#it's nice to remember the spectrum exists. always exists. even though the system really wants it to be binary it never is

[subsystems]

10.2.23

Disclaimer: This is my own musings about plurality. I talk about my personal experience with unification (final fusion) too. Don't read if that upsets you for some reason.

Something I haven't really talked about is my relationship with the idea of plurality. I saw someone talking about how they feel simultaneously plural and not plural, and I find that really relatable.

I used to despise being called plural. It brought me so much shame. Made me feel like this one single symptom of my disability was being cherrypicked and pinned onto me as a label. I felt like my vast and varied experience with DID was minimized for something much more palatable and "fun" to others. It was almost like the full DID was being pushed aside. Like being told "yes, you should continue to hide that and you should continue to be ashamed of it."

I also felt like plurality still applied to me, though. Yes, the blanket definition of plurality does fit me. I am a person who has multiple parts, a plurality of perspectives, I am "more than one." That fits...but that's not all?

I think another thing is that, when I got diagnosed, I didn't even feel plural even though I knew the term technically fit me. I hardly ever felt a presence of parts even though they were there. We hardly talked, hardly wanted to acknowledge each other, even though the evidence was there. For me, it was like being forcibly dragged in and out of existence. Someone else would replace me but I wouldn't know that, wouldn't remember. So, what do you mean that there are systems who never feel lonely or out of control because they're always co-conscious, voluntarily switching, and chatting inside? What do you mean that's even possible? Was I the only one living my own life in slivers and pieces? Was I the only one experiencing the unbearable loneliness that is my DID?

Yeah, I am "more than one" but...

It was complicated. There's probably old posts on my blog where I talk about how I'm not plural even though I have DID. And probably other posts where I'm calling myself plural as if my teeth are clenched. Like it's painful but necessary.

Sometimes I revisit those old feelings, but for the most part I feel at peace with the concept of plurality now. As a young trauma survivor, it was hard to separate the concept itself from the online culture surrounding it. But, ultimately, the way other people experience their plurality doesn't invalidate me. The concept itself doesn't minimize or shame me. It's just a word for an experience, in the same way that dissociation and flashbacks are words for experiences. The way these things are treated and talked about are ripe for criticism, not the experiences themselves. It's nice to have words for them.

And there's no universal way of "being more than one" because it ranges on a spectrum of experiences. Much in the same way dissociation can be mild or extreme, be it brought on by trauma, mental disorders, religious practices, drugs, or other things. Who fucking cares.

But when I think about it...when did I start actually feeling plural despite always fitting the concept? Out of anything, I think unification (final fusion) was actually what helped me finally feel my own plurality. Isn't that interesting?

Unification was when we finally felt each other. I feel the entire multitude because I am it. We're all together, all at once, at all moments. We're constantly in communication. There's no blocks, no separations, no barriers. I'm all of us and we're all of me: a big bundle of parts, connected together like a constellation.

That feels more like plurality than anything I ever felt before.

[mallowstep]

For the love of god, please consider renaming some cats, I've seen names like

"One-Eye, Halftail, Oddfoot, FLIPCLAW (what kind of prefix is 'Flip'?) Twigbranch, Clawface etc. Don't get me started on those atrocious SkyClan names with KITTYPET PREFIXES

Harrybrook, Snookthorn, Rileypool

Like tf?

so i'm going to start with saying! as a general rule, i love these names. i will address them each in turn, but i don't have a problem with warriors having "bad names," i have a problem with names that don't make sense given their context.

it does not make sense for blackfoot to be named blackkit, when he's mostly white. (and, as a colorpoint cat, i assume, would be born entirely white.) etc.

but i have no problem with bellaleaf, because well, yeah! makes sense to me.

after all, leaf was named leafdapple, why shouldn't bella be named bellaleaf.

i'm going to discuss each name you brought up in turn, and then, under the cut, i'm going to ramble about naming philosphies.

one-eye: i'm fine with this. i don't mind cats being named after their disabilities, not when it's an established part of warriors culture. (even if it doesn't happen anymore because people would be pissed about it.) i don't know if i think it's right, or if i think cats would have a problem with it, but i think it's good. i'd like to think most cats wouldn't have a problem with it, though. that said, for one-eye in particular, her name was already white-eye, so it feels redundant. food for thought, i suppose.

halftail: i'm not okay with this, because he lost...half his tail? trust me, as someone who had a cat with half a tail, you don't notice it. doesn't make sense. he can keep sparrowpelt, altho tbh i almost always forget about him.

oddfoot: oops i forget him initially! i actually assumed he was named odd because of numbers or something, but apparently it’s a deadfoot situation. we don’t know his kit name, so i’ll assume he was named as either an apprentice or a warrior to fit. it wouldn’t make sense for him to just have the prefix odd, and i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t. if he did, however, i would have a problem with it because that makes his name a compound name, not because his leader renamed him.

flipclaw: i don't have a problem with it. what kind of name is flipkit? the kind of name a mother would give who looks a lot like the cat who traumatized her, i think. more importantly, i think it's cute! doesn't bother me. would i name an oc flipkit? probably not, but that's just me.

twigbranch: oh no i love her name. i love it! it's so cute. it means something, too! it has meaning. nope. no one is taking twigbranch away from me. i love it.

clawface: mixed. i don't really have a problem with a cat being named clawkit, but it feels...violent. shrug. i don't like it, but like, i also don't like sandynose.

and i won't directly address skyclan because uh i already stated my thoughts on them.

skyclan in particular, tho, it actually makes a lot of sense for their names to be like that. there is no reason to apply any clan norms to skyclan names.

i really hope they keep their names, too. tradition and legacy of names is important to them (pebbleshine and violetshine for the most direct example, but it's everywhere), and i want that to stay. i love that leafstar named her kit harrykit. never change skyclan.

as always, i want to say that i do not have a problem with anyone's methodology of naming cats. i do not care. i support every single name in existence (barring certain combinations of color and "-face," and anything in that vein), and i do not want to come across as telling you what you should do.

that includes you, anon! i do not think you should listen to me when i say i like these names. i think you should rename them whatever you want. (i strongly suggest reconsidering skyclan renames, tho. there's established reasons in canon for them to have those names, and i think it's a cool cultural thing worth exploring. i keep meaning to write a funny lil one-shot about it.)

but you know! if you want to rename them, go for it! i support you!

that said, here is what i think (and i am not an authority on this in any way, shape, or form) about names:

i've written extensively about naming traditions in the clans. if you want to read that, "names. leaders. meaning" and "names part two" are where i recommend you look. (note: first link is to my main, before i migrated warriors content here.)

i'm not going to go over any of that in detail, because well, i'd rather talk about something new?

anyway, i don't think there's a reason to rename the vast majority of cats. i have very, very, few rules. heck, in ashes, i even had squilf come out and say that there's not even a problem with cats sharing a prefix.

the two cats i have renamed are yellowstorm and runningcloud, both for very specific reasons: -fang is a suffix that only makes sense if you're a warrior, and yellowfang names runningpaw runningnose, but in this au, sagewhisker names him, and she doesn't seem like the type to give that kind of name.

in yellowfang's secret, which i do generally treat as canon, yellowfang explains runningnose's name. i don't have a problem with her giving that name to him in the slightest. i just don't think sagewhisker would, and that overrode my general conservative approach to cat names.

but i do think, to an extent, cats are named for the world around them. i explored this in "without warning," where cats can be named after all sorts of strange things (elevator is my favourite), because well, they don't know what strange names are and are not.

so, for example, if there was a kit named, say, chaffinchkit, i would probably rename them, because i've set my warriors in the pnw, and there are no chaffinches in america.

i would just name the kit finchkit, because really, a chaffinch just a specific type of finch anyway.

i also refuse to name a kit maggotkit. there are probably other canonical prefixes in this nature that i refuse, but maggot is the big one that comes to mind.

but i don't care that ferns are green and cats aren't green. maybe it's a name passed down through the generations, one they don't even remember the origin of, but now, it is a thunderclan name.

or maybe, it is given to a riverclan cat simply because their mother thinks ferns are nice and soft.

none of that matters to me, because i personally find limiting name to appearance is incredibly boring, and gives up a really nice chance to worldbuild.

in "fair is the night," ivypool and tigerheart have a brief conversation exploring this.

"ThunderClan is different," he says. "You don't use names in the same way. You don't know the Ivy before you. But ShadowClan isn't like that. Dawnpelt knows Dawncloud and Flametail knows Flamefur, but...I have Tigerstar." "That seems ineffective," Ivypool says. "You can get more mileage out of your names. Here, Ivy is for grey kits, right? But wiry ones. We need strong roots. And Dove is for grey kits, or white ones, but its for the ones who are born soft."

they go on, but i would never pass up an opportunity to explore that type of thing. (and yes i see the typo)

similarly, i like the renaming system. i am like, this close to saying i love it.

the only reason i don't make brightheart lostface in everything i write is because it'd be too much of a headache to remind people, and i also don't want to needlessly invite arguments about it.

she keeps her name in "saccharine tithes of love and glory" because it's the kind of au where i can throw small things like that, without worrying, because it fits, tonally.

i wish it didn't set a fic in a very specific tone, but it does, and so, i usually use brightheart.

(also, it's clear that she prefers brightheart in the books, and i respect that. i don't think, in my culture, that makes sense for her, but i've talked about my works as being on a spectrum between canon and me, and most stuff is far enough away from me that i call her brightheart.)

anyway.

part of it is, renaming cats is imposing my rules over canon. i feel that saying "flipclaw should be named something else" asserts that my world is correct, and canon is wrong.

like, tallstar as a name does not make sense in my windclan. a kit can't be tall, and i've established that windclan names are very literal. but i've let it go, because i chose to make that a rule, and now i live with it.

i hope i didn't come off as prescriptivist, here, because i honestly believe if you want to rename cats, you should. i'd even be happy to discuss alternatives.

for clawface, might i suggest scorchface? (the suffix is malleable, frankly, but i don't feel like thinking much about it.) scorch deliberately has negative connotations in shadowclan, so you keep the same effect as clawface. especially since it just kind of sounds ominous.

but as for what i will do, it is not rename cats. i like their names (especially skyclan's), in all their idiosyncratic glory.

[zrw]

Letter 1.0.1

><

I'm writing this to you on Thanksgiving Day, it felt fitting despite us not celebrating it, so instead I will be wishing you a merry Christmas. A tad bit older photo added for depth, immersion and personalization while reading. None of it is scripted in any way, the idea is to make me emotional & it will all be written on the go. Make sure you read it all, and you will never hear from me again. Please do respect my terms also and do not under any circumstances share this letter or it's contents with anybody. Remember, only you will truly understand the context and true meaning of this letter. Quite likely it will change your whole perspective on me, but it won't matter anymore. If you think you're the bigger victim and believe you've had it worse than me & that you've suffered more and dealt with more... well, a bit of a free of charge reality check for you... you're dead wrong. I'm the one who is being tormented maniacally and brutally every other night, to the point where I simply don't know what's real and what's not. Scared of living life, kind of. It's clear to all I made a mistake last year. No weasely lies and fabrications in this letter, this is the Me you've longed to finally see. Anxiety through the roof, among other things/issues. I'm deeply sorry, Annie. Bless you & bless me, more importantly. Please tell me you forgive me. Do not dare to share any of the contents of this said letter with anybody, be a grown-up and act like one for once, you live all alone, now try and impress me, it's far too personal, a glimpse of me, and meant for you alone. Only you will understand the context of this letter. You're not exactly the golden carrot of the yield, but this one should be fairly easy to follow - Keep it to yourself, and stay quiet about this, I'm begging you. You're not legally obligated to do anything, this is your life and you make the rules, you're a good and kind gal, you're by no means a bloodthirsty vampire like some of them, and as I made very clear it wouldn't be fruitful & would shortly after turn into a proper clown fiesta, and possibly a meaningless waste of government resources. You wouldn't gain anything at all from this. I was going to say let me know if you need anything, and I'll gladly donate a fair sum to your PayPal, and it kind of made me realize that is something that would be morally and legally wrong of me to do, it wouldn't feel like a donation, it would almost feel like I'm trying to buy you and win you over, after causing this much pain to your heart, which I deeply regret. (I'll pay for your nsfw future cosplays maybe? Jkjk, leave that avenue to the twonks who'd actually find pleasure in doing that.) I don't donate much anyways online, if I'd donate it'd have to be an actual animal charity, I feel like when people think of charity they instantly think of like some Cancer Foundation or elderly/orphan fund, not that those are not fair causes, it's just that some dying/sick animals really need our support too, and they're just as worthy. After this i'm doing my own thing & staying away from you, promise. I'm a great citizen, mind my own business and never cause trouble. I just needed for my own sake to send something meaningful and pure your way. Everything that you will see here comes from the heart & I will do my best to be as honest as humanly possible. Whenever I begin working on these long 50,000 word essays I always tend to fear that I forget something crucial or run out of time, so let's hope it doesn't happen this time around. The writer usually spends 10 times the time and effort the reader does, so please do sit down, get comfy, and please read all of this letter. This is going on your SC and Tumblr & will be deleted once the timer on my stream deck reaches zero, you have a tendency to take photos and eventually show them to outsiders, this will ensure it's a one-off, and for your eyes only. It is mainly to apologize to you, among other things. To make you realize that in just 3 years time I'll be completely "reformed", as they say. If you must know "breaking the law" to say sorry could be considered as... noble, in most countries at least. Without a doubt in my mind they'd love for us to bury the hatchet and shake hands, but after this "letter" to you I am actually done with you altogether, and you'll not be hearing from me ever again... unless fate says otherwise. Do remember that this and me apologizing to you for being an awful male, this was mostly done so I can live, function and mentally function like a normal human being again, I will get to that later on in the letter, all you should know now is that it was more of a ME thing, and less of a YOU thing, if that makes sense. Needless to say I have 8 VPNs total with unlimited data running on all of my systems including 2 iPads, laptops, and even phones, to ensure that my IP is impossible to find and non-existent. Just a quick pitch, you could've used common sense to figure that one out yourself. Naturally somebody as wealthy as me would be untouchable, at least in the virtual world, where everything is simple and made easy. I am quite clever, yes, yes I am indeed. But I would not use it for evil deeds, deep inside I am a shockingly kind and nice guy. Oh, you were looking for a bad boy? We can talk, my dear, you know full well that I'd be/become anything for you. No candlelit dinners so I can compliment your cheekbones? You have kept your eyes open, and tonight your knowledge of me is getting greater and greater. You could write a book about us. It almost feels like deja-vu, I've been here studying and doing research on you, now I'm giving you the sheer opportunity to do the same. And 4 years after first talking to you online (in 2014), I, I touched your cat's black fluffy tail once, and catbug, she ran right away, it almost looked like she did a tiny leap forward before running. Yes, it was her 100%. I'm a shining star, just waiting to unlock my full potential, it will happen when the right time comes, you can never rush such things. My financial status would only indicate I have great things waiting for me and a brimming bright future ahead of me, should I play all my cards right, I do adore graveyards, but there is no reason at all why I should perish in the next 5-15 years. I can only hope that you're smart enough to not mention any of this to your mom, I realize you two are close, but being a grown-up means you know what to mention to somebody and what is better left unsaid. Wiser to let this one go and keep it to yourself, no need to waste government resources, and do understand that being fortunate and getting me potentially taken to a mental asylum for 3 weeks would not benefit you in the slightest, I've made it very clear that I don't associate myself with social outcasts, and we of course are done for good after this bit, so let's make it count. Being respectful is calling you a lady even though I full well know it's a girl in sheep's clothing I've been dealing with, hard to tame, always needs to have it her way, borderline blunt at times.. how come Annie the girl does not have a feminine soul, a bit odd, perhaps I do rest my case. You certainly are special, as your mom would say, she means you're not like the other girls. You're way different & not necessarily in a good way. Wanted you & Nora for the experience... Do find you both quite boring, even on the dating spectrum, she's the snappy one, you're the calm one. Will surely do better in the future. As far as I go... I'm your little ghost. I'm a spirit, roughly 500 years ago people like me were considered as and called witches, simply since we were ahead of our time. As you know there are good and bad spirits, I would stand somewhere in the middle as a classic inbetweener I've always been, casually swaying towards either or, but ultimately staying put in the middle. Some days I hate you, other days I love you... Yet here I am ending this "letter" to you with the words "I Love You", and perhaps "Muah" on top of that should I feel classy enough, as always, on the cheek, one final time. Do remember that I will always remain near you & overseer your doings, we don't need to interact, in fact it would be silly to think we can't co-exist in eachother's hearts. When you get the strange feeling that you can't find the explanation for, perhaps it's just me, and nothing more. It's been a sheer clown fiesta witnessing the names and things you've called me thus far. What's new, right? At the very least you don't take me for a joke anymore, which is wise of you, since I'm not. The casual 21st century term "stalker" simply insults me. Even somebody with as little intellect as you would know that stalkers are for years, spirits are for lifetime. I'm nothing less than a S-P-I-R-I-T, one with high capability & intellectual intelligence. I've never commented on your idiocy or your weird friends (90% of them are weird), I'm awfully passive and neutral. I've never insulted/talked-down-on the soyboys, e-slags, pre-mature losers, weebs, memers, or entitled punks you interact with every now and then. No point including the 16-21 year old boys and girls in that category, as I understand how these underage and barely of age children follow you, and you see yourself as their "mama" and friend, not strange in the slightest, not the harvest of living inside of a box for the majority of your life, when fantasy is taking over, sis. Those kids are the only community you have left... surely it would be cruel to let them off the hook, you can't let them go, some of them still see you as a role model! ~ I suppose you could say I'm on a whole different level, and people like me tend to not notice people who are "less". But good luck to them, perhaps some day they too will get themselves out of their holes and start moving towards things that actually matter. Speaking of which... God bless Great Britain if you actually end up scoring an actual decently paying job after all your studies. I would donate a fair few braincells to you... If I didn't have such a bright future ahead of me. In a universe where employers and companies actually did background checks on people before hiring, a silly bean like you would never score anything worthwhile. Personal assistant for a single individual would probably be your peak. Back to me... I am a millionaire, as you expected, seeing as how doors just open and close for me and my kind. I never worked even a day for what I have, but the people before me certainly did. Even more wealthy now in fact, as of last year, now that my professor and casual alcoholic of a grandpa is finally under ground, he was respected by many, but his lifestyle choices were hilariously fractured. See? We (are) similar, kind of. Ah, how I hate drinking and alcohol, I literally drink only twice a year and always feel guilty after, I hate people that consume alcohol in the spirit of the party at clubs or live concerts, and those who tend to constantly drown their sorrow and unhappiness into the bottle. I adore a good coffee and tea though. Living a promising life of luxury, hence the 3 years I will take to improve myself, improve my body to the maximum for the sex appeal and quality of life, get your name 'Annie' with a mini thorny rose underneath tattoo'd on my left arm, so I can take you to places and talk to you, enjoy your company & so I would never forget you (not that there is a chance in hell I'd actually ever do, of course, hahaha.), dye my hair pale/pastel color, purple in 2020, letting it heavily fade to soft pink, After that focus on the pastel spectrum of colors, re-do my driver's license, own a 40k car, but have not driven anything in 3-4 years, begin buying land and potentially own more land, farmhouses, households, countryside villas and mansions than some of the more wealthier businessmen in my area; as you can tell "owning" things & writing are two big passions of mine, the latter for expressing myself and influencing others, and so is real estate, country and marketing to an extent, legally change my first name to something sleek such as Jed, Jed Nei... or you know whatever else that feels unique and not-so-common; pick a powerful name that people will remember (and fear, jkjk), basically get my life on the line/on the rails and get a woman who will massage my strong pectorals with oil every Sunday morning only to ensure I will be more than ready to take on the next week. I adore romance, but still feel that death is the most romantic thing out there. Now of course she could cook for me just fine, but i'd actually really want to taste something you've cooked, as long as you do the cooking with just an apron on and absolutely nothing underneath. Oh Annie, unlocking your true potential would be a really easy task for me. You like cherry blossoms, I on the other hand like 400 year old oak trees. However our worlds could of collided & you could of been my sweetheart under the bright sun and moon. Currently own 2 countryside 2 floor homes and plenty of actual land around them, looking to expand in the future of course. Imagine leaving your silly big city life behind. Imagine laying there (on a hill) naked on the grass in the middle of the day, or relaxing in the bikini, depending how confident you are with your own body, and breast size, I also would not be totally satisfied if mine looked so "below average", but god does your bottom/bum make up for it. Loads of flowers that I can gather and give you, or put in your hair, plenty of forests nearby perfect for mushroom picking, hiking or picnics, loads of plants, fruit bushes, ponds, fruit trees, acorn trees ideal for climbing, farmland, greenhouse, ponds big enough for swimming, cyan blue skies large and wide enough for any balloon or kite you may want to play around with. Or if that’s not entirely your cup of tea then we can plan our big vacation to the Canary Islands in Spain, whatever you like, as long as you stay with me forever. You're a sweet creature and I'm certain we could of started something unique & exciting together, but that's all gone now, i'm still certain that I could of loved you right and shown you extreme passion, to go to bed with you and make you feel happy, loved & excited for the next day, our next day together in paradise. This is not a fantasy tale/dream, this could of potentially been our reality, assuming I would accomplish all my goals, and you willing to leave your current life for me. But why dwell on what could of been, I will never feed you fresh strawberries straight from the greenhouse, I will never "own" you, you will never be my girl, my companion, my life's purpose. I see now why I felt so heavily against friendship with you... being your friend considering the things I had planned for us, that would only lead to romance and love, that friendship would be over so quick you could not even call it one. Oh, and, I can be very sensual and passionate at times. And possibly start a IRL vlogging channel on Youtube in 3 years time, just to influence & motivate others and to portray my lifelong journey to greatness with the dozen obstacles I had to face and overcome along the way, making it all even more bittersweet, especially the main final goal, which if you can recall is to become the biggest standalone landowner/businessman in my area. Maybe you'll randomly stumble across the channel one day & wonder what could of been & what you missed out on, not only that but you'd also visually see the beautiful landscape and things I talked about earlier. Oh and I'll definitely purchase at least one or two more expensive cars, driving around with just one specific car all the time, obviously being somebody who clearly is able to afford another one, it feels kind of lame. P.S I've never ever actually been obsessed with you. You were just a girl I liked because of a few key factors/reasons. Plus we seemingly have dozens of things in common.And we have reached the part where I'll try and explain why writing this was needed for me, and my mentality; Are you a demon baby/girl? If not keep reading and don't even think about showing this letter to anybody else. If you are however... Come with me & with the assistance of our genitals let's try and produce a demon child. A bit NSFW, but we're 25 and nobody else is going to see this (Right? Good gal.), so I'd so-so-so take you raw on the floor in every single position imaginable, your front hole would naturally be so loose afterwards that no guy would want to or feel comfortable with doing it with you anymore. White stuff would go in both 'A' and 'V' holes several times to ensure pregnancy is triggered. Jeez, having and making a baby with you would be so unbelievably sexy. Anyways, back on the topic we go, so me and my issues I've been dealing it... I mentioned it at the start & will do it again... If you think you've been affected by this or you've had it worse/suffered more than me... Well think again. Ever since earlier this year I've had horrible anxiety, hearing unnatural beings and things talk to me and gradually hearing their voices around me. I don't think I'm losing my mind or going crazy, but this does all feel very real to me. Always closing my door at night, not even trying to, it just comes naturally to me to do it, much like a habit. I fell in a deep pit, and I'm so sorry to you, I really do apologize, my dear. My darling Annie. now my situation is being abused and i'm being taken advantage of by these demons/ghosts/shades, I'm now shaking for no reason, it's not even cold in here, it's awful. Psst, I'm not a monster. Imagine being too messed up mentally to go to the grocery store/supermarket alone & having to call your mom and tell her to bring you some food and supplies - telling her that the reason for it is that you have a massive headache right now & that you're unable to get out of bed. Yikes, that does sound bad. And to make it even worse, it has happened more than once. I feel like I need a 12-hour nap after sending this letter your way, feel a bit odd all of sudden, please read it all, it's a glimpse of me and my story and life. I can only hope that I will feel better and be able to go back to living my life like a normal human being now that I threw everything out there and apologized to you. I will leave you be now. It's a peek into my life essentially. I really do adore your tight little pale pink p*ssy, and Nora’s all the same, you gals are & stay important to me. Please do respect my terms and do not under any circumstances share this letter or it's contents with anybody. All the best to you and your family. I Love You. Muah. 💞

