#my issues have very much been around social coding and not understanding what is and isnt allowed and an intense anxiety around

[variousqueerthings]

finished reading "tell me I'm worthless," which was an interesting experience. I think there's something really good for you in your soul to be able to understand the genre conventions you're in and the kinds of structures and language and character that can be explored in these genres. I think about how people tend to -- with fiction about marginalisation and/or about people who are marginalised as a blanket whole, regardless of the story -- operate on a checklist of dos and donts, but mainly donts: don't ever tell us a deadname, don't ever use these "problematic" words to describe them/or have them describe themselves in this way, don't ever describe negative emotions or "problematic" emotions, don't let the characters have harmful traits (either towards themselves or others), don't hurt your characters at all actually, don't make your characters politically uncomfortable or "problematically" complicated in their political outlook and/or journey, don't make your characters be assholes ever, certainly don't traumatise your characters, and under no circumstance do you kill your characters!

which of course, this book does praaaactically every one of these things, thank goodness

[zenithabovemarshland]

Just thinking aloud about fame, celebrity, and Pluto in Aquarius...

When Britney Spears was released from the conservatorship there were posts about how it's likely Britney might not be as internet-literate or socially appropriate as we'd like her to be, considering everything she went through. The posts encouraged others to be patient and understanding, and not to cancel her if she happens to make any mistakes.

Just now I saw a similar point about Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Now that she's released she intends to make herself very public online, but her entire life (32 years) has been spent in either one prison or the other. There are concerns for how she might adjust to the internet we know today, seeing as how she likely didn't get the opportunity to grow alongside social media the way the rest of us did.

In the 2024 Year Ahead Forecast from The Astrology Podcast they brought up the Pluto in Leo generation, and how that period of time and that generation relate to the making of our concept of "celebrity". They're also the generation that are holding on to power (like the presidents of the USA). Pluto in Leo gen is also unique because it's one of the only Pluto generations that is likely to live to their Pluto opposition, which is happening now. With this Pluto opposition, the pod talked about how the idea of who gets to be in power is likely to change. As well as our concept and relationship with "celebrities".

In 1991, Pluto in Scorpio (square to Pluto in Leo, if it matters. Whether it matters is still something I'm exploring here), Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I'm not actually sure how public illness was allowed to be previous to that. I just remember growing up how Michael J. Fox was something of a special case, and his celebrity status helped make massive leaps in awareness and research for Parkinson's.

Hollywood became big in the 1920's, when Pluto was in Cancer. While Pluto has been in the opposite sign, Capricorn, I feel like I've heard about a million celebrities coming out with illness. Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Bruce Willis. Recently, Celine Dion. If you Google it, there are lists of dozens of celebrities with chronic illnesses. Not to mention mental illness, which has become that much more public.

My feeling at this point is that there are themes of privacy, hidden and internal illness, and representation here that we've seen getting dug up from the Pluto in Cancer era. True crime stories from old Hollywood, being open about mental illness, exposing how child talents have been exploited by the industry, and of course, hidden afflictions to celebrities are changes we've seen around fame through the trine, Pluto in Scorpio, and opposition, Pluto in Capricorn.

Most obviously, though, who gets to be famous has changed the most in the last 20 years. It used to be only special, hand-picked people who got to be famous. Now it could be anybody with a cell phone.

I think of this blog post on the Aries Point by Ace (AliceSparklyKat), where they talk about how the angular points seem to manifest. They've noticed that celebrities whose Sun is at 0 degrees Cancer seem to be regarded as chameleon-like in their nationality, form, or culture, and those with 0 degrees Capricorn seem to be known for a peak example for one nationality, form, or culture. I wonder if this can be seen in this shift to influencer culture, particularly in the rhetoric that celebrities until now have been made to represent everybody. But now, after Pluto in Capricorn, we are much more aware of the consequences of not having fair representation of more nuanced, individual experiences. At first it was all about art and talent. Now, it's about the hard tacks of who gets what job and why, and the consequences of story. Very Cancer to Capricorn opposition coded.

Anyway, I feel like I've noticed a lot of celebrities becoming ill in the past, and now I feel like I'm seeing some "taboo" issues come up in influencer culture. I'm wondering about how this could be gearing us up for Pluto in Aquarius.

What do you think??? I really want to hear your thoughts!

[bloomeng]

I made a post talking about my frustration with Lxc mischaracterization and several people mentioned in the tags the adjacent fanon Lxc problem, aka the “himbo” characterization.

Himbo is now just one of those internet words that has been so overused and thrown out of its original context that to me it almost has no meaning. My eyes sort of just glaze over it, which might be why it doesn’t bother me as much. But as far as mischaracterization goes— oh definitely Lxc is not at all a himbo.

Definitions vary but in my opinion to be a himbo one must be three things:

1) Obviously strong

To be a himbo it’s not enough to just be strong, you must be visibly strong. Bimbo and himbo’s were originally negative descriptors given to hot people who were supposedly stupid. What I’m getting at is it’s a visual aesthetic. If a character’s strength isn’t immediately identifiable then they’re not a himbo. I’m not talking “has to have a six pack,” I’m talking clothing that inadvertently reveals their strength. It’s about how they present themselves the same way bimbo is about how you present yourself. To be clear the majority of characters aren’t aware of the himbo label but they are conscious of the way they dress. They’re not dressing to fit a mold they’re dressing to show off in a way they think is cool. (Ex: characters like Itto and Galo walking around shirtless for the vibe)

2) Dumb in an oblivious way

Himbos aren’t book smart, nor are they great at grasping highly technical things, but they do shock everyone around them with their emotional intelligence. This trait comes from the newer, more positive interpretation of the label that the internet has created. Himbos are no longer flat out stupid, no they’re just a little dumb but they have a big heart. It’s the simplicity in their logic that allows them to be so straightforward and cut through the bs to the humanity of any given issue. However, it also means a lot goes over their heads. The obliviousness is the key to their dumb characterization because it’s what allows them to be so open and loud about what they believe in.

3) Kind

I already partially touched on this in the previous blurb but apart of the new understanding of a himbo is their capacity for kindness. Usually himbos are written to have strong internal moral codes that are very simple, but it’s the simplicity that allows them to see past the cultural norms and politics and just be respectful to everyone regardless of their background. That’s why people often say himbos can’t be sexist, racist, etc. Which I mostly agree with, but I do think that there are levels to this. I think if we’re discussing characters, himbos are allowed some minor prejudices as a flaw that they then work through. Sokka, while not a himbo, is a good example of a character who starts a series with a flaw (sexism) that comes from a well meaning place but grows from it. The important thing is the capacity to respect everyone.

Now Lxc does have some of these traits but he doesn’t display them in a way that matches what a himbo is.

Stength:

He’s very strong both in his cultivation and physically. Too bad we can’t see that just by looking at him.

Oblivious:

Lxc’s whole thing is that he’s literally book smart. Never once is oblivious to a situation. He purposely allows himself some blissful ignorance when it came to the situation between Jgy and Nmj but that was his one selfish act. He’s well adept when it comes to handling politics more so than anyone in the book. If you think that Lxc’s internal logic is simplistic that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of his character. The dumbest he ever gets is tied to class, where he struggles to do daily chores, and even then he’s never shown to be oblivious to the social hierarchy.

Kindness:

This is probably the trait Lxc embodies the most. He is very kind. That being said his internal logic system is not simplistic at all. Lxc is a lot more morally grey than he seems at first glance. While he feels strongly about not judging others based on their backgrounds he also has a deep understanding of exactly why certain people aren’t accepted in the first place. He understands his status and accepting Jgy was absolutely a calculated move on his part. It was coming from a good place but he also understood the delicacy of the situation. If he were actually a himbo he would’ve had none of that delicacy and pitched a very loud fit over it.

All of this is to say he’s no where near the realm of himbo. I think the only types of people who refer to him as one are typically the same people who only engage with his character on the most surface level. They mean well because it’s supposed to be a compliment— which might be why I don’t mind it as much— but it’s also just fundamentally the exact opposite of his character. He’s a passive reserved artist who’s been forced into a leadership position where he has to navigate politics.

[lurkingshan]

Be My Favorite: Why, Kwan, why?

Week after week I wait for this show to wobble and disappoint me, but here we are at episode 9 and it’s still going strong, even when the story goes in directions I don’t expect. I sat here for a few minutes trying to decide what to focus on from this episode, and this is the thing most on my spirit this week.

Kwan, I say this with nothing but love in my heart: what on earth are you doing getting tangled up with a guy like Not? 

In every timeline, over and over again, we see that Kwan gravitates to this dude, despite all his awful behavior. Here is what we have seen from Not to date across the timelines:

Bullying

Homophobia

Misogyny

Pretending to befriend Kawi so he could manipulate him 

Threatening to out Pisaeng for his own gain

Having a sexual relationship with Kwan while actively pursuing or even marrying Pear

All around unkind behavior toward pretty much everyone

To date, BMF has shown me nothing to explain why Kwan is so desperately into this guy. Kwan has been witness to all this same behavior we have seen throughout the story, and they have had one (1) conversation where Not was only about 50% instead of 100% an asshole. He’s not nice to her, and he doesn’t respect her. And let me say this clearly: it’s not that it’s unrealistic for a great girl to get caught up with a total dumpster fire of a man who treats her like shit. That’s a tale as old as time and I can absolutely justify how this can happen in my head. But from a storytelling and characterization perspective, I want to feel a bit more grounded in who Kwan is to fully understand why she is letting this man treat her this way. We still don’t know anything about her family background, romantic history, or personal desires beyond wanting Not’s attention. Unlike the other core characters, we don’t know what motivates her and what she wants out of life. We don’t even know that much about her friendship with Pear and how deep (or not) it is.

So here’s my best theory for now: Kwan is fat-coded in this story (but not actually fat, because actors playing fat in dramas rarely are). I first raised this idea a couple weeks ago with a few friends, asking if they thought we were supposed to be reading Kwan as fat, and therefore socially undesirable, and we were not yet confident that the show was going there with her. But at this point, it’s the only read on Kwan that’s really tracking for me.

