#saying i needed to identify as xyz thing because i looked a certain way. or trying to force identities on me.

[thegreatclowncat]

God doesn't look at what's on the outside anyway

[writingwithcolor]

Running Commentary: What is “ok to do” in Mixed-Culture Supernatural Fiction?

Dear readers: 

Today we are trying something new. To give you some insight into our process in the Japanese moderator section, we are presenting our response in the form of running commentary to show you how we dissect and answer long asks. We hope this makes clear what points are useful and not useful when sending us a query. As always, this is for learning purposes, not callouts. Be prepared: this is a long one. 

To summarize: the asker is looking to create a comic drawn in Japanese manga style, and has provided a long summary of the story and worldbuilding which involves a mix of “reimagined” Japanese yokai mythos and cultural symbols from many other sources. They have questions with respect to cultural appropriation, coding etiquette, and “what is and isn’t ok.” 

Opening Comments

I know a common advice when it comes to the thing I am about to ask is to talk to people involved in __, but I struggle with opening up to strangers for reasons I'm uncomfortable explaining. 

Marika (M): This is already a red flag. If you want to engage with another culture without talking to people from that culture, then research is going to be very challenging. You won’t have members of that culture to guide you towards sources and perspectives they feel most accurately represents public opinion. If I were in your shoes, I might start with tackling my discomfort when engaging with other people, if only to improve my work. If you aren’t ready to engage with a culture and its people directly, then I think you should wait until you are. 

I should note, reaching out to the Japanese mod team at WWC does count as engagement, but WWC should not and cannot be the only point of contact because there is no single, legitimate cultural perspective. 

Rina (R): Also, you don’t need to “open up” to strangers or talk to them in person to get perspectives. Asking specific research questions anonymously to a forum or on social media requires very little vulnerability. You managed to do it here on WWC. So give it a try! 

Anyway, my question basically amounts to the what is and isn't ok [sic] in terms of depicting fantasy creatures and concepts outside of their respective culture.

R: So, the reason why we turn away rubber stamp questions by that ask “is XYZ okay?” is because “okay” & “not okay” 1) is vague and 2) creates a dichotomy where there isn’t one. 

When we say something is “not okay,” do we mean:

It’s offensive to the general majority of XYZ group? 

It’s contentious among people who ID in the group? 

It has a potential to be interpreted in a certain negative way, but may not be a red flag to everyone?

Insetad try asking:

What are the reasons this subject is offensive? 

What makes cultural appropriation bad? 

When might it be “okay” to intentionally discuss a difficult or controversial topic?

What is your reason for including something that may be interpreted as offensive and can it be sufficiently justified? 

What stereotypes or tropes might it be consistently identified as or associated with, and why? 

When might it be justified to bring up these tropes?

With That In Mind...

Let’s get into the rest of the ask below. 

…a story I've been working on in recent times is largely inspired off the Japanese yokai, and the setting is basically Earth in the far future, as far as when the next supercontinent may form. These yokai, although portrayed differently here, do retain their main characteristics [...] Included in this world are two goddesses of my own creation, primarily representing the sun and the moon. [...] There will be thirteen nations, named and based after the Chinese Zodiac, and the life force found in the living things in this world, called qi, comes in two forms that are always opposing each other but can never fully overpower the other, this being based off yin and yang. They're even directly named this; yin qi and yang qi.

M: This reads more like using Japanese and Chinese culture for the “aesthetics”, not the cultures themselves, which I personally feel falls under cultural appropriation. From a world-building/ coding standpoint, the actual use of concepts is workable, and, dare I say, typical, given how Chinese cosmology influences Japanese culture. However, naming a concept “yin qi” or “yang qi” is the equivalent of naming something “- charge” or “+ charge”, respectively. That you don’t seem aware of this tells me you are pretty early in your research phase. In that vein, we’ve covered translating terms and names from foreign languages in fantasy before. See the following article linked here for our recommendation against using RL terms outright but instead encouraging people to create their own conlangs. 

R: Worldbuilding-wise, I think you would have to figure out the chicken-or-egg of the zodiac nations. Did the nations come first, and the zodiac later as an origin folk story (which you would have to rewrite to serve the nation-building narrative)? Did the zodiac come first, and the nations named (most likely re-named) by a political entity? What is the justification? Otherwise, again, it’s a shoehorning of aesthetics. 

There is also a third, lesser known god based off of fox spirits and trickery and I imagined he's the patron deity of a family that honors and worships him, but his influence on them has transformed them into Kitsune-tsuki, which I depict as fox-like anthros. 

M: Not related to this ask directly, but I have jokingly ranted about how often non-Japanese people prefer using imagery related to kitsune-tsuki in Japanese coded world-building (link). This makes me feel the same level of petty irritation. See my troll answer below for a similar experience.

R: Same. It’s boring tbh. 

M: Troll Answer: I get that kitsune-tsuki are very sexy furries, but Japanese folklore has other sexy furries too! These underrepresented demographics also deserve recognition and appreciation!!

The plot of the story is this; modernization has left the goddesses neglected of their worship and forgotten, something that is necessary in this world to stop them from fighting each other. The Moon Goddess awakens first, punishing the humans by unleashing the yokai. Then the Sun Goddess wakes up to fight in humanity's defense…

M: This could feel rather like Shinto-like coding (Ex. the myth of Amaterasu and the Cave, or Tsukuyomi slaying Ukemochi), but something about this scenario feels a bit too binary in terms of themes of good v. evil, light v. dark to be Shinto. The plot also feels more Gaelic/ Nordic in influence for me as a person raised in a Japanese Buddhist and Hindu household. I imagine this dissonance could have been fixed with better guided research. 

…but their fighting has caused a perma-eclipse and this world is in danger of ending. The yokai have run rampant; some are loyal to the Moon Goddess, and some aren't, and it lies to the main characters to bring balance back to Midgard. Yeah... the name of this future Earth is Midgard. I debate changing it since it and some other things I will mention sorta feel out of place.

R: Marika, looks like you were right on the Gaelic/Nordic influence /j 

Also, worldbuilding question: if the Earth is in the far geologic future, how long has it been since modernization (19th-20th century)? Centuries? Millennia? How long has this fighting gone on for? What triggered the perma-eclipse, and why now? Why is this time depth necessary? 

One of the main characters in question is a humanoid woman with wolf features named Ling, and she is a descendant of the dynasty that had first ruled the one of the nations, particularly the one based off the dragon zodiac. She accidentally summons the other main character to this world as she's praying at a shrine, a humanoid with dragon features--I call them drakon--named Angelynn.

[on the names of characters] is it appropriating by not having the world entirely based on [Chinese, Japanese, and Indian] influence? it's a little weird to me how worldwide the creatures are referred to as yokai, implying a strong Japanese influence not unlike how it is today with Western culture being so dominant, yet there are still names like Keith and Kiara.

M: I will give you credit for recognizing you have unconsciously veered towards white-washing/ race-bending: either presenting European cultural influences (drakons, Angelynn, Keith, Kiara, Midgard) as default or utilizing general E. Asian cultural influences and aesthetics for a Western-style story (Ling, qi, Chinese zodiac, yokai). I agree with you that this creates a sense of cultural dissonance. At this point, I’d say you have a clear choice: write a Western-style high fantasy using a background with which you have more familiarity, or get some better guidance on research with East Asian cultures so you can code the story more effectively. 

The focus of this story is centered around meeting all these yokai and showing that there's more nuance to them than Ling believes, all while saving the world. But I worry if I'm appropriating these concepts and creatures by 1, drawing from more than one culture--I initially imagined that there would be a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Indian influence because according to a website I am getting the info on yokai from, the yokai in question already draw inspiration from or have been based on something in Chinese mythology or Hinduism [...]

R: Sure, some yokai have Chinese or Hindu parallels as that tends to happen with folk tales. But not all–some are unique to Japan, and some are more modern. Sometimes it’s very political–some people consider the Ainu Korpokkur as being a “Yokai of Japan” despite it belonging to the indigenous culture. It’s up to you to research, untangle, and understand these influences. 

The fact that you bring up that the Asian continent has seen a lot of cultural exchange is not a sufficient reason to randomly combine influences for the sake of visual appeal or “coolness.” That is appropriation. These influences must be understood in their historical context so that you know how/why certain things combined or morphed into another, and what makes sense to combine/morph. 

M: This also indicates that the character views the yokai as evil/inherently bad, which I would argue is not a typical stance for much Japanese folklore. Again, this shows a deficit in research. 

2, reimagining these yokai in a new context even though I have done the research on them, because one thing I kept seeing in regards to cultural appropriation is that it's bad to do that […]

R: Refer above to my note on “okay” and “not okay.” The thing with folklore and fairy tales is that every–and I mean every–folk tale is reinterpreted with every new iteration of it. Reimagining in a new context is what people do every time they pass on a story or tell a story with the same plot or characters. Do not think of folklore as an “original” that is altered and rebooted, but rather a living document that gets added to. Reimagining is not the inherent issue. HOW you reimagine something matters. 

So I suppose my question is...if someone were to do research upon the creature they want to use, given they are allowed to use it, and gained an understanding of what the creature or concept stood for, are they allowed to pick it apart and reimagine it? Alternatively, is it ok if it's explicitly pointed out that it is derivative of the original?

It has actually become my biggest fear that I may have internalized something that could both continue to do harm long after the fact and attract the wrong people to me work. I don't wanna let people down!

M: As Rina has noted several times, I think the problem is in trying to ID a set of specific variables and circumstances that make a thing “okay” or “not okay.” I want to recommend that you read my joking response about writing in secret rooms while wearing a disguise (Linked here). Who can you hurt if no one knows what you are doing? There’s a difference between creating for oneself and creating to share. 

You have internalized a message incorrectly, but not the one you cite. The goal of many recommendations against cultural appropriation is to avoid causing direct harm to people who have seen their cultures demeaned, discredited and devalued, especially in shared spaces. Assessing cultural engagement, whether we are talking about appropriation, appreciation or exchange is not a measure of personal virtue or a collection of commandment style do’s and don’t’s. Rather, I believe engaging with other cultures is the state of mind of acknowledging that when using these cultures’ in one’s own work, there is value in consulting members of that culture and giving credit where credit is due. This will be challenging if you are only comfortable engaging with all of these cultures in a distanced, minimal capacity. 

FWIW, I’ve written stories that probably will offend people from other cultures and backgrounds, but I don’t show them off. I don’t think writing these makes me a bad person, but I also don’t see the need to give unnecessary offense, so those stories are just for me, to be written and read in my own secret room. However, I’m not ashamed of having written them, and I’m also comfortable to “let people down” provided that my own shared work reflects my personal principles of what I consider to be sufficient research and engagement with other cultures,  As a creator, my work wouldn’t be mine if I didn’t first please myself. I think the trick to the creator role is deciding what to keep private, what to share and what constitutes sufficient engagement. 

P.S. 

We’ve referenced the need for research multiple times in this ask, and in some of the other asks that have gone up this week, so we thought this would be a good place to plug a beginner’s guide to academic research created by the mod team.. Look for it soon under WWC’s pinned posts!

[growandrecover]

hey!! I’m in ed recovery but what do I do if I don’t think I’m “bad” enough to recover?? I don’t think I was ever clinically underweight so can I even identify with the ana (or, recovering ana) label? I feel like I can’t recover until I’m properly validated as sick. do u have any tips on how to combat this feeling? tysm, I love ur blog!

Hey! Thanks for the ask <3 I know exactly how you feel. Yes, being underweight is a symptom of anorexia (a *big* one, for whatever reason), but the way I think about it, if a fat person was anorexic, they may not "technically" qualify, but that doesn't make them any less anorexic. You don't need to be underweight to be an ana (although some of them may tell you otherwise, do not listen to them. So many anas are in a very unhealthy headspace where they tell people they need to be sicker, which is frankly not true.) If you feel like/know you are anorexic, you are sick enough to recover. Why? Because if you didn't feel that way, there would be nothing to recover from.

Let me say this to you really quick: You are valid in your disorder. You are sick enough. I'm sure you've heard this before, but people who aren't sick don't think the way we do in terms of needing to feel "sick enough" in order to heal. This is another way our disorders trap us in this endless cycle of harmful behaviors. We convince ourselves we're not sick enough, and we only get worse in the process, which doesn't do any good.

To help with those thoughts, you could write them down whenever one pops into your head. For me personally, when I see my thoughts written down, they become more real. So if I see "I'm not sick enough" written down in front of me, there's a high chance I'll go, "woah, why would I ever think that?". I know everyone is different, so you may need to try something else.