[morshtalon]

Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei

Possibly part 1 of a series of posts on the whole series, maybe?

So, the first game in the popular MegaTen franchise is, wouldn't you know it, kind of weird. It was actually a video game sequel to a series of two novels starring a sort of villainous protagonist and the (government-mandated to exist ubiquitously through japanese media) high school exchange student as they become indirectly related to the summoning of ancient bad dudes Loki and Set through the magic of 80's computer programming, go into historic japanese landmarks to resurrect shinto goddesses, witness horrific, gruesome, sometimes sexual actions from the demons, go to space, fight using gods that turn into swords, and generally have a good time.

Naturally, considering the, um... Notorious source material, it's only logical that the videogame adaptation would, then, turn the sort of dark, villainous, intelligent programmer guy into a blank slate warrior with no personality, the girl into a standard RPG magic user, and drop them into a big dungeon crawl with almost no plot, nonsensical NPCs and a connection with the novels so tenuous they might as well have just taken some inspiration from it and opted to create a more original IP instead (I dunno, maybe put a "shin" in front of the title or something). Thus is born the antiquated experience that is Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.

While Japanese gamers did at the time have the original version of Dragon Quest - with the sprites that always faced down and the lack of a save system - ushering in a new style of role-playing gameplay into the mainstream, I suppose the mindset of RPG development was still rooted in the design philosophies of the western games from throughout the decade that were distilled into DQ. Games that, like Megami Tensei, typically featured a simplistic first-person view and a party of six characters, following the rough guidelines of the most recent version of D&D, and had generally no plot development, consisting instead of a hardcore, punishing trek through a few 20x20 grid mazes full of traps and gimmicks.

Furthermore, this type of experience, from what I heard, was huge in Japan, so it's no wonder Atlus chose to capitalize on that market instead of streamlining it and risk losing fans of the genre that were looking for an experience similar to what they had witnessed from RPGs so far. Less cynically, it's also entirely possible the developers themselves were huge fans of the first person dungeon crawler and wanted to replicate their positive experiences in a passionate love letter to the genre. Also, for what it's worth, they did add uniqueness in party management and customization, as you surely already know, but we'll get to that later.

I guess we'll never know the true context behind the original MegaTen's creation, but the point is, this is a very old-school game. I don't think it's nearly as brutal as the ones that inspired it, but it is also definitely far from holding your hand. At no point in the game is it entirely obvious exactly where items you're supposed to collect are located, so you mostly have no choice but to comb the entire dungeon yourself until you stumble upon the stuff you need to progress. Furthermore, sometimes the very NPCs that tell you there's even something to look for at all are slightly out of your way, so there's always the mental pressure of maybe having left something behind and having to backtrack and go to all sorts of places trying to find it when you run into the next dead-end.

By itself, this isn't really a bad thing. As an exploration-based dungeon crawl, it's expected that the player will have some agency over what they're doing, and it's refreshing to see a game where you have so much ground to cover, but with hardly any setpiece to spice up the crawling in terms of context, the job of entertaining the player falls squarely upon the gameplay's shoulders.

To that end, the gameplay is definitely more boring than stimulating. This is where I have to admit, I beat the Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei remake version of it. I have played the original, though, and I am aware of the differences between versions. I have also played future games in the franchise with the same issues, so there's no evidence that the original is much different in this regard. Anyway, apart from an intense earlygame where you're at risk of death from a stray Zan spell cast by a gnome if you're unlucky, the rest of the game's fights are uneventful, once you level up enough and have an array of serviceable demons at your side. There's only ever one group of enemy demons per fight. There can be up to eight of them, but all eight are the same type of demon, and the graphics will only show the one until the entire group is dead. It's kind of like every fight is against only one demon but the demon can attack several times and has an erratic, huge HP pool. Furthermore, targeting is completely random for all moves, and you'd think this would add a fake layer of frustration, but the game gives you an auto-battle option. It simply makes the entire party use their regular attack for as many rounds as you want and prevents text from popping up on screen to slow down the monster-slaying, but for the most part, this is more than enough to get you through whatever part of the dungeon you find yourself in, with only the occasional, very rare exceptions of either:

-A demon that has a dangerous ability, therefore making it so that you want to kill them as quickly as possible;

-A boss;

-A battle that you got yourself into without noticing your HP is getting low, so you have to get yourself back to good conditions before proceeding.

It's definitely more of a preparations game than a reactions game. Preparation is fine, but there's never any need for you to deploy clever strategies. The game is ALL about having a good arsenal of choices up your sleeve and, when you do, you're good to go, and then you need to be either very callous or purposefully challenging yourself while playing in order to get into a situation that requires mental resourcefulness and wit. I will admit, I checked some of the mechanical differences between the original and remake versions, and it seems like they reduced the HP of enemies and bosses quite a bit, and generally went to great lengths to streamline the gameplay and make it more in tune with the next few games in the series (as far I could tell from the party itself, Kyuuyaku seems to have taken the inner workings from Megami Tensei II and applied it retroactively to the first game as well to make it more consistent, but I'm not 100% sure). Maybe this means that the original is more nerve-wracking and you need to level up much more, but I doubt it really becomes more strategy-based and oriented towards exploiting the mechanics, like the style future franchise titles would strive to achieve. As far as I can tell, the abilities remain the same, only the stats change, so it's likely more of a formula redesign than any major gameplay departure. If it is though, I apologize, and rectify my statements regarding battle mechanics boredom as far as the original version is concerned.

But hey, regardless of version, the whole demon system is pretty cool. I don't remember the characters doing it much in the books, I believe Nakajima only had Cerberus and that was it, so there's a nice, original expansion of the novels'... mechanics (?) on display here. I don't think the demon conversation, recruitment and fusion systems need any introduction, but I will say that up until Shin Megami Tensei II, the seventh overall game in the franchise, for some odd reason all demons were limited to three abilities/spells (later three spells and a few abilities), so they were not very versatile. Furthermore, magic and abilities generally sucked for the most part in early MegaTen, and in this game, outside of Hanmahan, group healing and the occasional kaja spell, all you really want is a good punching bag to take the heat off of Nakajima and Yumiko.

Also, maybe it's just in the remake, but there are quite a few demons that are exclusive to the player through demon fusion. This begins happening from pretty much the start of the game, making them sort of unique all the way through and making it sort of cool for the player to go around with these demons that you can't see anywhere else and who are usually more powerful than the enemy demons in the area. Still, however, the limited abilities and limited usefulness of said abilities make things a bit boring and makes the demons sort of interchangeable for the most part, especially considering you can't even see them in battle. But hey, in 1987 I'm sure the vast array of options alone would have been pretty impressive and, considering the plethora of real-life inspiration that was put into the demons' designs, it's kind of still impressive today, really.

Enemies do have a few tricks of their own up their sleeve, too, though, and they usually fall into the "early RPG unfairness" spectrum quite nicely, such as being able to cast death spells when the game's programming is such that you get a game over if the 2 (out of 6) human party members die, even if all your demons are still alive (naturally the final boss can use a pretty accurate version of this move), or the loathsome "smiles and laughs" attack that permanently drains an experience level from a human party member if it hits, making you have to work your way back up again without even the mercy of having the enemy that sucked your level give a massive hoard of EXP when defeated. Or the mercy of adjusting the experience table (if you're level 41 and get a level sucked from you, now you're level 40 but you still need enough experience for level 42 to get back to level 41). It's basically a reset button.

The original version also had some major frustration in the fact that there was, like DQ and so many others of its time, no save feature. You had to visit a guy near the start of the game to get a password or use a late game spell from the girl. There was also no auto-mapping feature (though the mapper/mappara spell did exist, in the old MegaTen-style 3x5 grid), so you just had to create maps yourself, I guess, which is kind of like wizardry and bard's tale and such, and kind of interesting. Though, for a game that isn't all that stimulating otherwise, it's good that in the remake you don't also have to go get a sheet of graph paper to keep track of where you've been. I'm torn on whether the original's extra doses of hardcore game design are better or worse than the remake's streamlining, but it seems to me like the hardcoreness, probably caused by memory limitations and such, served more like an arbitrary layer of confusion placed over a game that didn't really have a juicy core, while the remake's alleviation of it brought about the black spots a bit more into the limelight... It's hard to make up my mind.

The more standard things to talk about in a review are usually average-to-enjoyable here. The environment graphics are pretty good for their time in the original version, and the remake has some good stuff in the late-game, but has a tendency to make the ground a fake-looking gradient that feels artificial and standoffish. Demon designs are always a treat in MegaTen and I wouldn't say this game is an exception, but I think the original designs look kind of goofy for the most part, while the remake uses the scaled-down style of SMT II and SMT If... instead of the better-looking, more detailed style of SMT I, so that's somewhat disappointing. The music is alright, nothing special, but it starts with really cheery, upbeat tunes that go against the ambiance, especially in the remake where they added a dark-ish prologue with more fitting, atmospheric music. The sheer length of each individual section of the dungeon means the tracks will start to get repetitive at some point, and they have a repetitive nature on their own, but they're not bad. I like the bass in Valhalla Corridor. I also like the last two areas' music. Bien's track sucks, though.

Either way, it surely isn't a great game. Nor does it have to be one, honestly. It's a 1987, sort of experimental game that toyed around with the concept of a dungeon crawler in a very japanese setting coming from a very risqué source. It has its merits in creativity, sorely marred by technical limitations and overly emphasizing on its subpar dungeon crawling gameplay, extending it to the point where it overstays its welcome quite a bit. The devs were wise in keeping the plot connections to its immediate sequel small (and it is fascinating, how different it is from all others in the franchise) because Megami Tensei 1 doesn't stand the test of time.

But again, such a thing shouldn't be expected from a late eighties, obscure weird little game, and for what it's worth, like I said about Dragon Quest, it served as a base, though in my opinion a rockier one, with which to found gameplay mechanics that would be expanded upon and embellished in future titles. I'd give it a 4 out of 10, perhaps an honorary extra half-point if the original version's gameplay is a tad more stimulating, but really it's hard to even give games like this a score. They're a product of the times, and they appeal to sensibilities of the times. Gamer mentalities, even within the genre, have moved past it, but it stays here as a testament to the growth of the series. Going into it, you're likely very aware of its shortcomings already, and whether you'd like it or not is, I think, even more independent of whatever mess of words I'd be able to string together like this than usual.

[dontstopbereaving]

I don’t have a story

The podcast I co-host got sponsored by a new-wave bra company that champions body positivity and body diversity, and as part of our advertising agreement I had to order a bra from them. I was very interested and excited in this, because bra shopping has more or less been a non-question for me. Blessed with what would probably be a 36AA if such a bra was ever manufactured — I am wide and flat and should have been a swimmer, probably — the adolescent horror and thrill of suddenly having boobs to manage and shop for has never really been on the table. I remember so vividly, the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, staying with an old friend from middle school and hanging out in her bedroom. She was lying on her bed and reading a magazine and said, apropos of nothing, "ugh, don't you hate it when your boobs slide down to your armpits when you're reading?" I nodded, having no idea what she was talking about.

Anyway, this bra company didn't carry a 36AA, but after taking a quiz about what $68 expertly engineered bra would be perfect for me, I ordered whatever they recommended. It arrived wrapped in delicate pink tissue paper, and I took it out and held it up and felt my heart sink. I knew from looking at it that it would look ridiculous on me; trying it on confirmed that. They had a number to call where you could talk to a "fit specialist" and of course I did that, and some nice girl in the Bay Area told me that if that bra didn't fit me, they had a selection of leisurewear bralettes.

But I don't want a bralette, dammit! I am not a tween, and though they aren't much to write home about I do have breasts that must be managed. This company's advertising seems to trumpet the arrival of a "bra for every woman," and even within their progressive spectrum of what that means, I fell on the outside of it. The whole process carried a lot more gravity than I expected.

The bra arrived in the heat of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation firestorm, which had me on edge and moody all week for both the obvious reasons and reasons that I was more confused about articulating, or whether or not I should. The prospect of an attempted rapist and alcoholic being given a post in the highest court in the land is the most harrowing and torturous chapter of the MeToo world we now live in, and the stories from my friend and peers and people I don't know but follow on Twitter started being dropped almost hourly. Most women I know have been raped or sexually assaulted in their lives. The most visible and audible woman's experience right now is that of the victim; those with platforms and followings are being encouraged to share their story in solidarity, in order to shore up the most prominent, contested ones, to create a narrative that yes, this does happen, it happens all the time.

