture, scarring my dog, etc) and his mental health in general. After breaking things off I analyzed our relationship and all the red flags became crystal clear in hindsight. This blog is not only my emotional space to reflect, but also a place to give out advice to make sure you guys feel less alone in the world. So I’ve compiled a list of behaviors that made it clear that in hindsight the relationship was destine to be toxic and could not continue. It’s important to take lessons from painful experiences in order to continue to grow, and that’s what I hope I can help with by sharing my experiences here:

(TW Manipulation, Distressing Themes, Emotional Ab*se)

- They hate your intuition: (they work to make you doubt whatever means you have of self guidance. Whether that’s tarot/astrology, or spirituality in general, or therapy, or your simple gut feelings/reactions to things. They hate them because they know that they’ll be singled out at some point by them so they work to make you not believe in yourself through manipulation/gaslighting. My ex would constantly say the tarot is going to tell me to break up with him, but he never really changed he’d just belittle it and say I was getting weird about spirituality and he’d try to make me doubt myself or choose between the tarot and him. When I asked him to go to therapy he would also say that he was worried the therapist would tell him to break up with me-implying I was the problem. When I would ask him to go anyway he would find a way to avoid it- saying it’s too expensive, too hard to find, he doesn’t have time, etc)

-They constant give you advice that puts you in harm’s way: (My ex always told me I was too quick to cut off people that threw me under the bus and that I was paranoid. When I found out my former business partner was being shady and stealing from me, he told me to keep working with her. I said I had to take things over. He said I had no chance of covering the expenses on my own and that he wasn’t going to help me at all even though he was working a consistent 9-5. I rationalized this as putting too much pressure on him to support me through my apprenticeship over the previous few months, even though by the time we were having this discussion I had picked up a seasonal 9-5 to compensate for starting the business. I still felt guilty because I was asking him to cover the rent at home while I built this business up. I ended up wracking up debt over trying to cover everything myself and he was telling me I was going to fail every step of the way. When I didn’t fail and the business remained open over a year later, he said he had always believed in me every step of the way.)

- They rewrite history (that’s the other thing- when I broke up with him he said it was his idea to open the studio in the first place. This was a lie. A bold one at that. At the time I would have had to become self taught due to dealing with several egotistical mentors (wow thematic) and I looked for positions in other studios and there were none. My ex told me I should “pause” my goals. I told him I’ll open up my own space with another artist. He had a long talking down to me about how we couldn’t afford any of that, and how impossible it was, etc. But I went through with it anyway, effectively doing all the work on my own. He constantly told me what I was doing was crazy. But I made success out of it, thank God. Now my ex is trying to take credit for the whole thing as if I don’t remember what happened. Audacious.)

- Instead of having their own dreams they focus on wearing yours down (I have so many big dreams I want to accomplish and every other idea I shared with my ex was pushed back on or breadcrumbed. I wanted to live abroad, he’d say it’s too expensive but maybe he could find a way to make it work if I stopped putting so much pressure on him. I took over my own business, he told me I shouldn’t do it and should quit while I’m ahead. He would always try to counter every idea I had with a “logical reason” of why it wouldn’t work. He would try to control me by doubting me and in turn trying to get me to doubt myself. I never actually listened to him in hindsight, and when I pushed through successfully he would pretend to have been on my side the whole time.)

-They always compare you to their exes, in bold ways (My ex would always go out of his way to bring up his past relationships. The examples and instances were never appropriate. But one of the first worst early examples was when we were at a show. My friend’s band was playing. In the middle of the set he decided to look up his ex on social media. I was clearly uncomfortable but he continued. Then when we’re talking he brought up a nickname she used to call him that was inappropriate. When I was upset by this he threw a shirt (merch gifted to him by my friend’s band) in the booth almost hitting me with it and he stormed off. He made himself seem like the victim in a situation where he was trying to bait me into starting a public argument and yet made me soothe him afterward.)

- The betrayal of not ever being believed (early on this was another giant red flag in hindsight. I’m black and I tried to explain colorism to him, while I was having a bad experience with it. He’s white and should have been listening and understanding with open ears. Instead he tried to argue me down for being “mean” to light skinned black people. In the experience I was talking about how a mixed femme at work established a boundary with our white bosses to try to avoid racist harm. They let the femme do this without any pushback. I tried to establish the same boundary in the same meeting and those white bosses accused me of actively refusing to do my job. I told my ex this was colorist and that’s when he argued with me about this. He didn’t believe my experiences until he googled “the right articles”. When I brought this up in the future he would say he was just trying to see all black people as equal. It was a pretty disgusting defense.)

- Throwing insults in your face about past trauma (I told my ex about how emotionally abusive my mother was (wow there’s that pattern again) and he would throw this in my face and blame me or compare me to her at the slightest provocation in several arguments. When I was disrespected at work, he would blame me for misinterpreting things. Complaining about how I used him for money whenever I had asked him for help managing the business’ expenses. And so many deep cuts of things he should never said to me and names he shouldn’t have called me if he ever cared about me. He always wrote it off as me misremembering or him meaning it as something else or a distraction tactic of whataboutism -‘what about when you complained that I left dirty clothes on the floor?’ For example. All ways he tried to manipulate me from seeing this pattern of messed up behavior. Every argument he would make us talk in circles until I would have to give up from frustration and exhaustion.)

-They’re full of hot air, and if they seem like they aren’t they’re probably mirroring you (when I broke up with him I stopped hanging out with him pretty much immediately. Although I had to coordinate moving out still, I started keeping my head down to focus on my work. Essentially I had already moved on. I thought we had had deep discussions about the world and life but when I had less to say he had nothing to add. He would just keep filling up the air with anecdotes about nothing and commentary on anything just to keep crossing my boundaries and to try to force me to pay attention to him when it was clear I neither interested or comfortable doing so.)

- They try to force you to become as cynical and jaded as they are (I was never antagonistic per se, but when we were together I had unconsciously started looking/preparing for the worst in every scenario and every person I’d meet. Because of my ex’s toxic influence. Getting along with coworkers? They must be just “kissing up to you” according to him. Like that tv show most people are fond of? No way that has to be trash. Want to try something new? No there can’t be anything good about that. He was a very stuck person that refused to find the joy in almost anything. Unless it was too impressive to ignore —but even then he had to nitpick it apart. I would wonder why his compliments would feel so hollow- it was because he really had trouble seeing the good in anything. Like a day or two after we broke up I was already feeling lighter and more optimistic. When people were kind to me I embraced it easier and in turn every aspect of life got a little brighter. The contempt for others was palatable. Because he expected everyone to be ready to undercut him like he was ready to do to them.)

- Before you know it, they’ll have you romanticizing breadcrumbing behavior (I asked my ex to get on meds for his mental health and to find a therapist so many times over the course of 5 years. 4-5 months before I broke up with him he got on medication. Then after a peace period of a month or so, we were back in a cycle of petty arguments and he was saying the meds don’t work. He didn’t even try to go to therapy until I broke up with him. he got an appointment the next day because he “was trying to win me back” Essentially, he’d never work on himself or actually actively improve things. He’d always make one or two half steps to placate me then complain about how it was too hard and completely impossible to put the work in. Even with the therapy example, he wanted to display that he could make progress in order to win me back. Don’t worry, I had seen this tactic before and knew he would just fall back into toxicity. So, it didn’t work.)