You could talk to someone if you're able to (if you can't get a therapist, try talking to someone who doesn't have an ed because their point of view is so different *only if you know they'll be supportive and won't just tell you to eat*). I say get a person without an ed because I remember telling my younger sibling about certain things having to do with my ed, and they'd always think it was so odd. To them, rules around food are ridiculous. Hearing them say "you want to look like them?" or "I'm eating the same thing, and I'm okay." is so reassuring because it seems so well intentioned and wholesome. They've always encouraged me to eat, especially the foods they know I love. Their point of view always puts my ed related problems into perspective because they have a healthy relationship with food.

If you don't want to do that, you could always just try affirming yourself. Any time your ed voice is really getting to you, you could try saying, "I am sick enough. This particular thing is bothering me so much because I'm sick. Xyz wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have an ed." If you don't believe that right now, that's okay. Sometimes you just have to fake it till you make it.

And one last time, just for good measure: You are sick enough. If you weren't, you wouldn't be worried about it. You can do this, I know you can. You're strong, and you can beat this disorder.

I wish you nothing but success and happiness in recovery, love. Have a great day/night ♡ And feel free to reach out again if you need to talk!

[funkymbtifiction]

Personal question to you...

Have you ever observed how your cognitive processes, ways of thinking and understanding more complex ideas and observing reality changed as an adult from a teenager?

For me, it did and i feel my teenage self was more emotionally centered, saw humans for humans, didn't see colour, race, caste, class to define them or even focused on language, accent though was aware of gender biases. And some other things that media displaced and led to one's awareness.

Besides that how I've become more rationally oriented, practical and realistic.

How was it for you? Do you miss certain aspects of yourself that were better than adult version of you? Or is the opposite?

What have you done to regain past versions of yourself, or reframe the adult versions you disagreed with all inside your mind?

The only thing I miss about my younger self is that all but one of my grandparents was alive to enjoy—and I didn’t, in the way that teens don’t. I assumed they would be there forever. I took people I cared about for granted and I’m trying not to do that as an adult, because I realize much more profoundly – multiple funerals later—that life is short and you may not have tomorrow.

I do not look back much, because I tend to either color childhood experiences as full of romantic wonder and longing or to focus on the mistakes I made in a desire to beat myself up about them again. I think my only virtue as a teenager was being responsible, but also naïve and optimistic and hopeful for the world. Some of that idealism has become cynicism toward the human race. I was also much bolder in assuming I had things to say that people needed to hear, and I do miss that version of myself. It seems like I’ve grown lazy about sharing my thoughts because there’s so many other people doing the same, it doesn’t feel necessary anymore. And I was less of a perfectionist as an author. I’ve studied and practiced so much as a writer that it’s harder, because I’m writing intentionally and with purpose, rather than just randomly stringing incidents together.

I would never go back, though. I wouldn’t want to be my younger self again. I prefer the wisdom of almost forty years of being alive. I no longer fight about stupid stuff that doesn’t matter (even if it’s still a temptation, I am not a saint!). I am not nearly as obnoxious, firm in my opinions, or quarrelsome. And I have made such huge progress in dismantling some of my worst 6 tendencies that I breathe a sigh of relief knowing I don’t do XYZ anymore. It’s a daily struggle to identify and deal with things, but I’m also seeing progress, and that’s important to me.

[myrfing]

honestly most e-s fans arent like actual traddies even if they like the aesthetic. i think they mostly just consider the godfather of imperialism and race superiority thing under the blanket of “villain aesthetic” and like him as like, the bad boy option in a YA fantasy romance novel. their protags are usually spunky willful pretty-but-different girls full of fire and wit and funnily enough “anti traditonalist” in the way that they aren’t submissive homemakers but rather wild and uniquely smart and a bit of a manic pixie towards their uh other half who is still this relatively traditional man who loves their character the way a “man loves a woman” with assertiveness, power, protectiveness, and a hidden gentle vulnerable side that they only share with The Woman (or some feminine bridge) in their life. he does not see the woman as below him but looks to her as the one and only light and heart in his complicated life, something venerated despite the fact she might be considered “weird” by larger society. in a sense they want to flip around the woman-supports-man into a man-supports-woman thing but with the picture intact. like the point isn’t being a…TRADDIE traditonal woman but a “nontraditonal” woman who is still traditionally loved by a fairly traditonal man in that they like the romantic conflict between “strong willed feminine who subverts expectations of piety” vs “stubborn powerful masculine who subverts expectations of moralism” and the compromise found between that. everything else matters very little.

im not gonna lie and say I dont think it’s lame as hell & that ultimately both these character archetypes are not very exciting and are just another link in the long chain of really boring and conformist cawntent and honestly think it just deserves the hate it gets for being so fucking lame but probably a lot of uh harmony would come from identifying whether or not someone likes e-s as their dark and broody traditonal-but-aesthetically-subversive fantasy guy and someone who likes e-s as a character in a larger story with political themes and just accepting that as it is. because getting someone who wants mostly a fantasy husband to HAVE TO comment on the political aspect of the story means you’re gonna get a lot of very not well thought out takes about the pertinent topics that nobody needs to hear & getting someone who cares mostly about the political thematic aspect to look at e-s as a romantic lead is gonna get you a lot of “why do you like this guy like that” lol when it has nothing to do with questions like How Does Race Purity Manifest As Violence. Like the question turns into How Does Race Purity Manifest As Violence When My Husband Is Depressed and Sad Because He’s Working Too Hard And Needs My Cuddles. you guys are not talking about the same thing. im not saying there isnt a point where the shits intersect but generally it’s not worth it. it’s like arguing with a breaking bad fan who thinks walt is just a badass pulling himself up by the bootstraps about how it’s a critique of x y and z like you are naht gonna get anywhere. they LIKE the show because they see le walter as a power fantasy and changing anything about that means they will no longer care about the show which big whoop but they’re not gonna change anything about it because YOU think about it differently. and as someone who always argues about tellitubbies online it has net 0 impact like xiv is made to generate profit so in the end trying to parse it in a politically meaningful way doesn’t really result in much of anything and you can say megashipperz are consuming the media just as “correctly” because of that. I do it because I like it and because I do think there is value in acknowledging whatever some human person was trying to convey in the story they wrote even as it’s been processed into cornmeal, and that it’s worth picking out biases in like, say, why a japanese game wants people to think of figures who represent xyz in a certain way but. whatever meaning we ascribe to the game’s story is always going to be confined within the box of the fact it’s a corporate product so wasting too much time arguing with individual fans about how they’re engaging with it is like…watever dude. fandom is worthless for the most part

[lil-pink-coupe]

Things I wish I had been told/asked by adults as a multiply-neurodivergent kid/teen*:

I can see you really enjoy/love xyz...what is it that you like about it?

In (x number of days) we will be going to (insert new place/experience involving me here)...here is what will be happening, and when, and how, and why. Do you have any questions about any of this? What do you need in order for this to be easier for you?

If it bothers you, it bothers you. I believe you when you say something is frightening, painful or uncomfortable.

You don’t have to try (insert new food here) if you really don’t want to- only when you’re ready. In the meantime, there’s plenty of your safe foods for you to eat.

It is not your fault that you got sick-not even if you ate too many sweets because you enjoy the gustatory input/you have a hard time identifying when you’re full, or you didn’t wear your coat outside because you have difficulty registering temperature changes/don’t like the way certain clothes feel. We (your parents/caregivers) will help you feel better and love you through this.

It’s okay to cry/feel sad/scared/angry. Crying/being outwardly upset lets me know something is wrong, so I can help you.

I’m really glad you felt safe enough to tell me that (xyz person) makes you feel sad, mad, or uncomfortable. It’s not okay that they make you feel that way, and you didn’t do anything to deserve it. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.

If you’re hungry, eat.

You are allowed to say no.

You don’t have to be hugged/kissed/tickled/noogied/playfully punched in the shoulder by relatives (or anyone) if you don’t want to be, and it’s okay to say so.

It’s okay to tell (xyz relative) that you don’t like to be teased.

Would it help if we set up a safe sensory area/a punching bag in the garage for you to make use of when you’re overloaded/melting down, so you don’t have to self-harm?

What do you need/what would make this easier/how can I help? (I know I listed a version of this earlier, but I feel like this question and it’s variants really can’t be asked enough)

It isn’t/wasn’t your fault.

I know that all behavior is communication.

I know that meltdowns/sensory overloads are not tantrums or things you do “at” me.

I’m really glad you have a comfort item/stim toy that helps you feel safe and calm. Nobody is allowed to take it from you, or change it in any way, and you don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.

I’m so sorry you misplaced your comfort item/stim toy-that must be so hard, and it’s okay to be upset. I’ll help you look for it.

No one will think badly of you if decide to do/not do xyz

I’m so glad I got to spend time/talk with you today.

This is a grownup problem-you can’t change or fix it, and we won’t drag you into the middle of it. Just enjoy being a kid.

Your interests are NOT bad/inappropriate/cringy/weird/childish/boring etc

The concept of “age appropriate/age-inappropriate” is complete bullish!t.

If there’s something I’m doing/saying that’s upsetting you, I really want to know about it so I can make changes.

Just as a heads-up, I’m about to run the vacuum cleaner/crush this soda can/run the garbage disposal, etc. (as a courtesy so someone w/ sensory issues can cover their ears/put headphones on)

I saw (something related to hyperfixation/interests) today and thought of you!

I love you unconditionally-you are irreplaceable.

Thank you for being patient/flexible.

I found a backup(s) of your favorite book/plushie/stim toy/comfort item, just in case!

I know you love your gourd/pumpkin with a cute face painted on it that we got at the grocery store last Halloween-it *is* awfully cute! But sweetie, it’s been a month, and it’s getting too yucky to stay in the house. Why don’t we put it outside where you can still visit it whenever you want?

You are NOT spoiled/immature/self-indulgent/overly sensitive/difficult, and anyone who says that you are is wrong.

You can read a book in bed or do some other quiet activity if you have trouble falling asleep right away.

You can tell me the truth, I won’t be mad.

I know you don’t chew on pencil erasers/plastic toys/backpack straps/hoodie strings/shirt collars to be gross, or because you’re a “baby”- you need a specific kind of sensory input. Let’s find you some chewelry that you like!

Aw, those are some cute stuffed animals you brought home from the flea market/Disney Store/bookstore! What are their names?

If a certain type of therapy makes you feel unsafe or like you’ll never be good enough, you don’t have to go anymore.

I’m sorry/I was wrong/I made a mistake/I messed up...how can I make things better?

You don’t have to wear “fancy” clothes if they itch/scratch/scrape/poke/tickle/bind...dress in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

I am interested in you.

I am always here for you.

I’m on your side.

I want to hear what you have to say.

Your wants and needs matter.

You are allowed to exist and take up space.

You are not “too much.”

Whatever the problem is, we’ll find a way to solve it (to be fair, I *did* get told this when I was a kid, just not as often as I needed to)

You don’t need to suffer just so everyone else can be happy/comfortable...you matter too.

Go ahead and infodump to me!

You are allowed to stim.

You are allowed to like things.

You are SO much more important to me than any material possession.

I’ll put my phone/device away so I can give you my undivided attention.

You can draw during class if you need to-I love seeing your little cartoons in the margins of the worksheets you turn in!

It’s okay to fail and make mistakes-there are some things you just can’t get right the first time.

If you are tired, go ahead and take a nap.

Take some time to relax/have a snack/sleep before telling me about your day/getting started on your homework.

How smart you are/how hard you work/how good you are at learning/your worth as a human being is not determined by what grades you make in school.

...and I think that pretty much covers it! Please feel free to reblog with your own! 😃

*= I intentionally titled this “things *I* wish I’d been told” and invited others to add on b/c I know everyone’s experiences are different, and the last thing I want to do is presume to speak for everyone-although if it still comes off like I am, I do apologize.

[ghoulciifer]

hewoo🥺can you write hcs on tendou and iwaizumi comforting their s/o who is sad because of their bad relationship with their father,like not in any abusive way but their dad is distant and emotionally unavailable:/

HC: Tendou and Iwaizumi helping an S/O with an emotionally unavailable father.

TW: Parental Neglect/Distancing, idk how to properly identify this trigger but I will be writing about some potentially heavy stuff in regards to parental instability so be wary of that if you wish to proceed.