I don't have a rape story, and I don't have an assault story. In the past year, wondering why I don't has led me down a weird guilt spiral that inevitably ends with the re-realization that there's no reason that I don't. There's nothing I did right. It just didn't happen to me. This is disconcerting to me, in the context of a life where I have always felt left out of the things that supposedly comprise the experience of being a woman. It's not just the bra thing, though that's a useful metaphor. I've always felt left out of femininity, I've always had more male friends than female friends, going back to early childhood. Girls tormented me as a child, and as an adolescent, and as an adult; on the whole I have felt the emotional violence of other women more acutely than that of men. And yet, I know the latter exists.

Sometimes it feels like sharing one's own story of assault is the only powerful tool a woman can have against a patriarchy in its violent death throes, which often leaves me feeling useless in our social media-driven dialogue. The stories of sexual violence coming from women both famous and not, while harrowing, has also, to this outsider at least, appeared as a kind of global bonding experience. Which is really important for those who have been victims. But I want there to be a language for women to be advocates for each other that goes beyond "me, too" in its most literal sense. Because I cannot honestly say "me, too," and yet, nearly any woman I've ever been close with enough has told me about that time in college, or that date that went bad, or that time in eighth grade. I believe them, and I believe women I've never met before, not because it's happened to me, too, but because I know how the world works and I believe them.

I want to tell one story that is not a rape story, but it is a Hollywood story, and it's a story about a powerful Hollywood man. This story might not end the way you think it will!

When I was in college, a male classmate of mine wanted to cast a famous actor, let's call him Gary, in his thesis film. His dad had some connections, and I had gamely signed on to be my friend's AD, which meant when he went to a swanky event with the purpose of being introduced to this guy and hopefully turning it into a collaboration, he asked me to come along. I was excited, we were very young and to land this actor for a student film would be a coup; it felt like a bank heist. On the way over we were giddy and silly, "what if Gary says yes? What if he wants to do a feature?" etc etc. It was fun to at least be party to a young white man's Hollywood dreams on the cusp of coming true.

We went to the venue with his father. I expected that at some point my friend's dad would introduce us to Gary, and then let us take the lead and talk about this film my friend wanted to make. But my friend's dad didn't seem to know how to go about it. Maybe he didn't really know Gary at all. Who knows. My friend had also frozen up, and I remember sitting at the bar, my gaze going from this father and son, over to Gary in the corner of the room, who looked all too approachable. "You guys are too scared?" I asked incredulously. "Why don't you go over and charm him with your feminine wiles," my friend said. It was a joke, but of course it wasn't, and I felt like I had a lot to prove, so I went over and introduced myself to Gary.

I don't remember much about our conversation, I remember his eyes on me, and I remember feeling giddy and high with the power of his attention. I should maybe emphasize — Gary is extremely famous. You all know who he is and you probably love him. He has a pretty stellar reputation. I didn't have a particular thing for him, but after that conversation I remember feeling like I understood what real stardom was about. I had "dated" a minor TV star very briefly before that but this was on another level. Still, I was very mission-oriented, and made sure the conversation came back to praising my friend's script, and how awesome the film was going to be. I told him he had to see the film he had worked on with his dad, that had played at Berlin — Berlin! — so he could appreciate their genius. Gary seemed amenable to this. I had some little note cards from a Japanese stationary store in Little Tokyo on me, and I wrote my phone number down on one of them and gave it to Gary, who seemed beyond charmed. Then I went back to my friend and his dad, buzzing, but cynical enough to shrug. "I'm sure he'll never get in touch, but we'll see!"

We left shortly after. I remember wondering if this had been the plan all along, to throw me at Gary like in order to have an audacious, talked-about thesis film. I probably felt more flattered at the time than anything else to be considered worthy bait.

I remember where I was when Gary called my little Motorola flip phone — in my cubicle at the camera shop I worked at, probably reading Jezebel. I remember the surreality of his voice — that voice! — coming through the speaker. "This is Gary," he said. Duh, I thought. He wanted to know if I wanted to see a movie with him, maybe get dinner after. Ever the professional, I asked if we would talk about my friend's film. He seemed uninterested. I also, it should be mentioned, had a boyfriend at the time, and though I was starstruck I was not starstruck enough to just go to dinner and a movie with Gary with no pretense of artistic ambition on the table. I refused politely, but said that if he ever wanted to watch the film, I would get him a copy.

My friend, obviously, was tickled beyond belief by all this. This had become a secret extracurricular, a spy mission we would whisper about in between classes. My friend was adamant that we get Gary a screener of my friend's father's film, and soon I had negotiated an arrangement, with the stipulation that I now wonder about the legitimacy of, that I could not just leave it with him. I had to watch it with him, at his house, and take the DVD with me.

I remember driving up the winding hills to Gary's house, playing M.I.A.'s Kala extremely loudly to pump myself up. I remember being buzzed in at the gate and walking up a staircase through tropical plants and water features until I arrived at Gary's modernist, castle-like home perched in the hills. I remember how empty his home was, how sad it seemed. He asked if I wanted anything to drink, and I said, water, and he opened up his impressive Sub-Zero which contained a Brita pitcher and a lone tray of grocery store sushi.

We went to the living room, me clutching the little plastic DVD case like it was the one legitimizing thing in the whole room. I was there to help my friend, I was there to help my friend. I gave it to Gary, and he put it in the DVD player — shockingly, the DVD player in the living room didn't work. We would have to go to the one in his bedroom.

I don't remember if I could see right through this at the time, certainly by the next day I could. Gary put in the DVD in his bedroom entertainment system and then laid back on his California King bed, his lanky legs crossed over the fur throw. He held out one arm, beckoning me, and I pretended not to notice. There was a small ottoman at the foot of the bed, and I sat on it, hunched forward throughout the entirety of my friend's dad's stupid awful sophomoric Berlinale-approved movie, sipping on my water, being so good and professional and helpful.

Gary eventually turned down the opportunity to be in my friend's UCLA undergrad thesis film, no fucking shit. I never heard from him again. I wonder if what would have happened if I would have joined him on the bed, and if my friend would have had Gary — THE Gary, in his thesis film, and if it would have set him off on an exciting idiosyncratic career as a young auteur. How great that would have been for my friend.

I got a lot of mileage out of that story for many years — the time I went to Gary's house and he tried to get me to watch a movie with him in his bed. I played it up for laughs. I was certain that I looked like the cool person in that story.

A few things I appreciate a decade after the Gary incident:

Gary never tried anything with me. I sat on that ottoman, and there I stayed. I took the DVD with me when I left, he kissed my cheek, and that was that. Gary, in my experience at least, was a good guy in a Hollywood full of bad ones, and I was lucky.

My friend 100% tried to offer me up as bait to get Gary to be in his UCLA undergraduate thesis film, and so did his adult father, and this was funny to them.

Yes, I was good and drank water and sat on the ottoman, but Gary is a big person, and if he wanted to change that he could have. It wouldn't have mattered what I did right

Whenever I see Gary in a film — or in person, which has happened a few times because of my job — I get incredibly anxious and crazy feeling, despite the fact that he was good and really didn't do anything wrong — because I remember being in that weird empty luxurious house, and now I can look back and realize how young and dumb I was and how one of my young dumb male peers decided to use that to his advantage.

The MeToo movement has me reinterrogating events like this and others, where I was powerless but the worst didn't befall me. Why, why, why? It's a stupid question. Is there something about me that just doesn't attract violent men, socially or romantically? Is it my AA tits? My general left-behindness in all things popularly understood to be a part of the "female experience?" I've been so stupid, so many times, and experienced plenty of degrading shit that still doesn't fall into the category of assault and isn't something worth airing because it doesn't torture me; I don't have PTSD, it hasn't meaningfully disrupted my life. (My own brain does that on its own.) This is not the moment for non-stories like mine.

But I absolutely believe that there was nothing particularly game-changing that kept any of that from happening to me. And I understand the dynamics of a scene like that — where you're alone in a guy's house way up in the hills and he's the one with all the power, when you're alone with a guy in his car and he won't unlock the door to let you out, when you black out and find out a guy you thought was your friend was throwing himself on you in your absence. Any of those guys could have been rapists, and they weren't. Nothing about me or my actions would have changed that.

I have felt pent up with all of this for a year, as soon as it became apparent that the dominant dialogue among women would be sharing stories of trauma and violence. Because I don't have a tale of horror to peel off and lay before the reading public, but I have just a regular-ass life experience that absolutely corroborates all those tales of horror. It is not much — and I hope it stays that way. But I thought I'd share it.

[danielnelsen]

the funny thing about mbti is that most of the stuff that people relate to comes from the introvert/extravert scale and just various interpretations of that, and that’s the only aspect of mbti that’s an actual scientifically validated personality trait

some people are more analytical and some are more emotional, but that’s literally not a dichotomy. most people relate more to one than the other and that’s where people can relate to that part of the types, but as soon as you’re around the same levels in both of them--whether high or low or in the middle--it’s real easy to get confused about your type. similar situation with intuition and sensing; not a real dichotomy

i know mbti theory says that you do you all of them and you’re just stronger in some than others, but that’s only a result of people just generally not getting exactly equal scores on everything. of course most people will score differently on the “opposite” traits, but the negative correlation isn’t sound.

the appeal of mbti (over scientific personality measures like the big five) is that it categorises people into neat types. but they’re literally meaningless!!!! of course there’s gonna be similar traits of people in these groups, but they’re not stable or even typically correlational. it wasnt even developed by actual psychologists.

so much research has been done on personality traits and (in the west) five traits have emerged over and over of strongly correlated patterns of thought and behaviour, and they all exist on a SPECTRUM. there is absolutely no dichotomy in personality. you can always take each trait on a normal distribution or whatever, but in that case you only get a third of people who are significantly on one side or the other

like..yknow how the introversion/extraversion thing really works? the average level of extraversion (out of 100) is 60 (and, as a corollary, average introversion is 40), but any level of extraversion between 45 and 75 is considered average, and that accounts for 68% of people. i see mbti people get so upset about someone saying they’re between types or “im actually an ambivert” when technically like.......everyone is an ambivert. there might be the rare person who’ll score 0 or 100, but you cant just put someone into a box like that!!!!

but like i said; that’s the appeal of mbti. people like having a type; a box that they fit in that tells them who they are. for some people it does genuinely help them, but you cant take mbti as a science. im not denying it’s fun and interesting; i enjoy it a lot! it’s just not good science. using the big five isnt gonna give you a simple type. technically you could sort each trait into high, low, and average and end up with 243 types, but that’s completely useless. someone scoring 51 on extraversion doesnt make them an extravert

sometimes it just doesnt seem fun to go to all the effort of getting invested in a system if it doesnt give you something nice and simple to put in a profile, but if you actually want to know anything about yourself, take a big five quiz. the ipip-neo is the way to go imo; 300 questions and it also divides each trait into six facets. i havent found an online quiz yet that actually gives you your raw scores, though, but you can find the questions and how to score them, and you can scour research to find averages and SDs (hint: there was a study of 320,000 people that’s pretty robust)

idk im rambling now because i just really like the big five, but i just want people to understand that no matter how much fun you’re having with mbti, it’s important to remember that it doesnt tell you a huge deal about yourself.

[only-embers-remain]

For those of you who don’t know, June is Pride Month. A supposed celebration of everything Queer. And maybe it was that once. Yet I sit here as the month dawns wondering where I fit in a world where such huge things as the Pride Parades exist in every major city in the US. Once it was an act of Defiance against a world that did everything in its power to erase us. To kill us. To ruin us. And for that day that walk in the sun we were invincible for not matter what the world did we still were. No one could take the memories of us away even as they took our lives away.

Now don’t mistake me I know things are better than they once were. I am not going to get arrested today for wearing women’s clothes. I an reasonably expect to not be beat by those more privilege than I well at least in broad daylight. I can tell someone that I am trans and not have them look at me like I just spoke Russian. So in many ways we have much to be proud of. It makes sense in a twisted way that Pride month has become instead of a riot a celebration. That hey look world we are here still. Nice try though. Yet that isn’t the picture. For one month a year I am allowed to be me with out question. I get to be proud of my existence for one month a year. I can expect in more progressive stores and cities things sold catering to my particular demographic or well at least those of us who like rainbows. There isn’t any sign of the pink blue and white flags that represent my specific queerness. Yes let us not go to far after all. For one month of the year I can see books about my people or well those of us who are queer but have little else that hinders them from receiving all the privilege the world is willing to give. Sure you see lesbians, though only ever white ones, and gay couples. You might get to see the lone trans woman and glory in how courageous she is that she wears a dress. Oh my so courageous. It strikes me that Cis People don’t know the meaning of Courageous. They probably don’t after all when have they been so very beaten like we are.

So in this month of pride it is the month to remind me that it is only really this month in which I get to be seen. Though only as a courage piece. As a story for others to consume. Never for my own being. I still will struggle to get my medication that keeps me from ending it all. I will still never be able to find clothes designed to fit a woman who has had the horrific experience of having a testosterone based puberty. I will still get misgendered by even the people who have known me for a year. As if they can’t for some reason see me as the woman I am and not the man that society still tells them I should be. I still have to put in the performance of womanhood to be taken seriously though to be fair so do cis women but at least they only have their credibility on the line not their womanhood. Oh and let us not forget that for this month I get to see how the only way I am allowed to be is if I am white, well to do, preferably male, neurotypical, and quiet about my non-Christian ways. Sure all of those qualifications are specific to the United States but that is really only an addition to shut up the nay sayers. There is one book at the book store that is about non-white experience of queerness, none by those of us on the autistic spectrum, surely no look into how so many of us have PTSD especially in the trans community, no look to how wealth greatly effects this all. I when I say Trans woman there are probably only two names that come to your mind, Caitlyn Jenner, and Laverne Cox. I am proud that a black woman gets to be up there but can you name a single trans man who is famous. I didn’t think so. So yeah let us rename pride for what it really is. Gay White Pride, where the only queer that matters is homosexuals of the cis variety with a sprinkling of trans and crossdressers to add that little spadazzle that makes it feel like a real pride parade. Because crossdressers are totally the same thing as a trans woman, if not better because they make a show of it, make it fun and nothing like reality of the pain of our lives. No of course not. Why aren’t you smiling? You should be smiling.

And you may ask well isn’t any representation good but I want to tell you something, only just. Yes look at all the pretty queers how they sparkle so filled with hot air as to almost be nonexistent. No let us look at what my life is like and why I don’t feel like smiling anymore. Why I want to go back to the riot that was Pride before. See I live in the conflux of a number of underprivileged identifies. Thank god I am white or this would be all the harder. I am homeless and have to deal with the fact that because of my inability to be productive by societal standards I am unwelcome at the calm coffee shops of Seattle. I have to always be tethered to the places that give out low quality food to the teeming masses of us homeless. I haven’t eaten a properly cooked vegetable in over a year. No just carbs and protein for those starving homeless. Moving on from there let us remember that I am a few swayed votes away from loosing my insurance. With it would go my medications, of which I take five different ones on a daily basis. I have over a thousand dollars in pills needed a month to keep me sane. And by sane I mean keep me from cutting up my skin with the knife I have or popping all the pills I can get my hands on in the vain hope that I can go to sleep and never wake up. Depression is not pretty. Oh let us not forget that I also take pills that help me feel human, that let me feel right in my own mind. I run on estrogen and yet my body doesn’t produce it in quantities high enough to be at all functional. Imagine watching a video of some stranger that you have never known and yet they are doing things that you do and things you remember yet they aren’t you. But everything says they should be you. The peep next to you says hey look at this memory of you and I. But it isn’t you and it really never was. Never could be. I really can’t explain dissociation to those who have never felt it and as it effects everyone differently I don’t think there is a close approximation to be had. But remember to smile and be proud. Yeah I feel so accomplished this month in which society tells me oh don’t you worry everything is great now isn’t it. Oh and give us your nonexistent money. Thank you very little.

Yes let us be proud this month. Not outraged that in forty nine states the Trans Panic defense will get you off with murdering a trans woman. All you have to do is say she, or well lets be honest you will say he, didn’t tell you. That you were just so revolted that you had no control over your actions and had to kill her. To beat her. Into a bloody pulp. Oh yeah and that is legal in my state of Washington. It happened this year already in Texas. So yeah. Be proud and happy. Or that I live in one of the ‘gayest’ cities in the US that has a wonderfully gay neighborhood that comes with rainbow crosswalks. So gay. Yeah a neighborhood where trans women can’t be out after dark for fear of being beaten to death. I personally know of six incidents in the first five months of twenty eighteen. All on people I know and I wouldn’t hear of them otherwise. Let’s not look into the violence against trans people of all stripes on the quote gayest neighborhood in the gayest of cities. That is when the violence isn’t being done by the police of course. Not that that happens. Never. Remember smile and be proud. It is our month to exist. But only when we smile of course. Can you see the cracks yet?

Let us not forget history. Every moment of queer liberation has come at the sweat and blood of trans women, often women of color. Stonewall that great moment of rioting. Oh oops I forgot we leave off the riot part. Or that the police were rounding up everyone no mater what they had done. We can make movies of it. Just not with the trans woman who threw the first brick. Who kept the fight going long after the streets had been cleaned and the windows fixed. Yes Marsha P. Johnson is not needed in our gay history. Or of the countless queer people of color who showed up to those first pride parades which were little more than an excuse to pick a fight with the system that hated us. Let us not forget what time we celebrate and why. To honor that first riot, well first recored riot. Same month and to many same day or close to it. Or how trans people have been pushing for every legal reform. Who pushed the 2003 case that got to the supreme court and denounces sodomy laws in all states. Oh little one here several states still have those laws on the books. Oops. Or of Marriage equality. Fuck that we don’t have that. We have federal recognition of a piece of paper. Are our children protected from being torn from us? No. Are we allowed the same medical rights to our loved ones as a straight couple? No. Sure some states are better than others. But not till all are on the same page should we celebrate. I remember being told we had won the fight after that. Ha. By a Drag Queen at a pride parade. A crossdresser who does so for show. I bet you won’t misgender her when she is in costume. Of course not? But what are my pronouns? Yeah I know. So hard to remember. But that fight isn’t over and there are others more important. Conversation therapy. As if you can abuse away the queer. And Abuse it is. Legal in over three quarters of the states. Despite the fact that it tends to kill those it seeks to ‘cure’. But remember we are smiling. Oh and buying. Let us not forget that.