- When you do leave they get cocky about how you’ll have nowhere to go (I leaned on my ex to support me when I became overwhelmed by figuring out my business on my own. I worked several temp jobs in addition to the business but it was stretching me thin. So I needed his help several times and only had so much saved up by the time I broke up with him. After begging me to take him back the entire night and pretending to be supportive, the next day he was scoffing and boasting about how “[he] didn’t even know what [I] was going to do.” He did this over everything from buying my own detergent-even though I always bought the detergent- to managing my bills on my own-even though I usually managed most of my bills on my own- until I finally was able to move out and leave him behind.)

- They never defend you and always make it seem like it’s your fault if you get attacked (My ex was always siding with abusive people and gaslighting me when I noticed that behavior. As many of you may know, my mom was a terror throughout my childhood. I confided in my ex about how much of an impact this had had on me. Before I went no contact with her we all got dinner when she came in town to see me. Despite all my warnings and preemptive begging to be supported through the difficulty of meeting with her my ex threw me under the bus immediately. He laughed at her jokes at my expense and didn’t stop her at all from singling me out. I shutdown in this moment and began to draw to cope- I’m neurodivergent so that’s one of the things I default to doing when I’m overwhelmed. They continued to make fun of me together and when I asked him why he didn’t have my back afterward, he blamed me for “not being friendly enough” and “not interacting with [my] mom enough”. This pattern of doubting and failing to help me would continue through our entire relationship.)

- They’ll have -self aware- moments that aren’t quite what they seem (I truly cannot count the number of times my ex would start an argument just to talk me in circles then try to get me to believe I was in the wrong too. It was truly maddening. He would always push to say he “understood” how we had gotten there. Then ramble on and on and on saying that I was attacking him and he was the victim of things. I asked him to do the dishes? I’m “criticizing [his] housework and putting too much pressure on [him]”. I ask him not to throw things when he’s upset? I’m “overly criticizing [him] and making [him] so anxious he can’t help but hit things”. And on and on and on it went. He would always tidy it up by saying he forgave me because we were “both wrong” and he just “would try to be better next time and [I] should too”.)

-They have underlying personality issues that need to be addressed (and when you bring a hint of these up, they lash out about how you’re attacking them and they throw personal attacks back at you because of their fragile ego. If you -somehow- get them to see a mental health professional you may find them lying about what feedback they got. After I broke up with him he said he’d go to anger management class and find a therapist “to win me back”- funny how it’s after you leave them and set the ultimate boundary they do the work to show you they can hypothetically change and it’s never one of the times you’ve begged before in the midst of madness. Before I moved out I overheard his therapy appointment and she asked about his bipolar diagnosis and he said he was just anxious despite the mood swings. When he came to me to tell me the good news of him finally going to therapy he left that out. When I asked if the therapist knew if he had another disorder he manipulated that. He said the therapist asked if it could be anything else but it was just a brief thought. He framed it that way instead of the consistent behavioral issue it was.)

- Usually they attract drama and chaos but blame you for it as their partner (He always kept his ex around in boundary crossing ways. In hindsight I wouldn’t be surprised if he had cheated in any way with any of them because of how murky he was about spending one on one time with them. They also will always encourage you to keep other toxic people in your life so they can keep flying under the radar/blaming the other toxic people when you feel drained/etc. When I decided to go no contact with my parents, he second guessed me. When I decided to go no contact with my friends that were harmful, he second guessed me. He went out of his way to call me paranoid and picky and every other name in the book he could. Even after I broke up with him he went out of his way to tell me I was paranoid and should quit tarot reading “because [he] knew it would turn [me] against [him] one day”. I told him his opinion meant less than nothing to me.)

- Whenever you set a boundary they try to undermine it and take it as an attack (When we met, all of my ex’s small circle of friends was made up of people he had dated or slept with. Once his friend, who had flirted with him multiple times, asked to stay in his apartment while she moved out of her place. He offered her his bed. She even had a boyfriend at the time but she went to my ex first. I told him this made me very uncomfortable. He screamed and yelled about how he’ll always choose his friends first and I have to understand that and that she didn’t want to sleep in his bed while he was in it. It was crazy but the whole time he called me dramatic and made me feel insane for being so uncomfortable with it.)

- They may often act out in public over the littlest things (my ex would get absolutely infuriated when there were lines in places. Insane right? Especially living in cities? with other people? And yet whenever we went out I’d have to prepare my mental for the possibility of him getting angry and breaking down because people were waiting ahead of him in line. In hindsight the entitlement he had was overwhelming in itself. The last time we went out to a movie -which was a whole scheduling fiasco in of itself with him during our entire relationship, he was obsessed with movies. I like movies but spending 6-9 hours in a theater? Every week? On top of hours of mandatory movie viewing at home? It was exhausting. He also made me pay for my own monthly movie pass even though it was his thing. Even in covid, although I’m immunocompromised I had to negotiate with him to wait to get vaccinated before he went back to the theater. And to wear a mask in the showings. He would huff and fuss about those small courtesies the entire time. Anyway the last movie we went out to see had a long line but we bought tickets ahead of time. He pitched a fit and kept storming off away from me and threatening to leave over the line. I kept following him foolishly, and coaxed him into staying. Of course there were enough seats and of course he enjoyed the movie. He apologized after for “getting overwhelmed by the line” but that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.)

- It’s all or nothing for them but breadcrumbs for you (I’ve always been clear that I have no plans of staying in the country I’m from. From the start I’ve understood I’m not meant to stay here. And yet I stayed in a city I hated so he could suddenly finish his associates degree. We moved back to my hometown but we lived in the most stressful neighborhood because he “wanted to be downtown with a pool.” He would always complain about every single idea I had to leave the country. I’m thinking about doing a language school or artist residency? He “did long distance with [his] ex who cheated and it would be too hard”. I want to study this language and go to this -easy-place for a visa? He “kept forgetting to study and had no idea how we would ever afford the move.” And on and on it went until I simply gave up on trying to get him to step up.)

- They twist everything to be about them even grief (my grandma was like a mother to me, so it hit me hard when she died. She even told me she was going and thanked me for my friendship at the end. It was still a very difficult period and I couldn’t accept it until it just happened. When I got the call and burst into tears my ex said “I’m so sorry… do you blame me because we stayed here for me to go to school and you couldn’t be home with her?” It hadn’t even been 20 minutes since I learned she was gone. The extent of his selfishness would shock me until I cut him off.)

- They make you bury things they don’t like about your self expression/goals (I’ll use a simple example. I love fairy lights. When we met I had fairy lights and my ex had no complaints. But when we moved in together they ‘would always bother him and give him headaches’. So I took out the lights. Then he got me a glowing lamp I wanted for my birthday but never allowed me to turn it on when we were in the room. I brought the lights I love to my work and my ex would complain about them there too. He’d say he didn’t know why he “just didn’t like spending time at the studio” and then use the lights as an excuse, and then hed complain all day about how exhausting it was to be there. He’d only offer to come to the studio more if I turned them off just for him. All this time later and all of a sudden I don’t have any lights I like up. This didn’t happen for everything, but there were a lot of little things he was so controlling about just to be authoritative about something I liked.)