Kwan has been placed in the familiar role of the less desirable best friend to the pretty popular girl, and has some very obvious insecurities about Not’s clear preference for Pear over her. She seems to be hoping that having sex with him will cause him to realize she is the one he actually wants (oh, girl). In the former future timeline, we see that she carried on with Not even after he got into a relationship with Pear, which to me speaks to some resentment she is carrying for Pear, as well. We’ve had some subtle indicators that Kwan and Pear may not actually be that close (like Pear saying Pisaeng is the only person she talks to about her family issues). And that would track with Kwan knowingly participating in Not two-timing Pear and never fessing up. You don’t do that to your best friend if you actually love and respect them without some other unaddressed shit laying between you.

I am still holding out hope that the show is going to give us a little more to go on with Kwan. It was only this week that we got a fuller picture of Pear’s family life, and we still have three episodes to go. I want Kwan to be a three dimensional character with desires and motivations we understand, and this drama has shown such compassion and care for its characters that I trust them to finish rounding her out. When that happens, I’ll be back to check in on this clown theory.

[good-beanswrites]

Eheheh! The anon who sent the ask on the Lights, Camera, Sing Your Sins here! Happy to hear you like the silly thought I made up, bonus on making a small drabble on it! So happy! >w<

So I guess when Mikoto's condition is revealed during his first interrogation, everyone's like "Ooooooh that's why..." over it. And uuuuuuh, does Kotoko feel bad for bashing Mikoto back then? I think it's not scripted according to that post you made back then, but no hard feelings between them, right? And I guess Shidou wouldn't be happy that the prisoners are getting into actual fights ;;

I really did! :D Thank you so much for reaching out, I love hearing people’s thoughts and ideas!!

I'm always very committed to keeping any canon hatred accurate -- I won't sugar-coat a relationship that has been stated to be terrible. However. This is not canon, and I am employing every fix-it in my arsenal >:3 So yes, there are absolutely no hard feelings between them and after every trial they hang out and make up!!

It pains me that all the violence in Mikoto’s interrogation has to be real, but yeah, neither of them pull any punches. Of course Red doesn’t want to hurt Es, but I picture all the prisoners really driven by the desire to tell their stories. Unlike in canon, the au characters are very aware that they’re going to represent a larger social issue/group of people. So when Mikoto is instructed to really sell it, he does it for the sake of accurate experiment results for others like him – and clings to the trust that Es signed up for this. 

And Kotoko’s interference is such a core part of her character: she’s observant, she’s clever, she’s used to and skilled at breaking rules, and she’s such a protector, even to the person who’s holding her imprisoned. It felt unfair to take that away from her by making it something Milgram scripted, so her reaction had to be real and just as violent ;-;

Okay so you know when you’re playing a game with friends/family and you feel very real anger at them for their decisions/actions? Then after it ends you can cool off and acknowledge it was just a game and there’s no hard feelings at all – but you can still clearly remember what made you upset and know it was valid? That’s what I'm picturing when the prisoners write their t2 plans. Kotoko’s anger towards the guilty prisoners is genuine by the end of the first trial. She’s very hurt that Mikoto wouldn’t tell them the truth about himself, after all the secrets they’d collectively shared. She’s disgusted by the others’ actions. She’s not actually planning on beating them up, but she recognizes she kinda wants to lol. Amane does hate Shidou. Yuno is tired of everyone. 

But a few days after the first trial ends, they start interacting in a setting that isn’t immersive anymore. They’re able to relax and talk through everything with clear minds. Kotoko apologizes profusely for hurting Mikoto during the interrogation, admitting that she’s not entitled to anyone else’s secrets. Amane apologizes to Shidou. She may not be as friendly to him as he was hoping, but she tells him that she understands they live under different codes and she shouldn’t hold hatred in her heart. Yuno gets a bit of time to refresh herself while they’re debriefing and collaborating with the writing team. She’s excited to be around the others by the time filming starts up again. Anyone who has anger towards Es lets it soften, feeling bad that they’re allowed to get a fun break while Es must remain asleep.

And I think Red and Kotoko would actually get really close in the au, despite their rocky start! They have very similar ideas on protecting the people they care about and being disgusted by those who abuse their power. Koto-koto duo is real!! 😤I can’t say for sure because so much could change in t3, but I’m hoping to write the two of them bonding over being labeled “the scary violent one” and slammed with a guilty vote next time ;-; 

If anything, Blue is more upset that she attacked Red than he is himself. (“That was our interrogation, what was she even doing there?”) And like you said, Shidou doesn’t want anyone to get hurt for real, so he pleads with them to keep their violence as staged as possible, going forward. He’s also extremely upset with Milgram that they’d let Es get hurt (since he’s the one who treated them afterwards). It takes such long time to assure him it won’t happen again, and that it was a one-time twist that Es signed off on beforehand.

Although I think the violence is going to get worse during this next hiatus, the au characters will actually feel less emotional, in my mind. After doing this for so long, I'm sure it would get easier to regulate which emotions are real and which result from too much immersion -- so there will be less to apologize and make up for this time, they're already very close and happy :')

[athousandbyeol]

discussion #3 (only friends): each other's first true love— a topmew downfall

according to p'force and first, only friends is scheduled to air around the mid of august or early september. it's likely to be true because they're currently at the 19th q, which indicates there are only a few q's left before they wrap the shooting process. (i think, maybe, the official trailer will drop around the first week of august [which is next week, omo], and i'm preparing myself for the utmost worst). p'jojo also hinted the draft is looking good, so, yeah //screams).

we get updates from the official twitter page of only friends, the director (mostly p'nine), and other staff working on this drama. mainly, we get glimpses of topmew's (seemingly) domestic dates, and i'm honestly delighted to see them smiling. i think every topmew apologist (not just mew or top, hahaha) is content with the domesticity they're showing.

however, i guess by now, it's in my nature to look at the darker side of topmew's bright exterior. every picture comes with a daunting realisation that there will be pain, and that pain will hurt not just topmew but everyone rooting for them.

so, in this post, i would like to lightly touch on how topmew are each other's first true love and the implication of their blossoming affection on their fragile relationship.

a brief preface of mew and top's love life

mew

so, our angel baby mew, (i think i'm a mew apologist so he's very precious and baby-coded in my eyes), according to boston, has one of the dullest love (and sex) lives ever. how can a fourth-year university student, a senior, has never been laid? well, i don't quite understand that perspective because i'm just like mew but we'll just leave it there.

mew is speculated as:

someone who's never been in a romantic relationship.

(possibly) a virgin.

doesn't care much about relationships (before boston questioned mew about it).

has a traditional understanding of romantic relationships (doesn't like the idea of a one-night stand).

top is his first boyfriend and first love (?).

thus, this is some basic information we can gather from the mock trailer about mew. can anyone relate to mew? because i do. (except i'm still single to this day tmi.)

top

oh, yes. our certified heartbreaker. i think many of us have painted top as a bad guy from the get-go, but as i've discussed in my previous post, there are so many layers to top (and mew) than what meets the eye. and let's be real, everyone is a fragment of the good and bad. so, top is too.

but let's extract some details regarding top's love life from the first trailer:

fond of one-night stands and casual/open relationships.

something must have happened to him (either in his first relationship, his sexuality (his coming-out) or his family background (strict parents, etc) that shapes top as someone who's so deprived of genuine affection.

(my guess is) top has never felt true love and empathy from his previous partners/family, not until mew.

boston's fuck buddy.

mew is (probably) his first true love.

i like to entertain the idea of top not believing in love because of his experience with his previous partners or his parents (rejecting the idea of same-sex relationship).

judging from the photos, colour grading and clothing style, i assume only friends is set in the '80s or '90s. i made this guess because p'jojo said he could feel the vibe of gay ok bangkok while filming the series (i can't find where i read this. i apologise). additionally, it's the time when lgbtq+ is still looked down upon (everywhere, but more so in asia), and so many people are struggling with their identity (from my brief reading of thailand's social history).

however, looking back at p'jojo's never let me go, i guess this won't be a pertinent issue to the whole premise of the drama. it'll only affect several characters (top is one of them).

the idea of being each other's first true love: a promise of happiness and heartbreak

in my previous discussion, i highlighted the changes topmew will experience after their first encounter. from two different worlds, there are bound to be misunderstandings and mistakes made. but, as this is a new experience for both of them, they'll make rash decisions— a break-up.

i think, when we're in our first relationship, we can't quite grasp the essence of blending and adapting to our partner's behaviours. it'll be difficult to accept some of their flaws and tolerate their downsides. without honesty and openness, a relationship can't work no matter how much we love each other. and that's the first downfall of topmew's relationship; they believe only love can save them.

top: a promise of happiness

i mainly see only positive effects happening to top. i don't know when they'll go steady, but from the photos i see, after their fateful first meeting, top is ready to let mew into his life.

personally, i'm still puzzled about top. i don't know what makes him agree to mew's "can you wait? i think we can be more than a one-night stand?" because i see him as someone who doesn't comply with anyone if it's not beneficial to him. therefore, i guess top sees mew as another 'fun' time, not quite like boston, but someone he can 'play' with. but the more he learns about mew, his heart starts beating a bit too fast and it's silly and before top knows it— he likes mew. he genuinely likes mew.

side note: i also hope the drama will emphasise on how attractive mew is. i want to be ensured that mew is so likeable and desirable that everyone (read: top and ray) can't get enough of him. i want the drama to show the alluring side of mew, with dashes of innocence and cuteness, which can convince me why top falls hard for mew and why ray can't see san the way he looks at mew.

exhibit #1: the (first) awe

both of them are wearing fond (and sated) smiles on their faces. absolutely adorable. but i notice a more gentle, subdued shine from top— he looks very enamoured. stupidly fond of mew that his eyes turn to crescents and the smile on his face oozes with astonishment. their first kiss might be really sweet (and spicy?) that top can't quite wrap his head around mew.

exhibit #2: the 'oh-oh, i like him?'

in the mock trailer, we know mew is a smart (and nerdy?) student. and because of his lack of experience in dating, he might like these cute dates (retrieved from his research/reading), which i find endearingly sweet. i assume their dates will be cafe hunting, library dates, a stroll around the park and lounging at mew's apartment (with some spice and everything nice).

it's very interesting to see top's gaze softens (and intensify with adoration) in the photos of them together. this one in particular illustrates a gear shifting in top's brain. it might be from a moment of epiphany— oh. mew is so... cute? that realisation you have when a thing/person makes you feel so happy that you start being possessive and want them all to yourself? i think top is going through that phase.

exhibit #3: the 'i'm glad it's you' look

i personally like this photo the most because it's just topmew basking in each other's presence. a casual date, just the two of them amid the crowd. two cups of juice/soda (?) on the table— green— which commonly indicates balance, harmony, and equality; a mirror to their feelings for one another.