See Pride in Seattle has a long line. Where are the trans people? The fighters of justice? The youth who are our future? At the back behind the likes of Amazon’s wonderful float filled with cis Drag Queens, half of whom are straight while we are at it. Then comes Target, and Microsoft. What the fuck has Microsoft ever done for queer rights? Nothing. Not a damn thing. But they get to be up front so they can advertise, I mean smile and be proud. Sure at least target protects their queer employees. Has desegregated its toy section. Oh my gosh a toy is a toy not specific to gender. What ever will we do? Right. Smile and be proud. For we come after profits. After payments. After the straights. After the pretty shiny ones. Funny isn’t this a queer parade or is it?

So in this month of pride is it any wonder I am left wondering if I should be proud at all. That I wonder why instead of making me want to smile it just brings up more pain and tears. But obviously Pride month has never been for me. Maybe it is for the cis white gay men. Maybe. But I am still here and I will still fight. I won’t be squished by that ever present society. Or well at least I try not to be. There are cracks in the mask and maybe that is where you might find pride. Where the germs gather. Because we aren’t pretty. We aren’t white. We aren’t smiling. But we our proud.

[sawyersamuel1989]

How To Prune Grape Vines On A Trellis Dumbfounding Tips

The area should also keep the grapes is how naturally they can get information about the measures to avoid keeping them healthy requires minimal time.When growing grapes from your vines, the time and energy was wasted, because one didn't do a lot of home gardeners.I'll bet you didn't make it during your first mission is to get more fruits.However, a wall or whether you will want to choose a variety of grapes.

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Zinc content - up to higher temperatures and low atmospheric humidity.Another great thing that you too have good information available these days.The other side of this fruit, and 27% used to make homemade wine making.This will encourage maximum growth of the grapes, to the warm, humid conditions can sometimes be negated by good management of your own.Broad spectrum insecticides or deadly methods of controlling pests should only be produced from the vine is to put these pest problems aside, there are those that are essential for grapevines to grow well.

How To Grow Wine Grapes In Texas

Just make sure that you will of course need to be on your grape vine growing are a different tasting grapes for plantation, in terms of which grape varieties need eight feet tall, with 5 feet between rows and five feet between plants and fruits, grapevines are naturally adaptable and are very popular fruit.It is essential not to do it once they start to use the grapes will be planted immediately to avoid costly mistakes and learn some important factors that make it even easier.Some varieties are able to produce wine grapes are expected to be done by modifying the quality of the struggle.As a matter of fact poorer soil will make sure the vine roots have enough space for the purpose of producing wine.You can also become a successful vineyard.

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Imagine about seventy-one percent of the grapes you plant your vines will grow best with a humid and fair climate.Sunshine supply is ready, you can decorate your home.These include fermentable sugar, flavors that are no weeds surrounding the base of the vines as it is very important for the particular yeast you use for your place about the types of plants.A soil with consistent daylight exposure to sunlight for them to sustain grape clusters can be resolved by adding what it takes three years before you can find out which grape varieties exist in the ensuing months that grape growing is a key role in the wrong location, all your grape growing is European variety, the next step, but it also prepares the grapevine than on the market today are typically made of wood.Undeniably, growing grapes from sunburn, so you can risk killing off everything else in their garden.

You must have good information available these days.Do you need to know before we start growing grapes from the skin.Large trellises can be grown for your area and soil they are cholesterol-free.A grape that includes the concord cultivar that you want to know about what you are going to grow grape vines also need to be planted.Also the plants when the sun is in early July.

Planting A Niagara Grape

He found that is common knowledge that the measuring and planning must be pruned hard once each year.So store them for pruning, pest control, and weed spraying.Yes grapes growing conditions are, you'll find yourself the great news today is that these fruits and there are no mixed ingredients, secret recipes or arcane procedures.But if you really should begin b choosing the right soil.You could say that Bacchus is the most important factor here is far different from those typical fruit bearing plants.

Every year, the vines as soon as the scent of human, dog hair, coyote.It may look like grape berry moth, grape leaf hoppers, Japanese beetles, and rose beetles.People often make the vines will become the arms of the yeast to ferment your harvested grapes can be a very rewarding experience.You will have to grow Concord grapes are ripe before harvesting them. Greywacke- This soil has a pH level of six feet stake in the world.

[aceofaces20]

What would be a valid thing to submit as evidence for adhd? I feel like my teachers never noticed anything, all it ever says on my report is 'quiet', and im in the uk and you need school reports for diagnosis, and i feel like i wont be taken seriously cos they dont say 'bouncing off the walls' or something

I feel you, nonny. I wasn’t diagnosed until college because I was just “quiet.”

Odds are, if a lot of the symptoms add up enough to make you SUSPECT you have ADHD, you probably have it. But more research is always good!

So like many things, ADHD is a spectrum. The two ends of it are Inattentive to Hyperactive- and then you have people like me, in the middle, with the Combined version. Some people have more Inattentive than Hyperactive, some have more Hyperactive than Inattentive. Everyone who has ADHD experiences the symptoms a little differently.

You can find about six thousand symptoms lists online, but here I’ll tell you things that usually don’t end up on those lists that my therapist told me a lot of her patients ended up experiencing aside from listed symptoms.

(Note: Initially I tried to keep these short. Yeah, that didn’t work. I bolded the important parts.)

1. Insomnia, or at least a super screwy sleep schedule. No joke, this can be super detrimental and will only serve to exacerbate your symptoms. “Just set a sleep schedule!! You’ll feel better!” they all say- Thanks Barbara if I had any control over when my brain chooses to sleep at all I wouldn’t have this issue, ok?

-a solution to this is to, in all actuality, condition yourself. Start ONLY using your bed for sleep. Get a little chair or something in your room if you’re also a hermit like I was growing up (mushroom chairs are gr9) and once you get out of bed, don’t let yourself get back on it for more than a few minutes unless you’re going to sleep.

Some nights it’s not enough, but in general for me personally this has been an actual lifesaver- I can go from being not tired to exhausted at the drop of a hat in normal life anyway (another symptom they don’t usually tell you about) so it’s nice to be able to make it work for me for once- I get into bed, maybe spend 30 minutes restless and then I’m out.

2. On the subject of sleep. You kids ever heard of the sleep of the dead? Because guess what, I have ignored literal fire alarms in dorms because of it. About 1-2 hours into my sleep I enter a state akin to a bear hibernating. I have slept through wake-up alarms, slept through emergency alerts, slept through FIRE alarms, slept though friends and family attempting to wake me… you get the picture.

3. On the note of the hibernating bear. You constantly wake up angry (or at least disgruntled) at the universe and take a really, really long time to power on. No, I’m not talking “a case of the mornings.” I’m talking it takes me until noon some days to actually feel somewhat alert. I’m talking feeling nothing but seething rage at anyone who tries to engage you in higher brain function before you’re fully awake.-the seething rage is more personal to me, but, every single last one of my friends who’s ADHD has issues getting up in the morning. There’s hating mornings, and then there’s hating mornings.

4. About mornings. You’re constantly late to anything in the morning because you just couldn’t “get going.” i.e., you knew and 100% wanted to get up and get moving but your brain said “nah, let’s just sit here on tumblr mobile for a while k?”-it’s very difficult to describe this part of executive dysfunction with words, because it comes off as laziness to a lot of neurotypicals. It’s not laziness. It’s having the motivation and and will and the drive to do something and not forgetting about it and it still doesn’t get done.

“Why didn’t you do x?” they’ll ask. And you just sit there thinking shit, you meant to, really, honest to god meant to, it was on your brain to do and yet all you could actually do that day was sit around and watch terrible TV. And then you feel terrible because YOU think you’re lazy.It’s not laziness. It’s executive dysfunction.

5. Another not so well known EXDYF fact: Mental math or memorization for you will always be the literal bane of your existence. Teachers always told me I was a “smart kid” in school (I am, but not the point) and then they’d wonder why I couldn’t memorize a five line poem.

Or I’d start off with a 60 on a math test, until my teacher would comb through my work by hand (only useful math teacher I ever had in high school tbh) and I’d end up with a 92 because nearly all of my mistakes involved basic arithmetic errors. Even though I was able to use a calculator on the test.

(One time I decided 21-19=14. To this day 8 years later I still do not know from what abyss my brain pulled that info from.)

“You’re smart! Just focus!” I can’t choose what my brain decides to focus on that easily, Sharon, not without a lot of crying and panicking.

6. But wait! You say. I have really obscure information from a fandom that I can infodump on someone at a moment’s notice! Surely that means I’m just Lazy and Unmotivated, right? I guess I just can’t be bothered to memorize the important stuff.

*Loud buzzer noise* Stop right there. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

I will take you by the shoulders and look deep into your eyes and make you realize that guess what? If you have an ADHD brain, you have NO control over telling your brain what is important and what is not. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Your brain decides, and you usually get no say in the matter.

This sounds bad, I know. And in terms of school, birthdays, appointments, it’s terrible. But you’re not helpless. It sounds trite, but, get a good goddamn calendar app on your phone and use the hell out of it for appointments and birthdays. And for school? Find those fandoms and use mnemonics. No, seriously.

7. Also on school: You procrastinate the hell out of everything. And I’m not talking normal “haha I’ll do it later!” procrastination. I’m talking serious, problematic, REPEATED “why the fuck can’t I just do it on time like a normal person” procrastination where you start blaming yourself for not doing it sooner like a neurotypical.

Listen, buddy ol’ pal (or however that goes), you’re not neurotypical. But listen- there’s actually a medical reason why you do this.

So everyone’s brains have reward systems, right? Your brain gives you the feel good when you do something you think you should. And later, a brain remembers that it got the feel good for doing the thingy thing.

In a brain with ADHD, that reward system malfunctions. Sometimes critically. Your brain chucks so much stuff it deems “unnecessary” out the window it chucked out that feel good you got when you turned in that homework on time, or cleaned out your car, or did some pilates for 30 minutes.

8. You want to know what doesn’t help with number 7 there? Another thing that won’t show up on symptom lists but that virtually everyone I know with ADHD (quite a few, actually. Turns out we hang out in packs because we’re usually the only people who can understand each other) about ADHD is how daunting large tasks or projects seem to an ADHDer.

So listen, more medical talk here. Remember that EXDYF thing? Yeah, this is part of that.

EXDYF makes it very, very hard (almost impossible, sometimes) to break down large tasks into smaller, more feasible tasks. You get nervous the longer you put off that paper (“this isn’t something you can spit out overnight!”) You’ve been sitting in front of your computer for hours, and the only word you have written down is “The”.

Honestly, I’m not sure why it’s actually super hard to break down large undertakings into smaller tasks for the ADHD brain. But! Solution.

-if you’re having a problem breaking down ANY sort of task, I promise there’s someone else who’s done it online.

Need to write a paper? Use a template. Need to clean out your car? Find a checklist, or have a friend make you one (cause Lord knows I can’t make one on my own). Need to make a presentation? Find a sample one online. Hell, this even works for taxes. (Gasp!)

Do NOT be afraid to ask for help with even personal large undertakings. If your friends are actually your friends, then they’ll relish the chance. Especially when you can turn around and blaze through a quarter of the important project you two (or however many) have due next week in four hours because of hyperfocus.

9. So, your focus. Totally trash, right? That is, until you hyperfocus.

Hyperfocus, to a neurotypical, probably sounds great. Tune out all distractions and get shit done, right?

Sure, Linda, if you can call being able to ignore things like the need to sleep, eat, and use the bathroom “tuning out distractions.” Time becomes a literal illusion. And damn do you pay for it later by your brain not wanting to do anything at all.

On the flip side, this is why ADHD people make fantastic emergency workers like EMTs and firepeople. If you learn what to do with adrenaline when you start feeling it, you feel like you could punch Satan himself when you’re riding an adrenaline+hyperfocus high. Combine that with the fast-paced, unexpected nature of such jobs and and you have a happy ADHD brain because it’s never bored.

10. Because boredom feels like death. No, Cheryl, I’m not being overdramatic. Yes, Becky, I recognize everyone has to deal with boredom.

A neurotypical’s boredom and an ADHDer’s boredom are two very different levels of boredom. Ever heard the phrase “bored to tears”? Now imagine every time you get even a little bored, it’s like this.

And of course, the ADHD hell brain remembers the bad feels of being bored but can’t recall how nice it was to remember all of the answers on a quiz that one time you paid attention in class.This is why I have the worst problems doing homework and housework, or in general anything with serious repetition (exercise, cooking, driving, tidying up etc.). I can do it for maybe 10-15 minutes, and then my brain’s like “k I’m good. Next source of input please?” like, brain, I’m only like 3 feet into washing the kitchen floor. P l s.

11. Speaking of tears. Has rejection by someone you value ever felt like you wanted to quit existing on the spot, or at the very least wanted to move to an ice cave in Greenland and cry for the rest of your life? Even if the rejection was just perceived rejection and your friend was just expressing grumpiness at something else?

Even if your logic says “they didn’t reject you calm down you’re overreacting?”

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. It’s a newer term, but honestly, once I found out about my own ADHD and this bitch of a symptom a loooooooot of my weird habits started making a lot of sense in my head.

It doesn’t have to be actual “rejection”. It can get set off from stuff like awkwardness (hence my personal resistance to making Adult Phone Calls) to disbelief (a huge, huge reason so many people go undiagnosed), to personal judgment and/or criticisms (oh, ok… I guess I’ll never mention my love for X ever again) to even just indifference (no one noticed I mopped all the floors in the house… guess I’ll just go die!).

Basically, if you perceive that someone you care about has dismissed you in some fashion, you literally just want to quit existing. On the spot. Because the feeling of it makes you feel sick, your chest gets tight, you can feel it in your hands, and it makes the rest of your day miserable.This variant is more likely with people you care about, but can definitely 100% happen with strangers too.

Another variant is this: if you perceive that someone (whether you care about them or not) has dismissed you in some fashion, your first instinct is to attempt to disregard and discard them completely. It usually doesn’t work like you want it to.

I’m pretty sure this is another reason why ADHD people hang out in packs. We always have a line in our head we’re terrified to cross with our friends. It makes us seem like we’re emotionally unavailable- but in reality we’re just terrified of being dismissed by our friends for showing our true geeky, infodumping, hyperfixating selves.

(Listen. If a friend mocks you for your true self they weren’t your friend in the first place.)

12. But in terms of crossing that line… Social cues? What are social cues?

Normal people can infer a lot from body language. With a lot of ADHD people, we tend not to notice. Or we notice too much and overanalyze. There’s no in between.

On a side note, your best bet for flirting successfully with an ADHDer is to just come out and say it. (Talk like an elcor. “Flirtatiously: I want to hear more.” or whatever innocent phrase it is you’re using to flirt. If they’re into Mass Effect, this will make them laugh, which means bonus points for you in their eyes.)But seriously, unless you’re making obviously romantic overtures we’re usually pretty sure you’re just being nice.

Back on topic: lack of social ability is a massive, massive reason people with ADHD are usually bullied growing up. If there aren’t any other ADHD people around, it usually feels like no one “gets” you. I was bullied horribly enough during junior high and high school to the point where I still have to repress the urge to automatically assume someone being nice to me means they’re plotting something behind my back. (Didn’t help that my hs was basically the Korriban Sith academy without most of the death. Culty, religious, nepotism ran rampant.)

13. Woe betide thee who angers the ADHD. It's not a problem with everyone, but... We’re like volcanoes. Awe-inspiring to watch in action, but God help you if we explode in your direction. And if it’s righteous anger there is almost literally no stopping us.

Anger has its uses. Our problem is that, like a volcano, we always have a lot simmering under the surface. We tend to hold onto it for ridiculous amounts of time until one day, boom. Yeah, I know, Kathy, that happens with everyone. Delayed gratification and all. The difference with ADHDers is that we usually don’t wait.

ADHDers’ anger will come out initially, because we can’t suppress it. We’re impulsive as fuck. We don’t think before we leap (our brains probably wouldn’t let us anyway). And it will seem like we are flying off the handle for no reason whatsoever. But we also have a tendency to unhealthily hold onto it afterwards even once the initial burst has happened. It’s like a (bad!) positive feedback loop.

14. Gotta bounce the leg. Gotta rock. Gotta fidget. Shit, I’m sorry, were you talking?

So one time I made it through 40 minutes of a math class actively suppressing the urge to bounce my leg… and then my leg twitched of its own accord. Freaky as shit, 0/10 recommend.

Sitting still is physically impossible for me, and for a lot of ADHDers. Lack of impulse control + lack of social cue knowledge + lack of ability to decide what’s important to our brains = Fidget fidget. Fidget fidget. Twitch. Fiddle with paper. Hey, my backpack has a fun texture by the zipper. Oh my God, that lady on the TV is wearing the best shade of blue ever! I wonder where she got it. Shit, I need to go shopping. Wait, why did I need to go shopping again?

“Hey I asked you what you got for number 7.”

Fuck.

15. Depressive episodes. For me, these usually happen after a major hyperfocus where I taxed my brain for all it was worth, especially for long periods of time.

If it lasts for a long time or starts seriously affecting your life, get it checked out. If your doctor gives a damn they’ll be happy you came in to get it checked, even if it was the wrong diagnosis, because if it had been then at least they were there to help you. And they’ll always be happy to sit down and figure out what’s wrong. I know they have to watch out for hypochondriacs and whatnot. But if a doctor really cares about helping people they’ll listen when you say something’s wrong, because they know that you’re the one in your skin, not them. Which means if you really think something might be wrong, something probably is.

More evidence: justexecutivedysfunctionthings here on tumblr. Contains people’s experiences with EXDYF, which is a huge red flag for ADHD.

The Wikipedia article on the subject. There’s a nicely organized chart. (Or at least there was when I looked at it.) Remember, you don’t have to identify with all of the symptoms to be ADHD. Even if you only identify with a few, if they’re significant enough that they are seriously impacting your life and existence, it’s worth getting checked out.

I may add more to this later/change some stuff as my memory allows.

[rpedia]

[Ask RPedia] Getting Together: How To Meet Your Characters!