TAGS: Emotional unavailability, hurt/comfort, angst

NOTES: Hi anon, thank you for requesting this, bby! This ask hit super close to home so I felt very confident that it was something I could write. While I might not have had these sweet boys to help me through my time, I hope these headcanons bring some sort of comfort to anyone dealing with this situation. And anon, if you yourself are dealing with this, know that I understand and I love you dearly ❤️ It’s not easy but it can be bearable. My inbox is always open, honeybun. (also we’re not gonna talk about how i switched tenses w each hc shhhh)

===================================

if you couldn’t tell by my url, i love tendou dearly, bby boy is my level of crackhead energy

literally the biggest asshole when it comes to teasing but i mean, you know he loves you

which is probably how he found out about your situation in the first place

y’all were probably joking around, making aggressive jabs at each other, name calling, the whole nine yards

“tendou you look like a fuckin’ troll doll, do not tell me I need a haircut”

“well y/n, anyone would be a damn troll for dating you”

you get the picture

it wasn’t until he made an off-handed comment about your dad not loving you that your mood INSTANTLY dropped

your chest got tight, your skin went numb, all breath from your lungs just WHOOSH

when he saw the tears slip from the brims of your eyes he finally stopped talking and lept to your side

he grabbed your face with both hands and started spewing apologies after asking what was wrong, he knew you liked to joke around with him like that but you never cried from something he said before

that’s when you sat him down (after some cuddles n kisses uwu) and explained everything to him

about your dad’s emotional unavailability, how you constantly pushed yourself in everything you did to get any sort of feedback from him, how you wanted to have that relationship everyone else seemed to have with their fathers

“it feels stupid to say but... i’ll never know what it feels like to be a daddy’s girl/boy.”

the whole time he’d listen intently, just soak up every word that came out of your mouth and nod occasionally to show that he was actively retaining the info

he’d have an arm slung around you and the other hand gently rubbed your thigh with his thumb, it only left the spot once or twice to wipe a stray tear from your face

and when you finished he went silent for a moment to really think it over. usually he’d be quicker with responses, but he didn’t want to potentially make you feel worse

he’d connect the dots during this process: he actually understood why you worked so hard all the time, why you got so happy when he praised you for the smallest things, why you always seemed to derail any conversations about your parents

he’d tell you that he might not understand what being isolated by a parent may feel like, but he definitely understands being cast out. he’d want you to understand that he truly felt for you, and you don’t have to be alone despite how your father makes you feel.

lowkey he’d probably offer to talk to your dad but that was just his protective crackhead slippin’ out, give him a head pat and firmly tell him no and that it’s okay

he said it gently but you definitely saw one of his eyebrows twitch and the look in his eye

he doesn’t want anyone makin’ his baby feel this way 🥺

once he managed to make you laugh with either that attempt of yelling at your dad or just crack a stupid joke that NEVER failed to make you giggle

he’d pull you into another hug and apologize on your neglectful dad’s behalf

“I know this won’t change anything, but I’m so sorry y/n... you deserve the world and more.”

then he’d tickle you again just to hear your sweet voice wail his name in a fit of laughter, it’s music to his ears

from then on he made the effort to check up on you, tell you how proud he was, how great you were doing at XYZ

bc although he couldn’t replace your dad, he would do his damndest to be your “emotional support daddy” i’m taking this term w me to the grave

i’m so so sorry but i never write for iwa so this might be a lil’ short or ooc pls don’t come for my neck i’m trying

but ooooooh iwa-chan

he probably won’t really connect the dots as quick as tendou would but it’s fine, it’ll work out

so you were tossing a volleyball back and forth at a park or smth

and this motherfucker was being so critical over everything you did

“y/n drop your shoulders”

“your feet aren’t wide enough apart”

“no, thumb over the palm, like this”

“HAJIME IF YOU’RE JUST GONNA CRITIQUE ME GO PLAY WITH FLATTY-KAWA, THEN”

this is why he was the volleyball player of the relationship, smh

but he just chuckled and half-apologized, making a joke about how he felt bad for your dad playing catch w you as a kid under his breath

boy did your shoulders drop then

your whole body slumped and the ball fell flat in front of you

Iwa gave you a confused look before seeing how wide your eyes went, the wetness steadily forming in the corners and the way your bottom lip trembled

“hey, hey, what’s wrong? did I really coach you too hard?”

he quickly walked over to you and pulled you into his chest, pressing a sweet lil kiss to the side of your head, a hand rubbing up and down your back

you shook your head and clung onto his shirt, the tears you were choking on making your mouth unable to move in response while your whole body trembled with the sudden overflow of emotion

meanwhile iwa’s just like ??? what did i do ???

clueless

but he held your through your crying fit and waited until you stopped sniffling and hiccuping to finally ask what was wrong, pulling you into his lap as he sat down on the grass

dude still thinks he just nagged you too much lol

you explained that you really didn’t have the best relationship with your dad, that your childhood was mostly spent playing by yourself and learning how to do certain things alone or through others

growing up happened way too fast for you and it was hard for you to actually enjoy it without a father figure who made an effort to connect with you, even now.

he’s got his hand rubbing up and down your back while you talk, cheek smushed on your head as he hums in acknowledgment ever so often

now he gets it.

he’s silent for a moment, then moves to press a gentle kiss to your temple before speaking

“I’ll help you out, with everything.”

He wants to be there for you for whatever milestones you have yet to complete, considering your father was never there for the ones you did.

he ALSO wants to shit on your dad for treating you poorly but he just keeps that to himself prolly plotting to do it on his own one day oml

he reassures you that he’s proud of how far you’ve gotten on your own without that fatherly guidance, and that he’ll never let you feel so alone and helpless again.

he’ll teach you everything you need to learn

“...and I promise to be a better volleyball coach, too.”

[ace--introvert]

I recently came across the terms 'fictosexual' and 'animesexual' and I just have some things I'd like to say.

1. It is so easy to immediately turn to an exclusionist mindset when we come across new labels. Ace/aro/bi/pan/ply/omni/etc people know exactly how it feels to have to defend our identities from exclusionists who don't understand them or just hate them. But when we come across a new term, it is SO easy to immediately take on that mindset.

2. When tags are so flooded with people debating whether xyz is valid or not, it becomes really hard to find appropriate explanations of these identities. When I look up a sexuality on a wiki page, it's hard to really understand it based on just the definition it gives me, so i scroll through related tags to see if I can find someone's personal experience that might make me understand it more. It's been impossible to do that with animesexual and fictosexual specifically because of the discourse.

3. I personally still don't understand these identities, and i understand the arguments against their inclusion in certain communities, but that doesn't mean that saying that they are not valid is okay. People choose how they want to identify, and that's okay. You are not being helpful by simply saying that these people are not valid and bullying them. As someone who still doesn't understand these labels, it's extremely inappropriate for me to argue that they are not valid and to further the divide in the aspec community. Also, the arguments people are using to stipulate that these labels don't belong in certain communities are the same arguments bi/pan/ace/aro/ply/omni/trans-exclusionists use. Let's keep that in mind.

Tldr: it's okay if we don't understand the ways some people choose to label themselves. It's okay if we are quick to judge these labels. But we need to catch ourselves. It's absolutely not okay to bully someone who finds these labels helpful for their own identification purposes. Let's be better

[couldbeasong]

1-60 for the ask meme

Ope sorry I did not see this until today. I think I know the one? If it’s not the one you meant just lmk lol

1. Selfie?

You can have this picrew but I wish to be unperceived.

2. What would you name your future kids?

For female names I like: Harmony, Slyvia, Edelweiss, Bethany, and Opal

For male names I like: Uriah, Aiden, Kai, Levi, and Luke

3. Do you miss anyone?

My grandpa and Midnight (old dog)

4. What are you looking forward to?

Going on vacation in a few weeks, the end of the semester, and seeing @calligraphywitch tomorrow

5. Is there anyone who can always make you smile?

@calligraphywitch and my other girlfriend. They’re hilarious lmao

6. Is it hard for you to get over someone?

Romantically? Not really. You kinda gotta just accept it and move on. In the past, always being like: this will never work because of reason xyz helps.

Friendship wise? Absolutely. It depends a lot on the emotional investment I put into the relationship, but I find myself still missing people I haven’t talked to since High School or Middle School.

7. What was your life like last year?

It was weird being a freshman in college and trying to survive. I had a lot of family problems going on along with one of my best friends from High School being on her death bed for a while. A bit of a crisis of faith as well. But we survived, God willing! I miss pre-pandemic times tho

8. Have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?

Ask my brother. I’m sure there’s been an instance.

9. Who did you last see in person?

My grandma across the room from me!

10. Are you good at hiding your feelings?

I hide them so well I can’t even find them!

I like to pretend they aren’t there and repress them a lot but idk if I’m good at hiding them from others per say.

11. Are you listening to music right now?

I’m in a zoom meeting for class, so I guess my professor's voice?

12. What is something you want right now?

Freedom

13. How do you feel right now?

Kinda tired, kinda nauseous, kinda bored. Idk I probably need to drink some water.

14. When was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?

Uhhhh idk about a week ago? My last hug was probably a week ago too XD

15. Personality description

I like to think I’m funny

16. Have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?

I work in customer service- everyday (:

17. Opinion on insecurities.

Everyone is insecure about something. It’s kinda fascinating how even though all of humanity is exactly the same (in terms of our struggles and insecurities, we don’t vary) we still judge others for having them. Confidence is seen as a virtue and the most attainable goal. Society profits off of your insecurities tho so be aware of what they are and don’t let yourself be scammed.

18. Do you miss how things were a year ago?

Certain aspects perhaps. But 2019 is gone. It performed and then it left. It can’t hurt us or help us anymore. There’s little use in dwelling on that and wishing for 2020 to be 2019.

19. Have you ever been to New York?

No, but I swear Ima go one day and see a show on Broadway.

20. What is your favorite song at the moment?

I have like three I’m cycling between rn

When You’re Home from In the Heights

Wake Up by Jenny Owen Youngs

Together by For King and Country

21. Age and birthday?

Old enough to know better and October

22. Description of crush.

He’s super great and super intelligent, not to mention super in love with God. Frankly, he deserves better than me. I gotta lot of self-improvement that needs to happen, but we’ll see what happens XD

23. Fear(s)

Heights, drowning, spiders, super dark streets and rooms, not being good enough

24. Height

5′5″ respectfully

25. Role model

It’s changed through the various stages of my life. Rn tho a few of my Christian online friends

26. Idol(s)

I mean I stan Brian David Gilbert, but I don’t idolize him lol

27. Things I hate

Cheesecake, sickly sweet stuff, when someone grabs the receipt out of the printer even though it’s way more effort for them to do so than for me just to hand it to them and it throws me off of my rhythm, fudge

28. I’ll love you if…

You exist (and even not then because fictional characters just hit different lol)

29. Favorite film(s)

Tangled, Ella Enchanted, Enchanted, Howls Moving Castle, Princess, and the Pauper

30. Favorite tv show(s)

Brooklynn 99, Parks and Recreation, Ouran High School Host Club, My Hero Academia, and Bojack Horseman (I’m going through a phase with it rn lol)

31. 3 random facts

Blue is my favorite color, I own almost nothing in blue, people are better at identifying members of their own race better than members of other races.

32. Are your friends mainly girls or guys?

Girls- they’re easier to talk to and approach. Tho I stan and love my guy friends. They are kings.

33. Something you want to learn

Everything? Idk I have an insatiable desire to learn and it switches. Consistently, I want to learn how to make my own clothes, play either piano, guitar, or violin, and detail cars.

34. Most embarrassing moment

Uggg I’m not talking about it and neither is @calligraphywitch

35. Favorite subject

I really enjoyed Statistics as much as I have hated it. My all-time favorite class I have ever taken tho was AP US Literature

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?

Graduate grad school, get married, travel overseas

37. Favorite actor/actress

uhhh probably Chris Pratt or anyone who was on Parks and Recreation. Tho Broadway actors, I love Christian Borle

38. Favorite comedian(s)

John Mulaney

39. Favorite sport(s)

I miss playing softball and volleyball so prolly those

40. Favorite memory

There are too many to count. But usually, involve good conversations under the stars after 2 AM.

41. Relationship status

Have a picrew of my sister and me. Keep scrolling and mind ya business (jk ily anon)

42. Favorite book(s)

The Bible lol but fictional book wise, I will always love the Warrior Cats series. Red Queen was pretty lit. The Hourglass Door gave me a love for time travel aus lol. And Library Wars is near and dear to my heart.

43. Favorite song ever

You can’t ask me thisssss

Idk Hope is what we crave by For King and Country

44. Age you get mistaken for

24-30 it depends on the context

45. How you found out about your idol

@calligraphywitch

46. What my last text message says

No xD not disney

47. Turn-ons

When you have a musical playing and the end of one song is the start of another so they bleed into each other. CHILLS or when a line of poetry just expresses how someone feels. OR when different parts harmonize just right

48. Turn-offs

When my computer deletes my homework right before it’s done

49. Where I want to be right now

In a little cabin in the woods

50. Favorite picture of your idol

51. Starsign

Scorpio

52. Something I’m talented at

Reading peoples emotions

53. 5 things that make me happy

Music, Friends, Deep Conversations, Hugs, and God

54. Something that's worrying me at the moment

So much to do so much to see

55. Tumblr friends

Friends and mutuals include:

@calligraphywitch @an-assortment-of-forks @repentance-brings-healing @synthetic-blanket-hairs @loneallegiance @boywiththewand @knightof-cups @a-lil-strawberry @linkedwolf @indygo @obnoxioushair

There’s plenty more than that and I love you all ^^

56. Favorite food(s)

Tacos, Crab Ragoons, Salty Foods, RICE

57. Favorite animal(s)

Wolves and cats

58. Description of my best friend

Artistic, beautiful, supportive, hardworking. She is hilarious and an amazing person. There’s so much to the many reasons I love her I just can’t do it in words

59. Why I joined tumblr

Back in the 7th grade, my friends all had one and helped set me up with one. And that’s that.