i can't stress enough that before their downfall, at one point in their relationship, they do love each other. they really do. (i don't know why this breaks my heart to say.)

exhibit #4: the 'i'm not supposed to be jealous/angry but i am'

this photo still remains a mystery to me because i'm unsure of its story. it's either ray visits mew's apartment when topmew have just gone back from their date or topmew are in mew's apartment before ray comes over. either or, top doesn't look happy sharing the same space with ray.

perhaps topmew are ready to go on a date but ray stops them?

i guess, before top meets mew, he confronts boston. he doesn't look happy, though. and it's a pattern i'm seeing recently; top doesn't appear happy when he's with boston. this didn't happen before mew.

theories speculate that topmew and bostonnick are in the same place. it's highly likely topmew are having another (supposedly fun) date. but it's ruined when top sees boston and nick. i don't think it's out of jealousy (i hope not) from top's behalf. it's more to anger and fear because what if mew learns about top and boston— here— out of all places? of course, it's a devastation to mew.

this is new to top. he's never afraid of people. never been conscious about himself. but he's afraid of mew. why? because he loves mew, and he doesn't want mew to know he's an asshole that still has some lingering relationship with boston, mew's friend. he doesn't want mew to see that dark side of top coming to life. he can't bear the thought of losing mew because of his (hidden) persona.

from top's point of view, i can conclude that he's getting positive outcomes after encountering mew.

sidetrack: topmew's colour theory (slightly) coming to life

and i would like to add from my colour theory: top is wearing a black and white shirt in this photo— a harmony of the good and bad.

also, i would like to highlight top's shirt is dominantly white which means he's becoming/showing more of his good side after knowing mew. i'm actually proud to see top in these shades, a brighter colour. he's embracing his inner self and mew has been a lot of help. his love for mew brings him out of his dark hole.

but sadly, mew is wearing darker colours. the blue in this photo isn't entirely bright. oh.

and his bag— read me— is like a cry for honesty. mew wants nothing but honesty from top, a person he genuinely likes. but top has always been anything but honest. and that's top's biggest misstep.

mew: a promise of his first heartbreak

i'm glad we haven't seen many sad photos of topmew (as of now). it's intentional because their (possible) break-up is the climax of this story.

hence, i'm extracting still shots from the trailer because mew is visibly heartbroken while confronting top as he discovers about top and boston. but i do find it intriguing that even in the trailer, we don't see much of sad mew.

this is going to be the pinnacle of the drama: mew seeking the truth.

in this post, i've mentioned that mew will confront top at the university.

from the paleness of their faces and the red in their eyes, this is taken after their tearful confrontation. i'm so excited to see this scene unfold because forcebook broke my heart with their raw acting in a boss and a babe (ep 9, you'll forever be epic). this one will be ten times more gut-wrenching, i believe.

it's not nonchalance, but i find mew's expression so watered down? i expect him to be more volatile, in despair and bawl his eyes out after the break-up but here, he goes to the bar and has a drink or two and he just looks so aloof but nothing more?

and i think that's the scariest thing about mew. we don't know what's going on in his mind. the kindest person can be the most evil— mew's vengeance might begin shortly after this.

when the truth unfolds, a heartbreaking chaos

top will endure the hardest blow after their breakup. it's because when their relationship ends, it's when top's feelings begin to overwhelm him. he likes mew, but he can't hold onto him. why?

side note: these days, i feel sorry for top. the more i think about him, the more i understand the inner struggles he's facing. i can't really say i'm a top apologist, but i do understand him. and i want to hug him if i can.

i would like to underline that change is one of the most difficult things to do. let it be me, you or other people, only the bravest will choose a different path— diverging from normality— a route full of surprises and challenges. we're so accustomed to the comfort of simplicity and normalcy that change isn't preferable, yes?

looking from top's perspective, it's hard for him to discard his shell— a safe cacophony of his— despite coming to terms with his feelings for mew. i do want to believe top is taking baby steps to let go of his previous lifestyle, but as long as boston is still around, top can't really escape.

habits die hard— i don't know if i can call it a habit, but i think top might come back to boston just because boston feels like a second skin, once a place to stay. no matter how in love top is with mew, boston is before mew and after mew. something must've tied him around boston so tightly that top can't simply let go. he wants to, but he can't.

despite everything, top still comes back to boston. even if they no longer share the same virtues, boston has become so much of top that if letting go of boston means he's letting go of himself too.

and in top's indecisiveness lies mew's reluctance to forgive. as i've mentioned, mew's idea of a romantic relationship is somewhat naive and unrealistic. yet, it's not absurd because many of us share that ideology: first love should be beautiful, sincere and transparent.

mew handles this heartbreak with anger and so many questions because he thought love should be truthful and kind and gentle but why two of his most precious people are hurting him? mew no longer sees boston as a friend, and top is no longer the love of his life. mew's greatest downfall is his love for top and his trust for boston.

conclusion

i find the concept of first love/true love depicted from the lens of topmew to be heartbreaking. when the pictures of them having fun and enjoying their cute dates together are posted, aside from happiness, i feel an immense sadness for what's to come.

mew is top's first true love in the sense that top discovers his truest self with mew. he gradually opens up and becomes someone he's supposed to be— not need to be. mew is top's first true love in the sense that it scares top to think of the consequences— of his dishonesty to mew— of the truth coming out someday and he'll lose mew— himself— forever.

top is mew's first love in the sense that mew wants to savour every little moment with top, all the fun dates and kisses that awaken the butterflies in his stomach. top is mew's first love in the sense that he wants to pen down everything they share in his journal because mew believes this might be forever— top is his first and true love.

therefore, everything topmew is— their love— only results in two things; happiness and sadness.

side note: although i still don't know if any of my topmew speculations are true, the mock trailer indicates topmew's love story as the 'right person, wrong time'. i'm inclining to topmew's story to be sweet but tragic because it's the driving force of the series. topmew, sanray and bostonnick revolve around each other. like a domino effect, anything that happens to topmew will affect other pairs and vice versa.

to end this post, here are some bonus pictures posted by p'nine because forcebook are always the light at the end of a dark tunnel.

i'm happy to see this. although topmew might shatter, forcebook still stands— stronger and together. the picture on the left is so cute that my heart is breaking. haha

(also, ohmbook are so cute? can i manifest for an ohmbook series next year? hehe)

[1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (i) | 4 (ii) | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12]

[kuwdora]

I always have thoughts about book-to-media adaptations running in the back of my mind these days since it’s part and parcel of our fannish landscape. There’s just so much that goes into translating something from book to a visual medium. And then the adaptation fails in some small and/or large way and it ends up being a disappointment. (I think there’s also a lot to be said about adaptations that are more Successful than not and what success means in an adaptation…but I think that deserves its own post.)

I’m often considering a person’s entry point to adaptations, whether it’s through the media or the original source, and how that plays into people’s reactions about failures of adaptations or—like, what each person is wanting to get out of the adaptation if they know the original source material. And what they’re happy with when they’ve just discovered it through the adaptation.

Just gonna ramble a little bit about my own experience with being a book-to-adaptation person. I think even when writing and production circumstances are the most ideal, it’s still fucking hard as hell to adapt complicated narratives to the screen. Still. I’m not immune to heartbreak about seeing something play out badly because I had been so attached to the original book material.

When I was a little girl I picked up a fantasy book featuring a little girl protagonist. This main character was living in a foster situation, had dead parents, and a wishy-washy background she didn’t know much about. She was a little bit of a ruffian and kind of defied everybody and everything because she had a very strong sense of self and moral code. She is, of course, a child of prophecy and has a lot in store for her.

Over the course of the first book she ends up embroiled in some social and political intrigue and ends up going on a grand adventure. She meets an outcast who is is hated by humans but they use his services anyway because he’s good at his job. He ends up becoming her protector and guardian and would do anything for her.

She eventually crossed paths with a world-traveling misfit with who brought levity and a heart of gold to every scene. She also ended up meeting a very old, very beautiful witch also fell in love with this child and would move heaven and earth to protect her and help her survive and thrive.

The whole series deals with a lot of complex issues of the moral and social variety, and there’s a running theme about how men and institutions headed by men wield their power and try to impose their vision of the world on everyone. Particularly on women.

The little girl also eventually found out that her dad isn’t actually dead like she was told. The dad is alive and well and he’s asshole, also a bad guy. But he has the MOST CHARISMA EVER, holy fuck.

I ate these books up as a kid and reread them over and over and my brain and heart totally grew around them. I admired the protagonist and her sharp wit and mouthiness and determination. Her resiliency and perseverance to do what she knew would be right and just. As I got older and I reread the books and absorbed the more complex issues about personhood and agency. I thought more about how you can resist a bad situation or person when the world/person is trying to change you to fit their ideal. (That part was particularly important to me when I was young). But also the themes of good and evil, etc. I started seeing the politics and then understanding it more with every reread over the years when I started reading more history, more politics. It had always been there in the books but I could finally SEE it. It felt like a revelation.

A dozen or so years later it turns out someone was going to going to adapt these books! It was much discussed and heavily anticipated. These were well-known, beloved fantasy books from the 90s. Amazing characters and great scenes! Fascinating themes.

God I remember being so excited when I heard about the adaptation. And then I got to see it. It was the most confusing and disappointing experiences of my life. What I ended up seeing was pretty. Great costumes, CGI. Amazing actors! But everything that made the books interesting and magical and profound had been watered down, elided over the moral complexities. Or it outright changed things that would have fundamentally shifted the events of the rest of the books and make the adaptation even MORE incomprehensible.

I’m talking about the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass from Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials. A lot of this probably sounds familiar to my Witcher mutuals, right?

Anyway.

The film had so many boycotts by the Catholic Church and other churchy groups in the United States for its depiction of institutionalized religion in Lyra’s world. So on the studio-side they made so many changes and demands that fucked the movie. So much doesn’t make sense or is just pales in comparison to what was actually originally intended.

After the film’s flop even more articles and reviews came out talking about Tom Stoppard’s original draft of the film and the director’s first take on the screenplay. Vulture read both versions and it's really illuminating what they discovered. The film was indeed supposed to be significantly longer but the studio wasn’t having it because they wanted kids to go and see this film and 2+ film wasn’t gonna be it.