Anonymous asked: Alright, I've been reading your stuff and it's all really helpful and you're awesome- I've gotta ask this though. How do I get two characters to meet and a story going? I can't seem to come up with good reasons for people to interact with my character and it's really frustrating. I've made starters, but I always end up stressing over not being able to come up with a plot good enough to keep anyone's interest for very long and never send them. Any tips or anything would be great!

Sounds like you’ve got some issues beyond the original question, which means you want to meet characters and keep them interested in each other, I’ll deal with that too, but first! Let’s discuss how to get characters to meet up, in situations ranging from ‘we work together’ to ‘we don’t even exist in the same universe canonically.’

So. There’s a bit of a spectrum here in terms of how problematic it’s going to be to even set up a scenario in which two characters might meet, let alone the chemistry of that meeting and how to keep it going. So we’ll try to consider some broad strokes here, remember that these get ‘harder’ so you can use anything from any section for the others, they’re just focused on the easiest way to do it each time. So you can make it harder for yourself if it’s... actually easier. I don’t mind. Use as tools, not as rules.

So what if they already know each other? If they’re people who are from the same canon, and may know each other things are a hell of a lot easier. You’ve already got a library of scenes and situations they regularly find themselves in, together, or have the possibility of finding themselves together in. Is there an elevator? A pool? A regular event? Something hinted at, or rooms, or anything really that has a chance to have them both in the same place at the same time? Look! They have a reason to meet up. You’re golden.

Do they not inhabit the same area really, but know each other a little bit? Well, you have a more limited, set of preconceived settings. You don’t know anywhere they both frequent, but that means you can make one up. Look at people they have in common, or situations they may be attracted to but haven’t been show in. Things that are logical, just... improbable. 

Have they never met at all, yet have a reason to meet up? This one’s easy, spot their commonalities. What do they have in common? Do they both love hot dogs? They can meet at a hot dog cart. Do they both fight? Make a fighting tournament. Whatever they both like, or dislike, they can find a point in this universe where that would push them together. If not, there’s always the next option up.

Have they never met and have no reason to meet? This seems harder, but hell it’s just a matter of situations converging instead of people. A series of convenient plots. Some kid’s mom hasn’t picked them up from school. They meet an aliens from another planet whose navigation system got bumped by their co-pilot, they land on Earth, and while there realize they need to pick something up anyways. They walk across town, and bump into the kid. They’ve met. Kid shows interest in the alien being awkward. Takes an active approach to bothering them, and follows them. Tada! If it can work for boring school kid and an alien from another galaxy, something similar that’s just a bunch of excuses to get them in the same place.

Are they actually in different universes, so you have to break something to force a meeting against all laws of physics and man? Now this one is fucking fun. Because you literally get to BREAK THE UNIVERSE. This tends to be deliberate as fuck, so you might have a third party or force elaborately pushing these things to happen, or having them happen as a side effect to some major event somewhere in the universe. Or a minor one that causes major side effects. Look, something happened, and now a portal opened. You go through it, or your universes merge seamlessly, or you wake up in a city you don’t recognize and there they are. Surprise and fear and loss and hell the universes splitting in two during science and magical bullshit that defies physics is well and enough reason to latch onto the first relatively friendly or manageable person you see.

Now that they’ve finally met up, somehow, someway, they have to interact and stay interested in each other. This comes down to a lot of factors, including chemistry between the characters, and chemistry between the writers. You’re gonna need to step your game up, make shit up! Make the world come to life, give them reasons to interact. One of your characters has to be an active participant, curious about the other. They have to lead the story. They need to pester them, while the other character needs to do something else so that the first character has a goal to ‘understand’ them. Let secrets out slowly, and make sure you drop shit that makes no sense. They need to have more questions to follow up on them.

This can be as simple as giving a weird name, and having the character wanna know why they’re weird. Or your character could say something additional. “This is my name. Now scat kid, I need to ___.” Then the kid asks about the blank, and yadda. It all depends on temperaments too. Two nice character, a mean one, rebellious, a kid, an old fart who is so tired of this shit? They’re all gonna react differently as fuck to each other. So react! React big! Ask questions about them, show curiosity, share your character’s life in pieces to force them to ask questions back. Engage in curiosity, and drag them into hell with you by feeding theirs. Once you’ve met up, you need reasons to keep talking. Choose activities to do together as background noise or a sub goal while you really tie them up in each other’s lives. Force the setting to force them both to stick together. Kid doesn’t know how to get home anyways, so the alien, who forgets where they were, has to take them with them INTO SPAAAACE, or fucking whatever. Whatever makes sense. 

I have a arguably terrible habit of always going for the same basic things. Sleep, eat, play, work. I love dragging characters to go get food in town, or go hunting, or cook in the kitchen. I like to be tired, and get weirdly existential, and fight to go to bed, or find somewhere comfortable, or curl up near people and just talk. I like to go do things, like see the sights, go to carnivals, events, mess around with things we’re given in canon (or have devised as canon) in such a way as to be inclusive to my partners, or just play tag or wrestle. Sometimes, I even work, a character might have to drag a tagalong to work, and they can function together finding out they work better as a team than solo. They can fight, teach, explore, whatever comes with the job with tons more fun than they can alone. Even if they just tell stories while they go out delivering packages, and laugh it up.

Try to keep a real basis of interaction underlying everything. Nothing is perfect, I’m sure you’ve talked to people and had arguments in your life. Not everyone agrees, and a heated conversation can get you guys bonded together once you come out the other side. Embarrassments, misconceptions, errors, just plain disagreements? They are, surprisingly, fantastic ways to keep a story going. If everything is just yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir... well. If you’ve been around this blog long enough you can say this with me: Crisis is Necessary. Keep things interesting by keeping goals and problems arising that you need to fix. A happy comfortable character has no motivation to change what they are doing, and therefore you write yourself into a rut and everyone gets bored.

See: cuddling for 8 hours, walking for an entire RP without talking, falling asleep and expecting your partner to respond to your sleeping posts, kissing constantly, or just being quiet together and ignoring each other. You’re better than that. Show it. Do things you haven’t before, break your rituals, change little things, or make big things happen. It doesn’t have to come from internal actions, like what your characters want either. External forces can shift the whole story. Daily coffee? They were closed for repairs. Elevator broke, you’re trapped together. Someone died, and you need to get out your emotions. They didn’t have your fucking brand. Oh, a war is going on. Look aliens invading. Jesus Christ I got a letter to Hogwarts.

Anything is better than the daily grind. It can be hard coming up with stuff because you get iffy about whether your partner will like it, or if you will. You worry yourself out of it, or maybe you’re burned out and have no idea where to go next. Just kinda... roll the dice on it. Open a dictionary website and find a random word, and go off that. Read a news report and let it fuel your imagination. Skim fanfics, and go write your own ending and concept or, how you’d do it better. Take your favorite appealing things and apply them to your character’s stories. You love pears? Your character hates them? Have them mistakenly eat a pear, and react to it. Let them call someone to talk about it and complain. Anything can be a story idea. Every little happening, magnified, and plastered into a bigger wider version cut and clipped to fit your character.

Now why would people lose interest in a storyline? Some of the common issues are, the story isn’t moving fast enough, the characters aren’t being empathetic, your partner is stonewalling you by not reacting or acting enough, your partner is giving you minced replies with no content to reply to, or you don’t feel the chemistry and you can’t summon the willpower to enjoy yourself. It’s okay if you just don’t mesh. It’s not the end of the world. If you don’t mesh many many times over, you may want to examine your approach.

Do you regularly offer information that continues the storyline, or do you tend to use precise replies? Precision is great for school work and official documents, it’s shit for creativity. Give more than you get. Do you tend to try and avoid things partners are nudging towards you without giving other options? That’s stonewalling, it stops the flow of information, and therefore the creativity and story. Do you tend to rehash the same things over and over again? That can lead to burn out and boredom and players will wander off. Some folks just can’t keep their focus on slow replies too, so you might ask yourself if you’d do better in a faster chat, or a slow journaling platform that may take a week to reply.

You need to stand up, push for story, and keep things moving. But at the same time... stories end. And continuing the same scene day in and day out is not a good bet. I personally play in an episodic style. I do a scene, then we cut out for the day (sometimes over the course of two days) and timeskip to the next “fun” part. You don’t need to play out all the boring inbetweens, you’re a writer.  Writers don’t explain how someone takes a shit unless it’s important to the story, that’s why it seems like no one ever goes to the bathroom in novels unless they find something important there.

Feel free to do Episodic play, each day is a new scene, or every time you complete a scene jump ahead. You might run out of steam over time anyways. Most of my longer roleplays last a couple years max before they move on. My shorter ones last one session in public and then we never really get into it again. Roleplay is a fluid creature, don’t blame yourself if it stops occasionally. Sometimes it’s just not the right time for it. If someone complains, or you regularly lose RP for no reason... there’s a reason. Look at yourself and figure it out, don’t just whine, ‘people never RP with me, they just quit or block me for no reason!!!’ because that’s a fucking red flag that you do something horrible you don’t even realize, or you have been told and think they’re lying. Hint... they aren’t, and you’ll scare away more players that way.

In any case, action! Reaction! Story! Build more than you expect to get through and they’ll pay attention to the little details as future story hints. If you drop a phrase now, you might not get to it now, but you can bring it up again in a new context when things get slack. Just have fun, and make things as big and vivid and round for the character as possible in order to keep folk around.

Remember, it only has to make sense to you and your partners, everyone else can go fuck themselves. Have fun.

[palevirgin]

can you explain a little more about your system? when did it start, how did it start? how often do your alters come out, etc. i'm really interested in learning more. (sry if this is offensive, it is not my intention in any way).

Sorry againfor the late reply anon but as you will quickly notice, I have a lot to say about our system because it’sthe best thing that came out of my traumas and I love talking about it. Nothingoffensive in your questions, I’m more than happy to reply! Reply under the cutthough, because it’s quite long.

It’s hardfor me to tell how or when it began. I wish I could explain but it’s very messyfor myself and since dissociative amnesia is a possibility for me as well,remembering the very beginnings of mysystem is really hard.

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible so to be clear: I think the wholesystem thing manifested itself when I was still a child, but I don’t remembervery well, and anyway I was too young to know the terminology, too young to even be aware that systems existed, so I can’t say much about that time of my life.I just know that I wrote in my diaries that I wasn’t alone in my head, morethan once, so something was already up back then, but I didn’t document itenough to say more about it to this day :’/The whole system thing became very clear when I was 16/17. It was very hard atfirst, because I had no knowledge of systems, OSDD or DID, and I just felt likemy whole being was shattered, tore apart between incompatibles personalities.It was a very rough time. But then I found resources, I understood theconcept of systems/fragmented personalities and that helped a lot. I couldfinally acknowledged my alters as what they actually were (their own person,and not a “part” of me) and that was incredibly helpful. It took me months tolearn to properly interact with them (at first, only Geodosia and Wenn werearound) but we got there and we were a balanced but tiny system of three members.Then Bee happened, a year later – and a few months afterwards, Dollie happenedtoo. The last alter that “etched” is Ink – she appeared during the year, Januaryor February I think. But when you’re familiar with the whole process, it getseasier – it’s always a bit confusing at first (I personally always feel like myown personality is gone and replaced by someone else but then as soon as I canidentify the new presence as their own person, it gets easier.) 

So, yep,basically: very confusing beginning, very messy and scary sometimes, but now it’sa lot smoother and incredibly helpful. I consider myself a lucky host – my headmates are here to help me and we all play a role in the system to make it so itremains balanced for everybody. Actually, that’s my role. Making sure every newalter feels welcome (Dollie for example was seen as a danger at first and Wennwas wary – but I took the time to understand her better and now she’san important part of our system and even has a sisterly kind of bond withWenn!!)

Wenn is theprotector. She takes care of us, warns us about people that could be dangerous.She is the “guts feelings”, basically. Very instinctive, but also very wise andprotective.

Geodosia isvery benevolent. She is often around when I have good times and feel powerfulbecause she herself is a ball of energy in expansion. Geodosia representsendless potential and it’s very soothing to have her around when you think youwon’t be able to achieve anything, ever. She’s very soft.

Dollie isthe trauma-holder. She’s… weird, and not social at all, and she straight upcomes from our csa so… but she’s also very caring and she is here when I’mneglected by my peers (especially my mother). She’s also here when I havenightmares. She takes care of me in a very sisterly/tender way and I love her alot.

Bee is achild! Very!! Excited!!! Child!!! Bee loves life, Bee loves everything andeveryone and they are unabashed to be so full of love and excitement. They helpa lot with my avpd (a disorder based on shame, obviously) and they are also rlyfunny. Very adorable child. Unlike the others, Bee loves to front! They loveinteracting with my friends and other people, they are very social :>

And Ink,our youngest member, is… the tears alter? She cries a lot. She cries with mewhen I cry. I have a very vivid picture of the headspace when it happens: we areboth sitting at the foot of her bed and we hold hands while we cry together. It’svery comforting and just like Bee, she reminds me that sadness or melancholiaare not to be ashamed of. Bee and Ink are siblings btw, and they complementeach other very well. They are happier together, too :’> 

That gotlong sorry dksdksd I love my headmates I love them so much I could talk aboutthem for hours!!!! So I’ll just conclude by replying to your last question: theheadmates that come out the most are Wenn, Dollie and Bee. Geodosia is veryquiet, often dormant (unreachable) (tho she used to front by the past) and Ink has a very specific purpose so she’snot around as much as the others. (I don’t think she wants to anyway).

But it’salso something that varies – lately my system as a whole has been very quiet.At other times, they are here a lot. I love it more when they are aroundbecause I love their presence and company but I understand that sometimes, theycan’t be here. Systems are not clear-cut science, it’s hard to know what’s upwith them sometimes. But I know that even if my headmates go quiet sometimes,even for a long period of time, they will eventually come back and it’s a verycomforting thought :’> 

Ok I hope Ireplied to your questions……………im sorry it got so long I got carried awaydksjdksd but thank u for giving me an opportunity to talk abt my system, I loveyou for being interested in it!! Of course this is my experience as a host, and systems are, like many other things,spectrums so my experience remains very personal.I hope you have a niceday/night anon, thank u again for asking abt my system <3 your ask made myday and replying to it made me very happy!!!

[random0gener8r]

August 21, 2017 Obviously, all of my feeling come from my perspective and so have nothing to really do with him. That was what I was trying to spare him from by not communicating. Next time, I’ll communicate that. It’s clear and concise with no emotional tones or spillover. Yes, I indulged my humanity. Yes, I reveled in my story. Yes, I chose pain due to fear. And that’s okay. I let my stories envelope me. I allowed them to whisper in my mind. I chose to play the game. Because I had a question and wanted an answer. I wanted my spiritual test. It started with an innocent viewing of a half million dollar home. I swear, it was 90% for the Center for Life Exploration. You don’t understand the vision I have. Hell, I don’t. I have an overview; with the Spiritual Center being the clearest at the moment as I’ve put the most focus into envisioning it. Point – I was trying to bring vision into reality, find out the questions and answers I’d need to think and learn about, while seeing what half a million could buy, the potentiality of lots, and enjoying looking at great big beautiful and yet completely wasteful unless shared, opened, and used to the benefit of the community, I mean WWWEEEEEEEEEEE! Fun stuff. But at a level I’m not ready for. Not even close. There is no magic spell. No inherent knowledge. You have to experience it. That’s the class system – at what level of monetary creation you have been exposed to. Rich people get to skip all the steps below. That’s what’s bullshit. And I’m not saying every one of them. I don’t know any to truly hold any judgement on the matter. You don’t see them around, though, if you get what I mean. I liked the people I met at the Ventana Staycation. I had a great time. It’s too bad none reached back out to me. Anyway, you, my dear, have to experience it for yourself. Take an idea and make it happen from the ground up. That’s what you’ve never done. The novel was too lonely. I didn’t have anyone to talk with it about. So, that’s what happened. I changed, not to my great pleasure, from wanting to be alone, do everything by myself, to wanting to share the process of creation. The lack of completion to date can be viewed not as failure to finish things you start (which really, there aren’t that many, jobs not included, ‘cuz I’m batting maybe 50-50 in that arena). I thought there was something wrong with me, with my abilities, but they were simply forcing me forward, as slow as I was to catch on. Now, I’m in FUN World. Where I remember it’s just a game that I’m playing against myself, with everyone around me having their part to play. It is my choice in how I want to perceive any encounter. I do bond too quickly for most people. I can’t help it. The more you know, the more interesting it is. But that’s me. I can see how that could come off as rather needy. I don’t know. I’ve never asked. Intense. Perhaps that’s a better word. Squirrel – Dipping down into full humanity is how I play my game. I can’t stay in FUN World forever yet. Don’t know that I’d want to. It down here in the aware emotions of pain and suffering that I find my truth reaffirmed. It is where I find my signposts and tests of my beliefs, ethics and morality come into play. That is the real battle takes place – between you and yourself and how much of your ideology, morality and ethics, and beliefs are you willing to violate to get what you want, to make the world conform to your desires – which are absolutely no more important or better, right, good, or than anyone else’s . However a person derives their code, those sets of experiences and choices is their ultimate right of choice (and from the highest level the experience you or I would have chosen had we experienced/lived that person’s life. We all really are doing what we were meant to do, the pain and suffering and need to make other people and this world bend to our will to spread our perspective like a virus (what every groups of individual people is wont to do by the way). Not one perspective is better or worse. It’s all a personal preference. Personal desire to create what we want, that which makes us most comfortable (the question then, to what expense? 1 person, 10, a million, the world?) How many perspectives must you assimilate until you feel safe enough? Life isn’t supposed to be safe. Death is inevitable. Yes, none of us want to lose our loved ones. Most are terrified of what comes next. Some preferences make some social situations less applicable to their perceived well-being. Those are the foundation of a person’s core personality or being. Everyone has a “right” and a “wrong” division. Those that don’t are mentally ill. Everyone else is on a spectrum. It’s time to regroup. That’s all. And redistribute. It will be okay. We promise not to rip your heads off, drink your blood, sing songs of hatred and abuse and curse you to whatever scares you the most, which is actually having to give a shit about our perspectives. You know they exist but you just don’t care because you’re thinking on global levels – well, you fucked that up as well. You are bad at your jobs. You are fired. But that has swerved in a political direction so, let’s move on from that. This could take a minute.  Section from AUG 17 ESSAY written today (Aug 17 section) In the dream, I was hanging with a couple, noting going on; they were kind to me, I had use of all of their facilities, but I didn’t consider that beyond an off-road vehicle that I would like to try. Point – we were cool, and so I wanted to make them breakfast, but suddenly everything went crazy. They left to do what they did out of the house, and I was preparing to leave, I was anticipating packing my car, and yet, making them individualized breakfasts, I guess as going away gift – then everything went wrong. The house hated me. A mattress hated me. I tried to banish it but the overall power of the house was to strong. There was no way I could win. And it just kept taking things from me. My parents. I couldn’t reach my cat. My clothes. The breakfast. My car. I couldn’t escape in the one thing I could always count on. (BTW my tire indicator came on today, FYI, I’d been thinking about it, but today, of all days. I mean, it was due, but really!!!!!) (Aug 21) And the wall tried to suck me in to eat me. The walls, floors, streets were twisted and roiling. Trapped in my car, viewed as through the lens of a Monet painting, I don’t know, the Starry Night guy with the comet, was that Picasso? (How sad, but you know who I mean so communication completed! Yeah for me!) Unable to escape, all of my possessions eaten by the wall, a curse placed on me, and my car turned into the mirrored innards of an eight sided die, I was tossed about, all control gone flipping and flopping against the hard glass, no longer in a painting but all hard iron and glass. And I awoke. And I knew I’d failed my spiritual test. My desire to force a favorable outcome goes against my code – gifts only. And I’d tried so hard, I mean, I really put my spiritual back into it. I have expended energy like that longer than I can remember. I really crossed my code – my moral, ethical and belief/spiritual choices that define my personal and only applicable to me, set of absolute judgements of right/wrong, good/bad, acceptance/fear. All ultimate dualities. And as I was looking for a test, there ya go, I got one, and I failed, but I apologized sincerely, yet was still mad ‘cuz it was only 10% about me, a girls gotta live, and not off her parents. I thought it was reasonable. I was wrong. Unable to leave it that way, I took a nap and I was rolled out into a nice world and all was forgiven, but that was their/my higher-self dimension, not down here in the mud, so I got pissed, both meanings. I cursed them back for their miserliness. I thought death thoughts. Then I had some cannasand and talked to Paul. And he cared. And that was all I needed. Just one. The next night was a fabulous dream of flying and reality jumping and enjoying the situation which was fun. So I knew that I had passed the following test to see if I’d actually learned anything. As Paul said, “there is always another test”. I don’t like wasting my time. So I took that experience along with Paul’s creating his own Meetup group as an inspiration to do what it takes to create the reality you want through forward motion, to set a date for the first Center for Spiritual Exploration (from her on out aka CSE) meeting. I was looking forward to sharing it and inviting him to help me out by participating, when the whole camping and movie meetup and having his daughter, situation occurred. I was curious to see how much of the Four Agreements he could apply to the situation. He used the word assume, so it shows awareness of his logical state which is effected by the emotional, and it was what it was. So, I’ve been binge watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and as Paul and I are restoring communicational clarity, and Nina the neighbor in Unit 5 came over to introduce herself, Kimmy goes to church and the pastor’s name is Denise. Yes, I know that the use of my name is on the rise. So, as I’ve been having revelations and positive communications, I get a signpost/note/”hey”, a confirmation of the application of experiences with personal positive outcomes in a way that didn’t transgress my Code. It felt like a congratulatory, “you’ll get there, you’re on your ‘really cool’ path.” Not perfect, never perfect as goal, or you lose all chance of spontaneous authenticity; strive for your best each and every day, whatever that may look like that day. Lazy language allows more miscommunications. No amount of communal agreement can make you “right” when you go against Your Own Code.