60. Ask me anything you want

You want nothing ig lol if you want to submit one I can answer it still

[chrismerle]

what’s up i spent way too long typing up a post about my thoughts on P5S, and it isn’t even all encompassing. i guess if you’re curious about anything i didn’t mention in this trainwreck just ask.

my spoiler-heavy thoughts/pseudo-review below the cut

THINGS I LIKED:

The characterization, broadly speaking. If you, like me, loved the Thieves in P5/P5R then you’ll be pretty happy with them here. There are a couple moments that made me roll my eyes (lookin’ at you, hot springs) but on the whole, the main cast are unchanged.

The new characters. Sophia and Zenkichi are great. Sophia is precious and Zenkichi straddles a very fine line of ‘realistically out of the loop, but gives as good as he gets.’ I don’t even care how silly their costumes were. Sophie looked like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, though I did like her little emoticon visor, but also she had no pants. Wolf’s mask was badass but the fact that his stupid pointy hat was riveted to the top of his stupid disco high collar killed it and I wanted to see someone grab his hat and pull it back to see it fling back into place like a drinky-drinky bird. Even so, the characters were great, and when I noticed that all the attacks for Sophie’s initial pseudo-Persona had question marks after them (Kouga? Dia?), it made me laugh, and Wolf’s a good all-purpose party member because he hits like a fucking truck and nothing is immune to Almighty. Plus in some of his post-battle dialogue he calls them all ‘kiddos’ and they consistently call him Gramps.

The gameplay. I mean, yeah, it’s VERY different than P5, but you all know that. And hey! The game no longer immediately ends if Joker gets knocked out (unless he’s the only one left in the party, obviously). It ran pretty smoothly, there’s something weirdly charming about the other Thieves showing up perched on cover points, and the only consistent issue I ran into is that in segments where the camera gets forced into a certain angle, it can switch back so abruptly at the end that you accidentally go walking right off a ledge.

I’ve never really played a Dynasty Warriors-type game before, so it took me a Jail or so to get used to it, but then I was just cackling as I mowed down swarms of Jack Frosts like a weed-whacker in a flower field with a knife the size of Joker’s torso. Honestly, it took me the longest to get used to the fact that the circle button became the all-purpose ‘interact’ button than anything else.

Actually, that’s a lie. It took me the longest to get used to the fact that if I left a Jail, I wouldn’t be losing any time. I’m very used to Persona games having the calendar constantly counting down, which wasn’t the case here.

The story, broadly speaking. It had some hiccups and some issues, which I’ll get into, but for the most part, it was fun. I’m...not going to outline every detail of the story here, but it felt very P5-y and I enjoyed it.

THINGS I LIKED BUT THAT NEEDED WORK:

The writing. It was a little inconsistent, beyond just the usual weirdness that I have accepted comes along with Persona games. (//patiently clicks through numerous conversations of the gang going ‘did this super obvious thing that this memory threw in our faces happen? Let’s debate about whether the most likely answer by a huge margin is the answer’ and several conversations of ‘are we sure this person is bad? We saw them playing nice, like literally every other villain we’ve faced’) A lot was great! Like, the bit with the Okinawa locals breaking into the RV while the kids hide in the bushes? Genuinely unsettling! Akane’s Jail and the fake Thieves was fun, and seeing Zenkichi scuttle from hiding place to hiding place without Thief powers was funny, and his Shadow’s glowing eyes watching him before becoming his Persona was both badass and unsettling. The realization that EMMA was actively lying to Konoe was nice. Character interactions were great and I loved that Sophia went with Ichinose at the end. There was a lot that was good. But there were also a lot of missteps.

Like, it kind of felt like the direction for the writing changed partway through. It started out as if each member of the Phantom Thieves was going to get their own time to shine, identifying and empathizing with a Monarch. Ann realized she could have been Alice. Yusuke realized he could have been Ango and also saw redeeming him as sort of like redeeming Madarame by proxy. Mariko was a link to Haru’s childhood and her father. The ghost Jail on Okinawa lured Sophie in and by the end she realized how much she meant to her friends ryuji said fuck. Akane was Zenkichi’s literal daughter. And then it went to Konoe and then EMMA, so Ryuji, Futaba, Morgana, Makoto, and Joker didn’t get a chance to shine in that regard. The switch from ‘a Jail for everyone to identify with’ to ‘whelp here’s the decoy and the end boss’ felt like they came from two separate drafts of the script, and it’s not like they had to watch the time; I got through P5S in about a third the time it took me to get through P5R. It took me about 35 hours. Considering the game kind of relies on you having played P5, they already knew their target audience has a longer attention span than that.

Owada was talked up as kind of a big deal, but he had like two scenes on-screen and otherwise was an entirely off-screen character. There’s a lot of mid-combat dialogue that is very difficult to focus on, which was sort of annoying when some of it was actually relevant. Ichinose’s reveal as a villain is very info-dump-y.

Plus, Joker wasn’t utilized particularly well as a silent protagonist. He’s got more implied personality than basically any other Persona protag. Which means he’s actually pretty expressive throughout the game, but I can probably count his lines of dialogue outside of combat with fingers left over. No one expects Yu Narukami to actually react to anything, so it doesn’t feel odd when he doesn’t. But the combination of Joker being reasonably expressive and having a demonstrated personality means you’re perpetually EXPECTING and WANTING him to say something about the shit going on, and when he doesn’t it feels like mentally missing a stair.

THINGS THAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The cut corners. Like, a lot of things just seem lazy. There were scenes that really should have been included that weren’t, like how the Thieves escaped from the hotel after the police showed up; it cut from Zenkichi warning them and getting arrested to them arriving at the temporary hideout, so we never even got to see how the Thieves reacted to realizing the cops were outside. Requests to bond with the other Thieves only got a couple of text boxes, when they could have shown a tiny scene of them hanging out like they had all over P5. Rather than having Sae actually on-screen for her brief scene, the camera instead very unnaturally switched to an angle as if it was from her point of view, which was literally the only time the camera did that in the entire game. All of the Sentries look the same from Jail to Jail, instead of being unique to each Jail. Igor is completely absent for the entire game, and other than a throwaway ‘my master can’t be here’ from Lavenza it’s just not really acknowledged.

The missed opportunities. Like, there is no way to look at this except to assume that Joker was a horrible friend to literally everyone in this world state. Like, I can pass off the fact that everyone has their baseline Personae as being because they haven’t had access to their powers for a while, but when you combine it with the fact that NONE of Joker’s other confidants show up or even know he’s back in Tokyo, it leaves little to assume except that in this world, no confidants got maxed out. On top of that, the Personae are all basically pointless. They could be Pokemon or Stands or Digimon or fucking YuGiOh cards, and it wouldn’t make a difference; NOTHING about the game says ‘these entities are integral to this world and important to these characters.’ Also they could have had Akane actually realize who the Thieves were and it would have been hysterical, but that’s just my personal sulk.

The Requests. I liked the Mementos missions in P5/P5R. They felt like they had a point. Requests in P5S are all basically just fetch quests. ‘Go to Location A, fight so many of Enemy B to get so many of Item C. Turn in Request.’ Hell, one of them bugged out on me, I swear. There’s a Request to teach Zenkichi how to cook a simple meal, and Haru gives you a recipe including beef. I had no beef on me at the time, because if you want SP restoratives you gotta cook a fair amount and I used it, and I could find literally no beef in the city I was in at the time so I had to abandon the Request. On top of that, outside of getting food or a few moments where another character specifically asks for Joker’s attention, character-specific Requests mostly replace the ability to bond with the other characters individually.

The restoratives. Or, more specifically, the disparity between HP restoratives and SP restoratives. There’s essentially one cookable recipe to restore SP for every four recipes to restore HP. Even if I stopped at every store and vending machine, I’m pretty sure there were a couple cities where I could find NO SP restoratives for sale, while most stores and vending machines had at least two or three HP restoratives. And while it is true that you can go in and out of a Jail whenever you please to restore SP, that doesn’t help you if you run out during a boss fight you weren’t expecting (mini-boss encounters are virtually identical to regular monster encounters) or during one of the times where you CAN’T leave the Jail for reasons XYZ.

The final boss, and not just because I died and had to start over a few times. As a concept, EMMA could be cool, but in reality she just seemed like the writers threw Yaldabaoth and Maruki in a blender and poured the results into the game. Like Yaldabaoth, she is a false god who seeks to control humanity, claiming it’s what they want. Like Maruki, she seems genuinely deluded into thinking it’s for the best and that she’s not doing anything wrong. Her Jail looked like a slightly sci-fi reskin of the Depths of Mementos. The shtick with the multiple platforms and getting to actually SEE an all-out attack at the end were nice, but for the most part the fight itself was nothing special. Ultimately, EMMA had nothing unique going for her except her name.

Plus, EMMA’s entire rationale was that the majority of humans want someone else to control their lives for them, essentially out of convenience. And she’s presented as being more or less right, but that just being one of the hurdles of being human. It seemed a little dour and far-fetched. Like, the Thieves repeatedly point out that struggling allows people to grow, and they’re right, but in my experience, I’ve never actually met anyone who, upon hitting a roadblock, decided ‘Jesus take the wheel.’ Considering the greed with which her weird tentacle arms snatched up the solidified Desires, the pettiness of the complaints she used as a “gotcha,” and the fact that she just kind of reiterates her ‘people want to be controlled’ point over and over, I think it would have felt a bit more true to life and given her more agency if, instead of presenting her as largely correct, it instead acknowledged that everyone at some time or another hits a wall and wants someone to tell them what to do and had her capitalizing on those individual brief moments to hook people in, despite her having reams of data that for most people, those moments are temporary.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Rewards of Losing

Another pleasant evening, made even better by a successful duel. Ryou stepped out of the door, enjoying the warm summer air. Much better than the chilly inside of his current – location. He didn’t want to think of it as a lair, though the half-dozen opponents he’d called here would probably disagree.

Of course, they were all cards now. He wasn’t going to worry about their opinions.

But he’d done all that he could here. He’d sealed some of the finest duelists in the XYZ dimension in cards and had a very good idea of how XYZ Summoning worked. He was only one of several operatives from Fusion in this world, seeking out information and taking care of potential troublemakers before they ever knew there would be trouble to make.

That meant that he needed to destroy this place as quickly and cleanly as possible and then head on to his next location. It wouldn’t take long; he kept virtually nothing here anyway. All he needed was the time.

He would make certain that this wasn’t the only place that burned. It would have to burn totally but it would need to spread, just to cover his tracks. A building that only burned when it was surrounded by other, equally flammable buildings, would quickly give away that an unregistered Firestarter roamed the area. The locals – the Guild, he’d learned they were called – would start looking for said Firestarter.

Ryou had a lot invested in not being found and he’d done a very good job so far. He kept himself distant from as many people as possible, while not being standoff-ish to the point it caught other people’s attention. He couldn’t hide being a Firestarter but he could fly under their radar.

And once the invasion starts, I won’t have to hide at all. He didn’t know when the invasion would start. But he suspected it would be soon. Everything had to be put into place and enough people trained to make it happen.

Of course, Fusion and the Professor’s preparations had been built up for quite a while already.

He started to go back inside, intent on getting his prizes and starting the fire. But something across the alleyway shifted, and Ryou stopped, staring intently. Had someone connected to one his opponents followed him here?

He couldn’t see who it was, but his Firestarter senses flared up – he might not know who it was, but he could tell what it was.

There’s a Healer there. That didn’t seem quite right. What would a Healer be doing around here, even if they were allies to an opponent?

“Who are you?” He asked, wary, hand ready to activate his duel disk at a moment’s notice.

The voice that came back was – different in some ways that he’d never heard before. Soft and firm, laced with all the raw power of a Healer at least on his level, but coming from – farther down? A child? No, it couldn’t be.

“I am Kei. And you must stop.”

Ryou’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?” Had they somehow seen him? If that were the case, then he’d make sure that they were the next one that he carded. He couldn’t allow them to spread the word. Even if he could escape, it would put the invasion at risk. He couldn’t let that happen.