Like. The studio was really hoping for another Harry Potter franchise and were treating this book-to-film more like a YA fantasy type of thing. When in reality someone wrote a sanded down version of the story for the screenplay that left me and a whole bunch of other people fucking jaded as hell. Because damn. Way to miss the fucking mark on an amazing fantasy series. 10000% missed it. I’ve blacked out most of the actual film from memory because I just could not believe it. The disappointment. The heartache of not doing the story justice.

But yeah…just… someone really thought The Golden Compass was gonna be a huge fantasy action/adventure hit because there were really cool talking animals.

It’s so fucking hilarious to me in retrospect. When you realize these books are Phillip Pullman’s AU fanfic/fix-it of Paradise Lost where Lucifer gets to have his revenge on the kingdom of heaven, there was noooo way that original film was going to even begin to set up a 3 or 4 film franchise. Nooo way.

The first book ends with an absolutely heartbreaking and horrific scene that is the catalyst for Lyra and what motivates her for the next 1500 pages of the series. I was there opening weekend in that theater for The Golden Compass. I have never been more confused in my LIFE while watching a film because they ended the film like 5 chapters before the end of the book. They lopped it off and made the first film a very strange Cliffhanger for a sequel that would absolutely never get made. I was flabbergasted.

The disappointment. The confusion. The despair. I was fucking depressed about it for a good long time. I had been so excited and been brimming with anticipation because I loved the books so much and I wanted it to be good and then what I got was….absolute garbage. To me. I mean maybe if I had been a little girl watching the film for the first time it would have been better. But as an adult who had spent the better part of my life immersed in Lyra’s character arc… I just. Could not feel more betrayed.

I can’t even be that upset anymore because I’ve had enough time to grieve and leave it behind. Then somehow the universe came together and HBO let Jack Thorne and company re-do the books as a series. It is a much more faithful adaptation. I’m too close to the book source to know if people who don’t read the books will get the same kind of experience out of seeing the show play through Lyra and Will’s experiences in the show.

The final season of His Dark Materials was also probably the most philosophical and abstract season of fantasy television I’ve seen. I fucking loved it. I don’t think it was perfect, but it was really enjoyable and did more to soothe my soul than I thought possible. It’s not a show for everyone—and I’m still not sure how it got made because HBO the last few years had been going through some changes. Maybe I’m very sentimental and forgiving, I don’t know. The narrative pacing was a bit weird to me in places and some of the dialogue was hit or miss but overall, I could not have gotten a better time from it.

That experience with the film a has made me much more intentional about managing my expectations of how I approach media adaptations.

Where am I starting with an adaptation? What am I hoping to get out of this? Who is making it and what are the production constraints working against it? How do I manage my expectations if I know the original source and what do I want from the visual media and acting? Etc etc. Do I want to go and read the original if I don’t know it already because I want to see what changes they made?

I keep thinking about everything with The Witcher Netflix. It’s so fucking difficult to get anything made through studios and networks (especially now, but even then in the late 2000s)… And when you’re trying to appeal to the widest audience possible, you’re only going to get so far when you’ve left the rest of the source inspiration on the table. And didn’t bother to make up for the difference in what you left there.

We all know how depressing it is. The streaming model has fucked television over completely. The depreciation of writers rooms… we had 20 and 22 episodes, and then 15 and 12 episodes. Filler episodes with great character moments. Space to flesh out complex narratives with nuance. And now 8 episodes as a standard runtime. The lack decent amount of time for production (including pre and post) to actually set things up in a way that serves the media narrative.

It’s so hard to cater to everyone when you’re drawing from a book/comic book. Also harder to cater to your specific audience. But when you’re trying cater to enough people so you don’t get cancelled and keep going to try and tell the story you’re trying to tell, that’s fucking hard and shitty and I don’t begrudge them for that. Even though it sucks.

Even though I can hate it as much has I can understand it. Wish it was different. Even though it can be a fucking travesty of epic proportions because these writers/showrunners/directors don’t get the space to actually flesh out what they’re trying to do.

Even if people are writing a very different iteration of the story that I don’t like/want/agree with/understand/etc.

That doesn’t even go into the issue of when showrunners and directors don’t understand the characters they’re working with or make fundamental changes because of their own vision, production constraints, and everything else. You might see a lot of this going around again with Red, White, and Royal Blue and what the director had changed in his film adaptation. People are worked up into a froth for very valid reasons. It’s all exhausting but this is all nothing new. Still demoralizing when people so attached to the original material.

Anyway. That’s….just some thoughts that have been sitting with me for awhile. Could probably ramble more if I can get the brain cells together.

Fun fact: George RR Martin looked at the 2007 The Golden Compass film and said (paraphrasing here): “I am never, ever fucking EVER letting anyone make my books into a film. A television show is the way to go.”

Fun fact #2: James SA Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank) worked with GRRM extensively over the years and I think others have written more extensively about GRRM’s influence the way they wrote sprawling narratives with multiple POV characters. Anyway they developed a tabletop RPG that they eventually turned into novels that became The Expanse.

Which eventually got adapted to television. SyFy network was in a bidding war with Netflix for the show and out-bid Netflix. This was a show adaptation that did not hold your hand whatsoever. Fascinating, new, interesting. Faithful adaptation. Still got cancelled after two seasons. Even though both authors had become producers on the show and were learning more about production and writing teleplays from experienced sci-fi showrunners/producers/television writers.

Show was later picked up by Amazon to finish out the last few seasons. But I would bet my bottom dollar that both these authors watched how the Game of Thrones adaptations went and probably went “we’re not gonna let this happen to us.” And I think that’s reflected in the way they and their team were able to adapt the story faithfully with multiple huge and small changes specifically so it would work with the television medium.

[arceespinkgun]

Jazz is much more interesting and multifaceted than people give him credit for. And it's super disappointing to see how the fandom interacts with him, especially as a black-coded character. The sheer amount of casual racism and fetishization is distressing, especially because it's mainly dispersed by his so-called "fans"

Jazz's interpersonal relationships are very fascinating and could be an important part of his character. However people seem to be unable to properly handle or understand that aspect of him; both official creators and fans. While I don't claim I know the character better than anyone else, I also don't think it's that hard NOT to write anti-black content and fetishize the character

An opinion I have which could almost be called controversial, is that I don't think Jazz and Prowl should get along at all. I would like them to be dysfunctional, I love them as worsties. I don't want them to have a bonding moment where they suddenly understand each other and work in tandem harmonically. I want them to retain that conflict of clashing ideologies and methods. I want them to agree to disagree, rather than meet each other halfway

I really feel this—at this point, I've seen most of the media Jazz appears in, and there's so much to his character that just doesn't seem to be engaged with at all. For example, how social is Jazz really? This is the guy who just stood in a field and let snow completely cover him in one episode of the Sunbow cartoon... and he often comes across as isolated from the people around him. How much of this is because he won't open up, and how much of it is because he is just a very independent person? Could he be a secret introvert? How deep are his friendships with others when many of them seem to amount to "the person Jazz hangs out with" and there are often fewer interactions between him and his friends than you'd think? These are just a few fascinating questions about the character that people rarely ask.

The rest of my response got really long so I'm putting it under a cut:

While I'm Asian and not Black (and I don't want to speak over the voices of Black fans) the racist, anti-Black tropes found in a lot of fandom writing about Jazz truly do seem like they could be so easily avoided. Basically every single one of them involves interpreting the character in the exact opposite way that multiple different series portray him! One example is how many people write him as being lazy/trying to get out of work constantly—no version of Jazz has EVER been portrayed this way in ANY series, so wouldn't it be so easy to just not?! I'm 90% certain that this is due to a mix of people's racist biases showing through in their fanwork, and also the uncritical replication of other people's racist fanwork without actually stopping to look at who this character really is (also largely caused by racist biases).

I'm not letting racist tropes in actual TF series off the hook, but I'd really wish that as transformative media the creations of fandom would be attempting to address and improve these issues instead of making them 10,000x worse by adding racist tropes that weren't even present in canon. For example, how is the Sunbow cartoon—the show so racist it had fucking Carbomya in it—one of the best portrayals of Jazz there is? I feel sad that the continuities most often discussed are some of the ones that serve the character the worst, actually. Like basically nobody's going to talk about how Jazz bravely fought Galvatron one-on-one in the Marvel comics or anything.

When it comes to Jazz and Prowl—I have very mixed feelings. I took no issue with them being longtime friends in some earlier media like the Marvel UK comics run or the Dreamwave comics, and I felt like it made a lot of sense with how they're characterized. But it doesn't seem like people examined or explored it. Instead, what's popular is layer upon layer of racist tropes (and other gross, strangely essentialist ones—why are fanfic writers so weird about characters from Praxus?) and in later canon media (with IDW2 being the worst in its messaging), Prowl has been so linked to police brutality and more issues than I can even go into here that it feels deeply inappropriate for these characters to be friends now. Because of these issues, I even feel uncomfortable having acknowledged that they were friends in any media, and while normally I'd analyze this dynamic in more detail or show excerpts that highlight it, I don't feel like I can because I can't trust people to not be gross in response.

I also remember the whiplash between IDW's Spotlight: Jazz (very underrated story by the way) in which Prowl is maybe the kindest anybody has ever been to Jazz, versus a couple years later, Prowl thinking it's a good idea to POINT A GUN TO JAZZ'S HEAD to get his attention. It's bad enough that the character the Autobot logo is depicting is horribly stained in this way—very disturbing—but I feel even worse knowing that something that was once nice for Jazz has been so ruined in both canon and fandom. I think this situation is beyond the scope of fans to tackle and that TF just needs to get its shit together regarding social issues. That being said, I feel like this makes it even more important that fans stop replicating racist tropes in their fanwork, since that's making the situation even worse.

TL;DR Jazz is great and if I see one more fic in which Prowl stops Jazz for speeding I'm going to explode

[donnerpartyofone]

your posts about self esteem were really interesting. I hope you don't mind if I ask, but do you struggle with empathy? I've got friends in psychology who say self compassion is correlated to compassion for others, so often low empathy = poor self image. Social skills are often hampered by conditions like autism, and compassion is social.

Thank you for this provocative question, anon! I like that you say those posts were "interesting" instead of like, sad or delusional or something. I had to start blocking people who were compelled to tell me what to think or how to feel about myself, or who thought they were helping by denying the nature of what I was reporting. A few people recently had a more thoughtful or inquisitive reaction and I found that really refreshing.