[eldritchsurveys]

289.

Let’s start with you: How are you?: >> I’m all right.

What motivates you to get up every day?: >> I mean, the alternative is worse...

Do you have a true best friend?: >> No.

Do you see yourself as a sensitive person?: >> I don’t see myself that way, no.

Have you been upset recently?: >> Sure.

Do you still leave/receive voicemails?: >> No. Is this something one stops doing at some point, for some reason? I just don’t use the phone much, period, and I never have.

Do you live in your hometown?: >> No.

Are you a festive person? Do you enjoy holidays?: >> I can be a festive person, as long as brain shit isn’t interfering. I do enjoy holidays (some much more than others, obviously).

Did you/Will you attend college?: >> I did not attend and I won’t.

How many alarm clocks do you use?: >> Zero.

Do you consider yourself to be an open-minded person?: >> Yep.

Do you eat fruit?: >> Not usually. Produce is the most annoying shit to buy and keep and eat, what with how quickly it goes bad and how shit I can be at eating things in a timely fashion. I commend and envy those who don’t have this problem, but it’s definitely a problem.

What is your favorite subject to learn about?: >> I’m not sure.

How many meals a day do you typically eat?: >> At least one; two on average. 

Music, eh?

Have you seen any live shows?: >> Yes.

Name three of your favorite bands/artists…: >> David Bowie, Pearl Jam, Coheed & Cambria.

How big of a role does music play in your life?: >> It plays an extremely large role in my life.

Can you play any instruments?: >> No.

You’re feeling down - do you listen to sad music or happy? >> I don’t often choose music based on the mood it’s supposed to evoke. I listen to metal when I’m feeling down because something about the tempo and percussion-heavy sound is soothing. Or I’ll listen to synth stuff because it’s engaging in a way that just works for me. Sometimes I’ll listen to songs that make me cry if I feel the need for that sort of catharsis, but those songs aren’t necessarily “sad songs”, they’re just ones that make me cry. *shrug*

If you’ve ever been to a concert, how old were you and who did you see?: >> I’ve been to a lot of concerts. I was 18 when I went to my first one, and I saw Avenged Sevenfold and Coheed & Cambria on a co-headliner tour. (I actually went to two shows on that tour; the first one was in NJ and the second one was in NYC the next month.) Do you prefer music to be meaningful and deep, or purely for dancing/fun?: >> I like both. That’s why there’s Rush’s 2112 and Taylor Swift + Brendon Urie’s ME! on my playlist, for example. Is there a song or artist that you secretly enjoy, but don’t want to enjoy?: >> No.

If you could only listen to music from one decade, which would you choose?: >> I would never restrict myself like that. Has your parents taste in music in any way affected what you like?: >> Yeah, I grew up with a lot of R&B and soul music (and gospel, sometimes) playing in the house so I still deeply appreciate that kind of music. You’re looking for some new music - what’s your preferred way to discover?: >> Checking out random playlists on Spotify, usually. Do you still own any CD’s/records/tapes?: >> I have records, but no CDs or tapes. Do you ever hear a new song on tv that you like and find it?: >> Definitely. Speaking of television… (look at that smooth transition!) Do you watch a lot of television? Whether that be shows, news, movies etc.: >> I watch a fair amount, I guess one could say. Anywhere between a half hour to 3 hours of TV on any given day. Do you watch the news?: >> No. What about the weather channel?: >> I don’t have cable. I use the NOAA app on my phone for weather. What’s your favorite holiday movie?: >> It’s a Wonderful Life. What hooks you to a television show? >> There are different factors depending on what kind of show it is, but the one thing that’s universal for me is whether the characters are interesting, whether I care about what happens to them or not (even if “I care what happens” just means “I really gotta see what ridiculously stupid fucking shit they’re going to do now”, like in It’s Always Sunny). How do you feel about adult cartoons?: >> I like some of them, I don’t like others. Talk shows - boring or entertaining?: >> Boring, for me. Do you prefer cable, satellite or streaming?: >> We use streaming services. Have you come across any new shows you like this year?: >> I started watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia this year, finally, and I gotta say, I see why it’s so popular. I don’t remember what else I started watching this year, specifically, that was new to me. Do you still watch shows that you grew up watching?: >> I didn’t really grow up watching anything. What about movies that you grew up with?: >> The only movies I really remember from childhood that I still enjoy watching are Labyrinth, The Prince of Egypt, and The Pagemaster. I didn’t see a lot of movies as a child, either, aside from dry historical shit that my dad made me watch. Are you subscribed to any streaming services?: >> Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. Reality shows - entertaining or horrifying?: >> The genre seems to have broadened considerably since the Survivor and Jersey Shore era, so yeah, there are some reality shows I can stand watching, like some stuff on HGTV. What is the first movie you ever saw in a cinema?: >> The Prince of Egypt. Let’s talk about what you don’t discuss at Sunday brunch Do you identify with any organized religion?: >> No. If so - is it how you were raised, or have you found your own?: >> I was raised Christian, and when I got old enough to realise that 1) it didn’t suit me and 2) I didn’t have to be chained to a religion if I didn’t want to be, I gave it up. Do you think that marijuana should be legalized?: >> I don’t have a firm opinion on that specifically. I’m sure it’d be fine if it was, but I specifically think people should stop being given ridiculous prison sentences for drug possession, and I think the War on Drugs should end, because it’s not helping anyone. If so, would that be for medical use only, or recreational?: >> I mean, if you’re going to legalise it, then... legalise it... across the board. Pro-life or pro-choice?: >> Pro-choice. Have you ever protested or been on strike?: >> I’ve participated in protests. Is gun control necessary or no?: >> Certainly. Are you happy with the political state where you reside?: >> Not currently. It seems to me like our current administration is straight-up ignoring the Constitution, and considering the Constitution is the basis of USian democracy, that seems pretty fucked up to me. I know a lot of people think that the problem is... democracy, for some reason? and no, I don’t agree with that. Democracy is the least corruptible political system I can think of, and the fact that its core tenets are being tossed out of the window of the Oval Office right now is not the system’s fault, it’s the fault of the specific people we’ve voted into office. Should abstinence or sex education be taught in schools?: >> Sex education. “Teaching” abstinence isn’t education, it’s just attempting to use fear and shame to intimidate young people into not having sex. What are they actually learning? Have you read the book 13 Reasons Why or watched the show?: >> No. Should shows like this be available to everyone or could it be a trigger?: “Um, of course they should. People with triggers become adept at knowing what they can and can’t watch and will make their choices accordingly; we’re not idiots. If I know something has torture in it, I stay away from it. Simple as that. I’m not going to deny other people the right to watch what they want.” <-- What I was going to say is basically this, but this is the succinct version so I’ll just... yep. Okay, let’s simmer down. Back to happy things. Do you like animals?: >> Sure. If so, do you have any pets?: >> No. I like animals best when they don’t live in my space. What is your favorite day of the week and why?: >> I don’t have one. Do you have a favorite season?: >> Spring. How do you enjoy nice scents? >> ??? Do you live in a large city or small town?: >> Small city. Are you happy with that or would you like to change it?: >> I’d prefer a city with more... of an identity, I guess I would say? Grand Rapids gives me the impression of a very young city, which exists in a culturally homogeneous region of the Midwest US, and it kind of just takes its cues from... what’s hot and popular in this era. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. A lot of people love GR because it’s a forgotten city that’s had an urban renewal phase and now it’s... respectable, I guess you could say. But as far as my personal desires in a city are concerned, it’s not my kind of place. I love places that are so culturally rich that just being in them changes you fundamentally, places that are colourful and vibrant and unabashedly unique. Places that aren’t afraid to be unpolished in places, places that love their dead. I don’t know. I have a lot of feelings about this but they’re hard to make coherent. Do you have any children?: >> No. Are there any colors that you think compliment you?: >> Yeah, most of them. Do you enjoy cleaning or find it to be a chore?: >> I really don’t enjoy cleaning. I very much enjoy tidying and organising, though! What is your absolute favorite food?: >> I don’t have one.

If you were any color, what would you be?: >> I’d have to be black or white. A hue that contains or absorbs the entire colour spectrum. Do you spend a lot of time on social networks?: >> I really don’t. I’ve downsized to the point where now I only have tumblr, and I spend less time here, too. It’s... it’s nice.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

12 Women on Whether They Felt a “Spark” When They Met Their Partners

http://fashion-trendin.com/12-women-on-whether-they-felt-a-spark-when-they-met-their-partners/

12 Women on Whether They Felt a “Spark” When They Met Their Partners

T

he first time I met my boyfriend, I felt absolutely nothing. Actually, that’s a lie. I felt irrational anger toward him for showing up to town and (innocently, unwittingly) enabling one of my close guy friends to get back with a toxic ex — just before he was set to fly back to the West Coast and completely avoid the aftermath. I also noticed he had the well-timed wit that all my womanizing exes had shared.

Maybe anger and passion are similar enough emotions…I don’t know. But I do remember that he made me laugh in spite of myself and that a seed of something was planted that night. I didn’t start to fall for him until much later though, through a series of stories my friend Jordan told me about him from when he used to live in Ann Arbor and dated her roommate. I came to recognize his character, emotional intelligence and kindness even later.

After we met, I didn’t see him again in person for a year. Too shy to do anything about it, I didn’t make my interest known for another six months after that. He never made me wait or wonder, though, for the record. Not like all those exes I mentioned. We talked all the time, and he was clear about his feelings from the start — quite a different trajectory than the spark-filled phenomenon I’d replicated many times before him.

Before all this, I’d toyed with a lot of personal theories about “the spark” — whether great love can exist without it, if it was a manufactured product of my anxious attachment system, etc. All I can say now is that I’m no longer convinced of anything at all, except perhaps that love has about a million incarnations.

To get a flavor of the many shades on that spectrum, I asked women in thriving relationships what they felt when they met and started to get to know their current partners. From weird vibes to excitement, easy camaraderie to absolutely nothing, here’s what they told me.

I’d been single for five years when my husband and I met for a blind date on a Sunday night at a hotel bar in L.A. I walked through the lobby and into the bar, sort of looking around for a guy sitting alone, and then in the back room I saw a dark-haired man on a bench looking up at me with sort of a sly look on his face. I was like, WOW, he is way better looking than I expected! I felt instantly relaxed and happy. We ended up talking for over four hours, and he just seemed different than the typical L.A. guy. For one, he was Canadian, and he was almost nine years older and just felt solid and mature — more relationship-minded than a lot of guys I’d met, but not in a weird, clingy way. At the time I was sort of seeing this other guy who was very hot and cold with his attention. After my date, at around midnight, my phone rang. I thought it might be my now-husband calling to say he had a good time, but it was actually the other guy! Something clicked for me in that moment, and I knew I was completely over him and moving on to something better. We fell into a relationship pretty quickly and got engaged two years after that.

Samantha, 47, married for 9 years

I met my husband and his friend, my eventual roommates, the same night. I remember he was nice, welcoming, funny. I felt at ease with him, but there was not even a blip of romantic interest. He was not remotely my type. When we moved in together, we always had really great conversations, though. I started to think, Hmm…maybe? Everything changed when we got drunk one night and made out at a bar. That was the beginning.

Andra, 29, married for 2 years

I feel like people always expect some crazy romantic story from us, but really we met on Tinder. I remember the first picture I ever saw of her perfectly, though. I really did think she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I was so excited when we matched and quickly decided to go on a first date. We went to an annual art festival in our city and spent hours walking around and chatting. I thought she was so cool and intriguing, and I wanted to learn everything about her. I also thought she was hilarious and hung onto her every word — which she loves, because she also thinks she’s hilarious. With Allie, things were totally different than anyone else I’d ever dated. I always felt a little bored with other people and often couldn’t wait for dates to end. I felt so attracted to not only her outer beauty but her amazing personality — and it happened almost instantly. I definitely fell fast. But ironically, Allie had no idea. She initially thought I just wanted to be friends and didn’t clue into the fact that I wanted a lot more for a couple dates.

Samantha, 24, together for 4 years

We instantly had not one but two jobs together. We were both in grad school at the time; I had been hired to wait tables at a restaurant and had just gotten a tutoring position at the campus writing center. At orientation for the restaurant job, the guy who was leading it found out I also was going to be tutoring and said, “Well you should meet one of our bartenders. He works at the writing center, too!” So he introduced me to Paul, and I thought it was a cool coincidence but really didn’t think anything else about it. I wasn’t super interested in Paul at first, and he was already dating someone — a girl who was also tutoring, no less! But we had a lot in common with two built-in communities from our two jobs. So we chatted a lot and hung out in groups, sometimes going for drinks. But he was also a big partier at the time, and my general impression was that he kinda needed to grow up. Five years later, he did just that! In the interim, he had dated other women and I had moved to New York. But finally, when I moved back to California, something clicked. I knew we were being flirty, but I was kinda scared to make anything of it; we were working together again at the restaurant, and I didn’t want that to be awkward. I also didn’t want to ruin our friendship. (I know.) But finally I got the nerve up and just asked him out. The rest is history.

Christy, 34, married for 4 years

We met at the library, where he was working at the time. I asked to check out some sheet music to some Broadway musical. I had an inexplicable feeling, as if I knew him — which was not possible, since we’d just met. It’s not that he reminded me of someone else; it was more like I felt we knew one another in a previous incarnation. Crazy, I know…but here we are, happily married 20 years later.

Natalia, 40, married for 20 years

He was wearing this blue button-up, sitting behind his computer at his desk. When I was introduced to him, he just kind of looked at me and barely said anything, while I was being my extra-bubbly self because it was my first day of work. Now I know he’s introverted, but I felt judged! I thought he hated me or was at least totally annoyed by me. Anyway, I thought he was cute, but not like drooling-ly so. I was dating someone else at the time and didn’t really consider his level of cuteness that much. Liking him kind of came out of nowhere, which was cool and different for me compared to other relationships I’ve been in. Ben and I just started hanging out because we liked to do the same things, like play basketball after work until the traffic died down or run to Meijer to buy PB&J supplies versus going out to eat. I really didn’t want to date anyone at all, but it just transitioned into dating all of sudden because he was so easy to get along with! It was effortless. Literally, the least amount of effort to date of anyone else I’ve ever been with. I can’t remember a specific moment where it became romantic. It was more like, we’d have an awesome week of hanging out, and the weekend would show up, and I’d miss him, and then I was like, “Wait, when did this happen?”

Shanley, 25, together for 18 months

We originally met online in 2009, but I friend-zoned him for the next eight years! In February of 2017, he finally told me bluntly that he’d been hinting he was still interested in me for some time. I’d missed all the hints. We arranged to meet up outside a Panera before I had a night out with some friends. When I saw him again, I had this weird feeling that whatever happened between us would be very different than anything I’d ever known in relationships before. We only spent about 15 or 20 minutes together that night, but we hugged before parting ways and when he wrapped his arms around me, I felt like I was in a familiar embrace. Our first official date was the following week. He walked me to my car after dinner and gave me another hug. I knew in that moment that I was already falling in love with him. Our relationship developed more slowly than any other relationship I’ve been in, and yet that gave us a more solid foundation than any other relationship I’ve ever been in. We took our time, carefully considering each step as we moved forward. We are now getting ready to move in together.