“What you’re doing. Turning those who fall against you into cards. Denying yourself. You must stop.”

Ryou pressed his lips together. So they had seen him. He would at least give them a good duel before carding them, regardless of their age. “If you want to stop me, then you’ll have to defeat me.”

“That won’t happen.” A soft whisper of a laugh. “I cannot duel, my Firestarter.”

“What?” Ryou shook his head. “I’m not your Firestarter. I already am courting someone else.” Though truth to tell he wasn’t especially thrilled about it, but Firestarters and Healers at Academia weren’t always given the choice on who they courted or bonded to.

“You are. But as to why I can’t duel -”

Ryou could see a pair of gleaming gray eyes moving out in the darkness. They reminded him of Shou’s eyes, though not even as high off the ground as Shou’s would be, and they were – they had -

A light hung not that far from where he stood, so he saw what came out of the shadows very clearly. He simply didn’t believe what he saw. Slowly he shook his head. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t possible. But there it stood regardless, staring at him relentlessly.

It was a cat. A very large cat, one that he might have even thought of as a panther. The cat’s head rose at least to his waist and was as black as a starless night. Intelligence gleamed in those gray eyes that regarded him so calmly.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head again. He’d clearly taken a harder hit in that last duel than he’d thought. That alone made sense. He wasn’t seeing a huge cat and if he did see a cat, the cat wasn’t talking to him. It wasn’t possible.

The cat did not smile. But from the set of the shoulders and the way the tail curled around the cat’s front paws, Ryou knew that it was amused at him.

“As I said, I am Kei. I am your Healer Cat. You are my Firestarter. Or we will be.”

Again Ryou shook his head. “Even if you exist – and you don’t – Yuuri doesn’t take very well to challengers.”

Yuuri won the right to court him against four other Healers. There wasn’t much left of them. If one could call mulch “much” anyway.

Kei’s tail twitched, head raising upward in a very confident gesture. “You may rest assured that I don’t care what he thinks. You are not his. You are mine.”

If this cat was as possessive as Yuuri – no. He’d hit his head, that was all there was to it. He wasn’t hearing this.

“I don’t have any food for you. Go try somewhere else,” Ryou snapped, turning on his heel and stalking back into the building. He locked the door behind himself and hurried to pick up the few items that he wanted to keep. He wasn’t even going to think that what had just happened could even be close to being real.

The last thing he needed in his life was another creature as possessive as Yuuri. It hadn’t yet been decided that they would bond, but as the two respective most powerful Firestarter and Healer at Academia, most people expected that they would, sooner or later. Ryou more or less expected it himself. Who else would he bond to, when he’d never met another Healer who came close to him in power?

Kei had that strength. Ryou knew that even when he didn’t want to know it. There wasn’t a single Firestarter or Healer who could have missed it.

But that’s a cat. Cats can’t be Healers. Or Firestarters. I’m hallucinating. He truly wanted to believe that with all of his heart. He didn’t dare think of what the other options might be.

He packed up what he needed – the decks and the Duel Disks would be sent back home, which meant that anyone searching for them here wouldn’t find them – and found himself grateful all over again that the building had no windows. He stepped out of a different door, cautiously making certain that no one was in the area to see him.

Especially not anyone with black fur and gray eyes.

At least on this side of the building, there were far more streetlights, which meant far fewer places for a large black cat – that didn’t talk, because cats couldn’t talk – to skulk around. He took the time to change out of his Academia uniform to the street clothes he’d picked up to help blend in around here. Perhaps the cat wouldn’t notice him like this.

I’m not trying to avoid a talking cat. He would tell himself that as often as he needed to.

When he was a decent distance from the building, he turned and regarded it for a few moments. His eyes narrowed and his mind lashed outward, igniting the building. Flowers of flame unfolded from one particular side of it, not that far from a bar. The fire probably wouldn’t spread that far, but it would likely be written off as a late night drunk doing something that he shouldn’t. With a small effort of will, he made sure the fire burned bright and strong enough so erase every trace of his presence.

He could hear fire alarms already on the way. He could only stay long enough to make sure any local Firestarters didn’t hear anything about him from the fire. Flames did not identify people by their names, but they could still give enough information to make him quite uncomfortable.

“This has to stop.” Again the cat sat there, tail curled around their paws, staring at Ryou. “You’re hurting people. You know this is wrong.”

Ryou’s first instinct was to correct that. He hurt people because he needed to; because it would help his people when the invasion came. But he wasn’t going to talk to a cat about things like that.

Instead, he finished off the fire, turned on his heel, and headed off into the night. The cat didn't follow.

Not that he looked. Really.

Kei watched his Firestarter until he was out of sight – a distance far greater than a human’s eyes would have been able to. He’d been watching this Firestarter for several days, learning what he could about him.

That wasn’t nearly as much as he wanted. For all that a Healer Cat could tell certain things about any Firestarter, most especially their Firestarter, he couldn’t quite pin down important points about Marufuji Ryou.

He knew that the Firestarter was a Firestarter, and one strong enough and with the right personality that if the wrong event happened, he might well frost over. A nascent Frostflame needed an equally strong partner, or even two on occasion.

He’d known before Ryou said a word that someone else was courting him. If one could call it courting. He could smell the scent of the other, a little faint but there, and he also smelled cruelty. It wasn’t so strong as to indicate it came from Ryou himself, though Ryou did have a few streaks of that himself. Not so much as to turn Kei off, though.

Slowly he got up and followed. He’d tracked Ryou to where he lived some days before and didn’t need to go behind him to get there. But he wanted to keep an eye on his future partner regardless.

What else he knew could be summed up very quickly and easily. Ryou wasn’t from this world. He didn’t carry any of the scents of it beyond what he’d picked up from living here for a scattering of months. But the fact he didn’t even know Healer Cats existed made that absolutely plain.

There were other cues as well. The way that Ryou didn’t seem to know what dueling just for pleasure was came close to the top of the list. He only dueled when he would turn his opponent into a card at the end.

That would definitely have to stop. He wasn’t sure of why Ryou was doing it – he couldn’t read the Firestarter’s mind, only be aware of certain emotions – but it could not keep on happening. He wasn’t even certain of how Ryou did it. That would have to be changed as soon as possible.

Silently Kei slipped through the night, considering his options. He knew the first and most powerful thing he needed to do – bond to Marufuji Ryou. It wouldn’t entirely eliminate his need for a human Healer but it would help balance him. Maybe then he would understand why what he did was wrong.

Assuming that he didn’t already. Without knowing why he did it, Kei couldn’t be certain. He would have to ask that as soon as possible.

There were routes in Heartland City – in any city where Cats dwelled – known only to those of the feline persuasion, be those Fire Cats, Healer Cats, or cats who were neither. Kei strolled down one of those, pausing at one of his favorite restaurants. He would have far preferred eating with his future Firestarter, but until he could convince Ryou that he was neither a hallucination nor a common cat, this would have to do.

This particular route catered to unpartnered Cats of both types. Kei ordered himself a delicately prepared meal of fish and happily tore into it while considering his options.

I’ll have to keep at it with him. He’s stubborn. Which wasn't a bad thing at all. Kei rather liked that, in fact.

His tail swished as he considered what else to do. Ryou would need a proper Healer, a human. Were there any that could serve the purpose? Someone far better than whoever it was that was trying to court him through cruelty now.

I need a duelist for this. He won’t be happy if his Healer can’t duel. Kei knew that already. Dueling sang in Ryou’s veins along with his blood and his flames.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any duelists randomly lurking along the way between here and where they were going. Fortunately, Kei knew exactly where to find duelists. Far too late now to go looking, but come the next day…

The sooner he could locate one, the better. If he wasted too much time, it wasn’t impossible that the Dark Healer who he scented around Ryou could make his move and they could begin to bond. That would be monstrous; not a true bond in the slightest.

But Kei refused to let that happen.

Once he finished his dinner, he loped off into the night, planning for what the following day would bring.

Mizael liked being out late at night. He had a taste for rare flowers that grew best by night – there were few enough Healers who specialized in those, so he had them all to himself more than he didn’t. So he wandered through one of Heartland’s loveliest gardens, one that he’d helped grow, one that featured a great deal of evening primroses, jasmine, and wisteria.

Sometimes he saw other Healers out in the gardens. That was hardly unusual; there were plenty of Healers who enjoyed the night-blooming blossoms, even if they weren’t good at growing them. Every Healer had their specialty, after all.

He was also used to seeing Healers who brought their prospective Firestarters on courting dates to the Night Gardens. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever do that; presuming that he ever found a Firestarter or even a Fire Cat that he might want to bond to. So far, none of the ones he knew who weren’t bonded ever quite seemed right.

What he wasn’t used to seeing in the Night Gardens was a Healer that he didn’t know whose presence sent a warning tingle up his spine. The stranger wasn’t doing anything untoward; he wasn’t even looking at Mizael right now, though he surely knew Mizael was there.

This wasn’t just a strange Healer, though – this was a strange unbonded Healer. He strolled along the walkways of the garden, whispering to the blossoms in the same style that any Healer would. He paused at one twining wisteria vine and regarded it thoughtfully, tracing it with one finger, and a soft chuckle that Mizael didn’t understand.

Mizael approached carefully. This wasn’t just a Healer who was new in town. The closer he got, the more he could feel that this was also a duelist, even if he couldn’t see a deck or a duel disk on them. But a duelist’s spirit could not be hidden.

“What are you doing here?” He finally asked. “Are you new to Heartland?” He’d heard nothing from the Guild about any new Healers and they were reasonably good about letting him know who might visit his gardens.

The new Healer turned towards him. His coloring was unusual, even for Heartland. His hair was mostly a deep shade of purple that matched his eyes, though there was pink in the back as well. He wore a uniform that Mizael didn’t recognize, as purple as his hair. His left arm cocked, as if intent on battle at a breath’s notice.

“Only visiting,” the newcomer said, lips turning upward into a smile. Mizael tried to ignore the shivers that the smile sparked. This was a face that seemed crafted to smile but when he actually did so, all Mizael could think was to make it stop. “Is this your garden?”

“It’s one of the city’s,” Mizael said, reaching up to brush his fingers over the wisteria. He’d always been rather fond of it. “But I take care of it, too.”

“How nice,” the stranger agreed with a slight tilt forward of his head, too slight to really be called a nod. “It’s larger than my garden, but I have to share space at – my school.” Again that way his lips moved that invoked a smile without actually being one.

Mizael nodded; he’d been through that experience when he was at school. All the student Healers had to share a communal garden. Which wasn’t a bad idea; it helped teach co-operation. But he far preferred having his own garden to himself.

“Are you going to be visiting long?” Mizael knew he’d never been good at small talk. There were far better ways to spend one’s time, he believed.

“Unfortunately, not. I came to visit the Firestarter that I’m courting.” Again his lips curved upward. “He’s in town for a time on – business.”

Mizael nodded. Before he could ask the other for a duel, the newcomer tilted his head a bit more. “I’m terribly sorry. I’ve neglected my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Yuuri.”

Mizael nodded in return. “Mizael.” He had a family name, but he preferred not to use it. It had never meant that much to him and going only by his given name felt more fitting regardless. Then he smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to be a duelist, would you?”

To Be Continued

Notes: Because I wrote this for YGO Big Bang, I will update it daily until it’s done. Starting Monday I begin GX Month, which I’m quite looking forward to.

[tyccommunication]

10 tips for running an effective PR campaign

Running a PR campaign is no joke; given the ton of money that is spent in the process, it is only natural that you’ll expect substantial results. Let’s take a look at some of tips by the PR agencies in Delhi that you must follow in order to execute a successful PR campaign.

1. Set definite goals and metrics for success

Before you start the campaign, clearly define your objectives and your expectations. Do you want to tap into a new customer-base? Do you want to do marketing for a product? Do you want to improve or repair your image? This way, you’ll be able to better utilize your campaign.

2. Identify the audience

Before you decide what you want to say through PR firms in Delhi, decide whom you want to deliver that message to. Knowing the demographics of your target audience is important.

3. Pick the correct platform

After deciding your target audience, you need to find out the channel that is frequented most by your audience – is it social media, or is it mainstream media?

4. Be creative

Being blunt about your message isn’t going to serve you well. You need to package it in an appealing wrapping. For this, you can take help of PR agencies in Delhi or wherever your business is established at. PR firms in Delhi have a fleet of creative professionals, who are excellent at innovating out-of-the-box ideas that can influence your business positively.

5. Come up with a catchy press release

Writing press releases is one of the most crucial parts of good PR, but you can’t just go about writing any press release in a random manner. You need to follow a certain principle. Always make it a point to ensure that your press release doesn’t sound promotional. Pardon us for sounding crude, but no one cares about your business. People – your customers – care about the stories you tell about your business. So always strive to create a story angle for your press releases.