Apologies in advance for this long dissertation on ME, but I'm glad you asked this specific question because it relates to something that came up recently that I think is important to talk about. More below the break so I don't ruin everyone's dash.

First of all I think I do not struggle with empathy; if anything I seem to have a hyperactive sensitivity to other people's moods and dispositions. One of the reasons parties are hard for me is that it takes a lot of energy to be immersed in other people's, uh, "vibes" or "auras"--please don't take anything mystical from my word choice, it's just hard to describe otherwise. I start syncing with other people to make myself less weird and off-putting (who knows how much I'm succeeding!), and then I need a lot of solitude to get back to my baseline. I'm very concerned with how other people feel, which is why I've been so good in hospitality-related jobs. But I'm sure this is related to the fact that I have major boundary issues, I get so hung up on how other people (seem to) feel that it can make it hard for me to assert myself until someone has pushed me way over the edge.

But I guess there's a limit re: the "reading social cues" bit. I *think* I read the room pretty well most of the time (I must! For my survival!), but I have a history of taking people at their word too much and not noticing that someone has bad intentions until it's too late. Maybe there's a certain amount of literalism going on. Like a really simple example is, I have a hard time with the concept of being "fashionably late"; if a party starts at 8, I will arrive anxiously right at 8, and there's a good chance that I will get there at like 7:57 and lurk on your front steps until the clock turns 8 BECAUSE YOU SAID 8, YOU MUST HAVE MEANT 8. I have finally learned that nobody really likes this unless they're my best friend or something, but I can't tell myself "Just relax and get there when you get there," that's too confusing, I have to say "We will now arrive at 8:20 because this is the secret code of party start times." That's a benign sort of dysfunction, but another version of that is, my boyfriend says he loves me and he doesn't want to break up. Actually he cheats on me all the time and screams at me and scares me, but because he like *technically* loves me and doesn't want to break up because that's what he literally said, my stupid brain thinks that's the rule and the other manifestations of his feelings must be anomalous, and then I'm in a really bad relationship for a long time because I just don't see the subtext until I'm really being beaten over the head with it. There have been a lot of times where I acted like I was legally obligated to come to an understanding of what someone else thinks and feels, when it would have been more rational to say, "This person is being an asshole, it doesn't matter why, I'm ditching."

I *think* this is related to your question about empathy, sorry if I'm being crazy.

So now for your question about self-compassion: I'm grateful for your prompt because I just had an argument about this with someone I love, and I don't think I did a good job of explaining it. I've also fielded some other feedback around these parts that was suggestive of the same idea, which is like: If I say that Behavior X is a crime when I do it, it must mean that Behavior X is an equally punishable crime when someone else does it, so therefore it is rude and inhumane of me to be mad at myself. This argument is missing a consideration of both context, and what exactly criminalizes Behavior X. The first note to make is that Behavior X is usually something that is NOT destructive when it happens just once in a while, innocently--but It becomes a big problem when it happens all the fucking time, like an infestation. If I "innocently" fumble something 50 times a day, that has a much more destructive effect than you making the same mistake just-sometimes. But let's say you DO make the same mistake a lot, so you still feel accused by my personal self-loathing. Now we get to the more important question of what or who is affected by the behavior. I feel sorry for people whose quirks and compulsions and such make their lives hard, obviously I relate! However, if those people came to my house and started doing their quirks and compulsions TO ME, then that's a different thing entirely.

Let's do some examples: If I complain about my weight, that's not the same as saying all fat people suck. What I'm really complaining about is the impact of weight on my own life, the negative effect on my social currency, my inability to find comfortable and attractive clothes, etc. I'm complaining about having to fight with doctors who think BMI gives them a free pass not to treat people, and also about genuine health problems I might struggle with. So my feeling about my own weight really has nothing to do with my feelings about other people's weight, I'm really reacting to my own personal discomfort, which is related to a whole complex of things, but none of those things is truly equivalent to complaining about fat people in general. Similarly, when I complain here about being stupid, I'm not assigning a moral quality to human stupidity, I'm really complaining about the effect of my personal stupidity on my own life. I do believe that there must be something cognitive or neurological going on with me so maybe I can't totally help what I'm like, but I find it impossible not to react to how my own stupidity makes it extremely hard to get through my day. It makes it scary to wake up in the morning. There are so many normal things that I either have to do over and over and over again, or that someone else actually has to do FOR me, which is humiliating and makes me feel hopeless (even though I'm glad for the help because what would I do without it?). Sometimes my life feels like fucking Groundhog Day, it feels like I'm achieving a fraction of what a normal person does in a lifetime, because everything takes me so many tries or is impossible to ever get past. I feel sorry for other people who go through the same stuff, but to me, that's totally separate from how I feel about myself. I hate myself NOT because I am a certain kind of person or because I did something that is objectively a sin, but because I, personally, am the reason I'm suffering and failing. This is not at all abstract or generalizing, it's something I'm forced to deal with, materially, every day. It's just too much to ask, for me to pity myself every single time I fuck myself over yet again. What can I say, I'm not a saint!

So I hope that sort of addresses your question! One of the reasons I get so upset when someone tries to make excuses for my behavior, or suggests that I am just exaggerating because I'm down on myself, is that if I can't have honesty about what goes on with me, then I can't ever get clarity about WHY this stuff is going on. If I agree to the premise that the 25 bad, destructive things I did today were "just because" I was distracted, or flustered, or overworked, or it was an innocent mistake, or it was someone else's fault, or it was a random coincidence, or an act of god, or I just need to learn the right way, or I just need to try harder, or I just have to have a better attitude, et al ad nauseum--that is, if I accept excuses instead of acknowledging a persistent pattern, then I might not ever get to the point of having a useful, explanatory diagnosis like ADHD or autism or...whatever is specifically going on with me. And I mean whatever happens, I WILL always try harder to improve myself, even if sometimes that feels like not learning from history. But it's becoming kind of obvious that a lot of the arguments I have with people could probably be cut off at the pass if I had a note from a doctor that said SEE? I'M REALLY JUST LIKE-THIS. I don't know what I'm going to do about that, with the Adderall shortage and what I'm told is the difficulty of getting an adult autism diagnosis. And like I'd hate to test for autism (or whatever) and have it come back ambiguous, it might make me feel like I'm "just fucking stupid" and I don't have a real problem, and it could also be problematic for these conversations I keep having with people who think I'm basically imagining the whole thing and just being "hard on myself". But I don't know, I think diagnosis may become a bigger focus for me in 2024.

Anyway. Thanks for reading this monstrosity if you did, and thanks for being thoughtful about my depression posting. It's refreshing.

[grendil]

Take it from someone who fell for so much evil because I am innocent and I didn’t know about them. My best advice for the innocent is that, although I can’t go into why, all of your instincts are one hundred percent correct and most people really do hate you and really are dumb, cruel, evil monsters who hang out together and are cruel to you behind your back and that the reason why is that you have a soul and they don’t. I won’t go into details and this isn’t the NPC meme it’s very real and much worse and the more you know about it the more danger you’re in.

If you’re wondering why you can’t get into conversations at lunch or people ignore you unless you do something crazy or silly so they can nervously laugh or criticize you that’s why. And make no mistake, they have systems, symbols, codes and understandings that keep them together and on top of you and they will NEVER tell. Do not fight them, live around them, and when they come to you wanting something treat them like wild animals because they NEED to feel more powerful than you in this world and they will work together to do it without a second thought and for free. They do this as naturally as the sun rises, and they cannot change or control what they were made into. Every social issue you have faced up to and including suicidal chemical degeneracy/unbreakable self-destructive patterns (constant self punishment for reasons the victim can not explain) are caused by the unspoken existence and overwhelming presence of these creatures in everyone’s life.

They exploit a glitch in our design in which we subconsciously accept their ruthlessness towards us as justified and ourselves as bad or defective because we cannot recognize them as a genuine enemy who exist to KILL us without arousing us to fear them and flee from them. Chances are you’ve dated them or had them in your family. You have been side by side with them and suffered their effortless reality-warping lies and subtle but extremely, unbelievably damaging social/psychic attacks since childhood. They know. They know what they said and what they did to you. You’re not crazy. It wasn’t actually your fault. You’re not ugly or annoying or disgusting or can’t hang. They are monsters. Real, soulless, insane monsters who laugh at your suffering behind your back and LOVE it. They live for it. It is the biological, physical purpose of their existence and the most satisfying things they do in their life. But you’re not alone. It happened to me too.

[pitbullwithawig]

As a member of Gen Z I have something I would like to say, which is a lot more serious I feel like than a lot of the things I reblog or post or whatever. But it's something that I feel like needs to be talked about, which is the mockery of Gen Alpha for rudeness and ignoring social rules and politeness and all that. And so I am going to attempt to explain my thoughts in a way that other people can understand which can be hard for me if the thought has already formed in my head and isn't spontaneous as I type. So bear with me.

So like many people I am on Instagram and Twitter and all that and I see a lot of videos and posts and everything about the "brattiness" of Gen Alpha kids and how they're rude and unsocialised. And lots of these people, calling these twelve year old children out for these issues, have placed their finger exactly on the real problem, though I don't think they really have processed that. If they did they wouldn't be making fun of it.

The reality is that these children who at this point are now twelve years old and beginning to interact with the world in a meaningful way, are the first generation of kids who were fully raised with high speed and stronger technology. These are the iPad kids in the wild. Like, even me and my younger brother who are on the lower end of Gen Z were born at a time when the Internet was in its MySpace and maybe early years of Facebook era. Nobody was giving these things to children just because they were still always considered new. New and constantly changing. But now we have the kids who were born in the twenty teens, when technology was a fact of life and yes a handy way to distract small kids. What's more, nobody was aware of the harm screen's like IPad and phone screens can do to a brain in its very important early stages of development.

So here are these kids now, entering the world. And their entire life they've had a archive of information and other people and things to do literally at their fingertips. Since birth even! And these technologies have interfered with their brain development right smack dab in the crucial years where kids learn about language and social interactions and how the bloody world works. But they learned it looking through or around the skewed filter of a phone screen. So here was the first stage of messed up brain development where they learned that the world works the way it does on chatrooms and in movies and tv shows, where people speak to eachother the way they do online, where their brain is always stimulated by something new just a few taps away. I mean, they learned this skewed version of the world as toddlers! This, for lack of a better description, human code has been embedded at the very base of their brain and everything else that comes after is just building off of that.