Wendy, 39, together for 15 months

I was actually turned off by his braggadocious behavior when we met in a bar in Baltimore, and I was skeptical of his big personality. But we ended up talking the night away with awesome intellectual debates about psychology and mental health. Long story short: We dated, I ended things, we stayed friends, we got back together and now we’ve been together for seven years. I had no idea when we first met what an amazing match he was for me. He would say that he knew when we first met, and I think many of my friends knew early on, but I didn’t understand until years later. Ironically, his big personality is what keeps our relationship so fun and exciting. His confidence extends past himself to belief in both me and our relationship. He’s helped me become more confident, too.

Rebekah, 36, married  for 3 years

I first met my now fiancée, Anna, online through OkCupid. It sounds cheesy, but I was immediately drawn to her screen name, which had something about Michigan in the handle. I’m a big Michigan fan, and it’s also the state where we now live together. We chatted online for the better part of a month, as we were both out of town when we connected, and I just remember feeling like, Wow, we have a lot in common and I really hoped we actually meet up. I felt really excited for our first date, but I really didn’t have any expectations. I wasn’t quite in the mindset for a serious relationship at the time, as I’d previously been engaged and it hadn’t worked out, but then I walked into the bar where we were grabbing a drink at together. I felt a connection right away; I immediately felt comfortable in her presence. We quickly dove into easy, meaningful conversation about anything and everything, like Detroit, sexuality, politics, our friends and family, traveling and so on. It was the most meaningful conversation I’d ever had on a date, and before we knew it, three hours had gone by. I remember feeling like I wanted to talk forever and be in her presence, but also a little overwhelmed that I’d met someone I liked so much when I wasn’t expecting it. I also remember entertaining a thought about how it seemed like we were such a good fit! I felt excited but was super nervous about the idea of us turning into something serious; I had never had a thought like that so quickly after meeting someone. It’s been a journey ever since, but a beautiful one with lots of growth. I am so excited to marry her.

Jess, 34, together for 4 years

I met my husband at work while I was living in DC and he was based in New York. During a work trip, our colleague introduced us. He gave me a polite but very short, “Hi, nice to meet you.” I felt absolutely nothing; zero sparks. He was also married at the time, albeit on the rocks (unbeknownst to me). Over the course of the next two years, we both moved to the West Coast, became closer colleagues, collaborated on a lot of work projects and developed a really solid friendship. Fast forward a little bit further and our great work partnership evolved into very clear, strong romantic feelings. After his marriage completely ended, we started dating, moved to New York together and got married. Not at all what I expected, but it’s worked out great.

Amy, 31, married for 1 year

We first met online. I thought she was cute, but she was a super-hippy Hawaii beach girl who overly edited her photos, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel until I met her face to face, which happened when she came to study abroad in London in 2008. As soon as I walked across the bridge from Waterloo station, I spotted her gorgeous, long blonde hair and my heart started to flutter. We instantly hit it off and didn’t stop chatting for hours. Two weeks later, we were officially girlfriend and girlfriend. We both quickly knew that we wanted to marry one another. We’ve conquered four years of long distance between Hawaii and the U.K.; had a civil partnership and “upgraded” to marriage; and will have been together for a decade in October. I’ve never had the same feelings about anyone else that I have for Whitney, and I certainly never had them reciprocated in the same way. We’ve always been on the same page, which has been wonderful.

Megan, 31, together for 10 years

When I first met my husband during Trinidad Carnival in 2006 in a mas costume, there was instant rapport. I immediately felt comfortable with him — and that had never happened before with any other man I’d met. His energy was comforting and familiar, and his being cute probably didn’t hurt either. After dating, talking over the phone continually and traveling to see each other for a few months, we decided to commit. Although we didn’t live in the same city at the time and were a bit leery about starting a long-distance relationship, we decided to give it a shot because the option to not be connected and committed to each other felt empty. From the very beginning of the relationship, we agreed that at the two-year mark, we’d make a decision about relocating to be together. We did exactly that at two years and were married just over a year later.

Esha, 40, married for 8 years

Photo via Getty Images. 

[number9580-blog]

Butch, Genderqueer, Genderfluid, Genderfuck and Trans Blogs to watch out for

The big sexy, hot, smart, fierce, masculine, amazing, handsome, strong, sweet, thoughtful, bulging, turgid list of Butch, Genderqueer, Genderfluid, Genderfucking, Masculine-of-Center and Trans Blogs

The other day, I realized I had a hunger for new butch blogs to read.  So I started trolling blogrolls and then realized ‘butch’ doesn’t cover all of what I’m looking for.  What really peaks my interest are people talking about and living outside the gender binary.  Though I started with a blogroll category of “Butches to Watch Out For”, I’ve changed that to “Bend it like …” because what I’m really trying to get at is the gender bending, defying the default gender system in favor of something that works for all of us.

I always feel a thrill when I find new blogs where the authors are exploring gender, pushing the envelope and redefining the definitions.  Because my personal exploration is being done from the perspective of someone who started life female, bloggers who are on similar journeys appeal to me.  I want to compare notes, I want to find new words, new ways of describing the smell, taste, sound and feeling of female-born masculinity.  I now have a pretty good collection, some are friends I’ve met or chatted with, some are blogs I’ve found through the blogrolls of others.  In each case, I’ve found s0me kind of kinship, something I can relate to and learn from.

It’s kind of funny that in the midst of building up my list of butches and others who bravely break stereotypes every day in diverse situations and lives, I found that ridiculous WikiHow article on How to Be a Butch.  Clearly, the authors of that article haven’t met very many butches.  I’m not going to be foolish enough to write a How To guide for butches, but I do invite you to visit these and look for others.

New as of 5/8/2014

Hudson’s FTM Resource Guide: now that I’m in the midst of evaluating options for medical transition, this website has become indispensable to me.  Full of detailed, factual, non-judgmental information on all the things that come up for someone who is looking at options for transition from female assigned at birth to … something else on the masculine side.  I especially geeked out on the explanation of the different formulations of testosterone, including chemical structure diagrams and the pros and cons of each formulation.

New as of 8/20/2013

NeutroisNonsense:  I surprised myself the other day by finding out I hadn’t already added this blog, written by my friend Micah.  Micah’s beginning to make a name around non-binary identities, asexuality and non-binary transitioning.  Micah is one of my favorite people and has a lot of really smart, informative things to say about gender, identity and talks about the challenges and rewards of navigating through a binary world as a non-binary person.  One of my trans* heroes,

Learning How To Tell You, BD Swain:  This is a butch erotic blog after my own heart (or maybe somewhere lower).  BD joins Sinclair Sexsmith and I in the very rare world of butch erotic writers and does it with pants tightening style.  ”My name is BD Swain. I’m a butch dyke who enjoys writing queer smut – not just because it’s fun, but because sex and pushing my sexual expression is what makes me feel most alive. I am turned on by trust and by pushing the boundaries of it.”

New as of 4/12/2013

ButchOnTap: blogger Butch Jaxon says, “I see the world in a particular way. This blog is about how I see the world, both the good stuff (like beer) and the bad stuff (like idiots), but hopefully always funny.” Though I don’t always see eye to to eye with this blogger on all things butch, that hardly matters because it’s a big enough definition for all of us.  This blogger has had a couple of articles on HuffPost (look for Tristan Higgins), will probably have more in the future, and is definitely a Butch to Watch Out For.

LGinDC:  formerly the blogger known as G, of Can I Help You Sir, now in DC finding her way amongst the monuments and government entities, here’s what she has to say about herself and the blog, “I’m tall. I’m a smart-ass. I like eating with chopsticks. I’m butch. I love the Chicago Cubs and Bears. I’ve broken my nose twice. I love animals. I look horrible in yellow. I’m engaged. I love bourbon. I’m equally enamored with Beyonce and Ron Swanson. I’ll try just about anything once. I’m Irish. I live in Washington, DC. I’m a Scorpio. And I write about things.”

Genderqueer Pie Please:  [no updates since 12/2013] blogger Jake Jacobsen says, “Genderqueer isn’t a new movement, it isn’t even a movement, or new, it’s been around a long, long time, as long as I can remember. Ways of being “out”, seen, heard, and conceptualized are continuously being created through our use of language, and not just by the so called sexual minority, but by everyone. Genderqueer is one of those fairly recent creative wordage attempts at redefining a lived experience of gender that is a reality for a portion of the population.”

The Brown Boi Project is a community of masculine of center womyn, men, two-spirit people, transmen, and our allies committed to transforming our privilege of masculinity, gender, and race into tools for achieving Racial and Gender Justice.  These are great, energetic, dynamic people who are dedicated to their mission.  If this is of interest to you, check out their website and get involved.

New as of 5/16/2012

Trans Vocals: [inactive] I’m glad to see my friend, Holden, is coming back to the blog-o-sphere.  He’s got a new blog, Trans Vocals, and will be talking about his transformation and transition.  I’m very happy to see this thoughtful, intelligent person generously offering to share his insights and progress with the rest of us.

New as of 05/12/2011

fuckyeahbutches: this is a tumblr on the theme of butches, from Jenny Shimizu, to old school butches to butches like, well, me.  Check it out for eye-candy or for images of people who remind you of you and your friends.

Butch Wonders:  this blog shows great promise with posts pondering the potential adverse effects of wearing a tie to interviews, defending her choice to wax and shave, and a great post on Butch Buddies.

New as of 04/19/2011

thoughts ON: [last post 12/2013] blogger Andy posted on the topic of being trans, but not enough to transition, for more on Andy’s thoughts on this ‘middleground’, read I AM trans.  I just don’t try very hard.  From Andy’s bio:   Andy is a recent college graduate living in New England. When not engaged in queer activism Andy spends a lot of time kayaking, reading, and trying to change the world with a combination of twitter, church, and positive thinking while trying to decide on future plans which may, or may not, include ministry; but that’s the direction things are leaning right now.  Andy works for various LGBTQ organizations and loves them all dearly.

(L)earned Masculinity:  [last post 7/2012] this blogger used to post on a blog called Break it Down, Butch, but recently transitioned to this new space, acknowledging his passage from butch identified to trans identified.  Add this one to your readers and follow DK on their journey down the genderbrick road.  DK’s about page contains this line, one of my favorites found in anyone’s biography:  My soul is blue and smells faintly of cedar.

Debonairgeek:   I’m a nice guy. I am just trying to find my voice.  Em wrote a post called,Deep Thoughts, talking about being butch and genderqueer and I really relate to almost all of what they’re saying.  And, if you’ve ever wondered when and how to ‘pop your collar’ (and even if you haven’t), you should read this:  entertaining, informative, funny.

MTF Butches (tumblr): This tumblr was inspired by the existence of other amazing tumblrs such as Fuck Yeah Cute Trans Chicks, Fuck Yeah FTMs, Femme FTM, as well as others. This page is meant to provide an additional empowering space for the multitude of trans* gender expressions.  This is an inclusive space for the celebration of all butch, futch, butch-femme switches, grrls, genderqueer, genderfluid and other likewise MTF spectrum folk out there! Let’s represent some butch trans women!

Fuck Yeah FTMs (tumblr): Tumblr dedicated to FTMs, genderqueers, and others along that spectrum.  Submissions are accepted, but moderated and you should follow the theme of the day:  Muscle Mondays, Topless Tuesdays, We Wednesdays, Underwear Fridays, Fuzzy Sundays.  Check the submission link for more information and guidelines.

New as of 01/25/2011

Gendercast:  Our Transmasculine Genderqueery:  Podcasts hosted by Sean Leao and Jessie.  So far there are two podcasts, plus audio biographies from the hosts.  Gendercast is a podcast looking to build community and we are encouraging participation at every turn.  We speak to the entire transmasculine community, including genderqueer identified and beyond and of course, those who love them!

A Butch in the Kitchen.  This blog gets into the nitty gritty of cooking butch with recipes, techniques and even some kitchen gear for the butch kitchen queer. She says she’s a novice but I’ll be her skills are just ready to be discovered.  So far there are two recipes up:  Cherry cobbler and ice cream bread.  As a Butch Baker, I’m intrigued by these, but also looking forward to ideas in the appetizers and main courses categories.  Butch in the Kitchen has a list of other food sites to check out and will also take submissions of recipes and photos from other cooks.  I’m also wondering if anyone’s doing a Butch Cocktails site… hmmm.. maybe there’s a market for that.  Follow this butch on twitter, as Butchndakitchen.

New as of 1/12/2011

Mixing it Up, JizLee.com:  Genderqueer porn star, certifiably sexy individual, Jiz Lee says this about their blog — It’s a website and blog I run as a vehicle to share my experiences of sex and gender, film and photography. I hope it can provide a resource to queers and allies out there interested in my projects or wanting to find someone like themselves represented in the work I do and the ideas I express. Follow Jiz on twitter, check out their performances in the Crash Pad Series, the movie Champion and anywhere else you can.  My personal connection is fleeting but squee worthy:  I met Jiz at the New York City Sex Bloggers Calendar party in 2009 and mentioned I had this blog.. which Jiz totally knew about “Oh! You’re Kyle!” *hug* .. but that’s not all, Roxy introduced herself and got a very long,  full body hug.  I think that means Jiz approves of my taste in women

New as of 12/29/2010:

ButchLab:  Sinclair Sexsmith’s latest contribution to the community:  The mission of the Butch Lab Project is to promote a greater understanding of masculine of center gender identities, expressions, and presentations, through encouraging: 1. visibility, because we feel alone; 2. solidarity, because there are many of us out there, but we don’t always communicate with each other; and 3. an elevation of the discussion, because we have a long history and lineage to explore and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  Follow @butchlab on twitter as well.

On Being Butch:  a very new and shiny butch-oriented blog by J-Rob, “I’ve only recently come to realize that butch is my gender, not just a role I play, and that has opened a lot of space for me to be who I am.  Again, it’s odd, I’m 33 and I have been who I am my whole life, but I’m only just starting to understand what “who I am” actually means.”

Butch.org:  by Jenni Olson, director of e-commerce at WolfeVideo.com and an LBGT queer cinema historian.  Author of The Queer Movie Poster Book (2005, Chronicle Books), Jenni was also one of the founders of PlanetOut.com where she established the massive queer film industry resource, PopcornQ. She continues to write about queer films, as well as curating, collecting, and creating them. Her feature debut, The Joy of Life is now available on DVD.

Added 11/16/2010

Lesbian Neurotica, by Ulla, a butch dyke in South Africa who writes and draws cartoons and leaves thoughtful comments on a lot of the blogs I read.

Added 10/12/2010

A Stranger in This Place, by Wendi, who describes herself as “a motorcycle riding butch lesbian, retired accountant turned photographer and writer searching for her purpose in life and learning to enjoy the ride.”  Wendi’s working on a book and participated in the Gender/Queer Spoken Word event for BV PDX on Sunday.  I’m looking forward to reading more from Wendi.

Words of a Boi, by Jessie.  This writer read something written during Sinclair’s writing workshop that stuck with me.. so much so that I instantly recognized it when I saw it on their blog a few days later.   It’s a beautiful work of prosecomparing gender to a flower.   This writer uses poetry, wonderful imagery and an openness that is very engaging.

Added 8/2/2010

Andi HB’s blog.  Andi is a butch I met through twitter and another person who met and fell in love with someone through twitter (hey hey, Missy).  Yes, the west coast butch fell for the Nawlins femme…  can’t wait to see the Disney version.  Andi’s a fan of all things Irish, the New Orleans Saints and, of course, Missy.  Her latest post featured a damn fine pair of butch shoes.  You can follow her on twitter as @andi_hb.

bracketabracket:  [a] is a new blogger, just discovering the world of butch, trans, genderqueer, poly, BDSM blogs, since mid-june ’10, has been offering insights and stories of his own.  Check out [a]‘s blog for posts about Transgender issues, BDSM and kink, Sex, Love, Relationships, Theater, Art, Politics.

Added 6/25/2010

Bron’s blog, Duct Tape Tomatoes, is new since May of this year, but already has me pulled in with her charm and honesty.  I really, really love reading stories about people becoming themselves, it’s not only inspiring, it refuels me.   The latest one that I really loved was The Manicure… butch gets mani/pedi, freezes at nail polish choices and plays Mario Brothers with new little brother.

Dear Diaspora isn’t a new blog, and a lot of you probably already read it, but I’m new to S. L. Bond’s view of the world.  And that view, as communicated on DD is that of a Jewish Dyke and art student living in New Mexico.

Bee Listy is another blogger who’s been at it a while, Bee is a crafty, savvy butch who writes on a variety of topics.  One post that really struck home with me recently was You know what’s awesome?, where Bee speaks of her frustration over the Butch-Trans border wars and wonders why some people don’t think there’s enough masculinity to go around for all those who want to claim it.  Bee tweets as Beelisty.

Original list

Sugarbutch Chronicles:  my gateway into the world of butch blogging and one of the most popular blogs around.  Sinclair Sexsmith’s blog is your guide to sex toys, gender awareness and butch sexuality.  After stalking Sinclair through blog posts and twitter for a long time, was happy to finally meet her in person at the New York Sex Bloggers Calendar Party last November.  Over two years ago, when I discovered Sugarbutch Chronicles, what first caught my attention was the idea of butch erotic writing, which eventually led to the existence of Butchtastic.  Sinclair lent support, practical advice and encouragement and has been a great source of inspiration.  Sinclair tweets as @mrsexsmith.

Packing Vocals:  Holden is one of my favorite butch erotic writers, a family guy, a snappy dresser and a good friend.  Married to one of my favorite femmes, Femmeismygender, Holden tweets as @packingvocals.

NattNightly:  Natt isn’t blogging as much anymore, but if you love beautiful writing and honest accounts of self-discovery and gender, it’s worth your time to read through the archives.  I’ve been moved to tears more than once, from the sheer painful rawness of some stories and also from a severe case of writer’s envy.  Having met and spent time with this super cool, super smart butch, I can say without question, Natt is very tall and is a lot of fun to hang out with.   Natt tweets as @nattnightly.