6. Approach the right channels

There are thousands of media portals out there, so once you have finished writing a sweeping press release, the next step is deciding where to pitch your story. This is where you need to conduct your research thoroughly and find out the media portals that are most relevant to your business. Imagine pitching a lifestyle story in a technical magazine. The embarrassment!

7. Bond with journalists

It’s like the old saying goes, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Make it a point to maintain good relationships with journalists, even if you don’t like them personally. Try to keep personal separate from professional. You never know when and where an opportunity might come from, and the more journalists you have in your circle, the greater is the probability of you getting that opportunity.

 8. Back linking

There’s a smart way of back linking in PR and it does not require you to spend anything. Once your story is featured in any blog and you come to know of it, you can approach that blog and mail them to add your link in their blog. Remember to not sound mean or ungrateful. Write something along the lines of the example given below.

Hi there,

I just read your blog and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would also like to thank you for mentioning <your business name etc.> here, and I would like to request to add a link <provide link to your website> in case your customers might be interested in knowing more about it.

Sincerely,

XYZ

9. Social Shares

Just like back linking, you can also ask publications to share tge article they’ve written about your business or your product on their social media handles. If the publishers have a huge following on social media, why not leverage it? Remember though to ask them for a share as soon as your article is published because things go stale really quickly on the social media.

10. Engage with your audience

Once your press release starts getting you traffic on your websites and social media handles, then you need to ensure that your audience wouldn’t leave you. Collect their emails, make them sign up for newsletters, ask them to activate push notifications etc. You need your customers to keep coming back to you, and for that you need to interact with them meaningfully.

If you follow these tips from the best

PR companies in Delhi

, your business will soar for sure!

[candyclan]

My HONEST opinion of Kalvin Garrah

Kalvin talks about how the reaction videos he does are purely based off his opinions and they aren’t meant to actually hurt people. While I feel like yes, that may not be his intent, he takes information from what he thinks he knows about them from what they say and draws wrongful conclusions. He applies the logic “well if you were really trans, you’d do XYZ” which is honestly not okay. Just because he feels like “he’s protecting the trans community” doesn’t give him the right to invalidate people he’s never even seen or talked to irl. That being said, I do think he is correct that there are people who do not experience dysphoria and therefore do not have a legitimate reason to transition (physically) who do, and realize it’s a mistake (that’s why there’s detransition videos out there). This is tragic, and honestly, could very well reflect badly on our community because of how conservatives may take it.

Kalvin promotes the idea that seeing a psychologist is SO important before physically transitioning and altering your body in PERMANENT ways. He also promotes that before settling on “Yup I’m trans” you should rule out every other possible explanation for issues with your body: like body dysmorphia or an eating disorder etc. I feel as if he has contempt for people who are identifying as transgender and don’t actively try to alleviate their dysphoria. I agree with a lot of people who are fairly neutral on this topic that there isn’t a really clear cut defined definition of what dysphoria feels like other than “discomfort” toward gendered aspects of what you were assigned at birth. For Kalvin because his dysphoria is so strong, he uses it as an identifier of his trans identity and an UN-identifier for others. Just because he experiences an extreme does not mean every trans person experiences that extreme as well, and it could be a manageable discomfort, almost like a paper cut (while still uncomfortable, and totally legitimate) compared to a bullet wound in his case.

Because dysphoria is so subjective, it isn’t fair to label someone as a “transtrender” just entirely and solely on how someone looks on the outside. They may have a higher sense of self-esteem than Kalvin did because of how heavily his dysphoria affects him. This may mean that while they identify genuinely as being trans and probably do actually experience dysphoria (even minor) they choose their preferred gender expression over the idea of “passing”. I understand this because I actually have some really stereotypical “feminine clothes” that actually cause me dysphoria to wear but I wear them anyway cause fuck people. The reason I have such a soft heart towards him is because he and I have a shit ton of things in common and also I watched him cry on his YouTube channel. Legit sob. I see his human in all of this. I see his flawed thinking, and his less than perfect expectations of “gender presentation” as a reflection of his own internal monologue “well I can’t wear this because it makes me look girly”

While I have those thoughts too, a LOT, I never project them on to people the way he does in the videos he makes of the “transtrenders” <—- the reason I put this in quotes is because I hate that word (and he admits he hates it too) there should be a nicer way of politely saying you used to identify as trans or thought you were, but actually aren’t. “Transtrenders” has such a negative base to it because it implies the individuals gender identity is illegitimate and perhaps a phase. While I actually do think there are people who may be confused and do mistakenly identify as being transgender, we should never imply another person is this because that’s FUCKED UP. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DONT PERSONALLY KNOW THAT PERSON TO A HEAVY EXTENT. Claiming, like Kalvin does, to have the “criteria to know if someone else is trans” is fucking bullshit. He makes a good point about it being in our brains and there ARE actually studies that prove that is a legitimate thing, he pushes so hard for it to be seen as a mental health issue so “Real Trans People™️” can be provided healthcare. He has correlated it to a mental health issue, and while I personally think: “Idgaf what it’s called just let me have it covered through insurance.” The fact that you would never in a million years tell someone they aren’t depressed/have anxiety because their symptoms aren’t as bad as yours or they don’t experience it the same way, that’s literally what he’s doing to trans people AND IT is FUCKED.

All of that aside, I didn’t know what being a transmed really was until I saw his videos. I didn’t have any real idea how little sense it made that if you don’t have dysphoria...how can you be trans? I hate how there’s such a stigma on the internet about how dysphoria is rooted in EXTREME MEGA DISCOMFORT when in reality, I can safely say in complete confidence that I didn’t have that huge issue like he did. I have top dysphoria but not so much bottom (unless I’m on shark week and then wellllll....death 0.0) ITS okay to not “hate” what you were given, and be in a better mind space about it than other people because WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT and experience dysphoria in different ways and we are all valid as fuck. I feel as if because so many people can experience body dysphoria and social dysphoria in so many ways literally in as many ways as there are people, in order for it to be considered a mental health issue and be covered by insurance there’s this push to try to come up with what dysphoria ISNT instead of the variety of experiences that is gender dysphoria.

So, in general, my thing is, only the individual can really tell (just like in depression and anxiety) whether or not they’re dysphoric based off their own feelings they have toward their AGAB and how it affects them. It’s almost as if he’s just like every other asshole out there that thinks their opinion matters because they’ve gone through SO MANY STEPS to be trans. His transtrender videos really are demonetized, and he claims to not do it for clickbait or shock factor to get people to watch it and that it’s his raw, unfiltered opinion about an issue he actually genuinely does care about a lot. I personally think the videos need to be taken down because it makes him look so much worse than he really is, and honestly what if the person that he’s talking about in those videos actually was trans and they killed themselves because of the hate his supporters dished. Showing their channel and saying that they don’t have dysphoria (in Kalvin’s eyes) labels them a target to abuse from the people that support Kalvin, whether or not that is his intent. I understand why this could upset someone. This upsets me. I feel a personal connection to someone that is using legitimate facts and points to validate his conclusion that some are worthy (that fit his personal idea of what being trans is) and some aren’t (those that don’t) this being said: That is not all that he is, I promise you. I believe “transtrender” is a thing dear god I’m highly uncomfortable with that word but there isn’t another one to use. I would never LABEL someone a transtrender under any circumstances because to do so would be honestly disrespectful to that persons identity and honestly denying their right to explore who they are. So what if you think you’re trans and then realize later that you weren’t??? As long as you didn’t medically transition, you literally didn’t do anything but explore who you are. It is never okay in my mind to label someone as that, especially if you don’t personally believe in how the person chooses to identify because like I said there’s as many ways to experience dysphoria and a disconnect towards your AGAB as there are people. It comes in different severities and different people prioritize change towards specific parts moreso than others.

That being said if you know you are 1000000% comfortable with your assigned gender at birth (not just learned to tolerate certain things/choose to accept the hand you’re dealt or live with it like me and my vag- how some trans people can), why would identify as being transgender? It’s when this “choice to go with the hand your dealt thing” really gets to Kalvin because he can’t imagine is transition being without the whole kitten kaboodle. Is perception of his gender honestly is a huge reason he can’t see why non-binary AFAB people could ever learn to embrace/tolerate certain aspects of their body. I don’t think he fully understands that binary gender roles that may moreso apply to TRANSGUYS don’t apply to non-binary people.

Non-binary people literally do not identify with one gender binary over another, so Kalvin has a hard time understanding them. It is important to note however, he still respects people even if he doesn’t understand. If he didn’t respect non-binary people as a whole, he would be preaching about how “non-binary isn’t even a thing” because he tends to NEED to think in logical terms with facts and data like the similar brain thing (mtf brains=more like cis female ftm=more like cis males) it becomes hard for him to understand the struggles of non-binary people. Non-binary people don’t fit his “mold” so to speak. Perhaps it’s because he once was a “non-binary SJW” in the past and then pulled a 180 and turned into this literal person that tells other people they aren’t trans even though he’s never met them irl and knows next to nothing about them. It’s funny how he claims that detransitioners turn into TERFS when his transition, which was supposed to help his mental state (perhaps it did idk), had him go from non-binary to low key for all intents and purposes a gatekeeper. He from his perspective claims to know it all because he’s trans. Consider this analogy: being transgender is like trauma. People can be united in that they suffer from it or that it affects them, but everyone’s situation is unique amongst all others so everyone has different “triggers”. I’m sorry if this analogy offended you it’s just I was trying to make sense of it the best I could in my mind

@kalvingarrah

[randomslasher]

So. About the "privilege" (sory for mispelling). I dont ubderstand, why people say that some are more privileged than other? And why they say it like "hey you are looking like xyz that's why you are privileged and i am oppressed by you?" I just dont understand! Why people say that? What is it good for? I only see it as if people (NOT YOU!!!!) are trying to be seen as poor and worthy of being felt sorry for. Can you pls educate me on that?

I can definitely offer some insight here. 

The first thing to clear up here is the idea that having a privilege is a bad thing. It’s not, though many people seem to want to pretend it is. All ‘privilege’ means is that there are certain ways in which some people have an innate advantage over others. 

Let me give you a few examples of this. I’m going to start with some less politically charged ideas just to give you an idea of how privilege is a neutral concept: 

If you have never had to worry about finding a footstool to climb on just to reach a shelf in your kitchen, you have tall privilege. 

If you don’t have to worry about whether or not something has gluten or lactose or peanuts in it, you have dietary privilege. 

If you never have to worry about whether or not you’ll be able to tell what color the traffic light is, you have color vision privilege. 

Basically, if it’s something that you don’t have to think about, worry about, or make accommodations for, then it may be a privilege. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person for being tall, not allergic to peanuts or gluten or lactose intolerant, or able to tell the difference between red and green. It would be absurd to say there was somehow a moral component to being a certain height, or not having certain allergies, or seeing in color. 

But that doesn’t erase the fact that some things are easier for people who are tall, non-allergic, or color-visioned. It’s a privilege that not everyone has. 

With me so far? 

Now, there are some privileges that play a much larger part in peoples’ lives  than others. Privileges that are more politically or socially charged, whose implications are a bit more extreme than “you may need to get a footstool for your kitchen so you can reach the top shelf.” To get us going here, I’m going to talk about some of my privileges. 

1) I have white privilege. I have never had to wonder if I didn’t get a job because of my skin color. I have never had to worry about someone hating me because of my skin. I’ve never had to worry about driving through certain states that still fly the confederate flag. I have never felt unsafe around a police officer, or been called a racial slur, or suffered under systemic oppression due to my skin. That is a privilege, because there are things I simply do not have to worry about because I’m white. 

2) I have religious privilege. While I am an atheist myself, I do celebrate secular versions of Christian holidays. And because I live in the United States, I have never had to worry about having to work on major holidays. I’ve never had to worry about someone hating me for doing something in connection to my religious beliefs, like wearing a certain piece of clothing or praying at certain times of the day. That is a privilege, because I do not have to think about or worry about these things because I don’t practice a non-Christian religion in the US.

(Sidenote: Some people would argue that as an atheist in this country, I face a certain amount of oppression because there are a ton of religious ideas that make their way into the mainstream–the 10 commandments on the steps of courthouses, for example, or “in God we Trust” appearing on our currency–but I consider myself still privileged, since I am not a practitioner of a non-Christian religion.)

3) I have a certain amount of cis privilege. While I identify as non-binary, I am not ‘out’ at in my daily life and present largely as my assigned birth gender. This means I have never been harassed or had to worry about which bathroom I’m going to use in public. I’ve never had to be afraid to pee outside my home. This is a privilege, because there are trans people who literally fear for their very lives for something so simple as needing to use the restroom. I simply do not have to worry about that.