Then a few years later comes the pandemic. The big bad pandemic that ruined lives and fucked everyone over, especially the people who were still developing. And suddenly the order of the world has changed and their brains are developing around that strange new order. And this causes them to miss milestones in their brain development.

They're not in a classroom anymore. They can't connect with friends. They can't physically connect with people outside their bubble, in any way. No roughhousing on the playground, no visiting parks to swing around in. Their class is squares on a screen, and if they want to say something without other people hearing there's always the mute button. My point is that already limited social interaction (something essential in reaching many milestones in neural development and learning how to interact with the world) has just dropped to almost zero. Now EVERYTHING is filtered through a screen. Right smack dab in the most developmentally important years of these kids lives.

Even people my age have missed milestones! People in Grade 9 and 10 were far too grabby and overactive because we missed the developmental period where we learned how much touching is too much touching, characterized by people wrestling eachother and poking eachother excessively. AKA middle school boys. Yes, that is an essential part of development. And we missed that because of the pandemic.

So these kids' already fucked up neural pathways get wired in all the wrong ways. And we're surprised when they do not have the capacity to behave as a functioning human beings!?

Yes they are being rude. Yes they are being gross and unnecessarily mean. No I am not excusing them (or their parents) for that. But these poor human beings have the wrong base code! Their brains were built wrong, in the wrong way and the wrong order and to the wrong extents! Maybe, instead of making fun of and putting these literal children down for something they can't help (aka their literal brain development), maybe we should be putting effort into explaining why this is happening and Finding A Way To Fix It. AT THE SOURCE! Inform new parents about neural development and natural milestones. Explain why screen's are not good for literal babies. Educate, educate, educate.

And maybe we can save the disaster that is becoming the human race.

[ufonaut]

I would be interested in a list of all the comic book characters you think are autistic 👀

hi!!!! okay, this is delightful and i know neither of us are very interested in fandom-type headcanons but i do tend to see this kind of discussion (and also some discussions about characters' sexualities, on a case by case basis) as part of reading & interacting with the text in a way that tends to enrich canon. without further ado, here's all the ones that come to mind:

alan scott -- i think this is a controversial one and it's something i used to feel a little weird about bringing up but i do stand by it, on top of various other issues alan has that blend together as time goes by and masking practically becomes second nature. though post-1940s alan's livelihood depends on pretending to be straight, neurotypical and decidedly not working class; young alan scott never had a successful social interaction with a person that wasn't doiby dickles, he's seen as rude and emotionally distant but rarely actually intends to be, he's prone to anger and intense meltdowns over things that don't appear to affect anybody else around him, he's excluded from any after-hours jsa hang-outs, he has very specific interests that he spends hours at a time fixating on, he leaves work and jsa meetings at a moment's notice, he has specific routines he does not deviate from unless strictly necessary.

kyle rayner -- to this very day, i believe kyle was intentionally written as autistic(-coded) in his half of green lantern 1990 and nothing can convince me otherwise. it's in things like how he takes everything literally or was specifically said to have been bullied in school and nicknamed 'special k' because he'd been in special ed classes or the way he can easily spend entire days hyperfixating on his art or how he's repeatedly called himself 'slow' because he can't understand what others are thinking/feeling... but i'm gonna be honest and say that most of all, it's because every single person he comes across seems to instantly dislike kyle for reasons that never get any more clear to him. every single issue that has kyle interacting with the justice league has them acting like he's committed some unspeakable social cues-related crime. Why Would They Treat Kyle Like That If He's Not Autistic.

hans von hammer/enemy ace -- i feel like i'm the only war comics reader around these parts but this is one's just a fact to me! hans is seen by enemy pilots and his own squadron as an emotionless killing machine despite the fact that his internal monologue is only about grief/guilt/melancholy/shell shock at all possible times, he's very quiet because he explicitly doesn't know how to navigate social interactions, he gets visibly uncomfortable if people touch him unexpectedly even in an affectionate manner, his only friend is a wolf, he can't fly if his plane isn't painted red, and he's consistently seen as very blunt. he's my special guy <3

other characters that i think are autistic but i can't presently say as much on are: bruce & damian wayne, both rorschachs (walter kovacs & reggie long), dan dreiberg (effectively canon based on his bird article in one of watchmen's text pages alone imo), arnold burnsteel of fate 1994/book of fate fame (along with the canon schizoaffective stuff), mason o'dare from starman 1994 (canon selective mutism central <3), and pat dugan/s.t.r.i.p.e. specifically as characterized in the stargirl tv show/modern comics influenced by it. i'm sure there's others i'm not thinking of rn but those are my personal highlights!

thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[squishmallow36]

Keeper of the Lost Prepositions - Fifty-six

Word count: 2.8k

Tw: none

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-fruity-frog @poppinspop @crystallinewalker @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @never-mourn-the-good @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @cotyledon-tomentosa @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @cherryberrybitch @blossomsxgalorex

On Ao3 or below the cut!

   Another week of absolutely losing my mind as a double agent passes without much of an issue. I do get the virus sent to Gisela, but it’s taking its sweet time to work. In other  news, Keefe’s still annoying as Exile, so Fitz has been hiding here at Widgetmoor with me more and more often as the week goes on. 

    That’s exactly the case today as he doesn’t bother to text me before walking in, asking, “You’re working again?”

    I don’t take my eyes off the screen and reply, “Why is that even surprising anymore?”

    “Come on. You have to have some sort of life.”

    “I’m having a conversation with you right now. Is that not enough social interaction?”

    “No, it’s not. And social interaction isn’t the only thing that contributes to a life. When was the last time you went outside for more than five seconds?” Fitz asks. 

    “I don’t keep track of that,” I snap, mostly to avoid admitting that it’s been a while. I’m not totally sure why it bothers me so much, but I have a good guess.

    Seeing right through that flimsy disguise, Fitz replies, tiredly, “That exactly my point.”

    I save the code and turn around to face him. “What do you propose? If I get scared by a blade of grass, this is all over.”

    Fitz puts down a Magic: The Gathering deck. A white one, by the looks of it. “I really should’ve brought green because, you know, outside...but I got a new deck and now I’m forcing you to play.”

    Do I want to know how he got to the human world and bought a deck? Has he found Amazon? I don’t think Amazon can ship here.

    “Keefe got mad because you beat him one time?” I assume. 

    Fitz nods. 

    “Let me guess. He seems like a red player. Those are usually pretty fast. Ran out of cards?”

    “Yeah. A dragon red to be specific. And he got one big dragon out that I promptly Exiled. It was fun. Although I’m willing to bet he was empathing all over me the entire time.”

    “And you were telepathing to find out his cards. Seems fair to me,” I say, rummaging through Tinker’s drawers for one of my stashed Magic decks. 

    Pulling a red-blue one out, I continue, “Let’s see how it does against an Izzet deck.”

    I roll over to the side of Island in the middle of the workshop opposite Fitz, who asks, “Do you happen to have a twenty-sided die I can use for a life counter?”

    “Do you even have to ask? Of course I have more. Just sometimes I don’t know where they are.” In this case, I have only a vague idea where one is--other than the one I try to keep in the box--and it takes a few drawers before I find it. 

    I give it to him, and shuffle my deck, you know, the mildly fancy way. The way that seems like sorcery until you’ve done it a hundred thousand times or whatever. 

    “I still don’t understand how you do that,” Fitz says, holding his very-new-looking deck. 

    “Cut the deck in approximate halves,” I instruct, and he does that. “Put your thumb on one short side and the rest of your fingers on the opposite side.” 

    It takes a second, but he gets his hands into a shuffling position. 

    “Then, put your thumbs about half an inch apart and let go with your thumb slowly. You’ll speed up with practise.”

    It’s most certainly not the most elegant shuffle ever, falling in large clumps of cards. 

    “Playing more often will help,” I comment.

    “How am I supposed to do that when Keefe is impossible, Biana refuses to learn how to play for the sole reason that I want her to learn, and you’re working twenty-four/seven?”

    I shuffle my own deck. “Roll for initiative?” I ask, holding up my favourite blue twenty-sided die. 

    “Nice subject change. Also, will you shuffle for me?”

    “If you try it one more time, I will,” I reply, rolling my twenty-sided die. “Eleven.”

    Fitz shuffles messily, and gives me the deck before rolling his twenty-sided die. “Five. You go first.”

    I shuffle Fitz’s deck three times and give it back to him. “If you’re mana jammed, it’s your own fault for asking me to shuffle for you.”

    I draw my seven cards and decide to keep the two islands, a mountain, an Izzet guildgate, a goblin electromancer, a chart a course, and an opt. Four lands and three cheap spells. Overall, not a terrible hand to start. 

    “Izzet guildgate enters the battlefield tapped. Your turn.”

    Fitz draws his initial seven cards, chooses to keep them, and draws his card at the beginning of his turn. “Plains. Leonin vanguard--at the beginning of combat on your turn, if you control three or more creatures, leonin vanguard gets plus one/plus one until end of turn. And I gain a life. It’s a one/one. Can’t do anything else. Your turn.”

    I draw a lava coil, which will be four points of good direct damage when I need it. “Island, goblin electromancer. Instant and sorcery spells cost two colourless less to cast. And it’s a two/two. Your turn.”

    Fitz draws a card, stuffs it in his hand, and puts down a plains. “Two more leonins. I don’t want to mess with your goblin electromancer so I will call it your turn.”

    “Rude,” I comment, drawing another lava coil. “Mountain. Lava coil deals four damage to target creature. Also known as your favourite leonin. And then I’ve got another one because this deck is half red and I don’t have any impulse control, so another leonin is dead. And then I attack with my goblin because why not?” 

    “I’ll take the damage. Eighteen?”

    “Eighteen.” I confirm. “Then I guess it’s your turn.”

    Fitz draws a card and puts it down directly from his library. “History of Benalia. It’s am enchantment saga thingy. This round I get a two/two white knight creature token with vigilance. I guess I’ll attack with my leonin because your goblin is tapped.”

    I turn my life counter to nineteen as Fitz says, “Your turn.”

    The next card I draw is another opt. “Island. Opt. Scry one draw a card.” I draw a card, which just so happens to be a Niv-Mizzet. Probably the strongest card in my deck. I very narrowly avoid dancing. I put it into my hand, and hope I can get enough land to cast it. “Opt again.” I draw another card, this time a goblin electromancer. “I’ll keep that too. And put it down. Goblin electromancer two/two. Your turn.”