- They hate it when you have positive things happen to you (and instead of seeing your success as a good thing they see it as you one upping them, so they often express jealousy and then disguise it as a joke. He would “joke” about how I was going to fail so often I lost count. When I had a great day there would always be a hint of disappointment in his voice. He would always undermine it in anyway he could. “Oh you made X amount that’s nice, but that’s not enough to cover the rent”. I got a lot of compliments on my outfits, so he’d say “no one ever compliments me”. Always something to bring me down and try to get me to focus on a worry.)

- They downplay your trauma (I’m a burn survivor. My dad burned me through hot water and neglect as a baby on around 20% of my body. For that and many other reasons I became sort of a local legend for my time in our local child protective services. In a city of well over a million people. Doctors thought I wouldn’t be able to walk again and it was a miracle when I did. My grandmother had to wrap my scars everyday, twice a day for 3-4 years afterwards. She would tell me the pain would make me cry random throughout the night until I went to kindergarten. All that to say, my scars had a BIG impact on my health and my life. When I told my ex about my insecurity he said “sorry that happened, but it’s not that big of a deal.” Crazily at 21 I took that as flattery. It was not, it was severely downplaying the trauma I went through because my ex didn’t care for that part of my life. I even remember thinking I should tag a post as a burn survivor and he said “isn’t that like advertising your burns, why warn people about it?”. I got better and embraced my scars all through my own healing but damn it was all severely fucked up.)

- They usually have a Fatal Flaw they try to make you contend with (My ex had explosive anger where he would hit something (a wall, the couch, his desk, etc) or throw things at any slight provocations, and he would disguise it as a reaction of low self esteem instead. I didn’t realize how bad the conditioning had got until I broke up with him and I wasn’t getting jumpy from him coming home anymore or my dog wasn’t hiding from him anymore. I was walking on eggshells all the time and I only knew it subconsciously. He would also curse at me and call me the meanest names from the smallest arguments, he would get belittling. It’s their signature style to make you feel small and to desensitize you to truly nightmarish behavior.)

- That’s the other thing- most people and sometimes animals can tell they’re off (I would always wonder why my ex never seemed to make a good impression on others. They could tell he was off from the start.)

- They start trying to love bomb you after you give up or when they sense you are finally giving up (I always asked my ex to pay more attention to my business/endeavors/art/etc when we were together, to respond to texts I sent him at work-within reason-, to give me some support or feedback. His replies were always blasé. “That’s nice.” Or “I will.” As soon as I broke up with him. He was complaining that he always missed texting me at work. Then he started getting more involved on my social media pages. Then for the first time in months he watched my story on Instagram completely unwelcomed and unprompted. It was how fake the performance of interest was that really struck me after everything.)

- They always ask for one more chance when you’ve given them at least a hundred chances (Evem when I broke up with him he kept saying “you cut off other people (for being toxic) but I never thought it would be me!” I feel like I’ve already put plenty of examples of this, so I’ll just say this points to the fact that at their base motivation they don’t really respect you or care about you. If someone actually cares about you, they’re going to go out of their way to make you comfortable, to care about your opinions and feedback, from the very start)

- Even when it’s over, they still always try to blame you for their bad behavior. (My ex painted himself as an introvert when he was in a relationship. I had always asked him to make -newer, healthier- friends and to make a social effort. Since the beginning. After we broke up he made an effort to go out to social events. After he went out one day he came back and said “I was such a girlfriend guy, I never went out and socialized!” In turn I said you’re not a girlfriend guy you never cared about what I had to say, if you were a girlfriend guy I wouldn’t have had to break up with you for literally never taking me into account. So that ended that.)

- When it’s over the relief hits you in waves (I didn’t even realize how much I was doing to cope with the hostility and boredom of the relationship until it was over. I stopped overeating, I actually lost my appetite for days. I went from taking edibles every week to not even craving the ones I had. I wasn’t the most indulgent but I was shocked by how immediately I was fine with going cold turkey. My time with myself became even more peaceful. Even before I moved out, I was more creative and productive. I felt the beauty and the optimism of all the little moments deep in my spirit and my glow was brighter than ever before. My ex kept turning to me in despair and asking “how can you be so okay with this??” I answered him indifferently because he wasn’t worth entertaining. But obviously my spirit had been restored, I wasn’t wasting love on anyone that didn’t deserve it anymore. My energy was finally all mine. And I had faith in God that everything would be alright. And it was.)

You slowly but surely realize that you were formed to be a victim of a narcissistic/antagonistic person due to being raised by narcissistic parents and in an environment full of enabling emotionally and verbally abusive behavior. When we met I was so vulnerable. I had moved to a new city on my own, I was in a financially precarious place. The city was The Worst for Black people (tm). I was so desperate for an ally, I caught an energy vampire instead. I’ve healed and learned a lot from this. To be much more deliberate about who I let into my life. To be unafraid of purging and moving on when someone shows you they’re incapable of growth. To not accept crumbs of affection and appreciation. To pour my love into myself first before I let anyone else do the same. So I write all this to say, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that some people are so corrupted to the core that they’d rather destroy you than heal themselves. So… forgive yourself for this experience. Forgive yourself for being a person that just loves and cares about others. That believes in cultivating a world full of warmth and compassion. Don’t let one (or a dozen- ugh the people I’ve had to move on from oml) toxic ass person ruin you and your compassion. I had to forgive myself for believing in a lot of disappointing, inept, bad people. But I won’t stop being kind and compassionate because of those losers. I’ll continue to shine my light on those who need it whenever I’m supposed to. I mean I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to rely on anyone again without fear of their self interest but one step at a time, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Anyway, wish me luck on this fresh start. Buy a reading if you want to support me. But yeah, thanks for reading y’all.

#astro observations #astroblr #astro notes #astro community #astrology #lilith astrology #healing #karma #life lessons #false soulmate

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ceaselesswatchersspecialboy · 2 months

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Decided I kind of wanted to gush about this on tumblr a little, because it’s important to me I think, and maybe others will be in a similar boat!

Being in an MLM relationship, I often find that for me, representation that I see myself in, especially in the media I personally enjoy, is astoundingly hard to find. I imagine that’s more of just a personal thing, and I’m sure there’s a lot of MLM representation others relate too, which I’m glad, but for me it’s always been a bit of a struggle.

I think Jon and Martin are one of the first times I’ve ever had a canon MLM relationship that just clicked, that felt real to me in a way others hadn’t before. I think it may have something to do with the fact both are deeply traumatised characters who are still allowed to be in a relationship, which sounds weird, but I’ve had a lot of awful fandom experiences regarding traumatised characters and romantic relationships, and the idea it’s inherently wrong unless they’ve been through intensive therapy first, or they’ve magically recovered and solved all their issue, and so to have a relationship between two men that acknowledges their trauma, shows them trying to work through it together, while still having arguments, acting irrationally, and snapping at each other unprompted etc… it doesn’t hide the messy side of PTSD/C-PTSD, I guess is the way to put it, and that’s so important to have!