Now. None of these pieces of privilege make me a bad person. HOWEVER. It would be incredibly insensitive of me to assume that just because I have never experienced any of the oppressive things I’ve listed above, that no one else has. 

It would be incredibly insensitive of me to shrug off a trans person’s fears about being harassed for trying to pee in a public bathroom. It would be incredibly insensitive of me to dismiss a black person’s fear of the cops. It would be incredibly insensitive of me to tell a Jewish person that they’re being too sensitive for being upset over having to work on Yom Kippur. 

And it would be well within the rights of the people who do not share my privileges to be upset with me for being insensitive, or to ask me to check my privilege. 

See, that’s the thing about calling someone on a privilege: it isn’t a way to garner pity or to say “I’m better than you because I suffer more.” It’s literally just a way of saying, “Not everyone experiences the world the same way you do, and it would be nice if you could try to recognize that.” 

Now, granted, some people get pretty aggressive when they are calling people on their privilege. And I agree that it’s not always the most constructive thing to do. 

But I’ll also add that having to deal with people constantly trampling over your identity and denying your struggles is really fucking tiring.

There’s a concept here that is pretty important to what I’m talking about. It’s the concept of ‘microaggressions’–that is, a lot of little things that end up adding up to one big thing. You’ll also hear it called ‘a death of a thousand cuts.’ What it means is that taken individually, one small insensitive remark might not be that big of a deal, but taken cumulatively, they can be incredibly damaging.

I’ll give you another personal example: 

I’m not able-bodied. I suffer chronic pain and back problems that severely limit my mobility. I am disabled, and I lack able-bodied privilege. 

But I’m expected to work a full day just like everyone else. I do my best, and I take extra precautions to make things as pain-free for myself as I can. 

So imagine how it feels to me, when I finally have 5 minutes to snag a bathroom break, and I go into the bathroom only to find that a perfectly able-bodied person is using the handicapped stall when all the other stalls were available. 

I need that stall. They don’t. I have to wait for them to finish, often causing me more pain as I stand for longer periods of time, just because they decided they wanted the ‘big stall.’ And when they come out, they rarely acknowledge me at all, or the fact that they were just using, for fun or convenience, the only stall I can comfortably or safely use. 

That’s a microaggression. By itself, maybe not the most horrible of transgressions, sure. But let’s say the next day the handicapped stall is out of order. I make some off-handed comment about it being inconvenient that it’s closed, and a random other person in the bathroom says, ‘Oh, just go use the other bathroom!’ –like it’s no big deal. 

The other bathroom is on the other side of the building. A quick walk for them; a long and painful hike for me. But they blow off or ignore my condition, or worse, imply that I’m lazy or absurd for making such a big deal out of it.

Microaggression.��

I’m riding with someone and they park far away from the store because ‘walking is no big deal!’ –Microaggression. 

I’m driving and someone takes the spot closest to the store because they wanted it, when I needed it. –Microaggression. 

My friends are brainstorming ideas for things we can do this weekend, and the suggestions are all physical activities like dancing, hiking, or walking around the mall, completely ignoring and disregarding my limitations.–Microaggression.

Enough of these add up, and you start feeling decidedly shat upon. To the point that when someone flippantly says, “Well, if you want to lose weight, why don’t you just go exercise?” I explode, because that was it: the final cut. The proverbial last straw. My condition, the difficulties I’ve faced, have been ignored over and over and over again. I’ve had to explain over and over and over again why it is a big deal that you just took the handicapped stall when you didn’t need it, or the last handicapped parking space because it was raining, or made a suggestion for a leisure activity I could never enjoy or participate in. It’s been one too many times, and I’m done. 

So in frustration, or anger, or pure abject misery, I say, “Check your able-bodied privilege” and walk away, because I’m done. I’m done having to explain every single time why I can’t do certain things, or why they’re not as easy for me as they are for someone else. I’m done having to justify my existence to people who make no effort to understand what I go through on a daily basis. I’m done trying to excuse myself to them, and I’m done trying to educate every single one of them, because it should be enough that I’m hurting so much every single day–I shouldn’t also have to be an educator to every single person who expresses mild curiosity. 

(Incidentally, I’m speaking in generalities here. I rarely mind explaining things. But I’m generally a fairly patient person, and even I have my limits. Others may have been dealing with far worse microaggressions than I do, and for far longer. Or they may simply be less willing to sit down and have an hour-long conversation every time someone asks. This is when you’ll get someone who might be more aggressive or short-tempered with you. But I hope now it’s a little clearer why. They’re not trying to be assholes. They’ve just been handed the short end of a really shitty stick and they’re tired of it, is all.)

So when someone asks you to check your privilege, they’re not trying to ‘one-up’ you on the privilege scale. They’re not trying to say you’re a bad person or that they deserve your pity. They’re trying to make you understand and acknowledge that you have certain things easier than they do, and something you said was, perhaps, a little insensitive to that fact. They’re trying to ask you to understand, and to see things through the perspective of someone who doesn’t have a privilege that you do. They’re trying to ask for your kindness, your consideration, and your empathy. Maybe they’re not asking in the nicest way, but these are people who have already suffered a lot under systems of oppression and microaggressions–perhaps they can be forgiven for losing their patience now and then.

And I’ll add that the last thing they need is for us to get defensive, or start playing privilege bingo with them. 

If someone says they’ve been hurt by something you’ve said, the best thing to do is to apologize, then work to educate yourself about their condition. Whether it’s race, religion, disability, class, or any number of things, there will always be someone who suffers because of something you get to take for granted–just like you will likely always have something that makes you suffer that other people get to ‘just not think about.’ 

I am not able-bodied. But I am white. So if someone calls me out on my white privilege, it would be super shitty of me to come back at them with, “well, yeah, but I’m disabled!” 

Having disadvantages does not exempt you from your privileges. 

I’ll say that again: 

Having disadvantages does not exempt you from your privileges.

The best thing we can do for each other is try to understand. Try to listen. And try to learn. And most of all, try not to take it personally, when someone who is suffering tries to tell you how you’re making it worse. 

Yeah, it’ll hurt sometimes. Growth often does. But it’s worth it, because the end result is learning to respect and understand your fellow humans a little better. And that’s always worth a bit of growing pain. 

Does this mean you have to respond to every troll who tries to throw the word ‘privilege’in your face like it’s a weapon? No, of course not. But it does mean that lashing out at the people who are genuinely hurt by something is not the kindest or most productive avenue, either. 

We all have things to learn from each other. And we all have ways we can learn to be more sensitive to one another’s struggles. That’s what learning about your privileges is really about. 

I hope this helps answer your question!

[catskingdom02-blog]

Raw Cat Food - Why It's the Best Diet For Your Cat, and What Are the Trade-offs For You?

The biggest myth surrounding cat ownership is that cats are worry free, self-contained and self-providing pets that require little or no maintenance. Cats are so good at giving people the impression of independence and self-reliance that people believe they don't have to provide the highly focused attention to cats that, say, dogs require. The fact of the matter is that cats do require the same attention to detail that any dog does, and maybe even a little more, in some cases. This is especially true when it comes to probing the controversy regarding whether raw cat food is better that canned cat food or kibbles for your feline ward. great post to read Feeding a three cats living in abandoned building

It's a sad thing to look around our country these days and see so many people who have allowed themselves to become overweight and then have to deal with the consequential suffering and ill-health effects of obesity. Diabetes, shortness of breath, constant exhaustion from lugging around so many extra pounds and lowered self-esteem. Of course, the garment industry is singing happy tunes with all the extra thread they have to put together. There's no shortage of explanations for why this situation has come about, but I think when it comes down to it we can only blame ourselves at the individual level for allowing such a condition to take root. After all, how many pounds overweight does one have to get before they realize that something's not right and becoming a problem? 10, 20... 50 lbs? And how long does it take to realize that the magic pills, diets, elixirs and effortless, lose-weight-with-no-work-out machines are products being marketed to your ego, to separate you from your bank account, and not to solve your problem? No... the only way to find an ideal normality is with thorough research, discovery and a lot of hard work accompanied with a healthy life style change. But, enough sermonizing about the human condition. This is about cats, their eating habits and raw cat food.

One thing needs to come along with this discussion from the previous paragraph. Most people are not experts in animal nutrition and rely on others to lead them in the right direction. The source for most 'experts' available to a person for their daily decision making and selection of choices usually comes to us through the traditional media of radio, newspapers, television and now, the internet. Media offers two kinds of resources. Investigative reporting which is presented in newscasts or opinion pieces, and secondly, the marketing hype that provides commercial broadcast funding. The former is reliable enough to put credence into and might call for further research on your part if it interests you. The latter really only wants you to spend your money with them. That's not necessarily bad... it does ultimately put people to work and provides many with an adequate, and even comfortable living. Unfortunately, the bottom line is... corporations only have one objective in the end. That is to feed their bottom line. Now recent events have caused many to reconsider the morality behind a corporations goals. But, as long as this market structure is the paradigm for our economy, the ultimate goal for big business will always be to maximize their profit-loss statements towards the profit end of the spectrum, any way they can get away with, and at your expense... literally.

So, what does this have to do with cats and if raw cat food is what you should be feeding them? Simply put, most people rely on the marketing hype to base their decisions regarding the food they feed their pets. Which is exactly the wrong source for basing such a critical decision. Take the cat for example. It's not only a scientific fact, but a cultural one also, that the cat is described as an obligate carnivore. This defines cats as creatures who derive most of their food nutrients from the animals they hunt and consume (raw cat food). When a cat devours it's prey, she will eat everything including not only muscle meat, but the brains, organ meat and the stomach and its contents which may consist of grasses and grains. One thing she doesn't do is fire up a stove and saute or bake her dinner, or prepare a nice sauce to go with it. She eats it raw. Cultural purists use this description as an argument that feeding cats store bought, mass produced canned or dry cat food is doing your cat a disservice by depriving her of the natural nutrients she would normally get in the raw cat food she captures in the wild, and for which she was biologically designed.

Pottenger's cats Francis M. Pottenger, Jr. (1901 - 1967) was the son of Francis M. Pottenger, Sr., the physician who co-founded the Pottenger Sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis in Monrovia, California. Between 1932 and 1942 he conducted what is know as the Pottenger Cat Study. One part of this study was what effect heat had on the nutrient value of raw food. In other words, what happens to food when you cook it.

"Pottenger used donated laboratory cats to test the potency of the adrenal extract hormones he was making. The adrenal glands of these cats were removed for the experiments and Pottenger noted that most of the cats died during or following the operation. He was feeding the cats a supposedly nutritive diet consisting of raw milk, cod liver oil and cooked meat scraps of liver, tripe, sweetbread, brains, heart and muscle.

When the number of donated cats exceeded the supply of food available, Pottenger began ordering raw meat scraps from a local meat packing plant, including organs, meat, and bone; and fed a separate group of cats from this supply. Within months this separate group appeared in better health than the cooked meat group. Their kittens were more energetic and, most interestingly, their post-operative death rate was lower.

At a certain point, he decided to begin a controlled scientific exploration. Pottenger conducted studies involving approximately 900 cats over a period of ten years, with three generations of cats being studied.

Meat study:

In one study, one group of cats was fed a diet of:

Two-thirds raw meat, one-third raw milk, and cod-liver oil

A second group was fed a diet of two-thirds cooked meat, one-third raw milk, and cod-liver oil.

The cats fed the all-raw diet were healthy while the cats fed the cooked meat diet developed various health problems:

By the end of the first generation the cats started to develop degenerative diseases and became quite lazy.

By the end of the second generation, the cats had developed degenerative diseases by mid-life and started losing their coordination.

By the end of the third generation the cats had developed degenerative diseases very early in life and some were born blind and weak and had a much shorter life span. Many of the third generation cats couldn't even produce offspring. There was an abundance of parasites and vermin while skin diseases and allergies increased from an incidence of five percent in normal cats to over 90 percent in the third generation of deficient cats. Kittens of the third generation did not survive six months. Bones became soft and pliable and the cats suffered from adverse personality changes. Males became docile while females became more aggressive.

The cats suffered from most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine and died out totally by the fourth generation.

At the time of Pottenger's Study the amino acid taurine had been discovered but had not yet been identified as an essential amino acid for Cats. Today many cats thrive on a cooked meat diet where taurine has been added after cooking. The deficient diets lacked sufficient taurine to allow the cat's to properly form protein structures and resulted in the health effects observed. Pottenger himself concluded that there was likely an "as yet unknown" protein factor (taurine) that may have been heat sensitive.

Milk Study:

In another study, dubbed the "Milk Study,", the cats were fed 2/3 milk and 1/3 meat. All groups were fed raw meat with different groups getting raw, pasteurized, evaporated, sweetened condensed or raw metabolized vitamin D milk. The cats on raw milk were the healthiest while the rest exhibited varying degrees of health problems similar to the previous cooked meat study.