    Fitz draws a card and begins, “Benalia level two gets me another two/two white knight creature token with vigilance. And then I cast Ajani’s Pridemate. He gets plus one/plus one whenever you gain life. And it’s a two/two. Then I got a legion’s landing. Which creates a one/one white vampire creature token with lifelink and it’ll flip over if I attack with three or more creatures. Your turn.”  

    “Is that all?” I ask sarcastically before drawing a dive down. Looking sadly at my chart a course, I say, “I’d rather not do anything this turn. Your turn.” 

    “Someone doesn’t have enough mana to do what he wants?” Fitz asks, drawing a card, and putting down a plains. “Benalia level three gives knights plus two/plus one until end of turn so I am going to go attack with everyone.” 

     “I’ll block both knight tokens with my goblin electromancers. Mine die yours are completely fine.” 

    “Five damage. And I’ll get two life from the leonin plus the vampire lifelink. This gives Ajani’s pridemate a plus one/plus one counter. And legion’s landing flips into Adanto, the first fort. It’s a white land or if you pay three and tap, you create a one/one white vampire token with lifelink. Your turn.” 

    I turn my life counter down to fourteen. “You’re good? No more triggered abilities?” I draw a card, which is an island that I immediately put down. “I am absolutely terrified but it’s your turn.” 

    Fitz draws a card, and I can tell he’s planning something. “I’m going to use Adanto, the first fort to make a vampire token and then attack with everyone because you have no creatures.” 

    “That’s because you just killed both of them last turn,” I remind him. “How much damage?” 

    Fitz touches each of his creatures in turn as he counts, “two, four, six, nine, ten. Ten damage. And two life.” He adds that to his life counter. “Ajani’s pridemate gets another plus one/plus one counter too. Your turn.” 

    With those ten damage, I am down to four, and my fate is pretty much sealed. But I draw an island, which goes onto the battlefield after a moment of celebration, because I can finally cast Niv-Mizzet and attempt to save myself. “Niv-Mizzet, Parun. Flying, this spell can’t be countered. Whenever you draw a card, Niv deals one damage to any target. Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery, you may draw a card. And it’s a five/five.” I pause. “Your turn.” 

    Fitz draws a card and says, “This is very blue. Sorry not sorry.” 

    I only have a moment to fear for Niv before Fitz casts, “Conclave tribunal. Exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until it leaves the battlefield. Begone, Niv-Mizzet.” 

    I look down angrily at dive down, with its hexproof until end of turn that could have saved Niv as I put it into Exile. 

    One more mana and I could have saved myself. Exile. 

    “Attack with all of your creatures and I am sure I am very dead,” I say for Fitz. 

    He still takes pleasure in counting, “two, four, six, ten, eleven, twelve. Yeah, you’re right.” 

    “Thanks,” I say monotonously, already gathering my cards into a pile to reshuffle. “Best out of three?” 

    “What happened to Mr. Workaholic that was here fifteen minutes ago?” Fitz asks. 

    “He’s been replaced by Mr. Competitive and he is very ready to grind you and your deck into a pulp.”

    Fitz looks at me, smirking, and attempts once again to shuffle his cards the fancy way before just dividing them into piles. I take them from him and shuffle because that method takes three years.

    We play another game, where I have to go first, and I am fairly sure that I die even faster than the first game. 

    “Best out of five?” Fitz suggests. 

    Disproportionately angry, I snap, “Not with that deck you won’t.”

    “Aw, what happened?”

    “That deck is evil and if it mysteriously disappears, I had nothing to do with it.”

    Fitz smiles. “Yeah, sure, you didn’t.” 

    I glare at him. 

    He gives it a whole second before asking, “So what now?” 

    “Back to work for me, I guess.” 

    “That’s no fun. Can I do anything to help?” 

    “Depends. Have you manifested as a Technopath in the past, like, week, and neglected to tell me? You’ve been here pretty much the entire time so there was most certainly an opportunity.” 

    “I’m going to go with highly doubtful.”

     “Work on your shuffling technique if you get too bored,” I say, turning back around. 

    I can hear him attempt to shuffle and it’s still not down to science after four tries. What am I going to do with him? 

    I unplug my headphones, so Fitzy doesn’t have to sit in silence, and put my Disney playlist on shuffle, angrily curated through too many hours of looking through official Disney soundtracks. 

    The first one up is Be Prepared from The Lion King, and, well, I’m automatically happier. Pretty much anything from the Disney Renaissance in the nineteen nineties has that effect on me. 

    After some length of time, during which my only accomplishment is losing track of time, Fitz complains, “My cards are bending.” 

    “Flip them over. Bend them in the opposite direction,” I reply. 

    Now distracted, I have to go and check my email. Because we’re lucky if I don’t check it every five minutes some days. 

    Godzilla has sent me an email, and I curse, hands already starting to shake. 

    “What did I do this time?” Fitz asks. 

    “It’s not you. Godzilla’s planning something big. Just got a gigantic email. Lots of specs.” 

    Fitz swears. “This is Technopath stuff. You know I’m going to ask a dumb question.” 

    “Just give me one second. I’m trying to read.” I close my eyes after a paragraph. “Please tell me that Godzilla doesn’t know where Keefe is. Please.” 

    “You, me, Biana, and Keefe are the only ones who know where he is. You better not have been the one to tell her.” 

    “I wouldn’t do that!” I snap. 

    “Why would I know what you have and haven’t told them?” 

    “It wouldn’t be something important like Keefe’s location! I wouldn’t make him live in your closet if I was just going to go tell every random person on the street where he is!” 

     “Telling them that you’re gay isn’t important enough to not tell people?” 

     “You’ve always said you were fine with it! And I had to build their trust somehow! The Black Swan becoming more and more like the council isn’t good enough to be my only reason. ” 

    “That isn’t exactly incorrect though.” 

    “Wait. You’ve actually noticed that?” I ask incredulously. 

    “I’m not as oblivious as I used to be, you know. The whole Alvar situation dealt with a lot of that.”

    “And I thank you for that. Not being a stuck up Vacker anymore.” 

    Fitz smiles. 

    After a moment, he asks, “What do you have to build for Keefe?” 

    “What is it called or what does it look like at half a glance? Because it’s very obviously a pathetic attempt to not trust me with information. It looks like an ability amplifier. Like Sophie, but a gadget. I can’t really blame her for not trusting me, though.” 

    “Wait, the Neverseen didn’t do something absurdly stupid for once?”

    I look at him, wanting to smile. “It’s designed super super similarly to my ability restrictor. I might be wrong in this, so fair warning, but I’m pretty sure the only people who got my diagram of that were the Council.”

    “That means...that would actually make a lot of strategic sense. The easiest way to bring down the Council would be from the inside. Can our resident Regent Dex help with that at all?”

    “I can’t just call all of the Councillors at my every whim. I’m not Sophie. I can maybe get Noland and Clarette if I’m lucky.”

    “That’s a start. And while we’re at it, I don’t think Bronte or Oralie would be a member of the Neverseen.”

   “Or Darek,” I add, not thinking it through. 

    Of course, Fitz has to ask, “Why him?”

    “I’m really sorry. You don’t have that clearance. But I trust him enough. Mostly because if he betrays that trust, as Marella said, be gay do crimes will become literal. And, on a sort of related note, Bronte and Fintan used to date so use that information as you will.”

    “Why do you know these things? And, you said ‘used to’. Do you happen to have if or when they broke up stored in your brain somewhere?”

    “One. I’m gay, and elves around here are very closeted while also desperately wanting to talk about gay things. It all comes with the territory. Two. No clue but I’d like to google search my own brain just in case. I don’t think Fintan would be rotting in his prison cell if he could just call Bronte to get him out of there.

    “Okay that’s fair. Any more relevant non-Technopath details of the email?”

    “If you’re asking where and when Godzilla will be using this, the answer is I have no clue. I can probably try to buy us some time because I can set the timeline. No device, no evil plans. I can maybe get a week. Give Sophie--and the useless Black Swan I guess--a second to figure out what we should do.”

    “I really don’t know if you’ve heard this, or if it’s actually relevant, but Foxfire’s going to be opening up again next Monday.”

    “That’s a good way to get a lot of people together. And with Keefe’s already powerful new ability plus an amplifier, you have to know it isn’t going to be good. And even if I mess up the device on purpose, Gisela still knows how to use blackmail. There’s no getting ourselves out of this.”

   “You’re such an optimist,” Fitz says sarcastically. 

    “Wonderboy, I think we’ve been through enough by now to expect the worst.”

    “Do you want me to go hail Sophie? Have her get people together to discuss what we should do this time?”

    “Yeah,” I say, turning back around to my computer. “Just in the other room if you don’t mind.”

    He heads into the other room, and the muffled sound of conversation can be heard through the wall. 

[chelseydavidson]

Week # 10 Business Progress

What is working?

My first "sales transaction" went rather well.

Last week, on May 2, I had my first session with a student whom, for the sake of anonymity, I will call Johnny Appleseed. Little Johnny has an upcoming exam for grade 10 French and, while his class is working on an ISU currently, his mother is concerned that he's forgetting all of the tenses he has learned earlier this year. It turns out that Johnny does see the value in being bilingual (members of his extended family are bilingual, for one, but he also sees it as a marketable skill from a career perspective, which is a mature way of thinking for a boy of 15). His issue is more along the lines of spoken French vs. written French. Johnny feels that learning within the classroom is stunting his ability to speak French because he's "just more inclined to speak it than everyone else seems to be." I acknowledged the value of conversational French, but asked him to consider the importance of knowing how to read and write it clearly and for him to self-assess his capacity to do so.

I think that helped because, by asking him not to tell me but to evaluate himself and to be brutally honest in that regard, he felt more empowered than the top-down experience in which he's been enmeshed. I think the relationship has been quite tense between parent and child over this particular point, but Johnny does not outright hate French so much as having frustrations about the pedagogy surrounding it at his school.

I count this as a win, because the problem is not with learning French. The problem is more complex than that and involves appreciating the need to understand and communicate with the written word. We reviewed using the past and present tense, including using negatives, for reflexive reciprocal verbs, which he self-identified as an area of trouble. Again, allowing him to tell me his weaker areas seemed to have an empowering effect where he felt more in control of his educational pursuit.

Over the next few weeks, we will move through each part of the curriculum; I will be able to then evaluate areas of strength and weakness and provide added support where I can see it is most needed.