They are their own people with their own problems and beliefs and so sometimes they clash — they aren’t a unit all the time. I imagine, had the Eyepocalypse not have happened, they would have had more time to tackle their boundaries and respective traumas and responses in a better environment, leading to a healthier relationship, but, unfortunately, they didn’t have that, and so we get all the raw stuff, and I’m genuinely glad we do. These characters clicked with me more for it, as did their relationship.

Realistically, Martin and Jon’s relationship is far too complex to truly cover In a post that’s just about gushing, but seriously, it’s insane how well written and grounded their responses are, and for that, I see myself in them and their struggles.

There’s also the element of Jon being Bi-Ace like myself, which isn’t an identity I expected I be represented in such a popular series, let alone in a character I loved. It just makes me happy, honestly.

I don’t get this feeling a lot, and I think it’s a show of how important varied representation is. Sometimes stuff is messy, and it isn’t always perfect, and you have to work through that, and maybe it’ll be okay in the end.

#TMA #the magnus archives #jonmartin #teaholding #eyestea #jonathan sims #martin Blackwood #getting really emotional over the queer dudes with problems tonight #also Martin as a character is very much me fr so that may be also why it hits

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herejusttosufferalong · 2 months

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Disclaimer before reading below: I know next to nothing about A. I don’t follow L, N, or A on socials because it’s not my thing. However, I pay attention to what both ‘teams’ as you will put out into the world and have my own intuition and observations. I wish nothing negative on her and if she and L are happy, that’s great. And ‘fans’ who post negative stuff on any of their socials need to get some therapy. Kindness is so important. These are human beings, not objects.

(Part one because I’m wordy as f.)

Let me start by saying I don’t really pay attention to celebrities but I adore L & N as humans. At the end of the day I think both are good people at their core. So I’ve been kind of observing all the activity going on from the background. I enjoyed seeing all the takes on this blog, and how you try to keep it civil. I’m breaking my silence to give some opinions, & share some funny perspectives from my brother, who is L’s age. I showed him the pap photos and some photos of subtle stares/etc between L & N, and photos of N & J for context.

Pap photos:

Brother: It just looks like he’s leading her through the crowd. Brother (And sister who chimed in seeing the handhold): that’s not even a handhold. You just told me she’s trying to be an influencer? That’s all I need to know. NEXT.

Me: Well, she is pretty and a talented dancer…

Brother: So is every other girl that age on TT. She’s just going to be drama and he’s probably trying to figure out being a man since he just got fitter. Who cares?

N & L photos:

Brother: Well of course there’s going to be something there if they are working together that long. Brother (seeing all the lip touching): Well, she (N) is built like a snickers bar and he wants her to sit on his face, that’s all.

Me: *Trying to be a good sister and be like “Inappropriate language!” But also 😱😂😂😂💀☠️🪦

Part two will just be my opinion but I hope my brothers uh..frankness makes you chuckle. Apologies on his behalf to N and her mom.🤐😬😬

lmao men are always unfiltered

#this is all opinion

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genderkoolaid · 10 months

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How do you respond to people who try to argue against various gender affirming surgeries with anorexic people wanting liposuction? I tried to point out that theres a lot of gender affirming surgeries for cis people who dont feel feminine/masculine enough, but my sister said that those people need therapy too. I feel that there's a difference between trans people and anorexic people but idk how to put it into words, im scared i accidentally made her more transphobic bc i didnt have arguments :(

Good question! It's important to question and critique our ideas of what separates "good, natural desires which should not be changed" from "bad, unnatural desires which should be changed," and I think sometimes trans people are too quick to reaffirm this binary in our attempts to defend transness.

I would say that the difference here is based in anxieties. Anorexia is born out of anxiety- which is to say, a persist concern over something that triggers strong emotional reactions and which you keep returning to over and over and over without resolution. Dysphoria can and does cause anxiety, but you can be dysphoric without having anxiety over it. You can have dysphoria, find relief, and be satisfied with your body, while there is never any satisfaction point with eating disorders. There is always a feeling of "not enough" because the desire to be skinnier is born out of anxiety over what it means to be fat & fatness' place in society (lesser value, moral weakness, medical abuse, etc.).

Like I said, dysphoria can and does cause anxiety. There are trans people who obsess over their bodies being too masculine/feminine because they are concerned with what it means for them to be too masculine/feminine: it means they aren't real, they are ugly, they're failure. And this is why its important for trans people to sit with our dysphoria and analyze it. If you are constantly worrying about your body being "real" enough, no amount of surgery or HRT will fix that (although it may fix many things).

Now, I am generally against any solution thats like "we should stop Those People from doing x because We know whats best for them!" because autonomy is a vital part of my beliefs, and I think that people rarely ever react well to being banned from doing something Because Mother Knows Best. The real goal with, say, EDs, is to get rid of the artificial desire for thinness by combating fatphobia (ah, if only all the anti-ED campaigns out there did this). The same with plastic surgery: I would much rather we focus on dismantling the system that makes people (esp. perceived women) feel they need to make their bodies fulfill the beauty standard, than saying that plastic surgery is Evil and we should stop anyone from ever getting it, because those little people aren't capable of using their basic right to bodily autonomy correctly. When we ban something, what we really want is to change people's desires. But that requires cultural change, and laws don't create cultural change out of thin air. Its like how yelling at your kids doesn't make them more honest or better people, it just makes them better liars.

Given that trans people exist in every society, potentially going back to the Stone Age, even after we unwork systemic misogyny & homophobia, trans people are still gonna want surgeries. So we should just work on combating those things instead of trying to control people's bodies.

#m.#ask box #ed tw #anorexia tw #also unrelated but smth smth the way that link calls the presumed AMAB person trans #but the presumed AFAB person buried as a man is just. a woman who was likely a warrior. okay

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

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The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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honeytonedhottie · 5 months

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CONFIDENCE⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🛍️

i've reached a point where my confidence genuinely cannot be shaken by anything, like all the shadow work and everything is rly paying off and having confidence makes everything in life so much better so i wanna talk about it 🍭

GAINING CONFIDENCE = GAINING SELF LOVE ;

to begin with, confidence is not gained over night and its something thats built and honed with time. so be patient with yourself! confidence always stems from self love.

self love is the most important thing ever. no matter what u have to know that ur gonna love yourself thru THICK and THIN. ur the only one with u 24/7.

make ur mind a palace, treat ur body like a temple, give urself the tender love and care that u DESERVE 🧁💕

GET COMFY IN UR OWN SKIN ;

i feel like the most confident people are dancers. i feel this way cuz of the way my own confidence SKYROCKETED after i started dancing. i feel like dancing gives u a sense of control over ur own body and its just amazing.

whenever i feel like i need a little boost of confidence or i wanna feel sexy and good in my own skin i DANCE. and i promise that it helps so so much. i dance around in my room all the time and it’s like therapy.

embarrassment does NOT exist, stop making urself feel awkward or embarrassed for making mistakes sometimes, learn to laugh and not take everything so seriously.