Just Like Jesse James:  This Seattle butch is an unabashed Cher fan and will also discourse at length on the virtues of the Golden Girls, if you just give her half a chance.  Jesse blogs about Cher, life with her girlfriend and dog and the various other critters who inhabit their lives.  Another blogger I’ve had the good fortune to meet and hang out with in real life, we live close enough to do it again, and we’re gonna, so watch out world.   Jesse James tweets as @justjessejames.

Mina Meow/Aiden Fyre:  Depending on when you meet this blogger you might think.. “Wow, hot femme” or “Mmmgrrr, who’s that sexy boi?” and you wouldn’t be wrong either way.  Mina/Aiden is exploring gender thoroughly and with the kind of bravery, poise and intelligence we all should aspire to.  This blogger writes about gender, sexual politics and how it all fits into the life of a “try-sexual”.  I count it as one of the high points of my life that I’ve shared a deep passionate kiss with this hot and sexy blogger (and watched a make-out session with my girlfriend — yes, you should envy me).  Follow on twitter as @aidenfyreand/or @minameow.

Butch GirlCat:  Leo McCool isn’t blogging anymore but he was one of the first butch bloggers I gravitated to and fell in love with.  Leo’s sometimes heart-wrenchingly honest stories about love, relationships and the journey to find his gender home are a must read for anyone else trying to find their way between the gender poles.

X-Ray Introductions:  I first became aware of Arron when he was my secret Santa recipient and I sent him a cool metal studded belt and belt buckle.  I finally met Arron during a visit to see Roxy in San Francisco.  Over the years, I’ve enjoyed Arron’s video product reviews and stories about life.  Arron tweets as @amok_.

The Freezing Flames:  Firebolt is a genderqueer youth living in India, dealing with the challenges of a family that doesn’t get it in a society that really doesn’t get it.  Firebolt is way ahead of where I was at that age, and living under much more trying circumstances, and has my unswerving admiration as a result. Tweets as @fireboltx.

Bren Ryder:  Bren is the butch creative genius behind GoodDykePorn and as such, deserves our unending gratitude.   Bren works hard to produce real, hot, queer porn with real queers.   Bren is someone I know I’ll get to meet someday in RL, and I’m really looking forward to that.  Bren tweets as @brenryder.

Jess I Am:  Jess is courageous, thoughtful and honest in telling the story of how he went from being a butch to a transman.  Life has handed him a lot of challenges in the past couple of years, but with his wife, Tina, at his side, he’s handled those challenges with grace and strength.  I almost had the privilege of meeting these two during my trip to NYC, but it didn’t work out, but I have a very strong feeling we’ll all meet up at some point in RL.  Jess tweets as @JessIAmBlog.

How to Be Butch:  One of the newer blogs on my reader, Harrison doesn’t really try to tell you how to be butch, because, as the banner says “There’s more than one way”.  Instead, you get some fun and insightful posts on Harrison’s exploration of butchness and gender and life.    Harrison tweets as @HarrisonTB.

Sartorial Butch:  A blog about butch fashion, the culinary arts and all around butch goodness.  Another of my newer blog habits, SartorialButch is now featured on Butch-Femme.com and tweets as @SartorialButch.

She Called Me Superman:  Yondergen’s blog tagline is “writing myself down so I can be found, or followed” and that’s really the goal of most of us who blog, isn’t it?  Yondergen explores the butch-masculine-queer gender mix that is the heart of the matter for me as well.  Plus baking, relationships, the quandaries of how to express and understand it all.

Musings from the High Speed Rodeo:  Rhett’s writing is rapid and rhythmic, filled with great observations, honesty and humor.  Rhett is the Asphalt Cowboy, go on over there, y’all, you’re in for a great ride.

Can I Help You, Sir?:  Going by the initial, G, this butch blogs about gender, butchness and identity.  G tweets as @canihelpyousir and has (had?) a regular feature called the Swoon List.

Lesbian Dad:  I’ve had the Lesbian Dad on my reader for a long time.  LD writes about her family, posts the sweetest pictures of her daughter and son and talks about parenting, politics and popular culture.  My Suburban Butch Dad Reports were inspired by the Lesbian Dad.   Follow her tweets @LesbianDad.

The Butchelor:  another brave, honest blog from the perspective of a butch lesbian starting to come out as trans.  Even though I’m not trans, I find myself relating to guys like this who are born in a body that doesn’t completely match who they are on the inside.   It’s personal, it’s real, you should check it out.  Tweets as @thebutchelor.

Break It Down, Butch:  a blog I’ve discovered recently written by a butch who isn’t afraid to get it all out there.  I appreciate the passion and honesty of this blogger and look forward to reading more.

Transitional Life (Life in Transition):  Emmett takes us on his journey from butch to trans complete with family drama, changes brought on by testosterone, new names and the other challenges of life.  Emmett is a lovely guy, wonderful with animals (he’s a vet tech) and people (especially kids, kids love him) and I wish him all the best as he continues on his journey.  He’s got a YouTube channel, labradork1 where he’s been tracking the changes brought on by his transition.  Emmett tweets as @friendtopups.

Butch Boo:  BB is one of my earliest readers, a Brit Butch Blogger in London who recently posted a lovely grouping of pictures featuring butch footwear.

A Gender Queer View:  Natasha Yar-Routh’s place on the web.  A married gender queer trans-woman who posts short little nuggets of political observation and thoughts on life.  Tweets as @xiomberg.

Gender Me Softly:  The only couple-authored blog on my list, this blog is brand new, they just started this month.  T. J.  and Rhylee Flint share love, lives and blog space.  Thad is a butch, likes the word ‘queer’ (so do I) and enjoys cultivating a masculine look through binding and packing.  Rhylee is a queer female who’s exploring her gender and gender expression from a more femme perspective.

Gender Outlaw:  this is a blog chronicling Joshua Riverdale’s  FTM journey.  Even though transitioning isn’t for me, I’ve learned a lot from his blog entries, videos and tweets, and appreciate his wit and intelligence.  If you are curious about transitioning, or looking for genderqueer related resources (think binding, packing, etc), consider this blog and his website, transguys.com, as great starting points for the personal stories and resources.  He’s got some of the best sideburns ever.. I’m totally having some envy over those.  Josh tweets as @transguys.

Genderfork:  this is a community blog, who’s mission is to support community for the expression of identities across the gender spectrum.  They tweet as @genderfork and post profiles of genderqueer/fluid/variant folks.

Get Off My Lawn:  wow.. now that’s a pretty grumpy blog title.  Read the About Me and see a lot of bullet points.. this blogger loves bullet points, and was highly influenced by popular culture icons such as Matlock, Hank Hill and Mulder and Scully.  As grumpy as the blog title is, I find this blogger highly amusing and fun to read, go check it out and see if you feel the same way.  Tweets as @benjamin_bex.

Just a Big Guy with a Fun Sense of Sin:  S. Bear Bergman’s Live Journal.  I got to see Bear on a book reading tour with Ivan Coyote, and bought his book “The Nearest Exit May be Behind You” that night.  Bear is a transman, new father and a gifted story teller.  Bear tweets as @sbearbergman.

Visibly Transparent:  Bear’s husband, Ishai, has a Live Journal as well.  He carried their son Stanley and I can relate to his stories about the fertility clinic, pregnancy, birth and parenting.

Love Kills Slowly (tumblr):  tumblr account of Val, known on twitter as @rugby8.  Val posts pictures of sexy women, and the occasional quote.

somewhere in the middle:  Nezu says it best “This is my place for looking at the middle ground of gender identity and sexual preference. And who knows, probably other stuff, too.”  I’ve just begun to explore this writer’s musings about butchness, gender, identity and relationships.

TG Stone Butch Journal:   Corey Alexander is a well-known queer kink/sex educator and writer.  He can be found all over the country at conferences teaching and speaking on topics as diverse as polyamory, butch faggot play, stone sexuality and a myriad of other topics around gender and sexuality.  Corey tweets as @tgstonebutch, look for his queer BDSM erotica under the nom de plum, Xan West.

The Man Sam:  Son of T:  Former female Sam Peterson tells all in this blog about transition.  Looking forward to his chest reconstruction surgery thanks to ChestFest2010, Matt is wonderfully honest, funny and self-deprecating — a combination I particularly enjoy.  Follow him on twitter as @ThaManSam.

Transfaggotry:  Faggot Boi blogs about pronoun anxiety, leaving the lesbian identity behind, and other topics around becoming trans.

Transifesto:  Matt Kailey’s place on the web.  Matt shares information and his thoughts on transgender and transsexual issues.  He’s a nationally recognized speaker and author on transgender issues and tweets as @MattKailey.

Androgynanomous: DPR (Dread Pirate Roberts) is the sweetheart of one of my favorite online people, Scintillectual.  DPR just started blogging not long ago, but has already established a rhythm with poetry, musings on gender and sweet, sensual tributes to her lover.  Tweets as @dread_pyrate.

butchboi:  this site is run by the infamous Leo, of the Big Pink House.  This is a site for cruising and networking, for those who identify as butch, boi, trans, gender queer, stud, drag king & their friends.  The free membership opens up some features: forums, events and cruising, videos and a chatroom.  The Cruising feature is fun, you can hone in your search by age, geography with more features available to subscribers.  Check out the tweets from @ButchBoiLeo and @ButchBoi and@BigPinkHouse to keep up with the ButchBoi happenins.

This is the list so far, I like the length and heft of it (heh!) and I really like the diversity.  The bloggers on this list have a stories to tell, experiences to share and I will continue to learn a lot from them.  The breadth of this group, from the more female identified butch to the more male identified trans, meet the needs I have to explore the many facets and identities within me.  There are some super smart people on this list, and funny too… great writers, open-hearted honest people, sometimes frustrated, but trying to make the world a better place for themselves and others.   It may be hubris on my part to count myself as one of them, but these people have nurtured, coached and supported my journey as well.  Even if we don’t make the same decisions, or come to the same conclusions, we’re all asking the same kind of questions, and questioning the same assumptions.

I encourage you to visit these blogs, read their stories and add them to your regular rotation if they appeal to you.  And if I’ve left someone out, someone you think would fit into this list, please be so kind as to introduce me to them.

SOURCE

[not-so-fast-physio-blog]

Should You Be Ashamed of Yourself?

A few weeks ago a buddy of mine, who happens to be a really good runner, especially by my standards, came up to me and said, “Hey Nate, the back of my legs have always been pretty tight.  Is that something I should be worried about?”  I told him, “Not necessarily, why?”  He replied, “Well, the other day at boot camp we were warming up, doing some stretches, and the group was giving me a hard time as I’m not really able to touch my toes.”

He’d been Hamstring Shamed.

These perceived feelings of tightness are pretty common among people, whether it be hamstrings, or hips, or calf muscles, and I generally don’t get too worried about it unless it’s associated with discomfort or difficulty performing a task.  I asked him, “Are you having any problems with your daily activities?” “No.”  “Are you having any pain?” “No.”  “Have you noticed any change in your running or gait?” “Nope.”   “Well then, you’re probably as flexible as your body needs to be for what you want to do.  Stretch if you want.  Or don’t.”

This exchange got me thinking though.  Flexibility is a wide ranging topic and one where everyone seems to have their own opinions.  To add to that, many of those opinions are miss-guided, or flat wrong.  So let��s take a look into flexibility and stretching, and see if we can tease out the important stuff, so you can decide for yourself if stretching is something you need to do and whether or not you’re flexible “enough.”  As always, the aim of The Not-So-Fast Physio is to empower we “average” runners.  The information referenced will be biased towards running.

Often when runners reflect on their own perceived lack of flexibility, wondering if they need to stretch more, they often ask themselves the following questions:

Do I need to be more flexible?

Should I stretch before running so I don’t hurt myself?

Should I stretch after I run?

My (insert body part) hurts. Should I stretch it?

If I don’t stretch will I get old and stiff?

We’ll try to address them here.

“Do I need to be more flexible?”

There is no “Gold Standard” for just how flexible anyone should be, namely, how much motion you should have available at both ends of a joint’s movement spectrum.  You just have to have the necessary range to accommodate the movements needed to complete your desired activities.  If you want to be in the ballet, you damn well better have muscles like Laffy Taffy.  That isn’t necessarily the case for runners, whose muscles often more closely resemble Kit Kats.  In fact, those Kit Kats can be somewhat rewarding.   A few studies have shown that runners with shorter hamstring lengths are actually more efficient runners, which helps them run faster and longer.  Runners need enough hip extension, ankle dorsiflexion, and big toe extension to load the stance leg all the way back for a solid push off.  This typically isn’t an issue.  By buddy should tell his hammies “Thank you!” and then look at his fellow boot campers and say “Back off, my hamstrings are AWESOME thanks!”

Other types of exercise or athletic activity require greater levels of flexibility, and doing mobility work (which can include static stretching) may be needed to get you where you want to be.  In the end, if you want to be more flexible, go ahead and stretch it out.  Stretching feels good.  It’s relaxing.  It helps you feel more pliable. It calms the nervous system.  It can be quite beautiful.  Just know that when it comes to running problems, lack of “flexibility” is usually not the culprit.

Final Answer: Probably not.  In fact, being “tight” in some areas may be beneficial for runners.

“Should I stretch before running so I don’t hurt myself?”

It’s a common belief that stretching decreases your risk for injury.  It’s also a common belief that you should stretch to warm up.  So you’ll often see people at the gym or near the starting line doing toe-touches, calf stretches on the curb, or knee to chest stretches on their back, just to name a few.  Studies show, however, that static stretching has no impact on whether or not you will sustain an injury.  Injuries still occur.  The research also shows that static stretching as a warm up impairs performance, as it decreases the ability of your muscles to produce strength and power.  

The vast majority of injuries sustained by runners can be traced back to overload, meaning the runner has run too far, too long, or too fast (maybe too slow?).  All tissues have a breaking point.  To truly decrease your risk for injury, you need to build capacity into your tissues.  You have to build an ability to accept load, then propel that load forward, over and over.  Stretching and flexibility really have little to do with this.  You need to focus on building capacity through running and strength training.

•Side note: If you’ve experienced a significant injury or undergone surgery on an area that has resulted in significant limitations in mobility at a joint in the leg, you may be at a higher risk for injury as other joints above and below will need to compensate.  This can result in overload injuries in the compensating tissues.

Should you warm up before exercising? Absolutely.  Our muscles are like ketchup.  If it’s been sitting in a bottle on a shelf in the fridge, it won’t move well initially as you try to pour it out.  But, if you shake it and get it moving, it flows quite nicely.  You need to get your muscles moving, but it should be through an active warm up, such as a slow jog, walking knees to chest, jumping jacks, whatever.  Incidentally, this also prepares your cardiovascular and pulmonary systems for what lies ahead.  You need to prime the pumps.  Static stretching doesn’t do that.  On top of that, it decreases strength and power output.  We don’t want that.

Final Answer: No.  Use an active warm up to feel loose and get the blood flowing.  Stretching gets you stretchier, which is awesome if you need more mobility to better fit a task.  But that’s not all too common in running.  If you want to decrease your risk for injury, you need to get stronger.

My “____” hurts. Should I stretch it?

Sore or painful areas often feel tight, so it seems logical that stretching the area will fix it, or make it feel better.  Let’s take the plantar fascia for example, as it is a common place for runners to experience pain and/or tightness.  Pain is a perceived sensation resulting from the brain deciding that either an acute injury has occurred or there exists a suitable threat of harm to occur.  It’s not often that a runner steps on a nail when running, so most plantar fascial pain is a result of the brain notifying the runner that the tissue is struggling to keep up.  There exists a threat of harm.  Pain is therefore a protective mechanism that hopefully stops you from incurring serious harm to your tissues.  Along with pain, your body also “stiffens up” the area under threat (your calf might feel tight).  Again, this is a protective mechanism to hopefully keep you from doing something stupid and really hurting yourself.  You should listen to your body here.  Will stretching help in lessoning your heel pain and loosening your calf muscle?  It will, but remember what we discussed earlier.  Static stretching “turns down the volume” of your nervous system.  This helps to decrease the threat messages going to the brain and subsequently relaxes the musculature.  Therefore, stretching may help to decrease your perception of pain and discomfort and will loosen the muscle.  Be mindful that the effect is short lived, which is why you often have to keep “re-stretching” the painful tissue.

To truly address your pain or discomfort, you have to get to the root of the problem, and that is that your nervous system is telling you that the tissues are not handling well the loads you are placing on them.  You need strength and capacity, which is a common theme here!  For runners with plantar fasciitis, you’ll commonly see calf stretches prescribed for treatment.  They do work to decrease discomfort, but in the end the stretch isn’t what gets people better.  The latest research calls for strength exercises to build capacity and force the body to adapt to handling greater loads.  There’s also evidence that changing your running mechanics can be of assistance.

Final answer: Stretching will help to decrease discomfort.  But the likely reason you have pain is that your tissues aren’t able to handle the load you are asking them to take on.  Back off a bit on the running, possibly look at your running mechanics, and strengthen your tissues.

If I don’t stretch will I get old and stiff?

This question’s straight out of the Not-So-Fast Physio Mom’s mouth!  I’ll keep this simple and to the point.  If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.  If you lose it, you can’t handle it.  If you can’t handle it, you’re in for trouble.  Stay active, move, stretch, and strengthen.  Build capacity into your body, and your body will reward you by allowing you to do the things you love to do for years and years.  Mom, with love I say, “Pick up a weight and lift it a few times.”

Final Thoughts on Static Stretching and Flexibility:

1.You need to have the necessary range of movement required to complete your desired activity.  If you lack the range, static stretching will lengthen the desired muscles over the course of 3-8 weeks (depending on the studies reviewed).  Remember though, if you don’t use it…

2.Stretching is not the ideal warm up for physical activity.  Use a dynamic warm up to loosen the muscles and get the blood flowing.

3.If you’re trying to get over an injury, or even prevent an injury, stretching is not your best option.  Strengthen your tissues to prevent most issues!

4.It’s true that as we age we do lose elasticity in our muscles and various connective tissues.  But it is not so much that which drives us to lose flexibility.  Rather, it is the hours upon hours that we spend sitting and eating crap.  So get moving and do something awesome!

Thank you so much for reading.  Please share with all of your friends. If you have any questions please comment in the comment section and I will do my best to adequately provide an answer.  If you have any concerns regarding a current injury, or would like specific coaching with regards to running or strength training, you can contact me by email (natedickesphysicaltherapy@gmail.com)  or my website.   

Keep running!