This particular Pottenger cat study has been cited by advocates of raw milk as evidence that it is likely healthier for humans than pasteurized milk." +

Though Pottenger's experiments don't conclusively verify that raw cat food diets are better for sustaining a healthy support for the physiological needs of cats than cooked (canned) or dry kibbles, (because he didn't use canned cat food or kibbles in the experiments) certain conclusions can be drawn.

Cooking meat can destroy certain food nutrients, namely amino acids (proteins)

Cats thrive more healthily on raw meat rather than cooked meat with less degenerative results

Cooking meat for your cat requires the replacement of the essential amino acid taurine, and possibly other nutrients destroyed in the cooking process

Pet food marketing hype says that "XYZ" cat food products are healthy for your pet because it adds "ABC" nutrients, vitamins and minerals to their product which safeguards your cat's health. Fortunately, marketing laws require that the ingredients in any given product be listed on the packaging of your cat's food. Ultimately, it is left up to you to make the decision about which is the best shelf product for your cat.

For a discussion that details interpreting cat food labels CLICK HERE

Today's problem plagued market place has left many in doubt as to whether the corporate entities that supply the bulk of our aggregate necessities can continue to be worthy of our trust. Arrogance and greed have always gone head to head with social morality and it's usually the end user that ends up paying with unnecessary suffering. Many pet owners have now taken matters into their own hands and are resorting to providing from raw ingredients meals made with their own hands for their pets. It's not a bad step but certain measures, which include a life-style change, need to be taken when preparing your pet's meals to keep her safe from bacterial infection and insure that her nutritional needs are met.

Here's an example of a raw cat food meal preparation from scratch:

2 kg [4.4 pounds] raw muscle meat with bones (chicken necks are mostly cartilage, are easy to chop and easy for the cat to digest) thighs and drumsticks or, better, a whole carcass of rabbit or chicken amounting to 2 kg; if you don't use a whole carcass, opt for dark meat like thighs and drumsticks from chicken or turkey)

400 grams [14 oz] raw heart, ideally from the same animal (if no heart is available, substitute with 4000 mg Taurine)

200 grams [7 oz] raw liver, ideally from the same animal (if you can't find appropriate liver, you can substitute 40,000 IU of Vitamin A and 1600 IU of Vitamin D--but try to use real liver instead of substitutes).

16 oz [2 cups] water

4 raw egg yolks (use eggs from free-range, antibiotic-free chickens if you can)

4 capsules raw glandular supplement (such as, for example, "Raw Multiple Glandular" from Premier Labs)

4000 mg salmon oil

200 mg Vitamin B complex

800 IU Vitamin E ("dry E" works well) Buy Vitamin E in dry powder form. It's much easier to deal with than those little oil-filled capsules.

OPTIONAL: 1/4 teaspoon of kelp and 1/4 teaspoon of dulse (1/2 teaspoon total) Try and get dulse and kelp in powder form that you can easily measure with a teaspoon rather than in capsule form. Taking apart those capsules is time consuming. If you can only find kelp in caplet form, you'll need to spend time crushing the caplets with a mortar and pestle.

OPTIONAL: 4 teaspoons psyllium husk powder (8 teaspoons if using whole psyllium husks) ?

NOTE: If you cannot find the heart or liver and decide to substitute with the Taurine/Vitamin A and D, then remember to replace the missing amount of organ meat with the equivalent amount of muscle meat. In other words, if you cannot find heart, you add another 400 grams of the meat/bones. If you can't find the liver, add another 200 grams of meat/bones.

It looks like this recipe will produce about 5- 6 lbs of finished raw cat food product which would feed a single cat for several weeks. That means most of it would have to be frozen in individual air tight containers and thawed as needed.

The digestive system of a cat is designed to handle things human systems can't. Their stomachs have a highly acidic environment, which is an excellent deterrent to ingested bacteria such as e coli and salmonella. In the wild, cats sometimes eat some pretty iffy stuff with no ill effects. Wild cats die more often from infection due to injuries than from food poisoning. However, there are steps you can take if you have concerns about raw cat food bourn bacteria.

Avoid packaged supermarket ground beef using whole chunks of meat instead

Buy "free-range" meat and poultry as fresh as possible

Add priobiotics (which help maintain intestinal health) to your raw food preparation

Proper handling of raw cat food is essential since some raw cat food may contain bacteria that could cause illness to you or your pets. Be sure to keep raw cat food meat and poultry separate from other foods. Wash hands prior to, and after handling raw cat food. Wash working surfaces, bowls, and utensils that come in contact with raw meat with hot, soapy water. Always wash your hands after cleaning your cat's waste; this includes litter boxes.

Pick up and dispose of uneaten raw cat food within 30 minutes of feeding your cat

Preparing raw cat food meals from scratch for your cat is a labor of love indulged in by purists. Most people don't have the time, and maybe lack the talent to take on such a task. If you count yourself among this latter group, rest easy. Ready-made products are finding their way to the market place. There are complete raw cat food meals which are shipped frozen and there are mixes which all you have to do is add the meat. Just remember that if you are going with the mix, be certain that the essential amino acids such as taurine are included. If not then be sure to add the heart (a source for taurine) and other organ meat from the same animal if possible, with the raw cat food meal so that your cat won't be deprived of these critical ingredients.

So, what are the trade-offs you ask?

Well, for one thing you will have to forego the convenience of one-stop-shopping in the supermarket pet food aisles. Orders for raw cat food meals or mixes are mostly made on-line so you will have to deal with credit or debit cards. Pre-planning will have to be regular routine so that you don't run out of raw cat food before the next shipment arrives. If a shipment thaws, you will have to return it because you won't want to take any chances with bacterial infection. Most companies will honor returns due to thawing. And, if you prepare raw cat food meals completely from scratch, be prepared to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen with this task.

The real trade-off is with the quality of cat food you will be providing. The store bought 'meal' based cereal foods will be replaced with the high quality fresh foods that cat's were designed for. Some cats may balk at the transition at first because they weren't socialized with raw cat food as kittens. But, their health will show marked improvement, you will probably be surprised by the results which can be compared to how your cat behaved before being fed a fresh, high quality raw cat food diet that meets their needs nutritionally, plus their immune systems will be stronger giving your cat a chance for a longer, healthier life.

Ask any monk or even the ordinary, next-door-neighbor contemplative type, and they'll tell you that life is not easy; suffering is the characteristic that describes much of the existence in this corner of the Universe, and that the punishment for ignoring this fact is to bear more suffering. Yet this suffering can be relieved with even a little knowledge and understanding of why and how things can operate to ease your burden. It does take a willingness on your part to change and accept new habits to accommodate a changed life-style. But, knowledge and understanding cannot be acquired through osmosis. It takes a lot of work to comprehend even a small amount of the sense that holds life together. One can't depend on epiphanies either. Like magic and miracles, instant knowledge occurs only rarely... and you can grow old waiting for it while your cat pines for a raw cat food meal. It'd be like huffing and puffing along wondering why you're carrying around all that extra baggage.

[lovenotereminders]

Hey! Do you have any advice for getting over... let's say disordered eating, when you realize how toxic it is, but are still an average weight instead of reaching where you wanted? How to be okay with that? Thank you!

I’ll say this with the disclaimer that I’ve never had an actual ED myself, but I’ve had experience with disordered/poor eating habits briefly whilst I was trying to lose weight whilst not being in a good place with my mental health. 

It’s a good idea to take a break from losing weight until you’re in a better place mentally. Your mental and physical health are the priority, and continuing to try and lose weight can just cause more harm. It may be the case that you don’t feel the need to start losing weight again when you’re in a better place mentally. 

It’s okay to reach out for help if you can. Friends and family can be great sources of support, and if you’re able to, consider consulting a counsellor, therapist, GP, etc. They will be able to give you more helpful support and coping mechanisms. You don’t have to have a mental illness to benefit from these services, and there’s no minimum threshold of suffering you need to reach before you’re entitled to reach out for help. 

Equally, try to identify the things in your environment that encourage unhealthy beliefs about body image and food, and try to eliminate them. Maybe following celebrities on social media who set unrealistic standards, maybe things like calorie tracking apps are harmful, maybe you’re following blogs who promote unhealthy habits, etc. Try to remove these influences and replace them with positive ones. 

A lot of it is about changing your mindset. It can be difficult to unlearn the harmful beliefs society impresses on people about their body and weight, but trying to internalise more positive mindsets is a good first step. When you notice yourself having unhealthy thoughts, try to stop yourself, and  instead remember things like: “My worth is not intrinsically tied to my weight.” “I do not have to reach a certain weight before I have permission to love myself.” “The only person who needs to approve of me is me.” “Fat is a normal, natural part of my body that I don’t need to get rid of.” “My body needs fuel and food is that fuel.” “Three things I love about my body are…” You could try writing these things down in a notebook if you carry one with you, or putting them in your phone to look at when you need to. 

It can be very easy to feel inadequate when you’re focusing too much on numbers and scales - scales aren’t always the most effective measure of body and health. Your weight in numbers can be affected by the tiniest things - when you last went to the bathroom, how hydrated you are, how much salt you’ve consumed over the past few days, and even things like what point in your menstrual cycle you’re in if you menstruate, because it can affect water retention. This can lead to you beating yourself up for ‘gaining weight’ when you actually haven’t. Weight fluctuates naturally from week to week, and it can fluctuate by a few pounds within the space of a day. If you think this is a trigger for you, stop weighing yourself. Consider taking batteries out of your scales/putting them somewhere difficult to get to, i.e. in the attic or on top of a cupboard if you think you’ll be tempted. If you decide you want to continue losing weight, a better measure of success are things like progress photos and measurements - focus on things like how healthy your body feels, and whether the way you look makes you comfortable and happy, rather than choosing a value that you need to be at or under.

Another thing to try and change is your mindset around certain foods - there are no such thing as bad foods. The only things you shouldn’t eat are things you’re allergic to. Sugary or fatty foods are not “bad” or “sinful” or “cheats”. It’s about forming a healthy relationship with food. Food is not a reward for good behaviour, and restricting food is not a punishment for bad behaviour - there is no moral value assigned to a cupcake or an apple. They’re just food, and it’s all about making sensible choices to provide your body with the nutrients it needs and enjoying things in moderation, rather than bingeing or restricting completely. 

If you have any clothes that are too small, that you’re losing weight to try and “get in to” I would suggest getting rid of them, as part of the “I do not have to reach a certain weight before I have permission to love myself.” If you have the resources, something that can really boost confidence is buying new clothes that fit comfortably and make you feel good - wearing clothes that pinch or are too tight, or are baggy and hide parts of your body, can only exacerbate the insecurities you have. It also gives you permission to just be the weight that you are, instead of always looking ahead to a time when you’re going to be smaller. You don’t have to get smaller. 

Instead of focusing on weight and body shape, try and shift your focus to lifestyle. Instead of attempting to reach xyz lbs, or eating under xyz calories a day, try to set different, healthier goals for yourself - things like eating a minimum of xyz portions of fruit and veg a day, drinking plenty of water, making high-fibre choices such as wholemeal cereals, bread and pastas, finding a type of exercise you enjoy doing like swimming or going for a walk and trying to raise your heartrate for instance for at least 20 minutes 3 times a week. Of course, you don’t have to do all of these - even if your goals are seemingly small, like “eat three meals a day at least five days a week”. Changing your focus to taking care of your body and doing things to ensure it’s healthy is a better goal than simply “losing weight” - lower weight =/ more healthy. 

Doing other things to encourage self-love other than just diet and exercise related stuff can also be a good outlet to help you get into a healthy mindset. People might have different ways of doing this - some people find comfort in things like wearing makeup or doing their nails to boost their confidence, doing skincare things like exfoliating or using a fancy face mask or applying some nice-smelling lotion, some people like yoga to improve flexibility, making sure you’re getting plenty of sleep, getting at least 15 minutes per day of daylight on your skin, anything that makes you feel good and like you’re taking care of yourself. 

If you count calories, make sure your MINIMUM daily intake is 1200 calories per day. This in itself is very low for most people - this is the minimum intake for short, smaller-framed, AFAB people/people with estrogen as their dominant hormone. The minimum for other people is often more like 1500kcal per day. But counting calories is often not the best idea if you have a poor relationship with food, because assigning a number value to certain food items can encourage those harmful behaviours. 

This isn’t a complete list or a how-to to cure disordered eating issues, but these are some coping mechanisms that might help you on the path to recovery, either things that I’ve found helpful or that others have reported finding helpful. Not everything will work for everyone, and that’s okay - just try things out, and see how you feel.

I hope that’s useful, and I wish you strength and serenity on your journey 💗