MENTAL DIET ;

honestly in my experience, manifesting has played a huge role in my self confidence and my self concept. honestly, self concept work goes hand in hand with self confidence work.

keeping a strict mental diet has made my self concept untouchable so definitely get into that. so SAY UR AFFIRMATIONS, dont EVER bully yourself etc.

SAY NO ;

something about a confident person, they can ADVOCATE for themselves and they know how to say no/im not comfortable with _. practice saying no more and being in control of ur time.

some words that u can add to ur vocabulary to be more confident and advocate for urself properly is "absolutely not" or simply NO. theres so much power in the word NO so make sure to use it more.

THE MUSIC ;

the music that u listen to on a regular day to day basis rly have an impact on ur mind for either better or for worse depending on what ur listening to.

steer clear of music that talks about things like self loathing or self hate and instead go for songs that uplift you. a lot of the time when ppl bring up the relationship between the songs u listen to and ur mindset a misconception that ppl have is that like, u can’t listen to emotional or sad songs and that’s NOT TRUE. u can listen to sad songs and still be a confident, bad bitch.

HONEYS HOT TIPS ;

probably TMI but something that rly helps confidence is when u match ur bras to ur panties (IDEK WHAT IT IS) like the confidence boost is insane. when u look good -> you feel good.

again, embarrassment does NOT exist

no one is above you and no one is beneath you

surround urself with other confident individuals so that they can uplift u and u all can LEARN from each other, cuz the people u surround urself with matters.

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earlgreytea68 · 1 month

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hey egt, i've recently started to apply for jobs to escape a negative work environment and i remembered you were in a really toxic workplace for a few years, just wondering if you have any tips on coping with it, having enough energy to job search at the same time as performing well in an exhausting job, not falling into hopeless despair and give up when you get a rejection, etc. etc.? thank you!

Okay, first of all, I am so, so sorry you're in this position, ugh :-( I know that it's the worst and it's so easy to feel so much despair and that things will never get better, etc., etc. Sometimes I don't think that I coped well with my situation, but other times I think, I made it through so I guess I did pretty well and there is no, like, "good" way of dealing with that situation.

I think also it's important to realize that there are two different sources of stress that are going to collide here with you. The first is the negative work environment, which is obviously a huge source of stress for you. I ended up going to therapy for a little while to help me develop coping mechanisms for that, and if that's an option for you under health insurance and life circumstances, that could help. I got some tips that I still use to this day about how to separate my work from my life. I think the therapist told me that this was my problem, that my work situation was so awful that it was becoming my life situation, and I had to try to maintain separation.

I did this thing where I kept a stress diary for a week and I made a note whenever I felt a surge of stress. We realized that I had a lot of stress around receiving work emails; at the time, it was before the age of smartphones but I had a Blackberry that would buzz whenever I got an email, and my computer would also make a little chime, and it was stressing me out. We speculated what would happen if I took an hour to respond to an email instead of doing it immediately. I'm not a brain surgeon. Nobody was going to die. On an ordinary day, nothing was that urgent. If I were in a meeting for an hour, I would not have thought twice about not responding to the email. So we did this thing where I shut off all the notification sounds and instead I created set times, once an hour or so, to check my email. This helped TREMENDOUSLY. To this day I do not receive work email to my phone and only check it at appointed times, even during a work day when I am working. It helps keep me more productive and helps keep work from taking over my life.

Another thing I started doing was I started scheduling free time the same way I scheduled things for work. Like, I would literally just block off time and be like, "I am not available," as if I had a super-important meeting, but it would just be TV time. This sounds extreme, probably, but I had a job that was working me around the clock. Some days I would leave work after 1 am and be back in before 7. They would work me constantly if I let them. So I had to block off, like, between 8 and 9 pm I could not do a meeting. It took me a little while to realize that you have to take care of yourself, your job is never going to help you do that, so you just have to do that for yourself.

Now the problem with my job was, as is clear, the fact that it was demanding everything of me and then some and I couldn't get away from it (oh, and also, I didn't even like or enjoy what the work entailed in any way). That might not be why your work environment is negative, and so you might need different coping mechanisms to handle it. That's why I said that therapy could help identify exactly what you need to do.

So, the negative work environment is one thing, but then another related but separate source of stress is applying to get a new job. I have never been a person who gets new jobs easily. I don't know why that is. I promise I'm a good worker! Maybe it's hard for everyone to get new jobs and they just all pretend it's easy-peasy, Idk. So I'm here to tell you: Don't be ashamed of all the rejection. I got rejected so, so, so, so, so much omg. I was rejected 87 times before I got a job (I know this because I write a new and unique cover letter for every job application, and I have 88 saved on my computer). So. I put this information out here to let you know that you're not alone and it doesn't say anything about you AT ALL that people don't want to hire you. It's so, so hard not to take that personally but it is never about you. I have been on hiring committees plenty of times in my life and we have never rejected an applicant because we didn't like them. The problem was that somebody else had experience we wanted more, always. So it's not actually about you, basically ever. Please try not to take it personally. It's just that the more jobs you apply for, the more you'll be rejected from. And I'm not saying it ever gets easier, and that I didn't spend lots of time crying and deciding I just couldn't apply to any more jobs because I couldn't handle any more rejection. Because I did. But then I always applied for more. Because.

Because. This is important, I think. This is honestly what kept me going. The only thing that would make my life better was a new job. Like, yes, winning the lottery would have been nice (and I did play the lottery a lot lol). Marrying David Tennant would have been cool (these were David Tennant days in my life). But really I knew I had to find a new job, and I knew no one was going to just magically call me up and offer me a new job (I know this happens to some people, but this is basically the same odds as winning the lottery in my view). I knew I had to keep looking for a job. That was the only thing I could do that made me feel like I had any agency in my own life, you know? Otherwise I felt helpless, except that I knew I was doing everything I could to get out of the situation.

Now applying to jobs is overwhelming, at least in my opinion. When I first started looking, and I had multiple jobs to apply to, I really only applied to one a day, because I found it too overwhelming otherwise. I just find breaking this insurmountable task into a small manageable daily chunk worked for me. Eventually I ran out of jobs to apply to, so I set up job alerts for the kinds of jobs I was looking for, and then I had a separate list in my head of places to look for job listings outside of the alerts. I only let myself look once a week, on Sundays, because in my field nobody was getting hired so fast that once weekly wasn't fine as a timeline, and otherwise it would just eat up my life, the obsessive searching of job boards. Again, I just had to compartmentalize it. I had to make the job search its own thing.

Anyway, I wish you so, so much luck. When I was in the middle of my terrible work situation, I honestly, truly thought I would never get another job. I really did. People would be like, "Oh, don't worry, you'll get one eventually!" and I would smile and say, "Oh, yeah, definitely," but in my heart I thought that was a lie and I never would. I thought I would do that terrible job until I could finally retire. In fact, I used to wish that I could go to sleep one night and wake up and be in my sixties and just have this whole life thing be over. So trust me, I know it's obnoxious for me to be like, "Don't worry, it will get better!" I know it doesn't feel like it ever will. I know you think that's something that only happens to other people, and you'll just be stuck there forever.