The client, Mrs. Appleseed, thanked me profusely when we chatted after the session. Her gratitude was very kind and I gave Mrs. Appleseed a few business cards to “refer me to your friends.” (You have to try, right?)

She also mentioned in a week or two ramping up the number of sessions as we enter into his final exam period. We scheduled again, this time for tomorrow, Wednesday, May 8, another hour-long session. She e-transferred the funds for the first session immediately as well.

In an Excel spreadsheet, I am keeping track of all of the financials of the business, including cash flow, to ensure I am meeting my intended objectives. Like I mentioned last week, I’m also trying to absorb as much intel as I can from the Appleseeds, so I can understand best about what works well and what doesn’t with my current business model, and whether there are adjustments I can make to improve the business viability. 

What is not working?

More clients would be nice. Diversifying my clientele seems like a more sustainable way to move forward. I don’t want to put too many eggs in one basket. 

If bad news is your thing, though, then marketing will interest you. I am still getting absolutely nowhere with Facebook. My frustration with social media is insane right now. (Not that I would feel much better by getting set up to properly engage with it. But I digress.)

I did spend some money on business cards (and less than I'd budgeted, thanks to a coupon code), so I am relying, unfortunately, a little too heavily on passing these cards around wherever I can. I know word-of-mouth is absolute gold, especially in the tutoring industry, for netting more clients, but I am feeling a little desperate to supplement it with some social media or other kinds of marketing. (More on canvassing with flyers below.)

I truly expected the marketing process to be more organic than it has been, so I am genuinely surprised at the number of speed bumps I’ve faced along the way here. My goal by next week is to have something more concrete figured out, even if it means switching gears entirely and seeking out another paid marketing campaign option outside of Facebook. 

How do you feel the project is coming?

Can't complain.

Based on my metrics, I’ve met my goals so far. My natural personality doesn’t gel well with the “let it be” mantra I’m force-feeding myself, but I am trying to learn to let go a little and not try to jump the gun on my milestones.

There’s still much room for progress, but I also need to give it room to progress.  

What are you learning about running a business? 

It should come as no surprise that I have learned that I would really like to be able to afford the services of a marketing firm. The ability to know my weaknesses and pain points and being able to offload them to someone with the expertise and connections to get it done right the first time – what a blissful dream. 

Honestly, I'm starting to understand why Don Draper was such a big deal.

In the world of regulations and bylaws, I also made some strides in learning where I can hand out flyers. A terrific municipal law enforcement officer got back to me on April 29 stating that, in Ajax, no municipal bylaw exists prohibiting me from handing out flyers in public. However, I cannot hand out flyers or any other promotional materials on Town of Ajax property, any property classified as a park, and any Town of Ajax recreational facilities. By virtue of that, I might consider handing out flyers later this week; the weather is pretty nice right now and the foot traffic is increasing, so it might be wise to do that for a few hours. 

What are you learning about yourself?

I am learning a lot of four-letter words, but one of the most important ones has been “calm”... oh, here’s two more: “Slow down”.

Being as Type-A as I am, I have to learn to pace myself for a marathon, not a sprint. I have managed to seemingly get the most steps forward when I’ve stopped and smelled the roses. So, I am aiming to keep doing that, in spite of myself.

Quite honestly, rewiring that part of my brain would not necessarily be a bad thing. I understand there’s a difference between eustress (the good kind of stress that keeps us alert and alive) and distress (the debilitating kind that brings us to our knees and wreaks havoc on productivity and wellbeing), but I cannot always tell the difference between grit and grind.

In my experience, when you’re in it, you can’t see the forest for the trees. So, if nothing else, if this startup venture is an abject failure, I will walk away from it with a better sense of calmness. Nothing is ever a total loss, if we can learn or change for the better due to it.

[journalbyjordan]

40 Notes & Reflections

(Originally posted on October 20, 2022)

Recently, I learned that I have ADHD.

Throughout my time in education, I regularly had issues with studying, revision, executive function and the like, but since I always achieved great grades, and always managed (key word: managed) to get things done, I never had much of a reason to look any further into the issues. However, because this approach of course didn’t address the actual issues, they continued to affect my everyday life and wellbeing (drastically), leading to me learning about ADHD masking, finding it echoes throughout my work and personal experiences, and then deciding I should read further. I now know that I have been experiencing ADHD burnout for the vast majority of my life.

So over the past week and a half (Thursday afternoon to the following Sunday), I took a short but actual break. No goals, no messages, no tasks, no interviews, no client work, no projects and no other predetermined or defined commitments. And I feel I learnt a few significant things in the time I spent resting and minutely ‘recovering’. In the following list I have detailed some of these insights (save for the real sad, melancholy stuff), in the hopes that I can keep these things in mind, and maybe also help whomever else reads this.

***

Before I list the notes, I thought to include a few things I came across before getting to this point, as I likely drew and learnt from them also:

ADHD Masking via Inflow

Executive Dysfunction via Inflow

How Do You Stop Ghosting People? via r/ADHD

***

40 Notes & Reflections (lightly edited for clarity):

There are clear limits on how long, and how much, I can work in a week.

Ignoring your limits does not disappear your limits.

Domain-style planning (where you group tasks into like categories) is a big help, and limits the need to context switch.

Going outside for a walk will always solve at least one problem.

Prioritising rest has a huge net positive on my happiness.

Multitasking is a big stressor and is almost never necessary.

Reflection is good.

Reflecting best occurs when I fully step back.

Reflection is observing without rushing to fix things. Learn to sit in discomfort.

Using social apps whilst holding a thought can lead to a muddy headspace.

No or very low use of social apps is good for me.

Setting weekly sprints is key to not overcommitting myself to myself (ultimately affecting self-trust).

Boundaries are extremely key to health and wellbeing.

I now understand it as: Boundaries = your limits = your comfort levels.

You can let other people know your limits via setting boundaries.

Boundaries exist to protect you from ignoring your limits, not to limit or control others.

Wanting to be interested is not the same as wanting to be entertained, and neither are bad to want.

You can let people know what you’re dealing with. Their response does not change that fact.

You can set plans with others according to your own limits.

You don’t have to be good enough for others. You don’t have to be good enough for you to do the thing.

The more you do, the more options become available to you.

I feel and carry a lot guilt and shame around resting.

Intimacy is hugely and highly important.

I have been consistently coming up with what I refer to now as ‘product and project ideas’ since early childhood.

Sometimes it’s just stubbornness and pride that are in the way, and that’s all.

Everyone is hurt in their own ways.

The vast majority of people project in many ways, daily and multiple times a day.

I project and expect of people.

Front end code, particularly HTML and CSS, is really not that intimidating.

Practice >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Theory.

There is time.

The (social) internet makes time feel a lot faster than it is.

People can always see through try-hards and those rushing the process.

It’s okay to search for/start at the beginner level.

Failing is very good.

Writing is very good.

Busy work is good in the very short term (bias for action), but very bad in the long term (arrogance and shallow focus).

You have a lot more power over how your day goes than you realise.

There’s a lot of guilt, shame and judgement around the idea of doing things, any thing, your own way.

Having the language to express things solves 89% of the problem.

[smapc-marekjaksic]

Should public service journalists be active on social media?

Traditional media have started to use social media very significantly in recent years. Virtually every traditional media is already active on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Thanks to these platforms, they can reach a much larger group of people. (Nielsen, Cornia & Sehl, 2018) In addition to their traditional target group, they can also reach users who would otherwise barely listen to their broadcasting or read their newspaper.

This strategy is, in my opinion, completely understandable, and I believe that we cannot blame the traditional media for it. After all, they are just trying to keep up with the trends of today's world and in many cases, I believe they are doing a very good job. And of course, public media are no exception. However, their journalists are also very active on social media. Here, in my opinion, it is much more controversial. Should public journalists really be active on social media? And if so, what rules should they follow?

In my opinion, public media journalists should definitely be active on social media. As we can see in the survey made by the American independent think tank Pew Research Center, social media is an important source of information for them. (Jurkowitz & Gottfried, 2022)

In addition, they are also a space for them to promote their articles and reports. And in my opinion, even this activity of individual journalists on social media can attract younger viewers, listeners, and readers. The public media in particular have had long-term problems with that. According to the survey made by the British research center Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, news published by public media has been reaching people under 25 years of age less and less in the last few years. (Nielsen, Levy & Schulz, 2019)

On the other hand, I think that public media journalists should behave a little differently on social media than ordinary users. I am not saying that any special rules or perhaps laws should apply to them, in my opinion, for example, codes of conduct would be sufficient. In my opinion, public media viewers should not know what the journalists think of certain issues. And willy-nilly, social media is helping this.

Yes, it is true that sometimes journalists can find it too strict and binding, but in my opinion, this is something that one has to take into account when deciding to become a journalist.

For example, in the Czech Republic, the accounts of Czech Television journalists on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter work in such a way that each of the journalists has a statement on their profile that their contributions do not represent the opinions and views of Czech Television.

Even so, journalists should still behave impartially and should not express their opinions. And I must say that it works in the Czech Republic. The main reason, in my opinion, is the fact that journalistic codes of conduct are generally respected there.

To sum up, I think it is practically impossible to avoid social media in today's world, public media and journalists included. However, in this case, the public media should significantly tighten their guidelines and codes of conduct. Otherwise, there is a risk that there will be a loss of people's trust in the medium, which nowadays public media around the world cannot afford.

References

JURKOWITZ, Mark a Jeffrey GOTTFRIED. Twitter is the go-to social media site for U.S. journalists, but not for the public. Pew Research Center [online]. 2022, 27 June 2022 [cit. 2022-11-22]. Accessible through: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/27/twitter-is-the-go-to-social-media-site-for-u-s-journalists-but-not-for-the-public/

KLEIS NIELSEN, Rasmus, David A. L. LEVY a Anne SCHULZ. Old, Educated, and Politically Diverse: The Audience of Public Service News. Reuters Institute [online]. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2019, September 2019 [cit. 2022-11-22]. Accessible through: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/public-service-media-are-struggling-reach-younger-less-educated-audiences-and-risk-decline-and

KLEIS NIELSEN, Rasmus, Alessio CORNIA a Annika SEHL. Public Service News and Social Media. Reuters Institute [online]. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2018, 2018 [cit. 2022-11-22]. Accessible through: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/research-how-public-service-news-uses-social-media