I can't convince you otherwise, because I know I could never have convinced myself. But maybe, intellectually, objectively, please read that I made it to the other side and I'm so glad at how much life I've gotten to live and I'm so glad I didn't just sleep through it, it's been wonderful. I can't believe I made it, and I can't believe how long it's been now, and I can't believe how I no longer experience the little remnant shocks of traumatic habits I'd developed that it took me years to get over, I even feel like I've managed to get past those. I truly never believed I'd be this annoying person telling you that it gets better. But I am, I'm here, it's me. I hope it gets better for you so very quickly.

And this is also obnoxious of me to say, but sometimes, like when I'm doing something like this, I think back on that time, and I can remember what it felt like so vividly, and I'm honestly happy that I've never forgotten that, because I do feel like I am grateful every single day for how far I've come, I'm proud of myself every single day for what I've accomplished, for keeping at it and finally getting what I wanted. That is another obnoxious thing to say, but you'll get there. I know you will. I'm rooting for you.

#long post

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miguelswifey04 · 1 year

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not sure if you’d be comfortable with this but could you do miguel x wife with agaraphobia? (fear of places, leaving the house, etc) this is so self indulgent 😭🩷 ty! if not thats oki!

hi hi omg yes ofccc <33

miguel o’hara x wife! reader

miguel and you had known each other for years, and love had blossomed between you in the most unexpected of ways. you were his rock, his anchor, and he was your source of unwavering support and understanding. you had been open and honest about your struggles with agoraphobia right from the start, and miguel had accepted you with love and compassion, never once viewing it as a hindrance to your relationship.

together, you carved out a unique life that revolved around your needs and comfort. miguel understood the challenges you faced every day, the overwhelming anxiety that filled your mind at the thought of leaving the safety of the familiar. he was always there, holding your hand, offering words of encouragement, and providing a safe space in which you could confront your fears.

every day was a quiet battle, but with miguel by your side, you faced each challenge head-on. his calm reassurance and gentle nudges pushed you outside your comfort zone incrementally, giving you the strength to take small steps towards conquering your agoraphobia.

in the safety of your home, miguel created a sanctuary for you. he filled the space with warmth, comfort, and love, making it a place where you felt safe and protected. together, you transformed ordinary moments into extraordinary ones, cherishing simple pleasures that others might take for granted.

whether it was having quiet dinners together, cuddling on the couch while watching movies, or engaging in deep conversations about life and everything in between, your connection with miguel was a lifeline that kept you grounded.

and although you might not have ventured far beyond the walls of your home, the love and support you shared with miguel transcended physical boundaries. he made it his mission to bring the outside world to you, sharing stories, experiences, and the beauty of nature through photographs and heartfelt descriptions.

but miguel was not content to let your agoraphobia define your life. he understood the importance of seeking professional help and encouraging you to take steps towards overcoming your fears. with his unwavering support and guidance, you began therapy, attending sessions in the comfortable familiarity of your home.

together, you worked on retraining your brain and challenging the anxious thoughts that plagued you. miguel was right there beside you, offering encouragement and reinforcing your progress every step of the way. day by day, your agoraphobia slowly loosened its grip on you, thanks to the unyielding love and support of your husband. with his help, you began taking short walks around the neighborhood, gradually pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone.

miguel celebrated each milestone with you, rejoicing in your victories while reminding you that setbacks were a normal part of the journey. through it all, his love remained constant, and his faith in your ability to overcome your agoraphobia never wavered. in time, you may still face moments of anxiety and fear, but with miguel as your anchor, you know you can weather any storm. his love, support, and unwavering belief in your strength have been the foundation upon which your journey towards healing and liberation is built.

tags 🏷️!! @kairiscorner @emiemiemiii @obi-mom-kenobi @sabcandoit @meeom @astro1bloom

#spiderman atsv #spider man: across the spider verse #miguel o'hara #atsv x reader #🌱 lin writes #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel o’hara x y/n #lin’s asks #♡´･ᴗ･`♡ lin answers #miguel o’hara fluff #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o’hara drabble #miguel x reader #miguel o’hara x fem!reader #miguel o’hara x wife!reader

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topazadine · 6 days

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Writing Research Notes: Horses

I have complained before about fantasy writers (and others) using horses without really knowing anything about them, so I'd like to share some basic Horse Facts. These aren't things about horse physiology, because you probably don't need that for your specific story, but things that you can add into your story for verisimilitude.

I'm not a horse trainer or Horse Expert, just someone who loves horses and rides on a regular basis. This is a casual guide to help give you some inspiration (and know what to look up for more information.)

So, what will we discuss in this embarrassingly long post? This.

General horse knowledge

Approaching and sanitizing Horse

Tack, the Horse Accessory Kit

Putting the tack on Horse

Getting on Horse (second best part!)

Riding Horse (best part!)

Being nice to Horse (most important!!)

General Horse Knowledge

Horses are generally classified as hotblood, warmblood or coldblood.

Of course, being mammals, they are all actually warm-blooded. This is more about temperament and size.

Hotblooded horses are lighter, bred for speed and maneuverability. Thoroughbreds and Arabian horses are hotbloods. They're known for being a bit more temperamental, but they are also very fast and responsive.

Coldblood horses are larger, stockier, and more even-tempered. This includes draft horses like Percherons, Gypsy Vanners, and Clydesdales.

Note that a big horse doesn't necessarily mean they're a good war horse, because war horses need to be fast and light. Draft horses are meant to pull, not carry. In a military series, you can use them as cannon horses or cart horses.

Warmblood are crossbreeds of hotblood and coldblood, giving them a good temperament but also relatively good speed. They're often used for hunting, dressage, and showjumping: disciplines that require both maneuverability and a strong working relationship between horse and rider. Quarter Horses, Tennessee Walking Horses, and Irish Sport Horses are warmbloods.

Horses are herd animals and need friends.

Having a singular horse all by themselves is going to cause them distress and lead to mental problems. This is why people who only own one horse often stable them so that they can get social stimulation and professional care.

Like humans, horses have buddies, acquaintances, and enemies.

There is often a pecking order in a herd, with a leader and followers. Horses may make friends, break up with them, reconcile, etc, just like people do.

And horses, of course, have people they like more than others. To get a horse to like you, be gentle and mindful of their boundaries, pay attention to their feelings, groom them, and speak in a soft friendly voice.

Horses aren't mindless animals: they think, feel, and strategize.

They're actually very sensitive and empathetic animals who can get jealous, have their feelings hurt, or need a little bit of TLC on a hard day. And yes, they can scheme.

Similar to dogs, horses are a bit like toddlers: they need firm but compassionate guidance.

This is why you need to think both for yourself and the horse when riding, keeping your mind clear and focused on your goals. Horses can notice when you're not paying attention and they will do their own thing.

Therapy horses are chosen for both their good nature and their sensitivity to human emotions. They will notice when the rider is getting upset or losing focus, and they will stop what they are doing until the rider is back in the right mindset.

They should get as much outside time as possible.

Horses will come to accept and even like their stalls because it's a safe, quiet space for them, but they should be allowed free time outside as much as possible.

It's important to make sure that their pasture is clean, free of dangerous plants or pesticides, and safe from tripping hazards (horse legs are very delicate).

Make sure they are not gorging themselves on grass, though, as this can cause colic. Horses cannot throw up: they've got a one-way digestive system. Intestinal blockages are a medical emergency.

Horses do like working with nice humans.

This isn't cope, I promise. Just like dogs, they have been bred over thousands of years to look to humans for guidance and to see us as caretakers.

Horses who are treated well like having a job, just like dogs who are treated well will like training sessions. Jobs offer them mental stimulation, offer them praise and rewards, and keep them busy so they're not bored.

You can see this in happy horses. The therapy horse I use, Truly, used to be a jumper and hunter before she came to the therapeutic stable, and she gets really excited if she sees vaults because she loves doing that! She gears up for the trot; you can feel it in her stride. She's ready and wants to go.

But, this implies that you're treating your horses well, praising them regularly, and bonding with them outside of sessions.

Horses that are being mistreated will balk at work because they associate it with pain and fear. Horses that are treated well will happily come out of their stall, ears forward and eyes bright, because they associate work with fun and stimulation.

Approaching and Sanitizing Horse

Horses have a blind spot in front of them and directly behind them.

Unlike humans, their eyes are on the sides of their head because they are prey animals. This means approaching a horse directly from the front or directly behind them may make them spook - and, if you are by their butt, kick you.

Generally, younger riders are taught never to pass behind a horse for safety reasons, so you go around them in a wide circle or duck under their neck. You can also walk behind them if you are out of kicking distance (about 3-4 feet) or right up against them so they can't get their leg up to kick you.

When tacking up or grooming, you should keep a hand on the horse as you move.

This lets the horse know where you are if you are in their blind spot and is especially important if you are around their butt so they don't spook and wonder where you went.

With grooming, you go with the curry comb and hold the bristle brush where you intend to go next so they know what to expect.

Grooming improves circulation and is a good bonding activity.

You use a curry comb, which is a rubber comb with little nubs, and then a brush. The curry comb is moved around in a circular motion to lift dirt and shedding hair, then the brush is angled with the grain of the hair to sweep it away.

Don't use a curry comb on a horse's face, legs, or stomach, which are sensitive areas. If you do want to use a curry comb in these areas because they are super dirty, be VERY gentle and light.

Horses generally like to be groomed because they do this to each other in the wild. It's a good way to make a horse like you.

Picking a horse's hooves, and having regular farrier checks, are crucial for their health.

Like human fingernails, horse hooves grow continuously; they're made from the same material as our hair and nails, keratin. They have a V-shaped "frog" in the middle of the underside of their hoof that is sensitive, but the rest of it isn't very sensitive unless you, like, stab it.

Farriers will file down a horse's feet so they are even, and they will also apply horseshoes if necessary (not all horses wear shoes). You can't just put any old horseshoe on a horse: it has to be fitted to their particular foot. This is a specialized job that not everyone can do, so if your character is not a farrier, they're not going to apply horseshoes themselves.

Cleaning a horse's hoof involves a hoof pick.

When picking a horse's hooves, you take an angled piece of metal called a hoof pick and dig out any dirt or manure or whatever has gotten stuck around the frog, then brush it out with a small brush. If they wear horseshoes, you also need to make sure you get the crevices underneath the shoe.

Generally, we pick feet both before and after riding.

Horses need to be trained to give you their leg. This usually means leaning your body weight into their shoulder, sliding your hand down their leg, and squeezing at the soft indent right above the hoof. You might also need to say "pick it up" or whatever command they've been taught to use.

It's a little scary for a horse to be off-balance like that; how would you feel if someone made you stand on one leg while they clipped your toenails? Be mindful that they may get nervous or put their foot down before you're ready. If this happens, just try again until their feet are clean.

Keep your feet and hands out of the way of the horse's hoof!

Pay attention to where your feet are in conjunction with the horse's hoof so they don't slam their hoof down on your toes. Horses may not even realize they stepped on you because they don't have a lot of sensitivity down there.

Never curl your fingers around the horse's hoof; that's a surefire way to break your hand. Hold it like you're cradling a baby's head.

Do not wear steel-toed shoes in a stable.

It's a common misconception that you should wear work boots or steel-toed shoes; after all, big horse very strong very heavy smash on foot!

Yeah, but a furry hydraulic press will crunch that steel right into your damn foot, and then you have guillotined all your toes.

Wear special riding boots instead. These don't have the ridges that hiking shoes or tennis shoes have, so they won't get caught on the stirrup. Cheap short ones cost like $40 and will last you a few good years. No need to go whole-hog on the long dressage boots if you're a casual rider.

Horses are usually taught to be groomed, tacked up, and mounted from one side.

This may not apply to therapy horses, who are trained to accept whatever way is easiest for the rider.

For dressage horses, they are taught to be groomed, tacked up, and mounted from the left. You should stand on the horse's left side when leading them. You'll dismount from the right.

Tack: The Stuff That Goes on Horse

No matter your discipline, you'll have these general things:

Halter. This is for leading the horse around before you tack them up. Generally, you will tie up the horse to cross-ties while you're grooming and tacking them. It is removed right before you put on the bridle.

Saddle blanket/pad. Western uses saddle blankets, but with English, you'll use a pad. Sometimes, with older horses or those that need a bit more comfort, you will have a blanket and a pad. This goes on before the saddle.

Saddle. Western saddles are very big, made for riding long distances. They are made mostly of leather, including the stirrups, which are attached directly to the saddle. English saddles are much smaller and lighter, and they have more removable parts. I won't get into all the specifics of them because it's probably irrelevant to your story.

There are also more specialized saddles, like jockey saddles.

Girth. Old-school Western saddles have cinches that you tie with the same knot you use for a necktie, but modern ones that detachable girths just like English saddles. They have buckles on both sides. One side will have leather straps; this is the one you put on first, from the left. The other side has elastic so it's a bit stretchier. This goes on the right side.

Bridle. How you control horse. Goes over the face and you hold onto the reins. This is put on last, right after you remove the halter. Put the reins over the horse's neck so you have something to hold onto after you remove the halter!

Bit. This is a metal bar that goes in the horse's mouth, over the tongue. Snaffle bits are the most common; they are made of two parts that meet in the middle. They aren't as uncomfortable for horses as other types. Some people are moving away from bits entirely and using bitless bridles.

Putting Tack on Horse

English stirrups are "run up" when tacking up and leading a horse.

The metal stirrups can bang against things and hurt the horse if they are not pulled up against the saddle by running them up the leather strap they hung from. You'll then tuck the excess strap into the stirrup to hold them in place.

Stirrups can be adjusted with a buckle hidden under the saddle seat. You'll run them up, pull the buckle down to a comfortable height, and then adjust as necessary. Then pull the stirrup down to the bottom, put your hand against the seat, and lift the stirrup up to run along your arm. It should brush against your armpit for most people.

Most dressage stirrups have numbered holes so you can remember what your height is.

Western saddles have leather stirrups that may or may not be detachable or adjustable.

Never tie a horse's reins to anything.

Don't listen to old Western movies that show this. If the horse spooks and they are tied up, they could rip the bit out of their mouth and really hurt themselves.

Horses have bars in their mouth - a blank space with no teeth. This is where the bit sits.

To get a horse to accept a bit, you can stick your thumb into this blank spot to make them open their mouth, just as you can do with dogs.

You then pull the bit up over their front teeth and settle it in there so it's comfortable.

There should be a small bit of pull you can see from the wrinkles around their mouth, but it shouldn't be squeezing them to death. Gentle pressure, happy horse.

Tighten the girth (the strap around their tummy) right before you get on.

Horses like to "bloat," meaning they suck in a bunch of air when you're putting the girth on, then relax so that the girth is loose. You don't want this, because then you can slide off. So put it on loosely at first, then put it up a few slots once you're about to get on.

Don't rachet it up to the highest possible setting you can reach, and don't yank on it, because this hurts the horse. Gently pull it up until it's tight enough to hold on, but not so much that it becomes a corset. You should be able to slide three fingers between the girth and the horse's stomach.

Getting On Horse

Lead the horse to where you want to go by bringing the reins over their head and holding them under the chin.

Do not use a death grip! You don't need to. Loose and happy. Keep the excess in your other hand so it's not a tripping hazard.

Then, of course, put the reins back over their head when you're ready to get on.

Mounting blocks are convenient and safer for the horse.

These are kind of like step stools, and they get you closer to the horse's back. Mounting from the ground puts a lot of pressure on the horse's back and should only be used sparingly.

The procedure is like so for English:

Gather the reins in your left hand, which should be placed near the front of the saddle.

Put your right hand near the back of the saddle for balance.

Put your left foot in the stirrup.

Swing your right leg over.

Settle your right foot in the stirrup.

Don't jump up; you might fall the hell over, lmao. Gentle easy swing.

The stirrup sits on the ball of your feet, with the heel pointing down.

This is true for both Western and dressage. You want it on the balls of your feet so you have leverage and can pivot your ankle to lightly tap the horse on the side, and you want your heel down to help maintain your balance.

A lot of riding boots, including cowboy boots, will have stitching that runs across the top of the foot. You can align this with the stirrup so you know that you don't have your foot too far back in the stirrup.

Your leg is slightly bent when in the saddle.

You do not have your legs straight out, because then you don't have leverage and can't maintain balance.

My instructor says it should feel like you're kneeling, and then when you post (rise out of the saddle during the trot or canter), you should feel like you're coming out of a squat. You're not springing all the way out of the saddle and standing up, because then you will fall over.

Your leg should stay as still as possible, with your heels pointing down to the ground. You shouldn't move them up or forward when you're trotting, a common beginner mistake.

When training in a ring, you don't have a right leg and left leg: you have an "outside" leg and "inside" leg.

Outside leg is the one closest to the wall (or fence), and inside leg is the leg closest to the middle of the ring. This keeps you from getting confused when you change directions.

Horses also have an outside leg and inside leg that you use to determine when to post or perform other maneuvers.

Horses need to be trained to go both clockwise and counterclockwise.

This helps them maintain balanced muscle tone on both sides of the body; otherwise, it's like doing leg exercises with only one leg. When getting a lesson, your instructor will ask you to change directions once you've done a certain exercise so that you can try it the other way, too.

Actually Riding Horse

You shouldn't yank on the reins like you're in a tug-of-war.

This can really hurt the horse and, paradoxically, make them more disobedient. It's like someone put their fingers in your mouth and then stretched your lips as far back as possible.

Keep your body loose.

Your horse is listening to your body language and will feel when you're tense. Every little movement means something to the horse. If you're tight, they think they should be nervous too.

Stay calm, upright, and loose. Legs slightly bent, elbows flexible, hands in line with the sides of the horse's neck and a bit above the front of the saddle.

Squeezing or tapping the horse is called impulsion.

It should be used lightly and with just enough pressure to get their attention. Don't kick the horse with all your might. The more movement you need from the horse, the more intense your impulsion will be.

Don't squeeze with your knees.

Pressure on the horse comes from the thighs and calves, not the knees. Your knees are there to bend.

Yes, your inner thighs will be super duper sore when you're done. It gets better though, prommie.

In dressage, you post at the trot in rhythm with the horse.

This reduces pressure on their back so you're not banging on their spine with each hootbeat. You post when their outside shoulder comes forward and lightly land back in the saddle when their inside shoulder rises: not sitting all the way down, just crouching a bit lower.

When you want the horse to walk again, you will sit down and pull (gently!!) back on the reins. The added pressure makes them not want to trot anymore because it would hurt them when you bump around on their back.

Being Nice to Horse (so Horse Is Nice to You)

Respect a horse's personal space and power.

They are big strong animals that can break your spine if they buck you, or crush your foot, or give you brain damage if they kick you in the head. Healthy respect (not fear) is crucial.

If a horse is pissed off, leave them alone. If they're scared, treat them kindly and speak soothingly. If they're not doing what you want, find a way to redirect them instead of screaming at them and making them more anxious.

And remember that they are prey animals despite their size and power! They may get nervous about things that you wouldn't even consider. Truly, the horse I ride on the regular, gets freaked out by jackets hanging over fence posts and barking dogs.

That's okay and natural; I just have to reassure her that she's going to be alright. You are the leader and caretaker of the horse, making them feel confident.

Training tools like whips, crops, or spurs should be used sparingly.

Any trainer who tells a beginner to use spurs as soon as possible is an asshole who doesn't actually know how to train horses. They don't know how to teach riders to control their body pressure, so they go right to the aversives.

I left a stable because the trainer demanded I buy spurs after like two lessons; my current stable doesn't use these at all, ever.

You should be able to control the horse with your hands and feet without these tools before adding them, and they should always be used as gently as possible: a slight tap with the spurs or crop, not beating the horse with a crop or digging your spurs into their sides. Horses are very sensitive animals and will respond well to a light kick with your heels if they are properly trained.

I've developed such a good rapport with the therapy horse I use (and she's such a good girl) that she can tell when I want to her trot. I start working her up to her "party walk" as my instructor calls it, and then click my tongue, and she's off. No kicking necessary.

Reward, Don't Punish

Same as when training dogs. Don't yell at them and say "no!! bad horse!!" Instead, offer a small correction, like checking the reins, or redirect them.

Do not hit or kick horses when they don't do what you want. They are trained that tap means go; you're going to make them gallop instead of stop.

Give them a pat on the neck and say "good horse!" when they do a good job. You can also talk to the horse while you're grooming and riding, offering them compliments and assurance.

Again, horses look to riders as leaders. They want to know the're performing correctly; if you've built up a good relationship, they want to make you happy and perform well.

Most of the time, horses are not trying to make you mad. You're just miscommunicating with them and need to figure out how to make your commands clearer.

Abusive training tactics are counterintuitive in the long run.

This makes for a nervous, flighty, disobedient, and anxious horse who may become dangerous. They're 1,200 pound animals, and if they don't like what you're doing, they will kick, buck, or bite.

Kicking, hitting, excessive use of spurs or crops, and screaming at horses doesn't make your horse respect you: it makes them fear you. You want your horse to be excited to work with you, to look forward to your training sessions, and to have fun.

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